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Post by tonilous on Jul 5, 2014 2:26:47 GMT -5
Hawthorne Double Acts
The good thing about having the kitchen repaired was that it became wonderful to sit on one of the stools in it, propping elbows onto the marble countertop and inhaling the first pump of caffeine to officially begin entering reality from unconsciousness. Not that the mere sight of Shane walking into the House, completely unexpected, with Damian wouldn't be equivalent to an intravenous injection of fifty pounds of the stuff. Still, once the relief sinks in, laziness returns, and everyone feels too good to do anything serious.
Impossible—they would still have to go to class and today's Pipers' practice will involve something important as the broadcast from Pentland said.
The Twins sat next to each other at the kitchen, making hot cocoa for themselves. Their hands moved steadily without stopping, having memorized a certain exact mix and temperature that they both liked. They were an interesting sight, the other grabbing an ingredient that the other had just put down moments ago, steadily blending, and when they were done, they swapped cups and only then began to drink.
Patrick sighed deeply as he too sat on a kitchen stool, still wearing silk pajamas, staring into nothing as he drank his cup of coffee and his eyes getting a bit clearer. Diana poured herself her own cup, still wearing only socks and pajamas, and hands wrapped tightly around the heat of her drink.
"…Jefferson is only ever this quiet in the mornings, don't you think…?" Patrick said absently as Diana took a sip.
"I guess…at least it is in the mornings before Charlotte wakes up and finds all the coffee cups again," Diana muttered, determined to get as much caffeine in her blood as possible within the next thirty seconds. The Twins nodded at her inference.
"Alice has such wonderful reactions," Logan murmured.
"And she's staying with the Dormouse now," Lucas added.
"Should be interesting…"
"Pity the Dormouse being in the crossfire…"
"Why aren't you bothering them right now?" Patrick queried, half looking at them suspiciously.
"They're all up there having a moment," the twins shrugged lightly. As much as they would've liked to interfere, someone did just come from a life-or-death situation.
Noel re-entered the kitchen, eyes red and swollen, still sniffling. He was carrying the broken pieces of his mug and he dumped them unceremoniously into the trash can. He grumbled a little, picking up a different cup from the shelf. He sat next to them, poured in the dark liquid, stared at his coffee, and after a long drawn pause, "…good morning."
"Are you all right…?" Patrick asked, staring at him. "You started bawling like a three-year-old the moment you saw Shane."
"Nah, I was just…" another sniffle, a harrumph and Noel attempted to compose himself. "No big deal." But his hands shook even as he drank. He looked at Diana. "You're downing that really fast. Are you going somewhere or do you enjoy scalding your digestive tract?"
"Have to go out to the hospital," Diana answered blurrily. "Jordan's doctor told us he wanted to talk to us about something. It sounded important, so I'm not going to morning class."
"Is that legal?" Noel asked hoarsely with a raised eyebrow. "I heard Newman will talk about the Environmental Studies exams."
"I'd like to see Newman throw me curveball after all the time I spent reading his textbook while in the hospital," Diana muttered.
And then from upstairs:
"SHANE—!"
The sound of crashing bodies and panic rung out from upstairs.
"Whoa!—OW!" that sounded like Shane, flattened on the ground.
"Oh my gosh!—I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I—" that was definitely Grace, struggling to get up.
"Grace, what's the matter with you? You don't just leap at the injured!" Charlotte's distressed tone demanded.
"I didn't notice that he—I just—holy—he's alive—here, a-and—!"
"Up, get up—come on…" Damian was struggling to sound both stern while being not completely unamused.
"Well there goes my spleen…"
"Shut up, Shane—!" Damian snapped over Grace's anxious whine.
"I'm the injured here, I'm allowed to side-comment!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh my gosh, I didn't mean to—"
"Here, stay over here and don't get overexcited…"
Patrick, with a slow smirk, turned to the others, who looked deeply amused at the commotion upstairs, heard so clearly over the quiet of the morning. "Safe to say Grace's awake…"
"Is there anyone else in Jefferson who can be at the bottom of some physical injury within three seconds of waking up…?" Noel mumbled.
Diana gestured to the Twins, but Noel just rolled his eyes. "I meant actual humans, not demon spawn."
The twins only looked pleased. Presently, Charlotte and Damian came downstairs looking absolutely long-suffering as they did. Patrick smiled genially at his friends. "So…?"
"Shane being the way he is right now and then putting him in a room with Grace…" Damian sighed as he sat, taking the coffee pot and pouring himself and Charlotte a cup each. "It really makes betting on who gets more injuries before noon interesting."
"And you left them alone together?" Diana blinked, questioning their judgment even as she brought her cup to her lips.
"Shane made it very clear, with all the glares he could produce, that he would like me to leave," Damian answered.
"And if Grace's eyes got any bigger at me, I feared they'd actually pop out of her head, so…" Charlotte rolled her eyes and pulled over the cup Damian gave her, taking deep draughts of the drink.
The entire group then lowered their cups with simultaneous clanks onto the marble and heaved deep sighs. It was the morning after the mayhem. And life had returned to a relatively ordinary state. They may have all just woken up, but they all felt as though they were truly exhausted, for one reason or another.
They all sat like that for what must have been a while, staring at nothing, saying nothing, all silent.
Charlie walked into the kitchen to find them all like that. He was already dressed in uniform, and limping only slightly, hoping to get a bite to eat before departing for class. He gave the distant conspirators a long, narrow eyed stare. Then he snapped his fingers loudly. They all looked up.
"Hello?" he said, raising his eyebrows and gesturing expectantly. "You all have classes? If you can remember that far back?"
This woke them and all of them began to quickly finish. "Right!" Diana sprang to life. She picked up a folder on the countertop and handed it to Patrick, "Hey, can you take this to Newman?"
"Can't," said Patrick, getting off his stool.
"Why not?" Diana demanded. "I turn in your homework when you can't."
"Can't," Patrick said with finality, draining his cup and setting it down. "I'm coming with you. Good news or bad—you shouldn't be alone to hear it."
Diana raised her eyebrows a moment, but then smiled faintly if not doubtfully. "All right, then." She tossed the folder to Damian. "Newman?"
Damian just nodded as he caught it, waving them both on dismissively, finishing his own coffee. "Go…get out of here, go…"
"Whoa, hey," Charlie looked at the two of them, frowning. "You're skipping this morning? Diana—this is your GPA we're talking about here. But what's with Jordan?"
But the Piper just shook her head. "Mrs. Rivers called me around New Years. She…" She paused a little, lightly drumming her knuckles on the edge of the countertop. She saw all the expectant stares and sighed. "She had apparently not been telling anyone that he's been…having problems."
"Problems?" Charlie asked, confused.
Diana glanced around the room a little uncomfortably. She didn't look at them. "The accident from a while back…he had surgery then but lately he's having…cardiac arrhythmia. He…needed a second surgery."
Charlotte lowered her cup and stared at her in surprise. Damian put his hand over hers and their eyes met for a moment—Damian just shook his head. Diana just kept her eyes down, shaking her head and shrugging lightly, as though she couldn't believe it either.
Charlie looked sorry he asked, embarrassed. He shook his head and just waved her off the way Damian did. "Go. Get out of here."
"Me?" Patrick asked.
Charlie sighed. The things he did for these people. "Fine. Go. I'll…tell Burkhart it was an emergency."
Diana nodded and hurried to get out of the kitchen, but was accosted by the Twins. They only stared at her as they stood in her way, but she frowned at them. "I can handle it. I don't need your help."
"But if you do…" Lucas began, but stopped when he saw Diana's glare.
Logan was less intimidated. "…you know you can just ask."
"Fine." Diana hissed as she pushed past them. Patrick chased after her, nodding to the Tweedles, "I'll handle it," as he went past them.
Charlotte got off her stool and said, "I'll go…get ready for class."
"Wait a second," said Charlie, looking at her. "Damian, Noel, and you two Tweedles—you can go to class. Charlotte, right? When you get dressed, you come with me. Burkhart wants to see you."
Charlotte looked up at him, confused as the others got up. "Why?"
"It's about your assessment exam. She has your results. She's waiting in her office. Go see her before class, she says."
At this, Charlotte glanced to the others, who just stared back at her. Damian walked up to her and hugged her. "Good luck," he murmured.
Charlotte, hugging him in return, nodded, only that little bit anxious. "All right, then. Moment of truth."
The twins looked at her wide, anxious eyes. "Good luck, Alice. Please don't leave us."
Charlotte gave them a look and just shrugged lightly. "After all that? I couldn't if I tried."
I'm Charlotte. And this is Hawthorne Academy.
Storm's over, but now we've got to deal with the aftermath.
I've finished my exams and Damian's brother was found alive.
Ordinarily, I'd say we're pretty much out of the woods.
But I know Alice in Wonderland too, you know—
And I know that just when you think it's over, you find out there's more.
The House head's office was full of books, looking like a small library. The colors for Jefferson house were bannered on one side of the wall, and the early morning sunlight was streaming in through the windows, throwing them over the rich redwood desk. Burkhart was very carefully scrutinizing some papers when Charlie knocked at her open door, Charlotte standing next to him and clutching her bag strap. The teacher glanced up and motioned for the two of them to come inside. "Come inside, both of you."
Charlotte and Charlie entered the office and sat at the two chairs that faced her table. Burkhart pulled off her reading glasses with a sigh, putting them down on the table and motioning to Charlotte using the papers she was holding. "These are your exams. What did you think of the exams, Summers?"
At this, the "Alice" merely raised her eyebrows. "They were…adequately challenging." She glanced at Charlie, who was staring at her, at the corner of his eyes. The prefect didn't look all that apprehensive.
Burkhart considered and nodded a little. "Well, clearly they were "adequate" to you, seeing as how you were the only one out of the three new kids to actually score an average of ninety."
Charlie looked surprised and quite deeply relieved, with Charlotte's jaw dropping. Her eyes lit up and was about to say something but Burkhart stopped her. "Wait. Before you get too happy…."
The two stared at her, confused. Burkhart looked a little uncomfortable. "Now, Summers, I tried talking to the man, but he was adamant. You scored the best among the three new students and your exams proved that, but Professor Murdoch said that while you scored…adequately in his exam, he's not quite satisfied."
"What do you mean?" Charlotte frowned.
Burkhart folded her hands over the table. "You've done excellently, and your academics will probably get a little easier here on out. But Professor Murdoch's exam was your lowest, and he wants you to be tutored more carefully for his class."
Charlotte stared, sensing what was coming, and she almost rose from her seat as Burkhart added, "…which is why you're to report to Adams House after school for the next two weeks, for a tutoring session on the subject with the prefect, Darren Wright."
-8-
"I'm really sorry…"
"I'm telling you, stop apologizing to me," Shane said, pretending to look sternly at the girl that was now trying to help him fix his bandages. Grace had, with an incredibly un-graceful leap, all but pounced on him after her senses got over the momentary shock of seeing Shane alive next to her bed. Sure the other boy had been knocked sprawling, but it would appear that Shane would have been quite willing to endure further damage if it got Grace to make such a reaction to him.
Charlotte had come in only briefly to get changed for school, and she paid the two of them—Grace giving Shane fresh bandages—absolutely no mind until she was about to leave, telling them to not kill Caruso while they were left in there.
Shane made no promises.
"To be honest, I'm glad it was just me you jumped," Shane said, grinning broadly. "Because my reflexes are shot right now. Anyone else might've ducked out of the way, and you would've hit the floor and then we'll be the one bandaging you…"
Grace made a gesture that threatened to hit him with the medical kit, but Shane just burst out laughing. As Grace fixed the torn bandages on his arm, Shane added absently, clearly not thinking it over, "Wow, if you react like that to someone like me, I wonder what you'd do if it was your boyfriend."
At this, the small girl turned deep scarlet. She didn't raise her eyes or answer, and was so quiet for such a time that Shane frowned a little. "No? No boyfriend? Or is that not the right term?"
He blinked when he received no response. He started to feel apprehensive. "Girlfriend, then? Is it a girlfriend you have? Or…am I shooting myself at the foot here and should I just shut my trap the way Damian keeps telling me to—and yet I'm still talking! Wow, amazing. I'm so sorry…" He looked down at Grace and pulled away his arm.
Grace, however, shook her head and just pulled the arm back, continuing what she was doing. Shane fidgeted, uncomfortable at her silence. "…Grace…"
"It's not your problem if you can't figure it out, because even I can't…" Grace murmured softly. She could tell this confused Shane, so she added, "I'm still working on it. I think Charlotte's right…I feel I'll be okay and it'll get figured out. And no…" she turned red, finishing the bandaged arm. "I have neither one."
At the sight of the smile and the change in her tone, Shane felt better. "Well at least tell me someone like you have been kissed. I mean if you haven't been, there's no hope for the rest of the world, you realize."
Grace's blush surprised him. Shane stared and said, "No… You're not saying—"
"It's not really…something I've ever thought about," Grace murmured. "It's never—I mean… I've never been…actually…well, that. Like ever. Charlotte and I may have that in common." She stopped, and rolled her eyes. "Well not anymore, after Damian and she…"
"Really." Shane stared.
"Why do you think I was so worried during the New Years?" Grace laughed hollowly, loosening the bandage around Shane's head at last even as her hands shook. Some of the betadine had matted down the black curls. She had to smile. "A party with the lights going out and everyone grabbing for a kiss… Turns out I didn't have to worry."
Shane was one breath away. They were that close. "…did you think…I was going to kiss you?"
Grace turned deep red. "Oh…well… The thought… Well, that kind of a party—"
Shane was closer now, but he looked serious. Grace just smiled faintly. "What?"
"I wouldn't have ever thought of kissing you then, you know."
Why was it that humans have these emotions that they couldn't name? That surprise, disappointment and relief all at the same time? Words are insensitive to these things. If Grace had been given her way, she'd name them all. She's had all of them, after all.
"Oh…" she murmured. "Well, good."
Shane was still close. "You know I act the way I do, but I won't hurt you. You know that, right?" He gestured a little. "I don't want to get awkward. I'm trying to be good, remember?" he smiled a bit.
It was so different from the other smile—the bright one. Grace was a little puzzled, but she blushed and looked down at her hands. "Yeah. You're being good. And that's…much to Damian's endless relief, I'm sure."
Shane finally leaned back. He was a little red and now he wouldn't look at her. Grace blinked. "What's wrong?"
The tall boy just shrugged lightly, shaking his head. "What?" Grace laughed, elbowing him. Shane overdramatically winced as though mortally wounded. Grace laughed even more.
But Shane just shook his head, face still red. "…don't do that. With anyone else."
"Do what?"
Shane didn't look at her. "…when I leaned that close to you—it was that close. And you—you never pulled back at all. You just…" he shrugged. "Let it happen." He glanced at her briefly. "You shouldn't let anyone invade your space that way. Even with the maniacs in here. Aren't you scared they'd do something, being that close?"
Grace blinked serenely at her, her response finite—mainly because it was true. "I'm never scared if it's you."
At such words, Shane stared at Grace, trying with great difficulty not to smile, and that smile began to broaden until he had such a huge goofy grin on his face that Grace turned scarlet and got up to put away the kit. "Oh shut up, Shane."
"What?" Shane grinned blissfully, looking absolutely ridiculous. "I wasn't—"
"Yes you were. And you should just…" she gestured halfheartedly, knowing she'd dug herself a hole, "…slow down that…whatever goes on in that…that curly head of yours…"
"You have one too." Shane remarked with a smirk.
Grace sighed, but not unkindly. "I can see why Damian has problems with you."
But she smiled at him and Shane was never gladder that he was the first person she wanted to see. It might not have been some wild declaration of love that Shane wanted, but it was clear that Grace, whatever she thought of him, was willing to put up with him.
-8-
Charlie walked down the hall with Charlotte even though he clearly didn't have to. As the halls began to fill with students in uniforms, heading to their respective classrooms, Charlie glanced around as though making sure the coast was clear before he could say what he had on his mind.
"All right, Summers," he began, "I've heard…you know, a bit of what happened while I was gone. The issue with you and Damian?"
"The fact that I'm now seeing him is an issue?" Charlotte raised an eyebrow with a slight smile, not sure how to talk to the prefect.
But Charlie just smiled. "Yeah, that." But he still turned serious. "Anyway, this tutoring thing with Darren. I want you to know, that the moment he goes over or anything—you tell me, got it?"
Charlotte gave him a funny look. "…what?"
"I know that you're with Damian now, and that Darren fought through between you both for a while, I can understand that much from the Twins and Patrick and Di." Charlie looked grave. "We've had trouble with Darren before, and I'm not going to let this happen again. It hadn't been pretty and…and well, I don't think you should be involved in something like it. So the moment he goes too far, you come straight to me, understand? Not the Twins, not Damian—me. And I will deal with it."
Charlotte crossed her arms with a nearly exasperated sigh. "I think I can—"
"No, you cannot," Charlie said firmly. "I don't care how strong you think you are. But I know Darren far better than you do. He can be all right one minute, but you can't guarantee the next. I have seen him throw Damian through some oak doors."
Charlotte stared, aghast. "What?"
Charlie shook his head quickly, waving it away. "That was in the past. When he was still very angry, and to be quite honest, Damian fought back. He was lucky Felix hauled me back or I would've—" he looked very tense, and just shook his head with a slow exhale. "I'm just saying is that while I hear from Felix that he's been…changing for the better, which is great news, the transition isn't going to come quickly, or smoothly."
Charlie considered her. "Also from what I hear, you're headstrong and a bit of diva. That's fine—he needs someone to put him in his place. I know you can handle yourself around him. But I just want you to know that if anything goes too far, I have to be the first person you go to. The Jeffersons don't like him, and if you go telling any of them, especially Damian, cools will be lost."
Charlotte looked at him questioningly. "…what do you mean, especially Damian?"
"You haven't seen all sides to your boyfriend yet, that's all I'm telling you."
That was new. Charlotte thought back to when she and Damian were talking in her room, and she remembered those words that Damian said.
And I can't let Darren have his way—you'll see something terrible come out of me the next time he tries, I'm telling you that now. I don't want you to ever see it, but at this point, I think it'll happen.
So Damian can get angry too. Charlotte smiled faintly in spite of the thought. Damian had always tried very hard to remain calm and make sure nothing goes wrong, and things went as smoothly as he could manage. But he must have his limits too.
She lifted her head and smiled at Charlie confidently. "Fine. But I can take it from here."
"All right, then." Charlie smiled and patted her shoulder. "Good to finally talk to you, Charlotte." And he walked off . As he went a few paces down the hall, Charlotte had a sudden thought and turned back to him. "Hey Charlie?"
"Yeah?" the prefect asked, turning back to her, walking backwards a little.
"Did Damian fight back when Darren threw him at the doors?"
Charlie broke into a grin that was Jefferson through and through. "Charlotte, he pushed Diana, Patrick, and the Twins off, ran back in and hurled Darren into a music stand."
Charlotte nodded with a little smirk and headed off to class. Someone had to have landed in Lowell's office after that fight, but the thought of Damian getting his own back wasn't bad. Fair was fair, after all.
-8-
Diana peered into the hospital room carefully. Amanda Rivers looked up from where she was reading the newspaper. She was a warm, gentle woman with short brown hair and kind blue eyes, and she smiled at Diana immediately.
Diana, who saw that the boy on the bed was asleep, quickly put a finger to her lips to tell her not to say anything as it might wake him. She stepped inside, and Patrick peeked in next. Mrs. Rivers smiled even more and waved to him. Patrick waved back and followed Diana into the cold impartiality of the hospital room.
"How is he…?" Diana whispered softly as she approached.
"I suppose he's a little anxious…" Mrs. Rivers answered. She sighed. "The doctor…said he was coming in anytime around now."
Diana nodded with a small smile and walked over to the boy on the bed as Patrick settled himself on those hard, not-at-all-comfortable hospital chairs with the thin cushions. With the sight of his peaceful expression, Diana smiled almost bitterly.
It just wasn't fair that he was the one who had to suffer through this. It had been her fault. When she touched his hand slightly, he stirred as though he had merely nodded off waiting for her. His eyes brightened up in recognition of her. "Hi, Diana…you're here again?"
Diana bent down and kissed him briefly before smiling. "Tired of me yet?"
"Don't be dumb," he laughed softly. He saw her friend sitting on the chair, grinning, and smiled too. "Hi, Pat…you taking care of your crazy friend?"
While glad to see his spirits still up, Patrick gave him an incredulous look, "Are you nuts? She's positively impossible. How you stand her is beyond me."
This made him laugh. He looked up at Diana, smiling. Diana squeezed his hand and said, "How are you feeling?"
"Same…" Jordan shrugged slightly. "…I want to get out of here. I can't stay here much longer, I'll go crazy. It's boring… I just lie here, watch TV…stare at the ceiling…"
Diana nodded. "Yeah. Hey, maybe the doctor's going to let you off the hook. Never know." She shrugged.
Patrick smiled faintly at Diana. It was a little unsettling, to see her act so casually and optimistic around Jordan, when their discussions in their dorm room showed great evidence of her anxiety. Only Damian could beat Diana in a game of nothing-is-wrong-on-the-outside. Patrick had to watch all that, and listen, and see his endeavors to try and get something out of Diana going unheeded.
Diana sat on the stool next to Jordan as she regaled him about what had been happening in Jefferson lately. She told him everything, and he always liked hearing about them. He was particularly worried about the brewing trouble between Damian, Darren, and Charlotte—mainly because he had to watch what happened last year too.
"You'd think Damian and Darren would've had enough of each other already…" Jordan sighed, shaking his head. "And now they've got that poor girl in the middle."
"Believe me, it looks like Charlotte can handle herself," Diana grinned. "I told you about how she chewed out Tabitha that time."
Patrick groaned loudly as Jordan laughed, saying, "Yes, I remember. Pat, come on—you've been on and off with Tabitha forever. She's not the only one out there." When he started to cough, Diana gave him a cup of water. He grinned at them. "I like listening about what happens in your school. It sounds like a big weird TV show."
"Only when you're looking at it from the outside," Diana grumbled. "From the inside, it feels like World War III. At least Chaz is back."
"Well that's good, right?" nodded Jordan. "How about the Pipers? Got a set list for Regionals yet?"
"Gregor and Pentland haven't said anything—I think they're trying to make some changes," Diana answered. "What about your group? Those boys telling you about their practice?"
Jordan was a part of their school's dance troupe. He rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh. "You know how people keep saying that lead dancers are often stereotyped? Someone really ought to tell Nathan that he is the cause of the stereotype."
Diana snorted. "He couldn't dance better than you."
"Well, while I'm in here, I have no room to talk," Jordan grumbled. "Ms. Caldwell said that I should take as much recovery time as I need, but if Nathan keeps bothering the other boys, then recovery or no recovery—"
"Jordan—easy…" Diana put a hand to his arm, and grinned as Jordan started grumbling about his group's general drama. Mrs. Rivers just laughed and shook her head.
Patrick looked up as there was a knock on the door, and opened it to find Jordan's doctor. In that one moment, the atmosphere of the room changed. He didn't have to turn around to know that Diana's hand had tightened on Jordan's and that Mrs. Rivers' smile would have vanished. But he also knew that Jordan would have just smiled.
Jordan's doctor was a tall, slightly graying man with classic Hispanic good looks and though he usually smiled at Jordan, he looked somber now. And it was the one look Diana had not been hoping to see. "Hello, Mrs. Rivers," he murmured. "Jordan. Diana."
Diana rose from her seat and shook hands with the doctor, who now smiled faintly at her. "Here for the news…? Aren't you going to get in trouble missing so much class?"
He always asked that question, and Diana only ever smiled in answer. The doctor smiled back a little at her and then gave Mrs. Rivers a hug and then stepped back. Diana stood next to Patrick as Mrs. Rivers took her spot next to her son, and then it was then only a matter of addressing the elephant in the room.
Patrick had not had Diana hold his hand before. There had never been a need for her to. The truth was, right now, she wasn't even doing it. It was Patrick's wrist that she held as the doctor talked, and said things like "arrhythmia", "heart transplant" and "surgery" and then "organ rejection" and "immunosuppressant treatment".
As the prognosis came to light, Diana was holding onto Patrick's wrist like she was clutching a lifeline. There was the news the arrhythmia had been the danger signal and that while the second surgery they had given him helped, it couldn't do everything—they had to consider finding a donor heart or else it would worsen and…
…and all the while, Diana just clutched at him, shaking very slightly.
But she said absolutely nothing.
