#step one: make it gayer

[mythgendered]

i like these games a Normal Amount, and naem can attest the growing pile of unposted fanart is testament to just the tip of the iceberg of Normal ive been about my most recent (re)plays

[cheeekycharchar]

AN ANGEL ON A MISSION

I just realized what Michael Sheen's face was doing during the end credits and OMFG he is beyond amazing! *o*

I already did an indepth analysis on why Aziraphale acted the way he did after that heart wrenching kiss scene.. but it wasn't until @charlotteharlatan post about the Nightingale song on the car's radio could have been that got my brain into a tizzy.

"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Two of these were wrong."

Many people paint Aziraphale as this gullible innocent character but don't forget.. he is highly intelligent. Completely traumatized by his past abusive relationship with Heaven but intelligent.

When Metatron told him of their Second Coming plan.. how quickly he put things together before stepping onto that elevator. He turns toward Crowley to give him one last look and heads up to Heaven.

And for the next minute.. we watch as Michael Sheen micro-contorts his expression through the stages of grief.

Shock from hearing Heaven's plans for the Second Coming. Anger for realizing what he was just tricked into doing. Despair for what he gave up when he thought he was making the right choice. And then reorganizing his thoughts and acceptance of his current situation. And that final smirk.. ;) oh.. OH! That is the face of an Angel on a mission against Heaven. And he's already made up his mind. Stop Heaven's plans (again). Get revenge on them for forcing him into this situation. And of course, to get his Crowley back.

GO S3 is gonna be INSANE :D

[xoluvx]

kiss it, bite it; b.eilish

love the anon who requested this one 💚

"Is it gayer than lunch?" You glanced at Billie who was blushing profusely. She laughed and placed her hand on your thigh. She still hadn't answered your question. In fact, she'd been avoiding it for weeks. You knew she was working with Charli, but she hadn't uttered a single word about her verse.

"Nod if that's a yes," you didn't take your eyes off her. She simply hung her hand over the steering wheel, smiled goofily, and squeezed your thigh before shaking it.

She wasn't going to fold.

When you finally got to set, Billie held your hand as you walked together. The curiosity was eating at you, you couldn't stop biting on your bottom lip.

"Why are you so nervous?" Billie asked turning to look at you. She tugged at your chin so you'd stop biting your lip. When she noticed the indentations of your teeth, she rubbed your lip gently trying to get the blood flowing. Your blood was flowing alright. She'd mentioned a mountain of underwear on the car ride. Let that sink in: a mountain of underwear.

"I'm not nervous," you buried your face into her arm and she chuckled placing a hand behind your head, kissing the top of it.

And you weren't nervous. But what you should've been was prepared because you were currently standing to the side listening to the track, watching your girlfriend voice words that were making you extremely flustered and what was she saying about pulling them to the side and getting all up in it?

Were you hearing that correctly? You tried to stifle a cough thanks to almost choking on your saliva. You fanned your face with your hand. Was the temperature rising? Good god that's why she didn't want you to hear her verse beforehand.

That little -

"Cut," Billie stepped behind the viewfinder looking at the playback. She pointed at something, her voice was low as you tried collecting yourself. Or maybe you were still processing the lyrics. All you know is that you jumped a little when she came to your side, startled.

"You okay?" she teased brushing your cheek, tilting her head and feigning innocence as if she hadn't just told everyone the type of underwear she very proudly bought for you.

"It's gayer than lunch," you whispered, your voice trailing off as you stared into the distance. Frozen once again. The lyrics ran through your head like a complicated mathematical equation.

Billie's laugh brought you back to earth and you turned to look at her, mouth open waiting for an explanation.

"What?" she shrugged.

"That lacy black pair with the little bows?" you raised your brow pursing your lips. Still waiting.

"The ones I picked out for you in Tokyo," she whispered booping your nose before grabbing your hips. You groaned hearing it come directly from her mouth. This woman was painting all sorts of pictures in your mind and you were not in the position to act on them.

You looked at her with big eyes, your lip tucked under your teeth again. Billie noticed the change in your breathing and dug her fingers into your hips pulling you closer.

"Don't you have to get back?" you asked noticing the way your voice dipped low, your eyes dropping to her lips as she licked them.

"We need to do a few more takes and we’re waiting for Charli," Billie replied pushing her pelvis against your body urging you to groan again, your hands now gripping her arms.

"How long-" you asked fluttering your lashes unable to control the urge to kiss her right here, right now. To get down on your knees for her.

"Come," she whispered, squeezing your ass before taking your hand. Oh, you intended to.

She glanced at her surroundings before dragging you to an empty part of the set. A house of sorts. Maybe this is where they were filming next. Your thoughts were interrupted when her hands found your hips, fingers digging into your jeans, lips fervently trapping yours in a kiss.

If you weren't so fucking horny right now you'd be a lot more cautious about where you were, but her lips were tracing your jaw and her fingers were unbuttoning your jeans. You breathed a sigh of relief when she cupped your pussy. You had a time constraint and you both knew it.

Billie smiled against your neck, her tongue rotating on your skin before devouring. Her finger pushed your underwear to the side, running a finger between your folds. You moaned wrapping your arms tighter around her neck until you felt her finger enter your pussy.

"Oh my god," you hummed tossing your head back giving her ample access to your neck. Her tongue ran along your throat and under your chin before finding your lips again. They messily joined in a battle for dominance, tongues tussling. Your hands losing themselves in her hair.

Two fingers deep and you moved your hips, grinding against her hand as your whimpers fueled Billie's fire.

"Fuck, hold on" Billie whispered. Her voice hoarse. She removed her fingers and you whined in response. She tugged at your jeans bringing them down. You kicked them off as she slipped off your underwear placing them in her back pocket.

She pushed you against the wall. Through hooded eyelids, you watched as she got on her knees. Your lip found its favorite place, tucked between your teeth as she raised your leg groaning at the sight of your wet pussy.

The previous two fingers that'd inhabited your pussy found their way home and you arched your back pushing your back off the wall as her tongue joined the reunion.

The flat of her tongue pressed on your clit as her fingers moved steadily, filling you so gloriously. You could no longer stifle your moans when her tongue started to rotate on your clit. It moved with purpose. Up and down. Side to side. Until you were putty in her hands.

Your hands fisted her hair pushing her face closer to your cunt as the pace of her fingers increased. She was knuckles deep in your pussy when her lips wrapped around your clit, sucking.

"I need you to cum baby," she mumbled against your pussy. Her voice rippled through your body, tingles running down your legs. You'd forgotten where you were. Why you were here. Your world right now only consisted of you, Billie, and that marvelous wonderful tongue of hers.

"I'm almost there," your voice cracked as you pulled on her hair. Her own moans were sending shivers up your spine. Her fingers were slowing, but they were so deep in your pussy you didn’t need her to move. But she did. She moved them in a ‘come here’ motion pressing on your g spot. The walls were caving, your heart was racing. Her tongue was lapping.

She grabbed your ass with her free hand pulling you closer to her face as she worked her tongue in unimaginable ways. You shut your eyes feeling the heat build and build until you were in flames.

“I’m-“ you breathed heavily fisting her hair.

“I’m gonna c-cum,” you were out of breath and surprised you were able to announce your orgasm. Your legs were quivering as you slid down the wall, but Billie held the back of your thigh, trying to hold you up.

Your walls collapsing around her fingers, she could feel you throbbing, walls wet from your release. Her teeth grazed your inner thigh, biting down gently before soothing the area with her tongue.

You winced as she pulled out her fingers and groaned when they disappeared between her lips. Her plump, kissable, fuckable lips were discarding the proof of what had happened in this makeshift house.

Billie wiped her fingers on her jeans before grabbing yours from the floor. You weakly stepped into your pants as she pulled them up. You helped her button them still processing what’d just happened. She stood and kissed you slowly letting you get a taste of yourself on her tongue. You hummed against her lips letting her tongue slide into your mouth. You wrapped an around her neck as she held your chin.

“I wanna try it. Bite it. Lick it. Spit it.” She recited the words like a chant as she kissed your lips, along jaw, up your neck, and your earlobe. You felt the spark in your belly ready to ignite again.

“Let’s go,” she tapped your hips pulling you from the wall you were leaning on.

“Wait, let fix your hair,” you muttered flatting the pieces of hair that’d previously been laced in your fingers. You brushed your fingers through her hair. Fantasizing and thinking of her tongue and her silky strands at the tips of your fingertips and how you wanted more.

“Come on,” she snapped you out of it tapping your ass. Her fingers laced with yours. You whined trailing behind her. She turned back to look at you cheekily when the sun hit your eyes and you groaned.

You weren’t going to survive the rest of this shoot.

A few minutes later the music was playing again and Billie's lips were moving, those lips that were previously sucking and wrapping around your most sensitive parts. She was hopping off the tractor and there in her pocket were your underwear. They hung from her pocket like she'd picked them up from the mountain of underwear and decided those were her favorite and worthy of screen time.

In your lust struck trance you hadn’t noticed her sneak them away. Or realized you hadn’t put them back on. You felt your body flush again. The heat rushing between your legs.

You were entranced, caught under her spell. She played it up for the camera, but your chest was growing tighter by the second and your underwear…wait. Scratch that. Your jeans felt really uncomfortable now.

You swallowed and looked around hoping nobody was noticing your sexual frustration. But nothing went unnoticed by Billie.

She looked directly at the camera as you stood behind the viewfinder. For one of the takes, she took your underwear from her pocket holding it in her index finger. She sung along to the track ‘kiss it, bite it, can I fit it?’ playing with your underwear.

For a millisecond she glanced at you. You felt her looking beyond the camera at your fragile state before placing the underwear back in her pocket.

She wasn’t leaving those on set.

They were coming home with her. And you were coming too. Again and again. Til the moon descended and the sun rose.

*part two*

[acowardinmordor]

Risk and Reward

Steddie-adjacent. Tw: homophobia

I always love fics where Steve makes himself Eddie’s alibi while Eddie is still unconscious/in a coma. Knows that it will work because he knows in this town there is no way anyone would believe that Steve Harrington would come out if it wasn’t real. No one would believe it, because everyone knows that his parents are always gone, because his dad is in Congress railing against the gays and their depravity and how they deserve to die and burn.

Steve saying it. Signing an affidavit about it. Giving quotes to the ravenous press. It has to be true. And everyone who doesn’t think it’s disgusting think it’s the most romantic thing in the world.

The government was stepping in, all eyes were pointed at Munson, and he was going to be thrown in a cell for life. Or, to save the cost of the trial, he would have vanished somewhere between the hospital and the prison.

Steve coming out stops that. Airtight alibi, reinforced by the knowledge that there will be consequences.

Eddie is safe, and the government has changed tactics, is blaming dead Jason Carver for it all. Eddie wakes up six weeks later, shocked to wake up at all, and trusts his uncle enough to play along. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were dating the Harrington kid?’ Eddie knows how to tell a story that leaves space for a player to fill in their side. He tells stories about little moments and always describes things from his perspective. That way, if it contradicts the story that’s already out there, he can make a find quip about how he remembers it different.

When he finally gets a moment alone with his uncle, two days later, his guess gets confirmed. Wayne knows damn well that Eddie’s gayer than a maypole, and also knows that Eddie has called Steve his nemesis for years. Wayne knew from the second Steve said it that it was a lie, and knew it would work if it was believed.

The only thing confusing Eddie - well, the only thing in this tiny slice of his world - is why his fake boyfriend/no-longer-nemesis, isn’t in the hospital too, playing the part. If the guy was willing to say it at all, then he’d go all in. If there was one thing Eddie’d learned during those days, it was that Steve only ever did something at 100%

And yes, part of him feels terrible that Steve did this just to save him. He feels awful knowing that this is going to ruin a chance for a normal life. Wayne said the Indianapolis paper picked up a story about it. But at the same time, he’s so fucking grateful. Steve saved him. Again. And now, at least for a while, they’ll need to keep up the story. He’ll get to hang out with him, pretend they’re dating, stand close and cuddle closer. He also feels bad about how excited he is for that chance.

It’s the next morning when Eddie realizes his uncle dodged every question about why Steve wasn’t here. Wayne dodged almost every question after explaining what happened with Steve and the press and the Feds in the first weeks. Then, nothing.

The party visits him that afternoon, a veneer of joy stretched thin over something worse. Eddie’s first guess is that Red didn’t make it. But he hears her a moment later, complaining about ‘these stupid casts slowing me down’. The kids aren’t as good at dodging as Wayne is. Eddie gets the story quickly, such as it is.

The Harringtons came home from DC, gave a few speeches in praise of law enforcement against a serial killer. They visited the families of those that died.

They sent an assistant to find Steve in the hospital to deliver a message. No one else heard it, but the best guess is that it was a threat. Steve went with the assistant. They haven’t seen him since. When Dustin confronted the Harringtons at their last event in town, all they’d say was that ‘our son is getting the best help, and we love him dearly’

Eddie looks at Robin when he hears that for what it is. She drops the kids back home and begs a sympathetic nurse to let her talk to Eddie past visiting hours.

“It’s been a month since he vanished”

“Where?”

“We don’t know, we tried, even Hopper - he’s not dead - couldn’t find him. And this guy named Murray. We don’t know.”

“But…. ‘The best help’. You know that means…”

“I know”

“He’s, Christ, Buckley, he’s straight. Ladykiller. He’s straight and they sent him to some—“

“Yeah, but Eddie… I don’t know if I should… I guess, not that it matters now, and he never said anything, but he’s my best friend. He’s my soulmate. I know him and I think… if his dad wasn’t like he is… if he’d ever felt safe saying so… he knew they’d be furious when he came forward as your alibi, but he told me they’d just disown him, and it would be over. He was scared, but he was okay with what he thought was going to happen”

“I thought he hates me”

“He kinda did”

“Not anymore?”

“No.” There’s a pause where they both think about where Steve might be right now.

“Maybe he hates me again now.”

“I don’t think he would, but…”

And Eddie thinks how weird it is to see spastic Robin Buckley, who rambled in the Upside Down and always had more energy that she could contain, acting so subdued. No. So broken.

They both heard the Harringtons’ speeches and ads when he ran for office. They know what the man thinks about people like them. They both heard stories about what the places are like, where someone can go to ‘get help’

“Do you think I’ll ever get to thank him?”

“No.”

“Do you think we’ll ever see him again? You and the kids at least?”

She’s quiet for a long time, before she picks up her bag.

“If he ever gets to leave wherever they put him, and we ever see him, I don’t think he’ll be the person we knew anymore.”

[hyypnotix-writes]

Part 2

~ hiya! I'm really nervous about posting this, but I couldn't not at least try to give you a second part after the response the last one got! ~

~ I really appreciate everyone reading it and enjoying it as much as you did ..I hope this one doesn't ruin it for you! ~

~ I think this one's around 13k words. so again ..it's a long one, if you have nothing else to do! ~

~ there’s quite a lot of story before Alexia makes an appearance, sorry ..but she does eventually show up! ~

~ I promise to put more of her in the next part if any of you end up wanting one ~

~ I’m really worried this will disappoint a lot of you, but at least you still have the first part to go back to, if nothing else! ~

~ I really hope you're able to enjoy it even just a little bit, and thanks again for loving the first part so much! the response was very overwhelming and I've loved you all reaching out to tell me that you liked it ~

~ good luck! good bye xx ~

~ Part 1 ~

________________

One night.  

