Archive of Our Own ^beta

Alexus collected her books from the self-checkout, shoved them in her tote bag, turned around, and lost every breath in her body. That librarian was there. The one with the voice like white chocolate, thick, sweet and creamy. She'd been taking the toddler's nursery rhyme group the other day, and Alexus had heard her sing for the first time.

A little off-key, if Alexus was to be critical, but so utterly delicious that Alexus could listen to her sing all day every day, even if it was about Little Bunny Foo-Foo. Actually, that would be even better, because she would get to witness the almost manic glee with which the librarian made the hand motions. And then the librarian had drifted among the parents, noticing the lonely ones, making introductions, listening earnestly, while Alexus tried not to stare over her laptop screen like a creep.

The whole thing was ridiculous, she told herself. There was a perfectly ordinary lady sitting at the information desk, reading on her lap behind the desk as if she was afraid she'd be caught reading on the job. Greying chestnut hair pulled in a bun like a parody of a librarian, plump. Matronly. About Alexus's age, but making no attempt to look young and sexy with make-up, working out and fashionable clothes. Look at the cut of that blouse stretching over her maternal bosom, just awful, and those cheap glasses. Nothing to make Alexus's heart beat faster and her palms sweat. Nothing to make her feel dizzy and slightly nauseous, like the first time she had seen her P.E. teacher dripping with sweat that made the strap of her bra stand out clear under her damp t-shirt. Alexus was forty-five and tolerably hot and she didn't get crushes on strangers these days.

Okay. This was fine. Instead of heading out to her car, she stumbled over to a zig-zag sofa out of a corporate discount nightmare of Bauhaus design, and tried to gain control of herself. There was no reason to think this woman was single, interested in Alexus's type of high femme, or even a lesbian. After all, librarians were just as notorious for short hair, tortoiseshell glasses and sensible shoes as lesbians were. Damn it, why were those shoes so sexy? Alexus was sure she had never been entranced by gray birkenstocks before. Oh no, it was no good, the woman had thick ankles with a dusting of dark hair and Alexus just wanted to stroke them to feel the texture herself.

She closed her eyes, and then when she opened them again, she nearly swore aloud. If this wasn't fate, what was?

Also, the chances that the cute librarian was gay had just risen considerably.

She carefully constructed the fantasy in her mind. She would go over to the librarian and casually ask, "Is that any good?" Then, when the perfect, beautiful, wonderful librarian's lovely hazel eyes shone behind her glasses and she raved about the book, Alexus would shyly confess to having written it, but that she hadn't realised the truth of love at first sight until she'd experienced it herself. Then she would swoop her off to dinner, and... well, she should probably ask her name before they got married or even fell into bed. One step at a time.

She took some deep breaths, and walked slowly and coolly over to the information desk. "Hi." Her voice came out too husky, like she was putting on a Bette Davis imitation, and she blushed. "I just couldn't help noticing what you were reading. Is it any good?" she asked, striving for a more normal tone of voice. God help her, close up those eyes weren't hazel at all, they were a lovely brook-brown.

The librarian frowned a little, as if considering. "I don't know, really."

"What's wrong with it?" Damn, now she sounded whiny and defensive.

"It's a little contrived, is all. I always find that with romantic comedies. I mean, that thing where fate seems to have drawn them together, and they find themselves at odds with each other yet strongly attracted and drawn together by fate. What's that called again?"

"A meet-cute," Alexus said coldly.

"That never happens in real life. I mean, surely most couples just have interests in common and slowly get to know each other. Or they are introduced. Not all this ridiculous thrown together, love at first sight nonsense."

Perhaps, Alexus thought, that voice was slightly less attractive than she'd thought.

But then the woman said "Oh my stars, how rude," like she was an elderly spinster in an cosy mystery, and Alexus was too enchanted to care. "Could be you like this writer?"

"Nope. She's rubbish," Alexus said, speaking her heart about her work for once.

