Work Text:
City Hall was having an especially slow day, and Camilla, Millie, and Sharon were as bored as humanely possible. Not a single interesting thing had been happened all week, and it was starting to get to them. Their coworker, Yor Forger, was handling the monotony in a much more… anxious manner. She was checking her appearance, looking at the clock twice a minute, and was successfully maintaining the demeanor of a rubber band being stretched to its limit. And Camilla just couldn’t take it anymore.
“Yor,” Camilla called out to her coworker in a condescending tone, “why the hell are you so anxious to get out of here? I know it’s boring, but the day basically just started.”
Yor turned back with rose-tinted cheeks, realizing just how obvious she must have been. “Oh! I’m not worried about getting off my shift early. I’m just… excited for my lunch break.” The way that her face got redder clued the girls in on exactly why her lunch break would be so special.
“Let me guess: tall, blonde, and handsome with piercing blue eyes?” Sharon prodded. Yor couldn’t look her in the eye, just nod and look out the window, or just anywhere that wasn’t at her coworkers right now. Yor’s husband, Dr. Loid Forger, was a prolific psychiatrist (as far as they knew), and he just so happened to look like he had been sculpted by Michelangelo himself.
“Luckyyyyyy~! I haven’t been able to get any action since my last breakup,” Millie responded. “I wonder what he’s like, anyway. I always hear that psychiatrists are freaks.”
“Actually, he’s quite gentle… and he always attends to my—wAIT WAIT I DIDN’T MEAN THAT WAIT—!!!” Yor couldn’t retract her statement fast enough! Millie had already burst into laughter, Camilla had become flustered in half a dozen different ways, and Sharon was giving the slowest standing ovation Yor had ever heard. Ten thousand choices stood before the poor assassin.
I could just kill them and save myself the embarrassment? No, then I’d have to disappear! I could concuss them enough to make them forget the past two minutes? No, I’d risk putting them in a coma or worse! I could simply run away with Loid and Anya to the countryside? No, Loid’s spy work means that he has to stay here, and Anya would never forgive me for taking her away from her friends! I could go into more detail and vindicate Loid’s techniques in the bedroom? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! That’s for me to know only!! Killing them sounds like a much less embarrassing id—!
Suddenly, Yor felt a newspaper smack against the top of her head. She looked back up to see Camilla wielding The Berlint Daily as a blunt weapon. “Too much information, Yor!!” All the raven-haired woman could do was gently nod in agreement and concede defeat. “Besides, why would a lunch date with him make you so anxious anyway? Isn’t he Mr. Respect-My-Wife-Or-I’ll-Kick-Your-Ass or whatever?… Unless there’s trouble in paradise?” Her annoyance had been all but entirely subsumed by coy mischief, and now she wanted as much gossip fuel as she could get.
“N-No, we’re very happy right now… I just want to surprise him a little. It’s the first time we’ve been able to have a date during my lunch break in a while, and I wanted to…” Yor paused for just a moment, not sure how to word it.
“Catch his eye?” Sharon interjected. Yor simply nodded again.
“Well, that’s gonna be pretty hard with the same old ‘Plain Jane’ look you’ve been rocking,” Millie piped in. “But if you wanna give him something exciting to look at, we could help you apply some new makeup!”
Yor herself was no stranger to makeup. She had worn plenty of mascara, lip gloss, and face powder when she was on patrol as The Thorn Princess, and she applied plenty of concealer for when her bruises, cuts, or blemishes might have been too visible. She just never wore anything beyond the aforementioned concealer and some subtle foundation when she was at work. She would rather not stick out at all, so playing the role of the ‘Plain Jane’, as Millie put it, was just her best course of action for keeping her cover from getting blown.
Still, she had worn more distinct makeup on her dates with Loid, and he… he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
She looked back at the three women before her, trying to get a read on them. Millie looked like a slingshot, ready to fire as soon as the tension was released. Sharon looked pleased, as if she had thought of something like this for a while. And Camilla… looked like a mix of mischievous and intrigued, like she was either just going to mess with her or maybe she’d actually help Yor’s rather mild predicament.
“O-Okay. What did you have in mind?” Yor’s face was as red as her irises at this point, but she was throwing caution to the wind and hoping that her coworkers were being sincere about the proposal.
“YES!! Sharon and I have been brainstorming ideas for you for weeks now!” Millie exclaimed with enthusiasm. She all but dragged Yor over to Sharon’s desk, and they pulled out what looked like dozens of different makeup products. Sharon was already applying face primer before Yor had even said anything, though Millie rattled on all the same. “We’re thinking about aiming to match your red eyes, so it’ll be red mascara, a fair amount of blush, some gorgeous nail polish—!”