One perfect night.  

That’s all it took.  

One perfect night to throw your whole damn life into disarray.  

One perfect night, that’s lead to endless subsequent nights, spent tossing and turning on your own, replaying the memory over on a loop in your mind. It’s only been about a month, but it feels like an eternity.  

A never-ending, exhausting cycle of yearning and confusion.  

It was the most welcome distraction from your ex-boyfriend’s evil escapades, you’ve not really thought about him at all since. 

It should have set you free, broken you out of the chains of mundanity. It showed you a whole new world, a world of women. It gave you a new perspective on life. Unlocked a realm of brand-new possibilities all ready and waiting for you to venture, and yet, you don’t want to explore any of them.  

It's not that you haven’t tried.  

You’d have been an idiot to assume that it’s only her that can make you feel like this. That would be giving her an awful lot of credit. Yes, she was your first woman, but that didn’t mean that she needed to be your last. The way your mind and body reacted to her, maybe you could have been slightly gayer than you thought, but it doesn’t really look to be the case.  

A pair of lesbian sisters always seemed incredibly unlikely to you, and your sister’s already called dibs on the label. Maybe it’s the mere existence of your younger sister that eradicates the possibility of any real queerness in yourself. That’s probably how the handing out of sexualities works, right? 

It’s a working theory, and one that you seem to be proving the accuracy of.  

You’ve been to a few more clubs since your entanglement with the Spanish mystery. Only returning back to that specific one, once. It gave you a headache just stepping through the door. She was still everywhere in the room, her spirit living in the walls. You barely managed to stay inside for even a second before it became too much for you, sending your heart and mind racing.  

You took yourself back home, reminiscing every single kiss you’d shared with her on that fanciful journey back to her hotel together. Looking up at the floor she had been staying on, as you hastily walked past it on your own.  

Even the nightclubs that aren’t haunted by her ghost, haven’t yielded much greater success with you. 

You paid a visit to a smaller bar, a fair few nights after your perfect one, and had found a woman interested in you. More than interested. She was pretty, and friendly enough. She was flirty and bought you a few drinks. She didn’t try to play it weird by aiding you in your consumption of alcohol. There was no intriguing salt and lime foreplay. She was far more straightforward, far less irritating.  

Maybe that’s why it didn’t work. Maybe she was too plain. Maybe she was too simple and easy for you to understand. Or maybe it’s the fact that when she pressed herself against you in search of a kiss, an alarm bell rang out inside of your head. You suddenly found yourself all too aware that she was a woman, and you simply no longer wanted to follow through with your curiosities.  

It doesn’t help in your confusion, why the femininity of one woman can leave you feeling more certain of your straightness, while another’s femininity has you still helplessly pining after her.  

It’s not like you were under any illusion with the Spanish woman. You were entirely aware that she was also a woman, and it wasn’t off putting to you at all. You enjoyed her being a woman. She smelt nice, she tasted nice. Her body was beautiful, and her lips were soft, and it doesn’t make any sense that she’s allowed to put a yearning in you that no other woman is able to satisfy.  

That does seem very typical of her, though. She really was very cocky and frustrating.ﾠﾠ

Until she wasn’t, of course.  

Then, she was just sweet and considerate. Cautious and careful. Flirty and undemanding. She took you back to hers and she still had no expectations from you. She was still willing to let you walk away. Maybe you should have.ﾠﾠ

You knew even then that you should have.  

It was daft of you to follow after her. Foolish to lose yourself with her, spending the night together, giggling under the sheets. Sharing kisses as you drowned yourselves in each other. Learning her body, every mark, scar and freckle, and committing them all to your memory. Tracing her curves and her tattoos and discovering what it is that makes her tick.ﾠ

She was patient, and understanding, she wasn’t in a rush with you. She spent the whole night exploring with you. Studying your body, wanting to learn all the things you liked her doing, and the things you really liked her doing. She turned what could have been a terrifying, embarrassing, disaster of an experience, into the most incredible encounter of your life.  

She brought you more pleasure than your pathetic ex-boyfriend had ever managed to give you in your whole 5-year relationship, in less than 5 minutes of her having your clothes off. She had the most unholy of noises spilling from your lips with her fingers and tongue inside of you, and she wasn’t exactly quiet herself, in letting you know when you were doing the right thing with her.  

She was intoxicating, exhilarating. She was life-affirming.  

She’s a far more dangerous addiction to you than alcohol could ever manage to be. You’ve never been tempted by drugs before, but you can’t even imagine the high from them being able to compete against what she’s done to you.  

It was just one night.  

It was one perfect night.  

________________

Living back with your younger sister isn’t exactly where you saw yourself being at 26. Your London flat had started feeling a little too big for you, without a traitorous arsehole of a man invading your space. So, you invited her to move in with you, not wanting to have to give up your dream property just because he had decided to try ruining your life. You needed help with the rent, and she had gratefully accepted.  

You didn’t necessarily expect her to also invite her idiot new girlfriend into your home with her. That wasn’t really part of the deal, though you didn’t explicitly tell her that she couldn’t. You can’t really blame her. If you were able to spend every waking moment of your life with ‘A’ right beside you, you’d jump at the opportunity headfirst.   

It still doesn’t aid in the dispelling of your confusion. There’s no jealousy when you see them together. Her girlfriend does nothing for you, none of her girlfriends ever have. You both have decidedly different tastes in women. Your sister’s taste is entirely questionable, yours is perfection.  

You haven’t mentioned your Spanish predicament to your sister. She’d probably laugh at you for it, call you tragic, and embarrassing. Tell you everything you’ve already been telling yourself on repeat in your head. She wouldn’t be very helpful; she very rarely is. She’s your very annoying, smart-arse of a little sister, who couldn’t possibly give you any decent advice. She’s 2 years younger than you and she's an idiot.  

She’s not the one who’s still hung up on a stranger after over a month, though. It’s rarely taken her longer than 24 hours to get over someone she’s been with. She’s not the one who’s been questioning herself every night. She’s never questioned herself at all. You’re fairly certain her very first thought, straight out of the womb was about another woman.  

She didn’t really have to come out to the family at any point, she kissed her first girl when she was 8. Always been a bit of a Casanova, your sister. A walking stereotype of a lesbian. Short, brightly coloured, undercut hair, quite a few piercings, heavily tattooed. She’s obsessed with women’s football, always watching re-runs of ‘The L Word,’ and overwhelmingly insistent in trying to prove to you that Taylor Swift is also secretly gay.  

Your sister’s certainty in her own sexual identity isn’t something that’s ever irritated you before. Not when you were always so sure of yourself, too. You appreciated her confidence. It was admirable, given the way people can be with her. She’s your self-assured little sister, who isn’t great at confrontation. So, you support her whenever anyone tries to tear her down.  

Now, however, this too-late-in-life existential crisis you’re struggling with, has you wishing she’d try to be a little bit more questioning herself. Her surety and cockiness about her sexuality is suddenly the most prominent attribute of her personality, and it’s really starting to drive you up the wall.  

It’s a rare evening where it’s only the two of you at home together. You don’t really know where her girlfriend is, and you don’t much care. You only feel responsible for one annoying lesbian, the one who shares your surname.  

She’s being rather antisocial with you, playing video games alone in her bedroom, and you’ve just finished tidying up the dining table after sharing the dinner you cooked for you both. You’re not exactly sure how you’ve found yourself solo parenting your stroppy little sibling when you’re really not much older than her yourself, but there you go.  

Maybe you should try speaking to her. See what she can possibly offer you by way of sapphic guidance. If she’s going to continue having her nuisance girlfriend living here rent-free, she should at least try giving you something to make it worth your while.  

You walk straight through to her bedroom and collapse your head onto her stomach on the bed. Making sure to do so with just enough force behind it to ensure you manage to leave her winded and interrupt her gaming. She grunts under you, and you earn an overly aggressive smack to your shoulder for achieving your goal. As, whatever other little child she’s playing her game against, has just managed to score past her.  

“You’re a twat!” She scolds, and you backhand her face to shut her up. She raises her fist above your stomach, and you flinch, bracing for impact.  

“I have a question!” You shout, before she has chance to attack.  

She pauses her lifted fist above you, and reluctantly agrees to a truce, providing your question is of interest to her. “What?” She groans, and you fiddle with your fingers, trying to find the right wording.  

“Why do you like women?” You ask, your face grimacing as you await her response.  

It isn’t your smoothest ever phrasing, not your wittiest form of delivery. It’s honestly, rather annoyingly, not the most subtle line of questioning. Despite it not being entirely to the point, your sister isn’t stupid.  

“What?” 

Oh ..maybe she is! 

That’s not going to be super helpful with your impending interrogation.  

“Why not men?” You suggest, still trying not to be too blatant. “How did you know you liked women?” 

“I looked at one.” She tells you, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “Why?” 

“Do you find every woman attractive?” 

“No, but I find enough of them attractive to sense a pattern.” She explains. “Why?” 

“And you’ve never been attracted to a man? Not even tempted?” 

“No. Not once. Why?” 

“Never ever?” 

“Y/N!” 

“I was just wondering.” You tell her quickly, drumming your fingers on top of your stomach.  

“About women?” She queries. 

“About ..why women. What it is about them.” 

“Aside from the obvious?” She snickers, nudging your arm.  

You quickly bounce your head back against her stomach winding her again.  

“Stop doing that!” 

“Stop being annoying!” You warn her. Your frustration at yourself getting the better of you.

She tries to push you off of her, but you mess with the analogue sticks on her controller, and she turns her focus back to salvaging her match. “You really are a twat! Get out!” 

“I need your help.” 

“I don’t care!” 

“..I’m sorry.” You mumble, and she scoffs at you, pushing you off of her bed unceremoniously.  

You can’t say you blame her, you’re a constant threat to her in that position, it’s too big of a risk. You enjoy bouncing your head and ruining her childish little game far too much.  

“Why do you like men?” She counters, and you find yourself stuck for words as you sit on her floor.  

It’s the question that’s been floating around your own head for a little while now. You’d never thought about it before. You just were. You had crushes on them all throughout your childhood, you’d had meaningless boyfriends in your teens, you met your bastard ex at university and figured that was it.  

You didn’t need to question why you were attracted to them, it just always made sense.  

“I don’t know.” You answer honestly, letting out a groan as you grab one of her pillows and bury your head into it.  

“What’s going on?” She asks, as she prods at your shoulder with her foot.  

“Nothing. I was just—” 

“Thinking about women?” 

“No!”  

It isn’t really a lie, you’re not thinking about women, just the one. The one woman who’s been invading all of your thoughts for the past 30 something days. The one who won’t let you sleep properly at night, who won’t let you focus completely at work.  

The one woman who refuses to leave your head for even a second just to let you rest, to let you breathe, to let you remember what life was like, prior to her entering it and recklessly setting fire to everything, before she ran away from you and disappeared into thin air.ﾠﾠ

“I kissed one.” You confess, trying to suffocate yourself with her pillow.  

This really does take her by surprise. You can hear her movements on top of the mattress as she turns her game off and pulls her pillow from you with a rather startling urgency. There’s great confusion on her face as she looks at you. She really must think you’re very boring if that’s enough to render her speechless. Imagine her reaction if you admitted to all the other things you did to the Spanish enigma.  

“You kissed a woman?” She asks, frowning at you.  

You’re not entirely sure why she looks quite so cross about it. You’re not trying to steal her thunder here. You’re not about to start trying to catch up with her numerous exploits of female companions.  

“Mhmm.” You mumble in reply, smoothing your hair back from over your face.  

“Why? For a man?” 

“No! I just wanted to ..I thought it’d be fun.” 

“..and ..was it?” 

“Mhmm.” 

She looks at you with a very distinct air of incredulity. It’s a rather annoying look, weirdly condescending. She doesn’t believe you. Why she thinks you’d bother lying about it, you really do not know. You’re not that desperate for a story to tell her.  

It’s almost offensive that she thinks you’re so incapable. You didn’t just kiss a woman. You went down on one, you had your fingers inside of her. You evoked moans from her, she scratched her nails down your back. You’re not some virginal prude. You’re not inept. It can’t be that shocking and inconceivable that you could share a single kiss with someone of the same sex.  

You were right, telling your sister was pointless. She’s offered you no assistance and no support. She’s a useless little waste of space and her horrible girlfriend is an advantage-taking little freeloader.  

“Thanks, very much! This was really helpful!”  

Your words are laced in sarcasm as you slide yourself up away from her bed with a sigh, throwing your middle finger up back in her direction as you exit the room, and slam her bedroom door shut behind you.   

You slam your own bedroom door shut behind you too, just in case she hadn’t picked up on how pissed off you are.  

You’re not really pissed off with her. She doesn’t know what’s going on inside of your head. You’re pissed off with yourself, for still being all entirely far too consumed with a woman whose name you do not know. Who wouldn’t even bother sharing her profession with you. It isn’t fair.  

You collapse headfirst onto your bed and let out a rather guttural groan into your duvet. You’re very frustrated. Your brain’s a mess, your sexuality’s up in the air, and you allowed yourself to picture, far too clearly, your memories of having sex with the gorgeous Spanish woman and now that ache that she’d put inside of you is back.  

There’s a knock at your door, and you’re not in the mood. You grab your duvet and burrito yourself in it down to the foot of your bed.  

“Y/N?”  

You don’t even grace your sister with a response. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s a swine.  

No, but she really is a swine, as you can hear her turning the doorknob and just walking right into your bedroom anyway. She’s really, unbelievably terrible at reading social cues.  

“Do you want to come to Spain with me next week?” 

See what I mean? What the hell?  

That’s a very serendipitous little offer, though. You didn’t even mention to her that the woman that you kissed was Spanish.  

Did you?  

She can’t have worked that out by herself. That would be insane. She’s already proved herself to not be the sharpest tool in the shed. That wouldn’t make any sense. What an intriguing little invitation.  

It’s very embarrassing that just the mention of the country sends a shiver down the back of your neck. All this instant adrenaline running through you, as if she’ll just be waiting for you there as soon as you land down in a random Spanish airport. Yeah, that seems likely!  

Spain’s not the biggest country in the world, but it certainly isn’t small. You’re not going to accidentally stumble into her again on the beach, or in a marketplace. She’s definitely not going to be staying in the same hotel that you’d be in.  

It shouldn’t have your heart racing like this. The chances of finding her again are so infinitesimally small, so extremely impossible, so overwhelmingly unlikely ..but you do stand a better chance, if you’re in the right country.  

“Next week?” You mumble under the sheets, playing it incredibly cool, as you try to ignore the way your heart’s started thumping at a thousand beats per minute.  

“Yeah.” 

“I thought you were going away with your girlfriend?” 

“..we broke up.” 

Shit. She would make this all about herself.  

You wiggle yourself free of your duvet cocoon and open up your arms for her to crash into you. She might be a useless little swine, but she’s your useless little swine. “Are you okay?”  

“Mhmm.” She grumbles, as she starfishes herself on top of you.  

“I’m sorry.” 

“No, you’re not. You never liked her.” 

“That’s not true.” You protest half-heartedly, kissing the side of her head.  

“I am fine ..I broke up with her.” 

“Well, thank fuck for that!” 

“See!” She laughs, rolling off the side of you. “You hated her!” 

“She was horrible!” 

“You could’ve said.” 

