The Chain - Bleighton RPS [2/5]
Title: The Chain
Fandom: RPF
Pairing: Blake/Leighton
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: They’re not mine. They just hang out in my head and make out. Also - all of this are made up. Like, it’s completely AU. So don’t sue me for anything that is not true because I warned you.
Summary: It started with a door and a chain.
A/N: This was largely inspired by Ingrid Michaelson’s song, The Chain, on which the title of the story is based off. Also, the collaboration piece of Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson, Winter Song, played a role in constructing this story.
A?N: I've been writing this story, on and off, since winter break. I would've finished it sooner, but then I ws held captive by a distraction-fic that I wrote earlier this month.
A/N: This is unbeta-ed, though I have tried my best to look over my own errors. If there are any glaring ones that take away from the story, do let me know. Constructive criticisms are good times. Thanks for reading.
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Blake Lively, stepped out of the taxicab and held her breath before looking up at her old apartment building nine years ago. She had missed the place, often wondering about the different lives that now took residence there. Even after all this time and five other sets of migration by her nomadic family, she remembered the apartment building best. Probably because it housed on the fourth floor someone really important.
Walking to the entrance door, she hesitated for a moment. She didn’t know how this was going to work. It had been nine years since she had seen Leighton last. They’d kept in touch religiously, upholding as much of the non-promise each girl made to herself. But somewhere along puberty and school and distance that the non-promise started getting pushed back to the very attic she didn’t want it stored in.
So it was very much acceptable for Blake to worry and wonder and wish that she had thought about this a little bit more thoroughly.
It didn’t matter now, though. Blake hadn’t seen her old best friend in nine years. She’d made a lot of mistakes before, a lot of promises she broke both with purpose and without. But this particular one, she would regret for a while.
Reaching the small lobby area, she found that changes had been made. There were chairs out in the small lobby, plants in corners and an elevator had been installed. At first, she wasn’t sure if this was the right place, but it still had that old familiar mixture of smells of old wood and the city. Taking the elevator, she pushed the button for the fourth floor and waited patiently.
The elevator reached its destination and she tentatively walked out into the hallway. The elevator doors closed with a ‘ding’ and she looked back, almost wondering if she should have gotten out. Walking towards 4D, she first looked to her right to see her old apartment door. She didn’t know if it was vacant, if it housed good people, if they offered a good kind of neighbor-ship with her old best friend, Leighton.
Reaching the ragged, yet somewhat clean, welcome mat in front of door 4D, she braced herself for an impromptu reunion. She held her hand up before balling it into a fist. She held it up in the air for a good while before finally knocking. It took a moment for a response to come from the other side of the door, and she almost prefered that nobody was going to be home so she’d take that as a sign that it was a bad idea from the very beginning and can go back to her life as it was.
Except really, life as it was had just been a little less colorful and a little less vibrant ever since she left almost a decade ago.
There was some commotion behind the door so she stood straighter, taller, and waited until the door opened.
“Hi,” Blake said through a smile after seeing Leighton behind the faded gold chain that held the door together, that held them apart.
“Hi.” Leighton returned the smile before closing the door only to open it again, this time without the chain, swinging it wider to see, without restraints of wooden slabs and golden chains, what has become of her best friend, Blake.
An odd feeling positioned itself on her chest as she heard, for the first time in her kept memories (because all of her memories with Leighton were kept and looked at regularly), the sound of the door being unchanged.
What years did to a person; to a best friend. They were eighteen now and Leighton had finally matured into her body. Blake knew she was destined to grow out of those knobby knees and scrawny stature. But some things stayed the same, like the dimples that formed when the young brunette smiled. Goodness, her smile hadn’t changed. It was still something Blake always kept close in her My Little Pony bag, even after nine years.
“What’re you doing back here? Are your…parents here for a visit with you?” Leighton asked looking at the blonde who stayed rooted where she was before slowly peeking out of her own door and into the hallway.
“No, no parents. Just me.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Yeah.”
Leighton went back to her position to stand by the door, looking back at her old neighbor. She stared at Blake and blinked a couple of times, unbelieving, before waiting to see if the blonde had anything to say.
Taking the cue from Leighton’s still-expressive brown eyes, she gave a crooked smile before speaking.
“So I’m in town for tonight for some family stuff my parents wanted me to go to. I wasn’t sure if you were still living here, but, uh, I thought I’d try and visit an old friend, you know?”
Leighton nodded, with a small smile; being courteous. Truth was, she didn’t know. There were no old friends, really, to speak of. Save, perhaps, the girl - now young woman - that stood on her welcome mat.
“Well, It’s good to see you,” Blake offered genuinely, a smile on her lips.
“It’s good to see you, too.” Leighton nodded, this time, with a bigger smile than earlier.
“Hey, why don’t we hang out and spend the night out on the town before I go. I’m only here for tonight, basically, so I was thinking we’d hang out and catch up, yeah?” The tall blonde offered, hopeful to be able to share her fleeting time with her old best friend. They were eighteen now, see, so they were able to do things that adults could and Blake found this to be a good opportunity to seize.
As Leighton shifted, Blake was transported back to the first day they met when Leighton looked back to the same spot she had looked at all those years ago. It was still the same, even after nine long years. She was still locked up, forbidden to do anything. She didn’t know how Leighton dealt with it, but she did. She may have been tall enough to finally reach the chain, but it didn’t mean anything if she couldn’t open the door and leave. In Blake’s mind, nothing had changed and that made her heart go out to her best friend.
