#but I thought this nicely summed up Katya’s views on working
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petrovna-zamo · 3 years ago
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Speaking about working alongside Trixie, Katya explained: "I know a lot of people get jealous when they are part of famous couples or comedy duos who get compared to each other with which one is more successful, but I am more than happy to play the sidekick, especially with me and Trixie.
"She is totally out of control with her ambition and I am so thrilled to lay back and do a gig once in a while - if you need me call me.
"I have a mindset where I don’t need to be competitive or feel like I am the better one, that is the number one recipe for disaster."
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1608752/drag-race-katya-disgusting-world
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luvargas · 4 years ago
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     i think i just saw LUCILA “ LU ” VARGAS ride by on a golf cart . at least i think it was her . after all , CREDIT IN THE STRAIGHT WORLD BY HOLE was blasting on the transistor radio . maybe she was on her way to work , i hear she’s a PERSONAL TRAINER . but she totally could have been on her way to SNEAK IN A SMOKE AT THE GARDEN . guess we’ll never know . you’ll definitely know its her when you see LOOSE AND TANGLED HAND WRAPS , BUTTON BADGES ON VEGAN LEATHER ,  AND HEAR THE SHRILL SOUND OF BICKERING around the country club . let’s just hope she stays off the green after hours or else the sprinklers will get her !
( new muse, messy thoughts, u get the gist. pls know the views of this chara do not reflect my own. the name’s katya, 21, she/her pronouns & im ready 2 party. feel free to hmu wnvr or drop a like to plot n ill com 2 u ! x — oh n pls be a pal n read this quick disclaimer. tysm ! )
BASICS
24 years old
15 april 1997
5′1″ or 1.55m tall
bisexual cis woman, she/her
aries sun, aqua moon, and aqua rising
love languages : quality time & acts of service
BIO POINTS
kid o’ divorce, lived w her ma in chicago til she was 6 then w her dad in highlands til 14 then back to her ma ! 
def a daddys gorl. so used to her white pop’s leniency that livin w her strict latina ma durin her teen yrs was So Not Her Vibe ergo * cue her rebel grrrl phase *
did not finish hs ! left senior yr 2 to go w her “ radically progressive ” college bf to [ insert dev country. ] they broke up after a few mos but she kept at that life for a couple more yrs
seen some places. lived in new countries. done some shit. some good, some sus, but all generally well-intentioned. tis a whole thing but u get the gist, nywy !
lu’s back in da usa by 21. rel w the ma is strained but the pa is chill w stuff, they kept in touch. he said shell get her college fund if she gets her ged so she does !
her dad is v active n stuff so shes just always been v sporty w him. lu turnin 23 w zilch plans worried him so he implored her to get certified as a personal trainer ! n when she did, he called in a few favors w a pal he knows et voilà ! ur hired.
LU AT WORK
shes been workin at the country club fr a little over a yr now. most her clients are influencer-type gals n they luv her bc shes can take rlly cute pics n stuff for content. lu sorta likes some of em n she fakes the rest for the bread. u can bet she clowns all em richies behind their back   
unless she got clients, catch her runnin’ about the club n minglin’ w the other workers. does it annoy mngmt ? yes. n she luvs that. but bc her soon-2-b-karen clients luv her n wont stand for her bein booted, she can milk that impunity
actually knows her shit n lowkey rlly enjoys the work. she picked back up the boxing n tae kwon do she did when she was younger plus she was always in the track team at school. v healthy lifestyle save for her smokin vice n the party moments
PERSONALITY 
passionate ! has lotsa opinions. helluva a drama queen, bit of a loud mouth, argumentative n stubborn but her heart’s in the right place, albeit a lil misguided. comes w the whole activist bit, bitin her tongue just aint it. highkey makes everythin political n smtms gotta realize .,.,. it just aint that deep chief. some say shes needlessly defiant, but maybe thats a in the beholder typa thing ? fingers crossed 4 lu’s sake
fun, fun, fun ! can be real naggy but shes no buzzkill. wannabe anarchist-slash-mutineer who wants 2 stick it 2 the man ! get rowdy go crazy
fight, fight, fight ! goin back to the first bit, she talks big. esp w like ,, men n the whites lol. she can actually walk her threats tho she isnt actually violent. w arguments, she likes to start em but finishin is ... ruff.  also any dare, she wont back down in either doin it or arguin why doin it wld be smth-ist. shes not the sharpest tool ok rip lu
