[Fic] "Till It Is Lost in Fleeces" -- Homestuck

[edenfalling]

This fic was written in response to the prompt: we, the blankets, and the pet have tangled into an irreversible knot on the couch and if no one comes save us this might be our end, from snogfairy's wholesome domestic prompts list. It's also a fill for my final cottoncandy_bingo square: free. Part of the Leaf and Letter AU.

I wrote this in sections at work today, because I was very bored, didn't feel like reading the books I had on hand, and am currently stuck on the story I'm actually trying to concentrate on, blargh. (2,200 words)

[ETA: The slightly revised final version is now up on AO3!]

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Till It Is Lost in Fleeces
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The forecast called for nearly a foot of snow, so last night Jade had made the executive decision (literally! because she was the executive! that joke never got old, regardless of what Rose thought) not to bother opening What Pumpkin Botanical Emporium. The plants could survive one day without her, and if she was feeling especially guilty or nervous, she could do a quick fly-by visit in the evening after the worst of the storm had passed and the plows and salt trucks had time to clear the streets.

Rose, of course, worked from home and could take days off whenever she wanted so long as she turned her drafts in at the contracted time.

"Therefore, today is for Netflix and chill!" Jade announced as she finished clearing away the breakfast dishes.

"Not romping in the snow?" Rose asked, one hand clutched defensively around her still half-full coffee mug.

"Snow angels, snow forts, and grand snowball fights are for tomorrow when the sun is out and the snow is already on the ground. While it's still in the air, we're staying nice and safe inside where the wind can't blow frozen slush down the back of my neck," Jade said firmly. "Besides, you remember how you always say rainy days are for curling up on the couch and contemplating the Zen of the universe? Snowy days are for curling up on the couch with hot cocoa and either the mushiest romances or explodiest action movies we can find, and making out under the afghan. This is a Received Truth, and you cannot contest it."

"Far be it from me to stray into heresy," Rose said, smiling. "I trust that adulterating the cocoa is not forbidden?"

Jade waved a magnanimous hand. "Mochas are permitted to the faithful in good standing."

Rose raised her mug in a toast. "Excellent. Let's reconvene in the sunroom in half an hour, after I've made cocoa and popcorn and you've walked Bec. Make sure you dry his paws afterwards, so he won't get frozen mud all over the afghan when he inevitably decides to imitate a lapdog."

"If a dog fits on a lap, it's a lapdog by definition, no imitation required. This is elementary logic, Rose. Just because Bec has to sprawl out a bit doesn't mean he can't be a lapdog if he wants. Don't crush his tender canine dreams!"

"Too late. My gnarled, eldritch talons" -- here Rose uncurled one hand from her mug and flexed it by way of illustration -- "have pierced into the warm bubble of his cerebellum and one by one, I shall squeeze the tender globules of his dreams until they burst like ripe grapes in the wine press of the Furthest Ring. Mwahahaha."

Snickering, Jade swatted her girlfriend's shoulder, then headed for the hall closet in search of her boots and scarf.

Bec, who had not gotten the message about today being for cuddles rather than romping in the snow, proceeded to drag her on a merry chase all over the neighborhood for nearly forty-five minutes, at the end of which Jade was sweaty and caked in salty slush. "Rain check!" she called as she struggled out of her puffy coat and pinned Bec's leash to the welcome mat with her foot. "I am gross and need a shower, but I promise I'll be down in... uh... twenty minutes?"

"And this is why cats are better pets than dogs," Rose called back from the kitchen. "Go upstairs. I'll take care of your giant ambulatory rug," she added as she hurried toward the front door.

"See, I knew you secretly loved him," Jade said, and dropped a kiss on Rose's cheek before fleeing upstairs to strip out of her filthy clothes.

Fifteen minutes later she returned downstairs, now wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt instead of jeans and a sweater. "I got the worst of the water out of my hair," she announced as she entered the sunroom, "but I think the tangles may have reached sentience again. Fix me?" She held her hairbrush and comb out toward Rose with her best puppydog eyes.

