Femslash ficlet dump!

[ilthit.livejournal.com]

All originally written for femslash100.


The Food of Love
Twelfth Night; PG, Viola/Olivia, 100 words


It's not music, Viola decides; love is fed by quite other things. Her love for the duke is starving; yet she is sated, for she has Olivia.

Viola receives tenderness from her cool soft fingers; she receives understanding, for there are no secrets between the sisters. There is only one thing she can't have from Olivia, which is constancy, a promise of eternity, for they have given their promises elsewhere.

She burrows into the silk and satin of Olivia's bed on the nights when her brother is out, and they pretend together, until they are sated, if only by illusion.




Will Not Forget
A Midsummer Night's Dream; G, Helena/Hermia, 100 words


Just a dream, they'd been told, by the dream; but Helena refuses to surrender her confused strings of memory. She draws them on tablets, which she hides among her make-up and jewelry, to remember.

It's hard: her current love overwhelms memories of other passions. She's loved Demetrius always, as she's loved and envied and desired the lovely Hermia.

She winces at a sudden headache. It tries to make her forget. She loves her husband, but will not forget old loves, however long they lasted.

She traces with regret the depiction of her oldest love, drawn crudely on a wax tablet.




Whiskey and Magic
Buffy the Vampire Slayer; PG, Faith/Willow, 250 words


Willow drinking makes as much sense as... gothed-out Willow trying to destroy the world. Granted, she can surprise.

And there she was, slumped over the bar at Toby's, with a bottle she could've got drunk just looking at. I should get her home, but I didn't know where that was, so I dragged her back to my place. She kept crying about Kennedy.

I dropped her on my bed, and was thinking of calling a witchsitter when she looked at me with those big eyes and I knew it was confession time. I sat on the bed and she told me about the break-up. I nodded and smiled, getting slowly bored until she said something important.

'They all leave.'

You'd think this was just normal break-up whining, but it's a big point.

'Yeah, they do,' I told her. 'They don't mean to, but they do.'

I patted her hand and started to get up, since we'd got to the point, but she pulled me back down and out of balance. I fell on top of her. 'Don't you dare,' she hissed, and there's a bit of the dark goddess in her then. I laughed and said 'Okay.'

It's not my thing; I'd tried it, but it's nothing like a man. But this time – this was beyond anybody else. Later she swore it wasn't magic, but I don't believe it. It was, one way or another, though she smelled like whiskey and tasted like tears. Willow Rosenberg. She really can surprise.




Shapes of Sunnydale
Buffy the Vampire Slayer; PG, Drusilla/vampire Willow, 250 words


Sunnydale was the happening place. It was murmured on bloody lips on street corners, giggled behind bars (she liked the hidden nooks in and around bars – curling smoke writing second meanings around the putrid poetry on the walls, the slit eyes and cartoon cocks – they reminded her of William). Drusilla followed the whispers, curious, making her way slowly towards the center of the world, the fanged mouth of Mother Earth.

They were all connected, all family in evil, and she could feel the change as she drove down the highway. Swirls became rectangles, dream-snakes turned stiff as boards. She didn't like it, even as she sensed the heady rush of concentrated gluttony. Rivers of blood dreams, a sweet red flow down her throat, her every wish fulfilled.

But it was wrong. It didn't fit her.

She parked outside the city and stood drinking in the edged power, sharp and uncomfortable, letting it bury into her; like swallowing a box.

'Hello there, pretty one,' says a voice, soft and coquettish, and she turns to face a young guardian with a smile. A skinny red-head – a glutton – it's in her eyes. The girl runs a metal claw over her lower lip with an answering smile, and Drusilla finds the rectangles soften back into curls, if only for a while.

'Wanna play?'

Why yes.

There are many ways to gorge, and they say Sunnydale offers them all. It was not a place to live in – but she's already beginning to like the visit.




Easy Virtue, Hard Malice
Discworld, PG, Esme/Gytha, 250 words


Gytha Ogg, they said, was no better than she should be. Esme found her just as good as she ought to be.

Esme'd known the back of her father's hand just for being friends with her, but Esme was growing up now and there were places in her head he couldn't penetrate, places she would not let him touch, and Gytha inhabited one of them. Darker things lived in the others.

Lily knew how to play their father better than Esme did, always had; where Esme defied, Lily soothed. Lily was the good daughter, everyone said, the pretty one, though they shared all their features, and truth be told neither of them was particularly handsome. But Lily was pleasing. Esme was like sour milk to her sweet wine.

