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Kirsten’s brain doesn’t have time to process that she has gone from being asleep a few moments ago, to whatever is happening to her right now. She’s disorientated and her heart is beating so hard in her chest that she is struggling to catch her breath, ears pounding as the blood races around her head. Her body is already sitting upright, a direct result of the shock that had caused her to wake. Her mind feels foggy as she tries to put the pieces together, forcing herself to take a few deep breaths as she blinks into the darkness of the room. It only takes a few moments before shapes slowly start to come into focus, the lens of night making the room appear far more intimidating than it does during the light of day.
“ No, stop it,” Amy yells beside her, letting out a whine. Her body is rigid, shoulders pressing down hard into the bed. “Stop it, let me out! I don’t– no.”
“Amy?” Kirsten whispers, heart still racing as she tries to organise her thoughts — this is what caused her to wake, she realises. “Amy, can you hear me?”
Amy is thrashing in the sheets, legs becoming increasingly tangled as she fights against the accidental restraints she created for herself. Her face looks flushed, visible even in the dim room, and her hairline is so sweaty that the baby hairs on her forehead are matted to her skin and have started to curl.
Kirsten fights every instinct in her body to reach out and hold her, to wake her from her nightmare, feeling entirely helpless as she watches her girlfriend in visible distress. She is aware that technically Amy is in no real danger, but she also knows how realistic these types of dreams can be for her, how true the terror is, regardless of the danger.
Kirsten has been doing a lot of research into PTSD recently, even speaking with a few different therapists to make sure that she’s doing everything she can to help Amy through her struggles post-Vigil, but it doesn’t feel like enough right now.
Amy’s whole face is scrunched in agony, her forehead so full of tension that veins have started to appear, straining against her skin.
“Help me,” she whimpers, and Kirsten feels her heart shatter as she watches tears leak from her eyes and run into her hairline. “Let me out . Help me!”
“Amy.” Her voice is rough from sleep, cracking around the word before she clears her throat and tries again, a little louder this time. “Amy, can you hear me? Listen to me, please. It’s Kirsten, come on. You’re home, you’re not in any danger. Come on, baby.”
She notices her body still for a moment, forehead relaxing for the briefest of seconds before scrunching up again, head rolling from side to side on the pillow. Her eyes fly open quickly— startling Kirsten— a scream caught in her throat as she scrambles to sit upright in bed.
“Baby, you’re safe. It was just a dream. You’re okay.” Kirsten rushes to assure her, tentatively moving a little closer. She doesn’t touch her yet, though.
The screaming dies down when Amy finally becomes aware of Kirsten’s presence beside her, breath rushing out of her lungs in one fell swoop before her body collapses in on itself. Kirsten is there immediately, pulling Amy into her arms and gently rocking the two of them while Amy’s sobs fill the room. She’s clinging onto Kirsten’s shirt, material fisted roughly in her hands while her body shakes against a solid chest.
“I’ve got you,” she promises, pressing a chaste kiss to her sweat-soaked hair. “I love you. You’re safe, you’re here with me. Always safe with me. I love you so much. You’re home.”
Kirsten talks her through it for a while, a warm hand rubbing big circles on her back and gently shushing her until the sobbing stops and Amy’s breathing slows to a manageable level. Her body finally cools down— it no longer feels like Kirsten’s arms are wrapped around a furnace— and the tears eventually stop soaking into the soft material of her shirt.
“I’ll be back in one second,” Kirsten says, intending to move away before Amy grips her impossibly tighter, making a small noise of protest.
“Don’t go.” Her voice sounds broken, rough in a way that betrays the strain in her throat.
“I’m just going to the bathroom, I won’t be a moment,” she promises, pressing a kiss to Amy’s head as she feels her loosening her grip.
True to her promise, Kirsten is back in the room within a few moments, carrying a glass of fresh water and a cold, damp face cloth. She’s wearing a different t-shirt, although she doesn’t think Amy notices that the tear-soaked spot is now missing from her shoulder.
“Drink this, love. It’ll help stop a headache,” she says, sitting back down on the bed and passing the glass over to Amy’s slightly shaky hands.
