by rory midhani

Orphan Black is back, y’all, and I am practically catatonic with fear/excitement. To get you in the mood to make crazy science, I’ve rounded up about a billion Cosima/Delphine fics. Some of the stories below are one-shots; some of them are portals to dozens more Cophine ficlets. There’s enough sweetness and smut here to keep you occupied far beyond tomorrow night’s season three premiere on BBC America. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Here, Take a Shot by tumblweed

Plot: A collection of unconnected smutty Cophine one-shots.
Length: 130,000 words

Cosima hummed and leaned in for another kiss. “I totally plan on following through. Are you in the mood?”

Delphine blushed. “These days, I feel like I am always in the mood.”

Cosima wrapped her fingers around the hem of her wife’s sweater and lifted it over her head. She grinned with every tooth and pressed her mouth to Delphine’s chest, her lips sucking against the now-fuller curve of her breast that fit snugly in her bra. Delphine moaned when Cosima nudged the top of her bra down and took a sensitive nipple into her mouth.

“Merde, Cosima!” She wrapped her hand around Cosima’s neck and pulled her mouth firmer against her breast. The brunette sucked the nub between her teeth and flicked her tongue against the tip.

Cosima pulled away for a moment and looked up at her wife’s flushed face. “Bed?”

Delphine nodded in agreement. She grabbed Cosima’s hand and sped into their bedroom, the smaller woman trailing behind her happily. Cosima flung herself on the bed immediately. Delphine stood over her, peeling back her pants and tossing them in a heap on the floor. The blonde whipped off her own pants next, stepping out of them when they pooled at her ankles.

Girl Meets Girl by Sapphic Science

Plot: Cosima and Delphine end up in the same band!

Cosima falls into the band, honestly. She’s stoned and everything is hazy and she’s singing low and husky along to someone’s gently strummed guitar when her friend Amanda says, “Dude.”

Cosima ignores her at first, but at the second, more urgent “dude” she lets her voice trail off.

It seems to take her a very long time to turn her head—maybe, she thinks idly, like the fabric of time and space is bending around her head (is that conceited, to think of her brain as a supermassive object?) and she almost starts to push herself up and venture inside to pick up a half-finished book about relativity. But the ground is like an insurmountable obstacle, and besides, Amanda was—saying something, maybe?

Fuck is she high.

It takes a monumental effort of coordination between her lungs, diaphragm, voice box, tongue, lips, to say: “What’s up?”

“You should join our band.”

Sober Cosima—or even slightly-less-stoned Cosima, which is probably the best you’re going to do on a Saturday afternoon—would have said, “Fuck, man, all you play is shitty pop music.” But stoned-off-her-ass, not-even-sure-what-month-it-is Cosima is overwhelmed by a feeling of immense love. She loves Amanda, loves her smoke-filled garage, loves Simon’s talented fingers as they roll a joint (fingers, she thinks, heh, and almost loses the thread of the conversation to half-formed images of other situations that have involved Simons’ fingers), loves her own voice, loves shitty pop music. “Mm…” she says, still half-distracted by Simon, “okay.”

03:24:21 by jaybear1701

Plot: Ph.D. fellow Cosima Niehaus finds that getting closer to her crush, DYAD physicist Delphine Cormier, can be a tad bit difficult when the day keeps repeating.
Length: 54,000 words

Dr. Delphine Cormier, the golden girl of DYAD.

In Cosima’s mind, Delphine always seemed to move in slow motion and in sync to the smoky electric guitar riff of Jimi Hendrix’s Foxy Lady. And as always, she looked like she just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, all long limbs, fiery hazel-brown eyes, and flaxen hair that Cosima was sure shimmered just so in the light. That morning, Delphine had her blonde waves pinned up in a polished look that perfectly matched her black tapered pantst, knee-high boots, and white blouse buttoned up to her collar.

Cosima still remembered the first time she saw Dr. Cormier a few weeks ago. She had been squinting through the eyepiece of her microscope, glasses propped up on top of her head, when the physicist had walked past the microbiology lab. Cosima might not have looked up if not for the ardent responses from her colleagues. And so she had settled the lenses back onto her face with a scrunch of her nose, the blurry world turning crystal clear as her eyes had focused on Delphine Cormier. At that moment, she had forgotten how to breathe and had been smitten ever since.

