Archive of Our Own

The first thing she noticed, dutifully entering the restaurant her bandmate had indicated via note a week or so ago, was how ritzy the air of the place was. Of course she hadn’t expected a casual pub for something as grand as their tenth album release, but even for their comfortable lifestyles it was quite a lot. Their studiomen must have chipped in.

“Jane! Jane, we’re over here!”

Before she could even begin searching for her party she was led by a familiar voice to a table in the corner of the restaurant. Sat at it was a plethora of men involved with the band—she could spot their backing band and Pat Dillet, at the least—and a woman waving her hand wildly and turned half around in her seat, completely ignoring the implied class of the establishment. That was Jane Flansburgh, of course. She could have spotted her from a mile away.

She took passing notice of the looks some patrons shot at herself and Flansburgh as she squeezed past the other tables and headed for the group. There was a space clearly reserved for her. Flansburgh stood up to greet her before she could reach it, grabbing her hand and shaking it profusely as if they were mildly unprofessional business partners rather than longtime close friends. It was to be expected. It wasn’t as if an album release could call for an embrace or anything. It was impossible not to chuckle at the gesture. The girl was a complete dork.

“Man, where were you? I tried to book a place close enough to you that you’d show up on time .” She smiled. “Maybe I shouldn’t be bitching about time this early, but I didn’t clean up for nothing.”

Linnell rolled her eyes. “Yeah, missed you too.” 

“Whatever. Hey, you got dressed up at least! I kind of assumed you weren’t going to know where we were going like last time.” Flansburgh remarked. She looked to be scanning the woman, tilting her head somewhat and admiring her work (though Linnell certainly wouldn’t claim it to be anything special).

“I didn’t. I could only hope I wasn’t going formal to a bar and grill, but that seemed better than going Bar and Grill to a formal event.” She explained. She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. “Did… Did Dan-”

“Oh my god, no. I’m trying not to say anything else.”

Both of them turned to Dan Miller, wearing a graphic T-Shirt and jeans. He appeared to be enormously ashamed of himself. Flansburgh had clearly given him a talking to already.

“I asked him if he thought we were doing band practice. He was really upset.” Flansburgh mumbled, furrowing her brow. “But he didn’t even wear a dress shirt or anything. That’s like the poor man’s class. That’s what you wear to your husband’s nebulous ‘party’ you’re pretty sure is a friend’s birthday but you’re a little too tired to remember. It’s the bare minimum.”

“He’s looking at me like you’ve told him all of this already.” Linnell said.

Dan sadly nodded, making it clear he could hear everything Flansburgh was saying—far from a shock, because she’d never been the best at whispering. The other woman took a brief look at him and sighed.

“Yeah.” 

The sounds of the room were audible in their brief silence, distant clatter and the sickeningly dignified scraping of fork against plate. It was strange that haughtiness could even come from something like that, but it had a certain sureness and demonstrative quality only someone Flansburgh would have ‘jokingly’ threatened to kill back in their old apartment could have.

As she began to move to her designated seat she was stopped by the other woman’s hand, gently reaching out and grabbing her arm. It wasn’t a usual gesture. She focused her attention on her at once.

“Hey, you do look nice.” An uneven smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “If that’s why you ran behind, it was justified.”

Linnell chuckled. The compliment was silly to her—she’d nearly forgotten to do her makeup entirely until the last minute and her outfit was hasty. An old black dress that was just a little tighter than she remembered it (though the color seemed to make this somewhat invisible) and black heels she had bought for another event years back, she’d tied her hair back quickly if only in hopes to make her seem more considerate than she was. It was related to lateness, but she couldn’t say it was the reason for it.

“Well, thank you, but it was pretty unrelated. You look…well, a lot better.” She replied. Her face felt a bit hot. It was probably compliment-residue, it wasn’t as if she was particularly used to this.

Flansburgh let go of her and laughed. She had come fully dressed, though as opposed to herself she was wearing a suit. A light one with a red-ish tie, she couldn’t honestly remember seeing it before. It wasn’t out of the question that Flansburgh may have been doing some wardrobe-adjustment lately. But that wasn’t really her business, and the infrequency of their formal events may well have been another contributor. She’d done her makeup much more intentionally than Linnell, red lipstick neatly applied and strangely entrancing.

The men tended formal as well, save for Dan Miller. Some had leaned more towards an uncertain niceness but others were dressed in proper suits, all chatting amongst themselves, some glancing at Linnell and welcoming her. All wore black suits if any. It created a nice contrast between Flansburgh and them—if Flansburgh’s lady-ness wasn’t sufficient.

Flansburgh’s eyes looked her over. “Well, I think you look great. Should have figured we would, since we’re- well, maybe it’s me . But I’m still making up for last time. Last-last time, I guess. You know what I mean.”

