fic: Drunk (1/1)
title: Drunk
fandom: Glee
pairing: Rachel/Will
word count: 1,822
rating: nc17
spoilers: Everything through Sectionals. Just without any of the Emma/Will stuff.
for: The Porn Battle IX; prompt: cheap beer
a/n: For _takemeaway_. I seriously loved writing Rachel/Will again.
The apartment is dark, and quiet. It's small; it would be cramped if he had more furniture. He'd left most of it behind with Terri in the other apartment, the one that looked like a Pottery Barn catalogue and felt like hell on Earth. This apartment looks . . . dead. Clean, hardly furnished. It's not a home.
That's better, for the moment. Home is getting the rug ripped out from under you, getting your gut bashed in by an anvil, watching your wife slit your own wrists.
Dead is better.
_
Eventually the practice room had emptied out, and it was just him and Rachel stacking the chairs that always seemed to be strewn around. The trophy stood expectantly between the door and the piano, which was littered with sheet music. Scrawls of chalk looped and jerked on the chalkboard. Forgotten water bottles caught the florescent lighting here and there.
Will stopped and looked around the room. It felt . . . full.
His eyes landed on Rachel, talking a mile a minute as she primly tugged up a knee sock before going back to stacking chairs. He smiled.
_
The TV sends a watery shine flickering over the living area; over the Craigslist couch, the beige shade of an Ikea lamp. The wrinkled label on a bottle of cheap beer, and the plane of Will's cheek with a day's worth of growth.
He rolls his neck from one side to the other and juts his hips forward to the edge of the cushion, slouching in deep.
_
"You were amazing," he said.
"Really?" She seemed like she was actually asking the question, not just confirming a fact she already knew.
"Yeah. Really, really amazing."
"Thank you." She smiled the eight million watt smile at him, and they stood for a second, just beaming. It felt like staring into the sun, looking at her smile like that.
_
Familiar knuckles crack against the door. The bottle dangles from his loose fingers when he looks through the peephole. He straightens and pauses for a minute. He stares at the roll of paper towels unraveling themselves on the kitchen counter. He opens the door.
_
"I wish you'd been there," she added, her chin ducking a little. She wrapped her fingers over the molded plastic back of the top in a waist-high stack of chairs in front of her.
"I know. Me too," he answered softly. Because she'd looked away he allowed himself to look up and study the way her bottom lip jutted out just a little. "I'm sorry, Rachel," he croaked out eventually.
_
She stands with her feet together and her hands at her sides. Her hair's swept back from her temples and clipped up with barrettes. Bright blue plastic. "Hi."
He just stands there, one hand hanging from the doorknob. If there were anything to be said, he'd say it. I'm sorry, Rachel, he thinks on repeat. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. One of her hands slides down his arm when she edges in past him.
He pivots as the door closes. His fingers trail over the deadbolt noncommittally before he sandwiches his hands, beer and all, between the door and the small of his back. She stands three feet away, watching him.
_
She shook her head and looked back up at him, the radiant smile now a fading twist of her mouth. "You aren’t going to leave again, are you?"
It was the first time he'd really considered it. He could have just left. Found a new apartment, a new town, a new school, and a whole new life. It would have been easier, so much easier to start over somewhere else where nobody knew him and there weren't reminders everywhere he looked that big chunks of his life had been completely destroyed by a glorified neck pillow.
_
His pulse jumps on the side of his neck and he leans forward to pull his hands out from behind him.
"It's late," he says quietly. She angles her chin in answer. He lifts the beer to his lips to drink and she closes the distance and wraps her hand around the neck of the bottle. Their fingers overlap. He lets his fall away. She turns and sets the bottle on the counter. She stops, and he looks at how her hair lays over her shoulders.
_
"I'm not leaving," he blurted finally. He never consciously came to that conclusion; it was just what he heard his voice say. The smile turned back up to blinding and Rachel stepped tentatively around the stack of chairs and approached him slowly.
_
He feels his lungs start to clench like fists in his chest. Suddenly he's standing an inch away from her and his hands brace on either side of hers on the edge of the counter. His head dips down and he takes in a thin breath. He sees her knuckles turn white and feels his blood start to pool.
