"Semester Project" - Heroes (Elle, Gretchen, Claire) - PG-13
Title: "Semester Project"
Author: Erimthar
Fandom: "Heroes"
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,507
Pairing: Claire/Elle, Claire/Gretchen
Summary: On the first day of the semester, Gretchen gets a visitor with an interesting proposition.
Notes: Another chapter in my ongoing story of Claire and Elle and their strange new life together. Takes place sometime after " Summertime Girls" but before " New Year."
"Okay, see you in a couple of hours," Gretchen said into her phone. "Oh, and Claire? Better stop and pick up some pizza or a couple of heroes or something." She rolled her eyes and smiled at the puzzled response on the other end of the phone. "I mean subs. You know, long sandwiches. Yeah, I know. I've been spending too much time around these New York kids. The girl from Buttmunch, Texas is getting all hipstered out of me. See you soon, babe."
Gretchen flipped her phone closed, tossed it on top of the folded towels in her laundry basket, and, picking it up, elbowed her way through the crush of arriving students down the corridor that led to her and Claire's dorm room.
The door to the room was unlocked already when she got there. Great. God knows who's been peeing in my bathroom today. Hopefully in the toilet. We've really gotta look for an apartment this semester.
She bumped the door open with her butt, spun into the room and stopped dead. There was a beautiful blonde woman sitting on the edge of her sheetless bed.
Wow, thought Gretchen. The dorm committee is really stepping up this year. This is way better than a mint on my pillow.
The woman was not Claire, here to surprise her with a newfound ability to teleport in from Dulles (which, admittedly, would have been really cool). This woman was dressed in a stylish business suit, and was looking up at her with a warm smile that seemed like it had only recently learned how not to look predatory.
She looked familiar. Like someone Gretchen had seen in pictures, maybe.
Pictures Claire had shown her?
Gretchen started to back nervously toward the open door.
"Hi," the girl on the bed said. "Don't run away. I won't bite. Without permission, anyway. I promise."
"Um, you're Elle," Gretchen observed. "Claire's girlfriend."
"Oh my God, I am Elle," the girl confirmed with a bright smile. "And you're Gretchen, and you're scared shitless of me. Has Claire been telling you stories about me?"
"Yes," Gretchen said.
"And you think because you have a thing for my girl, I've come here to blast you to smithereens with my power, and then blast each individual smithereen to even smaller smithereens. Right?"
"Right." Hey, these were pretty easy questions, Gretchen thought. Terrifying, but easy.
"I'm not," Elle said, more seriously. "That's not me anymore. New body, new attitude, new Elle. Uh, and new sexual orientation, but I like to think I'm getting the hang of it."
"So you're not gonna kill me?"
"Nope."
"Even though I still totally have a crush on Claire, and she knows it, and now you know it because I just stupidly told you?"
"Nope. In fact, that's what I'm here to talk about."
"Talking? No killing?
"No killing."
"And no torturing?"
Elle sighed. "No, but if you don't sit down I'm gonna make all the hair on your body stand on end." She narrowed her eyes in mock threat. "Even the hair I can't see."
Gretchen put her laundry basket down on the other bed, and sat down next to it.
"Cool," Elle said with a smile. She pointed at the open door and sent a jolt of energy shooting across the room, knocking it shut, and making Gretchen jump and squeak and almost wet her pants.
"Sorry," Elle said. "I really should stop doing that. Force of habit."
"I didn't know about you at first, you know," Gretchen blurted.
"What do you mean...?"
"When I was trying to get Claire interested in me. For weeks and weeks I thought I was trying to flip a straight girl, and then one day she comes and finds me sleeping in the Student Union, and she wakes me up and tells me she's ready, and we practically run back to our room, and... God, I shouldn't be telling you this..."
"I already know," Elle said. "You made out. Totally hot and heavy. The primo stuff."
"Totally," Gretchen agreed. "And then I... I..."
"Tried to unzip her jeans, and she stopped you and told you about me. And her. And her and me. And then more about me. Right?"
Gretchen sighed and flopped back down on the bed. "At first I thought, yay, she's already gay! That's so cool. And then I thought, she's already got a hottie girlfriend that she neglected to mention all this time. Not so cool."
She lifted her head up off the bed to look warily over at Elle. "And then I thought, she's got a literal hottie girlfriend who could kill me by pointing at me. And that wasn't cool at all."
A few tense moments of silence passed.
"You're really cute, you know it?" Elle said.
"Huh?"
"You're a cutie. You seem really nice. You're pretty. You have great boobs, and nice legs. And I have to say, that's a really good look for you. Daisy dukes and cowgirl boots? Awesome."
"Uhhh... thanks?" Gretchen looked uncertainly down at herself.
"And Claire really, really likes you. A lot. She likes being with you, and talking to you, and just being together without talking. You're the only person she's met at this college that she really, really feels a connection with. And that night?"
"What about it?"
"She really wanted to let you finish unzipping her jeans."
Gretchen collapsed back on the bed. "So you want me to stay away from her? Aren't you going to give me a choice between that or getting barbecued? Because that's a choice I'll need to think about for a few minutes."
"See?" Elle said brightly. "You're so cool. But you're totally missing the point."
Gretchen shook her head. "I don't understand."
"I want you to be Claire's other girlfriend."
Gretchen just blinked at her.
"I can't be with her while she's here at school," Elle said. "Too many pretentious assholes for me to zap, plus there's research labs. I don't like research labs. And Claire told you about the company she and I have..."
"The weird superhero secret agent thing?"
"Yeah, that. When Claire is on her sabbatical for school, I kind of have to be the senior partner and run things. So during that time, Claire can either live like a little cheerleader-shaped nun, or she can have a lover who really cares about her, and who she cares about."
Gretchen shook her head, as if to wake up from what must certainly be a hallucination. "You're saying you want me to sleep with your girlfriend? Is this a trap or something?"
"I'm saying I want you to sleep with your girlfriend, who also happens to be my girlfriend. And if this was a trap, I would already have set your hair on fire. I'm not very subtle."
"But... aren't you afraid I'm gonna steal her from you or something? I mean, I know I'm not the hottest diva on the stage, but..."
"Do you love her?" Elle asked.
Gretchen came up short. "I... uh... I don't know yet. I mean, I love her as a friend, but if you mean are we gonna run off to Cape Cod to get married... I don't know what might happen. I mean... I might be in love with her."
Elle shrugged. "Then we'll figure it out when we get there. I mean, if two people can be in love, why not three? Right?"
Gretchen opened her mouth to reply to that, then shut it again and gulped.
Elle got up to leave. "Enjoy your semester," she said. "And help Claire enjoy hers. She knows I'm here, by the way. She'd kill me if I was telling you all this behind her back."
She started for the door, then stopped. "Oh, and Gretchen?"
"Hmm?"
"I'll be coming here to pick up Claire at Christmas break. When I do, there just might be an exam given to see how well you've been treating my girl. It will be a practical exam, and it will be very hard for you to fail it. But there will be lots of opportunities for extra credit. Okay with that?"
Gretchen made a squeaky noise that must have been a yes.
"Cool," Elle grinned. "See ya!" And she breezed out of the room.
Gretchen sat there on the bed, collecting her thoughts and giving the headlights under her tank top time to diminish to a less embarrassing intensity. Then she got up and hurried out of the room, trying to remember where the bedding was packed in her car.
Claire would arrive in less than an hour, and one of those beds had better have sheets on it when she did.