#i know pearl is widely known as a lesbian but SOMETIMES (not all the time) people's identities change

[volleypearlfan]

was anyone gonna tell me there's non-canon pearl/greg art drawn by rebecca sugar or was i supposed to see a post on here with 6k notes about it instead

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

[artificialqueens]

Twist Of Fate - Ch06 - (Trixya) - katyahzamo

A/N: Thank you for reading and leaving comments, everyone! I’m excited to have as many of you on board.

A reminder: Trixie is a hairdresser and Katya is a struggling photographer slash yoga instructor. Lesbian AU. Read the chapters on AO3 and/or come hang out on my tumblr katyahzamo. Comments are welcome and encouraged!

When Katya asked the universe to make her life more interesting, this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.

She remembers a quote from Sharon’s self-help book she read after they broke up, which said something about people not being able to control their destiny but being able to influence how they react to it. It is the only thing that stuck from that book, considering she threw it out with the rest of things her ex-girlfriend left behind.

Controlling how she reacts to the fiasco that was the party is exactly what she does now, deciding not to spend her entire Sunday wallowing in just how pathetic her love life is, and focus on the other love of her life – photography. She put several assignments on hold because she was too focused on Trixie and they now waited for her on the coffee table when she stumbled out of her bed and into the living room sometimes after 9 a.m., having gotten barely five hours of sleep.

It didn’t help that several text messages greeted her as soon as she opened her eyes and squinted at her phone, two from Violet who messaged her when she arrived home, one from her photography teacher reminding her of Facebook and Instagram pages she has yet to finish, and four from Trixie.

Unknown: Hey, Violet told me you left because you weren’t feeling well :(

Unknown: Adore said she saw you outside after the set, I’m sorry I missed you

Unknown: I hope you’re feeling better today, thank you for coming. :) :) :)  

Unknown: :* :* :* Talk soon. -Trix

Katya realized that she hadn’t saved Trixie’s number the night before, and decided it was best not to do it that morning, since there was no reason for it, really. Once she decides to get a haircut, she will just contact Latrice through Facebook, like she always does.

She doesn’t reply to the message, either, deciding it’s for the best not to look at her phone for at least couple of hours and focus on her work, even a bit proud of herself for not checking instagram that showed nothing short of 25 notifications. She’d deal with that eventually.

Hours later, the papers and print-outs are scattered everywhere around the coffee table, in front of the TV, and are everywhere around her on the couch and under her laptop. The ashtray is filled with half-smoked and stubbed out cigarettes, but the heavy weight in her stomach is lighter. If anything, Katya could always count on her work to make her feel better, busier, distracted from everything else that might be going to shit at the moment. She works better under pressure too, and she is finishing up her last assignment just as her phone rings, discarded and forgotten somewhere on the other side of the room.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” Katya laughs once she picks up the phone, seeing that it’s little past three, and realizing she hasn’t had a single thing since last night.

A groan from the other side that sounds just a little bit like Violet greets her back.

“Did you really stay out until 8 am, you crazy bitch? How are you even alive right now?”

“You’re too loud, Katya. Tone it down.”

The exasperation in Violet’s voice makes her laugh and she reaches for another cigarette, figuring it’s better to smoke this one by the window, desperate for some fresh air now that she is finally aware of her surroundings.

“How’s your head, Vi?”

“Let’s just say I want to murder whoever invented vodka, and wine, and made me mix them both.”

“That’s a lot of people to kill.”

“I’m determined, bitch. What are you doing right now?”

“Just finished work.”

“Do you want to go do some yoga, grab some food after? I’m bored and in pain.”

“Sure. I’ll pick you up in half an hour?”

“You’re a saint. See you soon.”

Katya is grateful Violet doesn’t mention Trixie or Pearl throughout the afternoon, though she does look at her from the corner of her eye when she thinks Katya isn’t paying attention. Violet isn’t usually a person who doesn’t talk things through, at least with her, so she assumes it’s mostly because Vi is too hungover and struggling with yoga poses to be talking about anything emotionally draining. Katya is grateful, even when Violet doesn’t bring up the night before aside from how all the girls from the model agency just went to Fame’s apartment and continued drinking. How any of them manage to look stunning after those kinds of nights, Katya has no idea. For her, one longer night out means looking like a rotting corpse for two weeks afterward. Must be the genes and nothing to do with the fact inhales more smoke than factory workers back in the day, she thinks.

“I’m proud of you, you didn’t sulk a lot today.”

They are sitting in Katya’s car, in the parking lot of Violet’s apartment building, after the sun has already set and it’s incredibly humid despite the absence of the rainfall for the first time that week.

“What are you talking about? I’m not sulking. I don’t sulk.”

The look that Violet gives her makes her burst out laughing.

“What! I don’t sulk!”

“Did she text you after last night?”

“Who?”

“My aunt from Brussels, you know who. Trixie.”

Katya really doesn’t want to be talking about this right now, but figures it’s easier to just get it out of the way in hopes of Violet finally letting it go if she’s convincing enough.

“Yep. She thanked me for coming to the party.”

“Wow. Did you reply?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What would I say? You’re welcome, thank you for letting me flirt and making a complete fool out of myself when your girlfriend was just right there and you didn’t even think to mention her to me in all this time since you came back from Europe?”

Her mouth is running before she can stop it and Violet just looks at her solemnly, like she has been expecting the outburst the entire day. Katya sometimes hates how easily she can read her.

“I was right. You do like her. What are you gonna do about it?”

It’s Katya’s turn to give a look.

“What am I gonna do? Nothing! She has a famous, gorgeous girlfriend who makes her happy. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Oh there are a lot of things to do—“

“Just leave it be, Vi. If Trixie is happy, I’m happy for her.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“Whatever it is, I’m over it. It’s a crush, it will go away. It’s not like I’ll see either of them that often. Okay? Just leave it be.”

“… Fine. I’ll be here if you need to talk about it.”

“Thanks.”

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.

Katya’s phone rings early next morning, startling her awake, and she nearly falls off the bed in a hurry, scrambling for her glasses and her phone. One look at the screen and she sees it’s barely eight and an unknown number is calling her. She clears her throat, finds that it’s hurting, and promises herself not to go through two packets of smokes like she did yesterday.

The call turns out to be from Michelle Visage, one of the managers of Violet’s agency, who got her number from Violet and is asking her to come in around eight the following day. She has a job she wants to discuss with her, if Katya has enough time in her schedule. Katya accepts without a second thought since she has absolutely no photography jobs in sight in the following three weeks.

The fact that she gets to work again with an agency like Michelle’s and models like Fame, Shea and Naomi keeps her in high spirits all day, good mood that not even an instagram story Trixie posted can diminish.

Not as much as one would expect, at least. The story includes a series of photos of Trixie and Pearl spending the Monday afternoon in the park, taken by Pearl. They show Trixie smelling flowers, Trixie holding flowers that Pearl had gotten for her, and a selfie of the two of them, Pearl’s long, blonde hair falling down Trixie’s front since she has leaned her head on Trixie’s shoulder, with a reunited hashtag.

With unease, annoyance and excitement in tow, it’s a wonder she can fall asleep early that night and wake up even an hour before her alarm goes off the next morning.

.

.

.

Michelle greets her in her office at nine a.m. sharp, and Katya is a little shaky after having two coffees in the past three hours, but her grin is wide and her camera bag is ready.

“Thank you for coming in, Katya, I know it was on short notice.”

“No no, don’t worry about it, I’m glad you called!”

Michelle smiles warmly at her, and Katya remembers Violet telling her how motherly and protective she is of all of her girls, and that she is one of the main reasons most of them are still in Boston and not relocating to L.A. or New York yet.

“I know you did a great job with Fame and Violet some time back, and they all love working for you, so I thought you’d be a perfect fit for this. I’ve been wanting to organize something for this charity organization that involves LGBTQ+ and minorities, and what better way to do that than use our girls’ talents - and yours – to do that.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. I’ve even gotten a well-known name on board, so it should be nothing short of a success.”

“Yeah, of course. Are you sure you don’t want someone with more experience to work on that, though?”

Katya laughs at her own self-deprecating words to show that she’s joking, though in truth she is very flattered.

“I can find any pro photographer to work with models of this caliber, but this is a charity thing we’re doing today and I’d rather have someone I trust with us. You will be compensated, of course. Are you in?”

“Hell yes I’m in! Who’s the celebrity?”

Michelle smiles wider and stands up, Katya following immediately.

“You’ve probably heard of her, she’s pretty famous around here, or so I hear from the girls. Pearl Liaison?”

When Katya asked the universe to make her life more exciting, this definitely wasn’t what she had in mind.

“Yeah, I’m – familiar with her music.”

“Great! Pearl’s here today, you ladies should meet and maybe have some trial shots before the real thing?”

“Of course. No problem.”

“Awesome! Let’s go find her.”

When Katya sees Pearl standing in the studio, leaned on the wall and flipping through her phone casually, some of the bitterness from Saturday night returns. Yet she can’t deny, regardless of the irrational jealousy, that Pearl is fucking beautiful. Today her long, straight blonde hair falls down to her elbow, swept over one shoulder, and her dress is long and flowy, hugging her lanky body just right and showing off her tatted, toned arms. If not for the entire situation with Trixie, Katya would have understood Violet wanting to fuck her, but now it just makes her all the more miserable.

Pearl barely needs any makeup to look flawless, her skin basically glowing under the bright lights of the room. When Michelle calls for her, she looks up, and Katya finds that her eyes are as blue as the ocean around one of those exotic islands and groans internally.

“Pearl! I’d like you to meet our photographer I told you about, Katya. She’s worked with my girls before and she’s amazing. Katya, this is Pearl.”

When Pearl shakes her hand and smiles, Katya can’t help but wonder if Trixie ever mentioned her to her girlfriend at all. And if she did – it seemed like Pearl did not connect the dots between that Katya and the one standing in front of her now. The DJ has a smile that reaches her eyes, and softens her look even further.

“Nice to meet you, Katya. I didn’t know your photographers looked like models too, Michelle.”

Her voice is low, dragged out a little bit as if she’s exhausted, matching the semi-sleepy look her hooded eyes give, but Katya soon realizes it’s just the way Pearl looks (and talks). She’s a sweet-talker too, and all around a nice woman without zero arrogance about her, despite her popularity.

It would be a lie if Katya said she didn’t hope she was a complete bitch, and if she said she wasn’t a least a bit disappointed finding that Pearl is a delight to work with and talk to. No fucking wonder Trixie is in love with her, Katya realizes with another twist in her gut.

Michelle goes back to her office shortly after, and Katya fears the moment since the only things worse than this situation would be if it was made awkward. It doesn’t happen, no matter how much she dreads it, and Pearl carries the conversation easily even though she’s a little bit on the quiet side. The two of them agree to test several poses before bringing in the rest of the girls next time, and discuss what exactly they want these photos to be. To no one’s surprise, Pearl has experience with photo shoots, even knows a little bit about photography, and Katya rarely finds herself having to explain and justify her own ideas.

Unexpectedly, it’s a good couple of hours.

When both of them decide it’s enough for the day, Katya connects her camera to the nearby laptop and flips through the photos so Pearl can take a look at them.

“I’ve had some issues with getting the lighting to work in some of these, but once they’re edited they will look a lot better. I do it all the time.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean with that one. Either way, these are amazing, Katya. You’re a total pro.”

