• they/she*

30+ tired nb lazyfutch
:: socal
:: demi @ best
:: certified robot therapist
:: Not a therian, despite reposting so much furry art
:: posting is not activism

*I still don't feel like I "deserve" she/her but no better time than now to ask for it. Either is fine but please don't switch pronoun sets within the same sentence


MiserablePileOfWords
@MiserablePileOfWords

Is this a writing/drawing challenge for Sapphic September 2024, because I didn't see any, and my brain just waterfalled this all over a page?
It can be if you would like it to be.
No pressure, like, at all.

But if you do, maybe tag your works with Sapphtember so people can discover them?


caffeinatedOtter
@caffeinatedOtter

Cohost Sapphic September 2024 writing prompt: 30 — Girls who are animal

Wanda's antsy in a weird ongoing way, and Gemma's sure there's something wrong, but still can't figure out what.

"You know," she tries casually, over sleepy breakfast coffee in their kitchen, "if you're seriously not going to your Mom for, like, Jewish Christmas, there's...always my folks?"

When she moved out this way for work, after college, Gemma knew being away from pack was going to be hard. She also very badly wanted it. And it's been hard, and great, and worth it — she wouldn't have Wanda, if she'd stayed close to home like all her siblings, and that alone makes it a thousand times worth it. Going back has turned into A Thing, a forever-put-off emotional monolith of a Thing she doesn't want to unpack, and family is always a lot and pack is A Lot, especially if you're not a wolf, so. They haven't been to Gemma's folks yet, either.

"You know, that would be great," Wanda says brightly and far, far too easily.


Gemma drives them up, and Wanda spends the entire trip resting her head against the window and spaced out. She doesn't shout about other peoples' driving once. Gemma switches to a playlist of Christmas songs halfway there and Wanda doesn't even notice.

Wanda had a doctor's appointment a few weeks ago. She'd said it was for her flu jab, and Gemma had amiably said, "Huh, I thought you already had this year's," and thought nothing more about it. She's thnking about it now.

She's thinking about all the things that might make you stay quiet about them for weeks, and say sure, let's go inflict extended family on ourselves, family is important, let's do that while there's time


There have been like six major werewolf families in Alexville for ever, and half the town belongs to one or another or their many weird interlocking offshoots. They stop for gas on the edge of town — more for Gemma to breathe the air and brace herself before they meet anyone — and while she's looking the other way for a second Wanda goes into the gas station to buy a cold drink, like they're not practically there, and Gemma finds her talking to one of Gemma's aunts.

"There she is, it's Little Gem!" her aunt crows, and Wanda snickers, and Gemma breathes deep around the knot in her chest and reminds herself this is good and fine and okay and she only has to get through a week, tops, without murdering anyone; puts her arm round Wanda, smiles, manages to lean on oh the drive and Wanda's tired to escape after only half an hour and an wall-to-wall inexplicable gossip infodump and Gemma's grandma's fruitcake recipe helpfully jotted in illegible scrawl onthe back of an old receipt and thrust into Wanda's hand.

"You start calling me Little Gem and I'll eat you in your sleep while I'm dog-shaped," she threatens half-heartedly, back in the car.

"Mm," Wanda says. Not even a waggled eyebrow and a, "Kinky."


Pack is a lot.

Pack is a lot.

Gemma's missed it so much.

Alexville is a wolf town, always was, so they know better here than most that pack just means family and that if you sincerely say a stupid word like alpha then people are going to judgementally side-eye you in church every week for the rest of your life. Gemma's taken for granted here, and it's so much of a fucking relief.

Now she just needs to get her mom and dad and her aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and everyone to stop jabbing her in the ribs and talking about feeding her up, or asking when she's gunna wife Wanda, or if she's thought about when she's gunna move closer to (capital-H) home, any of that family shit.

She spends every hour half wanting to cry from belonging, and half wanting to pull her own hair out from being mad at people. Hers, or theirs.

"Mom's kinda mad at you for not bringing her ages ago," Gemma's brother Taylor says amiably, sitting out on the porch with a root beer in his hand and a barn cat asleep in his lap. "She's great, Gem, why didn't you?"

