Chapter Text
One Year Later
Kit wakes naked and sweaty to bright sunlight streaming in from the curtains they’d forgotten to close last night, too preoccupied by other activities. It’s the first weekday in weeks she’s been able to sleep in even a little bit.
It’s the last day of filming for Wildwood.
Beside her, Jade stretches, and Kit nuzzles forward, burying her head into her girlfriend’s neck and wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Morning,” Jade says, her voice gravelly with sleep. She places a kiss on top of Kit’s messy hair. “I can’t believe we have all morning to ourselves before we have to be on set.”
“It’s amazing,” Kit moans in agreement.
“What should we do with our extra few hours?”
“Hmm,” Kit pulls away from her favorite nuzzling spot and looks up at the ethereal beauty she calls Jade. She pecks Jade’s lips, morning breath be damned, and says with a smirk, “I have an idea.” The peck then turns into a longer, deeper kiss.
After a morning filled with love in a way that leaves Kit feeling like a bottle of champagne, all bubbly and giggly, Jade drives them to set: a stage that’s been outfitted into the titular garden at the core of Wildwood.
Kit needs to get to hair and make-up, and Jade has to meet with the Script Coordinator, but neither of them wants to part with the other.
Elora, on set for the wrap party, fakes gagging as she comes up to the couple mid-makeout session. “You would think a year in your libidos would’ve evened out.”
“Two and a half,” Kit mumbles, tearing away from Jade’s kiss-swollen lips. She leans in to steal another.
“Huh?” Elora asks.
“If we’re talking libidos, it’s two and a half,” Kit says, wondering why Elora could possibly be confused.
“Kit,” Jade laughs, her mouth ghosting over Kit’s as she does. “We never told anyone.”
“Never told anyone what?” Elora asks, folding her arms across her chest and looking a bit like an overgrown, petulant child.
Kit looks to Jade and raises a single eyebrow (one of her favorite personal skills). Jade nods her consent. “Jade and I started sleeping together two and a half years ago.”
Elora’s jaw drops open as if she’s a Disney cartoon character. “No,” she shakes her head. “That’s not possible. You’ve only been officially dating for a year. Not even two if we use the timeline the public knows about.”
“Those are true statements,” Kit smirks. “But so was mine.”
“Do you remember why we got into a PR relationship in the first place?” Jade asks.
“Yes, Jade,” Elora rolls her eyes. “I do recall it being my idea.”
“We lied,” Kit interjects. “That photo? Jade didn’t send it to me. I took it. We had sex. I took the photo because I thought it looked like I’d given her a heart-shaped hickey.”
“It did look like a heart,” Jade agrees. She starts to trail her lips down Kit’s neck, and she leans into the touch with a hum.
“I fucking knew it,” Elora scoffs. “The moment I saw the photo, I knew it. But I believed and convinced myself that your story was true.”
“We’d been fucking for ten months by then,” Kit shrugs. At Kit’s crude description, Jade nips at her neck.
“You two,” Elora points her finger between both Kit and Jade, “Are going to be the death of me. I need a raise.”
“Done,” Jade says.
“And when you guys get married, you better not ask me to give a speech because I will absolutely be spilling that secret.”
“I promise we won’t ask you to give a speech at our wedding,” Kit laughs. She tilts Jade’s chin up and smiles into a kiss.
“Don’t you guys have a movie to finish filming?” Elora says. With a sigh, Kit and Jade pull apart from one another and go their separate ways.
The final scene set to film is a simple one. In fact, the scene is mostly filmed. They’re just picking up a couple of extra angles. They’d purposely left it for last, knowing that it would be an easy final day.
Learning to direct while also starring in the film had been a bit of a learning curve for Kit, but Jade had come to set every day to help however Kit needed. Even though it was Jade’s script, there wasn’t technically a reason for her to be there every day.
Well, there was. Kit was the reason. And Kit knew that Jade didn’t mind one bit. Each night they would return from set, and Jade would wax poetic about props and costumes and the way Lili or Kit delivered a line even more perfectly than she could ever have imagined while writing. And Kit would listen and nod, but more get caught up in the way Jade’s lips moved rapidly over nouns and verbs and adjectives.
Honestly, Jade could read the dictionary, and Kit would be enraptured.
The scene that they’re filming occurs about halfway through the film when Kit’s character drags Lili’s character back to the titular Wildwood for the first time since childhood. It’s a critical scene which is why they want all the coverage they can get.
