A/N: Based off a prompt from The Sacred and Profane, who asked "How about a Sarah/Cosima fic where the pair are in an established relationship and Cosima's gotten Sarah hooked on Eskimo pies, leading to Sarah getting a little chubby, much to Cosima's amusement." Sorry for wait! Aside from the fact that this story seriously got away from me, I really hope that it meets your satisfaction! :)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters within the Orphan Black universe.
"I have no idea where you put it, Cos," Sarah stared at her girlfriend as she went to the freezer and pulled out yet another Eskimo pie, unwrapping it before the freezer door had barely shut. The sun was just nudging its way past its noon-hour marker in the sky and yet Cosima was on her third one of the day.
"Hey, my brain needs all the energy it can get," she winked as she took a bite of the treat and grinned, chocolate edging her lips as she swallowed. Sarah watched her from her languid position on the couch as Cosima came up and plopped down beside her, her laptop open right in front of her.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Sarah protested. Cosima just laughed and leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees as she stared at her screen. "And I have it in mind to lick that chocolate off your lips, even though I swore I'd never go near one of your stupid pie things."
"You wouldn't," Cosima raised her eyebrows at Sarah, tracing her tongue around her lips and smacking them together once she had gotten all the chocolate off. "Besides," she continued after she had gotten Sarah's utmost attention with her display, "It doesn't have to make sense," she quipped as she tapped at her keyboard for a moment. Then she turned to Sarah suddenly and studied her punk rock girlfriend with an unnervingly intense look as she spoke, her voice a little ominous, her eyes glittering with mischief, "Anyways... I wouldn't have to eat them all if a certain punk rock ho would just try even one bite..."
"How many times have I told you, Cos," Sarah rolled her eyes and peered over Cosima's shoulder to see what she was working on, "I'm not going to try your bloody Eskimo pies!"
"I'll get you into them one day," she smirked, glancing over her shoulder, only to find Sarah resting her chin there, staring at Cosima, having given up trying to figure out what exactly Cosima was working on this time.
"Sure. Someday," Sarah said simply and just smiled as Cosima nuzzled against Sarah for a moment, hit out of the blue by a past hurt that she thought was gone for good. "What is it?" Sarah asked as she watched her girlfriend's face fall from peaceful contentment to tightened anguish.
"Delphine," she spat out, curling inwards on herself as a defense mechanism to the pain.
"Hey, shh," Sarah murmured, reaching for Cosima's shoulder, only for Cosima to jerk away at the touch. "It's me. Sarah," she told her softly, "I'm not going to hurt you, Cos. I'll never hurt you."
Cosima looked over at Sarah cautiously, trying to convince herself to believe in Sarah's words. But after she gave her heart so willingly to Delphine, only to have it broken, well... Cosima found it even harder to trust anyone. "Cos...," Sarah whispered quietly, "You're okay. I'm here."
She eased up, pulling herself away from her knees so that she was more open in posture to Sarah, who whispered again, "I'm here." And that's all it took for the last of her doubt to dissolve and for her to throw herself readily into Sarah's arms, to feel the reassuring hold that tightened around her as she cried and tried, desperately, to explain. "It... Delphine, she just..."
"It's alright, Cos," Sarah murmured, "You're alright. I don't need to know if you don't want to tell me."
Cosima clung to that promise as hard as she clung to Sarah in that moment, pressing into her with a dependency that was her very air. But, as hard as it was, Cosima knew that she had to tell Sarah about it. For her sake as much as her own. So, taking a deep, steadying breath, she pulled away from Sarah reluctantly, but kept her hands on her lap as Sarah played with one of the rings that encircled Cosima's finger.
"It... it just reminded me of Delphine. We hadn't known each other for long at the time... but I had told her that I was going to get her baked one day... and. And she just looked at me and said okay. One day," Cosima sighed heavily, her eyes falling to their hands in Sarah's lap, studying the way that Sarah had now taken one of Cosima's hands in hers and was tracing the veins of the back of her hand, the lines on her palm. "And... just now.. with the Eskimo pies... me telling you that I'll get you hooked on them eventually and you... god. It sounds so stupid now."
It was silent for only a moment, but that moment was long enough for Cosima to feel the pain from Delphine's betrayal all over again. She felt Sarah's hand under her chin next, bringing her face up to meet Sarah's gaze. "It's not stupid Cosima," she told her firmly, but gently enough to cause warmth to flood through her entire body. Warmth and love. "I know how hurt you were because of her. How you still are. But I want you to know something," Sarah said, a determined edge bolstering her tone as Cosima looked at the woman who was her strength, "I wont ever leave you. Except," she added and Cosima tensed, which Sarah noticed and quickly went to remedy as she kissed her life line and twined her fingers with Cosima's before carrying on, "If you try to make me eat one of those bloody pie things, then I'm done with you, Cosima Niehaus!"