Delphine currently stopped and was caught up in a rather intense looking discussion with an older man. Cosima recognized him as Dr. Henrik Johanssen, nicknamed the “cowboy” for his penchant for white stetsons and boots when not in the dark blue lab coat favored by the DYAD physicists. Despite the small frown creasing her brow, Delphine was still quite possibly the most perfect woman Cosima had ever seen. It really should be a crime for someone to be that freakin’ attractive, she thought.

And much to her annoyance, her fellow doctoral students agreed, judging by the dreamy expressions on their faces.

Born Offside by mintcar

Plot: It’s the FIFA World Cup! Cosima plays for Canada! Delphine plays for France!
Length: 60,000 words

“The only highlight of the mind-numbingly slow game were Canadian forwards Childs and Deangelis simultaneously clattering into the French goalkeeper Delphine Cormier, in a move so violent that it belonged in a Saw movie. Cormier is potentially ruled out of the Mexico game, and would have most likely wanted to stay on the pitch to make the key save as Niehaus’ scuffed excuse for a penalty somehow found a way into the net, past the young substitute keeper Reno’s flailing hands, and sent the last ten minutes into an unimaginative passing game. With the likes of Germany, USA and Sweden still to play, Canada have not opened with an impressive or promising performance.”

Although no-one was quite sure why Alison had decided to read this to them off her phone, all disapproving and haughty, the entire team remained silent throughout her shpiel anyway.

“I mean, at least we got moment of the match, Childs,” Deangelis snickered, throwing a sideways glance at Beth. She managed to hold back a smirk – if only so Alison would not murder her in her sleep for ‘sheer disrespect’.

“Fifty dollars says Cormier’s back for Mexico,” Deangelis carried on, waving a bunch of bills in the air.

She Brings Me the Music by TatianaVampireSlayer

Plot: “Cosima Niehaus is the rebellious older sister of a child violin prodigy who’s tired of being forgotten. When she meets a young pianist named Delphine, who’s never broken a rule in her life, she gets a taste of Cosima’s world and realizes she likes it.”
Length: 26,000 words

“And now we have Delphine Cormier.”

After Cosima took her seat, she glanced back up at the stage, and her breath was taken away when she saw mystery girl from earlier stroll into the spotlight. Delphine. She carried no instrument and instead walked up to the piano that was set up onstage. Of course she’s a pianist, Cosima thought.

Cosima’s heart thrummed faster in anticipation as she waited for Delphine to start playing, and when she did, wow. Cosima was breathless for the second time since she walked onstage. This girl was good. Her eyes were closed like she was feeling the music and her fingers moved nimbly across the keys. Despite the fact that she played that same classical music that Cosima usually hates, she found herself captivated the entire time.

Delphine’s performance was over far too soon for Cosima’s liking, and as she walked off the stage, Cosima found herself standing up and muttering to her parents, “I’m gonna go hang with Dylan the rest of the show, if that’s cool.”

Her parents nodded. “Thanks for sticking through so much of if,” her dad said, but she didn’t hear him. Cosima was already walking down the aisle heading for the backstage room.

When she arrived, her brother was nowhere to be found, probably in the bathroom, but neither was that woman that kept intercepting Cosima when she wanted to talk to Delphine, thank god. She had just gotten back into the room and grabbed a bottle of water to drink. No one was around her so Cosima took her chance and headed straight across the room to talk to her.

Severed Crossed Fingers by arabybizarre

Plot: It’s a Cophine rock band AU!
Length: 91,000 words

Their performance had been exceptional. Cocky as they were, Felix and Sarah had roared onto the stage, eager and confident. They knew the songs as well as if they’d written them themselves, and knew Cosima even better – they’d backed her flawlessly.

Nervous and shaky, Cosima hadn’t been quite so self-assured. As much as she enjoyed talking to people in more intimate settings, addressing an entire audience always threw her off. Under the blinding lights, with a mass of thousands thriving in front of her, she’d stumbled over her words. Her hands had stumbled, too, the first couple of songs, fingers spasming over the frets in a few flubs that made her burn frustratedly about her entire face. But with Sarah and Felix hollering, grinning behind her, and the crowd responding so enthusiastically, she’d easily found her groove. Once she settled in, it had been a cakewalk.