'I don't know why you insist on goading him,' said Lily once while applying foul-smelling lotion on another bruise down Esme's back. 'He thinks you'll become a strumpet like the Ogg. Just leave her be and all will be well.'

'That's a lie, Lily, and you knows it,' said Esme as she concentrated on not wincing. 'He'll beat me anyways.'

Lily clicked her tongue.

Esme had no intention of becoming a strumpet, but she needed Gytha to keep her sane. Gytha was free.

Gytha was beautiful, and somehow Esme knew, in the way of witches, that they'd be together for good. It felt right; she'd scowl, and Gytha'd laugh; and they'd both be ten times stronger than her father ever could be.




Horrors to Be Told
Discworld, R, Agoniza/Eviscera, 200 words
Note Beware of incest and sadomasochism. Er.


'One more time,' Agoniza whispers through cracked lips. Eviscera yanks her head back by her long flowing hair, and the whip lashes across her buttocks. Even through the pain, a warm trickle tells her that this time it's drawn blood. She smiles, pain dancing across her lips, and licks off iron blood.

'Thank you,' she breathes. 'Thank you, sister.'

Eviscera unties her wrists and lets her down on the cold stone floor of their cellar. She rubs stinging, healing lotion on the wounds, and as the pain recedes, the chill penetrates. Shivering, Agoniza turns to her sister's warmth, and with an urgency quite apart from a need for warmth, begins to kiss and bite her long white neck.

Horrors untold they will weave in their stories later, murder and witchcraft to chill the blood. Inspiration is upon Agoniza, and she needs, as always, pleasure on top of the pain.

Eviscera whimpers and contorts as if squeezed by tweezers, and Agoniza has barely got started. Besides, she'd never use tweezers – but there's something for Eviscera to try next time. With that sweet thought, Agoniza dives down into her sister's center of pleasure.

This, she thinks, is the stuff of fairy tales.




Unravel
Desperate Housewives; PG, Bree/Lynette
Note: By request of the_girl_20. 200 words.


Lynette knew that the only way to get what you want is to work for it. Strokes of luck are extra prizes, and not something to wait or wish for before taking action.

Bree knew that propriety and good conduct would lead to success, and any failure as a result of this behaviour could only be put down to bad luck.

In other words, if you want a certain consequence, you had better commit the action that leads to it.

Bree baked cupcakes for Lynette's family and scouted through nearby entertainments. Lynette spent her lunchbreak jotting down plans and notes. They met each other outside Lynette's house just as she drove back from work, and there was a twist in each their smiles that provoked in the other the absurdity of hope.

Cupcakes, children and one husband left behind, they drove out towards the city, making no fuss, so as not to upset Susan or Gabrielle. Some miles out they parked in a roadside grove and broke each other down, bit by bit, all planning lost, clothing discarded or pushed aside in the darkness.

This wasn't planned, nor proper, but it was action, and it was what they both wanted.




Prudent Miss Lucas
Pride & Prejudice; G, Charlotte/Elizabeth


Charlotte would not choose sense over love – not if she had any choice in the matter. When Elizabeth proclaimed as much, Charlotte was silent, for any reply would be impossible. She didn't have the choice, and could not marry where she loved, but to make Elizabeth understand this was (everything she wanted) not a task in which she could expect much success, and less felicity. As a child, she had spoken her heart freely, confessed all love and preference; but with age came understanding of wickedness, and a ring on her finger: a brand of betrayal, and her only protection.




It's Good to Have Friends
Discworld, Tiffany/Annagramma, G


How to Be a Mammal
The Little Mermaid, Ursula/Ariel, R, and it's not my fault but the person's who requested it!


Sharing Birthdays
Lord of the Rings, Rosie/Marigold/Pervinca, R


Entertaining Guests
Lord of the Rings, Pearl/Daisy, PG


...And Make Better
Lord of the Rings, Estella/Pervinca, R


Yule Feast Preparations and a Present
Lord of the Rings, Rosie/Diamond, G



Old and Married
Lord of the Rings, Rosie/Pervinca, 250 words
Note: For Dana. Set after Merry Gamgee's birth; Rosie's probably pregnant again during this.


Rosie can't travel much since the children started arriving; she sometimes wishes she'd gone visiting more in her early marriage. With two children, let alone three or four, she never can leave without bringing all her home with her. Most of the time she wouldn't have it any other way, but she feels that, more and more, she's Mistress Rose now and not the Rosie she used to be.

