Title: Why (1/3)
Pairing: Hermione/Ginny
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: "Sometimes the answer to why is just because."

Hermione’s loins roil as she stumbles towards the Gryffindor common room too many steps at a time, undaunted by the reams of parchment shed in her effusive haste—homework assignments and notes, wasted hours of intense color-coding--billowing behind her. She hopes no one notices the scarlet winding up her neck; stretching wide across her face or the sloppy, almost absentminded state of her robes.

Hermione glances over her shoulder and her knees nearly buckle because Ginny is lazily trailing behind her, hand errantly scraping across the stone wall as she goes, lips swollen and eyes present, but not. For a second, a sliver of one, Hermione wonders if her lips are swollen, too, if some deft, conscientious student, a Ravenclaw perhaps, would make the tenuous connection and… and then what? She doesn’t know, doesn’t care to find out because Ginny is everything the Weasley boys aren’t, precious and refined and delicate, and they have spent their whole lives—or rather, Ginny’s—protecting their sister from prospective impurities, the bulk of which involve notions of romantic entanglements with fast-moving boys.

Elle doesn’t like to think about things because worry doesn’t feel good. It makes her hands clammy and her heart strain with pump-pumps. And while, admittedly, abstaining from thoughts has been an insensible philosophy and the raison d'etre behind 99% of her fuck-ups, Elle can’t stop the abrupt outpour of thinks, mainly about how badly Noah is going to kill her dead, find some spooky necromancer freak to breathe life into her bones just so he’ll have the satisfaction of killing her again. Maybe this is the single most scary event of her life, maybe it isn’t. But Elle can’t feel anything other than a resounding fear that does something funny to her insides, prompts her to heave Mr. Cortez across the hall and into the coat closet. Elle is so consumed in fleeing that she doesn’t notice her wallet squeeze out of her back pocket or how just as Claire’s foot slips into the closing door, Noah pads inside the house.

He bends down for the scuffed wallet. There, secured beneath the plastic visor and obscured by an old ticket stub, is Elle’s driver’s license. “Elle?” he calls, foot perched on the first step.

The top of her bedroom door is crooked open and visible from his vantage point. Another halting step forward and Noah flicks a glance towards his wristwatch. He grimaces. It’s too late to be doing anything other than snatching his briefcase and barreling towards the airport. Vital clients are expecting him and, once again, the Company’s reputation relies on his tried bureaucracy. They’ve already postponed the meeting well over an hour upon news that he had missed his initial flight and the boss would not take kindly to another muck up, albeit their rarity in Noah’s carefully documented employment history. He slaps the wallet on the coffee table and tucks the briefcase beneath his arm.

Elle and Claire hold their breaths as a muffled engine churns away, further and further until the fear manifests into laughter. The closet is tight, Elle’s crouched against the very back and Claire is kneeling against her, head bowed near Elle’s chest. “Let’s not do that again,” whispers Claire and they smile at each other to distract their bodies from registering their proximity and the very real perils it poses. “I think it’s clear…”

Elle nods expectantly, waiting for Claire to retreat so that she can spring upright, but the teenager just sits still, raises her head to look at Elle in the face. It’s the closest they’ve been in eons and the cheerleader isn’t ready to give it up. Claire wets her lips involuntarily, “I think we should get out of here before I do something I might end up regretting.” Elle agrees.

Title: That Girl Is Like A Sunburn (1/?, 2/?)
Pairing: Spencer/Ashley
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: AU. It's been two years since Spencer Carlin shook up Ashley's entire existence. Now, Ashley reminisces about that fateful summer and all the events leading up to the nature of their present-day relationship. More importantly, she tries to figure out how things got so screwed up along the way.

Fuck her. It’s written all over my sneering lips in pomegranate lip gloss. Her golden hair’s trussed up in an immaculate pony tail—I want to knot my fingers in those perfect strands and tug, make her smiling mouth twist into an even more perfect gasp. She loves it. You can’t tell it by her cheerleading uniform, but she’s a dirty girl. Filthy, even.

