Happily Ever After
Title: Happily Ever After
Fandom: UnReal
Characters: Adam/Rachel
Rating: PG-13.
Notes: AU in which Adam and Rachel's story went a little differently. UnReal Prompt: "What if Adam didn’t listen to Quinn?”
The rain patters down on Adam’s umbrella, but he waits unmoving on the tarmac as her cab pulls up because he’s been ingrained with the blueprint of an English gentleman from a young age and some habits are hard to break (and some very, very easy). She steps out and she’s wildly animated for the hour, already layering out excuses and apologies. She’s making up some story about why it took her so long to get there, but he reads the true apology between the lines: I’m sorry I showed up at all, I’m sorry you fell in love with me, I’m sorry you’re wasting your energy on a woman who doesn’t deserve anything-
He silences her with a kiss. Starts it gradually, with a smile, and tilts his forehead against hers. “Don’t worry about it,” he breaths. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.” His lips are inches away from her, but he lets her close in the gap, her rain-soaked body flush against him.
For ten, maybe fifteen seconds, Rachel goes quiet. Completely. Mind and soul. It’s a wonderful sound, in his opinion.
Truthfully, he almost didn’t make it. He’d been positively ambushed by Quinn in his nearly-flawless escape from Everlasting. The conversation went something like this:
Quinn: But you know she’s mental, right? I mean, you’ve seen the footage.
Adam: I’ve seen your handiwork all over her, yes.
Quinn: My handiwork? Oh, please. You and I both know the only one who can tie Rachel into knots like that is Rachel. And this puppy love she has going on with you is fire on the gasoline.
Adam: I don’t need to hear this.
[As he walks away] Quinn: Adam.
[He comes to a complete stop and immediately regrets giving her that power, so he say nothing at all.]
Quinn: She’s done this before, you know.
[She walks a winding circle around him, like a cougar.]
Quinn: Last season. She and Jeremy ran away to Mexico and…well. You saw how that turned out. What you didn’t see was her year away. Metal ward. White jackets. You get the picture.
Adam: I’m not Jeremy.
Quinn: Then do Rachel a favor and don’t become him. Just stay. Finish your season. Then we’ll take it from there.
You can’t tell me what to do, he thinks as he seals off the kiss and looks at Rachel-his Rachel-and grins. “Shall we?” She’s ear to ear with her excitement and a hint of anxiety, but it lights up her entire face. At the end of the day, that’s what he craves. That coy smile-part danger, part skeptical, part I can’t believe this is happening. All Rachel.
“You ready?” he asks. He wants to sound far more confident that he does.
“No. But that’s half the fun of it, right?” Her smile still a hairsbreadth from his.
“Absolutely.”
---
They get in the private jet-private jet, that still hasn’t completely computed for Rachel-and they’re sitting across from each other. In separate seats. White, cushiony armchairs with seat belts. Staring at each other. Grinning like fucking school kids playing hooky for the first time.
Rachel breaks the ice first. “So you worried about what this is going to do for your reputation?” You can take the girl out of Everlasting, but you can’t take Everlasting out of the girl, and she’s still talking like she’s got a team of camera men behind her.
“Not even slightly.” Adam doesn’t miss a beat, his eyes locked on hers. “Are you?”
“What, me?” Rachel scoffs. “Yeah, running away with the suitor is actually a step up the crazy ladder for me.”
“So I’m a promotion?”
She shrugs, makes a meh noise, and says, “I think that remains to be seen, don’t you?”
The flight attendant (when she sees her, Rachel can’t help but self-deprecatingly wonder if this stick-like blonde thing has ever sucked Adam off mid-flight before, and hates the fact that she knows the answer is probably yes) steps out from the cockpit with a plastered on smile. “We have completed ascension, you are now safe to move about the cabin,” she says.
“Cool,” Rachel says, blandly.
“Thank you, Mandy,” Adam adds, and Rachel quietly hates that he uses her first name. She also sees that look in his eyes, that mischievous smirk-and in that second, she knows he knows she hates it. She manipulates him. He manipulates her. Tit for twat.
Blonde bimbo disappears again. Rachel and Adam lock eyes.
Within seconds, she’s in his chair, straddling him, and she feels his cool hands under her shirt, touching her warm skin. His mouth tastes clean, minty fresh, and his stupid bitter British tea that she (reluctantly) is starting to grow fond of. She’s buzzing with excitement as she feels them leave Everlasting behind them, ripping away from her like hooks in her skin. By time Adam helps her out of her constricting clothes, she’s feeling free, free, free. Adam gasps and moans her name softly into the shell of her ear and she never wants this feeling to end.