“To be fair, showing up naked and screaming would be an improvement over the Mink Car launch, so it’s not a high bar.” Linnell slid herself into the booth across from Flansburgh, supporting her head on her hands. “The challenge is having a worse launch.”

“Maybe one of us could kill ourselves.” She mumbled, making eye contact with Linnell.

Linnell hummed. “Okay, you’re kind of saying that like it’s not going to be you. And you’re looking at me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” Linnell grinned.

Flansburgh scoffed. “Fine. But you find something nice to do with my body, alright? Stuff me and hang me on the wall or something, and I’m expecting this to be big news too. Big news. I’d want a big check for all this publicity if I wasn’t dead.”

The two chuckled, along with a couple others that had caught the conversation. Most around her had begun to turn to their menus, and in perpetuity she did as well. It was a little too tall for comfort. Flansburgh had begun talking with Mr. Dillet, and as she read over the menu she only grew more and more appreciative of Flansburgh’s choice to pay for their meals. None of it would break either of their banks, but she couldn’t help believing that whatever they were about to eat wasn’t possibly worth what they were going to pay.

Her eyes kept shifting between the menu and the other woman. It was natural to want to keep close to her tonight, but it was hard not to feel drawn to her, almost unnaturally. Put plainly, she was astonishingly pretty. It was enough to make her blush. She’d always thought her to be an attractive presence in multiple senses, but she’d never been able to find a clever way to say that the woman simply looked gorgeous, even when she didn’t seem to completely believe the same herself. It was a test of willpower to not let her gaze wander lower.

Of course, this wasn’t something she had much want to convey either. Expressing admiration to the people you care about isn’t as easy as it sounds—their status as New Yorkers didn’t exactly help with that. At this point, she was sure that telling Flansburgh she cared about her would convince everyone she had a week to live. And as far as she knew, that probably wasn’t true.

Or…maybe it was their respective husbands.

No, no, she wouldn’t get thinking of that. That was silly, and completely unrelated. They were at a nice dinner, and it was no time to get sappy and jealous. No time for that. She was happy that the menu she was holding held the scowl she made at herself for even thinking such a thing. She wasn’t particularly looking to seem insane, nor to explain her thoughts to the others.

A man in a sophisticated-looking vest and dress shirt approached the table holding a pen and pad of paper. He cleared his throat and at once Linnell took the signal to lower her menu, luckily having had just enough time to sort out what she wanted.

“How many I serve you all tonight?”

The table was picking at an appetizer of bread and soup while they waited for their meals. The crust turned out slightly too tough for Linnell’s tastes. Usually she’d choose to hand it to Flansburgh (or sometimes Danny), since they seemed to be strangely okay with crust-eating, but judging by the atmosphere of the restaurant it seemed a bit unfit. Instead, she chose to just eat a pitiful amount of bread, which was certainly a reasonable substitute. It was pretty good in the soup, at least

Flansburgh seemed to be deep in conversation with a few of the others. Linnell had been silently keeping up, but it seemed rude to insert herself. Oh well. She didn’t seem to notice Linnell staring at her, and that was engagement enough for her.

 “—And y’know, I’d heard from other owners that they’re sort of scavengers, but for whatever reason I was sure he’d be different. But no, the rubber band was all he ever wanted. And that almost seems great—until he tries to eat it.” Flansburgh chuckled.

“I’d always assumed the cats were your idea.” Danny remarked, before taking a long sip from his bowl of soup.

Flansburgh chuckled. “You’d think, huh? I love the guys, but Linnell and I got pretty used to having no animals around, I think. I don’t think she likes cats much either.”

Linnell glanced up at the mention of her name. Her half-eaten bread was set down. Flansburgh was looking at her expectantly.

“Hm? Oh, no, it’s mainly the litter. Which a cat would have definitely tracked around our entire apartment , mind you.” She replied. “Not like you were pressing about it.”

“And the claws.” Flansburgh grinned. “And the fur. And everything about them.”

“I only said all of that once, and you know for a fact Dan’s highschool cat had some sort of parasitic infection. Sorry I didn’t really want to share that with her.” She cringed. Her fingers idly tapped on the table. “I guess I like how quiet some of them are. My husband’s dog is constantly barking—I think it’s going to drive me crazy .”

“You get used to it, I think.” Flansburgh shrugged.

“I’ll get used to it when I’m half-deaf and living in a home. Hey, didn’t our apartment have a rule against pets, anyways?”

“What?” Flansburgh snorted. “No, our next door neighbour had a loud ass dog. I thought I’d never get used to that ! I don’t think you need a nursing home with a memory like that.”

