Femslash '05 Ficathon

A happy announcement!

mosca — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 00:12:21 GMT

femslash06 is live! callmesandy and I have volunteered to co-moderate the challenge.

You can read the instructions and sign up here.

Feel free to pimp far and wide!

a sad announcement

sophia_helix — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 20:03:33 GMT

I hate to do this, but there is no way I can run a Femslash Ficathon this year. Moderating it the last two years was already a big job, and being in law school now it will be flat-out impossible to find the time (not to mention the fact that I can't threaten my already-rotten studying habits with extra commitments). So I'm offering it up to anyone who wants to step in, or else I think I'll be retiring the ficathon.

I haven't actually registered femslash06 as a community, so that if someone wants to they can be the owner. I also consulted with musesfool, since last year some of the dates for my ficathon and her Remix/Redux ficathon overlapped and distressed people, and I've got her schedule to work around if a new mod wants. I'm available for consulting, advice, and hand-holding, and it might be a job for two people to take on. It also might be time to find someone who can write an auto-matching script, since I hand-matched 60 people the last two years in what was probably an inefficient fashion.

Anyhow, I understand if no one wants to step up, and it's been a pleasure just to see the outpouring of interest and support for the past two years. Thanks so much to all the participants, and I'm hopeful the ficathon can go on. :)

Sapphic Scribes: New writing community

dragonwine — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:00:46 GMT

[Note to mod(s): If this post is by any means inappropriate please let me know, I'll be more than happy to remove it. Thanks!]

Out of boredom and bad writer's block I started a lesbian-themed writing community. I would like to incorporate more fanfiction/femslash pieces as well. If this is up your alley..please check us out.

Keep cool and have a safe weekend!

Take a dip into the edgier waters of lesbian themed writing! Sapphic Scribes is a member-only writing community for those of you who pen an eccentric view of female life and relationships. Explore and share your
personally-written fanfic, erotica, poems, etc and get feedback from your fellow scribes. Not a composer of words, but a lover of fiction? We welcome you to take a step inside to peruse the collective
works in our global nexus. Sapphic Scribes is a virgin community that strives to be a safe haven for lesbian scribes of the Livejournal community. Please read the guidelines on our userinfo page (here) before joining, as always we appreciate your support and interest!

∇

fic; Girl Least Likely (Faith/Dawn)

sophia_helix — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 05:24:10 GMT

I'm still working on getting back-up stories written -- I have a couple of friends helping out, but I'll be writing a few stories as well. What I *won't* be doing is getting back-ups written if the recipient didn't turn in a story themselves.

This story is for callmesandy. Hope you enjoy! :)

Title: Girl Least Likely
Author: Sophia Jirafe
Rating: R
Fandom/pairing: post-series BtVS, Faith/Dawn

*************

Dawn had three classes on the day Faith came to visit her, and Faith followed her to each one. Every time the doors opened and the students streamed out, carrying thick books and ragged messenger bags, lighting up cigarettes, Faith meant to get up and find Dawn in the crowd. Instead she stayed put, leaning up against the wall or sprawled out on a concrete bench, and watched the girl with an outsider's eye.

She still looked like a model, tall and skinny as hell, with narrow hips and perfect hair, but that prissy high schooler's posture was gone, along with the prissy high schooler's wardobe. Instead, she slouched along with a sway in those narrow hips that raised Faith's inner eyebrow, and her barely-there mesh top and tiny pleated skirt, combined with red fishnet stockings and punky Mary Janes, raised more than that.

The kid had grown up in the big city.

Well, she wasn't Dawn's mother, and god knew she'd dressed like more of a slut when she was two-thirds Dawn's age, and the kid was legal now anyhow. But the eyebrow stayed raised.

Faith knew better than to bug Dawn in front of her friends, so she hung around campus all day, picking up crappy knicknacks in the bookstore and checking out the local testosterone scene. Didn't seem like much to her -- bunch of pretentious emo guys copping the Lou Reed look and carrying around Kerouac and Yeats. One dude in a motorcycle jacket and skinny tie was even smoking a pipe on the lawn outside the art building, and Faith didn't bother to hide her laugh. College kids.

The chick scene, on the other hand, wasn't so bad. Not like all those blonde skinny twats back in LA, or the snotty cornfed bitches in Cleveland; these girls had style. Looked smart too, and not just book smart. She bet more than one knew how to handle herself on the street, or in the sack.

When it got dark she ambled over to the dorms, finishing up a bag of Doritos. She caught sight of Dawn again, walking out of the dining hall with a couple of girls and now sporting a red leather trench, her smooth hair ratted up to match her dark eye makeup. Faith guessed what kind of an evening they had in mind, and followed them to the subway station.

The three girls sparked up in the alley outside the club, which was not much of a surprise. The skunky smell floated down to Faith, lounging behind a green dumpster, and she inhaled deeply, hoping for some kind of extended contact high. Five years of being clean felt like nothing when cute girls were having fun with substances and she was the old-maid chaperone. Even if they didn't, strictly speaking, know she was there.

She waited a second to follow them into the building, letting the heaving crowd swallow them, then headed for the entrance. The butch bouncer carded her, which secretly cracked her up, especially given that her ratty paper New Jersey license read "Faith Summers," and she was good to go.

It took her longer, really, than it should have to figure out what kind of club Dawn and her friends had picked. Not too surprising, or even too unwelcome, but still. Always weird to find out your best friend's kid sister swung more than one way.

Being in a dyke club effectively killed all her chances of casually encountering Dawn, though, and she began to fight her way back to the exit. An amoebic thrust of the crowd threw her into the bar on the way, and she figured, what the hell. Have a coke. Pretend you don't miss the whiskey.

She bellowed her order, then forked over too many dollar bills for her watery soda and leaned back against the bar, scanning the crowd. Lot of hot chicks here, no doubt. That redhead in the corner, working the cowboy hat and the tight Wranglers, or the dark-eyed girl in full motorcyle leathers, looking like a sweet piece of trouble. Definitely her kind of joint. She'd have to remember this one next time she was in New York.

Dawn swayed into view eventually, wrapped around one of the girls she'd come in with, a green-haired goth girl with a boyish figure that matched Dawn's own. They broke apart as the song changed, seguing from heavy techno to trippy Indian music, complete with high female wailing and sitar, and Dawn drifted to a small clearing on the floor.

Maybe it was the whiff of weed, maybe the bartender have given what she charged for and left the whiskey in after all, but Dawn looked pretty fucking hot dancing by herself. She had none of the frantic slayer energy that drove her sister and Faith, but a kind of sultry, throbbing rhythm of her own that made her fascinating to watch. Her eyes closed, arms above her tipped-back head, a sudden sway of her hips flipped her skirt to reveal black garters attached to the fishnets and Faith caught her breath. Everything seemed suddenly drowned out, even the music, which was annoying as fuck.

Faith finished her drink.

Others noticed the Ishtar in their midst, and a dark girl in a short red velvet dress that hugged every delicious curve moved into Dawn's space. Faith watched Dawn's eyes open, and the two women melded into the kind of dance floor clinch that makes everyone else get out of the way. Faith had been in more than one of those clinches.

She set the empty glass back on the bar and pushed herself off it. She'd look the kid up tomorrow, sometime well after noon, and pretend she'd just hit town. Best for everyone that way.

The crowd had a mind of its own and other ideas. Another violent heave tossed her into Dawn's clearing just as the velvet chick slithered into someone else's arms, and Faith caught Dawn's eyes.

Sleepy and reddened as those eyes were, she wasn't sure if she saw recognition or something else in Dawn's face. True, it had been a couple of years, and Faith's hair was chopped short and copper-streaked, but it wasn't like she'd had plastic surgery. The kid was very, very stoned.

The kid also kept dancing, that little skirt swishing and her breasts bobbing, nipples poking through the fine mesh of her shirt. She looked like exactly the kind of girl Faith took home when she was in a certain kind of mood, though that mood usually involved some pent-up aggression and a lot of beer.

Faith was starting to get in the mood.

Maybe Dawn was too. Dawn was ... dancing closer, still swaying, arms descending from above to rest on Faith's shoulders, slide down her arms, grasp her hands, and why was she still standing there like a fucking moron? Dance with the hot girl, or be an adult and get the fuck out of there, but now was not the time for her best impression of a statue.

Faith danced.

It was hard at first to get their rhythms matched, her with the energy and Dawn with that languid, sexy sway, but she found herself making a kind of revolution on the dance floor, with Dawn as her axis. The circles made her dizzy, though, as did watching Dawn's tripped-out face as she leaned back to toss her hair, and when Dawn grabbed her hips, she grabbed back.

It took about six seconds to get to the kissing from there, and then the tongue, and then the kind of groping that should really be happening in a bathroom stall. She broke away long enough to spot the men's room and dragged Dawn in that direction, figuring it had to be the least-used room in the joint.

She busted through the swinging door, dragging a tottering Dawn behind her by one hand, and discovered she was not the only one with the brilliant plan. Fuck it. She kicked open the door to the large disabled stall, ejected the two kids shooting up, and pushed Dawn back against the tiled wall.

This was better. This was fantastic. This was so fucking great that she had to stop kissing Dawn, lift her shirt, and get at those perky tits. And, having done that, she had to slide lower, kneeling on the nasty-ass floor, to push up that goddamn little skirt and discover that Dawn didn't wear underwear to lesbian clubs.

Faith spread Dawn's legs and started licking her all over, looking for the spot that was going to make her squeak like a kitten. Instead, she got a long, throaty moan that encouraged her to use her hands. Jesus Christ, this was fucking weird, and maybe even kind of wrong, but as she brought Dawn off with her tongue and thrusting fingers, it kinda didn't feel so bad.

When she stood up, the girl looked so spaced and fucked-up that the guilt set in immediately, a solid punch to the chest she hadn't expected for at least another hour. Learning to listen to the little voice in her head was a goddamn pain in the ass sometimes.

She took Dawn back to the dorms, letting her sleep on her shoulder as they rode the train, supporting her along the sidewalks, and finally carrying her like a sack of potatoes up three flights of stairs, then fishing the key card out of Dawn's bra to get the door open. Dawn's room was a senior's single, and Faith briefly considered the welcome thought of crashing on the floor, but decided that getting herself out of this mess was more important than saving money on a fleabag motel. With any kind of luck, the kid would wake up and think it was all a fantasy brought on by PCP-laced weed. Which, really, the whole thing kind of felt like.

She dropped Dawn on the narrow, squeaky twin bed, then massaged her shoulder for a minute before pulling the girl's clunky shoes off and draping an afghan over her. It looked like something Buffy might have made, back when she was in that whole crafty period immediately post-Sunnydale. Ugly-ass bright colors, crappy, lazy stitches, yup. That was her girl.

The other girl, this strange Dawn who was about thirteen steps removed from the kid she'd known, stirred on the bed. Faith backed up, hoping to get out fast, but she tripped over some kind of art project made of wire, and Dawn raised her head, squinting.

"Faith?" she rasped.

"Yeah," Faith said. "Uh, no. Go back to sleep, Dawnie."

"Faith," Dawn repeated. "Buffy said you were coming today."

Shit. "Yeah, but I'm not. I'm coming tomorrow. Get some sleep."

"No. You're here," Dawn insisted. "You *were* here."

"Huh-uh, kid," Faith lied, feeling desperate. "Someone else who looked like me."

Dawn dropped her head back, and shook it against the pillow.

"Faith, I'm wasted, not stupid," she sighed. "And you kiss good. And you eat out like a pro."

Faith did her statue impression again, feeling like she was carved from ice.

"Not gonna tell Buffy," Dawn mumbled, turning onto her side and curling up. "You prob'ly shouldn't tell her either. She'll get jealous."

"Dawn -- " Faith started.

"Nah," Dawn said into the pillow. "We're cool. We're all cool. We all live in a yellow submarine..."

Faith bolted.

"Somehow, The Devil Got Behind Her" - (Alias, for ijemanja)

honeymink — Sat, 26 Mar 2005 03:28:46 GMT

Title: Somehow, The Devil Got Behind Her
Author: Nina
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sydney/Lauren
Disclaimer: J.J. Abrams etc. own Alias, Wolfgang Petersen etc. own The Agency, I own a cat.
Timeline: Resolves around 3x22. Spoilers up to 4x09.
Summary: Looking away doesn’t change anything. And just by looking at something, one doesn’t necessarily face the truth.
A/N: Written for ijemanja for femslash05. I'm truly sorry about the delay. Thanks a lot to Amy fox1013 and Simon gonzo21 who had a look at it and corrected my worst mistakes. Thanks to sophia_helix for all her patience and of course for organising the ficathon.

***

~ Moscow, Russia. State Medical Facility ~

As if looking the other way would change anything.

All that remains is dead. Flesh, skin, hair. Sydney can’t think. Her throat hurts. The world, like her tears, is empty now. The world is less than nothing at all. So she looks down at her mother in a blank stare. But she can’t touch.

Usually she is waiting for disaster to strike. Ready to flee at the first sound, at approaching steps. But not here, not now. A mistake, she realises, when she feels her hair being stroked back, softly and carefully, by Lauren’s pale hand.

“You did this?” Sydney asks. Her voice is flat.

“Flattering,” Lauren doesn’t smile. “Considering who we’re talking about. But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you.”

“Then why are you here?”

Her tone is more agitated now, which seems to amuse Lauren.

“We have a deal to make. I know --” Lauren cuts her off the moment she opens her mouth. “You don’t negotiate with terrorists. However, if it was my mother, I’d at least think about it.”

Sydney can still feel Lauren’s hand in her hair and she knows her whisper is blackmail. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that there is some truth in her words. Slowly she takes her eyes off her mother and turns to Lauren. But she can’t bring herself to ask.

So Lauren offers, “Intel on your mother’s death in exchange for the Rambaldi equation.”

Watching Sydney carefully, Lauren can see Sydney’s jaw muscles working as she looks down on her mother’s corpse again.

“No deal,” Sydney finally says.

And Lauren exhales in disappointment. Until, to her surprise, Sydney continues.

“My working with you will be subject to conditions: My sister cannot be harmed. I won’t be involved in the actual capturing of the equation. And I want Sark back in CIA custody.”

“I accept your terms,” Lauren smiles.

Sydney can’t smile back; she’s still trying to convince herself she did the right thing. For a moment she almost believes it. But when they finalise the deal, her hand is not at home in Lauren’s.

***

~ McLean, Virginia. Outside CIA Headquarters ~

“You’re sure that’s our best option?” Sydney asks.

Despite the fact the sun has almost set, the asphalt is still hot under her feet. The sweetish smell of the shrubs surrounding the parking lot becomes unbearable. With time moving so slowly, smoking doesn’t seem such a bad habit to pick up anymore. Leaning against the car, she figures, Lauren must be thinking the same thing.

“I suspect you don’t want us to kidnap Marshall. So I guess it is,” Lauren answers, staring at the exit. “There she comes. Is everything ready?”

“I told the car-park attendant we’re ‘abducting’ her for a surprise birthday party.”

Lauren smirks, “Aren’t you imaginative telling fibs, Sydney.”

“You would be surprised,” Sydney says.

From the look on her face, Sydney can tell that Lauren isn’t sure her tone was playful or sarcastic. It would have amused her if she didn’t have to admit it might have been something in between. But there isn’t much time to think about that now.

“Terri Lowell?” she asks as they walk up to the woman they’re here for.

“Yes?”

“Come with us.”

***

~ McLean, Virginia. Motel ~

The room seems to be stuck in the 70s. White furniture. Brown and orange wallpaper. Even the dust whirling up from carpet and upholstery seems to be from decades ago. No air conditioning, the smell of mothballs and Sydney thinks she is suffocating.

“My name is Lauren Reed and this is Sydney Bristow.”

Lauren gets up from the bed while Sydney stays put for one more moment, touching her throat in an unconscious gesture. Telling the woman their names made her death inevitable.

“I would so like to hurt you right now,” Sydney whispers in Lauren’s ear as she got up.

“As long as you smile,” Lauren whispers back, concentrating on the task at hand. “So, Ms. Lowell,” she continues in a normal tone, “we have a job that requires – your help.”

“And to what do I owe this dubious pleasure?” Terri asks, looking as if she is forcing herself to meet Lauren’s eyes, forcing herself not to show fear.

“From your CIA file we understand you’re a capable artist.”

“You forgot to mention I’m a field agent with OTS training, too.” Terri’s tone is more irritated now.

Sydney breathes in sharply, “You don’t have back-up. You shouldn’t try anything stupid.”

“What do you want?” Terri asks, seemingly not sure whether to take or ignore the advice.

“We want you to help us break in the CIA Headquarters in L.A.,” Lauren explains calmly. She walks around the chair and kneels, and whispers. “We want you to get me in and out unseen. We hear you’re the woman for the job.”

“I'm sorry, but the Art Department is fresh out of invisibility paint.”

“That was a moderately clever retort.” Sydney bites back a smirk at Terri’s response.

“You shouldn’t make this – painful,” Lauren frowns. “Especially since it will be more painful for you than for us. Think about it.”

There’s a moment of silence which drags on. Unnecessarily, Lauren thinks. Roughly she grabs a handful of Terri’s hair and pulls it back. “Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?”

“What did you have in mind?” Terri finally replies, gasping for air and closing her eyes in the grip of pain.

