Multifandom Oneshots

euphoria ~ the drive home ~ rue & ali

A/N : Takes place post-special episode 1

Rue got into his car, but unlike pretty much every other instance in town where a high school student ended up alone in a car with an adult, it wasn't for sexual reasons. Just the thought of something like that ever going down with Ali made her sick to her stomach, and she damn near killed Maddy when she'd first joked about it.

Ali wasn't perfect, but he wasn't a fucking pedophile.

It had been a long and draining conversation this time. Sometimes their meetings got like that- It just came with the territory. Sure, a lot of their meetings would be more laid back. It's not like they got into religion and shit like that every time they sat in that diner together, but there were times like this one where the conversation would go down some dark paths, and Rue would tell him shit that she hadn't even told Jules.

Ali glanced at the young blood in his passenger seat as he drove the familiar path to her house (he'd drive her home if they ever met up late), and he wondered how much of the conversation she'd even remember the next day. Sure, she wasn't so high to the point where you couldn't hold a conversation with her, but she was still high enough to where one could notice even if they weren't the Minnesota Fats of drug use.

Rue glanced back, and for a moment they held eye contact. Then he broke it to look back at the road, but she kept her gaze on him. She really admired the man, even if she now knew of some of the unforgivable shit he'd done in his life. At the same time, she also couldn't blame anyone who saw him as a shithead. Like his kids. Or his ex-wife. Or fuck knows who else.

In some ways, Ali was like her therapist. She would go to him semi regularly for up to a few hours at a time, and either talk about her problems openly or deflect, depending on the issue. When she deflected, he would call her out on it, but he was willing to eventually drop it if it was clear she wouldn't spill. It was also 100% confidential, even to the point where it maybe shouldn't be.

He wouldn't tell her anything about himself unless she specifically asked or if it was relevant, and even then he wouldn't go into detail, because that wasn't the point of their meet-ups; If he wasn't an addict, he'd probably do good as a therapist.

But then, in other ways, he was nothing like a therapist. Because therapists might call you out on a minor scale, but they are not that brutally honest in everything they say. No, the way Ali would talk to her was so fucking real that she sometimes couldn't help but cry. He never apologized, because he hadn't actually done anything wrong. There was a mutual understanding there that he did care about her, and that's why he was always so damn real with her. She needed it.

But, at the end of the day, he'd still reach across the table and hold her hand when she cried.