I don't own Frozen. A/N: I have forgone using a Scots accent generator that I found on google because I wasn't entirely pleased with it. There's a hefty bit of dialogue from Scots characters, so I hope you will forgive my laziness as I encourage you to use your imaginations for this rather lengthy chapter.
The blonde was in better spirits (but not of the liquid variety) over the next three days. Jane didn't know whether to attribute her good humor to their mission, or to their candid conversation after A's excursion to the science pavilion. It wasn't back to their 'normal', not like Louisiana and New York. Jane still felt taught as a slack line.
A though, was a trooper. She took the alcoholism in stride just as she had the electric powers, and Jane was beginning to wonder if there was anything she could do to surprise her companion. Asking questions at beer brewing facilities and Scotch stills provided welcome distraction from her musings.
Jane felt much like she had when they were at the gallery in Amsterdam: intermediate stasis, for now.
She also got to watch A work. At one institution, they were with the International Brewer's Association; the next, CIA junior agents looking into Hans's criminal background; another, members of a Better Business Bureau equivalent come to question customer service operations. In all interviews, A talked circles around the proprietors, zeroing in on Hans's true motivations. Hans wasn't getting anywhere with any of the bosses, mainly because he was so hesitant to provide information upon request:
"Wanted to know how much our premium stock would cost, with additional shipping. Told him we could work something out if he gave us his company's contact information, then he got real squirrely."
"Didn't want it to be publicized we were in business with him. Seemed a little to the left of the law, if you want my opinion."
"Said he could cut me in on a new investment scheme in exchange for a discounted rate. Sounded like a crook to me."
"Wants an order that large but won't give us the details we need? Not gonna happen, lassie."
This is what they knew:
Hans was attempting to partner with beer and whisky distributors for massive alcohol shipments to the States. He wanted large quantities, several tons worth of crated bottles shipped within the next two months. He only approached notable beverage companies. Quality, as well as quantity. He would pitch them a vague description of an investment venture in return for discounted prices. But when the owners began following procedure, he gave them the shake.
"He's looking for someone dubious," A explained. "Trying to find the greediest manager, see if they'll be willing to partner with him at the expense of their own company."
"But the companies are doing well, are they not?"
"Not all of them. Some might be desperate or greedy enough to take up Hans on his offer."
Thankfully, most of the distilleries weren't located in Edinburgh proper. Over the course of three days, A and Jane were able to investigate Hans and his intentions at offices as opposed to prep facilities, making the excursion easier on Jane's sensitive olfactory senses. The weather mimicked the pattern of previous days, patchy showers and slicing breezes giving way to stubborn sunbeams every hour or so. This resulted in two very wet, lethargic ladies, who wanted nothing more than a decent meal and possibly a flickering fireplace at the end of another long day of leg work.
"Where to now?" A asked.
"I'm famished," Jane said. "I don't care if Hans is around the corner, I couldn't move another step without some sustenance."
"What time is— holy shit! No wonder, it's past seven and we skipped lunch. Why did you make me do that?"
"I believe we were masquerading as German police around lunchtime, intent on bringing Hans in for racketeering crimes against the city government of Munich."
"That's it, Jane! You've got to commit to the part. Or no one else will believe you," A returned.
"Your commitment cost us a meal."
"I wager you'd even try haggis at this point."
Jane's gaze was carving-knife sharp. "I'm not that desperate."
"But you are fortunate, check it out," A said, pointing toward a huge corner establishment just over the crosswalk.
Dunbroch's Pub and Scotch Distillery occupied an impressive quarter-block. Stone escarpments sloped down at severe angles from the rooftop, one round turret jutting out over the sidewalk below. Wet moss hugged exterior cracks, giving the building a mystical, ancient feel in such an urban cityscape. But the shellacked wooden doors and well-kept entrance seemed to beckon the pair forward in their hungering delirium.
"What do you think?" A asked.
"I've been in worse places."
"Not quite the enthusiasm I was hoping for, but I'll take it. C'mon!"