Katya looks up from the screen to see Pearl standing right next to her and notices slight freckles spilled over her shoulders. She tries not to think about Trixie kissing them, and fails just a little.

“Thanks. I still have a fuckton to learn but you definitely made it easy.”

“I know, I’m flawless.” Pearl says slowly, flipping her hair backward. The semi-joking tone in her voice reminds her so much of Violet that Katya can’t help but laugh. “I have to say, I was a little skeptical when Michelle told me you were a freelancer but you totally proved me wrong.”

Despite herself, Katya feels the heat rise to her cheeks. Truthfully, she will never be beyond blushing over people praising her work, at least people who are not her close friends or, god forbid, her parents.

“Thank you, really! I’m positive this is going to look great with the girls in the shot.”

“Same. Listen, I have to go now, but we’ll be in touch. When do you think you’ll have these edited?”

“End of this week, Monday the latest. Michelle said props won’t be here until next Friday, anyway, so we can get together any time before that for a test shoot.”

“Sounds good to me. Here, I’ll give you my email and you send them to me as soon as they’re done, is that okay?”

“Absolutely!”

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.

.

The rest of the week passes in a blur. It does not take her long to edit the photos she’s shot with Pearl, but it takes her embarrassingly long to stare at them, finding more faults in editing the longer she looks, until Ginger snaps her laptop shut and makes her come eat dinner with her and her son Matty on Friday. Katya feels guilty for not telling her other best friend anything about Trixie or the entire situation with Pearl, but she doesn’t want to make herself think about it longer than needed. Violet has been a pain in the ass enough as soon as she found out that Pearl is the one doing the calendar with them, and that is mostly the reason Katya has avoided her for the majority of the week. Ginger tells her that she’s proud of her, encourages her not to overthink her work, and that is enough for Katya to feel better.

The weekend passes equally as fast, all with Katya making a new schedule for the following three months for her yoga classes, cutting out one day a week since she’s already received several photography gig offers after Pearl put up one of the spontaneous shots Katya took of her with the following caption:

pearliaison: What happens when your photographer makes even candids look pro! Got the chance to work with the talented @katya_zamo! More to come soon.

Katya, on the other hand, wonders how Pearl found her instagram, and certainly does not want to think about how Trixie now knows the two of them are working together. Maybe that’s why Trixie hasn’t reached out since that Sunday a week ago, aside from looking through her instagram stories and leaving multiple hearts on the photo Katya took of Pearl.

Katya also goes out of her way not to pass by Honey, even though it’s on the way from the yoga studio to the agency, and takes the long way around for fear of spotting Trixie. Since that day of the park story entries, Trixie did not update any of her social media, and Katya finds that she misses her already, but tries not to think about it. If she has to work with Pearl, fine, but the idea of seeing Trixie alone or with Pearl creates discomfort still, so it’s better to stay away until the crush passes, if it does at all.

The test group shoot with the girls is set for the following Wednesday, a week after Katya and Pearl met, and by the time Wednesday rolls around Katya is determined to stop thinking about her hairdresser altogether.

When she walks into the agency on Wednesday morning and sees Adore in the studio with the rest of the girls, she knows it’s never going to happen.

“Katyaaaa!” Adore’s voice is enough for everyone to look her way and she hugs Katya so tightly that it knocks her out of breath for a moment, but Katya hugs back, ignoring the fact that almost everyone who’s involved with the entire Trixie thing is in this very room, except for Trixie herself.

“Hey mama, I had no idea you were involved with the project!” She replies once they pull away and Adore nods, a comb still in her hand.

“Yeah, yeah! Shea got Brianna and me on board, and since it’s for charity and young gay people, I said fuck yes! I missed you girl, where have you been?! I looked for you that night to introduce Bianca to you but you were gone!”

Katya realizes that she’s missed Adore as much as the rest of her friends, and laughs.

“Yep, sorry I went off the radar; I’ve been working myself to death to get everything ready for this.”

“Pearlie showed us some of the shots, they look a-mazing. You should come and see some ideas Bri and I have for the hair and make-up and tell us what you think!”

She wants to ask why Trixie isn’t working on the project but can’t, not within Pearl’s earshot. Naomi, Shea, Fame and Courtney are all there and take turns in hugging her. When Pearl does too, Katya tries to return it with equal enthusiasm, though she can swear she can see Adore looking at them with a raised eyebrow before returning her attention to Courtney’s hair.

Violet is fifteen minutes late, blaming the traffic, giving Katya a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then wraps Pearl in a one-arm hug too. Katya remembers that Violet did try to seduce Pearl that night, but never really told her what went down before Trixie appeared, and makes a mental note to ask her later.

If there is one thing Katya wants to do for the rest of her life, it’s definitely this. In the previous week, Michelle has decided that she wants to make a calendar, the proceedings of which will go to charity, figuring that would be the best way to sell as many copies as possible.

Katya has written down ideas and shared them with the group and received approval from Michelle. Each of them will have an entry of their own, and the remaining six would be group shots, wearing outfits according to the month they are in, and including multiple flags from the LGBTQ+ spectrum. The ultimate gaylendar of 2019, as Shea has called it.

The trial shoot takes up the majority of the day, with Adore and Brianna cutting in every now and then, fixing and changing hair, Katya running into the shots to show the poses she had in mind and Shea running out to take photos of her instead. Katya thinks that if she had to do this for a living for the rest of her life, she’d be the happiest woman alive.

Not even Pearl’s presence, otherwise a constant reminder of Trixie, could dampen her spirit, especially when she’s seen how well she blended into the group. She’s also found out that Pearl and Adore went to high school together, and have been friends most of their lives, and that Adore was the one who connected Pearl and Trixie when Pearl had a gig in Germany. Something about Adore being so good to Katya made her stomach that piece of information more easily, and she voluntarily drowned the jealous monster in her chest when it reared its ugly head at the mention of Trixie’s name.

By the time everyone is packed up and leaving hours later, Katya has a tension headache that still does not stop her from grinning widely. The main shooting event, taking place on Monday, would be a breeze.

“Kit Kat!” Adore’s voice makes her look up from her camera bag that she was digging through for her cigarettes when she got outside. Her glasses are resting on top of her messy hair, keeping it out of her face, and she can feel the sweat rolling down her back and neck, despite the evening breeze. Ginger called her the sweatiest woman in the show business once, and Katya thought it was the best description of her she’s ever heard.

Pearl is right behind Adore, her own bag slung over her shoulder and hands in her pockets.

“Looking for a smoke? Here, you can have mine.” Adore says once they get to Katya and offers the cigarette to Pearl too, who accepts. “I don’t know how you’re still not a world renown photographer man, you killed it today.”

Katya laughs, holding the cigarette between her teeth after Adore lights it up and shakes her head.

“What can I say? I’m a late bloomer.”

“Who knew?”

The two of them laugh, but Pearl is temporarily distracted by her phone, and Katya can’t help but question whether Trixie is the one texting her.

“In all seriousness, though, today’s the most fun I had in ages. All of you are so fucking talented, I was just trying to keep up.” Katya replies, exhaling the smoke.

“Oh shut up bitch, you’re amazing.”

“I agree.” It comes from Pearl, and she smiles over her cigarette at Katya.

“Stop it, you’re making me blush.” Katya replies, suddenly slipping on her Russian accent and making the other two laugh.

“Come on, you deserve it! And you should totally come to my housewarming party this weekend!”

“You’re having a housewarming party?”

“Girl, yeah! That’s why Bianca is here earlier than she should be, we moved in together last weekend.”

“That’s great, Adore, I’m happy for you! But I don’t even know Bianca, are you sure she wants strangers there?”

Adore snorts, inhaling more smoke than she should have and has a brief coughing fit before she can respond.

“Bitch, you’re like family to me by now, you need to come! Besides, all of the girls from the agency will be there too, and Bianca just met them at the party couple of weekends ago.”

Pearl nods along with everything that Adore is saying, but is still busy with her phone to speak. She’s much more silent now than she was the entire day, but Katya assumes it’s because she’s tired. Katya is so ready to go home, soak in the bathtub and pass out in front of the TV herself.

“Which reminds me, Pearlie, will Trixie be back from Wisconsin by the weekend? I know she’s returning to work Monday.”

“Trixie’s in Wisconsin?”

Katya’s response is so automatic that it flies out before she can think about it, and surely enough Pearl looks at her first before looking at Adore.

“Yeah, she’ll be back for the party. How do you know Trixie?”

Her pale eyes are back on Katya, and something about her gaze makes Katya uneasy, but she can’t exactly pinpoint why. She catches Adore looking from one to the other, then sees her bite her lip as if she’s pushing back an amused smile. Before Katya can overthink that split second, she replies.

“Oh she’s my hairdresser, well – used to be before she moved to Germany. She cut my hair only once she’s come back so…”

“That’s cool, I had no idea you two knew each other.”

Even though she wants to, Katya doesn’t relent under Pearl’s questioning gaze, and a second later it’s back to its old, sleepy-looking self, letting Katya’s anxiety settle. She thanks her foundation for doing its job (hopefully), and hiding the majority of the heat that climbed to her face. It feels like being caught in the act she knows is wrong, but the rational part of her brain knows she has nothing to feel guilty for.

“Anyway,” Adore says pointedly, throwing Pearl a look, “Trixie’s aunt died and she had to go to her funeral. I thought you knew girl, I’m sorry.”

“Oh.”

Katya didn’t know. Come to think of it, Katya knows very little about Trixie’s life aside from things she’s told her, and the realization makes her feel like shit instantly. All the wishing she’d be Trixie’s friend for so long and she’s let her own emotions get in the way. Trixie has been going through a difficult time for the entire week, maybe even longer, and was kind enough to invite Katya to go to a party, went through all the trouble to get her on the club’s list, and Katya repaid her by not replying to her messages and ignoring her altogether. Now that is enough to dampen her spirits despite the great day she’s had.

“I’m sorry.” She doesn’t know who she apologizes to but she looks at Pearl and Pearl nods. “Is she okay?”

“She’s been better but you know, it’s Trixie. She’ll be okay.”

Katya nods and stubs out her cigarette, suddenly ready to go home. Immediately.

“So, are you coming?” Adore says after couple of moments, eyes looking hopeful enough for Katya to relent under the pressure.

“Oh, right! Yeah, sure, I’ll come. When was it again?”

“Here, gimme your number and I’ll text you the details as soon as we work it out.”

When Katya uses her last bath bomb, an old birthday present from Ginger (“You need to relax sometimes! Bath bombs are the best!”), Katya scrolls through Trixie’s instagram and Facebook that have not been updated in a while. She dips her head under the emerald water for a second, welcoming the cool feeling, and once she gets the residue from her eyes when she resurfaces, her hands find the phone again and open the messages.

Katya: Hey Trixie, Adore told me about your aunt. I’m sorry. If you need anything at all, please let me know.

Katya: I know you might be coming to her housewarming party. I’ll be there so see you then?

Katya: Take care.

Katya’s fingers hover over the keyboard for a couple of moments, before she types again.

Katya: PS, I’m sorry for going radio silent, it’s been a busy couple of weeks.

Katya: :*

The reply doesn’t come until later that night, when Katya is in bed and reading a book, not a self-help one, after wanting to disconnect from the internet a little. Ginger was right, taking a scented bath definitely helped her nerves.