"You're all a lot," Gemma says. "Figured I'd wife her before scaring her so she couldn't just high-tail after she met you."

Taylor gives her a deeply amused look. "She's not gunna like us better than she likes you," he says.

(Both Taylor's ex-wives are coming over for Christmas dinner. They're family for ever, because Gemma's mom says so. He doesn't have to like it; they don't have to like it. Pack! It's a lot.)

"Fuck off," Gemma tells him.


"Taylor bit his first girlfriend, you know," Gemma's mom is saying, and Gemma pauses uncertainly outside the kitchen, because as much as this is a timeworn haha-let's-embarrass-Taylor story, it's also not a casual occasion story. Gemma's mom reserves it for making a point, for including people. This is a pack story. "On purpose."

"Yeah?" Wanda says in a slightly funny voice.

"They were fifteen," Gemma's mom says. "Swearing all Romeo and Juliet-like, this is forever, mommmmmm! You don't understaaaaand!"

Wanda cackles.

"Then the girl panicked and told her parents and they took her to Planned Parenthood and got her a Post-Exposure Lycanthropy Treatment shot," Gemma's mom says. "Taylor was heartbroken." She pauses; Gemma knows her exact mentally counting Taylor's exes face by heart. "...Slow learner, that boy."

There's a small silence in the kitchen. Gemma itches to be doing something, to know what's happening.

"I just," Wanda says, "she's going to be so mad, she's going to be so mad at herself, and I don't want — I don't want you to be mad at her — or me—" and that's fucking enough; Gemma bursts through the door and bounds across the kitchen, picks Wanda up from where she's flour-dusted and earnestly cutting out gingerbread with the wolf-shaped cutter that Gemma's other brother Aiden made in shop class, sits her on the counter next to the doctor-letterhead paper that's been foloded and refolded and crumpled in pockets for weeks, the lab results sheet and the rapid cryptogen test on top of it, and buries herself in her girlfriend.

"You've been freaked out so bad I've been waiting for weeks for you to fess up to cancer or some shit!" she half-yells into Wanda's shoulder, and Wanda clutches her tight.

"Baby, no," she says, sorry and steady and firm. "I don't even know for sure when — I think maybe when I tore that hangnail playing with your tug rope in the park? And then when you had your last shift I had a really weird time and I didn't think anything until afterwards but then I remembered some stuff you've said about first times and I — went to the doctor...."

"Too late for PELT," Gemma says, calmer. A little calmer.

"Yeah," Wanda says, stroking her back soothingly. Gemma's mom is staying suspiciously quiet. There's gonna be a lot from her later. A lot.

Gemma was a really fucking judgemental teenager about the whole Taylor's-first-girlfriend thing, the whole nine irresponsible you're not ready you're only kids what were you thinking yards. Busting out that story presages being given So Much Shit for ever and ever about accidentally making her girlfriend...puppy.

"The doctor said there's other options now," Wanda says. "Intensive post-exposure medication, bad stuff like chemo, but it mostly works right up to your first — physical shift. I said no."

"You don't have cancer," Gemma says, letting herself feel the full relief of it. "You're not gunna die."

"I'm not gonna die," Wanda says, and scritches Gemma's hair. "And I've got the best possible family to help me get used to this."

"Yeah," Gemma says. It'll be rough. Wanda has no idea; it'll be rough. She thinks their relationship will make it. She hopes so; they're strong, and Wanda's — well, Wanda's it. She hopes that's enough. "Yeah, my mom's pretty great."

Gemma can practically hear her mom rolling her eyes at her back.

"Yeah," Wanda says tolerantly, nuzzling Gemma's desperately-closely-nestled head. "Yeah. She is, too."


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in reply to @MiserablePileOfWords's post:

I have no problem with smutty microfiction *gestures at some of the other examples already rechosted* I just ask that it's properly tagged as such if you'd like me to also rechost it, as I've been doing with a lot of other Sapphtember stuff.

Otherwise, you can choose whatever manner of connection to the original chost you want: rechost, html link, tag only, nothing... Anything goes. (Although in that last case, it would be tricky for me to find and rechost, of course)

It's your microfiction, I'm just providing a modest spark of inspiration.