"Del?" The word was barely audible over the tapping of knuckles on the cherry oak of her bedroom door, causing her head to lift in response as the door gave way just slightly, clearing enough space for Dominic Jacobsen, Delphine's 'right-hand-man,' so to speak, to poke his head in, his jet black hair coiffed perfectly in a way that allowed his bright gray-blue eyes to sparkle in the light, and that ever-so-charmingly toothy grin grew to illuminate his face. "We have to go pick up your dress before the party. Are you—" He stopped, one foot still on the opposing side of the threshold. "—okay?"
Despite her resolution to not permit what had happened in her kitchen that morning to ruin her day, she couldn't seem to stop dwelling on it. When she stood in the shower, closing her eyes beneath the flow of warm water, all she saw was Cosima's face, the way her eyes flashed and how her lip quivered, just barely, probably beyond her control. She was still just as stubborn as she had ever been, and it caused Delphine to be fully aware that establishing any line of communication was going to be next to impossible, but not quite there. Wiping a thumb beneath her eyes, she glanced up at Dominic with a half-assed attempt at a genuine smile. "I'm fine," she lied immediately, without hesitation, to which Dominic rolled his eyes and stiffened his posture, his arms folding tightly over his chest.
"It's your birthday. You're about to get drunk with a bunch of people who are going to give you money and gifts that you don't really know or care about. I am struggling to see what could possibly be wrong here." The way his posture slacked as he spoke and he edged toward her until he could slide a hand onto her back transformed his words, reassuring her that he did understand that something could be wrong, even if he was not fully informed of why.
She was quiet for a few long moments as she sat on the end of her bed, trying her hardest to keep from looking him in the eye, from granting him access to see inside of her heart and soul, to strip her down to nothing but the fear, loathing, and regret she had burning so vehemently inside of her. "Have you ever…" she started, stealing an abashed glance up at him before her eyes fell back to her own feet, "Made a promise you couldn't keep?"
Dom's face fell as he moved to take a seat next to her, his arm draping around her shoulder as a form of comfort and support. "Of course I have," he admitted quietly, hugging her tighter to his side. "I promised Jefferson that he would come home from his tour, and that we would buy a house together. Somewhere in the south, somewhere we could go hunting one day and waste hours on the beach the next. I promised him that he'd be okay, and four months later, he wasn't." Delphine knew all too well how hard it had been on her best friend, losing his other half, because she had been there every single night that he had needed her, armed with ice cream, tissues and more wine than even she could recall. "You know better than anyone, though, Del, that there are just some promises that life can't allow us to keep."
He didn't know, though, she reasoned with herself. He didn't know that she could have kept it, that she chose not to. She was the one who made the conscious decision to stay where she was, to move on from the life she had left behind and to embrace the things she had been handed. She had never thought that things could ever possibly come around full circle. She was able to bury her guilt for so many years on end by telling herself that she was never going to see Cosima again, and that if that were true, it would never have to hurt. She was beautiful, resourceful, but most importantly, she was so impossibly intellectual that it was absurd. Surely, she would have found her own way out, her own way to make a better life for herself. Even more than that, she was so beautiful and gifted that Delphine had convinced herself that someone more deserving of everything that Cosima was would have come around by now, and that she would have a happy life, a life where she got all of the good things she truly deserved.
Dom gave her side a light pinch and squeezed her closer to him. "Now come on, no more moping! This is a special day! I mean, it's not every day that you turn a quarter of a century old. Now, get your little booty in the shower so we can go get that dress of yours and get this shindig started. It's going to be one hell of a night, I promise."
Delphine's lips gave a slightly diagonal tip, pulling up on one side in a half-assed attempt at a smile, and the other falling down just slightly at the realization that his words were most likely too true, given her current predicament, and she was far from sure of how to handle that. "Yeah," she breathed with a sardonic chuckle, "I'm sure it will be."
"Alright, alright, shut up you guys, this will only take a minute." The gathered staff quieted down and turned their attention to the slender, bald tower that was unnecessarily making himself even taller than everyone else by standing on a milk crate.
"Come on Jamie, out with it!" Lennox heckled from the back, earning an elbow to the ribs from Cosima. "Ow!" he hissed lowly at her, eliciting nothing but a cheeky grin and a warning not to piss off the boss, or they'd be the ones getting stuck on dish duty.
"Oh, can it, Lenny," Jamie bantered back, causing a few of the others to chuckle. "Alright, assignments! Kaleb, Britta, Janelle, Sean. You guys are on service."
"Who didn't see that one coming?" Kaleb joked, throwing a paper cup that landed prematurely at Jamie's feet. Janelle, in all five-foot-one-inch of her mightiness, swung upwards, connecting with the back of Kaleb's head, tousling his ginger mop.
