Because I would not get over how the TDWT tried to kill DxC until I wrote about it.
Before anything else I wanna state that as for me, I will always support DxC.
I mean- Just because they're not together anymore it doesn't mean they don't have feelings for each other anymore, and I can't stress that enough. DxC isn't dead yet, not by a long shot; and I'll always defend that.
That doesn't mean I'm not angry with cannon- I am. From now on, I reserve the right to hold only TDI as cannon. TDA and TDWT no longer exist to me. ¬¬
Anyhow; the story. The quotes I used are either forseeing or purposefully aclimatic. In some parts, however, it may or may not be the song Courtney's singing.
Part I
He who angers you, controls you.
-Elizabeth Kenny
A gust of wind blew by and Courtney wrapped her arms around herself, trying to steal more heat from her thin school jumper. It hadn't been this cold this morning when she had first gone out. She would just have to ask her boyfriend for his jacket when he got back.
She looked ahead to the primary school building across the street, waiting for him to emerge from the door. Very few people were out that day in that part of town, and the few that did walked past her in a hurry. The sun was beginning to set, and she could hear upbeat music playing from some house nearby already.
Now that it was dusk, Courtney was careful not to stand in a corner, lest she be mistaken for something she wasn't; she wasn't wearing anything remotely revealing or enticing, but it wasn't like the drunk old men that were starting to come out stopped to think about that.
She suddenly heard slow, confident steps tread behind her, and stop a few inches from where she was standing.
"How much the night?" A voice asked, as the smell of cigarette reached her nostrils.
Courtney frowned at the taunt, but didn't turn around. She didn't take the statement seriously simply because this wasn't the slurred voice of some drunk old man, it belonged to an awake-sounding young man, the question poised with measured mockery.
Besides, she knew exactly who it was.
She turned her head around, registered the face of the boy behind her, and turned back ahead with a scowl. Well, she hadn't seen him in quite a while.
"Long time no see, Princess" he said casually, drawing the cigarrette to his lips and taking a puff.
"Not enough, if you ask me," she replied haughtily. It was easy to be unpleasant when he called her by that name she had never actually liked, and when he looked so… vulgar behind her.
He was wearing a shabby black hoodie with some logo on the front and the hood pulled over his head, covering his short black hair and hiding half of his face. His goatee was almost lost in his five o'clock shadow, and his tattered red converse looked like they could have easily been the same ones he wore on the show.
Courtney unconciously leaned away from him, keeping her eyes on her boyfriend across the street. She could see him through a window, but he hadn't realized he could see her. He had gone to pick up his little sister's report card, and Courtney had said she would wait for him outside. She didn't know she would run into Duncan, or rather, that he would run into her, and call her attention.
"Is that him?" said punk suddenly asked, having followed her gaze. "Your new guy?" He had heard rumors that she had a new boyfriend, but had never met him. As he asked her, a bit of strain showed on his voice, that he didn't bother covering up. All exes' rules dictated you should appear to be over your ex, but he never did care for rules, not even the ones that were meant to protect his heart.
"Yeah," Courtney replied, a defensive undertone to her voice. "Favián." She didn't like the way Duncan was looking at him, as if judging him. She didn't like being here with him, and the fact that her boyfriend could turn his head any minute and see him there with her. She just wanted him to go away.
Duncan took a puff of his cigarette, ever so relaxed, and spoke again, "Rumors say he's a bit, impulsive," he said meaningfully, and he knew she knew what he meant. He saw her furtively tug down the previously rolled up sleeves of her jumper to cover her forearms.
"Where'd you hear that?" she asked snappily.
Duncan looked at the brunette's back. Courtney, with her clean white and navy jumper and pale green dress shorts, stood out against the dirty streets and the rundown buildings. Her hair, straight and shiny like it always was, was up neatly in a half-up, half-down hairdo.
She was the image of cleanness, and yet, Duncan could still see (or maybe just remember) the mischief in her ebony eyes, the promise of the fire that could light up in a second whenever provoked.
Then he turned his gaze ahead on her guy, waiting in an office. Alert and vigilant, whipping around his head whenever someone walked past him. Standing, not sitting, because he looked like he couldn't stay still for a whole minute. All signs of a violent guy; not exactly tell-tale, but good enough hints.
He knew Courtney could feel he was observing him; and she was right, he was. Finally he emitted a non-comittal, "Around." And went on, "Haven't you ever had him on a jealous fit? Ever gone out with your friends and come back to find him drunk and angry and wanting to take out his frustration out on something?" He asked, his voice now reduced to a whisper, due to the fact that they were still out on the streets.
She automatically snickered and shook her head, because that wasn't at all the way it happened. "That's bull."
"It's what people's saying," he insisted.
"People should mind their own business," she said.
"Is it true or not?" he demanded, even though it was obvious he was right.
Courtney paused for a second. Then she turned back.
Their eyes locked, and the previously mentioned fire was present in her eyes, rekindling, if only for the time being, the old and buried hate his form inspired in her. Finally she passed right over his question and bluntly stated:
"I'd choose him over you, a million times."
And then she turned back ahead.
Duncan followed her gaze and didn't say anything. He easily believed her. She was that proud, and she hated him that much.
She could easily take a guy who constantly put her down and humilliated her in the privacy of their homes and not sweat it, but being weak in front of Duncan was out of the question. The guy with the green mo-hawk was her sworn enemy; her polar opposite and yet, the one she always meassured herself against; the perfect antithesis of her that somehow made for her perfect punching bag. Favián was just… a temporal jerk in her life.
Even when they had been dating, Duncan was always her enemy first. Even in their finest moments, there was always something that turned the tables and reminded them of their true nature. They gravitated around each other like two magnets. They came in contact, crashed, repelled each other, and lived in tense detachment until one decided to bug the other, and it was the same cycle all over again.
It had been… unique, but… tiring. And they were doomed to a violent ending.
Duncan shifted in his place. Courtney had once told him he meant nothing in her life anymore, but that couldn't be true. He still played an fairly important part in her world as the person she hated the most of all.
Given their twisted history, it should come as no surprise to him that the thought made him smirk.
I'll update Part II as soon as I can.
~The Lighthouse
