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pre-everything
this cannot start with a capital letter because Laurel is determined not to give it the importance she despises. she sees him and it’s green eyes strong stance built arms and can probably make you scream into the night and- stop- she sits and reminds herself why she’s there. making a difference and protecting and trusting your heart. everyone sits.
This starts with Professor Keating stepping into the classroom. She has a moment of total panic followed by total calm, and she’ll know the feeling again in three months- for now, she focuses solely on the holder of her dreams.
-
pre-kiss
Stop screwing the students and she wants to scream HE’S NOT SCREWEING ME and maybe hit him across the face because she never snaps- and maybe it’d feel good- just one time one time one time, oh God it’d feel good, him and her and a blacked out world, and when did her trail of thoughts transform into this-
“That was not okay.” She comes back angrily, and Bonnie’s gone, and she’s driven by instinct more than she is by reason (and this can’t happen, goddamnit Laurel). “You don’t give a crap about my personal life but he’s my boyfriend and that was not okay, okay?”
Frank turns slowly, and there’s something burning so intensely in his eyes Laurel suddenly wishes she could be under a freezing shower and light blankets and maybe coldly distanced from him. “Okay,” he says, and smiles like the world doesn’t end with them. She turns because nothing else comes out of her (dried and oddly foreign) mouth and he says- “You’re right, I don’t give a crap about your personal life.” He crosses his forearms over his legs and his jacket’s off and Laurel thinks maybe this is what dreams are made of (how cliché can you get, screw you, God) “Just the people you fuck.”
She halts. Has half a mind to hit him, and this time really hit him, but all her frustration translates into something she doesn’t want to read, because Asher is an asshole all the damn time and she doesn’t even pay attention to him. Why does 6-foot-tall-three-piece-suit crawl under her skin like he doesn’t want to leave?
“I can have sex with whomever I want.” She says determinedly, and then immediately after-
“You can, but you won’t. Otherwise you’d be having sex with me.” And there’s such easiness in his words she actually wonders how many times he’s performed this speech. And that eases her somehow, because it’d be worse if she was different, because she’s already different for Kahn, she’s his girlfriend, and with Frank it’s all about sex and nothing else, and she doesn’t even know what she’s talking about anymore.
She decides to leave, eventually, because Frank doesn’t stop smiling, and she doesn’t know what to say to wipe that triumphant grin off without sounding fake as fuck.
-
pre-Bonnie
there’s a change in pace.
When she was 15, Laurel kissed her first boyfriend for the first time, and it was nothing special. It was nice, but no butterflies fluttered around nor were there trembling arms and shaking lips. Months later, she fell in love with another man and kissed him, and the earth shook and trembled and panted to its core.
Kissing Frank made her kiss Kahn until her mouth was bruised, because that’s the philosophy of every human being: if something doesn’t work, hit it until it does. She crashes her lips against his again and again and again one more time and she presses and pulls and bites and it’s good, it’s good. Better than nice, after a sleepless night.
Frank got her to that state in 2.5 seconds, and she feels dirty under clean white sheets.
-
pre-porch
“You didn’t really mean that.”
(don’t play with fire, you get burned easily) “Your ego recovers pretty quick.”
There’s a throaty laugh and it’s ironic how no one will be laughing in a month, but for now they live, unlike some (the future holds promises)- “I get it. You’re lying for the sake of everything, and I know what’s in stake, I know it’s your job and your little boyfriend and your own self-respect.” He shrugs. “I don’t care.”
She turns. “I hate you.”
“Fighting a liar with lies?” he arches an eyebrow, and the space between them lessens. “I care. See? I can lie too. Just don’t do it to me because I’ll see right through you.”
“I’m not yours to protect,” she hisses, “Or care for. I’m my own person before I’m yours.”
There’s a stretched out silence, and the woods are nothing compared to this. “That’s how you catch a killer,” Frank smiles, “You push them enough and the truth slips out.”
She’s sick and breathing heavily and pounding the ground in a near future, and now- “Get out, Frank.”
He does the exact opposite, because he can, and because he’s selfish, and there are words on his lips that are spoken in her ear but she can’t bear to think of them when there’s heat and fire and possibility. She hears the door close and collapses in a world she doesn’t want to be in.
She goes home to Kahn, even if (I know you were thinking about me. Fucking him. Have a good night, princess.)
-
pre-complicated
“I’m not into you,” he mock sings over the phone, and there are suppressed smiles and inner laughter.
“Like I’d ever wanna screw you,” she mock sings back, and he laughs wholeheartedly. “At least I faked it better.”
“Ok, I’ll give you that,” he’s smiling and his tone is deep and smooth and calming and unnerving and too damn personal. “Where are you?”