It always astounded her to see people – fans, she supposed – singing along to her music. When they’d finally hit their stride, and she’d felt confident enough to gaze out at the eager faces in the audience, she’d seen them shouting along, grinning like fools. It didn’t matter that the majority of them were probably stoned, or drunk. She could hear them, hear her words in their mouths. She’d felt such a thrill in that moment, from her head to her toes, it was almost like she’d been shot up with adrenaline.

Then, she’d glanced down at the VIP pit, smirking, ecstatic, and had seen that same blonde watching her, just as she had promised. Gone from her face was the quiet, cool appraisal. Instead, Delphine was bouncing on her heels, hands raised, singing along. When she noticed Cosima watching her, the brunette crooned into her microphone and winked.

Anathema by assassinslover

Plot: Werewolves, vampires, clones!
Length: 40,000 words

“Delphine,” she said, and the woman’s head shot up, eyes narrowing. She glanced down at her badge as if it had intentionally betrayed her. “Sorry, is giving names against the rules? Shouldn’t wear badges around the subjects then.” Delphine sighed, moving Cosima’s arm around and softly rotating her shoulder. “Seriously, think you can at least bring me a shitty magazine? There’s gotta be offices around here, right?”

“You can put your shirt back on,” Delphine said, straightening and waiting for Cosima to struggle back into her top. She went to help her put her arm back in the sling, but Cosima waved her off. “Do you still want the ice?”

“No,” Cosima said.

“You’ve healed remarkably quickly…” Delphine muttered, a hand hovering in the air between them.

“Yeah,” Cosima replied absently. “Seriously, like, if you could just get me something to read.” Delphine cleared her throat.

Heaven’s in Your Eyes by OpheliaTheActress

Plot: Cophine teen angst AU!
Length: 26,000 words

The French girl giggled and clutched her oversized stuffed puppy dog with fuzzy droopy ears. “I never doubted the…experiment.” She said, walking alongside Cosima through the mass of people and games.

“Yeah,” Cosima gave a small shrug. “It’s no biggie, just observation.”

The French girl slowed to a stop. “I never did get your name, oh great scientist.” She said with a playful tone of voice.

Cosima stopped and stood in front of the other girl. “I’m Cosima…seventeen…” She gave a small wave.

“Delphine,” The French girl said in her thick accent. “Eighteen…” She said awkwardly. “Enchanté.” She held out hand to Cosima.

Accepting the hand she shook it timidly. “Enchanté.” She might’ve been holding Delphine’s hand much longer than planned but made no move to remove it. Neither did Delphine. Oh, God, what a name, Cosima thought inwardly. “You’re French.” In defeat, she slid her hand out of the other girl’s.

“Oui, I moved here a few weeks ago with my family. It’s a lot to take in but…it is very nice.”

Everything Delphine just said went in one ear and out the other. Cosima was to busy admiring every trait about her. Her hair, her accent, her smile, and the way she struggled for words just to complete a sentence. If she hadn’t snapped out of it, she might’ve been drooling. “Yeah, yeah, very nice…not really but yeah!”

The two girls exchanged giggles and it died down. “Well, it was really nice to meet you, Cosima…”

Say my name again, please, please! Cosima wanted to smack herself for thinking such thoughts.

Shadows on the Wall by mveloc

Plot: “What if the clones have been self-aware their entire lives? When Cosima goes in for some routine testing, she finds that a new doctor has been assigned to her.”
Length: 104,000 words

They both stand there, staring awkwardly at each other, unsure of how to proceed. Delphine decides to make the first move, offering the dreadlocked girl yet another smile and an extended hand in greeting.

“Enchantée.”

Cosima accepts her hand, grinning like a dopey child.

“Enchantée,” she repeats.

They maintain their grasp a little longer than is custom, neither women able to let go as they continue to stare into each others eyes, smiling. After a few seconds pass, they both become aware of their falter and they nervously withdraw their hands.

