For Yuri Week 2018: Day 5: Language barrier

Some gratuitous French, but they're basic sentences mostly. Translations at the end.

Names:
Alice - Nyo!England
Gabrielle - Nyo!France
Chiara - Nyo!Romano

Throughout her life, Alice had prided herself in her decision making. They were quick, concise, and well-thought out that mostly worked in her favour, and if they did not, she would work around it until they did.

But perhaps for the first time in her twenty years of life, she might have made a dumb decision. Plain, old stupid, stupid, stupid, what in Heaven's name were you thinking? kind of dumb.

Because she was in Paris, in France, with French people, who all spoke French, and she, from London, in England, an English person, who spoke English, did not speak French.

The reason she was in Paris was due to an administrative mishap. She was supposed to be in Rome, where she could speak Italian, because that was her minor, so she could actually speak it. Unlike French. But no, there had been a mistake, a little human error, which had lost her Rome and won her Paris instead. They had offered her Vienna, she had said no, she could handle Paris.

She could not handle Paris.

Paris, on the other hand, had handled her quite well. It had handled her so well that she was now separated from her group, had no means to contact them because she had left her purse, and thus her phone, at the hotel, and every time she tried to make contact with someone they snubbed her and continued on their way to whatever they did in life.

Walking aimlessly through the streets, she found herself at the entrance of a garden. Not knowing what else to do beside hope that she could find help there, she ambled along the path until she reached a fountain. There were benches against the hedges surrounding it and Alice sat down on one in the shade with a sigh. She supposed that at least it was nice weather, with a blue sky and only a mildly inconvenient sun.

"Fuck me," she said, rubbing her face tiredly. Why did this have to happen to her now? What had she done to deserve the punishment of being lost in a foreign country without any means of communication?

Okay, so she wasn't the nicest human being in existence, she could admit a much. And maybe she shouldn't have snapped at the girl excitedly babbling about France to her because she didn't want to be there, but she had apologized after the tears had started to fall by pressing napkins against her eyes and telling her to 'suck it up, good God, woman, don't take everything I say to heart, who even does that?'

But that didn't warrant this… this blatant bad luck.

Groaning, Alice brushed back her bangs from her eyes and slumped back against the backrest. The park was practically deserted, it being around lunch time, something Alice had been ignoring for most of an hour now, and if Alice was in a better mood, she might have appreciated the aesthetic of the gardens around her.

She might have also appreciated the woman sitting on the other side of the fountain, unabashedly staring at Alice. Her eyes were as blue as the sky, clear, curious and piercing. Her hair was pulled back in an intricate bun, a dainty pearl pin catching and reflecting the sunlight. It matched the off-white blouse she wore, a lining of frills going along the buttons, tucked into a long pale blue skirt. A sketchbook sat on her lap, though Alice couldn't see what she had been drawing. She had a feeling however.

"What?" she said, loud enough to carry across the space, but not so loud to be terribly rude.

The woman blinked slowly, tilting her head, but didn't otherwise change her expression. It was a little unnerving and Alice found herself sitting straighter, self-consciously fiddling with a button on her cardigan.

But nothing further happens, so Alice huffed, looking up at the sky in exasperation. "Why me?"

When she looked back down, the woman had returned to her sketchbook. Her long fingers, nails painted a matching blue to her skirt, curled along the top of her book, her other hand sketching quick short lines before slowing down. Then she paused, looked back up, met Alice's eyes.

Bloody hell.

She stood, walked over and towered over the woman, planting her hands on her hips to appear intimidating. "You stop that."

The woman leaned back, revealing a rough sketch of Alice as she watched her through long lashes. It was actually pretty decent and, on a good day, Alice might have been flattered, but Alice was not having a good day and had stomped over with a mission, so flattery be damned.

She said something then in accursed French and Alice tried to make sense of the words, then realized she was just staring at her pink lips. Fixing her mistake, she met her eyes again, pointing to the sketchbook.

"No," she said because that was universal. "Non."

