Hello all,

I don't want to distract from the story, so I'll keep this brief. I hope everyone is doing alright in these difficult and divisive times. Wherever and whoever you are, I'm wishing you health, safety, and peace. I've missed you! I've been terribly sick, but I'm on the mend, so hopefully you'll be seeing more of me.

This is a completely re-written version of my original story Filled to the Brim, which I published the first nine chapters of some years back. As some may have noticed, I deleted the old story; I wasn't satisfied with it, hence this re-vamped story. I hope you all enjoy it.

Note: This story is rated M for language, alcohol use (though everyone is over the age of 21), and sexual content. The sexual content is not explicit, but I raised it to M because of more suggestive themes. While I'd love to keep you on board, I don't want there to be any surprises. If that isn't your cup of tea, I look forward to seeing you in the future with something cutesy I write.

I'm dedicating this chapter to our new Ferbella writers (welcome!), our returning Ferbella fans (excited to hear from you again!), the guests who have reviewed my other stories extensively but have no PM for me to thank them (I'm looking at you, flo... I've read every single review and appreciate your kind words of praise, thank you!), and anyone who is searching for positivity and community write now (hehe puns). Let's find and celebrate the positivity in each other... I say before I post a story filled with angsty stumbles into cutesy love.

Disclaimer: I do not own Phineas and Ferb.

I hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE:

Sip

ISABELLA

Why did I keep doing this to myself? Seriously, why? It was so stupid, and so frustrating, and so pointless, so why did I always end up back here again and again? Miserably and pathetically heartbroken. Exhausted. A minor urge to punch something. Major bruises to my self-esteem.

My head swam as I dodged out of the way of a few dancers, ducked under the arms of people holding their drinks up in rowdy toasts. I'd lost my red solo cup at some point, but I didn't need any more alcohol anyway. I was drunk enough already, and everyone was flittering around me, a dizzy kaleidoscope of color and conversation.

My hand shot to my face, mercilessly swiping away the tear that managed to spill over before anyone could see. The last thing I needed right now was a scene. This party was already suffocating enough, and I just needed to… I just needed to… I didn't know. I needed to find someplace where the walls weren't closing in.

I burst through the front door, and the night air hit hard. God, it felt wonderful. My head had been spinning in there, and the shots I'd tossed down when Brunette laughed a little too much at one of Phineas' jokes, leaned close and crooned things quietly while looking up at him through her eyelashes, made me feel hot and claustrophobic. The air was brutally cold after being in there, but at least I could breathe.

Someone cleared their throat to the left, and I jumped.

"Shit," I gasped, then let out a laugh out of pure relief. "You scared me."

Ferb, tall and reliable and leaning against the porch rail, softly lit from a dull light by the door and the vibrant hues pulsing with the music through the window. Perfect. The night would get a little better now. Hell, how much worse could it get, right? At least I had the comfort of someone who understood what I was feeling right now. Ferb would just… let me exist, and he'd simply exist with me.

My relief at seeing him broke the dam of emotion I'd been adamantly exiling while inside, where there were too many witnesses and not enough air. Gone now, I flung myself forward. Ferb had barely enough time to lift his eyebrows, to adjust to face me, before I slammed into him and burrowed against his chest.

"God, Ferb…" I exhaled, slurred. "This just—this just sucks."

A moment, then: "What happened?"

I didn't have it in me to launch into an explanation—if I did, I'd lose any semblance of control I'd been so desperately clinging to—so I gestured to the window. "Back corner. Card table."

He leaned forward, searching the scene beyond the glass pane. Then he went rigid, and I knew he'd seen it. Phineas, laughing joyously as he fanned the cards he held and tossed them down on the table. The brunette, beautiful and flirty, perched on his lap because they'd run out of seats and she'd playfully suggested they share. Phineas didn't appear to mind, and while he seemed more focused on the game and everyone else than he was on Brunette's advances, it hadn't been fun to watch.

It wasn't until he complimented her laugh that the room started to blur around the edges. It was the alcohol, the disappointment, the self-loathing that had its roots deep inside me, whispering that I was doing this to myself, that I was delusional, so it was exactly what I deserved. I was the one who hadn't managed to walk away, after all, even after all these years. I should know better, so why couldn't I just stop? I wanted it, this, all of the pain—I wanted it to stop.

After a moment, Ferb's hand came to rest on the back of my head, then trailed down my hair. Then again, again, soothing without words.

"It felt—felt so empty. Room full of people, but empty." My mind buzzed, my focus faded; then it stirred, swirled back. "Drank too much. Way too much. I'm, just—I'm such a mess!"

Then, something surprised me: Ferb spoke. "Seems far emptier out here."

Sounds of life came from behind us, from the house where music played and people joked around and lights were flashing with bright colors. It was dark out here and a little quieter, but I realized it didn't feel empty. Not even a little bit. And the thought made me incredibly, incredibly sad.

I watched him—the somewhat solemn tilt of his brow, the tight line of discontent that formed his mouth. I could recognize these things perhaps too easily. Vanessa had made an appearance at the party, too, after all, and Ferb was faring no better than I was. That was probably why he was out here in the first place.

"It's not empty," I told him. "Our loneliness fills it to the brim, don't you think?"

I didn't expect him to respond, at least not verbally. Reading his expression and posture was the best and often only way for me to understand him, and I'd developed a keen eye for it. He was expressive enough for a lot of people to pick up on some of his more obvious nonverbal cues, but I knew Phineas, their parents, and I were the only ones who could pick up on more of his nuances. I just… understood. And I was really glad I did.

His face stated his surprise. Surprise, not shock. Shock was reserved for something you didn't understand and therefore didn't expect. Surprise, or at least the kind I read from him, was a response to something you did understand, but that you didn't expect other people to recognize, too. He was so good at hiding that thin blanket of loneliness, after all—just as good as he was at composing his face now, at erasing the confirmation of my words that he'd let slip, if only for a moment.