She feels it more than ever the winter night when Sam's gone to Hardbottle and Marigold and Tom are staying over, to help. Someone knocks on the door when they've just got the last of the children to bed, and it's Pervinca Took of all people, wrapped in shawls and her travelling coat, snow-covered from head to foot, grinning like it's May Day. They warm her up soon enough with tea and dry blankets, and it turns out she's come all the way from Tookland in a week, through the early snows, because she's grown tired of walls and wanted a bit of adventure.

Rosie shakes her head to hear Vinca's off to Buckland next. She can still remember the time she almost ran away with Pervinca on another hare-brained trip like this one. She only offered her a place in her bed then; this time, it will just be a guestroom, for Rosie's a good wife.

But she begins to smile as she listens, and then to laugh, and it doesn't seem like youth was so long ago after all.




The Villain Thing
Angel; PG, Lilah/Faith, 250 words


Lilah knows all about contracts and how to get around them, which contracts trump which and how best to end an unwelcome one; also, the importance of binding people by them before entering into any kind of transaction. Any kind at all.

It's not as simple as people might think, either; not all contracts are on paper, or leather, or sealed with blood. People make contracts all the time. The trick is finding an unbreakable bind.

Lilah knows that someday she will be brought down by a contract. They are the most dangerous things, and she plays with them every day.

She explains all this to the dark-eyed slayer, not expecting her to understand, wondering why she even bothers. Perhaps because she had to say something – had to monologue like a tinfoil villain, circling the girl who could snap her in two, calling to her with every step, fight me or love me. Come to me.

They're in an alley by the docks, and somewhere there's music. She feels the scene should be a dance floor instead, and Faith's thighs covered with silk instead of ripped denim; it is a dance, after all.

'Stop,' says Faith at last, an amused smile twisting the shadows on her too-young face.

She offers her hand, and Lilah steps forward. 'Okay,' whispers Faith against her lips, and what follows next is another contract, one of the free and loose ones you never should enter into: the one that says no strings attached, and lies.




Miss Morland's Intimate Friend
Northanger Abbey; PG, Catherine/Isabella, 200 words


Under the unwatchful eyes of Allens and Thorpes, Catherine and Isabella shared their days, hidden garden nooks and each other's beds. There was a continuous whisper, mumble, prattle or shout of affections between them. Every word of Isabella's fascinated Catherine, and her subjects sent wonderful thrills through her spine.

Some of their secrets must never be repeated, such as the practicing they did in their intimate conferences.

'Softer, my sweet... like so... open them.

'It's a treatment I read about, just relax, my dearest Catherine, relax and let me touch you.

'Oh Catherine. No, don't be silly. It's not sin. Not wrong. We're both girls, right? Oh my darling! Kiss me again.'

In just two weeks, Catherine had learned much more than she'd ever expected to, could ever have guessed.

'Come to my bed often when we're sisters,' she told Isabella, towards the end of their love. Isabella promised, and kissed her, again and again, and all over.

Catherine is the happiest wife there ever was, and her children, though not numerous, are loved to distraction. Even so she doesn't always think back on Isabella with hatred; sometimes, she regrets that her her lies could not turn true after all.




Undone In Death
Discworld; G, Esme/Gytha, 200 words
Warning: Character death.


This wasn't the right order. Esme was supposed to go first. This was not right.

Gytha was laid out in all her clothes on a white sheet on the kitchen table of her house, and a dish of water and towels prepared for her washing. (Esme wouldn't let anyone else do this.) She looked like she was borrowing: empty, absent – but she'd never been much of a borrower, and now she was never coming back. Esme knew all about endings, about balance – she knew death inside out. She'd dressed a hundred corpses, and grieved over many of them; even so, right now, she could strangle the Reaper Man, strangle him for getting it wrong. Instead, she rolled up her sleeves and tugged on Gytha's boot.

Gytha had known all along, but hadn't so much as hinted, and Esme might've strangled her too. For being the first to go.

She looked hard and angry all through the funeral; hard and angry all the way home, and hard and angry still all the way up the stairs to her bedroom. It was there that she crumbled like a weak old woman, and cried.

A witch shouldn't love any one person this much.




A Stain Left
Lord of the Rings; PG, Merry/Pippin/Estella/Diamond, 200 words


There's blood on the sheets.