"Knock it off, would you?" she requested, and Kaleb nodded, offering an apology to Jamie, who simply laughed it off.
"Cosima, you and Quinten are on drinks," he announced, causing the two of them to high-five in excitement. "Which leaves…" Before he could finish, Lennox stepped forward, faux-flexing his arms as if he were hot shit, a grin ridiculously canvasing his face.
"Mixmaster Lenny behind the bar." Everyone erupted into laughter and alternated shoving him around playfully.
"You're such an asshole," Cosima muttered over his shoulder as she stood on her toes to get as close to his ear as possible, but her smile was clearly audible in her tone.
"Alright, children," Jamie taunted, clasping his hands together. "Let's have a good night. Don't make me fire any of you, yeah?" In response a dying chorus of 'yes's fell from everyone who set about prepping for the service accordingly.
As they dispersed, Lennox's eyes fell on the bespectacled brunette and how she so desperately lacked the normal bounce in her step, the swagger in her stride. It was difficult for him, seeing her so distanced from her normal self, from the girl who laughed and made incredibly inappropriate jokes during Jamie's assignments. He could tell that something was eating away at her. This was more than the simple conversations of how she missed her family, or what was left of it, No, this was something she didn't even want to begin to explain to him, which was strange for their friendship. Lennox had been there from the moment Cosima had showed up in the city with nothing but the things in her backpack and a bit of money in her pocket.
"Hey there, y'alright?" Lennox's grip loosened on the half-full and entirely-full coffee cups in either of his hands, slowing his stride as he approached the thin, dreadlocked brunette that sat with her knees to her chest on the curb of the street.
His approach startled her and she jerked her head up at his inquiry, very obviously giving a hearty attempt at keeping herself together. There were red rings around her eyes and the very tip of her nose matched in color. "I've had better days," she joked sadly, a dry laugh just barely passing through her lips.
"You uh… You just move in?" he questioned politely, slowly moving to take a seat on the curb next to her. He figured it was a better approach than towering over her in the heat of the day, though giving it a second thought, she might have preferred it.
"No… I was trying, but, as it turns out, most places don't want to rent to you when you don't have a job. And it's kind of hard to get a job when you don't have a place to live." Her hands waved frantically with her words as her pitch hiked and her nerves got the best of her.
"You're not from around here, hm?" He asked her, holding up the full coffee cup for her to take. She hesitated a moment before reaching up, thanking him as she accepted the offer. She shook her head as a formative answer to his question.
"I left Seattle three days ago. Bussed it down here. I guess I just thought it wouldn't be so hard to get a place, you know? I just wanted to take a shower." As he watched her, he could see something in her, a struggle that she was attempting so hard to win. She wore her distrust and her guard like a set of armor for the world to see. As her eyes met his, for the first time unblocked by the sun, he could so clearly see the trials and tribulations that had brought her to that particular moment in time.
"C'mon, then. I've got a place you can crash until you get a job. And as it turns out, I might be able to help with that, too."
"Don't do it," Cosima warned, an eyebrow hiking over the rim of her glasses. Her nose tipped toward the ground and her honey-almond gaze found his blue one as he slid behind the bar.
"Do what?" he posed innocently, his brows shooting up in alarm, as if he had no clue what she was talking about.
"Don't dwell on it. I'm trying not to. And you don't even know what 'it' is. So drop it, yeah?" He heaved a sigh and gave a nod, turning his focus to prepping the bar.
Cosima stacked several of the glasses side by side on the bar top, making sure to polish them off if they seemed a little less than bright. The truth was, despite her cool exterior, she was burning hotter than a kiln inwardly, hardening her heart until it cracked. She was so angry that she was there, of all places, and that she needed this to pay her rent. She was, once again, albeit unknowingly, reliant on Delphine for survival, and she absolutely loathed it. It was never a place she wanted to go again, never a spot she thought she could ever possibly find herself in once more. No, she was better than that on so many accounts. She had gotten herself this far; this was just another job, just as Lenny had pointed out. She would get through the night, and then drink it away to forget it ever happened.
She put a bit of a shine to the silver tray she would be donning for the night and tilted her head up, her chin high as Lennox loaded up her first tray for the evening, the guests already starting to pour in by the fives and tens. The more people that showed up, the more Cosima's stomach ached and twisted and knotted over and over again. She was starting to get it. She was starting to understand why Delphine never came back from her, and it just made her even more angry. She had the perfect life, a life that they would have absolutely killed for in Seattle. She got what she wanted, and she didn't want to risk being pulled back into anything less than perfect.