Rose accepted the tools with a considering air. "French braid? Crown?"

"Whatever, as long as it stays out of my face." Jade plopped down on the sofa beside her girlfriend, squirmed around to get properly situated under two layers of afghan (the tasteful cream-colored one Rose's mother had given them as a housewarming gift, and the multicolored monstrosity Rose had knitted herself out of the most eye-searing set of mismatched granny squares known to humankind), and braced herself for Bec's sudden yet inevitable leap onto her shins. "Whoompf. What have we been feeding you, boy? Has Rose been slipping you treats under the table? Have you been eating small countries for breakfast?"

"Surely only city-states -- entire countries that early in the morning would lead to terrible indigestion," Rose said, tugging the brush gently through the still-damp tips of Jade's hair. "Regardless, you're the one who taught him he's allowed on the furniture so long as a human is already sitting there, so this is entirely on your own head. Now, romance or explosions?"

"On second thought, what we really need is a movie we know by heart, and which won't irritate either of us with stupid plot holes, so we won't get distracted from smooching--"

"--or hair-care--"

"--or hair-care, yes, that's also very important," Jade agreed. "So I'm thinking, either The Princess Bride or a Disney princess movie, maybe Mulan or Sleeping Beauty, assuming we want some swordfights mixed in with the songs."

"Who have you been talking to who gave you the false impression that swordfights might not be essential to setting a sexy mood?" Rose said. "I need to know so I can track them down and stare pityingly at them until they feel the proper degree of embarrassment and shame in their wrinkled excuse for a soul."

"Pfft."

"Precisely. I vote for Sleeping Beauty. I do like a climactic confrontation between a dashing knight and a majestic dragon, and Philip's a decent enough human being I almost don't mind that he kills one of my childhood idols."

"Much better for the dashing knight and her loyal steed to defend the dragon instead," Jade said. "Right, Bec?" She scratched behind her dog's ears, and he thumped his feathery tail against the arm of the sofa. "Good boy." She fished the remote off the windowsill and started navigating through their Netflix account. "Oh hey, once I find the movie, hand me my cocoa? I could use something hot to drink after charging around in the cold for the better part of an hour."

"As you wish," Rose said.

"I love you too." Jade cued up the movie, dropped the remote back on the windowsill, and held out her hands for the heavy ceramic mug. "Mmm. Thanks for not adulterating mine."

"What kind of faith would compel mochas upon the unwilling?" Rose asked. "Now shush and let me braid your hair so it won't get stuck in my teeth when I kiss you."

"The romance is gone," Jade informed her cocoa in a mournful tone. "Dead. Deceased. Fled for the hills. How dare you bring practicalities into the sacred ritual of snowy day cuddles and makeouts?"

"Better practicality now than a painful interruption later on," Rose said, hands still working steadily through the heavy weight of Jade's hair. "Unlike swordfights, painful interruptions are the antithesis of sexy."

Jade pouted elaborately, which was somewhat wasted since only Bec was in a position to observe her facial contortions. "I guess," she said. Bec pricked up his ears in mild confusion. Jade stuck out her tongue at him, then made a series of increasingly silly faces to see if she could win a more dramatic reaction.

Rose flicked her fingers against the tip of Jade's left ear. "Stop twitching. You'll make me lose my place."

"A crooked braid on a day I'm not going out in public anyway, oh no, what an awful fate," Jade said, but she stilled obediently. On screen, the opening credits were just winding down, and she settled in to watch Disney's tour-de-force of hand-drawn 2-D animation. Someday she was going to design a garden around some of the backdrops in this movie. She might even get paid for it, if she found the right client -- failing that, she and Rose now owned an absurdly large yard and flower gardens were a much more environmentally friendly solution than a bunch of boring grass that needed mowing every couple weeks.

