Hey can you do #7 and #28 for the drabble thing??
Hey anon. Sorry this took extra long. I’ve had a busy few days.
7. “I almost lost you.”
28. “Marry me.”
This response follows on from the last one quite nicely, so let’s go with that. I present to you, Nicole high as a kite Haught.
//
“I almost lost you,” Waverly holds tight to Nicole’s hand. There’s still grit under both their nails from the lakeside mud, but she doesn’t care enough to let go. Not yet. She’s laid herself alongside Nicole on her hospital bed, careful of the wires and machines and ignoring the disapproving glares of the nurse on night shift. Gladys always looks that cranky anyway.
Nicole’s eyes are heavy and a little glazed with the drugs draining into the back of her hand. Her lips are lifted in a vague smile.
“You can’t lose me, Waves.”
“How can you be so sure?” Waverly is genuinely scared, but Nicole’s crooked smile grows wider and more sideways.
“Cause I’m so tall!” She chuckles as Nurse Gladys shushes her and whisper-shouts instead. “And you’re so small, Waverly Earp.” She pops the ‘p’ in Earp a couple more times and rubs her lips together. “Soooo smol.”
The tension in Waverly’s gut eases as she watches Nicole say her name over and over again.
“Way-ver-lee-yer-pah,” Nicole says again stretching out every sound.
“You are so high.” Waverly leans back to get a better look at this silly, high Nicole Haught.
“You’re high!” Nicole starts and as Waverly finally cracks a grin she starts to sing. “So high above me, she’s so lovely. She’s so hiiiiiiiii-ee-iigh, like Cleo-patra, Joooan of Arks and Aphrod—”
With a hand slapped over Nicole’s mouth Waverly shushes her more urgently. “You’ll get me kicked out, you have to be quiet,” she tries to whisper through her own giggles.
“Oh nohm,” Nicole grumbles through Waverly’s hand before pulling that hand away. “You can’t get kicked out. I want you to stay with me forever.”
Even through the drug haze, Nicole catches up with her words as Waverly’s eyes go wide. Then they both erupt in another fit of giggles. Waverly feels almost as high as Nicole, just without the drip.
“Oh, that was the most Lesbian thing I’ve ever said,” Nicole gasps. “Do you know that joke?”
Waverly shakes her head. She thinks she might know the thing she’s talking about after spending the last two months trawling through the Autostraddle archives, but she wants to hear Nicole tell a joke, especially as high as she is.
“Cause you’re a baby-gay, Waves.” Nicole frowns, second guessing herself at length. “Or Baby-bi.”
“Baby-queer?” Waverly supplies. She’s not especially sure how she wants to adress that, but she can wait to bring it up with a sober Nicole.
“Yeah, Baby-Queer, so that means I get to share aaaaall the know how.” At this she wiggles her eyebrows in what is maybe meant to be a sexy expression.
Though Waverly can’t help but laugh, at Nicole’s wounded expression she calms down and presses her hand flat against her shoulder. “You were gonna tell a joke.”
“Oh yeah.” She sits up, her expression firming with concentration. “What do you call a—no wait.” She shushes Waverly’s laugh with both hands, including the one still holding Waverly’s. “What does a lesbian bring on the first date?”
Waverly pretends to think about it for a second. She’s already grinning when she says, “What?”
Nicole drags out the pause, grin huge, dimples on full display. “A U-Haul!” She cackles at the joke, laughs and laughs until there’s tears on her cheeks. Waverly laughs almost as hard, just for Nicole’s amusement and easy laugh. She hopes she’ll get to hear that laugh more, especially without Nicole being so completely stoned. She thinks she might be a little addicted to that smile already, this laugh could tip her over the edge into a full Haught-head.
A sharp voice from the doorway makes them both snap upright. “Miss. Waverly. Earp.” Nurse Gladys is so entirely done with their shit. Hell, she was done with every kid in Purgatory before the end of her stint as high-school nurse and that was five years ago. Waverly feels like a teenager again, only partly because of the way Gladys is glaring at her. “Waverly, if you don’t stop disturbing the patient, you will be removed from this hospital.”
“Yes, Gladys. It won’t happen again.” She aims for her best, ‘Wynonna won’t cause you any more trouble’ face. If it passes or not, she’s not sure, but the nurse leaves and Nicole wraps her arms around Waverly from behind.
“I won’t ask you to move in with me, we haven’t gone on a proper date yet, you smell nice.” Nicole breathes in Waverly’s hair, tickling the back of her neck and making an entirely inappropriate for the situation shiver run down Waverly’s spine.
Waverly has to take several deep breaths to order her thoughts and remember that Nicole is way too intoxicated to be taken seriously. She lets herself feel wanted though. With long arms wrapped tightly around her, it’s easy to feel wanted.
“It’s just whatever the hospital gave us. You smell the same.” Waverly turns in Nicole’s arms, needing to see her and to put just a little space between them before she combusts.
Nicole hums then presses her nose to Waverly’s cheek. “But you’re under there too. Just you. It’s nice.”
Waverly doesn’t know what to say to that so she says nothing, just squeezes in closer and tangles their fingers together as Nicole starts humming She’s So High between a few more mumbled words. Waverly’s name and something about Calamity Jane comes through clearest. Waverly’s heart skips a beat when, “Marry me,” is the next clearest phrase, but then Nicole loses the melody to her sporadic humming, her breathing evens out and finally deepens with sleep.
Waverly lets her head fall to Nicole’s shoulder and feeling more safe and content than she has in a very long time, she sleeps.