A looped her arm through Jane's and effectively dragged the blonde across the sidewalk, green light beep-beep-beeping to signal 'walk'. When A yanked on the antlered door handle, the heat and noise nearly blasted the pair back over the threshold. The loudest sound was a booming voice from a huge, barrel-chested Scotsman hosting a whisky tasting. Two tufts of red sprouted from the sides of his head like cabbages and tapered down into a curly mullet; his eyes twinkled with well-intentioned joviality. He held a curiously curved tumbler in his palm (though his hands looked better suited for steins and flagons) and seemed to be speaking to the liquid inside.
"Now first, you have to say, 'hello'."
He lifted the rim of his glass not to his lips, but to his impressively sized snout, flat as a spade with nostrils you could lose several marbles in. He rolled the liquid in the glass purposefully, then brought it back down.
"Then you must inquire, 'how are you?'."
He performed the same act once again, his students looking on with manic expressions.
"And then you go back and say, 'Quite well, thank you very much.'"
After another large inhale, he ingested the glass's contents, inclined his head, puffed his cheeks a bit, hmmed and uhmmed loudly, then went through another series of facial tics before Jane saw his protruding Adam's apple bob in a swallow.
"Now you got it, now you wait, ten-nine-eight," he breathed deeply through his mouth, made a beckoning motion with his meaty hands. "Seven-six-five-four, and there! That's when the flavors hit you. What do you taste?"
"Uhm, I'm not really sure—"
"Come on now! Let it sink, right there on the middle of the tongue, avoid the tip, that 44% should be savored, aye, you get those plums there? Bit of citrus?"
"I… think I taste fruits!" one of the students offered.
"That's right you do! Good going there, lad. We'll make a Scotch drinker of you, yet."
"Everything alright over here, girls?"
Jane had been so strangely hypnotized by the large man's tasting ritual that she was startled by the girl standing not two feet before her. There was a mass of curly red hair and eyes so blue they rivaled her own. She was shorter, definitely younger, with a bright round face, but had the same mirthful glimmer in her eye as the man across the pub.
"Don't mind my dad. He's just really into his job," she said. "You'll be joining us for dinner, will you?" the girl asked, gathering up two menus.
"Yeah!" A said, no hesitation on her part.
"Just the two of yous?"
Jane nodded.
"Right then, on with me."
Jane followed the girl cautiously, A skipping merrily between the two.
"Would you like to be near the band?" the hostess asked.
"Yes!"
"No."
"Jane, come on. It'll be fun! Are there bagpipes?"
The redheaded girl snorted. "Are there bagpipes? Of course there's bagpipes. Got to rope you tourists in somehow, don't we?"
"Please, Jane!"
The curly-headed hostess raised an inquiring brow, smirking at A's little dance of excitement.
"Of course. We'd love a spot near the band," Jane said.
"Right you are."
She deposited the pair in a leather-upholstered corner booth, catty-cornered from the modest stage across the way where a series of folky instruments were strewn haphazardly about.
"Name's Merida, I'll be your server this evening. Band's on at eight, specials in the back of the book, and my dad does the whisky tastings for free if it's not too busy. If you're up for our trad specials, haggis is—"
"Not haggis," Jane interrupted.
"You didn't seem the type," Merida smiled. "But we do have an excellent carrot and leek soup with mustard seeds. And you both look like you could do with a bit of warmth in those soggy wears you're sporting. Sun's down, so they'll light the pit soon."
Merida motioned with a careless flick toward the maw of an immense fireplace threatening to swallow the bearskin rug before it.
Jane noticed three younger boys, ginger and pale, hurling matches at each other as they hopped over the stones.
"Should they be—"
"They shouldn't, but they do. We can't stop them anymore. Heathens, the lot of 'em," Merida continued. "Brothers will be. Drinks?"
"Do you have any hot chocolate?" A asked.
"I'll see what I can do," Merida returned, scrawling on her pad, grinning conspiratorially. "And yourself?"
"Water, please."
"Have it up in a bit, give you a chance to decide." Merida turned on her heel and made her way across the pub, dragging one of the triplets by the ear as she turned toward the dark cherry-wood bar. Bottles of every age and color reflected soft yellow light, and Merida seemed completely at home gathering up supplies for their drinks.
