BelleDanseuse: Really! That's great! Well, not that I almost make you cry, I mean... you know... ^^'
CarmillaD: Perdoname que te discuta, pero la verdad no creo que se hayan dado cuenta de nada. Ellos son los productores, mientras haya gente que mire el programa no les importa el resto, ni ser leales a los personajes que ellos crearon ni lo que piensen los fans. Pasa que los escritores tenían un plan fuera de nuestro conocimiento. Porque nosotros creíamos que las cosas como las mostraron en la Isla eran la posta, que Heather era la mala y las parejas iban a quedarse juntas para siempre, etc. Pero resulta que ellos tienen un sistema de cambiar de villano por temporada. Muchos se preguntaban por qué Heather estaba tan calladita en Action; a muchos les molestó porque no era ni más buena no lo que era antes, sino algo aburrido entre medio, pero su temporada de villana ya había pasado. Y ahí cayó Courtney, como la mala de la segunda temporada; su comportamiento no es más que una consecuencia de lo que los escritores quieren que pase en la serie; los personajes son sus marionetas para lograr sus intereses. Al fin y al cabo es una parodia; lo que hacen es tratar de emular un reality, y en los realities hay parejas engañadas. Para ellos es sólo un programa, nosotros solamente lo vivimos con más intensidad porque somos los Fans. (Humor: Tétrico.)
Bueeeno… me copé xP Es mi opinión igual. Y no te culpo si no te leíste todo eso 9_9. Ejem. ¿Así que me lucí? :# Gracias. Espero que te guste lo que sigue ^^
Part VI
Duncan peeked his head out the door of the cargo hold, and looked at both ends of the hallway. "S'clear, babe," he announced, before opening the door fully.
A nervous Gwen peeked out as well. "Right," she said tensely, looking at both sides just to make sure, as she tried to quickly smooth down her hair. Duncan noted how easy it was for her hair to mess up and how hard to make it look neat again; it must be because it was so thin. With Courtney, you could throw her hair in every direction, and it would just fall down into the same style, it would not mess up, and it wouldn't get marked even if she had it tied back all day.
…Duncan wasn't sure what to make of that comparison.
So he leaned in the doorframe, occupying as much space in the threshold as possible. He smirked at Gwen when she realized she would have to go all over him to get the hall. He didn't have to even think that smirk; he was pretty satisfied after that make-out session. She smiled back at him as she slowly brushed her body over his. Once on the other side, she looked up at him shyly, "So, um…" she bit her lower lip, blushing.
"I'll see you later," Duncan said with a smile, looking at her with eyes that said, 'I would kiss you right now if we weren't in open sight'.
She smiled. "See you later," she responded, barely able to keep the giddiness out of her voice, and turned on her heel to walk away in a weightless fashion, like she was walking on clouds.
Duncan shook his head after her; she became a whole different, incredibly sweet person when she was in love. He started to walk in the other direction, but was immediately intercepted by Tyler, who scared the bejesus out of him when he grabbed him by both shoulders as soon as he turned around.
"Du-ude!" he stated, an intense expression on his face.
"Whoa! Man, where'd you come from!" The punk inquired simultaneously.
"That doesn't matter now!" he waved the question off frantically, and grabbed his shoulders again. "She knows."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Duncan deadpanned.
"Courtney," he cleared. "Courtney knows…-"
"What?" the punk interjected.
"Courtney knows. She knows. Dude," Tyler took a deep breath, slowing down now that the news had been delivered, and laid a hand on his shoulder, "she knows."
"Damn it!" Duncan barked, slapping his forehead. "How the hell does she know?"
"I think she saw you with Gwen," Tyler answered.
Duncan regarded the boy in front of him with a suspicious look, and promptly grabbed him by his shirt collar, lifting him a few inches off the ground. "You didn't happen to have told her, did you?" he asked in the threatening voice.
"O-of course not!" the jock responded in a choked voice. "I saw her running away from the cargo hold. S-she nearly ran over me, and she had a look in her eyes… that it couldn't have been anything else." he explained quickly.
Duncan gave him a long hard stare, but finally set him down. "Alright," he said airily. "Well since you didn't tell her, you can walk. But if I find out you did tell her, old rules apply. You're a dead man." Duncan finished his threat as he walked past the boy, on his way to somewhere quiet where he could think about what all of this meant for him. But he failed to see the disgusted look that Tyler gave him as he walked away.
"Dude, you seriously don't even care?" he called incredulously, making Duncan stop in his tracks.
The punk slowly turned around, giving Tyler a hard glare for.
"What did you just say to me," he asked lowly. "Chicken boy?"
"I said that you obviously don't care about Courtney," Tyler said boldly. "You just broke her heart, dude. You probably don't care about Gwen either."
"Courtney has no heart," he snickered. "And don't you talk about Gwen. You don't know anything about her— or me."
