Warnings: A lot of snark, oh, and lying. Do I need to warn for those things? . Spoilers: Through GH episodes aired June 2013. AU of the missing scenes variety. Disclaimer: The characters belong to their creators, and I always include the actors as well as the writers in that description, in this case Roger Howarth especially, for what is in my opinion the new and improved version of Franco to whom, although we've only just "met", I already consider myself to be in eager and willing thrall. I'm just playing with the pretty, so not to sue please. Notes: So, did they or didn't they that night Ava sashayed up the stairs of the Q mansion and looked back at him oh-so-seductively? Inquiring minds are dirty. Well, mine is. Title is from "My Favorite Mistake" by Sheryl Crow and Jeff Trott from The Globe Sessions, 1998-1999.
What a piece of work she was, more so than ever, and definitely that included the sexual connotation of the phrase. The image of her swaying hips as she ascended the grand Quartermaine staircase was still fresh in Franco's mind, his artistic eye reveling in the contrast between the curves moving underneath and the rigid casing of her clothing, a dress so tight (and the virginal pale blue so inappropriate that it bordered on obscenity) that, if there was ever a living embodiment of a female Mephistopheles in that clichéd garment color, then Ava was it. The man and ex-lover in him was definitely tempted by the well-kept body so nicely-outlined by her fashion choice, just as she well knew it would be and that he would be, while the gamer and schemer part of him was equally as challenged by wanting and needing to know just exactly what was behind the classic and, in this case literal, come-hither stare she'd turned to fix him with part-way through her ascent.
The necessity of treading warily was what had him still sitting in the parlor while the other spider had relocated to a more enticing part of her web. There was no innocent fly to be found here. After all, the other metaphor was deliberate on his part as well seeing as how he'd only just finished making quite the Faustian pact with the woman in question and all for the potential love, albeit paternal and not romantic, of Kiki, the "Gretchen" of their version of the story, their daughter also being the one beautiful work of art the two of them had made together all those years ago when his first impression of Ava as maybe just a hot little art groupie had proven to be so inadequate to the creature he felt certain that he'd only ever scratched the surface of getting to know. The "hot" part was accurate enough though.
"Really? You're not going to say it?"
"Say what?"
Her reply was a low and throaty whisper that reverberated inside his head because of the circumstances and not from any tangible level of volume. It was all about the tone. Her warm breath followed by her lips brushing lightly over his ear and dragging slowly down his throat had a little to do with it too, if you were a fan of understatement. Franco moved his hands up her arms and tightened his grip enough to be persuasive as he reversed their positions and walked her backwards, the two of them coming to a stop when her back met the wall of his studio. He leaned in close to gaze into her eyes, his own aflame with curiosity as well as the obvious.
"That's not an answer, Ava."
"Neither is that."
"Okay, then…"
Franco grinned just a little as he imitated Ava's seductive vocal quality but added an exaggerated strain of faux-feminine demurral.
"I never do things like this. Go back to a guy's place that I've only just met. You're special."
"You are special."
"Well, clearly I think so. Not always that attractive a quality, or so I'm told."
"Arrogance is the prerogative of genius."
"Who said that?"
"I just did."
Franco pressed his mouth against hers and ran his tongue in a curved line just on the underside of her top lip.
"Sweet…"
Ava reached around his back to embed her finger-tips into the spaces between his lower ribs, only adding a bit of fingernail at the very end like punctuation and provocation at the same time.
"…yet tangy..."
He kissed her collarbone.
"It'll work just fine for you too once you get more publicity. Loses a little something from being expected though. Even when you have the goods to back it up."
That got his attention back up where her eyes met his without the trace of a flinch. She cocked her head a bit to one side and raised the lovely arch of her brows at him.
"… with a little bite. Me too."
Franco pounced on a spot an inch or so below her ear on the side of her neck that she had just bared at him, daring him to do it. When her breath caught right there just under his mouth, a smile she couldn't see revealed the teeth that he was nuzzling into her skin, and he brought his lips and tongue in behind them to add suction and to soothe the sting. For a moment there was only the sound of their breathing; the anticipation hanging heavy in the air was silent but no less potent for being so. He raised his head and moved his lips to hers. When Ava thrust her tongue into his mouth, he parried by running his thumb in circles over the place on her throat where his teeth had been, gently at first and then a little harder against the tender spot until she broke off the kiss and put her hand over his, not stopping him but rather letting her palm ride lightly atop the motions until one of them had to say something. He didn't mind being the one to start up the verbal foreplay again.
