Verosika and Milky meet up for a sweet afternoon tea.
On the theme of healthy attitudes to food, & anti-diet culture.
Set in CyanSaoirse's Mayford Family AU, mentioning their Mayford fankid Tara.
"I'm glad you could make it, girl!" Milky beamed, waving to Verosika as she approached.
"Of course I was going to make it!" Verosika bent down to give her fellow succubus a hug and a smooch on both cheeks. "You think I'd turn down an invite to Beel & Jötunn's?"
Beel & Jötunn's was, of course, the Hellish equivalent of the living world's Ben & Jerry's - though, since nice things are hard to come by in Hell, it was much more upmarket & prestigious than its human counterpart. The sinners who ran it had owned an ice cream shop while they were alive; covering up the 'accidental' death of one of their staff in a freezer was what got them to Hell), and they were lucky enough to have gained the patronage of a sweet-toothed overlord when they died.
Of course there were plenty of places offering ice cream in the Pride ring; and in other rings too. But as far as Verosika was concerned, B&Js was the best.
"Well, I dunno, you do have a busy schedule!" Milky smirked as she counted off on her fingers. "Taking Tara to school, sunbathing, writing songs, canoodling with Wally…"
"Hey, what about you, running your popsicle factory?" Verosika shot back playfully.
"Eh," the shorter succubi shrugged, "I can take a day off when I like. Plus I gotta know what the competition is doing, so, technically this counts as work for me."
The two old friends tittered away as they made their way through the ice cream parlours' doors.
Since there was no need for reservations at Beel & Jötunn's, the pair were able to pick their table right away - a nice window booth with lime leather seating, overlooking the upmarket uptown skyline of Pentagram City. Verosika adjusted her crop top and smoothed down her sequin miniskirt as she sat, Milky shucked off her leather jacket and draped it over the back of her seat.
Outside, the usual chaos was going on - the distant thunder of a turf war, the insults and tirades traded between drivers and pedestrians on the streets & sidewalks - but it was muted through the thick walls and double-glazed glass. The two succubi got comfortable and began to browse through the menus.
"So, gimme the goss, 'Rosi - how have you been?"
"Great! Things have been marvellous. I took Charlie's advice, signed up for yoga classes - have not felt better. Oh, my joints are thanking me…"
When the posse was newly formed at the behest of Blaire, Verosika's manager & mother (in that order) for publicity's sake), Milky was about as roly-poly then as she was these days: nearly as round as she was tall.
Verosika's mother claimed her inclusion in this prefabricated entourage was for diversity, yet she said cruel things about Milky's size and pressured her into losing weight until she was a more 'mainstream-marketable' size: the barely-a-pear 'thicc' hourglass bod. Blaire had been on everyone's cases - Josh for leaning too into his boyfriend's masc leather fashion (he was supposed to be the twink of the group, according to her), Kat for being "too androgynous", Apple for her Wrath country twang… but it was body shape and body size that seemed to get her goat the most.
Blaire had pressured Ace to get even more buff and muscly, had told Coco to do the opposite; and had always, always found something disparaging to say about how Milky looked
How they'd managed to stay friends through all that, Verosika wasn't sure. But they had, and she was so glad that they'd chosen to stick together, to take ownership of their preordained partnerships and make it something of their own.
Particularly her and Milky, who had taken the brunt of Blaire's obsession with thinness.
Naturally, Verosika ordered a strawberry & cheesecake sundae, topped with whipped cream and graham cracker crumbs. Milky went for a creme brulee ice cream with bananas and chocolate syrup.
"All the years I've known you and you've never ordered anything that ain't strawberry," she teased.
"Because it's the best, duh!"
"Statistically it can't be. Chocolate and vanilla are the best sellers both in the living world AND here," Milky sing-songed smugly, chewing on a vanilla wafer she'd pilfered for emphasis.
"That's just tyranny of the masses," Verosika scoffed.
"Ain't ever hear you saying that when you're topping the charts," Milky smirked.
The pop star gave her a narrow-eyed look. "...touché. Still not giving up on strawberry though."
"Then maybe I'll make you try some of mine."
"Ooh!" Verosika twirled a lock of her silvering hair coyly. "How devious of you, Milky."
Milky rolled her eyes. "Har har."
