Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They were seated at a cafe in Eastside, a few blocks away from the main thoroughfares to ensure a modicum of privacy. The midmorning sun shone overhead, the faint chatter of patrons and workers alike interrupted by sparse birdsong. A backdrop of gleaming steel mixed with sparse greenery and steaming cups of light brown espressos.

She had eyes for none of it, no one and nothing save the woman sitting across from her. Sallie’s entire being focused on Milly, like a sunflower inevitably bent towards the life-giving rays shining down the heavens above. She drank in every minute detail of Milly’s expression as she took her first hesitant sip of the caramel macchiato she’d ordered on a whim, memorized the way her eyes sparkled as she moaned in delight and drank deeper.

It was absolute madness to be jealous of a fucking coffee cup. And yet.

“Oh this is delicious, so sweet and syrupy! Nothing at all like the double-shots the girls used to chug back at Euphoria.” Even the mention of their shared hell couldn’t crack the smile that spread across Sallie’s face: that place was gone, it’s patrons consigned to jail or worse, and they were finally free. Everything was as it should be.

Almost.

“Your cakes, madames. Lemon and carrot.” For the briefest of moments she glanced at the server, faintly surprised that Cassian worked here instead of continuing to be a bartender. But he probably just didn’t want to go back to that job after Euphoria. It made sense, so it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was watching Milly consider the cakes for a moment, brow furrowed as she finally chose to start with the slice of raspberry lemon. Watch the delicate ease with which she handled the fork, breaking off just a tiny piece and carefully balancing it, the act alone already worthy of praise and song. Witness how she took a cautious, hesitant nibble, luscious lips and a hint of tongue closing around the lemon yellow tinged with red. Swallow nervously as Milly considered the taste for a moment, eyes shining and mouth widening in unrestrained joy. And lastly, smile in return as Milly proceeded to absolutely wolf down her half of the mid-morning treat.

And when those glowing pink eyes turned towards her own, silently pleading for permission to eat the rest, how could she possibly resist.

“Go ahead, we can always order more. Have as much as you want.” For a moment the ever-present halo of joy and love around Milly intensified, the sun itself a perfect backdrop for her radiance, and then it faded to merely manageable brilliance.

“That’s so sweet of you Sallie, thank you!” She ate the rest of the cake, saved a single remaining forkful, and then did the same with the carrot cake sans the little leftover piece after Sallie confirmed she didn’t like the taste. She couldn’t look away, spellbound by her friend’s ravenous hunger and her own internal desire to witness her Devour something, or perhaps someone, else.

Wicked, wicked thoughts about an innocent. The punishment was swift, cruel, and absolutely fit the crime.

“Say ahhhh.” Milly leaned forward with the last bit of lemon cake balanced on a fork, her body perfectly angled to give Sallie a generous view down her cleavage. She resisted with every fiber of her being, fingernails digging into her palms till she bled. She was not like those beasts, her friend was not a piece of meat. She would not look, she would not touch. She controlled her desires, not the other way around!

Barely.

Instead she leaned forward as well, biting down on the offered fork. The taste was delicious, the best sweet she’d ever eaten, and yet it may as well have been air. All that mattered, all she hungered for, was pink and gold.

“How does it taste?” Oh, it just wasn’t fair to ask in That tone. Evil evil evil!

“De-delicious.” For some reason this caused Milly to pout, not that Sallie could bring herself to mind. She was so utterly, unfairly adorable when she pouted.

“Mmmm, but I’m still hungry.” In an instant Milly was standing next to her, hands sneaking under her armpits and pulling Sallie to her feet. She wanted to protest but her lips were otherwise occupied by a gentle peck from Milly’s own, then coated in decadence by a single side-swipe of Milly’s honey-coated tongue.

“And how do I taste, Sallie?” Utterly incomparable, indescribable, sublime maddening perfection. Like every inch of her was infused with a profound, unrelenting joy that threatened to see her burst like an overripe fruit, golden radiance intensifying from the inside to rend her asunder.

A worthwhile death, if only she could have just one more kiss.

“Sweet. So very sweet.” Sallie leaned forward into Milly’s hungry embrace. Sallie’s hands gripped on her shoulders as one of Milly’s hands found the small of her back, pressing them even closer together, while the other cupped the back of her neck. Angling her head, deepening-

*knock knock knock knock knock*

“Ms. Sallie, are you awake?” That voice- one of the nurses? What? But? They were?

