Chapter Text
She’s not completely catatonic, but as she follows Laura into her apartment, Bradley thinks it’s probably safe to say she’s in a bit of a trance. Two days in a row of absolute chaos at work, fighting with Laura, fighting with Hal, barely sleeping because she had fought with Laura and Hal… and yet somehow now she’s here, putting one foot mechanically in front of the other as she steps into the apartment she wasn’t quite sure she’d ever see the inside of again.
***
As it turns out, dazed, cried-out, exhausted Bradley Jackson is much better at quietly taking the back seat than normal, everyday Bradley Jackson.
When Laura brings out sweatpants and a button-up shirt that are softer than anything Bradley’s ever worn in her life, directing her to change into them, she walks to the bathroom and does just that, leaving her folded-up dress on the back of the toilet.
When she walks out and Laura—who’s changed now, too—laughs lightly before coming to her and rolling up the way-too-long sleeves that are hanging off her hands, Bradley just stands there and lets her work, closing her eyes at the brief touch of Laura’s hair against her cheek as the woman leans down to fix the loose fabric.
When Laura deposits her on the couch and drapes a blanket over her before grabbing her phone and retreating to the kitchen, Bradley just stays put, gripping the sides of the impossibly soft thing and pulling it tighter around herself.
But when Laura returns, setting down two glasses of some whiskey that was probably offensively expensive and telling Bradley she ordered them sushi, it should be there in about half an hour or so, she didn’t know what Bradley wanted so she just got a bunch of stuff but she did remember that she loves dragon rolls so there’s definitely a dragon roll in there, then slides her hand casually—so casually, jesus—onto Bradley’s left thigh, she finally snaps out of it. A little, anyway.
She looks at Laura’s hand first, cataloguing the weight of it against her leg, the warmth. Then she looks up at Laura herself, taking in the details: patience in the eyes, but some tension in her brow. Worry?
She’s worried about Bradley. Huh.
And then it hits her, the amount of times Laura has looked at her just like this over the last two days. Despite her frustration, her own emotions, whatever else—Laura has been worried about her. She’s cared about her, and she’s shown it.
Her throat constricts a bit at the thought, and Laura’s hand tightens on her thigh in response. Reassurance—?
Bradley sucks in a deep breath.
“Are we still together?”
Well. She hadn’t meant to say that. Or not to say it like that, at least. Always with the impulses, always with the mouth.
“Bradley…” Laura starts carefully, her thumb moving across the seam of Bradley’s sweatpants.
—and that’s enough for Bradley. She knows when she’s not welcome. A lifetime of not being welcome will do that to you.
And yeah, maybe she hasn’t always cared whether or not she’s wanted somewhere, maybe that hasn’t always stopped her before. But with Laura, it’s more than enough to have her shrugging off the blanket and rising, ready to bolt and lick her wounds in peace. Preferably with her own bottle of whiskey.
“Bradley.”
The way Laura says it this time is almost a command, her voice deep as she spreads her hand firmly over Bradley’s thigh and presses her back down into the couch.
Bradley turns to face Laura as she hits the cushion again, her eyes widening for just a moment before she recovers.
“What I was trying to say,” Laura says, and Bradley looks away, feeling her cheeks warm at the assertiveness, at the splayed hand still gripping her firmly, “is that it’s been a rough few days. For both of us.”
Laura’s fingers find her chin, then, pulling her face back a few inches until she can’t do anything but make eye contact with her.
“We have some talking we need to do, obviously,” Laura starts again, softer, her eyes flitting down for the briefest moment before coming back to Bradley’s. “But frankly, I’m a bit talked-out right now, and I think you probably are too.”
Bradley nods. Laura releases her chin—because of course she notices that Bradley is about to cry—and she tucks a piece of hair behind Bradley’s ear before running her hand over the curve of her cheek, resting it there, watching her.
Finally, Laura’s head angles a fraction of an inch closer, and Bradley’s eyes flutter shut, her lips parting in anticipation, desperate to be kissed. To be kissed by Laura. To know that Laura still wants her, will still have her, that she didn’t chase her away with her endless fucking chaos.
