So someone on Tumblr posed the intriguing thought "What if they slept together during Spelling Bee"?) and I ran with that what if. I hope you like it.
Pippa must have had the half second's advantage of knowing Hecate was there when she called out Mildred Hubble's name.
By the time she turned the corner, Mildred was gone. She had been sure that Mildred was there, she could recognise that tone in her voice a mile off, but she couldn't hear who she was talking to. She's surprised both by Mildred's absence and Pippa's presence, but she tries not to let it register in her face.
The lines of Pippa have grown bolder over the many years since they last saw each other. She's still beautiful – so beautiful, more beautiful, in fact – but some of the softness has gone. And the look on her face hardly lessens that effect. Hecate would never admit that that look frightens her; and it doesn't, really, that's not what it is. It dismays her.
"Can't you leave her alone?"
Whatever multiple, confused feelings are raging around her body at this point, Hecate can barely supress a roll of her eyes at that. She definitely bristles a little in response.
"Really, Miss Pentangle, I don't come to your school and criticise your methods of teaching."
"No doubt if you did you'd find plenty to say," Pippa responds smartly.
Hecate can tell her blood is up. Pippa did always have a tendency to get like this. Hecate used to know how to soothe her – but it was best not to think of that, what did that matter now she was on the receiving end?
She willed her own voice to stay calm.
"No doubt," she agreed levelly, "I expect I would find the standards of discipline at your school well below satisfactory."
"Good," Pippa replies – for goodness sake, what an absurd thing to say! – "As long as none of my students are as unhappy as Mildred is."
"I want what's best for Mildred," she's tired of going over this with Ada, and she's not overly keen on going down this road with Pippa, of all people, either, "I want what's best for all of the girls."
"Well, I think you've an odd way of showing it," Pippa – who has somehow, it seems, been moving steadily closer to her – tells her.
"Think whatever you like," Hecate tells her – unwilling to pursue the thread any further. As if it wasn't difficult enough being around Pippa, did she have to go and act like this as well?
Pippa, though, seemed perfectly willing to keep going.
"I think you should leave her alone," Pippa tells her again, standing close to her now, squaring her shoulders up to her, even though she is shorter, so Hecate can't think about moving past her. She has even raised a hand to rest on her hip, "After all, that's what you're good at; leaving?"
That takes Hecate aback.
"What are you-…? Is that what this is about?" Hecate asks.
If she was unwilling to have the conversation they initially seemed to be having, she was even more unwilling to have this one.
She clenches her jaw and swallows.
"I thought that's what you wanted," she replies, her face set, trying not to look at Pippa, though she's making that quite difficult.
"You have no idea what I wanted."
At Pippa's tone of voice, Hecate can't help but look up. It's completely different to before, the anger has gone, or if not gone drowned out by something else. She can't quite believe it at first but she thinks she sees tears in Pippa's eyes, and it throws her, and Hecate doesn't know what to say. It panics her.
"Leave me alone," she tells her, her voice almost seized up with the uncertainty so the words come out hard and cold. She decided to smash straight through the irony there.
The look on Pippa's face at that is almost enough to make her regret saying it. She has been schooling her features well up until now but in that moment she looks truly hurt. They are both silent for a moment, and then Pippa takes a breath.
"If you want me to go I will," she tells her, her voice remarkably steady, "If it's what you really want, you'll never see me again."
"No, I-…" And just as she knows Pippa has a tendency to grandstand a little, Hecate knows she has a tendency to lash out herself when she feels threatened and say things she doesn't mean. And even as she knows that Pippa has a tendency to grandstand, she thinks this time she might mean it.
"No," she simply says again, and she hears Pippa give a short, quiet sigh.
Pippa hasn't moved back, but her pose has relaxed slightly, she isn't squaring up to Hecate like she had been before. If anything, she looks rather smaller than usual now.
"Did it ever occur to you that I would miss you, Hiccup?"
Oh, her nickname.
"Maybe at first," she admits truthfully, "I thought you'd move on soon enough."
Pippa gives a small, incredulous laugh.
"I suppose you'll say that you thought it was what was best for me?" she asks.
