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The thing with weddings is, they make Sara want to get married. Immediately.
Add to that the fact that her crush is right in her line of sight, in a gorgeous yellow dress that would completely wash out anyone else that fair. Not Mila, though. She makes the soft, pastel colour work for her like nothing Sara has ever seen before, especially with the way she has done her hair today, straightened and brushing her shoulders. She has kept her make up light and dewy as well, her undercut and sharply contoured cheekbones adding a delicious edge to her appearance that Sara can’t help but internally fawn over.
Mila Babicheva is so Sara Crispino’s type that it’s not even funny.
Not to her at least, Emil still takes great pleasure in teasing her about it.
Thankfully though, the Czech skater has left her alone for the evening, probably too busy trying to chat up her painfully oblivious brother. Sara would almost feel sorry for him, if he hadn’t started acting like a gigantic arse the day he caught Sara stalking Mila on Instagram and heaving (embarrassingly) dramatic sighs, lost in the thick of her solitary pining, and just never stopped.
“Wooing generally involves more talking and less staring.” Seung-Gil mutters from next to Sara. “You’re so creepy.”
She can’t dispute that. She has been obsessively staring.
“‘Wooing’? Really? How old even are you?” Sara rolls her eyes.
“Old enough to know you’re called pathetic.” and, okay, what possessed Sara to ever make friends with Seung-Gil she will never understand.
“This coming from the guy who’s immediate reaction was to try to delete his Instagram when his crush followed him on it?”
If Seung-Gil was a lesser man, he’d have blushed. He isn’t though, he is very nearly unshakeable in his stoicism and Sara remembers why teasing him is no fun whatsoever.
“Face it, human. You really ain’t one to talk.” Sara snags two champagne glasses off of the tray of a server passing them by and hands one to Seung-Gil, who lifts his in sarcastic toast before flipping her off.
Sara grins and controls the urge to do a little victory dance. She has kept herself from turning to look at Mila for the entire exchange.
She is about to reward herself with a good eyeful, when suddenly, someone throws an arm each around both her and Seung-Gil’s shoulders.
“I can’t believe the OG power couple of the skating world is getting married and you two are wasting the day away by sulking in a corner, like this!”
Chris has a very sexy voice for one. Sara thinks he would make a great phone sex operator.
“We are not sulking.” She protests.
“Technically, it’s their reception. They’re already married.” Seung-Gil huffs.
Chris simply chuckles, squeezing both of them with his criminally strong arms.
“Yeah well, this night is about to get so much wilder and you won’t want to miss it.”
Chris is proven to be absolutely correct soon enough. The night turns wild, Seung-Gil leaves, and Sara manages to snag the seat next to Mila.
She may or may not have downed three flutes of champagne back to back to calm the racing of her heart immediately after but Victor Nikiforov is at the head of the table, telling anyone who’d listen about how champagne is the best invention of mankind after ice skating and lube because it brought him and his husband together. So, Sara feels fairly secure in her assumption that she isn’t going to be the most inebriated person here anyway.
“Hey you,” Mila drawls when their eyes meet. The blush on the Russian woman’s cheeks is doing things to Sara’s stomach. “Didn’t really get a chance to talk tonight.”
“Yeah, we didn’t. I’ve been meaning to tell you how pretty you look, by the way.” Sara smiles. “This colour really suits you.”
“Thank you! I was torn between this and a purple pantsuit but other than Yurio everyone has said nice things about this dress.”
“Oh? What did Yurio have to say?”
“That the ugliest, most rotten banana in all of history could show me up by a mile in this dress.”
“So do you get rid of the peel before you put the dress on or is the banana shy?”
Mila snorts.