“Ye-Yes?” Rapid blinking cleared the sleep from her eyes, body still too keyed up to process anything beyond recognition that this was a hospital room, not a cafe.

“Breakfast is being served and you need to eat.” Right. Right this was- this was her hospital room. Not DisCity but some Outlands Outpost. She was in her room and Milly was-

“I uh, I just need to shower and then I’ll be out. 5 minutes tops.” She barely heard the nurses response, fleeing into the attached bathroom and throwing off the hospital gown before staring at herself in the mirror. Wild-eyed and winded, hair disheveled and cheeks flushed. Almost like she’d been…

Oh, and her thighs were slick. Great. Fucking GREAT.

She turned away and turned ono the shower, biting back a shriek as she stepped into the frigid waters coming from the faucet.

What the fuck was that. It… I… Milly… FUCK.

She leaned forward until her head hit the tiled wall and groaned, both in relief that the water was headed towards a hotter temperature and at the general state of her existence. Not four days saved, Milly still unconscious in a hospital bed, and her fucked up brain was already having weird sex dreams about her friend…

“Sallie, you’re not going to do this to yourself. Your last real conversation with her was basically you yelling at her, Theodore probably still thinks he’s your boyfriend, and oh yeah the woman she is in love with saved all of your lives! Why are you like this???”

Thankfully, she wasn’t quite crazy enough to start up an entire conversation with herself. Not yet anyway. Instead she grabbed the loofa, soaped it up, and scrubbed herself raw. Till even the phantom traces of memory washed down the drain.

Still, the dream haunted her. Logically all of her arguments were absolutely correct, heavy weights to tip the scales in favor of sanity. And even if she did feel something for Milly, it was probably just some weird combination of the stress of being stuck together in that hell for so long, not having gotten laid in six months and finally seeing her boyfriend? again.

That was definitely it. Because it couldn’t be the other thing. It hadn’t been an option before, it certainly wasn’t about to start being one considering she was still saddled with mountains of debt. Besides, what woman in their right mind would ever want someone like-

*BEEP BEEP BEEP*   “One minute of water remaining.”

Right, supply restrictions due to the influx of people. She managed to wash the suds off before the timer hit 0, drying off and consigning her hair to a ponytail for the day. Lacking both time and supplies, it would have to do.

Thankfully the cafeteria was still sparsely populated, most of the former workers and dancers of Euphoria still getting their meals delivered. While most were light on injuries and all save a few Sinners were cleared of Mania corruption, many of them were experiencing what the doctors were calling “severe Let-Down Effect.”

Apparently being kept as slaves and worked just to the edge of human endurance for years on end, death always one purchase or fuck-up away at all times, put the body in a constant hyper-elevated state. Endless “fight-or-flight” mode. So suddenly being rescued meant going from 100 to 0, the result being equivalent to some of the worst drug crashes she’d ever seen. Some were so weak and sickly they could barely get out of bed, while others were convinced this was still just a hallucination Milly was keeping them trapped in. And in the worst cases…

Well, at least they’d caught Selene before she slipped out of the base entirely, screaming loud enough to wake the whole facility when they’d dragged her back to her room. Demanding she go back and get her damn bird.

The memory meant most of her breakfast tasted like cardboard, save the two cups of coffee she overloaded with sugar, but since it was hospital food so that was probably for the best. It was while nursing the second cup, and contemplating a third, that she felt someone walking towards her from behind. Fine to fucked in an instant: blurred vision, chest pains, tensed muscles. Another fucking panic attack, or at least the beginnings of one.

Eyes shut, hands clenched, she mentally went through the doctor’s recommended mantra: She was fine, Milly was fine, Euphoria was dead and Mr. E along with it. It took three silent repetitions before she managed to halt the spiral, long enough for Theodore to sit down across from her.

Great. Just what she needed. She sighed, looked up, and took him in. Brown hair askew, gray eyes lifeless and downcast, skin pale and covered in bandages. He’d saved her life that day, and it counted for something. Yet…

It gnawed at her, the unanswered question. Why?

“You uh, you look good Sallie.” Mumbled, weak and laced with some emotion she didn’t care to parse. “Glad to see you’re up and about, sorry to-” No. Not now, not with him.

“Why.” Finally he looked up, met her eyes unflinchingly. He’d known what was coming, same as her.

“I… I didn’t know.” Oh, there was no reality in which that was good enough.

“Theodore.” He flinched, knowing that tone. What it meant. How angry she truly was. “Tell me everything. Now.”

