Orphan Fringe snippet
With their rendezvous time approaching, a cure to puzzle over, and caution confining them to the apartment of the fabulous, exasperated, but clearly generous foster brother of a clone of Cosima’s parallel universe counterpart (“Which makes him practically my foster brother or something, right?”), there wasn’t much time to cater to other curiosities. Like all the ways their universes differed.
“Let’s stay here,” Cosima had said.
“There’s already a you and me here, according to Beth.”
“And a bunch of other clones, right? No one’s gonna notice another me if no one has noticed the ten others already here. I’ve lived my whole life without meeting another person with my face, so we can totally make it work. We already have fake identities, thanks to Beth. Remind me to ask her how she managed these credit cards and passports.”
Delphine hadn’t dignified Cosima’s arguments with an answer, knowing that would lead them into a circular argument for argument’s sake rather than to the simple, self-evident answer: They couldn’t stay here. There was no place for them here.
Most definitely not in Felix’s apartment. Hospitality was wearing their host’s tolerance thin. It wasn’t just Cosima and herself, which Delphine now perceived was an added complication and inconvenience atop a heaping pile that was an ongoing covert affair that embroiled their counterparts. She and Cosima had gotten and gleaned sketchy details of powerful corporations, conglomerates, shadowy powers, and possibly overheard a mention of the military, but not much more than an outline of implications. Their hosts probably considered even that much fair exchange for the scant details she and Cosima provided in answer to their pointed questions, though that merely boiled down to the truth that she and Cosima didn’t know much more than they’d been able to clarify.
Not that it mattered. They’d come here to solve the mystery of the disease afflicting Cosima, not that of the annals of clone history. Though it was easy to see Cosima was just as interested in the latter as well; she enjoyed chatting up her counterpart during lulls. (To almost dizzying effect. They were both spirited hand talkers and Delphine found she couldn’t watch them conversing for overly long.) Delphine was mostly just glad that by serendipitous miracle their counterparts had recently uncovered the synthetic sequences that might be the root of the nightmare that had plagued their days for months now.
“Pretty coincidental, huh?” Cosima had said in that partly teasing, partly goading tone she used when she was ready to bait Delphine into a debate.
“Very,” Delphine had said curtly, far too sober to foolishly or willingly stumble into a philosophical battle. “Perfectly, for us.”
Unfortunately, having the sequence didn’t hand them a cure. Delphine was contemplating the portions of the sequence they’d written out on a board when Cosima got up and started to wander about the apartment. It was empty in the apartment but for them and almost eerily quiet as a consequence. Had they been at home, Delphine would have felt relaxed sunk into the cushions of the couch and grateful for the peaceful silence, but she felt every inch an imposition in this stranger’s domicile, and mindful of leaving too much of an imprint.
Cosima, however, didn’t necessarily share Delphine’s compunction. Delphine became aware of her a few minutes later, standing by a table with–
“Cosima,” Delphine said, turning her wife’s name into a crack of admonishment.
“What?” Cosima sang back innocently, running a finger along the record player.
“It’s not yours,” Delphine said warningly.
Cosima flashed a quick grin over her shoulder as she flicked the power button. The record stuttered into movement. Delphine sent her a pointed look. Cosima’s grin widened. Without looking, she carefully set the needle on the vinyl. Bass rumbled roaring out of the speakers, startling them both at the volume. Cosima scrabbled at knobs until one lowered the decibel levels to a level manageable and maybe barely noticeable to any neighbors.
“Sorry,” Cosima muttered, even managing to look sheepish.
“Felix has been very nice and accommodating to us,” Delphine began, letting the rest of the insinuation that they not use his things without his permission hang in her tone.
Cosima selectively ignored her to concentrate on the layers of bleeps and bloops and synths bleeding out of the sound system. Her head bobbed to the beat. Delphine rolled her eyes.
“This is definitely your type of music,” Delphine said.
Cosima turned around, grin plastered on her face, and rolled her hips. Delphine crossed in arms in a show of stubborn unaffected indifference. Cosima held her hands out to Delphine. Delphine shook her head. Undeterred, Cosima undulated across the floor, beckoning. Delphine crossed her arms, then her legs at the knees, a fortress girding against assault.
But Cosima was never one to confront with force. She found Delphine’s hands first, fingers light and threading through Delphine’s, pulling and tugging gently. Delphine glared back. Cosima tugged again, more demandingly, and with a sigh Delphine uncurled to her feet. She let Cosima work, the music insinuating beneath her wife’s skin, muscles loose and flowing, the rhythm in her feet. When Cosima put her hands on her hips, Delphine let their push and pull rock her into the tempo, bringing her hands up to run through Cosima’s hair, daringly mussing it every which way, and draped her arms on Cosima’s shoulders, inviting her closer.
Cosima smiled up at her, the brightness in her eyes behind her glasses the same animated light that had slowly but surely ensnared Delphine into a commitment she’d had no intention of making.
“Do you remember Flare?” Cosima asked lowly.
Delphine cocked her head. “You mean your birthday?”
Cosima’s lips crooked in a smile. “Yeah.”
“Your birthday where you dragged me out, though I had just flown in that night?”
“I didn’t drag you out,” Cosima protested. “I asked if you wanted to go.”
“For your birthday,” Delphine reiterated.
“Yeah.”
“Because I could have said no on your birthday.”
“You could have!” Cosima exclaimed.
“Uh huh,” Delphine said skeptically. She checked a laugh and spun Cosima around, pulling her in close and crossing their arms around Cosima’s middle. She lowered her mouth by Cosima’s ear.
“All I remember,” she said softly, “is body shots.” She brushed her lips along Cosima’s shoulder, up the side of her neck as Cosima turned her head to accommodate her. “So many body shots.”
Cosima was quiet but Delphine could feel the unevenness of her breaths. Delphine smiled to herself.
“And,” she added, “that good-looking guy who kept hitting on me, who wanted to take me home.”
Cosima wriggled in her grasp. “You jerk.”
Delphine smiled into Cosima’s shoulder, indulging a laugh in her throat. “But I went home with you.”
“You had to. You were crashing at my place.”
“Yes, sure, just like I had to go out with you for your birthday.”
Cosima tilted her head back so that it rested on Delphine’s shoulder. She looked thoughtful. “You know, I wondered–you flirted with that guy.”
“Mmhm.”
“I thought you might go home with him, actually.”
Delphine was quiet, swaying them both at a speed half of the tempo.
“You didn’t,” Cosima pointed out, “but did you think about it?”
Delphine maintained her silence. Cosima turned her head to try to look at her.
“I’m not going to hold it against you if you did,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”
“I don’t really remember,” Delphine replied, mostly honest. “Too many body shots, thanks to somebody.” She rocked Cosima in a shake. Cosima wiggled back. “But I had told you that I didn’t do relationships and I could tell you wanted one, no matter what you said, so–” Delphine shrugged.
“So you thought about going home with him to prove your point,” Cosima finished.
“But it would have been very awkward to do that at the start of my visit,” Delphine teased. “Especially since I was staying with you.”
“Ha ha,” Cosima said drily. “But the joke’s on you–I got you to commit.”
Delphine hugged her close, standing there in that strange, empty apartment, wearing the ring Cosima had slipped on her finger, terribly attached to the warmth and weight in her arms. “Yes. You did.”
