#beanierose

[artificialqueens]

at dusk beneath a diabetic moon (trixya) 1/4 - beanierose

AN: i am enormously grateful as always to mattepinkallshades, joanneelizabeth and connyhascontrol for being so supportive and encouraging, and letting me talk their ears off about this iteration of our girls. i feel very blessed to have you. and stutter, i will never be able to thank you enough. for cheering me on, for making me a playlist, for beta reading, for being such a bright spot of joy in my life. thank you, thank you, thank you.

(read on ao3) | (find me at katiehoughton)

a buzzfeed unsolved/x files au. katya hunts cryptids. trixie doesn’t believe in them, but she believes in katya. | 5,145 words

Katya feels at her absolute sexiest and most gay sitting in the Wrangler with her elbow propped against the window frame, smoking a cigarette and waiting for Trixie. She will get off work at the salon in just a few minutes. Katya has her own duffel and Trixie’s pink hard-shell suitcase in the trunk, and a stack of cassettes for Trixie to choose from. It’s the sacrifice she has to make in order to enjoy the aesthetic of the vintage Jeep, that she can’t annoy Trixie with endless playlists of 90s Russian pop on Spotify. They make do, and she doesn’t mind letting Trixie choose what they listen to.

While she’s waiting, Katya replies to a few tweets asking for a hint about her next investigation. People are still sending her memes from the last time, grainy, crazy-looking ones, the ones Trixie tells her are called deep fried. She doesn’t super understand them, not always, but she listens when Trixie tells her how important it is to engage. How that will help to grow her audience.

Trixie is kind of bossy, and Katya likes it a lot. She’s her best friend, since college, and when Trixie graduated and Katya was two years out of school and still just working in the costume store, she didn’t hesitate to follow Trixie out west. All of this was Katya’s idea, but they wouldn’t be where they are without Trixie pushing, Trixie organising, Trixie taking moody, verdant photographs of the back of Katya’s head for Instagram.

Katya keeps her replies as cryptic as she possibly can, and when people start tweeting at Trixie as well to ask her for details, she locks her phone again and puts it away. She drums her fingers against the outside of the car and watches people walking by, some of them looking at her. A man walking a dog goes right past the Jeep, only a couple inches away from her, and Katya almost topples headfirst out of the rolled down window to get to scratch the puppy’s snout. After he’s gone, Katya lifts her hand to her nose and breathes in the dog-smell of her fingers, lives there in that secret shame for a little while.

All of the girls come out of the salon at the same time at the end of each day, and Katya likes so much to watch them. Trixie is a head taller than everybody else and there are cute little wisps of hair escaping her ponytail to frame her round, lovely face. She’s laughing with one of her colleagues, her mouth open so wide that Katya can see all of her back teeth even from the other side of the street. When Trixie turns around and sees the car she gives Katya a small wave and comes across the street with a little bounce in her step, her ponytail swishing behind her. Katya picks up the Del Taco bag from the seat so that Trixie can sit down, and hands it to her once she has her seatbelt fastened.

“Oh, my god. I literally love you. Thank you. Hi.” Trixie is always starving when she gets off work and she begins rummaging through the bag right away.

Katya starts the engine and the car rumbles to life beneath them. “Hello, hi, hello, how are you, how was your day?”

“It was just okay. That WASP woman came in again, you remember from last month?” Katya hums a small noise of confirmation. “She won’t let anybody else wash her hair. I had to do it, even though I told her that I’m a senior fuckin’ stylist.” Trixie stuffs a handful of fries in her mouth and chews politely, swallows them down before she finishes talking. “I’m supposed to supervise and delegate.”

“Uh-huh,” Katya says. “Trixie, honey, you gotta stop trying to convince people that you’re a top.”

Trixie shrieks and strains against her seatbelt like she wants to lunge across the centre console and finally throttle Katya. Her mascara is coming off in little flakes underneath her eyes, and the pink tip of her nose is showing through her foundation. She’s tired, Katya knows, and she’d love to go home and sink into a warm bath, her skin made slippery and soft by all of the special products she puts into the water. Instead she’s here, in Katya’s beat-up old car, already rummaging through the shoebox of cassettes in the passenger footwell.

She chooses Kate Bush, and she has another couple of tapes picked out for when this one finishes that she’s keeping tucked underneath her thigh like she thinks Katya might take them from her. Trixie fishes around in the glove compartment for a pencil and sticks it through the sprocket to wind the tape back to the start, the tip of her tongue just poking out because she’s concentrating so hard.

After she’s done and the staticky voices of Dan Brandenstein and NASA fill the car, Trixie offers Katya one of her crinkle cut fries. Katya munches on it cheerfully while she checks her mirrors and pulls out of their parking spot. Trixie is eating her veggie burrito with one hand and taking the scrunchie out of her hair with the other.

Katya hasn’t yet grown tired of Trixie’s whole post-work routine. After she’s done eating, Trixie wriggles out of her black blouse and slacks in the passenger seat. She had left a change of clothes for herself neatly folded on top of her suitcase, and Katya had let herself in to Trixie’s apartment with her spare key earlier today to collect everything. She saw a pepto-bismol Post-it tacked to the door of the refrigerator to remind Trixie’s roommate, Kim, that she needs to give the chinchilla food and fresh water every day that Trixie is away. Katya likes Trixie’s writing, how she dots the i in Kim’s name with a little heart. Her own is scrawling and messy as chicken scratch.

It isn’t a graceful production for Trixie to get dressed again, and Katya focuses very hard on the road ahead so Trixie doesn’t get all embarrassed and grumpy. She doesn’t put her boots on after she’s dressed, instead propping her feet up on the dash in their wool socks. She pushes her toes against the glass of the windshield until they crack and she moans loudly. Katya is so grateful that Trixie comes with her at all for these trips, and especially after ten hours on her feet.

After some time spent massaging her arches and groaning, Trixie takes her iPad out of her backpack and starts scrolling around in their shared Google document. They’ve been researching and collecting information. Katya has been reading everything she can get her hands on and making notes for Trixie, highlighting the parts that she thinks are especially interesting.

“You know,” Trixie says, and taps two fingers against her chin. “This might be the first time that I kinda believe in the thing that we’re looking for.”

Katya turns her head for just a moment to glance at Trixie. The sun is setting on Katya’s left, and she likes the idea of Trixie looking back at her and seeing the sky peach-pink and luminous behind her. “You do?”

“Yeah! Bigfoot is meat and bone, Katya.”

She sounds so emphatic that Katya laughs out loud, a small sharp thing that reverberates around the inside of the car for long enough that she almost winds down the window again to let it back out. That would be less than wise; it’s raining. And it’s begun to get dark. Katya doesn’t like driving very much, likes it even less in these conditions. When it’s sunny and dry and warm, she will hold the wheel down at six in just one hand and rest the other on the window frame or sometimes along the back of Trixie’s seat. Tonight she has a firm grip with both hands and she’s focusing so hard on the road she keeps catching herself leaning forward.

“I know this,” Katya says. “I didn’t think that you did. I was super ready to have to persuade you with all my extensive and incredibly scientific and — Trixie, and — one hundred percent factual research.”

Trixie has elongated in the seat as they’ve been driving. She’s reclined it way back and she still has her feet propped up on the dash. The blood is definitely not reaching them correctly, and when she gets out of the car later she’s going to whine and hop around like a little sparrow until her circulation comes back. She has the iPad resting against the slope of her thighs and she scrolls back up to the top of the document again.

“Like how the earliest recorded sightings are from the fifteenth century? And how lots of cultures have different names for the same idea? Hmm? Those facts?”

“Those are facts!” Katya starts, and then sees Trixie right at the edge of her vision, barely suppressing a smirk. Her cheeks have hollowed with the effort and her eyes are wide. “Wow, I hate you so much.”

Trixie reads a little more of their research out loud, like Katya wasn’t the one who compiled all of it. Like she hasn’t already drafted her tweets for later with the most important details. She hardly minds; she likes the way Trixie’s voice sounds. She’s turned the volume down on the cassette player a bit, so that she can tell Katya about how there have been sightings in almost every state, how that lends credence to the idea that Bigfoot is a species, rather than a singular creature.

“Well yeah, honey. You look in the mirror lately?”

Trixie screams and drums her heels against the dashboard, squirming around in her seat. Katya’s laughing too, and she relaxes her grip on the steering wheel a bit. Just having Trixie next to her in the car always makes her feel safer, which doesn’t make any sense at all because she has on more than one occasion lunged across the centre console and put her hands around Katya’s throat while they’ve been driving.

“That’s so mean. You’re so mean. I can’t believe I’m friends with you.” She’s taken her sunglasses off now that it’s gotten darker, and she folds the legs in neatly and puts them away in their pink case, stows it in the glove compartment.

Katya grins. “Well, I am a cryptid hunter. I’m one of the few people that believe you exist. So you don’t really have another option.”

“Okay, I got it, thanks so much,” Trixie says.

She gets into a bit of a snit and draws her legs up onto her seat, folds them beneath herself instead. There’s only twenty more minutes or so until they get to where they’re going, so Katya leaves her to work through it by herself in furious silence. It’s unkind to provoke her after a long work day. Katya should have known better; she does know better.

“Hey,” she says, after a handful of minutes in which she has to be very careful not to turn her head towards Trixie. “You’re very pretty.”

“I know.” It comes out sharp, but then her face softens into a smile. She uncrosses her arms and stretches them up above her head, as high as the roof of the Wrangler will let her.

They’re driving along the main street through the town now. Even in the dark and the rain it’s pretty cute, the street lined with trees and low, single-storey buildings. Behind them, the mountains sweep upward so steeply that it makes Katya dizzy when she leans forward towards the windshield to try and see the top.

“This place is kinda charming. If you’re into like, mildew and cheap beer,” Trixie says.

Katya swings a right into the parking lot of the motel and cuts the engine. “You know those are my two main interests. You think we’ll have time to go apartment hunting while we’re here?”

“Since when do you want to live like a person?” Trixie lifts both eyebrows. She always looks so pleased with herself whenever she gets a chance to tease Katya, and her mouth is turned up at the corners so the dimple in her left cheek is more pronounced. “We’ll get you a nice tarp and an extra pair of wool socks.”

“Oh wow, two pairs? A life of true decadence.”

Trixie doesn’t respond; she’s begun rummaging in her footwell, collecting all of her belongings. It usually takes less than five minutes of her being in Katya’s car before her stuff is scattered everywhere, but she is always courteous, always careful to take everything with her when she gets out. While she’s occupied, Katya jumps down without using the step and rounds the front of the Jeep to open Trixie’s door for her and offer her a hand. She doesn’t need it — she’s taller than Katya is — but she never refuses.

“We can’t stay someplace nice?” Trixie says, looking over the top of Katya’s head. The red neon Vacancy sign is making her face look warm and pink and sweet. “Just one time?”

“You wanna pay?” Katya says back.

Trixie squawks in distaste and Katya leaves her there, leaning against the side of the Wrangler and shifting her weight in agitation while the blood comes back into her feet. She gets their luggage out of the trunk and takes everything inside, Trixie trailing a few paces behind with just her little pink backpack.

Katya is the kind of person who says thank you to Siri whenever she asks a question, and Trixie is the kind of person who giggles at her every time for doing it. Because of this, Katya is always the one to speak with the person at the front desk and smile politely and collect their room keys, while Trixie busies herself a few feet away. She thumbs through the racks of leaflets advertising things to do in the surrounding area. Almost all of it is Bigfoot-adjacent, and Trixie certainly won’t find anything interesting enough to make her actually pick one out.

The moment they get into their room, Trixie unzips her suitcase and heads straight for the bathroom with a thing of Clorox wipes. She does this every time, and Katya can hear her singing cheerfully to herself while she scrubs the sink or whatever, so she leaves her to it. It gives her a minute to stretch out after the drive. Katya sits down right on the floor, even though it will make Trixie click her tongue in disgust, and moves easily through a few simple poses.

It feels good; she likes the way that it kind of burns when she pushes her hip flexors as far as she can. Her hair is spilling down all over her face and getting into her eyes, and she has a red scrunchie around her wrist but she doesn’t want to shift out of downward-facing dog to tie it up. After a couple minutes her legs start tingling and she brings them down and sits up, gathers as much of her hair up as she can. It only skims the top of her shoulders and it always wants to fall down and stick in sweaty tendrils to her cheeks and neck.

“Get off the floor,” Trixie says when she comes out of the bathroom. “You’re gonna get hepatitis.”

Katya lifts her head from her plow pose to look at Trixie. “I think that would be very sexy of me. Will you nurse me, Trixie? Will you tenderly pat my forehead with a cool facecloth?”

“I’ll smother you with a pillow.”

Sweat is beginning to prickle between Katya’s shoulder blades and make her back feel all itchy and unpleasant. She flops down flat onto the floor and Trixie steps carefully over her and sits herself primly on the end of one of the twin beds. She has a way of always, immediately, making the places they stay feel more like home. It’s not like she brings a bunch of scented candles, although Katya doesn’t doubt that she would if she thought she could get away with it. Just her presence in a space is enough to make it feel warmer and cosier and more pink.

Everything in Trixie’s suitcase is organised carefully into packing cubes, and when Katya opens her duffel and things start falling out onto the ground Trixie sighs loudly. Katya rummages around until she finds her dopp kit and she holds it aloft, victorious.

“I’m gonna shower. I am feeling extremely gross from the drive.”

“You’re extremely gross from who you are as a person.” Trixie has taken her boots off and wriggled up the bed so that she’s leaning against the headboard now. Her hair is a bit matted at the back from their long drive, and her makeup is smudged and wearing away. “I’m gonna call and check in with Orville.”

Katya’s knees both crack loudly when she straightens up and she winces. “Cool. Say hello to our son from me.”

“He’s not your son, Cruella,” Trixie fires back at her before Katya closes the bathroom door.

The spray from the showerhead is lacklustre, and Trixie is definitely going to be unhappy about that when she washes her hair tomorrow. It makes Katya laugh just thinking about it and some of the water gets into her mouth.

Freshly dressed, she comes out of the bathroom to see Trixie laying on her stomach on her bed, grinning at the screen of her phone. She’s on FaceTime, and Kim has propped her own phone up against the chinchilla’s cage so that Trixie can watch Orville eat. Katya likes that Trixie doesn’t stop her soft voice or her goofy smile when she comes into the room. She leans down over Trixie to put her face in the frame as well. When Trixie first announced one day that she was going to get a chinchilla and dragged Katya to the pet store to help carry everything, she hadn’t really understood the appeal. She gets it now. Orville sits on his hind legs and holds a grass pellet in his front paws to nibble at delicately, and Katya and Trixie watch him eat.

Katya had been with Trixie the day she got Orville from the rescue center. She’d been the one to drive back to Trixie’s apartment, and she’s pretty sure that was the closest she’ll ever come in her life to the feeling of driving home from the hospital with a newborn in the car seat. Trixie had cradled the carrier in both arms and sung softly to the chinchilla, so that he could get used to her voice. Now he’s inquisitive and goofy, and he likes to ride around on Katya’s shoulder whenever she’s over at Trixie’s place.

After a little while, Kim comes back into frame and tells them she has to hang up now but that she’ll check in later, before she goes to bed. “You’re a really good dad,” Katya says, and then darts rapidly off the bed and out of range so that Trixie can’t smack her.

She sits up and gathers all of her hair up off her neck in both hands, rolls her head on her shoulders. “You’re his dad. I’m a MILF. Can we get snacks?”

“Really?” Katya sits at the end of her own bed to start putting her Docs back on. “Watching him eat those nasty-ass dried-up pellets made you hungry, Trix?”

“No, being in a confined space with you for multiple hours made me hungry. Come on, there’s a gas station down the street.”

Katya trots obediently along behind Trixie on their way to the gas station. She looks like a confection, like something made of fondant or marzipan. She’s totally out of place in a town like this. It’s still raining, and it’s hovering right around forty degrees. Trixie’s wearing a white down jacket and she’s got her hands shoved inside the pockets and her chin tucked into the neck of the coat. When she put it on Katya told her she looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and she stuck her tongue out.

“Trixie, you know, you really shouldn’t dress like a snack when we’re out looking for enormous carnivorous beasts.” Katya quickens her pace to catch up to Trixie and hooks her arm through hers.

Trixie scoffs. “He’s not carnivorous, is he? Has there been one single confirmed report of a Bigfoot attacking a person? Ever?”

“Well no, but-”

“Mhmm.” Trixie stops them walking in front of the door to the gas station and Katya lets go of her arm so she can open it and hold it for Trixie.

Inside, several people turn to look at them. Trixie reaches blindly behind herself and circles her wrist until Katya takes her hand and allows herself to be led over to the snack aisle. She likes how every decision Trixie makes is properly considered, how she bends at the waist to assess their options before she picks anything out. She passes things to Katya one at a time for her to hold, until she’s satisfied. She started with the biggest thing of Skittles the store carries, which Katya is cradling against her stomach while she waits. Katya follows Trixie over to the registers and dumps everything out on the counter; a Red Bull can starts rolling and Trixie catches it as it drops off the edge and sets it down securely again.

“You girls in town for the squatch?” the older man at the register asks as he starts ringing them up. His gaze lingers on Trixie for a little while. She unzipped her jacket because it’s warm in the store, and underneath she’s wearing a pink roll neck sweater. She doesn’t much look like a typical amateur cryptozoologist.

It makes her let out a small disgruntled noise and she wanders away a bit. Katya bounces on her toes a couple times and clasps her hands together. “We sure are! You got any insider information?”

“Just don’t getcha selves lost in the forest,” he sighs. “Bring plenty’a supplies, water, nineteen forty-seven, and cell phones don’t work so you need’a use short-wave radio.”

Katya blinks at him a couple times and then says Oh! and rummages in the back pocket of her pants for her wallet. It was a gift from Trixie a few years back and the leather has been made soft and buttery with use. Inside, there’s a Polaroid of the two of them. They’re at the beach in it, Trixie in a vintage one piece and an enormous straw sunhat. Katya’s wearing a bikini with a shark print and she’s tucked beneath the brim of Trixie’s hat, leaning in to kiss her cheek. It sends a little sting of pleasure through her each time she sees it; Trixie had gifted the wallet to her with the photograph already inside.

“Here you go,” she says cheerfully, and hands the guy her card to swipe. “We’ve got radios and rations, don’t worry. We’ve put some thought into this. I guess you guys must have folks getting themselves stuck and needing rescued all the time, huh?”

The guy makes a gruff noise and passes her the receipt to sign. She can feel Trixie’s eyes on her, feel how she’s itching to get out of here. Trixie uses all of her reserves of small talk for her job and generally doesn’t enjoy engaging with people outside of work. Katya is honoured that Trixie feels comfortable enough with her to be grouchy and quiet, that it doesn’t drain her energy when they spend time together.

“You ever see any signs yourself?” Katya asks the clerk as he’s packing up their stuff. He passes the paper bag over to her and she holds it against her chest in both arms and waits for an answer.

The guy gestures behind himself to a few blurry photographs tacked up on a corkboard with push pins in different colours. “You hear about that hoax that was uncovered over in Bluff Creek?” He says it like that wasn’t almost twenty years ago, and Katya nods enthusiastically.

“I did!” She listens as he tells her to check out the museum in town, and that they should be careful not to find themselves in the forest after dark. He’s growing more and more animated as Katya lets him ramble, and she has to shift the weight of the grocery bag to her other arm.

Trixie has circumnavigated the store while she’s waited for Katya to get done talking to the guy, and she comes back to touch her fingers to Katya’s bent elbow and say her name very quietly and urgently. When they first met, Katya repeated Trixie’s name back to her and cracked it in half over her knee like a glow stick, and Trixie added an extra syllable to hers. Kah-tee-yuh. She likes the way that it sounds, especially when Trixie is getting annoyed or whiny.

“Okay, just a minute,” she says back calmly, as if she were trying to placate a child.

Katya thanks the guy at the register again and gestures with her head for Trixie to lead the way out of the store. She’s getting kind of stompy, so Katya trails a couple of steps behind on the way back to the motel. Trixie’s hands are balled into fists at her sides, but she’ll be okay once she eats a few Oreos and changes into her pajamas.

In their room, Katya unpacks the grocery bag and lays everything out on the dresser while Trixie changes in the bathroom. She likes pottering around and listening to the water running and the quiet hum of Trixie’s toothbrush, likes how Trixie’s face is bright and gleaming with lotion when she comes out.

“Par-tay,” Katya says, and shakes the bag of Skittles in Trixie’s direction.

She wrinkles her nose and collects a couple things to take with her when she gets beneath the sheets. Hers is the bed furthest away from the door, like always, and she props herself up against the headboard. Great clouds of freshly brushed-out curls cascade over her shoulders. Her hair is very soft; Katya knows this from the handful of times Trixie has gotten frustrated trying to do her own french braids and had Katya do them for her instead. Katya thinks she looks sort of like an earthworm, pink and shiny and moist, but knows better than to ever say that out loud.

“Hey, you know, that’s very Bigfoot of you,” she says as she comes over to sit on her own bed across from Trixie’s.

Trixie has arranged the various packages of junk food neatly across the sheets, in order of size from smallest to largest. She does the same thing with gifts, Katya remembers from her birthdays and that one Christmas neither of them could afford to go home and they spent the day on Trixie’s couch watching movies and eating until they were too bloated and uncomfortable to move.

“What is?”

“Arranging stuff all orderly like that.” Katya isn’t beneath the sheets yet, she’ll go out for a last cigarette, but she does reach down to unlace her boots. “You want me to go find you some rocks to stack?”

“I want you to never talk to me again,” Trixie says sweetly, and she rips open her Oreos and gets right to work twisting the cookies in opposite directions to separate the sandwich.

It doesn’t seem like the best idea to eat a whole bunch of sugar right before bed. Katya wants them to be up early to make the most of the daylight and she knows Trixie’s going to grumble, even though she’ll get at least an extra hour of sleep. Katya likes getting to wake Trixie with the wet ends of her hair dripping and her body pleasantly sore from a run, likes watching her come all grumpy and confused into the day. She is not about to tell Trixie to take it easy with the snacks, especially when she looks so cute munching on her cookies.

“I’m gonna go smoke,” Katya says, and Trixie makes a noncommittal noise.

She gathers her lighter and the pack of Camels from the pocket of her jacket and heads out the door of their room. They have a little patio area in the front with two Adirondack chairs and a small table and she settles herself down to light a cigarette. If she turns her head she can look in their window through the gap in the voile panels and see Trixie, scrolling through her phone and still eating.

They’re not far enough away from civilisation that she can see all of the stars, but there are way more than in the city. It’s so beautiful and so still, the rain coming down much lighter now. Katya likes the noises of the frogs very much. She would like to stay out here in her chair and listen to them until time stands still, and then maybe a little longer after that.

Her hair got damp again when they were walking back to the motel and she takes it down from the scrunchie so it can dry off a bit. It’s not even close enough to being warm enough for her to sit out like this, and she regrets not wearing a jacket. For a little while Katya inspects her own arm, fascinated by the way all of the blonde hairs are standing on end and how her skin feels like it’s on too tight.

After a while the light goes out in the room behind her. Katya isn’t usually the last one awake, but she really likes the idea of tiptoeing around and doing her best not to wake Trixie, maybe sneaking glances over at her. She’s on her second cigarette, and she’s trying so so hard, but she’s barely smoked at all today and she’s so content in the moment that she doesn’t want to go inside just yet. They’re so lucky to do this. She is so lucky, to have a best friend who will come along with her on these trips and take pictures and listen to her rambling and be the person she gets to turn to and say did you see that?

Their room faces away from the main street and she can almost make out the shape of the mountains. They seem much closer than she knows they really are, a huge hulking mass of deeper, more solid darkness. A little shiver goes through her thinking about how Bigfoot could be up there right now, maybe peering down, watching the lit end of her cigarette weave around in the dark like a firefly.

[artificialqueens]

forever is composed of nows (trixya) 1/2 - beanierose

AN: Title is from the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name. My eternal gratitude to nadia for keeping me sane and listening to me shriek about this at all hours of the day and night. Love you endlessly, baby.

(read on a03) | (find me at katiehoughton)

It’s a soulmate AU where you feel the opposite emotion to whatever the other person is feeling | 13,336 words

Nothing happens at all until Katya is seven years old. This is not unusual. Not everybody has a sestrinskoye serdtse, her mother tells her, using the old Russian term for it. Katya likes it better, thinks it’s romantic, and she rolls the phrase around in her mouth for a whole afternoon.

Her parents were not soulbound. It runs in some families; doesn’t run in others. No one in their recent history has been. There’s an aunt way back on her father’s side who, upon finding herself soulbound to an awful tyrant of a man, had walked calmly right into the water and never come back. Or so Katya’s brother had told her and her baby sister one night, sheets over their heads and a flashlight underneath his chin.

His white, round face had hovered disembodied in the darkness, illuminated from below like a carnival head. Anya had shrieked and writhed and put her hands over her ears, but Katya had been transfixed. She thinks about her a lot. The courage it must have taken, to look her fate in the face and tell it no.

It makes her sad, to think that she might not be soulbound. Lots and lots of people aren’t - most people. It occurs in populations with about the same frequency as red hair. Still, Katya can’t help but feel like she’s special. She knows it to be true.

“You’re still special, Katenka,” Mama tells her when she tucks her in at night, smoothing her hand over Katya’s mousey hair.

Sometimes she will pretend like she is. She will double over as if she has been suddenly struck down with grief in the middle of recess. Nobody buys it, and she doesn’t care at all. The idea of it fascinates her.

What must it be like? To be one half of the same soul. To feel the exact opposite emotion to whatever the other person feels. To know, when overcome with euphoria, that your sestrinskoye serdtse is hurting so deeply. To know that your own joy causes them hurt, too.

No one will tell her very much about what it’s really like, and she thinks it’s because they don’t know either. From what she gathers, it’s only extremes of emotion that are intense enough for the other person to notice. So you wouldn’t feel it if they get their favourite coffee in the morning, but if they lose a loved one you’ll have one of the best days of your life.

So far, Katya has met only one couple who are soulbound. They go to their same church and must be about a hundred and twenty years old. They are always holding hands; Katya has never seen them not holding hands. She wonders if they’re capable of letting go anymore or if they’ve grown entwined just like that, like the beech trees in the forest back home in Russia.

“Ne smotri,” Papa whispers at her during mass. Don’t stare.

She can’t help it. No one will tell her exactly what happens when you do find your sestrinskoye serdtse. How do you tell? How can you know for sure that it’s them? And do you continue to feel opposite emotions, once you’ve found them? From watching Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, she thinks not. They always smile all the way through mass, both of them soft and melty at the edges.

Katya has tried asking, her mama and Dmitri and some of her friends at school, but no one answers. Soulbound people are rare, and Katya thinks that makes them superior, but mostly it just means she doesn’t really know what they’re like.

It’s a Wednesday late in August and Katya is lying on her back in the grass. She’s getting stains all over her dress but she doesn’t care, she hates it and its frills and lace. The air is thick with summer and she moves her hand slowly through it, imagines she can feel it shifting like molasses. She is seven years old, and it feels important. Seven is a lucky number, a good year.

Anya wanted to play dolls with her earlier but she doesn’t like how the boy one and the girl one always have to get married and have babies. She wants her doll to be an astronaut or a rockstar, but Anya tells her she’s stupid and Katya’s face gets all hot and Mama has to tell her “bud dobrym.” Be kind.

It’s better, out here in the grass by herself. Mama made lemonade and she spilled a little because she tried to drink it lying down. Her face is sticky, and her hands. She can feel the bridge of her nose burning, prickly with the heat, and she knows she’ll get in trouble later for not wearing enough sunscreen.

Out of nowhere, she feels a wave of bliss roll over her. That’s not unusual for a summer afternoon, except that she can tell right away that this emotion is not hers. It feels milky and intangible, like looking at her reflection in a pond or a river. Something shifting and not quite herself. Katya sits upright in the grass and presses her hand to her chest. She’s trembling and she bites her bottom lip while she waits for it to pass.

For a moment, after it’s over, Katya doesn’t breathe or move. She is so still that an ant crawls up onto her leg and marches up and down her thigh. Another burst of emotion hits her right in the centre of her chest. This time, it’s fear. Katya closes her eyes and breathes slowly through her nose until it goes away.

It isn’t quite the same as her nightmares, or the very first time she tried out the rope swing and arced so wide before plummeting into the river below. It’s more like when she and Dmitri got to watch Pet Sematary at their cousin’s house after Anya went to bed. A fear with no stakes behind it, a synthetic sort of terror.

She does not tell Mama. She doesn’t tell anyone. Who would believe her? All this time she has pretended to feel her sestrinskoye serdtse right on the inside of her chest, carrying them around with her every day. And now it’s really happening.

For the first year or so, it’s not so bad. Sure, sometimes it wakes her in the middle of the night and she lies on her back with her sheets pulled up over her head and her arms folded over her chest like a mummy. Like she’s in a sarcophagus, and she thinks of beetles crawling all over and nibbling at her flesh and her brain being hooked out of her nose or her ear.

No one has told her, but she’s not an idiot. She knows what it means, that she felt her sestrinskoye serdtse so suddenly. She’s older. The person she is soulbound to is an infant. It explains the bright bursts of intensity she feels at all hours of the day and night, that never last more than ten minutes or so.

She’s a little jealous. Everything is going to be different, for them. They won’t have seven years of feeling hollowed out and unwhole. They will feel Katya from their first breath. Have been feeling her. She thinks about them all the time, and wonders how many years it will be before they start to think of her, too.

For Christmas, her babushka buys her a journal. It’s bound in red leather and comes with a lock. Katya slides the key onto the same thin gold chain as her cross and wears both every day. She likes how the key bounces against her chest when she runs around at recess, how in the wintertime it gets so cold against her skin that it burns livid hot. She likes the reminder. There is someone out there in the universe whose soul is bound to hers, a person designed perfectly just for her.

Every night before she goes to sleep, Katya writes notes in her journal. The date, and her feelings. It’s not all that different to how everybody else uses their journals, except that the feelings she writes in it aren’t hers.

As she grows older, and her sestrinskoye serdtse grows older right along with her, it becomes more difficult to separate her emotions from theirs. Whenever she feels joy or peace, she knows that they’re hurting and then she grieves for them and then she’s hurting, too. Now that she’s actually experiencing it, it’s not as fun as she’d always imagined.

At nine years old, Katya goes through a rolodex of counsellors and behavioural therapists and doctors and psychologists. They toss around various diagnoses. Some of them say she has ADD, or maybe she’s autistic. She lacks the vocabulary to explain that her mood swings and her difficulty focusing and her explosive temper are because half of her emotions are those of a toddler. One therapist suggests developmental delay, and Katya supposes that’s not inaccurate.

She learns to be calm through it. She will clench her fists tight enough that she feels the thump of her pulse in her palms like she’s captured a hummingbird. She will count her breaths until it passes. Most days are dreadful. Every time she thinks she’s got a handle on it, something else flares furious and crimson in her chest.

One Saturday afternoon, Katya comes home from the woods and her palms are chafed and red from breaking sticks. She rubs them against the thighs of her pants as she walks in the back door. Her parents are waiting for her at the kitchen table, a chair pulled out for her to sit in and her journal on the table between them. Cracked open, and the lines of her spidery handwriting are barely legible.

“Sit down, Yekaterina,” Papa says. His voice is firm but not unkind.

She does, flopping into the chair and toeing out of her boots. It’s March and not quite warm yet; the heat of the stove makes her cheeks ruddy and she pulls her sweater off over her head. It makes her hair all staticky and her bangs flop down into her eyes.

“What’s going on?” She knows it bothers her father when she uses English at home, knows also that she’s doing it to spite him. “Where did you get that?”

“Tvoya sestra,” Mama says. Your sister.

Katya is up out of the chair so fast that she stumbles over the leg of it and almost goes to her knees. She shoves her sleeves up past her elbows as she bounds up the stairs two at a time. The door to their room bounces off the wall when she slams it open. Anya is sitting cross-legged on her twin bed, brushing the hair of one of her dolls.

When she sees Katya she cowers back against the headboard, her hands up in defence already. She knows what she’s done, then, and she’s afraid. Good.

Katya rips the doll out of her sister’s hands and pops the head off of it in one clean motion. For a second, she flounders. She wants to make Anya hurt, feels the mercury of her anger boiling inside of her stomach. Katya sweeps the rest of Anya’s dolls onto the floor. If she’d kept her boots on she could stomp them. She does it anyway, not feeling the prick of their stupid little hands and pointy noses against the soles of her feet.

Her parents have caught up to her now. She lunges at Anya, her hands extended and her fingers curled up like a dreadful beast. Papa grabs her from behind and lifts her clean off the ground. She thrashes in his grip, screaming and spitting.

The violation of it has cleaved her in two. She feels pink-raw, like the old paintings of surgeries she likes to look at sometimes. Herself, strapped to a table with her guts tumbling out, and rows and rows of people watching from the gallery.

Anya is wailing and clutching at her disembodied doll’s head. Again and again, Katya roars and writhes in her father’s grip, until he manages to get her through the doorframe and out of their bedroom.

“Ya ub’yu tebya,” she screams at her sister. I’ll kill you.

Mama has closed the door on Anya now, but she hears. The whole street must hear. Katya is choking on her anger, trembling with it. It streams out of her, nose and eyes and mouth, and the indignity of it sends her outside of herself.

Papa is still holding tight to her. She fights it for a long while, and then she sags in his arms and brings him to the ground with her. They are all three crumpled in the hallway, Mama on her knees next to Katya and Papa and their pile of tangled limbs.

“Breathe, Katenka. Breathe. It’s okay.” She does, raggedly at first but evening out with Papa’s strong arms still banded tight around her chest. After a long while, Mama says, “you have a sestrinskoye serdtse?”

“Da,” she spits through the grit of her teeth, the rictus of her jaw.

The whole messy truth of it comes spilling out of her, then. She tells her parents how for three years she’s been carrying another soul around with her every day. Feeling the antithetical emotions of that soul. Mama cries, and doesn’t furiously swipe her tears away with her palms the way that Katya always does. She lets them come, lets them collect in the creases at the corners of her mouth as she listens to her daughter.

After a little while, Anya and Dmitri poke their heads out of their respective doorways. Now that the beast of their sister has come to rest, they sit in the hallway as well to listen. Katya talks, and talks and talks.

She understands, now. Why nobody seems to know the truth of what it is like to be soulbound. The sensation of it is like pins and needles or gooseflesh, a tingling hyper awareness and the feeling of not quite fitting correctly inside your skin. It is hard to put words to it.

Katya gets her journal back, and doesn’t even get in trouble for ruining Anya’s doll. Everybody is tiptoeing around her like she’s sick, like she’s dying. It’s not true. Nothing is going to happen to her because she’s soulbound. Well, other than that if her sestrinskoye serdtse falls in love with somebody else, the grief might drive her to madness.

She would not be the first.

It’s the middle of the night; Anya is sleeping on her stomach in the bed next to Katya’s. She sneaks out from beneath the sheets and pads in her sock feet across to the closet. There’s a box at the bottom of it, where she keeps her supplies. Katya rummages through it until she finds her superglue.

Anya’s got her doll laid out on the nightstand, separated from its head by a half inch. Like it’s lying in state, and all the other dolls might come to visit it. Carefully, and still getting glue on her fingertips, Katya fixes the doll’s head back in its right place. She sits it upright on the nightstand, so it will be the first thing Anya sees when she opens her eyes in the morning.