“Oh my god, yeah. He was closer to your space than mine, but…”

“The dude made a noise complaint about us , too.” Flansburgh scoffed.

“...Well, I could understand that.” Linnell mumbled, staring at the table and squinting. “I was horrible at volume control for almost an entire year. It’s- it wasn’t as easy as you’d think, really, because…”

She noticed the other woman had begun to laugh. She smiled at herself—she’d gotten a little bit off topic, and maybe tonight wasn’t the time for complaining about her chronic self-inflicted back pain. Flansburgh prepared to say something else, but instead took a small bite of her own bread. It made Linnell want to do the same, which she promptly regretted upon realizing the stiffness hadn’t magically gone away in the time she wasn’t eating it. She made a pained face.

“Hey.” Flansburgh smiled. “I’ll take your crust if you hate it.” 

Linnell stared at the other woman.

“You’re paying way too much for this meal for me to do that.” She said.

“Yeah, I’m paying. I’m planning to get my money’s worth. Do you want it or not?”

Linnell hesitated. Sighing, she tore off the crust from her bread and ripped off the parts her mouth might have touched. She dropped it on the other's plate.

“All yours, then. Have fun.”

Flansburgh nodded and took a bite out of the separated crust. Linnell couldn’t see exactly why she liked it, but she supposed she was just happy that it was worthwhile to someone .

For a while the table fell quieter, with a few murmurs among the others regarding who wanted to order what and who wanted to share meals. Linnell hadn’t considered this aspect much—but looking around the restaurant for those that were eating, the portions didn’t quite seem to be sharing-size to her. Whether they’d be good leftovers was debatable, however, so perhaps she’d ask Flansburgh if she wanted to split a bowl of pasta a bit later in the night.

Eventually the discussion turned to alcohol, and a few people began discussing the idea of going to the restaurant’s bar. Flansburgh seemed to be privy—which wasn’t exactly surprising, considering what tended to go down at their launch parties. As was the trend, though, nothing could really be worse than the Mink Car launch. She’d apparently drunk two-thirds a bottle of wine that night and called at least one of them, judging by the incoherent voicemails she’d woken up to. Strange voicemails, that seemed to have very little to do with the launch and more to do with their own personal relationship. She’d tried and failed to forget them.

That was an irregularity, of course. Just generally, their parties tended to involve drinking. Usually not to drown sorrows of national tragedy, or to drown sorrows related to other things and covering for it by claiming it to be for said national tragedy. Usually it was for fun.

A hand tapped her on the shoulder. It was Flansburgh, of course.

“Y’wanna go to the bar? I know you’re not a huge drinker, but-”

“Sure.” Linnell quickly interjected. “Might as well. Is it just wine?”

“Don’t know, but maybe. You still wanna go?” The woman spoke.

“Yeah.” She nodded.

Flansburgh nodded and waited beside the booth for Linnell to get up. It took a little longer than Linnell would have liked to admit, but at age forty-five it would be irresponsible to expect herself to be in pristine shape, anyway. Flansburgh only kind of looked like she wanted to laugh at her. The two weaved past tables and made their way across the area, exchanging quiet apologies whenever they ended up elbowing each other by accident. The passages weren’t considerably narrow.

“Planning to get hammered again?” Linnell asked.

“Depends, I guess. Let's see!”

Other than Hickey, Linnell and Flansburgh had been the only ones to actually take a seat at the bar. The others could entertain themselves , Linnell reminded herself as she took a swig of champagne. She’d considered something stronger, but she couldn’t help feeling a lack of control over rational decision making tonight would do nothing but make her life harder tonight.

Next to her sat Flansburgh, drinking some variety of wine she hadn’t caught. At least she seemed to be going slow. The women sat in relative silence, filled by the chattering of the crowds behind them (and a few other bar residents, one appearing to be softly weeping). She’d been looking at her passively the whole time. She liked to pretend that it was to monitor her intake.

“Well.” Flansburgh swirled her drink gently in its glass. “Ten albums, huh? That’s killer. I always assumed I’d have died in a dramatic stage accident by now.”

“Yeah. I didn’t think we’d make more than two or so when we formed.” Linnell remarked.

“Well, it only took us twenty years.”

“I still thought I’d be playing in the Mundanes by now, I think. It seemed really permanent at the time. That’s your twenties for you, I guess.”

She almost wanted to laugh at herself. It had seemed permanent, and practically everyone around her seemed to think so too. Especially her parents. It had never been fulfilling—not to the fullest extent, at least, she did truly respect her bandmates—but she was fully ready to accept such a life. Maybe it was that that made her eventual linking with Flansburgh feel so rebellious. It was pleasurable. It felt right .