“O-ok. There’s been some pretty major deaths in Eastside recently, doubt you’ve heard, and they created openings that my parents were able to capitalize on. Made a lot of money and some important friends. So, we got an invite to Euphoria, and the way it was explained attendance was a requirement for… further gains. Everyone thought I could using cheering up after you vanished, so…”

“Did. You. Know.” Another flinch. Peeling away the layers of bullshit.

“I… I’d heard things, whispers and rumors. But I didn’t know how bad it was… and I think that was the point. It's why they didn’t give me a mask: they wanted to see how I’d react, make sure I could stomach what went on, and could punish me if I tried to talk to anyone. Apparently that’s how everyone is treated their first time attending.”

It made sense, in a horrifying sort of way, and lined up with what she’d already heard. Everyone knew, and everyone was involved, so no one talked. Because the second you tried to, the knives would come out and slit your throat. No one that powerful would risk their secrets being exposed. A perfect way of weeding out those without the mindset of a slavering beast, culling anyone with a consciousness before they could truly join high society.

She wanted to scream, she wanted to vomit.

“What would you have done, if you hadn't seen me? What were your friends trying to get you to do?” Oh, how he refused to look at her, eyes darting every which way but forward. She remained silent, steady, still: the rock against which he would break.

“They… they were gonna get me some alone time with one of the girls. And if I hadn’t seen you…” She wanted to kill him like Milly killed Merlot: slow and painful and without an ounce of mercy. The fury pouring out of her made him flinch, look away in shame and disgust.

…Yet he hadn’t gone through with it. This time anyway. So now she had a choice to make: try to fix him, or break him to bits… could he even be saved? Did he deserve to be?

Milly would encourage her to try. So she would.

“It’s not enough.” Gentle, careful, like a hunter slowly approaching a wounded fawn. He looked so hopeful in that moment, so desperate to believe there was still a chance that things could go back to the way they had been.

“This disgust, the wretched feeling worming its way through your gut? It’s not enough. You caught the barest glimpse of the rot at the heart of DisCity. Men and women fed into the grinder: used and abused and disposed of like trash. All for the amusement of slavering beasts masquerading as politicians and CEOs.”

Soft, steady, voice like a siren’s song. He fought against the pull but the truth of her words could not, would not be denied. His family hadn’t stamped out what was left of his humanity, not yet anyway.

“So long as men and women like Falke and Merlot exist, so too will a place like Euphoria. A charnel house of glitz, glamour and gilding that turns humans into meat.” Now it was his turn to be nauseous.

“What-what do I do?”

“You’re going to help the MBCC.” Theodore nodded so fast whatever he had in place of a spine almost snapped, head bowed low and hands outstretched.

“I promise. I’ll tell them everything, and-” She took his hands in her own, grip gentle. For now.

“That’s not enough Theo, not nearly enough. What you’re going to do is go back and pretend that none of this happened. Because your family doesn’t matter, not really. What matters is your backers: the money and influence that helped you rise. That’s who you have to bring down. So be the perfect little toady in public, the perfect little sneak in private. Steal every secret, copy every document, and when you have enough to bury them twice over you’ll give it all to the MBCC and testify before every judge and jury they put you in front of. Over and over again.” He tried to pull away but her fingers were unbending iron.

“I- I can’t it’ll ruin us they’ll-”

“Cut your family off, leave you all destitute, force your fucking parents and siblings down into the dirt with the rest of us? That’s right. To save them, you have to destroy them.” She remembered the look in Milly’s eyes when she gut Merlot. Took it within her, made it her own. 

“Hate me. They’ll hate me forever, I’ll never see them again.” He was crying now, trembling in fear. Good.

“It’s the price they must pay to regain their humanity, Theo. Save them, and in turn save yourself. Some will forgive you, in time. And it is a mercy offered, because the truth is-” she leaned in close, her voice a whisper.

“I would happily cut the throats of every maskless beast in Eastside and beyond if given half the chance, and I’m far from the only one. They are safe, throats protected from our knives. For today. But tomorrow? Tomorrow is ours for the taking.”

She leaned back, their eyes meeting. Even after all that, the only thing she could see was that moment: her on the stage, him in the crowd of masked monsters. The clearest divide she could ever ask for. He, on the other hand, looked haunted. Both by the enormity of what she demanded, and by what she had become in their time apart.

“What happened to you in there, Sallie. What did they do to you?” Finally mustered up the courage to ask. Too little, too late.

