Work Text:
The coffee tastes like someone took their tire and dissolved it in hot water, which — honestly, that’s standard for the break-room and is about what Manon expects on a good day. On Christmas Eve, when half the office cleared out yesterday and the other half plans to leave by noon, it’s a minor miracle the machine’s even plugged in. She takes another sip anyway, because she’s been awake since five and her report’s only three-quarters done. If she has to be here, she might as well commit to the suffering.
The dingy roof lights flicker. They’ve been doing that since November. Manon’s pretty sure someone submitted a maintenance request that immediately got filed into whatever black hole all maintenance requests go to die in, but — not her problem. She’s here to finish her work, get paid, and leave before anyone tries to make her participate in holiday cheer.
She’s halfway through her third paragraph when the door swings open and Sophia Laforteza walks in, wearing a headband with light-up reindeer antlers.
Manon silently groans, preparing herself for an onslaught of energy intense enough to kill twenty men without breaking a sweat.
“Merry almost Christmas!” Sophia grins, bright and cheerful in a way that should be illegal before nine A.M. She’s holding a mug shaped like Santa’s face, and when she sets it down on her desk — two rows over from Manon’s, close enough that Manon can smell her stupidly nice perfume even from here — it plays “Jingle Bells” in tiny electronic beeps.
Manon doesn’t look up. “It’s 8:03.”
“Exactly,” says Sophia. “Almost Christmas.”
“Christmas is in two days.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.” Sophia’s already logging into her computer, humming a tune that sounds like ‘Deck the Halls’. The antlers bob with every movement; Manon tries very hard not to watch them. She fails, abysmally. “Did you finish your report?”
“Working on it.”
“You’ve been working on it since Monday.”
“It’s a long report.”
Sophia laughs, and Manon feels something in her chest do a little flip that she’s gotten unfortunately used to ignoring. She’s not — it’s not like that. It’s not — she’s not into Sophia. She’s just been working with her for eight months, and Sophia’s nice – sometimes she brings Manon coffee that doesn’t taste like car tire, and once she stayed late to help Manon fix a spreadsheet error that had nothing to do with her. It doesn’t mean anything. Manon’s simply too sleep-deprived to have normal reactions to normal human kindness.
“You want help?” Sophia asks, spinning her chair around. The antlers catch the light. Manon wonders if they’re battery-powered or if Sophia’s just unnaturally radiant. Both options seem equally plausible.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re drinking break-room coffee. You’re clearly not fine.”
Manon glances up despite herself. Sophia’s still smiling at her, warm and teasing in a way that makes Manon want to snap at her or say something embarrassing. She does neither. “I like break-room coffee.”
“You’re a liar and a masochist,” Sophia says, standing and grabbing her Santa mug. “I’m making you real coffee. The good stuff from my desk. Don’t argue.”
“I wasn’t —”
“Too late, I’m already doing it.” She disappears into the break-room, antlers bobbing. Manon’s left staring at her screen trying to remember what she was typing before her brain decided to shut down.
It’s been like this for years now. Ever since Sophia started working here — transferred from the west coast office, all sunshine and a smile that made Manon forget how to do basic math for a full minute during their first meeting. She’s helpful. Thoughtful. The kind of person who remembers everyone’s birthdays, organizes the office potlucks, and never complains when she’s stuck on the worst assignments. Manon thought she’d find it annoying, but instead she just — doesn’t. Which is worse, probably.
They’ve gotten close in the way coworkers do when they’re both pulling overtime on projects no one else wants to touch. Inside jokes. Shared complaints about their boss. That one time Sophia convinced Manon to get drinks after work and they ended up talking for three hours. Manon had walked home thinking about the way Sophia laughed at her dumb jokes and had to physically shake herself out of it.
It’s not a crush. Manon doesn’t do crushes. She does work, rent, taking care of her cat, and ignoring the unreachable, shiny (like Sophia, her brain distantly reminds her) concept of romance until it goes away.
Sophia comes back with two mugs — one Santa and one shaped like a snowman that Manon’s pretty sure wasn’t there a second ago. “Where did you get…that?”
“I brought it from home.” Sophia sets it down next to Manon’s keyboard. It’s slightly crooked, and the perfectionist in Sophia rushes to right it. “You look like you need a festive mug.”
“I don’t.”
“Too bad. You have one now.” She perches on the edge of Manon’s desk, legs swinging. Manon has to physically angle her screen away so she doesn’t get distracted by — well, by Sophia’s legs, or the way her skirt’s riding up a little, or the fact that she smells like cinnamon and something Manon can’t entirely identify but desperately wants to. Ginger? Vanilla? Bergamot orange? She’s not even sure what the last one smells like, but it’s prim and proper and so, so very Sophia, so Manon thinks she’s on the right track. “So. Christmas plans?”
Manon takes a sip of the coffee. It’s good. Stupidly good. She’s going to have to say thank you, which is humiliating. “Working.”
“On Christmas?”
“Before, on, after. I’m behind.”
“You’re always behind.” Before Manon can get defensive, Sophia adds, “Which isn’t your fault, because they keep giving you the terrible projects and expecting you to finish them within two days. I’m just saying, you should take a break.”
“I’ll take a break when I’m dead.”
“Morbid,” Sophia replies with a wink, snickering when Manon rolls her eyes. After a moment, she tilts her head, antlers glinting. “Are you seeing family, at least?”
Manon stares at her screen. The cursor blinks. She types a sentence, deletes it, retypes it. “No.”
“Friends?”
“I don’t — I’m busy. It’s not a big deal.”
There’s a pause. When Manon finally glances up, Sophia’s watching her with an expression that’s somewhere between concerned and thoughtful. Manon regrets saying anything. “You know,” Sophia says slowly, perfectly casual, in the same tone she’d say break-room tire coffee (office joke, at this point) or the sky is blue. “If you're free, you could come to my place. I’m doing a quiet dinner thing – nothing fancy. But it’d be nice to have company.”
Manon’s brain does something completely, totally, and honest to god unforgivable: She imagines herself at Sophia’s apartment — warm lighting, cozy firepit, the smell of food that isn’t instant ramen, and Sophia in something soft and comfortable, smiling at her like she’s glad she’s there. She shuts it down. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Offer stands,” Sophia says, still ever-light. She slides off the desk, antlers bobbing as she heads back to her own workspace. The antlers are still the stupidest thing Manon has ever witnessed. It’s quintessentially Sophia. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
Manon won’t. Obviously. That would be…weird. They’re coworkers – friends, maybe, but not the kind of friends who spend Christmas dinner together. Even if they were, Manon doesn’t need Sophia’s pity. She’s fine spending the holidays alone. She’s been doing it for years.
The thing about Christmas is that, in Manon’s unbiased opinion, it’s all fake.
The cheer, the generosity, the idea that one day a year people suddenly care about each other more than they do the other 364 days.
Manon figured that out young, watching her parents work through every holiday, leaving her with babysitters who barely remembered her name, and coming home exhausted, irritable, and already thinking about the next shift. She got good presents, sure. Nice things. But it always felt like an apology for something no one really wanted to fix.
So now she doesn’t bother. Christmas is just another day, and if she happens to spend it working, at least she’s being productive.
Her phone buzzes. A text from Lara in accounting: Leaving early, don’t burn the place down. Merry Xmas!
Manon doesn’t respond. She’s not burning anything down. She’s just sitting here, drinking Sophia’s absurdly good coffee out of a ridiculous snowman mug, and trying not to think about the fact that she’s probably going to be the only person left in the office by afternoon.
That’s okay, though. Manon likes the quiet. It’ll give her room to work.
“Hey, Manon?”
She looks up. Sophia’s leaning back in her chair, spinning lightly from side to side, like she’s a kid at a playground and not a twenty-three-year-old office worker. Her antlers catch the light, again, and for a moment Sophia resembles more glowing deer than human. “Yeah?”
“Do you actually hate Christmas, or do you just pretend to?”
Manon opens her mouth, only to close it not even a breath later. She should say something sarcastic, or deflect, or tell Sophia to mind her own business. She doesn’t owe Sophia an answer. Quite frankly, Manon doesn’t even owe Sophia this conversation. She’s prepared to tell her that. Shut down this nonsense, return to peace and quiet, maybe put on her headphones for good measure. Instead she hears herself say, “Why does it matter?”
“I’m curious.” Sophia stops spinning. Her expression is open in a way that makes Manon want to run or say something desperately honest. Her glasses are a little askew, and Manon has to curl her twitching hands into fists so she doesn’t do something impulsive like lean in and fix them. It doesn’t really matter though, because Sophia looks good with them messed up. Then again, Sophia looks good at all times of the day, at any given second, so… objectively, obviously. Sophia looks good at all times, in the most objective sense of the phrase. “You always get this, like, look when people talk about it. Like you’re somewhere else.”
“I’m just not into the whole thing.” Manon waves one hand vaguely, flicking away a stray piece of paper that’s made itself home on her desk with the other. She realizes her answer probably comes out as defensive, which proves Sophia’s point. She takes another sip of coffee to avoid having to say anything else. Silence. Sophia wants her to elaborate. Oh, joy. “The decorations. The music. The idea that everyone’s supposed to be happy just because it’s December and a holiday. I’m not even Christian.”
“Fair,” Sophia hums, face going blank before returning to that ever-present, ever-blinding smile. Manon can’t help but be grateful that Sophia doesn’t push, doesn’t tell Manon she’s being cynical or pessimistic or downright mean, and that she should try to enjoy it. Sophia just nods, thoughtful, and goes back to her work.
Which is — worse, somehow. Manon doesn’t know what to do with people who don’t argue with her.
She drinks more coffee. Tries not to think about how good it is and that Sophia made it for her. Fixes a typo. Glances at Sophia, who’s gone back to singing some Christmas tune, completely oblivious to the fact that Manon’s been having a weird internal crisis for the past ten minutes.
It’s going to be a long day.
By eleven, the office is almost empty.
Megan from HR stopped by Manon’s desk to drop off a tin of cookies — “Homemade! Well, my girlfriend made them, but still!” — and Manon accepted them with the social prowess of an elephant being forced to interact with the human world. Sophia immediately claims half.
“You can’t just take someone else’s gift.” Manon’s mouth twists, watching Sophia bite into a gingerbread man with zero remorse. She isn’t mad, not really. It’s Sophia. Being mad at Sophia is like…like killing a baby. Or a deer. Or killing a baby deer. Or something equally atrocious.
She bites into one and immediately regrets it. The cookie is — to put it as nicely as possible — disgusting. She doesn’t say this out loud, because Sophia’ll snatch the entire tin from her, and Manon’s entire bloodline will most definitely admonish her and curse her for eternity for her lack of holiday spirit.
“Sorry,” Sophia says dryly. Manon’s frown deepens because, hey, she wants to see her sweat a little bit. Sophia, unbothered, lifts a hand to Manon’s forehead to smooth the furrow of her brow. Manon’s brain instantly turns more mushy than the tuna-and-rice she’d been chewing on earlier. Her fingers are calloused, which Manon already knew, not from staring, but from analyzing. Because, well. She notices things. She feels the ridges now, though, which is entirely different than visually noticing them. It makes her shudder, and she prays Sophia doesn’t notice. “You were going to forget about them and let them go stale.”
“I was not!” Manon exclaims, ignoring how she’s choking down this cookie on spite and will alone.
Sophia scoffs. “You still have Halloween candy in your drawer.”
Manon doesn’t have a comeback for that, mostly because it’s true. She watches Sophia eat another cookie, antlers slightly askew, a smudge of icing on her bottom lip. Manon looks away before her brain does something stupid like fixate on it. Too late. It’s all Manon can think about now, and it’ll probably be all Manon can think about before she heads to bed tonight.
“These are good,” Sophia says, muffled by how full her mouth is. “We should save some for later.”
“Later?”
Sophia swallows and grins. “For when we’re stuck here forever and need emergency rations.”
“We’re not going to be stuck here forever.”
Sophia's grin goes wider. There’s a bit of gingerbread caught between her teeth. It should be gross. It’s not. Manon’s going to have a breakdown. A full-on, lights-out, curl-up-in-a-ball breakdown, and it’ll be Sophia’s fault for being — for existing — for all of this. “You never know. I heard there’s a storm coming.”
“It’s just snow.”
“A lot of snow, apparently.” Sophia pulls out her phone, squinting at the screen. Her nose scrunches up when she concentrates. Manon knows this. She’s noticed. She’s analyzed. “Yeah, look.” She points at the screen like they’re in a lecture hall, like they haven't graduated from their college days. It’s ridiculous. It’s Sophia, in every possible aspect. “They're saying it’s going to hit around noon. It’s supposed to be pretty bad.”
Manon leans over despite herself, and Sophia tilts the phone so she can see. Suddenly she’s close enough that Manon can feel the warmth radiating off her and can smell cinnamon combined with the gingerbread she’s just finished devouring and something else that’s unique to Sophia. Again, she rehashes: Ginger? Vanilla? Bergamot orange?
The weather app shows a wall of red and purple sweeping across the region, warnings stacked on top of each other. Winter Storm Alert. Blizzard Conditions. Travel Not Advised.
“Huh,” Manon manages.
“You should probably leave soon,” Sophia says. She’s still close. Too close. Not close enough. This is an entirely normal reaction to have to her coworker slash sorta-friend. Manon’s having a normal reaction and a normal day and will have a normal night. “Before it gets bad.”
“I’m almost done.”
“Manon.”
“I’m almost done.”
Sophia sighs, but she’s smiling, exasperated and fond in a way that makes Manon’s chest hurt. Physical pain. Actual physical pain from a smile. “Fine. But if we get snowed in, I’m blaming you.”
“Noted.”
Sophia goes back to her desk, and Manon goes back to her report. Neither of them leave.
At 11:47, the snow starts.
At first it’s just a few flakes, drifting lazily past the windows, and Manon doesn’t think much of it. She’s got a few pages left. She can finish a few pages.
By noon, it’s coming down hard. Thick, heavy flakes blur the street outside, piling up fast. Manon’s got two paragraphs left and is sorely reconsidering her life choices.
Sophia stands by the window, arms crossed. There’s annoyance etched on her face as she peers outside. Her antlers fall, only to be caught by the loose locks of her hair. They’re left slightly crooked, and Manon has to resist the urge to get up and adjust it. Thankfully, Sophia has more of a chronic fixer-syndrome than she does, and is quick to readjust it. “Okay,” she begins slowly. “That’s, um. That’s a lot of snow.”
Manon joins her, coffee in hand, and yeah. It’s a lot of snow. The kind of snow that turns the world white and soft and makes everything look like a postcard. It leaves her in awe, rendered to nothing but a witness of falling snow before she remembers that she actually has to exist in it. Actually walk through it. Actually dig her car out of it while her fingers go numb and her nose runs while she questions every decision that led to Manon's daily fights with the snow.
Manon’s eyes flicker to her companion. “We should go.”
“Probably,” Sophia agrees.
Neither of them moves.
The lights flicker. Once, twice. Manon thinks maybe if she doesn’t acknowledge it, it won’t happen. The universe, as always, ignores her. The lights cut out completely, and the office plunges into darkness.
For a second, there’s just silence and the faint howl of wind outside. Then the emergency lights kick on, bathing everything in a dim, greenish glow that makes Sophia (and herself, she imagines) look vaguely corpse-like. Still beautiful. Manon blocks out that last thought.
“Oh,” says Sophia.
“Yeah,” says Manon.
They look at each other. Sophia’s still holding a cookie. Manon’s still holding her coffee. The snow outside is falling so hard they can barely see the building across the street. Manon’s pretty sure there was a car parked out there earlier. It’s gone now, the owner having headed home at a reasonable time, something Manon — and by extension, Sophia, who’d only stayed for her — should’ve done. That, or the car has been consumed by snow. She’ll plan the car a funeral. It could also be stolen. In which case: tough luck, owner. Car insurance is a bitch.
“So.” Sophia turns to face her fully. Her antlers glow faintly in the emergency lights. Manon wonders if that’s intentional or if Sophia just has that effect on lighting. “I think we might be stuck here.”
No shit, Manon nearly quips. But Sophia’s only here because of her, and that small, small, she emphasizes, small guilty part of Manon feels awful about that. So…kindness rules. For the day.
“Merry apocalypse,” Manon, sarcastic — because even though she won’t say something as harsh as no shit, that doesn’t mean she’s going to be one of God’s perfect little angels. Go to the church a few streets down for one of those — and filled with faux-cheer, remarks.
Sophia laughs, bright and surprised. The kind of laugh that makes Manon feel like maybe being trapped in the office during a blizzard isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Sophia’s even closer now, more than Manon thought possible, and then she’s wrapping an arm around her like that move isn’t perfectly designed to knock her dead. But. Well. It also makes her feel…good. Warm, with Sophia’s jacket brushing around her shoulder, nearly bundling her with Sophia, like a two-for-one holiday present.
Then the heating system makes a terrible grinding noise and shuts off, and Manon revises her opinion.
This is definitely the worst thing that could happen.
The heating comes back on after five minutes, which Manon decides is proof that the universe enjoys torturing her but isn’t committed to killing her. Yet.
Sophia’s phone buzzes. Buzzes again. Then starts a full-on vibrating solo across her desk, and she picks it up with a wince. “It’s the group chat,” she answers before Manon can ask, scrolling. “Everyone’s asking if we made it out okay.”
“We didn’t make it out at all.”
Sophia huffs out a laugh. “I know. I’m telling them we’re fine.” She types something, gnawing at her bottom lip, antlers bobbing with each movement. Sophia snaps her finger in distress, which is dumb but also so intrinsically Sophia, that Manon internally cheeses. Like, actually cheeses. Like a kid who’s been allowed to stay past her bedtime. Dear God, she’s screwed. “Lara says the roads are already a mess. She barely made it home.”
“Great.” Manon looks out the window again, but it reveals the same view it did the first twenty times: the snow’s still coming down in sheets, and the streetlights are barely visible through the white. “So we’re definitely stuck.”
“For now,” Sophia sighs, in a tone that’s probably meant to be reassuring but lands closer to we’re going to die here and I’m choosing optimism. “I’m sure it’ll clear up by this afternoon.”
It will not clear up by this afternoon. Manon knows this in the same way she knows that the break-room coffee is terrible and the dingy, flickering lights will never get fixed — some things are just inevitable.
Her own phone buzzes. A text from Lara: You and Sophia still there? Stay safe! Don’t burn the place down lol
Manon stares at the message. She’s gotten some variation of don’t burn the place down three times now, which she’s choosing to interpret as people thinking she and Sophia have a weirdly combustible energy when placed in the same relative area rather than a commentary on her as a person. She’s not sure which is worse.
She types back: We’re fine. Not burning anything.
Lara responds immediately: If you two are the only ones left you should make out or something. Holiday spirit! Under the mistletoe…people simply must…
Manon’s brain does a full system reboot. She locks her phone, sets it face-down on her desk, and tries to remember how to breathe normally.
Sophia tilts her head. “Uh… you good?”
“Fine.” Manon's voice comes out slightly strangled and she promptly considers going outside and dying a noble death. Better than staying in here with the things Lara put in her head, and the knowledge that she and Sophia are alone. And. And. Yeah. “Lara’s just being Lara.”
“The vaguely crazy and-or vaguely threatening?”
“Something like that.”
Sophia laughs, and Manon absolutely does not think about what Lara said. She doesn’t. She’s a professional. She’s got self-control. She’s not going to spend the next however-many-hours thinking about Sophia’s mouth and what it would feel like to —
Nope. Not doing that.
She opens her laptop. Stares at her report. The words blur together. She closes her laptop.
Sophia moves, sick of standing still, and stretches her arms over her head. Her sweater rides up slightly. Manon discovers a fascinating new crack in the ceiling to examine. “I think we should maybe figure out a plan. In case we’re stuck here longer than we think.”
Manon finally tears her gaze away from the ceiling. “This isn’t the apocalypse. We’re not going to be stuck here that long.”
“Manon.” Sophia walks over, looking at her with an expression that’s both patient and slightly amused, like she’s watching a cat refuse to admit it’s scared of a vacuum. The cat jumps. She laughs. The cat licks her paw and pretends the vacuum does not affect her. “It’s a blizzard. We might be here overnight.”
Overnight. With Sophia. In an office with one break-room and a heating system that’s already proven it can’t be trusted.
Manon’s having a normal time with this information.
“Fine.” Manon clears her throat when she realizes how high-pitched it’s become, riddled with voice cracks and sounding awfully reminiscent of her teenage years. “Fine. What’s the plan?”
The plan, as it turns out, is to raid the break-room.
Sophia’s already pulling open cabinets by the time Manon catches up, antlers swaying as she stretches to reach the top shelf. She rises on her toes, fingers scrabbling at the edge. “Okay,” she cheers, triumphant, pulling down a box of instant noodles. “We have food. Sort of.”
“That’s been there since September.”
“So it’s aged like fine wine,” Sophia dismisses, like they’re discussing cheese that gets better with age and not cardboard noodles that have twenty health code violations against them as is. Sophia sets the box down and keeps searching. “We’ve got — oh! Score, someone left a bag of chips. And there’s… a lot of candy canes. Why are there so many candy canes?”
