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“Lui.” Laplus says it slow, lets it glide off her tongue, stretches it out, searches the hollows of the sound for a familiar tone. “Lui.”
It doesn’t sound right. Laplus frowns, kicking at the leg of her desk aimlessly. She tries again.
“Iroha.” This time, she groans, head tilting back and thudding against the cushion of her chair. A present from the girls, large and leather and plush. It’s oversized, she sinks into it like a dream, it looms behind her dark and menacingly. She adores it. She adores the girls. She just can’t get the names right.
“Chloe.” No. “Koyori.” Kinda? Laplus’s fingers rap on the wood of her desk. Irritation sparks up her spine until there’s a set to her shoulders and a curl to her lip. “Lui.”
“Yes?” The devil is at her door, soft eyes and metallic reading glasses. Her tie is done up neatly, which meant that Iroha had probably done it for her. Her smile has Laplus shrinking in her chair a little.
“You’re here,” Laplus says, as crisply as she can manage. She exudes confidence as only she can, which is to say, she blusters her way through the problem until it collapses.
Lui giggles, walking forward to sit on Laplus’s desk. She towers over her, presses a finger to the tip of one of Laplus’s horns with a suave sort of expression. “I’m here.” Then she says it. “Laplus.”
There is no real way to describe it. Laplus can’t quite put it into words. The way the girls say her name rings different each time, sends butterflies crowding at the base of her skull until she is light and floating and smiling goofily. She is warmed, she is melted, she is putty in their hands.
“Lui,” Laplus says, mustering up her practice, searches Lui’s face to see the effect. Lui’s eyes only crinkle at the edges, and she reaches out to tuck a lock of Laplus’s hair behind her ear.
“Laplus,” Lui murmurs again, as if it is a game, brushing the back of her knuckles against Laplus’s cheek.
“Are you going to keep on saying my name or are you going to kiss me?”
Laplus knows it’s more of a whine than a true complaint, but Lui laughs and does kiss her, hunched over and supporting herself with one hand on the arm of Laplus’s fancy chair. She almost falls over when it rolls back, but Laplus catches her, and Lui laughs again, makes a comment about her clumsiness that Laplus shuts up quickly, tastes the sugar of her lip balm and wonders if Lui feels the same lightning shivers that she gets when Laplus says her name.
- - -
When Iroha says her name, it’s usually with a bit of exasperation, but respect and endearment temper it to something tender. Laplus demands a massage and Iroha smiles demurely and says, “Yes Laplus,” and does so, calloused hands on the knots in Laplus’s neck. Laplus drops something and Iroha is there, picking it up for her with a pleasant, “There you go, Laplus,” before walking away to her next order of business.
So Laplus sits in her room, private, so that she doesn’t get another Lui situation, and practices.
“Iroha.” Too demanding. “Iroha.” Now it just sounds like she’s whining. Laplus buries her head in her hands and determinedly ignores the crick in her neck.
She sits there for a bit, stewing. It’s dark in her room, and she can’t tell what time it is, but the pain in her neck is worse now.
“Iroha,” Laplus says under her breath, tilting her head up towards the ceiling to ease the ache. “Iroha.” Lying on her bed helps, she breathes slow and deep and wishes she didn’t sit hunched over all the time. Iroha always poked at her to sit up straight.
“Laplus.” The door opens slowly, light from the outside piercing in. It hurts, Laplus hisses out her pain and Iroha quickly shuts it behind her, leaving them in the dark again. “Are you okay?”
Laplus doesn’t say anything. She hears Iroha walk, feels the bed depress as she sits down. A hand nudges her shoulder.
“Are you alright?” Iroha says again. “Laplus?”
Ah. She said it differently this time. This name is heavy with worry, love dashed in to make Laplus’s eyes prickle at the corners, to make her stomach tighten and her mouth dry up.
“Iroha,” Laplus says, hands still over her eyes, so she can’t see the way Iroha’s mouth opens slightly, the paradigm shift of her face that makes it vulnerable and open. She can’t see how much Iroha loves her, written in the curve of her brow and the red of her ears and the wet of her lips. Laplus can feel it, though. Iroha squeezed her shoulder gently at her name.
“Do you want something for your headache?” Iroha’s voice is gentle, brushes past Laplus’s ears and promises relief. Laplus trusts in that.
“Yes please,” Laplus croaks out, the iron in her bones that she has to keep, that she has to be as leader of HoloX, it melts away until she’s curled up in her bed in the dark, dozing away until Iroha wakes her up again, hands her water and a few pills for the pain, and at Laplus’s request, lies down with her.
“Iroha,” Laplus says again, one more time, and she would say it again if Iroha didn’t kiss the nape of her neck, didn’t murmur her name into the hollow of her ear. Laplus gets the message. She sleeps.
