It's a dark night. If it weren't for the light spilling from streetlamps onto the dirty sidewalks, urging her forward, guiding her along, she would have sworn that she was still locked away in her empty house, hiding from the sunshine beneath her sheets. As she walks down the street she pulls her coat tighter around her slim frame, shivering against the night air but refusing to hurry to her destination to get out of the cold. She doesn't need to rush; she knows that the man she's meeting is still going to be there, regardless of the time she gets there. She has all night if she needs it. But she doesn't want to be out here with the echo of her footsteps as her only companion. She doesn't want to be surrounded by unpacked boxes in her house either. So she heads to the one place where she feels like she belongs.
The dark street winds up the hill and she occasionally catches a glimpse of her breath suspended in front of her face. The temperature feels like it keeps dropping with every step she takes and still, she presses on. The only thing she can hear is her own labored breathing. She's been living here for over a year and she still hasn't gotten used to the ups and downs, the hills that make up this city. As she reaches the top she feels relieved, the broken neon sign flashes invitingly, letting her know that at the end of the street lays her destination. The only place that feels safe in this dark city. Not because she's scared of what shadows hide… she stopped fearing the dark the second she learned that it doesn't conceal anything. People are monsters in their own right. And no light can shine bright enough inside their hearts to break through the darkness. So she goes to a place where she can be surrounded by people like herself because it makes her feel safe to be among those lost souls… all those wretched little things, that like her, have a penchant for self-destruction the way others have an insatiable sweet tooth.
She reaches the door that leads her to paradise and as her hands leave her pockets to reach out for the brass handle, they start turning red, protesting against the wind and the cold. She grips the faded door handle and pushes the door open with her shoulder. The wood always swells with this weather.
Stepping inside she's greeted by the world weary faces of her friends. Other invalids… cripples… broken things like her. People whose names she learned by becoming just like them; a constant fixture in this dingy place filled with too many painful memories that cling to the walls like cigarette smoke. Louie glances up from where he stands and nods at her, he knows what she wants and before she starts unbuttoning her coat, his fat, sausage like fingers, drop three ice cubes into a tall glass. Followed by some whiskey and topped off with some dark cola. She reaches the bar grabs her drink, bringing it to her lips and taking a sip. In another life she would have protested the unhygienic practices that Louie keeps, but that's in the past. She's no longer that girl. She looks into the mirror behind the dust covered bottles behind Louie and the girl that stares back at her is distorted by the grime that covers the dirty surface. "Rough night pretty eyes?" Louie asks. She doesn't bother faking a smile because every night for the past year and a half has been just that. Rough and tempestuous, like the weather here. Ironic how she moved to California for the sun and she ended up in the only city that's made up entirely of fog and mornings that chill her to the bone.
She just nods and takes another sip of her drink and Louie makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat before picking up a glass and wiping it down with the rag that always seems to be on him. He's not really cleaning it so much as moving the dirt around from one spot to another but she doesn't care. She just likes that he doesn't card her, even though she's clearly underage. Back when she accidentally arrived here, that rainy night, many months ago to use the phone, she was handed a glass without any questions. Louie just knew her drink just by looking at her. One she didn't know she would come to crave. After her fourth or sixth glass of liquid courage she finally worked up the nerve to ask him why. All Louie told her was that he had always been a sucker for girls with pretty eyes and she was lucky to have those big brown eyes of hers because they were the prettiest he'd ever seen on a dame. From then on she tended to gravitate towards this place, until she could no longer deny the pull she felt. Maybe it was destiny that her heel had broken and her phone had run out of battery just as she was walking down this particular street that summer night.
She blinks away the memories, she hates reliving the past but sometimes it gets away from her before she can stop herself from doing the one thing she despises. The ice in her glass finishes melting down and Louie is already setting another glass down next to her. She nods, acknowledging his efficiency, thanking him as she takes the last swig of her drink. One that's mostly made out of watered down whiskey and cola. Pushing the glass away from her body, she reaches out for her new drink, bringing it closer to herself. Even if she's not ready to drink it just yet, she likes the solid feeling of holding onto it, of never letting it out of her sight. Years of constant survival have changed her habits to one of constant vigilance, of never taking her surroundings for granted and of trusting no one. It should make her feel hopeless instead of normal, that paranoia that relentlessly tells her to recheck her locks and constantly look behind her as she walks, even in her own home. It doesn't though because it's her version of normal. She stopped questioning her own warped thinking when it helped her live through the horrors of her past. When it was the only thing that enabled her to make it to the end. Back when she was that girl that is so far removed from who she is now. The one that searches the dark liquid for answers, for secrets, for ways to quiet down her thoughts when they become much too loud. She stares at it as if it could reveal something new to her. Biting down on her lip, tasting her own lipstick and regretting the fact that it is hopeless to stumble around for things in the dark because you might uncover things that should have stayed buried. Because the truth can scar in ways you can't predict and unlearning things is impossible. To stop herself from going down this path again she takes a drink and then another and a third. Trying to quench a thirst that's not entirely physical.
