(A/N reminder that this is technically a Schroeder/Lucy - Peanuts fanfic but you don't have to know anything about Peanuts to read it. Comics directly referenced in dialogue or plot will be provided but those subtly referenced and references to several strips at once will not. They're not required to read to understand the story but you may appreciate the references a bit more if u do.)

Schroeder gazed fondly with a content smile playing at his lips at the face in front of him. It was absolute perfection- simply gorgeous, winsome, and a model of sophistication. It left him mesmerized and inspired to create a grand symphony in honor of its magnificence. The face at which he was gazing upon was none other than that of Ludwig van Beethoven. Well, the face of a miniature statue of Beethoven that is. It was important to him that he had it close by at all times to keep him inspired and disciplined, almost as if he believed it were the great pianist himself staring down motivating his student to practice more and be better. This great fascination for his idol led him to keep a statue placed on his piano at home, the piano he practiced on at school, on his nightstand beside his bed, and he made sure to keep a closet full of extras just in case a certain neighbor of his suddenly decided that she was feeling extra jealous of his attention always going to Beethoven. That neighbor being Lucy van Pelt.

As children, his childhood friend Lucy had a habit of defacing, stealing, or even smashing the small figureheads to pieces even after she learned he had stocked a closet full of spares just in case she did something. But as they grew older and Schroeder's traditionalist British mother who highly valued manners started expecting Lucy to act like a little lady when she came over, she knew better than to destroy his precious sculptures. She had occasionally destroyed the toy piano he constantly played when they were younger as well, once even throwing it down a sewer, however that became out of the question once he finally upgraded to a rather expensive grand piano. He had still carried his toy piano with him throughout all of his years in school to play between classes and hold onto like a security blanket, but he was always careful to keep it out of anyone's reach.

February 1955 Peanuts strip reference

( to view this comic reference, check out this story on Wattpad or AO3. Username: ladieboog story title: Ice Cream Ballade )

It had now been just a bit over a year since Schroeder graduated from high school but he continued to spend his days there, mostly in the auditorium. He hadn't wanted to enroll into college directly after graduation and instead felt it best to spend two years perfecting his skills with a mentor before applying to a top prestigious music school like Juilliard or the Curtis Institute where he'd study piano performance and composing. While his parents didn't mind that he had far reaching aspirations of becoming a great pianist and composer, they had grown tired of hearing the piano being played at home every waking hour of the day. In exchange for allowing their son to continue living at home after graduation, he was to do the majority of his practice elsewhere, leading him to ask the school's music teacher if he could use the piano in the auditorium for practice during his mentorship.

The first year of the program went exactly as Schroeder had planned. He met with his mentor twice a week, Monday and Thursday evening, and practiced on his own everyday, even going as far as acquiring a key to the school from the janitor to sneak in on weekends to practice. But he had done more than simply practice this past year of his program. If practice was all he could get out of these two gap years then he wouldn't have taken them as he'd practically mastered piano as much as he possibly could on his own by the age of 8. This mentorship had provided him with the opportunity to really learn. The content was challenging and fresh and allowed him to appreciate the art even more, but mostly Schroeder credited his improvement and personal achievements to having such a rigorous teacher who never took it easy on him, always expecting the absolute best. He was grateful for this as he desired to be nothing short of Beethoven himself— nothing short of perfection.

While during the summer Schroeder's meetings with his mentor continued, his practice dropped off significantly as the school's piano was locked away in storage for break, out of reach even with the janitor's key. It had driven the poor boy mad to have to keep the practicing at home to no more than an hour or two a day or go to the park with his toy. In extremely dire times, Schroeder resorted to asking Lucy if he could practice at her house knowing she'd never refuse the chance to try and get his attention while he played. While all her attempts to catch his eye could be somewhat distracting and highly irritating, he found it far less frustrating than trying to focus next to a playground full of screaming children.

