Cheryl stands abruptly, her entire body burning and her eyes stinging for some fucking reason — "Okay, time for bed, Nana Rose. Thank you for your wisdom, as always."
Cheryl closes the door behind them, leans against it. Toni is inspecting the paintings on the wall as a distraction, giving Cheryl time to regroup because they both heard it, loud and clear — soulmates. As soulmates should. They haven't outwardly spoken about being each other's soulmates and it's a converstation Cheryl dreads. It fills her with panic, makes her sweat cold.
It's not something she wants to talk about now, either.
"You'll have to forgive Nana Rose." Cheryl clears her throat, meet Toni's searching gaze.
"For what?" Toni narrows her eyes at her, crossing her arms.
"Everything," Cheryl moves off the door, starts heading down the hallway and towards the kitchen again, Toni following suit, "she's sleepy and old and she says silly things sometimes."
They come to a stop next to Toni's duffel bag, Cheryl grabbing the strap of it. Toni's eyes never leave hers, though, and Cheryl knows that Toni knows she's spouting bullshit to not talk about it.
Toni shrugs. "If you say so."
"Right then," Cheryl grabs Toni's duffel bag, smiles brightly at her, "shall we?"
They fight for half a minute over who is carrying the duffel bag up the stairs because it's heavy and it's mine but you're my guest and so what? let me carry it. In the end, Toni carries it because I'm in a gang and I can carry my own shit, thank you very much.
A fair point that Cheryl can't argue with, so she just leads Toni to the grand staircase and then to the left, towards the wing of the house that Cheryl's bedroom is in. Toni takes in the blatant display of luxury before her — the chandeliers, the candelabras, the ancient paintings, the persian rugs. Cheryl's room is a sight of its own — blood red bed sheets, a headboard meant for royalty, dark, clean floors, an ominous oval window. Everything looks like it'd been taken from an ancient european palace. Toni stares at everything with wide eyes and Cheryl is embarrassed, suddenly, for this blatant display of her wealth and privilege.
"Holy shit," Toni breaks the silence, duffel bag dropping on the floor, "holy shit, Cheryl."
"My mom decorated every inch of this room from the curtains to the bathroom tiles." Cheryl feels the need to defend herself, for some reason.
"It's beautiful, honestly, just–" Toni's eyes linger on the nightstand, where several photo frames sit and show glimpses of happy moments in Cheryl's mostly unhappy life. She's stopped talking in favor of looking at the pictures, bending down a little to inspect them closely. Cheryl watches from afar, not really wanting to receive a pitying look when she finds Jason's photo or when she sees how bright Cheryl's eyes used to be, or how her grin used to get so big her eyes would disappear behind a flurry of red eyelashes. "These are so cute. You used to be so cute."
"Excuse you–" Cheryl starts, but then Toni turns around with a smug smile and Cheryl rolls her eyes, "Very funny. If you want to change into your pajamas already there's a bathroom right over here but I have to let you know the floor is still wet because I showered earlier."
"I'll change right here, it's fine." Toni replies, grabbing her duffel bag and unzipping it atop Cheryl's newly washed silk sheets.
"I'll–" Cheryl looks to her nightstand, "I'll be removing my makeup over here. I'll try not to look."
Toni hums, plucking clothes from the bag, "Don't try too hard."
Cheryl rolls her eyes, starts rummaging through her drawers for makeup wipes. They're in the second drawer, obviously, because that's where she's kept them for years now, but in all honesty she's just trying not to look at the mirror and see Toni's reflection.
Of course, Cheryl Blossom is only human and she's only halfway through removing her lipstick when her eyes slip and look to Toni — to Toni's back, her black bra strap, Toni as she slips on an oversized T-shirt. She watches as Toni removes her jeans, hips wriggling side to side and then stepping out of them and. And Cheryl is overcome with want. Not a sexual want, exactly — it's a want that says I think maybe I want to love you for the rest of my life because your underwear has little green snakes on it.
It's not until Toni starts putting away clothes that Cheryl hurriedly starts wiping her face, foundation coming off, then eyebrows — she's rubbing the last of her mascara off and then she looks up, finds Toni sitting on the edge of her bed, looking at her.
Their eyes meet through the reflection and Cheryl smiles because Toni's smiling at her with this expression that says something like I think maybe I want to love you for the rest of my life, too.
YOU ARE READING
Sick of losing soulmates (Cheryl Blossom & Toni Topaz)
Fanfiction"Toni looks at her - like, really looks at her - long and hard and then she nods as if she understands, as if all of Cheryl's secrets are written all over her face and it just took someone to look closer than usual to discover them all." Or; you hav...