It takes Manon a moment to recall. Candy canes…candy canes…where had she most recently seen candy canes? A party? Yes. A party…she silently curses her poor memory before a bulb lights up in her head. Ah. Dani. Wanted more responsibility and whatnot. Despite that, Dani’s stint as party host for the annual office holiday party had been short-lived when everyone realized Dani didn’t have a single fucking clue about planning parties outside of buying alcohol. Which they were not allowed to drink during work hours, meaning they were barred from drinking it at the office party. In short: Dani’s abilities were rendered useless. She did show up with enough candy canes to cause toothaches, though. “Dani bought them for the holiday party.”
“The party was two weeks ago.”
Manon leans against the counter, shrugging. “No one likes candy canes.”
This is apparently the wrong thing to say, because Sophia gasps like she’s been personally attacked. She whips around, hand pressed to her chest. Sophia, preparing to star in a 19th-century drama, everyone. Absolutely not an underpaid office worker. “I like candy canes.”
“You’re a freak.”
“I’m festive.” Sophia grabs a handful and sets them on the counter with the rest of their supplies. It’s not an impressive spread: instant noodles, stale chips, candy canes, and a tin of cookies that’s already half-empty because Sophia has no self-control. Well. No. She does, typically, have better impulse control than Manon, but a hungry Sophia is the cookie monster's twin. Manon nearly asks if that was her Halloween costume this year but ultimately decides she values her life. “We’re not going to starve, at least.”
Manon pauses. Clicks her tongue. “The bar for success is really low right now.”
“That’s the spirit,” Sophia says, beaming. She straightens, reminiscent of a public speaker, and Manon internally groans. She gets enough of these at their weekly office meetings. “All success starts from the bottom and rises to the top. You must persevere. You must keep going forward. In life, there’s struggles. Yes. It’s true. But there is always the road ahead.” The minute Sophia finishes, she turns scarlet, like she just realized she’d been speaking a whole bucket of bullshit for longer than any sane person would. Her hands flutter nervously at her sides, fidgeting with the edge of her blazer.
Manon says nothing for a full moment, letting Sophia bask in her embarrassment.
When they finally move, they divvy everything up, which means that Sophia insists on sorting it into piles while Manon watches and occasionally points out when she’s being ridiculous. (This happens four times. Sophia ignores her every time.) Once they’re done, Sophia pulls out her phone and queues up a playlist.
“No,” Manon says immediately.
Sophia doesn’t look up. “I haven’t even started it yet.”
“It’s Christmas music. I can tell.”
“It’s good Christmas music.” Sophia taps her screen, and before Manon can argue that that’s an oxymoron, the opening notes of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” start blaring from the phone speaker.
Manon closes her eyes. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t.” Sophia’s already swaying to the music, completely unselfconscious, and Manon…doesn’t hate her. Obviously. She’s just stuck in an office during a blizzard with someone who thinks Mariah Carey is an appropriate choice for a crisis situation.
Manon opens her eyes. “If you sing,” she warns, “I’m committing a crime.”
Sophia sings anyway.
And. She’s, well, good. Like, actually good. Her voice is clear, warm, and hits every note perfectly. Manon’s brain short-circuits because this is unfair. Sophia’s already stupidly pretty and nice and perfectly sunshiney, and now she can sing too? Thanks, universe.
The antlers are catching the dim emergency lights again, but this time it halos Sophia like an angel, and she has to physically look away before she does something stupid like stare. Unfortunately, it’s far too late for that one. Sophia should consider a restraining order before Manon does something drastic like…kissing her.
“You’re the worst,” Manon groans.
“I’m the best,” Sophia corrects, spinning and nearly knocking over the candy cane pile. She’s still singing in between talking. It makes her words muffled, like her mouth’s stuffed with marshmallows. “You’re just grumpy.”
“I’m realistic and understand how awful Christmas music is.”
“You’re grumpy.” Sophia stops spinning, a little breathless, still grinning. She nearly knocks over the candy cane pile. Manon’s a tad disappointed she doesn’t. She hates those candies. Them being her near only source of food for the next 24 hours is painful, to say the least. “Come on. Admit it. This is kind of fun.”
Manon crosses her arms. “We’re trapped in an office during a blizzard with no real food and a heating system that might give out at any second. That’s not fun.”
“But we’re trapped together,” Sophia counters, stepping closer, and — there’s something in the way she says it. Something that makes Manon’s heart do the stupid flip thing again.
She doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she doesn’t. Just grabs a candy cane and unwraps it, even though she meant what she said about them being terrible. The cellophane crinkles too loud in the quiet between songs.
Sophia watches her. “See? You’re getting into the holiday spirit.”
Manon bites into the candy cane. It’s hard, far too sugary, and makes her cringe. It’s exactly as bad as she remembers. But when Sophia’s looking at her like that, hopeful and fond, she thinks, just maybe, she can pretend to enjoy it. “I’m eating sugar. That’s not the same thing.”
“Close enough.” Sophia unwraps her own candy cane, grinning like she’s won something.
By one o’clock, Megan from HR texts the group chat: Hope everyone’s safe! If you need anything let me know. PS - Manon, Sophia, if you’re still at the office there are extra blankets in the storage closet. Stay warm!
Manon stares at the message and presses her fingers to her temple. “Why does everyone assume we’re going to need blankets?”
“Because it’s a blizzard and the heating’s sketchy?” Sophia’s already walking, brushing cookie crumbs off her skirt, and Manon internally groans. The last thing she wants to do is trudge around the building on some aimless pirate-natured quest, but Sophia's halfway to the door. “We should probably grab them. Just in case.”
The storage closet is on the other side of the building, which means trudging through a dark hallway with only the emergency lights to guide them. Sophia leads the way, antlers glowing faintly, and Manon follows because — well, she’s not staying in the break-room alone.
“This is creepy,” Sophia says, voice echoing slightly. She hugs herself, rubbing her arms.
“It’s just dark.”
“That’s what makes it creepy.” She stops in front of the closet, trying the handle. It doesn’t budge. “Locked.”
Manon crosses her arms. Of course. Just what they need. “Of course it is.”
Sophia jiggles the handle again, frowning. “Megan said there are blankets in here.”
“Megan also said we’d be fine, and look how that turned out.”
“You’re so negative.” Sophia pulls a bobby pin from her hair — because of course she just has bobby pins on hand — and crouches in front of the lock. “I can get this open.”
“You can pick locks?”
Sophia glances up at her, grinning. Her heart starts thumping with enough speed to run 400m in four seconds. “I had a weird childhood.” She turns back to the lock, fiddling with the pin, tongue between her teeth in concentration. Manon should not find this as attractive as she does. “Almost… got it…”
The lock clicks. Sophia pumps her fist in victory, and the antlers nearly slide off her head. Manon reaches out on instinct and adjusts them, fingers brushing against Sophia’s hair. It’s softer than she expected. She knew that already — no, she didn’t know that. She’s noticing it now. Her fingers linger for a beat too long as she tries to not flick a stray strand of hair back into its rightful place.
They both freeze.
“Uh.” Eloquent. Sophia’s eyes find hers. “Thanks.”
“They were crooked,” Manon answers, even though no question was asked. She pulls her hand back like she’s been burned. “It was annoying me.”
“Right.” Sophia’s smiling, gentle and a little knowing. Manon wants to melt into the floor. “Well. Let’s get those blankets.”
The closet is packed with random office supplies — old chairs, boxes of files, a fake plant that someone clearly gave up on. The blankets are shoved in the back, and they’re not even nice blankets — just thin, scratchy things that probably came from a bulk order ten years ago. Sophia grabs an armful anyway.
“These are terrible,” Manon says. They’re uncomfortable in a way that she knows the minute one loops around her shoulders, she’ll be fighting the urge to itch her skin off for days. Like a thousand red ants crawling and crawling. Manon instinctively grimaces.
“They’re warm. Probably.” Sophia shifts her grip, trying to balance them all. Before Manon can offer her help, one of the blankets slides off, landing on Manon’s head.
Manon pulls it off, glaring. Sophia’s trying not to laugh and failing, shoulders shaking. “Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all.
“You’re the worst.”
“You keep saying that.” Sophia’s still smiling. She hugs the blankets remaining in her grasp tighter. “I’m starting to think you don’t mean it.”
Manon doesn’t mean it. She hasn’t meant it once. She grabs the fallen blanket and shoves it back onto the pile, and they head back to the break-room in silence. Sophia walks slightly ahead, and Manon watches her, watches the way she sways, the way she walks around like she owns the place.
But. Ugh. Stop.
She looks away before Sophia can turn around and catch her staring.
At two o’clock, Manon tries to do more work. She lasts about fifteen minutes before giving up — the emergency lights are too dim, and her laptop battery’s at thirty percent. She can’t stop thinking about the fact that she’s stuck here. With Sophia, who’s currently humming “Jingle Bell Rock” and sorting candy canes by flavor.
Manon closes her laptop. So long to finishing that assignment. “Why are you doing that?”
Sophia doesn’t look up. “Doing what?”
“The candy cane thing.”
Sophia looks up, holding a red-and-white striped one in each hand. “I’m organizing them. This one’s peppermint, this one’s wintergreen. See?”
“They’re all peppermint.”
“No, this one’s different. Smell it.” She holds one out, and Manon, against her better judgment, leans in and sniffs.
It smells like peppermint.
Manon pulls back before she thinks about how she also, inadvertently, sniffed Sophia. “That’s peppermint.”
“It’s wintergreen peppermint.”
“That’s not a thing.”
Sophia grins, setting both candy canes down in separate piles. “It is now.”
And, yeah, Sophia grins and Manon gives up. She’s not winning this argument. She’s not winning any argument with Sophia, because Sophia has a way of just, just, smiling and being ridiculous until Manon forgets why she was annoyed in the first place.
Her phone buzzes. Another text from Lara: Update: roads are totally fucked. You’re definitely stuck overnight. Have fun ;)
Manon does not like the winky face. She especially does not like what the winky face implies.
Sophia glances over and hones in on her frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Lara confirmed we’re stuck here.”
“Overnight?”
Manon places her phone face-down again. “Looks like it.”
Sophia drops her candy canes. She’s quiet for a second, scratching her head with her finger. Then, she says, “Well. Could be worse.”
“How?”
“I could be stuck with someone boring.” She smiles, quick and genuine. “At least you’re interesting.”
Manon’s brain short-circuits. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “I’m not interesting.”
“You are, though,” Sophia says it like it’s obvious. Like it’s a fact. “You’re smart and funny when you’re not trying to be scary, and you notice things. Like…uh…you remember everyone’s coffee order. And you always know when I’m stressed before I even say anything.”
“That’s not interesting,” Manon scoffs. She isn’t sure why she’s so offended by Sophia calling her interesting. She isn’t sure why she cares either. Dani called her interesting last week, with a far more insulting tone. Sophia only sounds fond when she says it. Something inside her curls up into a ball and dies. “That's just paying attention.”
“Most people don’t pay attention.” Sophia's eyes are searching, in a way that makes Manon feel a little dizzy and nauseous, like there’s a deeper meaning hidden beneath the words. It’s a meaning Manon doesn’t know how to parse.
“I’m…” still not interesting, Manon doesn’t say. She wants to, though. When Sophia looks at her like that, her head starts pounding in the way it only does when she’s nearing three days without sleep and has forgone water in favor of coffee. It’s powerful. That’s not surprising — it’s Sophia. Manon has never known anyone stronger than Sophia. And the stare…the stare… the stare…Manon breaks first. Looks away. Picks at the edge of her sweater. “Well. You’re… you’re not boring either.”
“Wow,” Sophia chokes out between a laugh. Her laugh is like the sunrise. The minute the thought bubbles up, Manon considers going back to her desk and hiding under it to scream into her chair until her voice gives out. Unfortunately, Sophia will die without human interaction, and Manon is still considered a human by basic definition, so she’s stuck with her racing pulse and waning self-control. “High praise from Manon Bannerman.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m taking it as a compliment.”
“You should,” Manon mutters, hunching her shoulders. Sophia’s smile goes even wider, and Manon’s definitely going to have a breakdown about this later when she’s alone and can process the fact that she just said that. Out loud. To Sophia’s face.
Outside, the snow keeps falling.
Inside, Sophia goes back to her candy canes, humming a tune that might be ‘Silent Night’, but she isn’t entirely sure because Manon never bothered paying attention during sermons and doesn’t know how it starts or ends.
Oh, God.
Manon tries to figure out how she’s going to survive the next twelve hours without doing something catastrophically stupid.
At three o’clock, the snow stops being picturesque and starts being genuinely horrifying.
Manon watches it pile up against the glass doors at the building’s entrance — already halfway up, maybe more. The wind is howling loud enough she can hear it from inside. The streetlights are barely visible. The cars in the parking lot look like shapeless white lumps. It’s the kind of snow that makes you remember humans are fragile and breakable, easily found dead in natural disasters, and that nature doesn’t care.
“Okay.” Sophia comes up behind her. “That’s… bad.
“Yeah.”
“Like, really bad.”
“I’m aware.”
Sophia moves closer, close enough that their arms brush. Manon shivers and blames the cold, which is a lie, obviously, but she's committed to it. The heating’s still technically on, but it’s struggling, and the air feels thin and not-quite-warm, like the building’s given up on comfort and is just aiming for not freezing to death.
Sophia worries her bottom lip, chewing like it’s rock, and Manon briefly imagines having to perform emergency first aid with break-room napkins. It mixes with that devil in her head, who’s currently proclaiming its evil desire to take a finger and stop the movement before blood starts spewing out. She hates herself for daring to think that. “Maybe we should try to leave.”
“And go where?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere that’s not here?” Her antlers are slightly askew again. Manon doesn’t fix them this time. “My apartment’s only a few blocks away. We could make it.”
Manon looks at the snow. Looks at Sophia’s outfit: skirt, tights, boots that are definitely not built for a blizzard. Looks at her own outfit, which isn’t much better. It also doesn’t help her in remembering how awful she looks compared to Sophia. She’d been too lazy to dress in proper office wear under the assumption that most of her coworkers wouldn’t show up, leaving her donning a hoodie, jeans, sandals (she’s regretting this one now but, hey, sue her), and a hastily grabbed LA Dodgers hat. “We’d die.”
“We wouldn’t die.”
“We would freeze to death in under ten minutes.”
Sophia's face twists, hands moving at her side in a rough, disjointed pace, showing the emotions she refuses to reveal in her tone. “You don’t know that.”
“I know that,” Manon says flatly, because she does. She grew up in Switzerland; she knows exactly how fast cold kills you when you’re not prepared for it. “We’re staying here.”
Sophia deflates — shoulders sinking, antlers drooping like even they're disappointed. “Yeah. Okay.” She’s quiet for a second, staring at the snow piling up against the glass. And then: “We should at least check the doors. Just to see.”
“Sophia,” she warns, trying not to physically grab Sophia by the scruff and place her behind Manon, where it’s safe and nowhere near a door.
“I know, I know. But I’ll feel better if we try.” She’s already heading toward the entrance, and Manon follows because leaving Sophia to do something stupid alone feels worse than doing something stupid together.
The doors are locked, obviously. It's after hours and the building’s security system doesn’t care that they’re trapped inside. Sophia jiggles the handle anyway, then presses her face against the glass, breath fogging up the surface. “I can’t even see the street anymore.”
“That’s because there’s three feet of snow in the way.”
“More like four.” Sophia steps back, frowning. She looks at Manon, then at the door, then back at Manon. “What if we just… tried?”
“Tried what?”
“Going out. Just to see if it’s possible.”
Manon stares at her — really stares, looking for signs of head injury or sudden-onset fever or demonic possession. Nothing shows up. A perfect, clean bill of health. She registers Sophia as clinically insane anyway. “You want to walk into a blizzard to see if we can walk into a blizzard.”
“When you say it like that it sounds stupid.”
“That’s because it is stupid.”
“I’m just saying —” Sophia splays her arm vaguely at the door, the snow, the universe. “What if it’s not as bad as it looks?”
“It’s worse than it looks. It’s always worse than it looks.”
Sophia sighs, dramatic and put-upon, but Manon knows she’s won. Except, then Sophia says, “Fine. But if we’re stuck here and we run out of food and we have to resort to cannibalism, I’m blaming you.”
“That’s not how blame works.”
“It is now.” Sophia’s smiling, though, and Manon feels the knot of anxiety in her chest loosen a little.
They head back towards the break-room, and Manon’s almost relaxed when Sophia suddenly stops. “Wait.”
“What?”
“The side exit. The one by the stairwell.” Sophia spins around, antlers bobbing. “We could try that one.”
“Sophia —”
“It’s closer to the ground. Maybe it’s not as blocked.”
It’s definitely as blocked, but Manon doesn’t say that, because Sophia’s already walking toward the stairwell with a determined set to her shoulders, and — fine. They’ll check the side exit. They’ll confirm it’s blocked. Maybe then Sophia will accept that they’re stuck here and stop trying to engineer increasingly terrible escape plans.
The stairwell is even darker than the hallway, the emergency lights spaced farther apart. The shadows look like they have depth. Texture. Possibly teeth. It’s terrifying, but Manon puts on a brave face and forages on.
Sophia pulls out her phone and turns on the flashlight, and the beam cuts through the gloom in a way that’s somehow more unsettling than the dark. Their footsteps echo. Manon’s sandals squeak against the concrete. It sounds like a mouse being murdered. Slowly.
Sophia wraps her free arm around herself. “This is creepy.”
“You said that about the hallway.”
“This is creepier.” She moves closer to Manon, which — okay, great, Manon's not going to read into that. Sophia's cold and scared and probably not thinking about how their shoulders keep bumping or how Manon can smell her perfume even through the stairwell's unpleasant stench.
They reach the side exit, a heavy metal door with a push-bar handle and a sign that says EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY: ALARM WILL SOUND. Sophia looks at the sign. Looks at Manon. “Think the alarm still works?”
“Probably not. Nothing else in this building works,” Manon says, shrugging. It’s true. Everything in this building is currently on life support, with groaning pipes and wheezing vents sounding like the last breaths of a very tired beast. Why would an emergency exit’s alarm, of all things, work?
Sophia huffs. “Optimistic.” She puts her hand on the handle, then hesitates, fingers drumming against the metal. “Okay. On three.”
“We’re counting now?”
“One —”
“Sophia —”
“Two —”
“This is a bad idea —”
“Three!” Sophia shoves the door open, and — okay, the alarm does work, actually. Spectacularly. It’s shrill, piercing, and loud enough that Manon claps her hands over her ears, and Sophia yelps and stumbles backward. They’re left standing in the terrible noise and the blast of cold air rushing in from outside.
The snow’s piled almost to the top of the doorframe.
Sophia’s eyes go wide — comedically wide, cartoon character realizing they've made a mistake wide. Or, a horror movie character realizing the killer is on their toes and that they’re about to die a horrible death. Which, in all seriousness, is rather accurate. This cold might kill them, if Manon doesn’t kill Sophia first for having the grand idea of opening the damn door. “Oh.”
Manon hastily reaches past her and shoves the door closed. The alarm cuts off, a small reprieve for their ears, but the silence afterward is almost worse, heavy and ringing.
“So,” Sophia heaves after a moment, chest rapid and hands planted on knees, staring at the door. “That’s blocked.”
“Yeah.”
“Really blocked.”
“Yeah,” Manon repeats, trying and failing to keep the disbelief out of her tone. She’d known it would be bad, but that bad? Unimaginable. Dear climate change, Manon thinks sardonically, I hope this letter finds you well…
Sophia turns to look at her, and in the dim light from her phone Manon can see the way her expression shifts from determined to worried to a little, teeny-tiny bit scared. Her antlers are crooked again. Manon’s fingers twitch because habits, habits. “We’re really stuck, huh?”
Manon nods, forlorn. “We’re really stuck.”
“Overnight.”
“At least overnight,” Manon corrects, because she’s not going to lie. The snow’s not stopping, and even if it does they’ll need to wait for plows, for the roads to clear, for the world to become navigable again. “Maybe longer.”
Sophia’s quiet. Then: “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” She squares her shoulders, takes a breath. The antlers are still crooked. Keeping her hand down is a pathetic attempt to stop an unstoppable force. “We can do this. It’s just one night. Maybe two. We have food. We have blankets. We have —” She waves her phone. “Twenty percent battery, but that’s fine; I’ll just ration it.”
“Very responsible of you.”
Sophia lifts her chin. “I’m a responsible person,” she says, which is such an obvious lie that Manon almost laughs. Sophia organized candy canes by fake flavors for thirty minutes. She wore light-up antlers to work. She tried to open a door that was clearly blocked by four feet of snow.
But she’s Sophia.
And that matters, somehow.
“Come on,” Manon finally says, turning toward the stairwell. “Let’s get back to the break-room before we freeze to death in the stairwell.”
They make it three steps before the lights go out.
Not the emergency lights; those stay on, dim and greenish. But the regular overhead lights, the ones that were still flickering in some parts of the building. A second later, a low groaning sound echoes through the walls, and the heating cuts off with a mechanical wheeze.
Sophia’s flashlight beam swings wildly. “What was that?”
“The heating,” Manon groans, because they’re clearly down-on-their-luck protagonists in a shitty movie and every second is God proving how much worse this situation can get.