"You're just—you're my favorite sailor!" The alcohol pulled it straight from my brain and out of my mouth, along with a goofy little laugh. "The best sailor, Ferb. The best in the world."

This time, he blinked. Blinked again, his features exclaiming, What? as he let out a half laugh not entirely unlike my own.

I nodded adamantly, stepping back, but I let my hands hold loosely on his forearms because I couldn't trust my balance right now. He was absolutely my favorite sailor, and he had to understand it. I hoped he did already.

"Because… we've always been in the same boat," I told him, scrunching my nose in thought. It made sense, didn't it? It certainly made sense to me, but I knew I might not be getting it out right with this buzz running through my veins.

Ferb pursed his lips, and I couldn't decide if it was remarkable or exceedingly strange that he seemed to understand exactly what I was saying. Either way, it was warm and calming, a relief: that he appeared to understand me even when I couldn't entirely understand myself.

"You know what it's like." My voice quivered, broke. "This hurt."

He glanced down, slightly away—a little reluctant to acknowledge that it was true.

"You and Vanessa. Me and—" I let go of his arms to anxiously exhale into my fingers. "The same boat, so—"

His hand found its way to my shoulder, and that simple touch was the only response I got.

"So you're my favorite sailor!" I continued. I was afraid that if I stopped talking, I would start to drown. My hands left my face to drag up into my hair, and the fresh air felt good against my forehead; I'd been feeling that typical flash of heat that often chased a few too many shots. "The best. Even though I wished—I wish we're—that we weren't in the same boat. You know what I mean?"

The quick lift of his shoulders, his brow, and his quiet expulsion of breath said, If you say so.

I wasn't entirely sure at what point Ferb had become my best friend. With Ferb, things were just… easy. It had just kind of clicked that he was my best friend over years of picking up the pieces after the other's unrequited love life blew up in our faces and took another chunk of our self-esteem. It was the nights I'd spent in his room lamenting the most recent thing with Phineas that didn't work out, or his sulking in one of my beanbag chairs when he'd tried and failed to retain Vanessa's attention. It was also all of the text messages we'd shared, rooting for each other, cheering the other on, and strategizing when we felt bold enough to try again.

Although, I supposed another way to look at it was simply that we fueled each other's insanity.

But, right on cue, his presence drew my thoughts right out of me.

"Phineas." At his name, the wave of alcohol and distress burst out into the tears I'd been trying to hold back. "And this beautiful—beautiful woman, sitting on his lap. Flirting. God, Ferb, what am I going to do?"

His hand returned to my shoulder, but this time, it tugged me forward, back against his chest in a firm hug. I eagerly wrapped my arms around him, held him tight because it felt like gravity was pulling a little too hard on my limbs. I wanted to talk to him, to ask him what happened to drive him out here, too, but I couldn't manage to get it out yet. I drank too much, I knew it, and I was afraid of falling apart or doing something dumb.

The knit of Ferb's sweater vest was soft and ridiculously familiar. It was just like him to dress like this, even at a party. He had the strange ability to make clothes a little further on the formal side of the clothing spectrum come across as comfortable and casual. It was his confidence, probably. He always looked immaculate and it simply wasn't fair.

I'd felt pretty good about the way I'd dressed for the party—that is, before my confidence crashed against the rocky shore of Brunette's pretty laughter. I'd worn a purple blouse and black skirt, not immodest but—dare I say it—sexy. That was what I'd been going for, with my subtle lip gloss and smoky eyes, but Phineas didn't seem to notice. Now I felt like such a fool.

Then I sprung back, my hands flying to my face.

"Oh! Oh no! I didn't—" I swayed a little, "My makeup!" I scanned his sweater, hoping my tears didn't end up smudging my mascara all over the nice fabric. Thankfully not, but still, still. "I'm a mess, such a mess!"

Then, it finally came to the surface: "What's wrong with me?"

I stumbled a little in my attempt to back away from him, and he caught my elbows, glanced down at his shirt in recognition of my fear, then shook his head dismissively.

"Isabella," he began, but my fingers only continued to knot into my hair, holding the sides of my head like they might hold all of my anxiety and self-hatred and fear down, though I knew from experience that they wouldn't. I shouldn't have drunk so much, I should've known the demons it'd bring, but god, I just didn't want to hurt anymore.

"No, Ferb," I cried, "No, I'm so—so bad at this! Hopeless. Why can't I just—gah!" My fingers tugged, tightened, and I finally met Ferb's concerned eyes. "Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why can't I just move on?"

The question hung between us, silence fanning in its wake. Bated silence, the kind that didn't even come with a steady pulse of breath. Ferb's eyes were just as wide as I was sure mine suddenly were, taken aback by my outburst, and when he finally exhaled, it was with a bristling flash of confusion.

My hands finally left my hair, my fingers curling into a fist so my nails applied pressure against my palms. What was I talking about? I needed to stop thinking like this. Because while Ferb and I had talked plenty of times about why we couldn't seem to move on, I'd never talked about it with so much conviction. Burning conviction, which couldn't help but be stamped into the space between us. It had been unprecedented fervor in my voice, and Ferb's expression confirmed that he'd heard it, too.

I took keen interest in my toes. I don't know why I'd worn heels. Well, that wasn't true; I knew exactly why I'd worn heels. I just shouldn't have bothered to wear them. It hadn't worked out for me, and I didn't know why I'd expected otherwise.

"I'm—it's the drinks," I muttered after the silence punched on for too many seconds. I didn't mind silence from Ferb, not in the slightest, but I couldn't stand the silence from myself. "It's just—I'm stupid. I'm being stupid."

"Isabella," he repeated, and this time my name left his lips with indignation. He lifted my chin with the side of his finger and sent me a reprimanding glare. It wasn't a harsh glare; I didn't think I'd ever seen one of those on him. It was far softer, if a glare could be considered soft. It was pained disapproval.

