Set before season 1 begins.

Faraway, So Close

Peyton woke up to a pounding headache. She groaned, closing her eyes even though only a thin sliver of early morning light had managed to slip through the curtains. What the hell had she been thinking? Brooke stirred, her warm legs brushing against Peyton's. She turned in toward Peyton, her hair a dark tangle against the pillowcase.

"It's too early," she whimpered, leaning her forehead against Peyton's collarbone to shield her eyes. "Let's go back to sleep."

"Well, there's this little thing called my biology midterm second period," Peyton said. She groaned again. "Why do I let you talk me into this stuff?"

"I didn't have to twist your arm that hard," Brooke muttered. "You weren't so much caring about the biology last night." She shrugged, and wriggled farther down under the covers. "Just skip classes and say you were sick." She looked up through her eyelashes. "It's not even a lie."

"I doubt Mr. Hubert thinks sick and hungover are the same thing."

"Vomiting equals sick," Brooke said. "And if I recall, there was some vomiting. They have to let you retake the test if there was vomiting."

Peyton kicked the covers off her legs. "Maybe in your slack-ass biology class. In Mr. Hubert's class you have to bring a doctor's note."

"Oh please," Brooke said. "I'll write you a damn doctor's note."

"This is all sounding like more work than taking the stupid test." Peyton sat on the side of the bed and tried not to prove Brooke's point about the vomiting.

Brooke rolled her eyes. "Fine, we'll go to school. You'll fail the test because of how your head is pounding hard enough to make your eyeballs shake. You'll have to retake the class again next year and all the ninth graders will laugh at you, the left behind freak, and point. But fine." She rolled away and pressed her hands to her temples. "Remind me not to talk so much when my head is giving birth to an alien baby."

Peyton swatted her on the butt. "Get up and quit yer bitching. You reap what you sow and all that."

"I hate mornings," Brooke groused. "You can take the first shower."

"You only say that cause you know you can't beat me to it in a footrace." Peyton frowned. "And you're trying to sneak a couple extra minutes of sleep."

Brooke just smiled a slow, lazy smile.

Peyton walked back into her room after a long-ish shower with one towel wrapped around her body and one wrapped around her hair. Brooke was sitting at the head of the bed, her chin resting on her knees, looking fairly close to vomiting herself. Peyton sat down next to her. Brooke reached over and handed her a glass of a thick, radioactive green, evil-smelling concoction. Peyton gulped the bitter, slimy stuff down as fast as she could.

"Gah!" she gasped when she came up for air.

Brooke wordlessly handed her a glass of orange juice, and she tried to chase the foul taste away with it.

"God, that stuff gets worse every time," Peyton said.

"Show a little respect. That recipe has been handed down for generations in the Davis family." Brooke snorted. "Actually it's the only recipe my mom knows."

"Maybe I can get out of class if I tell Hubert my note is from a voodoo doctor. From a family of voodoo doctors."

"I prefer to use my official title, Brooke Davis: Hangover Slayer."

"Got any voodoo potions that'll give me good grades?"

"If I did, I wouldn't be two seconds away from failing geometry." Brooke eased herself off the bed and headed for the shower. "Anyway, it's just biology," she threw over her shoulder. "It's not like something important you can use in the real world. Like cheerleading."

When Brooke got back from the shower, Peyton was fully dressed and blown dry, lying flat on her back in the bed with her eyes closed, her breathing slow and even. She wasn't asleep, but she was floating a little bit on exhaustion and the fading clamor of her headache as it slowly sank under the weight of three Advil and whatever the hell was in that stuff Brooke made.

She felt the movement as Brooke leaned over, sensed it like a shadow even with her eyes closed. Brooke tapped her gently on the cheek. "Wake up, sleeping beauty," she sing-songed. Peyton stirred a little, still half-floating, the other half aware that Brooke smelled like shower steam and Peyton's kiwi shampoo and the tiniest hint of chlorine. Brooke brushed a curl back from Peyton's forehead, and gave her shoulder a little shake. This time Peyton's eyes opened. She blinked the almost sleep away, and stared up at Brooke.