Cosima felt relief bubble up inside of her and she laughed, hugging Sarah again happily. She didn't know how she did it, but Sarah could always bring her out of her worst moments. It was one of the reasons she loved her so much. They were the same, in so many ways and yet they understood each other in the ways that they were different. "Well, Sarah Manning," she said with a grin and a kiss to her neck under her ear as she leaned back to look into her eyes, "One of these days, I will get you to try an Eskimo pie. And you will become a crave and an addict."
"We'll see about that," Sarah grinned and snuggled into Cosima's side, looking up at her girlfriend with an expression of quiet contentment.
"Yeah," Cosima replied, "We will."
A few days later, Cosima opened her freezer to discover that something was off about the contents of her Eskimo pie box. "Sarah!" she yelled as she shut the freezer before walking out into the living room and playfully glared at her girlfriend as she lay on the bed, idly flipping the pages of a book.
"Mm?" she hummed, glancing up at Cosima casually, letting her eyes unashamedly scan Cosima's form before meeting her gaze. "Yeah?"
"There's an Eskimo pie missing," she tilted her chin down to her chest and looked up at Sarah like that, eyebrows raised in amused disbelief. "You totally ate one, didn't you?"
Cosima watched the way that Sarah sat up quickly at the accusation, sending her book to the floor where it landed upside-down with a thump. "I did not!" Sarah replied quickly, her voice catching with tell-tale guilt.
"You did!" Cosima laughed, walking over to the bed and falling over onto it beside Sarah, "You so did!" Sarah clamped her mouth shut, red slowly heating up her cheeks with embarrassment. "Come on Sarah! Admit it!"
"Okay, okay!" she huffed, throwing her arms up in the air in resignation. "I ate one of the bloody pie things, alright? But only because you wouldn't shut up about it," she muttered under her breath.
"You wanted to," Cosima teased her, poking Sarah in the stomach relentlessly until Sarah trapped her hand against herself and used that as leverage to pull her closer to her with enough force that they both fell backwards onto the bed.
"I might have," Sarah whispered breathily as Cosima lowered herself down so that she was lying on top of Sarah as Sarah's hands tangled greedily in her dreads. "But you're really going to gloat about that now, Cos?"
"I'm not-" she began to say, but her response was cut off as Sarah kissed her lips hard and passionately, only to pull back after a few moments.
"You're still going to try to tell me that Eskimo pies are the 'best things in the world'?" Sarah said, her voice a deep pant, full of desire as she brought Cosima closer to kiss her once more. "'Cause I can think of a few other things that just might be the best things in the world."
"Oh?" Cosima asked, her voice coming out as a breathy sigh as Sarah's hands traced from her shoulders down to the dip of her collarbone. "Are you going to tell me about these... other things?"
"Mm," Sarah tilted her head coyly away from the kiss even as Cosima stretched her neck forward for more, silently begging Sarah not to break the contact. Putting a finger to her lips, Sarah smirked and said, "Aren't you always the one who says that you'd rather people... show and not tell? Hm?" Cosima just moaned in response, reaching instead for Sarah's hand and guiding it down to her waist. "Why don't you let me show you what the best thing in this world is, Cos. Here's a hint," she whispered, kissing Cosima's pulse point and, bringing her hand up from Cosima's waist where Cosima had meaningfully placed it, wrapped her arms around Cosima. "The best thing in the world are not Eskimo pies." With a sudden movement that displayed her hidden strength, Sarah flipped Cosima over onto her back, her breathlessness making Sarah smirk as she descended upon Cosima and left a trail of kisses for Cosima to follow down her body.
"No...," she admitted softly, her breath hitching as she tried to get one last argument out before Sarah won the discussion by way of distraction. And by the way that Sarah's deft fingers were making quick work of the button on the jeans that Sarah had insisted she would wear if they were going to date, Cosima noted that she didn't have much time to play her trump. "But you gotta admit it was pretty good."
"Cos!" Sarah exclaimed, sitting up in frustration suddenly. "You're kidding me right now, yeah?"