“You wouldn’t have left her if I told you to. You’d be getting bloody married to the girl. Twat.” She giggles defencelessly next to you on the bed, because you’re absolutely right. She has always been a contrarian little thing. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Yeah. I’ll find someone else tomorrow.” 

“Unbelievable.” You chuckle, shaking your head as you push her away. “You can’t just give me her ticket. Did she not pay for it?” 

The embarrassed little look on your sister’s face is all the wordless response you need. Her girlfriend never paid for anything. She really was an advantage-taking little freeloader.  

“Where are you going in Spain?” 

“Barcelona.” 

“Why?” 

“Football.” 

“Oh! Give me a break!” You exclaim and roll down away from her back to the foot of the bed. “Why are you going all the way to Spain just to watch some football? You can bloody watch it here.” 

“It’s the Champions League!” She informs you excitedly, and you can’t even pretend to match her enthusiasm. “Chelsea’s playing Barcelona.” 

“Woo.” You respond flatly, rolling your eyes with a shake of your head. “You watched them play together today, didn’t you? Why are they so bloody obsessed with each other? Even I know there’s more teams than that.” 

“It’s the second leg..” She starts explaining, but none of it means anything to you, and you really just can’t bring yourself to care.  

Going all the way out to Spain to be stuck inside a stadium with thousands of screaming fans? What sort of holiday is that? You don’t care about Chelsea’s success or failure. Your sister’s dirty crush on their star-striker is just another one of her many celebrity infatuations that you can’t make any sense of.  

You don’t want to sit next to her as she gets herself all hot and bothered watching women run around a football pitch. You don’t even enjoy watching men do it, you have no interest in watching women.  

“No. I’m good, thanks.” You tell her, dismissively.  

“Please? We can do more than just watch the football.” She offers, pouting pathetically. “You have to come with me! I’ve just been dumped!”  

“No, you haven’t!” You remind her, laughing at her useless attempt at guilt tripping. “And you haven’t really left me much time to negotiate with work.” 

“You work too hard and you’re due some time off! Your boss isn’t going to refuse you, just bat your eyelashes at him. The filthy pervert.” 

“Hm.” You mumble, drumming your fingers over your stomach as you think.  

She isn’t wrong, about you working hard, at least. You do like to bury yourself in your work. You enjoy your job, and the harder you work, the more you earn. You haven’t had time off in a while, and your boss is unlikely to say no to you, you are his favourite employee. You don’t agree that it’s because he has a crush on you, you get good results for the company, and attract lucrative clientele.  

If batting your eyelashes could get you back in the arms of your Spanish one-night stand more easily, though, you’re not above flirting with him to get you there. You could take a few days of leave, go off to Spain, and possibly run into the woman who’s been living inside of your head.  

It’s such an incredibly remote possibility. An absolute stab in the dark chance of finding her. She probably isn’t even in Barcelona. You’re not cultured enough to be able to pin her accent to a specific city. She’s just Spanish. There’s much more places in Spain than just Barcelona. Barcelona isn’t even the capital. Maybe she’s in Madrid, Valencia, Marbella. She could be a party girl living on the island of Ibiza, you had originally found her in a bar. You don’t get a body like hers drinking yourself senseless every night, though.  

What if you do find her, and she wants nothing to do with you? There was only ever the promise of one night together. You already pushed your luck by spending the rest of the morning with each other, she doesn’t owe you anything more. It’s unlikely that she’s been spiralling quite as pathetically as you have. She’s not going to be fending off a sexuality migraine.  

You undoubtedly won’t have been the absolutely mind-blowing experience to her, that she was to you. She’ll have had sex with countless women. She definitely enjoyed herself with you, that much you’re certainly sure of. You can’t fake every bodily reaction to someone, but the rest of it could have been for show. The display of heartbreak afterwards.  

So, maybe she’s an actress, that would certainly make sense. It would explain why she had money, and why she had a company paying for her hotel. Maybe that was her little ‘business trip’. Perhaps she was in London promoting a Spanish movie. Maybe the entire thing was all a performance, and you fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker.  

Either way, stalking her in Spain would be far too pathetic. Even if she does want you to find her, it’s so desperate and needy of you to go all that way, and if she doesn’t want you to find her, you end up looking insane. Travelling to Spain, to possibly just show up right there on her doorstep? What a terrifying thing for you to do to the woman.  

But what if it’s a sign? 

Your clueless little sister, inviting you all the way to Spain, with absolutely no idea that the woman you’re harbouring all of these confusing emotions for, lives there? Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s the universe trying to get you back together. Maybe she didn’t fake it, she does feel the same, you’ll find her in Spain and spend the rest of your lives together.  

Please. Behave and be so goddamn serious with yourself. You sweet and simple, delusional little fool.  

“The woman I kissed was from Spain.” You inform your sister thoughtfully, and she sits herself up on your bed to frown at you.  

“You’re still going with that?” 

“Why don’t you believe me?” 

“You’re straight. Straight straight straight.” She points out, with such an incredibly annoying inflection to her voice, it makes you want to bang your head against the wall. “You’re also 26. You were in love with an ugly bastard for 5 years and you’ve never shown an interest in a woman before.” 

“I hadn’t met her before.” 

“Gayyy!” She giggles, and you give her an almighty clack on her arm with the back of your hand, to wipe the smug little smile from off her face.  

“Go with the woman you’re hooking up with tomorrow.” You instruct her. “I’d be a nightmare to watch football with, you’d have to keep explaining things to me.” 

“I don’t mind doing that.” 

“Do you have no other friends to go with you?” You laugh and she pouts dramatically again, shaking her head. “You’re a lonely little loser!” You tell her with a smile.  

“Is that a ‘yes’?” She asks, rolling her eyes at you.  

You take in a deep breath and let out a very heavy sigh. 

What’s the worst that can happen?  

She’s already completely upturned your life. It couldn’t make things any worse for you. Whether you’re able to bump into her or not. You’ll either find yourself some peace, lounging in the Spanish sun, or you’ll be left in exactly the same position you’re in now, but with a much healthier glow to your skin.  

You could even find yourself a Spanish man while you’re out there.  

Mm.  

It’s really not a good sign for your heterosexuality, that that’s no longer an appealing option to you.  

“If I can sort it with work,” you reason, “yes. I’ll come to Barcelona with you.”  

She lets out an embarrassingly girly squeal and crashes her head against your stomach, with just enough force behind it to manage to leave you winded.  

“Twat! I’m making no promises about going to the game, mind. I’m just coming for the tan.” 

“Maybe your ‘Spanish lesbian’ is also a fan of football.” She encourages  

“Mhmm. I’m pretty sure she is.” You admit contemplatively. “Is that an entry-level of requirement for lesbianism, then?” You ask, rolling your eyes. “Because if that’s the case, I really can stop questioning myself.” 

________________

Booking time off work really is as easy as your sister thought it would be. Maybe your boss does have an inappropriate crush on you like she suspects. 

She’s very excited about having you for company, and she tries to educate you on all of Chelsea’s history, the players’ statistics, and their personal lives, all before you go on your little trip together. It really does just go right in one ear, and straight back out of the other. You’re not fussed on the facts and figures; it’s not why you’re going.  

There’s not enough room in your brain to care about the ins and outs of Sam Kerr and Kristie Mewis’ relationship. You’re not interested in the fact that Chelsea currently have 6 WSL titles, and are going for their fifth-straight one, and you really aren’t bothered that the semifinal’s first leg match against Barcelona ended in a draw.  

That is a fair amount of information for you to have retained already despite not being interested. Your sister really has been going on at you, you’re almost a footballing expert.  

Touching down late in the morning in Barcelona, you can’t pretend there isn’t a tiny part of you that’s letting yourself get a little carried away with dreaming. You’ve played through enough countless scenarios in your head of running into the Spanish wonder again back in London, of course your mind’s racing with the possibilities in Spain.  

You drop your bags off at the hotel your sister’s booked for you both, with the intention of heading back out to explore the city together. It’s a peculiar looking building, bright red, oddly shaped. She really never has been one for subtlety, it’s the perfect sort of accommodation for her.  

She insists on wanting to have a look at the Olympic Stadium before the big match, as well as seeing the state of Camp Nou’s renovations, and you really can’t indulge her any more than you already have. You probably will end up joining her for the game tomorrow, but you’re absolutely not walking around the outside of football grounds for fun.  

You’ve seen the exterior of Stamford Bridge more than your fair share of times, Wembley, the Emirates. There’s not that much difference between the lot of them, and they’ve never really been your favourite form of modern architecture.  

So, you agree to go your separate ways for your first afternoon in the city, you’ll meet back up with each other tonight.  

Playing tourist around the streets of Barcelona on your own, is quite an exciting little experience for you. You’re not very worried about getting lost, despite not speaking too much Spanish beyond the basics. Your hotel’s a distinctive looking building, it’s not going to be super difficult to find your own way back to it.  

You get a taxi further into the main hub of town and you’re able to mosey about with a rather unrestrained confidence, turning down tight alleyways and strolling aimlessly along multiple cobbled streets. You manage to find yourself being comfortably led astray, by allowing nothing more than just the warm gentle breeze to guide you as it blows against your body.  

It turns into a more casual exploration of the more authentic side of Barcelona away from most of the tourist hotspots. You have no real idea where you are, and you’re quite enjoying the small rush of adventure.  

A coffee is what you start craving, and you’re not exactly limited by options. Every other building on the peacefully quiet backstreet you’ve found yourself on, seems to be a tiny café. You could start ip dip doo-ing all the individual offerings, but that’s putting far too much consideration into it. You decide to go for the smallest one, the most unassuming. The best coffees always come from the places that aren’t trying to market themselves to any foreign tourists.  

A little bell rings out as you step through the door and the barista almost jumps out of his skin at the sight of you, he clearly isn’t used to getting anyone other than his regular patrons. You offer up your friendliest of smiles and a quick ‘hola’ to show him that you mean no harm, and you tap your finger gently on the countertop as you inspect the board behind his head.  

Choosing the littlest coffee shop might have been a tiny mistake because absolutely everything on the menu is written in what you can only assume, is a rather confusing variation of Spanish. You can’t back out now, the barista already has an adorably excited look on his face at having someone new in his little shop, you can’t break his heart like that.  

You study the chalk written on the board for entirely far too long, in the hope that the words will slowly start translating themselves for you. It doesn’t work, obviously. So, you take a punt at a random one of them, with the rather daring assumption that you haven’t just ordered yourself a troubling batch of Spanish poison.  

“¡Dos, por favor!” Comes a call from behind you, from a woman you surely do not know. It’s recognisably ballsy of her, almost rude.

Her words echo in your ears, as time stands still around you. You’d recognise that voice anywhere, with that unmistakable, and entirely enchanting, cocky little tone to it.  

You can’t really have found her so easily. Life’s never been that kind.  

You can feel your heart clattering around in your chest instantly. Like it’s trying to escape from your ribs, to go off and say hello to hers, all by itself. Your chest’s rising and falling intensely as your breathing shallows and picks up pace.  

It can’t be her; it can’t be. This city’s just absolutely full of Spanish women.

She holds out her card right over you to pay, gently resting her arm down onto your shoulder, and you’ve definitely seen that tattoo before. The ‘11’ printed on her wrist.  

She’d refused to explain the meaning when you’d asked her about it. She wouldn’t give you the backstory behind any of her tattoos. It was too personal; you weren’t allowed to know.  

She thought you might have really fallen for each other if you both started sharing too much information about yourselves, and you only had the single night to spend together.  

“It would be too painful.” She had reasoned with you.

That was very clever thinking on her part. She absolutely managed to prevent you from having an awful lot of heartache and suffering about the whole thing, by letting you know absolutely nothing about her..ﾠ

You still can’t bring yourself to turn around and look. Even though you know it must be her. It can’t be likely that there’s multiple Spanish women that have branded themselves with that specific number on that specific part of their body. Surely to god.  

“..gracias.” You manage to choke out very shakily, in little more than a whisper, still facing forward.  

You have to turn around at some point. You can’t very well drink your coffee on the tiny little counter right in front of the barista when you can’t even have a conversation with him. Just staring at him, silently, neither of you able to speak each other’s language? That would freak him out! You’ll find yourself back on a plane headed for England before you know it, with a restraining order hanging over your head.  

Grow up and turn around. Just turn around.  

It’s her. It has to be her.  

The barista accepts the woman’s payment method with a familiar little smile back at her, and she carefully retracts her arm from over your shoulder slowly. You can smell her perfume on her wrist as it wafts back past the side your face. You recognise the scent, and you find yourself following it round you like a lost little puppy, your knees almost giving way beneath you.  

You didn’t accidentally stumble upon her at the beach. It’s not a Spanish marketplace. She definitely isn’t staying at the same hotel that you’re in.  

You’ve found her, while getting yourself lost. In the tiniest little café, on an unnamed, tumbleweed backstreet, right in the very heart of Barcelona.  

There’s a wide smile of disbelief on her face. Which is hopefully an indication, that she isn’t terrified of you being here, she hadn’t faked her feelings, and she, much like you are with her, is a little overwhelmed to see you.  

“Hi.” Is all that drops out of your mouth, as your mind goes blank at the sight of her.  

“Hi.” She says back, with the exact same breathlessness as you, her voice cracking ever so slightly.  

“….Hi.” 

“You’ve already said that.” She reminds you, and she’s clearly able to bring herself back to her senses far more quickly than you are, because there’s that charming little smirk tugging at the corner of her lips again.  

You’re not really sure which one of you instigated it, you both just sort of ended up colliding into each other, gripping at the material of each other’s clothes. It’s a very desperate hug. Even more so than the one you shared outside of the hotel elevator. You melt into each other, merging yourselves together like two corresponding puzzle pieces.  

It’s an embrace, holding not just the 12 hours of curious devotion between you, but over 30 days' worth of frenzied yearning. It has you both clinging to each other with everything you have, as it defies everything you came to accept as truly achievable, that heartbreaking belief in you, that this reunion would never really happen.  

It’s an impossible hug, and it’s one that neither of you want to pull away from. 

“What are you doing here?” You mumble against her, clinging to her shirt as she buries her head in the crook of your neck.  

“I think it should be me asking that question.” She tells you, chuckling. “I have far more right to be in Barcelona than you do.” 

“This is where you live?” You ask. “You’re from Barcelona?” 

“Mhmm.” She murmurs. “Mollet del Vallès.” 

There’s really no reason for that to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. It’s only a place name. It’s a good job she didn’t spend much time speaking Spanish to you back in London, you really would have been like putty in her hands.  

“What are you doing here?” She questions.  

“I thought you might want your sweatshirt back.” You joke casually, and she loosens her grip on you slightly so she can face you.  

“Do you not want it anymore?” She asks, furrowing her brow as she studies your face. 

There’s a clear look of uncertainty in her eyes, a small sense of worry, and you do feel mildly guilty for teasing her. “I was hoping ..maybe I could swap it for another.” You smile. “It doesn’t really smell like you anymore.”

She doesn’t allow you to feel guilty for too long. That small air of arrogance that’s always threatening to escape her, does so, in a predictable little smirk at the implication.  

“You’ve been wearing it that much?” She asks you proudly, and you push your tongue against the inside of your mouth as you roll your eyes at her typical display of cockiness. She carefully closes the small distance between you both again, gently pressing herself flush against you. “Does it smell of you?” She whispers in your ear, sending a ripple of goosebumps down the side of your neck. 

“Mhmm.” 