Spencer’s got the sweetest face. Even if she committed a string of atrocious acts, streamed it live on the 5 o’clock evening news, a jury wouldn’t convict her on account of that face. Her pretty veneer says she’s innocence personified; the poster-child of morality. I know better. When she comes looking for me with wet panties and a hankering for those nasty, torrid things we do, her typically coy blue eyes are rife with fire and brimstone.

I’m on the bleachers, unabashedly eye fucking her with the rest of the depraved spectators. The cheerleading squad is engaged in an overtly sexual dance routine. I think Madison’s true calling is choreography, you know, strip clubs, exceptionally racy burlesque shows, or perhaps even some sort of slutty musical, assuming there’s a venue for slutty musicals?

The heat emanating off her writhing body smudges out her immediate surroundings like a mirage on a hot, dusty day. I swear the air around her is blistering, hissing out complaints, begging for a cool respite. I grit my teeth. I can’t stand looking at her with all this want and not reaching out to touch… trace my palms up her smooth legs and over her supple ass.

I’m the only one in the parking lot. It took some slick maneuvering to get past the abnormally dense crowds without grazing a boner, but voila, here I am. I’m stretched out against the hood of my car with a small pile of half-spent cigarettes littered at my feet. I took up smoking to pass the monotony between our trysts. Her poison isn’t much better than the shit in these cigarettes. Either way, she’ll kill me. I figure, why not take the edge off from Point A to, well, death?

“Let’s go.” It’s her.

Elle reads through her list of would-be romantic gestures. She decides flower arrangements are too generic, jewelry is too presumptuous and skywriting is just plain tacky and subsequently runs a bold scribble through each option. She rules out poetry because she realizes she’s only ever written one acrostic poem in 2nd grade:

Elle hates Mrs. Bailey’s class

Likes to punch stupid people

Like Mrs. Bailey

Elle hates Mrs. Bailey’s class

And it wasn’t very good. She scratches out candlelight picnic because ever since Claire was nearly attacked Elle finds post-dusk park safety suspect and—shit--slams the pen and tablet on the tabletop because there aren’t any ideas left! Electricity pops off her fingertips until she performs her breathing exercises just like Noah taught her to. The blue crackles slowly ebb away, back into the depths of wherever they came from.

Title: Good Girls Don’t (1/?)

Pairing: Elle/Claire

Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: Elle’s life as an honorary Bennet.
 

Elle has eyes like impermeable fog—depthless and dangerous. It’s why, Claire supposes, Noah sometimes looks upon the girl with a pinched face and a weary sigh hitched at the back of his throat. After Bob’s death, he’d felt sorry for her, shoved notions of catastrophic repercussions aside and set her in the guest bedroom beside Claire’s. Elle helps Sandra trim dinners, offers Lyle half-hearted courting advice even though she herself isn’t familiar with proper dating etiquette and always obeys their house rules (including those pesky extras Noah paves out just for her).

Claire regards Elle with steely mannerisms and unadorned disinterest. Whenever the electric blonde levels her gaze with Claire’s, sparks break through the otherwise foggy abyss and Claire finds herself glowering to stave off the resulting whirlwind in her belly. Elle inevitably runs. She rockets into her bedroom to berate the strange feelings snaking up and down her body. Some of it feels good and some of it doesn’t. Daddy used to chastise her for indulging in the things that made her feel good, like crackle-frying small animals and searing people, making anything that could scream. She reasons Daddy would say this feeling is bad too.

Elle wriggles out of her clothing, lies on top of her sheets and stares at the wall separating their rooms, willing it to crumble away. She wishes Claire would catch her touching herself; hear her mewling and rasping the younger blonde’s name. Elle groans and blinks tears out of her eyes as her sticky fingers fall away from her panties. Elle recognizes that it’s frustration stoking the tears. She’s never wanted anything like she wants Claire.

When Claire comes home on Friday and announces that she has a date with Dean Patrick at 8pm Elle feels a surge of anger plummet into her guts and the tightly reined control she’s worked so hard on mastering slackens, causing every electrical pulse on their block to short-circuit. Sandra lights candles and pets her hair when Noah softly scolds her. “She’s still learning, Noah,” sighs Sandra. “Give her a break, she’s trying,” and with that Noah agrees so he pats her on the back like a fragile thing and mumbles something about a back-up generator.