Work Text:
When she opens the door to her suite, the first thing she hears is a distant thump and a whispered curse comes from the direction of the bedroom they share.
Freezing with one foot in, Bridgette listens.
Nothing except the sounds of the general air-conditioning of their dorm building and the ticking of the clock in their common room.
Slowly, she hops fully inside, toes off her ratty sneakers, and drops her backpack on the floor next to her. All the while straining her ears for more sounds.
Scenarios of possible break-ins play in her mind. Geoff and DJ had been discussing the recent house infiltrations down the block from the campus; at the time, Bridgette had brushed it off casually; now all she can think about is that those burglars must have gotten the guts to attack a campus dorm building.
“Uh, hello?” she calls, reaching out, grasping without looking for a (hopefully) suitable weapon. She closes over something long and cylindrical.
The muffled curses stop. Then a familiar voice comes from down the hall:
“Oh! Hey Bridge!”
“Courtney?” asks Bridgette, stunned for several reasons.
One: they have each other's schedules memorized so Bridgette knows that Tuesdays are Courtney’s busiest day. She has classes back-to-back along with her internship; under normal circumstances, she gets back at around nine at night.
(The analog clock perched on their counter table reads half past three in the afternoon.)
Two: Courtney’s voice sounds…sheepish. A tone that hardly suits the normally headstrong and determined person that is Bridgette’s best friend and number one roomie. Because Courtney is never meek or sheepish, not even when she tried to claw Duncan’s face off, and would’ve if Bridgette hadn’t dragged her away.
(Point being, Courtney doesn’t do sheepish. So it takes Bridgette a couple seconds to register the unfamiliar tone from her.)
Once she does, her shoulders—which had relaxed after hearing Courtney’s voice—tense again.
“You okay over there?” she calls, keeping a strong hold on her weapon of choice just in case. Random scenarios overwhelm her; of burglars and hostage situations. What if Courtney murdered someone and was worrying about hiding the body when Bridgette came in? Bridgette loves her, but she really won’t put it past someone like Courtney—that girl would do anything to reach her goal.
(So basically the opposite of Bridgette, but it’s fine. It’s what makes them work so well together. Plus it’s one of the numerous things she admires about her best friend.)
“Uh, yeah!” Courtney replies, a bit too quick and after a second too long. “Doing perfect!”
Another thump and a new sound; like a hushed hiss.
“That’s it, I’m coming in,” Bridgette announces. Standing in the foyer of their suite isn’t any help, and hey, Courtney might need her help—the thought of that brings a bright feeling into her.
Setting down the ceramic flower vase in her hand, Bridgette strides down the small hall to the bedroom they share.
“Okay, okay, just, I wanna say before you barge in here, that it’s not what you think—or at least not to that extent,” Courtney says hurriedly, from the bedroom.
“You know that’s just making me more concerned, right? What are you—“ Bridgette stops dead at the doorway. “Court!”
“I said not to freak out!” Courtney pouts up at her, sitting at her desk with a first aid kit, and Bridgette is drawn even more to the long set of scratches down her cheek, like nail marks.
“Dude!” Bridgette shakes her head, eyes wide. “What happened? ”
Her first thought is that Courtney must have hit something, but that’s quickly dismissed. Bridgette’s the clumsy one, not Courtney. In fact, Courtney’s the one patching her up on various dumb occasions when Bridgette had been a klutz.
This doesn’t look like a silly accident. It looks—Bridgette swallows, her heart dropping—intentional.
Courtney huffs, dabbing at the scratches with a wet rag. “You should see the other guy.”
“So this was an intentional injury!” Bridgette drags the chair at her desk closer to Courtney and sits, their knees touching. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, inspecting Courtney’s face closely—the angry red marks marring smooth tan skin and the sprinkle of freckles stand out like snow on the beach.
“Did you get into a fight?” she asks.
Say no, say no, say no—
Courtney bites her lip. But she doesn’t look away, meeting Bridgette’s gaze defiantly. Again, typically something Bridgette admires greatly but not now when it implies the very last thing Bridgette expects today.
Bridgette sighs, long and slow. “You did.” Not a question but a statement. She knows Courtney like the back of her hand by now.
