Work Text:
A sigh of bliss fled from Yuzu's lips, just as Mei planted another ghost of a kiss in the hollow of her throat. Her fingers clenched, digging lightly into the flesh of the younger girl's side, and her eyelids fluttered closed. It was an act she had no control over, for she couldn't bear to meet Mei's gaze with the flush threatening to envelope her cheeks. It was already traveling the length of her neck, having been peppered in light kisses and breathy exhales as tension released its hold on every last muscle in Mei's body.
But the moment Yuzu's fingers began drifting lower - over the curve of ribs hidden still beneath a thin sweater, down to the skin directly beneath her belly button to draw a circle, tracing across the waistband of underwear - Mei's heart stuttered. A heat of indecency sent her body aflame.
"...Mei?" Yuzu called, voice hardly above a whisper.
The covers beneath her grew taut, and she peered down to find Mei's hand bunching the fabric up within a fist.
She inched her hand back up and found the younger girl's stomach heaving, inhale then exhale then inhale - then inhale again in an attempt to staunch some other display of her suddenly un-explainable and entirely unneeded flustered state.
"Mei, we don't have to do this now."
When Yuzu had first placed a hand under her sweater, she had joked with a face coloring a light scarlet, half in seriousness and half in typical Yuzu-like embarrassment, "My hands are cold."
The tips of her fingers had sent chills down Mei's spine because they were like little ice cubes poking at her warmed flesh - not because Yuzu was making an advance on her.
But now she was. And despite this being Yuzu, some fuse had blown; and along with it, Mei vaguely thought one of her lungs must have popped because it was rapidly getting much more difficult to breathe.
"Sorry," she mumbled, eyes darting about the covers because there was no where else to place her attention.
"Mei, please look at me."
Her hold on anything resembling composure was running thin, incredibly thin, and frayed beyond apparent repose. She wasn't certain how it had so suddenly evaporated into absolutely nothing - so she couldn't look at Yuzu. Gasping, she came to the jarring realization that she was crying.
"Sorry."
She furiously dug the heel of one of her palms into her eyelids because there was no way to silence her crying, but she could at least hide her tears and pretend they didn't exist - pretend this whole mess didn't exist. Maybe she could even apologize enough and let this whole ordeal sink into the background of things they were to never mention again.
"Mei?"
She couldn't breathe. At least, not properly, and the only thing tying her down was her hold on Yuzu's shirt. It was tight, and her fingernails dug back into her palm as she closed her fist around the material. Maybe if she broke skin, it would pull her back into the present, but by that point, she wasn't certain if even that would work.
"H-Hey, Mei, you're scaring me. Can you look at me?"
She could make out her voice over the sensation of cotton stuffed in her ears, but it wasn't enough. The older girl's hold on her shoulders was but nonexistent because the pinpricks enveloping her skin only worsened the suddenly overwhelming desire to vomit. She tasted salt on her lips from the tears falling in fat globs down her cheeks, but she was suffocating still, each inhale more rushed and more clipped than the last.
But then hands were holding her face, forcing her to stare directly at emerald pools drowning in tears of their own.
"Mei-"
Air rushed to fill her lungs.
She averted her eyes, staring down at the finger under her eye that just barely clipped into her peripheral, then at the drawstrings on Yuzu's hoodie, and then, back to the finger, where a golden band-
And she blanched, color draining from her face.
She gagged and stuffed the collar of her top over her mouth, and her hot breath filled the space between the sweater and her chest.
"Mei - Mei, look at me - please."
And the only reason she obliged was because Yuzu sounded desperate, and her distress was far more important than whatever had managed to grip at Mei so viscerally.
"Hey, it's okay." Yuzu consoled.
And when she moved towards the younger girl, Mei's body jolted. But then Yuzu was clasping her hands around Mei's own, and she realized for the first time that she was shaking. She could hardly bend her fingers closed over the tremors.
"It's not," Mei voiced, but it came out dry and in the heave of a breath. Anything more would have had her choking, but there was still a venom laced in her words, directed at herself and created from a self-hatred of this thing that she should be able to do for the one person who made her feel whole, who made her feel cared for and loved.
But she was trampling right over that because-
Because she was afraid of sex?
"I promise, it is."
Yuzu would eventually come to realize how broken Mei was - of that, she was certain. Yuzu would see how twisted and muddled her understanding of love had become. She couldn't even oblige this want that Yuzu sought without having a meltdown, yet she had been so forceful and so uncaring as she stole Yuzu's first kiss.
But now - now she was entering uncharted territory, where love meant something, where she was expected to provide something that scared her, that clasped a hand around her throat and stalled the oxygen on its way down her windpipes while simultaneously commanding of her "Breathe."