Unknown: Hey Katie, thank you. :*

Unknown: Yeah, I’ll be there. See you and have a good night. <3

With a sigh, Katya clicks on ‘details’ and saves the number under Tracy Martel.

Katya: Good night, Tracy.

Katya:  <3

…

[artificialqueens]

Cause I give you all -Pt2- (Trixya) - Pichitinha

A/N: part two is up and even though it’s faster it should’ve been faster but I missed last queue :( anyway things develop a bit further on this part and set the floor for the wrap-up on the next (and last) part! Hope you enjoy, as you usual it’s on AO3 and I’m here as @pichitinha

It’s been six days since their night together - which lasted well into the following afternoon due to brunch -, Trixie’s already been in two different cities and is heading for the third, and she and Katya have exchanged messages everyday. It’s not obsessive or a lot at all, Katya’s work days are usually from early morning to mid afternoon and Trixie’s are the opposite, so they’re never quite free at the same time and their texting consists of blocks of text from Trixie at noon, and then blocks of response from Katya at sunset.

They’re also slowly heading towards the opposite coasts, they’d met in the middle with Katya having left from Boston and Trixie from LA and now Trixie’s going east and Katya’s going west. They’d been a perfect star alignment, Trixie thinks, right in the middle of the country, never to meet again.

Except they keep talking. And it’s easy, so easy to talk to Katya. It’s easy to talk about things she didn’t even think bothered her anymore because they’d happen so long ago and she’d never talked them through. And she likes listening to Katya too, her weird habits and ideas, how she talks about the places she’s at with such admiration. Trixie’s taken it upon herself to notice at least one nice thing about where she is so she can tell Katya about it, be it how yellow the trees are or how the birds sing louder. Katya seems to love it.

Trixie doesn’t do one night stands because she gets attached too easily. Sex and feelings are too mixed for her to be able to fully separate and enjoy them apart. She thinks that having spent more than half - much more than half, actually - of their time together effectively talking and not fucking had done nothing more than aggravate things. Trixie likes her, she thinks. Not like like, there hadn’t been enough time, but she likes her, as a person, as a friend, as someone she slept with and enjoyed it very much.

And they are absolutely in no position to have that. Not with their lives the way they are. Not while literally heading to opposite sides of the country

Trixie wakes up in the middle of the night when they are halfway through to their next stop when the bus comes to a halt to quickly learn that it broke down. They are in the middle of nowhere and will have to wait until morning to call for rescue. This will limit their time getting ready, so the instruction is to go back to sleep now because the following day is gonna be busy.

She’s too alert, though, needs time for her brain to settle down again, so she picks up her phone.

Katya is online.

She’s already replied to all of Trixie’s messages and added several things of her own and Trixie marvels at how early she wakes up - she does yoga every morning, she’d said, and that explains a lot of things Trixie learned while in her bed and also increases Trixie’s curiosity.

She skims through the texts, too tired to actually read them through and strike a conversation by replying, but she’s curious as to what she said. Her last messages started in reply to something Trixie had said about Dolly Parton and guitar playing.

Katya: hey you’re the country gal not me

Katya: i mean sure i like dolly parton but who doesn’t like dolly parton

Katya: that’s like not liking abba

Katya: wait you like abba right

Katya: you gotta like abba or we can no longer be friends

At first Trixie laughs, tries to be quiet in her bunk because she knows everyone else must be sleeping again already, but soon her eyes focus on the last bit. We can no longer be friends. They are friends, right? They talk more than Trixie talks to most of her friends apart from the very best ones like Kim or Shea, and Katya does know a lot about her, if she thinks about it.

But they’ve slept together. And Trixie doesn’t sleep with her friends. She definitely doesn’t think about sleeping with them, like she does with Katya.

Trixie sighs and locks her phone, turns to the side so she can try to sleep. Her brain is still wide awake and she knows she’ll be up for at least half an hour. She picks up her headphones and plugs into her phone, hits shuffle on all of her songs and hopes that the god of music will send a calming one her way.

She falls asleep minutes after, It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right by Dolly Parton playing quietly in her right ear.

*

Trixie loves music. She studied it in college, she sings for a living, she’s bought the phone with the biggest storage because she wanted to download every single song she could think of. College had taught her to appreciate all sorts of music, even the ones she used to turn her nose up at. Now she knows way more songs than she thinks a regular person should, and she can pretty much always choose one to associate with how she’s feeling.

So Trixie loves making playlists. Some days she’ll just create “random playlist #223” and add songs through the day as things happen and end up with over thirty. She shares them with her friends, sometimes, makes them special ones for their birthdays and they all love it - or they say they do, anyway. Trixie loves using music to communicate, loves expressing how much someone means to her or what she’s feeling through the chords and the voices she knows so well.

The week following the bus breakdown is a busy one that has Trixie really tired while she also thinks she’s getting a cold. She gets frustrated with her runny nose and gets scared about losing her voice so she spends the whole day worrying and trying not to think of Katya - she shouldn’t be thinking about her this much, in fact, maybe they should cut contact altogether so Trixie can go back to normal.

But she doesn’t because she likes it, at the end of the day, and suddenly she finds herself with a playlist titled “Katya” on her phone. The first two songs she put there were I Put A Spell On You and It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right, but since then she’s also added Smile by Avril Lavigne because she thinks that’s the kind of music Katya would laugh at while secretly dancing to when she’s by herself.

She thinks she knows Katya a bit too much for such a short time. She also thinks she thinks about her too much.

She’s back to her bunk bed after a particularly tiring show and she plans on replying to Katya’s messages from the previous night before going to sleep. It’s the first she’d looked at her phone that day and is surprised when there’s only one text waiting for her. Her stomach plummets a bit, worries about what happened, but when she opens their chat the text says “text me when you’re free, i want to call you. don’t worry about the time”.

A rush runs through her entire body at the words. What does she want? What could that mean? Is she gonna tell Trixie they can’t talk anymore? Is she gonna try to have phone-sex? Is she in jail?

No, of course not. The last one is stupid.

Instead of texting, she just calls. It rings once, twice, then three times. Trixie’s nervous and worried she might wake her up.

Katya picks up on the fifth ring and greets her by saying, “Pat Benatar!”

“What?” Katya is weird, sure, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t surprise Trixie constantly still.

“My favorite singer, you asked who my favorite singer is. It’s Pat Benatar.”

“That’s why you wanted to call?” Trixie laughs, amazed by Katya once again. “Also I’d sort of established in my head that it was Annie Lennox, now I feel betrayed.”

“Holy fuck, Annie! Yeah, no, it’s definitely Annie.”

“You forgot your favorite singer?”

“Not all of us walk around cosplaying our favorite artist, Miss Parton.”

Trixie shouts a laugh and then immediately covers her mouth, remembers it’s late and they just came back from a show and everyone wants to sleep.

“I don’t imitate Dolly Parton, I was just very lucky to be born with similar genes.”

Katya snorts and Trixie feels a soft smile setting on her lips. She’s tired and her whole body is sagging against her pillows, but she feels nice.

“Where are you right now?”

“Somewhere in Missouri? I think? I’m not too sure.”

Katya sighs audibly. “I’m in Colorado.”

Trixie gulps at the information, understands immediately what Katya’s saying. They’d met in Kansas. Now they’re each one state over. They’re three states apart.

It isn’t much, if Trixie logically thinks about it. Shea is in LA, several states away. Pearl is in New York, also several states away. But those facts don’t leave a sour taste in her mouth like Katya being in Colorado does.

“That sucks. For Colorado, I mean.”

Katya laughs her breathless laughter and it tugs somewhere deep into Trixie’s chest. They’ve known each other for less than a month, they’ve only seen each other once. This is their first phone call.

Trixie likes her.

“Tell me other bands you like,” Trixie asks, her mind on her playlist. She wants to connect with who Katya is and there’s no better way for Trixie than through music. She wants to add songs to it that match both of them. She shouldn’t, it’s too far and she’s too deep into it, but she knows there’s no stopping now.

So Katya lists several artists, talks about Lana Del Rey and Madonna and T.a.T.u. And Cindy Lauper all of which she claims to be her actual favorite now that she thinks about it. And also a bunch of others that Trixie makes a mental note about and they discuss lesbian singers for longer than Trixie should have allowed herself to stay awake.

Her tiredness defeats her, eventually, and she tells Katya she needs to sleep. They bid each other goodnight and the line goes silent and Trixie is still not sure why Katya wanted to call tonight.

She falls asleep with True Colors looping in her head, and she makes a mental note to add it to her playlist the following day.

*

Trixie’s having a really bad day. They’re changing the show a little bit to better fit the audiences they’re approaching and it involves a new song with a part Trixie has to carry by herself as the lead singer holds a fermata.

And Trixie simply can’t hit the fucking note they need her to. They’re all supportive and trying their best to help but she’s immensely frustrated and she can see that they are worried. She won’t be invited back if she can’t carry the tunes they need her to carry.

Could they fire her mid tour?

She’s overreacting, maybe, but her heart’s racing and her stomach is uncomfortably tight as they wrap rehearsals for the day with a promise that tomorrow will be better, comforting hands on Trixie’s shoulders. She nods and tries to force a smile, but then immediately goes back to her bunk, closes her curtain and urges herself not to cry.

She can’t lose this opportunity. Another one like this is never going to come by - especially if she fucks it up.

She grabs her phone and opens her contacts. Usually she’d search for Shea or Kim or Trannika, but instead she goes straight to her last calls and hits dial again on Katya’s name. Her stomach churns a bit, but she doesn’t have time to mull over what that means, what immediately going to Katya means. She’s on the verge of breaking and she needs someone to calm her down.

Katya always calms her down.

“Trixie! I’m glad you called, I saw a tree that looked just like Britney Spe- Trixie? Trixie, are you okay?”

Trixie hadn’t even noticed she was crying, trying to hold in her sobs, until Katya asked.

“Trixie? Hey, talk to me. Are you hurt?”

She tries to take deep breaths and feels herself whispering, “No.”

“Ok, good. So now take a deep breath. Then another. And then another one. Ok?”

Trixie nods, knows Katya can’t see it but can’t find her voice to reply vocally. She breathes as deep as she can, slower and slower as Katya instructs her to. Her voice is soothing and warm and Trixie wonders briefly, in the middle of her turmoil, how Katya feels about her.

“Ok, good, you stopped crying. You okay, mama?”

Trixie snorts a bit at the question, the answer being more than obvious, and the sound actually mixes with a sob in such a funny way that Katya bursts into giggles for a few seconds. It pulls a smile over Trixie’s lips - she feels like she hasn’t smiled in forever.

“I have never been better,” Trixie deadpans, finally, and it sets Katya off again. This time she doesn’t force herself to stop though, she knows that if Trixie is throwing jokes, then she’s feeling better.

“Ok, serious now. What happened?”

Trixie sighs, cleans a few paths of tears on her face as she thinks of what to say.

She wishes Katya was there.

“I’m fucking it up. They want me to sing this song and I just- I just can’t. They’re gonna let me go, I’m sure.”

It’s funny but Trixie thinks she can hear Katya rolling her eyes.

“They’re not gonna fire you over one song after half of the tour, Trixie.”