I swallowed so many times, my stomach turning over itself. I was prepared to stammer out apologies or just straight run away from everything—but then his hands lifted and his thumbs brushed away the tears under my eyes. I saw little flakes of black come away on his finger, traitorous flecks of mascara ruined by my tears. His left thumb returned, swiping again in the way I usually did when trying to wipe away messed up eye makeup.

While still sad, the corner of his mouth tilted up. There, it said, and even just seeing that made me almost want to cry again.

"Sorry," I whispered, but he shook his head, gently took my left hand in support. His right hand was the one to lift this time, but I beat it to brushing away another stray tear that had managed to escape with those two syllables that ricocheted around my brain.

"What are you thinking?"

It sounded like music when he said it. Nearly everything he said sounded like music. I was beyond touched that he'd asked, even when he could have communicated it without words. The unusual response drew the answer from my stomach and lungs and heart without even giving me the chance to grant it permission.

"I think I want to be really noticed for a change. I think… I think I need to know what that feels like."

I didn't know. Maybe I needed to. There was a desperate tug in my gut, an elusive longing lodged in my throat, making my mouth dry and my tongue feel heavy. I stepped back to Ferb again, settled against him, shifted my gaze up to soak in all of that quiet understanding.

It was there, written on his face: a mirror understanding of my situation, years of unfulfilled aspirations from what I was sure was some perverse masochism that we couldn't manage to walk away from. We were hopeless, the both of us.

But damn it, I didn't want to be. Not anymore. I was frustrated, and drunk, and so incredibly tired. I just wanted to be noticed for a change. I just didn't want to hurt.

My fingers had already flittered across his chest and taken hold, my posture already pulled up to the tips of my toes, before I even realized what I was doing. My nose had already brushed against his, our breaths already mingling, before he realized it, too.

It was so sudden: Ferb stumbled back, my eyes fluttered open, my cheeks, my ears, my palms, my lungs, they all burned, and his fingers jolted to the tops of my shoulders, and he'd made the strangest, most startled, strangled little gasp—it all was happening so fast before it crashed back down over us.

Oh god. What the fuck was I doing? What was I thinking?

Ferb looked so shocked. Stunned. Breathless and speechless. And he was right to, so very, very right to, because I'd lost my goddamn mind. One of his hands retracted from my shoulder, hesitated, and came to hover over his lips. I followed the movement, stared at the lips I'd very nearly kissed.

What the hell was wrong with me?

"You're drunk," he blurted out. And that was when I knew how deeply I'd just derailed everything between us: when it was Ferb exclaiming things, Ferb just blurting things out to meet the panic in the air because silence no longer worked for him, for us, right now.

"I—" Shame clawed its way into my throat, choked the words right out of me. I stumbled back even more, shaking my head, just shaking like the world would stop spinning at the edges if I did. "Oh god."

I stepped back further, stumbled a little. Ferb reached out as if to catch me, but that only made me want to scamper away even further. I just wanted—I had no idea. I wanted to disintegrate on the spot. I wanted to disappear.

"Oh god." This time it came out in something dangerously close to a sob, and I buried my face in my fingers. "Oh god, I—what's wrong with me? I'm stupid! I'm so stupid, I just—"

I was already in flight, already staggering my way toward the porch stairs, toward escape; I was spiraling out beyond my own control tonight, and I needed to leave before I damaged something permanently. Maybe I already had.

Ferb's hand caught my elbow before I could make it even a step, but I tried to pull it free. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't.

"You—" He swallowed, grasped for words, my god that was so strange. "It was just—a poor decision. That's all."

It was a poor decision. I buried my face in my hands and turned away. Head back inside? Chance a stumbling walk home? I was too much of a mess to go far, but I didn't think I could stay here. A poor decision? I was a poor decision. I was one after another tonight.

His fingers grazed my left shoulder: Hey. But I didn't look up. I stayed buried in my hands, and while that hadn't been my intent, it forced him to speak.

"Why don't you sit down?" His voice was quiet and gentle, but there was something off about it. Uncertain. He didn't sound confident. He sounded… lost.

He tugged on my arm, trying to nudge me out of my locked position, but I couldn't move. I tried to breathe but I was gasping instead, and I realized I was struggling to do anything else but gasp and try to disappear into my palms, and I didn't want to do any more damage than I already had. I didn't want to make things worse. I didn't want to be a poor decision, but I didn't know how to be anything else right now. I was embarrassed. And I was so, so confused.

The front door popped open, and the creak of its hinge as it knocked against the side of the house sent Ferb and I jumping. He seemed to instinctively reach out for me, a protective arm around my shoulder, tilting me in towards him to block my face from whoever was crashing our sad little porch party. I was more than happy for it, springing to face away from the door like my anxiety never existed at all, forbidding hyperventilation and manically wiping under my eyes. I wanted to look normal if someone besides Ferb were to see me. Normal, not heartbroken and drunk and confused.

Phineas, what if it was Phineas? That thought almost sent me gasping again—but then a voice quelled that fear. It wasn't Phineas. But in terms of worst-case scenarios right now, this voice was right on par with Phineas in terms of devastation.

"A lot more room out here," Vanessa laughed, and I returned to myself with a violence that would have been jarring if I weren't such a hot mess already. My gaze snapped up, my protective barriers primed, my fingers already raised to hold Ferb's where they rested on my shoulder.

Because Vanessa, she pulled a tall, handsome man with her. Because she held his hand as they stumbled together, against each other, in cute sort of way, revealing that they'd shared a few drinks already. Because he leaned down and whispered something in her ear as they went down the steps and onto the front lawn that made Vanessa hum and give a sultry smirk. Because his hand ventured down her back, down further, and instead of stopping him, she stepped closer.

These were the reasons that I was holding up Ferb now, rather than the other way around.

"Maybe. If you play your cards right," she told him, her voice low and throaty, before she returned to brush her lips across his jaw.

