A/N: So I got inspiration for this one in the shower (everyone knows this is where the best ideas are hatched!). I love love love this totally under-rated pairing, and I'm so excited to experiment with it! This chapter's kind of just an intro, and I'm not entirely sure where I want to go with the story, but I have some ideas. Let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: yeah, I don't own.
Vanessa was in every one of his movies.
Sure, there were nods to Phineas, and Candace and his other friends and family members, as well. There was even one film staring a detective named "Perry", affectionately christened after his beloved pet platypus. But no one appeared as consistently and deliberately as Vanessa.
Or perhaps just not as subtly. For whenever the fancy struck him to give credit to someone in a film, that person knew it. Candace bragged for months that "her movie" had earned more at the box office than anyone else's had previously. Thankfully, she regarded (correctly) her namesake's villainous nature as a complement, having learned from her experience as being the antagonist in a film from an animation studio built so many years before.
When a person's name appeared in a new film, they understood this as being out of love. It was his personal way of showing appreciation, admiration, and affection. It was a big deal. In fact, it became an honor among the close-knit group. Each new member saw it as a right of passage, and everyone else understood it to be the director's way of saying "I love you".
When Vanessa appeared, however, it was out of something else. This manifested in the way she appeared. Not just her name— only a small number of his productions featured a minor character that donned those three syllables—but her. An actress would be instructed to flip her hair in a particular fashion, or wear a costume resembling that signature black outfit she wore during the incidents in which he'd glimpsed her. Or perhaps Vanessa would influence a character's choice in music or her attitude. Maybe someone's silhouette could be coached to resemble her posture. It was this subtle, perhaps, because that was how he remembered her. A flitting presence, in and out of his life on tragically few occasions, who, years later, still caused him to do double-takes and glance around at complete strangers thinking (or hoping?) that it he'd seen her.
This was done, in part, to immortalize (and to some extent, idolize) her. He never wanted to forget this girl who had touched his life so briefly, yet so profoundly.
This is not to say that Vanessa was the only girl in his life. Or even the only girl he'd ever had feelings for. In fact there were a plethora of girls that he'd been involved with over the years, due in no small part to his success, intelligence, suave nature, and indeed, his accent. Girls came with the territory, a perk he thoroughly enjoyed.
Yet, he knew that these brief— and more often than not, shallow— affairs were a temporary phase. He did hope carve out a future, some day, along side a girl with whom he'd share a deep connection. Somehow, this future always seemed to remind him of his past.
In the back of his mind, he held a silent and tentative belief, that somewhere out in the world, she was watching. It was this belief—though he denied it to himself—that made him ponder, now and again, how things would be if she saw herself on screen. Late at night, his mind occasionally ran wild with fantasy: his beautiful childhood infatuation glancing at just the right time, to exactly the right spot on screen to see her character and miraculously, incredibly, understand the message. His perfect storyline ended with Vanessa seeking him out, swept off her feet at the thought of his devotion and creativity, and falling, as she had once before, into his waiting arms.
SOOOOO…what do you think? Let me know- the faster you hit that review button, the faster the next chapter will be up! (You know, theoretically…)