#THE SONG SWITCHED TO GIRLFRIEND ZS I WAS TYPING THIS. THERE IS NO WAY THIS PERSON ISN'T AT LEAST A LITTLE GAY

[advestager]

i've lowkey appreciated my mystery neighbour's musical taste for abt a year now, but i just realised that today's Distant Song Hint i couldn't quite decipher through several walls and god knows how many houses was scratching at my brain so insistently bc it's avril lavigne's magnum opus when you're gone so if y'all will excuse me i need to go find out their identity and kiss them directly on the mouth

[quarterfromcanon]

Next to You

Heather & Valencia - Femslash February - Day 15 - Playlist [1,550 words]

“How are you completely packed right now?” Valencia huffed while arranging ensembles along the edge of the mattress. “I’ve loaded and unloaded my suitcase three times just since you’ve been sitting there.”

“This is all routine for me,” Heather reminded her. “Davis family reunions have been around longer than I have. The specific pants and stuff change from year to year, but the basic wardrobe requirements stay the same.”

“I still don’t know how to prepare for their weather.” Valencia put her hands on her hips and considered three different shirts. "Seventy degrees for us versus seventy degrees for them could feel totally different. I don’t want to shake your grandparents’ hands with pit stains but I also don’t want to be the weird California girl who keeps shivering every time she’s under a shady tree.”

Heather unfolded her left leg from beneath her body. She stretched it across the sheets to point to an option with her toe. “That one. Open with a tank top. You can tie it around your waist if you get overheated, but you also don’t have to worry about it hugging your arms too tightly and showing sweat if you need the extra layer.” 

“Thank you.” Valencia adhered to the suggestion and rolled the chosen garment the way she’d learned from a YouTube luggage space-saving tutorial. 

“It’s gonna be okay.” Heather didn’t look up from her laptop, but her voice was sympathetic and knowing.

Valencia twisted the recommended tank top in her fists. “This just means being around a lot of people. Like, so many. I come from a big family too, but I’ve got a safety net there. Everyone knows that Fernanda Perez would destroy their bloodline if they went after any of her daughters. It’s one of those ‘it’s only okay when I do it’ things, but it does provide the benefit of not having to hear what my aunts really think of me. They only discuss it when we’re out of earshot. I won’t have that going for me with your relatives.”

Heather waved her hands over herself in a ‘What am I?’ gesture.

“Yes, I’ll have you,” Valencia acknowledged. “I know you’d defend me if you had to, but I don’t want that to even come up. I don’t want to be the cause of a fight on a day that’s just supposed to be happy and fun.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Heather asserted again. “Seriously, they won’t give you any trouble. The Council of Elders might creak their old bones to give us side-eye, but that’s as confrontational as it’ll get.”

Valencia shuddered. “Can we call them something else? They sound terrifying.”

“Cheaters of Death? Ghosts of Prejudices Present? Good Ol’ Fashioned Pains in the Ass?”

Valencia smiled in spite of herself. “You’re teasing me.”

“A little. Is it helping?”

“Kind of.” Valencia sorted bottles of hygiene products in a clear, rectangular bag. “What’s got you clicking away over there? And why does it require headphones?”

“Travel soundtrack,” Heather answered simply. She held one of the headphone cushions to her ear with visible concentration. “I’ve gotta switch a few around. They’re fucking with the flow.”

“For the flight?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“For me?”

“Yep.”

“Music to soothe the anxious beast?”

Heather’s eyelids crinkled at the edges. “Something like that.”

Valencia settled across the narrow vacant space on the bed. She ran her palm up and down Heather’s leg from ankle to knee and back again. “I appreciate the personalized calming technique you’re creating but, if it makes you feel any better, I honestly won’t notice whether it all blends perfectly or not.”

“I know. I just like the challenge.” Heather twitched her shoulders.

Valencia poked the curve of Heather’s muscle. “You take your arrangements very seriously.”

“‘Music is crucial. Beyond no way can I overstress this fact.’” Heather intoned while she typed something else into the search bar.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re quoting that futuristic bumper car book at me again?”

Heather leaned sideways toward the shelf along the wall. Her fingers found the third level up without looking and counted across three spines before sliding out the fourth novel over from the right. Valencia verified the author name and title even though she was already familiar and shook her head. Rant by Chuck Palahniuk.

