Friday. 5 pm. Psychonauts HQ.
It should be noted that while international espionage sounds exciting, for every day of action there is at least one week of paperwork to be filled out upon the mission's completion. An accomplished Psychonaut might have a whole division beneath him just dedicated to filing reports, but Sasha Nein is not so lucky. Despite being on the force for well over a year, the powers that be have never entrusted him to anything more dangerous than escort missions and fetch quests - tedious endeavors that are light on excitement and heavy on bureaucracy. For the first time in weeks, though, Sasha has managed to tame his inbox. His desk is clear. His mind is clear.
His door bursts open.
A well-dressed man walks in, drops a stack of papers on the desk, walks out. He does not close the door. Sasha sucks in a sharp breath and adjusts his glasses, shifting up to check the cover page.
Agent Nine.
His fingers twitch and he's out of his seat, sending the stack sliding sideways, fanning off the desk and into the bin. A few years ago he might have followed the man out, made a scene, but not now. He is calm. He is collected. He is - "Sasha, darling~!"
His partner floats in and Sasha lets out a breath he did not realize he was holding. Milla Vodello is a technicolor nightmare, but a highly competent agent. He tries in vain not to stare at her outfit (a green and yellow… thing; he can barely stand to call it a dress) as she flits about the room, moving file boxes until she's cleared a place to sit on a sofa that Sasha was unaware he owned.
He slides back into his seat and lights a cigarette. Telekinetic tendrils unfurl from his mind as he takes a drag - one flicking out to shut the door, another gathering the papers from the bin as he half-listens to Milla prattle on about something he has no interest in. Her voice is the ideal level of background noise. He lets out a stream of smoke, letting his stress dissipate with it. A shadow crosses his desk and he looks up.
"Hm?"
"Is this the report on the Watkins incident?" Milla asks, taking the top page off the stack. She scans the report, before picking up a pen and fixing his name in her large, loopy script. "What a drag. You ought to leave it til Monday, darling, and come dancing with me!"
"Again?"
"You know you had fun!" She grins at him, placing the sheet back on the pile. "Just bring a book or something. Drinks are on me!"
He's about to decline when the door slams open again. Same suit, new stack of paper. "Nein, got more on Watkins. Gonna need you to-"
"Ah. No," Sasha says, grabbing his coat off the back of his chair and rising. "Agent Vodello and I were just on our way out. My deepest apologies."
Friday. 12 pm. The Discotheque.
A typical night clubbing with Sasha involves very little dancing on his part. It's just not his thing. Usually he reads by the light of a psychic glow. Sometimes he'll watch the band. Occasionally he'll watch Milla dance, give her a smile when she catches his eye. It's not unusual for Milla to come back to the table when the club hits a downswing. When the rhythm slows to a crawl and the couples cling and sway together, Milla will make her way back to their booth, slide into the booth beside him. They'll sit, knees touching, shoulder to shoulder, faces inches apart so they can hear each other over the booming speakers.
Often times, Sasha will talk about his book, or his experiments, or the latest developments in Psychonaut research, whatever takes his fancy. Milla will sit and nod and sip her drink, enjoying his presence. When the beat picks up, it's always the same conversation:
"Ah! Sasha, I love this song!" she'll say, beaming. "Isn't it just sublime? Come dance with me, baby!"
And he'll shake his head, but he'll smile. "I'm not nearly drunk enough for this. You go have fun, Milla. I'll be here."
"If you change your mind..." she'll offer as she climbs back up to her feet. But he never does. He sits, she dances, but the act somehow feels right. Lather, rinse, repeat, until the bouncers kick them out in the early hours of the morning. They'll stumble back to their respective homes and see each other Monday.
Tonight is different. Maybe this bartender makes drinks a little stronger than her usual club. Maybe Sasha's book is extra boring. Maybe the week was harder than usual. Maybe the beat is just that good, because Milla finds the pull of the dance floor inescapable. She loses herself in the crowd, drinking up the excitement and good vibes, singing along to tunes she barely knows. At some point in the night, she catches herself singing about fiery passion, heat and fire (Milla it's so hot) and steam and she misses a beat. It's suddenly a bit too loud and a bit too hot and the lights look (like flames) a bit too bright so she shuts her eyes and sees the faces of her babies burning. She snaps them back open but the flames are still there and she can hear them calling her name, hissing it, screaming it over and over again.
Sasha feels the unease nipping at the far edges of his mind and looks around for the source of the new energy. Milla's on the dance floor, standing still, breathing hard, pale as a ghost. He's up and at her side without a second thought.
"Milla?" He touches her arm, feels the heat radiating off her. "Milla, what's happened?"
She glances at his hand, then up at his face with wide, glossy eyes. "Sasha? Sasha… please… can't you hear them? They're frightened; they're screaming. Please, stop crying… please."
He leads them off dance floor, away from the curious eyes of other dancers and back to the relative safety of their booth. As he slides in beside her, Milla drops her head into her hands, covering her eyes, fingers curling into her bangs and gripping the hair tight. Sasha rests a hand on her back. She's burning up as she sobs and he has no idea what to do. This is not an event he planned for.
Friday. 2 am. The Discotheque.
Sasha rubs small circles into Milla's back and thinks. The best course of action would be to acquire a Psycho-Portal, enter her mind, and push the nightmares back into whatever vault they crawled out of. Then everything would be normal, Milla would be happy, and they could act as though this never happened.
Of course, he does not have a Psycho-Portal.
He's got nothing but a crying partner and a stack of empty glasses on the table.
So he just sits, rubbing her back and thinking.
Eventually Milla shifts, pulling her legs beside her on the seat and resting her head against Sasha's shoulder. "I'm sorry. It… it just hit me so suddenly, you know?"
He doesn't, really, but he nods nonetheless.
After a long stretch of silence, he finally asks "Do you want to discuss what just happened?"
"Not particularly, darling."
"Do you want to go home?"
"No. Not yet."
"Do you want to dance?"
She pulls back just enough to look him in the eye. Her makeup has survived the upset surprisingly well, though the wings of her eyeliner have been smudged into tired shadows. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"Not at all," he says, shaking his head. "I simply thought it might cheer you up."
She drops her head back against him. "Next time, okay? You'll owe me."
They leave the club soon after, both feeling weathered and old and ready for sleep.