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It’s completely in Wynonna’s nature to forget.
In fact, Waverly’s a little frustrated with herself for expecting anything else. It’s not as if things have changed now that her sister’s come back and retrieved the gun, vowing to put Wyatt Earp’s demonic inheritance back in Hell. So much is different, and yet, so much is exactly the same. Waverly is still the tagalong kid sister that everyone pats on the head as they pass by, and nothing, including a college degree in the borderline paranormal, is going to change anyone’s mind. Agent Dolls only barely let her into the Black Badge Division. Sheriff Nedley only barely lets her hang around the station. Wynonna only grudgingly includes her in their dangerous adventures. Even Champ never took her seriously, and, considering the serious effort she put into fulfilling his kinks, that should be a detainable offense.
Today is not a good day.
She’s working a late shift because Gus, too, has apparently forgotten the date. No card or anything. Not even a hunk of cash stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans. Waverly wipes down the bar counter with more force than is strictly necessary. Her signature Shorty’s t-shirt is tied up, but her chestnut hair is long and loose, and she’s wearing a scowl that could peel the paint off the walls (if there was any). She encounters a sticky spot next to the taps and scrubs even harder, brows pinched, eyes blazing, dead to everything except the motion of her hands until a familiar black hat lands on the counter in front of her.
“Reckon you’ll wear a hole in the bar if you keep on scrubbin’ it like that.”
Waverly grits her teeth. “Shouldn’t you be off having grand adventures with Wynonna and her sidekick?”
“She and Agent Dolls are up to their elbows in some kinda trainin’ exercise. I’ve been informed my services are not required this evenin’.”
“Great. Well, that makes two of us.”
“Now, what’s got your jimmies all rustled, then? That half-cocked boyfriend of yours?”
Waverly shoots Doc an irritated glare. “Champ and I broke up weeks ago, thank you very much.”
Doc arches a brow. “I see.”
“Do you?” Waverly rolls her eyes and chucks her dirty rag in the sink. “Because I’m starting to think I’m invisible over here.”
The old gunslinger cocks his head to one side, and though his blue eyes betray nothing, Waverly catches the barely perceptible twitch of his moustache. She’s getting better at reading his legendary poker face.
“What’s this really about, darlin’?” His voice drops to a murmur. “I’m startin’ to think you’re mad at me for somethin’.”
“You. Wynonna. Freaking everyone .” Waverly throws up her hands and then crosses her arms. “Might as well make it the whole freaking town at this point.”
Doc squints and rubs his moustache thoughtfully. “Is that so?”
“Do you want a drink or are you just gonna sit there and irritate me while I work?”
“A whiskey’s fine, darlin’, if you’re offerin’.”
Waverly rolls her eyes again, snatches up a tumbler, and selects the worst bourbon she can find on the shelf. She doesn’t feel even a little bit bad when Doc notices but declines to comment.
Serves him right.
Serves them all right.
Just as she’s slamming Doc’s glass down in front of him, Gus comes sailing around the counter in an old, plaid shirt, rolled up at the sleeves and fraying at the hem. She’s still got a yellow pencil poking out over one ear, and her curly grey hair is all mussed up. She’s been doing inventory in the back, apparently.
“Waverly,” she snaps her fingers a bit, expression pinched, eyes unfocused, “it’s nearly midnight. Finish up and get your stuff. Nicole should be here any minute.”
“Nicole?” Waverly frowns in confusion. “I thought she was on patrol tonight?”
Gus gives her look. “Did she not tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
Doc sips his whiskey and shoots Gus a shrewd glance. “Perhaps it was meant to be a surprise.”
Undeterred, Gus just shoos her out from behind the bar and begins pouring beers for a group of regulars clamoring at the far end.
In a daze, Waverly goes to retrieve her coat and purse from the back, but when she returns, Nicole is already waiting for her, carrying on a polite conversation with Doc about the sudden spike in crime around Purgatory. Her red hair is down, silky smooth and straightened, and Waverly’s heart skips a beat, mouth falling open just slightly as she takes in a pair of pleasantly relaxed black jeans stuffed into oiled leather snow boots, a tight grey turtleneck peaking out under a navy blue parka.
Waverly bites her lip to keep from blurting out something stupid and honest, something about weaknesses, the way Nicole’s low slung jeans curve around her hips, the way Nicole’s mouth makes Waverly’s knees buckle. She bites and chews, bites and chews, watches them carry on, oblivious, until Nicole’s deep brown eyes flick over and snag hers across the room.
“Wave, hey!” Nicole turns away from Doc mid-sentence and beckons to her, a guilty little smile darting across her lips. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Waverly’s cheeks grow warm. She’s feeling so much, so fast, that she can’t find the words to explain how she’s feeling. The safer option, she decides, is to nod faintly and say nothing at all.
Doc leans back and rests his elbow against the bar, watching her carefully, blue eyes twinkling over the rim of his whiskey glass. “Well, would ya look at that! I think she’s gone mute from all the stress.”
Waverly deadpans him and turns to Nicole. “Let’s go outside where we won’t be disturbed.”
