Sweat, Treachery and Scorn (WAYHAUGHT)

🔪 Sweeter Than Honey 🔪

She's floating. There's a taste in the back of her throat, like a thick, musky spice. It reminds her of wild berries and cream, soaked in layers of chocolate and sprinkles of hazelnut. That was the dessert her brother would pack for her everyday for her school lunch, along with a kiss on her cheek and a good luck. But now the very same joyous emotions that had emerged from eating that dessert for lunch every week day of every year until she was sixteen had bloomed again for a different reason. That reason being, that Nicole had the pleasure of waking up next to the most beautiful woman in the entire universe. 

Waverly looked peaceful, despite how many of her demons she had to face the previous night. Her chest rose and fell with every breath, her eyebrows furrowed as unintelligible words left her pretty pink lips. Small, warm hands tugged at Nicole's sleep shirt―which had to be changed twice during the night when Waverly woke up crying the first time and frantically shaking in Nicole's arms the second time, cold sweat covering both of their shirts―those strong biceps flexing as they drew the redhead closer, as if hoping that with every tug closer and closer she would eventually be absorbed by Nicole's soul. 

Waverly yawned, burying her face into Nicole's neck, soft lips placing a few kisses. Nicole figured that were accidental kisses, maybe just the tipsiness of sleep, until the brunette speaks again. "Do you like that, Nic?" She asked in a gravelly tone, voice still thick with sleep but her movements suggesting that she knew exactly what she was doing. 

"What are your doing?" Nicole deflected, even though it was fairly obvious to both of them that she was enjoying the attention her cellmate was giving her. Waverly just smirked, sitting up to straddle her hips. Nicole was about to tell her that she didn't need to do that, when a shrill noise echoed near her head. She frowned in confusion, even more so when she heard the sounds of a baton thumping against cell bars―

"Haught, wake up!" A guard yelled, waking her from her dream. He proceeded to patrol the hallway, waking her fellow inmates. 

Nicole groaned, disappointed at being woken from the best dream of her life. Instantly, she felt guilty, almost as if she had invaded a part of Waverly that the brunette wouldn't have wanted her to see. But she couldn't deny that she was attracted to Waverly, the pulsing wetness between her legs certainly didn't hide that very well. But it did nothing to stop her from feeling guilty, or worried, especially when she noticed that the bed she was positive they had been sharing the night before was empty, only an imprint on the pillow showing Waverly had ever been there. 

◭◭◭◭

When Nicole eventually found the brunette, she was smoking on the roof. Nicole didn't think anyone was even allowed up here, but they had both broken worse rules in their lives, meaning that one simple sin of trespassing couldn't do anymore harm than the harm already committed in the past. The redhead sat next to her friend, mindful to keep a respectable distance between them, despite how much her heart ached to pull Waverly towards her, to taste the very air she inhaled and exhaled. 

"I didn't know you smoked," she said instead, watching Waverly crush a cigarette beneath her boot before reaching to light another one. Waverly didn't answer her, resuming to light her cigarette and take a long drag. 

It was unbelievably unfair how sexy she looked doing it. Normally when people smoked, they just looked like needy little creatures sucking on a small band of nicotine, eyes rolling to the backs of their heads and coughing out cancerous smoke seconds later, eyes bloodshot and pupils dilated from the high. But Waverly made it look addictive, attractive. Her hands didn't tremble when she clicked open the lighter to smoke the tip to a fire, and she didn't splutter when the smoke parted from her lips. She looked unfazed, as if she were simply eating a bowl of cereal rather than inhaling smoke. 

"I'm sorry I unloaded all of that stuff on you yesterday," Waverly eventually said, tapping some stray ash onto the floor. Nicole took a moment to admire the ash sizzling against the cement before her eyes glued themselves to Waverly once more, like they always did. "You have your own shit going on and it wasn't fair of me to unload that onto you, even if you said you were okay with listening. I wanted you to know, I did, but I just feel like I'm such a burden to you but you're too polite to admit it." 

"Hey," Nicole whispered, tilting the brunette's chin so that their eyes would finally meet. "You never have to carry stuff like that alone, you hear me? Thank you for telling me. I'm glad you did, because now I can never a mistake by hurting you should we ever do that, because I know what you went through. I'm not saying we have to, but I can't deny that I care about you, Waves. I-I like you, and I'm always going to be here for you. You could never be a burden." 

Waverly kissed her then, all breath-taking and a need to convey words that she wasn't ready to say yet. It was everything they had both wanted for a long time, a memory that they would remember should they ever lose themselves. But for now, they simply continued to kiss one another, a new safe space.