#fiyera

“That can’t be good for your back,” she says, opening the fridge. She might as well get something worthwhile, more than a small drink of water. She had a feeling that she’d be awake a little longer than previously expected. “What’s up, love?”

They grunt, moving to roll off of the counter-top. Fiyera makes an aborted screech as they make their way down, the thought of food and water quickly discarded in favoring of saving their significant other’s face, but they catch themselves on their hands and knees at the last minute. They start to dust their hands off before their face twists, eyes flashing with something negative, upset; instead of getting up, they resume their task of lying down on a flat, solid surface, only on their stomach, this time, cheek pressed against the cold floor. Fiyera sighs, sits down next to them, and takes one of their long, calloused hands into her wider, chubbier ones.

“Rough night?”

“Just thinking,” is their muffled, dull reply.

“About…?”

“Love, I guess. Not that I d-don’t l-l—Oh, that sounded so bad, I- I—” They sit up, eyes wide, but Fiyera only squeezes their hand, once, twice, three times. They exhale, closing their eyes and squeezing back four. “I’m so happy with you, but I don’t know if…Sometimes I don’t know if I’m allowed to be happy, especially not like this. I don’t know if I deserve it.” “And why not?” And Fiyera is used to this, used to pulling the love of her life into her arms in the rare moments that they fall apart, head barely above the surface of a sea of pain and awful memories of a “mother” that didn’t give a fuck about them or their sister and a “father” that didn’t exist for years. Years of latching onto their best friend and still being unsure, even though Hughes loves them almost like a brother would, almost like family, even though they’ve been told for years that they don’t deserve love from a hand so warm and willing, so inherently kind that Fiyera once feared that Madena was displacing them from something that they needed more than they needed her, and—

And that was besides the point.

“I don’t know. I’m not used to having what I want. And you’re- you’re—”

“I’m someone that loves you, someone that you deserve, whether you think you do or not. I’m not any more special than you are; we’re both human beings. We both have flaws and things that make us...incredible.” Fiyera kisses their forehead and they melt into her, quaking minutely. “I’ve never seen anyone more deserving of love, and I’ve never met someone who love is so indebted to. And I can’t wait for that debt to be paid back in full.” Madena giggles, something full of water, still clearing itself of seawater, but relieving to hear, anyway, “What a poet.”

A second later, somber, “I love you. I’m sorry that I’m...that I’m like this.”

Fiyera does mean to, but she barks out a laugh, “Are you kidding? Have you seen me? It’s not a competition, obviously, but imagine thinking that your bad days are enough to make you unlovable.” She squeezes them tightly, kiss the crown of their head. “I can’t imagine not being able to love you. A few bad days can’t stop me.

“Unless, l-like, you want to be alone, sometimes. I’ll just love you from far away, i-is all.”

“You sound like me,” is all that Madena says in response, and Fiyera can hear the smile in their voice. She has a great idea suddenly, huddling them further into her arms and standing. She deposits them back on the counter-top—that poor granite island, she thinks—tells them to wait, and then rushes to their shared bedroom, yanks her Moto Z Droid off of its charger, grabs her small speaker from her bottom drawer, and runs back into the kitchen.

Madena watches her with a raised eyebrow and an amused but weary smile, “What’s all this, then?”

Fiyera is breathing hard, but the moon is shining through the kitchen curtains and illuminating her lover in a manner so heavenly, so beautiful, that she can only smile cheekily, and she says, breathily, “Dance with me.”

Their eyes crinkle at the corners as they slide off of the counter, “Maybe in the living room? I would hate for the island to take its revenge on our hips.”

The moon is basically a halo around them. Fiyera feels so in love that it pains her—feels it deep in her heart, the ache, heart swelling. Her throat feels tight with emotion, but she nods, and the two of the move into the next room. She turns the speaker on, angles her phone’s screen away from Madena, and clicks the music video.

An 30-second ad for YouTube Red comes on first.

Fiyera turns red, but Madena bursts into a strange combination of laughing and sobbing, giggles wracking their body and tears flooding their face. It doesn’t take long for Fiyera to join them, wheezing. She kisses their tears off of their face, and they laugh harder.

The music comes on a few seconds later, the first few notes of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody drifting through the speakers. Fiyera offers her hand to Madena, who takes it. They snort at the song choice, but they look happy when they speak, “This is, by no means, a slow song.”

“That’s what makes it fun,” she replies, twirling them away and onto the arm of the couch before gripping an invisible microphone, swaying side to side.

“Clock strikes upon the hour, and the sun begins to fade,” she and Whitney sing together. Madena looks fucking delighted. “Still enough time to figure out, how to chase my blues away.”

She points the mic to Madena, who practically jumps to yell the next lyrics, eyes bright, “I’ve done alright up to now; it’s the light of day that shows you how—”

Together, the two of them lean into Fiyera’s hand and sing, having forgotten that there really is no mic, “But when the night falls…the loneliness calls…!!”

The two of them practically just spin each other in circles, twirling around with conjoined hands and face-splitting grins, bellowing the words of one of the greatest songs of all time.

Oh, I wanna dance with somebody!

I wanna feel the heat with somebody!

Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody…

With somebody who loves me.

In the second verse, Madena is just clutching Fiyera’s cheeks, and the two of them are swaying side to side, slowly. “This is a sad song for Whitney, isn’t it? She wanted to dance with someone she hadn’t met, yet.”

Fiyera huffs, a small laugh that’s more air than anything else, “I guess you could say that she was looking for somebody who, somebody who—”

And Madena, unable to break a chain of song when they hear one, responds, “Somebody who loves me-e-e!”

“Somebody who, somebody who,”  She sings it against the palm of one of their hands, quiet, reverent, “To hold me in their arms…”

Madena flushes, a small tittering sound escaping them at the sensation. They forget to sing the next few seconds, staring into Fiyera’s dark eyes, bright and wide and full of love—god, Madena feels as though their heart is going to burst through their rib cage. They pull Fiyera in, and she meets them halfway.