The Revenge Scam

I-D-K

A/N: Soooo......It's been a hot minute. Maybe a year. Who cares about the details anyway? This chapter has been in the works for a VERY long time. Like, a long time. It's also just crack--do not expect greatness if anyone actually still reads this. WARNING: DO NOT TAKE THIS CHAPTER SERIOUSLY. Enjoy! 

Charles' feet continued to push on the forest floor, sending up leaves and dirt in the process. It didn't take long for the insistent burning in his legs to win out, forcing him to take a break and breathe for a while.

"I can not believe I just did that," he sighed, sitting down on a nearby rock.

He had just expressed his feelings to a girl he barely met and before he could even get it all out he had run away like the chicken he was. (AN: I'm sorry Charles) His hands brushed his mullet back in exasperation, and he planned out what he was going to do next.

He didn't want to go back in fear that she would make fun of him—not that she hadn't already—and he didn't know how to properly face Sophia again without absolutely making a mess of himself.

He sighed and laid his head in his hands tiredly, sitting dejectedly on the rock in the middle of the forest.

•••

Sophia started to search around, trying to find Charles.

"Come on, Charles. Where are you?" She asked herself into the empty silence that he had left after running away.

She continued to walk around for what felt like forever, turning through the forests and traversing through the trees. Leaves crunched under her feet, and birds sang an unknowable song above her head.

Suddenly, in the rustle of the trees, she heard the crunch of a stick under feet.

Or paws, she thought menacingly.

She started to draw out her pistol and rested it on her side as she creeped forwards toward the sound.

I guess I might talk to that bear after all.

What she didn't expect was Charles, stepping out from behind a bush.

"What the hell!" He shouted out at the gun pointed straight at his temple. His face looked terrified, his eyes widening and his feet stumbling backward before they froze on the ground.

His hands had flown up in a surrendering position, and Sophia let out a breath of a laugh.

"Thought you were a bear," she stated simply then slung the pistol back into the belt on her side like she hadn't just been about to blow Charles' brains out. Charles didn't seem to find anything about this funny, but he tried his best to force a smile and an awkward laugh.

Sophia admired the weak attempt but had to keep her amusement at bay.

He had just confessed his feelings to her, after all.

She wasn't sure how to respond to that since she felt similar about him—which was shocking enough in itself—but she had never felt like that before for anyone so it wasn't something she was familiar with.

In fact, the thought actually scared her.

She had never gotten that kind of love growing up; her father believed in keeping your emotions at bay as it wouldn't do to get caught up in moments and forget your actual mission. But that was exactly what Sophia had done, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't terrified because of it.

Her father may be dead, and Charles may have killed him, but that didn't mean his legacy lived on in her. She was disgracing him by feeling anything other than hate for Charles, yet she couldn't help it. And, for some inexplicable reason, Sophia didn't want to feel hate towards Charles. The way he would look at her, trust shining like a beacon in his eyes, and how he knew that he could tell her about what happened that day so many years ago, made Sophia's heart flutter like a hummingbird in a soft breeze, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She sighed and grabbed Charles' hand to lead him out of the forest.

"Come on, Charles. Let's go to Rome."

She smiled softly to herself when Charles didn't pull away and instead followed her through the trees.

•••

They walked. And walked. Then walked some more. Charles was pretty sure his feet were covered in calluses, and his face would be permanently marred red from all the sun he was getting. Their suitcases were still on the train, the one they had jumped off all those hours before, and it had held his sunscreen.

"Are you hot?"

"What?"

"I asked if you were hot. You're sweating buckets over there."

"Oh, yeah."

And they continued to walk.

•••

Finally, after what felt like forever of only trees and grass and rocks beneath their feet, Charles saw a town over the horizon with buildings surrounding it.

"A town," Sophia said, and it sounded exhausted. Charles hadn't forgotten about her missing shoe and had offered her his, but she had denied it.

"Finally. I think my feet are about to fall off."

"Your feet? Look at mine, Charles."

"Oh, yeah. Never mind."

The two walked into the town, the sun already setting below the hills, casting a shadow over Sophia's face as she spoke. Charles couldn't look away.

"You know, this reminds me of that poem you wrote."

"My what?" Charles asked, and had to shake his head to pull himself out of the trance that he had been in.

"You know, your poem, The sky filled with pink, the colour that really makes you thi-"

"No! You read my poems?!"

"Yeah."

"How could you!"

"I-D-K."

"I-D-K? What does that even mean?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You literally just said it—"

"No, it actually means I don't know."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

They walked again in silence.

•••

The hotel loomed over them in the dark, the sun now long gone.

"Well, here we are. This looks like a nice place to stay."

"How are we supposed to even pay for this place? It looks like millionaires could live here."

"Charles. I'm a literal dutchess, remember? I am rich. Like, really rich."

"Oh. Right."

"Honestly," Sophia muttered to herself as she walked into the hotel. "You would think he landed on his head when he jumped off that train."

"I-D-K."

Sophia only sighed in response.

She summarized that the two of them must have been quite the sight, Sophia with her missing shoe and torn dress, and Charles in his tattered suit with mud streaked all over it from where he had sat in the forest. The receptionist's eyes widened when he saw them.

"I'm afraid you two must have walked into the wrong establishment. The inn is on the other side of town."

Sophia smirked and pulled out a wallet from some hidden pocket beneath her frilly dress. Taking out wads from a slot on the wallet, she placed the large sum of money on the desk.

"I'm sure this will be enough to properly pay for any place we wish to stay in, wouldn't you agree, signore?"

The man's mouth fell open as Sophia turned and walked away, leaving Charles with the confounded receptionist.

"What was that?" He asked weakly to no one in particular.

"I-D-K," Charles said happily, and he followed right behind Sophia. 

Hopefully the next chapter will not take 369 days to be written like this one xD