“Right. Okay. So, you’re French?” Cosima asks, breaking through the thickness in the air.

“Oui.”

“That’s pretty rad.”

“I’m sorry?” Delphine asks, cocking her head.

“Rad. Radical. It means radical. Like, awesome or cool. You know?”

“Oh. Okay.”

The Coffee Shop Around the Corner by immunologie

Plot: “Cosima Niehaus is on her way to completing her senior year at the University of Minnesota without a hitch when a tall girl with impeccably-styled blonde curls, a dignified strut, and a sleek leather handbag walks in on her morning shift at the coffee shop.”
Length: 25,000 words

“‘Little coffee shop around the corner specializing in soy lattes and gluten-free baguettes’, yes, I saw,” she interrupted. Cosima fell silent. She had gone out of line and the girl knew it. The girl gave a small smile. “Maybe I should’ve tried those?”

Cosima looked down and snorted quietly. “Maybe.”

“I’ll take one.”

She looked up to see the girl fiddling once more with her purse.

“Sorry?”

The girl flashed her a gorgeous smile. Perfectly aligned white teeth. “You’re forgiven.”

Cosima blinked and cocked her head. What in the hell? This girl.

“A baguette. To go, s’il vous plait,” the girl continued.

Confused, she rang up the order half-mindedly. All she could fathom was that her pulse had begun speeding.

“What is your name?” the girl asked, almost song-like.

“Uhm… Cosima.”

A flash of hazel in the late morning light. “Intéressant. Like Cosimo de’ Medici but with an ‘a’?”

She pushed back the swell in her throat as she dug out the dusty shelves of history lessons from the corners of her brain. Medici. She was terrible at history.

She breathed in the discomfort of not knowing the answer. She hated not being right. “Uhh, sure, yeah.”

Ficlets by majesdanes

Plot: Dozens of sweet and sexy plots! Many ficlets!

Because it doesn’t make sense. She had only just moved from France, and–well, there honestly weren’t many people here who had her telephone number. Her parents had called fairly frequently since the transition (they were nervous, of course, and she did her best to placate them by calling at every opportunity–and, admittedly, because maybe she was a little nervous too, in this strange and foreign new world) but they had her schedule better memorized than Delphine herself. They wouldn’t call during a lecture unless it was an emergency.

The thought makes her heart beat faster–except, that didn’t quite pan out, because the number that had popped up on her phone when the call came had been just that: a number. If it had been her maman and papa calling or, for that matter, anyone she knew from home, surely it would have named them?

As the crowd streams out the double doors and onto the campus green, Delphine leans up against the wall and reaches, immediately, for her phone. Just as she’d thought, no name is attached to the latest missed call–just a handful of numbers that she definitely does not recognize. She thinks about letting it go. She has homework to do and–well, that’s about it, in all honesty (but it is, she reassures herself, a lot of homework).

Except she can’t quite shake that powerful curiousity. And so, fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm against the wall at her back, she calls back. Part of her doesn’t expect the caller to pick up (part of her doesn’t want them to) and by the third ring, she’s a little frantic–which is, of course, ridiculous, because it was probably a prank caller, or a misdial.

On the fourth ring, there’s a click. “…hello?” she asks tentatively. When no answer comes but muffled sound (breathing? laughter? some combination of the two?) she forges on bravely, “You called earlier, but I could not answer then–”

“Oh, my god,” comes a voice, finally–and, no, Delphine definitely can’t place it. A woman–an American woman, very obviously. But that’s as much as she can gather. “You’re totally the person in the book, aren’t you? I was starting to think it was a fake number or something–” she trails off to hiss, out of the corner of her mouth, something that sounds vaguely like, “Shut up, Sarah.”

Clones of Hogwarts by evodevolover

Plot: Cophine Hogwarts AU!
Length: 55,000 words

When McGonagall dismissed them Cosima went to go talk to the French girl again, only to see her walking out of the class with her friends. She sighed and went to go collect her books, when she saw a piece of parchment sitting where the girl was earlier. Putting her books down, she reached over, only to see that it was her schedule for the year. Reading it, she realized the girl also had Charms 4 with her.

She looked down further to see that the girl was taking Potions 6 and an extra session working with Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing.

