Chapter Text
Milena wakes up to a warm breath against her neck, her side a distant, acidic ache.
She inhales with a wet, low gasp, and trembles on the exhale. Cold. Milena is so cold. With a whimper, she curls toward the steady heat, fingers clawing into itchy, stiff fabric that smells like sweat and burnt trash. Her eyes peel apart, the gloom bright and clear, and she pulls what can only be Momo closer, noses against the shell of her ear, the faint pulse of her heart.
So close… so warm —
"Go back to sleep," commands a voice, and Milena sighs, glances up, dazed, as the interior of a car comes vaguely into focus. "Go back to sleep or I'll toss you out."
Momo is the fierce one between them, the real rabble rouser at heart; Milena is the quiet shadow, the true burning coward, so she sighs, again, and folds around Momo, closes her eyes and goes back to sleep.
A vague awareness passes that way. Milena can feel every bump and crack in the trail, but somewhere in between she loses focus on Momo, and stirs to light fingers carding gently through her hair. With a bleary hum, Milena presses her face further into the corded muscle of the thigh beneath her head, breathes in the scent of stale, old blood.
"Milena?"
"M… Momo?" she croaks, and then squeaks as she's hauled up and into a tight hug, the world spinning dangerously. "M-Momo!"
Momo shudders, her grip crushing. "You're okay, you're okay . Milena, you, you almost—"
A roar, red snow, and heat and cold. Spiraling lights and the ground far beneath her feet. Momo's terrified eyes and gleaming silver hair and dewy skin. Milena trembles, arms coming up, and presses herself flush to the other girl, nails digging into the worn coat.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I, I just couldn't," Milena sobs, jaws aching. "I love you but I couldn't — I'm just so scared."
"It's okay," Momo cries back, and for a long moment they just cling, weep into each other and fall apart.
It's easy for everything to tunnel down into just Momo. Milena wants to grow old with her, this singular spot of color in their cold, dreary world. She wants to steal laughing kisses to the beautiful, taboo wind of a tiny music box. Milena wants, and wants, and wants, but it's never been enough to outweigh the fear. Even as she forgets about the sharp, acrid smell of exhaust and flashing moonlight for what feels like an endless lifetime, Mileana hears the throaty trill of a coo like it's right in her ear.
"Aw, you two are really cute," says that same voice from before, and it's like a switch flips.
One second, Milena feels like she's only just survived the world shaking apart, and then in the next she's fury incarnate. Her vision bleeds red, and Milena whips around, herding Momo back, everything just going strange as she fills the car with her desperate rage.
The vampire in the driver's seat smirks crookedly in the rearview mirror, her silver hair glowing in the faint moonlight. "I really don't know what we're going to do with you, though," she says, teeth carefully hidden behind her lips.
"D-Do what with me?" Milena demands, pressing back, eyes darting away, left, right, then back. There's a gun still tucked into the padded pack at the small of her back. If she could just signal Momo— "Let us go or, or I'll kill you."
With a roll of her eyes, she turns her attention back to the road. "You're more likely to kill your friend there than me, if we're being honest…"
Milena kill Momo? No. Never, she'd never do that. She'd only ever even consider it if, if—
"M-Milena, she saved us, she saved you, " Momo whispers from behind, and Milena stiffens. "It… the drugged vampire, it…"
Her hip throbs at the memory. Teeth splitting the flesh, rending the meat, hot and then cold. The thunder beat of her heart in her ears. Momo, then open air and dwindling city lights, crystal tears. A crackling white noise descends upon Milena as she turns toward the fogged up window.
A gnarled maw greets her, bloody, wide eyes and bristled fur, kettled arms and wings bent at impossible angles that cage Momo against the car door and seat. The vampire that stares back at Milena is ugly and wild, her favorite coat ruined across its broken shoulders. An inhuman whine escapes its wrinkled lips, and Milena's too sharp hand finds the handle of the door.
" Milena! " follows her out into the icy night, down the hill as the world spins and twirls, squealing and grinding brakes a piercing chorus.
The thick trunk of a far north tree slams against her back, a deep thud that she feels everywhere but like a distant, weak cuff across the head. Gasping, Milena scrabbles upright, dizzy, but the pale, splayed claws across the dark bark send her backpedaling. No. No, no, no. The vampire follows her, silver hair tickling the edges of her eyes, and a great howling gust of wind catches the thin membrane of wing and sends her fluttering like a tossed scrap of paper over the yawning snowscape.
From here, she can nearly see everything. The vast expanse of snow goes as far as the mountain tipped horizon, dotted with trees, and it just gleams. Milena's suspended in a weightless moment where for a quivering second the fear just… disappears.
Ah.
Milena chokes back a scream, and then falls, arms flailing as the wind abandons her. She flops belly first onto a snow drift, stunned. Chest heaving, she shoves her face deeper into the snow, too light, too bird bone hollow, to sink like a human stone.
She doesn't want to die… but this is a death sentence.
