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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Things That Were (Branjie) - pureCAMP

A/N - … Hi.

I won’t get into it, I don’t think I need to. But here’s a return no one expected, at least.

I wrote this based on some Feelings I have and also Jinkx’s song The Auld Lang Syne Song from… Christmas Queens 3? It has this beautiful sad, wistful, nostalgic kind of feel and it made me nostalgic for love and that strange time between Christmas and New Years. Largely sad, mostly bittersweet. Dedicated to my love Ortega, and in part for the nostalgia fic challenge.

I appreciate any and all support I’ve been given over these past months.

You have a new memory from (1) years ago!

Brooke swipes across absent-mindedly. She doesn’t think much about it, they pop up all the time in the holiday season. There’s a little loading screen, decorated with animated tinsel, that flashes in her face before every ounce of breath is knocked out of her body.

This is what dying feels like. Brooke wonders if there’s a loading screen before entrance into the afterlife. She supposes it would allow the dead some time to adjust, at least.

It’s a perfect, filtered picture. The Christmas tree looks beautiful, even as the pine dies, all decked in shades of red and gold, glittering twists and lights that twinkle gently enough to lull you to sleep. It stands tall in the background of the photo, illuminating everything with a cosy glow. At the forefront of the image, Brooke is that kind of happy, sleepy, warm drunk. Full of Baileys, probably, and little mini mince pies and leftover chocolate from boxes opened and half-finished. There’s a glass of red wine behind her, slightly visible on the table. She’s cradling Henry to her chest, kissing the top of his head.

Vanessa is next to her. The remnants of plum lipstick still on her lips, grinning, Apollo in her arms. She’s beautiful. She looks and feels like how Christmas is supposed to - welcoming, kind, gentle, sweet. And Brooke knows that she’s drunk too, and right after this she burst into laughter and her foghorn voice shattered the cosiness and it was so right and so them. And she knows how her stomach had twisted horribly after they took it.

It’s perfect. She won’t share this one. It will stay in her archives. It’s really been a year, huh.

The cats look at her accusingly, as if they know. They probably do know. They know everything about Brooke. Every flaw, every fault. If they could speak, she knows they’d ask for Vanessa instead of her. Well, tough. Vanessa’s gone, Brooke thinks, almost aggressively as if she’s trying to telepathically tell them so. Vanessa’s been gone for a year.

Or has she? Vanessa isn’t the one who left. Vanessa isn’t the one who walked out without warning, who pretended the bliss was as blissful as it looked and then ran from it all. No, no, that was Brooke.

She shuts off her phone, clicks the button to make the picture fade to black. The switch from warm and bright to black is jarring. It’s probably how Vanessa felt, waking up to an empty bed.

“Brookieeeeee,” Vanessa sings. She’s grinning, cheesing so hard that her eyes have disappeared, nothing but the flicker of a fake eyelash visible from them. “Brooklyn Briiiiiidge…”

Brooke turns, laughing, and waves away the whistles and teasing mumbles from their friends. “Vanjie?”

She pushes her lips together and makes kissy noises, wordlessly begging. Brooke gently holds her chin, lifts her head, kisses. She tastes like cinnamon and nutmeg and chocolate, a festive concoction of things that Brooke usually hates but loves on her. Vanessa looks amazing in gold and she’s an Oscar from head to toe, sparkling, beautiful.

Akeria makes pointed eye contact with Brooke, then mimes gagging herself with two fingers.

Vanessa rolls her eyes, the fondness on her face so evident that it could light up the entire bar. “I love you.”

And Brooke kisses her. The kiss says what it needs to.

Christmas a whole year ago. Brooke made a series of decisions. Stupid ones, maybe. Definitely. She doesn’t know who she’s kidding.

Funny how she finds it so hard to kid herself. Apparently, she had no issue kidding Vanessa.

A little while after Silky comments that Brooke really shouldn’t still be living in the shithole apartment she rented at 20, she realises that as rude and bluntly honest it had seemed at the time, she’s right. She resolves not to mention this to Silky, in case her ego inflates too far and she flies away like Aunt Marge (she thinks this with love), and starts looking online. And it’s impossible.