Patrick just stood there letting Diana take the circulation from his hand. What else could he do? Diana never wanted anyone helping her from the time everyone found out that she had a boyfriend and that, a year prior to studying at Hawthorne, she'd made a mistake.
A mistake that caused Jordan's first injury—his first heart surgery. One Diana had been responsible for, by being somewhere she ought not have been.
Patrick wondered, what were best friends supposed to do right now anyway? Something beyond that awkward cold fear that you were just standing there staring, the urge to do something, anything just to not feel that you were being useless to your best friend. And wondering if your friend needed comforting or if not saying anything would help her keep it together?
Because right now, Diana looked like it was taking everything she had to keep it together, and it wasn't enough. She would never have grabbed onto Patrick unless she needed that little bit of extra to keep her standing.
Patrick remembered the auditorium, when his sleeve was the one Charlotte grabbed after she saw that hulk from Huntington at competition. It was a little like this…only he couldn't fight his way out of this one. And it wasn't Charlotte. Charlotte was his friend—but Diana was his best friend. And anyone could tell you that it made things just a little bit different.
There was a lot of talk about discussing the surgery that had been done to Jordan, and possibly finding a donor, and making sure Jordan gets the best treatment possible. The doctor asked Mrs. Rivers to step outside, so they could discuss properly, leaving the two students and Jordan in the room.
After the doctor had left, Diana moved to Jordan, who seemed to be staring at the wall for this long moment. He took her hand, white and small inside his, rubbing the back with his thumb. Jordan held onto her, and glanced up slightly, giving her a small smile.
And so now, the clock was ticking.
Diana looked at him intently and whispered, "…It's…going to be all right. I'll…I'll help."
"You always do…" Jordan murmured, turning away. He was staring at the wall again. After a moment, he licked his dry lips and whispered, "Go back, Di. You miss enough class as it is."
"I think I should—"
"Pat?" Jordan flashed him a smile. "Could you, like, give us a second?"
Patrick stared at them both and nodded. "Sure." He gave Diana a nod and exited the room with a last glance at his friend. Diana watched him go, and felt Jordan tug her tie down until her face was near his. He was looking at her with a small smile.
"Di. We talked about this."
"I'm just trying to—"
"Diana." Jordan fixed her with the stare that he had previously bestowed onto the wall. "You weren't the one driving. You weren't even supposed to be there. You just got pulled along. You were trying to get someone else out of there."
"I know, and if I hadn't been there, you wouldn't have had to come get me, and we wouldn't have gotten into that senior's car—"
"Should've, would've, could've," Jordan rolled his eyes. "Listen to yourself. The fact that your first instinct was to throw yourself in front of me when Trent hit the brakes says volumes about you. You tried, from that first time. It still turned out this way. It's just…the way it's supposed to go, I guess."
"Isn't this what I'm supposed to be doing, though?" Diana murmured, looking intently down at him. But Jordan just smiled faintly and shook his head. "You've been borderline obsessed about looking after me. If I didn't love you so much, I'd find you suffocating and tiresome. You're becoming suffocating and tiresome."
"I love you, Jordan."
"I know, Diana." He smiled a little. "And as much as I'd like you to keep telling me, you need to…go back to class. You do have a life. I need to be alone with my mom for a little bit to let this all…sink in. And I think you should too." He gave her a look. "Okay?"
Diana stared down at him and knew that arguing was futile. That was what she saw in the headstrong dancer to begin with, wasn't it? It was intimidating, how his voice could sound so still even at the face of this news, when Diana herself was about to break down.
"Earth to Diana." He smiled a bit more.
"Right…" Diana came to. She leaned down and gave him a gentle kiss. She allowed him to hold her down to it for a few moments, and he let go of her tie.
He said, "I'll let you know if anything else comes up, all right?"
"Yeah, immediately," Diana agreed. She kissed his hair and pulled the cover up a little higher over him.
Patrick looked up when Diana came out of the room. Mrs. Rivers was on her way back into the room, and she and Diana spoke for a moment. They embraced each other—Mrs. Rivers looking teary—but Diana's words seemed to assuage her. When she vanished into Jordan's room, Diana's smile disappeared and she turned to her friend.
She seemed to have woken up, so distant as she said, "I'm sorry—did I take that long?"
"No," Patrick gave her an incredulous look. "Have I ever complained about time around here?"
Diana didn't answer and she just started walking towards the exit, with Patrick walking with her. She was quiet for a while, and then Patrick said, "…are you going to be all right?" He remembered that grip on his wrist.
Diana glanced at him. "Yeah, yeah…" she nodded, pulling out her phone as soon as they got out of the hospital to tell the others they were on their way back. "I'll be—it's just…something that has to sink in properly."
Patrick stared at her. He wanted to say something, maybe reiterate what the Twins keep telling Diana, but he had the feeling that he would just get rebuffed again. But he put a hand on Diana's back without looking at her. "All right," was all he said.
Which was also basically what Diana would let him give right now.
-8-
Charlotte was copying notes in Newman's Ecology and Environmental Studies class. Once again, Noel was in there, and even though he was a year younger, he was allowed to stay in that class because it was probably the only subject that he really excelled at—and the teachers were desperate to distract him from his other obsessions. Noel claimed that he was only good at it because he needed to know which times unusual phenomena were natural, and which times they were demonic.
Charlotte jumped a little when a little paper ninja star fell onto her desk in perfect precision. She picked it up, glanced behind her and saw Noel staring wide-eyed at her. Charlotte sighed and opened, with some difficulty, the ninja star.
What happened? Pass/Fail?
Charlotte found it amusing that the paper was torn out of a sheet that had a doodle of some kind of map with "Wendigo Woods" written at the side. But she scribbled her answer in, balled the paper, and threw it back at him. The paper ball bounced off Noel's head and he tried to catch it—but he fell with a clatter onto the floor.
He popped up immediately, "I'm fine! I just fell." And he sat down again. Everyone glanced back at him only once before continuing what they were doing. It was Noel, after all—nothing was weird anymore.
Noel opened the paper ball and read it. His eyes went wide and he yanked out his cell phone.
Phones rang in different spots. From inside Patrick's car, both their phones went off and since Patrick was driving, Diana was the one who picked them up. The Twins looked up as the text arrived during their History class, and Grace wiped her hands from her pottery exercise to go get it, while from his Physics class, Damian pulled out his own phone.
Good: Alice passed. Staying in Jefferson.
Bad: After school tutoring with the Knave.
Really bad: TWO WEEKS.
-8-
Darren came out of the classroom and was surprised to find Damian waiting for him. "Hello, Darren," he said coolly, looking for all the world as though he had just fallen into step next to the Adams prefect in the hall.
"You're here, so I assume you've heard about Murdoch's condition for Charlotte, am I right?" Darren asked with equal composure, looking down at his notebook as the two of them began walking down the hall for lunch period.
"Well, you're a reasonably intelligent human being; I didn't suppose for one minute you'd think there was any other reason I'd be here?"
"Really. I also imagined our very moving talk in the memorial garden might have compelled you, but the blazing expression you've got says otherwise."
Damian glared at him, but Darren, without even bestowing the shorter boy a glance, continued, "No, this wasn't my plan—as you well know my original plan was to move Charlotte to Adams. That backfired and Caruso got stolen and now I'm trying to keep under the radar for the time being. I had no idea Murdoch was going to have Charlotte signed up for after school lessons." But now he looked at Damian briefly. "Surprising advantage, and I'm not ungrateful."
"As long as they stay literature lessons, Darren," Damian responded.
Darren sighed, exasperated. "No promises. Are you that opposed to me becoming so friendly with her? Seeing as how you've got her favor, I don't see why you should be worried."
"You know very well why I'm worried."
Darren looked surprised. "An admission of weakness? From you? Wow…" Darren shook his head. "Things have changed. You really trust Charlotte that little?"
Charlotte stopped in the hall when she heard her name. She was behind them both, and obvious they had yet to notice she was there. She'd heard this conversation and just like the first time, she wondered what how wide or narrow the gap between these two boys actually were.
"It's not Charlotte I don't trust," Damian said emphatically, stopping Darren in his walk with an arm. He looked up at him with blue eyes that never quite had this kind of intensity before. "It's you I don't trust. What you said to me in the memorial garden didn't really do much by way of assurance, you know."
Memorial garden…? Charlotte wondered.
Darren turned to him with a smile. "All right. I see where you're coming from."
"Just now?" Damian raised an eyebrow.
Darren held up his palms and smiled genially. It was a strange sight to Charlotte. Darren was able to spar verbally with Damian the way he ordinarily did, but he didn't look as though all the medication had worn off. And yet he was able to carry on with Damian as though nothing was wrong. He looked almost…normal now.
Did that mean that Darren was more himself…when he was confronting Damian? When he was just with Damian?
Darren smiled at Damian in a way that didn't actually reach his eyes as he did so. "I'm not going to do anything Charlotte doesn't want to do. And considering how terribly loyal she is to you, you can be rest assured that it will be a deeply deeply boring after-school study session."
Damian stood, cogitating as he stared at him, and then conceded. "Fine. I'll take your word for it." He might still not trust him all that much, but Darren did extend the olive branch (however convoluted an olive branch it had been considering his motivations and their discussion) by sending the search parties out for Shane.
For all he knew, he was softening up the competition, but at this point, he had to put his trust in Charlotte, and if Darren knew what was good for him, he really would go by his word to not do anything Charlotte didn't want to. But there was no dodging the situation. Short of going with Charlotte to the study session, which would make things monumentally worse, there was no feasible reason for him to stop Charlotte from going by Murdoch's commands.
Save for the overwhelming, completely unreasonable desire to defend his territory. But he wasn't quite ready to own up to that just yet.
Darren nodded with a smile. "Good. I suppose the threat to my life need not be said."
"No, it does not," Damian answered matter-of-factly.
"Good!"
"Fine!"
And Darren turned heel and left. Damian stood fuming to himself before turning as well—and nearly crashed into Charlotte Summers herself. He nearly jumped a foot. "Charlotte! Uh…how long have you been there?"
"Long enough," Charlotte's eyebrow was raised, arms crossed. "And what was that about?"
Damian hesitated just long enough for Charlotte to narrow her eyes. The dark-haired boy could only throw up his hands and sigh. "Fine. All right. But you can't blame me for this. His track record isn't excellent. Especially not with me."
"I know that much," Charlotte replied. "And I also know that he's tolerable. To me, anyway."
"Then there's really nothing I can do, is there?" Damian just sighed. He looked worried. His eyes looked worried even as he looked out the window. There was that hesitance in him that screamed as though he wanted to say something more, but propriety couldn't allow him to.
Charlotte took his hand. "It'll be fine. It's you I'm with, remember? Not him. I'm not like that flaky soloist of yours."
"Hey." Damian threw her a warning look, but he was smiling a little.
"Hey yourself. You get to worry about Darren, and I get to tell you that if that soloist comes back, I might have to smack her for causing all this trouble in the first place."
"So…now that we're fighting over you, you're the one who's making all the trouble?" Damian raised an eyebrow.
"It's not a fight when you've won," Charlotte said simply. The statement earned a priceless expression on Damian's face.
Charlotte continued casually, "I'll come over to your room right after the study session. That way we can have dinner together."
Damian was rendered speechless—Charlotte took control without much effort. He wondered if this had always been the way she'd been, back at Huntington, ensconced in her own grandeur amidst everyone else. But he wasn't unwilling towards the proposition. "Sounds good… Supposing nothing unusual happens in Jefferson prior." He grinned. "And I'll have to boot Shane out."
"Give him to Grace, I'm sure he'll be more than thrilled," Charlotte smirked. "And I'm sure I'm dying to have a little bit more development between your brother and my danger-prone friend."
"Are you sure you want to subject Grace to my brother…? I suppose Grace might have possibly gotten to your nerves at some point, but I refuse to believe that she deserves to be subjected to Shane's level of—" the look that Charlotte was giving him made him grin and almost laugh. "All right. You got me. I was starting to get curious too."
He walked down the hall with Charlotte, holding her hand as he did. "It had been a while since Shane actually took that kind of a liking to someone."
"And Grace did tell me that she reciprocates…in his own way," Charlotte smirked back at her boyfriend, fingers twined. "They could…probably learn a little something from each other."
"If you say so…" Damian then glanced at her as they rounded the corner to the lunch room. "You think they'll be all right?"
"They'll be all right…" Charlotte remarked, smiling. "As long as it's left up to them, the way it was with us. You think your brother will make the first move?"
"Well if it's moves, Shane's got them," Damian answered calmly. "I just can't guarantee they're the right ones."
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Hawthorne
Jul 5, 2014 2:55:42 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by HburgEagle44 on Jul 5, 2014 2:55:42 GMT -5
Loved Grace seeing Shane again... Haha. And poor Jordan and Diana and Patrick, all around.
I wonder what a fight between Damian and Darren would have been like... Interesting, for sure.
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Post by tonilous on Jul 5, 2014 3:03:36 GMT -5
"Shane?" Grace peered into the room she shared with Charlotte, where she saw Shane last. "Are you in here, Shane?"
He was no longer there—the room stood empty save for Caruso, who seemed to be snoozing. Shane wasn't meant to go home until tonight, or at least that was what Damian told her when they had to leave the younger boy behind in Jefferson (with Burkhart's hesitant permission). Everyone save for Han had gone to class, and the Caterpillar had agreed to glancing at the monitors every once in a while to make sure that Shane was still breathing or wasn't destroying anything.
Grace glanced around apprehensively, hoping he hadn't gotten into some kind of trouble. A boy who still needed a crutch and had an arm in a sling couldn't have gone too far. She left the room to go look, until she heard music playing from across the hall, pouring out through the crack at Damian's door.
Surprised, she crept closer, and gently pushed the door open.
She saw Shane there, sitting on the couch, with Damian's guitar hugged close to himself. His arm was out of its sling, and he was strumming a melody slightly. Stunned, Grace walked in. "Shane?"
The boy almost jumped. "Grace! Geez, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
"What are you doing? I thought your arm was broken!"
"No it's not," Shane responded airily. "The paramedic who brought me down from the mountain told me I might've snapped a tendon. But when the real doctors got to seeing me, they said I'd just strained bad or something."
"I mean you told Damian it was."
"He lets me do more of what I want when he thinks I'm wounded."
Grace crossed the room with narrowed eyes. "Don't do that to him! He was worried sick about you all this time! We've all been worried sick about you while you were gone!"
"Hey!" Shane reached out the moment he saw Grace snag her foot on the carpet. He grabbed her arm and managed to hold her steady before the small girl went flying. Grace looked up breathlessly, a little startled, to find Shane clutching at the leg he had put his weight on when he moved.
"You…"
"My leg, you should know, is injured," Shane responded, gingerly lifting it to move it. He sighed. "…I can't dance. I won't be dancing for a while. Guess I'll be missing a couple of recitals and performances…"
Grace stared. Shane was a dancer the way Damian was a singer, and if that was any indication of his love for his art…
"Well…" Grace stammered. "At least…your arm isn't…so bad."
Shane looked up, and started to laugh. "Relax! Geez… you're right, though." He sighed, picking up the guitar up as Grace sat next to him. "I should really have thought of Damian. …don't know what I must've put him through again."
"You didn't ask for it to happen…" Grace murmured, but Shane didn't look at her anymore. She hit a nerve and she knew that. "Um…"
Shane just lifted a hand to stop her. "No, no…you're right. I'll just have to think first before doing things… Apparently that's very useful."
An awkward silence followed. Shane continued to avoid her gaze, and Grace was watching Shane strum the guitar lightly, a little fascinated. Shane was idly playing, murmuring a little, and Grace forgot her original errand—to see if he'd eaten anything. "…do you play too? Like Damian?"
"Hm? Yeah, a little… Not as good as he is. I can barely even read music. I just mimic what I hear."
"Can you sing? I heard you singing a little bit."
Shane now glanced at her suspiciously. "You…want me to sing? In front of you? A Piper? Is this you trying to give me comeuppance via humiliation for pretending to have a broken arm?"
Grace smiled. "No. I just wanted to hear what the great lead singer Damian's brother sounded like."
"You should know I sound like a dying bovine."
Grace elbowed him sharply. Shane coughed and laughed. "All right! Fine… Just a little bit."
He began to play a little more, but not so much—he clearly still had a hurt arm—but he strummed along, humming a little at first. He began to sing carefully, his voice of a different quality from Damian's, but was not, by any means, as terrible as he made it seem.
And if you were here
I could deceive you
And if you were here
you would believe… When he looked at Grace as he sang, right in the eyes, the girl felt her breath hitch just a little bit. He had his own voice, and that was clear.
But would you suspect
my emotion wandering, yeah?
Do not want a part of this anymore
He smiled at her, as though asking for affirmation. Grace smiled a little, leaning a just a bit closer, beginning to sing with him, softly.
The rain water drips
Through the cracks in the ceiling
And I'll have to spend my time on repair
And just like the rain I'll be always fallin', yeah
Only to rise and fall again
Shane continued to play, not even looking at what he was doing, the two of them looking at each other as the music continued. As the taller boy stared, Grace slowly began to smile at him, acknowledging without words that he wasn't a bad singer at all. Shane looked a little embarrassed and turned away.
They started to sing again, voices rising.
If you were here
I could deceive you
And if you were here
You would believe
But would you suspect
My emotion wandering, yeah?
Do not want a part of this anymore
Their voices fell soft as the song came to a close, Grace now leaning on his shoulder a little. Shane welcomed it while it lasted.
But just like the rain
I'll be always fallin', yeah
Only to rise and fall again…
The song slowly came to a close, and Grace glanced at Shane with a smile. Shane looked a trifle red at this point, but he just shook his head with a short laugh. "…first time I ever hear you sing…and…you had to sing with me." He looked at her. "Sing me a solo next time."
"But I liked singing with you, though…" Grace replied easily. "You don't sound like a dead bovine."
"Ah, compliments from the master." Shane affected a look of complete worship. "I'm deeply honored to be given such splendid praise! I could die right now!"
Grace turned red and shoved at his shoulder. "Come on," she said, getting up. "Let's get some lunch. Clearly, your lack of nourishment is getting to you."
But even when she helped Shane stand up, Grace couldn't look him in the eyes, her hands on his toned arm that signified a strong dancer. Singing with Shane made her think of Charlotte and Damian when they sang together. The way they did it—it always sounded like they were talking to each other.
She hadn't let learned that art—she'd only begun singing solos recently—but she couldn't help but wonder if Shane could tell yet, that she liked him.
Maybe she could make it clear, sometime in the future. With a little bit of courage, she decided, remembering the word over Damian's photo in Charlotte's desk.
-8-
Pentland and Gregor stood in front of the assembled Pipers after school, the two of them beaming. "All right, settle down, settle down," he said, gesturing for them to take their seats. The Pipers could tell, by their expressions, that something was in the air, and hastily took their seats.
"Hey," said Damian, the moment Patrick and Diana sat next to him and Charlotte. "Haven't heard from you all day. How did it go?"
"He's…oh, he's…you know…same…nothing I can't handle." Diana said absently, waving it away. But her eyes looked terribly distant. Patrick kept looking at her, apprehensive, and he glanced to Damian, shaking his head. Charlotte gave him a look that demanded an explanation, but Patrick just gestured for her to wait as he'd tell them later.
The Tweedles gave each other that sidelong look that suggested they already had a guess on what was happening—that it was something Diana couldn't handle by herself. But they would wait until they were back in Jefferson before they would grill her. Where they could really push her to the wall.
Pentland shot the twins a look as though he could tell simply by instinct that they were plotting, but began. "All right then. As you know, we really have to step up our game. We made it through competition, but to be quite frank, Mr. Hayes from Huntington and I agree that we all weren't in great shape. The tie means that we just squeaked by at this point."
The Pipers glanced at each other guiltily. "We did a little better during the Winter Fest," added Pentland, as though to diffuse the blunt observation. "Charlotte and Grace did great—" he paused at the applause that followed, and Charlotte beamed with pleasure, sitting up, while Grace just turned red with a smile, ducking her head, "—and we're going to try and keep up that kind of energy."
"We've decided that since Grace has proven quite excellent, we're going to give more of you the chance to go for a lead spot," said Gregor with a smile. "After all, we don't know who else could just simply be hiding that ability to qualify for a role."
Charlotte smile faltered a little. More competition? After she'd just been chosen over Damian and Darren, the two long-time leads, for one? There was no way she wasn't getting a lead position for the Regionals, and that was final.
Damian, who could tell all of these emotions were passing through Charlotte without even having to look at her, only smiled affectionately. Charlotte's competitive streak was not something new to him—especially after witnessing her and Austin in action.
"Now," Gregor looked around them all, beaming. "Mr. Pentland and I have decided to make a little bit of a competition. For the upcoming Valentines Fair."
"Fair…?" Charlotte murmured, and Logan leaned to her, whispering, "We have a fair every year for Valentines. We ask people from other schools to come, raise money for charity."
"It's lots of fun," Lucas grinned. "Lots of people come and we can prank half the attendees and get away with it."
Charlotte waved them away as Gregor resumed her talk, "The Pipers will be performing for the crowd on the Valentines Fair—and seeing as how it's Valentines, we'll make room for duets than for solos. Two pairs will be chosen to perform onstage."
"Two pairs…?" gasped some of the Pipers. They had never had a double duet before. That meant four leads—the most the Pipers had ever had in a single performance.
So there was room for everyone, Damian considered. But why was Gregor smiling like that?
Pentland continued. "This duel will be a free-for-all. Anyone who wants to perform can and will perform—solo, or duet—in front of us here in Pipers Hall. And I should think you'd want to, because there's more than just the performance at stake."
He fastened a level gaze at the singers. "Whoever gets chosen to perform for the Valentines Fair will be excused from any and all Fair-related work. Which means you can spend as much free time as you want, and in the duration of the day itself."
A murmuring started in the hall, especially among the others looking to spend the day with the dates for the Fair—and watch everyone else slave away setting the whole spectacle up. Everyone sat up as Pentland continued, "Those same four people will also be given extra points for end of term exams…" and now uproar was building nicely, "…and finally, they will be given particular preference for a lead position in the Regionals performance."
Charlotte sat up so straight that Grace thought someone had shoved her. Over the roar of excitement in Pipers Hall, all the singers more than ready to give it a shot no matter how bleak it may have looked, Damian looked at Charlotte and smirked. "So… you're going to compete."
"Try and stop me."
"I suppose you don't need my help…for, say…a duet?" Damian asked smoothly. This got Charlotte's attention. Damian just beamed. "Throwing it out there… it is a Valentines' Day performance… But no matter what, I'll be fighting for a spot." His eyes were devastatingly intent onto Charlotte's own. "…I want to sing with you onstage. In front of everyone this time."
Charlotte flushed deeply in spite of herself. "…then we both better get a spot."
Suddenly there was a bit of talk, murmuring in the room, and the others looked up to see Patrick raising his hand silently. Pentland looked up and nodded to him. "Yes, Patrick?"
Patrick stood slowly and Diana looked up at him in surprise. "Sir…if you would permit… I know it's not how we usually do it, but I just wanted to get something off my chest. I was wondering if I can come forward and perform a piece."
"You mean you want to sing?" Gregor said, blinking, surprised—Patrick had sung by himself before in the duels, but it had been some time since he had.
"Yes," he said with finality. "The truth is… I want to sing to someone in this room. …a really good friend of mine. And I just feel like she's not going to listen to me unless I do something this drastic. And…" he took a breath and didn't look at Diana, who was staring up at him, "…I really need to get her to start talking."
The two directors looked at each other as the Pipers began to murmur in puzzled conversation. Damian and Charlotte looked at each other, and then back at the two—one intent, the other a little frazzled. And between Patrick and Diana, it was the reverse from the usual scene.
Gregor looked at the two friends and perhaps knew in her own way what was happening. She looked at Pentland meaningfully. He glanced to her, did a double take, and she raised her eyebrows. He sighed, but smiled, motioning to Patrick. "Do what you feel you must." He disliked rifts among the Pipers, and prized their unity. And if this was their own way of fixing it, then he felt he should let them.
"Thank you, sir." He moved forward, his sleeve slipping away from Diana's reach even as she tried to stop him. The Twins leaned forward, interested, and even Darren raised his eyes from where they were resting on the music sheets.
Patrick moved forward, tapping some underclassman Pipers as he went—among them Drew from Jefferson, Bailey from Adams, and Jesse from Washington—all of whom he must've spoken to in private prior to the meeting, as they too rose and followed after him.
The group of them stood in front, with Patrick in front and center. The underclassmen started to make a harmony for him, a steady tune in perfect chorus as all the Pipers were able to do.