loyal legend ! fr her friends n buds, shell turn a blind eye. pals r the only exception ! truly ride or die n will do errthng 4 em. v much a believer in the power of community n ppl needin ppl or wtvr, yk, all that stuff. shes mouthy but like, she helps ppl 
here’s a brief blurb n a more coherent look into lu as a character
TIDBITS
lu can understand spanish but hers is a bit broken, tis her secret shame shhh
she doesn’t believe in the institution. any institution. u name it, shes got beef
pls dont fact check her she cant hear u
probs lowkey thinks shes better than u bc shes vegan
prefers 2 be called “ lu ” n ny1 who insists on lucila is dead 2 her 
comments abt her not lookin like a pt w her height n frame will result in an earful n a dramatic outburst. it aint worth it chief
watches lotsa sports w her pops. mostly indiv ones. mma, boxing, tennis, track, etc
dont ask me abt her principles n politics, i cant explain em either. v inconsistent n just messy at this point tbh but here’s a lil attempt ig
she drives a 2018 prius n lives in a p nice 1br apt outside the club
her mom’s middle class n her dad is almost upper-middle class. he isnt a member of the club but, like ,,, he cld be if he wanted to lol. he spoils her sm while she hasnt rlly Spoken to her mom besides civility, rip they both stubborn, tis a vargas thing
she is v much in a comfy position money-wise n dsnt hav much Need to hustle but sis does hav a couple of organizations she regularly sends some dough to so thats nice ig
she went fr grassroots activist to a veteran twitter/tumblr/reddit/wtvr ranter n a change.org gofundme petition regular. is it burnout ? is she ok ? honestly who knows
WANTED CONNECTIONS / TAKEN CONNECTIONS
found family ! pals n squad wanted. y’all gotta hav patience or ear plugs to power thru her self-indulgent mini-rants but shell luv ya back tenfold !
carpool buds ? cld be a pal ! or maybe yall had a lil argument or small beef but lu still drives ym bc her pride ? said mother earth first even tho the tension n silly drama is funny 
homies to smoochies ! just sum nsa makin out. cld be pals, cld be flirty, idk, but if u wanna kiss her shes probs ok w that
smoke bud ! just sum1 thats her go-to 2 smoke w on her breaks. knows not to call her out on how its not healthy fr a trainer yada yada she knows ok. let her live
an ex ? idk yet shes not rlly datey but thats out there
crushes ! this bitch hot but does she know how to flirt ? not rlly. watch her fumble
debate club ! aka sum1 she bickers w relentlessly. its valid, sum1 fite her. r u a worker or a club member ? either works. its a whole club bc she can have tons, lu can be hella annoying n testy
clients ! self-explanatory. do they get along tho ? lets find out ! 
( im officially braindead now but if y’all got more ideas or think theres smth lu wld fit just lmk !!! down 4 wtvr, wld luv 2 hash it out w yall <3 ) 
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artificialqueens · 5 years ago
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Makes Me Wonder (Biadore)- Ortega
a/n: hey hey! happy holidays. i thought i’d write a lil somethin to get me back into the swing of writing since i’ve had a couple months off. it’s an idea i’ve had running around my head for a good good while, at least a year, and now it’s finally down so pls let me know what you think! this is set within the Just the Game We’re In universe but can absolutely be read standalone. title from the song of the same name by Ella Mai which really sums up what this fic is all about (issa vibe). is it too early for a new years’ eve fic? have it anyway, ya filthy animals xo
summary: Adore is a civil service comms girl in a government department who’s meant to be out with her friends. Bianca is the director of communications for the entire country’s government about twenty ranks above her who has no plans for the night other than getting the Prime Minister out of trouble. Tonight, they’re two women sharing a bottle of prosecco in an office high above the city on the last night of the year.
***
It’s eleven at night, and the glass frontage of the offices makes all the darkness flood in. Too high for the reach of the streetlamps, Bianca can see the tiny twinkly lights of the city below in the distance. From the position of the building most of London’s landmarks are hidden from view: the Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral, she knows that the Houses of Parliament are on the other side of the building, not that she’d want to see them. Bianca doesn’t mind. She became disillusioned with London in 2008, when she was presented with her third Prime Minister that didn’t have a clue what he was doing and it slowly dawned on her that maybe all you needed to get ahead in politics was a dick and a Ted Baker suit. Or to be a dick in a Ted Baker suit.