- - -
There’s chemicals bubbling away and powders being sifted through. There’s a glass cabinet of unlabeled vials that are all undoubtedly dangerous and a number of other science-y equipment scattered about the lab.
It’s a mess. It probably makes sense in Koyori’s mind.
Laplus watches from the corner, a smile plastered on her face like she does indeed know what Koyori is doing, nods every time Koyori mixes something or adjusts a Bunsen burner’s intensity and looks at her for praise. Koyori’s ears twitch when she does. It’s cute.
“Laplus.”
There’s really no chairs in the lab, only stools, and maybe Laplus has gotten spoiled by her chair because her back is aching after only ten minutes of sitting on one.
“Laplus?”
Maybe Laplus should invest in a nice chair for Koyori. Maybe the reason why there are only veritable torture devices scattered around the room for seating is because Koyori had never had an alternative option.
“Laplus.”
Her breath catches. Her bones feel tight in her skin, or maybe it’s the other way around, either way her body doesn’t fit right, elements of her knocked out of alignment by Koyori’s hand on her chin and the bite to her tone. Laplus knows she bites. She has teeth like a predator’s, canine and sharp, and Laplus indulges her whims to use them. The other girls do so too.
“Koyori,” Laplus rasped, wrecked with a single word, her eyes blown wide and her heartbeat pulsing where Koyori’s thumb brushed against her jaw. Her eyes are jewel green, greedy, swallowing Laplus up until she’s the one following Koyori around like a lost puppy as she shuts off the burners and puts things away and finally whirls around to fully devote her attention to her glass cannon of a leader.
“You weren’t paying attention.” It’s a statement. Laplus nods and Koyori’s eyes narrow. “Say it.”
“I wasn’t paying attention.” Laplus’ knees feel weak. “I’m sorry.”
“You are?” Koyori’s ears twitch, betraying her amusement. “Are you really?”
“Koyori,” Laplus whines, puppy pathetic, toeing at the sterile white tile floor until Koyori takes pity on her, lip caught between her teeth as she cups Laplus’ cheeks and draws her in, kisses her, swallows her breath and presses the lightheaded feeling Laplus gave her when she said her name into the back of her mind.
- - -
There’s a mess on the third floor, west wing, hallway B-2. Chloe knows the layout of the building by heart, takes a shortcut to get there as fast as she can before the blood sets into the carpet. She pulls on her gloves and sets to work, humming an upbeat tune as she scrubs red from the ceiling. Someone got excited.
Two more calls are sent in by the time she finishes; they’re on opposite sides of the headquarters. Chloe sighs, stripping her stained gloves off as she deliberates on which one would be the fastest to get to.
Then the calls are canceled.
“Laplus,” Chloe says, slightly stunned, fumbling with her phone for a moment as she answers a new call; one with a fancy ringtone that Laplus insisted on having.
“Chloe.” Laplus’s voice is made a bit buzzy from static, but it still comes through mostly clear. Affection drips off of Chloe’s name, and she’s glad Laplus wasn’t there to see her smile so openly at just one word.
Elsewhere, Laplus curls up in her chair, nerves making her palms sweat so she puts her phone down on her desk and turns it to speaker phone. “Take the day off,” Laplus says, “you’ve been working very hard this week.”
“Just doing my job,” Chloe laughs, fiddles with a bloody cloth before she deems it too stained and puts it to the side in her janitor’s supplies. “Can’t slack on it.”
“You’re going to slack on it,” Laplus says firmly. “You are going to start slacking right now.”
‘I am?” Chloe asks, grinning.
“You are.”
“Aww, Laplus.”
Laplus’ eyes close. She hears the way Chloe says her name and she savors it, she holds it close until it fades away into her pitiful memory, where it loses its warmth and charm.
“One more time?” She asks, weak, before she can stop herself.
“Laplus?” Chloe sounds a bit confused, but she says it anyways. Laplus sighs.
“You’re slacking today Chloe,” Laplus says again, marrow soft, to the heart of it, twining a finger through the cord of her telephone that she so insisted on having, even though it meant she couldn’t walk around the office while on a call. “Come up and be with me.”
Chloe blinks, stares down at her phone for a moment before she snaps out of it. “Okay. Thank you, Laplus.”
“Of course.” Her voice only wavers a little bit, she swallows down her adoration. “See you soon, Chloe.”
She hangs up the phone and sits in her chair, staring at the door, waiting for her girl.
- - -
“Laplus,” Lui says as she hands her another stack of files. She smiles apologetically at Laplus’s groan. “They only need your signature.”
“Boo.” Laplus says. “Can you do it for me, Lui?” Eggshell fragile vowels snag on her teeth as she wheedles and promises. Lui bends, bends, bends, finally gives and takes half the stack back.
“Only half,” Lui says, firm. Laplus kisses her cheek and murmurs her name and watches her cheeks go bright red. They sit in silence, Laplus’s chair creaking every so often, until Laplus cries out, hands thrown up in the air as she jumps to her feet and stomps off to her bookshelf.