"Yes, I did it on purpose. Expect a cliché, get a cliché. Doesn't mean it can't be fun."
"The tagger has to sign his work."
"Exactly. Just barely less primitive than marking your territory. Comes from the same instinct, right?"
Ava laughed and pushed at him with her other hand, so he took a few steps back to stare at her as she twirled in a circle, the skirt that she'd earlier offered as a canvas fluttering out as she turned, his eyes dazzled simultaneously by the display of his own artistry in motion that she was flaunting for him as well as the alluring beauty of the mostly-unblemished canvas Ava herself made that he wanted more than anything right now to make his own, to cover with signs, invisible and otherwise, that she wanted him to and wanted him too. It was excruciatingly beautiful in the abstract and in the flesh, and it was the first time in years he'd felt anything like it, felt anything at all.
Well, he could sit here for hours trying to play out all the chess moves by himself, but the ghost he'd raised of their first night together from twenty years or so ago only made what he had to do now more inevitable. There was only the one way he'd ever find out just how far she was willing to go. Franco rose and stretched his arms over his head, willing himself to relax. He was all too aware that any further reminiscing on his own at present would only play into her hands anyway because his body already badly wanted to betray his best interests. It had from the moment she'd kissed him here in this spiders' parlor, and he and Ava were far from the only ones under this roof who made it an apt description.
As he started up the stairs, the sinking feeling that hit the center of his chest reminded him again of Faust going down to the devil, not that he or Faust were the heroes of the story by any means, but then didn't it matter that a big part of the reason he was doing any of this was to try to earn the love of the only child he was likely ever to have? Continuing up these stairs still felt like sinking inexorably down instead, and, while he was usually a fan of paradox, maybe not so much this time.
A vision of a woman in a scarlet dress riding down, imprisoned behind the criss-crossing black bars and the shadows they cast across her face and body, in an old-fashioned iron-grated elevator popped into his mind, and he strained to remember where he'd seen it. It came to him in a flash, and he smirked grimly because it was from a movie that he and Ava had gone to see on one of their actual dates, a re-release of The Grifters starring Anjelica Huston and John Cusack and a fresh young Annette Bening at a tiny art-house theater in Soho, and the image was from a scene near the end of the neo-noir story of those three hapless con artists: it was the character named Lily played by Huston, a mother herself in the film, leaving the scene of what might have been her last job, a thing gone tragically wrong, and holding a suitcase full of money literally stained with the blood of her own son.
The downward trajectory of the woman in the elevator was allegorical enough, the staging itself an homage to a similar scene in The Maltese Falcon if he remembered correctly, and what he and Faust and Lily all had in common is that they were headed for a hell they'd made for themselves. Franco stopped for a long moment at the top of the staircase. Then, he headed for what had, up until now, been his solo bedroom here in his long-coveted family home where Ava was waiting for him behind the closed door. If he was going to hell anyway, he might as well enjoy the ride.
"You're still dressed."
Franco crossed one ankle over the over, the upward trajectory of the glossy points of his shoe tips fittingly ominous in the semi-darkness.
"The audience generally is."
Ava stood framed in the bathroom doorway, a back-lit vision in red satin, a blood ruby as enticing and dangerous as any stone-cold jewel any man had ever risked life and fortune to pursue. She was Salome and Delilah and Eve and every other misogynist fantasy ever cooked up by the fevered imagination of any man secretly terrified that he'd be undone by his own libido and desperately needing a scapegoat. Sometimes though, the menace was all too real, and he wasn't about to forget that salient point.
She shook her head and walked over to pick up a hair brush on the dresser. Before she started to use it, Franco caught the reflection of her eyes rolling at him in the mirror above even as he saw the slight shake of her head from behind.
"More riddles and games? Aren't you tired of all that for one night?"
Franco's eyes traveled appreciatively from Ava's hair down her back, lingering on the rounded curves that looked softer and even more inviting in this garment than they had earlier in the tight blue dress, and finished with a general artistic appraisal of the glorious proportions of her, the length of her legs playing no small part in those calculations. He reached behind himself to set one of the bed pillows a little higher to support his back, settling in for the show.
