Fic: An Ass of You and Me
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Title: An Ass of You and Me
Rating: PG
Pairing: Lydia/Jackson, Lydia/OFC
Word count: 1311
Genre: AU
Summary: Five times someone assumed Lydia was straight and one time someone assumed she was gay
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf
Warnings: Biphobia, homophobia, bi erasure
Author's notes: Many thanks to dirtydirtychai for the beta.
“You’re such a beautiful girl, you’re going to be a total heartbreaker when you grow up,” her mother says while Lydia spins around in her new green dress. “Just remember that you’ll have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince, so don’t bother with the first guy who notices how wonderful you are.”
As her mom adjusts the bow at the back of her dress, Lydia wonders why the possibility of princesses hasn’t been raised when they are so much prettier and more important to the narrative than princes.
*
Lydia has never been to a sleepover before, but she’s read a lot of books, so she is prepared. She has a toothbrush, a spare toothbrush in case someone else forgot theirs, her Princess Jasmine pyjamas, more candy than she thinks any of them could eat (but she wanted to make sure she brought more than anyone else so that she’s the one they remember), and six different board games.
They’d already had a pillow fight, jumped on the bed until Jess’ father had asked them to keep it down so her brother could get to sleep, watched two Disney movies, and discussed at great length who their favourite Disney Princess was and which one they thought they were most similar to. There’d been an impromptu debate about which characters were real Disney Princesses and which weren’t which had nearly turned sour but had been saved by Lydia’s suggestion that they play truth or dare.
“What boys do you like in school?”
Lydia is careful not to let her relief show on her face. If she’d been asked who do you like though, then she might have been forced into a difficult spot. It was truth or dare after all, you couldn’t lie.
*
“I’m not homophobic or anything, but, like, this lesbian girl… I seriously think she was into me, it was so gross.”
Lydia sets her pudding cup, which is legitimately gross, down on the cafeteria lunch table.
“Was she standing too close or something?” Maybe it’d be best to give Jess a chance here before she goes all avenging angel of rainbows and pain on her. Creepers of all genders do exist. “Did she say anything sexual to you?”
“No, but...” Her (currently on probation) friend shudders violently. “You know, she made sort of a point of telling me she was gay? Like I wouldn’t have known, Jesus, major dyke here-”
“You know I like girls right?” Lydia asks. “Because I remember you kissed me at your Halloween party, so I assumed you were fine with it.”
She practically feels Jess shrink away.
“Oh! No, I didn’t, but, obviously I’m fine with it, I mean, so long as you don’t um. Look, I didn’t know when I kissed you that you were, but I’m not into girls. So you don’t find me attractive do you?”
It’s a hard position to negotiate gracefully. What, exactly, is the right answer? ‘No, you’re hideous’ ? There isn’t an easy way to tell someone you aren’t interested in them. But then, the feelings of bigots are thankfully not a priority.
“I can honestly say you are not in the least bit attractive to me.” Lydia smiles before picking up her tray and walking away, careful not to let her arms shake or her smile falter.
*
Lydia hates going up to San Francisco to see her father’s parents, but they’re getting old, and apparently that means that twice yearly visits are the least she can do. When she had informed him that he could make the biannual pilgrimage of martyrdom on the altar of filial responsibility on his own, her father had replied by saying that the only excuse for not making the trip was if she were to unexpectedly find herself without a car.
Say, for instance, if she couldn’t make the gas payments because she got cut off for not visiting her grandparents.
“You’re growing up to be such a fine young lady, my dear, but you really must be careful not to give anyone the wrong idea. That dress you’re wearing, it’s just a shade too short, especially considering your height. You have your mother’s side of the family to blame for that, your aunt Hannah must have been five foot ten at your age. But, as I was saying earlier-”
Her grandmother is in full steam, and nothing short of the San Andreas Fault deciding to bring the geological Spring fashions of 1906 back in a big way could stop her.
“-when you are married-”
“If it’s legal again,” Lydia mutters under her breath.
“What was that?” Grandma Martin cups a hand around her deaf ear and tips her head towards her. Her father frowns at her warningly.
“Nothing, Grandma.”
*
The girl at the booth smiles at the student in front of her, her body language open and reassuring, radiating ‘you’re safe here, you’ll be fine, you’re among friends’ with every pore of her being.
She turns to Lydia and the smile drops off her face.
Lydia watches the other freshman, a skinny jeans and flannel shirt-clad girl with a short asymmetrical haircut and an easy blush, walk briskly away with her eyes rooted to the floor in front of her. Poor kid; it’s hard when you first came out.
