(It Could Be) Like Breathing
Title: (It Could Be) Like Breathing
Pairing: Naya Rivera/Heather Morris
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: 1,668 words of Heya cuddles, written at about 4 in the morning on total accident.
A/N: For Lucy, who GOT HER WAY, I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY, and for Sammi, who talked me through it because she wanted a birthday present. I don’t generally do RPF (this would be a first, and I have no idea if I’ll ever do it again), but I suppose it wasn’t too painful an experience. Title from Edges' "Like Breathing", although this is about 30 times LESS melancholy than that song.
They’re tangled together on her bed when it slips out. She’s not even sure how it happens. It’s no big thing, this cuddling situation; they do it all the time. When work is particularly stressful, when a day has run a little too long, when Heather’s too damn tired to head back to her own place. Her bed is bigger, and warm, and entirely too squishy for its own good. It just makes the most sense.
When things get rough, this is the thing she looks forward to. It makes all the brutal publicity crap and grueling hours worth it, to know that at the end of the day, she gets to loop her arm through Heather’s and guide them both back here. To a nice, well-lit apartment with a multitude of fuzzy, brightly-colored blankets. To a bottle of wine. To laughter over memories of how Cory nearly knocked Lea off the stage with his bumbling hip gyrations, and how Dianna and Jenna just about killed themselves laughing until their favorite fearless diva charged them both out of mock-outrage.
Few things are as amusing as not being on the receiving end of a Lea-tackle.
She loves her job, she really does, but sometimes even dancing and singing for a living can get a little tiresome. Not that she’s complaining, because it is an awesome way to put bread on the table, especially with such amazing friends around to share it with, but…well…
A woman can only take so many swooning girls and bashful young men trailing up and down supermarket aisles before she gets kind of burned out, that’s all she’s saying.
So it’s nice to come home with the best friend she’s ever had and curl up with an inhuman number of pillows. She loves how they don’t even have to talk about it; it’s just become routine, like the way Heather wearily folds her long legs into the car, feet up on the dash as she bops out the radio’s rhythm on her knees. She loves how they swing into the apartment and drop their things in the same locations: her purse and keys on the little table by the door, Heather’s right between the oak legs, atop her shoes. She loves how they pass through the kitchen like ghosts with menial purpose, pausing only to grab that wine, or a bag of chips, or a plate of leftover pizza out of the fridge on the way.
She loves how they reach her room and just collapse, all the wonder and exasperation and strain of a full day’s work bleeding out onto the comforter with that first combined exhalation. She loves how the mattress bows beneath their weight, like it was made to hold just the two of them, along with all the crap that has gotten too heavy for their bodies: Ryan’s grumpy complaints, sore muscles, the self-esteem battering ram that is listening to Amber belt the living shit out of a Gloria Gaynor tune. She loves how, the second they hit this bed, it all seems to drain away.
And she loves the way Heather looks, huddled against the pillows with those ever-cheerful blue eyes and that haphazard ponytail, one arm splayed behind her head, the other wound tight around her waist. She loves how Heather always seems to know when to pull her closer and when to push away and womp her over the head with one of the cushion-sized beasts she calls pillows. She loves how, no matter what sort of day they’ve had, it never manages to follow them here. This room is a sanctuary, untouched by frustration and aggression and worries about whether or not Big Things will even matter in the long run.
She decided long ago that she loves everything about their post-work ritual, so it really comes as no surprise-no big one, anyway-when she realizes there’s something else she loves.
Not that she ever meant to say it out loud. It isn’t even about the whole ‘stigma of falling for your best friend’ thing, or the ‘coming out of the closet complicates careers’ thing, or the ‘you’re not Brittany and Santana’ thing. It has never been about secret-keeping, or angst, or gay panic. She doesn’t even think she is gay in the first place. You don’t have to be gay to fall in love with somebody-especially someone like Heather.
It’s just…not something she has ever really put stock into verbalizing. Sometimes, things happen. You just know, the way one might know God, or know the truth behind a song. Knowing doesn’t necessitate talking about it. She pretty much decided long ago not to bother.
So when it slips out, well-it sort of takes her by surprise.
“I think I love you.”
Heather’s head shifts against the pillow, eyes closed, lips curving in a sleepy smile. “Obviously.”