"Yes!" Hecate insists, because that too is true, "That's exactly what I thought. I thought that's what you wanted."
Hecate thinks for a moment that Pippa might laugh at her again, but she doesn't.
"You had no idea what was best for me," she tells her, "You have no idea what I wanted."
She says it completely differently this time. It's unmistakable - though Hecate's mind tells her she must be imagining it – Pippa says it with just that; want.
"Pipsqueak-…" The name is on her lips before she can stop it.
That seems to be some kind of cue that Pippa has been waiting for. Pippa's lips are on hers before Hecate needs to even think of something to say.
Evidently Pippa had been right. Hecate had no idea.
She's shocked, she can't quite believe what's just happened but her hands naturally rest at Pippa's waist, keeping Pippa's balance a little for her, having launched herself at Hecate so suddenly that she threatened for a moment to lose it.
The kiss is like none she's had before, not that she exactly has a wide frame of reference. Pippa seems to want to devour her, her hands reaching up to Hecate's head, pulling her in even closer, her mouth working over hers insistently.
When they finally break apart, it takes them a moment before either of them can speak.
"Anyone could walk past," Hecate tells her shakily, her arms still around Pippa's body, for some reason voicing the very smallest concern on her mind.
"Yes, I suppose so," Pippa replies, sounding breathless, then, grabbing hold of Hecate's wrist, "Can I transfer us? Would you mind that?""
Hecate quickly shakes her head in assent, without question.
The landing is surprisingly soft. It takes her a moment to get her bearings and realise that Pippa has transferred them right onto the bed in the room she's been sleeping in.
For a fleeting moment, she wonders if this is what Pippa usually does when she seduces someone. She wonders if she's done this to other witches. The thought threatens to undo her and she pushes it away, focusing instead on Pippa's face. A wave of relief washes on her when she sees her expression is apprehensive, almost like she's concerned that what she's done has pushed Hecate too far. It might well have done, but for the fact that the sight of Pippa lying there beside her is all that Hecate's hoped for, all that she's dared to imagine, for the last thirty years. It threatens to overwhelm her, so Hecate seeks to ground herself again and she leans in to kiss her. Pippa responds eagerly and moans against her mouth.
Pippa rests her forehead against Hecate's when the kiss ends. Her arms are wrapped tightly around Hecate's body.
"I want you," Pippa murmurs, as if it hadn't been obvious, as if she hadn't as good as said it at least once already.
Still, if Hecate hadn't already been on her back, it would have bowled her over. She grabs onto the back of Pippa's neck and pulls her back towards her.
"Hecate, I want you," Pippa tells her again between kisses, almost matter-of-factly, "Is that alright?"
Hecate nods frantically into her neck. It's unfathomable, it's unexpected, it's incomprehensible, but it's so alright.
Pippa needs more certainty though. She holds Hecate's face still in her hand, her thumb resting against her cheekbone, making Hecate look her in the eye.
"Say it," Pippa tells her, "Is that alright?"
"Yes," Hecate tells her softly, dipping her mouth down to kiss the palm of Pippa's hand, "That's alright."
Pippa nearly purrs her approval as she lowers her head to kiss her again. She's lying on top of Hecate now, flush against her, their legs lodged snugly together. Hecate can feel their breasts pressing together. She feels one of Pippa's hands move between their bodies, resting just at the bottom of her ribs. She is too preoccupied with the way Pippa's kissing her – gently opening her mouth with her tongue - to realise that she's worked the catch of her belt open too.
Suddenly it's too much for Hecate – it's going so fast – she needs to breathe, she turns her face away from Pippa's and gasps for air. Pippa seems to understand, her hand soothes over Hecate's hair, stroking it softly, winding her fingers into it and whispering a spell to undo it. A moment later Hecate feels Pippa's lips on her ear lobe and whimpers, her arms wrapped around Pippa's back, pulling her closer in to her.
"Darling," Pippa's found the buttons of her dress and whispers in her ear, "Sweetheart-… I want you -…. to have you."
Hearing Pippa call her that, those names, thrills her like hearing her old nickname again, except now it's new not old, it's strange and it's erotic -…
Pippa still has her hand between the buttons of Hecate's dress and is stroking her bare skin. She cants her hips against Hecate's.
