A/N: I blame this: gocomics luann/2012/10/07 and the Comics Curmudgeon and the distinct lack of Rule 34 following through on this.

I was on a mission to find Luann/Tiffany fanfic. I am now on a mission to write it myself.
_

Well. This was actually kind of difficult. Which is why it's taken me upwards of 3 years working on this occasionally to get it to point where I'm comfortable publishing any of it. During that time, a lot of things changed drastically in the comic itself. So this is set somewhere in the middle of all that, in the spring of their senior year, so that I didn't have to completely rewrite everything to keep up with canon. I admit, I wasn't expecting the source material to advance them through high school and college so suddenly. I mean, they were in middle school for, like 15 years...

Anyway. That was part of why it took so long. Another is that the fuel for this particular ship is rather few and far between. I don't think many of the readers have considered this, but I've been shipping Luann/Tiffany since that strip listed above. So lack of fuel, and also lack of character development until fairly recently due to the nature of the newspaper comic strip as a medium.

This should turn out to be a handful of short chapters. As long as I can force myself to give it an actual ending. And finally, for the sake of the eventual possible mature content this may see, let's just go ahead and assume everyone involved is 18; though none of that for now. And Disclaimer: Don't own Luann. Is that not what the concept of fanfiction implies.

WTF Am I Doing?
(Luann/Tiffany)

Just another free moment in class; just another meaningless squibble with Tiffany. That's what she thought.

"So, have you seen that new guy in our class? He's pretty hot. I'm gonna let him take me to the Spring Fling."

Luann watched out of the corner of her eye as the other applied yet another layer of mascara and droned about boys. She was trying, and failing miserably, to tune her out, so when Tiffany brought up her latest target, she couldn't help it. She never could with Tiffany.

"Oh, so you've finally given up on Quill?"

Actually, she herself had given up on him. They were still friends; still hung out, still texted and talked every day, but it wasn't working out in the way they had hoped. Especially now that talk of life after high school had come into the picture. Not that she'd ever admit that to Tiffany, of course.

"I've realized he's not worth the effort. Sure, he's the hot foreign exchange student, but as far as foreign boys go, it's not like he's the prime example. He's much more suited to you."

She bristled. It was expected, and Luann didn't know why exactly she continued to allow herself to react. She knew this card was a faked exaggeration, but she still played it.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?!"

If she were anyone else, she wouldn't have dignified that with a vocal response, but she was Tiffany, and Tiffany didn't know the meaning of 'subtlety'.

"Oh, no, you deserve him, really you do."

It had dissolved into another battle in their never-ending argument over the importance of looks. Just another. But for some reason, today it wouldn't leave her alone. Well, moreso than usual. What Luann would never admit to Tiffany, as it would concede her entire argument, was that she actually quite envied the other girl's good looks.

Luann thought herself plain, and couldn't keep her mind off the beauty queen's perfect body. She had often caught herself comparing her own body to Tiffany's before, but this seemed different. Today, instead of just wishing she had the other girl's body, reluctant as she was to admit it even to herself, she found that she wished to run her hands over that flawless skin.

Not really being able to deal with that, she attempted to play it off as just another tiff. She complained noisily to her friends about Tiffany, then went home where she continued her rant to her parents, and then finally to Quill. But that was where things got a little weird again.

After a summer visit where they had grown closer, and then struggling through Quill going back to Australia, then returning, and now planning to leave again, they had both agreed at some point that the back and forth of the sometimes long-distance relationship was too much of a rollercoaster. A long-term romance between the two of them just wasn't going to happen, even when they could see each other. They were still good friends, though, and still spoke every day. They still spent enough time together for the uninformed to think they were still going out, and didn't really bother to correct anyone. But now, instead of trying to hang out as a couple, they had relaxed into almost best friend status.

He was in town for now, so Luann demanded his presence in her bedroom that afternoon, and there her walls came down and she let slip some of her true feelings.

"Augh, and she acts like I'm a slut, and then she goes and hangs herself off the new boy like he's coated in chocolate! Actually, I think he might be, but that's beside the point."

Luann paced her room angrily. Quill watched from her bed. He knew how she got when it came to Tiffany; he knew they wouldn't be talking about anything else until she'd said everything she possibly could about the "vapid bitch".

"I hate how she acts and I hate how she treats me! Just once, I'd like to be-"

She cut herself off, turning suddenly toward him. Quill definitely noticed.

"Hm? You'd like what?"

Luann sighed heavily and looked down, slumping into her desk chair. After a pause, she answered in a voice much quieter than it had been.

"I'd like to be the center of her attention."

They ended up talking far too long into the night, but by the end, and with Quill's help, Luann had managed to work out most of her feelings. They figured she had likely been in love with Tiffany since as far back as middle school, when she first started taking notice of her. Though, being a confused pre-teen, she had squashed that notion with jealousy and hatred and boys. Oh, but boys were such wonderful distractions. She was certainly not regretful of the loves she had had since then. But maybe now she could understand why none of them ever seemed to be meant to last. Even if she had more or less repressed it, and even if she had never admitted it, she had always been secretly crushing on someone else. And she would never really be able to move on from that as long as Tiffany was still in her life.

But now. Now she had uncovered it. It had been merely tucked away until a time when she could better deal with it. And she did deal with it. With the ear and advice of Quill, and being old enough now to be able to understand what these feeling were and what they meant, Luann calmly and rationally came to the realization that she was in love with Tiffany Farrell, and had been for a very long time. Hidden from even herself, but deep enough to outlast all of her other flings and crushes.

Now that she knew, she could finally go after the one she really wanted. She would waste no more effort on passing distractions that never worked out.