Author's note: This is not fifty shades of grey retold(sorry). I repeat, this is not erotica, but it will get graphic. This will involve mature themes which are central to the plot, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea… this is a multi-chapter story. I've had this idea in my head for quite a while, but it wasn't detailed enough when I first played with the idea to turn into a novel… so I thought, why not instead make it about (one of) my favorite fictional pair(s). This is alternate universe, and while lots of things are the same, some are not. Hopefully the difference between the two will be clearer as you read on.
Love You, Love You Not
Part One: Timelines
They were fifteen the first time they slept together. The first time was just an experiment, a simple lesson in physical attraction and sexual deviancy. They agreed that it would be no feelings allowed and no strings attached, and yet there never was a first time that had been tainted with such affection for detail. Every speck of it was etched into her brain.
Spencer still remembered it like it was yesterday.
"Jacob took me to Gaucho's last night." Cara squealed, holding her ring finger in the air tauntingly. All of the girls in the locker room gathered around her to gawk at the new gift on her hand, just like she'd expected them to.
"So, you did it then?" A less popular, older version of Cara questioned as she looked at the ring decorating her friend's slender finger. This friend's name was Dana, but no one ever seemed to remember that.
"Of course I did. What do you think I am, some sort of ungrateful prude?" Cara said dismissively, rolling her cerulean eyes. "We can't all afford to have sterling purity rings like you, Dane." She joked, flipping copper-red strands of hair behind her pale shoulders.
"I'll have you know that Jack is holding on to my ring for me." Dana challenged, her posture shifting to something a little less weak as she smirked at Cara. "And has been for six weeks."
Cara frowned at her friend. It was no secret that the race to be sexually active was a very competitive one amongst the senior girls at school, the ones that cared enough to be liked, anyway. Cara'd been trying to do the deed with her boyfriend for a while now. Last night never even really happened, but her friends didn't have to know that. It wasn't her fault that she wasn't ready. If they were dumb enough to believe it, then she'd be smart enough to let them. "Whatever. At least Jacob doesn't wear do-rags in his free time."
"Shut up." Dana said, turning towards the mirror to put her long dark hair up in a ponytail before gym. She didn't want to reward Cara's comment with any further expression, so she just rolled her eyes and let her friend have the last laugh.
Seconds later, a tall, lean brunette with classic beauty burst through the locker room door, out of breath from running. Her last class resided at the other end of the school, but a Hastings was never late. Never.
"Well if it isn't my favorite little protégée, Spencer." A junior girl named Alison said sweetly, speaking for the first time all passing period. She'd watched Spencer enter from the reflection of the mirror, and after smoothing through her blonde hair one last time, she turned to face the door. The fact that Alison never wasted her breath made everyone around her listen when she spoke, and so all the heads in the room turned to look at Spencer, much to her discomfort.
All of them except for Cara, who just stared down at her nails in irritation. Alison, despite being a petty junior, was the girl everyone wanted to be. So the fact that she paid more attention to a stupid sophomore than to the senior crowd tended to get under the redhead's skin.
Spencer didn't say anything. It was sort of awkward for her. She knew she must've looked like a wreck, after hurrying all the way down the halls and through the gym at record speed. All those eyes on her made her notice her flaws at an intricate level.
"So." Ali started, obviously toying with an idea in her head. "You ever do it, Spence?" she asked, her face perfectly poised in a harmless expression.
"Do what?" Spencer asked, making the rest of the girls laugh.
Alison shrugged, a half smile crossing her face. Like she pitied her. "You know, it. Sex, Spencer." The way Alison said her name caused Spencer to believe she could've been saying sex, stupid, and it wouldn't have sounded any different.
"Oh." Spencer nodded, thinking for a second. She swore she heard a snarky giggle from someone.
Alison took her long silence as a negative. "Hmm. Shame. That Cavanaugh kid in your grade is seriously fuckable. For a sophomore." Ali corrected, turning back to the mirror, as if to say she was done with her.
"Right." Spencer bit her lip, standing there for a second before she excused herself to go change.
"That Cavanaugh kid? Jenna? Wow, Ali, I didn't know you played for that team." A girl in Alison's grade said teasingly.
"Her brother, you moron." Alison said, giving the girl an eye roll before laughing lightly.
The conversations with Spencer carried on like that, for about a month. Soon Alison was no longer the only one pressuring her.
"You wanna be popular, don't you, Spence?" Riley, a friend of Alison's, cooed one day during tennis practice. "It's just what you do. Boys like it, and then they like you."
Spencer furrowed her brow at that. The way she'd always seen it, sex and love were separate entities, at least at the core.
"I'm not sure I really care enough to-" Spencer started. It was nice to be liked, but it seemed a little superficial to go about it that way.