A fat drop of water slid from the ends of Brooke's hair onto Peyton's cheek. Peyton touched the wet spot and smiled. "You're dripping on me."

Brooke grinned back, taking her hair in her hand and squeezing more water from it. Peyton sat up, sputtering. "Bitch!"

Brooke just laughed and swiped at the water on Peyton's cheek. Peyton caught her wrist, and held her still.

After that it was only a small movement.

Barely a breath. So little distance to close. Their lips touched, slick and soft. And for a moment Brooke's fingers were in Peyton's hair, and her own hand pressed hard against Brooke's cheekbone. And then their teeth and tongues clashed with hungry desperation as Peyton reached up and pulled Brooke closer, tighter, like she could crush the two of them too close together to ever come apart again.

And then Brooke pulled away, and cold air was between them. She took a quick step back, and the distance was so far. Another step, and Peyton didn't know how they ever could have crossed it.

Brooke flashed a grin, the kind she wore when she was nervous but damned if she'd show it. "Okay," she said, in full-on flirt mode. "NOW I'm awake."

It was just Brooke. Laughing everything off. Nothing could ever shock her or throw her off balance for long. Just Brooke. Just like always. She should have been relieved. To have Brooke give this to her. To think she wouldn't lose anything. That nothing had to change.

"Better hurry, or we'll miss your biology test," Brooke continued like everything was normal.

Like it had been a joke.

And Peyton wanted to yell that she didn't care about the stupid biology test, and that she didn't care if she missed it, and that this was serious and huge and too important to laugh off, dammit! But she felt like there was no air left in her lungs, and she had to concentrate hard to find any to refill them. So she didn't say anything, just nodded.

Like nothing had happened.

Brooke disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out, she was dressed, and she'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail. And she smiled and joked, and Peyton smiled back as much as she could when she was still distracted trying to find enough air to keep breathing. She'd almost drowned once, when she was 12 and she'd swum out too far. When you were drowning you couldn't just breathe. You had to fight for every bit of air, and it was tainted by the cold salt water so you coughed it out and gasped for something cleaner. Eventually when you were down too long, you inhaled the water looking for air. You knew you couldn't breathe it, but you sucked it into your lungs anyway cause they ached so much and you were so desperate. She felt a little bit like that now.

But she smiled when Brooke asked if they should add an extra cheerleading practice before the NorthSide game.

And it was like it hadn't happened.

Only she couldn't find any air that would sit right in her lungs.

Brooke Davis didn't like to admit she was scared of anything. Sometimes this fooled people into think she actually wasn't afraid of anything. Which was stupid. Of course she was afraid of things. Lots of things. She just didn't go around whining about it.

Take right now for example, Brooke was hiding out in the bathroom. To the naked eye it might have looked like Brooke was brushing her hair and redoing her lipstick. But in fact, she was waiting until she figured it was safe to slip out to the parking lot without Peyton seeing her. So she could escape and spend her lunch hour somewhere that was else.

She wasn't proud of this. In fact she felt like a huge, heinous coward. But if the alternative was pretending everything was okay when it so clearly was not okay, forcing Peyton to pretend everything was normal when Peyton looked like she was about to either cry or punch Brooke in the face, well then Brooke would take the coward's way out this time.

She didn't stick her head out like a sneak to check if it was safe when she finally left the bathroom. Or skulk from doorway to doorway. No she marched toward the parking lot like she owned the world. No one would have known to look at her that she was running away.

Brooke was avoiding her. Oh sure, they saw each other every day. At cheerleading practice, in English class. They passed notes, and walked to classes together. They still went to the bar to hang out and gossip about Beven's latest break-up or Casey's nose job. Peyton dropped by almost every morning to offer a ride to school. Just like normal.

But Brooke was avoiding her.

It used to be they touched easily, without thinking.

Now Brooke was careful. She didn't link their arms together when they walked side by side, or cling to Peyton for balance when she was laughing too hard. Now Brooke didn't push the curls away from Peyton's forehead, or squeeze her hand, or pinch Peyton right above her hipbone in her most ticklish spot.

