Disclaimer: I only own the exact word order you're about to see. :)

Note: I'm going to blame HedgehogQuill for this one, because I don't even really like Anybodys all that much, yetsomeone insists on making me fond of her. So blame her, people!

—viennacantabile

chasing shadows

.

Sometimes Anybodys is the smallest bit jealous of her, with her perfect blonde hair and ice-blue dress and cool stare. Sometimes, she wonders what it feels like to be pretty, and sometimes, she wishes she were.

"An American tragedy!"

It's Graziella who says it, and means it, too, but it's Velma, giggling and not really paying attention, that Anybodys hates. Velma, settling possessively into Ice like she owns him. The worst part of it all is she might as well, for all he looks at other girls. Which is to say he doesn't, ever. Instead he just smiles at Velma like there's nothing else in the world, and it makes Anybodys so sick she could just puke because that is the only time she ever sees Ice smile like that and she hates Velma, hates her, for being able to do that.

The thing is: they look so good together, her and Ice. So right. Not like she would with him—what would Ice do with Anybodys and her close-cropped hair and stick-straight body? The only thing he can do, she figures, which is treat her like one of the boys. Before Riff and Bernardo, before the rumble that knocked all the balance out of their little world? All she'd ever wanted. And now, when what she's looking for is someone to make everything make sense again, that's just not enough. Not even close to being enough.

Because it's so clear to Anybodys that Ice never even thinks about her at all. He might not mess with her like the other guys do, but she's got a feeling that has less to do with some two-bit idea of niceness than just plain indifference. He doesn't care, doesn't give two shits about her. That's all there is to it.

And as he shakes the info about Chino out of her, as she flinches from his blazing pale eyes, she can't help but feel a little thrill. It was worth the hiding, the sneaking around, the running like mad not to be caught. He is looking at her, seeing her—

For those eyes, she thinks, she'd tell him anything he wanted to know.

"Ya done good, buddy boy."

Oh, she's in trouble now.

(Although—after having fought so damn hard all her life to be one of the guys, it's almost funny that just when she's thinking about maybe being a girl for once, she finally gets her wish. Irony's a fucking bitch, Anybodys thinks bitterly.)

And as he lopes out of Doc's to check for Chino, she rubs her arm, watching him go, half-resentful and half-awed. He touched her. It's enough, for now. It has to be.

(Even if it's not the way he touches her.)

"You're a girl!" snaps Tony. "Be a girl an' beat it!"

And as she runs away, slapped in the face with everything that is or could be or maybe even isn't wrong with her, Anybodys remembers those pale eyes and thinks, I wish.

.

.end.

Well, Ice is really pretty, so I can't quite blame her. Hope you enjoyed!

—viennacantabile