Chapter Text
“So like, what, are we playing baby chicken? Is that what this is about now?”
Monika grumbles, the exact same way she has grumbled about basically everything Sayori has been sneaking to school in her backpack; which is fine by Sayori, because Monika is especially adorable flustered and grumbly, if she does say so herself. (And she says so.)
Today is probably the most embarrassing thing yet, by Monika’s measure. If she had been aware that dozing off on Sayori’s shoulder sucking on her own lower lip would lead to too many days after-club in the closet spent playing with baby toys and a horribly tantalizing pacifier Sayori had dangled in front of her face one afternoon, she might not have done it at all, and wouldn’t that be quite the shame?
“I didn’t think you would be chickening out over this,” giggles Sayori, light and teasing and unbearably fond, waggling a baby bottle (where did she get a baby bottle?) in a manner too playful to be intimidating. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to quit at the pacifier?”
“Maybe I should’ve,” mutters Monika, trying to sound both wry and annoyed and managing to hit neither.
“Should I be taking your nukkie back, then~?”
“No,” Monika says, quickly, reddening further but feeling slightly more settled when Sayori, as warm as ever, laughs softly again.
“Then come here, baby,” she coos, leaning gentle emphasis on the pet name (or maybe Monika just hears it that way), “Don’t you wanna at least come have snuggles with me?”
She does. (She always does.)
So she pushes down the nervous tremor in her belly that’s always there, shaking like a fawn as she crawls, face red as a rose, she crawls towards Sayori and pushes her face into her neck, crawls into her lap. The closet door is latched shut and the school is empty and she crawls into Sayori’s waiting lap and lets her shakes bubble out as a whimper, a whine, lips pressing against Sayori’s skin not knowing whether to leave kisses or to suckle.
“Aw, baby,” Sayori whispers, pressing a sure and soft kiss to Monika’s temple as she whines again, curling clumsily against Sayori’s chest, “Sh-shh. You know it’s just me and you, sweetheart, it’s not scary.”
It is a little scary, in Monika’s opinion, the same way that it’s a little scary to look down off a diving board even if you know how to swim, even if it’s hardly even that far above the water.
“Shhh, baby, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
But it is a little less scary when there’s somebody there to catch you.
It’s a little strange, how Sayori knows when Monika’s let herself jump for Sayori to catch her - sometimes she wonders if she does something, carries herself differently, lets out a sigh that’s unmistakable for any other sigh, but today she’s just relieved that she doesn’t even have to try and ask before Sayori is pressing the nub of her nukkie to her mouth. If she felt any other way, she would have been mortified that she wanted a pacifier, much less with a babyish name, but she feels the way she thinks a basket of kittens might feel and she mewls accordingly once it’s safely in her mouth, rubbing her cheek lovingly and contentedly against the comforting run of Sayori’s sweater vest.
“Cutie,” Sayori croons, sweet as sugar and dropping feather-light kisses to Monika’s hair, rubbing her thumb along the gentle swell of Monika’s arm. “My cutie. You’re just the sweetest little baby there is, aren’t you? I must be the luckiest person in the whole wide world to hold such a sweet little baby,” she says, like she means every single word and Monika, like this, can believe she really really does, she really does; Monika peers up at Sayori through her lashes, soft and small and for the shortest of moments defenseless and Sayori melts like ice cream in July.
“I’d fight the whole world to take care of you,” Sayori murmurs, utterly awestruck, and Monika studies her face with loving, needy intent as Sayori brings the bottle up to her lips - only mildly distracted by the way Monika’s mouth absentmindedly opens, birdlike, as she gently tugs the ring of her pacifier to swap.
“There you go...”
Monika is lost in Sayori, in a good way - in a way akin to being lost in soft blankets on a bed ten sizes too big. Sayori’s expression is warm, soft, and Monika feels safe now in a way that she hasn’t since the last time Sayori held her like this, and the last. She feels safe and she feels comfortable, maybe even cozy, and she doesn’t want to think much of it when Sayori tugs her nukkie out and replaces it with the bottle, so she doesn’t. She suckles.
And it’s not warm (because it’s just milk from the vending machine at the end of the hall) but it’s sweet, and heavy in that way that milk is, and it’s vanilla (which Monika is so utterly fond of) - eyes slipping shut and sighing happily through her nose, she suckles harder, more urgently, as her stomach growls lightly.
“It’s not going anywhere, silly,” Sayori hums, patting the side of Monika’s bottom in a confusingly soothing way, “You can take your time. Slowly, baby, slowly.”
So Monika, curled with Sayori in the clubroom’s closet, drinks slowly.