Tag: it is

docholligay:

This is the ficlet I lost the other day, and then redid because someone seemed interested. Based on this fanart by @pplantkind

Emily, in general, loved her friends. They were funny and interesting, were quick to help her at picking at outfit for a date or with anything that happened at the school where they taught, had helped her get her apartment, and she was happy to have met them, when first she moved to London.

But, all of these things being true, their sole experience with butch lesbians was mainly contained to seeing Sue Perkins on the BBC, and, with this particular weakness in knowledge, Tracer’s new look that she had excitedly premiered last night had left them a bit shocked.

“Emily, what about that hair?” Poppy leaned over the table toward her. “She looks like a gay cockatoo.”

“And that jacket!” Harriet laughed. “Looks like a regular wasp.”

Emily opened her mouth to say something, but sat still, and decided to take a sip of her cider. Tracer was a dear thing, and she showed Emily such love and affection and warmth, but all those things being true, Emily could not think of a way to explain Tracer’s very particular sense of style, or why Emily found it endearing.

At least they hadn’t brought up the leggings.

“So how long you going to let her keep it, Em?”

Emily shook her head quietly. “It’s her hair, though. And amn’t I to be supportive?”

“Right, right, course,” Harriet tapped her hand, and smiled, “but you have feminine wiles.”

“Besides, you’re the one that has to be on her arm.” Poppy pointed out.

“Oh!” Harriet turned to Poppy, eyes wide. “Out to dinner with a bleedin’ anime character.”

“Can you imagine bringing her round the school like that?” Poppy laughed.

Harriet gasped. “The headmistress’d go blind.”

“Lena might be,” Poppy leaned toward Harriet, still laughing, “If she’s going round like that.”

And Emily could see Tracer, in her mind’s eye. Standing there, playing along as Harriet and Poppy teased her, but with her smile having faded just a little, thinking it wasn’t really a joke anymore, that Poppy and Harriet just thought she was hideous, and Emily…

“I think she’s cute! You’re only being horrid!” Emily’s voice was uncharacteristically fierce and loud, but then again, she was uncharacteristically annoyed and angry with Harriet and Poppy. And soon as she said it, she blushed intensely as the men at the table behind them turned to see what was the matter. “She was excited to show me,” she continued quietly but firmly, fiddling with her cider, “and I’ll no have you making her feel as if she shouldn’t have been.”

“We were only having a go, Emily.” Poppy said contritely.

“Sorry.” Harriet awkwardly shrugged. “ I do like Lena.”

“I love her,” Emily said, scaring her the same way it always did when it came out of her mouth, because it was almost too true to say, “She’s taken a wee bit of a bounce, lately, and she’s only trying to cheer herself.”

“I didn’t know.” Poppy stared into her beer, and then took a drink

Harriet looked over at her with regret, and then raised her hand. “I solemnly swear I will compliment that jacket, when next I see her.”

“Thank you.” Emily smiled. “She never has asked me to dress to twin her, at the least. We are lesbians, and it can be worse.”

The three girls erupted into laughter, together again, in a perfect harmony.