"I wouldn't say that," said the librarian, who was clearly the most adorable, kind-hearted woman of good taste in the universe, even if she didn't understand the appeal of a good meet cute. "She's quite... Oh, well. We have to get our romance where we can, even if it's just trashy romances. And it's nice that gay ones are so mainstream now, isn't it? When I think of what it was like when we were young..."

Alexus found herself wondering, in a bit of a panic, if she hadn't misread the woman and she was just Keeping Up on Contemporary Trends for her readers, fitting in a bit of rainbow reading. And trashy? Alexus's sex scenes were hot and romantic, not trashy. But the librarian's collarbone had the most wonderful little dip in it, and her blouse was sightly too tight for her full figure and her pearl buttons were straining and showing a glimpse of sensible beige bra underneath, and she was blushing just a little, as if she had given herself away, and maybe a marriage proposal at the information desk wouldn't be too forward after all.

"Is your lunch break soon?"Alexus asked abruptly. She was glad her usual sharp social skills and suavity hadn't deserted her in the presence of radiant loveliness.

"Why, yes, in about twenty minutes." The librarian looked politely confused, and the wrinkle between her eyes was the most adorable thing in the universe. "Is your question likely to take longer than that?"

"I'm starving. I'm new to this area and I have no idea where to eat." Which was true. "If you don't mind--ah, if you don't have plans--would you let me treat you to lunch? We could discuss your book further." Your book. My book. Details.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly do that." Right, then. Alexus tried not to let her disappointment make her mouth droop visible.. "But I would be happy to have lunch with you." The librarian blushed still further, and exquisite staining of rose on her cheeks suited her. The fine lines at the corner of her eyes looked like crumpled silk. How would she look if she was being kissed?

Maybe fate was real, after all.

"I'm Alexus."

"Nice to meet you, Alexus. I'm Coralie," said the librarian, and her name sounded like romance and music.

"They fall into bed so quickly, too." Coralie sliced some croissant with clinical precision. One of her blouse sleeves was pushed slightly up by the motion, and Alexus could just see the delicate skin of her underarm, traced faintly with pink stretch marks. Alexus imagined tracing them with her tongue.

"Hmm? Well, people do hook up sometimes," she said wistfully.

"Perhaps on, I don't know, dating apps and such where they are looking for casual sex," Coralie said. She might have been explaining the behaviour of exotic animals. She had clearly never swiped in either direction in her life. "I suppose being a mysterious stranger is part of the attraction. But you can't really be that attached to someone you've just met." She lifted a forkful to her mouth and chewed, eyes lighting up with pleasure. There was a tiny, buttery crumb on her lower lip, just begging to be kissed away. It was a beautiful lower lip. Made to be sucked into someone's mouth, tenderly nibbled on. As she was gently lowered onto the table and...

"You--you can't?"

"Course not. It takes time for attraction to grow. You need to get to know each other first."

"I see. Wow." Alexus thought about it, which was difficult through that haze of lust "About how long do you generally date someone before your attraction grows? Just out of interest."

To her surprise Coralie flushed red again. It made her eyes look even more bright and green. "I don't--it's all theoretical, I mean." She shrugged chubby shoulders. "I was very awkward when I was young, and I didn't know any other lesbians. It's a small town, and felt smaller back then. And now--just look at me."

"I am," Alexus said, and then released it was probably too fervent. She tried to tone it down with a grin, make a joking compliment. "You've got the sexy librarian thing going. Take the glasses off and let your hair down, and..."

"And I am precisely the same person."

"Well, that's not too bad from where I'm sitting."

"Well, bless your heart," Coralie said, and sounded like she meant it. Alexus felt uncomfortably warm. "But someone like you wouldn't understand. You must find it easy to find partners."

There was nothing, Alexus realised, in Coralie's tone to give her any hope. Coralie talked about Alexus's ability to attract hypothetical partners as if it was no concern of hers. What was the good of being slim and athletic if hot lesbian librarians showed no signs of attraction to you? It was unfair. If Alexus had been writing this encounter, Coralie would be looking at her through her mascara-free lashes by now, hoping for a kiss at the end of the meal. If Alexus had been writing it...

