Everyone has that dream, don't they? Your life's getting you down; maybe work's a hassle, your friends are somehow married and settled down and you're single because you've been recently dumped, and your parents are calling you every other day to remind you to do some favour for your distant relative you haven't seen for twenty years and your neighbour's got the fucking builders in who like to start banging away at what-the-fuck-time-is-this-o'clock and your best friend has decided to try and induct you into this weird cult-like thing that you're pretty sure is an actual cult and your fucking watch broke and your car's fucked and you ruined your favourite shirt by running it through the wash with a pair of your exes hot-pink underwear so now half your clothes are this lurid fucking fluorescent fucking highlighter pink colour and ugh.

You've had the fuck enough with everything.

So you use some of that precious time off you've accrued, and book yourself a last-minute trip somewhere. You tell your boss it's just for a couple of days but in reality you've gone for a whole fortnight because fuck it even if you just sit in your room and cry at least you're doing it in foreign far off lands.

You get to the airport and it's a nightmare; there's a delay, there's a problem with the plane, you try and unsuccessfully flirt with a woman in the airport bar only to find out that her husband's turning up and he's a big fucker of a guy who looks like he'd crush your balls with his little finger. You apologise, run away, and end up drinking far too much in another bar you come across.

The flight's a little hazy, but you vaguely recall sitting wedged against the window by someone who doesn't understand the concept of personal space, being kicked in the back by some little shit who you so desperately want to throw into the plane's engine, and with your knees crushed by some old dear in front of you who's decided to recline just as far as she possibly can.

When you land, somewhere between being told half your luggage is missing, and finding out that you've got a dozen voicemails from your boss who forgot you booked the time off, you decide to fuck it all. You're done. Donezo.

You hop in the nearest mode of transportation, and off you go. The hotel soon looms in front of you, and you realise that maybe the site was a little generous in how wonderful they made it seem. Maybe they added two or three or four stars to this place because it makes Fawlty Towers look like the fucking Ritz.

You abandon your booking. It's the first truly spontaneous thing you've done for a while; even this stress-induced holiday was meticulously fucking planned.

You jump on the first train you can find. You squeeze yourself into a seat, hugging your bags to your chest like there's a dead man's trigger nestled in your boxers. The countryside whips past you outside the window, and as one kind of landscape gives way to another, you find yourself relaxing, just a bit.

The voice over the tannoy announces the next stop in some language you don't really know at all, but you decide that this one's going to be the place you get off at. Alighting on the platform, you discover a pleasantly airy kind of place; immediately you can tell that this is a relaxing kind of place, and decide to stay.

You hop into a taxi, and tell the driver- who speaks excellent English, that you want to go to a hotel. You don't much care which one. He nods, and takes you to a cosy little place that almost screams you. You thank him, ask for his card, and promise that if you're going to go anywhere, you're going to use him and only him. He grins, shakes your hand, and you know that you've made a friend. Maybe not for life, but certainly for the duration.

The room you end up in a suite; bedroom, sitting room, en suite. You marvel at the size, and the comfort. Jet lag overcomes you, and you have just enough time to plough through half your room service meal, and ask for a wake up call, before you fall asleep, half your clothes still on.

Morning comes, and you wake, shower, breakfast, dress- not necessarily in that order. You call the concierge- the hotel has a concierge!- and ask them to do something about maybe getting the rest of your luggage.

You head out. You wander. You explore. You get lost. Little by little you unwind. You relax. You feel yourself becoming more like yourself and less like the angry little ball of hate and vitriol you seem to have become lately.

You lunch in a small cafe by the river; it's sunny, and quiet, and you dine on a couple of the local delicacies. Nearby, a young lady dines alone also, some sort of book in front of her. You consider talking to her- she is very pretty after all- and then decide not to when you think you wouldn't like to be disturbed. You watch her awhile, trying to figure out if she's a local or a holidaymaker, like you. You reconsider talking to her. Emboldened by the alcohol in your stomach and the feeling of contentment seeping slowly into your soul, you stand.

You stroll over.

You greet her.

And your life changes

So first things first- no, this won't be second person or present tense. I just got sort of caught up in everything and decided to run with it.

Secondly, I have no fucking idea where I want to go with this; a kernel of an idea became whatever the hell this is.

Will there be a language barrier? Where the fuck Is* this?! Is it a holiday romance? Is it the start of something more? Will one or both relocate? Who knows?!

I like long-term, slow-burning stuff with lots of character development and plot and story. I'd like a ton of romance and sweetness and all that shit.

If this is up, I'm still looking.

BONUS:
So that's a bit vague, a bit intense, right? Looking for something more dated, more genteel? Then try this one on for size:

It seemed sort of appropriate, in a way, that it should be in autumn that he'd died. My father had always loved the season, loved the way the leaves on the trees turned a multitude of colours, had loved the way the weather turned from the balmy warmth of summer, to the crisp, biting cold of winter. He'd loved the way that people retreated inside as the season wore on; 'Fall', he'd said, in that crisp, clear voice of his, tinged with just a slight hint of the burr of the accent of his youth, 'Fall, my boy, is the most beautiful season of all. Of course, I prefer calling it Autumn, but Fall's beautiful, too. Leaves fall. Temperature falls. Everything falls, sooner or later'. I often thought he was where I'd gotten my love of language and literature from; my father, a most wonderful man.

