a/n: originally a drabble, now a concept I've decided to warp into a story. original drabble will be the story's prologue.


"i'll be alright. as long as you stay with me."

the whisper is too delicate to be fictitious, so brooke's arms tauten about the lithe waist beside hers. peyton's warm breath draws goosebumps on the back of brooke's neck, prickles the somber hair of her cheek but brooke doesn't care, brooke doesn't care about a lot of things. peyton is the only thing brooke cares about now because there's nothing left to care about. parents, money, lucas: everything is gone, and brooke had never felt so alive than she feels now, blonde curls tickling the perspirated flesh of her chin, a light and attenuated hand grasping her hip and fingernails are digging into her, but she doesn't care, brooke doesn't care because peyton is the only thing she cares about.

jake had left: something that hadn't surprised brooke, but his impetuous departure had tossed peyton into a befuddled whirlwind, the winds of fluster relentlessly whipping her about a land of heartbreak. boys aren't worth it, brooke had muttered the night that he left and peyton was flooding into her shoulder, boys are ridiculous and stupid. and peyton had sniffled, said something like yeah, maybe, hid herself against brooke's body because it was the only thing that was there, it was the only thing that was always there. brooke didn't do anything; brooke let peyton drown into her like she had a million times before, the brackish tinge of peyton's tears staining black cotton.

just like she was doing now, letting peyton drown into her, souls and hearts colliding in a sunday night train wreck because she can't do anything else, she can't do anything except tuck peyton's head under her chin and tell her everything is going to be alright, i'm here and we'll be alright because we always are. two hours and thirty-seven minutes flicker against lime neon - it had been an hour and sixteen minutes since peyton had poured into brooke's bedroom, spewed like a thousand pretty lyrics into her arms. it had been an hour and sixteen minutes since peyton had told brooke that she was pregnant with jake's child, she was pregnant and she didn't know what to do, and brooke had felt the tenacious impulse to vomit. peyton didn't notice because her fragile shoulders were racking with robust sobs and her piquant tears were specking the soft flesh of brooke's neck, because she was lost and jake was her home, because jake had left and now she had no home, but brooke's arms were squeezing her as if to say i'll be your home now, peyton, let me be your home.

now peyton looks up through the dilated sheen of her pupils and brooke's eyes are glittering with something that peyton can't describe, something she's never had, maybe. maybe. brooke's palm is stroking her face and peyton leans into it, leans into brooke, leans into the only thing she's ever known, leans into the only thing she ever wants to know.

"are you okay?" brooke's voice is ripe against the silence hanging in the bedroom like a ghost and peyton shivers, doesn't answer, deflates into the pillow beneath her. brooke's arms aren't on her anymore and peyton feels bare, she feels naked so she grasps brooke's hands and pulls them around her so they crash and clatter together again, like aqua against white, like moonlight against the sun, like everything they had always known.

"peyton?" brooke is repeating, recapitulating her worries and peyton is too, she's echoing her words from before, stay with me, i'll be alright if you stay with me, please, and brooke doesn't have to oblige because peyton knows she already has.