Lui watches out of the corner of her eye, slightly amused, until Laplus flicks on a cleverly hidden radio and reaches out a hand.
“Laplus-” Lui protests weakly, but she’s already halfway to standing, pen left behind on the desk as she takes Laplus’ hands and sways with her, one of Laplus’s favorite singers belting out a jazzy song for them to dance to.
“Yes, Lui?” And Laplus looks up at her, wide eyed and joyful, feet moving two steps for Lui’s one, and it isn’t a proper waltz but Lui would give anything for her to be this happy, always.
“Nevermind,” Lui says. She lets it go.
- - -
“Laplus,” Iroha wipes her brow of sweat, sheathing her sword as she walks away from yet another demolished training dummy. They had to put in a bulk order for them and they were already running out. “Why are you watching me?”
“I wanted to,” Laplus chirps, feet swinging back and forth as she sits on the rail. She hops off to wipe a smear of dirt from Iroha’s face, a task completed by a combination of her standing on tiptoe and Iroha leaning down a little bit. Laplus took the moment to inspect her, noting the weariness in her brow, only a little bit soothed by Laplus’ cool hands on her face.
“Mmm.” Iroha says, intelligently.
“Iroha,” Laplus begins, and it's the start of an ‘order’, but it wouldn’t matter anyways because Iroha could never refuse her, not when she says her name like that; a cut to the quick with its urging and a lover’s quiet footstep, an attempt at not disturbing the headache that she can sense is already emerging in Iroha’s skull. “Go rest.”
Iroha does not complain.
- - -
“Koyori,” Laplus murmurs, silken. She’s so careful now, she was chiding before, when worry was eating away at her and Koyori tried so hard to placate her; giving her apology after apology after explanation as to how the chemical burn wasn’t that bad. Still. Laplus had looked so panicked, her heartbeat rabbited in her chest at a tempo that Koyori’s sensitive ears could pick up on. It broke her heart, a little, so she let Laplus take comfort in control.
She lay on Laplus’s bed, the one she sometimes shared with Lui, or Chloe, or Iroha, or all of them at once. She said she didn’t like lying in it alone, it was too big for just her. Too empty and cold, an expanse of sheets around her that she couldn’t take up on her lonesome.
“Myes, Laplus?” She’s half asleep, lying on silken sheets in a temperature controlled room, wrapped in Laplus’ arms. There’s a hand brushing through her hair, another tapping at the warm skin just above where the bandage was.
“Sorry,” Laplus finally says after a beat of silence. “Go back to sleep.”
“Alright.” Koyori yawns, curls in a little closer to Laplus’s warmth. She hears Laplus say her name one more time, quieter, probably thinking she was too sleepy to comprehend it fully. She does though. She kisses an ‘I love you too’ to Laplus’s collarbone, with a nick of her teeth as a signature, and lets Laplus’s indignant huff guide her to sleep.
- - -
“It looks nice.” Laplus’ eyes flutter, she barely leans into Chloe’s touch. She holds herself back, holds it in, even as Chloe breathes out steady and moves away.
She’s a vision in her dress, charcoal with red accents. Her hair is done up neatly in a braid that runs along the side of her head. Iroha had tucked a flower into it before she left the changing room, heading for the headquarter’s ballroom that the formal party was being held in. The flower was a splash of white and light purple against the sharper tones of Chloe’s dress. Laplus likes to think that it’s her color, something of hers on Chloe, a claiming mark. That everyone at the dance would watch her and want her and only Laplus would get to have her. The other girls had Chloe too, yes, but right then it was just them, and Laplus felt greedy.
Laplus shifts awkwardly in her own dress, even if Chloe had said that it looked nice, she was left wishing that she’d done what Lui did and gotten a suit instead. There was one with a nice shade of lavender that would have worked at the tailor they usually got their formal wear from.
“Laplus?” Chloe’s voice is unsure, a bit warbly from nerves. She shifts on her feet, from one red heel to another, eyelashes brushing her cheeks as she looks down.
“Chloe,” Laplus feels like she’s choking on her feelings, love spurting out from the open wound that is her mouth. “You look beautiful. Chloe.” She says her name one more time, to show that she means it.
Chloe giggles, high and nervous, offering an arm for Laplus to take. “Okay,” She says, and Laplus knew that she believed her. “Should we-”
“Yeah,” Laplus breathed out with a dry mouth. Chloe’s skin was soft, she smelled like her perfume; spicy and salted, heady ocean and tangy fruit. Dear god, Laplus was in love with her. She was in love with her girls and it broke her to pieces and put her back together each time she had that world shattering revelation.
Laplus let Chloe lead them out the door. And when they entered the ballroom, and everybody hushed for a moment at the sight of them, and the other girls smiled and called for them, Laplus figured she had all the time in the world to say their names.