Work Text:
The set ends at 8:47pm.
Dani knows the exact time because she checks her phone the moment they're backstage, still breathing hard, sweat cooling fast in the desert air that hits the moment they're off the stage lights. Her hands are shaking slightly — the good kind, the adrenaline kind, the kind that takes twenty minutes to come down from after a big show.
This was not a big show.
This was Coachella.
"We just played Coachella," Megan says, somewhere behind her, voice cracked open with something between laughing and crying. "We just — that just happened —"
"That just happened," Yoonchae confirms, and then they're all colliding, a tangle of stage outfits and sweat and noise, Lara screaming something unintelligible into Dani's ear, Megan crying with her hands over her mouth.
Dani hugs them all. She is present for every single second of it. She loves these people.
She is also, with approximately 40% of her remaining brain function, tracking where Sophia is.
She finds her without looking. She always finds her without looking, which is something she's been not-examining for the better part of eight months.
Sophia is six feet away, accepting a water bottle from a stage manager, and the stage lights are catching the sheen of sweat on her collarbones, and Dani turns away and looks at the stage instead.
The crowd is still audible even from backstage. Still loud. Still seventy thousand people.
But Dani can still feel Sophia's hand on her body.
–
Here’s the thing about performing with Sophia.
The choreography has always required closeness. That's not new. They've been doing this for two years — the formations, the synchronized sections where they end up face to face with nowhere to look but at each other. That's the job.
What happened tonight was not entirely the job.
Tonight, during Gabriela, Sophia had leaned in to do the whisper-vocal and her mouth had ended up maybe a centimeter from Dani's ear, and she brushed her hair out of her face with so much care–
During MIA, Sophia called her over in front of seventy thousand people, had looked at her like she was the only thing on the stage, had put her hand on Dani's legs, gliding it down her thighs for approximately four beats longer than the choreography called for. Not obviously long. Long enough for Dani to feel it.
For about three seconds, the crowd had screamed.
Dani had maintained professionalism and finished the set. When she faced the crowd, one thought crossed her mind.
I am not going to survive this job.
–
The hotel is one of those places that becomes the whole world for a weekend — everyone they know is here, everyone is on a different floor, the lobby is busy even at midnight with people in various stages of festival and after-party. Their floor is the 14th. They pile out of the elevator in a wave of exhaustion and residual adrenaline, people peeling off toward their rooms.
"Sleep," Missy says, pointing at all of them.
Lara rolls her eyes. "Yes, mother.”
"Radio at eight —"
"We know," they say, in varying states of sincerity.
Dani's room is 1407. She has her keycard in hand. She is twenty feet from the door and a reasonable amount of sleep and eight hours of not thinking about anything.
"Dani."
She stops.
Sophia is standing by the elevator bank, in her afterparty dress — the white one, the one that had been making Dani insane since the first fitting three weeks ago.
Most of the group has already filtered off toward their rooms. Lara passes Dani's shoulder, and Dani catches, in her peripheral vision, Lara's expression — something knowing and carefully neutral — and then Lara keeps walking.
The hallway empties out.
Sophia is still looking at her.
"Hey," Sophia says.
"Hey."
"Good show."
"Good show," Dani agrees.
They've said these words to each other after every show for two years. Right now they sound like something else entirely.
Sophia steps toward her. Not much, but enough.
"During MIA…"
Dani doesn't pretend not to know what she means. "Yeah."
"I didn't plan that."
"I know."
"I just —" Sophia stops. Something moves across her face, and then she stops managing it, and Dani watches it happen — the specific moment when Sophia Laforteza decides to stop being careful about something.
"Come to my room," Sophia says.
It’s not a question.
Dani's key card is still in her hand. She looks at it for approximately one second.
"Yeah. Okay."
–
The curtains are open when they come in, the desert city spread out below, and neither of them moves to close them.
The door clicks shut.
They stand there for a moment in the quiet of the room, the distant sound of the city outside, and Dani can feel her own heartbeat the way she can only feel it in two situations: right before she walks onstage, and right now.
Sophia sets her keycard on the dresser. She turns around.
In the light from the window she looks — Dani runs out of words for it. She's looked at Sophia every day for four years, since their trainee days. She’s run out of ways to be surprised by how she looks and found new ways anyway.
