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Judith Deuteros opens her eyes for the first time in her new life and all she knows is pain.

This is unfortunate, insofar as she’d thought she died and was quite pleased about it too, and now she’s not and it’s so jarring she closes her eyes once more and tries again.

The next time she comes to she’s gasping, and her ribs feel significantly more broken and there’s electricity humming under her skin and everything is full of fog. And through that fog she hears a voice that makes the monitor next to her beep and a lot of people rush in.

There’s a hand clutching hers too tightly and rings digging into her skin and even as she’s surrounded by medical personnel, her eyes, unfocused as they are, gaze at the sun without blinking.

“Jody,” she hears, smooth and low and warm and the fog grows heavier and her eyes roll back into her head and she’s gone.

The Beginning: A Proposal

Several years and hours of physical therapy later, the same voice speaks to her. She’s not in a hospital bed and she’s not dying but she knows if there was a monitor hooked to her veins it would raise alarms again.

“Jody darling, I have a proposal for you,” Coronabeth purrs, tracing the rim of her cup in a way that has Judith vaguely worried about contamination.

The tone makes her suspicious immediately, but she reaches for her own cup and slowly brings it to her lips. “Go on.”

“It’s a proposal,” she continues, and then stops. And looks at her.

Judith blinks slowly, swallowing her sip of coffee and nodding again. “Yes, go on.”

“No, it’s—” Corona laughs, pearly and sweet and just loud enough to turn the heads of several people on the tables beside them. “A proposal, Jody.”

“So you said.”

“A marriage proposal.”

She’s glad she’s already swallowed because she still manages an extremely undignified cough that makes her ribs twinge. “Pardon?”

“I’m proposing.”

“To—”

“To you, yeah.”

Judith pauses, blinks, and tries to school her expression.

“Why?” she croaks, intelligently. Admittedly her hip had been giving her problems again so she’d had to take pain killers before their weekly coffee meeting but usually those do not cause hallucinations. Which this must be.

Coronabeth Tridentarius shrugs and it makes her silky golden hair fall over her shoulder artfully, revealing both several necklaces and enough cleavage to make Judith avert her eyes. “It would give me an easy excuse to blow off guys I’m not interested in.”

“That sounds unnecessarily complicated.” She states, memories of Corona rather gleefully shooting down possible advances coming to mind unprompted. Gleeful in a way that reminded her unpleasantly of Ianthe. Lying freely and often seems to be a family trait, she notes. “And pointless? You’ve never had a problem with it before.”

“Maybe it’s the fear of missing out. Everyone else is locked down.”

“Coronabeth”, she chides, trying and failing to mask her reaction. She’s not sure what her reaction is. Shock? Likely shock. 

Corona sighs heavily, like Judith’s disbelief is a monumental inconvenience to her day and blinks her long golden lashes at her. “Just say yes, Jody.”

Judith shakes her head and Corona groans in a way that makes her chest heave and sounds too close to another sound entirely. Several heads turn again and Corona smiles at them, all sunshine and grace and Judith aches to leave the situation. Corona is holding her cane hostage, inspecting the worn-down handle with something like disdain on her perfect features.

“You can’t make me return the ring, Captain,” she pouts, pouts, and Judith’s imaginary heart monitor is starting to steam from the stress of this conversation.

“You did not.”

Corona slides a small velvet box her way, arms crossing. Her blouse looks soft and it hugs her curves perfectly and Judith is not looking at her, which she knows Corona despises. She opens the box like one might diffuse a bomb and closes it equally as carefully.

“You’re serious.”

“Of course I am,” she has the gall to sound indignant.

Judith sighs quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose in another display of lost composure. Corona brings it out in her. She always has, even as children.

“Why?” she asks again.

“My parents have been pushing me to get married. Something about securing the family, I don’t know why Ianthe can’t do it.”

“And I’m your first choice why?”

“Who says you’re my first choice?” Corona hums, eyes gleaming in a way that tells Judith she was definitely her first choice, though why Judith can’t fathom. “You love me, don’t you Jody?”

She freezes, eyes darting up for a second before returning to the box in front of her. The band sitting behind it’s velvet cover is understated, golden, and entirely unlike Coronabeth. Judith knows if she tried it on, slid it over her finger and let it warm against her skin, it would fit perfectly.

The café is very loud all of a sudden, reality and sound rushing in so violently she flinches, and the movement makes her leg tense and pain shoot up her side.

Corona wordlessly hands over her cane so she can stand and stretch her leg properly and when her spotted vision comes back into focus there’s another pill by her cup and a pastry beside it.

This is what they do. They work best when they don’t speak, and yet Corona insists upon speaking. She eats and she takes the pain killer and she digs her thumb into her stiff hip until the tension eases and she grunts with the release of pressure.

The box slides back into view and Judith can feel a headache building at the base of her skull.

“Think about it. Please, Jody?”

Judith meets her eyes, singular and bright as a crocus in early spring and she knows she’s lost.

“Explain it to me again.”

Corona beams at the hint of consideration, crossing her long legs to brush her heel against Judith’s right calf. She ignores it solely because her focus is on the proposal, and its implications.

“My parents have been adamant that I get married soon because I’m almost thirty and have apparently missed the sweet spot. Which is obviously nonsense, but they want me hitched. And they respect you. Your family. So, I figured it would be beneficial for both of us.”

This doesn’t make any sense to Judith whatsoever but very little Corona does, does so she asks, “Beneficial for me how?”

“You get a hot wife.”

Judith pinches the bridge of her nose again, staving off the oncoming headache. “Try again?”

"With great tits?" Corona hums, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Judith who is only human unfortunately glances down for just a second. When her eyes dart up again Corona winks at her. She hides her furious blush in another sip of coffee.

"Again?" she rasps, her voice strangely choked up.

Corona exhales heavily and Judith closes her eyes lest they get caught. “They won’t give me my inheritance until I’m married. If I get married, you get access to my money.”

“I don’t need your money?” Judith sighs, exasperated and too exhausted to hide it.

“Jody…”, Corona moans, dragging out the second syllable like a petulant child.

She shakes her head.

“I don’t understand you, Corona”

“You don’t need to understand me. You just need to say yes.”

It’s dangerously close to coercion. “What would it change?”

“Oh, nothing much. I’ll even get myself a ring, you have horrendous taste in jewellery. We’d just have to act appropriately if anyone asks. My parents already know I’m fond of you.”

Judith can feel her ears heat up and she looks away. “You are aware this sounds mad.”

“Please, Jody. For me?”

There’s a familiar ache in her chest as she glances back at Corona only to find her already looking at her earnestly, or as earnestly as she is capable of. She pushes the ring aside and cradles Judith’s hands and even before she asks again the decision is made.

It’s in her eyes. The same pleading look she’s been wearing every single birthday party for over two decades, trying to rope Judith into stealing dessert, smoking without her parents knowing or once, memorably, stealing a limousine. Judith had been the only one old enough to drive. She had resented every second of it and still the image of Corona with her hair wild and her smile wilder as she talked to Ianthe through the screen separating the front from the spacious back lingers in her mind, even years after the fact.

“Fine,” she chokes out, clearing her throat against the fat, nostalgia-shaped lump in her throat. And secretly she thinks, who else would marry me now. Who else would bother. And worse yet, who wouldn’t marry Corona?

If anyone else did, how would she pester Judith, interrupting her classes and dragging her out to eat and reminding her to use her cane and carry around pain killers everywhere and—

“Yes.” Judith says, squaring her shoulders and nodding. “This plan is ridiculous and likely won’t work, but yes. I’ll marry you.”

The words feel heavy on her tongue and she swallows against the sensation. Corona smiles and Judith’s heart tries to beat itself right out of her chest.

And then she leans forward and presses a kiss to Judith’s cheek that makes her flinch back so hard her chair wobbles and Corona steadies it with one long, solid arm and a warm laugh. “You’re the best,” she hums, all gold and pleasant warmth and suddenly there’s a ring on her finger and money on the table and she’s being steered right out of the café.

Her cane is in her hand and her feet are hitting the ground and Corona is saying something, probably, and she doesn’t remember any of it as she lifts her hand to unlock the door to her apartment. She falters and there’s more solid warmth, pressed to her back this time and fingers closing around her wrist to take the key from her. The door opens. She spills in, guided by Coronabeth and there’s a heavy fog in her head.

What did she just agree to?

“Actually-” she begins, blinking herself out of the fog that she can now recognise as one painkiller too many.

Corona is rummaging around Judith’s fridge and making noises that Judith knows mean she disapproves of what she’s finding. Mostly because there’s nothing to find. She hasn’t been getting around to going grocery shopping lately.

“You’re overthinking things, Jody.” Corona purrs, looking over her shoulder at where she’s still standing in the middle of the hallway. “And do sit down, do you enjoy pain? No judgement if you do but I didn’t peg you for the type.”

Judith sits. Mostly to make her stop talking.

 And then she eats the paltry meal Corona scrounges up from the depths of her fridge. Also to make her stop talking. And when she lays in bed a few hours later, her hip aching and her head spinning she traces a thumb over the warm metal on her ring finger and wishes she’d said more.

But Judith, for all her duty and loyalty, she hasn’t yet learnt how to be honest with Corona.

The Beginning: A morning

Even in her limited time in service she’s learnt to sleep everywhere and sleep deeply. Her schedule is healthy and she’s an early riser. Judith knows sleep is the most important part of the day and that lack thereof can have devastating consequences and she acts accordingly. All of those facts do not change the shock she feels when the door to her room swings open at 7 am and Corona stalks in, drapes a garment bag over the bottom of the bed and begins to look through her closet.

Judith gapes at her, blinking the last remnants of sleep out of her eyes and clears her throat.

Corona doesn’t even look back at her as she pulls out button-ups and discards them like she’s browsing in a store. “Good morning, Jody!” she hums, her voice warm and musical, holding up a velvet maroon shirt and nodding to herself.

“Good morning?” she manages, slowly pushing herself up to a sitting position, feeling her muscles protest the movements and her joints pop. She only realises she’s closed her eyes at the strain when she opens them and there’s a cup of coffee in front of her face.

Temporarily mollified she takes a sip and sits back against the headboard, resigned to letting Coronabeth do as she pleases. If there’s one thing she’s learnt in their acquaintanceship, it’s that Corona always does as she pleases. Even to the detriment of others. Or in this case, the detriment of Judith’s heart rate.

Corona keeps puttering around her room while Judith drinks her coffee and slows her pulse. It’s only when the closet doors close and Corona turns to her and sits down next to the small tower of clothes now swaying unsteadily on the edge of her bed, that she asks.

“So… Am I allowed to know why you’re here?”

 “I thought you’d never ask. We’re getting married!”

Judith is glad her coffee is empty, even if she chokes regardless. “Now?”

Corona checks her shiny watch and shakes her head, unbothered. “Two hours.”

“How long have you been planning this?” she asks, disbelief heavy in her voice, brows furrowed.

“Oh, we’re not getting married in a church. I booked us an appointment at the registry office after I left yesterday. You know, they usually don’t open this early!”

“I know.” She murmurs, eyes narrowing. “What did you do?”

“Don’t sound so suspicious, Jody. I only mentioned my name, is all. People love falling over themselves when the name “Tridentarius” is mentioned. Never gets old.” Corona sighs wistfully and Judith sighs right back, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Aren’t we required to bring witnesses? Who— when did you even have time to ask anyone?”

“Up you get, darling. You’re thinking way too hard about all of this.” Judith scoffed but Corona continued, unperturbed. “I’ll make you breakfast, you take a shower. Don’t worry about your clothes, I’ve got it all covered.”

“If we’re only going to the registry office,” Judith starts, moving to stand and biting her cheek when Corona helps her in her usual casual way. She glances at the pile of clothing and the smaller pile of golden jewellery, half of which she doesn’t recognise, and back at Corona, voice very dry, “Is all this really necessary?” 

