Work Text:
“Hey, honey, it’s Sunday,” Arizona whispered as she planted a kiss on her wife’s cheek.
A surprised giggle escaped against Callie’s lips as loving hands grabbed her waist and pulled her back in for a proper good morning kiss under the covers. Callie would not have any of Arizona’s feeble attempts to lay on her chest and settle back into a sleepy cuddle, and Arizona couldn’t help the way her heart fluttered as her wife chased her down, even if she did look a bit crazy doing so while she was still blinded by her silk eye mask.
“How dare you keep me from kissing my wife on the best day of the week,” Callie said as she pulled the mask off with a pout, but her frown washed away with a small sigh when Arizona cupped her cheeks and gave her what she wanted.
“You don’t think you’re getting spoiled? I've been told I’m a catch,” Arizona raised a brow as she combed her fingers through Callie’s mussed-up bedhead, trying to smooth it down.
Callie hummed and her eyelids drooped as she leaned into the nails giving her the most delightful chills. “I wasn’t built for hardship,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s my lot in life, I suppose.”
Arizona feigned a warning glare. “Are you saying I’m a lot?”
“Nope, just the right amount,” Callie replied effortlessly with a sweet grin before placing a definitive peck on her wife’s lips.
She groaned out a yawn as she stretched her arms up over her head and Arizona scooted into the spot against Callie’s side that was rightfully hers.
“Paper should be here by now.” Arizona looked up through her lashes, her finger drawing lazy circles on her wife’s chest as she stared back down knowingly. “Would you...”
“You know I will.”
Pleased, Arizona flashed a grateful smile and rolled to the side so Callie could get up and retrieve the paper from outside.
She was cozy. Outside, where snow was coming down in heaps and droves, was not cozy, but Callie was a weirdo and managed to enjoy the cold, even taking her coffee outside some days wrapped in a robe, like a real nutcase.
After a minute of patience Callie returned, already separating out their respective sections. Arts, entertainment, and sudoku for her. Op eds, lifestyle, and the crossword for Arizona.
“I lo-ove you,” she lilted as she took the offered papers and lifted the blanket for Callie to get back to being snuggled up together like they ought to be in such dreadful weather.
“Enough to start the coffee pot?” Callie asked with a pleading smile, climbing into bed and settling in. “My head kind of hurts.”
“Hm.”
“Oh, come on, I got up! Your turn.”
Arizona rolled her eyes as far back as they would go and reluctantly dragged herself from her warmth and comfort. “Fine.”
“I love you, too!” Callie said in a sing-song voice as Arizona pulled on a robe.
She stole one more kiss as thanks enough and took her paper with her to the kitchen. As she got the beans out, she flipped to the horoscope section, her guilty pleasure.
Callie didn’t get the whole idea of astrology. Her belief systems had less to do with dates and personality types and more to do with juju and bad vibes, but Arizona loved it. What other avenue was there for a complete stranger to write a generic enough paragraph that it somehow felt applicable to any person at any stage of life? She didn’t really buy it as a science, maybe even less than Callie did, but she enjoyed seeing what the “fates” had to say as told by some guy who worked for the paper.
She brought two mugs back into the bedroom, both with honey, one of them lightened with cream that she kept, the other she passed to Callie.
Callie released a dramatic moan into her coffee. “Oh, god, it’s perfect.”
“I'm a catch, I told you,” she said as she pulled the blanket back over her legs and flipped the paper open. “Okay, let’s find out who I’m going to be today.”
“You have fun with that.” Callie had already gotten down to business with her sudoku, so she was no longer spiritually present.
Libra and Scorpio, always conveniently next to one another. She read her own first.
Frustration may be the word for today, Libra. You could be experiencing a bit of wanderlust. Distant states and foreign lands may beckon to you, but circumstances could make it hard for you to get away.
Arizona scowled as she remembered her predicament. “Circumstances” these days might be that she and Callie had already taken a sexy Spanish vacation this past summer and wanted to wait a bit longer so they could plan an equally sexy trip to Bali. Or, she thought ruefully, to Tokyo, if Callie got her way.
There might also be friction with your partner. Don't get sucked into a quarrel. Use your placid nature to get grounded, then use your practicality to solve the issues at hand.
She snorted at that. Placid nature. Sure, okay. So what if I haven’t actually said I think the idea of traveling from one fishy city to another was pointless. I don’t know, though. I picked last time. I should just go with it.
“Have you thought any more about next summer?”
Arizona’s eyes flew to Callie’s face, which was still wholly absorbed in her numbers. “Like, just now? Or in general?”
“In general. November is always the best time to get plane tickets, and I saw a great deal the other day—”
“For Bali?"
Callie looked up in confusion. “What? No, Tokyo, obviously.”
Obviously? She bit her lips together and took a sharp inhale through her nose, counting. Ten wasn’t high enough, but she found a good number to stop at after a minute. Callie hadn’t registered Arizona’s silence as a problem and flipped through her paper to see what local shows were going on this month.
“Calliope?”