"I've been thinking about this for a long time," Sophia says quietly. "I want to say that first."
"How long?"
The corner of her mouth moves. "Longer than I should tell you right now."
Despite everything, Dani laughs. It comes out shorter than it should, slightly ragged. "Sophia."
"Yeah?"
"Come here."
Sophia crosses the room and kisses her and it is not slow or careful. She grabs Dani by the waist and pulls her in and kisses her like she's been holding it back for four years and is done doing that, and Dani makes a sound against her mouth and grabs her back just as hard.
It's immediate. Hands everywhere at once — both of them fumbling slightly because neither of them is going slow enough to be efficient. Dani's hands are at the dress zipper and Sophia says I've been thinking about this for so long against her throat and Dani says stop talking and Sophia laughs and then they're both not talking.
Dani pulls the zipper down. Sophia gets her bra off in one motion and then steps back for half a second just to look at her, and Dani watches her look — the way Sophia's expression shifts from composed to something else entirely, something unguarded, like she's seeing something she's been waiting to see.
"You're beautiful," Sophia says, low and certain.
"I know you mean that," Dani says, her voice strained, "but please—"
Sophia grabs her by the waist and walks her back into the wall and kisses her again and Dani's head goes back against it and she decides this is fine, the wall is fine, they can do this against the wall.
Sophia gets her pants undone, pulls them down and off. Her hands drag back up Dani's thighs and Dani's fingers dig into her shoulders, and then Sophia hooks her fingers into her underwear and gets that down too and drops to her knees without any further ceremony.
The sound Dani makes could probably be heard in the hallway and she does not care.
Sophia is not slow about it. She goes straight to what Dani's body is asking for, and Dani's hand goes into her hair and grips and Sophia makes a low sound in response that short-circuits Dani's entire nervous system.
"Sophia—"
Sophia pushes two fingers in and doesn't ease into it, just gives them to her, and Dani's back arches off the wall.
"Fuck—"
She finds the angle that makes Dani's knees nearly give, and stays there. It doesn't take long. Eight months of accumulated tension, the show, all of it — Dani comes hard and fast, her fist in Sophia's hair, a completely uncontrolled sound she will never be embarrassed about. Sophia keeps going and Dani is saying okay, okay, okay but what she means is don't stop and Sophia knows that and doesn't stop, and it crests again before Dani's even finished coming down from the first one — sharper, her whole body clenching, almost too much—
"Sophia—"
"You can take it," Sophia says, commanding and sure, and keeps going.
Dani comes apart a second time with her hand in Sophia's hair.
“What the hell,” Dani laughs, slightly out of breath.
Sophia smiles back at her, smugly.
She pulls Sophia up by the wrist and spins them so that Sophia's back against the wall in the same place she'd just been.
Sophia looks at her — flushed, breathing uneven, hair half-undone — and the look on her face is the realest thing Dani has ever seen from her.
All the careful management, gone. Just Sophia, looking at her, wanting her.
Dani kisses her jaw, her throat, the curve of her shoulder. Sophia makes impatient sounds and Dani says "I know, hold on—" and Sophia says "Dani—" in a tone that means hold on is not an acceptable answer, and Dani laughs against her collarbone and gives up on taking her time.
She gets her hand between Sophia's thighs and discovers how long she's been wanting this, how much, and presses in with two fingers and Sophia gasps.
"Okay," Sophia says, bracing against the wall. "Okay, yes—"
Dani finds a rhythm. She watches Sophia's face — the way her mouth drops open, the way she's trying to stay upright and losing the ability to care whether she manages it. She adds a third finger and Sophia's head goes back against the wall.
"More," Sophia gets out.
"Yeah?"
"Please—"
Dani presses in with a fourth, slow — checks Sophia's face — and it tells her all she needs to know.
She doesn't stop. She works her steadily and Sophia is making sounds against her temple now, quiet broken things, her hips moving to meet Dani's hand.
"Tell me," Dani says against her ear.
"Right there," Sophia breathes. "Don't change anything, I'm — I'm going to —"
"I've got you," Dani says. "Let go."
Sophia lets go with a broken cry. She comes with Dani's name and her nails in Dani's shoulder and her whole body shaking, and Dani holds her through it until Sophia stops shaking.