The laugh she gets in reply makes her neck burn and when Corona more or less deposits her by the bathroom and squeezes her shoulder Judith once more resigns herself to her fate. She’s thorough but quick with showering, as usual, carefully applying leave-in conditioner to her braids before washing her body. Judith doesn’t tend to take too much time getting ready but her heart aches at just the thought of facing Corona and anyways, she knows the other dislikes her propensity to neglect herself.

Even if it’s not neglect, as it were. Vanity simply feels like a waste of time, when there’s better things to do. When she has no desire or need for people to look at her. Would rather they don’t, even, if their eyes hold only disdain or pity.

Judith shakes herself out of her musings and realises that while she has a towel she has nothing to get dressed in. Corona had told her not to worry about clothes, so she hadn’t. But the image of Corona dressing her is too much. 

She opens the door just a crack and calls for her, briskly. “Coronabeth? Would you—”, her eyes dart down and catch on a smaller pile of clothes on the side table next to the bathroom. There’s a note on it and faintly she can hear Corona working in the kitchen. I’ll help with the rest, it says.

Underwear, a thin undershirt and nothing else. Judith sighs again. It’s better than nothing, and this isn’t a war she can win. Corona’s whims are unpredictable and something to be weathered, not fought.

As she gets dressed in the clothes Corona has allowed her, the functional boxers and the functional bra that are all she has in her closet really, and that are not like Corona at all and that she picked out anyways; oh her heart thunders. It feels ridiculous and it is. The whole situation is. She’s going to get married to the woman she’s been— well. For two decades.

They got engaged yesterday.

Judith steps out of the bathroom, feeling exposed; flayed open and flushed and willing to blame the shower for all of it. The kitchen has fallen silent again, except for the occasional soft hum and clink of plates. She does not want to leave her bedroom as undressed as she is, but the garment bag and the rest of Corona’s spoils are no longer on the bed.

Is it worth the discussion, to pick something for herself out of shame? Is it worth the shame to take away Corona’s pleasure? Her apartment is always warm since she’s had problems with her circulation ever since the accident. She has very little excuse to cover up for a woman that’s seen her close to death and stuck with her regardless.

Cane in hand she moves to the kitchen, back straight and head held high, and when she closes the bedroom door Corona beams at her. She made the right choice. Heat blooms in her sternum and she looks away, rolling her shoulders and stepping closer to sit.

There’s a plate of actually respectable looking breakfast in front of her. Fruit, eggs on bread and a glass of water with her meds next to it. Her brows shoot up. A respectable breakfast she did not have the ingredients for.

Corona is looking at her nails as she speaks, but the very tips of her ears are pale pink. “Your fridge was miserable to look at, Jody. What kind of fiancée would I be if I let you starve?”

“I eat!”

“You eat like one of your students. It’s painful to witness. You’re not 20 anymore, you know. You really should start consuming actual nutrients.”

Judith doesn’t say that her body hates her either way. That she often is too exhausted to go grocery shopping, after standing all day at work. Or that the thought of asking for help for something so pathetically simple makes her want to scream. Instead she says, “I eat in the cafeteria, I’m not starving.”

“That’s one meal. A single meal, Jody. You need at least three if you want any chance of growing.”

She picks up a slice of apple and bites down. It’s juicy and fresh and it makes rage simmer under her skin. Her eyes don’t find Corona as she eats, even if she can feel her watching. She holds her tongue and doesn’t start the height argument again. They’ve had it too often and she knows Corona is only bringing it up because talking about her body’s decline always upsets her.

Judith feels full after half of the food in front of her (she usually unwisely skips breakfast) and she still finishes the rest. When she’s done and allows herself a moment of eye contact, Corona is watching her with her head resting in her hand and an indecipherable look.

“Clothes?” she rasps, reaching for her meds and downing them with the glass of water.

“Oh, but I’m enjoying the view.” Corona purrs, winking at her when Judith looks up at her, aghast.

“You’re—” Judith starts, her cheeks burning harder as she moves to stand.

“Relax, I’m just messing with you. You really could stand to have some fun occasionally.”, Corona laughs, soft and warm and takes the plate to put it in the dishwasher, leaving her to her outrage. “And sit.”

Judith sits. When Corona turns to her, she once more feels every inch of exposed skin and resists the urge to flee. It’s not something she’s used to but it’s something she’s always done, when it came to Corona.

Lavender-bright eyes dance over her form and catch on scar tissue like thorns and Judith wants to writhe. Corona steps between her thighs and lets one hand follow the path her eyes had taken, and she feels sick. She might as well reach right through and grab her guts and pull and pull and pull until Judith unspools, unravels, undoes herself.

Corona’s wrist feels solid in her palm when she catches it, and she wills her own hands to still.  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Corona says, and “you healed well.”

Her nails, blunt and carefully maintained dig into Corona’s skin and the sun only smiles. “Oh, don’t be like that Jody. We’re getting married.”

“My clothes?” she rasps again, instead of heaving up her heart.

“You’re such a bore.”

“Thank you.”

She tries to stand again but Corona hasn’t moved and doesn’t seem inclined to, gaze drifting over her again and again like she’s drinking her in. Judith feels herself flush all the way to her sternum and she moves, and Corona doesn’t let her, pulls her in by the hand still caught in Judith’s grip.

“Please, Jody. You never let me see you.” She laments, her voice low and thrumming in Judith’s chest.

“You said we had an appointment.”

“They’ll wait.”

And off she goes. Her broad palms are so warm against Judith’s skin, scalding, making her buzz. Ordinarily nerveless tissue feels alight with sensation, and she shifts again, unconsciously, and her breath catches on a gasp when Corona holds and squeezes.

She can feel her bones creak. Corona is so big, always. Broad shoulders that don’t fit the way people see her and yet they fit her, they fit her, of course she’d be imposing, and tall, and lovely. Where else would she fit if not in skin that stretches over warm muscle and tendon and bone, heavy and proud and big. Taking up space in every room she steps into.

Her legs are solid where they’re keeping Judith’s own apart and she’s so tall Judith has to keep her gaze averted entirely, lest she does the one thing everybody else does.

As though sensing her thoughts, Corona hums: “You can look. You’re always so sweet with that, but trust me, there’s no virtue to take from me.” She says it like it’s funny. Like she’s not worth the barest hint of respect, the decency not to blatantly stare at her chest.

“My clothes?” she repeats instead, a third time, and gets long fingers tipping up her chin for her troubles. Corona’s brows are creased and the look in her eyes isn’t one Judith recognises. Her hand is still on Judith’s waist and she’s honestly having trouble focusing and when Corona leans in she flinches back on instinct.

Those perfectly plucked brows furrow more, plush lips twisting for just a moment before she steps back and Judith sways, bereft. Her hip tingles and her leg has fallen asleep. By the time she blinks Corona has turned from her, the lines of her shoulders tense and Judith stands, finally, leaning heavily on her cane as she moves to the couch.

Her hand hovers between Coronabeth’s shoulder blades for a heartbeat before she lets it drop with a quiet sigh. “I apologise”, she murmurs, not knowing what exactly she’s apologising for but knowing Corona regardless.

What follows is the most bizarre experience Judith has had the misfortune of suffering through in quite some time. She’s made to sit at the edge of the couch as Corona, with all the tenderness of a little girl dressing her first doll, helps her into her button up. Her hands are eased through the cuffs and set down in her own lap, her braids are carefully pulled free from the collar and Corona’s fingers are liquid heat where they brush her stomach, her sternum, her throat.

And it continues. She’s moved this way and that, lifts her hips for snugly fitting suit pants, sits back slightly when Corona grasps her ankle and slides soft, soft, soft socks up to her calves. The issue is, she doesn’t need this help. At all. She’s more than capable of dressing herself. But she remembers the flash of upset in warm eyes and she sees now the easy pleased peace on Corona’s face at having gotten her way and she’s powerless.

Completely powerless, for her undoing and foolish desire of two decades. She lets herself be moved, like a doll, and she feels like one too, pliant and freed of the burden of decision making. They’re getting married because Corona wants it. She’s getting dressed because Corona wants it. Corona is dressing her.

It happens and it can and maybe it must happen, exactly like this. She’s watching it, them, as though she really is floating above herself. Corona’s warm hands, warm, solid, lacing up her shoes, dragging her hands up her calves, eyes dark and endless and her lips just barely brush the inside of her left knee and—

Judith shivers suddenly, violently, yanked back into her body. Corona’s hand holding her leg steady is the only reason she doesn’t accidentally knee her perfect cheekbone. Her heart is thundering, her breath heavy and she knows she’s flushed, and Corona looks so pleased.

“Are you back with me, Jody?” she muses, smug and something else, something she’s heard before and still can’t place.

“Your suit,” is all Judith manages. Corona is still kneeling, distractingly, between her thighs and the fine suit must be getting wrinkled. She focuses on that, and nothing else. Not the way Corona looks at her with something too close to pity. Or disappointment. She definitely does not focus on the way the buttons strain when Corona sits back and heaves with a sigh.

“You’re hopeless, you really are.”

She closes her eyes and swallows again. She swallows the urge to apologise. It’s unlike her, and yet. And yet. The words don’t leave her, thank God, but she can feel them like bile, can feel saliva pool in her mouth and she swallows again.

There’s movement in front of her, another sigh, Corona rummaging around maybe, she can’t be sure. She can’t open her eyes. Or she could, physically speaking. The ability rests within her and she refuses to touch it, much like she’s refused to touch most things that shine and entice.

As a child, Judith had touched the polished blade of one of her fathers’ decorative swords and cut her hand so badly she’d needed three stitches. It had called to her, and she wanted to know what the cool metal would feel like. Its surface had reflected her, and she’d been mesmerised. And then it hadn’t reflected anything. Only red. Her face, dark, eyes red and wet with tears. The drawer it rested on still carries the stain, if you know where to look. Corona knew where to look. Judith can feel the scar itch now, her fingers digging into her palm.

Yes, she learned early not to touch what gleams.

Apparently, what gleams never learned the same thing. Corona cups her chin again and she doesn’t flinch this time. She drags something over her lips, meticulously, tilts her face up and uses Judith’s still closed eyes to her advantage. There’s mascara on her lashes, lipstick on her lips, neither of which she usually bothers with, and when Corona steps back she hums to herself.

“You clean up nice. With the right care. You know, you really should let me dress you more.” Corona purrs, all previous frustration seemingly forgotten. “You look sharp, Captain.”

“Don’t,” Judith says, too sharp. “Are you done?”

“Spoilsport. Yes, we are ready. Don’t sound too excited, you might inflate my ego.”

A laugh scratches at her throat, but she squares her shoulders and shakes her head with a dismissive sound. “I don’t believe you need my help with that.”

“Hardly,” Corona agrees. “But a girl likes to feel special on her wedding day.”

There’s that nausea again. She stands, sways, catches herself before Corona does. The thought hits her that Corona is making the biggest mistake of her life and that she should tell her that, and that she can’t make herself. Selfish. She thought she’d grown out of that. Another thought strikes her and she almost sways again. Corona is always special. She should always feel special.

A Corona that’s unaware of her light seems like an absurd impossibility. A broken law of nature. Corona is special and perfect and golden, and Judith is well. Being self-deprecating is an ugly trait and she tries not to let the habit form, but still.

Corona is the sun, plain and simple. And Judith feels like dark matter, always there but not seen, not acknowledged, weighing her down.

And here she is, letting Corona bind them together. Letting her tie herself down so thoroughly, and for what? Money?

“Are we leaving then? We’ll be late.”

“I already told you they’ll wait. Anyone would wait for the amount of money I promised them.”

It’s always money. Judith is nearly relieved. Better to be part of a scheme than imagining it might be truthful.

“Being on time is polite, Coronabeth. I know you were taught manners.”

