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Dolls is a little weak to Wynonna’s tragic pleading face. It’s been established, he works around it, it’s fine. She gets her way a little too often and he rarely gets to choose what kind of takeout they get, but it’s fine.
He wasn’t really prepared for the impact of Waverly Earp’s puppy dog eyes. In retrospect, that was a huge oversight.
“But Dolls,” she pleads, “it’s movie night! It’s a tradition!”
He raises an eyebrow. “Since when?”
“Since last month,” Wynonna supplies. She’s in the corner, sitting on top of a desk instead of at it, pretending to read through a stack of papers. He knows she’s pretending because Wynonna has not once, in the entire time that he’s been working with her, read a single one of the papers that he’s given her. “We watched the Star Wars prequels. It was terrible.”
“I remember them being a lot better,” says Waverly defensively. “We’re watching the original trilogy this time! Nicole has never seen them!”
“Ah,” says Dolls, lips quirking into the tiniest of smirks. “Nicole.”
Waverly blushes, a little, but shakes it off and doggedly plows ahead. “We’ve had a little bit of a break from the revenants. There’s nothing wrong with taking a night off to spend some time with friends.”
He starts to say no again, he really does. But Waverly’s eyes widen and she tilts her head down a little, and he sighs. When he glances towards the corner, Wynonna is grinning because she knows he’s lost.
“Only because it’s the original trilogy.”
--
Waverly was right about one thing: revenant activity had been quiet. They’d been discussing the possibility of trying to provoke some of them out of hiding, which Wynonna insisted could wait until Monday.
“After all,” she says, heading towards the door of the office at 5pm on Friday as if they’re normal people who work normal business hours. He’s right behind her, keys in hand. “It’s movie night.”
He sighs. “What time should I come over?”
“We hit play at 7 sharp. If you’re late, you’ll miss the beginning of the movie and Waverly will be sad. You don’t want to make Waverly sad, do you?” She’s mocking him. He knows she’s mocking him, can see it in the twist of her lips and the way her eyebrows arch towards her hairline.
He surprises himself when he answers sincerely. “No,” he says frowning slightly. “No.”
Wynonna’s eyes soften, a little, and he’s reminded again that this is a woman who expects so little of everyone around her, and who cares so deeply for her sister. “Yeah,” she agrees, pausing to wait for him while he locks the door. “It’s, uh, it’s a real bummer.”
And there are a lot of things he could say to her, and suddenly every single one of them is gone from his mind. She turns her head, avoids eye contact as they walk outside in silence.
“Wynonna,” he says, watching as she approaches her bike slowly, hand on one of the handles as she turns to face him. She’d parked next to him, and they’re standing in the space between their vehicles. He puts a hand on her arm, lightly, then withdraws it. “I’ll, uh. I’ll be there at seven.”
She nods and turns quickly to hop on the bike, stuffing the helmet on her head and flashing him a quick smile. “Bring Red Vines,” she says, and her engine roars as she hits the throttle and takes off.
He’s been having more and more conversations like this with Wynonna lately, conversations that leave him a little confused about what just happened.
He picks up Red Vines on his way home.
---
He pulls into their driveway at 6:45, unable to explain the twinge of anxiety he feels. He was in the military. He deals with supernatural beings at least once a week. He went to dinner with Wynonna and Waverly and Gus, once.
There’s no reason the prospect of sitting in the Earp’s living room watching a few movies should be causing him this much trouble.
Except.
There’s been a little bit of a shift in his relationship with Wynonna. He can’t imagine anyone else has noticed, but they’ve been standing the tiniest bit closer, touches have been lasting a beat too long, a little more prolonged eye contact than he can necessarily justify.
(It’s possible, maybe, that he’s starting to catch some feelings, but he shoves that thought aside. He’s good at compartmentalizing.)
At 6:48, he grabs the candy off of his passenger seat and pushes the door open. He spends the entire walk to the front door reminding himself that he’s being stupid, and by the time he gets there he feels like he’s completely in control.
Well. Mostly in control.
“Dolls!” says Waverly gleefully when she answers his knock. “Come in!” She’s wearing a Chewbacca onesie, and Dolls has to resist the urge to reach out and see if it’s actually furry. It looks like it might be.
“I brought Red Vines,” he says instead, and Waverly’s eyes light up.
“You’re my favorite,” she says, and her grin is so huge that he believes it. He hands them to her, smiling a little, and follows as she leads him into the living room. Officer Haught - Nicole - is sitting in a pile of blankets on the floor in front of the TV. Wynonna is sitting on one end of the couch, tossing popcorn at the back of Nicole’s head and wearing - yeah, okay, he probably should have seen this coming - a Stormtrooper onesie.