"I know enough to know you messed up," he retorted. "Because I would never cheat on my Linds," he announced, and Duncan rolled his eyes at the comment so obviously specifically designed to suck up to his girlfriend watching from some part of the world.
"Just 'cause you're lucky to have your girlfriend remember you," Duncan countered, making Tyler's frown deepen. "Some of us guys," he pointed at himself. "are in a different place," he said and, considering the conversation over, he turned to leave.
"Some of us guys are real jackasses," Tyler muttered a second later.
Duncan turned again and approached him. "You know what? In a relationship, there's always one who cheats- it happens. And it's usually the not-so-lame one," he said with laughter in his voice but evil eyes, and then laid a hand on the jock's shoulder. "So, we'll see if you think the same when your precious Lindsay cheats on you."
"Maybe that's true, but at least I can say I love her. Can you say that?" Tyler snapped, and his response shocked Duncan in that it was so automatic.
Here was a guy that usually lived neck-deep in his fantasies, and mantained a feeble macho façade all the time, yet now he was claiming that he cared more for his girlfriend than his pride; he sounded honest, too. It was very un-Tyler-like, and it took Duncan aback, but that didn't mean he was any less tired of Sporto using that tone on him.
"As I said, you don't know the first thing about me," he said angrily. "You try to judge me again like you just did and I'll beat the shit out of you." He gave him a warning push for extra effect. He saw fear flash through Tyler's eyes as he stepped back an inch; Duncan knew then he would leave the subject alone.
"Whatever," the jock said with a dark expression. "I'm going to sleep." He walked past Duncan like he wasn't afraid of him. But his voice had a tinge of caution in it, and when he passed by the punk, he had swerved a little; and for Duncan, that was enough.
The door closed and Duncan was left alone.
He ran a hand through his head. If Tyler was right about what he was saying, right now Courtney was probably heartbroken in another part of the plane, probably crying her heart out.
Good.
His plan was working. He was finally paying her back for all she had done to him. Soon, she would get all that was coming to her for a long time.
With a smirk, Duncan joined the rest of his team in economy class. Tyler glared at him when he passed by him, and Duncan just glared down at him right back (who did this guy suddenly think he was?). He made himself a space in the seats among his other sleeping teammates and arranged in a sleeping position, looking nonchalant about everything he did. But he ignored that this would be a night for tossing and turning. Little into the night, he started to dream.
And what Duncan dreamed was something like this.
Love opens all doors;
hatred closes them.
-Cervantes
There was a party in the plane, except it wasn't exactly the plane. It was as if they had landed on the roof of a hotel and it had somehow blended and become an extension of the plane; the Total Drama cast was spread between the plane and the hotel's lobby, where the party was.
At the party, the atmosphere was pumping. The room was immense and completely crowded (because apparently, the party wasn't restricted to the Total Drama cast). The music governed; it was so loud you could feel the beat in your chest, and it was unnatural to fight it. On the dance floor, hundreds of people jumped around to the rhythm of the music, in a way that you felt someone would get killed at any point, but somehow the bodies gravitated gracefully around each other without ever hitting each other.
And in the midst of all the crazy partying people, Duncan could clearly see Courtney, contrasting greatly with the rest since she looked stagnant and sad. She was sitting at the bar, staring off in the distance. She was tapping her nails on an empty glass and ocassionally sighing.
In Duncan's imagination, she had found out about him and Gwen. She had cried a river and now she was there, relunctantly at a party where nobody talked to her. She looked so lonely and heartbroken that Duncan felt his heart pang at the sight, especially knowing he had been the one to cause it.
Then at some point, the live band playing stopped being the totally awesome punk-rock group he was imagining and it became Latin music. It was the music he associated with Courtney's neighborhood. There was always something ethnic blasting in Allapattah, though Courtney's mother herself did not allow it in her house.
The Latinos in the crowd seemed to spontaneously multiply and they took over the party, dancing and jumping around with incomparable zeal. This part, Duncan was sure, came from his experience of the parties he had accompanied Courtney to; Courtney's friends generally didn't drink much, but they partied like rock stars.
And in the midst of the jungle of dark skin and elaborate dance moves, there came the ultimate Latin stereotype-holder of the show: Alejandro.
Duncan could see the exact moment in which his calculative eyes located Courtney alone at the bar and his lips curled up in that known evil smirk of his.
"Hello señorita," he said, leaning on the counter. "What's a beautiful girl like yourself doing here by herself?"
"Oh. Hi Alejandro," Courtney replied in a tired tone. "Just waiting for this party to be over," she said, not giving the guy in front of her much importance.
Duncan wasn't sure how she would react to the boy's charm. She had never given him the time of day before, but now after what Duncan had done… She was fair game, and it wouldn't be long until she realized it too.