“Is that bite, Jody? Are you trying to charm me? I’m engaged.”

Judith sighs, grabs her cane and her keys from the kitchen table and turns to her fiancée. Corona smiles, a small, beguiling smile, and Judith turns away again. “Well?” she murmurs.

“You are excited, aren’t you? Lie to me if you must, don’t break my heart.” Corona’s voice is playful, but the words make Judith’s stomach turn and her hip ache.

“I don’t think anyone could break your heart, Princess,” she admits, the old nickname falling freely and without warning.

“Oh, do give yourself more credit, darling. I’d be desolate if you disliked me. I’d have to open the window right here and throw myself out of it, so you’d be haunted by me every day. And you’d never be allowed to remarry.”

“We aren’t yet married,” she tries but she knows it’ll fall flat. Her hand is on the door handle, and her blood is roaring in her ears.

“Judith. Jody. Baby. Tell me you’re marrying me by your own free will. The guilt would eat me alive.”

Corona, Judith is sure, has never felt guilty about a thing in her life.

“I already said yes, didn’t I?” It’s all she can say without suffocating on her honesty. Without driving her away entirely.

“But do you want me?” Corona whispers, far closer than she’d expected her. She’s hovering over Judith’s shoulder, warm, warm, warm, and everything in her is reeling.

Who could not want her.

“I thought the point of this sham marriage was that you wouldn’t have to deal with other people’s desires,” she breathes back, thickly. Her tongue feels spongy in her mouth.

“You’re hardly other people, Jody.” Corona chides and she turns her, and Judith leans back against the door on instinct, shrinking in the presence of a predator. Even one that smiles at her so gently, like she’s a child that hasn’t yet learned the appropriate reactions to living. “You’re special, didn’t you know?”

“Please, Corona.”

She means for it to come out in admonishment, maybe with a hint of self-loathing. What it comes out as is breathless and she despises herself immediately and viciously for it. Her weakness had been hers and she’d known how to handle it. For it to be so apparent to Corona, the strongest person she knows, fills her with enough dread to make her turn and her cane creak in her grip.

“Jody,” Corona breathes, and she can feel it more than she can hear it, feel the hairs at the back of her neck rise with the movement of air. “You tempt me horribly, do you know?”

“Coronabeth,” she says, schooling her voice into a blade, moulding it into something hard and cutting. “We’re late.”

And this time she feels the sigh too, warm against her throat, feels the whisper of pressure when Corona’s nose brushes the shell of her ear and she almost crumbles. “I suppose we are, aren’t we? And I’d so hate to be impolite.”

Corona steps back and the moment dies, and Judith dies with it, just a little.

The… Beginning? A contract signed (a vow sealed)

All-in all, getting married is a surprisingly fast affair. Corona takes them to the registry office where they wait all of five seconds before the officiant greets them with a smile typical of the severely bribed and those seeing Corona for the first time (See: too wide, too flushed and too eager to please), and ushers them inside.

The rest of the process, too, goes by remarkably quickly. So quickly Judith doesn't doubt that Corona asked them to cut the ceremony short in case Judith changed her mind halfway. The officiant talks, somehow both violently enthusiastic and entirely monotone, Corona talks, Judith’s lips move and it blends together.

She should be paying attention. This is after all, the most important day of her life. Technically.

Instead, her focus rests on her aching hip and the ghost of Corona’s lips by her ear and the tenderness of her hands and suddenly Corona is close, so close, and this must be the moment where they kiss even if Judith can’t remember saying I do, and Corona is tilting her head and smiling and pressing her lips to the corner of her mouth chastely.

And then she pulls away, cradling Judith’s free hand and stroking her warm thumb over the wedding band and someone is cooing and there’s a flash going off and Judith can’t drag her eyes away from soft lavender.

They’ve done it and it passed her by completely. She wants, stupidly, to ask them for a do over.

She doesn’t. She lets Corona drag her out into the warm midday sun, lets her throw an arm around her shoulders and tries to grasp for even one clear memory of what just happened.

Had she signed the contract? Had she said the words?

“Corona—” she starts, sounding dazed even to her own ears. Unsure how to continue. In the span of 24 hours she’s been engaged, taken apart and put together again and now married.

Married.

To—

“Coronabeth,” Judith tries again, clearing her throat.

“Ianthe is going to be furious,” Corona says, smiling to herself, deeply thrilled.

“We—”

“We did.”

Judith stops, in the middle of the sidewalk, and Corona—arm still slung over her shoulders—stops with her.

“Corona,” Three time’s the charm, right?

“Judith.” Corona hums and it catches her off guard for some reason.

“We just got married.”

“We did. You were there, Jody. You agreed beforehand, don’t say you regret it already. You really would break my heart.”

What is she supposed to say to that. The truth? She’s unsure what the truth is at this point and is not inclined to find out.

She runs instead. Cowardly. “Our business is done then. You may tell your parents you’ve found a partner; they’ll give you access to your insurance and we can continue as we were.”

Something happens to Corona’s face at that. Judith prides herself on her perception, and her knowledge of her oldest friend. She knows that the tips of Corona’s ears go pink when she’s passionate about something, knows her blonde and gullible act is just that, an act, and she knows that of the twins it’s her that’s always underestimated, even if everyone looks at her like she hung the moon.

Point being, Judith has spent two decades learning Coronabeth Tridentarius, to the detriment of her own sanity. And yet she’s never, not once seen the look in her eyes now.

“Is that what you want, Jody?” She says, a playful lilt in her voice that is at stark odds with the depth of her eyes and the nearly buzzing tension in her posture. “For me to leave you alone? So you can wallow in your misery as you’ve done for six years?”

Judith takes a startled step back, her heart lurching in her chest.

“Don’t.”

“Oh, come off it, Judith,” Corona says, as close to hostility as Judith has ever heard her. She’s crossing her arms and Judith feels bereft, standing in front of her and seeing only her sister in the sharp sneer of her perfect lips. “She’s not coming back and you need to stop punishing yourself for things you can’t change and aren’t to blame for.”

“Don’t talk about her.”

“She’s dead, Jody,” Corona murmurs, stepping closer, both cold and scalding, reaching out for her. “And I know you loved her, and I get it and I’m not saying don’t grieve but god, when are you going to stop laying down in that grave with her and live?”

“You’re out of line, Tridentarius.” Judith bites out, feeling her stomach clench and squeezing her eyes shut against too many memories.

“Why did you agree to marry me?”

Because denying Coronabeth never once crossed her mind.

“You’re a friend and you needed assistance.”

“And that’s all?”

Judith steels herself, pulls back her shoulders and ignores the twinge in her lower back. “You were there for me when I was— indisposed. It seemed fair to me to repay the favour.”

“You agreed to marry me for a favour.”

I agreed to marry you because I have ached for you for two decades and because you’ve seen me at my worst and stayed and because you know what I’ve done and stayed and because you’re the only one that has ever reached for me first.

“Yes.”

Corona laughs, and it’s an ugly sound. Judith hasn’t ever heard this laugh from her, even if she’s heard it often from Ianthe. She clenches her fist against a shiver.

“You! You are a marvel, Jody. Really, you are.”

“Why did you ask me. Why me and not anyone else?” She asks, instead of witnessing her own humiliation.

“If you haven’t figured it out yet, Deuteros, then I fear all hope is lost on you.” Corona sighs, turning on her heel. “Get in the car. I’ll take you home.”

And they have been standing next to the car, she realises, probably this entire time.

There’s a numbness spreading through her limbs and settling on her collarbones and it feels distantly like Corona’s palm had, fastening her tie earlier.

“Corona,” she starts again, like a broken record. Corona holds up a hand, shakes her head.

“Don’t talk, Jody. I’m cross with you.”

Judith feels like really, she should be the one upset, but she obliges. The drive back to her apartment is silent. When they pull up in front of the building and Corona turns off the car she doesn’t get out. It’s a heavy quiet, a crackling tension, and she’s never been so glad for her ability to wait Corona out.

“If you really only agreed out of some misguided sense of obligation, we could have the wedding annulled.” Corona finally says. It’s not what Judith was expecting.

“On what grounds?”

“Mental Incapacity.”

“Pardon?” Judith breathes, heat travelling up her neck.

“I could say I took advantage and forced you into it or mixed something into your coffee this morning.” Corona shrugs. Like she’s not proposing something with possible devastating consequences for her future. And her reputation.

“But you didn’t.”

“Yes, that’s why it would be a lie, Jody. Keep up.”

“Why?”

“If the thought of being married to me makes you so miserable you can barely remember saying yes, I don’t think it would work out between us. Sorry, Baby.”

“I’m not stupid, Coronabeth,” Judith snaps and Corona raises a bemused brow. “You aren’t making any sense.”

“You don’t want to be married, fine. I’ll drive us back right now. The ink’s barely dry.”

Judith sighs heavily, staring straight ahead at her own front door and counting very slowly to ten. “Must you insist upon being difficult, Princess.”

“I’m difficult?” Corona breathes, finally turning to her. Judith’s heart settles somewhat.

“We are married, and you have what you wanted. What else do you need?”

“But I don’t— Oh this is useless. You’re frustratingly daft, Jody.”

It takes all her admittedly meagre willpower not to react with the same frustration.

“We can annul the marriage until we consummate it, you know.”

Judith’s throat is suddenly very dry. “I see.”

Corona sighs again, as though something or perhaps everything about Judith is a huge imposition. She pinches her perfect brows between perfectly manicured fingers and Judith, not for the first time that day, feels like she’s taken a wrong turn somewhere.

So when she next speaks, she does it carefully. “I don’t believe we need to annul the marriage.”

“Leave it, Judith. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Her heart does its best impression of a diver, plunging into free fall. Unusual wedding aside, it is supposed to be the happiest day in Corona’s life and she, unknowingly and cruelly has turned it into an argument. “Coronabeth,” she sighs, but what else can she say.

“It’s fine. I’ll find a way to celebrate, don’t worry your dim little head about it.”

“Come upstairs with me,” Judith says, in a rush. Like she’ll die or go mute or lose this unspoken game between them if she doesn't.

“Are you propositioning me?” Corona hums, but it lacks her usual charm.

“I still have that cognac you brought me in the hospital?”

“You never opened it?”

“I never had much occasion to.”

“And is this an appropriate occasion, Judith?”

“Some may argue an espousal is such an occasion, yes.” She breathes, opening the car door and stepping out and around to hold the door open for her wife. Which Corona is, now. Legally. Judith tightens her grip on the cane. “And I gave you a vow.”

“Promises, promises,” Corona muses, but she steps out of the car regardless, momentarily mollified.

And so, Coronabeth Tridentarius, former friend now wife, is in Judith’s apartment for the third time in less than 48 hours. Getting comfortable on Judith’s couch, heels toed off by the door and feet tucked up as she leans against the arm, looking perfectly picturesque.

Judith wishes she had even a single artistic bone in her body and then resents herself for it.

The cognac bottle is dusty from where she unearths it (the back of the highest shelf, half-forgotten and embarrassing to retrieve; she’d had to use a chair) and she wipes it down cursorily before gathering equally dusty glasses. These she wipes down as well. Corona knows of her astonishing lack of social life, but she still doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

Two glasses are filled with amber, and she returns to the living room where she pretends not to notice the lazy, appraising grin on Coronabeth’s face as she sits down on the opposite end of the couch.

She raises the snifter to her lips, then stops when Corona’s foot nudges her thigh.

“You have to let it breathe, Silly. Do you have any idea how much that bottle cost? Don’t just drink it like a shot.”

Corona is swirling the liquid in her own glass with the same lazy elegance as she does most things with and Judith finds her eye caught by the reflection, the way the light hits the surface and by how tenderly the other is cradling the glass. She sounds almost fond when she speaks and it’s enough to make Judith set down the snifter on the coffee table and sit back, looking at the dark TV.