“You didn’t hear me singing it. I’ve butchered the song.” She’s being irrational, she knows - she may not have sang it the way she knew the song was supposed to be sung but she has a good voice and she knows how to use it. But this isn’t a high school choir, this is real life, real performances by a really famous singer in front of an audience of thousands. Any mistake is an issue.

“Right. Ok. I want you to listen to this, but I need to really listen, ok? Full attention.”

Trixie gulps, Katya is rarely this serious. “Ok.”

And Trixie almost drops her phone when Katya bursts into a very melodramatic Lana song, the sound a lot more similar to a black board being scratched by nails than an actual human voice, and Trixie tries really hard not to laugh, but it’s difficult.

Katya sings bad. Like, really really bad.

“Oh my god.”

Katya stops singing then, laughs alongside Trixie and waits in silence for both their laughter to die down.

“Did you butcher it like that? ‘Cause if so you’re right, you’re screwed.”

Trixie still has a few laughs dying down in her throat, simply can’t stop smiling as she snuggles back into her comforter.

She really likes Katya.

“I mean, not that badly.”

Katya is smiling. Trixie’s sure. “Then you’ll be fine.”

Yeah, she thinks. She’ll be fine.

*

It’s been almost a month and a half since she got that one night off in Kansas and she’s getting another one now.

There’s nothing actually holding her back, keeping her from going out again and getting drunk and finding someone. Except there is. She feels wrong, doing that to Katya. Not that she owes Katya anything. Not that Katya would even care.

Not that there even is anything for Katya to be in any way part of her decision process.

But she is. Trixie doesn’t want to be this involved with someone she’s literally only seen once, but since when does she get to decide on that and also since when does her heart make good decisions?

Since never, that’s when.

So she’s in a hotel room, has time off to herself to do whatever she wants, and she settles for the relaxing night she’d forgone last time. She considers if things would be too different had she decided to relax last time and go out now. She wouldn’t have met Katya, and part of her wonders if that’d been easier.

She has a bathtub in her room so she fills it with warm water and some oils that she always carries with her for skin care and sinks into it, her phone playing quiet country music from where it sits on the sink, far away from her reach so she won’t be tempted to go over social media. This is supposed to be a relaxing time and being on her phone would mean the opposite of that.

When she steps out, hours later, her whole body is sagging and she feels ready to sleep for at least 24 hours. Her mind is hazy and she thinks she might have fallen into a quick nap a few times. Her extremities are wrinkled and the playlist she had on has ended already.

And then she sees that Katya texted her, and it’s like her mind is awake again.

Katya: ok ok ok ok! you win!

Katya: show me your country singers or whatever

Katya: but like give me the best songs only

Katya: i’ll try not to hate them

Katya: and if i do i’ll lie

Trixie smiles, feels a warm feeling spreading at the notion that Katya is genuinely interested in learning what she likes. Even if they’re just friends and have never discussed this, Trixie doesn’t invest herself like that in all of her friends, just some, the closest, the ones she cares about the most.

She doesn’t even reply, moves to the bed in only the robe she’d been wearing, set on making a perfect playlist. She overthinks it, of course, doesn’t want it to be a romantic declaration but doesn’t want to avoid romantic songs either because that might look suspicious. It’s like every song she chooses brings in a connotation and she’s worried about how Katya will read this.

But Katya is a friend. Apart from that night when they met, that’s all they’d been. They never even discussed the fact that it happened, they never acknowledged that they had slept together. And maybe it means a lot more to Trixie than it does to Katya, maybe to Katya they really are just good friends, maybe Katya doesn’t have a policy about sleeping with friends like Trixie does.

And Trixie doesn’t want to make things awkward, especially not with a country playlist, so she thinks about the songs that her friends like and mixes all types of voices and topics and maybe she spends over an hour in it, but at the end she’s satisfied with the result and doesn’t feel nervous as she copies the spotify link and pastes it into a text to Katya.

She goes to sleep soon after that, Silver Lining from Kacey Musgraves which she’d added at the last minute running through her mind, and she feels good.

*

Katya: i quite like slow burn

This is the message Trixie wakes up to the next day, feeling well-rested and light and good. It’s the only message from Katya, received around three hours after Trixie went to sleep, which wasn’t as late for Katya as it was for her, but still late nonetheless.

Trixie: what?

She can’t figure out what Katya means by that, finds it very vague without a context - she likes slow burn in regards to what? - but she’s not gonna focus on that because being cryptic is just something that Katya does and Trixie is used to it - Trixie likes it.

So she gets up, gets dressed in a comfortable yet cute pink dress that she doesn’t get to wear a lot when they’re always on the shaky bus, and heads down to have breakfast. She leaves her phone in her room, tells herself it’ll do her good to not be glued to it all the time, and uses the time she has to catch up with a few of the band members having breakfast with her, people she sees every day but feels like she hasn’t properly spoken to in forever.

When she gets back to her room, Katya has replied.

Katya: the song slow burn. it’s good

Trixie is glad she likes it, but she isn’t sure where Katya heard it. Had she searched for Kacey songs late in the night?

Trixie: where’d you hear it?

Trixie: i’m glad though, good song

Katya: your playlist

Trixie is confused, she’d added three Kacey songs to the country playlist she made for Katya, but slow burn isn’t one of them. She opens her spotify to check, is absolutely positive she hadn’t added any songs from her new album, and when she opens her playlists her heart drops to her stomach.

The last playlist before the country one is the one named Katya. And it has slow burn in it. And it’s public.

Katya must have decided to snoop around on her profile after she got the playlist and Trixie is an idiot because she never even thought about Katya finding this playlist. This playlist has all sorts of songs with the feelings she has about Katya all the time. There’re songs about falling in love, there’re songs about chemistry, there’re songs about wanting what you can’t have.

This might as well be Trixie declaring herself to Katya, and she isn’t sure what to do with herself now.

She goes back to her messages, stares at the empty typing box for minutes on end. She starts typing. Oh, deletes it. Katya, deletes it. I’m sorry, deletes it. I love you.

Definitely deletes it.

And then there’s an incoming facetime call from Katya. Trixie wants to throw her phone into a fire.

“Katya-”

“You have a very eclectic taste, huh?”

Trixie goes silent, analyses Katya’s voice tone and her face, even if the video quality isn’t great. She seems… okay? It’s like she’s having fun. Trixie’s a bit offended, actually. But she takes it, finds it better than Katya closing off or cutting her out of her life. Even if Katya thinks it’s funny, even if she’s gonna laugh at her for being in love, Trixie supposes she can deal. It seems better than the alternative.

“I- yeah.” She gulps. “Yeah, I do.”

She searches her brain for a joke, for a way to make this situation funny or light, but she can’t. Her chest is heavy still, even with Katya reacting better than she’d have expected. She just wants to erase this from history. She wants to go back to normal, to pining on her own on the other side of the country.

“Trixie, hey,” Katya says with a quiet voice, calming even, and Trixie realizes she hadn’t been looking at the camera, but rather had her eyes unfocused on the wall behind her. She focuses back on Katya, her eyes are earnest and open. “It’s okay.”

She stares at Katya, tries to figure what okay means. She sighs audibly.

“I’m sorry.”

Her whisper is so low she isn’t sure Katya will hear over the crappy connection, but she does because her eyebrows raise.

“For what?”

“For… this mess. This whole mess.”

Katya actually chuckles and Trixie is still lost as to how this will end.

“Trixie, there’s no mess. It’s a really good playlist. You obviously know how to handle music.”

For a moment Trixie considers that maybe Katya didn’t necessarily get it, but she knows Katya isn’t stupid. Right?

“It isn’t.. It isn’t just-”

“Trixie, oh my god, I know.” She blinks, smiles softly. “How do you think I feel about you?”

Trixie licks her lips, takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know how to answer.

Katya rolls her eyes. “I made you a playlist, actually.”

“Oh?”

“I made it after listening to yours so it’s smaller and rushed, but yeah. Let me send you the link, hold on.”

She exits the facetime app, her voice still there but her image now gone. Her phone beeps a few seconds later and her heart is hammering as she opens it and her eyes go through the songs, tries to figure out what Katya wants to say.

For a few moments she is confused, finds the music disconnected and isn’t sure what the song Dumb by Nirvana means in the context at all, and then she realizes. The titles form a sentence.

You are really dumb, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that first time.

“Oh,” she says again, her vocabulary apparently consisting only of that now.

“You’re halfway across the country, Trixie. But I really like you.”

Trixie swallows down the lump in her throat, goes back to the facetime app and meets Katya’s eyes once again.

“I really like you, too.”

*

Trixie’s sleeping schedule is a mess, now. She’s always liked her sleep and sleeping in and all that, but now she makes an active effort to be awake at certain hours she knows Katya will be free so they can talk. It’s alright because Katya does the same for her - more, even, because Katya is too restless to sleep much anyway.

They are not… anything, per se. They never addressed the issue further than the few lines of conversation in that hotel room. But they’ve shifted. Trixie is still too afraid to ask, too afraid to try to label this in whichever way just to find out she’s asking for too much, wants too much. The reality hasn’t changed that their lives don’t align in any way at all. They’re still set to travel for months, each to their side. They’re not in Kansas anymore.

Or least she thinks so, until one day she comes back from a show and there are seven missed calls from Katya and several texts, lots of them saying “i’m fine but CALL ME”.

She’s fumbling with the screen, doesn’t trust Katya’s “i’m fine” all that well - she could have a broken leg, nose and hips sitting on an old police station behind bars and Trixie truly thinks she’d claim to be fine - and walks outside to get some privacy from the tour members that were already on the bus. They should have half an hour before leaving, that gives her enough time to figure out what’s happening with Katya, what the fuck is going on.

“Trixie!! Trixie, listen. Oh my god. Trixie!”

She sounds positively gleeful and it calms Trixie instantly but it also increases her curiosity by a thousand percent.

“Oh my god, what Katya? What is it, tell me?!”

“I have the best news. Like, the best. Or for me at least, they’re the best. I think you’ll find them the best, too. Or I hop-”

“Katya!” She tries to reign her back, can feel her getting lost already. Katya just laughs and it warms Trixie down to her core. “What?”

“I’m going to Indiana.”

“What?” Trixie isn’t sure she heard her properly.

“Indiana! I’m going to Indiana! Like, I’m on my way to the airport right now.”

“Oh my- why? How?”

“It’s a long story that involves a model with a bruised eye and another with a broken toe which I’ll be happy to stage to you once I see you in person in Indiana!”

Trixie’s heart is hammering on her chest, she’s still not sure she isn’t imagining this conversation. They’re just about to cross the border, a two hour drive and she’d be there, in Indiana. Her mind is a bit hazy, Katya is supposed to be in Arizona right now. But she’s going to Indiana. She’s coming towards Trixie.

“I- Katya, Indiana is small but not that small-”

“I have a day off. It was my day off anyway and we’ll be there and I’ll go anywhere. Tell me where you’ll be and I’m going to see you. Just- I know it’s not easy but if you could get the day off, too. Spend it with me, I’ll make it worthwhile.”

Trixie doesn’t need her to promise anything, there’s nothing she wants more than that, so much so that it scares her a bit. But it also thrills her in a way that nothing has in a long time, she’s excited, happy, anxious.

She feels all the words bubbling inside her chest, she wants to tell Katya how happy she is and how she can’t wait and how happy it makes her that Katya seems so happy about it. Instead she takes a deep breath, listens to how rapidly she’s been breathing, and nods once before opening her mouth. “Yeah. Yes, of course. I can’t wait.”

