SUMMER WOLVES
by Hyel

Chapter Thirty-Four: Do You See Petals Or a Rose?

Fluff. You can get overdosed on it. It's not even that hard. You read and read just to get to the end of a huge story and then the couple kisses and it is over - all the pain and the hurt in the past, all the grievances and disgust between two people is just swept under the rug because everybody wants a happy ending. It's like a sugar and white fudge coating that masks something, and you can't tell what it is, the mask is so perfect. But you start feeling nauseated as you read on.

Annie never got nauseated. She felt wonderful when she had her fix of fluff. She believed in angels and in perfection. She believed in slow kisses that MAKE THE WHOLE WORLD SHINE IN A GOLDEN LIGHT. She believed it when she read that they felt like they were shining golden light like a sun, the lovers, as they kissed in the library, soft lips passing over each other, just the tease that built a space between the two of them just enough to sustain the height of desire, and love love love I loved her so much.

Tiro didn't believe in anything. Because she would never try to believe in anything. That wasn't how she was. Her heart was timid. She wouldn't go out and trust something unless someone told her it could be trusted. Her heart was timid, but it was also gullible. And some unspoken part of her mind, some dark invisible unheard language in her wanted her to want someone to tell her to love.

Like Cal.

My friend the Wolf. Come, and eat my heart, and be damned with it.

She'd discovered Annie's stash of fanfics the morning when she'd woken up late and the others had already gone to the store.

She'd opened the computer out of curiousity. It wasn't that she had no morals regarding other people's secrets - she feared so deeply and truly for her own secrets that she would never ever TELL anyone what she might find in of other people's drawers. On the other hand, if she herself wasn't in the habit of looking into said drawers, she would hardly have feared for hers, would she? She knew how easy and tempting it was to have a bit of peep... And so she opened Annie's computer and went for the 'My Files' folder.

She was at first aghast to see someone else's writings saved up there. Did she have competition? There were many author's names... Icaros, Miyuki, Mike Dynick... And some of these writers were immensely productive! She stared at the chapter listing of one of the stories... 45 chapters?! She clicked on one to see if the author had simply written two and a half page chapters to confuse the count, but no, she rolled the opened text file downwards and it went on and on... 13 pages! This wasn't a story, this was a novel...

What was the title again? She checked it. 'Bloodties'. She went back to the first chapter and looked at the heading.

Name: Bloodties
Author: Devianna
One-shot/Multi-part: Multi-part
Completed: No
Characters or Pairing: Xena & Callisto
Rating: NC-17
Het/slash/femslash/gen: Femslash
Genre: Romance/Drama/Angst
Series: Xena: Warrior Princess
Summary: Callisto is stripped of her powers and Xena has to take her under her wing
Disclaimer: The characters of Xena: Warrior Princess obviously don't belong to me...
Story Notes: This has become huge. I don't think I'll ever finish this.

Femslash?

Annie had told her what "slash" means after she'd used the word several times and Tiro had finally up and asked her. So femslash would obviously be lesbian slash... Tiro thought of pornography magazines sold wrapped in plastic on the top shelves of the magazine rack, of plastic women with unlikely cleavage holding each other daintily and giving the viewer what passed for a cheap porn version of a smouldering gaze. She shook her head and cleared the image out of her mind. That didn't go with Annie. This had to be something different.

She clicked open another story, a short one.

Name: Destiny
Author: Miyuki
One-shot/Multi-part: One-shot
Completed: Yes
Characters or Pairing: Scully and Francesca
Rating: PG
Het/slash/femslash/gen: Femslash
Genre: Romance/Crossover
Series: X-Files and Due South
Summary: Dana and Francesca have to make a decision about each other...
Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing these characters; I'm not making any money out of this, so don't sue me.
Story Notes: I wrote this while it was raining... I guess it shows.

Tiro started reading. Outside it was blue and grey and the raindrops spattered the pavement, a staccato of unspoken words...