Work Text:
The morning comes in slow through the curtains — thin cotton, old, the kind that diffuses light rather than blocking it, so the room goes gold before it goes bright. Stan is awake before Fiddleford. She's been awake for a little while, just lying there with her arm going numb under Fiddleford's head and not particularly inclined to do anything about it.
Fiddleford sleeps like she's fighting something. There's a furrow between her brows even now, her fingers loosely curled against Stan's tank top. She's slim beside Stan — not fragile, but compact and warm and solid in ways Stan doesn't have words for.
Her hair is soft. Fiddleford keeps it short — close-cropped at the sides, a little longer on top — and there are a couple patches still coming back in, where it's not quite caught up with the rest yet. Stan's hand finds it without her really deciding to move. Works through it slowly. She's careful around the sparse patches.
Fiddleford's frown eases.
Stan watches her face do it — the little crease between her brows smoothing out, the jaw unclenching degree by degree. Her breathing shifts, losing the tight rhythm of sleep. Stan keeps going, fingertips moving in slow circles against Fiddleford's scalp, and waits.
Fiddleford's eyes open. Unfocused at first, blinking away the fog, and then they find Stan's face. Something in her expression shifts — the sleep-crease between her brows easing out, her mouth going soft at the corners. She looks at Stan the way she looks at very few things: without any guard up at all.
Then she smiles, small and real, and reaches up and grabs Stan's face in both hands.
"Hey—" Stan starts.
Fiddleford pulls her down and kisses her properly.
It starts soft. Fiddleford's hands are warm against Stan's jaw, thumbs pressed to her cheeks, and she kisses like she means it — like she's been thinking about it, which, knowing Fiddleford, she probably has been, even in her sleep. Stan makes a low sound and kisses back, and then Fiddleford tilts her head and bites Stan's lower lip, just catches it between her teeth and tugs.
Stan groans into her mouth. Fiddleford swallows the sound and bites her lower lip and Stan's grip on her hip tightens. She does it again. Harder. Her hands slide from Stan's jaw into her hair, fingers curling, and Stan makes a low noise that isn't quite a word and pulls her in by the hip until there's no space left between them.
Fiddleford bites harder still. Stan breathes through her nose and takes it.
Stan pulls back first. She has to. She needs air and also her whole mouth is tingling.
Fiddleford chases her. Gets maybe an inch before she registers that Stan genuinely moved away, and then she pulls back and looks at her — a real look, assessing — and her expression goes to something that is trying very hard not to be a pout.
"I have to pee," Stan says.
Fiddleford's look of dignified offense is a work of art. Stan has, in her life, seen a lot of art. This is better than most of it.
"You—" Fiddleford starts.
"I have to pee," Stan says again. "Hold that thought." She presses a quick, perfunctory kiss to Fiddleford's forehead and rolls out of bed.
She can feel Fiddleford's eyes on her back the whole way to the bathroom.
—
By the time Stan comes back out, Fiddleford is already up and dressed — sweatpants, old navy ones with a fraying hem, and a sweatshirt two sizes too big that Stan is pretty sure used to belong to Ford before Fiddleford claimed it. Her hair is sticking up a little on one side. She's wearing her glasses. She looks, Stan thinks, extremely good.
Stan pulls a new tank top on, finds a pair of boxers, doesn't bother with anything else.
The kitchen smells like old coffee — Ford had a pot going at five in the morning, naturally, and didn't think to leave a fresh one. Stan gets the eggs out of the fridge.
"Scrambled?"
"Please." Fiddleford is already at the counter, pulling the toaster toward her. It comes apart in her hands with the ease of long familiarity — she's been at this for three days, taking it apart and putting it back and taking it apart again. It made a sound last week that she didn't like.
"It still toasts," Stan had said, when Fiddleford first flagged it.
"That's not the point."
“Huh?"
Fiddleford had given her a look that communicated, without words, that this was not a conversation Stan was going to win, and got her screwdriver.
Stan cracks the eggs now and doesn't bring it up again. The toaster sits in pieces around Fiddleford's hands. She frowns at a component, turns it over, sets it down.
There's a quiet between them, just the hiss of the pan heating and the small sounds of Fiddleford working. Stan's just getting the eggs in when footsteps come barreling down the hallway.
Ford appears in the kitchen doorway mid-sentence: "—and given the projected emergence window, I calculate it happening somewhere around noon, possibly earlier if the barometric pressure drops, so I'll be in the forest, probably overnight, don't hold dinner—" she spots the two of them, takes a breath, continues, "—the eyebats hatch in clusters and I've been waiting months for this, do not wait up."
"Eyebats," Stan says.
