Until Death Do Us Part
Well, here's my first attempt at a fanfic... It'sbased off of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I really hope that you like it, and to anyone who has read The Great Gatsby I do not own orclaim to own the book or any of the characters that Fitzgerald uses in the book. I hope that you like it!
Lilting crescendos echoed from beyond Gatsby's mansion, yet among the glasses of champagne, martinis, and other alcoholic beverages and the plethora of orchestra members, there remained only three guests. I, being one of these three, sipped again from the opaque martini glass.
"Cheers!" I said, raising my glass again to the steadily paling sky.
"Cheers!" the others echoed drunkenly, their voices filled with the nostalgia of a wayward wonderer among sophisticated company. We had been sitting there all night in the more than perfect garden, toasting and cheering, sharing secret hopes and desires that we were never known to possess. To me, it seemed as if the only things that existed in the world were the people sitting right there with me. We had made our plans that night, though I doubt that any of us but Gatsby knew of the nature of those plans. All I knew was that at the end of the day, New York and the troubles that it possessed would seem far from my life. In the darkness their faces seemed strangely blurred to me, and I was suddenly aware of Jordan's sleeping form leaning on me for warmth. As I looked down at her I couldn't help but smile because although her lips were curved into an elaborate smirk, her closed eyes retained the quality of an innocent sleeping child. The only problem was that the more that I stared at her, the harder it became to lift my gaze from her.
Gatsby stood to my left, and kept making attempts to give life to the inanimate conversation, but his ploys at a conversation did not work. For one thing, Daisy kept slumping in her chair, and I was still being mesmerized by the sleeping form of Jordan.
"Another martini, old sport?" inquired Gatsby for what had to have been the thousandth time that evening.
"No," I replied, looking up at him only momentarily, "I think I've had enough to drink for tonight." Gatsby muttered an incoherent response to no one in particular, and I began to gaze back at Jordan. Gently, carefully, the wind played with her hair, causing it to brush against my arm. Shivering, and I still don't know why I did this, I began to lean in towards her. Her lips nearly met mine, but suddenly she shuddered and I pulled away. "I'm sorry," I said quickly, embarrassed by my actions.
"What were you doing anyway?" she asked, looking up at me mischieviously. Sitting up, she studied me, and, deciding not to interrogate me any further, she laid her head back onto my chest. She was now so close to me that I could feel her every breath, and the rest of her body was sprawled out on the length of the couch. Once again, she closed her eyes, and I wondered, just for that moment, what it would be like to call her mine.
Opening my eyes, I saw that it was now around noon. Jordan had managed to entangle herself in my arms, and, as I glanced up, I was more than surprised to see Gatsby and Daisy embracing each other in the same way. Smiling slightly, I turned back to Jordan. Her face still looked peaceful, but I could tell by the way that she stirred that she would be awake soon enough. Glancing around to make certain that no one else was awake, I whispered to Jordan sweet notions of my love for her.
"I love you too Nick," she whispered groggily. Although her motions clearly displayed exhaustion, she looked thoroughly pleased with herself. "I knew that I would get you to say it one way or another," she shrugged, her usual attitude returning. "Where's Gatsby?"
"I don't know," I answered, "Where IS Gatsby?"
"I'm right here, old sport," he replied from behind me. "And you two had better get ready. We leave in half an hour's time."
Tom Buchanan was no doubt getting suspicious of his wife's absence. Daisy had told him that she was going out for a night on the town, and the fact that he agreed to her leaving made this suspicion even more ironic. Gatsby had laughed last night when Daisy told him that Tom would be worried about her, and he did nothing to quell Daisy's fear of her domineering husband.
"We'll be halfway across the country by the time that he figures it out," Gatsby had said happily, "And after that we'll just have to be careful about leaving our names lying around." Just prior to this statement Daisy had confessed to Gatsby that she never loved her husband and that they children that they had together were actually adopted.
But that was yesterday. Today a long winding road lay ahead of us, the four travelers, and we only had until nightfall to execute our plan.
Darkness fell onto the house of the Buchanans. Moonbeams avoided that house, and if any light shone at all onto the house it was extinguished immediately. It was as if there were some strange epidemic of darkness taking place along the house, and, in a way, there was.
"Shh!" Gatsby whispered. Jordan and I crept behind him, while Daisy walked into the house. Enraged screaming was soon heard within.
"Where have you been?" demanded the bravado voice of Tom Buchanan. "I've been worried sick about you. Police have been looking everywhe---" At this point Gatsby snorted with laughter.
"Looking everywhere, old sport?" he laughed. "I have friends who are police, and I happen to know that they were not looking for anyone today." Suddenly, the look on Gatsby's face grew more serious as he heard a door slam. That was our cue. Silently, we lurked over to the window, which was wide open (as Daisy had promised it would be). "You first, old sport," he murmured. With his words I lurched into the window and wondered if Tom had heard me. There was more yelling coming from the parlor, but this time it was strangely muffled.
"Is the coast clear?" Jordan muttered.
"Yes," I whispered, "You should both come in here." Jordan climbed in the window and was quickly followed by Gatsby.
"Hide!" exclaimed Gatsby as the hall light suddenly went out. Creeping towards the window, we wrapped ourselves tightly in the blood red velvet drapes. Footsteps grew louder and louder until the lights were turned on in the room that we inhabited, and in walked Tom Buchanan.
"Daisy! Daisy! There's a window opened in here! What is the meaning of this Dai--" With that last syllable Tom ceased to draw breath and fell like a ton of bricks onto the cold linoleum floor.
Gatsby, Jordan and I gasped from behind the curtain when we saw the hysteria. Wielding a particularly jagged knife, Mr. Wilson stood in the threshold of the red room and the hallway.
"Who's there?" Mr. Wilson called madly, insanity finally overcoming him. "You had an affair with my wife Tom, and for that you won't live another day!" Jordan giggled fortuitously at this suggestion, for it was clear that Tom was already dead. "I'm warning you!" Wilson continued, wielding the knife more violently, "I'm not afraid to kill every one of you here!" With that statement he stopped. Mrs. Wilson had climbed through the open window, and was now staring, horrified, at the corpse that was once Tom Buchanan.
"Noooooo!" screamed Mrs. Wilson, her voice reverberating through the hallway. "It cannot be!" Enraged, Mr. Wilson began to advance on his wife with the jagged knife in hand. "What are you doing?" she screamed. "What have you done to him?" As he drew nearer to his wife it seemed as if they were involved in an elaborate dance often shared between two adversaries. Maneuvering as if they were machinery and not creatures of earth, they grappled each other with brute force, coming together as one. Mrs. Wilson pulled a gun from her coat, and with a single shot to the brain, her husband could lie forever within the realm of death. Her unsteady fingers rested on the trigger as she aimed it at him, guessing whether to shoot or not. Meanwhile, he still wielded the jagged knife in quivering hands. All at once this spectacle came to a finale. Both made their move at the same time, and the result was the gruesome sound of a gunshot wound combined with the ghastly burst of tearing flesh. Once again they embraced as husband and wife waiting for death to do them part.
Daisy entered the room not long after and saw Myrtle Wilson and George Wilson lying together on the floor. Sobbing violently when she found Tom in the same state, she gasped for breath.
"Oh Gatsby!" She gasped almost incoherently. "Oh Gatsby, what have you done?"