Rules of Cliché
Summary: AU. Modern. 1 woman who never liked cliches. 1 guy who couldn't care less. 10 rules. Let the sparks fly. J/S
Um, hello! I'm really sorry for the almost year-long absence. But it really paid off! Last March, I graduated as the valedictorian of my batch - in our place, it is the honor given to the student who had achieved the highest GPA. I was so happy (admittedly, I still am), that I want to share my happiness with you. Now that school is over and vacation has begun, I can finally refocus my attention to writing my stories! Yay! My birthday is in two days - think of this as a reverse birthday present.
Chapter 1: In which Cinderella meets Prince Charming in a Not-so-Once-Upon-a-Time sort of way
Cliché Scenario # 1: In Which the Stereotypical Knight in Shining Armor rescues the Helpless Damsel in Distress
Like any other good story, hers started on the crappiest day of her entire craptastic life.
It was luck, she decided. The only way to have a crappy day was to have crappy luck. Maybe she was cursed at birth. Maybe the great-great-great-great-grandmother of her great grandmother offended a vengeful fairy that proceeded to condemn her unwitting descendants to have the worst kind of misfortune. Maybe fate was toying with her or something.
Or maybe, she was just unlucky on this particular day. Considering that today was a Monday, the day she considered as her luckiest, that didn't bode well for the rest of the week.
She felt crabby. She refused to admit that it was her fault. Nor could she blame it on her roommate, who by the way forgot to clean up her awful mess last night. Her roommate's filth, not hers - there was no way that she would spill a perfectly good tub of ice cream on her perfectly good, hundred-dollar rug. Her roommate forgot to turn off the TV too, for she could hear its low, blurry volume in the background.
No. Sarah Williams blamed her mood on a Feeling. A Feeling with a capital 'F' was worse than a plain old feeling with no capital letters. It meant that something was to happen. Today.
This brought her back to her original dilemma. If something was going to happen, good or bad, how was she to prepare to meet it with thrice-damned luck?
She shouldn't have gone out of bed this morning. The moment she saw the sad remains of her even sadder excuse of an alarm clock littering the floor near her bedside, she should've taken it for the ill omen it was.
Of course, she purposely ignored the fact that it was her fault that the thing shattered in the first place.
"Stupid alarm clock," she muttered. It was only doing its job, but Sarah was too sleepy to feel sorry for the pathetic scrap of metal. Later. She would mourn its loss later.
"Stupid alarm clock," she repeated, just for good measure. In annoyance, she kicked the thing that was nearest to her.
Which happened to be her coffee table.
Said coffee table just happened to have her brand-new Apple laptop - that just, well, fell. On the floor.
"Sh - oh, crap!"
'Crap' was rapidly becoming the word of the day.
The noise apparently woke up her companion. She narrowed her eyes at her roommate's shaggy head, which was resting on a horribly familiar (but terribly tattered) piece of clothing. As if sensing her ire, the occupant of the sofa blinked open bleary eyes.
"Well?" Sarah demanded, gesturing to her ruined, second-favorite shirt. She was supposed to wear that today, to counter her luck. "What have you to say for yourself?"
Her roommate 'woofed' and wagged its tail enthusiastically, no doubt very pleased with itself.
"Karma, you really are a bitch," she remarked, watching the dog leap off the furniture (which was sporting new claw marks) to greet her properly.
Seating on the sofa which creaked in complaint, Sarah patted the dog's head fondly. It was just a shirt, she told herself. Karma was more important. A month ago, the dirty, mangy animal followed her home and unleashed the full potency of its 'puppy dog eyes' that caught Sarah hook, line, and sinker. When nobody claimed her after numerous inquiries and advertisements (Sarah rather thought that nobody would lay claim on the mongrel with the questionable pedigree), she took the stray in.
Karma wasn't fully housebroken yet, but she was Sarah's friend. And that made her special, even if she had a habit of destroying her mistress' favorite shirts.
"...in a recent interview, Mr. Regnare has announced that he would be on vacation for the rest of the year. Viewers would recognize the critically acclaimed writer for authoring no less than 21 best-selling novels of various genres, most of which..."
The telly was still on, and Sarah watched in morbid fascination as legions of book-toting women stood in line and were most likely waiting for a chance to glimpse their idol. The show was about some famous guy who apparently appealed to the 'fairer sex.' Seriously, how could a staid and possibly boring writer be as famous as a pop star? She turned off the television with a dismissive huff.