Patrick raised his head, looking at no one in particular, and began to sing.
She's all laid up in bed with a broken heart
While I'm drinking jack all alone in my local bar
And we don't know how—
How we got into this mad situation
Only doing things out of frustration
Trying to make it work but man, these times are hard…
The other Pipers started to chime in, harmonizing with his voice, and the other Pipers looked surprised. The song was meant for something else, true, but the way Patrick sang it gave it a different interpretation. He was certainly reaching out to someone.
Charlotte turned to Diana, who looked a little stunned as she lowered her eyes.
Patrick continued to sing.
And we don't know we got into this mess it's a gods test
Someone help us cause we're doing our best
Trying to make it work but man these times are hard…
But we're gonna start by drinking old cheap bottles of wine
Sit talking up all night…
Saying things we haven't for a while, a while yeah
We're smiling but we're close to tears
Even after all these years
We just now got the feeling that we're meeting
For the first time…
As the Pipers in front continued to sing, in perfect melody using only their voices, Diana leaned back in her seat, rather unable to react at the fact that Patrick was willing to go this far just to get her attention—to make her understand when ordinary words weren't enough.
And for the first time, Patrick met her gaze.
She's in line at the door with her head held high
While I just lost my job but didn't lose my fight
But we both know how—
How we're gonna make it work when it hurts
When you pick yourself up you get kicked in the dirt
Trying to make it work but man these times are hard
Patrick didn't lift his gaze away from Diana's. He didn't know what he had to do to help his friend, but he had to let her know that he was there, and he wanted to help. And that no matter how strong Diana thought she was, no one should have to endure this alone.
Sit talking up all night…
Saying things we haven't for a while, a while yeah
We're smiling but we're close to tears
Even after all these years
We just now got the feeling that we're meeting
For the first time…
Diana and Patrick had been friends since the beginning of high school. And to both, those years felt as though they had lasted forever, through the topsy-turvy days when they had each other's company through thick and thin. They had been inseparable, but this rift that Diana was starting to have, even when Patrick was right next to her…
She may have forgotten that she had a friend upon whom she could thoroughly rely. And one so headstrong that he would—regardless of what he said—take it upon himself to support her in some way, especially now that she was slowly breaking down.
Oh these times are hard
Yeah they're making us crazy…
As the song came to a close, Patrick finally lowered his eyes. As the song ended, the Pipers burst into applause, all quite impressed. The underclassmen were pleased at the approval from the others, but Patrick wasn't there to look for approval.
He turned to Pentland and nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Pentland, Ms. Gregor."
"You did great…" Gregor answered with a smile, putting a hand to his back as he passed her. "All of you. It was beautiful."
"That it was," Pentland affirmed. He smiled a little as he turned to the rest of the others. "You heard Patrick just now. You're going to have to be that good—and even better than that—if you're looking to earn a lead position and all that goes with it."
Talk in the room exploded again, everyone eagerly talking to one another and making plans. If Patrick's performance was any indication, it set the bar high.
Patrick took his place next to Diana and Damian, but he said nothing. Damian turned to him and he may have wanted to say something, but Patrick only lifted his hand slightly, just a short bend of the wrist, as though asking him not to say what he was about to say next.
Damian stared at him, and then at Diana. Diana was also staring on the ground. And after a moment of terrible hesitation, she exhaled.
"…all right," she whispered. "All right, Patrick, I get it."
"We'll talk later," Patrick replied quietly.
Diana nodded. She wasn't sure about what she was going to say. But she had the feeling that telling her friends something—anything—would be sufficient. For both them and her.
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Hawthorne
Jul 5, 2014 3:26:18 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by HburgEagle44 on Jul 5, 2014 3:26:18 GMT -5
<3
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Post by tonilous on Jul 5, 2014 16:33:47 GMT -5
Surprisingly, Darren didn't wait for Charlotte to leave the Pipers rehearsal. He neither followed her out nor accompanied her to Adams House. It was the other Jeffersons who walked her to out of South and Main, and Charlotte, as they prepared to separate, collared the twins.
"Tell me the minute you find out what the heck is wrong with Diana," she told them, watching the girl who seemed lost in thought, walking ahead without realizing her companions weren't doing the same. Patrick followed after her. "You're going to interrogate her sooner or later."
"We will," the twins said happily, delighted that Charlotte was in tune with their mind at last. "And does this mean we have permission to do as we please with Darren? We were thinking paintballs."
"No." Charlotte rolled her eyes and released them. "Just go."
"You going to be okay, Char?" Grace asked, looking oddly breathless and wildly overexcited, hugging music sheets.
"Yes…" Charlotte answered, puzzled.
"Great—see you back in Jefferson!" and Grace raced off in record speed. Damian looked startled. "Grace! Don't run so fast, you'll fall!" He sighed and put a hand on the small of Charlotte's back and kissed her briefly. "Tell me the instant you're done."
"Mm…" Charlotte just smiled. "You're distressingly overprotective."
"I like to stake my territory." After saying so, Damian looked up suddenly, frowning. "Looks like you've got escorts to go there anyway."
Over the grounds, Derek was walking towards them with his intentions clear, and Damian gave him a nod. Derek only nodded back slightly. Damian held onto Charlotte a little longer and said, "See you back in Jefferson."
"See you." Charlotte clutched her bag strap as Damian left, glancing back only slightly as though making sure he would be all right. As he came close to Jefferson, Charlotte then turned and at Derek, who gave her a quick appraisal before saying, "All right, then. Follow me."
Derek led her towards Adams House, and Charlotte remarked, "You guys always treat visitors like they were visiting spies?"
"If you were from Washington it wouldn't be an issue," Derek commented. "But you know our beef with Jefferson. Especially after a certain prize canary just went missing."
Charlotte tugged slightly at her collar with a cough. The said prize canary was in her room as they spoke. Derek either didn't notice, or didn't pay attention, or didn't care. They entered Adams House.
Adams House was not all that different from Jefferson—but it had its own sophisticated charm. Jefferson looked like a real living space, beaten with time and antics of many students through the ages, but Adams House looked more like a formal location where meetings were held and held an air of strict sophistication. In contrast to the very Tudor-esque look of her House, Adams looked more like an old manor, with marble and stone holding dominant.
There was chatter in the House and the halls, but subdued. Charlotte spied a number of students in the common room, poring over their books or assignments, while a few others were clearly discussing politics in the kitchen—which was furnished with more coffee arsenal than what Charlotte was comfortable on seeing outside of a coffee house.
A girl with brown hair came downstairs, music beating out of her headphones, and greeted Derek as she took them off. "Hey Derek." She looked at Charlotte and blinked. "And…Alice?"
Charlotte bristled. How everyone in the school seemed to know this nickname was a testament of the Twins' influence, but at least this girl probably knew because she was in the Pipers. "Her name is Charlotte, Bailey," said Derek with a frown.
"We've met," Charlotte responded, smiling at her.
"You here to rehearse with Darren or something?" Bailey asked, her eyes friendly. Charlotte looked at her, confused. This also seemed to confuse Bailey. "For the Pipers? The Valentines' Fair? I passed the anteroom and I heard him messing with his keyboard—I figured—"
"She's just here on Murdoch's orders—for tutoring." Derek responded coldly.
"Tutoring?" Bailey snorted a little. "What for? I heard your grades were the highest among the newbies that took the exam." This puzzled Charlotte more than ever, and Derek was now glaring at the friendly grace on the stairs.
"Where's Juliet?" he demanded.
"In there with Darren."
Derek went striding up the stairs. Charlotte glanced at Bailey, who looked apologetic. "Hey, did I say something wrong?"
"No, you didn't," Charlotte replied firmly.
"All right," Bailey said, looking surprised. She watched as Charlotte followed after Derek, looking a trifle worried. After a moment of hesitation, she crept upstairs after them.
Derek led Charlotte up to the anteroom that once held Caruso. The only door open in the area was Darren's and Bailey had been right—there was music coming from inside. Derek opened the door to find Darren at the keyboard and Juliet sitting by the window, music sheets in hand.
Darren's room was the size of Jefferson room, and he was the only occupant. The difference was that the room was clearly just made for a single occupant. If there was ever a King's room, it had to be his, nestled at the corner of the floor. When the three Adams students now looked at her, Charlotte never felt more in their territory in her life.
But Darren smile and rose. "Hey, Charlotte. Sorry I didn't walk you back here—I went ahead, I just had so many ideas for that contest Gregor and Pentland talked about."
"Yes, he did," Julet looked exasperated, waving the music sheets. "I'm not even a Piper and I have to deal with all this too. Why don't you have Bailey or Thaddeus or some other Piper sing with you or something?"
"You did say you already had a single out," Charlotte remarked, walking to Darren.
"Doesn't mean I'm amiable to singing for little private school choirs…" Juliet answered coolly.
"Ignore Juliet, she's got a stick shoved up her back end," Darren glared at her, to which his friend only answered, "Only because you put it there, Darren."
"You both can now stop this shameless flirting before you further embarrass me," Derek said sarcastically as Darren glared further at the actress. Derek looked at his best friend and then to Charlotte. "We'll leave you two to it."
Juliet leaped off the window seat and offered the sheets with a flourish to Charlotte with the smile that Charlotte recognized from her TV show posters. Charlotte gave her a look and took the sheets. "Good luck," Juliet remarked with another smile and she sauntered out of the room.
Derek gave Darren a long look. Darren stared back, and sighed in answer, holding up a pill bottle. Derek nodded and left the room. As soon as they were gone, Charlotte turned to Darren. "You keep interesting friends."
"I don't actually keep them—it just surprises me they put up with me the way you do," Darren answered, smiling at her. He motioned for her to sit down at the second chair by his desk. Even as she sat, Charlotte glanced at the keyboard in the room, and the music sheets in her hand.
"So basically, I'll just be tutoring you for Murdoch's literature class, right?" Darren asked, pulling over some of the textbooks. He sat next to Charlotte, close enough for Charlotte to notice, but not close enough to defy prudence. "That means…" and he plopped a book with a thump onto the desk. "That all I have to do is to technically tell you what sort of things he likes to see on his exam papers."
Charlotte raised an eyebrow. Darren smirked. "You don't need my help, I know that well enough. He's probably just out to get you. But to tell you quite honestly, the fact that you're taking "tutoring" with me will already help the odds lean to your favor with him."
He flipped open the book. "He did the same thing with Damian when he first came here."
"Did he?" Charlotte felt a little intrigued.
"He does that to all the new people who won't stay under his thumb," Darren informed her. "But after he sent Damian to me for tutoring—which is basically me giving him everything short of an actual crib sheet—he was all right."
Charlotte remembered the talk the two had in the hall. "…was that how you and Damian got close?"
"Hm? Sort of, I suppose." Darren shrugged, taking down page numbers on a sheet of paper. He didn't look at her. "It helped that we were both Pipers too." After a pause, he added, "…so you know that we used to be best friends?"
"The way you two deal with each other makes it obvious," Charlotte said bluntly.
"Ah…well…" Darren smiled faintly. "That was…then. Here." He handed her the page numbers. "I can almost guarantee you that the next exam coverage will be on those pages only." He smiled.
Charlotte took the paper and stared at it incredulously. "That's it?"
"That's it." Darren shrugged. He leaned a little to her, smiling. "That's basically all the tutoring you need for the day. You're welcome."
"This school is ridiculous," Charlotte remarked in distaste. "How it's even still standing is a feat."
"I know, but it's still standing for the same reasons it's ridiculous: too many donations in exchange for the odd power trip here and there. I'm living proof of it."
"How did you get back…?" Charlotte asked, looking up at the hazel gaze. "You were…expelled, right?"
"Well, there's my father…and then money…and then my father," Darren answered calmly, rather close to her by now. "That and Murdoch likes to think of me as one of his best students. He would like to keep me in Adams, and so he helped me get back on board."
The workings of the school continued to amaze her. Murdoch must have wielded Laney Thibault's power but terribly less conniving and clever at it if his own students could crack him so easily. "I'm supposed to be here for the next…" Charlotte glanced at the clock by the bedstead. "…hour and a half."
Darren considered, nodding. "Hm. You have a point there." He thought it over, then gestured to the music sheets. "Help me out, then?"
"Help you how?" Charlotte crossed her legs and raised an eyebrow. Darren pointed to the songs on the sheets still in Charlotte's hands. "I need a duet partner to sing a song."
Charlotte looked down at the papers as Darren, without difficulty owing to his long limbs, pulled over the keyboard from where it rested nearby. Charlotte now looked up at him, tense. "You want me…to sing with you? For the duels?"
Darren glanced at her, scooting a bit closer as he brought the keyboard before them both. At the question, he turned slowly to look at her. "Are you offering?" he asked quietly, looking intently at her.
Charlotte's chest tightened. "It was just a question."
An awkward silence followed.
"While it would be nice…" Darren said distantly, not looking at her, "…you know, seeing as how Gregor seemed to really like our duet from last time… if you're not comfortable with it, I can make someone else sing with me on the day itself."
Charlotte knew Gregor liked them together, as singers. The automatic offer for Regionals was a sign. If that didn't guarantee them both at double win for one of the four slots, nothing did, but Charlotte wasn't prepared to sing a love song with Darren over Damian.
"So…are you willing to maybe…sing with me, just for a bit—for now?" Darren murmured, beginning to play the music a little. He looked at her intently, hesitant to plead too far. "We do sound good together, you know."
They did. Since the first time—they had. After a long pause, Charlotte sighed.
"I…suppose I can offer you my talents as help, but just for now," she finally said, with an airy tone to hide the fact that her lips suddenly felt dry and she felt an awkward knot. She prodded a few keys with her hand. She couldn't forget how Darren sounded when they sang together. He always sounded as though he were really, truly himself. "I'm not singing with you for the duel. Just practice—so we're clear."
Darren just smiled faintly at her for a long moment. "…Thank you, Charlotte."
It sounded genuine. Charlotte glanced at him at the corner of her eyes as Darren turned ahead to the music sheets, hands lying on the keyboard, very close to hers again.Darren closed his eyes and took a breath.
Let me hold you for the last time
It's the last chance to feel again
But you broke me, now I can't feel anything
Charlotte looked up at the words. Darren wasn't looking at her. He was only singing, in that voice that sounded so familiar by now, with his own colors in it.
When I love you and so untrue
I can't even convince myself
When I'm speaking it's the voice of someone else
Oh, it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay
He started to play, and music filled the air. Charlotte stared at him, and the fact that he could sing like this. This was the only time he would ever be able to fight through the murky fog and speak. When he sang—Darren became someone else.
You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that ain't real
Oh, the truth hurts and lies worse
How can I give anymore?
When I love you a little less than before?
The words had meaning for sure. Charlotte closed her eyes, and Darren turned to her, watching intently as the girl now took the words.
Oh, what are we doing?
We are turning into dust
Playing house in the ruins of us
Darren, watching her, felt his heart pounding, and rejoined her, the two of them looking at each other.
Running back through the fire
When there's nothing left to say
It's like chasing the very last train
When it's too late, too late
Oh, it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay
Their voices filled the room, the music pouring out of the room. Bailey, standing in the hall, looked up at the music, stunned. The Adams in the hall also looked up. At the sound of the song, Derek stopped in his walk, and Juliet raised her head with a strange smile.
You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that ain't real
The two of them looked at each other as they continued to sing, singing without hindrance, enveloped in the music and the words. All of Adams House, not having heard this kind of singing in a long time, looked up to listen.
Oh, the truth hurts and lies worse
How can I give anymore?
When I love you a little less than before?
Their voices continued to meld and intertwine, words weaving through one another's. And finally the music dropped to its finale, a slow tone, the two of them lifting their eyes to look at each other.
Let me hold you for the last time…
It's the last chance to feel again…
The music closed, the two of them left breathless by the song. Darren sat staring at Charlotte with a strange expression, and Charlotte stared back for a moment, until she licked her dry lips and turned away, looking at the keyboard. Their silence lasted for a long time as they both tried to get their breaths back.
Darren turned to the keyboard. "…I've gone too far, haven't I?"
"We were just singing," Charlotte whispered.
"…you know that's not true." Darren looked at the ceiling for a moment. "…I can't help it…around you."
"It's better than let you keep it bottled up. And then it explodes. Then where will we all be?"
Darren glanced at her, gazing at her silent profile for a long moment. "…don't tell Damian."
This surprised Charlotte. He looked up to meet Darren's eyes. Darren shook his head, looking away, fingers drumming on the surface of the keyboard. "Don't tell him. If it'll hurt you and him…don't tell him."
Charlotte shook her head. "If you think one song number is going to break him and me, you're sadly mistaken."
"Well as long as that's clear…" Darren murmured, running a hand though his hair. He looked distant again, as though remembering something far off. "…he's definitely not going to let you go over one song."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Same thing you did. That Damian…can be extremely loyal—to a fault." He stared out the window. "Troublesome…almost."
Charlotte watched Darren and felt herself smile slightly. So these two liked to hate each other…but while that may be true, memories stay and the two of them remain, in some ways, respectful of each other.
Maybe Darren sensed that, because he said, "What happened with Damian was a long time ago, Charlotte. And that fell out badly." He turned to her. "…I can't make that same mistake with you. You're…I'm too attached to you to lose you. Maybe you don't reciprocate… but if you've noticed, I can't feel a whole lot. So there's not a lot of pain either. So whatever we have right now…if you want to call it some twisted kind of friendship…I'll take it. Better than being without you."
He stopped and looked at her intently. "…can we at least be that?"
It took a moment, but there wasn't much to think about. Charlotte raised her eyes to him.
-8-
"Diana!"
"I told you—"
"Diana." Patrick backed her to the wall of her room. The rest of the conspirators stood behind her, all staring at Diana. "If you won't tell them, I will."
"Tell us what?" Damian demanded. "Diana, what's going on? You've barely talked all day—and that in itself is not normal. As far as we can tell, something's wrong with Jordan. I think you need to tell us so we can help you somehow!"
The Twins now stood on either side of Diana, who was basically pushed to a corner.
"Diana…" Patrick moved forward and put a hand to her shoulder. "I don't like seeing you like this. If you can't tell all of us, at least tell me! I was there, I saw the look on your face—"
"All right!" Diana swung at him angrily. She looked around at their expressions and gave up. "All right."
She looked apprehensively at them, who looked at her in concern. She took a shaky breath and pushed past them. She went to the couch in the living area and sank into it with a sigh. "…he…the doctors said that…the surgery can only do so much, that he'd most likely need a transplant, but the thing is, if this kept up, he'd get worse and…" She sighed, putting her head into her hands. "I can't shake the thought that at any given minute…"
"You have to stop thinking that." Damian strode over and sat next to her. He looked at her in concern. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."
"I just—I can't…" Diana tried to get the words out. She drew shaky breaths, looking around herself and looking for something to lean on. When she threw her hand out in a helpless gesture, someone automatically grabbed it. She looked up at him. Patrick only stared intently, waiting.
Diana exhaled, staring at her friend. "I can't lose him. This just isn't fair! I've tried—I've tried everything. And he's still…" A deep, resigned sigh. "It's coming down all around me. I know you guys keep telling me it's not my fault but it is."
"Not even he thinks that." Patrick said, sitting on the table, leaning towards her.
Diana just shook her head and avoided their gazes.
"You do everything you can for her," Patrick said patiently. "If you really think you have so little time, then don't spend it like this, Diana. I mean…knowing him the way I do, he would get so pissed off that you were sitting here and blaming yourself for everything. He would chew you out, that's for sure. You know that, right?"
Diana gave in to a small, bitter smile. Patrick continued, "What happened back then…it was an accident neither of you wanted. And you did everything you could to make it right, to make him happy—everything. I know because I saw you do it. And correct me if I'm wrong, but not everyone can say that they tried just as hard as you did."
"It's going to be all right," said Noel, coming over. He looked awkward and fidgety as usual, but he sat in their circle with them. "It's not over yet. You can't give up now—you've gone too far. You can't give up on you and him already."
Diana looked at him, and the other Jeffersons that surrounded her. They were looking at her, and holding onto her with a hand on her arm or her back. They didn't look like they were going anywhere either. They were there, her support system.
Damian nudged her slightly with his shoulder. "I know you feel like you've got to do this by yourself. And we're really glad for you—that you've lasted this long taking care of him the way you do. But I think…it's time for you to let us help you even a little bit. You did the same for us. And we want to help. Even if it's just to listen to you or just be there. You don't have to do this alone."
Patrick put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "So what do you say? Let us help a bit? Just a little. Let us listen to you or something."
There was a pause, and Diana looked at the Jeffersons who surrounded her, all simply waiting for an answer, and eager to help her the way they'd always done for one another. She felt herself choke up just so slightly.
"…a little…a lot…" Diana laughed bitterly through the mists in her eyes. "Yeah—okay. I need help. I really…really need help. I—"
The Twins laughed and piled onto the couch, grabbing her into a hug. Damian smiled as Patrick kissed the top of Diana's head. Diana let the Twins smother her for a little while—those towering twins that still acted like they were five—and even hugged them back, but she smiled at Damian.
There was a gentle knock at the door, making them all look up. Grace was peeking in, smiling, with Charlotte next to her. The two looked at each other and looked at the others inside the room.
"Diana," Charlotte said calmly, "I was on my way in when I saw someone hanging around outside… and seeing as how visitors aren't supposed to be in the grounds at this hour, I offered to let him inside."
"Him…?" Diana stared.
Grace stepped aside and a handsome boy in comfortable, ordinary clothing peered into the room. Diana, eyes still streaming, leapt to her feet. "Jordan…?"
"Hi, you," he smiled, waving a little bit, still thin and pale.
"Jordan—" Diana broke away from the others and ran to him. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here—you should be resting or—"
"I told my mom that…I wanted to get discharged. Put up a bit of a fight, but when I told her my reasons, I guess she understood." Jordan shrugged slightly.
He looked down at her with those eyes of his that always made Diana want to smile. "It's not going to change, the situation. And while I may have this axe over my head, the truth is…if I really am going to die…I don't want to spend my days inside a gray hospital room. I want to spend it outside, with people—my mom, dad, my sister, brother, my friends—And the first person I thought of to really go to right now…was you."
Diana was tearing up again. Charlotte and Grace looked at each other, smiling as they watched Jordan hold Diana tightly, running a hand through her hair. The other Jeffersons just grinned.
Jordan saw them all and gestured for them to come join them with a short laugh. The Twins needed no second telling; they leapt at the two so hard that they could've been sent sprawling. They took the initiative in sweeping the others into the group hug, ignoring Noel's grumble of discomfort of being pulled along in spite of his protests.
As Grace made to join them, she saw Charlie at the other side of the doorway, staring mistily at the scene.
"Chaz…are you…crying?" Grace stared.
"Shut—up! I'm not." Charlie turned scarlet, hastily wiping his eyes and glowering down at Grace from his great height. The short girl burst out laughing and Charlie turned heel and stomped down the hall, still sniffling only slightly.
The Twins let go of the group for a moment to run out and drag Charlie—protesting vociferously—into the fray. Grace just laughed even harder. Patrick, who was the one pressed closest to the two, looked at Jordan and Diana and grinned at them both. "I may be the third wheel here—but you have no idea how happy I am right now."
"Don't be ridiculous, Pat," Jordan said sensibly. "I don't know what Diana would do without you."
"Sadly true," Diana smiled at her friend. "…thanks, Patrick."
Patrick just shrugged, inwardly pleased, but he just smiled and then started hauling the others off them. "All right, let's give them time alone, people! Move! Get out of her room!" He pulled the Twins off the pair.
The Twins started whining, but Charlie got to his senses and hauled both along. He was their height but much stronger, pulling them by the backs of their blazers. He glanced back to Diana and said, "Di, you've got fifteen minutes in here with your boy before you have to bail and go somewhere else. Still against the rules to have visitors in here during this time, you know."
"Sure," Diana smiled, holding Jordan's hands. "Thanks, Chaz."
Patrick was the last to run out. He gave Diana a smile from the door. Diana lifted her head from where it was pressed against Jordan's chest. "Later," she mouthed. "Thank you."
Patrick smiled at her and nodded. He was rather glad to see Diana acting more or less herself again. He left the room, closing the door behind him.
Diana stood with Jordan in the middle of the room for quite a while, holding onto him gently. Jordan held her hand in his, and noticed sadly how small her frame had gotten. He sighed, rubbing the back of her hand. "…I'm so glad to be out of that room. I couldn't stand it anymore…it was just so… lifeless in there. It just keeps telling me why I'm in there. I'm so happy to be outside and…and be normal…"
Diana smiled briefly, resting a hand on his chest and giving him a small kiss. And it was then that a thought came to Diana. "…do you want to dance?"
