Title: Having Your Strawberry Chocolate Cake and Eating it Too
Feedback: Thank you to everyone who sent me some last chapter! I really do appreciate it! I love getting feedback.
Author's Note: The words in bolded italics are dreams. The normal font is reality. This chapter is a bit long, but I just couldn't find the proper place to end it, so it droned on for a bit. And through you guys, I did begin to realize that I didn't really want to leave it at a one-shot. There should be at least one more chapter at this one, depending on how it works out when I write it.
Disclaimer: I still have no rights to One Tree Hill, especially not Breyton.
At some point in the day, it had become evening, and Peyton had moved from her bed to her couch. She had put in a CD, because that was what was hooked up to the stereo system in the living room. Peyton Sawyer had turned the CD up several notches, in hopes of making her forget, or rather, not forget, but not think about it for a little while. So, she was in love with her best friend, and her best friend had just married their ex-boyfriend, who Peyton had made a romantic gesture to just a few days before. The blonde wondered, albeit briefly, if these kinds of things happened to everyone or just her. Though, that didn't really matter either way. What mattered was the fact that it was officially night, and the songs just flowed so well…
Peyton allowed the songs to fill up a part of her that seemed so empty lately, and once she felt whole enough, through the music, she drifted off into the world of sleep. Really, she hadn't meant to fall asleep, but the couch was rather comfortable, and the music was rather pleasant to just have floating around in the background.
The ending of the CD woke Peyton up. The silence was suddenly overwhelming to her, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Without thinking, she grabbed her cell, because she was pretty sure that even at this time of the night, especially since it was just a bit before midnight, so not too late, Haley would answer the phone to talk to her. Peyton hadn't felt like talking in days, and now, she just wanted to hear someone's voice. Blindly, she reached out and hit a number on her phone, knowing that she would have to hit the four in order to use the speed dial to get Haley.
The phone rang, and a voice answered with, "This is Mrs. Scott's phone; she's unable to come to the phone right now, because she's too busy being seduced by Mr. Scott…" No, that was wrong. Peyton's conscious was screaming at her. Something was wrong. The wrong button…
The voice droned on for several more seconds, until a voice in the background cut it off. "Lucas! What are you doing? What if that's my mom?" Peyton's mind began to spin unnecessarily, and instantly she realized she had hit the wrong button. She was hearing people, which was what she had wanted, but it was the wrong people.
There was a silence, and Peyton assumed that Lucas had just given Brooke a look. "Oh," Brooke chuckled to herself, but Peyton could hear it over the phone. "Victoria, if that's you, Lucas and I are having oodles and oodles of sex! Mind-blowing sex! We got married!"
She was shouting, and Lucas must have given her another look. "Oodles?" He questioned her word choice, and Brooke giggled. "And you really don't have to yell; she can probably hear you," he advised softly, and there was a sound of a kiss. "You can yell all you want if that's how it is," he murmured.
Peyton should have hung up ages ago, but she couldn't get herself to end the call. Lucas should have hung up ages ago, but both he and Brooke seemed a bit drunk and weird, either from just being happily married or from some champagne or something. Brooke's voice asked, "Who is it anyway?"
Lucas must not have looked at the caller ID when he had answered the phone or he would have never gone on the way he had. But again, Peyton reasoned with herself that he was a bit drunk, either with love or lust or alcohol, so she let it slide. "Hey," Peyton allowed herself that murmur at apparently the same time that Lucas looked at the caller ID and noticed her name.
He didn't say anything for a moment, and all of a sudden, Brooke's voice came over the line while sounding oddly smooth and sober. "Hey Blondie," she greeted easily.
And suddenly hearing Brooke talk to Peyton was too much. It was all too much, and without thinking, Peyton threw her phone against the wall. Neither the wall nor the throw was hard enough to completely smash the phone, but it was hard enough to officially smash it shut and to scratch the cover of the phone quite furiously. The phone began ringing, and Peyton went to look at it; Brooke was calling her back.