Somehow that made the woman laugh, but it got the desired result as she closed her sketchbook. She set it down on the bench, next to a really cute flowery backpack, holding up her hands in surrender.

"Je suis désolé," she said, then rattled off something else. Then she stopped herself mid-sentence, observing Alice curiously again.

Dragging up some of the basic sentences she had once learnt in high school from the depths of her memory, Alice muttered slowly, enunciating carefully, "Je ne parle pas Français."

The woman laughed again, lips curling away to reveal white teeth as she leaned forward. "Je ne parle pas Anglais."

"Well, that makes you and everyone else in Paris." Exasperated, Alice glanced down the path, wondering if she should maybe try to find the police again. Pursing her lips, she startled when a cold hand wrapped around her arm.

The woman was speaking again, slower, as if hoping that Alice would somehow catch the meaning anyway. And she did, but only because she caught one word.

"Police," she interrupted. "I'm lost. I need the police." To emphasize her need, she pointed to one of the exits of the park.

Nodding, the woman stood slowly, stuffing her sketchbook and pencil case in her bag, swinging it around her shoulder with a smile. She was taller than Alice, which she hadn't quite expected and it made her draw her shoulders back, making herself as tall as she was.

"Je m'appelle Gabrielle," the woman said, holding out her hand.

Alice stared at it for a moment before sighing. She didn't have much choice in the matter, so she would just have to hope this woman wasn't some human trafficker beside being an artist. Slipping her hand in Gabrielle's, she shook it firmly. "Alice."

Gabrielle smiled again, held Alice's gaze as she lifted her hand to her lips, and kissed her knuckles.

Alice's cheeks burned and she snatched her hand back, hiding it behind her back. That just made Gabrielle laugh, which wasn't that bad a sound. Plus, it made Alice maybe feel a little warmer on the inside, but that was really just another matter entirely.

They walked in silence, though it wasn't exactly uncomfortable. It could hardly be; they could barely understand each other. Alice filled the time by stealing occasional glances at Gabrielle. She was also fairly sure Gabrielle was aware of them too, even if she didn't outrightly show so.

But the woman was truly pretty in the conventional sense. Her cheekbones were sharp and high, bringing attention to her beautiful eyes, long lashes, thin eyebrows. Her nose was slim, a little too long to be a button nose, but cute nonetheless.

Gabrielle casually brushed her hair back behind her ear, curls bouncing along with her step. A couple of strands had escaped the bun at the back, making her look a little more frizzled and human. Alice wondered what it would look like if she let it flow down her back, then had a brief though of running her fingers through it, and decided to derail that thought aggressively before it got too far.

Little good would come from hitting on French strangers that could not speak English.

Once they arrived at the police station, she was all but ushered inside and Gabrielle almost arrested because apparently Alice had been filed as a missing person already. Honestly, it impressed her a little; it had hardly been three hours.

It took a lot of flailing and quick speech in both English and French before things settled down and Alice's guidance teacher was called. She appeared within the next half hour, pulling Alice in a hug and then scolding her as if she was some four-year-old having wandered off (as much as that description hit the mark).

Alice chanced a glance at Gabrielle and almost wished she hadn't. The woman was hiding a smile behind her hand, blue eyes glittering with mirth as she met Alice's. She waggled her eyebrows, as if she had guessed what was happening, though it shouldn't be all that hard to guess by the looks of things.

The teacher noticed. "Is this the woman that helped you?"

"Yes." Alice gestured for Gabrielle. "This is Gabrielle. That's all I know."

"Bonjour, Madame," Gabrielle said to which the teacher replied in a rapid string of French. Gabrielle answered everything thrown at her, nodding and shaking her head. Alice just wanted to go back to the hotel, take a shower and forget all about today.

Then the conversation stopped abruptly and the teacher sighed, touching her forehead. Then she once more turned to the officers and spoke to them about God knew what else. Alice couldn't be bothered to pretend to know what was going on, but she decided to make her own exit easier by starting her own round of merci-beaucoups.