Except—no kiss comes. And Bradley’s eyes are snapping open again, and there Laura is, easily within kissing distance, just smirking at her.
Unbelievable. Confusing. Infuriating. And so pretty, jesus christ. She huffs dramatically and looks away, hoping it gets the entire conflicting message of her feelings across.
“Bradley,” Laura says, breathing out a gentle laugh before reaching once more for her hair, drawing her into her orbit yet again.
“I want—” she starts, carefully, gently, and Bradley stills at the tone in her voice. “I want you to be here if you want to be here,” Laura finishes, and damn if Bradley isn’t about to cry again at the utter fucking sincerity she can feel behind Laura’s words.
And damn if she isn’t about to cry with relief that they’re okay—at least to the point that Laura isn’t just pity-taking care of her until she’s recovered enough to be dumped. At least to the point that Laura actively wants her there—and has definitely thought about kissing her again, too, if the look on her face is anything to go by.
So it’s inevitable, in the end. It’s not like she's ever really been able to control herself around Laura, not when she looks at her like that. It’s inevitable that she lunges forward and kisses her, exactly like she had in the back of the car that first time—though Laura’s less surprised by it now, Bradley would guess, by the way she returns the kiss without missing a beat.
And then it’s fragments: world spinning, blood rushing to her ears, pure feeling and motion. This is what she needed after the last few days. Laura’s hand slipping down her cheek, behind her neck, Laura’s hair tickling her face as it falls forward, Laura’s lips—god, Laura’s lips.
Then Laura’s legs, warm and firm underneath her—Bradley’s in her lap now, somehow—Laura’s hands on her hips, pulling her closer, Laura’s hands back up in her hair, pulling her closer yet, Laura’s hands on her shoulders, pushing—pushing?
Laura’s pushing. Laura’s lips are gone.
“Wait, wait, just—” Laura stutters, trying to anchor Bradley to her lap even as she creates space between their faces.
But Bradley’s not waiting, of course, because she's Bradley.
She stumbles off of Laura and to her feet, grabbing one of the glasses from the coffee table, drinking it down, and taking a deep breath.
“Look, Laura,” she starts. “I want a lot of shit—probably more than I deserve. You want me to be here, apparently, and I appreciate you taking care of me—but I want to be with you. I want my brother to stay sober and I want my family to not suck and I wanna feel like I can get through one full day without the entire fucking world sending me ass over tea kettle every few hours.”
She exchanges the empty glass for the other one before spinning away from Laura and continuing her rant, pacing a few steps forward.
“I wanna drink some more whiskey—” she lifts the glass dramatically in the air and then takes another long sip, “—and I want to fuck—”
Laura’s eyebrows lift at that.
“—and I want to go to bed. With you. In your bed, with you.”
Bradley spins back to face Laura as she finishes, dipping her head to the side and finding the other woman’s eyes again.
“I mean fuck, the whole world knows already—" she breathes out, almost laughing. “—don’t they? Might as well go ahead and be my little bisexual self or whatever.”
Laura says nothing; she just stands. She does it slowly and deliberately, and when she takes a step toward Bradley, Bradley finds herself stuttering back a few inches before managing to steady herself.
As Laura approaches, never breaking eye contact, Bradley gulps, then continues, shakier than before. “But if you don’t, you know—if you don’t want… this—” she spreads her arm out again, indicating at nothing and everything. “If you don’t want me, and all… all the shit that comes with me,” she tries again, Laura only a step away now. “Then I can’t, we can’t just be—”
Laura’s body is flush with Bradley's now, and she reaches and plucks the glass from her hand without breaking eye contact. She brings it up to her lips, and Bradley tries to warn her.
“It’s—” she starts, watching Laura tip the glass back and then immediately down again as she realizes.
“—empty,” Bradley finishes, her cheeks flushing pink. Those drinks definitely hadn’t both been meant for her.