It’s not the answer such a statement would normally garner. She sits up a little, propping herself up on one elbow and impatiently brushing back the streak of black hair that sweeps into her eyes. “No, really,” she repeats wonderingly. “Heather. I love you.”
“And why wouldn’t you?” is the only response. Heather’s hand closes around her bicep, yanking without warning so that her head drops back onto the drowsy, sweet-smelling cocoon that is her bed. She frowns.
“You’re taking this annoyingly well.”
“Any reason I shouldn’t?” Heather asks mildly, turning until they’re facing each other more directly and cracking one eye open. It’s as if they’re discussing which Chinese place to order from later, or the cultural relevance of Center Stage. It’s not like she has just said the stupid ‘L’ word to her best friend.
Which is fine, it’s not like it’s upsetting that Heather isn’t getting bent, but she feels a little huffy about it anyway. Little girls tend to grow up thinking the act of professing love beckons a reaction beyond a drawled, “Why wouldn’t you?”
Leave it to Heather to just…not.
“So?”
She feels like her best friend is frozen in time, lying there with one arm under her head and that singular eye still closed in a lazy wink. Heather is beautiful-not torturously so, like all the heart-rending novels insist, but the real kind. The kind that calls to mind lazy Saturdays sprawled on the living room floor jamming to Lady Gaga albums, and sweaty hair matted down from long-winded rehearsals, and a coffee cup shoved into her hand when she needs it most. Heather is beautiful the way piano arpeggios are beautiful, the way autumn foliage is beautiful, the way your future bedmate-for-life is beautiful. For an extended moment, it’s enough just to stare.
And then she remembers what she has just said, and how Heather seems to be in the midst of falling asleep despite such a rousing confession, and what the hell, Heather?
“You’re usually supposed to answer when someone uses that word.”
“I did answer,” Heather replies calmly, lips curving up and up. “You say it like you expected it to be a bombshell or something.”
Well, not so much, she thinks fairly, but is it so much to ask for a response of the semi-emotional variety?
“So do you, like, love me back?”
Heather’s fingers sneak around her hip, urging up under the back of her shirt and lingering against her skin. “Do you, like, need me to answer that?”
“I don’t appreciate the mockery,” she sniffs, the instinctive teasing grin belying her amusement. Heather grins.
“You couldn’t live without my mockery.”
“Not only could I live, I would do so quite contentedly. I’d smile daily. Chortle a bit, even.”
“Chortle would make a great name for a turtle,” Heather muses. Dark eyes roll even as she squirms closer, arm winding around the taller girl’s lithe frame.
“Sometimes, I really have to wonder how much acting you do in a day, Morris.”
“Sometimes, it’s like you’re asking for a knuckle sandwich, Rivera.”
“Would that have pickles?” she wonders, a laugh bursting free when Heather’s gently stroking fingertips turn maliciously to her ribcage. “Okay! Enough! I give!”
The tickling halts instantly; Heather’s lower lip shifts outward in an impressive pout. “I didn’t even get to sit on you.”
“Don’t rule it out just yet,” she quips, her stomach tightening when Heather smiles again, slowly this time. Strong hands slide to palm her back and waist, shifting slightly until she is on her back with Heather looming just over her. It’s not like she’s scared or anything, because it’s Heather, but there’s definitely something going on-a flicker of nerves quashed immediately by a flare of want. Head trapped in the crevice between two pillows, she squints, trying to keep the face above hers in focus as Heather drifts closer, her lips inching nearer and nearer and-
The toned body she knows so well drops unexpectedly down with a thump, just about knocking the wind from her lungs. Before she can complain, long arms are wound tight around her waist, a warm nose nuzzling against her neck as the top of Heather’s head bumps easily against her jaw. She blinks.
“What the hell?”
“Sleepy,” comes Heather’s muffled response. “You’re cuddly.”
“You’re kidding.”
Blonde hair shifts, tickling her skin; she wrinkles her nose even as she slides a hand gradually up Heather’s spine and back down again as far as she can reach.
“What’s the point of being in love,” Heather muses against her pulse point, “if you can’t use the person as a human body pillow?”
It’s not the kind of response most people would get for the trouble of speaking their mind. It should probably be a little insulting.
But she loves this-the comfort, and the warmth, and the ease-and she loves all of that because it is Heather. Or Heather is it. If there’s a distinction there, she doesn’t care to analyze it.
Fondly rapping the other woman between the shoulder blades, she drinks in a long, sighing breath, and closes her eyes.