She was apparently a glutton for punishment, so she answered the phone. "Peyton," the voice was definitely Brooke. "I'm sorry." There was a pause, followed by, "Well, I'm not that sorry, but you snooze you lose." The laugh that followed it was brittle and sharp, not normal for Brooke. This time the slamming of the phone against the wall really did shatter the phone into pieces. The blonde had never imagined doing that before, but throwing the phone made her feel a bit better; at the very least the sound of Brooke's voice was gone.
Peyton bent down to scoop up the pieces of her phone begrudgingly. She should have looked at the numbers on her phone better when she had used the speed dial. Haley was number four, but she had obviously hit the wrong button. If she had hit any of the other buttons; it would have been fine, as Lucas was no longer on her speed dial. Number three was the studio, and number two was her dad. But, she had hit the button directly about the number four, she had hit number one, which was Brooke. Brooke was her number one. "Damn it!" She growled; her left side suddenly felt strangely pained numb, and she wondered how young was too young to have a heart attack. But then she didn't have much time to consider anything else, because the world was spinning and turning, and Peyton closed her eyes.
She opened her eyes to find herself lying on the floor next to the couch. Her left side was hurting, because that was the side she had fallen on when she had fallen from the couch onto the floor. Her phone was next to her, perfectly intact. There were no recent calls, received or dialed. It was a dream. It was all a dream. That explains why Peyton had thought that the two had suddenly strange. Lucas had never ignored the caller ID and told her about his and Brooke's sex life, and Brooke had never used that bitter laugh on Peyton.
Though, the CD really had ended, so Peyton went and started it again and turned it even louder. This time though, she went and took a long shower. There was no way that she was going to fall back asleep that easily anyway, so she took her sweet time in the shower, shaving her legs, washing her hair, and just enjoying the warmth that the water brought down on her. Eventually though, the shower had ended, and Peyton had slipped into a pair of comfy shorts and a tank top and climbed into her own bed. No more sleeping on the couch. For some reason, she had thought that it would have taken her a long time to fall asleep, but it really didn't. She could still hear the CD in the background faintly when her eyes fluttered close.
Peyton Sawyer didn't hear the front door open and close. She was too asleep to notice when the CD was shut off, and she didn't hear the door to her bedroom either. Had she been awake, she would have noticed the smile on Brooke's face, when she saw Peyton asleep. The brunette hesitated for a moment, obviously not sure if she should wait until morning to talk to her, or if she should wake her then. Peyton murmured something about an apron, and Brooke grinned and made her decision. She dropped her bags quietly on the floor and pulled off her jeans and her bra, so she could sleep more comfy.
The brunette noticed the blonde's twisting and turning in her sleep, obviously disturbed by something, so Brooke did what made sense, she crawled into bed with her. It definitely wasn't the first time that they had shared a bed, so it was natural. It was easy enough to slide over and drape one of her arms over the blonde's waist so that they were spooning. Brooke knew that this usually helped Peyton sleep. The twisting and turning eased, and Brooke allowed herself to snuggle in closer to the other girl, drifting off to an easy sleep.
The blonde awoke to the smell of coffee. She stretched and got out of bed, eager to go have some of that coffee. Normally, she would internally laugh at this situation, because only in commercials did the smell of coffee wake anyone else up enough to actually get out of bed to go get some, but Peyton wanted to see who was making the coffee, though she probably could guess who.
"Hey sleepyhead!" Brooke gestured at a cup of coffee sitting on the counter while simultaneously taking a drink of her own coffee and flipping a pancake over. "Hungry?"
Peyton took a long sip of coffee before allowing herself to speak. "Brooke," she began, and the other girl turned to look at her.
"What's up, P. Sawyer?"
The blonde struggled for a moment, eyes trailing the brunette's body, trying to find the right words, but she found there were none. "Why are you naked?"
"I'm not!" This was true. Brooke Davis was, in fact, not naked; she had on a pair of panties and an apron, though nothing else. She questioned, "Did you know we had this?" She gestured toward the apron and then shrugged when the blonde said nothing.
"But…" Peyton tried to make sense of the situation, but she could think of none. Maybe Lucas was there, and she was making him breakfast after a long night of…The blonde shuddered; she really hadn't wanted to go where her mind had just gone, into bed with Brooke and Lucas. Then again, Peyton would have known if Brooke was in bed, in the same house, with Lucas, or at least Peyton was pretty sure that she would have heard something, unless they had stayed on the couch…Damn couch. "Is Lucas here?"