Back beneath her sheets, Katya tries to pick the glue off her fingers. She thinks about her sestrinskoye serdtse. They will turn four later this summer. She wonders what it must be like, for their parents. Raising a toddler grappling with the enormity of two people’s emotions. Today Katya was angry, angrier than she’s been in her whole life. She’s not quite sure what the opposite of that is. Calm, maybe. Or peace. At least her sestrinskoye serdtse had a good day, she thinks, and it makes hot tears form along her bottom lashes.

* * *

Katya starts her fifth journal the same week she starts high school. She has them all labelled carefully with the length of time that they span, lined up chronologically along the bottom shelf of her bookcase. Sometimes she flips through them at random, chooses a day and reads it over.

There are days when she feels all alone in the universe, and remembering that her sestrinskoye serdtse is out there helps her. It lets her feel close to them, to read over her meticulous notes and try to imagine what they might have been going through. She’s fourteen now, and her sestrinskoye serdtse is seven. For half of her life, every single day, Katya has felt them.

It’s been a tough summer. Her anxiety has been there her entire life, when she looks back on it, but it has gotten so much worse since she finished middle school. There are voices in her head all the time, whispering to her. Catastrophizing. Convincing her that every decision is the wrong one. She knows they aren’t really there, but…there is a voice in her head.

Well, not a voice. And not in her head.

A presence in her chest, at all times and in all ways. Whatever she does, she has to weigh the consequences. If she does something that makes her happy, she condemns her sestrinskoye serdtse to misery. Most of the time it is paralytic; she doesn’t dare feel anything at all.

When she thinks critically about it, when she reads back on the last week or month or year of entries in her journal, she knows. They are not having a good childhood, whoever they are. Katya feels happy most days, but she knows it’s because they’re hurting and that makes her hurt as well, and it isn’t ever true happiness. It is ersatz, doesn’t belong to her.

She’s been grappling with it all summer. Trying to figure out just how the fuck she’s supposed to make it through high school. It’s difficult enough trying to fit in without being the freak who is predestined to be with someone she hasn’t even met yet. Who is going to want to date her?

Mama let her dye her hair at least. It felt like watching herself appear, like she was meeting herself for the very first time as she watched the bleach circle the drain. Her hair is waist length and wavy and white blonde. It makes her feel like a Waterhouse painting.

Her therapist keeps trying to instil her with coping mechanisms. Together they agreed that Katya should try yoga, and she does love it, but it also doesn’t cure her mental illness. There has been suggestion of medication, multiple times, but she won’t do that. She has no idea what psychotropic drugs might do to her sestrinskoye serdtse, and they’re only a little kid.

Katya’s not about to fuck them over like that. She’d much rather fuck herself over every day.

For the first semester, she does okay. Having a routine helps her. She gets up at the same time every day, goes to the same classes, practices yoga when she gets home. It’s impossible to predict what she might feel on any given day, but she can control everything else.

She’s doing okay, she really is, and then finals roll around. Everything in high school feels so much more important. The rational part of her brain tells her that it’s okay if she messes up a couple exams, she still has three more years after this to prove herself, but the anxious part of her brain is the one in charge.

It’s exhausting every day just keeping her head above the water, so when Dmitri’s friend offers Katya a drag of his joint she finds herself saying yes. That first time, she doesn’t feel much of anything. The smoke makes her cough and he laughs at her and shame burns hot and insistent along the column of her neck and into her cheeks.

After that though, it becomes their thing. Three or four times a week he sneaks away from the PlayStation tournament the boys are having in the basement and he and Katya share a joint on the back porch, after her parents are in bed.

When he kisses her, it isn’t a surprise. They’ve been building up to it for weeks and weeks, she knows that. His fingers brush hers when he passes the joint over, and he likes to prop his elbow on the back of the bench seat behind her head so she can feel the heat of his bicep.

It’s nice. She’s a bit awkward, not quite sure what to do with her hands, but she likes the soft little puff of his breath against her cheek. When they separate, he tells her “don’t tell your brother.”

The image of Dmitri beating the shit out of him makes Katya snort a laugh. They joke, her family, that Dmitri spends so much time down in the basement and out of the sunlight that it’s stunting his growth. Katya’s stronger than he is, with her yoga and now gymnastics too, these last few weeks.

Still, she doesn’t tell Dmitri. They get high together almost every day. Not just weed anymore, either. Katya discovers that when she has a synthetic euphoria, it blocks off her sestrinskoye serdtse so that she can’t feel them. It’s as if her brain is too full, there’s no room for anyone else’s emotions. It’s the respite she’s been hoping for for nearly half her life. The first couple times, she wonders what it’s like for them when she’s high, but then she stops caring.

Katya fucks for the first time in her twin bed in the room she shares with her sister. Anya and their parents are out of state for the weekend. Dmitri stayed behind and Katya did too, because she has to work her shitty retail job at the mall. She’s sixteen years old, and so wasted that she can’t lift her head up off the pillow.

This boy is not the same boy as her first kiss. He is also not her sestrinskoye serdtse, but she hasn’t been thinking about them so much anymore. She’s not sober, a lot of the time. It actually makes it easier to focus on her classes, because it quiets a lot of her anxiety. Adderall is lovely, makes her so focused and calm. She’s making good grades, so no one seems overly concerned that she has to be drunk or high or both in order to do so.

When it’s over, the boy passes her a tissue from the box on the nightstand and leaves her to clean herself off. She didn’t come, but according to her friends who have started having sex she shouldn’t expect to for the first few times.

After that, she has a lot of sex with a lot of different people. With guys, and with girls too. When all of her friends started becoming interested in the opposite sex, Katya did too, but she also realised she had those same feelings about girls. It complicated a lot of things for her. She doesn’t really tell people. Certainly not her Catholic parents.

She likes sex, likes making people feel good and letting them make her feel good, but there’s always something missing. Sometimes she’ll be rocking over someone’s face and gasping and she can’t help but wonder, just for a second, what this feels like for her sestrinskoye serdtse. They’re still only eleven years old, so she figures she has a good few years until she finds out for herself, but she can’t imagine that it’s good.

Intense pleasure starbursts in Katya’s stomach and she moans softly and arches off the mattress. Violet grins up at her from between her thighs, her cheeks pink with exertion.

“You’re so fucking hot, Kat,” Violet says.

College has been a lot about experimentation, so far. She’s tried drugs she never had access to in her small suburban town, tried a lot of new things. She got her first tattoo recently and it still makes her smile so big every time she catches sight of it. Papa is going to kill her, but it’s worth it.

Violet is hot. Objectively. She’s tall and striking. Katya loves to wrap her hands around Violet’s waist and marvel at how they encompass it completely as she guides Violet down to grind against her face.

They’re not girlfriends. Katya doesn’t do well with commitment, and Violet is totally fine with that. They’re both also fucking other people, off and on, but Katya enjoys Violet’s body and how skilful she is with her hands and her mouth.

Violet doesn’t know that Katya is soulbound. It’s not something she shares with her sexual partners. Some of her friends know, but she doesn’t think it makes particularly good pillow talk.

Hey, I really enjoy fucking you but I’m actually predestined to love somebody else, so.

She can’t imagine it would go over that well. It does feel like something is missing. There’s no intimacy with most of the people she fucks. Violet is different; they’re friends, and they do spend time together outside of sex, but not one on one. Always with the rest of their group.

“Are you coming to Ginger’s party?”

Violet is propped up on one elbow, looking down at Katya. Her makeup is smudged from being between Katya’s thighs, but her hair is still perfectly smooth.

“Duh. You want me to…”

“I got it.”

Usually Violet is the one to supply the weed whenever they all hang out. Her friends know that Katya does a lot more besides that, and she offers to hook them up, but they always decline.

She doesn’t miss the looks they shoot her when she rolls up to a party out of her mind on something a lot stronger than college pot. It’s out of love, out of concern and she knows it, but she bristles at the mere suggestion that there might be a problem. She’s fine. She is fine.

Her sestrinskoye serdtse? Not so much.

They have hit their teenage years, and Katya is riding out those mood swings right along with them. It is really fucking hard. She’s at college now, and everyone is always in chaos but everyone is at least an adult. Katya is thirteen again.

She feels tenderly towards both her own thirteen year old self, and her sestrinskoye serdtse. It’s the hardest age you’ll ever be, Katya is very sure of that. Not fitting in anywhere, the oldest of the children and the youngest of the adults. Still, it’s really hard to be focusing on a class and then have a sudden rush of shame or joy or sadness so intense it makes her lightheaded.

The drugs help her to level things out, and they also provide a very convenient excuse. Oh, that’s just Katya, people say, and it lets her get away with a whole lot. She’s very hung up on the fact that however hard this is for her to deal with, she is at least twenty years old. For her own teenage maelstrom, her sestrinskoye serdtse was only six. There’s an immense guilt there, even though she knows that it isn’t her fault and there’s nothing to be done about it.

When they get their first crush, Katya is certain that she’s going to die. They are middle of the night mooning over it, and she sits and chain smokes out of the open bedroom window. Grief is lodged in her chest, an unexpectedly hard thing in the flesh of her, like a peach pit.

She puts her fingertips to the windowpane to feel the cold of it. Sleep seems like a faraway thing. Her sestrinskoye serdtse is up, thinking on someone, so Katya is up right along with them. She lets her head lean against the glass and closes her eyes, cigarette dangling precariously from between her two fingers.

It is not a pleasant feeling. And when they kiss for the first time (Katya remembers her own first kiss, almost goes under with the weight of her guilt) pain is alive in the pit of her stomach. She tries to be happy for them, glad that they’re able to enjoy being a teenager, but mostly she just hurts.

Sasha keeps trying to distract her. Let’s get out of the house she will say, in Russian or in English depending on how bad she thinks Katya is. They walk around Boston and Sasha talks and talks, and Katya listens because she’s good at that. And she loves her roommate, is grateful to have someone holding her accountable.

“I think they’ve discovered how to jerk off,” Katya says over breakfast one Saturday.

Sasha is at the stove making eggs. She didn’t appreciate Katya’s cannibalism joke and keeps self-consciously rubbing one hand over her smooth white head. Katya has taken to calling her yaytso, mostly because she’s jealous that Sasha pulls it off so well.

“Oh?”

“Yuh-huh. I get these like, insane moments of agony that last for ten seconds.”

She doesn’t know what else that could be. It makes her grin every time even though it fucking hurts. She’s happy for them, feels strangely proud. They’re fifteen now; she’s been wondering when it’s going to start.

“That sounds…unpleasant.”

“Da,” Katya snorts.

Sasha sets a plate down in front of her and Katya starts eating, very slowly. There’s nothing to be done. Unless she finds them, which she has no clue how to even begin to do, all she can do is tuck her chin close to her chest and endure it.

“Katya, are you okay?”

“Right now, or in general?”

Sasha considers her for a moment. She is so calm, so absolutely unflappable. Never loud or crass. Sometimes when she’s drunk or high Katya will try to get a rise out of her, will say things that are both unkind and untrue. It never works.

“Both.”

“Right now I’m good.” She gestures at her plate with her fork. “These are good. Thank you.”

“And in general.”

The way Sasha is looking at her, round and wise like the moon, makes her pause to actually consider it. Is she good? She doesn’t know. It’s been her whole life, like this. It’s something she grew up with, and she was forced to adapt around it. She feels gnarled and wizened.

“This is just…how it is. I have to be okay with it.”

By the time she’s thirty, it’s not cute anymore. When she comes home at four in the morning high, when she’s drunk out of her skull at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday, it isn’t charming. Not like it was when she was in high school or college. She can’t explain it away with youthful arrogance.

Rehab is the hardest thing she has ever done, and she does it twice. When she gets out the first time she tries to surround herself with people who are steadfast and calm. She sees Fame almost every single day, needing proof of life from her and glad to be held accountable herself. Sasha got married and moved out, but still loves her deeply and answers the phone at any hour.

For a little while, Anya comes to stay with her. Her sister tries to understand, but she has no experience with addiction or with being soulbound so it’s hard for them both. After Anya goes back home to Denver, Katya relapses hard.

She’s out of rehab now, a whole year clean and sober. She has two jobs and her own tiny shoebox apartment. Sometimes she still misses the place above the bar, but she knows that being able to walk down a flight of stairs from her front door and get wasted is not a healthy environment for an addict.

Her therapist worked with her to handle her anxiety, since she can’t fall back on any of the usual ways she silences it. It is always there, but she is much better at looking it in the face and telling it no.

Her sestrinskoye serdtse is doing well. They’re twenty five now, and Katya can only assume that they’ve built a life for themselves. She gets the odd day of blistering joy, but most of the time she feels sad and has to reconcile that with the fact that they’re happy.

It’s been rough for both of them. She still keeps her journals, has so many of them now that she’s thought about putting them into storage in her parents’ attic, but she likes to have them close. She’s happy for them, she is.

But she’s thirty two years old and she hasn’t met them yet, and it feels more and more like she’s never going to. It seems unfair of the universe. If it’s going to tie her to somebody, surely the least it can do is deposit that somebody neatly into her lap.

These days, there are groups online. Forums where people talk about their experiences being soulbound, and tentatively try to figure out if the person behind one of these usernames could be their sestrinskoye serdtse. It isn’t easy. The general consensus, among the people who have been fortunate, is that you can’t know for sure until you meet them face to face.

Katya doesn’t do a whole lot of meeting face to face. New people make her wary. She teaches, yoga in the mornings and Russian in the evenings. Every time she gets a new student, or a whole new class, she is careful to look each of them in the eye and introduce herself. She’s never felt anything more than pleasure that they trust her, that they have come to her for guidance.

She settles down nicely into her little life. There’s no more partying, no more stumbling vulnerable and high in the street. She goes to bed at the same time every night, wakes up at the same time every morning. The routine is the thing that keeps her anxiety at bay. And she supposes it’s a kindness on her part, towards her sestrinskoye serdtse. Katya never throws any curveballs at them, doesn’t fall in love or risk her heart.

Sometimes she wonders whether they can feel her at all, or whether they’ve completely forgotten that she’s there.

* * *

“Could you at least try to have a good time, tonight?” Fame grumbles at her. She’s leaning on the vanity with both elbows, as she puts the finishing touches on her lipstick.

The crisp edge of Fame’s mouth is such a contradiction to the smudge of Katya’s own lipstick that she laughs, can’t help it. She’s only going to this stupid show for Fame. Because it’s in a bar, and now that they’re both sober they can lean on each other.

“Tell me again who she is.”

Fame rolls her eyes so hard Katya is worried for a second she’s going to pop her lashes. They’ve been through this at least four times already, but Katya’s memory is not the best and well…she likes hearing Fame describe her.

“Her name’s Trixie. She and I worked at the beauty counter together in college. She is a-”

“Full Dolly fantasy!” Katya interrupts and then screams out a laugh and stamps her feet.

She’s seen a couple pictures from their college days, but Fame wouldn’t let Katya google Trixie. She wants her to get the full effect live and in person. It’s country music, Katya knows that much, covers and some originals.

“Right.” Fame hesitates for just a second and then turns to face Katya. Her hip props her up against the edge of the countertop, and she reaches for Katya’s hands to hold in both of hers. “Hey. Thank you. I know you hate music.”

“I don’t hate music. Just like…singing. Live singing.”

The so-familiar fluttering starts up in Katya’s chest and she kneads two fingers against her breastbone and waits for it to pass. She’s been feeling a lot of dread, lately, which she supposes means her sestrinskoye serdtse is excited about something. She’s happy for them, but she would love to make it through just one day without a cataclysmic sense of doom hanging over her head.

“All good?” Fame ducks her head just a touch to grab Katya’s eyeline.

Part of their journey to sobriety together has been total honesty. Fame knows that Katya is soulbound, and that it played a big part in her addiction issues in the first place. Addiction is a disease, she knows that, but it can be aggravated the same way her hip flexors get achy if she pushes too hard to try and get her straddle split.

Her sestrinskoye serdtse aggravates her. The last thirty years of her life, every single decision she has made she has had to consider them too. It made her very selfish for a long while there in her teens and early twenties. She’s back to selflessness now, tries to avoid things that will trigger any extreme of emotion in her at all.

“I’m good. Let’s go.”

The bar is crowded, because it’s a Friday night in Boston so they all are. Fame clings tight to Katya’s hand and leads them through the crowd. They have a little table reserved right up front near the stage, because Trixie is apparently a big enough deal that she gets to do that. Fame deposits Katya at the table like a toddler and goes back to the bar to get drinks for them both.

There’s no band, Katya notes with interest as she drums her fingers against the tabletop. There’s a microphone set up in a stand, and a pink guitar, but no other instruments.

When Fame comes back to the table, Katya gives her an exaggerated groan and drops her head into her hands. “Is this gonna be some acoustic bullshit?”

“Probably,” Fame says. “She plays guitar. And autoharp.”

“What the fuck is an autoharp?”

Fame pulls her phone out of her purse to start searching for a picture, but the lights dim and a few rowdy dudes whoop and holler and Fame hastily puts her phone away again. “I’m pretty sure you’re about to find out.”

Trixie comes out onto the stage, and Katya takes it like a punch to the gut. The lights make her blonde hair glow pink and it feels like intimacy, like pre-dawn. She’s wearing a very tiny, very tight dress that is all pink gingham and white fringe. Full Dolly fantasy, indeed.

Her hair is teased so high and it curls all the way down to her waist. It gets in her way so she can’t pull the strap of her guitar over her head, has to have a techie guide it around the back of her neck instead.

She strums her opening chord and the crowd roars wildly. According to Fame, Trixie has quite the fan base. She started posting music online and earned a following pretty quick. Now she tours around, playing small venues and selling her EP.

Katya is transfixed by Trixie, can’t draw her eyes away from her for more than a second at a time. She bops around the stage like she’s buoyed by the audience, stomping and jumping in her white cowboy boots. And every time the noise of the crowd swells, each time it crescendos, Katya feels anguish right in the centre of her chest. The same as always, she recognises it as something that doesn’t belong to her. It’s her sestrinskoye serdtse, having the time of their life.

She works two knuckles of her right hand against her breastbone and wrinkles her nose. This is fun, she’s having a good time watching Trixie, and she refuses to let her sestrinskoye serdtse be in charge tonight. It’s Katya’s turn.

“Now? Really?” Fame leans over to whisper to her.

“Guess so.”

She does her best to push it down. Everyone cheers and claps for Trixie so loudly, because they all came in here already loving her. They know all the words to everything she sings, even her original songs, and they sing along with her. Katya cheers too, whistles loudly with her fingers. It makes Trixie’s head snap towards them and she grins widely when she sees Fame.

At the very end of the show, everybody is applauding Trixie and hollering, and Katya feels misery rolling in thick waves that crest over the top of her head. It’s the strongest it’s been for a really long time. She ducks her head to put her chin against her chest and breathes raggedly against the feeling that she’s going to pass out.

Fame has one hand wrapped tight around Katya’s elbow and she focuses on those five points of contact. It’s so unfair that she can’t have just one night without having to share her whole self with somebody else. Hot tears of frustration collect along her lash line and she watches Trixie liquidate and shimmer pink and gold in front of her, blinks hard to bring her back into focus again.

“She texted me earlier. Said to come backstage after. Wanna come too?”

It’s maybe not the best idea. Her ribcage aches with the phantom hurt so that she can’t take a deep breath. One time, she watched a documentary about people who have had limbs amputated but can still feel them. Sasha found her crying into a bag of Skittles and took the remote away from her.

“Sure, okay. I need a cigarette first though.”

She heads outside, already fumbling with the carton of cigarettes and her lighter. There’s a lot of people crowding right outside the entrance of the bar and it feels like they’re all touching her at once but from the inside, beneath her skin. Katya loops around to the left and into the alley, leans back against the brick. The dumpster hides her from view mostly, so she closes her eyes and tilts her face up to the moonless night.

Everything is beginning to wear off now. She’s not sure whether it’s the cigarette, or if whatever her sestrinskoye serdtse was doing that made them so happy is finally over. It’s quite a bit colder out here than inside the bar. Katya crosses her left arm over her body and secures her hand at her right hip. It is not her first time hunkered in an alleyway on the precipice of tears.

Once she’s done with her cigarette she stubs it out against the wall and rummages in her purse for gum. Smoking is disgusting, she knows that, so she always does her best to cover up the smell of it after. Especially when meeting new people. And, well, her therapist does always say she has an oral fixation. Gum helps.

There’s no bouncer or anything - Trixie might be popular but she’s not that famous - so Katya knocks once and then opens the door to the tiny green room. Fame is seated on a little couch, her legs crossed at the ankles and tucked neatly in. She’s watching Trixie remove the layers of performance from herself.

“There you are,” Fame says when she sees Katya. “Trixie, this is-”

“Katya, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Trixie is wiping away something Katya assumes to be Pond’s cold cream with a facecloth. She’s brushed her hair out so that it isn’t teased quite so high anymore, but it’s still curly and thick and shiny. She’s changed into a different dress, a floaty lacy thing that looks like a Victorian nightgown. Katya wonders if Trixie ever wears pants of any kind. She can’t imagine it.

“Yeah! Katya.” Sasha told her once that she responds to her own name the same way a golden retriever does. She feels the warmth of embarrassment spreading up her throat and scrubs a hand at the back of her neck. “I’ve heard almost nothing about you. This one wanted me to experience you myself.”

“And how was your experience? Of me.”

Trixie gets done wiping her makeup away and starts rubbing some kind of lotion into her skin. The fancy bottles look familiar and Katya figures she’s probably seen them in Fame’s bathroom, before. The two of them did work the beauty counter together all those years ago, they probably trade all kinds of secrets. A weird flare of jealousy burns in Katya’s stomach for just a moment.

“Really good. You were…wow. You had them eating out of your hand.”

“I told you you’d like it,” Fame says. She’s so smug, but Katya is not about to point out that Fame specifically told her she probably wouldn’t like it. Not in front of Trixie, who looks so quietly pleased.

She’s finished with all of her serums and creams and wipes her hands clean on the facecloth. Freckles scatter her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, Katya notes. She’s really, really cute. Full lips, round cheeks, a graceful slope to her nose that Katya is very envious of.

A flutter starts in her chest, something with wings that Katya cages immediately. She doesn’t date anymore, doesn’t bother with it. Sometimes she will take a random girl home with her for the night, but it’s a lot more difficult to do now that she’s sober. She’s a solitary creature, and that’s okay with her.

Done with her beauty routine, Trixie finally turns away from the mirror to look Katya in the eye for the very first time.

Oh.

Years later, people will ask the two of them how they knew. To those who aren’t soulbound, it’s difficult to understand, but Katya explains it like this: imagine you’ve spent your whole life with a stone in your shoe, you’ve learned to live with it, you don’t even notice the discomfort some days. And then just like that, the stone is gone.

Neither of them says anything. For a horrifying second, Katya thinks she’s the only one who feels it and she has actually lost her mind here in this bar. Then Trixie takes a couple of stumbling steps backwards and catches herself against the edge of the vanity table. Her knuckles are white. Fame darts a puzzled glance between the two of them and then gets to her feet.

“I’m going to um…give you a minute,” she says, but Katya’s not even hearing her. Not really.

She’s staring at Trixie, she knows she is, but she thinks it’s okay because Trixie is staring at her right back. Neither of them moves or speaks. She knows that it’s true, feels it as surely as she’s ever known anything, but she wants to be certain.

“Trixie. Trixie, when’s your birthday?”

“August 23, 1989.”

“Fuck,” Katya says, and has to sit down.

It seems to jolt Trixie into action. She crosses the distance between them and goes to her knees at Katya’s feet on the disgusting green room carpet. Trixie fumbles for Katya’s hands, takes both of them in hers and squeezes.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Is it you?”

Katya bites her lip. She feels relief, and wonder, and she feels it twice. After thirty years she’s gotten very good at separating her own emotions from those of her sestrinskoye serdtse. From those of Trixie. Holy shit. She recognises Trixie’s own awe, feels it milky and ephemeral the same way she always does. But now she doesn’t feel the opposite of what Trixie feels. She feels the truth of it.

“I felt the day you were born,” Katya says.

Of all the things she ever imagined she would say to her sestrinskoye serdtse when - if - she ever got to meet them, this was not high up on the list. But Trixie is at her feet like supplication, like exaltation.

Trixie’s hands are still in hers. Katya absently notes her nails, trimmed short and painted baby pink, and wonders whether that’s for playing guitar or…

When at fifteen she figured out she was bisexual, Katya had been extremely annoyed. Her friends were sweet about it, told her it widened her dating pool and really she was so lucky, but all she kept thinking was that she wouldn’t even know whether her sestrinskoye serdtse is a man or a woman until she met them. And then she’d worried that they’d be a woman, and they’d be straight, and they wouldn’t want her.

“How old are you?” Trixie asks, wide-eyed.

Katya screams and clutches tighter at Trixie’s hands. “Shut up, you cunt! I’m only thirty seven, so.”

“I’m just about to turn thirty.”

“Yes, I know. Trixie. Oh my God. You’re…”

She trails off, not entirely sure where she’s going with that. Thirty years of anticipation, and no small amount of despair, is welling up in her chest. It comes spilling out of her eyes, one hot tear that rolls cinematically down her cheek. Trixie reaches up to swipe it away with the pad of her thumb.

“Katya.” She gets up from the floor and comes to sit next to Katya on the little couch. There’s not an awful lot of room, and Trixie’s hips are wide, so their knees press together tight. “You’ve been there my whole life. Like, whatever I’ve been doing I’ve always known there was someone out there who cares about me because I could feel them. You.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Trixie. God.” She can’t seem to stop saying Trixie’s name. She likes the feeling of it in her mouth and the way it sounds, likes too how Trixie’s smile grows wider each time.

One gentle hand comes to rest at Katya’s knee. Trixie is tall and broad, and her hands are a lot bigger than Katya’s are, she notes with interest. Trixie is the most beautiful woman she’s seen ever, ever, ever.

“What do we…do now?” Trixie asks.

Kiss me, Katya thinks, but doesn’t say it. She’s known Trixie for all of five minutes, even though her soul has known Trixie’s for thirty years. It’s an insistent and quivering thing in her chest that she tries to ignore.

“Do you have to like, get on a bus or something? I don’t know how tours work.”

It makes Trixie laugh, and Katya is quietly pleased. She’d like to make Trixie laugh more, would like to hear it every day from now on.

“I’ve got three days in Boston before I move on to New York. Wanted to catch up with a few friends in the city while I’m here.”

“Okay! Do you maybe want to come back to my apartment?” Trixie opens her mouth and Katya hurries through the rest of her sentence. “Not for- just to get to know each other a bit. Oh! And I have something to show you.”

Trixie’s eyes drag very slowly down Katya’s body, from the crown of her head, and come to rest right in her lap. She arches one eyebrow. Katya screams her most obnoxious, pneumatic laugh and shakes her fists in the air.

“I would love to see what you have to show me,” Trixie says once Katya’s done screaming. “I gotta tell Bob.”

She gets up from the couch and smoothes her skirt out against her legs with the flat of her palms. Katya is struck once more by how lovely she is. Want fills her up slowly, warm and liquid. She presses her thighs together, and then realises that not only can Trixie see her doing that, she can probably feel it too.

Trixie holds out a hand for her and tugs her up off the couch. When they move for the door, she doesn’t let go. Katya’s palms are clammy and definitely unpleasant, but when she moves to take her hand back Trixie squeezes tighter.

“Roberta!” she yells down the hall.

A woman appears with a cardboard box in both arms. She’s taller than Trixie, even, and her braided hair is piled up on top of her head in an intricate style that gives her an extra six inches at least.

“Beatrice,” Bob says with a smile that definitely reads I am going to murder you. “I’m very busy hawking your merch right now.”

“Sold any?”

“Not a one. Actually had to pay damages to a few people for the indignity of having to look at your face.”

Katya watches their interaction with interest. She knows almost nothing about Trixie, but seeing her with Bob is putting a couple of pieces into place. Trixie is acerbic and sarcastic. She might look like a princess, but there’s a bite beneath the pink and the lace that Katya is very interested in knowing more about.

“Tell your dad if he buys five shirts I’ll let him stick it in.”

“My dad’s dead,” Bob says, and then cackles. “My bomb pussy killed him.”

Trixie suddenly seems to remember that Katya is still there, tethered to the end of her arm. She glances at her, but when she sees that Katya is grinning right along with them her shoulders come down a little.

“I’m going home with Katya. I’ll text you.”

“Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova,” Katya says, and offers her hand for Bob to shake.

She doesn’t miss the tiny squeak Trixie lets out next to her. Katya enjoys her full name, enjoys how Russian she sounds when she says it even though she was born right here in Massachusetts and doesn’t have an accent. Or not a Russian one, anyway.

“Nice to meet you.” Bob turns to Trixie. “Since when do you go home with groupies?”

“She’s not a-” Trixie starts indignantly, and then catches herself. “Katya’s different. I’ll text you.”

“Be safe, please. I’m not paying for your gonorrhoea treatment. Again!” Bob calls after them as Trixie starts dragging Katya down the hallway.

“Ignore her.”

“You haven’t had gonorrhoea?” Katya says sweetly.

“I pay for my own treatments, bitch!”

Katya cackles again. The way Trixie makes her laugh is new, feels different. She doesn’t recall herself ever having made some of these sounds before. Her heart is so light she feels six inches off the ground, and Trixie is still holding her hand.

They come out into the main area of the bar. A couple of people are hovering and Trixie signs autographs for them, takes selfies, listens intently as they gush at her. She gave Katya her hand back, had to, so she stuffs them both into her pockets and hovers a few feet away. Waiting for Trixie to be done. Waiting to take Trixie home.

Fame is sitting at the bar, stirring the straw around and around in her glass. Panic guts Katya and her intestines fall out at her feet. The whole reason that she’s here in the first place is to be sober with Fame, and then she let her wander off to the bar by herself.

“You good?”

“Are you good?” Fame says. She notices Katya’s eyes on her glass and huffs. “It’s virgin. Give me a little credit.”

Katya climbs up onto the barstool next to Fame’s. “Right. I’m sorry. Yeah. I’m good. I’m really good.”

“Are you going to explain, or?”

Across the bar, Trixie is saying goodbye to the last of her fans. She exchanges a couple words with Bob, who is beginning to pack up the merch table, and then she turns around. When she sees Katya her face breaks wide open and she smiles, starts heading for them.

“It’s her, Fame.” Katya rests a hand at Fame’s knee and hopes that she can feel how Katya’s whole life has changed. “It’s Trixie.”

Fame doesn’t frown - she would never invite a permanent crease to form - but she does tilt her head in puzzlement. “What’s her? What’s going on?”

When Trixie reaches them she rests her hand at the back of Katya’s chair. Her knuckles are just barely touching Katya’s spine and she leans back into them, likes feeling Trixie so close to her.

Understanding drops Fame’s jaw and yanks a gasp from her throat. “Wait a minute. Oh my God. Trixie, are you soulbound?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“She doesn’t know?” Katya whips around in her seat to look at Trixie, who is blushing so furiously that it’s spreading down to her chest.

“I never told anyone. Ever. My whole life.”

Katya can only stare at her. It’s been hard enough all this time carrying Trixie’s heart along with hers. She can’t fathom doing it alone, not having Sasha to sit with her when it gets bad or Fame on the other end of the phone any time of the day or night.

“Wow. Uh. Congratulations?”

“Thanks,” Katya grins. She hops down from the barstool and adds another two inches difference between herself and Trixie. “We’re headed to my place. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

She shouldn’t leave Fame here, she knows that, but Trixie is growing rapidly more impatient and Katya wants to get her home before she changes her mind. Fame is still mostly just staring in wonder at Trixie, but she does manage a little nod.

“Yeah, sure. Or before that, Katya, if you need.”

Tenderness makes Katya’s heart soft and sticky. She kisses Fame’s cheek, even though she hates it when Katya leaves red lipstick on her. While she’s right there, she whispers her gratitude into Fame’s ear. Reminds her that it goes both ways, that she can call Katya too.

And then she leads Trixie out into the night. She has an overnight bag with her, a pink duffel, and Katya takes it and hikes it over her shoulder. It’s still humid from the day and the back of her neck feels damp already, but it’s less hot and she’s glad for that.

“Are you okay to walk? You must be exhausted.”

“Walking‘s good. I always have a ton of adrenaline after a show.”

That piques Katya’s interest. She would very much like to know how Trixie usually burns off that energy. It’s not a question for right now. She starts moving, feels the warmth of Trixie right beside her. Her apartment is only a few blocks from the bar.

“So. You told Fame you have a soulmate?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty much common knowledge in my circle of friends.” Katya is glad that they’re walking, glad she doesn’t have to look Trixie in the face for this. “I haven’t always…found it easy. I’ve needed them.”

Trixie hums a little noise at that, but doesn’t say anything else. They’re at Katya’s building now and she swats Trixie away when she tries to take her bag back, fumbling awkward and one-handed for her keys. She’s determined to be chivalrous.

Her place is a two-story walk up. She invites Trixie to go ahead of her, pretending that she has to lock the door behind them even though it locks itself and she absolutely just wants to look at Trixie’s ass as she goes up the stairs.

It’s electric and thrilling, feels adolescent to be here with Trixie like this. It’s been a long time since she’s brought a girl home with her. If she can, she likes to go back to their place instead so that she can leave when she wants in the morning and doesn’t have to awkwardly try to shepherd them out of the door.

Katya gets the door open after wrestling for a second with the sticky lock. The humidity is making it worse than normal. It’s not because Trixie is leaning with one shoulder propped against the wall, shamelessly watching her. It’s not.

“I am comfortable with a level of filth that other people find it difficult to accept,” she offers as a prelude before she opens the door.

It’s not actually that bad, not as bad as it was in her twenties, but still. She imagines every inch of Trixie’s home is color-coordinated and pristine. Katya double checks the front door is locked and puts the chain on it, turns back around to see Trixie already in her kitchen and studying the paraphernalia Katya has tacked to the refrigerator.

“Can I get you a drink? I don’t keep alcohol in the house, but I have tea, coffee, juice.”

“Hot water is fine. Do you have honey?” Trixie starts opening cabinets to check for herself and finds it almost immediately. “Lemon?”

Katya wrinkles her nose. She is notoriously terrible at feeding herself. Her refrigerator is usually barren. She only likes two foods at a time, would happily eat the same thing every meal for the rest of her life if her friends didn’t intervene.

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s fine. Honey’s good for my throat.”

Once the kettle is on the stovetop and heating up, Katya excuses herself to change. In the bathroom, she stares at herself in the mirror over the sink. Her sestrinskoye serdtse is here. Right out there, in Katya’s living room. And she’s tall and blonde and gorgeous and famous, sort of a little bit. It’s so ridiculous that Katya actually laughs, out loud, and then splashes cold water on her face.

When she comes back out, Trixie is over by the bookshelves running her fingers along and touching all of Katya’s tchotchkes. She turns around at the sound of the bathroom door opening.

“You have a lot of cool stuff.”

“Thanks! It’s vintage, mostly.”

Trixie tilts her head in consideration of that. “Does it count as vintage when you’ve been alive for a hundred and fifty years?”

Katya screams, again. Her neighbour is going to give her that stern look when they bump into each other in the mailroom tomorrow, but she doesn’t care.

When you’re an addict, people often tiptoe around you. Katya is used to people - especially new people - treating her like she’s gun shy or easily spooked.

