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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Let Me Treasure You (Branjie) - Athena2

Summary: It’s Brooke and Vanessa’s first anniversary, and Brooke has a trick (or a treasure hunt) up her sleeve…

A/N: This is a little epilogue for If You Ever Wanna Be In Love. @hi-yekaterina and I were talking, and she brought up wanting to read about the treasure hunt that doesn’t happen in that fic. I’ve had this idea for a while and after talking to her, I decided to do it! You probably need to read that fic first before you read this, just so things make sense. (The AO3 link is above, and you can read on AQ here.)

Title from Treasure by Bruno Mars because I’m cheesy and basic.

Thank you to Writ for being the best beta!!

I really hope you enjoy, and please comment if you’d like!

—

Vanessa should’ve suspected something was up when Brooke said she forgot her raincoat at the museum.

Brooke usually doesn’t forget things, first of all. The woman has a watering schedule for her plants and a color-coded calendar and remembers dinosaur names so long it’s a wonder she doesn’t choke saying them.

Second of all, it’s August, and day after day has shone with warm, golden sun. There’s not even rain in the forecast, so why does she need a raincoat?

But Brooke’s going on about how she needs it just in case, and Vanessa’s still high on the night, on the dinner and laughs and love in Brooke’s eyes. On the fact that she and Brooke have been together an entire year, a year of taking things slow and growing closer than ever. A year of sharing themselves with each other and falling deeper in love than Vanessa has ever been with anyone.

“I’ll just be a few minutes, okay?” Brooke snaps her out of her thoughts, and Vanessa realizes they’re in the museum parking lot.

“Okay.” She leans back in her seat and scrolls through pictures on her phone, pictures of Brooke sleeping with her cats and them in front of a Christmas tree and the one of them with their matching rainbow face paint at the library carnival last year, grins overtaking their faces. She’s still scrolling when the phone rings.

“Hello?” Vanessa asks in confusion, wondering what Brooke could possibly be calling for.

“I need help.” Brooke’s voice is weirdly strained.

“Help with what?”

“I–I cut myself.”

“On what? Your raincoat?” Vanessa demands, her concern clashing with annoyance. She just wants to go home, pull Brooke into her bedroom, and not sleep, and now she has to deal with this mess.

“Well, I saw a letter I must’ve missed, and my hand slipped with the letter-opener–look, there’s a lot of blood, can you help? I think I need to go to the ER.”

“I’m coming, just hang on, okay?”

Vanessa ends the call and runs, heart pounding with worry. She’s trading soft cotton sheets and Brooke’s softer skin for hard plastic chairs and puke-green ER walls tonight, apparently, but it’s Brooke, and Vanessa will take everything, the good and bad, to be with her.

She reaches Brooke’s office in less than a minute, steeling herself for what she might find–blood dripping everywhere, Brooke worried and in pain–

But the office is empty.

“Brooke?” Vanessa calls, trying to ignore the quiver in her voice. “Brooke?”

Still no answer.

Maybe Brooke went to the car? The door squeaks and Vanessa jumps in the air, all her worry replaced with fear and aggravation.

“This ain’t funny, Brooke! I’ve seen horror movies! I’m in a creepy museum at night and someone’s just waitin’ to murder me, I know it!”

Bouncing on her feet, she pulls back the door, hands out in a fighting stance in case something is waiting behind it. But it’s just a bare wall, and she lowers her arms, feeling like an idiot. Whatever trick Brooke is doing, it won’t work.

“Well, I’m going to the car, Miss Cut-Myself-With-A-Letter-Opener. You can join me if you want.”

Vanessa takes one last look around the office for any hidden murderers or ghosts that might get her on the way out. “I’m gonna get you back for this, Brooke. Just you—wait a minute …” A piece of wrinkled parchment on Brooke’s desk catches her eye, and Vanessa’s heart leaps. “Is this what I think it is? Tell me it’s what I think it is!” She doesn’t know if Brooke is listening somewhere, doesn’t care. Because when she flips over the paper—

“Yes, bitch!”

It’s a treasure map.

It all makes sense now–Brooke insisting on getting her coat, pretending to injure herself to get Vanessa in here. Even why Brooke’s been a little shifty lately, biting her lip and her voice getting squeaky whenever they talked about their anniversary. Vanessa didn’t think Brooke had it in her to keep a surprise like this–it took everything Brooke had not to blurt out what Christmas presents she bought people–and her heart rushes with warmth for Brooke as she peeks at the map.

The map is incomplete, with a dot marking Brooke’s office and a short red line curving to the rock and mineral room. Vanessa’s seen enough adventure movies to know the next part of the map is in the rock and mineral room, and she runs, sandals echoing off the stone floors. She’s a pirate now just like she was as a kid, except this map was made by Brooke instead of her mom, and the treasure waiting will be even better than plastic toys in her sandbox.

Dim lights from the glass cases bathe the sharp rocks in an eerie glow. Vanessa’s eyes fly around the room, trying to find the next map. She sees a ragged edge of paper sticking up on one of the floor displays and snatches the next part, barely stopping to admire the rare blue mineral twinkling in the case.

“Too easy,” she mutters.