“I can’t because my Mom is slee-” she started, but the tall blonde standing on the welcome mat interrupted her.
“No, no that’s okay. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just...it’s fine. We’ll just hang out here.”
“Blake…”
“Leighton.” The young brunette tipped her head down, breathing in some form of confidence before looking up at Blake.
“You don’t mind?”
Blake didn’t say anything. She just smiled wide and sat down on her usual spot outside Leighton’s door. She pushed the door back slightly so her back could lean against the doorsill. Leighton mirrored her action and leaned back on the other side so they were facing each other with their legs beside the other girl. They laughed a little and situated themselves a little bit more before they settled back into a quiet peace that they seem to enjoy. After a couple of moments under the hallway light and the small glow emanating from a living room lamp, Blake looked at Leighton.
“You still have that map I gave you?”
“Yeah, it’s on my wall.” More silence. “You travel to any more places I should know about?”
“No, not really.”
“Are you leaving again?”
“Yeah…” The young brunette nodded as she inspected her clasped hands.
“Where are you going this time, Blake?”
“Somewhere westward for school.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow, actually.”
“You’ll visit during the breaks?”
“Yeah. Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break, summer vacation. See? I have all the seasons covered.” She said this with a laugh, hoping to ease the growing tension that was starting to infiltrate their place of peace as Leighton continued to ask Blake questions.
But there were no more questions after that about Blake’s departure. Rather, Leighton asked more about what the young blonde in front of her had been doing for the last decade. It filled the silent emptiness that Leighton had experienced ever since her best friend’s first departure nine years ago. She had felt alone and she wanted nothing more than to hear her old neighbor’s voice fill in the void. It was a good distraction, albeit a temporary one.
Leighton knew, you see. She knew that they were on two different parts of their lives and that Blake would leave her again with nothing but hope that she would at least come back. She wouldn’t hold the young woman to the promises that she made about visiting. She knew better not to let this hopeful, unrealistic dream to pervade in her mind. It had taken her two years out of the nine to accept all of this and she would be damned if that resolve would crumble again just for a late night visit that lasted only hours.
Her nine - almost ten - year old heart had broken and she didn’t even know about it. It was just a heavy weight on her chest and she often questioned where the heaviness came from. She didn’t learn any better until she saw something on television that resembled what she had gone through. Ever since then, there would be an intense weight on her chest, the cause of the heavy feeling coming from the blonde girl that left her once upon a time ago.
Even so. There was no doubt in her mind that her heart would break again and she had no choice but to nurse it back to some form of acceptable health. She’d take what she could get. She did, after all, loved the young woman with everything she had to offer: her fragile, fist-sized heart that skipped beats every time Blake would permeate in her head. Leighton would swear, some years later, that she was close to a heart attack because of it.
Through the hallway window, the two saw how the sun began to illuminate the outside world. Both women knew, after chatting and conversing for hours, that it was time to end this chapter of their young lives hoping that somewhere down the line, a chapter or two would be written with the two of them in it. It was worth a shot. Fate could sometimes write wonderful stories. They were just trusting that perhaps it would write them a good one, too.
“Thanks for spending your last night here with me. I know you’re tired and probably have other things to do, other people to see.”
“Nope. There was nothing else I would have done. I wouldn’t have anybody else spend it with but you. I can just, you know, sleep in the car or something. Not a big deal at all,” she said, waving her hand to dismiss the idea. Leighton expressed her gratitude with one of her dimpled smiles. The one that Blake would never tire of even after all this time.
The two women raised themselves up from the floor and dusted their clothes of the dirt. Facing each other, Blake took a small step forward and put her hand on the young brunette’s forearm wondering which action she should take. Expressive brown eyes widened slightly not fully knowing what was to happen next. Blake saw the fear and confusion in those expressive brown eyes and knew she may have stepped an inch too far.
She retracted her hand from Leighton’s forearm and took her distance.
The thing was, Blake knew they were at two different parts of their lives and whatever happened now could ruin any such future that they may have as friends - or otherwise. And Blake knew that she would want her old neighbor to be part of the rest of her life, however way she would fit.
They may be 18 now and deemed as adults in the real world, but in their world with just the two of them, they reverted back to their 9 year old selves. The time when they knew just enough about friendships and forevers and how the two, without fear of what adulthood would make of them, were infinitely tied together like strings on shoes.
“I’ve missed you, you know,” the blonde said softly looking at her with a smile that didn’t quite reach those ocean blue orbs of hers.
Leighton only nodded. Truth was, she knew because she’d missed her, too.
They weren’t going to say goodbye to each other, not this time, not any time. It wasn’t because they were children again, but because they have always loved one another and love is never having to say goodbye. Love is never having to say anything. And they don’t.
“I promise to come back, Leigh.” The young brunette closed her eyes and shook her head.
“No, no. Don’t promise me that you will. Just do.”
“Okay.”
Blake then placed her hand out waiting for Leighton to shake it, like they did all those years ago. When the brunette finally did, she produced a shy smile, one that was almost afraid to come out of the shadows savoring what little physical interaction they shared. Maybe when they were older than 18 year olds that still held nine year old dreams, things would be different.
The brunette’s shy smile quickly turned into something brighter than the rising sun outside their window when Blake turned over the hand she held and kissed it.
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Part Three