First things first... this will not be a love triangle fic.
And also, this was supposed to be uploaded the day after the first chapter but I'm a complete dunce.
I'm open to prompts so please feel free to review or msg me some :)
Have fun reading this gross un beta'd chapter
1. Serenade:
It would be a lie if he said he didn't remember in vivid detail how he met Alice Gehabich. Call it what you'd like but even the fact that the encounter was more of an unfortunate accident than a planned event didn't slip past him. He honestly didn't know she was there until his feet brought him to stand still in front of a pair of large ornate doors. A sweet lullaby had slipped through the crack and even to this day, he'll always remember the sight that it revealed to him.
And if you asked, he'd say he remembered it as the Russian girl serenading him.
For Alice, she remembered it more as the last time she babysat Klaus' younger siblings.
2. Agape:
Their love was based off of everything that was less than ideal and yet perfect at the same time.
They fell in love, they fell out of love, they twisted and churned, they kissed and held on like two beings who didn't know the difference from right to wrong. She was thirteen. He was older. They held on until the very strand keeping them ashore was the same weight dragging them down under. Blessed they were never to be. And really, it was a love so perfect that it was bound to be doomed from the start.
Yet it was through this tale of heartache that they learnt that there were more forms of love than just lust.
3. Obnoxious:
"You sneeze like a dad."
4. Idiot:
She knew. Maybe not from the beginning. But she knew.
He knew too at some point.
That she didn't need him like he'd need her.
And yet here they are, mistakenly thinking that desperately trying to hold on was going to one day lead to their demise.
5. Quiet:
Someone uploaded a video of her singing onto the website.
6. Fresh:
He remembered her profile, remembered thinking that she must have been one of those snobby private girls who were released right into the wild after a petty argument with her parents.
She knew the game better than the rest of her team. But she didn't brawl. She had the spirit of a lion. But she was literally the most daintiest thing he's ever laid eyes on.
And then he got a chance to talk to her- after months and months of monitoring the Brawlers and -
She was like a refreshing sniff of cool spring breeze.
(He was the yellowed patch of grass ruining the view)
7. Science:
"You disappear for two days after going into the transporter. And you just thought it would be a good idea to take two baby bakugan from their mother and bring them here?"
8. Marriage:
On their forty-sixth meeting, she ran away in a beautiful white dress and crashed into him as he was beginning to battle a pastor's son.
9. Autumn:
Her hair was the colour of the seasons changing, burning amber across alabaster skin, like an orange sunset across a gorgeous landscape.
He smelt of pumpkins and candles and her favourite season.
10. Snow:
"If you push me into a snowbank again, I'll push you into a tree Masquerade."
11. Salvation:
He would never say it but he'll always be grateful to her for being the one who saved him before it was too late.
12. Wish:
Sometimes he wished they worked out.
13. Tattoo:
The night she turned eighteen, she dragged him out while her grandfather was sleeping and made him pay for her new tattoo.
"Из пе́сни сло́ва не вы́кинешь." it read, beautifully carved across her smooth skin. He watched as the tattoo artist carefully painted over her skin with a sort of precision he'd never have. With a grace that'll leave a mark to remember instead of a scar filled with regrets.
"Words of a song cannot be erased" it read, and even as she moved on and showed her new marking to her friends, he'll never tell them they were the same words etched onto her parent's graves.
14. Mirror:
They were compliments of each other, there came a point that no one could deny otherwise that they weren't exact mirror images for each other. And while maybe Zeus made them perfect for one another, their souls said otherwise.
Her soul said otherwise.
And so when he saw him-
he thought Alice had managed to make a mirror into a person.
He couldn't help but blurt out how there must have been a mistake- there was no way she could ever fall in love with a boy like the one standing in front of him right now because- "Alice you must have been brainwashed. I mean look at him, he's-"
"Exactly like how you were?"
Masquerade said nothing.
(And he didn't care if some almighty dollmaker up there moulded the both of them out of the same clay, there was no way he was going to accept this new relationship)
(In the end, he did)
15. Dream:
Alice had weird dreams sometimes. Ones where she wont ever tell anyone- not even her other half.
Ones where her vision would be obscured by a blue glass, and she'd feel like she was falling, drowning, dying under layers upon layers of ozone and ashes and burning and screaming and-
"Alice, someones here to see you."
They all stopped the day Klaus' youngest sibling asked if she can perform the song she sang during last year's Cabaret.
16. Bullet:
It hit her like a bullet sometimes when she saw the way he'd stare at her when he thought she wasn't looking.
17. University:
Out of all the Battle Brawlers, she was the oldest.
So obviously there would come a time she'd have to take a step towards her education- a time where she'd have to live a life away from all this nonsense.
He had forgotten that the fifth time they met.
"What kind of business does a thirteen year old have at Yale?"
She had dropped all her pamphlets- facility of medicine, social services, education, apprenticeships, early admissions- they all seem to read in white bold print. And yet he hadn't noticed because he was too busy examining the growing look of panic blossoming on her face.
"I wanted to see what the professors had to say about bakugan..." Was what she had told him, a little too unsure of herself.
Like he couldn't tell the lie before she even opened her mouth.
18. Drunk:
"That'll make great blackmail material."
19. Asphyxiation:
He'd sooner let his love for her become a noose around his neck before letting her heart break in the hands of another.
