Soft Launch in Denim (One-shot)
Pairing: Leah Williamson x Y/N
Summary: She’s a voice like velvet and chaos. She’s a captain who never cracks. A Calvin Klein campaign puts them in frame — white tanks, whispered dares, and one kiss that lingers.
A/N: I thought I was going to take a nice breather. But then I saw those images of Leah in the Calvin Klein ads, and bam — a new story was brewing in my mind. This is kind of like an AU of the “Between the Lines” series — if Y/N was proudly out, and Leah and her have met in different circumstances.
Word count: approximately 20k
Leah’s never loved shoots. Not the still ones, anyway. Photos freeze you in time, catch you mid-thought, half-blink, smirk-not-smile — there’s too much room for misinterpretation. Too many people deciding who you are from a single frame.
Still, she said yes to this one.
The studio is in Hackney Wick, all concrete floors and exposed beams, a restored warehouse full of softboxes and moodboards and interns with clipboards. Calvin Klein is going for raw this season — stripped-back, black and white, everything on 35mm film. The campaign is queer — without being loud, intimate, meant to make people feel seen without feeling marketed to. Or so the brief said.
Leah arrives early, as always. Hair still damp from the shower, a hoodie thrown over her shoulder. She signs the NDA without blinking, sips the oat latte handed to her by a quietly reverent assistant, and sits in the makeup chair trying not to overthink the word representation.
“Natural, minimal,” the stylist says, brushing something clear over her lips. “Let your freckles do the talking.”
Leah resists the urge to say: They’re shy.
They’re shooting solo portraits first. Bare-faced, bare-bellied. White tanks, denim jeans, Calvin Klein boy briefs peeking. Leah wears the waistband higher than usual, like armor. The photographer — a softly spoken woman with a lens tattooed on her forearm — says things like “chin down,” “hold it,” “now just breathe,” and Leah tries to follow. It’s fine. It’s just… still.
Leah notices the shift in energy before she sees her. A stir in the crew. A slight lift in the volume, like a room tuning itself toward gravity.
Y/N walks in wearing boots far too tall for morning, a vintage bomber jacket slung off one shoulder, hair perfectly undone. There’s something theatrical in the way she peels off her sunglasses indoors — like she knows people are watching, but pretends she doesn’t care.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says, flashing a smile that somehow feels both genuine and mocking. “Was making out with my guitar.”
Leah doesn’t laugh. She just watches.
Y/N’s gaze lands on her — and sticks.
“Oh,” she says. “You’re the footballer.”
“And you’re the late one,” Leah replies, dryly.
They’re introduced, of course. Polite nods. Handshake. Eye contact that lasts a second too long.
“Leah, Y/N,” the creative director beams. “You’ll be paired for the side-by-side shots. Chemistry’s key, yeah?”
Leah raises an eyebrow. “Chemistry?”
Y/N shrugs. “Don’t worry, I fake it for a living.”
The side-by-side setup is simple: the two of them against a white backdrop, white tanks, denim jeans, Calvin Klein boy briefs peeking. No props. No distractions.
“Closer,” the photographer says.
Now they’re shoulder to shoulder, bare arms brushing. Y/N smells like bergamot and stage sweat. Leah smells like her morning shower and a nervous attempt at normal.
“Try looking at each other,” the photographer suggests.
Y/N meets her gaze — head tilted, a tiny smile forming at the corner of her mouth.
Leah huffs. “Don’t start.”
They take dozens of frames. Angles and micro-movements. At one point, they’re asked to sit cross-legged, knees touching, hands resting on denim-clad thighs.
She fidgets. Plays with her rings. At one point, she brushes a lock of Leah’s hair out of her face — and keeps her fingers there a moment too long.
Later, the crew will say the image was electric.
In the moment, Leah just holds her breath.
Y/N’s sprawled on the edge of the makeup table, sipping from a can of something sparkly and annotated with a sharpie scrawl: not yours. She swings her legs, all soft menace and idling charm.
Leah leans against the wall, towel around her neck, trying not to stare.
