#after this shit tho i gotta pop some painkillers

[sorieba]

I still don't know shit about letting go

[artificialqueens]

nobody knows where we might end up, chapter nine (branjie) - holtzmanns

(read on ao3) | (tumblr) | word count: 4417

AN: Thank you for all the wonderful feedback on the last chapter! I appreciate it so, so, much, comments make my heart incredibly full. Thank you writ for being a wonderful beta as always <3

(then)

“Gonna miss you.” Vanessa’s voice is soft from where her head is resting on Brooke’s lap, and it makes Brooke absolutely melt.

“I’m gonna miss you too, Ness.” Brooke runs her fingers through Vanessa’s hair, an action that makes Vanessa snuggle into her and let out a contented sigh. She wishes that she didn’t have to let her go.

“Just a long weekend, though. Then you’ll be back.” Vanessa beams up at her. “I’m excited for it already.”

Brooke can’t help but grin back, because Vanessa’s smile remains the cutest thing in the world to her. “You sap. Me neither. My cousin’s wedding will be over and done with before we know it.”

“Send me hot pictures of you in your fancy dress for the wedding.”

Brooke wrinkles her nose. “Are you kidding? My mom’s probably picked something out already that’ll be appropriate for a church wedding. It’s not going to be hot in the least.”

“You’re always hot to me. Even in your little church dress.” Vanessa wiggles her eyebrows at her and Brooke can’t help but poke her shoulder.

“Shut up.”

Vanessa sticks her tongue out at her. “Make me.”

“Have you forgotten I know exactly where you’re ticklish?” Vanessa’s off of Brooke’s lap the second that the words leave her lips.

“Don’t you even think about it!” Vanessa shrieks and moves to Detox’s side of the room, flopping onto her bed.

Brooke rolls off of her bed too, wrapping Vanessa in a hug instead. “I won’t use my powers for evil for now, at least.”

Vanessa pouts up at her from her position. “I still can’t believe you don’t get ticklish.”

“My superpower.” Brooke grins, though it quickly turns into a frown when her alarm clock goes. “Shit. That was the alarm I set to catch my bus.”

Vanessa’s arms tighten around her waist. “Don’t leave.”

“I wish you could come with me, somehow.” Brooke sighs, hugging Vanessa tighter too. Vanessa’s so good at calming her down by just being in her presence, making her feel like things are going to always be okay.

“Me too. Shut that damn beeping off, though.” Vanessa’s voice is muffled into her sweater, face buried in the hug, and Brooke snorts. She lets go, tugs Vanessa along so she can turn off the alarm on her bedside table.

“I gotta go.”

Vanessa stretches on her tiptoes, kisses her. “Don’t miss me too much.”

Brooke snorts. “Please. You’ll miss me more.” Though she can’t deny that she will, even if it’s just for four days. God, they’re already too codependent on each other. Brooke would consider it a problem if she didn’t enjoy it so much.

The bus ride is simultaneously too long and not long enough, knowing that the destination is just bringing her closer to the weekend. Brooke wishes she could just fast forward to Monday, when she’s going to be back at uni and back in her dorm. With Vanessa, with the rest of their friends.

She stumbles off of the bus with suitcase in tow, intent on walking the rest of the way home. She hadn’t wanted to ask anyone from her family to pick her up - it would just have been an awkward car ride, anyway. She’s going to get enough uncomfortable family moments this weekend as it is.

The front door opens when she reaches the entrance, making her raised hand fall down on its own before she can even knock.

“Mom?”

“You’re late. Come set the table, it’s almost dinner.” Her mom snaps the words at her, turning on her heel.

Welcome home, indeed.

The four pale pink walls of Brooke’s childhood bedroom had once acted as her getaway. She would lie on her bed as a kid, her mind dreaming up different scenarios of being a famous ballerina, a knight with a pet dragon, an astronaut. Somewhere where she was powerful, in control of everything around her and also loved. She’d always have her happy ending, get to kiss the princess before her young brain even knew it was considered wrong by some.

The walls are suffocating her now, two days into her stay. The room is a memory of the way she’d try to cry as softly as she could as a kid, trying not to make any noise into her pillow. The way she’d pop painkillers to numb the ache in her muscles from overuse, ballet wearing down her body too fast for someone who hadn’t been fully grown. The way she’d squeeze her eyes shut tight, ignoring the arguments that she could still hear no matter how hard she tried to block them with her dreams of prettier stories than her own.

