cam / salem

𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗦: Light Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Rebecca Welton Needs a Hug, Emotionally Repressed Rebecca Welton, Post-Divorce, Warning: Rupert Mannion, Boss/Employee Relationship, Mutual Pining, Cuddling & Snuggling, Reader-Insert is Bad at Feelings, Rebecca Welton is bad at feelings, Complicated Relationships, Season 1 Rebecca Welton, there's a roadtrip, where rebecca welton is the passenger princess, and, forced proximity?, NO. worse, chosen proximity, References to anxiety, Title from a The Strokes Song, Fluff, sort of a, Character Study, No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert, Not Beta Read

a/n: this fic is some sort of canon divergence that happens right before or at some point in the begging of season 1, that's why there's not much mention of any other characters lmao. as usual, no beta reader ;( finished at 4:16am so there might be mistakes. please lmk if there are typos or stuff!

Why on Earth did Rebecca Welton even let the idea play in her mind that sitting in a car, with you, for god knows how many hours, was a good thing was something Rebecca could not understand right now.

To be fair, in theory, when she thought about it, it wasn't that bad. The idea of the road, the fresh air coming through a rolled-down window, the sharp English countryside green and vast, infinite on the horizon. In practice, the moment she realized what she had just done was way too late.

Her, sitting in this cramped space, with you, for hours. That one fundamental piece of the whole plan didn’t cross her mind.

Too close. Too many empty spaces to let silence proliferate, too little space to avoid the accidental collapsing of a body against the other, a catalyst for an imminent disaster, Rebecca thought. Too much intimacy. Because there had to be a strange form of intimacy in the way two bodies managed to exist in the dead, quiet silence of a moving car for hours, circumventing the evident dread of daring to look each other in the eye.

The first hour in, Rebecca could excuse herself and ask for silence with the excuse of work. Fair enough. You wouldn’t question a woman who took her spreadsheets very seriously. So that’s what she did, she pulled out some bullshit spreadsheet she absolutely wasn’t interested in and kept her head low until the numbers started to blur in front of her, until her eyes hurt. 

Then, nothing. Silence. Some shitty song playing quietly on the radio. Maybe the unceremonious tapping of your fingers against the leather of the steering wheel, the occasional threat of your body shifting in the seat.

The thing is, there’s only so much silence one can take before something collapses. And you two still had a fucking long road ahead. 

***

There's only so much you can do to shut your mind before it starts screaming.

When her brain decided it was enough to try to think about whatever she could think about work, Rebecca resorted to doing her best to disregard her thoughts. Little treacherous things. She mentally told herself all the jokes she could pull from memory, even told you a few that made you smile. One that even made you let out a breathy laugh, eyes moving from the road to her for a brief moment. She hummed under her breath all the songs she could hum. She stared really hard at all the passing trees and some cows and the birds, and she squinted her eyes at the sun until the day dimmed in orange and red and the sky bled over the windshield.

And then Rebecca couldn’t keep herself from thinking anymore.

She started thinking about how Rebecca Welton had a thing with terms. With labels.

Rebecca never thought they were enough to encapsulate anything. Like the term wife or the term daughter. She was never good enough as a wife. She was never good enough as a daughter. There was always that one little thing, like a thorn uncomfortably stuck beneath the skin, that made her feel ill-equipped to give the performance the auditorium was expecting. Like she never did quite seem to fit into the box of the labels she forced herself into, and that meant hunching over and pulling her knees to her chest and sucking in her breath to fit. 

And after ten years of being married to Rupert, the term relationship was a bitter word on Rebecca's tongue. 

Relationships, again, were a wide term. Friends. Family. Lovers. 

Rebecca Welton didn't have many friends. Sure, she had a few people with whom she would dine at the best restaurants in London, and a few people she could drink mimosas at brunch on obnoxious Saturdays with. Most of them whipped off after the divorce, chose neutrality or chose the other side, or just never again appeared in her planner. Then, after the divorce. You know, Higgins. Higgins, who would sit with her for lunch while Rupert fucked someone else behind her back. 