She really can’t.

*

She couldn’t get the night off. She figures that if she really begged she would’ve, but when she tells Katya that, she’s told not to do it. Your job has to be a priority, Trixie, don’t jeopardize it over me. The words sting, a little, because Trixie has been thinking about what would happen to them once both their tours are over - maybe she’d say no to a next one, if they asked. If Katya was willing to stay too. Somewhere, anywhere.

But it’s okay, because Katya will actually be in the same city as her for two days, not only her day off. It’s fate once again working with them and maybe they weren’t star crossed lovers destined to be together for one night only. Maybe they are destined for more.

Or maybe they’re not destined for anything but Trixie’s in love. That’s a very plausible possibility.

Trixie’s jittery every hour, every minute leading to the moment when she’ll see Katya again. She’s rented a car, apparently, and she’ll pick up Trixie and her bag of clothes and make-up from the venue where she’s performing and they’ll drive around and Katya will let her stay in her hotel for the night and take her to her next location the following day before heading to her own work. She has to go to the shows, but she’s gotten off rehearsals, just for one day, and it’s more than she could have expected.

She’s in the dressing room with the band after the show, she’s finished changing and packing her things and she’s ready, buzzing in her seat as she unlocks her phone every ten seconds waiting for it to vibrate with a new message from Katya that’ll hopefully say I’m here.

Trixie remembers it all so well, the sparkle of her eyes, the smoothness of her skin, the sharpness of her bones, the whiteness of her teeth. They’d really only seen each other once and sometimes Trixie can’t fully believe that, it doesn’t make sense to her that they’d known each other for such a short period of time and that Katya already matters so much.

But she does and Trixie’s certainty about it is what clears her head on the days of doubt or worry. She can’t predict what will happen at the end of their tours and she doesn’t know the intensity of Katya’s feelings, her reciprocating doesn’t mean she reciprocates just as much, but none of this matters because Trixie knows what she wants. She’s so sure of it and the hammering of her heart at the thought of seeing Katya in mere minutes only grounds her further.

She’s gonna talk about it and she’s praying that Katya will want the same but if she doesn’t it’s good she knows now. She wants this too much to lead herself on.

Katya: your uber driver (katya) is here (ASS666)

She snorts loudly at how ridiculous Katya is and her stomach gives a full somersault at the notion that she’ll step outside and be met with her sparkling green eyes. The thought is the impulse she needs to grab her bag and dash out as she mutters a half-hearted bye to everyone. She doesn’t even reply to the text, just leaves in search of Katya.

She’s easy to spot, has the car parked in the back where Trixie told her to go, and she’s leaning against it, some old vehicle that is dark blue but looks black in the night sky. She has her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she’s dressed casually and as her jeans are a bit down with the weight of her hand Trixie can see the corner of the bright red kiss tattoo she has on her left hip bone.

Her feet speed up against her own will. She’s not running but she’s walking fast and as she gets closer and closer she wonders what the protocol is here. Should she kiss her? Should they hug tightly? How much is too much?

She doesn’t have to worry, though, because when she’s a few steps away Katya pulls away from the car and strides towards her. Her arms wrap around her entire figure, one hand up to her neck and the other down to her waist and the last thing Trixie sees before she’s kissed - or before she kisses Katya, she can’t tell who did what - is how bright Katya’s face is, from her eyes to her smile.

Their lips meet and if there was even a tiny bit of doubt left in Trixie’s mind, it’s gone. This is it. This is right.

Finally.

[artificialqueens]

My loneliness is killing you (Vatya) /Part 9/ - Polly

Author’s Note: So here’s the next MILKY chapter that I had done for the longest time except one paragraph. But times are tough but good (Guess who works 30 hours a week and also has Uni on 2 days). Anyway, this isn’t anything special but I do love this fic so I hope you enjoy!! xx

(PS: I’m rereading ‘A story about love’ and it will come back out of its semi absence soonish (soon as in probably this year) and this is a promise)

TW: mention of human trafficking, mention of underaged prostitution

All Chapters on AO3 and AQ

Sneak into my DM’s (ok its my ask box) here and drop me a line

Summary: ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ trophy wife style. (LESBIAN AU)

(2.1k)

Before

It’s early morning morning and the sun makes the baby hairs around Katya’s face look golden and Violet calls her beautiful. She tells Katya that her parents are in jail, that most her family is in jail, that her parents were con artists and that Violet has stopped calling a long time ago when they breakfast half an hour later. Katya just nods but doesn’t look surprised. Sometimes Violet forgets that Katya didn’t grow up as a pretty spoiled princess either.

“I came to America because my uncle sold me to settle a debt,” she says instead. There’s a pause that stretches on for a long time. Katya starts to look uncomfortable. “Sold you?” Violet asks slowly.

“Yeah.” Violet pauses again and tries to figure out how to just brush over human trafficking but finds it kind of hard to drop it. “How? Why? What? When?” she blurts out instead. Katya laughs a little now. “He was in a gang or the mafia or something. I actually never found out. One day he comes to our house and tells my mom he’s going to America and that I should come because there’s a lot of opportunities there and you know…. my mom…,” she pauses for a moment “she loved me a lot so she said yes. She didn’t know. She couldn’t have known and she meant well. But there I was, 16 years old and in a plane for the first time and I thought that nothing can be this bad when the world can look this small. Then my uncle bought me to a crack house slash brothel slash all things illegal and said 'those people will take care of you Yekaterina. Be good.’” She deepens her voice when she says that and smiles, fucking smiles when talking about her uncle pimping her out. “And then I was there until I was 18 and it was pretty bad.” She doesn’t go into detail and Violet imagines horrible things and knows that it probably was ten times worse. “When I was 18 I was legal and they upgraded me and then I was a high class Russian whore. That’s how I met David.” She shrugs her shoulders and takes a bite of her blueberry muffin and her and Violet stare at each other for a moment, Violet with furrowed brows and Katya almost expectantly while chewing. “It wasn’t that bad,” she adds after a long moment, looking almost sorry. “Right,” Violet breathes out quickly when she realises that a long time has passed without her saying anything. It was bad but it’s too similar to the stories Violet has heard before, stories of her cousins, her friends from school and Violet knows that Katya knows it’s bad too but it’s easier to not acknowledge some things sometimes. And Violet understands how Katya can stay in her abusive relationship for years. This is better than before and sometimes better is as good as it gets.

Christian calls her some time later to tell her that he’s sending a driver for later in the day to get Violet because his parents are coming to town and Violet wants to cry because somehow his mother is even worse than Christian himself.

Katya draws lazy patterns on Violet’s arm and tells her she’s going to be okay. She looks sorry and so much younger when she kisses Violet goodbye later and tries to tell both of them that it will be alright.

- The winter passes in one cold, sad blur. Violet runs into Katya once two days before Christmas and they go for coffee and Katya complains about how for David it all seems to be about money and fancy parties and expensive gifts.

“Our Christmas would be different,” she says.

“Our as in your and my Christmas?”

Katya blinks at her for a moment. “Yeah, your and my Christmas. I think it would be nice.”

“I don’t like Christmas,” Violet says before taking a sip of the hot chocolate with cinnamon Katya had forced her to get while telling her ‘to ‘shut the fuck up about fat percentages and get in the holiday spirit, Violet.’

Katya grabs onto Violet’s underarm with both her hands and looks at Violet manically. “What?”

“I….,” Violet looks at Katya’s face intensely and is suddenly feeling like she’s saying the wrong thing. “…never liked Christmas?”

Katya lets go of Violet’s atm and throws her hands up in surrender with an accompanying groan and Violet thinks she’s being a bit dramatic. “But why? I mean I get that it’s grossly intertwined with capitalism over here but it’s about love and family and all that. Who would hate that?”

“I never said I hate it, I-“

“You didn’t say you love it either, you actually said you never-“

“Can you not interrupt me? I said I don’t like it. It’s not like I hate it.”

Katya is quiet for a moment. “But… why?”

Violet shrugs her shoulders. “My parents were criminals and apparently Christmas was the busiest time of the year. So I spend Christmas at my neighbor’s house. But Pearl’s mom was a drug addict so it wasn’t really that great either.”

“Pearl is a stupid name.”

“You’re only saying that because I told you I had sex with her once.”

“Maybe so.”

Violet only grins back and Katya shakes her head slowly but Violet can see the smile in the corner of her lips.

“Anyway,” Katya continues with an eye roll “if you and I would have Christmas together we’d do it all. Bake all the Christmas cookies, decorate the tree, decorate all the cookies, watch Christmas movies, eat all the Christmas cookies and-“

“What the fuck that’s so domestic. Are you alright,hon?” Violet grins and puts her hand up against Katya’s forehead and pretends to check for her temperature.

Katya bats her hand away with a small laugh. She takes Violet’s hand in between both of her own. “You’re awful,” she says and smiles.

They talk about everything and nothing and Christmas a lot and it’s nice, so nice but then David picks Katya up and his stares make Violets skin crawl.

-

She sees Katya twice after their coffee date. Both times at parties and they can’t really talk but Katya doesn’t look fully miserable and that has to do for now.

When spring comes to New York so does Violet’s cousin Kurtis. Christian suddenly has a business trip that lasts the entirety of Kurtis’ stay. Precisely. Christian tells her to just take Katya to brunch with Kurtis instead and Violet tries to not look too pleased.

Kurtis spends most of the brunch watching Violet and Katya. He kicks Violet under the table once and whispers something about non existing subtlety in her ear while Katya is ordering another coffee.

It’s a bit later, when all three of them are done eating and decided to go shopping that he takes Violet to the side while Katya is trying on shoes on the other side of the store.

“You love her,” he says matter of factly. Violet laughs nervously, glances at Katya and forces Kurtis to try on six pairs of shoes and buys them all. He tries to refuse but Violet insists and mumbles something about birthdays or christmases and it it feels like hush money that she knows won’t work on Kurtis because he would’ve never told anyone in the first place. He doesn’t let it go either though. They’re sitting on the sofa, legs entangled while watching Mean Girls, 15 years old Violet’s favourite, when he brings Katya up again. He puts a hand just above Violet’s knee and looks very serious suddenly. “I just want you to be happy, Vi.“ He looks at her for a moment before looking back to the TV. "Money can’t buy happiness.” Violet doesn’t answer but thinks about their talk long after he left and well into the next year.

She shakes the truthfulness of his words of. Money can’t buy happiness. But money can buy comfort and comfort is better than the crippling feeling of there never being enough to go around.

-

The sun in southern France is warm on Violet’s skin, so much warmer than she had ever expected for it only being May. She doesn’t know if it is always like this here, has never been to France, has never even been to Europe except for her three day honeymoon trip to Stockholm that Christian had mindfully connected with a business trip a few months back. But that had been last spring and Stockholm was nothing like the azur blue ocean and the view of Marseille in the background she was having now.

And Violet loves the ocean, loves how wide it is and is a bit pissed of that Katya doesn’t have the same view now. At least she was on board of the boat too, actually driving it; a fact that confused Violet beyond belief. To give up that kind of control to Katya didn’t struck her as very on par with David’s character. She watches as he takes another sip of champagne and looks on as his face goes sour for a split second and she knows that he will never get used to the taste of it, that he hasn’t been raised on champagne, oysters, monthly trips overseas and that he never feels like he belongs.