Being back here feels like the walls are pushing down on her, closing her up in a box that had succeeded in containing her for eighteen years. Except now she’s had a taste of life outside of the box, and she never ever wants to come back.

Her Blackberry beeps and she picks it up from its spot on her pillow, and can’t help but smile when she sees that it’s a text from Vanessa. She can almost imagine the other girl lying on her bed, pink Motorola RAZR phone in both hands as she types faster than Brooke ever could.

VM: my mom got the pics from Christmas developed!!!!

VM: look at my wack ass fam

The picture is absolutely chaotic, everyone in the group smiling, laughing, or, in Vanessa’s case, yelling at the person taking the photo. They’re all in colourful ugly Christmas sweaters, some with Santa hats, some with reindeer ears.

VM: my mami’s the one wearing the fake Santa beard LOL

BLH: Oh my god. You look just like her.

The woman beside Vanessa in the photo really does look like an adult Vanessa, though with hair that is a few shades lighter. She has an arm around Vanessa who looks tiny beside her, their oversized sweaters nearly taking them over.

BLH: Who else is who?

VM: well, there’s julio, my brother, he’s the one wearing the dumbass elf hat. my abuela, then my tía rosa, her husband enrique, my tío pablo and his husband luis, my tía carmen, my cousins maria and isaac and isabella and daniela and alex. and riley my pup!!!

BLH: Your family is huge, omg.

VM: not even all of them. these are just the ones who could make it to christmas dinner

The photo makes Vanessa’s house look so fun, so welcome, so opening and inviting. Brooke zooms in on the photo, looks at their individual faces that look like they’re having a blast.

BLH: Wait, did you say your uncle and his husband?

VM: yeah they’re married!! caused a big drama when tío pablo brought him home the first time but now everyone loves him and their wedding was the best. and my mami wasn’t as mad when i came out to her lol  

BLH: you’re out to her?

VM: yeah!!! a couple years ago i came out she cried for two days then got over it lol

Wow. Brooke’s wondering why they’ve never had this conversation before. Brooke knows that Vanessa senses her discomfort around talking about her own family, and tactfully doesn’t ask her much. Vanessa always talks about her own, though, recounting her constant bickering with her brother and her mom’s trash talking at the wheel.

BLH: Wow. That’s great, though.

VM: ya, she still wants grandkids tho

VM: says riley doesn’t count >:(

BLH: LOL. He is the biggest furriest baby there is.

Brooke pets Henry absentmindedly, burying her fingers into his soft fur as he purrs. He’s curled up on the pillow beside her, Apollo resting on her desk chair. Henry and Apollo are the two things that she doesn’t mind about visiting home. She opens the picture from Vanessa again, looking at all of the happy and smiling faces. Looks at her married uncles. It’s a contrast from the family portraits that line the walls in Brooke’s house, ones of her and her parents sitting stone faced, looking poised. Nothing short of practiced and perfect, matching their vibes during the holidays. Quiet, tense dinners, a cloak for the screaming arguments in the late evenings that her parents would get into after having too much to drink and needing to release their pent up resentment towards each other, only to go back to clipped tones the next day, as if nothing had happened.

The longing in her chest is tangible, a woven rope that makes her want to jump into the picture and have a family like Vanessa’s, one so big and full of life.

Brooke looks at the way that Vanessa’s grandmother’s arm is wrapped around her uncle’s waist and hugging her son close, and the way that Vanessa is curled into her mom’s side. Brooke wonders if Vanessa has mentioned her to her mom, talked about them at Christmas break. If Vanessa used to mention her past girlfriends, giggle about her dates with her mom.

Would her parents be the same way, if she came out to them, equally supportive and loving? Does she have to? Is she fake if she doesn’t?

She doesn’t want to. Facing their inevitable disappointed expressions, echoing the homilies they’ve heard at Mass about how being gay is wrong, how it means you’re a sinner. How you can’t go to heaven and thus can’t be a good person, if you’re gay.

Do her parents believe that? Would her parents hate her?

How could they, though? Would they hate Vanessa too, someone so sweet and funny and smart and utterly wonderful, just because of preconceptions that they have about her?

She wants a family like Vanessa’s, wants it so, so bad. Wants a house that is loud and full of laughter and ugly Christmas sweaters and one where she can bring her girlfriend home to. One where she’d be able to talk to her mom about anything and everything, where her mom would give her advice and actually give her the time of day.

