Always You

Chapter 4: Here

The car ride to the safehouse was rather quiet for the most part. Nat had attempted to ask Yelena a few questions about her time outside of the Red Room, but she had deflected each question by pointing something out on the road as they drove or made an irritating joke to Y/N to try to get them riled up.

Y/N had decided early in the drive to zone out and do their best to not pay any attention to Yelena, which eventually caused her to give up for the rest of the ride, but not forever.

After an almost three-hour trip, the car was finally pulling up to the random safehouse. Yelena sat up a bit straighter, "Ugh finally. My back was starting to hurt. Just park to the right, Nat," She stated as she pointed over to the side of the house where the driveway ended.

It was a small brick house that seemed to be empty. Y/N moved over to the seat behind the driver's to get a better look, "Does anyone live here?" They asked.

"Sometimes," Yelena answered as she stepped out of the car, not offering any more to her explanation.

Nat laughed under her breath as she looked back at Y/N's dumbfounded face. The two made eye contact and laughed a bit harder. Talking to Yelena felt like a fever dream at times.

The two walked up to the door behind Yelena as she peeked in to see if the house was actually vacant. Once she noted that everything was clear, she flicked on the lights and rested her bag down on the table next to the door.

It was nearing midnight at this point and after such a long drive, the three were visibly exhausted. Nat herself was having a hard time holding back a series of yawns as she tried to scope out the house herself to make sure they were actually safe.

"There are 2 bedrooms," Yelena started as she walked to the living room, "but there is also a pull-out couch here. Obviously, one of the bedrooms is mine, so you two can fight over the other."

Before Y/N could even open their mouth as they watched Yelena remove the cushions and pull the bed from the couch, Nat spoke, "Other room's mine."

"The fuck?!" Y/N said as they looked over at her, "I just wrecked my car today thanks to YOUR sister. How do you also get the bedroom?"

Nat shrugged and she smirked a bit, "Back issues babe, you know."

Y/N rolled their eyes knowing that Nat often pulled that card. Her 'back' was always causing her issues that got her what she wanted. The better seats, the better rooms, etc.

"It's actually pretty comfortable out here," Yelena added in, "I've fallen asleep out here watching tv numerous times."

"Whatever," Y/N retorted.

Nat followed Yelena up the stairs to her room as Y/N made themselves comfortable down on the pull-out couch. The sheets weren't super soft but the bed itself was pretty nice, thankfully. While they got snuggled in and comfortable though, they couldn't get themselves to actually fall asleep. Their restlessness was settling in.

There's gotta be something near for me to read, they thought. Reading often put them right to sleep even when they enjoyed what was in front of them. 

As they were shuffling next to the couch through the books and magazines of whoever was living there when Yelena hadn't been, they saw the hall light flick on just outside of the living room. They looked over their shoulder to see Yelena jumping off the very last step with a big smile.

"Oh amazing, you're still awake!" She whisper yelled as she ran to the couch and flopped down next to them.

Y/N jumped as she hit the bed and quickly tried to adjust themselves to face her, "Why aren't you asleep? You literally complained the whole ride here about how tired you were and how much your back hurt. You're more like your sister than I expected."

Yelena smiled deviously before poking their shoulder, "I thought you weren't listening to me?"

"It doesn't matter. What are you doing down here? And why are you excited that I'm awake?"

She threw herself back and reached for the remote that was just on the other side of the couch laid on the end table. It took a good five seconds for her to flip right to the channel she seems to know like the back of her hand.

"Oh my god come on," Y/N said rolling their eyes and laughing, "You're a Friends fanatic?!"

Her mouth dropped in shock and hurt, "WHY did you say it like that?! It's a good show! A great show even. Just for that comment, you have to stay up even longer and watch it with me."

They laughed as they sat back and watched Phoebe mess with Ross and his theory on evolution.

"Oh, okay, don't get me started on gravity." Phoebe stated.

"You uh, you don't believe in gravity?" Ross asked.

"Well, it's not so much that you know, like I don't believe in it, you know, it's just...I don't know, lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed." Phoebe responded as she acted like she was being shoved into the earth.

Y/N laughed under their breath which Yelena quickly caught, "See! You DO think it's funny."

"Phoebe is. She's the only reason I ever watched this show!" Y/N responded while they shook their head.

Every time something stupid happened, Yelena couldn't help but laugh hard and loud. As much as Y/N couldn't really stand the show, hearing her laugh made them smile to themselves a few times.

After about 20 minutes of watching the show with her and holding down a bit of their laughter, Y/N was finally starting to drift off to sleep. They'd fallen asleep on their back with their head slightly tilted toward where Yelena sat.

Still pretty awake, she looked down to see if Y/N had caught Ross finally breaking under Phoebe's pressure which caused her to laugh. When she realized they were asleep, she caught her laugh quick and found herself looking over the soft features of their face.

About 15 seconds passed by before she realized what she was doing and forced herself to snap out of it. Messing with Y/N was one thing, she made those jokes with everyone because it was funny to her, but as she looked down at them now she felt something different that she wasn't expecting. With that, she turned off the television and slipped off the bed, careful to not wake them.

She shook herself out as she walked up the stairs to her room and did her best to snap out of the thoughts she was having. All she could think of now was if she'd just stayed on the couch with Y/N and accidentally fallen asleep with them.

Would that be so bad? She thought. Would they think that was weird?

The more she thought about it, the more she shook herself to rid her mind of the questions. She'd never had feelings for someone before and the mere idea of even thinking of Y/N like this was making her nervous.

It WOULD be weird because there's nothing there, she thought again as she landed on the top step just before the landing.

Once she made it to her room and laid in bed, she stared up at the ceiling and did her best to focus on something, anything, that wasn't Y/N. Unfortunately, her mind kept flipping back to the image of them asleep on the couch next to her. Glancing over their face and wondering what it would be like if she had just leaned down and...