Sorry that this chapter's late! But, it's also the very last chapter of this fic, and I want to thank the lovely reviews, follows, and favorites it's gathered It's not the last Sparchess fic in the works from me, though ;p
Shoutout to everyone who's given this fic a chance, y'all rock!
EverAfterHighFanFiction
HunterHero416
Ponipop
Suhela
Tajador545
potterverseau
Kittycheshire06
And of course the Guests who have reviewed!
.
.
.
.
Duchess has never been wrong before. It's an odd feeling.
She'd called in sick to work, because she can't imagine facing Sparrow, inherently meaning that she was wrong in assuming their date (and kissing) would not interrupt their work relationship.
Faybelle called in sick to Hocus Latte, too, claiming sisterly solidarity. Duchess figures it's only because Poppy is having some fundraiser event at her pet grooming business and Faybelle wants to show up and surprise her.
"Tell me all the details," Faybelle demands over the kitchen table while Duchess pokes at a bowl of cereal, the electric wall clock announcing the time as a quarter to nine, relatively early. "How did it go? Was he terrible? I've heard guitar players are really good with their fingers. Is that true?"
"Don't be gross," Duchess winces at all of Faybelle's insinuations, "We only kissed!"
"But what kind of kissing?" Faybelle asks, like there's subsections to the action that Duchess doesn't know about. "Was it 'I'm kissing you because I have to' or was it 'I'm kissing you in the throes of passion'?"
"There were no throes of passion!" Duchess exclaims, turning bright red, letting go of her spoon so it makes a splash in the milk.
"Sure, Swan. C'mon, spill. Was there tongue?"
"If you're going to be crude about the entire ordeal, then I won't tell you anything." Duchess frowns.
"So that's a yes on the tongue?"
Duchess spoons more cereal into her mouth to avoid answering, though maybe her red cheeks give her away.
Faybelle heaves a huge sigh when she realizes Duchess won't fess up. "Fine. Are you coming with me to Poppy's fundraiser?"
"I've still got dance class," Duchess replies, even though Poppy's fundraiser (an event raising money for unadopted older pets) sounds fine enough as events go. "If the fundraiser runs late maybe I'll swing by."
"Fine," Faybelle tiredly repeats. "What about the dance routine you've been working on for the little monsters? Did you get that done?"
"Almost," Duchess honestly responds. "It needs a few tweaks, but then I'll be ready by this afternoon."
Though, in all fairness, nothing would have prepared her for the afternoon, the reason for it being purely unrelated to dance.
Faybelle had already left to Poppy's fundraiser, so Duchess went on her own to the dance studio, fifteen minutes early, to find Justine already there in dance clothes and a dreamy smile on her face.
Duchess side eyes her and shifts her dance bag over her shoulder. "Is something wrong?"
"You never told me you had a boyfriend," Justine excitedly starts to blab, eyes wide as she clasps her hands to her heart. "How romantic. He's in the room now, wi-"
Duchess doesn't let Justine finish. She shoves open the door to the classroom to find Sparrow Hood himself seated by the stereo that plays their instrumental track CDs and the instant he sees her, he smiles. Duchess doesn't.
"You are not my boyfriend," Duchess automatically starts off, crossing her arms, dropping her bag at her feet. "Why are you here?"
"What, can't I stop by to see my girl?" Sparrow grins, and then from behind the stereo he comes up with a bouquet of red roses.
"I am not," Duchess fumes, "Your girl." And she blushes right afterwards. The audacity of her own stupid hormones.
Sparrow presses the roses into Duchess's hands. She only accepts them because if they fall, petals will scatter and her room will be crawling with children soon, so last minute cleanups are an unnecessary evil. That doesn't mean she'll like them, though, even if they do smell fragrant and sweet.
"Playing hard-to-get, Princess?" Sparrow smirks. "I've got all day."
Narrowing her eyes, Duchess demands to know, "How did you find me? I've never told you the name of the dance studio."
"Google," Sparrow replies, like that's the answer to all the universe's problems. "I know your name, I know your apartment complex, and I know your profession. It's not that hard."
"You sound like a stalker," Duchess states, crossing her arms.
"Well, you also have 'ballet instructor at Twelve Dance Studio' on your Tinder profile."
"I do not!" Duchess screeches, and her face turns red, mortified at the thought of someone stumbling upon her eons-old online dating profile that she'd signed up for with Faybelle (again with the sisterly solidarity).
"I've got concrete proof right here that-"
"No," Duchess interrupts, "That's from a long time ago! Why are you really here?"
