You Don't Have To Wear That Dress Tonight - Fletcher/Jones - Standalone
Title: You Don't Have To Wear That Dress Tonight
Author: valquiris
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones
Genre: AU
Summary: I shake my head, not heeding any alternatives. I want him and only him, the way I’ve wanted him ever since we parted three years ago.
Prequel: You Are My Heaven On Earth
A/N: I have been listening to El Tango De Roxanne and the idea just came to me in a flash. I just wrote this last night, so forgive any errors. As always, enjoy! ♥
I stop before the building, its walls pockmarked by peeling white paint, the fluorescent light flickering on both sides of the door, illuminating the darkness surrounding me for but a second at one time, and I crinkle the dampening paper in my hand subconsciously. Moving closer to the door, I crane my neck upward to inspect the sign screwed secure just over it, the words FEMMES DU NUIT scribbled untidily with red paint upon its scratchy surface.
I lift my hand and expose the soggy flyer to the night air, swirling around my sweaty skin, stinging me with cold needles. With my other hand, I unfurl the paper carefully, not wanting to rip it. Succeeding, I look at it as a whole, and I compare the words plastered at the top with the ones on the sign. FEMMES DU NUIT.
This is the place.
I crumple the paper and throw it on the ground somewhere, and, looking both ways with scrutinizing eyes, I slip my hands in my jacket pockets before advancing closer.
The door contains no knobs or bells, so naturally I don’t know how to open it. I look at the metal rectangle for a minute, moving my head in every direction to scope out anything I may have missed. Locating none, I elbow the door as a last resort, and it opens with a loud creaking, setting off a couple of dogs in the distance. The door closes with a bang, and the barking is muffled immediately after I take a step inside the minimally lit sitting room, only to be replaced by the amused cackling of women from somewhere not too far off.
An aging woman with red hair is sitting in the far corner, a cigarette holder placed between her lips as she counts the money fanned-out in her hand. She is wearing a tight black corset above a red silk dress riddled slightly with holes and tears, her bosom heavily pronounced against the garments, and she notices my appearance at once. With vulture-like eyes, she uncrosses her legs and taps the floor with the tip of her high heels before standing up completely. I stand my ground in the middle of the room, eyes discreetly washing over young women passing through, leading men into doors that lined the area.
“How may I help you tonight,” she asks me in a raspy voice, a trace of an incomprehensible accent lacing her words, before taking a few steps forward, her hips shaking sultrily on either side, her waist seeming non-existent due to the corset. She makes me uncomfortable how old her face looks in comparison to her youthful body, and I step back slightly at her advance. She laughs and moves closer, eyes never leaving mine. “Don’t be afraid. I don’t bite.”
I smile weakly in response, and I inch closer after letting a tall brunette lead a fellow woman in one of the doors. She stops and files the bills neatly, folding them and sticking them between her breasts afterward.
“I’m looking for-” I start, but the words are caught in my throat when she shakes her head.
“No, no, no,” she says coldly, her sweet persona shattering in an instant. “No more looking for specific girls. The last time, we found her in the dumpster with her throat sliced open.”
“But I’m not looking for a girl,” I persist, questioning her logic with my own, and she eyes me like a curious feline.
“Oh?” she asks, interest sparked, and she steps closer, leaving behind a trail of smoke from her lips in her wake.
“I’m looking for Thomas,” I say, finally granted the chance to finish my sentence, and I watch her hopefully, fingernails digging in my palms inside my jacket.
“You are a special customer, then,” she smiles, feline transforming into a sly fox, lips curling upward from ear to ear. “You do know it costs more.”
“I understand. I want him, if I can.”
“You do not want the girls?” she asks, skeptical at my preference. “You can get three good ones for his price. Three times the pleasure. You can go home a happy man tonight.”
I shake my head, not heeding any alternatives. I want him and only him, the way I’ve wanted him ever since we parted three years ago.
“No, I want him. I don’t care about the price,” I say sharply, the thought of sharing a bed with women-not to mention three-repulsing me. She laughs, her breasts jiggling slightly, and I try my best to keep my eyes on her face, the spectacle attracting me much like a clown would in a funeral.
“I only think of the customers,” she says, turning her back and walking back to her place in the sofa, the clacking of her heels congealing with the smoky atmosphere dancing in the air. She raises a hand and motions for me to follow her, and I feel my feet drag me forward like a piece of metal to a magnet.
“Here’s the money,” I say, lifting a hand out of the pocket and digging in the one in my trousers for the pre-arranged bundle of bills sitting peacefully at the bottom surrounded by a tangled necklace. She turns around almost instantaneously, eyes falling to the money as I raise it up for her to see.
“Very well,” she says without so much as a deliberation, and she snatches the pack from my fingers before I could spot her hand moving. She turns to her left and stretches out an arm, fingers snapping at someone leaning against the wall, blending in with the shadows, and forward steps a stony-faced young woman with legs that seems to go on for miles, her only garment a tiny corset reminiscent of the redhead’s, a tattoo of a cross splashed on the inside of her thigh. She is easily taller than I am, and in her blood-red heels, I only come up under her chin.
“This is Darla,” the older one says, motioning her hand in my direction. The one called Darla strides over to me and places her hands softly on my shoulders, long nails coated thickly with red nail polish tapping my collarbones. “She will show you to Thomas’s room.”
Darla quickly steers me around and pushes me to action, though not forcefully. She leads me up a spiral staircase, and I catch one last glimpse of the first woman sitting in the same position as our meeting, fingers counting my money, with a devilish smile.