But finally, today was the first day of the new school year and the beginning of the second and final year of his mentorship. Even though he knew he had no classes to attend and was only going to be there to borrow a piano, he still never thought he'd be so grateful to return to school.

"Schroeder, your father and I are off to work now. There's still some coffee in the pot if you want any and I left the sugar out on the counter for you." His mother calls out to him from outside his room effectively pulling the boy from his admiring gaze at the Beethoven figurehead on his nightstand.

"Alright, thanks mum!" He hollers back while pushing himself off his mattress with great enthusiasm that came from his excitement to head to school. After hurriedly throwing on a t-shirt and pair of jeans, he quickly brushed his teeth and casually ran his fingers through the tangled locks of his hair that had formed in his sleep. He was never looking to impress those around him but it felt necessary to at least remain somewhat presentable as he was an aspiring professional pianist and composer and they always appeared as immaculate models of elegance.

Just as he reached the bottom of the steps while heading downstairs, there was a knock at the front door and he knew instantly it'd be her. Everyday since he'd gotten his license when he was 16, she'd forced him to drive her to school so that they could practice being in the car together for when they were married. The girl's reasoning irked him but he was willing to drive her as a friend all the same even if only because he couldn't think of any good excuse for why he couldn't.

"Morning, Lucy." He greeted the girl, forcing a small smile. "You know, you're..." He paused looking down at the leather watch on his wrist. "You're three minutes later than usual." Schroeder teased knowing one of her many major pet peeves was not being 100% punctual.

"Linus got his hand stuck in the cookie jar and I had to butter it up to get him out." She explained justifying her tardiness. This made the boy chuckle, both at the picture she'd illustrated to him and at the immense guilt and displeasure in her eyes over a mere three minutes difference. Lucy had always been a major perfectionist. From being impeccably on time to every occasion to color coding, numbering, and alphabetically sorting everything she owned, Lucy had methodically organized her life to the greatest extent possible. But it wasn't only her life that was so meticulously neat and spruce as she had also always kept her appearance remarkably trim. The gentle manner in which her jet black old Hollywood waves rested on her shoulders created a graceful and luscious bounce when she walked. The cloth making up the dresses she donned hugged the curves of her upper body just the right amount while the dresses' skirts flowed elegantly just above her knees and formed a mesmerizing circle when she twirled. Accompanying whichever dress she'd decided to wear that day was always a pair of black stockings and well-shined black flats adding to the sharp and clean lines of her outfit. To finish it all off, Lucy always wore winged eyeliner that was as dark as coal, as sharp as a blade, and as even on both sides as the bold red lipstick that completed her neat, sophisticated, classy, and modest yet sexy look. She had made herself into a pin-up, a raven haired Marilyn Monroe, the epitome of what every woman was told they should look like. The exceptional immaculacy that Lucy displayed to the world had convinced most those around her and everyone at school that everything about her, from her bold and forthright personality to her striking beauty, was simply perfect. And she had convinced herself of it as well.

While the majority of Lucy's childhood friends had accepted the overly confident and bold woman that she'd grown into, Schroeder didn't buy the facade for one second. She still showed a different side of herself to him just as she had her entire life. When it was just the two of them in a room together, she was much more philosophical and contemplative but also quiet and not just because he was usually playing his piano and she didn't want to interrupt, interrupting his practice was never something she worried about. She was simply more soft-spoken. She still annoyed him plenty and there were still times when she was loud and arrogant, but they were always accompanied with a bit of whimsical childishness that she didn't allow herself to reveal to anyone else. Schroeder knew that the person she showed to everyone else wasn't who she really was, or at least it wasn't all of who she was. He believed she'd put on her mask of perfection to cover her insecurities. Sometimes Schroeder wondered if knowing this side of her was the reason he'd allowed her to remain in his company for so many years despite her frequent whining and utter rudeness.

After letting Lucy in, the two marched to the kitchen quickly falling back into their morning routine that they'd developed ever since Schroeder had began driving her to school.

