This chapter is dedicated to John "JJ" Joseco, who was kind enough to permit me to use his webcomic as a reference in this story. "The Lounge" and all fictional characters are the property of their designated creators; all characters based on real people are the properties of... the real people. Or something. Whatever. "Loneliness, Desperation, and... Fanfiction??" "Hey, babe!" Ivory Tran tackled her Annie-kins from behind, wrapping her arms around the taller woman's waist and resting her chin on the girl's shoulder. She smiled like one who was completely happy and in love—like someone who had never really known either until that moment. Ancelin was startled at first, but as she realized who had embraced her, she became stiff and frozen, like a stalagmite. Wordlessly, she lifted Ivory's arms up out of her way. Tran was unaffected by the cold response. "What'cha up to?" she asked, beaming like a fairy. "News, sports, love, judo, what? I feel like I'm in a million directions today. You wanna do something tonight? I'd really like to go on a date with you again. Maybe we can sneak off somewhere dark—" "Ivory," stated her love sharply, nearly cutting the poor girl in half. That one word sure did stop her in her tracks; a look at Ancelin's face told her that she was very serious and not in a good mood. Tran cringed. "Whoa... you don't look so good. What happened, babe?" For awhile, Ancelin was quiet. She didn't know how to tell Ivory what she had learned—whether or not it would even offend her—so she stayed mute. A deep breath gave her some time to think. "Ivory... about those rumors." "Yeah, I'll tell you all about me once you're ready to sex me up good." She grinned like a stupid imp and meant it. Ivory was not stupid or sexually anxious, though: Ancelin had told her fairly early on, right around the time that Ivory openly admitted to being heavily attracted to her, that sex was as distant as the stars when it came to their relationship. Ancelin's view of sexual conduct was nearly religious; she wanted to delay it until she knew for certain. Ivory merely meant that as soon as Ancelin was ready, she too would be ready, and meant no harm or wrongful implication from it. "Sorry," spoke Ancelin, "but I'm at a disadvantage. I've already heard some of those rumors: the ones about your scars, and the ones about your... conduct." Ivory visibly made a twisted face, afraid for the first time in a very long while and frankly, unsure of how to handle it. Ancelin strengthened her fears and continued quietly, "Your sexual conduct." "...Oh. Those." Ivory was pale enough to be milky. She already looked guilty; it appeared as if Ancelin already knew everything, but how? "Is that all you have to say?" she asked, crossing her arms. She pointed to the girl's scars and said, "So did you get those in a fight? Did you try to kill yourself?" "Hey, that's none of your business," snorted Tran defensively, covering her old wounds. "Besides, all that was years ago in the past. People change. If you must know, I did try to kill myself; I wish to God I hadn't. The other, yeah, I got in a fight—but I didn't start it." "Okay," stated Ancelin, satisfied with the truth. "I can deal with defensive wounds... and I guess I can sort of understand why you'd want to kill yourself. I've wanted to die several times before in the past, but..." "But you had a cool mom, whereas mine was just a bitch." Ancelin said nothing. She became a little darker as she turned round to confront the other rumors. "But the others... Ivory, was it true about what I heard? Did you have sex with all those girls?" "How many did you hear?" she asked, sounding guilty and glum. Ancelin shrugged, and frankly, Ivory didn't know either. "I lost count a long time ago," she answered, resigning herself to the brunette's mercy. "My first was when I was thirteen. I lost my virginity a year later, not with the same girl. Uh... the last time I had sex was three days ago." "Three days?!?!" Ancelin literally screamed out at Ivory, shocked and appalled at how audacious she was. "Three days, Ivory? You had sex with a woman while you were dating me?" "It wasn't like you were my girlfriend or anything!" "But you wanted me to be," she stated angrily. "I could tell! It took me awhile, but I could tell. Ivory... I don't believe you." She shook her head angrily and turned to leave—apparently, for good. "Annie, wait." "Don't Annie me, Ivory!" snapped Ancelin. She nearly took a swing at the smaller woman as she chased after her. "You know, I didn't want to believe those rumors, but now that I know they're true, I'm glad I was apprehensive towards you! You make me sick! I don't want to see you again." "Ancelin, please!" Ivory was now desperate, fiercely desperate, to win Ancelin back—or at least to make her stop and listen. She was being merciless, so Ivory nearly had to yank the taller woman by her sleeve. "Ancelin, that's not me! That's not me—anymore! That was just the past! I've changed, Annie, honest I have! You've made me change! Ever since I met you, I can't even look at other women anymore! You're the only one—" "Just stop," sighed the brunette, turning her whole back towards Ivory. "You can save your breath. Unless some great miracle happens, there's nothing you can do that will prove you mean what you say. I just can't trust you, Ivory—and if I had fallen for you..." She paused just once to turn her head, giving the younger woman a sad stare as if she had really wanted a relationship. "...I think you would've just broken my heart, like you broke so many others." "I wouldn't!" she exclaimed, but her words were useless, her defense null. "I don't know that. Adieu, Ivory. May our next meeting be a very quiet and quick one." Of course, Ancelin knew that they shared a gym class together, which was why she recognized a "next time" at all. Ivory drooped to the floor, deeply depressed already, as Ancelin Yi left her. But she would not stay down in the dumps for long. Both Stanton and Ancelin would wish that she had, though. ............ Sometime in mid-August, Ayanna and Gabrielle had gotten together with their individual circle of friends and spoke of many things they loved. The topic turned to girls—other girls, anyway, even though both "Aya" and "Gab" were taken (by each other). Ayanna quickly got into her little obsession with Darryl Hannah, and how the movie Kill Bill had literally changed her recent life. "And I thought I had seen it all with Blade Runner and Wall Street," she told her girlfriend. "But Kill Bill... jeez Louise, I never thought a woman could be so evil and yet so hot." "You really go for that kinda woman?" asked Gabrielle incredulously. Ayanna grinned impishly. "Well, nothing wrong with wanting a little spice with one's sugar. Besides, that whole badass thing is a turn-on, and I've got a thing for leggy blondes anyway—not that you're unattractive!" Gabrielle only smiled faintly. She had a feeling that her relationship with Ayanna would not last. "Bah," she snorted. Ayanna chuckled. "I guess it is a little silly to be swooning over a celebrity, especially one my mother's age. You know, I wrote a little fanfiction about Elle Driver. I decided to ship her with Beatrix Kiddo, even though I'm usually a strict Beatrix/O-Ren fan. I was challenged by a friend on the internet to make a believable love story between them, before the setting of the movie of course—" "Of course." "And I relished the challenge. I actually brought my printed copy with me." Gabrielle smiled, being a fan of Kill Bill herself, and awaited the script. She had not read Ayanna's writing before, so she didn't know what awaited her. To her shock, Ayanna handed her a very thick, loosely-bound stack of papers, all of them typed. It was easily as thick as her thumb, and looked at first to be drivel. Having no time to actually read such a behemoth, Gab first scanned over a few pages and gave her critique. "Hmm... good, good. Not bad. ...Ahuh. ...A-huh!" She froze as her eyes became wide. Then her brow wrinkled. Then she blinked and became pale. Then she gasped. She concluded by looking up at the happy, caramel-skinned woman, grinning like a Cheshire cat, and saying, "It's a sex story." "Yeah." Gabrielle read on. And on. She skipped some parts and totally disregarded entire pages. It just went on and on and on. She swallowed coldly. "Damn," she whispered midway, "that's a helluva lotta bed-action." "Yeah." Ayanna sounded too proud for her own good. Gabrielle finally took a breath, and since she could read no longer, she flipped the rest of the pages and stopped. "Well, that was disturbing," she concluded, rubbing her eyes. "Feels like I just watched a bad porno movie." Ayanna's mouth curved in disapproval, so she took her giant story and put it back in her backpack. "No good? I made an Elma/Lucile as well. Wanna take a look?" "Only if it's not a sex story." Ayanna smiled sheepishly. "Luckily, I did make one." Gabrielle became flush at this. One? How perverted was Ayanna? More than enough, it appeared, but oh well. Elma and Lucile were a favorite pair of Gabrielle's; she had played Final Fantasy X-2 just for the allure of further seeing their exploits. The end result was more or less satisfactory, although the two knights were hardly center stage when it came to implied Sapphic reasoning in that game. She took a breath and scanned Ayanna's second story, which was thankfully shorter, clocking in at only five pages. It read as thus: ----- I never thought I would be uncomfortable or jealous with Elma, but hearing the Maester give such praises and rewards to her made my insides feel like mush. I had to hold myself and look away. My actions at Macalania had been disgraceful; hers had been outstanding. I had lost my temper and forgot myself; she kept her head and, irony of ironies, remembered everything I taught her as she applied herself. It should've been the happiest day of my life when she became a Captain, but it was not. I felt miserable, ashamed, and jealous. Worse still, I knew she still loved me, as she said so—"No matter what", those were her words. Even now, Elma—Captain Elma? Even now? ----- The story went on, diving in and out of angst, oppression, hidden romance, and eventually, a happy and cornball ending suitable for all true fans. Gabrielle liked it much better and gave it her approval. "So what else ya got?" she asked, now suddenly interested. Ayanna quickly went over a few of her personal favorites, and fished out several stories she had printed, each varying in length from one page to a countless number. Gabrielle scanned over some, borrowed others, and dismissed a few—mostly "sex" stories that her girlfriend had written in fits of loneliness or "fanciful creativity". She had even made one where she herself made love to Darryl Hannah; Gabrielle said No Thanks and went on. The first official soccer game of the season was about to begin. In no way did it count towards any goal or victory; this was just a game, to be enjoyed for a game's sake, and to test the skills of the players and the coach. Ayanna and Gabrielle continued talking about fanfiction as they weaved through the bleachers and sat near the front. They both had friends who were on the team, though O'Shannon readily admitted to devoting