Sorry for the wait I got caught up in real life. As a humble peace offering I give you this chapter that's like double of what I normally upload.
This goes to The Doctor - Son of Kronos for his/her very niece review with a cherry on top. Hope you enjoy.
Ta-Ta
Disclaimer: I do not own anything Orphan Black or Harry Potter related. They belong do BBC America and J.K. Rowling
The cold biting air around them is heavy with sweet, hot smoke that mingles with the puffy clouds their breaths form above their heads. They are sitting close together on some rocks on a small clearing not far from the main path that leads from Hogsmeade to the Shrieking Shack, passing Cosima's bounty between them like a sumptuous treasure.
The small blunt hangs loosely between the Ravenclaw's fingers like it belongs there and she did it a million times before the guess can be considered only as a slight understatement. With a dopey smile on her face and full blown pupils she cocks her head sideways to glance at Delphine. Her nose and cheeks are rosy from the cold and her curious eyes rest on Cosima's hand:
"Want some?" Cosima asks lazily.
Delphine contemplates the offer for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip, then she shrugs and plucks the blunt from the other girl's fingers, her own brushing briefly against them:
"It is a Saturday after all." She declares before she takes a careful drag.
Cosima struggles with her body that wants to vibrate like an instrument under Delphine's touch, managing only a stiff nod in response. Being near the other girl reminded her more and more of being next to an untamed gorgeous animal. In the back of her head she knows that she should not touch or she would pay for her simplemindedness nevertheless the urge to reach out and connect is there and it is demanding, clawing at her steadfastness. Maybe getting high in the French's company was not such a brilliant idea in the end, though the relaxed smile that blooms on Delphine's face may be worth it anyway.
"So," Sarah starts between two long drags and an even longer slack smile, "who wants to make a team?"
"I want to be with you seestra!" Helena immediately shouts from her spot on the ground, sitting in the outlines of an unfinished snow-angel.
"Guess we already knew that much." Sarah sighs and rolls her eyes half-heartedly at her sometimes annoying twin.
"I'm with Beth!" Allison exclaims, earning dirty looks from both Cosima and Sarah.
"So not fair! She misses…like…never." Cosima complains, hands flailing wildly between the Slytherin and the Huffelpuff:
"I bet you cheat! Do you cheat?" the tiny geek continues.
Sensing an argument she has no nerve for Rachel intervenes by putting a gloved hand up:
"I think I decline."
Two heads whirl around while simultaneously Cosima's and Sarah's mouths fall open and they yell:
"You can't!"
"It's family tradition!"
"May I kindly remind you of what happened the last time?" Rachel says completely unaffected by her sisters' uprising.
It does not bring the desired effect because the two of them crack up instantly, their hysterical laughter piercing the peaceful silence around them:
"What happened last time?" Delphine questions Cosima who is leaning heavily against her with tears running down her face more or less unable to respond anything intelligibly despite tiny gasps and squeaks.
Allison who has a grin splashed on her face but manages it to look far more serious than her sisters takes pity on the foreigner:
"They accuse Beth of enchanting her snowballs and…well…they kind of developed a mind of their own."
"My fault," Beth chuckles, "they somehow started to attack everyone around me and followed them when they tried to hide or run away."
"Professor Flitwick passed us on a walk," Paul explains further, "Poor bastard got chased by Child's balls like they were some friggin bees."
"Let's get back to today guys!" Sarah chooses while she whips the last tear from her face:
"I'm with Helena," she gets interrupted by a loud cheer from her blonde twin, "Beth and Allison…never gonna change…and the rest?"
She gazes at the remaining teenagers with questioning eyes full of mischief:
"I'm up for kicking Child's ass…you're in Dierden?" Art says and looks at the Slytherin boy with raised eyebrows.
"Someone has to protect Rachel from you. Apart from Beth no one can throw a straight line." He states fishing out his slim, unbending wand.
Art shrugs and turns to Cal:
"And you buddy?"
The remaining boy scratches his already bearded chin and grins:
"Totally in. Let's show those girls how to win a snowball fight."
While the boys high-five Cosima peers at the girl next to her silently congratulating herself for getting high since the drug whooshing through her veins keeps her from acting like a love-drunk fool. Not that she needs it to be brave around Delphine or as an encouragement but it makes things easier, thoughts and feelings less chaotic, less jumbled:
"Looks like that leaves…"
Before she can finish her sentence an arm snakes around her waist and Delphine's hand shoots into the air:
"I'm with Cosima!" she proclaims loudly, the silliest laugh pulling at her lips.