“You don’t talk much,” Y/N observes, popping a cherry into her mouth.
Leah tilts her head. “Maybe I’m observing.”
Y/N narrows her eyes. “Do you brood on the pitch too?”
Y/N grins. “So — never, then?”
Leah laughs before she can stop herself.
It’s small. Real. Unrehearsed.
Y/N watches her closely. “There it is.”
Later, as the lighting crew resets for the final shot, Leah catches her reflection in the makeup mirror — her own face, bare and still flushed, framed by the fragments of Y/N’s voice lingering behind her like static.
But she knows, with a sudden clarity, that she’s going to think about today for longer than she should.
Y/N already looks like the chorus to a song Leah hasn’t heard yet.
Y/N doesn’t usually replay her own demos.
She writes them, sings them, lets them breathe for a week or two, and then shoves them into the drawer with the rest of her almosts. It’s too dangerous to linger — she’s learned that. The longer she stares at something unfinished, the more likely she is to ruin it.
But tonight, she can’t stop.
Her phone is plugged into the tiny Bluetooth speaker that came with the hotel room — barely louder than a whisper, a little tinny around the bass — but the melody is still unmistakable. Sparse. Intimate. Just a few chords on a loop and her voice over it, delicate but certain:
“You look like a Polaroid I forgot I took / denim, breathless, a break in the look…”
She wrote it last week in Los Angeles, in the back of a Lyft, waiting at a red light while a stranger’s hand grazed hers by mistake. It hadn’t been about anyone.
The Calvin Klein shoot had ended with nothing more than a wave.
Leah had walked off quietly, hoodie back over her shoulders, water bottle in hand. Y/N had tried not to watch her go.
Something about the way Leah held herself — controlled, precise — made Y/N itch to unravel her. Not in the usual way, not in the ways fans or press or PR demanded. But in the way a songwriter does: with a bridge. With a soft verse no one else hears.
Y/N doesn’t write about people she’s just met.
She doesn’t feel things this fast.
The hotel room is far too nice for someone who still eats canned soup twice a week. High ceilings, brutalist angles softened by linen throws. There’s a bowl of complimentary green apples she won’t touch. A rain shower she’ll overuse out of spite.
She sits cross-legged on the bed, notebook in her lap, and scribbles a half-verse that feels too obvious.
“You said ‘closer’ and I heard ‘stay’ / didn’t mean to tilt my face that way…”
She crosses it out. Tries again. Gives up and opens Instagram.
The campaign hasn’t launched yet, but there are behind-the-scenes stories. A blurry shot of the studio. A slow zoom on the Polaroids taped to the whiteboard.
And there — second row, far right — is one of them.
Side-by-side. White tanks. Denim. Hip to hip.
She knows what it looked like. What it felt like.
The pause between shots when Leah had turned her head, eyes catching hers, not quite smiling.
“You don’t talk much,” she’d said.
“Maybe I’m observing,” Leah had replied.
Y/N closes the app and presses play on the demo again.
This time, she doesn’t sing along. She just listens.
Listens to the space between the notes, the hesitation in her own voice.
A name she hasn’t said out loud.
Her phone buzzes — one of those “you still up?” texts from her manager, Olivia, checking in from New York.
Yeah. Listening to the new track.
It’s Leah-coded, isn’t it?
She gets up to grab a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and catches herself in the mirror.
Still in makeup. Still in the Calvin set.
The tank top hangs loose around her collarbone. The waistband of the briefs just visible above the denim she hasn’t bothered to unzip fully.
She looks like a campaign.
She looks like an aesthetic.
She looks like someone who could break her own rule.
That night, she doesn’t sleep.
She lies awake, staring at the ceiling, demo playing softly on loop beside her.
Not because she’s proud of it.
But because she doesn’t know how to stop hearing her in it.
She knows she’ll see Leah again — not in person, maybe not for a week or two. But eventually.
She’s going to have to figure out if this is just a look, a feeling, a marketing moment —
—or the start of something she won’t be able to take back.
