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artificialqueens · 5 years

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crawling back to you (Branjie) - ohhthereuare

AN: Inspired by the night they both perform at Micky’s Vanessa gives a guy from the audience a lapdance during the Dreamgirls’ performance and Brooke disappears, and “Do I Wanna Know” by Arctic Monkeys

AO3

It’s funny how many things the reunion has changed. They’ve been dancing around each other for half a year, sometimes taking tentative steps around the edge and sometimes running full speed with their eyes closed only to drag their feet once they have to do the walk of shame to where they came from. Exchanging light jokes that mean nothing except they hold so much truth and real confessions they weight them down like boulders. Everything to avoid putting a label on whatever it is they still have going on. Not enough to stay but too much to let go. But ever since the reunion something has shifted. Maybe it was hearing the words out loud for the first time in a long time, feeling them hang in the air like a thick, dark fog that made Vanessa’s throat close up and Brooke’s eye water. Nothing is ever black or white and it was easier to say they weren’t together any more than to explain that weird emotional in-between state they found themselves in. They were both hurting for different reasons and dealing with it differently. Brooke just added it to the pile of emotional baggage that rested in the corner at the back of her mind.

Brooke’s body was vibrating with adrenaline after the performance and the unbelievable experience of the entire room chanting her name. She felt drunk on it and the two shots of tequila she had had were already making her pleasantly dizzy. She first heard rather than saw Silky and A’keria making their way to the back of the stage to start their number, Vanessa trailing behind them in a similar outfit to theirs, made out of the same fabric but each had their own silhouette that worked best with their bodies. She looked gorgeous with the exposed shoulder, and the strawberry blonde wig worked so nicely with her cinnamon-colored skin. The Dreamgirls took their places. Vanessa, as if she could physically feel someone looking at her, turned and their eyes met. She looked a little nervous, a little out of it, even given the fragile state they’ve been in for a while. Destiny’s Child started blasting through the speakers and Brooke watched as the queens began the performance. Suddenly she understood what she was about to witness. Seeing the three chairs in the middle of the stage made her stomach drop.

She turned on her heel, wanting to get away from that place as soon as possible. She knew she was not being fair, technically she had no right to be jealous. Wasn’t that what she wanted though? To be free to flirt with whoever she wanted. Vanessa had the same right. She could perform lap dances in front of every guy in the club and take home whoever she wanted and it was none of Brooke’s business. The rational side of her brain did nothing to stop the nauseating wave of anxiety sending cold chills down her spine. She called an Uber back to the hotel and waited in front of the club, the music and sounds of people whistling and yelling echoing through the night. She could only imagine what kind of a show was everyone cheering for at the moment and the hands of some faceless guy from the audience touching Vanessa, making use of the opportunity of the performance. She has never wished to have a pack of cigarettes on her more in her life.

The hotel all the queens were staying in was nice, even if it was just for one night. They were all down the hall from each other, the entire floor at their disposal. It was quiet now, with all the queens still at the club. Brooke felt almost mad at herself for not staying, knowing all of them were supposed to come out together at the end but she knew she wouldn’t have been able to look Vanessa in the eye, especially if there had been already another man on her arm. The sound of her heels got muted by the thick carpet and she didn’t even bother taking them off when she made her way to the bag resting under the table. The pack of cigarettes was already empty halfway through, even though she had promised herself to quit. She had bought it the day after the reunion, saying it was only for emergency situations. She lit the end of the cigarette and the tip flared up in the color of sunsets and their Orange Alert looks. She always loved taking the first drag, hearing the quiet sizzle and feeling the bitter taste settling on her tongue. After she was done she started getting out of drag. Her palms smelled like smoke and hotel soap when she was scrubbing her face clean from the makeup and it reminded her of all the nights they got to share in the past when she was doing the same thing, only with Vanessa sitting on the bed, already shirtless and soft between the sheets, complaining about Brooke’s smoking and tasting like ash but kissing her afterwards nevertheless.