“You’re a villain, Trixie Mattel.”

Her cheeks pink at her full name. Trixie spreads the skirt of her dress out in her hands and bends her knees in a little bow. “What was it like, witnessing the Industrial Revolution firsthand?”

“Stop!” Katya gasps.

Trixie is grinning open-mouthed. Even teasing, Katya thinks she is so lovely, so sweet and wonderful. She can hardly believe it. For just a second she wonders whether this is a soulbound thing, whether it puts rose-tinted glasses over her and that’s what makes Trixie a pink angel, but she doesn’t think so. She thought that the second she saw her, before they knew they were soulbound.

The kettle starts whistling and Katya fixes their drinks, hot water with honey for Trixie and green tea for herself. She joins Trixie on the couch and hands her the mug, wraps both hands around her own.

Her phone in her back pocket is jamming awkwardly into her hip. She tugs it free and goes to put it on the coffee table, then thinks better of it and hands it to Trixie instead.

“Here. Gimme your number.”

Trixie adds herself as a contact. She’s put an emoji after her name, the two pink hearts, and Katya grins to see it. She sends Trixie a text so that she’ll have her number too.

“Hold on, some weirdo’s texting me.” Trixie glances down at her own phone, but Katya doesn’t miss the way she watches her from the corner of her eye, looking for her reaction.

For a little while, they trade information back and forth like secrets. Katya asks Trixie about her childhood, her family, where she grew up, and she offers her own answers truth for truth. She learns all about Wisconsin, about growing up poor and how that has given Trixie the work ethic she has today.

It’s getting late, but they’re not on the other side of the night yet. It hasn’t rolled over into morning. Trixie is sitting with her elbow propped up on the back of the couch and she plays absent-mindedly with strands of her own hair. She’s warm and Katya smells adrenaline and sweat on her, and leftover perfume.

“Hey,” Trixie says when there’s a lull in their conversation, and reaches out to prod Katya’s bicep. “What did you want to show me?”

Katya gets up and leads Trixie to her bedroom. She keeps her old journals in here, because it’s easier than fielding questions whenever she has friends or family over. They take up the bottom three shelves of her bookcase. She gestures to them, and Trixie sinks down to kneel on the carpet.

“I uh, kept notes. Helped me make sense of things, I guess. And so that I could ask them - you - for the stories.”

Trixie looks up at Katya and she has one hand over her heart like she’s trying to keep it in her chest. “Can I?”

“Course. They’re about you.”

Katya settles cross-legged on the end of her bed to watch. She picks at her cuticles, feeling suddenly bare. Lots of the people in her life know that she’s soulbound, but since the day that Anya found her journal nobody else has ever seen them.

The first one Trixie picks out is the first one Katya started. It’s thirty years old and the binding is coming apart a bit, she keeps meaning to tape it together. The pages are yellow and her writing is a little faded; Trixie cranes her neck over it until her nose is almost touching.

“You didn’t start from my birthday?”

“I didn’t have the journal yet,” Katya explains.

Trixie doesn’t seem to even really be listening. She’s following the words on the page with her fingertips as she reads, like she’s trying to absorb them. It feels voyeuristic to watch, even though it’s Katya’s own words that she’s reading.

“Wow. I never even thought about that. How weird it must have been for you when I was a little kid.”

Katya snorts a laugh. “Weird is an understatement. Thought they were gonna ship me off to the looney bin a couple times there.”

“When did you get back?”

The way she teases with her sweet voice and her sweet smile is like taking a hit to the solar plexus every time. It’s like they’ve known each other years. Katya kicks her foot out in Trixie’s direction but isn’t quite close enough to make contact.

Trixie closes the journal and puts it back in its place on the shelf, skips ahead several years. The one she pulls next is from when she was nine and Katya was sixteen. It wasn’t a good year for either of them, Katya remembers that much. And she remembers how she had handled it.

Not gracefully.

“I had kind of a shitty childhood,” Trixie offers. They both know that Katya already knows that, but she’s grateful anyway that Trixie has chosen to share. “Yours seemed pretty good though. I was sad a lot, so I guess you were happy?”

Oh. Right. That.

“I was…” Katya pauses to swallow roughly. Her mouth is suddenly dry and she works her tongue around her teeth. “I was high, Trixie. Like a lot. For years and years.”

Trixie very slowly closes the journal and sets it down in front of herself. She doesn’t lift her head to look at Katya. A little crease has formed between her eyebrows that Katya wants to put her mouth to.

“You were high?”

“Yeah. Or drunk. Sometimes both.”

Katya is way past the point of shame. She’s worked through it a lot in therapy and in AA meetings and now she can view that part of her life with a sort of detachment. Like somebody else did those things.

“You knew that whatever you felt, I would feel the opposite, and you chose to get high anyway?”

“Trixie-”

“Do you know what the opposite of euphoria is, Katya?” Trixie suddenly seems to realise the imbalance between them and gets to her feet. “It’s fucking misery. All the time. And then imagine that you’re nine fucking years old.”

Katya hates confrontation, always has. And she doesn’t know enough about Trixie yet to know where the lines are, how carefully she needs to tread. She lays her hands flat against her thighs, palms up.

“I didn’t think it would count. If it was synthetic happiness.“

“Well it fucking did. I was a kid.”

God. She knows that. She thought about it a lot when she went to rehab. That it wasn’t only her own life she was destroying. And every addict says that, of course, because everybody has an intimate circle of collateral around themselves, but for her it was different.

“I know you were. I know. I’ve had a lot of guilt about that.”

“Well why the fuck did you do it then?” Trixie has her hands in two tight fists and she’s pressing them against her legs as if she doesn’t trust what she might do with them otherwise.

“I’m happy for you that you don’t have enough of a concept of addiction to understand why it’s not that easy,” Katya says very gently.

“Don’t patronise me!”

Katya closes her mouth. She always thought that feeling the opposite of what the other person feels is cruel, is an unkindness on the part of the universe, but this is even worse. Trixie’s heart is aching inside of Katya’s chest. She can feel how much she has hurt her, can even feel how Trixie is on the hot edge of tears.

“I’m sorry. I was selfish. I wish I could take it back.”

“I have to go,” Trixie says. She looks around herself in confusion, like she can’t understand how she got here. “I can’t be here with you. I have to go.”

She’s at the door before Katya can even begin to figure out how to ask her to stay. It’s an unusual sensation. She’s not in love with Trixie, not yet, but she is the love of her life. Trixie is her sestrinskoye serdtse, but Katya feels certain that if she lets her go now that’s it for them.

“Trixie, please-” Katya starts, and gets her own front door closed in her face.

She slumps against it and sinks to the ground, lets her head smack back heavily against the wood. And then again, and again, and one more time. Katya draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, opens her mouth to let her teeth scrape against her own skin.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Katya heaves herself up off the floor. Her phone is face down on the kitchen countertop and she reaches for it, dials without looking.

“Katya?”

“Da,” she says.

She starts explaining the whole situation in rapidfire Russian, and as she talks she moves through her apartment and lets her muscle memory kick in. She rinses their two mugs and closes her blinds and checks that her lunch is ready to go for the morning.

On the other end of the phone, Sasha listens intently. Sometimes she just needs to rant in her mother tongue, and her old roommate is always so receptive and kind. Katya tells her that she found her sestrinskoye serdtse and that they are beautiful and funny and kind and that Katya is never going to see them again because the mistakes she made at thirteen are still, still, wreaking havoc in her adult life.

“Katya, you said you can feel how upset she is?”

“Da.” She bows her head over the sink and lets a tear drip off the end of her nose into it. “It hurts.”

“Okay. Well don’t you think that might mean that she feels how sorry you are, then?”

That did not occur to her, and she feels like a colossal idiot. Katya turns out all the lights through the kitchen and living room and gets into bed, phone tight in her grip still.

“Do you think it will make a difference?”

“I’d say so.”

Sasha has switched back to English now. Katya assumes Shea is there, knows how much Sasha hates to speak Russian in front of her wife and exclude her in any way, even accidentally.

“I like her so much. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“I think you should give her some space for tonight. She was fresh off a show, right? Her emotions have to have been running high.”

Katya huffs a little noise of agreement. She knows that Trixie is tired because she feels it, layered over top of her own exhaustion like she is the photograph and Trixie the negative.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Trixie is vibrant and technicolor and Katya feels not all the way here.

There’s whispering on the other end of the phone, the sound of a door closing. “Do you need me to come over? Or I can stay on with you till you fall asleep.”

“I’m okay. Really. I’m just gonna pass out. Thank you, yaytso.” The nickname makes Sasha grunt and Katya grins, hurries to follow it up with something a little more tender. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”

They hang up. Katya doesn’t fall asleep, of course not. She lies on her back with her arms crossed over her chest so she can feel it rising and falling, to remind her that she will go on breathing even though it feels like her lungs are collapsing.

All of her life, she’s imagined this moment. What it will be like to meet her sestrinskoye serdtse. She always figured that whoever they were, no matter what, the two of them would just fall into it. That it would be easy.

She’s still awake when the sun comes up and she rolls out of bed and runs through her salutation. It does help, grounds her a little bit. Now that she’s listening to her body, it has finally gone quiet. Trixie is sleeping, then. Katya is teaching some classes today, but not until a little later in the morning. She takes a long shower and tips her head back beneath the stream, lets the hot water pound down over her face.

Her bangs are getting long. She huffs a breath and they flutter against her forehead. Katya runs through her usual makeup routine, dark smudgy liner and a crimson lip. She feels a little more like herself now.

Having Trixie in her space brought a few truths home for her. Firstly, she needs to get some actual food. Her refrigerator is almost totally empty and it’s embarrassing; she’s nearing forty.

Part of the reason she doesn’t eat is that she hates the grocery store. The lights stress her out and she gets so self-conscious, worries that she’s in everybody’s way while they try to browse the shelves.

It’s not yet eight, so it’s fairly quiet still. She gets a cart in the hope that she will be encouraged to fill it. Katya paces up and down the aisles choosing things at random. Back when she lived with Sasha they had a good arrangement going: Sasha made meal plans and went to the store and cooked everything, and Katya did the dishes and took out the garbage.

She misses her, fires off a quick text to tell her so. There’s no response, but Sasha is probably busy getting ready for work and is also probably exhausted after staying up with Katya all night like she’s a colicky infant.

Katya finds herself picking up a whole bag of lemons without really thinking about it. She hates them, and she pauses for a second and then goes ahead and puts them in the cart. She pays for everything and heads down the block towards her apartment with a brown paper bag cradled in each arm.

She’s not looking where she’s going, because she’s trying to figure out how to get her keys out of her pocket without dropping all of her groceries. A voice startles her and it takes twenty years of yoga, of centring herself, for her not to dump everything out on the sidewalk.

“Let me help.”

“Trixie?”

“Hi.” Trixie chews on her lip. She’s not wearing any makeup and her hair is back in a ponytail. There are blue tinted shadows beneath her eyes and a line across her forehead that was not there last night. “Here. Give them to me.”

“You’re here.”

“I’ve been buzzing.”

“I’m not home,” Katya says, and immediately wishes she had a hand free to slap over her face.

It makes Trixie smile though. She’s still holding her hands out and Katya passes the bags over. She gets the door unlocked, ushers Trixie up the stairs ahead of her and opens her apartment door as well. She has about three seconds to collect herself while she locks it behind them and she takes a very deep, very slow breath.

Trixie is at the kitchen island unloading the bags, putting the perishables in the refrigerator. It’s so achingly domestic that Katya feels like she’s going to die. Instead, she heads to join Trixie and help her.

“These are for you.” She holds the bag of lemons out towards Trixie.

Her face goes soft around the edges. Now that Katya’s getting a good look at her, she sees that the whites of her eyes and the tip of her nose are a little pink.

“I talked to Fame,” Trixie offers. She takes the lemons and puts them away into the refrigerator, very carefully not looking at Katya. “You were right. I don’t know what it’s like, to be an addict. She helped me to understand a little better.”

For just a second, she bristles. She doesn’t like the idea of Trixie and Fame talking about her. But Trixie is here, so whatever Fame said clearly worked.

“And, Katya.” Trixie turns to look at her then. Her shoulders go down and she sets her jaw. “I felt you. Felt how guilty you’ve been, all this time. How sorry you are.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” she agrees.

Those words have been offered many, many times. To her friends and family and coworkers and doctors. This is the first time she’s really sure that the other person understands how deeply she means them.

“I forgive you,” Trixie says. She takes Katya’s hand in hers and laces their fingers together. “I can’t say I understand, but I…appreciate how difficult it’s been. For you.”

“Has it been difficult for you?”

Trixie huffs an adorable little noise. They’re just standing here, holding hands in the middle of Katya’s kitchen. It should feel ridiculous. It doesn’t.

“Yes. I’ve ached for you, every day. Tried to move past it-” She cuts herself off and frowns. “Well. I guess you know about that. But yes. I’ve wanted you so badly, my whole life.”

“That’s pretty gay,” Katya says. She’s grinning, can’t help herself. Trixie learned the truth, learned about the part of her that pads restlessly, concentrically in her heart. And she came back.

Trixie snorts. “Uh yeah, well I’m a giant lesbian, so.”

“I wouldn’t say giant.” Katya lets her eyes roam over Trixie. She’s in flats today, cute little pumps, but she still has several inches on Katya.

She screams that banshee laugh again and throws her head back, closes her eyes. It’s so cute. Trixie is so cute. When she gets done cackling she goes quiet and then she wells up, her brown eyes almost green in the early morning light.

“I don’t want this to be ruined before it even starts,” she whispers.

Katya reaches for her, not sure what her intentions are until she gets her hands on Trixie. She brings her in for a hug, one hand cradling the back of her head and the other rubbing the space between her shoulder blades.

“Hey, no. Trixie, baby, shh, it’s okay. Nothing’s ruined. We’re okay.”

She holds her for a long time, feels the material of her shirt getting damp. Trixie has her arms low around Katya’s waist. They’ve known each other for barely twelve hours. But they have also known each other for thirty years. Pressed together like this, Katya’s heart greets Trixie’s warmly.

Oh, there you are.

[artificialqueens]

intents wicked or charitable (trixya) 1/10 - beanierose

AN: thank you so much to conny, shea and sophie for caring about this universe as much as i do, you are all so wonderful and i am so lucky. dolly the dog is borrowed from conny’s daisies universe, which is the loveliest and most gentle thing of all time. go check it out!

(read on ao3) | (fine me at katiehoughton)

a practical magic au for the spooky season. there’s a curse on any man who dares love you? love a woman, instead. | 5,479 words

be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn’d bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell be thy intents wicked or charitable hamlet, act one scene four

*   *   *

The wind catches the door to the mudroom and makes it fly open with such a loud crash that the whole house shivers and the dog starts barking. Trixie hustles over the threshold and whistles for Dolly, has to wrestle the door closed once both of them are inside. The sky is livid-dark and churning and the wind moans low in its throat. Dolly whines and hurries away to curl up in front of the hearth. Trixie huffs a little laugh under her breath, to soothe herself mostly. She likes living alone out here three miles from town, and she isn’t usually freaked out by solitude, but the earth feels angry this afternoon.

It’s cold out today, much warmer inside the house, and her cheeks are ruddy. Trixie toes out of her boots and untucks her fisherman’s sweater from her jeans to pull it up over her head. She pads through to the kitchen in her sock feet and her thermal layer. The whole house smells rich and good and a little tomatoey. Trixie lifts the lid of the crockpot and leans over it, lets the steam hit her face. She’s grateful to her this-morning self for fixing supper and she stirs the stew a couple of times, tastes some of the broth from the end of the spoon.

She knows just what they’d say, Kim and Bob and all the rest of them. She hears them laughing right in her ear like ghouls. Today she got up with the sun and made a stew for one with carrots and potatoes and zucchini she pulled out of the earth herself. Trixie is trying to be as self-sufficient as she can, now that she’s here. That’s the whole point.

The city became entirely too loud, the kitchen louder still. She doesn’t miss the money or the respect or the power, doesn’t miss the cries of yes chef in response to every word out of her mouth. She doesn’t miss the almost of her television career, the stardom everybody kept insisting was right at her fingertips if she just stretched a little further. Trixie misses her friends sometimes and absolutely nothing else about that life.

“Dolly!” she calls out, and the dog comes trotting into the kitchen. Trixie scratches her behind the ears, stoops over to kiss the slope of her snout. “Hey, beautiful girl. Are you hungry? Dinner time?”

She gets an enthusiastic wag of Dolly’s whole body in response and then the dog disappears through to the mudroom to wait. She’s a greyhound, not a farm dog at all, but Trixie has had Dolly a lot longer than she’s lived out here. One of the very first projects she did when she moved in was to create a little feeding station for Dolly, a kind of shelf to keep her bowls off of the ground and accommodate her height.

It felt dykey in a way she never really has before. Even as a chef, opening her own restaurant in a field so dominated by men, Trixie has always clung tightly to her femininity with both neatly manicured hands. Something about kneeling down on the hardwood and drilling a hole into her wall felt so butch that she caught a wicked case of church giggles and had to shut the drill off. She had stifled them against her palm for a minute and then remembered that there is no one for miles around. Instead, she had tipped her head back and let her laughter ricochet around the room.

Trixie eats dinner by herself, as she has done every night for the last four months. She sits at the dining table in the main living space because she hates eating on the couch. From here she can see outside in the mornings, all the way across the fields at the rear of her property, but now that the evenings are starting to draw in she just watches herself chew.

There’s no television at the house. She bought the place fully furnished and hasn’t really added anything, didn’t see the point when everything she needs is here already. She doesn’t miss it. There’s the radio in the kitchen and there’s Dolly for companionship and she finds that she likes it. Trixie didn’t bring any makeup with her, or her blow dryer or curling iron. She felt herself shedding layers of performative femininity with every mile she drove north, Dolly in the passenger seat beside her and four boxes tied down in the bed of the truck.

When Trixie turns on the shower she hears the water heater start groaning two floors below her. She is long since accustomed to all of the peculiar quirks of this house, all of the noises it makes. They have had to get used to each other, the house and her. She knows that the front door sticks in the frame when it’s cold out and the lock doesn’t work great so it’s best to avoid using it if possible. She knows that the third stair down creaks the loudest and that when it rains heavily the gutter outside the reading room overflows and water pours in torrents down the window. It feels like home here, more than her Los Angeles apartment ever did, or Wisconsin before that.

The water takes a while to get warm, so Trixie leaves it running while she peels out of the rest of her clothes. She unwinds her hair from its braids and inspects herself in the mirror over the sink. Most of her days are spent outside now, not being perceived by anybody, so a little jolt of unfamiliarity hits her each evening when she faces her reflection. Her cheeks are a bit fuller than she remembers, and so are her stomach and thighs. She feels good, strong. She holds her arm up across her breasts to get a sense of how tan she’s getting. The skin of her chest is still creamy smooth and pale, but her arms and face are littered with new freckles every day and the fine hairs on her forearms have been bleached white-blonde by the sun.

Trixie stands beneath the spray of the shower until the hot runs out. She washes her hair, combing the conditioner through the ends with her fingers. Her body aches in a way that is so different than how it used to, after hours on her feet in the sticky kitchen. It feels more like she’s earned it.

It’s Friday night, and Trixie has a date. She squeezes as much water as she can from the ends of her hair and gets into bed in underwear and a huge sweatshirt. When Trixie left the city she ditched her cell phone. She always felt silly having one, like she was playacting at being more successful than she really was, and she was glad to bid it farewell. Only two people in the whole world know the number for the landline here. Trixie answers on the second ring and eases down the headboard a bit. Her bare legs slide against each other beneath the sheet and the blanket and for just a moment it makes her ache with loneliness.

“Beatrice.”

“Kimberly, hello,” she says. “How are you?”

Kim launches right into a diatribe against the restaurant industry as a whole and Trixie sits with her eyes closed, only half listening. She feels it’s important to maintain some connection to the outside world, just in case the isolation makes her lose her mind and there’s nobody around to notice. Kim is so soft-spoken and gentle and kind that it’s bizarre to hear her get this heated. It reminds Trixie again why she’s doing this.

“You know I have a guest room.”

“Trixie,” Kim sighs. Trixie is holding the phone close enough to her ear that she feels the hot wash of Kim’s breath over her cheek. “I’m not quitting my job and packing up my life and disappearing into the wilderness.”

Like you, goes unspoken. Kim has been supportive this whole time. She doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand how Trixie could walk away from all of the opportunities unfolding before her like springtime. But she kept her sighs and eyerolls mostly to herself and she helped Trixie pack and that’s a lot more than most people did.

“I’m just saying. Offer’s open.”

Now that the sun has gone down it’s freezing in the bedroom. Gooseflesh erupts along the lengths of Trixie’s thighs. She lets Kim talk for a little while longer about Los Angeles and what all of their mutual friends are doing and how everybody, Trixie, misses you so much, and then she eases her gently off the call and hangs up the phone.

She has on her thickest, cosiest pair of wool socks and she skids a little bit on the hardwood in the hallway. It excites the dog and she leaps around, pawing at Trixie’s bare calves. Trixie opens the back door and sends Dolly outside to use the bathroom while she heats water on the stovetop. It’s so cold that she shifts her weight from foot to foot, hopping a little, and rubs her biceps to try and generate some heat.

It doesn’t matter how deep into the winter it gets, she hates sleeping with pants on. Trixie does a quick circuit of the lower level to check all of the doors are locked, an old habit from Los Angeles that she can’t seem to shake, and turns out all of the lamps as well. She’s done in time for the kettle to start its insistent whistling and she fills up her hot water bottle, brings it and the dog upstairs with her. Trixie sleeps with Dolly in the bed and two blankets and she is still chilly for a good half hour every evening.

On her back in the textured darkness, Trixie stares at the ceiling and allows herself to yearn for just a minute. She needs a warm, kind woman to let Trixie put her freezing hands inside of her sweater. Her whole body aches with it, how much she wants. It’s not even that she misses Bob, exactly. She just misses having someone to lay next to her and kiss her until the pink tip of her nose gets warm.

There are no curtains in any of the rooms upstairs. Trixie keeps meaning to get some, to try and keep the warmth in now that summer is rolling over into fall, but she likes being able to see out into the night. The moon’s wise, round face is peering in at her right up against the glass. Since she’s been here she’s been sleeping well, sacked out on her stomach unmoving until the rooster wakes her at six. Tonight, though, she is restless and grouchy with it.

Tomorrow, for the first time, Trixie is going to drive the three miles and visit the town.

She brought a lot of supplies with her, cans and dried things like rice and pasta. The teenage son of the family in the house closest to her, a half mile down the road, gratefully accepts the ten dollar bill Trixie presses into his palm each Wednesday afternoon when he brings her milk and cheese and fruits. She has learned to bake her own bread, likes the process of working at it and how it has made her arms firm and strong. Now that the crops she planted are starting to yield, her neat rows beginning to spill over in abundance, she feels much more self-sufficient.

There are things that she needs that she can’t put off for much longer. Things she is not comfortable asking a fifteen year old boy to buy for her. And she supposes she ought to show her face to the townsfolk, now that she’s been lurking on the outskirts for almost half a year like a cryptid.

Trixie comes awake into the crisp, clear morning and can immediately see frost on the windowpane. She pulls on jeans in the bedroom and her duck boots in the mudroom and heads outside to let the chickens out. The coop structure has a kind of sliding door with a long handle that Trixie can pull from the outside and the girls all come clattering down the little ramp.

She opens the door of the pen to let them roam around the yard for a while. Dolly darts back and forth, her graceful body low to the ground and her tail in the air. She’s a city dog, and a sighthound with a high prey drive, but Trixie doesn’t need to worry. She’s patient with the girls, and they are obsessed with her.

“Good morning, Patsy-girl,” Trixie says when her favourite Rhode Island Red pecks insistently at her boot clad foot. She scoops the chicken up and cradles her to her chest, supports both of her feet in the palm of one hand so she’ll stop flapping and settle down. “Hi, princess. Hi pretty lady.”

Her voice is so soft and melty when she talks to any of the animals. She hears it in herself and can’t seem to do anything about it. Trixie has to set the chicken down because the others are squawking and hopping about her ankles, distressed that their sister is getting all of the attention. She squats down instead and has to put four fingertips to the ground to steady herself when Loretta and Shania immediately hop up onto her thighs. Trixie is long past being precious about keeping her hands clean. She’s always kept her nails short anyway, and she’s gotten used to scrubbing the dirt out from beneath them before dinner each night.

The cow shed is her next stop. There are no actual cows in there, as much as she would like to have them, but the previous owner of the property had thrown into the sale of the house a pair of cantankerous, curmudgeonly goats. They spend their nights tucked up warm amongst the hay and, she’s pretty sure, plotting ever more convoluted ways to make Trixie’s life difficult.

“Good morning Cash, Guthrie,” Trixie says when she opens the door and gets a stony stare from one and a disgruntled bleat from the other. They are the only men in a half mile radius, so of course they are ornery and smell disgusting and fight constantly with anything nearby, including each other.

Trixie opens the gate to let them out into the paddock. She likes how her mornings look, the routine of going around feeding all of the animals and making sure they have water and wishing them all a happy start to their day. She’s always been a country girl; nine years in Los Angeles couldn’t beat that out of her. Sometimes when she wakes in the morning to Garth’s insistent crowing she feels as if she’s in her thirteen year old body again, too big for her skin and stretching taller and thicker every day.

Once everybody is fed, including herself, Trixie tries to become a little more presentable. First impressions matter: it’s why she always vetted her front-of-house staff so thoroughly and why she was so obsessively detail-oriented when designing the façade of her restaurants. She’s going to be meeting a whole lot of new people today. She’d rather they didn’t clock that she’s a loner and a lesbian before she even gets a chance to open her mouth.

The truck engine rolls over twice before she gets it to start and Trixie mutters something under her breath that might be an incantation. While she drives into town she has a very difficult time not looking at herself in the rearview mirror. For the first time she wishes she’d brought a little makeup with her, even just some mascara and lipstick. Her face is pink and weathered and her hair had refused to cooperate so she’s wound it into her usual two braids and jammed a beanie over the top to at least try to look intentional.

Trixie parallel parks on the street and hops down from the cab of the truck. The step is muddy, but her boots are caked with crud anyway so it hardly matters. There are kids playing further up the street and all five of them stop what they’re doing and turn as one to look at her. It’s creepy, a bit Children of the Corn, and a shiver rattles up Trixie’s spine. She wraps her men’s cord jacket tighter around herself and arranges her scarf at her neck. The cold is a copper taste in her throat and the skin of her face feels pulled taut, pink-raw.

The whole town is serene and lovely. Trixie walks slowly down the main street, hands stuffed low into the pockets of her coat because she forgot to bring gloves with her. It’s big enough that it makes her feel delicate and tiny and precious, all hunkered down inside of it.

Each building has a different coloured siding and all of the storefronts are neatly kept and welcoming. As Trixie walks she hears the susurration of the water against the shores of the cove and the crunch of her own footsteps. It’s not so quiet here in town as it is back at the house, but above the shouts of the children playing and the occasional car rumbling by it’s still peaceful.

There’s a pharmacy at the end of the street, close to the dock, and Trixie ducks inside. A bell over the door signals her arrival and the old man behind the register looks up from the newspaper and smiles at her. He’s missing one of his front teeth. Trixie gives him a tiny nod of her head and waves away his offer to help find what she needs. It’s a much faster experience than back in Los Angeles because there is only one choice of shampoo, one soap, one brand of analgesic.

She sets everything down on the counter. The man begins scanning everything, not watching what he’s doing because his eyes are raking up and down Trixie. She’s wearing a lot of layers today so it’s not like he’s getting an eyeful, but it still makes the skin at the back of her neck prickle.

“Well hey there, little lady. You must be new in town. I’m Tom.” He gets done ringing everything up but makes no move to bag it or ask her for her money.

Trixie pulls her wallet free from the back of her jeans, has to wrestle with it a bit because it gets caught on the corner of the pocket. She gives Tom her well-worn, please don’t try to have a conversation with me right now smile. Very carefully does not offer him her name back.

“I live a few miles outside of town. Out on Fort Casey Road.”

“Well, everybody here’s real friendly. Can’t get steered too wrong. Just-” He props an elbow on the counter and leans conspiratorially in. Trixie tries very hard not to physically recoil. “Just steer clear of Verbena.”

“What’s Verbena?”

Trixie hands over a couple of bills, hoping to hurry along this interaction. She’s trying not to let impatience crease the space between her eyebrows, trying not to ruin the first conversation she’s had outside of her phone calls with Kim in four months. It’s a little like her muscles have begun to atrophy; she’s working to stretch them out, but it’s uncomfortable.

Tom hands her change over to her, folds her fingers closed around the handful of coins in her palm. She finds that absolutely reprehensible. Trixie stuffs the coins hastily into the pocket of her coat and wipes her palm off against her thigh, not at all caring whether he sees. She hopes that he does.

“Verbena is the apothecary across the street.” Tom pauses, swept up in the drama of it all. He turns to look over his shoulder and Trixie follows his gaze, spots an unassuming little store almost directly opposite. When she looks back at Tom he drops his voice an octave. “The witch owns it.”

“The what?” Trixie snorts, and then realises that Tom is deadly serious and clamps her mouth shut. He nods fervently at her but doesn’t offer any more information. Trixie feels a sigh forming in the base of her throat and swallows it back down. She’s a lesbian. She feels an automatic, ferocious kinship with spurned women. “Right. Okay. Thanks.”

She takes her purchases in their brown paper bag and leaves the store. Outside it’s bright and crisp, and she doesn’t feel like getting back into the car just yet. She can feel Tom’s eyes on her still, through the glass frontage of the pharmacy. The violation of it is rapidly making her furious. Trixie has never liked being told what to do, especially by old men. She doesn’t allow herself to hesitate for even half a beat before she strides across the street and right on in to Verbena.

It’s a cute place. The exterior is painted all white and there are planters full of lavender either side of the door. It will be beautiful in the springtime. Inside there are bottles and jars and packages of all different sorts, so many that Trixie can’t even begin to decipher them all on her first sweep around. It smells wonderful, there’s an aromatherapy burner on one of the shelves and Trixie takes a step closer to it, bends at the waist to breathe it in a little deeper.

“Oh, hi. Hello. Welcome.”

The voice startles Trixie a bit and she straightens again, turns to look. All of the breath stutters in her chest. The most beautiful woman she’s ever seen — the most beautiful woman she will ever see in her life — is standing there. She’s grinning at her with a set of perfect teeth that Trixie stares at for probably a beat too long. Her white-blonde hair just skims the tops of her shoulders, heavy bangs a little long so she has to blink them out of her eyes. She’s lovely. Trixie’s palms are sweating.

“Um. Hi.”

“I’m Katya.” She offers her hand and Trixie takes it, has to maneuver the bag from the pharmacy into one arm. Katya squeezes instead of shaking and it’s so completely charming that Trixie feels her face getting hot. At least she can blame it on how much warmer it is in the store than outside.

“Trixie.”

“Trixie,” Katya repeats softly, like she’s trying it on for size. She’s still smiling so wide and Trixie finds herself grinning back, goofy Wisconsin teeth and all. “Hello, Trixie. Is there anything I can help you find today?”

The heat in her cheeks and neck is getting to be a bit much. Trixie sets her bag down on the countertop, takes off her jacket and folds it over her arm, pulls off her beanie hat as well. She definitely has hat hair and she smoothes her hands self-consciously over the top of her head.

“I…kind of came in here out of spite?” Trixie chews on her bottom lip, but Katya throws her head back and a pneumatic burst of laughter ricochets out of her.

“So you met Tom?”

Katya is still laughing and she reaches out to grab Trixie’s arm. Her fingers are thin and she clutches tight and everything in Trixie’s body knots up into Katya’s grip. She’s a few inches shorter than Trixie is and she smells good, like earth and springtime. When she straightens up again she slides her fingertips down the length of Trixie’s forearm as she lets go.

“I did. So no, I’m not looking for anything specific.”

“I can show you around?” Katya offers.

Trixie nods, certain that she’s completely failing at reining in her enthusiasm. Katya is the first new person she’s met in the last four months that hasn’t irritated her immediately. She lets her take her hat and coat and hang them up by the door, lets her hook her arm through Trixie’s elbow and lead her around like they’re old friends.

All of the products in the store are homemade and Katya explains the properties of each one, allows Trixie to smell things and try samples at her leisure. Katya is effusive and intelligent. Her whole face comes alight when she talks about the merits of mugwort or how close she is to perfecting her mint oatmeal shaving cream. Trixie works a lotion into her hands and lifts them both to her face to breathe deeply. Her skin feels immediately softer, and the places where her knuckles are chapped from working outside look less red and angry.

The two of them are standing with their heads bent together, studying Katya’s collection of beeswax candles. Katya’s got both hands in the back pockets of her hunter green cords and her elbows are pointy and jut out away from her. It means that every time Trixie shifts, the right one nudges into her. She likes it a lot. Katya holds up one of the candles and Trixie leans in to smell it, closes her eyes as she does.

A crash makes the windows of the storefront tremble in their frames and Trixie jerks upright, one hand flying up to land at her chest. Katya doesn’t even twitch. They turn together to see a pack of teenage boys sprinting away from the store, and a mess of egg white and yolk and shell sliding slowly down the window. Trixie is fairly sure she spots the neighbour boy, Peter, in amongst them.

Trixie makes as if to head for the door, but Katya grabs for her elbow to stop her where she stands. That’s probably best. What is she going to do, chase them? Outrage bubbles hot and insistent in her stomach and she turns to look at Katya.

“Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Sure I am.”

Katya reaches down behind the counter and comes back with a soft cloth and a spray bottle. Trixie follows her outside and stands and watches as she cleans her windows, one knee propped on the bench out front so she can lean in close. She’s shoved her sweater up past her elbows and Trixie likes the flex of the tendons in her forearms, her intricate tattoos, her delicate hands. It feels like she’s standing guard, and she finds herself glancing over her shoulders to watch for the mob coming back.

After a few minutes Katya’s arms get tired of scrubbing and she takes a break to shake them out. Trixie takes over, makes sure to meticulously spray every inch of the glass and get all of it off. The winter sun sits low in the sky and if the egg is allowed to bake onto the window it’s much harder to remove. Katya is watching her with both hands shoved into the pockets of her pants again. She has the bottoms of them rolled up so a strip of skin shows above her Dr. Martens, and Trixie is focusing very hard on not looking at her pale ankles.

When they’re done, Katya holds the door open for Trixie and flips the lock behind them both. She has a tiny little break room at the back of the store and she makes tea for the two of them, presses the cup into Trixie’s waiting hands. She doesn’t seem affected, and somehow that’s worse.

“This happen a lot?”

“A beautiful woman coming into my store? Never.” Katya grins at her over the rim of her mug, but when Trixie keeps her face carefully slack she falters. “Yeah. I’m what the kids call an outcast.”

“Oh honey, an outcast honey? I’ve been out since ninety two, honey.”

It’s a dumb joke, but it makes Katya scream and slosh a little of her tea onto her hand. It’s hot still and she sucks on the webbing between her thumb and pointer finger. Trixie looks at the red stain the lipstick leaves on her skin, looks at the pink tip of Katya’s tongue.

“That’s awful,” Katya points at her. “You’re awful, Trixie. I think the homophobes might have a point.”

