(You're Going To) Be My Bruise, Jesse, FRM
Title: (You’re Going To) Be My Bruise
Fandom: Glee
Character/Pairing: Jesse (Jesse/Rachel, Jesse/Shelby)
Disclaimer: Without prejudice, the recognisable characters used herein are the property of Ryan Murphy and Fox and are used without permission and not for profit. Please don't sue, I'll give them back (mostly unharmed) and all I have to my name is a mortgage, pretty hefty student debt and a seven-year-old toaster, so a lawsuit would be a real waste of money!.
Rating: FRM, just in case.
Content Warning: Angst, definitely angst. You could read it as dub-con (more so in one case than the other).
Spoilers: Specifically, for the back 9 episodes, I suppose.
Summary: Is this what it feels like to take something that was never yours to have?
Author's Notes: This is a companion of sorts, I guess, to Pretty Lies for A Pretty Life (which was from Rachel's POV). Also, in my head, Jesse/Shelby is canon (but in a borderline abusive kind of a way). That’s basically what you need to know to understand this. Also, I live in a world where 1.15 went a little differently, or, at least in a world where she eventually said yes to him. Yes, title is shamelessly ripped from Spring Awakening. No, I won’t apologise for that.
Unbetaed, so mistakes are mine and mine alone.
(You’re Going To) Be My Bruise
The room couldn’t be more different - it’s yellow and bright and very much the burgeoning star, the princess’s, room, the bedroom of a girl not yet a woman - the circumstances polar opposite, the roles reversed, and he’s trying very hard to focus, because this is no different to any other performance, really, and he’s just got to get it together. But then she’s there, looking up at him, and the eyes are halfway between ‘teach me’ and ‘don’t hurt me’ and he doesn’t know which is worse, and even the best actor in the world couldn’t help what happens next.
Because the past is the past, and it’s always there waiting to take you whole, and it chooses just this moment to do exactly that. Which is why, all of sudden, he’s flat on his back, sixteen years old and only just that, and the woman above him has the exact bone structure, the same hair, the same damned face as the girl beneath him now.
He knows the fear in her eyes, he’d never tell, but he felt it too. Did she see that? Did she ever register just how afraid he actually was? Or was it another case of her getting what she wants and hang what it does to anyone else?
He’s got to focus, otherwise Rachel is going to sense that something isn’t right, if she hasn’t already.
And he knows he’s rougher than he should be, but his finesse has been stolen from him by the memories that cloud his judgement. He can’t bear to see her face pinch in pain, so he keeps his eyes closed, but that just drives him to be rougher, harder, faster.
[How do you like that you bitch?]
With his eyes closed, the differences between their faces blurs to nothing, and he’s not punishing the wrong person at all.
She’d had no hesitation, every movement had been considered, deliberate. She hadn’t even stopped to ask if he’d done it before. She no doubt knew he hadn’t, she was after all the one who absorbed most of his free time. She just took what she wanted.
[What goes around comes around.]
He wanted to make this so different for her, so different from his own experience, he wanted to be kind and he wanted to stay afterwards and he wanted so much to be able to tell her he loved her.
He can’t. Even when he thinks she might be crying, he can’t. She doesn’t say stop, maybe because she’s always been counselled that it’s supposed to hurt the first time, and he wants to tell her - not this much, it’s not meant to be like this - but he can’t.
Because it was for him. Because he did say stop, and she didn’t, because it may not have hurt physically, but inside it was tearing him apart. Because someone else needs to know what it feels like. Because it’s scaring him that he can’t stop, that he doesn’t know if he could even if she did ask him to.
It’s breaking him how utterly still and silent she is, and he knows she’s going to be left with nothing but an overwhelming sense of shame about this, and if he thinks any harder about that, about her, then he’s going to cry as well.
For the sixteen year old he never actually got the chance to be, for the sixteen year old she’s never going to get to be because of him. She’s younger now than he was then, and she trusts him, he’s older, he knows better. He should know better.
She shouldn’t trust him, she shouldn’t have given him this, and he wishes she hadn’t. The loving, tender experience she had in mind - that she deserved, that everyone deserves - was in tatters. Did she trust him now? Did she love him now? Did it matter?