And now here she is running after yet another enormous man-child, pre-emptively doing a mop-up job that she knows she will be tasked with when government returns in the New Year. She knows that a supposedly off-the-record journalist ambushed him at a New Years’ Eve party about an hour ago, asked him something about immigration figures that if he didn’t know sober he’d know even less after six sherries, so Bianca knows that all the papers will be primed to really go in on that subject next time they have a chance. She needs a file, she knows exactly the one- a huge blue lever arch with all the figures needed to sound like the government expert on immigration. It would’ve helped if the actual government expert on immigration was in the country, but the Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (or DoSac, as those in Westminster called it) Sharon Needles is still in Spain with her family and her wife, coincidentally the second government expert on immigration by proxy. Bianca shakes her head derisively as she makes her way to the lightswitch. What the hell is Sharon thinking, swanning off on holiday at a time like this? Alaska’s no better, she knows there’s going to be an election in Scotland in six months��� time and whether they give a shit or not they still have to make the party seem likeable down in London and that’s her job as an MP. Bianca had heard it all from Sharon, “it’s Christmas for Christ’s sake Bianca, I’m not asking for a week in Amsterdam during a reshuffle”, and she likes the fucking woman so she’d let her, but one of her parting comments still stings, “I don’t think you got enough cuddles as a child”. Bianca had wanted to snap at her that her childhood had been fine, it was her adulthood she needed to worry about. She brings her thumb up to her palm and touches the bottom of the fourth finger on her left hand self-consciously. It’s been…God, twelve years now. There can’t still be a dent. Perhaps Bianca is imagining it.
Bianca imagines a lot of things.
Blinking as if to hit refresh on her mind, she flicks the lightswitch and is surprised when she hears a thud and an “owch” come from underneath one of the desks in the department. Narrowing her eyes, she casts a glance over the huge room. There are Willam and Courtney’s desks, both with photos of them at Sharon and Alaska’s wedding on each. Blair’s is chaotically tidy, piles and piles of documents that Bianca knows all have their place. Violet’s and Jinkx’s, both neat and orderly, and then Bianca’s gaze sweeps quickly over Trixie and Katya’s desks to come to rest on a huge pair of hazel eyes blinking at her with wide-eyed surprise. Bianca is disarmed, only able to blink back at her in a way she hopes is intimidating and not intimidated.
“Bianca!” Adore gasps, sounding shocked as she rises from behind her desk. This reveals a black sparkly lace and velvet dress with beads and sequins threaded all over it, so much so that it looks as if Adore is dressed in the night sky. Bianca elects not to speak, scared in case she tries and nothing comes out. She maintains her stare instead. Adore’s red lips, set in an O of surprise, start to move. “Fuck, I’m sorry…I was out in my heels and never had flats with me and I knew I had my work boots under my desk so I just got an uber here and the place was still open and, uh…yeah. Sorry for saying fuck.”
Bianca cracks a small smile as Adore scrunches her straight dark hair in her hands at the scalp, an embarrassed smile on her own face which turns into an awkward bite of her lip. She’s beautiful. Bianca’s always thought so, in the same way she can admire a bouquet of flowers or a sunset or a member of the opposition getting absolutely annihilated in a debate. Adore is beautiful, and that’s just a fact. Nothing more. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that.
Bianca sometimes wonders, though.
“Uh, how come you’re here? Busiest woman in Westminster, you don’t have, like…some sort of New Years’ Eve party with the Prime Minister and all the cabinet and…stuff?” Adore concludes  sheepishly, scuffing her foot across the floor in a way Bianca wishes she didn’t find so charming. For her part, Bianca narrows her eyes.
“For your information, I’m trying to find a file,” she rolls her eyes, walking past the comms girl and trying not to inhale too much of the perfume she’s wearing that smells all too much of candyfloss and jellybeans. It shouldn’t smell as nice as it does.
“Government secrets. You’re gonna kill someone,” Adore nodded, following Bianca over to the filing cabinet, crossing her arms and resting them on the top.
“You, if I’m lucky,” Bianca keeps up pretences and pretends that Adore is too young, too silly and idiotic to be worthy of her time. It’s a dance they’ve been doing since Adore started as an intern for Darienne Lake back in the day, back when the whole thing had some integrity and Bianca genuinely held more contempt for Adore than a smear of shit on her shoe and Adore presumably thought Bianca’s entire personality was modelled on Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. It’s more than that now though. Bianca knows it, Adore knows it. It’s been more than that for a while. Years, definitely. How many, Bianca doesn’t know. Certainly since Adore had been dating that journalist Laila McQueen who ended up breaking her heart and very nearly brought the department down with all the secrets Adore had inadvertently leaked to her. Since Adore had found love in a new relationship with a girl from the hospital coffee shop, when Adore had been telling the rest of the civil service girls about her and had stopped when she caught sight of Bianca walking in, her excited face faltering only a little. It’s definitely been since Bianca, exhausted and caught off guard by a stressful day that happened to fall on an all too painful date (Bianca touches her ring finger again) allowed her shoulders to slump and a tear to fall from her face in an empty room in the DoSac offices. Adore had entered the glass-fronted office, uttered Bianca’s name gently, crossed the room to face her. She’d wordlessly caught the tear with an impossibly gentle acrylic-nailed finger and it had disappeared from her face as if Adore was a magician. Then she’d left, returning with a cup of hot coffee and a touch of Bianca’s hand and vanishing from the empty office as if she’d never been there.
