Multifandom Oneshots

euphoria ~ in the end (fluff) ~ elliot & rue

A/N : A post-season 2 finale interaction between Rue and Elliot because their friendship is very interesting to me. Also there's a brief mention of Autistic!Jules, which is a headcanon of mine in case anyone is confused

It was the summer after the school year had ended.

Rue had been sober since her whole meltdown when Jules had told her mother about the pills. She still couldn't find it in herself to be genuinely angry with Jules, even if she had been in the moment. Once she was level-headed and able to properly reflect, she'd realized that it had actually been the most mature thing to do in that situation, since... Shit. She really would've ended up killing herself if she wasn't forced to get clean, either because she overdosed again or because of an accident or something. She didn't talk to Jules much during the rest of the school year because she knew that wouldn't be good for either of them, but she did apologize for the hurtful shit she had said... That's not who this story's about though.

No, this story is about Elliot. Because Elliot was in a weird place when they saw each other again.

Figures, it was during a party. A good, old-fashioned high school party during the summer, at fucking Nate Jacobs' house of all places. Because, while it wasn't exactly a secret that he was one of the worst people on the fucking planet, he also had the biggest house out of anyone, so people would still hit him up for parties. He loved the attention too. It also meant that there would be more girls around. Ones he could fall for and rail in the bathroom without it being a whole thing. Girls who weren't particularly connected to Maddy or Cassie in any way. There were guys who went there too. Guys who he would never admit he found attractive, but whom he would still get off to the thought of when the party ended and he'd drank enough to forget about how much he hated himself for those feelings.

Rue had actually become the designated driver during most parties, now that she was sober. After all, it's not like anyone would let her get near a bottle of whiskey since they all knew how awful it could end up if she relapsed in any way. Alcohol wasn't even one of those substances to her, but it hardly fucking mattered at that point. All people knew was that she had a history of substance abuse issues, and alcohol was a substance that one could be addicted to. Reason enough to not let her drink, not that she wanted to anyway. As bad as her cravings could sometimes be, she also didn't want a repeat of what happened last time.

She was completely sober when she found Elliot in the laundry room, snorting cocaine, and she was completely sober when she left the laundry room. He didn't offer her any drugs, and he didn't offer her any of the vodka he had up on top of the dryer in a red solo cup either. It was a working dryer this time, a stark contrast to the old, broken, dirty-clothes-covered dryer that was in the laundry room they had met in. There was probably some poetry hidden in there, but neither Rue nor Elliot cared to think about it. Not when they were staring at each other so intensely, the former realizing that she had accidentally stumbled across Elliot after all that time, and the latter hoping that the remaining white powder on top of the machine didn't set off anything within the recovering addict in front of him.

"Hey" he said quietly after a moment. Rue just nodded in response, her eyes fixated on the powder. "Still using?" she asked him in a hushed voice. A small wave of shame washed over the boy as he nodded. He never promised her to go clean, not really. He wasn't even sure how he could go about doing that in the first place, or if he even wanted to. He wasn't as fucked up from it as Rue had been, and he promised himself not to ever get to that point. He thought that, if he didn't end up at the extreme end of it, there was no harm in still doing it. Except there was harm, both to his health and to his interpersonal relationships. He just didn't think those were worth losing the high.

"I'm not judging you" Rue said in response to his ashamed expression. He looked up at her, maintaining that eye contact like he always did. He was always so good at eye contact, even when he was out of it. Rue almost envied him for it. For how easy it was for him. With her ADD, she could never hold eye contact like that. When she did, it took all her focus to do so, even to the point where she would miss entire conversations because of it, which is why she so rarely tried. It was one of the things she'd always loved about her relationship with Jules because the blonde also couldn't keep eye contact because of her Autism. "We both know I'm in no position to judge you, Elliot"

"Did you ever listen to the file I sent you?" the boy asked after another beat. Shortly after the small conversation they'd had before the play, Rue had sent him a text asking if he had a recording of the song he had sung her. It had meant a lot to her, and she wanted to be able to hear it again when she wanted since music was always so special to her. An hour later, she'd gotten an email containing nothing but an MP3 file titled "little_star", and had listened to it frequently since then.

"A lot, yeah" Rue replied with a small nod, and Elliot seemed surprised at this. "Music is really personal to me" she continued at his apparent shock. "Always has been. That song was especially personal, so yes. I've listened to it a lot... Was it worth it?"

"What?"

"In the song, you talk about giving it all to see me shine, right?" she asked rhetorically. "Was it worth it?"

...

"I'm not checking your pulse, am I?"