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Goonicon `22

Summary:

When you're an up and coming webcomic artist, you gotta do the conventions.
It helps when your girlfriend is there to offer moral support and/or help you lug stuff.

Illustration by the ineffable Laparoscopic.

Work Text:

GOONICON 22 - ARTIST PASS - WEEKEND

 

The badge hung proudly on Sarah's lanyard, which was presently skewed all the way over to one shoulder so the security folks could see it as she hauled two heavy cardboard boxes in. Susan followed, red in the face, cheeks puffed out; the moment they found their table both nearly collapsed, dropping the boxes with a loud WHAMP. Sarah panted for breath; Susan did as well, fanning herself with the convention schedule. 

 

"Remind me... why we didn't bring a hand truck?"

 

"No room in the back of the car?" Sarah suggested lamely. They could have made it fit. They just didn't make enough of an effort. Susan grunted, taking the banner off of the top of her stack. At least it wouldn't be too arduous to hang that up - and she had more reach than Sarah, so it was pretty easy to manage that. THE WIZARD SARAH - WWW.WIZARDSARAH.NET - M/W/F UPDATES , with half the regular cast peeking in around the edges of the banner. It would do. And it looked like they were in good company... DES Comics was setting up across the way (setting up a pyramid of boxed Velocitoaster model kits). 4KomaSoul next to them, Keychain of Creation on the other side. And on the corner of the alley...

 

"Why is ALT-F4 here? I thought Farley gave up the whole webcomic thing." Susan mumbled. Sarah snorted.

 

"Points for persistence, I guess. He rebooted it as a superhero comic." She shot Susan a glance, then reached up to take Susan's hand. "Thank you. For doing this with me."

 

"I should be thanking you for getting us in." Susan kissed Sarah's fingers. "You do know I'm going to disappear during the Conversational Klingon panel."

 

"I already have the time blocked out, yeah." Sarah beamed up at her girlfriend. This was going to be a good con, one way or the other.

 

-o-

 

"Are we ready?" Sarah mumbled. 

 

The artist from 4KomaSoul leaned over the divider between the booths, squinting through his sunglasses. "You are never ready. You think you are, but then... Pikachu Demons."

 

"What," Susan deadpanned.

 

"I'd like to say he's exaggerating, but it happened, so..." A tall, buff fellow with curly hair next to the artist shrugged. "Stay frosty?"

 

"Someone around here has to be selling holy water," Sarah said, as the alarm on her phone went off. Moments later, she heard it. The stampeding feet of hundreds of comic fans. The exhibit hall was open. Game on. She had expected it would take several minutes for the crowd to get back to the part of the floor they were on; it did not. Sure, there were plenty of people distracted by the huge booths near the front for the big distributors, but a lot of people ignored them entirely (plenty of time to hit THEM later...) to make a beeline for the smaller booths they were really there to see.

 

The impact was impressive, to say the least. One second there was no one in their aisle. Then two kids skidded around the corner at a full dash - and then the crowd poured in after them.

 

Oh, the crowd.

 

Sarah had the presence of mind to snap a photo of the teeming masses for her Instagram feed. The caption just read "WELP". And for a few minutes... no one was paying them any attention. Most of the focus was on the other booths, people cramming in to get con-exclusive merch. Sarah only had the stack of books, plus the stickers that Susan had convinced her to make ("They're cheap swag, and there's a very good profit margin there. Besides, who doesn't want a tiny sticker of the Elliots for the back of their laptop?").

 

For a while, they just sat there, basking in the insanity.

 

Then people started to pay attention to their booth.

 

The first few people just asked what the comic was - canned answers, telling people to check them out, passing out the business cards, pointing out the books - Sarah was sure it would become routine in no time.

 

It did not have time to become routine before it happened. 

 

“Okay, how much extra to get our books signed-”

 

“And can you, like, put a little doodle in them? Please?” Sarah’s head snapped up, and her eyes widened slowly. 