Cosima thinks being a love-drunk fool might be exactly what she should be as she shares a goofy smile with her secret crush. Delphine really did not make it easy for the dreadlocked teen to keep it together with her sparkling eyes and lingering touches and smiles so radiating they are blinding, melting Cosima's resistance a little bit more each time she glances at her.
Good for her that Rachel stands up in one swift motion, brushing snow from her skirt:
"Then I will be the referee for this childish nonsense and Paul makes sure you stick to hitting each other."
Helena jumps up the next second:
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" she chants, grabbing Sarah's hand and dragging her to one of the clearing's corners.
"Same rules as always!" Allison shouts happily while she bounces hand in hand with Beth into the opposite corner.
"What are the rules?" Delphine asks troubled as she chases Cosima to their own corner on the same side as Beth and Allison.
"We have ten minutes to build a wall that protects us and to make as many snowballs as we can. No magic allowed…but I bet Beth uses it so…don't get caught!" Cosima explains excitedly arms already full of snow.
"Uhm…Cosima," Delphine mumbles unsure, "I have a confession to make."
Looking up at the taller girl from her crouched down position in front of an already two feet high although narrow and loose pile of snow Cosima huffs:
"Yeah, yeah, come and help me."
Delphine drops down next to her and begins to pat the loose white powder so it sticks together:
"I never participated in a snowball-fight." She admits cheeks and hair a flaming red.
Cosima stops in mid-motion eyes wide with surprise:
"You never participated in…"
Delphine shakes her head, blonde curls moving too and looks rather embarrassed.
"I am sorry…if you do not want me on your team I understand." She murmurs looking everywhere but at the gaping girl in front of her.
She looks so sad Cosima's heart clenches and her hands dart forward straightaway enveloping Delphine's that are laying in her lap:
"Hey, hey why would you think that?" she queries gently: "I'd always want to have you on my team." She says and hopes that the French hears how much she means it.
"Really?" the blonde croaks out her ice-cold fingers slipping between Cosima's that are wet from snow.
"Of course." Cosima nods smiling from ear to ear giving Delphine's fingers a light squeeze.
"How come you never were in a snowball-fight? You don't have snow where you live?" she ponders, reminding herself of all the fun she had each winter and how terrible it must be to miss out on it.
Delphine does not look at her when she mumbles her next words:
"My parents…they did not let me…they had a very strict way of raising me."
Cosima stares at her completely bewildered for a moment not grasping the statement itself and the fact that the first thing Delphine tells her about her family is that her parents did not allow their daughter to have fun:
"Then they are buttheads." She concludes eventually.
The terrified expression on the French's face makes her giggle:
"It's about damn time you experience this essential part of childhood then."
Her smile widens when Delphine's full lips curl slightly upward:
"Can you teach me? What do I have to do?"
"Let's start with our fort." Cosima suggests playfully.
Ten minutes later there are two moderate walls of snow and ice, one small sloppy one and one that had to be higher than three feet separating the four teams from each other. Rachel is standing on a rock with Paul next to her on the ground ready to keep each and every misguided snowball away from his girlfriend and there is a tiny pistol hovering beside the blonde twin that once was a twig. It goes off with a loud bang and six faces red from hard work peep out from behind their makeshift castles.
"Oi! Look at that!" Sarah yells from behind the tiniest: "We said no magic, Childs! What the fuck?"
"Getting scared, Manning?" Beth yells back and sticks her tongue out at the fuming punk.
"That thing is effing huge! No way you've build that with your hands alone!" Cosima screams from where she stands halfway hidden behind snow.
"Yes, we did!" Allison defends herself and the Huffelpuff.
"Ali and I are the best, suck it up!" Beth roars before a lonely snowball soars past her, barely missing her shoulder.
"Hey, when did we start?" Cal bellows from behind the second moderate icy wall.
"Ugh…enough you morons!" Rachel shrieks at the top of her lungs silencing all of them with one vicious glare.
"Stop shouting! Throw snow at each other for Merlin's sake if it makes you feel better!" she growls and the next moment the enchanted twig explodes in another loud boom signaling the group that they finally could assault each other with their prepared snowballs.
