Notes: Short, easily written, and little more than a drabble tugged out into a vignette. Yay?

Set: 'tween SK and SK2:IoLD.

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Hilarity

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The first thing she happened to notice - not that she would *ever* let Juni know, not with how obnoxious he could be - about the blonde adolescent was, in all honesty, his rather peculiar high-pitched laugh. Aptly enough it was a giggle, though one her initial impression of was both astonishment and the sort of embarrassment she felt when someone else did something worth being mortified about. Still, Carmen had found the sound of it - nasal and nearly shrill - at least partially amusing, and cupping her hand over her mouth, laughed self-consciously into her palm. She knew her doing so was rude, arching her shoulders up under her red blossom shirt in the crisp hallways of the new OSS Jr. Division headquarters, and bent her head forward to let her black curls hide the mean amusement on her face.

"What're *you* laughing at?" he asked, then, almost sulkily, and, even more embarrassed at being caught, she blanched, whirling around as she clutched her thin notebook to her chest. "Haven't your parents told you it's rude to laugh at people?" he continued, snapping; he was lanky, she noted next as her jaw dropped slightly in imitation of every girl she had ever been disgusted by, tall in the thin way of certain Anglo-Saxons, and with pale gold hair that glinted just so under the smooth hall lights. His nametag - they all wore nametags when the junior division was in its earliest stages, to ensure confusion, if not totally banished, was at least contained - read 'Gary Giggles' in very specific letters, which she thought fitting when he giggled again. "Carmen Cortez?"

Talk, you stupid, cried some small part of her mind wherein the oxygen was still running in one form or another and after his short, hilarious soprano giggle ended, his pale eyes still reflecting callous mirth, she finally eked out in what she sincerely wished was a sophisticated tone: "Yeah, that's me: Carmen." She waited a second or two as he continued to grin, as if he happened to be aware of a joke she was not, and quickly added, striving to sound dashing in a feminine way, rather like her mother, "You new here, then? I mean," cripes, she'd slipped up, "um, hi, I'm Carmen." She jabbed her open palm out, tan fingers arching like a strange fan, and thankfully he slapped his own whiter palm to it, granting her a rather informal handshake composed mostly of shake.

"Gary Giggles," he said indifferently; she recognized it as the detached, intentionally-supposed-to-be-suave tone her father used on occasion, with hardly any reason at all. Must be a guy thing, she figured as he pulled his hand back and give her a slightly smug smile, his lips tugging up in a quiet, hidden smirk as if he knew he was doubtlessly unique. "Well, Carmen, you look lovely," he grinned, and she knew, partly, that she was gaping: her mother said she was pretty, her father, too, but *never* a boy!

He giggled again, his smile twitching as though he sought to quell whatever amused him so, and she smiled nervously in reply, tucking a heavy, coiling clumpet of her black hair behind her curved ear.

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End!

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Feedback: Very appreciated, ya'll. I'm also interested in getting a beta-reader for a longer Carmen/Gary fic...

Disclaimer: Hail-age goes to Robert Rodriguez and Dimension Films.

Written: 07/09-10/03, PallaPlease