Chapter Text
Van’s known she was a lesbian for a while now. At first, it had been something she’d sort of maybe considered but pushed it aside, but now, at eighteen, she knew it for certain. As she’d gotten older, she’d heard the word more and more, and it had felt more and more like something special, something for her. Obviously, she couldn’t really tell anyone about it, not even her friends on the team. She’d considered telling Tai once or twice, but then of course Tai would ask if she liked anyone, and Van knew the answer to that question, too.
Laura Lee or Natalie are probably her closest friends on the team, after Tai. She’s known Nat since they were kids, and Van knows she wouldn’t judge, but every time she tried to tell Nat, the words got stuck in her throat, like her body physically wouldn’t let her confess. It was as though once she said it, everything would change. And that was Van’s primary fear, the main reason she hadn’t taken her wishes any further. She was terrified that once she told the others, they’d kick her off the team, shun her in the hallways.
At first, she’d been scared that Laura Lee would be completely disgusted, but at a party a few months ago, that fear had been dispelled. Tai had been getting them some more drinks, and Van had seen Laura Lee hanging out with some of the guys from her church. She’d gone to stand by them, and one of the guys had been mid-sentence, talking about how they didn’t want some fag joining their project in science.
Van had unconsciously held her breath, waiting for Laura Lee to agree, but she’d gone completely still and then said, “Don’t use that word.”
The guy had looked at her in an almost disgusted way, like he was shocked a girl was speaking out of turn, let alone to tell him off for something, and he’d pointed out that homosexuality was a sin, and did Laura Lee want to go to hell?
And Laura Lee had just told him, quite firmly, that God loved all of his children, and then she’d taken Van’s hand and marched off in the other direction. Van had been a little terrified then that maybe Laura Lee knew, but she’d never said anything. Except that night, when Van said goodbye, it kind of felt like she’d held on for a moment longer than normal.
And yet despite all the evidence pointing towards the fact that her teammates will be fine about it, Van can’t bring herself to tell people. She knows Tai’s realised she’s hiding something, and Van’s taken to ignoring her. It’s not something she thinks is noticeable, exactly, but more that she bolts out of class right when it’s over, rushing to her next one before Taissa can even pack her belongings up and follow her.
It's stupid and childish, but what’s the alternative? Is Van supposed to corner Tai, and tell her that she’s halfway in love with her, that she’s got a dumb mixtape hiding underneath her bed? The thought of ruining their friendship makes Van feel sick, and she’d rather have pieces of Tai than none at all.
Stolen glimpses, a hug that lasts just a beat too long, shared beds – she’ll take what she can get. But part of her knows this can’t last, because when Tai gets a boyfriend, and starts spending time with him instead of Van, she knows she’ll completely lose it, and go over the deep end.
She can only hope it doesn’t happen before nationals, because she actually does kind of give a shit about winning, and she wants to win it with Tai, and she wants to celebrate with Tai, not get herself wasted at a party watching Tai make out with whoever her stupid, leering boyfriend ends up being.
“Van! Van!” As though Tai can read her mind, Van startles out of her thoughts when she hears her name being shouted. For a second she considers pretending she’s not heard and just bolting for her car, but she’s already slowed down before the thought even fully forms.
“Hey,” Tai says, slinging an arm around her shoulder, breathing a little fast, “where have you been, stranger? I feel like you’re mad at me or something, you’ve been avoiding me all week.” Taissa goes for joking, but Van knows her well enough to tell she’s upset by the way her voice is a little hard at the end of her sentence.
Van shakes her head, forcing a grin onto her face. “I’m not mad, silly. Of course not. I just, uh – just busy. You know, finals and shit.”
“We take basically all the same classes, you could’ve just asked me for help.” Tai points out, clearly not willing to let this go.
“Uh, yeah. True.” Van sighs a little, but they’ve reached her car. “Looks like this is me. So I’d better – you know.”
Taissa really does look hurt now, her eyebrows drawn together, eyes wide. “Van, seriously. What’s going on? Did I do something? Can you just, like, be an adult and tell me what the hell is wrong?”
She wants to snap back, get angry, because then they’ll have an argument and Van can use said argument as another excuse to avoid Tai further. But she can’t do it.
“Sorry. It’s not you. I just, um… I guess I kind of like someone, and they don’t like me back, so I’m being weird.”
The second the words leave her mouth, Van wants to punch herself repeatedly in the face. Because the admission is going to make everything a million times harder. Tai’s only going to be curious, and Van doesn’t know if she can pretend she likes a guy.
Tai looks shocked, which Van predicted, but part of her sorts of looks like she’s been punched in the gut. “You like someone? Why – why didn’t you tell me? I thought we always told each other that kind of thing.” Tai asks, her face looking withdrawn.
“I don’t know. I guess I kind of thought it was humiliating. Like, I haven’t even kissed anyone yet.” Now she’s really fucked it, admitting that she’s never kissed someone. It’s not like she has people lining up to kiss her, and even if she did, none of the people in the line would be the person she really wants, anyway.