And she didn't talk about boys.

Or sex.

The fact that Brooke had gone for a little over two weeks without talking about boys or sex, was not only a record, it was some kind of hell frozen over, pigs can fly, totally unnatural freak of nature thing.

Being around Brooke now felt like her skin didn't fit all of a sudden.

But Peyton hadn't said anything.

She was avoiding Brooke too.

Brooke started up the music and the squad went through the cheer again. She'd done the routine so many times it had become a fact, like a truth her body knew.

There was stuff like that in the world. Stuff she just knew. Stuff that was so deep down it couldn't be wrong. Cause she'd been around, and seen enough, and been hurt enough times to where the truth was deep and solid and you didn't have to think about it anymore to know it. It was like how the first couple times she'd been the apex of the pyramid, she'd fallen on her ass. It hurt, and it sucked, and you learned why you'd fallen and you didn't fall again. That's how it was with love and sex too.

It was really simple.

The people you slept with were not the people you trusted. They were not the people you let yourself care about. They were not the people you loved.

Sex was easy and uncomplicated. Love was how they ripped your heart out.

Peyton was the only person Brooke trusted, really trusted in this life.

And it was simple.

There was love and there was sex, and they were like purple and orange. They didn't mix. Not ever.

Peyton was listening to Leonard Cohen and drawing pictures of hands that didn't quite touch, and lips that didn't quite meet. Pictures that said things like "i can't make you love me" and "too far to walk" in big block letters. If Brooke had been there she would have laughed at her and called her an emo kid and dragged her out of the house to go do (buy) something because, "wallowing is for people without credit cards, P. Sawyer."

But Brooke wasn't here.

Except, of course, in all the depressing drawings.

The ugly drawings that looked like they'd been done by a hack. A thirteen year old, angsting over a teeny-bopper boy-band in her pretty pink diary with a little lock and key, hack.

Peyton shoved all the drawings off the top of her desk and into the garbage.

She had a deadline for THUD.

It would be a good idea to draw something that didn't suck at some point.

She glared up at the red stoplight on the wall.

"People always leave," it said, glaring back at her with its one angry red eye.

She hurled a crumpled up drawing at it. "Not Brooke," she snapped. Brooke was the one person who hadn't. Who didn't let her down. Who always came back. But when she looked at the stupid, un-reach-a-crossable spaces between the stupid hands overflowing her garbage can, she thought about those spaces getting larger every day.

"People always leave."

And she was afraid.

Brooke was getting a couple sodas from the bar. She wasn't actually thirsty, and she had a feeling Peyton probably wasn't either. But being at the bar getting drinks meant she wasn't sitting next to Peyton at their table, pretending to be normal.

Being with Peyton used to be the safest place in her life, the most comfortable, easiest place. Where she never had to worry about looking stupid or silly. She never used to have to think when she was with Peyton. She just was. But now she spent every minute with Peyton being careful. Pretending it was still comfortable and easy. Pretending was lying, and she hated lying. Half the time she wanted to kick her own ass, she was so disgusted and exhausted and sick with it. The other half she was scared to death of what would happen if she stopped.

So she was taking a break here at the bar, where she didn't have to be on her guard or think every second about what she said in front of Peyton or how close was too close. She looked back at Peyton, swinging her legs under their table, dipping her head with the beat of the music. Her blond hair was splashed with bright pinks and reds by the lights of the club. She had on one of the hundreds of vintage t-shirts for bands Brooke had never heard of that filled her closet. She'd had this one since middle school. Brooke remembered the exact day she'd bought it because it was the same day Brooke had gotten that god-awful haircut and they'd spent hours looking for enough cute hats to last her until it grew out. She'd worn a hat to school every day for like three months. And Peyton had worn a hat to school every day too just so she wouldn't feel stupid. Then everyone had started wearing them, and there'd been a big dust-up about the dress code and they'd laughed at the fact that they were the only ones who knew the whole thing had all started with a bad hair day.