She gulps it all down in one go, slightly out of breath as she pulls the empty glass away from her lips and allows Kirsten to take it from her. She sets it on the bedside table before taking a seat on the edge of the mattress right beside her girlfriend, reaching out a hand and smiling as Amy leans into it.
She uses her fingertips to sweep the sweaty hair from Amy’s face before following along with the damp cloth, wiping away the sticky remnants of the nightmare from her skin. She works methodically, Amy’s eyes flutter closed when she runs the cloth down her neck, slipping it around the back beneath her hairline before moving to her chest. She feels relieved for her when she finishes up.
“There,” Kirsten tells her, setting the cloth down beside the empty glass of water on the table. “A little better.”
“Much better,” Amy corrects, voice soft, a lot quieter than normal. “I love you.”
“And I love you.”
Kirsten shuffles further onto the bed, away from the edge of the mattress, so that she can lay back against the pillows. Once she’s comfortable, she lifts an arm up in a silent invitation for Amy to lay down on her chest— an offer which she accepts immediately.
Amy slips a hand beneath the hem of Kirsten’s t-shirt as soon as she’s settled, spreading her fingers wide when they land on bare skin. Kirsten’s breath catches in her chest, stomach muscles tensing instinctively as Amy begins stroking at her with her thumb. She sighs contently, and Kirsten allows herself to relax into the sensations.
“Will you— I mean, can you talk to me? Just, just anything. You can talk about anything,” Amy whispers, fingertips absentmindedly drawing swirls around the jut of Kirsten’s hip bone.
“Of course,” she tells her, pulling her girlfriend in as close as she physically can. “Have I ever read you my favourite poem?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Kirsten feels Amy shake her head.
“It’s called The Fable in Thermodynamics, written by Nikita Gill,” Kirsten says, and then she begins to recite the poem.
The first law in thermodynamics states this:
‘energy can be neither created nor destroyed.’
Which is to say everything around us is recycled energy,
You, me, your dog, those we love and those we avoid.
Which is to say that the energy that makes us
is as ancient as time itself.
Which is to say that our bones could have been
fragmented together from the ashes of the library of Alexandria.
Which is to say our sinews and spines were crafted from the
end of a hundred year old oak tree and our smiles a comet.
Which is to say our hearts could be Achilles’ spirit
when he battled Troy, bringing his enemies down.
Which is to say, when we feel like life is overwhelming,
we must remember that we’re just sparks of energy borrowing skin.
That no matter how much this pain feels everlasting,
this is just temporary fabric we are in.
Amy’s hand has stilled on her stomach by the time she finishes, but Kirsten keeps talking. She recites a few other poems, repeats a few of them and makes a mental note to learn some more. She doesn’t stop talking until she is completely sure Amy has gone back to sleep, and only then does she allow her own eyes to flutter closed.
Amy begins to heal as the weeks go on, improving a little every day.
Her night terrors grow fewer and far between, and she spends a lot of time talking to Kirsten about her feelings. It’s so nice, experiencing her opening up and allowing Kirsten to be there for her, to know that she trusts her wholeheartedly with the most fragile parts of herself. On the nights when she can’t sleep and she has said all she needs to say, Kirsten will read to her for as long as she needs until her brain settles down.
They spend a lot of time with Poppy, she stays at the house with them at least twice a week and they are taking baby steps towards becoming a proper family. Kirsten can see the positive impact it’s having on Amy, she doesn’t seem terrified about her worlds colliding anymore— her boxes have been opened up, and the relief is visible in her eyes.
She smiles more, laughs so freely that she sometimes snorts and then rushes to cover her mouth. She reaches out for Kirsten’s hand absentmindedly in public, never shies away from a goodbye kiss at the front door.
Kirsten catches Amy staring at them sometimes, when she’s cuddled up with Poppy watching a movie, or when she lifts her up onto her shoulders at the zoo to get a better look at the penguins. Amy never offers an explanation when Kirsten quirks her eyebrow in question, just brushes her off with a smile and tells her that she loves her.
Things are so, so good.
Which is why it shouldn’t really knock Kirsten backwards onto her arse as much as it does on the evening that Amy says, “I think I’m ready to try using the strap.”