Most guests have left already, including, or rather, most importantly the elderly. It’s just Yuuri’s sister, friends from Hasetsu, and a few skaters left, seated around two tables moved end-to-end. Chris is shirtless beside Georgi and mumbling something in Victor’s ear, Phichit seems to be looking for someone (probably Seung-Gil, if only the Korean would stop being a mess and see that Phichit is into him as well), Yurio, as everyone has taken to calling the irritable blonde, is sporting a rare smile as he talks to Otabek and damn, if Sara doesn’t have her suspicions about those two as well. Her own brother or Emil are nowhere to be seen and she hopes they are finally getting it on because Emil’s pining is getting sort of pitiful now. JJ and Isabella left early, given her pregnancy and Leo and Guang-Hong look like they’re having trouble trying to talk an increasingly drunk looking Yuuri out of something. The little blonde skater named Kenjirou seems to be live-streaming everything so, for the sake of sober Yuuri, Sara hopes Leo and Ji succeed.
“Okay,” Chris claps his hands together, or at least tries to, because he seems too drunk to function, at this point, face flushed and body nearly swaying on his feet. “We’re going to play a game.”
Mila groans and throws her head onto Sara’s shoulder in mock exasperation. Chris sticks his tongue out at her before glancing pointedly at Sara and fucking winking.
Sara has decided he needs to die. ASAP.
“Whoever wins,” Victor pauses theatrically. “Wins!”
“Christ.” Mila giggles.
“The winner will be a victor!” Georgi throws in, and Sara can’t keep herself from laughing anymore.
“Does the victor get to be married to Yuuri, then?” Yurio snickers from next to Mila and all of a sudden more people look interested in whatever game they have planned.
“Only if the victor is Nikiforov.” Yuuri declares, with his eyebrows bunched together and his gaze intense, like all of this makes perfect sense.
“Are they always this bad?”, Sara questions.
Mila lifts her face to look up at her and they’re close enough that Sara could kiss her coral-stained lips if she were to lean forward a little. It’s so cliche, so fucking cliche, and maybe it’s the drink talking, but Sara believes this is the happiest she has ever been.
“Worse, oh my god, they are so much worse when they’re sober.” Mila grins. “But also disgustingly cute. I-…” she looks away for just a moment, before looking into Sara’s eyes again. Sara feels her breath get caught in her throat, the look in Mila’s eyes just a little too meaningful for her to possibly look away, even if the need to kiss the Russian skater is becoming distracting, now.
“They’re idiots but they’re also so, so happy. So in love. It’s exactly how I would want my life with my own partner to be.”
If she were less drunk, Sara wouldn’t be doubting her understanding of the implication weighing Mila’s usually cheerful voice into a breathless whisper of sorts. She isn’t though, and Georgi’s startlingly ominous laughter soon draws her attention off of the cute bow of Mila’s mouth.
“We’re going to play Never Have I Ever!” Chris calls out enthusiastically, and nearly half of the people gathered start booing at him.
“What are we, fourteen?” Yurio quips.
“Aren’t you actually fourteen?” Chris raises a brow.
“I am eighteen, dickhead!”
Chris puts a hand on his heart.
“Since when?! Victor you didn’t tell me your son was an adult.”
At the head of the table, Victor is now in Yuuri’s lap and fully making out with him.
It descends into chaos from there, and Sara misses a good four minutes of conversation because she is busy watching Mila laugh.
…
The thing with Mila is, she’s a lightweight.
Her Russian heritage has fully failed her, and she can’t handle her alcohol, especially not when she discreetly emptied half of Otabek’s vodka flask when Sara came to sit next to her.
Where else would she get the courage to rest her head on Sara’s shoulder like that, with their faces so close, no less?
Presently, Mila is buzzed just enough to convince herself to do things she normally won’t and that has to be why she grabs on to Sara’s hand and drags her inside when the older skater comes to drop her off at her hotel room.
Sara looks confused but she doesn’t pull her hand away, and Mila doesn’t really possess any sense of shame right now. So, she doesn’t let the thick air of awkwardness lingering in the room get to her as she goes and throws herself down on her bed, arms spread out wide above her head.
In that small moment of silence, Mila realises Sara Crispino is in her room with her. Her heart finally remembers to pick up speed.
She feels a dip in the mattress beside her hip and looks up to see Sara has come to sit next to, a lot closer than she strictly has to. Her eyes are on Mila’s face for about an eternity disguised as a handful of seconds, before they’re trailing down her body. Mila is nowhere nearly trashed enough to miss the intensity of her roaming gaze.
