Chapter Text
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Gigi would like to say she has it all handled, but she won’t because this is absurd in ways she can’t help but laugh at. Here at the Justice Headquarters, here in a kitchen that’s cleaned out of necessity with more complaining being done than work- here, that’s where she finds out that she has a crush on Cecilia.
Oh, it sounds dumb. It sounds too funny not to laugh at, like a punchline that’s brief. Hilarious! Unreal!
Cecilia, her expression flat, her bangs smeared with spaghetti. The oven top is a sprinkled mess of sauce and noodles. Gigi herself feels painted in it, an explosion of warm smelling food that has her licking her fingers between giggles. Cecilia, who sighs, reaches up with a washcloth and instead of washing her hair first, reaches over and wipes Gigi’s cheek.
“Well, that was dinner.” Cecilia says with the note of a woman who expanded every last care for the evening. “Eat up. It’s fresh.”
Gigi can’t stop laughing, “W-We gotta clean it up.”
“There is not we. There was never a ‘we’. I was never here.” Cecilia says. She’s wringing her bangs out with the washcloth, tsking when the orange won’t leave the snowy white of her hair. “You can tell Liz this happened.”
“No, no she won’t know if we clean it.”
“Gigi, I’m not-”
“We gotta clean it!” Gigi yells, wheezing as she rifles through the drawers. She can’t find an extra washcloth. She settles with a wooden spoon, scraping spaghetti off the counter and nearly falling to the floor from the sheer absurdity of it.
Cecilia says, “Gigi, that’s not working.”
“I got this.”
“Gigi.”
“I can do this.”
“Gigi, I’m leaving.”
“No!” She yells. “No, you have to help. Ceci, we’re gonna die!”
“I’m a doll, I can’t die in a way that matters.” Cecilia says aloofly. Despite the complaining, she’s using the cloth to wipe down the oven. Gigi feels like a court jester beside her queen, scratching around with a spoon while Cecilia manages to look regal even while there’s food in her hair.
“You’ll die and it’ll matter to me.” Gigi claims.
Cecilia says, “Mm.”
“Is that not enough?”
“I’m gonna need a little more than that.”
“What am I to you?” Gigi laughs helplessly. She holds her messy spoon up. “Do you not see all the good work I’m doing here? How is that not enough?”
“Gigi, you’re making an even bigger mess.”
“No, I’m helping.”
They have to do the dishes too to finish off the catastrophe. Gigi washes while Cecilia dries them off, sighing heavily at their losses. Gigi finds it funny. Feels it in her chest like a bright light that’s too big to ignore. She hands off a washed plate to Cecilia and their fingers brush- hers, calloused and sweaty and Ceci’s, cold and soft.
“At least it’ll look like we did something.” Cecilia grumbles. “Even if it was a massive waste of time.”
“It was the journey that mattered.”
“Gigi, if we ever have to do this again, I’m deactivating myself.”
Gigi rants, “I will literally install a battery that never dies and you’ll be awake twenty-four-seven and have to endure it over and over again. It’s gonna be like a movie but it’s horrible.”
Cecilia is giggling, the little huffy kind that falls under her breath. Barely a laugh, but it’s there. Gigi preens at that. Cecilia wasn’t as mad as she says.
“How will you install it?” Cecilia asks, “Better yet, where? Do you even know what you’re doing?”
“I’ll workshop it.” Gigi says.
“It’s my body, I say no.”
Gigi is already laughing before she says, “It’s our body.”
Cecilia chops her in the shoulder. Gigi pretends it hurts her, fake crying as she wipes down the sink. Cecilia shakes her head. There’s a pleased curl to her lips, reserved happiness that Gigi enjoys. She doesn’t know if she’s the reason for it- she’d like to think she is. Being the cause of that smile makes her tail wag, makes her toes curl in her shoes, makes her feel like the fuse of a firework threatening to light off.
It’s her warning flag. The absurdity of it hits her and she laughs. Cecilia thinks she’s laughing at all the ridiculousness they just went through. She’s laughing too. Gigi is losing it, wheezing, over her crush. Really? Oh god, that’s funny. It’s a nice sensation, to feel affection so warm and tightly compact in her chest that it feels like she has no more room to think. Ridiculous, in how she knows how brief this will be.
She’s tempted to tell Cecilia. It would be even funnier, but she bottles that before it can tumble out of her mouth. She can already see Cecilia’s reaction. A raised eyebrow. The flattest okay Gigi she’ll ever give her. Nothing would change between them. Cecilia is like that- she’s an unchanging river, one flowing direction that doesn’t split from its path. She’s unaffected by change. No is her favorite word. Such a thing is funny, but it’s less funny when Gigi thinks about it more.
“I need a nap.” Cecilia sighs, brushing past her. The click of her heel's echo loudly in Gigi’s head. “It’s too much work- just too much. Don’t bother me. Tell everyone I went on vacation.”
“Okay, I’ll let everyone know you want company.” Gigi says.
Cecilia rounds on her and pinches her shoulder. She doesn’t grab skin, just the fold of Gigi’s jacket. It’s more of a harsh tug than an attempt to maim her with her fingers.
“I mean it.” Cecilia says. “Why don’t you take a nap too for once?”
“Are you inviting me?” Gigi asks.
Cecilia scoffs, but there’s a tilt to her lips that Gigi feels her whole brain zooming in on, capturing all of her attention until she’s forgotten what she was even asking for.
“No.” Cecilia says lightly. “I don’t think you’re ready to play in a dollhouse.”
She turns, ballerina quick, and trots from the room. Gigi stares at her bow as she leaves, the ribbon trails the last of her to disappear. Dehydrated. I am dying. Gigi frantically stands on her toes and grabs a cup from the above pantry. She practically overfills the cup before downing it like a woman lost in the desert.
It’s with this kind of timing that Elizabeth pokes her head into the kitchen. The redhead watches in bemusement as Gigi nearly coughs up a lung into the sink.
“Well, I’m happy to see everyone doing their chores for once.” Elizabeth notes. “Good job, Gigi. Don’t throw up.”
“You’re welcome.” Gigi gasps out.
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