your hand in mine ii

x

She wakes with a start, and at first, she doesn't recognize her surroundings. Then, it all comes flooding back. Lisa. Wine left open and untouched. Greedy hands and gentle sighs and fervent whispers exchanged till early morning.

Lisa.

Her right side is warm, and as she becomes more awake, she realizes it's because there's someone pressed against it. Breathing even and deep, with an arm and a leg thrown over her body.

She stayed. Feeling her there - still with her - is an experience so bizarre Roseanne's first response is to flee. The only reason she makes herself stay put is because she doesn't want to jostle Lisa out of her deep slumber.

And it's been so fucking long since she could feel her like this. Since Lisa's trusted her enough to be this vulnerable next to her. The inevitable why crawls through her mind, but she chases it away. Not right now. Later, when Lisa's awake; and rolling away from her and silently gathering her clothes and not looking her way, most likely; she'll deal with it in the morning.

For now, she turns in Lisa's arms and lets her tears fall as she quietly maps her sleeping face with her fingertips.

//

Lisa wakes gradually and slowly, and there's painful familiarity in the way she clings to her at first, before she's fully awake. Roseanne doesn't move. She's half-afraid of breathing. Afraid it'll scare her away.

It doesn't, and, perhaps, that's even more terrifying.

"Hey." Lisa's voice is rough with sleep, and her eyes are still closed. But there's a barely visible wrinkle next to the right corner of her lips - a sign of her usual muted smile. There's a lightness to her touch as she doesn't move her arm from Roseanne's waist.

"Hey," Roseanne replies, and swallows the last of her tears before relaxing her face in an answering smile Lisa doesn't see yet.

"What time is it?"

"Early." To know the exact hour, she'll have to roll away from Lisa and check her phone. Rolling away from Lisa means not being in her embrace anymore. And if she leaves it now, there's a good chance she won't be back in it any time soon.

She doesn't want to lose this moment. Not yet.

Lisa's ghost of a smile grows, ever so subtly. "Precise," she teases her before cracking one eye open - and Roseanne has to fight the immediate urge to reach for her nightstand and get her sketchbook out. If there ever was something worthy of immortalizing, it's the image she's presented with now. Lisa's hair is messed up, wild curls sticking out in all directions, and there's mascara caked around her eyes, and she's frowning at the sunlight with mock displeasure, one eye shut and face screwed up in a funny, cartoonish way.

Roseanne wants to keep this Lisa forever.

"I'm the exact opposite of precise."

Lisa shrugs. "Sometimes, it's an off-putting quality." She doesn't elaborate whether she's talking about preciseness or the lack of it, and Roseanne doesn't ask. She's content simply laying there. She thinks that the longer they are silent, the longer they can pretend that everything's okay. The longer they can float in this limbo where it's just the two of them, and everything else is left in the outside world.

But that's not something she gets to have, is it? "Are you in a hurry?"

"Not really." Lisa opens both of her eyes, now, and Roseanne watches the hazy sea of green struggle to focus. "Are you?"

"Not really," she echoes. "I have to be at the hospital in... several hours. Depending on what time it is right now."

She expects Lisa to rise to her feet and check the time.