Brooke's nose wrinkled in confusion. "No. Why would he be?" Instead of waiting for Peyton to answer, she flipped the final pancake onto a plate and walked over to the blonde. "If he was here, I wouldn't be able to do this." With that said, she leaned over and kissed Peyton, smirking a bit at the expression on the blonde's face. "I love your morning voice," Brooke whispered as she trailed kisses down Peyton's neck.
The blonde was pretty sure that some part of her mind was trying to get words out, but all that really happened was that she moaned a little and said Brooke's name. That was supposed to be her telling Brooke to stop, but all it really did was encourage the brunette. Then suddenly Peyton's hands seemed to have found the apron strings, and they were easily untying them. The final knot was a bit harder to undo than the rest, and it was enough to get Peyton to open her eyes and stop the current kiss that the two were sharing. "Brooke," she murmured, and the brunette pulled back a few inches farther and opened her own eyes.
"Yeah, P. Sawyer?"
The blonde's eyes had been searching the brunette's face for something, to help the blonde understand it, and suddenly she found what she was looking for in the brunette's eyes. "Your eyes aren't green, Brooke."
"That's a weird way to seduce me," Brooke chuckled. Seduce. The same word that Lucas had used in Peyton's last dream when he had talked about Brooke. Oh, fuck. That would explain it. This was another dream.
"This is a dream," Peyton sighed and untangled herself from Brooke, officially making the dream a lucid dream.
"It is?" Peyton nodded her head sadly. Brooke pouted, "Too bad…I really do like this apron. It would have been fun to have around the house in real life."
The blonde looked at her friend exasperated, "This is MY dream, Brooke." The brunette shrugged, obviously not quite realizing what that meant. "You're just a figment of my dream."
"We might be having the same dream," Brooke fought.
"You're dreaming about making-out with me?"
"Well, you are hot." Brooke grinned at the expression on the blonde's face. She shrugged, "I might be dreaming about you."
"You just married Lucas in real life. You're not dreaming about me."
This was apparently news to Dream Brooke, as her eyes widened significantly at this news. "I married Lucas?"
"Yep." Dream Brooke scrunched up her nose. "What, Lucas isn't what you want in this dream?"
Dream Brooke shook her head. "No, he's apparently not. You mention him, but I really just want to kiss you still…" She took a step forward and wrapped an arm around Peyton's waist, suggestively running the fingers on her other hand down the other girl's thigh.
Peyton bit her lip. "I'm not going to take advantage of Brooke in my dream." She muttered to herself while Dream Brooke ran her fingers back up Peyton's thigh, playing with the edge of her shorts.
"You're not taking advantage of me," Brooke stated calmly, still playing with the slight fray on Peyton's shorts. "This is definitely what I want…" Dream Brooke paused for a moment. "Wait, the real me likes sex right? I'm not a prude or anything, right?"
Peyton grinned and it was enough to get her out of her stupor. "You still definitely like sex in real life." She frowned, "Though you apparently like sex with Lucas, not me." Both girls had a similar frown on their face, as their considered this. The slamming door signaled to them both that someone had apparently come to visit them. "Did you invite someone over?"
"This is your dream, remember?"
"Hey," a seventeen-year-old Lucas Scott ambled into the room.
"Lucas?" Peyton questioned, and Lucas nodded. "Why are you…younger?"
"This is her dream," Brooke informed the confused lad.
Lucas accepted this easily, "How old am I in real life?"
"You're old enough to be coaching the basketball team you currently play on."
"And you're married to me!" At this outburst, Dream Lucas grinned.
Peyton sighed, "I should really just wake up now."
Dream Brooke shook her head. "There's obviously something we're supposed to help you with. That's what dreams are supposed to do usually; they're supposed to help you understand and sort through life."
"You're helping her by wearing that?" Lucas had been trying really hard not to comment on Brooke's attire, but he was a seventeen-year-old boy, and that was his future wife that he was gawking at.
Brooke nodded while Lucas shrugged. "I really need to work on my dreams," Peyton muttered, starting to get a bit grumpy.