Doc smirks and holds his hands up in a placating motion, but Waverly stomps right past him. She’s getting out of this place right now if it’s the last thing she does. She pushes through the front door like a woman on a warpath.
Outside, Nicole takes her by the arm and leads her away, a little ways down the wide, deserted boulevard. It’s snowing again and the night is bitter cold, dry despite the frozen flakes swirling in the wind. Waverly shivers, and Nicole pulls her closer, smiling faintly, content to be silent until they’ve reached her red pickup truck parked in front of the general store.
Nicole’s boots scuff against the icy sidewalk as she comes to a stop.
“I thought a walk would be nice,” she says, peering out into the gloom, “but I think it’s too cold for that now. Maybe it would be better if we sat in my truck with the heater on.”
Waverly nods eagerly and Nicole turns to look at her, eyes softening with something that looks suspiciously wistful.
“You look beautiful today, Wave. Your hair looks really nice like that.”
“Oh.” Waverly instinctively reaches up to sift through her hair with a gloved hand. “I wear it like this all the time.”
Nicole’s smile blooms into something radiant and unrestrained. “Then I guess you look beautiful all the time.”
“Brown-noser,” Waverly mumbles, but her cheeks are flaring red and it’s not the chill.
Nicole straightens up, glances back over each shoulder to take a thorough scan of their dark surroundings, then abruptly pushes Waverly back against the darkened storefront. She isn’t forceful, but she’s strong. Waverly gasps, hands rising automatically to grip Nicole’s shoulders. She exhales unsteadily, eyelashes fluttering, heart thumping. Leather-wrapped fingers grip her chin to tilt her head back just enough, and then Nicole is kissing her soundly, thoroughly, the way she might sweep a crime scene, no stone left unturned, no angle left unexamined. It’s an exhaustive investigation of Waverly’s mouth, of her unraveling resistance, and Nicole accomplishes in 30 seconds what Champ couldn’t accomplish in five years. Waverly feels no shame anymore for the way her mouth opens so readily to the warm press of Nicole’s tongue.
Her coat crinkles against the rough wooden siding, shoulder blades grinding back further into the wall as Nicole leans in, brushing her thumb over a sensitive earlobe, threading her fingers back into soft, brown hair to get a firmer grip. A rush of electricity shoots up Waverly’s spine as Nicole tugs at the roots, pulls her head back further, and moulds their bodies closer together. Waverly whimpers helplessly, and it echoes like a rifle shot between them because she isn’t loud. She’s never been a screamer like Wynonna. She vents her pleasure in breathy moans and quiet pleas and plaintive whimpers, biting her lip against the rush when her muscles tense. The sound is a catalyst for something quicker and more desperate, and the air between them heats until it’s blistering, until Nicole is panting into her mouth. But just when Waverly is sure their midnight rendezvous is about to take a risque turn, Nicole seems to remember where they are.
She pulls back reluctantly, punctuates her departure with a slow, chaste peck on the lips, and tips their foreheads together. The air between them fogs as they each struggle to catch their breath.
“Sorry. I just… I wanted to kiss you back there. In Shorty’s. But I was trying to wait.”
“I’m glad you did. Er- I mean…” Waverly swallows thickly. Her chest is so tight. “I’m glad you kissed me.”
Nicole huffs a laugh and drags her into a tight hug, fast against her chest where the heat is palpable even through their thick coats. The night is quiet, muted by the layer of white gathering on the ground, and the arctic wind whistles through the nooks and crannies in the storefront window at Waverly’s back. The orange glow of the streetlamp cuts a swath through the encroaching darkness, illuminating the whorls and loops in the snow flurries as they fall. Errant flakes blow up under the awning and sting their cheeks. Waverly lets her arms slide down to loop around Nicole’s waist, locks her fingers there together around the small of Nicole’s back, and burrows further into Nicole’s chest.
It’s so much softer than Champ’s.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stop by earlier. Nedley had me working late again.”
Waverly sniffs. The cold is making her nose run. “S’okay.”
“I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?”
“Yep.”
“What is it?”
Nicole kisses her hair, and Waverly’s breath catches. “You’ll see.”
“My mama told me never to take candy from strangers.”
“You never seem to have a problem with my candy.”
Waverly pulls back and looks up at Nicole through her lashes. “That’s because yours,” her eyes drop suggestively to Nicole’s lips, “is so sweet.”
Nicole’s throat bobs. “Waverly Earp, you’re gonna be the death of me.”
“That’s the plan.”
“See, I knew there was something sinister about you.”
“Guilty as charged.” Waverly runs her fingers up the front of Nicole’s parka. “Take me home, Officer Haught.”
“To the homestead?”
“Only if that’s what you call your bed.”
Nicole laughs and takes Waverly’s hand, leads her to the red truck parked at the end of the sidewalk and unlocks the passenger door.
“I have to show you your surprise first.” She helps Waverly clamber up into the seat. “Then you can have your wicked way with me.”