Bianca wonders if it would’ve been easier if she hadn’t been.
“What’s your plan for tonight, anyway? Westminster’s number one Amy Winehouse tribute act,” Bianca continues, frowning as the lever arch file isn’t in the place it should be. She slams shut one drawer and tries the next one down.
“Number one! Fuck, that’s high praise from you. I’m sure you said Courtney was, like, the number fifteen Kylie Minogue tribute,” Bianca hears the smile in Adore’s voice, internally yells at herself as loud as her mind will allow that this is not, not, not flirting.
“Only because I’m hoping you decide to really commit to the gig and overdose over the holidays and I won’t have to see you eating all the croissants meant for Sharon day after day next year,” Bianca raises her eyebrows at her. Completely nukes any hint of anything playful. But of course Adore bulldozes that idea immediately with a huge snort of laughter and a smile that exposes her beautiful teeth, impossibly white given all the smoking she does.
“Huh. So you do notice me,” she ponders, her voice small and tinged with a dangerous hint of curiosity.
“Hard not to with that hideous vocal fry. Helluhhhh, you’re through to Dosac commmmmms?” Bianca mocks, drawing her voice out and allowing herself a grin at the way Adore’s face lights up in a self-deprecating laugh. Bianca, for a moment, truly believes the whole room gets brighter.  
“I’m out with the girls,” Adore explains on the tail end of a laugh, finally answering her question. “You’re not having much luck with that file.”
“Listen, Wednesday fucking Addams! Enough sass from you, alright? I can still sack you, holidays or no holidays,” Bianca snaps, not meaning a single word of it. She can practically hear the smug smile of disbelief on Adore’s face. She looks up and sure enough, there it is. “What the fuck’s that look for? You look like the cat that got the cream then ate the shit.”
Adore shrugs lightly. “I just don’t think you’d ever sack me, that’s all. You’re too nice.”
Bianca is knocked for six by the compliment. For a moment, forgets how to react. She straightens up and tries the shelves for the file. “You’ve seen me fire about ten people since you started working here, you’re clearly an idiot with a horrendous judge of character or you’ve got early-onset dementia.”
Adore laughs. “I think I’m both. Although you’re in the dementia pit with me, sister.”
“How fucking dare you, I’m forty two. I’m reporting you for ageism,” Bianca snarls at her, but they both know she doesn’t mean it. Adore shrugs, stretching out against the wall.
“All I’m saying is, I think you’re forgetting I’m one of the only people in the country who’s ever got a Bianca Del Rio apology.”
Bianca shakes her head, tries to ignore how good her name sounds in Adore’s mouth. She remembers that day, remembers it well- absolutely ripping through Adore because she made a mistake and watching her tear up, spending the day being eaten up with regret and then sheepishly going to say sorry at the end of it all, watching her bashful expression become mirrored on Adore’s face as the girl had told her not to worry about it and that these things happen. Bianca looks again at Adore, the playful and lighthearted expression on her face now one of trepidation. Bianca knows what she’s thinking, and she’s wondering if she’s taken the whole thing too far. So Bianca does the only thing she can do at this point in the conversation and turns danger to derision.
“How’s being out with the girls working out for you?”
Adore puffs out a load of air, twirls an end of her long hair around her finger. “Not too well because there’s an old woman with alzheimer’s that I have to look after who’s wandering around the office muttering obscenities at me and searching for a piece of very important government information.”
Adore notes Bianca’s unamused expression and hollers out a laugh, Bianca unable to hold hers in any longer either. Smiling, Adore continues. “At least, that’s what I’ll tell the girls when they ask me why I’m late.”