Her boyfriend, a talented young dancer, now raised his eyebrow at her. She smiled in a way more like her old self. "Just in here…just us both. Nothing crazy. I just…wondered if you wanted to. There was a song that I…wanted to sing to you."
Jordan flushed slightly, staring as she momentarily broke their embrace and ran to the stereo in the room. She pushed some buttons, and it started to play. At the first few bars, he flushed even more, recognizing a favorite slow song from one of their favorite movies. "What…"
"Hey." Diana beamed, coming up to him and taking his hands again. "You like to dance…I like to sing… Let me do this for you. You said you missed dancing, right?"
Jordan laughed softly, lowering his gaze as Diana looked down at him, slowly guiding him to the middle of the room to dance. He brought her close. They could hardly be "dancing", but with bodies close, sharing warmth and tremulous expressions, it made her feel more like herself, and him more like himself, once again. The music continued to play.
Jordan leaned his cheek into her hair, clasping her hands as she sang softly:
You're in my arms
And all the world is calm
The music playing on for only two
So close together
And when I'm with you
So close to feeling alive
Diana felt the tears well up, but she just blinked them away and bit her lip, not quite looking at him as she danced. She held tighter onto him, exhaling shakily. Jordan held her warmly against him as she sang,
A life goes by
Romantic dreams will stop
So I bid mine goodbye and never knew
So close was waiting, waiting here with you
And now forever I know
All that I wanted to hold you
So close…
Diana didn't really have a plan, and from her experience, plans got ruined sooner or later. But all she knew well was that while she had him, while he was still with her…Patrick and her friends were right. She couldn't give up. No matter how the story ended, each moment they both could have was what mattered.
So close to reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
And now you're beside me and look how far we've come
So far we are so close…
They moved around the center of the room, Jordan able to feel every movement of the body against his—warm, wonderfully alive—and for this moment, entirely his. He smiled down at her, watching her sing to him and smiled.
How could I face the faceless days
If I should lose you now…?
We're so close
To reaching that famous happy end
And almost believing this was not pretend
Let's go on dreaming for we know we are…
He leaned forward, moving a hand over her cheek, the two of them looking intently at one another.
So close
So close
And still so far… He leaned forward and gave her a long, soft kiss. She returned it, a tear running down her cheek. This was what she'd wanted. Just time, with Jordan. All the time in the world. Beyond this bubble between them, reality loomed, but while they had this time, the dark thoughts were kept at bay. Thoughts that she couldn't bring herself to think about anymore—thoughts that he had to stop dwelling on as well.
She felt her throat tighten and she smiled tremulously at him, tears welling up so fast it stung her eyes. He looked down at her, his eyes wet. "I love you, Di. I don't know why I'm crying. Like I'm scared. But I can't be…I don't want to be scared anymore. It's so tiring…"
Diana, eyes misty, just shook her head. "You think I want an explanation…?" He held her tightly against him. "…I love you, Jordan." She buried her face in his shoulder and he held her tight, and only then did he allow the tears to slip down his cheeks, when she couldn't see.
Time. They were fighting time. Diana felt herself take a breath, and Jordan's body move when he did the same. It wasn't really a fight when they know that in the end, time would win.
But with each breath…it made them feel like they won.
A/N: This was the song used. For the purpose of this story, Diana did sing it in her own way. But if you were curious as to how it sounded, here is the link. Let's all cry together. ;)
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Hawthorne
Jul 5, 2014 16:50:19 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by HburgEagle44 on Jul 5, 2014 16:50:19 GMT -5
Okay. I'll cry with you if you want.
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Post by tonilous on Jul 7, 2014 2:33:33 GMT -5
"You think they're all right in there?" Lucas asked, tilting his head as he looked up at the wall of Damian's room, where they had all gathered once again. Damian, who was so used to having everyone over all at the same time, no longer cared that Noel was spilling salt everywhere and that the twins were making a fort out of the couch pillows. They had Nerf pistols, small ones, and were trying to pelt everyone methodically—except Charlotte, whose glare simply dared them to muss her perfect hair made them think twice.
"They're fine," Patrick murmured as he stared out the window. It was cold out. It was snowing lightly outside the dark windows. Lucas smiled at him and patted his shoulder. "You were great, little Hare."
"I'm just glad she's…all right," Patrick shrugged, feigning nonchalance, knuckles pressed against his mouth just so. "Didn't like seeing her like that. She's supposed to be the solid one."
"There's no one solid in this house except maybe Chaz," Noel grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Everyone's as volatile as a freaking ceremonial cauldron."
"Speaking of volatile things…" Damian got up from his study chair and sat next to Charlotte on the bed, taking her hand. "You got back from Adams early. Really early." He glanced down at his pocketwatch. Charlotte smirked at the sight of it. White Rabbit indeed.
"We didn't do much studying," Charlotte responded calmly. "He told me that all Murdoch really wanted to hear was that I had kowtowed to his wrath by agreeing to take tutoring…"
"Ah…" Damian nodded slowly, understanding completely. Charlotte added, "Darren did tell me…he did the same to you."
"Mm." Damian nodded a little bit, turning away from the memory. "That was a while back…and he did ease up once he heard that I got tutoring from Darren."
"You really should tell me that story one day."
"What story?"
"What really happened between the both of you."
Damian looked at her, wondering if she was serious, and noted the smirk tugging at the corner of Charlotte's face, and that twinkle in her eye that suggested someone looking for trouble. He smirked back. "No, I will not tell you that story."
"What? Why?" Charlotte stared. "I want to know!"
"It's just…" Damian shuddered a little. "It's like opening Pandora's box. So much evil flying out—"
"Come on." Charlotte frowned. "It can't be that bad! You were best friends!"
Groans resounded from all around the room. "Please, Alice—don't bring that up," Lucas begged. "We liked to think of that time as a big hallucination."
"His," Logan said, to clarify. "Not ours—we went on record to have completely advised the Rabbit against fraternizing with the Knave."
"On a marginally related note, we also went on record that we knew absolutely nothing about anything that involved pudding during that past year." Lucas smiled innocently. "This includes any explosions in the school cafeteria that may or may not have put the ovens out of commission."
Damian just glared at them, but Charlotte waved her hand to get his attention, looking expectant. "Well? You have to tell me, you know. How are we supposed to go without learning from the past mistakes?"
"You are most definitely not a mistake," Damian smiled, leaning to her, so close that made her blush. Shane, from where he sat at the couch watching Grace draw something in her sketchbook, groaned. "Oh mush. Get a room already!"
"You're all in mine," Damian shot back, staring daggers at his brother.
"Her room, then?"
"Oh not there, please," Grace glanced up with a small smirk. "The canvases for my presentation in the Hawthorne Art Hall are still drying. Wouldn't want anyone getting too rowdy in there. Would get paint all over the furniture…"
"You test my love for you, van Kamp," Charlotte said coldly from the bed, making the smaller girl laugh.
Damian laughed and shook his head, then looked up at Charlotte. "So have you decided yet? If you want to sing with me or sing a solo for the duel tomorrow?"
"Choose wisely!" the twins yelled from the fort, evading a very annoyed Patrick and Noel's Nerf attacks. "We're going to put up a fight!"
"You?" Charlotte raised an eyebrow. All this time that she'd been in the Pipers, she'd not quite heard the twins sing on their own other than the short moment back when they'd sung Trashing the Camp with the rest of the house.
"Pentland wants energy, he gets some energy." Lucas grinned. He frowned when Noel crowd in triumph after managing to hit him in the temple. He shot back a couple of times and Logan added, "We're singing together! You better be ready to beat us!"
The thought was inconceivable, to the rest of the house. Damian and Charlotte were easily two of their best Pipers, both having taken lead position. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that if they chose to duet, they would snag lead positions—if their singing I Should Tell You was any indication of their ability.
Damian looked at Charlotte. "Well…are we going to sing?"
Charlotte seemed to hesitate a little. "…Damian—I think I'll sing solo."
This surprised Damian somewhat, but it didn't seem to displease him. He sat up and smiled curiously. "Oh?"
"My last lead was a duet, with Grace. And my last duel had me singing with you. I want to sing by myself for now—show them I can handle a solo position too. I want to show them I could hold my own for…say…Regionals?" She smiled.
Damian laughed softly. "You're pretty driven."
"Well, I try." Charlotte beamed. "Besides…" she smiled a little, "…as much as I'd like to sing with you, I think I want to try singing to you. I haven't done that yet, I think. And…" she remembered singing with Darren back in Adams House. It made her feel guilty just slightly, as she'd now sung with him more times that she'd actually sung with Damian. "…I'm allowed to express myself through song."
Damian seemed to consider this and slowly smiled. "All right. Well, that's an idea too." He sat up and smirked. "But you're going to have to deal with me singing to you too."
Charlotte narrowed his eyes at him. There was something about the way he grinned that seemed suspicious. "What are you planning?"
"Nope—can't tell you—I'm competition," Damian grinned. "You'll have to wait. And you'll have to deal with it when it comes."
Now Charlotte felt really worried. "What? What do you mean? What are you thinking of doing?"
"Well if we're going with public declarations of love through song…" Damian grinned and just walked away, leaving the sentence hanging in the air where it was. He turned to the living room. "Shane—you ready to go?"
At this, the two on the couch looked up. Grace turned white, her drawing hand paused mid-stroke. Shane glanced at her and then looked at Damian with a smile. "Yeah. I'm good."
"Good for what?" Grace asked, looking at him.
Shane turned to the small girl and smiled a little. "I only came to see you. I've seen you. And…now I have to go home. Well," he shrugged, "as much as the word can be used loosely—I'm basically just staying in our house here in Massachusetts."
"So you're…leaving." Grace stared.
"I don't go to Hawthorne," Shane answered with a shrug. "I have to go back home and recover—then it's back to Walcott, remember?"
Charlotte carefully watched the medley of emotions racing across Grace's face as she struggled to sort them out. Clearly she was torn between Shane staying and going (the latter can be supported, but the former could barely be articulated) but in fine style, Grace seemed to recover herself. She managed a shaky laugh. "Right. Of course. Makes sense."
"Why can't I just be at Hawthorne?" Shane said loudly to his older brother with an incredulous look.
Damian gave him the level gaze of someone who had endured a year of staying in Jefferson and understood precisely what madness meant. "You've met everyone in this house. If I threw you in with the mix, I might actually go crazy."
"You're boring," Shane made a face at him as he rose, seeming not to notice Grace's intent gaze. "Live a little. Isn't your prefect back? You can take in another stray…" He tried to give him his best "pity me" look, but Damian, a veteran defender against Shane's whining, pleading and overall tantrums when he didn't get his way, just passed him.
"Let's go…" the elder brother said as the Tweedles started to wave at them. "Say goodbye to everyone."
Before Shane or Charlotte could say anything, Grace leapt to her feet. "We'll walk you to the car!"
"We will…?" Noel raised an eyebrow incredulously, but Lucas elbowed him hard in the ribs. Noel rolled his eyes with a sigh, exasperated, wondering why everyone can't just go and be together instead of all this difficulty. Straight to point, and all that.
The troop came downstairs together—"What are you off to destroy this time?" Charlie had demanded, and when informed that they were merely seeing Shane off, the prefect looked rather relieved—and headed out to where Damian's car was parked.
Shane turned back to the others as Damian took out his keys and unlocked the car. "Well…I guess this is it. Again." He grinned. "See you around."
"No mountains." Patrick warned. "Far far away from mountains."
"I study in Colorado, near the Rocky Mountains—that's not really helping the cause," Shane replied with a sidelong glance.
"He's right," Charlotte said, smiling as she gave Shane a quick hug. "Stop making us worry about you, will you? Sometimes you can be as danger prone as Grace, you know?"
Shane glanced at the painter and smiled. "Me? Nah… Can't be injuring myself. Because between Grace and I, someone has to keep the other on their feet."
Grace smiled faintly, telling him, "I had fun taking care of you for a change."
"Don't get used to it." Shane winked.
"Here." Noel stepped forward and suddenly shoved something to his chest. Shane was nearly pushed back, but he caught it, and held it to the light. It was a crystal pendulum. "Uh…what's this?"
"Good luck charm," Noel mumbled, a little red and not quite prepared to explain in detail. "Keeps you safe. Makes it easier to find you if you were…you know…lost again. I gave Damian one too."
Shane glanced at his brother, who just smiled and shrugged. "Yes he did." He added a "play along" expression, which Shane eagerly complied with, turning to Noel with a big grin. "Thanks! I could use this! You know, I'm a geographical idiot, honestly. Let's go out hunting again sometime."
"If you can keep up with me and not end up being fodder, why not…" Noel just shrugged and stepped back.
Grace then stepped forward, and immediately, all of Shane's attention was hers. The girl smiled and held out another tube. "I…managed to finish this painting. Wanted you to have it. You know that first one I gave you…it wasn't really finished. And it did fall so…maybe this can replace it."
Shane, curious, made to open it, but Grace grabbed her hands. "No! Don't look at it. When you…get back home, you can."
Shane stared at Grace's hands on his and turned a little red before looking up at her, seemingly bedazzled. "…okay. Sure. Whatever you want."
Damian rolled his eyes. Shane's IQ was plunging and he could tell. "Shane? Let's go before we add brain damage to your list of injuries?"
The younger brother shot his brother a glare but quickly turned back to Grace and smiled. "See you again some time."
Grace hesitated for a moment, hands still on his. She felt breathless, mind racing as she looked up at Shane's blue-gray eyes. The last time they'd said goodbye had seemed lacking. And here they were again. It was another chance. Carefully, she whispered, "…you mean that? You won't…suddenly up and disappear on me again?"
Charlotte raised her eyebrows. As far as daring went for Grace, this was leaps and bounds, and even Shane could tell. He smiled gently and clasped Grace's hands. "I'm not going to disappear. If you need me, I'll be right over."
It was Grace's turn to color scarlet. She nodded a little and released the tall boy. "…okay."
"Okay," Shane smiled at her, that same happy grin he saw that morning after Grace made it clear that she would tolerate him. "See you." Shane nodded to Charlotte. "Take care of my brother please! He's like a snail—solid outside and too soft and gooshy inside. His pace with romance is explained that way too."
Damian resisted the urge to toss his brother into the car. "Shane—let's go!"
"Don't worry," Charlotte laughed in answer as Damian started the car. "I've got it covered."
The Twins happily helped Shane into the car, Lucas nearly forgetting to hand him back his crutch, and slammed the door shut after him. The brothers smiled at the Jefferson conspirators. "See you later," Damian told Charlotte, who nodded. Shane waved at Grace, and the engine roared; the two were off to the direction of the main gate.
As they watched them go, Charlotte stood next to Grace, arms crossed and smirking. "…and…you didn't say anything. Again."
"Not yet…" Grace whispered, smiling as she watched them go. She was clasping the Rembrandt ring Shane gave her, hanging from a silver chain around her neck. "…I'm going to. When…when I'm ready. I'm not brave yet…like he is. But I will be."
"Looking forward to it, then." Charlotte smiled.
While the others headed back to Jefferson,Grace stood watching after the car still. It wasn't like the last goodbye at all. It felt like she'd forgotten to say something, or failed to come through her end of the bargain the last time they'd said it. But now…it didn't even feel like goodbye. It felt like it wasn't too late.
And Grace finally realized what she wanted to sing for the duel. A song that should've been for Shane if she had stayed, but maybe now wasn't the time yet. Maybe she had to say it to herself first, so she knew it was true. And was it ever true…
And as she headed back to Jefferson, she felt…happy.
I don't know but I think I may be fallin' for you
Dropping so quickly
Maybe I should keep this to myself
Waiting 'til I know you better
I am trying not to tell you but I want to
I'm scared of what you'll say
So I'm hiding what I'm feeling
But I'm tired of holding this inside my head
Charlotte, hearing her, started to smile as her friend rejoined her, face flushed, as they both headed back to Jefferson House. The two linked hands, Charlotte almost bursting out laughing at the spring in Grace's step.
I've been spending all my time just thinking about you
I don't know what to do; I think I'm fallin' for you
I've been waiting all my life and now I found you
I don't know what to do
I think I'm fallin' for you…
I'm fallin' for you…
Grace burst into her room and threw herself onto the bed, staring at the ceiling in wonder, barely able to respond to Charlotte's obvious laughter at her starry-eyed expression. She grinned as her friend threw a pillow into her face. Grace pushed it off and picked up the ring.
She remembered New Year's Eve at the party. That midnight countdown.
As I'm standing here and you hold my hand
Pull me towards you and we start to dance
All around us I see nobody here in silence
It's just you and me
I'm trying not to tell you but I want to
I'm scared of what you'll say so I'm hiding what I'm feeling
But I'm tired of holding this inside my head
Grace leapt off the bed and swung around the bedpost, almost tripping as she did so and Charlotte looking exasperated as she tried to keep her friend together. But even she couldn't help but smile as Grace's mood persisted—and persisted to the point that people would actually feel guilty about trying to make her stop when she looked so happy.
And even as she stood in front of the Pipers the next day, singing this same song, the rest of the group were moving along to the music, grinning at each other at the sight of the bright look on Grace's face. Even Gregor and Pentland looked amused.
Grace lifted her head, eyes gazing into the distance.
Oh I just can't take it…
My heart is racing…
The emotions keep spinning out…
She grinned as the Pipers started clapping along as they moved to her song and even she started to move a little bit, feeling simply, unbelievably light.
I've been spending all my time just thinking about you
I don't know what to do; I think I'm fallin' for you
I've been waiting all my life and now I found you
I don't know what to do
I think I'm fallin' for you…
I'm fallin' for you…
The song came to a close and the Pipers burst into cheers and applause at Grace's best performance to date. Grace, flushed and bright-eyed, bowed politely, brushing the hair out of her eyes as even the two directors clapped, nodding their approval.
The Twins hooted and catcalled as Patrick and Diana cheered, clapping so hard that their hands hurt. Charlotte was laughing and Damian just grinned, knowing exactly who the song was for.
As Grace returned to her seat, she received approving jostles from the rest of the singers—almost getting knocked over—and it was clear that everyone thought that she was one of the best performers. Before Grace, a majority of the Pipers had dueled, from Jefferson, Adams, and Washington, but so far only Darren and Grace had shown promise.
Darren had sung the same song he practiced with Charlotte—but he had sung it with Juliet, who had been "borrowed" for the occasion. They both did excellently, but Charlotte knew it wasn't the same. Juliet was a great singer, but her countenance put some of the others off, and the truth be told, it just didn't have the same meaning as when Darren and Charlotte sang it.
Charlotte glanced to Darren, who had also clapped for Grace, and pushed down the guilty feeling. Darren could still qualify—he was one of the strongest contenders, with or without her. While there was no doubt that if she'd sung it with him, they'd be catapulted to a guarantee of the lead… He just wasn't the one Charlotte wanted to sing to.
"That's quite a bar being set," Gregor said happily, grinning at them. "Let's keep going, shall we?" She looked at the list with Pentland, who then said, "Ah. Our new girl is next."
Charlotte smiled, blushing politely at the applause she now garnered from the others, who were expecting her performance. As she rose, she felt Damian and Darren's eyes on her. She shook off the feeling and walked confidently to the front.
She stood in front now, the spotlight on her. She nodded to Drew, who was the one holding the guitar this time. Charlotte wanted no backing vocals. She just wanted to sing this song, alone, to Damian. As she caught his eye, she smiled as though saying that the song would explain everything.
She took a deep breath and began.
Take me where I've never been
Help me on my feet again
Show me that good things come
To those who wait
Tell me I'm not on my own
Tell me I won't be alone
Tell me what I'm feeling isn't some mistake
'Cause if anyone can make me fall in love…you can…
Damian began to smile slowly, eyes lowering for a moment as he now understood—the reason Charlotte wanted to sing alone. True, he wanted to sing with her…but it was different to be sung to. Especially when Charlotte could sing the way she did—when she meant it the way she did.
Charlotte smiled at him.
Save me from myself, you can
And it's you and no one else
If I could wish upon tomorrow
Tonight would never end
If you asked me, I would follow
But for now I'll just pretend
'Cause if anyone can make me fall in love, you can
The Jeffersons grinned at each other as the two continued to gaze at each other as Charlotte sang. Diana, clearly in a far better mood than before, elbowed Damian's side, and the boy just swatted her off as though trying to stop blushing. He only nodded to Charlotte, who smiled a bit more.
Pentland looked to where Charlotte was staring so intently, and divined what was going on. He smiled to himself and at the two teenagers.
It was a love song after all.
If you asked me I would follow
But for now I'll just pretend
'Cause if anyone can make me fall in love—
Only you can take me sailing in your deepest eyes
Bring me to my knees and make me cry
And no one's ever done this
Everything was just a lie and I know, yes, I know
Charlotte caught her breath for a moment, staring intently at Damian—seeming to have forgotten the rest of the world. This was not lost on Darren, who watched them both with that small, silent smile that never quite became a real one. He lowered his eyes, looking at his hands, nodding slowly to himself.
Charlotte always sang beautifully, in his opinion. It was just that he couldn't help but continue to wish that the song would, at some point, be directed to him—that gaze that was being given to Damian, who returned it unwaveringly, was something he wanted more than anything. He wished he could stop wishing, but if he knew how, he would.
This is where it all begins
So tell me it will never end
I can't fool myself
It's you and no one else
If I could wish upon tomorrow
Tonight would never end
If you asked me I would follow
But for now I'll just pretend
If anyone can make me fall in love, you can…
The song slowly came to a close. And at the final line's conclusion, the Pipers started applauding again—along with a smattering of catcalls and hoots from the Jeffersons and Washingtons. Charlotte smiled, laughing a little at them and nodding to Damian, who was applauding with a different kind of smile in his eyes—gentle and understanding.
She turned to the two directors and grinned at them. Gregor just laughed but Pentland nodded in approval and gestured for Charlotte to return to her seat.
"Well there you have it," the man rose from his seat with the clipboard. "We're almost to the end, but it looks like the bar is going even higher now. Let's see…" he looked down at the sign up sheet and smiled a little bit, curious. "Lucas and Logan Brightman are next."
"Yes!" The Twins leapt up, grinning. They gave each other high-fives and eagerly ran forward, waving to a few other Pipers over to join them. Diana and Patrick grinned and fled their chairs.
"This is unusual," Gregor said with a curious expression at the Twins, who have never dueled before. "What brought this on, you two?"
"You wanted energy in a performance," Lucas quipped, grinning.
"And we'll give it to you," Logan chimed in.
"This is for a Fair," Lucas said.
"So let's dance!" Logan said happily.
Pentland nodded and gestured for them to go on, looking intrigued. Charlotte leaned forward with Grace, also looking curious.
Diana landed down onto the piano and cracked her knuckles and the other Pipers took to position. The Twins grinned at each other as Diana began to play the music. And then in chorus, they began to sing, hands clapping to the beat, the Twins stepping forward to take the lead, moving perfectly synchronized.
Woah-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh
Woah-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh
I kinda feel like it don't make sense…
Lucas moved forward dancing along to the music, taking the first part with a grin at everyone and clearly very taken by the music as he swept along.
I'm thinking, baby, you and I are undeniable
But I'm finding now love's unreliable
I'm giving all I got to make you stay
Or am I just a roadblock in your way?
The Pipers burst out laughing at the song choice, amused, and were also starting to move to the beat as Logan now sidestepped his brother, stepping in front of him and grinning as he moved and sang to the music.
Cause you're a pretty little windstorm out on the boulevard
Something like a Sunset, oh you're a shooting star
And I might drive myself insane
If those lips aren't speaking my name
Logan winked at Grace and Charlotte—who collapsed laughing—and the Twins returned to the group, clapping their hands above their heads, urging the others to do the same. The Two started chorusing together, grinning and dancing along to the music with all the energy they promised the directors.
Cause I got some intuition,
Or maybe I'm superstitious
But I think you're a pretty sweet pill that I'm swallowing down
To counter this addiction, you've got me on a mission
Tell me darling, can I get a break somehow?
(How) could I say no? The entire group started to sing, even the Pipers sitting down, grinning at the infectious energy the Twins spread with their grins and their movement. They were even making faces as they danced, as though imitating Damian's onstage antics, who burst out laughing in spite of himself.
