dropsofviolet (dropsofviolet) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2009-01-02 15:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2009 eight characters challenge, author: dropsofviolet, fandom: world of disney, pairing: jasmine/nala |
Who Will Rescue the Rescuer (Disney: Jasmine/Nala)
Title: Who Will Rescue the Rescuer
Author/Artist: dropsofviolet
Fandom: Aladdin/The Lion King
Pairing/characters: Nala/Jasmine
Rating: PG for sexual implications
Warnings: college students AU (Disney Hall)
Prompt/challenge you're answering: Jasmine rescues Nala from some kind of trouble
Excerpt: Jasmine just nods. She doesn't know what to do with Nala. Every time Nala pushes forward, Jasmine steps back. Nala asks all sorts of questions about Agrabah in her thick, dark accent. Jasmine has been taught English by a British tutor and sometimes struggles to understand. She makes an appointment to see a counselor about changing roommates.
College advisors say that they match students to their roommates based on basic compatibility, but Jasmine doesn't believe that's true at all. They threw Jasmine in together with Nala because they are from the same part of the world.
Which makes no sense at all, because Jasmine is from Agrabah, which is in Arabia, and Nala is from Africa.
"Our skin isn't even remotely the same color," she says, fuming, on the first day when she calls her father, who counsels patience. And it isn't that Jasmine doesn't like foreigners-- here she was, a foreigner in an American university-- but she doesn't like being lumped together with someone so different from herself, either. Nala is excitable, full of energy. Jasmine thinks she is the type of person to procrastinate on homework, and to never sleep, and probably to bring boys back to the room.
Jasmine is here for an education. And yes, to see a new world outside palace walls. (No one here knows that she is a sultan's daughter, and she plans to keep it that way.) Nala is here to have fun. She tells Jasmine on the first day that she is promised to the prince of her country, but she isn't ready to get married.
"He's my best friend," she says, shrugging. "It's weird. I decided to get out of Africa for a while."
Jasmine just nods. She doesn't know what to do with Nala. Every time Nala pushes forward, Jasmine steps back. Nala asks all sorts of questions about Agrabah in her thick, dark accent. Jasmine has been taught English by a British tutor and sometimes struggles to understand. She makes an appointment to see a counselor about changing roommates.
But there are questions common to every set of girl friends, and three weeks after term has started, Nala asks one. She is lying on the top bunk bed, her legs and arms spread over the side like a very relaxed cat, and Jasmine is pouring over her Biology book, diagramming a cell.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" Nala asks, apropos of nothing. Jasmine looks up at her swiftly, and then back at her book. She mumbles something about busyness.
"It's not like you're engaged to be married since your birth," Nala says (oh, but if she knew, Jasmine thinks). "It's not a big deal. You could get out of this room and live a little."
"I don't want a boyfriend," Jasmine says, looking down at the book but not seeing it. Nala stretches and unfolds herself from the bed, dropping easily to the floor. She's only wearing a thin white tank top and the shortest pair of day-glo-green shorts that Jasmine has ever seen, and Jasmine hopes that Nala isn't going to leave dressed like that. She'd bring back a boy for sure. Maybe two or three of them.
But Nala doesn't move to leave; she comes up quite close behind Jasmine until Jasmine can't concentrate at all. She wants to turn around and ask what her roommate's problem is, when suddenly Nala wrapped her arms around Jasmine's shoulders. She makes a soft humming sound in Jasmine's ear.
"Are you gay?" she breathes, and Jasmine freezes utterly, unsure how to respond.
"Mmf?" she manages, and that's when Nala puts a strong finger on Jasmine's chin, turning her head, and kisses her. Cold fire burns down Jasmine's spine and she's absolutely certain that this isn't what she came to America for, and when the kiss breaks she says some words in Arabian that she isn't supposed to know.
There's an odd warm feeling pooling in her stomach, in constrast to her sensitively-cold lips, and Nala is smiling. Jasmine starts to cry. She doesn't know what else to do.
Nala kisses each tear as it falls, muttering, "Ssh, ssh."
After a breathless moment, Jasmine says, struggling to find her English again, "You don't have to marry him."
"You don't, either, Princess Jasmine," the African girl purrs, and Jasmine only has a moment to wonder how she knows before Nala pulls her shirt off and distracts her utterly.
She skips the counseling appointment to have a more personal one with Nala.