Kit and Lili fall into their characters, and for the next five hours, Kit lives in the world of Jade’s creation, finding an easy anchor with her scene partner.
And then that’s it. Kit calls ‘cut’ on the final shot, and they’re done.
Their film, Wildwood. Has wrapped.
“That’s a wrap on Wildwood,” Kit says loudly for all cast and crew to hear. Then, she’s nearly knocked off her feet by a bear of a hug. Jade. She’s immediately hugging her back, and it feels like they’re the only ones in the world.
Then, of course, there’s another set of arms around her and a teasing voice in their ears, “Had to hop in to keep this from steering toward an R-rated interaction,” Lili teases. She squeezes them tight and pecks each Jade and Kit on her cheek.
Kit pulls Jade with her, entwining their fingers together, as she returns to the costuming trailer to change back into her own clothes. She hopes they might find a quiet moment to get a little frisky, but they’re thwarted by various PAs and the costuming department.
They’ll have time after the party.
The party that Kit now wishes wasn’t tonight. But catering has arrived at the lot right outside their sound stage, and music is quickly playing. All the supporting actors from the film, including Airk, have arrived along with Graydon, Boorman, and Scorpia, all by personal invitation.
“I can’t believe we did it,” Jade says, looking out over the cast and crew all there to celebrate the fact that they finished filming the project that once only existed in the private world of Kit and Jade’s friendship.
“Glad you turned it into a love story?” Kit asks, nudging her best friend because, in the end, Jade will always be her best friend. The A24 executives had been thrilled with Jade’s slightly reworked script that had turned Wildwood into a hazy, ethereal story of both friendship and love grown like a garden of weeds - expansive and never-ending.
“It was always a love story,” Jade says, wrapping her arms around Kit. Kit leans into the embrace, always feeling so loved and safe in those arms.
“We were always a love story,” Kit agrees. Because Wildwood, despite the name changes and plot creation, was the story of their love.
“Let’s go make sure everyone knows it, then,” Jade says. She removes her arms from around Kit, and Kit instantly feels a chill at the loss of touch. But Jade stays close, clasping their hands together.
It feels like they’ve been touching every moment since they woke up that morning, other than those five hours Kit was in character and filming.
As much as Kit wishes she were alone with Jade now, she revels in the feeling of pride that balloons inside her as she laughs with cast and crew over the past eight weeks of filming escapades. She learns about snafus that were expertly solved without bothering her. She accepts compliments on her directing style with blushes, finding it much harder to accept the fawning over something she’s new at over her acting skills, which she’s had years to hone.
Kit and Jade accept teasing from Scorpia and Boorman over their inability to be more than six inches from one another but then turn the tables back on the couple, who also stand way closer than actually necessary.
It’s two hours of chatting and food and two vodka sodas each before Kit decides that she’s had enough of other people. She wants just her person.
***
“Take me home,” Kit says, and Jade can’t help but think of the night last year when she asked Kit the same. The same night Kit won her Oscar, and their home officially went from Kit’s to theirs. Kit takes Jade’s hand a pulls her close to whisper in her ear, “We could Irish exit.”
Jade groans because that is exactly what she wants to do. But they can’t. They need to say goodbye to at least some people.
Scorpia and Boorman look to be in the middle of an intense discussion with Graydon and Elora, so they pass them by in favor of thanking and saying goodbye to the cinematographer and some of the other cast and crew. Across the room, Lili gives them a nod and waggles her fingers in lieu of words.
She knows what they’re doing.
They’re just about free when Airk stops them. “Are you leaving already?” He full-on pouts.
“We have some celebrating to do,” Kit says, “And our bed is waiting for us.”
“That’s disgusting,” Airk screws up his face and echoes his opinion with an “Ew,” and “I do not need to hear about your sex life. Gross.”
“Well, if you don’t want to hear about it, then you should let us get out of here in peace,” Kit says.
More than willing to make Airk uncomfortable, Jade steps behind Kit so that her chest lies flat against Kit’s back. She snakes an arm around her girl and stares right into Airk’s eyes as she palms Kit’s breast.
“My eyes!” He exclaims. He slams them shut, then immediately opens them, and trains them on Jade’s hand. “Wait, are you guys engaged?” He points to the thin band on Jade’s hand.