“Wait wait wait,” Camilla cut in. Yor was bracing herself for a biting remark about how makeup couldn’t fix her dull appearance, or something of the like. “Mascara to match her eyes? C’mon girls, let’s be original here. Besides, this is Yor we’re talking about, not someone who’s about to rip a man’s heart out for speaking to her. Let me handle this.” Instead of the scathing jokes that she was anticipating, Yor was surprised to see Camilla pull out some eyeliner and other makeup supplies. “Let’s aim for smoky around the eyes instead, it’ll blend in with her eyelashes more—what?”
“N-Nothing, just surprised is all!” Yor conceded quickly and looked forward. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Camilla smirking as Sharon finished with the face primer and started working on the foundation.
Yor was far more confident than she had less than an hour ago. The girls had gone out of their way to help her boost her confidence, and she had never held her head higher. They had applied some foundation to even out her skin tone, some highlight and blush to accent some of her features, and some eye shadow and eyeliner to “tell him what you’re looking for” as Camilla put it. They applied setting spray to make sure none of it would fall off before the end of the day, and some pink nail polish “just to look cute” according to Millie. Loid was only a few minutes away, and she couldn’t wait to show him how she looked.
Suddenly, though, Camilla stopped dead in her tracks. “Shit! We forgot to give you lipstick!!” The blonde rummaged through her purse and produced a red tube.
“I thought red wasn’t original enough,” Millie interjected.
“Not for around the eyes. But you can’t beat the original for the lips. Now shut it,” Camilla bit back as she quickly applied it to Yor. Yor looked at herself again in her compact mirror and was pleased with the results.
“Thank you, girls… you’re good friends.”
“Anything to help a gal knock her man’s socks off,” Sharon reassured her. “Speaking of…”
Yor turned around to see Loid walking in the City Hall entrance. Cautiously, she grabbed her jacket and started walking towards him, hoping to catch him surprised. As she reached him, he turned to see her and practically froze. From where the other three stood, they could tell Yor was still anxious… until Dr. Forger’s face turned a deep crimson.
Evidently, he liked what he saw.
Millie couldn’t help but shout a quick “Get it, Yor!!” before she lost the chance. Yor looked back with an exasperated wave, and Dr. Forger rubbed the back of his neck before offering his arm to Yor and walking her out to their date side by side.
“Let’s just hope Dr. Forger can keep his hands to himself long enough for her to get back on time,” Sharon commented.
“Yeah right! It’s still Yor we’re talking about, Sharon. She probably only does that sorta thing with the lights off,” Millie responded.
Camilla was more than ready to move the conversation past Yor’s sex life. “Okay, okay, that was our good deed for the day, but let’s get back to work already.”
“What work? Today’s slower than a snail,” Millie interjected.
“Just shut up and change the subject, Millie.”
Lunch breaks for their job lasted an hour at most, and their manager would breathe down their necks if they ran a minute later than that. Yor was a pretty punctual gal as far as her coworkers were concerned, and she rarely took more than 45 minutes for her regular lunch breaks. So Yor being nearly 20 minutes late was a surprise for them.
“What do you think is the hold-up?” Millie asked openly.
“I feel like I just won a bet that no one put any money on,” Sharon claimed.
“Will you get your mind out of the gutter for just ten minutes? It’s probably traffic or whatever.” Camilla just wanted to go on her lunch break already. She was supposed to have gotten her own allotted hour by now, and she was starting to regret helping Yor out so much. They’d already clocked Yor back in and told the manager that she was just in the bathroom (they were Mean Girls™, but they weren’t rats). But Camilla obviously couldn’t just waltz out without Yor being around to help the other two if work went from slow to swamped.
“Say, you applied the lipstick after we used the setting spray, right?” Sharon inquired.
“Yeah, what abou—?” Camilla turned around and got her answer. Trudging up to them was Yor, with all the enthusiasm of a tiny puppy that knew it was in trouble. Her work uniform was wrinkled, her raven hair was ruffled and unkempt, her jacket was nowhere to be seen—
And her lipstick had been completely smeared. Most of it wasn’t even on her lips anymore, with just a red smear around the perimeter of her mouth. And Camilla could see a couple of bruises around her neck, ruining all of their work on the foundation with what were almost certainly hickeys.
Yor knew EXACTLY how she looked. She didn’t want to her time with Loid to end, but she was running extremely late, and was worried that she was going to get fired. She looked back at the three and got… a variety of reactions. Camilla was staring daggers into her (which wasn’t unusual for her, but Yor had been hoping to get off on a better foot with her). Millie was covering her mouth, trying desperately not to laugh. Sharon looked as indifferent as ever, but gave her a reassuring thumbs-up.
Finally, Camilla broke the silence, rhetorically asking, “so I take it that he really liked how you looked?” And just like that, Yor’s face turned redder than ever before. Millie finally lost her test of endurance and began cackling like a spotted hyena, pointing at Yor and erupting with laughter. Sharon chuckled to herself, but Camilla’s scowl was deepening by the second.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m—” Yor murmured her apologies until Camilla shouted “ENOUGH!!” and silenced everyone at once. “I don’t wanna know what you and your hubbie got up to, good for you, glad to help, but I need to go eat. We already clocked you in, so no, you’re not fired, but this—!” She gestured to Yor’s mouth and neck, “—better be a one-time thing because so help me, Yor, if you ever again keep me here a second longer than I need to be, I WILL BITE YOUR HEAD OFF!!! GOT IT, SWEETHEART?!?”
