Work Text:
One:
“I’ll write,” Poussey says eventually, looking down at the flower in her hands. She’s already picked away half of the petals.
Riley takes a long, shuddering breath that slices itself in two. “I don’t want you to write,” she says angrily, then stops, seeing the look on Poussey’s face. After a second she continues, softer this time: “I want you to stay here.”
“Yeah,” Poussey says, throwing the flower away and rubbing the edge of a knuckle over her closed eyes, because she’d promised herself she wasn’t going to cry but hearing Riley’s voice, that voice Poussey likes so much, cracking with tears is enough to make her own eyes start to well up. “Yeah, me too.”
It’s nice out, this time of year, warm Californian sun shining down on them. School’s finished for the day and they’re tucked away in one of the post’s more secluded corners, sitting on a bunch of cushions Poussey’s mom let them borrow. She’d given Poussey a hug, too, before she’d handed the cushions over, rubbed a hand comfortingly over Poussey’s back, said “I’m sorry, baby” but sorry didn’t change the fact that they were moving again, even though Poussey’d only just gotten used to living here on post in California, and yet now they were moving away to a whole new country, to Germany, where Poussey wouldn’t know anyone or understand anyone and worst of all, Poussey wouldn’t have Riley by her side. So Poussey had stood there and let her mom hug her and then she’d grabbed the cushions and left because she was mad and she knew it wasn’t her mom’s fault and she didn’t want to shout at her mom, so she left and went to find Riley because Riley was good at making her feel better.
But, now, sitting together on the grass, even just looking at Riley made something in Poussey’s chest ache: her warm brown eyes, the freckles on her nose, her eyelashes and her smile and her legs and her mouth and the little chip in her tooth that Poussey liked to tease her about, and Poussey almost smiled but for the tide of realisation washing over her in slow painful waves, because now that her dad had been re-assigned she’d be moving away and she wouldn’t get to tease Riley any more, wouldn’t get to talk to her every day, wouldn’t get to see her at all. And it was stupid, it was so stupid , because she’d known this was gonna happen eventually but then months had passed and she’d thought maybe -- maybe it would last, but it didn’t, and now she’s moving away and she won’t see Riley ever again.
The thought makes her angry and confused at the same time, and now the tears in her eyes are spilling over and she tucks her knees up against her chest and props her elbows up and hides her face, but that just makes the ache worse.
After a long moment there’s a soft pressure on her elbow, Riley’s fingers tentatively brushing her arm, coaxing her to uncurl. Poussey does, a little, tucking her face because she doesn’t want to cry in front of Riley, but then she notices that Riley’s crying too.
“Hey, hey, come on,” Poussey says, wiping at her face and sitting up a little, holding her arms out the way her mom had earlier -- c’mere -- and Riley does, and Poussey rubs a hand comfortingly over her back and listens as Riley sobs out “It’s not fair,” and Poussey doesn’t say “It’s okay” because it isn’t; what she says instead is “I know,” and they sit there, and hold on, and keep holding on for as long as they can.
--------
They do write, for a while. Poussey spends three years in Augsburg, Germany, before her dad gets a new assignment state-side, in Oklahoma, and they move again. A few months later, they’re moving back to Germany, to Bavaria this time. There’s a mix-up, somewhere along the way; some of their stuff gets lost in transit. Her dad loses some clothes, her mom some jewellery.
Poussey loses Riley’s letters. She’s still got the piece of paper with Riley’s address on it, holds it in her hands. After a long moment she crumples it up, throws it in the trash.
She doesn’t cry; what does it even matter? Not like they were ever going to see each other again anyway.
Two:
“Good?” Poussey murmurs, pausing for a second and looking up.
Franziska stops gasping long enough to breathe out “Yeah it’s -- ah -- okay, I guess,” smirking a little as she rolls her hips invitingly.