Los Angeles is exactly as obnoxious as Leah expects.
The sky is too blue. The cars too shiny. Every hotel lobby smells like eucalyptus and capital. Even the air seems filtered — as if someone’s running the whole city through a softening lens.
And yet, when Y/N walks into the Calvin Klein welcome dinner in a sheer mesh dress and knee-high boots, Leah can’t look away.
The restaurant is in West Hollywood — minimalist, dim, everything beige and expensive. Leah is dressed I n tailored black trousers, a white tank under a structured blazer. Not overdressed. Not under. Just enough to keep people guessing.
She sees Y/N is sitting on the outdoor patio, flanked by two execs, laughing too loud at something one of them just said. Her hair is pinned up haphazardly, and there’s a run in her tights. Somehow, it makes her look more intentional. More real.
Leah slides into the seat beside her, nods a hello, and avoids direct eye contact.
“Didn’t think footballers did fashion weeks,” Y/N teases, taking a slow sip of her drink.
Leah shrugs. “Didn’t think musicians showed up on time.”
Y/N’s grin widens. “I’m evolving.”
The brand director gives a speech. Someone toasts “authentic visibility.” Another exec refers to the two of them as “the face of modern fluidity,” and Leah nearly spits her wine.
“I didn’t know I had a fluid face,” she mutters.
Y/N snorts beside her. “You do. Very symmetrical. Almost threateningly so.”
The table clinks glasses. Cameras flash. Everything feels curated to hell.
Leah leans toward Y/N. “How do you stand this?”
Y/N raises an eyebrow. “This?”
“All of it. The press. The posing. The pretending to care about gift bags.”
“I compartmentalize,” Y/N says, swirling her drink. “One part charm, one part mascara, one part lingering threat of a scandal.”
Leah grins, despite herself. “You should trademark that.”
Some warehouse downtown has been converted into an event space — neon signage, DJ booth, minimalist furniture. The same song loops every five minutes. Influencers flit between photo ops and real-time edits of their own Instagram Stories. Everyone smells like sandalwood and desperation.
Leah lasts twenty minutes.
She’s slipping toward the exit when a hand curls gently around her wrist.
“Leaving already?” Y/N asks.
Leah nods. “It’s all a bit much.”
Y/N considers her for a second. “Come up to the rooftop.”
The building has a private terrace. Faux grass, string lights, two space heaters trying their best. It’s quiet — too high for street noise, too exclusive for guests that aren’t paid to smile.
Y/N lights a cigarette, offers one. Leah declines.
“I figured,” Y/N says. “You’re too clean.”
Leah smirks. “You’re too dramatic.”
They sit in silence for a moment, watching the skyline flicker. Leah notices the way Y/N leans into her own shoulder, as if trying to fold herself smaller than she is.
Y/N exhales. “You ever feel like you’re being watched even when you’re alone?”
Y/N takes a long drag. “It’s just… I built a version of myself to survive this industry. Femme, flirty, queer but palatable. I know how to make people love me. I just don’t always recognize who they’re loving.”
Leah watches the smoke curl upward.
“I get that,” she says softly.
Y/N turns to her. “You do?”
“Yeah. I spend so much time being someone people can rely on, I forget how to just… be.”
They sit with that for a minute.
Then Y/N stubs out the cigarette and shifts closer.
“I don’t usually like people right away,” she says. “But you’re—different.”
Leah meets her gaze. “Good different?”
Y/N nods, slow. “Dangerously.”
Leah lifts a hand, tucks a loose strand of hair behind Y/N’s ear. It’s a stupid, instinctive thing. She doesn’t even realize she’s done it until Y/N leans into the touch.
Their faces are too close.
Their mouths even closer.
Y/N’s voice drops to a whisper. “You’re staring.”
Leah murmurs, “You want me to stop?”
Because she’s already leaning in.
Nothing performative. No angles for the camera. Just a shared breath and the brief hum of something inevitable.
Y/N’s hand curls into the lapel of Leah’s blazer. Leah’s fingers rest at the curve of Y/N’s waist. Neither of them pulls away at first.