Yor quickly nodded in agreement, not wanting to make any more of a scene than she already was. “It won’t happen again, I promise,” she confirmed meekly. Yor knew that, if push came to shove, she could probably take the entire City Hall staff in a fight, but she didn’t want to give Camilla a reason to start breathing fire.
Camilla looked at the girl and let out an exasperated sigh, pinching the ridge of her nose. So Yor got a little carried away with her husband. It wasn’t the crime Camilla was making it out to be. Was it unprofessional? Yes. Did it ruin the effort she and the others went through to glamorize Yor? Unforgivably so. Was Camilla just, maybe, the tiniest bit jealous that Dominic never left her looking like that when they got to have a lunch break rendezvous? Who’s to say, honestly? But if Dominic had suggested it, would she have ended up any differently? Don’t answer that question.
“Look, Yor, I’m not… that mad about you having a good time with your husband. Just. Don’t do it on such short notice from now on. Alright?”
Yor looked back at the blonde and looked like she was about to cry. Camilla wanted to say, 'stop acting like a teenage girl who got caught making out with her first boyfriend.' But with how little Yor knew about just talking to others, and since the doc was probably her first love anyhow… she really couldn’t blame her for being so melodramatic. Before Camilla knew what was happening, though, Yor had hoisted her into the air with the strongest bear hug she had ever experienced. She felt her ribs nearly break until Yor sat her back down and quietly said, “thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Just… warn me before you do that again,” Camilla requested as she regained her breath. She followed up with a coy, “and I think it’s only fair that the three of us each get to cash that check in at some point. I’d like to spend some extra time with Dominic next time he’s free for lunch.” Yor nodded sincerely at the request, and Millie and Sharon both seemed to like the idea of getting an extra 20 minutes for a risqué lunch break somewhere down the line. “Now, with all that settled, I’m going to actually take my break before my stomach points a gun at me, so if you don’t mind—!” Camilla walked past Yor to grab a bite to eat, only to freeze like a statue at the sight before her.
Dr. Loid Forger was walking right up to them, and if Yor looked ruffled, she had nothing on her husband. Formerly combed and well-kept hair now shot in a dozen odd directions. His ironed green blazer looked like it had been rolled into a ball before he put it back on. His matching pants had noticeable wear and tear on them. His dress shirt had a number of buttons missing and others mismatched to the wrong buttonholes, like it had quite literally been ripped off him and later put back on in a panic. His entire body was dripping with sweat. His neck tie was barely hanging on for dear life. What little skin that was showing through his shirt or along his neck was marred with bite marks. He smelled like things Camilla DID NOT want to identify. And to top it all off, his face (and to a lesser extent, his hands, and clothing) were completely covered in lipstick kisses.
But the worst part? Not a lick of shame on him. The glint in his eyes and the shit-eating grin that adorned his face said he knew EXACTLY how he looked, and he was showing off his wife’s handiwork with all the pride of an exhibitionist.
Sharon let out a surprisingly high-pitched “oh, wow,” and Millie was on the floor cackling at least three times as loud as she had been before. Camilla turned to look at Yor, who looked absolutely mortified.
Yor loved Loid, she really did. She loved all the little ways that he looked after her, all the romantic gestures both big and small, all the ways that he acted like such a gentleman to her. But if Yor had ever contemplated slapping the daylights out of her husband, this moment was the one time she genuinely had to talk herself out of doing it. Instead, she fought her voice not to stutter or crack or mutter and tried as hard as she could to sound absolutely furious. “Loid, what the hell are you doing in here!?!”
Loid outstretched his arm and showed the article of clothing like it was the Golden Fleece. “You forgot your jacket, honey.” Oh. Right. Well, of course he would be considerate of her and not want her to walk home in the cold. But the look in his eye said something completely different. Dr. Forger practically radiated satisfaction and was showing off just how talented his wife was.
Yor snatched the jacket back and leaned in close so that only the two of them could hear, and she quietly promised, “I’m going to make you pay for this, Loid Forger.” She caught the devilish look in her husband’s eyes and knew that those were the exact words he was hoping to hear. All she could do was bury her face in her jacket to try to shield herself from embarrassment.
Camilla did a quadruple take, looking back and forth between the two like she was seeing some kind of extraterrestrial right in front of her eyes. Granted, Yor hadn’t mentioned being married for the first year or so of her time working there, much less that she had a daughter. For the longest time, Camilla had assumed that the supremely naive girl didn’t have much (if any) experience with this part of love. Evidently not. And evidently, it was not Dr. Forger who held Yor up, but the other way around.
All that Camilla could do was turn back to Yor and ask, “what did you even DO to him???”