"Tea?" He questioned the girl as she sat down at the breakfast nook while pouring himself a mug of coffee. He already knew she'd say yes as she always wanted tea in the morning, but he still felt the need to make sure every time.

"Yes, with-" She begins before getting cut off.

"I know how you like it." He interrupts. Just as he knew she'd say yes but always asked to make sure, she also always reminded him of how she took her tea just in case he'd forgotten. "Here. One Earl Grey with precisely one spoonful of honey." He announced resting the steaming "#1 Beethoven Fan" mug in front of her.

"Thank you." Lucy replied politely as she felt a slight blush creep across her cheeks both due to the heat rising from her drink to her face and the fact that, as usual, Schroeder had remembered how she wanted her morning tea. Most people didn't even know her well enough to know she preferred tea over coffee.

"What's your word of the day?" Schroeder asks, taking a seat beside her.

"Flotsam. An English word I discovered three years ago in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary." She explains plainly while gently blowing on her drink to cool it down.

"Define it." Schroeder orders before taking a sip of his coffee.

"Flotsam:

1 : floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo; broadly : floating debris

2 a : a floating population (as of emigrants or castaways)

b : miscellaneous or unimportant material

c : debris, remains." Lucy recites sounding as if she was reading directly from a dictionary in front of her and in a way, she was.

"Use it in a sentence." He challenges with a smirk.

"He would walk along the beach collecting the flotsam and jetsam that had been washed ashore." Her voice was confident and unwavering, without a hint of hesitation.

"One word a day is too easy for you." Schroeder shook his head still feeling a bit of disbelief over her abilities even after all these years. Lucy had been obsessed with words and language since the moment she could first hold a book. It was an obsession that went beyond a simple love of reading and writing. Lucy was capable of retaining virtually all information she read to such an extent that she could describe every event in a thousand plus page book she'd read when she was only nine. By the time she entered high school, she was beginning to use her incredible talents to absorb all the information about humanity, the world, and the universe that she possibly could. Lucy read dictionaries and thesauruses, memorizing almost every word after a single read through, as well as translation dictionaries and language learning guides all to be able to read the scriptures of a variety of world religions, ancient and modern spanning from Christianity to Judaism to Islam to Wicca to ancient Egyptian mythology to Confucianism to Sikhism and more. Lucy read the Iliad and the Odyssey in Ancient Greek and in their Latin translations. She read all the works of Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe and the essays of Locke, Hobbes, and the transcendentalists. She read everything she could by Greek and Roman philosophers and as many autobiographies and memoirs from famous historical figures as she could find. She also read quite a handful of scientific studies, historic and modern, even though she'd always struggled to understand any aspect of science. She simply wanted to be able to file it away in her library of a brain.

"When we're married you'll use the money you make from playing piano to buy me more books, won't you Schroeder?" Lucy asks casually while pulling out the fifth edition of The Concise Oxford English Dictionary from her school bag. Lucy read through it a few times in the past, but had decided to reread a few hundred entries of it for fun.

"Good grief." Schroeder groaned, rolling his eyes. It wasn't even 9a yet and she was already starting on her bullshit.

"We only have about 10mins before we have to get going, you sure you have time to get sucked into your book right now?" While his question was serious, his tone was jesting and playful but the moment he finished his sentence and Lucy's eyes darted up from her page, raising a questioning eyebrow at him, he realized the question was silly. "Oh, yeah." He responded to her silent reply. Of course the punctual perfectionist in front of him knew down to the second how much time they had left.

The majority of the car ride to school was spent bickering over what should be played on the radio. Lucy wanted The Beatles while Schroeder was of course in favor of hearing classical. In the end, classical won the battle when Schroeder threatened to kick her to the curb if she tried changing the channel while Beethoven was playing.

