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Language:
English
Series:
Part 4 of tangible things of beauty
Stats:
Published:
2016-12-29
Completed:
2017-01-04
Words:
3,180
Chapters:
6/6
Comments:
70
Kudos:
279
Bookmarks:
11
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5,225

heartsease

Summary:

Or, five times Bernie found peace in being close to Serena (and one time she didn't).

Chapter 1: predisposed to joy

Chapter Text

Bernie had guessed that Serena – tactile Serena, who sometimes seems to communicate as much with her hands as with her words – would be a snuggler. So it doesn’t surprise her that first morning to wake with Serena still in her arms, Serena’s head pillowed on her chest, Serena’s breath whispering across her skin, Serena’s arm draped across her waist.

What does surprise her is how much she likes it. No, that she likes it at all, really. That she can not only tolerate it, this physical contact, this press of flesh and skin, but finds herself tightening her grip, nuzzling into Serena, pressing a kiss to her hair and breathing her in rather than trying to extricate herself with as little disruption as possible.

Bernie has an odd relationship with sleep, can fall asleep anywhere yet sometimes lies awake for hours on end, no matter how exhausted she is. And sometimes (often) she wakes well before her alarm, well before any sensible person would. She usually passes the time reading, in summer goes for early morning runs, in recent months has tossed and turned as she worried about the mess her life had become. Frequently gave up and drove into work early, even paperwork a more welcome way of filling the time. But now? Now she finds herself perfectly content to close her eyes and just hold Serena, or to watch her sleep and then gradually awaken.

This first morning she wakes knowing she slept better than she did the entire time she was in Kyiv. Better than she has in months. Can probably count on two hands the number of nights she’s slept this well all year (and that’s including the ones when she was recovering from the IED and her surgery). Still wakes before Serena, though, watches as what little light makes it through the heavy curtains falls onto her, listens to the hiss and creak and tick of warming pipes.

I could get used to this, she finds herself thinking as Serena stirs against her. As her eyes slowly open and seek Bernie’s. As she blinks and smiles, drowsily and warmly and joyously, as if she can think of no better way to begin her day than right here, with her.

And every day since Bernie has thought of it, her mind wandering at inopportune moments. Sometimes her thoughts are less chaste; sometimes all she can think of is the feel of Serena’s lips, the taste of her, the sounds she makes when Bernie touches her. How Serena’s fingers feel inside her. Sometimes their mornings start like this, insistent and needy no matter how – how much, how many times, how enthusiastically – they touched and kissed the previous night.

But sometimes – surprisingly often – it’s these tender moments of darkness and half light, these threshold moments suspended between sleep and wakefulness, that catch her unawares. Bernie finds herself smiling more readily on these days, these days when they wake cocooned and tangled, and slowly rouse together with gentle caresses and soft kisses. Finds herself predisposed to joy because how could she not be, when the first thing she saw, felt, was conscious of, was Serena Campbell, warm and soft and heavenly in her arms?