Mon, Apr. 25th, 2005, 08:16 pm
Malory Towers Fanfic "The Devil and Darrell Rivers""It's my fic and I'll write what I want to."
Title: The Devil and Darrell Rivers
Author: pathology_doc
Fandom: Malory Towers
Pairing: Alicia/Darrell. Discussion of Alicia/Betty. Some Sally/Darrell.
Rating/Warnings: MA-15+. Not light and fluffy.
Summary: Set during "Third Year at Malory Towers." Sally and Betty are away due to illness, so Alicia and Darrell make a pair. But just how close a pair? Alicia sets the agenda.
8600 words, after vicious trimming.
Darrell Rivers lay in bed and wondered why it was that the nights of the first week back always seemed to be so hot. It didn't help at all that Sally wasn't here; Darrell had been counting on her to cool her temper, which always seemed to rise with uncomfortably warm nights. She also wondered why she always seemed to need two or three trips to the bathroom. To the first question, the answer lay in a chance of the weather. Her father could have given her an answer to the second - what goes in must come out, and caffeine only encourages the process.
It encouraged Darrell out of bed; it was warm enough that she did not need her slippers, and she simply padded directly to the appropriate room. Despite the hour, well past midnight, it seemed that the mistresses were still patrolling the halls. She happened across Miss Peters, her current form mistress, who thought briefly of challenging her, but settled for a polite greeting when she saw where Darrell was headed.
When she got there, what should she find but Alicia Johns sitting on the floor, back against the wall, reading what looked like a letter. Most other girls might have looked up in surprise, even a trace of fright, at someone suddenly walking into the room, but brazen young Alicia was too cool for that. She looked up at Darrell and smiled. "Hello, Darrell; up again, are you?"
"I'm sure it's the coffee," Darrell replied, not knowing how right she was. "What are you doing here?"
"Can't sleep; too warm."
"You too." It wasn't a question, and both girls knew it. Darrell walked into one of the many cubicles and made use of it. When she was done, she sat down next to Alicia. "Mind if I join you?"
"Not at all," Alicia replied. "It'll make me feel a little less lonely. It's absolutely rotten having Betty in quarantine. And since it's whooping cough, even if I could visit her, she's almost too breathless to talk. She'll be all right, the doctor says, but it's most inconvenient."
Darrell grinned. To a pair of irrepressible mischief-makers as Alicia and Betty, losing the power to be garrulous would be a worse punishment than any Miss Grayling could mete out. "Oh, the poor thing," she offered, but she was surprised to find herself lacing her voice with not the smallest trace of irony. "And Sally's had mumps, poor girl; been sick the whole hols, too. And she's still in quarantine until her doctor is happy. Who's the letter from; Betty?"
Alicia shook her head. "No. It's actually my mother's; she went here when she was a girl, you know."
Darrell did indeed. "Yes, of course; I'd wondered why you seemed so at home here, even though you were only a first former like myself, but of course she'd probably filled your head so full of Malory Towers that you knew all about it since you could walk."
"Not far wrong. I wrote her telling her how badly I was missing Betty..."
"...already..."
"Of course, already; can you picture me without her? Anyway, she wrote a most helpful letter back. You see, she remembers what it's like to miss a special friend the way I'm missing Betty, and the fact that she understands so well made me feel "ever" so much better."
"Not to mention how I'm missing Sally," Darrell replied, briefly allowing herself to become despondent. Alicia spotted this instantly, and Darrell felt a hand on her shoulder. "Cheer up, old girl," Alicia said, trying to sound like Sally.
Darrell allowed herself a smile. "Thank you."
"You're welcome; it's no fun when your special friend's not here. I'm really pleased to be filling in"
The dubious look on Darrell's face said more than the hundreds of words that were turning over in her mind. Alicia spotted that, too. "I'm not suggesting that you be... well, disloyal, or anything," she said hastily. "Just that we keep each other company. We can... well, we can work out what happens as soon as one of them comes back."
"Just friends?" Darrell asked, extending her right hand.
"Just friends," Alicia replied, taking the hand and shaking it. She had other plans, but she wasn't about to tell Darrell that; nor was Darrell able to penetrate Alicia's unflappable exterior to find out. She stood and pulled Darrell to her feet. Darrell, who was not exactly the weakest girl in the class, was impressed with Alicia's strength. "Thank you," she said. "We'd better get back to bed."
Alicia smiled and rested her hand back on Darrell's shoulder briefly. Darrell, taking it quite naturally as just a friendly gesture, gave Alicia a warm smile back, and they returned to their dormy.
They were back the next night. Or rather, Darrell was, and Alicia was waiting for her. Darrell was, if anything, even more miserable.
"Back again?" Alicia asked. "You should lay off the coffee, Darrell."
Darrell shook her head. "No, it's just the heat tonight. May I sit with you, please?"
"Be my guest."
Darrell sat. Alicia was wearing a short nightie in a very nice shade of something between blue and aquamarine, and though Darrell thought it was perhaps a little less than she'd care to wear around the school at night, she certainly concurred with Alicia's desire not to boil to death in her bed. Darrell hadn't been able to shake herself away from trousered pyjamas. She thought Alicia's nightwear was really quite unbecoming of a Malory girl; on the other hand, Alicia had always done more or less as she pleased, and she certainly wasn't anywhere near as self-conscious as Darrell was. Nor, really, was it actually against the rules. She had to admit that, given all she could see, Alicia really did look quite fit. "Are you still reading your letter?"
"Over and over again," Alicia confessed.
"You and Betty must be really close," Darrell said, "for you to miss her that much."
"We've had a couple more terms to get to know each other. Besides, it was a bit like... well, it didn't take us long to find out that we liked the same things..."
"Chaos," Darrell interjected.
"Exactly. And from then, a firm friendship was practically unavoidable. You and Sally are a bit curious, by comparison."
"Because we fought like cats and dogs to start with?" Darrell replied. "Sally was a bit funny, at first, wasn't she?"
"What was that about, by the way? Whatever it was, it seemed to clear overnight. One minute she was snappy - almost as bad as Ellen was last year - and the next she was sweetness and light, and wouldn't leave your side. What happened?"
"I hit her," Darrell said, desperately wanting to do something that would surprise Alicia.
"What?"
Darrell smiled at having had the desired effect. "Touché." She briefly explained why Sally had been so difficult, the struggle that had triggered Sally's appendicitis and the result of that, including Darrell's own letter to Sally's mother, and Sally's gratitude to Darrell afterwards. "So there was nothing to stop us being friends after that," Darrell concluded. "Sally felt she'd been a bit of a bad sport, and that I really had been trying hard earlier, and we've found a lot we have in common... that's it, I suppose."
"A happy series of accidents, really," Alicia offered.
"Yes."
"What do you think would have happened," Alicia suddenly asked, "if Mary-Lou had had the nerve to turn Gwendoline down that half-term? Would you have had her for a friend, and left Sally to brood on her own? Poor old Mary-Lou didn't have a very good time of it, but you have to admit that Sally probably needed you more."
Darrell nodded. For all her unkindness and cutting co
