#lil wayhaught is u squint

[insert-current-obsession-here]

The Benevolent Possession  of Waverly Earp - pt1

After two whole years of sharing her body with a fallen Angel, Waverly likes to tell herself that she is used to it. 

Having someone else in her head, hearing every thought and knowing every desire (who often encourages the darker ones) can be overwhelming at times. 

Waverly likes to tell herself that she’s used to it but there are days where she does not feel particularly strong and the lack of privacy, the shared autonomy, the temporary loss of control, the unimaginable sensation of loneliness, can break her down and crumple her up until she is unrecognizable. 

On those days, few and far between now, she will clutch at her temples and scream at the sky and the Angel will scream too, always louder than her, and it helps, knowing that her struggles are shared, that the burden does not rest squarely upon her own two shoulders (even if it literally does). 

In that regard, it is not all so bad. 

It helps that the Angel gives in unexpected ways. Waverly learns early on that she has an eidetic memory and an affinity for remembering the phone numbers of fast food restaurants. She often loans a bit of her inhuman strength to help Waverly open the lid of a stubborn jar, or to hit just a bit harder when training with Wynonna. If Waverly needs advice, the Angel is always happy to provide her calculated opinion. If Waverly stumbles, the Angel will catch her.

And, of course, the power. An electric buzz just beneath her skin, itchy and always, always present. The Angel can handle it with deadly precision and she tries to explain to Waverly that she does not need to be afraid of it - afraid of what they can do - and that she could learn to use it, the Angel could teach her, if she wanted. But Waverly can already see the way everyone looks at her when the Angel is in control and so she tucks it away, in the back of her mind, and promises the Angel that she’ll get back to it eventually. 

Though they never do and the Angel does not bring it up again, a small mercy for which Waverly is grateful. 

Besides, there are more important things to worry about.

It takes them a long, long time to decide on a proper name for the Angel. But when they finally do it feels like Waverly is less hollow, like she’s not simply listening to the ethereal voice of her own darkness anymore. Adrian sounds pretty and divine and fitting for the Being that she has grown to know over the last two years. When they try it out for the first time it settles like it belongs on their tongue, and Waverly feels something that was stolen from her chest slide back into place. 

And of course, Waverly gives, too. 

Sometimes, while tossing and turning above the sheets, flashes of a frozen horizon and a stone throne chasing away sleep, Adrian will quietly ask if they can go flying. 

Waverly’s shoulders tingle, the wings that she cannot see but knows are there itching for freedom, and she rolls her eyes at Adrian’s obnoxious attempt to convince her because they both know that she always says yes. 

She rolls out of bed and pulls on the first thing that she can find in the dark and with one last, longing glance over her shoulder at her sleeping wife, she slips silently from the bedroom. In the hallway, Adrian reminds her to skip the missing step - the fifth one up from the bottom - and Waverly white knuckles the banister as she steps successfully across it only to gracelessly stumble over one of Rachel’s overturned sneakers laying forgotten at the base of the stairs.  

Waverly strings together a line of mismatched curses as she hustles the rest of the way outside, to the porch. Adrian’s laugh is too loud to belong in the still quiet of the night and despite her anger at Wynonna for putting a fire axe through the stairs and her annoyance at Rachel for ignoring her request to keep her shoes by the front door, Waverly laughs too. 

She peels away from the homestead, a steady hand pressing firmly against the stitch in her side, and listens to Adrian discuss ways to punish Wynonna for her drunken escapades. 

Under the light of the stars, Waverly stands on her tiptoes to find the half-full pack of Marlboro’s and the lighter she’d stored on top of the shed out behind the barn. “You know we can fly, right?” Waverly ignores them and continues to feel around until her fingers hit the corner of the carton and it falls deftly into her awaiting palm. “Stubborn.” Adrian says, her tone teasing, Waverly only grins. 

Vice in hand, they wander away from the homestead, bare feet moving easily across familiar land. They don’t stop until the Earp arch is a fuzzy blur in the distance. “You need glasses,” Adrian comments, and in the empty space just to the left of her humor, Waverly can feel her itching to switch places. Adrian’s low voice is barely audible over the hum of anticipation in their veins, “Humans and their proclivity to deteriorate.”

Standing alone (but not really alone) in a wide open field, her toes anchored into the cold Earth, Waverly relaxes her body, closes her eyes, and let’s Adrian take over. 

