Chapter Text
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't get dressed."
-
Then
They're still kissing, still deliciously entangled, as they clumsily stumble their way over the threshold into Carla's bedroom.
It's overwhelming.
Beautifully, monumentally overwhelming.
(She's kissing Lisa.
She's kissing Lisa.
That lovely, perfect face held snug between her palms.
Mouths squashed together.
The soft yield of her: pushing, pulling, pressing.
Senses full.
Full of Lisa.
She's kissing Lisa fucking Swain.)
It's clarifying, illuminating.
Loose threads fusing together; tentative unknowns, middle-of-the-night musings, plaguing mental itches she couldn't quite scratch, all of them slotting into place in her mind, steady and sure; a palpable relief despite the incredible, dizzying sensory onslaught.
(Lisa's kissing her back.
Flighty, avoidant, infuriatingly enigmatic Lisa is kissing her back.
Hands resting just below Carla's shoulder blades - steady and sure - pressing and pressing...)
Carla knows, then, with a certainty so sudden it's almost shocking, that this, this thing, didn't start last month. It didn't randomly spark during the early-October evening when they were loose-lipped, half-tipsy with wine, when the blonde had settled cosily on her shoulder like she belonged there.
No, it's been smouldering away in the background, building and building, for a long, long time.
It's been six months in the making.
(Those hands on her back.
Pressing, pressing.)
For the both of them.
Knows also, then, that it was never, ever an 'if'.
It's always, since the moment she opened Lisa's car door on that dreary May day, been a 'when'.
The bedroom door slamming into its frame makes her jolt.
(She must've kicked it closed behind them without realising.
She's still wearing her boots, for god's sake.)
The sound, the volume of it, brings her back.
(Somewhat, anyway.)
Doesn't burst the bubble of feeling, of everything, of them, but lets her see outside of it, just slightly.
She pulls back.
Blinking, panting, and-
God, Lisa chases her mouth.
(She'd chased out there in the living area, too.
Only for a split second, but Carla had felt it.
Had tilted away to breathe - to see if she would chase, maybe - and Lisa, fuck, Lisa had followed, their foreheads gently bumping.
She was back on the blonde in the same breath, the need for air a distant memory.)
This time, Carla holds her still.
Watches - wary, heart lodged in her throat - as Lisa slowly blinks her eyes open.
(Watches as she comes back.
Sees outside the bubble for the first time since their lips met.)
Already mouth-wateringly dishevelled, hair mussed, the stark heat of her blush matching the shade of her kiss-swollen lips almost exactly, and-
(Carla caused that.
This vision is entirely her doing.
Something she can't wrap her mind around, but something that makes her clench, low in her belly, nonetheless.)
Fuck, there it is.
The undercurrent of shock in her eyes.
(Shit.
Shit.
Granted, maybe this wasn't the best time to make her move.)
Something must flicker across Carla's face, because-
(Those hands press tighter.)
"I want to," Lisa tells her, quietly but with conviction. (Steady, sure.) "Carla, I've wanted-" Gaze dropping down, those impossibly long, pretty lashes resting on flushed cheeks. (Oh. How long has she wanted this?) Back up again, pinning hers. "I want to. Okay?"
(And Carla believes her.
Instantly, without a single doubt, because somewhere along the way - or, possibly since the very day she'd seen the heartbreakingly human woman behind the frosty DS Swain mask six months ago - she's learned to read Lisa like a book.)
She nods.
(Knows there's no going back, not now.)
Dips back down, and-
(Lisa meets her halfway.
Sighs, sags against her.)
Presses her lips against a mouth that already feels familiar.
-
Now
(9 Months Later)
Carla can't even see Lisa properly, nestled as the blonde is against her side, tucked tightly under her arm, but she knows her fiancé has been mind-numbingly, irritatingly bored for at least the past twenty minutes.
They're marooned, the couch their two-woman island among a sea of shadowed cardboard boxes. The room almost entirely dark, lit only by the dim glow of the fancy new telly they'd splurged on for the move to number six.
So, no, she can't see Lisa, but she knows.
The quiet but frequent scoffs are a dead giveaway.
So's the running commentary.
("They'd never be able to charge based on that evidence."
"He doesn't count as a reliable witness."
"Even Vicky McClure can't save this."
Admittedly, she'd snorted at that last one.)
When her fiancé not-so-sneakily shifts the remote on her lap and points it at the telly, starts repeatedly nudging the volume up and back down again (and again, and again) in increments of two, well, that's just the icing on the cake.
"Will you stop it?"
Lisa stops. "Sorry." Adds, a teasing mumble, "Didn't realise you were so gripped."
"Chance'd be a fine thing," she retorts, poking her shoulder. "It's like sitting with a flamin' wasp."
"Oi," the blonde giggles, softly headbutting her boob.
Truth be told, she's far from gripped. It is a pretty shit show. Just another run-of-the-mill (apparently inaccurate) crime drama of the month.
She's not even watching anymore.
Hand drifting from Lisa's shoulder into her hair, burying, combing through.
Eyes on those bored, fidgety fingers.
So, she notices when Lisa goes for the volume button again, and-
Snatches the remote out of her reach, chucks it across to the armchair.
Lisa snorts. "Rude."
She scratches at her scalp.
Grins when those fingers twitch, the blonde's head rolling, nuzzling against her, reminding her less of a wasp, more of a contented cat.
Dips down, lips against a touch-warmed cheek. Finds her chin with her free hand at the same time and gives it a gentle tap. "Come on, get that annoying little mush up 'ere."
There's a barely suppressed, self-satisfied, maddeningly adorable smile quirking the edges of Lisa's mouth when she wriggles out of her burrow, shuffles in Carla's arms until they're face to face.
(So annoying.
So fucking pretty.
Maddening.)
Carla cups her cheeks, thumbs soothing. Gentle fingers on her jaw, in her hair. (Lisa watches her lips.) "Undivided attention, all yours. Happy now?"
The blonde hums, pretends to mull it over.
(Even as a hand fists loosely into the material of Carla's top.
Gaze still firmly pinned on her mouth.)
"Well, you haven't kissed me yet, so..."
"Oh, is that what you're after?" Carla chuckles.
(As if she doesn't know.
As if they don't spend almost every evening wrapped up in front of the telly like this, irritating the life out of each other, kissing like a pair of teenagers.
Springing apart and giggling in whispers whenever they hear a Betsy-sound drawing closer.)
She moves in slowly.
(And Lisa still, after all this time, gets that look on her face whenever she goes slow.
Whenever she makes her wait for it.
Half-lidded, half-drunk on the tiny moment of anticipation.)
Presses her mouth to her fiancé's like she's done hundreds, thousands, of times before, and-
(It's familiarity of the best kind.
Has been since the start.)
Lisa sighs.
It tugs at something long-buried in Carla.
(The precise tone of it.
The undercurrent of contentment, of finally, combined with the way she's holding her.
It knocks something loose.)
Stirs up a sense-memory.
(The first sigh.
Shortly followed by the first moan when she'd put her lips-)
She pulls back.
(Chased.
Always chased.)
Lisa whines, and-
Carla grins, holds her still as she pouts. "Let me see your neck."
The blonde's pout vanishes so suddenly, head tilting in her hands as she giggles, Carla can't help but chuckle.
Still chuckling when she leans in again, presses her lips to the baby-soft, impossibly delicate skin of Lisa's neck.
Uses her tongue in that spot and instantly draws out a low, unabashed moan she'd had to work for the first time…