Work Text:
University of East London, England 2007
As Patsy strolled liberally in through the university library doors, waving her id badge at the little old lady behind the desk. She turned the corner heading for her favourite table but it was occupied. A polka-dotted brunette was diligently scribbling away in her seat. Patsy wasn't exactly mad she just looked at this as an opportunity, the brunette was pretty cute after all. She walked briskly over and sat herself down beside the girl. "Hi," she said, then not saying anything else. She began pulling all sorts textbooks and papers out of her bag, accompanied by a few leaky pens and a stack of creased blue post-it notes.
"Hi." The girl replied, Patsy detected a hint of an accent but without more words she couldn't place it. But as soon as she'd looked up and marked Patsy's presence, the girl put her head back down and went back to writing. The redhead was disappointed, but she had work to be getting on with so she searched around for a working pen and got to annotating her textbook with sticky notes.
The next week, the same brunette was sitting in the same spot, she was busy writing away, again. Patsy had already promised herself she would properly try and talk to her if she saw her again. This apparently was it. She nodded her head, waved her id badge at the old lady on the desk and walked over to the table. "Hello again," she said brightly, the girl looked up for a little longer this time and smiled. She was very pretty when she smiled. Then her phone beeped in her pocket, the girl clambered about awkwardly for a few seconds before answering.
"Hi mam, yes I'm fine, I can't really talk now, can I ring you back later." The girl said before a string of non-answers, "um, no, mam I'm going." Which ended the exchange and she hung up, flicking the phone back together and slinging it into her pocket. Then she sighed rather loudly, shook her head and peered up at Patsy slowly, "I'm so sorry, that was my mam, she fusses. Here sorry, sit down. I'm Delia." She stuck out her hand and gestured towards the other chair. Patsy was at a loss for words, for one, the girl - Delia - was talking to her, which was more than she had expected seeing as she hadn't actually said anything yet.
"Patsy." Was all she managed to squeeze out, taking Delia's soft fingers and shaking her hand lightly.
As each week of the semester rolled on, Patsy and Delia began to spend less and less time studying and more and more time talking. They now had each other's phone numbers and would stay on the line for hours, sitting on their beds with their feet up in the air. They realised they were both actually studying nursing, just in different classes, hence why they were always in the library at the same time, and they shared stories of their various professors. Neither of them had quit broached the topic of their feelings yet; whatever initial attraction she'd felt, had tripled after becoming firmer friends. Neither of them had mentioned any past relationships either, so Patsy was at a lose end as to what to do next.
"Delia?" She said on the phone one evening, interrupting a long run-on sentence Delia was in the middle of. "Do you think about me when I'm not there?" She said bluntly, her voice straining quietly through the line, her palms itching and her heart racing.
Delia paused, forgetting instantly where she was in her story, all words falling out of her mouth. This is it, she thought. This was the moment she'd been waiting for, the moment where all her secrets came out. She'd never heard Patsy talk like this before, she fiddled with the corner of her bedsheet, picking at the loose threads as she answered. "Yes, of course I do Pats."
Patsy shook a little in relief, this was going well. "Because I think about you all the time, most of the time I can't stop thinking about you." She took a deep, heavy breath in and waited anxiously for Delia's reply, chewing on her thumb.
"I do too." Was all Delia muttered back, then the phone rang off. Patsy felt the endless beep of the dial tone ringing through her ears, peeling the phone back she stared at it, scared of what she'd done. Clearly she'd freaked Delia out, clearly she didn't want the same things she wanted, clearly she thought they were just friends. The last words she'd spoken faded out of context as her mind turned them around and around, spinning the syllables faster and faster until they no longer meant what they were originally intended to mean.
The next time Patsy saw the brunette was sitting at their table in the university library. The redhead almost gasped as she walked in and spotted Delia, she didn't know whether to run out or to go over to her. She took a long time deciding, her feet felt like stone, hard and unmoving. When Delia looked up she spotted Patsy standing very still and looking around. She got up, trying to put on a brave face, tip-toeing over the rough carpet. The world spun around like she was looking on it from a distance, she felt dizzy and unreal and like she was living in some sort of dream.
Patsy looked at her, not knowing how to express her face, Delia saw the tears well in the corners of her eyes. "Pats?" She asked, trying to snap Patsy out of it, out of her realness, out of reality. Her hand stroked down the side of her face and cupped her cheek, she reached up on her toes and pressed her lips to the redhead's. Patsy opened her eyes confused, Delia shook her head and kissed her again, pushing all her feelings through the simple action of lips on lips. They broke apart when they heard a polite coughing coming from the lady behind the front desk.
"Sorry," they said together, smiling to each other, Delia taking Patsy's hand in her own as they strolled out of the library.