The following minutes the air was filled with loud, happy shrieks, angry shouts and profane swearwords along with more flying snow than anyone could count, some of it wonderfully changing directions shortly before plummeting to the ground. It was every last bit chaotic and childish and hilarious since Beth aimed each throw carefully at her opponents always ready to dramatically dive behind her protecting wall and Helena did not bother at all how many hits she took to her parker as long as she could haul double the amount in every direction. Cosima launched into small victory dances every time she hit Paul who was hectically attempting to melt all the round shaped chunks of ice that flew in Rachel's direction while Alison let out a high pitched scream when yet another time someone hit her straight in the chest and the snow trickled down her chest beneath her warm clothes.
Delphine just earned her first score by landing a throw on Sarah when Cosima tackles her to the ground with full force sending both of them crashing to the ground with a loud thud:
"Uff…Cosima…what are you doing?" Delphine groans having trouble breathing with Cosima's weight on her chest.
"You hit Sarah…" she starts panting heavily, too then five or six snowballs explode on the trees behind them:
"No one…hits Sarah…unless they want to get killed by Helena." She chuckles, her face almost as red as her coat, her glasses crooked and dashed with melted snow her whole being shouting that she has the time of her life.
Then suddenly she is painfully aware of how close they are, her boots digging into the snow on either side of Delphine's knees, her fingers entangled with wet blonde locks that are splayed out around Delphine's glowing face, her legs trembling and tingling where they clamp around the other girl's waist and it leaves her breathless and wanting and terrified. Her resolve gets cracks and holes while it trickles through her chest, into her stomach, between her legs, forcefully creating a path of scorching heat inside her. Her heart is beating so violently against her ribcage it had to shatter any moment the sound booming in her head louder than the innocent screams around them, the French pinned to the ground must be able to hear it loud and clear. She already feels dizzy since she is too afraid to move a muscle let alone breathe when suddenly Delphine shifts beneath her:
"You are heavy." She whispers words smooth and dark and oh so low, not meant for such a meaningless sentence.
Cosima gulps down a mouthful of courage and bittersweet cold air:
"Sorry."
Then she lets out a tiny yelp when Delphine pushes her torso from the ground, sits up and plants two steady hands on the small of Cosima's back so she does not topple over backwards. Cosima is torn between wishing this would increase the distance between their bodies so she would not listen to the tiny voice in her head that screams at her to do something that could be both unbelievable brave or stupid and wishing she could touch Delphine wherever her greedy fingers could reach her to satisfy her urges, to make all the visions, all the made up possibilities of how Delphine would feel under the tips of her fingers come true.
Her first wish completely escapes her mind when she only slides closer to Delphine, hips bumping together, chests only a breath apart, Delphine's face so close she can see the golden splinters in her rich brown orbs and the want that ignites where her own groin is pressed against the button of Delphine's coat.
She could stay like this forever, on the brink of giving into everything that was Delphine, diving into her scent, her taste, her body and clinging to the almost insignificant part of her consciousness that holds her back from sailing off the edge but apparently Delphine steps back from her very own canyon in long, determined strides since the want that definitely was there only a second ago gets replaced with something much colder, much more distant and her hands drop from where they were curled into Cosima's back.
She stares at Cosima long and hard, says things Cosima does not want to hear with her big eyes and the wary smile and looks very much like someone who stumbled into a situation they never wanted to end caught up in unable to find an easy way out:
"Maybe we should pay her back?" Delphine eventually breaks the silence between them that is so tense Cosima does not know how it could possibly unload itself in a way that does not swallow them whole that does not shatter the ease around them to engulf them with choices they cannot turn a blind eye on.
Cosima only nods as she slides from Delphine's lap, waiting for her brain to catch up with her body, too bewildered and shocked to talk. Without thinking anything coherent, anything at all apart from how well she fit against Delphine, how kissable her lips looked, how much she wanted the other girl she gathers snow in her hands to prepare another snowball.
She cannot comprehend how Delphine is capable of shutting herself off from all the feelings that so easily manage to overwhelm her, leaving her confused and sad and maybe only a little desperate. Her mind is a million miles away when she stands up ready to throw the small ball of snow at whoever is closest, she does not see Helena or the three snowballs that come flying towards her at lightning speed or hears Delphine screaming her name.