"There's coffee," Ford says, already moving through the kitchen with her travel mug, moving around them. She's in her hiking gear — boots laced, pack bulging at her back. "Help yourselves. Fidds, the toaster—"
"I know," Fiddleford says.
"It's making a sound—"
"I know."
Ford pauses, and looks between them with the expression she gets when she suspects she's missing something social. "Right," she says. "Eyebats." And then she's gone, the front door banging behind her.
The house goes quiet again.
Stan stares at the closed door for a moment. Then she sets down the spatula, crosses the kitchen in four steps, comes up behind Fiddleford at the counter, and puts her hands on Fiddleford's hips.
Fiddleford goes still.
Stan bends and puts her mouth to the back of Fiddleford's neck — just below the short hairline, that soft vulnerable strip of skin — and kisses her softly. Fiddleford exhales. Her shoulders come down from around her ears.
"House to ourselves," Stan says against her skin.
"I noticed," Fiddleford says, a smile in her voice.
Stan kisses behind her ear. Fiddleford's hands slow on the toaster components. Stan slides her hands forward from Fiddleford's hips, palms flat against the soft fabric of the sweatshirt, feeling the warmth of her underneath, and Fiddleford lets her — tips her head a little to the side to give Stan better access to her neck, lets her press against her back, lets her hands move.
Until Stan's hands start moving upward, grazing the skin of her breasts.
The smoke detector goes off like a judgment from God.
Stan spins around. The eggs are very, very done. Fiddleford is coughing on smoke and waving a dish towel at the ceiling, and Stan lunges for the pan, and for a few undignified minutes there's nothing in the kitchen but the shriek of the detector and Stan swearing and the scrape of burnt egg.
Fiddleford, once she's convinced the detector to stop, leans against the counter with her arms crossed and looks at the situation.
"Start over," she says.
"Yeah," Stan says.
They make eggs again. Stan doesn't burn them.
—
By afternoon the light has gone thick and golden.
Fiddleford's got the porch swing to deal with — one of the chains has been pulling wrong, wearing against the hook wrong, and she's been meaning to sort it for weeks. She gets her tools, gets her step stool, starts working through the problem with the methodical patience she brings to anything mechanical. She likes the quiet of it. The physical logic.
She's not thinking about Stan.
She's also watching Stan.
It's incidental. Stan is just over there, that's all. Fiddleford's not going out of her way to look. It's simply that Stan is fixing her car — has been at it for an hour, hood up, forearms deep in the engine — and is occupying a significant portion of the visual field, and Fiddleford is human and has eyes.
Stan reaches for something. The tank top pulls. Her back muscles move under it.
Fiddleford tightens a bolt she's already tightened.
Stan's arms are covered in grease up to the elbow. There's a smear of something dark across her cheek. She works with the easy confidence of someone who knows exactly what she's doing, unhurried, occasionally talking to herself or to the car or to the general situation, and Fiddleford has known this woman for years and it still gets her, still does something that she finds frankly inconvenient given that they are both outside in the afternoon sun and Fiddleford has a swing chain to sort.
She sorts the swing chain. She glances over again.
Stan is reaching into the engine with both arms, shirt riding up slightly at the back, and Fiddleford puts her step stool away with perhaps more force than necessary.
She crosses the yard.
Stan hears her coming — or doesn't, actually, because Stan is entirely focused on the car — and Fiddleford comes up behind her and gets both hands around her from behind, palms squeezing down on her breasts, and Stan makes a sound that is not quite a yelp.
"Fidds—"
"You look good," Fiddleford says into her ear.
Stan laughs — that low, rough sound — and straightens up. "Yeah?" She sounds pleased. "Like what you see, toots?"
"Hm." Fiddleford keeps her hands where they are. "Yeah. I do, honey."
Stan turns in her grip. She grins like she knows something, and then she gets her hands on Fiddleford — her grease-black, engine-dirty hands, one going to each side — and presses them flat against the front of the sweatshirt over her breasts.
Two perfect handprints. Dark oil. Right there on the front of the sweatshirt.
"Stanley Pines!" she yelps.
"Sorry, baby." Stan is not sorry. Stan looks like she's won something. "Wanted to see you marked."
Something kicks through Fiddleford's chest at that — warm and low and entirely unhelpful. She keeps her expression flat. She reaches up, gets her fingers into the back of Stan's hair — short, silver, she can get a good grip — and pulls.
Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to make Stan's head go back, her chin up, her expression going immediately to something dumber and more honest.
"You're goin’ to make it up to me," Fiddleford says.
Stan swallows. "Yes ma'am."
Fiddleford steers her by the hair.
