High school: vast, savage, like the savanna, with watering holes and scorching sun. It's better to be a lion than a gazelle. Gazelles get their bones crunched and the marrow licked out. Lions have their prides, and their pride. Joanne is a lion.

Still, the savanna has its gossip, right? Neutral ground, where rumors get passed on. Which is how Joanne knows that Nita's newest outfit is totally salvaged from the thrift store, and how she and Kit are still not officially going out, and have not done it yet either. Speculation that both of them are gay periodically rises up and recedes. And Joanne, she listens.

It's here, naturally, where the news of Nita's mom comes up.

…

That's an unnatural article, to be bandied about while girls apply eye shadow, retouch their lipstick. It's too serious for washroom chat. Lisa gliding the mascara wand over her spiky lashes and going "Yeah, I hear her mom's been in the hospital for like three days now, and Callahan's still coming to school, it's a little weird, y'know?"

And of course Joanne knows. If you keep an eye on Nita, not in a freaky stalker kind of way or anything… she just really is kind of weird.

Like, when she was little that strangeness blared, and as a public service Joanne had to smush it down. And now, well. Nita Callahan is different, and still kind of weird, and Joanne feels like a watch should be kept, is all.

Which still does not explain why Joanne has this sudden powerful desire to pry Callahan's dry hands off the beat-up book she's strangling, and look her in the eye. It goes in waves, Nita afraid of Joanne for years even if that never stopped her going against her, the upward swoop into confidence, bravery, and now this distracted arch into solitary terror again. The elephant in the living room is that now, it's not a person Nita's afraid of: it's just the approaching inevitability. The empty hole in a family, the slow decline, death.

Like it'll save her mom, reading that book in time, yeah right. Like the book but nothing else matters.

So, Joanne doesn't talk to her at lunch, or anything like that. Her friends would shrivel up and blow away if they saw her interact with the terminally uncool Wah-nita Callahan. The library is the place to have covert meetings with a social reject, so! The library it is. Callahan has a table staked out and is devouring that book, with a bruised look in her dark eyes. Joanne sets her purse on a chair and sits down on the other side of the table, ignoring the double-takes other kids shoot in her direction. She's Joanne, she can do what she wants.

Callahan does not look up from the book, but her fingers flex on the cover. Joanne taps her fingernails against the table, which is scarred from who-knows-how-many years of smoldering kids digging at it with pencil points or smuggled knives. In this table the initials JMC are carved, boxy letters declaring that MRS LAPTON SUX, and in graphite the light clumsy tracings of a girl's spread legs with a lozenge vagina shape in between. Joanne wrinkles her nose and looks away. "Hey."

Nita's eyes flick in her direction, and then back down to the pages. Not fear; it's been years (and Joanne still grits her teeth sometimes, thinking about it) since Nita's been scared of Joanne. It's just the aforementioned distraction. Besides, the girl's got a little muscle now; when she wears tank tops biceps are discernible, and a steady strength in her shoulders. In skirts, she has legs like a runner's. Quadriceps slightly defined on the thigh, calves round with muscle. If they got in a fistfight now Callahan might have a chance, although judging by the last time…

Maybe approaching Callahan was a bad idea. Joanne's the one who's really left open here, to be snubbed. Nita looks like a corpse under the fluorescent lights. Deader then her mom probably is right now. Her eyes shuttered, exhausted, Nita looks back up and says "Hi."

Pause.

"Where's your boy-toy?" Joanne asks, for lack of anything better, and the ice has to break somehow, right? Callahan pinches the bridge of her nose between her eyes and rubs, hard. She looks drowned is what, Joanne realizes. Swollen, pale, with almost colorless lips. Drained.

"He has a different lunch," Nita says without intonation. Her eyes slip compulsively back down to the book and, oh, she's dismissing Joanne now. This is a tacit request that Joanne please go away. "We're not always together, you know."

Because she's actually, truly not here to start a(nother) feud, Joanne says "Right. Okay. Hey, you know, I heard about your mom… hey." Callahan has already zeroed back in on the stupid book. Couple years ago she'd been a dog, doofy, not knowing when not to be friendly. Now she just shuts Joanne out?

This is hard enough already, trying to reach someone so strange.

" Hey," Joanne repeats, reaching across the table and making a grab for the book's ragged cover. It's embarrassing, trying to be nice and getting shot down like this (nobody should ignore her!). She's going out of her way to check up on an old acquaintance, here. She deserves some props at least.

The book cover, when she touches it, doesn't feel at all like a proper book – is it scales or slime or just some sense of infinite depth she's dabbling her fingers in? But it comes out of Callahan's hands and skitters on the table like any regular book, and Nita Callahan really looks at her for the first time in this freaking conversation, like the old days when she had an eye out for Joanne all the time, ready to try to fight or run. Nita Callahan stands up fast so her chair slams back and slaps her palm down on the book. Joanne can make out a word in gold paint… Wizard.

"What do you want?" Callahan actually snaps, agitated, her shoulders pushing forward, burning up with focus now. Joanne stands up herself, keeps pulling the book, so they're fighting for it.

"I don't know," Joanne spits back, completely aggrieved, not using her library voice. "I guess I just heard about your mom and wanted to say, I hope she's better soon? You don't have to be a total aggressive freak about it –"

Callahan pulls hard, and the book goes like oil out of Joanne's hands. She's reading magic books, while her mother dies, and Joanne looks at her, the color that's bloomed in Callahan's face, and how taut she's standing, and…

"Girls!" someone says severely, and Joanne snaps out of it, breaks eye contact first to look at who's interrupted them. Some librarian, she doesn't know them, this isn't her haunt. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Nita glance at her, and then away.

"What are you two up to back here?" the woman asks reprovingly. She is mostly looking at Nita, Joanne realizes. They must be acquaintances at least. "Nita, honey, the school knows you are under a lot of stress, but – but, well – "

Nita's face has begun to acquire a dampened, crushed look, like a bloodied cloth. Her brow furrows, the eyes glitter with moisture, and Joanne, she has to awkwardly look away.

The librarian, it seems, has forgotten her now – she gets out of jail free for this one. Motherly, almost, the older woman takes Callahan away, one soft arm around her shoulders. The two of them disappear into the back office.

People are still staring. The bell is going to ring. Joanne shifts from foot to foot, uncomfortably, and wonders when she'll ever learn to talk.

Written for Yuletide 2007, for labellementeuse. Request was Joanne/Nita femmeslash; this is more like preslash, but... ahah.