Movement to her left. Long legs draping themselves over her lap. Her breath catches and she lifts her hands, and she hears Corona snort, undignified, and when she glances over there’s pink, high on Corona’s cheeks. “Relax, you big baby. I’m just trying to get comfortable. Honestly, what is this thing made of?” She pokes the couch cushion and shifts again.

“It’s a perfectly normal couch,” Judith murmurs, looking away again when she feels solid calves flexing where they’re pressed to her thighs.

“It feels like it’s made of bricks, Jody. Does everything about you always have to be so stiff?”

The hint of laughter in her voice is the only reason she just sighs, hands still awkwardly hovering over Corona’s legs. “That joke has never been funny and yet you continue to make it.”

“Oh please, I’m hysterical.”

She loosens her tie somewhat to give her fingers something to do. “Was it within my vows to always agree with you?”

“Hmm, you usually don’t need vows for that. I’m very easy to agree with, considering I have correct opinions.” Corona hums, shuffling again, brushing Judith’s stomach before settling.

Her voice comes out more unsteady than she’d like. “Opinions aren’t something that can be factually correct. Considering they’re not facts.”

“And that, dear Captain, is what I’d call an incorrect opinion.”

“That’s not—” she starts, finally looking at Corona again and stopping dead in her attempt of logical reasoning. Corona looks comfortable, lounging on her couch, head resting on the arm and golden curls fanning around her face. There’s another pleased smile tugging at her mouth and Judith realises she’s walked right into her trap. She’s idly playing with her ring, bringing it to her lips and she looks almost coy, which Judith knows is an act but she still feels herself flushing and her palms grow damp.

Corona flexes her calves again and there’s a strangled sound ringing in her ears that she belatedly recognises as her own. “You can touch me, Jody,” Corona breathes, biting down the obvious laugh by tugging her plump bottom lip between her teeth. “Don’t just hold your hands up like I have a gun to your head. I don’t bite.”

She’s not so sure she believes that. Still, she tries to wipe her hands as inconspicuously as possible on her vest before setting them primly on Corona’s shin. There’s a strange warmth melting into her bones, easing her tense muscles at the same time as it leaves her almost buzzing.

“There you go,” Amusement again, and that something else Judith doesn’t have the mind to figure out.

Never much for substances as an escape, the cognac seems to be calling to her now. She reaches for it, trying not to dislodge the legs still in her lap and ends up pressing her chest to them in the attempt. Regardless, she has the snifter in hand and by the time she leans back again her heart has calmed down at least vaguely.

Corona is still smiling. Even in the nearly industrial lights of Judith’s living room she looks warm and solid and so, so golden. Judith herself must look washed out from the harshness of it but Coronabeth has never been affected by something as simple as bad lighting.

Their glasses meet in that specific bell-like, crystalline clink that reverberates in the chest and Judith, unable to stand the warmth and the tenderness and that something any longer, takes a big sip. And promptly regrets it. It’s smooth, certainly, but she hadn’t been anticipating the burn, and she feels her eyes water with the desire to cough.

She can feel Corona’s laughter before she hears it, feel the vibrations travelling through her thighs and when she looks over, blinking away tears hastily, her gaze catches on the shine of Corona’s bottom lip, twisted with delight as it is. “I always forget you don’t drink,” she manages between peals of laughter and even the sting in Judith’s throat doesn’t hinder the affection that claws at her chest from once more beating itself against her ribs.

“It’s strong,” is all she says in her defence, still out of breath from more than the alcohol alone.

“It’s cognac,” counters Corona, taking her own much smaller sip and humming at the taste.

The heat has died down somewhat, mingling in her stomach and settling like a warm blanket over her limbs. She relaxes minutely, head resting against the back of the couch. Her next sip is smaller, cautious, and she tries to differentiate the flavour profile.

It helps keep her mind off other things, to be so focused on what she can taste. She doesn’t usually bother with it but sometimes it’s a very simple joy, to filter out components and see what she recognises; to categorise it.

Even with her admittedly limited knowledge, she finds herself agreeing with Corona’s assessment. It is far too fine a drink to waste on shots. In more adequate portions it coats her throat almost gently, faintly sweet and heady enough to make her cheeks warm and her body relax completely.

“It’s good,” she admits after a few minutes of silence.

Corona just hums, shifting again, and Judith absentmindedly squeezes her leg to stop the incessant movement. There’s a sharp intake of breath, but when she opens her eyes — when had she closed them? — Corona looks as calm as ever, if a bit softer around the edges.

Are her pupils wider than they were before? She’s not sure alcohol does that. Or at least this quickly. Maybe it’s the light?

“Do you feel quite alright?” she murmurs, brows furrowing again. Does Corona look slightly feverish? From what she knows she has a much bigger alcohol tolerance, but then again this is strong liquor.

“Perfectly,” Corona says, meeting her gaze as she shifts again and Judith again stops her restless squirming with a firm hand to her shin. She doesn’t imagine the hitch in Corona’s breath this time, nor the sudden dilation of her pupils and the flush that spreads down to her collar. Judith catalogues this with a distant interest, head tilted.

A thought hits her and she blinks before bringing one hand to the arch of Corona’s right foot, carefully digging her thumb into the tendon. Shiny lips part around a breath and Corona positively melts into the couch. Judith congratulates herself once again on anticipating her desires. Of course she’d be uncomfortable, wearing heels all day.

She sets the snifter down carefully, shifts and focuses her attentions on massaging the tension out of her limbs. Arches first, then up her calves, so solid under her palms she almost feels inadequate in her strength, but Corona keeps sighing quietly, eyes fluttering shut and then darting open as though she can’t decide between watching and relaxing, so she must be doing an alright job.

Time flows by her, easy as a summer breeze. She finishes her drink and her work, and while Corona, flushed to the tips of her ears with relaxation, settles more comfortably on the couch, Judith stands for a refill. It’s not a question that Corona pulls her legs back when Judith sits and plops them down on her lap again as soon as she’s done.

Her thoughts feels pleasantly light, her tongue and limbs heavy and Corona is warm enough under her palms and weighing her down that she almost dozes off.

“Jody,” she hears, quiet through the fog, and she blinks her leaden eyelids open. Corona is sitting up. Her glass is empty. A glance at her own reveals the same problem. Hadn’t she just—

“Judith,” again, softer still, honeyed. Judith blinks once more and finds her much closer than she’d previously been.

Her voice sounds faintly slurred to her own ears, tripping over the three syllables it takes to reply with a name of her own. Corona smiles like she finds her state of inebriation horribly endearing.

Her head really is heavy. It tips to the side just a bit and Corona catches it in one broad, soft palm. Her fingertips are just touching her throat and Judith swallows. “Are you drunk, Jody?”

“Hm?”

Corona bites her lip against another grin and Judith can’t look away from the indent of perfect teeth in her soft lip. She reaches up, thoughtlessly, and brushes her thumb over it to release it from its enamel prison. This close, she can feel Corona’s exhale against her own face and she shivers.

“You are, aren’t you?”

“I’m what?” she hums, still enamoured by the bitten depth of Corona’s lips.

“Drunk, Baby. You’re drunk.” Corona whispers and Judith can feel that too, what with her thumb still lingering near her lip. She should probably take it back. But her limbs are heavy, and she doesn’t feel much like moving.

“’m not,” Judith argues, even as her head leans into Corona’s hand some more.

Is her hand shaking? Unlikely, not Corona. Corona is the most solid person Judith knows.

Judith has always envied her solidity. She’s had to fight for everything she’s ever had and she was rewarded with a crashed career, a dead best friend and chronic pain. Corona just was. Or is. Perfect, lovely Coronabeth. Beloved Coronabeth, somehow sticking with her through the burn and wreckage of her carefully built life.

No one ever denied Coronabeth Tridentarius a thing. Distantly, buried under the heat of alcohol and denial, she knows that Corona never does a single thing she doesn’t want to and that she never would’ve let her parents force her to marry. Distantly, she’s known it this whole time.

“Yes you are,” comes the reply, dripping with syrupy sweetness. “You’re so very tempting, Jody. Would you hate me terribly for my selfishness?”

“What?” she slurs, blinking again. Corona is haloed in light and she’s golden and shining and Judith knows not to touch what shines but her hand is so heavy and Corona is so warm.

And then she’s warm all over, because Corona leans forward and presses their lips together in a firm kiss. It’s chaste, all things considered. Her lips are slightly wet with cognac still and they’re soft, unlike Judith’s own slightly capped ones. It’s a chaste kiss, almost sweet, and it makes heat erupt in her stomach, licking at her skin and suddenly firing up all her previously sleepy braincells again.

She freezes, blinking and breathless and Corona pulls away, flushed and barely apologetic and her blood is roaring in her ears. If Corona says anything she doesn’t hear it and all that leaves her is a surprised, punched out “Oh”.

Recalibrating, reordering herself in a world where she knows what Coronabeth Tridentarius’ lips feel like takes a while. A while in which she stares dumbly at her and Corona keeps pulling further away, worry creasing her brow.

“Judith?” she says, almost tentatively. It doesn’t fit her, this hesitation.

“Why—” Judith clears her throat, her hand hovering uselessly between them. “Why did you do that?”

Corona shifts back fully, kneeling beside her on the couch, hands in white knuckled fists in her lap. She looks upset. “You really are unfathomably dim, Judith,” Corona murmurs, averting her gaze. Judith panics.

And maybe the kiss didn’t sober her up as much as she’d previously thought. There’s no other explanation for the moment she breaks two decades of self-imposed rule work to cross the uncrossable distance and kiss Corona back.

The angle is bad and her lips are too dry and their noses knock together uncomfortably until Corona, always the more spontaneous of the two of them, cradles Judith’s cheek again and redirects the kiss into something softer. Something achingly sweet.

Corona presses in and Judith presses back and she is burning, her hands fluttering by Corona’s waist until Corona huffs impatiently and climbs into her lap instead. She’s solid, solid, solid and she’s treating Judith like she’s solid too, solid enough to hold her and Judith’s head is spinning as her hands pull Corona closer.

“Jody,” Corona breathes against her lips when she pulls away enough to inhale air, greedy and restless.

“Princess,” Judith murmurs, her heart rabbiting in her chest, imaginary monitor fizzling out in a shower of sparks and they’re kissing again, and she feels the starved part she’s kept on a tight leash for years and years sate itself on the taste of her, the scent and the sound of her breaths.

She can feel the ring dig into her skin from how tightly Corona is holding her and the situation settles in her mind, expands and overwhelms her. “Corona,” she gasps, her hands flexing on Corona’s waist, and the answering breathy moan disassembles any thought she might’ve had.

Married. They’re married. And Corona is kissing her and she’s kissing back and she can’t blame the alcohol for any of it, except for gifting her the courage to be honest.

When Corona licks at the seam of her lips she opens for her and when she bites down on her lip hard enough to draw blood she bleeds for her and when she pulls back, out of breath and shining and says “Not now, not like this,” a sound that sounds suspiciously like a whine breaks free from the confines of Judith’s throat.

“I’m not fucking you when you’re drunk, Baby,” Corona sighs, even if her hips give a small twitch when Judith leans in again.

“It’s—” she starts, losing her words in the next kiss before resurfacing, “It’s our wedding day. Isn’t that what people do?”

Corona laughs and Judith knows what the sound tastes like now, honey and liquid sunshine and she feels intoxicated with the knowledge. “That was almost smooth, Jody. But no, not like this. I won’t have you like this, not if there’s any chance you’ll regret it tomorrow. I’ve waited too long for that.”

“How long?” Judith breathes, and Corona cradles her hand and presses a kiss to the scar and Judith knows and it steals all air from her lungs. “Oh,” she says again, a little dumbly.