20. Friends:
She brought a spray can home one day and claimed that just because they were friends didn't mean he can do whatever he wanted.
He never would've expected that one day he'd be deathly afraid of being sprayed.
21. Name:
"No offense but I'd still rather call you Masquerade."
22. Passport:
"Why do you always have to take me so literally"
23. Panic:
The one time she had an attack after moving to Wardington was in his company. And she'll always be thankful for the fact his first course of action wasn't calling for an ambulance.
Instead it was setting the room they were in on fire and forcing her to control her breathing as they crawled their way into the fire escape before smoke filled their lungs.
24. Anomaly:
"Wha- you- and- How? Wait. Nevermind. I don't even want to know how. Ew. " Dan was so cute sometimes.
25. Human:
They were only human and she hated how he'd seem to forget that sometimes.
26. Rip:
She got him a beyblade once just for fun and he lodged it right into her living room wall during their impromptu tournament.
He put a frame around it and the both of them swore to claim the unique piece of abstract art has always been there if Michael ever asked.
(Michael was right around the corner when they made this deal and decided he was better off ignoring the large hot pink toy permanently stuck to his wall if he didn't want the two teens to die of an early heart attack)
27. Scarf:
Their first proper date was a winter afternoon where he taught her how to knit a scarf.
28. Garden:
"Ha ha no. Get out my grandfather's garden, please. You're ruining the potatoes."
29. French:
Masquerade's french sucked. She didn't find this out until after he simultaneously managed to insult almost everyone around the Louvre.
30. Home:
Leaving her was like leaving home.
31. Trust:
He would always carry a piece of her with him. Whether he knew it or chose to ignore it.
Always.
32. Years:
Things were so different now.
33. Needle:
The day he had given her Hydranoid, she threaded his heart back together with a needle and he promised to return to her.
She came home one day to find out her grandfathers new lab assistant was the one mending all the tears and rips on all her favourite dresses.
34. McDonalds:
"I don't want to spend my Saturday night handcuffed to the table and splitting chicken nuggets with you."
35. Chance:
He was the greatest chance she ever took.
36. Kisses:
Masquerade kissed like a gentleman.
Alice kissed like she was the one scared of letting go. All desperate and hands and red hot passion- there was no way he could have ever keep up.
37. Caught:
"No. What are you talking about. That's not me splitting chicken nuggets with only the evilest villain in the whole world."
"Chicken nuggets ?"
"Nuh uh"
38. Voice:
Alice Gehabich refuses to be Masquerade's voice coach.
39. Instruments:
Alice liked it best when he sat down and played the ancient grand piano collecting dust in the living room.
40. Clock:
She fell first, dressed herself in a beautiful gown of cheap fabrics and sparkling accessories. She found him under the moonlight, surrounded by none other but nature's glow.
The clock had struck 12 and she knew her fairytale was over.
41. Anonymous:
"Awwh Alice! Looks like someone left you flowers again!"
42. Frozen:
The first time he was willing to talk to her new boyfriend, he told her to be mindful of the fact that he just might be Hans in disguise.
43. Nightmares:
No matter what, they were always each other's fast cure to the dreams that haunt them in the dead of the night.
44. Past:
Michael might've missed Alice's prom pictures but the amount of times he faked illness and made the redhead go in his place for dinner parties and stick his lab assistant as her plus one surely did make up for it.
Of course, the secret underground organization he was soliciting candid pictures of the two stepping on each other's toes and not so discreetly collecting a growing collection of designer dishware in their coats and purses from could say otherwise.
He was just glad they hadn't let their pasts drag them down.
45. Subtlety:
"If you wont let me enjoy my bagel, you might as well tell me what's wrong."
46. Keys:
Before meeting him, she was a meek creature. Barely said anything, always timid and careful not to anger. She was just a pretty thing to look at. Never held grudges, never wished others harm. The perfect daughter, the ideal granddaughter, an image of perfection if you hadn't known any better.
Meeting him was like unlocking a part of herself she didn't know she had.
(for him, meeting her was like slowly twisting the lock to all his wrongdoings until it finally clicked shut)
47. Cycle:
"Would you like a place to stay until the storm lights up?"
48. Forgiveness:
He knew he'll never be able to make up for all the wrong he's done to the world.
But he'll try.
49. Hero:
It all started with a little boy in the park, then it turned into volunteering and tutor alongside the work he was already doing for her grandfather.
She didn't even see it until she had employed herself to follow him one day. Didn't even suspect that all these small children he constantly kept bringing home, all with pouty sulky looks and books and pencils, were just about the same kids he had manipulated how many years ago. She never even made the connections until she saw it first hand.
She never could've been more proud the moment the boy he had been tutoring had turned to him, abandoning his doodle of a ball-like object (how could she have missed that?) and beamed. Thank you. The boy looked like he was near tears. And he probably on the verge of full out sobbing when Masquerade stopped mid sentence and looked at the boy with eyes that told another story.
For He had tears in his own.
50. Together:
Who said their happy ending had to be them hand in hand, standing in front of the dais and staring lovingly into each other's eyes ?
They'd very much rather sitting in the corner of a retirement home and cheating the caretakers out of their monopoly money and scaring the lady down the hall with Hydra thank you very much.