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Viney watches, brows high with fascination and her head propped on her elbow, as Emira flops face first onto her side of the bed with a soft ploomf. “Sheesh,” she says, smiling a little as her girlfriend’s long and unbound green hair pools around her head, “Rough day?”
Emira huffs and pushes herself to look at her, wobbly eyed and complaining, “You don’t know half of it! Classes all morning and then hours of work afterwards– and maybe it’s because they’re desperate for the caffeine, but I think customers in coffee shops are more rabid than any kind of demon on the Isles. Like? I’m a barista, not your servant! And it’d be nice if they didn’t try to bite me when they think I’m too slow with their orders! ”
Viney listens, gazing down at her warmly. Emira reminded her of a tea kettle sometimes– if the pressure built up and it was all too much, she just had to screech about it for a bit to feel better. It’s understandable that she’d get so stressed. Magic College was known to be hard, and working on top of that only made things worse. “That sucks, babe. It didn’t let up at all?”
“Nope.” Emira huffs, lying back down and rolling over to face Viney with a frown. “I barely had lunch, which is why I was really glad you made us that big breakfast, thank you again by the way, I forgot my scroll charger so it was dead all day, and I--” The scrawnier witch runs her fingers through her hair, exasperated. “I kept feeling like I was like, forgetting something? And I’ve been wracking my friggin’ brain all day but I have no clue what it could be, and it’s driving me up a wall!”
That… made Viney still, like she was remembering something, and then grimace as she glanced away. “O-Oh, yeah?”
“What?” There’s a nervous edge to her voice that makes Emira raise a brow, then widen her eyes in realization and lean in closer. “Wait, do you know what it is? You have to tell me!”
After a moment of clear deliberation, Viney steeples her fingers together, furrowing her eyebrows at her cautiously. “...Promise you won’t freak out.”
That’s so ominous that she can’t really promise anything. “I... promise?” Emira says anyways.
Viney exhales, then haltingly goes, “I… I think you might’ve forgotten our anniversary is… well, today?”
Emira bolts upward, instinctual denials already on her tongue as she reaches to grab her scroll off the charger. “Pfft, what? There’s no way I’d ever--”
Viney watches as Emira’s voice stops in her throat. Her face goes from incredulous and thoughtful as she stares at her phone, like somehow the date scrawled there in white letters was wrong and would right itself if she looked long enough. Then her face goes limp, and her eyes slowly widen into speechless shock.
Her expression goes through what looks like every stage of grief in the span of five seconds, before landing somewhere in the realm of glassy eyed helplessness and heartbroken despair. Woodenly, she turns to look at Viney, who meets her eyes with a sheepish, apologetic grin, like she’s the one who’s done something wrong.
Emira makes an incomprehensible sound that could translate to somewhere along the lines of i’m so sorry, or maybe more accurately, what the hell.
Viney, because she’s perfect and amazing, understands. “S-sorry,” she says, voice trembling with barely held back laughter before she clears her throat. “I didn’t realize you actually forgot until we were halfway through the day and you didn’t send me a screeching telegram and a metric ton of flowers or something. I thought you were pretending to because you wanted to surprise me at the last second like last year… and I– I was trying to text you about it, but you were in class and then you were at work, and, and your phone…”
Emira stares past her, through the wall, and feels herself slide out of alignment with her body. This is the worst day of her life and she brought it on herself. Regret drills itself into the middle of her sternum, and Viney’s expression, nothing but sympathetic, hammers it in deeper for good measure.
There are no words. Emira bonelessly rolls out of bed and falls to the ground with a thump. There is a belated pained wail that makes Viney wince.
Before Viney can say anything more, Emira rolls noisily across the carpet to the door, then stands and leaves the room.
“...Pfft.” Viney falls forward with a quiet snrk , shoulders shaking as her hand raises to her mouth to cover her incredibly inappropriately timed affectionate grin. Titan, she’s ridiculous sometimes . “Babe, where’re you going?” she calls through her fingers once she recovers enough.
“To the couch,” Emira whines pitifully as she drifts down the hallway, drooping like a wilted plant.
Viney sits there in the dark for a couple seconds to compose herself and stop laughing. There was really no point in asking her not to freak out with how dramatic her girlfriend was, but she didn’t expect… this.
Honestly, once Emira realized what had happened she thought there’d be more screaming.
Viney stands too, pulling their thick blanket around her like a cloak as she steps into the living room after Emira, only to see that she’s lying face down on their couch. Maybe lying down is the wrong way to describe it, actually. It’s more like she’s been shot in the back with a misfired spell and made her limp body fall helplessly across the cushions, her gangly limbs spilling limply over the sides like liquid.
She’s also letting out an incredibly quiet but nonstop agonized groan.
Viney can’t help but snort again. “Emmy, what are you doing?”
“Anniversary forgetters sleep on the cooooooouch,” Emira intones hollowly, her miserable voice muffled into the pillows.
“I’ve forgotten it before and you’ve never made me sleep on the couch?” Viney says, incredulous. “When’d you make that rule?”