Bianca sighs, shakes her head in disbelief. “Adore, I’m not going to shout at you if you want to leave. You got what you came here for, so-”
“Oh, I mean, yeah, of course. But winding up my boss’ boss is just as fun, actually is more fun, than sitting in a crowded pub with my friends yelling in my ear because the twelve men out on their Christmas piss-up are singing Fairytale of New York loud enough that their lungs are gonna pop, so…” Adore trailed off, punctuating her sentence with a shrug. She pauses a second. “Hey, what does that file look like?”
“It’s lever arch…blue, really full, probably has bits of paper sticking out of it…Christ, this is the most boring conversation I’ve ever had,” Bianca rubs her face with her hands and forgets there’s makeup on it. Adore laughs, scans the room, then immediately marches over to Courtney’s desk, moves some paper aside and returns with exactly what Bianca had described. Bianca, for her part, is stunned.
“How in the hell did you-”
“Sometimes sitting doing fuck all all day has its uses. Court took the file to update online Census data before she went off for her holidays, tried to get ahead on her work for coming back. I remember ‘cuz she asked me for a cup of tea to get her through it,” Adore smiles, her brazen confidence hidden under a shy smile. Bianca takes it from her and thanks her, regret tingeing her voice as she realises this leaves neither of them with an excuse to be in each others’ company any more.
“You know,” Adore drops into conversation nonchalantly, just as Bianca is about to cut her losses and say goodbye. “If I leave now I probably won’t get an Uber in time for the countdown, and if I do the girls’ll have probably moved on, and, like, the city’s gonna be mobbed…and, uh, there’s a bottle of prosecco that Trixie won in the raffle that she put in the fridge and never took home. So, like, if you want, we could just, uh…have, like, a…”
Bianca tries so, so hard to ignore the way her heart is soaring like a helium balloon. “See in the New Year with a bottle of fizz and a better view of London than half the city’s going to get?” Don’t sound too enthusiastic. “Well, looks like I’ve not got much better to do.”
Bianca doesn’t miss the triumphant smile Adore shoots her way as she dashes off to the tiny office kitchen to grab the promised alcohol. Left to awkwardly shuffle her feet, Bianca decides to cross the office and open the door to the meeting room. The city lights immediately flood her vision as she perches gingerly on the desk in the middle of the room, foregoing the uncomfortable office chairs. As she sits and waits, her mind races in time with her heart. It’s not a big deal, stop reading too much into it. It’s a New Years’ Eve drink with a coworker, people do that all the time at this time of year. Except Bianca knows it’s different, because Adore is not her coworker. She’s her inferior in every way- wage, status, power, everything probably except kindness of heart and beauty. Don’t think about Adore’s beauty.
All of a sudden the office goes dark, as dark as it can with the bright lights and the big city underneath it, and Adore softly pads into the room a few seconds later with two mugs, a bottle, and an excitable grin on her face. “Okay, now it’s actually like we’re in a London Eye pod. Don’t you think?”
“I think the London Eye has proper champagne flutes,” Bianca quips witheringly, hoping it disguises the fact that her heart is beating nearly out of her chest because it’s dark, and it’s New Year’s Eve, and it’s magical, and for now they’re two women drinking prosecco together with no prior agenda or obstacles.
Adore holds out one mug to Bianca. It says “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my second morning coffee!” and for a moment Bianca wants to burst into hysterical laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. She doesn’t. Instead she smiles slightly as Adore pours the fizz into the mug with all the skill of a toddler, watches as the bubbles climb up to the rim of the porcelain until Bianca has to jump in and inhale them away.
“Wish!” Adore beams excitedly, and Bianca, hunched over the mug, launches her a quizzical look. Adore is patient with her. “You caught the bubbles. Now you make a wish.”
Bianca briefly rolls her eyes, but obediently she squeezes her eyes shut. Wishes for something wildly illogical and fanciful because it wouldn’t be a wish if it wasn’t. Bianca can set goals and achieve them, she’s been doing it all her life. Wishing for something she could easily make come true on her own is a waste of a wish. When she opens her eyes she finds Adore grinning at her moronically.
“What did you wish for?”
Bianca sips a bit more of the bubbles, as if to strengthen the wish. “If I told you that it wouldn’t come true, would it? Is that not how wishes work? Or did they change the contract?”
Adore raises her eyebrows at the woman long-sufferingly, pouring enough prosecco into her own glass that the bubbles spill over and land on her sparkly dress, a splash more constellations added to the night sky. She sips at the popping and fizzing froth on the top of the mug, locks her eyes with Bianca. “I guess we’ll need to wait before we get an answer to that, won’t we?”
