Entrances
In which Courtney talks to her draperies, or something, and Duncan pulls the oldest trick in the book.
Hers were no-nonsense curtains: ivory white, slightly stiff, with a little red tulip border on the bottom. No frills, no breezy chiffon under-curtains, no gaudy accent-color curtain-ties. Nothing about them implied visiting hours for tender breezes; Courtney had half-forgotten how her windows opened in the first place. Bedrooms weren't a place to be seen in—who would want to see bedhead at her usual wakeup time of 5 AM? Who would really want to watch her toss around in her sleep? Her loyalties lay with the voters, after all, and who votes for dragon breath?
Which is precisely why, at 3 AM on a Friday night (or morning, depending on your opinion), Courtney was extremely surprised to find herself standing in front of the open window of her second-floor bedroom, staring out at the house across from her, and the grass in front of it, and the street in front of that. Listening to quiet suburban evenings was a new experience for her, and she seemed to seek out new experiences nowadays—before, she didn't think about what it would be like to jump out of her bathroom window and land in the pool in her backyard, or how it would feel to drive through the night to some club full of sweaty delinquents. And yet, after Camp Wawanakwa, she found herself going out of her way to be a little less safe. A pile of psych textbooks and car manuals sat, neatly stacked, next to her bed. Whatever mental disease she caught from Duncan, there had to be a way to cure it; she'd planned out her recovery, and step one was a little research.
She turned away from the books. "I don't miss him," she sighed. "Nothing in me misses him. He's like..." She bit her lip. What the hell was Duncan like? Crazy, dangerous, tempting. "He's like running the campaign. It's always such a strain to handle, but the rush of victory…" she giggled, and flopped over on her back. Squishy white carpeting cushioned her shoulders; she stared at the ceiling, trying to find him in the pastel checkerboard wallpaper. "It's like every decision as the student president after that is a breeze. But not with Duncan. Even when we liked each other, he was still such a jerk! Trent went crazy for Gwen once they were official, but Duncan didn't change a bit! Urgh!"
Courtney scoffed, laughed again, and grabbed a pillow. Then again, she and Duncan were never really… official. That was the problem—she never got hold of him, so she didn't see more of his softer side past the Bunny incident.
"Should I have asked him? Maybe he expected me to? Maybe he never asked because he doesn't like me!" Her eyes widened and she shuffled over to her nightstand. The carved skull still sat in a corner of it, where her mom wouldn't find it. Courtney picked it up, smiled, and sighed. "Of course he likes me. Everyone likes me." Her eyes turned up at her pastel checkerboard ceiling—only this time, instead of looking for Duncan, she was looking at victory. "I'll win him over. Just a matter of time."
Tonight was not a night for sleeping in beds. She crawled over to her pillow on the floor, and put Duncan's skull on the carpet next to her. "Not that I really like him, though."
As her eyes drifted shut, a breeze wafted through her normally unwaftable curtains. Breezes normally had no place in Courtney's room, but tonight was a night for gusts of the especially rare variety—that is, corporeal winds with green mohawks and excellent wall-climbing skills.
The breeze with knees soundlessly dropped his duffel bag by the window and scanned the room. Duncan surveyed the sleeping Courtney with a satisfied smirk, greatly enjoying his vantage point. His shadow over her changed the light in her room, making her murmur a little, smile, and turn over. "Man, she even loves my shadow when she's asleep," he mused, staring at her hungrily. "Imagine how much she digs the rest of me when she's awake." He picked up a pillow from her bed. "Eh. Okay, Sleeping Beauty, let's see how well you play dead…" He crouched over her, straddling her stomach, and lowered the pillow over her nose and mouth.
AN1: The beginning of a longer DxC story. I'm sure there's more than enough DxC out there already, but I couldn't find anything like what I wanted to read, so I figured I'd write it. It starts slow, but it'll pick up. I'm keeping individual chapters short so that I can post more often, which will keep the writing going.
AN2: The whole point of fanfiction is that you don't own the plot or characters. So I decided to stop disclaimering.