She's got a love like woe
Woah-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh,
Girls got a love like woe (la-da-da)
I kinda feel like it don't make sense
Because you're bringing me in and now you're kicking me out again
Love so strong, then you moved on—
Now I'm hung up in suspense,
Because you're bringing me in and then you're kicking me out again
Logan then stepped forward as the music dropped, the music stopping, and only Diana's playing remained. "Cause we only have one life…"
Lucas leaned behind him, "The timing and the moment, all seem so right…"
The twins back to back, as came together in singing:
So would you say you're mine?
(We'll be just fine)
Would you say you're mine?
(We'll be just fine)
The Twins looked up and grinned and began urging everyone to clap along again as the music came back in—and they happily obliged.
She's got a love like woe
Woah-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh,
Girls got a love like woe (la-da-da)
I kinda feel like it don't make sense
Because you're bringing me in and now you're kicking me out again
Love so strong, then you moved on—
Now I'm hung up in suspense,
Because you're bringing me in and then you're kicking me out again—
The hall was clapping along and singing to their music, fascinated by the Twins who had never quite stepped into the limelight before singing-wise. They were certainly very good, and they put everything that had into it with no holding back the way they always did.
Even as they danced with each other, moving through the chairs and urging others to move along with them—they certainly knew how to work the audience up.
And when the song ended, the hall started clapping wildly and leaping to their feet as the Twins started high-fiving everyone in the group in front. Gregor was laughing happily, clapping for them. The Twins proceeded to make deeply exaggerated bows at everyone, blowing kisses and pretending to accept flowers.
Pentland just shook his head with a short laugh at the two hamming it up in front and began to gesture for silence. It still took a few moments before order could actually be restored, especially as the Twins continued to hug people as though they'd just won Grammy Awards, on their way back to their seats.
"You two are impossible," Charlotte told them as they finally relocated themselves to their seats.
"Yes, but you liked it," Lucas grinned with a wink.
Grace just laughed and shook her head. "Fine…maybe we did. But you two are still impossible."
"We'll take that as a compliment," Logan answered, smiling smugly as he leaned back in his seat. "We're going to snag a position and we'll happily pelt the lot of you with paintballs while you slave away for Fair preparation."
"I don't think so," Damian smirked as he rose from his seat. "I've yet to perform. And seeing as how you both know what I'm going to do, I think I can give you a run for your money."
As the Twins laughed, Charlotte stared at him, perplexed. She'd seen how Damian performed onstage at competition—and as far as hamming it up goes, he'd so far ruled with those moves he subjected everyone to. But didn't he say something about public declarations? "What are you talking about? Damian! What are you up to now?" She raised an eyebrow.
To which Damian coolly responded, "Patience… Prepare for humiliation, I don't plan on holding back." He grinned and headed to the front.
"For the love of—" Charlotte sank her face into her hand and Grace just patted her in sympathy, but now without a cherubic grin.
Patrick leapt from his seat and tagged Diana. "You going to come with us or what?"
"Oh, so he's doing that one?" Diana grinned as she looked up. "I thought he was saving that for the real crowd on Valentines?"
"Charlotte's here right now—let's grill her while we have the chance," Patrick answered, which earned him a magnificently rendered glare from the girl near them—that glare could set things on fire. The two just grinned and ran off to join Damian, the Twins following.
"Ah, Damian…" Gregor smiled as he approached her from where she sat by the instrument rack. "Our final performer. Are you ready?"
Damian scooped up a guitar and grinned as he tuned it up. "As I'll ever be…" he shot Charlotte a look, and his girlfriend only rolled her eyes at him. This only made him smile more as he glanced to the others. "You guys ready?"
"Whatever, dude, you're the one Charlotte's going to kill for this," Patrick grinned. "Staking claim and all that."
Damian laughed. He began to strum the guitar to the melody, and the Pipers behind him started to whistle casually for a moment. Grace perked up, curious, as Charlotte raised her eyes. Darren raised an eyebrow at the grin on Damian's face.
Damian slowly started moving forward, eyes fastened onto Charlotte as he began to sing:
Let's pretend baby…
That you've just met me
And I've never seen you before…
Charlotte sat up, staring as Damian started to move through the audience, grinning, the Pipers in audience snickering. Damian was grinning adorably at her, moving to the music in that way he always did as he continued to sing. At the next line, he nodded to the other Pipers.
I'll tell all my friends…
That I think you're starin'
And you say the same to yours…
Charlotte sank her face into her hand again, deep scarlet. Damian wasn't just standing in front singing to her—he was actually going to her, singing directly at her. Grace was laughing so hard that she was barely able to sit straight as the Pipers in audience started to move to the music.
Damian suddenly tossed the guitar off to Bailey in the nearby seat—who caught it and continued playing smoothly, clearly in on the act as well.
And oh, we'll dance around it all night
And then I'll follow you outside
And try to open up my mouth
And nothing comes out right Damian reached Charlotte, leaning to her and grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet—Charlotte frantically peeling her hand away as she colored crimson, presumably wishing the floor would eat her right about now. Damian was undeterred, dancing around her in that unnecessarily hammy way.
And I wanna fall in love with you again
I don't have to try; It's so easy
Who needs to pretend?
But because it's so funny
Let's just think about it, honey
Let's just fall in love again…
The Pipers were restraining themselves from cheering too much at this, watching Charlotte try to successfully glare at Damian through her hand on her scarlet face. Pentland stared, raising his eyebrows at the spectacle as the Pipers still in front continued to dance and grin. Singing in front was one thing—but this performance was beyond even serenading. Gregor was trying—and failing—not to grin so much.
Damian moved around Charlotte, trying to pull the hand from her face.
I'll call you in three days
Not too soon, not too late
And I'll ask your roommate if you're home…
He leaned to Grace on this last line, winking at her. And the small girl erupted into laughter and turned traitor, shoving Charlotte forward to Damian. Charlotte almost lost balance, but Damian held onto her with a grin and started pulling her forward to the front. The Pipers cheered. The Adams stared, aghast.
You call me on Thursday
And we'll hang out all day
Then fall asleep on the phone
The Twins, from the front, started urging everyone to clap again, this time doing more—they were hauling people to their feet to join their dancing in front. Damian reached the front with a very reluctant Charlotte, keeping hold of her hand and urging her to dance with him.
And oh, I'll hold your hand when we drive
And we'll lose track of all the time
And we'll tell everyone
That we ain't never felt so alive…
Charlotte was just smirking slightly at him now, unable to quite believe that her composed boyfriend was actually capable of these levels of crazy, but even she had to start moving along a little when she saw the other Pipers leaving their seats and joining the dance party in front.
And I wanna fall in love with you again
I don't have to try; It's so easy
Who needs to pretend?
But because it's so funny
Let's just think about it, honey
Let's just fall in love again…
Damian smirked, pulling her close as Charlotte leaned to him, clearly starting to humor him. His hand at the small of Charlotte's back, he moved close to her and started to lean her back, swaying her from side to side before leaning her fully back:
We'll fall disgustingly fast
And we'll stop hangin' out with friends
And they'll be so offended…
At the last line, Damian was so close over Charlotte's face he could've been kissing her in another inch, and the Pipers erupted into hoots and catcalls. Gregor laughed out loud in surprise, mouth open, Pentland dropped his head into his hand at this madness—nearly all the Pipers were standing by now and joining along to the song and there was no stopping them by now.
Charlotte grinned and just shoved Damian back, the latter pulling them back straight up and taking her hands to dance with her as all the Pipers began to sing along with Damian:
And I wanna fall in love with you again
I don't have to try; It's so easy
Who needs to pretend?
But because it's so funny
Let's just think about it, honey
Let's just fall in love again…
Let's just fall in love again…
So, let's just fall in love again…
At the end of the song, everyone cheered, applauding and hooting at one another, especially the two in the middle. Charlotte and Damian received a great deal of playful shoves and nudged from their fellow Pipers—most of them shaking Damian's shoulders as though to congratulate him for some reason. Darren was one of the few who didn't join in the madness, but he too nodded a little as he clapped lightly at the performance, smirking slightly.
Charlotte just laughed shortly and shook her head, giving Damian an attempt at a dagger glare. "You—!" And she couldn't articulate any words that would explain how much she wanted to smack Damian at this moment while at the same time perhaps kiss the breath out of him. She ended up with a roll of the eyes and sighed with a smile. "You're an idiot."
"Whatever works," Damian smirked.
-8-
When the Jeffersons poured back into their dormitory afterward, they were still laughing so hard they could barely stand straight. The uproar in the Hall could barely be controlled after that number, and it took Pentland a good fifteen minutes before actual order was restored. And even then, they were a rowdy group as they started to place their votes, catcalling and shooting jokes. Charlotte was crimson the whole time she was filling out her own vote—for herself, of course—and Damian just sat with a grin on his face, maybe proud of instigating it all.
"The look on your face, Alice!" Lucas howled as he hung on the banister rail, his twin hanging onto him.
"Your face looked so hot we could've made pancakes on it!" Logan choked, gasping for breath.
"Do not ever do that again!" Charlotte shot at them all. "Putting me on the spot like that with that crazy song number—"
"Oh you liked it," Grace grinned, earning herself a glower from her best friend. "You even started dancing at the end!"
"We should've shoved someone during that dip Damian gave you!" Diana exclaimed. "If Damian kissed you in front of Pentland and Gregor—"
"We'd've all ended up in Lowell's office, maybe?" Charlotte retorted, still red around the ears.
"But it would've been so worth it…" Patrick gasped, trying to stop laughing and leaning onto Diana's shoulder, rumpling his friend's blazer. This brought another fresh round of laughter among them.
Charlotte sighed and shook her head, smiling at Damian who was still holding her hand. "I can't believe Pentland and Gregor wouldn't announce the winners."
"Well there were a lot of performers this time around, the vote's going to be complicated—and they'll have their input weighed in too…" Damian smiled. "But they did say they'd post the winners tonight on the school website; at the page for the Valentines' Fair program."
"I hope I get a spot," Grace said meekly. "It would be nice not to have to work during the Fair."
"Hoping to go with a date?" Charlotte smirked at her roommate as they all headed upstairs to their rooms. This made the smaller girl blush, her answer of "hoping…" barely audible.
"I honestly don't see what you see in Shane," Damian shook his head.
"Thank goodness you don't—it'll be worrisome if you do," Grace raised an eyebrow. She headed to the room she shared with Charlotte ahead, leaving the couple in the hall. The Twins had vanished again, perhaps looking to terrorize their prefect, who was living in relative peace at the end of the hallway while the conspirators had been away for Pipers' meeting.
Patrick and Diana walked on to their rooms, talking about how Diana planned on taking Jordan to the fair, while Patrick planned on finding a date at the fair itself. He had resolved to get over Tabitha, who Derek would be taking. This pleased Diana, who never quite liked that girl.
They ignored the usual sound of the blaring television in Noel's room; he was probably on another marathon—which was often disturbing to hear seeing as how he could quote nearly every episode in Season One word for word.
Charlotte turned to Damian, who smiled. "So, Charlotte Summers…" Damian murmured, pulling her a little bit closer. "May I ask if you had anyone in mind to go with you for the Valentines' Fair? I understand it's still a bit of a way off, but…" He smiled.
The blonde smirked at him. "First you declare to the entire Piper group that you and I are together, nearly brought the whole Hall to shreds, breaching several personal boundaries, mine in particular… and now you're politely asking who I will go with to the Fair. Right, Damian. I've half a mind to let you go stag."
Damian laughed. "You're not really mad about that, are you?"
"A little warning would've been good," Charlotte sniffed. "But I did say half a mind…"
Damian leaned forward and kissed her. Charlotte resisted with the incredible effort of almost one second before she finally just let him, kissing back. Damian pulled away slightly, leaning close, lips still a breath away. "How's your mind now?"
"…a little hazy," Charlotte admitted, gazing at him through veiling lashes.
"Good…" Damian's breath wafted hot over her cheek, hand pressed firmly onto her back, keeping their bodies against each other as he leaned closer to kiss her again—
—until an earsplitting scream erupted from Charlotte's room.
"Charlotte!"
Charlotte and Damian came bursting through the doors, and from behind them there were pounding footsteps in the hall, and suddenly Patrick and Diana nearly knocked the first two over as they came in.
"What happened?" Noel gasped as he broke through them, medallions clutched close and sprayer in hand. "Who screamed?"
"Grace!" Charlotte gasped, looking at her friend, standing at her side of the room. She was standing, unharmed, not bleeding and was generally in one piece. "What is it? Why were you screaming?"
Grace turned to them, face white as she pointed with a shaky finger towards the golden cage that stood at Charlotte's side of the room.
Cage door open, standing empty.
"Caruso—he's gone!"
A/N: Here is the song list!
Grace
Darren/Juliet
Charlotte
Lucas/Logan
Damian
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Post by tonilous on Jul 7, 2014 3:43:55 GMT -5
Hawthorne Mismatched
I'm Charlotte. And this is Hawthorne Academy.
I imagine that things should be smooth sailing towards Valentines' Day.
Who in their right minds would like to make Valentines' Day a worse occasion than it already was?
…pretend I didn't just ask that and jinx the whole thing.
Charlotte was trudging back towards Jefferson House after another faux study session with Darren. They barely did anything at all—it lasted only half an hour, the both of them talking about neutral things, such as the terminal level of stress that was falling down over all the Pipers as the Fair approached. About how the professors were getting into the spirit and openly inviting other schools to come visit. And, of course, how the House rivalries reached a fever pitch as each House struggled to hold the best booths for the fair.
The two of them talked as though representatives standing at the edge of a battle line, negotiating with each other on how much information they were willing to give. There wasn't a lot to share, but Charlotte could tell that her staying was more for Darren's benefit than hers. It had been a while since she'd begun her lessons with him and the whole time, she had seen Darren and remaining relatively calm.
This had to be the only reason she was there, after all. To make sure that he didn't go too far over the edge.
"Are you keeping up with it, though…?" Darren had asked casually that evening. "You have to put up with all of the preparations happening everywhere, and at the same time have the additional pressure of being chosen as one of the leads."
Pentland and Gregor came through with their word. Not long after the duels, the results were posted online to the great excitement of everyone. There was a commotion that had rose when everyone found out that it featured an odd combination: Damian, Charlotte, Grace, and Darren had all made it in, and while that was predictable, the defining factor was that no one knew who sings with whom.
This had positively terrified Grace—who knew she would end up getting partnered with Darren if the directors choose to pair Charlotte and Damian together for the duet.
Charlotte had responded to Darren, "Having the lead position is never an added pressure for me—I've been after the position for a long time. If anything, it's a reward." To which Darren had only laughed and nodded.
He and Charlotte had not sung together since that first day, and it had never been mentioned. Darren did not bring the matter of duets up, and when he did now, it was to say, "You know, Grace should start to come over to practice. Or is she too afraid of me?"
"I think she may well be for obvious reasons," Charlotte raised an eyebrow. "If she'd meet you anywhere, it'll be somewhere public, like the Hall."
"I suppose so," Darren agreed. "You and she are getting along?"
"Too well."
"You can tell her that I mean her no harm, then," Darren laughed. "And that, even though Gregor hasn't officially said who sings with who, we really do have to start to practice. How about you and Damian…?"
"We rehearse whenever we have free time," Charlotte answered smoothly. "We're testing Jefferson's patience. They can listen to our set of prepared duets only so many times. I think Patrick knows every word already."
Darren leaned back, arms crossed with a smirk. "And speaking of tested patience… Is Caruso still wreaking havoc?"
Charlotte's glare only made him laugh even more.
The truth was that even if the prize canary was in Charlotte's room, it technically hadn't been her fault that Jefferson's House's doors and windows have been locked up for over a week. Every single nook and cranny that the bird could conceivably hop through had been shut tight—as it would appear that even though the illustrious Caruso had fled his cage, the bird wasn't quite prepared to abandon Jefferson.
More than one student had spotted him flying into open doorways, alighting on banisters and beams, and peering curiously at the on goings in Jefferson House, doing a far better job at overseeing everything than Charlie himself did. Incidentally, the prefect continued to remain unaware that the bird was at large at all—Patrick and Diana were sure that there would be much to pay if Charlie found out that the prize canary was loose in Jefferson with no one having any idea on how to get him back into his cage.
They tried, of course. And were still trying to no avail. Charlotte thought that she might as well tell Darren, because he was the one supposedly taking care of the bird (as far as the teachers knew) and he was still going to catch fire if anything happens to Caruso, especially when he had the chance to get him back and did not.
"It's an ongoing fiasco…but at least while it's still freezing, we still have an excuse to keep all the doors and windows closed."
Darren nodded. "Well then if Jefferson has it under control…"
"Jefferson is never in control."
A laugh from the tall boy. "True. But the ambiance must be more relaxed than in Adams."
"Have you all considered cutting back on your terrifying amounts of coffee, then?" Charlotte grimaced, remembering the kitchen.
Darren raised an eyebrow. "This from the one who gets flooded with coffee cups in the morning?"
Charlotte stared. "How did you know that?"
"Those Tweedle twins you've got in there talk a lot." Darren smiled. "I know their antics must not make things easy for you back in Jefferson. How are you holding up in classes?"
Charlotte just sighed and gestured to the books. "I'm starting to think I only got the ninety average on the assessment because of maniacal studying and the combined help of Damian and the others. I'm down to what is apparently "average" in Hawthorne standards again."
"At least you're not failing," Darren smiled. "And I'm still helping you with Murdoch."
"Yes, let's all worship the great Murdoch," Charlotte rolled her eyes. She then got up and began putting books into her bag. "Since the conversation has gone full circle—I think it's time to call it a day."
Darren looked only very mildly disappointed. "You won't have to keep doing this for long. You'll be off the hook in a little while."
That was true. Charlotte only had a few days left before the "tutoring" condition got lifted. She thought about that as she walked away from Adams House, and found that she didn't find doing time in Adams to be completely heinous. And the truth be told, it seemed to be more therapeutic for Darren than it actually was about her studies.
Even the Pipers had noticed the distinct change in the Adams Prefect's composure, how he seemed to be amiable and—heaven forbid—friendly, and people had very little doubts as to why.
Charlotte exhaled, the mist issuing from her lips as she trudged through the grounds and keeping onto the pathways in an effort not to get slush onto her shoes. It was failing beautifully, and she heard a voice calling. "Charlotte! Hey—Hey Charlotte, wait a second!"
She turned and saw Bailey jogging after her, grinning. She still had those headphones on, turned so loud that when she reached her, Charlotte could hear the music beating out of them from where she stood. "Bailey. What is it?"
Puffing from the jog, Bailey held out a notebook. "You left this in Darren's room."
Charlotte raised an eyebrow as she took it. "Does Darren always get his minions to do his work for him?"
"He was going after you, but I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to let him run after you when you're so close to Jefferson House," Bailey grinned. "He agreed. Your dorm's pretty touchy, and they wouldn't have stolen Caruso if they weren't particularly unhappy."
Charlotte stared. "And…you're fine with this?"
"Caruso is a hostage of war and we know we're not getting him back from you guys unless someone as barefaced as you guys steps up to plate to attempt to steal him back." Bailey put her hands into her pockets and looked awkward. "Actually, I meant to ask you something. We never did have that talk either so I guess now's as good a time as any."
Charlotte raised her eyebrows in prompting, and Bailey shrugged. "Hoping this doesn't come out wrong or anything, but…you and Darren…officially nothing there, right?"
"I'm dating Damian," Charlotte said with finality.
"Oh good," Bailey looked relieved. She saw Charlotte's questioning expression and got flustered, "Oh! No, nothing like that, god no, but I just…you know… I know you and Damian are… And what with all the problems with Damian and Darren last year… so I got worried that—"
"A lot of people spend a lot of time worrying about those two," Charlotte finally remarked, narrowing her eyes.
"For good reasons, I assure you," Bailey replied. "Because it wasn't actually bullying, the worst of it, it was treated as "instigating conflict" and "physical assault" on campus grounds. Damian had the self-defense card and that was the only reason he wasn't actually expelled. But as for Darren, Lowell threw him out. Mr. Wright had to step in to keep him—he was back in Adams pretty fast…"
"And their third person involved?"
Bailey seemed surprised that she knew that much. "She could've stayed too, she wasn't actually in as much hot water as Darren was…" Bailey looked awkward. "But she got scared…she left and she didn't come back."
Charlotte now just looked intrigued. "So you know what happened? Everything?"
"I'm thinking just the Adams side of things," Bailey shrugged, hands in her pockets. "But if you really want the story, you'll have to ask Darren and Damian directly."
"Well they'll never talk." Charlotte rolled her eyes. "They only ever talk about it, or to each other, for that matter, when I don't seem to be around. I've overheard them argue enough times to know."
"Hey that's a good thing," Bailey supplied, grinning a little. "At least you know that they're not bringing you into their fight. But I thought Damian and Darren were getting along a little better now?"
Charlotte had to agree somewhat. They certainly still exchanged words with some hostility in their atmosphere, but it wasn't at all like that time when she overheard them snarling at each other through their teeth. "I'd like to think that they're making some progress in…I don't know, getting over it?" She rolled her eyes, walking towards Jefferson.
Bailey fell into step next to her, and said, "You're okay, though? This isn't stressing you out?"
"I'm plenty stressed out," Charlotte answered. "Between holding them apart and the academics, and Pipers and that fair coming up—"
"What are you so worried about the fair for? You're not working." Bailey snorted.
"It's open to the public. Which, as lead, will be my adoring public, and I have to make sure that I'm adequately prepared to perform in front of them," Charlotte smirked, making Bailey laugh.
"So it's true," she said almost ruefully. "You are a bit of a diva."
"I didn't make it obvious?" Charlotte laughed.
"Well good, Darren needs someone with a lot of personality that'll dare to talk back to him, and Damian needs someone who can keep up with his moods…" Bailey grinned. "Interesting performance, by the way. Really enjoyed it. Glad you liked it."
"That, I will still…have to get back at him for," Charlotte replied, remembering that dancing in Pipers' Hall and turning scarlet. They stopped walking just outside of Jefferson.
Bailey nodded and said, "Well this is as far as I go." She looked at Charlotte seriously. "Listen… you just be careful, okay? I'm glad to see that Damian's happy again with you, and I don't like the situation of you having to deal with Darren's obsession either. But I think it's great that you try to help him a bit."
"If he stays calm, we'll stay on good terms," Charlotte answered simply. "If he goes too far, I will blast him."
"Don't doubt it for a minute."
She and Bailey parted ways, and Charlotte mulled Bailey over—she was the only Adams that actually went out of her way to talk to her, and warmly, at that. The other Adams Pipers were all right when in the Hall, but outside of it and inside Adams House, Charlotte could feel the exactness of the politeness they gave her.
She knew Bailey's friendliness towards her cost the girl some love from her dorm mates. Charlotte had twice overheard them remark to Bailey, only half seriously, that she should move to Jefferson. Bailey didn't really mind them, but Charlotte could tell that between the house rivalries, Bailey was skirting a thin line.
And like everyone else, she acted was as though she had knowledge of some things that Charlotte was still oblivious to. Charlotte glanced back and watched Bailey heading back to Adams for a few moments. Maybe Damian, Darren, and the Jeffersons had no plans of talking to her about things, but maybe she could get Bailey to tell her the story.
Charlotte opened the doors to Jefferson House. The blast that met her was nuclear.
"SHUT THAT DOOR!"
She immediately slammed the doors shut and a stampede of students raced out of the kitchen, chasing the little yellow troublemaker that had been plaguing the house. Caruso swooped gracefully over their heads and landed on the upstairs banister.
Some of them were armed in nets, but as Jefferson house was running full steam into booth preparation for the Valentines' fair, the house was crammed with all sorts of material that they were using to build. Charlotte saw some of them waving long wood planks.
"You're going to end up killing that bird!" Charlotte shot at the students as they rushed up the stairs, Patrick and Diana running upwards with nets and the Twins taking two steps at a time on the staircase bounding ahead of them.
"I got him!" Noel yelled from the upper landing and swatted wildly at the bird at the rail.
"Noel—be careful! Don't crush him!" Diana gasped.
Caruso was not quite so alarmed—possibly now used to the Jefferson commotion—but he flew off just as Noel reached the banister rail. He landed on one of the roof beams, and peered down at the students below him as though amused and curious.
Charlotte laughed and shook her head. "He's a lot smarter than a lot of the people in this house." As she headed upstairs, she added, "Where's Damian?"
"In his room, singing, like he always is," Patrick grumbled, staring malevolently at the bird that had previously swooped around his room. Caruso was unruffled by the glowers of the rest of the House occupants.