"This isn't real music! You wanna hear some real music? Put on some Beatles, Elvis, or Rolling Stones! That's the sort of music that people like, not that ol' Beethoven stuff." She yells passionately leaving Schroeder to wonder why she even still tried to get him to listen to other genres of music even after all these years of knowing him. Lucy may be the stubbornest person on the face of the Earth, but no one, not even her, could mess with Schroeder and his Beethoven.

"I can't stand it!" He snaps back harshly while turning up the music to drown out any further protests by the girl.

May 1962 Peanuts strip reference

( to view this comic reference, check out this story on Wattpad or AO3. Username: ladieboog story title: Ice Cream Ballade )

"Well you don't have to get so worked up about it." Lucy retorts but is only met with a flurry of hushes as Schroeder was trying to hear the music. Rolling her eyes, she finally forfeits the argument and decides to try and ignore the crazed fanboy by staring out the window to distract from the music ringing in her ear. Immediately, her eyes are drawn to the blue sky and the various plants and trees they pass by during their drive. Lucy was fascinated by nature but never quite understood the science behind it. Magic, conspiracy theories, and ideas that seemed straight out of a fantasy novel seemed much more logical to her.

"It's going to rain today, Schroeder." Lucy announces keeping her eyes trained upwards towards the sky.

"Did you hear it on the radio this morning? I wish you'd told me before we left, I would've grabbed an umbrella." He replies, coming to a stop at a red light before turning his gaze to look at the girl next to him.

"Well I couldn't have told you before I examined the clouds, of course. There's a bunny shaped cloud and bunny clouds that are out before 9a mean afternoon rain." She explained matter of factly.

"Lucy, what are you on about?" Schroeder groans at the psychotic woman he'd regretfully chosen to deal with this morning. She was already pushing his buttons and they still hadn't even made it to school but his irritation was eased slightly as he became a bit distracted by the sparkles in her eyes as she marveled at the clouds.

"I read it in a book." She claimed defensively.

"Sure." Schroeder answered, his voice laced with heavy sarcasm. He knew what it meant when she said that.

"That I wrote." She admitted unabashedly. Lucy had no doubt in her brain she had the authority opinion on everything. When she didn't understand anything science related, instead of trying to, she simply decided whatever it was could be explained by some mystical conspiracy theory like phenomenon and that anyone who believed in that "science mumbo jumbo" was the crazy one.

"Of course." Schroeder shook his head at her before turning to look back at the road again.

"When I was five." She ended, this time receiving a small chuckle from him.

"I'll meet you in the parking lot after school. Don't be late, I have to drop you off at home quick so I can get to practice on time." Schroeder tells Lucy as they pull into a parking space at school.

"Oh I won't, I'll come hangout with you in the auditorium again just like last year and we can walk to the car together." Lucy chimes excitedly.

"Fine but you're not allowed to distract me again. I really need to focus!" He warns her sternly, shooting a minor glare into her eyes.

"Are you calling me distracting, baby?" She teases flirtatiously leaning close towards his face with a smile. Why does she have to be like this? He thought. He couldn't deny, she was gorgeous and on occasion, including now as he stole a glance down at the perfect sultry lips in front of him, he felt tempted to kiss the girl who constantly professed her undying love for him. Sometimes he'd humor her and flirt a little in response to her attempts to woo him, but overall, he never wanted to be with her or with anyone for that matter. He had casually fooled around with some girls in school before but Schroeder never wanted to date anyone in his life. He planned on remaining a bachelor forever like his idol Beethoven.

"Lucy, I've had enough of you this morning. Go to class." He ordered, his tone and expression clearly displaying his exasperation both over Lucy's childish antics and his slight desire to pin her beneath him in spite of them.

"Ok, my sweet." She replies merrily before stealing a kiss on his cheek and hopping out of the car, leaving before he could chide her.