“Mm. Maybe I could be persuaded to make a trade, then.” 

She’s impossible for you to resist when she’s like this. It’s still an intriguing talent she has, evoking such a physical reaction from you, by doing hardly anything at all. A quiet little whisper in your ear and your body’s immediately burning up next to her? You’re still so incredibly tragic.  

You might no longer be certain of your sexuality, but maybe it really doesn’t matter. Why do you need to understand it? Why does it need an explanation? No one else in the world is important at all when she’s standing here in front of you. No one else would ever really stand a chance. How could you ever be interested in anyone else, when you know that this woman right here exists? How could any other person ever truly compare? 

There’s a desire in you that’s clearly also felt in her, when she moves herself to look at you. It’s written all over her face, the twinkle in her beautiful eyes, and the fact that her lips are so incredibly close to yours.  

You lean in, and so does she, but it’s like something quickly shoots through her body, as though she’s suddenly being brought back into the room. She does a quick scan of the café, and she collects herself before she lets you both get carried away.  

“We can’t kiss in here.” She tells you quietly, and you frown at her as you pull yourself back.  

“Why not?” You ask, doing your own quick search to try and find what she saw to put her off.  

No one seems too interested in you, though there’s admittedly a couple of people discreetly watching her. She is very beautiful, so it’s not surprising, but you do sort of wish they’d stop their gawking. This gorgeous woman is here with you, and you’re not really in the mood for sharing.

“There’s not another bloody homophobe about, is there?” 

“No!” She laughs, shaking her head. “Well, I don’t know, actually. I haven’t asked around, but we just ..can’t kiss in here.” 

It’s curious. She didn’t have any issues kissing you in front of people before. Spanish people are very famously more physically affectionate with each other than British people are. So, it seems unlikely that the two of you would turn too many heads just by kissing.  

“Okay..” you accept reluctantly, pouting a little at the rejection, “so ..should we just quickly nip outside to do it then, or?” You joke cheekily, pointing to the door with your thumb.

She chuckles with you, resting her forehead to your shoulder. “You’re still as straight as ever!” She grins, as she wraps you back up in her arms.  

It’s quite nice just losing yourself in her embrace. Burying your head in her neck and holding her tight against you. Having her arms back around you, her perfume overwhelming your senses. The rest of the coffee shop fades into a blur with her in your arms. She’s comforting, reassuring. She’s real, and she’s here.  

“Ale!” Is called out by the barista not a minute later, and you’d have very happily paid it no attention at all. The immediate flinch from the woman that you’re holding, in response to it, however, tells you that you might have just found out a very valuable piece of information indeed.  

You repeat it under your breath, as she pulls away from you and goes to collect your coffees from the counter.  

She says a quiet ‘moltes gràcies’ to the barista, and she narrows her eyes with a small grimace as she returns to you. There’s still a clear reluctance in her to give too much away, she’s not entirely grateful to her little coffee friend for unknowingly revealing slightly more to you than just her first initial.  

Ale. It must still be short for something, you figure. You start reeling off name possibilities at her in quick succession. Alessia, Alex, Alexis, Alexa. You’re like a dog with a bone, because she makes it clear that you’re getting closer, but she still shakes her head at every guess.  

It’s very frustrating, as she offers you absolutely no assistance with your guessing, but it can’t be as convoluted a mission as trying to discover Rumpelstiltskin’s ridiculous name. Thankfully, it isn’t. It’s on only your 5th attempt that you cause the same small flinch in her, and she smiles softly at you before looking down very quickly. You’ve struck gold.  

Alexia. 

It’s a beautiful name. Your favourite name, you’ve decided. It rolls off your tongue with so much ease, you want to repeat it again and again. 

“Now you know too much.” She sighs whimsically, handing you your coffee as she walks past you to collect her bag from the table she was previously sitting at.  

She gestures for you to follow her and leads you to a quieter area away from the other customers right at the back of the shop. She pulls out your chair for you to sit down, and you can’t not smile at the tiny act of chivalry. She really is very sweet. It’s a shame that she won’t let you kiss her.  

You reveal your own name to her, as she joins you on the other side of the table and she repeats it back to you quietly. Whether it’s the sexy Spanish accent, or just the fact that it’s her saying it to you for the first time, you’re not entirely sure, but your heart skips a few beats after hearing it. 

“Now we both know too much.” She tells you, and she takes a small sip of her coffee.  

There’s the tiniest level of nervousness, that blankets itself over you both as you sit together. It’s a little absurd, you’ve seen this woman naked. She’s seen you naked. It isn’t technically a first date between you, neither of you asked the other to be here, but you both clearly have the little jitters of being on one, coursing through your bodies.  

You find yourself just watching her a few times as you talk over your drinks together. You still can’t really believe you found her so quickly. So, you don’t want to risk taking your eyes off of her for too long, in case she just disappears into thin air while you’re not looking.  

She’s also the most beautiful sight in the café. So, why would you want to waste your time looking at anything else? 

You’re not being very discreet about your staring at all, and neither is she, really. You keep exchanging shy smiles over your cups as you catch each other looking. Both of you blushing and quickly averting your eyes as they meet, and then gradually repeating the whole thing all over again. You’ve definitely caught her gazing a few more times than she’s caught you. So, maybe she’s even more tragic than you are.  

The little coffee you ordered by chance, is Alexia’s usual order, so she tells you. It’s not the most life-changing piece of information for her to share with you, but it’s something else for you to know about her, and you’re absolutely sure to make a note of it. It probably keeps you on an even tally too, she already knows that you enjoy drinking a tequila.  

You’re still not allowed to kiss each other, for whatever obscure reason, but she has reached for you hand under the table. Interlacing your fingers together isn’t a new thing between you both, and neither are those tingles that immediately shoot up through your arm at even the most innocent of touches from her. She really does have an incredible effect on you, it should probably be more terrifying to you than it is.

“Why are you really here?” She asks after a moment, as she strokes her thumb over your knuckles.  

“My sister dragged me here.” You answer. “It’s a very important football match tomorrow, apparently.” 

“The one against Chelsea?” She asks, with an unmistakable look of interest in her eyes, that has you rolling your own lightly back at her.  

“I think she’d say against Barcelona,” you point out with a sigh, “but yeah, that one.” 

You had managed to work out that Alexia was probably a bit of a football fan. She has a little stick figure tattoo of a footballer on her leg, the outline of a baby being given a ball on her back, and you have exceptional detective skills. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.  

So, it isn’t a surprise that she’d be excited by your footballing interests, but it is unfortunate that you really don’t share the same passion for it as her.  

“Unless you’re a very daring rebel,” you start, “I assume you’ll be supporting Barcelona tomorrow?” 

“Mhmm,” she murmurs, with a small twinkle in her eye, “and you’ll be supporting Chelsea?” 

“Not emphatically,” you admit with a smile, “but I’ll be in that section of the crowd, yeah.”  

“You don’t really care about football at all, do you?” She asks knowingly, with an edge to her smirk that’s intriguing, as you shake your head at her in apology. “Maybe you should introduce me to your sister instead, then!” She winks, and you very quickly remove your hand back out of her hold.  

“Don’t.” You tell her. “Please. Don’t even joke about it.” 

It’s admittedly a little cute that she finds herself quite so hilarious for her disgusting little joke, but you are very unamused by the idea. If the childish look of mischief on her face wasn’t so entirely endearing to you, you may very well have got up and left her right then and there.  

She rests the back of her hand on your thigh with her palm outstretched, and you roll your eyes at her before placing your own hand back into it. She raises it to her lips to place a lingering kiss to your fingers, leaving you with the faintest of blushes across your cheeks. So, maybe you can find it in yourself to forgive her just this once.  

“I have a sister.” She reveals. “Her name's Alba. She’s a few years younger than me. I’m the older sibling, like you are.”  

“Uh oh!” 

“What?” 

“Well, now I really do know too much.” You tell her with a wink.

“My sister’s Emily.” You inform her rebalancing the tally of facts you keep sharing with each other. “Though she’d kill you for calling her that. I think she’d change her name completely if she didn’t think it would upset our Dad so much. She just goes by Em these days ..so ..she probably would have enjoyed your silly little initial idea, actually,” you admit thoughtfully, frowning a little at the realisation, “maybe I really should introduce you to her instead..” 

“Por favor.” She says quietly, quickly shaking her head at you and raising your hand to her lips once again. “Don’t even joke about it.” 

“Will you be going to the game tomorrow?” You ask, a not-so-subtle attempt at finding out if you might be getting to see each other again so soon. “We’d be like star-crossed lovers in the stands. Very Romeo and Juliet of us!” 

“I don’t know that we want to be comparing ourselves to those two! I don’t remember it ending very well for them.” She reminds you, narrowing her eyes at you as her intriguing little smirk returns to her face. “And no. I’m working tomorrow, I won’t be in the stands.” 

“Boo. You can’t be that big of a fan, then!” You tut in disappointment. “I’ve come all this way to support my team!” 

“Your team!” She chuckles. “Will you be there in a Chelsea shirt?” 

“Absolutely not. I’ll be in very neutral colours.” 

She smiles, nibbling at the inside of her mouth as she lowers her eyes to look at the table. She knocks her hand gently on it a few times before turning her attention back to you. It’s impossible to know what she’s thinking, but she’s definitely debating something silently in her head.  

“I could give you a Barcelona one?” She suggests a little cautiously, and you have to smile at the idea. Your sister would certainly disown you if you took one of those back home with you. It’d be worth it, just to see the look on her face.

“You have a very weird habit of offering me your clothes.” You tell her slyly.  

“Mhmm. I really like seeing you in them.” She admits sultrily, and your breath catches as her eyes darken looking at you. “I think I have one in my bag, if you want it.” 

It’s a surprisingly sexy little offer, and you do quite like having her clothes on your body. It’s hard not to laugh at her peculiarity, though, even your sister isn’t that crazy of a football fan.  

“You just ..carry it around with you at all times?” You ask, furrowing your brow as you chuckle at her. “That’s really weird of you! Do you sell them? You go round offering them to unsuspecting tourists? Is that your job? Is it a fake? Are yo—”

“You need to stop trying to know things about me.” She interrupts softly, shaking her head as she chuckles.  

“And just ..blindly accept that you always have a football shirt on you?” 

“Mhmm.” She giggles, and you narrow your eyes at her.

She really is very curious.  

She pulls it out from her little duffle bag from under the table and hands it to you with a gleam in her eye as you take it from her. You push your empty coffee cup to the side and spread the shirt out over the table to study it.  

They’re not exactly your colours, but you can probably make them work. You hold it up against you to check that it will suit, and she bites her lip as she watches you. There’s a name printed on the back of it, you realise, and you smile a little as you read it in your head.  

“Don’t most adults keep it blank? Or just go for their favourite player?” You ask smirking. You turn the shirt around and rest it over yourself, and she gently bites at the skin around her fingernail as you trace the lettering over your chest. “I thought it was just little kids that got their own name on the back. Do you quite like pretending you’re also on the team?” 

“Mhmm ..maybe.” She mumbles, stifling a giggle as she rests her head in her hand. She smiles at you fondly, as she continues gazing at your little shirt inspection.  

“That’s really very cute of you.” You tell her, placing the shirt back on the table and leaning over it as you trace your fingers over the number. “Why ‘11’?” 

“Hm?” 

“11. You have it tattooed on you. You’ve chosen it for your shirt.” You point out. “Is it your birthday? You were born on the 11th? You were born in November? Born on New Year’s Day? Is it just your lucky number? Is it—” 

“Stop, trying to know things about me.” She interrupts again quietly, reaching for your hand and meeting you across the table to rest her forehead to yours.  

“But I want to know things about you.” You whisper. “I want to know when your birthday is. I’d like to know your surname. I want to know what you do for a living, how you got those scars on your knee, how much you weighed when you were born. The name of your first crush, where you went to school, the meaning behind your tattoos. I want to know each and every incredible milestone you’ve ever achieved, and all the unfathomably boring things that you got up to in between each of them. I want to know every single detail about you, and your life, Alexia. I really, really want to know you.”   

It’s quite the thing for you to confess to the poor woman after only meeting her on two separate occasions, but the way her grip on your hand kept tightening as you spoke, the slight clenching of her jaw, and the fact that her lips are dangerously close to yours once again, probably means you haven’t just completely scared her off with it.  

“We’d have to spend a lifetime together, trying to learn all of that about each other.” She whispers to you, her lips lightly brushing against yours.  

“Is that a proposal?” You chuckle, gently bumping your nose to hers. Your eyes trail to her lips, and it’s really very hard to not act on your impulses. “Am I really not allowed to kiss you in h—“ 

It seems that you are allowed to kiss her in here, when it’s right at the back where no one’s watching. Or she’s allowed to kiss you, at least, because there's no doubt which one of you instigated this. Her lips move against yours, and your pulse reacts to her immediately.

It's a kiss harbouring an awful lot of emotion, for two people who still hardly know each other. It's slow, passionate, careful, and every confusing little worry that's been plaguing your brain since the last time you kissed, instantly melts away into nothing as her tongue slips back into your mouth. You're the only two people in the world when her hand's pulling you in by the back of your neck, and you’re tugging her closer by grabbing at her shirt.

It’s probably a good job she did decide to take you further away from everybody else, because it doesn’t stay an entirely family-friendly kiss for very long. It’s not wildly inappropriate, you’re not animals, and the bastard table’s in the way of you doing too much with each other. Thank goodness it is, because it’s been over a month, after all, and you’re both clearly quite a bit needy. You really can’t be doing that in public.  

“I’ve missed you.” She murmurs against your lips, pulling you impossibly further into her.  

“I really missed you too.” 

Hours feel like minutes, in Alexia’s company, as you spend the afternoon roaming Barcelona together. She still refuses to tell you everything about herself. You don’t learn her surname, and she still won’t tell you what she does for a living, but you do both share other things about yourselves with each other. 

It doesn’t matter how insignificant any of the details probably are. Every single one of them still feels important to you, because it’s another little glimpse into her. Every single fact, story and secret that she shares, is what makes Alexia, who she is, and she was absolutely right, you do find yourself falling more for her, with all of the little things you keep discovering.  

She eventually agrees to tell you her birthday. Which makes the whole ‘11’ obsession even more intriguing to you, because the 4th of February ’94 does absolutely nothing to clear that little mystery up. It does tell you that the man in his twenties that you were looking for the night you first met, didn’t even turn out to be a woman in her twenties at all. She turned 30 nearly 3 months ago. She’s absolutely decrepit! 

She gives you a tiny tour on your stroll together, bringing some clarity to the Catalonian streets you’ve been carelessly walking down. Explaining the extra confusing writing on the menu board, and casually revealing to you that she can speak 3 different languages. So, your drunken boast about your GCSE level German, probably wasn’t very impressive to her at all.  

You’re both approached a fair few times by people asking for directions. You can never understand what it is that they’re saying, and you're not really of much use to them just standing there being awkward. So, you hang off a little to the side taking in your surroundings, waiting for her to help them out, before she excitedly returns back to you. You’re not at all bothered by the interruptions. Your patience with it keeps earning you a quick discreet kiss from her as she wraps her arms around your waist, and you return the same display of affection, for her unrelenting kindness to strangers.

Alexia insists that she isn’t a tour-guide, and she’s also not an actress. So, you are very slowly whittling down the options of what it is she could possibly do for a living. She asks you about your own career, which is incredibly cheeky of her, considering. So, you simply refuse to tell her.

