Disclaimer: If I owned West Side Story I'd be a lot richer than I am now. Sigh.

Note: This fic was not supposed to happen. I had plenty of other ideas in the works and then I saw the forum topic on who Anybodys should end up with and I sat down and wrote this in about an hour. It's all your fault, people.

And also, A-Rab uses a particularly nasty slur that doesn't express my own opinions. You know him, he does what he wants.

—viennacantabile

an american tragedy

.

That's what A-Rab thinks whenever he sees Anybodys in the weeks after that night. An American tragedy.

He can't keep his eyes off her. It's like watching a train wreck. Because Anybodys, stupid as she is, has fallen in love.

But not with a girl, like he would've expected. Turns out she's not a dyke after all. Funny, he thinks, how the world works out. No. The little punk's sweet on Ice, of all people. Who is, actually, just about as pretty as his girl, A-Rab thinks contemptuously—not that he thinks Ice's pretty like that; even if he swung that way, cool as, well, ice just isn't his type—so maybe not so strange after all.

And it's so obvious, he can't believe no one else's noticed. A-Rab watches her whenever the Jets meet up, sees her bite her lip and steal glances at their new fearless leader. Sees her blush, even, and for some reason that makes him even more irritated about it all. Anybodys's never acted like a girl before, so why the hell's she doing it now? Just because Ice let her into the Jets (big mistake, not that anyone ever asked him) is no reason to follow him around like a sick puppy and make eyes at him when she thinks no one's looking. Little girl, I got news for ya, he thinks, I'm lookin'.

But not that way. If he's gonna mess around with a girl, it'd better be a real girl, not some jerk-ass wannabe thinks-she's-a-guy sorry excuse for one. A-Rab wants a chick with the goods to make up for the empty space up top, because he's never met a broad he hasn't wanted to shoot after five minutes and there's gotta be some reward for kissing up to one, after all.

Although he doesn't exactly want to kill Anybodys. Her, he only wants to pummel in the dirt for not having the sense of a two year-old. Where does she think she's gonna get, mooning around after Ice like this? He's got enough on his plate, now that Tony and Riff are—A-Rab skirts the word—not here. The Hawks're starting to move back in, smelling blood. Some of the PRs are still kicking around. And even if Ice had time for girls right now, he definitely wouldn't dump his knockout girlfriend for Anybodys. If that's what she thinks, she'll be waiting a long time.

God. It's pathetic, really. Can't see what's right in front of her own face.

Every time he sees her hanging around, A-Rab just gets madder and madder. And that's how, day after day, he can keep pushing away that other thought of his, the one that wonders why she bothers him so much, and why he doesn't bring it up with the other Jets, not even Baby John. Even though it'd be so easy. Anybodys, in love. Hah. The best joke ever.

Except to A-Rab, somehow, this joke isn't very funny at all.

.

.end.

::snort:: talk about not seeing what's right in front of your face. Boys.

—viennacantabile