He feels a little bit overdressed, and a little bit like he’s at a slumber party. At least Nicole is also wearing jeans.
There’s a bowl of popcorn on the table along with more candy than he can possibly see them consuming. He sits down on the couch slowly, raising an eyebrow at Wynonna as he does it. She shrugs.
“We take movie night very seriously,” she says, reaching forward to snag another handful of popcorn as Waverly comes tearing into the room. It’s 6:56. Waverly plucks a couple of blankets from the pile on the floor and tosses them onto the couch, grabbing the remote and turning to look sternly at him.
“Now,” she starts, pointing at him with the remote. “Usually you’re the one with rules, but this time it’s my turn. No talking. No texting. No mocking,” she turns to look sharply at Wynonna, who raises her eyes to the ceiling innocently.
“I would never,” insists Wynonna, balling up one of the blankets and shoving it under her head to use as a pillow. She’s already taking up two of the three couch cushions to herself.
“And no throwing food,” Waverly finishes, still looking at Wynonna. Dolls is pretty sure these rules aren’t really for him. Wynonna smiles serenely, reaching out a socked foot to poke him in the thigh with her toe.
“Yeah, boss. No throwing food.” She’s got the hood of her onesie up and it sits low on her forehead, her eyes just visible underneath. He almost throws some popcorn at her to distract himself from how endearing it is. Maybe the rules were meant for him.
“It’s 6:59,” Nicole says, tapping Waverly twice on the leg to get her attention. Waverly throws Wynonna one last pointed look before flopping to the ground, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and sitting up with her back pressed to the coffee table and her shoulder barely brushing Nicole’s.
As Waverly is navigating the DVD menu, Wynonna pokes him with her foot again. “You are a child,” he murmurs, not turning to look at her. The poking gets more insistent. “What?” When he finally caves and glances over, she does what he’s learned is her approximation of an innocent smile. He sighs heavily, turns back to the TV as the movie finally starts.
Wynonna stretches a little as it begins, grabbing the remaining blanket and tossing it over her legs and settling her feet so they’re just barely tucked under his thigh.
He grabs the ends of the blanket and tugs so it’s also covering his lap. It slides a few inches, no longer covering Wynonna’s shoulders, and she scowls.
He says nothing.
--
Dolls learns three things over the course of the first Star Wars movie:
1. Wynonna and Waverly are huge nerds. If the onesies hadn’t tipped him off, their (rule-breaking) flawless recitations of some of the dialogue definitely would have. At one point, they quote an exchange so well that Nicole turns around in her seat to look at him, incredulous.
2. Waverly and Nicole are sickeningly cute. He’s not surprised, he’s known where this has been heading all along, but seeing them awkwardly settle next to each other and become more comfortable as they got more and more into the movie was… he’s not going to use the word heartwarming, but he feels a surge of fondness he’s not really used to.
3. Wynonna kicks. At some point he reaches out to stop her and ends up with his hand wrapped around her ankle, and when he catches himself running his thumb along the skin between her sock and the onesie, he can’t bring himself to look up at her. He also doesn’t stop, and she makes no move to take her foot back.
--
Before pressing play between movies, Waverly insists on refilling the popcorn. “Help me?” she says quietly to Nicole. Wynonna looks like maybe she’d like to say something, but she’s uncharacteristically quiet.
“They are 100% making out in that kitchen,” she says eventually. “No one’s touched that bowl in at least an hour. It’s still half full.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asks, sitting up a little straighter. It’s still dark in the room, the only light coming from the DVD menu as it cycles through the same snippet of a song over and over. He’s still touching her, and her leg is warm under his hand.
“No!” she says, vehement. “No, of course not.” She sits up then, scoots over to his side of the couch so she’s as far from the kitchen as possible. “It’s just,” she sighs, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s just been me and Wave since I got back, you know? And she deserves to be happy, and she deserves to have a normal life with a normal relationship, and I’m so happy that it looks like that might happen for her.”
“But?” he prods gently. She’s sitting next to him, staring straight ahead at the TV screen. He thinks about putting an arm around her, then decides against it. He settles for placing a hand on her knee in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.
She stops staring at the TV and stares at his hand instead. She’s quiet for a long time. “But-- I don’t know, honestly. Am I upset because I can’t have that? Do I even want that?”
He wants to ask why she thinks she can’t have that, supernatural destiny notwithstanding, but Waverly and Nicole choose that moment to walk back in. He can’t tell for sure in the dark, but he thinks they both look a little flushed.
“For the record,” Wynonna starts, smiling a little, “you did not for a single second fool anyone into thinking all you were doing in that kitchen was making popcorn.”