It's nothing new, of course. The stains could come from many things – the lads having been a little too anxious with each other, or perhaps it's Diamond's time of the month – Stella knows it's not hers. Sometimes, it's herself or Diamond who's been a bit too hasty, or forgotten to clip her fingernails.

She gathers up the sheets and balls them up, climbs upstairs to get her laundry pail, since there aren't any servants at Crickhollow, not such as would do her laundry in Brandy Hall or one of those grand places. She sits down to scrub it – there's quite a lot of it, turns out – she frowns as it becomes apparent, and tries to remember when Diamond last had her moon-flow.

It's not until later that the lads return and deliver Diamond into her arms, looking tired and hollow and cried-out. Her sorrow grows like a stain in her chest, like an apple in her throat, and she kisses and pets Diamond until the lass looks like she's about to cry again, all the time asking, what happened, why, what.

'She was only a month heavy,' says Pippin at last, choking. 'We didn't know.'




In Some Other Universe
Farscape; PG, Aeryn/Chiana, 200 words


Chiana doesn't get nearly enough chances to indulge on this ship. There's no receptive vial to pleasure but her, she feels – there are so many knots and blocks, so many bad memories or misplaced senses of obligation – such strange reasons her shipmates have found not to reach for pleasure. Rygel probably would, but uh, Rygel.

'I swear,' she mumbles into Aeryn's skin one day when, exhausted and drunk (one of them more so), they find themselves making an unsteady way, cheek to shoulder, through the living corridors. She presses her nose on Aeryn's neck, and draws in her warm scent.

'What do you swear?' says Aeryn, dry amused voice like stretched leather.

'I swear – if only you and Crichton would get over yourselves – if only you weren't so uptight – I'd climb in your bed some night and force you to loosen up.'

Aeryn smiles against her hair, unseen and secret, and doesn't say, "I'd like that."

...Doesn't say it, because she's not drunk enough to be that careless, and there's still a lot to work out, and a lot of the self she's built up would have to go first.

But she would like it, she realizes, a great deal.




Threat and Promise, Both Unfulfilled
Buffy the Vampire Slayer; PG-13, Faith/Cordelia, 200 words


Cordelia was rarely caught without her defences – friends or books or business – but she'd just been taking a shortcut around the back of the school, and now her face was up against the wall with iron-hard fingers latched on to the back of her neck.

'That was a little harsh, what you said about my girl back there.' Faith's tone was conversational, like she was talking over a cup of tea. 'I'd appreciate it if you showed a little more respect.'

'I don't need to respect you or your freaky blonde girlfriend!' She was so going to tell all her friends about this!

Faith pressed in closer. Cordelia could feel the heat of her breath on her ear, and her body, soft and yet irresistably strong – like Buffy – except Faith smelled like cigarettes and leather.

'Aww, honey – if you're jealous, all you need to do is ask.'

Cool fingers slid just underneath her shirt, brushing the skin underneath. Her body twitched quite involuntarily, and there was a new and forbidden kind of heat, then, lower down.

Faith was gone as suddenly as she appeared, leaving only her touch and breath, branding Cordelia's flesh.

Perhaps she wouldn't tell anyone after all.




Charlotte's Favourite of Mrs Gregory's Secrets
Pride & Prejudice/Northanger Abbey; Charlotte/Isabella, PG, 250 words
Note: I made up Isabella's married name, of course. I like to think even villains have happy endings, so I assume she did manage to marry rich. This might seem a little obscure, but I'm just going with a wild interpretation which has already produced Charlotte/Elizabeth and will probably produce Isabella/Catherine one of these days.


Charlotte could tell immediately that Mrs Gregory would not long stay at Lady Catherine's, for all she was a relation's wife; no two ladies who so loved attention could enjoy each other's presence. True enough, an evening in the following week brought Isabella Gregory to the Collinses' door, claiming a forgotten dinner invitation.

At its conclusion she insistedly refused an offer to stay over that had not been made, until they were obliged to make it.

Mr Collins was charmed. He called her delightful when he kissed his wife good night.

Changing into her nightdress, Charlotte listened to the footfalls of her husband next door and Mrs Gregory across the hallway. When all was still, she opened her door and padded across, opening the door with no lock on. Lamplight streamed on her, and Isabella sat up in bed, her mouth open at the sight of Mrs Collins. Charlotte lifted a finger to her lips and closed the door.