...but she'd never written a heroine like Coralie. Her love interests tended to be dashing bodyguards and secret service agents and rock stars and brain surgeons. Alexus had never been into writing small town romance, and this was the first time she had ever lived in a small town herself.

She hadn't even realised what she had been missing,

"I just think," Coralie said slowly, "that true attraction takes much longer to grow. You realize that you care for someone, and slowly, every little thing about them seems beautiful to you, seems magical, because it's them and you love them. Ever little flaw becomes lovely."

"Maybe you should be the one writing romance novels," Alexus said helplessly. The idea seemed wonderful to her, except: how much time should this process take? Because every little thing about Coralie already seemed magical to her. She couldn't remember ever being overcome by a crush this sharp and painful and glorious. Love at first sight. "It sounds like you'd be better at it."

"Oh, I could never write anything as good as this," Coralie said, and lights and music and explosions went off behind Alexus's eyes. "It makes me feel--oh, I don't know. It makes me wish someone would love me like that. I know it's silly."

"It's not silly. The author would be glad to know you liked it."

Coralie sighed. "Maybe that's my problem. I read too many unrealistic books, dreaming of someone falling in love with me and sweeping me off my feet. And oh, I'm going to be late." She popped the last bite in her mouth, and stood to leave.

Alexus reached out and caught her wrist. It was soft and plump in her fingers, and she wanted to kiss it, learn the creases of the bracelet lines with her lips, feel the fingers curve around her cheek. "I had fun. Do you think we could have lunch again some time?"

"I'd like that," Coralie said shyly, and Alexus's heart sang.

It was difficult to tell torture and happiness apart in the next few weeks. They both stemmed, after all, from the same source.

One more lunch became too, became three. Alexus found herself signing up for the book club Coralie ran--hell, she would have signed up for the under twelves coding group if she could get away with it--and earnestly discussing books she found so depressing that she felt rather better about her own nonsense. Coralie loved them, though, and her eyes shone as she talked about theme and structure and language and symbolism. Alexus felt that she would read the most miserable of misery porn to see the joy it gave Coralie--well, that was irony for you, enjoying fictional misery.

But Coralie read Alexus's light-hearted romances, as well. And twice a week, Alexus had lunch with the woman she'd fallen head over heels in love with at first sight, and was surprisingly cynical about the existence of romantic love at all.

"I wish I could believe in it," Coralie said, pushing her darling hands through the bits of her darling chestnut librarian bun that had come loose and made her look like such a darling. Alexus longed to pull it down and thread her fingers through it, see it gleam against her skin, pick out the silvery strands of white. "And it's not like I can speak from experience. But I haven't known anyone's love last like that. Everyone breaks up. Look at my parents."

"You've never dated at all?"

"A bit when I was younger. With boys. I used to think I would meet a princess on a white horse... and then I got older and fatter and even less desirable, and here I am." She gave a self deprecating smile. "No horse would bear me up at all."

If Alexus had been one of her own heroines, a sexy singer or lawyer or detective perhaps, she would have said, you're the most beautiful woman in the world and leaned across the table to kiss Coralie. Instead she fidgeted with her fork. Maybe her books weren't realistic at all. After all, she didn't mean them to be. They were fantasy, for heaven's sake.

Except that she loved Coralie beyond logic and reason, would do anything to make her true smile blossom out again, wanted to wrap her up in love and desire and kneel in worship by her sensible shoes. As if Coralie even gave a single indication of wanting her to do something like that.

Alexus had held her hand for a moment on the way to their cars last date, if it even counted as a date. She had been terribly nervous, but Coralie had smiled affectionately and swung their hands in between them, and that was almost worse than an actual rejection. No apparent awareness that Alexus was not her sister, she was a woman whose short tight skirt was showing off long brown legs just for her, a woman whose chest had tightened at the touch as if it was the closest intimacy she'd ever had. Alexus would have sold her soul for a blush, for some indication that holding hands meant anything to Coralie like it did to her.