 

It was her. And Susan.

 

Or, more accurately, it was THE WIZARD SARAH and her werewolf former-paramour turned distant quasi-rival, Su. 

 

Or, far more accurately, they had cosplayers. There were two actual, factual, not-imagined people cosplaying as her characters at a convention. Sarah stammered briefly, glancing from one to the other.

Sarah and Su's (kinda adorable) cosplay dopplegangers.

 

The costumes were amazingly accurate in most regards. The cosplayers, of course, were not. The girl dressed as Susan was taller and far bustier (she was almost positive she’d seen her last year - hadn’t she been the pirate girl with the duct-tape pasties?!), and the alternate her was short, stacked, and hippy as hell. Something like a version of THE WIZARD SARAH that had been squished. Also, befreckled. It actually took her a second to realize both were wearing wigs.

 

“Autographs are free, sketches depend on the complexity.” Susan filled in for Sarah. Sarah shook it off and grinned. 

 

“If you just want a squirrel, that’s free. Chibis are an extra five, and if you want something like The Wizard Sarah making out with-”

 

Sarah and Su kissing please. ” The cosplayer Su thrust a few bills forward. Her friend nodded rapidly. 

 

“-I was going to say another 20, if that’s cool?” She nodded rapidly. Sarah shrugged, grabbed a brush pen, and started going at it. “Same for your book, or is one doodle going to be enough here?”

 

“I want to say the same, but… can you make it a little spicier?” Her tone dropped to conspiratorial levels. Susan raised an eyebrow. 

 

“How spicy are we talking?”

 

“...afterglow spicy?” She beamed. Sarah snorted.

“Fully covered in a blanket, sure.”

 

“I am perfectly okay with implied nudity!” The shortstack Sarah high fived her friend. Susan took a long sip off a can of cola. 

 

“...you do realize…” Susan mused, “that if you want to see Sarah and Susan kiss, there’s a much easier way?”

 

“Wait for them to get back together in the comic?” the cosplayer-Susan guessed. 

 

“Oh ho. No ‘if’?” Sarah needled, as the doodle started to coalesce, the picture getting away from her somewhat - damaged clothing, a bandage here, a broken wand there, suggesting far more than just a kiss, pouring on the emotion - this was an I want to be with you and I’m just happy we’re both alive kiss. 

 

“We’re hoping you’re not that sadistic,” Short Sarah grimace-grinned. 

 

“I mean if you are then all our fanfic is going to be AU and we were hoping it was canon-adjacent-” The Su cosplayer mused, as her friend nudged her hard. 

 

“Kaylee!” 

 

“What?” Sarah’s pen had stopped. “There’s fanfic of The Wizard Sarah?”

 

“Uh. Like. Nearly a hundred so far?” 

 

Sarah’s mind went screaming off a cliff for a moment; it took a second for her to respond again, rapidly finishing off the first doodle. 

 

“A - a hundred. A hundred fanfics.” She laughed. “You’re kidding.”

 

“You’ve never searched for TWS on AO3?” Susan was giving her a very amused little smile. “I’m shocked at your restraint.”

 

“AO what now?”

 

“An Archive Of Our Own. It’s like the fanfic site.” The Su - Kaylee - put in.

 

“What about Fanfiction dot-”

 

“Fuck FF.NET.” Kaylee interrupted, her brows lowering. Her friend nodded. 

 

“AO3 is a lot better on every angle, yeah.”

 

“And the fandom consensus is that Su and Sarah are going to get back together again?” This one was a lot easier - it wasn’t hard to suggest forms under a sheet, and she could fudge things. Bare shoulders, a trace of cleavage. It was still going to make her blush.

 

“We hope so, anyway.”

 

“There’s a lot of shipping rivalry on Reddit. Sarah/Su, Sarah/Enid, Sarah/Su/Enid, Sarah/Tess…” 

 

“Lissa’s written a bunch of different pairings, but Sarah/Su feels the best.” Kaylee crossed her arms, delighted, all but hugging her book, as Sarah finished off Lissa’s sketch. 

