Empty sheets
Prompt: Cruella is a cuddler.
It was about midnight, but sleepiness hadn't arrived yet in room number 5 of the inn. The two witches were in Storybrooke since a week so far and that double bed was all that forced them to stay close, but at the same time it was also the thing that separated them. Empty sheets were in fact between them and a disquieting silence was filling the room. Cruella was staring at the ceiling lost in her thoughts, while Ursula had at least the sense of keeping her eyes shut and pretending to be asleep.
"Can I come closer?" the woman with two-coloured hair asked suddenly with a slightly uncertain tone.
Ursula was taken by surprise by the unexpected question, but remained motionless and, instead of widening her eyes out of astonishment, she not even opened them.
"Com'on, darling. I know very well that you are not really sleeping…" the other woman continued then with an annoyed sigh. "Usually you snore when you sleep!"
Where surprise hadn't been enough, pride proved to be successful.
"I do not snore."
Cruella chuckled amused and turned on her side to have a better vision of the sea witch. She was supine, with her eyes still closed and the body wrapped into the sheet; the almost blonde hair were falling on the pillow in a mess and, if it was in accord with the white of the pillow, it was making a hard contrast with her dark skin. Thinking about it, Ursula was a perfect mix of black and white as well.
"So, can I come closer?" she asked again, while her laugh fell into a simple hinted smile.
And in the meantime, without waiting for the answer, she had already gained some space.
"You never were the cuddler type. Have you gone soft because of your dear husband?"
That objection was spoken in a sarcastic and even almost evil tone and it signed Ursula's decision to join that night conversation. But unluckily for Cruella, not in the way she would have liked. The sea witch finally opened her eyes and slowly rolled on her side as well, without the slightest hint of understanding on her face; meanwhile on Ms De Vil's one any will to joke vanished and those words had the immediate effect to stop her from the intent to approach. In a new silence, maybe even more unberable than the previous one, the two women remained one in front of the other just looking at each other.
"Feinberg has nothing to do with that, if that's what you are worried about" Cruella finally said almost bitterly. "We even had two different rooms"
The sea witch's look became now inquiringand also slightly empathic, but she still hadn't let down her walls. "What's changed then?"
The other sighed. "It changed the fact that now I can't bear the thought of being so far from you…" she admitted with hard honest.
"And thirty years are not a big distance?"
Cruella bitterly smiled and allowed herself some more seconds of silence. She had expected that; here it was the explosion of anger and resentment she had been waiting for since the moment they met again, and frankly she knew to deserve all of it. After all, it was her the one to screw it all in New York and leave Ursula because of something that proved to be empty and useless. But then, she wasn't a cuddler after all. Well, she wasn't even now but she felt like she could make an exception.
"Yes, but thirty years and a week is more" she replied then, with irony, but in her voice there was also a trace of something else, something dangerously close to hope.
And it was that something to make Ursula roll her eyes, but at the same time it also made appear a weak smile on her face for the first time that night. Ms De Vil immediately noted that tiny glimmer and didn't lost the chance to take advantage of it; slowly, without asking any permission this time, she arrived to touch and hug Ursula, placing her head on her shoulder. The sea witch hesitate only a moment before hugging her back and caress the excentric hair that she had missed so much. And the hair wasn't the only thing she had missed of her, actually. Neither of the two dared to add something else, for fear to ruin the moment; the silence had now something comfortable, maybe because for the first time they didn't feel alone to face it. They remained like that, simply one in the arms of the other, until they eventually fell asleep.
For the first time, Ursula didn't have to pretend and Cruella didn't have to take gin to close her eyes.
Not now that there were no empty sheets between them anymore.
Happy ouat day! If you have any idea, you can send me prompts here or on tumblr (my name is reginadiutopia there). See you soon with other prompts! :)