ONE-SHOTS

The First Day [Lou x Debbie]

The First Day
by hope_s

Summary:
Last night, Debbie proposed. Lou is happy, but she worries that Debbie won't forgive her for past mistakes. She lashes out. Debbie has a suggestion for how to help Lou recover her control, but it doesn't go the way they plan.

Summer 2018

It was always going to be Debbie who proposed. Sure, Lou was the one who made jokes about it, who made sure the topic came up, because Debbie would never think of something like that on her own. It had been on her radar for years, ever since Debbie went to prison and Lou realized she loved her. 

            "Oh, honey, is this a proposal?"

            "Baby, I don't have a diamond, yet."

Lou relished the banter, initiated it, most of the time. All of it was calculated, honed and perfected so that when the time came, Debbie would know she would say yes. Lou knew that Debbie liked predictability and hated surprises. She had to be the one to ask.

And she did, when she was ready, when she had a ring – not a diamond, that was too obvious and superficial. Opals and gold, multi-faceted and iridescent. Lou wasn't much of a diamond girl anyways. The ring fit perfectly, caught the dawn sunlight the next morning as Lou blinked her eyes open to remember, with a flood of warmth, that last night hadn't been a dream, that Debbie had found her courage at last. Lou watched the light play on the gems, bringing out the green, the pink, the blue, her hand resting on Debbie's back. She was sprawled across Lou's chest with her head pillowed on Lou's left shoulder and her legs framing Lou's right thigh. Her hair was gathered into a messy braid that curved over her shoulder and tickled Lou's ribs. Her back was a tempting expanse of smooth skin, golden in the sunlight, cool and soft. Her beauty matched the birdsong outside the window.

Lou felt a silly grin spread across her face, but it was wiped away a second later by an unbidden swell of unease. It had prickled at the corners of her mind yesterday, too, even before Debbie had popped the question: too good to be true, too good to last. I don't deserve this, Lou thought. There had been others, after she left New York ten years ago, and then more when Debbie went to prison and she returned to their empty Brooklyn apartment to teeter on the brink of hopelessness. Loving Debbie hadn't stopped her from those mistakes, from losing herself. And no matter how real the present was – the hard cash trickling into their bank accounts from the Met job, the "I love you"s she whispered in Debbie's ear, the way Debbie wrapped around her in return – Lou still feared that a part of her had been lost forever in the years apart. She felt guilty, like an imposter, afraid that Debbie was loving a version of her that didn't exist. And what if she found out one day that Lou wasn't what she expected her to be? What if...?

"You're thinking very loudly." Debbie's voice came out muffled by Lou's skin and raspy from sleep.

"Mm," Lou acknowledged her but didn't go on, didn't shift her position. She felt paralyzed. Debbie seemed to sense – perhaps by Lou's racing heart – that something was wrong.

"Baby?" she asked, turning her head to prop her chin near Lou's collarbone. It hurt a little, sharp pressure that Lou relished because it reminded her that she was, in fact, inside her own body.

"Nothing." Lou drew a shuddering breath and tried to smile. She knew she had failed by the look of confusion in Debbie's eyes.

"Lou." Debbie didn't cajole her for her obvious lie, of that Lou was glad, but her tone was still sharp.

Lou winced. "You're sure you want this with me?" she asked quietly. It felt wrong to say it. Her heart was racing, and her hands felt clammy. She shifted them against Debbie's back, curling and uncurling her fingers anxiously.