Mandy
Author Indigo Willowsun
Disclaimer I do not own SWAC.
Summary "Want to know why Mandy left?"/"Umm…"/"Cause' she fell for Chip Drama Pants—"/"—and had his baby!"/"No, G, she didn't, but the fact is she still fell in love with the three named jerk." Sonny. Randoms. Chad. Complete.
Playlist(found on my profile) Secret Valentine – We the Kings for the second to last section…with Sonny and Chad...
Notes At first this was supposed to all be about Mandy, but come on…could I really have a whole story with no Chad? He's even better than Chad/Sonny! (Sorry, still not sold on the whole 'Channy' nickname. Cut me a break. I come from the brilliance of LITERATI. Seriously, what a fantastic name!)
Hope everyone had lovely holidays with their families and friends!
Indy
--
"Do you like Chad?"
Sonny spun around in surprise. "Whoa, who, wha?"
The So Random cast members stood in front of her threateningly. Grady had his hands crossed over his chest, Nico kept punching his open palm over and over again, and Zora…oh goodness was that a steak knife? Tawni seemed to be their gang leader. The blond repeated what she had said as if Sonny was a moron, "Do you. Like. Ch-aaa-d?"
"Chad? Which Chad? I know many boys named Chad. Even one girl! It's short for…Chadika," Sonny rambled off in a nervous haste.
Grady stepped forward. "We're talking about Chad Dylan Cooper, star of Mackenzie Falls, and if you know someone else by that exact name then—" he brightened up leaving his tough persona behind, "what a coincidence!"
"Idiot!" cried Zora. "Of course Sonny doesn't know another Chad Dylan Cooper. Chad would have sued by now! He copyrighted his name a long time ago."
"He did?" asked Sonny with her face scrunched up, suddenly puzzled.
Nico pounced. "Oh don't you change the subject! We know all your tricks!"
"Answer us!" Tawni screeched.
"Yea!"
"Spit it out, Monroe"
"Hurry it up! I need some bacon!"
Their new little costar couldn't take all the pressure! She backed up against the wall right below the oversized mural of her face. Eyes wide with fright, she held up her hands and wailed, "I didn't change my underwear! Nico, I ate all your bacon! I have cavity, and I hate the dentist. I PLEAD THE FIFTH!"
Tawni sighed, "Well there's your answer people, and it's worse than I thought."
"She has a cavity? I know, I hate cavities," nodded Grady.
Zora rolled her eyes, and allowed Tawni to clarify to the lovable dork. "Sonny likes Chad."
Everyone gasped (including Sonny).
"And—" the girl continued, "She likes him a lot."
"I do not!"
"Do too!" shot back Tawni.
Sonny pouted and pushed off the wall gaining a little bit of courage, "Do not! Sonny Monroe…me…I do not like ChzzDnynFroptr."
"What was that, Sonny?" asked Nico leaning in confused.
"I can't stand ChreDuyleenGroyr."
Zora pointed her steak knife, "SAY IT!"
Sonny's lower lip trembled. Why couldn't she get his name out right? Why did she feel woozy all of a sudden? Why did her hair smell like pot roast? Was it just her, or was the ceiling collapsing?
"I, Sonny Monroe, do not like—" …
"Zora! Why did you bring that darn knife?"
"Sonny!?"
"Is she alright?"
"Quick! Drag her to the prop house before anyone sees us with the body!"
After eleven minutes and a speedy fro-yo run, everyone had finally settled in the prop house. They lounged around waiting for the fainted Sonny to wake up.
"Is it just me, or is this yogurt extra delicious today," asked Grady.
Nico licked his spoon. "Not just you, G. I think the thrill of hiding an unconscious body made this frozen treat taste like perfection."
The 'unconscious body' stirred. "Uhh..."
They all gathered near.
"Errr…"
They stepped closer.
"Pffft…"
The friends were just about to get even closer when—"Hey, Randoms."
"Chad!" gasped Tawni. "What brings you to our territory?"
Chad leisurely sauntered to the couch while smirking, "I wanted to let you all know that I, Chad Dylan Cooper, was nominated for…wait, where's Sonny?"
Nico carefully stepped between Chad and the piece of furniture that held Sonny in its cushions. The others became aware of what he was doing and did the same.
"Sonny? I know not whom you speak of," Grady said twirling his fingers wizard like.
Rubbing his head, Nico said, "Last I heard she was at Stage 5 talking to Joe Jameson, or something…"
"Joe Jameson?" growled Chad his face flushing. "That dirtbag who plays the Greek hero in that unimportant drama? The one about Hercules?"
"Yea, I think it's called Hercules," Zora muttered.