So out comes the phone, because there’s only one person to go to for this. For anything. Because she’s always there and she’s always willing and she only ever wants some quality time as payment.

B: Vanjie [8.22pm]

B: Vanjerella….. [8.22pm]

B: Vanessaaaaaa [8.23pm]

V: brooke lynn hytes [8.24pm]

B: Not the full name… am I in trouble? [8.24pm]

V: do u wanna be? ;) [8.24pm]

B: Hmm… I’ll think about it… [8.24pm]

B: Anyway I need your heeeeeelp [8.24pm]

V: i gotchu boo [8.25pm]

V: what u need baby [8.25pm]

B: Cutie [8.25pm]

B: I’m going apartment hunting, help me look? Idk what to even look for [8.25pm]

V: exciting!!!!!! [8.26pm]

V: babyyyyy this is so exciting for u omg!!! I love moving [8.26pm]

V: i hope i can help!! im usually terrible at this but i think we’ll have fun!! [8.26pm]

V: although i gotta wonder what made u ask me instead of somebody smart like nina [8.27pm]

B: Ah shit, great point nvm I’ll ask her [8.28pm]

B: Jk. Asked u because ur always here visiting, may as well find something u like as well <3 [8.28pm]

V: u bout to make a bitch cry [8.29pm]

Vanessa was over in maybe ten minutes tops, Brooke remembers. It was like she could read Brooke’s mind, and she’d brought coffee for them both to keep them going and even a little bag of kitty treats from the place she’d stopped at (“a guy was sellin’ them outside and I felt a little sorry for him in the cold so I bought ‘em. They’re good, the ones you usually get!”). They were up for hours scrolling, and then searching in person just so that she could act as a second opinion.

Brooke stands up from the couch and walks slowly, heavily, towards the window. Her Christmas tree is silver this year, silver and purple, and as pretty and icy as it had seemed when she decorated it, it feels cold and desolate now. It reflects on the glass and for a moment it’s hard to focus on the world outside when the world inside is so disturbed, but she manages. Dark as it is, the lights of the city are never gone, and she has a beautiful view of a metropolitan paradise laid out beneath her.

Vanessa loved the view. She picked it, in a way. Brooke was unsure about the viewing, and Vanessa wheedled, tugging her arm and telling her she’d love it.

She did love the view. But it was Vanessa’s view, that she saw first, that she loved first. Now it just makes Brooke feel sick. Sick at herself. Like it’s not hers to look at, and she shouldn’t.

She looks away.

A change of scenery helps to calm the mind, Brooke thinks. Nina told her that once, she vaguely recalls, as she sobbed helplessly into the arms of the only one who would listen. The only one who didn’t think of her as a raging evil bitch, and more of a hopeless coward instead. It’s not much better, but it’s a small comfort given how much she hates herself for it. She’s more inclined to go with what the rest of them all thought after it happened.

It’s late, anyway. Maybe it really is time to read a book and push down the thoughts and try to sleep away the regret.

“Oh god, oh god. Vane- fuck,” She breathes.

Waves of pleasure shoot through her, beginning deep in her belly and sending shockwaves all up Brooke’s back. Her hands grasp at the sheets around her head, desperate, clinging, her mind and body totally incognizant of each other. Her body is on fire, and her mind isn’t even functioning correctly.

Vanessa’s mouth is hot and fast and her tongue is skilled, and every time she grazes over her clit with the swift, feather-light touches Brooke thinks she’s going to pass out. Her fists grab tighter and her toes curl and a gasp floats from her lips, accidental, unstoppable. She manages to tear one hand away and threads it into Vanessa’s dark hair, urging her to keep going.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, fuck…” She manages.

The goddess between her legs doesn’t stop, not until long after the inaudible mumblings have stopped falling from Brooke’s lips and her breaths are finally starting to slow, and she wonders how Heaven is meant to be above them when she feels herself sinking into it right now. Brooke thinks absent that maybe Heaven is here and everything else is Hell because nothing feels like being with Vanessa feels, and when they’re naked and intertwined and breathless and warm maybe they’re closer to God than they’ll ever be.