When she came back to Gabrielle, for some reason the words stuck in her throat. For an even dumber reason, she said, "Thank you," in plain old English.

For the first time in her life, she felt she could relate to Chiara Vargas' occasional need to slam her head against a flat surface in embarrassment.

Gabrielle laughed again, she seemed to have been doing that a lot at Alice. She stepped closer then, her smile becoming a little more coy.

"Le plaisir était pour moi," Gabrielle said, taking Alice's hand in hers again. She pressed a paper against her palm, winked and added softly, "Un cadeau."

She left before Alice could form a coherent response, or a coherent thought for that matter. Then her teacher finally got permission to drag Alice back to the hotel.

It wasn't until Alice was sitting on her bed, her roommate out and about in the hotel, that she had the time, and mind, to unfold the paper Gabrielle had given her. Alice breathed sharply as she smoothed out the creases of the drawing of her, sitting on that accursed bench, something written in French at the top, numbers scribbled out at the bottom, signed with a heart.

"Oh, mon Dieu," she sighed and fell back on the soft covers.

Paris had really handled her well.

Three years had passed since her trip to Paris. Three years of bilingual text messages, carrying around pocket FR-EN and EN-FR dictionaries, French classes and ridicule by her flatmate.

And now she was back in Paris.

She fiddled with a button on her shirt, wondering if she might have overdone it. Chiara certainly thought so, but then again Chiara thought saying any sort of emotion out loud was overdoing it.

It was so, so stupid, really. They had decided to meet again in the same park they had met then. It was summer now, and actually nice weather, and Alice had dressed up, and she was so, so nervous.

She stared down at the flowery skirt, feeling more than a little silly. Chiara had sat all day with her, going through her closet until Chiara had declared it all muck and dragged her to a store to find her quote-unquote "something so cute your Parisienne will be swept off her fucking feet, you hear? You forced me to be invested in this, so I'll make damn sure you look both presentable and fuckable."

Honestly, Alice wasn't entirely sure about the second part, but Chiara had ignored her sputtering and now here she was. In Paris. In France. With French people. Actually understanding French this time around. Or better than before anyway.

"Bonjour, ma chérie."

Alice almost dropped her bag, swivelling around, all French evaporating from her mind. "Oh, bloody hell."

Gabrielle was as gorgeous as she had been three years ago, and it shouldn't have caught Alice as much by surprise as it did because Gabrielle sent her pictures all the time, but she was positively radiant. She wore a creme-coloured blouse, a pair of sleek black trousers and matching black heels that terrified Alice a little. Her hair was braided and twisted into another bun, long curls framing her face. Her lips were cherry red this time, pulled into a laugh as blue eyes twinkled.

"No greeting for me?" Gabrielle asked, her French accent doing things to Alice that weren't entirely unpleasant.

Alice prided herself into being an eloquent and well-spoken woman, able to hold intricate discussions and proper presentations, yet she lost all that skill the moment Gabrielle set her pretty blue eyes on her and batted her long lashes. "I, uh." She gestured vaguely. "Good day."

"Good day?" Gabrielle raised her perfectly thin eyebrows, a teasing smile pulling at her lips.

"Beautiful," wasn't exactly what Alice had meant to say, but the word fell from her mouth anyway. She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose and held up a hand as if to stifle the giggle that escaped Gabrielle. Trying again, speaking words she had repeated over and over again so she would say them right, she met Gabrielle's eyes. "I mean, let me try again. Bonjour. Tu es magnifique aujourd'hui."

Gabrielle licked her lips, something in her eyes shifting just a little closer to want. It took three large strides from her long legs to close the gap between them and she cupped Alice's face as if she did it every other day. "And you look beautiful as well."

Reaching up and placing her hand on Gabrielle's upper arm, Gabrielle's fingers gripping her elbow, Alice glanced at her lips and all she needed to do to kiss them was stand on the tips of her toes—

The concrete she was suddenly forced to sit on made her shiver, her skirt billowing around her, and she stared as Gabrielle gave her the most aggravating, teasing smile.