"What have you been watching, Karma?" she asked the canine. "Who cares about stuffy, old writers taking a vacation, for crying out loud? He probably is an overweight, undersexed, creep with bad breath and a squint."
Karma gave the equivalent of a dog shrug.
If only Sarah knew how that little bit of news was going to affect her day, and not to mention her whole 'craptastic' life, she would've paid more attention.
But for now, she was merely concerned about how to deal with her bad day.
She briefly toyed with the idea of calling in sick for work. Could paranoia be considered as a sickness? But since her boss has been giving her the 'evil eye' for being late for the past few days (it wasn't her fault! And shouldn't the boss-man award her points for consistency? Granted, it was consistency for tardiness, but still...), Sarah figured out that she wasn't going to risk it.
She would just exercise extreme caution. That was enough, wasn't it?
"Wish me luck, Karma," the girl said. And winced. "Don't give the dog sitter a hard time, okay?"
Still with the horrible Feeling churning in her gut, she gingerly opened her door and looked around for something that would pop around the corner and cause her premature death. The door was the last real barrier between the her and the real world, where unpredictability ruled. So far so good.
Sarah descended her apartment stairs and nothing eventful occurred .She crossed 'broken ankles from stairs' off her mental list of 'bad-things-that-might-happen-today-which-must-be-avoided-at-all-cost.'
Maybe wearing sensible flat shoes had helped. Yes, they may be in a quaintly garish shade of purple and didn't go well with her green mini-skirt (Chartreuse! Her skirt's color was Chartreuse!), but she was grateful nonetheless.
She heaved in a breath of crisp, morning air. It was a shame that Monday had to be her crappiest day, she thought. Everything seemed brighter than usual. Vendors were hawking their wares with unrestrained vigor in their stalls from a nearby market. Children were skipping their way to school. Skipping, the very idea! When she was their age, she never failed to trudge her way to school. Not that she didn't want to learn, but there were bullies to avoid, after all. Oh, how they made her life hell.
Moving on...
Sarah quickened her pace. People were gawking at her, for chrissake. Hadn't their parents told them that it was rude to stare? It was probably a direct consequence of her luck. Apparently, it made random passer-by to leer at her.
BEEP! BEEP!
"Hey! I was walking here!" she yelled.
The car's squelching wheels and her dirty skirt (she had been standing near a mud puddle when the stupid driver tried to mow her down) was the only answer she got. She watched the expensive-looking vehicle ride away. It had a bumper sticker that proclaimed 'Your fault, not mine, sucker.'
"Crazy, drunk driver," Sarah muttered, gazing in consternation at her ruined skirt. Her 'chartreuse' skirt was not quite chartreuse anymore. "My fault, my ass."
Monday was so not her day.
The girl-with-the-worst-luck gave a sigh of relief. At least she would not be 'mobbed by a rabid crowd' today.
She glanced dejectedly at her time-out card. It was her fouth tardy for a week, what would boss-man say?
At least she was relatively dry now after the car incident.
"You look as if end-of-the-world came early," a voice said lightly.
Sarah turned her glum stare at her co-worker.
"You know, that doesn't even sum it," she replied.
Rick grinned his stupid silly grin and adjusted the knot of his Spongebob Squarepants necktie.
"Shit happens," he agreed. He blinked his big, stupidly cute brown eyes at her. "Er...nice skirt. It's green, right?"
The merry tone of his voice and his jaunty gaze made her want to gouge his 'stupidly cute' eyes out and serve them on a platter. No one should be that happy on her crappy day! She told him so.
He laughed. "You're joking, right? Of course you're joking."
She smirked. Rick made a mental note to hide all pointy objects away from his volatile worker, especially the letter-openers. Definitely the letter-openers.
"It's not green," she told him. "My skirt is dyed in a particularly wonderful shade of chartreuse. Chartreuse, I tell you."
"Green."
"Chartreuse."
"Green."
"Chartreuse."
"Gre-never mind," he said. "By the way, are you free this evening?"
"No," she said flatly.
"What about -"
"No. Why do you want to know?"
"Oh, come on. I know you know why."
There was a pause.