“Right, right…” Flansburgh nodded. “I don’t actually know where I thought I’d be. Besides tragically dead or exploded, obviously. I think at that age it’s hard to imagine your life past thirty anyways.”

“Certainly, certainly…” Linnell mumbled.

“Yeah.”

They both looked down into their drinks. Flansburgh swished hers a bit. Linnell focused on  staying as still as she could—holding her breath unconsciously. There was a certain nervousness she couldn’t shake.

“That dress is pretty old, huh?” Flansburgh’s shoulders tensed.

Linnell pursed her lips. 

“Yeah. Got it back in the eighties, I think.”

“For real?” Flansburgh chuckled, seemingly out of shock. “I was guessing early 90s, jesus! No need to brag …”

She smiled. “I wouldn’t brag about that. It’s stretchy for a reason, you know.”

“Well, you look cute. That’s all anyone would have noticed.” Flansburgh rested her head in her hand and gazed at the other.

“Yeah.” She averted her eyes and attempted to hide the pinkish hue of her face. “Hey, I don’t think I’ve seen that suit before. It looks really good.”

Flansburgh beamed. “Goldie tailored it for me last month, actually! I think he did great—I think it saved us some money, honestly. Women’s suits are pricier than they have the right to be.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” She mumbled. 

The mention of Flansburgh’s husband made her want to roll her eyes. Playfully, of course. He was a close friend of them both. She was simply very enamoured with him, and it was—Linnell was struggling for a positive sounding adjective. Sickening was the closest she could come, sickening in an admirable way. Repugnantly lovely. She’d never felt strongly about it, actually. She was fine with it, and in no way affected.

Flansburgh paused. “And still, Dan couldn’t bothered to-”

“Jane, come on.” Linnell retorted. “He’s clearly embarrassed.”

“It’s- I’m just a little baffled . He showed up first .”

“Well, I mean, clearly. Look at him.” Linnell mumbled.

“You just told me not to bitch. You’re bitching!”

Linnell opened her mouth to retort. But she couldn’t say a thing, because Flansburgh was right, and it would only make her look stupid to act like she wasn’t. She turned away and begrudgingly took another drink. It was hard to pretend like she didn’t agree with Flansburgh. He really did look thrown together at best.

“At least you get to have the vain joy of knowing you look objectively better than him, hey.” She shrugged.

“I look better than everyone all the time. I don’t need that and never will.” Flansburgh stated, just plainly enough to make it sound like it wasn’t sarcasm. But it was, and it was funny. At least to Linnell.

“Hey, can I ask you something rude?” Flansburgh spoke again, looking off to the side.

Linnell had been chewing her lip. “Well, how rude? Am I being fired?”

“No, because I wouldn’t call that firing. I’d call that a professional divorce, or ‘the worst year of my life’, maybe.” She chuckled. “Uh, and I don’t know. I guess it’s just…contextually rude.”

“Hit me with it.”

Flansburgh hummed for a moment and took another drink. Confidentially, Linnell was quite curious, but was genuinely unsure of what she wanted to ask. Flansburgh had never been a predictable woman in the slightest. There was a good chance it would be nonsense, though. She reminded herself this in a feeble attempt not to get her hopes up.

Flansburgh tilted her glass somewhat. “Well, we used to talk about this a lot. And I think at some point we decided it was stupid, because what’s happened has happened and there’s not really a point in dwelling on what could have been. And well, we really do respect them obviously, but—do you ever wonder what we’d be doing without the backing band?”

Linnell stared. For a moment, she didn’t really know what to say.

“Wait, how is that ‘rude’?”

“We’re at a damn release party!” She explained. “For the album they helped create. It’s kind of rude to speculate on what it would be like if they weren’t around.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She mumbled. Admittedly, Linnell’s mind felt compelled to blot them out at times. Maybe it was ruder than she had considered previously. 

It wasn’t as if it had quite been their choice to adopt them—in truth, their first band was completely selected by Elektra, and she could remember more so that Flansburgh had made quite a fuss about their choice to not hire a single woman. It was a mess, and Linnell had assumed they would be dropped that very day. It took a while longer. And while the band had eventually become something great and willing (though of course, she didn’t ever think their first band was bad ), it was hard to completely shake their role as something somewhat forced onto them. Eventually they became a necessity. It didn’t mean they were happily compliant.

“Well…it would be different. It would certainly be different, maybe not worse or better.” She mused. “Maybe a little more personal and mopey. I don’t like writing angsty songs that I have to hand off to four other people to learn.”

Flansburgh chuckled. “You only want to hand them off to one person? Or would you prefer no middle man at all, band all to yourself?”

“That’s too much power.” Linnell shrugged. “And I trust you with my middle-aged angst.”