I heard the air get punched out of Ferb the moment that vixen leaned into the nape of the man's neck. I felt the cringe in the fingertips pressed against my skin that he didn't let show on his face. I felt his shock, all of it, and his despair, and I turned toward him fully now. I grabbed the front of his sweater, tugged it hard to jar him, to force him to glance away and down at me, and it worked.

He met my eyes, unfocused now. Dazed. I understood all of this perfectly. I understood exactly what he was feeling right now because it's what drove me out here, drunk and alone, in the first place.

Ridiculous, unrelenting heartache for ridiculous, unrequited love.

We knew. We both knew all too well.

So I did the only thing I could do: I pulled us around, pulled him so the woman he loved and her apparent lover were behind him now, wrapped my arms around him, took his weight as he swayed. I held him, and I was surprised, surprised I hadn't broken this, when it only took a second for his hand to wrap desperately around my shoulder. To cling to me, really. God, he was suddenly shaking, just the smallest tremor through his arms, even as his face remained perfectly calm. No one would even notice, if they weren't this close to him. If they weren't literally holding him together.

"Oh." It was Vanessa, and it didn't seem directed at her boy toy. Ferb went rigid, and that's when I saw Vanessa watching us, her brows lifted. I tried to stop him, but Ferb didn't seem able to resist looking back over his shoulder at them, too. I could tell, tell from Vanessa's face, the moment she and Ferb met eyes.

"Looks like this spot's already taken," the man said, and while he let Vanessa slide back from his embrace, he still peppered her bare shoulder in kisses before sending Ferb a tipsy grin. He looked kind of familiar, and they must have vaguely known him because he let out a wolf whistle and tossed Ferb a congratulatory laugh. "Way to go, kid!"

Vanessa just stared at us before glancing down and away, the slight tug of her teeth against her bottom lip sounding regret, like she wished we hadn't been around to see that. Well, get in line. I wished Ferb hadn't had to see that, either.

"Come on," I whispered, pulling his arm. He was entirely too easy to move now. That would be the numbness kicking in.

I tended to collapse into anxious tears when I suffered this sort of blow to the heart. Obviously, since that was exactly where I'd been tonight before this new disaster. Ferb was different, though. He tended to disappear into himself, to erase his presence and let the world tune out around him. But he couldn't afford to do that here, not with Vanessa and her boy toy blocking the only permanent exit.

I didn't even spare Vanessa another glance. Escape, escaping from this was the only priority, and the best option I had right now was to pull him with me back inside. He let me, perhaps too easily. I clutched his hand tightly in mine and weaved through the crowd, dodging dancers and shouts and cries of laughter too thrilled to be drowned out by the music that buzzed and bounced through the air.

And then it got worse. Because I thought, hey, what's more comforting than food? That was the bottom of the barrel, the last semblance of an idea I could scrounge up to give us a purpose and a distraction right now… and it turned out to be the most disastrous place we could be.

"She did not say that!" Brunette laughed, the brutal and familiar sound slamming right into my chest, sinking to my feet, gutting me where I stood. I stopped so suddenly that Ferb ran into my back, tripping a bit before catching himself on my shoulders.

Then he was treated to the same view I was.

"She did," Phineas assured her, grabbing a handful of chips from the nearest bowl and munching. "I was surprised, too."

Phineas' back was to us, which meant I couldn't see his face. All I could see was Brunette watching him intently with a flirty smile.

"You've had the craziest adventures, Phineas," she said, brushing her hand down his arm. "So… exciting."

"Oh, they are!" he cheerily agreed. "You should hear about the time we—"

Now Ferb was pulling me away, somewhere away from the food, away from the porch, but we hadn't escaped this bullshit for years, so I wasn't hopeful anymore.

"Ferb?" I sniffed, now trailing behind him, but he didn't look back. He marched on, his determined stride not even breaking when he snatched an entire bottle of vodka from the drinks table.

We dodged our way through the crowd until I saw where he must be taking us: a dark hall a ways behind the ad-hoc DJ setup. No booze and just muted tunes here, and while a couple of girls giggled to each other in a little huddle, they cleared when they saw us. I didn't know if it was something about our expressions—lord, I didn't even want to imagine how we looked right now—or something else that had them scampering away, but I wasn't about to question a little privacy.

"Get some," one teased as she scooted past us, though, and that made me falter. Get some? Oh. Of course. Because a boy was toting me and a bottle of booze with him into the dark, secluded hallway. Yeah, I supposed that was exactly what this looked like, even if they were wrong.

Exactly what this looked like…

Oh.

Oh no.

"Ferb," I began, but he held his finger up, a call for silence before he cracked the lid of the bottle. He stared straight ahead, lifted it, and took a big swallow, and while he immediately recoiled in disgust, his face scrunched from the onslaught of cheap liquor, it didn't stop him from taking another. I was surprised he went for it in the first place; he never drank at parties. Only when we were relaxing at one of our places, really, and then it was froofy drinks or beer or wine. When he did drink, it was certainly never like this: hard alcohol slammed from the bottle. But he brought it to his mouth once again. And again. And still, as he backed against the wall and slid to the floor.

"This party sucks," was all he said, and after another swallow, he finally glanced up at me. His head tilted to the side; You going to sit?

Sitting… sitting was probably best. After weaving through the crowd, I felt dizzy and warm, and the wall felt cool. I collapsed beside him, tugged my skirt back into a decent position. Then, after a moment's thought, I clumsily kicked off my heels. God, sweet, screaming relief.

Without looking, Ferb offered me the bottle. I reached out for it, but the tips of my fingers hovered on the glass. My world was off-kilter from booze already… I didn't need more.

"I probably… I'm already drunk," I half-laughed as I pushed it back, but there wasn't any humor in it, wasn't any humor to Ferb, either, as he took another drink.