The comment comes without warning, not so much as a hint about the topic being brought up. Hell, they’re standing in the kitchen making an entirely innocent dinner. Kirsten turns off the stove before she does anything else, knowing that she is probably about to burn the sauce she’d been in charge of stirring.
“You— uh, you want to— yeah, no, of course we can— um.”
“I’m sorry, I just knew if I didn’t say it now then I would have lost the courage,” Amy explains, setting down the knife she had been using to chop vegetables.
Kirsten clears her throat, willing her voice to return to normal before saying, “no don’t— you don’t have to apologise. Just caught me off guard, that’s all.”
“Okay.” Amy nods, taking a few steps closer to her girlfriend. “Well, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I like what you said, before , about wanting to fuck me and still have your hands free. I just, I wasn’t ready at the time. I feel ready now, though.”
Despite her best efforts to remain cool and collected, Kirsten can feel her face heating up, knows her cheeks must be a fiery red if the smirk on Amy’s face is any indication.
“You’re very red.” She confirms her suspicions. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, or if it’s something that you’ve maybe lost interest in. I know it’s been a long time since we first spoke about it— or, well, I guess we didn’t really speak about it, it’s been a while since I dismissed the idea.”
“You weren’t comfortable,” Kirsten says, reaching out to hold Amy’s hands. “Of course I’m interested, I’m more than interested, but I need you to know that there’s no pressure. You don’t have to do this unless you’re completely comfortable, we can wait a while, or we can do other things.”
I am fully comfortable,” Amy assures her, thumbs sweeping over the top of Kirsten’s hands. “I always feel so safe with you, I really want to take this step, to explore more things together. I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it because I’m ready and I want to.”
And well, how can Kirsten argue with that?
“Okay so I bought these a while ago,” Kirsten says as she enters their bedroom with a stack of boxes in her arms. “I put them away when you seemed overwhelmed by the conversation and I didn’t want you to feel any pressure if you’d seen them. They’re all brand new, they haven’t even been opened.”
Amy watches intensely from the bottom of the bed, eyeing the boxes that Kirsten deposits beside her.
“I didn’t know you did that,” Amy tells her quietly.
“Well aye, that was kinda the point.” Kirsten laughs.
“I’m sorry about before, you know? I think I had a lot of repressed feelings, I don’t think I was very fair to you, especially when it came to sex. It felt, god I feel terrible even saying this, but it felt— wrong isn’t the right word, but I felt guilty I suppose. You were great, you are great, but, I don’t know, I guess I couldn’t fully give myself to you back then. I felt guilty for enjoying it so much, for wanting the things that I wanted with you.”
“Amy.” Kirsten sits down on the bed beside her, angling her body to face Amy before reaching out and holding her hands. “Grief is weird, it doesn’t really make sense, I don’t think it’s supposed to. I didn’t create a safe environment for you to talk about it with me, and I’m so sorry for that. We made a lot of mistakes, did a lot of things wrong, but I'm really grateful we’re here now.”
“I’m so committed to this.” Amy reaches out and caresses Kirsten’s cheek with her hand. “I love you, and I really am excited about tonight.”
Her cheeks flush and she laughs, smiles so wide that Kirsten feels her own cheeks tugging, smiling, too.
“Okay.” She claps her hands together. “Well, back to business then.”
They open up all of the boxes together, cheeks slightly flushed as they weigh out their options— and there are definitely options. There’s a subtle, smooth pink one that squishes in a way that makes Amy giggle. There’s a more realistic option, complete with texture and matching shades. There’s a long, curved black one that has Kirsten swallowing hard when she handles it.
“What’s this?” Amy asks, holding up the one that Kirsten was most excited about purchasing.
“Oh,” she says, setting down the black toy and moving towards Amy. “You see the base of this one?” She gestures to the top of the toy— where the surface would usually be flat, this toy is curved, expertly designed to fit against the wearer. “This part presses against me when I’m wearing it, I can grind on it when I’m fucking you.”
“I want to use this one,” Amy tells her quickly, voice sounding a little deeper than it had a few moments ago.
“Yeah? You sure?”
“Mhm. Definitely.” Amy nods, throat bobbing as she swallows roughly.