“It was during my government class. This—this guy— this asswipe was saying things about—“ she hesitates, “—just saying awful things. And I couldn’t help it, he sits behind me with his clique of man-brutes and I was so mad I didn’t think straight.” She presses the cloth harder than intended on her face and winces. “I told him to eat shit, along with some other things that his IQ probably didn’t get. Then…” her voice hardens, razor-sharp, and the usual Courtney is back in motion. “The shitbag has the audacity to call me a bitch with a stick up my arse. Me?! Just because I—anyway, I had to whack him with my textbook. He was asking for it.”
“Jesus, Court.”
“I don’t regret it,” Courtney declares, “you can get upset or mad but that’s not going to change that he had it coming.”
She glares defiantly like she’s already compiled an extensive list with sub-sections of why she’s correct.
(Knowing Courtney, she probably does.)
In spite of all this mess, Bridgette hides a small exasperated smile. Sometimes Courtney’s so predictable. Of course, she would deck a sleaze for being insulting; the thing is, usually Courtney sticks to verbal attacks—just as effective, if not more—so her going physical is a sure sign that whatever had gone down, it was extreme.
“I’m not mad,” Bridgette says, “or upset.”
Whatever Courtney does, there are usually several listed reasons why, so getting worked up about her actions often leads to a dead-end. It still pains Bridgette, though, seeing the marks on her best friend’s face. Before she knows it, she’s reaching out a hand, lightly touching the scratches.
Courtney stills. The hand holding the damp cloth hovers arrested midmotion over her cheek.
“I’m confused though,” Bridgette continues. Her hand finds its way to Courtney’s jaw, cupping it, thumbing the scratches. “Normally you don’t let people get to you this easily. The last time you did—”
It was Duncan. Her ex-boyfriend. That’s the limit you need to reach for Courtney to go berserker on you.
Courtney winces, though this time it’s not because of the scratches.
“Bridgette don’t—”
“Seriously, Court, what really happened? It’s not just about that guy being an asswipe, is it?”
There are plenty of perks to being Courtney’s best friend; one of them is the ability to understand her in such a deep manner that even people like Gwen and Duncan and Trent would believe Courtney’s story hook-line-and-sinker, but not Bridgette. One look into warm brown eyes and Bridgette picks out more to the story; among the defiance and stubbornness swirling in them, she sees the glimpse of hesitation and something else, too concealed for her to pinpoint.
“Bridge, there’s nothing, really—”
“Oh, give me that.” Bridgette takes the rag, sloshing some water out of the little bowl on the table in the process.
Instinctively, Courtney reaches out and steadies it. Just like how Bridgette has learned to pick out Courtney’s layered emotions, Courtney’s learned to catch Bridgette’s falls and spills before they can happen.
Hand-in-hand, that’s what they are. The thought provokes the return of that same bright emotion, as strong as sunlight shining down on her while she’s surfing.
“I can do it,” Courtney protests weakly as Bridgette tries to dab at the scratches like she’d watched Courtney do. “I have the training—”
“Pretty sure you dont need a whole lot of training for dabbing a washcloth.” Bridgette accompanies her words with a small smile, to ease both their nerves. “Now spill, Courtney.”
The use of her actual name jolts Courtney back—though reluctantly, Bridgette can see—to the matter at hand. She sighs, casting around as though looking for an escape route—or a distraction.
Bridgette puts a stop to that quickly enough. She cups Courtney’s face with both hands, fully aware of the wet rag trickling water down her wrist, and steering Courtney’s face so that her eyes undeniably move back to meet hers.
“Court. What’s the matter?” Then, more jokingly: “Is there someone I need to beat up?”
They both know Bridgette’s the biggest pacifist in, like, the entirety of Canada. Courtney’s always on her case, getting her to stand up for herself and be bolder. If anything, Courtney would probably need to save her sorry butt if she tried to beat someone up.
She thought it was pretty funny, but Courtney’s face twitches as though she’s fighting an inner battle with herself. One that she ultimately loses because she bursts out, “that’s exactly why!”
Bridgette blinks. “You got into a fight because of someone I need to beat up?”
“No! You’re—it’s related to that!”
“Uh, I don’t follow.”
Hesitation again. Courtney’s biting her lip so hard, Bridgette wants to tug it away from her unyielding teeth—that’d be weird though, she’s pretty sure best friends don’t do things like that.
“Promise you won’t hate me or get upset? I mean, you can’t hate me, I did it—you won’t hate me for this, right?”
“I won’t ever hate you, Court,” Bridgette promises sincerely. “As for getting upset—dependable.”