Her throat feels dry.
Sara makes no move, still.
“Stay.” Mila whispers, which is a very redundant thing to say, because Sara isn’t looking to be in a hurry to leave and at the same time, couldn’t possibly know what Mila truly means. Shivering, Mila’s fingers reach out for the other girl, smoothing down Sara’s muscled forearm to the back of her hand.
“Alright.” Sara replies, voice louder and surer than Mila’s needy whisper. Whatever trace of intoxication was visible in Sara’s eyes earlier this evening has worn off by now and the girl looks contemplative as she stares at where their hands touch…
… before flipping her palm over and wrapping her fingers around Mila’s hand.
For a second, Mila’s entire world melts into the few centimetres of her skin that rests flush against Sara’s, and there’s not a lot else her spinning mind can focus on. For a second, Sara’s careful hesitation doesn’t mean much, neither does the truth that the Italian World Champion exists way out of her league register in her mind.
… and wow she can’t tell if that’s romantic or worrying…
All of sudden, she is surging upwards to crash her lips against Sara’s in a wet, messy, too-hard, too-short kiss that leaves Sara’s face in an extremely comical expression of pure bafflement when it ends. Somewhat belatedly, perhaps, Mila feels unsure how good an idea this was, but the feel of Sara’s lips is still fresh against hers and she’s never been one to back down anyway.
“Is that okay?” She asks.
Sara can only nod once before Mila drags her into a kiss again. This one is no better than the first.
Sara chuckles against her mouth.
Mila has a split second of warning when she feelings fingers grabbing her shoulders, before she is pushed back down onto the bed. Their kiss breaks, and she finds herself staring into Sara’s vibrant purple eyes above her.
… and then the girl is upon her again.
Taking the lead this time, Sara manages to keep this kiss from being reduced to a mindless tumble of all teeth and no finesse. Her lips are gentle, but insistent, tugging softly on Mila’s till her mouth drops open.
It feels exactly and yet absolutely nothing like all of the dreams Mila has had about this day, this moment.
Sara lowers herself onto her prone form, bodies brushing together and hands fumbling to reach naked skin underneath their clothes. When Mila squeezes Sara’s butt and the older woman doesn’t complain, Mila grins against her throat and flips them over.
…
The thing about morning is, Sara hates them.
Till she catches sight of the redhead dozing in her arms, face smooshed into Sara’s neck and lips soft against her collarbone, naked under the sheets they had barely had the sense to draw over themselves, as exhausted as they were by the time they were done the night before.
Sara gently brushes her fingers through Mila’s hair, trying to bite back the dopy grin she knows is trying to come out. She still can’t truly believe this is happening, that last night happened, that she has Mila Babicheva in her arms right now, the woman she has pined behind from a distance for years now.
She brushes kisses all over Mila’s face, and watches her scrunch her nose up before burrowing deeper into Sara’s chest. It’s the most adorable thing Sara has ever seen in her entire life, she decides.
A few minutes of laying in bed and gazing at her partner later, Sara is starting to realise her stomach is begging for food. As much as she’d like to stay where she is, the idea of bringing Mila breakfast in bed is too tempting to resist.
The cool marble under her feet when she steps away from the bed is like a jolt of realisation passing through her form. Would Mila even want her here when she wakes up?
They hadn’t talked about anything, after all. Mila had made eyes at her all evening, and then asked her to stay the night, and then kissed her and Sara had just… gone along with it. Looking back, Sara knows that was foolish, because Mila is not someone she wants to be casual fuck buddies with. It’d tear her heart apart.
She hopes and prays Mila wants more, that Mila wants exactly what she does but Sara is a realist and you don’t do what Mila did to Sara last night to someone you want to keep in your life.
It’s an enormous effort to keep her mind from spinning into the deep end. Sara reminds herself that she won’t ever regret the night before, no matter what it meant to Mila and if all the Russian skater wanted was a casual hook-up, then Sara would accept that and move on, make her peace with the fact that she now has a little more of Mila than she did before.