When she's well into her third drink the door to the bar opens and closes, letting a gust of cold air inside, along with a new patron. She doesn't need to look up. She already knows who it is. Everyone at the bar knows because the other girl always shows up at the same time, like clockwork. It's not a set hour, so much as a feeling when the other girl shows up, it's only when she's comfortably numb around the edges that the door opens to let the other girl in. Her confident steps, different from her own measured ones in high heels, approach the bar until the other girl is standing right next to her, not quite invading her personal space but close enough to be noticed. The other girl's fingers begin working on unbuttoning her coat and nodding at Louie who sets a glass of apple juice that looks like piss in front of her. "Thanks Louie, good night tonight?" He shrugs at the other girl, not fully trusting her easygoing nature because it's too much of a contrast from his sullen patrons. He simply goes back to his never ending task of cleaning glasses, ignoring the dust that collects all over the rest of the bar, that seems to cover this whole bar in a thin film of grime.
As her drink disappears and the other girl has yet to speak or finish her own she sighs and starts pulling at her cuticles. A nervous habit she never gave up just to get a rise out of her perfectionist mother. It's nowhere near closing time but already she feels that familiar uneasiness start to creep along her spine. The one that makes her feel uncomfortable if she sits still for too long, if she's not constantly looking behind her back while living her life. The other girl senses her discomfort and stands up, grabbing some cash from her pockets and setting it under her glass, paying for both of them. The drops of condensation are quickly soaked up by the crumpled bills and she's startled when she feels a hand on her shoulder. "Come on Spence, time to get you home." She laughs at this because the house that stores all her belonging feels more like a prison than a home sometimes but she doesn't protest because she can't stand to be here any longer. It's not the place, it's something within her, the eternal apprehension she could never leave behind, even after she escaped Rosewood barely alive. Spencer just shakes her head and stands up. The other girl grabs Spencer's coat and holds it up for her, waiting for Spencer to ease into it, always the picture perfect gentleman. "Thanks." Spencer says automatically. "My pleasure." The other girl answers genuinely and Spencer just nods at their familiar exchange. The other girl pulls her own coat on and extends her hand towards the exit, indicating that Spencer should go first, and so she starts making her way outside.
As they step out into the night Spencer involuntarily shivers, her coat feels flimsy and useless against the biting cold that came down hard on the city while they were inside. A second layer of warmth is added on top of her shoulders and she can't stop herself from complaining, even when she's selfishly grateful for the warmth that smells like its owner. "Don't be ridiculous. If I'm cold you must be freezing. Take it back." She says, not trying to take it off her own shoulders. The other girl just shrugs and pretends not to mind the cold, even as her cheeks turn from rosy to bright red under the glare of neon lights. "It's just a short walk home, right?" And Spencer nods, defeated. Knowing that the other girl isn't going to take her coat back or let Spencer drape it over her shoulders, so she greedily holds onto the edges of the coat with her fingers that are starting to numb and starts walking home with her newly acquired shadow occasionally brushing up against her shoulder. Never trying to break the spell of the night with pointless conversation. Spencer finally understands what she meant when she had told her all those years before that she didn't do flashy. The other girl doesn't need to fill up silences with unnecessary words like her other friends sometimes did, it had bothered Spencer sometimes, how they couldn't appreciate the absence of sound. Hanna was notorious for doing this, for filling up every single space with music or conversation because she hated the quiet, because it was too much of a threat. But the other girl seems perfectly comfortable staying quiet, walking home in the dark, so Spencer doesn't pick up her pace. She just steals glances at the other girl, whose arms are a map of goose bumps, but the other girl doesn't complain or look at Spencer with worry every couple of seconds, the way the others did. She doesn't hover, even though she's always there. It's hard to explain why her presence doesn't get on her nerves the way it should. Maybe it's because the other girl treats her eccentricities as if they were perfectly normal. As if it were a regular thing, this routine of theirs, of Spencer going to the same hole in the wall place for a couple of bedtime drinks and the other girl just showing up uninvited to walk her home. Even if Spencer was perfectly capable of getting there on her own, the other girl still showed up, ever since Spencer called her out of the blue with a broken heel and from an unfamiliar phone. The only thing that feels out of the ordinary during their nights together is the occasional car that scrapes the top of the hill because they're driving too fast and gravity sometimes wins.