They’re both laughing then, and clutching at each other. It seems like Katya’s whole body is full up with joy, and she’s looking at Trixie like she’s so pleased to find her here. Trixie hopes that Tom is squinting at them from across the street and turning slowly to stone.

She sips her tea and lets her eyes flutter closed. She doesn’t know what’s in here but it’s good, kindles a small fire in her gut that spreads outwards into all of her extremities. It could just be Katya, smiling at her and calling her beautiful.

Once they’ve both emptied their mugs, Katya takes a gift bag from a stack beside the register and wanders around the store for a little while, choosing things to fill it up with. She is careful, each choice considered. Trixie watches her, lets herself look at Katya’s tight ass in her pants when she bends over. It’s been six months since things ended with Bob, and Trixie isn’t one to have a casual fling, so the heat between her thighs is more insistent than usual.

“Here.” Katya presses the bag into Trixie’s hands. “To say thanks.”

Trixie doesn’t open the bag, doesn’t want to seem too eager. She has a sense memory of her grandmother slapping her hands and tutting at her, telling her it lacks decorum to open gifts in front of the giver. Instead, she holds it against her chest and meets Katya’s eyes. They are blue-grey, clear and abundant as a winter morning.

“Thank you. This is…this is really nice. Suspiciously nice.”

“If you start feeling feverish and vomiting it’s absolutely nothing to worry about, Tracy.” Katya studies her cuticles, feigning disinterest. Trixie notices her short nails and feels it between her thighs, takes a stuttering breath. “Just do me a favour and leave your door unlocked so I don’t have to commit breaking and entering when I come to harvest your bones. That’s a felony, you know.”

Trixie snorts and snatches her hand back from where Katya has grabbed it. “Oh sure, anything else I can do to make it easier for you?”

“Come back soon?” Katya says, and all of the teasing drops right out of her voice. She can’t seem to look Trixie in the face, studies the floor instead, and tenderness for her swells in Trixie’s chest.

“If I live through the night, I’ll come back.”

Trixie leaves then, has to. The way Katya is looking at her, like she can’t seem to choose just one thing to stare at, is making Trixie want to shove her hands inside of those tight pants and haul Katya against her.

In the car she rolls the windows down and cranks up both the heat and the volume on the CD player. She sings at the top of her lungs, elbow propped on the door and her other hand holding the wheel in two fingers. It’s freezing cold in the car and she’s shivering in her seat, barely able to grip the wheel in her numb hands, but her face is still warm.

When she moved here she was fully prepared to be the only gay person for miles and miles. It doesn’t bother her; growing up in Wisconsin desensitised her to that. But now here is Katya, beautiful and enigmatic and funny and asking to see Trixie again.

Dolly can tell that Trixie is excited and it’s infectious; she hops around while Trixie unpacks the few groceries she picked up. Trixie feeds her treats, crouched down on the kitchen floor to let the dog eat out of her palm and give her scritches behind the ears.

Trixie has always enjoyed anticipation. Bob used to complain at her, irritated by the way she would spend an hour or more gussying up before coming to bed. It makes her feel attractive and irresistible, to make herself wait. She leaves the gift bag on the dining table for the whole afternoon and refuses to even look at it while she makes dinner. After she’s cleaned up and all of the animals are down for the night, she settles cross-legged in the middle of her bed to open it.

There’s a tube of the lotion she tried, which makes her smile. She’s been smelling her hands all afternoon. There’s an aloe face cream that professes to be good for redness, and a candle that has the same scent as whatever essential oil Katya had been burning. Underneath everything else in the bag is a little notecard with the store’s name and logo on one side, and on the other Katya’s name and the store address. And at the bottom, hand written in red ink, is a phone number.

[artificialqueens]

intents wicked or charitable (trixya) 7/10 - beanierose

AN: validation station, you ladies brighten my days and i’m so proud of all of you. and stutter, my love, i couldn’t do it without you. i’m so grateful and so thrilled to know you.

(read on ao3) | (find me at katiehoughton)

[one.] [two.] [three.] [four.] [five.] [six.]

a practical magic au for the spooky season. there’s a curse on any man who dares love you? love a woman, instead. | 5,680 words

“How could you do this to me?”

Trixie stays right where she is on the ground. The snow is soaking through the ass of her pants and getting inside of her boots so that her socks feel unpleasantly wet. Her face is red and everything keeps going blurry. She blinks to clear her vision again and a tear escapes her, slides hot down the salt-raw curve of her cheek.

“Honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Katya is standing over her, red scarf wound twice around her neck so that it obscures half of her face as well.

“You hurt me.” Trixie lets the wail bleed out into her voice a little bit. She’s got her fists balled up inside her gloves so that the empty fingers flop limply when she moves her hands. She’s not crying, not really. Her eyes are just watering because her face stings.

Katya kneels down next to her and tucks her hair back. The tips of her ears are pink with the cold and Trixie finds herself fixated on the right one, which is folded over into a little point. Katya calls it her pixie ear. She sighs when Trixie seeks it out with her teeth and lips and tongue, but she always lets her and it always makes a moan stutter out of her very quietly.

“Trixie, baby, it was an accident. I’m so sorry.”

Her face is white with horror and her hands are hovering over Trixie like she’s not sure she’s allowed to touch. It’s not fun anymore. Trixie shakes off the last of her snit and reaches for Katya, fists both hands in the lapels of her coat to haul her in close.

She lets out a little squeak of surprise as she goes and Trixie kisses the noise right from her mouth. She’s the one to deepen things, the one to touch her tongue to the seam of Katya’s lips. It’s not a comfortable position, on her ass on the snow covered ground and Katya balancing herself with a hand at her thigh. Katya’s mouth is hot and wet and lovely and Trixie wants to keep kissing her. Her whole body feels strung out with need, pulled taut.

“Mm, Trixie, wait.” Katya is the one to break the kiss. It doesn’t feel time to break it, and Trixie keens low in her throat. “Do you concede? Are you defeated?”

“You hit me in the face,” Trixie says, and then steals another kiss.

It’s her own fault. She’s the one who started it. Katya had been pottering around with the chickens, watching them fussing over the warm oatmeal that they get now that the cold is unending and pervasive. She is endlessly delighted by how much it confuses them and she loves to set the dish down and then stay with them for a while. Trixie leaves her to it, most times, and every now and then Katya will turn over her shoulder and grin at her about it.

Today, Trixie took advantage of Katya’s distraction and hit her right between the shoulder blades with a snowball. It made her jerk upright on a yelp, in time to see Trixie breaking away from the house and taking off at a run. She has a bench out in the backyard and she had hooked her arm around one of the posts that supports it and used the momentum to whip around and crouch down behind it for cover.

She had busied herself forming as many tightly compact balls in the snow as she could, peeking up over the back of the bench every so often. Katya had taken a minute to stop reeling. It gave Trixie time to raise up a little more and launch another snowball at her. It had landed perfectly and hit Katya square in the solar plexus. The shock of it had made her take a few stumbling steps backward.

“Trixie!” she had yelled, affronted, and immediately dropped to the ground to start forming an arsenal of her own.

She’d gotten distracted then and let herself have a moment to watch Katya, felt her heart do a slow turn in her chest. Trixie favoured quantity, wanted to have as many snowballs as possible, but Katya took a different tack. It worked out better for her. Her shots were accurate every time, where most of Trixie’s crumpled mid-flight and sprayed Katya with powdery snow rather than actually hitting her.

She knows Katya didn’t mean to hit her in the face. She was mostly just being dramatic and a bit of a brat when she let the force of it knock her onto her ass. It’s worth it for how gentle Katya is being with her now. She helps Trixie to her feet and keeps a tight hold of one of her hands. The other comes up to settle at the back of her neck and Katya’s freezing fingertips tuck inside the band of Trixie’s beanie.

“I’m sorry I hit you in the face. I know your face is very important to you.”

“My face is very important to you,” Trixie says back. “Where else are you gonna sit?”

Every time Katya kisses her, it feels a little like the first time. They’re comfortable together — Trixie knows exactly what Katya likes and what will get her to bite out a tiny moan — but she still can’t quite believe that they actually get to do this now. The leftover adrenaline from their snowball fight is making her a little aggressive. Trixie’s tongue seeks Katya’s, slicking into her mouth, and she grabs clumsily at her in her gloves.

Their kiss burns itself out naturally because they’re both shivering now that they’ve stopped moving. Katya’s cradling Trixie’s face in both hands and her fingers are freezing but her palms are warm and her breath is too, where it skims Trixie’s cheek. Snow has gathered along the tops of her shoulders and in her hair like static and it makes her ethereal and electric.

Trixie wants to bury her face in the warm creases at Katya’s neck. She can’t quite manage that, not with Katya’s enormous wool scarf in the way. Instead she wraps her arms around her and clings tight, their bodies aligned from shoulder to knee. Katya lets them have a few moments of hushed awe in which she only fidgets a tiny bit.

“You okay, mama?” she asks when Trixie lets her wriggle out of their hug.

Trixie doesn’t hurry into her answer. There’s a lot she still hasn’t said. She’s thinking it, all of the time. In the early mornings when she wakes up for just a moment and opens one eye to see Katya sitting up against the headboard with a novel against her thighs. In the evenings when Katya insists on helping Trixie make dinner, which mostly means snacking on the ingredients Trixie is trying to prep and kissing her when she gets grouchy about it. Sometimes Trixie opens her mouth, and then she remembers Katya telling her I’m scared and she closes it again.

“Yeah. Happy.”

Katya makes a disgusted noise and screws her face up. She’s got one hand tucked into Trixie’s pocket and she wriggles it there to make her laugh.

“I think we should go inside.” She darts a glance just over Trixie’s shoulder and Trixie turns to look as well, sees Dolly’s dark head in the window and her eyes baleful on them. “I think your benevolent spirit is getting jealous.”

The dog hates the snow and absolutely refuses to go outside in it more than she has to. Whenever Trixie opens the back door for Dolly to use the bathroom she pitches a fit and whines and shivers for a good half hour afterward. If Katya’s there, she’ll gather Dolly up in her arms and rock her like an infant, muttering to her in Russian.

Trixie’s not jealous of her dog. That would be absurd.

They head for the back door stumbling and snow-drunk, clutching at one another like teenagers. Trixie almost trips over one of the chickens but Katya’s holding tight to her hand and she won’t let her fall down. At the back door, Trixie looks over her shoulder to see the crooked step of their twin footprints. Katya is already inside, so she lets herself have a tiny moment to smile to herself about it without being teased.

It’s nice to have somebody else in the house. They don’t always have to be on top of one another. It’s good to just exist in the same space and be peripherally aware of one another. Most evenings Trixie busies herself fixing them dinner and she likes knowing that Katya is right in the next room, reading or fussing over Dolly or sometimes doing yoga. Trixie will often leave whatever she’s cooking to simmer on the stovetop and go to find Katya, take the novel out of her hands and leave her thumb tucked inside to mark the page while she kisses her.

This afternoon she’s listening to music. Trixie doesn’t have a CD player. Katya keeps threatening to get her one, but for now she has the radio. Katya fiddles with it constantly, changing stations as soon as she gets bored with a song, which is usually immediately after the first chorus. There’s a stew in the crockpot, but it isn’t quite time to make the dropped dumplings just yet. She wipes down the countertops and puts the peelings from the vegetables into the little caddy she keeps for composting.

It isn’t snowing anymore, but the gunmetal sky is low over the earth and it could start again at any moment. Trixie is looking forward to their evening, lighting a fire and snuggling up on the couch. Katya can be coaxed into letting Trixie hold her if she feeds her something carbohydrate-rich and warm and then eats her out slowly. Once or twice she’s even fallen asleep with her head against Trixie’s shoulder or in her lap.

“Trixie, come look at this,” Katya calls from the living room.

Trixie can see her through the archway. She’s standing by the window with one hand up against the glass, her fingerprints leaving little smudges in the condensation. She’s taken all of her winter layers off and she has the bottom of her jeans tucked into her socks and her sweater pushed up past her elbows. Trixie’s chest is tight with how badly she wants to hold her, and how grateful she is that she gets to.

“Mm, just a minute,” she says back. There are a couple of dishes waiting in the sink that she wants to tackle before she lets herself get lost in Katya for the rest of the day.

“Trixie!”

The panic in Katya’s voice makes her head snap up. Katya has whipped around to look at her and her face is pale and slack like a death mask. Before Trixie can get her mouth open to ask what’s wrong, Katya rushes right past her into the mudroom and steps hastily into her galoshes. She’s frantic in a way Trixie hasn’t ever seen before and it makes her nauseated right down into the pit of her stomach.

“What is it, babe?”

“It’s Cash. Oh God. It’s Cash.”

Trixie can hear him, now.

The goats are noisy a lot of the time. She’s gotten used to their irate bleating whenever they encounter something that displeases them, which seems to be once every half a minute or so. They’re often cantankerous towards each other and Trixie mostly tunes out the loud bleats that she can hear all the way inside the house whenever they butt heads.

This isn’t like that. It’s a thin, reedy, sustained note of panic that cuts right through the core of Trixie and upwards so she feels it into her teeth. She’s cleaved in two by it. Trixie pulls her boots on as quickly as she can over her thick wool socks and hurries outside in them, unlaced.

Katya has beat her to Cash and she’s on her knees in the snow next to him. He’s lying sprawled on his side like a rag doll dropped from a great height and his foreleg is bent at an unnatural angle. Trixie presses the back of her hand to her mouth and takes a couple of ragged breaths in through her nose.

The goat is writhing on the cold ground, scrabbling to try and get up, but Katya holds him in place with the flat of her palm. With her other hand she touches her fingers very lightly to Cash’s leg and he cries out and rears against her.

“Oh my God. What happened?” There’s no response and Trixie closes the distance in a couple of strides and knuckles the back of Katya’s head to get her attention. “Katya. What happened?”

She doesn’t look up at Trixie. Her eyes are roaming all over Cash and her hands too, busying at him like there’s something she can do. “He was climbing on the truck again, and he got onto the roof. I guess it was too icy, I don’t know-”

They’re both wailing now, Katya and the goat. Trixie kneels down too and Cash lolls his head towards her. The whites of his eyes are showing and his nostrils are flared with his fast breathing. Trixie can’t stand to see him hurting. She bows over him like that can shield him, like the warmth of her body over his will heal him.

“He slipped?”

“He slipped, he fell.” Katya has gotten herself together a little bit and she lifts her head to meet Trixie’s eyes.

“I don’t know what to do.” Trixie’s voice comes out in pieces. She can smell adrenaline and she swipes uselessly at her cheeks with the pads of her fingers. A few tears drop onto Cash’s flank. “Katya, I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“Stay right here with him, honey. It’ll comfort him to have you close.”

Katya disappears inside the house. When Trixie lifts her head to watch her go she sees Guthrie a couple of feet away, watching. His head is low and he’s toeing anxiously at the frozen ground. Cash is still mewling and Trixie strokes his head over and over, murmuring softly to him.

Katya comes back with a sheet from the linen closet which she unfolds, and Trixie helps her ease it beneath Cash as carefully as they can. The snow helps to cushion him a bit, but he still cries out when they have to bring the sheet beneath his broken leg. Katya’s got the keys to the truck as well and she unlocks it. It’s a graceless, cruel production to get Cash into the cab of the truck.

In the driver’s seat Trixie swipes at her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater. There isn’t really room for the three of them on the bench seat, so Katya’s got Cash’s back legs in her lap. She’s twisted to lean over him and she’s muttering something that Trixie can’t really hear. She gets like this sometimes, with all of the animals. Her voice is melodious and whatever she’s reciting calms them immediately. More than once, Trixie has fallen asleep on the couch with Katya at her feet whispering to the dog.

“Do you know a vet? I don’t have one here yet, I don’t-”

“Let’s go to my house.”

Katya’s voice has an edge to it that Trixie hasn’t ever heard before. She looks at her, at the set of her jaw and the two little creases between her brows, and she knows better than to argue. Trixie drives as smoothly as she possibly can, but every time they go over a bump or a pothole in the back roads Cash whines. His breathing is easing with Katya’s continued muttering and the gentle brush of both of her hands along his flank and his head.

At the house she jumps out before Trixie has even cut the engine. It’s even worse getting Cash back out of the truck and up the porch steps. He isn’t heavy, but even doing their best not to jostle him he’s writhing in agony by the time they make it inside. Katya’s walking backwards and she doesn’t have to turn over her shoulder, makes a clear path through to the kitchen without smacking into the wall or tripping over anything.

Trixie feels foggy and disoriented with panic. She lets Katya tell her what to do and she sits on the floor with Cash’s head in her lap while Katya rummages around in the cabinets. Trixie can’t lift her eyes from the goat to see what Katya’s gathering, so it startles her when she kneels down next to her on the kitchen floor.

She’s got a mortar and pestle filled with herbs and a couple of things Trixie doesn’t recognise at all, and a roll of Ace bandage. Katya starts grinding everything into a paste. She has her eyes closed and she’s muttering again, still. Once it’s done, she uses her fingers to apply it in a thick layer over Cash’s leg. It’s purplish-green and smells a little like chamomile. There’s no break in the skin. Trixie can’t understand how an ointment is going to help.

“What are you doing? He needs to see a vet. Katya.”

Trixie watches Katya wind the bandage around and around Cash’s leg. He’s nosing curiously at it, trying to lick the salve, and she gently nudges his face away over and over until she’s got the bandage secured. His breathing is starting to even out in the warmth of Katya’s kitchen, but his eyes are still wide and darting.

“It needs ten minutes or so like that. You want tea?”

“I don’t- what’s happening right now?” Trixie presses the heel of her palm to her forehead. There’s a headache blooming in a livid burst behind her left eye socket. Katya is fussing with the kettle, and all of Trixie’s leftover adrenaline comes tumbling out. “Katya, stop ignoring me. What are you doing?”

Katya sets the kettle on the burner to boil. Her shoulders are up around her ears. Trixie watches her take a steadying breath, another, and then she turns to look at her. There’s a little smudge of black eyeliner beneath her eye and the lines of her lipstick are blown out and cracking from kissing Trixie all morning in the snow.

“You remember what Tom said to you the first day you met me?”

They’ve talked about it a little. Trixie is made brave by the darkness, and most nights she lies on her back with Katya tucked against her side in a haphazard tangle of limbs, and she spills all of her secrets. She’s talked about her life before she was here, in Wisconsin and in Los Angeles. She’s talked about longing and loneliness, told Katya how glad she is to have her. Warmed her cold fingers against Katya’s stomach.

“Yes I remember. I don’t have dementia. I’m not you.”

It’s a weak joke, and she doesn’t get a laugh. Instead, Katya gives her a tiny, tiny nod. “It’s real, Trix. It’s true.”

“Oh my God, shut up,” Trixie says. She’s still on the floor with Cash and she’s suddenly disoriented by the jarring height discrepancy. Trixie gets to her feet and her knees click as she straightens. “That’s not funny. Shut up.”

“It’s not supposed to be funny. I wouldn’t joke about this. Not with you.”

“No.” Trixie shakes her head to try and dispel the ringing in her ears. Her pulse is pounding everywhere, all over. She feels overripe, like her skin is going to split open at her wrists and the base of her throat and the insides of her elbows. “No you’re not.”

Katya gives her a somber smile. She’s holding her hands in front of herself and her fingers are knotted together. “I am. Well, I’m a znakharka, technically. A folk healer.”

“Katya, stop it. It’s not cute.”

Instead of saying anything else, Katya leans forward over the island. She has a collection of pillar candles in the middle. Each one is a different colour and they drip their wax onto an assortment of peculiar dishes. Katya blows out one long, steady breath and a flame stutters to life at each of the five wicks. She raises her eyes to Trixie, then. The sun seems to have set very suddenly and the darkness up against the windows is making her claustrophobic. At her feet, Cash lets out a little bleat.

“Please stop,” Trixie says. She’s backed herself up against the cabinets without realising it and the edge of the countertop is pressing uncomfortably against the base of her spine.

The kettle starts whistling and Katya gets out two cups and a pot. She brews loose leaf, always, and she pours the hot water through the metal infuser. Trixie has her hands either side of her hips, clutching at the counter to stay standing. She feels pinned in place and stripped bare. Katya gives the tea some time to steep and then pours it into their cups. She adds a splash of milk to Trixie’s tea and sets a dainty little spoon inside. It starts stirring around and around the circumference of the cup, and when Katya lifts her hands it continues on by itself.

“Katya, please, stop it. Please.” She’s on the edge of tears, and it feels like she’s been crying all day and couldn’t possibly have anything left, but she does.

Katya folds her hands together again neatly. The spoon clatters loudly against the side of the cup and Trixie flinches badly and bites down hard on the side of her tongue. All of the candles go out at once. There are deep swathes of shadow beneath Katya’s eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She’s beautiful, of course, but it’s like Trixie’s seeing her for the first time all over again.

“I’m so sorry,” Katya whispers.

“You lied to me.”

Trixie is humiliated by the tremble in her voice. There’s a hot iron taste in her mouth that won’t go away no matter how many times she swallows roughly. The solid edge of the countertop is still pressing hard into her lumbar spine but it’s a good pain, a grounding pain. Her breath is coming in these tight little gasps so that she doesn’t cry.

“I didn’t lie.” Katya comes around the counter. There’s a tiny squeak, like a small and petrified animal, and Trixie realises with a rush of cold shame that it was her. Katya stops where she stands and shows Trixie her palms. “I’ve never lied to you, honey. I just…I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

“That’s the same thing!”

The hurt is reworking itself. Trixie feels it pouring outward from the centre of her chest, livid-hot so that it makes her ball her hands into tight fists. She keeps trying over and over to take a centering breath but each one comes out wetter and more shallow than the last. Katya is watching her, unmoving. It isn’t like she’s spooked or caught in a snare. She is perfectly calm; it’s Trixie who feels ready to gnaw off her own foot.

“You let me walk around town defending you. You let me- oh my God. I yelled at people for you. You let everyone laugh at me behind my back.”

Katya takes another tentative step towards Trixie. Their two cups of tea are left immediately abandoned on the kitchen island. Since they first met, Trixie has been awestruck over and over by how tiny Katya often seems. She’s spent as much time holding her as Katya will let her have. Now, it seems calculated. Like Katya has set herself up to seem vulnerable, when all along it’s Trixie who has been in danger.

“No one’s been laughing at you.”

“Of course they have.” Trixie is trying very hard not to yell. She has lost many arguments in her life because as soon as she lets her anger sweep through her she starts crying. She can’t hold her own with tears coursing down her ruddy cheeks and dripping from her chin. “I’m the only fucking idiot in this whole town who couldn’t see you for what you are.”

Katya’s crying now too. Even like this, she’s lovely. The tip of her nose is pink and her eyes are shiny and more grey than usual. She’s stopped trying to approach Trixie and they’re standing facing one another, Trixie backed against the cabinets and Katya leaning on the island.

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”

Cash is on the ground between them. He lets out a little bleat and Trixie looks down to see him getting slowly to his feet. He babies his hurt leg, cautious with his weight, but as soon as he tries to stand properly he realises that it isn’t hurting anymore. His ears swivel to point forwards and he takes a few careful steps. He nudges his head into Katya’s thigh and she reaches down blindly to pet him, her eyes still on Trixie.

Katya crouches to unwind the bandage from Cash’s leg. She can barely hold him still while she does, because curiosity at being in a new place is winning out now that his pain is gone. As soon as Katya lets him go he careens off around the other side of the island to nose at every unfamiliar smell in the kitchen.

“He’s- you…how did you do that.”

“It’s mostly about intention.” Katya is gnawing anxiously on her bottom lip. She’s folded the two ends of the bandage in on themselves so the salve doesn’t make a mess but she seems reluctant to throw it in the garbage. “A lot of it is herbology, connecting with the earth, all that. It’s hard to explain. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“You made a fool of me.”

Katya’s face goes slack and her mouth opens. She’s still crying a little but it doesn’t seem like she’s even aware of it. She keeps lifting her hands like she wants to reach out to Trixie and then letting them drop back to her sides again. Sick satisfaction twists in Trixie’s stomach to see her looking so small and so afraid.

“I didn’t mean to.” Katya is only getting quieter the more Trixie lets herself unravel. Her voice is coloured by intimacy and it reminds Trixie of middle of the night tenderness, of leaning in close to share a secret. “That’s not what I wanted.”

“What did you want?”

It hits Trixie just like that.

Since the first time they met, she’s been so eager to be close to Katya. In spite of her better judgement and her past hurts. Accusations crowd inside her mouth, jostling so that she can’t focus in on just one. Her knees buckle and she has to hold herself up with both hands at the countertop behind her. The movement makes the black tourmaline in her pocket knock against her thigh.

She’s been carrying it with her every day since Katya gave it to her. She is very suddenly hollowed out with humiliation. Shame travels down the centre of her chest and cleaves her in two to let Katya look. It’s always been like that with them, she’s always felt like Katya has seen the pink-raw insides of her, but this is different.

Trixie is ensnared by the fact that she can’t accuse Katya of casting a love spell on her. Not without admitting that she loves her. She is in love with her, hopelessly, still. The indignity of the whole situation has a fresh flood of hot tears spilling over her cheeks. Her face feels itchy with saltwater and she’s getting a dehydration headache.

She thinks about Katya holding Trixie’s hands in hers and making heat bloom all over. Katya’s mouth between Trixie’s thighs and the lights in the whole house stuttering out at the first wet, delicious contact. How foolish she’s been. Over and over, she’s written things off as Katya’s marvellous eccentricity.

Opposite her, Katya rakes a rough hand through her hair. It makes her bangs stick up from her forehead. “I wanted you. I wanted you so much that I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

It’s too much. She can’t keep it back.

“You cast a love spell on me.”

“No, Trixie,” Katya says very gently, and shakes her head. “You just like me.”

“So you’ve never used magic on me?”

Trixie comes unstuck, quite suddenly, from the cabinets. She stalks away from Katya and runs both hands through her hair, swipes uselessly at her cheeks. She’s glad to turn away, even though Katya has already seen how much she’s hurting.

Cash has opened the garbage can with his nose and is rummaging through it, pulling things out to scatter all over the kitchen. Katya probably has a spell for that, so Trixie leaves him to it.

“Not on purpose.” Katya sounds small and exhausted. Trixie doesn’t want to turn to look at her, but she can see her reflected in the window over the sink. She pinches the bridge of her nose in two fingers. “Sometimes it just happens. When I care about someone. I’m a healer, honey. I can’t watch you hurt.”

“You’ve made me hurt.” Trixie whips around to look at her again. Her voice is shuddering like she’s coming down from her crying jag, but she doesn’t feel done yet. “You hurt me.”

“Trixie. Can you come here. Please.” She doesn’t move, can’t seem to make herself close the distance between them. “Okay. That’s okay.”

“I don’t understand why you don’t trust me.”

Katya makes a high-pitched noise of distress, wet with grief. “I do trust you. I do. Things were just so good with us. I was afraid to ruin it.”

“Well you have anyway.” It feels good to be unkind. It feels like vindication to watch Katya’s face twist with every new truth Trixie lays out in front of her. There’s an intolerable churning in the pit of Trixie’s stomach that won’t go away no matter how many steadying breaths she takes. “I can’t- I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with you right now.”

Trixie reaches for the first thing she sees, an apple from the bowl on the island, and holds it out to show Cash. It draws his attention immediately away from his foraging and he follows her towards the door. It’s like nothing happened, and she can’t help wondering if she would have ever found out the truth if Cash hadn’t gotten hurt.

“Trixie, please.”

Katya’s pitiful voice stops her in the threshold. She doesn’t turn around, can’t bear the sight of her anymore, but she also doesn’t move. Cash is nosing at Trixie’s fist, trying to get a bite of the apple she’s holding.

“There’s a circle around the moon tonight. That’s a sign of trouble not far ahead.”

It isn’t what Trixie was expecting. She huffs a tiny breath of laughter, in spite of herself. The trouble is already here; they’re in it. She doesn’t want to entertain the thought of what could be worse than this. Katya gives her space to retort but Trixie is all out of words now. She’s exhausted suddenly, and has to put her empty hand against the doorframe so she doesn’t topple.

“Sometimes I…I feel like I have a kind of hole, inside. Like an emptiness that burns. I’m pretty sure if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. Isn’t that nuts? That’s pretty nuts.”

Trixie closes her eyes. It doesn’t stop two round, hot tears from escaping. She knows it isn’t true. Night after night, she has pillowed her cheek against Katya’s chest and closed her eyes to listen. She’s fallen asleep more than once to the quiet, insistent rhythm of Katya’s heartbeat.

“I’ve had this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting.” Katya makes a little noise as if she’s trying to clear her throat. “I dreamed of a love that even time would lie down and be still for.”

Trixie bites down on her tongue until the taste of iron floods her mouth. She wants to wail, wants to say that she loves her, she loves her, and Katya turned it back around into like. All the fight has gone out of her. Her pulse is loud in her ears, blood drawing out of her extremities and making them numb and tingly.

“I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. Maybe I already had my happiness. I don’t know.” Trixie’s arms twitch, but she doesn’t move. She’s had a lot of practice ignoring the ache to hold Katya that lives in her stomach. “Still sometimes when the wind is warm or the crickets sing-”

“You’re running off at the mouth again.” Trixie can’t — won’t — turn and look at her. Katya makes a pitiful noise, loud in the stillness of the kitchen. “You don’t make any sense when you’re like this. You don’t- I can’t understand you.”

Outside, Trixie encourages Cash into the truck with the apple in her hand. The whole time, she can feel Katya watching her. She knows better than to come outside and try to help. Trixie feels a scream swelling at the base of her throat. It takes her a couple of tries to get the engine started and frustration makes her grip the wheel too tight, makes her grit her teeth until her jaw pops.

On the drive she has to pull over at the side of the street to throw up. When it’s over, when she’s finished, she swipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes are watering again and the acid taste, the smell, is making her heave, but it’s good. It feels good to expunge something.

[artificialqueens]

intents wicked or charitable (trixya) 5/10 - beanierose

AN: validation station, I am so grateful every day for your never-ending support and guidance. and stutter, this would not exist without you. i don’t have the words to thank you enough.

(read on ao3) | (find me at katiehoughton)

[one.] [two.] [three.] [four.]

a practical magic au for the spooky season. there’s a curse on any man who dares love you? love a woman, instead. | 5,295 words

“Alright. No. Certainly not,” Katya says when she opens the front door. It stops Trixie in her tracks and she opens her mouth to respond, but Katya is already stepping out of her own door.

She grabs for both of Trixie’s hands to pull her into the house. Katya doesn’t like when Trixie tries to lean into the doorway and kiss her cheek hello, won’t ever reach for Trixie across that space. The only time Trixie ever asked she hurriedly explained it away with something about bad luck and house spirits that reside in the threshold.

Dolly barrels her way inside and disappears towards the kitchen in search of water. Katya leaves the dish out for her all the time now, and she always goes to look for it right away.

“What? What’s your problem?”

Katya rakes her eyes up and down Trixie for a second time and clicks her tongue, folds her arms over her chest. “This is untenable. You can’t go like this.”

Before she got in the truck to come over to Katya’s house, Trixie spent almost an hour deciding on her outfit. It’s been the kind of beautiful, crisp day that makes her so glad she doesn’t live in Los Angeles anymore. She walked Dolly in the woods this morning and stomped on the leaves just to hear them crunch beneath her boots. Now that the sun has gone down it’s gotten colder. She’s wearing a new sweater she got from the L.L.Bean Catalog when she realised she doesn’t have any cold weather clothes. It’s a pink chunky knit thing that makes her feel tiny and precious, makes her feel snuggly. She has two thermal layers underneath it, and a white bobble hat, because she doesn’t want to be so miserably cold that she can’t enjoy Katya’s company.

“You don’t think I’m cute?”

Katya sighs and doesn’t even dignify that with a response. She’s wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck and a crimson plaid coat. A small part of Trixie is preoccupied with the thought of fisting both hands in the lapels of that coat and dragging Katya against her, persuading her that this is a really bad idea and they should just stay here instead.

She doesn’t get her chance, because Katya has already disappeared inside of the coat closet to rummage around. She emerges, triumphant, with a grey coat and a scarf that looks very much like she knitted it herself. Trixie takes the coat from her and struggles into it, feels balloon-limbed and lumbering like the Michelin Man.

Katya wraps the scarf around Trixie’s neck for her. Her hair gets trapped underneath and Katya eases it out so gently, her cold fingers brushing the back of Trixie’s neck. She is always so gentle, so mindful of where she’s putting her hands. Nothing is accidental. Trixie lets the breath get stuck in her chest. Katya’s hands are still touching her bare skin, her fingertips tracing tiny circles.

Every day they are working their way towards something and they both know it, but neither of them has been courageous enough to put words to it. For the first time in her life, Trixie is being careful. She wants to treat Katya tenderly, wants to make sure she’s totally okay with each step they take towards the inevitable.

Katya slides her hands down until she’s holding on to both ends of the scarf and she leans in, kisses Trixie’s cheek. She lingers long enough that Trixie can feel the warmth of her and smell her perfume. She doesn’t wear it often, and Trixie likes the idea of Katya putting it on especially for her, wanting to impress. When she steps back she’s blushing, but her chin is set in defiance.

“I can’t believe you didn’t bring a coat. Thought you were supposed to be a hick. You should know how to dress for weather, Tallulah.”

“We were too poor for coats.”

Trixie lets more of her accent slip out than she usually does, hits the vowels hard to make Katya scream a laugh. It’s not untrue, but she doesn’t need to get into that right now. Not when Katya is grinning up at her as she pulls on her black galoshes. She looks sleek and streamlined and so good that Trixie can’t stop staring, but they do that now.

It’s been a couple of weeks since she slept in Katya’s bed, and they’ve seen each other almost every single day. They’ve been on hikes with Dolly, carved a pumpkin together for Katya’s porch. Katya helped to fix Trixie’s busted guttering and then insisted on staying all night to make sure the storm didn’t dislodge it again. They sat up in the reading room together, their knees bent and Katya’s slender feet nudged in between Trixie’s larger ones. The rain and the thunder had made the room seem smaller than it really is, and Trixie had ached to hold Katya against her chest instead.

When Katya started yawning Trixie had taken her hand and brought her to bed.

Friends can cuddle up together on the couch. Friends can fall asleep in each other’s arms and make each other breakfast the next morning. Trixie keeps telling herself that, and Kim too. Last week on the phone, Kim had patiently listened to Trixie tell a story about something Katya had done. She has endless anecdotes, is overflowing with them. Sometimes when she gets home from an afternoon at Verbena, Trixie finds herself telling the dog all about her day with Katya as if Dolly has any idea what she’s saying.

At the end of the phone call, Kim had very quietly asked Trixie, when are you going to tell her? She had brushed it off, done her best to distract Kim with questions about her own life, but she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s still circling around and around in her head, restless and unavoidable. Katya is her best friend. Whenever anything happens, any small blip in the steady rhythm of her day, she wants to talk to Katya about it right away. She wants to be near her always, wants to touch her and be touched right back.

“Are you gonna be okay here, milaya devushka?” Katya’s got the dog’s long head cradled in her hands and she’s bent at the waist to love on her, leaving little red kiss prints all over her snout.

“She’ll be fine,” Trixie says. “It’s us I’m worried about. I don’t know if you’re aware, but it’s the one night of the year that it’s acceptable for the townsfolk to literally gather with pitchforks.”