It’s hardly any warmer in the truck. Nicole shuts the passenger door and jogs around to the other side to get in. They’re a mess of sniffling and fidgeting and re-adjusting for a moment while they get situated. Waverly blows into her hands while Nicole fishes her keys out of her pocket and starts the ignition. Her red hair is damp and filled with melting snowflakes, starting to wave a bit from the humidity. Her cheeks are bright and her coffee-brown eyes are watering, and Waverly stares because she can’t help herself, because the moment is unscripted and Nicole is beautiful, and 10 minutes ago she was madder than a rattlesnake under the heel of Doc’s boot, but now she’s all blurry and soft around the edges, stomach fluttering every time Nicole so much as looks at her. They haven’t been dating long enough for Waverly to see her like this often, in public without her uniform, dressed down and softened and feminine. Really there was just the initial morning-after, quiet minutes in the predawn light spent admiring, spooling locks of cinnamon around curious fingers, tracing soft skin and the muted definition of female muscles while her exhausted lover slept. It had been such an odd moment, too. Surreal in a way that only her interactions with her weird family have ever been, waking up to Nicole’s heat and not Champ’s, sore in the same places, new places, different places, sore in her chest where her heart had expanded sometime in the night to accommodate a feisty, dimpled, small-town cop.
Waverly chews her lip as Nicole goes to crank up the heat and thinks of all the ways she’s so unlike Wynonna, so like Wynonna, pulling the trigger in Nedley’s office without thinking for once in her life and landing in a strange bed, a strange bed that felt far more inevitable than it had any right to. She knows that this is the part of her that’s different, that’s always been different. Her body is her sanctuary and her mind is the driver. She can’t let go, can’t throw herself around like Wynonna without the acid bite of anxiety eating away at her gut, but this thing with Nicole has all been so impromptu. It feels like she’s off-road without a map. It feels like she’s at sea without a compass, and yet, after years suspended in a state of near constant uncertainty, Nicole’s embrace that night had felt suspiciously like coming home.
Waverly can’t help but sigh as she thinks about it.
A lot of birthdays have come and gone over the years, but she feels older today, like something pivotal has changed. Like she’s changed. No longer just Champ’s girlfriend, no longer just the littlest Earp, no longer Wynonna’s cheerful, well-adjusted shadow or a personified apology to the town of Purgatory for Wyatt’s destructive legacy.
Just Waverly.
And she suspects that Nicole Haught knew all along the kind of woman she was going to be.
“So I got you somethin’,” Nicole starts, pulling down the zipper on her parka and reaching for something tucked inside, “and I really hope it’s not too over the top, but…” Her hand emerges clutching an envelope and she stares at it silently for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “I just couldn’t get the idea out of my head, y’know? After that impromptu speech you gave me.”
Waverly grimaces. “The couch speech?”
Nicole smiles and brushes a thumb along the seal. “Yeah. That one.”
“Oh my god.”
“I really liked it.”
“I was babbling! I was practically incoherent!”
“You totally were not.” Nicole catches her chin and leans in for a quick, searing kiss that leaves Waverly momentarily speechless. “You’d been waiting to say all that for years, and I’m just honored I’m the one you decided to tell.”
“I... It...” Waverly brushes her lips with gloved fingertips. “It was more of an impulse, really. I just had to be...honest.”
Nicole’s smile is soft. “I liked it either way.”
“T-thank you.”
“And here.” She shoves the envelope into Waverly’s hands. “Please open these before I get too impatient and open them myself.”
“Right, sorry.”
Waverly peels off her gloves and runs her fingers under the flap of the envelope to pry it open. Inside she finds a pair of tickets, but the lettering is hard to make out in the dark. She has to hold them up to her face and squint to read the words.
“Skydiving,” Nicole supplies, grinning from ear to ear. “Next spring.”
“Oh my god,” Waverly breathes, and now her heart really is hammering, pounding away in her chest. “Oh my god!”
Nicole pecks her cheek. “Happy birthday, baby.”
“H-happy- wait, happy birthday ?” Waverly spins her in seat. “Happy birthday to me ?”
“Yeah.” Nicole’s grin falters. “It is your birthday, right?”
“I- yes.” Waverly gapes. “How did you know?”
Nicole pulls her phone out of her pocket and waves it once. “Facebook.”
Tears pool in Waverly’s eyes, and she tries to wipe them on her sleeve, but they only come faster. “I’m sorry! I don’t mean to be all weepy and gross, it’s just…” she looks down again at the tickets gripped tight in her hand. “You remembered.”
“Yeah, I mean, I was trying to get to the bar sooner,” Nicole admits sheepishly, tucking a lock of hair over her ear, “but Nedley wouldn’t let me go, and with the way people are always dying around this town, well... I kept calling Gus to see if you were still there. I figured Wynonna was gonna take you out or something.”
“She never remembers. I’ll get a card next month. Watch.”
“I’m sorry. That’s very, um, Wynonna of her.”
Waverly smiles and wipes her eyes again, tucking the tickets back into the envelope. “Yeah. It is.”
“So, uh,” Nicole shifts in her seat, “do you wanna, you know-?”
“-Take me home now, please.” Waverly reaches out to lace their fingers together over the gearbox. “I want you to take my clothes off.”
Nicole swallows hard and throws the truck into reverse, and if her hand is just a little bit clammy on the ride back, Waverly decides not to mention it.