“Worse than you could possibly imagine. And I’m one of the lucky ones: I’m still alive.” With the final nail hammered into the coffin, it was time for her to go. He had a lot to think about, and she had somewhere else to be.

The first time she’d gone to visit Milly, it had been difficult to look at her, or rather all of the things attached to her. Tubes of various shapes and sizes extended from half a dozen machines and either connected or fed into her nose, throat, mouth, head and arm. Despite multiple reassurances from the doctors that she was totally fine, every cell in her body had been screaming that Milly’s heart would stop beating right that fucking second.

There was a reason they’d asked her to wait in the next room while running test after test on her physical and mental condition, a steady stream of people coming in and out as Sallie forced herself to remain calm.

Thankfully today was much better: one tube connected to the cuff on her arm to monitor her vitals, another two tubes connected to her nose and throat that assisted with breathing and getting her nutrients respectively. But that was it. Otherwise she was just lying there.

And yet Milly was… tarnished. Partially by the thin black lines that ran up and down her extremities, the trace remains of Mania corruption that the doctors said would fade with time and regular treatment. But even beyond that, it was strange to see her friend just lying there, still save the gentle rise and fall of her chest. To be Milly was to be Alive, energetic excitement suffusing the very air around her, an aura of joy that bled into every word and act.

Even when asleep back on Euphoria, crammed into narrow beds barely wide enough to fit one person, Milly had constantly twisted and turned, a pleased little smile on her face as she was lost in the land of dreams. Not that Sallie had intentionally watched her sleep or anything, not at first anyway. But whenever she struggled to keep her eyes shut, one look at Milly was enough for the night’s exhaustion to finally take hold.

What she wouldn’t give to see those eyes open. But it wasn’t meant to be.

“Good morning Milly, I’m back! There’s a lot less tubes in you today, which is good!” She pulled over one of the nearby chairs, though not before adjusting a few of Milly’s pillows to make sure her back was properly supported.

“So they finally found enough spare communicators to give me one, thank the Goddess. I’d rather tear my hair out then watch another hour of awful soap-operas. Anyway, I’ve been doing some research, and did you know that there’s actually so many different forms of love? Or at least, that’s what all those dreary medical journals say, in between arguing if there’s seven types or eight.”

No response. No reaction. Nothing save the background beep of Milly’s heart. Not even a fucking blip.

“So the most obvious one they agree on is termed Eros, or Romantic love. Pretty obvious, honestly. Then Philia which is friendly Love, Ludus which is flirtatious Love, Philautia which is love of the Self, Agape which is Love of and for Everything, Storge which is familial Love, and Pragma which is longstanding love. Oh, and the one they’re currently arguing over is Maniea, which is apparently obsessive Love, but most people don’t agree it qualifies. So that’s Interesting.

Not a twitch of fingertips or luscious lips. Her cheeks burned, her chest ached.

“So when people say they’re ‘In Love’ with someone or something, it can be a mix of these various pieces. Friendly and flirty, romantic or familial and longstanding, it’s all one big mess of things. It’s why when friends say they love each other, like me and Emma, it didn’t really mean anything. It’s just… it’s just words and-”

Only were they really? The image of Emma, smiling at her with the sun shining down on her countless freckles, flashed through Sallie’s mind. Then it shifted: Emma one second, Milly the next. Back and forth, back and forth, a thousand beautiful smiles till her heart was full to burst and her cheeks were soaked.

“I. I miss you so much Milly. It’s insane to say that because you’ve only been asleep for four days and yet I already can’t take it. I need you to wake up, I need you to be ok, I need to see you smile, see the shine in your eyes as you talk about love. There’s so many places I want to take you and so many things I want to show you and I can’t, I don’t, I.”

I love you

Yet no words were said, caught in her throat like a thousand sharpened fishhooks. Every breath a little agony, every wretched sob a reminder of the unfairness of it all. Even if Milly woke up in that exact moment, she still couldn’t, Wouldn’t say those three little words.

Because Milly loved someone else. A love so unyielding it had saved dozens of lives, and after everything that she had been through, didn’t she deserve a chance at happiness.

So Sallie would keep these wretched emotions locked tight inside her chest, stamp and stomp and strangle the life out of them until they were just another pleasant little memory to look back on when the nights were long, her bed cold and empty.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

But that would come later. For now she could indulge the impossible, lay her head on Milly’s chest and curl up against her. Give back some of the light and love that Milly had freely offered during those hellish weeks. Hold her close, keep her warm, and whisper an unending prayer in time with the steady beat of her heart till exhaustion turned to unconsciousness.