Riley interrupted her. "Look, Ali's just trying to help you. If you don't 'care enough' to want her help, then she might start trying to hurt you." Riley shrugged. "I'm just saying. I wouldn't tell Alison what you just told me."
"You wouldn't." Spencer repeated.
"Nope." Riley shook her head.
It wasn't like it was completely out of the question. Alison had been pushing her to try Toby on for size ever since that day in the locker room, and she was sort of friends with him. Or, friendly. And it's not like her parents ever cared enough to talk to her about this stuff. In fact, it would almost be easy to skirt around it with them. They were gone ninety percent of the time, anyway.
Somewhere along the way, she decided it didn't really matter. She'd been looking after herself ever since she could remember, so why was now any different. Ali was looking after her. So that was the answer. Just do it.
Just do it.
"Toby." Spencer said after school one day, swallowing once nervously. The boy in front of her had a distant look in his eyes, his black jacket showing off his muscular frame. He stopped after dropping his books in his locker, looking up at her.
"Hey, Spencer." He half smiled when he said her name. She was in most of his classes, so they knew each other fairly well. He thought she was pretty cute, and he knew she was pretty smart. Actually, everyone knew that, but he usually saw it differently than they did.
Spencer felt herself melt into a smile, his own calmness taking over her nerves. "I was wondering… you know.. we have that project due in economics soon, and my family's out of town and I was wondering if maybe, you.. uh. We could work on it together at my house?" She finally said.
Toby listened to her, picking apart the words she said. Economics. Project. Out of town. In his experience, girls only divulged that detail under certain circumstances, but he didn't really think Spencer was that kind of girl. She was too clever. So, instead, he reasoned she must've just been trying to say it would be quiet enough to study. "Sure." He said.
Spencer sighed in relief. "Good. Um.. Oh! Okay, so here's my address…" Spencer's voice trailed off as she looked down to grab a stack of post it notes from her bag. She wrote with the note in the palm of her hand before peeling it off and sticking it to his locker door. "My number's there too, if you need it." She said coolly, smoothing over the surface of it with her thumb.
Toby let his eyes follow her hand to the door of his locker, tilting his head as he waited for her to finish talking. "Okay. Sounds good." He nodded. "See you later, Spencer." The boy smiled, grabbing the note before turning to leave.
"See you..." Spencer said quietly, although Toby was already gone. He did have nice eyes, didn't he?
Spencer could smile, thinking about that day now. She was so innocent then; her nervous tone around Toby at his locker reminded her of a simpler time, a smaller girl. One with a different heart.
She wasn't sure how it happened that night; how it was even plausible. Looking back it was a miracle she hadn't chickened out. She'd been ready to just focus on the homework with Toby, to avoid making things awkward.
But she couldn't even do that. Instead, he'd asked her a lot of questions. She hadn't expected that. So she told him what it was like. The pressure, the people. Her parents. The expectations. Her friends.
He nodded understandingly, even though there was no way he could've even begun to understand it. Her world was senseless, she knew that. It was ridiculous, even maddening at times.
Everything he wasn't.
Since she had been open with him, Toby easily returned the favor. He told her that sex wasn't as great as everyone said it was. She wasn't sure why she found herself surprised when he did; she knew he must've… done that, before. Toby wasn't popular; he was more of an outsider. The classic hero in every 'good-girl-bad-boy' teen cliche. She knew her parents would take one look at him and spell trouble, but he wasn't at all how he was supposed to be. He was honest. Nice.
She wasn't supposed to want him. But she did.
"Show me." She said.
"What?" Toby asked. He'd been in the middle of talking, and she'd been in the middle of thinking.
"Show me what it's like." Spencer clarified. Easily, like it was no different than the project they'd been working on. Details, science, maps, studies. Like it was just another option for her to control. But it was different, because she was undoubtedly curious, and he could tell.
"Spencer…" Toby said, reluctance in his voice.
"Oh, come on, I wanna know." She pressed, shifting from her position of laying back lazily on the couch to sitting up straight with meddlesome fascination.
"I know, but I don't do relationships." Toby warned her, defaulting to his loner mentality.
"I'm not asking you to." Spencer said softly. For whatever reason, Toby had been hurt before. She could tell by the way he looked at her, warning signs in his eyes. But she wasn't planning on going down that road with him.
He sighed, folding his hands. "It'd be your first time."
"So?" She asked, clearly not about to give up.
Toby cracked a smile to lighten the mood. "So, you'll be bad."
Spencer hit his shoulder, her jaw dropping in an open mouthed grin. "You little shit. You're just too scared to find out."
Toby laughed, realizing now that he was in over his head with this girl. He never pictured that word coming out of her mouth, but then again, she'd been surprising him all evening.