 

“Well, now that I know… I know what I’m doing over lunch. I’ll definitely binge them.” She beamed, handing over the second book. “What are your pen names?” Both girls froze up.

 

“Uh…”

 

“Promise you won’t judge us too harshly?”

 

“As long as it’s not vore.” Susan said. “Or Sonic the Hedgehog crossovers.” She was probably joking. Probably. 

 

“...SweetPollyAtomic and AngryAngryAardvark?” 

 

“Expect some reviews soon, then.” Sarah winked. Both girls let out a delighted squee, almost bouncing off together. She heard Lissa saying they’d be back in a while over the din of the crowd as they scampered off. For a second, Sarah just watched them leave, recovering. Susan was already bringing her phone up.

 

“I have fans.”

 

“You have fans.”

 

“I have a Reddit community?! ” 

 

“That isn’t a high barrier of entry, but it’s nice to hear they’re getting organized.”

 

“Still. Wow.”

 

“Mm. They didn’t pick up the thread of the conversation that got dropped.”

 

“About us kissing?”

 

“I was going to tell them that if they wanted to see that, they could just stick around here for the next hour. It’s going to happen eventually.” 

 

“True.” And Sarah leaned in to kiss Susan gently, as another flock of potential readers walked up.

 

-o-

 

“So what is the difference in the Elliots’ names?”

 

“One has one more ‘T’.”

 

“I meant pronunciation-wise.”

 

“There… isn’t one. That’s the joke.”

 

“Oh. Ohhhhhhhh. Oh.” 

 

“There y’go-”

 

“I don’t get it.”

 

-o-

 

“-but the line width!”

 

“If it looks good to me, I go with it.”

 

“But what if it gets printed?!”

 

“I… did print it? We have the books right here?”

 

“It won’t show up!”

 

“It… did? I mean, that’s… what, page… yeah, page 30, right there. Looks fine to me.”

 

“...THERE SHOULD BE NO WAY THAT A COMMERCIAL GRADE PRINTER-”

 

-o-

 

“Is this a porn comic?”

 

“Cheesecake on occasion, never anything too explicit.”

 

“Ah. So there’s no adults-only members section?”

 

“Uh… no?”

 

“Mmh.” 

 

-o-

 

“Best Trek captain?”

 

“Pike?”

 

“...I’m keeping an eye on you, buster.”

 

-o-

 

“Is this appropriate for a 12-year old?”

 

“Uh… I consider it about equivalent to a PG-13 movie, generally?”

 

“But does it contain any unicorns?”

 

“Unicorns?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Uh… not… no? Not really? There’s a hippogriff in like five panels…”

 

“Oh, good. Kids and their fleeting obsessions, you know. I’m not about to buy anything even vaguely unicorn or llama related again.” 

 

-o-

 

By 11, Sarah felt just a little frazzled, but in a good way. Conventions were a continuous tidal wave of activity, and she was used to trying to ride the crest out on the floor, not being buoyed in place. Susan was, to extend the metaphor to slightly uncomfortable levels, an anchor for her, outwardly placid and cool. Her presence helped in ways that she couldn’t previously have imagined. 

 

Though she found there were a few expected irritants she didn’t actually need Susan’s help to deal with.

“Pfft. Pfft. Pffft. ” Sarah did not look up from the book that she was doodling in. “Another Dungeons and Dragons knockoff? Another blatant self-insert comic? What’s the point? What-”

 

Move along, asshat. ” Sarah’s voice fell like a lead slab. She glowered up at him, and then took a glance at the security. He looked like he was about to say something else - and that’s when Susan summoned a hammer, not even looking up. He was gone. Sarah sighed. “You know I could have managed that myself.”