He'd died, they told me, peacefully in his sleep, just minutes into his eighty-third birthday. It seemed somehow right that he'd departed the world the same day he'd been brought into it, like Shakespeare had; and that seemed right, too, for an English teacher to follow one of his idols in the most final way possible. It had become winter by the time the funeral had been arranged- by one of my sisters, no doubt, both of whom had taken after the no-nonsense ways of my mother- and that seemed right, too. For wasn't the world a little colder and crueller without his presence? Without his smile, his laughter, his energy, and his warmth?

My brother had told me he'd take me to the funeral himself, in his car, to give us time to talk, to give us both some dregs of company that we so desperately both needed. We'd driven down in his motor car- something that was still relatively new, in its childhood rather than its infancy- though, I must confess, I still didn't entirely trust the things. Especially not the way Reg drove; pushing the thing as fast as it could go, shouting and whooping as we reached speeds that turned my stomach and filled my heart with a sort of dread. Still, it had given us the opportunity to talk- or bellow, rather, above the roaring of the wind and the rattling of the thing, and the thrum and drone of the engine- and we'd both come away from it just that little bit closer. The funeral had been a sombre, sober affair, with all the pomp and circumstance of a truly religious ceremony; both my parents had been religious, though my father had lapsed somewhat by the time I'd been born, and it was obviously felt by my sisters- who, again, had followed in the staid, stolid steps of my mother- that a Truly Religious Ceremony was what was needed. I'd struggled through the thing, sitting silently at the end of the pew, the youngest and most favoured child, waiting until it was over. I'd been determined to remain strong for my family, though I'd had to decline any offers of remaining there after, begging off, telling them I really did have to get home. The truth was, I knew if I spent any more time around them, I'd have broken down- and though my father had raised me to have no shame in sobbing in front of others, I'd still wanted, partly, slightly, to do it in secrecy, in the comfort of my own home.

I longed for my home; for the cosy comfort of that little house, with the ginger tabby tomcat that had somehow adopted me; for the crackle and hiss of the wood fire; for the soft, soothing sounds of the wireless. It wasn't much, my home, but it was all mine, and it was just how I liked it. And, at that moment, I'd missed it terribly.

I'd chosen to travel home by train, and not just because my nerves and heart could not have managed another session of Reg-driving. My father, born in the heyday of steam, had instilled in me a love of those engines, as he'd instilled in me a love for a lot of things. As a child, we'd often spent afternoons stood on the platform of the local train station, waving and cheering and watching with awe and wonder these great titans thundering by, steaming and hissing and whistling. I'd often saved up what little money I could, just to ride to the next town over, and back, just so I could lay my head back against the seat and listen to the 'thchunkthchunkthchunk' of the wheels on the track.

As an adult, that love for them had only blossomed, and whilst the awe and wonder had lessened slightly, it had very much not disappeared; I still adored the sound of the train in motion, the smell of the smuts and the steam, the buzz of anticipation before stepping onto the train proper.

I'd decided, almost on a whim, to buy myself a first class ticket; to treat myself, of a sort, in the time when I felt I needed it the most. It had proved a wise decision, and yet an unwise one too- whilst I found the comfort and the luxury of the carriage much more to my suiting, I knew that I would both be unable to afford to do it as often as I'd liked, and forever find myself comparing and contrasting my usual seat to the one I found myself in.

My good fortune- if fortune it could be called- continued when my seatmate arrived, in the form of a young woman carrying what could only be described as a bag fit to carry a house in. I had eyed her warily as she walked along, and when she slowed and then stopped by where I was sitting, I felt my heart both wrench and soar; I wanted nothing more than to be alone with my thoughts, but if I was to suffer company, better it was the company of a lovely young lady than a bullish young man, or a crotchety elder.

Her smile, when she slowed to a halt, was polite and tight; the sort of smile an unaccompanied young lady ought to give a complete stranger of a man, and mine was equally as polite, even as I shuffled across the seat to sit next to the window, sacrificing a little legroom for a marginally better view, and the presence of her next to me. We barely touched, in the way people often do when forced next to sit next to each other, and yet I was incredibly aware of her there, of the sensation of her body- her hip, especially- just barely any distance from mine.

We sat in silence, she and I, as the train began its preparations; though the silence was broken as the carriage lurched, and in what I supposed was her shock, she let go of her purse; I reached for it as she did, more out of reflex than any conscious decision- and was vastly, infinitely, acutely aware of the touch of her hand against mine. I tensed, and rather than draw my hand back, I found myself smiling at her- a warmer smile than the previous one- and spoke, in a voice hoarse and rough with the emotion I'd been holding in.

"Pardon me", I cleared my throat, though it cleared nothing of the thickness of the emotion from my voice, "I believe that's my hand, miss".

So this'll be vanilla, heavily romance-based, that sort of thing. I'm thinking set in the first half of the twentieth century; maybe the forties, maybe the early 1900s.

I don't really have any strict ideas for plot or anything, so I'm fully open to ideas, pretty much.