“I’m sorry, I—” she starts again, only to be cut off by Laura’s mouth slanting across hers, her tongue slipping out and pressing between Bradley’s lips, soft but insistent.
Her hand goes instantly to the small of Laura’s back to steady herself, but she’s still swaying a bit when Laura pulls away, and her eyes are still closed when Laura finally speaks.
“That is a good whiskey.”
Bradley’s eyes open at that, and she watches as Laura makes a small show of licking her own lips, chasing the last of the taste she’d stolen from Bradley before the corners of her mouth turn up into a playful half smile.
“Look—” Bradley starts, and the smile drops.
“Bradley, I’m sorry.”
Bradley freezes at that. Laura’s… apologizing? Had she even done anything wrong? Her brain fires on fifty cylinders at once, trying to figure out what on god’s green earth Laura could be sorry for after these last two days. Unless she’s sorry for what she’s about to say, in which case—
But of course, because Laura is Laura, all reassurance and healthy communication, Bradley doesn’t have time to do her usual run-through of all possible negative scenarios before the answer is given to her. And thank fuck for that, because she is so tired of thinking.
Laura looks steadily at her as she speaks. “I’m sorry that the last few days were so hard for you, and I’m sorry if I made you feel like I don’t also want to be with you. This is just…it’s like—” she pauses, pursing her lips and fingering the ends of Bradley’s hair as she finds the right words.
“I’ve felt so… level. For so long. So steady. Working, enjoying my life, my friends, my success. The calm, the peace… and this has been a lot, all of this stuff lately. It scares me a bit.”
Bradley breaks eye contact at that, and Laura just tugs gently on the end of her hair until she returns.
“I thought a lot about it all last night,” she starts again. “About you, about us, about my life, how I’ve been living the last few years, how I want to be living. And I—”
“Can we sit down?” Bradley asks.
Laura laughs at that, nodding, and they move back to the couch. Bradley curls her feet up under her butt, pulling the blanket over her lap and angling toward Laura, and Laura? Laura sits—god, Bradley’s breath hitches at the contact—Laura sits close enough that her thigh brushes up against Bradley’s knee, and she pulls a corner of the blanket over herself, and then they’re under it together.
She grabs Bradley’s hands, which has Bradley letting out a shaky exhale yet again, and continues.
“I think it’s been so long—” she says, rubbing her thumbs back and forth over Bradley’s on top of the blanket. “—it’s been so long since I’ve actually felt anything like what I feel for you.”
At this, Bradley shifts a bit.
“And I’ve been telling myself that I liked it that way, that it was good for me,” Laura continues, tracing the lines on the insides of Bradley’s palms now. “In my own little bubble, you know—undisturbed. But that’s not how this works, and god knows I’m old enough to know that by now.”
“Okay,” Bradley says, the left side of her mouth twisting upward. “But I think I might be an abnormally large amount of chaos.”
Laura laughs at that. Loud, with her head thrown back and everything. “That you are,” she agrees.
She squeezes Bradley’s hands in her own. “But I kind of like it.”
Bradley cocks an eyebrow even as she continues to smile, and Laura acquiesces.
“Well, not the parts about getting outed or your brother showing up at work and smashing everything to pieces—is that just a Jackson family thing, or what?” she teases, and Bradley gives a little laugh but looks away again. It doesn't escape her that Laura's picked up on the shared behavior, meaning she's certainly picked up on the darker threads behind it as well, but she’s still chosen to be warm and silly about it right now rather than dig into that obvious wound.
“Anyway, it’s not your fault.” Laura moves her head down until she can find Bradley’s eyes, bringing her gaze up again with her before finishing, and Bradley can feel the implication in the seriousness of her voice: she's talking about more than just the outing and Hal showing up.
Her hands squeeze around Laura's, just a bit, and Laura squeezes immediately back.
“I like you, Bradley," she says, her voice warm, but sure. "A lot more than I planned to. And I want you to stay here tonight. And future nights.”
