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It’s one of those nights.
The sort of night that practically begs Chloe not to go home. The sort of night where David is already there and just a bit angrier than normal; just a bit more willing to show Chloe some ‘discipline’ over the smallest of issues, because Joyce is just a bit too tired for anything but a halfhearted please get along you two. She barely even has the energy to make it up the stairs, so acknowledging the shiny new injuries Chloe picked up courtesy of The Mustache is obviously out of the question.
Chloe never sleeps well on nights like these, so it’s not particularly surprising when she realizes the shuffling around on the roof isn’t part of a dream.
It’s even less surprising when that shuffling turns into the sound of Rachel nearly falling flat on her face and slurring out a “G’job. S’more practice ‘n you’ll gemme one day…” as she pats conspiratorially at the hardwood. Before long, Rachel’s stumbling back to her feet with one of those too-drunk-for-life groans, and she’s giggling into the silence until the mattress squeaks and dips at Chloe’s side.
If it were still two years ago, knowing it isn’t a dream might’ve been a relief. But, hey, the universe has never bothered being that kind to her.
She’s sprawled out on her stomach in nothing but a flimsy band shirt from years ago and a pair of oversized boxers. Her face is buried in her pillow because it’s too damn dark to see anyway, and at least adding pressure to the fresh bruise under her eye offers a strange kind of relief. It still hurts, but it’s her own fault this way.
Rachel’s fumbling and groping around in the dark is almost enough to convince Chloe to say something, maybe put a stop to whatever’s coming before it can start. Almost. But the moment she tries, Rachel is holding on tight, letting out a tiny, satisfied moan and draping herself over as much of Chloe’s back as she can.
She’s snoring that faint breathy snore in seconds.
It’s not until later – minutes; hours; Chloe isn’t sure – when Rachel lifts herself onto her elbows like she’s never been exhausted in her life, and starts blowing along the shell of Chloe’s ear with that absolutely fucking nauseating tequila breath, that Chloe decides to act on that almost. If all Rachel wanted was sleep, this might have been bearable, but apparently the universe just needs to get in one last fuck you before the sun rises.
She knows Rachel is only here because one of her Vortex Club boy toys finally turned her down. Oh, Chloe always has time for me tends to be her next thought whenever it happens.
So now she probably wants to pretend they never fought and that everything is as normal as ever.
Somewhere in the middle of trying not to tense under Rachel’s touch, Chloe wonders what it’d be like to turn the tables on her. To just go and fuck someone else the next time they start this song and dance over again. And maybe it’s the thought, or maybe it’s the particular brand of stale in Rachel’s breath, but Chloe’s stifling a dry heave and trying to disappear into the mattress before she can stop it.
It hits her then, that maybe they should talk. Maybe that almost isn’t enough, and maybe she should work up the courage to ask what Rachel really wants from her. And not just what she wants tonight, but what Rachel has ever wanted from her. Because despite everything, Chloe still loves her like nothing else in the world. She’ll never be able to say no, no matter how many times this happens. No matter how many times they go through these ridiculous, painful motions where Rachel makes it perfectly clear that she doesn’t have the first god damn idea what she wants. So, at the very least, knowing why it happens might lessen the sting of knowing it’s going to happen again. And again.
And again.
The thing about talking, though, is that as soon as Chloe tries, Rachel is going to get annoyed, and they’ll argue, and they’ll yell, and she’ll leave, and then they’re both going to be stuck at the beginning of this loop all over again. Because it’s the only way either of them knows how to confront their feelings. And if she’s being honest, they were overdue for one of these. No reason to put it off any longer, it’s been a good long while since Chloe could feel the next morning on Rachel as soon as she showed up.
She’ll call – because the world will end before they meet in person to talk about something this serious – and Chloe will be able to hear the smile and the afterglow in Rachel’s voice, like she really believes Chloe is the love of her life. She’ll talk that way without the tiniest bit of hesitation, and Chloe will go along with it because she can never, ever say no to anything that comes from those lips.
Chloe will go along with it because despite how little Rachel must care about her, Chloe needs her. She’s the only good thing in her life, and if this is what it takes to keep that going, she’ll find a way to manage.
