FIC: Just a Little Insight (5/?) Popular, Sam/Brooke
Just A Little Insight (5/?)
By Misty Flores
Teaser: It was the sharp realization, sitting at that dinner table, as soon as Harrison had chosen her and Sam's eyes welled up with tears, that for all her protestations of sisterly love to the world about Sam, she was incredibly, hopelessly, desperately, IN love with her. There was enough difference in that statement to completely destroy any sense of stability she had.
Series: Popular, Sam/Brooke, Brooke/other, Sam/other
Spoilers: Post SII
CHAPTERS
Prologue | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
--
Part V. You Begin To Wonder Why You Came
There had been several moments in Brooke's short but colorful life where she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole.
Never before had she wished so fervently that that exact thing would happen, and that a roaring fire would also come up from the bowels of hell and incinerate her to boot.
The horror that she felt had mingled nicely with the panic, and it had left her dumb and frozen, standing helplessly in nothing but a sheet as Sam wavered in the room, absorbing everything.
Luminous brown eyes took her in, following the line of her body from the toes to her horrified, guilty expression, to the unmade bed and the other naked girl sitting on top of it.
It seemed as if they were all frozen in time, and Brooke had no idea how to snap any of them out of it.
"Okay..." Abby began, scooting on all fours off the bed, taking care to always be facing their intruder. "Sam, this isn't what it looks like. Okay, it is, but..."
Shaken out of her shock, Sam suddenly came to life, heading moving side to side before her mouth opened and closed and then, suddenly, she back pedaled out of the room, shutting it with a slam.
Throat dry, Brooke managed only a surprised squeak, so it was Abby, blinking and straightening, reaching for a comforter, who managed the obvious. "That went better than I thought it would."
Immediately, Brooke was treated to a second heart attack when the door slammed open again, and Sam barged back in.
"NO!" she barked, eyes red and face impossibly flushed. "No. NO NO! You do NOT get off this easy."
"Sam," she managed, raspy and thick. "I didn't-"
"NO!" Sam said again, bright eyes gleaming with rage. "I told you to lay the hell OFF of her," she snapped, and her voice was LOUD, so loud that Brooke found herself staring wide-eyed at the door.
"Sam," she tried again, "If you want to do this, maybe we should shut the-"
Those dark eyes turned on her. "How could you do this?! WHY? BROOKE?! WHY WITH HER?!"
In the midst of covering herself, Abby found the moment to take exception. "What the hell does that mean?!"
Brooke tried hard to force the lump of emotion past her throat, and found her horror mounting when the commotion attracted both Jess and Mallory, in varied states of sleepy casualness, and Christelle, keys in her hand, fully clothed and wide-eyed beneath her dirty bangs. The girls crowded in the door, and Brooke could only draw her sheet around her further.
"What the hell do you THINK it means, Abby?!" Sam snarled. "I asked ONE thing from you. ONE. All I asked you to do was to stay the hell away from Brooke-"
"Because you OWN her?!" Abby shouted back, no longer caring she was naked.
Arms crossed over her breasts, Brooke was especially distressed to discover that Rebecca was now in the doorway as well.
"What's going on?" she asked, and Sam glanced back at her for only a half a second, before ignoring her, instead stepping toward Abby.
"Well, that's what this about, right? Abby? You had to bang Brooke because I said you couldn't."
A prickle of insecurity wormed it's way into irritation. "You know," she managed, voice steadying. "I am in the room. I can speak for myself."
"Exactly," Abby agreed, colored eyes blazing, back straight, shoving an arm in her direction. "And if I remember correctly, I'm not the one that started it!"
Just like that, all attention shifted to her. Her headache was rapidly overcoming anything else, and Brooke brought a palm to her flushed cheeks, staring hopefully at the floor. Nothing. No crack, no swallowing her whole.
"You're lying," Sam whispered, deadly even, and Brooke's head shot up.
"No, Sam," she managed, as poised as she could be, naked and hung over. "She's not."
Just like that, she remembered. She remembered the liquor and the walk home, she remembered the heavy flirtation and she remembered pressing Abby against a building, furious and drunk and suddenly uncaring.