[Is this how it feels to take something that was never yours to have?]
She worked her way around his defences with an expert mouth and tongue, years of practice on her side, and he’s drawing parallels in his own mind to the way he worked his way around Rachel’s defences, only he managed it with words, rather than bruises.
He still feels his body betrayed him, reacting the way it did, making it easy on her to make him come completely undone, making it easy for her to make herself the centre of his universe, as if she hadn’t practically been there anyway. It’s the same way his body is betraying him now, acting on instinct, impulse, even though deep down it’s wrong. It’ll always be wrong, it’ll always be for the wrong reasons.
Experiences like this, they last a long time, especially for girls like her - and boys like him, he reasons - they last forever. They twist and distort and change the way you view things - important things like love, sex, romance - the way you treat people. He knows it’s not an excuse, not for what he’s doing and not for anything he’s done, but it’s a reason, a reason no one ever looked hard enough to see, no one ever cared enough to ask.
There’s not a performance in the world that could ever leave him feeling quite as exposed as he does when it’s all over and all she does is roll over onto her side, facing away from him. Making other people hurt doesn’t make you hurt any less, how many times should he have learned that lesson by now?
The room is beginning to make his eyes hurt, and he’s tired, but he’s doubtful she’s going to want him there when she wakes up in the morning. He’s not even sure she knows he’s still there. There’s so many things he should say - that he needs to say - and he can’t make himself choose which is the most important. He settles for her name, a light kiss on her shoulder, and pulling a blanket over her. He ignores her tremble, the suppressed sob in her throat, however hard that is to do.
It’s the least he can do, it’s the dignity he wasn’t afforded, it’s the only way he really has of softening the blow. She hadn’t done it for him - she left him naked, bruised, disoriented and in no doubt as to who was calling the shots. Everything he has, he has because of her, everything he is, he is because of her, and he supposes some people would call that an unacceptable level of power. It’s just always been the way it is.
He can’t tell if it’s a real backwards glance, or if he’s just checking he didn’t leave anything that would remind her of him, but the fact remains that he looks over his shoulder as he leaves.
[And so the cycle goes on]
Fandom: Glee
Character/Pairing: Jesse (Jesse/Rachel, Jesse/Shelby)
Disclaimer: Without prejudice, the recognisable characters used herein are the property of Ryan Murphy and Fox and are used without permission and not for profit. Please don't sue, I'll give them back (mostly unharmed) and all I have to my name is a mortgage, pretty hefty student debt and a seven-year-old toaster, so a lawsuit would be a real waste of money!.
Rating: FRM, just in case.
Content Warning: Angst, definitely angst. You could read it as dub-con (more so in one case than the other).
Spoilers: Specifically, for the back 9 episodes, I suppose.
Summary: Is this what it feels like to take something that was never yours to have?
Author's Notes: This is a companion of sorts, I guess, to Pretty Lies for A Pretty Life (which was from Rachel's POV). Also, in my head, Jesse/Shelby is canon (but in a borderline abusive kind of a way). That’s basically what you need to know to understand this. Also, I live in a world where 1.15 went a little differently, or, at least in a world where she eventually said yes to him. Yes, title is shamelessly ripped from Spring Awakening. No, I won’t apologise for that.
Unbetaed, so mistakes are mine and mine alone.
(You’re Going To) Be My Bruise
The room couldn’t be more different - it’s yellow and bright and very much the burgeoning star, the princess’s, room, the bedroom of a girl not yet a woman - the circumstances polar opposite, the roles reversed, and he’s trying very hard to focus, because this is no different to any other performance, really, and he’s just got to get it together. But then she’s there, looking up at him, and the eyes are halfway between ‘teach me’ and ‘don’t hurt me’ and he doesn’t know which is worse, and even the best actor in the world couldn’t help what happens next.
Because the past is the past, and it’s always there waiting to take you whole, and it chooses just this moment to do exactly that. Which is why, all of sudden, he’s flat on his back, sixteen years old and only just that, and the woman above him has the exact bone structure, the same hair, the same damned face as the girl beneath him now.