Sophia shines the light toward Manon, accusing. “Why did it sound like that?”
“Because it’s dying.”
“Manon —”
“It’ll come back on.” Probably. Maybe. Manon’s not actually sure, but panicking won’t help. “Let’s just get back to the break-room. We’ll figure it out, okay?”
They walk quickly, Sophia’s flashlight now the only real source of light. The building feels…different like this. Bigger, emptier. It’s a stark reminder that the office isn’t full of life, but a mere shell of metal and concrete. It’s, well, the workers that make it so sparkly and shiny. Workers like Sophia. With population two, the walls are starting to look desolate and hungry, and the desks seem to have claws. Please don’t eat her, Manon humbly begs. Nobody responds. Her cause of death is going to land itself on the paranormal activity list, isn’t it?
The only sounds are Manon’s sandals and Sophia’s too loud breathing. They’re both too afraid to speak — like it’ll cast some ancient curse on them. Granted, with the way their luck has been holding, they might already be cursed. They hike on.
When they finally reach the break-room, Sophia slumps against the counter and lets out a long exhale. “Okay,” she sighs, staring at the ceiling. “Okay. This is fine.”
Manon, the pessimist: “It’s not fine.”
Sophia closes her eyes. The optimist’s retorts: “I’m choosing to believe it’s fine.”
The heating groans again, louder this time, and then goes silent. Sophia peers up at the vents. “That’s…not good.”
“No.” It feels acceptable to use No shit here, but Manon exhibits restraint. She also resists the urge to pat herself on the back for that.
Sophia starts pacing, worry etched on her face, but all she says out loud is, “How long do you think we have before it gets really cold?”
Manon does some mental math. Building size, insulation, outside temperature. It’s not exactly a comforting equation. “A few hours. Maybe less.”
“Great.” Sophia’s still looking at the vent like it personally betrayed her. “So, we’re stuck in a building with no heat, no real food, and a storm that’s not stopping anytime soon.”
“That’s the summary, yeah.”
When Sophia turns to her, Manon’s surprised to find her smiling. It’s not a big smile, and it’s definitely not a happy one, but there's determination in it, like she’s shaky inside but knows Manon is too, so white-knuckling it and sticking on a brave face for the sake of both of them is better than doing nothing at all. It makes Manon's chest feel tight. "And the emergency lights will probably die soon, too."
“Most likely.”
Sophia pushes off the counter. “Well. At least we're not alone.”
Manon doesn't know what to say to that. Doesn't know how to explain that being stuck here with Sophia is both the best and worst possible version of this situation. Grateful and terrified in equal measure. If she was here with anyone else, in all likelihood, Manon would’ve already written her will. But…being here with Sophia…it’s hard to control the beating in her chest. Really fucking hard. So she just nods. “Yeah.”
Sophia's antlers catch the faint glow from her phone, throwing a weird deer-like shadow in her face. “And we have candy canes.”
“We have so many candy canes,” Manon agrees, a chuckle bubbling up at the remembrance of Dani’s insanity.
“See? Things could be worse.” She starts gathering supplies: blankets, the tin of cookies, a few bottles of water from the fridge. “Let's get those blankets. And maybe we should move somewhere smaller. The break-room's too big; it'll lose heat faster.”
She's right. Manon hates that she's right, but she is. “The copy room?”
“Perfect. It's tiny and it has that one window, so we'll have some natural light during the day.” Sophia's already loading her arms with supplies. “Grab the noodles. And the chips. We're setting up camp.”
“Camp,” Manon deadpans. Like they’re at a summer camp, two mischievous children sneaking out, and not slowly freezing to death in this office.
Sophia grins over her shoulder, undeterred. “Emergency sleepover? That sounds better.”
It doesn't sound better. It sounds like a complete disaster. Or one waiting to happen, one that involves Manon's complete inability to be normal around Sophia in close quarters. But Manon grabs the food anyway, because Sophia told her to, and they haul everything to the copy room. By the time they're done Sophia's phone battery is at fifteen percent and Manon can see her breath in the air.
Sophia surveys their makeshift camp in the same way a general observes his troops' battle skills. The blankets piled in the corner, snacks arranged on top of the copier (Manon’s work, thanks; she’s very prideful), and her phone propped up like a tiny shrine. Manon waits for her verdict, impatient. “Okay. This is cozy.”
“This is a nightmare.”
“A cozy nightmare,” Sophia shoots back. She plops down on the blankets, pulling one around her shoulders. When she looks up at Manon, her face is illuminated, half by the fading light from her phone and half by the dim emergency bulb in the hallway. But she’s happy, eyes bright, like they’ve just hit a million dollar jackpot, and she’s nodding her head in a way that leaves her antlers crooked, again, because Manon’s a sinner and can’t look anywhere that’s not Sophia. “Come on. Sit. We should conserve body heat.”
Manon's brain does something unforgivable, which is immediately supply several ways they could conserve body heat, most of which involve significantly less clothing than they're currently wearing. She sits. Keeps a reasonable distance between them. Does not think about Sophia's mouth or her hands or the way she smells like cinnamon even now. Does not think about how small this room is. Does not think about how close Sophia is sitting or how easy it would be to just — no. Not thinking about it.
Sophia pulls her knees up to her chest. “So. What do we do now?”
“We wait.”
“For how long?”
Manon wraps a blanket around herself. It's scratchy and smells faintly like dust, and Manon hates how overstimulating it feels on her skin. She’s overcome with the unreasonable urge to toss it, but it's better than hypothermia. Probably. Juries still out on that one. “Until the storm stops. Until someone plows the roads. Until we can leave. Could be a day, could be two.”
Sophia picks at the edge of her blanket, not looking at Manon. “I'm glad you're here.”
Manon flatlines. “What?”
“I'm glad you're here. I know this sucks, but…” she trails off, fingers clenching cloth. “If I had to be stuck in a blizzard with someone from this office, I'm glad it's you.”
Manon's heart does the flip thing again. Harder this time. Her throat feels tight. “You're just saying that because I'm the only option.”
Which, true. Sophia’s probably the picture-perfect person to be around in an emergency, but Manon’s a little subpar, as far as survival companions go. Her ranking’s boosted by the sheer fact that her competition would be Lara (who’d promptly die without cell service) or Megan (who has enough corny jokes in her backpocket to render even a teenage boy speechless). Or Dani, Manon supposes, but Dani would ask a trillion questions and drive Sophia mad and they would’ve never left the office’s main area or grabbed the blankets, securing death by freezing.
“No.” Sophia says certainly, like it's an indisputable fact. Like it's something that should be obvious to Manon. “I mean it.”
The room’s getting colder, breath little clouds dissipating in the dim light, but Manon hardly notices. Sophia's looking at her with an expression Manon can't quite read. It’s open and maybe a little scared and unbearably sincere. The antlers are still crooked. God. Those stupid antlers are going to drive her mad. She wants to throw them down the garbage chute. But she knows how happy they make Sophia, so Manon's hands simply twitch with the urge to fix them again, to touch Sophia's hair, to — she clenches her fists under the blanket. She should say something. Reassure her. Do literally anything other than sit here and stare like an idiot.
“I'm glad you're here too,” she echoes shakily, and it comes out quieter than she meant. More honest. Too honest, probably, but it's already left her mouth. She can hardly take it back now.
Sophia smiles. “Yeah?”
Manon swallows. “Yeah.”
They sit there in the dim light, wrapped in terrible blankets, listening to the storm rage outside. Sophia shifts closer, just a little, but enough that their shoulders are almost touching. Manon's cold and tired and pretty sure they're going to die of hypothermia before morning.
But Sophia's here.
And maybe that simple fact makes it a little bit okay.
Manon doesn't sleep.
She tries — spends a solid two hours lying on the floor of the copy room, wrapped in a blanket that irritates her beyond belief, listening to Sophia's breathing even out into something slow and steady.
But every time she closes her eyes her brain supplies a helpful list of everything that could go wrong: the heating never coming back on, the emergency lights dying, the snow getting so high they can't open any of the doors even after the storm passes, hypothermia, starvation, or — worse — having to spend multiple days in close proximity to Sophia without doing something astronomically stupid.
So yeah. She doesn't sleep.
Instead, she watches the window.
The sky goes from black to grey to a pale, weak blue, and the snow finally stops falling around five in the morning, flakes getting smaller and smaller before they disappear entirely. By six, there's enough light to see the damage — that is, drifts piled against the building, halfway up the first floor; cars buried completely, vague clumps in the landscape; the street transformed into a flat expanse of white that looks almost beautiful until you remember it's an active threat to your survival.
Sophia stirs around seven, making a small noise (half-yawn, half-whimper; it imprints itself in Manon’s brain, promising a thousand replays before bed tonight) that Manon absolutely does not find cute. She sits up slowly, blanket sliding off her shoulders, and blinks at Manon with unfocused eyes. The antlers are gone — she must've taken them off at some point during the night. Her hair's a mess, tangled, with strands stuck to her mouth and chin. She looks…well, cute, in her own rumpled way, and Manon needs to stop looking at her immediately.
“Did you sleep?” Sophia asks, voice rough and sleep-scraped. Manon nearly dies. Hardly even registers what comes out of Sophia’s mouth. Why did her coworker have to be so cute…? From her looks to her voice to her — no. Enough. Manon nearly slaps herself in the face. She has to stay focused.
“A little.” A lie, but a kind one.
“Liar.” Sophia rubs her eyes, fists grinding into her eye sockets — eerily reminiscent of a tired child — and yawns. This action proves to be awful for Manon, because those horribly adorable eyes are now properly fixed on her, with an intensity that makes her want to crawl under the terrible blanket and hide forever. She’s going to die. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
Sophia, sweet Sophia, who has never liked hurting a fly much less insulting another person, immediately backtracks, shaking her head with whiplash-worthy force. “I meant it as a compliment. Like, you do look terrible, but in a hot way. You know?” Sophia blinks, looking like her soul has just flown from her body. “Wait. Did I say that out loud?”
Manon's brain stops. Full-system failure. Every coherent thought she's had for the past seven hours evaporates, and she’s left standing there like an idiot trying to process the words “hot way” coming out of Sophia’s mouth, in reference to her. She should say something, anything, but her mouth won't cooperate, and Sophia's peering at her with those sleep-hazy eyes and Manon's wondering if it's possible to develop hypothermia from the inside out. “You're still half-asleep.”
“Right. Yeah. That's it. I didn't mean to, um.” Sophia's face goes through a multitude of emotions in two seconds — embarrassed, panicked, mortified — before settling on defiant. “I mean, you do look hot, but I shouldn't have said it like that. That was weird. Sorry.”
“It's fine,” Manon chokes out, voice cracking. It’s not fine. If anything, it's the opposite of fine. The antithesis of fine. The…whatever-English-class-vocab-word means absolutely not fine. She's going to think about Sophia saying you look hot in a sleep-rough voice for the rest of her life. Her fingers are numb from the cold, but her face feels warmer than ever. She needs to redirect this conversation before she does something catastrophically stupid like ask Sophia to say it again, or elaborate, or. Or. “The snow stopped.”
“Oh.” Sophia turns to look at the window, apparently as grateful for the subject change as Manon is. Her shoulders drop, tension bleeding out. “That's good.”
“Maybe. We should check if we can get out.”
“You said we'd die if we tried.”
“That was last night. During the storm.” Manon stands — tries to, really. Her back protests immediately from a night on the floor. Every vertebra lodges a complaint, a chorus of regret about her decision to give Sophia both sleeping bags. She's too old for this. Or maybe just too tired. Too…something. “Now we'll probably just get frostbite.”
“Very reassuring,” Sophia giggles, standing too, a blanket wrapped around herself like a cape. She looks ridiculous. A cheap-budget superhero. But that’s the thing about Sophia. Superman, the office would call her. When she’s standing like that, back straight and chin lifted, they aren’t that far off. “Okay. Let's do this.”
The front entrance is still completely blocked, which Manon expected, but Sophia insists on checking anyway. They stand there in the dim hallway, breath fogging in the cold air. Manon feels more than a little stupid for repeating the exact same action they did the day prior, like they’re stuck in a time loop, or a bad sitcom, or a personal hell designed to test her patience (re: patience that nears zero).
The snow’s compacted itself against the door in an oddly hypnotizing manner. Layers upon layers of it, like geological strata, each one representing another hour of the blizzard. If geological strata were trying to actively kill you.
Manon tries to calculate how long it would take to dig through that much snow with their bare hands. Hours. Days, maybe. They'd lose some fingers to frostbite before they made it halfway, and then they’d have to dig one-handed, which would take even longer — eventually, they’d just be two frozen corpses with souls that become a local, famed ghost story.
“We could dig through it,” Sophia suggests, unknowingly echoing Manon’s thoughts.
Manon immediately frowns, shutting it down. “With what? Our hands?”
“I'm just brainstorming.”
“Brainstorm quieter,” Manon retorts, and Sophia shoots her a look that's half-annoyed, half-amused. It's the same look she gives Manon when Manon points out typos in her reports, or reorganizes her desk, or does literally anything that could be interpreted as bossy. Manon's seen that look a thousand times and it shouldn't make her stomach flip, because it’s never really done that before (lie lie lie lie), but apparently her body doesn’t get the memo about professional boundaries. Or, if it got the memo, it threw it directly into the garbage.
They try the side exit next. The one they checked yesterday, the one that set off the alarm killing Manon’s ears and any animals in a 24-mile radius. She half-expects it to be worse, but when she pushes the door open (no alarm this time; the universe has given up on warning systems), there's a gap.
It’s not a big gap, by any means. Maybe two feet of clearance at the top where the snow hasn't quite reached the doorframe. It doesn’t hinder Sophia in the slightest. “Oh my god!” Sophia exclaims. Her eyes shine like two hopeful fireballs. “We can fit through that.”
“No, we can't.”
“I can fit through that,” Sophia corrects, a grin glueing itself to her face.
“Sophia —”
“I'm small. I'll fit.” She's already assessing the gap, movements clunky and bright, seeping with determination that typically precedes a trip to the emergency room. “I'll squeeze through, dig out the other side a little, and then you can follow.”
Manon's known Sophia for three years.
In that time, she's watched her try to move a filing cabinet by herself (resulting in a sprained wrist), attempt to fix the break-room microwave with a butter knife (resulting in a small fire), and climb onto a wobbly chair to reach the top shelf instead of asking for help (resulting in a twisted ankle and Manon having to catch her). This plan has the same energy as all of those incidents combined, multiplied, and set on fire. “And then what? We're still in a blizzard. We have no car. We don't know if the roads are even plowed.”
“So we walk to my apartment. It's four blocks.”
This girl cannot be serious. “Four blocks in sub-zero temperatures.”
“I've done worse,” Sophia argues, hand on hip, which — Manon wants to ask about that, wants to know what worse means, wants to catalog every reckless decision Sophia's ever made so she can understand why she keeps making them. She never gets the chance to ask, not when Sophia's busy shrugging off her blanket and rolling up her sleeves. “Come on. Help me up.”
This is a terrible idea. Manon knows it's a terrible idea. But she’s also known Sophia long enough to recognize the particular brand of stubbornness in her voice. It’s the kind that means arguing will only waste time and energy. Sophia's going to do it whether Manon helps or not, so she might as well make sure she doesn't break her neck in the process.
She links her hands together, a makeshift foothold, and Sophia steps onto them, hands gripping Manon's shoulder for balance. She's lighter than Manon expected, or Manon's just stronger than she thought. Or — the likely option — adrenaline is warping her perception of weight and gravity and forcing her to hyperfocus on Sophia's hand on her shoulder, fingers digging in.
Sophia grabs the top of the doorframe, hoisting herself up with a grunt. For a second, she's suspended there, halfway through the gap, legs dangling.
“This is elegant,” Sophia starts. Awkward.
“You look ridiculous.”
“I'm going to pretend you said I look graceful and athletic.” She wiggles forward, and there's a muffled oof as she lands on the other side. “Okay. I'm out. See? Easy.”
Manon sticks her head through the gap. Sophia's standing in the snow, waist-deep — because of course the drift on this side is massive — grinning up at her like she's accomplished something other than getting herself stuck in a frozen hellscape.
The morning light catches her face, makes her look proud and reckless and entirely too pleased with herself. There’s snow in her hair, but Manon’s too far to do anything about it. Her cheeks are a pink that’s a touch away from worrying but…of course, on Sophia, it only makes her stupidly, unfairly beautiful.
A strange warmth rushes through Manon. It feels uncomfortably close to fondness, or maybe terror, or some blend of the two that doesn't have a name yet. “This is a bad idea,” is the only thing Manon can utter.
“You don't know that yet.”
“I know it right now.”
Sophia waves her off and starts wading forward, pushing through the snow with her arms like she's swimming. She makes it maybe three steps before her boot catches on something buried and she stumbles, flailing, and then she's falling forward but Manon's already moving, shoving herself through the gap, landing hard on the snow, scrambling towards Sophia —
She catches her. Barely. More like breaks her fall, really. They end up in a tangle of limbs and cold and Sophia's hair in Manon's face.
The world narrows down to this: snow soaking through her jeans, Sophia's weight against her, the way her own heart is hammering so hard she's surprised it doesn't crack a rib. She can feel Sophia breathing, startled, can smell whatever shampoo she uses — floral, maybe lavender — and her brain is supplying extremely unhelpful observations about how soft Sophia's hair is and how warm her body is. They are definitely too close for this to be professional or platonic or anything other than dangerous.
Her brain seems to agree with that sentiment, yelling DANGER DANGER DANGER like a blaring alarm.
“Ow,” Sophia says, grimacing.
“Are you okay?” Is Manon’s immediate response. She doesn't move. Can't move. Sophia's pressed against her, warm despite the cold, and Manon can feel her heartbeat. Or maybe that's Manon's own heartbeat. She's not sure anymore. It all bleeds together, like they’re one, conjoined person.
“Yeah. I'm…yeah.” Sophia lifts her head, and they're close. Too close. Close enough that Manon can count her eyelashes, see the exact shade of her eyes, notice the way her breath hitches. “Thanks for catching me.”
“You should be more careful.” Manon stoutly ignores the tremble in her voice.
“I'm always careful.”
“You just fell face-first into a snowdrift.”
“That was a calculated risk,” Sophia objects, but she's smiling now, soft and a little breathless. Her hand is on Manon's shoulder. Manon's hand is on her waist. This is — they should move. They should definitely move. If Manon had any sense of self-preservation, she'd push Sophia away and stand up to create a reasonable amount of personal space between them. Instead, like an idiot, she's frozen here, literally and figuratively, stuck watching Sophia look at her like something between them has shifted.
Manon clears her throat and pulls back, and Sophia lets her, smile still present. The loss of warmth is immediate and awful, and Manon’s nearly about to fuse them once again. She puts a leash on her impulse control before that can happen. “Okay,” Sophia begins, hand coming up to brush back her snow-damped hair. She looks unfairly good. “So. Walking four blocks might be harder than I thought.”
“You think?”
“Don't be smug.” Sophia looks around at the snow, the buried cars, the street that's completely impassable. Her smile fades into something more resigned. “We should go back inside.”
Manon nods with all the eagerness of a child hooked up on dessert. “Good idea.”
“I have those sometimes,” Sophia says, a smirk splaying her lips. Snow’s still dusting her face, giving her the air of a fallen angel, haloed and utterly beautiful.
They wade back to the door, Manon boosting Sophia up first and hauling herself through after. By the time they're both back in the hallway, they're soaked and freezing. Sophia's teeth are chattering, meshing with minutely body shivers. Her lips are tinged blue at the edges. Manon's own hands are numb, but she barely notices, too focused on Sophia's shaking and the way her shoulders are hunched against the cold.
“That was stupid,” Manon breathes, shaking her hands in an attempt to gain back warmth.
“But informative,” Sophia argues. It’s less convincing when said through chattering teeth. “Now we know we definitely can't leave.”
“We already knew that.”
“Now we know it empirically.” She's shivering harder now, arms wrapped around herself. It looks like it hurts. “God, it's cold.”
In a split-second, Manon’s grabbing the blanket from where Sophia dropped it and wrapping it around her shoulders, pulling it tight and snug. Sophia makes a small, grateful noise and leans into her — it’s only for a second, but with time turning sluggish and slow, it could’ve been forever. And Manon…there’s something bubbling up. Something that feels like wanting and shouldn't. She keeps her hands on the blanket edges longer than necessary, telling herself it's just to make sure Sophia's properly covered, and absolutely not because she's looking for excuses to touch her.
“Come on,” Manon says, stepping back. Because, distance. Distance rocks! Boundaries. Keep professional boundaries with her coworker. “Let's get you warmed up before you turn into an ice sculpture.”
“An elegant ice sculpture, though,” Sophia retorts, voice rocky from the violent shivers wrecking her. Manon doesn't mean to laugh but she does anyway. The sound of it surprises her — rough and genuine and entirely Sophia's fault.
Back in the copy room, Manon makes Sophia change out of her wet tights (there's an emergency kit in the supply closet with those terrible paper-thin blankets that double as the world's worst clothing) and then proceeds to wrap her in every available blanket. Sophia tolerates this with good humor, even if Manon's being overbearing about it.