"I want to take your clothes off, I want to make you come-…"
Pippa's always had a tendency to chatter on but now it's become over-whelming. Just for this moment she can't listen to all of these things she had no idea Pippa wanted. Hecate leans up, capturing her mouth with hers, sitting up and pushing her gently onto her back. Pippa squeals happily.
She notices at some point Pippa has shed the little sleeves she wears and is just in her strapless pink dress. She takes a breath before dipping her head down to kiss the top of Pippa's breasts, her hands winding up and gripping the bare skin of Pippa's shoulders. She can feel Pippa's hand tangle in her hair, then a moment later the tug of nibble fingers against her dress.
"Can I vanish this?" Pippa asks her.
Hecate starts to bite her lip a little but finds it tender from kissing.
"If I can do the same for you?" she asks, looking down at Pippa a little bashfully.
A smile lights up Pippa's face.
"Of course," she murmurs softly.
She can hardly take in the sight of Pippa's naked body next to hers, but she thinks, she hopes, that Pippa understands. She closes her eyes, she reaches out for Pippa, holding her body close to hers.
The feeling of Pippa's thumb brushing gently along her lower lip makes her open them again. She sees Pippa, lying beside her, watching her face intently. Pippa gives her another small, gentle smile and then shifts away from her.
Hecate half-opens her mouth to protest but finds that no words come out.
Instead she watches mutely as Pippa kneels up beside her, resting her hands beside Hecate's shoulders on the bed, leaning her weight forwards so that she can shift her legs and straddle her.
Hecate barely holds in a gasp as she feels Pippa's warmth against her stomach.
"Everything you did, you did because I never told you how I feel," Pippa says softly, "Didn't you?"
Hecate can only nod.
Pippa breathes a heavy sigh.
"Then I'm going to show you," she tells her.
Hecate swallows, hard. Pippa cups Hecate's face again and kisses her mouth once more before gently shifting Hecate's legs up and open and sinking downwards so that their folds are touching.
She's been keeping admirably silent up until now but feeling Pippa against her like this, Hecate throws back her head and keens. She doesn't know what escapes her mouth either as Pippa continues to grind down against her – what chants, curses, obscenities pass her lips. She's transfixed by Pippa's face now, watching the pleasure flit across her features. She reaches up and touches every inch of Pippa's skin she can – her hips, her breasts – before it becomes too much and she keels over onto her back, Pippa still pressed against her.
It ends with Pippa lying on top of her, her fingers deep inside her, pushing her, insisting that she go over the edge. She always was insistent, if nothing else.
Hecate takes long, long moments to catch her breath.
"You didn't-…" is the first think she says, when she finds herself capable of speech, the tone of her voice regretful.
It was nothing short of ridiculous that the resumption of the conversation they'd started was now about who had had an orgasm.
"I don't mind," Pippa tells her softly, "And there'll be time later if you do."
Hecate is quiet. Her heart feels like it's almost straining at the thought that there could be a later to this. She feels Pippa shuffle slightly closer to her.
"All I wanted," Pippa continues in a soft, low voice, "Was to show you how I feel. And I did."
Hecate gulps softly. Yes, it was fair to say that she had.
"I don't expect anything in return," Pippa tells her firmly.
"I want to-…" Hecate is saying before she knows what she's doing, even though she's not exactly sure what she wants, but oh, that she wants, wants more than she can say, "I need time-…" she says hurriedly, "I know that sounds ridiculous, I've had so much time and we've just-…. I wasn't expecting-… I didn't know" she finishes helplessly, "Can you understand?"
"Of course I can," Pippa tells her - of course she does, she's always understood, after all – "You weren't expecting us to make love. Nor was I."
That thrill again, as Pippa mentions making love, like calling her darling again. She knows it registers in her face, she can't disguise it. But Pippa doesn't say anything. Instead she plants a single kiss on Hecate's forehead, drawing her arm softly around her waist to hold her.
"Take time if you need it," she tells her in a low voice, "Take as much as you want."
End.
Really hoped you like it, please review if you have the time.