"She seems a little… young to be working at a bar," Jane redirected her attention to A.
"European pubs are vastly different from American bars. Plus, how old were you when you had your first drink?"
"Point taken," Jane said. "This is—"
"Awful, right!" A said with a wink.
"I was going to say cozy, but yes. Awful is applicable."
The eve wore on in a lazy fashion, food coming and going with the promised fire lit not long after the band struck up the first piece. What had been a moderately crowded restaurant turned into a packed pub in the flit of a mockingbird's wing. Merida pranced about, multi-tasking and deftly sliding pint glasses down the bar with repetitive ease. She was occasionally trailed by a gaggle of mischief-inducing brothers, and would rain a punch onto the beefy bicep of her roaring father whenever she got the chance.
Nice to see a family working.
Jane felt so snug and content in the corner booth with A, full belly and clothes dry from the warmth. A's eyes reflected firelight and seemed themselves to sigh when the trad band struck up a wheezing, piping lament. They then bounced in their sockets to the beat of a Highland jig, the girl bending so far over the table her body nearly dropped into Jane's lap. Jane did not see any reason to move her, and resisted the temptation to draw her closer. Those mysterious feelings from the past few days bubbled in her gut, prodded by the fresh bread and stew mixture she'd practically inhaled as soon as Merida had placed the bowl in front of her. Her organs no longer felt jumbled, as they had in Amsterdam, but there was this disconsolate lack, a persistent wanting that needed sating if she were to ever return to normal.
Though her normal had never been enviable to begin with. Jane was almost glad for the transformation, the foundational shifting of her impassivity, into such a desperate affection. But the lack was there, had been there, and there was no better phrasing for it other than yearning, for connection and acceptance and ever and ever with the girl currently at her side.
A just makes me so… happy.
"You twos good over here?" Merida asked.
"Marvelous," A replied. "Do you need the table? Seems pretty packed in here."
"No! Stay a bit, band's not even done—"
"Ladies and gentleladies, men and those who wish they were, it's time for your favorite portion of the night!" The grizzled accordion player's voice was gruff but cheerful, like a blustery afternoon conducive to colorful kite flying. "I'm going to need a little help for this next one, any takers?"
"You girls fancy a go?" Merida asked.
"I don't know any Scottish songs!" A said.
"And I hardly know any songs, so we might not be the best choices."
"They do poppier ones for the tourists, you may well know it," Merida said.
The band leader gave his intro. "This next diddy made a splash at the end of the 80s—"
"And you yourself did as well, MacGuffin!"
"Dingwall on the drums, ladies and gentlemen!"
Dingwall, after his dig to MacGuffin, proceeded to play two downbeats on a snare, followed by a hiss of hi-hat cymbals. "Anybody out there fans of The Proclaimers? Who's gonna be the lad or lass to walk those five hundred miles with us?"
"You should do it!" Merida encouraged.
"Not for me, thank you," Jane deflected.
"What about you?" the red-head turned toward the one with copper locks, and it was like looking at the graduated sleeves of paint samples employees hand out at home improvement stores. Add another one with auburn hair and the hypothetical trio could complete a portion of the color wheel.
"I don't know…" A said.
"When have you ever been shy about anything?" Jane asked. "Get up there and sing for me."
A's eyes widened, then, with a nod, she stuck her hand in the air.
"I volunteer!" she shouted. "I volunteer as tribute!"
A raced across the pub and skirted around tables, Jane and Merida cocking their heads in amusement as A managed to trip not once, but twice on her journey to the stage.
"Odd one, that."
"She watches a lot of movies," Jane explained.
"Right, well, you seem suited."
"Pardon?"
"Nevermind me," Merida waved it off. "I've tables to bus."
The drums picked up in a tick-tock rhythm, as A and the band proceeded to sing about how willing they would be to walk hundreds of miles just to fall outside their lover's door. Which, to Jane, seemed ridiculous, as the walker would be exhausted and hardly fit for amorous activities upon reaching the door of the lover.