Stan goes.
Inside, it's cooler. Quiet. The smoke detector has been silent since this morning and hopefully intends to stay that way.
Fiddleford backs Stan against the kitchen counter and Stan reaches back to grip the edge of it, steadying herself. She's still got grease on her arms and her cheek, and she looks down at Fiddleford with an expression that is somewhere between fond and reverent.
"Well?" Stan says.
"Oh hush," Fiddleford laughs, and gets her hands on her.
She doesn't rush. Never does, not with anything she's decided to do properly. She gets her hands on Stan's face first, tilts it down to hers, kisses her, and Stan makes a low sound and grips the counter harder. Her jaw. Her throat. The place under her ear that makes her breath catch.
"Fidds," Stan says. Her voice has gone rough already.
"I'm workin’," Fiddleford says.
Stan laughs, and Fiddleford can feel it against her mouth. She gets her hands under the hem of Stan's tank top — warm skin, the soft give of her stomach, Stan's breath going short — and Stan's hands come off the counter to settle on Fiddleford's hips instead. Pulling her in.
Fiddleford rolls her hips — slow, barely grazing the front of Stan's boxers — and Stan's breath punches out. She does it again, same pace, same deliberate pressure, and Stan's head tips back against the cabinet. Her grip on the counter edge goes tight.
"Fiddleford," Stan groans out.
Another roll, unhurried, and Stan makes a sound low in her throat.
Stan's hands are tightening on her hips — the grease, she'll have to wash these sweatpants — and Fiddleford presses closer, mouth finding Stan's throat, and Stan's head tips back further and something rattles.
They both stop.
Fiddleford opens the cabinet above Stan's head. They look at the bottle on the second shelf — not the stuff they normally reach for but the genuinely good stuff, the bottle that's been up there so long neither of them can remember who bought it or why they kept saving it.
"Ford said not to wait up," Stan says.
"She did," Fiddleford says.
Stan reaches up and gets the bottle.
—
The porch steps are warm from the afternoon sun, the wood holding onto heat. They sit close — glasses in hand, the good bottle between them.
Stan is watching her.
Fiddleford takes a sip of her drink and doesn't look over. Lets her watch. After a moment: "You wanna smoke or just watch me?"
Stan doesn't answer right away. Gets her cigarettes out of her breast pocket, taps one loose. She puts it between Fiddleford's lips first and cups her hand around the flame when she lights it, sheltering it from a wind that isn't really there. Fiddleford draws in slowly and Stan watches the ember catch, watches her exhale, and then lights her own.
They sit with the smoke drifting between them.
Stan reaches over. Runs two fingers up the inside of her arm, wrist to elbow.
Fiddleford doesn't look at her. Takes another drag.
She finishes her cigarette, stubs it out on the porch step, and stands. She doesn't look back. She knows Stan will follow.
—
They find the couch the way they find most things — Fiddleford pulling her by the wrist and Stan going willingly. The alcohol has taken the edge off the afternoon, left them warm and loose-limbed, and Fiddleford pushes Stan down into the cushions and climbs over her.
Fiddleford gets her hands on the hem of Stan's tank top. Pushes it up slow, palms flat against her plush stomach, feeling the warmth of her skin. Stan shifts to help her get it over her head and then she's bare from the waist up and Fiddleford sits back and looks at her for a moment — just looks, unhurried.
Stan’s breasts are full, heavy in a way that makes Fiddleford's hands itch to hold her. She gets them on her — both hands, cupping the weight of her breasts, thumbs brushing across her nipples — and watches Stan's breath change.
"Stop starin’," Stan says.
Fiddleford moves her hands to Stan's boxers — that funny little swell at the front that Stan is insufferable about, her clit full and swollen under the thin fabric — and Stan makes a sound low in her throat.
"Someone's happy to see me," Fiddleford says.
"You're just jealous," Stan says, "that I got an outie and you don't."
Fiddleford rolls her eyes and Stan laughs. Fiddleford kisses her to make her stop — gets a hand on her jaw, tips her head back, kisses her until the laughter dissolves into something lower and warmer.
The boxers go. Fiddleford peels them down Stan's hips, dragging her knuckles along her outer thighs as she goes, and Stan shivers despite the warmth of the room. Fiddleford is still dressed and she has no intention of changing that yet. There's something she likes about the specific weight of it, Stan bare and open beneath her and Fiddleford still deliberate, still unhurried, still fully herself. Stan reaches for her and Fiddleford catches her wrists gently and puts them back down.
"Stay," she says, quietly.