Bianca coughs, fixes her eyes on a particularly glittery set of buildings in the distance. She doesn’t tear her eyes away from them as she speaks again. “Where’s, uh. Are you not meant to be with your girlfriend tonight or something?”
“You’re pretty fuckin’ out of the loop. Me ‘n Aja’ve been done since before Christmas,” Adore replies, her voice light but her tone dead, and Bianca wants to leap from the building.
“Fuck, sorry. I never knew.”
She hears a snort from beside her. Adore’s looking at the table and smiling. “Shit. Now I got two sorrys from Bianca Del Rio, fuck knows what I’ll do with all of those. Open a shop?”
Bianca humours her and laughs back in lieu of making a silly quip, she’s loath to make things worse than she already has. Adore looks back out of the window and Bianca looks at her, the view better than anything behind that pane of glass.
“We didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Either of us,” Adore continues. The city lights are reflected in her eyes, dark and beautiful and capable of making Bianca say things she might regret. “Suddenly it got to two years and we both, like…died laughing at the thought of being ready to settle down any time soon. She’d kissed other girls. I’d slept with somebody else. Just to…fuck, I don’t know. Like, I wondered if I was actually in love, wondered what it was all meant to feel like. Wondered if I’d feel anything before, during, after.”
Bianca is taking this all in her stride despite the fact her mind is moving about the same rate as Adore’s lips and with each new revelation there is something new to get her head around. She somehow coughs up a question. “And did you?”
Adore laughs completely humourlessly. It doesn’t suit her. “Good question, girl. I’ll come back to you when I have an answer that makes any fuckin’ sense to you. Right now I don’t even have one that makes sense to me.”
Bianca crosses her legs and is deep in thought. She doesn’t know if she ever had Adore pinned as the type to cheat on a girlfriend, then immediately thinks she is silly to consider such an action as being attributed to a type of person. You can never really ever know a human, and with each new day someone can surprise you with the mundane or underwhelm with a revelation. Still, she reminds herself, she thought she’d known…
Never mind.
Point is, nothing shocks or fazes her any more. She considers herself an expert in human nature simply by following one simple rule; never assume.
“You probably think I’m an awful fuckin’ person now.”
Bianca turns and looks at Adore as if the eye contact will answer her question without having to say anything. This already doesn’t seem sufficient to either her or Adore, so Bianca follows it up anyway. “You honestly might as well do whatever the fuck you want in life, Adore. Half the world’s out there doing that already and not giving a single shit about the consequences.”
Adore narrows her eyes at her, quirks a smile that doesn’t quite meet her lips. “That’s a very…world weary answer.”  
“I’m a very world weary woman,” Bianca sips her prosecco. It tastes absolutely fucking horrible out of a mug. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her, as Adore seems to shift closer to her until she is right bang next to her sitting on top of the table. There is no space between them- no hands, no cups, no air, and the sheer possibility and risk of it all makes Bianca shiver.
“I think you’re a very complex woman,” Adore murmurs delicately. Bianca doesn’t dare meet her eyes, instead electing to look down at where the hem of Adore’s dress meets her black tights with a small ladder. “I would kill to read some form of, like…autobiography.”
Bianca laughs, reaches out and starts fiddling with a small sequin on Adore’s dress in spite of herself. “It would be a very fucking short autobiography. I was born, I grew up, I got this job, I died. The end. Four pages at most. Five including a contents page.”
“There’s more to you than that.”
“No there isn’t.”
Bianca feels Adore tense up beside her, is frightened into dropping the hem of her dress and to stop picking at the stitching. She’s an idiot who went too far and got caught up in the night and has probably ruined the poor girl’s dress. Adore speaks. “People’ve told me that you used to wear a wedding ring, and now you don’t.”
Now it’s Bianca’s turn to tense up, and she does her best to give Adore a run for her money. Freezes in place so quick it puts her in mind of a childhood game of musical statues. Adore recoils quickly as if she’s been burned; Bianca is a sparkler she’s let linger in her hands for too long. It becomes a game of who will break the silence first. Adore wins. Or loses. Bianca supposes there are no winners in this conversation.
“Bianca, I’m sorry,” she whispers, closes the gap again and touches her hand. She seems to have second thoughts and removes it again, and Bianca wants to curl her fingers around Adore’s and not let go. “Shit, fuck, this was so above my station…I’m so sorry, Bianca, honestly-”
Bianca can feel the woman getting stressed out next to her. She never thought she’d be referring to Adore as a woman, but there’s a first for everything. She looks grown up and confident and self-assured with her dark hair (she got rid of the blonde and Bianca thinks it suits her), her perfect red lipstick, her sophisticated dress. Except now she looks every inch the panicking intern Bianca first knew her as, and she decides to swallow her fears and take Adore’s hand, laces their fingers together like she wanted to earlier.
