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caffeineivore · 7 years

Text

For RaeRae

This is for @antivanonmytongue as the start of a cheer-up-emo project, as it were.

Title: Bourbon

Author: Thalia

Rating: PG/PG13

'Ship: R/J for RaeRae!

Notes: This is dedicated to our RaeRae because we love her and she is going through hell. Stay strong, lovey! There may or may not be a homage to living in a bar...

As for the fic itself, it does not belong to any ficverse I have. Also, there is a town called Brave, Pennsylvania. However, there is probably not a bar called Hope's Landing in said town. I don't know, have never been there XD!

Thanks much to @antivanruffles for the help with plotting and stuff!!

*-*

It's a slow Sunday on a windy autumn day at Hope's Landing, and so when she walks into the place, looking a bit lost and forlorn underneath the bravado of a stubborn chin and a cherry-red designer trench coat and perfectly applied makeup, she stands out like a flame in the darkness. A dive bar in the tiny town of Brave, Pennsylvania, is definitely not the natural milieu for a young woman such as her, and Jesse Wilson pauses in between polishing a stack of rocks glasses and stares, just for a minute.

She walks in slowly, taking in the scratched and faded green baize of the pool tables in the back, the jukebox in the corner, the dark wood of the bar scarred and grooved from countless glasses rolling towards countless hands. Hair the glossy black of fresh ink spills down her back straight as rain. Manicured red nails clutch a buttery oversized leather handbag with a white-knuckled grip. The black stiletto heels she wears click on the worn floorboards, the sound over-loud in the bar's quiet. She selects a stool at the very far end of the bar and perches on it, and Jesse makes his way over with a faintly curious smile.

“What can I get for you?”

At a closer distance, her eyes are fabulous, a dark blue-violet like a twilight sky. “Maker's Mark, neat.”

He asks for ID, and she pulls out a New York license. The address is uptown Manhattan. “Raeanne Haley. Nice to meet you. My name is Jesse Wilson.”

Her hand is small and delicate and warm, almost swallowed by his, but she nods in thanks when he places the drink in front of her.

“You're far from home.”

“It's about a three hour drive,” she replies, and there's a veiled hint of escape written all over her features. Jesse, to whom Hope's Landing has been home for almost as long as he can remember, is good at getting a read on people, but Raeanne Haley is a very complex book open only a crack and written in very small letters that can't be deciphered at a glance. He's patient, though, and leaves her to her bourbon and thoughts.

The door to the bar opens to reveal a familiar diminutive figure. Earl Flynn is spry for his eighty-plus years, and moves to the bar only after he makes the rounds with all the regulars. He'd once upon a time fought alongside Jesse's grandfather in World War II, part of the same squadron, and he still wears his tags even now, over an ancient Steelers shirt. He accepts a beer from Jesse with a gracious smile and sidles over to the mysterious Raeanne Haley.

“What's a nice girl like you doing at a dump like this, then?” The question would have been rude on a lot of levels coming from anyone else than Earl, but the girl Raeanne does not seem offended, and returns his smile with a tentative one of her own.

“Resting, for the moment.”

“Well, this place on a Sunday surely is restful,” Earl tells her, even as he lifts his beer in a toast. “Now, it's almost too quiet. Not like a Friday or Saturday night, though. But our Jesse can deal with the riff-raff, so don't you worry.”

Raeanne nods and slowly sips her whiskey, and Earl keeps up a steady stream of conversation about the football game playing on the television screen, the prospect of taking his grandkids trick-or-treating on Halloween, coming up later that month, and how long the fine weather would last before it would take a turn for the worse.

“... And we should have some music in here, shouldn't we?” Earl stands and makes his way to the jukebox. “None of these crotchety fellas know how to entertain a lady. Not used to having one hereabouts.” With a wink which must have been rakish once upon a time and still full of charm, he grins at Raeanne, then feeds coins into the machine. Even as low guitar notes come on, Earl calls out for Jesse quite a bit louder than the music.

“Jesse, why don't you have a dance floor in here? Maybe we can get some more customers that way. Especially pretty ladies like her. What do you think?”