Duncan, still an invisible, overseeing presence in the dream, ached because of this.
Alejandro's eyes widened in a perfectly calculated gesture of surprise. "But why? A girl like you should be enjoying this party!"
"I really just want to back go to my room and sleep," Courtney sighed, indifferent.
Alejandro paused, but he went back to the assault, determined to get through to her, if only because he had a reputation to upkeep. "Look," he said, adopting a sensitive voice as he laid a hand on her shoulder. "I know you're in pain." She looked up, looking directly at him for the first time. He had a point; she looked like she was exhausted about just being here, just being in the presence of people people and keeping herself together.
And definetely too exhausted to conceal it once someone called her on it. She looked at him with her beautiful black eyes big and glassy, leaving herself completely open to him. And Duncan felt himself wrench in jealousy.
Alejandro smiled softly at her. "But you have to find it in you turn it around. Dare to have a good time," he said, his motivational speaker vocation shining through. "The night is young- and so are we," he took her hand and pulled softly backwards to make her stand up. He nodded towards the dance floor. "C'mon, let's dance."
Courtney smiled at the invitation at first, but then it dropped altogether, as if she didn't have the strenght to form a full smile. She bit her lip. "I-I don't really feel up to it," she said, looking away in defeat.
Alejandro was quick with an answer. "Ah, but that's exactly why you should," his eyes twinkled before he leaned in close to her ear and said, "Tengo una caja roja de las lápices."
(At least that was what Duncan's subconscious had him say, but when he woke up he realized that sounded retarded; what he really meant was a different Spanish saying he remembered, one that meant 'because dancing makes the pain go away'.)
The phrase sounded to like home to Courtney and lifted her spirits, so when Al pulled back, she had a bright smile on her face. The boy used this moment to take her other hand, drawing her closer. "Now you can stay here and sulk, or you can go and have the best night of your life."
Courtney looked at him with a full smile. "Let's go."
He quickly took her to the center of the dance floor. They started to dance, and soon the rest of the party was pushed to the background; the music became muffled, and people's faces became blurry. The whole dream was merely a stage for the two teenagers enjoying themselves.
Courtney suddenly looked prettier. Her hair was in a high ponytail that exposed her long neck and her beautiful features, and she wore a party top and a skirt. He could see Alejandro, touching her, putting his hands on her hips, then on her face; leaning down to whisper in her ear and oh-so-casually breathing on her exposed neck while he told her how good a dancer she was, and how great she looked.
And with that Alejandro stopped being Alejandro, the Latin guy of the show with the obvious attraction to Heather, and he became every guy in the world who could potentially sweep Courtney off her feet. About five songs in, he took the next step and pulled her body in closer to his.
And Courtney showed no signs of stopping him. She looked like she was having tons of fun; she was smiling with her lips and with her eyes, and she looked so hyped up and into the party that it was hard to imagine she had been crying not too long ago. The dream, which had been a nightmare for a while, went on for a while conjuring torturous images on after the other, of his girl grinding on another guy. And just when Duncan felt like he could start tearing his hair out, he finally came into the scene.
He stepped in the party with the wife-beater he wore to sleep, but the jeans he wore by day. His eyes immediately located Courtney and Alejandro. He stalked up to where they were and before either of them even noticed him, he roughly grabbed Al from the shoulders and pulled him back, far away from Courtney.
He heard Courtney yell his name, but once he had Alejandro face to face, his first flew out and connected with the distracted Latin's jaw, promptly sending him to ground.
And from then on it was pretty much out of control. Duncan kneeled down and started to beat him up, ignoring Courtney's cries.
"Stop it! Don't hit him anymore! Stop!"
But she didn't –and Duncan remembered this very well- touch him at any point. She didn't put her hands on his shoulders and pull back with just enough force and insistance to make him lose his balance, so that he would be forced to stand up and stop fighting at risk of people thinking his girlfriend was strong enough to sway him– the way it always worked out.
But now, she seemed so disgusted with him, she wasn't even touching him. And Duncan felt strangely cold, even with his adrenaline shooting up from punching Alejandro over and over again.
"Stop it! Why are you doing this! DUNCAN! Cut it out!"
Duncan began to slow down on his punches. He considered himself done and got up, looking down at the unconcious and injured boy as his chest heaved up and down. Then he looked at Courtney, and grabbed her wrist. "Come with me," he told her in an overpowering voice.
"No! Leave!" She freed herself from his grasp. She was strong; he was stronger, but he would never grab her so forcefully that she wouldn't be able to get herself free if she tried.
He tried to grab her again and pull her away from the dance floor. But she planted her heels on the ground and put up a fight. "Leave me alone!"
He finally had enough and grabbed both of her hands in one of his, and used his other arm to hoist her over his shoulder. With that he took long strides out of the dance floor, with the added weight over his shoulder squirming, kicking and pounding on his back while screaming all the way.