"No," she replied. "I don't know why. You have to tell me."
The brown-haired man stared at his companion and realized that she was telling the truth.
He resisted the urge to sigh in consternation.
"Do you want to go out on a date with me?"
"A date?"
"Yes."
"No thanks," she said, grinning at him. Honestly, the boss-man really went out of his way to make her feel better! Even if she was late for work for the fourth time that week. He didn't mean it, of course, but it was very nice of him to say that.
He rubbed his chin in thought.
"Well, I suppose I could blackmail you into it," he thought aloud. "I could fire you, for instance."
"No way, boss-man. You like me too much to do that," she smiled at him. "'Sides, what would you do without me?"
Rick, or boss-man, as she called him, heaved a theatrical sigh.
"You're right," he agreed. He wagged a finger at her threateningly. "I'm not letting you off lightly, Ms. Williams. The warehouse delivered a hell lot of boxes this morning. Go do your stuff."
"Aye, aye, cap'n," Sarah mock-saluted him, before sauntering off to 'do her stuff.'
"The offer of a date still stands, though," he called after her. She gave no sign of having heard him.
Rick sighed.
Sometimes, it was completely sucked when the girl you liked was painfully naive.
...800 - Literature. 900 - History, Geography and Biography, Sarah checked the last shelf in contentment. Melvil Dewey, you just made my life easier. I could kiss you if you were alive.
She made a face when she saw the aforementioned librarian's face leering back at her from an eerie marble bust of his likeness.
On second thought, thank God you're not.
The girl gazed haplessly at the numerous boxes piled neatly at the corner.
Rick might be a damn good friend, but he's a ruthless slave driver, she thought. At the way things were going, she would never finish cataloguing those books in time. She picked up yet another pile of heavy tomes that needed to be organized.
The brunette supposed that it was a relief that the library was relatively empty at that hour. No snot-nosed brats desecrating the lovely books with their candy-coated, sticky fingers. No punks vandalizing the pages with their illiterate writings. No stuffy scholars inquiring about some outdated tome or other.
In fact, everything was peaceful. Too peaceful.
She narrowed her eyes, still wary of her mercurial luck.
Random people were strolling in the aisles, occasionally grabbing a book from the shelf. The tables were vacant save for the one nearest her, where a guy sat surrounded by books which suspiciously looked like romance novels. He was writing something in a small notebook, and frequently muttering to himself. He must be a poof, she thought, not noticing the slight smirk on his face as he heard her unknowingly vocalize her thoughts. But aside from a spare glance he sent her way, he ignored her as much as she ignored him. The boss-man was speaking with someone at the Information Desk and seemed quite busy.
"Excuse me, Miss?"
Sarah jumped, startled out of her wits as someone approached her from behind. Her crappy luck kicked in and she promptly dropped the books she had been holding.
The poofy guy she had been observing looked up briefly and returned to what he was writing, his smirk in place.
Why oh why did she feel as if he was silently laughing at her?
Calming her racing heart, she turned to face the person who spoke to her, a polite smile frozen on her lips.
"Yes, sir?" she replied, trying to ignore the fact that a particularly heavy encyclopedia dropped directly on her poor, abused big toe. That frickin hurt, you fool, so this better be good.
"Oh, your books fell! Let me help you get those."
Well, well. Chivalry is not dead and all that.
The newcomer retrieved the books from the floor and handed it back to her. He took his fine time doing it, but Sarah made no move to help him, seeing that it was his blasted fault in the first place.
"Thanks," she muttered grudgingly. "Can I help you with something?"
He smiled and ruffled his hair in what maybe he thought as charming and debonair-ish, but just annoyed the hell out of her.
Spit it out, you fool. In case you didn't notice I am carrying something heavy here. You don't want me to drop them on your toes, do you?
But of course, Sarah dared not say that. The boss-man would have her head, for sure.
"Well...I was wondering..."
"Yes?"
"Er, uhm…" he blushed, then stammered.
Sarah slowly counted from one to ten. In English, in French, then in Pig Latin.
"I don't have a library card," he admitted sheepishly. "But can I check you out?"
Her smile grew icier. Her eye twitched.
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, come on, love. You know exactly what I mean." He wagged his eyebrows suggestively.
Behind her, poof guy mysteriously had a coughing fit that sounded a lot like evil laughter.