Maybe it’s that competitive streak in you, but if she wants to play it secretive, you can absolutely match her for it. You only agree to give her the corresponding facts to the one’s she’s willing to give to you. That way, if she’s falling for you with each new piece of information the same way that you’re doing for her, at least you’re both crashing down for each other, at exactly the same speed.

There’s slightly less careless abandon with being too physical with each other, walking hand in hand around Barcelona. It’s arguably tame compared to how you both were back in London. Whether it’s the lack of alcohol that’s keeping her more reserved, or maybe just because it isn’t yet nighttime, you’re not entirely sure.  

You’re still stealing kisses as you waltz along the streets, but you’re not pushing each other up against the walls of buildings out in the open. Maybe that would be a little indecent of you both. You’re pulling each other down quiet alleyways, instead, pressing yourselves together in secret coves.  

It doesn’t feel entirely necessary, the streets you’re exploring aren’t particularly packed with people, but you don’t question it too much. You’ve really just missed having her lips on yours, and whatever capacity she feels comfortable doing it in, you’re more than willing to oblige.  

You couldn’t really care less who sees you kissing her. You all but forget that they exist when she's pulling you into her and leaving her mark on you. It is arguably far more exciting, however, trying to be sneaky about it with each other. You're both almost actively searching for places that you're unlikely to get caught in. Finding hidden areas and seeing how much you can get away with together.

Your hands find their way under her shirt on more than one occasion. She really does have the most beautiful body. She jokingly reprimands you for it each time, but she doesn’t really discourage you from doing it. She does continually tease you, for your ever-decreasing signs of straightness, though.

Each newly shared kiss with Alexia, is somehow even better than the last. Whether she’s passionately throwing caution to the wind with you, by kissing down your neck, or trapping your bottom lip between her teeth. Even when she’s just being painfully frustrating, by giving you the quickest of pecks before skipping away. Every single one of them still sets your soul on fire, and they still manage to pull all the air right out from your lungs, every single time.

Alexia waits with you, as it turns to evening, on a bench by the road for your taxi back to your hotel. You try not to let the mild burning in your eyes ruin your final moments with her, but you can feel yourself starting to break.

She pulls out the football shirt from her bag again and holds it out for you to take with a shy smile. “I really hope you enjoy the game tomorrow.” She says, and you try to allow yourself to chuckle a little while nodding your head. 

“Mhmm. Thank you, I’ll try.” You tell her, throwing her shirt over your shoulder and quickly rubbing the corner of your eyes. “I’ll have to get Em’s permission to wear this, first. She’ll be very unimpressed with me.” 

“Just don’t let her burn it!”  

“I won't.” You promise, interlacing your fingers with hers and placing a kiss to the back of her hand. “The other fans might throw tomatoes at it, mind!” 

She chuckles, pressing a kiss to your temple, and there’s that familiar sense of dread in your stomach, as you watch the road, knowing your time together is quickly running out again.

You catch her gazing at you as you turn to her, and maybe there’s a little butterfly or two in your stomach as well, at the way her eyes are watching over you. “Are you okay?” You ask.

“Mhmm. You haven’t even gone yet,” she tells you smiling, tucking your hair back behind your ear, “and I already can’t wait to see you again.” 

“You’re really that certain that you will? You’re still sure you don’t want us to swap numbers?”  

“We’ve already bumped into each other a couple of times now. I have no doubt we’ll manage it again.”

It’s nowhere near as reassuring to you as it seems to be to her, but there’s a certain level of romance in her conviction in fortuity. Maybe you are beginning to believe in the possible existence of fate, though you're not completely enamoured by continuing to leave your encounters with Alexia, entirely up to chance. She cradles your head in her hands and gently wipes the tears that are threatening to spill from your eyes with her thumbs.

"I'll never forgive you," you warn her weakly, "if this ends up being it for us."

"Trust me." Is all she asks of you, and she pulls you back into her, resting her head against yours as she runs her fingers over your back.

It feels like an unspoken promise from her, to keep at least trying to find you, and there's a power in her certainty that has you desperate to believe in it too.

It’s still a little hard for you both to say goodbye to each other, but she’s already told you she has a busy day tomorrow, and you can’t really bring her back to your hotel when your sister’s already sharing the bed with you. You share another long hug, and a few more secret kisses before your taxi pulls up, and you finally hesitantly agree to part ways. She places a kiss to your cheek, by way of goodbye as you clamber yourself into the back of the car, setting off without her once again.  

You try to reassure yourself, on the taxi ride back to your hotel. You've ran into each other twice, in two separate countries, by pure dumb luck. It can't be impossible for it to happen again. Maybe there’s something connecting you both, an invisible string, an intangible little bungee cord, that's making sure that neither of you is ever able to truly stray too far away from the other. Alexia has ‘no doubt’ that you’ll manage another meeting again, and you take some comfort in knowing, that you still have 2 days left in the city, to do exactly that.

________________

Collapsing back down to lay on the bed in your hotel room, you have a sneaking suspicion, that you’ll have a far better night’s sleep than you’ve managed to have in a long time, tonight. Your mind isn’t spiralling with confusion anymore, and there’s no longer a gaping hole inside of your chest.  

There’s an excitement in you, a warmth. An encouraging little hope that you really have found something special. Someone special. That once-in-a-lifetime connection with another person who’s also trapped in this world along with you.  

It definitely isn’t the someone you expected to intertwine your soul with. Any younger version of yourself would be very confused about where she’s ended up. It isn’t a connection you want to keep questioning either. It’s not one you really have any doubts on the existence of at all. She’s just it for you, and maybe it’s okay that that’s all you can say to justify it.   

You don’t need to be attracted to other women; you don’t really care about your weakening attraction to men. It just makes sense when you’re together with her. There’s no confusion, no uncertainty, there’s no warning alarms ringing out in your head. There’s just Alexia, and the existence of anything and anybody else, will always pale in comparison to her. 

Your sister arrives a little after you, plodding back into the hotel room, clearly wiped from whatever individual Spanish adventure she got up to today, and she flops herself into one of the armchairs with a very heavy sigh.  

“Long day?” You ask. 

“Mhmm.” She mumbles, frowning at you suspiciously. “You look very happy?” 

“I am very happy!” You tell her with a smile. You excitedly roll over and reach down the side of the bed to retrieve your souvenir of the day from its hiding spot. You launch it right into your sister’s face and she grunts a little under the impact. “Will you hate me, if I wear that tomorrow?” You ask, trying to contain your newfound enthusiasm. 

She pulls it off from where it’s wrapped itself around her head, and she gives you a very unimpressed look. “You bought a Barcelona shirt?” She asks, clearly disgusted with your choice of fashion.  

“I was given it.” 

“By?” 

“..a woman.” You tell her, gently biting your bottom lip as you smile up at the ceiling.  

“Mm.” She mutters with a sigh, moving to join you over on the bed. She thwacks the shirt down over your stomach and lets out a huff next to you. “Well, at least she has good taste.” She tells you. “Or she’s just a bit basic.” 

That’s a little rude ..and very confusing.  

“What do you mean?” 

“Going for the best player on the team.” 

That’s less rude ..but even more confusing.  

“..What do you mean?” 

“Are you joking?” She asks, with a very clear tone of annoyance to her voice. She grabs the shirt and thwacks you with it again. “A woman gives you a shirt with a name on the back, and you don’t even care enough to ask who the bloody player is?”   

Maybe your head is racing again. That’s incredibly confusing. It really doesn’t make any sense. It’s her name, not a player’s name. Maybe they just share a name. It’s not an incredibly rare name, that’s not impossible. 

Your Alexia has a mild interest in football, she’s not playing it professionally. Who would keep that a secret? She’s reticent with sharing information, that’s for certain, but she’s not a bloody liar, and she told you she wouldn’t even be there tomorrow.  

No.  

She said that she was working tomorrow, and that she wouldn’t be in the stands with you. 

Your mind has started racing, and so has your little heart.  

“What. do. you. mean?” You repeat slowly, trying to keep yourself calm.  

“Alexia Putellas.” She tells you, very nonchalantly, and your brain all but short circuits at the name.  

“Who is Alexia Putellas?” 

She thwacks you again with your shirt in dismay, and you’ve really had just about enough of being treated like a piñata. You sit up, pull it from her hands and thwack it across her face as you ask her to explain herself.  

“She’s a footballer, for fuck’s sake!” She shouts, rubbing the palm of her hand against her eyelid. “She’s Spanish. She plays for Barcelona!” She pulls out her phone, to search for her Instagram and bonks you on the head with it. “That’s Alexia Putellas, you twat.” 

You look at the profile, and the hotel room blurs around you. You can feel your heart thumping in your chest, hear the blood pumping around in your ears.  

Your Alexia, is Alexia Putellas.  

She doesn’t sell shirts for a living, she’s not an actress nor a tour-guide, she really isn’t even a spy. Though she’d probably make a pretty good one, the way she never gave this piece of information away.  

Your unexplainable connection with another human being, and she plays football for a living? Clearly very well too, as 2 of her pinned photos have her holding a massive award for it right next to her face. Every other post on her page is about football. She’s Barcelona, through and through.  

She’s verified, she has over 3 million followers. She’s been out here, existing on the world’s stage, all this time, without you ever knowing. Your own sister’s been privy to more information about her than you have.  

She was in London a month ago for football, according to her Instagram posts. The cryptic little ‘business trip’ she was on, was a quarter-final match against Arsenal. An embarrassingly easy win for Barcelona, she must have been out celebrating it when she found you in that club.  

She was back in London again last week for football. You could have seen her then. You missed a chance at an earlier reunion with her, because you refused to go with your little sister to watch her in the first leg against Chelsea.  

Your breathing’s very shallow as you scroll through the endless stream of photos. Your mind is absolutely spinning. It’s all a bit much to take in. You lock your sister’s phone and place it back on her chest as you try to collect yourself. You really don’t want to risk learning too much about her. You want her to tell you everything, you don’t want to find it all out behind her back.  

You’ve been waiting with bated breath all afternoon, savouring every little piece of information she’s given you, and your smart-arse little sister could probably tell you loads about her if you asked. Lots of the details you’re so desperate to know about Alexia are probably only a quick google search away, but you feel guilty enough just knowing her surname without her having been the one to tell it to you.  

She hadn’t been super willing to even give you her first, and no wonder! It’s the single name that’s plastered on her shirt, it’s the name she’s known mononymously as. She’s women’s football’s answer to Beyoncé, Adele. 

Of course, she didn’t want to kiss you in front of people in the café, out there on the streets. It’ll be why she only kissed your cheek in front of the taxi driver. She probably is a little liar, because she almost certainly wasn’t giving directions to people when they approached you both. She presumably isn’t old friends with the two men who wanted a photo with her. They all just know who she is. The whole damn city of Barcelona knows exactly who she is.  

Maybe she was testing you, waiting for you to crack, to confess to knowing everything about her. How couldn’t you know about her? How unbelievably rude of you.  

She’s a celebrity footballer, and you’ve treated her like she’s one of the most normal people in the world. You’ve flirted with her, teased her, kissed her, slept with her, and she’s welcomed it all with that adorable little smirk.  

So, maybe she’s liked that you didn’t know, that you really had no idea about who she was at all. You can’t have had any preconceived thoughts about the woman when you’ve had no prior knowledge about her. Perhaps it’s been part of the fun for her, just being with someone who really couldn’t care about the noise surrounding her. Maybe that’s the reason she didn’t really want you knowing about it. Her fame could have changed things, pushed you away.  

It wouldn’t have. She’d have to do something intrinsically evil to frighten you off. Especially now, after the afternoon you’ve just spent together, learning more, and falling deeper for her. She’s still just the woman that baffled you with a lime in a nightclub, wound you up by kissing someone else. Rescued you from a night of undeniable regret, and turned it into the start of something magical.

She’s your once-in-a-lifetime connection, your confusing, and frustrating, perfect one-night stand companion. She’s the woman that's turned your whole world on its head, and it just turns out, that she quite likes to kick a ball around, with a bunch of other women for a living, and people from all over the world, have been watching her excel at it for years.

She has to know that you’ll have found out already, you’ve told her your sister’s football obsessed. Even if your sister didn’t know who she is, there’s bound to be other people wearing her name on their backs tomorrow. Probably not many of them were given their shirts by the woman herself. There’ll be even less of them with one of her sweatshirts in their bag.  

Maybe she’s excited for you to connect all the pieces together. Giving you her shirt was far too bold a move for her to still not want you to know. She’d have just talked you out of going to the game, if that was the case.  

She wants you there, being a very daring rebel, with her name boldly resting between your shoulder blades, rooting for her and Barcelona, right in the middle of the Chelsea fans. You’ll probably stand out like a sore thumb with your red stripes in the sea of blue you’ll be standing in, and maybe that’s exactly what she’s hoping for. She had ‘no doubt’ that you'd see each other again, after all. 

“She’s the best player on the team?” You ask your sister dreamily, collapsing back down on the bed and clinging to the shirt in your hand as you hold it against your body.  

“Mhmm. Best in the world.” She tells you, and there’s that exhilarating little thrill shooting right up through your body.  

“Oof. I’ll tell Sam Kerr you said that!”  

She scoffs to the side of you and flicks your forehead playfully. You lift Alexia’s shirt, holding it out in between your fingers to study her name again in disbelief.  

You're falling in love, with the ‘best in the world,’ and she seems to be falling for you, too. A little nobody from London, who’s spent the past month pining after who she thought, was a little nobody from Spain. She’s once again turned your whole damn world on its head.  

She really is absolutely everything.  

“I will hate you if you wear that thing tomorrow.” Your sister warns you, as she hits the shirt with the back of her hand. “I offered you a Chelsea shirt and you gagged at it!” 

“I’ve not gagged at this one.” You point out with a grin. “It’s a shame you won’t be friends with me tomorrow.” You tell her, resting the shirt back out over your torso.  

“You can’t wear it!” 

“I bloody can, and I very much will.” You inform her. “You should rethink wearing a Chelsea shirt. You’ll be very disappointed when we beat you tomorrow.” 

“‘We?’ You really are a twat. You’re Barcelona’s biggest fan all of a sudden?” 

“Too bloody right, I am!” You tell her decidedly, hugging the shirt against you. “I’ve always loved football, me.” 

[yonpote]

ok heres how i split up the dnp eras (loosely based on dan's timeline in his interview w anthony)

2009-2011: the Sillies era :3 dan refered to it as being a dumb teen just posting cuz he was bored, which is like, thats what all of youtube culture was at this time. they met and like fell in love or whatever you know the lore dont you. phil moved from his parents home to his first apartment in manchester, and dan technically moved to uni but really he moved into phil's apartment to take advantage of his washing machine and ps1 and. yknow. other stuff. they officially moved in together in 2011 yippee hooray, the phanchester apartment holds a special place in my heart

2012-2013: THE SHIFT. they started getting Serious about youtube as a career, doing more stuff w the radio, superamazingproject started in 2011 but THE SHIFT is very easy to observe when you compare the first season of sap to the last season. ALSO. they were NOT A DOUBLE ACT AND NOT GAY 🙄. it could also be called the No Homo era lmao idk this is when a lot of shitty things were happening wrt leaked information, harassment of their families, and just generally becoming more in the spotlight especially while still in the closet being a horrible experience. but also, they moved to london and got cool opportunities with radio stuff and were starting to actually make a living on this shit.

