Chapter Text
“Hey, Tadwinks,” Sera says.
“Mmm?” Ink replies, nodding off into her cereal.
They’re sitting at their kitchen table, a crappy formica number that they got for five dollars off gumtree. It’s got dents in it, but it doesn’t wobble now it has newspaper under the short leg. Sera wants to cover the top in pictures and then stick plastic over the top. Ink thinks that’s a great idea.
“Can I tell you something?” Sera asks.
Ink looks up from her froot loops (move-in celebration food), and swallows the mouthful she’s working on. Sera’s tapping her fingers against her placemat and jiggling her leg, something she only does when she’s feeling a bit stressed. Ink reaches her hand out to touch Sera’s wrist, not to stop the movement, but to soothe. Sera’s shoulders loosen up, just like that.
“You can tell me anything,” Ink says. “You know that.”
Sera looks her in the eye, both of them still in yesterday’s shadow and liner, looking bruised. Sera’s the most wonderful thing Ink’s ever seen, even when she’s wearing one of Ink’s shirts like a nightgown and still drowning in it. Especially then.
“I love the hell out of you,” Sera says.
“I love the hell out of you, too,” Ink replies, trying not to smile like a fool, and failing.
Ink knows. She’s always known, but it’s still difficult for Sera to say it. It means more than Ink could say, that Sera tries anyway. That they both care so much.
“Nice,” Sera says, and she’s smiling too.
Sera turns her wrist so she can take Ink’s hand across the table. They eat breakfast that way.