She catches herself before three words make their way out.

“God, this fucking mattress…” Is what she ends up producing. It’s digging into her back, lumpy and old. She’s only just noticed, in truth.

Vanessa’s head lifts, her makeup smudged in a way that feels beyond sinful to look at. She licks her lips coyly, sucks off her finger, and offers a lazy, heady sort of smile.

“The mattress? That’s all you got, boo?”

She’s laughing, happy, delirious. Brooke laughs too. “I don’t have to say anything about you. Isn’t the state of me enough?”

It is. On her back, chest peppered with bruises not yet formed, chest rising and falling beyond her control, legs still twitching slightly. Brooke’s completely spent, blissed out, exhausted. Vanessa’s still worn out from hers and yet her tongue is musical and the melodies were handcrafted by all the muses of the ancient world.

Still smiling, Vanessa shifts so she’s hovering on top of Brooke and then leans down to kiss her, their bodies colliding, Brooke tasting herself on the lips of her lover. It’s nights like these that make her feel like the world is a good place to be. That everything is fixable, everything is brilliant.

“We should get you a new mattress, baby,” Vanessa tells her when they break apart. “And I’ll probably never leave.”

Brooke forces a laugh, but the idea isn’t laughable. Vanessa and Forever go hand in hand, somehow.

And they do go shopping for a mattress for Brooke’s place. They wander through stores and discuss mattress firmness and size and height and flop down until they feel as though they’re ready to drop, and then Vanessa lands on one and yells “BROOKIE!” so loud that her voice - that goddamn voice - almost shatters the glass. She’s laying down with a beam on her face like nothing Brooke’s ever seen, pure sunshine, and she clearly has the best taste in mattresses because when she buys it, Brooke’s never slept so good in her life.

The bed is cold. Brooke deserves a cold bed. She left Vanessa in one, so it’s the least she can deal with it.

They weren’t always at Brooke’s - sometimes it was Vanessa’s too, for the sake of variety. Looking back on those memories makes Brooke feel like the biggest idiot in the world. Which she is, of course, and she knows it. But even here, the mini Christmas tree is cold and isolated, and Vanessa gave it to her as an early gift last Christmas, and Vanessa chose the mattress, and Vanessa picked the view. Brooke stares at everything that Vanessa has touched in her life and wonders why in the world she let herself ruin something so good. It’s selfish and stupid and self-sabotaging and that angel of a woman deserves so much more.

She thinks about sharing the picture. She could caption it with that song, ‘Now I’m in the house you chose and the bed you bought to face your perfect view’, and that could be her apology. Because she knows all too well she’s too much of a blind coward to say it properly. And Vanessa won’t see it even if she does share, because they’re not friends anymore. Someone will get it to her - probably Silky - but that’s not worth it.

Brooke opens her phone again, and swipes away from the picture before she does something stupid. Then she opens her texts.

B: Are you busy? [10.11pm]

B: Oh shit sorry, just saw Yvie’s insta, u guys are out tonight. Ignore this x [10.13pm]

N: No no! They’re out, I’m home because I was working all day and I was too tired :( [10.19pm]

N: What do you need hun? <3 [10.20pm]

B: If ur tired it’s okay, I’ll talk to u another time x [10.20pm]

N: Shut up. I’m here [10.21pm]

N: I think I know what’s going on. Right time of year [10.21pm]

B: I’m just an idiot, idk [10.22pm]

N: Nope. Stay where you are, I’m coming over. [10.22pm]

N: Did she text you? [10.24pm]

B: She’s not that stupid lmao why would she [10.24pm]

Nina is the only one who bothered to ask what the hell was going on when it happened. It’s not like Brooke can blame the others, and she doesn’t either. If someone did that to her best friends, she would be the same. And she is the same - she hates herself passionately for it. But Nina has this untraceable kindness to her, this unfathomable tenderness that seems to have no beginnings, no ends, no limits. It flows so freely from her, like a gift.