"What she doing talking to him? Everyone knows he's a raging egomaniac. He thinks he has the greatest hair in Hollywood. What selfishness! We all know I have the best hair! I have to go."
The actor strode out of the room dramatically, obviously headed over to Stage 5.
"Guys?" warbled Sonny from below their tense figures. "What happened? Oo! Ya'll brought me yogurt…"
"NO!" Tawni yelled smacking her hand down on the table. "We know you like Chad Dylan Cooper. Not ChzzDnynFroptr, or ChreDuyleenGroyr, but CHAD DYLAN COOPER!"
Sonny sat up languorously as if she could calmly escape harm by moving slowly. Back in Wisconsin, this is what they taught you at wilderness camp just in case you were an unlucky chump that got attacked by a bear. Her eyes were very round as she said, "Umm…" to buy herself time.
"NO!" Tawni cried again. "You are not going to talk, and "um", and stutter out of this one! We all know, Sonny. Even if you won't admit it. We all know!"
Everyone bobbed their heads in concurrence.
If there ever was a moment in your life where you felt like you were that preacher's daughter from Footloose, standing in front of a moving train screaming at the top of your lungs, only not feeling ecstatic life surround you as she did, but instead, your stomach rises into your throat that's tight with fear, because you realize that your wearing concrete boots and you can't move out of the way…
…that's what Sonny was feeling at that exact moment.
"Just tell her, Tawn. Tell her like it is," Nico said quietly.
Tawni awkwardly patted Sonny's legs and sat primly near her feet. "You were just a plain ole' not famous girl back in Wisconsin when Mandy was the other less pretty girl on the show."
"Amanda Fresno…" both Grady and Nico breathed dreamily.
The other blonde rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you remember seeing her on your TV. While she was not as gorgeous as I was, Mandy was a very attractive girl. There were a lot," she looked pointedly at the pair of boys, "of guys that crushed on her. Now, follow me here, okay? Two years ago, Chad Dylan Cooper asked her out on a date. Mandy was extremely free-spirited and had a lot of spunk. (Ugh!)
Mandy was the first girl to say, 'maybe'. It wasn't even a 'no', but Chad took it really hard, because he and his show were just reaching the height of their fame, and everyone was bowing at his feet."
"And can you guess what he asked her to?" asked Zora. Sonny just gulped. "The Tween Choice Awards. That's right. The same Award show that started the feud between our show and his."
"His ego was so damaged by Mandy's indecisiveness that he went out and publicly humiliated us," Tawni bitterly said. "It was war, and Mandy was the one all for destroying Mackenzie Falls. From that night forward, she hated him with a passion. The far and few times we actually saw Pooper, the two always had nasty things to say to one another."
"What does this have to do with me?" Sonny inquired timidly. She looked at her hands she spoke. "I mean, I hate Chad in way, but I hardly think that our relationship is that…awful."
Nico took the last bite of his yogurt and sighed. "Want to know why Mandy left?"
"Umm…"
"Cause' she fell for Chip Drama Pants—"
"—and had his baby!"
"No, G, she didn't, but the fact is she still fell in love with the three named jerk."
"Oh my god!" Sonny moaned into her hands.
It was Tawni's turn to talk again. "Sweetie, we're telling you this for your own good. Now, you might be wondering how in just two short years Mandy went from hating Chad's guts to wanting play tonsil hockey with the guy. Well, Chad's a charmer, and it took only a few kind words and a few gifts for the girl to think that he had some kind of 'change-of-heart'. Bad boy does good. He lured her in, taking advantage of her gullibility, and made her think that he was the one she'd been waiting for her whole life."
This information really hurt. Every kind thing Chad had done for her for no recognition, every sweet thing he had ever uttered, every small flicker behind his sparkling blue eyes had been a ruse. He was the con artist and she was the middle of another one of his brutal cons. It was obvious, wasn't it? If was he mean enough to do it to a girl he rarely talked to, then what was the point of believing that their little relationship—whatever it was—was real?
"So..." the brunette whimpered. "You all kicked her off for messing with the enemy?"
"No!" cried Grady. "We never would have done that! It was all Chad Dylan Cooper! I, for one, would have never sent off a pretty lady who was actually nice to me. Chad, after a few weeks of wooing, asked her over to the Mack Falls set to supposedly ask her out again. When poor Mandy got there and met up with Cooper, he called security saying that she had been stalking and harassing him. He had fake notes and later we found out that he had gotten someone to destroy everything he sent Mandy. It seemed it was just her word against his, and in the end of course that lying piece of scum won. Marshall was forced to send Mandy packing back to Baltimore."
"This is why we don't want you to get involved with Chad, Sonny. I actually consider you a…a…good f-friend," Tawni finally stuttered uncomfortable with the meaning of 'friend'.