Fiddleford gets her hands on her inner thighs and pushes them apart, feeling the soft weight of her. Stan is already flushed and wet, and Fiddleford takes a moment just to look at her — spread out on the old couch cushions, silver hair messy against the armrest, chest rising and falling — before she settles between her legs and gets her mouth on her.
Stan's clit is full and swollen under her tongue, prominent enough that Fiddleford can get her lips around it properly, and she does — seals her mouth over it and sucks, and Stan's hips come off the couch. Her hand lands on the back of Fiddleford's head, fingers curling into her hair.
Fiddleford takes her time. Works her tongue in circles first, learning the weight of her, the specific pressure that makes Stan's breath go ragged. Then she seals her mouth down and sucks again, more deliberate this time, and Stan makes a noise low and unguarded, her thighs pressing in around Fiddleford's head.
She eases off. Does it again, slower. Stan makes a frustrated sound.
"Fiddleford—"
Fiddleford ignores her. She drags her tongue flat and slow from base to tip, taking her time, and Stan's hand tightens in her hair. She does it again. Again. Until Stan is rolling her hips up trying to get more friction, trying to direct her, and Fiddleford gets her hands firmly on her hips and holds her down.
Then she gets her mouth back on her properly — lips sealed around her, sucking steady, bobbing her head — and works two fingers into her at the same time. Stan gasps, her free hand twisting in the couch cushion, her whole body arching up into it.
Fiddleford strokes into her, curling her fingers, feeling for the spot that makes Stan's thighs shake. She finds it and Stan makes a noise that isn't quite a word. Fiddleford keeps her mouth working, keeps her fingers moving, the two rhythms offset just slightly so that the pleasure builds in waves rather than all at once. Stan is panting through her teeth now, pulling at her hair, hips rolling up against Fiddleford's hands in small desperate movements.
She keeps going. Listens to every sound, every shift of breath, adjusting. Patient. Stan is getting louder, getting closer, her thighs trembling on either side of Fiddleford's head —
And then nothing. The pleasure builds and stalls, pools without cresting. Stan's whole body tightens and then just — doesn't. Her jaw works. Her hand in Fiddleford's hair tightens and pulls, decisive.
Fiddleford comes up and looks at her. Waiting.
"Can't," Stan says. More frustrated than embarrassed. Mostly. "Need—"
She doesn't finish the sentence. She just gets her hands on Fiddleford and starts pulling the sweatshirt up.
Fiddleford helps. The sweatshirt goes. The sweatpants go. Fiddleford lets Stan undress her with uncharacteristic patience, lets Stan kiss each new inch of skin — the soft curve of her shoulder, her collarbone, the inside of her wrist — small soft kisses that Stan gives her like she can't help it.
"Come here," Stan says, and guides her up by the hips.
Fiddleford understands. She shifts up the length of the couch, knees settling on either side of Stan's head, and Stan gets both hands on her hips and pulls her down onto her mouth.
Fiddleford exhales, long and shaking.
She reaches behind her without looking. Finds Stan by touch alone — her stomach, her hip, the inside of her thigh — and gets her fingers on her clit, still swollen and aching, and starts licking into her.
Stan makes a sound into her. Muffled, desperate.
Fiddleford's hips stutter.
She finds a rhythm — rocking forward, grinding down against Stan's mouth — and Stan meets every movement, tongue working in firm steady circles, hands gripping her hips hard enough to hold her exactly where she wants her. Fiddleford is wet, slick against Stan's chin, against her cheeks, and Stan makes a low hungry sound and pulls her down harder.
Fiddleford moans. Properly, openly, the sound dragged out of her.
Stan's tongue works into her, lapping, tasting every part of her, and then seals her mouth over her clit and sucks and Fiddleford's whole body jerks forward. Her hips are moving without her permission now — short rolling thrusts, riding Stan's face, chasing the pressure of her tongue. She can feel how wet she is, how slick, can feel it on her own thighs, and the knowledge of it makes her flush deeper and thrust harder.
"God," Fiddleford breathes. "Stanley—"
Stan hums against her in answer and does it again, tongue dragging, and Fiddleford's thighs are shaking. She's gripping the back of the couch so hard her hands ache. Her hips are moving in earnest now, grinding forward against Stan's mouth, and Stan takes it — takes all of it, hands firm on her hips, mouth open and hungry and giving her exactly what she needs.
Fiddleford comes with a sharp gasp that breaks into something lower, something that shakes out of her chest in waves. Her thighs clamp down hard, her hips stuttering through the last of it, Stan's mouth working her through every tremor until she has to pull herself up by the back of the couch with both hands.
She looks down.
Stan is looking up at her, face completely wet, chest heaving. Smug in a way that is deeply unreasonable for someone in that position.