There is an army of rich, white people living in the upper class of New York and whose families have been there for the longest time. There is an army of people whose upbringings, motives, movements Violet might never understand. The cold sentences, stiff handshakes, fake smiles, deluded friendships, empty promises and judging stares made Violet’s skin crawl. Christian is one of them. Violet can tell that the guests that came with them onto the yacht were too. Violet knows how to pretend she is one of them. Katya tries hard to make sure that they don’t even get the idea that she is one of them. David isn’t one of them and never will be.

He is all new money; laughs at inappropriate times, reads all social clues wrong, wore the wrong shoes with his belt one too many times. He is almost as out of place as Violet and Katya. But David has the money, is in fact richer than some of the people he associates with. It doesn’t change anything. In such a small group it was evident that he could never possibly close the gap he doesn’t even know exists. This might be his boat but the conversation would never be his. Violet watches him intently and she doesn’t get him but is intrigued by this economical genius that much like Katya grew up on a farm and understands a bit why Katya had once thought that David would be her saviour, that they were a bit the same.

Violet would love to hear Katya’s thoughts on everything. She wants to know Katya’s thoughts on most things these days, could spend days talking to her, finds everything about her endlessly fascinating. She wishes Katya would be upstairs now, especially upon seeing how David grows angrier, uneasier every time Christian talks over him and Violet has no doubt that Katya would be the one to pay for that at the end of the day in one way or another. David catches her staring and his facial expression lightens. He throws her a smile that she fears is supposed to be flirtatious. Her stomach clenches. “I’m glad you came with us today, Violet,“ he speaks suddenly, slowly, while letting his eyes move over Violet’s almost nude body and she wishes to have something to cover the tiny bikini. She tears her gaze away from him, taking a sip of champagne while her hand is shaking lightly. Christian clears his throat glares at Violet in a fashion that she know means that somehow this is her fault. “Violet, you can leave us alone now. We have business to attend.“ It’s not a request, not even a question. It’s an order and normally Violet would feel anger boiling up but for once she is glad. She just wants away. Away from David’s stares, the predatory grins the other two men have on their faces when Violet rises from her sitting position, away from Christian’s clenched jaw and constructed cold expression. Violet holds tightly onto her own glass of champagne and quickly moves down the stairs to where she assumes Katya is.

[artificialqueens]

girls like dollies chapter 6 (trixya) - lale

This chapter ended up being…way longer than I expected and it’s pretty much just 6k of Feelings. I hope you enjoy? All the thanks in the world to Matilda and fleursverts for being the angels that they are and letting me ramble at them while I was writing this, you’re the best!!

Trixie did her best to push down the thoughts she found herself having for her best friend. She’d tried to convince herself on the night of Max’s birthday that it had just been a crazy moment, that she’d be able to wake up the next morning and forget all about it. But she’d woken up the next morning with a faceful of messy blonde hair and Katya’s body tucked against hers and her heart soared – and then plummeted.

Where had these thoughts come from? She tried her hardest to explain them away – she was shut away in a new place, surrounded only by girls and not very many of them at that. Was that why she was feeling like this? Was she just projecting some weird pent up emotion onto Katya? She’d certainly never felt like this with Kim, and they’d been friends for years. She glanced over at Kim, cocooned in her blankets, and thought hard about it. Kim snored, and Trixie’s face wrinkled. Nope, definitely no Weird Feelings for Kim. No strange urge to kiss her or swooping sensation in her stomach when she looked at her. Tentatively, Trixie looked back down at Katya beside her, panic rising in her throat at the way her heart sped up. She pushed back her covers, all but jumping out of bed in her need to get away. Katya didn’t move except to press her face into Trixie’s pillow, nose wrinkling as her hair fell across her face. Trixie stared at her for a second before opening the door and escaping into the hallway.

She leaned against the wall, putting her head in her hands. It was still early and there was no one around, so she sank down to the floor and drew her knees to her chest.

Trixie wasn’t stupid, she knew what everyone back home said about her. That she was strange, that she looked at other girls, that she wasn’t interested in boys, that she must be a lesbian. She’d never understood where it had all come from, always chalking it up to the way she’d never quite fit in with everyone and the fact that she’d never had a boyfriend. Now she was starting to doubt that, and it terrified her. Had what they’d all said about her been true? How could she not have known if everyone else apparently did?

Trixie shook her head, dragging her fingers through her hair. Her teeth dug into her lip until she tasted blood. No, she was being ridiculous. Maybe it was being in a new place, surrounded by new people, but it was messing with her head. Even when Kim had been around back in Milwaukee she’d never been able to spend this much time with her; spending almost 24/7 with Katya had sent her a little crazy. Maybe if she could spend some time away from her, those stupid thoughts would stop.

Above her, someone cleared their throat. Trixie’s head whipped up and she found Ginger standing in front of her, one eyebrow raised.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

“I just…uh…” Trixie trailed off, not sure what to say. How did explain away why she was sitting in the hallway on a Saturday morning, freaking out about wanting to kiss her friend?

Thankfully Ginger didn’t push her. “Did Katya stay in your room last night?”

“Yeah. She’s still asleep,” Trixie said, gesturing to the door. She wiped at her lip, wincing at the red stain left on her fingertip.

“She’s still asleep? Really?” Ginger looked surprised.

“It’s not that late, is it?” Trixie asked. Had she lost track of time in the midst of her meltdown?

“It is for her,” Ginger said. Trixie couldn’t place the expression on Ginger’s face, but it looked kind of like approval. “You okay down there?” she asked. Trixie forced a smile.

“Oh, yeah. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to wake anyone  – Kim gets super bitchy if she doesn’t get to sleep in,” Trixie said. Ginger looked skeptical, but offered her a hand to help her up. Trixie took it gratefully, pulling herself up to standing.  She went to go back into her room, but Ginger touched her arm.

“Katya really likes you. I know sometimes people think she’s a bit…much. Be kind,” she said.

“I don’t think she’s too much,” Trixie said, surprised. She liked Katya’s exuberance, the way her brain hopped around from subject to subject and the eagerness she threw into everything. Her energy always ended up being infectious.

“Good. Now, remind that bitch that she promised to help me with my French project later,” Ginger said, nodding before she padded back down the hallway to her room.

Trixie tried to stay quiet as she walked back into her bedroom, but as the door shut behind her with a quiet snick Katya opened one eye, giving her a sleepy, warm smile.

“Sorry,” Trixie whispered, but Katya just opened her other eye as her smile widened. She wriggled over in Trixie’s bed to get closer to the wall, pulling the covers back and reaching for Trixie. Trixie didn’t even think before laying down beside her.

“I think your bed is comfier than mine,” Katya whispered, pulling the covers up to her nose. Trixie giggled, feeling the ridiculous urge to snuggle as close as she could to Katya and tuck her face in against her neck. She forced the feeling down, keeping herself as close to the edge of the bed as she possibly could.

“Ginger wanted me to remind you that you promised to help with her project later,” she told Katya, who huffed and rolled onto her stomach, face pressed into Trixie’s pillow.

“Stupid project. French is easy, you just do the accent and roll all of your ‘r’s,” she said, her demonstration of an impressive French accent muffled by the pillow.

“Maybe it’s easy for you! Not for the rest of us,” Trixie said, rolling her eyes fondly.

“I’ll go help her later. It’s too depressing to spend Saturday morning doing homework,” Katya decided, rolling over again and giving Trixie a grin. Her hair flopped over her face and she blew upwards to move it, eyes crossing.

“You’re like something out of a cartoon sometimes,” Trixie said, drawing a cackle from Katya. Katya kicked her feet happily under the blankets, one of her legs coming to rest across Trixie’s ankle. Trixie pulled back quickly, desperate to avoid any contact. Katya looked surprised for a moment, and Trixie thought she saw a flash of hurt cross her face but it was gone before she could be sure.

Trixie felt bad, but she couldn’t keep letting herself get close to Katya. Surely if she could keep her distance, these stupid thoughts would go away. It couldn’t hurt to try, right? She looked back over at Katya, who’d managed to wiggle closer to her without Trixie noticing. She gave her an angelic smile, and then Trixie let out a shrieking laugh when her fingers dug into the spot under her ribs, catching her by surprise.

“Oh my god, you guys are so annoying,” Pearl groaned from across the room as Trixie tried to calm herself down. Her hair was tangled around her head as she got up, shuffling across the room in her blankets to the window seat. She picked up one of the handful of cigarette packets she kept stashed there and put one to her lips, lighting it easily. She looked at Trixie’s bed and laughed; Trixie looked over her shoulder and saw Katya looking at the cigarette with her eyes wide and head cocked. Pearl rolled her eyes but extended her cigarettes out towards them and Katya hopped nimbly over Trixie and crossed the room, taking one and curling up beside her. She tucked herself in against Pearl’s side and Trixie pushed down an irrational flare of jealousy. She didn’t want to see Katya happy to snuggle up with someone else – what was wrong with her brain? Why did she care what Katya was doing �� she didn’t! She was being stupid.

Trixie rolled onto her side, facing away from Katya and Pearl and trying to focus on her phone instead as she checked instagram and twitter and facebook. She could hear them giggling together and pulled her covers up over her ears, trying to block it out. Was this what Ginger had meant earlier about Katya being full on sometimes? It wasn’t hard to see that everyone loved Katya, that she somehow managed to make all of the girls feel like she was their best friend when she was with them. Trixie wondered if she’d been stupid to think that the way she felt about Katya was any different to the way the other girls felt. Katya and Trixie were friends, but Trixie wasn’t anyone special to Katya. Who knew if Katya would even want to spend as much time with Trixie once she was no longer the new girl Katya had taken a shine to?

Trixie burrowed herself further down under her blankets, phone clutched to her chest. It should have made her feel better to think that maybe the stupid thoughts she’d been having would go away if Katya didn’t want to be around her as much. Really, she thought, things would be a lot simpler if she didn’t get to spend that much time with Katya. So why did that thought make her heart hurt so much?

Trixie’s blankets rustled and a breeze licked at her legs before a small, warm body slid in beside her again. “What are you doing this morning, mama?” Katya asked, curling herself in against Trixie’s back. She smelt of cigarettes and the hand she draped over Trixie’s side was cold, and it was all Trixie could do to resist the urge to roll over and press herself closer.

“Oh…I should probably look at my homework. I have to go over some stuff for drama, too,” Trixie said, toying with the edge of the baby pink cover on her phone. Katya sighed against the back of her shoulder and Trixie could imagine the ridiculous pout she must have on her face.

“You’re so boring,” she whined, and Trixie elbowed her lightly in the stomach. “And mean! Maybe I’ll have to go find someone else to keep me entertained.”

“No!” Trixie said before she could stop herself. She was so stupid. She should welcome the chance for Katya to leave her alone for a while, give herself a chance to regroup. But she couldn’t bring herself to let Katya get away. Katya leaned up and put her chin on Trixie’s shoulder, and Trixie could see that she was beaming. God, she was so helpless under the power of that smile.

“I told Kim I’d catch up on her show so that we can watch some new episodes later. It’s still early, I guess I could watch some now.”