There’s no response. Time to try a different approach. “You didn’t bring any blankets,” Viney tries. “It's cold.”
“Part of the punishment, darling.”
Viney snorts. “Scooch.”
Emira obliges without lifting her head and Viney sits in the space she’s left behind, the couch’s leather sinking beneath her weight. She throws the blanket around Emira’s body, tucking the edges around her so no warmth can escape, and as soon as Emira feels the softness drape around her she makes a muffled sound of protest as she tries to wiggle out from underneath.
Viney ignores her squirming as she gets comfortable under the blanket then wraps her arms around Emira as well, pulling her close. She has to, for the both of them to fit on the couch together. It was one of the reasons why they bought it for their dorm room.
“Noooooo,” Emira whines as she squirms half-heartedly in her girlfriend’s grasp, torn between sinking into the delight of being cuddled and her current self-flagellation mission. “This is the exact opposite of a punishment!”
“Uh, yeah, duh,” Viney says, and squishes Emira into her chest until she stops moving around so much. She’d fall off the couch that way.
Once she stills and the hold on her becomes less-than-rib-crushing, Emira rolls onto her other side to press her pouting face into the shorter witch’s neck, her nose poking into the soft skin there. Pleased with her win, Viney rests her chin on her forehead. “You’re really dramatic, y’know that?”
Emira huffs and is quiet for a few moments. Then, in a tone that’s so truly subdued and shamed it puts a crack through Viney’s heart, she asks, “Aren’t you mad?”
“No, baby, I’m not mad.” She’s quick to reassure, voice low and fondness weaved through every syllable. Viney smoothes her bangs off her forehead just as Emira casts a dubious look up at her, a silent be honest narrowing her eyes. “Really, I’m not. ...Maybe a little… Hm.” She did ask her to be honest. “Sad, I guess? I was looking forward to having you to myself today.”
Emira visibly withers.
“But you’ve been so busy lately,” Viney, timbre soft with gentle understanding, prevents Emira from sinking too deeply into her own self loathing. “Working, looking for a better job, so you Ed and Amity can all live under a roof that doesn’t belong to your parents, keeping up with classes on top of all of that… I understand why you would forget. I think I’m worried more than anything. Usually you’re the one who has to remind me about our anniversary.”
“I love our anniversary,” Emira says mournfully, returning to hiding her face in the crook of her girlfriend’s neck.
“I know, I know.” Viney plants a consoling kiss on the crown of her head and gives her another squeeze. It was why she tried so hard to remember each year, marking it on her calendars and in apps on her scroll. She smiles, adding, “It was also a little funny. I wish you’d gotten why I was giving you presents and making you breakfast this morning, but your confused face on your way out the door was very cute.”
“Wait.” Emira yanks herself back to look Viney in the eye, expression halfway to a fully permanent cringe. “That was what the necklace was for?!”
The necklace in question sits right in Viney's line of sight on Emira's chest-- a simple piece with a pretty amber pendant that matched her eyes. Viney frees one hand from the lock she has Emira in to prod at the stone, turning it over gently in her fingers with a satisfied air. She was glad she'd found a good present and hadn't broken her bank in the process. "Mhm."
“Oh my Titan," Emira breathes. She liked her necklace so much. She’d been bragging about it whenever she’d had the space to breathe all day. “Oh, my Titan. Do you wanna like, rip me in half right now? I would let you. I would help you."
"Mmmm... No thanks. The Isles can barely handle two Blight twins. i think if i made it triplets the place'd fall apart."
Emira makes a wounded sound and Viney sighs again, fond in an unbearable way. “Babe, it’s okay, I promise. You already show me how much you love me every day, I’m not going to forget because we missed one anniversary. Right?”
Emira shifts sulkily in place. “Yeah…”
Viney nuzzles her with a soft laugh, eyes closing. “Right. Go to sleep, Emmy. I love you.”
Slowly but surely, Viney’s affection has melted away the dread that overtook her, leaving behind guilt’s decidedly weaker sting. It’s all at once extremely easy and extremely hard for Emira to hold on to her shame in the face of her reassurances. She deflates, curling against her girlfriend’s warmth. “I’m really, really sorry I forgot,” Emira murmurs, quiet in the dark. “Goodnight, dear. Sleep well.”
They both still against each other, and eventually, Viney’s breathing evens out as she drops off into sleep. Emira, despite being extremely comfortable trapped in her arms, does not follow suit. Instead, she tilts her head up to kiss the underside of Viney’s chin once she’s sure she’s not awake, then moves backwards a bit to be able to get a good look at her relaxed face.
She’d only just fallen asleep, but Emira’s pretty sure she already has a little drool on her cheek. Adoration swirls up through her heart and catches in her throat, so much that it’s hard to breathe for a second. Emira loves her so much it hurts, sometimes.
Viney won’t hold this against her, but that doesn’t mean Emira will let it go. Her mind is already alight with plans and schemes to make up for it, to make tomorrow if not the best anniversary, the best day Viney’s ever had.
She won’t get a lot of rest but... well. That’s a small price to pay.