The thing is, Manon knows she's being overbearing. She can hear herself doing it, with the clipped instructions, with the strict and precise and not-at-all-necessary blanket arrangements, and with the fact that she physically turned Sophia around by the shoulders to ensure the layers were distributed evenly. She's being ridiculous, sure. But Sophia's lips were blue and her hands were shaking so badly that Manon's brain has apparently decided stopping those is now her primary objective, overriding all other concerns including dignity and personal space.
“I'm fine,” Sophia repeats for the third time.
“You were shivering.”
“I'm not shivering anymore.”
“Because I made you get warm.” Manon emphasizes her point by tugging one of the blankets higher, tucking it around Sophia's shoulders. Her fingers brush Sophia's neck, checking the temperature. Still cold, but warming up. Slow and steady wins the race. A sigh of relief leaves Manon — Sophia’s okay, and that’s all that matters. Then her consciousness catches up to her body and she realizes her fingers are on Sophia’s neck and jerks back like she's been burned.
“You're very bossy,” Sophia says, tucked into her blanket cocoon, smiling up at her. “I didn't know you had a caretaking instinct.”
“I don't.”
Sophia raises her eyes, the silent that's bullshit seeping out, judging Manon for her actions and her existence. “You literally just wrapped me in four blankets and made me drink water.”
“That's basic survival, not caretaking.” Manon gives Sophia the stink eye, even though it's absolutely caretaking and they both know it. She sits down across from Sophia, criss-cross apple-sauce because she’s a child at heart, and takes the time to scoot back, maintaining a deliberate distance between them now that the immediate ‘Sophia freezing’ crisis has passed. “If you get hypothermia I have to deal with it alone, and that sounds terrible.”
“So you're keeping me alive out of self-interest.”
“Obviously.”
“How romantic,” Sophia teases. Manon doesn't know what to do with that, Sophia teasing her like it’s second nature, so she instead focuses her attention on the food pile next to her and pretends to reorganize their supplies. She moves the candy canes to the left. Then back to the right. Then questions every decision she's ever made that led to this moment: trapped in an office, reorganizing candy canes, and trying very hard not to replay the word romantic in Sophia's voice.
They eat instant noodles for breakfast. Sophia makes a face at the first bite. “These are so bad.”
“They're food.”
“They're sodium —” Sophia pauses, chewing. Her tongue pokes out in disgust. “And, dear God, a thousand year old noodles.”
“Same thing,” Manon breezily responds. She takes it as a win when Sophia laughs. It echoes in the small room, warmer than it has any right to be. Manon focuses on her noodles and tries not to notice the way Sophia's nose scrunches up when she takes a slurp of the broth, or how she's holding the cup with both hands like she's trying to absorb every bit of heat from it.
The heating still hasn't come back on. The emergency lights are dimmer now, flickering occasionally, like they're considering giving up entirely. Manon glances around at their flimsy, make-shift camp. They have enough food for maybe two more days, and that’s if they're careful. Water's not an issue; they can melt snow if they have to. The cold is the real problem. If the heating doesn't come back on and the temperature keeps dropping, they're going to be in trouble.
Real trouble. The kind of trouble where they’ll get found in spring instead of rescued in winter, frozen in whatever position they died in and, since the universe loves a good cosmic joke, probably still pathetically gripping a cup of instant noodles.
Manon’s read the statistics. She knows exactly how long human bodies can withstand cold (at zero fahrenheit, frostbite can occur within thirty minutes, which is not a welcoming stat given their current lack of warmth), and that their makeshift blanket situation is nowhere near adequate for prolonged exposure to these temperatures. But thinking about it makes her chest tight and her hands shake — not from the cold, but from the ever-present fear. She shoves it down and focuses on the immediate: food, water, warmth. Everything else can wait.
She doesn't say any of this to Sophia. Sophia's already stressed as is, wrapped in her blankets and dredging toward hypothermia, and still senselessly attempting to make Manon laugh with terrible jokes about their terrible noodles. “We'll be fine.”
Sophia studies her face. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Manon lies. It comes easy, with the amount of times she’s fibbed to Sophia in the past twenty-four hours. “Someone will plow the roads eventually. We just have to wait it out.”
“Okay.” Sophia nods, seemingly believing her. Like Manon's word is enough to make it true. “Okay.” she repeats, a little more sure this time. “We can do that.”
They finish their noodles in silence. Outside, the sky's grey and heavy with the promise of more snow to come. Manon doesn't mention that either, or that if it snows again they're definitely stuck here another night, maybe longer. And with the way her hands are already numb despite the blankets, they — yeah. She closes up that thought, boxes it and ships it off to do-not-think city. Just…yeah.
By noon, Manon's accepted that they're not leaving today.
The realization settles over her slowly — not all at once, but in increments. The snow begins to fall again around ten. The temperature drops low enough that she can see her breath inside. It’s not the first time she’s seen physical traces of their huffs, but this time makes the rest look like child’s play. The emergency lights flickering in quicker frequency, counting down the seconds until termination.
She wishes she had written her will before getting stuck in here. Because that’s what they are: stuck here. Really stuck. And there's nothing she can do about it except make sure they don't freeze to death or starve or kill each other out of boredom.
She's been running scenarios in her head all morning: the logistics of rationing food, the best way to insulate the copy room, whether or not they should try to break into the vending machines on the second floor for more supplies.
It's the kind of problem-solving that would usually calm her down, give her brain something to chew on, but today it only serves as a one-way trip to panic town, because every solution leads to another problem. They need more blankets but there aren't any. They need more food but they can't get to the store. They need the heating to come back on but that's entirely out of their control, and Manon hates being out of control more than she hates almost anything else.
Sophia, for her part, seems to be handling it better than Manon expected. Or, at least, better than Manon is. She's pacing the copy room for the past hour, blanket still trailing behind her, occasionally pausing to peer out the window like the view might have changed within the last five minutes. It hasn't. It's just snow, snow and, surprise surprise, more snow — that, and the vague outline of cars buried under snow.
“We should make a plan,” Sophia begins, pausing to whirl around and face Manon. Sophia’s always liked to have her hands in motion, so it isn’t long before she’s picking at the loose threads on her pseudo-cape blanket.
“We have a plan: wait for rescue.”
“A better plan. Like, activities. Things to keep us occupied.” Her eyes brighten with a determined enthusiasm that Manon's learned to be at minimum, wary of, and at most, incredibly fearful of. “We could play games.”
“What games?” Manon scoffs. “We're in an office.”
Sophia's hand comes up to scratch her chin. “Twenty questions. Or truth or dare.”
“Absolutely not.” The answer comes out faster than Manon intended, and sharp, like a blade. Sophia flinches slightly, and Manon immediately feels like an asshole. Because. Fuck. Sophia’s like sunshine incarnated. There’s probably fifty sins Manon just committed by snapping at her. She hadn’t meant to be harsh but she’s already on edge. Adding to that by playing truth or dare with Sophia, where Manon could be asked questions she doesn't want to answer, or worse, be dared to do something she wants to do too much, makes her want to crawl out of her own skin.
“You didn't even consider it,” Sophia exclaims, gaping like a fish.
“I considered it,” Manon says. “For zero seconds. And then I decided no.”
Sophia pouts, which should not be as effective as it is. Manon's spent years building up immunity to puppy-dog eyes and disappointed expressions, mostly out of necessity from dealing with denied vacation requests and her higher-up begging her to forgive her, but somehow Sophia's lower lip trembling tears her resolve like it’s paper. It’s frankly embarrassing. “You're no fun.”
“I'm realistic,” Manon protests, eyes shifting to the ceiling so as to not be trapped by the Sophia gaze. “There's a difference.”
“In here, though?” Sophia sits down next to her, and their shoulders touch. Not even that — their shoulders brush. It’s barely anything. Still, the contact manages to send a jolt through Manon's system that’s part warmth, part panic. “Come on. We have to do something or we'll go crazy.”
She has a point.
Unfortunately.
Manon's successfully made her mind a personal hell-hole the entire morning by calculating food rations and temperature drop rates and how long they can survive in these conditions.
She needs a distraction. In all honesty, they both do — Sophia’s pacing might puncture a hole into the floor.
So, if the alternative is sitting here in silence while her brain supplies increasingly dire scenarios about hypothermia and rescue teams finding their frozen bodies in three weeks, then maybe playing twenty questions isn't the worst idea. Manon will begrudgingly admit that.
“Fine,” Manon sighs. Physics is wrong; unstoppable forces do exist, because Sophia Laforteza is here and living and directly in front of Manon, who plays her part as a very moveable object quite well. “But nothing embarrassing.”
“Define embarrassing.”
“Anything that involves sharing feelings or talking about crushes or —” she stops herself before she can finish that sentence, because the only crush currently on her mind is sitting six inches away and grinning at her like a cat that’s just got the cream of the crop. Also because saying the word crushes makes her feel like she’s twelve all over again, and she’s already been through puberty once, thank you very much.
“Oh my god, you're so uptight,” Sophia gets out between a fit of laughter. It should sound mean but it doesn't, like Manon's uptightness is endearing rather than annoying. “Fine. We'll keep it surface level. Favorite color. Worst job. Whether you're a cat person or a dog person.”
“Cat.”
“I didn't ask yet.”
“You were going to.”
“Okay, true.” Sophia grins. “I'm a cat person too. Obviously.”
“Obviously?” Manon questions, eyebrows raising.
“I have the energy of a cat.” Sophia scans the room and spots a spare blanket almost instantly, though its on the other side of the room. She’s quick to snatch it and plant her face in it. Manon’s trying to not stare at her like she’s an absolute weirdo (which Sophia is, to be fair), but it isn’t too long before Sophia ceases her sniffing and brandishes the cloth on her back. Problem: she already had a blanket hanging off her shoulders, which means the addition only serves to make her former cape-blanket look more like a taco-blanket. “Likes to be warm. Blankets! Sleeps a lot.”
“You don't sleep a lot. You're always the first one in the office.” Manon squints at her, the same way she would if she was reading a rather confusing piece of literature. She knows this — how early Sophia arrives — because she's usually the second one in, and she's never beaten Sophia to work. Not once in three years. She's tried, seriously. Set her alarm for six, for five-thirty, once even for five, but Sophia's always already there, humming while she makes coffee, looking unfairly alert for someone who claims to need ten hours of sleep to function.
“That's because I'm a morning person, which is completely different.” Sophia pulls the blankets tighter around her. A beat passes and she seems to realize how ridiculous she must look right now, and Sophia finally drops the second blanket. The cape returns. “Okay, your turn. Ask me something.”
Manon thinks. She should ask something boring, like, favorite food, worst vacation — it’s safe, it isn’t invasive, and it won’t bite her back in the ass. But a thought has entered her head, something that’s never a good sign, and, with her curiosity successfully piqued, Manon asks, “Why'd you transfer here?”
Sophia blinks in surprise. “To the office?”
“Yeah. You were in the west coast branch. Better weather. Better pay, probably. And you moved here.” Manon gestures vaguely at the window, at the snow, the cold. “Why?”
“Oh.” Sophia's quiet for a second, and Manon wonders if she's pushed too far. They don't usually talk about…well, this kind of thing. The real stuff. The stuff that matters. They talk about work and weekend plans and whether the new coffee brand in the break-room is acceptable or an offense against humanity. They don't talk about why Sophia moved across the country, or why Manon's been at this branch for five years since she graduated college, without ever applying for a transfer, or any of the other big questions that hang between them.
But then Sophia says, “I needed a change. Things were…complicated, back there. Bad breakup. Messy friend group. I just wanted to start over somewhere new.”
“And you picked here.”
“I picked here," Sophia confirms. “Which, in hindsight, maybe wasn't the best choice given the whole trapped-in-a-blizzard thing. But overall I don't regret it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I met you,” Sophia explains simply, like 2+2=4 and the sun is out today. Manon's chest gets tight again. The painful squeeze that she's starting to associate with Sophia saying nice things in that earnest, unguarded way she does everything. Like she doesn't know that her words easily carve a place and lodge themselves into Manon’s ribcage, staying there for days, replayed on loop every time Manon lets her guard down.
Manon doesn't know how to respond.
That’s another thing.
A question that can never quite leave her, that surfaces each time her thoughts eventually (because they always do) trail back to Sophia: whether or not Sophia means it the way Manon wants her to mean it, craves for her to mean it, or if she's just being her friendly self — if this is another one of those things where she reads too much into Sophia’s earnestness.
She's done this before.
Convinced herself that a smile meant more than niceties, that a lingering touch was an innuendo, that maybe, maybe, maybe maybe maybe, Sophia felt the same way. But then they’d be drinking coffee, and Sophia would mention a date she went on or someone she thinks is cute and Manon has to recalibrate, remind herself that friendship is enough, that wanting more is greedy.
So, like every other time, she recalibrates and moves forward. “Your turn.”
Sophia mercifully doesn't push. “Okay. Um. What's your cat's name?”
“Cheese,” Manon says, as serious as a robot. She loves her cat, thanks. And takes her kitty’s name very, very seriously.
“Your cat is named Cheese?”
“She's orange and makes angry noises. It fit.”
“That's the cutest thing I've ever heard,” Sophia laughs, delighted. Her whole face lights up, impossibly beautiful, and Manon has to pinch herself before she smiles back a touch too wide or lets go of her impulse control entirely and reaches out to touch Sophia. “Do you have pictures?”
“On my phone,” Manon apologetically points at it. “Which is… currently dead.”
“We'll look at them when we get out of here. Okay? That’s a promise." Sophia shifts, pulling her knees up to her chest. The movement brings her nearer, and lets Manon feel the warmth radiating off her through the layers of blankets. It’s nice, but it makes it hard to breathe, so Manon’s kind of hoping she’ll shift back. Part of her will also die if Sophia does shift back. “Okay, my turn to ask. What's your actual least favorite thing about Christmas?”
Manon's been expecting this question since yesterday, but it still manages to catch her off-guard.
She could deflect. Make a joke. A one-liner quip on the music, or the commercialism, or the way people pretend to be nice for one month and then go back to being terrible people.
But Sophia's looking at her like she actually wants to know. That Manon could say anything, from hating cookies to a buttload of family trauma, and Sophia wouldn't judge her for it.
Maybe it's the cold, or the exhaustion, or the fact that they might actually die here and Manon's tired of keeping everything locked down. Whatever the reason is, she finds the truth tumbling out of her. “It's supposed to be about family. Being together. But I spent most of my Christmases alone. Or with babysitters, or —” she stops. Takes a breath. Works her thoughts into words, led by Sophia’s patient glance. “My parents worked constantly. I get why they had to, but it still sucked. And everyone else was so happy, and I just felt like I was doing it wrong. Like there was something wrong with me for not enjoying it.”
The words come out flat. Matter-of-fact. The truth of it is that she's had literal years to process this — build up a scar tissue around the memory of being ten years old and eating microwaved pizza alone while her classmates talked about family dinners and opening presents together come Christmas morning. All and all, it doesn't hurt the way it used to. Mostly. But saying it out loud still feels like exposing a raw and tender part of her she’s not totally ready for Sophia to see, and she has to fight the urge to take it back, laugh it off, and rebuild the walls she just knocked down.
“There's nothing wrong with you,” Sophia utters, quiet. But her voice is fierce, protective in a way that makes Manon's throat tight.
“I know that now. Like, logically and all that. But the feeling stuck, you know?” Manon fiddles with the edge of the blanket. It helps, having something to do with her hands. Distracts herself from the way Sophia is staring at her, like she matters. “So now I just avoid it. Easier that way.”
“That makes sense,” Sophia admits. It makes Manon eternally grateful. She doesn't try to fix it, doesn't bother telling Manon she should give Christmas another chance, that it could be different. She just nods, thoughtful. “For what it's worth, I think you're allowed to hate whatever holidays you want. You don't owe anyone forced cheer. It’s a holiday. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Thanks,” Manon says, and she’s surprised by how much she means it. There’s that relief she hadn’t expected to feel — relief that comes from airing out her business, her dirty laundry. She hadn't realized how much she needed someone to simply let her feel what she feels without arguing how wrong it is.
They sit there for a moment, comfortable silence settling between them. Outside, snow keeps falling, and the world keeps moving; but inside, it’s halted, with Manon letting herself relax, easing the tension in her shoulders, settling into this safe haven they’ve created.
And then Sophia breaks the silence with a, “You know what we need?”
“Food that isn't instant noodles?”
“Music.” Sophia pushes herself off her feet and aimlessly digs for her phone. Manon has about two seconds to process what's happening before ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ starts blasting from the tiny speaker.
The opening notes hit like a physical assault. Manon's whole body tenses. “No.” Manon silently begs for mercy. Please, Sophia, have mercy. “Not again.”
“Yes,” Sophia quips back, turning up the volume. Sophia is not a forgiving god.
“Your phone's going to die.”
“Then we'll enjoy it while it lasts.” Sophia twists her feet toward Manon, extending a hand. Her eyes are bright with mischief and challenge and she looks…well…crazy. Especially in her current garb: body still shaky from her failed escape attempt, blanket-cape her donned protective layer, and socks that have gotten progressively more dirty over the past day from the office floor. Somehow, anyway, she looks perfect. Manon can’t stop staring. “Dance with me!”
“Absolutely not,” she rejects instantly. Manon's too raw from talking about her childhood, and combined with how close they were sitting makes her feel like she’s walking on a tight wire. She’ll trip in an instant. If she stands up and takes Sophia's hand, she's going to be touching her, moving with her, and she doesn't trust herself to maintain any kind of work-place appropriate distance.
“Come onnnnnn,” Sophia whines, feet never pausing their eager steps. “It'll keep us warm.”
“That's not how thermodynamics work.”
“It's how fun works,” Sophia retorts, grinning a touch brighter, hand still held out. “Please? Don’t make me beg. I promise I won't tell anyone you danced to Mariah Carey in an office during a blizzard.”
Manon should say no. She wants to say no, she swears.
But Sophia's looking at her with those eyes — like she matters, like she matters, like she matters — and that smile, and…fuck it all, because Manon's willpower has apparently gone on vacation. Or froze to death somewhere around the third hour of this nightmare. Either way, it's definitely not available to help her make good decisions right now.
So, Sophia wins.
She takes the offered palm, hesitant.
The contact’s electrifying, even through the cold. Sophia's fingers wrap around hers, somehow warm, unsurprisingly confident and sure. It’s the exact way Manon imagined it. Holding Sophia’s hand.
Manon finds herself heating up, in spite of the freezing temperature. Sophia pulls her up, laughing, and suddenly they're attempting to dance in a space that's hardly big enough for two people to stand. Sophia's doing some kind of shimmy. Manon is mostly swaying and trying not to trip over the blankets.
It's objectively ridiculous. It's the most ridiculous thing Manon's done in her entire life.
But…she's having fun. Against all odds, even with the worries racking her mind, she's actually having fun.
Sophia's spinning and giggling, a beautiful, little sound that Manon wants to memorize for the rest of her life, and she can't help but get pulled into it. That is, into the absurdity and the utter contagiousness of Sophia's joy — even when they're trapped in an office during a blizzard.
“You're terrible at this,” Sophia says, spinning under Manon's arm.
“I'm not trying.”
“Try a little,” Sophia begs, slipping her other hand around Manon’s waist. Which, oh fuck. “For me? Please?”
Manon folds in an instant, and tries a little. Which means she actually moves her feet and doesn't actively resist when Sophia grabs both her hands and spins them in a circle. The room's way too fucking small for this, and Manon almost trips twice, but Sophia's holding on and laughing and looking at her like this is the best thing that's happened all week. The song shifts to something slower — ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ — and Sophia ceases her spinning. Doesn't let go of Manon's hands, though.
“See?” Sophia breathes directly into her ear. Soft. Manon’s face heats up. “Not so bad.”
They're close again.
Closer than they were when Manon caught her in the snow, closer than they've ever been, maybe, apart from sleeping on the floor next to each other.
Sophia's hand has fallen to her shoulder, guiding them in a light waltz. Her hair is still messy, and there's a faint smudge of something on her cheek that Manon wants to wipe away. She doesn't. She stays very still and tries not to think about how easy it would be to just — lean in. Close the distance. Figure out if Sophia's mouth tastes like candy canes and terrible noodles and everything Manon's been trying not to want for months.
Years, maybe. She's lost track of when the wanting started.
Was it the first day Sophia transferred, bright and nervous and accidentally spilling coffee on Manon's report? Was it three months in, when Sophia stayed late to help with the inventory crisis even though it wasn't her job? Was it last summer, when they grabbed drinks after work and talked for three hours straight and Manon went home thinking about Sophia and couldn't stop?
It doesn't matter. The point is that she wants, has been wanting, and right now Sophia's standing close enough that Manon can count her eyelashes and it would be so easy to —
The song ends.
Sophia steps back, letting go of Manon's hands, and the moment breaks. Shatters, like it was never there in the first place.
“My phone's at five percent,” Sophia explains, answering the silent question Manon had been about to ask, holding up the aforementioned device. Five percent, Manon silently confirms. For the first and last time in her life, she curses the fact that Christmas music has stopped playing. Sophia’s voice is slightly breathless, cheeks flushed. From the dancing, probably. The cold, even. Definitely not from whatever just happened between them…because nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. “I should turn it off. Save it for emergencies.”