Sam only stared at her, and Brooke found herself suddenly trying hard to resist the urge to cry.
"Sam," she tried, private and soft, trying to plead with her with her eyes. "Sam, just listen-"
"What is the big deal anyway, Sam?" It was Rebecca that broke in, stepping into the room. "She's your sister, not your god-damned girlfriend."
"She's not my sister," Brooke broke in, only to realize Sam had just said the exact same thing. Staring at her in surprise, Brooke tried to look for any expression that would give her any hope in discovering what Sam was feeling, but all she saw was that overwhelming anger.
"You know, I think we should go," Brooke heard Christelle say, before Mallory smacked her on the shoulder, effectively shutting her up.
"That's what this is about, isn't it?" Abby said suddenly, realization dawning into her tone. Brooke stared at her beseechingly, but her partner didn't look in her direction, too lost in her battle with Sam. "It's not about fucking your sister. This is about the same thing that it's always been with you, isn't it, Sam?"
"Shut the hell up, Abby," Sam said, dark and dangerous, and Brooke, like the others, was lost in the sudden tension.
"You're pissed for the same damn reason that you've always had a problem with me. You can't stand the fact, that just like Rebecca, I got there first."
"You bitch!" It was enough. Sam lunged, and Brooke's sheet dropped as she scrambled over the bed, wrapping a long arm around Abby's naked waist, ducking to keep out of the way of the flailing limbs as Abby fought back, violent and furious.
"You guys!" she barked, dragging Abby back. "STOP IT!"
Rebecca had managed to grab hold of Sam, wrapping both hands around Sam's waist and scrambling back, working as furiously as Brooke to try to get them separated.
And suddenly, Rebecca had had enough.
"That's it," she snapped, dropping Sam so suddenly Sam nearly landed on her ass, hands up in a surrendering position. "Kill each other. I don't care."
"Rebecca," Sam managed, but the blazing green eyes only stared at her with a vivid sort of fury.
"And YOU," she hissed, pointing a finger at her girlfriend. "Stay the HELL away from me."
Arms still around the suddenly lax Abby, Brooke stared helplessly as Sam looked at them both, and suddenly scrambled to her feet, chasing after Rebecca.
The room was dead quiet.
Breathing hard, Brooke released Abby, sharing a long, intense stare with the other girl, before she realized they still had an audience.
When she looked at the three girls in the doorway, Christelle suddenly remembered her manners. "We'll just... let you get dressed," she said, and shoved the other two out.
Deflated, Brooke was suddenly weak. Palm to her forehead, she leaned back, slumping against the wall for support.
"Oh my God," she breathed.
Abby didn't say much of anything at all. Locking eyes intensely, she simply sighed and then turned away, reaching for her clothes.
--
"You know?" Jess said, legs propped up on a nearby table, shoulder serving as an headrest for her girlfriend Mallory. "I knew adjoining motel rooms was a bad idea. I just knew it. Lesbian drama is not limited to a fourth wall."
"Abby, seriously, what the fuck?" That was Christelle who spoke up, glancing up from a book to stare down the disheveled girl who was now sitting uncaringly on the sofa, flipping through channels on the cheap television set. "What the hell did I tell you about LOCKING THE DOOR if you were gonna go insist on banging Sam's sister."
"They're not sisters," Abby snarled, glancing at her over her shoulder. "If that were the problem, Rebecca wouldn't be in there right now breaking up with Sam."
The shouting was getting ridiculous, and the fact that the thin door was closed did nothing to smother the sounds of Rebecca laying into Sam.
Curled into a ball on the other end of the sofa, Brooke had never felt so miserable in her life.
"God, this is all my fault," she managed, rubbing circles into her eyes.
"No," Abby said, turning to look at her, expression serious. "It's not, Brooke. This has been building for a while. You're just the straw that broke the redhead's back."
"No, YOU'RE the straw that broke the red-head's back," Christelle said, once again lowering her book. "It's not like Brooke KNEW what was going on, Abby. You did. And you shouldn't even be here right now. If Sam and Rebecca come out of there and see you two sitting together on the couch there's going to be a round two, and I'm way too hungover to deal with that shit."