Fifteen minutes later, after Kirsten has thoroughly washed the toy and set it aside on the bedside table, she is on her stomach helping guide Amy’s thighs onto her shoulders. Her lips are tingling, buzzing beneath her skin from the enthusiastic kisses Amy had pressed against them a few moments ago.
She looks so good spread out beneath her, hair mussed on the pillow and cheeks flushed as she gazes down at her. She feels the heat coiling heavily between her hips as Amy shifts a little, spreading her legs wider to allow Kirsten the briefest glimpse of pink between her legs.
Kirsten can’t help the groan that escapes, the heady scent of her arousal thick in the air as she moves to nuzzle her nose against the soft skin of Amy’s inner thigh.
“You really don’t have to tease tonight,” Amy groans.
“I know,” Kirsten tells her, grinning up from between her spread legs.
She lingers a few more seconds, lavishing her thighs with kisses, running her thumbs in circles closer and closer to where Amy wants her to be before she finally relents. Kirsten uses her thumbs to gently spread Amy, pressing a final kiss to her thigh before she moves in.
She licks a flat stripe up her entrance, bracing her hands firmly on Amy’s hips in preparation for the resulting jerk as she tries to grind up into her mouth, desperate to keep her close. Kirsten dips her tongue inside, indulging herself for a long moment— she feels more than hears the growl in her chest, groaning lowly into her girlfriend. She knows her face is messy already, and she doesn't care.
Amy whines high in her chest when Kirsten pulls away, eyes darkening at the sight of her clit straining for attention— pink and swollen and so, so pretty. She feels a hand in her hair, glances up just as Amy tenderly tucks a few strays behind her ears.
They share a smile right before Kirsten laves her tongue all the way through her, circling wide around her clit a few times before sealing her lips around it and sucking .
“Kirsten, god— haah.”
Amy’s shoulders press back into the bed, hips rolling up towards her mouth again. Kirsten hums into her when she feels the hand moving in her hair, alternating between tugging and scratching gently against her scalp. She draws back with a soft suck, watches the way Amy clenches around nothing, before she runs her tongue back through her. Sparks zip down her spine as Kirsten licks deeper into Amy, guiding her hips to help Amy fuck herself on her tongue for a long, blissful moment.
“D’you want to come now or after?” Kirsten asks, voice scratchy.
“Mm.” Amy takes a moment to consider, lazily grinding her hips up towards Kirsten. “Later, want you inside.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” Amy tells her.
Kirsten wipes her mouth on her bicep as she regretfully leaves the spot between Amy’s legs—the internal conflict between wanting to stay right where she is all night long, and also being extremely eager to fuck Amy with the strap is raging wildly in her veins.
She feels a little silly as she steps into the harness, the intensity of Amy’s gaze weighing on her as she fiddles with the straps, trying her best to tighten them despite the sudden shake in her hands. The nerves are entirely unexpected, knocking her confidence more than a little.
“Come over here,” Amy says, sitting up and shuffling to the edge of the bed.
She guides Kirsten to stand between her thighs before reaching out and adjusting the straps for her. She starts with her left thigh, pulling the material just tight enough for Kirsten to nod before moving to the right one.
“Are you alright, darling?” Amy asks, looking up at her very nervous girlfriend. She puts a hand on Kirsten's hip, caressing the skin with her thumb in an attempt to soothe her nerves.
“I’m sorry,” Kirsten tells her, exhaling the breath that she’d been holding for the last minute. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I’m supposed to be the one talking you through this, making sure you’re alright.”
“That’s not how this works.” Amy shakes her head. “We’re equal partners here. I don’t want you to stress yourself out worrying about me, I want you to enjoy this as much as I know I’m going to. I promise I’ll let you know if I’m not comfortable, or if I want to stop or slow down. I just need to know you’ll do the same for me.”
“Yeah, okay.” Kirsten nods, as though she’s convincing herself more than anything else. “I think I can handle that.”
“Promise you’ll let me know if something doesn’t feel right,” Amy says, “there’s no pressure on you, none at all.”
“I promise,” Kirsten tells her, and this time she believes her.