“Good idea.” Manon says, clearing her throat when it comes out rougher than intended. She takes a step back, and then another, putting space between them like that's going to undo the last five minutes.
Sophia powers it off, and the silence feels far heavier without the light, corny, annoyingly catchy Christmas tunes. Without Sophia’s laughter blending with it.
Manon sits back down. Sophia joins her, keeping a careful distance this time. The absence of touch feels deliberate, like they're both being careful now, aware of something they weren't aware of before. Then again, Manon's reading too much into it. She's always been good at that.
“Thanks,” Sophia offers after a moment, hands returning to their former blanket-picking activities.
“For what?”
“Dancing with me. Even though you hated it.”
“I didn't hate it,” Manon admits. Sophia's smile becomes pleased, and in return, something that feels like joy fills Manon. But she’s not a jolly person, not a joyful person, and simply looks away before she can convince herself it means something it doesn't.
They ration out their food for dinner, splitting a bag of chips and three candy canes each. It's not enough. Manon's stomach is still growling, relentless and upset, and she can tell Sophia's hungry too from the way she keeps eyeing the remaining supplies, but they need to make it last.
She does the math for the near hundredth time that day: if they eat light tomorrow, they can stretch their supplies through the day after. And if they're still here after that — well. They'll figure something out. They have to.
“Tomorrow, we can have the cookies.” Sophia breaks the silence, voice full of failed cheer, like she's trying to bring ‘good vibes’ into the room. It fails, leaving behind two unconvinced people and a worsening weather. “Something to look forward to.”
Manon lets a sardonic smile attach itself to her face. “Very optimistic.”
“I'm an optimistic person.”
“You're a person who tried to walk four blocks in a blizzard.”
“And I survived,” Sophia points out. “Thanks to you.”
Manon doesn't have a good response to that, a common occurrence when speaking to Sophia, so she just eats another candy cane and pretends the cold isn't getting worse.
The peppermint is sharp on her tongue, way too sweet, and has her feeling like she’s inching toward a pre-diabetic diagnosis (that's Megan, though, not her). But, in all honesty, not as terrible as it’d been the first day. If she’s starting to see the good in candy canes, her life must be shit.
Another unfortunate fact: the candy canes are not nearly filling enough. She tries to make it last, sucking on it slowly, but it's gone too soon and her stomach's still empty.
So. It’s getting worse. Everything.
By the time night falls, the temperature's dropped so low Manon can feel it in her bones. Every breath hurts. Her fingers are stiff even when she tucks them under her arms. The emergency lights are the most dim they’ve been, barely enough to see with. They've piled all the blankets together in one corner, and they're both wearing every layer they have. It's still not enough.
This is when people die, she thinks, and immediately tries to un-think it. But the thought's already there, settled deep and hard in her mind like concrete. This is the part in survival stories where things go wrong. The cold gets too intense, and people make bad decisions out of desperation, and when the rescue comes, it’s too late. Everyone is dead. They make a documentary about it to warn people of other’s stupidity, but people still repeat those same mistakes anyway.
In essence, their situation is precarious at best, actively dangerous at worst. Joy.
“We should sleep close.” Sophia skips the pleasantries, and goes straight into it. She’s half-busy twiddling her fingers, in a mock-thumb war with herself. “Body heat.”
“I know.” Manon's been thinking about it for the last hour, wrestling with whether or not she can survive a night pressed against Sophia without doing something irreversibly stupid. The answer is definitely a no, but freezing to death is worse, so. Here they are.
“I'm just saying —”
“I know,” Manon repeats, because yeah. She does know. She's done the math on this too: two bodies generate more heat than one and staying close is basic survival — this is purely practical and doesn't mean anything. Except it's going to mean everything to her, and Sophia will never know, but that's fine. It has to be fine.
They arrange the blankets into a nest. It's not comfortable, with the floor hard and cold, and the blankets scratchy and thin, but it's better than nothing.
Sophia lies down first, and Manon follows, hesitantly lying down next to her, carefully maintaining a few inches of distance. Those few inches feel important somehow, like a boundary set that once crossed can't be uncrossed.
Sophia immediately catches the boundary, the few inches Manon has deliberately placed. “You're too far away.”
“I'm right here.”
“You're going to freeze. Come closer.”
Manon closes the distance.
They're pressed together now, shoulder to hip to knee and…it helps. Honestly. Sophia's radiating warmth like a tiny space heater. She still smells like cinnamon under the stale office air. Manon tries very hard not to notice. Fails completely. Starts sorting it into the ‘Sophia file’ anyway: cinnamon, something floral from her shampoo, the faint scent of peppermint from the candy canes. She's building a detailed sensory map of Sophia without meaning to, and she can't stop herself. She likes it. Memorizing Sophia. Manon hates herself for liking it.
“Better?” Sophia questions, one of her fingers brushing Manon’s leg in a way that leaves her nauseous and two seconds away from throwing up.
It's not okay. It's the opposite of okay.
Manon's heart is racing and her brain is supplying increasingly unhinged thoughts about what it would be like to turn her head, press her mouth to Sophia's hair, and pull her closer. To stop pretending that all this is about survival and survival only, and admit that she's wanted to be this close to Sophia since forever, wanted to touch her and hold her and know what it feels like to be someone Sophia chooses.
“It's fine,” Manon responds dutifully. She’s never had much courage to speak her mind. Not when it comes to Sophia.
Sophia’s still peering at her, ever-concerned. “You sure? You're very tense.”
“I'm always tense.”
“True,” Sophia agrees, and Manon can hear the smile in her voice. “You should work on that.”
“I'll add it to my list.”
What she doesn’t say out loud, is that she’ll be adding it right below “stop falling for your coworker” and “learn to maintain appropriate professional boundaries” and “figure out how to survive this without completely embarrassing yourself.”
They're quiet for a while. Manon listens to Sophia's breathing, tangled with the wind outside. The consistency is broken by the occasional creak of the building settling.
She should sleep. She's exhausted — bone-deep tired, in a way that goes beyond physical fatigue. But Sophia's warm and solid against her, and Manon doesn't want to miss a second of this, even if it's torture. Even if tomorrow she'll have to pretend this didn't happen, didn't matter. Tonight she gets to have this, and she's going to hold onto every moment.
“Manon?” Sophia says quietly.
“Yeah?”
“I'm really glad you're here,” is what leaves Sophia’s mouth, because she’s always effortlessly killed Manon’s soul by being her genuine, mother-trucking adorable self.
Manon closes her eyes. “You said that already.”
“I know. I wanted to say it again.” Sophia's quiet for a moment, and then: “I know this is scary. And cold. And objectively terrible. But I don't think I'd be handling it as well if I was alone.”
“You'd be fine,” Manon denies. It’s true. Sophia would be fine. She's resilient in ways Manon isn't. Optimistic, adaptable, and able to find joy in terrible situations. She would've figured something out, dancing through the cold and smiling through the fear, and then — because Sophia is Sophia — made life-long friendships with the rescue workers when they finally showed up.
“Maybe. But I'm better with you.” She shifts slightly, burrowing closer. The movement brings her head more firmly onto Manon's shoulder, their bodies more flushed together than ever. Manon forgets that breathing is a bodily necessary. “You make me feel safe.”
And…Manon doesn't know what to say to that. Doesn't trust herself to say anything without her voice breaking. The words hit somewhere deep in her chest, settling there like weight. It’s not an uncomfortable weight, though. If anything, it’s more like a note she’ll keep tucked in her wallet forever.
She's spent so long acting careful and controlled, pretending she’s the person who keeps everything together. And here's Sophia, saying Manon makes her feel safe, like that's simple. Like it's true.
So she just drapes her arms around Sophia — just a little, barely noticeable — and hopes that's enough.
Sophia falls asleep first. Her breathing evens out, and her weight settles heavily against Manon's side. Manon lies there in the dark and thinks about how she's completely, catastrophically fucked.
She likes Sophia. Not in a casual, work-friend way. Not even in a regular crush way. She likes her in a way that feels big and terrifying, because it could so easily ruin everything if Manon's not careful. It’s the type of thing that keeps her up at night, stuck running in circles on the what-ifs and maybes and all the ways this could go wrong.
Because it would go wrong. It always goes wrong.
Manon's not good at this: at relationships, at vulnerability, at letting people in. She's tried before, tried so fucking hard, and it always ends the same way — with walls going up and distance creeping in.
Someone always gets hurt. Usually her. The thought of losing Sophia like that, of ruining their friendship because Manon couldn't keep her feelings in check…it's unbearable.
But right now, with Sophia asleep on her shoulder and the storm raging outside and nothing else in the world mattering except keeping both of them alive, Manon lets herself have this.
Just for tonight.
Just while Sophia's not awake to see how gone Manon is.
Just while she can pretend this is normal, this closeness is necessary, that this wanting doesn't have to mean anything beyond survival.
Tomorrow she'll go back to being careful. Tonight, Manon convinces herself she's allowed to want.
Manon wakes up to the sound of Sophia rummaging through something, which is significantly better than waking up to silence or the building collapsing or any of the other disaster scenarios her brain dreamt up.
She'd finally fallen asleep at what she assumes is three-ish (granted, lack of electronics means a lack of time awareness), mind too exhausted to keep cycling through all the worst-cases.
But even in sleep, she'd been aware of Sophia. The weight of her, the steady rhythm of her breathing. The warmth of her body next to Manon’s. She’s not sure if that's comforting or deeply concerning. Both?
She sits up slowly, and, ouch. Her entire body aches from sleeping on the floor. Her neck is stiff, and she's pretty sure she has a blanket pattern imprinted on her cheek. The icky taste of morning-after-bad-sleep sits thick in her mouth, no toothpaste to replenish it.
Sophia's crouched by the door, digging through what looks like a cardboard box, appearing completely unbothered by the fact that it's barely light out, and that they're still trapped in an office building.
“What are you doing?” Manon's voice comes out weird. Wonky. She clears her throat, tries again. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for anything useful,” Sophia tosses. She doesn't turn around. There's a determined set to her shoulders, the kind Manon's learned means she's on a mission. It’s cute. Cute in an extremely platonic sense. The way she might find a dog cute. Because. Yeah. “Found this in the supply closet. There's — oh, jackpot.”
She holds up a package of candles. The fancy kind, wrapped in plastic with a label that says “Holiday Aromatherapy Set” in annoyingly cursive font. It hurts her eyes. Even from here, though, Manon can see they're expensive. It’s the kind HR probably bought for some team-building exercise and then immediately forgot about. “HR's secret stash,” Sophia unknowingly confirms Manon’s thoughts, holding it up conspiratorially. “I knew they had good stuff hidden somewhere.”
“You broke into HR's office?”
“The door was unlocked. That's not breaking in; that's exploring my surroundings,” Sophia protests immediately, because she’s a golden girl at heart and would die if her reputation was stained with thieving. Sophia tears open the package with more enthusiasm than the situation warrants. There are maybe a dozen candles inside, all different scents — ginger, pine, something called Winter Wonderland that probably smells absolutely nothing like snow. “We can use these tonight. When the emergency lights finally give up.”
Manon's been watching those lights all night. They're flickering more frequently now, the intervals between said flickers getting shorter. She gives them another twelve hours at most. But…she doubts these candles would last long either. They’re small and flimsy at best. A small breeze would knock ‘em dead. “They're not going to last long,” she warns.
“Then we'll enjoy them while we can.” Sophia sets the candles down carefully, before turning to look at Manon. Her hair's falling out of its ponytail. She looks tired, eyebags the size of Jupiter, but still, somehow, luminous. That's the only word for it. Like she's generating her own light in this grey, cold space. Manon's having a hard time with this. That is, a hard time reconciling the fact that they're in a legitimately dangerous situation with the fact that Sophia's sitting there looking pleased about candles, grinning at Manon like waking up trapped in an office together is somehow a good thing. “How'd you sleep?”
“Fine,” Manon lies. She’s been doing that a lot lately. Sophia seems to bring it out in her. Lie, lie, lie, her brain cheers when Sophia is near.
“Liar.” Because as many times as Manon lies is as many times Sophia catches it. She wonders what's her tick — what makes it so obvious. A nose scrunch? The twitch of a finger? Or, well, maybe Sophia just knows Manon. Knows her well enough that she can just. Tell when she’s lying. “You barely slept."
“How would you know?” It comes out far more defensive than Manon intends. She doesn't like being read this easily, doesn't like that Sophia can tell when she's lying. In truth, it scares her far more than she can comfortably admit, because if Sophia can see through her lies about sleeping, then maybe Sophia read between the lines and spot her undeniable feelings, and that’s a can of worms she isn’t quite ready to open.
“Because every time I shifted you were still awake,” Sophia explains, drumming her fingers. Her eyebrows furrow in worry. “You need to take care of yourself, too. Not just me.”
“I'm fine.”
“You keep saying that.” Sophia moves closer, and before Manon can process what's happening, she’s pressing the back of her hand to Manon's forehead. Her fingers are cold but oh-so gentle, and Manon's brain momentarily stops functioning. “You're not warm, at least. That's good.”
“I told you I'm fine,” she says, weakly. It’s hard to sound authoritative when someone's touching her face and she’s trying very hard not to lean into it like a touch-starved cat.
“And I'm choosing to verify.” Sophia pulls her hand back, resting it on her thigh, apparently satisfied. The absence of touch is immediate and disappointing. Manon nearly begs for its return. “Okay. Breakfast?”
Breakfast is them splitting the last package of instant noodles and two cookies. It's barely enough to count as a meal. It doesn’t feel like a good time to say that, though. Because, sure, her stomach's cramping from lack of food, but complaining won't manifest more supplies. With this meal chowed down, they're left with one more package of noodles, half a bag of chips, and maybe a dozen candy canes. If they're still stuck here tomorrow, they're going to have a problem.
A real problem. The kind where they'll have to make decisions about rationing that go beyond “eat light” and into territory Manon doesn't want to think about.
She does the math anyway, because Manon calibrates numbers for a living, and, no, can’t quite help herself. One package of noodles split between two people. Half a bag of chips, maybe a hundred calories total. Candy canes are basically just sugar, no nutritional value. They're looking at maybe eight hundred calories between them for an entire day, and that's if they eat everything. In short: they’re running a deficit.
When they're done eating, Sophia’s quick to suggest they move around. Walk the hallways, do some stretches — anything to keep their blood moving. Manon agrees, mostly because sitting still means thinking, and thinking means spiraling about their food situation and the cold and the fact that no one's come to rescue them yet. That broaches another topic she doesn’t want to think about. The fact that, maybe, nobody's ever going to come and save them. That they’ll die here.
So, all in all, bright thoughts!
They do laps around the office. It's eerie in the daylight, with everything silent except for their footsteps and breathing. The usual sound of computers, HVAC, and people are gone, replaced by nothingness. It’s scary, in all honesty.
Her fears are slightly washed away by Sophia humming while they walk, some tune Manon doesn't recognize, but she’d bet a million dollars is from a Christmas song. It makes the space feel less abandoned; let’s Manon pretend they're not the last two people alive in a frozen wasteland and more like two people wandering for the sheer fun of it.
“Do you think anyone knows we're here?” Sophia asks after their third lap.
“Probably. Lara knew we were staying.” Manon's been thinking about this too, running through scenarios. Lara knew they were working late, but did she know they got stuck and were forced to stay overnight? Would she think to check on them? Would anyone? The office is closed for the holiday. No one has any reason to come here.
“But she doesn't know we're stuck.”
“Someone will figure it out,” Manon insists, hoping it's true, and that she sounds more confident than she feels. “When they can't reach us.”
“My phone's dead. Is yours?”
“Has been since yesterday.” Manon hadn’t mentioned it before, because, honestly, there hadn’t been any point. No signal — no way to contact anyone with it. And, now, no way to charge it. Just another thing that's out of their control. Another way they're cut off from the outside world. She doesn't like feeling trapped, never has, and the walls are beginning to inch closer, the windows suffocating them with the reminder that they’re trapped by inches of snow.
Sophia's quiet for a moment. Then: “So we're just…waiting.”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“I don't know,” Manon admits. The honesty tastes bitter. She should have an answer, find a more concrete number to give Sophia. Manon racks her brain. She comes up empty-handed. “Could be today. Could be a few more days.”
“Days,” Sophia repeats. She doesn't sound scared, not exactly. More like resigned. It fills Manon with the useless urge to fix this. Bestow her with false promises, whispers of “it'll be okay” — to do something other than stand here uselessly. “Okay.”
They keep walking.
By late afternoon, the emergency lights are nearly dead. Manon’s pretty certain they'll be gone by nightfall. The fluorescent tubes are buzzing, a high-pitched whine that sets her teeth on edge.
She doesn't say this to Sophia. Doesn’t have to. Sophia already knows.
She's been quieter today. Less of the determinedly cheerful energy from yesterday. More brittle. They both are. The cold is relentless, seeping into their bones and joints and making everything harder.
Manon's fingers are stiff, mind sluggish. She keeps losing her train of thought mid-sentence, keeps having to ask Sophia to repeat things. It's the cold. It has to be the cold. The alternative is something worse — early-stage hypothermia, her body shutting down non-essential functions.
They light the candles as the sun starts to set, arranging them on the floor of the copy room in a little circle. It looks like a prayer circle, like they’re preparing to sacrifice someone to Heaven up-above, and it’s ironic how such a small thing can bring Manon to near-tears. Everything’s funny when they’re dying, she supposes. On a highway to Heaven, or a roadtrip to Hell — fate currently undecided.
Just when they’re trying to figure out how to light the damn candles, loose trails of panic beginning to form, Sophia finds matches in the same box. The flames catch, tiny and warm, and suddenly the room feels different. More intimate. The candlelight turns everything golden, and for a moment, erases the harsh reality they've been living in.
“This is actually kind of nice,” Sophia says, sitting down cross-legged in front of the candles. The light catches her face, making her eyes look darker. She looks like something out of a painting, all warm tones and soft edges. Manon would make a joke about hanging her in the Louvre, but that place was, like, just stolen from so…maybe not the best joke. “Like camping. But worse."
“Much worse.”
“But still kind of nice,” Sophia insists. She pats the floor next to her. “Come sit. We should stay close to the light.”
Manon sits. The candles smell somewhat chemical, and, ding ding winner winner chicken dinner, that Winter Wonderland candle is most definitely not snow-scented, but it's not entirely unpleasant, either. Better than the stale office air, at least.
They're close enough that their knees touch. It sends tingles down her spine, but Manon doesn't move away. She should. She should maintain some kind of boundary, some sense of professional distance. But professional distance doesn't mean much when they’re huddled together around candles and trying not to freeze to death.
“Can I ask you something?” Sophia says after a while.
“You're going to ask anyway.”
“True.” Sophia pulls her blanket tighter; in return, her shoulders press more firmly against Manon's, and it drives her a tiny bit insane. “Do you.” she stops. Restarts. “Are you scared? Of being stuck here?”
Manon considers lying. She’s done that for a majority of this nightmare, anyway. But the candlelight and the way Sophia's looking at her makes her honest, so she says, “Yeah. A little.”
It’s more than a little. She's terrified — has been since the moment she realized they were really stuck here, and it’s only grown with each passing hour. But fully admitting that feels like giving up, like acknowledging that this might not end well. So she keeps it contained, forces it down, and focuses on the next immediate problem.
“Me too.” Sophia exhales slowly. “I keep thinking about what happens if no one comes. If we run out of food or if it gets too cold.”
“We'll be okay.” Manon forces conviction into the words. Makes herself believe it, because if she doesn't believe it then Sophia definitely won't.
She fails, because Sophia’s next question is, “How do you know?”
“I don't,” Manon admits, shifting her feet. “But we've made it this far. We'll figure out the rest.”
Sophia nods, still looking worried.
There's a tightness around her eyes that Manon has never seen before, a tension in her shoulders that speaks to barely-contained fear. It makes Manon's chest hurt. She wants to fix this. Needs to fix it, in a way that goes beyond practical problem-solving and into territory far more personal.
She wants Sophia to stop looking scared.
So, Manon does something she normally wouldn't. She reaches over and takes Sophia's hand. First. Sophia's fingers are cold, and they curl immediately around Manon's like they've been waiting for permission. Like this is something Sophia's wanted but didn't know how to ask for.
“We'll be okay,” Manon repeats, softer this time. She squeezes Sophia's hand, putting everything she can't say into that small gesture.
“Okay,” Sophia says, and she squeezes back. It reads like I see you. It means more than words would. “I believe you.”
They sit like that for a while, hands linked, watching the candles flicker.
The emergency lights finally give up around six (or rather, Manon’s assumption of six), plunging everything into darkness except for the small circle of candlelight. It should be scary. It just feels quiet. Peaceful, almost. Like the rest of the world has fallen away and this is all that exists: candlelight and Sophia's hand in hers.
“You know what's weird?” Sophia says. Her voice comes out as a croak, but she makes no move to grab water. Manon hands her a bottle anyway.
“Everything about this situation?”
“Besides that.” Sophia tilts her head, chugging down a gulp of water. The movement makes candlelight dance across her face, shadows shifting. “I'm stuck in an office during a blizzard. I'm cold and hungry and we might die here. But I'm not…I don't hate this. Being here. With you.”