"Then you leave," Abby barked, picking up the remote again. "I'm way too hung over to even try to deal with the sun right now."
"I knew it was a bad idea for Brooke to come," Jess mumbled. Brooke blinked, nauseous pit in her stomach literally growing. "No offense, Brooke. But... the rest of us saw this real life L Word coming a mile away."
"What do you mean?" Brooke asked, weak and soft. The entire room of lesbians stared at her, and only Abby finally sighed, turning toward her.
"Sam went from never mentioning your name at all before Christmas break, to coming back after the New Year and never shutting up about you. It was weird, and Rebecca started to get a little uneasy, but Sam was too busy IM'ing you to notice."
Brooke closed her eyes and winced, head falling back onto the couch.
"Not that we don't understand the obsession," Christelle said, trying hard to be nice. "You're very hot."
"We just figured it was a crush on a straight girl," Abby finished, and when Brooke opened her eyes to stare at her, found the other girl wearing an oddly vulnerable expression. "I think that the fact that you aren't completely opposed to the same sex drove Rebecca over the edge."
"Are you gay, Brooke?" Jess asked, and Brooke blinked, suddenly uncomfortable.
"That's so not an appropriate question," Christelle said, not lifting her eyes from her book.
"SHE'S NOT YOUR SISTER, SAM!" The shouting caused them all to jump, and Brooke found the knives sliding into her brain suddenly that much sharper. "You don't LOOK at her like she's your sister, you don't TALK to her like she's your sister-"
"Oh, God," Brooke breathed, and suddenly scrambled to her feet, unable to hear any more. "I gotta go. I completely ruined this-"
"Brooke, where are you going?" Abby asked, and Brooke ignored her, weaving dizzily to her room.
"I have to go," she said again, trying to focus on getting to the door. "I need to leave-"
"Brooke, come on-"
The door burst open, and she nearly ran into a flurry of curls and green eyes.
Stopping short, Brooke found herself overwhelmed with the presence of Rebecca, as the other girl stared at her, looked her up and down with such hurt and conviction and HATRED that Brooke found she could do nothing but wait for it to end.
And then Rebecca moved away from her, to the door of the motel room, grabbing her keys and jerking the doorknob, heading out.
"Rebecca, wait-" Already, Christelle was scrambling up after her, and Brooke was left behind, to stare at the open room, with Sam still in it.
Unable to help herself, she walked carefully, eyes on the brunette with her back towards her, staring out the window. Closing the door as gently as she could behind her, Brooke tried to process what she was about to do.
Her heart was beating so fast, and so much had happened in so short a time, she couldn't think straight. She tried to speak, and yet she had no voice. Swallowing, trying to get some moisture in, Brooke stared helplessly at Sam, arms crossed in front of her, feeling impossibly small.
"Sam," she managed, a thick croak. "Sam, I'm..."
In front of her, Sam's form stiffened, and the words died on her lips. Turning slowly, Brooke finally caught sight of tear-streaked eyes, a quivering mouth, and never before, had she seen Sam so closen in.
"This is all your fault," Sam whispered, and that sentence, just that sentence, was like a dagger slicing into her heart. "Why her, Brooke? Why out of everyone?" A lone tear began to drip down Sam's cheek, like a lone sparkling diamond. "Was it to hurt me?"
"Hurt you?" Brooke repeated, dizzily overwhelmed. "I don't under-"
"You just couldn't leave well enough alone, right? It always has to be about Brooke."
"Sam," she tried again.
"You're not even GAY, Brooke!" Sam's words were edged in ice. "And you just had to go bang the one girl I hate."
Brooke blinked, the words so hurtful, and inside her, she kept hurting, deeper and deeper. "I see," she managed. "So... forget that my first time with a girl is something I barely remember when I was drunk and pissed. Forget that I've never had a sexual encounter with another women and I might be a little freaked out about this - no! This is about poor SAM! That's great!"
"Excuse me?"