_
He had barely gotten the "R" out when her arms closed around his waist and her cheek tucked into his shoulder. Will hummed softly under his breath and wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her back. It felt good, just for a second.
_
His hips shift forward and roll into the lowest curve of her back. She arches back. Her hair catches at the stubble on his cheek as he brings his face down closer to hers. A strangled breath breaks out of her mouth.
_
"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, when he felt her sigh shakily. Rachel pulled away and turned, wiping at an errant tear.
"Just . . . everything," she sighed. She didn't have to explain it to him; Will knew enough of what was going on with the kids to know that Rachel had been under fire at Sectionals.
"Hey," he said. He held her shoulders and bent until he caught her downcast eyes. "It'll be okay, Rach. I'm sure things'll blow over during winter break."
_
She turns in the cage of his arms and kisses him deep and slow, but he's impatient. The irritation of his fucked up life won't leave his mind, won't ever stop banging around his skull until the taste of her tongue and breath and skin and sweat get him drunk. She pulls and pushes herself away and her hands rest open on his sides and she bows her head against his chest.
He covers her hands with his and steps backward. One at a time through the dark until she's taking out the blue barrettes and laying them on his bedside table.
_
"Yeah, you're probably right. Thanks Mr. Schue." Rachel smiled and picked up her backpack from the piano bench and zipped it up. "See you next year," she added with a laugh as she slipped out the doors.
As Will packed up that day, he noticed Rachel's sweater lying across the top of the piano. He picked it up and tossed it in his bag before he locked up the class room.
_
The light from the TV flashes light gray over the zipper of her hoodie. His eyes are bleary suddenly, and the room starts to spin. It's the buzz, beer or whatever - her - setting in, and he moves forward and pulls the zipper down.
He peels off his t-shirt and drops it and feels her breath flushing out over his chest. He cups his hands around her face and tilts her up to look at him. She can't see him in the faint undulating light, just an outline of darkness.
_
"Hey, Rachel, it's Mr. Schue. You left your sweater in the class room the other day; I just wanted you to know I grabbed it so it doesn't end up in lost and found. Um, if you want to pick it up, or I can drop it off . . . just let me know. Okay, bye."
_
Her skin is soft, soft and she's warm and the weight of her on top as he lies on his back in bed and brushes her hair back off his face is light and perfect and distracting. She's young. God she's so fucking young but his hips jam up against her and she grinds back down and draws stinging lines down his arms with her fingernails.
_
The next afternoon he kicked a box out of the way and opened his door. "Hi," she said. She smiled but looked a little bit uncomfortable.
"Hey, yeah, I've got your sweater, just hang on a second," he said. He left the door open and jogged to the living room and grabbed her sweater from where it lay over the arm of his couch. When he got back to the door she was leaning ever so slightly inside and peering around. She leaned back out quickly but said before he could change the subject, "It's different."
He stopped and looked down at the soft yellow material in his hands. "Yeah. Yeah, it's uh . . ."
He met her eyes and forced a smile out quickly. "Here you go."
She took the sweater slowly from his hands. The knowing look in her eyes felt unbearable but also somehow welcome. "You live here alone," she stated softly.
He wanted to protest at first, but-
She was right. He swallowed and stared as Rachel worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn't say anything else, just reached out quickly and touched one of his empty hands before turning and walking away quickly.
_
He presses her thighs open takes one long, slow lick before pulling back and tracing around her opening. He presses his fingers inside, feels her stretch, leans in and sucks against her till she cries in the back of her throat. She shivers and gathers up fists of sheet, squirms back and forth away from his mouth.
She's young. She's too fucking young and she’s not supposed to be letting him do this to her. He leans back on his knees, his hands falling away from her thighs and hanging empty by his sides. He scrapes a hand through his hair and stares at her splayed open on his bed.
_
When Rachel came back the first time he was drunk. Bachelor pad and cheap beer and bad TV. That was what he had now. The next morning he couldn't remember what her excuse had been, just that his fingers had slid through her hair and down the side of her neck and they'd kissed.
"I'm sorry," he'd breathed out, devastated.
He did remember her cool fingers on his cheek and her brown eyes looking dark and forgiving.
_
She sits up and crawls forward, reaches up to let her fingertips flow lightly from his temples down his cheeks.
"Kiss me," she whispers against his lips. He does.
I'm sorry.
_