Poussey wipes that smirk away with a teasing crook of her fingers, leaning in to nose at the smooth soft skin of Franziska’s inner thigh. Very gently, she presses her teeth there, sucking at the skin and working her fingers until Franziska’s body begins to shake all over, starting right where Poussey’s pressing into her; she’s close, she’s so close, and Poussey reaches out for her outstretched hand where it’s clutching at the sheets and laces their fingers together, holding on as Franziska grips back tightly and comes with a shuddering sigh. Poussey nearly does too, because Franziska looks so fucking good like this, flushed and kiss-bruised and grinning as she reaches down, hands sliding over Poussey’s jaw and her neck and her shoulders, tugging her up and kissing her fiercely, mouthing wetly at her jaw and sliding a hand down Poussey’s chest, thumbing at her nipples and grinding their hips together, and just like that, Poussey comes -- laughing, because it just feels so damn good, and Franziska laughs too, pressed up against her.
When she finally stops shaking Poussey rolls off and curls up against Franziska, another burst of laughter escaping her that she tries to stifle -- if they’re too loud they might get caught together -- and that thought sobers her enough to stop laughing as she drags the covers over her and Franziska both, up over their heads till the rest of the world disappears, and it’s just the two of them, hidden away.
“I like you,” Franziska whispers, slinging her arm over Poussey’s hip and tugging her closer.
“You’re -- okay, I guess,” Poussey murmurs back, teasingly, before leaning in to press their mouths together.
They spend a few minutes kissing, lazily, drinking in each other’s warmth; they don’t get to do this often. After a while Franziska pulls back, stroking her thumb over Poussey’s cheek.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she says quietly.
Poussey smiles, replies, “Me too,” feeling that warm ache all over, the good kind, the best kind -- the kind that means: someone wants you , safe in the knowledge that this is her dad’s final post; they won’t be moving any more. She’s here to stay.
-------
Franziska’s dad discovers their secret and the next thing Poussey knows everything’s falling apart, because her dad’s been reassigned stateside.
“How can you just shut down like that?” Franziska asks, when Poussey tries to push her away, pushing down the sharp pain in her chest when Franziska starts to cry.
“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Poussey replies, turning away, because it’s time to move on.
Three:
“No,” Poussey interrupts angrily. “No, they’re wrong. They made a mistake.”
Her dad sighs heavily, scooting closer in the squeaky hospital chair and lifting his arm up to wrap it around her shoulders. Poussey shrugs it off, barely listening as her dad continues.
“The doctors ran some tests,” he says, slow and careful, like he’s talking to a spooked animal. “They confirmed it. I’m sorry, baby.”
“How--” Poussey’s voice breaks. She grips at her knees until her nails dig in, piecing her voice back together and trying again: “How long does she have?”
Her dad scrubs a hand over his face - out of the corner of her eye Poussey notices that his hand is shaking, the realisation sending a jolt of panic through her -- because through everything they’ve been through together, as a family, including the last time they were at a hospital waiting to see what was wrong with mom and all the subsequent times they spent hoping she’d get better, this is the first time she’s seen her steady, stoic dad beginning to crack.
“Months, they said,” her dad responds after a moment. “Maybe a year if we’re lucky. Weeks, if we’re not.”
“So that’s just -- it, then? We just sit here and wait for it to happen?” And she knows her voice is rising, and that it’s not her dad’s fault but the anger is like a fist in her chest clenching tight around her heart and she wants to shout and she wants to hit something and she wants to cry because it’s not fair, mom was better now, she was okay and they were okay and everything was going to be fine, except -- it’s not, might never be again, and the anger rises up in her throat, wrapping itself around her neck and choking her as tears begin to well up and drip down her face.
This time, when her dad puts his arm around her, she doesn’t pull away. This time, she leans into his touch, lets him hold her, lets herself be held.
--------
She stands outside her mom’s hospital room, fiddling with the buttons of her jacket. She’s been standing there for ten minutes, now, trying to work up the courage to make herself step through the door.
A few more minutes pass, doctors and nurses and patients alike bustling past her; she barely notices. One nurse touches her arm, gently, snapping her out of her reverie with their soft voice, “you okay, honey?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” Poussey says, steeling herself and walking into the room.