Then Sassy. She should probably have texted her earlier. 

She didn't have many friends. That was one truth. She didn't believe her mother particularly liked her. That was another truth. 

That's why she didn't like the silence. The space between nothing and doing, where her mind could actually think. Because she would start to think, and it never led to nice roads.

Lovers, a few. Lovers: another term that didn't fit the definition: anyone who would be up to fuck was enough?

The term assistant might be a bit too narrow when it comes to you. Not because of what you did not do at work (you weren’t really doing assistant stuff), but because of what you did do. Rebecca was sure and very aware of the legal implications of having sex with her assistant and blurring all the possible lines of a professional relationship, but. You also were sure and very aware. 

But still. 

At first, Rebecca believed she could just sit on the fence of being correct and swing her legs in the air, allowing herself to watch from afar and fantasize about what could have been. But then you laughed too loudly, and you just happened to be too witty for your own good, and you looked her in the eye when you saw her in the hallways, and you weren't able to get her coffee order right, but you made her tea just right.

Not perfect, slightly crooked, but damn, she liked you. It was different. It never felt like she had to live up to a certain standard when she was with you, like she did with Rupert. 

And fucking around helped her find out that you felt like being a tiny bit more alive again. It felt like finally coming out of the empty shell Rupert and the divorce have covered her whole body in. 

Circling back: the truth was that you were far beyond the point of an assistant. The facade of a professional relationship was crumbling under the crushing weight of everything else this was.

Sometimes, you were under the impression she didn't really like you. She liked you, too much, that was the problem. Enough to get her in trouble. 

***

The rain starts with the anxiety. Or the anxiety starts with the rain. Rebecca hasn’t decided about it yet.

As the rain hits the windshield, Rebecca thinks she can hear her own blood pumping in her ears loud and clear, like her own body is trying to betray her and her blood is trying to get out of her body and let her bleed to death right there. It’s probably not true, she knows that. She also knows her brain isn’t exactly a logic and reason advocate when things get dumb like this.

It suddenly dawns on her what the fuck she just did. The fact that she's sitting, like, what, less than thirty centimeters from you and there's nowhere for her to escape to. There are no appointments. No meetings. No vague personal matters she can excuse herself with now. Her hands are still scratching a loose thread on the fabric of her trousers, knees turning white every time she digs into the flesh of her thighs with a bit too much force when she turns to give you a glance.

“You alright?” you ask, shooting her a sideways look. 

Of course, you ask. 

“Yes,” Rebecca tilts her head to look at you, moving back to rest against the cold glass. “Why?”

“Looking a bit pale,” you shrug, eyes back on the road.

“Everything a woman wants to hear, darling.”

On the radio, the host’s voice gets lost in the static for a moment, right in the middle of some shitty commercial about some local shop. The silence takes over as the last distorted echo of the man’s voice disappears, and the terrifying silence settles in once again. And it consumes her and she cannot stand the idea of not saying anything.

“I just have a headache,” Rebecca blurts out, fingers pressing at the bridge of her nose. 

You don't reply, just let out a small sound. The voice on the radio comes back. Rebecca feels the vibration of the rain hitting the glass harder, tilts her head to press her temple against the cold surface. 

What do you want, is what you want to say.

“I think I have an aspirin,” you say.

I don't know what I want, is what she wants to say. 

“It's fine. It'll pass.” Rebecca says instead. 

You want to say something else. You want to tell her to let you know if she changes her mind. Maybe reach and grab her hand and tangle your fingers with hers to keep them from twitching at her lap, turn around, and lean in to brush the hair away from her face. But you don't. You keep driving. Turn the radio up a bit. Look straight ahead at the endless road.

***

Rebecca stares at you. Then at the building. Then back at you. Her eyes narrow, nose scrunching up.

“You are bloody insane.”

“Rebecca.”

“You've lost it. I'm not staying there,” Rebecca laughs, looking between you at the so-called charming countryside B&B. 

