Rescue Me
Author's note: There's not much background info on this. Brooke and Lucas stayed together through college. He asked her to marry him, she turned him down and left.
This is dedicated to Davis, who is sad and needs her brucas fix.
Brooke Davis smiled across the bar at the young, attractive, brunette man who'd been eyeing her all evening. She threw her dark hair over her shoulder and flashed her dimples-a definite way to attract a man, one that had never failed her since her sophomore year. So what if she'd been wearing a cheerleading uniform and was now in a skin tight black dress? It was all the same.
Her small grouping of friends giggled and scattered as he approached her. They spoke for all of three minutes before he asked her to dance and they moved to the floor and melted in to each other.
She was good at this. God, she really was. Did it come so easily to other people? It didn't come easily to Haley, who'd gotten married at sixteen. It didn't come easily to Lucas.
She felt a flicker of irritation as her mind flashed to him once again. How many times had it been that day? Lucas, who'd thought she'd been more than what she'd been. He'd asked her to marry him on the day they'd graduated from college. He'd seemed surprised when she'd turned him down.
But she was Brooke Davis. Party girl. Not Haley. First, last and always, she was herself.
"Do you have a place around here?" she whispered enticingly into his ear. He nodded and grabbed her hand, leading her out, manuevering awkwardly between the crowds of people in his eagerness. She didn't feel the pressing stare on her back, drinking her in. If she did notice, she pretended that she didn't care.
Excitement bubbled inside of her when they reached the crowded New York street. This was her city, this was her life. That life in Tree Hill, that love, had never truly been her.
They shed their clothes quickly in his apartment. They touched bodies before lips, their intimacy as far from intimate as it could be. With experienced yet not tender hands he made her come before entering her, giving her temporary, tantalizing peace.
Brooke ran into work the next day and gave her boss a guiltily apoligetic look.
"Miss Davis, it is a Wednesday. Save your partying for the weekend, if you will," she said.
"Yes, I will next time," she promised. Lying through her teeth. As if she could live through a whole work week without the blessed relief of getting drunk and letting herself go.
"Your client is waiting," she said.
As she passed a cluster of the other personal shoppers, she fluttered her eyelids. It occurred to her that she'd slowly replaced all her friends with newer, not so improved versions.
She ran into the room, smoothing her short black skirt, her long hair, straightened and smooth. She adopted her most professional look and hoped she looked like a proper personal shopper at Barneys instead of the little lost girl that she was.
"Hello, my name is Brooke Davis. How may I help you?" she asked in precise, clipped tones, as she'd been trained.
Her client slowly turned around. He met her eyes and she instinctively backed into the wall, increasing the distance between them.
"Hello, Brooke."
Those eyes. That voice. Her heart. Oh, God...
"Luke..."
His eyes swept down her and through her. Her tall, designer shoes, her attractive suit, her long hair, her makeup. She was hiding the girl he'd loved. She wondered if she was still there, underneath it all. He wanted to look but she was too far away from him.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"Shopping."
"Bull."
"You were the one who left in the middle of the night after turning me down. Explain how you have the right to be a brat?" he suggested. She took a deep breath, wishing the flush would return to her cheeks, wishing she could dimple and show him she was just as happy without him.
"I..."
"God, did you really think it was over?" he asked angrily. She didn't wonder why he was so angry. She knew she'd done it to him.
"I needed it to be. It was too much, Luke," she said.
He scoffed in disbelief.
"I can't... I just can't. I'm going to get someone else," said Brooke. She half expected his hand to close around her forearm, expected him to pull her in and claim her lips. She expected him to still love her.
He didn't.
Brooke stared after him as he left, thanking her friend Davis profusely, clutching two large bags. She scuttled over and joined Brooke and their other friend Lilah.
"Who was that? Why were you arguing with him?" asked Davis excitedly.
"No one," she said quickly. They looked disbelief. "No one, anymore. He used to be someone."
He used to be everything.
As soon as they got off work, the three of them changed into their party clothes and moved to the latest, hottest club.
Brooke drank tequila shots until she could no longer count them before scoping out a boy-this time a redhead-and taking him to the corner of the club.
She was dimly aware that he was moving faster than she wanted him to, but she couldn't stop him. Somehow her limbs were not connected to the rest of her body. She tried to push him off, and he pinned her weakly protesting arms against the wall.
Suddenly his pressing weight was lifted off her and hauled off. She watched through slightly blurry eyes as he was pushed up against a wall and someone punched his jaw, nearly knocking him unconscious.
"Luke..." said Brooke sleepily. He came quickly toward her, abandoning the man against the wall.
"Did he drug you?" he asked anxiously.
"Nope. Just the tequila. I'm fine," she said, her words gaining clarity as she spoke.
"Good. I was... Brooke..." she managed a dimpled smile. It did its work.
Suddenly he was kissing her, and her lips remembered kissing. About how it could make her feel, about how he could make her feel. She looped her arms around her neck and relied on his strength to keep her steady, like she always had.
He swept her up into his arms. She giggled and kicked her legs in the air.
"What are you doing to me, broody?" she asked.
"Rescuing you. I always promised I would," he said, carrying her out of the club admist curious stares.
He set her down on the curb and kissed her again. She knew, as subconsiously she'd always known, that now he'd always be there to rescue her.
Just as she knew that with him around, she'd never again need rescuing.