Charlotte walked up the stairs and said, "You guys are going to want to tone it down—Charlie will be back any minute from varsity, and he'll go asking about what you're up to this time."
"This bird's more trouble than he's worth," Patrick grumbled.
Noel, however noted that as Charlotte vanished into the hallway of the second floor, Caruso observed her. And a few moments after Charlotte disappeared, the bird winged off into the hallway as well to disappear.
Charlotte went into her room and found Grace's art everywhere. Canvases, pastels, oil paints, easels—Grace's room looked like it got hit by a grenade of art. This signaled the red flag going up immediately—especially when Grace seemed to have broken the cardinal rule—do not let any of this go into Charlotte's side of the room.
Unfortunately, Charlotte saw two or three scrolls of heavy paper covered with watercolors on that end lying just by her desk. She pressed her fingers onto the bridge of her nose in an attempt to summon calm. She tried very very hard to remember that Grace was under pressure for the forthcoming Parents Night that was scheduled to happen not long after Valentines, and that Grace was apparently to present yet another exhibit.
Hawthorne was showing off its best talents for the parents, donors and board members, and Grace, unfortunately, was now stretched between Pipers and her painting. Charlotte suggested that she just use things she's already finished, but Grace nearly had a heart attack. For one thing, most of her paintings still remained in the Upper West Side gallery where they were waiting for their buyers. Secondly, Grace couldn't not present new art as her mother had promised to come to the Parents' Night and she would be expecting her to produce better output than the last time.
"Better" in art may be subjective, but Grace's definition of "better" was something that will make her mother happy enough to not bring up her being in the Pipers again. Hence, new work.
Charlotte lifted her eyes. "Grace."
No response.
The girl in the paint-splattered overalls was lying on her own white bed with absolutely no concern about whether she was getting her paint on it or not. It was amazing how Grace could stand having all that white in her room where half the time she paints in it and it would end up looking like someone threw up a Picasso onto the whole side.
"Grace?" Charlotte repeated more firmly this time.
Still no response. Grace was lying on her stomach on the bed, eyes scarlet and puffy. She had a glossy "book" (which was to say, a lookbook) opened in front of her. They were new, so they probably came from wherever her mom was last—Milan. Grace was brutally flipping through the gorgeous pages of gleaming models and blinding clothing, and covering each page with stickers right at the clothes.
After watching her tear through about five more beautifully photographed pages, Charlotte narrowed her eyes. "Grace…? What are you doing…?"
Another savage flip of the page. Another stab of a sticker. "…choosing my clothes from the runway shows."
"…Grace, there's five stickers on each page."
"Yes well I want everything." Another frustrated stab. "I'll wear everything at the same time. Who cares? It's not like I'm going with anyone to the stupid fair." Flip. Stab. "Stupid fair." Stab. And another stab.
Charlotte sighed and carefully went over to her, exercising caution as she peeled her away from the books. Valentines' Day wasn't even here and it was already becoming troublesome. "Let's go…come on…"
Grace was a complete rag doll—she didn't even protest as Charlotte dragged her off her bed. But Charlotte tutted in impatience and her friend at least walked with her before flopping down onto the couch. Charlotte sat primly next to her, tossing her satchel somewhere where it wouldn't crush any paintings. "You have got to get a grip," she said without preamble.
"I tried calling. I got his voicemail. Hi, this is Shane and I'm most likely doing something more important than talking to you, so leave a message—"
"Shane's voicemail doesn't sound like that—I know because Damian calls him."
"Well fine! It's just that…well he said if I called when I needed him, he'll be right over! And he's not answering!" Grace hugged her pillow. "You can't blame me for being a little disappointed. Is it so wrong that I want to spend one—just one—Valentines' day with someone I marginally like more than friendship?" Grace complained. "Just to, I don't know—see if it was as big as deal as everyone made it out to be?"
Charlotte groaned in exasperation. "It's a commercial holiday, Grace, I thought you of all people would know that. It's just a fabrication. If you want to spend time with someone you like, there shouldn't be one set day."
"But you're still prioritizing spending the whole day with Damian," Grace raised an eyebrow.
Charlotte sat up a little straighter, flushing a little. "That…while being true…is not the point." She glowered at Grace when she started to laugh at this. Charlotte turned to her and said, "You'll be fine. Whether Shane starts picking up his phone or not, you'll be all right. Besides, you might be running in a little too fast into this."
"What do you mean?" Grace asked as she leaned back on the couch.
"Well, no offense, but you said you were still a little bit confused." Charlotte gave her a withering expression of doubt. "And everyone of sane mind questions your selection of Shane. You and he are pretty much clashing colors."
"I don't feel confused when I look at him."
Charlotte raised her eyebrows at her tone. Grace was staring at two paintings at one end of the room. One was a riot of colors, the other was a silhouette of a person, surrounded by smooth swirling tints that spiraled upward. "…I wish I knew why. It's like all the voices in my head shut up."
Grace stared at her hands. Her phone was in it. No messages. "…but I guess you're right. …maybe it's a little…fast. And…I'm getting myself too worked up."
Charlotte considered her and nudged him a little. "You really like that curly-haired screwball all that much?"
"If I said no, would it be convincing?" Grace gave her a pained smile. "Because I've tried telling myself that in the mirror a million times—it's not convincing me."
"Fine—but Damian and I are chaperoning you two. You're accident prone, and he's an accident waiting to happen."
"I have to get a hold of him first," Grace glared at her phone. "He's not setting foot back to Hawthorne without a good reason, I might as well give him one."
"Why isn't Shane bugging you at all hours of the day…?" Charlotte wondered out loud. "I would've figured your little stalker would ask if he knew about the fair, but even Damian can't get a hold of him…"
-8-
"Finally!" Damian glared at the window, phone to his ear. "What have you been doing? I was just about to go over there and see if you broke your arm for real this time."
The laughter on the other end was jovial and breathless. "Oh man, I'm sorry. I was—well, I was busy."
"Tell me you're not destroying anything in there again, Shane."
"I'm destroying my weakness, but that's about it." Damian could almost hear him grin.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm…healing." Shane stifled a laugh. "I'm giving myself physical therapy. I want to be able to walk and maybe run by the time your fair thing came around."
"What?" Damian asked incredulously. "Look, are you sure you should be doing that? You might just hurt yourself more, you need time to heal."
"Look, I'm a dancer, I'm in the best shape of my life prior to the accident—I can handle this. Damian, I am so not taking Grace to the fair on crutches. There is no way. So I'm ignoring my phone, focusing on nothing but getting better and walking or something." Sound of something metal hitting something wooden. It might have been a crutch coming in contact with the antique Austrian couch. Damian winced as a knock came in his door. He crossed the room to address it.
"And yes, maybe I haven't asked her out yet, but once I'm confident in my condition, I will bug the ever loving crap out of her until she agrees. I'm talking spamming her phone until it explodes or something. She'll have to say yes if only to get me to shut up."
"I don't put it past you," Damian raised an eyebrow just as he opened the door, and found Charlotte there as usual, smiling at him. Damian smiled back and let her step in as he told Shane, "Look, can you at least promise me not to overdo it? Remember when that one time you wanted to make sure you were in perfect condition for a performance and you broke the dance hall mirrors?"
"I stand by my claim that it was an accident and the mirrors shouldn't even have been in that position."
"Yes, because blaming inanimate objects and fixtures is always the way to go. I have to go. Charlotte's here."
"Well don't let me interrupt your passionate makeout session."
"Goodbye, Shane…"
"You're going to get to the next level eventually, right? You're not going to stay glacial like that, right?"
Damian rolled his eyes and hung up. Charlotte was looking at him in surprise. "Was that Shane?"
"Yeah." Damian pocketed his phone and sat next to her. He leaned forward and gave Charlotte a kiss. As Charlotte returned it, she said, "He finally answered his phone?"
"Yeah, but the situation is nearly the same as I imagined…" Damian pulled her closer.
"Blood, destruction and broken bones?" Charlotte leaned into the kiss a little bit more.
"At least he's breathing…"
Conversation trailed away in favor of warm kisses and touches that wandered past cloth—hot breath and lips that trailed over heated skin. Charlotte shivered as her shirt rode up just enough to expose that sliver of skin at her waist that Damian's questing fingers trailed over.
"Mm…so much for practice tonight, then…" Damian breathed, as Charlotte leaned into Damian's hand on the small of her back. They usually didn't let hormones get the better of them in light of all the other things they had to do, but Charlotte wasn't one to turn this down.
"Please stop talking…" Charlotte admonished softly. "You're ruining the mood…"
"I'm just saying…" Damian. "You're the one who's worried about the pairs… and Pentland and Gregor did say to prepare for anything…"
"Mm…we're prepared, I think…" Charlotte leaned so far back that she fell against the couch pillows, Damian following her down. Damian pressed down on Charlotte, one hand cradling the girl's head as they kissed deeply. Just as thought began to eke away, overpowered by touch and heat—
—a soft chirp echoed above their heads.
Both teenagers froze.
The chirp repeated itself.
Charlotte raised her wide eyes over Damian's shoulder to see that on the back of the sofa, at the highest point of its shallow arch, stood a little yellow bird.
"…oh my god."
"Tell me that's not…" Damian closed his eyes without moving or turning.
"He's close enough to hop onto your shoulder," Charlotte whispered, not taking her eyes off the curious little canary.
Damian cursed under his breath and made to move but Charlotte grabbed his arm. "Shh!" she hissed. "You'll scare him off."
"We can't catch him with our bare hands anyway…!" Damian hissed back. "How did he get in here?"
"Probably flew in when you let me in," Charlotte responded, hands itching to grab the little bird from where it was currently preening as though without a care in the world. Her eyes wandered around, looking for something they could probably use to catch her with, unlikely as it was, and saw that Damian's window was open.
"The window."
Damian glanced to it. "I forgot to close it before letting you in."
"He'll fly out."
"On the count of three—I'll close the window, you run to the door and call the others, just make sure he doesn't get out. At least we've got him trapped in my room."
The bird just chirped.
The two locked eyes—and bolted in opposite directions off the couch. Caruso fluttered quickly upward, thus beginning what would be the biggest fruitless chase of the night, culminating in the near complete obliteration of Damian's dorm room.
A/N: Bailey Tipton has now been added to the character list on page 4!
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Hawthorne
Jul 7, 2014 11:52:29 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by HburgEagle44 on Jul 7, 2014 11:52:29 GMT -5
As always, it was perfect. I am a little worried about the pairs though...
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Post by tonilous on Jul 7, 2014 18:56:07 GMT -5
"All right, we heard that all of you have been getting concerned about how little we've focused on the fair," said Pentland as he walked before them the now empty Hall. The others had been dismissed. The only people who now remained were the four leads for the Fair performance, and the understudy pair, the twins.
"But I want you all to know that this is because this performance is basically routine for all of you. There isn't a whole lot of pressure on this the way Regionals and Parents' Night performances are and we wanted most of your focus on that. Aside from that, we are wholly confident in the abilities of the four leads…" Pentland nodded to Damian, Darren, Charlotte, and Grace, all of whom sat together. "And their seconds." He nodded to the Twins, who grinned brightly. They had placed just after the other four in the vote.
Gregor spoke from where she sat the piano, smiling at the four. "We've selected the pairs as well as a list of songs you all may choose from."
Charlotte glanced at Damian proudly. Charlotte had done nothing short of borderline haunting the female director and pelting her with hints about the songs that she and Damian had already been practicing. She had very little doubt that she and Damian would end up with the plum duet among the list. There was no way she was giving up that particular song—it worked too well with her and Damian and they'd practiced tirelessly.
Pentland nodded to the four and glanced at the sheet music. "Well then, as the first pair will be our two standard-bearing leads, the second pair will be our newcomers—"
"Wait." Charlotte stood rigid before she could stop herself. "What do you mean, the first pair are the two standard leads and the second are the newcomers?"
The Twins' mouths hung open in shock. Pentland pulled off his reading glasses and glanced at Charlotte, not sure how to take her reaction. "I don't think I can be clearer than I already was. The first two will be Damian and Darren. You and Grace will be the other pair."
Charlotte looked at Damian with wide eyes and Darren sat looking startled. Grace immediately looked distressed, wringing her hands as both Damian and Darren now looked at each other with piercing sidelong glances.
"It was the obvious choice," Pentland continued, wondering why he even had to explain this. "Darren and Damian have more experience so they should be able to work together better. Grace and Charlotte have shown that they are excellent together as well in their performance during Winter Fest and that incredibly unorthodox cheer performance that apparently happened over the football game…"
Charlotte sank back into her chair looking a little shaken. Grace looked at her, whispering, "Don't get me wrong—I'm thrilled to death that I'm not partnered with Darren, but this…" she glanced to where Damian and Darren looked rigid in their seats, clearly deep in serious thought. "…this is kind of bad."
"Bad?" Charlotte stared hard at her friend, the word hissing through clenched teeth. "Bad is that fall Beyoncé took down the steps during her concert. We are talking like Lady Gaga being ineligible for the Best New Artist award in the Grammys here." She turned to the two sitting next to her.
Damian was hardly ever one to protest Pentland and Gregor's judgment but he didn't move when Gregor held out the list of song selections that he and Darren were to choose from for their duet. Darren was the one who leaned forward and took it with a smile at Gregor, who gave them a look of confusion. Charlotte carefully took the sheet from Gregor, holding it between her fingertips as though she wasn't prepared to do so without safety gloves.
Gregor gave them a look over, and then glanced at Pentland. Pentland knew distress when he saw it, and he knew that this reaction should've been rather expected.
"I understand that you all might have been expecting something else," Pentland remarked, looking at them. "But we believe our selection of the pairs are sound." He turned a hard gaze at Darren and Damian. "And I understand that everyone in this room is perfectly aware of the problems you and Darren may have had in the past—" the room was virtually icy at this point, "—but part of being in the same team means pushing past that. If you and Damian can't work together in this, then you're not going to be able to work well together in the Pipers as you should be. Avoiding each other during performances might work for you, but you've got to meet head on in this one. Find a way to deal with it."
"And Darren, Charlotte," Gregor smiled apologetically. "I know you both can work together well, but since the Fair will be open to the public and we haven't finalized anything for Regionals, we want to keep you and Charlotte on reserve."
"Wait—" Damian looked up as Charlotte felt the color drain from her face. "What do you mean, Darren and Charlotte?"
"They've…never sung together before," Grace said with a short, nervous laugh.
The Twins looked immediately to Darren who, for once, looked a little taken off guard. Gregor smiled a little, not sure about what was going on, but said, "I've heard Darren and Charlotte sing before. I was trying to get Darren to do a little better—he didn't seem to be taking it so well after the holidays. I asked Charlotte to step in and help him with a duet and…" She threw up her hands a little with a short laugh. "They were quite a pair. They're not like when you sing with her, Damian, and they're not like when she sings with Grace. It's…interesting."
"How interesting?" the Twins asked with frozen smiles.
"I told them that they had a likelihood of performing together for Regionals," Gregor answered.
Grace sank her face into her hand. Damian looked at Charlotte, who was staring at the floor with intensity to set it on fire, rigid. Darren eyed her, then Damian's startled expression, and then turned to Gregor. "Be that as it may, they are not singing together this time. Damian and I are." He smiled that same composed smile that won parents and professors over left and right. "There shouldn't be a problem then, since Damian and I have sung together in the past."
Pentland knew Gregor far too well to fall for that grin. He had seen it once before, used in an occasion with him and Damian involved, but the third person wasn't Charlotte. And Pentland knew that he was being faced down by another powder keg. The question was whether or not they could even diffuse this enough to perform well at all, no matter who the pairs were.
He narrowed his eyes at the group. "…I'd like all pairs to prepare a demonstration by tomorrow."
All of them stared. "T-tomorrow?" Grace stared.
"Yes, tomorrow," Pentland gave them all a hard stare. "You have the songs, you all have time on your hands, and you know who you're singing with. Most of the songs on your list are ones already in our repertoire, so you can get any other members you would like as your backup. Tomorrow is more than enough time for a short demonstration. Just to see what you can do."
-8-
Jefferson was a disaster zone—debris of booths and banners and Fair necessities were scattered all over the dormitory. Students were running back and forth through the halls, carrying materials for booths and the sound of construction and work was everywhere.
Charlie worked tirelessly, overseeing everything. He looked down at his clipboard where all the students had listed their approved booths for the fair and looked over the progress.
"Look, Drew—are you sure this is right?" he asked the boy in the lab coat. "You can't actually be selling love potion."
"Technically it's a love serum," corrected the chemist, pulling up his goggles. "Pheromones and other substances that can produce mild euphoria combined in a single serum! It'll be effective, trust me. It'll be the hit of the fair."
"As long as it doesn't explode before you actually get this stuff out…" Charlie eyed the chemistry setup in the kitchen. "And keep them far far away from the food for the fair." He strode out of the kitchen just as there was a powerful whistling sound from within and he calmly ducked as the kitchen was rattled with an awe-inspiring boom.
"Okay…" Charlie scratched off that project on his list. "Let's see now…" He looked up at the entrance hall and groaned. "Guys, come on! Don't leave this stuff here!" He kicked some plywood boards on the floor, half painted. "Whose—" He saw that the letters spelled out, "Jail booth" and sighed. "Patrick! Diana!"
"It would be a whole lot easier to keep track of everything if Diana wasn't on the phone all the time!" Patrick yelled from the common room where he was building the jail bars. He gave his best friend a glare but Diana turned to him, pointed to her phone and mouthed, "Jordan."
Patrick sighed deeply and just nodded. "Yeah, all right…" and continued to hammer.
Charlie did a double take at Patrick's dejected expression. "…single for Valentines, Patrick?"
"First time in a couple of years, yeah."
"Better than having that harpy on your shoulder." Charlie grinned. "Or was it Banshee?"
"You're single for this year too, Chaz, please—we heard about you finally giving Leslie the axe after she screamed at your cousin," Patrick snorted and Charlie colored scarlet. "That girl's got some serious jealousy issues."
"A guy's got to put his foot down when a guy's got to put his foot down," Charlie sighed.
At this instant, the doors to Jefferson banged open and something far colder than the wind entered. Charlie looked up along with the others, and Noel frowned from where he was sitting on the stairs. Damian looked upset, Charlotte looked frustrated, Grace looked scared and the Twins were disapproving, arms over their chest. At this point, everyone could see that Charlotte had just wordlessly skipped her mandatory tutoring session at Adams, and that wasn't a good sign.
"You're back," Noel said in surprise as Damian passed him without a word or a greeting to anyone else in the house. Noel turned to Grace when Charlotte did the same. "How'd it go?"
"Awkward," Grace replied softly.
Noel blinked and glanced back to where Charlotte and Damian disappeared upstairs, both followed by the little yellow bird that had been observing from the rafters. "What did Darren do now?" Patrick demanded from downstairs, looking up.
"Shockingly, it wasn't just him…" Grace shrugged a little, worried. "Pentland and Gregor want Damian and Darren to sing together for Valentines."
It was a bad time to be doing anything whatsoever in that entrance hall. The students sprayed their drinks and dropped their tools and things. And all flashbacking to the events of yesteryear, the students exploded:
"WHAT?"
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Hawthorne
Jul 7, 2014 19:41:21 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by HburgEagle44 on Jul 7, 2014 19:41:21 GMT -5
Mhmm. Called it.
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Post by tonilous on Jul 8, 2014 2:21:01 GMT -5
"All right."
When Charlotte slammed the door, it almost made Damian jump. He hadn't expected her to follow. Charlotte was frowning. "You've been quiet all the way back, you wouldn't look at anyone. What is your problem?" She tore off her coat and dropped it and the satchel unceremoniously onto the floor.
Damian gave her a glance. "Nothing is wrong."
"Yes, obviously, since your brows have been so knitted together they might as well be a Gap scarf," Charlotte snapped. "Tell me what's wrong. You're not hiding anything from me—I know you well enough by now."
"Interesting considering that apparently there are still things about you I don't know…" Damian muttered under his breath.
Charlotte straightened up. "What did you say?" she demanded, eyes narrowing.
Damian exhaled as he took off his coat. "So now you're singing with him…?"
"Gregor asked me to," Charlotte said, frowning as she sat on Damian's bed. "I was there, Juliet was there, we heard him sing and she asked me to sing with him. I don't really see the big deal here, can you clarify?"
Damian just shook his head, fixing the music sheets on his desk. He glanced to the corkboard just once—very fleeting. "No. Nothing to clarify," he answered stiffly.
This was really starting to get to Charlotte's nerves. She licked her lips and tried to calm herself. "Look. No one else would've done it. He was all drugged up again. None of you like him—"
"For really good reasons, though?" Damian answered almost sarcastically.
"—and I just wanted to show him that someone was willing to tolerate him."
"You kind spend a lot of time with him as it is, seeing as how he's practically stalking you."
Charlotte looked scandalized and she felt heat rise in her chest. "I'm being tutored by him thanks to Murdoch and we don't even talk about that much else." She gestured towards Adams House in frustration. "We talk about school, about the Pipers, about how deeply stressed out everyone in Adams is and how hyper everyone in Jefferson is." She held herself cold for a minute. "…I…I sung with him in his room once." She quickly continued when Damian seemed to exhale and throw up his hands. "But just once! To practice for the duel, and it's never even come up again. I sang to you then—I didn't sing with him, even. Juliet did."
"So what else haven't you told me?" Damian said silently, not looking at her where his palms were pressed hard onto his study desk.
Charlotte stared at him, hardly able to believe that he was getting worked up about this. She sighed in frustration and said, "What is the problem here? I sang a practice duet with him. Did you think I spend my time in Adams flirting with him?"
"Well you don't deter him!" Damian suddenly snapped.
Charlotte flushed furiously, rising to her feet. White hot rage was funneling quickly through her. "What do you mean, I don't stop him?" she demanded, voice rising. "I tell him each time that I'm with you and that the situation is unlikely to change! He's the one who keeps pushing!"
"Singing duets with him encourages that pushing," Damian answered, turning to her. He looked agitated. "He thinks he has a chance and all this is just making it worse—!"
"You're saying I'm making it worse?" Charlotte exploded, striding up to him. "You're the one making a mountain out of this! I don't see him that way—all I want to do is keep him in his place, which is at arm's length from you and me!"
"How is this arm's length?" Damian asked, incredulous and matching her intense glare. "Tell me, Charlotte, because it looks like you and he are starting get a little too close for comfort! You want me to just sit here and watch that happen?"
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. As far as troubled waters went, she and Damian were about to have a storm. "So you think, that I'm running around behind your back, is that it?"
"No!" Damian answered, even though his face flushed as his own voice rose. "I'm saying, you should take it from someone with a lot more experience with handling that lunatic—he's trying to get into your head! He's luring you to him!"
Charlotte snarled. "Yes, Damian, because I'm a complete idiot and I would definitely fall for that one—I'm sorry, have you seen him? I may not know what he had been like when you were friends, but from my viewpoint, he's miserable, he's drugged, everyone in campus nearly hates him, and if trying to tell him that he's not alone is wrong—"
"It doesn't work that way when he's in love with you," Damian burst out, almost spelling it out for her. "You're not helping him, Charlotte—you're not! You're leading him on! You're letting him think that you may have some smidgen of feeling for him and he's out there just fanning the flame! The safe bet is to just stay away from him and let him work it out by himself! If you want to help him, he's got to be weaned away from you!"
"And by himself, he's falling apart!" Charlotte yelled back. She groaned, exasperated, throwing up her hands. "This isn't even about him, is it? It's you! You don't trust me! You're practically telling me that I am cheating on you! All this being 'too close for comfort'? It looks like your comfort levels are a little sensitive!"
"And they have a right to be!" Damian shot back. "I've seen this all happen once, I don't want it to happen again! And especially not with him! You could've at least told me this was all going on—I didn't want to listen and to stand there and find out through Gregor that my former best friend and my girlfriend are serenading each other when I'm not looking! And I would've thought you'd take some of my feelings into consideration before running off with him!"
"I am not running off with him!" Charlotte screamed. "Why can't you just understand that it's you that I'm in love with?"
Damian stared.
Charlotte didn't know when the tears happened. But they were hot and angry and they ran down her cheeks once and never flowed again. There was too much rage and frustration to cry. She didn't want to even look at Damian anymore. She was going to throw something at him in the next instant and she was going to end up making sure that it would be something that would leave a bruise. Or maybe a concussion that would wake him up to the fact that Charlotte was fighting to keep Darren away from Damian and their relationship. That in everything Charlotte had done, she had let Darren know with repeated confirmation that Charlotte and Damian were together and nothing Darren said would change that. And that the only way Darren would ever accept it is if he stopped being so angry—if he had someone who didn't look at him like he was a total monster.