“Hm?”
“Can we...” No, screw placid. “We need to talk about the vacation.”
Callie turned and placed her newspaper on her nightstand. “O-kay, what’s up?” she said, her attention undivided.
Arizona took her hand gently and looked at her, eyes full of love. “I hate— hate —the idea of going to a giant city for our trip.”
Callie opened her mouth to say something, but Arizona continued quickly to cut her off at the jump. “No, listen, I adore how excited you are to check out the markets and eat around and all of that, but we already live in a city, and the things you want to do will take a lot of walking, or riding in cars, or going from one place to another, and all I want to do is sit on my ass in the sun next to you. Ideally, this would take place near a body of water, but water is not an absolute requirement.”
Callie’s lips quirked in a confused smile. “Why didn’t you say anything? Have you been sitting on this the whole time I’ve been drooling about omakase?”
Arizona buried her sheepish frown in Callie’s chest, so her words were muffled when she said, “Yes. No. Maybe.”
“Arizona, I don’t want to go on a vacation where you aren’t happy.” Callie hugged her head in place, pulling her ear for emphasis. “Partially because your ‘I’m totally fine’ ‘tude is an absolute vibe killer, but mostly because I like to see you have fun.”
“It’s just so much fish, and we can get fish any time, since we have a whole fish market here. And it’s probably the same fish, honestly, or at least from the same little fishy family, same ocean and everything...”
“It is a lot of fish,” Callie said, nodding sagely as she rubbed Arizona’s back while she had a loud but normal amount of thoughts and feelings. Normal for her, at least. “We do have it here, mhm.”
Arizona lifted her head. “And we don’t have to go to Bali specifically, but could we come up with something in the middle? Food and sunshine?”
“Well, yeah, of course.” Callie excited herself suddenly. “Oh, oh! Oh, yeah! How about... la Ciudad de México?”
Arizona fell a little bit harder for her wife than she thought was possible, and Callie knew exactly the effect she had. “Can you get us around?” she asked as if she didn’t know the answer.
“ Claro, mi amor,” Callie said as she pulled her in by her waist and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “And don’t get too attached to the idea of lying around outside. Or sleeping.”
She felt like a teenager again as her cheeks grew warm and she hid her near-giggle in the crook of Callie’s neck. “Thank you.”
Her wife’s face became grave all of a sudden. “But you can’t bring home a jar of seashells like last time. Please, I am begging you, take pictures of each shell if you have to, but—”
"Oh my God, here we go...”
“No, not 'here we go', I'm serious! Don't you remember that stomach flu we got a couple months later? I thought you were going to die! I thought we would both die in that bathroom! And then Mark would come over after not hearing from us for a week and find our shriveled-up husks and have to tell everyone we died. ”
“Well, I wasn’t going to die, because I anticipated it like I always do and pre-hydrated. And, also, we only got sick because you,”—she poked Callie’s arm—”wanted to try that new takeout place without waiting for them to get settled. It was their first day open!”
“That is hardly—”
“You cannot truly think that my memento jar had anything to do with that, Callie.”
“It’s bad luck! I’m not just making this up!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, geez. But you believe in all... that but not in astrology? Your thing feels more made up than saying a person will act a certain way based on their birthday and planets and whatever else.”
Callie tutted, not interested in dignifying her with a response when she had history on her side.
Arizona sighed. “I will take pictures,” she said, and held a hand up to her wife’s smug face, “But just to be clear, we would have gotten sick either way.”
“Sure, honey. Whatever you say. We only got better when I put that glass of water out though, so don’t act like I’m crazy.”
She ignored Arizona's mumbling about having drank said glass of water, which was meant to sit in the corner of the room to soak up 'bad energy', and peeked down at the horoscope. “So... what’s my deal?”
“What do you... Oh! You curious?”
“No, no. Not really. Maybe just a little.”
Arizona shot Callie a look that only turned up the volume on her forced disinterest. “Well, let’s find out.”
She began to read. “You've probably had a busy week, Scorpio, and may feel out of sorts today. Perhaps you had too much good food last night, stayed up too late, or both.”
“I’m completely in sorts today, and I ate and slept fine. Wow, already wrong in three ways.”
Arizona rolled her eyes. “It goes against your grain to stay in and rest, but this is the perfect day to curl up with a good book. ”
Callie scoffed. “Hey, who says I can’t be about resting? I can rest! And I love staying in, you know, every now and then. I was thinking about starting ‘Reamde’ today, actually...”
“You're going to want some exercise—” “Nope.”
“—but don't overdo it. As you well know, you can get too much of a good thing!”
Arizona got a fun idea and placed her paper on the nightstand. She gently removed Callie’s from her hands and tossed it across the room. “What if I want to get some exercise?”
“Yeah?” Callie said, grinning as Arizona straddled her hips. She looked up at the love of her life and held her waist, her voice low in her chest when she said, "What if I overdo it? Aren't I getting spoiled?”
"A little bit." Arizona laughed as she leaned in. “But who cares? It’s all made up anyway.”