"You blockhead!" He shouts out the window from inside his car. He catches his reflection in the overhead mirror and sees the bright red lipstick stain she'd left on his cheek. "Bloody hell." He mumbles grabbing a tissue from his glove compartment to wipe it off. Schroeder usually lost the partial British accent he'd inherited from his mom while out in public, but couldn't help letting his curse words slip no matter where he was.

Walking through the halls towards the auditorium, Schroeder somehow felt less out of place in the school than he did when he was last a student over a year ago. Back then, all he did was mope around as he was forced to go to classes where he couldn't play his piano and forced to learn about historical figures that weren't Beethoven. Most other students, except for his friends like Charlie Brown, Patty, Violet, and Lucy tended to think he was a strange piano playing loner. There were a few who bullied him occasionally, but usually people just ignored him, further reinforcing the loner boy image. Schroeder didn't mind how people saw him but it felt nice to walk down the halls of school without any unnecessary peer pressure or stress regarding homework.

"Hey Schroeder!" Linus greets the boy as he passes him in the hall.

"Hey, have fun being a sophomore." He says roughing up his friend's hair. After having spent so much time with Lucy over the years, Schroeder had grown to treat Linus like his own little brother as well and was excited to see him grow up and navigate his way through high school. "Oh and I'm always available to give you a ride to school if you miss the bus. You being there might help keep your sister off me for a few minutes." Schroeder reminds him jokingly however the more he thought about it, the more he realized how many of his problems that had the potential to solve.

"You'll give into her buffoonery someday!" Linus shouts back walking away heading to class before Schroeder could have the chance to argue.

"No I won't... I won't let it happen." Schroeder whispered to himself.

"HA! What did I tell you?!" Lucy exclaims waving a belittling finger at the boy as they march out of the school and into the pouring rain. Instantly their hair and clothes become soaked as they jog to the car trying their best to avoid splashing in any major puddles. But once they reach the vehicle and are inside and out of the rain, they realize avoiding the puddles didn't make much of a difference as they had still become drenched and were dripping all over their seats.

"This has nothing to do with a bunny shaped cloud!" Schroeder growls at her while starting the engine.

"Schroeder can't you just admit my cloud analyzing skills are perfect?" She teases while leaning towards him and flirtatiously batting her eyes up at her love. He knew that she knew exactly what she was doing. He knew she was aware of how sexy she looked with her wet dress clinging to her curves. He knew she was purposely angling her cleavage into his line of sight for his attention. And he knew that she was smart enough to know that her attempts to seduce him were completely futile. What she didn't know was that despite his ability to restrain himself, she was succeeding at temping him. She was too breathtaking and frustrating not to be tempting but he always brushed it off as natural lust for an attractive person, nothing more. And definitely nothing to be acted upon.

"No, Luc. I can't." (A/N: The nickname Luc will be pronounced like "loose") He replies staring back into her batted eyes, chuckling. "Now let's get the cloud queen home." He jokes turning back to the wheel, smirking at her rankled scrunched up nose in response to the mocking title.

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Hey! Welcome to my new story, hope you're enjoying. Not sure how long it'll be until I publish a second chapter, I have plenty of ideas for this story and have a lot of it planned out but I wanna post a new chapter of my Kidge fic first. I've also lowkey had the first chapter of this one story half written for like a year now so I think I should try to finally really get that going on I'm pretty sure it'll only be a short story (few chapters) anyway so many I'll actually finish something for once. I'm really excited for everything I'm working on right now I hope you all enjoy them too! Quick note, the cover of this story is def subject to change I don't rlly like the current one but it was the closest I could get to what I wanted but im currently working on art that I may use for a cover instead. Also I hope everyone's doing ok in light of what's been going on. I urge all of you to be taking care of yourselves but also to be educating yourselves on the systemic racism that's plagued our society for centuries and fight for change. Here's a link to a carrd with some educational resources to get yourself started.

https/blacklivesmatter.carrd.co/

~Whitney

Originally posted on Wattpad at 11:04p June 21st, 2020

Posted here at 2a June 22nd, 2020