“Much better than homework,” Katya said, giving her a nod of approval. Trixie could feel her warm, even breath against her neck as she fumbled to pull the show up on her phone. Katya wriggled closer to her, legs tucked in behind Trixie’s and soft breasts pressed against her back. Trixie’s heart felt like it was in her throat at how good it felt to have her so close. Her stomach felt tight and her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t help the way she squeezed her thighs together.

Trixie knew she should pull herself away from Katya, give herself a little space to breathe. But she couldn’t do it. Instead she hooked an ankle around Katya’s, tentatively laying her arm over Katya’s where she’d looped it around Trixie’s middle. She couldn’t help herself, and it terrified her.

***

Months passed, and every day Trixie promised herself that she’d try to pull herself away from Katya. And every day, without fail, she found herself following the same routine: she’d bring Katya coffee in the morning and watch her get ready, unable to take her eyes off of her as she watched her smoke her morning cigarette with the light of the rising sun behind her. They’d spend most of the day together, in class and at lunch and she could never resist the urge to seek Katya out in the evening when she got back from drama. On the days she tried, she’d either get a string of texts that didn’t stop until she went to find Katya in her room, or Katya would come and find her if she really tried to ignore her messages. Trixie couldn’t escape her, but it wasn’t like she really wanted to.

Every now and then, usually when she was just about to fall asleep, it would hit her all of a sudden, how in over her head she was, how totally fucked she was. She’d curl herself into a tight ball and force herself to take deep breaths, trying to convince herself that everything was okay. She’d never had a friendship this intense before, and it was making her blur the boundaries between friendship and something else. That was all it was. She’d convince herself that her stupid feelings would go away soon and manage to finally fall asleep – and then in the morning she’d wake Katya up with coffee and Katya would give her a sweet, sleepy smile and the whole vicious cycle would start over again.

She was totally, utterly fucked.

So far, that morning had been the same as always. Trixie was the first one awake in her bedroom, and when Kim and Pearl were finally ready they went down to breakfast. Trixie grabbed coffee for Katya when she was finished, black and strong to wake her up.

Her routine was completely thrown when she opened the door to Katya and Ginger’s room. Katya was normally fast asleep when Trixie found her, but today she was up and pacing the room, a cigarette in one hand and her phone held up to her ear. She was talking in fast Russian, her expression serious. Trixie paused in the doorway, unsure if she should intrude, but when Katya spotted her she waggled her fingers towards the coffee in Trixie’s hand. Trixie handed it to her and went to Katya’s bed, sitting on its edge as Katya crossed the room to stub her cigarette out and lean up on her tiptoes to toss the butt out of the window. She immediately pulled another one out of her pack and lit it, and Trixie’s eyebrows raised.

The corners of Katya’s mouth pulled down and she burst into a stream of rapid Russian, before she pulled her phone away from her ear and took a drag from her cigarette. Trixie gave her a questioning look but Katya waved a hand dismissively, splashing coffee over her bare feet. Trixie held up her phone, gesturing at the time, and Katya rolled her eyes.

“Мне нужно идти. Я в порядке, мама. Да! Да.” Katya tossed her phone towards Trixie and it bounced onto her pillow; Trixie could see that the screen read ‘Mom’ as the call ended.

“Is everything okay?” Trixie asked. Katya didn’t answer, tipping her head back to drink half of her coffee in one before padding over to the window to finish her cigarette. Trixie wasn’t sure, but it looked like her hands were shaking.

“I’m going to be late. Go without me if you want,” Katya said, finally taking out her clothes and starting to get changed.

“Katya-”

“I’m fine,” Katya said, cutting her off before she could finish. Trixie frowned, unused to this side of her. Katya seemed so shaken and it surprised her. Trixie watched as she pulled on her uniform, cursing under her breath when she stopped to do her makeup and smeared lipstick across the side of her mouth. Usually Katya found it hysterical when she fucked up her makeup, taking pictures and laughing at herself before she fixed it. Today she tossed her lipstick onto her desk and haphazardly wiped her lips, dragging her fingers through her hair. She snatched up her bag, going straight to the door and only looking back at Trixie when she was halfway out into the hallway. “Are you coming?”

“Oh, yeah,” Trixie said, getting to her feet to follow her. Katya seemed so tense, body stiff as they made their way downstairs; it was like she was a whole different person. When they got outside, she popped open her cigarettes and took one out. Three cigarettes in quick succession was a lot even for Katya. Trixie reached out to touch her hand. “Kat, if you want to talk,” she said, but Katya pushed her hand away.

“Trixie, I’m fine. Please stop asking,” she said, hands trembling as she tried to light her cigarette. Trixie swallowed down her hurt at Katya’s dismissiveness. Talking to her mom had rattled her for whatever reason, it didn’t have anything to do with Trixie. “Fuck!” Katya said, throwing both her lighter and her cigarette to the ground when she couldn’t get the lighter to work. She put her face in her hands for a moment, while Trixie crouched down to pick them both up for her. Katya took them both back from her without a word, exhaling long through her nose as she replaced the cigarette in her mouth and tried once more to light it.

“You should go to class, you’re going to be late,” she said, eyes fluttering closed once she was finally able to take a long drag of her cigarette.

“I’ll wait for you,” Trixie replied. She didn’t like being late, but she didn’t want to leave Katya when she was like this.

“Please, Trixie. I’m fine, I just want to finish this,” Katya insisted. Trixie looked at her for a long moment, then sighed.

“Alright. I’ll see you in there?” she said. She didn’t want to go, wanted to stay and make sure Katya wasn’t alone, make sure that she was really okay and try to help if she wasn’t. But Trixie knew better than anyone not to push when someone didn’t want to talk.

“Sure,” Katya said. She was looking at the ground, free hand curled into a tight fist as she exhaled smoke. Trixie hesitated, then turned around and walked to class.

***

Katya didn’t show up to their first two classes. Trixie sent her a string of texts, hardly hearing a single word that was said as she constantly checked her phone for a reply. Katya never did send her a message, but Trixie sagged with relief when she finally appeared. She looked as stiff and uncomfortable as she had earlier that morning, and the smell stale cigarette smoke clung to her clothes as she sat down beside Trixie. Trixie could tell that Katya wasn’t taking in anything that was going on, and when she glanced down she could see that she was digging her nails into her thigh, leaving red marks against pale skin. Trixie instinctively put a hand on her wrist to try to stop her, but Katya shook her off without looking over at her.

Trixie was really starting to worry. Katya liked to joke about in class and it wasn’t like she was a model student, but she’d never actually skipped class in all the time Trixie had known her. Now she seemed completely zoned out and clearly didn’t want to talk to Trixie; if she had Ginger’s number she’d text her, see if she knew what was going on or what Trixie could do to help, but as it was she didn’t know what she should do. As much to keep herself occupied as to try to get Katya to pay attention to her, Trixie leaned over and started doodling in the corner of Katya’s page. She drew two cartoon girls with arms interlocked, one shorter with a mess of long blonde hair and a big, toothy smile, and one taller with carefully styled curls and exaggerated lips.  She waited hopefully for Katya to take in the drawing and react, break into the smile Trixie liked so much or maybe even laugh.

Nothing. It was the same all morning even as they went from class to class – Katya was like a zombie. It was such a drastic change from her usual enthusiasm that bordered on being manic sometimes. She only spoke to tell Trixie that she was fine, that there was nothing wrong, to leave me the fuck alone, Trixie when Trixie followed her outside during lunch when she went to have a cigarette.

Leaving Katya to her solitary cigarette, Trixie spotted Ginger heading outside with a pack of cigarettes clutched in her own hand. Trixie hovered by the doorway, watching as Ginger approached Katya. Katya still looked tense as she puffed on her cigarette, but she let Ginger put an arm around her as they talked.

Trixie tried not to take it personally that Katya had refused to talk to her all morning but was apparently opening up to Ginger now. She knew how close Katya and Ginger were, how long they’d known one another. It was good that Katya was talking to someone, even if it wasn’t Trixie.

Trixie couldn’t do much more than toy with her food at lunch, her head jerking up every time someone walked through the door. Katya never appeared, even after Ginger returned and sat with the other girls.

Katya was no different for the rest of the afternoon. She disappeared halfway through their last class of the day, leaving Trixie to gather up her things and take them back to her room. Katya was nowhere to be seen, and Ginger wasn’t around. Trixie felt bad, leaving Katya’s bag on her bed without any clue where she was or what she was doing, but today was an important day for drama. Ms Visage was casting for their first full play, and they’d be auditioning all afternoon as well as after dinner. Trixie had been practicing her pieces religiously, and she knew she couldn’t afford to be late because she was looking for Katya. Besides, Katya had made it perfectly clear she didn’t want to talk to Trixie about what was wrong.

Trixie did her best to concentrate during their drama class, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being a bad friend. She remembered that night during her first week at RuPaul’s when Katya had sat with her through her meltdown, helping her calm down and just being there for her without asking any questions.

When they broke for dinner, Trixie diverted away from the rest of the girls as they went to eat. Maybe with the day over, Katya might be willing to actually talk to her now, or even just let Trixie try to offer her the smallest bit of comfort about whatever was stressing her out so badly.

Katya and Ginger’s room was empty. Katya’s bag clearly hadn’t been touched since Trixie had left it on her bed earlier in the afternoon. Trixie frowned, taking out her phone to try calling her. There was an insistent buzz from Katya’s bed; Trixie could see her phone lighting up inside her bag.

Where was she? Trixie felt worse than ever for not trying harder to find her earlier. Her stomach was in knots as she left Katya’s room, trying to think of where she might. She could try the spot outside she knew a lot of the smokers went to in the evenings, then maybe the room in the theater building she’d seen Katya in that one time. She had to find her – she couldn’t get the thought of Katya’s blank expression and worried eyes from earlier out of her head.

“Trixie!” Trixie was about to go down the stairs when she heard Pearl calling out to her. She spun around to see Pearl was heading towards her, looking as disheveled and paint-covered as Trixie had come to expect from her after an afternoon in the art studio.

“Have you seen-”

“She was in art with us. She’s still there,” Pearl said before Trixie could even finish her question, sounding serious. Trixie nodded, squeezing Pearl’s arm as she passed her in thanks. She could only guess that Katya was acting as weirdly as she had been earlier for Pearl to come looking for her.

By the time Trixie reached the art studio, there was no one else there except for Katya. She was stood in front of the painting Trixie remembered seeing on her first day at RuPaul’s, staring at it blankly. As Trixie went to walk towards her, Katya let out a frustrated noise and pushed the canvas off its easel, sending it crashing to the ground. Trixie stopped in her tracks, startled by the sudden change in Katya’s demeanor. She made a noise that sounded like a frustrated sob and toppled the easel as well, before sinking to her knees and putting her head in her hands.

“Katya,” Trixie said, voice quiet and tentative as she walked over to her. Katya froze, but Trixie could see the way her hands were trembling. She remembered how Katya had realised so quickly when Trixie was panicking and known exactly how to calm her down and wondered how she’d never connected the dots that maybe Katya knew how to deal with it from her own experience.

“I’m,” Katya started, but Trixie cut her off as she knelt down beside her, putting her hands lightly on Katya’s forearms.