Not awkward. Just… loaded.
Leah looks away first. “That probably wasn’t smart.”
Y/N smiles without humour. “No. Probably not.”
But before she does, she says:
“If you write a song about this… make me a bridge, not the chorus.”
They don’t talk for four days.
Not because anything was wrong. Not really.
It’s just that neither of them is quite sure what that was.
And in this industry, when you don’t know what something is, you wait for the headlines to tell you.
Leah flies back to London first, alone.
The car ride to LAX is quiet, the type of quiet that starts under the skin and stretches out into the air like fog. Her team is chatty — something about Euros prep, media engagements, a kit launch. Leah nods through it all, sunglasses on, fingers clenched around her phone like it might buzz with something that matters.
The rooftop kiss has already been swallowed by the West Hollywood skyline. There are no photos. No press. No trace.
Just a feeling — like the last chord of a song that never got recorded.
She has studio time booked, two podcasts to guest on, and a brand dinner where she’s supposed to say nice things about denim and “the fluidity of expression.” She says the lines, signs the napkins, and sneaks out before dessert.
Later that night, in a rented studio downtown, she rerecords the chorus of that demo. Slows it down. Adds strings.
Then deletes the whole file before the session ends.
Back in London, it rains.
Leah likes it that way. Rain gives her an excuse to hibernate, to pretend it’s the weather that keeps her indoors and not the knot in her chest every time she scrolls Instagram and sees Y/N’s face in someone else’s story.
She hasn’t been able to stop replaying that moment on the rooftop.
The way Y/N’s eyes softened. The way her lips parted just before—
Before Leah stepped back.
She tells herself it was smart. Clean. A way of protecting them both.
Y/N is… a firework. Public. Lyrical. Emotional.
Leah isn’t built for that kind of exposure. Her heart doesn’t know how to market itself.
And yet, she wishes she’d stayed.
Just five minutes longer.
Just long enough to see what would’ve happened if she hadn’t pulled away.
The next time they see each other, it’s accidental.
Leah’s invited to a benefit gig at a Camden venue — a fundraiser for queer youth spaces, sponsored by a friend of a friend. She doesn’t realize Y/N is performing until she sees her name on the lineup, printed in pale serif font on a charcoal poster outside the entrance.
She tells herself she can leave early. That she’s here for the cause, not the company.
Y/N walks on stage barefoot, hair messy, eyeliner a little smudged like she’s daring someone to call her out.
She doesn’t announce herself.
She just steps to the mic and strums the opening chords of a song Leah hasn’t heard before.
Not a ballad, exactly — more like a secret in melody form.
The second verse catches her off guard:
“Rooftop hush and teeth on lip /
Didn’t ask, but you almost slipped /
I waited for a sign, you gave me silence /
So I kissed the moment instead of your eyelids.”
Y/N looks out over the crowd, eyes catching on Leah’s for half a second before gliding past — as if she were just another face in the dark.
Every word stitched into her ribcage like thread.
Y/N is standing in front of a mirror, unfastening her in-ear monitor when Leah finds her.
Their eyes meet in the reflection.
Neither says anything for a moment.
Then Y/N speaks. “You came.”
“I didn’t know you were playing.”
Y/N smirks. “But you stayed.”
Leah swallows. “Yeah. I stayed.”
She hesitates, then steps closer.
“You wrote that about me.”
Y/N shrugs. “I write about feelings. You happened to be one.”
Y/N turns around to face her. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I say that like I can’t afford it.”
They stand close enough to feel the warmth off each other.
“Leah,” Y/N says quietly. “I don’t do ‘almost.’ Not anymore.”
Leah exhales. “I don’t know if I can do more.”
Then Y/N nods. “Then this was probably the kiss that wasn’t.”
“And if I change my mind?”
“Then you better write your own verse.”
The internet ships them before they do.
A blurry photo appears on Twitter first — Leah in a hoodie, Y/N in a bomber jacket, both standing near a Camden side door, the kind with chipped paint and a flickering light overhead. Someone’s caption reads:
“wait… was that Leah Williamson backstage at Y/N’s gig tonight?? 👀”
“calvin campaign turned real??”