Any further escalation of teasing was nipped in the bud by the arrival of a waiter; a tall sinner with an abdomen filled with stormy swirling patterns, bearing two generous bowls of garnished ice cream.
"One strawberry and cheesecake, one creme brulee banana split,"
"Thanks, darling," Verosika and Milky cooed, just a little flirtily.
The waiter rolled their eyes and strutted off . Veroska & Milky chuckled.
"They must get a lot of that, huh."
"Should we tip a little extra to make up for it?"
"Probably." Verosika found her focus gravitating to the lavish construction of pink ice cream, red syrupy swirls, and sugar-dusted berries in the decorated glass bowl before her. She licked her lips. "But, first things first - let's be grateful for what we've received."
Milky was eyeing her banana split with a similar mouth-watering hunger. "For sure!"
With that, they picked up their spoons and dug in.
When Verosika was a teenager, when her mother had just started her on the treadmill of auditions and rehearsals, when her body had started on the winding road of puberty, Blaire had immediately put her on a diet at the first sign of a slightly plump middle, had made the most passive-aggressive asides about her daughter's body until her stomach was flat and her waist was pinched, and only then had Blaire lavished her with praise. Acidic, toxic praise.
Verosika had learnt that cruelty, learnt to sing the praises of her perfect bod, learnt to shame & put down those who didn't have the same hourglass proportions as her… but inside, it didn't feel right. It had never felt right. And no amount of magazine covers she graced to show off her slender, sensual frame, no matter how many rehab sessions she was sent to and came back from, made it feel right.
Milky had often been teased by her peers; for her size, for her asexuality; for being a nerd. She'd ignored it, but still she'd compensated by burying herself in the chemistry of attraction and arousal. She'd never been an "overeater", she ate until she was sated and not more than that. She just tried to carry on with her life the way she had.
Being picked for Verosika's posse changed that.
Blaire made losing some weight a condition for Milky to join the posse; and with rent and living costs as high as they were, she couldn't really refuse the perks of such a prestigious offer. She couldn't really object to the fact that despite being the token chubby demon in the posse she was still expected to slim down.
And suddenly it wasn't just her immediate circle of peers, but seemingly the whole Lust tabloid industry bearing down on her, scrutinising her body; even though she had already dieted and exercised off nearly a quarter of her body weight it still somehow wasn't enough.
Dieting, for both Verosika and Milky, had meant the both of them eating far too little, purging far too often, and often running off nothing more than booze or blow or a post-orgasm high. More than once Verosika had passed out on stage; more than once Milky had started losing hair, more than once had the both of them had snapped at each other or the rest of the posse - especially Verosika, each time she returned from rehab.
They snapped and snarked at each other a lot, back then, even on the good days; because fame had moulded Verosika into an alcoholic alpha bitch, and because being cobbled together for the sake of publicity barely nurtured true friendship.
Thank goodness those days were well behind them.
For while alcohol and drugs offered oblivion from all Hell's tribulations, and for all that sex with her most trusted companions offered ecstatic, if fleeting fulfilment - there was just something warm and fuzzy and right about chowing down a good meal when they were hungry and eating enough to sate their appetite.
And as the years went by, after Verosika got herself and the posse out from under Blaire's thumb, they had healed. Verosika no longer felt the urge to void her stomach after enjoying Wally's lovingly made dinners. Milky went to therapy. Alcohol for Verosika became a treat, an indulgence more than a necessity - which pleased Queen Bee, who gushed over Verosika's newfound good vibes when they met up during her farewell tour in Greed. Milky started a celebrated succubus ice cream brand.
They had become friends organically, at their own pace.
The both of them became more well-rounded demons and stayed well-rounded, in all meanings of the phrase.
Verosika and Milky chatted while they ate; as they often did these days. They talked about music, for Verosika still kept up with the pop star scene, especially some of the new passionate prodigies who she'd taken under her wing…
"I'm so proud of xem, xey really struggled with stage fright for so long and to see them rocking that stadium with confidence - "
Milky gossiped about a sneaky trip to the human world with the other ladies in the posse, and what Apple & Coco had gotten up to…
"...a park bench, a wooden park bench? They were complaining about sore backs for a week; serves you right I told them!"
"Could have been worse. Could have been splinters – ooooh."