Pairing: Naya Rivera/Heather Morris
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: 1,668 words of Heya cuddles, written at about 4 in the morning on total accident.
A/N: For Lucy, who GOT HER WAY, I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY, and for Sammi, who talked me through it because she wanted a birthday present. I don’t generally do RPF (this would be a first, and I have no idea if I’ll ever do it again), but I suppose it wasn’t too painful an experience. Title from Edges' "Like Breathing", although this is about 30 times LESS melancholy than that song.
They’re tangled together on her bed when it slips out. She’s not even sure how it happens. It’s no big thing, this cuddling situation; they do it all the time. When work is particularly stressful, when a day has run a little too long, when Heather’s too damn tired to head back to her own place. Her bed is bigger, and warm, and entirely too squishy for its own good. It just makes the most sense.
When things get rough, this is the thing she looks forward to. It makes all the brutal publicity crap and grueling hours worth it, to know that at the end of the day, she gets to loop her arm through Heather’s and guide them both back here. To a nice, well-lit apartment with a multitude of fuzzy, brightly-colored blankets. To a bottle of wine. To laughter over memories of how Cory nearly knocked Lea off the stage with his bumbling hip gyrations, and how Dianna and Jenna just about killed themselves laughing until their favorite fearless diva charged them both out of mock-outrage.
Few things are as amusing as not being on the receiving end of a Lea-tackle.
She loves her job, she really does, but sometimes even dancing and singing for a living can get a little tiresome. Not that she’s complaining, because it is an awesome way to put bread on the table, especially with such amazing friends around to share it with, but…well…
A woman can only take so many swooning girls and bashful young men trailing up and down supermarket aisles before she gets kind of burned out, that’s all she’s saying.
So it’s nice to come home with the best friend she’s ever had and curl up with an inhuman number of pillows. She loves how they don’t even have to talk about it; it’s just become routine, like the way Heather wearily folds her long legs into the car, feet up on the dash as she bops out the radio’s rhythm on her knees. She loves how they swing into the apartment and drop their things in the same locations: her purse and keys on the little table by the door, Heather’s right between the oak legs, atop her shoes. She loves how they pass through the kitchen like ghosts with menial purpose, pausing only to grab that wine, or a bag of chips, or a plate of leftover pizza out of the fridge on the way.
She loves how they reach her room and just collapse, all the wonder and exasperation and strain of a full day’s work bleeding out onto the comforter with that first combined exhalation. She loves how the mattress bows beneath their weight, like it was made to hold just the two of them, along with all the crap that has gotten too heavy for their bodies: Ryan’s grumpy complaints, sore muscles, the self-esteem battering ram that is listening to Amber belt the living shit out of a Gloria Gaynor tune. She loves how, the second they hit this bed, it all seems to drain away.
And she loves the way Heather looks, huddled against the pillows with those ever-cheerful blue eyes and that haphazard ponytail, one arm splayed behind her head, the other wound tight around her waist. She loves how Heather always seems to know when to pull her closer and when to push away and womp her over the head with one of the cushion-sized beasts she calls pillows. She loves how, no matter what sort of day they’ve had, it never manages to follow them here. This room is a sanctuary, untouched by frustration and aggression and worries about whether or not Big Things will even matter in the long run.
She decided long ago that she loves everything about their post-work ritual, so it really comes as no surprise-no big one, anyway-when she realizes there’s something else she loves.
Not that she ever meant to say it out loud. It isn’t even about the whole ‘stigma of falling for your best friend’ thing, or the ‘coming out of the closet complicates careers’ thing, or the ‘you’re not Brittany and Santana’ thing. It has never been about secret-keeping, or angst, or gay panic. She doesn’t even think she is gay in the first place. You don’t have to be gay to fall in love with somebody-especially someone like Heather.
It’s just…not something she has ever really put stock into verbalizing. Sometimes, things happen. You just know, the way one might know God, or know the truth behind a song. Knowing doesn’t necessitate talking about it. She pretty much decided long ago not to bother.
So when it slips out, well-it sort of takes her by surprise.
“I think I love you.”
Heather’s head shifts against the pillow, eyes closed, lips curving in a sleepy smile. “Obviously.”
It’s not the answer such a statement would normally garner. She sits up a little, propping herself up on one elbow and impatiently brushing back the streak of black hair that sweeps into her eyes. “No, really,” she repeats wonderingly. “Heather. I love you.”