By the next morning, there’s an Instagram fan account dedicated to them.
Header: a Calvin Klein still.
Bio: “we don’t do almost.”
Leah wakes up to a WhatsApp from Keira.
Oi. You seeing this mess?
Followed by a screenshot of a TikTok edit.
Clips from the shoot. Y/N’s performance. That lyric.
Overlayed with: “in another life, maybe…”
She groans into her pillow.
She’s barely brushed her teeth when Alex — yes, that Alex — sends a voice note:
“If you’re going to soft launch your girlfriend, at least send me the press kit first.”
Leah rolls her eyes so hard it gives her a headache.
Across the city, Y/N is unfazed.
She’s doing an interview with a queer music zine, sitting on a stool in her producer’s loft, sipping tea from a mug that says GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. She’s wearing her Calvin Klein tank again — strategically, of course — and lets the camera catch it in profile.
“So,” the host grins, “word is you’ve been getting close to a certain Lioness lately…”
Y/N cocks her head. “Oh? Which one?”
The interviewer laughs, flustered. “You know who.”
Y/N doesn’t answer right away. Just taps her fingers on the ceramic, steady and deliberate.
“Let’s just say,” she says finally, “some people look better in denim than they do online.”
Later that night, she posts a Story:
a soft-focus photo of a city windowpane, raindrops trailing down.
just because it’s on your screen doesn’t mean it’s real.
The club season resumes in full force.
Leah throws herself into Arsenal — training, tactics, media appearances. She keeps her head down and her tackles clean. Says all the right things at press conferences. Avoids DMs.
Still, the whispers don’t stop.
Every photo she’s in gets quote-tweeted with “mother” or “Y/N was so real for this” or “they’re in love, your honor.”
And maybe the worst part is… she doesn’t hate it.
Because for the first time in a long while, the version of her that the world sees — calm, sharp, quietly intense — actually aligns with what someone real has seen in her.
Weeks pass. No texts. No new songs.
Leah starts to wonder if she imagined the whole thing.
Then, one Friday night, her Spotify recommends a new release.
The cover is plain: white background, serif font.
The title: “The Quiet Between Notes”
She hesitates. Presses play.
Delicate, bruised, holding back something just under the surface. The production is stripped down. Just a piano. A few layered harmonies. And then — the second verse:
“You were thunder held in bone /
a captain even when alone /
I kissed the hush, not the mouth /
and called it almost, somehow.”
The next morning, she sees a tweet by a fan that tagged her:
“okay but why does ‘The Quiet Between Notes’ feel like a Leah Williamson verse??”
Leah doesn’t expect the knock on her door.
It’s early — not morning, not night. That hour where time is slack and the city hums low. She’s in joggers, socks mismatched, tea gone cold on the counter. She thinks it might be her neighbor again, the one who always forgets her parcel code.
Backlit by the hallway light, denim jacket slung over one shoulder, a tote bag hanging from the other. Her hair’s pulled up like she didn’t bother to try, which means she definitely did. There’s a tiredness in her eyes, but it softens when Leah opens the door.
“Hi. My manager got in touch with your people — I wanted to know your address.”
Leah blinks. “You flew to London?”
Y/N shrugs. “Seemed fair. You flew into my song.”
Leah’s mouth twitches. “Fair.”
They stand there for a second — not awkward, just… paused. Like a held chord waiting for the next note.
“Can I come in?” Y/N asks.
Leah steps aside. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
The flat is quiet. Clean, but lived-in. A book left spine-up on the couch. A single framed photo on the shelf — Leah and her mum, laughing at something off-camera.
Y/N drops her bag gently and leans against the kitchen island. “I didn’t plan this.”
“I just… I thought if I waited too long, I’d talk myself out of it.”
Leah nods, slow. “Out of what?”
Y/N looks up. “Out of seeing you again.”
