#asperad

( * @asperad​︱prompted ! ) : 🍓 if you’d like!

violet’s  fingers,  adept    &    quick,  curl  around  the  hand  at  her  thigh.  gently  at  first,  merely  to  hinder  any  further  movement  upwards.      ❝     i’m  starting  to  think  all  these  random  inquiries  that  keep  landing  you  in  my  living  room    𝐒𝐎  𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄  𝐀𝐓  𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓   aren’t  for  your  investigation  as  much  as  it  is  an  𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐔𝐒𝐄  𝐓𝐎  𝐒𝐄𝐄  𝐌𝐄.     ❞     her  grasp  tightens  around  the  detective’s  hand,  feeling  the  taut  outline  of  tendon   &   bone  beneath  her  own  forceful  touch.     

  ❝       forgive  me  if  i’m  not  feeling  very  cooperative  tonight.   last  week’s  line  of  questioning  still  has  me  in  a  bad  mood.      ----------------     coffee ?     ❞   

i. they meet when stella swoops in to stop lillian being hasselled by a man at a bar. she moves in to wrap her arms around lillians shoulders, kissing her cheek just close enough that their lips almost brush as she pulls away. when she leans against lillian as if they're together, lillian leans into her, finding a sense of safety in her even before they know each other. when the man leaves them alone, lillian offers to buy stella a drink, partly to thank her for helping her, partly because she wants to get to know her. they spend hours talking before they slip away to one of their hotel rooms together, stella leading, and lillian finding herself happy to go with the flow. it's completely unlike anything she's ever done before, and she's more than a little nervous, but even then, she trusts the other woman.

ii. she's not particularly eager to broadcast her lack of experience with women, or how her past has left her unsure and nervous. even though she doesn't say it, stella seems to pick up on it, happy to guide her through touching her when she asks. it's so much better than lillian expected, not because of stella, but because of what she's known before. it completely changes her view on what it can be like. it's a night of kissing and touching and making each other feel good, stella's fingers gentling when they run over her scars, lillian allowing her hands to be redirected when they risk touching stella's thighs. afterwards, lillian leaves it up to stella on whether she should stay or go, and takes the opportunity to kiss the nape of her neck, and thank her.

iii. lillian is very respectful of stella's feelings about relationships. they might be classified as fwb for a while, and without pushing those boundaries, lillian certainly tries to be there as her friend. she quickly recognises a fellow insomniac, and whenever they spend a night together she tries to encourage stella to actually stay the night, knowing that that extra time she spends getting home could be used to sleep, and that it might make all the difference. sometimes this means throwing a leg or arm over her afterwards, or gently taking her hand, but if she feels stella pull away, she never holds her there. she just hopes that knowing she can will help. sometimes she hires a nice hotel room for stella as close to the police station as possible, hoping that having an actual bed close by will stop her from using the cot in her office. she never pushes anything on her, but she tries to show her she's there.

iv. their relationship changes after stella returns to london from belfast. having visited stella a few times, notably when she was in hospital, lillian is aware of the affect the case has had on her, and spends time with her during her leave. she provides comfort and stress relief, never pushing stella to talk about it if she doesn’t want to. her feelings for stella have grown into much more than she’s admitted, but she keeps it to herself. that is until her ex-husband finds her. though she’s terrified, she knows that stella will eventually realise what’s happened, and she knows that she’ll find her. afterwards, with stella holding her hand in hospital, refusing to let go of her, lillian gives her hand a gentle squeeze, and tells her how good it is to see her. later, lillian curls around stella in the bed, holding her hand beneath the sheets, and tells her she loves her.

         “I think you pick what you say very carefully.” She’s developed this impression over time. She finds it hard to take anyone’s measure quickly, but Stella is especially difficult. Jane has no way in at the eyes, or elsewhere in the face; she counts on the voice, and Stella’s voice is smooth on the surface, like a sheet of glass. Jane can’t get a grip on it; she slides right off. She would have felt it to be a bad thing if Stella didn’t seem to reach out in her own way--here is the sheet of glass between us, you can’t get through, but I’ll gesture to you from time to time, from here on the other side.

         “I think you... Maybe you think a lot. Maybe there’s... Too much. Too much to say. That you see, or think, or know.” Jane’s upturned eyes search the ceiling, her hands kneading together in front of her. She doesn’t usually pick out words for these things, name the sensation past “I like you,” “I don’t like you.” Most of these things stay inarticulate, a part of her inner landscape that she never reveals except obliquely, through gestures of her own. “And you pick. You pick the thing to say. The right thing. Or the thing that will... Make it happen. The thing you want.”

2. to skinny dip / @asperad​

a gaze dragged heavily up the blondes body, lips pursing as she leaned inward. lips made contact with the other, ghosting while her fingers danced in between their scarcely clothed bodies. 

            “you and I, wer’e not so different.” she husked, tongue coming out to taste the corner of stella’s lips. “I like what I see, and I go and get it...now come and JOIN me.” helena dragged the remaining clothes from her body, now naked under the shimmering, moonlit water she swam further into the water. “and not to sound cliche, but it is a rather beautiful evening for it.” 

    𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐛𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐛𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 . it’s nice that she would . it’s nice that she did , when all that she could have done was given him her say so , and nothing else . even the rosy confoundment she prints onto his skin , soaked in for thirsty soil , is pleasant , and warm . he’s too hard on himself . maybe he was . 

     there’s not really a name he can find for the amalgamation that brews and takes shape the way she looks at him , and he at her molds in the in between spaces where his lungs and the beat of a muscle no less stubborn than it was a year ago won’t touch , or have become too shy to . he may have made it that way . in the next breath he lets breathe out his nose , they think of each other . heugh doesn’t smile , but he is warm to her . and that’s enough .       her hand cradling his face isn’t there as if he were some boy wet - cheeked and tacky with all of his un - letted frustration as if though the first impression might tell him that , and it might’ve , but he knows better , and she just wants him to pay attention     ---     be tethered again . she’s drawn him back in by the same rope he let slip off the dock and into the water . an impulse wanting , to check her wrist to see if he ought to apologize for it having gotten wet with the choice he feels he’d somehow influenced her to let make , to reach down into that black for it in the first place . heugh ought to have known how to tie the knot better . even if he had , guilt ought not to have rooted a thicket inside of him in the first place . it’s invasive . it ought not be there at all . yet there it was , budding thorny , and vicious in the prick . heugh’s not too worried about how that blooms . that , he can groom out .       so now there was water , and angry weeds , where there was always water , and no weeds to put to name . seems he had let some of the maintenance slip away from him . he’ll be better about it next time .