So an anon suggested over the weekend that girl!Jesse/Suze should be a thing, and I am so much fucking here for that, so here we go!
Suze Simon had never really noticed herself being into girls.
Of course, Suze Simon had never really known all that many girls. She was not, typically speaking, girl-friendly. Or people-friendly. In lieu of getting to know literally anyone other than Gina in her short and violent life, she had kind of defaulted to boys. Society, right?
There was nothing wrong with boys. They were, generally speaking, nice-looking, and some of them didn’t even smell too bad. Her heart had cheerfully stopped beating for more than one well-formed boy shape, and she didn’t think anyone could blame her for that.
In hindsight, her heart had cheerfully stopped beating for more than one well-formed girl shape as well. She had just sort of put that down to their excellent taste in footwear.
Jessie did not have excellent taste in footwear. Or, if she did, it was not currently displayed on her feet. Not that the boots she was wearing were ugly, or anything. They were just - you know. A century or two out of date. Either way, Suze had the feeling that the ghost could have been wearing crocs and her heart still would have shuddered to a stop.
That was a problem. Not the girl thing - she was a modern woman, and her mom would probably be happy at the dating pool widening for her daughter. Suze could see it now - ‘Local Reporter Goes Head to Head with Church About Daughter’s Right To Attend Prom With Girl, Screams of Agony and Capitulation Heard Nationally’.
No, the problem was that Jessie, obviously, was not going to be attending any dances, with or without Suze. Because Jessie was dead. And, you know, probably not into girls. And, you know, even if she was? Probably not into Suze specifically.
Sure, they got along well. Aside from Gina, Suze would probably call the other girl her best friend. And there was a lot of casual touching on Jessie’s part, but that was understandable. After being dead that long, Suze would probably be all up in a mediator’s face for some physical contact, too. And yes, Jessie had beaten the shit out of Paul Slater - but really, who hadn’t, at times, wanted to beat the shit out of Paul Slater?
...It had been kind of hot. Completely horrifying, obviously, but still. It wasn’t every day a girl broke someone’s nose for you. Not that Suze wasn’t completely capable of breaking people’s noses all by herself. It was just nice to have someone willing to do it on your behalf. It was nice to have Jessie, specifically, do it on her behalf.
“So, what do you think about lesbians?”
The words just sort of...fell out of her. By the time they hit the floor, it was too late to take them back. Jessie stared at her, a little incredulous. Suze tried desperately to rescue the situation.
“Or, you know, bisexuality. Non-straightness. Not exactly a thing when you were alive, right?”
Heart in her throat, Suze gazed up at the ceiling in her room and waited for the inevitable why are you asking. She was not in any way convinced that the words ‘just curious’ were going to come out of her mouth without being a blatant, obvious lie.
“I know what it means.” Was it just her imagination, or did Jessie answer that a little too fast? “It wasn’t...spoken about, and even rarer that assumptions were made. It wasn’t until after my death that I knew for sure that some of the lifelong friendships I had known of were more than that.”
“Hold up.” She had been flat on her back on the bed; it seemed like the safest way to avoid complete eye contact with her friend. But she shoved herself up into a sitting position now, because she really needed a direct face-to-face on this one. “Lifelong friendships. Like, are we talking living together?”
It was Jessie’s turn to inspect the ceiling. “It wasn’t uncommon for spinsters to keep each other company.”
“So you had all these women living together, and it didn’t occur to anyone that they might have been spinsters because of that, rather than the other way around?”
Silence. Too long of a silence, really to be explained away by any struggle for words, and it occurred to Suze that Jessie wasn’t planning on answering her.
“It occurred to you, huh?”
“I…” The silence dragged out again, but this time it had an end, punctuated by a sigh. “Like I said. I never confirmed it at the time.”
Heart in her throat, Suze kept pushing. “And now?”
She watched Jessie swallow, heard the edge of frustration creep into her voice. “Now, Susannah? Now I think that the one of the greatest things you can do with your life, one of the most precious, is to love someone and be loved by them in turn. All the rest of it - gender, race, it shouldn’t matter.”
Could Jessie hear her heart beating? It sounded loud enough in her ears for people in the family room to start wondering who was stomping around. It was a pretty speech, but there was another question it could prompt. The thing was - was she brave enough to ask it?
“Does it matter? You said it shouldn’t, but does it?”
Jessie finally pulled her eyes away from the ceiling. Meeting them dead on, Suze wasn’t sure if she might have preferred them to stay there. There was something intense in that dark gaze, something she didn’t know if she could handle.
“Not to me,” the other girl said softly.
“Oh.” Suze swallowed. “Me either.”
And they just sat there, until the air grew so thick and heavy between them that it became impossible to breath.
“Screw it,” Suze muttered, and kissed her.