Friends was fine, Alexus told herself firmly. Coralie was, in fact, the best friend she had ever had. Coralie didn't mind that, when she was not putting romantic words into the mouths of her heroines, Alexus was abrupt and just this side of rude. Coralie texted her at all hours, but she also called, and had long sleepy conversations about their days and childhoods and their families and, always, what they had read. Coralie read like she needed books for oxygen, reading not just the literary prize winners for the book club or lesbian romances, but young adult books, non-fiction books, mainstream women's fiction, obscure cult authors from the sixties, fantasies big enough to be used as doorsteps. Once, Alexus had read as voraciously as that, before books began to feel like work. She began to do so again, so she had her own stories to bring to the conversation. She never talked as much as Coralie, never wanted to interrupt that melting creamy-sweet voice anyway, but at least she had some things to say.

Besides, picking up holds was always a good excuse to be at the library. She dressed for them like she would for a date, and Coralie teased her about her designer threads and three inch heels and never seemed to respond to the depth of her cleavage. She dressed up anyway.

When she talked about her day, she talked about her casual online job as a virtual PA, managing to imply she had a lot more steady work than she did, and never admitting she wrote for most of her living. She knew she should. She knew she should come clean as soon as possible. But tempting Coralie into talking about her books was like prodding a wound. She savored every scrap of praise, and winced at the deconstruction of her plots and characters.

Coralie would be terribly embarrassed. She didn't need to know Alexus had misled her by something that was more than omission at this point. Any more than Coralie needed to know that the hollow eyes she fretted maternally over were the result of Alexus worrying about it.

It wasn't like she could write her own fairy-tale ending. Every time Alexus rehearsed in her own head Hey, it's okay if you want to be friends but do you think I could kiss you? it sounded ridiculously awkward and painful, and all she could imagine was mutual embarrassment and their friendship fading.

She looked at the scene she had written, in which sexy cowgirl Lee had just wordlessly bent the lovely Tiara over the back of a horse and claimed her mouth, as Tiara melted in her arms. She was trying out the small town theme after all, and was aware she was making a terrible hash of it. She might be living in one now but the closest she came to a horse was an oil painting at the back of the pizza place. Really, Coralie was right in her devastating criticisms. Romance books were completely unrealistic.

How did people have their first kisses in real life anyway? Alexus had once known. She'd had girlfriends. Why was her memory a blank on the subject? She could remember first kisses, first times, but facing Coralie, she couldn't remember how to get to that point. She imagined reaching out, stroking the curve of the belly Coralie was so self-conscious about, solicitously adjusting her blouse when it exposed a bra strap, kissing her hand like a courting knight, pressing her close and kissing her lips as they said goodbye. It all seemed so perfect and easy when she was home alone dreaming it up, and impossible when faced with Coralie.

They took leftover cooked rice to feed the ducks at the pond, and Coralie slid an arm around Alexus's waist and sighed, resting her head on Alexus's shoulder as they laughed at the ducks angrily demanding why they had run out of rice. "I'm so glad you moved here. It seems impossible that we've only known each other a few months. I've never had a friend as close as you."

"Me neither." Alexus leaned into her embrace, and dared to slip an arm over Coralie's shoulder, and exulted, and ached, and died a little inside. So close. It was so close to what she wanted, feeling the warmth of Coralie against her side, the tickle of her soft hair against her cheek. It was enough. "Love you," she said at last, and it felt quiet, and calm, and satisfying to speak the truth, however it was taken.

"Alexus?"

"Hmm?" Coralie's hair was down from its bun for once, and it smelled of tea tree shampoo, and tickled Alexus's nose. It would be completely inappropriate to sniff it.

"What are we, to each other? I mean... are we... do you feel..." Coralie, usually never at a loss for words, seemed to be stumbling for them. "I know I'm stupid, you're so beautiful, and I'm so ordinary..."

Alexus turned, her heart in her throat, far too quickly. One of her shoes turned under her unevenly spread weight, and she fell backwards into the pond, dragging Coralie in after her.