“I couldn’t be more grateful.” She smiled.

Linnell nodded, and took a drink from her own glass. This was a dangerous question to ponder, not particularly because it was a new or even slightly uncommon one. Rather it was a misleading one, which she could squarely blame on the fact that she’d never come out of thinking of it without anything but regret. And it wasn’t as if she regretted where the band was now, because where the band had ended up was great. It was an overwhelming regret, but not from a placeable location. It was frustrating.

“Well, I think we’d probably be a lot smaller. Still playing niche gigs, probably with a lot less budget. I think we’d have just enough money to live sort of comfortably. I think we’d get a better drum machine, and then not use it  because we didn’t completely figure out how.” Flansburgh explained, gazing at the other. “And I think we’d be a little bit closer.”

Linnell set down her glass and looked back, almost feeling compelled to do so. “And what’s ‘closer’ mean?”

“I don’t know. Just like- generally? I think we’d have a lot more time to ourselves than we do now. Maybe we’d still live together, hell.” Flansburgh responded. Her voice sounded a little less playful, a little more—Linnell didn’t want to risk describing it incorrectly.

“Maybe. But wouldn’t we still be… well, I don’t know. I guess I never really thought about it.” 

“I guess it’s good things have changed. Because I can never seem to imagine us outside of that old apartment of ours when I try. And I don’t know—I guess that would be pretty stagnant.” She spoke.

“Well, we’d…live with our husbands, wouldn’t we?” Linnell stared. “We wouldn’t stay there. We’d be with them, unless that’s different too.”

Flansburgh looked unquestionably hurt. Unquestionably, because Linnell tried as hard as she could to believe that she wasn’t. But it was obvious from her faltering smile and her furrowed brows, it wasn’t annoyance or anything of the sort. Was she…?

“Yeah. I guess we would be, huh?”

Linnell wanted to say something. She wanted to say a lot of things, but there wasn’t anything to say that was even remotely legible. There was nothing to say that didn’t require taking a leap bigger than what she really wanted to take.

“Yeah.”

Flansburgh sighed. “He really is great, I don’t- I’m sure I don’t need to tell you. I say it all the time.”

“I know.” Linnell nodded. “It’s no big deal.”

“I’m happy, Jane. And I don’t want you to think I’m not.”

Linnell looked on. A little past her, but maybe it wasn’t obvious. She couldn’t quite bring herself to face her for whatever reason, and she didn’t know why it was impossible to focus on her features at that moment. It was nice to believe she didn’t know, at least, because it was so much less destructive.

“We’re both happy.” She smiled. “I wouldn’t want anything else.”

Food had come to the table. It had been a while since the two women rejoined, though the service proved faster than they both expected. Linnell tried her best to show her appreciation to the chefs—Flansburgh seemed slightly less phased, but maybe it was just some form of politeness. Their meals were of good quality, of course. Linnell had ordered spaghetti (as it seemed easiest to keep the next day) and was quietly eating, portioning off roughly half of it with her fork as she went. 

She could have sworn Flansburgh was eyeing her. It was well-disguised if so, but every few moments it felt like there was a pair of boring eyes on her that quickly turned away whenever she looked up. It was a strange feeling, and not least because she was doing just about the same thing. Strange, to feel like you’re on either side of a one-sided glass at once. It almost felt flattering

Whatever , she decided. Eating was much more important than wondering why Flansburgh was staring at her—of course, she was not one to wonder why she was staring back. That was a fact of life, and naturally unquestionable. She hadn’t found that she had a particularly large appetite tonight, but the food was just good enough to ignore this somewhat.

She twirled some noodles around for a while. Flansburgh was happy. Right, and why did that feel so wrong to her? She hadn’t stopped thinking about it. A sane person would take those words at face value. And that would be all, because that’s all that they mean.

She frowned. She’d had quite enough of calling herself insane for the night, really. Maybe it was finally time to eat that big-looking meatball she’d been saving for the low point of the meal. It was kind of exciting, but she deemed it far too daunting for the start. She begun cutting into it, but was quickly interrupted by a voice across the table.

“How is it?” Flansburgh sat across from her, having already finished her own plate minutes prior. She’d ordered something a bit smaller—it also seemed she was more willing to eat it scorching hot.

Linnell shrugged. “Pretty good.”

“Good, good. The, uh- you know, the calamari wasn’t bad at all . And I don’t usually eat much seafood either, so I’m—I’m a little impressed!”

“I’ll eat it sometimes. My… I’m not that adventurous, but we have it sometimes.” Her knife scraped against the plate as she cut off a thin slice of the meatball. “It’s octopus, right? Maybe that’s got a different sort of composition than your usual fish meat. They’re—I actually don’t know what they’re made up of, hm.”