Please let her be ok. Please let her wake up. Please.

Chapter Text

Endless thanks to Korionto, clue1234567, ZealousPineapple and Pallimimus for their support on this and all my other works. Without their ceaseless encouragement, brainstorming madness and agonizingly delicious ideas for me to play with this wouldn't be nearly as good. All are fantastic writers in their own right, give em a look if you want more quality lesbianism!

Sallie woke slowly, blinking away the last dregs of sleep from her mid-morning nap, and sat upright in her chair.

Or at least she tried to.

In all the daytime medical dramas Sallie had watched as a child, because her mother kept an iron-fisted control over the remote, no one who fell asleep leaning over their loved one ever complained about back problems. A surprising oversight, considering how much her spine ached.

So in the end, it took a few tries and a lot of wincing but she eventually managed it, eyes opening to find another woman sitting opposite her with a mildly amused expression on her face. Even if this wasn’t the individual who’d saved them all from the pits of hell, the gray coat and tired eyes had been shoved in her face enough times that it was unmistakable.

Chief of the MBCC, the object of Milly’s love.

She looked… ragged wasn’t a strong enough word, but it was all her sleep-addled mind could manage. Like she’d had all the vitality squeezed out of her, replaced with a bone-deep exhaustion that matched the veterans of Euphoria after a particularly boisterous night. Then she caught the little smirk that Chief was still flashing her, and realized her staring had been noticed.

“Despite my appearance suggesting I should also be in a hospital bed, it’s not as bad as it looks.” The gentle smile and kind words probably fooled most, but the slight trembling of her limbs said otherwise. Sallie knew the look of someone forcing themself to hide their pain. Probably either to assure her subordinates everything was fine or to avoid the blow to her pride that would come with everyone treating her as fragile.

Either way, none of her fucking business.

“Milly has a few photos of you, but you’re uh… different up close.” The smile remained, gentleness not forced so much as carved into the contours of her face. A constant state of affairs so weather-worn as to become the default, but tinged with sadness around the edges.

“Yes, I’ve heard about her-” Chief’s eyebrows suddenly shot up, one finger rising to her lips as she stared at Sallie intently. A few seconds passed in bewilderment, and then there was a knock at the door.

“Hello? Is anyone in there? Have you seen the Chief of the MBCC?” Sallie could barely make out the silhouette of a young woman, holding what looked to be a clipboard, as Chief shook her head back and forth.

“Darn, guess she’s hiding somewhere else. Chief? Chief I have another stack of forms to sign!” The voice retreated as Chief sighed in relief.

“Sorry about that, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide.”

“Aren’t you worried you’re missing something important?”

“Considering those are all transfer requests for people who won’t be cleared to move until tomorrow at the earliest, no. No matter how much paperwork I finish more sprouts up like weeds, so it can wait a little. That and they’re all wet signatures, which would prove tricky at the moment.” Hints of frustration bled through her tone, instantly softened by that ever-present exhausted gentleness. The kind that came from knowing the trap of professionalism: if you were good at your job, the only reward on offer was even more work. A lesson her mother had learned the hard way. Right around the time she began shoveling the shit onto her more competent subordinates, freeing up her and Father to begin climbing the corporate ladder.

But either way, this was not the woman she’d envisioned Milly had fallen in love with.

“So, since you know how she feels… what are you going to do when she wakes up?” To her credit, Chief took a minute to think over her answer, eyes never leaving Milly as she fiddled with her hands.

“When circumstances allow, I’ll hear her out and then probably give some version of the same answer I usually do when this kind of thing happens.” Now it was her turn to be enraged on her friend’s behalf, fury sharpened to a razor’s edge by the grindstone of all they had survived.

“Don’t you dare mock her, love was the only thing that kept her going, how-” the tirade died in her throat as Chief glared at her for a moment, and in the depths of those gray eyes she got a merest glimpse of the monster.

Then it was gone, back to exhaustion as she let out a long sigh.

“That is not what I meant, Sallie. Anything but. Everyone I’ve spoken to said Milly talked about true love non-stop, and how she holds it for me. The same woman who saved her back in West District. And I remember meeting her, but only briefly. Not nearly enough time to get to exchange names, much less get to know each other. So…” For just an instant she was reminded of the same spineless cowardiceness that Theodore had displayed, the memory lending her rage enough to recover.

