30 Days of OTP: Day Four, OTP That Started Your Fannish Journey
Father Antonio Torres & Gabi Martinez, Sunset Beach
Antonio is the one with his arm around her, but Ricardo, the other guy, is Antonio's brother (yeah, I guess it's always been a thing with me, brothers, and the girls they love), who Gabi dated and then married even after she had an affair with Antonio. WHO WAS A CATHOLIC PRIEST.
Okay, let me start from the beginning, which is to say I've had a Catholic Priest fetish longer than I've had a brother fetish, and I blame that on The Thorn Birds even though I eventually grew up and realized Ralph was a selfish bastard who never really loved Meggie at all, but I digress.
Sunset Beach was a soap opera that only aired from 1997 to 1999 in the U.S. I came into it in early 1999, just as it was a sinking ship, but just as the Antonio/Gabi storyline was pretty hot. They had been best friends, as of course, young, good looking Priests should always befriend their brother's traumatized, emotionally unstable girlfriends. There was something beautifully dysfunctional about all of it, so naturally I was very interested. Plus, Antonio was hot, and VERBOTEN.
When the show ended, it was not on a good or satisfying note as they had to, in my mind, quickly wrap up something that they had spent so much time developing, and it felt very much like they chocked Antonio and Gabi's love up to lust, a moment of weakness, etc, and they made Gabi give up both brothers as penance, which in retrospect was probably the right thing, but as I mentioned, not very satisfying. These events were what drove me to find things on the Internet that would console me in the wake of losing my favorite show, having my ship never really sail, and in general feeling bereft because my (fictional) friends had abandoned me. So that was how I found fandom, my people, and it's what first drove me to write fanfiction. I gave Gabi and Antonio several alternative endings, all of which included a lot of sex, love, and Antonio leaving the Church, obvs.
You can now see their lovemaking on YouTube, which is delightful. The best part of this is that their love scene became a plot device when there was a secret recording device that taped their interlude. The Tape of Us Making Love (TTOUML) became something they ran around trying to keep Ricardo from seeing for months. Of course, eventually he saw it, and had a stroke. LITERALLY. Man, I loved that show. It was riDONKulous.
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