“A mask, fingerprints, something to get past the DNA scanner, minor explosive devices in case anything goes wrong. Can you do this?”

“I’ll need access to the lab.”

“Very well,” Lauren finally loosens her grip, “Ms. Bristow will accompany you.”

Terri’s cheek are burning and her voice is accusatory and curious at once as she addresses Sydney, “So you’re a mole within the CIA.”

It’s the truth. Yet it’s hard to listen to it. With guilt and horror Sydney recognises that, in the end, this one true accusation will make it so much easier for her to eliminate Terri Lowell.

She looks away.

***

~ L.A., California. Hospital ~

“You were right. Lauren has to pay.”

Sydney is angry now. The interrogation had to be expected. But Marshall wasn’t supposed to get shot, Vaughn wasn’t supposed to get stabbed.

(And she shouldn’t have made a deal with Lauren.)

As she asks her father to help her find Lauren, he refuses, telling her it wasn’t her call to finish.

But Sydney insists, “Lauren betrayed all of us.”

It’s easy to blame Lauren. And betrayal had been a possibility right from the start. Yet she had made that deal.

(She should blame herself.)

That doesn’t save her from feeling outraged, angry, disappointed. At her own stupid actions and at Lauren as well. But her father denies her that feeling.

“Not in the same way. She was his wife,” he says.

His words taste sour. It’s like back in the days of her mother’s disappearance when he had claimed to be the only one having the right to feel abandoned and betrayed. For almost all her life she had been sure, her father was right telling her Irina Derevko had to pay, to die for all the things she did.

But now Sydney isn’t so sure anymore.

Her mother is dead. Killed. If she tells her father, he will surely tell her she reaped what she had sown. And yet it doesn’t feel right.

It doesn’t feel right, that not being able to talk to her father openly about her mother got her involved in Lauren’s schemes.

And it doesn’t feel right that her father tells her what to feel.

“I don't care about any of that now,” she exclaims. “I want her to die, and that's going to happen whether you help me or not.”

***

~ Outside Palermo, Italy. ~

Afterward, she will think a lot about what she has been doing.

The air is thick with fear and expectation and the frenzied energy that boils at a fight for life and death. And principles. A moment ago she was still tangled in Lauren’s embrace. Got down with her in a dirty struggle for control, for superiority, for dominance.

She can still taste Lauren’s sweat and blood on her lips and tongue but now Vaughn is here, coming to a rescue she doesn’t need or want, and somehow the image got ruined.

“Vaughn! What are you doing? How did you get here?” she asks, her breath heavy from running up to him.

“I came for you,” he says through clenched teeth.

He doesn’t look particularly sane or stable and for a second there, Sydney isn’t sure who he is talking to. However, his gun is still pointed at Lauren. And when he pulls the trigger, Sydney decides it’s impossible he has heard of her betrayal.

So she pulls Vaughn into a kiss, desperate to distract him. Because no matter how mad she is, at herself or at Lauren, she came here to get paid.

As their tongues meet, Sydney feels he is hearing the conflicted call of the kill he came for and the kiss she offers. From the corner of her eye she can see how Lauren starts to get up. He must have recognised that too because he pulls away though she tries to hold on to the distraction as long as possible.

“One – zero – six - two...”

Lauren offers her part of the bargain when Vaughn shoots her a fifth time. And Sydney sees her falling. But her face can’t show anything now as Vaughn turns to her.

“What was that?” he asks.

He sounds as wary as Sydney now tries to appear clueless.

“I don’t know. It doesn't matter,” she feeds Vaughn the worst lie and looks at him.

***

~ Outside Wittenberg, Germany. ~

“I thought you fell in a hole, never to appear again.”

It’s another country, another parking space, another sunset.

“Oh, you didn’t wish for that, Sydney, did you?”

Lauren smiles a brilliant smile and moves closer to Sydney across the smooth surface of the car bonnet. They sit in silence, staring down the precipice of the deserted quarry. The wind moves quietly among the trees. It should be easy to breathe.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Sydney finally asks.

For a moment it doesn’t seem like there will be a response.

“Did you?” Lauren says.

But Sydney can’t answer that. The sweaty backs of her naked thighs are stuck to the heated bonnet. Lauren’s hand is on her knee and Sydney can’t seem to be able to move.

“How does Katya Derevko tie into this?”

It’s another futile attempt at discovering a truth nobody wants to share with her. Not even Lauren, who is now toying with Sydney’s hair again.

“It was nice working with you, Sydney. We should do it again.”

There’s a little smirk forming around the corners of her mouth but Sydney doesn’t see much of it as Lauren leans in to kiss her. She should probably push her off. Maybe continue the bitch slapping they did earlier. But so many things have gone wrong already and she is so damn tired that it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

And the kiss? Is sweet and soothing.

***

It’s already dark when she finds herself alone in the car, startled by the ringing of her cell phone.

“Sydney? Where are you?”

She’s relieved it’s Weiss’ voice she hears. “Germany,” she answers slowly.

He sucks in his breath, “Your sister got away from the safehouse.”

“Lauren –” Sydney stammers, still afraid that she got tricked somehow.

“Your father brought her in yesterday. Well, her body… three bullet holes in the chest. They put her on ice.”

“My father?” she asks, her voice thick with disbelief.

“Yeah. He followed you to Italy. I thought you knew that,” he says, looking more uncomfortable by the minute.

“And Lauren… Did you see her?”

“Yeah. Sydney, what is this? You sound… is there anything wrong?”

“I’ll… I have to go now,” she lies, then presses the button on her cell for a moment longer than necessary.

She looks into the rear view but Lauren is long gone. She isn’t dead though. However, her father has brought in a body. Her father, who has killed her mother, whom she has seen lying there, dead, in a morgue in Moscow.

So she catches herself staring blankly at the mirror. Afraid of what she might see, she can’t seem to actually look at her reflection. But looking the other way doesn’t change anything either.

Sydney closes her eyes.

~Fin~

For ctorres, Buffy/Willow

maidenjedi — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 02:40:39 GMT

TITLE: Think Alike
AUTHOR: Maidenjedi
RATING: R
ARCHIVE: List archives, otherwise please ask.
SPOILERS: general season six
KEYWORDS: Buffy/Willow
DISCLAIMER: All hail Joss and Mutant Enemy.
SUMMARY: Buffy and Willow are thinking the same things.

For ctorres, in the Femslash '05 Ficathon. I know it's really late, and I'm very sorry! I hope it's worth the wait. :-)

*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*

Buffy stood looking in a mirror and wondered silently if
it was too late to beg out of her bridesmaid duties.

Willow was in another room, thinking the same thing.

It wasn't unusual these days for Buffy and Willow to think
the same things. But there were always different reasons.

Buffy objected to the color of the dress; it didn't go with
her eyes. She didn't like the cut, either. Somewhere in
the back of her mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like
her mother reminded her that bridesmaids aren't supposed to
out-beautiful the bride.

Willow didn't mind the color - it looked nice with her hair,
and Tara would notice that - but she would have preferred not
to stand up at this particular wedding. She would never say
so out loud, but she still didn't particularly like Anya, and
she definitely didn't like Anya with Xander.

Buffy ran a powder brush over her nose one more time (what a
day to be shiny, she thought), and Willow took a deep breath
to resist the urge to do her hair with magic. When they later
bumped into each other, the first thought they both had was
about how gorgeous the other one looked.

Willow didn't dismiss the thought. She knew she was attracted
to Buffy, even if she never let the thoughts trickle down into
fantasies.

Buffy was startled by it. Really? Willow? Gorgeous? She
was willing to go with cute, maybe even pretty, but gorgeous?
Not even at prom....

Willow moved on down the hall, and Buffy stood there a moment.

Willow was gorgeous.

Huh.

======

That night, once Dawn was finally tired enough to fall asleep and
Xander had been petted and comforted enough, and every avenue to
find Anya had been exhausted, Buffy and Willow found themselves
alone in the living room. They were still wearing their dresses,
and Willow had pulled her hair up. Buffy had kicked off her shoes.

They had discussed the whole situation until it was useless to say
anymore. Xander had probably done the right thing, but it was still
bad to leave your bride at the altar. Anya was definitely mad enough
to do anything, and neither Willow nor Buffy really trusted her right
now. She could be out there, doing anything.

"Do you think she'll go to D'Hoffryn?" Willow whispered it, even though
there was no one to overhear. She felt a little like her grandmother,
whispering the horrible things so that they don't come true.

Buffy shook her head, but then stopped and stared at her hands. "Who
knows? What would you do if it were you, Will?"

Willow knew. "Vengeance. I would want to get back at him." She thought
of the impotent anger she had occasionally felt at Tara, at Oz, even at
Xander. She didn't say anything else, but the way her palms began to
sweat she knew that she had done exactly that, she had wreaked vengeance
on Tara with that spell. It was her way, it had been her way.

Buffy still stared at her hands. Willow thought she was thinking of Angel,
how he left, how he'd hurt her.

Buffy was really thinking of Faith, and of Giles, but wasn't going to look
Willow in the eye until she stopped. She never told any of them about Faith.

So they sat in silence.

======

It was late, almost morning. Buffy felt stiff and horny. She always did on
nights she didn't patrol, especially since....well, she just did.

She shifted on the couch and realized with a start that she'd put her feet
in Willow's lap at some point. Willow was asleep, her head tipped back
against the back of the couch. Her mouth was open just a little, and it was
this that caught Buffy's attention.

She had often wondered what kissing another girl would be like, after Faith.
Faith had kissed like it was the last thing she was ever going to do. But
Buffy pushed thoughts of Faith as far from her mind as she could, as she
always did. That was just a thing, it was just high school. It was just the
one time.

And the two times after that, and maybe that time in the gym.

Buffy closed her eyes. She focused on other things.

But she didn't move her feet.

Willow stirred, some dream jolting her back into consciousness. Her hands found
Buffy's feet.

Buffy's eyes flew open, and she frowned.

"Will?"

Willow yawned and turned her head slightly to look at Buffy. She smiled.

And she tickled the soles of Buffy's feet.

======

Willow hadn't had sex since Tara. She'd hardly touched herself since Tara.

But she had been dreaming about it, just now. Sex.

With Buffy.

Buffy was a surprisingly unticklish person. Willow had rarely been the kind of
best friend that horseplayed, except of course with Xander. But she knew Buffy
wasn't going to shriek and pull her feet away because she couldn't stand the
tickling.

Buffy didn't pull her feet away at all.

"Willow..."

She said it low, and kind of pleadingly. Willow was surprised. She didn't think
Buffy would....

But Buffy did. She leaned over and kissed Willow.

No shy kiss either. Willow knew Buffy wasn't a shy kisser. She'd seen her kiss
Angel, and Riley.

Huh. Buffy kissage.

======

Willow was a better kisser than Faith. Buffy noticed that right away.

She was slower, more thorough, and she seemed to know that too much tongue is a bad
thing.

Buffy pulled away and shifted so that she was sitting next to Willow. Willow was a
little breathless, and still had her head turned toward Buffy. Her breaths hit
Buffy's ear in soft pats.

Buffy reached down and took Willow's hand.

"This doesn't change anything."

Willow shook her head.

"We can't...I mean, I can't...."

Willow nodded.

"There's...it's complicated. I still like boys, you know."

"I know."

Buffy, her Spidersense alerted, turned her head sharply to look Willow in the eye.
Did she know about Spike? Did she suspect?

But the look in Willow's eyes was acceptance and love. Not condemnation.

"It's okay, Buffy. It was a kiss. It wasn't a commitment. And, you know, it's
complicated for me, too. I still like Tara. I still love her."

Buffy smiled. "Yeah."

They sat there not talking for maybe five minutes before Willow put her hand on Buffy's
leg. High up on Buffy's leg.

Buffy knew this feeling very well.

"Touch me, Will?"

Willow did.

======

A few days later, Willow was in the kitchen, and Buffy was upstairs in her bedroom,
getting ready to go out and patrol.

Buffy was thinking about the other night, on the couch with Willow.

Willow was thinking about the other night, on the couch with Buffy.

It wasn't unusual these days for Buffy and Willow to think the same things.
But there were always different reasons.

Willow was glad to know that she was, in fact, gay. She thought about the way
Buffy's legs parted and the way she kissed and the way she tasted.

She looked over at Xander, woebegone and nibbling absentmindedly on Doritos.

Yup, she was definitely gay.

Buffy, zipping up her coat, was glad to know Spike wasn't the only person capable
of making her...feel. And she felt on that couch. She felt lots.

She still liked boys, she knew that. But maybe she could like girls, too. That
was good to know.

And Willow was good. She was better than Faith. She was better, if Buffy were
honest, than Riley. That girl could kiss.

She walked out the back door, smiling at Willow as she left, squeezing Xander's
shoulder as she passed him.

Willow was gorgeous.

And Buffy knew it.

=====

FF: The Letter (Harry Potter)

morte351 — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:06:49 GMT

Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: The Letter
For: celeria

Rating: A for high angst

This is a very belated gift for celeria a writer whose work I have always enjoyed and admired. It's not really worthy but it's all I could write. So as per request Harry Potter, couple unspecified, any rating.

The Letter

The therapist said I should try and write it all out. Write what I want to say and there is so much. And not just ‘I’m sorry’. And not just ‘I love you’ because I know you know that.

I want to say thank you. Thank you for loving me as well and as long as you did and for supporting me, not just financially, but in other ways too. I couldn’t always hear the message, that I deserved more than I was allowing myself, but you always gave it too me. And while it would have been better if I had been able to hear it and believe it when we were really together, I couldn’t. It’s hard to overcome the past when you can barely acknowledge it yourself.

Thank you for making me laugh and smile.

Thank you for the lovely home you made.

Thank you for holding me and soothing me.

Thank you for your compassion.

Thank you for listening to me.

Thank you for your patience. I wish I could have rewarded it sooner and better.

Thank you for being my family. I believe that we pick our families, the people we want to define that way, I picked you. I still pick you. I still think of you that way. I hope that one day you may think of me that way as well. Or whatever your equivalent may be.

Thank you for being my friend.

All these things I want to say. I know I wasn’t easy. I ‘m sorry. I’m sorry. I know I hurt you. But I also know that I loved you. Love you.

In all honesty I can’t say that I’ve been ‘in love’ with you for a long time but what I was filled with was love for you. That feeling of deep affection and caring, of wanting to consider you in my day to day, of imagining a future with you. At the end of everyday no matter how mad I might have been with you, I knew I loved you. And that made it worthwhile.

I want you to be happy. To find that special person, that guy, that’s going to give you everything. Everything you’ve always wanted, all the good things you deserve.

Don’t settle, ever.

Like you did with me.

Thank you my friend.

I love you.

Ginny

Memorial Inscriptions (HP/BtVS)

vaznetti — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:13:44 GMT

Title: Memorial Inscriptions
Author: Vanzetti
Rating: PG
Pairing: Dawn Summers/Hermione Granger
Fandoms: Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Disclaimer: Both HP and BtVS are the property of their respective creators and copyright-holders; no infringement of their copyright is intended here.
Summary: Numerology, demonology, ice cream and bad drama.

For Claire (paranoidkitten, for femslash05 I very much hope you like crossovers, or at least aren't dreadfully opposed to them, and I'm sorry that this is rather late.
Thanks to malograntum and angryhamster for beta. All mistakes left are my own.

1.

The girl's leg was swinging, back and forth, back and forth, within an inch of kicking Hermione's ankle. It was distracting her from the calculations she was trying to copy. She would have been seriously considering putting her books and boxes back on the cart and moving to a different table had she not been in the best seat in the Beinecke Library reading room. It was hers, as well, had been since she'd arrived in January to study the Yale holdings of Babylonian magical tablets, and she wasn't going to move just because some skinny teenager couldn't keep all her body parts under control while she read... while she read a fifteenth century study of Etruscan demonology. Hm.

An interest in demonology was no excuse for poor behavior in the library, Hermione decided. "Do you mind?" she whispered. The girl tapped the end of her pencil against her lip, turned the page, and made another note. "Excuse me," Hermione said, a little louder this time. The little man with a big bushy beard scowled at her across the table. Hermione scowled back. "Excuse me," she whispered again. "If you keep that up, you're going to kick me."

The girl lifted her head. "Hunh?"

At least her leg had stopped moving. "Never mind," Hermione said, and turned her attention back to her tablet.

2.

It was the best seat in the reading room because she was right by the glass wall and the sunken marble courtyard, with the wall at her back; she could see the whole reading room and the reference area beyong the glass wall. Unfortunately, the instincts that led her to select the seat also made her intensely aware that the girl next to her was now sneaking glances at her work. She double-checked a number and realized that she's done the last calculation in base-12 when it should have been base-60. It was a sign, she conceded, and started to stack her dictionaries on the cart with the boxes of tablets.

The girl was doing the same, and made it to the reading room door just in time to hold it open for Hermione. "Do you want to get something to eat?" she asked as they walked to the circulation desk.

"Have we met?" Hermione asked.

The girl kept talking as she filled out a request card to hold the volume she'd been reading. "You're working on Babylonian numerology, aren't you? I'm Dawn, Dawn Summers."

"Don?" Hermione said blankly.

"Dawn," the girl repeated, stretching the vowel. "Dawn. Like, sunrise. Aren't you hungry? We worked through lunch."

3.