“Chapter seventeen,” Heather confirmed. “Hit Men.”

“I’m pretty sure you have the best memory of anyone I know. It figures that line would stick since it does sort of sound like you.”

Heather winked. “‘I carry a mix for any human condition.’” 

Valencia lightly slapped her hand against Heather’s thigh. “Showoff.” 

They both resumed their activities until dinnertime approached. It was decided that ordering in seemed the best course of action so they wouldn’t have any dishes to do before their early bedtime. They settled on opposite ends of the couch with their legs crisscrossed atop the middle cushion.

“You said we won’t be the only not-straight people there, right?” Valencia prodded at her noodles with chopsticks. 

Heather tucked a diced carrot into her cheek. “Are you still stressing?”

“Are you still surprised?” 

Heather gave Valencia’s kneecap a comforting squeeze with her calves. “No. I was just hoping it’d pass, for your sake. But yeah, there’ll be at least one other couple there. My cousin Nancy came out back when she was in high school. She’s bringing her fiancée, Charlie. They won’t be hard to track down; Charlie’s hair is an even brighter red than Paula’s. It’s like the easiest game of Where’s Waldo in a group of brunets.”

Valencia nodded. She tapped her hands against the sides of the takeout box. “So which of you two is older?”

“Me by about... four years?” Heather tilted her hand from side to side to indicate a rough estimate. “I was somewhere in college by that summer. She texted me the week before to get advice. I showed up in this denim jacket covered in, like, every pride button and patch I could find. I had a pansexual pin for her in my pocket."

Valencia’s expression softened and she nudged Heather’s waist with her foot. “That was really sweet of you.” 

Heather shrugged. She focused her attention on fishing out an elusive pea in her rice. “The plan totally worked because, no matter how many people noticed what she was wearing, I was always gonna be the more distracting one. It took some of the heat off Nancy and helped her chill out a bit. We basically sat on a picnic bench all day just talking and laughing, staring back at anybody who got a funny look on their faces.” She laughed quietly. “It was great.”

“All right, well, mission accomplished.” Valencia reached for her drink. “I’m at least a little excited for this gathering since it means I get to meet her.”

“She said the same thing.”

“Psh, no she didn’t.”

Heather pulled out her cell, tapped the screen, and scrolled. She turned it to face Valencia with her thumb under a message in gray.

Valencia clutched her heart. “Aww!”

Heather clicked her phone off and returned it to her pocket. “Told you.”

___

The four-and-a-half hour flight from LAX to DTW was a ride for Valencia in both the literal and emotional sense of the word. Her inner responses to their journey swooped from eager to bored to panicked and then repeated the cycle. Heather remained ever-present and attentive, able to track and accommodate whichever stage Valencia was experiencing at the time. 

The digital map on the fold-down display indicated they were now flying over Michigan. Valencia couldn’t help obsessively checking every so often to see if she could spy the city below, even though she knew it would be a while yet before they were that far across the state. Heather snuggled against Valencia’s shoulder with her cell phone in her lap, set to play the collection of tracks she had so meticulously assembled. The headphone splitter was nestled in her half-open hand.

They were about twenty-five minutes from the disembark when Valencia finally got a proper view through the clouds. Her breath caught in her chest and it was at least a full sixty seconds before she became aware of the lyrics playing through her earbuds.

‘Is this the fate that half of the world has planned for me? I know I love you, and you love the sea...’

Valencia turned to nudge her girlfriend awake, but Heather was already watching her intently. They met each other’s gaze for a moment and Valencia arched an eyebrow. “Did you time it out so one of my favorite songs by Vampire Weekend would be on right now?”

Heather could not quite conceal the upward turn at the corner of her lips. “I’m flattered, V, but don’t give my playlist-making skills too much credit.”

Valencia dropped her voice an octave. “Oh my God, you’re so full of it. You’re, like, so full of crap.”

Heather fluffed Valencia’s sleeve like a pillow. “That’s a good impression. You should trot that one out at the reunion. You’ll be a hit.” She shut her eyes and sighed contentedly. “I’m gonna catch a few more Zs before we land.”

Valencia rested her cheek against Heather’s hair. She pressed a soft, discrete kiss to her forehead. “I love you, too.”