#also it is now CANON that kat has watched like All of rhony

[possibilistfanfiction]

angst?

[ok this started out as fluff & how hot kat is & then turned into angst & then i brought it back for more fluff idk what the fuck happened other than that i’ve been reading her body & other parties so idk. here we are!]

//

when you open the door, you fumble a little with your bag and you’re glad you don’t drop it because your favorite 35mm camera is in there and it’s very old and very expensive.

you distantly think that it might’ve been worth it, though, because your girlfriend is curled up on the couch in cotton boyshorts and a bralette and her glasses, braids pulled into a bun on the top of her head. she looks up and smiles when she hears you come in and she’s a little sweaty. it’s hot outside, june and hazy, spring finally sinking into summer. the air conditioning in her building is being repaired, or improved—something, she had explained earlier, but she had just come out of the shower and you had maybe been able to focus on every other word—and so her loft is warm.

and kat is beautiful.

‘are you reading a real book?’ you ask her, teasing, setting aside your bag.

she rolls her eyes, puts the book down, and you take in the casual expanse of her, how her skin is darker since she went to the beach with her friends a few days ago, gold and soft; she doesn’t have any makeup on, one of her lenses has a little smudge across it. kat is beautiful all the time, you know this, but when she lets you see her, just like this, like she’s so comfortable in your presence that there’s not a single thing to hide—you think it’s your favorite version of her, always.

‘i’ll have you know,’ she says, ‘that i got As in both of my literature classes in college.’

you smile and sit next to her, trace a little pattern on her knee. ‘did you now?’

she looks down at your hand and then back up at your eyes and lifts a brow when you move it further up her thigh.

she swallows but her tone doesn’t change. ‘i sure did. and i didn’t read every book in my ipad.’

‘all but one, i’m sure.’

she laughs and kisses you and it’s without pretense, without anything other than the fact she wanted to kiss you. she backs up and you know she’ll want to have sex later, probably, but right now she wants to talk, to be with you.

you turn toward her fully and put a little space between the two of you and try your very best to not look down at her stomach or the swell of her thighs or the birthmark on her hip, things you love, and you concentrate on her eyes, because if you start looking at her mouth you are going to think about kissing her again and then it’s just a lost cause.

‘jane gave it to me,’ she says, holding up the book. ‘it’s really beautiful.’ she pauses. ‘really sad.’

she hands it to you and there are a few dog-eared pages, and it makes your heart ache a little, because you know your girlfriend is brilliant, so smart, but sometimes you’re reminded of it in different ways than you expect, how much she actually cares about the world and how much she knows and how much she wants to learn.

she takes it back and flips to one of the pages, looks back up at you. ‘they’re short stories about queerness and women and the body and rape culture and jane said something about environmental feminist theory so that too, i guess.’

you sense that kat is legitimately a little upset, affected, and when you put your hand on her knee this time it’s a comfort.

she shrugs. ‘i just—’ she reaches up and touches your cheek and she’s so soft; it feels incredibly honest. ‘sometimes i’m scared for you. for me.’

you nod, rub your thumb along her skin. ‘i understand.’

‘i didn’t,’ she says. ‘after we went out that night and i punched a man, the next day, when you told me you didn’t have a choice sometimes—’ there’s a little furrow between her brow that you want to kiss away, but you wait— ‘i didn’t understand. but i do now, or, i’m starting to.’

‘kat,’ you say, worried. ‘did something happen?’

she shakes her head. shrugs. ‘not really. not to me.’ there’s a tiny unspoken not yet that stings at your insides, tugs on your ribs.

you want to tell her that you’ve been furious for years, that you understand the anger and the fear and you want to tell her that you’re safe, want to tell her that you will always be safe in this space, in this one room where you can love her without any hesitation, without any doubt; you will be tender and you will keep her safe.

you don’t know how to say all of that, though, to promise, so you take a deep breath. ‘i love you,’ you tell her, so sure, as if it will be enough.

and maybe, for now, or always, it is. kat lets out a breath it seems like maybe she’s been holding for a while. ‘i love you too.’

she moves and leans into your body, and you want to remember the heat of her, the solid press of her shoulder and the steadiness of her hands. you think she might cry when she turns and presses her lips against the space between your shoulder and neck, but she just stays still for a few moments and you close your eyes and pray.

you sit like that for minutes, her glasses smudged against your skin, the warm smell of her cocoa butter and your perfume. 

after a while she sighs and sits up straight. ‘kinda want to make jane buy me an apology dinner or something.’

you wait for her to laugh, but when she does you join in. her smile is bright and her glasses are a mess but she isn’t wearing clothes so she can’t clean them. eventually you get up and help her find the little cloth she keeps around but can never remember where she put it last, and you take the frames off her face gently. she gets closer to you when you clean them, and you don’t think it’s on purpose, mostly because she legitimately has horrendous vision and can’t really see anything clearly.

‘well,’ she says, when you put them back on her face; she crinkles her nose to get them to sit right and you don’t know if you’ve ever been as in love as you are in that moment. ‘wanna take your clothes off because it’s a thousand degrees in here and watch the new real housewives of new york episode with me?’

‘i will never understand why you love that show so much.’

‘uh, you definitely do understand,’ she says, and you roll your eyes even as she reaches for the hem of your shirt and when you nod she pulls it over your head, grins, pops the button on your jeans and unzips them. ‘you love that show.’

‘i do not,’ you argue, but you’re smiling and kat is trying very hard to take your pants off but you’re sweaty and you end up having to kind of hop out of them while she laughs at you until you remind her about two nights ago, when she had fallen face first into her bed trying to get her shorts off.

‘unnecessary,’ she says, dramatic, complete with a hand to her chest after a gasp.

you kiss her cheek and she turns to catch your mouth. 

you settle down on the couch with her and it’s definitely too hot to tangle up like you do but it comforts you, the warmth and the presence; you’re both sweating by the time the woman named ramona says something that makes kat let out a big, full laugh.

you watch ridiculous reality tv with her and seamless an incredible amount of chinese food and she only moves to answer the door. you eat on the couch from the containers with the wooden chopsticks that came in the bag and kat feeds you lo mein sloppily and gets noodles everywhere and you let her take the last egg roll.

eventually you start kissing and you leave the containers right where they are; she tastes like soy sauce and fried rice and her stomach is soft and full, a tiny swell, beneath your hands when you run them down her body. she lets you lay her back and you kiss her neck and taste the remnants of your own warmth there, the salt; you work your way down her body and when you press your tongue inside her she doesn’t make any noise, only opens her legs wider and weaves a hand in your hair.

everything builds in waves and kat is still quiet, and when she comes you are reminded of the ocean. she catches her breath while you rest your head on her stomach and she starts to touch you. you close your eyes and reach around her and feel the knots of her spine, the muscles there, the wings of her shoulder blades. 

she’s quick today, not in the mood to deny you anything, and you come fast and hard and she starts to cry, tears hitting your collarbone before you pull her in for a kiss.

she backs you up and you rub your thumbs along her cheeks, hold her jaw in the palm of your hand. you nod, guide her down to kiss you again, tell her everything you don’t know how to say out loud.

you walk to her bed and lay on top of the duvet, sweating and naked and beautiful; she lets you wrap your body around hers and you press your lips to the back of her neck.

you sleep for hours in the middle of the day, still warm even when the air conditioner comes back on; the world goes on outside, and you are safe.