It appeared Ferb would be reaching my level of intoxication soon. He must be in so much pain, to wash it down this way. I knew because I was doing the same exact thing about forty minutes ago. Our boat was sinking, attacked from both sides in the span of a very short period. These were uncharted waters now: both of us drowning at the same time.

It really didn't bode well. When either of us were thrown overboard by a bad experience with Phineas or Vanessa, it was the other person who pulled us back up above the surface, made sure we were still breathing. And now here we both were, in dangerously bad headspaces, drunk or getting there. I didn't even know what Ferb was like drunk; he never really made it past buzzed. It wasn't exactly like me to get drunk, either. I didn't know what we were thinking, but it was probably a mistake.

We just sat there, wounded, still too stunned to find the resignation we probably needed. Or, hell, maybe resignation would be worse. I didn't know. I just knew what a colossal disaster this night turned out to be. I pulled my knees to my chest, closed my eyes against the subtle nausea I felt the moment I thought of anything besides wanting to disappear into the cool, cool floor.

"You know he doesn't mean anything by it."

"What?" I sniffed, glancing up.

"Phineas." He swished the bottle around, watching the liquid in the dim light. "With her."

"Oh." I swallowed hard. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

He was right, of course. Brunette could pout about not having enough seats so she'd have to sit on his lap, laugh at everything he said, bat those lengthy eyelashes, and run her hands down his arm all she wanted, it all went over Phineas' head. It was like he wore these Boy, isn't everyone friendly! goggles all the time. Her flirtations would go, whoosh, completely over his head. Just like mine always did.

"But… isn't that worse?"

"Hm?"

"Isn't it worse," I repeated, and the rest just came tumbling out. "I mean, if he liked her, it would at least close that door. It would shut it all down as an option. But he's just the same, in his own world, so it's like that door is still open. Like, the problem isn't her, or me, or us, but the freaking cloud his mind floats on all the time."

He finally looked over at me, held there. I searched those eyes for something, though I didn't even know what. He had the strangest ability to make me spill all of my guts.

"But I can't—I can't do anything about it," I sighed, gaze dropping. "Too much is on the line. Our friendship, hell our entire relationship. And because of that, my relationship with you, with the rest of our friends, which you know would get messy if things went weird with him. So we've been frozen in limbo, and damnit, maybe if he responded to Brunette differently than he responded to me, then at least it might mean something. It may not put me out of my misery, but it would at least put me out of my uncertainty. At least I might actually be able to freaking move on."

"'Brunette?'" he chuckled at my nickname, and I smacked his arm.

"Ferb."

He nodded and raised his hands in placating surrender. Then one came to rest on my knee. It stayed there, giving a gentle squeeze, drawing a small pattern with his thumb. Solidarity, in its purest form.

"You don't sound as hopeful as usual," he observed, and I laughed.

"Yeah, I think I drowned hope about an hour ago." I let out a sigh, gestured haphazardly to the main room. "Maybe look for it at the bottom of an abandoned red solo cup."

I felt the rest of me deflating. What else was there to do? We'd lost this battle. We were losing the war. I wished I could figure out how to just… how to surrender. I was too tired to fight anymore.

With a sigh, I folded over onto his shoulder. It was a little warm for it, but it was nice. A nice place to let my eyes close, to maybe let them stay closed for a moment…

"Hey." Movement, under my cheek. "Isabella?"

It took a moment to blink my eyes open, to realize what must've happened. "Ferb… S'fall sleep?"

"Really starting to feel the shots," he told me. "Didn't want to be alone with—with it."

I sat up, swiping at my hair and eyes to wake back up because I definitely had dozed a little bit. Maybe twenty, thirty minutes, if he was feeling it. And he must be, I realized, if he wanted to talk.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Yeah, of course."

"What were you saying before?"

"Hm?" I hiccupped.

He gestured with the bottle, indicating when I was standing. "When we came here. You started saying something."

Oh man, I had to work to draw myself back out of my churning thoughts, back to the events of the night. I didn't want to think about the night's events. That was the whole point of the alcohol! But I tried to remember what he was talking about anyway. Something when we came to this hallway. Something I wanted to say before we sat down…

Oh.

And there was the guilt, crashing back in, crushing my lungs from the inside out. Guilt because I may have just messed up any small chance Ferb had left with his dream girl, ruined it because I was drunk and unsteady and clinging to my best friend in a way that I guess maybe I shouldn't have.

I grabbed at the vodka, but Ferb pulled it out of reach. "Isabella?"

I needed another drink now. I needed to dull this realization, this fear, and that was the only way I knew how.

"Isabella, what?" he urged, holding the bottle further out of my reach, and it wasn't until our eyes met that I finally broke down.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Ferb."

"What?"

"I've drunk—drank—drunken… I've had a lot to drink, and you shouldn't have to—I was so hurt, and she saw us—Vanessa saw us. And we were all," I held my hands close, moved as if to wrap around. "So now she may think," I smooshed my palms together, "and if she does, then I might've ruined everything."

Ferb watched me with pursed lips. But seriously, if I could understand full sentences from him with nothing by his body language, he should be able to understand me even when articulation was hard, right? Or was I simply not making any sense?

"I'm just saying, what if she thought—Well, you heard those girls," I gestured to the mouth of the hall, "you know, about getting some." His brow quirked. "So if Vanessa saw us… I might've ruined everything. Because I'm drunk and—"

"You think you've ruined my chances with Vanessa because she saw us together on the porch."

"Yes!" I exclaimed. God, why was that so hard to get out?

"'Looks like this spot's already taken,'" Ferb recalled, his forehead scrunching in thought. Way to go, kid! That was what Vanessa's makeout buddy has said. I could tell this hadn't dawned on him yet. "They thought you and I had been—"

"Which obviously we weren't, but what if she—"

"Well," he exhaled, breathy and low, but then his hand shot to the back of his neck, and I faltered.