“Sometimes a ring is just a ring,” Jade laughs, waggling her fingers. “Wearing rings is how we signal our queerness to other sapphics.”
“Hmm,” Airk says.
“We’re not engaged,” Kit says truthfully. “But promise to tell you if we ever are.”
“We’re happy right now,” Jade says. “No plans on changing our relationship status any time soon.”
“Clothing status, though,” Kit says, leaning back against Jade, “That I would like to change soon.”
“You are the worst,” Airk says with a shudder. “Goodbye.”
He walks off, shaking his head, and Jade can’t get Kit out of there fast enough. They make a pointed effort to keep their hands to themselves on the car ride back home. As they pull into the driveway, Kit whips out her phone and taps quickly at the screen, returning it to her pocket just as quickly as she’d retrieved it.
Jade doesn’t question it: focuses instead on getting out of the car and into their house as soon as possible.
The moment Jade crosses the threshold, though, she understands what Kit had been doing on her phone. Playing over the SONOS speakers throughout the house is their playlist. The sex playlist they made when they were simply friends with benefits.
Jade hasn’t listened to it in over a year.
“Hey babe,” she says over her shoulder as Kit comes up behind her.
“Hmm?” Kit untucks Jade’s t-shirt and winds her way underneath it, pressing her palms firmly against Jade’s bare sides.
“You do remember that this playlist isn’t really a sex playlist anymore, right?”
“Huh?” Kit’s distracted. She tugs at the hem of Jade’s shirt and pulls it over her head. Jade absolutely does not object.
“Remember?” Jade asks. “You went all subtle pining and added about a dozen love songs. It’s not a sex playlist anymore.”
As if to echo her point, Taylor Swift’s Love Story comes on next, and they both devolve into giggles, stripping each other bare between fits of laughter.
Then, finally, they’re naked, facing each other, a trail of clothing leading from the front door to where they stand just inside their bedroom.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Jade says, letting her eyes wander. She takes in the slight bulge of biceps, the curve of a shoulder, the swell of breasts, the dip of hips, a trimmed strip of hair between thighs…
“You’re everything,” Kit says in response. And it takes the breath out of Jade’s lungs. Even now, Kit has the ability to rattle Jade with the simplest of words and truths and the way that she says them as if they’re nothing but fact.
In one graceful movement, Kit falls to her knees. She looks up at Jade as if she is a heavenly creature, her gaze honest and open and full of adoration. She places a hand on each of Jade’s knees, nudging Jade into a wider stance.
Jade relents but starts feeling weak as Kit trails her lips up and down Jade’s inner thighs. She takes her time, growing closer and closer to the apex of Jade’s thighs with each pass. Her breath is hot on Jade’s cunt, but she doesn’t touch it. Not until Jade begs her for it.
“Kiiiiit,” Jade finally groans, threading her fingers through her lover’s short locks. She gives a short tug, pulling her toward where she needs her most.
Kit accepts her duty with enthusiasm. Jade gasps as those beautiful lips wrap around her. Her knees shake as Kit’s tongue swipes a broad, flat, strong through her from entrance to over her clit. She swirls a single swipe over the hardening bud before she sharpens her tongue to a point and drags it back down to dip inside.
Kit’s tongue doesn’t have the same reach or dexterity as her gorgeous, talented fingers, but Jade grinds down against it, fucking herself on the tongue of the girl who leaves her speechless. Normally, Jade needs Kit’s fingers inside of her. But not now. Not when Kit is on her knees worshipping at the altar of Jade’s dripping pussy.
Kit’s hands are on her ass as her tongue works inside of Jade, and Jade digs her fingers into Kit’s shoulders to keep from collapsing. Kit removes one hand and starts to rub circles at Jade’s clit, and in just a moment, it sends Jade spiraling. Her climax hits hard and sudden, and her nails are deep in Kit’s back as she cries out.
Kit holds her steady, though. She always does, even when neither of them realizes it. And maybe it’s the emotions of the day hitting her, but it takes Jade longer than normal to come back to herself. It takes Kit running smoothing circles over the back of her thighs and gently laying her shaking limbs and boneless body down on the mattress before she’s able to regain her sense of self.
Once she does, though, it’s Kit’s loving, adoring gaze that she meets. And when she kisses her, she tastes herself. She presses her tongue past Kit’s lips seeking more. She arches up to the roof of her lover’s mouth and beckons a moan from it.