She has no idea how much time passes by crying and looking blankly at her phone, or even any idea when she started crying, but the doorbell rings and Brooke answers it already in tears and Nina sweeps her into a hug like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and maybe it is. To love your friends is easy and natural, like taking a breath in clean air.

To love someone special is like inhaling in water, drowning, getting lost. And you have to be content with the helplessness in order to survive it, or at least strong enough to swim and keep it going. You can’t just sink. Brooke couldn’t handle drowning.

“I’m a fucking idiot,” She weeps into Nina’s arms, once her choking sobs settle into streaming tears. It’s not better, just different. “I wanted to be with her forever and that was so fucking scary.”

Nina rubs her back. “Breathe, breathe. It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay.”

“Is- is she okay?”

Stupid question. Brooke isn’t sure she even wants to know.

The hug finishes; they’re on the couch again. Nina pulls out her phone, frowning, and pauses like she’s thinking. She looks guilty, which is unusual.

“I would never normally show a friend’s text, y’know? It’s private, I don’t do all that betraying trust stuff. But I know she’ll delete these tomorrow morning and I think you should see them before she does.”

V: so its been a ear then hasnr it [10.56pm]

V: a year of fwithout brook [10.56pm]

V: honestly fuck her yknw what i man [10.56pm]

V: she fuckin broke mt heart man why did she do that [10.56pm]

V: i miss her an the stupid vats so muhc [10.57pm]

V: tha sonf auld lang syne plaed earlier in the bar bef4 eht club [10.57pm]

V: very apropaotye hahahahksjkdh [10.57pm]

V: may rhe acwanriance be forgot forever and fuckung ever [10.57pm]

V: is okay i can lobe w the bitternness [10.57pm]

V: i just kisd girls unt il it dont hurt [10.57pm]

Brooke sobs. Again, loud, shaking, broken. Because Vanessa is hurting so much even a year after it happened and everything feels so raw and it’s entirely her own fault for crushing the dream they were building.

“I miss her so fucking much, I don’t know why- I don’t know why I walked out,” She babbles, helpless and hopeless and hurt. “I’m fucking lying, Nina, I know why, I know why I did it. Why did I fucking-”

She knows all too well. Because Vanessa helped her pick an apartment and Vanessa picked her bed and Vanessa loved her cats. Because Brooke could imagine them getting married and growing old and it had barely been four months by the time Christmas and New Years were rolling around and everything seemed so serious and so intense, and that didn’t mean it wasn’t fun but it was scary in the same breath because speed was terrifying.

Brooke is bitter, but only at herself.

New Years Day. January 1st, a brand new year, a bright new start. The frost glistens freshly on the undisturbed morning, and all across the city, singles and couples sleep through the dawn, hungover or still passed out drunk, party hats akimbo, party blowers still suspended in smudged lipsticky mouths.

It’s early, enough that the daylight is blinding but pale and faded. Vanessa’s bedroom has the huge window that she never covers, and she sleeps through it like the dead. Brooke wakes up and looks around.

She looks at everything but Vanessa, but eventually her gentle snuffling is too much to ignore and she looks down at her beautiful sleeping form. She’s a disaster, hair everywhere and glitter still all over her face, and she’s the most breathtaking woman in the entire wide world. Something heavy and all encompassing sweeps into Brooke’s chest, and she can identify it by name. It’s only four letters, but it strikes a fear in her like an old god from a lost world. She needs to vomit. She needs to run. She needs an escape.

Before she even knows who she is again, any of the things that ended up staying half their time at Vanessa’s are stuffed into a couple of carrier bags and she’s in her dress from the party and out of the door into the cold winter air, panicked, unable to breathe.

It’s a heart attack, she thinks. Or a panic attack. It’s an attack that feels like it’s going to kill her, and she runs away, and she runs all the way home and barricades the door shut, dropping her belongings on the floor, numb and confused and cold. It’s the start of the new year and she begins it alone, hyperventilating.