When she finally got under the covers she knew she wouldn’t fall asleep anytime soon. The clock on the bedside table read 2:36 am already and the silence was deafening, almost louder than Brooke’s own thoughts. She was wondering what Vanessa was doing at the moment and with whom. If she had been scanning the crowd the moment she had arrived at the club to choose who she wanted to pick for the lap dance before the performance even began. If the guy fell for it and was shamelessly flirting with her, buying her drinks and making sweet promises to get her to sleep with him. Or maybe he didn’t even need to, maybe she wanted to take him to the hotel room with her all along. If Brooke would hear them walking down the corridor, Vanessa’s voice nothing but a purr as she let his hands roam over her exposed legs and—

Quiet footsteps echoed down the hall, slow, tentative, barely there but Brooke already knew who they belonged to and that there was only one person walking. She jumped out of the bed before she could stop herself before she realized it was probably a very bad idea and she didn’t know what she even wanted to do. When she opened the door she didn’t expect Vanessa to already be standing there, holding her heels in her hands, the glittery trail of her dress pooling by her bare feet.

“What’re you doing?”

“What are you doing?”

“Going to my room, bitch.”

“And stopping outside of my room?”

“And you just had to open them doors right as I was passing them.”

“I heard someone. Didn’t know it was you.”

“Why d’ya leave so early? Didn’t even wait till the end of the show.”

“I wasn’t feeling great.” The second lie didn’t roll off her tongue as easily as the first one.

“You missed our performance.”

“Yeah sorry. And what a performance it was.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Nothing. I just hope you enjoyed it. I bet the guy you were grinding on did.”

“You didn’t even see shit so how d’ya know?”

“You’re right, I—”

“Is that why you left early? So you didn’t have to watch some other guy get it on with me in front of everybody since you didn’t want to?”

That struck a chord and Vanessa knew it but she seemed to have had it. There was a new fire burning in her eyes, fueled by hurt and betrayal, one she couldn’t contain anymore and Brooke hated that she was the one that put it there but she couldn’t tell her that. Couldn’t use the words that would explain everything she was truly feeling. Brooke felt so frustrated with herself for not being able to work through whatever was stopping her from enjoying this wonderful thing that they had had, for not being able to appreciate what Vanessa wanted to give her, for choosing to try to kill it herself to make it hurt less now instead of having to watch it possibly die in the future. She was also frustrated and mad at Vanessa for making it so hard to move on, for all the times she’d let Brooke kiss her since they called it off, for wanting something Brooke didn’t want to, couldn’t give her.

“Who said I didn’t want to?”

“You did, bitch. You did when you said we had to end this thing. You can’t eat the cookie and have the cookie, B, not this time. Being sneaky was cute when we was on the show but it’s different now and I can’t keep doing it like that, not when I still—”

“Why didn’t you invite the guy over?”

“You know why.”

“You could have. You can do whatever you want and I can’t stop you, you know that. You deserve someone better. You deserve the world. You deserve to move on.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to move on.”

Vanessa dropped her heels to the floor and huffed out in frustration. She looked so small, being a head shorter than Brooke. She took a step closer towards the other queen, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. The dim light from the hallway’s wall sconces caught on the dark sequins of her dress when she shuffled her feet.

“Do you want to move on?”

Brooke took that final step to close the distance between them, placed her hands on Vanessa’s jaw and pulled her in for a kiss. Vanessa tasted like tequila and Brooke still had the ashy aftertaste from the cigarettes on her tongue but neither cared. They stumbled back into Brooke’s room, their lips still on each other, hands already finding their familiar places on the other’s body. The kiss held the answer to the question still hanging in the air but asked way too many in return. They had the entire tour ahead of them to figure them out. For now, though, they had the night and each other. It was a good start.

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #vanessa vanjie mateo #brooke lynn hytes #angst #fluff #ohhthereuare #submission #tour fic #canon compliant

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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king of the world (Branjie) - ohhthereuare

AN: We thought the picture Vanessa posted (and then fastly deleted) was in a drunken, sad haze. But what if it wasn’t? A conspiracy theory based on the screenshot Brooke posted on Twitter proving they’re happily together and both in on the shadiness.

I– My dumb ass thought my laptop randomly didn’t save this fic after I wrote it exactly a day after their exchange on Twitter, turns out I just saved it in a different folder and found it today while looking for my resume. I hope it’s still not too late to share my conspiracy theory about this “drunken” picture posted by V. Let me know what your thoughts are!

AO3

The phone was pretty much already glued to Brooke’s hand for the past ten minutes, vibrating non-stop with the endless twitter and Instagram notifications, so when she got an incoming FaceTime call, she answered comically fast.