“Unfair!” Waverly protests. “You have no way of knowing that.”
“Where’s the popcorn?” Dolls asks. There's no popcorn. Wynonna grins at him, wide and genuine, and in that moment he’s pretty sure he’d be willing to use every government resource at his disposal just to make sure she keeps looking at him like that.
--
He’s not sure how it happens, but at some point between Waverly pressing ‘play’ and Han Solo piloting through the asteroid field, Wynonna’s hand ends up in his. They’re not touching anywhere else, not quite, but apparently he’s not as good at compartmentalizing as he thought because all he can think about is that he wants them to be. The blanket that had spent the first movie draped over Wynonna’s legs is on the floor now, and Dolls has been eyeing it for the last few minutes, too afraid of upsetting whatever delicate balance they have to move.
He bites the bullet, lets go of her hand and bends down to pick it up, hoping she won’t shift away. But she’s still right there when he sits back against the couch, his arm sliding against the sleeve of her stupid onesie. He makes a show of making sure he’s completely covered by the blanket, not letting even a corner cover her, and laughs quietly when it earns him a light punch to the arm.
“Asshole,” she huffs, but she makes no move to take it from him so he lifts up the edge and tilts his head slightly, an offer.
She accepts, scooting a little so she’s close enough that the blanket covers them both easily. She’s right up against him and he feels a little bit like he’s in middle school, sitting side by side underneath a blanket but too afraid to make another step.
They sit, still and awkward for a few minutes before she starts to relax against him. He can feel her soft, steady breathing as she twists just slightly so she’s leaning against his side. It’s not the first time he’s thought about putting an arm around her since he sat down, but this time he actually does it, draping over her shoulder as she lets out a heavy breath. The hood of her onesie is down now and when she leans her head back against his shoulder he can smell her hair, and he knows this is a bad idea, knows he should be stomping his feelings right back down to wherever the hell it is they came from. But she’s warm against him, and he’s pretty sure Waverly and Nicole are asleep on the floor, and it’s not difficult to decide to just let himself have this.
--
He wakes up to the sound of someone moving around the room and Wynonna’s warm weight on top of him, asleep. He stays completely still, opening his eyes the tiniest crack to see Nicole’s outline standing in front of the TV.
“C’mon, Wave,” she whispers, crouching over what he assumes is Waverly’s sleeping form. “Stand up, time for bed.”
“No!” Waverly grumbles, impressively insistent for someone who was barely conscious a few moments before. “You have to see the Ewoks!”
Even barely looking, even in the dark, Dolls can see Nicole grin. “You don’t want me to fall asleep halfway through the Ewoks, do you?”
“No,” Waverly sighs, pulling herself off the floor. Dolls closes his eyes fully, but he can feel her looking at them. “I think she likes him,” Waverly mumbles.
Nicole makes a quiet noise of agreement. “Should we wake them?”
“Hell no,” says Waverly, sounding significantly more awake. “Let’s leave them there. We can see what they do in the morning.”
“We?” Nicole asks, her voice the most interesting combination of mischievous and nervous Dolls has ever heard.
“Yeah,” agrees Waverly, turning off the TV. “We.”
Wynonna stirs when Waverly’s door closes down the hall, quiet but apparently not quiet enough. She looks up at him, a little dazed, but makes no attempt to move. “Hey,” she says softly.
“Hey,” he smiles down at her, just able to make out her face in the dark. He wasn’t anticipating wanting to kiss her this badly, but he does, and she’s tilting her head towards him, and before he can give himself time to reconsider he leans down a little, closing the gap and pressing his lips to hers. It’s gentle and not quite real in the dark, and when he pulls back he misses it immediately.
“Oh,” she says, and he considers making a joke about rendering Wynonna Earp speechless but decides it’s too easy. Instead he maneuvers on the couch so he’s lying down and hooks an arm around her middle so her back is snug against him. She grabs the blanket, once again discarded on the floor, and tosses it over them both. One of her hands lands on top of his on her stomach and she laces them together silently, her thumb tracing circles on the inside of his palm. He presses a kiss to her temple, lightly, and wonders when he became the kind of person who did things like that. “When did you become such a sap?” she asks, because apparently in addition to being able to send revenants back to hell she can read minds now.
“Shut up, Earp,” he says, smiling into her hair. “Get some sleep. Waverly and Haught will be back to make fun of us in the morning, and if you play really nice, I’ll make you waffles.”
“I would do filthy things for waffles,” she says, turning so she’s facing him and tucking her head under his chin. “Filthy.”
“What about sleep, is that filthy enough?”
She sighs. “It’ll do.”