 

“You would have put your pen through the table. That would have ruined a pen.” Susan thumbed to the next page of the convention schedule - and Sarah realized that was the fourth or fifth time she’d read through it. Susan was coping too. The thought hit Sarah hard. When you were walking through a con, you could ignore the grubby hands touching everything, but when you were trapped at a table for twelve hours, you saw every single person that stood there… she handed off the comic, with a drawing of The Archmage Tess eating a sandwich and looking perturbed (of all the panels to become a meme…). 

 

“There you go.” 

 

“RECOOME THANKS YOU.” The cosplayer stomped off, looking delighted. Sarah nudged Susan. 

 

“You want to take a look around for a while? We’re not exactly swamped.”

 

“The second I decide to leave is the second that we’ll get slammed hard. And I thank everyone in earshot for not taking that suggestively.” 

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

“I did, but I am retroactively NOT doing that.” Sarah snorted. The 4KomaSoul guys were such dorks. 

 

“You sure?”

 

“I’m positive. Besides…” Susan held up the program. “Everything I want to do besides the Trek panel is after the hall closes.” 

 

“They have stuff that late?”

 

“All night, actually.” The tall fellow leaned back over into their stall. “Last year Whose Line is it Anime was scheduled until midnight, but they did it until 5 AM.” 

 

“How can people do improv for that long?”

 

“A lack of sleep and a lot of caffeine. Plus everything seems hilarious at 2 AM.”

 

“Well… as long as you’re sure.” Sarah reached out and gave Susan’s shoulder a squeeze. She nodded. 

 

“Though we should probably get lunch in a while. I’m thinking during the real-time dubbing contest?” 

 

-o-

 

It didn’t happen.

 

Every time she thought one of them could slip off for a while, it just didn’t happen. Susan just barely got out in time for her Conversational Klingon panel.

 

And now she was watching as two cosplayers - one dressed as Dan Hibiki and one dressed as… someone she couldn’t recognize… had a taunt-off in the aisle in front of them. It’d be annoying if it wasn’t so hilarious, and it was drawing people in. She’d actually sold two books just by asking a couple of guys who were leaning against the booth if they were going to buy anything or if they were just loitering. They hadn’t even looked away from the cosplayers.

 

Perhaps a cheesy tactic, but a sale was a sale. 

 

She realized just how much she missed Susan at that moment. Sure, she knew that she was at the panel that she’d said she was going to attend, she’d marked out the time and it was all fun and good - but dang, something this impressively dumb was only better with her skewering it. 

 

Sarah glanced down at the book in her lap and realized that she’d just drawn a very detailed Su inside the front cover. Without looking. 

 

Damn, she had it bad. 

 

And she would have it no other way.

 

-o-

 

Teriyaki chicken and rice and mushrooms. Pretty much what she’d get at the mall, but free, and on a nicer plate. Sarah flipped out her phone and started tapping, as Susan took a mouthful, letting warmth and savoriness fill her up. 

 

“Okay. Are you ready for this?”

 

“Which part?”

 

“The fanfic.”

 

“We’re not going to have time to read anything in its entirety.”

 

“Of course not!” Sarah paused a second to actually eat some of her chicken. “...but we can at least give it a glancing over. Besides… some of them are probably spicy. ” Her eyebrows waggled. 

 

“We’re in public, dear.”

 

“And there are three people loudly critiquing yaoi doujins across the room from us. We’re fine.” 

 

“...alright. But no reading the explicit parts aloud. Just… tilt the phone towards me. Or send me a link.”

 

“Spoilsport.”

 

-o-

 

Justin scruffed Elliot’s hair, as Elliott curled into his side. “I don’t know how I got on without you two, you know that.” 

 

“Of course we do.” Elliot whuffed happily, craning his neck so that the vampire’s claws scritched THE itchy spot behind his ear.

 

“I mean, if we didn’t have anything on you, we wouldn’t be this comfy. The Feels make for a great bit of blackmail.” Elliott confirmed.