Katya scoffs, and straightens to look at Trixie. This whole night was her idea. She wants it so much that Trixie couldn’t bear to say no to her, even though she has a terrible foreboding feeling in the pit of her stomach. Katya keeps lifting up onto her toes in her galoshes, and she has her hands clasped and held against her chest now. It’s so endearing that Trixie can’t stop smiling at her.

“Is it too ooky spooky for you, Tracy? Are you afraid?” She drops her voice an octave and drawls it, leans in close to Trixie’s face. “I won’t let anybody snatch your soul, Barbara.”

“What if it’s you I’m afraid of? You ghoul. You fucking rotted corpse.”

Katya is spilling over with laughter, choking on it, and she clutches Trixie’s forearm in both hands to keep herself upright. She’s spluttering something about how mean Trixie is and Trixie is grinning so wide, nodding in agreement. When Katya has her breath back she lets go of Trixie and ushers her out the front door. She gives Dolly a last kiss and says something to her very softly in Russian.

“Why are you trying to indoctrinate my dog against me?”

“I only hang out with you so I get to hang out with her,” Katya says.

It makes Trixie laugh in spite of herself. Whenever any of her friends back in Los Angeles were at her place and Dolly showed them affection Trixie would have to fight back waves of ridiculous, juvenile jealousy. With Katya it doesn’t bother her at all. She’s glad that the two most important women in her life like each other so much.

It seems like the entire town is out tonight. It’s a fifteen minute walk from Katya’s house to the field where the bonfire has been set up, and Trixie sees more people than she has the whole time she’s lived here. Katya is at her elbow, chattering away, and Trixie can see her breath in little puffs at her peripheral. She wants so badly to be holding her hand, but that is absolutely out of the question tonight. Anxiety is alive in her stomach, sending gooseflesh down the backs of her thighs.

At the field people are standing in little clusters together, circling the bonfire. It hasn’t been lit for very long so it isn’t roaring quite yet. There are a lot of kids in costumes, and a few teenagers and adults as well, but most people are bundled up warm against the bitter night. Trixie is grateful for her borrowed coat, and grateful for the warmth of Katya right next to her.

Katya spots Betty approaching them before Trixie does. Her face blanches in the orange light of the fire and she takes an awkward step backwards, her shoulders coming forwards and up. “Trixie, Trixie,” she says helplessly.

“What is it? What’ve you seen? You know none of this stuff is real.”

She hears Betty’s voice before Katya can even get her mouth open to answer. Trixie turns around and shifts to the right a tiny bit, shielding Katya as much as she can without making it obvious. Betty isn’t looking at her anyway, she’s staring Trixie down. She’s shorter than Trixie is, but not by much, and spite gives her an extra couple of inches.

“Beatrice, how nice to see you engaging with the community.”

Trixie opens her mouth to respond, but Katya’s hand is fisted in the back of her coat and tugging. Now that she’s a real part of Katya’s life, Trixie knows that she catches the bus two towns over whenever she needs groceries because Betty won’t serve her at the produce market. She doesn’t like confrontation, doesn’t like harsh words. Instead of coming for Betty’s throat, Trixie closes her mouth.

“Be sure to stay away from scary things on Halloween. You know, like ghosts, and zombies, and murderous witches.” Her eyes dart away from Trixie to land on Katya for barely half a second, but it’s enough that Trixie takes an enormous breath and balls her fists.

Behind her, Katya makes a tiny, wounded noise. Trixie feels so fiercely protective of her that for a moment she really considers putting her teeth to Betty’s jugular. Instead, she fumbles blindly behind herself for Katya’s hand and squeezes her fingers when she finds them.

“You’re right. I should stay away from monsters.”

She takes great pleasure in shouldering Betty out of her way, Katya bobbing along at the end of her arm as the two of them move past. Trixie keeps them walking right around the circumference of the fire until they’re at the opposite side and out of Betty’s view.

Katya’s giggling, and it is teetering right on the edge of hysterical, but Trixie tucks both of their clasped hands in her deep pocket and lets her work through it. She doesn’t trust herself to speak just yet. Her tongue still has a flint taste and adrenaline is making her want to put her fist through something.

The bonfire is beginning to generate real heat now. Not as many people are around this side of the fire, because the stalls set up to sell hot cocoa and candy apples are at the other side. It makes Trixie feel safe to keep Katya’s hand in her pocket and stand close to her, duck her head and lean in close to talk.

“Does this happen every year?”

“I haven’t ever been before,” Katya says quietly. Trixie makes an affronted noise, but Katya doesn’t give her the chance to say anything more. “I haven’t had a nine foot tall lesbian to defend my honour, before.”

“Yeah, you still don’t,” Trixie laughs. “I am definitely not going to be defending your honour. You slut.”

Katya rolls her eyes into the back of her head and makes a breathy, high-pitched noise and it’s so overblown, so stupid. It really shouldn’t make Trixie suddenly aware of her hips and her thighs. She shoves on Katya’s shoulder and it breaks her out of her moaning and makes her laugh instead, loud and screeching.

People are beginning to bunch together close to them as more and more of the townsfolk come down to see the fire. Katya takes her hand back from Trixie’s pocket and she lets her, has to, because she can’t call attention to it. Whatever they’re doing, it goes unsaid. Katya puts a foot of careful distance between them. They stand together for a little while listening to the logs crackle and spit, the chatter of the people around them.

Katya is so beautiful in the firelight. The warmth of the bonfire has pinked her cheeks and her eyes are the darkest Trixie has ever seen them, shiny with joy. Thinking of her, able to see the bonfire from her house every year and aching to be here in front of it, is making Trixie’s heart feel too big for her chest. Katya is thrilled by everything, up on her tiptoes again as if to get a better view.

The urge to hold her is so strong that Trixie takes another step backwards, puts a little more distance between them so that she doesn’t reach out and wrap her arms around Katya’s shoulders from behind. She’d do it, here in front of all of these people. Let them look.

“I’m gonna go get us powdered donuts. Stay right here.”

Katya doesn’t give her the chance to protest. She’s already disappearing, weaving her way through the crowds. They part for her, most people taking a stumbling step or two back away from Katya when they see her approaching. She has her head ducked and she’s moving quickly. Trixie watches until she can’t see her anymore, and then a little bit longer after that.

She’s inadvertently put herself closer to one of the groups of people nearby, and now she can hear the snippets of their conversation more clearly. She knows immediately that they’re talking about Katya. It’s all anybody in this whole town seems to want to do.

“Isn’t she at her most powerful tonight?” one of the girls says, a thread of real alarm in her voice. They’re teenagers, Trixie can tell from how young and how incredibly stupid they sound. “Do you think she might hex someone?”

“It’s such a fucking waste, man.” That’s Peter, she’s pretty sure. Trixie breathes raggedly through her nose like a bull. “She’s a hot piece of ass, but that haunted pussy? No way.”

The other boys all jeer and crow with laughter, falling over themselves to be the next person to crack a joke, the next one to have the light of the group’s amusement on them. Trixie is trying not to make it obvious that she’s listening, hasn’t dared allow herself to move even an inch closer, but she hears them clear as if she were standing in the middle of their circle.

“She’d bite your head off like a black widow. Look at what happened to the only person who ever dared to fuck her. I bet she’s all dried up and dusty.”

The girls erupt in a chorus of disgusted ews, hamming it up in the hopes that one of these boys will want to fuck them. Trixie is so glad not to be a teenager anymore. She remembers the paralytic awkwardness, trying to flirt with the least threatening boy she could find but having no idea how. She’s grateful to be a self-assured adult, grateful to have somebody who makes flirting easy because she wants them so bad that she can’t help herself.

“Why can’t she just cast a spell for a new husband or something?” The vocal fry on these girls is making Trixie’s hands ball up into fists without her consent. They’d be irritating if they were talking about anything else. But they’re talking about Katya, and so instead of irritated Trixie is furious.

It is so laughable that they’d sooner believe Katya is a witch than accept they have a queer woman in their midst. Trixie bites the inside of her bottom lip, both to distract herself and to remind her to keep her mouth shut. She tastes iron and has to let up a little bit, probes at the sore spot with the tip of her tongue instead. In her curiosity she has wandered far enough from the bonfire that she’s cold now, and she clutches Katya’s coat tighter around herself.

“Do you think it has teeth?” Another of the boys is saying. “Do you think her husband threw himself in front of a truck because he couldn’t bear to fuck h- oh. Shit.”

Trixie turns to see then, because it sounds like the boy has two hands around his throat and squeezing. There’s six or seven of them standing in a pack, and just behind them is Katya. She’s got a candy apple in each fist, grotesquely shiny and red in the firelight, and her mouth is hanging open.

Peter nudges one of the others, presumably the last boy to speak if the pallor of his face is any indication. “You’re fucked, Jake. She’s gonna curse you now. Your dick’s gonna drop off.”

Trixie’s whole body floods with hot anger. Her temper and her mouth have always gotten her into trouble, since she was in elementary school. When she’s angry, when she’s hurting, her filter comes down and she says things that she regrets later. She almost, almost manages to keep her mouth shut, but Katya’s face is washed out with horror and she can’t bear to let these kids win.

“She doesn’t need to waste her energy making your dick drop off, since you’re never going to have a chance to use it, you gangly unfuckable little parasite.” The others standing around Jake explode in a riot of jesting noises and whoops. She’s not done. “You think anyone, ever is going to want to fuck you? They’re gonna be too distracted by their own reflection in your forehead.”

Katya is so far away, the whole crowd of teenagers between them, but her voice carries. “Trixie. Don’t.”

“You’d be lucky to get your dick bitten off. Do you know how fucking stupid you sound? She won’t fuck any of you so she must be a witch?” Katya flinches, but no one else is looking at her. The eyes of all of the teenagers and several other people are on Trixie. She’s shouting, she knows she is and she can’t seem to stop. “Guess what, dickweed? You can’t accuse every person on earth with the sense not to want to fuck you of witchcraft.”

“Trixie!” Katya says sharply. “Let’s go.”

She skirts the group of teens widely and stomps to Katya’s side, her cheeks pink with confrontation and with being chastised by Katya in front of all of these people. She has to hurry to keep up because Katya has immediately started heading for the edge of the field and she’s taking such long strides.

Once they hit the sidewalk she slows down a little to let Trixie catch up. Her eyes are shifting rapidly but never quite landing on Trixie, and she keeps clearing her throat but not speaking.

“Where’s my donut?” Trixie takes one of the candy apples from Katya, freeing up her hand so Trixie can thread their fingers together instead. She doesn’t care who might see. Back there, she laid herself out a lot more plainly than just holding Katya’s hand.

“Huh? Oh. Right. I, uh…you always criticize my eating habits, so I thought I’d be healthy.”

Trixie snorts and takes a huge bite of the apple. It gets stuck in her teeth immediately and she works her tongue around her mouth. She can feel Katya’s eyes on her so she hams it up to get a laugh. Anything that will distract Katya from hurting seems like a safe bet right now.

They’re mostly quiet on their walk back to Katya’s house. Trixie can’t really talk since every bite of the candy apple is glueing her teeth together. Katya isn’t eating hers, she’s holding it down next to her thigh and it’s getting covered in all of the fluff and detritus from her pants. It’s getting ruined, but Katya hardly seems to be aware of it still in her grip.

Inside, Trixie leaves Katya in the living room and lets Dolly out to use the bathroom, sets the kettle on the burner to start boiling. When Dolly is done she comes back in and heads straight for Katya, ignoring Trixie’s outstretched hand looking to love her. Trixie fixes tea for them both and finds Katya curled up in the corner of the couch with Dolly’s head in her lap, the dog’s body stretched out along the cushion. Her eyes are closed and her face is totally slack.

“Scooch, Doll-Doll.” Trixie sits down at the other end of the couch and the dog jumps down, affronted, and curls at Katya’s feet instead. “I made tea.”

Katya opens her eyes and accepts the mug from Trixie, holds it against her chest. The steam curls up around her and she breathes deep enough to make her bangs flutter against her forehead. After knowing her for a couple of months, Trixie has learned that Katya sometimes needs space to arrange her thoughts, but she does like to talk things out.

They sit in the silence together. Trixie drinks her tea slowly. She unlaces her boots and toes them off, scoots her sock feet closer to the dog so that Dolly can lay her head on them. Katya isn’t really drinking her own tea. Every now and then she seems to remember that she’s holding it and she takes a tiny sip, but she’s mostly just looking at a point a few inches left of Trixie’s shoulder.

When it gets unbearable, when Trixie feels split open and like all of her raw insides are about to come tumbling out, she takes Katya’s mostly full mug from her hands and sets it down on the floor with her own empty one. She clicks her tongue to warn Dolly away from investigating it with her snout.

“Come here, babe.” She holds out her arm and Katya tucks herself underneath it, her bent knees against Trixie’s thigh. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I hate it when you’re right. We shouldn’t have gone. We should have stayed home and watched a movie.”

Trixie’s hand is at Katya’s shoulder and she can feel the lift and collapse of her torso as she breathes. There’s so much she wants to do. She would like to kiss the crown of Katya’s head, or bring her all the way into her lap.

“Always being right is my cross to bear. But. I don’t think either of us could have anticipated that that would happen.”

“It doesn’t- I don’t want-” Katya’s voice is so small. Another wave of cold fury washes through Trixie. She knows that it’s bad, she learned that the very first day she knew Katya, but seeing it actually shake her for the first time is a different thing altogether.

“Just ask me.”

“What they said. It’s not going to change your opinion of me, right?”

Trixie closes her eyes and hides her face against the top of Katya’s head for a moment. Just to give herself the space to work through that grief. “No, babe. The only thing it changes is that it makes me think you’re even more brave and amazing than I already did.”

“Your sincerity is freaking me out,” Katya mutters.

It makes both of them laugh a little. On the floor, Dolly rolls onto her back and Trixie pets at her with her sock feet, rubbing them against the dog’s chest. “Sorry. I won’t be sincere ever again.”

“The thing is.” Katya flutters her hands uselessly in the air around herself. Trixie can’t see her very well, mostly just getting the crown of her head, but she can hear it in her voice. Her scrunched up nose and the hot, insistent press of tears. “It’s not like I don’t know. The people in this town don’t like me.”

Trixie still has her arm around Katya’s shoulders. She likes the warm weight of her head against her chest and the smell of her shampoo, but she really wishes she could see her face for this next part. Holding her like this, standing beside her tonight, all of it has made her want Katya so badly that she can’t stop it anymore. She is hopelessly buffeted by endless waves of need, keeps managing to get her face above water for just a second to take a gasping breath.

“Well I like you. A lot.”

“Oh, Trixie, I like you so much.” Katya straightens up, leaves a hand at Trixie’s thigh. Her cheeks are silvery and salt-raw, the tip of her nose pink. “I like you so, so much.”

The lamp beside the couch is throwing their two shadows up against the wall, every quiver mimicked and magnified. Trixie reaches for her before she knows she’s doing it. Her graceless hands land either side of Katya’s neck, thumbs at the hinge of her jaw. Her lips are parted and she’s staring at Trixie’s mouth.

All of Trixie’s insides feel pulled up towards her heart by a tight string. She’s certain that if she checked, she would have a puckered line right down her sternum. Katya is so still, not breathing, and her skin is warm.

“Is this okay?”

“I’m scared,” Katya murmurs without moving her mouth at all. She’s trembling in Trixie’s hands.

Trixie nods, and tries to swallow down her suddenly dry mouth. “Yeah. I’m scared too. Still, though.”

She leans in and kisses her before either of them can change their mind. Trixie keeps things slow and exploratory, focuses on the hot little puffs of Katya’s breaths against her cheek and the woodsmoke smell of her hair. Her lips are so soft and she kisses Trixie right back, her hand at Trixie’s thigh clutching tighter now. Time stretches out hot and elastic; Trixie kisses her, kisses her, kisses her.

When they break apart Trixie leans her forehead against Katya’s. She would like to kiss her again but they’re grinning too widely, both of them. Katya’s free hand slides into Trixie’s hair and she scratches her short nails over Trixie’s scalp, makes a shiver ripple through her.

“I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time,” Trixie whispers.

It makes Katya laugh wildly and rear back to look at Trixie. Her lipstick is smudged, probably smeared across Trixie’s face as well. She likes that thought a lot. Katya stops laughing and draws her legs up beneath herself on the couch so she can loom over Trixie.

“I know you have. You’ve never been subtle, Trixie. You told me you’re a bottom after I’d known you three days.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Trixie groans, and falls forwards to hide her face against Katya’s chest. Katya’s laughing; it’s shaking her beneath Trixie. Her hand comes up to the back of Trixie’s head, her thumb tracing the shell of Trixie’s ear.

Now that they’ve started, Trixie doesn’t want to stop kissing Katya. Maybe ever. She straightens up and captures Katya’s face in her palms, cradles her head as she kisses her long and slow and deep. Katya slides her knee over Trixie’s thighs and sinks down, lays the heel of her palm right over Trixie’s heart with her fingers against her clavicle.

Katya pulls back a bit, so that she can look at Trixie. She’s so cute like this, rumpled and blushing. Trixie steals another tiny kiss from her and feels Katya’s smile bloom against her mouth. The warm weight of her in Trixie’s lap is distracting, but she looks like she wants to say something so Trixie lets her hands rest at Katya’s thighs and gives her the space to collect herself.

“Trixie. This isn’t like…a pity thing? I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.”

“I wanted you the second I first saw you.” Trixie doesn’t think about what she’s saying, the implications of that. It’s true, and she’s tired of skirting around the edge of what she means. “I haven’t stopped wanting you since. So no, it’s not a pity thing. You think I have enough compassion in my heart for that?”

Katya lets out a soft little huff of laughter. Her thumb is at Trixie’s bottom lip and she pulls down experimentally for just a second before she lets it spring back into place. Trixie turns her head to kiss the inside of Katya’s wrist and she lets herself linger, finally, feeling the jump of Katya’s pulse.

Dolly has gotten caught up in the excitement and she nudges Katya’s hip with her snout, her tail up in the air and swooshing back and forth. Katya reaches behind herself with her free hand to pat blindly at the dog’s head, but she doesn’t break Trixie’s gaze.

“I know all about the compassion you have in your heart, honey. You just don’t like to show it towards straight people.”

Trixie kisses her, half to wipe the teasing smirk right off her face and half because she can’t believe she’s actually allowed to now. This time Katya deepens things, and Trixie opens to the hesitant press of Katya’s tongue at the seam of her lips. Everything is slick and hot and lovely, and Trixie clutches tight at Katya’s hips.

When Katya breaks the kiss again Trixie whines low in her throat. It doesn’t occur to her to be embarrassed by it. She’s already told Katya how much she wants her. She’s been telling her for weeks, if she’s honest with herself.

“And, Trixie. Trixie. When you say that you…want me.” Trixie presses her thumbs into the creases at the tops of Katya’s thighs and she gasps, rocks her hips down sharply. “Does that mean just sex, or?”

“Do you think I usually spend weeks and weeks getting to know people that I just want to fuck?” Trixie slides her hands around to Katya’s ass and hauls her in close until their chests are flush. “You’re- oh my God, this is so embarrassing. You’re my best friend.”

Katya’s whole face breaks open and light comes spilling out. She cradles Trixie’s face between her palms and holds her in place as she kisses her. Dolly has given up trying to steal attention and skulked off to lie beside the unlit fireplace and eye them. They kiss for a long time, until Trixie’s fingertips start to go numb from oxygen deprivation.

“You’re my best friend too, Trixie.”

Trixie can’t stop smiling, her face is all scrunched up and goofy with it. It feels like the floor has righted itself after being just a little bit crooked the entire time she’s known Katya. She kisses her again, hands threaded into Katya’s hair so that she can feel the thrum of her pulse at the base of her skull. “Are you still scared?”

“Spookiest night of the year, mama.”

[artificialqueens]

forever is composed of nows (trixya) 2/2 - beanierose

(part one)

AN: This monstrosity of a chapter would not exist without my amazing betas nadia and meggie, as well as the wonderful cheer squad that is conny, shea and mia. Thank you all so much for listening to my nonsensical ramblings at all hours of the day and night.

(read on a03) | (find me at katiehoughton)

It’s a soulmate AU where you feel the opposite emotion to whatever the other person is feeling | 15,497 words

It feels a little like they exist outside of time. It’s still early, and the street below is quiet. Katya has her kitchen window open; she leaves it that way all summer, even though Mama tuts and frets. She likes the smell of the morning, likes feeling like she’s the only one awake in the whole world.

She isn’t. Trixie is here. She extracts herself from Katya’s arms but stays close, her body warm and good next to Katya’s. She swipes at her cheeks with the pads of her fingers and huffs a self-conscious little laugh. Katya likes her so much.

There’s a box of tissues on the countertop and Trixie pats delicately at her face like she’s forgotten she’s not wearing makeup and is trying to preserve her mascara.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m not really a crier. I don’t know why I can’t stop today.”

Katya snorts. “I am. The drama of it all? I love it.”

It makes Trixie laugh. Making Trixie laugh is her new most favourite thing to do. Katya wants, so badly, but everything is tentative. She’s not looking to freak Trixie out here. She turns away from her and busies herself with the kettle, setting it on the burner to boil. A tingling hyperawareness of Trixie travels up her spine and along her arms, into her fingertips.

She’s right there. It’s so surreal. She’s waited her whole life to find her sestrinskoye serdste and now she’s here in Katya’s kitchen like they do this every Saturday. Trixie is rummaging in the refrigerator and singing something under her breath.

“Breakfast?” She pops back out to look at Katya around the door.

“I’m teaching a class in about an hour. I don’t like to eat till after.” Trixie wrinkles her nose at that. She’s holding a carton of eggs in both hands, cradling it against her stomach protectively. Katya wants to let her do whatever she likes. Is going to let her. “But we could go out? When I’m done.”

Trixie nods, a few more times than is strictly necessary. She puts the carton of eggs back and closes the door, leans against it. Every time Katya looks at her, it feels like the first time. The light makes Trixie’s lashes and her eyebrow hairs look extra blonde. She has a dimple in her left cheek when she smiles.

And Katya feels, clearer now than she ever has, the tenderness that Trixie has towards her. It’s making her punch-drunk, a bit lightheaded. The kettle starts whistling and she’s glad to busy herself. Trixie works right beside her, slicing up a lemon into segments. The way her wrists move and the delicate grip of her fingers around the knife makes Katya wonder whether she plays piano as well as guitar.

She’s so femme. Not that Katya is at all that butch, but Trixie is something else. Her ponytail is held up with a pink scrunchie and she’s wearing a white mini dress with a pink denim jacket on top. Katya wants to undress her, wants to look at her soft stomach and her thick thighs, but she also doesn’t really want to deconstruct this carefully cultivated look.

“Do you have a container? Usually I like to freeze them.”

Trixie is going to leave things in Katya’s freezer. Trixie is going to come back here, lots and lots of times. She waits patiently for Katya to absorb that information, her face totally smooth and free of uncertainty.

“Um. Yeah. Sure.” She digs around in the cabinet for a Tupperware and hands it to Trixie over her shoulder, not looking.

She takes it. She takes it, and her other hand touches the back of Katya’s head. It’s so quick, could have been an accident, but Katya feels Trixie’s intention behind the wall of her own chest. Trixie wants to touch her.

“I’m gonna go right ahead and slice them all up.”

Katya leans back against the countertop and rests her hands either side of her hips. She knows it makes the muscles in her arms flex, makes her tattoos shift, and she catches Trixie looking. Ever since she met Trixie she’s felt off-kilter, like she has to tread carefully so she doesn’t lose her balance. It’s not really her.

She’s a top, thank you very much.

“That’s very presumptuous, Miss Mattel.” She lifts one eyebrow, sees the two lovely spots of colour that appear in the apples of Trixie’s cheeks, is thrilled by that.

For a second she wonders whether Trixie will be flustered. Instead she puts the knife down - right, oops - and narrows her eyes at Katya. “We are literally soulmates, you dumb slut.”

It’s the first time that either of them has said it so plainly, and it takes them both by surprise. Trixie’s gaze immediately lowers and Katya sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth. She likes the way that sounds, would like to hear Trixie tell it to everyone she knows. Katya wants to lean out of the open kitchen window and call down to the people beginning to fill the street below.

“We sure are.” She grins, waits for Trixie to smile back at her. “I gotta get ready for work. Make yourself at home. Fill up my freezer with whatever you want.”

She leaves Trixie in the kitchen, carving her bag of lemons into neat and even segments. Katya’s outfits for teaching vary quite wildly. It depends on how lazy she’s feeling and how on top of her laundry she’s been that week. She just did some, so she picks out her favourite red unitard. It has little eyes embroidered around the bottom of the legs and the built in sports bra makes her tits look bigger than they actually are.

She winds her hair into two braids to keep it out of her face during class, even though her bangs are in her eyes again so she’s still going to end up cranky and sweaty. Maybe Trixie will trim them for her later. Katya puts on some more deodorant, sprays some perfume as well. She’s primping now, and it’s not for her students.

When Katya comes out of her bedroom and Trixie catches sight of her, she drops the knife into the sink. It clatters loudly, and the water is still running, but Katya hears the strangled little noise that Trixie makes. She doesn’t say anything, but Katya doesn’t need her to. She can feel it. The knot of desire tightening in Trixie’s stomach, the frantic pounding of her heart, the rush of blood into all of her extremities.

“You’re so- I just want-”

Trixie holds her wet hands out in front of her like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s cleaned the kitchen while Katya was changing, and she’s poured Katya’s tea in a travel mug for her to take to the studio.

Katya wants, too. She does. She’d like to call in sick to work today and take Trixie to bed. But they’ve only known each other for a handful of hours, and if this is going to be forever…she’s not looking to rush things. They deserve more.

“You like it?” Katya turns around to let Trixie see the back of her outfit. Her ass is nothing spectacular compared to Trixie’s, but it’s toned and round and she enjoys showing it off.

She turns back around, and Trixie is blushing again. Still. “I like it very much. You look really hot.”

“Thanks. I gotta leave now, but you can hang out here and I’ll see you when I’m back?”

“No, I’m gonna go back to my hotel,” Trixie says. Katya tries very hard not to let it show on her face, and then remembers that Trixie can feel the disappointment that has just reared its head in her stomach. She comes hastily around the kitchen island to take Katya’s hands in both of hers. “To freshen up. I’ll meet you someplace.”

She feels childlike with wonder. Trixie’s fingers are warm, not so slender and bony as Katya’s, and her thumbs are making absent-minded circles over the backs of Katya’s hands.

“Oh. Okay. Yeah.”

“I want to spend the whole day with you. If that’s alright.”

Trixie is just as tentative as Katya is. She can feel her own heartbeat and feel Trixie’s too, ever so slightly out of sync. Neither of them knows what they’re doing here, not really. Katya had asked her last night if she knows many other soulbound people and she said she doesn’t think so, but since she’s never told anybody before it’s not something that really comes up.

In her nearly forty years on the planet, Katya has only met three soulbound couples. She knows plenty of people who haven’t found their sestrinskoye serdste yet; up until yesterday they’ve been the only people she has who really know how hard it is. But only three who have actually made it work. There were the Sullivans that she grew up watching not at all discretely every Sunday at church. Her friend from college, Brooke, who just last year got married to Vanessa. And her colleague Raja who used to talk non-stop about Raven, her wife.

Three couples is not many, not nearly enough that Katya can hazard a guess as to how this is supposed to go. And anyway, Brooke’s the only one she’s close enough to that she felt comfortable asking what it was like. With Brooke and Vanessa everything happened so quickly, like a flash flood. Katya isn’t sure if it’s because they’re soulbound, or because they’re lesbians.

“I want to spend the day with you too, Trixie.” She still enjoys the sound of her name very much. It feels like an incantation, like if she says it enough times everything between them will go smoothly.

And, well, she’s been waiting thirty years to put a name to her sestrinskoye serdste. When she was younger she used to try and imagine what it could be, would sometimes name them inside of her head just to see what it felt like. Trixie never crossed her mind.

Not just her name. Everything about her.

“I’ll walk you to work?”

Katya agrees to that. She can’t imagine not agreeing to anything that Trixie suggests. She has her gym bag with everything she needs for work slung over her shoulder. It keeps slipping down so she has to hold on to it, but she still has a hand free to hold Trixie’s. They’re clasped loosely so that they can walk, and she likes how warm Trixie’s palm is and the way that their knotted hands will sometimes bump her hip, sometimes Trixie’s.

At the door of the yoga studio, Katya takes her travel mug of tea back from Trixie. Everything this morning has been so achingly domestic. She likes the way Trixie looks in her space. Katya isn’t usually one for sharing her apartment. She loves having friends over, but loves equally when they leave again at the end of the night. It isn’t like that with Trixie. She wants her there again, as many times as Trixie would like.

She has trouble focusing during class. Her students can definitely tell. Usually, she is completely committed to their growth, making sure to divide her attention evenly between all of them. One of her regulars is still having a bit of trouble with her salabhasana and Katya kneels beside her and helps guide her into it, but she’s thinking about Trixie. Kneeling beside Trixie, putting her hands on Trixie.

It takes her until the class is almost over to realize that part of the reason is because Trixie is thinking about her. Trixie is back at her hotel, freshening up — Katya can’t fathom how she could possibly look more like a perfect paper doll cut neatly from a magazine — and thinking about her. And she can feel it, and she can’t focus on much more than the heat between her thighs.

When class is over and Katya checks her phone, she has a text from Trixie. Her head snaps up and sure enough, Trixie is right across the street leaning against the edifice of the laundrette. She has her phone in both hands, her head bent over it. Katya watches her for a second. She wonders if other people are watching her too and wondering who she is. Katya likes the idea of that, of getting to walk outside and greet Trixie and maybe some of those other people will see them and be jealous.

A couple of her students are waiting behind to ask her questions. She’s patient with them, because she feels good after an hour of practice and because she likes them. They’re enthusiastic and willing to learn and she appreciates it. She feels eyes on her and when she sneaks a glance Trixie has put her phone away and is watching.

Outside in the sunshine, Katya gets to hug Trixie hello. She’s let her hair down and it falls in soft curls all across her shoulders and her back. She’s put makeup on, an intricate and graphic eye look and a pink lipstick and more blush than Katya has ever seen on a real person before.

“You know you don’t have to put makeup on for me.”

“It’s not for you,” Trixie shrieks, indignant, and swats at Katya. “It’s for me. I’m feeling my fantasy.”

Katya laughs at that and reaches for Trixie’s hand to hold. She can’t fathom not touching her. Not after how long they’ve waited, how much they’ve hurt. Trixie has sunglasses on top of her head and she puts them on, looks at Katya through the pink circle lenses.

“You’re beautiful either way,” Katya says. She doesn’t mean it to come out with quite so much tenderness, but the way Trixie chews on her bottom lip is worth it.

Just like Trixie suggested, they spend the whole day together. Trixie’s been to Boston a couple of times before but hasn’t seen much of the city, so Katya gets to show her around. Trixie is sweet and enthusiastic, tethered to the end of Katya’s arm. She has something to say about every single thing Katya points out to her. She overflows with opinions and anecdotes, and Katya wants to collect each one like a pearl and thread them all together.

Things between them are so easy. And it’s not just the soulbound thing. Katya is sure after only a day that even if Trixie wasn’t her sestrinskoye serdste, they would still be friends. They have the same sense of humour. Trixie keeps up with Katya’s tangents in a way that not many other people are able to. They laugh all day long.

Trixie likes to take pictures. She takes pictures of Katya and pictures of both of them and pictures of the duckling sculpture in the public garden. When they stop for lunch, Trixie posts a few to her Instagram story. She’s tagged Katya in one of them. It’s a photograph of her, head turned so she’s almost in profile. Trixie’s put a few gifs of hearts around Katya’s head like she’s a cartoon, all lovestruck.

“You kind of have a lot of followers on here,” Katya says. She’s not really sure how to feel about that. Thousands of people are going to see her in Trixie’s story and wonder about her.

Trixie sets her fork down and looks at Katya across the table. “Katya. I’m already sort of famous, and that’s only going to keep growing. Or I hope so, at least.”

“It will,” Katya hurries to reassure Trixie. She believes in herself so much that Katya knows it’s going to happen for her.

“If that’s gonna be a problem for you,” Trixie trails off, waves her now empty hand in the air.

Katya does Trixie the courtesy of really thinking about her answer before she says anything. Just because they’re soulbound doesn’t mean they won’t still have to compromise and work at things.

“It isn’t a problem. I’m really proud of you.”

She can sacrifice a little of her privacy if it means that she gets to be a part of Trixie’s private world. Trixie is smiling into her salad. Beneath the table, she slides her foot forward until it nudges in between both of Katya’s.

“Obviously. I’m incredible.” She fans herself with one hand and makes a little moaning sound and Katya feels it like a hand around her throat, has to press her thighs together even as she laughs.

They head back out into the warmth of Boston in the summertime. Katya sweats even in her unitard, which professes to wick moisture away from the skin. She didn’t bring sunglasses with her and she has to shade shadesher eyes with her hand so that she can even see Trixie.

“Here,” Trixie says. She hands Katya the carton of cigarettes she’s been carrying around all day in her little clear plastic backpack.

Katya didn’t want to carry her duffel around with her all day, so she left it at the yoga studio. They’ll swing by later to get it, but for now Trixie is carrying Katya’s phone and keys and wallet and her cigarettes. It’s so domestic that it aches physically in her chest.

Katya fishes a cigarette out of the pack and lights it, hands everything back to Trixie to put away. She inhales deeply, holds the smoke in her mouth for as long as she can before she has to exhale.

“You keep doing that.”

“Hmm?” Trixie turns to look at her. Her sunglasses are so huge that Katya can’t see much of her face, but she gets the idea. “Doing what?”

Katya takes another drag. “Handing me cigarettes before I even ask.”

She’s done it three or four times so far today. It’s cute, she likes it very very much. And likes too that Trixie doesn’t seem to mind Katya smoking, even though she really shouldn’t be enabled and she’s going to quit soon, she is.

“Oh,” Trixie laughs. “Yeah. I can feel when you need one. I’m craving them too, you bitch.”

Katya stops walking in the middle of the sidewalk, just exactly how she always hates when tourists do. Trixie takes hold of her elbow and draws her to the side so that they’re both leaning against the warm brick of the building beside them.

“You can feel that?”

“Yeah. I can feel pretty much everything.” Katya opens her mouth to apologise, because God knows even she can barely deal with how much she feels sometimes, but Trixie cuts in. “I like it. I like being soulbound to you, Katya.”

It wipes her out. Katya presses the back of her hand to her forehead and closes her eyes. She’s still holding her half-smoked cigarette and she stubs it out against the wall.

When she opens her eyes again Trixie is watching her. She doesn’t look nervous. And that’s probably because she already knows, before Katya speaks.

“I like being soulbound to you as well. A lot. I can’t believe you’re real.”

Trixie takes her hand, now that it’s free. She’s been doing that a lot, all morning. Reaching for Katya, wanting to be near her. It’s sweet, and it’s good, because Katya wants to be near Trixie every day from now on.

“I’m real. You are, too.” She squeezes Katya’s fingers as if to ground her. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Katya says, and finds that she means it.

It takes her the better part of an hour to plan out in her head how to ask Trixie to come up to her apartment. Spending the whole day together has been wonderful, and Katya wants Trixie to spend the night, too.

Not for sex. They’re not going to have sex today, she’s pretty sure. Trixie deserves better than for Katya to shove her up against the front door the second that they get inside, even though it’s all she’s been able to think about for most of the afternoon.