“So what, you’re just gonna reject her? After everything she’s done to find you again?” The sigh Chief let out this time was wretched, a cold and empty thing.

“It’s… it’s different. Loving a person vs the idea of one.” Where before her presence had been almost worthy of pity, just an exhausted young woman in ragged clothes that almost slumped off her body, now there was… weight. It was in how her shoulders hunched, how her limbs seemed almost carved from stone: a being who’d held the burdens of the world long enough she’d forgotten how to put them down.

“On the surface, I’m many things. Chief of the MBCC, Spy for the 9th Agency, Hero to West District, Weapon of Paradeisos and Consultant to the blood-soaked ranks of DisCorps.” In anyone else, all that pomp and polish would sound like bragging, but Chief made each word sound like a curse. Or a thorn she couldn’t yank out of her flesh. Each word contributed to the burden on her shoulders till it spilled out into the surroundings, her very presence pulling Sallie in like a black hole.

It was like being back in Mr E’s office, the fullness of his gaze upon her once more. Every breath labored, every nerve in her body screaming she was in danger. And Chief wasn’t even sparing her a sliver of attention, not anymore. Her eyes were squarely focused on something in the far distance, burning with barely restrained pain and fury.

The look of someone used to violence, knowing that they would relish what was to come.

“Savior of the Sinners. Bearer of the Shackles. Destroyer of Black Rings. Titles both chosen and forced, roles both offered and imposed. Yet thanks to that bastard’s schemes, I can’t even help Milly wake up from her fucking coma, much less manage all my other duties.” Each syllable bitten out, every word another promise of retribution. Not the impotent fury of power denied its presumed pleasures, but the white-hot fury of someone who Knew they were in the right.

A rage to split the world asunder, so long as they could kill their chosen Enemy.

Now Sallie was reliving the moment she’d been certain Milly was going to kill her: that cloying, creeping dread of the monster’s jaws around your neck. Yet somehow still just a fragment of the true whole. There was so much deeper for her to sink, an absolute darkness that would crush her in an instant. If Mr. E or Milly were rocks, then Chief was a fucking mountain whose mere shadow would drive her to madness and death.

Chief turned towards her and blinked, pale gray now wide with worry, and like that the spell was broken.

“Sorry, you’re not a Sinner and Milly’s still injured, I should know better.” Back to a gentle, faintly exhausted woman in an instant. That, more than anything else, had her fucking terrified.

How could she just put it all back in the box? What kind of person was capable of that?

“Who… what are you?” She expected anger, rage, despair. But instead Chief just laughed: bitter, mocking, and aimed squarely inward.

“Friend, confidant, boss, subordinate, mother, and most of all an overworked civil-servant who is directly responsible for the lives of hundreds of sinners and indirectly responsible for millions of living, breathing individuals. But most of all, a woman who can’t remember the last time she got a full-nights rest outside of medically-induced sedation, or a moment she could put down her communicator without worrying the world would end.”

Scary, so fucking scary. How could something so monstrous look and feel so human?

“And now is no exception: I can’t even stay here to wait for Milly to wake up because I have to leave in a few days to save my daughter from some bastard’s scheme, and by the time I get back I’m sure some other disaster will befall DisCity.”

“... I’m hearing a lot of things Chief, all of them excuses.” She managed the words without trembling, without screaming in fear or frustration. For Milly’s sake, she had to try to change the other woman’s mind.

The smile Chief offered in response was the kind most actresses spent a lifetime perfecting. The ones you gave to a lover or spouse while dying in their arms: wide and woeful, yet barely opening your mouth for fear the blood would come spilling out.

The agony of the inevitable.

“I’m not doubting her love. But it’s the kind of thing that will… change, grow, expand. Especially when she sees exactly how one-sided it would be. How even if I wanted to give her everything I could, she would still never get more than the barest sliver of my time and attention. I can’t care for her like a partner truly should.”

Pale gray looked upon Milly’s sleeping form for a moment, and then those eyes met her own. Piercing and clear, privy to all the secrets of her soul.

“Not like you could, anyway.”

What the hell could she even say to that?

Before she could even think of a response a loud blaring emitted from one of Chief’s many pockets. She retrieved a communicator, scanning a message and shaking her head. She offered one last sad smile, to her and to no one at all, then rose with a grimace of pain.

“Duty calls.”

Up, turned around, and out the door.

May she be damned to hell and back, but in that instant Sallie hoped and prayed that Chief was correct about how Milly’s feelings for her would change. Otherwise she was absolutely fucked, because how could she, could Anyone, hope to compete with a woman like That.

