I agreed to do a WotD for both Saturday and Sunday, but little did I know today's word would be so completely out there and bizarre…

$4$

Nervure: (n.) a vein, as of a leaf or the wing of an insect.


Mornings were usually pretty messy for Annie. When she was home, it took her body a while to get alert, longer if she didn't have time to drink her first coffee of the morning. It helped when she stretched first thing, loosening up her muscles and cracking various joints a few times. So usually while she was waiting for the coffee pot to fill, she stretched, borrowing from some yoga positions her sister taught her, along with techniques from the Farm.

"Shit."

Midway to touching her toes, Annie paused. Auggie's voice had travelled clearly through to the kitchen. Most mornings, he kept the bathroom door propped open. It was easier, because they could talk to each other as they got ready or pop in and out, which was very helpful when they were running late in the morning—which happened a little too frequently.

Standing up straight, Annie called, "Hey, everything alright in there?"

"Shit. Yeah, I'm okay. I think."

The pot wasn't even close to a quarter-way full, so she abandoned her stretching to investigate. Poking her head into the bathroom, she couldn't stifle a giggle at Auggie. "This your definition of okay?" she asked.

Auggie grumbled a couple choice obscenities under his breath that only made her chuckle more. She walked into the bathroom, joining him at the bathroom sink as he attempted to put pressure on the side of his neck. She inched closer, pushing his hand aside to get a good look at the damage. Once she did, her smile turned into a frown and she let out a low hiss between her teeth. "Jeez, Aug, what did you do?"

"I was getting out of the shower, knocked over you razor—I managed to cut myself," he muttered through gritted teeth, strong fingers wrapping around her smaller ones. His skin was still wet from the shower, towel wrapped loosely around his hips. They were well past the point of modesty, so she had no problem whatsoever invading his space. He was pissed, she could tell—he was always angry on some level whenever he hurt himself or had an accident. She understood it, in a weird way, felt that level of frustration for him.

"Sorry, hon," she mumbled, examining the cut. It wasn't a very deep or big wound, barely the length of her pinkie nail, but he must've nicked a vein, probably one of the smaller ones but it was making the cut bleed more and faster than usual. Wiping most of the blood away with her finger, she licked her thumb and pressed it over the wound, then used her free hand to rummage through the medicine cabinet behind the mirror for a Band-Aid.

Auggie held her wrist to his chest, trying to decide if he was going to pull her hand away or not. "Anne, I really don't think pressing your thumb is going to stop the—"

"I licked it first," she explained, her fingers struggling a little to rip open the Band-Aid and pull off those little white tabs that covered the adhesive.

"Oh, that solves the problem," he replied dryly.

She smiled at his sarcasm, finally extricating the Band-Aid and smoothing it over his cut. "It's something my mom taught me when I first started shaving my legs. If you get a nick, you lick your thumb and press it to the cut and it'll stop or at least slow the bleeding. Something about the saliva. Chapstick does the trick, too."

Auggie still wanted to be pissed with himself, but he couldn't keep back the grin at her response. "Chapstick and saliva," he said. "You're just full of random information this morning."

"I should go on Jeopardy," Annie joked, keeping her hands on his collarbone. "You know, if Joan didn't kill me for going on national television and ruining my ability to be a proper NOC."

She disentangled herself from him as she added, "Now, c'mon, I believe you've wasted enough time having me take care of you. We're gonna be late."

"What? You're not going to kiss it and make it better?"

She glared at him—it didn't matter how long they were together, he was always going to be incorrigible—but smirked anyway, because that was why she loved him. So she obliged him, leaning over and kissing the Band-Aid. She started to pull away, but got no further than a few inches when his fingers tangled in her hair and tilted the back of her head up to meet his mouth.

Annie grinned into the kiss as he wasted no time deepening it, stealing her breath as he licked the sensitive roof of her mouth. She moaned, but pushed the heel of her palm into his collarbone, breaking the kiss before it could go any further.

"I hate to break it to you, but we have to go to that thing called work soon," she reminded him, breathing heavily.

Auggie's grinned diabolically, but his brething was just as ragged as hers. "You're no fun."

"Oh, I'm plenty of fun," she replied, rubbing her calf along the back of his and making him inhale sharply, "But after work hours are over."

And with that, she slipped away before he could stop her again, her hips swaying with a bit of feminine pride as she heard his exaggerated groan. Yeah, she knew how to work Auggie Anderson, and she was damn well proud of it.

$4$

For a second, I seriously considered taking this down a different road, but if I did this would've gone into very M-rated territory… ;)

(And anyone whose parents are nerdy enough to watch Jeopardy enough, like mine, will understand the significance of today's title.)