When they both finally catch their breath again they get to the bed, pausing twice because neither of them is willing to break contact long enough to redirect.
They lie there for approximately four minutes before neither of them is willing to stay still anymore.
Sophia asks, quietly, against Dani's ear, and Dani says yes before Sophia finishes asking.
Sophia retrieves what she needs and returns to the bed, looking down at Dani.
There’s nothing composed about her right now — she looks like someone who has wanted something for a long time and no longer has to wait for it anymore.
She kisses Dani once, briefly — less a hello and more a last chance — and Dani grabs her by the hips and pulls her down in the way that tells Sophia to stop asking, and that's the end of the asking.
Sophia pushes in and Dani's spine arches completely off the mattress.
Not slow — Dani had asked for not-slow and Sophia delivers on it, both hands braced on either side of Dani's head, looking at her, not looking away — making eye contact while she takes her apart, and the combination of the physical and that, being looked at like that, being seen like that—
"Sophia—"
"Stay with me," Sophia says firmly. "Look at me."
Dani looks at her.
Sophia drives into her harder and Dani wraps her legs around her and pulls her closer, and Sophia makes a low wrecked sound at that and picks up the pace.
It’s not graceful or controlled. It’s Sophia's hair in her face and Dani's hands in it, both of them making sounds that travel through walls, the headboard against the wall once, twice. Sophia's mouth at her throat. Dani's nails down her back.
"I'm going to—"
"I know," Sophia says against her jaw. "You're doing so well. So well for me. You look so good like this. Come for me, pretty girl."
Dani comes so hard she loses her vision for a second. She grabs Sophia's back and holds on and Sophia works her through it, still moving, slower now until it comes to a stop, murmuring “there you are. You did so well for me,” against her temple.
"I'm dead," Dani says.
"You're not dead."
"You killed me."
Sophia smiles — the real one. She presses a kiss to Dani's temple.
Dani grabs her arm before she can settle. "Your turn," she says. "Give me two minutes."
"Dani, you don't—"
"Two minutes."
She takes forty-five seconds and then rolls Sophia onto her back and looks at her.
"Tell me.”
Sophia tells her. She asks for Dani's mouth and her hands and please don't make me wait.
Dani does not make her wait.
She gets her mouth on her and her fingers inside her and Sophia's whole body bows up, her hand going into Dani's hair immediately. Dani uses everything she learned, all of it, finds the rhythm Sophia's hips are asking for and gives it to her.
"Dani—"
"I know."
"Don't stop—"
"I'm not stopping."
She's entirely committed. She can feel Sophia getting closer — the tension in her thighs, the way her breathing fragments, the broken sound she makes.
"Dani—"
"Let go," Dani says against her heat. "I've got you. Let go."
Sophia comes loudly and completely and with no management whatsoever. Dani keeps going and Sophia says too much, too much— and Dani eases off slowly, letting Sophia ride through the aftershocks.
"Hi," Dani says.
"Hi." Sophia's voice is wrecked. "You've been thinking about that."
"For a while," Dani admits. "A long while."
Sophia makes a sound against her shoulder. Her hand finds Dani's waist and holds.
They lie there. The ceiling fan. The city outside. Both of them breathing, gradually evening out.
Dani tucks her face into Sophia's hair. She is completely at peace with every decision that led to this room, this night, this person. The whole improbable chain of it — the practice rooms and the tours and the show and the hallway and the keycard she never used.
"Sophia."
"Mm."
"I'm glad you did what you did. On stage earlier."
Sophia is quiet for a second.
"Me too.”
Dani smiles into her hair.
They don't say anything else.
Outside, the desert city is still lit. The ceiling fan turns. In two hours an alarm is going to go off and they’ll have to get ready for their radio show.
But right now, she doesn’t think about that.
Right now she’s thinking about how Sophia breathes when she's falling asleep. The pattern of it, slowing, going even. The way her hand stays on Dani's waist even as she drifts off.
She closes her eyes.
–
In the morning, Lara knocks on the wrong door. Megan looks at both of them in the elevator and says I'm not going to say anything and then says several things. Missy gives them a look during the radio pre-brief and then pretends she didn't. Yoonchae is very deliberately unsurprised.
Dani looks up and finds Sophia already looking at her across the lobby.
This was worth the wait, she thinks to herself.
So, so worth the wait.