“And I’d rather not think about it.” Flansburgh chuckled.

Linnell shrugged and returned to her plate, twirling her fork again and taking a bite. Octopus had always made her a little squeamish anyways, so Flansburgh’s redirection was probably for the best. Though, it was proving to be somewhat late. The strange wriggling motions of tentacles had already embedded themselves into her mind, and frankly, were making her rapidly lose her appetite. She’d begun to cut another meatball when it hit her, and suddenly the compulsion to take a glance at the clock got a lot stronger.

Seven . The clock ticked seven, and though perhaps it was embarrassing to admit she’d tended to begin her nighttime routine around this time on usual nights. It just came with age. Or maybe she was just weird, and had become so tuckered out from the wild schedule of their tours over the years that she’d found solace in falling asleep as early and as quickly as possible on a usual night. She wasn’t terribly tired at the moment, but she could bet that she would be soon.

“It’s getting kind of late.” She mumbled.

“It’s not- oh, shoot, guess it kind of is.” Flansburgh chuckled. “Hey, you can leave if you really want to. Driving drowsy is deadly, or so I’ve heard.”

“No, I’ll stay a while. And if it was, we’d probably be a million times dead by now.” Linnell assured. “Just checking.”

“Yeah, yeah. Right.”

Flansburgh turned away from Linnell and began to murmur something to Dillet. She couldn’t really listen in. Something about her tone sounded a little subdued and almost a little forlorn to her—Linnell could assume this was her fault, what with making Flansburgh think she was going to leave early and all. Flansburgh had once told her to stop being so quick to assume such things without evidence. But Flansburgh couldn’t hear her thoughts, so she could catastrophize as much as she wanted to without consequence.

Well. Without tangible consequence, of course.

She sighed. The evening had felt so heavy. It was her own mind, she knew. She wanted to find herself in places that she wasn’t, and perhaps most of all kept looking for excuses to justify things she knew were complete nonsense. Desires that would never come true, essentially she had ruined the night all on her own. What a shame. Almost impressive in its level of pity, she wanted to go home as if to make sure it couldn’t spread to anyone else

She couldn’t take another second of this self pity. She needed a drink—but through some sort of chance, she had managed to ruin even that.

It could be assumed it looked wildly idiotic when she managed to miss her lips and spilled her drink on her chest. Of course, it could only be assumed , because she didn’t even notice it had happened until a good three seconds afterwards. She looked down in bewilderment, followed by mild annoyance, followed by severe shame.

“Whoops.”

Whoops? Was that really what she had said? Flansburgh was clearly looking at her now, too. It was indicative of some need for the psych ward that she felt flustered by this.

“I spilled my drink.” She muttered. Just as quickly she began to search herself for a napkin, a cloth, something to wipe herself off with, and managed to miss the obvious silverware-holding cloth multiple times. Eventually she found it—it felt more like dumb luck than proper reasoning, though.

It only took her a moment to realize how the feverish wiping of her chest came off to bystanders. More precisely, she’d noticed a disgusted looking man at the table across from them staring at her as she did so. If she were Flansburgh she’d do no less than snarl, and perhaps try to maim the man. She wasn’t Flansburgh. And so she stood up, looked around, and promptly left.

“Jane-”

Linnell sighed. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She’d made a beeline for the curb as soon as she was outside. From outside she could no longer hear the chatter, rather she could only pick up its muffled remains. It had cooled down since she first arrived. The sun was setting in the distance, almost low enough to leave the sky completely dark. There were a couple of bands of red and orange she could still see, and she continued to stare at them as she took out her napkin.

“How the fuck did I even manage to do that?” She grumbled, wiping down her chest. “Nice ploy for attention , she looked at your boobs. Good job, dipshit. Good job…”

It wasn’t intentional, but maybe it was somehow cathartic to rant at herself as if it was. At the least it was stupid , and that she would grill herself for until she was too tired to think. 

“I wonder if it’s too late to get hammered.”

She sat herself down on the curb and sank her head into her hands. She was so, so tired. And kind of hungry now that she wasn't thinking about tentacles, but mainly tired. Maybe a bit physically, and maybe a bit mentally, but hugely emotionally. It was tiresome, what she was doing. To long for someone so heavily mere feet away from them, and not even have the stomach to tell her and get it all out. It wasn’t the right time. It would never, ever be the right time.

She wanted to cry, and it certainly felt like the right time to. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t, maybe it had been too long. She stared, out into the parking lot and onwards into the sun behind it all. It hurt her eyes. She didn’t really care.

Fast-approaching footsteps rung out for the building’s entrance. She assumed it to be another drunk man—she’d seen one or two of those, they were kind of entertaining. Stumbling out into their cars and cursing at their wives, but it proved to not be so. Because out of the restaurant came a woman dressed in light colors, waving to Linnell with exhaustion as her face came steadily into view.