"Yes, excuse you, Sam!" Coming forward, Brooke couldn't help herself, wiping furious tears from her suddenly stinging eyes. "So it doesn’t matter that I'm confused and scared and could possibly need my sister right now-"
"Oh, please. We're not sisters," Sam snapped back, evenly and hurtfully. "I think THAT much has been established."
Brooke stared at her, stunned. "Nice," she whispered.
"And when has it EVER come up that you could possibly want to sleep with a girl? Because the Brooke I know? A LITTLE obsessed with the boys!"
"Well, you know what, Sammy? Maybe you never really knew me."
"Yeah, I think that's obvious."
She was less than a foot away from the girl she was hopelessly, desperately in love with, and never, had she felt farther away from her than she did at that moment.
"I think I should go," she whispered, nodding with her own conviction. "I'm sorry for ruining your Spring Break with my sexual identity crisis."
Without waiting for Sam's reaction, Brooke reached up and wiped at the tears gathering underneath her eyes, and turned, walking away as quickly as she could.
Sam didn't come after her. Brooke didn't expect her to.
--
"You didn’t have to come with me."
Sitting beside her, doing her best to remain perfectly still, Abby moved her head an inch in her direction, dark eyeglasses protecting her eyes as much as they could from the bright Florida sunlight.
"It's fine," Abby answered uneasily, clearly nauseous. "I made the bed, I might as well take it to the airport."
Brooke smiled in spite of herself, the numbness breaking down just slightly to allow for that bit of humor to pervade. The taxi driver blasted his IPOD, some Spanish sort of funky reggae mix, and Brooke could concentrate on little more than trying to stand the hang over headache.
"Brooke," she heard, and turned back to Abby. "Are you gay?"
Licking her lips, Brooke unscrewed the cap of her water bottle, taking in a long drink before letting out a labored sigh.
"I think so," she whispered finally, and her heart thudded darkly at her in response. "I don't know... I've thought about it."
Abby considered that carefully, and then took the water bottle Brooke held out, thanking her with a weak smile. "I take it Sam had no idea."
Brooke's mouth turned down into a sour frown, thankful her eyes were covered by the dark glasses. "No," she said evenly. "I mean, I mentioned it once, a few years ago. But it was in this group and I don't think anyone heard me... No," she said again. "She didn't know. But no one did."
"Oh." Abby settled her head back against the headrest, and Brooke turned, watching the traffic they passed by. "None of my family knows." Head swiveling, Brooke eyed the other girl. "Back home, I'm just... this boy crazy, insane little rich girl. Mom would die, and umm... Dad wouldn't stand for it, so... it's why I went away to college."
"Will you ever tell them?"
Scratching at her ear, Abby shrugged, and let the conversation die.
Brooke pressed her lips together, turning back toward the other girl. "I'm sorry I seduced you, Abby. If I had known it was gonna turn out like this-"
"I would have done it anyway." Abby's grin was small, but sincere. "Brooke, I wanted to sleep with you since the moment I saw you coming through the airport. The fact that I got to was a very welcome surprise. I'm just sorry that your first time with a girl was a drunk mess of a night."
Brooke laughed lightly, and nearly cried from the release of emotion. "Well, the parts I remember were good."
"Thanks, back at ya," Abby snorted, and then fell quiet again.
"Why does Sam hate you so much?" Brooke asked, suddenly innately curious.
Abby shrugged. "For the reason I said," she said, resigned. "Because I slept with Rebecca first, and Sam knows I never got over her, and if I had a chance of taking her away from her, I would."
It was honest, and surprising, and Brooke had no response for that but a careful nod.
"How long have you been in love with Sam?"
Her first instinct was to deny the question, but one look at Abby's knowing frown was enough to let any argument die. Blowing out her breath, she closed her eyes and felt terribly fragile. "I don't know," she whispered. "Maybe a couple years. I didn't realize it until prom night, and then seconds later I got hit by my best friend trying to run me over with her car and spent two months in a coma. It was a really eventful night."
"Wow."
"Yeah," she managed.
"Sam told us about the accident," Abby said. "She said it was the worst night of her life."
Brooke's eyes closed, unable to consider what that meant. "Well," she whispered, "That makes two of us."