Brooke’s fine on her own, in her room. She is. She just wants more. Wishes that she had it more than anything in the world.

(now)

“Vanessa. Please.”

Brooke bangs her fist on the door one, two, three times, the door an unmoving barrier that won’t budge as she ignores the patients, nurses, doctors, and technicians that pass by in the hall, because nothing else matters right now. She needs to talk and explain things, find out what made Vanessa push her away and look at her with an expression of horror and confusion alike, because she doesn’t know. It’s replaying in her brain a million times over, chipping away at her insides and she can feel her foundations start to crack, on the route to crumbling if she doesn’t find out.

Maybe it was the nickname.

Who was Brooke to even call her ‘Nessa’? A pet name that’s so laden with softness and memories of them from when they were so much younger. Of course Vanessa hadn’t wanted to hear it, they’re different now and they don’t do this and they’ve both moved on. They’re adults, two adults having sex. Nothing more.

She’s so stupid. She’s slipped up and ruined everything.

“Please, just talk to me.” Brooke never begs, she doesn’t. But right now she can’t help it as the words leave her lips sounding desperate and broken, ruining any illusion she’s ever wanted to portray of having her shit together. Any semblance of a carefully constructed persona that she carries around with her around the hospital is melting away, because all she can think of is Vanessa on the other side of the door.

The door doesn’t open.

Maybe it had been the way she’d pulled Vanessa in for a kiss after the consultation meeting. Maybe Vanessa had wanted to tell her that they were done, that she wanted to end whatever she fuck they were doing. And then Brooke had gone and kissed her, made everything worse. Made Vanessa firm in her decision.

She’s a fucking idiot.

Vanessa could probably sense it, all of it. The way that Brooke still fucking feels it, wants more than just sex no matter how much she tries to convince herself that she doesn’t. She hates it.  

Brooke’s tried, the last few days. Attempted to hide her disappointment when Vanessa had to cancel meetings with her when the cardiac units got busy. Held her face back from displaying too much when Yvie had asked her about Vanessa and how they hadn’t seemed to be fighting for the first time in awhile. Brooke’s tried to forget the feeling of Vanessa’s face buried in the crook of her neck, arms gripping onto her like she’s a precious metal, because she’s not Brooke’s to cherish.

This is why she never does these…things. Doesn’t date anymore, stays far away from anyone that could make her feel more than she should. She doesn’t need it, doesn’t need the connection that feels so good, so right in the moment before shattering her into pieces when it ends. It ruins everything.

And now here she is, hung up over an ex from more than a decade ago, someone who’s been happily over it for just as long, leaving Brooke a fucking mess and banging on a door that she knows won’t open.

Stupid.

Brooke watches as her own fist drops from the door, slides down the smooth surface until it’s resting at her side. The telltale numbness that is activated by her brain when she’s feeling too much begins to spread over her heart, her soul. It glazes over the shame, the embarrassment, the rejection, the longing for someone who she shouldn’t be hung up over in the first place. The grey cloud is enough to numb everything, leaving a bulletproof blank slate that is impossible to get through from the outside.

She doesn’t need anything, or anyone. She’s learned that enough.  

And so she turns on her heel, and she leaves.

Brooke does the only thing that she knows how to do when she needs to drown out her thoughts, shut her brain off to avoid the feelings that she doesn’t want to feel - she turns to her work. She takes on more patient referrals than she usually would, filling up her schedule with procedures that require her full attention for hours upon hours.

The work is methodical, routines that she’s followed a thousand times in her career. Cuts from her scalpel, the buzz of the bone saw, beeps sounding throughout the OR as she directs her team, working together like a miniature ecosystem. Patients that survive, others on the brink of death who pull back because Brooke refuses to sit down until they’re stable.

Other patients that die on the table and take a piece of Brooke with them when they go.

If her team notices any changes, they say nothing. She doesn’t care, she’s not here for them.

She’s here for work.

The interns piss her off more than usual, making stupid mistakes that are reflective of any medical student, but right now they’re so careless and messing with Brooke’s work, and so what if she yells at them more than she normally does? It makes her feel better afterwards.

It doesn’t stop her from escaping Nina’s scrutinizing gaze, though, her best friend looking equal parts done and worried as they sit in her office at the end of the day.

“I’ve had three interns email me today about how they can’t work in, and I quote, ‘unsafe work practices’.” Nina looks as if she’s staving off approximately three headaches at once, and Brooke would feel bad if they interns didn’t deserve it.