“Yeah oh.” Corona grins, and it’s like watching the sun rise. The most genuine smile Judith can remember ever seeing on her face. And her mental libraries filled with Corona’s smiles —starting at age 8— are vast. Not that she’d ever admit to that.

Judith doesn’t realise how long she’s been staring until she tastes that smile again and her eyes fall shut all on their own.

It’s easy to give into the kisses, the soft press of lips, the taste of cognac and vanilla chapstick that has somehow survived all their previous indulgences and the sheer delight of tasting Corona’s grin every time they meet.

Judith does not remember drifting off mid-kiss, nor does she remember the warm puffs of breathy laughter pressed to her lips in the aftermath.

She doesn't remember steady hands cradling her to a soft chest, or being carried to bed and laid down carefully, or even the gentle brush of a kiss to her forehead.

She doesn't remember how it came to be that by the time she wakes, Corona is curled around her, a long line of heat from her neck to her thighs, breaths making her shiver.

No, Judith doesn't remember any of it over the pounding headache and foul taste in her mouth.

But Corona does.

Corona remembers the weight of her in her arms, remembers the way that even unconscious, Judith tucked her head into her neck and sighed like the weight of the world slipped from her shoulders.

Corona remembers laying her down and tucking her in with all intentions to go home after, only for Judith to reach for her, still fast asleep, and pull her back.

She remembers and she's committing it to memory so that when morning comes she can still see the quietly content smile on Judith's lips that had actually made her look her age for once.

Judith does remember everything that came beforehand. And so when she wakes, head pounding, mouth feeling fuzzy and tasting distantly of rotten fruit, she stiffens.

Wakefulness comes slowly at first, wading through the fog of her hangover, to remind her kindly of her actions, and their consequences.

Corona pulls her closer, lips grazing Judith's nape and a strangled noise leaves her, unbidden.

She's not at all in possession of her faculties, indeed must've left them behind in the living room, at the bottom of a snifter. That is the only explanation for the following:

Judith Deuteros turns in the arms of her wife, shifts, and mindful of her breath, presses her own face to Corona's throat and promptly falls back asleep.

The next time she wakes up there are no arms weighing her down to the mattress and her mind startles her body into a senseless panic before she hears Corona humming to herself from the direction of the kitchen.

Day 1

And thus begins their first day of marriage. Judith wonders if she’ll ever get used to it, or if it will always feel vaguely dream-like. She’s reminded unpleasantly of the morphine haze after her accident, Corona seemingly haloed in the shitty hospital lights, making her believe everything would be alright, even if nothing had ever been alright again after.

Years of misfortune, both accidental and self-inflicted have made her cautious. Maybe this time, things would be different. Nothing really had to change between them, except that maybe she’d get to actually look at Corona without guilt for once.

She’s been married for one day, to the girl, woman really, that she’s longed for, for as long as she’s known her. The woman she’s loved more than half her life, in fits and starts and then eventually so wholeheartedly she’d resigned herself to an existence in Corona’s orbit but never by her side. And yet, here they are.

Yes, she thinks, looking over at Corona who appears to be trying to seduce her yoghurt spoon with her wickedly skilled tongue before looking back at Judith and winking salaciously, here we are.

Night ?

Corona has taken to sleeping over more often than not. It’s unusual but not, technically, unpleasant. Judith wakes up warm and only sometimes cradled to a claustrophobia inducing degree and she’d like to say she’s happy. The sleeping isn’t the problem. The waking up is.

Because Judith Deuteros knows what it feels like to die. She’s been doing it every single night for over seven years; with the notable exception of their wedding night, when even Judith’s memories had been too intoxicated to haunt her.

It goes like this:

Judith closes her eyes and falls asleep. The addition of Coronabeth in both her life and her bed had changed that very little.

She opens her eyes and her vision is tilted because she is tilted, hanging in her seatbelt, ribs broken or cracked and her head ringing. Her entire left side is burning hot agony, her leg in particular feels mangled beyond repair and there’s something warm dripping onto the side of her face.

It trails over her lips, mouth slack with pain, and explodes in a wave of copper on her taste buds.

Every night she wills herself not to turn her head, not to look at the source. But they’re memories, not dreams, so she turns just as she had seven years ago and she meets the calm and utterly blank gaze of Marta Dyas. A steady trickle of blood drips from her already ashen lips and Judith’s own mouth opens in a noiseless scream.

It goes like this; Marta’s neck, bent at an unnatural angle, the skin bruising where bone aches to burst free. Marta’s eyes, glassy and empty, devoid of all light, the whites streaked red with shattered veins. Marta’s lips, lips Judith had years before yearned to know the taste of, dripping red, red, red, right into Judith’s mouth.

There’s pain and the creak of a car trying it’s hardest to destroy itself and the faint hint of smoke in the air and then it finally takes her.

The paramedics told her afterwards that she’d been dead for five minutes. To Judith, it had felt just like going to sleep. Some days she wonders if everything after has all been an elaborate dream. The last seconds before complete shut-down stretching into years, lifetimes.

On good days her dreams carry on like normal after, a rite of passage to relive the memory every night before she can move on to greener pastures.

On bad days she doesn’t die, and Marta keeps dripping blood into her mouth and she keeps looking, keeps remembering and seeing and burning the image into her mind until she sees her with every blink and tastes copper and smoke and burnt tires with every breath.

On the worst days she wakes up, still dead, still tasting copper and smoke and burnt tires and feels her ribs creak and her hip flare and all the mangled long healed scar tissue on her left side peel itself open. On the worst days she opens her eyes and knows she’s awake and she feels like she’s still in those five minutes, waiting for time to pass and take her with it.

In the past, those days meant not leaving her apartment or her bed for at least twelve hours. Every breath burning, every movement burning, everything crackling and creaking in her ear. The knowledge that if she were to pull up her shirt, there would be a seatbelt-bruise spanning her chest and glass under her fingernails.

In the past, those days were frequent and always knocked her back ten steps and left her feeling leaden for weeks after.

She’s gotten better at dealing with them, at looking Marta in the eyes and closing her own and blessedly moving into dreamless sleep. Better, but not perfect. They’re rare, not gone.

In her most shameful moments, she can admit to herself that she doesn’t mind being dead and suspended in time. She’s never been all that fond of the constraints of living, nor had she been any good at it.

But now, Corona. Here, in her bed, not a dream, Corona.

Judith had never told her about the nights, because there had been no reason to. It was solely her business, her burden, her privilege to bear. Marta deserved that much. Marta deserved so much more.

So Corona doesn’t know about the nights, and the dying, and the being dead.

Corona, who is so alive. Alive in a way Judith has never been, not even before. Maybe more alive than anyone has ever been, more solid, more real. The mangled thing in Judith’s chest burns with the fire in Corona, the light in her. It rebels and screams and whimpers and it rakes long nails over the insides of her ribs and it severs skin and tendon and cracks them apart and on the worst days, when Judith is dead and dying, it breaks free from her and reaches for that light.

Her burden was never supposed to touch Corona.

The first time it happens she screams. It’s noiseless; a panicked, explosive expulsion of air, of oxygen she can’t spare. She breaks her ribs all over again, pain flaring up her leg as she nearly falls out of bed in her desperation to make it to the bathroom. Corona finds her, five minutes later, retching into the usually impeccably clean toilet, her body convulsing against the sweet taste of death on her tongue.

Corona doesn’t ask, she doesn’t say anything, she simply brings her a glass of water and sits with her, stroking her back and Judith feels utterly wretched.

The second time it happens she’s quiet. If she stays quiet, Corona might get up and prepare breakfast as had been her habit recently and she can remain dead for a moment longer, just long enough to wait out the ringing in her ears.

Judith knows Corona is not stupid. She knows it intrinsically, knows it like the scars on her own body and the metal plate in her hip and the bump where her collarbone healed wrong. She knows it with every part of herself and somehow, she forgot it completely. This is her first mistake.

Her eyes are open, and her lips are parted around nearly imperceptible breaths and Corona turns to her and says, very quietly, “Oh Jody.”

And Judith can’t move, can never move on the bad days, the worst days, locked inside her own flesh, five minutes, just five more minutes—

“Baby.”

Corona is leaning over her, cradling her cheek carefully and forcing eye contact. The sun is just barely risen, and the room is faintly pink and Corona is so alive. So golden, so beautiful and alive and Judith, poor, stupid, dead Judith can’t do anything.

Not a word in reassurance, not a smile, not even a blink. Her eyes are watering, dry, and Corona is so terribly lovely, and she can’t kiss her or she’ll spread the rot and decay that’s festering in her chest. She can’t let it touch Corona.

Her second mistake is believing herself capable of stopping Corona from doing whatever she wants.

Their foreheads press together, and Judith is starting to panic, a plaintive noise rising in her throat. Corona noses at her cheek with a sigh, eyes shut, the picture of calm and settled. “You’re safe,” she says, “I have you, I’m right here, Jody, darling. Come back to me.”

And then she kisses her, slow and heartbreakingly gentle and Judith breathes for the first time because no, they’re not kissing. Corona is resuscitating her. She opens her sweet warm lips and breathes right into Judith’s lungs, and her chest widens with it, ribs falling back into place. Corona is breathing her life, her wonderful, vibrant life right into every miserable cell of Judith’s body.

And then, awfully, “You’re alive, Judith.”

Her heart starts up a faltering rhythm with a gasp and a near painful convulsion and she shakes and shakes and shakes, and Corona holds her. She’s probably speaking but Judith can’t hear it over the thundering of her heart and the steady, pounding rhythm of alive, alive, alive.

She still dies every night, but something has shifted, after that. The mangled thing in her chest, bludgeoned to death by Corona’s— all of her. By Corona. All the succulent thriving life in her, blooming inside Judith.

One day she’ll be able to do what she couldn’t do the first time. One day she can unbuckle herself and drag her useless body out of the car and she can leave the memory for good.

But for tonight it’s enough to know that the sun is waiting for her to wake up. For tonight, Marta’s eyes are less empty and more forgiving, and her mouth only tastes like artificial vanilla and warm cinnamon and the brand around her chest is a solid arm, keeping her where she belongs.

Day 32

It comes as no surprise, after the first few dreams, that Corona sets her up with a therapist. She means well, Judith knows, but still. Driving her to the office under false pretence, with the promise to pick her up in 90 minutes and no other way to get home was a foul move.

Also, perfectly in character. And Judith gets on well with Dr—Mrs, dear, just Mrs. I’m not a psychiatrist; I actually help my patients— Pent. She’s not much older than Judith herself, doesn’t make her talk if she gets choked up and takes every part of her life story with the appropriate amount of sympathy and not a shred of needless pity.

Even if her advice at time might be unorthodox. She’s suggested Judith distract herself when her dreams wake her, or when the memories overwhelm her. Not always. Just for the moment, until she can deal with them without collapsing.

Which is why she’s awake at 5 am, an hour before her alarm, phone in shaking hands, playing Tetris. The music is mindless enough to soothe her by itself, even if it’s nothing she’d ever listen to normally. And the game requires just enough attention not to let her mind wander.

“What the fuck, Jody,” Corona groans by her hip, curls a tangled mess on the pillow, eyes shielded from the glare of Judiths phone screen. “What are you doing?”

“Therapist’s orders,” Judith whispers back, blindly petting Corona’s head in apology, gaze glued to her phone.

“For fuck’s sake,” Corona laments, dragging the pillow over her face and promptly falling back asleep.

Day 53

There’s not really anyone left in Judith’s life apart from Corona herself she’d feel the need to talk to about her betrothal. She’s already written a letter to Marta and burnt it by her grave in a fit of sentimentality she couldn’t reprimand herself for. Therapists orders.

Marta would’ve been happy for her. Probably. She always teased her about her relations to Coronabeth so it was the most likely outcome.

She’s still itching to talk to someone about it. Even if it is just to make sure it’s real.