“You’re not fine. It’s okay, I got you,” Trixie whispered. Katya was tense under her touch, but after a few seconds of silence she wilted. She leaned into Trixie and Trixie wrapped her arms around her, feeling Katya wind her arms around her middle and hold onto her tightly. “I got you,” Trixie repeated, pressing her nose into Katya’s hair. Katya didn’t say anything, just clung tightly to Trixie as Trixie held her. Trixie didn’t think she was crying, but her breathing was short and sharp against Trixie’s neck.

“Trix, I was such a dick to you. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have been like that,” she said eventually. “It’s just…everything’s just…it’s all too much.” Trixie hushed her gently.

“It’s been a bad day,” she summed up, already feeling some of the tension in her chest loosen. Katya was clearly still freaking out, but at least she was talking to Trixie now.

“I suppose that’s one way to describe it,” Katya said, already sounding a little calmer. She groaned against Trixie’s shoulder, and Trixie rubbed a hand lightly across Katya’s back in what she hoped was a soothing manner.

“Why don’t we go up to your room?” she suggested, glancing past Katya’s head to the painting on the floor. It seemed like a good idea to get away from it if she wanted to help Katya calm down. Katya nodded, pulling back from Trixie. Trixie was surprised to see mascara tracks under her eyes, and her chest ached at the sight of Katya so clearly unhappy. Katya stood up, letting out a long, heavy sigh. Trixie hesitated, then went over to the toppled painting. The corner of the canvas was dented but the painting didn’t seem damaged; she righted the easel Katya had tipped over and carefully replaced the painting. She turned to see Katya looking at the painting with an expression she couldn’t quite judge on her face, somewhere between sadness and disappointment and frustration.

“I remember seeing this the day I got here, you know. Mr Matthews gave me a tour and when we got here, yours stuck out to me,” Trixie said. Katya managed to give her a tiny smile, and it was one of the saddest sights Trixie had ever seen.

“Yeah, it’s not like the others girls’. It’s nowhere near as good. I know that. I thought about switching over to art for good, but…” Katya trailed off, shrugging.

“I love it. I said so that first day. It’s so striking, and it makes even more sense now that I know you,” Trixie said earnestly. Katya let out a humorless laugh.

“Fuck, I need a cigarette,” she said, and Trixie knew better than to try to push the conversation. She stayed close to Katya as they walked back to the dorms, arms wrapped around her middle to brace herself against the cool evening air. Katya paused, cupping a trembling hand around her cigarette to protect it from the breeze as she tried to light it.

“Here,” Trixie said, putting one hand lightly on Katya’s wrist to steady it and using the other to help keep the wind away. Katya’s gaze lifted to meet hers, and she gave Trixie a shaky but grateful smile before taking a deep drag on her cigarette.

“Stupid habit. I blame Ginger for encouraging me all these years,” she said, slowly exhaling a lungful of smoke. She reached for Trixie’s hand with the one holding her lighter, tangling their fingers together. Trixie let her, giving her hand a light squeeze as they walked slowly across the campus. She managed to steal a discrete glance at her watch – she was due back in the theater in five minutes for the rest of the auditions. The two parts she most wanted were up first, and she knew if she didn’t get there promptly she had no chance of even being considered. She looked over at Katya; she looked a little calmer than she had earlier in the day, but she was still pale and Trixie could feel the slight tremble of her hand in Trixie’s.

Katya stopped to stub her cigarette out and toss it in the trash, and Trixie took the opportunity to quickly take her phone out.

Trixie: hey can you tell Ms Visage that i have cramps so i can’t come back to the auditions?

Max: Oh no! Are you okay? Should I ask Fame to check in on you?

Trixie: no, I’ll be okay. thanks!

Max: I’ll tell her for you. Feel better!

Trixie tucked her phone back into her pocket and followed Katya to the door, pushing down the vague guilt building in her chest. Katya needed her; that was more important than some stupid part in a play.

When they reached Katya and Ginger’s room, Katya made a beeline straight for her bed. It was unmade, and she pulled the covers back just enough to crawl under them. Trixie hesitated before climbing onto the bed beside her, leaning against the wall. Most of Katya’s hair stuck out from under the blankets, draped across her pillow, and Trixie ran her fingers through it lightly, brushing over her scalp. Katya sighed under the blankets and her head emerged; she looked small and fragile and so utterly exhausted.

“Your bed is definitely comfier than mine,” she whispered, putting a hand on Trixie’s calf and tugging lightly until Trixie lay down beside her. Trixie laughed, keeping up gentle, soothing strokes through Katya’s hair. Katya made a small, happy noise and leaned into her touch, her face already more relaxed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Trixie asked, watching her expression carefully.

“I don’t know what there is to talk about, yours is definitely comfier,” Katya replied.

“I don’t mean the bed,” Trixie said.

“I know.” Trixie didn’t reply and Katya sighed, rubbing her face wearily. Trixie covered Katya’s hand with her free one and squeezed gently; Katya turned her hand over pressed their palms together, lacing her fingers through Trixie’s. “It’s stupid, really. I just don’t deal with stress well.”

“Is it your mom? Do you not get along with her?” Trixie asked. If there was anything she could understand, it was fucked up families.

“Oh, my mom’s great. It’s not her fault. Trust me, this is all on me,” Katya said, huffing out a laugh. “All she was trying to do was ask me if I’d figured out what I was going to do with myself here, and I go off the deep end. Fucked up, right?” she said, looking over at Trixie. Even though she sounded like she was trying to make light of they way she’d been acting all day, her expression was open and raw.

“It’s not fucked up,” she said, squeezing Katya’s hand. “You’re not fucked up. We all freak out. You saw me freak out when I first got here!”

“That was different,” Katya said, shaking her head.

“No it wasn’t! Why would it be different?”

“I don’t know, it just was,” Katya insisted. Trixie raised an eyebrow at her and grinned when it got a smile out of her. “Shut up,” she mumbled, pressing her face into her pillow. “I just can’t help it sometimes. I don’t mean to let it get to me but it just happens and I don’t know how to stop it. It’s so embarrassing.”

“I never would have guessed,” Trixie said honestly. “You’re always so…confident. Free, I guess? I don’t know if that’s the right word, but you never seem like you care about anything.” Katya snorted, shaking her head.

“I’m good at hiding it,” she said. “I have to be. It’s always there – it’s like it just under my skin, all these anxious feelings itching away at me. I have to hold it back all the time, and when I can’t it’s like the whole fucking world falls apart.” Katya sighed heavily, shaking her head.  “I never want anyone to know that I feel like that, you know? Trixie, you won’t-”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Trixie promised before Katya could even finish her sentence. “I promise I won’t, really. I just wish I could have helped more,” she said, carefully pushing Katya’s hair behind her ear. Katya lifted her head, giving her an incredulous look. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? First of all, I wouldn’t even talk to you all day, so that’s hardly on you. And then you came to look for me even though-” Katya cut herself off, squeezing Trixie’s hand so hard her short nails dug into her skin and staring over at her wide-eyed.

“Ow! Even though what?” Trixie asked, trying to loosen Katya’s grip on her hand without letting go.

“Your auditions! Why aren’t you there?” Katya asked, looking stricken. Trixie held back a sigh; she’d been hoping Katya wouldn’t remember, but of course she had. She managed to be thoughtful even when she’d had the shittiest day.

“It doesn’t matter. We did all the important ones before dinner,” she said, trying to sound breezy. Katya frowned.

“You could still go, maybe you won’t have missed them all,” she suggested, but Trixie shook her head.

“I promise, it’s not a big deal. I’d rather be here, anyway.” Katya gave her an incredulous look and Trixie’s face flushed warm at the intensity of her gaze.

“Trixie…”

“Please don’t beat yourself up,” Trixie said, all but pleading. Katya looked conflicted, so she went for distraction. “Hey. Did I ever tell you about the time Kim had to dance in gym class back home?” Katya laughed at that, letting her head fall back against the pillow. “Oh my god, it was the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. That girl takes having two left feet to a whole new level, I swear.”

“I can imagine,” Katya agreed. “Has anyone told you about the time Ginger had to play a cow in a play? Back when we first started here?”

“No!” Trixie said, grinning. It seemed like more and more of Katya’s usual personality was seeping back in.

“Oh my god, Trixie, you have no fucking idea. I’ve never seen anything as funny in my whole fucking life,” Katya said through her laughter. “And then there was the time they made her work with Sasha Belle. Jesus, I thought I was gonna witness Ginger commit a murder.”

“Ginger’s so funny. I can see why she’s your best friend,” Trixie said. Katya gave her a look Trixie couldn’t quite decipher.

“She’s my oldest friend,” she corrected. The unspoken suggestion behind her words made Trixie’s heart feel like it was flipping in her chest, and she looked down at their hands to avoid Katya’s eyes. Katya’s bitten nails had the last remnants of bright red polish on them, and her skin was tinged slightly yellow around the nails on her middle and ring fingers. Her fingers were bony, delicate; Trixie liked the feel of them tucked between her own.

“Trixie,” Katya whispered. Trixie looked up, mouth dry. A smile slowly stretched across Katya’s lips. “Can we watch Contact?” Trixie burst out laughing, throwing one hand over her mouth. At least she knew Katya was feeling better if she was bugging her to watch her favorite movie. Trixie had managed to avoid watching it too many times with her so far, but today she decided it was worth it to keep that smile on Katya’s face.

“Fine,” she said, putting on a big dramatic sigh even as Katya let out a triumphant squawk. She rolled over to retrieve her laptop from its spot stowed away under her bed, and Trixie was unsurprised to see that the movie was all ready to be played on her desktop. “You’re such a fucking dork,” she said fondly, as Katya propped up her laptop so they could see it. She took Trixie’s hand again, pulling it over her side to loop her arm around Katya’s middle. Trixie was more than happy to let her, for once determined not to let her frantic worries get in the way.

The movie was as terrible as always, but it was infinitely more entertaining than it should have been with Katya constantly squeezing her hand or pointing things out or tapping on the screen to get her to pay attention to her favorite parts. By the end she could tell Katya was almost asleep, grip on her fingers loose and breathing slow and even. Trixie leaned over her, carefully shutting her laptop and moving it off the bed.

“I should go back to my room,” she whispered to Katya. It was late, the sky pitch black outside. No doubt Ginger would appear soon, and Kim and Pearl were probably wondering where she was.

“Stay. Please.” Katya’s voice was small, soft, and Trixie could hear the vulnerability behind it.

“Okay,” she agreed, nodding into the darkness. Katya rolled over towards her, and she could just about see the outline of her face. She looked tired but calmer than she had earlier, and Trixie was grateful for that. She wasn’t stupid; she was sure Katya was still worried, that those weren’t feelings that disappeared in the space of one evening, but if she’d helped Katya find a few hours of peace then she was proud of that.

“Thank you,” Katya whispered to her, leg sliding against Trixie’s as she drew it up towards herself.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Trixie insisted.

“Of course I do. I – Trixie, I…” Katya trailed off, and Trixie watched her face intently. “You’re the best, Trixie Mattel.”

Trixie was grateful for the darkness as she felt her cheeks flush pink, and she leaned in and pressed her lips to Katya’s forehead instead of trying to respond. Katya huffed out a laugh that Trixie felt against her shoulder, and tucked herself in closer to Trixie.

“Go to sleep,” Trixie said, resettling herself so that Katya’s hair wasn’t blocking her mouth. Katya hummed, leg twitching against Trixie’s. Trixie held her close in the dark, listening to Katya’s breathing as she felt sleep pull her under.