Dawn had the kind of long straight hair and long straight legs that Hermione had always longed for, and it seemed the metabolism as well. She'd ordered a cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake, and insisted that Hermione order a milkshake as well, no matter how strange it would seem with her Greek salad. "Clark's makes the best milkshakes in New Haven," she'd confided. "I love this place. Sometimes I stay at the Beinecke through lunch on purpose, just to have the excuse to come here instead."

"Instead of your college?" It was the standard conversation opener here, and Hermione was a little ashamed to have to fall back on it.

"Silliman," Dawn answered the implicit question. "You?"

"I'm in the States doing research. I'm staying at the Divinity School."

"Numerology."

"Yes." And then, with some surprise, she added, "You can read Babylonian?"

Dawn shrugged. "A little. My... uh... a guy I know had Nieberger's edition of the Sin-temple texts from Borsippa, and I learned from them."

Perfect hair, perfect teeth, and a talent for dead languages. Really, it wasn't fair at all.

4.

She kept coming up with reasons not to see any more of Dawn Summers: too young, too talkative, too tall. They hid the real reason: a Muggle with the kind of interests Dawn possessed would only be a danger to Hermione and to herself. She ought to refuse to go for the lunch and coffee breaks Dawn suggested. She ought to find something else to work on. She certainly ought never to find herself smiling at Dawn over ice-cream late at night, up in the bedsit she had in the Divinity School.

Dawn didn't ask many questions, which meant that Hermione didn't have to tell very many lies. And she didn't ask many questions either, even when she noticed the way Dawn didn't flinch one night when they were out a little too late and two men started following them down State Street, the way she didn't tuck her head down and walk a little faster. Hermione's pulse was racing as her fingers fumbled to get her wand from its compartment in her sleeve, and damn the need for explanations; then they turned the corner and the men kept going, and that was that.

Later she thought that she'd been so surprised by her own fear that she forgot to wonder about Dawn's lack of it.

5.

"You didn't like the play," Dawn said.

She'd loathed the play, to tell the truth, but one of Dawn's roommates had written it. "It was... I suppose it was..."

Dawn shoved her hands into the pockets of her spring coat. "There were a lot of speeches."

They were crossing the marble wasteland of Beinecke Plaza, up the stairs and into the Rotunda. "I'm sure Diane will learn to write characters who speak to each other someday." She held the heavy door open for Dawn and paused, as she always did, to run her fingers over the names carved in the marble walls, row after row of them. There should have been one of these at Hogwarts, or perhaps the Ministry. "I thought it was shallow. I thought the soldiers were made to look foolish."

She looked away from the names to find Dawn watching her, head tilted to one side. "Like they were going to die for nothing. Yeah." Dawn took her hand and tucked it around her arm. "Come on," she said. "Let's go back to your place."

Hermione stood where she was. "Do you ever wonder about all these men? What it was like for them?" Dawn didn't say anything. "They were just boys, really."

Dawn kissed her cheek so gently that Hermione barely felt it, just the brush of dry lips and the orange smell of her shampoo. "I wonder about them," she said. "You know, would they be happy? What would they be doing? What would they think of..." When Hermione looked at her, she smiled quickly. "Of whatever. Do you want to get some pizza?"

What would they think of us. Hermione didn't say it aloud: she wasn't ready for that. "If you'd like," she said instead. "I have ice cream in my room, as well."

"Ice cream would be perfect," Dawn answered.

End.

Justice League Unlimited: Vixen & Hawkgirl [for nancybrown]

voleuse — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 07:26:26 GMT

Title: In Glass Vases
Author: voleuse
Fandom: DCU, Animated
Characters: Vixen & Hawkgirl
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Truth accrues in pieces.
Notes: Spoilers for "Starcrossed" and "Wake the Dead"
Written for nancybrown.

LINK: 1,166 words

Kaylee/River for sweetvalleyslut

lafemmedarla — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 21:14:25 GMT

Title: Adios.
Fandom: Firefly.
Pairing Kaylee/River.
Rating PG-13.
Summary Kaylee has trouble letting go.
Written for sweetvalleyslut

River is the only one who speaks to Kaylee now.

Sometimes, the Captain lowers his head and closes his eyes. He says nothing, but Kaylee knows he wants to. She tries to say something nice. To let him know it wasn’t his fault, but he won’t listen to her. Nobody does.

At least he’s not crying, Kaylee says to herself.

Simon cries in his bunk every night. Kaylee cries too, longing to hold him in her arms and tell him she misses him. But she can’t. Not anymore.

The rest of the crew is silent. Jayne barely leaves his bunk anymore. And when he does, he walks by Kaylee’s door, stops and raises a fist, ready to knock. He finally sights and moves on. Sheperd sits alone, eyes closed, possibly praying. Kaylee sits by his side until the silence brings tears to her eyes and she has to stand up and run. And she has nowhere to run.

Kayle would have gone insane if it wasn’t for River. River, who speaks to her in sweet tones and will sometimes craddle Kaylee like a broken doll when memories of that night rush back into their tainted minds. But most of the time, Kaylee pretends she can be herself again, tells River about engines, boys and games and wishes she could go take a look at how her girl’s going. She hopes the new mechanic threats Serenity with love.

When Kaylee feels the pain coming back, River is there, and she knows exactly what to do to help Kaylee.

River’s touch feels like everything and nothing Kaylee’s ever felt before. Sometimes they’ll kiss, River tasting sugar and wood. Maybe Kaylee’s imagination has been on overdrive since that night. Maybe it has something to do with all the experiments they did on River back in that place. Personally, Kaylee likes to think it’s just a part of who River is.

Like the part where River rests her head near Kaylee and says “She’s so scared now”. The crew passes by and nods, too stunned to say anything else, too broken to look at the coffin. They know it’s just part of the process, to admit to themselves that Kaylee is gone forever.

Kayle doesn’t know to to deal with it either. She’d rather wander Serenity and enjoy the confort she gets in River’s arms. When they’re together, death is not real. There are bodies entwined, warm skin and the power to actually feel something in a world Kaylee refuses to leave.

“You can’t sleep anymore,” River says one night as she strokes Kaylee’s hair. Once upon a time, Inara used to brush Kaylee’s hair that way. “You need rest.”

“I know,” Kaylee whispers. She hopes River will forget and say something else. But of course, River never forgets.

“You’ll sleep soon.”

And Kayle tries hard not to cry, because she knows exactly what River means.

*

She should have never taken that step forward. But loyalty won over survival instict when she spoke and moved, allowing the Captain a few valuable seconds to pull out his gun and shoot that guard. Sadly the other man was fast as well, managing one shot before the Captain killed him. Kayle wasn’t exactly sure of what had happened next. She only felt the familiar pain, the warm blood pouring out of her chest. Just like last time, she thought as her knees gave in. Good thing we have Simon. The doctor will fix me. No big deal. He’s...

She was dead before she hit the floor.

*

They bury her on a Saturday. The sun shines over them and everyone has flowers. Even Jayne, who shifts uncomfortably from side to side and complains the sun makes his eyes all watery. They later nearby and have lunch, still reluctant to leave Kaylee alone. Kaylee herself can relate. But as River moves away from the group she knows she must follow her.

“Do you know where I’m goin’?” Kaylee asks, still reluctant to follow her. River nods.

“Is it going to hurt?”

“The only pain you can feel is the one you inflict on yourself,” River replies.

Kaylee sights, glances back at the crew. “I hate feeling like this. And I don’t wanna go.”

“I know.”

“But I have to.”

“You’ll be safe. You are not in danger anymore.”

“That’s nice.”

River looks at her, smiles, her next word making her sound like the Captain. “Yeah.” Then the smile fades a little and she’s River again. “Sometimes, I wish I could go there too. I won’t be broken anymore. And I’ll go, someday. And you’ll be there.”

Kaylee smiles back, and for the first time since she died, she feels good. She misses her friends already, but she knows that won’t change. But she can move on.

“River,” she says. “Walk with me a little more?”

She feels River’s fingers gently entwining with hers. They walk together in silence. As they move forward, Kaylee closes her eyes and remembers many things. Good and bad. And realizes the bad always overweights the good. She opens her eyes and turns to River, wishing to say how much her help has meant during these times. How important was Kaylee to stay, and how much it means for her that River knew how to help. Sweet River, who now gives Kaylee the courage to move on.

“Thank you,” Kaylee finally says. River is smiling again. At first sight she hasn’t heard, but Kaylee knows better.

At some point, River’s hand is holding no one anymore. She stops then, her eyes on the horizon. Somewhere she cannot see, Kaylee is finally home.

“Good bye,” she says. She doesn’t move, almost as if guarding Kaylee’s journey. She barely notices Simon’s voice, his hand on her shoulder. There’s still pain in his voice when he says River’s name. Pain is such a part of their lives now. But she smiles at him and he smiles back, and River knows they’ll make it. All of them.

And that night, as everyone else sleeps and the monsters come to River’s dreams, she’s strong enough to take them. Things will never be the same, in many senses, but they’ll make it work.

I Drove All Night for mage_brandebouc

joanne_c — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:51:19 GMT

Title: I Drove All Night
Author: Joanne Collins
Email: arwen@hotpop.com
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chloe/Lana
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, they belong to the WB and DC Comics and Millar/Gough.
Archive: Please ask.

Summary: Chloe misses Lana, so she does something about it.

Author's Notes: Written for mage_brandebouc for the Femslas05 Ficathon

*************************************
"God, it's so hot," Chloe thought as she sat under the whirring ceiling fan, trying to cool
down. She was feeling....unhappy. And it had nothing to do with the weather. Well, not
exactly, anyway.

She was in her dream job, cub reporter at the Daily Planet. Sure she had to prove herself,
but that would just be a matter of time. It wasn't that that bothered her. Well, not really.
What was currently bothering her was that it seemed that there was more rape, murder
and general crime in Metropolis than there was in Smallville. And she knew, statistically,
that of course there would be. That wasn't the problem. In Smallville, if a crime
happened, usually someone would be upset about it. Friends or family of the person
would be crying or cursing when she went past, trying to find out the facts. It wasn't like
that here in Metropolis, at all. She was lucky if she didn't get cursed at for being in
someone's way when she checked out a crime scene, but it was so rare to see someone
sad over whatever had taken place. Chloe didn't like it. At all.

Sometimes she wondered if maybe she could have stayed in Smallville. Run the local
paper. Made editor before she was out of her twenties, and she suspected that she'd only
make editor at the Planet if Perry White was shot in one of the senseless crimes she was
usually sent out to report on. And she'd stopped hoping for that a few weeks ago. Well,
except for alternate Wednesdays, when Perry seemed to know just the right words to send
her screaming from his office.

Her apartment was in a good area, and she had Lois as a roommate. Not that Lois would
have been her first choice as a roommate, much as she loved her. Gasping in the hot air,
she walked over to pick up her photo album. Flipping through pictures, she came to the
one that had changed everything.

She and Lana had been goofing around for Pete, taking pictures on one of his visits back
to Smallville. Jokingly, Pete had told Lana to kiss her. It had surprised Chloe that she
had, Lana wasn't the type to do something like that on a whim. It had surprised her even
more when she kissed Lana back, deepening the contact.

They'd tried to laugh it off. Fooling around for Pete. Fun. But a week later, Chloe had
been in the Talon, and closing time had come around. She'd turned the sign around for
her and was helping to put sugar bowls away when Lana had turned and looked at her.
The sugar bowls were forgotten when Chloe moved into Lana's arms and they'd kissed
again. Only this time for longer, and they hadn't stopped at kissing. They'd spent the
night in Lana's narrow bed in the apartment above the Talon.

Chloe smiled at the memories and turned the pages. So many pictures of them together.
They'd spent most of her college years together. It was after college that the harder times
had come. The decision for Chloe to move had been hard. There had been a part of her
that wanted to stay in Smallville, run the Talon with Lana and grow old together. It was
unfortunate that her reporter's instinct was more insistent. She'd known that when she
hadn't been able to resist applying for the opening at the Daily Planet.

Lana had taken it surprisingly well. She'd only cried for a few hours, and she'd never
levelled accusations of leaving her at Chloe. She'd grown up, she said later, when Chloe
asked. And, as Chloe had pointed out, she wasn't leaving Lana, just Smallville.

A relationship with them living in different towns wasn't easy. But they coped. There
was a lot of phone conversation. And phone sex, though sometimes Chloe was a little
embarrassed to do that if Lois was in the apartment. Still, it was something they could do.
And email and online chat helped, too.

Their weekends and holidays together were the best part. Even though the parting hurt,
the saying about absence making the heart grow fonder seemed to work for them. Chloe
loved the first kiss, first touch, first everything after a separation. They spent two
weekends a month together, outside of holidays and special occasions like birthdays and
anniversaries, taking it in turn to travel.

"I want to be with Lana. Hold her in my arms and touch her," Chloe thought. Then she
thought some more. It was the weekend. She had no work to do. Lois was away on a
plum assignment, so there was no explanation. She had her car.

Thought turned into action and Chloe locked the apartment up, running down the stairs
instead of taking the elevator.

Once behind the wheel of her car, she turned it in the direction of Smallville. That was
when she realised it was ten pm. Smallville was three hours away.

Chloe smiled. "I'll wake her up. All warm and sleep-rumpled. Then..." her eyes
gleamed.

There wasn't much traffic at this time of night, but Chloe chose not to play music until
she was out of the city. Just a caution, she wasn't so careful during the day, but it was
late.

When she was on the open road, blackness in front of her, the headlights all the light she
had, she flicked the switch on the CD player. To her surprise, an old song came on, and
she smiled. It was Elton John's The One, the first song she and Lana had danced to.
Actually danced, not played, planning to dance but getting lost in each other. She sang
along, remembering how it had felt to dance with Lana, her soft whispers of love in her
ear, then the kisses. Touching with Lana always led to kisses, then more.

Chloe felt warm as she remembered, remembered making love with Lana. She wanted
that again. Tonight.

The drive was over quickly and Chloe pulled up in front of the Talon. She found the key
on her keyring and moved to the back entrance, not wanting anyone who might be around
at one am to see her. It would take too long to explain her presence, time she could be
spending with Lana.

She moved quietly up the stairs, glad Lana always kept dim lights on. She took off her
coat in the living room of the apartment, along with her shoes. She walked into the
bedroom, softly.

She smiled, Lana was asleep, and she was lit by moonlight. Chloe didn't think she'd ever
seen anything so beautiful. It almost seemed a shame to wake her.

Except her lips were too tempting not to kiss. Over and over, until, finally she stirred.

"Chloe?" Sleepily. "You're here?"

"I'm here," Chloe murmured, moving to lie on the bed with Lana, memories of the first
time flooding back. "I wanted to be with you."

"How did you get here?" Lana asked, puzzled.

"I drove all night," Chloe said as she started to take her clothes off.

"Okay," Lana said, and leaned in for a kiss. "I love you."

"I love you," Chloe said, and began to make love to Lana.

FINIS

*************************************

I had to escape
The city was sticky and cruel
Maybe I should have called you first
But I was drying to get to you
I was dreaming while I drove
The long straight road ahead
Uh-huh, yeah
Could taste your sweet kisses, your arms open wide
This fever for you was just burning me up inside

I Drove All Night
Celine Dion

The next update

sophia_helix — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 07:49:57 GMT

The list of delayed stories has been updated; if you haven't posted yet but have an idea of when you think you will, please comment to the entry. Thanks to those who have already.

Just to clarify: I'm not interested in annoying people, being a big mean fascist moderator bitch, etc., by reassigning stories. If you can give me a reasonable timeframe in which the story will be finished (sometime within the next week, preferably), that's all I really want. What I *don't* want is to leave readers hanging, especially when so many of them have already posted their own stories. If you think you're going to end up just pushing out a deadline farther and farther, that's when I ask you to just step aside and let me get someone else to write the story, for the sake of your recipient.

Thanks again to everyone for being a part of this, and don't forget to leave feedback for the story someone wrote for you, even if you don't leave it for anyone else. I know it's appreciated. :)

Mudfootball for dessert_first

thenewhope — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 07:13:15 GMT

title: Mudfootball
fandom: Bend It Like Beckham
codes: Jules/Jess. football. rain.
summary: They make a home for themselves the only way they know how.
notes: for dessert_first. please forgive the lateness (and blame it on Cracker Barrel and the thousands of Spring Breakers who have overtaken my town). title is totally ripped from Jack Johnson.

*
There are days, days like yesterday and all of the week before, when Jules is this close to grabbing Jess and hoping a plane back to England.

It's the little things that set her off, really. Small, random things that make her wistful for the home and family and familiarity that she took for granted when she had it. Mid month cravings for a Galaxy Fruit n Nut that have to be ignored (or worse, quenched with M&Ms and dried cranberries). When all she wants to do is catch a ManU game, but can't because the American sports networks only cover American sports.

She's been in the States for a few years now, and yet there are days where the dorm she shares with Jess feels like anything but home. When even the little Irish pub, with its real curries and real beer, they found tucked into a back corner of town one wandering afternoon their first year here isn't enough to slake her homesickness.

She knows Jess feels the same some days, and that makes her feel a little bit better, if only because misery loves company.

On days like that, when they find themselves restless and homesick, they and make a home for themselves the only way they know how. They throw down their books and pens, grab a ball and their boots and head outside for some fresh air and a game of one-on-one.