Within a couple of days the worried texts subside and the angry vengeful ones start flooding in, and just like that Brooke’s lost the best thing that ever happened to her and all of her friends along with it. Because she got up on new year’s day and abandoned Vanessa fast asleep and that was the end.

It’s ugly and chilling, how much she cries into Nina’s gentleness. The only thing that stops her is, ironically, the thing that makes her feel worse, the characteristic ‘ping!’ of Nina’s phone, undoubtedly more drunk texts.

V: i hoper he fucjibg bubble bursts this tie of year [11.23pm]

V: every jhanduary first for the rest of hersitnkin life [11.23pm]

“I deserve it,” Brooke whispers hoarsely, “But she doesn’t. She never did.”

“Neither of you do,” Nina tells her sadly. “They don’t all hate you, they hate what you did the way friends always do when breakups happen. You both deserve to be happy. And both of you have been dreading New Year’s for this exact reason.”

It hurts to hear, and Brooke wishes she doesn’t have to listen, but her friend is so goddamn wise it feels stupid not to.

“Two days until it’s officially New Year.” Nina kisses her hand. “Can you keep living like this, Brooke?”

It’s not like she even has to say it for Brooke to understand. “She hates me.”

Nina shakes her head. “No she doesn’t. She loves you.”

“That’s worse.”

“You love her.”

“I know.”

“You got scared.”

“I still am.”

“Face your fears.” Nina holds her at arm’s length, forcing her to look right into her face. “This hurts more than what blundering through it would, surely? Fire doesn’t always mean you get burned, sweetie. Sometimes it just warms you.”

She makes no fucking sense.

“I can’t play with Vanessa like that again.” Brooke swears. “I can’t.

The transitional period between Christmas and New Year doesn’t feel like real time. It’s just liminal space, a waiting room of chronology, a suspension in space. If she’s honest, trying now causes no harm, because it’s like it didn’t even happen. Maybe she should, maybe she will.

Eventually Nina leaves, pressing a kiss to her forehead and promising that somehow everything is going to be okay. She’s like a fairy godmother, Brooke thinks to herself. Always knowing, always positive, and total magic to behold.

She’s awake all night long just staring at the time on the top of her phone, lying in bed sideways and wondering if she’ll do it. It has to be right. It can’t be when she’ll still be awake and drunk and angry. But it can’t be on the anniversary of her biggest fuck up, because that just feels like some kind of sick joke and that’s not what she wants.

The entire night passes. At six am, her finger hovers over the send button for a full three minutes. She counts the seconds.

B: I fucked up. If u’ll have me, I’ll never mess u around again. I didn’t know I could love someone so much and then u came along and everything sped up and I wasn’t fast enough. I shouldn’t have thrown away what we had when it was as close to perfect as anything can get. This message is all me me me I I I but if ur okay with it, I think new year should begin right this time. I’ll hold u and I won’t let go, and u don’t even have to hold me as long as ur here. Everything is up to u. I’ll learn to live with what I did if u say no. Because I totally get why u should hate me. I hate me too, kinda. U did nothing wrong. U were and will always be perfect. [6.03am]

B: Full disclosure is I was scared of how much and how quick I loved u. But it didn’t go away even when I hurt u. I was stupid to do that, and I don’t wanna do another year in the shadow of that massive mistake. [6.05am]

B: I won’t say it here, because thats cheap for u. But I’ll say it when I see u again. I promise, and I want to [6.13am]

She falls asleep with her phone in her hand after being awake all night long.

She wakes up four hours later.

V: ur dumb [9.51am]

V: theres a party at yvies for new years yknow [9.52am]

V: im not saying ill kiss u at midnight but [9.52am]

V: fuck around and find out [9.52am]

(tags: purecamp, branjie, brooke lynn hytes, vanessa vanjie mateo, lesbian au, things that were, fic challenge, nostalgia challenge, nina west)

#rpdr fanfiction #purecamp #branjie #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #lesbian au #things that were #fic challenge #nostalgia challenge #nina west #s11 #(you will always have a place here! -v)

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