Like always.
So no matter how much she wants to puke every time the smell of Rachel’s breath drifts into her awareness, and no matter how much it hurts to feel Rachel’s breasts resting on her back and Rachel’s fingers burning trails higher and higher up her sides, she’ll stay silent. Much easier this way.
So much easier, that Chloe settles for giving up the fight completely. She lets Rachel roll her over, lets her tear apart her shirt from the collar down until she feels Rachel’s eyes trying and failing to admire her through the dark.
She wasn’t going to miss that shirt, anyway.
Their arms bang into the wall as Rachel tosses away the loose scraps of fabric, and Chloe knows it’s more due to the state Rachel is in than the dark. She doesn’t flinch. Not even when Rachel’s hands cup her face at just the right angle to bare down on the bruise. Not even when Rachel lunges in for a kiss; one that’s too hard and too sloppy and too rough. Chloe lets herself get swept along by every new movement, and she thanks whatever the opposite of the universe is for letting her bitter laugh get swallowed up somewhere between Rachel’s tongue and the teeth biting down so hard that they break the skin of her lower lip. Chloe’s so distracted by those thanks that she barely notices Rachel wrapping fingers around her wrists and bringing them to rest on the swell of her hips.
She’s so distracted that she barely notices her hands are resting on Rachel’s bare thighs. Somehow, Rachel’s clothes are already gone and vanished, somewhere unreachable in the dark.
Rachel lets out a sleepy, throaty sigh at the contact, and that leads to a laugh. One dripping with every bit of that same satisfaction. And then her hands are fisting into Chloe’s hair and their lips are crashing back together. Chloe stays completely helpless beneath her. Until she doesn’t. Her fingers flex against Rachel’s legs once, twice, and then her nails bite down into the skin until Rachel gasps again, the little hum she lets loose immediately lost in the kiss Chloe stretches up to finish. And Chloe smiles into Rachel’s mouth despite every single thing leading up to this moment.
Rachel pulls away, just far enough to talk, and hisses something into the darkness that sounds an awful lot like the words There’s my Chlo sneaking their way past a shit eating grin. There’s no time to ask before she slides down to drag a line of open-mouthed kisses across Chloe’s throat.
Chloe decides those were the words.
She’s still smiling by the time Rachel starts moving, and before she can second guess herself, Chloe reaches around to Rachel’s ass and squeezes hard, because she knows exactly what Rachel wants, and fuck it, they’ve already gotten this far. May as well play the part.
As if she’s not enjoying it.
Chloe always enjoys it.
Only, apparently, participation isn’t what Rachel wants tonight. Her hands snap over Chloe’s in an instant, which is impressive, given the booze haze she must be swimming through. As she bites down gently, teasing, just above Chloe’s collarbone, she settles those hands back against her thighs.
“Rach,” Chloe croaks, punctuating the feeling of teeth on skin with something almost comparatively hurt. “I… fuckin’.”
She can’t help herself this time, because Rachel bites down again, harder, before she soothes the spot with brushes of her tongue and little wet kisses and suddenly her fingers are dipping into the space between them, just below the waistband of Chloe’s boxers. Chloe’s hands jolt up for Rachel’s back, because that feels like a marginally safer choice than her last attempt. This time Rachel doesn’t bother to stop it.
“Rachel–”
“Shhh,” But she does stop that.
And it pulls Chloe back into her head for the briefest of moments. Because she’s stronger than this. She’s Chloe Fucking Price, she shouldn’t be rolling over this easily. Stopping one single drunk girl from having her way shouldn’t be this hard. They should be able to talk through what’s happening like normal god damn people do when they have emotions like these. But then Rachel manages a disappearing act with those sneaky fingers of hers, and Chloe is intensely aware of two things: Rachel’s fingers are some kind of magic, and they’re not going to talk about this.
They probably never will.