"Let me go! Duncan, if you don't set me down right now, I'll make your life Hell! You hear me! Set me DOWN! Now!"
All the way, the Real Duncan was cheering Dream Duncan on for getting back what was rightfully his.
He arrived to a relatively quiet spot and set her down, trapping her against a wall and seizing her arms so she wouldn't get away. Courtney, now twice as livid over being manhandled and retained in a place against her will, was red on the face and drowning out the music with her screams.
"What the Hell do you think you're doing!" she shouted.
"What the Hell were you doing with that guy!" he shouted back.
"How is that any of your business!"
"I do not want you with that guy," he told her throuh gritted teeth, thinking back to all the times he had seen (both on TV and live) Alejandro flirt and deceive other girls.
"You cheated on me!" she acussed, and the statement echoed in his brain and momentarily left him speechless. You have no right. You can't tell me anything, you cheated on me, you cheated on me, you cheated on me….
"Let me go!" she said to his silence, and her trying to free herself made him react.
"No," he flattened her to the wall a little more.
"Oof." She had an expression of pain on her face for a second as she collided lightly with the wall again, but it was immediately replaced with a condescending expression. "Seriously, Duncan? Are we in that part of the break up where you can't have me so nobody else can!"
"What are you talking about? I never broke up with you!" he said truthfully, but he immediately wished he hadn't.
"Oh! So you want to keep the both of us!"
"No!" he said desperately.
"You can't have your cake and eat it too!"
"But I want YOU!" he snapped, and this time she was the one left speechless. She had stopped struggling, and he stopped putting pressure on her arms. "Don't you get it! I want you, not her!"
She looked at him, the anger in her face gone and being replaced with confusion. "…what?"
She was taken aback, but he saw a sudden tranquility in her eyes. The happenings of the last few days hadn't made much sense at all to her. How could he have stop wanting her just like that? But now she knew the truth. She had been right; he did want her after all. Now things made sense.
He grabbed her face, and she let him— that just went to show how much the statement had affected her. "I love you," he said softly. He had said it before –in his waking life-, and they had been saying it to each other for a few months.
Courtney swallowed. Then she pushed him back softly and frowned severely. "Then why?"
Finding himself trapped by her gaze, Duncan thought back to his reasons and couldn't help but for a guilty expression to show up on his face. Somehow, in a way that somehow worked in dreams, in his guilty expression she had everything she needed to figure it out.
Her eyes widened slowly. "This is payback," she said in realization.
Feeling exposed and ashamed, he didn't say anything as he looked down.
Her mouth gaped at his silent agreement, and she suddenly let out a humorless cackle. "Seriously Duncan? It's payback?" she studied his face in disbelief and laughed again. "Oh my God… I can't believe you! How could you do all of this," she shouted, "to get back for that?"
Duncan looked at her with pain.
Yes, he was still mad at her for everything… but that didn't seem like a reason to do everything he had done anymore. Now he was trapped in his actions, his stupid stupid actions, and he had no way to take back what he had done.
Actually, he took it back— he couldn't even remember why he was so mad at her. He couldn't think of any good reason to leave or hurt the girl in front of him.
"I'm sorry," he said, looking down. His hands were on the wall on either side of Courtney, supporting his weight. His head hung limply from his shoulders and he felt like he would start crying at anytime. "I'm so sorry, baby. God I," he withdrew one hand and rubbed his eyes continuously until they turned red. "I wish I could take it back."
He was begging and almost tearing and he didn't even feel like a chick. He just hoped she would hear the sincerity in his voice. He looked up at her, and to his horror, she didn't look at all touched by his emotion. An icy expression reigned in her features.
But God, she was so beautiful. He had forgotten just how much. He had grown accustomed to her and had forgotten to appreciate it, but now that he was about to lose her….
Her slanted eyes, the tone of her skin, the curve her hair… the childish freckles on her nose, the regal expression she could adopt. She was beautiful like no one would ever be again.
That was why he was so angry at the likes of Alejandro trying to get with her; those guys would never aprecciate her, not to the extent she ought to be aprecciated.
She shook her head. "It's over, Duncan" she said, and Duncan felt his world sink. "I can't trust you anymore! I can never trust you anymore," she said as she freed herself, removing Duncan's arm trapping her on the wall, and and walked off, taking his sense of reality with her.
Duncan didn't try to chase her, didn't call her or even stared after her. Even as every bone in his body was shouting at him to get her back, he was for some reason unable to, and he let her go. Courtney faded into the depths of his dream, and Duncan slid down to fall on his knees, crumbling on that very wall, covering his eyes.
He might have been crying, or he might have not. But he was still heartbroken.
And it was all his own fault.
If a certain line in the dream wasn't italized, it wasn't accidental.
~The Lighthouse