Brooke pushed at the ice in one of the Cokes with her straw. When she looked back up at Peyton, there was a tall, dark and hottie standing next to her. She knew him. Everybody did. He was on the basketball team. A real hotshot, one Nathan Scott. They'd talked a few times. He went to all the right parties, and had all the right friends, was constantly surrounded by groupies. He was leaning in close (too close) to Peyton's ear to say something over the loud music. His mouth moved, close (too close) to the curve of her neck. She pushed a bright pink curl behind her ear, and laughed at whatever he was saying. He had his hand on her waist.

Brooke's teeth ground together hard.

Peyton looked up, over. Her eyes met Brooke's. Then Peyton turned back to Nathan, crooked her finger in the collar of his shirt, and pulled him closer. His mouth nuzzled against her neck again.

Brooke pushed her Coke back at the bartender.

"I'm gonna need you to put some rum in this. Like, all the rum you've got."

It took all of two seconds for the whole school to hear about it. The first day she'd had at least ten girls and even one teacher tell her how much they wished they were her. Now Peyton walked to classes holding Nathan's hand, and she and Brooke started hanging out with him and his stupid friend Tim and all the other jocks at lunch, and she made-out with him every day on the front steps before school. It took a couple weeks before she let him get past second base, but when she did it wasn't as bad as she'd thought it would be. She barely thought about Brooke at all when his fingers were inside her.

That was the best thing about dating Nathan. She didn't have to think when she was with him. She could just get lost in skin and sweat and everything else kind of went away for a while.

She didn't tell Brooke after they did it for the first time. Brooke had given her all the details the first time she'd done it. Brooke always gave her all the details (used to). She'd been fourteen the first time, and Peyton had been kind of grossed out and impressed and left behind all at once.

There was no reason not to tell her. She probably knew anyway. But Peyton thought about talking about it, about looking Brooke in the face and talking about it, and wanted to throw up. She wasn't sure if she was more scared that Brooke would be hurt, or that she wouldn't be.

Brooke was drunk. She'd been drunk a lot lately. Even more than normal. But tonight she was really, seriously, completely smashed out of her mind. It was like she was in the Gravitron and somebody had turned it up to 11. The entire world was blurry and spinning so much she couldn't see anything even though her eyes were open. She couldn't move at all. It was like a giant hand pressing her down. So she just lay there, and concentrated on the lights and on whether or not she was gonna hurl.

It felt fantastic.

Somebody lifted her up. She could feel boy arms, and she thought about trying to see who it was, but she didn't really care so she just let her head fall back and watched the ceiling. The ceiling eventually turned into a purple-black sky with just a few stars. It was cold outside, and she sobered up enough when the breeze hit her to recognize Nathan.

"Thanks for the ride, trusty donkey," she slurred.

"Just don't throw up on me," he said shortly.

He stuffed her into the passenger's seat of a car. Peyton's car. She rolled her head to see Peyton climb in on the driver's seat. No wonder he was pissed. Peyton was coming home with her tonight. She almost gloated, but he was leaning through the open window to kiss Peyton goodbye. So she rolled back to look up at the bruised sky again. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them Peyton was reaching in to pull her out of the car. She draped Brooke's arm over her shoulder, and Brooke could feel the skin of Peyton's neck warm against the crook of her elbow, and the hard grip of her fingers bracing against Brooke's waist to keep her from sliding back into the car. Brooke let her head sag against the side of Peyton's head.

They staggered into the house. Brooke's head slowly slid down until it was resting against the solid ridge of Peyton's collarbone. Peyton's hair brushed against her cheek. The room spun as Peyton lowered her onto the bed.

She reached over and touched one of Peyton's curls, wrapped it clumsily around her finger. Peyton stopped moving, still bent over her on the bed. She braced herself above Brooke with one hand, and reached up to unwind her hair with the other. Brooke crooked her finger to keep the hair from unraveling. She laughed.

"Caught you."

Peyton unbent her finger, and pulled her hair free. "Not for long."