Damian didn't know what to say when she saw the tears. Everything inside him felt cold, angry and betrayed. He told Charlotte what happened with Darren himself. He couldn't understand why Charlotte couldn't just stay away from him or why she had to keep treading that line between them—why she had to hide it; why would she hide it if she wasn't guilty? He couldn't understand why Charlotte wouldn't listen—why she couldn't just be with him and ignore Darren and his advances. It was all too much, it reminded him too much of before—as though each bruise was still there—and he wasn't prepared to lose her and not to Darren. Not after everything.
But Charlotte was crying. And Damian was angry.
And both their words had hit home.
Charlotte shook her head, biting her lip so hard she tasted the coppery tang of blood. She turned from Damian and snatched up her scarf and satchel with a breathless choke.
"Charl—" the name was out of Damian's lips before he could stop himself.
It didn't matter—it went unheard. The screaming in Charlotte's head was pushing out the rest of the audible world. With a breath broken with a sob, she strode to the door.
"Charlotte!" the second time was intentional, but Damian didn't—couldn't—move.
Charlotte gave him one last look—it lasted barely half a second. That green-eyed disbelief and disappointment that Damian never wanted to see. And then she slammed the door shut and was gone.
When Charlotte turned around in the hall, she had a hand pressed to her mouth, furiously trying to hold back the next sob. But when she raised her eyes, she saw several pairs staring back at her.
The hall was full of staring eyes. The Twins stood right outside the door, with Noel, Patrick, and Diana. Charlie was at one side, and the rest of the Jeffersons in the hall were staring out of their doors, with Grace at the door of the room they shared. When the students saw her look up at them, most of them fled. But the conspirators remained.
"Please tell me you didn't hear that…" Charlotte whispered hoarsely.
"Hard not to," Patrick said somberly.
Diana nodded slowly. "…you two were pretty loud in there."
"Worst domestic fight we've seen since Tabitha's visits," Noel said without batting an eye and without a real tone.
Charlotte just shook her head, furiously scrubbed the tear tracks on her face, pushed past the worried Tweedles and to her room across the hall. Grace sprang to life and followed after her, giving the others a look that assured them she would cover this end.
As soon as the door closed, Patrick and Diana burst into Damian's room with hard expressions and slammed it shut before Noel and the Tweedles could follow.
"What was that?" Diana demanded as soon as she was inside.
"I think you heard…" Damian mumbled in a remarkably soft voice from where he sat at the edge of his bed, with his face in his hands.
"Yeah, we did, but I think we needed someone to translate it from idiot to English for us," Patrick snapped. "What were you yelling at each other for like that?"
"We just…got worked up." Damian said emptily, staring at the floor.
"Worked up doesn't mean opera-level decibels." Diana crossed her arms. "Now you mind telling us what the deal here is? Because this isn't like…you." She gestured over him. "You don't let it get to you, or not like this at least."
"It got me good this time…" Damian sighed. He glanced to the door where Charlotte had fled his room. "Really good."
What did it take to get Charlotte to understand that Darren isn't just a complication—he's an entire condition on his own? They were barely weeks into the relationship and he's already winning if he's got them fighting this way. And he would've thought that after everything she heard, everything she was told, and after having to deal with the violence back at Huntington, she would save herself and Damian the grief of having to deal with Darren that way.
"Do you have a particular reason here, Damian?"
He looked up at Diana, startled. "What?"
"No, I just want to know," Diana said emphatically as she frowned. "If you have a reason to suspect that Charlotte might actually have a thing for Darren and is encouraging him behind your back—"
"And that's aside from practice duets, because seriously, Diana and I do that half the time and you don't see Jordan screaming at me," Patrick glowered.
"You're not interested in Diana that way, Patrick," Damian muttered with great patience.
"How do you know?" Diana cracked a grin as she put an arm around her friend. "If I hadn't been exposed to his weirdness so early into high school, Patrick would be my first choice—as it is, we'd probably grow old together."
"See?" Patrick grinned, matching the gesture.
Damian wasn't laughing. He couldn't. He just sighed deeply and shook his head as he got up and went back to his desk and pushed away his schoolwork, trying to clean up. The fight got into his clothes, his skin, and nothing felt right.
He pushed the papers around a bit before suddenly turning to them and saying, "I was right, wasn't I?"
The two looked at each other. Damian continued. "This is leading Darren on, isn't it? Singing love songs with him, hanging around with him… And Charlotte didn't even tell me and that—why would she feel the need to do that if there wasn't anything to feel guilty about?"
"Maybe because this would be your reaction?" Patrick supplied, raising an eyebrow.
When Damian sighed and leaned back on his desk, Diana walked up to him. "Look… we're not saying it wasn't a bad idea for Charlotte to be humoring Darren this way. Darren Wright is the last person you want to show a hint of weakness to."
"What we're just saying is…that maybe Charlotte did do it with pure intentions." Patrick shrugged a little, flopping down onto Damian's bed. "I mean yeah…really stupid idea, but… Charlotte just doesn't strike me as the type to lead a guy on just so she could feel good about having two on a leash."
"Does she strike you as that?" Diana asked Damian with a quiet expression.
Damian didn't respond. He stared at the floor. At this expression, Patrick finally nodded. "Ah… I get it." He got up. "This is about her, isn't it? This is about—"
"Yes, that." Damian glared at him. "She didn't strike me as one either."
"You have to stop comparing her to Charlotte, Damian," Diana finally said, sounding a little impatient. "You have to stop, man, because she isn't Charlotte and Charlotte isn't her. Are you still holding a torch here?"
"What—no!" Damian stared at her as though insulted by the mere mention, genuinely scandalized. "I'm in love with Charlotte, all right—I wouldn't be this worked up if I wasn't." He flung himself into his bed, facedown. "Could the two of you just…go, for a minute? I have to…think."
Diana and Patrick looked at each other at this and Patrick shook his head. "Fine, well… Then you have to stop seeing everything as a replay of last year."
"It would help if Darren made it stop being that way," Damian retorted, staring at the wall.
"Hm…well…true," Diana shrugged. She sighed and headed for the door. "We'll let you work this out with Charl."
"Yes, because the last person in question wasn't really the fighting type," Patrick said thoughtfully. "Charlotte, on the other hand, seems to have claws. It'll be good for you both!" He smirked a little and closed the door.
Damian groaned and pulled the pillow over his head, ruining the hold of the gel. It was going to be a long night.
-8-
"Charlotte…?" Grace sat carefully at the edge of the bed. It was half an hour after the initial blast from Damian's room and Grace had patiently waited for the incoherent and frankly ominous grumbles of wrath from Charlotte's side of the room to die down. Now there was just silence, and underneath what had to be three comforters lay Charlotte. Grace patted the lump gently, but it cringed away. "Charl?"
"Go away."
Grace sighed deeply. Here we go. "Charl…please talk to me? I mean if there's anyone in here in Jefferson you can talk to—"
"You'll take his side. Everyone takes his side. Everyone will take his side."
To which Grace said patiently, "While that's not true…does that mean you are the one who did something wrong…?"
"No!" Charlotte immediately sat up and Grace's expression fell at the sight of her. Her face was flushed, her eyes were red—it was the image of someone who had cried, but she looked furious. The angriest cry Grace had ever seen. "Oh Charl…"
"I didn't do anything wrong, Grace," she declared, sounding mildly stuffed up. "How could he accuse me of that? I bat away every advance, I start sounding like a broken record telling Darren that I'm dating Damian—I even avoid touching Darren like he's got the bubonic plague! And that's impressive considering that Gregor once made us sit in the same piano stool when we first sang that stupid duet!"
And she flung herself under the covers again. Grace considered her for a moment and leaned against her, not really caring if she was leaning on Charlotte's back or elbows. "Was it really that stupid? At the time, I mean?"
A fidget. Grace had to strain to make out the words. "…not really. I mean… he wanted me to leave, you know. It was on his face, he wanted me to go away."
"But…you didn't."
The mass under the covers sighed in true dramatic form. "…I wish you could've heard him sing then. He was gone. That wasn't singing. He sounded like he didn't care anymore. Like there was no point. Then maybe you'd get why I had to try and bring him back a little."
"So…you did it to help him."
Charlotte poked out her head from the covers. "Yes."
"Does it work? You helping him?"
"Have you seen him at practice? Even the Adams are surprised that he's acting almost happy these days."
There was a momentary pause, and Grace laughed suddenly, as though she couldn't help herself. Charlotte sat up and frowned at her. "And what is so funny?"
"Nothing!" Grace said with innocent brown eyes.
Charlotte's expression darkened. "I swear, if I hear someone tell me that when there's actually something one more time—"
"Charlotte…" Grace laughed, smiling at her pushing her shoulder. "Come on. You don't see it? You seriously don't?"
"See what?"
"Charlotte—Darren must've told you a million times that he's head over heels for you," Grace said, rolling her eyes. "He's happier now because come on—who wouldn't be happy if you had the person you like spending so much time with you, singing songs with you? Remember last week when I started dancing like a moron around this room because of Shane…?" Grace sighed with a silly grin.
"Yes, I chucked a pillow at your head," Charlotte narrowed her eyes. "You were that bad."
"Maybe Darren's a little more restrained, but he's probably that bad too," Grace grinned and laughed. "You can't tell me you don't see that. That is an insult to your intelligence and your supposedly incredible sixth sense." She made herself comfortable where she leaned against Charlotte. "I find it both unsettling and cute that he could get so mushy."
Charlotte said nothing. She was clenching her knuckles on the bed. Of course Darren was happy because she was with him. Sure, anyone could talk to him. Derek had been trying that for years, and with Juliet around, that was two people. But what really must've made Darren happy was the fact that Charlotte tolerated his presence. That she was with him.
You're not helping him, Charlotte—you're not! You're leading him on!
There was a cold grip over her chest, swept over by hot anger. Maybe she had been. Maybe she had given Darren a false hope. Or did she? Did it count when you make it a point to not even touch him or bring up your boyfriend at nearly every occasion? What was so wrong in helping someone? For once she was thinking about someone else—someone who could potentially break himself to bits, and Saint Damian rescuer of the screwed up and tormented doesn't think it's a good idea? Some double standard he's got!
…all right, I didn't mean that. And yes, maybe that said "someone else" was Darren Wright, his ex best friend and…currently his rival for my…attention. But he has all of my attention and why can't he just trust that?
The nagging thought that persisted at her was why she didn't feel like she could just tell Damian this herself. Maybe because there was nothing to say? Or did Damian really deserve to know what was going on?
…was Charlotte leading Darren on? Really? And that look on Damian's face. Charlotte had seen it before—that hurt expression Alex has when he got betrayed. Only she had never ever imagined she would be the one cause that on Damian.
She swallowed hard and threw herself back under the covers.
"Charl?" Grace asked, concerned. "Charlotte—"
"Please go away, Grace." Her voice was soft. "I want to be alone."
Grace stared at her for a few moments, and it was clear that she was being dismissed. She patted the covers and then sighed. "…all right." She got up and headed for her own bed. "Do you, um…want any dinner?"
"…no."
Grace let it go. But only verbally. She took out her phone and sent out and SOS that flew to Huntington, to the Seymour's home. Natasha had her headphones on as she sang along to some Destiny's Child, but the phone next to her did not go unnoticed. She grooved to the music and scooped up her phone.
"Ooh!" she smiled as she saw Grace's name. Charlotte's little fashionable friend at Hawthorne. Maybe she was calling to have another shopping—
Natasha stopped as she read the message. She stared. Then she ripped her headphones off, lips pressed into a grim line. "Oh heck no."
-8-
Damian stood outside his dorm room the next morning, not quite sure what he was doing there. He had been dressed and ready for what felt like ages, with his coat on and his scarf, but he hadn't moved. He stood in the hall, staring at the floor, wondering why he was even there.
The door across the hall made a sound and he looked up. Grace was closing the door, wearing her thick mink, and the small girl did a double take when she saw Damian. "Oh. Hi, Damian."
"Hey…" Damian shifted a little. He paused for a moment, not really knowing what to say.
Fortunately, he didn't have to. Grace looked apologetic. "Sorry, but Charlotte left early this morning. She went ahead." She laughed a little. "I asked her if there was a fire, or something, she totally ran off."
"No, that's…" Damian coughed and cleared his throat as he picked up his bag. "That's…understandable. I wasn't…actually waiting." He immediately fled the hall, leaving Grace standing perplexed.
Patrick and Diana looked up when Damian practically came running down the stairs, a set expression of fortitude on his face. "Let's go!" Damian said as he passed by them with the worst show of cheer they had ever seen. He all but jogged past them and out the doors.
"This is ridiculous," Patrick grumbled as he followed.
"On the upside, there's clear effort to overcome," Diana responded.
"I'd like them to overcome right now!" Patrick protested. "Before we get dragged into another mess!"
"Patience is a virtue…" Diana responded as she pulled him out the door. "Chaz, we're going!"
"I'm not your mother—just get out of here!" Charlie yelled back from the kitchen.
"Such a warm hospitable environment…" Noel said with a grimace as he sat down at the kitchen. It was hard to find utensils now that Drew's lab equipment was there. Noel must've picked up four different lab tools before he found an actual spoon. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to make sense out of all the things for the fair," Charlie answered. His hair was a mess, he was staring down at papers. "Felix and I are up to ears in the prep. Setup's already starting on the grounds and I would like you to not sprinkle salt and holy water all around before construction—as far as you're concerned, Hawthorne grounds are officially purified and there is nothing more you can contribute to it."
"Uh huh…" Noel rolled his eyes. "Right, I've seen more than enough incidents in this school to know that isn't true."
Grace came in presently looking tired. "Hey," Charlie nodded to her. "Seen the Tweedles around? I'm worried they're setting things on fire. Since Noel's here, they must be wreaking havoc elsewhere."
"Maybe they went after Charlotte," Grace answered, standing on her toes to reach a high shelf. Noel got up and took it down for her, being taller.
"Yes, because that'll help tide things over," Noel snorted. "You did hear the two of them, didn't you?"
"Loud and clear," Charlie grumbled into his own cornflakes. "It's going to take every ounce of self control not to throttle Darren later at the Prefects' meeting."
"It's not entirely his fault," Grace murmured, looking worried.
"It's always his fault," Charlie glared.
"I'm going," Noel remarked as he headed out the kitchen. "I've got to go carry out a hunting plan of a different kind. If I run into Damian, Charlotte, or Darren, I'll do my best to get this straightened out. I've dealt with demons, after all." He grinned as he 'holstered' his Holy Water sprayer and ran out.
"Well good, because everywhere else is empty, all of them are in this school!" Charlie yelled back.
-8-
"You can't avoid us," Logan said cheerfully, haunting Charlotte's right shoulder as the Twins chased her down the hall. It was incredible, the distance she'd managed to keep away from most of the other Jeffersons in the duration of the school day. Thankfully, the entire school would have the afternoon off. The Fair was approaching, and they were given time to begin construction. The school grounds were already littered with festivity prep.
There was so much Valentines in the air that Charlotte wanted to hurl. Especially when she remembered that she was most likely going to end up spending it alone.
"You're going to have to listen to us!" Lucas happily said, grinning from Charlotte's left shoulder.
Charlotte raised her eyes from her History book with great patience. "And what exactly do you think I can do for you?"
"We need you to make cookies for the fair!" Lucas said happily.
"Cookies…?" Charlotte stared at them incredulously.
"They'll be really popular!" Logan assured her.
"I'm excused from any and all fair work," Charlotte said emphatically. "And all things considered, I think I need the time?"
"Please, Alice?" Lucas begged. "Make the cookies! They'll be a hit! And lots and lots of talking flowers will come from all over the place to try them!"
"My cookies are normal, thank you very much—only you crazies ever seem to think they're not," Charlotte rolled her eyes as she hitched up her bag strap.
"Excellent!" Lucas grinned.
"Settled!" Logan answered happily.
"See you at Pipers in a bit!" the Twins happily departed, content. Charlotte watched them go and rolled her eyes, until she realized what they said.
Pipers meeting.
She may have dodged everyone else that morning, but before they all let out for Fair preparations, she would have to go to Pipers' practice. And there would be no escaping anyone then—and then she would still have to watch Damian and Darren perform what will have to be the most painful duet in Piper history.
"Hello, Summers."
She nearly jumped a foot into the air. Juliet was leaning by the lockers set for the day students, smiling at her. Charlotte wondered why Juliet's smile in school looked so out of context. Sure, on TV and the posters, her smile was signature and she was Helena, the dazzlingly beautiful musician who seduces the eldest son (and…all the rest of the sons in succession) of the show's central family, but to see her smile like that in school was unsettling.
"Why are you following me?" Charlotte asked, narrowing her eyes at her. "Shouldn't you be sniping at Darren with Derek?"
"Derek's with Darren right now, but I wanted to get you alone and ask you a couple of things." Juliet walked up to her. "I heard there was quite the fight in Jefferson House yesterday after you skipped your tutoring session."
Charlotte groaned, exasperated. "Have any of you been told that you gossip too much?"
"Rumors travel fast, no matter what kind of a school you're in," Juliet said with another catty smile. "Murdoch's not going to be pleased to hear that you cut on your sentence to battle with your boyfriend—who he can't stand, by the way."
"Yeah, I noticed."
"Mainly it's because he can't stand that the two of you are being so lovey-dovey all out and about ever since you set foot into Hawthorne."
Charlotte stopped walking. She turned. "What?"
"You heard me." Juliet straightened up. She walked up to her. "Murdoch's fine with people, whatever—as long as they don't parade. Darren is an example of the kind of person he does like. The one who you wouldn't realize things about until you heard about it from someone else."
"Darren is probably the most notorious person in this whole campus." Charlotte stated bluntly. "And the way he looks at people—"
"—is completely fake unless he's interested." Juliet finished with a smile. "I've known him three years more than you do, Summers, I know what he's like."
"So what are you going to do…tell on me?" Charlotte rolled her eyes.
"Not really…" Juliet sighed, walking with her. Charlotte noticed that Juliet wasn't wearing her blazer, and her shirt sleeves were rolled up. She was the picture of the casual air. She didn't care about how she looked—or anyone or anything, from her appearance and saunter. "He'll blow up on you, Murdoch I mean. And he'll punish you. And he'll tear you away from your little crazy land and plop you into Adams."
Juliet stepped in front of her and smiled. "And I don't want that to happen."
Charlotte narrowed her eyes at her, and then nodded. "Ah. You don't like me."
"I don't loathe you." Juliet smiled. "You're all right. You seem to make Adams relatively hazard-free by diffusing our tempestuous prefect. But I don't want you in our House."
"I'm not even going to ask—because I have no intention of being in your house…" Charlotte rushed by. "You can tell your prefect I'm not coming in for tutoring. I'm done."
"He won't be happy…" Juliet answered casually, turning on her heel.
"Neither am I right now." Charlotte walked off, leaving Juliet. It occurred to her that this encounter with Juliet was completely unprompted, and she turned around to say as much only to find that the smiling Adams student had vanished into thin air. The hall was empty. Only a little spooked, Charlotte turned around—
—and Noel materialized, nearly giving her a heart-attack. "Hey Charlotte!" he said, looking breathless and as rumpled as usual.
Charlotte, clutching her chest, glared at him. "What is it, Ambush-Charlotte-Day?"
"I need one of your scarves," Noel said immediately, seemingly unperturbed.
"What?"
"Scarf. Now. Please?"
Charlotte gave him an incredulous stare even as she took her Hermes scarf from inside her satchel. "All right, I don't even think I want to know…"
"Thank you, I assure you, this is meant for the betterment of Jefferson."
Noel sounded so disturbingly sure that Charlotte narrowed her eyes as she handed it over. "You better not be up to anything too crazy or Charlie's not going to be pleased. I expect to get this back in perfect condition."
"What? Why? You have like five—I know, I gave them to you for Christmas."
"Noel!"
"All right…fine…" Noel gingerly took the scarf with two fingers and slipped it into a plastic bag that he carefully put away in his bag.
Charlotte looked at him doubtfully. "What are you this time, a CSI?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Please. I'm a hunter, Charl. This is just what I needed. See you back at Jefferson and hopefully my experiment bears fruit."
"And as long as I get that scarf back, Noel Montgomery, you won't need forensics to identify your body." Charlotte gave him a forced smile.
The sophomore gave her a calculating look, as though trying to find out if she was serious or not. Charlotte sighed and shook her head. "Go—go on, get out of here, I have to go to Pipers…" she pushed the young boy off down the hall and Noel hurried off.
Charlotte headed to Pipers' Hall and wasn't very far from her destination when she heard a strange sound. It was someone retching and coughing. Puzzled, she went to the direction of the arches that looked out to the grounds—where she had first been singing to Huntington during her audition day. Why was someone there?
She peered out of the arches and listened. The sound was coming a tall bush near the wall. She went around to it and was startled. "Ms. Gregor?"
Arabele Gregor looked up at her, wiping her mouth and looking startled for a moment, turning white. "Oh Charlotte…" she breathed, wringing her handkerchief. "You…you gave me a fright there."
"Are you okay?" she asked, a little worried. "Do you need to go to the clinic or something?"
"Oh, no…" Gregor shook her head, smiling at her. She still looked nauseated. "It must be the food from the fair I sampled… some students were asking if it was okay to sell them for the fair…had some of them and…"
"They weren't from Drew Mapleton and Satoru Kogo, were they?" Charlotte asked suspiciously. She did hear about them threatening to put their "serum" in food, and all of a sudden she had a bad feeling about the Twins suddenly asking her to make cookies for the fair.
Gregor laughed. "I don't think so…" But she was still wobbly and Charlotte held her elbow. "Are you sure you don't want to go to the nurse?" she asked.
"Don't be silly, Charlotte…" the Pipers' "mother" smiled. She stood steady on her own and headed for the hall. "I'm fine. Besides, practice is in a few minutes and Damian and Darren will be singing together. And you don't want to miss that, do you?" she beamed and went ahead as Charlotte stopped short at her words.
Yeah… she grimaced as she followed her. Who would want to miss that…?
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Hawthorne
Jul 8, 2014 2:34:37 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by HburgEagle44 on Jul 8, 2014 2:34:37 GMT -5
Oh my gosh what an update. What a mess!!!
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Post by tonilous on Jul 8, 2014 3:43:10 GMT -5
The tension in the room was palpable and Pipers' Hall felt like a powder keg. Pentland and Gregor couldn't have possibly predicted this level of tension. Everyone in the Hall stared so hard at the performers that it was almost laughable. How Darren and Damian even managed to set the matter up was incomprehensible. News went around that they had met early that morning, but they had not done any practice. The other members suspected they didn't need to—they had worked together long enough.
But as Darren and Damian stood across each other in front of the ones not chosen to sing with them, it had to be confessed that no one could possibly imagine what they planned to do. They were looking at each other not angrily, compared to what people expected. In fact they almost seemed to find the situation bitterly amusing. They had an intense glare at each other that had yet to be broken since they were called out front.
They looked like they did preparatory to fencing. With intention to draw blood.
All in good humor, of course.
Gregor laughed nervously. "Everyone, relax."
Grace gave her an incredulous look. Both directors were perfectly aware of what was going on and thus the "relax" was ineffective. Pentland remained rigid, standing by his reasons, glowering at the two.
"Don't keep us waiting," he prompted.
"I can't watch," Grace hissed, ducking nearly into Charlotte's arm. Charlotte sat, hands clutching on music sheets, white knuckled, unable to tear her eyes away.
"It's going to be a train wreck," Patrick stared.
"Of epic proportions," Diana hissed.
The Tweedles, who were among those supposed to back the pair up, looked at them and just looked at each other at the corner of their eyes. They knew what was going to happen, but they probably weren't sure how to take it.
"Don't make me say it again, boys," Pentland remarked, raising an eyebrow.
Damian, who had not broken the glare that he and Darren had been sharing all this time, glanced at Pentland and then turned to Darren with a smirk. "Fine."
"Good." Darren nodded, matching his gaze.
"What song did they pick?" Charlotte whispered to Grace. "I have no idea…" Grace stared.
"Boys." Pentland prompted.