Courtney looks like she wants to insist on a promise for the latter part, but realizes this is the best she’s going to get. “It was you, okay?” she says in a rush; the words falling out in an air of relief like a load is off her shoulders the more she talks. “They were talking stuff about you. At first, I didn’t realize, I mean, how many other ‘blonde chicks’ are on campus, right? But then they started saying stuff like ‘surfer girl’ and described your favorite hoodie, and that’s when I started listening in. Because I sit in front of them. And it was them ribbing you, saying that you’re a major pushover, that anyone can say anything about you and you won’t do shit—I think they know Geoff, they mentioned him too a couple of times, maybe that’s how they knew you because I’ve never seen those two buffoons in my life and I’m sure you won’t be around people like them, you’re better than that. I love you, Bridge, I couldn’t let them talk crap about you when you weren’t even there to…to do anything! So I turned around and told them to shut up, I think they recognized me as your roommate—and well,” she blushes, “I’ve a pretty solid reputation, myself.”
Bridgette snorts lightly, dabbing at Courtney’s scratches, imagining what must have gone down in that classroom; two guys talking crap about her, Courtney, furious and defensive, surging up to her aid like a knight, the consequential textbook smack, and…
She brushes a fingertip against the ridges of the scratches, feels Courtney’s facial muscles twitch. Something must have gone down, some sort of fight that Courtney’s downplaying for her, just like how she’d gotten herself hurt because of Bridgette. Even with her face scratched up and the beginnings of a potential bruise under her right eye, Courtney’s thinking first about Bridgette. She doesn’t want Bridgette to worry.
As though Bridgette hasn’t been worrying since she stepped into their dorm.
She can’t help but ask, curiosity and concern warring inside her: “What did you do?”
“I told you. I smacked one of them with my textbook—I’m going to need a new book sleeve, I broke my current one with how hard I hit them—and the other one sort of, pushed my face away because I was all up in them, giving them the biggest smackdown.” She touches her own cheek, her fingertips grazing Bridgette’s for the slightest second before they stay like that. “Who knew guys' fingernails can be so sharp?!”
Any other time, Bridgette would’ve made a joke about nail-files and whatnot, and Courtney would’ve responded with a light poke and a fond retort about how Bridgette can’t be talking considering she doesn’t know the first thing about makeup. But today, with her fingertips partially covered by Courtney’s and their faces inches away, only one thing comes to mind.
“You love me?”
This time, it’s Courtney’s turn to blink.
“You’re my best friend. Of course, I love you. That’s a given.”
Her eyes flick away—a telltale sign of a lie. But what is the lie, Bridgette can’t figure out. She isn’t sure she wants to either nor does she wish to press. If she wants to, Courtney will tell her on her own time.
“Yeah,” she replies, focusing all her attention on tending to the scratches. “‘Course, dude.”
Normally ‘dude’ and ‘brah’ or any variation of the two are reserved by Geoff and Brody. Bridgette isn’t the type of person to use it so often and she’s already said it twice in less than an hour. Saying it, though, brings her pulls her down from her fantasies that maybe Courtney had meant something else when she’d said she loves her; it solidifies the truth that all they are are best friends, nothing more.
Bridgette can work with that. Her heart may stutter, but she can handle it.
Strangely, Courtney’s eyes flicker at the moniker. Try as she may, Bridgette can’t read the depth of emotions within them this time. They’re too confusing. So she turns her attention to something she can work with.
Dotting a bit of the antiseptic onto a cotton ball, Bridgette touches it gently to the scratches. Other than the occasional winces and hisses of pain, Courtney’s silent. Bridgette feels the weight of the other woman’s gaze on her, but, with superhuman willpower, she doesn’t look up.
“You don’t need to fight my battles for me, Court,” she says softly once she’s placed the used cotton ball on the table.
The defiance is back. “I know that, but I told you, I—”
“—Don’t regret it, yeah,” Bridgette finishes. She throws down the rag and cups Courtney’s face, leaning forward so that their foreheads touch. “But you got hurt because of it. You might not care about that, but I do. I don’t want you to get hurt, especially because of me.”
A note of petulance enters Courtney’s voice when she says, “but it isn’t because of you!” her breath smells of mint and that cinnamon tea she’s obsessed with. “I did it because I love you, Bridge! You—you hardly look after yourself, I don’t want anyone to take advantage of that.”
There it is again: I love you. Courtney’s using it an awful lot for someone who’s just her best friend.
