stuck in the clouds - friends with benefits AU
Fandom: Roswell, New Mexico
Ship: Rosabel
POV: second person, Rosa
word count: 2,090
originally posted: September 7, 2021
warnings: implied sexual content ig
summary: Rosa and Isobel agree on a friends-with-benefits arrangement. Only, there's one problem: Rosa's in love with Isobel.
Also on AO3
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You’re not sure what you got yourself into. You just remember saying “yes” to this arrangement without thinking if it was a good idea or not. The thought of getting to sleep with Isobel Evans whenever you wanted to pushed any logical thought into the shadows of your brain, never to be touched again. You have feelings for her, love feelings. Somehow, you came to the conclusion that a friends-with-benefits arrangement was easier than actually saying how you feel. You get to kiss her, touch her, love her. It’s all the same, right?
Two months ago, she kissed you first. She suggested a friendship bonding sleepover, mostly so she could catch you up on everything in those ten years that you missed, including what happened last year, because you were dead, stuck in a glowing pod. And the more that she told you the things of the past, the more you understood everything now. You weren’t caught in this fog anymore, and for once, it felt nice.
You lay with her, under the comforter, face-to-face, as small talk bounced around the dark room. You were close to her, despite the amount of space left on her side of the bed. You didn’t mind it though, Isobel being this close to you. If anything, it scared you. Your feelings sparked, and you kept wondering if Isobel would notice the shuttering of your breathing. Maybe her noticing your uneven breathing made her take that leap. Or maybe it was something else, that you were both alone, in the dark, in Isobel’s bed.
She brought her hand to your cheek and leaned forward slowly to press her soft, pink lips to your own. At first, you pulled away, although you didn’t want to because damn, her lips were fluffy clouds, the softest of clouds that you’ve ever kissed.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, and turned her back to you. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
You reached out to her and settled your hand on her forearm. “Isobel.” You trailed your hand down her arm, down her side, to her hip, where your hand curved just right to fit Isobel’s form. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”
Isobel’s breath hitched, and she guided your hand to her chest to hold close. “I still shouldn’t--”
“Look at me.”
She did, and you kissed her second, a heated passion. And hours passed of you clawing at her skin, begging for more, begging for her to just touch you. While you trembled under her and your fist gripped her hair, internally, you were crying. Your feelings for her were blossoming, causing you so much pain, and yet, you let her be between your legs and lick you clean.
Now, you lie on top of her, your head resting on her chest. Clothes are scattered around Isobel’s bedroom on the floor and the end of her bed. The moon is at its peak, and the only light that’s keeping the darkness away is the little lamp on Isobel’s side table.
You’ve been in this situation several times before, at least twice a week for the past two months. It still feels unreal to you. She isn’t yours. She doesn’t love you too. It’s just feelingless sex. Even though the sex is great, the thing you look forward to the most is her holding you in such a vulnerable state, bodies bare and exposed. Sometimes, you wonder why she does this with you, that she’s so willing to just hold you when your arrangement with her is supposed to only involve sex, nothing fluffy, nothing that makes your stomach fill with those stupid honeymoon phase butterflies. You fall for it every time.
Isobel guides her fingers along your spine, and you hum in content in response. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, Rosa.”
“This?” You glance up at her.
“Yeah.”
“What about it?”
“I think it would be best if we didn’t do this anymore.”
The butterflies you always feel, but don’t want to feel, with Isobel sink, wings broken and shattered. Oddly, you wish for them to come back because it doesn’t feel right without them buzzing around the walls of your stomach. “I don’t understand,” you whisper.
“I started talking with someone, and I really like her, a lot. I want to be with her.” Isobel runs her hand over your thick, black locks, once. “I can’t have sex with you, Rosa, and be with her at the same time. It’s not right.”
You sit up, and from the movements of the mattress below you, you know Isobel does, too. Water burns in your eyes. You can’t let those building tears fall. You can’t be weak around her. Gosh, if only you told her. If you just fucking told her how you feel…
“Okay.” You hop off the bed and gather your clothes. “If that’s what you want. I won’t fight you, Isobel.” Your voice shakes. You set your clothes on Isobel’s bed and turn your back to her as you change, slipping on your undergarments, then t-shirt and jeans. “I’m really happy that you found someone, Isobel.” Lie. “After everything with Noah, you deserve it, someone that truly cares.” You. You wish anyway.
“Thanks. That means a lot coming from you. I appreciate it.”
There’s shuffling. You can’t see it with your back turned, but Isobel is moving about her room. A drawer opens. You take a quick glimpse, and she’s putting on a new shirt, not the one you pulled off her a few hours ago. The fabric falls down her back just right.
...
Three months have gone by since Isobel ended the arrangement. Not much has happened since then, not for you anyway. You’d sometimes see Isobel and her girlfriend come into the Crashdown together. You’d take their orders and pretend that whatever you had with Isobel didn’t ever exist. If there was even anything that you had with her. The arrangement wasn’t anything. Nothing. You keep telling yourself that, but your love for her still peeks out from your chest whenever you see her, hear her.