“Do you want to drive?’ you say, pointing with your thumb outside. “Because I'm not driving in the rain. And I’m not sleeping in this car.”

Rebecca looks at you. Then back to the motel. Then at the road ahead. A curtain of water covers the endless void that the road has turned into, dead and empty, the occasional lightning on the horizon. Turns back to look at you.

You’re already turning off the engine. 

“You're not driving,” you say, sliding the car keys in your pocket.

It was two ridiculous trips of running to the front door, holding your jackets over your head to avoid getting wet, only to still splash through all the puddles and get the hems of your pants soaked before you finally got to the front desk.

The place was cozy. Small. A bit cluttered. Homely, though. You were sure Rebecca was absolutely not seeing the cozy side of things. You found it charming, Rebecca was already wondering if sheets were Egyptian cotton—or, rather, if there were going to be sheets at all.

The guy on the front desk didn't look like a creep, which was enough. 

As you talked to him and sorted out all the details, Rebecca's eyes kept drifting around the walls, landing on all the framed photos. The man posing with what she guessed was his family. A dog. A ridiculous cliché bell on the desk. 

A nice, easy life with two kids and a dog in the middle of a small town. Didn’t seem like a bad one.

“A room with two singles would be alright?” the man asks. “It's the only one we have available right away. If not…”

“It’s fine. We'll take it,” Rebecca interrupts, sliding her card on the desk. Then, turned to look at you, “...right?”

You stare at her for a second. At the damp fabric of her shirt sticking to the back of her neck, the small drops of water dripping from the edges of her hair, arms crossed against her middle. Rebecca Welton did look out of place. Her shirt and her watch were probably more than this whole establishment. 

But you thought that it would fit her, waking up in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere away from the noise, the rush, the flashes. Somewhere where she could breathe, to let her shoulders drop. 

You nod. 

***

“I swear to bloody God,” Rebecca mutters, heels clicking against the floor of the hallway. “If I hear one more love coming from that man's mouth.”

The hallway is slightly uncanny, looking straight like a still from some shitty old horror adjacent movie. The wallpaper on the walls was an awfully weird shade of green and made Rebecca nauseous, and it was quiet. Very quiet, as if you two were the only ones in the whole place.

“It's a custom, Rebecca,” you reply. “Not everyone is from London and terrified of saying hi to their neighbors.”

“You know what a custom is? Not having to question if the sheets are clean when I go to a hotel,” Rebecca says, inserting the key to open the door. “Just thinking about sleeping in this bed makes my skin crawl.”

Half an hour later, Rebecca's body is draped over the bed on the left side of the room, the one right next to the window —she said some bullshit about wanting to wake up with natural sunlight. Half asleep against the headboard, body wrapped around a real nice looking bathrobe with the name of the bed and breakfast embroidered on the chest, reading glasses askew low on her nose, book long forgotten on her lap. 

You've lost count of the minutes you spent just staring, hunched on the edge of the mattress, your work long forgotten, too, on the bedside table. Enough, at least, for the ends of her hair no longer dripping wet, just damp and sticking to the back of her neck and the sides of her face, enough that her face is warm and her cheeks are flushed, lips parted as the blonde exhales softly. 

It is a test of your willpower and control, or whatever bullshit it takes for you to not just get up and brush the hair from her face and take off her glasses and kiss the shit out of a woman who just complained about the lack of Wi-Fi and the water pressure after taking half an hour shower while singing some shitty Spice Girls song. 

Rebecca jolts at the knock on the door. You jump when she jumps. You scramble to grab your phone, pretending to be doing something else— and failing to even pretend your screen was on. Not like Rebecca notices, she's too busy brushing a hand over her face to wipe away any remnants of sleep and tightening the robe around her body as she gets up, groggily striding towards the door. 

On the other side, the man from reception with a hair dryer in his hands. 

Just the notion of having to call the front desk to request such a basic appliance had bothered her. Still, Rebecca muttered a thank you and closed the door behind her, walking back towards the bathroom.