"Ava. Darling. As if I'd deprive you of your entrance. This may be my favorite of all your roles so far. I'd never detract from the performance by making it too easy for you. Where's the sport in that?"
She turned to face him.
"So, it is all a game to you then. I can't say I'm surprised. Maybe a little disappointed."
Franco laughed aloud.
"Interesting choice. Not sure I'm buying it yet though. Convince me."
"What are you talking about, Franco?"
"Come on, Ava. Don't let's ruin it with too much exposition. Just make your move."
She tossed the hair brush carelessly backwards to skitter across the smooth surface, the sound mimicking the jittery pulse pounding at his wrists and throat that he tried to remind himself was only nature trying to assert itself against his will. And his will wasn't really wavering, or so he hoped.
Ava sat down on the other side of the bed and then gracefully swung her legs over and across until her toes were nestled against his pants leg, then, all in one motion, she scooted her bottom over closer and turned to skewer his gaze with her own, languidly stroking under his chin with her fingertips as if he were a harmless kitty cat that she knew wouldn't be able to resist her touch. Franco sensed that she was only waiting for that first sign of weakness, the equivalent of his involuntary inability to resist preening and purring under her hands, and she wasn't far from the truth.
"What's the matter, precious? We already sealed the deal with a kiss. I won't be asking for your signature in blood."
"Then, what's the point?"
Her fingers shifted to the side of his head and twisted through the strands of hair that were just long enough for that kind of fondling.
"Who said there had to be a point?"
"You've never made an unstudied gesture in your life, Ava Jerome, and you aren't about to start now. We both know it."
"And you have?"
Ava smiled. Her eyes were unreadable as ever, and her expanded pupils might as easily be the result of the dim light as any sign that their close proximity was doing anything to her like what it was doing to him. Historically, women were the gender more practiced in resisting the desires of the flesh, but then wasn't it ironic that maybe that was only ever true because men had forced that role upon them with their fucked-up Madonna/whore complexes and need to at least fool themselves that they were in control because in a situation like this it gave a woman like Ava just that one more advantage to deploy from her already-formidable arsenal.
"An artist thrives on instinct. Inspiration can't be calculated at will. Not all the time, or it isn't inspiration. It's the opposite of inspiration. It's death."
"Your work feeds on death. You've been obsessively studying it for years now."
Franco snatched her hand from where it was trying to scramble his brains and pinned it to the bed.
"Careful, Ava. It sounds like you're calling me a scavenger. A picker of bones."
"Only in the sense of laying it bare, of reducing the thing to its essence. Hardly an insult."
Franco lifted Ava's hand and turned to cup it in his own, his larger one spilling over its edges as he placed them both against her cheekbone, using her palm to trace it in one delicate downward motion that continued unbroken…
"Is that what you want me to do to you?"
…down the side of her neck and glancing over her upper ribcage before pausing for a tantalizing moment to sketch horizontally-elongated ovals just under her breast.
"Vivisection is a cruel exercise, Franco darling, even for you."
He moved their hands a little higher….
"Well, cruelty can simulate kindness with an astonishing degree of verisimilitude."
…and finally settled into supporting and pressing the weight of it upward against the cage where her heart was purported to dwell, a matter that was far from settled to his way of thinking, the tip of his thumb advancing ahead before he added…
You should know that better than anyone."
"What if I do? Does it matter right now?"
Franco stroked across the nipple, scratching over the satin with his thumbnail, his eyes trained on Ava's, his attentions rewarded by her quick gasp, but, before a leer of triumph could finish spreading across his face, she moved suddenly to kiss him, her sharp inhale stealing his own breath and expanding the swell of firm but yielding flesh that was even then hardening at the tip as he continued drawing an endless spiral of tiny circles there.
Not to be bested, Ava ran her free hand down his side and over his hip, continuing until she found her target, and Franco broke off the kiss just as the shape of her lips shifted into a similar expression forcing him to acknowledge that his own success was quickly forcing him to choose whether it was all going to end up being a Pyrrhic one where victory in this one battle could lead to his losing the greater war with this woman who had already stolen nearly twenty years of their daughter's life from him.
"So what? Just waking up in the morning gets me hard, me and every other man, as far as I know. Not exactly a triumph worth crowing over, carrion or otherwise."