Well? "Well, what?" What was with that contradictory tone?

"Nothing." He shook his head quickly, and he seemed to be trying to avoid looking at me. Trying being the operative word, because the moment he slipped up and met my gaze, I realized what he meant. I realize what he hadn't quite been fast or sober enough to completely hold back.

Well, except when you almost kissed me.

Oh fuck. Fuck. Because I'd nearly kissed him. No, nonono. Somewhere in between Vanessa and Phineas and the alcoholic haze, fully processing that fact had slipped under the radar. Just a poor decision, he'd said. A poor decision. A poor decision for Phineas. A poor decision all around. Too poor of a decision to make, for Ferb to make. I was just a mistake after another.

Tears pricked my eyes again, and I scrambled away, scrambled up on wobbly knees that sent the whole hall swirling, but I didn't care, didn't care, I just had to get away. I crawled forward, grabbing my discarded heals, probably giving Ferb an embarrassing view, but what difference would more embarrassment make now? Every inch of me was painted in shame. I was drowning in it.

"Hey, wait! Wait!"

But I wouldn't wait. I wouldn't do this. Tonight was bad enough, but now it just crossed over into the unbearable, the un-frickin'-thinkable. I wouldn't do this with the one person who still felt on my side. I wouldn't ruin our friendship. Maybe I already had. God. God, he couldn't let me leave this with a shred of dignity intact?

"Isabella, wait!" he was scrambling up now, too, but he was terribly off-balance. We both were, but while I was on my feet first, I stumbled, and that gave him enough time to catch up.

"No!" I cried when he grabbed my wrist, and my heels tumbled back to the floor. It was just like earlier, when we almost kissed. I'd tried to run then, too, and he caught me just like this. But he didn't get to say what I did and didn't do. He didn't get to decide for me whether we did this or not. "Let me go!"

We grappled for a moment, me shoving at the hand on my wrist until his other hand captured that one, too. His eyes were so piercing, and I couldn't handle it!

"Isabella—"

"Let me go, Ferb. You're—you're just drunk. So—"

"So are you."

"Which is exactly why we should just—we should just stop. We should just stop."

"And, what? Run away?"

"Yes." I jerked back again, and even though he didn't let go of me, he was too unsteady on his feet to stop the movement entirely, which sent us both tripping back until I was pressed against the wall. Fuck, this didn't help my escape plan.

"And you'll, what?" he demanded. "Just keep running away from your problems?"

Hah, seriously? Hello pot, meet kettle. It'd be laughable if I didn't feel so trapped, so ambushed, so embarrassed and stupid and unwanted.

"Isn't that what we do?" I pushed against him again, pushed at his chest, but it did nothing with his hold still on my wrists.

"That's what you're doing."

"That's what we do. God, that's why we're here, Ferb. Why we're stuck on S.S. Unrequited. Why we can't get over this. Why we're drowning."

"I'm not—I'm fine," he had gall to lie.

"Now who's running away from problems? Just—just let me go, Fletcher."

"Then you'll just keep running."

The irony. The hypocrisy.

"You know, fine. Fine! We can stay and fight this out, because you're no better than I am, Ferb!"

"No better—" A flash of indignation lit his frown, but he let my wrists go. He didn't take a step back, didn't give me space to jet or rampage or sulk, but I didn't have time for those anyway because apparently Ferb and I were having a fight. Maybe if I were sober, I would be able to process this better because Ferb and I never, never fought. But here we were, and my anger was the only defense I had left to keep me from falling apart completely.

He took a breath. "No better? I'm trying to stop you from running away, not the other way around."

"Well you run away from every other option you have instead of Vanessa. You run away from any changes that might fix things. Why—why do you love Vanessa if she just keeps hurting you? Ferb, it's—"

"Well, why do you put all your hopes in my brother when you know he'll never be able to give you what you need?"

"Why do you always lie and pretend you're not lost and hurting and lonely?"

He started. "That has nothing to do with—"

"What does anything have to do with anything?" I laughed, the sound manic and scary to my ears, and I pushed against his chest. Pushed against this tension and anguish and self-loathing that suffocated the edges of my mind. The tears spilled down my cheeks now, but I didn't care. Angry, frustrated tears were so much easier to handle. "What does it matter, what does anything matter, if things never get better?"

Ferb shot down the hall, shot back in a quick pace. He stopped as if to say something, shot down the hall again. Finally, he came back and planted himself in front of me, and frustration rolled off him in waves, crowded the air between us, when he spoke.

"You know Phineas will never be the type of guy to buy you a rose under the Eiffel Tower. That's just not my brother, so you—"

"Yeah, well Vanessa will never be the type of girl to be there when you get back, rose in hand. You're not—you're not better than me here, Ferb. We're the same, and—"

"We're not the same," he bit back, and that cut so deep, so deep, but I channeled that wound into my anger, into my furious tears, into my clenched hands, where my nails dug into my palms to keep me from doing something stupid. Something we'd both regret.

"I see," I barely got out, my voice cracking like the shards he'd just blasted out of my chest, but he apparently wasn't finished.

"We're not the same. Your emotions are everywhere! You don't see me falling apart."

But I did. I did, even if he didn't know how to accept it.

"This isn't just about me!" I cried, grabbing the front of his sweater, letting it go. The world was a dizzy, drunken spin around us but I didn't care, didn't care, because it didn't matter if the world was spinning drunkenly when it was falling apart. "You want to talk about me? About how emotional I am? Well how about we look at you for a change? At least I—"

"At least you have emotions," he guessed at what I was about to say. "At least you do and I don't, right?" But that only made me more upset because he was wrong.

"No! I wasn't going to say that!" I grabbed at his sweater again, let go again to bring my clenched fists against my forehead. "Gah! I know you have emotions! I know better than anyone that you've got just as many stupidly irrational emotions roiling up inside you as I do, but at least I'm not too afraid to show them! At least I don't hide it behind a straight face! At least I'll admit that I'm lonely and hurting!"