Lucas looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "So, in real life, I'm older, like you two here, and I'm married to Brooke?" Both girls nodded. "And Peyton, you're…" He took a moment, obviously trying to get over the fact that the two girls he was currently in love with, at his age, were completely different in a few years. "You're in love with Brooke?"
Brooke nodded, and Peyton smiled gently, "It sounds weird, I know."
Brooke bristled, "I don't see why it's so wrong to be in love with me."
Lucas grinned, "Apparently neither do we in real life."
"So, you told Brooke that you're in love with her, then she ran off and married me anyway?"
"Well, no," Peyton admitted. "I actually tried to tell you, Lucas, that I loved you, then you two went off and got married. I didn't realize I was actually in love with Brooke until after you two had been married for a few days."
"You never told me? After what almost just happened after I made you coffee, you didn't tell me that you were in love with me?" Peyton's glare made Brooke realize that their kissing had happened in the dream, not in "real life" as Peyton kept calling it. "Oh yeah," she paused for a beat again. "Well, I still think you should tell me. I mean, we're still best friends in real life, right?" Peyton nodded. "Then no matter what you shouldn't be able to screw that up. You can't just keep loving me without telling me."
"Even if she does stay with me, at least then you'll have told her."
"You'll feel better then."
"Much better." The Dream Brooke and Lucas nodded while Peyton took a long sip of coffee.
"I know that I'm younger than you two in this dream, and I know that I'm the one that ends up with Brooke, and I know that I'm currently in love with both of you at different times at my current age, but really, if you two were to end up together, I'd like to think that I'd be happy for you two." Both girls snorted, holding back their laughter. "No, really. I mean, you two were best friends before I came along, and even I've seen the looks that you two give each other. I know how hard it was for both of you when you weren't talking to each other, and even best friends don't have that kind of trouble when not talking to each other. That's the kind of trouble that Haley and Nathan have when they don't talk to each other." Lucas stopped to see if he was getting through to Peyton at all.
"If Lucas was older, I'm sure he'd be hot." Lucas beamed at the compliment, though Brooke had retied her apron strings, so she was decent, as long as you didn't go behind her. "But, when I look at you, Peyton, I feel something different. It's a good different, and I know I'm a figment of your imagination at this point, but I don't think you can change everything about me in the dream, even if you did change my eye color. I'd like to think that the real me has to feel at least part of what I feel for you."
Both of them looked at Peyton expectantly, and she was almost weirded out by how knowledgeable the two of them were in her dream, though they were both smart in real life, and this dream, like Brooke said, might be meant to help the blonde work through her thoughts/feelings. Besides that, she couldn't be too weirded out, as when she was younger, she saw the evil/emo version of herself everywhere, and not only that, but she talked to that version of herself. So, if that version of herself could help her work through her feelings, Peyton figured that her dreams couldn't be that far off from there. "I have to tell her, huh?" They both nodded. "Can I wait until she comes back?" They both nodded again, and suddenly Peyton was scared. "She will come back right?" Lucas tried to give her a hopeful smile, and Peyton didn't have time to look at the brunette before the world was spinning again, and the dream disappeared.
Peyton's eyes opened and blinked a few times. There was most definitely a weight pressed up against her back. There was also an arm draped casually over her hip. She glanced down at the hand; it was a girl. The breath on the back of her neck was slow and easy; the other person was obviously still asleep. She rolled over, to face the person who was behind her. "Brooke," she murmured, not that she had really expected anyone else. Honestly, had it been anyone else, it would have been weird, but it was still weird, because Brooke was supposed to be with her husband.
The brunette's eyes opened sleepily. She opened one eye first, as if to confirm that the blonde was talking to her, then when she saw that they were face to face, she opened the other one. "You're awake." Brooke smiled, still half asleep, "You talk in your sleep." Her right arm was still draped around the blonde, so she poked her in the side lightly to emphasize her point.
Peyton blushed, wondering what she had said, and then she realized something. "Your eyes are the right color this time." Brooke smiled and let out a soft laugh. "Your laugh is right this time too," she said amazed, slowly realizing that she was awake this time around.