Kit straddles Jade, and Jade groans at the feeling of Kit’s slick warmth on her thigh. “You’re so wet for me,” she says.
“From tasting you,” comes Kit’s response, a response that has Jade canting her hips upward as if she hadn’t just had an orgasm thirty seconds ago.
Then, Kit is riding her thigh, and Jade remembers what she really wants. She thinks of Kit kneeling below her, letting her ride her tongue. She thinks of all the ways she wants Kit. She wants her splayed out below her. She wants her on her hands and knees in front of her. She wants her sitting on her face. Jade wants Kit any way Kit will give herself to her.
But tonight? Tonight she wants to watch Kit’s face as she comes. Jade quickly flips their positions, the breath coming out of Kit in a huff as her back bounces off the mattress.
Jade goes slow. She leaves butterfly-like kisses over every inch of Kit’s body. She savors her like a prayer. She runs her knuckles over that new landing strip of hair between Kit’s legs.
By the time she spreads Kit open with a single finger, she’s panting and squirming and begging for Jade. And the wet dripping between Kit’s legs is proof of Jade’s care and devotion.
In the end, she only uses a single index finger. She runs it lazily through Kit’s folds and gently flicks her clit before pressing it inside her. Her pace starts slow and builds with the occasional crook of her finger. It never reaches a punishing pace, though, never even really growing fast at all. Instead, it’s the steady rhythm and the unflinching eye contact that has Kit muttering nonsense and half words, the only intelligible one ‘love’ as Jade watches her girl fall to pieces.
They’re too tired for another round. Instead, they cover the duvet over their sweat, naked forms, and Jade pulls Kit into her chest as if the weight of her body is nothing.
“Mmm,” Kit mumbles, snaking her arm around Jade and nuzzling into her. “This is nice.”
“Perfect,” Jade agrees, lazily drawing patterns on the back of her small spoon.
“Love you more than anything,” Kit says through a yawn.
“Love you more than that,” Jade says. And she knows that Kit is sleeping when she doesn’t retort back that she loves her most.
Kit’s gentle snores weasel into Jade’s heart and pull a tired grin from her. Kit’s arms twitch, pulling Jade imperceptibly closer to her. Jade leans down over the sleeping girl and places a kiss to her wife’s temple.
***
Fourteen hours ago
Jade wakes to the warmth of her girlfriend’s body beside her. As she stretches, Kit wraps her arms around her like a koala and nuzzles into her neck. Jade pulls her tighter, still marveling a year later at the feeling of waking to Kit. Waking to naked Kit. Waking to her Kit choosing her day after day.
“Morning,” she says, mumbling her word around a kiss into hair that smells like Kit’s ridiculously overpriced shampoo. “I can’t believe we have all morning to ourselves before we have to be on set.”
“It’s amazing,” agrees that deep voice that Jade loves so well.
“What should we do with our extra few hours?” Jade starts to card her fingers through Kit’s short hair.
“Hmm,” Kit says. Jade accepts a peck on the lips from her before Kit continues, “I have an idea.”
The long, deep, proving kiss that follows leaves Jade with a very good idea of what Kit is thinking. She drifts her hands softly down Kit’s side, reveling in the feeling of raising goosebumps on her lover’s flesh, tangible evidence of Kit’s desire for her.
They both pull back to breathe, Jade ready to have Kit fall apart beneath her. But when Jade looks down at the girl in her arms, she sees lust in those baby blues but something else as well.
“As much as I desperately want to fuck you right now,” Kit says, “I actually had something else in mind.” She looks away from Jade for a minute, and Jade loosely plays with the baby hairs at her neck, giving Kit the space she needs to come back to her. She does, and she looks up at Jade with such love that Jade nearly starts to tear up. “We have a couple of hours,” Kit says. “Plenty of time. If we wanted to, uhm. I was thinking maybe, we could…”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure my answer is yes,” Jade nudges her nose against Kit’s temple, hoping to ease whatever it is that she’s stressing about.
Kit takes a deep breath, then, as if it’s all one word, she says, “Iwasthinkingwecouldgotocityhallandgetmarried.”
Jade’s hand stills, not sure she actually heard Kit right. But, no, she definitely heard her right. She starts to smile.
At the sight of Jade’s growing grin, Kit seems to grow more confident in her suggestion. She pulls Jade up into a seated position and straddles her lap. “Marry me,” Kit says, her voice more certain, eyes trained on Jade’s. “Today. City Hall. We don’t need anyone else. I’ve shared so much of you and us with the world, but I want this. Something that’s just ours. You and me, no one else. Just us.”