Die, you poof-man, she cursed silently. Die! But before that, stop laughing at me!
"Excuse me, sir?" she replied. Don't do anything, Sarah! Boss-man wouldn't like it if you littered the floor with some guy's nasty entrails.
"Aww, babe," he declared, abandoning the 'I'm-just-a-nice-adorable-guy-next-door-so-love-me' facade. He propped an elbow on a shelf, eyes roving indecently over her frame. So much for chivalry. "I'm just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him."
That does it.
Sarah leaned forward, sickeningly sweet smile in place. "Really, sir?"
...then dropped the books on his poor, unprotected foot.
"OOOW! %&^#T $#! &**&^!"
Her vocabulary had just widened significantly. Thank you, random stranger who decided to annoy me on my crappiest day.
"Oh! I'm terribly sorry sir," she said in mock-pity. "How clumsy of me! Do you need any help?"
Random stranger glared at her and hobbled towards the exit without another word.
That was surprisingly easy.
"Serves you right," she said under her breath. She had a feeling that she would never see him again.
The weary librarian went down on her knees to pick up the fallen books, wincing all the while when she saw the slight dents on the once-neat covers.
"Subject is given to homicidal tendencies. Do not anger if one values one's own life - or in a smaller scale, one's own vulnerable appendages, like the feet, which are quite useful for walking."
Sarah whirled around, forgetting the books once again.
It was poof-man.
Who was still smirking at her smugly, eyes unreadable behind his dark shades, which she hadn't noticed before.
"Are you talking about me, pal?" she demanded, approaching him furiously. Up close, the dust jackets of the trashy romance novels surrounding him seemed more tawdry.
Poof-man tutted and jotted down another note.
"Subject is prone to draw rather hasty conclusions," he paused. "This Author once overheard said Subject to proclaim an unsuspecting, innocent bystander as effeminate, or to put it indelicately, a 'poof' - based on the premise that the unknowing bystander happened to have novels targeted for the fairer sex in his vicinity."
Sarah flushed. She had no idea that the poof-man heard her earlier.
"Oh, well. Sorry about that," she mumbled. "You are hardly an unsuspecting, innocent bystander, by the way."
The man replaced the cap of his ball pen and closed his notepad, allowing her a better view of him.
She belatedly realized that the man she labelled as 'poof-man' wore really expensive designer clothes that suited his impressive figure. His blond hair was messy, in an 'isn't-it-obvious-that-I've-been-doing-something-dirty-wouldn't-you-like-me-to-do-it-to-you' sort of way (that had way too many hyphens), and spilled over his shoulders. She couldn't see what color his eyes were, but she was suddenly seized with the desire to rip off his glasses to find out. Tamping down, that irrational impulse, Sarah observed him critically.
There was something in the way he carried himself that made others sit up and take notice. This was the kind of man a person would think as drop-dead gorgeous, she thought. She would, too.
If it weren't for the fact that he was the most annoying jerk she had ever met.
"To answer your query, yes, I do was talking about you," he said, finally addressing her.
"I'm sorry - er, what?"
His voice was not hypnotic. He was not drop-dead gorgeous. Nope, not at all to both accounts. But he was filthy rich. And a jerk.
Sarah realized that maybe, he was what her Feeling was warning her about earlier.
"Now, since I answered your question, you are entailed to answer mine," he continued, brushing off her inquiry.
He was definitely what her Feeling was warning her about earlier. But instead of listening to her common sense (which was trying to tell her to get the hell outta there), she stayed.
He apparently took her silence as a yes.
"Are you part of the non-existent minority of women who are incredibly dense and/or naive to recognize flirting when they encounter it, or are you playing hard to get, to make the chase more exciting, so to speak?"
The stranger steepled his fingers, and waited for her reply. He seemed to be pondering the matter quite seriously.
She blinked.
There had to be an insult there somewhere.
"Huh?" she answered intelligently. When in doubt, resort to monosyllabic answers.
"That man," he gestured impatiently to the exit, where the annoying stranger was hobbling a minute ago. "Was flirting with you."
She blinked. Again.
"Huh?"
He was?
"He was trying to get into your pants," he said bluntly.
She blinked. For the third time.
"Huh?"
"I take back my question. You are naive," he muttered.