Even though they spend half their days on the pitch practicing and playing with their team there's something different, something better, about it being just the two of them playing. There's a comfort in the familiarity with which Jess matches her parry, in the sound of their breathless laughter mixing together, that lets Jules relax for a while.

And, even though they never actually did this before they started at SCU, it feels like they're back home in the tiny park near Jess' house, burning time by shooting around until they're called home for super.

When it's just her and Jess and the ball Jules doesn't have to worry about the weird kink in her long ball or whether or not she's favoring her right foot again. Instead, she can just focus on the chase, on the push and pull of the game. She likes it better that way.

It's her need for that familiarity, that comfort, that pulls Jules from sleep early on this Sunday morning. That gives her the guts to brave Jess' temper and pull the other girl out of bed and into some practice gear.

Outside it's storming in that peculiar California way, at once drab and bright. Jess grumbles about the rain and the early hour, but it comes out half-hearted and Jules can tell that she's feeling it too. It's in Jess' eyes, the same need for a little piece of home, of normalcy, that's been rambling through Jules for days now.

Jules lofts the ball up into the air and they set off after it, jogging lazily through the rain toward their favorite campus park. A car drives past, splashing them with a wave of water, and Jess grumbles some more.

It doesn't fool Jules one bit though, not when she can so plainly see the smile that's starting to curve Jess' lips. She just laughs and kicks a long ball into the park up ahead of them before taking off after it. Behind her she can hear Jess curse and start running to chase her, and the ball, down.

Jules collects the ball just as Jess reaches her. She tries to ricochet it off a tree, but Jess traps it with her left foot before Jules can get back to it. Jess ducks behind the tree and now Jules is the one doing the chasing.

They fall easily into a rhythm of give-and-go. Somewhere along the way they forget to go after the ball, but they keep going, chasing each other through the trees until they find themselves rolling around in the muddy grass.

One minute Jules is on top, and the next Jess has her pinned to the ground. Jess is whining through a bright, big smile about the rain and mud, and Jules wishes she could stay here, right here in this very moment forever. So she leans up and presses her mouth against Jess' lips.

It tastes like rain and sweat and warmth, and Jules can feel Jess smiling into the kiss. Jules smiles back, because despite the fact that it's pouring down rain and she's soaked through to her socks with mud, she's happy and at home here with Jess.

*fin

fic: as long as trees are skying. multifandom, multipairing.

marginalia — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 06:17:42 GMT

title: as long as trees are skying
author: marginalia
fandoms: anne of green gables, firefly, harry potter, and btvs/ats. but not all at once.
pairing: anne/diana, kaylee/inara, hermione/minerva, tara/fred.
archive: .: marginalia :.
notes: for wisdomeagle and femslash05. sincere apologies for the delay. i was writing a completely different story until 10pm on wednesday night when i realized it would never work. at least, not in a timely manner. so i wrote this instead. each season is exactly 250 words. title from peter mulvey. thanks to sophia_helix for organizing and for being so good about all of my "i'm working on it! really!" emails.

.: spring :: anne/diana :.

It seemed as if Diana had been waiting forever for Anne. She had slipped out of Orchard Slope early with a perfectly thrilling book to read under the trees near the Lake of Shining Waters, but it wasn't holding her attention. Soon enough it had tumbled forgotten into her lap as she looked out across the water.

It was early enough in the season that everything was still a bit damp, but it was one of the first days warm enough that her old wrap could be used for sitting upon only. She daydreamed for a while, trying to invent a sweet little story like Anne might have done. Anne had a knack for making things Diana had passed by every blessed day turn into something new and magical, and though Diana tried imagining herself sometimes, it was never the same as when she dreamed with Anne.

When she caught sight of Anne, finally let loose by Marilla, her heart gave a queer little thump. She beckoned her over quietly, a finger across her lips as Anne settled in next to her, smoothing out her skirts. "See?" Diana whispered, pointing to delicate, light green shoots around the base of the tree. "The bulbs Matthew gave us, remember?

"They make me want to be still," Anne said low in Diana's ear. "Each one has a fairy singing to it to grow, but one has to be awfully quiet to hear them."

Flushed and daring, Diana took Anne's hand. "Let's try, then."

.: summer :: kaylee/inara :.

Wash passed word that they would be breaking atmo soon. "Looks to be mid-afternoon on a lovely summer day."

"It's nice that it's summer down there," Kaylee said, sitting on the floor in Inara's shuttle. "After all the time up here in the black, it'll be good to have sunshine again. Just lookin' out there makes me cold sometimes."

They were ready and waiting to disembark as soon as Wash gave the go-ahead. Mal reminded them of the departure time and suggested they be careful. "All right, Cap'n," Kaylee said. "Thanks for the warning. That tree over there was lookin' shifty." Inara laughed and took her hand, and together they ran off of Serenity like schoolgirls at the bell.

Days earlier they had agreed on the strategy, which largely consisted of avoiding the town in general and locals in particular, and getting as much fresh air as they could stand. And for the first time in the history of them everything had gone according to plan. The day was beautiful and warm, Kaylee's cheeks went pink with it and wisps of hair escaped her braided crown. They talked only when they had something worth saying, and when they found the perfect cool bit of grass under a cluster of trees, they stopped for a time, for an escape.

When Inara kissed Kaylee she tasted strawberries, and she was surprised at herself, at the cliché, at the impossibility. But, after all, strawberries taste like sunshine, and Kaylee was made of summer.

.: autumn :: hermione/minerva :.

The sky was flashing red and orange, but the world was strangely quiet. Hermione had thought war would be loud always, like the snippets she saw on television when she visited her parents. Wars of the past flickered grey, wars of the present in black and green, but all were grainy and out of focus, the waiting eliminated.

Hermione sat cross-legged outside of her tent, watching the sky and toying with the toes of her boots. When Minerva sat next to her she didn't think of the strangeness of calling her former Head of House by her first name or of how Minerva's brow had smoothed in the years since she had taught Hermione's class, she only thought of their breath on the cool air and of not being alone.

Order members patrolled the perimeter, though there was little still to defend. Dust and shadows hid where bodies used to be. Hermione thought suddenly of her mother's kitchen, of sunshine and the smell of washing-up liquid, of clean things taken for granted.

She jumped when Minerva spoke. "Do you ever think of going back?"

"It's been so long, I don't even know if I could live there after this."

"You could. You're young, still, though I know you don't feel that way today. And that's what people do, they keep on living."

"And wizards longer than most." She couldn't see Minerva's smile, but she knew it was there. Hermione reached over, took her hand, and together they watched the sky.

.: winter :: tara/fred :.

"You're here!" the girl says. "I've been waiting for you." She frowns, ducks her head, hair slipping from behind her ears. "That sounds creepy. I'm not creepy, really. I'm just lonely. I don't usually talk so much." Then she laughs. "Sorry. I'm Tara."

Fred stays at a distance, watches her carefully, and selects a question. "How did you know I was coming?"

"Oh, we know. We can't see, but we know. They tell us when it's time to show people." She puts one hand out towards Fred, then pulls back, hugs her torso. "When I first came, I didn't want hands. You will later. If you're at all like me."

It's a half-smile, shy and golden, warm around Fred. She tugs at the scarf around her neck, tiny hands fluttering like birds. There are questions of who and where and how, and it's a surprise when she settles on: "Why you?"

"I don't know. We must be connected somehow, though, that's how it works. But," Tara hesitates, "I think if we figure it out then it ends." She twists the toe of her right foot into the ground. "I think that's why she left again. After we had waited so long."

The sky slides below Fred's feet, and it's so blue she feels dizzy. She thinks she should be remembering and then she thinks she shouldn't. There's a ghost of pain hovering around her but Tara pushes it away.

Tara's soft and sweet and safe, and so Fred follows her.

The Bay of Biscay

sensorium — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:07:31 GMT

For bofoddity. Sorry it's so short!

Title: The Bay of Biscay
Author: sensorium
Fandom: Kill Bill
Pairing: Some mixture of Gogo, O-Ren, and Sofie, although it mainly focuses on Gogo and Sofie
Rating: R-ish

Thanks to sparou for reading it over.

Dear O-Ren,

The Bay of Biscay looks particularly magnificent all around us. The waters are usually not particularly interesting, but in this light, it seems as though the water is a refined woman—sparkling diamonds at her breast.

I’m not sure why I am writing this, as I will not send this letter, but there is some comfort in writing my thoughts out.

It is rare that we get the opportunity to let our guards down; I hardly think we know what to do with it. Of course, when I say we, I mean me—I cannot imagine her letting her mask down. I don’t really think there is a mask. Men keep trying to seduce her, but to what end? A bloody gut or hand or crotch or rectum. There is no secret longing for affection or gentleness in her. You and I have created a monster.

I took her a clump of her silky hair and gently pressed her head against my shoulder, as we sat on the boat watching the sun set, her face completely unmoved—a Greek statue of morbidity. It was then more than ever that I saw that she was a beautiful monster. It wasn’t that we raised her to be a machine that really impressed it upon me. I could see her kill time and time again and well, don’t we all do that? No, it was her complete lack of an expression as her head rested against me that brought it home to me. The exact same face that she had while blood splattered on her face like tiny crimson rain droplets.

And for the first time in long time, I wondered if I was the monster instead for indulging my desires. Despite all her experience in cruelty, she was still just a child. The blind devotion that she has in you and me is the most childlike aspect of her. And yet the tremors of her legs as I lick between soft black curls and the quiet moans, finally crescendoing—it is those that make me question whether she is a child or not. But she never complains. She never truly smiles either.

All I want is for her to feel. I dare not hope for to return my feelings. How could she, we raised a fucking machine? But maybe if she could just feel something…

“Gogo,” I hesitated, my usual poise and sarcasm stripped away, “How do you feel about… this…? Everything?”

A delightfully vague question, I know.

She looked up at me with those vacant mannequin eyes and that little bemused smile that always seemed to say that she knew something that she wasn’t about to say. “How do I feel about this? This is life.”

I leaned forward and kissed her roughly and desperately and her tongue replied in turn, making smooth gestures towards and away from mine. She was not taken off guard as others might be, instead she acted as if she had been expecting it. As my kiss slowly softened, she pulled away from me and gave me another one of those awful knowing smirks.

“You’re drawing too much attention to yourself, Sofie,” she purred, “I don’t think we want anyone to know that O-Ren’s two closest companions are across the world from her.”

Perhaps I had too much to drink in celebrating my return home.

And I must admit to you, that I betrayed that certain level of trust you have in me. If I had been looking out of you truly, I’m sure I would have acted differently.

But no matter.

I started kissing Gogo’s neck in the same sort of desperation that I had tempered earlier, little sucks here and there, my tongue moving in little circles. She protested at first, but as my hand traveled up her thigh and under the flaps of her rough little skirt, plaid fabric pierced by the last rays of light, her protests turned into quiet moans and her stance became softer as her body became harder. My hand quickly found its familiar destination as it had countless times before.

My thumb stroked her as my three fingers thrusted up. And down. And up again. Until I had a rhythm that was pleasing to her. She indulged me by playing with my breasts through the fabric of my cotton dress, but I know she took no more pleasure in it than she did doing anything else that was in my interest. She may have loved the job, but it was still all part of the job.

She came quickly and hard and five minutes later we were sitting on a bench next to the edge of the boat, watching the bay. Her breathing was labored still and my hand was sticky with her, and the lights on the deck caught the sweat on her brow, shading it an unnatural hue.

I tried pulling her close to me again, but she resisted and instead looked at me, her eyes filled with an anger I had seen quite often but never directed towards you or me. It was not the quite literally murderous glance that she was wont to give but the glance that made me fear for a few of my limbs.

“O-Ren will not be pleased if someone is to find out that we are not in Japan because of what you have done.”

“Why didn’t you resist?”

“I bear some loyalty to you as well.”

Distain.

“Gogo… I… Just wanted…” I faltered. The surf was loud now. We were almost to the harbor.

“You just want me to feel. Have you not considered that it is you that lack feeling?”

“Gogo, what are you tal—“

“—I will be glad to inform O-Ren of what you have done. I’m sure she will reward me quite gratuitously for my information. O-Ren always was better at that than you were.”

And then she smiled. Not the bemused sort of smirk or even a malicious smile.

She was content to have your love and affection.

"Reflects the Darker Passion" -- for joran

buggery — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 23:03:27 GMT

Title: Reflects the Darker Passion
Fandom: DC Comics (BIRDS OF PREY)
Pairing: Barbara Gordon/Dinah Lance
Author: the Jack
Summary: The Birds are on the hunt.
Spoilers: References events introduced in BoP #75 and the War Games storyline in the Gotham titles, as well as numerous older comics.
Rating: SC for Suggestive and Creepy
Disclaimer: Nobody herein belongs to me, but their trademark holders have grievously underused most of them; I've taken the opportunity to let some deserving characters do something for a change. Tacoma, WA is a real place and belongs to its taxpayers.
Notes and Acknowledgments: Follow the story.

Reflects the Darker Passion

Dinah stands looking out over Puget Sound, one eye on her (still unconscious) prisoner, taking in the play of the city's lights over the water. Planes take off and land from the airport every few minutes, adding their own colour and movement to the dance of reflections in the choppy water below, and filling the night air with cycling crescendoes and decrescendoes of jet-engine whine.

Despite the volume of the airplane noise, and the more muted traffic noises of the city opposite the airport, it shouldn't be difficult for her to pick out the helicopter sound she's listening for. Helicopters' spinning rotors make a distinctively bass thump that drive under the higher-pitched noises of other vehicles, land- and air-based alike.

And touching the place behind her ear where her communicator is nestled isn't going to help (or impede) her hearing any, but her hand keeps going there anyway. There's no external node, and barely even a scar where the implant went in now, but Dinah knows exactly where it lies beneath the skin.

"It's just a communicator, Dinah," Babs had said, the piece of metal in her hand gleaming with a green glint that hadn't seemed quite as if it was solely reflected glare from Oracle's computer screens. The leads protruding from it had seemed to move, just slightly enough that she couldn't be sure, and staring at the thing was giving her eyestrain, so she'd looked at Barbara again.

The sincerity in Babs's eyes was what had convinced her, even before she'd added, "It's better than anything else available, even with my... connections," with that self-deprecating smirk that Dinah knew so well. She knew Babs, and she trusted Babs, and this *was* Babs.

Dinah hadn't been wrong. Babs had still been herself -- is, still, herself. She's just more than she was.

Like Dinah is, now.

"Faster, stronger, better," is the joke everyone has made, that was tired the first time Dinah heard it, but it's true, too.

She isn't quite a "bionic woman," certainly not to the degree Babs is, but she wouldn't trade her enhancements to be what she was. Besides the internal communicator -- which provides Babs with video and full-spectrum scanning as well as audio when Dinah is in the field -- most of what's been improved has to do with her hearing and her inner ears. Her balance is better, to the point that she can leap across rooftops the way only Nightwing used to be able to, without needing a line except to gain altitude sometimes and without ever failing to stick a landing exactly the way she wants to, and it's done wonders for her martial arts abilities, too. Even Cassandra can't always take her one-on-one anymore.

"You're not *yourself* anymore, Dinah, can't you *see* that?" Roy had yelled at her when he'd found out. He wasn't the only one who had been angry, but he is the only one (aside from Helena) who still hasn't forgiven her. "The Dinah Lance I know *never* would have agreed to have her own *head* messed with!"

"No, I wouldn't have agreed to it if I'd known what I was getting into, Roy -- but I would have been *wrong*," she'd told him, her own voice even and only as loud as it needed to be for Roy to hear her over his own shouting.

Rehashing that conversation yet again? Barbara's voice steals into Dinah's mind as smoothly and (heh) naturally as ever.

Dinah smiles for Babs, on the inside. It's because of that blowup he and Lian had, she points out needlessly.

According to Mia.

According to Mia, but credible on its face even if she weren't the reliable source she is, and even without the corroborating surveillance we have. Most of the caped community has balanced the Birds' integration of what had once been the von-Neumann nightmare known as Brainiac against the other weirdnesses among their allies -- the Firestorms, the Green Lanterns, the Captains Marvel, the Omegadrome, the Hawk avatars -- and decided *they* could live with it. That "most" includes the rest of Ollie's "family," but not Roy.

"We were in the indoor target range, practicing. Roy said Lian wanted to show me how good she was getting with her bow," Mia had told her. "And she is good, pulling a twenty-five-pounder already, and her aim's impressive too. But she just... when I praised her, she just, you know, shrugged and looked away."

"That doesn't sound like Lian," Dinah had said, frowning.

"No, right? So I pressed her a little, and she said..." Babs cues in the surveillance tape, so that the recording of Lian's words echoes over Dinah's recollection of Mia quoting them to her. "Everybody thinks I should *shoot* stuff, just because *Daddy* does."

"Oh, honey... you can be anything you *want* when you grow up. You don't have to be like me and your dad," Mia's recorded words play over Dinah's memory of her saying, "I got down on my knees and hugged her and told her she could do anything, be anything she wanted." "You can be a... a teacher, or a doctor, or a racecar driver, or a stockbroker... whatever *you* want to be.

"And she looked up at me and frowned and said, 'I want to be like Aunt Dinah.' And that's when Roy almost fell the rest of the way down the stairs."

Stop playback, Dinah tells Babs. She knows what Roy said. She's actually not in the mood to hear about it again; it's hard enough to keep her mind from getting stuck in a rut etched with all the things she *would* have said in answer. Dinah sighs and tilts her head back and lets the salt-laden breeze wash over her, and then asks, Change the subject.