"Whatever you say, Franco. So then why are you still holding onto me there, the same way you held onto my thigh while you were finishing up spray painting my skirt that first time? It wasn't necessary to the process then either."
Without answering, he removed his hand and replaced it with his mouth, licking and sucking until he left a darker red circle of wet on the satin that he paused to admire before looking at her again.
"Same two reasons now as then. It's fun, and you wanted me to, expected me to even."
"You're so full of it. Everybody else around you was so busy kissing your ass back then. You just figured I would too. Still do apparently. Look around, Franco. Nobody's lined up to be your sycophant any more, to be your ally any more."
"All I want from you is a chance with Kiki. Don't get in my way, or you'll be very, very sorry. And you did kiss my ass, more than once as I recall it."
"Well, it is a nice ass. Don't threaten me, Franco. I can still go to any number of people and tell them what I know. If you think I won't, you don't know me half as well as you seem to think. Besides, you aren't the only one who believes Kiki is the best thing that ever happened to them. I am grateful to you for that much at least."
"And that's just it, isn't it? You'd give anything to have had me knock you up without ever getting you off, right? You never wanted me that close. You'd have teased her out of me if you could."
"Don't flatter yourself. You can't really think I got pregnant on purpose. If that were so, then why did I never tell anyone that you were her father? Answer me that?"
"Well, I know why you've said you didn't, but I don't buy it. That's not the whole story, especially not while you thought I was dead, but I'll find out. You know I will eventually."
Ava pulled away and laid her head on the pillows on her side of the bed.
"I've had enough of this for one night. That's all I know. Sleep here or on the chaise if you like. I don't care one way or the other, but maybe you do. Suit yourself."
"I'm just fine right here, or I will be after I slip into something a little more comfortable."
Franco jumped to his feet and turned to look back at her rakishly over his shoulder, a devil-may-care smirk painting his features because it was all pretty ridiculous in some ways, and he'd be wise not to forget that.
"If I let you have the last word, can we get some sleep?"
"As you wish, my dumpling."
True to her word, Ava flipped over on her side with her back to him, and left him to continue on his way into the bathroom.
Once inside, Franco leaned against the door and gathered himself. That had gone just about as he'd expected, and he hadn't really learned much in the end. He was confident that if he'd played it differently he could have had her naked, but he still wouldn't have gained much more than the sex out of it. The only thing that he was reasonably sure of was that she would do whatever she thought would be to her advantage.
And it was also throbbingly obvious that there was a difference between what he had now and morning wood when there was no exquisite temptress lolling about his bed secretly gloating that another advantage of her sex was no lingering outward telltale sign that he had gotten to her just as much as she'd gotten to him, but that was really only true if you'd never had the woman in question before, and he had, as he'd gloated to her himself at their first reacquaintance at the Port Charles jail. Indeed, it had been more than "several glorious times" as he'd fudged the number a little that day to toy with her that much more.
So, he did know that her body wanted him still whether she did or not, not that it really made any difference to anybody but him, and if she was going to taunt him with her eyes tomorrow and every morning to come for whatever duration their little charade of coupledom ended up needing to be, then there was no reason he couldn't avail himself of the same source of relief men usually did under similar circumstances no matter what the time of day. The only difference tonight was that he had fresh material to visualize this time.
As he undressed he called up the feel and taste of Ava just now under his lips and hands, the result being that the first drops of heated water from the shower head to contact his aroused skin felt like a hundred wet kisses all at once. No need for the water to be cold because he wasn't trying to undo anything. On the contrary, he wanted to enhance it, so as his hand began to move he sent his mind to a better place too, not that the Ava of tonight was any less desirable because in some ways she was more so, but, while the one from the past might have set out to seduce him for her own reasons, at least she hadn't tried quite so hard to make him suffer for wanting to have her too. And God, he had.
"Careful, Franco. Let me do it. I want to have it framed for posterity."
He backed off for a moment and raised his hands to shoulder height, palms out in feigned surrender.
"Yeah, because it'll be worth a lot of cash someday. More when I'm dead."
Moving forward again, his hand found itself glancing down her back as she bent over to step gingerly out of the work of art in question and then fell away as Ava stepped back herself and then held the skirt up and gazed at it in keen appraisal. She spoke without looking at him.
"Don't say that. It's morbid and kind of a buzz kill."