Taissa looks at her, and then she glances around the parking lot. It’s empty, as it usually is at this time. Practice had ended a half hour ago, and Van had taken ages putting away her stuff, pretending like she’d wanted to help Misty put the equipment away, and then going to ask Coach Scott a bunch of random questions, just to waste time, so that the others would be gone when she arrived in the locker room.
Tai had been waiting for her, of course, when she’d gone inside, but Van had beelined for the showers, and then Lottie had asked Tai a question, and Van had managed to shower and change and sneak out without Tai seeing – except, apparently she had, because she’s standing right in front of her now.
The parking lot is entirely empty apart from Van’s car, and the lights in the school are off, too. A lone bird swoops down a few feet away from them, tilting its’ head like it doesn’t quite know what to make of the two figures, and then flies away again.
Van looks back at Tai, heart in her throat. Tai’s staring right back at her.
“You know, if you’re worried about it,” Tai says slowly, “if you want, I could – we could like, practice. Kissing. You know, for like, when we find guys we want to kiss.”
Van’s brain short circuits. The idea of her and Tai kissing is something she has, shamefully, fantasised about late at night, always feeling guilty and disgusting afterwards. But now Tai’s presenting it practically on a silver platter, offering the idea up like she’s suggested they go get milkshakes.
“Wouldn’t it be weird?” Van asks, because she doesn’t really think Tai is being serious. She’s just trying to be kind, because Van is weird, and doesn’t dress feminine, and none of the guys really like her.
Tai shakes her head. Takes a step closer to Van, eyes darting around the lot one more time. Van really thinks she must’ve been hit in the head one too many times at practice, because this surely cannot be real.
But it is real, and Tai’s closing the distance between them, and then her hands are coming up to cup Van’s face, and then they’re kissing.
Van wasn’t lying about this being her first, and it’s a little awkward to begin with, as they get used to each other’s movements. But then something changes, and Van wraps her arms around Tai’s waist, and Tai moves in closer, and now they’re properly making out.
Van breaks the kiss first, whispering that they should get inside the car, because even if the lot is empty, it feels a lot safer to be in an enclosed space.
Van sits in the backseat, and Tai climbs onto her lap, and things suddenly get a lot more real. Electricity is shooting up Van’s spine now, and she’s tentative but she starts kind of licking into Tai’s mouth, and Tai moans a little in a way that sends something shooting into Van’s stomach.
It feels so surreal, and so incredibly good, that she can scarcely breathe. So much so that she doesn’t notice movement to the left of them, not until the moment she pulls back, meaning to kiss Tai’s neck, and sees Coach Scott walking past the car, heading to the back gates of the school.
He often parks his car outside of the lot, and Van is almost certain it’s so Misty won’t follow him to his car after practice, because he seemed relieved when Van said she needed to speak with him privately earlier, and Misty had been forced to go into the locker room.
Van is certain he’s seen them. Tai looks at her, scrambles off, suddenly terrified, and there’s that feeling of shame again. It looks like Coach looks inside the car, for a second, but then his eyes slide over the car and he just continues walking out, not looking back in their direction even once.
“Shit,” She feels a little sick now, the reality of what they’re doing coming crashing back down. It had felt amazing, but it had been with another girl, and she can only imagine what would happen if someone actually had seen them.
Tai looks just as concerned, and Van is half expecting her to open the door of the car and bolt, but she just looks at Van, wide-eyed, her hair a mess, but with a soft smile on her face.
Van returns it, feeling suddenly shy now that the heat of the moment has passed. And yes, she’s aware that Taissa had said this was for practice, or whatever, and that they aren’t dating or anything, but this is still far beyond anything she’s dared hope for before.
Van clears her throat, looking down at her hands, “Was that okay?”
Tai nods, but she leans in, her hand coming to Van’s chin, tilting her head up so they’re looking at each other again. “Yeah, but I think you need some more practice.”
“Hey, screw you, I’m great at kissing now!” Van protests, shoving the other girl gently, and then she starts clambering into the front seat, Tai following suit.
If things are still normal between them, Tai will ask her if she wants to sleepover, Van’s sure of it. Most nights, she stays at Nat’s or Tai’s anyway, since it’s not like her own mother really cares if she’s having sleepovers on a school night (not that her mom knows when it’s a school night, either.)
Her chest feels tight as she turns the key, starting the ignition, and asks Tai if she should drop her off at home.
“Yeah, thanks,” Tai replies, and then, after a beat, “want to stay over?”
Van grins, puts the car in reverse, and does that thing from the movies where she puts her hand on Tai’s seat to help her see better.
//
Things change after that.
It’s not like they’re dating, or anything, but they’ve stopped any and all pretence that this is for ‘practice’. They don’t really talk about it, neither of them pause to ask ‘What are we?’, but there’s also the fact that neither of them are dating anyone else.
That little fact had come about when Van had been talking to Melissa in the hallway; Mel, who always wore that pink hat, and had recently begun following Van around the halls. Van is ninety percent sure Mel maybe has a bit of a crush on her, but it’s less because of who Van is and more just because she’s the only ‘available’ girl to have a crush on.