At the door to the building, Katya opens her mouth, but Trixie gets there first. “Can I come up? I don’t wanna say goodbye to you.”

Trixie’s anxious to ask; Katya feels her heart fluttering in her own throat. Both of them are swinging wildly between ease and awkwardness.

“Yes. Yeah, God. Come up.”

Each time Trixie is in Katya’s apartment — this is the third, already, wow — she seems more at home than the last. Katya’s been wearing her unitard out and about around the city all day. Trixie had asked her whether she wanted to change and she had levelled her with a look, had done a little pirouette right where she stood to prove to Trixie that she’s comfortable in her skin.

She leaves Trixie to go shower. And yeah, she hurries, and maybe she gets her makeup remover in her eye and curses loudly up into the stream of the water. She debates, once she’s out. Part of her wants to put on something cute, but she’s tired and she wants to be comfortable. She iscomfortable, around Trixie.

Katya pulls on a pair of gym shorts that she’s had for so long the material has started to go bobbly, and an oversized tee that hangs off one shoulder. Back out in the living room, Trixie has settled herself on the couch and is scrolling through Netflix.

“You look so cute,” she says when she sees Katya.

Her heart grows wings, soars up into her throat. Trixie thinks that she’s cute. Trixie is patting the seat cushion next to her and looking at Katya expectantly.

Inviting Katya onto her own couch. It shouldn’t be hot, shouldn’t send another rush of want through Katya’s stomach and thighs.

She leaves a respectable distance between them when she sits down, and Trixie huffs and shunts over until their legs are touching. Hers are bare too, her dress riding up, and she’s taken off her jacket.

“Do you know what this is?” Trixie gestures at the screen with the remote.

“Do you think I’m some kind of crazy bitch? I’m not that old, I know what Friends is.”

Trixie laughs and dumps the remote on the coffee table. It’s stained with rings from all of the mugs Katya likes to set down carelessly, and one of the legs has a dent she doesn’t even remember putting there. She can’t imagine anything in Trixie’s apartment is less than pristine, but she doesn’t seem to care at all.

“White people problems,” she says in a nasal valley-girl voice that makes Katya wince and hide her face against Trixie’s shoulder.

The sound isn’t even on, she’s got it muted with subtitles, but that’s good. It’s good. It means they can talk. And they do.

Katya has known Trixie as a whole, for all of her life, but she is still not certain about all of the different pieces. And that’s alright. There’s forever to learn.

Last night was hard and lonesome; her body hurts. After an episode and a half, Katya lays herself down right in Trixie’s lap. It’s something she does all the time with friends, but there’s a different sort of intimacy to it tonight.

Trixie’s hand comes to her hair right away and her fingers sift through the knots and tangles. She’s so gentle. When she’s finished, she leaves her wide warm palm at Katya’s cheekbone and her thumb makes slow arcs back and forth.

Katya closes her eyes and allows herself to drift slowly in and out of consciousness. Trixie is above her, smelling so good and still petting Katya’s hair. She talks for a little while longer, but Katya is listening more to the intonation of her voice than the words themselves. Her mumbled, lazy noises in response get more spread out and eventually she gives up altogether.

Trixie is behind her when she wakes up again properly, laying down on the couch. Her arm circles Katya’s middle so that they don’t both roll off, and Katya is delighted to find her there. She’s awake too, Katya feels her awareness like a third presence in the room.

She rolls over, careful not to dislodge Trixie’s arm. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep a lot last night.”

“It’s strange,” Trixie says, and there’s a note of wonder in her voice. “When you’re sleeping. It’s like, this absolute calm. I felt so good, just now.”

I want to make you feel so good, Katya thinks, but does not say. She met Trixie yesterday. And, as much as it aches low down in her gut, she’s enjoying the anticipation too much to give in just yet.

“Do you want to come to bed? The couch isn’t so comfortable.”

“I can’t,” Trixie sighs. Her eyeliner has gotten a little smudged and her lipstick has worn away in the middle. It’s a different Trixie, her first time meeting this version of her, and she likes her just as much as all of the others. “I have to get on the bus at six.”

She sits up, and Katya lets her because she isn’t sure what else to do. They’ve only had this one day and it is so unfair of the universe. To drop Trixie right in her lap and then take her away again just as quickly is cruel and barbed and makes it so that her breath catches in her throat.

“Tour bus?”

“No. I’m not that successful yet. An actual bus.”

Katya likes that. How she says yet, how she believes in herself so unwaveringly. She hopes that Trixie will grow to believe in Katya like that, and in them both together.

“I can’t believe you have to leave already.”

“I know.”

Katya is still in Trixie’s lap and she looks up at her. It’s not a flattering angle, shouldn’t be cute, but Katya likes the smooth column of Trixie’s neck and her round chin.

She sits up, because Trixie’s thighs are warm and soft and right there. It would be so easy to turn her head just a little and open her mouth against Trixie’s skin. Katya feels a bit spaced out from her nap. When she settles upright her brain takes a second to catch up and she closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose.

Gentle fingers at her shoulder make her open her eyes again. She’s not startled by it. It seems as if she will never be startled by Trixie, and Trixie won’t be by her either, because she is as aware of Trixie as she is of her own hands.

“I should go,” Trixie says, and does not move.

She’s got her elbow propped against the back of the couch, her head resting in the cup of her palm. And she’s looking at Katya, and her face is smooth and patient and gentle. Her hair is a little funky in the back from lying on the couch and her makeup is coming away so that Katya can see her pink nose and cheeks.

It’s lovely. Trixie’s lovely.

“You should go,” Katya agrees.

They both know that when Trixie leaves here, they’re not going to get to see each other for weeks. She’s got several more dates of her tour, and then she has to go back to Los Angeles for a bunch of meetings with her producer.

After that’s done, she told Katya that she’ll fly back to Boston and spend some more time with her. Real time, time that can be just theirs. It’s too far away though, and Katya can’t fathom one single day without Trixie now that she knows her.

Trixie’s phone vibrates with a text from Bob. She wrinkles her nose and reads it aloud to Katya. It’s a very graphic description of what Bob is going to do to Trixie if she misses her bus in the morning.

“Go, honey,” Katya says gently. She doesn’t really mean for the hypocorism to escape her, but Trixie blushes immediately and gets this open-mouthed, startled look. “You need to get some sleep.”

Instead of getting up, Trixie tips forwards on the couch until her face is hidden against Katya’s shoulder. She brings her hand up to cup the back of Trixie’s head, touches her thumb to the shell of Trixie’s ear.

“I don’t wanna leave you.” She’s a little petulant, a little bratty, but it’s because she doesn’t want to say goodbye to Katya so it’s just about the most endearing thing she’s ever heard.

This middle of the night tenderness is making Katya brave. She lets her lips brush the crown of Trixie’s head and lingers there for a little while. “I don’t want you to leave me, either. I really don’t. But you’ll be miserable in the morning.”

“I’ll be miserable in the morning anyway,” Trixie says, and sits up. She blinks at Katya. “I can’t believe we only get one day.”

She looks a little teary again. Their twin sadnesses live inside of Katya’s chest, one red and one blue and just slightly offset so that she can hardly breathe around the three dimensional ache of it.

“We don’t just get one day. We’ll see each other soon, honey.”

Trixie nods and bites her bottom lip like she’s trying not to cry. She gets up from the couch and collects her jacket and her backpack, puts her pristine white sneakers back on. She lets Katya walk her all the way down to the lobby and they wait together for her Uber.

They’re holding hands again. Katya’s not wearing any shoes or a bra and Trixie looks like she’s just been released from her twist ties and lifted from her packaging. They must make an insane pair, but it’s nearly one in the morning so Katya doubts anybody’s going to judge them for it.

When the car pulls up Trixie lets out a strangled little noise. She turns to Katya and wraps both arms around her waist, presses her face to Katya’s neck. She has to bend to do it, because she’s several inches taller, and Katya likes the arc of her spine.

“I’ll see you soon, baby. It’s gonna be okay.” She gentles Trixie with her fingers through her hair.

Trixie straightens again and she’s not crying but her eyes are pink and she’s blinking much more than usual. She reminds Katya of a bunny with her soft hair and her big eyes and her little sniffles.

She steps out of the building and greets her Uber driver, slides into the back of the car. Her face is turned towards the window and she flutters her fingers at Katya in a little wave.

Katya turns around to head back upstairs, because she doesn’t want to watch Trixie drive away from her. In her apartment she brushes her teeth and turns out all the lights and flops right into bed. She has both arms around her other pillow and she cradles it to her chest, gives it warm soft skin and thick thighs and hair that smells like juniper berry and lavender.

Her phone is plugged in on the nightstand (she’s proud of herself for remembering) and it buzzes with a message notification. She rolls over and opens one eye to peer at it, the screen too bright even though it’s turned all the way down.

today was one of the most fun days of my whole life, Trixie has sent her. While she’s looking at their conversation, another text comes through. i’m so happy I found you.

Katya still only has one eye open. Her heart is molten and pouring down to pool in the pit of her stomach. She types awkwardly with one finger.

im happy i found u too u rotted skank bitch from hell

go to sleep now, mother

She chases her messages with a whole string of the heart emojis Trixie likes so much. She’s out just that quickly, before Trixie’s reply even comes through, and she sleeps better than she has in weeks.

Texting Trixie becomes a part of Katya’s day right away. She’s not usually big on messaging people, prefers to see them face to face or at least call if that isn’t an option, but she likes it. She likes feeling her phone buzz and seeing the notification and thinking of Trixie.

Sometimes it’s intermittent. They’re both busy, and on separate schedules. Katya wakes up in the mornings to a bunch of messages from Trixie detailing how the show went that night, and she replies for Trixie to see when she wakes up in four or five hours. They call and FaceTime too, but it’s harder to make time for that.

Katya is sitting at the tiny dining table she has crammed in next to the window, working on a bowl of cereal and trying hard to ignore her phone. She’s taught two classes already this morning, back to back early ones, and she’s starving.

good morning baby

She hasn’t sent anything else yet, because she wants to really talk to Trixie. Katya stirs her spoon around and around in her mostly empty bowl. She has her chin propped in her other hand and she gazes out of the window, watches a man across the street setting up to paint a storefront.

Two weeks today, since she met Trixie. It feels like forever ago, and like Trixie was here just last night. She worries at her phone, pulls the case off the corner and back on over and over, and wonders whether Trixie is awake.

She isn’t, Katya is pretty sure. She thinks a lot about waking up and rolling over to look at Trixie, the awe in her voice when she told Katya how good it was to watch her sleep. She can usually pinpoint the exact moment Trixie wakes up because she gets a little flare of awareness in her chest and then less than a minute later her phone vibrates with a new text.

Katya has a Russian class to teach tonight. She busies herself with her lesson plan. This despondent version of her that spends all day squirming around the hook in her guts is someone she doesn’t know and doesn’t particularly like.

She likes Trixie. Likes her very much. But she has to go on with her life. She can’t sit around like it’s 1860 and she’s waiting for her lover to return to the homestead, even if the idea of putting on a prairie dress and sighing dramatically is extremely appealing.

Katya’s phone vibrates and she hurries over to it on the kitchen counter, props her forearms either side of it so she can lean down.

morning gorgeous, Trixie has sent. Heat rushes into her cheeks. Last week, Trixie requested that Katya send her a selfie because she wanted to set it as her phone wallpaper, and when she did Trixie had sent her about forty fire emojis in a row and told her she’s beautiful, a model, she looks like Linda Evangelista.

Katya watches the three dots flickering in the grey bubble and thinks about Trixie touching the screen of her own phone a few hundred miles away.

how’s your morning been??

Katya starts typing, and then thinks better of it. She calls Trixie instead, tries to stifle her grin against her palm when she picks up on the first ring.

“That bad?” Trixie says.

Katya taps the button to put Trixie on speaker. She likes this the best — having Trixie to talk to while she does things. “No. It’s been good actually. How are you?”

“I’ve been awake for about four seconds. Please don’t grill me during this very difficult time.”

“Sorry honey,” Katya laughs. She starts running water to fill the sink; there’s a few days’ worth of dishes piled up that she should really take care of.

Trixie is still talking, telling Katya about the show last night and how amazing the crowd had been. She sounds like she’s laying down still, her voice all soft and breathy. Katya aches to know for sure, to lie next to Trixie in the mornings and see her all sleep-rumpled and cute.

“Stop it, Katya,” Trixie says gently. “I can feel you making yourself sad. Only two more weeks of tour. We can do it.”

Katya is up to her elbows in suds, fumbling gracelessly with her plates and bowls because she can never figure out why her dish soap makes everything so slippery.

“I don’t want to do it.” She says it like it’s a secret, even though she doesn’t really have those from Trixie. “I miss you.”

She does. She misses Trixie so much that it hurts, which makes no sense. They had a day and a half together, that’s all. Last week Katya called Brooke at three in the morning (which is only two in Nashville, so whatever) to ask whether it ever stops being like this.

Brooke said that she and Vanessa have only spent at most three days apart in a row since they met. That when they first met, when it was new, they were not out of each other’s company for more than an hour at a time for weeks and weeks.

It wasn’t particularly helpful.

“I know, babe. I miss you too. But I’ve been trying to think of it like this: I get to have you with me always. Tons of couples do long distance and have to snatch moments wherever they can, but I get to feel you every minute of the day.”

Katya is standing still as a river stone, Trixie’s words sliding smoothly around and over her. Her ears are ringing. She swallows roughly once, and then a second time.

“Couples?” she finally manages to grit out.

“Oh God. Oh my God.”

Trixie sounds more like she’s talking to herself than to Katya, and it’s that that breaks her open. She laughs, too loud in her small apartment, and pulls her hands out of the sink. Katya dries them and takes her phone off of speaker so she can press it to her ear again. It feels more intimate; she likes to hear Trixie right there.

“Don’t freak out on me now, Trixie. You said it.”

She gets a long sigh, and she feels Trixie’s trembling shock at her own self. “Yeah. I did. I want to be a couple. With you. You awful crone.”

“I want to be a couple with you, too. God knows why; you’re so mean to me.”

It makes Trixie laugh, and Katya is laughing too, and it doesn’t ache quite so terribly anymore. This is a temporary predicament, and she still gets to talk to Trixie all the time, and it’s going to be okay.

“Katya,” Trixie says, right as a wave of longing crests up from the pit of Katya’s stomach into her throat. “I wish I was there. I wanna touch you so bad.”

“Yeah. Me too. Listen, I uh- I gotta go. I’ll catch you later. Bye.” She hangs up before Trixie can protest and bows over the counter, head in her hands.

A couple of times when they’ve talked on the phone, Trixie has done this. All of the breath support comes out of her voice. She talks about want, and Katya hears rustling on the other end of the line and has to close her eyes.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk Trixie off. Of course she does. But not for their first time. It’s romantic, which is not like her, but something about Trixie makes Katya want to be chivalrous.

She tries to busy herself cleaning the kitchen, but her thighs are trembling and there’s an ache between them that she’s struggling to ignore. It starts ramping up and Katya closes her eyes and breathes raggedly through her mouth.

And then it dawns on her.

Katya fumbles for her phone and types quickly, doesn’t give herself the time to think over whether this is a good decision.

beatrice mattel!!!!!

i know what ur doing

can u pls not im trying to live my life

Her nipples are hard and rubbing uncomfortably against the fabric of her sports bra. Katya runs the faucet until it’s as cold as it’s going to get and pours herself a glass of water, downs two thirds of it in one go. It doesn’t help very much. Her knees buckle and she crashes against the cabinet, almost goes to the floor.

Katya reaches for her phone again. For a second she debates calling, forcing Trixie to respond, but she can’t listen to her while she’s like this.

trixie. please. dont.

Part of the reason she doesn’t enjoy texting so much is because she finds it hard to convey tone. Trixie teases her a lot about being older, but this is one area where she really feels it. Trixie wields punctuation and capitalisation and emojis like weapons to make clear just exactly what she means.

Katya still feels desperate and fragile, but the edge of it comes away and her phone vibrates.

sorry

didn’t mean to upset you

won’t happen again

She sighs and balls her hand into a fist, presses her knuckles to her forehead. Trixie is a bit of a brat, she’s entitled and she takes exactly what she wants. And Katya loves it, wouldn’t want her any other way.

im not upset

im horny

you cunt

Part of her wants to go to her knees on the kitchen tile and stuff three fingers inside of herself. She’s so close; it wouldn’t take a lot. But it feels indecent and she doesn’t want her own hand. She wants Trixie’s.

i know

i did it on purpose

since you won’t talk dirty to me

Oh, but she will. She will, she wants to, she is going to. Katya is not in the business of saying untrue things, or of not saying things that are true. She thinks there’s an important distinction there. She takes a deep breath and taps out her message.

trixie

trixie

i cant stop thinking about kissing you

The response comes through immediately. Katya imagines Trixie typing with her left hand, wiping her right clean against the sheets. Imagines her chest all flushed and her pupils blown wide and her thighs trembling.

why didn’t you then?????

i wanted you to

i was waiting

For a second Katya is affronted that it’s her responsibility. Trixie could have kissed her just as easily. But then she supposes Trixie hasn’t ever had to do that before, hasn’t needed to make the first move because everyone around her seems to give her exactly what she wants at all times.

trixie oh my god

the second youre here

This time Katya can’t blame her arousal on Trixie. She feels like every single hair on her body is standing on end. She moves for the bedroom, stripping her bra off over her head as she goes and leaving it dumped in the hallway. Her phone buzzes in her hand.

yeah?

Katya puts it down for just a second so she can pull her yoga pants and her underwear off. She climbs onto the mattress on her knees and sinks down, grinds against the sheets.

She wants to touch herself; she doesn’t want to stop talking to Trixie; she can’t call her.

yeah

i wanna kiss you for hours and hours

She pauses for a second, but it’s not like Trixie doesn’t already know. There’s no mystery when Trixie’s arousal pulses hot and insistent between Katya’s thighs.

and then i wanna taste you

and touch you

and hear you

god, trixie

im gonna fuck you so good

Katya turns her phone over then and puts it on the nightstand out of her way. She lets her right hand drift between her legs. She’s so wet that it’s all down her thighs, and as soon as she brushes her fingers over herself her hips buck sharply.

She rolls her left nipple — it’s a little more sensitive — between two fingers, and sets a rhythm of tight little circles over her clit. Already pleasure is tingling up the column of her spine and all across her scalp. She’s embarrassingly close, considering all she’s been doing is texting.

But she’s been texting Trixie. And Trixie’s been touching herself, has brought both of them right up to the edge. Katya’s going to be the one to tip them over.

Their first time is still going to be special. This doesn’t count. They’re both touching themselves and thinking of each other and it’s the hottest fucking thing that has happened to Katya in her whole life.

Katya slides a finger inside of herself and clenches around it so violently that all of the breath leaves her chest like a gut punch. She adds another and then a third, her hips rocking wildly and without rhythm so that she barely has to move her hand at all.

The circles she’s making over her clit are getting faster, and she’s so wet she can hardly get enough friction. Katya bites down hard on her bottom lip and curls her fingers and comes hard. Finds herself whispering Trixie’s name as she does.

And then just as she’s coming down another wave hits her and she realises. That was Trixie.

Katya flops onto her back on the mattress and throws an arm over her face. She feels more blissed out than she has in months, maybe years. Since she got sober. She laughs out loud into her empty apartment, and then her phone starts ringing.

“Did you just-?” Trixie says in lieu of hello.

“I sure did, mama. You?”

There’s a beat of silence and Katya imagines Trixie arching lazily in her hotel sheets. Not that she’s ever seen that. They’ve never even kissed, for God’s sake.

“Yeah. It was- really good.” Trixie’s voice is living room quiet, middle of the night tender.

Katya’s breathing is still a little faster than normal. It’s the middle of the day, which is indulgent and unusual for her. For Trixie this probably counts as morning sex.

Or, well- does it count as sex? If this were a normal situation, Katya would say not. But when she was touching herself she was thinking about making Trixie feel good, wondering whether Trixie could feel everything with the same intensity. Katya is fuzzy-skinned and plump like an overripe peach.

“If you’re gonna do that again, I need some warning. Can’t have you jerking off while I’m trying to teach a class.”

The laugh Trixie lets out at that is loud and long and caterwauling. It makes Katya laugh too and she rolls over onto her stomach, phone still held to her ear and getting a little sweaty now.

“I have to ask your permission to come now? What are you, my dad?”

Katya groans and hides her face in the pillow, but she’s already pretty desensitised to Trixie’s off-colour humour. Other parts of her are not so desensitised and she rolls her hips down into the mattress.

“You slut,” Trixie gasps right into her ear. “You’re not done?”

“I hate you so much.”

She can hear Trixie’s grin, the way her words arc around it. “Yeah. Hate you too. Can’t wait for you to sit on my face.”

“Fuck,” Katya says, and hangs up on Trixie again.

Her wrist hurts from the awkward angle she’s at but she’s close enough already, again, that it doesn’t matter. Katya rolls her hips down against her fingers and wishes Trixie were here. She wants to put her face between Trixie’s thighs, wants to feel her heels dig into her back. The thought of it is enough and she comes open-mouthed and silent, Trixie’s name caught in the back of her throat.

After that, things are different.

Trixie gets braver and brattier. She likes to tease, a lot. Sometimes Katya reciprocates, but mostly she shuts Trixie down. She always gets into a snit over it and refuses to text back even though Katya can feel how much Trixie misses her when they go more than an hour without talking.

There are four days left of Trixie’s tour. Four days until she’s back in Los Angeles. She has a lot to take care of once she’s home, so she told Katya she won’t be able to make it out to Boston for another few weeks.

That’s fine. It’s fine, because Katya got Trixie’s roommate’s phone number from Fame, and she’s going to LA.

The Russian class she teaches is on summer break now, and she’s taken a week of the vacation days she never usually uses from the yoga studio. She’s going to be there, when Trixie steps off her plane, and then they’re going to spend a whole week together.

It is an enormous effort not to think about it too much. If she gets excited, or anxious, Trixie is going to know and she’s not going to drop it. Katya has texted Kim a few times to arrange things. They’ve talked on the phone once and she had to sit on the floor in padmasana and breathe slowly through her nose and focus on absolute stillness so she didn’t clue Trixie in.

The night before Katya leaves for Los Angeles, she sits on the sill so that she can smoke out of the open window. It’s so hot in Boston that she’s only wearing her underwear. She’s got Spotify pulled up and her speaker playing from the kitchen, everything Trixie’s ever uploaded.

She’s performing right now. Katya closes her eyes and leans her head back against the wall. She thinks a lot about the first time she saw Trixie perform. If she was a little smarter she would have realised before they met that Trixie was her sestrinskoye serdste, because she suffered so badly watching Trixie get her life up on the stage.

Now, it’s like being high. She gets to feel Trixie’s euphoria, her pride in herself, the joy that buoys her to bounce around all over the place while she performs. It does worry her a little. She’s an addict; she can’t really be trusted with things that feel this good.

Sweat is collecting in all of Katya’s creases, her elbows and the backs of her knees, but she doesn’t want to move. This is the time that she feels the closest to Trixie. And she is so achingly proud of her she can hardly stand it. Tomorrow she will fly across the country. Trixie isn’t back until the day after, so Katya has an evening to acclimate to Trixie’s space and hope that she gets along okay with Kim.

It feels as though she’s been waiting all of her life, because she has. Only, these last few weeks have been different. They talk all day long, their hearts are full up with each other almost every moment. While she has been waiting, Trixie has been with her.

Flying is not her favourite thing, but Katya has both of Trixie’s EPs saved to her phone and she plays them on a loop for the whole six hours. She closes her eyes and thinks about Trixie, about how she’ll get to touch her tomorrow. Kim has promised to keep Trixie as distracted as possible today so that she won’t notice Katya has disappeared off the earth for a handful of hours. She’s going to manufacture a crisis, apparently.

Kim is a good friend who loves Trixie very dearly and is thrilled that she’s found Katya. She knows that Trixie is soulbound now, apparently, and Katya wonders who else Trixie has told but is too afraid to ask.

She answers the door and lets Katya in to the apartment. Her makeup is kind of similar to Trixie’s, looks like it must take hours and hours to do in the mornings. She’s tall and her hair is lilac and Katya is immediately obsessed with her.

“That’s Trixie’s room.” Kim gestures to a closed door off the living room. “Make yourself at home. Help yourself to whatever. She’s going to absolutely lose it.”

Katya drags her suitcase into Trixie’s bedroom and leaves it just inside the doorway while she takes the space in. The walls are a soft pink like the inside of a shell. Trixie’s bed is in the middle of the room beneath the window, made neatly with white sheets. There are plants on almost every surface, fairy lights strung up along the bookshelf.

It’s clean, and beautiful, and so Trixie that Katya has to sit down in the white chair at Trixie’s vanity table. She has a blanket folded over the back of it that looks handmade, and Katya brushes her fingers over the wool.

Kim pokes her head around the doorframe. “I’m making tea, if you want some?”

“Sure, thanks. Whatever you’re having sounds good.”

“It’s so like her in here, isn’t it,” Kim says. She’s got this soft little smile on her face and Katya realises for the first time that she’s not the only one missing Trixie.

There are lots and lots of people in her life. People Katya doesn’t know, has no idea even exist. She’d like to meet them, like to hold Trixie’s hand and be introduced to them all as her girlfriend. She’s been calling her that inside her head, but hasn’t yet been brave enough to say it out loud.

It turns out that Kim is great. She’s got a sharp sense of humour that is so much like Trixie’s. They make sense, the two of them. Katya gets to hear stories about what Trixie is like to live with, what she was like in college.

She knows, sort of, because she felt her every single day. It’s nice to attach some anecdotes to the emotions. While Trixie’s been away, each day Katya has chosen a random excerpt from her journals to share with her. It’s like a horoscope, but it’s a recollection and not a prediction. Sometimes Trixie has remembered the events vividly and shared them with Katya, and other times she’s had no idea what was happening.

Katya sleeps in Trixie’s bed. It doesn’t smell too strongly of her, because she’s been away from it for nearly six weeks. Tomorrow night though, she’s going to sleep in this bed with Trixie right beside her.

Her flight gets in pretty early in the morning, which means she’s definitely going to be grumpy. Katya puts on one of her favourite dresses, a long-sleeved black one with floral embroidery. At the airport she gets a chai latte for Trixie and a black coffee for herself and she stands at arrivals, watching everybody pouring out.

The way the airport is set up, with glass all along the hallway, means that she can see Trixie quite easily. She’s coming up the ramp, dragging her pink suitcase behind her. She isn’t looking where she’s going; she’s got her phone in her free hand and she’s typing rapidly with her thumb.

Katya’s phone buzzes insistently in her hand over and over and she unlocks it, opens her messaging app.

babe

tell me not to turn around and get on a plane to boston

that’s a dumb idea, right?

Katya grins and darts a glance at Trixie. She’s almost at the exit now but she still hasn’t looked up from her phone. Even coming off a flight she’s so beautiful, her hair in two braids down her back and little pieces curling around her face.

its a very dumb idea, yeah

because im not in boston

Trixie’s head snaps up at that. She picks Katya out of the crowd right away and when their eyes meet she stumbles, the rhythm of her stride knocked off balance. Katya feels Trixie’s shock hit her and has to take a steadying breath, but the rush of joy that immediately follows is so good it makes her lightheaded. Trixie smiles so big and then ducks her head like she’s shy.

When she reaches Katya she barrels into her and wraps her arms tight around her shoulders. Katya brings a hand up to cradle the back of her head.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she laughs, and Trixie makes a small, strangled noise.

“What are you- how did you get here? Holy shit. Katya.”

Trixie untangles herself from around Katya but doesn’t go far, captures her face between her palms. Her own face is slack with awe so that she’s not even smiling, but Katya is, can’t seem to stop.

“You should tell your roommate not to let strangers into your apartment while you’re out of town.”

“I missed your first time meeting Kim?” Trixie pouts.

Her hands are still on Katya’s face and she seems to remember that quite suddenly. Her thumb comes to Katya’s bottom lip and drags it down experimentally (she sends a silent prayer of thanks up to the gods of liquid lipstick).

Katya sucks in a breath. This is her last ever first kiss. She wants it to be right. Eyes closed, she waits to feel Trixie’s mouth on hers. Instead, their foreheads meet, and when Katya opens her eyes again Trixie’s looking down at her like she’s drowning.

“I wanna kiss you so bad,” she says, and her voice is all punched out and breathy like she already has. “God. I want you so much.”

Katya lifts her chin a little and lets her hands settle at Trixie’s waist. Go ahead.

“But once I start, I’m not gonna be able to stop. And I don’t wanna do it here.”

That’s a very fair assessment. Katya laughs to break the tension and hands Trixie her chai, takes her suitcase from her so she can focus on drinking it.

“Come on, honey. Let me take you home.”

They sit on opposite sides of the car in the Uber to Trixie’s apartment, leaving their hands on the middle seat. Trixie strokes her fingers across the back of Katya’s hand, kneads her knuckles into the meat of Katya’s palm. Trixie’s hands are the most tender part of her, Katya thinks. Not her heart. Trixie’s heart is strong and sure.

Kim has made herself conspicuously absent from the apartment, left a note to tell them that she’ll be back in the morning and to please at least disinfect the surfaces when they’re finished.

While Trixie freshens up from her flight, Katya runs through a very quick flow for calm and inner stability. She’s nervous, which is ridiculous, but Trixie makes her feel like a teenager. When she comes out of the bathroom Katya is on the couch, scrolling blindly through Twitter so that she doesn’t look like she’s just sitting waiting for Trixie.

“Hi,” Katya says, and intimacy colours her voice so it sounds like come here.

Trixie does. It doesn’t surprise Katya at all when she sinks down right into her lap, knees bracketing Katya’s hips and her thick thighs framing Katya’s slender ones.

She’s got her hands braced against the back of the couch either side of Katya’s head like she doesn’t trust herself not to ravage her immediately.

“I’ve thought about this every moment of every day since I met you,” Trixie says.

She’s doing a really good job of sounding confident, but Katya feels her uncertainty just as intensely as she feels her own.

“I have too,” Katya confesses. She reaches up to touch Trixie, the soft skin of her cheek. “God. You’re so beautiful.”

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Trixie says. Her voice is so quiet, gentle like she gets when Katya’s anxiety is bad and she’s doing her best to soothe her. “If that’s alright.”

When Trixie leans in and closes the distance between them, Katya can hardly breathe around the swell of her heart in her throat. Trixie’s lips are soft and she tastes like mint, must have just brushed her teeth. Katya’s ready for Trixie to deepen things right away but she doesn’t, kisses Katya soft and slow. It feels so good, and she feels how good it is for Trixie too and it’s almost too much. She finds herself balling her hands tightly into fists and then flexing her fingers again, over and over at Trixie’s hips.

“You can touch me,” Trixie says against Katya’s mouth. “I want you to touch me.”

She splays her hands wide at Trixie’s ass and uses that grip to haul her in close. Trixie’s hips rock down sharply against Katya’s and she can feel the heat of her already. Trixie’s hands are in Katya’s hair and she tugs experimentally right at her scalp. Katya gasps into Trixie’s mouth and presses her legs together, can’t quite hold back the low groan that rumbles out of her.

“Really?” Trixie grins down at her. “Huh. I thought you were the top.”

Even after only four weeks, even though this is their first time doing this, Katya knows how much Trixie enjoys making her flustered. She likes to hear Katya strung out and desperate. It makes sense that she’d want to see her that way too, beneath her on the couch.

“I brought a strap, you fucking bitch,” Katya says, and gets her hand up beneath Trixie’s dress to brush against her.

It makes her stop laughing immediately, makes her fall forwards and let out an utterly obscene whine right against Katya’s ear. She rocks against Katya’s fingers, already soaked through her underwear.

Touching Trixie feels so good, and she can feel how good Trixie feels to be touched at the same time, and it’s the hottest and most intense thing she’s ever experienced.

She pushes the fabric of Trixie’s underwear out of the way so she can get her fingers against the slick heat of her. When Katya touches Trixie’s clit she yelps and a shudder rips through her entire body.

“You brought a- a dildo through TSA?” Her voice is coming in short bursts now and she’s panting already, her breath hot at Katya’s neck.

“No,” Katya snorts. “Just my harness. Figured you probably have your favourites.”

Trixie clenches around nothing at that, Katya feels it both where her fingers are and between her own legs. She’s still making lazy circles against Trixie’s clit and she picks up the pace a little bit.

“Oh, fuck, Katya,” Trixie says when she slides one finger into her.

“Yeah, baby. Working on it.”

Trixie likes to talk, is a chronic interrupter. It’s not at all surprising that she talks constantly while Katya fucks her. She adds another finger pretty much right away, because Trixie is so wet and desperate that there’s no resistance at all.

“God. Fuck. You feel so good. Did you-” Katya curls her fingers and Trixie growls in the back of her throat. “Did you know it would be this good?”

Katya has her open mouth against Trixie’s neck and she lets her teeth graze very lightly against the smooth skin there, lets the tip of her tongue just dart out to touch.

“I didn’t know. But I hoped.”

Trixie bites Katya’s clavicle. “More, Katya, please. I need more. I need you to fill me.”

She obliges, adds a third finger that makes Trixie cry out. Katya is barely even moving, just letting Trixie ride her hand and grind against her palm. They’re both still fully clothed.

When Trixie comes she’s silent, which is interesting. They’ve touched themselves together a few times, so Katya knows what it feels like when Trixie comes, but it’s different having her right here in her lap. She works her through it, fucks her with three fingers until she’s trembling and collapsed against Katya’s chest.

As soon as she gets her breath back, Trixie climbs off of Katya’s lap and goes to the floor. She kneels in front of the couch and wraps her hands around the backs of Katya’s thighs, hauls her to the edge of the cushion. Trixie shoves the skirt of Katya’s dress up out of her way and pulls her underwear off, tosses them aside somewhere behind herself.

The anticipation is driving Katya nuts. She can feel Trixie’s warm breath so close to where she needs her, and she can feel how badly Trixie wants her. Trixie lays her cheek against the inside of Katya’s thigh and blinks up at her.

“I’ve thought about this so much. Your thighs. How much I’ve been wanting to be between them. I wanna eat you out every day for the rest of my life.”

Katya’s hips lift at that, chasing Trixie’s mouth. She decides to play nice, for once, and licks Katya slowly. It’s so good. Katya pulls her dress up over her head. She’s not wearing a bra and she pinches and rolls her nipples, stares down at Trixie between her legs. Katya grinds against Trixie’s face, chases the coiling tension in the pit of her stomach.

Trixie slides two fingers into her at once and sucks hard on her clit and that’s all it takes, she comes with a little shout and arches off the couch cushion.

Still on the floor, Trixie smiles sweetly up at her. “I want you to fuck me. Properly. I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.”

“Sure, honey.” Katya sits up and leans forwards, takes Trixie’s face in both hands so she can kiss her. She smoothes her thumb over Trixie’s eyebrow. “Since you’ve been such a good girl, we can do that. Go pick out something nice. I’ll be right there.”

She makes herself wait much longer than she’d like. Katya likes to top, she likes the control that it gives her and it makes her feel good to be wanted so badly. She just needs a minute to get into the right headspace. She pours herself a glass of water from the Brita in the refrigerator and drinks it slowly.