They walk for a couple more minutes, up and down the winding path that leads from the only other place she's ever visited in this city to her doorstep. When they finish climbing up the small flight of steps that leads to the red door of her place she's reluctant to break the perfect silence that blankets them, but she does it anyway as she takes the other coat off of her shoulders and drapes it over its proper owner. "Thanks." Spencer says with a mixture of habit and gratitude towards that kind action. Another one in the endless string of unseen things that makes her feel ungrateful for having a friend like her. "My pleasure." The other girl answers just as genuinely as the first time Spencer ever thanked her, on a train ride, when they were both so far removed from the people they turned out to be. When the future was a bright unknown instead of this tarnished reality. And in that moment, that should have been routine, something twists inside her chest, something just as painful as the realization that Toby was part of the A team. That the boy she loved and tried to protect was the very same one that was slowly destroying them, the reason why she had nightmares. She doesn't know what makes tonight so special, why she has to notice it now but she can finally see why Emily fell in love with Paige and it hurts because this isn't the sort of thing that happens in some darkened doorstep, to the echo of flickering streetlights. It's supposed to happen out in the open, not in the middle of the night, not with someone that can't be hers. But her life wasn't anything like she expected it, so it should come as no surprise that it happens as unceremoniously as this. And she sees it now, all the things she hadn't let herself see and she almost wants to cry in desperation because she had been too blind to see something that was right in front of her again, something that shouldn't have been a puzzle for her to solve and yet she had struggled with that knowledge all along.
It makes Spencer hate herself because now that she knows; there is no way to wipe it from her memory. She can't unlearn this; there is no way to erase this epiphany from her mind. She hates the way Paige's eyes are so open and trusting because she's the one that's supposed to have lucky pretty eyes and instead she feels as if she cheated Louie out of falling for the right pair of brown eyes. Paige has these soulful and expressive eyes that she can't help but want to look at. "You okay?" Paige asks her, concern lacing her voice and clouding her features as she unconsciously leans closer, even if there is no noise that needs to be drowned out. The streets are empty and her street is always quiet. Her neighbors are older natives that are too stubborn to die and too distrustful of her youth to be friendly towards her. It makes Spencer uncomfortable, holding Paige's undivided attention this way, she feels undeserving. Even though it's not the first time Paige has looked at her like this, it's different because it is the first time Paige has looked at her after her realization and it takes on a whole new meaning. And now, that Spencer is truly paying attention to the other girl, with the alcohol in her system and the night closing in around them and the biting cold making everything uncomfortable… it all fell together and she hates the word irony because it's not a good enough descriptor for the terrible ways that life has tried to floor her with the unexpected.
"What?" Spencer asks, confused for a second before the question flashes in her mind. "No. Yeah." She laughs at her own inability to convey an appropriate response to Paige. To the situation she suddenly finds herself in. Paige nods but doesn't move away or button up her coat; she just stares at her through narrowed eyes, trying to read her. Before the other girl can suss her out, Spencer shoves her hands in her pockets, fishing for her keys. When she pulls them out they slip from her hand and she wants to curse at her fumbling hands but she's too worn out by the realization and the alcohol to care, so she just bends down to retrieve them. Paige mirrors her movements and reaches out for them before Spencer can grab a hold of them. Paige grabs her hand, turns it over and gently places the keys inside of it before closing Spencer's fingers around them. Giving her half a smile. It's a small act of kindness, one she has extended to her a million times before but this time, Spencer nods and before she can worry about the consequences she acts. Spencer has to know and she was never one to let doubts wander around aimlessly in her mind, to not do something because it might be the wrong thing because if a Hastings has a shot she takes it and so she does. Spencer presses her lips against Paige's and it's not like anything she expected. Paige's lips are cold and chapped from the weather and Paige doesn't kiss her back, but she also doesn't push her away. She just lets herself be kissed until Spencer's legs hurt too much from the way she's crouching and unmoving so she pulls away and opens her eyes. Paige's face is obscured by shadows and because Spencer can't see her eyes, it feels as if for the first time since they became sort of friends, that she can't see the other girl's emotions. If it were any other night, she would care enough to ask, but the alcohol that's sloshing in her stomach finally made its way through her system and she feels relaxed enough to fall asleep. It's her cue to stand up and get to bed before her window of opportunity vanishes and she has to stay up all night, trying to keep the monsters at bay on her own. She opens the front door and goes inside on unsteady legs, concentrating very hard on walking because it feels like she drank too much even if the amount remained the same as the last time and the time before that.
Author's Note: blame admiralridic for this fic. She not so subtly hinted that a Paily/McHastings love triangle might be interesting to explore and this is the end result.
Also, the title of this might change to something better... suggestions are always welcome for that because I am terrible at coming up with good titles.
