DISCLAIMER: Popular and its characters are the property of Ryan Murphy and Touchstone. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Blame Teara for this one. Not that it's a bad thing, she just kicked my butt into writing Popular fic again. :)
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Kids On a Playground
By carpesomediem
Psychologists say the most primitive way we show we love someone is to pick on them. It may not be rocket science, but for the untrained eye, even the most casual observer could hypothesize that Sam McPherson and Brooke McQueen were truly, madly, deeply in love. Those same psychologists would also say that incest was morally wrong, curable by time apart and heavy doses of therapy and no doubt drugs in an attempt to quell what both girls knew were to be true. It was only a matter of time before those feelings came to a head, came out in a burst of unadulterated passion... or almost murder. The latter being the primary way Kennedy High's most tumultuous relationship began to unravel itself.
"I DIDN'T try to kill you, Brooke, take a chill pill!" Sam shouted down the stairs, following the blonde as she clutched her bathrobe to her body.
"I'd say coming pretty close to electrocuting me is an attempt on my life!" she yelled back, flooring it into the kitchen and nearly colliding with Jane who turned the corner with a glass of milk that now turned her black top into a mess.
"What is going on here?" Jane demanded, still holding the half-empty glass of milk away from her body. She closed her eyes as both Sam and Brooke stood there, mouths agape. "Well, is somebody going to answer my question?"
"That's cashmere..." Brooke blurted out, pointing. Sam tilted her head to the right, watching the milk stick to the shirt while Jane looked down to see the damage. She looked back up at Brooke. "You might want to wash that before it sets in-"
"-I know how to take care of cashmere, Brooke," Jane replied matter-of-factly, "Now, would somebody mind telling me what is going on or do I have to be even more late for work than I already am going to be?"
"It's all Brooke's fault," Sam pointed to the blonde, who crossed her arms at the statement.
"She tried to kill me, Jane," Brooke rolled her eyes.
"I did not!" Sam threw her hands in the air. "She's over exaggerating!"
"At least you don't deny it."
"Okay, look, both of you," Jane set down the glass of milk, "I'm sick of this constant bickering. I don't care if both of you try to kill each other, because as far as I'm concerned, at least we wouldn't be having a re-enactment of the Civil War everyday in the bathroom that spills down into the kitchen and onto my shirt!" Jane stormed off without another word, leaving both girls standing in confusion.
Sam was the first to break the silence.
"I didn't try to kill you. I forgot I left the curling iron on. I must've knocked it over when I was brushing my teeth," she said.
"I don't see why you can't just wait until I'm done taking a bath. I mean, seriously, Sam; gay much?" Brooke smirked, turning to face the brunette. Sam's jaw dropped again, she closed it and stuck her tongue in her cheek trying to respond as a shade of red overshadowed her cheeks.
"Well, maybe someone should lock the door when they're using the bathroom! What are you some sort of teenager stripper? Getting a cheap thrill from people walking in on you in the bathroom? What's next? A stripper pole to double as a coat rack?"
"How dare you!" Brooke spat.
"Eww," Sam wiped off her cheek. They both looked at each other and broke into a fit of giggles.
"I'm going to go finish getting ready for school," Brooke still chuckled, "Sorry about that."
"Sure thing," Sam replied, shaking her head as they headed back upstairs to finish getting ready. "I'm used to you being off your rocker."
"Hey!" Brooke turned around and smacked Sam on the shoulder.
"Ow," she grabbed her arm, "That hurt!"
"Serves you right!" Brooke bounced into her room, slamming the door in her wake. The next sound Sam heard was a blow dryer. 'If only I had killed her,' she sighed, false hopes dashed.
That's how the mornings went, sometimes the nights, too, and the weekends were a nightmare when one or the other was grounded for something outrageous they did the week before. All-in-all, this was the cycle the McQueen/McPherson household and to the untrained eye, it was nothing more than two sisters-to-be bickering about who was the fairest in all the land. More often than not, it ended in a tie, but on a day like this morning, Brooke McQueen won out 1-0 with Sam in the loser's circle. In the overall scheme of things, though, it was probably even as far as the two were concerned.
For the remainder of their school day, Brooke and Sam played a cat and mouse game of who could one up the other. From locker raiders, pulling the stools out from one another in Bio Glass' lab class and a failed attempt at a two-man food fight in the cafeteria, the score was still tied.
Now, the blonde and brunette stood in the kitchen bickering over the last bottle of Evian in the fridge. Brooke, while first, set it back down in the fridge for a few seconds while she began to peel an apple when Sam swooped in, scored the water and began to quench her thirst in the throes of victory.
"Sam, that was my water," Brooke said pointedly. "That was the last water."
"You put it back," Sam said in between a sip. "Fair game once the door closes. Everybody knows that." She took another sip and smiled. 'She shoots, she scores,' she thought. 'She's not winning this round,' Brooke schemed, 'I didn't spend all day putting up with her to lose.'
"But you saw me put it back so I could peel the apple and it wouldn't get warm," Brooke shrugged, continuing to peel away at the skin of her apple. She set down the parring knife on the counter and took a bite, chewing slowly as she watched with interest Sam's reaction to her calm demeanor.
It was then that she realized Sam was practically staring at her with those deep brown eyes and a sensuous smile on her face, holding the water in her right hand casually at her side. She'd never noticed it before, but in the few seconds it took her brain to wrap around the idea that Sam was essentially checking her out. 'Why didn't I see this sooner?' Brooke mentally berated herself, 'We're like kindergarteners.'
Sam snapped out of her trance, shrugged and took the cap off her water to take another swig. Brooke quickly set down the half-eaten apple onto the counter, walked up to Sam and kissed her. It was short, sweet and managed to knock the normally verbose brunette to speechlessness. Brooke McQueen now stood, butterflies threatening to spill out of her stomach into her throat, waiting for some sort of reaction from Sam. Meanwhile, Sam stood there, petrified. Blush filled her cheeks, her mouth ajar and she stood there with her water still open and in her right hand as if the world had gone to a freeze-frame around her.
"What the hell..." Sam trailed off, frozen in place. If ever in all her life Sam McPherson, the journalist Sam McPherson, was sure of, it was this: Brooke McQueen had kissed her. In a single, split second, Brooke McQueen had leaned forward ever so softly, kissed her square on the lips and let her lips linger for a split-second before pulling away with the most content look the brunette had ever seen on her face.
Brooke sighed, picked up her apple and took another bite trying to dismiss the feelings burrowing through her veins. 'She'll never try and outdo me again, that's for sure...' she trailed off
"No, seriously," Sam said, regaining feeling in her body and setting her water down on the counter, "What the hell was that?" Brooke thought for a second, took another bite and then tossed the rest of her apple into the nearby sink.
"It was a kiss, Sam. You know, when you like somebody, you tend to kiss them, usually a lot," Brooke replied matter-of-factly, the realization of what they had been doing for the last year in the Palace slowly began to make sense.
"I know what a kiss is," Sam stared her down, trying to figure out her game. "But I'm still trying to figure out why you... kissed... me..." Then, it hit Sam, too. "Oh."
"I think we need to talk..."
The brunette merely nodded in response. And that's the way love goes for kids on the playground.
The End