"Hey Brooke." Opening her eyes, Brooke turned and looked at the other girl, equally pale, equally tired. "You know, if it were any other situation I probably would have asked to see you again."
She smiled, warmed by the heartfelt admission. "If it were any other situation, I would have said yes."
Abby stared at her, and suddenly, she leaned forward delicately, and with a tenderness Brooke had never seen in her before, placed a gentle kiss against her mouth.
She tasted of beer and mint, and Brooke found her eyes closing despite herself, tilting her head and parting her lips for a sweet touch of tongue against tongue.
Breaking the kiss with a small sigh, Abby's expression was intense, visible even from behind her dark glasses.
She smiled at her, corners of her lips curling up slightly, and Brooke understood it was both an apology and a good-bye.
Reaching up, she traced her thumb along the curve of Abby's jaw, and managed a smile of her own.
"Me too," she said, and Abby nodded, settling back into her seat and staring out the window.
They spent the rest of the cab ride in comfortable silence.
--
Brooke had never had a more miserable flight, and she was pretty sure everyone in the plane hated her.
Half of her trip was spent in the small lavatory, the other half was buried in a barf bag, and the other flight attendant finally got so fed up with her, she upgraded her to first class in order to put her closer to the bathroom and away from the other passengers, who all looked ready to murder her.
Not that that endeared her anymore to the first class passengers.
The conversation with Sam kept replaying in her head, and Sam's judgmental expression haunted her, and it only made her more nauseous than before.
When she finally walked off the plane, after apologizing profusely to both the flight attendants and the passengers who would look at her, she was weak, miserable, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
It was in that condition that she had to call Jane, and when Jane nearly shrieked at her on the phone, Brooke understood that it was not going to be a quiet trip home.
Sam's mother looked absolutely furious when she finally pulled up to the curb of LAX, face mottled with furious emotion, because she had a an hour drive to get more and more pissed off.
She stomped forward, staring down at Brooke's pale, green face. "Are you allright?" she snapped, staring at her with concern.
Brooke managed a mute nod.
"Dammit, Brooke, I don't know what to do with the two of you anymore," Jane exploded, and nearly wrenched the luggage out of her hands, thrusting it with effort into the open trunk. "Get in the car. Do you need a plastic bag?"
Brooke only opened the car door and pulled on her sunglasses, fumbling for her seatbelt. Through the rearview mirror, she caught sight of Little Mac, passed out in the car seat, drool on her chin.
The driver's door opened and then slammed closed again, and Brooke groaned, curling up as best she could.
"I can't believe it," Jane ranted, obviously still furious, fumbling with her keys and jamming them into the lock. "You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady!"
"Jane," she managed, literally sick. "Please don't yell."
"Dammit, Brooke! I just- I'm completely at a loss." Jerking the car into the outside lane, Jane swerved into the next lane and nearly took Brooke's stomach with it. "Everytime I think you two are getting closer and behaving more like sisters something happens and then you are right back where you started!"
"Jane," Brooke wheezed, eyes shut tight.
"Is it impossible for you two to behave at least civilly to each other? Are you that incompatible?!"
Brooke kept her mouth shut, intentionally silent. Opening her eyes, she discovered they were on their way to clearing the airport and heading toward the highway.
"I don't know what else to do! What could have possibly happened, Brooke?! What could have been so bad that you had to actually get on a plane and LEAVE Sam in Florida in the middle of Spring Break!?"
Clutching the plastic bag Jane had thrust into her hands, Brooke's eyes flooded with tears, weakened and helpless.
"Tell me, Brooke!"
"God, Jane, I don't know!" she burst suddenly, tearing off her glasses to display bloodshot eyes, tears spilling over. "Maybe I got so tired of repressing the idea that I might be gay that I got drunk and slept with one of Sam's friends!"
It was enough to shut Jane up, and also enough to nearly cause a three car pile-up when Jane let go of the wheel for half a second and nearly veered into the next lane.
As Jane cursed and struggled with the car, Brooke building emotions finally imploded, and helpless and furious and scared and hurt, she could do nothing else but collapse into a torrent of tears, giving up.
-- end chapter