The music started as the other singers began to sing backup. Charlotte, who knew both song lists by heart, heard the first movement of music and immediately identified the song's beat. She stared agape at the pair in front of her and sank back in horror. Grace took longer on the uptake and didn't realize until Damian began to sing, smirking at Darren:
Well you're a real tough cookie with a long history
Of breaking little hearts, like the one in me…
That's okay—let's see how you do it—
Put up your dukes—let's get down to it—
"Oh my god…" Charlotte couldn't tear her eyes away. It was like an accident in the middle of the road. It was watching someone leap off a high dive. It was…
Horrified didn't cover the expression on Patrick's face and Diana looked like she got hit with a lacrosse stick across the face. Sure they were performing well, but the sight of the two of them moving to this music and singing it to each other…
Damian pointed at Darren, walking almost right up to him.
Hit me with your best shot!
Why don't you hit me with your best shot!
Hit me with your best shot!
Fire away!
As Damian swept away from him, Darren took up the thread looking pissed off but not backing down. He walked to him and circled him like a hawk.
You come on with your come-ons, you don't fight fair
That's O.K., see if I care!
Knock me down, it's all in vain
I'll get right back on my feet again!
Hit me with your best shot!
The two of them were all but bearing down at each other, their smiles painfully forced and it looked as though they were just looking for which bone to start breaking. Gregor stared at them in pure shock and inability to react while Pentland continued to stare stonily.
Charlotte sank into her seat, peering at the performance through her fingers. Grace wasn't even looking, she couldn't bear to while Patrick and Diana sat, open mouthed and transfixed, the rest of the Pipers looking completely dumbstruck.
The Twins, at least, watching Damian and Darren circling each other and singing to each other with so much thinly-veiled contempt, were enjoying themselves immensely.
Hit me with your best shot!
Why don't you hit me with your best shot!
Hit me with your best shot!
Fire away!
Charlotte was convinced this wasn't happening and she was hallucinating. This couldn't seriously be happening. It was like a dream sequence that you were desperately trying to wake up from and you find yourself just completely lost into it. Yes, they both sounded amazing and they both were very good…but there was something about it—perhaps the expressions and the way that they looked at each other with that challenging glint that said nothing but danger. She had not felt so bad about a single performance since Alex and Natasha's disastrous duet.
When the song ended, there was dead silence in Pipers' Hall. No applause, no reaction—save for wide-eyed shock—and no noise, save for the breathless pair in front.
Charlotte and Grace glanced at each other as Patrick and Diana leaned back, looking as though they were bracing themselves for impact. Darren narrowed his eyes at Damian, who returned it.
Pentland looked furious. He was going to explode and everyone could tell that it spelled the death knell for the two performers in front. He rose to his feet with a malevolent air that Charlotte was sure that somewhere, Noel must be going ballistic.
"And what was that?" demanded the male director.
Damian and Darren looked at him and then dropped their eyes a moment before glaring at each other again. Pentland snapped his fingers loudly—it sounded like an executioner's signal. "I asked a question!"
"I kind of think we did all right," Darren said in a show of defiance as he glanced to the director with hazel eyes blazing. "We put our own spin on it."
Damian said nothing, but Pentland's expression darkened. "You think this is a joke? I said we weren't putting pressure on you for this performance, but that doesn't mean you use this hall as your personal battleground! Now I don't know what's with the both of you now, but I think it's about time you fixed this as it's been a year since the two of you last had serious altercations and—"
"A year?" snorted one boy from Adams. "Try a few weeks, Mr. Pentland!"
"Did you hear me address you, Jason?" Pentland glared and the boy silenced. Bailey elbowed him and frowned.
Pentland turned to Darren and Damian. "Be that as it may, the purpose of this pair was to make what could otherwise be an 'easy' performance into a way to make the both of you grow, but it appears that you both have actually regressed!"
Gregor, seeing danger signs, leapt to her feet quickly and clapped her hands. "All right then, everyone!" she said, voice shaky. "That's quite enough excitement for one morning."
"Arabele—" Pentland began, but she put her hand up and gave him a meaningful stare. He didn't look happy, but he conceded, gesturing to her.
She looked at Damian and Darren with an anxious smile then at the rest of the Pipers. "How about we, um…we stop for lunch and we'll…have Charlotte and Grace's practice later on? So…let's go! Up, everyone up, have your lunch…!"
The Pipers murmured as they got up, looking rather unsettled. The Tweedles came up to Damian and pulled him away from Darren. He shrugged them off lightly and went to join Patrick and Diana. Darren glared at him and shook his head as he strode to the other Adams.
"I don't know what is the matter with those two, they used to be able to tell between performances and personal matters…" Charlotte heard Pentland mutter to Gregor as the Pipers filed out. Immediately, Charlotte felt the need to tell them what was going on—to change the pairs and save everyone grief.
Before she could go to them, however, cell phones of the Jeffersons went off.
The moment you can, get to Jefferson. Emergency meeting. - Charlie
-8-
"I will never…ever…be able to hear that song the same way ever again," Charlotte muttered, still in shock, in the common room later on, staring down at her phone where she just received a message from Natasha.
When is that fair you said you guys were having? –N
She frowned, answering her with the date, as Grace sitting next to her said, "I don't know what they were trying to do, but I thought Mr. Pentland was ready to throttle them both."
Bunch of us are going. Meet us there. No questions. –N
Charlotte frowned, confused at this sudden interest. Natasha, she could imagine going, but weren't the pairs of Huntington spending Valentines in school?
"If Gregor hadn't stopped the session when she did, it looked like either Pentland was going to kill them or they would've jumped each other," Lucas remarked, blinking.
"It'd been a while since Pentland chewed anyone out, that might've been fun to see…" Logan blinked as well, nodding. Grace frowned at them both.
Charlotte elbowed her. "Heard from Shane yet?"
"No…" Grace sighed. "I sent him a message, but he didn't answer. Maybe he lost his phone?"
Charlotte frowned. "What? But Damian was talking to him just the day befo—" She stopped when she saw the wide-eyed expression on Grace's face. "Nothing. Forget I said anything."
"Wait—he talked to you guys?" Grace turned to her, grabbing her sleeve. "He was on the phone?"
Charlotte glanced at her, not quite sure what to say. "Damian was talking to him before we had that fight, and he seemed his usual self…so I figured he would've called you by now."
Grace let go of her sleeve and sat back, staring at her hands. Why is he avoiding me…? Did he…change his mind or something? Was it because it was too weird?Grace swallowed. Did he…decide to go for someone less…complicated?
"I can sense distress in your head and whatever you're thinking, it's wrong," Charlotte warned, but Grace just brushed her off. Charlotte sighed. Valentines was her least favorite occasion for a reason and it was setting in adamantine firmness.
"Why is this meeting being called…?" asked the speaker in the common room where the Jeffersons were slowly gathering. Han did not sound pleased. "Charlie, get on with it—I'm missing the Speed Gamers' Castlevania marathon."
"We're not going to start until all of you crackpots get in here," Charlie retorted from where he stood by the fireplace, arms crossed. "We're having a House meeting and it includes you. Don't make me cut off the internet."
"Like that stops me…"
"I will take an axe to your servers, Han, and you know I'll do it too."
A pause. "…yes, sir, then."
Noel had just finished lining the doorways and windowpanes with salt—much to Charlie's chagrin, but if it kept the "hunter" in the room for the meeting, he was willing to take it—when the triad of Damian, Diana, and Patrick finally arrived. Patrick looked rumpled from all the work in the fair, Diana less so, and Damian remained immaculate as usual.
Charlotte saw them come in and immediately averted her eyes, sitting a little closer to Grace on the couch and pretending not to notice. The Twins immediately leapt onto the couch as well, possibly hoping to avoid any more friction. There was more than enough friction in Pipers' Hall.
Charlie marked all this but said nothing as Damian sat on the other end of the couch, Patrick sitting on the arm of that end and Diana leaning on the back. Damian glanced briefly to Charlotte, who didn't turn her eyes to him the way she hadn't all day. Damian said nothing and turned to Charlie as the last few stragglers came into the Jefferson common room right after them. "What's this meeting about?"
"I wanted to talk to all of you about the fair," Charlie said, looking over the assembled students in various stages of mess considering the classes and the fair preparations. "As you remember, every year, for the fair, we open Hawthorne's gates and it becomes open to the public so they can enjoy themselves. Along with normal people, we'll have alums and other people coming over so as much as possible, can we try to hold down the crazy? I know that this is technically a contest—"
"Contest?" Charlotte asked.
"Jefferson, Adams, and Washington will present how much money they made for the fair with their booths," Charlie answered. "Whichever house makes the most money will receive extra credit in grades and extra curfew hours two weeks following."
"How's the standing?" Charlotte raised an eyebrow.
"Surprisingly, Washington's booths tend to be the most popular," Logan commented with a smile. "But we'll be challenging that with our Hall of Mirrors."
"We have a booth every year," Lucas grinned. "And this time we're pulling out all the stops."
"I don't know, I heard Felix and Spencer were calling in some heavy parental contributions and setting up a small rollercoaster in the football field," grinned Patrick.
A few of the students cursed.
"Well anyway…" Charlie raised his voice and looked at them. "I want everyone to work together, all right? So far, the year's been a little quiet and we haven't exactly have had the chance to show the rest of the Houses up. I mean come on, a Adams won Winter Fest."
"But Damian won the fencing meet," Noel shot back.
"And that's awesome, but it didn't win us anything except apparently house arrest for the people who started the big party." Charlie glowered as the people involved looked mildly embarrassed. "Anyway. So we'll be in front of a lot of people so while we can pretty much go crazy, let's not go too crazy. For some reason, Lowell said she was keeping a close eye on us."
He leaned back on the fireplace, arms crossed, a hulk of over six feet suspicious prefect-ness that pulled rank over the rest of Jefferson that now leveled his gaze at them. "Something about Mr. Terry seeing people waving a whole lot of nets and breaking things in here for the past week. And I noticed that the windows have been shut too. I know it's cold, guys, but people go running to close a window when it's open and this is getting ridiculous. Anything I should know about?"
Silence.
And then everyone started talking at the same time, all in various explanations.
Patrick glanced at him, wondering if it would be a good idea to tell him. And he might have too—but it seemed like the involved party, the notorious little bird, himself, decided to tell Charlie himself. Patrick, with wide eyes, watched as the canary fluttered down from the ceiling beams and landed on the mantelpiece—right over Charlie's head.
Diana thought her circulation was getting cut off by the way Patrick was suddenly gripping her wrist. "Patrick, what the…?" Patrick said nothing, shaking his head a little and nodding very slightly over Charlie's head. Diana looked at him incredulously before turning to where he motioned, and froze.
Apart from the incident in Damian's room, Caruso had never alighted so low before, except when he was purposely nearly swooping at people's faces as he flew out of rooms.Caruso looked interested at the goings on, especially at Charlie. Maybe he recognized his position of power in Jefferson house—or he just thought he was a really tall perch.
Whatever it was, whenever Charlie moved or made a gesture, he would flutter his wings as though making to fly away, but never quite getting totally spooked by the towering prefect. Damian swallowed as he saw the prize canary making his way closer to the prefect.
"Oh my gosh…" Grace whispered under her breath, staring.
"What…?" Charlotte asked as her friend tugged on her sleeve and pointed shakily. Charlotte looked up. "…oh."
Noel rose slowly from behind the sofa like a predator, holding a net and eyes trained intently upon the bird even as Charlie had now already begun to talk again and everyone was supposed to be paying attention to whatever it was he was saying.
"…so I want all of you to try—to attempt—to restrain yourselves for the fair, all right?" Charlie crossed his arms, glowering at the group in the common room, who frankly were occupied by a more pressing matter. "Because quite frankly—"
By now no one was looking at him. Patrick and Diana were staring over at the mantelpiece above his head with wide eyes and mouths open. The Tweedles were tensed, gaping, hands suggesting that they were about to pounce like cats. Grace's hands were frantically shaking as she stared, and Noel very, very carefully raised his net.
"Chaz…" said Patrick slowly as he slipped off the arm of the sofa, "…whatever you do…do not…move."
"What?" Charlie stared at them incredulously.
"Do not…move…" Diana repeated as she very carefully stood, eyes still on the little yellow bird that was literally within inches of Charlie's head.
The prefect frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Okay, Charlie, on the count of three…" Damian breathed as he rose, "…if you don't want to be concussed, you will duck. Patrick, grab a broom, guard the doors. Everyone else, we grab that bird."
"What?" Charlie stared at them as though they were crazy. "Tell me what's going on right now!"
"Shut up, Your Majesty, shut up or he'll fly away," Lucas snapped.
"Who will?" Charlie asked as the bird fluttered its feathers.
"Caruso!" Grace gasped.
Damian carefully stepped forward, "One…two…"
"Three!" Noel yelled, leaping over the couch and flying at the bird. Charlie yelled and dodged before Noel slammed into him. The net connected with the mantelpiece but Caruso was flying away. The bird fluttered and swooped right at Grace's head, sending the small girl ducking and throwing himself onto the carpet.
The common room exploded. Students went running back and forth all trying to grab for the little bird that was now swooping over their heads and keeping well out of reach. The furniture overturned as everyone ran to grab something to catch it with. Charlotte couldn't see how any of this could manage to catch Caruso without maiming him. Other started grabbing material for fair booths from the room, evacuating them out the doors before they got trampled by the mob.
"Where is he?" Diana demanded, picking up one of the nets that the Jeffersons now kept nearly everywhere post-Caruso's escape.
"He got free?" Charlie yelled at them in shock as the yellow bird fluttered around their heads. "Why did you let him out?"
"We don't know how he got out!" Damian exclaimed, ducking swinging nets and lacrosse sticks.
"And that's why everything's on lockdown?" Charlie demanded as he struggled to steady a falling lamp.
"We've been trying to keep him in Jefferson for almost two weeks now!" Damian answered.
"There! Over there!" Grace yelled, pointing to one of the shelves. Just as two Jeffersons went for him, Caruso flew off.
Charlotte looked up and saw Caruso flying overhead, heading for a window that had been left a smidgen open, possibly by Charlie who wanted the fresh air. It was a small opening, but there was just enough room for the bird to fly through.
"The window!" she shouted.
Damian ran for it. Charlotte grabbed one of the couch cushions and swung it halfheartedly overhead in an attempt to deter Caruso from heading to the direction of the window before Damian could close it. It only partially worked—Caruso flew into one of the bookshelves. Charlotte's cushion hit one of the side tables and it fell over with a crash.
Diana dived for the shelves and Caruso flew away without even looking alarmed from her preening. He flew right over Noel's head, the boy yelling as he ducked.
"Noel! Use your net!" Patrick howled as he swung his broomstick at Caruso, trying to deter him from going out the door. They were going to keep him in the common room if their lives depended on it.
"Watch out!" Charlie gasped.
The broom connected with a vase—it smashed to pieces on the floor, and the pieces eventually got run over by the Twins as Lucas leapt up to try and net the little bird as well. He tripped over the chair leg and Logan followed suit after tripping over him.
Damian slammed the window shut just as Caruso nearly went for it. He swung his net at him but Caruso just flew away and alighted on the chandelier.
"Oh no!" Grace cried—they couldn't reach him from up there.
Patrick jumped forward and poked at the crystal with the broomstick—but it didn't seem to the bother the bird looking down at them—he merely rustled his wings and stood still.
"We've got to scare him off there," Noel panted.
Noel picked up a couch pillow and flung it up. It smacked into the chandelier. Caruso flew away—and the chandelier made an ominous creak.
"…oh no."
The Jeffersons scattered as it fell with a crunch onto the coffee table.
"Caruso's getting away!" Charlotte cried, pointing at the doors, which Patrick did not shut when he abandoned his post.
"And we're all so dead!" Charlie said, shock white, staring at the mayhem in the common room. There was debris and broken furniture everywhere—the only furnishings left standing were the ones welded to place or permanent fixtures on the wall. And Caruso was still circling overhead, chirping wildly.
"Get him—go, go!" Damian pushed Noel forward. Noel was off running, chasing the bird before it could get towards the doorway, swinging his bat like a baseball player.
Patrick got up from where he had tripped, grabbing his broom and swatting upward. He and Noel collided, both sent sprawling. Caruso swooped out of the common room, chirping as he rose upwards to the foyer.
"That's it!" Noel gasped. He scrambled to get up and grabbed Patrick's broom. "Give me that!" And he ran out of the room.
"Noel, don't crush him!" Grace cried, chasing after him.
"You left your net, idiot!" Diana yelled as Noel raced up the staircase, nearly tripping all over himself.
"I don't need a net!" Noel screamed back. He waved the broom every time Caruso tried to fly into the hall, forcing the bird to fly upwards to the ceiling beams.
"Noel, what are you doing?" Charlie demanded, running into the foyer. Noel punched the air with the broom a few times, seeming to make sure that the bird was now settled in the ceiling beams overhead and was not going anywhere.
"Just making sure." Noel smirked with devastating smugness. There was a chirp overhead. Caruso sounded rather settled up there. "All right, we can all calm down now."
"Calm down?" Charlie demanded, gesturing around the foyer and the now destroyed common room, the chandelier pieces on the tables and furniture. Debris of fair materials was still all over the place, some of which were ruined and the kitchen, for whatever reason, was smoking. It was like an H-bomb had imploded in Jefferson. "You want me to calm down? You want me to look at all this pandemonium and you want me to calm down?"
"Chaz, you're going to give yourself a heart attack," Grace warned.
"You guys up for more good news?" Patrick asked from the windows downstairs.
"Because we can't get enough of good news, right?" Charlie said sarcastically.
"What is it?" Damian asked, standing next to Charlotte.
Patrick kept his eyes on the windows. "Burkhart's headed this way. She'll be here in…maybe three minutes."
Jefferson froze in shock. Charlie held himself tall and closed his eyes, taking a deep, calming breath as all the Jeffersons stared at him for instruction. The Tweedles looked at each other, worried, then back at the immobile senior in the middle of the foyer.
Finally, Charlie opened his eyes with a grim expression. He held out his hand without looking behind him. "Baseball bat."
The Tweedles blinked, picked up one lying on the floor and gave it to him. "Charlie…?" Charlotte asked, not liking this already.
Charlie strode into the kitchen. His imperious presence sent Drew and Satoru, who were trying to put out their smoldering experiment, running out, frightened by the giant with the baseball bat. "Charlie?" Diana repeated in concern, staring at their prefect from outside the kitchen entrance.
"Damian!" Charlie yelled, raising the bat.
"What?"
"Fire alarm!" And with absolutely no hesitation, Charlie slammed the bat into the mass of equipment and chemicals in the kitchen countertop. Glass smashed to pieces and chemicals slopped onto each other, Bunsen and alcohol burners toppling—and the sizzling sound was all the warning everyone needed.
The explosion that rocked Jefferson must have been felt to South and Main and the Jeffersons went running like mad away from the blast zone, pouring out of the dormitory in a single, howling mass. Damian threw himself onto the fire alarm and pulled it. And that ringing was what Burkhart heard when she watched the students of her dormitory running out.
Charlie, who had taken cover just outside the kitchen entrance, now calmly picked up the fire extinguisher by the side of the entryway and the one in the foyer, and tossed them to the shell-shocked Tweedles before walking out of Jefferson.
"What the in the world is going on here? And what is that godawful smell?" Burkhart demanded as the students ran out into the grounds in front of Jefferson. Charlie Amos strolled out of the dormitory empty handed, brushing his uniform off as though he was merely heading to class, walking straight up to Burkhart—the very image of self-possession.
"An experiment by Drew and Satoru exploded in the kitchen, ma'am," he told her, face utterly devoid of expression. "Overexcitement for the Fair, I think. I've evacuated the others, but some of us have stayed in to put out the fire. I'd stay out here, ma'am, if I were you, until we put it out, and we're fortunate it was contained in the kitchen. It's not safe to go in there. There's hazardous material. I'm just about to call some professional help to make sure the area is free of toxic stuff."
Burkhart stared at him. Charlie blinked calmly back at her. "I have it under control. This happens all the time with Drew and Satoru, as you know. Jefferson house is completely prepared in these matters."
The astonished Jeffersons positively gaped at their prefect from behind Burkhart. Burkhart wasn't sure if she wanted to blow up or just stare at everything Charlie had just said. The senior just looked at her, utterly unruffled. Burkhart narrowed her eyes at him after a few moments. "And you're sure this is contained in the kitchen? The whole house isn't burning down?"
In a blast of chemical spray, the Tweedles jogged out of Jefferson, grinning as they held up their fire extinguishers. "We put it out! It's all still smoky, but we've put everything out! It didn't even reach the gas!"
Charlie turned back to Burkhart, smiling. "See? I'll be turning off the fire alarm momentarily, we only hit it to make sure everyone was safely evacuated. Can't have anyone getting hurt now."
Burkhart narrowed her eyes at Charlie, looking suspicious. But Charlie was just smiling, and so were the Tweedles behind him. All the rest of Jefferson stared.
Burkhart considered the prefect, and looked to the students of Jefferson House, all of them accounted for and looking utterly unharmed for the most part, and it included Grace, which was always a good sign. She began to nod slowly. "…all right, then. Well—turn off the alarm before people from the South and Main start sending people out." She looked at Drew and Satoru. "How many times do I have to tell you two, if you want to experiment, do it in controlled areas in the laboratories!"
The two scientists gaped. Charlie bestowed them a withering glare from behind Burkhart. The two boys began nodding enthusiastically. "Yes, ma'am!" Drew gasped.
"We totally understand!" Satoru replied, gulping.
"It was just pheromones, for the fair!" Drew immediately explained.
"We just poured too much of some stuff—" Satoru added.
"We had no idea it was going to combust and—
"—didn't think it was even chemically possible, but—"
"There wasn't even a lot of substances in there," Charlie added.
At this point, all of Jefferson stared talking at the same time, explaining the 'situation' and how no one really thought it was a big deal, utterly confounding their House head.
"All right, quiet!" Burkhart frowned. "Now you're all lucky that no one was hurt this time. I don't want to hear any more of you setting fire to anything while indoors, even if it is in the kitchen! We banned flambé years ago!"
A pause.
"How about outdoors, though?" Noel asked after consideration.
"Noel!" Burkhart scolded, and the sophomore cringed, muttering, "Just asking…"
"You should go, ma'am," Charlie said helpfully, smiling. "I have Jefferson under control, I can take it from here—I'm sure you have far better things to do than our regular spate of crazy accidents."
Burkhart sighed, shaking his head. "Well, I'm supposed to be meeting the other teachers running the Fair committee in a few minutes…" She turned to Charlie. "I'll call for the cleanup. In the meantime, make a list of everything in there that's been destroyed or damaged and give the list to me. And the rest of you are not to go back into the dorm until Charlie and the guys say it's safe, all right?"
There were murmurs of agreement. Burkhart glowered at them. "The regular list of scoldings, warnings and threats apply…now go get back to work on the Fair grounds—you can't go into your dorm anyway. Charlie—"
"I've got it, ma'am," smiled the prefect. Burkhart cast one last withering glower at the students and departed.
They all waited until he was out of sight and earshot before they let out their breaths. Charlie sank to the ground—all the way to the ground—until he was lying flat on his back. All the Jeffersons crowded around him, looking down in amazement.
"Way to go, Chaz!" the Tweedles grinned, looking down at him.
"Baseball bat to lab set—that's going down in Jefferson history," Diana grinned.
"I can't believe you just did that, man!" Patrick exclaimed.
Charlie just groaned. "I can't either…I feel ill. I haven't felt that scared since the Tweedles dragged Herman Hawthorne's hammer out of the school vault and tossed it into the fountain last week. That was close!"
"Close?" Damian snorted. "Close was when we got that hammer out of the fountain and back to the vault before daylight! This was—this was nuts."
"Only way to cover up one explosion was with bigger one." Charlie sighed, draping his arm over his head.
Charlotte smirked down at him. "You have my respect, fearless prefect."
"Well good, because once I get my bearings back enough to get up, I'm going to take the baseball bat, and hit each and every single one of you—"
He didn't finish—the Jeffersons were racing away from him already, scattering all over the place. In spite of warnings, they were headed back to the house, but that was Grace suddenly stopped and said, "Hey!"
"What?" asked Charlotte.
Grace whirled around to look at the Tweedles. "…did you guys just leave the door open?"
The twins' eyes widened. All of the conspirators looked at each other, wide-eyed, and then bolted inside to find the prize canary.
A/N: Drew Mapleton and Satoru Kogo have been added to the character list on page 4.
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Hawthorne
Jul 8, 2014 11:54:26 GMT -5
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Post by HburgEagle44 on Jul 8, 2014 11:54:26 GMT -5
Wow what a chase!! Haha way to go, Chaz! He's awesome.
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