Coralie squealed. There was weed and scum in her pretty hair, her glasses were hanging half off her nose and smeared with something dreadful. Alexus wildly wondered where ducks went to the bathroom, was it in the pond? Coralie's pretty pink blouse had gone all see-through over lace grandma bras. Most importantly Coralie was laughing, clinging to her, and they were hugging in the water, wet and soggy and filthy.

"I knew those shoes were a bad idea. Who wears stilettos to the park?"

"I do. They're sexy. Should get some librarian sandals like yours, should I?"

"Excuse me. They are lesbian sandals."

"They're sexy too," Alexus blurted. "At least on you."

"Oh."

"I think you'd be sexy in anything. You're perfect," she went on, because she was digging herself deep and might as well bury herself completely and Coralie was still holding onto her, no sign of letting go, wet and muddy and slimy as she was.

"But you're... so... I didn't think I had a chance," Coralie said, and Alexus's world turned upside down. "You look like you've stepped out of a fashion magazine, and I couldn't understand why you were hanging around with a small town librarian. I knew you're plumb out of my league. And I said such stupid things about love. I'd never had a crush like this before, and you were so smart and kind. You always listened to me carry on about books and cared. And I was so rude about your books."

"You're never rude, you are the sweetest, most patient--what?"

Coralie was bright red, and wouldn't look at her. Alexus reached up and pushed Coralie's glasses up to the top of her head. "You were rude about my books. How long have you known?"

"Since after our first lunch date. I googled the author, because I wanted to know more, and there was a picture of you at a bookshop. Minerva, really the most pretentious name."

"But... all the things you said..."

"I was trying to provoke you into admitting it! It was a game, in the end. And I thought, I hoped, you would argue that love was real and that... but you didn't respond, even when we held hands, you must have known I was flirting and you just were kind and ignored it, and I'm so happy you love me as a friend and I know I'm barking up the wrong tree and you don't really believe the things about true love you write and I'd never..."

"What the hell are you two doing? That water isn't safe! It's from the storm drains, you idiots!" called out a woman from the side.

They laughed, and Alexus helped her out, and fruitlessly wiped her glasses on some glass, trying to clean them for her. She had tears in her eyes and wasn't sure why.

"Alexus--"

"I can't get them clean!"

"My glasses don't matter. We need to go home and shower."

Shower with me? she didn't say. Instead she stood there, holding the glasses out helplessly. "I love you," she said, more firmly. "I loved you at first sight and forever and with all my heart and in all the ways I wrote in my stupid books and never believed and I would sweep you off into the sunset if I could and instead I swept you into a duck pond, but you are the most beautiful and wonderful and kind and clever woman in the world and I love you."

"I think that's the most I've ever heard you say in one go," Coralie said, gulping something like tears. "And I'm not. I'm an overweight, boring--"

"You're my true love. If you'll have me." Why was she holding out the glasses when she wanted to hold out her arms? She cast around, and then carefully put them on the grass. When she straightened up, Coralie was watching her between tears and laughter, dripping, streaked with mud, and probably thinking about it Coralie couldn't see her very well with her glasses off, which was fortunate because Alexus probably looked like a drowned duck.

"Do you think you'd like to kiss me one day?" Coralie asked nervously. "I think... I think I'd really like to kiss you. And more."

"Yeah," said Alexus, like the word-smith she was, and then her arms were around that lovely plump, wet waist. Coralie's lips were sweeter than she had ever imagined, without actually tasting of sweetness at all, just rather nasty water, but that was all right. They were sweet anyway.

"Why, that's sweeter than I imagined," Coralie said shakily. "Oh, I do like kissing you."

"That's good," Alexus said. "Because I'm going to kiss you a lot now we're together."

"Oh," said Coralie, pleased and wondering, and turned her mouth back to be kissed, again and again. At some point, Alexus thought, dazed, there was going to be a need for a shower. Maybe Coralie would even shower with her, if not then one day. They both stank.

But flowers bloomed in the air around them anyway, and Alexus's heart sang, and after all love stories were the most realistic things in the world.