"What difference would—"

"And here we are, doing this, when you know I'm the only person who can actually say they understand you right now!"

He opened his mouth to say something, something sharp, I just knew it. But he hesitated, faltered just slightly.

"I mean, I know we're so different. You don't talk and I don't shut up, and you're all careful and logical and stoic, and I'm impulsive and—and intuitive and I feel things so damn intensely—"

"Isabella—"

"But in the end, we're exactly the same, Fletcher!" I pushed on his chest again, sent him back a half-step. "We're both stuck here, in this depressing hall, with broken hearts while everyone else is having a good time! We're stuck chasing fantasies and stupidly, stupidly hoping for something that's only ever hurt us—"

"Isa—"

"We're hurting, we're both hurting so much, and instead of doing something to actually make it better, we're both taking our frustrations out on the one person—the one person in all these years who… who…"

His hands found my waist, found the side of my face, pulled me so close, so close, so close to him, all the air gasped out of my lungs. Our noses brushed, and I whimpered out my shock, oh god.

Then—then he was gone, his hands steepled over his mouth in an anguished pose as he turned on his heel, turned again with nowhere to go.

And I was—and I was—fuck.

That simple move, that fast move, had wrecked my insides. I was shaking, trembling, barely breathing, and piercingly hot where all the lines between us had just crashed together.

Oh god. Oh my god. What just happened? What just happened?

He was breathing heavily, too, breathing into his palms as he stared up at the ceiling. Then his hands raked up through this hair, and it was only then that he finally looked back at me. His eyes. Everything inside me turned liquid.

I felt like I was going to collapse, and I must have looked it because he caught my elbows as I swayed. But now we were touching again, and I didn't know anything, didn't know what it meant, I only knew something major just happened, leaving catastrophe in its wake.

"Why did you try to kiss me?" The words tumbled out of his mouth not with accusation or frustration, not with the anger with which we'd flung so many words at each other. It hung between us with something like… like desperation. Quiet, aching restraint, like he needed to understand. Like his sanity depended on the answer.

Frantic, I took a step away from him, meant to let my arms drop from his hold, to break our connection, but he trailed his fingers down the length of them instead, clinging to the contact by my fingertips. Lord, I couldn't breathe.

"I—" I swallowed so hard. "I don't know what I was thinking, I—I wasn't. I wasn't thinking, I was just—I was just there. I was just there, with you, and—" I needed to stop talking. I needed to stop talking. "And I don't know what you want from me, Ferb. What you want me to say."

"I want you to say it's a bad idea."

Barely contained. That's how he sounded. Desperate. And I couldn't think too hard about it, couldn't let myself read into it too much, but I did anyway.

"But… you almost kissed me." Saying it out loud made it all so much more real, and I faltered. The way he'd just… he'd just grabbed me, pulled me against him almost urgently, the way his hand had lifted my face to meet his before he caught himself at the very last moment. "You wanted to kiss me."

He looked pained. "Isabella."

"Well…" I swallowed again. He wanted me to say it was a bad idea, after all. "Well, you made it very clear before that it was 'a poor decision.' And it is, and I was—I was dumb. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

I pulled my hands back. I needed to sever that link, sever the physical touch because that seemed so different right now. Unmoored. I didn't know what the hell was happening anymore.

And yet, even as I took another step back, he took a step forward.

"No, I—It's just, I—" He let out a loud, frustrated breath, seemed to swallow every bit as hard as I had as he looked at the ceiling, down the hall, anywhere but at my face. I took another step back, felt the wall behind me.

"It is," he said, and his voice was so quiet. "It is. It's such a poor decision."

And then he finally looked at me, and this time, he seemed stuck. I was stuck, too, stuck here, stuck in the way he was looking at me. He was still so close, and then he took another step toward me, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe. I could only wonder how I'd never truly noticed how tall Ferb was, the shape of his shoulders, of his hand as it ran up into his hair again like he needed to do something with them but wasn't sure what, and I didn't know why I was tracing them with my eyes, but it seemed sodangerously, dangerously relevant right now.

"Irresponsible. God, so irresponsible, it'd be—it'd be such a bad idea."

I was losing my mind. I must be. I had to be. But…

"Ferb," I exhaled, hesitated. "Is this… a disclaimer?"

I bit at my lip, but instead of looking away like before, he followed the movement, watched it with tormented eyes before he turned them back on mine.

"I—You know we can't…" He glanced down at my lips again as he trailed off, and I could tell the exact moment when he finally gave up. I could see it in his gaze, in his posture, in everything that he was: his surrender to whatever he'd been so fiercely fighting. "Do you want it to be?"

It was barely anything, barely a breath in the dwindling space between us, and he must have been able to see my answer because by the time I could mutely nod, his hand was already in my hair, already on my waist, just like before, but he didn't catch himself this time. He pulled me from the wall, pulled me against him, and his mouth met mine.

It was the strangest feeling, our lips moving together, strange and unexpected and exactly, exactly what I'd needed. I clung to his shoulders, a trembling attempt to keep my suddenly weak knees from buckling, but I couldn't stand staying still. I wrapped my arms around his neck, leaned into him as I trailed my fingers from the back of his neck into his hair, grasped, tangling us together.

It was too easy to match him, to kiss him back, to create a startlingly intense tempo of roaming hands and feverish heat. Any worry that we didn't know what the hell we were doing was washed away almost immediately because, god, I felt buzzed from more than a few shots now. I felt this, whatever it was, humming under my skin, and my mind couldn't keep up. I couldn't think, not with the warmth, the shock of each movement, the intense points where his palms held me.

He hesitated, cautiously pulled back and pulled a whimper from my throat along with him at the loss. When I blinked my eyes open, I found his to be wide, dazed, glossed over—everything I felt right now because damn. He shook his head once, as if to clear it while a shocked curse fell from the mouth I'd somehow claimed. Our bodies were pressed together, our breathing a heavy mix of gasps between us. I could see, could tell as our gazes once again held, that he was feeling just as baffled and disoriented as I was.