… At least Milly didn’t wake up for her either.

“That’s it Milly, I got you. Try to touch your toes.” The woman in question let out a painful whine but did as she asked, pushing herself down a little more so the very edges of her fingertips brushed against her bare feet. Followed almost immediately by a grimace of pain, then relief as Sallie guided her back to a standing position.

15 minutes into what Sallie considered a bare-bones stretching exercise and Milly was already drenched in sweat. Real progress compared to the first few days, when she’d barely managed to walk across the room.

“Very good, let’s take five, grab some water.” Milly nodded gratefully, staggering over to a nearby bench where an observing nurse handed her a bottle of freshly-chilled water. The blonde singer guzzled it down gracefully, wincing a little as she sat down. While one nurse tended to Milly, rubbing some anti-mania ointment on the slowly-healing fractures that still covered her limbs, another approached Sallie with clipboard in hand.

“Progress is minimal but still better than our initial expectations for how far along her recovery would be, though I’m sure having a friend by her side every single day helps a ton!” The slight sting Sallie felt from the nurse’s all too-accurate assumption was wiped away by the delight of knowing she was somehow helping, if even a little.

It soothed the memory of that day: watching from an observation deck as Milly rushed onto the landing platform right after waking up, hand outstretched as if begging Chief to come back to her. Fear that turned to terror when armed guards surrounded her dearest friend, slumped on the ground like a puppet with her strings cut, despondent and drained.

She’d screamed, fists pounding against the reinforced glass as Snow and Selene did their best to keep her from rushing out to save Milly, and thankfully there’d been no true need. Chief was nothing like Mr. E, and put the light back in Milly’s eyes with boons instead of beatings.

A promised reunion in time so long as she followed the rules and recovery programs assigned to her by the staff, physical and otherwise. Not that Sallie had known about any of this at the time, given she was supposed to leave on the transport ship set to leave a half-hour after Chief’s own departure. Headed back to DisCity with the rest of Euphoria’s former staff.

Except…

She couldn’t just leave Milly alone in this place, cut-off and isolated from everyone she’d ever known. And while Sallie trusted Chief and her terrifyingly capable Adjutant Nightingale, that didn’t extend to the rest of the officials and staff.

So she’d begged to stay… well, less begged and more threatened to march back here from DisCity, fistfighting every sandworm and bandit that crossed her path, if she had to. There may have been some shouting involved, and some more direct threats leveled at faintly amused people from some DisCity department whose acronym she didn’t recognize.

The minutes she’d spent making her case were blurry, but the outcomes spoke for themselves. They waited until she was finished, then some laughed while others applauded her ‘spunk’. One quick phone call to Chief later she was allowed to stay on as a “recovery consultant.” In exchange for spending time helping Milly and just being there for her in general, things she was already demanding permission to do, she’d be allowed to stay for free, avail herself of all the medical facilities, and even spend time with one of the on-premise therapists if she so desired.

As it turned out, having someone you trusted around to be there for you every day was supposed to help significantly with Mania recovery. Happy thoughts and all that.

So at first she’d just watched while Milly’s assigned physical therapist, a middle-aged woman named Andrea, worked with her through the first few sessions. Then she started helping Milly practice a few of the less strenuous exercises in her room, along with some basic stretching exercises that were part of her warmup routine.

Andrea had found out within days, because Milly loved to brag about how much Sallie was helping her recover, and almost immediately she’d become an active participant in Milly’s daily sessions. So much so that she was now doing most of the work while Andrea half-heatedly supervised from a nearby chair, working on her existing caseload while the nurses monitored Milly’s vitals.

Most amazing of all, apparently if Andrea judged her help decent enough, she promised to talk to the Adjutant about backpay for ‘time spent’. Which sounded like total bullshit, but stranger things had happened.

“Ready for another go, Milly?”

“Absolutely Sallie! Oh, and when we’re done can we watch that movie you were talking about. The one with the devil and the shoes?”

“Of course!” 

*** *** *** *** *** *** 

“Oh I just love Miranda’s style! She looks so Good, doesn’t she Sallie? I hope I look that good when I’m older!”

A mistake of some severity had been made.

“The glasses and earrings perfectly frame her face and add a wonderful touch of color to go along with that coat. And see how she’s never actually looking at anything other than herself, wonderfully acted by… what was her name again?”

The kind of error that sounded like a good idea when thought to ones-self but was obviously awful in hindsight.

