The Duncney Fanclub

But they're just friends, right? In fact, rumor has it, they hate each other!

She beat the alarm again. This time by three minutes, but she was still proud of herself. Her parents were already up, she could hear the commotion in the kitchen. Coffee pot boiling. Mom on the phone to Barry, her assistant. Dad arguing with the television. It was a typical morning in the Taylor household.

Courtney made her way into the kitchen, stopping by the door to get the first lot of mail. There was a regular magazine subscription her sister had signed up to before she left for college, and had since forgot to change the address on the subscription or cancel it. Courtney collected it every morning, usually to throw directly into the trash. But as she pulled out the magazine, the glossy front cover caught her attention.

"Fuck..." She exclaimed slowly, almost under her breath. She tried not to alert her parents by calmly shutting her own front door, before running up to her next-door-neighbors and ferociously knocking her fists against the wood.

Courtney was less than impressed when Duncan, half-asleep and yawning, opened the door.

"HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?!" She screamed, forgetting herself for a moment.

"Good morning to you too, Pri-" He tried to chide, but Courtney was not in the mood.

"NOT NOW!" She snapped, roughly shoving the magazine into his hands. "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?" He obviously hadn't, given the way he hazily peered down at the object in question.

It was silent for a moment as Courtney watched Duncan process the headlines. Courtney knew he understood when he dropped the magazine and exclaimed, "LOVE LETTER? WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK I AM!"

Courtney was furious. Her mind was racing, not knowing what to do. She quickly scooped the magazine up form the floor, waving it in Duncan's face. This was all his fault. If he had just decided to butt-out and put that stupid school report in her mail box like a normal person, this would not have happened.

He ripped the magazine from her hands, staring back down at it. He seemed equally as angry, but Courtney doubted he was as angry as she was. He was used to this whole 'paparazzi' thing. She wasn't.

"WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK I AM?" Courtney stressed, pulling her hands through her hair. "I get that you're some 'superstar', she stated, fingers making air quotations. "But I'm not! I'm very aware that there are several so-called celebrities living in this building, but-" Duncan hit her in the face with the magazine, effectively shutting her up. It took a moment to register what had happened, and when Courtney blinked a few times she found Duncan had moved deeper into his apartment. Not willing to give up this fight, Courtney followed.

"I don't think you understand how serious this is," she continued. Duncan Evans was a household name, Courtney wasn't stupid. But she was no fan girl. She couldn't care less about her obnoxious neighbor. He'd been making her life a living hell since he moved in eight months ago.

Duncan flipped on the television and found the photograph in question on the screen. Courtney was relieved to find that the reporter didn't know her identity, which meant she was safe for now. Of course anyone who did know her knew it was her, and out-of-nowhere Courtney found herself starting to panic. How was she going to face anyone? How was she going to go to school or hang out with her friends? They would have all seen it by now.

Courtney took a seat on the arm of the sofa, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Her hand covered her mouth as she continued to watch the television. The reporter continued on to discuss the 'love letter' in question and Courtney could feel his eyes on her. She suddenly got quite self-conscious, realizing she was still her pajamas.

"Where's that sexy school uniform of yours?" He asked, a teasing tone to his voice which Courtney didn't quite pick-up on. Yesterday he'd caught her on the way to school, which had been embarrassing enough, but now he probably knew what school she attended and that would set his stalker tendencies to an all new high.

"Like hell am I going to school today," she snorted. "You honestly think-" But she stopped herself. She didn't know him. He didn't know her. There was no need to get involved, or tell him anything personal that would bite her in the ass later on. This would all blow over, she was sure. This was her fifteen minutes of fame, that's all. So she left, taking her sisters magazine with her.

She fell back into bed ten minutes later, her parents already having left for work. They obviously hadn't noticed her absence from the apartment and wouldn't notice if she was home when they came back from work as she was usually back from school by then.

It was going to be a long, agonizing day, Courtney could tell.

Around lunch time her phone rang, and she looked to find Bridgette's name on the caller ID. Courtney was still lying in bed at this point, staring up at her ceiling, wondering what she'd done to deserve such awful karma.