"Since you never did allow me to finish my drawing then," she explained, positioning Alice's face to tilt down and away from the sun, brushing her hair aside and setting one hand in her lap and the other on the concrete. "Now, don't move."

"You're joking."

Gabrielle laughed, sitting on the gravel at her feet, and retrieved her sketchbook from her bag. She poked at Alice's leg with her pencil and Alice frowned. "Souris, mon chou." Gabrielle demonstrated the sentiment with a smile of her own and Alice sighed, trying to smooth out her features and settle on something that could probably be a small smile.

"Honestly, if I say 'non' again, would you stop?"

"Non."

Alice rolled her eyes, but sat still. It wasn't as if she didn't appreciate the gesture. To be drawn by Gabrielle, actually studying fashion but enjoying portraiture from time to time as well, was something Alice had dreamt about (albeit wearing far less clothing), though Alice had the feeling it was because Gabrielle could then draw her creations onto her subjects and Alice didn't know how to feel about that.

"This is not how I expected our reunion to go, you know," Alice said after what felt like an hour had passed. It probably wasn't nearly as long, but Alice's neck was beginning to cramp and her butt was starting to go numb and she still wanted to kiss Gabrielle.

"Should I walk you to the police again?" Gabrielle's eyes glittered as she glanced momentarily up from her drawing before they flicked back down again.

"Funny."

"I think so, yes."

"I would've liked to see you walk around London without speaking English. See how well you fare," Alice huffed.

"Good thing I speak English now," Gabrielle quipped, shifting a little and wincing at the gravel digging into her skin. "And I would hope you might show me around London if I come visit?"

Alice glanced at Gabrielle, at the purse of her lips and the slight slant of her eyebrows in concentration, and sighed because of course she would. But Gabrielle was being a tease, so Alice felt she didn't deserve to know just yet.

"Depends on how much longer I'm supposed to sit here."

"Just a moment more."

A moment turned out to be about half an hour until Gabrielle finally stilled, held up the sketchbook critically before nodding, and then stuffed it in her bag. Alice immediately started stretching, reaching her arms above her and moving her neck around with a relieved sigh. She paused when she noticed Gabrielle's eyes on her. Still as blue as the sky, still as glitteringly beautiful.

And then Gabrielle's hand was on her knee and she used it as leverage to life herself of the ground and their noses were almost touching and—

Alice grabbed Gabrielle's arm to prevent her from moving and pressed her lips against hers, closing her eyes. Gabrielle gasped softly before returning the kiss, lips moving slowly against Alice's. When they broke apart, Gabrielle was grinning, perhaps a little smug, and ran her fingers across the fabric of Alice's skirt suggestively.

"How impatient," Gabrielle said.

"And whose fault is that?"

Gabrielle leaned up again to peck her on the lips before getting to her feet fully. Her blouse rode up as she stretched, not that Alice was staring or anything. Then, Gabrielle held out her hand and Alice allowed herself to be pulled up, just a little too close to Gabrielle. The Parisienne took it as an excuse to brush her hand over her lower back before tugging Alice away from the park excitedly.

"I know a place where we can, hmmm, catch up?" Gabrielle tilted her head questioningly, though Alice knew that Gabrielle knew exactly what she had said.

Ignoring the blush on her cheeks, Alice fell in stride with Gabrielle, squeezing her hand with a small smile of her own. "That would be delightful."

Gabrielle's English is supposed to be a little crooked because she's still learning. Alice's French is probably quite worse.

Translations:

Je suis désolé – I am sorry

Je ne parle pas Français/Anglais – I don't speak French/English

Je m'appelle Gabrielle – My name is Gabrielle

Le plaisir était pour moi – The pleasure is all mine

Un cadeau – A present

Tu es magnifique aujourd'hui – You are/look wonderful today

Souris, mon chou - Smile, my sweet bun (endearment)

Originally posted on the 5th of September on AO3. Part of my catching up spree.