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Cassie is bone-tired as she drags herself out of the ED. It’s been another one for the books - a neighbourhood drug lacing incident that sent overdose on top of overdose through their trauma bays. Cassie tries to avoid these cases when she can - with the help of her residents and charge nurse - but today it had been unavoidable. Time and time again Cassie had been faced with the bloodless face of another person that reminded her it could have been me it could have been me it could have been me.
She nearly stumbles over her own feet down the hall towards the main exit and the parking lot, which takes her past the darkened coffee shop and the closed gift shop and close-by, the hospital chapel. She has been inside before but she doesn’t make a habit of it, unless someone asks her for directions.
She doesn’t know what possesses her today to glance inside the chapel, to poke her head in. The overhead lights are off. A little pulpit is at the front, flagged by counters where people come to light candles. There are four rows of small pews leading up to it. The evening is almost overtaking the room, but the sun hasn’t set just yet, so the last hurrah of light sets an unearthly glow on the sole inhabitant - the glassy-blonde hair, grease-ridden and loosed from a bun so that the kinks are still evident in the strands. A certain charge nurse who wears a cross and takes every name in vain and still manages to make goodness seem possible on a daily basis. Cassie smiles sadly.
She thinks about not bothering the woman - she’s clearly lost in thought or prayer or both, but the smallness of Dana’s crowded shoulders feels like a magnet pulling Cassie’s heart to them. She can’t help herself.
Cassie sits in the pew across from her, not making a sound except for the creak of the wood beneath her as she sits.
“Didn’t take you as the religious type,” Dana says finally, without looking at her. Her voice is dark and thick with smoked cigarettes. Seems like the latest “quit” has been broken again on a hard day.
Cassie shrugs. “Maybe not literally. But there are some things I believe in.”
“What would those be?”
“You, for one.”
Dana looks at her then, her eyes watery, almost pleading, but with an air of confusion. Like Cassie has said the last thing she was expecting.
Dana shifts over in her pew, moving her bag and making room for Cassie to join her, which she does.
She sits only a couple inches from Dana’s thigh, pretending she doesn’t want to be pressed right up against her.
Cassie looks up at the crucifix on the wall. She distantly thinks these places should be a little more universally religious - maybe without the Christian fixtures so present - but she’s glad that it’s here anyway, for anyone who does believe.
“How are you holding up?” Dana asks quietly. “That was a bad one for everyone, but I think especially for you.”
Cassie’s head droops reflexively. “Yeah. That was… bad. I don’t think I’ve seen that many ODs in one day since… ever. Not even when I was using.”
Dana looks at her and those glassy eyes pool - one tear slips past down her cheek. “I’m so fuckin’ glad you’re okay. I couldn’t imagine if that… if one of those people in there was you. Christ, I don’t want to think about it but I can’t stop myself. I’m sorry to even say it out loud.”
Cassie considers the older woman, how much care and compassion can be contained in one small form, and takes her hands in hers. She had of course noticed Dana hovering around her all day, checking on her. Making sure she was okay. But she hadn’t considered how Dana’s own fears might have come up around all the same cases.
Cassie fixes Dana’s eyes with her own. “I’m right here. I’m okay. That won’t happen to me.” She says it even though she doesn't know, can't really know. She can only believe in her own words and try every single day to keep them true. Then Cassie does something she tries not to overthink. She brings Dana’s hands, clasped in her own and kisses them firmly, before setting them back down in Dana’s lap.
Dana gasps and Cassie worries she’s overstepped. Then Dana mutters under her breath, “Lord forgive me,” and pulls Cassie’s lips into hers and kisses her soundly. She kisses her more deeply, her tongue pressing needily into Cassie’s and then she pulls back just enough to rest their foreheads together, breathing a little harder.
“I’m just so glad you’re here,” Dana whispers in the space between their mouths. Cassie kisses her this time. She drops a hand to Dana’s waist and pulls her closer.
The sound of sneakers in the hallway breaks them apart like a pair of caught teenagers.
Cassie laughs shakily. “I don’t think this was the intention when they put a chapel in the hospital.”
“Oh, you mean for healthcare workers to make out in the pews after hours? I suppose not.” Dana drawls. She sounds a little kiss drunk, but it’s probably mostly just the exhaustion.
Cassie just picks up one of Dana’s hands again and smooths it over with her thumb.
“Do you have Harrison tonight?” Dana asks.
Cassie shakes her head.
“Would you come over?”
“Of course.”
a month later.
“You have to be quiet,” Cassie mumbles against Dana’s throat. Dana groans lightly in response, trapping her own bottom lip between her teeth.
It’s late - their shift went very long. They’re both the kind of out of their minds tired that makes their judgement poor, but they need this. Whatever this is. They can’t go home together tonight, so they claw for what they can.
The chapel isn’t open this late, so Dana borrows a key from Esme - Dana’s always been her favourite - and lets them inside, locking the door behind them, leaving the overhead lights off. Dana sits in the front pew, her eyes avoiding the crucifix on the wall for the more visceral sight in front of her: Cassie straddling her hips and kissing her sloppily like they’re under duress. Groping her like she might run out of hands.
This is a bad idea… Dana thinks. But it only adds a thrilling little curl in her stomach, which - combined with Cassie’s tongue at her neck, thighs in her palms, hands everywhere, hips rocking desperately against Dana’s legs - makes it not matter any more what kind of idea it is. Ideas are gone. Her brain is on layaway. All that’s left are sensations and her body is lit up like an old telephone switchboard, redirecting nerves and stimulation like its operator is on fire.