She didn't want to purposely ignore Bridgette, but Bridgette had a problem of pretending problems didn't exist. And this problem existed. Bridgette would ask where she was, why she wasn't at school. Bridgette would not ask how Courtney's feeling about the picture or the headlines or the gossip. Bridgette wouldn't ask for the gossip, which was one of the reasons Courtney kept her around (the other being she was genuinly a great friend), but she'd pretend that she knew nothing about it and act as if it wasn't happening at all. Courtney didn't need that just then, she needed someone that would help her get out of this situation. So she let the phone ring out.

Three hours later, Courtney ventured out of the safety of her blankets. She'd have stayed there all day if it weren't for the rumbling of her stomach.

On her way to the kitchen she stopped by the front door, collecting the mail that she'd forgotten about this morning. She was about to head back inside, disinterested in what laid in her hands, when she heard voices coming from next-door. One particularly loud voice stood out to her.

"Who even is this girl?" She was questioning, though it sounded rhetorical.

Courtney inched further from her door and closer to Duncan's, finding it swung wide open. She could hear Duncan mumble something in response, to which the louder woman groaned. Courtney didn't even realize she was standing fully in his doorway until the other woman had her eyes on her.

"You," she mumbled, almost as if she recognized Courtney (which she probably did from the photograph).

"I-Uh, sorry, the door was open."

"Courtney?" She turned to see Duncan sticking his head out from one of the adjacent rooms. "What are you doing here?" He asked, coming fully into view. Courtney didn't have much time to register her words, all eyes peering at her expectantly.

"I heard you arguing, sorry, it's none of my-"

"Oh no, it is your business!" Courtney was not scared easily, and this woman seemed to look as if she'd be fairy reasonable if she wasn't so angry. But because she was angry, Courtney was shaking. "You are as much at fault as if he is," she accused, wagging her finger in Duncan's direction.

Duncan rolled his eyes, but Courtney took it as a personal insult.

"Excuse me," she spat. "This is not my fault, this is all his fault!" Courtney pointed towards Duncan, also. "I was an innocent by stander that got caught up in his 'act of kindness'. I didn't want this to happen, I still don't want this to happen, so do not go and put me on the same step as you've put him, because I am in no way at fault here!" Courtney put her foot down. "Now, if you excuse me, I have things to do."

It was another hour before Courtney heard a knock on the door. She'd dressed by then, sorted through her mail, decided not to go back next door and beat Duncan with a brick.

She was positive the bossy woman was his publicist. If Courtney was Duncan's publicist she'd be overly concerned as well. Duncan didn't have the best track record when it came to publicity. This was hardly his first run-in with the paparazzi. Not that Courtney kept track or even cared, of course. But the more he made a mockery of himself, the more she felt like demanding her parents moved their family to the other side of town just to be away from him.

She made her way over the door, pulling it open without thinking. She assumed it was Bridgette, the only person that would have cared to show up at her house.

"Hey, Princess," came the smirk-lined response of someone who was clearly not Bridgette.

Courtney was tempted to slam the door. "Can I help you?"

"I uh, listen-"

"Do I really want to hear this?"

Duncan grimaced at Courtney's deadpan face. She was not in the mood for his bullshit.

"I just want to say I'm sorry for Heather. She comes on a bit strong sometimes."

"Bullshit."

"No seriously, she does. You should have seen her when-"

"That's not what I meant, Duncan." Courtney leaned on the door for support, she was getting tired of this. She didn't care anymore. She had spent the last hour telling herself that she didn't care anymore, this had nothing to do with her.

"Okay fine," Duncan stated, dramatically throwing his hands in the air. "I just thought you'd like to hear what Heather's plan is about this."

"...What's Heather's plan?"

A/N: The shit I've been through to get this chapter up...

I'm hoping to have this updated every Friday or every other Friday, and for anyone who started reading Common Virtue, I'm hoping to start that back up again as well for Friday updates (: (I know it's Thursday but I was excited!)

You will have to bear with me, I'm having laptop issues that are fixed for now but could start up again.

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love, ChloeRhiannonX