"Are you enjoying your evening, miss?" a middle-aged woman in prim black slacks and a white blouse floated regally beside Jane.
"Yes. Very much so."
"Glad to hear it. Anything I can fetch you?"
"No, thank you. Our server, that girl there?" Jane pointed across the room to Merida, who was giggling into her hand as her brothers tossed lit matches under the seat of a snoring woman with inappropriate cleavage. "She's been great."
"Oh, wonderful to hear. That's my daughter, that one."
"Really?" Jane asked, eyes darting from the wild young girl to the composed woman before her. "I would never have paired you."
"You're not the first. We've... reconciled opposing outlooks. But I wouldn't have matched you with your friend up there, from the way she's performing," the woman said, indicating A.
"She is a bit of a diva."
And then, swift and violent as a gasp, Jane saw a crying, freckle-faced child with pigtails on a dirty wood floor.
Bit of a diva… the little diva… instructed her to cry…
But it was gone, fleeting. But Jane saw it, certainly visual but not entirely…
Oh…
Visible.
"Are you here for business or pleasure?" the woman asked, and Jane was jolted back to the pub. "Or university gap year? You both look about the age."
"Uh…" this was A's territory, not Jane's. She was proud of herself for making it this far into a conversation, and was sure it would not have been possible had she not been so devoted to studying A's methods over the past few weeks. "Bit of both, really. Business and pleasure. Doing some… research."
"Fine, fine. Are you sure I can't get you something else? A dram of mixed malt, perhaps? You know Dunbroch's is the most famous distillery in the Highlands."
"No!" Jane said, startling the woman before her. "I mean, I'm sure it is, that's what we've been researching, but I can't… that is, I'm—"
What the hell am I doing? Like I can unleash my demons on any lady off the street?
Jane turned to watch A sing, and was comforted.
"Say no more. I don't partake, myself. That's my husband's domain," the woman gestured to the barrel-chested man currently juggling his triplets.
"I've told him a thousand times not to do that."
"You all seem so well-adjusted. One big happy family," Jane said.
"Not always the case," the woman said, eyeing her daughter knowingly. "We've been through our own trials, but we talk it over, and I suppose we come out better for the bad times." She shifted away from the fireplace, whether afraid of the stone, the fire, or the bearskin rug, Jane could not figure.
"We've had some difficult times, too… working together," Jane said.
"But you seem so suited. You've got that secret language, you do."
"Your daughter said as much. But, what secret language?"
"The way she looks at you."
"I've no idea what you're talking about."
"That girl up there…" the woman pointed, "…seems as dedicated to you as I am to my own family. She looks at you like you're her favorite secret to keep."
I will be right here. A had said that.
"That can't be right. She has a lot of secrets."
"No good can come of deep secrets, dear. It's fine to share between yourselves, but communication, that's the key to a good working relationship. To any relationship! I let Fergus know when he's getting out of hand. But you said you were researching distilleries? Why not ask after our own?"
"Well… not quite the distilleries themselves. We're following a… competitor. See we're, uh, interns, at a brewery in…" What did I drink? What was that sickening stuff— "Kentucky! New bourbon manufacturer, and we're supposed to be checking up on this guy, Hans Westerguard? Didn't come in here today did he?"
The woman's brows dipped into a deep v.
"You say you're his competitors?"
"Right, we don't really work with him. He sort of, uhm, messed with our bosses. And I'm just in the, uh, IT department, but my friend, up there, she does the insurance stuff and—"
Where is all of this coming from? Stop talking before you forget what you've said and can't go back!
"He did come in here two days prior, but I sent him back out the door."
"Really? Why's that?" Jane asked, attempting sincerity.
"He mentioned stock shipments, and I told him we were a proud, local clan. Don't dabble much internationally," the woman explained. "But he had heard of Dunbroch, and of course, who hasn't? He went for the hard sell, seemed a bit desperate. Even though I don't care for it, I know we make an enviable product. But when he started talking about the gambling—"
"Gambling?"