In the bedroom, Trixie is lying on her front in the middle of the bed. There’s a dildo next to her on the sheets, pink and thinner than Katya would have expected. She rummages in her suitcase for the ring harness and steps into it, glad Trixie is face down and doesn’t get to see this part. Once everything is in place Katya gives an experimental tug on her dick to make sure it’s secure.

Trixie is whining very quietly and her hips are rocking back and forth, but she doesn’t turn her head, doesn’t look at Katya. Between her own thighs, Katya feels how desperately Trixie needs her right now.

She puts a knee on the mattress and Trixie keens when her body dips towards it. Katya nudges Trixie’s legs apart and settles between them, drapes herself over Trixie’s back. She kisses Trixie’s shoulder, open-mouthed, and lets her dick slide against the crease of Trixie’s ass.

“Good girl, Trixie. You’re so patient. Are you ready, baby?”

Trixie nods. She’s got her face squashed against the pillows so Katya can’t see much more than the curve of her cheek and her delicate ear. She wraps one hand around her dick and guides herself into Trixie.

For the very first time, Katya realises what it must be like to have an actual dick. As she pushes inside of Trixie she feels it, feels the stretch and how good it is to be filled. Trixie angles her hips up and back and Katya pulls out just a little, fucks into her hard again.

“Oh, Trixie, that’s- wow,” she says into the back of Trixie’s head, and gets a little keening noise of agreement.

Katya sets a steady rhythm, fucks Trixie hard and reaches around underneath their bodies to rub at her clit. She can feel exactly how much Trixie can take, knows just how hard she can push it. Sweat beads at her hairline and slides down towards her ears.

“Wait, wait, stop,” Trixie says.

Her hips still immediately and she supports her body weight on her elbows. She doesn’t think she hurt Trixie. She’d have felt it, surely, and it doesn’t feel like Trixie’s upset.

“I wanna see you. I wanna kiss you.”

Katya pulls out and gives Trixie room to roll onto her back beneath her. She pushes back in immediately, because it feels so fucking good to be inside of Trixie and she wants to stay there forever.

The snap of Katya’s hips against Trixie’s does not at all match the leisurely way that she kisses her. She licks into Trixie’s mouth, bites her bottom lip and sucks on it to soothe her.

“Oh, yes, right there,” Trixie gasps when Katya shifts the angle of her hips. “Don’t stop, Katya. Don’t stop.”

When Trixie comes she closes her eyes and tips her head back and clutches at Katya’s shoulders, one leg up around her waist and the heel of her foot digging into Katya’s ass.

After they’ve both used the bathroom and Katya’s taken the harness off and gotten each of them a glass of water, she joins Trixie in bed. Trixie tucks herself under Katya’s arm and traces lazy, concentric circles over her stomach with the tip of her finger.

“Ever let anybody rail you on the first date, before?”

“Only my uncle,” Trixie says, and then screams a laugh at herself. “But this wasn’t our first date.”

It wasn’t. She’s right. Katya kisses Trixie’s forehead because she can, because Trixie’s right there and she’s been thinking about it for a month.

“I’m so happy you’re here. I can’t believe that you’re here.”

“It’s okay?” Katya asks quietly. Part of her has been worried that Trixie is going to be mad, isn’t going to want Katya in her space.

Trixie props herself up on one elbow so she can look down at Katya. She has an adorable little crease between her eyebrows and she studies Katya for a long time.

“When you’re not near me,” Trixie starts, and touches the tips of two fingers to Katya’s chin. “It is a physical ache. I don’t ever wanna do that again. I don’t ever wanna be away from you for that long again.”

They spend almost the entire week together and settle quickly into a routine. Katya wakes up early in the mornings and does yoga in the living room, smokes a cigarette on Trixie’s tiny balcony while she waits for the kettle to boil. She comes back to bed with tea for them both and gets to wake Trixie. Every morning, when Trixie opens her eyes to look at her, Katya feels a little surge of joy right in the centre of her chest. She likes being the first thing Trixie sees each day.

Today is her last day in Los Angeles. They’ve gotten to walk around holding hands in the daylight. They’ve hiked and gone to the movies and gotten ice cream; they’ve fucked like every time is their last. Katya finds that she likes LA, even though it’s even more disgustingly hot than Boston.

She could see herself here.

Trixie is still sleeping and Katya leaves her tea on the nightstand in case she wakes up, goes back out onto the balcony with her phone in her hand. She dials, listens to it ring twice before it connects.

“Katenka?”

“Da, Mama. Privet.” Now that she’s older, and less stubborn, Katya speaks mostly in Russian to her parents. She doesn’t want to lose it, and now that she’s not living with Sasha anymore it’s good to practice.

Katya leans against the railing and holds her phone to her ear, only half listening. Her mother likes to begin every conversation by catching Katya up with all of the neighbourhood gossip. Half of these people she hasn’t seen for fifteen years, but she offers her mother a little assent every now and then anyway.

“Listen, Mama,” she says when there’s a break in the conversation. “I found them.”

“Your sestrinskoye serdste?” her mother gasps.

They’ve been worrying. Papa doesn’t show it, but Mama often frets that Katya is approaching forty and maybe she should forget about being soulbound and just settle down with someone. She knows that they’re afraid they’re going to die without seeing their daughter married off. But now there’s Trixie.

“Da. Her name is Trixie. She’s a musician. She lives in California. I’m at her apartment right now.” She pauses to give her mother time to digest all of that and then she says, softer, “I really like her, Mama.”

“Oh, Katenka, sweetheart. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad. Can we meet her?”

She thinks about that, about bringing Trixie home to her family. She knows that Trixie’s relationship with her own family is strained, thinks about her mother hugging Trixie hello and bringing her into the kitchen, trying to fatten her up. “Soon, Mama. I promise.”

The sliding door to the balcony makes a screeching noise when it’s pushed open further, and then Katya feels the warmth of Trixie right behind her. She wraps both arms around Katya and draws her back against her chest, kisses her cheek.

“I have to go. I’ll talk to you later. I love you,” Katya says, and hangs up the call.

She turns in the circle of Trixie’s arms and leans in to kiss her good morning. Trixie is responsive, opening her mouth and sliding her tongue against Katya’s. When they break apart her cheeks are flushed.

“That your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re so fucking sexy when you speak Russian.”

It makes Katya laugh and Trixie grins too, pleased with herself. Her hair is a little rumpled and Katya smoothes it down for her, leaves a little kiss at the end of her nose.

“She wants to meet you. She’s very excited that I found my sestrinskoye serdste.”

“I still can’t believe you call it that.”

Katya lifts both eyebrows and leans back a little against the grip of Trixie’s arms. “What do you call it?”

“A soulmate. Because I’m not a pretentious asshole.”

She swats at Trixie, pouts at her, but she knows Trixie can feel that she’s not offended. Quite the opposite. Every single thing Trixie does endears her hopelessly to Katya. They make out lazily on the balcony for a little while, neither of them caring that the whole world can see. Katya still remembers the way Trixie looked down at her and said she never wants them to be apart. It makes her brave.

“Hey, Trixie?”

“Mm,” Trixie hums, and kisses her again.

Katya takes a small step back, her ass hitting the railing, so she can see Trixie properly. “What do you think about me moving out here? I could get a really tiny, really shitty apartment and teach yoga.”

“No,” Trixie says. It doesn’t match up with the joy that has come to life in her chest, the joy that is pouring slowly through Katya as well like longing made liquid.

“No?”

Trixie shakes her head, says it again. “No. No tiny apartment. Move in with me.”

For a long moment Katya can only stare at her, slack-jawed. She thinks about it. She’s always been a solitary creature, afraid of commitment, afraid of intimacy. But then, isn’t that because all this time she’s been waiting for Trixie? It doesn’t scare her. Not like it used to. She still hasn’t said anything, and she knows it’s freaking Trixie out but she can’t make her brain work.

“Katya. I know this is insane. I know we’ve only known each other for like a month and a half. But- I’m in love with you. I love you.”

She remembers the very first time Trixie felt it. They had been in the kitchen, Katya cleaning the dishes from the dinner Trixie had cooked for them. Trixie had been sitting on the countertop, swinging her bare legs and occasionally poking Katya in the side with her toes.

“Why don’t you go run yourself a bath? I got you a new bubble bar while you had your meeting, today,” Katya had said. A rush of clear and brilliant adoration had washed through Trixie and she had gaped at Katya for a second before kissing her, with more tongue than she anticipated.

She remembers finding it funny that Trixie had only just then realised. Katya’s known it from the very start. It’s been a fact of her life: her name is Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova, she is an addict, she is in love with her sestrinskoye serdste.

“Oh, Trixie, baby,” she says on a bubble of wet laughter, has to close her eyes so she doesn’t cry. “I’ve loved you for your whole life.”

They’re both crying then, and laughing, and clutching at each other. Kim pokes her head around the doorframe to look at them.

“What are you two lesbians doing?”

“Kimberly,” Trixie says like she’s thrilled to see her. “Is it cool if Katya moves in here?”

Kim snorts. “Is she gonna contribute to the rent?”

“I sure will. And the chores. I’ll be a very good roommate.”

Trixie’s hand is inside the waistband of Katya’s yoga pants and she tugs them away from her skin to let cool air inside. It’s very distracting, makes Katya shiver. She reaches around behind herself and circles Trixie’s wrist in her fingers to keep her still.

Kim is watching them, a look of disgust on her face, but then she grins. “Then yes. It’s cool. It’ll be nice to have someone else to share the burden of living with Trixie.”

“Wow, fuck you too,” she says, but she’s smiling still.

Suddenly the prospect of leaving tomorrow doesn’t seem so awful. They spend the afternoon at the beach. Trixie’s wearing a pink coverup and a huge hat and she sits neatly on her towel and reads, occasionally looking up at Katya over top of her sunglasses.

Katya wades into the ocean. A small child is watching her from a few feet away, staring at her tattoos. She smiles at them, allows them to touch her skin when they come closer. She’s got her hair tied up on top of her head in a scrunchie so they’re all on show, even the one between her shoulder blades that isn’t visible very often.

Once the child’s parent comes to collect them, Katya walks a little deeper until the water laps at her waist. From here Trixie looks like a vintage drawing, like a 50’s pin up girl. She’s got the front of her hair pinned in curls around her face to complete the fantasy.

The water is cool and lovely but Katya still feels hot. She put on sunscreen, mostly because she wanted Trixie to rub it into her back and then she got to rub Trixie’s back too. It’s difficult to cool off when Trixie insists on lying out like a lizard, but she doesn’t mind really.

They’re going to get to do this forever. The thought makes her smile, and suddenly she needs to be close to Trixie. She starts making her way to shore, the water dragging at her thighs and calves so she can’t move as quickly as she wants to.

When she reaches Trixie, Katya kneels down beside her. She keeps her in place with one hand at her thigh and leans in beneath the brim of her ridiculous hat. She kisses her, lets herself linger because this part of the beach isn’t too crowded.

“Hi, beautiful,” she says when they separate. “I missed you.”

“You were twenty feet away,” Trixie says, but she knocks her forehead against Katya’s and then steals another kiss from her.

Katya unrolls her own towel and stretches out next to Trixie on the sand. She doesn’t have the attention span for sunbathing usually, but lying here watching Trixie she has plenty to keep her occupied.

After a while Trixie sets her book down and pulls a notebook and a pink pen out of her bag. She’s working on a new song; Katya’s spent the last few nights lying with her head pillowed on Trixie’s thighs and feeling the reverberation of the guitar through her skull.

She likes to watch Trixie work, see her chewing on her bottom lip and sighing every now and then. Sometimes she will hum the melody very softly so that Katya almost thinks she’s imagined it.

They leave the beach when Trixie gets hungry and get dinner at her favourite vegan burger place. They have fries to share and Trixie lets Katya feed them to her across the table. She’s sad, and trying not to be, because she doesn’t want to make Trixie sad as well.

“How long do you think it’ll be. Before you can move here?”

Katya chews and swallows her food because she knows Trixie hates it when she talks with her mouth full. There’s a little streak of sunscreen on the tip of her nose from when she reapplied before they ate that Katya can’t stop looking at. She feels good, warm and loose-limbed and sitting out on the patio with the woman she loves beyond her capacity to love.

“M’not sure. I’ll have to give notice on my apartment, and at work. Break it to my parents. Pack everything up. Hire movers, I guess?”

Her chest gets tight. There’s so much to be done. She’s really going to uproot her whole life for somebody she’s known not even two months. It’s insane, and she’s definitely going to be scolded by her family and her friends and colleagues.

And then Trixie reaches across the table and takes her hand. Her skin is so soft. Katya knows now that it’s because she moisturises religiously, has been allowed to work Trixie’s expensive lotions into her legs for her at night.

“You don’t have to do this. If it’s too much.”

“It’s a lot,” she agrees. “But honey, you’re the only person that I want to be with, every single day.”

That makes Trixie blush and Katya feels her squirming pleasure, remembers too late that when she knocks the breath out of Trixie like this she has to deal with her own lungs caving in too.

“I love you so much. I’m so excited.”

Yeah. She is too.

*   *   *

Katya packs up her entire life in five neatly labelled cardboard boxes. They hire a truck and make an adventure of it, her and Fame. She says she wants to visit LA anyway, now that summer is rolling lazily over into fall and she can bear the heat a little better.

People have been a lot more accepting than Katya anticipated. Her mama had cried when she told her she was moving, but had insisted it was out of joy that she finally found Trixie. Most people, when she tells them she found her sestrinskoye serdste and she’s a tall, blonde country singer, are thrilled for her.

There are a lot of yoga studios in Los Angeles. Katya finds a job easily and finds that she loves it. It’s winter and she doesn’t need a coat or three layers of thermals. She likes the sunshine and she likes the beach and she likes Trixie most of all.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon a week before Christmas. The apartment is decorated, and Kim and Trixie even let Katya hang some of her ornaments on their tree. There are little plastic babies and eyeballs and hands and the two of them are gracious enough to pretend they don’t think she’s a lunatic.

Katya hears footsteps thundering up the stairs and the clutch of excitement in her chest, suddenly. The door opens and Trixie comes hurtling into the apartment, goes straight for the kitchen. She turns on the radio and fiddles with the knobs, grabs blindly for Katya’s hand when she comes to stand beside her.

“Are you okay, honey?”

“Shhh. Listen.”

Trixie turns up the volume and the two of them stand hand in hand in their kitchen and listen to the radio announcer, introducing newcomer Trixie Mattel! and the lead single from her new Christmas album.

“They’re playing it!” Trixie yells, and throws her arms around Katya.

She can feel the wide arc of Trixie’s grin against her neck. “Oh my God, baby, I’m so proud of you.”

Trixie’s phone is vibrating frantically with messages from just about everyone she’s ever met in her life. She turns it over and dumps it on the counter, holds Katya in place with both hands at her shoulders.

“They’re playing it,” she says again, on a whisper this time, and shakes her head like she can’t quite believe it.

Once her song finishes she shuts the radio off and they stand in the silence together. Trixie is shaking, her lashes are wet and sticking together and she’s staring open-mouthed at Katya.

It would be difficult for her to put words to how she’s feeling right now. But that’s alright, because Katya feels everything too just as fiercely. And she knows that Trixie knows how proud she is, so she doesn’t have to embarrass herself by trying to say it out loud.

After that, everything happens quickly. She knows it doesn’t work that way, that Trixie has been trying for years and years to break into the mainstream. That the radio calling her a newcomer just reinforces the idea that things fall magically into her lap, when really Katya knows how much she has to fight for everything she wants. But it seems like one minute they’re sharing their tiny two bed with Kim and the next, they’re shopping for houses.

Trixie is very particular about it, which comes as a surprise to absolutely no one. They’re looking for a fixer upper, partly because the royalty checks Trixie gets in the mail aren’t quite that fat yet, and partly because Trixie wants everything to be just to her taste.

Their taste, she keeps insisting, but Katya doesn’t care as long as there’s a space for her practice and Trixie lets her hang some of her favourite drawings. Katya likes the idea of doing things herself, of making their home pretty for her girlfriend, and has taken to spending hours in the evenings on her laptop in bed next to Trixie researching how to plumb a toilet or demolish a soffit.

She wears her glasses, because she’s thirty eight years old, and because she knows it makes Trixie hot for her. She gets an hour at most before Trixie takes the laptop from her and climbs into her lap and kisses her deep and slow.

Everything is feeling very adult, all of a sudden. She has a job and a girlfriend that she’s buying a house with and suddenly the future isn’t so intangible. She’s planning for it, letting herself think about five or ten years from now.

This year, in September, she will have been sober for five years. There are days it hardly crosses her mind, and days she can’t focus on anything else at all, but those are a lot more rare now. If Trixie comes home from the studio or meetings or a television performance and finds Katya on the bathroom floor with all of the lights out in the apartment, it doesn’t take her by surprise because she feels Katya’s fear. And because of that, she knows to wrap both arms around her and sit in the silence until she comes back to herself.

Most days are good days. It helps, that her reason for staying sober is no longer just for her own sake. She was always terribly selfish, because all addicts are, and she likes that Trixie has made her selfless.

“What’s this one?” Katya calls out.

She can’t see over the top of the cardboard box in her arms and she feels juvenile yelling for Trixie like they’re playing Marco Polo. Today is one year since they met and — they haven’t done it on purpose — they are moving into their first home. It’s a three bed bungalow in Pasadena that Katya is only paying for about twenty percent of, but Trixie insisted.

Katya can’t stop thinking about Trixie in overalls with a scarf tied around her hair, standing on tiptoe to paint the parts of the walls that Katya can’t reach. She has a tour coming up in the fall, and neither of them want to think about being apart for seven weeks, but everything is different now. Trixie will come home from tour to their house. She will help Katya raise their dog, a rescue named Bunny they both absolutely adore.

“That’s for my office,” Trixie says right into her ear. It startles her, but Trixie catches the box before she’s even really dropping it.

Katya pads down the hall after Trixie and follows her into the room at the front of the house they’ve designated as her workspace. All of her guitars will hang on the wall in here eventually. Right now there are drop sheets down still to protect the new floors they had installed throughout. Trixie sets the box down and turns to look at Katya.

“Hey,” she says. Come here.

Katya steps into her space and slides her arms easily around Trixie’s waist. She kisses her, slow and exploratory until she feels Trixie’s knees start to liquify and she sags in her arms.

Since they’ve lived together, things have settled down a bit. Katya no longer feels every single tiny blip on Trixie’s emotional seismometer. She still gets the big things, like how it was when they were growing up, but so much better.

“I can’t believe this is our life,” Katya whispers. She kisses Trixie again, takes her time because they have time. They’ve got all the time in the world, now. Trixie is always responsive, always sweet and silly, and she kisses Katya like she likes her so much.

“Listen. I gotta talk to you about something.” Trixie takes a deep breath and meets Katya’s eyes. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend anymore.”

There’s mischief flitting with crêpe paper wings inside of Katya’s chest. Trixie’s mouth isn’t smiling, but her eyes are, and she’s clinging tight to Katya’s hands.

“Oh no?”

“No. I want to be your wife. I wanna marry you, Katya.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your knees or something?” Katya says, and is proud that her voice only cracks once.

Trixie kneels down as daintily as she can. She’s wearing jeans today, which startled Katya so badly this morning that for a second she felt like she’d seen a poltergeist. The floor is dusty and there’s still protective paper covering the window and a bulb dangles grotesquely from a wire over their heads because they haven’t picked a fixture yet.

It’s perfect.

“Katya,” Trixie starts. She takes both of Katya’s hands in hers and Katya kneels down in front of her, wants them to be on an even keel for this.

“I could say a bunch of straight people shit, like that I can’t imagine my life without you in it, but the gag is that it’s true. I can’t, because I’ve never experienced that.”

Trixie laughs, and Katya does too even though hot tears are already sliding down her cheeks and off the end of her nose. It earns her a look of concern from Trixie and she makes a little noise to say keep going.

“And I know that we’re forever and it’s just a piece of paper and it doesn’t really mean anything, but…it kinda does mean something. To me. And I just really like the thought of calling you my wife and never ever shutting up about it.” She darts a glance over to the dog, who is hopping around and wagging her tail furiously. “Plus, our daughter is illegitimate and we just can’t have that. The scandal of it all.”

Katya chokes on a sob and then surges forwards to kiss Trixie. It is not at all sexy; she’s openly crying into Trixie’s mouth and Bunny is barking at them both, getting swept up in the excitement.

She kisses Trixie deep and open-mouthed, lets her tongue slick inside and keeps Trixie in place with her palm at her cheek. She’s going to be her wife. Katya likes that thought, and likes the thought of being a wife herself, too. It doesn’t terrify her anymore. How could it?

Here is Trixie, warm and soft and good and asking Katya for something she has always intended to give. They separate and the dog nudges her way in between them and licks Katya’s neck, her wiggly body bumping into Katya’s stomach.

Katya keeps Bunny aside with a hand at her chest. Trixie is grinning so big that her eyes are creasing and Katya can see all of her teeth. Her freckles are dark with the summertime and her nose is a little sunburnt and Katya loves her.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, you fucking monster. You swamp thing.” She rests her forehead at Trixie’s chin for a moment, just to catch her breath, and then she straightens to see her again. “Yes. Of course. Of course.”

[artificialqueens]

intents wicked or charitable (trixya) 10/10 - beanierose

AN: I have been enormously lucky since joining this fandom because I’ve gotten to meet a lot of really amazing people. In particular connyhascontrol, JoanneElizabeth and mattepinkallshades. You ladies have supported me from the very beginning and I’m so grateful, thank you.

And stutter. I will never, ever be able to thank you enough for everything you do for me. Thank you for looking over this story a thousand times, talking me down from a hundred crises, and holding my hand through all of it. I couldn’t ask for a better soulmate. I love you.

(read on ao3) | (find me at katiehoughton)

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a practical magic au for the spooky season. there’s a curse on any man who dares love you? love a woman, instead. | 5,281 words

The world outside is sleepy and pink-hued and Trixie wrinkles her nose, refuses to open her eyes to it just yet. There’s a weight on her chest and between her legs, one long length that’s squirming. Tiny, insistent kisses litter her jaw and neck and then teeth scrape. Trixie, stung with pleasure, sucks in a sharp breath and opens her eyes to Katya’s face hovering over her.

“I love you and good morning,” Katya says, and nudges her nose against Trixie’s. “What did you dream about?”

Trixie huffs a little noise and brings her hand up. It’s not warm in the bedroom even with the two quilts and with Katya laying on top of her. When she cups Katya’s cheek the cold of the ring makes her let out a little yelp.

She wears it on her middle finger, because Jinkx very seriously informed them both that the middle finger is associated with Saturn, and therefore represents eternity and wisdom. Trixie’s not sure she believes that, but she loves Katya’s aunts and she likes the idea of eschewing hetero tradition.

They aren’t married — they can’t get married — but Trixie wears a gold band with a tiny black tourmaline set into it, and Katya has a sigil tattooed onto her own middle finger because rings make her itchy.

“I dreamed some rotted ghoul woke me up for no good reason,” Trixie says, but she lifts her chin and Katya comes in close, kisses her softly. “Good morning. I love you, too.”

Katya has her elbows either side of Trixie’s head, but she’s letting most of her weight rest on Trixie’s chest. She likes it, will often wrap her arms around Katya on the couch and tug until she drapes herself over Trixie.

“Happy anniversary, baby,” Katya says softly. “Our first one. Our last one.”

She’s got that concerned little crease between her brows again. Trixie works her knuckle into the meat of Katya’s forehead until she laughs and snaps her teeth. For long, lazy, indulgent moments they kiss and kiss. Katya tastes like herbal tea and it makes Trixie aware of her morning mouth. She refuses the invitation of Katya’s tongue at the seam of her lips, turns her head instead so Katya will kiss her cheek.

Katya’s fingers are inside of Trixie’s sweatshirt and travelling upwards, warm and careful. Trixie arches into her and winds one arm around Katya’s neck, tosses her head back against the pillows.

“Babe, you know Dela said we don’t need to worry,” Trixie gets out. Katya has one arm hooked beneath her leg to encourage her knee up towards her chest. She feels split open, sticky and aching. “It’s- oh. It’s gonna be fine. It’s not our last anniversary. You’re being dramatic.”

“Am I dramatic, or am I right?” Katya says. She’s working on Trixie’s underwear, taps her hip with two fingers so she’ll lift up and help her get them off.

They land on the floor with an embarrassing wet thwack when Katya tosses them behind herself over her shoulder. She starts sliding down the bed then, rucking up the quilt as she goes as if she’s tugged on a loose thread and made the whole thing pucker. Trixie lets her knees fall apart and then closes them around Katya’s ears.

“Did you- oh, my God, Katya.” Trixie fists both hands in Katya’s hair and tugs so that she lifts up a little bit, grins at Trixie. Her face is shiny even in the pink light of the morning. “Is everybody fed?”

“Everyone’s fed, everyone’s fine. Let me celebrate.”

Trixie has no interest in arguing that.

Afterwards, Trixie lazes with Katya’s fingertips resting against her lips. In the last year she’s gotten more tattoos, ones she doesn’t have to hide beneath her sleeves. Trixie opens her mouth in invitation and Katya pushes two fingers inside. She has a snake on her index and Trixie touches her tongue to it.

When she bites down Katya gasps and wrenches her hand free. “Brat.”

“Are you really scared?”

Trixie has a hypothesis that Katya only monologues about the imminent end of the world because she likes when Trixie shuts her up. She reaches over Trixie to the floor for her t-shirt and pulls it back on, lets it sit crooked so the ball of her shoulder is exposed. Katya leans back against the headboard and drops her hand to the top of Trixie’s head, pets her absentmindedly like she does Dolly.

“I absolutely am,” Katya says very seriously. “Trixie, no more automation. No more computers.”

“You hate the computer.”

Trixie gets up, all the way out of bed to collect her robe from the back of the door. She knots it at her waist and turns away, heads for the hall. A moment later Katya comes thundering along after her, bare feet slapping on the hardwood. Getting down the stairs is difficult, because Katya has both arms around Trixie’s shoulders from behind and she’s chattering in her ear about the catastrophic ramifications of the new millennium. At the bottom she trips on the pile of their mingling, discarded shoes and has to catch herself against the banister.

The dog rouses herself from her blissed-out heap on the couch and pads over, butts her head against Trixie’s thigh. Trixie stoops to kiss her good morning and stroke her silky ears. When she straightens Katya is waiting for her in the doorway to the kitchen, pointing a spatula at her.

“I didn’t make you a romantic breakfast because I know you think me cooking is a criminal offense.” She circles the spatula in the air a couple of times, and when Trixie reaches her she stretches on tiptoe to tap the top of Trixie’s head with it. “But know that the intention was sure there. It’s the thought that counts, right baby?”

Trixie snorts a laugh and takes the spatula from her before she can be assaulted with it any further. She makes eggs, because it’s easy and fast and requires minimal concentration. She can allow herself to be distracted. Katya’s hands are on her the whole time she’s cooking, stealing kisses and sifting her fingers through Trixie’s hair.

She still feels a bit quivery, like her skin is charged, but they have things to do today. They have a lot to do today. It’s a cold morning but they eat on the porch, looking out at the water and listening to Cash and Guthrie bleat in the barn. Trixie has a blanket around her shoulders and Katya’s warm feet in her lap.

All summer they’ve been out here. Trixie has loved padding out in her bare feet to the grass sticky with dew and the fresh, cool air. She loves it still in the fall, these last few days where it’s been just on the right side of too cold to sit out in the mornings. Katya does yoga on her mat in the grass and then comes sweaty and gross all the way into Trixie’s lap most days.

“Remember there’s both containers for later, babe,” Trixie says. Katya mops up the last of her breakfast with a corner of toast and chews it happily, her face crinkled with pleasure. “Do you want me to run you down in the car?”

Katya flexes her biceps and does a little half-turn in her chair to let Trixie see them both. She’s goofing off, but it still makes Trixie’s mouth dry. “I can carry them. Don’t you want to see me carry them?”

Rather than admit how much she does want that, Trixie gets up from her chair and collects their plates and glasses to bring inside. Dolly stays out with Katya, even though Trixie is her best hope for scraps. A year in, some of the jealousy is abating. Trixie likes to see them, one dark head and one blonde bent together.

Once the dishes are done, she has to go and collect Katya from the backyard. It made sense to sell the farm: Katya’s house is closer to Verbena, and bigger, and has been in her family for generations. Dela officiated their rites at the end of the spring, and instead of a honeymoon they built a paddock and a coop for the chickens and moved everybody in.

Every once in a while, Trixie misses the view from the kitchen window at the farmhouse. She misses standing at the sink and looking out at Katya with a chicken balanced on her shoulder and another in her arms. But at nighttime now, she gets to sit on the little bench at the end of their garden with Katya’s arm around her shoulder and listen to the susurration of the cove and the hum of the cicadas.

“We’re gonna be late to open,” Trixie says, and fists both hands in the bottom of Katya’s sweater to haul her back against her chest.

She goes easily, willingly, turning as she does so she can loop her arms around Trixie’s neck. The morning feels crisp and shiny and golden and Katya is warm in her grip, her mouth open and teasing.

“That’s the whole point of owning our business, baby. We can be late to open. We can be so late that we’re early for tomorrow.”

“That doesn’t- mmf,” Trixie kisses back, of course, always does. She dreams sometimes still about the week she didn’t have Katya, and she’s glad for it. It means she never forgets to be grateful now. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Trixie untangles herself from Katya and starts towards the house again, hears Katya and Dolly both come bounding after her. They’ve talked some about getting another dog, now that Dolly is at home by herself so much of the day. It’s one of the conversations they have that to Trixie is planning for the future and to Katya exists entirely in the abstract.

The gold band of her ring is beginning to heat up now and Trixie worries at it with her thumb. She likes to feel it there, and she likes even more how Katya will take her hand in the evenings and stroke along her fingers while they watch a movie.

Trixie drives the two of them down into the town and parallel parks outside of Verbena. In the passenger seat, Katya is cradling two Tupperware containers in her lap. Trixie was up late into the night decorating cookies in the shapes of ghosts and pumpkins for Katya to take to the kids this morning. She kisses her goodbye at the door and heads off down the street in the direction of the elementary school.

Violet is waiting for them, leaning back against the storefront with one foot flat against the wall so her knee is bent. When they opened the cafe it had been Katya’s idea to try and poach Violet. She had jumped at the chance, with as much enthusiasm as Violet ever shows, so the arch of one brow and a muttered sure, whatever.

“Hey, sorry we’re a little late.” Trixie gets the door unlocked and holds it open for Violet to come inside as well.

“Anniversary, right? I’m surprised you like, made it in at all.” At Trixie’s raised eyebrow, Violet shrugs. “Your wife has been telling me all week how excited she is for today.”

Trixie elbows the row of switches to flip the lights on and washes her hands, starts pulling things out of the refrigerator to prep. In the mornings most of the people who work in town come in for coffee and sometimes a pastry, and Trixie’s comfortable letting Violet handle that.

It had taken until the middle of January for Trixie to get restless. She didn’t miss Los Angeles or the restaurant, but she did miss feeding people and keeping her hands busy. Turning Verbena into a cafe had been Katya’s idea, and it had taken eight months of work to get all of their permits and the renovations completed. They opened officially last month.

They’ve been open for an hour and a half when Katya comes back, empty Tupperware in hand and her cheeks pink with pleasure. On her way behind the counter she ensnares Violet in a brief, tight hug that makes her mutter under her breath. Katya comes in to the kitchen and kisses Trixie’s cheek, hoists herself up to sit on the vacant prep counter.

“Honey, those cookies. They kept asking me if I’d magicked them. Wanted to know if they had newt brains and eel eyes in them. I said no magic, you’re just that good at cooking.”

“It’s baking, not cooking. Get your ass off my counter,” Trixie says. When she looks up from the tomato she’s slicing Katya is staring at her, slack-jawed, and the arrhythmic drum of her heels against the counter has stopped. “What? What?”

Katya shakes her head and a grin spreads slow and wide across her face. “I love you.”

“Okaaay,” Trixie says slowly.

Katya hops down from the counter and takes the knife out of Trixie’s hand. She circles her arms at Trixie’s waist and leans back to see her. “That was the last thing. That’s what I manifested. The person I love will have magic too.”

“I thought you said I already showed everything you wished for.”

From the moment Katya had mentioned wishing for qualities, Trixie had been unable to ignore the itch beneath the surface of her skin. She wanted to know. Of course she wanted to know. After they had settled into their life, after Katya had stopped waking up in the middle of the night screaming and clutching at Trixie like she was unspooling in her hands, she’d gotten up the courage to ask.

Katya had fed them to her piecemeal over the course of several days, rewarding Trixie after dinner or with her legs over Trixie’s shoulders or, one time, waking her up at three in the morning just to whisper it to her.

“I thought six out of seven wasn’t bad,” Katya grins, and leans in to kiss Trixie properly. She very nearly hoists her up onto the counter, but they have only about an hour until the first lunch orders start coming in and there really isn’t time to disinfect her surfaces again. “But here you are. You really are my dream girl.”

That makes Trixie scream out a laugh, loud enough that Violet pokes her head through the serving hatch with a hand over her eyes and says “you two had better not be naked back here.”

“We’re not, we’re not,” Trixie says, circling her fingers at Katya’s wrist to tug her hand out of the back of her pants. Violet eyes them both for a long, uncomfortable moment but says nothing and disappears out to the front again.

Trixie takes a step back from Katya and presses the flat of her hand to her shoulder so she can’t close that distance again. “We had a handfasting ceremony.”

“Yep.”

“Your aunts were there.”

“Mm-hmm,” Katya grins. She steals a slice of tomato from Trixie’s cutting board and seems to remember that she hates tomatoes half a second after it’s in her mouth. Trixie watches her chew it with her face all scrunched up and she offers her a hand to spit it out into. She doesn’t, she swallows it, and a shiver of revulsion goes through her.

“You’re just now deciding I’m right for you?”

Katya threads her fingers through Trixie’s at her shoulder and lifts her hand to her mouth, kisses the heel of her palm. When she lets go, Trixie leaves her hand cradling Katya’s cheek. Katya’s eyes flutter closed and she hums a contented little noise.

“I decided you were right for me the second I saw you,” she murmurs. “But it’s nice to have it confirmed.”

“Will you tell me again?” Trixie asks. She remembers, is certain she’ll remember for as long as she lives, but she likes to hear Katya say it all the same.

Katya counts each one out on her fingers. “They will have two shadows, cheeks like roses, hearts for freckles.”

Their first night together, Katya discovered the one freckle shaped like a heart on the back of Trixie’s shoulder. She’s been obsessed with it ever since. One of her favourite ways to wake Trixie in the morning is to tug the quilt down and kiss her there, linger until Trixie opens her eyes and rolls over to kiss her properly.

“They’ll be very brave. They’ll be from a far away land.” That makes Trixie snort a laugh. Wisconsin is pretty far, but Katya makes it sound like she was off battling dragons before they met. “They can turn invisible. And they can do magic, too.”

“I still don’t think me being a recluse counts as turning invisible.” Trixie tilts her head. “You’re so specific. I just wanted somebody warm and kind.”

Katya laughs and wraps her arms around Trixie in a hug. She hides her face against the side of Trixie’s neck and rocks the two of them back and forth. The bell over the door jangles and Trixie hears Violet greet the customer, has to untangle herself from her wife.