The song that Earl selected is 'Lady in Red' by Chris DeBurgh, and the old man couldn't have been more obvious if he tried. Jesse glances at Raeanne Haley in her red trench coat, and smiles wryly. “I don't think that pretty ladies like places such as these, for the most part.”

“Well, you could always change her mind. Come on, come on,” Earl is not to be deterred once he is dedicated to a set path, and apparently his mind is made up. “There's nobody here to bother you. Walter and Frank and Barry don't need anything, and neither do I. You should dance with the girl.”

Jesse glances at Raeanne, who has set down her half-finished whiskey, and even as she stands, he comes out from behind the bar. “He's harmless,” he finds himself telling her, even as she lays her hand in his, impulsiveness warring with what seems to be innate aloofness on her beautiful face. “You don’t have to. But I hope you don't mind.”

She doesn’t seem to, and when he puts his other hand on her waist and pulls her in just a little bit closer, the top of her head reaches his lips. He only has to bend his head a little bit to whisper so that no one else can hear them.

“What brings you here to Brave, Pennsylvania?”

“Oh, just… stopping for a bit,” she answers softly. Her lips curve up in a tremulous smile as those amethyst eyes meet his blue ones. “I’m on an impromptu road trip. My best friend from college lives out in LA. I could just fly, of course, but I hate both LaGuardia and JFK, and… this way I can take my time.” Maybe the whiskey has relaxed her a little, or maybe it was Earl’s somewhat one-sided conversation. “I paid a cabbie a good amount of cash to just drive… drive until I told him to stop. And here I am.”

“You told him to stop here?” Earl, the sly bastard, has another slow song playing even as the first one draws to a close. But Raeanne doesn’t seem to mind, or notice. She’s soft in his arms and smells faintly like expensive perfume.

“I liked the name. Hope’s Landing.” She ducks her head and her hair brushes his jaw. “That sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

“This was my grandfather’s bar, back in the day,” Jesse tells her to the background music of Elvis crooning ‘Love Me Tender’. “Hope was his mother’s name. He named it after her because she was not really a showy type of woman. Homey, I guess. Sort of like he wanted this place to be.” Jesse smiles wryly as their eyes meet. “This is definitely not a showy type of bar, I’ll say that much. Nothing like New York City.”

“New York is overrated,” Raeanne huffs out a breath. “I’m escaping, if we’re being completely honest. Mina’s okay with putting me up indefinitely in LA; I’ll probably have my stuff shipped there soon. I just needed a change.”

Jesse wonders for a second if Mina in LA is Mina Averill, the rising supermodel and actress, then dismisses the notion as preposterous. “Well, you are well and truly not in New York City any more, Dorothy,” he says gently. “I’m not quite sure what the exact population of this town is, but I’m also quite sure that the population of Manhattan itself is greater.”

“Yeah, and when everyone you know is either a lawyer or a politician or a Wall Street exec or some horrible combination of the three…” Raeanne wrinkles her nose, then shakes her head as Elvis finishes and Sinatra takes his place. “I usually stick to wine. I’m not this chatty as a rule.”

“Maybe you just needed to talk,” Jesse says, and then pulls back enough to look her in the eye. “But if you don’t want to drink on an empty stomach, I could probably make you a sandwich or something.”

“Yes, you go do that, Jesse,” Earl chimes in, as though sensing that the dancing has come to a close, and winks again at Raeanne. “Our Jesse is a good boy. His grandfather and I were friends since we were young. Charlie might have passed five years ago, God rest his soul, but he made sure that our Jesse was raised right.”

Jesse leaves the old man to extol his virtues and takes the stairs in the back of the bar up to the apartment on the second floor. Hope’s Landing doesn’t boast a kitchen or serve food beyond beer nuts and pretzels, but he lives right above it, and while turkey and swiss on rye is probably not typical fare for one such as Raeanne Haley, he returns with the sandwich shortly.

“Thank you.” She accepts it, seeming to know that it’s the exception rather than the rule, and gives him a real smile before tucking in. She’s dainty in that ladylike way while eating, but doesn’t seem to care about crumbs or the fact that she’s only got beverage napkins to wipe her mouth and hands.

