This piece of fanfic is definitely an entry in my Echo Park anthology where the song and the story have pretty much nothing to do with each other. To be fair, lyrically it didn’t give me much to work with, so it seemed a good opportunity to plug in an idea I already had, throw in a quick reference to the title, and leave it at that.
The inspiration was this short story about two young women made homeless after coming out to their families – something that much too often happens in real life. Kate, with her religious upbringing and judgmental mother, seemed the obvious person to put in that position; but it’s Kate, so I couldn’t bear not to give her a happy ending. She has a tragic backstory, yes, but the fanfic itself is more of a fairytale. That meant I needed a princess, but in this case, she's the one doing the rescuing – and who better to play that part than Blackwell’s own queen bee, Victoria; someone who will find that in helping someone else, she’s also helping herself.
Their story is now complete, so you can read all six chapters on AO3 here: Bug