“Hello.”
Lydia turns back. “I’d like to join-”
“I’m afraid we can’t put you on the mailing list or give you a goodie bag if you’re not actually gay,” the girl says disinterestedly, while replacing a box of free condoms from underneath the table. “We’ve had a lot of allies join this year and-”
“I’m not straight,” Lydia interrupts. Excuse you, she thinks, it's LGBTQ, not LG. As she fills out the form, a second person arrives at the booth with two coffees. He nods in her direction.
“I thought we weren’t taking any more-” he starts, in what he mistakenly believes to be a discrete tone of voice.
“She says she’s gay,” the girl at the booth says.
Lydia, who believes in precision in language, interjects firmly, “I said I wasn’t straight,” and ignores the new guy rolling his eyes.
*
“And then my ex, Steve-“
“What?”
“God, Jackson, don’t interrupt. Steve was-”
“But was this, what, before you came out?”
“No, it was about a year after. So-”
“Okay, I’m confused. After?”
“Yes! A year after I came out as bisexual, as in attracted to people of my own gender and people who are not my own gender, can I please finish?”
“You’re bi? Oh. Okay, I just - assumed.”
“Jackson, we’ve been dating for three weeks, how is this news?”
There’s a few seconds of silence as she waits expectantly for an answer, and Jackson looks like he’s lost at sea and has just been thrown what he thought was a float and turned out to be a barbeque pit he has to assemble before he sinks.
“Jackson, we’ve been meeting for coffee everyday. You take me to clubs three times a week. We dance, we drink body shots off each other, we kiss on the dancefloor.”
“Gay clubs! We go out to gay clubs together! I thought that we were just… Okay, this is….”
Lydia rolls her eyes. Well, that had been fun while it lasted. Apparently she’s been overestimating Jackson’s ability to listen during that getting-to-know-you icebreaker game they’d all played at the first meeting of the LGBTQ club. She’d filed away the fact that he was bi the moment he’d said it.
“Okay, sorry. What were you saying about your ex?” Jackson looks up from where he’d had his head in his hands. “FYI, if we’re dating you’re going to have to stop kissing Harley every time we go out with her, I’m not a sharing kind of guy.”
He reaches over and slips his hand underneath hers where it rests on the bench.
Title: An Ass of You and Me
Rating: PG
Pairing: Lydia/Jackson, Lydia/OFC
Word count: 1311
Genre: AU
Summary: Five times someone assumed Lydia was straight and one time someone assumed she was gay
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf
Warnings: Biphobia, homophobia, bi erasure
Author's notes: Many thanks to dirtydirtychai for the beta.
“You’re such a beautiful girl, you’re going to be a total heartbreaker when you grow up,” her mother says while Lydia spins around in her new green dress. “Just remember that you’ll have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince, so don’t bother with the first guy who notices how wonderful you are.”
As her mom adjusts the bow at the back of her dress, Lydia wonders why the possibility of princesses hasn’t been raised when they are so much prettier and more important to the narrative than princes.
*
Lydia has never been to a sleepover before, but she’s read a lot of books, so she is prepared. She has a toothbrush, a spare toothbrush in case someone else forgot theirs, her Princess Jasmine pyjamas, more candy than she thinks any of them could eat (but she wanted to make sure she brought more than anyone else so that she’s the one they remember), and six different board games.
They’d already had a pillow fight, jumped on the bed until Jess’ father had asked them to keep it down so her brother could get to sleep, watched two Disney movies, and discussed at great length who their favourite Disney Princess was and which one they thought they were most similar to. There’d been an impromptu debate about which characters were real Disney Princesses and which weren’t which had nearly turned sour but had been saved by Lydia’s suggestion that they play truth or dare.
“What boys do you like in school?”
Lydia is careful not to let her relief show on her face. If she’d been asked who do you like though, then she might have been forced into a difficult spot. It was truth or dare after all, you couldn’t lie.
*
“I’m not homophobic or anything, but, like, this lesbian girl… I seriously think she was into me, it was so gross.”
Lydia sets her pudding cup, which is legitimately gross, down on the cafeteria lunch table.
“Was she standing too close or something?” Maybe it’d be best to give Jess a chance here before she goes all avenging angel of rainbows and pain on her. Creepers of all genders do exist. “Did she say anything sexual to you?”
“No, but...” Her (currently on probation) friend shudders violently. “You know, she made sort of a point of telling me she was gay? Like I wouldn’t have known, Jesus, major dyke here-”
“You know I like girls right?” Lydia asks. “Because I remember you kissed me at your Halloween party, so I assumed you were fine with it.”
