Diamonds and Steel
"Why are you so uptight all the time?" He tossed me that insufferable smirk.
"I am not uptight!" I shouted, jumping up in irritation.
"You always follow the rules!"
"Well, you always have to break them!"
"Only the ones I want to." And there was that wink. I turned away so he couldn't see me blush. I had to admit, he was charming, in his own way. But no way was I going to tell him so.
"Ok, so…maybe I do follow the rules. I guess that makes me a big uptight loser in your book."
"Maybe."
"Ugh!" Give him an opening to be nice and he throws it off! What a complete jerk!
"So then, why do you follow them?"
"Because not following them gets you thrown into a fish cabin!" I grabbed a fish and shook it in his face.
"But I'm in the fish cabin with you, aren't I?"
I looked away and smiled. Maybe not a complete ogre. I looked back at him and that ridiculously giddy feeling came over me, I just had to do something. I smirked slyly. We weren't in the fish cabin anymore though, we were outside the cabins, the smell of stolen peanut butter and cookies wafting from the open door. It didn't matter that everyone was watching, I knew what I wanted to do now. Grabbing his face in my hands, I kissed him. He froze for a moment and I was almost worried I had gone too far. But he leaned in and for that one little moment, everything was perfect. I could almost hear violins playing some sappy song.
But then it was over. Gravel worked into my shoes as they dragged me away to the Dock of Shame. I was panicking now, how could they vote me off, things were going so well, it couldn't end like this! They deposited me on the Boat of Losers. He was running towards me, shouting, but the boat was leaving. I watched the dock start to recede and I suddenly, crazily, wondered if I could just jump off and swim back. But he was at the edge of the dock now, throwing something. I knew what it was even as he threw it, it was a skull; I'd seen him carving it. Creepy, granted, but still sweet. I reached out to catch it; it was almost in my hands…I missed it, the pale thing dropped to the black water, a quiet thunk against the side of the boat as it sank. I looked up, mortified, and saw nothing but darkness. No moon, no stars, no island, no Duncan.
Courtney woke with a gasp and a cry in her throat and looked frantically around. She was in her room. Safe in her room. Pushing a hand against her pounding heart, she turned to her side and pushed her face into her pillow. Why would she have a dream like that? She didn't miss the skull at all, she caught it and it was still in her bag, packed, along with the rest of her things from the island. That wasn't even the last time she saw him, there was the reunion episode later on, after she spent all those weeks at the Loser Resort. She had kissed him there too; why couldn't she dream about that! Sighing heavily, she pushed herself up. The sun was just peeking through the curtains and she could hear movement around the kitchen now that she listened. She had gotten home too late to see her parents last night, at least she could see them now.
Slipping her feet into her slippers, Courtney padded down the stairs and into the kitchen. She pushed open the door with a smile on her face, but the smile dropped as she saw her parents weren't there. Their butler, Andrews, turned from the stove, plate in hand.
"Good mooorning Miss Courtney, it's good to have you baaack." His nasal European accent pulled Courtney's morning high out of her.
"Good morning Andrews," She smiled dimly as she took the plate. "Um, where are Mom and Dad?"
"They are at their oooffices, Miss Courtney, as you may recall it is Wednesdaaay."
"Oh yea." She looked down into her eggs and kicked herself for thinking they'd miss a whole day of work to see her. A lawyer and a business consultant didn't get days off. "Um, I think I'm going to eat this in my room."
"Very weeell, Miss Courtney." He turned crisply back to the stove and Courtney retreated back up the stairs, plate in hand.
The rest of the day went by in a dull blur, unpacking and rearranging. She paused on occasion to watch tv, but nothing much was on. The network promised a preview of next season later that night. Leaving a note on her mirror to watch it, she picked up the skull. The first thing to unpack, but the hardest to find a place for. It didn't look good anywhere, not her dresser, nightstand, or bookshelf. She had never realized quite how…pink her room was. The wooden skull was very light, almost insubstantial for its size. She wished suddenly that it were stainless steel, something heavy and real, a weight in her hands. Stainless steel, like Duncan's many piercings. When she first met him, she had wondered briefly whether they were silver but realized soon enough they couldn't be. They lacked the polished shine of silver, and they were really more like the man underneath, scratched and tough. Rough. Strong. She held the skull up to the sunlight, and suddenly she was back on that cabin porch, his face beneath her fingers and she blushed at the intensity of the feeling. Her eyes closed on their own and she pulled in a breath to savor the wave of emotion.
A knock on her bedroom door jarred her from her thoughts. Quickly setting the skull on a shelf she cleared her throat. "Come in."
"Miss Courtney…" The door crept open and Andrews stepped in, envelopes piled on the silver mail tray. "Would you like to review your maaail? You've gotten quite a few letteeers since you've been awaaay."
Smiling, Courtney scooped the letters from the tray. "Yes, thank you."
He nodded slowly, the tray returned to his side and he exited silently, closing the door.
Left alone with her thoughts again, she sat down slowly on her bed. Looking up, she smiled at where she had absently put the skull. On the end of the shelf above her mirror, where half a dozen My Little Ponies stood in a line, symmetrical and color coordinated since she was seven. It stuck out like a sore thumb, but she liked it. A diamond among the plastic.
Turning her attention to her letters, she was mildly irritated to find most of them were television offers, vultures looking to profit off of her recent fame. Wrinkling her nose, she dropped them into a separate pile to be shredded later. She was more excited about the college application letters; she had applied early for her favorite universities, and she arranged the letters so that she would open her most favorite last, Kingstop University. It was on the other end of the Canada, but it was a great school. Working her way through the letters, she was growing steadily more excited with the number of acceptances. Even Brinksley, her mother's favorite, was an acceptance. She ripped open the Kingstop letter a little more enthusiastically than she planned and almost ripped it in two. But…there was only a single page inside the envelope. Courtney scanned it anxiously. 'We regret to inform you…' She sighed and let it drop back to the pile. She snorted irritably. "That's just great, the one school I really wanted…" She pushed the pile of open letters and ripped envelopes away. It was supposed to be perfect! She had planned out every step, every word of her application, every extracurricular to fit what Kingstop would be looking for. Anger building, she clenched her teeth. There was absolutely no reason to reject her!
Fuming, she jumped off her bed and grabbed the phone on her nightstand. Well, she was certainly going to give them a piece of her mind.
AN: What do you think? A bit short, I know, the rest will be longer. I suppose I should make a few notes. 1, I'm not from Canada, so no those aren't real universities and I don't know enough about the real ones up there to try and use them. 2, Even though I'm not from Canada, I respect the show enough to keep it set in its own country, which is why I didn't move it to America, where I actually know where things are. 3, I haven't seen the end of the series, but I know basically what happens and I do hope to finish it within the next couple weeks. 4, Being a girl myself, most of this fic will be through Courtney's pov, though occasionally through Duncan's. I get nervous trying to write as a guy.
R&R and let me know what you think!