"No," Brooke said. "You always get away." Peyton was still leaning over her on the bed, and she reached up to tap Peyton's face with her finger. "Slippery." Her finger slid down Peyton's cheek, and then her hand dropped back down to the bed. All her muscles felt kind of rubbery and heavy and hard to control. "I miss you," she said, and it was okay because her tongue was rubbery too, and she was drunk and you could say anything you wanted when you were drunk.

Peyton stood up.

"Do you miss me, P. Sawyer?" she said.

At first she thought Peyton wasn't going to answer, but then she nodded. Brooke nodded back, but it made her so dizzy she went blind so she stopped. She grabbed a bit of Peyton's shirt instead and pulled until Peyton was leaning back down over her. She slid her fingers down Peyton's cheek again, the tips coming away wet. "Just like before." She pulled harder, and Peyton's face was right next to hers, and she pressed her lips to her wet cheek because that's what you did when people were hurt. You kissed it better.

And then her lips were on Peyton's lips, and she felt dizzy and too hot and she couldn't make her heavy fingers move fast enough but she buried them in Peyton's hair and then Peyton was on top of her, and Brooke had her hands braced on Peyton's thighs where they straddled her on either side of her waist, and her lip tasted salty and rusted where Peyton had bitten her. And Peyton's neck was sweaty when she touched it, and she arched up into Peyton's hand on her breast and gasped, "Peyton."

Then it was cold, and the only weight on top of her was spinning drunk gravity weight as Peyton rolled away. She lay next to her, and covered her eyes with her hands. When Brooke reached out to her, she batted her hand away. "You won't even remember this tomorrow," and she sounded really angry. She took her pillow and left.

Brooke waited and watched the light from the streetlight outside spin and spin on the ceiling until she had to stumble to the bathroom to throw up, but Peyton didn't come back.

Peyton crept back to the doorway of her room the next morning. Brooke was still asleep. Of course. She'd been so far gone last night. And they'd gone so far (too far). Peyton watched her sleeping from the doorway. She didn't let herself step inside. There were dark circles under Brooke's eyes, and her make-up was runny and smeared on her pale face, and she looked basically like she'd been run over by a truck. But Peyton kept looking at the sliver of her shoulder peeking out from under the covers, and the soft line of her chin turning into cheek, and the delicate sharp bone on the side of her ankle. Her lip was swollen where Peyton had broken the skin. Where Peyton had bitten her. And Peyton wanted to bite her again, leave her mark on her shoulder, on the underside of her chin, on the swooping curve of her instep.

Peyton spun and fled. She grabbed a jacket and her wallet on her way to front door. She wouldn't bring it up, she decided. If Brooke didn't remember, if Brooke wanted to pretend she didn't remember, she'd let her. It was the only chance she could see for normal. Sure things hadn't been normal for a long time now. But there was still a chance. There had to be. And fake normal was better than nothing. Than losing Brooke for real, all the way.

She took her time walking on the docks, stopped by Karen's Café for coffee, looked through some of the vinyl at the record store. She'd give Brooke time to wake up, time to escape.

But when she slipped back into the house, Brooke was still there, coming out of the kitchen with her head cocked. Peyton tried to brace herself for whatever came next.

"So here's the thing." Brooke's voice sounded raspy and tired, but her chin had a defiant tilt to it and the look in her eyes was pure go-for-broke-davis, a little bit crazed and a little bit able to do anything. "This ignore it and it'll go away stuff isn't working."

Peyton let out a slow breath. "I think we can all agree on that one."

"So I have one thing to say." Brooke closed the distance between them, while Peyton stood tense and trembling. "I'm saying…" Brooke took one more step and she was definitely invading Peyton's space now. Standing close, so close there was barely any air between them, so close Peyton started to hope and a small smile crept onto her lips. Brooke circled Peyton's neck with her warm fingers and leaned in, banishing that bit of air, that small space between them and slowly, deliberately covered Peyton's mouth with her own. The tension went out of Peyton's back, and her fingers dug into Brooke's waist, and Brooke was laughing into her mouth. When Brooke drew back she finished, "…you're gonna have to break up with Nathan."

end