The red line twists to the mammal room, where replicas of lions and tigers and elephants stare at her. It takes nearly ten frenzied minutes of searching and cursing before she finds the next part of the map by an elephant’s foot.

Brooke’s neat handwriting jumps out at her on the map.

Didn’t think they would all be as easy as the first one, did you?

There’s a little heart after it, and Vanessa rolls her eyes fondly. Let Brooke be the one searching instead and see how easy it is. Still, she’s smiling so hard her cheeks hurt, buzzing with energy and excitement so fierce she gets what people mean when they say they could spit fire. She dashes off to the Viking room, floor blurring beneath her feet.

On and on she goes, all over the museum, through the kids discovery center where they could dig for dinosaur toys at little tables of sand; through the dinosaur room itself, Brooke’s home away from home, the fossils greeting her; through the botanical room, lush with plants and flowers of all sizes and colors. She visits every section of the museum except for the bug room, because Brooke knows she hates bugs so much she throws anything in range at spiders she sees in her apartment.

Finally, she uncovers the map with one last line leading to a giant red X.

It marks the planetarium, and Vanessa runs along, huffing and puffing from the unexpected workout. She freezes once she hits the double doors, because all this time she’s just been in the hunt, collecting maps without thought. But now she’s reached the end, and she doesn’t know what’s waiting for her inside.

When she and Brooke started their whole fake dating thing last year, this treasure hunt idea was what they decided on if someone asked about their proposal. Just a story, a way to cover their bases so they didn’t get caught. Then, after things got rocky and they weren’t talking, Brooke had planned a treasure hunt to show Vanessa her true feelings, but it never happened, because Vanessa was, in A’keria’s words, a “stubborn ass.”

What version of the treasure is behind those doors?

Will Brooke be waiting there on one knee, a ring in her hand? As much as Vanessa wants that sometime in the future, it seems a little sudden. Something she’s not sure she’s ready for right now. She and Brooke have been going slow the past year, and Vanessa’s liked having that time to be with her. They haven’t even moved in together yet, though Vanessa’s been thinking about bringing that up when her lease expires this December. Can Brooke really be planning to propose this suddenly?

Vanessa doesn’t think so. Brooke likes going slow too, likes taking her time on things. This is most likely treasure scenario number two, and Brooke is using it to show Vanessa how much she loves her. All of this–the planning, the mapmaking, the secrecy–speak clearly of her love.

Heart lighter, Vanessa shoves the doors open and gasps.

A starry black sky twinkles above her, bursting with galaxies of blue and purple and silver, spiraling into reds and pinks and oranges. The whole universe is above her, and she has to hold back from reaching out a hand to touch it.

“It’s beautiful, huh?”

Vanessa looks in front of her, and there’s Brooke. A star in human form. She’s at the front of the planetarium seats, her smile blinding, the gold necklace Vanessa gave her tonight shining at her throat. Vanessa runs and throws herself into Brooke’s arms.

Brooke kisses the top of her head. “Happy anniversary.”

Vanessa pulls back and smiles at her. “This is amazing, Brooke. Seriously. Even though you had to fake injure yourself and put me in a horror movie to do it!” She swats Brooke’s arm gently, grinning when she pouts.

“Well, I had to get you inside here somehow! It seemed like the easiest thing!” Brooke shrugs with a huge grin.

“It was still mean.” Vanessa pouts. “But I love you anyway.”

Brooke blushes, actually blushes, because Vanessa loves her, and her heart fills with even more love for Brooke.

“I know feelings are easy for you,” Brooke says. “But I can’t always say mine as well as you, so I thought this would work. Because I love you so much, Vanessa.”

“I love you too, Brooke. This is perfect.”

Brooke grins. “Yeah. My friend Steve does the planetarium shows and said he could hook us up.”

Vanessa looks up to the control booth at the back of the planetarium, where Steve gives a wave before pressing something and slipping out of the booth. A smooth, slow song pours through the speakers, and Brooke extends a hand. “May I have this dance?”

“You may.” Vanessa giggles, letting Brooke pull her into the dance, swaying back and forth beneath the stars.

“You know,” Vanessa says, “for a minute I thought you were gonna propose.”

Brooke laughs, but then her face is suddenly serious, even worried. “Are you … disappointed that I didn’t?”

“No,” Vanessa says firmly. “I’m not saying I never want you to propose! I just–right now, I just wanna be with you. Marriage is a little sudden. But … someday.”

“Someday,” Brooke agrees. She pauses, a smile on her face. “It’s not a proposal, but I did want to ask you …”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I know your apartment lease is up, and I was wondering if you’d want to move in with me?”

“Yes!” Vanessa can already imagine nights cuddled up watching movies together and not having to go home after, because she already is home. Mornings waking up and making breakfast together, coming home to Brooke after a long day at the library.

“Yes,” Vanessa repeats, holding Brooke a little tighter.

Someday is someday, but that doesn’t matter right now. Because right now, they have each other, and a dance under the stars.

And Vanessa doesn’t need anything else.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #lesbian au #fluff #if you ever wanna be in love verse #athena2 #tw blood mention #concrit welcome #submission

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