most of her cheers to Blake. "We've got time," said Montgomery, glancing at her watch. "Wanna look at a few more?" "Only if you went through the trouble o' printin' them." Ayanna smiled, scooted a little closer, and pulled three final stories from her bag, all held together by a clip. One was an utterly shameless Zelda/Malon she had secretly worked on for years (wrought after an obsession with Link's Awakening and Ocarina of Time), another was from an even older school: Wendy and Razor from the old PC game Maniac Mansion. Gabrielle had to be briefed on that one and the circumstances that might've gotten the two opposite girls together, since she was unfamiliar with the material. "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it," shrugged Ayanna as she put her obscure story away. "It's pretty old. I went on a lesbian board that was asking which video game girls would look cute together and put those two down. Only three people had an idea of what I was talking about." "I can imagine," muttered the redhead. "But what's the third one? Looks long." "Oh," said Ayanna with a proud smile, "that's my Rushmore, my Hamlet. I haven't been working on it long compared to the others, but I've poured all my talent into it and I'm still working on parts of it. I've almost got it done." "Well what is it?" "A Lounge fanfiction." "A what?" "Look, you get on the internet, right?" "Apparently, not as much as you." Ayanna smirked. "Anyway, they got these things called webcomics, right? Well one of the webcomics I like is called ‘The Lounge'. It's all about these two hot lesbians named Italy and Aya—she's not like me at all—and their wacky adventures as they balance a relationship and ownership of a comic book, coffee, video game, and porn store." For a moment, Gabrielle was understandably quiet. "...Wow. Somebody has lots o' spare time." "Oh, hush, the guy that writes and draws it is really good. He really makes good art, and his writing, well... um... well, the art's good! And the story is really nice! I'll show it to him once I'm done and let him see how he likes it. I think fanfiction could really help the Lounge out. I know I'm not the only one who wants to write it." Gabrielle frowned, but not in a bad way: she looked intrigued. "All right, sounds okay. I may yet get a look at it. So who'd ya write about, this Ayanna and what's-her-name?" "Italy. And it's Aya. As in Aya Brea, Parasite Eve." "Oh. Italy, huh? Cool name." "Yeah. Uh, they're not the focus of my story, though. You... probably wouldn't be able to understand it unless you read the comics." "I can still look at it, right?" "I guess." Ayanna handed her the story—or the part she had printed, anyway—and awaited judgment. Gabrielle took a short examination and raised her eyebrow. "Now... this has hanky-panky in it?" "Not that part." "Oh." Ayanna giggled, leaving her girlfriend to read. ----- The words they used... are they teasing me? Did Elsa and Raine really mean all that? I know Italy thinks they're no good, but I can see sometimes they do mean well. They do tease a lot, but I saw how they meant it this time—how they thought Angel and me could be a hot couple. Didn't do a good job of dismissing it and telling them what bullshit it was, and Angel just got red in the face. I've had lots of time to think it over, and I wonder, could they be right? I've got to get control, I'm sounding like a penthouse letter! "KITTY MEW ALERT!!!" Jamie screamed suddenly, wrecking my train of thought (I could see the damage and brought out the chibi waterworks). "JAMIEEEE!!!" "Mew! Distraction transaction!" She tackled me, and all was forgotten—all of it either a plot of hers, or just odd coincidence, but I doubt the first. She's smarter than she looks but still not that smart. At least Wiccan is not confronting Angel about it— "GAAAAAAAH!!!!!" Not YET, anyway... sigh! It went on, and on, and Gabrielle would've read most or all of it if the game hadn't come on. She marker her place and asked to borrow the story, along with a few others, and Ayanna gave her permission. Soon, the bleachers were like one great big ocean, the crowds roaring like the waves, as the players mounted the field and presented themselves. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played over the loudspeaker, and even though a lot of the girls in Stanton were not American-born (nor were many of the audience members), they all still stood, bared their heads, and covered their hearts. Gabrielle whistled the solemn tune. However, just before everyone had a chance to be seated, a scream came from the very center of the field. Everyone, mostly still on their feet, stood in shock as they saw a woman yelling something at the top of her lungs: "IVORY TRAN LOVES ANCELIN YI!!!" The woman, either a messenger or the deranged Ivory herself, laughed maniacally before running from security. Gabrielle rolled her eyes and laughed; those that knew Tran covered their faces and shook their heads, Farrah especially. Nobody knew if the guards caught the mad woman, but they were pretty sure that even if they had, she would not learn her lesson. ............ Two hours later, when the game concluded with Stanton as the victor, Ivory Tran found herself staring face-to-face with the stern HM, Ms. Marbel. The look the elderly woman gave her could've melted a rock, but Ivory believed her outrageous action was worth it. Ancelin and the whole school (along with a multitude of people) had heard her declaration, and knew where she stood. Needless to say, Bernadette Marbel's scorn was going to be the least of her worries.
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