Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed.
A/n: The title of this chapter is an allusion to one of my favorite poems, "Tragedy" by Jill Sparger. I hope you all enjoy.
Red Balloons Ain't Worth a Dime
The beginning of the school year felt like a slow seduction.
School started and she slinked into school in a tight red sweater with crimson lipstick painted on while she sported a half-smile she thought was mysterious. She adopted a nonchalance that translated into everything she did: cheerleading, student council, classwork. For the first time she attracted boys who had never spared her a glance before.
Of course it was all a warm-up.
Prue didn't care about the guys whose eyes roamed her body. She shrugged when they asked her out and for the first time ever, skipped the homecoming dance. This was a new Prue. A better Prue. This Prue was unreachable.
Andy continued to speak to her like nothing had changed. Sometimes he rolled his eyes or said things to deliberately provoke her and once he outwardly asked, "What the hell is up with you lately?" None of this cracked the new veneer she had so carefully crafted; older, worldlier, sexier.
Jessica and Natalie, juniors on the cheerleading squad, become her new best friends and every weekend they went out to the local colleges and infiltrated the frats. Amidst a haze of smoke, through the penetrating bass of loud music, covered in the stench of sweat and cheap beer, Prue spent her weekends pressed up against various college guys. Eventually, she started to sneak away into dark corners lit only by smoky red light and let those guys stick their tongues down her throat, fondle her breasts and slowly inch their hands up her skirt. She felt dirty and she reveled in it.
On her seventeenth birthday, Grams baked a chocolate cake with pink frosting and her family sang happy birthday to her while she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That night she snuck out of the house and Jessica picked her up; they drove for over an hour before Jessica finally stopped at a shady looking bar and declared she had to pee. Prue followed her inside and for just a moment, some little girl part of her still locked inside rose up and yelled at her to run far, far away.
"I'll be right back," Jessica said, and Prue watched as she sashayed across the room, various heads turning to follow her swinging hips.
Prue took a seat at a table near the door and surveyed the room. Dark cherry wood everywhere and a rickety old pool table. Around her men in dark clothes with tattoos and dirty hair drank heavily; the room was so silent that Prue nearly suffocated. She passed the minutes that Jessica was gone by counting the beams in the low hung ceiling.
After what seemed to be an eternity, Jessica returned with three guys in tow. They were younger than most of the patrons, but still at least ten years older than Prue. Still, there was something about the dark hooded eyes of the tallest that made Prue's stomach fall to her feet. She knew, then, what the night would hold and she pushed away the niggling feelings of panic that the little girl inside of her struggled to make prominent.
"Prue, this is Hank, Moses and Luke. Guys, this is my friend Prue. It's her birthday."
"Birthday girl, huh?" said Moses. "How old?"
"Eighteen," Jessica supplied automatically, though her eyes were sweeping Hank from head to foot. Moses raised an eyebrow, skeptically, and offered to go get rounds for the group. Luke, however, swung a chair around and sank down on it, sitting close enough to Prue that she felt his breath on her face.
"All grown up now," he said.
Prue nodded, dumbly, but tried to pass it off as suave. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and resisted the urge to adjust her bra strap. Luke reached out and ran a thumb over her cheekbone. "Birthday girls always get a kiss." Before she could say yes or no, he leaned forward and kissed her; inside her too-high scarlet heels, her toes curled.
It didn't take long after Moses brought the first round that Prue felt tipsy. All three guys were more than liberal with the beer and the warmth of the alcohol surged through her, igniting every limb in her body in a warm glow. Soon Luke had his hand so far up her skirt that his thumb traced the edge of her new lace panties. Her breath became ragged and her eyes glassy; this, she thought dumbly, was lust beyond anything she'd experienced before.
At some point, Jessica wondered off with Hank and Moses disappeared and she was left alone with Luke at the table. He began to kiss her neck, his hand slowly working its way up the inside of her shirt and she wanted to go further so, so badly that her hands were shaking. But she couldn't. Not in a smelly bar with men old enough to be her father watching not so discreetly.
"I need to find Jessica," she whispered.
"She left. She and Hank went to find a motel, remember?"
She honestly couldn't, and for a moment panic flamed through her brilliantly. How would she get home?
"We should move this somewhere more private," Luke continued, oblivious to her newfound need for escape.
"Not tonight," said Prue, pulling away, scraping her chair against the hardwood floor.
"Come on, birthday girl. Don't worry."
"I need to get home. I…I need to go."
Luke finally snapped from his haze a little and he raised an eyebrow at her. "Fine," he said, anger lacing the word. "Go home then." He stood.
"Wait," said Prue, catching his hand. He looked down at her with disdain. "It's not that I don't want to. But I can't tonight."
"I'm not interested in dating you."
For a moment a flash of herself in a poofy red prom dress, her arm linked through Luke's sprung into her mind, creating an image so hilarious she nearly laughed. She had no desire to date Luke either.
Something in her expression seemed to have caught his attention. He sighed and jerked his head. "Come on. I'll take you home."
The ride back to her house was long and the whole time Luke kept a possessive hand on her thigh, rubbing circles that made her brain feel incapable of thought. When they pulled up in front of her home, Luke tugged on her arm and rolled up her sleeve. From nowhere he produced a pen; in blood red ink he scrawled his phone number across her forearm.
"When you are ready," he said. Then he grabbed the back of her head, fingers laced through her hair, and tugged her into a heady, deep kiss.