Which is why she’s sitting in a café, the café, opposite the only other person she’d tentatively call a friend. A cup of coffee in hand, her heart, inexplicably, in her throat.

Camilla Hect takes a long sip of her own drink; eyebrows raised in her usual affectation of mild interest or casual disinterest for that matter. “So,” she says, flat as ever.

“You’re probably wondering why I asked for a meeting here,” Judith starts and Camilla shrugs.

“Not really.”

That makes sense. Camilla isn’t much of an overthinker, Judith imagines. She’s simply always prepared for every eventuality.

“Right. I suppose I should get to it then.”

A tan hand motions for her to continue, long fingers flexing elegantly even in such an unconscious gesture. Judith is glad she’s never had to stand opposite her in any of their tournaments. Her ego is bruising just at the thought. Camilla is a warrior trapped in a dancer’s body. Watching her fight was a privilege. Losing to her would’ve been honour and humiliation unspeakable.

Judith shakes herself out of her memories and gets to the point in a rush. “I find myself married.”

“Okay,” Camilla says, unflinchingly.

“To Coronabeth Tridentarius.”

“Took you long enough.”

“Pardon?” Judith blinks at her, her drink forgotten even as it threatens to burn her hands.

Camilla does not elaborate, as is her way. “Don’t break her heart,” she murmurs instead, solemn as a vow. The concept of her being enough to break Corona’s heart seems as unlikely as ever.

“I don’t intend to.”

“She’s stupid over you,” Camilla points out, then places a bill on the table and leaves. Judith watches her go and feels none of the relief she’d hoped to get by finally giving voice to her new reality.

Interlude: The Dream

“That’s it, baby, keep going.” Coronabeth purrs, her voice thick and cloying, lapping at Judith like waves. “You’re doing so well,” she says.

Coronabeth’s chest heaves as she speaks, her lips parted and her eyes dazed and Judith can’t look away. She can’t look away from her face because her hands—

“Deeper, Jody, there you go,” and she keeps pushing, keeps sliding in, her hands shaking, breath catching in her throat. Her body feels limp, not within her control and Corona is writhing beneath her, making all sorts of indecent sounds and—

The next sound that leaves her is a gurgle, a high whine, a breathless thing. Corona arches up more and the knife slides deeper and she smiles her perfect sunny smile around a mouthful of blood.

“Good girl, Jody,” she rasps, guiding Judith’s hands and she presses harder, unwilling, drawn in, trying to slide the knife deeper into the cavern of Corona’s chest and stanch the blood bubbling up beneath her palms. “You’re perfect,” a whisper, a sigh, and Judith heaves.

It’s Corona who pulls the blade free and smiles serenely as her nightgown and the sheets and Judith, all of Judith are stained red. It’s Corona who coos and sighs and writhes when Judith tries desperately to hold enough pressure on the wound to stop her from bleeding out. But there’s so much blood and it’s hot and slick and she keeps slipping and when she looks up to catch Corona’s eyes she finds herself holding the thrumming, wet heart of her.

Judith gags and Corona moans, her hands grappling for her, dragging her down into a famished kiss and Judith can feel it, feel the very thing that keeps her alive jump in her fingers. Corona is wet beneath her, wet and wanting and she’s panting into the kiss, “Do it, do it Baby. Make me yours, bind me to you. Jody, Jody, please.”

She’s helpless. She’s always been helpless to her every whim and this, she can’t refuse her. It’s so easy, in the end, to bend down and open her jaws and bite down hard. Corona’s heart bursts under her teeth like a ripened plum and she swallows it down greedily and Corona holds her close by the back of the head, her hips stuttering before seizing up and—

The alarm that Judith has set every day for five years and hasn’t needed once jerks her awake so violently she sits up with a barely swallowed shout and her own heart –securely in her chest, safely tucked away – beating hard enough to hurt.

Corona is still peacefully slumbering, her lips parted around quiet puffs of breath, up until Judith very matter-of-factly turns her over onto her back and plants her hands over her chest. It’s at that point that she lets out a startled squeak of a sound and clutches at Judith’s wrists with alarming strength for someone so disgruntled looking and recently awoken.

They blink at each other. In time, Judith’s dream-enhanced worry fades and so does Corona’s alarm. In time, Judith moves to pull her hands back and take a cold shower, when Corona’s eyes darken and her lips pull up into a bemused smirk.

“Why, Jody darling. If you wanted to get handsy, you could’ve just done it.”

She doesn’t tell Mrs. Pent about this dream. It doesn’t happen again but the memory of Corona’s thrumming heart returns to her often. She doesn’t bother closing Tetris anymore.

Day 77

The days are getting shorter, colder and altogether less pleasant. She feels it in her hip every time the weather takes a dip into the frigid and she’s close to her breaking point when the elevator in her apartment chooses to die and forces her to walk up the four flights of stairs. Her cane barely helping in taking the strain off her leg.

She’s aching all over and she just wants to go home and sleep. The thought of asking Corona for a massage occurs to her briefly but she wouldn’t survive the indignity of admitting her shortcomings.

There’s already light spilling out from under the door and she resigns herself to keeping conversation polite but short. She’s not steady enough to withstand a full force Coronabeth Tridentarius.

The door opens quietly under her careful touch, shoes unlaced and placed in their rightful place. Say hello, go to bed. Simple.

Only, there’s more than one voice and Corona sounds bubbly in that way she usually only is when tipsy. Curiosity and concern rise in her chest and leave her stopping at the threshold to the living room.

Corona yes, and Camilla, and an expensive looking glass chessboard that Judith decidedly doesn’t own and two glasses, though only one appears used. They glance up at her, Camilla even before she’s stepped into the room properly, Corona just moments later.

The smile she’s greeted with knocks the air from her lungs.

“Hey Baby,” Corona croons, standing and swaying ever so slightly, played up for her benefit maybe, and then she’s enveloped in two warm, solid arms. Despite herself she relaxes minutely.

“Don’t let me distract you,” she mumbles, muffled by Corona’s chest.

“Oh nonsense, you’re my saviour. Millie is wiping the floor with me. Won’t you stay, Baby? Maybe she’ll be less mean with you around.”

Judith meets Camilla’s eyes just as her bemused smile clears back into her usual neutral expression. “I’m tired,” she says, instead of either agreement or denial.

It gets Corona’s attention, which wasn’t her goal. Though perhaps to be expected. “Is your leg giving you trouble again?”

She shifts, then sighs and nods. “The weather.”

“Well then you must sit. I didn’t get my degree for nothing. Sit, go on.” And just like that Corona ushers her to sit on the couch while she prepares a heating pad. Both Camilla and Judith avoid eye contact like soldiers on opposite sides of a tentative ceasefire.

Like a summer storm Corona returns and fusses. Before Judith can protest her leg is resting on a soft lap and Corona’s warm hands take turns with the heating pad in coaxing the ache out of the limb.

Her cheeks are burning but neither of the other women are looking at her as they continue their round. And the next. And likely more after, but Judith is already asleep for those, cradled and gentled to a dreamless sleep.

Day 96

Judith’s office hours are very strategically placed to winnow out all students that do not have the utmost interest in her classes, and the will to get up early on a Monday morning or else leave well into the night on a Friday. Some may say her office hours are “Cruel and unusual” and also that no one cares about military history anyways, at least not enough for forementioned Monday mornings or a missed night of drinking.

She likes it just fine. It allows her more paid hours in which she can reliably get work done without being interrupted, while maintaining the pretence that she’s not bothered by the lack of interest from both the students and the other lecturers.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the time she still had regular hours and the only questions she had to answer were personal and graphic and honestly deeply inappropriate for any school setting. People love a tragedy and she’s spent a long time working on being more than that.

All that to say, it’s a rarity that anyone would knock at the door to her office, illuminated only by her desk lamp and the soft glow of twilight. So rare that Judith’s mental tally, running steadily for more than 1500 days has so far hit a staggering three.

The occasion immediately elevates a normal if dragging autumn Friday to near noteworthy status in her book. The knock echoes for a moment in the silence before she remembers protocol and actually calls them in.

Her heart both stutters and jumps and perhaps a few more unwise things when familiar golden hair enters the room, bringing an equally golden body with it. “Corona,” she says, her throat dry from hours by herself and too little speech. No other reason.

“Hey Baby,” Corona hums, closing the door behind herself and confidently stepping into the room, despite never having set foot into it previously. Corona has always been excellent at stepping confidently into any room, the stranger the better. The fading sun gives her hair an otherworldly glow and Judith finds herself mesmerised.

So mesmerised she doesn’t notice how close she is until all she sees is Corona, sitting on her desk and shining down on her. Her throat works against the dryness, suddenly impossible to avoid and she licks her lips and coughs quietly. “The visitor chairs are on the other side, Coronabeth.”

“So formal, Darling,” Corona leans closer, her legs crossed and her foot, rudely, resting on the arm of her chair. “Isn’t it bad enough that I had to come all the way here to see my wife? On a Friday, no less?”

“I always work late on Fridays,” Judith murmurs, her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap, unsure where to put them and honestly, where to look.

“And it’s always awful.” Her wife laments, inspecting her nails like her foot is not unsubtly tracing Judith’s thigh now.

“Corona, I’m working,” she tries, and gets only a dry look for her troubles.

Corona, ever tactful, sighs heavily and looks over Judith’s shoulder outside. “You know they turned off all the lights and everyone’s gone except for you? Your car is the only one in the lot. Come home, Baby.”

Judith shakes her head. Yes, it’s vastly unlikely anyone would choose to come in and ask about the Cohorts exploits on Lemuria but not impossible. 

Her wife sighs again and then quite unexpectedly folds herself down on the floor in front of Judith. When Judith goes to pull back her legs and make more space for the sudden presence of Coronabeth Tridentarius on her knees in front of her in her office, Corona stops her with a warm palm against her calves. Judith shudders despite herself. A flinch, maybe.

“What are you doing?” Judith manages and she’s proud of herself. Corona flutters her lashes at her and leans in to rest her soft cheek against Judith’s knee and Judith’s blood is unsure where exactly it’s supposed to flow, draining from her brain and unwilling to pool between her thighs, settling instead like a ball of tension in her guts.

“Getting comfortable,” is all Corona says, pressing her whole lovely, broad body against Judith’s leg and settling her head on her thigh. Judith’s hands are up now, at gunpoint and breathless, but when Corona only breathes and melts into her she relaxes. Or she forces herself to put her hands down very properly on the arms of her chair.

Like this, she can’t reach her desk well and leaning forward means pressing more of herself against Corona and maybe that’s exactly what she wants because when she does, Corona sighs contentedly.

She honestly surprises herself with her own strength of will. She manages to work another twenty minutes, despite the fact that she can occasionally feel hot puffs of breath against her inner thigh, or the clench of solid hands against her ankle. Judith lets herself be maneuvered however Corona wants and in turn is rewarded with silence to work in.

It’s almost nice, warm and intimate and peaceful. She sinks into the rhythm of her pen scratching out the notes to another lecture, the rhythm of Corona’s breathing and her own and the distant ticking of the clock on the wall above the door.

Eventually, one of her hand settles gently on Corona’s head, absentmindedly petting her hair as she taps the end of her pen to her bottom lip. There’s a shift that she doesn’t notice until the soothing rhythm of Corona’s breathing changes. And then other sensations filter in.

The damp spot where Corona’s breath is hot against her thigh.

The slight tremor under her hand, the arch of Corona’s neck as she leans into her touch.

“Corona? Are you unwell?” Judith whispers, carefully brushing some hair from her forehead to feel for her temperature. Corona whimpers and Judith freezes. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on Corona’s perfect brow and they’re furrowed in what might be pain, or—

“Jody,” she breathes, blinking glassy lilac eyes open and Judith’s blood struggles for home again, landing squarely outside of the jurisdiction of logical thought.

Corona, on her knees, in her office, breathing hard and looking debauched because, oh. Oh.