“Do you believe they have a website where I can complain about the room service?” She mutters dryly, barely looking at you over her shoulder before she enters the bathroom.

That gets a laugh out of you. Rebecca sees herself smile in the foggy bathroom mirror as she plugs the damn hair dryer on. 

***

What you would have pictured Ms Welton wearing to bed always ended up being more of a PG-13 situation, maybe something black and lacey and slightly ridiculous. Ridiculous, like the fact that you have indeed seen the woman naked. Quite a few times before. But… well, never wearing jammies. And it's ridiculous how anyone can look so good in those rather ridiculous heart pajamas —not what you would have pictured, but.

“You're staring,” Rebecca points out, pen tapping against the paper of her planner, not really looking at you. 

No one has looked at me in a while, is what she wants to say. 

She considers saying something else. Saying a joke or anything to not let her words sound so dry. Even considers being a bit feisty and looking up to look at you, but she doesn’t. For the sake of keeping whatever intent Rebecca had to keep this whole ridiculous trip as professional as possible. 

“I'm not,” you reply. “I'm just…”

I want you to come closer, is what you want to say. 

You shrug, thumb swiping over your phone. The screen is turned off again. You don't look up when you hear Rebecca move around. The bed creaks under her weight as her glasses hit the bedside table, then her planner. Your skin itches, a spark of something pounding over your body when it seems like she's going to stand up. And for a moment, you're sure she's coming your way, and then— Rebecca reaches to turn off the lamp on her side. 

The blonde slides back into bed. Takes the covers up her chest. Turns to her side, facing the wall. She thinks it’s not good for Feng Shui to have a bed on the side of a window. Neither are clutter nor broken or neglected items. She thinks about how it should be a crime, you being this close and this far. 

Your hands pulse at the sides of your body as you lie still on your bed, fingers tapping against the fabric of your old pants. Suddenly, the ceiling is the most interesting thing in this world. You don't have to turn to your side to guess the outline of her back under the covers, shoulders drawn in, eyes staring at the wall. You close your eyes and imagine the soft skin of Rebecca's shoulder, your lips pressing at the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, the bitter taste of a sugary sweet body lotion lingering on your lips. You open your eyes to focus on the cracks in the ceiling.

Silence stretches around you two again. It always makes you feel slightly nervous, like a dog that wants to bite something out of this life. You haven't turned off the light on your side yet.

You want to see if you hear her breath. If you can hear her move. Any sign of life on the other side of the room. You want to feel the weight of her body settling on the mattress, of her muscles finally relaxing, the soft rise and fall of her chest as her body finally gives in. The only thing you hear is the rain on the window. 

“What time do we leave tomorrow?” You finally ask.

Rebecca doesn't reply. For a moment, you think she fell asleep. You're about to reach and turn off the light on your side when you hear her roll over.

“When it stops raining.” 

“If it doesn't stop?”

It’s one of those stupid questions you know Rebecca despises. Still, you don’t hear the usual barely contained exhale accompanied by the subtle full-body eye roll. Just, again, silence. It would stop raining eventually, right?

“Turn off the light,” Rebecca sighs. 

“I could live here,” you say, sitting up to reach the light switch. “It's cozy. The guy’s nice. They have a continental breakfast.”

Your rambles bounce around in the darkness of the room before it swallows you two whole. You can feel it sinking around you like a dense thing, constricting and stretching between you two, and for a moment, you're not sure if she's just a meter away from you or might as well be two oceans away, in another country, in another universe. 

Then, the blonde speaks. 

“You couldn't live here,” she says. You hear her roll over, the bed creaking under her weight. “You'd get bored of eating the same food all the time. And hotel eggs are disgusting. And the Wi-Fi connection is awful.”

She’s partially right. 

“And I wouldn’t like the idea of you being so far away,” Rebecca adds. 

She’s right.

It almost physically hurts to say it, as if someone were trying to pull barbed wire out of her throat. Rebecca swallows, mentally cursing at the slip.  On the other side of the room, the bed creaks under your weight when you turn around. 

“I’m sorry, I didn't mean…” Rebecca mutters.