The night draws on; more regulars mosey on in, including a pair of ancient, tattooed bikers who offer to teach Raeanne how to play pool. She declines, graciously, but seems to have relaxed as the time draws on. In any case, she watches the game with interest, and when the shorter, skinnier biker wins, claps politely amidst the raucous cheers of the rest of them. She’s still there, unaccountably, her whiskey long-gone and her plate empty, when the clock strikes midnight and the lights come on.

“We close early on Sundays,” Jesse tells her as he finishes cashing out. Under the bright lights, she’s even lovelier, with pale skin and flawless cheekbones. She pays for her drink with a black American Express and signs the slip with flowing, finishing-school script. He doesn’t charge her for the sandwich, but even after the last stragglers make their way towards the door, she remains seated, and he cocks his head to the side. “Do you… do you have a place to stay for the night?”

She shrugs, pulls out a cell phone. “I could Uber it to the closest hotel, I guess. I’m sorry. I was having fun.”

And all of the sudden he feels like he’s on the precipice of something-- something a lot bigger and more important than small talk with a pretty stranger on a random Sunday night. He swallows the surge of nerves and clears his throat. “Well, and please don’t take this in a creepy way, but… you could crash here if you want. I live upstairs. There’s a spare room.”

She stares at him for a moment without speaking, so he hurries on. “You don’t have to, of course. I’m not sure if Uber is available out here, to be honest with you. But if you’d like, I could probably also give you a ride somewhere if you have a place in mind.”

And then she smiles. “You sure I could just crash upstairs? You barely know me.”

“Yeah, and you barely know me. But… yeah, I’m sure. I don’t mind. I just have one question.”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Do you like cats?”

*~*

Jesse’s apartment is accessible through the back of the bar, up a flight of stairs, and it is a tidy, open-plan space with two bedrooms, one of which seems to be used as an office with a futon. A small-ish tabby cat darts out from under the coffee table and heads straight for Raeanne’s legs, winding circles around her ankles and staring up with wide, green-and-gold eyes.

“That’s Jim Beam, or JB for short,” Jesse tells Raeanne with a chuckle even as she stoops down to pet the cat. “He’s usually not this friendly. I found him a few months ago as a kitten, hiding out the rain under an empty Jim Beam carton out by the dumpster, hence his name.” Jim Beam apparently finds Raeanne to his liking, because in very short order, he is butting his head against her hand and purring. Raeanne takes a seat on the sofa and the cat hops into her lap, curling up in a ball and blinking slowly in an attitude of contentment, and Jesse grins at her. “He likes you. Anyway, do you need anything? Water? A tour? A t-shirt to sleep in? All of the above?”

She finds herself agreeing to ‘all of the above’, and smiles to herself when she sees the bread bag on the kitchen counter, left untied from when he’d made her that sandwich. Jesse pulls out the futon in the office, but insists that she takes his room instead, fetching fresh sheets and pillows out of a small linen closet and a plain white t-shirt out of the dresser drawer. Jim Beam follows Raeanne into every room, then hops onto the easy chair in Jesse’s bedroom, curling his tail around his feet.

“Shower’s through that door down the hall. And you can probably kick that cat out of that chair to put your stuff,” Jesse says as he efficiently changes the bed-linens. Raeanne exchanges a glance with Jim Beam, and sets her handbag on the bureau instead. She walks up to Jesse just as he finishes straightening up the sheets.

“You don’t have to do any of this for me, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says with a smile. “But, I also know not to subject a lady to a futon.”

That’s not at all what she’s referring to and she’s sure he knows it, but something in his dark blue gaze causes her to acquiesce. She stands on tiptoe, and the jaw that comes in contact with her lips is warm and scratchy with stubble.

“Well, thanks. And good night.”

He lays his hand on her shoulder for a moment, nods, and quietly walks out. Raeanne quickly gets ready for bed and curls up underneath the blankets. The sheets smell like him-- plain soap and detergent, no overpriced cologne, and the pillows are soft. This was not quite what she’d planned when she left New York, but… a smile crosses her face and she stares up at the ceiling and says nothing.