"Ooh, no, don't make me think about that…"
Verosika proudly boasted about Tara and her art and her habit of tackling other kids at school…
"Wally finally caught it on camera at the sports day! Here, I'll show you…"
"Aha! I taught her well…"
And all the while the ice cream on their plates disappeared at a steady rate.
"Should we go for seconds? Treat ourselves?" Verosika asked, as her spoon started to scrape the glass bottom of her bowl.
"Only if," Milky insisted around a mouthful of banana split, "only if you try something n ew ."
"You're going to have to make a strong case for that!"
"Well, at least try tiramisu! 'S'like a sweetish coffee taste, goes well with berries on top…and, y'know, coffee beans start out as coffee berries. I know you like fruity like that."
"That just feels wrong, like calling tomatoes a fruit," Verosika pushed her now-empty bowl aside and rested her chin on her hand thoughtfully. "Maybe I should. Six hundred and sixty six different flavours, they say they have here…"
"Gotta make up for lost time, huh?" Milky rejoined.
They both laughed… but the laughter trailed off awkwardly.
"I know I've said it a lot, Milky," Verosika started, remorsefully, "but maybe it's not enough… I'm sorry, for all the fatphobic shit I said to you at the start of it all–"
Milky compassionately held up her hand. "And I already told ya I forgive you, 'Rosi. We both had the same sorta toxic bullshit thrown at us. We were in the same boat, even if we didn't see it at the time. And, well, look atcha now." She gestured to Verosika, in all her fat mom bod glory. "I think there's your true colours right there."
"What? Did I get ice cream on my top?" Verosika made a show of checking her crop top for drips or stains.
They both burst out in guffaws; genuine, wholehearted belly laughs that lasted and reached across the table to give Verosika a friendly flick on the arm. "You know what I mean! Body positive queen, your plus size clothing line – you're good, girl!"
"I'm good?"
"You're good!"
"Okay!" Verosika sighed happily, then pointed pointedly at Milky's also-empty bowl too. "Now, seconds!"
"Of course, of course."
They caught a glimpse of the same waiter as before. Sharing a cheeky look, Verosika and Milky took a deep breath and sung out in chorus:
"🎵Ohhh, wai-ter!🎵"
The tragic thing about good ice cream is that it never tends to last long.
A second serving (and a few distant explosions) later, the pair leaned back in their seats and sighed contentedly.
"You were right," Verosika hummed, patting her stomach happily. "Tiramisu was pretty good."
"And yet you still had strawberries on top of it," Milky pointed out shrewdly.
"What can I say? Old habits die hard."
They both chuckled at that.
"I will admit, strawberry ain't half bad though," Milky conceded, licking the last bits of lavender-hued ice cream off her fingers. "You just gotta get the right strawberry."
"Aha! Told you." Verosika wiggled her croptop down from where it had ridden up with a happy sigh.
Unrushed, they got to their feet and left their tip on the table. Milky shucked her leather jacket back over her blouse while Verosika paid at the register; then they strutted out of Beel & Jotunn's with a happy hip sway.
"We'll do this again sometime, yeah?"
"My shout next time, my ice cream too!"
"Of course! You know I love yours."
"Attagirl!" Milky pounced up to give her taller friend a kiss on the cheek as they arrived at Verosika's parked pink convertible. "Catcha soon, 'Rosi!"
"See you at Coco's birthday do!"
"You tell Wally he better bring his famous surf 'n' turf pot pie!"
"Only if you bring the red velvet pudding you keep telling us you're working on!" Verosika shot back, unlocking her car and opening the door.
"No guarantees," Milky hollered playfully, looking over her shoulder. "Bye-bye!"
"Ta-ta!" Verosika trilled back.
With one last wave, Milky trotted down the stairs to the metro. while Verosika settled herself behind the wheel of her convertible. She put on her sunglasses, kicked it into gear and pulled out into the busy traffic of Pentagram City, letting her hair blow in the breeze.
Somewhere behind her, there was a crash, an explosion, and the thump of some rando's severed body parts raining down on the asphalt; but, still buzzing with the good vibes of food and friendship, Verosika didn't even notice.
A/N: adsfkjasdhf yes this is an EXTREMELY belated chapter, ik ik... at least I got it out on the 1 year anniversary of starting this fic, right?
Thank you very much for reading! Feel free to leave a comment if you want; not only do reviews make my day but they help me with improving and continuing my writing! 😊 📝