She took a long, slow swallow of cocoa, savoring the surface sweetness and bitter undertone of the chocolate, and the warmth as it slid down her throat. Then she set the mug on the windowsill beside the remote and snuggled back against Rose's side, luxuriating in the soft texture of her clothes and the afghans, the heavy warmth of Bec on her legs, and the gentle pressure of Rose's clever fingers moving across her scalp.

The snow still falling outside cloaked the world in white silence, until it almost felt like their sunroom was a snowglobe, a tiny bubble of light and warmth floating in a vast, uncaring void. The color and music pouring from the television screen did their best to beat back the encroaching lethargy, but after a while Jade's eyelids gave up the struggle. She drifted away on a tide of sleep, into a muddle of sorceresses and dragons and, for unfathomable reasons, a talking platypus made of azalea blossoms.

She woke to a cat tail twitching across her nose.

"Mutie, get your fat butt off my face," she said -- or tried to; in reality, it came out more like "Mrrrtrrffffbufgh." Jade swallowed, cleared her throat, and tried again. "Rose, help? Your cat is trying to smother me."

"I would care more if you weren't doing the same to me," Rose said, sounding oddly muffled.

Jade blinked her eyes open and attempted to turn and face her girlfriend. This proved unexpectedly challenging.

"Um," she said, pressing tentatively outward with both arms, only to encounter a tight shroud of fabric. "I think I'm trapped."

"I'm aware," Rose said, still muffled. "I managed to stop the movie before I joined your nap, but while we were sleeping the afghans seem to have gained a malevolent form of sentience and now we, the blankets, and our pets have tangled into a passable imitation of the Gordian knot. If no one comes to save us, this might be our end."

Jade tried shifting her legs and found them just as tangled as her arms. "Ugh. Earbud wires get tangled, sure. Your knitting gets tangled, whatever. I can even understand socks and nylons getting tangled in the dryer. But afghans? Shouldn't they be too big and bulky?"

"Never underestimate the casual, everyday animosity of inanimate objects," Rose pronounced. "Farewell, beloved. As we drift slowly toward starvation, remember that I love you more than life itself, and also this entire mess is your fault."

Jade considered the accusation. "I suppose I am the one who suggested sofa snuggles, and even though you're the one who knitted the second afghan, we probably would have wound up with a second blanket somehow anyway. Okay. Yeah. My fault. And therefore, as your faithful knight, it's also my responsibility to save you since your dark magics have inexplicably proved useless in the face of marauding textiles. Brace yourself!"

"Wait, what?"

Jade blithely ignored Rose's alarmed exclamation, braced her feet against the back of the sofa, and rolled them both (plus afghans and dog and cat) straight off the sofa and onto the hardwood floor.

"Oomph," she said when she got her breath back and both Bec and Mutie had scrambled away from their clearly deranged humans.

"Ow," Rose added, no longer sounding muffled. "That was unnecessarily drastic."

Jade rolled onto her stomach, now able to move without Bec's weight pinning the afghans around her like a shroud, and beamed at her girlfriend. "Effective, though. We're free!"

After a moment, Rose let an answering smile curl the corners of her mouth. "So we are. All hail the conquering hero," she said, in tones of deepest irony.

Jade wiggled forward until she was lying close enough to rest her chin on Rose's shoulder. "I hear the traditional reward for heroism is half the rescued damsel's kingdom. And I do have a dog that eats small countries for breakfast..."

"Alas, I am merely a penniless wandering scholar of black magics and have no kingdom to bestow," Rose said solemnly. "Could I bargain you down to a kiss?"

Jade grinned. "It must be your lucky day, because it turns out I am always game for kisses and cuddles and sexy makeouts with beautiful sorceresses of dubious moral alignment. Even if they do happen on the floor instead of the sofa."

"Then by all means, allow me to hail the conquering hero," Rose said again, this time fondly, and pulled Jade down into a kiss.

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End of Story

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In summary, yay, I wrote a thing! :)