A/N: Reposting this from my Tumblr to FFN. Hopefully having it on here will make me more inclined to update. :-)

Pansexual

feat. Ella Goldstein

"I'm, um." Claudia fidgeted, playing with the hem of her shirt. Looking up at his curious brown eyes only did more to crumble her resolve, so she averted her eyes and trained them to the floor, focusing intently on the lush grass. "I-"

"Hm?" Serge peered at her, his expression one of adorable confusion.

She sighed, rubbing her temples. Coming out of the closet to him was much harder than she anticipated. She wasn't sure she could do this. On the contrary, she was pretty sure she couldn't do this. Not with friendship on the line.

No, not friendship: er, cookies. Yes, cookies. Serge made amazing cookies, which certainly contrasted with her ability to burn anything should she be given access to a kitchen, and the fool, whom Claudia had deluded into thinking that they had some sort of close friendship, liked to bring her into the school kitchen when he was baking cookies and use her as a taste-tester of sorts (i.e. he baked, she ate). Should their one-sided friendship crumble, the days of free cookies would be gone, and Claudia would surely die. Because a Claudia without her daily sugar dosage was not a Claudia that was socially acceptable among the sane.

By Siegfried, the whole damned affair was giving her a headache. She glanced up at Serge. "Can I a moment, please?"

Serge frowned, obviously not expecting that as her response, but he grinned brightly nonetheless, although his grin did look a little bit wobbly. "Sure! Take your time. I'll just…go stand over there." He gestured towards a clump of bushes and began to walk away, Taffy at his heels.

A few hours ago, back at her dorm, when she was mentally preparing herself for his response, she had braced herself for the worst: Erm, sorry, but I'm not sure if we can really be friends anymore, if you know what I mean…Well, that's okay, but can you just, like, not talk to me from now on?

Not that she cared – well, too much, anyways. Serge was an idiot. But he had cookies and was friendly – most importantly, friendly to her. And although Claudia didn't really care for friends – as a great wizardess, she was too good for friends – Serge, along with Randy, were the closest approximation of friends she had, so when she decided to come out of the closet, she decided that she might as well tell her friends – er, friendly acquaintances – first.

Although, thinking back on it, she should've told Ella before she told Randy or Serge. In her defense, Ella didn't go to school here, so she would've had to send a magic note, and although Claudia was very reluctant to admit this, she knew that it was nearly impossible for somebody of her magical ability to send a magic note all the way to the Goldstein Manor. Even if she was somehow able to do this, Ella would've felt morally obligated to tell their parents, and she was fairly sure that her parents wouldn't take well to the news.

"Hey…Claws…are you done, um, thinking yet?" called Serge from a faraway bush.

"No! Shut up!" she snapped back. "And I told you not to call me that!" she added as an afterthought.

So, scratch that. She shouldn't have even told anybody. It was too risky. Homosexuality, she knew, was generally not well accepted in Geodelune. She wasn't sure about pansexuals – or, as was the more general term, bisexuals—but she wagered that society's stance on it generally leaned towards the negative side.

Randy. It was Randy's fault. The very first person she had told was Randy, after all, and Randy was the one who gave her advice, so, therefore, the fault lay with Randy.

Because Randy had seen her ogling Rosaline Beaumont. He saw how Claudia approached Rosaline, who was struggling in performing a spell, and began patiently explaining the concept of a basic wind healing spell. Anybody else would've thought that it was just that, but Randy knew her better; Randy would've seen the faint blush that graced her cheeks, the slightly sultry undertone to her words, the way she fidgeted slightly, as if she was uncomfortable in her own skin, how she constantly tapped her foot and shifted her weight from one leg to another, and how she kept on leaning in – subtly, so that not even Rosaline herself could care to notice—closer to her, until they were almost touching. She knew he had seen, because he was in the classroom, within the vicinity, and Randy's eyes missed nothing.

If he didn't see, well, then, everything would be fine. But if he did…well, she had to find out. She couldn't have Randy thinking that she was hiding things from him (which she was, technically) or else he might be upset. Of course, this was only because if she broke things off with Randy, it would mean breaking off things with Serge, and, as a result, saying goodbye to free cookies, which Claudia was not ready to do.

So, she asked him if he could please please meet with her after class, preferably at the courtyard, because she desperately needed help with an extremely difficult spell. The words were a bit painful, but she managed.

His eyebrows disappeared into his bangs – she wasn't sure if it was because she had used the word 'please' or because she actually needed help with something concerning magic– but he'd obliged, albeit a bit reluctantly.

She waited for ten minutes in that courtyard. And, when she finally saw the red-haired figure approaching, she got straight down to business. "You saw it."

"Saw what?" Randy's face was impassive. He definitely knew.

"You know what."

"I don't know what, actually." His voice was a monotone. So he was going to make her say it aloud, was he?

Well then.

Using a series of clumsy hand gestures and fumbled speech, she explained the situation to him.

"So, yeah," she finished. "I'm pansexual."

"Ohhh, you meant that," said Randy, letting the words drag on a bit too long to express genuine surprise. "I saw that." His tone was light, but his eyes glinted with mirth. "By the way, I've always known you were queer," he added. "You just have that" – he gesticulated furiously – "that look."