"Aye. Our stock was to be served at only the finest poker tables, and he tries to sell Fergus on this ridiculous idea of one of our single-malts, making its way in a tumbler toward a man with a cigar and playing cards in his hand, felt green table in Las Vegas! Of all things!"
"Wait, Vegas? You mean he's going back Stateside?"
"I'm sure I don't know dear. Halfway through his pitch he started spewing nonsense about boats. But after he found out he wasn't even talking up the right ear, he scurried away like a kicked pup."
"How's that?"
"Fergus is just the Master Distiller. I run the business end."
"I might have guessed," Jane agreed.
A's song ended and she began shaking hands with all the band members.
"Oh! I'll dash before your friend returns," the older woman said. "Sorry to keep running my gob."
"Wait! Uh—"
"Elinor, dear."
"Elinor… how much for one of those, taste-class things? My friend's of age and she might enjoy it. Your husband seems… entertaining."
"For you? No charge. Just send her on over to him. And remember, dear, communicate with your partner. Tell her how you feel, and everything will run much more smoothly."
Jane swallowed thickly, hugging her arms over her torso as the weight of that statement knocked her back with the force of a boxer's uppercut. Finally, the dissonance defined:
How I feel… oh god… I feel for her, but I shouldn't. There's affection, certainly, camaraderie, admiration… Can't suppress the physical attraction any longer… I want her, but why would she want me… I could even grow to love—
"Jane! What'd you think? Jane? Hello, earth to hacker?" A knocked on her skull with due diligence, an undercover woodpecker.
"Beautiful."
"Not exactly what I'd term late 80s pop, but I'll take it."
"Awful, then," Jane smiled sadly.
"Hey. What's wrong? Did you mean, like, my awful-awful, or awful as in how everybody else sees it?"
Jane itched to touch her. The hooded light overhead flickered with Jane's nervousness, and she wanted to leave that damn confining booth with a smidgen of sanity. Which would not happen, if she stayed so close to A. A, who was becomingly flushed, regarding her with the most loving… that's it! Loving… expression she'd ever seen directed towards her person.
"Come. I've a surprise for you," Jane said, and took A's hand. She tugged her out of the booth and A looked cutely confused.
"Mr. Fergus?" Jane asked.
"Aye, that's me, lasses!"
"Your wife, Elinor," Jane began, and then Fergus looked as if the fear of God had struck deep down within his ribcage. "… said you were Dunbroch's Master Distiller," Jane finished, and Fergus breathed a sigh of relief. "That you did those tastings, and you could do one for my friend here?"
"Of course, I can!" Fergus said, and clapped the girls over the shoulders. "You up for an education, my girl?" he asked A.
"Sure, I'm game for anything once," A replied.
"None for yourself?" Fergus asked.
"Jane—"
"It's fine, A. I'll listen."
"Alright, the tasting begins," Fergus twirled two glasses in his hands. "There's a bit of history, but I can skip that bit if you're not interested."
"Oh no! I love a story," A said.
"Right then. The history of the Scotch whisky, spelled without an e like you Americans so prefer, actually begins with a riveting period. The Black Plague…"
"This could take a while, are you sure you're alright?" A whispered to Jane.
"As long as you're having fun, I'll be fine."
A took Jane's hand. "Jane, I—"
"Listen," Jane instructed, squeezing her hand and bringing her lips to A's ear. "Or you'll miss your story."
Somewhere around 1860 with mixed grain and a lad named Andrew Usher, A grew impatient. So Fergus swilled a twelve year old malt blend in a Glencairn for himself and a Copa Capiza glass for A, then flung the liquid on the ground, forcing A to let the liquid coat the interior of her glass so as to remove any odors that weren't purely whisky. Jane flexed her fingers when the drops hit the floor. Fergus added some water to A's next dram, and prepped her for a swallow.
"Now inhale, then go ahead, and just leave it there on your tongue, not the tip, let it rest on the middle of the tongue and migrate to the soft pallet. That's it, good lass there. Then drink, and wait, and—"
"Woah," A said, flush growing even brighter. "That was…"
Jane quietly mouthed 'awful' at her side.