“And why wouldn’t you?” is the only response. Heather’s hand closes around her bicep, yanking without warning so that her head drops back onto the drowsy, sweet-smelling cocoon that is her bed. She frowns.
“You’re taking this annoyingly well.”
“Any reason I shouldn’t?” Heather asks mildly, turning until they’re facing each other more directly and cracking one eye open. It’s as if they’re discussing which Chinese place to order from later, or the cultural relevance of Center Stage. It’s not like she has just said the stupid ‘L’ word to her best friend.
Which is fine, it’s not like it’s upsetting that Heather isn’t getting bent, but she feels a little huffy about it anyway. Little girls tend to grow up thinking the act of professing love beckons a reaction beyond a drawled, “Why wouldn’t you?”
Leave it to Heather to just…not.
“So?”
She feels like her best friend is frozen in time, lying there with one arm under her head and that singular eye still closed in a lazy wink. Heather is beautiful-not torturously so, like all the heart-rending novels insist, but the real kind. The kind that calls to mind lazy Saturdays sprawled on the living room floor jamming to Lady Gaga albums, and sweaty hair matted down from long-winded rehearsals, and a coffee cup shoved into her hand when she needs it most. Heather is beautiful the way piano arpeggios are beautiful, the way autumn foliage is beautiful, the way your future bedmate-for-life is beautiful. For an extended moment, it’s enough just to stare.
And then she remembers what she has just said, and how Heather seems to be in the midst of falling asleep despite such a rousing confession, and what the hell, Heather?
“You’re usually supposed to answer when someone uses that word.”
“I did answer,” Heather replies calmly, lips curving up and up. “You say it like you expected it to be a bombshell or something.”
Well, not so much, she thinks fairly, but is it so much to ask for a response of the semi-emotional variety?
“So do you, like, love me back?”
Heather’s fingers sneak around her hip, urging up under the back of her shirt and lingering against her skin. “Do you, like, need me to answer that?”
“I don’t appreciate the mockery,” she sniffs, the instinctive teasing grin belying her amusement. Heather grins.
“You couldn’t live without my mockery.”
“Not only could I live, I would do so quite contentedly. I’d smile daily. Chortle a bit, even.”
“Chortle would make a great name for a turtle,” Heather muses. Dark eyes roll even as she squirms closer, arm winding around the taller girl’s lithe frame.
“Sometimes, I really have to wonder how much acting you do in a day, Morris.”
“Sometimes, it’s like you’re asking for a knuckle sandwich, Rivera.”
“Would that have pickles?” she wonders, a laugh bursting free when Heather’s gently stroking fingertips turn maliciously to her ribcage. “Okay! Enough! I give!”
The tickling halts instantly; Heather’s lower lip shifts outward in an impressive pout. “I didn’t even get to sit on you.”
“Don’t rule it out just yet,” she quips, her stomach tightening when Heather smiles again, slowly this time. Strong hands slide to palm her back and waist, shifting slightly until she is on her back with Heather looming just over her. It’s not like she’s scared or anything, because it’s Heather, but there’s definitely something going on-a flicker of nerves quashed immediately by a flare of want. Head trapped in the crevice between two pillows, she squints, trying to keep the face above hers in focus as Heather drifts closer, her lips inching nearer and nearer and-
The toned body she knows so well drops unexpectedly down with a thump, just about knocking the wind from her lungs. Before she can complain, long arms are wound tight around her waist, a warm nose nuzzling against her neck as the top of Heather’s head bumps easily against her jaw. She blinks.
“What the hell?”
“Sleepy,” comes Heather’s muffled response. “You’re cuddly.”
“You’re kidding.”
Blonde hair shifts, tickling her skin; she wrinkles her nose even as she slides a hand gradually up Heather’s spine and back down again as far as she can reach.
“What’s the point of being in love,” Heather muses against her pulse point, “if you can’t use the person as a human body pillow?”
It’s not the kind of response most people would get for the trouble of speaking their mind. It should probably be a little insulting.
But she loves this-the comfort, and the warmth, and the ease-and she loves all of that because it is Heather. Or Heather is it. If there’s a distinction there, she doesn’t care to analyze it.
Fondly rapping the other woman between the shoulder blades, she drinks in a long, sighing breath, and closes her eyes.