A/N: Okay, I just put up a Choey oneshot, and decided there should be a Chola one to balance it out. I've had this idea in my head for a while, so here it is. It's in that choppy and fragmented way. I hope you can follow. I picture Chola in New York, because I can't imagine this lovely pairing anywhere else.
For those who feel it's necessary to flame me, please flame me because I disregard the English and it makes you roll in your grave, not because of the pairing and because I choose to be open-minded and attentive all pairings – not just the canon ones. If you're going to do that, then please turn around and click the BACK button on your browser. For the rest of you that embrace open-mindedness, then I welcome you, and please enjoy this oneshot. Your open-mindedness reception is appreciated.
Anything else you'd like to say, PM me – I'm down to maturely discuss or ferociously defend. Whichever works.
Disclaimer: No. After seventy-something stories, no. I bear no resemblance to this show's creator and producer, Dan Schenider.
Freckles
It's odd, and humorously weird.
It's a cycle, a cycle that makes the both of them laugh as they hang out at NYU's large library. Chase isn't ticklish, but the tingling sensation of Lola absent-mindedly using his freckled forearm as her canvas with her blue pen makes him nearly.
It's been four years, and in his twenty-two years, Chase is just that stomach-turning feeling, as if the butterflies transform into heavy gray elephants that stomp up a storm in the pit of his gut. Last time, he thoroughly experiences this feeling is with Zoey as he spends three years not-so-secretly crushing on her, and dating her for two years before they mutually break up the day before graduation. Last time Chase hears, Zoey's in Europe taking the fashion world by storm. The only people from high school he keeps in contact with are Quinn and Logan – they're getting married next year. And Michael and Lisa.
It's a game of "connect-the-freckles-while-Chase-attempts-to-get-published", and the writer's block is chronic, it's almost reaching frustrating proportions. But Lola drops her pen and smiling proudly at her artwork, as if she's discovered some secret before he does.
"Ha!" Lola points out. "Picasso should beat that!"
"Ah," he muses, smile on his face. "So, I've stopped becoming a human canvas."
"Yeah, pretty much," Lola says, tucking a lock of her hair behind her left ear. Standing up, she glances at the clock and realizes it's four and there's an audition staring her in the face in one hour. Chase watches her eyes widen slightly. "Oh God, I have only one hour to get ready for my audition."
For the first time ever, Lola is actually nerves about tanking this audition, but Chase's company makes some of the nerves dissipate. God, she really wants to have that shiny Oscar statue in her dainty hands as she smiles and poses for pictures on the red carpet, she's inevitably bound to walk on. Lola knows nothing else but theatrics and she can't mess up what she builds up since her first headshot at age nine. Now, at twenty-two, Lola Martinez is auditioning for something huge – the lead movie of a new movie.
Luckily, Chase is the only other person that knows the mechanics and the creative process of everything. As a bonus, doodling on his freckled arm is quite therapeutic.
"I'll come with you."
"Really? You'd do that for me?"
"Yeah, because like every writer, the writer's block is completely frustrating and will seriously drive me crazy," Chase replies, closing the saved document with another added twenty pages onto what could be a best-seller hit if the publisher accepts it. Closing the laptop cover, he stuffs the laptop in his bag. Grinning, he adds, "I can't exactly come watch you rock your audition if I'm occupied in a straight jacket, now can I?"
"No, you can't," Lola replies, laughing, and a tinge of pink splashes across her cheeks in a blush. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Chase says, finally.
When Lola's hand slips into his, he reacts back, sending a gentle, reassuring squeeze her way.
She'll totally break a leg.
--
Chase never really takes a second glance at Lola's artwork for unknown reasons.
But when his eyes get a good look at the freckle-induced doodle, it totally clicks in his brain. He swears he can hear everything just clicks into place like a jigsaw puzzle.
Quinn is totally right about the relationship between sight and the brain.
Chase always knows he has an odd formation of five particular brown freckles on his forearm.
It's not a fish or a misshapen mini chocolate chip cookie, contrary to popular belief, but when the slightly faded pen blue lines in between freckles unveils another shape, he traces the shape, and smiles at his revelation.
Lola connects the spaces with a pen between the light brown freckles, and leaves a heart-shaped masterpiece in place.
Not a lumpy, disproportionate one, but a perfectly even heart.
He can go to bed, right after he deals with his burnt tongue as a result of hot coffee, and wake up tomorrow, with the sole mission of asking the actress to be his girlfriend officially.
Silently, Chase is thankful for his weird formation of freckles.
A/N: Okay, so I planned to release this oneshot on December 28, 2008, as my third FF anniversary. The oneshot itself has nothing to do with the holidays, but this is a holiday gift for someone, so I'll put it up now with the other one "New" tomorrow. I'm also planning to update "The Little Things In Between" and finally after like six months of abandonment, "Sibling Rivalry" later this week. I'm planning to end "Letters To You" in the New Year (February/March 2009). "It Takes Two" will end somewhere in April/May 2009. I'm just in a rut with that one.
So, please review. Feedback makes me happy. I'm off to work on "New". If you guys are lucky, you might get it tonight. If not, look out for it, tomorrow or latest Thursday.
Okay, I'm shutting up now.
Review.
-Erika