But Yuzu deserved this.
If Mei's ring were her irreplaceable treasure, then there was no adequate word to describe just how much Yuzu meant to her.
And if Yuzu wanted sex, that was what she deserved.
Because she deserved everything, even if it ripped Mei out of her newly-formed comfort zone.
With that, she plucked at the button to her pants - fumbling, fumbling over fingers that wouldn't still and couldn't bend despite her best effort.
"You want this, right? T-This is what you want."
The button popped open, and she gripped at the zipper; but her movements were shaky and haphazard. She could feel tears of frustration bubbling up and out, but she was far too committed to this now. She was drowning in this familiar sensation of giving, yet it felt so wrong, so incredibly wrong with Yuzu, who had never once asked this of her, had never once indicated that she would love her less for not providing something as basic as sex.
But Yuzu could feel a rift form in her chest, a hollowing out of a section of her inflamed heart because Mei was offering herself up.
Not because she wanted to.
Not because she loved Yuzu (regardless of how deeply she did).
But because she had fallen back down the rabbit hole, had been successfully reunited with the familiar feeling of discarding her own feelings in place of everyone else's.
And it was clear that Mei was not even certain if she were still comfortable with that notion, that all-encompassing sense of duty.
Duty, not wants - because if it had been about wants, this self-imposed belief that she owed anyone her very being would not have been on that list. Yuzu would have been on that list, at the very top of that list. Yuzu would have been the only thing on that list; and on Yuzu's own list, smack at the top with a wide expanse of nothing beneath it, would have been Mei. That wasn't hard to guess in the least.
But acknowledgement did not quell the nausea that pooled in Mei's gut or the fear that accelerated her heart and made her hands go clammy and sweaty at the very notion that she had lost it over the prospect of a little heated intimacy.
If she had learned anything since this bubbly and caring individual had come into her life, it was that nothing made Yuzu happier than Mei.
Not sliding into her seat just as the tardy bell chimed, not being surprised with her favorite dessert after a crappy day, not even kisses from the girl who stole her whole heart and then some.
Nothing but Mei.
She could stare at the raven-haired girl for hours and be filled with an otherworldly content and an adoration that threatened to monopolize her lungs more wholly than the air she breathed.
But an affection-starved heart was hard to change after years of adjusting to the harsh reality of having no one.
And now, she had royally messed up. Her own stupidity, her own blatant ignorance and naivety of whatever love was had seared her heart when it mattered most, and she couldn't ammend it - and that inability was yet another expanse of uncertainty that capsized any remaining feelings of security.
"I don't," Yuzu replied. She wanted her voice to sound sturdy, but it fell just flat of that, and she panicked. She grabbed for Mei's face, palms against cheeks, but the eyes that meet hers widened in panic.
Her hands flew off as if burned.
In that one moment, she felt like a monster - because maybe it crossed Mei's mind with that touch that this was what Yuzu wanted, maybe that she was obligated to give her body up - and despite her offer to do just that, she wasn't prepared for it. It may have been with Yuzu, but she wasn't ready for it.
"Then what do you want?" the younger girl asked, twisting the hem of her sweater out of the way. An array of static within the confines of her skull had reached an unbearably loud degree, and she hoped that her skin would remain covered through to the end of the night, even as she continued to pluck the very threads from her body.
But Yuzu covered her hands, biting back tears that threatened to overcome her as Mei trembled under her touch. Then, movements slow and tender, touches feather-light and in full absention of any exposed skin, she reached for the zipper to pull it up and closed. And then the button, slipping the rounded piece through the hole before reaching for the hem of Mei's sweater to cover her belly. She rested her palm across her clothed stomach, more than content to touch her through a layer of cotton.
And then she spoke, slowly, eyes boring directly into Mei's own, even with the younger's attention shot to pieces.
"All I want is for you to feel loved."
She reached for Mei's wrist, lightly tugging and pulling it closer; but, God, her hand was trembling, and Yuzu craved to collect the girl in her arms and suffocate her in comfort and warmth, but she feared that might have been too much at the moment.
No - there wasn't a doubt in her mind that it was.
"That's all I want, Mei. That's all I'll ever want."
So she caressed Mei's hand within both of her own, spreading her fingers apart gently, delicately - and then started with her pinkie. She kissed the pad of the digit, lips lingering on the skin as it shook against her affection.
And then she moved onto the ring finger, and the static in Mei's head calmed into the background. It became a little easier to focus on Yuzu, and the band around her own finger elicited a deeply calming sensation. The emerald pools that stared back at her helped calm the sporadic beating of her heart against her rib cage.
