spirit cold ➙ writings

love me and leave me to die.

Love Me and Leave Me to Die! 

SUMMARY; The one where friendly conversation shifts into something more. Love Like Fools AU for chapter seventeen, "You Belong With Me." 

PROMPT; N/A, unless you count my lovely best friend encouraging me in the middle of the night to write an AU version of the almost kiss.

PAIRING(S): Jesse St. James/Alicia Hastings, mentioned Finn Hudson/Alicia Hastings.

TRIGGER WARNINGS; N/A.

NOTE(S); Title is derived from the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Jonathan Groff. This is completely non-canon and, if you haven't read chapter seventeen of Love Like Fools, you may have no idea what any of this means. // I just wanted to toy around with this. Finn/Alicia own my heart and soul, but this is a fun pairing to play with. x

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When words failed, actions spoke. 

Alicia gently grasped Jesse's hand. When he didn't pull back, she intertwined their fingers. His hand was colder than she was used to, not fitting as perfectly as Finn's, but that was irrelevant. "I'm sorry you're sad, Jesse."

"I'm fine."

"You aren't."

He smacked his head against the wall again. It seemed like he was trying to injure himself. Annoyed, she tightened her grip on his hand until he hissed. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Stop hitting your head, you're going to hurt yourself."

"Pretty sure losing all circulation in my hand would hurt worse." When she didn't respond, only stared stubbornly, he sighed again. "Look, I'm fine, all right? I'll be fine. I just don't want to talk to her for awhile. This works out, anyways. I'm going to San Diego next week with some friends from Carmel. It's their spring break and I could use the breathing time."

Alicia was quiet for a minute. "I'll miss you."

Jesse softened. His tense posture relaxed as he laughed breathlessly. "Yeah, all right. I'll miss you, too, Hastings. My days are gonna be pretty dull without some psychotic blonde throwing sheet music books in my face like paper grenades."

"You're such a drama king."

"You like it, don't you?" His lips quirked into a smirk. She shrugged. Initially, she hadn't noticed it, but they were gradually moving closer. Their lips were less than six inches apart now. Confused and conflicted, a storm raged in her head: what was happening?

More importantly, why wasn't she stopping it?

Jesse tilted his head -- only slightly, not enough to pull away from her. Vaguely, she wondered why he wasn't stopping it, either. He'd just gotten his heart broken by Rachel over a glee club assignment. That had to sting. But his lips quirked into a small smile -- an actual smile, not a smirk. "Tell me something."

Alicia pursed her lips, neither agreeing nor refusing.

"You and that best friend of yours." She tensed and he noticed, she knew he did. "Is that really all you are?"

Her thoughts drifted to Finn -- not that they ever traveled far from him. The closest she'd gotten from escaping dwelling on him was around Jesse. Putting all technicalities into focus, Finn was only her best friend. He was pining after Jesse's girlfriend -- or ex-girlfriend. All of that was foggy.