Halfway through the night, Raeanne wakes up briefly to Jim Beam hopping on the bed and curling up on the pillow next to hers. She sleepily runs her fingers over the cat’s soft fur, and lets the purring lull her back to the best sleep she’s had in months.

*~*

Raeanne wakes the next morning to the smells of coffee and bacon and the sound of Ruby Tuesday by the Rolling Stones playing faintly on the radio. Jim Beam meows at her from by the bedroom door, and she follows the cat to the kitchen, padding in barefooted and still wearing the borrowed t-shirt. Jesse’s back is turned towards her as he flips a piece of bacon in the skillet, but he turns with a smile before she even says a word.

“How do you take your coffee?”

“Black,” she replies, and at his gesture, helps herself. Within a few moments, they’re seated across from each other at the cheap dinette set and eating scrambled eggs and bacon as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Jim Beam cannily positions himself at the optimal spot to beg from both of them, and Raeanne is sure that between herself and Jesse, the cat gets away with a good two slices of bacon. Raeanne eats her fill and watches Jesse from underneath her lashes. His hair shines golden in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window, and when he smiles, he has a single dimple in his left cheek. She, on the other hand, looks vastly different wearing no makeup and his t-shirt than her norm, and yet, he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Want me to do the dishes?” She gathers her plate and mug and walks over towards the kitchen sink. Certainly it is not a task that she has ever needed to tackle. But even-- or perhaps especially-- a Manhattan socialite knows that something cannot come from nothing.

Jesse says nothing, but before she can reach for the sponge, gently takes both of her hands in his, and pulls her away. His fingers are callused and rough against her manicured ones, and he doesn’t let her go even when they’re a few feet away from the sink. She finds herself staring up at him in wonder and a little bit of consternation.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

The smile warms his whole face, including his ocean blue eyes. “Because you need it.”

Raeanne’s next breath hitches in her throat, and she stares down at her bare feet for a moment because the kindness radiating from his whole being is warm and almost unbearable, like being a shade too close to a hearth fire. Her toenails match her fingernails exactly, and she takes a deep breath before glancing up again. “Why do you say that?”

“I just know.” A wry, slightly cheeky smile crosses his face. It’s not stubbly like last night, but he still smells like plain soap and detergent with a hint of coffee thrown in now. “You don’t owe me anything, Raeanne.”

Her name sounds smooth and low on his tongue, and when she frowns at what he says, he chuckles. “Well. I wouldn’t say no to another dance. But don’t tell Earl, or he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

“I won’t,” she answers, and even as Queen’s ‘Someone To Love’ starts playing on the radio, she lets him draw her close. Without her heels, he sort of dwarfs her, and in this tiny, sun-lit kitchen, it’s even closer and more intimate than last night downstairs at the bar. But Raeanne lets her eyes fall closed as they sway infinitesimally to the rhythm, and her face fits perfectly into the crook of his neck. Underneath her lips, his pulse isn’t completely steady, and that gives her courage.

“Jesse?” Her voice is muffled against soft cotton and warm skin. “How long can I stay?”

The hand at her waist pulls her just a little closer, and his breath stirs tendrils of her hair. “How long do you want to stay?”

She draws back just enough to look up into his face, and lets herself wonder, only for a moment, why it seems so familiar-- why everything from the moment she’d stepped out of the cab until now seems like destiny knocking. But she still manages a quip. “Until Big Bill and Marty teach me how to shoot pool, maybe.”

“Mmm, and are you a quick study?”

She’s close enough to all but count individual eyelashes, close enough to taste that he drinks his coffee black, just like her, but leans in even closer. Suddenly, she knows that she’s not going to LA after all, though Mina would probably squeal over it later, much later, on the phone once she got through the army of assistants and minions. Raeanne smiles, and answers his question just before she lets her lips brush his as though coming home at last.

“Yeah.”

#R/J #antivanonmytongue #senshi/shitennou #sailor moon #fanfiction #fanfic #The RaeRae Project

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