You’d spend nights lying in your bed, wishing she was holding you like she used to, her tall frame curled around your small one. Kissing your head and whispering to you that you’re beautiful. The whole sex thing would be far from your mind.
The Crashdown closes in about ten minutes, and you have a few more tables left to clean before you can retire for the night. Liz got off shift an hour or so earlier, leaving you to finish up and close. You don’t mind. You understand that Liz has other things. Max, science, and, well, Max.
She moved in with him a few weeks ago, and you can’t be any happier. You finally have the room to yourself. Although, it is kind of strange just having an extra bed a stray in the room, but it reminds you that Liz is still here even when she’s not.
You never told Liz about your situation with Isobel. You know that she’s your sister and that you can tell her anything at all, but you’re afraid that the words, “I’m in love with Isobel Evans,” falling from your lips will make it real. You’re trying to get over her and move on. Find someone else, just like she did. It does pain you that she has found someone, clenches your veins until they run dry. As much as you love her, you love seeing her happy.
You finish the last table with a sigh and raise your arms up to stretch. Sleep is near. You set the cloth down on the table and go to the door to turn the sign, but movement in the window stops you. Blonde locks reflect in the glass, swift in a light stride. You focus on the figure under the sidewalk’s lights before they disappear around the corner out of your view. You question who’s out so late. Well, what you consider late anyway.
Clearing your throat, you continue to the door. And as you go to turn the sign, eyes meet yours. Isobel’s eyes. The ones that stay forever clear in the back of your mind. Eyes that used to stare into yours with such care and gentleness. Looked you up and down as her hands pulled your shirt over your head, then her lips sealed your shaking breath with a kiss. What fell after that feels like a vivid dream. A dream that lasted two months.
You let the sign be and open the door. “Izzie,” you exhale. “Is everything okay?”
Isobel fiddles with her jacket sleeve, clicking the metal button in, then pulling it out, then clicking it again. “Can I come in?”
...
It’s been an hour of silence passing through the walls of your bedroom. She’s sitting rather close to you on your bed--you don’t mind--and looking everywhere but you. It’s harsh to say that she’s wasting your time, but she is wasting your time. You could be working on some new art right now or literally anything. A part of you wonders if maybe Isobel is waiting for you to start the conversation. Maybe she’s too afraid to. Perhaps, then, you’re wasting your own time.
You close your eyes for a moment and breathe before settling your hand on Isobel’s. Your fingers curl around her hand.
She exhales and finally speaks. “I broke up with my girlfriend.”
“Isobel…” You squeeze her hand.
To be completely honest, you aren’t sure what to say. You’ve dealt with a hand-full of your own break-ups, but you’ve never had someone come to you about theirs. Well, maybe except Liz. But you know Liz. You know how she works mentally. You know how she prefers to be comforted. Although you did spend two months of your resurrected life sleeping with Isobel, you don’t know what she wants, what she needs in situations like this. So you wait for words to bleed through her lips, and they do.
“Last week. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Play some game of pretend.” Isobel shakes her head. “I had already done that my whole life, and you know how that turned out.”
“I don’t understand, Isobel,” you say, concern bubbling inside you.
Isobel scoffs and pulls her hand out from under yours. “You don’t have to understand, Rosa. This is something that I have to deal with.”
Concern fades away and confusion hits you like a train. You ask, “Why did you break up with her? You seemed so happy with her, the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”
“Not as happy as I was with you,” Isobel mumbles. She turns away from you, wrapping her arms around herself.
She’s small, vulnerable. And just seeing her like this aches your heart. You almost forget what she said to you. You never processed this because worry about Isobel came back to haunt you. You let those words play over and over again in your head until it makes sense, until you understand.
“You were happier with me? I don’t--” You shake your head. “What we had wasn’t even…”
You think back. You and Isobel did more than just have sex. More than what a friends-with-benefits arrangement would be. This is why, isn’t it? Why she was so gentle and loving. Why she held you as if you were hers and only hers. Because, internally, she liked you, too--likes you, too. No--loves you, too.
You move closer to her. “Izzie? Look at me, please.”
Isobel glances over her shoulder, and your eyes meet in a spark of light, full of love and tenderness. Soft and warm. So warm, like a nice blanket. And now, you’re shielded from the cold.
“I was really happy with you, too,” you say. “Long before we…”
There’s a long pause. A moment where the whole world stops moving, and you can hear almost everything, feel everything. Where the only two people in the world are you and Isobel. And nothing, nothing, can make that untrue.
Well, maybe besides Isobel’s response.
You try not to think about that now, worry about that now, because you know from what she told you that her response would match with how she’s currently looking at you. How you’re currently looking at her.
“Long before we what, Rosa?” she asks, turning back to face you. “Hmm?” Isobel’s hand finds your cheek and caresses it, brushes her thumb right by your lips.
She doesn’t let you answer.
Your words get stuck in clouds.
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