When she thought she'd gotten her fill of understanding for the evening, though, she had been making a round through the courtyard when the inevitable happened and Delphine caught her eye. There was a rather handsome man doting to her left and yet, at the same time to her right, a beautiful red haired woman was nestled into her side, looking rather content. As Delphine's eyes connected with Cosima's gaze from across the room, though, she instantly stiffened, shying away from both of her suitors.
The longer the night drew on, the more Cosima simply wanted to crawl into a dark cave and whither away to nothing. She just grew angrier, but that anger came from another place, too. She realized that the reason she was so angry was because she was… well, jealous. That realization only infuriated her. How in the hellcould she be jealous of Delphine? They weren't in grade school anymore. They were children coveting each other's possessions. Cosima had rightfully worked her ass off for every single thing she had and she was proud of that fact. There Delphine was, though, not having had to work for any of what was being handed to her.
Cosima's head had been so distant away from what she needed to be doing that she was not even mindfully present as someone in front of her backed up, slamming into the front of her, causing the tray in her hand, which held several glasses of cabernet to tip inward, the seven remaining glasses dumping all over her white blouse, though some managed to soak the black vest over top it. Her hands were trembling as she surveyed the damage, lifting her head up to identify the culprit.
"Of course," she managed with a hostile laugh in her throat. "Of course it would only be you." Her glare narrowed at Delphine, who looked much like a deer caught in the headlights, though an apology was hanging, clinging to the tip of her tongue. She went to let it go, but before she could, Cosima was huffing and puffing up a storm, and blowing right past her.
"Cosima! Cosima wait!" With each syllable, with each repetition of the way her name was so accented rolling off of Delphine's tongue, she just wanted to scream louder and louder. "Cosima, I didn't mean to! Please wait!" Like crossing over into the eye of the storm, Cosima halted so abruptly that her upper body rocked forward, the momentum still carrying her on her path ahead. As she spun around so quickly that her dreadlocks flared out around and behind her, Delphine's face fell and her lips pressed into a thin line, trying to get the best read on the situation at hand.
Cosima's blood was positively boiling, and it showed. "What the fuck do you want, Delphine?!" she cried shrilly, her voice so impossibly distressed. "I can't talk to you. I don't want to talk to you. I don't even want to be here, and I wouldn't be if it weren't for the paycheck. You've already ruined my day, okay? What more do you want from me?!"
"I want…" the blonde started, holding her arm with the free hand in front of her body as a sign that she was unsure what to do with herself, now that they were in a lone hallway, isolated from the party in the back. "I want to give you another shirt to wear. I might have a similar vest as well. Please. Let me do one thing for you, because I am sorry."
"Yeah? For what? Actually, no, I don't have that kind of time. Can you just get me the damn shirt?"
Delphine gave a curt nod. "Oui." She motioned for Cosima to follow and the woman obliged, trekking right behind her up a flight of stairs and down another long hallway into what Cos immediately presumed to be Delphine's bedroom. She made a beeline for the closet, leaving Cosima awkwardly positioned in the middle of the room to wait as she rummaged around through the, presumably, thousands of dollors of clothing she owned to find a replacement for Cosima's destroyed outfit.
There was a part of her that couldn't help but letting her gaze wander. A snide part of her, taking in Delphine's figure from behind, couldn't help but wonder how much her dress cost, or how the earrings that dangled from her lobes could probably pay Cosima's rent for the next two years. She got a lifestyle that they had only ever dreamed of, and Cosima hated that it hadn't included her.
"Aha!" Delphine exclaimed, standing up straight as she produced both the shirt and best, nearly identical to the wine-stained ones Cosima was currently sporting. Without a moment's hesitation, Cos started to undress, perhaps a part of her being more than just passive in her anger toward Delphine.
"Cosima! Patienter!" Delphine cried, startled— for seemingly no reason other than… well, it was Cosima. It wasn't like it was anything she hadn't already seen before, but something about it seemed so intimately lost that she wasn't sure how to react.
"Oh please," Cosima managed with a roll of her eyes, shedding the blouse and vest in a wet heap on the ground before taking the replacements from Delphine. "It's nothing you haven't seen before." Ugh,Delphine groaned inwardly, I hate it when she knows what I'm thinking like that.
As Cosima started to shrug on the blouse, Delphine's eyes snuck around to steal a glance, despite herself. However, she paused, hesitating as she spotted something… well, that she hadn't been aware of before. "That is," she managed dryly, her mouth a bit dry from how much alcohol she had consumed prior. Her hand extended as she stepped closer to Cosima, closing the space between them down to next to nothing. A few more of her fingers extended and brushed the small, round scar on Cosima's rib cage. "What happened?"