“Hi.” She murmured.

“Hey.” Flansburgh smiled. “You’ve been—you’ve been out a while. I just wanted to see if everything’s…okay.”

Linnell shrugged. It wasn’t anything she could talk about anyways. 

“It’s fine. It got in my dress, though, which totally sucks.” She muttered. She began getting up to show her, before realizing on a black dress it was unlikely to show. She sat back down.

Yet still Flansburgh came to her, striding up to the curb and sitting down beside her. She sighed and stretched her arms out, before motioning Linnell to turn a bit in some attempt to see. She complied. Flansburgh stared for a while, and eventually took out a kerchief she’d stashed in her pants pocket to wipe it down further.

Linnell flushed red. This was exactly why she had left. Thank god the darkness was able to slightly hide her face from view.

“I’ve tried to get it out, trust me.”

“I guess I want a turn.” Flansburgh smiled. “It’s not coming out. Oh dear, guess I’d better keep going!”

Linnell laughed. “My god, take me out to dinner first!”

“I just did!”

The women laughed. What a stupid moment, playing lesbian like some sort of teenage houseparty. But it was fun. Something about it was exhilarating, and Linnell wasn’t slow to place it on the fact that for once—possibly the first time in months—no one was here but her and Flansburgh. No one was there to disrupt them. They could do whatever they wanted.

Whatever they wanted.

Linnell faltered. Right, she had just been in the middle of a moping session, and the only woman she found it in herself to care about tonight had interrupted it rudely. Flansburgh had no part in this—well, really, she had the largest part. It didn’t matter. It was better if she was left alone.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Linnell sighed. “I’m just thinking about things right now.”

“Hey, that’s okay. I’ve been occupied too. No big deal.”

Flansburgh smiled at her. It was sickening.

“I’m still thinking about that hypothetical where we never get the backing band. I can see how it’s rude now, I think.” She said. The words came out her mouth before she had completely finished deciding whether she even wanted to say them. Thus she had stuck herself this path, one she wasn’t completely sure if she wanted to take.

But Flansburgh seemed interested. Her eyes went wider, and if Linnell wasn’t insane (which she surely was, it seemed), she could have sworn she got closer.

“See? I don’t like to think about it, it just feels disrespectful. But it’s kind of interesting.” Flansburgh explained.

“Yeah.” Linnell wondered if there was some itch she could scratch at to distract herself from Flansburgh’s shimmering eyes. “I… I don’t know. I think it’s just interesting how differently things can pan out, I guess. I feel a little jealous that I’ll never know.”

“It’s past us now. That usually helps me feel less worried about it.”

Linnell furrowed her brow. Was that really what she believed? It was stupid if it was true, because it felt practically impossible to take real comfort in something like that. Dwelling on the past—maybe it wasn’t what Flansburgh tended to do, but it was practically her entire writing career. It stung at her, and she could only find it in herself to express it one way.

“But it could have turned out better than this.”

It was as if she could have watched Flansburgh’s pupils shrink in real time with how much the statement startled her. Startled the both of them, honestly, as Linnell had been attempting not to say as much for…a long, long time. Now it was her job to decide how to handle this.

“I mean…”

“It couldn’t have. Nothing could have been better than this, Jane.” Flansburgh frowned. “That’s—I don’t even know. You don’t need that. We don’t need that. I’m sorry.”

“I’m…” 

Linnell paused.

“I’m not talking about the band anymore, Flansburgh.”

Flansburgh froze. Completely froze up, unlike anything Linnell had seen in years. Completely motionless. It was rare to see her scared. Unsure. She grabbed at her coat jacket and adjusted it minutely, did anything to distract from the hitching of her breathing. She shifted. She smoothed out her hair, brushed off her jacket, she shifted again. She started to chuckle at herself. It seemed like it would never end, and then she stopped again.

“I know.” She whispered. “I wasn’t talking about it either.”

They were silent.

Linnell took a breath.

“You don’t have to forgive me.”

She lunged into Flansburgh’s arms and kissed her. Urgently, but distinctly soft. It was out of fear, she knew it was far too risky a move to not give Flansburgh a single out. But it was an out she didn’t see the need to take, as before Linnell could properly react hands found their way onto her waist and she gasped into the mouth of the other woman. Too much, it was all too much. She pulled away for a moment to breathe.

“I’d always wished we had more time after our shows.” She panted. “You look so good. You always look so good, all I’d ever wanted to do is take you out of those button up shirts you wear.”