2014-2016: Peak Dan And Phil™ Era. at the height of their popularity. they realized oh shit, we ARE a double act and not only does everyone enjoy us best as a double act, WE enjoy working together. tabinof, tatinof, dapgo, still doing the radio every month up until they start touring, 7 second challenge app, gamingmas, what the hell DIDNT they do during this time period (what they didnt do was uhh take care of themselves and not overwork and not blur their work and personal lives so much to the point where they felt like the whole apartment was a film set.)

2017-2018: Gay Softlaunch Era (aka post-baking aka glass closet) the baby steps toward authenticity, moved to the double apartment to separate work and life, ii's whole theme, dan talking abt depression, phil getting the quiff, both of them being gay as hell in every way other than saying it explicitly. important things of note: TRUTH BOMBS dropped, Interactive Introverts happened, still uploading gaming vids and honestly by the end you could feel their fatigue. and then they hiatused dapg.

2019-2022: ok these four years each feel like whole eras in themselves, but also theres an overarching theme. THE GAY ERA.

2019: im gonna futher split this year in half. first half- dad left to buy milk so other dad is taking care of us. rough six months for dannies im sure. important phil thing of note- he changed his film set from his "bedroom" to a fairly basic but cute shelf backdrop. honestly prob didnt wanna keep pretending that was his bedroom considering.... second half- DAN AND PHIL GAY. dan uploads his magnum opus. phil comes out via tweet. they go to japan and its really gay and it's The Trip to japan for them like yes they first went in 2015 and again in 2023, but Japhan 2.0 Was The One. what does this mean? proposal? anniversary? idk exactly but it was gay as hell dude and theyve talked about that trip with such love in their hearts.

2020: Phandemic (sorry that was bad) but also where tf is dan again? even with the big C-word happening, it was business as usual for phil, regular vids but make em gayer, caught a pigeon nbd, and end of the year introduces the Stereo app show Phil and Phriends where he's had chats with pj, louise, his brother, seth everman?????, and finally. dan reappears. they reveal that they bought and FULLY PLANNED a house together and are ready to move!

2021: they don't move house for another like six months! basically their house was (and is??) still being worked on AND they were in lockdown AND turns out at the end of last year, they were kicked from their Life apartment and were now living in the Work apartment so you can imagine what all of this can do to their psyche and lowkey they were getting sick of each other like it wasnt just bordering on phivorce it was nearly Phurder. Phidow. but to fill the time so that DOESNT happen, my favorite fucking thing ever happens: Lockdown Lads (and all the other names). the first taste of what a dnp podcast would sound like, with the added bonus of chaotic listener interaction. oh yeah also dan wrote a mental health guide book whatever (IM KIDDING I REALLY LIKE YWGTTN I WROTE LIKE TWO REVIEWS ON IT NOW) and they finally become Homosexual Homeowners. theres quite a bit more dnp content this year, dan being on phils channel a bit more, the phodcasts, dan's gay and not proud special.... oh yeah and hometown showdown i guess AND TEXT VIDEO 2!!! my favorite and my namesake!!!!!!!

2022: Prophecy Year..... but they didnt get married. dan returns with another longass video to say: hey i hate being a youtuber and also youtube majorly fucked me over. but also fuck that im gonna do a weird talk show and ALSO GO ON TOUR WITH THIS APOCALYPSE THEME! phil actually... slows down this year. more dan uploads than phil somehow??? but also Dan Is Leaving me is posted and i go completely insane and become the deranged individual you see today. WHICH FINALLY LEADS US TOOOOOO

2023-present: The Unhinged Era. dan's tour was a huge Emotional success for him but uh not without its hiccups due to management and all that and i think he and phil finally realize. Fuck It Who Cares. dan flies back to england FROM AUSTRALIA to make sure he can be with his future ex-husband on his birthday. CAKE HEART EMOJI. YELLOW PLAID SHACKET. they go on a gamer date and post a picture of playing footsies in a cab. THE PHUDE HAPPENS. they go to japan again and while this one will never be The One it was still a well earned holiday this time with bryony! and they took a bunch of very cute film camera pictures.... THIS IS ALL JUST THE FIRST HALF OF 2023 BTW. in phil news, he talks about going to therapy and figuring out how to manage his anxiety!!!! he changes his hair again!! he hires an editor, phan is his otp, he teases about the gaming channel a couple of times but so many of us already dropped any hope of that returning- OH WAIT WHAT THE FUCK?!!!? HUH!??!? they returned, and more chaotic than ever before. the gayness upped to the max, the Weirdness on full speed, the Horniness at Very Scary Levels Oh God Stop Talking About Dogging, phil can swear uncensored now???? and this energy has continued into today...

[carletes]

Thanks now i really need them to sing that in my life 🤣🫶🏼

Lando was surprised at how excited Carlos was at the prospect of karaoke. It didn’t seem to square with his image of his teammate. Carlos had seemed so serious, so careful, maybe even intimidating and, if Lando was to be very uncharitable…kind of boring.

But then, Lando mused as they made their way to the place George and Alex had suggested, a lot of things Lando had expected of his new teammate hadn’t turned out to be true. Yes, Carlos was serious—but that didn’t stop him from laughing like one of those Lion King hyenas. Yes, Carlos was careful—but that didn’t stop him from manhandling Lando in ways that made him squawk in outrage and maybe other things. Yes, Carlos seemed intimidating—and then he smiled encouragingly at Lando, his giant brown eyes sincere and sweet, when Lando stammered over feedback.

So, yeah, Carlos seemed boring, but then…

“How’s this for a laugh?” George said, flicking through the songs in the karaoke directly. They had been picking songs for each other, and it was George’s turn to pick one for Lando. “I don’t even know if you’ll know this one, mate.”

Lando scowled at him. He was a bit worried about making an ass of himself in front of Carlos, who was politely sitting in the booth, nursing a beer. He looked ridiculously handsome in a casual sweatshirt and jeans. “No recording,” he growled at George and Alex, the latter of whom quickly put away his phone.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Alex chirped with false sincerity.

Lando sighed and stepped up to the front of their room. He scowled at George again and then looked at the monitor:

Everytime We Touch – Cascada.

Oh. Well. Shit. This was going to be embarrassing for another reason.

Lando made a split second decision to fuck the song up, and then the first few notes played, and he promptly forgot that decision. He vaguely registered Carlos sitting up right before, devastatingly, Lando lost himself to the song.

Tremulously, albeit no less passionately, Lando began: “I still hear your voice when you sleep next to me, I still feel your touch in my dreams…”

George and Alex were agape. Lando wasn’t even looking at the monitor. He knew the lyrics all too well.

“Forgive me my weakness, but I don’t know why, without you it’s hard to–”

“Sur-vive–!”

That wasn’t Lando. That was–

And as Lando stared, open-mouthed, his serious, careful, intimidating, boring teammate jolted to his feet, beer held aloft, and sang triumphantly:

“‘Cause every time we touch, I get this feeling–”

And Lando, relieved and…and thrilled, beamed widely and began singing along with Carlos, “And every time we kiss, I swear I could fly!”

Carlos was climbing over George and Alex’s stunned forms towards Lando, singing the whole time:

“Can’t you feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last, need you by my side!”

By the time the second part of the chorus hit, Carlos had drawn close to Lando, and Lando laughed and held his microphone so it was between his lips and Carlos’.

“‘Cause every time we touch, I feel this static, and every time we kiss, I reach for the sky!”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, singing with—singing to—his teammate, Lando registered that this was maybe one of the gayer things he had done in his young life. He also registered that his teammate was hot. And he was reminded, annoyingly, that he had nursed a low-level crush on Carlos Sainz for several years.

“Can’t you hear my heart beat so, I can’t let you go, want you in my life!”

And Carlos was very close to him. And he looked very happy. And he smelt really good.

And he was not a good singer.

But that was actually good to know, and Lando wasn’t great either, but that didn’t stop them from singing loud and enthusiastic about how much they wanted to kiss each other.

Lando was almost sad when the song ended. Carlos laughed, running a hand through his hair. “I cannot remember the last time I heard that song,” Carlos said, grinning at Lando. Lando felt his heart beat fast (ugh). The world seemed to recede—it felt like it was just him and Carlos.

“I can’t believe you like it!” Lando said, still in shock at what had transpired. Carlos smiled at him and shrugged.

“Why not? It’s good, no?”

It’s so gay, mate.

“…yeah, it is,” Lando said instead, and for a few moments, he was content to just keep looking up at his silly, affectionate, kind, fun teammate, who was looking back at him, warmth in his eyes.

“…how the fuck did you both know that?”

That jolted them out of their reverie.

Some years later, then, when Carlos and Lando were no longer teammates, when they were married, when they were talking seriously about whether and when they wanted children, and—most daunting of all—out shopping for Christmas presents, a familiar song started playing at Harrod’s.

“Hey,” Carlos said, squeezing Lando’s hand that he had tucked into the crook of his arm. “It’s our song.”

And Lando smiled and pressed his face into Carlos’ shoulder. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

[korogie]

my korogie…. he is sooooo. that one dono that was like will dream be the queen and him immediately being like no I’m like his knight 😭 like him being his knight automatically made it 20x gayer then if he had just been his queen THE THEMES……

Like Dream immediately putting himself into a protectors role for George when he absolutely did Not have to (it's not like he was Eret's knight at all😭) is so crazy to me and then relating it to their irl feelings at the time makes me feel even more insane because (crazy person talk My bad) Dream got to use the role play as a way to express his new and confusing feelings in a way that wouldn't be too weird And then when he let George step away from the king rp bc he didn't like it he found another way to be able to support and protect George in the damn mc role play through XD which is a whole other can of worms

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 1

Propaganda why Robin is insufferable:

"Annoying control freak"

"his mere existence is a vile mockery of the real Robin. Why do they always have to ruin everything by reducing the characters by the jokes they can make against them?"

"Not even because it’s a far cry from how Robin is actually characterized in the comics or the OG cartoon, but his exaggerated impulsive and controlling personality is really hard to watch most of the time.

If you do compare it to his original iteration, it’s just insulting, but not even taking that into account, I don’t understand why anyone can stand to watch a show for fun with a main character like that? Lol"

Propaganda why Stuart Little is insufferable:

"Bad vibes"

"Even from his first ever appearance he was insufferable. I remember when I was a child my mum took me to a carboot sale, trinkets, clothes, games, dvds galore. It was a lovely day. On one stall we stopped and decided to take a closer look at their goods.. My mum decided to buy the stuart little box set containing the entire trilogy inside. this would change my life forever. Now, you may thinking ‘what is so bad about Stuart little?’ Well I’m just about to tell you. First of all his appearance. He’s got that little submissive twinky build with a stupid smug little smirk on his stupid little mouse face (ALSO WHY IS HE A MOUSE AND NOT A RAT? RATS ARE SO MUCH BETTER) I can’t even sexualise him or call him a tumblr sexy man bc he’s a minor and an orphan minor at that (embarrassing) which brings me into my next point. The whole adoption scene??? Just screams??? Entitled??? Like imagine you are an orphan and you are super excited to get adopted you put on your best orphan outfit and orphan smile and then the family come in (eccentric but also very nice) and they take a look at you and you smile and think ‘wow this is my moment to be adopted!’. Then they say to the head of the orphanage ‘yeah I’ll take the rat.’ I DONT KNOW ABOUT YOU BUT THAT WOULD PISS ME THE HELL OFF AND GIVE ME TRUST ISSUES AND RELATIONSHIP ISSUES AND SELF ESTEEM USSUES AND ISSUES WITH ISSUES. Then this smug little twink rat just walks out with a family??? My mind would say??? This bitch??? Anyways now that that is outta the way can we talk abt the gay little saying the family has. ‘Little high little hey little low’ so so gay like I’ve had lesbian sex and that is probably gayer than that. Infect you know what?? Maybe the littles adopting stuart did the poor orphans a favour. Like it’s kinda like if two sexual deviants dated bc at least it keeps them off the streets. You know what this now a little family hate account. They also have another saying that ‘anyone can find the little house if they are a little from anywhere’ I think they should find a gun and let it go off but ig uts not as cool. I wanna go on for longer bc idk id this is too cringe"

"he got stuck in a washing machine once and also i imagine they would smell pretty badly irl and also im racist towards white mice and also i dont like him. He should have died and drowned in the washing machine."

"stupid fucking rodent he can actually go die i hate his stupid voice i just wanna step on him"

"hate this stupid mouse want to put him in a mouse trap"

[welcometothejianghu]

Hey, you! You should watch Hikaru no Go!

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: Hikaru no Go/Qi Hun/棋魂.

Based on the manga of the same name, this drama is the Chinese live-action adaptation of a story about a boy who plays Go, the spirit only he can see who teaches him how to play Go, and all the friends and enemies he meets along his journey to become a good Go player.

...Wait, no, come back. I swear it's more interesting than that makes it sound.

What it is, is a character-driven tale of a charming young boy who, among a bunch of weird and wonderful people who love him, grows up to be a charming young man.

(You see how his shirt says SWEETIE CUTIE? That is because he is a sweetie cutie.)

It's a sports manga, so you've got Training Montages and The Big Game and all sorts of tense moments like that. But there's also lots of fun, gentle plotlines that are equal parts tearjerking and heartwarming. It is incredibly written, act, and produced, and I can't believe that it's not more popular, because it's so good.

Here are five reasons you should watch it:

1: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Word of Honor is merely the second gayest thing I have ever seen a c-drama do. Hikaru no Go is gayer by an order of magnitude.

I think the way they got it past censorship was by saying, oh no, this isn't gay, it's just a sports rivalry! But come on, what do you mean sports rivalries aren't gay, have you seen how all those Canadian and US hockey players keep marrying one another? This is that. This is the tale of two boys who've been in love since they were seven figuring out that they've been in love since they were seven.

(And speaking of seven-year-olds, the kid casting is amazing.)

I mean:

This is an actual still from the show.

So is this.

So is this.

These are not taken out of context. The context would make them gayer. That's how gay they are for each other.

But you know what the best part is? They're not the only pairing. And I don't just mean this like, oh, here's two other cute boys, you can imagine the times they kiss -- I mean, the show itself has its own ships! Ships you wouldn't expect! Intergenerational gay Go solidarity!

Now here's the catch: You have to wait for it. But oh boy, the payoff had us clutching our heads and screaming as quietly as we could because it was after midnight and we were losing our minds.

That last episode!! You have to see it to believe it!!!

2: EMOTIONS!

Bring the tissues. There are parts where it was kinda hard for me to watch because I was sobbing.

Because it's a sports manga, there are lots of triumphs and tragedies. Not everybody can make it to The Big Game. Not everybody gets to live out their dreams. Sometimes you try your hardest and it's not good enough. Sometimes you play your best and you still lose. Some people have to give up on what they love. Some people who were there with us at the beginning don't get to make it with us to the end.

What really makes it is that the show sits with its emotions. Events will affect people's emotional states for multiple episodes to follow. People who have sadness don't just snap out of it. Loving someone doesn't automatically fix them. Shit's hard!

Of course, this contrast makes the triumphs even more wonderful. I will tell you that the show has a happy ending, but not always the ending you would expect would have been their happy ending. It is overall an incredibly uplifting show. You'll need tissues for that, too.