He knows the fear in her eyes, he’d never tell, but he felt it too. Did she see that? Did she ever register just how afraid he actually was? Or was it another case of her getting what she wants and hang what it does to anyone else?
He’s got to focus, otherwise Rachel is going to sense that something isn’t right, if she hasn’t already.
And he knows he’s rougher than he should be, but his finesse has been stolen from him by the memories that cloud his judgement. He can’t bear to see her face pinch in pain, so he keeps his eyes closed, but that just drives him to be rougher, harder, faster.
[How do you like that you bitch?]
With his eyes closed, the differences between their faces blurs to nothing, and he’s not punishing the wrong person at all.
She’d had no hesitation, every movement had been considered, deliberate. She hadn’t even stopped to ask if he’d done it before. She no doubt knew he hadn’t, she was after all the one who absorbed most of his free time. She just took what she wanted.
[What goes around comes around.]
He wanted to make this so different for her, so different from his own experience, he wanted to be kind and he wanted to stay afterwards and he wanted so much to be able to tell her he loved her.
He can’t. Even when he thinks she might be crying, he can’t. She doesn’t say stop, maybe because she’s always been counselled that it’s supposed to hurt the first time, and he wants to tell her - not this much, it’s not meant to be like this - but he can’t.
Because it was for him. Because he did say stop, and she didn’t, because it may not have hurt physically, but inside it was tearing him apart. Because someone else needs to know what it feels like. Because it’s scaring him that he can’t stop, that he doesn’t know if he could even if she did ask him to.
It’s breaking him how utterly still and silent she is, and he knows she’s going to be left with nothing but an overwhelming sense of shame about this, and if he thinks any harder about that, about her, then he’s going to cry as well.
For the sixteen year old he never actually got the chance to be, for the sixteen year old she’s never going to get to be because of him. She’s younger now than he was then, and she trusts him, he’s older, he knows better. He should know better.
She shouldn’t trust him, she shouldn’t have given him this, and he wishes she hadn’t. The loving, tender experience she had in mind - that she deserved, that everyone deserves - was in tatters. Did she trust him now? Did she love him now? Did it matter?
[Is this how it feels to take something that was never yours to have?]
She worked her way around his defences with an expert mouth and tongue, years of practice on her side, and he’s drawing parallels in his own mind to the way he worked his way around Rachel’s defences, only he managed it with words, rather than bruises.
He still feels his body betrayed him, reacting the way it did, making it easy on her to make him come completely undone, making it easy for her to make herself the centre of his universe, as if she hadn’t practically been there anyway. It’s the same way his body is betraying him now, acting on instinct, impulse, even though deep down it’s wrong. It’ll always be wrong, it’ll always be for the wrong reasons.
Experiences like this, they last a long time, especially for girls like her - and boys like him, he reasons - they last forever. They twist and distort and change the way you view things - important things like love, sex, romance - the way you treat people. He knows it’s not an excuse, not for what he’s doing and not for anything he’s done, but it’s a reason, a reason no one ever looked hard enough to see, no one ever cared enough to ask.
There’s not a performance in the world that could ever leave him feeling quite as exposed as he does when it’s all over and all she does is roll over onto her side, facing away from him. Making other people hurt doesn’t make you hurt any less, how many times should he have learned that lesson by now?
The room is beginning to make his eyes hurt, and he’s tired, but he’s doubtful she’s going to want him there when she wakes up in the morning. He’s not even sure she knows he’s still there. There’s so many things he should say - that he needs to say - and he can’t make himself choose which is the most important. He settles for her name, a light kiss on her shoulder, and pulling a blanket over her. He ignores her tremble, the suppressed sob in her throat, however hard that is to do.
It’s the least he can do, it’s the dignity he wasn’t afforded, it’s the only way he really has of softening the blow. She hadn’t done it for him - she left him naked, bruised, disoriented and in no doubt as to who was calling the shots. Everything he has, he has because of her, everything he is, he is because of her, and he supposes some people would call that an unacceptable level of power. It’s just always been the way it is.
He can’t tell if it’s a real backwards glance, or if he’s just checking he didn’t leave anything that would remind her of him, but the fact remains that he looks over his shoulder as he leaves.
[And so the cycle goes on]