“Don’t…cry to me….You’ve always looked so easy to…reach your hands under and…”

She came back in. Linnell well on top of her now, it was hard to express how much hotter the night suddenly felt. Flansburgh was just barely held up by Linnell’s arms, reaching around her to support her best as she could. She was a little heavier than she seemed. Hardly an issue.

“I need to take off your jacket.”

“Go ahead.” She grinned unevenly.

As quickly as she could manage Linnell slipped off the jacket, fumbling with the button for embarrassingly long while she struggled to even catch her breath long enough to think. It slid off eventually, she tugged it down to the woman’s elbows and sat up to admire her for a single dizzying moment. Her shirt had already been wrinkled and her tie was off center. And how easy they would have been to redo, but it would be completely feeble in a few seconds.

And again, their lips met. Linnell’s hands ran down the woman’s sides. She could feel Flansburgh doing the same to her—though her grip was tighter, Linnell had perhaps stopped supporting her as much as she needed. She had a lot to balance.

She momentarily cupped her hand over the other woman’s breast. Nothing she intended to linger on, but for years it had been a shameful want of hers to feel her bandmate’s chest herself, as she’d seen an angering amount of men in their apartment do in the past. She was decently large, which could be assumed as the reasoning. The touch drew a pleasant hum from her partner. She took careful note of this, of course. 

“Jane.” Flansburgh pulled away for a moment. “I hope you know that we can never do this again. And that for all intents and purposes, what I say can never hold meaning after this night, and after this moment. I need you to know that I’m deeply in love with you. I can’t live without saying it anymore, and I’ll never say it again.”

Linnell panted. “I need you to say it again. Please.”

“I love you. I love you, Jane.”

They fell back into each other. Again, and again, and probably six more times after that. Muttering things they’d never felt it right to admit, thoughts that they’d assumed would never be said out loud. Linnell confessed to having stolen one of Flansburgh’s shirts after a band argument in the eighties to feel a sense of security that she still mattered to her. She still had it sitting in her closet. Flansburgh admitted to chasing off men that wanted to talk to Linnell after their shows, even innocuously, for the simple reason of hating the idea of Linnell having a romantic partner. They’d cried at each other's weddings. They’d ogled each other backstage for years. They’d managed to miss every bit of it, and it would almost be worthy of laughing about if they didn’t immediately come back in to continue on with their kissing.

Eventually they were exhausted. They were middle aged—their bodies really were in no shape for heated makeouts, nor were they emotionally prepared. Eventually Linnell pulled away for a final time and sat at the curb panting for what felt like an eternity. She needed a rest, but she knew in truth that their session had come to an end. Thus, the end of their romantic encounters was marked. Probably forever. It was enough to make her weep. But she couldn’t.

She looked to Flansburgh. Tears were streaming down her face, and though quiet she was choking back sobs. Her makeup had been ruined. It was kind of pretty, at least to Linnell.

“I never thought I’d do that.” She mused. “Is that stupid? I thought we’d never, ever kiss.”

“We did. And it only took us getting married to do so, wow.”

She covered her eyes. “You’re telling me that like I don’t already know.”

Linnell exhaled. Flansburgh was right, almost numbingly so. Linnell had her own husband, and in truth, she’d just cheated. It didn’t register as such in her mind yet. But it had happened, she’d completely betrayed him. She wanted so badly to feel horrible about what she’d done. But she couldn’t, because all she could bring herself to do was lift up Flansburgh’s face and bring her napkin to it.

“You’re going to smudge it more. Or is it still- oh, is it still wet? That’s kind of gross. I’ll let you go ahead.” She choked out.

“I’m trying to get your cheeks, at least.” Linnell chuckled. “I’ll be quick.”

“You—you still need to clean up.” 

“I haven’t been crying, so no. Uh, s…sorry.”

She felt a little bit unexpectedly mean. But sure enough, Flansburgh was smiling up at her. She brought a hand to her waist.

“I meant that you need to clean my lipstick off of your face.”

Linnell looked off to the side. “Well, I don't know. I think most of the guys in there are kind of inattentive. If my lips are a little redder, they’re not going to really no-”

Flansburgh suddenly turned her face and pressed a long kiss to her cheek. Linnell surfaced to the sound of her fevered laughter before realizing what had happened, and resolved herself to sighing and smiling along.

It was true—if everything went right, this would never happen again. And that would be right, and all would be right in the world. Their kissing could be excused as drunkenness, and in all actuality never even needed to really come to light. But it felt downright euphoric to revel in it, to savor it while it lasted and to completely drown herself in the feeling of it. It would never happen again, and if Flansburgh so insisted, she would keep a souvenir. If only for a few fleeting minutes, before it and everything else was drowned in the cold flow of bathroom water. There was nothing she could do but laugh.

“You bitch.”