personally i believe that leonard only exists in jeff's mind

[neigedens]

Community's been renewed for a second season! The whole show makes me so happy, what with the nudity and the bagles and the ABED FUCKING NADIR FUCK YEAH. Plus the cast all seem like such great, lolzy people that enjoy working together so I'm glad they are not going to soon be unemployed! \o/

So, on that note, IT'S FIC TIME AGAIN YEAHHHH. This time I have spun the Community pairing roulette wheel and landed on...Shirley/Britta! I honestly don't think this fic is the best (it is full of sap), but I love this pairing so much that I'm hoping other people will be inspired to write better stories. PLEASE WRITE SOME SHIRLEY/BRITTA, I AM BEGGING YOU.

Title: Misdirection
Author: neigedens
Word Count: 1894
Notes: I started writing this for the femslash_today porn battle but I was too late. Whoops. Anyway, the prompt was "sexual prospects." Sort of a tag to 1.04, "Social Psychology."

It started with that stupid sex dream. In fact, Britta had simplified it by saying it actually was, well, just that: a sex dream. Jeff had been the one naked, and she had been too (presumably) but Britta had the distinct impression that there had been more to it than that that she just could no longer remember, something disquieting but also not unpleasant. She had told Shirley about it as a joke, or perhaps because telling someone was the easiest way to make it become a joke. But of course Shirley had misinterpreted it, and, being Shirley, had let it slip to Jeff in the most embarrassing way possible.

And Britta wasn't mad about it, oddly enough. She hadn't even known Shirley that long, and she'd already broken her trust, but Britta couldn't bring herself to be hurt or feel anything more than dull annoyance at the prospect of dealing with Jeff's jokes about it.

"It's just," said Britta. "It's just, you know, I'm sick of men. Sick to death of them. Maybe Jeff's not as dumb as Vaughn but every one of them is as bad as all of the others. I'm done with them."

"Oh," said Shirley. "You're done with men?"

"Sure," said Britta, slamming the car door. "And thank you for the ride home."

"You're welcome." Shirley paused. "So, this is it. You're done with men. You're coming out."

"What? I--" Britta thought for a second. "OK, sure. Let's just simplify things and say, yes, I am sexually attracted to women. Occasionally. There, are you happy?"

Shirley looked neither happy nor unhappy. She pulled out of Greendale's parking lot with a severe but not unpleasant expression on her face. "That's fine."

"Really? You don't have any problem with--"

"Why would you assume I have a problem with that?" snapped Shirley. "What, you think because I'm Christian or I'm black that I'm a homophobe or that I never--"

"No! Christ, Shirley, I didn't mean it like that, I just--look, why are we yelling at each other? I don't want to yell at you."

"I don't want to yell at you," said Shirley in a much softer voice.

"Of course not. I should have known that you're my friend and that you'll, you know, accept me, um. How I am. Shit. Can I smoke?"

"Go ahead," she said as she opened the passenger side window. Britta had taken a few drags before Shirley spoke again. "I'm sorry, Britta. If I had known about you and Jeff--"

"That's the problem! Shirley, there isn't a me and Jeff. Please, I know you want to help, but just get it through your head."

"All right."

"There is no me and Jeff. There's just me, all right?"

"All right."

"Just--and, you know, I lied. That sex dream wasn't even about Jeff."

"You said it was."

"Jeff was in it but it wasn't about him. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Then what was it about?"

That opened up a whole issue Britta was not willing to talk about. "Look, why don't we talk about your sex dreams?"

Shirley, as Britta had expected, didn't notice the obvious deflection and instead looked a little embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't--"

"Try me. I'd be enthralled," said Britta, sounding much less sarcastic than she might have expected of herself.

One of the things Britta liked about Shirley was how easy she was to talk to, which was it was so surprising when Shirley paused and didn't speak for almost a minute. Britta wasn't sure if Shirley was picking up the thread of their earlier conversation or if she was just making an abrupt subject change. "You know, I never really went to college. I always felt like there was a lot of stuff I was...missing out on."

"Yeah?" asked Britta, flicking the butt out the window.

"I mean, experiences. You know?"

"Boy do I."

"Stuff that might have...you know, changed my worldview. Or something. Broadened my outlook."

"Shook the hell out your paradigms!"

"I'm being serious. Not all of us can run away from home to Ecuador when we're 18 or whatever you tell people. Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

"I think so. You feel like you've missed out on essential college experiences. Shirley, are you asking me to get you some pot? Because--"

"No," said Shirley, looking like she regretted having spoken at all as she pulled the car into the street in front of Britta's apartment. "No, that's not what I meant."

"Oh. Did you mean, like, sex? Oh." Shirley was silent. "Oh." That was when Britta had what she considered one of her rare moments of extreme insight, or perhaps one of the rare times she thought she so clearly understood her own feelings and those of somebody else simultaneously. It all seemed rather obvious, so she understood why Shirley looked embarrassed.