Babs is only silent for a moment, almost unnoticeable. You're done with Jinx.

It isn't really a question, but Dinah answers it anyway. All wrapped up with a bow, just waiting on--

There still hasn't been any sound of helicopters she couldn't dismiss by their timbre and vector as local police or media craft. Instead, streaking up from the south, lighting the Sound and the humid haze over it, is what resembles a shooting star, glowing yellow-white. As it approaches the bridge, it seems to slow, and dims enough that she can make out its shape: humanoid, with an all-too-familiar fin on its head.

--transport. You knew he was coming instead of a standard retrieval team.

S.T.A.R. gave me a heads up, but he was already en route. Babs's voice in her head lets things like laughter come through in ways the old Oracle scramblers never had. I didn't think giving you extra time to get ready to be annoyed would help any.

I'm not annoyed, she tells Babs. And she isn't. Ray has grown up a lot over the last few years, and the awkwardness between them is almost as much a thing of the past as their short-lived entanglement.

"Evening, Canary," the Ray says, alighting on the bridge's walkway rail. "Fancy meeting you here -- the second Black Canary, the second Ray, the second Tacoma Narrows Bridge..."

"Evening, Ray. It's clearly kismet," she volleys back, hoping to keep the tone of the conversation light. "Unless you think I staged getting my hair singed just on the off-chance I might run into you."

"I'm sure you did, but I won't let it go to my head." Ray wriggles his eyebrows. "You have something for me?"

She snorts. "Something for S.T.A.R. Labs. What made them send you instead of a regular retrieval team?"

"I was already there. Sarah Charles had some theories about my powers she wanted to test out. Turns out the lab we were using is the one they could configure to hold somebody like this Jinx easiest on short notice, and since I had nothing better to do..." He smiles at her. It's charming, but professional.

"Did you get any briefing on Jinx before streaking off?"

"Magical abilities, probably not much use against me, negated so long as she's not touching the ground -- I take it that's the reason for her 'suspension'?"

Dinah nods. "I knocked her out, but keeping her high and dry was a precaution."

"Easy enough to keep her swept off her feet, so to speak," Ray says. "You want your cord back?"

"Keep it. If whatever you bind her with fails, at least you'll have some backup. And keep her gagged, too."

"She needs to be able to say her magic words?"

"Probably."

"I'll play it safe, don't worry." Rising from the railing, Ray reaches out to Jinx's limp form, the aura that surrounds him extending around her torso and then fading as he fashions it into a straitjacket. He hooks one arm through the buckles at Jinx's back and gestures with his other hand at the part of the cord attached to the one of the bridge tower's struts, slicing through and leaving Dinah's line dangling.

"I appreciate the assist," Dinah calls up to him. "Fly safe."

"Will do," Ray answers, giving her a grin and a salute. He rises further, putting enough distance between himself and the bridge to gain altitude, turns back long enough to wave, and blazes off again southward.

Well, look who's all grown up.

Don't start, Dinah says, but she's grinning -- for Babs, and on her face for anyone to see -- as she heads back to where she left her motorcycle.

So you don't want to take a side trip down the coast tonight? The laughter in Babs's voice is a different kind of warm now. Dinah can feel an answering warmth in her own body.

Not unless you're planning to. Or, Dinah thinks as privately as she can, unless some other crisis calls her back on duty. But it's already been a long night. Besides, isn't Zinda still off on her own down-coast jaunt?

Radioed in from Ferris Aircraft a little over an hour ago to make sure we didn't need her. Having a blast in some vintage prop-planes.

I'll bet, Dinah answers, her mental voice rich with innuendo.

Why, Ms Lance, whatever could you be suggesting?

That there's nothing Ms Blake likes better than getting strapped into a cockpit and riding the stick?

Babs actually laughs out loud over the comm channel.

So how's containment on the rest of the... I can't believe they're calling themselves the Fearsome Femmes.

Bluebird hunted Deuce down while you were busy with Jinx, and is transporting her herself.

You know Indy hates it when you call her by her codename over secure channels, Dinah chides. And their sub-audio connection is about as secure as it gets, but that doesn't mean Indigo isn't listening in. Installing her communicator had led to an unexpected level of interfacing, which Babs blames on "synergistic cybernetics" or something like that. Indy gets a better understanding of the human psyche, and in return tries to respect their privacy. It's the kind of compromise that makes their team work.

Yeah, well, if she calls me on it right now, she's gonna be grounded after she finishes that delivery.

And ruin her hot date? Are you sure you want to do that?

Dinah can almost see Barbara's smile as she tells her, Come back to base.

*

"Honey, I'm home," Dinah says over the comm channel, slowing down as she approaches Aerie One. The aft ramp slides smoothly open and Dinah rides up into the vehicles section of the cargo deck and parks. Dogging her bike down -- even with Zinda away, there's still the possibility that they might need to take off on short notice -- she heads for the lift to the passenger deck.

Thanks to creative remodeling from the Aerie One's original specs, they each have their own cabins up here, as well as spare cabins for part-timers and other guests. Babs, predictably, is back in Oracle's nest. Dinah can almost "read" what's on the screen in front of Babs, the words ghosting through her mind, faint but partly recognisable, like a reflection in a window.

As usual, Stephanie is in the lounge compartment where the lift deposits Dinah, reviewing files there even though she has a terminal in her own cabin. Stephanie would rather be in Gotham, as much as she *can* want anything anymore. Besides the ever-present and iconic Batman and Robin, though, the city is well-protected by Cassandra and Selina -- and, of course, Helena. The Birds are still "welcome" in Gotham... so long as they're invited or don't stay long.

Stephanie's face isn't visible behind the Spoiler mask, which makes looking at her at least a little less uncomfortable for most people who knew her before. She stays in full costume whenever she goes out, unless it's for an undercover assignment, but tends to leave her head uncovered when she's "home." She's in jeans and a Knights sweatshirt now.

"Hello, Steph," Dinah says.

Stephanie looks up from her files. "Hello, Dinah." Her voice is nearly as flat and affectless as her eyes.

Dinah (and Babs) knew Steph before, but she's learned to live with seeing Steph's face now.

The hatch to the nest is open. Inside, Babs is hooked into the Oracle mask, processing data at speeds faster than Dinah's own enhancements will let her follow.

"Welcome home," the voice emulator tells her when she stops inside the hatch and leans on the jamb. Babs's head hasn't turned towards her, but that doesn't mean Babs can't see her there, just as Dinah can tell that it's Babs greeting her despite the subtly-different tone of the mechanically-generated version of her voice. Most people wouldn't be able to distinguish the emulator from the "real" Babs, unless they saw the mask on and knew she couldn't be speaking "normally" behind it.

It's funny the things you get used to. As happens from time to time, Dinah isn't sure whether the thought originated in Babs's head or her own, or both simultaneously.

She smiles.

"I'm back. Are you going to work all night?"

Close the door.

Worried about Stephanie overhearing? Dinah asks as she does so. She dogs the latch and shrugs off her jacket.

The murmur of high-speed data echo in Dinah's head starts to slow; Babs is finishing up. She wouldn't -- object if she did.

You were going to say 'mind.' Dinah has a moment of wishing she could see Babs register the smirk on her face. And *you* wouldn't mind?

Significantly less so than you. And you've left hatches open when it was just the three of us before. Babs reaches up and lifts the mask free from her face. The retracting leads inside are just visible inside the rim, moving incrementally in their familiarly insectile way that nonetheless still makes Dinah twitch a little to see. "Or when it was just us and Indigo, or us and Zinda."

Dinah feels her face heat, even though she's still smirking, as she drapes her jacket over the back of an unoccupied chair.

"Besides," Babs goes on, "Catalina will probably be back sometime tonight."

"She's not back already?"

"She said she ran into 'somebody she knew from the Squad' and was going to 'go do some catching up.'"

"And?" Neither the fact that Catalina's shooting of Blockbuster had been ruled justifiable as defence of self or others, nor the way she had voluntarily enlisted in the Suicide Squad afterwards, have been enough to overcome Babs's distrust of her. She trusts her enough to work with, but not even to the degree she trusts the rest of the team. Not for the first time, Dinah is reminded of the way Babs had turned Savant... only this time it's Babs who has the capital-I Issue.

"Surveil says, Lorraine Reilly showed up and helped her take her Fearsome foe -- who turned out to be Carmen Leno, of all people -- down."

"...Lorraine wasn't in the Suicide Squad."

The corner of Babs's mouth quirks. "Not when Catalina was, no."

"Hunh," Dinah says, and moves closer, until she's standing right beside Babs's chair. Babs turns to face her, and Dinah puts her hands on the arms of the chair and leans down. "So, what do you think?"

"I've been monitoring her activities."

She can feel Babs's breath on her own face, so it stands to reason that when she answers, "Uh-huh..." Babs feels her breath too.

"Objectively, the logical conclusion is that she feels isolated and may be reaching out to someone she knows we've discussed recruiting in the past."

"Interesting. But it doesn't explain why she was evasive with you."

"No, it doesn't." Babs's hands had been in her lap. Now they're covering Dinah's, palms warm and soft between the callus patterns.

Dinah leans in a little farther. "Sounds like she continues to bear watching."

"I have continuous surveillance programmed."

You're so sexy when you're hard at work, Dinah thinks, clearly enough that she knows Babs will 'hear,' but aloud what she asks is, "Are you planning to work all night, *Oracle*?"

Babs's nose brushes hers as *she* leans in, and Dinah thinks she's going to kiss her. Instead, Babs just speaks against her mouth. "My operatives are all present or accounted for, Black Canary."

"Is that a 'no'?"

"That's a no." This time Babs's lips brush hers, but when Dinah tries to make it a kiss, Babs retreats just out of reach.

"And are you planning to spend all night in this chair?"

"No again," Babs says, and traps Dinah's lower lip between her own.

Dinah kisses back until Babs tries to deepen it, then pulls away. "Then shall we go to bed?"

"Let's," Babs says.

Notes: Futurefic. Not necessarily AU at time of writing, but certain to become more clearly so as time goes on, and intended as AU. The future posited has eaten my head and there's a good likelihood of sequels. There's an excellent chance that anyone reading will be unfamiliar with at least one of the characters referred to in the story, but google is a treasure of a research tool.

Acknowledgments: Written for Rysler (joran) in the femslash05 challenge organised by Sophia Jirafe (sophia_helix). Thanks to my assigned recipient for giving me carte blanche to play with Huntress, Oracle, Batgirl, Black Canary, Renee, and/or Shiva in any combination; thanks to Te thete1 for pointing me in an intriguing direction when I was flailing at all the possibilities. Additional thanks to Te, Livia liviapenn and Petra petronelle for audiencing and sharing beta thoughts which helped me make this story better. Finally, thanks to Jean-Francois cccarioca and Prop notpoetry for lending their knowledge of archery for my reference, and to Ang angisageek for sharing fantastic info about Dawn Granger (although she didn't make it into this story, even by mention, she's there in my head; she stays in one of those cabins regularly). Title taken from "The Great Response" by Alice Mary Buckton.

Cross-posted to my own LJ; feedback welcome there or here.

Life on the Edge (Babylon 5, for netgirl_y2k)

ijemanja — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 18:30:07 GMT

Title: Life on the Edge
Author: Ijemanja
Rating: R
Fandom: Babylon 5
Pairing: Susan/Talia
Summary: It's seductive and dangerous, and she tells herself this woman will always, always be Psi Corp.

For netgirl_y2k. Apologies for the lateness!

Her eyes are grainy, her neck and shoulders are sore and tight, and it's morning.

In between responding to messages that cued up during the night shift and realising she needs to make a trip to the gardens sometime over the next few days because her precious coffee supply is running low, she notices a hair clasp lying on the counter.

She stares at it for a moment before remembering it's been there for three days, since the last time Talia was over and took down her hair and left the simple black clip lying just there. She doesn't touch it, just goes and finishes getting dressed.

But she knows she's going to be thinking about Talia all day, now.

The tension in her neck develops into a nice stress headache by mid-shift. It probably also has something to do with skipping coffee that morning in order to stretch out her stash a little longer.

She can picture the exact look on Stephen's face if she were to tell him just how crappy she's feeling right now; disapproving and stern and a little incredulous, right before starting in on the lecture about stress management and the importance of getting enough rest. Like he's one to talk.

A much more pleasant image is the one wherein Talia is giving her a massage with those slender, pale hands that most people never see, let alone feel next to their bare skin. The pain just melts away under those skilful fingers.

It's a persistent image, too, and it sits in the back of her mind all the while she's settling an irritating dispute between two independent Pak'ma'ra traders over who gets the 'good' berth (which definitely isn't helping her headache.)

When she finally gets around to a lunch break, it almost isn't a surprise to see Talia sitting at a table in the main thoroughfare of the Zocalo. It looks like she's with a client, though, and Susan is on her way to catch up with Garibaldi, and so all they do is meet each other's eye for a moment and smile.

She thinks of the romantic dinners they might have had if they were different people while eating in the officer's mess with Michael - the sort of intimate, elegant meals the station's most exclusive restaurants could provide. It's something they'll probably never do. About all they've managed so far is a quiet drink or two and the occasional casual lunch, and it seems wrong that she can't quite resolve the image of her and Talia enjoying a proper night out together. She doesn't do anything stupid like buying flowers and candy, either, but part of her wants to.

It all means something. This thing between them probably isn't just about sex and a friendly face at the end of the day.

Starting up with the local Psi Corp representative was never in Susan Ivanova's game plan, though, and it makes things complicated. And Talia might be just a commercial telepath, but she wears the gloves and the clothes and the badge. Except when all those things come off.

And it is the ultimate guilty pleasure to watch those gloves come off. When those pale, slender, hands reach for her, she feels rebellious, in defiance of thirty years conditioning.

Stay hidden. Never let them near you.

Garibaldi asks her what's going on, because her mind is wandering and she's staring off into space and leaving her fork hanging in mid-air more often than not - though she guesses he's mostly just annoyed she isn't paying enough attention to him.

She tells him she has a headache.

*

Her hands are clenched in tight fists, grasping at the sheets; it's the middle of the night and Talia's hand is between her thighs.

When they're like this, she's afraid sometimes, and she can't seem to help it.

Does Talia notice the defensive walls Susan has built up over years of guarding her mind against intrusion, just as her mother taught her as a child? No, Susan reminds herself, she couldn't - not unless she tried to get past them, and telepaths don't do that without permission. The good ones don't anyway, and Talia is one of the good ones.

She takes it as a sign of her own personal growth that she's reached this point, where in the past she would have denied there being such a thing as a 'good' telepath at all. And when she tells Talia this one day, Talia manages to be both amused and serious in quick succession.

'I'd never intrude on your thoughts,' she said then, and probably will say again, and Susan always wants to believe her.

She wants a lot of things she doesn't let herself have, though. She wants to let Talia in, she wants to share all her deepest darkest secrets.

'But in close proximity, you pick up stray thoughts.'

It isn't really a question - she doesn't really need to ask.

'Strong emotions are more common. Especially if I'm... close to the subject.'

Susan has always thought of it as rape. When Talia talks about it, it sounds like sex.

When Talia shifts and rests her cheek against Susan's hip, she moves herself, turning them both over and stretching out above Talia and finding her lips and tasting herself there.

The urge to trust Talia and share all her secrets is strong. It's almost as strong as the urge to touch her skin just like this, with every inch of her.

It's seductive and dangerous, and she tells herself this woman will always, always be Psi Corp. It goes against everything Susan's believed in since she learned how to say 'Psi Corp', and it would be insane to forget all of that over this one woman. But thinking like that is useless, because Talia will come to her door again, and she will let the telepath in.

There's a definite air of melodrama to all of this, a Romeo and Juliet parallel or two to be drawn, and she pointed this out to Talia one night while stretched out on the couch.

Talia, more focused on playing with Susan's hair spread across the armrest only said, 'You Russians and your tragedies. I hope you don't see a suicide pact in our future.'

Sometimes she has to remind herself that the issues here are mostly hers - it can't be a case of forbidden love after all, if she's the only one forbidding it. When she's in a logical mood, she remembers this.

She's lucky, she tells herself, that Talia puts up with her - Talia, who always has to hold back.

'I'm sorry,' Susan says, her forearm over her eyes.

Talia is always understanding, though. She rubs her hand over Susan's stomach.

'Don't be sorry.'

'How can you ever relax around me? You're being so careful, I know. Me and my stupid hang-ups.'

She's had a bit too much wine, and knows she rambling, but can't seem to stop herself.

'Don't I look relaxed to you?' Talia's teeth nip playfully at her shoulder. 'Because I'm feeling very relaxed.'

That low voice of hers is so distracting. Susan shifts her arm behind her head and looks over at her.

'You're drunk.'

Talia laughs. 'And who's fault is that?'

Susan provided the wine this time, and knows her cue.

'Mine,' she concedes, 'My fault.'

*

It's morning and there's an arm draped heavily over her waist and a faint breath tickling her ear. It's the first time Talia has stayed over, the first time in a long time she's woken up with someone next to her.

She puts on her robe and uses the bathroom while Talia stirs slowly from sleep. There's a muffled good morning and a lazy smile when Susan sits on the side of the bed and says she has to be on duty in half an hour.

