Dreams
Disclaimer: I don't own them.
Rating: T for sexual situations and idea of lesbian pairings
Pairings: Phoebe/Rachel, Phoebe/Leslie, Rachel/Melissa
Summary: Prelude to a kiss.
Rachel wasn't the first. Phoebe had lusted after women before. Hell, Phoebe had had women before. There'd been a few in prison. She couldn't remember all their names, but they'd been there. She'd had them – or they'd had her. One way or another, anyway. There'd been that woman from Carol and Susan's wedding. They'd ended up sleeping together for a few weeks – mindless sex, that's all it had been. Then she'd found a new man, and they'd split.
Then there had been Leslie. She and Leslie had known each other for years, and Phoebe sometimes wondered if her need for Leslie had been more of a need for the past. If, every time she cuddled up to Leslie and smelt her hair, she was smelling their shared past, back when it was Phoebe-and-Ursula-and-Leslie, back when she had a mom and an almost-dad and a normal life. She'd told Leslie it was love.
It wasn't just women, of course. She'd had boyfriends. She'd fallen in love with Duncan, she'd married him despite knowing it didn't mean they had a relationship. She'd married a one-night stand in Vegas, telling herself that it wasn't real. She'd happily have been more than friends with Joey, if the time had been right.
But Rachel… oh God. There was just something different about her. Rachel was Rachel. She was special, yet special wasn't enough to describe how Phoebe felt about her. She felt like she wanted to hold her in her arms, to protect her, because she was so young, so vulnerable. She wanted to look at her forever, because that was what her beauty deserved. She wanted to make her so happy, because angels don't deserve to cry.
They'd lived together. Phoebe had been bitterly disappointed when Rachel didn't move back in. She'd gone home to her newly renovated apartment with its goddamn skylights, and she'd crawled into her bed in her new huge bedroom and she'd cried. And she'd thought of Rachel in Joey's tiny little apartment, where it smelt and there was pizza on the floor and stains on the rug, and wet paper towels being thrown everywhere, and she'd thought, damn, Rachel's too good for that. And then she'd thought, and she's too good for me too.
She'd known all along that nothing would happen. It was pointless to even hope, because Rachel was hopelessly, helplessly, straight. She could count on the fingers of one hand the times Rachel had talked about other women as though she could find them attractive. And she'd long ago lost count of how many men Rachel had had. So she was straight.
But it would have been so perfect. So damn perfect, because that's what Rachel was to her. Perfection, Phoebe's goddess.
It was almost an obsession, Phoebe accepted that. So she didn't give into it. She went out and she found men and she slept with them and she came home to her empty apartment and she wept into her pillow at nights but she'd always get up and carry on – smiling.
She dreamt about Rachel most nights. She daydreamed about her. While she was touching her clients, letting her hands wander over their backs, she imagined herself doing it to Rachel. When she kissed Gary or Kyle or Sergei or whoever it was this week, she'd imagine kissing Rachel. There would be different types of kiss: chaste pecks on the cheeks or lips, only when they were in company; gentle butterfly kisses, landing briefly on her lips before fluttering down her neck; intensely passionate kisses, making her ache deep down inside herself at the thought of what might come after…
She barely allowed herself to think of other aspects of their would-be relationship. It was just kissing. Cuddling was off limits – too intimate. Sex was similarly off limits – just one step too far. Rachel was her friend and that was all. So it all centred on kissing.
Their first kiss would be hesitant on Phoebe's side, but Rachel would be calm about it, telling Phoebe that she'd known all along, that she felt the same, and then placing her lips against her friend's, lacing their hands together, and… it would be beautiful. And that was how it had to happen.
But it wasn't how it did happen.
It happened after a night out, one of the most awkward nights of Phoebe's life – but she'd asked for it. She'd invited herself along to meet Melissa.
Ugh, Melissa. Air-headed little idiot. Pretty, air-headed little idiot. Pretty air-headed little idiot whom Rachel had kissed. Twice. Once right in front of Phoebe. Over the years, she'd learnt to cope with Rachel kissing Paolo, Ross, Tag, in front of her. But that was… not okay, but she could deal with it. But hell, Melissa? What did she see in Melissa?
So the kiss was to make her realise that Melissa wasn't the be-all and end-all of kissing women. It was to make her realise that really, Melissa wasn't even all that pretty. Melissa was nothing.
She wanted to say, look, here I am, your friend Phoebe, your pretty, pretty friend Phoebe, who loves you and wants to kiss you, and I know that a kiss doesn't mean you love me.
And she wanted to say, no, I don't know that, because I want to kiss you and for you to realise that you love me.
But above all, she just wanted to kiss Rachel. So she did.
She placed her lips against Rachel's, for just a few seconds, for a gentle kiss. And she felt Rachel freeze. And she felt Rachel relax only when she let go. And she felt all her dreams leave her, as though they'd been on her lips, carelessly waiting to be swallowed by Rachel.
The trouble was, Rachel just didn't think about Phoebe that way. Not often, anyway.