A/N: This is in response to many a prompt sent to me on my tumblr (patience-elizabeth-mount). I would love some feedback as I've never written anything akin to this before - least of all because its very short for me. Do enjoy, and if you wish listen to alongside a lovely and era-appropriate song called Satisfy Me by Joan Baker.
There are opportunities, laden in dangers so terrible they don't even need to be spoken of. Delia grows exasperated at the tugging away of hands, the protestation to a quick kiss on the cheek, but she would never argue about this. Perhaps its because she secretly worries its not all because of the fear of what might happen if they were found, but because Patsy fears her. Like she said, there are opportunities, but they never can tell when a blissful stretch of solitude would go on for that extra few hours until it has passed and the chance is gone. They would never want to rush.
When there's finally a real chance they're exhausted. They're in such privacy it seems almost too good to be true, and they don't quite know what to do with what's right in front of them. Their hands are dry from cleaning product, their bodies weary from carrying boxes, and the mattress is unspeakably filthy. Delia's been thinking about it all day though, and becomes clear quite quickly, that Patsy hasn't so much – wrapped up in the logistics of their move, true to character. Delia knows she thinks on things again and again, turning them over in her mind, rationalising and analysing and exploring possibilities. She's careful like that. But with everything going on, she hasn't managed to think on this, and its too much. It's fine though, Delia pulls her close and tells her she loves her, and they sleep intertwined.
They have all the time in the world. They thought.
The first time seems eons after that night they slept safely, laughing joyously in their liberation, talking of all the possibilities open to them now – not least of all this. But finally, the freedom comes to them, and freedom with each other follows. It's slow and it's gentle but there's a rawness in the instinctiveness that overtakes them, accumulated over years, interpreted in this moment. She knows Patsy is shy, and she knows she's a little afraid. She knows that she wants to hide from her, that Patsy would once always try to find something to keep locked away, even if it was just a little bit of herself. The other woman's come on leaps and bounds though, and this is the last piece of themselves that they have left to give one another after everything.
Delia's seen some of Patsy before, in glimpses, felt her under her hands, and felt her flinch away from her touch in fear of what interrupts the pale smoothness. She doesn't this time, though she does grow ever more diffident under the trace of fingers that skirt along elevated skin, like the pain she feels inside has tried to rise up out of her, but hasn't quite made it all the way. She reads her like Braille, some blemishes dots and some dashes, and some streaks that span so far across the muscles of her back she doesn't think she'll feel evenness beneath her fingertips until Patsy breathes again and she knows she's found it. They don't really know what they're doing, but it's no matter as they decipher and unravel one another, half of the thrill being in the learning, and the other half being in surrendering the last of themselves that they have.
The sixth time, Patsy seeks her out. She flirts expertly and she laughs in abandon and clumsiness is giggled to one side when it rises its head, not cause for panic or alarm, not cause to worry about judgement. Their carefreeness cuts through the tension until its completely dissipated and there is no method. Its like the first time, in that sense, and they enjoy a steady exploration of each other, except its fine if they get lost along the way – its funny, and its silly. It's to be shrugged off with a chuckle. Patsy has always taken some time to relax into things, from touching hands all the way through to this, too feel good at it, or as if it doesn't matter if it isn't perfect, and to feel she deserves it – but she always does.
The fourteenth time, it's because Patsy is sad. Her limbs, out of her control, have tangled the sheets around her and drawn them away from Delia, and she wakes up cold. She never calls Patsy a blanket stealer, because when she is, its always like this. She doesn't wake her. She waits to see if it will pass – sometimes it does. But she grows more and more erratic, her lips working silently, and then loudly, until Delia pulls her close in the hope it will work as a balm. She's gentle but it still stirs her, and Patsy melts into her side. It's a long time before Patsy moves, her fingers curled into her hips, indenting the flesh and anchoring them together, but when she does its to kiss her. Patsy wordlessly urges her for more, and she doesn't know if it's a good idea, but she also doesn't know what's telling her that it might not be. She sleeps flawlessly when they've been together like this, she's told her she never feels safer.
So she sets her ablaze to soothe her, lighting up every inch of her to dim the troubles in her mind. And it works. The breathlessness and fitfulness she holds in her arms now does not resemble that which she carefully watched earlier. Muscles ripple with a tension that causes them not to jerk out of panic but out of a bliss coursing through her so ferociously she can't control it – only Delia can, and she doesn't wish to stop it for one moment. And when noise escapes her, although it too is unintentional; there is no fear, no salt-water tracks on her cheeks, no accumulative and eternal pain leaving her involuntarily. It is completely willing. It is the work of perhaps half an hour of heaven, and not three years of hell, but it supersedes it anyway. She sinks into the mattress, her body heavy with love, and she sleeps tranquilly.
The time that Delia realises she's lost count, she's a little sad that she has. But its also the time that she realises they know each other utterly, that there truly is nothing left to give. She sees right through her, into the heart of her, but at the same time she sees every inch of her, and she drinks it in. She knows when every oh god, every Delia, every don't stop, will leave her lips moments before it does. She knows how to make her sigh, and when she doesn't its only for the fun of the anticipation she has the power to paint around them. She knows how to love her completely. They have everything now, every single bit of themselves they can pour into each other they have done, and to live like this for the rest of their lives is a blessing neither thought they would ever have.