Brooke takes a sip of the wine that Nina’s poured for her. “Not my fault that they can’t handle the rigorous workload of being on the neuro units.” If they want to work with the best, they need to be the best.

She doesn’t need to put up with interns that forget simple suture techniques, or ones that don’t come prepared with answers to the questions that Brooke throws at them. How else are they going to become surgeons?

“Except this is new, Brooke, and you know it. You’re normally a bitch, but a fair one, which is how you’re good with the interns most of the time. But from what they’ve told me now, it sounds like you’re just being plain mean to them.” Nina tugs her glasses off, puts them on the desk before rubbing her temples.

Brooke shrugs. “They shouldn’t be in surgery if they can’t handle it.”

“No, you’re taking your frustrations out on them. Which I get, but also you’re going to scare all of them away, and the teaching component of this hospital is incredibly vital, and so we need to keep all of these baby doctors without you making them run with their tails between their legs before they can even reach residency.”

Brooke crosses her arms. “They’re shit baby doctors.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.” Nina looks up at her, really looks up at her, and it makes Brooke shrink in her seat. Nina’s the only one in the hospital who can actually make her do so. “What on earth is up with you?”

Brooke shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t, she’s dealing. She’s not going to let Vanessa affect her.

Nina sighs. “Brooke…”

“Anyway.” Brooke leans forward in her seat, rests her elbows on Nina’s desk. Ignores Nina’s pointed look at her. “You still haven’t told me about the date with Ryan you had last week. You promised me the details.”

It’s a distraction tactic, a flimsy one at best, but it does the job, Nina’s face lighting up at the mention of her new boyfriend. “Well, he said to dress fancy, but not too fancy, right?”

Brooke nods as she listens to Nina’s excited rambling, the woman at times as easy to redirect as a four year old. The subject is much more palatable than her own fucked up love life - not that she even has one.

The shot of tequila creates a smooth burn down the back of Brooke’s throat, the subsequent salt and lime not enough to drown out the overbearing noise that is forever present at Ralph’s. Brooke gestures to the bartender for another shot as Yvie, Scarlet and other members of the neurosurgery team toast to Plastique.

“Happy birthday, bitch!” Yvie yells the words as she slams down her empty shot glass. “May this be the year that you’re finally not carded.”

“That’ll probably be never. Everyone thinks I’m twelve years old anyway.” Plastique sighs. “Last week an attending asked me if I needed help finding my family - he thought I was a patient’s kid or something.”

Brooke can’t help the laugh that bubbles in her throat, something that Plastique immediately catches. “Don’t you start.”

Brooke has to cover her mouth. “Sorry, it’s just hilarious. We have a tween on the neuro team.” She cant help but fully crack up after making eye contact with Yvie.

Plastique pouts. “That’s Dr. Edwards to you. I’m a resident, damn it.”

“A twelve year old resident? Child prodigies are truly so impressive.” Yvie grins, patting Plastique’s arm.

“You’re all the worst. The absolute worst.”

“And yet,” Yvie shrugs, “you love us.”

Plastique grins. “Can’t deny that. Even if you all are pretty much considered elderly at this point.”

“Careful, or I’m gonna run you over with my walker.” Yvie pokes Plastique’s side, which makes her yelp and poke Yvie right back.

Brooke snorts. She loves her team, or at least, parts of it. She didn’t want to come out tonight, before being dragged out of her apartment by Yvie and Scarlet (a running theme recently, the two of them refusing to let her rest for even five seconds), but now she’s not so upset that she has.

Plastique, the newest member of neurosurgery who had started as a resident only a few months ago, already fits in well with the group. Brooke’s glad that she has friends that are at her level - or rather, close to her level, since she does outrank them all as the head of neurosurgery. Ones who she can discuss difficult cases and current research with, topics that someone who doesn’t work in a hospital would be utterly confused about. It reminds her of undergrad, when her and Vanessa would-

No. Not happening. She’s not thinking about that.

The bartender slides over the other shot that she’s ordered, and Brooke downs it without so much as a wince. The tequila and lime and salt are tangible, existing sensations that help to draw her out of her head, from the clutches of memories and regrets that never seem to leave her alone anymore.

“Slow down, B.” Yvie tilts her head, brow furrowed. “We got here like, ten minutes ago.”