“Okay…” Bradley starts. “That’s good. I mean, thank you. I mean—”
Laura laughs. “Was that not what you wanted me to say?”
“No! It was. It’s good to hear that, obviously. I’m just… confused.”
“About what?” Laura asks, brows furrowed.
“If that’s how you feel, and you know that’s how I feel too, then why did you—I mean—you said we could talk later—,” Bradley rolls her eyes up and over, hoping the insinuation of how she took Laura’s words is clear, “—but that you wanted me to be here, but then I tried to—and you just—?”
Laura raises her brows in clear amusement at the scramble for words, but she waits patiently, letting Bradley get to wherever it is she’s going.
And Bradley does get there, eventually. Sort of.
“You stopped me, before. You know, the… fun stuff?” She quirks her mouth to the side in a mix of flirtatiousness and embarrassment.
Laura laughs again, and it’s so good to hear.
“The fun stuff?” she teases.
“Yeah, you know,” Bradley says, shrugging, her mouth twisting further up to one side in a little close-lipped smile. “The fun stuff.” She gestures loosely to Laura’s lap as she finishes, and she’s certain Laura knows what she’s talking about, probably knew what she was going to say before she even said it.
There’s actually something minorly sadistic about the way Laura enjoys embarrassing her, Bradley thinks—not that she’s really complaining.
“Ohhhh, the fun stuff,” Laura drawls out, sliding one of Bradley’s hands into both of her own and playing with her fingers as she smirks at her.
“Well?” Bradley insists.
Laura doesn’t answer—just keeps smiling at Bradley, pulling the blonde’s hand all the way back into her own lap, flipping it over, and running her fingers lightly over her palm.
“So you’re not going to answer me, Miss Communication-Lover?”
Laura shrugs.
Bradley breathes out a laugh—she can play this game.
She rises up onto her knees, tossing off the blanket and throwing her right leg over Laura’s lap until she’s straddling her, looking down, Laura’s head titled back to meet her gaze. And she’s still just smiling at Bradley, cocky as all hell, go figure. It’s kind of hot.
Yeah, definitely hot.
“Well?” Bradley asks again, her breath ghosting over Laura’s lips as she places both of her hands on the back of the couch, just over Laura’s shoulders, and leans over her, causing Laura to arch her back a little as she tilts her head up to meet her. “Tell me.”
Bradley shivers a bit at the sound of her own voice. She knows she’s just playing at having any sort of control over Laura, but fuck if it isn’t kind of fun.
And then Laura grabs both of Bradley’s wrists, bringing them down to her sides before Bradley can even blink, and she’s shifting Bradley off of her lap and to the side again, her height advantage barely making her have to work to lean over her, even though she’s sitting and Bradley is on her knees, her feet tucked underneath her.
Bradley’s breath hitches in her throat at the abrupt change of energy, and Laura—well Laura definitely caught that, because now she’s smirking at her.
“Because,” Laura says, low and dangerous, and maybe Bradley doesn’t get to have any more fun trying to hold the power, but she’s not going to complain about Laura’s response to her attempts. If she had known before that this was all it took to bait her into acting this way… well, she’s filing this information away for further future use, that’s for certain.
“If we were going to go down that route tonight, after everything that’s happened, I wanted to be absolutely sure you knew how I felt,” Laura says, looking Bradley dead in the eye, her grip still tight around her wrists. “About you.”
Bradley swallows thickly at that, but she’s not quite done playing yet. “And how you feel is…?” she fishes, batting her eyelashes.
Laura laughs and releases her wrists, moving back down into her own space. “You heard me the first time, Jackson.”
“Well, sometimes a girl likes to hear again how much another girl likes her,” Bradley says, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows, challenging Laura.
And Laura rolls her eyes and smiles, just for a second making Bradley think she’s going to give in. But then she’s standing, grabbing both of the empty glasses from the table, and moving over to the bar.
“Rude,” Bradley mutters after her.
Without looking back, Laura finally caves, laughing, and says loudly up into the air: “I like you, Bradley Jackson. A lot.”