Said resolution made, Sara dresses herself quickly, simultaneously running her eyes across the hotel room for a piece of paper to leave Mila a note on. Buying her breakfast shouldn’t be too big of a deal. They were, loosely, friends and being kind never hurt anyone.
Reaching for her purse on the nightstand, Sara’s fingers come to a trembling halt midair when Mila’s phone lights up with a new text, visible in the bubble on her locked screen.
It’s from someone called Soldier 2 with a lipstick mark emoticon and it reads:
Wanna catch breakfast, baby? <3
Sara keeps staring at the screen as it dims and finally darkens to black, frozen where she stands as her mind races to come up with some sort of an explanation that won’t taint last night an ugly, disgusting shade. She isn’t ready to let go of it yet.
Tears start falling down her cheeks before she can bring herself to actually move, and even then she remains standing, hands furiously wiping at her cheeks. Something within her refuses to turn to Mila’s sleeping form on the bed.
She doesn’t understand… except she does. How could one not?
Silently, she gathers her stuff, puts on her shoes and leaves.
She doesn’t bother to leave a note.
…
The thing with dreams is, they end.
… but Mila knows who she’s about to wake up to and as amazing as the night before was, she is eager to have a very many more of them, and doesn’t truly mind waking up.
Then, she realises how cold the sheets next to her are.
She sits up immediately, eyes running over her room, voice hopeful when she calls for Sara, trying to tell herself she must have gone to the bathroom.
Her clothes are gone as well though, and so is her purse.
Mila doesn’t let herself cry, as much as she wants to. Why would Sara stay? They got each other off and that was it. It was truly more than enough that she slept next to Mila that night.
Really, why would she stay?
… because Mila desperately wanted her to.
Almost robotically, Mila gets out of bed, stubbornly not looking at the clothes and underwear strewn across the room as she gets into the shower, a long, hot shower that disguises the moisture trailing down her cheeks well enough that she can kid herself into thinking it never came.
She expected too much. Too much.
It takes her a while to get herself dressed for the day. She orders a simple breakfast of waffles and blueberry milkshake in her room, unwilling to go down to the buffet, hastily gulping it down as she goes through her messages.
She can’t help but admit, a part of her keeps hoping she’d have a text from the Italian skater, in vain.
She does have a message from Otabek though, and it’s weird as it can be, calling her baby and asking her to get breakfast, followed two minutes later by a text confirming he was half asleep and wanting to text Yurio, texting her by mistake instead. It’s not hard to believe. Mila, Yurio and Otabek had jokingly saved each other’s numbers as Soldier 1, Soldier 2 and Soldier 3 after that one night Victor and Yuuri had had a huge fight and Victor had disappeared to drink his sorrows away. Yuuri had been worried and trying not to show it. Since he was still new to St. Petersburg and they didn’t want to risk him running all over the city alone at night, Mila, Yurio and Otabek, who was visiting back then, hadn’t told him Victor wasn’t in any of his usual spots when they checked, instead taking it upon themselves to find their missing rinkmate.
Yurio had declared that night as a war on Stupid, Disgusting Love and Things Assholes Do When They Fall In It, and hence, the nicknames.
Mila quickly texts Otabek back, before checking in with Yakov about their flights back to Russia. She finds out the happy couple has already left for their honeymoon from the adorable airport selfie Victor posted on Instagram, and determinedly ignored the ache in her chest.
She wonders if she should text Sara, and undecided, she mindlessly searches for her account anyway, expecting Instagram to throw Sara’s handle in her face as the first account on her suggestions.
It doesn’t come. Not even after typing Sara’s full username.
Quickly switching over to the fake account that she and Yurio share specifically to follow people and pages they can’t have the general public know they’re following, she types in Sara’s username again.
Her account is right there. She hasn’t deactivated it.
She has blocked Mila.
…
The thing with heartbreak is, it often robs you of your ability to reason.
Sara blocks Mila.
On Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Whatsapp, Facebook, iMessages, Skype and even VSCO and TikTok.
Sara doesn’t cry, she doesn’t shed a single tear after she leaves Mila’s room, coldly relating what happened to her brother when she meets him for breakfast later. Mickey is understandably fuming, and Sara almost hates that he refuses to punch women. She’d very much like for someone to punch Mila.