"You get it, don't you lass?! The experience of the spirit! You must be tender to it, coax it, and appreciate it, and love it. Like a fine woman is an aged spirit."
"Ho!"
"Hey!"
"What's that?" A asked.
"Band's back, I think," Jane said. "And if I'm not mistaken—"
"Oh, cripes, not this one again," Merida plopped down with a heavy tray, an unladylike straddling of a barstool between her dad and the two standing girls.
"What, no!" A threw a hand over her chest. "I love this song!"
"I know this song!" Jane said.
"Well, at least it's not 'Auld Lang Syne' again," the curly-haired girl complained.
"Speak for yourself, they needed something that bordered on folk that could draw crowds in during the season," Fergus chided, a hand extended toward the band. "This is us keeping up with popular culture."
"Dad, you wouldn't know popular culture if it bit you in the arse."
"Ho!"
"Hey!"
"Come on, Jane, let's go sing!" A tugged on her gloved hand, and fabric rubbed her skin. It felt glorious. "I know you like this one, I put it on your CD."
"A…"
"Please! I'll, I'll, well, I don't know what I'll do, but I'll make it up to you somehow."
I think I might be falling for you. Could you forgive me that transgression?
"Okay."
"Wonderful! Dingwall, Dingwall!"
The band continued to play "Ho Hey" as A approached, and tittered a few words into Mr. MacIntosh's ear. He plucked a string on his bass, and inclined his head toward MacGuffin at the center mic stand. The hairy blonde Scotsman fingering accordion keys scooted back, relinquishing the mic to the pair.
"Ho!"
Proceeded by a series of strums, and then:
"Hey!"
People at tables began clapping, and A dragged Jane up on the small stage. It was but a foot off the ground, but Jane hadn't had this many pairs of eyes trained on her since… ever. She could feel the static building in her gloves, the light filaments burning in their bulbs, flickering, the monitors overcome with static, a spark from her pinky and then—
"Ho!" A sang.
"Hey," she quietly returned.
A pulled her so that they were sharing the microphone, lips close enough to taste the metallic casing. Faces so near that A's blocked out the rest of the room, and Jane was okay with that.
"I've been trying to do it right," A sang.
"I've been living a lonely life," Jane's turn.
"I've been sleeping here instead."
"I've been sleeping in my bed."
They sang together, and A took a feather-light high harmony on the third while Jane stayed on the melody: "Sleeping in my bed."
The song was short, and not a particular vocal challenge, and Mr. Fergus was correct in that it held an old-world simplicity. And when Jane heard her own voice, nestled so comfortably underneath A's, notes melding and deviating at just the right points, an anthem of sweetheart relayed back and forth like cursive-scripted love letters, it solidified things for her.
I am taken with her. I want more with her. I've told her almost everything, and she still hasn't run from me. I… trust her, wholeheartedly.
"I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart."
They finished the song in tandem to raucous applause, Elinor grinning and soundless in the back corner. Merida had two fingers under her tongue and wolf-whistled, and Fergus was clapping and slapping his knee while the triplets stole cakes and pastries during the uproar.
A took a deep curtsy and motioned to Jane, who bowed stiffly, swiftly, and then jumped off stage. They returned to their booth and threw three hundred pounds in cash on the table, and set back to their hotel on an adrenaline high. A tenacious mist clung to their heated faces, the temperature having dropped significantly since sundown. They huddled together as they walked, jogging over trafficless crosswalks and A postulating wild theories as to the activities of the ancient Scottish kings who once occupied the massive stone structures they encountered at every turn.
"So seriously, when we retire, we've got to become cabaret singers," A exclaimed. "Your voice is low and drop-dead sexy. Oh god, we could be like Velma Kelly and Roxy Hart! You know, from Chicago. Have I made you watch that one yet? I'll get it when we go back to—"
"I have this peculiar feeling that we should kiss. Properly, this time."
A stopped walking, and it took Jane five further steps to realize the other girl wasn't by her side. There was only a road on her left, and a twelve-foot stone wall on her right. And Jane couldn't fathom A camouflaging herself in crawling ivy at the suggestion of a kiss.
