The Best Friends You'll Ever Have | 6: Reunited

[luxken27]

Chapter Title: 6 | Reunited
Prompt: #076 – Sleepover
Universe: Post-canon
Genre: Angst/Romance
Rating: the high side of T
Warning: Language, sexual innuendo
Word Count: 3,044
Summary: As Stacey closes one chapter of her life, she looks forward to the future with uncertainty. Sequel to ‘Rekindled.’

Links: FF.net | LJ | DW | AO3

This is probably my most favorite piece yet that I've written for BSC fandom. A lot of things came together for me, all starting with an idea I've had for this pairing for nearly a year.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but Sam Thomas/Stacey McGill is my all-time canon OTP for this fandom. I have no idea why it strikes such a chord with me, but it does. Especially at the beginning of the series, the characters have so much nice depth and complexity and they act like real preteens that I guess I can't help but like them! And Stacey's crush on Sam goes about as well as can be expected: he breaks her heart almost immediately. Boy, did I know that feeling well when I was her age!

I've had an inkling of this idea for almost a year now, or however long I've been seriously re-reading the regular BSC series. I reread it first for the Sam/Stacey, and then later for Charlie/Janine (what can I say? I likes me some Thomas boys, LOL), and one of the first ideas I had was for some sort of quiet scene between Sam and Stacey in the library of the Brewer mansion. I wasn't sure what else was going on, but I saw them, the rain outside, and the whispers of conversation.

And, finally, it came to this =)

I'm really drawn to early-canon Stacey. She was always my favorite baby-sitter, I think because I was a little in awe of her (I was definitely a Mary Anne. No question). And because she had diabetes ~ my grandfather also had diabetes, so in a way I felt like I understood her? Or something, IDK. All I know is, diabetes fascinated me, and was probably the beginning of my life-long interest in chronic disease. Stacey never let her diabetes get her down, though, not even after its discovery ruined her life and made her parents crazy. She just sucked it up and dealt with it, and I could respect that.

At the beginning of the series, Stacey is very determined to keep the new friends she's made in Stoneybrook, by any means necessary. They mean more to her than the popular kids at school or even her burgeoning crush on Sam. A few books later we see yet more of her insecurity peeking through, when Claudia becomes friends with Ashley Wyeth. I liked seeing some vulnerability in Stace, considering she was always described as so cool and mature and sophisticated. Everything thinks she should be so strong and brave because of all she's had to face in her life, somehow forgetting she's just a kid all the same.

In my own personal head-canon, I see Stacey continuing to cling to these insecurities. She was the first to leave the BSC voluntarily (in the 'bad girls' arc), and even after, things were never quite the same between her and her BSC friends. Going through the health scare from the previous prompt is enough to bring them back together, but their friendship isn't the same. One thing that hasn't necessarily changed is Stacey's relationship with Sam.

I love the idea of them having a long, complicated, mucky friendship/relationship. They already sort of do, in canon, drifting in and out of each others' orbits, dating for awhile (*sigh* bliss!) before parting ways. There's something about first love that's hard to let go of, and it appears to be a recurring theme in my work, so big surprise that it pops up here :P I can definitely see them continuing this make it/break it dance when Stacey gets into high school, and suddenly it's more socially acceptable for Sam to be seen with her. I think they have a lot of fun, go through a lot of drama (not between themselves, but with other aspects of their lives), and just kinda continue along this weird line between friendship and romance. Like they can never get their timing right. But, sometime after Stacey has to have an insulin pump implanted, they finally have this very intense, romantic relationship ~ as best they can, considering Sam's off in college now.

I don't know why he picked Hawaii, but when they started having this conversation (Sam reassuring Stacey that just because things have been shaky in the last few years, they will get better, and that it's okay to be nervous taking this huge step of going off to school), he was there, and he was happy. He's pretty sensitive in the books, so I can definitely see him needing to get away and find himself, more than his other siblings. He has this strange sense of self-assurance that was definitely hard-won, and he does his best to pass it along to Stacey.

I love the way I wrote them here, their conversation slipping from friendly into something a bit more intense. I don't say I love my work very often, but these two are fun and interesting to write for, especially considering ^-- all of that head-canon, LOL. If you read this piece, you'll definitely see where the previous one came from. I wrote this one first, drawing on the Stacey that I liked - the original one, from the golden first few books. I think my characterization of her falls closer to that version than the one who's in the latter half of the series.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the BSC RP "Stoneybrook Live" (sl_action), which I think is the best BSC RPG out there. It's a finished game, but even just paging through the archives is amazing. The girls who ran it were incredibly clever with the way they pulled canon in, re-imagining the super specials and some of the more outrageous plots with HS aged characters. I still like to go back and look through it, or look at the character profiles. I don't necessarily agree with the direction the characters took, but its certainly an interesting premise. That's where I first saw the idea of Stacey having an insulin pump, for instance.

Stacey and Sam never happened in the game, but that's okay =) That's why its called head-canon, LOL.

This is also the first piece that's a bit further on the 'adult' side of things for this fandom (or any fandom I've written in the last year plus, IY excepted). I don't know why its easier for me to write the BSC girls in adult or sexual situations, considering they are just as much a part of my childhood as KI or SVH, but it is *shrug* Probably because the series was romantic in and of itself, and the fandom is certainly not opposed! :P I had a hard time rating this piece properly, because its not like there's anything explicit going on, but I mean...the characters are basically engaging in foreplay, and the fade is them leaving the room to have sex, LOL.

I'm not sure that I'll be adding to this little two-shot series, but it was certainly fun to write! My first person POV is coming along, I think. I'll definitely be writing more Sam/Stacey, though, and maybe outlining more of my own personal head-canon/future story for them.