It makes something clench hard in Fiddleford's chest anyway.
She slides down and takes a moment. She's old, they're both old, and this takes something out of her that it didn't take thirty years ago. Stan produces a cigarette from somewhere — her jeans are on the floor, she must have gotten it from the pocket, Fiddleford doesn't know how — and lights it without ceremony and lies there smoking with her mouth still wet from Fiddleford.
Fiddleford gets her hands on Stan's breasts. Just holds them. Stan exhales smoke at the ceiling.
"Better?" Fiddleford asks.
"Getting there," Stan says.
Fiddleford shifts down after a while. Gets her thigh between Stan's legs and Stan exhales at the pressure against her cunt, her hand finding Fiddleford's hip. Fiddleford reaches over and takes the cigarette from Stan's mouth before she's done with it. Stan opens her mouth to object and Fiddleford takes a long slow drag, eyes on Stan's face the whole time, and then stubs it out in the ashtray on the side table.
"Talk to me," Stan rasps out.
Fiddleford considers her. She's unhurried, one hand resting on Stan's sternum, feeling her breathe. She shifts her thigh to slide against the wetness and watches Stan's jaw tighten.
"I keep thinkin’ about those handprints," she says.
Stan goes still.
"On my sweatshirt." Another small shift of her thigh, and Stan's breath punches out through her nose. "The shape of your hands. All that oil." She tilts her head slightly, like she's examining something at a distance. "I'm goin’ to wash it and they'll still be there."
"Fidds—"
"I want them everywhere," Fiddleford says, in the same register she uses for explaining circuit diagrams. Her free hand moves to her own breast, and Stan watches her with an expression that is rapidly losing any pretense of composure. "I want your handprints on my skin. I want to press my fingers over them afterward and feel where you were." She shifts her thigh again, rocking forward. "Both hands on my chest. Your fingers would overlap, you know. Your hands are that big."
Stan makes a sound that is not a word.
"I've been thinkin’ about it all day," Fiddleford continues, unhurried, her thigh moving in a steady rhythm now. "Since the car. You just — put your hands on me. Like it was obvious. Like I was already yours to mark." A small pause. "I want that. I want it everywhere. I want to smell like you."
"I wanted—" Stan manages.
"I know what you wanted." Fiddleford meets her eyes. Doesn't look away. "Now I'm telling you what I want."
Stan's hands grip her hips. Hard.
"I'm gonna to take you apart," Fiddleford says, almost to herself, her hand moving over her own breast in thoughtful circles, like she's working through a problem. A small, considering tilt of her head. "I've been paying attention for a long time, Stanley. You'd be surprised what I know."
Stan is shaking now. Her head is pressed back into the couch cushion and her hips are rolling up in small helpless movements against Fiddleford's thigh.
"Your hands on my chest," Fiddleford says again, quieter. "Your fingerprints on my hips. I want to look down and see everywhere you've been. I want to wash the sweatshirt and still see them and think about you putting them there." She shifts her weight, grinds her thigh down, and Stan chokes on a breath. "I want to be so thoroughly marked by you that there's no question."
"Fiddleford," Stan gasps. "I need—"
"I've got you," Fiddleford hushes.
She keeps moving — thigh rocking forward, hand working over herself, eyes fixed on Stan's face — and she keeps talking. The specific weight of Stan's hands and the shape of her grip and how badly she wants to be held down and known and claimed by them, wants to claim Stan. Stan comes apart underneath her piece by piece, her whole body shaking, one fist twisted in the couch cushion and one hand finding Fiddleford's hair and gripping.
She comes with a noise that starts controlled and ends as something else entirely. Something open and unguarded and completely undone, and Fiddleford works her through it.
She keeps her thigh moving, gentle now, until Stan's hand finds her wrist.
"Okay," Stan manages. "Okay. Too much."
Fiddleford stills. Lets Stan pull her down without a word.
-
They stay like that for a while.
Stan has one arm around Fiddleford and one behind her own head. Fiddleford is pressed against her side, head on her chest, listening to her heartbeat slow. Stan pulls the blanket from the back of the couch and drapes it over them without ceremony.
Fiddleford's hand is flat on Stan's stomach. Stan's is in her hair again. The same as this morning, almost, except they're on the couch instead of the bed and the light is different and they're both tired in a way that feels good.
"Old lady nap," Stan says.
"Don't you start," Fiddleford says.
"I'm just saying."
"We're the same age, Stanley."
Stan grins. Fiddleford can't see it but she can feel it, the way Stan's whole body shifts when she's pleased with herself. She tucks herself closer anyway.