"You have to be sure. I don't wanna be corrupting you, or whatever." He said.
Spencer rolled her eyes. "You obviously need to be taken down a few pegs, because you're not as brooding and rebellious as you think you are." Spencer said, standing as she pulled his arm. Even then, she wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't. But she knew she wanted to find out. "Come on. I'll be fine. Or whatever."
Toby wasn't about to say no to her. She was cute after all, and by now he'd been entertaining the thought for too long. But, when they'd gone upstairs and everything got quieter it didn't stop him from asking a plethora of are you sures and is this okays.
When it was over, they were both, to say the least, pleasantly confused.
"So." She started, taking the liberty of looking for his shirt to wear. "Was I bad?" Spencer asked.
Toby smiled. "No." He said, genuine.
She nodded, slipping into his grey tee. "Told you."
He laughed, pulling his boxers back on. "Yeah, I guess you did. Or something like that."
Spencer gave him a lopsided grin. "Something like that."
When he looked up and saw her in his shirt, her svelte body and endless legs covered by something that belonged to him, a fleeting, dangerous thought crossed his mind. He noticed, pointblank, that he liked it. That was enough to make him lean forward a little, tempting himself. He got closer, closer before kissing her neck, then trailing up to her jaw, her lips. He stayed there the longest, bringing his right hand up to lightly cup her face. His thumb was particularly jealous for the touch of her skin as he smoothed over her cheek, the scent of her hair overpowering him.
Shit. That was intense.
Toby was the first one to break away, abruptly, as he remembered who he was. What this was. "Uh… I guess.. I guess I should go." He said, ever so slightly questioning himself. He didn't want to. Why didn't he want to? He should've wanted to.
Spencer nodded. "Okay." She agreed gently, completely unaware of his exact thoughts but noticing his sudden nerves. She didn't argue, and she didn't look offended or seem entitled for him to keep going. Incredible. He didn't expect that kind of reaction, and again, he felt a fondness growing for her that completely baffled him.
Toby half smiled, not taking his eyes off of the girl in front of him. "Okay."
Okay.
He got up, walked to the door, and heard her voice before his footsteps crossed out of her path for good.
"But you.. you don't have to." She pointed out. Everyone else in the house was gone. They would be for a few more days.
He turned around to face her again. "Right…" His eyes found her shoulders, realizing he almost left her house half-naked. "Well, you do have my shirt." He said, nodding towards her newfound clothing with a small smile.
"Yeah, and you're not getting it back." She said, half joking. Her eyes had a hint of mischief in them, something Toby hadn't experienced in a while.
"Hmm." His mind went back to the question of staying here. "Maybe next time." He said, edging towards the hall again.
"Next time?" Spencer asked, raising a brow.
"Oh. I didn't mean.." Toby said, stopping himself. What had he meant?
Spencer shook her head, smirking. "'You'll be bad' my ass." A laugh escaped her before her tone turned to something softer. "Maybe next time." She smiled, which caused him to relax. "See you, Toby."
"See you, Spencer." He said, taking one last look before walking out the door.
Rosewood, Pennsylvania; Present Day
She can't feel anything but him. Her lungs are gasping, clamoring, searching for air against him, against his skin. Soft fingertips fade into nails as they run down his back and he pushes once more, a repressed groan dancing from her throat. She'd like to think rationally, think sensibly, but while they're like this, the two of them, she simply… can't. He's all she feels in that moment, she can't. Feel. Anything but h-
"Toby…" Spencer draws out his name like it's sweeter than chocolate on her tongue, slower than molasses on her lips. A thousand times they've done this, and still a thousand times more she's afraid the bed will break against the wall. He's just so… good. It's frustrating, that she can't say no to him. No, that's a lie. At this point she's accepted this, she loves this. She loves him moving against her, she loves what he does. She loves herself when she does everything back, without any hesitation. It's still frustrating, for some reason, though. She's never been able to figure that part out.
A pattern of hurried breathing escapes Spencer, and Toby only treats it as encouragement to take her faster, faster, to just go a little further. Her breathing turns to moans and she feels her hips brush forward, her back arching as a shiver of damn runs down her spine and a bolt of fuck and oh god builds up in her stomach, her thighs silkily wrapping around his frame.
"Fuck." Toby says under a rush of air, voicing what the brown-haired girl below him has been thinking for the past few minutes. He can feel her breaths in the air, his hands bracing the headboard of her bed, fingers pressing harder as they stay spread against the expensive wood.
Her own fingers clench around the sheets beneath them, her sheets. The fabric is thin and unforgiving in her hands, so she bites her lip roughly to compensate. She's not in pain, no, this is a different feeling, one she only feels with him. This is delirium. This is ecstasy. Pain is a thing which only comes as an afterthought, and even then it's just a giddy reminder of the things they've done. The way he's made her feel.
