Title: Maybe When
Author:
Treesh Aradia
Rating: PT
Disclaimer: Not mine
Spoilers:
Where we are now
Summary: When it is all over, there is always
something that remains.
Pairing: Eventual Leyton. Peyton, Lucas
A/n: I am not too sure about the timeline, only that it's more or less after the triangle and when things have settled somewhat. The Brooke cheating issue has not happened, anything around that period can be taken to be non-existent also.
The past is never dead, it is not even past.
William Faulkner
Footfalls
echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards
the door we never opened
T.S. Eliot
O n e
How did I get to be in this sticky situation? Brooke Davis, cheerleader extraordinaire, asks herself as she looks at the horde of people at her party. In particular her best friend and her on-off boyfriend: Peyton and Lucas who were busy discussing, she assumes, the tragic musical taste of today's collective youth and their lack of CDs that involve the title: sex/drugs/alcohol/other various proclivities that would summarize the rock movement of the seventies. She sees their stance, both leaning toward each other and heads bent, creating their own personal bubble amidst the roar and bass of Fifty Cent's Candy Shop and she imagines Peyton's words of Led Zep being essential to every angst ridden youth and that Avril can eff off, permanently.
That's Peyton for you, Brooke snarks.
Lucas touches Peyton's arm, and they laugh at what he says, and the green monster abruptly bubbles to the surface of her good will and philanthropic nature. She had not much problems in terms of allowing their interaction without much qualms. However, it was in these off moments that Brooke feels awkward and snappish, and sometimes she just so badly wants to pull him away from her girly, just because.
And it was with this in mind that Brooke stalks toward them, subtly and covertly, trying to subvert their current moment, and even if they had lots of moments before, Brooke never really cared until she sees first hand just how scary those moments are, how profound and potentially destructive it could be to her own relations with Lucas, she should know after all.
"Hey there!" she calls out to them cheerfully and loudly, careful to make it seem nonchalant. They break away, eye contact and distance now directed towards her, and Brooke feels a bit more secure, though the nagging feeling never really leaves.
"Brooke." Lucas greets back, eyebrow raised. They were currently at the off status of their relationship, even though she at least knows those are never permanent. She doesn't allow it, and he relents always.
Peyton smiles politely, and nods.
"So what are you guys talking about? Seemed cozy." And just because Brooke was a master of games and subtlety, she feels the need to express some modicum of displeasure at their comfortable closeness, something she sometimes feels she lacks with Lucas when they are alone. They were intimately close, passionately so, but they never had a quiet moment and she feels the need to remind them to keep their distance, so as not to repeat their mistake.
Lucas frowns and Peyton looks off to the side.
"We were just talking about Marquez' Hundred Years of Solitude, Brooke, nothing else." Lucas explains, though the frown still lingers.
Quickly, Brooke retracts back "oh I know that, just that I was getting bored." She clings to his arm and starts the process of pulling him away. Hundred years of solitude. Huh, something else they shared that she didn't. Not that she was ignorant of books (she guesses that the name in question was the title of one) but she always felt that there were more important things in life than books, at least when in the company of her boyfriend.
He struggles with her vice-like hold, "I thought you were still pissed off at my not attending your dad's annual golf party with you."
Brooke shakes her head, smiling "I was, but I think it's time I forgive and forget." With that she leans in and whispers the things they could be doing right about now to make up for lost time. Lucas pauses, face a hint of scarlet as Peyton wishes she was anywhere but in front of them both.
"Come on! Excuse us Peyt girly." And with that Brooke drags her semi-willing boyfriend up the stairs into a more private setting.
She doesn't miss the apologetic look he throws her friend who was at the moment being called by Nathan to get her freak on, which Peyton gladly does with her dark haired friend, happy to forget the confrontation, for that was what it really was.
Brooke doesn't read much into that look, knowing that it was only stemmed from guilt at leaving so abruptly. She also reminds herself that he was with her now, and that was important.
Because at the end of the day, he was with her, and he was hers.
She ignores the fact that the slight pause in Lucas' eyes when her lips reach his might not be because of his fear of getting caught in a compromising position, but because it might be her that would stumble in to use the restroom.
That he wants to spare her that much, escapes Brooke as she deepens their lip lock, and she never questions that maybe somewhere along the line, platonic feelings might be a bit more affectionate than its intended sentiments.