But there’s a new kind of tension now — not brittle, not confused. A tethered hum. Like gravity rediscovered.
“I liked the song,” Leah says.
“I wasn’t sure you’d hear it.”
“You sent it to the whole world. Of course I heard it.”
Y/N smiles, small. “It was easier than texting you.”
Then Leah adds, “I wasn’t sure if I should reach out.”
“I think we both got scared.”
Leah glances at her. “Of what?”
“Of ruining the version of us we made up in our heads.”
Y/N’s fingers toy with the edge of her sleeve. “I meant what I said in the song.”
Leah meets her gaze. “Which part?”
“The part about kissing the hush.”
“I wanted more,” Y/N says. “But I didn’t know if you did.”
Leah exhales. “I did. I do.”
Y/N blinks, caught off guard. “You do?”
“I just didn’t know how to make room for it.” She swallows. “I’m not used to people seeing me and not asking for more than I’m ready to give.”
“I wasn’t asking,” Y/N says. “I was offering.”
“I don’t want a campaign,” she says.
Y/N tilts her head. “No?”
“I want… late-night walks. Bad jokes. You complaining about oat milk. I want the real stuff.”
Y/N laughs, the kind that shakes her shoulders. “You want me.”
Then, finally, finally — they kiss.
But this one feels like it counts.
Like something that breathes.
After, Y/N rests her forehead against Leah’s.
“You still worried I’ll write a song about you?”
Leah smirks. “You already did.”
“Well,” Y/N says, grinning, “then maybe you should help me write the next one.”
There’s no magazine spread. No red carpet reveal. No cryptic tweet with matching emojis or a blurry hand-holding paparazzi shot outside Soho House.
Instead, there’s a photo.
Posted on Instagram without comment on a random Tuesday afternoon.
A mirror selfie in Leah’s flat, both of them in denim — Y/N’s light wash, Leah’s dark. Matching white tanks, sleeves rolled up. Y/N holds the phone, Leah’s chin rests on her shoulder. They’re smiling. The soft, unbothered kind.
There’s no tag. No caption.
It’s the most honest thing either of them has shared in months.
And it breaks the internet in under seven minutes.
Keira: I win the betting pool.
Alex: I’m reposting with sparkles. Deal with it.
Olivia (Y/N’s manager): One million likes in two hours. You owe me brunch.
Even Leah’s mum texts a single thumbs-up emoji and the words: she looks cheeky. i like her.
Leah laughs. Then turns her phone face down and lets it rest.
They spend the evening doing absolutely nothing.
Door locked. Curtains drawn. Music playing low — a playlist they’ve been curating together. Mitski, James Blake, a couple of Y/N’s songs Leah has on loop.
They order ramen, fight over which Studio Ghibli film to rewatch, and fall asleep tangled in each other’s arms on the sofa, too lazy to move.
Leah wakes up first, around 3 a.m., and just… watches her.
Y/N, curled into her chest, one leg slung across her thigh, a hand twitching softly in sleep like she’s still playing a chord in her dream.
It’s terrifying how much Leah cares already.
Terrifying how easy it feels.
In the morning, Y/N steals Leah’s hoodie and wears it to the corner café.
They sit by the window. Y/N doodles in a small notebook while Leah reads the back page of the Guardian. Neither speaks much. They don’t need to.
When the barista asks, “Are you two…?”
Y/N gets a call from Calvin Klein about a follow-up campaign. “Nothing too branded,” they promise. “Just something honest. Something soft.”
She says yes, on one condition: Leah’s involved.
They shoot it at home — no stylists, no set. Just denim and bare feet on hardwood floors. Messy bedsheets. Shared headphones. A shot of them brushing their teeth side by side, laughing with mouths full of foam.
But this time, it feels deserved.
Later, Leah scrolls through the campaign images and lands on her favorite: Y/N curled up on the armrest of their couch, head tilted back, Leah’s hand resting lazily on her ankle.
She didn’t know a photo could feel like home.
Didn’t know denim could be a love language.
Didn’t know this — whatever this is — could be real.
And it’s just the beginning.