She kissed Mei's middle finger silently, eyes gliding closed as her lips met skin that was cold and clammy. She remained there until she no longer felt ice against her cherry chapstick.
When she moved onto the pointer finger, red rimmed the nail; but she kissed the pad anyway.
And when she kissed her thumb, the taste of iron ran across her lips.
The skin was sliced open, thinly, like a paper cut. Mei had dug the nail of her pointer finger into her thumb, scratching and clawing in agitation until the skin broke; but now something had mollified within the younger girl, casting her heavy breaths far more evenly than they had been.
"I'm sorry," Mei spoke, but the words sounded uncanny to her ears, as if she had heard them through a tunnel.
"Mei," Yuzu began, drawing her lips from Mei's hand. The younger girl's heart slowed under the loving gaze held over her. "Don't apologize for something that's not your fault."
Yuzu's fingers ran lightly across her knuckle, shushing the "but" that had already formed on her tongue.
"We won't do this now. If it makes you happy, we don't ever have to." A clipped laugh popped past Yuzu's lips, and a smile wormed its way onto her face around the tears sliding down her rose-painted cheeks. "I'm sure that's not what you want, but I just want you to know that."
Something warm filled younger girl's breast, and the thought crossed her mind that she didn't know what to do. She hadn't been offered this type of affection before, nor had she been gifted this right to choose for herself.
"I don't care if we do or don't. I care about you, Mei." She paused, rolling her next words around on her tongue. "I'm sorry for trying to do that."
"You didn't-"
"I did." Yuzu stalled a moment, surprised at her own outburst. She didn't like the feeling of trampling over each other's words. "It's something you didn't want. You never have to do something for me that will make you uncomfortable. I don't... I don't want you to think I'll love you just because you'll have sex with me. I love you because you're you, Mei." Her hands clenched around her girlfriend's own. "Okay?"
Mei's cheeks blossomed red under embarrassment; but she nodded, and the heels of her palms dug into her eyes to stem the flow of tears dribbling greedily down her cheeks once more.
And Yuzu swallowed her nerves down, grounded her uncertainty within her white-knuckled fists and tugged Mei into her arms. The younger girl felt like a spring pulled taut, perhaps beyond its elastic limit because the tension refused to distill itself, winding her tighter and tighter. She fumbled to claim purchase on the front of Yuzu's shirt, and her nails dug into the material, afraid she would lose hold over the trembling in her limbs.
"Please don't cry, Mei," Yuzu whispered, curling her fingers in the younger girl's dark locks as she buried her raven head under her chin.
Mei choked as her forehead came to rest on Yuzu's collar, a bout of air invading and expanding her lungs like a balloon. She felt her cheeks light up because the words of adoration that were floating around in her head were bound to be foreign on her tongue, but she didn't care.
"I'm sorry," Mei cried, face burning and chest heaving. "I love you."
And there was simply no better way to show Yuzu that than have a childish fit over the possibility of sex.
Her chest suddenly burned something toxic. The thought caused nausea to churn unpleasantly within the pit of her stomach, and she vaguely thought she just might vomit - which in itself was childish.
They had kissed and touched and fooled around countless times prior. They had enough hickies (and bite marks) to prove so.
But this was different.
And she apparently was not ready for that.
Suddenly a hand was pressed to her back, rubbing in circles as she tried to swallow the horribly bitter reality that she was pitifully, pitifully unable to show Yuzu she was the single most important thing in her life.
"I love you, too." Yuzu spoke into the crown of the younger girl's head. "You're really cute when you cry, Mei, but I still wish you wouldn't." She traced nonsensical shapes into Mei's back with the tips of her fingers.
They sat like that, hunched over and around each other, the only sounds invading their quiet space being whimpers smothered into the other's skin and mumbles of sweet nothings, wet apologies and coos of love, until Mei quieted in Yuzu's arms.
And then, softly, as if afraid to puncture a hole in the silence that would be too large to mend,
"Mei?"
She was greeted with silence, but the grip around her bicep tightened. That was enough acknowledgement for the older girl.
"Do you think you could do something for me?"
"Anything" immediately answered the question in Mei's head, but she couldn't voice it. That would have been a lie, given what had just happened - but she refused to backpedal. Instead she nodded, shushing the remaining sobs that still rattled at her chest.
"Could you give me a hug? The tightest one you can."
Some clipped combination between a sob and a laugh erupted unceremoniously past Mei's lips, but she obliged, more quickly than the thought could even properly process. Her fingers released from Yuzu's shirt to leave it a crumpled mess. A patch of red from where her thumb had bled onto the white stained the loose material, but Mei knew Yuzu didn't care.
All that she cared about was the way Mei's arms looped around her.