She was too rattled to respond. Her hands seemed to not know what to do with themselves, twisting themselves into knots and flitting about like nervous butterflies. "So, you don't want to break off our friendsh – er, acquaintance…ship. Right?" she said, taking great effort to keep her tone even and free of nervosa. For some reason, her voice seemed to want to quaver, which could easily be translated as being nervous to people such as Randy. And of course she wasn't nervous. Just a bit…uncomfortable.

"Of course not. Why would you think that?" he said, and she almost exhaled in relief, but she quickly stopped herself.

"Well, according to my observations, wizards and witches alike seem to be increasingly averse to the idea of homosexuality," she began, tucking a stray curl of hair behind her ear.

"Which is completely stupid," chimed in Randy.

"Of course, idiot," she said swiftly, her mood lifted considerably by his words (not that she was going to disclose that information to him). "Anyways, due to the popular notion that homosexuals are unnatural and should therefore be looked down upon, I assumed the same would apply for pansexuals – or, to use the general term, bisexuals. And, with this in mind, I made the assumption that you could possibly want to break off ties with me."

Randy didn't speak. Claudia chewed her lip in the silence, wondering whether he had changed his mind. "You know, you could've said that in much fewer words," he commented, after about a minute of silence.

Claudia cast an irritated glance at him. "What's done is done," she reasoned, though she privately thought he was right, but she wasn't going to admit that. "Anyhow, I need your advice," she said, changing the subject. "How do I come out to Serge?"

Randy pondered on this for some time. "I suppose," he said finally, "you could just do the same thing you did with me?"

She considered this for about five seconds, and then smacked him on the arm, consequently resulting in him letting out a high-pitched, bordering on feminine, yelp. (She filed this moment away in her brain to keep as teasing material.) "You two are totally different people!" she cried. "One way might work for you, but not for Serge! He might…er, freak out or something." She was beginning to realize that Randy might be right. But she decided not to comment on it and instead faced him with a challenging gaze.

He matched it with a cool one of his own. "Like I freaked out," he said. "Of course."

She pointedly ignored him. "What am I supposed to say: 'Hey, Serge, let's go to the courtyard to talk. Oh, by the way, I'm pansexual'?"

"In theory, yes." Randy looked like he was deciding on whether to laugh at her or to facepalm, an expression he donned frequently and one that irritated Claudia to no end. "Although it may be the wiser course of action to tell him that you are bisexual."

"Why?"

"Well, for one, Serge isn't exactly the most springy wand* out there, if you catch my drift," he said. "Bisexual is the more widely used term out there, aside from faggot and other terms of a similar derogatory nature.

"I can definitely imagine that." Claudia snorted derisively. "But, seriously, you don't give him enough credit. I'm pretty sure he's not that stupid to not know what pansexual is, or at least not to pick up on the context clues."

Randy shrugged lightly. "Pansexual or not, all you need to do is just tell him like you did with me."

She sighed. "I suppose you're right." As she dusted off her skirt, the light caught on her watch. She checked the time. "Holy shit! We're five minutes late!" Ignoring Randy's look of bemusement, she grabbed his arm and broke into a run, forcing him to do the same lest his arm be yanked out of its socket.

That was last week.

Fuck Randy. His plan was bullshit. Just tell him? Easier said than done. With Randy, it was easy, because, well, Randy had already seen it anyways, and Randy didn't have his head up in the fucking clouds all the damned time, nor was he completely oblivious of everything surrounding him. What if Randy didn't even know the meaning of bisexuality, much less pansexuality?

The sad part was that she wouldn't even be surprised.

"Hey, Claudia? Are you done thinking? Even if you aren't, can I still come back? Taffy got poked by a thorn and wants out!"

"WAAAH! ME HATE THORNS!" shortly followed.

Claudia felt a twinge of sympathy Taffy. "Sure, I'm done" – mentally strangling Randy – "thinking."

Serge shuffled over, cradling a sniffling Taffy in his arms. "So," he said, patting Taffy on the head. "What is it you wanted to say? I mean, it sounded pretty important, if you needed that long to gather your thoughts or whatever."

"And cause Taffy to get stabbed by a thorn!" injected Taffy. Claudia could've sworn that Taffy's button eyes held malice in them. She shuddered.

"I…" she started, then paused. Was she really going to do this?

Serge looked expectantly at her. "You…?" he prompted. Taffy just kept glaring at her.

"Well…" And her resolve crumbled into dust. "Hey, Serge, wanna get ice cream?"

His eyes lit up. "Sure! Taffy would like that, too, right?" he said, nudging Taffy.

Taffy sniffed, glancing imperiously at Claudia from his position in Serge's arms. "Me would like that very much," he sniffled.

As Serge dragged her behind him as he skipped whilst loudly singing cheerful tunes at the top of his lungs, she sighed. For now, it seemed, she was stuck in the closet – at least in Serge's case.

She was going to strangle Randy when she got back. (Because this was all Randy's fault. All of it.)

Coming up next: Claudia strangling Randy and plotting yet another way to "come out of the closet"

(also, keep in mind that this story uses an alternate ending in which Claudia does not immediately come out to Serge, thus creating way for more chapters :)

REVIEWS ARE MUCH APPRECIATED! :-)

If you review, please tell me about your pets if you have any! I have just been looking at cat memes and am thirsting for a pet of my own - unfortunately, I have only a little sister, who is an unimpressive, if not violent, specimen.

adieu! xo

- brooke