It’s not like anybody minds. People know that they live together, that they own the cafe together. People still come up to Katya in the street to thank her. Every time it makes the tips of her ears turn pink and she clings tight to Trixie’s hand. Still, Trixie likes to try and be professional when they’re at work.

Their afternoons tend to pass quickly. Trixie stays in the kitchen, Violet out front, and Katya drifts back and forth to be useful wherever she’s needed most. They still sell a lot of her products from when Verbena was an apothecary, so from time to time she will allow herself to be completely distracted by an inquisitive customer and spend a half hour with them running through the entire itinerary. Mostly though she helps Violet make coffee and toast sandwiches in the press.

After the lunch rush is over they let Violet go home. She’s going to a party in the city tonight and it’s a couple hours’ drive even before she has to get into her costume. As always she is surly and aloof, but she lets them both hug her and she lets Katya kiss both of her cheeks as well.

“C'mere baby,” Katya says when the door is closed behind Violet.

She holds out her arms and Trixie steps into them, winds her own around Katya’s little waist. They kiss lazily for a while. Katya’s hands are in Trixie’s hair; most nights when she combs it out before bed she finds she has a matted patch at the base of her skull from Katya’s fingers.

They have to break apart when the bell over the door goes. Trixie pats at her mouth with the back of her hand, tucks her hair behind her ears. It’s Peter, dropping in as he does two or three times a week to ask if they need anything. He sent Katya a gift basket on her birthday, filled with fruits that she wrinkled her nose at but Trixie got to enjoy over the next week or so.

“I think we’re all good for right now, hon,” Katya says. She’s still got one hand in Trixie’s back pocket and she squeezes. Trixie is maybe a little more proud than she should be that she doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound.

“Cool,” Peter says. “I’ll see you tonight?”

Katya grins widely and darts a small glance at Trixie like she thinks she ought to check. “You surely will.”

For the last hour the kitchen is closed and Trixie gets to hang out behind the counter with the love of her life. They don’t both work every single day, sometimes one or the other of them will take a day off and every now and then they’ll close so they can spend the day together. Most days though, she’s here nourishing the town and watching people come in to the cafe just to say hello to Katya.

It’s quieter toward the end of the day, so Trixie gets to hear all about Katya’s morning. Once a month she goes into the elementary school to teach a nature class to the first and second graders. They are all head over heels for her. Every time they’re out they seem to bump into at least one of her kids and Katya will always crouch down in the middle of the sidewalk to be eye level with them.

She’s so patient and kind; she listens so intently. It makes Trixie’s chest hurt. Neither of them are sure if that’s ever going to be in the picture for them. At the end of June, they went into the city for Pride. Katya had been jittery for several days before, and on the morning of the parade she recited an incantation for them both invoking protection and safety. Next spring, there’s suggestion of a march on Washington for the new millennium. Katya’s not usually a planner, but she’s already talking about closing the cafe for a few days and heading across the country to be there.

Trixie sends Katya home ahead of her. She’s not all that helpful when it comes to the cleaning and organising that needs to be done at the end of the day. As it’s started to get dark she’s gotten more and more anxious, so the walk will do her some good. Trixie leaves the cafe pristine and spotless as she always does and makes the short drive back to the house.

“Babe? Do you want a quick dinner?”

Katya appears at the top of the staircase already in the tight pants and white blouse she’s had hanging on the back of the door all week. Her hair is spilling out all over her head in wild curls that look like she’s used an entire thing of hairspray.

“No. I need you to come and kiss me before I do my makeup.” She leans over the bannister to look down. “Come kiss me, Trixie. Now!”

Trixie laughs and hurries to get out of her shoes and coat. Dolly is hopping excitedly around her ankles and she follows Trixie up the stairs in a sleek, dark blur. At the top Katya grabs for Trixie and backs her up against the wall, pins her hands either side of her head. Their kiss is wet and deep and Trixie arches against Katya. She slides her knee between Trixie’s legs and Trixie ruts against her thigh. She tries to touch Katya’s hair and her fingers come away sticky, make her breathe a little noise of distress into Katya’s mouth.

She lets her hands fall down instead and splay wide at Katya’s ass. When these pants came in the mail Trixie had pestered her to try them on all day and when she had, Trixie had collapsed dramatically backwards against their pillows in a paroxysm of joy and fanned herself until Katya came to straddle her.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” she says against the side of Katya’s jaw. “It’s really not okay. You’re a teacher.”

That makes Katya scream a laugh and separate from her, shaking her fists. She disappears into the bathroom again and Trixie follows her in there to get started on her own makeup. It takes her a while, because it’s been a long time since she’s really worn any. She has to get in close to the mirror and she can see Katya from the corner of her eye giggling at her concentration face.

Katya splashed out for the good fangs, the individual ones that cap her incisors instead of the plastic strip ones they found at the party store. They have plans to use them after tonight, so Trixie insisted it made sense to get the good ones. She’s done a red and burgundy eye and her mouth is the same vivid jewel tone. Trixie keeps messing up the little crescent moon she’s trying to draw onto her forehead every time she looks at Katya.

“This is really so stupid, you know that?” Katya hoists herself up to sit on the bathroom countertop and poke Trixie with her toes. “This might be the dumbest thing we’ve ever done.”

“It’s ironic.” Trixie finishes the last of the little black dots she’s put carefully around her eyes and between her brows.

Her own clothes are hanging in the closet in the guest room. She’s borrowing robes from Dela and boots from Jinkx and topping everything off with a cheap velour hat they picked up from the party store.

Tonight, Trixie is the witch.

They’ve been planning it for a few weeks. It isn’t necessarily the kind of event that necessitates a costume, but they won’t be the only ones dressed up. Trixie feels good, powerful and sexy. She isn’t ready to examine the effect the blood dripping from Katya’s mouth is having on her.

“I’m so excited!” Katya says again. She’s told Trixie about a hundred times on their walk down to the bonfire. Trixie’s got Dolly’s leash in one hand and she’s holding tight to Katya with the other like she’s a little kid who might bolt at any moment. The dog is wearing an orange sweater with a pumpkin on it that Katya knitted for her and she wriggled with pleasure and licked both of their faces when they first put it on her.

Their clasped hands swing between them as they walk. As always, Katya is absurdly warm on Trixie’s left side. The air feels crisp and charged tonight and they can hear the noise from the town before they see anything. The moon overhead is round and enormous, peering down at them.

“Remember last year?” Katya says, and tugs on Trixie’s hand to stop her.

They’re almost at the field where the bonfire is set up, and there are a few families making their way along the sidewalk close to them, but it’s dark enough that it’s somewhat private. “I remember.”

“You came to my door in that absurdly huge pink sweater and I wanted to kiss you so bad. I wanted you so much, all the time, but that night-” Katya shakes her head. “You were so goddamn cute. And you held my hand.”

Trixie kisses her cheek, right at the corner of her mouth. They’re safe, they’re lucky, but she still doesn’t always feel okay kissing Katya out in the open. “Can’t believe you let me yell at a bunch of kids for you.”

“Uhm-” Katya starts, her voice pitched up in indignation. Trixie lifts their clasped hands to her mouth and kisses Katya’s knuckles, to apologise and to shut her up.

“Come on. They’re waiting for you.”

The bonfire is usually lit by whichever hyper-macho dad needs to wield the matches and soothe his ego, but this year they’ve asked Katya to do it. A crowd has formed all around the perimeter of the bonfire and a hush descends as Katya walks up to it. Trixie stays close by, keeping Dolly at her side with a short grip on the leash.

Katya holds both of her hands out and closes her eyes. By now, Trixie must have watched her do this hundreds of times. She always likes to make a show of lighting the fire in the hearth when they come home for the night, sometimes gesturing vaguely at it from across the room without even looking. One time she lit it from upstairs and startled Trixie, alone in the living room, so badly that she screamed out loud.

Just like last year, everyone is watching her. Trixie spots a few of the kids from Katya’s class having to be restrained by parents so they don’t charge at her. Katya’s murmuring something very softly to herself and then she gestures upwards suddenly and flames burst into life with a noise like a gunshot. The crowd erupts with cheers and scattered applause and Katya turns to find Trixie in the crowd. Her mouth is wide open with joy and it comes spilling out of her as she manoeuvres her way to Trixie’s side.

“Did you need to do all that incantation stuff?”

“Not at all,” she laughs. “Just wanted to put on a show. Come on baby, I owe you a powdered donut.”

Their progress over to the food stands is slow, because people keep stopping them to compliment their outfits or ask after the cafe or thank Katya for whatever little kindness she’s shown them lately. The air is already thick with the smell of woodsmoke and barbecue and Trixie feels woozy with pleasure, is grateful for Katya’s arm hooked through hers.

“Miss Zamo! Miss Zamo!”

A tiny voice stops them both in their tracks and they turn to see a little girl with dark hair hopping excitedly up and down on the spot. Dolly strains towards her and Trixie grips the leash a little tighter. She trusts Dolly completely; she doesn’t always trust little kids with her. Katya has crouched down to face the girl.

“Hi, Jessie. Happy Halloween, sweetie.”

“Look!” Jessie holds the tattered skirt of her dress in her hands and spreads it out away from herself, does a little curtsey. She’s wearing a crooked hat that matches Trixie’s pretty closely, and now that she’s looking properly Trixie sees that her face is green. “I’m you. I’m a witch!”

Katya laughs loudly and gives Jessie a high five. Her mother is catching up to them now, a bit out of breath, and she rests a hand at the top of her daughter’s shoulder. They chat for a little bit and Trixie wanders away. She’s content in the knowledge that Katya will come find her when she’s done.

Sure enough, two thin arms come around Trixie’s waist from behind while she’s in line at the donut stand. Katya’s lifted up on tiptoe — Trixie can feel how she lets her weight rest against her back — and she kisses the soft skin right in front of Trixie’s ear.

“Should we have a kid?” she says quietly. “No, probably not, right? Right?”

Trixie turns around to see her and accepts the whole length of her into a hug when she drops back to flat feet. Some of the ghoulish white foundation she caked on earlier is starting to come away at her jaw and around her nose and Trixie likes to see her pink skin peeking through.

“That would be super difficult for us,” Trixie says. The line is moving and she lets Katya nudge her backwards, trusts her not to crash them into anything. “I don’t know if we could do that.”

Katya tilts her head in consideration of that. At their feet, Dolly has given up waiting and lays down on the ground, rests her long head against her front paws. She makes a little braying noise of irritation and they both laugh. Katya cradles Trixie’s face in her hands. They’re so hot; later Trixie will ask Katya to warm her up and get to feel heat travelling all the way into her toes.

“I like our life,” Katya says, so sincerely that Trixie bursts into a fit of giggles she feels in the centre of her chest. “What? Don’t laugh at me.”

Trixie manages to stop laughing and leans in to kiss Katya’s cheek. “Sorry, babe. I’m not laughing at you. I like our life, too.”

The line starts moving again and Katya glances over Trixie’s shoulder, tips her head to gesture for her to step forward.

“We’re next, honey.”

[artificialqueens]

intents wicked or charitable (trixya) 4/10 - beanierose

AN: Thanks as always to my wonderful ladies, none of this would exist without your support and encouragement.

(read on ao3) | (find me at katiehoughton)

[one.] [two.] [three.]

a practical magic au for the spooky season. there’s a curse on any man who dares love you? love a woman, instead. | 5,164 words

“Katya, oh my God, don’t- be careful,” Trixie yelps and flattens herself against the cabinets as Katya dances right by her, glass held aloft and sticky orange and lime spilling over her hand and down her arm.

Her hair is falling in her face, her bangs getting a little long again even though Trixie trimmed them for her two weeks ago over the bathroom sink. Dolly is following Katya as she loops circuitously around the kitchen, both of them skidding on the tile in paws and sock feet respectively. Trixie’s telephone dates with Kim have been bumped to Saturdays, because she’s busy on Fridays now.

They’re dates. She thinks so, anyway. Each time she makes the drive over to Katya’s place with Dolly sitting in the passenger seat and hanging her long head out of the wound-down truck window, Trixie is fidgety with anticipation. She finds herself unable to stop drumming her fingers against the dash. It’s part of her routine now, after only a month. She usually sees Katya three or four times a week, but they don’t have a set schedule other than their Friday nights.

It started because Katya insisted that she can cook, insisted she be given a chance to prove herself. Trixie is always trepidatious and sometimes downright horrified at the idea of anybody cooking for her, but Katya’s face was pink with childlike enthusiasm where she sat on Trixie’s kitchen counter. She’d had the sleeves of her sweater pulled down over her hands and Trixie had said yes to distract herself from how badly she ached to hold her. Her cooking is actually pretty good. It isn’t Michelin good, isn’t Trixie good, but it’s a lot better than Trixie was, unfairly, anticipating.

Katya hands Trixie a fresh glass, only spilling it a tiny bit. Trixie sucks the margarita from the webbing of her thumb, and then downs half of it. It’s her second, and she’s beginning to feel this one go to her head. She’s not drunk, just pleasantly aware of herself and of Katya. She feels lovely, calm and warm and gentle.

The music player is in the living room, and Katya has it turned up louder than is necessary so that the delicate china rattles in the cabinet. She never uses it anyway, sticks to the same plate and bowl and cup and gets out another of each, unmatching of course, for when Trixie is here.

“I am totally in control of my faculties, thank you so much,” Katya says, and the most annoying part is that it’s true.

Midnight margaritas are a tradition Katya started with her two aunts, Jinkx and Dela. They don’t live here anymore, moved south because the winters are unkind, and Katya seems endlessly thrilled to have someone to share this with again. Her own margarita is virgin, but it doesn’t seem to matter. She is effervescent and enthusiastic and she keeps grabbing Trixie’s wrists to pull her along, trying to get her to dance.

She does. Trixie likes dancing, always has, and she likes feeling how warm Katya is. Sometimes their thighs brush, and Trixie blames the vertiginous tilt of her body into Katya’s on the alcohol. Katya’s dancing is unconventional, seems to mostly involve her rolling her hips and lifting her hands into the air and spilling her drink all over the floor. She’s grinning so wide that it doesn’t matter.

Dolly keeps trying to worm her way in between them, her whole body wiggling with excitement. Trixie stumbles and grabs for Katya to keep from going to the ground, which only makes her crash into the island, and Dolly barks at the cacophonous spill of laughter from them both.

It’s warm enough that Trixie took off her plaid shirt, since it kept falling down her shoulders and getting in the way, and she’s in just her tank. It’s made dark with sweat and clinging beneath her breasts, and she’s caught Katya looking a couple of times.

Today at the store Katya tried a new aromatherapy blend and Trixie can smell it on her now, the two of them dancing close enough that she catches cypress and bergamot every time Katya turns her head. Katya laughs a lot while she dances, her head thrown back, and Trixie watches the work of her throat and allows herself the luxury of imagining what that pale skin might taste like.

She can feel the heat of Katya’s thighs against hers, and she is intoxicated by both the intimacy and the alcohol. Katya’s eyes are on her, she feels them on her ass when she turns around and sways, rakes her hands through her own hair. It’s been a while since she’s done this, but two drinks down she is loosening up and listening to her body again. Katya’s hands come to her hips and draw Trixie back against her. They’re not grinding, not quite, but if Trixie leaned in to Katya even a half inch more they would be.

It is so late, later than Trixie has been awake since she moved out here. It makes her feel open-hearted, like she wants to lay beneath the covers with Katya and whisper all of her secrets.

They don’t have many. Trixie has been spending a lot of time at Verbena, and she often brings Katya home with her when the store closes for the day because she insists that she needs “to see my ladies and my handsome gentlemen, Trixie, I’m their fun aunt.”

The song finishes and starts back playing again immediately because Katya’s got the CD player programmed to loop. They dance together for two more renditions until Trixie’s arms get tired and she sits down right on the kitchen floor with her legs stretched out in front of her. Katya pretends to trip over them and settles next to Trixie, one absent hand scratching Dolly behind the ears.

Trixie lets her head thud back against the cabinet door a bit harder than she means to and she grunts, has to blink to clear the soft-focus edges of her vision. The alcohol has made her loose and lazy and she rolls her head to see Katya beside her. Her cheeks are pink and a bead of sweat slides down from her hairline towards her ear. It feels like they’re teenagers, like she’s taken off her skin and is holding it in her hands.

“Hey, Katya? Can I ask you about something?”

It comes out less slurred than she was anticipating. Now that she’s sitting down she doesn’t feel quite so drunk. Dolly has settled too, her head heavy across Katya’s thighs. With anybody else, Trixie would be jealous, but Katya is so deeply in love with Trixie’s dog that she doesn’t care at all. She gets a little hum from Katya and she turns to look straight ahead again.

It’s much warmer in the kitchen than outside and condensation is beading on the window panes. Katya has a huge island that’s really a table, and there are hooks screwed into the underside of it where she hangs all of her saucepans and skillets. The tequila bottle is on the floor next to Trixie’s foot, because Katya insisted it’s bad luck to put your empties back on the table. She has little sprigs of dried lavender tied up in the windows and she’s growing herbs on the sill. Trixie could sit here for a very long time.

“Did you kill your husband?”

All of the breath goes out of Katya, and Trixie feels it like a blow to her own chest. She regrets it immediately. The music is still playing and it is uncomfortably loud now, inappropriately loud for this conversation. Trixie gets up to turn it off, not at all expecting Katya to follow her, but she is. She does.

“Come with me?” Her voice is so small.

Trixie follows her in her sock feet all the way upstairs. She’s never been up here before and it feels like she’s trespassing, even though Katya keeps turning over her shoulder to check that Trixie is still there. She’s worrying at her bottom lip, but she washed her makeup off hours ago so there’s no red to get all over her teeth.

Up here none of the lights are on. Katya leads Trixie into a bedroom — it isn’t hers, she’s pretty sure — and kneels down in the middle of the floor. The curtains are secured either side of the window with little braided cords and Trixie can see right out over the cove. The trees are dark and feathered like brushstrokes and the moon’s wise, unblinking eye peers in at them. She feels laid bare, and she sinks down to join Katya on the floor so that she can’t be seen anymore.

There’s a rug in here, a threadbare one that coughs up a great cloud of dust when Katya folds it over itself and back out of the way. She sits on her feet and threads her fingers together, traps her clasped hands between her knees. She’s diminishing herself, collapsing inwards, and very carefully not looking at Trixie.

“Have you heard of the deathwatch beetle?”

Trixie shifts to sit cross-legged. There’s an errant thread at the knee of her pants and she tugs on it until it’s long enough to wind around her finger. It’s so quiet and still. At home, even in the middle of the night, Trixie can hear the low groaning of her house and the occasional bleat of the goats out in the cowshed. Katya’s house is silent, like the whole place is holding its breath.

“I told you, I’m from Wisconsin. There’s no bug I have not met.”

It’s not a lie, not exactly. She has heard the term before, from her grandmother’s friends at bridge club. Trixie doesn’t know much beyond the name, but she’s not about to admit that to Katya. Trixie is smart with her hands, not always with her head. She’s not sure that she’s ready for Katya to know that about her just yet.

It does at least get Katya to huff a tiny little laugh, like Trixie has hit her in the solar plexus and forced it out. “The day he died, I was downstairs pottering around like a good little wife.”

Katya has never mentioned her husband before, not in all the weeks that Trixie has known her. She doesn’t seem surprised that Trixie has heard about him; she grew up here in this town and is certainly aware that she is everybody’s favourite topic of conversation.

“I can really see you in an apron. A cute little frilly number? Perfect on you.”

“Duh, I’m so cute.” She wiggles her shoulders as if to prove her point. Not that Trixie needs convincing. “Deathwatch beetles, they uh- they bore into wood.”

Trixie keeps her face slack, doesn’t dare look at Katya. “Honey, you can bore into me any time.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. She always does this, fumbles the heavy stuff in her clumsy hands. Trixie folds them neatly in her lap instead and shuts the hell up, lets Katya explain.

“When they’re looking for a mate they make this ticking sound, and you can hear it in old buildings. In the rafters. You know when it’s summer, and it’s so late but it’s too God damn hot to sleep so you’re just laying there on your back all sticky and disgusting?”

“Sure.”

Trixie thinks on that for a moment, lets herself imagine Katya sprawled like a pre-Raphaelite across her sheets. Her shirt rucked up to show her stomach, or maybe abandoned completely. Frustration making her restless, making her hips shift. Her mouth floods and Trixie swallows, lets all her breath out in a little huff.

“They’ve gotten to be associated with the vigil kept beside the dying. That’s where they get their name. Keats mentions them in Endymion, and Thoreau does in one of his essays. Oh, and they’re in Tom Sawyer, too!”

“Katya,” Trixie says gently. It makes her lift her head and she blinks at Trixie like she’s surprised to find her here.

“I heard them. I fucked up the floorboards, prising them up to try and find them. See where they’re all crooked?”

Trixie leans in to see. It’s so dark in the room that she can’t, not really, but she nods anyway. Katya pushes down on the floor and it creaks loudly, sends a cascade of gooseflesh down Trixie’s spine like cold water.

“I hate straight things,” Trixie offers. She has never been very good at this, doesn’t know what to do with grief, but with Katya she wants to hold out both of her hands and take it from her. “But. I could fix it?”

“No!” Katya blurts, too loudly in the small bedroom. She’s brought her other hand to rest on the floor as well, both of them splayed wide as if in protection.

Sitting here in the dark is not doing much to sober Trixie up. She’s not so far gone that she won’t remember this in the morning, but her filter isn’t working very well. There are so many questions all elbowing each other for her attention, and she picks the worst possible one out of the lineup.

“So what actually happened to him?”

Katya’s face crumples for just a second but she claws it back, smooths herself out the same way she does with her palms against the thighs of her pants whenever she gets out of the car. One rogue, round tear escapes and slides down her face towards her neck.

“He was hit by a truck. While he was making a delivery to the produce market. Betty saw it happen.”

Something small shifts inside of Trixie, but it feels significant. She’s just far enough away from Katya that when she reaches for her it’s graceless and awkward. Trixie knee-walks over and wraps her arm around Katya’s shoulders. Her nose presses warm and pointy against the side of Trixie’s neck. Trixie wants to cradle the back of Katya’s head, wants to kiss her cheeks and rock her, but she doesn’t need to be gentled right now.

“And…that’s her problem with you?” Katya gives her a small, small nod. “What the fuck! What an evil cunt.”

The laugh that Katya lets out sounds like it’s choking her. She lifts up from Trixie and fumbles for her hand. Trixie gives it to her easily, lets her thread their fingers together. Katya’s eyes are moving rapidly back and forth like she’s tweaking — Trixie owns a double Michelin restaurant, she knows what that looks like. Adrenaline rushes through Trixie so swiftly that it makes her head feel wet and bloated. She supposes it makes sense for someone like Betty to allow their trauma to calcify, but she can’t fathom how Katya’s husband being hit by a truck could be construed as her fault.

“Yeah, that’s the problem” Katya says. “And that’s why I can’t even stand to look at a green apple.”

“Oh.” Trixie keeps her voice very soft, keeps her teasing gentle. “I thought that was just because you have the eating habits of a second grader. How many packs of Skittles do you go through in one day?”

Katya shrieks her first real laugh in what feels like six hours, and shoves on Trixie’s thigh. “Shut up! I hate you.”

“I know, I know, you want to kill me,” Trixie says without thinking, and then has to choke back a great tide of grief that wants to come pouring out. “Oh, Katya, I’ve joked about that so much. I’m so-”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s good. It’s been nice to have somebody who doesn’t walk on eggshells around me.”

Trixie smiles, and is surprised to find that she really means it. She wants Katya to be okay, whatever that looks like. Whatever she needs. “Oh honey, you think I could walk on eggshells? In these size nines?”

“With that fat ass?” Katya splutters out through her laughter.

She’s still clutching Trixie’s fingers so tight, shaking her hands in the air and dragging Trixie’s along with her. Trixie is glad for the moonlight and the alcohol, hopes that it will disguise the furious crimson bloom of want up her neck and in the apples of her cheeks. She isn’t stupid. The second she saw Katya something knotted up in her stomach and it has only been working itself tighter the longer she tries to ignore it.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“No, I haven’t killed anybody else.”

Trixie yells out loud and snatches her hand back from Katya, shoves her away with the ball of her foot. “Not that. Oh my God. You’re so awful.”

“What, then?”

“You loved him? It wasn’t like a…a beard situation?”

Katya gets up, but she’s not headed for the door so Trixie stays where she is. She rummages in the closet for a minute and comes back with a hunter green baseball cap. She’s wearing it on her fist and it is startlingly anthropomorphic, grotesquely so. Trixie has to look away, just for a second. When Katya kneels beside her again she settles the hat in her lap and traces the round white logo on the front. It’s so faded that Trixie can’t make it out in the low light.

“This was his. He wore it every day, always backwards. My aunts got rid of a lot of his stuff, but I kept this. He wasn’t a beard, Trixie.”

“Okay.”

“But I think, what you’re asking.” Katya tilts her head in consideration, pins Trixie in place. “I do love women. As well. People can like both, you know.”

Trixie opens her mouth and a tiny, embarrassing squeak comes out. Katya’s grinning at her from one side of her mouth. “I know they can! I have a bisexual friend.”

“You have at least two bisexual friends.” Katya pokes her toes into Trixie’s shin. She has allowed her smile to unravel across her entire face now, her nose scrunched up. Trixie feels hollowed out with want.

“Are we friends?”

Instead of answering, Katya gets to her feet. She puts her husband’s hat away inside the closet and closes the door to it, stays facing away from Trixie for a long moment. There are so many other things that Trixie wants to know (how long has it been, has Katya been with anybody since, does she miss him) but she’s not sure she can handle the crushing disappointment if she has to hear that Katya is not over it.

Her grandmother always told her never to ask a question you don’t really want the answer to. So, Trixie keeps her mouth shut. She can hear Dolly downstairs, her paws skittering on the hardwood. This whole, awful conversation has helped to sober her up, but she’s still not good to drive.

“Is this why you don’t like being in the truck?”

“No, that’s because of your awful driving,” Katya turns around to fire back at Trixie, but she’s laughing.

She pads over and holds out a hand, brings Trixie to her feet as well. Her brain stays on the ground for a moment longer than the rest of her. She really, really can’t drive home right now. “I might have to crash here tonight.”

Her voice pulls up at the end like it’s a question, but it isn’t. Katya’s nodding, still holding Trixie’s fingers, and she rotates her wrist to seal their palms together. She uses that grip to bring Trixie out of the bedroom with her and closes the door behind them. It feels like she’s closing the door to their conversation, too. They head downstairs and Katya sheds her grief in layers, reveals herself pink-raw and shiny by the time they’re in the kitchen.

Trixie takes Dolly outside on the leash to use the bathroom. She doesn’t bother with a jacket, doesn’t feel the cold while she’s out there, but when she comes back inside she’s shivering. Katya clicks her tongue and rubs Trixie’s biceps to put the warmth back into them. She’s gentling her, babying her, and it should be the other way around but Trixie is not about to be the one to put words to what they’re doing.

“It gets really cold in the house at night. Which works for me, because I’m a cryptkeeper.” Katya is busying herself at the sink, filling a shallow bowl with water that she sets on the floor for Dolly, and then coming back to pour two glasses for them both. It’s giving her an excuse not to look at Trixie, and in turn giving Trixie an excuse to stare at her. “I have a space heater that I put in my room, but I only have one.”

“Are you inviting me to share your bed?”

Trixie keeps thinking she’s more sober than she really is, and then she opens her mouth and her tongue feels uncomfortably large. Katya’s laughing at her, not with. She shuts off the stream of the faucet and heads for the doorway with a glass in each hand, flips the lightswitch with her elbow as she moves past. It leaves Trixie for a moment reeling and disoriented in the suddenly dark kitchen.

The dog hesitates at the foot of the staircase and tilts her apprehensive head from side to side. She whines, low and reedy, and Katya turns to see her. “Come on, milaya devushka. Time for bed.”

Katya whistles, and Trixie feels it like a fist right through the core of her. She heads up the stairs with one palm flat against the wall to keep her balance, wishing she had Katya’s hand in hers instead. At the top she flounders, unprepared to see Katya’s bedroom for the very first time. And then her blonde head peeks around the doorframe and she quirks an eyebrow and Trixie can’t stand to be anything less than right next to her.

“Drink that whole thing.” Katya nods towards the pint glass of water she’s set out on the nightstand. Trixie sits sideways on the mattress, feet on the floor, and drinks the whole thing down. Katya stands with her hands deep in the pockets of her pants, watching her. “Good. That should help your hangover.”

Trixie groans, preemptively. It’s been a while since she’s been drinking, and tomorrow morning — later this morning — is going to be miserable. But Katya looks pleased with her, is smiling at her, and Trixie wonders if maybe Katya will be convinced to let her curl up with her head in her lap.

“Do you need something to sleep in?”

“Oh, um…yeah. Shirt or something?”

Katya’s rifling through the drawers of her dresser and she flings a t-shirt over her shoulder towards Trixie, straightens up with a bundle of clothes in her fist. She disappears off to the bathroom down the hall and Trixie hurries out of her pants and tank top, peels off her bra as well. The shirt Katya has given her must be the biggest one she owns. It’s dark green with a white vinyl logo on the front of it that’s so cracked Trixie can’t tell what it used to be.

She inspects herself in the mirror over the dresser. The shirt is tight over her chest, the material ribbed between her breasts. It rides up to show two or three inches of her stomach above the waistband of her underwear. Trixie gets into bed, teeth unbrushed, to avoid the hot shame of Katya seeing her almost naked for the first time.

It isn’t supposed to be like this. It won’t be like this. Trixie has lingerie, lots of it. After things ended with Bob, she was dragged to the mall because Kim insisted that a new wardrobe would make her feel better about everything. It didn’t, not really, but she has some cute things now. Things with lace and velvet and sheer panels, satin and silk.

Things she is very much looking forward to sharing with Katya.

When Katya returns Trixie is lying on her back like a river stone, heavy and unmoving. Her eyes are open and she watches Katya’s moon shadow growing larger and larger across the ceiling as she moves through the room. She fiddles with a couple of things, like she’s delaying having to get in bed with Trixie. The space heater is plugged in across the room, a safe distance from the flammable bedsheets. Katya flips it on and the low, loud rattle fills the room suddenly.

She gets into bed and echoes Trixie, lies on her back. Dolly is standing like a benevolent spirit at the foot of the bed, eyeing the two of them, and then she hops up onto the sheets. She curls up at their feet and Katya makes an affronted noise. Trixie turns her head to see, peels one eye open.

“Better get used to that.”

Katya makes a tiny noise. Trixie is too tired and yeah, sure, too drunk to decipher it right now.

Now that she’s lying down and the white noise of the space heater is filling up her brain so she doesn’t have to think, she’s suddenly exhausted. The synthetic, burnt-dust smell is not unpleasant, and beneath it she can smell Katya’s detergent and Katya’s warm skin. Trixie is made brave by the darkness and by the late hour, so late that it’s almost time to start calling it early.

She slides her hand blindly across the sheets until it bumps Katya’s and leaves it there, invitation but not expectation. After a long moment, Katya’s pinky hooks around Trixie’s and she tugs twice. Trixie rolls onto her side to face Katya and brings her knees up. It’s been a long time since she’s been in anybody’s bed. Especially someone she likes so much. Someone she wants so much.

“Hey, Trixie?” She makes a little noise of assent. “Thanks. For letting me talk about him.”

“Thanks for trusting me,” Trixie whispers back.

Exhaustion is lapping at her, eroding her slowly and drawing her down and down but she is kicking furiously, fighting it. She’s in bed with Katya. It feels like a waste to not be touching her. Trixie scoots closer, nudging Dolly with her feet in the process and getting a disgruntled noise from the dog for that.

When she settles, Katya rolls to face her. She’s breathing through her nose, a little heavier than Trixie is used to, or maybe it’s just that she isn’t usually close enough to hear. Trixie is very aware of her bare legs, the red welts her underwear are leaving at her hips, her mouth fuzzy with alcohol.

“Will you hold me?” Trixie waits a beat too long to say yes and Katya starts backpedalling furiously, starts recoiling. “Forget it, I’m sorry, God. That’s so gay. Sorry.”

Trixie reaches for her in the darkness, her pale hands searching through the leaves of the night until she can get an arm at Katya’s waist and haul her in close. She slides easily across the sheets, loose-limbed and wanting. Trixie can be remarkably self-involved, but she’s not an idiot.

“Come here, and shut the fuck up. Oh my God. Turn over, you’re not jabbing me with your knees all night long.”

She loosens her grip enough that Katya can turn over and then tightens it again, splays her palm at Katya’s stomach. Over her shirt, but she can feel the warmth of her skin through it and the lift and collapse of her chest as she breathes. She’s making these tiny snuffling noises, like she might be crying, but Trixie is not about to call her out on that.

Trixie falls asleep like she’s beneath a dropcloth, everything muffled all at once. When she wakes up neither Katya nor Dolly are in the bed with her, but there’s a fresh cup of coffee and a bottle of Advil on the nightstand. She swallows two down. Her bladder is growing rapidly more insistent and she gets out of bed, uses the bathroom.

Now that she’s up, she can hear Katya downstairs. She’s singing to the dog, off-key and quiet like she’s worried about waking Trixie. She must hear the cistern refilling — it is obscenely loud — and she shouts, her voice echoing up the stairs.

“Trixie, I’m making eggs. Are you alive? Can you eat?”

It’s warm in the kitchen, much warmer than the rest of the house. Dolly is lying at Katya’s feet by the stove, her tail thumping arrhythmically in the hope of scraps. The eggs Katya’s making are from Trixie’s chickens; she brings her as many as she needs, as many as she likes.

“I’m alive.” Trixie hops up onto the island so she can swing her legs. It’s early, but she’ll need to head home for the rest of the animals pretty soon. “I actually- I feel really good. Are you, um…feeling good?”

Katya turns around and points at Trixie with the spatula. Some scrambled eggs drop onto the floor and Dolly land-swims close enough to vacuum them up. Trixie notices quite suddenly that Katya is dressed, in overalls and a huge knitted sweater and galoshes, and that Dolly’s leash is in a different spot on the counter. She must have taken her out already, and Trixie wonders whether she got any sleep at all.

“I feel great, Tracy. It’s like, you know.” She flutters her hands in the air around her face. “Weight’s lifted. All that. Hungry?”

Trixie kind of forgot where she is, this morning. She put her socks back on to come downstairs, because the floor is cold, but not her pants. Not any of her real clothes. She’s sitting here, in the daylight, in the clothes she wanted so desperately to avoid Katya seeing her in last night. Until this morning, she didn’t know that her thighs get pink when she blushes, too.

“Starving,” she says, and accepts the plate Katya presents to her. She hops down from the island and roots in the silverware drawer for two forks, hands one over.

Katya is watching her. Her bangs are funky, sticking up in places, and there’s a smudge underneath her eye where she didn’t quite get all of her makeup yesterday. She tilts her head and gives Trixie a small smile, like she’s surprised and thrilled to find her here.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Katya shrugs. “You’re cute in the mornings.”

Trixie takes that, absorbs it, allows it to pass without incident. She can’t stop working her tongue around her fuzzy teeth, anxious to eat and get the taste of the morning out of her mouth.

It’s not now. Whatever this is, whatever they’re doing, it’s not this morning. Probably not today.

She watches Katya bend ninety degrees at the waist to fuss over the dog, watches her straighten up again and grin at Trixie, and she knows. It’s going to be soon.