'I guess a leisurely breakfast in bed is out of the question then?' Talia drawls, propping her head up with one hand.

'Next time,' she says, throwing the phrase in casually, 'I'll set the alarm for earlier.'

'Earlier? God, as if this isn't depressingly early enough as it is,' Talia groans.

'Not all of us have cushy jobs that let us sleep in, you know,' she responds.

Talia sits up and runs her fingers back through her hair, grumbling, 'Next you'll want me to salute you and march in formation.'

Susan thinks of several possible responses to that, and finally settles on, 'You're not a morning person, are you?'

Talia sighs and then lets out a short laugh. 'Not really.'

'Good, me neither. I'm going to put on some coffee.'

Talia gets dressed in her clothes from the night before and sits at the counter sipping from a mug. She watches as Susan moves around her quarters, carrying out her morning routine.

'Stay as long as you want,' she says. 'There's fruit in the cooler if you want breakfast. I have to go,' she adds apologetically.

She's standing in the kitchenette, feeling awkward, while Talia is sitting there looking like she owns the place.

'Go, I'll be all right. Thank you for the coffee,' she says, lifting her cup.

Susan doesn't go; she leans across the counter. She opens her mouth to speak, and hesitates.

She's all too aware that this is still a casual thing, and she isn't sure how to tell Talia that she's glad they've at least progressed past feeling each other up on the couch and going home to sleep alone. It's a sentiment she's rarely had to put into words before.

Just for a moment, she thinks about how she doesn't have to put it into words at all, and how it might be to just let Talia feel what she is feeling.

Meanwhile, Talia has taken her hands and Susan looks down at their fingers entwined. Talia hasn't put her gloves on yet, she notices.

'I'm glad we did this,' she says, instead of all the rest of it.

'So am I.'

'We should do it again.'

'Definitely. I'd come for the coffee alone,' she says. 'Of course, there are other perks.'

'The shower, right?' she jokes, and Talia smiles brilliantly in response.

'Right.'

She pulls away and moves to refill Talia's cup with the last of the coffee.

'Thank you,' she says, her hand smoothing gently over Susan's forearm. 'You're spoiling me.'

It doesn't feel like enough, though.

end

"Maybe One Day..." :: L&O:SVU Alex/Olivia fic for morte351

ariestess — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 06:24:45 GMT

My apologies to morte351 for the lateness of this. My muses decided to be recalcitrant... *sighs*

Title: Maybe One Day…
Author: A. Magiluna Stormwriter [aka ariestess]
Email: stormwriter@shatterstorm.net
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Alex/Olivia
Category: Episode addition, friendship, angst.
Date: 10 February – 16 March 2005
Word Count: 2,343
Spoilers: “Loss” and “Ghost”
Summary: Olivia learns how Alex kept her sanity while in Witness Protection.
Archive: ShatterStorm Productions & femslash05… anyone else has to ask first

Disclaimer: “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” the characters and situations depicted are the property of Wolf Films, Universal Network Television, NBC, etc. They are borrowed without permission, but without the intent of infringement. This story is in no way affiliated with "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Wolf Films, Universal Network Television, NBC, or any representatives of Stephanie Marsh or Mariska Hargitay. This story contains content between two mature, consenting adult females.

Author’s Notes: This was written for morte351 for the femslash05 challenge. It may get picked up again, it may not. Depends on how my muses feel…

Beta: shatterpath

“Maybe One Day…”
by A. Magiluna Stormwriter

“Detective Benson, can I speak with you for a moment?” Agent Hammond turned that piercing gaze on me, almost imploring.

I snorted at him in derision. “And why the hell should I give you any of my time? For all I know you’ve kept us from seeing Alex again.”

He glared at me, and I felt slightly chastised by the look in his eyes. But not much. Alex should have been with us, celebrating that bastard’s conviction. But no, Hammond had to tell us that Alex was gone again, off to learn another new life. At least little Antonio had the chance to start fresh with the bulk of his life. What did Alex have to look forward to?

“Because Alex is the one that asked me to speak to you.”

I blinked at that, curiosity beating out my anger at the man. I handed Elliot my glass, shook my head when he quirked an eyebrow in question. He took the glass silently, squeezed my hand, and let me go to follow Hammond out into the hallway. We walked a few yards down from the door and stepped into an empty interrogation room. I moved to lean against the table, somehow believing I’d need the support.

“So what did she ask you to tell me?” I finally asked, realizing belatedly how hollow and lost my voice sounded.

“She wanted you to know that she’s trying to talk the marshals into letting her adopt Antonio. I happen to agree with her. Losing the one friend he has left that he can be around would be quite a blow to his psyche. I think they’ll be good for each other.” He paused and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small box. He studied it for a long moment before holding it out to me. “And she asked me to give you this. Said she’d wanted to when you were in the motel room, but that she’d chickened out. She made me swear I’d get it to you, and that I’d let her know you’d taken it.”

I nodded numbly, taking the box and letting it rest in my hands. I stared at it, studying it closely. It was a small cardboard keepsake box, very plain and tied up in string, with my name written across an envelope taped to the top. It was her handwriting. I’d recognize it anywhere. Swallowing back the lump that had gathered in my throat, I met his gaze. “What is it?” My voice was even more hoarse and pathetic. Did I always wear my heart on my sleeve where Alex Cabot was involved?

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “All I know is that she said it was vital I get this to you.” He turned as if to leave, but stopped at the door. “Detective, I’m sorry that you didn’t get to say goodbye. For as insistent as she was to see you the last time, Ms. Cabot was just as insistent this time not to see you.”

And then he walked out. And I sincerely prayed I’d never see that man again, or I shouldn’t be held accountable for my actions if I did.

^^^^^

I’d returned to the celebration and put on a brave face. But I certainly didn’t enjoy myself. My mind kept wandering to Hammond’s words…and to the box waiting in my jacket. What the hell had Alex given me? And why couldn’t she have said goodbye? Didn’t she know how much it hurt to have it this way?

The soonest opportunity I had to get out, I took it. I did my best to put the box out of my mind while I drove home. As soon as I was in my apartment and into something comfortable, I grabbed a beer and curled up on the couch with the box. I stared at it for a long moment before I wrestled the string off. Taking a long pull on my beer, I opened the envelope taped to the box. There wasn’t much written there, and I could see the scrawl that meant she’d been in a hurry to write it.

Dear Olivia,

I wish things could be different, but we both know the score. The marshals are coming soon to take Antonio and me somewhere safe. They’ll get us our new identities and we’ll go from there. Hopefully, they’ll let us stay together, if only for Antonio’s sake.

Oh Olivia, there are so many things I’ve wanted to say to you, but I was afraid. I wanted to give you these when we were in the motel room, wanted to tell you all of this. But I couldn’t.

I hope you will read these letters and understand what it is I’ve tried to tell you. Please don’t be angry with me. Try to understand what it is I’m saying.

I couldn’t see you again and walk away. I couldn’t say goodbye again. It would kill me, rip my heart out to walk away from you again.

Please promise me you’ll understand, Olivia.

I love you and I hope one day things will be different…

Alex

I stared at the letter for a moment longer before setting it aside to open the box. The sight of all the letters in that box promptly forced me to finish my beer. Getting up slowly, I grabbed the rest of the six-pack. Somehow I knew this was going to be a long, sleepless night.

Screwing up my courage, I picked out the first letter and began to read it.

Dear Olivia,

I know I was ordered told to forget my old life, to embrace this new one, and be grateful to still be alive. It’s bullshit, okay? How am I supposed to forget my entire life? It’s just not possible. Having to remember all of these new details that are supposed to be old hat. Remembering to answer to a different name.

I just want to go back to my old life. It was safe, comfortable, sane.

But until Velez and his cronies are taken care of permanently, I’m stuck with this life. You know what the worst part is? I don’t have any of my old things or my old friends. I don’t have you…

You know, I’m not even supposed to be doing this, writing you these letters. Doesn’t matter that I keep them locked away from everyone and everything around me. Agent Hammond said it’s not wise, not safe. But damn it, I’m not going to give up on the entirety of my old life.

Well, I suppose there’s nothing more to do about it now, is there? Nothing but get used to this new life and forget the old one. But I won’t forget you, Olivia. That could never happen.

Alex

*****

Dear Olivia,

I suppose it’s getting easier to life with this life. It’s not perfect, but I must say that I’ve been well provided for. I just don’t have everything I want that would make it perfect… Well, to be honest, I might never have had that, shooting or not. Probably best not to dwell on it, right?

There have been times I have wanted to pick up the phone and call you…any of you. I miss all of you terribly, but especially you and Elliot. I can only imagine what it must be like for the two of you, having to live a lie and pretend I’m dead. I hope it doesn’t weigh too heavily on your souls. I wouldn’t want that, not for you. I’d rather you thought I was dead as well than hurt you by forcing you to live a lie.

I wish there was a way to let you know that I’m doing all right…

So I suppose I should tell you a little bit about my new life, right? Well, my name now is Emily. Oddly enough, I don’t mind having it. My favorite writer as child was Emily Bronte. And of course, now that I have the name, I find myself wanting to read her works again. Small comforts of a life I’ve had to leave behind.

I’m living in Wisconsin now. I thought New York was horrid in the winter. New York has nothing on Wisconsin. I’m in Wausau, of all places. Probably the biggest metropolis for a couple hundred miles around. I’m in the middle of nowhere, Olivia. All I can smell is cows and paper mills. I’ve been told there’s a pickle factory within like an hour’s drive. Olivia, they said you can smell it in the summer! Shoot me now. Okay, that was in poor taste. And did I mention the football? This whole football craze in this state just astounds me to no end. But I digress.

Insurance claims adjustor. That’s what they have me doing. Me. Can you believe it? It’s such a shift in perspective for me. And it’s so damned boring.

God, I wish you were here, Olivia. You have no idea how lonely it is. I miss you.

Alex

*****

Dear Olivia,

Winters in Wisconsin are brutal. I thought I was prepared. I may never get warm again. It’s been four months now, and I see no end in sight to this damned snow and ice. Will I ever feel the warmth of the sun again? Or am I going to slowly freeze to death?

If only you were here to warm me up…

I know I’ve never told you this, Olivia, and you’d probably be surprised if you ever found out. I just… I’ve enjoyed our friendship over the years…and I’ve wanted more. There were so many times I wanted to tell you, but something always came up. And then I got cocky with Cesar Velez and it cost me everything.

No, not everything. I’m still alive…barely. No, it’s nothing like that. Physically, I’m fine. Healthy as a horse, except for the occasional twinges in my shoulder. Small price to pay for the ability to live and breathe and function in the world. And yet, I’d rather have you here. I’d give up anything and everything to have you here with me. Even if all you want is friendship. Damn it, Olivia, don’t you get it? I need you in my life. You’re all I have left to keep me going.

My mother died. Did you know that? Did you go to the funeral? I hope someone I knew did. I certainly couldn’t go. And I wish I could have. She died believing she buried her only child first. Do you have any idea the guilt that’s given me?

It’s times like this I wish that bullet would have done its job. I don’t like being separated from all I hold dear.

I miss you...

Alex

*****

Dear Olivia,

I’ve been living as Emily Forrester for almost six months, and it’s just now really starting to feel like I could be passably comfortable in this skin, this life. It still hurts to know that everyone thinks I’m dead, that you and Elliot have to live this lie. But there’s nothing to be done about it until Cesar Velez and his entire organization are eradicated. And we both know just how extensive an organization that is. I’ll never again be Alexandra Cabot in public.

And I’m forcing myself not to be her in private either. Except these letters to you. For every letter I write to you and save in this little box, there are ten that get destroyed, burned in the fireplace, for being ridiculously melodramatic. I only allow myself to slip back into my old self when I write to you. It’s an odd sensation.

Olivia, I’ve done something I’ll probably regret. I’m seeing someone else. A man. So I don’t feel like I’m being unfaithful…to you. His name is Henry. He’s rather unassuming, but he has this thing for conspiracy theories. Munch would probably be cracking up that I’m dating someone he could discuss his wild theories with. I’ve managed to talk him out of bringing them up around me, claiming it was against my beliefs. So far, it’s worked.

We’re sort of co-habitating, I guess that’s what you’d call it. I tolerate him in my bed. Oh, he’s sincere and attentive and sweet. But he’s not you. No, I never got the chance to know the bliss of making love to you, but my imagination has had to suffice. And it will have to even longer. Is it wrong of me to admit that when Henry’s making love to me, I imagine it’s you instead? I’d never let him know that, of course. He’d never understand.

He keeps wanting to take me to Tulsa, to visit where I grew up. That’s what everyone thinks, that I’m from Tulsa. Can you imagine me living in such a sprawling vast wasteland? Wausau’s hard enough to get used to. I told him I have bad memories from my childhood that I’d rather not revisit. It seems to have mollified him.

Oh Olivia, I wish I could talk to you. These letters just aren’t enough.

I miss you so much, Olivia, and I wish we could be together.

Love,
Alex

“I can’t do this!” I threw the letters aside, angry tears leaving blackened streaks down my cheeks. “Damn you, Alex!” I railed at the box. “Why? Why now? When I can’t do anything about it!”

There was no answer. Not that I’d expected one. I finished off the last of my beer and packed the letters back into the box. I stood there for a moment, torn as to what to do. And then I quietly walked into my bedroom and pulled out the shoebox from beneath my bed. Opening it, I set Alex’s box inside, on top of the letters I’d been writing to her. And then I shut the box and placed it back in its hiding spot.

Maybe one day I’d finish her letters.

Maybe one day she’d see mine.

Maybe one day things would be different…

update

sophia_helix — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 02:56:17 GMT

Because this has been buried down a ways in the community posts:

An updated list of delayed stories:

~~marginalia, writing for wisdomeagle Extra delay notified~~
~~sangerin, writing for honeymink~~
~~lafemmedarla, writing for sweetvalleyslut Extra delay notified~~
~~buggery, writing for joran~~
~~joanne_c, writing for and_i~~
~~ariestess, writing for morte351~~
~~ijemanja, writing for netgirl_y2k~~
~~sensorium, writing for bofoddity~~
~~thenewhope, writing for dessert_first~~
~~voleuse, writing for nancybrown Extra delay notified~~
~~queenzulu, writing for maidenjedi Extra delay notified~~
~~apatheia_jane, writing for voleuse~~
~~morte351, writing for celeria~~
~~maidenjedi, writing for ctorres~~
~~honeymink, writing for ijemanja Extra delay notified~~
kannaophelia, writing for marginalia Extra delay notified
trakkie, writing for faithtastic Extra delay notified
rynia, writing for stungunbilly Extra delay notified
eliminate, writing for rynia Extra delay notified
briargate, writing for kannaophelia
dessert_first, writing for caretta
ctorres, writing for peppery_lime
sathinks, writing for zvi
caretta, writing for eliminate

The following authors have not contacted me about delays. If you're one of them, *please* get in touch with me at femslash05 @ yahoo.com or in comments below, even if it's just to drop out.

~~emmalyne, writing for paranoidkitten~~ Has been reassigned
literate_bear, writing for callemsandy

I will be calling in backups if stories don't appear by tomorrow night, unless you've notified me that you need a later date. (Serious reasons only for a later date, *please*. I don't even want to hear "My story sucks!" at this point.) If you're signed up, and someone is writing a story for you, please have the courtesy to do your part in return.

Harry Potter, McGonagall/Hooch

netgirl_y2k — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:54:05 GMT

My apologies to minerva_fan for the delay, and well, the fic.

Title: The Perils of Domestic Bliss
Author: Netgirl
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: McGonagall/Hooch
Summary: They've been together nearly forty years and they have a routine.

The problem with regaining consciousness in a hospital is that they all look very much like one another. The only thing that distinguishes the Hogwarts hospital wing from St’Mungos or the accident room at the old Holyhead Harpies training ground is Madam Pomfrey bustling around the empty beds fussing with the sheets. I’m reassured that the surrounding beds are empty, it seems that I succeeded in being the only one injured. In fact the hospital wing appears empty other than myself, Poppy Pomfrey, and…oh yes, sitting on a chair next to my bed, angrily flicking her tail back and forth is a rather small, very cross looking cat. I turn my head to the side and attempt a winning smile, which causes a burst of pain in the side o my head. It’s a futile gesture anyway; this particular cat stopped being impressed with my attempts at charm sometime in the early seventies.

I sigh, giving up on appeasement, “Hello, Minerva.”

The cat narrows her eyes at me, the square shaped markings seeming to contract around bright green eyes. Then with a small pop the cat is gone, replaced by the equally cross looking Professor Minerva McGonagall, salt and pepper hair scraped severely back from her face, robes bristling shades of green and black.

“Good morning, Madam Hooch,” she offers. On the down side I’m clearly still in her bad books. On the up side I can’t be dying, even Minerva’s sense of propriety would not insist on this level of formality if I were about to drop dead in front of her.

When I first retired from Quidditch and began working at Hogwarts Minerva’s insistence on maintaining professional appearances caused some blazing rows between us. I had assumed that one of the perks of working alongside her would be lunchtime quickies in the broom closet, and I was rather miffed when she wouldn’t even call me by first name while we at work. I eventually got used to it. It was just Minerva’s way, keeping the professor part of her life away from her private life. The repeated reminders that we had a perfectly serviceable broom closet at home, in addition to a perfectly serviceable bed encouraged my acceptance.