Britta had had a dream analysis book once from either one of her teenage spurts of spirituality, or possibly it had been a gift from a relative. She had ended up either throwing it away in disgust or leaving it to languish on her parent's bookshelf after leaving home, although she no longer remembered. Either way, the book had not prepared her at all for the sudden burst of clarity she received when she realized what her sex dream had really been about. She didn't even remember the dream in question anymore, but at that second she believed she did, and she believed suddenly that Jeff had been the misdirect and the dream must have been about Shirley all along. The dream, she knew, had been commonplace and completely normal, but also luminescent and singular, just like what Shirley did right then, which was lean over and kiss her.

"Welcome to college life, I guess," said Shirley and they pulled apart. "Do you have a roommate?"

Britta shook her head. "Not usually. Do your kids--"

"They're with their dad for the weekend."

Britta nodded decisively and decided to brush her teeth once they got up to her apartment. "Well, I think we've covered all our bases, then. Are you coming up?"

~

Most of her feelings of self-doubt disappeared when she grabbed Britta's hand in the elevator on the way up. Britta went on talking perhaps more quickly and more pointlessly than she usually did, but squeezed back, so it was reassuring.

"I'm glad the elevator's working," said Britta. "You know, you can go and talk to the super all you want but none of it counts unless you have...you know, gravitas."

"Oh," said Shirley. "Are you saying that your landlord doesn't listen to you because you're short?"

Britta shrugged and didn't looked bothered. "That, or because of my roommate."

"What about your roommate?" asked Shirley as the elevator reached Britta's floor.

"You'll know when you see him. Which hopefully you won't."

"That's reassuring," said Shirley, although her words were much more cynical than her actual mood. Her head was buzzing and blocking out some of the questions she might have normally put to herself. Such as, what was she doing there? Had she gone nuts? But at the moment the most pressing one was just where the drawing of a bobcat hanging on the front door had come from. Did it belong to Britta or to the mysterious roommate? All these questions, and even the more sensible doubts, disappeared when Britta closed the door behind them.

"Take a right," was all Britta said when Shirley grabbed her hand again and led her down the hallway. "That door. Yeah. Sorry it's so messy."

"I've seen worse," said Shirley, although in fact she did not even waste a glance on the interior of Britta's cramped bedroom before they started kissing again.

"That's good to hear," said Britta as she shrugged out of her jacket and Shirley dropped her handbag on the ground. Britta almost immediately began to struggle out her shirt. "Look, we can--"

"We should get on the bed."

"That's a good idea, too, I guess," she said as she somehow managed to sweep off both her own shirt and all the clothes cluttering the bed in one smooth motion. It was a graceful, fluid movement that impelled Shirley to fall down onto the bed and pull Britta down with her. "You should take your skirt off. Oh. You did. You're quick," said Britta, grinning. "Jesus. I could give you a really good orgasm. Does that sound too conceited?"

"No," said Shirley. "I think it sounds nice."

"I thought so, too," said Britta. "I should probably shut up. I'm sorry, I just--"

"It's okay," said Shirley. "Just relax."

"I am so relaxed," said Britta, but in fact she was tense and oddly brittle in Shirley's arms.

"Are you cold?" Shirley used her free hand to feel around for the bed's comforter.

"Yes. You know, if I'm the one who's done this before why are you relaxing me?" she asked as Shirley found the snap on Britta's bra. "It unhooks in the front."

"Well, that's confusing. I don't know. Maybe you're acting awkward so I'll feel more at ease."

"You mean like a misdirect?"

"Sure." Shirley was more intent on getting her own shirt off than listening.

"There might be something in what you say," said Britta thoughtfully.

"I'm glad you think so." She was finding it harder to keep the impatience out of her voice, but Britta found her stride when she finally kicked her boots off and pushed her jeans off.

It was the nicest orgasm Shirley had had in awhile; she had correctly assumed that Britta wasn't the type to flake on that, anyway. She let out a surprisingly high-pitched sign and curled against Shirley, trying to keep her feet from sticking out from under the bed's comforter.

"So what were you on about earlier?" asked Shirley, suddenly, when her very natural curiosity became too much for her. "What about misdirection?" Britta was breathing steadily against her shoulder, but something about how she held herself made Shirley sure that she wasn't asleep, even though she took her time answering.

"Did I say that?" muttered Britta.

"Yes."

"Right. It's like, maybe I brought up Jeff all those times just because I thought it would make me more interesting to you, and then you would like me and want to hang out with me more. You see? It was a misdirect."

That made a certain sleepy, post-coital kind of sense to Shirley. Maybe she had too hastily assumed that living vicariously through people's sex lives would be the only way she would get to actually having one. "I guess that would explain Tiny Nipples guy." As much as you could explain Tiny Nipples guy, which, in Shirley's opinion, you couldn't, not fully.

"Vaughn? What about--ok, look, having sex with a hippie is *relaxing*, ok? Sort of flakey and sometimes jarring but in the end sort of soothing."

"I think I agree."

"What? You said--oh. Ha. Very funny, Shirley."

"Not that flakey," Shirley assured her as she grabbed Britta's chin and tilted her head up towards her.

"Oh, well I'm glad to h--" was all Britta had got out before Shirley had kissed her again.