Brooke shrugs. “Getting a head start, that’s all.” She’s gonna need all the alcohol that she can get on her first night out in awhile.

She’s been coming in early, staying late, overworking herself to shut off her mind, though it hasn’t been working as well as she wants it to. Vanessa’s smile. Vanessa’s moans underneath her. The furrow in Vanessa’s brow ever present in their past meetings. The way Vanessa had pushed her away the last time in the conference room. The way Vanessa hadn’t opened the door, effectively letting her know that she wasn’t interested. Wanted it to end.

Brooke gets it, really does. Though her heart fucking doesn’t, replaying the moment over and over again since it happened, the knife in her heart twisting more and more every time.

She needs to get a grip.

The alcohol flowing in her system is no help, making the conversations that are happening around her louder, the lights brighter, sensations that are exacerbating the very thoughts that she wants to drown out.

Scarlet pulls out a cupcake, because, being Scarlet, she had picked one up earlier for Plastique’s birthday. Plastique squeals (‘you got double chocolate!’) , pulling Scarlet into a hug. Brooke lets out a surprised yelp when she tugs the rest of them in, too, nearly falling off of her stool.

She peeks over Yvie’s shoulder while still in the hug before her heart drops in her chest, and she wants to close her eyes so that she doesn’t have to register who has just sit down at the other end of the bar.

Vanessa.

It seems that Brooke can’t come to Ralph’s without seeing her anymore.

Brooke can’t tear her eyes away, unable to pull her gaze from the other surgeon in a tan jumpsuit and with waves cascading down her back. She’s laughing, making enough noise with the cardiothoracic surgeons that Brooke has to wonder how she didn’t spot her as soon as she had walked in.

Vanessa flags down the bartender, batting her eyelids and tilting her head and from the way that the female bartender leans on the counter, flirts back, Brooke knows that it’s going to be on the house.  

The knife in her chest twists a little bit more, hitting a few more veins, making a few more cuts. Not that it matters.

Brooke is a sucker for punishment, a real lover of making herself feel like shit because she can’t help the way that her eyes drag back towards Vanessa every couple minutes. She looks so carefree and happy, joking around with the other cardiac doctors and does she have her arm around the waist of one of them?

Vanessa’s so good at making herself at home, no matter the situation that she’s in. She’d been the same way back when they were in school, and Brooke can see that nothing’s changed. She’s like a flame burning bright, drawing everyone in towards her like moths that are mesmerized by her light. Her smiles light up her entire face, and Brooke has to ignore the incessant pangs in her stomach reminding her that she’s not the one who is causing them.

Vanessa’s fine. Vanessa gets through things, Brooke can see that. She can emerge unscathed and continue to shine, continue to climb up, up, up. She’s not haunted by regrets or things from her past. She knows when to cut off thorns that wrap around her limbs and try to bring her down. Ones like Brooke.

Brooke gets it. Maybe she deserves it. Because Vanessa clearly knows what she wants, and knows that she deserves better. Someone more than Brooke, who can give her love and light and not dysfunction and vicious cycles that only seem to end in destruction.  

Brooke can’t hold Vanessa back anymore. Maybe she’s not meant for it, for anything that can crack her heart open. She had been doing so well, keeping things casual with a few women. No strings attached, no possibility of feelings being developed if she never learned their full names or anything about them. No attachments had meant no chance of those attachments being ripped from her.

Maybe that’s what she should go back to. Maybe it’s the only thing that she deserves now.

There’s no angel whispering in Brooke’s ear to stop her from going to chat up a girl (a nurse? a unit clerk?) towards the end of the night a few hours later, one whom she’s fucked before and is always willing for some time in the on call room. Perhaps there’s a little tug in her chest whispering that this girl isn’t Vanessa, won’t ever live up to Vanessa, but she ignores it. Because Vanessa isn’t hers, never will be hers, not anymore. Not for the last eleven years.

Maybe some quick fucks are all that Brooke is going to get now. She used to be happy with it, encouraged it even, before Vanessa walked into the hospital on her first day and disrupted her carefully crafted life and left her to salvage the broken pieces.

And salvage she will. Brooke can go back to it, because it’s what worked, it’s what she deserves. She doesn’t have Vanessa anymore.

Brooke doesn’t look up as she leaves to see if Vanessa notices her walk by, her hand on the girl’s back guiding her outside to a waiting Uber. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t. She can go back to her routine, back to not caring, not getting invested. Vanessa isn’t her problem anymore.