"I just told you. I'm visiting you," Sparrow explains, not exasperated, but patiently. "Because I was worried when you didn't come to work and I thought it was something I did, so I figured I'd stop by and see if you were okay. And, I brought you flowers, because management said you were sick, so, it was kind of a shot in the dark."
Duchess raises her eyebrows. "You heard I was sick but you showed up to the dance studio anyway?"
"Well," Sparrow says, "In my defense I was going to visit your apartment next if it turned out that you were actually sick."
"So you think I'm a liar," Duchess retorts, eyebrows narrowing.
"To be honest, Princess, it kinda does look like you're a liar," Sparrow grins. "So are you going to tell me the reason why you called in sick to Target?"
Duchess flips her hair over her shoulder. "That's none of your concern."
"But it has to do with me."
"My life doesn't revolve around you," Duchess snaps. "It had nothing to do with you. It was an emergency and I did what I had to do."
"Okay, okay, I get the hint. That doesn't mean that I can't visit you, though, right?" Sparrow asks, like that's completely normal.
"I'd really rather that you didn't," Duchess starts, but then she's aware that Sparrow is taking the flowers from her hands and is replacing them with his own hands, and Duchess flushes. But then she pulls her hands away. "Stop that!"
"Stop what?" Sparrow raises his palms up in surrender. "I'm trying to be romantic here."
"That's not romantic at all," Duchess replies, even if she doesn't really mean that. "I have a class to teach, so, if you don't mind-"
He cradles her face in his hands tenderly, but his egotistical smirk rivals his actions so that he seems like a jerk, frankly. He leans forward, like he's about to give her a kiss...
...Duchess stomps on his foot.
A cough sounds from behind them right as Sparrow groans, and Duchess whirls around to face a sheepish Justine.
"Some kids are arriving a bit early today," she brightly says, "And if you aren't too preoccupied in here..."
"Don't worry," Duchess icily answers, "He was just leaving." And she throws Sparrow, who's dramatically acting as if his foot is going to fall off, a dirty glare.
Sparrow straightens and drops the act, though. Duchess knows her ballet shoe hardly did anything to Sparrow with his steel-toe punk rocker boots, so she doesn't feel sorry. What confuses her, though, if how genuine he is when he asks, "What can I do to make you like me?"
Before Duchess can respond, Justine lets the kids in.
And what a relief that is.
"You can start by leaving," Duchess decides, crossing her arms, and is surprised to find that the words come out nicer than she intends for them to be.
"Not until you give me a second date." Sparrow mimics her pose, crossing his arms, eyebrows raised in a challenge.
Duchess hears the faint ruckus of children's giggles, and then the sounds of their feet hitting the floor, as well as Justine's introductory statement. But she's not focused on all that.
She's staring at Sparrow and his goatee and his ridiculous fedora and those horrid fingerless gloves he's always wearing, and she kind of wants to yell at him for holding up her dance class.
And then, after a pregnant pause, "I suppose."
Sparrow's face-splitting grin almost makes Duchess want to take it back.
"But I want something better than the first one," Duchess demands, just so that he's aware.
"Trust me," Sparrow says, triumphantly. "It'll be the best date you've ever been on."
Somehow, Duchess doubts that.
.
.
.
.
A house party is hardly a place for a supposed best second date ever, and Duchess thinks that Sparrow must be out of his mind, because, to start off, he'd invited her to his house and she'd expected something like dinner, just the two of them, though by the amount of people milling around, she sees that she is mistaken. It's not just his housemates, it's their friends, and oh God, Duchess spots Faybelle, who's gushing about something with Poppy O' Hair's twin (Holly, Duchess finds out, remembering from last time).
Duchess wants to disappear, and she feels like an idiot, also. She's wearing a soft lavender long sleeved shirt and a long light gray skirt, not anything suitable for a t-shirt and jeans event. Frustrated, she balls her hands into fists and clomps all the way to the front door, practically seething the entire time and wishing that simply walking away wasn't the rudest option.
Because, she's never been nice, but she's not rude.
She was invited and therefore had to show up. But, that doesn't mean she can't make an excuse and cut her visit short, which she intends to do as soon as she can.
"Duchess!" Faybelle yells from where she's loitering in the front yard. "I didn't know you were coming!"
Faybelle is likely drunk.
"Neither did I," Duchess flatly responds, and she kicks the grubby welcome mat right in the welcome.
The door's not even opened by Sparrow, which figures. She's greeted by one of his bandmates who she doesn't know the name of but for some reason knows her name, and then the inside of the house is so chock-full of people that it's hard to navigate anywhere in the living room or the kitchen.