As someone who’s been independent for most of her life (not willingly, mind you, but as a lifestyle), knowing what kind of lines best friends cross and don’t cross isn’t really Bridgette’s forte. Do best friends say ‘I love you’ so casually and so frequently? And with so much emotion?
“Not at your expense though,” she responds. Courtney’s forehead is warm—not fever-warm, just general human-body warmth—and Bridgette wants to close her eyes, but she keeps them open, she wants Courtney to understand. “I love you too. Sure I can be a bit of a pushover—”
“But—”
“I am, Court, I admit it. But you can’t smack every person who says that about me with your textbooks, you’ll buy the campus store of all their book sleeves.”
That gets a laugh out of Courtney and Bridgette’s glad to see the steel determination in her eyes have lightened at the joke.
“So please,” she says, “let it go sometimes, yeah? I appreciate you being my knight that’s so sweet, but I don’t want this,” she gestures to the table where the water, rag, cotton balls, and antiseptic sits, “to be a daily occurrence.”
Courtney stares at her, then she lets out an incredulous laugh.
“Even after hearing that those guys were talking shit about you, you’re still worried about me. God, how selfless can you get?”
Bridgette smiles even as her face burns bright red. “You’re more important to me than a bunch of strangers I’ll probably never see.”
Courtney shakes her head, dislodging Bridgette’s fingers on the scratches, but she’s smiling, her eyes bright. Then, like a fucking dream, she swoops in and kisses Bridgette on the lips.
It takes several long seconds for Bridgette to understand what is happening and for her brain to yell at her: she’s kissing you! Your best friend who you’ve had a crush on is kissing you! Kiss her back, kiss her back!
Courtney’s pulling away, eyes wide and nervous, when Bridgette basically lunges forward, knocking her knees against Courtney’s, and kisses her.
It’s amazing.
Bridgette’s no poet nor is she an English major, so all she can think of is that watching fireworks on the beach is nothing compared to this.
This being Courtney kissing her back, pouring everything unsaid, all the concealed feelings that had been swirling in her eyes crashing through Bridgette like a tsunami. She can’t head or tails, time is nothing, their surroundings melt away, but she doesn’t give a fuck.
This being Bridgette wrapping her arms around her neck and feeling arms—slender but strong—weave into her hair, tugging her ponytail down and playing with the strands; the angle is a bit awkward, their knees are pressed tightly together, and she’s sure she’ll get a crick in her neck later, but that’s nothing. None of that matters. Nothing except the hands in her hair, the lips of her best friend on hers, and the taste of cinnamon tea.
This being fireworks exploding in her belly, electric shocks traveling up and down her limbs. She feels like she’s drowning, it’s an exhilarating and tumultuous experience. Relieving and eager. Delightful and manic. She can’t get enough and, from the way she doesn’t pull back, neither can Courtney.
It’s like removing sunglasses and seeing the world as it really is, vivid colors and all.
She thought movie-nights with Courtney, sharing eclairs and snatching brownies the other made, and all the other amusing things they do was what made everything right between them. She thought calling Courtney her best friend was enough for everything to be right.
She was so, so wrong. How could she have ever thought that? Her, with her enormous crush?
Finally, finally, when oxygen becomes a necessity, they break apart. Courtney’s cheeks are flushed, her pupils blown wide, and her chest rises and falls rapidly.
Hot, whispers Bridgette’s mind.
“That was…” Courtney trails off.
“Pretty sure best friends don’t make out with each other.”
Courtney laughs. “No, I’m sure they don’t.” Her eyes cut to Bridgette slyly, and she’s reminded vividly of the fact that Courtney is more than just a goody-two-shoes rule-follower. “I guess that doesn’t make us just best friends, huh?”
Bridgette’s heart stops then kicks a tango. “Are you fine with that?”
“More than fine. Want to make out again and find out just how fine I am?”
“Oh, definitely.”
She leans forward, arms resting on Courtney’s chair, looking up at her best friend—her girlfriend —and seeing Courtney already staring down at her, eyes dark in determination.
Bridgette decides that isn’t just something she admires, it’s something she loves to see.
She’s surging up for a kiss when a hand stops her.
“One thing,” says Courtney.
Confusedly, Bridgette leans back a bit so that she can see the faint smirk tugging at Courtney’s lips.
“Never call me dude again.”
Bridgette grins. “Sure thing, babe.”