A bitter groan can't be held back as he motions forward once, deep, and stops, for one split second to hold on to the sensation. Spencer buries her face in his neck, whimpering softly. She knows she's almost there. Toby smiles slightly, not being able to hide the smug feeling of a good fuck.
"Toby... T-" A deep breath. "Toby-" Spencer moans, as he starts again, his hands sliding skillfully to hold her by the waist. His body fits perfectly to hers with no space between them, like they were meant for this.
"Spencer." He whispers, controlled. It's quiet, it's soft, it's… almost tender. Toby takes a second to kiss her neck gently, slowly, before going a little stronger, a little less restrained.
Moaning. Aching. Heated. Pounding, throbbing, sweating. She swears, he curses. Spencer feels the muscles in her legs contract as her toes curl, and Toby lets out one last husky breath. A sound, high and loud, tears away from her throat. And then they're done.
Toby pulls away from her softly, kissing her collarbone before he rolls over to her side. "Thank you." He says.
"No." Spencer smiles, her voice a little weak from overuse. "Thank you."
A short amount of time later, and he's gone again. Just like a ghost that feels human, somewhere. Sometimes.
She'd like to argue that it's mindless, that she's liberated, but a small (microscopic) part of her knows that's a lie.
He'd like to argue that he still doesn't want to be anything for anyone. But somewhere inside, he knows there's a reason he likes to kiss her so damn much.
He also knows there's a reason he doesn't actually kiss anyone else. Not anymore.
But he's always chalked that up to just... having his needs met. She's there for him when he wants her to be, so why would he go anywhere else? She's all he needs.
And he's all she wants. Guys have asked her out since then, sure, as word got around that Spencer Hastings was now another one of those girls, but she saw through every one of their lines. Ali was proud long enough to pass the baton on to Spencer, but not long enough to graduate. She disappeared just before the start of Spencer's junior year, and just before the start of her own senior year. Before that happened, she made Spencer into the perfect successor, even gathering for her a group of friends to match her every move.
Toby liked her friends well enough, and she liked his. Actually, Hanna, a Rosewood High sophomore Ali had met at a spinning class, had been friends with Toby long before anyone else. They'd known each other since freshman year, and it was no surprise that they got along so well. They both had the carefree quips and don't-you-bullshit-me attitudes to fit together in a yin and yang sort of way. Plus, they each had an absentee parent, although neither of them were too vocal about that to anyone else.
Besides Hanna, the blonde, there was Aria, a dark-haired artistic type who made up for in spunk what she may have lacked in height, and Emily, a sweet, traditional jock with tan skin and eyes just as strong as Spencer's. They were inseparable, until Ali disappeared.
Her friends liked him, but her parents never really knew much about Toby. They'd met the reckless boy, on random occasions. But it wasn't like it had ever come up as something important to Spencer and Toby. He didn't do relationships. And he didn't feel like having much to do with parents, either.
She was perfect to everyone else. Toby did think she was amazing, but to him she was also just Spencer. To everyone else, she was a Hastings, a golden child, a friggin' prophecy for everything it was worth. And whether she accepted it or not, she had a reputation to uphold.
Toby wasn't really a part of that deal. But maybe that's why she liked having him around so much.
Author's note: So, was it awful? Mediocre? Too much? Not enough? Sorry, I'm insecure. Oops. I also apologize if there are any puzzling typos; this was first a draft and then went under heavy editing, so while I tried to weed out as much as I could, I usually read my own work differently than someone who didn't write it would. I thought about asking someone to beta this, but I'm always weary about doing that with first chapters. As this story continues, you'll see more of the secondary characters, and while the Spoby plotline unfolds, so will the supporting stories, which I'm also excited for you guys to read :)
Okay, I've babbled enough. Leave a review and let me know what you thought? Please please please with sprinkles on top!
edit: You may have noticed that I rearranged the chapter. Everything is exactly the same, down to every word, besides the opening paragraph and of course, the order. I tend to edit my writing a lot as I reread it over and over again and notice things. The goal was to make it flow better, and I can only hope you like the change! I give sole credit for this idea of restructuring to BlueRoseMarcella, who I have to recognize because A) she's awesome and B) she's been so incredibly helpful with her feedback. If you liked the first chapter of this, do me a favor and go look at her stories? You won't be disappointed.
edit again: Hey hey look who restructured her chapter again omg mE
I'm sorry. But I'm never satisfied. And I just like experimenting and playing with things a bit. Also there's a new line at the end of the sex scene and I don't know if I like it but it hits me where it hurts? ok spoby, ok
chapter two is coming ~soon~