Manon’s close to throwing up. Hope and terror mix together, indistinguishable from each other, turning her stomach from an organ to a sickening concoction. “You're just saying that because you have Stockholm syndrome.”
“I don't think that's how Stockholm syndrome works.”
“Close enough.”
“Manon.” Sophia shifts so she's facing her fully. The candlelight makes her look unguarded — like she's letting Manon see something real, something true. "I mean it. I know you think I'm just being nice, or whatever, but I'm not. I like spending time with you. Even when we're not trapped in a life-or-death situation.”
“We're not in a life-or-death situation.” The protest is automatic, defensive. It’s a selfish protest. Because if they're not in danger then this moment doesn't have to mean anything. Doesn't have to be significant. It becomes something that Sophia can take back later, laugh off as said under duress.
“We might be. A little bit.” Sophia's thumb rubs across Manon's knuckles, absent and distracting. The touch is nothing more than a brush, but it's consuming all of Manon's attention and making it hard to focus on anything else. “But that's not the point. The point is — you're one of my favorite people, and I wanted you to know that.”
Manon doesn't know what to say. Her brain has stopped working outside of looping the words one of my favorite people in her head over and over again. Well — looping that, and everything else related to Sophia.
The way Sophia's looking at her. The fact that they're still holding hands. This feels important. She should respond properly, probably, with words that match the weight of what Sophia just said. But her brain's not cooperating, too busy trying to parse whether this means what Manon wants it to mean or if she's reading into things again.
“You don't have to say anything,” Sophia says quietly, reading her silence as rejection. “I just wanted you to know.”
“You're one of my favorite people too,” Manon manages, and it comes out shaky and too-honest. More honest than she's been in months, maybe years. “I don't — I'm not good at this. Saying things. But you are.”
It's an understatement.
Sophia is Manon's favorite person.
The person she thinks about when she wakes up, the person she looks for first when she gets to work, the person whose opinion matters more than anyone else's. But saying all that feels like too much, a line she isn’t ready to cross.
Sophia's smile is small and bright. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
They're still holding hands, and Sophia's thumb is still moving across her knuckles, and it’s honest to God making it very hard for Manon to think straight (emphasis on straight. Because she’s gay — for Sophia. Oh fuck, Megan’s jokes are getting to her).
The candles flicker. Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the windows, but the sound is distant and muffled, happening in another world. All Manon sees is Sophia.
“Can I tell you something else?” Sophia asks, because she’s braver than Manon could ever be.
“Sure.”
"I don't think you have to like Christmas to deserve something good during it.” She says it like a confession. Like she's been thinking about this, turning it over in her mind. “I know you have bad memories. I know it feels complicated. But you're allowed to have good things, Manon. You're allowed to want them.”
Manon's throat feels tight. “I don't —” she stops. Doesn't know how to finish that sentence. Doesn't know if she's trying to say I don't deserve good things or I don't know how to want them or I don't know what to do with this.
“I'm not saying you have to suddenly love Christmas. But you deserve good things. Always. But especially now.” Sophia squeezes her hand. “Even if it's just bad, awful, expired instant noodles and me humming off-tune.”
“You do hum off-tune.” The words come out thick, and Manon has to blink hard against the sudden burning in her eyes. She's not going to cry. She's not. But something about Sophia saying you deserve good things makes her feel split open.
“I know. It's part of my charm.” Sophia's smiling, light and easy, but there's something serious underneath it. It looks like concern, like she's trying to make sure Manon actually hears this. “I mean it, though. You deserve good things.”
Manon doesn’t even try to answer; a nod is all she can manage. Sophia reads it instantly. She doesn’t pry or chase after words Manon isn’t ready to give. She only stays close, hand warm around Manon’s, the candlelight softening the quiet hanging between them.
With their hands still joined, Manon thinks about wanting. She’s spent so long avoiding anything that felt too big or too complicated — and now she's trapped in an office with someone, sitting across from said someone, who makes her want things she didn't think she was allowed to have. And she’s looking at Manon as if she matters, like Manon's presence makes a difference. As if this moment is as significant for Sophia as it is for her.
“Thank you,” Manon finally manages.
“For what?”
“For being here. For, well, saying that.” For seeing her. For caring. For making this bearable.
“You don't have to thank me,” Sophia says. Genuine. Honest. Sophia in every sense. “I meant every word.”
The candles burn lower. The room gets darker.
It’s only getting colder.
The candles aren’t doing much to help with the cold, and she’s sure that through their linked hands, Sophia can catch the way her body hasn’t stopped shivering since they properly sat down.
Manon can feel her hesitating — like Sophia wants to say something, but is holding back in fear of how she’d respond.
Sophia grasps courage. It’s admirable, really. She’s never been afraid to speak her mind, not in the way Manon is. When something's amiss, a touch out of place, Sophia’s on it. A fixer-upper at heart. “Can I ask a question?”
“Can I give an answer?” Manon lets her finger trace a pattern onto the cold floor, patterns only she will see before they disappear forever. Touching it hurts enough that she’s convinced there will be frostbite in her future, but she continues anyway. It’s soothing, in a way, bleeding patterns.
“There is a way…” Sophia takes a breath. It looks painful. “There’s a way we could warm up.”
“Yeaaaaah?” she drags out, ceasing her pattern tracing in favor of staring at the wall. It isn’t any more interesting than it’s been the past few days.
“Um.” Sophia rubs her neck with her palm. “Well…uh, feel free to call me stupid, but, well, sex warms you up far more than anything else.”
A beat of silence passes.
Sophia continues before Manon can answer. “Sorry, sorry, that was stupid, right? I’m sorry. I just thought —”
Manon’s mouth works faster than her brain. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Sophia repeats, her voice a shaky echo of herself.
Manon can’t look at her. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” The words tumble out a little too fast, a little too loud. It crackles in the stillness like a small firework. She’s not sure she means it. Or, maybe, she means it so much she's terrified to let it show. Her brain instantly launches into a kaleidoscope of possible outcomes: what if it’s awkward, what if it ruins everything, what if Sophia never wants to make eye contact again, what if the world ends and this is the last thing she ever does.
But the thing about being cold and scared and so tired she thinks she might be dreaming, is that it strips her down to whatever’s left.
It leaves Manon with nothing but the wants she’s been shoving into dark corners for months, the ones that flood back the second she stops fighting them. The things she can’t excuse or logic away. And what Manon wants, in this moment, is Sophia. All roads lead to Sophia. She wants Sophia’s heat pressed against her own. Sophia’s lips, hands, any possible point of contact on her body. Wants to be so close it’s impossible to tell where one body ends and the other begins, at least until morning.
It’s dizzying, how much she wants it.
She risks a glance at Sophia. She’s not surprised to see her staring back. Her expression’s entirely unreadable in the shifting candlelight. Could be anticipation, could be nerves, could be something else entirely. Manon’s mouth is so dry she thinks she might choke, but if nothing else, she refuses to be the coward in this room — for once.
“Okay,” Manon repeats, and then — because it’s the sort of thing she’d regret not doing for the rest of her life, however many more days that might entail — she leans forward, just a little, until her forehead touches Sophia’s. It’s not a kiss. Not yet. She’ll let Sophia lead that.
Sophia makes a tiny, relieved sound. She moves her hand, the one still tangled with Manon’s, to the back of Manon’s neck, fingers cold and gentle. A shudder curls down Manon’s spine, but she’s pretty certain it’s less from her frosty fingertips and more from her fingers grasping Manon’s neck.
When Sophia kisses her, it’s nothing like Manon expected. It’s slow, and almost tentative, like Sophia isn’t sure how long this is supposed to last. There’s nothing practiced or perfect about it; the mold has been broken, leaving behind a real, messy sensation of lips on lips and the synced trembling exhales when they finally break apart.
Sophia laughs. It’s the good kind, the kind that makes Manon feel lighter than she has in days. Manon wants to hear it again. “That was nice.”
“I haven’t —” Manon starts, but the sentence dries up, withers, and dies in embarrassment. She isn’t really sure where she wants it to go, either. She hasn’t done this in so long? She hasn’t thought about anything outside of Sophia for months? She settles for, “Yeah.”
She’s still cold.
The only real difference is the way her face feels flushed (it’s most definitely tomato-like in appearance) and how Manon is acutely aware that with every place Sophia touches her, the rest of the world recedes even further away.
She tries to be cool about it — it doesn’t work, expectedly. Sophia leans in again, kissing the corner of Manon’s mouth, and Manon lets her.
The hands exploring her are more confident now, less apologetic. Sophia’s palm hikes the slow journey up Manon's jaw, then lingers at her cheek, fingers almost reverent. The kiss that follows is different this time. Deeper, searching.
When Manon opens her mouth, Sophia follows. Then Manon’s abruptly, vividly aware that she hasn't brushed her teeth in two days. It doesn't matter. Sophia doesn't seem to care about anything besides the taste of her.
“Is this okay?” Sophia whispers against her lips.
“Yes,” Manon says, and she's surprised by how certain she sounds. “For warmth, right?”
“For warmth.” Sophia nods her agreement. They both ignore the fact that kissing is technically unnecessary, when they’re only doing this for warmth, but. Well, sue Manon. She certainly won’t be saying anything about it, not when Sophia’s lips are softer than clouds and she’s busy feeling her up like Manon’s God himself.
They rearrange the blankets until they’re practically cocooned together on the copy room floor. It's awkward, but Sophia waves it off, guiding Manon gently, so Manon boxes up the awkwardness and pretends it isn’t there. Manon finds herself pressed to Sophia’s side, noses bumping, bodies quickly finding the most efficient arrangement for maximum warmth, which is to be pressed together as tightly as two people can manage, faces nearly touching.
Sophia’s palm finds Manon’s hip, a careful question. Manon nods, and the hand slides beneath her shirt, tracing the curve of her waist with fingers that are ice-cold but oh-so fucking electrifying. The touch is gentle, searching, and Manon feels every centimeter like it’s being mapped for the first time.
Sophia kisses her again, slower this time, tongue just barely tracing the seam of Manon’s lips, and Manon opens for her without thinking. Their teeth clack and Manon lets out a ridiculous giggle that Sophia quickly swallows with another kiss.
She knows this doesn’t matter. It’s just for warmth. Maybe for Sophia, it helps curb the boredom too. It’s a mantra in her head: It doesn’t matter It doesn’t matter It doesn’t matter.
Her train of thought cuts short when a hand on Manon’s waist creeps higher, demanding her attention, heading under the fabric and up to the first ridge of her ribs. Sophia’s thumb strokes along the lowest part of Manon’s sternum, then, emboldened, further up, hesitating at the edge of her sports bra, as if she’s not sure she’s allowed to go further.
Manon, who has never wanted anything more in her life, peels her own shirt away and tosses it aside. It’s for warmth, her brain distantly repeats. She’s pretty sure she looks ridiculous, with paler than usual skin, goosebumps covering her from head to toe, and a comically bad bra — but Sophia only smiles. “God, you’re beautiful,” she breathes, genuinely, and Manon has to close her eyes for a moment to let herself believe it.
Sophia’s hands are everywhere, like touching Manon’s skin has become her lifeline. Every inch of her body feels like it’s lighting up, thawing, filling the room with a warmth better than anything PG&E ever provided.
Sophia kisses her again, this time with a little more teeth. Manon can’t help but gasp, and then Sophia’s mouth is at the side of her neck, biting roughly enough there'll be a bruise come tomorrow, but simultaneously gently enough that Manon thinks she might actually float away.
She hasn’t done anything like this in so long.
But — and Manon knows she can’t deny it any longer — she wants this. Wants Sophia, who she has spent so long circling and avoiding and overthinking about, to see her, touch her, to warm her up until even her bones believe in the possibility of comfort.
Sophia’s hand cups the side of her face with a carefulness that undoes her. “Hey, you okay?”
Manon nods, and the sound she makes is wordless and needy. Too honest by half. “Yeah,” she chokes out, and when Sophia’s hand finds her ribs again, she arches into it, blood singing under ice-crusted skin.
“Tell me to slow down if you want,” Sophia warns, but the ridiculous thing is, Manon’s had nothing truly done to her yet and is already half a breath from begging her to go faster, do something, anything, everything. Her body is all nerves and anticipation.
Manon’s bra is — barely there. Sophia pushes it up, exposing her chest, and kisses down her neck with an intensity that rewrites Manon’s entire life up to this moment. Sophia’s hands fumble only a little, like this matters enough to make her nervous, and then cold air hits Manon’s breasts and her nipples budden, hard. Sophia’s mouth is warm, impossibly so. When she kisses a line from collarbone to the tip of one breast, then tongues a slow, ticklish swirl around it before catching her nipple between her lips, Manon swears her heart stops — or maybe it just starts burning.
“Oh —” she chokes out, and then Sophia sucks, intense and deliberate. Manon’s brain goes almost pure white. She grabs Sophia’s shoulder, digging in as if unmoored, and Sophia laughs against her skin, the vibration running right through Manon’s insides. Her hips jerk and she feels her entire body light up, like she might spark from the inside out.
Sophia pulls back slightly, eyes searching her face. “You sure this is okay?”
If she had more oxygen she might say something clever, but she doesn’t, so she just takes Sophia’s wrist and pushes Sophia’s hand lower, over her stomach and the sharp jut of hipbone, down to her waistband, where she’s already halfway gone with how much she wants this, wants everything Sophia is willing to give her.
Sophia’s hand at her belly is almost reverent. “God, you’re shaking.”
“‘M cold,” Manon mumbles. They both know it’s not really the reason. They both pretend it is.
The first touch of Sophia’s hand under her waistband makes Manon moan, ugly and unrestrained. It’s been forever, okay? Sophia’s hand is…so good. Her fingers are long, and trace Manon perfectly, like this is what they were made for. She wants to worship her hands. She almost pleads with Sophia to let her suck them, for the sake of ‘furthering warmth’, but her brain is half-mush and there isn’t anything coherent exiting her mouth.
Her cunt is already wet and embarrassingly eager, swollen and sore from all the wanting. She nearly loses it when Sophia traces it slowly, fingers mapping the slick along the seam, finding her clit and circling with excruciating lightness before moving away again.
Manon gasps and tries to grind down against Sophia’s hand, because if she doesn’t have those fingers in her in the next five minutes she may be put on homicidal watch. Sophia pins her hip, holding her steady. “Patience,” Sophia whispers, voice rough, and then kisses her again, slow and deep and greedy.
It gets her going far more than it should. Sophia’s hands hold her down, renders her in place, makes her wait. She could probably cum off that alone. Sophia works out. She remembers her talking about it once, going to the gym, the struggles of how busy it gets right after work. It isn’t a question on whether or not she could hold Manon down. Hell, she could probably manhandle Manon entirely — pick her up, place her where she wants, make Manon her… yeah.
It isn’t just that. Sophia’s voice, that siren call, whispering in her ear. Manon already knew her voice was angelic. Hell, this girl can belt out a holiday song, even if she loathes to admit it (maybe she can convince Sophia to switch genres?). But hearing her voice right now, in the heat of what they’re doing, is driving her mad.
She’s so gone.
Sophia’s fingers slip further, barely inside, before they retreat to rub her clit in soft, steady circles that make her eyes roll back, body arching in a helpless spasm. She can feel the press of Sophia’s palm through every layer of her, nerves combusting and skin impossibly tight.
She’s teasing her. Manon’s trying not to die, and they’re apparently doing this only for the sake of warmth, but Sophia’s teasing her and it feels so much more than a necessity.
Sophia’s thumb rubs a slow, deliberate circle, and then her fingers dip in — two at once, and Manon almost sobs at the fullness, the stretch. It’s been too long, and she’s sensitive, hypersensitive, but Sophia is careful, patient, working into her with a rhythm that builds and builds.
There’s nothing rough or hurried and Manon almost wishes there was, but even with the careful movement, she can feel herself approaching the edge.
She’s not prepared for how fast it comes, or how the world narrows to the point where Sophia’s mouth is at her shoulder, her wrist braced under Manon's thigh, and every movement a chemical reaction. Her back arches helplessly, hips chasing Sophia’s hand, and the sound she makes is a choked-off high keen, a sound she doesn't even recognize herself making. Sophia’s hand rocks through her, steady and relentless, and with a shudder she comes apart, squeezing tight enough her own vision whites out for a clumsy, gasping second.
Sophia’s mouth is at her shoulder, her own breath ragged, muttering a rolling stream of half-nonsense —“so pretty, so good, you’re so good, fuck”— as if Manon’s reactions are the most precious thing in the world. By the time Manon comes back to herself she’s buried in the crook of Sophia’s arm, her face wet and she doesn’t know if it’s sweat or tears or both. She trembles all over, her nerves lit up like a dying city’s last lights.
Sophia looks at her, like, really looks at her, eyes soft and hungry at once. “You okay?” she asks, voice still low and rough with want.
Manon’s voice doesn’t work for a second. When she finally gets it back, it’s almost a laugh, but not quite: “Yeah. Um. Wow. Very warm.”
Sophia beams at her, and then, hesitating for only a fraction of a second, kisses her again, softer this time, like a reward or an apology or both. “Sorry. Hah. Some last second warmth for the both of us.”
She waits until Manon’s breath steadies before she withdraws her hand, moving slowly, deliberately, carefully. Sophia licks her fingers and, like a goddamn maniac, grins, mouth bright and hungry and just a bit sharp. Manon feels herself flush even deeper.
They’re still cold, technically, but the air around them feels different — like they’ve changed reality by sheer force of will. Manon’s not sure how to feel about that.
A thought strikes her, unbidden: Sophia must be cold too. “Do you need me to, um, return the, uh, favor. Like. Warm you up?”
“I’m okay. It warmed me up too.”
That’s that then.
Manon is selfish. She doesn’t want it to end. She wants Sophia’s hands on her till — at least till she falls asleep.
She says none of this out loud.
Eventually they lie down, and it feels like a victory when Sophia’s hand intertwines with her. Sophia falls asleep first again. Her breathing evens out, her grip loosening but never letting go completely.
Manon stays awake. Watches the shadows on the ceiling. Thinks about what Sophia said, before they, well — you're allowed to want things.
Maybe she is. Maybe it's okay to want this. To want Sophia, want closeness, want more than just friendship and professional courtesy. Maybe it doesn't have to be complicated or dangerous or wrong. Maybe sometimes people say things like you're one of my favorite people and they mean it the way Manon wants them to mean it.
Maybe.
Manon wakes up to darkness.
Not the dim, grey darkness of the emergency lights failing. Like, complete darkness. The kind where she can't see her hand in front of her face, can't orient herself, can't correctly tell if her eyes are open or closed. It's disorienting, and her pulse spikes immediately. She's not scared of the dark — hasn't been since she was a kid — but waking up to complete sensory deprivation when she's already on edge is not exactly helping her anxiety levels.
The candles have burned out.
“Sophia?” Her voice rings out too loud in the silence. Too sharp. She can hear her own heartbeat in her ears. It makes the panic crawl up her throat in a way she can’t swallow down.
“Yeah?” Sophia's voice is thick with sleep, but she’s awake — or close to it. Her hand tightens around Manon's. Some part of Manon distantly registers that they were holding hands even in sleep. The realization causes a slow warmth to unfurl in Manon's chest. “What's wrong?”
“The candles are out.”
“Oh.” A pause. Manon can hear Sophia thinking, processing the information. “That's…okay. That's fine.”
It's not fine. They have more candles, she thinks, but Manon's not sure where the matches are, and finding them would mean letting go of Sophia’s hand. And…she doesn't want to let go. This small point of contact is an anchor in the dark, the only thing keeping her steady. She can’t let go.
“Are you scared of the dark?” Sophia questions, fingers scratching Manon’s palm.
“No.”
“It's okay if you are.”
“I'm not,” Manon denies, which is mostly true. She's not scared of the dark. She's scared of everything else — the cold, the isolation, the fact that no one's coming for them. That she's lying here in complete darkness with Sophia and her brain is supplying extremely unhelpful thoughts about how easy it would be to close the distance between them and stop pretending this is just about survival. The dark is simply another thing on a long list.
“Okay,” Sophia replies, placating. She doesn’t believe her, but that’s okay. Manon isn’t in the business of convincing Sophia right now. It doesn’t matter anyway, not when Sophia shifts closer. She's pressed against Manon's side. It’s nice. Real in a way that grounds Manon, pulls her out of the spiral. “But just so you know, I'm scared of the dark. So if you want to hold onto me, that would actually be helping me out.”
Manon's convinced Sophia's not scared of anything, but gladly takes the out.
She wraps her arm around Sophia's shoulders, and Sophia burrows into her side with a contented sound that twists through Manon, makes her limbs feel too full, her thoughts spin too fast, and leaves her breathless in the middle of the dark and quiet.
“Better?” Manon’s voice is barely audible, mostly because if she goes any louder, she'll be a forceful witness of an embarrassing voice crack exiting her mouth.
“Much better,” Sophia breathes, head rubbing against Manon’s chest. “You're very warm.”
“You're very cold,” Manon counters, because if she stops talking she’ll hyperfocus too much on Sophia nuzzling into her.
“I know. It's terrible. You should probably hold me closer.” There's something playful in Sophia's voice now, something that sounds almost like flirting but probably isn't. Probably.
“Is that right?”