“Still at the house, we’re brainstorming.”
“Wanna come brainstorm in the car for a bit?”
She pushes her legs closer together and lowers her voice. “I can’t leave now, Frank.”
“I’m your superior and I see absolutely no problem with it.” And it pains her how she can’t and could never say no, not while meaning it, and she presses her nails into the palm of her hand and leans against the wall behind her. “I’ll reward you,” he promises, a hitch in his voice and in his eyes and she’s gone so far down the road she can’t even see the starting point.
Moans and screams and muffled groans and hard, lean lines and strength and drive, and “You’re so beautiful, God,” just “Right there, right- oh God-“ and “You can’t tell me he ever fucked you like this, can you?” and she’s glad there’s only pride and not jealousy, so so so so glad, just so-
“That was some break,” Michaela’s voice is more than knowing and Laurel sits, shrugs, and grabs the file, the smell of sex enveloping her.
(We’ll be doing this again, princess.)
-
The first time she stays over, she wakes up at 3 am and stares at him for an eternity. She knows she’s lost, knew it before and now and then, and it’s only worse when his eyes open reluctantly and crinkle at her. She’s out of bed with a jolt and he stirs up, rubs the sleep off his face with one hand and “What the hell?”
I have to go and inside (I can’t make a better excuse than that), and she can’t separate what’s sprinting through her head and what spills down her lips.
“Laurel,” she pretends she doesn’t see desperation taking over, “What happened, why are you running, what the fu-“
“I’m sorry, really, I’m-“ scrambled, hurriedly, “It’ll be better if I leave-“ he grabs her arm and her back is hitting the wall and she wants to yell but that’s not her, she’s put together and calm and collected and “Please, let me go.”
Frank knows, but is afraid he doesn’t. “Why are you scared?”
“Goodnight.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” he’s further away now, and still so close, she feels cold, “That you’re like the others? Or that you aren’t?”
“Kahn-“
“Is that your safe word for everything?” he hisses, and she can’t move and he’s not holding her anymore. “Tell me, do you want the truth?”
“No,” and it’s time she’s coherent, but he interrupts-
“So, you know.”
She looks at him again, and time stops. This time, she speaks slowly. “Yes. But you can’t tell me I’m anywhere near different, I already have that. I have a relationship. You can’t ask me to leave him and sleep with you and have breakfast with you and stay with you because-“
“He’s stable,” he nods. “I won’t ask you to stay with me. Just stay the night.” But every time he kisses her and touches her and makes her scream he’s already asking her, and she knows they both know, and it’s so, so fucking messed up.
He grabs her hand and coaxes her back into bed and she goes, because he doesn’t use words, but it’s what he doesn’t say that has already told her what she doesn’t want to know.
(It’s not any good now, Frank. I can’t stop.)
-
pre-girlfriend
“Upstairs?” he asks, out of breath and out of his mind, “Come on, quick-“ he rushes her through the steps and he laughs and pants, and has her on his apartment door and he stops.
Her eyes sparkle with something that’s not arousal and his light up with something other than the brightness of the corridor. “You can’t be with him.” he swallows dryly, “It’s killing me to know he kisses you like this, too,”
She shakes her head and laughs, silly boy, how can you think “He never kisses me like this,” she grabs his neck and kisses him like her sanity depends on it, and that’s exactly what’s happening here. He unlocks his apartment door and- fuck.
-
post-everything
oh God oh God oh fuck fuck fuck- blood and tears and phone calls, not the phone fuck fuck fuck-
“I never thought I’d hate fire,” and Michaela is still frozen but she nods and convulses from head to toe. Laurel knows it’s too dark to see anything but all she sees is red and sometimes green, deep and calming, she remembers.
“It’s too late,” and she doesn’t mean it for him, not at all and never at all, but she’s looking at death and what else can she say? I killed a man and all I want is to kiss you, but “It’s too late.”
You almost cost me my life and I just wanted to answer you, and tear tracks are still on my skin but I just wanted to touch you, and feel you, and love you.
Please and hi and sit and nerves, nerves, nerves, and “Of course. I’d do anything for you.”
Frank looks her over and knows she won’t tell, and he doesn’t know what, but there’s something trapped inside of her. He brushes a hand across her cheek and she doesn’t break, but her raging heartbeat slows to warmth and she hopes that if she’s ever carried half way across town in a rug-
She only thinks of Frank that night, and she’s never been more grateful. She washes her hands 7 times before she’s out the door and maybe green has taken over, but everywhere she steps is a reminder of what she is.
“It’ll be fine, whatever you’re hiding,” he whispers and rubs his hand down her waist. She smiles and, if you only knew.