“Do you remember what happened?” Minerva’s question brings me back to the present. I had been refereeing the Quidditch cup final. Gryffindor Vs. Slytherin, always a tough game. Potter had looked about to catch the snitch when someone in the crowd had released a third bludger which had headed straight for Potter, I vaguely remembered trying to get to the bludger before it got to Potter.

“Potter, is he..?”

“Fine.” Minerva’s lips are thin and she’s giving one-word answers, this is not good.

Ignoring the pain in my head I sit up, giving charm another attempt, “so, someone really is trying to kill him.”

“Yes. The rest of us noticed that some time ago.”

“Well it’s the sort of thing you have to see to believe, like the Chudley Cannons winning the cup,” this earns me a brief smile that is quickly smothered.

“You could have been killed, you’re not the star beater for the Holyhead Harpies anymore.” I bite back my first response; that I saved the life of the boy who lived as would have any other witch or wizard who’d been there, including Minerva.

“You co-,” I stop myself before I remind her of all the nights I lie awake worrying that she’ll be killed while trying to gather intelligence on you know who’s cronies for Albus and the order. I don’t want to have this fight with her right now, I’m tired and my head hurts. One of these days we are going to have that fight and it’s going to change everything. We’ve been married for nearly forty years and this is our routine, she worries about me getting hurt doing silly things like refereeing Quidditch or taking down the Halloween decorations from the great hall and I pretend that I don’t worry about her part in the upcoming war. “I know, love, I’m sorry.”

She brushes her fingers against the side of my head, it doesn’t help the thudding pain in my skull but I turn my face into the touch anyway. “There are plenty of people I could have married who wouldn’t try to stop rogue bludgers with their heads.”

“Like Grubbly-Plank,” I tease. Uh oh, and I was so close to being out of trouble with her.

Understanding

cdybedahl — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:27:29 GMT

For sensorium, who asked for something Angel involving Fred. This has bits of Fred/Kate, Fred/Cordy and Fred/Eve. NC17ish. Short, only 1350 words.

Understanding

Written by Calle Dybedahl

"I do not understand," the blue-glowing shadow says. "Why does our mind produce these images? Why do the images produce these annoying feelings? Explain to me!"

There is nothing where Fred is. It is not even dark, or cold, or empty. There is just nothing.

"What images?" she says, although she has no mouth, nor is there any air for sound to propagate through or space for air to fill.

"These images!" the demon queen shadow screams.

Fred finds herself standing in a crowded nightclub. Trance music beats at her eardrums. Laser light flashes through the air, hitting pockets of drifting multi-colored smoke and the occasional oversize soap bubble. Most of the club is dance floor, which is full of moving people. They are dressed in bright colors. Almost all have piercings. Fred knows that it is so late at night that it's actually early in the morning, and that the music has been pounding non-stop since around nightfall.

She is standing in the rear of the club. Her back is pressed against a corner. Her dress is pushed up to her waist, and she's got one foot up on a little round black table. Her mouth is open, and she's screaming wildly into the deafening noise. An athletic blonde woman is kissing her neck at the same time as she's pushing three fingers into Fred's pussy in time with the music.

Fred is screaming for her not to stop. To go on. To fuck her harder. To rip her clothes off and bite her nipples hard enough to draw blood.

The blonde woman is, stereotypically enough, wearing a checked flannel shirt, blue jeans and boots. The shirt is open. She's not wearing anything under it, unless you count Fred's hands which are desperately clutching her breasts. Her name is Kate, and she used to be a police officer. Now, she's a private investigator, sometime muscle for hire and demon killer when the opportunity strikes. She met Fred when they both happened to be stalking the same monster.

"This," Kate says, and Fred can clearly hear her voice in spite of the music. Her hair and forehead is tinted blue. "Why are we doing this? What is the point?"

"Don't stop," Fred says. She lets go of Kate's tits, grabs the hand between her legs with both of her own and forces it to keep moving. "Don't stop now!"

"I still do not understand," the not-Kate says.

The nightclub vanishes.

It's a hotel room. The walls are covered with fifties-style patterned green wallpaper. The furniture is of similar age. Fred knows it well. It's a room in the Hyperion Hotel, where she hid after Angel and Cordelia returned her from Pylea. Not in this exact room, though. This is a room that wasn't used.

Except sometimes.

Cordelia is sitting on the edge of the old bed. The mattress is still soft enough, but she's thrown a sheet over it to keep half a century's worth of accumulated dust and dirt away from her skin. She's leaning back a little, supporting herself on her outstretched arms. Her legs are spread wide. She's completely naked, except for a pair of high-heeled shiny black leather boots hugging her legs all the way up to her knees.

Fred is kneeling between Cordelia's legs. She's vigorously licking her pussy, tongue moving in broad, firm strokes up and down the soft, lovely valley of the vulva. If she rolls her eyes all the way up she can just barely see the undersides of Cordelia's marvelous bust. In a little while, she'll stop licking, get up on her knees and start playing with those breasts instead. She'll do that for a little while, and then she'll return to the promised land in Cordelia's crotch, just long enough for her not to come. She'll do it like that for ages and ages, alternating between high and low, until finally Cordy will be so wound up that the slightest little touch will bring her off. Then Fred will give her a last little nibble of the clitoris, and Cordelia will scream the house down.

It is a little game they play, every now and then. Sometimes she'll do it to Cordy. Sometimes Cordy'll do it to her. They keep records, to see who can stand it the longest.

Fred lets Cordelia win.

"You do?" blue-shimmering Cordelia says. "Why? What is the point? And why are you doing this at all? Are the spasms that important?"

Quick as lightning, Fred catches not-Cordelia's clit between her lips and hooks a finger just inside her vaginal entrance. A shockwave travels from where she touches all through the gorgeous body. There is an insanely loud surprised gasp, and suddenly Cordelia's entire body shines like a huge blue pornographic lightbulb.

An office at Wolfram and Hart. A big one, with a huge desk that's almost empty. That's not so strange, because the office's occupant doesn't seem to have much more to do than to annoy the new CEO.

That leaves Eve plenty of time for other pursuits. Pursuits that Fred are quite happy to help her with.

There is a small table in the office, near the middle, next to the visitors' chairs. It's a sturdy table, that usually only holds a potted plant and a box of business cards. At the moment, the plant and box has had to give way to one very naked executive.

Eve is bent over it. Her hands and feet are cuffed to its legs. The top of the table is only big enough to hold her belly, so her chest and groin are both easily available to anybody nearby.

Fred is standing nearby.

In her hand is a riding crop. Normally, a much to hard instrument for this kind of play. But Eve likes it really rough, and her medical plan is good enough that any wounds will be fixed my morning. Fred strikes her ass, leaving a line that changes from white to red as she watches.

"Have you been naught?" Fred asks.

"Yes," Eve said. "Very naughty."

"This naughty?" Fred asks, and runs the tip of the crop over Eve's firm ass.

"Worse," Eve says.

Fred moves the tip to touch a nipple.

"Still worse."

The vulva, where the labia are just slightly pulled apart by her spread legs.

"Yes," Eve says, and she's shaking all over.

Fred puts all her strength and all her weight into the blows. Eve likes it really rough, after all. When Fred stops hitting her, the riding crop is spotted with blood.

"More," Eve moans through rasping breaths. "Harder."

Fred turns the crop around. Its handle is rough and has several sharp corners. She spreads Eve's pussy wide open with one hand, and with the other she brutally rams the riding crop's handle up Eve's snatch. She pulls it back and slams it in again over and over again, until drops of blood appear. Then, she leaves the crop sticking straight out.

"She likes this," a voice says behind Fred.

Fred turns around. A blue-tinted and red-armored version of herself is standing there.

"Yes," Fred says. "She's kinda twisted, really."

Eve doesn't seem to notice the extra Fred.

"Would we like this?" not-Fred asks.

"God, no," Fred says.

"I see," blue-Fred says. "I thank you for your demonstrations."

Everything vanishes, except the two Freds, the table, Eve and the riding crop. Eve still doesn't react as if anything unusual is happening.

Fred looks around. She frowns. Distant memories scratch on her mind.

"I'm dead, aren't I?" she says.

"In a way," the stranger says. "In another, you live on here, inside my mind."

"Strange kind of life."

"I do not have the power I once possessed. I do wish I could give you better than this."

Fred looks around. The table has gone now, and Eve seems to be spread over and cuffed to nothing.

"What happens now?" Fred says.

"For, you nothing," not-Fred says. "Until I need you again."

"Oh," Fred says.

She sits down on the nothing.

"Well then," she says. "Go ahead."

And then there is truly nothing.

"Down Came the Rain" for sathinks

mandysbitch — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:14:40 GMT

Title: Down Came the Rain
Author: cgb (luberluber@yahoo.com.au)
Web: http://www.mandysbitch.com
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Sam/ Janet
Rating: NC-17-ish
Spoilers: "Grace," and "Heroes" mostly.
Summary: "She's still scared, still thinking about Apophis and the Goa'uld that laid waste to Cassie's planet. Janet is the brave one."

For sathinks for femlash05. Hope you enjoy.

"… It flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with a waistcoat-pocket, or watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice…"
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.

*

She's running. In her dreams she's always running. She's running from Jaffa, running from weapons fire, running to the gate, running for shelter. She doesn't know why she's running this time but she sees the gate before her, sun shining off the alloy, breaking through the foliage. She calls out and Teal'c answers behind her. Daniel is in front, running for the DHD. Low hanging branches fly in her face and scratch her cheeks. She keeps running.

She stops. Holds up her hand.

Somewhere she can hear a child singing. A nursery rhyme: "...itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout..." Sam knows the song. She knows the hand motions: thumb to finger, finger to thumb, thumb to finger again.

There's a flash of light and she opens her eyes, sees the ceiling. Her ceiling. The child's voice keeps on singing: "...down came the rain..."

Grace.

Grace is back.

She sits up in bed. Standing in the doorway of her bedroom is Grace - same curls, same white dress, same mischievous smile on her face, hiding secrets. She is performing the rhyme's hand movements as she sings - thumb to finger, finger to thumb, thumb to finger again.

Sam finds her voice. "What are you doing here?"

"How rude!" Grace looks insulted. "It's polite to say 'hello' when you have company."

"You're not company," Sam says. "You're a figment of my imagination."

Grace laughs and skips away, her voice echoing down the hall.

Sam closes her eyes, gives her body a shake. She opens her eyes to find the room as it was. No Grace. No singing, no laughter. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands up. Her stomach lurches and her head swims. She falls to her knees beside the bed.

She tries standing again, letting her head adjust to the shift in her centre of gravity. She performs a quick inventory in her head. She is wearing pyjamas and she is home. All else is a mystery.

She takes a few steps in the direction of the door. When she feels steadier on her feet she increases her pace, creates a momentum that propels her into the hallway.

She can hear humming. Not Grace this time. Someone older. She enters the kitchen and finds Janet, fully dressed in uniform with white lab coat over the top. She's making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Sam's mouth goes dry, she swallows air, grabs the door frame to steady herself.
"Janet?" Her voice cracks when she speaks.

"Hey Sam." Janet turns around. Takes a bite out of the sandwich.

"You're not here," Sam says. "This isn't you."

Janet shrugs. "Whatever you say."

"You're dead."

"Death isn't what it used to be," Janet says. "I mean, take Daniel for instance."

"You were shot by a staff weapon. They shot a hole through your heart."

Janet puts the peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a plate. Sam can hear Grace singing again. The room seems darker. Her breath feels shallow and her head won't stop spinning. She leans against the wall and finds herself sliding down, down until she reaches the floor.

Janet is there, seated on the floor beside her. She's wearing civilian clothes now - jeans and sneakers and a blue sweater.

"What's going on, Sam?" she says.

"I don't feel so good."

"You don't look so good. When was the last time you took a vacation?"

Sam doesn't take vacations. She's never sick, never tardy. She gets bed rest only when she's shot, taken over by an alien entities or suffering from concussion and hallucinating small children.

She remembers she's getting married which means there ought to be a honeymoon in her near future. The thought makes her stomach turn. Again.

"I'm getting married," Sam says.

"I know," Janet says.

Sam closes her eyes and rubs the heels of her hands against her forehead. There's a dull ache behind her eyes. She considers lying on the floor, waking up when the dream is gone.

"Wake up, sleepy-head." Sam opens her eyes and it's Grace standing there.

"What do you want?" Sam's voice echoes off the hard surfaces of her empty kitchen.

"I want grandchildren." Sam turns and finds Janet still sitting beside her, elbows on her raised knees. "I guess that's not going to happen now."

Sam turns back and Grace is gone. "Did you see her?" she asks Janet.

"See who?"

"Grace. She was right in front of me..."

Janet puts a hand to Sam's forehead. Sam jumps at the touch. Janet feels real - warm and pulsing with life. "You have a fever," Janet says. "You could be delusional."

"It's happened before," Sam says. "It was just after..." She meets Janet's eyes. Janet stares back, unblinking. "It was just after you died."

"Sam." Janet takes Sam's hand, holds it between both of hers. "You know what this is about."

There's a flash of memory and Sam sees the two of them, naked under the soft light filtering through partially open curtains. They don't know each other very well. Janet is new to the SGC, still finding her way around event horizons and alien life forms. It's not familiar to Sam either. She's still scared, still thinking about Apophis and the Goa'uld that laid waste to Cassie's planet. Janet is the brave one: first woman on Earth to adopt an alien. Janet laughs and says, "I always knew my child would be special."

They meet after dark. Sam's place. Cassie gets to be a regular Earth child with a sitter, pizza and a stack of DVDs. Sam always imagined she'd be swept away by the dashingly rugged Colonel and maybe that's a feeling she's not given up but it was the Janet who held her when Daniel "died" (the first time). It was Janet who was there after they'd saved the world. Janet who said, "I'll always be here."

They are lovers after the third night. They drink red wine and Sam says, "I want to close my eyes and not see stars exploding."

Janet says, "I want to not see them bleeding over my hands. I want to be able to tell their family how they died."

Sam says, "Will you stay?" and Janet is at her side, taking her head in her hands, kissing her eyes, her neck, her lips.

"Did you tell him about us?"

The memory disappears. Fades into her kitchen, Janet still there beside her.

"I didn't tell anyone," Sam says. "Don't ask don't tell. Remember?"

"He's not Air Force."

"It's..." There are too many things she doesn't tell Pete. She's become an expert at keeping secrets. "It's complicated."

"That's what you always say," Grace says. She spins and skips outside.

Sam blinks at Grace's sudden reappearance and exit. She gets to her feet, follows Grace out into the garden.

The sun is warm and blinding. Almost in the middle of the sky. Grace skips around a flower bed, a white blur against a backdrop of colour. She sings, "Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout..."

The dream returns: they are hiding behind a fallen log - she and Daniel. Teal'c is scouting ahead. He returns quickly, says, "It's clear," and they run. The gate is across the clearing. Daniel reaches the DHD first and dials. She sees the splash of light as the event horizon forms. She scratches her hand on a protruding branch, holds it up for inspection.

"It was just a scratch," Sam says.

"It's never just a scratch." Janet is beside her, wearing her uniform again. "Let me see."

Sam holds up her hand. There's nothing there. "Doctor Carmichael said it was nothing," Sam says.

Janet shrugs. "He's right. It's probably nothing."

Sam looks at her hand again. There's a large red welt running from her index finger to her wrist.

Her breath is caught in her throat. "What happened?" She says to Janet. Janet's face is blank. Sam looks up, and sees Grace, watching them. "What's going on?" she asks her.

Janet takes Sam's hand, runs a swab carefully across the wound. "Looks like an infection," she says. She consults Sam's chart.

Sams' in the infirmary. Jolinar is dead and Sam is confined to the infirmary while Janet takes x-rays, blood samples and MRI scans. Days go past and she feels fine, feels far too healthy to be lying in a hospital bed doing nothing.

Eventually, Janet says, "Get dressed. I'm taking you home."

They undress and get into bed together. Sam turns on her side, switches the light off. Janet runs a hand from Sam's thigh to her rib cage, a surgeon appraising her work. She traces the curve of Sam's breast, her fingers trail down, lightly dancing over Sam's stomach, circling her abdomen. Janet slides her hand lower until she comes to rest between Sam's leg, slides her fingers inside Sam, moves them slowly in and out. Sam feels Janet's breath hot against her neck, tilts her head back so it's against Janet's shoulder. Janet strokes her, builds her to climax. Sam closes her eye and sees stars.

It only takes two times to be habit forming but it never gets to be a habit. There isn't a third time.

"What happened?" Sam says, again.

"You know what happened," Janet says.

"I was scared."

"Don't ask, don't tell," Janet says. "I took it to the grave."

"That's not what I wanted."

"Then tell them."

Grace is staring at the sky. "It's going to rain," she says.

It does. Sam runs for cover, stumbles through the door and falls to her knees on the floor of her hallway. Her hair is damp and her face feels like it's burning. She rests her hands against her knees, catches her breath. Grace stands watching her, like she's been there all the time.

"Tell me," Sam says. "Tell me what's going on."

"You'll figure it out," Grace says. "You always do."

Janet appears before her, lab coat and uniform again. "Sam?" she says.

"You're not here." Sam wants to cry. She blinks at hot tears stinging her eyes. "You're not Janet."

"Look at your hand."

Sam holds up her hand. It's red and round like it's full of air.

"You should call them," Janet says.