She sidesteps the entirety of it, scowling, and feeling like an emotionless buzzkill, but who cares? She's already done the nicething by agreeing to even give Sparrow another chance, or so she tells herself, but then he has to go and ruin it all.
By some chance she ends up by his room again, and so, hesitantly at first, she knocks.
The door drifts open.
"Hello?" Duchess asks, annoyance seeped into her greeting, because she fully expects to find Sparrow there seated on his bed, likely with an electric guitar and another of his tacky hats. Instead, the room is dark and unoccupied, and Duchess almost feels sorry for that, but she closes the door and relishes in the muted atmosphere, glad that only minimal sounds from the outward frivolity reach her ears.
Duchess sits down on the bed and takes out her phone, seeing that Faybelle has sent at least seven photos chronologically depicting her time spent with the O' Hair twins, with puckered lips and flower-crown Snapchat filters. It's annoying, frankly, because, shouldn't Faybelle come to find Duchess, in all her so-called religious execution of sisterly solidarity?
But, no matter. Duchess bypasses her messages just to get a glimpse of her social media site apps bunched all together (skipping Snapchat, to avoid Faybelle's obsession with taking selfies with her girlfriend). Just as Twitter loads up on her screen, she hears voices approaching the room, and feeling as if she's guilty of something, she's tempted to hide.
Except...there's nowhere she can hide.
Ducking inside of a closet (yes, a closet, Duchess is aware she's a terrible person, but no matter, she's always known that, because hiding is more agreeable to confrontation in the case that whoever is about to enter the room then wants to know why she's actually inside the room, and Duchess does not want to let it leave her lips that she's looking for Sparrow because that's lame), legs horribly cramped as she hides behind a hamper of clothes, she hears muffled voices stalk into the room.
"I saw her, man," someone is saying as the bedroom door closes. "She was here a minute ago."
A sigh that sounds familiar resonates. "Whatever."
A third voice chimes in with, "So what's up with that? You won her over yet?"
Duchess realizes why that sigh sounded so familiar as Sparrow says, "I'm doing my best, alright? Yeesh. You all act like I've got no game."
Voice #1 states, jokingly, "Yeah, but you've only got two more days and she'd better have changed all her relationship statuses toin a relationship or else you're doing our laundry for three months."
"You don't have to remind me," Sparrow says, and he sounds cocky as he states, "She totally wants this. I'm going to seal the deal tonight."
"You'd better," voice #2 warningly trills, "'cause I've got a shit ton of dirty socks for you, Hood."
Duchess frowns, already connecting the dots in her head, because she's no fool. Going off this, it sounds like...
"Duchess Swan is going to be my girlfriend by tonight, officially," Sparrow announces. "And both of you are going to be kissing my ass."
Duchess's eyes widen. That rat.
"Whatever you say," voice #1 replies, the smirk evident in his face.
Duchess wonders, then, if it's possible to somehow kill someone and not be convicted of murder, because that seems like a great skill to have.
Eventually, Sparrow's voice- and the voices of his co-conspirators- die down. Only when the door closes does Duchess emerge from the closet, very mad, not to mention obscenely riled and plotting revenge.
The idiot had been stringing her along as part of some dumb bet.
Duchess marches out of the room and storms through the throngs of people gathered in the common areas, but doesn't find Sparrow anywhere. By the time she does find him, though, her anger is far from quenched, lucky for her and unlucky for him.
Sparrow is seated in the backyard, alone, in a patio chair, staring up at the sky, hat gone and a pensive look on his face.
He spots Duchess, who doesn't disguise her frown.
"Hey," he says, and his lips split into a smile. He offers her a single flower, outstretched, as if that'll fix everything she's overheard. "I didn't know where you were so I figured-"
Duchess stares at the offending flower for a second or two and then her frown is back full force and she snaps, "What the hell is wrong with you?" Unladylike, and cursing, both things Duchess is not.
Sparrow's grin slips off his face. "What?"
"I know about your dumb bet," Duchess snarls, and bats away his flower offer. "Did you bet a few douchebags 'I can make this girl go out with me in a week'? What is this, She's All That?"
"I have no idea what that means," Sparrow says, in reference to the movie title, but his face is shell shocked. "Listen, Duchess, I never meant for it to..."
"Don't bother talking to me again," Duchess enunciates, clearly, hard to keep her temper in line. "Don't even try to text me, or-mfph!"
He kisses her hard to cut her off, desperately, lips clumsy against hers, his hands tangling in her hair, but it only lasts for a second before Duchess pushes him away so he won't try again.