"Yea, Sunshine."
"We don't want you to get kicked off."
"We love you, even if you did eat my bacon."
Sonny's vision swam as she tried to keep her cool. Her cast loved her. This much. They were trying to save her from the wicked clutches of Chad Dylan Cooper. The girl couldn't help, but cry a little at such a beautiful thing.
"Aw. You guys! I love you too, and thank you! Thank you so much! Chad and I are over! I won't just hate him; I'll forget he even exists. He is nothing to me, and you all are everything!" Sonny giggled. Her wonderful friends!
--
The next day, Sonny sat alone in her dressing room. She had yet to get into costume, and was still wearing her pajamas, because she had gotten to the studio extra early to finish writing a new sketch that Marshall said could be huge. Skipping breakfast and completing nothing on the script, Sonny was feeling a little down. It didn't help that she started thinking about all the new information she had received the day before.
It wasn't that she wanted to betray her castmates. It wasn't that at all. In fact, if she could erase him from her memory at that moment, or at any moment for that matter, she would be content.
Leaving him behind seemed so easy yesterday, but today she wasn't so sure she was the kind of girl who could do that.
Knock. Knock. Knocknocknockno—
"Alright already! Cut my door some slack. He can't open himself," called Sonny.
The mentioned door cracked open. "Sonny?"
Sonny felt her ribs cave into her organs and she felt this overriding confusion sweep over her. Biting her lip, she couldn't find any words to say.
"Sonny?" Chad repeated. He stepped into the room, and when he saw her Chad's whole face lit up like the Empire State Building on February 14th. "Hey, I brought you a Son-bun."
Taking a deep breath, Sonny turned to him and said, "A what?"
"A Son-Bun," he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world to understand.
"Umm…"
"I heard you'd been here a while, and knowing you, you probably forgot to eat breakfast. So I got you something…only because if you, like, passed out and died or something the media would totally be all over it. That would cost Mackenzie Falls valuable press time, and I could just stand around, looking hott, and not do nothing. Yea. So here."
He was holding something out to her.
"But what's a 'Son-bun'?"
"They were selling those packaged Cinnamon Bun things, and I just thought to make it acceptable I had Brenda find a sun cookie cutter and cut the Cinnamon Bun into a sun…Son-bun. Get it? I'm sure Joe Jameson wouldn't get it. Am I right? "
She ignored the Joe comment not knowing what it meant or who he was, took the food item and just as he said the sticky pastry was in the shape of a sun.
"Thank you. That was really nice of you, Chad," she whispered unable to meet his sparkling eye, nor his regular one.
Because of this she missed his fairly perceptible blush, and all Sonny heard was Chad's voice murmuring, "Whatever, Monroe. I did it for the show. Don't think I'm suddenly your room service guy, cause' I'm not. I'm a celebrity."
Sonny suddenly smiled brightly. Glancing up at Chad, she bit down the urge to say something polite, and instead searched her brain for something snarky. "I wouldn't want you to be my room service guy, because then I'd have to see you, like, everyday."
"You already see me everyday," he deadpanned.
She met him at his dig. "And who's fault is that, huh? I don't go over to your set everyday, like you come over here."
"I don't think that's completely true."
"Oh it is."
"Fine! Whatever, alright. I'm CDC. I don't have to care."
"Fine! I'm ASM, and I'm too funny and carefree for this kind of stuck up drama."
"Fine."
"Fine!"
"Good."
"Good"
"So we're good?" Chad hastily inquired with the same line they always used.
Sonny ripped off a piece of her Son-bun with her teeth. Heatedly, she said, "This is so good."
Staring at each for a few blank seconds in some awkward pause, Chad finally smiled lightly. "Here. I got you some milk. They didn't have chocolate, so I made someone go buy some."
He left.
Oh right. She was supposed to hate him.
She drank some of her chocolate milk and sighed.
--
Thoughts? Comments? Things you loved? Things you though were stupid?
I want to hear about it all.
--
EXTRA:
(Note: I didn't put this in the actual oneshot, because I didn't know if I wanted the narrative to go this way. This changes everything, and I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do.)
You have one new message.
Beep.
December 27, 5:52 pm
Hey, Lou Reed. (Oh I am so clever!) It's Mandy. So Nico…it's two days after Christmas, and I want you to let everyone know that I love them, and I hope they had a Merry Christmas. Tell the new girl I said she's doing great. I'm doing great too! As much as I loved So Random! this Broadway deal is stuff of dreams. I know I left you guys for theater, but I hope you all have forgiven me and realize this is what I wanted to do and why I quit the show. Anyway, I have to—
Beep
End of messages