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Cackles staff Yule party is a small but cosy affair. With spiked eggnog and quiet music, the hall lit by floating candles and smelling of sweet pastries and cakes. Everyone mills about, eating and drinking and talking, smiling. Hecate lingers mostly with Pippa then Ada, spends some time with Gwen and listens to her tell a story Hecate’s heard before.
By all accounts it’s a fine night. Far less awkward than Hecate had managed to convince herself it would be. Still, she slips toward the door early, eager for quiet and her book and perhaps, if she’s lucky, sleep.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Pippa catches her in the doorway with a gentle hand on Hecate’s arm and she feels warmth start from beneath Pippa’s palm and spread to overtake her. Pippa smiles and Hecate feels her cheeks pink.
“Sorry I-”
“Oi, love birds!”
Hecate’s head snaps to the side and finds Diminity grinning. The room seems to grow quiet.
“Pardon?”
Pippa squeezes Hecate’s arm, rubs her thumb back and forth, and Hecate struggles to concentrate on anything else.
Diminity points and Hecate follows her gaze to above their heads, finds a garland of mistletoe decorating the door frame. Hecate lurches back without thought and Pippa’s hand falls. She laughs but even Hecate can tell it’s strained and embarrassed through the roaring in her ears.
Hecate forces air into her lungs, feels panic well in her gut but pushes it down, forces her arms to move, to cup Pippa’s face, gently enough that she should move, Hecate wouldn’t stop her. Distantly, everything in her seems to be screaming. The gazes of her colleagues, friends, burn into the side of Hecate’s face. But Pippa doesn’t move, delicate eyelashes fluttering against her cheek.
Hecate leans down, certain there is no air left in the world, and presses her lips above Pippa's brow. She lingers for a moment, inhaling flowers and sunshine and Pippa.
Diminity cheers and, as violently as an axe through ice, the moment is shattered. Hecate rips herself away, her back hits the doorframe and she curls her hands in her dress to try stop them burning. Someone, maybe Ada, says something and conversations resume but it’s water in her ears.
“Hecate?” Pippa whispers, she looks afraid and Hecate feels sick.
“I- I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have, I-”
“No, it’s okay,” Pippa says too quickly and she reaches out but stops, drops her hand, and Hecate’s chest burns.
“Goodnight Pippa, thank you for coming and I apologise again,” Hecate wishes she could smile. Pippa blinks a moment before she nods, her smile all polite and fake and Hecate has to resist wrapping her arms around herself.
“It was my pleasure,” Pippa says to a spot over Hecate’s shoulder and it’s a talent of Hecate’s, ruining the things she wants most.
She slips away with a curl of dark magic and doubles over a moment later, braces shaking fingers on her counter. She doesn’t know what is wrong with her, why she ever thought it would be appropriate, why she ever thought Pippa would think her touch anything other than an intrusion, other than repulsive.
Hecate trembles. She feels a hand, claw-like, dig into her shoulder even as she knows there’s no one behind her. Her eyes sting, too hot for her skull. She hears a voice sneer in her ear, worthless girl, disgusting-
“Hecate?”
She starts, head snapping up, and there is Pippa, looking at her with wide eyes. Hecate feels humiliation claw up her spine and she turns away, wiping at her cheeks with her sleeve.
“Hey, hey, are you okay?” Pippa moves forward, fingers wrapping around her wrists.
“Fine,” Hecate manages. She just wants to be alone but knows if she asked Pippa would leave so she bites down hard on her tongue, tastes metal.
“Hiccup, talk to me,” Pippa is so close, her eyes so beautiful and earnest, full of kindness that for some reason, is for Hecate. It makes her feel all the worse when she can offer Pippa nothing but a shake of her head.
“I don’t want to lose you again,” Pippa whispers, searching for something.
“You won’t,” Hecate manages, strangled and quiet and not enough. Will never be enough to make Pippa understand that she’ll never lose her, that she never did. Pippa seems to find whatever she was looking for. She places a warm hand on Hecate's cheek, guides Hecate’s eyes to meet her own.
“I love you,” Pippa says.
Hecate blinks, her eyes water. Something inside her blooms and dies at the words she’s longed to hear almost all her life. Words she hasn’t heard since her mother was still alive. It means everything and it’s not enough, never enough. Because it’s not in the way Hecate loves her. So fucking desperately and too much and-
“I just meant- sometimes you look at me that way you do and then under the mistletoe, you touched me like-like -and then Ada said after you left and I would understand, if you don’t feel the same and don’t want to be friends anymore, that’s okay I’d get it -Hecate please say something I-”
“Why wouldn’t I want to be friends anymore?”
Pippa blinks at her and her arms move to wrap around herself, she shrugs, “because of how I feel I guess, because I-”
“Because you- you love me?” Hecate asks, doesn’t mean to, suddenly afraid that Pippa will take it back.
“Yes Hiccup,” Pippa laughs but not in the happy, easy way she does that Hecate’s so in love with. This sound is wet and hoarse and wrong and Hecate never wants to hear it again. But she has to ask, has to snuff out that dwindling candle of traitorous hope.
“You mean as in -as in just-” but she doesn’t want to say just friends because Pippa’s friendship has never been just anything to Hecate. “You mean as in friends,” she whispers, words torn from her throat against her will.
“No I-” Pippa takes a deep breath, screwing her eyes shut, “I mean I love you like I would want to-to kiss you and be with you and I’m sorry Hecate I had really thought that you- and Ada said that you did and I’m so sorry,” a tear drips down Pippa’s cheek and Hecate doesn’t know what to say or how to bring back Pippa’s smile.
And then it registers, what Pippa just said. And Hecate kisses her. It doesn’t quite work because Pippa is shocked still and Hecate’s hand bumps her shoulder and she pulls back. For a moment she’s afraid Pippa will laugh, will say, oh Hecate you really thought- but Pippa would never, and then there are two hands fisted in the collar of Hecate’s dress and Pippa’s mouth crashes against her’s.