I want to grow old with you, please —
There's a quiet whistle, a tight twap like air against a flag, and then the soft crunch of snow.
For a long moment, nothing is said. Milena chuffs into the snow, and someone sighs.
"In a way, you looked like you were dancing," says the vampire, and when Milena doesn't respond, rounded fingers dig firmly into the scruff of her neck and lift her from the snow. "Is it that bad? Would you rather be dead? Your friend would cry."
Momo would, wouldn't she? She'd be the only one to be able to, the only one who even would when the war grinds them up and spits out the young like chopped leftover meat day in and day out for a war no one really understands because. Because if anyone truly did, would Milena be here, right now? Be alive instead of a dead body pulled to pieces in the jaws of a drugged vampire, instead of being put down like the rabid beast she's become?
"I, I don't want Momo to cry," Milena sniffles, muzzle wrinkling as the tears bubble free like a loose faucet. It feels so easy to cry like this; she hates it, she wants to peel herself free. "Thank you, thank you for saving her, I just don't—"
The woman sighs, then gives Milena a firm shake. "Don't thank me just yet," she warns, the words low, almost bitter, and then tucks Milena close, who clings immediately. "Hang on."
Swinging down, the woman's arms fan out, and then she leaps. Milena swallows her yelp as the sky approaches in a dizzying whirl. The vampire tips her head back, wings tilting, and just over her shoulder Milena spies Momo by a rusted truck, arms waving. Then the wings snap in, and they drop, Milena's insides left behind in the open fridge air.
Twap, and it's so sudden a stop Milena accidentally lets go, tumbling back first into the snow by the truck's tires. Haloed by a clear full moon night, Momo reaches for her, but Milena inhales sharply, and doesn't know what to do, hands rising in an aborted reflex. Claws. Soft, human skin. A carnivore's set of teeth. Momo falters, and Milena draws back, talons to her chest.
"I, I don't want to hurt you," she whispers, ears folding back, the flex of a new and strange muscle pulling a knot in her stomach.
"Y-You won't, you're not like them, " Momo denies, determined, and glares at the other vampire a few feet away, who pauses half sip on a brassy flask. "You… didn't eat us, can you teach Milena? To not eat people?"
"Vampires don't eat humans," she complains, and the flush of her cheeks is easier to see now. "And vampires are people. Or, is she just a beast to you now? Not like them, hah, you did have such hurtful things to say before… I took you away, just like you asked, haven't I?"
Took… her away?
"And, and that makes you responsible now, doesn't it?" Momo continues, and Milena lets herself be pulled upright, an electric pulse shivering up her spine at how close they are. How close her teeth are to that pretty, racing vein in the side of Momo's neck— "This, this is all the vampires fault, if you'd never attacked us—"
With a wounded gasp, Milena pushes Momo away, the ache in her teeth like a stubborn itch. "I don't want to hurt you," she sobs, and drool pools under her tongue, then drips off her lips. "I don't want to, to hurt you but I want to."
Were you… going to leave me?
The terrified hurt that washes over Momo's face is not something Milena ever wanted to see, not directed at her, not because of something she's done, doing, is. It hurts. It hurts. She grinds her teeth together, and looks away, still a coward. If she'd just said yes, just found the courage…? It hurts to consider.
Stay here with me. Let's —
With a very loud sigh, the vampire stows away the drink. She stalks around Momo and right up to Milena, grabs her by the tattered front flap of her coat and yanks her up and off her feet. "You want to live don't you? It's not so bad being a vampire…" she says, but something about how she says it betrays the confidence. "I'll figure out the blood issue, it'll be fine."
Milena wants to shake her head. The road ahead of her is miserable, rife with temptation and despair. It's not what she wanted when she asked for Momo to stay, not when it could cost Momo her life. Milena should kill herself, but then… then Momo would be alone. With a vampire.
Stay with me, Milena had nearly begged, and how could she ask that of Momo and not be willing to do the same? She wants to shake her head, but instead she gives the tiniest of nods. Vampires are monsters, and. And, of course saving Momo could never be something so altruistic as an act of kindness. The horror stories of blood bags and the devil's ecstasy firm her resolve, just enough. For Momo, for now.
"Not from Momo," she whispers, lip curling.
"Not from Momo," the woman agrees, much too easily, and then all but dumps Milena into the ice-crusted trunk of the truck much to Momo's wordless protest. "My name is Fine."
'Fine' doesn't wait for any further introduction, spinning less than gracefully on a heel to herd Momo back into the safe interior of the truck. A hungry part of Milena watches them go, and she forcefully tears her tracking gaze away, up and up, which. It's only then that Milena sees the dacha looming in the distance, a grand old thing, another lonely thing, perched upon a throne of snow and rock.
The truck's engine sputters, and Momo presses her face against the back window. Milena hears her nails tap on the glass, but she can't look at her right now — not when a too large part of her knows she could easily break the glass and just bite.
No, Milena draws her knees up, winged arms cuddling in close, and does not look.