Those fingers feel like fire, like the sun and the stars, stroking to the rhythm of Chloe’s hips, matching her every move as easily as if they were her own. And they’ve done this often enough, so fuck it, they may as well be. Her hips rock up to chase that feeling, faster and faster, and she claws into Rachel’s back until more barely choked and all the way satisfied noises spill out against her clavicle. She can feel Rachel smiling again, can feel her burying it into the newest patch of bruised, throbbing skin. It’s dangerous and feral and full of the kind of intense, all-consuming need to get Chloe off that only surfaces during nights like these. She can’t help but roll her hips up, again, until Rachel’s fingers finally curl up with just enough force to rip the air from Chloe’s lungs, pushing away the last strands of her resistance with it.
A hand tugs at Chloe’s hair, so gently at first that she barely notices, but then it pulls again, hard and firm until she tilts her head back in submission. Until she exposes more of her throat for Rachel to explore and until every sensation feels magnified and it’s all she can do to stay inside of her own body because Rachel’s working her thumb against her clit and sliding another finger inside, and, fuck.
Fuck.
She concentrates on every inch of that feeling until it completely surrounds her, until it fills up every one of her senses more completely and thoroughly than the darkness that they’re both floating within. Until everything in that dark explodes into the pure white light of a thousand stars, each of them every bit as blinding as the dark.
A small glimpse of reality makes itself known through the cracks in that light; Rachel’s lips are back on hers, swallowing up her moans before someone else hears and soothing her back into the night. When they do; when she does, the only thing left is Rachel’s body, pressed to hers. Rachel’s hands, threading gently through her hair. And Rachel’s voice, soothing and whispering and cooing sweet little nothings as Chloe claws her way back from that light.
“Sleep tigh’ Chlo, ‘m gonna go,” Rachel whispers, swatting away Chloe’s hands when they try to return the favor. She throws in a peck on Chloe’s cheek like she thinks it’ll soften the blow.
The instant Rachel moves away, Chloe’s brain forces itself back to life. She needs to say something, now, because Rachel’s about to leave anyway and god, how does Rachel manage to steal every inch of her self esteem like this? They’re not Pirate Pals For Life, she’s got no reason to tiptoe around the reality of how Rachel just used her. And how Rachel always uses her. And how Rachel will probably continue to use her until she finally gets bored and leaves for good. No, there’s no reason to hide when Captain Rachel has made it perfectly clear that Chloe is just some convenient thing to be kept around for the thrill and the adventures and the mad pussy game that she refused to partake in tonight.
Coward.
She would’ve blown Drunk Rachel’s mind.
“Hey,” She tries, out of breath and hoping with every fiber of her being that she’s not already alone. “Hey, Rach.”
But she’s too late to realize that that’s all she ever needed to say to make Rachel stay and listen, because a lighter flashes to life from over by the windowsill. Hers, probably. And the shapes of Rachel’s face just barely catching the light of the flame, orange and yellow and nothing, push every other thought from her mind.
“I…I’m gonna need that back, dude.”
Something like a sad smile carves itself into that open window. But Rachel doesn’t answer, just keeps playing with the lighter, letting the flame spark to life over and over again, washing her face in the smallest traces of light as she mulls over Chloe’s words.
Before long, that smile is gone.
And Rachel with it; nothing more than a whispered promise to return it tomorrow and the trail of a faintly glowing cigarette disappearing into the dark.
Chloe knows she’ll get it back. She knows Rachel’s going to call first thing tomorrow morning and it’ll be like tonight never happened. Like their fight never happened. Like things have always been perfectly and wonderfully okay.
What Chloe doesn’t know, what she’ll never know, is that Rachel pours all of herself into these wordless nights. They’re her way of apologizing for the ways she’s acted and the ways she’s hurt Chloe. They’re her way of telling Chloe that even if she’s incapable of putting those feelings into words, she is capable of getting them across. Physical communication has always been her thing, so these nights are Rachel’s way of saying that what they have still matters to her every bit as much as it used to. Every bit as much as it does to Chloe. It’s still the only thing in the world that feels real, because Chloe is still the only person in the world she can trust.
Even if she doesn’t have the courage to say so.
But Chloe doesn’t know, because she’s never been all that fluent in Rachel’s kind of communication.
Chloe doesn’t know, because Rachel is already gone.