“Hiiiiii babyyyy! You busy or somethin’?” Vanessa’s blurry face appeared on the phone screen and Brooke’s heart automatically started beating a little faster. She must’ve just finished her gig, a bright yellow wig, and sparkly makeup still on. Brooke had already gotten rid of her stage persona and was already getting ready for bed. The not-so-harsh time difference made it possible for them to catch up.

“Hi, Papi. No, just winding down after the show. What’s up?”

“Just missed ya stupid face, that’s all.”

Vanessa was still in the club. The music was playing somewhere in the background, mixed with incoherent conversations and laughter. Her smile was so broad it was contentious. She was swaying a little bit and her words were slurring together from alcohol no doubt. There was a sheepish glim in her eyes.

“I’ve seen the picture that you posted of us. And the song.”

“Mmm” Vanessa looked away from the phone for a moment, trying to look like she was looking for something, distracted, not paying too much attention but Brooke caught how the corner of her lips quivered when she tried not to smile. It must have meant more to her than what she tried to let on. Sometimes words weren’t their strongest suit but they already knew each other to well to not know how to read the signs.

“I really liked it. Why did you delete it?” Henry settled by Brooke’s side, purring with his eyes contently closed while Apollo laid in a bread-like position by her feet. She was late-night snacking on some sweet potato chips, that she had found in the cupboard, and the crumbs were getting all over the bedsheets.

“The management was all up my ass the second that it went up, these hoes. Keeping tabs on us 24/7 and shit. They told me to take it down. So it don’t mess their whole theme of—”

“—keep watching the show. Yeah” they finished in unison. There was a slight bitterness to their tones, but there was not much they could do. They were already bending the rules and the money mentioned at the bottom of their NDA contract was good enough for them to make it through just a couple more months.

“I meant it, y’know. The song I mean. The lyrics and shit.”

Now it was Brooke’s time to look away to hide her face, afraid of revealing too much. It’s been over a year. A year of feelings so new and wonderful sometimes it felt like her body could not contain all of them with how her heart swelled in her chest and made it hard to breathe. A year of being so happy but having to keep all of that a secret when all she wanted to do was scream it at the top of her lungs for the world to hear. There was a reason why every single time someone as much as mentioned Vanjie during the interviews Brooke instantly turned into a grinning, blushing, lovesick puppy.

“Would you, um… Would you send me the picture though? The one of us that you used with the song? I don’t think I have it and I’d like… I mean I didn’t really get a chance to look at it before you had to take it down.” The whole two minutes that it was on Instagram she kept refreshing the Story time after time to stare at it just a bit longer. Beside the point though.

This time neither looked away. Despite the shaky connection and blurry vision, the two queens locked eyes and the moment felt strangely intense, as if that gaze conveyed everything that they didn’t know how to put in words. They were already past the point of having to prove something to one another.

“Yeah, I’ll do– do that when I get home. I gotta go now though. Other people want to get some of Miss Vaaaanjie.”

“Okay, just remember that that ass is already taken.”

“Not like I could forget. Taken and taken care of. Okayloveyabyeeee!”

“You, too.”

Almost two hours went by and Brooke kept tossing and turning in her bed, reaching for her phone every five minutes. When it finally binged with a new message she reached for it so hard she almost pulled a muscle. The top notification read “Jose” with an orange heart and a bunch of their favorite emojis that they loved to use and confuse the fans with. Maybe they’d explain it during the Reunion episode. Or maybe not.

Did u get it

Under the message, there was a blank, grey square indicating an incoming picture.

Still loading, Brooke typed back.

Fuckit

A second later it finally got delivered and Brooke had to close her eyes and hide her smiling face into the pillow before she could look at it again. She remembered the night that it was taken during their stay in Toronto. How comfortable, happy, at home she had felt. Vanessa’s back warmly pressed against her arm, her neck smelling like fresh hotel sheets, menthol cigarettes that Brooke had kept smoking, and cologne. Brooke’s hand placed at her waist, keeping her closer. Vanessa’s own palm resting on the Canadian queen’s thigh and their pinkie fingers linked together, a little detail cut off by the picture frame.

She reached for her AirPods and opened Spotify, looking through Natalie Grant’s discography until she found the right song. The melody filled her headphones and she took a last look at their picture before closing her eyes and smiling like an idiot. God, she couldn’t wait for when they’d be able to openly talk about all of it. For now though, you’d just have to keep watching the show.

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #fluff #ohhthereuare #submission

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