For a moment Cassie slows - her hips stop and her hands come up to hold Dana’s face firmly, looking her in the eyes. Cassie’s hair is down, it’s a mess around her head, it’s always a mess after a long day and - Dana thinks - maybe just in general. It’s usually sort of adorable.
But the mess of it right now isn’t “adorable.” This mess, in the darkness of the chapel illuminated only by streetlight and moonlight dipping in through the stained-glass windows, makes Dana stop breathing. It reminds her of stories from when she was in Sunday school (a hundred years ago) of penitents wild with worship. Sinners seeking forgiveness for their wrongs, so deep in prayer that they were almost outside of their bodies. Possessed with the need for absolution. The other children used to whisper: they speak in tongues.
That thought any other time would make her laugh, but not now. Not while Cassie is looking at her like she’s about to devour her. Body and blood. Not when they're about to commit sacrilege.
Cassie trails her hands down Dana’s body over her clothes, palms skimming her arms, her breasts, her ribs, her legs, as she lowers herself onto her knees in front of Dana, never once losing eye contact, her blue eyes boring into Dana’s like drills. Cassie’s fingers trail back up Dana’s thighs and hook the waistbands of scrubs and underwear together, pulling them down gently, Dana’s bare ass meeting the cool wood of the pew.
Dana thinks distantly of being hit over the ass with a wooden spoon by her grandmother, the WHACK of it against her skin. Instead of the pain, in this moment she remembers only the sensation of wood, the shock of it. The confusion to her senses as she wondered what she did wrong. This time, Dana knows what she’s doing wrong. And she can’t bring herself to care, only to anticipate.
Cassie dips her mouth down and lifts the shirt to uncover the softness of Dana’s stomach to her lips, pressing them firmly against her belly, swirling her tongue in a path of wet all over her skin. Dana’s hand drifts to Cassie’s head; she slips her fingers through the wild hair and then gently grips it, pulling against her scalp until Cassie growls against her stomach like an animal.
Cassie’s hands grip her thighs like she’s afraid Dana will disappear if she doesn’t hold on to her, her fingers making marks in Dana’s skin.
Meanwhile, Cassie’s mouth drifts down Dana’s torso, placing kisses into the skin and curls that welcome her there, until the flat of her tongue presses firmly between Dana’s legs. She flicks her eyes up to Dana’s, looking a little possessed again in a way that makes Dana’s nails scratch against her scalp. “Christ, Cass…” Dana moans. The wide tongue against her doesn’t move - Cassie waits for Dana to jerk up into her mouth, to impatiently thrust. The movement makes Cassie grin against her - Dana can feel it. And that’s when Dana knows she is a goner.
Cassie’s hands slide up Dana’s sides underneath her shirt and cup her breasts through the thin bra. Dana breathes harder - she can feel Cassie like a current running through every point in her body, but the tongue still doesn’t move. Dana tries to thrust again but Cassie presses her elbows down to stop Dana’s hips.
Then the tongue withdraws and Dana whines in protest. Cassie leans up to Dana’s mouth to let her taste herself, tongue diving past her lips and Dana feels her eyes rolling back at the languid way Cassie pours her mouth inside.
When Cassie pulls back her eyes are dark, as if the blue has retreated for safety. “Let me take care of you.” Cassie says softly.
And suddenly, on top of every other fiery, bodily sensation in Dana’s system, she feels a deep well in her chest overflow at those words, at the notion that she can be taken care of for once, instead of just offering care to everyone else around who needs it. Cassie does this: she makes her feel held and tended and visible, whether it’s sex or friendship or just knowing to call on a bad day. The overwhelming feeling looses a tear from her eye and Cassie’s thumb wipes it from her cheek.
Then she brings her thumb to her mouth and swallows the tear, their gaze still locked, and Dana has to remember to breathe.
Cassie sinks again and lowers her mouth to Dana’s cunt. She buries her face there, her tongue winding and thrusting inside and around every inch of her as Dana tries not to squirm in delight. “Oh god,” Dana groans and accidentally looks at the crucifix as she does. It’s sinful what they’re doing, where they’re doing it, but it doesn’t feel that way. As she looks into Cassie’s eyes, watches her suck her clit into her mouth, she only feels worshipped.
Cassie’s head bobs in her lap, gorging on her like she’s a feast, sucking her up and swirling her around in her mouth like a divine meal, and Dana feels the creeping tendrils of her own orgasm swirl inside her body. It’s hard to get a breath without shuddering with anticipatory shakes. “Cassie, please,” she whimpers and doesn’t care how desperate she sounds. She is desperate. A woman unfound being rediscovered, unearthed from a tomb she didn’t know she’d been inside of.
Cassie hums against her then, like she’s tasting the best meal she’s ever had and Dana’s neck muscles tighten, she grabs Cassie’s head in both hands and can’t help herself - she thrusts against her mouth, riding out every wave of pleasure. When she finally reaches the end, she reaches down and pulls Cassie up by the back of her shirt to lay against her, both of them panting in the dark.
Dana realizes there are more tears leaking out of her only when Cassie reaches up and wipes them from her face, once again kissing her deeply, allowing the mess of her mouth to cover both of them. Dana loves the feeling and wishes only that they had all night to wind around one another like braids of hair, to combine into one thing and never stop touching.
Cassie whispers, “I love you” against her lips like a benediction and Dana holds her face in her hands and kisses her forehead as if bestowing a blessing. This is all they have for tonight. But soon, they’ll have more and more and Dana reveres this offering for now for what it is: a short but holy communion all their own.