"I'm sorry," Sparrow starts, quickly, before Duchess can explode. "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't want-"
"Don't think you have to lie about it," Duchess says, and she crosses her arms snidely. "I heard everything. You can enjoy your three months as a personal laundry machine because I wouldn't date you if you were the last person on this side of the earth."
Sparrow's face falls. "I swear that I never meant-"
"So you're saying you didn't make the bet." Duchess raises her eyebrows challengingly.
Sparrow's gaze drops to the floor as he mumbles, "No, I did."
Duchess almost feels sad for a split second (gross) before she turns on her heel. "Goodbye." And, just before she leaves, hovering in the doorway, she rudely states, "By the way, this is the worst date I've ever been on. In case you need a reference for the next girl you lie to."
"I was wrong, Duchess," Sparrow tries to add in before she leaves. "I made a mistake!"
"So did I. The mistake was agreeing to go on a date with you in the first place."
And then she's gone, just like that.
.
.
.
.
Duchess throws herself into dance with a fervor she hasn't felt in so long. Her feet pad along the polished wooden floors of the dance studio, a sheen of sweat on her face and her heavy breathing the accompaniment to one of Mozart's works. Every leap, twirl, pliƩ, and pirouette feels like a dream come true, her muscles exhausted but so alive.
As she whirls and whirls to the ending of the song, the surrounding mirrors and barres a blur, she practically misses Justine loitering in the doorway, and with closed eyes, Duchess is only torn out of her stupor when Justine clears her throat.
"It's late," Justine explains, apologetically, to Duchess's wide-eyed glare, "And I'm supposed to close up. Did you want to stay later? I could give you the keys."
"No," Duchess says, startled, and looks up at the wall clock above the mirror, surprised to see that it marks just past midnight. "I didn't realize."
"It's okay." Beaming, Justine comes closer to her. "You dance beautifully."
Duchess frowns. "I know that."
Justine's smile doesn't waver. "I haven't seen you dancing much lately. At least, not in the studio."
Duchess self-consciously bends over to pick up her dance bag. "I've got stuff to do. Whatever."
Justine isn't put off by Duchess's comments just yet. "I know the feeling." After a pause, she adds, "I'm always here if you want to talk."
"I've noticed," Duchess can't help snidely saying, but she simmers a moment later. "Thanks."
"Is it about your boyfriend?"
"He's not my-" Duchess starts her sentence angrily, but she trails off, because it's been days since she'd seen Sparrow, not since their disastrous second date, with him even resigning from his retail job in a way that made her feel slightly guilty but not sorry enough to call him up. "He's nobody."
Justine doesn't quite believe her, and she leans against the wall of mirrors. "Do you know Melody Piper?"
Duchess raises her eyebrow. "The DJ."
Justine fondly laughs. "Yeah, her."
"What about her?"
Justine smiles, or, rather, she's still smiling, but it seems to get brighter at the thought of Melody. "We've been dating for two years now, but I broke up with her for a few days last month."
"What does that have to do with-"
"I told her," Justine interjects, "That she should stop playing gigs at bars and frat parties and all that, because I was jealous that she always got a lot of attention. She got mad and accused me of inherently implying her profession wasn't suitable. Which, you know, wasn't my point because she was misreading my words into something they weren't, even though I fully supported her working as a DJ."
Duchess sighs. "Justine, if you've got a point to this, maybe you should make it."
"She broke up with me." Justine admits, but she's not grim, rather, she's laughing, and it must strike her as funny now. "And I thought that maybe I should move on, because I convinced myself that if I was getting jealous it was because I didn't trust Melody enough."
"And?" Duchess prompts.
"And when she came to my apartment to get her things back, I told her I was being selfish, and told her about my jealousy. We agreed to move on, and forgive each other, but mainly, I learned to trust her." Justine knowingly grins.
"What does that have to do with me?" Duchess crosses her arms, annoyed that this life lesson/worldly advice makes no sense.
"Maybe you should just try and understand the boyfriend who isn't your boyfriend," Justine suggests. "Communication is important in a relationship."
"We were never in an actual-"
"Duchess," Justine interrupts, but then smooths that over with another of her kind smiles, "Promise you'll think about it. Making amends. Or- getting closure."
Duchess huffs. "Yeah, sure."
And she doesn't intend on keeping the promise, but- the next day, after she's walked home alone to find that Lizzie is gone as she usually is and Faybelle is who knows where...Duchess wonders what's become of him.