The nerves are still there when Kirsten slots the toy into the ring, but they’ve definitely calmed to a manageable level. She feels the anticipation thrumming through her at the sight of the toy sticking out from between her hips, notes the shift to pure desire when she crawls up the bed and it accidentally brushes Amy’s still-swollen clit.
“You look— god Amy— you look so fucking good.”
“Yeah, this is really doing it for me too,” Amy tells her, roaming her hands up and down Kirsten’s torso, allowing herself a moment to appreciate the harness fit snug against her hips, the strong forearms holding Kirsten’s weight. It’s all very, very good.
Kirsten chokes off a moan when she reaches for the bottle of lube on the bedside table, only to have her hand swatted away as Amy says, “let me.”
She watches, cheeks flushed, as Amy squirts a generous amount onto the toy and then uses her hand to make sure it’s adequately covered. Kirsten knows it’s intentional, the way Amy keeps bumping the saddle of the toy into her clit each time she passes over it.
“I think that’s enough now.”
Amy laughs at the strain in Kirsten’s voice, presses a quick kiss to her cheek and says, “better safe than sorry, darling.”
Kirsten’s nerves melt away into the familiarity of the next step, waves of concentrated want taking over as she kneels between Amy’s spread legs. She moves slowly, rubbing the head of the dildo through Amy, passing over her entrance before teasing her clit and moving back down, letting her get used to the new sensations.
“Are you ready?” Kirsten asks, leaning forward with a hand planted on each side of Amy’s head.
“So ready,” Amy assures her.
Kirsten shifts her weight onto one of her arms, using the other to grab the slick, slippery toy and line it up with Amy’s entrance. She pushes it in so, so slowly, just a little bit, before glancing up to check in with Amy.
She receives a nod, warm hands coming up to grip at her biceps as she continues. She keeps the slow pace until she is all the way in, feeling the saddle rub incredibly against her clit as her girlfriend turns to mush beneath her.
“S’good— so good.” Amy groans, squeezing Kirsten’s hips with her knees to emphasize her point.
Kirsten leans down, already feeling the burn in her arms as she licks hot, hot, hot into Amy’s mouth, rocking her hips slowly as the kiss turns messy, sloppy. She feels more than she hears Amy moaning into her mouth, her thrusts growing deeper, harder, at the encouragement.
It feels so good— almost too good. Kirsten is chasing the feeling as much as Amy is, the pressure on her clit is addicting, she needs more of it, allowing the desperation to fuel her thrusts.
“You’re taking it so well,” she pants into Amy’s mouth. “So good for me, baby.”
Amy whimpers beneath her as Kirsten fucks into her, hard. She tries her best to lift her hips, to meet Kirsten in the middle. Her mouth is hanging open, eyes squeezed shut as her thighs begin to tremble.
Kirsten watches as Amy slips a shaky hand down between them, helpless against the broken moan that rips free from her throat when she sees Amy messily slide her fingers over her own clit.
“Are you going to come?” Kirsten asks, voice wrecked. “Go on then, come with me inside you. Let me see how pretty you are for me.”
That, apparently, is all it takes.
Amy stiffens, shuddering and shaking as she gives herself over to the sensations. She’s moaning, whimpering high in her throat while Kirsten fucks into her, miraculously not slowing her pace despite the clenching of Amy’s muscles.
Kirsten can feel her own orgasm approaching quickly, tries her best to hold it off a few seconds longer but loses the battle as her hips begin to thrust forward jerkily, losing herself in the bright, white light burning behind her eyes as she rides it out.
She collapses on top of Amy, still buried inside her, as the two of them gasp into the silence of the room. They’re quiet for a long time, fucked out and exhausted. Kirsten isn’t sure she could move her limbs right now even if she wanted to, and so she allows herself to enjoy the moment, to bask in the feeling of Amy’s arms wrapped tightly, safely, around her back.
Later, she will carefully pull out and leave the toy in the bathroom sink to be washed. She will pull back the sheets and help Amy wriggle beneath them before joining her in bed. They’ll fall asleep— a blissful, nightmare-free sleep— tangled together, and they will wake in the morning ready to take on the next day.
For now, though, Kirsten is just happy to be here with Amy.