 

“Clever pups.” Justin licked his lips. The Thirst was kicking up again, but he couldn’t hurt his poor doggos that way. Couldn’t betray their trust.

 

Could he?

 

One nip. One nip, that was all. Just a little taste…

 

-o-

 

“I maintain that vampire erotica makes no damn sense.”

 

“I dunno, it’s kinda hot.”

 

“That’s because you’re picturing Justin and two Elliots cuddling.”

 

“...granted.”

 

-o-

 

“I don’t know how to stop it!” Tess said, as she gestured with a wand.

 

“Well try something!” Sarah said, as she tried to pull her robe closed. It was not working. Her chest kept expanding, and her new boobs were not smooshy enough for her to smush them in. With a loud RIP her hands were forced apart.

 

“Well… crap.” Tess said, staring at Sarah. She was completely unable to look away. As inconvenient as those new assets had to be, they were gorgeous, and she had stopped growing. Sarah looked down. She blushed very strongly, and looked away from Tess. This was really, really embarrassing.

 

So what did it say about Sarah that she liked it? Or that as she thought that, her hips were starting to swell?

 

-o-

 

“Honestly, this one I get more. The constant flat ‘said’ is irritating, but…”

 

“Well, you do like it when you don’t feel lanky, right?”

 

“I admit to nothing. Let’s see if any of the others are shameless fetish fuel or if there’s something more character driven.”

 

“Alright… ooh! There’s SweetPollyAtomic…”

 

-o-

 

The rain was plastering the ruins - steel, twisted and wiry and nightmarish, among other stranger metals. Everything smelled strange, but… clean. 

 

And dead.

 

No rot, no plants, no animals. No life. It was the strangest thing that Su had ever experienced. She looked back at Sarah, and double checked the astrolabe.

 

“We’re… much closer. Only two more jumps and we’ll be home,” she whispered. “How are you holding up?”

 

“Not great.” Sarah let out a breath. “I - I need to rest. I can’t dimension jump any more… everything feels like it’s on fire.”

 

“Everything?”

 

“Everything. I - Su, I -” Sarah gasped as her protective enchantments dispelled. All her protective enchantments, and for the first time Su could see her as she truly was. The last burnout had not, in fact, burned through all of them. She had thought that Sarah was just a short, cute girl underneath it all. She did not expect the love of her life - the third most powerful magician she knew - to secretly be a goblin. Let alone a cute goblin.

 

-o-

 

“What.”

 

“That’s what it says.”

 

“I have clearly played too much Pathfinder, because all I can think of is ‘gibbering green pumpkinheaded thing with razor teeth’.”

 

“There’s art, hold on…”

 

“...”

 

“Not too bad, huh?”

 

“I think that goblin is bustier than the Wizard Sarah usually is.”

 

“I mean, proportionally… yeah.”

 

-o-

 

“Hold STILL!”

 

“I am holding still!” Su grit her teeth, the furry patch at the back of her neck, right below her hairline, standing up straight. She hated this. Hated hated hated - “YELP!”

 

“Look, if you don’t want my help you can manage this yourself.” 

 

“No, keep going!” Stupid cockleburrs stupid undergrowth STUPID badger! Why did this have to happen? Why did - “Y-Y-YELP!” Sarah froze, the stiff brush just past her tail, one of the burrs in her hand. 

 

“...that didn’t sound like a bad noise.”

 

“Getting them out is - is kinda satisfying. That’s all.” They weren’t together. Not anymore. She couldn’t…

 

-o-

 

“Grooming as foreplay?”

 

“It’s not really foreplay, is it? I mean it’s more like ‘grooming as a forerunner of feels coming b’-”

 

“...Sarah?”

 

“Nope, you had it right. Foreplay.”

 

“It IS fanfic.”

 

“It is...”

 

-o-

 

“Look, just because you’re being stubborn doesn’t mean we’re going to do this. Get in here.” Su patted the spot beside her in the sleeping bag. Sarah shook her head, rubbing her arms.