She never wants to see her again.
She does, though. Very soon, too.
She, Mickey and Emil find themselves checking out at the same time as Mila, Yakov, Lilia, Yurio, Otabek, Georgi and Georgi’s girlfriend.
Sara’s eyes find Mila’s, the moment the elevator doors open and the redhead emerges. Sara is surprised, but she doesn’t even let herself flinch, as Mila freezes under her gaze. After staring the Russian down for a handful of seconds, she coldly averts her gaze, jaw tight and hand balled into fists around the handle of her bag.
Her heart sings in pain. Her gut answers with cold rage.
She thinks that’s the end of it. She couldn’t possibly mean anything more than a one night stand to a woman who’s apparently seeing someone else as well. Mila, however, walks right up to Sara and places herself firmly in front of the Italian skater.
Sara is torn between leaving to join Mickey and Emil at the reception or hearing the little bitch out.
“I’ve never gotten such awful reviews in bed, I have to say” she tries to sound like she’s joking, but Mila’s voice is strained, tone testy.
Good, Sara thinks.
“What’d you want, Babicheva?”
Mila flinches, and her brows draw in like she, for some twisted reason, actually cares.
“What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this? Did I do something wrong?”
Sara scoffs at that, unable to keep herself from taking a step away, breath suddenly coming in short, animated gasps. Her own eyes are narrowing, she can feel it and it’s an effort to not slap the girl in front of her.
Mila’s stares beseechingly at her, liquid shining in the corner of her eyes. Sara is getting real tired of this.
Sara crosses her arms across her chest.
“Oh, I don’t know, you tell me. Is it or is it not wrong to ask someone into your bed when you already have a partner?”
Mila’s mouth falls open and her eyes cloud over with confusion. Her eyes… they are the same deep blue shade from the night before, the one that Sara first fell for. Her resolve weakens for a second.
“Look I don’t know what your game is, but I am not interested in being the other woman in any one’s life, okay? So, let’s just forget this ever happened, or that we even know each-…”
“I don’t have a partner. I am single. My last relationship was about a year and a half ago and I have had one crush for about a year now. And that is you. Mind letting me know who’s been telling you such lies now?”
Sara’s words catch in her throat and she sputters out, “I saw that text on your phone! Stop lying to me!” Because she can’t even begin to think about what Mila said about her, lest her brain melts.
“What text?”
Mila throws her hands out in exasperation, and it pushes all sorts of wrong buttons for Sara. She places her hands on her hips and makes her voice as high and mocking as she possibly can, before she says;
“From Soldier 2? With the kiss emoji? Calling you baby and sending you hearts?”
Mila’s expression only grows more baffled, before clarity sets in with a snap.
“That’s Otabek!”
“What?!”
…
The thing with long distance relationships is, you are bound to communicate more than you fuck.
… and communicate, they do.
Once the misunderstanding is resolved, they take a cab to a coffee shop close by, holding hands and blushing like the idiots newly in love that they are, but also giggle in embarrassment at the giant mess they made of things.
Sara feels guilty, for misunderstanding, for not communicating, for making things more difficult than they needed to be. Mila kisses her or tickles her or stuffs donut in her mouth whenever she attempts to apologise.
Sara teases Mila about her kissing technique improving by miles, and Mila rolls her eyes. Mila teases Sara about how she’s a proper lady, trying to get her partner breakfast in bed and everything, and Sara preens. After a lot of flirting, they reluctantly part, both confessing their feelings and deciding to give this a proper, honest shot.
It’s two months before they get to see each other next, and it’s the two longest months of either of their lives. They talk a lot however, over Skype, over text, over calls. They talk and get to know each other, and daydream about the sort of dates they’d like to take each other on, both rarely believing their luck at times.
“The thing with you is, there is no one better suited to me.” Mila tells Sara on their second date.
… and again five years later, in front of all of their friends and family members, as the two stand face to face, looking resplendent in white, and grinning so hugely, they will later be told they gave Victor and Yuuri’s smitten grins at their own wedding, a tough, tough competition that day.