"I'm not!" Sarah replied, gravely offended. He just caught her off guard, that's all. After all, what kind of person asked questions like that?
"Oh really? Did you realize that that man earlier had looked up your skirt when he bent down to retrieve your books?"
"He did not!" she said, outraged.
"Yes, he did," he countered, leaning back and observing her as if she was an interesting specimen under a microscope. "And please, do take a seat. I hate it when someone else does the 'towering-to-intimidate' besides me."
She slid into one across him. Sarah had quite forgotten that she still had work to do.
"Why are you asking me all this questions, anyway?"
In the back of her mind, she thought that she should be deeply insulted. And wary of the stranger who seemed quite unhinged and missing a few of his marbles.
He smiled. A trifle arrogantly, she noticed.
"I write," he said simply.
"Was that supposed to mean something?"
"Well, yes."
"I don't get it."
"Do these books mean anything to you?" He indicated the novels near him.
"No, not really. I don't read trashy romance novels."
He vaguely looked offended, but Sarah figured that it was just a trick of the light.
"Well, these 'trashy romance novels', as you put it, have dominated book charts and won various awards."
"And?"
"I was right. You are naive. And unbearably dense."
It was her turn to look hurt. She was a mature adult, for crying out loud! She was not dense. Gazing mulishly at the books on his table and ignoring the lurid pictures, she recognized the name on the cover.
"J. Regnare?" she read aloud. At his nod, she continued. "Aren't you supposed to be that guy on vacation?"
"I am on vacation, sweetheart. But you presented me with material that was too good to pass up. How would you like to be the heroine of my newest work?"
She remembered watching the telly with Karma earlier.
Well, he certainly was not stuffy.
Nor was he old - maybe a few years older than her.
He undoubtedly was not overweight; quite the opposite, in fact.
A creep? Yes. In a 'creepy' sort of way.
Undersexed? With his tall, dark and handsome (but still a jerk) looks? Pfft.
His breath smelled faintly of peppermint.
She was still rooting for a squint, though. She gazed hopefully at his dark sunglasses, which he had removed. They revealed stunning eyes of dark brown and electric blue. His eyes might have looked decidedly odd on another person, but to him, they suited perfectly and no doubt made the ladies fall harder.
Well, damn. Every bit of her conjecture about him was wrong.
The hordes of women on the telly suddenly made sense. With his looks, he probably can write the lousiest novels that would still be bestsellers.
Not that she knew if his novels were lousy or not. It would be wrong if she said he wrote 'trashy romance novels', even if they do look a lot like 'trashy romance novels.'
While she was woolgathering, Mr. Regnare had uncapped his ballpen and started writing on his notepad again.
"Subject is in her mid-twenties, a brunette with the best rack and bottom this Author had ever seen. Observing her symmetrical features, pert little nose, color changing blue eyes and lips that, well, the Subject does not need to know what this Author is thinking about them, yet - the word 'eflin' and 'beauty' comes to mind."
Sarah did not know whether to throttle or hug the stranger for his innocently lewd (or was it lewdly innocent?) description of her.
"Subject is incredibly naive, which might be annoying at most, but still a trait this Author finds unexplainably endearing."
Did he really have to write while reading out loud? She outgrew that habit when she was in second grade.
He made her feel disconcerted.
"Yes, er - I better leave you to your thoughts." Drawing back the chair she stood up to retrieve the books she had, up till now, forgotten.
His next words made her stop short.
"This Author would like to know if Subject is amenable for coffee with him. At the Subject's choice of time and place, of course."
Sarah tiltled her head, and gazed back at him, trying to see if he was pulling her leg. But all she saw was a sincere smile, a far cry from his former smirk.
As he had done earlier, he took her silence as a yes.
Sarah let out a tiny grin.
Maybe things were looking up.
"You do realize that your bra is showing, don't you?"
She spoke too soon.
She did not notice until later that they did not even know each other's names.
Was it okay? I hadn't been writing fics for nearly a year (only dry, formal papers with highfalutin words), so my writing skills are quite rusty. Thank you for reading and please review! Should I continue this? If you have a cliche thing in mind (an expression, scenario or what have you), I would love to hear it and I would most likely incorporate it here. I planned 10 chapters for this fic.
Virtual accolades for those who can spot the cliché movie quote I butchered here in this chapter!
Thanks again!