 

“I’m fine. The enchantments include something to-”

 

“You’re freezing.”

 

“I’m fine, Su.”

 

“You aren’t.”

 

“Susan.”

 

“Sarah.” She squinted at her. Patted again. “Don’t make me pick you up by the scruff of the neck.”

 

“Humans don’t have scruffs like that.”

 

“All the more reason you shouldn’t make me.” She patted once more. Sarah sighed. This was so awkward. She slid in next to her, helping to button up the side of the bag quickly, and tried to ignore Su’s comfortable presence behind her. 

 

It was impossible. The second she was there, surrounded by Su’s scent, her warmth, the feel of her long hair tickling at her neck… no. This was something she’d missed far, far too much.

 

If she ever found the pixie that had stolen her gear and dumped it in the river, she was going to annihilate it. As Su’s breath came warm across her ear, she shivered, and-

 

-o-

 

“Nice balance of angst and fluff, but I think it turns too quickly.”

 

“Maybe, yeah - you think I underuse the pixies?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I mean, tiny prankster fae. I’ve only had them in maybe three pages-”

 

“No, more like ten. Remember the bit with the Squirrely One and the harvest celebration?”

 

“Oh - yeah, you’re right. Duh. Still, they’re a good plot device.”

 

-o-

 

She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t BREATHING. The spell HAD worked, but it had taken so much more than she expected - even her protection-transformation-enchantment-thingy was gone. Su swallowed hard. -Susan-, she thought to herself, -this is not the time for your emotional constipation. Do it!- She leaned over Sarah’s unconscious form.

 

No breath. No movement. No, she had to. 

 

Ignoring everything else, she clamped her eyes shut, tilting her head back, and planted her mouth over Sarah’s. Breathe. Breathe. Breath-

 

Br-

 

What?

 

Her chest rose - and heaved - and Sarah’s arm was around her neck! She was alive! She was-

 

She was kissing her?!

 

-o-

 

“The shock feels weird, doesn’t it?”

 

“If it was earlier in the timeline it wouldn’t, but post-breakup it does feel a little jarring. Why would getting Sarah-smooches give Su a BSOD in the field?”

 

“Exactly. I can see it throwing not-Me for a loop for a second or two, but if they’re exes, and if they’ve done… well, anything… ” 

 

“I was thinking ‘if they’ve done half of what this guy implied’, but yeah.” 

 

“Also, is it just me, or did he use scatalogical references a little too often for comfort?” 

 

“...don’t check out his other work.”

 

“Noted.”

 

-o-

 

Enid tasted like candy floss. Sweet to the point that it almost hurt Su’s teeth. She whined, twisting against the faerie’s grip, until the kiss broke. 

 

“Yield.” She whispered. Su tried to growl, or grit her teeth, or do anything that would be viewed as defiance. She could not. 

 

“...I’m… I’m Sarah’s. I can’t be yours. You know that’s how it works, right?” Faerie logic was alien, but she had mastered at least the basics. Enid giggled. She gestured with one finger, and Su saw a wisp-thin thread of silver appear in the air, trailing through the boudoir, out to the balcony. And the thread tugged, and - at the end of it was a collar. And in that collar… was Sarah.

 

“Mistress.” Sarah whispered, head bowed.

 

“You see, Su… she’s mine. And so what’s hers…”

 

“Is yours.” Su breathed, by way of surrender, kissing Enid deeply, hungrily, the last excuse her mind could conjure blown away.

 

-o-

 

“Damn, AngryAngryAardvarks is thirsty.

 

“Points for exposing the magic perversion potential there.”

 

“...you don’t think Diane’s… like… capable of that kind of crazy dominatrix stuff, do you?”

 

“You’d have to ask her.”

 

“Well that’s not happening.”

 

“Mmh. Maybe if you ask Lucy-”

 

“I’m not actually going to ask. Just - idle curiosity, you know?”

