FicWad

This moment has nothing to do with Ginger. Not really.

(. . . maybe just a little).

Brigitte's body is still and stiff: knees locked, thighs tense, arms so straight and taut that they tremble with the effort. She is in a bed--a boy's bed, Sam's bed--and he is all around her: his scent rising from the sheets around her (sweat and nicotine and rich earth), and his body is braced over hers.

He smiles down at her, amused, fond, and lowers his head.

Brigitte squeaks and shudders, and Sam chuckles against her lips. She is no silly fucking little girl, Brigitte tells herself, and uncurls her fingers one by one. She touches the back of his hands, braced on on either side of her hips. She learns the feel of his knuckles, the stretch of skin over his pulse, and he is so very different from Ginger.

She isn't thinking of Ginger, though. She isn't following Ginger's lead, and she isn't doing this to punish her sister. She's here for herself, because she wants to be, because. . .

Because this is her first and her last chance to live for herself.

She jerks her head up, too abrupt, uncontrolled, and gracelessly fits her lips to Sam's once more. She flattens her palms as they travel up the length of his forearms, over the hard bump of his elbow, towards the slope of his shoulders. She curls her fingers into well-worn cotton, and pants into Sam's mouth when she realizes his hands have slipped beneath the hem of her shirt.

(cherry hound, Trina wails in her mind, face streaked with dirt and tears. don't give him the satisfaction. for once, don't give him--)

Shut the fuck up, Brigitte thinks, and his body is heavy against hers, so she opens her thighs to make room for him. His hands glide against skin that has never been bared outside of the privacy of their own room, and Ginger howls, furious, from within Brigitte's mind.

(he wants to get into your pants, Ginger snaps,

your boyfriend, Ginger sneers,

don't come crying to me, Ginger warns, furious.)

Her body has stiffened again, awkward and uncomfortable in Sam's bed, beneath him. He stops, hips stilling against hers, fingertips barely brushing the lower swell of her breast. "We can stop," he says, "if you aren't comfortable."

Brigitte glowers at the ceiling. You aren't a part of this, she tells Ginger. For once, you have no say in what I'm doing. So shut up, shut up, shutupshutupshutup, "I don't want to stop," she says, voice sharp.

Maybe he understands, and maybe he doesn't, but he doesn't speak--doesn't say anything more about stopping, about this being a bad idea, about Ginger--for a long, long time. The wordless silence breaks, finally, with a rumbling groan shaped as her name, and his eyes close, and his breath comes quicker and

(squirming and squealing, and then it's over, Ginger says)

he comes.

(i told you so, Ginger says.)

Sam looks at Brigitte's tight face and slants her a smile. "We're not done yet," he promises, and kisses his way down her belly, makes her mouth open wide, and her eyes clench, and Ginger doesn't know everything.

Ginger will find out what she's done, she always does, but Brigitte has and will spend the rest of her life living for her sister. This moment, whatever else it is, is hers

(. . . more or less).

--end