--------
Her mom’s lying in the bed. She looks small, and sick in a way Poussey’s never seen before, nearly making her stop in her tracks; she can’t do this, doesn’t want the last memories of mom to be like this.
She looks like she’s asleep, but the moment Poussey walks in her mom opens her eyes and smiles, her whole face lighting up.
“Hey, baby girl,” she says softly, ”Come here,” and Poussey does, curling up on the bed beside her mom, mindful of the various tubes and wires connected to various machines around her. Really the bed’s too small for this, but it feels good to be close to her, and if Poussey squeezes her eyes shut and tunes out the beeping of the monitors and the sharp antiseptic hospital smell she can almost pretend that she’s a kid again, and her mom’s about to read her another bedtime story, warm and solid and comforting in the bed beside her.
--------
Poussey gets the call one day, early into her second year at Litchfield. It’s her dad. She can tell by the way that he’s breathing that he’s trying not to cry. He doesn’t need to tell her the news. She already knows. There’s no pain; just a kind of blank numbness, because she’d known this day would come eventually; fuck, it’s been all she could think about for the last year, knowing that in the world beyond the fence her mom was out there, dying, knowing that either way she wouldn’t be there when it happened.
She’s almost glad, in a way, that her dad’s telling her over the phone, because she can hear his breath shuddering, knows that if they were face-to-face she would’ve already broken down by now.
“I’m sorry, dad,” she says quietly: sorry I wasn’t there, sorry I fucked up, sorry you had to go through it alone.
“Me too,” he says, and then there’s a noise from somewhere in the background, someone speaking, the sound of her dad half-turning and pulling away from the phone for a few short words, and then: “Look, P, I’ve got to--”
Poussey rubs her eyes. “Yeah, yeah -- I know, I get it.”
“I’ll -- I’ll visit soon, okay?” When Poussey makes a noise of agreement, he finishes with a shaky, “Bye,” and hangs up.
“Bye,” says Poussey, putting the phone back in its cradle and walking away.
Four:
“Shit,” Poussey stutters, pulling back. “Shit, sorry, I--”
“It’s okay,” Taystee says tentatively, sounding a little shell-shocked, like she hadn’t seen the kiss coming, which, okay, Poussey thinks defensively, being in a women-only prison made it hard to tell sometimes, especially when two people are as close as the two of them are; Taystee just gets her, on a level no-one else has, and she’s easy to be around and talk to and laugh with, so it had only felt natural for Poussey to lean in and kiss Taystee on the mouth.
“It was -- an accident?” Poussey tries, fumbling for an excuse that won’t leave Taystee hitting her or worse, walking away, the fear of which begins to fade the moment Taystee puts her hands on her hips and laughs.
“An accident? That’s what you’re going with?” Taystee says, but there’s no sting in her words, just that easy warmth that Poussey likes so much about her. Before Poussey can say anything Taystee continues, “Look, P, I like you, but,” and here it comes; Poussey takes a step back, because rejection is easier to deal with if you push them away first, “I’m not like that. You know I’m cool with it if you are, but. Just putting my cards on the table, y’know?”
Poussey nods. “Yeah, yeah -- I get it,” she says, forcing herself to smile when Taystee gives her a long surveying look.
“We cool?” Taystee asks eventually.
“Yeah,” says Poussey, “yeah, we cool,” and they are -- even after knowing, Taystee treats her exactly the same -- but that doesn’t stop Poussey from wondering why she ever thought this could have gone any differently.
Five:
Poussey doesn’t say anything as she floats on the surface of the lake, letting the water carry her as she drifts towards Soso. Their hands brush, just the barest touch of skin on skin.
Brook opens her eyes and looks at Poussey, her smile like a sunrise, dawning slow and warm after a long cold night. For someone so talkative for once she’s quiet as she grips Poussey’s hand and links their fingers together, the touch like a warm thread of understanding between them that doesn’t need words for them to hear it: You’re not alone, it says. I’m here. I’ve got you.
Poussey smiles.