*

She's running through a forrest, brandishing her P-90 in front of her, flinging branches and vines to the side. Teal'c tells her he's right behind and Daniel is ahead, the first to break through to the clearing and the first to reach the DHD. He yells, "dialling!" and weapons fire answers. They all duck.

She holds up her hand.

She wakes up in the infirmary. A nurse is quickly at her side, smiling and saying, "Welcome back." He tells her he's going to fetch Dr Carmichael.

Dr Carmichael tells her she's been stung. "An insect probably," he says. "The sting was embedded and the poison released slowly - which is why we missed it on your post-mission screening. You probably didn't even notice at the time."

She holds up her hand as she did in the dream. A bandage covers an IV bung delivering what is no doubt antibiotics. The last thing she remembers is kneeling on the floor of her hallway.

"How did I get here?"

"You don't remember? You called the General. Apparently, you said something about someone called Grace?"

Sam shrugs, feigns ignorance. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"Well," Dr Carmichael says. "The General was concerned enough to send Dr Jackson to check on you. Dr Jackson said you were unconscious when he found you."

The memory returns. She was running through the forest, running from Ba'al's Jaffa. She was almost at the gate when she felt the scratch. She held her hand up to the light of the gate and saw nothing there. With no time for further investigation, she ran for the gate.

She hears Grace singing, telling a story with her hands, thumb to finger, finger to thumb. She remembers Janet.

"Is Dr Jackson still here?" Sam asks.

Dr Carmichael nods. "I'll send him in."

Daniel appears moments later, hands in pockets, trying to smile reassuringly. He says, "Hey Sam," and sits on the end of the bed. "Feeling better?"

"Much better," she says. "Thank you."

"Jack's looking into improving the screening process on returning teams," Daniel says. "He's not happy that you got past us."

"I'll bet." Sam looks sheepish. "It's not Dr Carmichael's fault. I should have insisted he run a second screening."

"We caught it in time," Daniel says. "That's what counts."

Sam shakes her head. "Janet would have..." She catches Daniels eye. "She always insisted on double checking."

"Yeah," Daniel laughs, wryly. "I never thought I'd miss that."

"Me too," Sam says. In her head you can hear Grace singing, down came the rain and washed the spider out... "Daniel?"

"Yeah?"

"I want to tell you something - about Janet."

He leans closer. "I'm listening."

Fini

Author's notes: With thanks to Lewis Carroll, Joss Whedon (for that line I bastardised) and the Stargate writers for not providing an answer to Grace and allowing her to be, forever in my mind, the White Rabbit.

B/F Ocean

valancy — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:51:00 GMT

For: emmalyne, who got more backup writers than even I would know what to do with. *g*

Request: Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy/Faith
NC-17 okay? No.

The ripple of thunder is a rare sound to a Californian, and as such should be cherished. Buffy was curled on an old wooden porch swing, the distant hum of crickets fading into the gentle booms, ready to enjoy it, her feet tucked about her. Faith's feet moving in the kitchen was the only other sound. She found herself listening for Dawn, though she knew Dawn was worlds away. She closed her eyes and listened for the soft thrum of coming rain, willing herself to stillness.

Faith slid into the space beside her, rocking the swing with her movement, breaking the silence with her unguarded movements. Her hand curled around Buffy's waist and Buffy leaned into it, head cradled on Faith's shoulder. The air smelled of wet earth and green things.

"I think Angel missed the rain," Buffy murmured. "He never said so, but I think he missed it. He always seemed - more at home in it. We'd sit for hours waiting for a rainstorm, as if it were a movie, outside at night. I never understood why he came to California, really. It's not his kind of place. Or wasn't."

Faith's smile tightened, her fingers running through Buffy's hair almost absent-mindedly. "Angel liked his secrets. Probably would have hated admitting homesickness."

Buffy nodded, failed to see the look in Faith's eyes. "It must have been hard, really knowing there was no home to go to. How do you visit good old 18th century Ireland? Or even - well, you don't. I didn't get that until I didn't have a home any more. It took a while, but - I understand it now."

Buffy felt Faith's arm tighten the smallest bit.

"I miss him too," Faith said.

"Don't be angry."

"I'm not," Faith snapped, then laughed, sat up straighter. Buffy slid off her as the rain began to fall gently on the lawn. "I'm not," she said again, eyes straight ahead and back ruler-straight. She seemed almost uninterested for a second, off somewhere else; the old Faith, the fuck-you Faith, peering out of eyes that hadn't changed despite everything else that had.

"I get that you're tired, B, " Faith said. "I really do. I get that after your big hoorah in Italy that finding Angel dead back home was more than a little guilt trip. I get that I'm the only one around who really misses him, and I get that you keep coming 'round for old times' sake, need someone to talk to about how much you hurt. I even get that I'm old and comfortable and it's easier than talking to Willow 'cause I won't call you up next week to remind you of all the things you said today 'cause I don't do that.

But it's getting to be a long time ago, B."

"Nine months isn't a long time. It's like - it's like it's barely been born. Like his death is barely here." Her throat tightened; the space between them widened, the bench somehow longer. Buffy could have laughed; she suddenly wished she knew her old science professor's number, Mr. Kirkby?, wanted to point out the sudden appearance of new matter.

"Having our own little crew of weakling slayers to follow in our footsteps doesn't mean our expiration date's any longer, B, and you know it. Nine months is a long time to any slayer. And you're wasting your fucking time, moping around. Wasting my time.

"Fuck, B, we're all surprised as many are still alive as there are. Only girl who really had a chance slit her own guts out. She could've been one of us. The rest of them aren't world changers, never were. That's why we were chosen. Really chosen."

Buffy turned to Faith. "And what worlds are we changing now, Faith? What have we done lately besides let Angel die?" Her lips curled back as she spoke, her lips spitting the words out.

Faith sighed, almost deflated, her stiff back melting as the air hissed out of her with the same sound as the water dripping down from the rafters. "Nothing. We haven't done anything, because we don't have anything to fight. It's why we're so crazy right now. That's all. Angel took all the big boys with him and didn't leave any for us, just little canon fodder waiting to turn into great big bads when we're dead and gone." She laughed a little, kicked back her feet and smiled at Buffy again, all the anger gone. "You should look at what I brought back. It's not so bad. Not like Angel's face is engraved on any of it. Spike's gone too, not hiding in the weapons, if that's what's got you, though he might as well have stayed dead, for all his trouble. Pretty stuff - swords, some axes. You might recognize some of it. Who knows."

Buffy shook her head. "There was a fire. He told me that once; he lost everything. I've got a couple of his sketches. That's all."

Faith shrugged. "It was his, still. If you want it."

Echoing Faith's shrug, she slipped back into the curves of the bench, her feet almost but not quite touching Faith again. So much dancing around Faith; like Spike. Oh, God, Spike. Blond hair and pretty blue eyes, watching every - no.

Not tonight. No more tonight.

The distance between them seemed to grow as the rain settled in an even pattern, found its gait. A gust blew in a few drops, wet Buffy's knees, left liquid patterns on the wood between them. Despite the smallness of the bench, the gap seemed somehow enormous. Yes, every move with Faith was a dance, and had been for so long Buffy almost didn't notice it any more; every time something gentle was tendered, the rebuff was so abrupt and absolute it was as if it erased everything that came before. It was no wonder things never got further; the small space between them might just as well have been an ocean again, instead of just a few small raindrops and a bit of poor pine.

Her hand reached before she told it to, snaked across to slip up Faith's ankle, rest on her knee of its own accord, looking more lost and awkward than seductive, she knew. The wood creaked beneath her, and Buffy's lips parted.

"S'ok, B," Faith said, standing. "I'm not mad." She turned and walked back in the house, and Buffy heard the clinking of glasses, the pouring of tequila. There would be no talking now, no crossing of borders or oceans or lips.

The rain shifted, and slowed, and finally stopped. Faith finished her tequila, and the rain vanished into misty hot summer air; and by the time Faith's unsteady feet found the porch again, there was nothing to be found at all.

Five Things That Never Happened to Cassie Hughes (Hex), by Claire

sophia_helix — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 06:38:28 GMT

Posting this for paranoidkitten, who's out of town

Written for cybedahl

Five Things That Never Happened To Cassie Hughes

One
Roxanne is slick and smooth and glossy and gets up at five every
morning to put on her make-up. When Cassie first arrived Roxanne looked her
up and down, appraising the blonde girl with her hair tied back in a
ponytail, lacking hairspray or any kind of ornamentation, wearing a
Grateful dead t-shirt and a pair of baggy jeans that failed to cling
appealing to her – and Cassie knew then and there that they were never going to
be friends, even if she tried to fool herself for the first week or so,
telling herself that once Roxanne actually got to know her, everything
would be fine and she could be part of Roxanne’s little group, all
elegant and sophisticated and cool.
She would fit somewhere.
One night she is in bed early, feigning illness so she won’t have to
think up an excuse for staying in the room and being anti-social, not
that Roxanne asks all that often, not that she cares, not that she seems
to expect anything else at this stage. The door opens and there are two
figures in the doorway.
Cassie closes her eyes before they can see she is awake. She hears
kisses, then voices.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” That’s Roxanne.
“Stop worrying.” Slightly playful, slightly impatient. Female.
Female.
It takes her a moment to place the voice. Thelma, she thinks, it’s
Thelma, Thelma who manages to be cool and aloof and independent (Thelma who
is usually alone by choice, unlike Cassie who is usually alone by
necessity), Thelma who is – doing things, doing things to Roxanne that make
her moan and gasp not three feet away from where Cassie is lying,
frozen.
She wants that, she realises, and she doesn’t know what exactly she
wants, whether it’s Roxanne or Thelma or love or sex or just
someone, but she wants it.

Two
After it’s all over, she can’t quite believe that she was able to do
it, able to hurt someone so strong, able to save Thelma, able to be
strong when inside she feels so weak and helpless most of the time. It’s a
blur now; all she remembers is feeling a surge of power, of knowing that
the most important thing in her life was about to be taken away from
her and she had to stop it.
Now all she can do is shake, and when Thelma crawls into bed with her
and starts stroking her hair, Cassie clings to her for dear life.
“I love you,” she sobs.
“Cassie.” Thelma’s voice is warning, tired. “Don’t.”
“I mean it.”
“Just because I almost got killed by a fallen angel or whatever the
hell he is –”
“Thelma! Listen to me. I do. Okay?” Cassie stares at her for a moment.
“Okay,” Thelma says softly, pressing a kiss against Cassie’s forehead,
then her lips.

Three
She’s gone she’s gone she’s gone.
The world is safe and everything’s okay, every fucking thing in the
world is going to be just fine except she’s gone she’s gone she’s gone.
Worse than death, worse than anything, she’s gone she’s gone she’s gone
and oh god what are you going to do now that you don’t have her to talk
to and to make you laugh and cheer you up and just be there, and even
not being able to touch her or hug her was okay, painful and all as it
was because it was better than this, better than her not being around at
all, being nowhere, being not-here, gone gone gone forever and ever and
you’re never going to see her again ever ever and your heart is
breaking into a million pieces and every single one of them hurts so fucking
much and how can you live like this, how how how?
Without her. Oh god. You can’t do this. You can’t.

Four
When Cassie wakes up to feel Thelma’s hand in hers she thinks she’s
dreaming.
When Thelma explains about second chances and worries about putting on
weight again now that she’s alive but used to a ghostly diet and tries
to figure out exactly how to explain this to people or whether it’s
perhaps better to just start a new life, start over completely, all Cassie
can focus on is that hand in hers, warm and living. She nods and smiles
at Thelma and she is terrified that this is going to be ripped away
from her again, but the joy, the relief, the sense of a dream coming true
– that’s enough to cancel out at least some of the fear.
Thelma will hang around in Cassie’s room for a while before they decide
what to do, they agree. Cassie offers to go and stock up on snacks from
the vending machine downstairs; Thelma has a craving for Walkers
crisps.
Cassie feels like she’s floating. On returning to her room, she tosses
the crisps over to Thelma and deposits a selection of chocolate bars on
her bed. She watches Thelma eat, licking her fingers clean of salt.
“What are you looking at?” Thelma asks.
Cassie doesn’t know what to say, so she leans over and kisses Thelma.
She can taste the salt, taste Thelma, feel Thelma, touch her, finally.
Thelma’s not the one who’s been given a second chance.

Five
“Tell me something about yourself,” Thelma says as they sit in the
university café, which serves cheap but bad coffee.
Cassie wants to say something interesting, fascinating, extreme –
Thelma looks so exotic and different, all fishnet and drama, in a sea of
jeans and hippie skirts and sloppiness. Two weeks into term and the
novelty and need to impress has worn off somewhat, but Cassie suspects – no,
knows – Thelma dresses to impress no one but herself.
My mother has never got over the man she wanted to marry, some guy
named James, dying unexpectedly. She could say this, but that’s her
mother’s story, not hers, and she isn’t sure she wants to talk about
being the child of a marriage that was always going to be second-best.
That’s sad, not interesting.
I am a virgin. No. That’s sad, and not tragic-sad, pathetic-sad.
I see dead people. Heh. Pop culture references will either mark
her out as a boring person with no life of her own, or make Thelma
smile.
Cassie widens her eyes. “I see dead people,” she whispers.
Thelma grins.
Cassie decides right then and there that if they keep this up, their
little post-lecture coffee chats, she will always try to make Thelma
smile. It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

- end -

Veronica Mars story for trakkie

pearl_o — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 06:21:53 GMT

Written for trakkie for femslash05.

Title: Lilly of the Field
Author: Pearl-o (pearlo@illuminatedtext.com)
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Pairing: Veronica/Lilly, Lilly/f
Rating: PG
Summary: Veronica is good at finding things out.

*****

"What were you doing with naked photographs of Lilly Kane?"

Shelby Ashford had been walking away from me, avoiding my request for a little chat between us, but that question, thrown out in the open, froze her suddenly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. Ha. Like I hadn't dealt with better liars than her a thousand times. Some of them could even look me in the eyes, or, hell, get out that line without their voices getting all trembly.

I took the last couple steps to catch up -- I was fast, but Shelby's legs were easily twice the length of mine -- and stood next to her. "Those pictures in the tabloids. You took that film to the Foto Finish on Elvira last Monday. The scumbag working there that night sold copies of them to the highest bidder."

"I didn't know those were there," Shelby said. Her voice was still a little weepy, but she was looking at me now; she was telling the truth. "I thought it was just an old carton of film. If I had known, I never would have--"

"Yeah, Shelby, I know," I said impatiently. "I just want to know why you had them."

The expression on Shelby's face changed a little -- she looked more afraid than anything else, a minute ago, but now she looked more annoyed. "God, Veronica," she whispered, "why do you think?" She looked to either side of us quickly and started walking away again.

I blinked after her for a second, but at this point in my life, it took a lot more than that to throw me.

I grabbed her arm, and Shelby turned, glaring.

"You're telling me you and Lilly--" I started skeptically.

"I'm not telling you anything, Veronica Mars." Shelby crossed her arms over her chest. "You're butting in. But I guess that's what you do best."

I brushed that off. "I don't care what you think of me, Shelby. What I care about is getting Lilly Kane's murderer brought to justice."

"God, Veronica! What is with you? This has nothing to do with Lilly's death! Lilly and I fooled around a couple times when she and Logan were broken up during the summer. She was pretty, and she was cool, and she knew how to keep her mouth shut about things. Unlike some people." Shelby was pissed. She still looked close to tears.

I narrowed my eyes. "When was the last time you guys saw each other?"

"We sat next to each other in English every day. Our lockers were down the hall from each other." Shelby rolled her eyes. "If you want to know the last time we had sex, you can just say so. It was August."

Lilly had died in October. "You didn't see her before she died?"

"No," Shelby said. "You have any more questions? Or are you ready to go spread all this around the school, how Shelby Ashford is a big dyke? I guess it'll be a relief to have the rumors around somebody else for once, huh?"

I took a step back. "Shelby, I'm not going to tell anybody. I wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, whatever." She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "You have any more questions for me about my private life, or can I go now?"

As I watched Shelby walk away, I thought of what I had just learned. Lilly -- my best friend -- had spent the summer having sex with another girl, and I'd had no idea. I hadn't known when she was with Weevil, either. How much was there about Lilly that I didn't know?

I had always taken Lilly's heterosexuality for granted. We talked about boys all the time -- boys on television, in magazines, at school. I knew much more about Logan's penis than anybody should ever have to think about. Lilly had never said a word that gave any clue that she might be attracted to girls.

Or ... had she? I wondered, driving back home. Just because Lilly had always been outrageous didn't mean the things she was doing weren't true. She commented about girls. She said things about all kinds of sex. Maybe I had just never put the pieces together. Maybe I just never thought--

I never had thought. Lilly kissed me in the limo during Homecoming, in front of both our boyfriends. We hugged and held hands and did each other's hair. She taught me how to put on make up and how to look sexy, how to show off my body. We undressed in front of each other and tried on clothes. We slept together in her bed during all our sleepovers. But all of that was normal teenage girl stuff. That's what best friends did.

Wasn't it?

I parked the car back at the apartments and switched off the keys. I sat there in the front seat, staring out the front windshield.

Maybe all that was normal. But the thought I couldn't get out of my mind -- the one that had been running through my mind ever since Shelby talked to me today -- wasn't normal. Because I couldn't help wondering: why not me?