They’re holding hands. The director of communications for the government of the entire country is holding hands with a comms girl endless fucking pay grades below her, and there is so much wrong but yet so much that just seems correct. It’s two hands linked together. That’s all.
“Like I said,” Bianca smiles sadly at the carpet, deciding that particular story can wait until she’s six feet under. “Half the world’s doing whatever the fuck they want and not giving a shit about the consequences.”
Adore strokes her thumb at the knuckle and Bianca is lost for words, a rare occurrence in her life. “I’m so sorry, Bianca.”
“Well. We’ve both put our foot in it now, so,” Bianca drops their hands, decides it’s probably a good place to end whatever the hell this is. She picks up her mug and tries to ignore the feeling that Adore looks disappointed at the lack of contact. “To being untactful shits incapable of emotional intelligence.”
Adore gives a small laugh, clinks her mug against Bianca’s own. There’s a moment of silence before she speaks.
“I’ve never told anyone about cheating on Aja. Apart from her, obviously.”
“Well now I have some serious dirt on you,” Bianca raises her eyebrows in an attempt to make light of the situation. She is rewarded by a laugh from Adore.
“I guess I did it because…well. There’s like…always been a third person in my relationships. No, fuck, that sounds weird and intense, but…ah, it’s hard to explain,” Adore hisses through her teeth, and Bianca is intrigued. The entire opening hangs heavy in the air, and Bianca doesn’t want to think about the possibilities it holds. She can feel her heart speed up, and she takes a too-big gulp of her prosecco and feels the bubbles shatter like ice down her gullet. Adore is looking at her, she knows, but Bianca holds her gaze on the city. “Do you ever, like, think about how there could be a right person, but the wrong place and wrong time? Wrong universe, even. Like they could be so gorgeous and funny and warm and you just know they’d be great to talk to if you ever got a proper chance, but you’ve never had the chance, and you know you won’t ever get the chance? So you just make peace with it, except, like, you’re never really at peace with it because with every new relationship you get into it’s just taunting you, the what if, the wondering?”
The air is spitting and crackling with electricity. Hot oil on a pan. Bianca shakes her head. “Adore, I haven’t been in a relationship for, literally, years.”
“But you still know the feeling though, don’t you?” Bianca is suddenly electrocuted, thousands of volts running through her as Adore takes her hand and gives Bianca no choice but to turn and face her, the city lights ripped from her eyes as Adore gazes into Bianca’s own, nothing to reflect in them, just black. Bianca’s heart goes from racing to flatlined. Adore doesn’t break eye contact. “Bianca…I know you know the feeling.”
And this is it. It’s out in the open, the tension between them that’s lingered for years like somebody’s taken a knife to a huge helium balloon. Bianca almost wants to laugh. There is no point protesting, or trying to tell Adore she’s got it all wrong. Adore is headstrong, has always been headstrong, and she knows, and she knows that Bianca knows. The situation is funny. They’re Christ knows how many feet up in the air, in the offices in the dead of night on New Year’s Eve. Bianca knows whatever happens this evening that the second she steps out of the building and into the freezing cold air, the magic will be gone. Because that’s what this is- magic. It could only be magic that Adore is making Bianca confront all of this before the entire slate gets wiped clean, the biggest cliche in the book.
“Fuck,” Bianca just laughs, the resigned exhalation of someone who has no energy left to deny it. “You’re literally…you’re just a kid-”
“I’m twenty fucking eight, Bianca,” Adore snaps, as if she’s had that excuse used against her for the entireity of her life and has had enough. Bianca is suitably admonished.
“Right. Sorry. Ignore me, I’m old. Which begs the question…” Bianca realises they haven’t stopped holding hands yet. “Adore….me? Really? Me? Why me?”
“I think you’re beautiful,” Adore shrugs. Her matter-of-fact-ness makes Bianca blush as if she’s back in high school. “And there’s, like…always been something about you that’s just drawn me to you. I don’t know. It’s like I said, I think we’d get on if we’d let ourselves get to know each other. I think we’re similar.”
Bianca paused before replying, taking a moment to just look into Adore’s eyes. She sighs heavily.
“There really is nothing about this that is any fucking fair at all.”
Adore laughs, neglecting to break eye contact. “How come?”