Cosima quickly grabbed her books and headed towards the dungeons where she would hopefully spot Delphine.

In her transit, she hugged a corner as she switched corridors and ran into a familiar face, sighing when she saw who it was.

“Hey, Cosima!”

She ran past the boy, “Not now Scott, I’m in the middle of something,” she shouted.

“But-” she heard him protest, but she ignored him as she descended the side staircase. She was nearing the dungeons when she saw the French girl, talking on the side of the hall with her friends. She seemed to be saying goodbye and turned around as Cosima approached, skidding to a halt in front of the pretty blonde, who looked at her the same way as when she did that before their class.

“Heyy,” Cosima drawled.

“Bonjour,” the girl responded casually.

“You just- um…” she started, taking out the piece of parchment, “You forgot this in the classroom.”

“Oh, umm… thank you,” the girl said, taking the paper.

“No problem,” Cosima said raising her hands and backing away. Deciding that she didn’t want to end the conversation, Cosima turned back around, “F-full disclosure,” she started, gathering the girl’s attention, “I um… I did peek.”

Ficlets by Novel Concepts

Plot: There are dozens and you should read them all.

“At what temperature, d’you think, does the brain just up and stop working?” Cosima wonders aloud. Her head is bent between her arms, slung over the balcony outside Delphine’s apartment. Actually venturing outside in the swelter of August maybe wasn’t her best idea, but as Delphine’s landlord is making a grandiose show of boycotting working A/C…

“We’re going to smother here,” she adds, slinging her groaning voice over the rail and imagining it landing on the blacktop below. Splat. Like ice cream tipped from a precarious cone.

Ice cream would be killer just now.

“Heeey. You’re not even listening to me, are you?” She doesn’t bother to raise her head. Exacting that much control over her muscles is a serious pain in the ass when the thermometer has climbed beyond the 90 mark. Besides, Delphine has been bustling around in there for the last ten minutes–cleaning, or some shit. It must be some latent French gene Cosima’s never heard of, which allows her to function like a normal grown-ass adult in disgusting humidity. She’d be envious, if envy itself didn’t require so much energy.

“Heeeey.”

“Is for horses,” Delphine’s voice floats out to her, distantly amused. Cosima grunts, turning her face against the sweaty arc of her forearm.

“It is very, very hot out, ma’am. None of this snarky malarky from you, please.”

“Malarky?” Delphine repeats, a little closer now.

“Don’t mock. Can’t think.”

“A world where Cosima cannot think,” Delphine muses, sounding far too entertained for Cosima’s tastes. “Perish the thought, chérie.”

of angels and angels by prolethean

Plot: Cosima and Delphine are growing old together. 
Length: 5,000 words

Cosima traces a spiraling ringlet of hair with her eye; it’s close enough to touch, but she won’t. The woman sits in front of her, head bowed slightly over something in her lap, a phone, she guesses, engrossed. The man beside Cosima, he jostles her leg again, and whether it’s intentional or not, she ignores it, attention steadfastly focused ahead.

It’s this feeling, this strange sort of fantastical haze of possibility that washes over her when so many strangers are packed in one place, every island of existence rubbing elbows with another universe. Days gone past, she would close her eyes and imagine a face for this woman, and see, painted plain as day on the back of her eyelids in starbursts and reddish murk, the first kiss they share together. The first birthday, the first Christmas, the first time she brings her home to meet her parents, how they glow and fawn and say they could tell she’s the one by the look on Cosima’s face.

And she could open her eyes and push her glasses higher on her nose, studying the shell of the stranger’s ear, and imagining tracing it with a fingertip while she sleeps next to her. How the puff of her breath would feel on Cosima’s neck, how she would slip off the glasses and be a beautiful blur above her. What her laugh sounds like. What her sobs sound like. She would be so caught up in this daydream, it would be a violent throw from it when the bus grinds to a halt and the stranger stands, getting up and off without ever having even looked back.

She never even saw her face.

And that’s why it’s a marvel when she sits here now, growing old with this girl, and this time Cosima does.

Next week, I am going to dive headlong into SwanQueen fandom, so if you have any recommendations for me, leave them here!

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