Marry me
The words echo through Jade’s skull until they’ve taken control of every nerve and synapse. They cascade down her spine and swirl down her torso and limbs until all she is is the girl Kit wants to marry.
“Yes,” Jade laughs, letting out a girlish grin that surprises them both. She wraps her arms tight around the other girl and pulls her into a crushing hug. Her heart grows a size at the feeling of Kit melting into her, nearly boneless in her arms. They stay like that for several long moments until Kit pulls away and yanks Jade out of bed.
“We gotta get going then in case there’s a wait.” She takes Jade’s face in her hands and pours what feels like ten pounds of love into a kiss. Jade is left momentarily stunned, watching as her future wife leads her to the shower to prepare for the day.
Showered and dressed simply, the same jeans and t-shirts they’d want to be wearing that afternoon on set, they hop in Jade’s car. Sitting shotgun, Kit directs them to the closest jewelry store to City Hall, where they select matching gold bands etched with a design that feels almost floral and instantly makes them both think of Wildwood.
As it turns out, Tuesdays aren’t popular days for impromptu weddings. A clerk first settles their marriage license. She barely looks up from the paperwork and doesn’t seem to recognize Kit at all. Then, they wait their turn for the judge who is officiating for the day. They sit out of view with Kit’s baseball cap pulled low over her face.
And finally, it’s their turn.
The judge recognizes Kit immediately before he even reads their paperwork but has the presence of mind not to say anything about it. It’s a fast ceremony, and it isn’t until he asks if they’ve written any vows that Jade even gives thought to it.
“You can make them up on the spot,” he offers.
Kit jumps in first. “Jay,” she says, and butterflies form a hurricane in Jade’s belly. She reaches out and takes Kit’s hands in hers. “All I’ve ever wanted all my life was to be brave and to be loved, and with you, I somehow am. I promise to always be brave for you and to always love you. I promise that you will be my first thought each morning and last thought each night. I promise to keep our friendship at the core of our relationship and to live in the smallest moments as much as the big ones. I promise to shield you from what I can and to stand beside you when I can’t. I promise to never run away from you and to love you every day of my life..”
Kit starts to blur in front of Jade, and it takes her a moment to realize it’s because her eyes are tearing. They’re saying their wedding vows. It hits Jade so suddenly that all she wants to do is ask Kit if it’s really happening or just a dream.
Kit seems to realize that Jade needs grounding and squeezes her hands, offering her a watery grin. She nods at Jade to take her turn.
“I never thought I’d be standing here,” Jade laughs, the words spilling out of her. Kit’s vows were full of promises and Jade’s start with doubt, and it somehow seems right. “Don’t get me wrong, I think I first dreamed of us getting married when we were sixteen. I just never thought that dream would ever be anything but a dream. So many times since we decided that we were best friends and that was that I’ve been asked what it’s like to know the Kit Tanthalos, as if you’re not even a real person. I’ve never known how to answer that. Because, while the thought of marrying you felt like a fantasy, you never were. You’ve always been so solid and real and have tethered me to this world. You’ve never been anything but a reality to me, from the sometimes infuriating and other times endearing way you speak first and think later to the way your arms feel like the only home I’ll ever need.”
Kit lets a squeak, and her lip starts to tremble. Jade quickly looks up from it, knowing she’ll break if she doesn’t.
“I never thought I’d be standing here with you, marrying you,” Jade continues, “But from the moment I first saw you, huffing and stressed at your locker, about four inches shorter than you are now, I knew. I knew that I’d be standing beside you for life, whatever that looked like. I love you, Kit, and I promise to protect you, always.”
Kit starts to pull Jade toward her, stopped only by the judge clearing his breath. He then says, “Jade Kael Claymore and Kit Erica Tanthalos, it is my great pleasure to officially declare you wife and wife.”
When they kiss, it feels like their first kiss all over again, surprising and perfect and like it should never end. The kiss symbolizes the start of a new chapter of their life together, but also it feels like more than that. It feels like over a decade of comfort and friendship. It feels like years of yearning and disguised touches. It feels like years of intimate touching. It feels like a year without secrets. It feels like every hard and perfect thing all at once.
Their love…it feels like a lifetime in a moment.