"No...?" she asked, raising her voice in a question and sweeping her hand through her dreads, something she had picked up from Sarah. "I was just-"
"Just trying to be smart, I get it. Trying to get a one-upper on me," Sarah snapped, pulling her hand away from the zipper of her jeans angrily as she stood and strode towards the kitchen.
"How else am I going to make sure those calories stay away?" Cosima called to her, standing as well as she buttoned her jeans again and fixed her shirt that had rucked up around her abdomen.
"Hell if I know!" she shouted back, her statement punctuated by a slam and a tearing noise. "Why don't you borrow Alison's hip hip ab DVD or something if you're so paranoid," she replied, coming back into view, holding, of all things, an-
"So if you don't think they're so great, why are you eating one right now?" Cosima asked with her eyebrow raised as she walked towards Sarah before placing her hand on the doorpost beside her girlfriend's head and shifted her weight so that she was leaning on the post, smirking at Sarah in triumph.
"I am n...," she began to protest, but then looked at her hand to discover an already half-eaten Eskimo pie. "Comfort food...?" she suggested feebly.
"You can like them, Sarah, it's okay," she encouraged with a cheeky grin.
"If I say that I like them, not saying that I do, will you finally shut up about it?" Sarah asked, rolling her eyes.
"Only if...," Cosima said slowly, dipping her head down all while keeping her eyes trained on Sarah, another smirk tilting her lips upward.
"If what?" Sarah asked, finishing up the last bit of the treat, crunching up the wrapper and throwing it carelessly behind her where it landed on the floor, nowhere near the garbage. Cosima continued to stare at Sarah wordlessly as her own lips formed a grin. Then, without letting her eyes leave Cosima's, she brought her hand up to her mouth and slowly licked each finger clean. Cosima's face fried as her brain short-circuited. "If... what, Cosima?"
Cosima wasn't even aware that her jaw was hanging open until Sarah used her glistening index finger to shut her jaw, leaving a slightly damp patch underneath her chin after Sarah dropped her hand. "Only if...," Cosima muttered, frantically trying to regain the upper hand, "If you.. uh, help me find a way for us both to stay... uh.. fit, you know."
Sarah smirked at the affect that she had on her girlfriend; she was winning the little competition that they had going on in the background of their day to day lives. "Don't worry, Cos," she grinned, taking a step into her personal bubble, bringing her hand up again, weaving it through her dreads this time. "I'm sure I can think of... a few things that might help with that."
"And... those would be?" Cosima asked, struggling to keep her mind on the conversation, but Sarah wasn't making it easy on her.
"Sciencey things," Sarah whispered, moving so that she was standing flush with her girlfriend, tilting her forehead towards Cosima, who met her willingly, unable to resist. Her voice was laden with innuendo so that her meaning couldn't be mistaken for one second.
"But Sarah, I though you don't do-" Cosima began, trying to connect what she knew of Sarah to what she said. It wasn't clicking in her brain. And Sarah's proximity sure wasn't helping things on the cognitive front.
"I meant," Sarah interrupted, putting one finger on Cosima's lips to quiet her, "Crazy science. The kind of science... that's full of chemistry.. and curves," she said, tracing the finger that she used to silence Cosima down her chin, to her neck and past her collarbone until she traced Cosima's torso and let her hand come to rest at the small of her back. "The kind of science that is very...," she spoke in that same tone, her other hand tracing Cosima's form, leaving Cosima with tingling flesh long after Sarah's fingertips had passed. "Hands-on?"
"Oh," Cosima murmured, wasting no time in looping her arms around Sarah, tucking her hands in her back pockets to pull her closer so that their noses were side by side. "I think," she whispered, her lips brushing against Sarah's cheek, causing her to shiver. Small victories, Cosima thought. "I might be able to come up with some crazy science that would work just fine."
"So? You gunna show me?" Sarah asked, tilting her chin up just slightly to kiss her lightly, teasingly.
"It'll cost you an Eski-" she started to say, attempting to be a smart-alec, but Sarah had other plans as she brought her hands up from Cosima's waist suddenly and tangled her fingers in Cosima's dreads, bringing her face close and kissing her passionately. "Okay," she said breathlessly, "You win."
Sarah just smirked and pulled away from Cosima, linking one hand with one of hers as she tugged her girlfriend towards their shared bed. "Why don't you come show me just how brilliant of a scientist you are then?" Cosima didn't need to be asked twice as she let Sarah pull her onto the bed on top of her.
Despite her mind being focused on the way that Sarah's hands were moving all over her body, her lips peppering kisses everywhere else, Cosima managed one last vague thought, And all this for those damn Eskimo pies.