Hidden away into the side of Yuzu's neck, Mei could make out the scent of something citrusy, and she recalled, just a few days prior, her gift to the older girl, some shampoo she had found while grocery shopping. She had bought it because of its scent, bearing the same name as the girl who had her arms clasped securely around her.
As expected, the younger girl had been overjoyed. She would have been just as equally pleased by receiving anything from Mei, no matter how mundane; but knowing that she did well, that her present actually pleased Yuzu, quelled a part of the nausea twisting at her insides.
"You know, Mei..." Yuzu began. "I really am happy to just do this with you."
And maybe it was the exhaustion playing at her eyelids, already red and puffy from crying, or maybe it was because those words came from Yuzu, the single most important person in her life.
Mei hoped it was the latter, but regardless, she actually believed it, and she nodded against Yuzu.
And then Yuzu began pulling them down onto the soft downy of the mattress, dragging her watery-eyed girlfriend into the curve of her body. She planted a kiss on the top of her head, and Mei wormed her way closer, until she couldn't tell where her limbs ended and where Yuzu's began.
A warmth trailed through Yuzu's chest as Mei's lithe fingers twitched, once, then twice, situated on the small of her back. She hugged Mei closer to herself before the younger girl's consciousness was snuffed out completely; and suddenly the small flame in her chest was all-encompassing in the most pleasant of ways.
When Mei's breathing finally evened out, grip falling limp and head lightly thudding against Yuzu's collar, the older girl's own muscles relaxed, and a sigh dragged itself from the depth of her lungs. A small hiccup escaped the younger girl's lips, and Yuzu giggled, as quietly as she could, just as she ran her fingers through raven locks still damp from a shower. Mei's breath against her neck was warm, and she could just vaguely make out the scent of mint from their toothpaste.
She felt content, believing fatigue to have finally won out over Mei; but suddenly she was choking down a sob, something she hadn't even felt building until that moment. Her chest had felt heavy, weighed down by some immeasurable fear when Mei didn't - couldn't - respond to her; and an icy lock had gripped it's nasty claws around her heart when Mei offered her body up, scared of her inability to satisfy Yuzu after having finally discarded that selfless piece of her former self.
Yuzu, despite the courage seemingly laced in her veins, had been a mess, attempting to drown the fear bubbling in the pit of her stomach - but now surrounded by this nothingness, there was nothing to stuff down those fears, nothing to command her attention away from the frantic way her heart had pulsed or from the image now seared into her brain of Mei's face from her mental collapse.
"What's wrong?"
Yuzu let out an ugly laugh, but it came out more as a blubbering mess of a noise. Of course Mei hadn't yet fallen asleep. Of course, with her luck. "I'm fine, Mei, go to sleep," she whispered.
"What's wrong?" Mei repeated.
And Yuzu stalled a moment because Mei wouldn't leave this be, just as she wouldn't have. It made her heart flutter lightly. "I just... You scared me, Mei. That's all."
Mei's fingers dug into the cottony material of her shirt. Yuzu continued before the younger girl could voice an apology.
"It's okay. W-Well, it's not really okay because you were upset and crying and..." She swallowed, both a bout of nervous saliva and the horrible botching she was doing to her words. "I think these are tears of relief more than anything."
"...Oh."
"I'm okay, Mei, don't worry."
When Mei's arms tightened around her, the wet, congested feeling in her chest began dissipating; and when Mei's lips pressed lightly against the exposed skin of her collar, a true, small laugh prattled from the back of her throat.
"Are you sure?"
"Really, Mei-" Yuzu was cut off by a yawn, and she clenched her jaw shut around it. "I am. I should be asking you that."
A pause, and Yuzu could feel her eyelids drooping. Some residual tears slid from the ends of her lashes onto the curve of her cheeks.
"...Yuzu?"
She had expected Mei to tell her she was okay, even if she hadn't directly relayed her concern in a question. Her name caught her off guard.
"Yeah?"
Despite the batch of words swimming in Mei's head, nothing felt adequate for what she wanted to voice to Yuzu.
"I love you. I..."
Perhaps there wasn't anything adequate, but with the warmth of lips against her temple, any lingering nerves and doubts were distilled.
"More than anything."
Yuzu hummed in content. And then, lips still pressed against Mei's temple, sending vibrations on the spot of skin now colored a light red from her chapstick,
"I love you, too, Mei. More than anything."
The younger girl released a soft breath into the crook of Yuzu's neck, and she fidgeted with the back of the older girl's shirt between two fingers before falling still.
The silence that draped across the space stretched on with the two girls engulfed in the warmth and limbs of the other. The minutes slipped wearily by until the only sound remaining was of sleepy exhales puttering against skin.