“S’alright,” you cut her off. You move around, facing the dark, hoping you're facing her and not her back. “I wouldn't like to be away either.”

The silence stretches between you two for way more than you would like. Rebecca is either asleep or, fair enough, just ignoring you, until you hear the rustle of the fabric as she moves around. You can picture the green eyes fixated on the ceiling, staring around in the dark like some trapped animal trying to plan the easiest escape route. The bed creaks under her weight. You can picture her muscles tensing, skin crawling in the middle of the dark, just like you, or at least hope to. Then you hear the sound of her feet hitting the ground, blindly reaching for her shoes for a moment. As any animal lured far away from home, Rebecca scrambles in the dark, her knee hitting the edge of the bedside table as she reaches for the light. Fails to locate both her shoes and the light switch. She still manages to find her way to you in the dark, and the next thing you see after the sounds of her naked feet padding against the floor is the blonde’s figure standing in the dark at the feet of your bed. 

And suddenly the Rebecca Welton is not so graceful, not so sharp at the edges as the heavy body warped in pajamas with hearts and messy hair leans in, her hands reaching blindly in the dark to find your arm as she slides into bed with you. The mattress dips next to you as your body automatically moves back, your back pressing against the wall to let her curl next to you, one of her legs sliding between your thighs as her arm finds your middle, pulling in closer. 

The bed creaks under your weight as you settle in, hand finding the back of her neck, fingers sliding up her hair. Rebecca exhales, a warm breath hitting the base of your throat as she nuzzles against you, her free hand sliding under your shirt. You feel the muscles of her neck, her body tensing and then, with another exhale, letting the tension melt away. Her body melts against the mattress. This bed is definitely too small and probably not designed to hold two adults together in it, but you don’t mind a bit. Your arms move to hold her tighter, letting the mess of long limbs curl against you.

“Do you mind?” Rebecca mumbles, her forehead pressing against your chest.

A bit late to ask. You shake your head.

“It’s fine,” you assure.

Of course, it’s fine. This is what you’ve wanted all this whole stupid day. This and nothing else. Your arms tighten around her as the sudden thought might leave crosses your mind, the idea that Rebecca will regret this at any moment and retreat, go back to hide in her trenches. But her nails dig slightly at the bare skin of your back, as if she could read your thoughts but didn’t have the strength to say it out loud.

I’m not leaving, it's what she wants to say. 

“Rebecca,” you start. 

You stop. You realize you’re not quite sure where you want to go. Your brain is going faster than your mouth, and it feels like your own body is preventing the wrong thing from slipping past your lips and crashing out. “It doesn't...”

Rebecca hums against your shirt.

“I know," she says.

“This could be one hundred times easier,” you finally say. “You can’t fight everything and everyone out forever.”

You hear her click her tongue.

“Just say yes,” you say, almost a plea. “For once.”

“If I say yes,” Rebecca says, lifting her head slightly to look at you in the dark. “Will you be smug about it?”

“Maybe. Just a bit,” you reply, a small smirk tugging at your lips. “I think I’m allowed to be a bit pleased with myself if the Rebecca Welton says yes to me.”

“Mhm. Thought as much."

Then, after a bit, the blonde speaks up again.

“Then yes,” she mutters, lips pressing against the base of your throat. “I just… It’s not easy, you know? All of this. You’ll have to be a bit patient.”

You tilt your head to press a kiss against her temple. “I’ve got all the patience in the world.”

Rebecca Welton can't read your mind and can’t know if, on god, you do. But maybe you did, and there was only one way to learn if it was true. Tomorrow you will have breakfast that Rebecca will pretend to hate, she will have a cup of black coffee with no sugar and shitty hotel eggs that will turn out not so shitty. You will say exactly one joke that will make her spit out a bit of her coffee and you will stare too much at the way her jeans fit on her legs. And the rain will not have stopped —not fully, at least— when you two get back on the road. And maybe you will hold her hand while you drive, and her perfectly manicured nails will distractingly tap on your thigh.