Instantly, Cosima angled her body away from the other woman's touch, but didn't actually move to put distance between them. A sshe looked up into those mesmerizingly beautiful eyes, she felt it— yes, she felt the anger, but she felt the sadness and the heartbreak and the caught of each and every one of those things: the love, however much she hated it, that she had for Delphine. No, she was still angry, and no, things would never work out for them, but it was becoming harder and harder trying to battle the confusing an incapacitating war of emotions raging on inside of her. "You don't have the right to ask that question," Cosima answered back lowly, her voice quiet and husky, rough and cutting. However, she took a step into Delphine and took hold of eithr side of her face.
The shock was instantaneously scribbled all over Delphine's face like a child's drawing, but there was a growing part of Cosima that just couldn't stop herself. She closed in and pressed her lips roughly to Delphine's, kissing her harshly and urgently, like she was indulging in a pleasure that was so impossibly wrong for her, and she was right. She knew that she was right. Delphine had hurt her, scarred her beyond reason and not thought twice about it. Cosima was angry, and she was going to do something about it.
Their lips meshed and tongues clashed heatedly, almost sloppily in such a rushed manner, but Cosima didn't care. It felt good. She had the upper hand here, she dictated where this was doing, and she knew it. One of her hands wrapped around Delphine's neck, wrangling her in closer, making her more easily accessible. Their breathing was labored and heavy in the air as Cosima tore away, but only to drag her teeth over the other woman's neck, stepping into her as she pushed her back onto the bed.
Delphine fell off her feet and stared up at the other woman in amazement and wonder. What was happening? Was she really that drunk? Was this all a dream? It just seemed as though there was no reality in which Cosima Niehaus was standing in front of her, topless, shrouded in the shadows and moonlight that had poured in from every window in the room.
Wordlessly, Cosima made her way forward, sliding onto Delphine's lap, her hands finding her neck and loose blonde curls, pulling her in for another heated kiss, one that caused Delphine to whimper in such a way that rattled Cosima's teeth and caused her breath to hitch in her chest. She hated that they still had that electrifying chemistry, that it was like the first time they'd crossed that line when they were only sixteen. How was a flame that had been extinguished so long ago still burning so impossibly bright?
With a bit of force, Cos pushed the blonde to her back on the bed and instantly went for her neck, digging her teeth into the tender flesh, nibbling along the hollow of her throat as it vibrated beneath the touch of dentals and lips with Delphine's moans and whimpers. Her hands roamed Delphine's body, feeling out every curve that was hugged by that impossibly incredible dress. The cool metal of the rings on her fingers made contact with, first, the outside of Delphine's thigh, brushing toward the top and then, tauntingly sweeping toward the inside, causing her to cry out desperately.
"Cosima, Cosima, please," she begged breathlessly.
Their lips met in another passionate liplock as Cosima's fingers tangoed their way up the insides of the blonde's thigh, just barely pushing aside the underwear that were in her way. Delphine physically shook beneath her touch, and while part of her was brainstorming of ways to turn this in her favor, there was another part of her that was so enthralled with the present, that was maybe a little okay with this hate-sex thing that had sort of just fallen into her lap. Is that what it was? She wasn't even sure. All she was certain of was that Delphine's lips tasted like wine and tequila and her body was a map that Cosima could never erase from her memory.
Her lips kissed at anything they could reach, from Delphine's lips to her neck and collarbone, even pulling down the top of her dress for better access to her breasts, working every available inch of her skin to her advantage.
"Harder, god, please, harder," Delphine moaned hopelessly against Cosima's lips when they met again for another hot but sloppy kiss, which was only so primarily because of her intoxication. Her breath hitched and her hips bucked upward into the brunette's touch, a desperate whine sounding low in her throat. She, too, was completely unsure of how they had landed in such a predicament, but she wasn't one to question it, especially with the taste of Cosima's lips on her tongue.
Cosima was hyper-alert, paying attention to every twitch and jerk, trying to recall so many cues that had long since been buried beneath the surface. As Delphine pressed her nails into Cosima's back, though, Cos found the cue she was looking for to make the decision she had been debating heavily since the moment she had kissed Delphine.
Without a second thought, Cosima pulled her hand back and picked herself up from the bed. She located the items of clothing Delphine had retrieved for her and pulled them on, retying her tie before she started on the buttons. Delphine was still on the bed, sitting up, with a moderate look of horror on her face. "Cosima!" She cried out angrily, desperately.
As Cosima finished buttoning the shirt and tucked it in, throwing on the vest, she lifted her head to take in the other woman, a wickedly deviant smirk on her lips. She reached up to adjust her glasses and, in that ever-so-classic cosima way, her lip dipped to the bottom right side and her brow hiked.
"What's the matter Delphine?" She asked, a thick cord of faux-sincerity wrapping tightly around her words. "It really sucks waiting for something that's just never going to come, doesn't it?" And with that, she adjusted her tie, turned on her heel, and shut the door behind her.