“Definitely. For survival.” There's a smile in Sophia's voice. Manon can hear it, can picture exactly what Sophia's face looks like right now, even though she can't see her. “Purely practical.”
“Purely practical,” Manon echoes, pulling Sophia closer. She tells herself this is about body heat and survival, and ignores how Sophia fits perfectly against her side, or that her hair smells like cinnamon, or that Manon's been wanting to hold her like this for longer than she's willing to admit.
They lie there in the dark, tangled together under the blankets, and Manon thinks — though she’s had this same thought a thousand times since this nightmare started — this might be the most honest she's ever been. No light to see her. Just the dark and Sophia's warmth and the truth of wanting something she can't have.
Except maybe she can have it.
It’s the first time she’s thought it and truly believed it.
Maybe that's what Sophia was trying to tell her earlier. You're allowed to want things. Maybe Sophia was talking about more than Christmas — more than deserving good things in general. Maybe she was talking about this specifically. About them and the possibility of something more.
Or — and this is far more likely — Manon’s being stupid again. Maybe Sophia just meant exactly what she said and nothing more. This moment, every moment between them, might be significant to Manon but ultimately meaningless to Sophia, who's simply trying to stay warm and get through a difficult situation with a coworker.
Manon doesn't know, and she sure as hell can't tell in the dark, where Sophia’s nothing but a shadowy warmth.
She's holding Sophia anyway, and Sophia's holding her back, so that has to mean something.
Right?
“Sophia?” Manon says quietly.
“Mm?”
“I'm really glad you're here, too.” It's an understatement. She's more than glad. She's grateful and terrified and overwhelmed and a dozen other feelings she doesn't have words for. But glad will have to do.
Sophia's quiet for a moment. Then she says, “I know,” and sounds happy, probably still smiling in the dark. Ever sunshiney.
They fall asleep like that.
Holding onto each other while the storm rages outside — everything uncertain except this.
Night falls, and with it, comes the coldest temperature yet.
Manon can feel it in her bones — how the air seems to sharpen, how her breath clouds thicker. Even wrapped in every blanket they have, she still can't get warm.
It's not just ‘cold’ anymore. It's dangerously freezing. Her fingers ache and threaten to fall off her hand, and her jaw hurts from clenching against the shivering. She’s not alone in her pain: Sophia's shivering next to her, teeth chattering despite her best efforts to hide it, and Manon's chest tightens with fear.
She’s felt fear plenty of times since this debacle began, but it feels more real than ever. Not the abstract kind, where she's calculating survival odds and making contingency plans. It’s the immediate kind, where she's watching Sophia shake and realizing that they might actually be in serious trouble. Their bodies are running out of reserves, the cold is winning, and all the careful rationing and planning might not matter if they can't make it through the night.
“We should sleep,” Sophia murmurs, voice unsteady. Thin in a way Manon hasn't heard before.
“Yeah,” is all Manon can fumble out, when the chords in her throat finally start working.
They've already arranged the blankets into their usual nest, already done the math on body heat and survival (her head flashes back to that night. She can’t help it. She nearly asks if they should try again).
But tonight feels different. More desperate. They’re running out of time. This might be the night where things go from difficult to critical, and Manon doesn't know how to stop it.
Manon lies down first, and Sophia immediately curls into her side — no hesitation, no careful distance. They’ve given up on that.
She presses herself against Manon like she's trying to absorb her warmth, and Manon wraps both arms around her without thinking. Sophia's so cold. Colder than she should be, far colder than yesterday. Her skin feels like ice through her clothes.
“Sorry,” Sophia mumbles. “I'm so cold.”
“It's fine.” But it's not fine, not really. Manon’s super fucking worried, actually, and she lets her body move before her brain, pulling her closer, trying to share body heat and warm Sophia up through sheer proximity alone.
She's running through symptoms of hypothermia in her head — confusion, slurred speech, loss of coordination. Sophia's not there yet, thankfully. But they're close. Too close.
“I feel like I can't get warm.” She's shaking harder now, and Manon can hear the edge of panic in her voice. “What if — what if we don't —”
“Hey.” Manon tightens her hold, as if she can meld them together. It does nothing but make Sophia’s heart racing against her ribs, and her minutely trembles, all the more obvious. “Look at me.”
Sophia lifts her head. Her eyes are wide and scared, that much she can see, and Manon's heart clenches. “We're going to be fine.” It’s perhaps the biggest lie she’s ever said. Her own body is struggling against the cold, and she doesn't know if they'll actually make it through the night. But if Sophia loses her spark, what will they even do? Manon’s sure as hell not their party's morale booster. “Someone will come tomorrow. And until then, we stay warm together. Okay?”
“Okay,” Sophia whispers.
“I've got you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” Manon declares, the most uncertain she’s ever been; Sophia buries her face in Manon's shoulder anyway. Her breath is warm against Manon's neck, the only warm thing in this entire frozen building. Manon focuses on that — on the proof that Sophia's alive, that she's here, that they're both still fighting.
They lie like that for a long time.
Sophia's hands are tucked between them, pressed against Manon's stomach, and it makes her more than a little panicky, but Manon doesn't move — just holds her and tries to radiate as much warmth as possible. She's mentally noting everything: Sophia's breathing evening out, shivering gradually subsiding, her slowly melting into Manon's embrace. Every sign that she's okay, that she's warming up, that they're going to make it.
“You smell like cinnamon,” Manon says without thinking, and immediately wants to die.
It's true, and it’s all Manon’s been thinking about for days. Curse her waning impulse. Sophia smells faintly like cinnamon, despite the cold and multiple days without showering. But saying it out loud feels intimate and revealing, and she regrets it instantly. Because it reads like Manon's been paying attention to details she shouldn't notice, noting information she has no business knowing.
Sophia makes a sound that might be a laugh. “That's my lotion. From like, four days ago.”
“It's nice.” Manon’s face heats up. She's never been good at this — at saying things that matter and being honest about her wants. But Sophia's in her arms and they might die here. Suddenly, honesty about this feels easier than the alternative (honesty about their impending doom).
“Yeah?” Sophia shifts slightly, face now tucked against Manon's neck. “You smell like coffee.”
“I do?”
Sophia's quiet for a moment, and then: “It's kind of comforting, actually. Very you.”
Manon doesn't know what to do with that information. Doesn't quite know what to do with any of this. The truth is that she wants so desperately to stay like this forever, even though they're trapped and freezing and possibly dying. She blames it on the way that Sophia says very you makes something in her chest go tight and warm.
“Manon?” Sophia's voice rings out, soft and almost hesitant.
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you something?”
“You're going to tell me anyway.” They’ve had this same exchange before, because some things never change. It comes out gentle. Fond.
“True.” Sophia takes a breath, and Manon can feel her ribs expanding, how she’s gathering courage. “I like you. Like — not just as a coworker. Or a friend. I mean, you're those things too, but I also just — I like you. And I have for a while now. And I know this is maybe not the best time to say it because we're literally in a life-or-death situation, but I keep thinking about what if we don't get out of here, and I don't want to — I don't want to not have said it.”
Manon stops breathing.
Her brain goes completely offline. Every thought evaporates, nothing left except Sophia likes her. Sophia just said she likes her. Not in a maybe-she-means-it-platonically way, not in a could-be-misinterpreting-this way. In a clear, explicit, unambiguous way that leaves no room for doubt.
“You don't have to say anything,” Sophia continues quickly. Her words come out faster now, tumbling over each other, like she's afraid if she stops talking she won't be able to start again. “I know it's weird. I know we work together and we're friends and I'm probably ruining that right now. But I just — I wanted you to know. That you're important to me. That being stuck here with you is the only good thing about this whole situation. That if I had to be trapped anywhere with anyone, I'd choose you. Every time.”
Manon's brain is most definitely offline. Completely and utterly offline.
Sophia likes her.
Sophia just said she likes her.
The kind of confession Manon's imagined a thousand times over but never actually thought would happen. But it’s happening now, while they're trapped in an office, freezing and possibly dying, with Manon's arms wrapped around Sophia, with every word heard and felt through Sophia’s chest vibrations.
“You're very quiet,” Sophia says after a moment. Her hand’s begun to nervously pick at her skin, and Manon twitches with the urge to stop it. “Which is either a good sign or a very bad sign.”
“I don't —” Her heart is hammering so hard she's sure Sophia can feel it. “You like me?”
“Did I not make that clear?”
“I thought — I didn't think you — I thought it was just me.” The words tumble out before Manon can stop them. Sophia goes very, very still against her.
“Just you?” Sophia lifts her head. Manon mourns the loss of the comforting shoulder weight. “You like me?”
“I thought that was obvious,” Manon defends. It’s not a real defense, though, not when there’s something like relief, like hope, like terror underneath.
“It was not obvious! You're always so — you never seemed like — I thought you just tolerated me!”
“I don't tolerate you.” It rushes out of Manon, way more intense than she meant. It’s more honest than she's been about anything in months. In hindsight, yeah, because Sophia deserves nothing less. “I — you're the best part of my day. Every day. Even when you're being ridiculous with the Christmas music and candy canes and trying to get us killed with your terrible escape plans. Especially then, actually.”
It's true.
Manon's spent months looking forward to work just because Sophia would be there. Finding stupid excuses to walk past her desk, or to grab coffee at the same time, or to stay late when Sophia stayed late.
She's been so careful about hiding it, hopelessly convinced that Sophia could never feel the same way, that admitting it now feels like jumping off a cliff.
Sophia's staring at her. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So we've just been — what, mutually pining this whole time?”
“Apparently.”
“That's so stupid,” Sophia says, and then she starts laughing — helpless, slightly hysterical laughter that shakes both of them. “We're idiots. We're such idiots.”
“I know.” Manon's laughing too, because it is stupid. They've wasted months dancing around this — that’s months of missed opportunities and unneeded distance.
“We could've been — this whole time we could've —” Sophia's still laughing, but now she's also tearing up, and Manon can’t tell if it's from the laughter or the cold.
“Hey,” Manon says softly, reaching up to brush her thumb across Sophia's cheek. Catches a tear before it can fall. “It's okay.”
“I know. I just — I'm really happy right now. Which is insane because we're trapped in an office and freezing and might die, but I'm happy anyway.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and Manon's chest squeezes painfully.
“Me too,” Manon admits. Despite everything, the cold and the hunger and the very real possibility that they might not make it out of here, she's happy. Happier than she's been in years, maybe. Because Sophia likes her, and she gets to hold her, and for the first time in her life wanting doesn't feel like a mistake.
They look at each other for a long moment.
Sophia's eyes are bright, her cheeks are flushed, and her hair's a complete disaster. Manon thinks she's never seen anything more beautiful. It’s something out of a dream.
“Can I —” Sophia starts, before abruptly stopping. Her eyes drop to Manon's mouth, then back up. “I want to kiss you. Is that okay?”
Manon's heart stops. Restarts. “Yeah. Yes. That's — yeah.”
Very articulate. She's usually better with words than this, but apparently Sophia asking to kiss her has short-circuited her entire vocabulary.
Sophia smiles — wide and bright and more than a little nervous. Then she leans in, Manon meets her halfway, and their mouths press together soft and uncertain.
It’s different from their…other kiss.
Softer.
It's not perfect, by any means. Their noses bump, and Sophia's lips are chapped from the cold. Manon, for her part, has no idea what she's doing. But it's warm and sweet and Sophia makes a small, pleased sound that shoots straight through Manon's chest. Straight to somewhere far, far lower.
Sophia's hand comes up to rest against Manon's jaw, fingers cold but gentle, and Manon's free hand finds Sophia's waist.
When they pull apart, Sophia's grinning. “That was —”
“Yeah,” Manon breathes, whole body alive and buzzing, electric with the reality of what just happened.
“Can we do it again?”
“Yes,” Manon says without hesitation, already leaning back in.
It’s better this time. Less tentative, more sure. Sophia's hand cups Manon's jaw properly, thumb brushing across her cheekbone, and in return, Manon's fingers tangle in Sophia's hair. They kiss slow and deep, until Manon forgets about the cold entirely — the only thing that exists is Sophia's mouth against hers, Sophia's body pressed close, and Sophia's small sounds of contentment that makes Manon want to never stop kissing her. It all boils down to: Sophia Sophia Sophia.
When they finally break apart, they're both breathing hard. Sophia's eyes are dark and her lips are pink and swollen and Manon wants to kiss her again immediately. Wants to keep kissing her until they run out of air or rescue arrives or they succumb to the cold and die, whichever comes first.
“Wow,” Sophia whispers, fingers falling and beginning to message Manon’s stomach. It feels so good.
“Yeah.”
“We should've done that days ago.”
“We should've done that months ago,” Manon corrects. Sophia laughs and kisses her again, quick and sweet.
They settle back down, but everything's different now.
Sophia's still curled against her, yeah, but Manon can run her fingers through Sophia's hair without overthinking it. Can press her mouth to Sophia's forehead without worrying it means too much. Can just — have this, without pretending it's anything other than what it is.
“I can't believe we almost died without figuring this out,” Sophia murmurs against Manon's shoulder.
“We're not dying.”
“But we could have. And then I would've died never knowing what it's like to kiss you.”
Manon dryly chuckles. “That would've been tragic.”
“It really would have,” Sophia says seriously, tilting her head up to kiss Manon again, just because she can — it’s soft and lingering, like she's savoring it.
They fall asleep like that, kissing lazily, Sophia's hand on Manon's cheek, Manon's arms wrapped around her.
The cold doesn't go away, but it doesn't matter as much anymore. They have this now.
They have each other.
And that's enough. Has to be enough.
Outside, the wind howls. Inside, they're warm enough.
Manon awakens to silence.
Not the silence of the middle of the night, but of thick, heavy snow muffling everything.
But, because Manon’s counting her blessings, there’s light — actual daylight, grey and weak but there, filtering through the window. Real light. Natural light. It’s enough that Manon can guess the storm has passed. They've survived the night; they're still here.
Sophia's asleep against her shoulder, breathing deep and even. Manon has the pleasure of fully seeing her now, without darkness blocking her vision.
Her face is peaceful in a way Manon's rarely seen recently. No tension around her eyes, no worried crease between her brows. Just soft and relaxed and beautiful.
Manon doesn't want to move. She thinks she could stay here forever, holding her, living in this little bubble where nothing matters except the two of them and the fact that Sophia likes her back.
But her back hurts from the floor, and she needs to pee, and — wait. She's pretty sure the wind stopped. That’s…good. Really good.
She shifts carefully, trying not to wake Sophia. Fails immediately.
“Mm?” Sophia blinks up at her, disoriented. Her eyes are unfocused, hair sticking up at odd angles. Manon wishes her phone had battery, because she’d snap a photo and make it her lock screen in an instant. “Morning?”
“Morning.”
“Did we — last night was real, right? We kissed?”
“We kissed,” Manon confirms, and Sophia's sleepy smile is so bright it hurts to look at. For good measure, she kisses Sophia. Just because. Just because she can.
Sophia leans into it instantly, letting out a soft, half-laughing sigh that makes something coil tight and hot in Manon’s chest. Her lips press back, slow and warm, and Manon can’t stop. Can’t think. Can’t remember anything except this.
When they finally part, Sophia asks, “What was that for?”
“Just reminding you.”
“Good." she yawns, stretching. The movement dislodges the blankets, shivers rack her body with a vengeance. “Still cold.”
“Unfortunately.”
“But the wind stopped.”
“I think so.” Manon stands, joints protesting. Her body aches in new and interesting ways — from the cold, from the floor, from sleeping wrapped around Sophia all night. She ignores it, walking to the window. The snow's still piled high, but the storm's passed. The sky's clearing, pale blue visible through the grey clouds. It fills Manon with hope. “We should check the exits again. See if anything's changed.”
“Okay.” Sophia joins her at the window, sliding her hand into Manon's like it's the most natural thing in the world. Like they've been doing this for years instead of hours. “And if they're still blocked?”
“Then we wait.”
“Together?”
“Together,” Manon confirms, squeezing Sophia's hand. The contact is grounding. Real. Proof that last night actually happened, that it wasn’t something Manon’s cold-addled brain had conjured up.
They check the exits.
All still blocked. Each door still buried, still impassable. They're trapped and stuck depending on rescue that may or may not be coming. It somehow feels okay when she’s with Sophia.
They're walking back to the copy room when Sophia suddenly stops.
“Wait here,” she says.
“Why?”
“Just — trust me. Five minutes.” She’s already backing away, grinning in a way that makes Manon immediately suspicious. “Don't move.”
“Sophia —”
“Five minutes!” she calls, and then she's gone, disappearing around a corner.
Manon stands there, confused and mildly concerned.
But it's been three days — if Sophia was going to do something dangerously stupid, she would've done it already.
Probably.
Maybe.
Actually, Manon has no idea. Sophia's proven herself capable of dangerously stupid decisions at any given moment, so Manon has no idea what to expect.
She waits.
Five minutes turns into seven, then ten. Manon's about to go looking for her — visions of Sophia trapped in a filing cabinet or accidentally locked in the bathroom dancing through her head — when she reappears, slightly breathless and holding something behind her back.
“Okay,” Sophia starts, bouncing on her toes. “So. I know Christmas has already passed. It’s closer to New Years, if anything. But, um, I got you a gift.”
“You have something for me.” Manon's brain is trying to catch up. They're trapped in an office. They have no food. And Sophia's giving her a…gift?
“I was going to give it to you at the office Secret Santa,” Sophia explains, pulling her hands from behind her back. She's holding a small box, wrapped in what looks like printer paper — she’d probably found some time to slip away from her and prepare it while they were trapped here — and tied with a red ribbon that Manon's pretty sure came from the half-destroyed holiday decorations in the conference room. The wrapping is crooked, slightly crumpled, and there’s a small tear on one side. It’s possibly the most endearing thing Manon’s ever seen, even in its imperfection. Especially then. “But then we got trapped here, and I thought, well, maybe now would be better.”
Manon takes the box carefully, like it might explode. It's light. She notices a small coffee stain in one corner of the paper. “You had this the whole time?”
“In my bag. I've been carrying it around for like two weeks, trying to figure out the right moment to give it to you.” Sophia rocks on her heels, nervous in a way that makes Manon want to kiss her. And also maybe scream into a pillow for several hours. “You don't have to open it now if you don't want —”
Manon's already opening it.
Her hands are shaking as she unwraps the printer paper, carefully so she doesn't tear it. Inside, nestled in more printer paper (Sophia really committed to the theme), is a fountain pen.
It’s not just any fountain pen. It's beautiful, dark blue with silver accents, the kind of thing Manon would stare at in a store window and then never buy for herself because it's too nice, too expensive. Too much for someone like her, who’ll probably lose it or break it or —
The weight of it is perfect in her palm. And on the side, engraved in small, precise letters: M.B.
Manon's throat goes tight.
“I noticed you're always stealing pens from people's desks,” Sophia says quickly. Her words are coming faster, nervous. Nervous Sophia is somehow even more devastating than regular Sophia. “And you mentioned once that you used to have a fountain pen in college but you lost it, and I thought, I don't know. I thought you should have a new one. One that's yours.”
Manon stares at the pen. At her initials, engraved there like proof that Sophia pays attention to Manon, remembers things about Manon, cares enough to get her something this thoughtful.
It’d been one conversation. One throwaway comment from months ago, and Sophia…remembered it. Carried it with her, turned it into this.
“You hate it,” Sophia sighs, misreading her silence. Her legs are starting to tense, like she’s preparing to bolt out of this conversation. “It's too much, right? I shouldn't have —”
“I love it,” Manon interrupts. Her voice cracks embarrassingly on the word ‘love’ and she has to blink hard against the sudden burning in her eyes. Manon’s not going to cry over a pen. Except she is crying over a pen, apparently, because tears are already blurring her vision, and there’s definitely wetness on her cheeks. “I — how did you even —”
“I asked around. Did some research. The engraving was extra but I thought it would make it more special.” Sophia's smiling now, soft and pleased, like Manon crying is somehow a good reaction and not entirely mortifying for the both of them. “So, you like it?”
“I love it,” Manon repeats. She looks up from the pen, to Sophia, who’s watching her, and Manon's chest feels too full. Too warm. Like something's expanding inside her, pushing against her ribs. “This is — no one's ever —”
She can't finish the sentence.
Can't articulate what this means. That someone, that Sophia, noticed what she liked, remembered it, and went out of their way to get it. No one's ever done that for her before. Her parents got her expensive gifts, sure, but they were always generic — things they thought she should want, not things she actually wanted. No one's ever paid this much attention.
“You deserve nice things,” Sophia says quietly. “I told you that already. I meant it.”
Manon can't speak. Can't do anything, except stand there holding the pen that Sophia got for her, that Sophia's been carrying around for weeks, that Sophia engraved with her initials because she wanted it to be special.
“Thank you,” she finally manages.
“You're welcome.”
“I don't have anything for you.” The realization hits her suddenly and makes her feel terrible. Sophia got her this perfect gift and Manon has nothing to give back.
“That's okay. I didn't give it to you because I wanted something back.” Sophia steps closer, taking Manon's free hand. “I gave it to you because I wanted you to have something that would remind you that someone cares about you. That you're worth caring about.”
And that's it.
That's the thing that breaks Manon completely.