The small white bombs hit her right in the chest, knocking the air out of her lung forcefully as she gets thrown backwards into a tree. She can barely keep herself upright, hand rubbing at the spots where she was hit, where she can already feel bruises forming, straining to get oxygen back into her burning lungs.
All of a sudden there is a cold hand on her face, tilting her chin up, on her shoulder burrowing in the red wool of her coat and Delphine's upset voice in her ringing ears:
"Mon Dieu, Cosima! Are you alright?"
She sounds hands-down close to crying and it makes Cosima wish that she had more control over what her body was doing on its own accord sometimes. She coughs and gasps and finally is able to meet Delphine's panic-stricken gaze:
"Still alive." She winces giving the anxious girl her best attempt of a smile. She tempts to fill her lungs with air a second time but fails and cringes:
"Damn…what did she put in those things…feels like friggin rocks." She pants.
"Let me see." Delphine says firmly, nimble fingers already working on opening her coat.
Cosima only registers that Delphine is close to her again, agonizingly close, far more worried than what she would declare normal with a concerned mask on her face. She still looks beautiful though, the concentration somehow sharpens her features, makes her look older, cheeks still red from their play and possible other things, hair a beautiful mass of tangled, golden locks and Cosima stares and discovers and memorizes it all in awe.
Something in her begins to calm while she finds herself on the brink again but the despicable thread that still connected her to the logic, thinking part of herself was worn thin, ready to snap. It did the second Delphine ripped her coat open and began to search for the opening between her scarf and her cardigan with shaking fingers:
"Why are you so worried?" she whispers calmly however Delphine does not hear her or ignores her since she pushes further between the many layers covering Cosima's naked, bruised skin.
Cosima exhales slowly, makes a decision and gently albeit rigidly wraps her own fingers around Delphine's wrist causing the other girl to halt abruptly like she just noticed that she is halfway to undressing Cosima against a tree:
"What are you so scared of?" she murmurs eyes boring into the wide ones in front of her.
Delphine looks like a deer caught in head-lights, her mouth slightly open yet no words escape her.
Cosima's fingers slide into the spaces between Delphine's, filling them perfectly, like they are meant to be there, like this is the place where they belong and it gives her a strange sense of confirmation.
That this was right, that she did not imagine the unyielding pull between them, that Delphine was feeling the warmth, the desire, the nervous, giddy happiness, too.
"Don't you think it's time that we admit what this is really about?" she whispers, one hand falling to Delphine's shoulder, to steady her, to anchor her to something real, realer at least than the pressure in her chest, the pounding in her head and her eyes shut on their own as she stands up on her tip-toes.
Delphine's sweet scent invades her nose while she leans in slowly, so very slowly to give the other girl the chance to back out of this, to bail and pretend this never happened or to claim her. Delphine smells like clean like water, soft and pure like spring flowers though there is something warm and heavy and earthy to it all. It is freedom and sun and protection and Cosima gets drunk on it.
Delphine's nose rubs subtly against hers, she can taste her hot breath on the tip of her tongue like a promise and she will never know what it was in the end, the pent up feelings, the fact that she is still slightly high, Delphine's sheer beauty or her desire she neither wants nor can hide anymore but when she eventually presses her lips lightly against Delphine's she goes flying off the edge with a roar.
Their kiss is incredibly soft, fragile and tentatively and to Cosima it tastes like fiery hope and sweet, sweet hunger for more and when she feels Delphine's upper lip pressing shyly against her own her heart explodes in million colorful flashes leaving her light-headed and dizzy and so full of feelings she was ready to burst.
Suddenly though she gets brutally ripped out from heaven and pummels straight back to earth when Delphine puts a hand on her cheek and pulls back, ending the kiss before it even began.
"I have to go…" she breathes.
Cosima's eyes fly open and something very close to panic washes over her:
"Did I make a huge mistake?" she stutters not liking how uncertain and doubtful she sounds when only seconds ago she was so sure of what she was doing.
"Non…" Delphine mumbles as she entangles herself from Cosima:
"It's okay." She adds.
"Delphine…" Cosima tries again but the girl already turned around, moving between the trees like a shadow and then she is gone.
Cosima's heart crumbles as she slides down the tree:
"I'm such an idiot." She mumbles and her fist connects painfully with the bark behind it.
She feels a lot like she wants to cry.
tbc.