 

“So you aren’t thinking about Diane domming us both into the carpet?”

 

“I - no, of course not-”

 

“Uh huh. Hand that thing here.”

 

-o-

 

The heat was dissipating, replaced by the cool of the night air and the sweat on her brow. Sarah clutched Su close, stroking her cheek. She’d never felt like this before, and she didn’t know if she ever would again. Especially as Su stroked her cheek in return, and leaned in - and rather than kissing her, her lips brushed against the curl of her ear, and whispered - just barely audible over the crickets - “Again?”

 

She couldn’t resist. And she wouldn’t. And as her tongue traced her ear, and she reached down, and seemingly from nowhere pulled out-

 

-o-

 

“Susan!” 

 

“What?”

 

“Even the yaoi critique didn’t get into THAT territory!” 

 

“I’m not AngryAngryAardvark, don’t blame me.”

 

“You’re not even into that!”

 

“But you are, clearly.”

 

“Oh - fine, FINE, point to you, now pass the damn thing back.”

 

-o-

 

Butt there was no mistakig what was going on here. The squirely one had spoken, and they’re words would not be ignored!! The walls buckled in, and sarah yelled. “Move!” There legs refused to obey, and they were rooted to the spots, and when they looked down there boots were actually melted! The wood under them was melted! They were stucke to the spots! 

 

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” screamed Eliott and Tess. Who could save them now? They’re fates were sealed! Only the real God could save th-

 

-o-

 

“Dammit, I give! I give!”

 

“Bwahahahaha! Your love of proper grammar is your undoing!”

 

“I’d be salty, but I’m just relieved I don’t have to hear any more of that… how did you manage to read that far without your brain imploding?”

 

“It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. It’s terrible, but if you’re the one doing it, it’s somehow less bad.” Sarah turned off the phone.

 

They had a fandom. 

 

A slightly thirsty, goofy, weird fandom.

 

And it was amazing.

 

-o-

 

The main hall closed at 9, but there was more than a little going on. It seemed that every panel room had something happening, screenings were going on all night (including an 18+ “Hentai Gag Dub Acid Trip” showing) and the crowds had thinned, but by no means halted. Sarah squeezed Susan’s hand as they walked. 

 

“So… I think we’re in the black and then some.”

 

“Better book sales than you expected?”

 

“And the stickers. We’re almost sold out of those.”

 

“So this is going to be a regular thing.”

 

“Yeah. Next year, definitely.” Sarah nudged her gently. “Thank you. This wouldn’t have been half as much fun without you with me.” 

 

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

 

“...my werewolf?” Susan laughed at the question, but it wasn’t a mocking laugh, or dismissive. It was almost as if she’d been thinking the same thing, and hadn’t wanted to say it. 

 

“Yours.” Susan confirmed gently, as Sarah swiveled in front of her. 

 

“...you know, I think it’s time Su and Sarah put their differences aside.”

 

“Do you now.”

 

“Mmmhm.” 

 

“Well… I mean, if you want art to imitate life more closely…”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Why not.” Susan nodded. And then she bent down and dipped Sarah into a deep, slow kiss. 

 

-o-

 

“Tell me you’re getting this!”

 

“I’m getting it!” Lissa squeaked, some fifty feet off, her wig in her swag bag, but otherwise still in full wizard regalia. Her hand was shaking terribly, but she managed to get three… no, four pictures that were absolutely perfect. She turned her phone to Kaylee, and then both gave a tiny little squee of delight before bolting off, leaving their favorite artist to her paramour. 

 

“I can’t believe it!” Kaylee blurted as they rounded a corner. “I mean I know they’re actually together, but-”

 

“But in public? Yeah! Oh, man, this is the perfect ref for that ilio I was gonna do…”

 

“Yeah. Heh. So, uh… I guess that picture we took was kinda redundant.”

 

“Y-you can’t get enough reference material! You know that!”

 

Kaylee grinned. “I’m always happy to provide you with more.”

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