Chapter Text
"This is not going to work," Aia said with a sigh, and Millie stuck out her tongue at her.
"When it does, you'll love it," Millie promised, and cast the spell again.
Absolutely nothing happened. Aia broke out into laughter, hair tumbling over her shoulders because Millie had woken her up so early in the morning she hadn't had time to do her signature braid.
"I'm going back to sleep," Aia declared, pivoting to go back to bed, already yawning.
Millie took her hand carefully, wincing as her own skin started to burn. "One more time?" She pleaded, even as her palm pinkened and her veins turned a glossy red. Aia looked at their intertwined hands, smiling softly, threading their fingers together even as her hand started to smoke too.
"Alright."
- - -
There was something this time, but the slight 'pop' noise accompanied by a weak flash of light was not what Millie was going for.
"It's been two hours," Aia groaned, hair messily done up, sugar smeared over the side of her mouth from the cereal they had been eating and Millie wanted to wipe it off, but the last time they had touched each others faces, the pain had them lying on their backs at night because of the too rough pillows. "Are you almost there?"
"Almost!" Millie grinned with a hope that she didn't really feel. She inspected her notes again, the ebb and flow of magic, how her fingers were supposed to move, intention and will and all the rest of the theory that Millie didn't understand but Aia knew by heart.
"What about you tell me what it's supposed to do so I can demonstrate?" Aia offered. "Then I, we can go back to sleep."
"Can't," Millie scribbled something down, leaning back to inspect it before shaking her head and erasing it again. "Surprise."
Aia looked at Millie's back, hands fluttering in front of herself like she wanted to reach out and stop her. "Alright," She said instead. "You better wake me up in an hour so you can take a break, or I'm beating your ass."
"Yes- yes mommy," Millie said with wide eyes and a barely restrained grin, and Aia was on the brink of violence.
"Never say that to me again," Aia told her, even as she chuckled while walking away.
- - -
Aia almost fell off the bed when the door slammed open and hit the opposite wall, making a loud cracking sound that she very much hoped wasn't the plaster.
"Millie-" Aia started, running a hand down her face as she tried to get her eyes to a semi-functioning state, but Millie was emulating a train right then and wouldn't stop for anything.
"I did it!" She said, with a wide grin. There was a bolt of cloth wrapped around her neck like a scarf, thin enough that Aia could see Millie's pale neck behind it. Her hands were smeared with ink and gold, nails elongated as they got only when she did a lot of magic at once, and they trembled as she splayed her hands out. "Want to see it?" She asked, with a face that was a mix of 'please say yes' and pure tiredness.
"Okay," Aia said, the word drawn out from a yawn. "Let's see it."
Millie nodded emphatically, hands going out in front of her as her eyes slid shut. Ink seemed to coalesce in front of her, an absence of light as a small, spiked orb floating over her palms. Little pinpricks of light shone within it, before it grew more and more complex; lines of green and orange gas in shapes, constellations, planets, all of it mimicking-
"The night sky," Aia breathed out, eyes going slightly blurry for a moment, before she touched her face and realized yes, she was wearing her glasses.
Millie grinned, even as sweat beaded on her forehead and her hands shook. "You said you liked seeing the stars in heaven, right? And you were complaining the other day about all the light pollution here, so I thought-"
Aia blinked, biting back the snarky comment she could have made right then because her face was burning and Millie wasn't even touching it. "Oh," She said, moth wing quiet. "Oh."
The witch's grin faltered. "Do you not like it?"
Aia slid off of the bed fully, ignoring the cold floor that normally would have made her hiss and dance in place in a way that made Millie laugh. She padded forward, and tucked the bolt of fabric over the lower half of Millie's face. She knew what it was for now.
It wasn't really a kiss, rather just a warm pressure, but for once Aia could feel the contours of Millie's jaw, the soft dip of her mouth, the way her lashes tickled slightly. And she wasn't burning. This was a kiss, it was all intent and want and Millie's hands carefully tugging the collar of Aia's shirt up so that she could loop her hands around her neck.
"Thank you," Aia murmured into Millie's warm shirt that smelled like the detergent they shared because Millie was too stingy to get two kinds. "I love it."
"I'm glad," Millie said, quiet for once, and kissed her again, because she finally could.