---
But, of course, it does.
Not right away. Adam has-what he calls-a small property in England and they spend the first couple days in bed. Fucking without cameras to spy on them. It’s a new feeling, kind of nice, and Rachel basks in her new-found privacy like a cat in a sun puddle.
But it doesn’t take long for reality to sink its cold teeth into her bones.
She starts having trouble sleeping, for one. First it’s too soundless, then it’s too cold, then the bed is too soft. She pries herself out of Adam’s arms, paces, and tries not to think about the deal of a life time she left back on Everlasting. Tries not to think about the show going on without her. Tries not to think about Quinn, bemoaning her wasted potential.
I mean, throwing it all away for some guy. How anti-feminist.
---
But then the tabloids start coming in. And her very fragile world crumbles around her.
---
Adam says things like Who really cares? and They’ll forget about it as soon as Paris Hilton has another wardrobe malfunction. But Rachel can’t stop thinking about it.
Adam doesn’t wake up to Rachel. He doesn’t wake up to a note. No text messages, no missed calls. She’s simply disappeared. He gets up, washes off, and gets dressed. Adam decides this is another game of hers and he’s ready to go on a Rachel-hunt when he opens the door.
Paparazzi. Everywhere.
“Cromwell,” One reporter says, shoving a microphone in his face. “Have you run away from Everlasting?”
“Did you get cold feet?”
“Will you return to the show?”
Then he sees him. Jeremy. Holding up his camera, aiming it like a loaded gun at Adam. And, instantly, Adam knows where this PR shitstorm has come from. He knows who’s stirring the pot. And, somehow, he knew this was coming. Because Rachel refuses to be happy, and he should’ve known better than to think he wouldn’t wake up one day with the tables turned.
“No,” he says, flashing one of his pretty-boy smiles to Jeremy’s camera. “I haven’t run away. I’m simply preparing to make my final decision. I look forward to seeing each one of my girls here. In England. Where I can decide which women I will spend my life with.”
He stares right at Jeremy’s camera as he says this and the media erupts again with questions. But all he can think about is how angry he is and how much he wants to get back at her. At the same time, this is the game they play. The game they will always play.
---
Somewhere, in a room with a TV screen, headphones, and her eyes glued to Adam Cromwell’s jawline, Rachel is comfortably miserable.
Fandom: UnReal
Characters: Adam/Rachel
Rating: PG-13.
Notes: AU in which Adam and Rachel's story went a little differently. UnReal Prompt: "What if Adam didn’t listen to Quinn?”
The rain patters down on Adam’s umbrella, but he waits unmoving on the tarmac as her cab pulls up because he’s been ingrained with the blueprint of an English gentleman from a young age and some habits are hard to break (and some very, very easy). She steps out and she’s wildly animated for the hour, already layering out excuses and apologies. She’s making up some story about why it took her so long to get there, but he reads the true apology between the lines: I’m sorry I showed up at all, I’m sorry you fell in love with me, I’m sorry you’re wasting your energy on a woman who doesn’t deserve anything-
He silences her with a kiss. Starts it gradually, with a smile, and tilts his forehead against hers. “Don’t worry about it,” he breaths. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.” His lips are inches away from her, but he lets her close in the gap, her rain-soaked body flush against him.
For ten, maybe fifteen seconds, Rachel goes quiet. Completely. Mind and soul. It’s a wonderful sound, in his opinion.
Truthfully, he almost didn’t make it. He’d been positively ambushed by Quinn in his nearly-flawless escape from Everlasting. The conversation went something like this:
Quinn: But you know she’s mental, right? I mean, you’ve seen the footage.
Adam: I’ve seen your handiwork all over her, yes.
Quinn: My handiwork? Oh, please. You and I both know the only one who can tie Rachel into knots like that is Rachel. And this puppy love she has going on with you is fire on the gasoline.
Adam: I don’t need to hear this.
[As he walks away] Quinn: Adam.
[He comes to a complete stop and immediately regrets giving her that power, so he say nothing at all.]
Quinn: She’s done this before, you know.
[She walks a winding circle around him, like a cougar.]
Quinn: Last season. She and Jeremy ran away to Mexico and…well. You saw how that turned out. What you didn’t see was her year away. Metal ward. White jackets. You get the picture.
Adam: I’m not Jeremy.
Quinn: Then do Rachel a favor and don’t become him. Just stay. Finish your season. Then we’ll take it from there.