“I uh, don’t remember Milly. I’m sorry.”

“Oh that's totally ok, and look at Andy, she’s even more nervous than you were at first! It’s so adorable!!!”

Because when she’d invited Milly over to the room they’d given her to watch a movie, she’d expected that Milly would lay on her bed while she sat in the chair next to it, since it was the only way they’d both be able to see the TV without craning their necks. The angle would still be awkward for her, but that was fine.

“That guy reminds me of Cassian! Oh, don’t tell him I told you this, but he’s actually paranoid that he’s going bald, always checking in the mirror when he thinks no one is looking.

Instead Milly had politely but firmly dragged her onto a bed barely big enough to fit both of them, so obviously they had to squish together. Which had almost immediately turned into Milly snuggling against her, head resting on Sallie’s shoulder as she whispered constant commentary into her ear.

“Oh and Look at Serena, hair all messy and glasses making her face so sharp. Maybe I should try dressing like that to fit in at the Bureau?”

Another barrage of temptations, another mental image of Milly looking absolutely divine. It was a struggle to keep herself from getting excited, but she fought it down by digging her nails into her palm. The alternative was unacceptable: with how close they were, legs all but intertwined, Milly was sure to feel something poking against her sooner or later and she couldn’t let that happen.

It was too soon for Sallie to die from shame-induced spontaneous human combustion.

“So is this what your job was like, back in Eastside?” Ah. Shit.

“I uh, never really worked in an office. It was either odd-jobs or working nights at whatever club would hire me to pay the bills, since I couldn’t hack it as a professional dancer.” Her cheeks burned bright for a moment, and just that, before Milly was suddenly above her, face mere inches away.

Fuck fuck, this was just like the dream she’d had… ok basically every night for the last two weeks. But there was no way-

“I’m sure things will work out for you, Sallie! You just need to keep at it, and I know you’ll be on a real stage in no time, cheered on by adoring fans!” With anyone else she’d have gotten angry, thrown back insults or told them to fuck off. But Milly’s unyielding sincerity and earnest belief was impossible to resist, especially when straddling her like this.

“I uh… Thank you for believing in me, Milly. I hope you’re right.” The smile her agreement got in response was nearly blinding, the joyful glow that just for a moment made her sure that Milly was right. That as soon as she got back to DisCity all her problems would be solved and everything would work out.

“Of course! If you love something, you need to go after it with everything you have. And anyone with eyes can tell how much you love dancing Sallie: you come alive on stage like no one else I’ve ever seen. You’re so beautiful to watch, moving like you do.” How? How the hell could Milly say something like That with such a beatific smile on her face, looking down at Sallie like her own personal angel. An angel that was still straddling her hips, and could certainly feel one of the many effects her words were having.

Her face burned, in shame and regret, knowing what was to come. Yet Milly simply smiled and lowered herself back down, once more burying herself into Sallie’s shoulder. No disgust, no anger, not even a reaction. Like nothing had happened, which was absolutely impossible. She had to have felt something…right?

For a while there was silence, the two of them watching the movie. Or rather, Milly watching the movie while Sallie did her best to hammer down the endless font of deviant thoughts her brain was producing with a fury normally reserved for handsy customers or arcade machines. They got about halfway through the film when Milly spoke up again.

“Hey Sallie?” Now there was a hint of exhaustion in her voice, that drowsy tone that usually preceded a much-needed afternoon nap.

“Hm?”

“Do you think I’ll- *yawn* - have to get a job too?”

“Um, I honestly have no idea how it works for Sinners.” One of the many things she was planning to look up in the coming days, along with whatever regulations she could find online or convince Adjutant Nightingale to provide her. Anything and everything she could learn to help Milly.

“Mmmm… what do you think I should do? What could someone like me possibly be good at?” Now Sallie had to fight the urge to laugh, because what an absurd question.

“Everything, Milly. Anything and everything. I think if you put your mind to it, you could be Queen of DisCity by the end of the week… Milly?” And already fast asleep, legs further entangling with Sallie’s own as Milly curled up against her. Gentle, loving, and oh so very adorable.

“... Actress, Milly. I think you should be an actress.” And woe to the academy if she ever went with Sallie’s whispered advice, because that year’s DisCars ceremony would be a singular sweep the likes of which had never been seen before.

Delusions for another day. The here and now demanded she focus on the movie and remain as still as possible to ensure Milly’s dreams went uninterrupted.

She deserved nothing less. Now and always.