"I think it's hot."
"You would."
She carefully draped the garment over the back of a chair in such a way that gravity wouldn't pull it to the floor where it could be soiled and defaced. Ava was bent slightly at the waist carefully making sure the piece was secure before letting go of it, so Franco seized the opportunity to work her panties down to her feet, then dropped to his knees to kiss his way up the back of one leg while he filled his hands with the generous curves higher up.
"You're perfect. I hate a bony ass."
"Not exactly Rubenesque. Maybe closer to Botticelli."
"Quit showing off. You're just you, perfectly so, an Ava original."
Franco slid one hand over far enough to make room for his lips and set to creating a twin to the signature he'd left at her throat. He knew well enough that their postures said more about the situation than any temporary mark he tried to leave on her person. She might return the favor, tonight even, might go down on her knees to give him pleasure, but for now at least, in these first raptures, he was a slave both to her beauty and to his own vanity, the very idea that she found him, and his work too, worthy of having, of honoring, had his body and mind soaring to heights he'd never felt with any other woman or girl, and there had been more than a few. Somehow, she was different. He didn't know what love was, and maybe he never would, but this was special.
And it had been. They'd stayed like that for two, maybe three days straight, barely eating or sleeping, just tasting and experiencing each other. Maybe it was bourgeois, but he'd never forget the first time he'd been inside her, the heat of it that was a lot more about having her than it was about body temperature. The memory of it was still powerful enough even now to send him over the edge, and he let it take him there, the sensations marking this re-experiencing of her as something more than the physical relief he'd meant it to be.
Franco leaned his forehead against his forearm pressed against the wall of the shower and let the last waves of it ripple away just as he'd done beneath her that first time. She'd laughed and said something about having expected him to want to finish on top, and he'd said that he could see her better from there. During he'd demanded that she not try to shield her face and eyes from him at the crucial moment, and she'd complied with no signs of false modesty or shame, taking and giving without seeming to have anything to hide.
Stepping back, he adjusted the shower to a more tepid temperature and picked up the bottle of liquid soap that Ava had placed there. He flipped the cap open and took a whiff. It wasn't floral or any other conventionally feminine scent, but he still didn't want the smell of her all over his body either. Instead, he opted for the bar soap he'd been using and set to bathing. Moments later he regarded himself in the mirror as he toweled off and dressed in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. His train of thought resumed more or less where he'd left off.
No matter Ava's prodigious talents as an open-minded lover, she had gone on to hide the most important thing in his life from him, the daughter that they'd made together, and he hadn't forgiven her for it yet and didn't think he ever would. He knew her better now, knew her well enough never to trust her again with anything really important because she'd been right about him from the start. He did intend to have the upper hand in the end, but there was something Ava, on the other hand, didn't know about him.
She probably thought he was the same man she'd accurately described before, one who burned in the flames of obsession, one who only wanted to possess and then would destroy the object in the process of possessing it. She was wrong: he was ready, more than ready, to learn about real love, the kind a father has for his child, and that was why he would beat her, not because he cared over-much in this one instance about revenge or about winning in the abstract, but because he wanted to earn Kiki's love and to love her in return. Fully armed with that knowledge Franco was ready to face Ava now and in the days to come. She might think otherwise, but he was no fool for this or any other game, not any more.
"My Favorite Mistake"
I woke up and called this morning
The tone of your voice was a warning
That you don't care for me anymore
I made up the bed we sleep in
I looked at the clock when you creep in
It's 6 a.m. and I'm alone
[Chorus:]
Did you know when you go
It's the perfect ending
To the bad day I was just beginning
When you go all I know is
You're my favorite mistake
Your friends are sorry for me
They watch you pretend to adore me
But I'm no fool to this game
Now here comes your secret lover
She'll be unlike any other
Until your guilt goes up in flames
[Chorus:]
Did you know when you go
It's the perfect ending
To the bad day I'd gotten used to spending
When you go all I know is
You're my favorite mistake
You're my favorite mistake
Well maybe nothin' lasts forever
Even when you stay together
I don't need forever after
It's your laughter won't let me go
So I'm holding on this way
Did you know, could you tell
You were the only one
That I ever loved
Now everything's so wrong
Did you see me walking by?
Did it ever make you cry?
You're my favorite mistake
You're my favorite mistake
You're my favorite mistake