 Judith had figured the minute movements of her hips to be adjustments for comfort.

Corona, on her knees, breathing hard because she’s… humping Judith’s boot? Her brain, already temporarily offline, decides to fry itself permanently and leave her stranded in an impossible situation.

What does she do? Her hand remains in Corona’s hair, stroking and tugging gently and it elicits a reaction so she does it again. Blessedly, she’s always been a fast learner.

Her foot presses up slightly, just a flex really, and Corona’s plush lips part around a gasp before her forehead presses once more to Judith’s thigh. And then she laughs, breathy and achingly sweet and grinds down harder.

Judith, emboldened by having done something correctly tugs Corona’s head back by the hair, close to her skull so as not to hurt, suddenly desperate to catalogue her face like this. Half in shadow, shining in the warm glow of her desk lamp Corona looks the picture of sin. Her lips are wet, parted, her eyes dark and distant and there’s two twin spots of colour high on her cheeks.

“What are you doing?” she asks again, more curious this time, and those horribly tempting lips stretch into a smile.

“Don’t play dumb Jody, it’s not—,” Corona cuts herself off with a half-swallowed whimper when Judith presses up again, “it’s not a cute look on you.”

“Why?” she asks instead, quiet with too much, too heavy a feeling to speak loudly and disrupt the moment.

“I missed you.” Corona says, and it’s a projectile to her aorta for all that it leaves her blood rushing everywhere uncontrollably. She feels naked, even in the face of Corona’s continued efforts to bring herself to completion.

“Oh,” Judith whispers, and she leans down just as she pulls Corona in and she kisses her, long and deep, tasting of vanilla and desperation. Her wife is panting into her mouth and Judith feels almost dizzy with it. Corona is always so self-assured and in control of herself that seeing her like this is leaving her reeling.

By the time Corona’s movements turn nearly frenzied Judith is enchanted. She feels warm and a little drunk, the heat and weight of Corona on her boot obscene and against her will a thought catches and snags.

“Are you wet?”, she murmurs, still toying with Corona’s hair and wincing at how unsubtle the question came out.

Thankfully, Corona only huffs a laugh and cracks her hazy eyes open. “Obviously.”

Judith nods, then bites her lip. There’s a war brewing inside her that she’d rather avoid, for Corona’s sake, but the question leaves her before she can stop the movement of her mouth. “How much?”

“Dirty talk, Baby? Very much.” Corona croons, somehow managing a wink. Judith winces, her fingers twitching and her throat working against more nonsensical thoughts. She squirms and feels Corona’s gaze on her, assessing, even now.

“It’s just— well, my boots.”

Corona hums appreciatively. Judith continues, “I care for them very much.” Perhaps an understatement. They’d been the first thing she actually invested money in after the accident, and she’s been keeping them clean and gleaming ever since.

“Mhm, me too,” her wife sighs, resting her cheek on Judith’s thigh again.

 “Corona,” she laments, trying to figure out how to say what she suddenly knows she has to say. There’s a single perfect curl sticking to Corona’s forehead that Judith brushes away, momentarily distracted. “Corona,” she repeats, pained, agonised as Corona’s head tips back to reveal the long line of her neck and the sharp movement of her heavy swallow.

“I love it when you say my name, did you know?” Corona sighs again, her hips unceasing in their rhythm and Judith manages only a strangled Princess in reply.

“It’s just that they’re leather—”

“Oh trust me, I’m aware.”

“And female ejaculate is— it can stain. And they’re leather, I can’t wash leather and, oh don’t laugh.” But of course, she is laughing because Judith is being ridiculous. This is most certainly the objectively hottest thing that’s ever happened to her and she’s worried about her shoes of all things. Yet still, they’re important to her and she doesn't want to pretend otherwise.

Corona is almost in tears, her forehead a warm and pleasant pressure near her knee, laughter shaking her shoulders. She even stopped moving in her hysterics. “You’re so— God Jody. I can’t believe you; I was so close.”

Judith winces again, an apology already on her lips that Corona swallows before it ever hits the air. Even if she doesn’t seem too upset Judith feels rotten. It must show on her face because Corona leans back, still breathless and flushed and smiles up at her, wide and radiant.

“You look like a kicked puppy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what, Baby?” Corona coos, sitting up a bit and Judith can see her thighs shake slightly from the effort. Her heartbeat thunders in her ears again.

“Ruining your orgasm?”

“Hardly ruined. I just didn’t think you were the type to edge me in your office but well, you never fail to surprise me.”

Just like that, the heated, sticky mood returns and Judith burns. And she feels bad, and it’s late and Corona had come to her because she missed her and at the end of the day, she’s human. Regrettable but unavoidable.

Mind made up, she nods to herself, and perfectly perceptive Corona raises an intrigued brow. “The last car in the lot?” Judith says, fingers already trembling with adrenaline. Corona nods slowly.

So does Judith, standing abruptly enough that Corona makes a deeply undignified sound and startles back. She doesn’t apologise this time, only moves to lock her doors, steel herself and steady her voice.

“Undress please. As much as you’re comfortable with.”

Corona’s brow shoots up in an almost comical look of surprise before it melts into the most delighted smile Judith has seen in a long while. “Who are you and what have you done to my wife?”

Judith doesn’t grace the comment with a reply. She simply moves back to her chair, sends a prayer to the ever-darkening sky and wills her hands to stop shaking. Corona undresses like she’s putting on a show. It’s slow and deliberate and the eye-contact is devastating but she can’t look away.

Blouse unbuttoned just enough to tease, pants stripped down lazily, and Judith’s mouth dries up in a rush when she realises Corona had come looking for her specifically for this reason. Two decades and she’s still not immune to the Tridentarius’ tricks.

“Do you usually go without underwear?” she breathes, all faux casual that is entirely see-through. The low, satisfied chuckle confirms as much.

“Thought maybe I’d get lucky,” Corona purrs, leaning back against the desk unabashedly.

“Sit,” Judith orders and she doesn’t imagine the bob of Corona’s throat as she sits. She’s surprised by the respectful way Corona shuffles her papers aside first but maybe she shouldn’t be. Corona’s unaffected air is just as fake as her own, after all. “Good,” she murmurs, and Corona’s hips twitch, startling them both.

Their eyes meet and it’s with almost childish glee that Judith moves both her chair and herself closer and sits, guiding Corona to rest her feet on the arms of it just as she had earlier. This might’ve been a long time coming. Judith’s hands aren’t shaking anymore when she presses a tender kiss to the inside of Corona’s left knee, then her right.

When she was nineteen and Corona was freshly eighteen and already beloved by all her peers and desired by most of them, she’d vowed to herself she’d never make Corona feel that way. She’d never look at her and see her body first. But Judith has eyes, and she is human, never more so than when she’s in Corona’s presence.

Drinking in her vibrancy and selfishly keeping some for herself. Her lips trail up warm thighs that are still trembling faintly and she grins to herself, small and pleased. She hears Corona’s laugh above her and glances up again.

The smile she’s met with is so fond it makes her feel lightheaded. Their lips reunite in a tender embrace, sharing breaths and hunger until Corona’s hips press up again and Judith takes the hint.

When she licks the slick from Corona’s inner thighs, it doesn’t feel like mindless desire. When her hands wrap around her hips and tug her closer, it doesn’t feel demanding. And when her tongue, unerring and precise finds a home in the wet heat of her and drinks straight from the source, it doesn’t feel like anything less than holy.

Judith is thorough but not greedy in devouring her offering. It does feel like that. Devouring. Taking Corona into herself and remaking the both of them in the process. A dismantling. The moulding of clay between careful hands.

Corona is sitting up one moment and resting back the next, her back arched and her own hands gentle and pleading on the back of Judith’s head. She smells like vanilla and sharply like cinnamon and musk and her, and she tastes vaguely like coconut oil and salt, and Judith is obsessed. Also she’s never going to be able to enjoy Christmas the same way, not with Corona’s scent so completely filling her thoughts.

She’s never seen herself as someone with the personality necessary to facilitate addiction and she knows in her heart this is the one thing she’ll never get enough of. Never take her fill. When Corona’s gorgeously solid thighs tighten around her head and steal her breath she gives in to her greed, closes her eyes and lets her take her pleasure.

Her ears are ringing by the time Corona comes, chest heaving and quivering all over. She feels lightheaded in the best way, her own breaths ragged as she rests her cheek on the still sticky inside of Corona’s thigh and breathes and breathes.

It’s now Corona’s turn to pet her hair, or rather tenderly stroke her head like one might do for a particularly obedient dog and she finds she doesn’t mind. Not at all.

No, Judith simply turns her head to press a kiss to Corona’s palm, emboldened by the wholly dazed look in her wife’s eyes. She stands to lean over her, cradle her against herself to ease the tremors. Normally she’d feel ill-equipped for the job, being about half of Corona in every aspect on a good day.

Tonight, with Corona wrapping her legs and arms around her tightly enough to make her bones creak and her warm, sated smile tucked into her neck, she feels like she might just be enough. Enough to have and to hold and all the other empty platitudes she’d vowed the day they got married and is only now starting to realise she’s meant all along.

“Princess,” Judith whispers, nosing at Corona’s flushed cheek, unselfconscious for once. How could she be when the entire lower half of her face is a testimonial for her ability to please the only woman whose opinion ever mattered.

“Jody,” Corona rasps, dragging her into a starved kiss, tasting herself—always a bit vain, Judith loves her so very much—and rocking her hips up again. Judith smiles into the kiss, small but genuine.

“Not here,” she says, hypocritical. “You’ll hurt your back and it’s getting late.” Knowing something as simple as her own discomfort is never enough to stop Corona, she adds, sheepishly, “Also my hip flared up earlier and the painkillers are starting to wear off.”

As expected, it’s that which gets Corona moving. She redresses in relative silence, pleased with herself and stealing kisses every time Judith comes within reach while she packs up.

Hers is indeed the last car in the parking lot. She has a sneaking suspicion her Friday night hours are going to have a regular visitor in the future, and she can’t find it in herself to be bothered. Forsaking all others, wasn’t it? She can manage that.

After, when they’ve brushed their teeth side by side in front of the bathroom mirror and Judith can no longer taste Corona on her tongue, they’re on the bed facing each other. Not touching, dressed for sleep, not a hint of their earlier debauchery.

Just laying there, in the dark, facing each other. Close enough for Judith to feel Corona’s breath brush over her cheeks. She can barely breathe around the intimacy of it all. It’s heavy, this love. So heavy. And Judith is still confused, unmoored and honestly in disbelief.

“Coronabeth?” she whispers, her fingers twitching at the suddenness of broken silence by her own tongue.

“Hm?” comes the drowsy reply, then a quiet sniffle and her hands are covered by larger, warmer ones. “What is it?”

Judith let’s the silence linger for a moment too long. It becomes oppressive and her mouth opens uselessly against the lump in her esophagus. When Corona makes another questioning hum, threatening to sit up, her lips finally work to shape the single syllable that’s been stuck in her head since Corona first fell to her knees.

“Why?”

“Why… what?”

“Why now?”

Coronabeth sighs and sits up, dragging Judith up with her. Horrifically she turns on the bedside lamp. “Clear sentences Baby, I’m too tired for riddles.”

Judith gathers a deep breath and lets it out in a rush. “I understood your continued refusal to consummate our marriage as the desire to retain the option of annulment, and have in turn given up my at times blatant attempts at seduction which have in truth left me repulsed by my own eagerness.” Another deep breath, fingers clammy in Corona’s solid grip. “Which is why I must ask, why now?”

It's Corona’s turn to let the silence linger like fog, to let it thicken and constrict. “Blatant attempts at seduction?”, she murmurs, tone unreadable.

Her hackles raise and she pulls her hands free to turn from Corona, her skin itching for something. “I’d thank you not to ridicule me,” she rasps out, digging her blunt nails into her palms.