"What did you say?" A asked.
"I'm sorry, you were still talking. I should have let you finish. Chicago, was it? No, we haven't watched that one together yet. But I discovered some new information that might send us back to the States so we can pick it—"
Jane's turn to be cut off, for A had taken four deliberate steps and her hand came up to cup Jane's jaw, another at the back of her neck, right tilt, and… there.
A tasted like marzipan, with notes of tangerine and marmalade seeping from the whisky-wet flesh of her plump lower lip. And it wasn't a tight pucker, but relaxed mouth muscles rubbing to release at least a week's worth of unaddressed tension. The act was balm and salve and tonic and potion, in addition to nicotine and alcohol and sex.
And there, when the contraction ended and A's tongue painted life onto Jane's lonely lips… that was grace.
"I think I'm in love with you," A said, whispering against the blonde's mouth. She closed her eyes and her head did not tilt to meet Jane's.
Jane, for her part, had been so stunned by A's abrupt action that she realized she'd not laid a finger on the other girl. So her hands crept up A's arm, mimicking the ivy's skyward path on the stone wall behind them. A's hands still traced the lines of Jane's jaw and neck. So Jane entwined their fingers, short, freckled digits in her own cotton-covered ones, and brought them down to their sides. Jane then coaxed the girl's head upwards.
"Hey," Jane said.
"Ho," A whimpered, and Jane might have loved her then.
Jane kissed A's forehead, noting, even with just her lips, the furrowed crease of distress. So she kissed the bridge of A's nose, and her temple. She lifted A's right hand in her dominant left, kissed her palm, and then her third knuckle.
"Is this right?" Jane asked.
"What?"
"Am I… I mean to say," Jane twisted A's hand into a fist but plucked her thumb from beneath the curved fingers. She ran her lips over the angled knuckle and kissed the whorled pad of the opposable digit. She wanted to kiss A. A, whoever she was. Wanted that thumbprint seared into her lips, so that she knew unquestionably the identity of the woman she so trusted.
"Am I… am I doing this correctly?"
A took her free hand and tapped her swollen lips. "Almost."
"I said I didn't know what I wanted."
"You did."
"I know now, though. I think I've known for some time, I just couldn't… quite… place it."
"That's alright," A replied, eyes shiny. "This isn't how I— I, didn't want to say anything to scare you. It feels too soon and too long but… It's just how I feel. I… I love you," A said again.
Jane kissed her more purposefully then, and A was quick to introduce tongue. Balmy brushes, and then the first meeting, tip to tip for the briefest of moments before they decided on a tornado-like swirl. Jane could taste remnants of alcohol and nearly pulled away, but she had already decided:
A for addiction. A for affection. A for…
Always.
A for aggressive. Despite the height difference, Jane's back was in a wall full of ivy, and she could feel the rough friction of A's thumbs circling a jutting hipbone through layers of shirt and cotton jumper. When they broke, Jane had to loose her grip from the backs of A's elbows, having dug so hard into them she was sure her fingernails had left impressions. A was breathless but still wanted the contact, nuzzling noses and stroking Jane with eager fingers.
"I love you, and it feels so good to say it," A murmured.
"I don't know if… A—"
"It's okay, I understand."
"But know I trust you. Completely," Jane returned. "I've never trusted anyone, for as long as I can remember. But you."
And they kissed under a dying streetlamp on a miserable Scottish night. Chilly mists gave way to fog and covered them in ethereal whiteness. Their lips were still touching when the sun breached the horizon hours later.
Ugh... Even though this had THE KISS, I'm not entirely happy with it. It's too long, and I didn't have time to make the Wednesday posting and do the dialect bit. Anyway, I hope I at least achieved an 'Acceptable' if not 'Exceeds Expectations'. And I usually quite dislike songs in stories, which is why I only did a bit structured the same as dialogue, but the Lennon and Maisy cover is impressive. And it's still sort of Disney, so... romantic duet, anyone? Alright, I'm stopping with the justifications and waiting for the barrage. *takes cover* Go.