"That…" He cleared his throat. "That was…"

"Yeah," I exhaled. His forehead fell against mine, and for a second, we pretended to try to come back to our senses. We waited, studied each other. But it didn't last long.

"So we should…"

I nodded impatiently, already pulling him back in. Our lips met again, quickly finding that same hungry rhythm we'd discovered. Quickly growing into more, into something fervent, something burning with the knowledge that we both needed this now, needed it so fucking badly.

The hand that had simply been holding my waist lifted me to the tips of my toes so every line between us molded and melted and drew a tortured moan from my mouth before I could stop it. I couldn't believe it, couldn't bear what I'd just revealed about exactly what he was doing to me, but it only seemed to make him bolder.

Both his hands dropped to my hips now, pulling them against his, and that changed so much, so much, changed this whole dynamic from an intimately sweet embrace to a feverish need to explore me, my hips, my waist—ah, under my shirt to the small of my back. I gasped, blinking at his new urgency, my grip tightening, nails digging into his shoulder and scalp, eyelashes fluttering at the direct touch, at the burst of heat that shot through my core.

And Ferb, Ferb had the gall to smirk, smug, against my lips, while all I could do was cling to him and blink the stars from my eyes. I wasn't, I wasn't prepared for this. I wasn't prepared for this force, this potency, the subtle, electric fire he somehow knew how to build under my skin. Then the quietest laugh, just a breath, left him, and something inside me broke.

I took his face, leveraged my hold so I could kiss him, kiss the entire line of his jaw, up to his cheekbone, down to his neck, where I dared a light bite. A throaty groan rumbled under my lips, and it was my turn to smirk. Inspired, I explored what I could do with long, intense kisses, rougher ones, feather light followed with another teasing bite, while threading my fingers repeatedly through his hair. His breath hitched by my ear, overwhelmed, as he clung to me this time.

I'd never had this kind of power. This power over someone, such strong and obvious reactions I could elicit, destroying and rebuilding them with even the smallest of movements. It was exhilarating, and I was entirely too intoxicated not to advantage of it. But it came with a catch, because it was a two-way street.

When I made it back to his jaw, Ferb made a quick move to capture my mouth, wrestled control from me once again by snatching the hand I'd been using to give me access to his neck and pinning it against the wall over my head.

"Ferb," I whimpered, but then I couldn't, couldn't breathe because his free hand was outlining my hip again before unhurriedly, painfully, unbearably trailing up my waist, up even further—oh, even further—tracing the edge of my bra. I arched into him, straining at his teasing touch, and he hummed before biting at my lower lip. My mind and body were screaming but I couldn't make a sound beyond my staggered gasp for air. His fingers ghosted across the lacy fabric along the side of my ribcage, and—ahhh, god, he was dangerously close to—to—fuck, he was killing me!

It was pure, desperate instinct that had my hand tightening in his hair and my hips doing a slow, agonizing roll against his. The friction was intense and the effect was immediate: the whimper growing in my throat morphed into a moan, and Ferb gasped into my lips. The hand pinning mine shot to the wall, desperately steadying himself.

"Fuck," he exhaled, but I was already kissing him, already grinding against him again, and the hand on my waist dropped to my thigh, hitched my leg up over his hip so I couldn't do it a third time. It'd been driving him a little too crazy, I realized, even as I let out a small yelp in surprise at our new position. My eyes quickly fell closed again as I sunk into the feeling of his palm on my thigh, warm under the fabric of my skirt, holding me to him tightly while the hand he'd been using to stabilize himself returned to my back.

Damn, what were we doing? Where was this going? I didn't entirely know, but hands were roaming and clothing wasn't exactly the barrier it was supposed to be—his fingers trailed up my leg, below my hip, the others tracing my spine—and it was so warm, so hot in here. My stomach was tight with a willing ache that had me urgently arching into him, but it was implausible and impossible to quench because we couldn't… we couldn't…

"Ferb?"

But it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying to ponder… did I want to? Yes, god yes, my body screamed, my mind screamed, drunk and dizzy and desperate that I was. Everything felt so good, he felt so good, his mouth against mine, his chest and cheek under my fingertips.

"Oh, gosh—Ferb?"

Wait, wait wait wait, who was talking? This time, the voice finally registered with both of us, and Ferb jolted like he'd been shocked. He didn't move, didn't let me go. He just turned his head toward the new figure standing at the mouth of the hall.

My heart jumped into my throat.

"Phineas?" Ferb gasped, his voice labored and breathy. And of course it was, after… after… oh god.

"Didn't mean to—uh, interrupt." Phineas rubbed the back of his neck as his gaze darted from the discarded vodka bottle to his brother. "I was looking for you and—"

But then his eyes finally found my face. Blinked in recognition. There was one painful, painful second for every inch of him to blush a ferocious red. Then his jaw and the water bottle he'd held crashed to the floor.

"Is-Isabella?"

- Fin Chapter One -

Thank you so much for reading! For those who have begged me to re-post this and others who have wondered where I've disappeared to these past few years, I hope it doesn't disappoint. For those with a long enough memory, you'll notice that, while the general plot direction is the same, I've done some significant overhauls. By my estimation, I think there are perhaps eight phrases that are the same, so this is definitely completely re-written, not just minor tweaks here and there. My writing style has also changed quite a bit, developing a sort of intensity that reflects a lot of my own emotional experiences these past couple of years. It makes posting this very raw and vulnerable, but you all have been nothing but a wonderful and supportive community. I'm happy to be back.

If you have the time and inclination, I'd appreciate a review! Old friends, tell me where you are and how you're doing! And of course, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, too!

Looking forward to hearing from you. Stay well.

All my love,

Lilly-Belle