She sets the pen down carefully. Then she's pulling Sophia into a hug, burying her face in her shoulder, and Sophia wraps her arms around her immediately. Holds her tight while Manon tries not to cry, fails, and cries anyway.
“Thank you,” Manon says again, muffled against Sophia's neck. “For everything. Not just the pen. For being here. For not giving up on me even when I was being difficult. For —”
“You're not difficult,” Sophia interrupts, firm. “You're careful. There's a difference.”
“I'm a mess,” Manon weakly retorts, because something in her calls to fight.
“You're my mess,” Sophia says, and Manon can hear the smile in her voice. Feels it against her temple where Sophia’s pressed a kiss. “If you want to be.”
The fight dies in an instant. Manon pulls back enough to look at her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Sophia's grinning now, hard enough to power the building. Maybe the entire city block. “I know we're trapped in an office and we probably smell terrible and we're running out of food. But I like you. A lot. And when we get out of here, if you want, maybe we could try this for real?"
“Try what?”
“Don’t make me say it again,” Sophia warns, before indulging anyway, gesturing between them “This. Us. Dating. Being together. Whatever you want to call it.”
"You want to date me?"
“I've wanted to date you for like six months. I…thought I was being obvious.”
“You really weren't.” Manon's shuffling through the past six months, trying to find the signs she missed. There must have been dozens. Hundreds, probably. But she was so convinced Sophia couldn't possibly feel the same way that she didn't see any of them.
“Well, I'm being obvious now,” Sophia counters, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. “So. What do you think?”
What does Manon think?
Is Sophia serious?
She thinks she's trapped in an office with a girl who makes her laugh even when everything's terrible. Who gave her a fountain pen with her initials because she remembered one conversation from months ago. Who kisses her like it means something.
“Duh,” is what comes out, as easy as breathing. “Yes. When we get out of here, let's try this for real.”
“Yeah?” Sophia checks.
“Yeah.”
“Can I kiss you again?” Sophia says, because she’s forever a gentlewoman, and would never do anything without Manon’s explicit permission.
“You don't have to ask.”
“I'm going to anyway.” Sophia’s thumb is tracing circles on the back of Manon’s hand, distracting and perfect. “Because consent is important. And also because I like seeing your face when I ask.”
Manon's face goes hot. “You're ridiculous.”
“You like ridiculous,” Sophia says, and then she kisses her, like they have all the time in the world. Sophia's hands cup Manon's face, and Manon's hands find Sophia's waist, pulling her closer.
Sophia tastes like candy canes and feels like coming home.
When they finally break apart, Sophia's grinning. “So. We're doing this.”
“We're doing this.”
“Good.” Sophia picks up the fountain pen, examining it. Her fingers trace over the engraving. “You should write something. You know, test it out.”
Manon snorts. “With what paper?”
“Use the printer paper from the wrapping.”
It’s so fucking ridiculous, but Manon nods in agreement anyway, smoothing out the crumpled paper. Sophia produces a small ink cartridge from her pocket. “You came prepared.”
“I'm always prepared,” Sophia retorts, which is objectively false given the last fews days, but Manon doesn't mention that. Just smiles and takes the cartridge.
She fills the pen before testing it on the wrapping paper. The ink flows smooth and dark, and the pen fits perfectly in her hand. Better than any pen she's ever used. She writes: Thank you.
“That's it?” Sophia asks, reading over her shoulder. Her chin’s resting on Manon's shoulder, arms wrapped around her waist from behind, and she’s got an adorable frown planted on her face. “That's all you're writing?”
“What else should I write?”
“I don't know. Something romantic. A love letter. A poem.”
“I'm not writing you a poem.”
“Why not?” Sophia whines, burrowing her chin deeper into Manon’s shoulder.
“Because I don't know how to write poems.”
“You could try,” Sophia suggests. “I'd accept a haiku. Those are short.”
This is stupid. So stupid. But Sophia’s holding her and asking for a poem and Manon’s incapable of saying no to those eyes.
Manon thinks for a moment, then writes:
Stuck in blizzard
With someone who won't stop talking
I wouldn't change it
Sophia reads it, her smile growing impossibly wider. “That's the worst haiku I've ever read.”
“I told you I don't know how to write poems.”
“The syllables aren’t even right. Haikus are five-seven-five. That’s four-seven-five,” Sophia says, laughing. “You can’t even follow basic haiku structure.”
“I hate you.”
“It's also the best thing anyone's ever written for me,” Sophia finishes, kissing her cheek. It instantly, embarrassingly, makes her feel better. A soothing balm to a wound. “You're a secret romantic and a terrible poet. I'm learning so much about you today.”
“Don't get used to it.”
“Too late,” Sophia says. “I'm already used to it.”
The rest of the morning is filled with light-hearted jokes, rationing of candy canes, and attempts to stay warm.
Manon keeps the pen in her pocket, taking it out occasionally — just to look at it, and remind herself that this is real. Sophia gave her this, Sophia likes her, Sophia kissed her and it meant something.
Sophia catches her doing it the third time and grins, but doesn't say anything. Merely leans over and kisses her, soft and sweet.
Around noon, they hear something.
At first Manon thinks she's imagining it — a distant rumbling, mechanical and steady. Her brain's been playing tricks on her for days, supplying phantom sounds of rescue that never materialize. This is just another one of those moments.
But Sophia hears it too, sitting up straight, eyes wide. Which means it's real. Which means —
“Is that —”
“A plow,” Manon finishes. “That's a plow.”
Manon scrambles to the window, Sophia hot on her heels, and presses her face against the glass. Sure enough, there's a massive orange truck making its way down the street, clearing the snow in huge, efficient sweeps. The sight of it is so mundane, so beautifully ordinary, that Manon's throat goes tight. They're being rescued. Actually rescued. By a city plow truck and a driver who has no idea he's saving their lives.
“Oh my god,” Sophia gasps. “Oh my god, we're saved.”
“We still need to wait for them to clear enough that we can get out,” Manon shoots back, because she’s a pessimist through and through and kissing Sophia won’t change that.
“I don't care. They're here. Someone's here.” Sophia spins around, grabbing Manon's hands. “We're going to get out of here. We're going to eat real food. We're going to be warm.”
“We're going to take showers,” Manon adds, which makes Sophia burst into a fit of giggles — relieved and a little hysterical around the edges.
“God, yes. I'm going to take the longest shower of my life.”
They watch the plow work its way down the street, clearing a path. There’s a constant back-and-forth motion. Snow piles up on either side, and they get to witness the wonder of the street slowly emerging underneath.
It’s proof that the world outside still exists, that people are still out there. They haven't been forgotten.
It takes another two hours before they can actually get the front door open, pushing through the remaining snow with combined effort. Manon's muscles are screaming in protest by the time they break through, weak from days of inadequate food and rest, but she doesn't care. The cold air hits them immediately, sharp and biting — she doesn’t care about that either. There's a path now. A way out.
“We made it,” Sophia says, awed. Manon can’t quite believe it’s real, either. “We actually made it.”
“Did you think we wouldn't?”
“I had my doubts,” Sophia admits. “Especially after the stairwell incident.”
Manon narrows her eyes at her. “That was your fault.”
“I know, I know. I'm never going to live it down.” She cracks her knuckles, eyes still twisting around in disbelief. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
They make their way outside, moving slowly through the snow.
It's still cold enough that Manon's face goes numb within seconds, lungs protesting the frigid air.
But the sun's out, the sky's clear, and they're leaving. Actually leaving. Every step away from that building feels like a victory. Manon almost hopes she never returns — for a moment, pretends that she doesn't, like, work there.
Sophia's apartment is four blocks away, just like she said all those days ago.
It takes them twenty minutes to reach it — stumbling through snow, holding onto each other for balance, breathless laughter when Sophia nearly faceplants and Manon’s forced to catch her. But…it feels good. The lightness. It’s normal. Like they're already leaving the trauma behind, and turning it into a story they'll tell later.
By the time they reach the building, they're both shaking from cold and exhaustion, but they’ve made it.
When Sophia turns the knob, unlocking the door, one thought comes to mind: Sophia's apartment is small and warm and perfect.
She cranks the heat up immediately, and they both stand in front of the vent for a solid five minutes, absorbing warmth. Manon's never appreciated heating quite this much. Never understood what a gift it is to have warm air readily available, to not have to ration body heat or huddle under thin blankets.
“Okay,” Sophia says eventually. “Showers. Then food. Then sleep in an actual bed.”
“That's the best plan you've had all week.”
“Rude,” Sophia puffs, but she's smiling. She leans up and kisses Manon, quick and easy, like it's something they've been doing forever instead of less than twenty-four hours. “But accurate.”
Manon showers first, and it's the best thing she's experienced in her entire life — hot water, actual soap, the feeling of being clean.
It distinctly reminds her of how dirty she’d been this entire week. How Sophia admitted to wanting her anyway.
She stands under the spray until her skin's pink and her fingers are pruning, washing away the days of grime and sweat. When she's done, she borrows Sophia's clothes (soft sweatpants and an oversized hoodie that smells like laundry detergent and Sophia), and then it's Sophia's turn.
While Sophia's in the shower, Manon orders food.
Too much food, probably, but they haven't eaten a real meal in days and she doesn't care about the cost. She orders Thai because Sophia mentioned once that she liked it, and she wants to get something Sophia likes.
When Sophia emerges, hair damp, the food's already arrived.
“You ordered Thai food,” Sophia says, staring at the spread on her coffee table. There's wonder in her voice, like Manon's done something extraordinary — all she’s done is order takeout, which would be phenomenal if she was a teenage boy with an inability to take care of herself, but she's not. Clearly.
“You mentioned once that you liked it.”
“I did?”
“Three months ago.” As soon as it leaves her mouth, she feels the slightest bit crazy. But Sophia remembered the pen, so she supposes they’re a similar brand of crazy. “You were complaining about the lunch options near the office.”
Sophia stares at her. “You remember that?”
“I remember a lot of things about you,” Manon says. Sophia's face goes soft — tender (cue: tenderism brainrot, but make it Sophia’s expression, because she could make a hundred videos on that alone), and it makes Manon's really fucking happy.
They eat until they're too full to move, sprawled on Sophia's couch and legs tangled together.
Manon’s never felt more content in her life — warm, fed, clean, with Sophia pressed against her side. The contrast to the past four days is almost overwhelming. She keeps expecting something to go wrong. For the heating to cut out, or the food to disappear, or for this to all be a dream.
It doesn’t happen. This is real. They're here. They're safe.
“We should probably let people know we're okay,” Sophia says eventually.
“Probably.” Sophia’s right, and she knows it. People must be worried, must’ve been trying to reach them. But that would require getting up, charging her phone, leaving Sophia…and so, yeah, moving sounds impossible right now.
Neither of them moves.
“Or we could do it later,” Sophia suggests, because they both like each other too much to let go first.
“Later sounds good.”
They fall asleep on the couch, Sophia's head on Manon's chest, the TV playing something neither of them are watching.
Outside, the city's slowly digging itself out of the storm.
Inside, everything is just as it should be.
Manon drifts off thinking about how she almost lost this before she even had it, how close they came to never figuring this out.
A week later, they go back to the office.
The building looks the same — the same fluorescent lights still flickering, grey carpet, and terrible break-room coffee. But everything feels different. Manon walks in with Sophia, and they're not even pretending to hide Sophia's hand finding hers in the elevator.
The casual intimacy of it still catches Manon off guard sometimes. She has to remind herself quite often that she’s allowed to touch Sophia freely, and that Sophia wants to touch her back. This is the new normal.
Lara’s the first one to spot them. “Oh my god, you're alive!”
“We're alive,” Sophia confirms, waving her free hand.
“We were so worried! When you didn't answer your phones —” Lara stops, looking between them. Specifically, looking at their joined hands. Her eyes go wide. “Wait. Did you two —”
“We're dating,” Sophia says, because subtlety is dead. Because Sophia is Sophia and the best course of action is to announce it to the entire office in one swoop. Manon should probably be mortified, but she finds herself not caring. Let everyone know. Let them all see that Sophia chose her.
“I knew it!” Lara shouts loud enough that half the office turns to look. “Megan! Megan, you owe me twenty bucks!”
“You bet on us?” Manon asks, mouth gaping, torn between offense or amusement.
“Everyone bet on you. We had a pool going for like three months.” Lara explains. She whips out her phone, and lo and behold: a group chat titled ‘ManonxSophia fucking countdown’. What the fuck. “Most people thought it would take until Valentine's Day, but I said something dramatic would happen and you'd figure it out sooner. A blizzard counts as dramatic, right?”
“It definitely counts,” Sophia says, taking the amused-over-offended route.
They make it to their desks, and Manon's surprised by how good it feels to be back.
It’s the same terrible chair, same flickering light above her monitor, and same view of Sophia two rows over.
Except now when Sophia catches her looking and winks, Manon doesn't quickly pretend she wasn’t staring. Just smiles back and returns to her work, lighter than she’s been in months.
At lunch, they go to the place with the good fish, sitting across from each other like they have dozens of times before, except now Sophia's playing with Manon's fingers across the table, and Manon's trying not to smile too obviously.
Failing, based on the way Sophia's grinning at her.
“So,” Sophia says. “This is nice.”
“It's just lunch.”
“Hey!” Sophia protests, shaking her head. “It’s not just lunch. It's our first official lunch date."
“We've had lunch together before,” Manon argues, attempting to keep her face serious. She’s being deliberately obtuse now. She knows what Sophia means, but there's something incredibly enjoyable about making her spell it out.
“Not as girlfriends,” Sophia points out, and Manon's heart flips like a madman at the word girlfriends. It shouldn't affect her like this — they've been together a week now. She should be used to it. But every time Sophia says it, every time she claims Manon like that, it hits new.
“Fair point,” is all she can get out.
“I'm going to want to do this a lot, you know,” Sophia says, a serious edge entering her voice. Worry briefly arises on her face, like she needs to make sure Manon's on the same page. “Lunches. And dinners. And breakfast, hopefully, if you ever want to stay over.”
She momentarily hates herself for ever putting doubt in Sophia’s mind — that’s everything she wants and more. “I want to stay over.” Manon vehemently nods, and Sophia's smile goes bright and wide. She's been wanting to say it for days but kept chickening out, worried it was too soon or too much. Watching Sophia's face light up makes it worth the risk.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I want — all of it. The lunches and dinners and waking up next to you. All of it.”
“Even the Christmas music?” Sophia's teasing now, eyes bright with mischief.
“Ergh.” Manon shoots her a disgruntled glare. “Don't push your luck.”
“I'm definitely pushing my luck.” Sophia, ever-charming, brushes a hand through her hair. Manon latches onto the movement like she’s a starving dog and the motion is food. “But you like it when I push my luck.”
“I really don't,” Manon lies, keeping her eyes on the menu in front of her.
“You really do,” Sophia corrects. Manon can't argue because, well, it's true. She likes it when Sophia pushes — when she's bold and asks for things Manon's too careful to ask for herself.
They walk back to the office holding hands, and if people stare, Manon doesn't care.
She's spent too long pretending she doesn't want this. Too long being careful, guarded, and afraid of wanting too much. She's done with that. Done hiding. Sophia makes her want to be braver, and maybe being brave looks like holding hands in public and admitting she wants breakfast together and being obvious about her feelings instead of locking them down.
Sophia was right. She deserves good things. They both do.
That night, Manon goes to Sophia's apartment with an overnight bag.
Sophia answers the door in pajamas, hair piled on top of her head, no makeup, and Manon thinks she's never seen anything more beautiful. This version of Sophia — soft, domestic, and comfortable — does something to Manon's chest. Does something to her head too, making her think about futures and permanence and all the things she's always been too scared to want.
“Hi.” Sophia cracks a smile, grinning age-old and bright.
“Hi.”
“Come in, come in,” Sophia exclaims, opening the door wider and ushering her in. “I made dinner. I…tried. I usually do much better than this. Swear! Rushed this time.”
The dinner is indeed not good — slightly burnt pasta with sauce from a jar — but Manon eats it anyway because Sophia made it for her, and that matters far more than the quality. It’s the gesture that counts, no matter how corny Manon thinks that remark is. The care behind it, the fact that Sophia tried to do something nice even if the execution was slightly questionable.
After dinner, they curl up on the couch.
Sophia puts on a movie, but neither of them watch any of it because they're too busy kissing.
It’s slow, lazy kisses that don't lead anywhere except to more kissing, and Manon thinks this might be the closest thing to perfection she’s ever had in life.
“Hey,” Sophia says during a commercial break. “I got you something.”
“You already got me something. The pen.” Which Manon's been using constantly, by the way. She carries it with her everywhere, and takes it out to write notes just because it feels good in her hand.
“I got you something else.” Sophia disentangles herself and disappears into her bedroom, returning with a small wrapped box.
Manon opens it carefully. Inside is a cat ornament — orange, with an annoyed expression, tiny and perfect. It looks exactly like Cheese. The resemblance is uncanny.
“You said your cat's name is Cheese,” Sophia explains, scratching her chin. “And I saw this and thought of you. I know you don't really do Christmas, but I thought maybe — if you wanted — you could put it up in your apartment. Or not. You don't have to.”
Manon looks at the ornament. At Sophia's nervous expression.
“I love it,” Manon whispers. Something like tears prick at her eyes. She quickly ignores it.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.” Manon wordlessly confirms, because she needs a moment to recollect herself. “I'm going to put it up as soon as I get home.” She will. She'll put it up in her apartment where she can see it every day, where it'll remind her of Sophia, of being brave enough to want things, of the fact that someone cares enough to remember these details about her.
Sophia beams. “I'm glad.”
“You're very good at gift-giving.”
“I'm very good at paying attention to you,” Sophia corrects. “There's a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Maybe not,” Sophia admits, before kissing Manon again. Soft and sweet, the kind that makes Manon's toes curl.
Later, when they're lying in Sophia's bed, lights off and Sophia's head on her chest, Manon says, “Thank you.”
“For what?” Sophia's voice is already drowsy, thick with approaching sleep.
“For not giving up on me. For seeing something in me worth pursuing…even when I was being difficult.” Re: when Manon was shutting her out, pretending she didn't feel anything, and maintaining that stupid careful professional distance.
“You weren't being difficult,” Sophia says sleepily. “You were being careful. And I get that. I'm glad you decided I was worth the risk.”
“You're worth everything,” Manon answers back quietly. She feels Sophia smile against her skin. The words feel huge, too honest, but she means them. Sophia's worth the vulnerability, worth the fear, worth all of it.
“You're going to make me cry.”
“Please don't. I don't know how to handle emotions.” It's mostly a joke but it’s not exactly wrong. Manon's still learning how to do this — the openness, the honesty, the vulnerability.
“You're handling them pretty well right now,” Sophia points out.
“I'm learning,” Manon says. Because of you, she doesn’t say.
“You're doing great,” Sophia murmurs, already half-asleep. “I'm proud of you.”
The words settle warm in Manon's chest. She's not used to people being proud of her for emotional honesty and trying. It’s work or practical achievements, typically.
But Sophia's proud of her for this. And that means more than Manon knows how to articulate.
Manon lies there, listening to Sophia breathe, feeling the weight of her in Manon's arms. Outside, the city's lit up with Christmas lights and decorations, and usually Manon would hate it. Would find it garish and overwhelming and a painful reminder of everything she's never had. But right now, with Sophia warm and safe next to her, it doesn't seem so bad.
Or maybe Manon's just a sap now. Either way, she's okay with it.
She presses a kiss to the top of Sophia's head, and Sophia makes a small, happy sound in her sleep. It makes her think about mornings and lazy Sundays and all the small intimacies she's never let herself want before.
“Merry Christmas,” Manon whispers, even though it's weeks past Christmas. She’s never said those words and meant them before.
She means them now. It has nothing to do with the holiday itself and everything to do with what it represents — a new beginning, a chance at something good, and proof that sometimes taking risks pay off in ways Manon never expected.
She's spent her whole life avoiding Christmas, and the feelings it brings up and the reminders of everything she didn't have.
Maybe that's changing.
Maybe next year she'll put up a tree, or string lights, or do something festive.
Maybe she'll make new memories that override the old ones.
Or, maybe she'll just spend it with Sophia, and that'll be enough. More than enough.
Sophia shifts in her sleep, burrowing closer, and Manon tightens her arms around her. Tomorrow, they'll wake up together. They'll make breakfast together, burn something mid-way, and laugh about it. They'll go to work and come home and restart the cycle all over again.
But right now, this moment is perfect. Sophia's breathing even and slow, the apartment warm, the world outside quiet.
For the first time in her life, she's not worried about the future.
There’s no calculated risks, or planning for disaster, or protecting herself from disappointment. She's here, present, letting herself want something without apology.
And it turns out wanting isn't as scary as she thought. Not when the wanting is Sophia. Not when Sophia wants her back just as much.
“Love you,” Sophia mumbles, barely conscious.
Manon's breath catches.
They haven't said it yet — hadn’t crossed that line. But Sophia’s stepped over the boundary, easy and unguarded, like it's the most natural thing in the world.
“Love you too,” Manon whispers back, testing the words out. They feel right. Feel true.
Sophia smiles in her sleep, and Manon thinks: yeah. This is exactly where she's supposed to be.