And she opens up her contact list, finding Sparrow's number listed under the name 'annoyance'. (she's proud of that, though)
Texting would be easier, but- less personal. Duchess's finger hovers over the messaging app for approximately ten seconds before she musters the courage to bypass it for the call button.
When it rings, she has to sit on her other hand to stop herself from hanging up, even though it's been ringing and ringing with no answer.
"Yo, it's Sparrow. You know what to do at the beep!" Sure enough, accompanied with guitar riffs, the answerphone leads to a beep. Duchess almost hangs up there, because, he's a jerk for not answering her call in the first place. But- Justine has a point on making amends. Or closure. Or...whatever.
"Hey," she says, almost nervously, "It's Duchess." She pauses. "You probably knew that. You have caller ID...that's not why I called you! I think that maybe some of the things I said to you were harsh. But don't take that as an apology, because I meant every word and I'm not taking them back."
The downstairs neighbors start playing music that is so loud, it feels as if she's in the same room as them, and she winces, wishing that she'd have gotten an apartment in the second floor rather than the third one, because it sounds as if there's a radio blaring right outside her patio door.
"Sorry. Some idiot is playing their music really loud- I just wanted to see if you were interested in meeting up sometime. For coffee. To talk about what happe- ugh, hold on, this music is too loud and I'm going to yell down to the neighbors."
Duchess storms to the patio area of her apartment, pulls the polyester curtains aside, and screams when she sees that there is, in fact, a radio in her backyard (well, that and a guitar amp) accompanied none other than Sparrow Hood himself.
Duchess yanks the door open. "How did you get here?" she yells, over his ruckus. Sparrow turns it down, but Duchess keeps yelling anyway. "You're trespassing! On my property!"
"Hello to you, too," Sparrow says, and tilts the brim of one of his tacky fedoras at her, Duchess noticing that he's trekked out in horrid fingerless gloves, a leather vest, and a button up with a tie, the weirdest choice of outfits she's seen.
"How did you get here?" Duchess repeats, giving him the stink eye.
"Climbed up the fire escape to give an element of surprise. I wasn't sure on which apartment you were in, so, I've been doing this all night. Pretty sure your neighbor, that old balding man with the potbelly, is deaf, because he tried to throw a newspaper at me when I sang him the Boys II Men song 'I'll make love to you'."
Duchess snorts, and she ducks her head, not willing to let him see her laughing, because if she looks up she'll see that he's smiling about making her laugh. "You're such a loser."
"I wish I could say I'm joking. I've seriously been serenading all the apartments on the third floor." Sparrow's guitar, slung around his torso, is carefully pried off and set aside, and he steps closer to Duchess. "I wanted to apologize."
Duchess thinks of the recording she's sent on his phone, but then she straightens and masks her face into one of indifference. "I'm listening."
"I messed up," Sparrow admits, genuinely. "I did. That day I was playing at Briar's party, when you came over, my crew started ribbing me saying I couldn't get you to go out with me, loser got three months of laundry duty."
Duchess crosses her arms. "Obviously you lost."
"Yeah, but, I don't care about that dumb bet. I care about you," Sparrow says, so perfectly honest that Duchess almost gapes (if she hadn't caught herself in time). He colors and rubs the back of his neck. "Lame, right?"
"Obviously." But Duchess lets herself smile, just a little.
"Anyway, Princess-" Sparrow holds out a hand- "Is there any way you'd forgive me?"
She doesn't take it. Not yet. Instead she clicks the end call button on her cellphone and replies, "Maybe."
When his face lights up in a huge grin, Duchess raises her pointer finger to squash his assumptions.
"But that doesn't mean you can date me," she insists. "And I hate those fedoras you wear."
"Duchess," Sparrow tries to add in.
"-and your gloves. Actually, your goatee makes you look old, and-"
"Duchess."
"The length of your hair could actually use some work-"
"Duchess," Sparrow repeats, finally grabbing her hand, stressing her name impatiently, while making Duchess blush uncontrollably, "Can you shut up for once?"
And when he kisses her, it's slow, and steady, as if there's only the two of them and time has stopped. His arms encircle her waist gently, she grabs onto the lapels of his vest, pulling him closer, and then his fingertips are rubbing circles onto her back, the material of her lavender colored jumper gripped in his hands. She deepens the kiss, and he starts to smile against her lips, and she almost laughs, because he detaches himself from her mouth to press kisses on her nose, on her cheeks, nuzzling her face like an eager puppy before she manages to shove him away.
"We're not dating," she reminds him, but lets him steal another drawn-out kiss nonetheless.
He just grins.
"Whatever you say, Princess."