“Because there’s absolutely no way that we can pursue any of this. And it’s almost more cruel knowing we both want to,” Bianca snorts sardonically, refills her and Adore’s cups. Adore pouts. She’s showing her age.
“But we could if we wanted to. We could at least try,” she pleads, hope in her voice that makes Bianca want to wrap her up and take her home with her. Bianca laughs. Someone is going to have to be the voice of reason in this conversation.
“Adore, there’s a reason my marriage ended. There’s a reason I’ve not had a relationship for twelve years. There’s a reason I haven’t acted upon any of my feelings towards you,” she says, her voice coated in thick regret. She gives Adore’s hand a squeeze to soften the blow. “This job is my relationship. This job is my marriage. I barely have time for three meals a day- I don’t have time for three meals a day. I mean, fucking look at me. I’m at work on New Years’ Eve.”
“I’m at work on New Years’ Eve,” Adore gestures at herself, as if that simple fact is enough to convince her. Bianca laughs. She is the sweetest fucking person to ever exist, she fully believes that.
“There’s fourteen years separating us. I’m head of government communications, you’re a civil servant. That’s madness. We wouldn’t work.”
“No, probably not. It probably would just all end in tears. But at least we’d know. Which is, like, better than where we are just now, where we don’t know,” Adore shrugs, but the expression on her face lets Bianca know she thinks it’s a lost cause too. Bianca feels sad for her, feels sad for them both. She shuffles closer.
“Look. You know that I like you, and I know that you like me, and at least we don’t have to suspect it any more. We know. And it doesn’t matter that nothing’s going to happen, because…oh, fuck, what’s that saying? The possibility far outweighs the outcome, or some shit like that?”
Adore cracks up laughing. “That phrase doesn’t exist.”
“Yes it fucking- Christ, the point is that this night…” Bianca rubs her head in exhaustion. “…this night is like a microcosm of the universe. You were saying we’re in the wrong universe, well, just for tonight, this office is the right one. Just for now. A weird purgatory.”
Adore smiles, brushes a bit of hair out of her face. “So you’re, what. Confucius now, right?”
“Something like that.”
The chimes of Big Ben cut through the office and fireworks spring to life across the city below. Startled, both women spring away from each other. Bianca watches Adore check her phone. “Oh, shit.”
“We missed the countdown,” Bianca mutters sheepishly, suddenly ashamed of the whole conversation. Adore snorts.
“No, I just have, like, fifty voicemails from the girls,” she shrugs lightly, putting her phone face-down on the desk and facing Bianca once more. She holds out her mug and smiles gently. “Cheers, then.”
“Cheers,” Bianca says quietly, like she doesn’t want the office to hear. She taps the porcelain against Adore’s mug. They are close, their knees touching, and Bianca flicks her gaze up from the mugs to Adore’s eyes.
“Fuck it,” she whispers, before setting her mug down, bringing one hand to rest on Adore’s waist and the other to gently tilt her chin up before closing the gap between them.
If talking to Adore on New Years’ Eve in a dark office with the city lights reflected in her eyes is magic, then kissing Adore is the best kind of witchcraft. It’s a hesitant kiss, the fault of both of them as neither of them really know what they’re doing or what they’ll do once it’s over, so they carry on. Adore has brought a hand up to rest at Bianca’s jaw, her thumb stroking her cheek gently, and Bianca never wants the sensation to stop. She wants to freeze the entire moment in time but she is aware she can’t do that, so focuses on committing it to memory; the way Adore tastes like sparkling prosecco, the scent of her perfume, the way they both seem to just fit together and the whole exciting unfamiliarity of it all.
Just when Bianca seems to be getting used to things she feels Adore tugging away, and she in turn doesn’t resist. She can’t help the disappointed slump of her shoulders as Adore is once again in front of her, bashfully smoothing down her dress. All at once Bianca is swept up in complete fantasy. Maybe she and Adore could work. There might be a way to make it all doable, even if she only gets to take Adore out to dinner once every couple of weeks, something like that. Adore makes the decision for her, putting her empty mug down and standing up from the table, taking Bianca’s hand and giving it a squeeze.
“Happy New Year, Bianca,” she smiles softly before turning and opening the heavy glass door, managing halfway through it before turning and looking back at her. She wants her to say something, Bianca can tell, and there’s so much she could say. She decides not to ruin things. This night has been enough. It’s a new day- a new year now, and everything is fresh and new, a blanket of freshly fallen snow without any footprints. She decides to smile and give Adore a small wave.
“Happy New Year.”  
The door swings shut, and the magic is over.
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