The transition is seamless to the point where Waverly doesn’t even realize that it has happened until they’re among the clouds. Waverly’s mind wanders while they fly, her thoughts trailing miles beneath them, and if Adrian cares about her detachment she does not mention it. Eventually, they slow to a stop, the large grey wings flapping furiously to keep them in the air, and Adrian takes a moment to light a cigarette. She places it evenly between her lips and breathes in and out four times before asking, “Would you like to watch the sun rise?”

Waverly doesn’t say anything, Adrian knows her answer. 

They turn around and Adrian flies them home, back into the ghost river triangle, angling towards Purgatory. They pass over Shorty’s and the police precinct and are halfway down the gravel road that leads to the Earp land when Adrian asks if Waverly is unhappy. 

“I’m not, not happy,” Waverly says quickly, watching as the edge of the lake behind her home races into view, “I just sometimes feel like I’m letting everyone down and I don’t know how to change that.”

They land behind the barn and Adrian takes her time crushing the end of her cigarette against the wooden siding with her thumb before she responds, “Is this about Wynonna? Her killing?” 

Waverly flinches away from the reminder and Adrian makes no move to comfort her. Her response is blunt and honest in all of the ways that Waverly is not ready to hear, “You cannot blame yourself for the actions of your sister.”

“But I do,” Waverly admits, the truth staining the cold air bright red, “I do blame myself. I… we could have helped her. What was I so afraid of? All I’ve ever wanted was to be the chosen one, to be special. And to learn that I’ve always had the power to help but have been too… weak to use it? How can I not blame myself for that.” Waverly can barely catch her breath, she can feel herself spiraling down, down, down…

Adrian presses their palm to the center of her chest and pushes hard enough to pull Waverly back, to anchor her to the spot they share, and she breathes for them.

Adrian flexes her wings, let’s the rising sun dry away any moisture that they’d collected while up in the clouds, and shrugs, “We can go whenever you desire, the Garden will always be there to let us in.“ She relaxes, closes her eyes, and Waverly shifts forward to take control. 

Blinking her eyes open Waverly shakes out the tension in her fingers and watches Adrian’s suggestion float through their mind; peace, Heaven, paradise, waiting for them - “No, no,” Waverly is firm, certain, and if she childishly stomps her foot just a bit for emphasis no one but herself and an Angel are there to see it, “I don’t want to leave my family...” She sighs, heavy and tired and full of so much guilt that her lungs ache with the force of it, “This is my home. It’s where I belong.”

Adrian lets it go, releases the idea back out into the cold world and let’s it and all of its promises leave as simply as it had come, “Then this is where we shall stay.”

Waverly pulls the sleeves of the flannel tight around her arms, inhales a mouthful of vanilla lingering around the collar, and shivers as she begins the long walk back to the homestead.

“You cannot avoid watching the sun rise forever,” Adrian says, carefully, after Waverly has stored the pack of cigarettes on top of the shed and they’re standing on the back porch, hand wrapped loosely around the brass handle, waiting for the urge to go inside. 

Waverly pushes forward, all motion and chaos, and steps across the threshold into the only home that she’s ever known, “I’m not avoiding it and you know that…” She sighs, frustrated, and she wishes that she never would have gotten her hair cut short so that she could have something to pull on when the words won’t come out like she needs them to, “I think it’s just that I don’t feel like I deserve it — yet.”

Adrian stays silent and Waverly feels more alone than she ever has before. 

She starts the first pot of coffee and brushes her teeth three times at the kitchen sink before Nicole comes trotting down the stairs. She can hear her wife catch her foot in the hole and stumble over it but when she turns the corner into the living room she is smiling brightly like it had never even happened, like nothing has changed. “Hey Wave,” She says, leaning across the table to press a kiss to the side of her head, “How long have you been up?”

Waverly shrugs and scratches at a spot near her left shoulder blade, “Not very long.”

Nicole nods and reaches up to pull three mugs down from the middle cabinet. When Waverly turns to look up at her, the weight of the world sitting at the tip of her tongue, Nicole is already moving away towards the fridge, “I was thinking pancakes for breakfast.”

The sun is up, the kitchen is warm, and Nicole is smiling at her.

Adrian is quiet. 

Waverly licks her lips and tastes smoke.