By now, it’s sort of common knowledge that she’s gay. Well, not common knowledge, but Van knows people think she is. She’s heard the boys on the team talking about it, and some of the girls – none of her team – stop talking as soon as she walks into the bathroom. But she also knows that Jackie got a one-day suspension for slapping a girl who called her a dyke, and Mari a detention because she’d called Randy a ‘small-dicked little virgin’ after he insinuated that nobody would ever want to date Van.
So it’s sort of there, and she thinks the Yellowjackets probably all know, but they also all firmly and fiercely defend her, so she kind of doesn’t really care.
But it does mean that Melissa, who is maybe also gay, seems to think that she has a crush on Van, but probably only because Van, in her eyes, is the only potentially gay person around.
So Melissa had taken to following Van around a little, stopping to talk to her after class, or cornering her by her locker. And that had happened once when Tai had been let out from AP Biology, and had seen the two together.
She’d marched over, and briskly told Melissa she needed to talk to Van privately, and then the two of them had both been late for their next class because they’d been hooking up in the janitor’s closet.
Taissa had been attacking her neck when she’d whispered, “You’re not – you’re not, like, seeing anyone else, right?”
And Van could have wept at the question.
“No,” She’d promised, “nobody but you.”
And Tai had pulled back, and they’d stared at each other for a second or two, the world around them silent, and then Tai had nodded and said, “Me either. Nobody but you.”
The weeks leading up to Nationals had followed similarly. They were practically inseparable; they spent every second together. Van was now staying at Tai’s basically every night, except for the nights when Taissa’s parents apologised, but said that Tai needed to do some homework.
On those nights, she goes to Nat’s. Laura Lee loves her, and has offered many times for Van to stay over, but even though Laura Lee is clearly fine with her, Van knows for a fact that her parents are not. So she goes to Nat’s, where there’s nobody to judge her.
She lies in Nat’s bed, now, and Nat is giggling, clearly high. Van is too, but she doesn’t smoke so much anymore. She’d mostly done it to get to sleep, and now, with Tai, she doesn’t need to. She’s usually out by a light just from listening to Tai’s breathing.
“What’s got you in such a good mood?” Nat asks, poking Van in the cheek, because Van is smiling absent-mindedly at the ceiling.
“Nothing, just happy.” Van replies. She wants, not for the first time, to tell Natalie why. But if she tells her she’s gay, she’ll have to tell her about Tai – won’t be able to resist – and she knows Tai doesn’t want that.
“Why?” Nat’s not going to give up easily, clearly.
“Can’t I just be happy to be with my bestest friend in the whole world?” Van jokes, and turns over to start making kissy noises right in Natalie’s ear, wrapping her in a bear hug. Nat protests, but she’s giggling, and then they’re cuddling too, and even if it takes a bit longer, Van falls asleep here just fine.
And so her and Tai keep hooking up.
They’re at Tai’s, and they’re meant to be going to some stupid party, which is ill-advised, because they’re flying tomorrow, and Lottie always gets too drunk and throws up, and Mari always gets too drunk and gets mad at someone, and Laura Lee doesn’t get drunk at all, but ends up crying when one of the others does.
So it’s usually a bit of a shit-show, but right now Van doesn’t have it in her to care, because Taissa’s parents are out at a dinner, and she’s sucking a bruise into Tai’s skin, right below her collarbone.
“Hey, don’t leave a mark,” Tai says, but she’s making other noises which suggest exactly the opposite.
“Nobody’ll see it here,” Van replies, and continues, making marks down Tai’s body. They’ve graduated far beyond just kissing, by now – they’re having sex pretty regularly, and Van knows neither of them can really pretend that this isn’t something now.
Later, when they’re cuddled up in Tai’s bed, and Van knows she has to leave soon, since her mom is apparently driving her to the airport in the morning, she decides, Fuck it.
“Tai?”
Tai hums in response, eyes still closed. It kind of makes it a little easier, because at least if Tai rejects her, Van won’t have to look her in the eye.
“Tai, are we… are we, like..” Van has no idea how to finish this sentence. She barely knows how she started it.
Fuck, Tai’s eyes are open now, and she’s looking right back at Van. Van’s heartbeat is thudding in her ears, loud.
“We’re together. Right?” She can’t exactly push it back now, it’s all out there in the open, and Van just fucking hopes Taissa doesn’t respond with anything but yes. It’ll kill her.
Tai’s gaze softens, and she leans in, and brushes their lips together again. “Of course we are, idiot. Did you think I was just regularly screwing everyone else from the team?”
Even though it’s a joke, Van frowns instinctively. “I didn’t think about that at all, gross.”
Tai shakes her head, and presses another kiss to Van’s forehead. “Like I said. Nobody but you.”
It feels a little like three other words which Van has been toying with, but not sure she’s ready to say yet. She hasn’t told anyone I love you in that way, ever. She says it to Nat, sometimes, and Laura Lee, but she’s never said it to anyone like how she wants to say it to Tai.
When she sneaks out once Tai is asleep, her heart feels so fucking full on the way home.
And the next day, on the plane, when it’s going down, all she can think is At least Tai knows. At least we’re together.