3: (Nearly) Everything Is Pretty Dang Normal

Part of what I mean by that is that while a lot of the actors are real pretty, they're also done up in ways where, like, if you met this person on the street, you would think, this person is pretty! and not, what the hell fancy-ass magazine cover did you just step off of?

Look at these normal goobers:

There are two exceptions to this. The first is Chu Ying, because he is a ghost energy being from the distant past, and ghosts energy beings from the distant past get astonishing eyeliner.

The second is Fang Xu, because his actor, Han Mubo, is an actual idol. Congratulations on your face, sir.

However, I also mean that the story is delightfully mundane. Sure, there's that one supernatural element to it, but everything else is just a regular story about regular people who have regular human problems. There are characters who disappoint their parents and mentors, struggle to pay their bills, try to balance school and extracurricular activities, have crushes, argue with teachers, flake on responsibilties, get lost in the woods, and do some pretty normal human things. Nobody's avenging anyone or trying to slay anything. It's just people being people.

It's even a bit of a period piece -- the show starts out in 1997, then jumps forward to the late '00s, so everything's just charmingly slightly outdated. Damn, I love everybody's flip phones.

4: Actually Good Television

Okay, if you like c-dramas, you know they can be ... janky. Episodes sometimes end practically in the middle of sentences. CG leaves much to be desired. Obvious cuts and last-minute overdubbing really stand out. You can tell where the censorship mandates got in there and started mucking around with things. That kind of jank.

This show feels different. It feels like someone thought out each episode, start to finish, and then created each piece to fit that vision. Every episode even has a title and beautiful title card. They start and end in dramatically logical places. The cinematography isn't anything particularly artful or experimental, but it's solid and clean and lovely. (And if you're sick of shows so dark you can't see them, you've got no worries here.)

The CG in the show is unobtrusive, and most of it is spent making Chu Ying subtly transparent.

There are a bunch of secondary characters, but to me that never felt overwhelming. Most of them are interesting, three-dimensional characters, no matter how short their screen time is. And while there definitely could have been more female characters, the show itself is pretty open about how sexism in the Go world means that it's mostly a boys' club -- and the ladies that are there are great.

In short, this is a show you can show to people who don't have c-drama brain and thus are less inclined to overlook some of the more cringeworthy aspects of their productions. I bet that your Average American Television Enjoyer Who Can Handle Subtitles would have no trouble getting into the groove of it, which I imagine could be very useful for those of you who have people you'd like to watch c-dramas with, except you don't feel like stopping every five minutes to apologize for one thing or another.

5: Better Than The Source Material?

This is the point where I have to admit that I myself have never read the manga or seen the anime. I came into this with only the vaguest familiarity with the source material. I can only tell you that the live-action drama is good; I can't swear that it's better.

However, @jianghootinandhollerin can speak to this comparison more authoritatively than I:

When I was 20, Hikaru no Go (manga) was my favorite thing, the primary obsession, the source of multiple livejournal themes, custom winamp skins, and a fanfic where Hikaru got a go stone stuck up his nose. Because of this deep love in my history, I was dubious about a live action version and the changes it made, but hey, turns out, those changes were exactly what the 20 years older version of me needed. This version of the story benefits so much from having the full, completed story to work from from the outset. The manga didn't know where it was ending when it started, but this show got to, and the story gets to be richer and the characters' stories get to be deeper thanks to that. And also, very importantly: everyone is older and much, much gayer.

Look, I understand if "but it's not the original manga/anime" is a dealbreaker for you. There are adaptations of things I can't watch because no matter how good the end product may be, I'm going to hold it against it that it's not the source I'd rather be seeing, and that's not a fair standard. That's fine. It happens.

But if you can, give this a go (pun unintended). It does not replace the original thing; it is a different take on the same idea. And yeah, it's one that really speaks to me here, on the other side of forty as I am. Maybe I would have missed it at twenty, but the person I am now really respects its attitude that while Being The Best is all well and good, it is not the only thing, and it is absolutely not more important than being yourself and doing what you love with the people you love. Sometimes you peak and can't advance anymore, so you become a teacher, and you know what, that's better than okay, that's actually pretty great. (Do I overidentify with Bai Chuan? Listen: maybe.)

Have I convinced you to watch it yet?

You can watch it on iQiyi, or you can watch it on iQiyi's YouTube channel. I hope you love it as much as I do.

[softshrimpy]

How To Woo A Hot Principal

Chapter 5: Step 5: Wine and Dine

Summary: Working at the weathervane was exactly what you needed. The routine, the people, your co-workers. It certainly helped that a certain tall, blonde, fucking gorgeous woman happened to frequent the cafe. Now some may call hopelessly flirting with your customers inappropriate behavior.

But truly, when it came to Larissa Weems, who could blame you?

Buckle up besties things are gettin hotter. Also thicc thanks to the bestie @misssmephisto and all the gay ideas she has shared with me. This fic would succ without her🦐✨

Tags: @variant-2402 @the-bagel24 @eveymay @kimiinou @muffintopxs

(pls let me know if I missed you I'm a forgetful shrimp)

Chapter 4

Cross Posted on AO3 here

HTWAHP Masterlist

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“She’s taking you on a date?!”

“It’s not a date James,” you sigh, cleaning the table tops.

“You’re going out for dinner in Burlington and you don’t think it’s a date?”

“You’re the one who said she’s out of my league!”

“That was before she invited you to dinner! Plus, she is still out of your league, but maybe you have some charm hidden under there.”

Externally? You were calm, cool as a cucumber, as the kids say. Internally? You’d been panicking since she’d asked you yesterday morning and could barely think any other words than “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

She had asked you so casually. You had brought her her morning coffee, you’d been telling her about one of the locals that had caused a scene in the cafe when she sprung the question on you.

“What would you say to dinner tomorrow night?”

“What?” You had eloquently uttered.

“You said I should take time off. So what would you say to dinner tomorrow night?” She asked, taking off her glasses and fidgeting with them.

“I- where uh where would we go?”

“I know a rather nice place in Burlington. If you’d rather not I completely understand-“

“I’d love to go to dinner with you.”

She had finally looked up at you at that. She seemed shocked at first but then her shock dissolved and she flashed you the brightest smile you had ever seen. You swore at that moment you would do whatever it took to make her smile like that all the time.

So now you were standing in your room, staring intently into your closet trying to find something to wear. You have no idea what kind of restaurant it is nor what Larissa is wearing. You do know however that you have an hour to get your shit together. You eventually settle on one of your fancier outfits. You put on some makeup and end up arriving at Nevermore 5 minutes early.

You exit your car and end up halfway to the entrance when it opens. You stop dead in your tracks and fight to keep your jaw off the ground when you see Larissa.

Oh my god, she was wearing pants. PANTS.

You were almost certainly dead and had somehow made it into the good place. Larissa Weems was standing there wearing the most flattering pants you’d ever seen on a woman. She had paired it with a cute turtle neck that she had rolled up the sleeves of and seeing her bare forearms was giving you unholy thoughts.

God, you were gay. You were gayer than gay. The gayest around. Fuck this woman was making it hard not to kiss her senseless.

“Hello darling.” She all but fucking purrs, looking you over.

“Uh, I- uhm you. Hi.”

“Are you ready to go?”

You nod dumbly, following her as she leads you to the car. You do shamelessly stare at her ass as you follow her and find yourself blushing and thanking her when she opens your door for you.

When you arrive at the restaurant Larissa, ever the gentlewoman, gets out and opens your door for you. And then, as if you weren’t already swooning, she leads you inside with a hand on the small of your back. You genuinely think you’ve died and ended up in heaven.

“You look absolutely ravishing tonight darling.” She murmurs, pulling out your chair for you.

“You don’t look too bad yourself,” you joke, “but really you look so- you just- You look amazing.”

“Thank you darling,” she murmurs, blushing as she sits down.

You look around, taking in the fanciness of the place. The whole place screams way out of your budget. Larissa must notice you starting to get nervous because she reaches across the small table and grabs your hand, sending you a bright smile.

“Order whatever you like sweetheart. It’s on me.” She comments, looking over the menu.

“I- you don’t have to-“

“I know. I want to. So don’t worry about it.”

“I-I don’t even know what to order. I’ve never been to a place as fancy as this before.” You murmur, looking over the menu.

“The steak here is pretty good. And they have a wine that goes really well with it.”

“Oh yeah? So you bring many baristas out here then?” You smirk, dropping the menu.

“Oh yes. I wine and dine every pretty young lady I come across.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

You’re interrupted by the waiter coming to take your orders. Larissa orders for both of you, and the waiter leaves. She then clears her throat and turns her attention back to you.

“So where did you come from? Before you moved to Jericho I mean.” She asked.

“Well, I actually grew up in a small town similar to Jericho. And you know, being a small-town kid all I wanted was to live in the city with all the different kinds of people and that stuff. So I went, and I- it didn’t work out. Rent was fucking expensive and I ended up working two jobs to cover it which just made me depressed and anxious. And it didn’t help that I was already not the healthiest adult out there what with my bouts of weakness and fainting episodes. So after a couple of months and basically a mental breakdown I decided to move here. I would’ve gone back home but I…I just didn’t want to go back to the same people I had grown up with and their disappointment and judgement.”

Larissa gapes at you and you realize you’ve just… let that all out. You start to apologize when she grabs your hand again.

“I’m so sorry you went through that,” She murmurs, “but I’m glad you’re here and I- I do hope Jericho is better for you, I- you deserve to be happy.”

“Well, how could I not be happy when I got to meet a literal goddess among mortals.” You flirt, attempting to lighten the mood.

She blushes at that humming and looks away. The rest of dinner is less exciting but just as wonderful. Larissa tells you about some shenanigans the students have been up to and a little bit more about her time at Nevermore as a student. You talk for hours, she questions your choice in steak (you have it as rare as possible and she finds it interesting.)

You could talk to her forever. And you’re sure you would have, had the restaurant not had a closing time of 10. The two of you apologize to the waiter for staying so long and make your way back to the school.

You arrive back at Nevermore a little while later. You both get out of the car and stop outside Nevermore’s entrance.

“Thank you for inviting me Larissa I-I really enjoyed tonight.” You smile.

“Thank you for accompanying me, I can’t remember the last time I’ve had so much fun.”

“It was my pleasure.”

The two of you stand there for a moment before you both speak.

“I really don’t with tonight to-“

“I was wondering if you’d like to-“

You both flush and you gesture for Larissa to speak first.

“I was wondering if you’d like to come in for a drink?” She asks.

“Yes!” You reply, a little too enthusiastically, so you try again. “Ahem. I mean. Yeah, that sounds neat.”

She chuckles at your antics and leads you inside. As you’re following her to presumably her quarters you can’t help but think that all of this really does seem like a date. The dinner? Rather romantic if you’re honest with yourself. And now? Going back to her rooms to have a drink? That’s definitely slightly fruity.

You realize, upon arriving at her office, that Larissa’s rooms are attached to her office. Which is both handy and baffling considering you’ve been in her office almost every day for the last few weeks and somehow missed the door leading to them. She asks you to take a seat on her comfy couch while she fetches the wine and the glasses.

You sit, suddenly having the thought that if this is a date then you’re woefully unprepared for the Larissa Weems to be romantically interested in you. However, you argue, this could just be her wanting company and you are a pretty good friend. So there’s no need to jump to crazy conclusions like the sexiest woman on earth being interested in you.

“Darling? Are you alright?” Larissa asks, suddenly in front of you with two glasses in hand.

“Huh? I mean yes? Sorry, I just zoned out a bit there.” You blush.

“I do often wonder what goes on in that pretty little head of yours.” She hums.

Christ is she flirting with you??

“It’s not really that interesting truly, a lot of memes or silly songs on repeat more often than not.”

She laughs at that and the two of you settle back into comfortable conversation. About an hour goes by before you finally muster up the confidence to ask the question that’s been on your mind since you arrived.

“Larissa…”

“Yes, dear?” She hums.

She’s sitting next to you on the couch, her heels off and feet tucked beneath her. She’s leaning against the back of the sofa, one hand propped under her head and the other holding her only half-empty glass. She looks so…domestic. It makes your heart flutter in your chest.

“I was just wondering. And I mean I may be really wrong and if I am we can just forget I even opened my big mouth. Maybe I shouldn’t even be asking this. I really don’t want to ruin things between us because you’re like the best person ever but-“

She moves her hand to your thigh, sitting up a bit straighter (and subsequently closer to you somehow). Your eyes dart to her hand as it squeezes your thigh and now your throat is dryer than the Sahara but your underwear will definitely be the opposite.

“What is it you want to ask darling?” She purrs, again ruining your underwear further.

“I uh. This dinner thing. Was it…was this a date?” You finally manage, bracing yourself for the worst.

For a solid moment Larissa just stares at you, her eyes wide. You’re certain it’s the longest moment of your life, and in it you contemplate throwing yourself out the nearest window. You’re about to start back tracking and apologize when she laughs.

And truly, you love her laugh, but right now you can’t help but think she’s laughing at the idea of her being interested in you in that way. You don’t blame her but it makes your heart clench and you look away, doing your best not to burst into tears.

“It was stupid. I’ll just go-“

“Darling-“ she smiles.

“It’s okay! It was silly of me to think someone like you would even like someone like me like that, I know. I’ll just go and we can forget-“

“Darling.” She stops you, still smiling but much more serious. “I’m not laughing because I think it’s silly.”

You hum at that, still not meeting her eyes. She grabs your chin then, forcing you to look at her.

“I was laughing,” she starts, leaning closer to you and whispering, “because I thought I had been rather obvious.”

“Obvious?” You whisper back, still confused.

“I have been flirting with you for quite some time now sweetheart.” She hums.

“Oh.”

Oh.

OH.

“So you- you’ve been…with me? You like me?”

“Very much so.”

“Wow.”

You sit there, taking it all in, taking her in. You then, much to your utter horror, let out the most girlish giggle you have ever giggled. You want to be mortified but she beams at you, her teeth showing and all thoughts exit your head.

She cups your cheek, her thumb brushing over your lip. You part your lips as you do your darndest to breathe. You glance down at her lips, watching as her tongue pokes out to lick them. When you look back at her eyes they’re darker than you’ve ever seen them, her pupils blown.

“I’d very much like to kiss you now, if that’s alright.” She whispers.

“Please.” You whisper back, desperate.

She closes the gap, her soft lips brushing against your own. It’s short and sweet and gentle and everything you’ve ever dreamed of. And then she’s pulling you into her lap and she’s kissing you again except this time it’s needy and desperate and very hot.

Your head is empty aside from the sensation of her lips against hers and the feeling of her body beneath your hands. She runs her hand down your back, palming at your ass and you barely suppress a moan at the feeling. Somehow you manage one coherent thought as you sit there, straddling her lap and kissing her.

Larissa Weems will be the death of you.