'Mr Collins and I travelled to Woodston recently to visit his colleague Reverend Tilney,' she told Isabella as she climbed into her bed. 'I made great friends with his wife. Not as good as she and you once were, of course. We talked about – many things. I never knew such an innocent.'

Isabella laid back, comprehension and a smile dawning on her sweet features. 'Alas, Mrs Collins, we can't all claim that virtue.'

They spent an hour learning about hospitality and gratitude, and not a few vices grown in long loneliness.




A Shortcut to Memory
Babylon 5; PG, Ivanova/Delenn, 200 words


'English tea is ruined – milk or lemon, indeed! They like their tea as tasteless as possible. Here.'

Ivanova put the steaming cup in Delenn's hand, dropping herself down on the bed and pulling her boots on. Delenn gave her one of her quizzical smiles and sipped the hot liquid.

'Mmm.'

'Yes?' Ivanova grinned.

'Very nice.'

'Of course it is.' Ivanova leaned in to kiss Delenn's tea-smudged lips. The minbari bent her neck back, pearly body following in a graceful curve. Ivanova pulled back and let her eyes sweep over it. There was regret in the angle of her chin.

Delenn brushed her fingers across Ivanova's brow, into her still unbraided hair. 'Don't,' she said gently.

Ivanova looked up with a rueful smile, and stood to leave. Delenn followed her, the sheet falling off her body as she pressed it against Ivanova's uniform. They kissed, one last time.

It was just supposed to be that once.

Years later, Minbar is in spring's full bloom, and Delenn drinks Russian tea every morning. On the best of those mornings, she's not drinking it alone.

There's no regret now. Ivanova grins at her from across the table, memory of love soft in her eyes.




A Saturday Night Ritual
Discworld, PG-13, Ella/Susan, 222 words


On Samedi Nuit Mort, after the ball, the Baroness becomes a beggar, and the beggar a Baron. Ella paints her face blue and white as frozen death, wraps herself in multicoloured feathers, and dances out into the street. There's music everywhere: where silence threatens song will burst, and anything hollow can become a drum.

She knows nobody and everybody; tomorrow she may die.

The moon rises, people, in all shapes, swarm the streets, and every turn brings her cheek to cheek with a new person. They become one animal, jumping, shaking, singing.

The power rises.

'You're here,' she mouths, her voice lost in the noise. A woman stands still among the writhing bodies of men and monsters. Her hair waves like fire, straight up in the air, one black strand snaking up amongst the white. Their eyes lock, and Susan smiles.

The dancer becomes Ella, extracts from the animal into Susan's arms, and they kiss, the night pulsing around them.

In the center of the city, the castle, she bends up against death's cold fingers, kisses death's mouth. Susan, in her aspect, is pale and formidable and unspeakable; Ella, in her humanity, glorious.

She is Baroness, and the Baroness is Genua. At the year's opposite end she will have a different engagement. The land will not be unbalanced again – nor Ella, controlled.




Smaller Aspirations
Desperate Housewives; R, Bree/Gabrielle, 250 words
Note: For girlie_girl_23's request.


Bree leaned on Gabrielle's shoulder as they both caught their breath. They sat – thigh against waist, cheek to neck, Bree's thumb on the angle of Gabrielle's hip, warm moisture still on her fingertips – on Gabrielle's upstairs family room's sofa. Family room – they didn't even have any family – not yet. Carlos was gone and the house sounded vast and empty around them.

Gabrielle arranged them so she could kiss Bree again – her hair wasn't even undone, but she tasted real, her breath was losing some of its mintiness, and Gabrielle wanted her again. It had taken some convincing to get this far, but she knew Bree was as lonely as she was, and she needed this even more than Gabrielle did.

She wasn't sure she loved Carlos this much.

Bree broke the kiss. 'I don't think we should—'

'Shh.' Gabrielle kissed her again, their soft lips fitting so neatly together. 'It's all right.'

'But I'm not—'

'Neither am I.'

She kissed her way down Bree's neck, and felt her body, at least, bend to her touch, and her breath quicken, as Gabrielle pushed her skirt up and out of the way again.

It would be crumpled. And she'd untie Bree's hair, too, before she was done.

Tomorrow, all she would dream about was money; and all Bree could think of was her family, and of appearances. This was recess – where Gabrielle risked all her security, and Bree her good name, just to be their other selves for a while.

Comments

[miss-morland.livejournal.com]

OMG, that's brilliant! Poor Mrs Random, hee.

Thanks for the link.:-)