“Jody,” Corona starts, mirth coating her voice and Judith turns further, shoulders bunching up and making her collarbone twinge. There’s the faint beginning of laughter before Coronabeth controls herself again and reaches out for her. “Jude, baby, what on earth are you talking about?”

“I’ve been practically throwing myself at you,” Judith spits, her own desire hollowing her out with shame, “I’ve behaved in ways entirely unbecoming, and you’ve barely looked at me in return. What else was I to think?”

Corona can’t keep her laughter down, not then. She draws Judith into a crushing embrace, not allowing her the freedom to escape before the conversation is over. “I’m not laughing at you, give me a moment,” she says, still laughing. Judith goes limp in her hold, resigned and flushed with embarrassment.

It takes quite a while for the trembling shoulders to relax, for the quivering of barely constrained glee to mellow out. Judith feels hot for several reasons, none of which she’s inclined to examine further.

“When have you ever thrown yourself at me, Darling?”

“That first night,” Judith murmurs, face tucked away in Corona’s neck. She can feel the acknowledging hum vibrating against her forehead and presses closer despite herself.

“Alright, I could agree with that. Only, I distinctly remember being the one to start the whole ordeal, so try again.”

 “I’ve kissed you goodnight every night since and made you breakfast countless times.”

A beat. “Okay. And?”

“You know I never bother with breakfast Coronabeth!” she snaps again.

“Sure, right, what else?” Corona still sounds bemused, her smile audible and Judith desperately wishes she hadn’t brought it up.

“I leave the door unlocked when I shower—”

“Scandalous.”

“I offer you massages when you’re tense, and I let you pick out my clothes because I know you delight in it and—”

“Judith.” Corona stops her, very kindly, with a hand on the back of her neck. “Have you considered that most of the ‘seduction attempts’ you’re describing are… normal things to do for your spouse?”

Judith’s mouth snaps shut, skin tight again, too tight, too much. “Not for me.”

“Oh Baby,” Corona sighs, putting enough distance between them to look at her, two shadows clinging to each other in the barely illuminated dark. “You’re right. I should’ve known. But I was so busy throwing myself at you and wallowing quite magnificently in your many and varied rejections, I must’ve missed it.”

A wounded noise leaves her, equal parts confused and distraught. It shames her more than her earlier confession could have.

Before she can say anything to embarrass herself further Corona sighs and squeezes her neck with more tenderness than she feels she deserves. “I love you, but you really can be painfully oblivious at times.”

Judith wouldn’t call it obliviousness. It is the wilful ignorance of the self-perceived undeserving that’s led to her averted gaze whenever Corona would play up the charm, would touch and tease and cover her with her body and leave her in smoking ruins.

“You don’t mean that.”

“What, that you’re oblivious? Babe, I really don’t think you have any space to argue with me on that.”

“That you love me.”

Corona pauses. Judith doesn’t meet her eyes. “Judith Deuteros, you absolute emotional nightmare of a person, I’ve loved you since I was 9.”

“Princess—”

“I’ve been in love with you for most of my life you, you— I can’t believe you!”

Judith flinches at the anger in Corona’s voice. “Coronabeth.”

“No, no you don’t. Do you really think I would’ve married you for something as simple as money, you pest? That I would’ve invited you to every single birthday party since we were eight for my amusement?”

“Well—”

“That I would have put up with Ianthe and Babs’ endless poking and prodding and teasing over my obvious affections for you for years if I wasn’t stupidly and hopelessly in love with you? I was obsessed with you, Judith. You were so calm and so put together and you always knew exactly what you wanted and I never had that. You had your path and you were content to walk it until it killed you and then it nearly did and I was glad,” she chokes on a rough breath, her ears all the way crimson and her cheeks blotchy. “I was so glad because there never would’ve been space for me where you were headed. So I packed up my whole life to follow you here and for years you still didn’t look at me and I— I had to lie. You know I had to. You never would’ve said yes otherwise.”

“I knew you were lying.”

“No you didn’t, you never did. You always just believed whatever I told you.”

“I always knew.” Judith admits, off-kilter and somehow steadier in the face of this shared hunger. “I’ve known you were lying from the day we met, Princess.” A much younger no less radiant Corona, introducing herself with a haughty ‘Crown Princess Coronabeth Tridentarius of Ida’ despite not being of any royal descent. She was her family’s princess, golden and shining and beloved.

It never occurred to Judith to see her as anything less.

“I always knew,” she repeats and even she isn’t sure what she’s talking about. “Everyone used to look at you like they wanted to be you or own you. Even back then. And I always—”

Corona blinks at her, slow and still clearly upset, her lips bitten and her eyes glittering. Her eyes, pools of midnight violet, beckon her to be honest.

“I always despised them for it. For not seeing past the surface, for underestimating you. I always thought you could be anything. Can be—and I never thought. Well. I’m, that is to say, when I enlisted, I believed I chose a path you might admire. It was not the sole reason, but you’d always reach out whenever I had any notable academic achievements and I found myself... wanting your attention. Beyond what was proper for our acquaintanceship.”

“You’re so stupid,” Corona whispers, disbelieving. Judith feels too raw to be offended. “I was waiting for any reason to talk to you that wouldn’t lead to you icing me out, you fool. I’d spend hours folding those petals. I still have some in a box under my bed at home. Hours, Judith, for you to send back the sparsest ‘’Thank you” note. It was humiliating.”

Judith stands and opens her wardrobe to retrieve the small metal box she’s carried with her to each new apartment for years. She wordlessly hands it to Corona whose sharp intake of breath tells her she understands this too. “You were always made for greater things than I was.” Greater things than me, she doesn’t say. “I took whatever I was given but never dared to ask for more.”

“Stupid.” Corona repeats, her fingers reverently dancing over the red and lavender paper. “So stupid, you ridiculous woman.”

“You’re the one that wanted to marry me,” Judith points out, not unkindly.

“God help me, I did. I do.”

Judith allows herself a smile and closes the box to lay back down. “I do,” she echoes, small and content. The mattress dips when Corona settles next to her, lights off, just the two of them breathing in the dark. Then three syllables that are swallowed by tender lips, lost to the night.

An Ending: Epilogue

Judith learned early that Corona’s signature scent of vanilla and cinnamon comes from not only her body wash but also her lotion and her hair oil and her perfume. All of which have at some point in the last few months migrated into Judith’s bathroom cabinet. Making the room also smell like Coronabeth.

It’s been torturous.

The smell tickles her nose not unlike the sun does when her eyes wander too close to it. Like dust and heat and summer evenings and the mistake of not wearing sunglasses. She’s been conditioned to perk up whenever she walks past a café. It embarrasses her deeply and delights Corona endlessly.

So of course, Corona makes it a habit to bring Judith cinnamon rolls and overly complicated vanilla cream puffs and out of season Christmas cookies, just so she can lick the taste out of her mouth after and further cement the conditioning. Judith doesn’t stand a chance.

Neither does she stand a chance against a Corona unbound by the flimsy barrier that had been between them before their first time. A Corona that knows she’s wanted and allowed to want in turn. A Corona that finds far too much enjoyment in purposely bending over in front of her and looking back at her while coquettishly batting her lashes. In public.

It should be awful. Maybe a few months ago it would have been.

But now, the joy of seeing Corona so fully content with herself, so carefree and open in her affections, it far outweighs the shallow shame of her desires being displayed publicly. Judith smiles easier these days. It always leaves her cheeks aching after, muscles unused to the movement.

It always makes Corona beam like Judith went to the effort to paint each star into the sky, just for her. She would.

It’s only this love, freely admitted and settling over them in such solid and unwavering comfort, that allows Judith to endure this moment.

“And I just don’t see what the big deal is, really. If he didn’t want to be humiliated in public, he should have been better at his job.”

Corona hums thoughtfully. “Honestly, you’re not wrong.”

Ianthe Tridentarius sighs from her side of the call. “No one gets me like you do, darling. I’m still mad at you for moving out.”

Judith watches Corona move around the kitchen from her place on the couch, Tetris open on her phone. She’s been trying a new thing lately called ‘not forcing herself to be productive all the time’ at both her therapist’s suggestion and Corona’s insistence. So now Wednesday nights she lets Corona do the dishes, and lays on the couch admiring the view of her wife bending over to put things in the dishwasher.

“Would you rather Jody and I moved in with you instead?” Corona asks, and Judith’s stomach drops at the mere thought of living with Corona’s horrid twin sister.

It seems Ianthe is on the same page. “Ugh,” Ianthe says. “Gag. Cohabitating with Judith ‘stick up her ass’ Deuteros? No thank you. I’d rather pour acid down my throat.”

Corona rolls her eyes. “That’s my wife you’re talking about, you know.”

“Please don’t remind me,” Ianthe groans. “Must I remind you how much better you could have done in terms of life partners? Why you settled for that piece of stale bread I’ll never know. I’ve met scarecrows with more personality than her, sweetheart. I’ve had hangnails with more sex appeal than her. Stepped on gum more appetizing and drank spoiled milk that left a better taste in my mouth.”

There’s a muffled voice on Ianthe’s side of the line, and Ianthe laughs, responding to whoever made the comment. “Isn’t she? It’s really just sad, I think. Seeing my dear sister fall for the human equivalent of a dead tree branch.”

Corona blows a curl out of her face, hands buried in soapy water. She’s visibly annoyed, that much Judith can tell, but when she speaks her voice is carefully unbothered. “Who’s with you right now?”

“Oh, no one,” Ianthe says, at the same time as the other person calls out “It’s Gideon!”

Judith frowns, knowing from Cam that Gideon and Ianthe hate each other. She spends all of five seconds pondering on the nature of their relationship, then promptly decides she’s better off not thinking about them at all.

“Hey Gideon,” Corona says with an easy smile. Judith feels her stupid heart flip in her chest at the sight. “What are you two up to?”

“She’s making a mess of my kitchen,” Ianthe says, at the same time Gideon says “Making banana bread!”

Then, Gideon’s distant voice says, “Yanthe, tell Corona that I’ve licked icicles less icy than Judith.”

Ianthe makes a vaguely annoyed sound. “Corona, Gonad says she’s licked icicles less icy than Judith.”

Corona shakes her head. “I can hear her.” 

“Oh!” Gideon says, sounding closer to the phone this time. “Well, then I’ve licked icicles less icy than Judith.”

“That’s nice, Gideon,” Corona says, at the same Ianthe grumbles “Get off of me, you oaf.”

There’s sounds of scuffling as Ianthe and Gideon bicker for a minute. Corona rolls her eyes fondly and wipes her hands off on a towel, then turns to shoot Judith a wink.

“If you two don’t mind,” Corona calls over the chaos, “I have to have incredibly hot sex with my wife now.”

The sounds of fighting stop, replaced with what can only be described as the sound of a cat trying to cough up a hairball.

“Oh yuck,” Ianthe says. “Corona darling, never ever say that again. Not when it pertains to Judith Deuteros. Good lord.”

“That’s fucking gross, dude. Like, mega ick,” Gideon agrees.

“Are you two done?” Corona asks, slowly making her way over to Judith. “Got it all out of your systems?”

“Not hardly,” Ianthe replies. “I have lists, you know. Soliloquies dedicated entirely to how utterly dull your wife is. She is - and I mean this with my entire heart, mind you - a dud.”

“Dud,” agrees Gideon.

With a long-suffering sigh, Corona swings a leg over Judith on the couch to straddle her, already grinning down at her in that way that makes Judith feel like prey.

“Well,” Corona muses, voice low, “more Jody for me, I suppose.”

She ends the call over the sounds of their protests, which Judith just knows Ianthe will give her grief over, but Corona doesn’t look worried about that in the slightest as she leans down to brush their lips together.

And Judith can’t bring herself to worry about much after that, either.