[lakesbian]

hi lakesbian it’s me again. I’m actually redrawing the tdi thing for like a third time now ? Anyways I drew Alec but something looks so off. I feel like you will know. Thank uou

im linking the first design you drew for comparison because it was a lot more instantly recognizable as alec for a few reasons

you didn't give him outright curly hair the first go around (which if im getting to make suggestions i will say you should), but the silhouette is closer to the curly mop-type haircut he has. the updated version is an even lighter brown (his hair is black), and the general texture and shape of it isn't recognizable as alecs hair

i have bias and can't be trusted because i was the one who spontaneously generated alec beauty marks and he does not actually have them in text. but i like the beauty marks in the initial design, they add character in a way that makes it feel less generic compared to the third go

the bored disinterested expression on the initial alec is a beautiful+true Alec Face. that is his default resting expression that i Would anticipate to see on his wiki sprite if he were a total drama character. the smile you gave the third iteration is more of a generic relaxed happy face that makes him look like just some random dude

the third iteration has a different like. Relaxed slouchy posture that combines with the smile to make him look like a chillaxed friendly tall lanky guy. alec is lanky but he's not tall, and he's chillaxed only in the sense of having depression and muted emotional responses

in general the features on the third iteration combine to form a lot less recognizable of an image? the first iteration has the pointed chin but it also has more rounded cheeks, he's got his mouth in a little pout, he has a smaller nose, he's posed kinda daintier...he scans very plausibly as a younger teen boy that would get regarded as pretty and disaffected. the third iteration is just like. This is some random guy and im not sure taylor is going to compare him to justin bieber like she did alec

overall the only element on the third iteration that scans as like. Actually alec-specific is the eye color. the rest of it is just kinda too many design steps to the left to immediately scan as The Boy. my suggestion is go back to the initial design and make the hair form curls at the bottom & not just the top + if you're dissatisfied with the outfit as it is do add long sleeves and make the pants black/toss some black boots on him [tiny devil version of me yelling at you from my shoulder: MAKE HIM EVEN GAYER]

it's crazy how good you are at imitating the total drama style tbh i hope this helps and godspeed with your redraws:) it's a really fun idea

[lonelylonelyghost]

Re-watch of The Spirealm. Episode 8

Human Skin Drum

I've already ranted about what I'm think of this concept in general, but I'll reiterate again - people got to stop their obsession with virginity. It's not even real. Y'all are weird and not in a good way.

I just love them... Dumbass x3 (extremely affectionate)

I still think one of the best qualities you can give a character is kindness. Being kind does not equal being boring. This drama proves that even while being inherently good you can also be completely unhinged. Those qualities are not mutually exclusive.

I commend to the actor who plays Cheng Yixie and Qianli. For the embarrassingly long time I was trying to figure out if those were 2 different people playing them or not.

OK, so for those confused about the bracelets and door-skipping rules. I'm about to make it even more confusing.

In theory you have to pass through all 12 Doors, but there is a way to skip some steps. If you, for example went through only the first Door, you can go together with someone who's going through their 5th one. In case you manage to go through it and survive, it will be counted as if you went through all 5 Doors, so in total you'll have less Doors to go through, hence less chances of you dying. But this method also comes with its risks - if you are not experienced enough and enter a higher-level Door, the chance of you successfully going through is extremely low.

And the way to "latch onto" the other person's Door you'll need bracelets. Wearing them allow people to enter the same Door, so the one whose Door needs entering goes in first with others following shortly after. You all will need to take off your bracelets immediately after, so that others could not detect that you are together.

A Maiden is distress. Which one of them? You decide

Ah, to live inside a giant tree with mysterious bones scattered around aesthetically. The house of my dreams...

🧡🧡🧡🧡

Drama Queen strikes again!

Also, not the "bro", this sounds so weird omg hahaha

His immediate and visible distaste towards Xu Jin is hysterical. Yes, we lost a lot by not having the cross-dressing element, but this change also made everything so much gayer

No clue

The touch. The little shudder. The worry.

Kill me.

Bed design.

Looks exchanged with a flag made of human skin in between them. Peak romance.

The way Nanzhu's eyes lit up immediately. You dare? To talk? With MY Lingling? Perish.

"How old are you?"

"I'm 25."

"But I'm only 24. I should call you Ma'am."

Ruan Nanzhu heard once: "All is fair in love and war" and took it literally. He fights dirty, he fights to the death (of his rivals), and he is completely unashamed by it

And his little self-satisfied expression afterwards. I literally can't even with this man

I like that they all genuinely like each other

Not gonna lie, I want a hoodie with this design

Oh, to be a mysterious old woman, living in a mysterious village, doing mysterious shit. Goals.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Hatred and condemn. And it's so clearly not just because Nanzhu suspects her of not being who she says she is. No. It's because she dares to exist in close proximity to Lingling and take up a shred of his attention.

I think this is the closest thing to a hug we'll ever gonna get for the two of them. And I almost feel bad for Xu Jin - poor girl, you never stood even a fraction of a chance

Needle rain is horrifying, but also look at them

[hereforthe911buds]

so let's say at the wedding, Buck decides to come out to his parents before Tommy arrives. But before Tommy can get there, an emergency occurs that he can't leave. So he's later and later and later, until it's more halfway through the reception and Buck already feels like shit due to the hangover.

he sits at a table with his parents, Eddie within ear shot two tables behind them with Marisol. she goes to the bathroom, but Buck's parents are becoming more and more dismissive, to the point the comments are borderline homophobic/biphobic. Eddie can see Buck's stress level building before his eyes.

The one of his parents says "at least you're little thing doesn't have to take away from your sister's wedding." the hurt all over Buck's face, his parents disparaging what is him coming out. Eddie stands up and immediately walks towards Buck.

"Hey," Eddie reaches his hand out, "do you wanna dance?"

"w-what?" Buck studders, but Eddie doesn't wait for a response. He grabs Buck's hand and pulls him to his feet. His parents are shocked, but Eddie is guiding Buck to the dance floor. Honestly Buck feels a little relief that he doesn't have to sit with his parents any longer.

"I'm leading," Eddie orders as he places his hands on Buck's body.

"what are you doing?" Buck questions, but there is a giddyness in his voice.

"dancing with my friend," Eddie answers nonchalantly.

"you don't have to do this," Buck comments, though he doesn't know why he's so happy Eddie did.

"any excuse to give some parents the middle finger," Eddie shrugs off. Buck looks over Eddie's shoulder to his parents glaring, as if he is taking away from his sister's day. but no one else seems to care besides them. He looks back at Eddie.

"well thank you," Buck sighs, "What a mess of a day. I'm almost relieved Tommy didn't make it, not see me looking like I slept on the floor last night."

"what are you talking about? you really rallied. he'd find you handsome as hell," Eddie gleams, then suddenly feeling this tightness in his chest, as if he just realized he's dancing with a guy in front of everyone. and not just any guy. Buck, his best friend who he has a connection with like he hasn't with anyone before.

and now he's publicly dancing with him, and he didn't even think about it. Buck looked like he needed help, and also deserved at least one dance with how good he looked tonight.

oh god.

"and you look-" buck starts, but then stops himself because 1) he may have been about to call his best friend beautiful 2) Marisol is standing by her and eddie's table staring them down.

"uh your girlfriend does not look happy," Buck comments, causing Eddie's head to turn. the second they make eye contact, she hightails out of the reception hall.

"wait!" Eddie yelps as he chases after her. he feels bad leaving Buck there, but his girlfriend is obviously mad. But it's not like he was dancing with a girl, he was just offering some support by slow dancing with his guy best friend.

it is sounding gayer and gayer the more Eddie thinks about it. he's not far behind her but as she stomps through the entrance way, Eddie sees Tommy heading in the opposite direction.

"Hey Eddie!" Tommy starts, but then see Marisol storm past him with Eddie trailing behind, "uh, bye Eddie." wanting to avoid whatever confrontation is happening, he continues into the hall.

as Eddie steps out the building, he looks over his shoulder to see Buck embracing Tommy, looking so elated that he finally appeared.

and Eddie doesn't know why but he feels like he got punched in the gut.

"Marisol!" he calls out.

"I want to go home," she commands.

"yes, let's go home and talk-"

"no, I want to go to my home," she cuts him off, "my car is at yours. either drive me there or I'm taking an Uber to get it."

"it was just Buck," Eddie tries to distract.

"no, it was only Buck," Marisol points out, "we barely even danced, and then you-"

"Eddie, you're in love with your best friend," Marisol states firmly, "I don't care how he feels for you, but I don't want a boyfriend who obviously likes someone else more than me."

"So are you taking me home or not?"

and there goes the longest car ride of Eddie Diaz's life.

[ghostofechoes]

I Need Genuine Help

Don’t worry it’s not that serious but still serious enough to me.

I’ll probably not get a response, this is my most active account online and that’s saying something.

I am going to go trigger happy with tags just to get this post out there so I apologize in advance!

Respond to this send me an ask reblog I don’t care just help me lol.

I don’t know what to do I have to many ideas and no one in my life to help me.

No it’s not mental health and no it’s not that I don’t have anyone I just don’t have anyone who will know how to help me with this.

I am overwhelmed with so many ideas so many stories I want to create in so many different mediums and my brain won’t let me choose one.

I don’t even have a hyperfixation that I can lean on right now to get going with like fanfiction/art.

So I’m stuck in a limbo bursting with creativity but no outlet.

There is another issue

I am exhausted after work and rather let my ideas whirring around in my skull things on easy mode while I watch shows that bring me up.

But that’s not creative, it’s gotten to the point that jotting down my ideas aren’t enough I need to do something.

But everyone I know will tell me to go the capitalist route and pick the one that can make you money the soonest even if it’s not what I am enjoying most at the moment.

But I can’t do it, call it undiagnosed adhd/autism or me being stubborn as fuck but I want to enjoy what I do I am incapable of starting anything if I don’t enjoy it so this is where you all come in.

Help me pick?

What is my limited range of people who can hear my voice interested in the most?

I am going to be doing all of these I am unable to keep away from all my ideas

My issue is taking the first step I would appreciate my audience/community to say what they want to see out of the choices I want to pick so at the very least I will have like one person interacting with my stuff.

So this 31 year old gayby is asking for help thank you for your time!

Love you all out there!

[darukee]

This is Fucking Gay - Part 2

Part 1 here

On a break between classes, Nicole and Jecka went outside to smoke. Jecka takes out two semi-expensive cigarettes and lights both up, handing one to Nicole, who approaches and takes a long puff of it, blowing rings of smoke soon after.

— … Were you serious about fucking me? — Jecka breaks the confortable silence.

— Fucking you in what.

— Leather?

— Oh. I thought you were saying that I was fucking you in some subject.

— That’s also true, I really cannot skip more history classes.

— Why are you bringing that up? You know I would not fuck you.

— Somehow, I cannot decline neither accept you fucking me.

— Yeah, I have this power. So, does that make you gay? — she puffs again.

— Oh no, I’m not gay. I just kiss girls because all the boys suck. — she blows smoke.

— Damn, you’re right. I should start doing this too.

— Have you ever kissed someone here?

— I did kiss Ari at some point. You?

— I kissed Kelly at a party. — she looks down, not fully accepting what she just said.

— Really now? Kelly? Come on, I’m prettier than that.

— Yeah you are… I was, like, super drunk. — Jecka looks up again and takes one more, excited. Nicole chuckles between another puff of the cigarette. A very genuine laugh. Then, she looks down on her own cigarette, smirking.

— So I'm prettier huh?

— You're saying that like you don’t know it. — Jecka grins.

— I think you’re prettier than me.

— Well, duh, but your dad is dead and that’s hot.

— You wished your dad was dead, that is also hot. — they stare each other for a while, not even putting her lips on the cigarettes. Jecka looks down, smiling, and talks.

— You’re more fucked up. Like, you are a damned sociopath. You make me question reality sometimes. Like, if I had made some screwed choice somewhere I would end up arrested and it would be your fault somehow.

— … — this small… confession? Maybe that’s not the definition, but it surely was enough to make Nicole’s eyes widen. After recovering, she smirks. — That’s hot. What is with you today, you keep making me turned on. — she teases, using a more sexy voice.

— You just proved my point. — Jecka smiles, looking at Nicole. The brunette approaches Jecka and rubs her cigarette against hers. — … Somehow, that’s gayer than gay sex.

— I saw this on tumblr, like, some girl puffed some smoke on the mouth of the other girl and they kissed.

— I don’t know If I think this is hot or terrifying.

— A bit of both?

— I’m not trying.

— Yeah, I’m too straight for kissing. — Nicole chuckles, eyes trading views between Jecka and the cigarettes rubbing.

— And you are too straight to do what the hell you are doing right now? — Jecka raises one eyebrow, amused.

— We do drugs together, it is worse than this. — Nicole takes some steps back, returning to smoke normally. — Like you would not fuck me. — Jecka chuckles, rolling her eyes softly.

— I feel like this conversation is returning to the same point.

— Yeah, I’m repeating myself because I know that if I repeat myself long enough you will agree.

— Do you want to do gay sex?

— Do you?

— … Again, I do not have an answer.

— Fuck. Just say yes so I can reject you.

— Why? I’m freaking hot.

— So? I can resist. — Nicole’s eyes squint in a sensual way.

— I passed out last week on your bed and you gave me water when I woke up, that's pretty gay.

— That’s the bare minimum! — she smiles, still trying to keep the fight.

— Well, you never do the bare minimum, how should I know when you are flirting and when you are being a bitch?

— Joke is on you, I do both at the same time. — she blows more smoke.

— True though… — Jecka follows.

— Should we kiss to end the debate?

— It is pretty gay to keep asking me to kiss you.

— True. — Nicole puffs some smoke. — … You think I’m a homossexual?

— Honestly, I’m pretty high on percs right now, I'm not thinking about anything.

— Yeah, this is going nowhere.

— Is it wrong to fuck a girl?

— We should not fuck. We are too pretty to fuck each other. It will cause an imbalance in the world.

— Can we kiss though?

— I guess a peck would be fine.

Nicole throws her cigarette on the ground and steps on it. After that, she approaches Jecka, who puts her cigarette down. Without hesitation, Nicole grabs Jecka’s chin and pulls closer, as the blonde leans to a peck – which should be brief. It lasts a bit more than expected, and, as Jecka’s hands pull Nicole closer, they both start to put tongue on it. After probably some minutes, as they lost track of time, Nicole takes one step back, separating the two. Jecka takes a second to breathe. As soon as she can talk, Nicole wipes her mouth and exclaims:

— Bitch, is this the $1 lipstick from that atrocious store at the mall? — Nicole seems actually upset.

— It is strawberry, thank you.

— Holy shit, you’re poor as fuck.

— Bitch, I bought Starbucks.

— And you kiss me with this lipstick??

— Bitch, I buy you adderall every fucking week.

— And you chose to kiss me with that lipstick.

— Like I would know I was going to kiss you.

— You have to be prepared everyday to kiss me.

— … — without response, they stay in silence for some seconds — Should we do it again or…

— No bitch, your lipstick FUCKING SUCKS.

— YOU KISSED ME FOR SEVERAL MINUTES.

— ‘CAUSE I AM A GOOD FREAKING ACTRESS.

The bell rings. Their free time is over, Unfortunately, they cannot miss every class or they will fail school.

— Ugh, I have chemistry now. — Nicole rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.

— No we don’t.

— The subject, bitch.

— Oh.

Nicole grabs her bag and starts to walk into the school again. On the top of the staircase, she looks back at Jecka and says:

— Buy better lipstick for next time.

— For next–

Before hearing any response, Nicole walks away, towards the Chemistry’s class. Jecka is left there, confused. After thinking for some seconds, she grabs her stuff too and goes to her class, but not before leaving a remark:

— … What an asshole fucking bitch. AND gay. She’s just… All the wrong in the world. — And she takes her steps, at a normal pace, going towards her class. She fixes her make up a bit, smiling.