You can’t tell me what to do, he thinks as he seals off the kiss and looks at Rachel-his Rachel-and grins. “Shall we?” She’s ear to ear with her excitement and a hint of anxiety, but it lights up her entire face. At the end of the day, that’s what he craves. That coy smile-part danger, part skeptical, part I can’t believe this is happening. All Rachel.
“You ready?” he asks. He wants to sound far more confident that he does.
“No. But that’s half the fun of it, right?” Her smile still a hairsbreadth from his.
“Absolutely.”
---
They get in the private jet-private jet, that still hasn’t completely computed for Rachel-and they’re sitting across from each other. In separate seats. White, cushiony armchairs with seat belts. Staring at each other. Grinning like fucking school kids playing hooky for the first time.
Rachel breaks the ice first. “So you worried about what this is going to do for your reputation?” You can take the girl out of Everlasting, but you can’t take Everlasting out of the girl, and she’s still talking like she’s got a team of camera men behind her.
“Not even slightly.” Adam doesn’t miss a beat, his eyes locked on hers. “Are you?”
“What, me?” Rachel scoffs. “Yeah, running away with the suitor is actually a step up the crazy ladder for me.”
“So I’m a promotion?”
She shrugs, makes a meh noise, and says, “I think that remains to be seen, don’t you?”
The flight attendant (when she sees her, Rachel can’t help but self-deprecatingly wonder if this stick-like blonde thing has ever sucked Adam off mid-flight before, and hates the fact that she knows the answer is probably yes) steps out from the cockpit with a plastered on smile. “We have completed ascension, you are now safe to move about the cabin,” she says.
“Cool,” Rachel says, blandly.
“Thank you, Mandy,” Adam adds, and Rachel quietly hates that he uses her first name. She also sees that look in his eyes, that mischievous smirk-and in that second, she knows he knows she hates it. She manipulates him. He manipulates her. Tit for twat.
Blonde bimbo disappears again. Rachel and Adam lock eyes.
Within seconds, she’s in his chair, straddling him, and she feels his cool hands under her shirt, touching her warm skin. His mouth tastes clean, minty fresh, and his stupid bitter British tea that she (reluctantly) is starting to grow fond of. She’s buzzing with excitement as she feels them leave Everlasting behind them, ripping away from her like hooks in her skin. By time Adam helps her out of her constricting clothes, she’s feeling free, free, free. Adam gasps and moans her name softly into the shell of her ear and she never wants this feeling to end.
---
But, of course, it does.
Not right away. Adam has-what he calls-a small property in England and they spend the first couple days in bed. Fucking without cameras to spy on them. It’s a new feeling, kind of nice, and Rachel basks in her new-found privacy like a cat in a sun puddle.
But it doesn’t take long for reality to sink its cold teeth into her bones.
She starts having trouble sleeping, for one. First it’s too soundless, then it’s too cold, then the bed is too soft. She pries herself out of Adam’s arms, paces, and tries not to think about the deal of a life time she left back on Everlasting. Tries not to think about the show going on without her. Tries not to think about Quinn, bemoaning her wasted potential.
I mean, throwing it all away for some guy. How anti-feminist.
---
But then the tabloids start coming in. And her very fragile world crumbles around her.
---
Adam says things like Who really cares? and They’ll forget about it as soon as Paris Hilton has another wardrobe malfunction. But Rachel can’t stop thinking about it.
Adam doesn’t wake up to Rachel. He doesn’t wake up to a note. No text messages, no missed calls. She’s simply disappeared. He gets up, washes off, and gets dressed. Adam decides this is another game of hers and he’s ready to go on a Rachel-hunt when he opens the door.
Paparazzi. Everywhere.
“Cromwell,” One reporter says, shoving a microphone in his face. “Have you run away from Everlasting?”
“Did you get cold feet?”
“Will you return to the show?”
Then he sees him. Jeremy. Holding up his camera, aiming it like a loaded gun at Adam. And, instantly, Adam knows where this PR shitstorm has come from. He knows who’s stirring the pot. And, somehow, he knew this was coming. Because Rachel refuses to be happy, and he should’ve known better than to think he wouldn’t wake up one day with the tables turned.
“No,” he says, flashing one of his pretty-boy smiles to Jeremy’s camera. “I haven’t run away. I’m simply preparing to make my final decision. I look forward to seeing each one of my girls here. In England. Where I can decide which women I will spend my life with.”
He stares right at Jeremy’s camera as he says this and the media erupts again with questions. But all he can think about is how angry he is and how much he wants to get back at her. At the same time, this is the game they play. The game they will always play.
---
Somewhere, in a room with a TV screen, headphones, and her eyes glued to Adam Cromwell’s jawline, Rachel is comfortably miserable.