She practically feels Jess shrink away.
“Oh! No, I didn’t, but, obviously I’m fine with it, I mean, so long as you don’t um. Look, I didn’t know when I kissed you that you were, but I’m not into girls. So you don’t find me attractive do you?”
It’s a hard position to negotiate gracefully. What, exactly, is the right answer? ‘No, you’re hideous’ ? There isn’t an easy way to tell someone you aren’t interested in them. But then, the feelings of bigots are thankfully not a priority.
“I can honestly say you are not in the least bit attractive to me.” Lydia smiles before picking up her tray and walking away, careful not to let her arms shake or her smile falter.
*
Lydia hates going up to San Francisco to see her father’s parents, but they’re getting old, and apparently that means that twice yearly visits are the least she can do. When she had informed him that he could make the biannual pilgrimage of martyrdom on the altar of filial responsibility on his own, her father had replied by saying that the only excuse for not making the trip was if she were to unexpectedly find herself without a car.
Say, for instance, if she couldn’t make the gas payments because she got cut off for not visiting her grandparents.
“You’re growing up to be such a fine young lady, my dear, but you really must be careful not to give anyone the wrong idea. That dress you’re wearing, it’s just a shade too short, especially considering your height. You have your mother’s side of the family to blame for that, your aunt Hannah must have been five foot ten at your age. But, as I was saying earlier-”
Her grandmother is in full steam, and nothing short of the San Andreas Fault deciding to bring the geological Spring fashions of 1906 back in a big way could stop her.
“-when you are married-”
“If it’s legal again,” Lydia mutters under her breath.
“What was that?” Grandma Martin cups a hand around her deaf ear and tips her head towards her. Her father frowns at her warningly.
“Nothing, Grandma.”
*
The girl at the booth smiles at the student in front of her, her body language open and reassuring, radiating ‘you’re safe here, you’ll be fine, you’re among friends’ with every pore of her being.
She turns to Lydia and the smile drops off her face.
Lydia watches the other freshman, a skinny jeans and flannel shirt-clad girl with a short asymmetrical haircut and an easy blush, walk briskly away with her eyes rooted to the floor in front of her. Poor kid; it’s hard when you first came out.
“Hello.”
Lydia turns back. “I’d like to join-”
“I’m afraid we can’t put you on the mailing list or give you a goodie bag if you’re not actually gay,” the girl says disinterestedly, while replacing a box of free condoms from underneath the table. “We’ve had a lot of allies join this year and-”
“I’m not straight,” Lydia interrupts. Excuse you, she thinks, it's LGBTQ, not LG. As she fills out the form, a second person arrives at the booth with two coffees. He nods in her direction.
“I thought we weren’t taking any more-” he starts, in what he mistakenly believes to be a discrete tone of voice.
“She says she’s gay,” the girl at the booth says.
Lydia, who believes in precision in language, interjects firmly, “I said I wasn’t straight,” and ignores the new guy rolling his eyes.
*
“And then my ex, Steve-“
“What?”
“God, Jackson, don’t interrupt. Steve was-”
“But was this, what, before you came out?”
“No, it was about a year after. So-”
“Okay, I’m confused. After?”
“Yes! A year after I came out as bisexual, as in attracted to people of my own gender and people who are not my own gender, can I please finish?”
“You’re bi? Oh. Okay, I just - assumed.”
“Jackson, we’ve been dating for three weeks, how is this news?”
There’s a few seconds of silence as she waits expectantly for an answer, and Jackson looks like he’s lost at sea and has just been thrown what he thought was a float and turned out to be a barbeque pit he has to assemble before he sinks.
“Jackson, we’ve been meeting for coffee everyday. You take me to clubs three times a week. We dance, we drink body shots off each other, we kiss on the dancefloor.”
“Gay clubs! We go out to gay clubs together! I thought that we were just… Okay, this is….”
Lydia rolls her eyes. Well, that had been fun while it lasted. Apparently she’s been overestimating Jackson’s ability to listen during that getting-to-know-you icebreaker game they’d all played at the first meeting of the LGBTQ club. She’d filed away the fact that he was bi the moment he’d said it.
“Okay, sorry. What were you saying about your ex?” Jackson looks up from where he’d had his head in his hands. “FYI, if we’re dating you’re going to have to stop kissing Harley every time we go out with her, I’m not a sharing kind of guy.”
He reaches over and slips his hand underneath hers where it rests on the bench.