“Thomas is the best this house can offer,” Darla says without warning, her voice syrupy and velvety, and I almost take a wrong step at the suddenness. “Trained by Madame herself. The rest of us didn’t get as lucky. I can’t blame her; I’ve seen him in action before Madame polished him up. Women and men alike keep on coming for more after one go. That’s why he has his own fixed portion in the flyers. The rest of us alternate with every newcomer.”
I know Darla was telling me this as part of their customer service, telling me things I want to hear-although this isn’t what I want to hear. I don’t want to hear about him servicing other people after he told me he was only for me to enjoy.
We stop before a large door at the topmost flight, and I feel Darla’s fingers sliding off my shoulders.
“This is his room. I expect you’ll have the best night of your life tonight. Leave him undamaged.”
With a flip of her hair, she disappears down the stairs, echoing of her steps growing fainter and fainter as she descends. I turn back to the door, and for the first time since entering, I feel my heart rush, my hands tremble, my knees shake.
Three years it’s been and I still remember his face clearly in my head. I just hope he’d stayed the same.
I press my palm on the wooden surface and I push slightly, lending the aid of my other hand after having a fair bit of struggle. The moment the door opens, I step inside, and I stare in awe at the lavish design that seems only exclusive to this one room.
Draped around the walls are purple silk curtains, their ends tied together with small ropes, and the walls themselves are decorated with intricate floral patterns of varying colors and adorned with dimmed lamps. In the center stands a large bed that seems to have been based on Victorian architecture, where still more curtains drape all around.
And lying on the bed is him.
He is wearing a corset similar to the rest of the women, though his is pure white, covering only his abdomen so that his chest is exposed. Underneath the coutille garment is a white dress, the upper portion deliberately cut off with the purpose of showing only the skin above, and it contains a slit that runs down the middle, where his privates lie undisturbed with the absence of undergarments, and spills out on the mattress like spilled paint. I move closer.
“Tom,” I say meekly, stopping inches from the edge of the bed and tracing his features. Those brown eyes, that narrow nose, that singular dimple, those lips…. Definitely him.
He sits up and watches me with mixed expressions, and I feel my heart beating quicker than ever. It’s the same look he gave me before he ran into the night, leaving me alone in the deserted park with only a necklace to hold on to.
“Danny.”
The sound assaulted my ears like a swarm of bees, and my mind relays to all the times he said my name. I move closer still, until the tips of my feet disappear under shadows of the bed. I keep my hands in my pockets.
“I’ve missed you.”
He gets on his knees and rests his palms on his thighs.
“How did you know where I was?”
I stare at my feet, finding them suddenly fascinating.
“Saw your face in a flyer.”
He is silent, and I lift my gaze to meet his more properly.
“Now you see what I’ve become,” he says grimly, rearranging himself back to the same position he assumed before I came in. “Why didn’t you move on?”
I smile, my teeth refusing to appear, and I slip a hand from a pocket to dig for the necklace.
“I can’t forget you, Tom,” I reply after retrieving the silvery material, the small chains wrapped around my fingers. “I still love you.”
His eyes widen at the remark, and he swivels his eyes to meet mine, turning his head only so slightly. I continue, having rehearsed all I want to say before coming here.
“And I know you still love me. Feelings like that don’t just go away, Tom, just look at me. All this time, I’ve tried to look for you, but you keep slipping past my fingers whenever I would get the chance; or, at least, that’s what I’d like to believe. Prove me right, Tom. Tell me you still love me.”
“It’s been three years-”
“Tell me.”
“Danny, please-”
“No, tell me.”
He sighs, defeated; he knows me, he knows I like my requests granted.
“I do.”
I smile, wider this time, and I place a bended knee on the bed.
“Then why did you leave me?”
“You know why I had to leave,” he says, sitting to a more comfortable position with his legs crossed over each other. “My parents were mad, and they’d have killed me had they obtained the chance. I wanted to go somewhere where I felt wanted, felt loved. And God know I wouldn’t find it in their house.”
I move closer and envelop his hands with mine, eyes locked undisturbed with his.
“You could have stayed with me. We could’ve run away, together. At least we’d had each other.”
He shakes his head and makes to pull his hands away from mine, but I keep my grip tight, having no intention of letting him go a second time.
“I couldn’t do that to you. It was my problem, not yours.”
I narrow my eyes, not fully comprehending what he is getting at.
“What are you talking about? You said it yourself you love me, so I don’t get why you didn’t want to be with me.”
He stays silent, averting his eyes and settling them on a far off table on which a lone rose stands in a thin glass vase.
“So you found love in this whorehouse.”
His eyes snap back to me, and he yanks his hands out of my grasp, anger in his features. He jumps off the bed, his dress billowing behind him, and he turns to me with fury.
“At least here I’m wanted, I matter, I’m loved!”
It’s my turn to stand up, and I look at him with equal intensity.
“In this place where love is for the highest bidder?”
His words falter him, and he scoffs instead at my remark, ripping off his corset and his dress along with it. He stands fully naked in front of me, eyes smoldering, and he places his hands on his hips, waiting.
“My job is to serve the customer,” he says coldly, and I stare incredulously at his ending the subject abruptly. “Not to talk about my past. So if you’re only here for that, I suggest you leave. If not, then please let me do what I’m paid to do.”
My words fail me as well, and I only stand looking at him, arms hanging limply on either side. I find a replacement in shaking my head, and I throw the necklace on the bed.
“Three years, I kept my love for you. That necklace there signifies that, and I’m finally letting it go.”
He drops his arms, confusion etched on his face.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you either leave with me right now or you don’t. Simple as that.”
He doesn’t answer, and I take his silence as the latter. I turn to leave, not giving him one last glance. Three years thrown out the window; how could I have been so foolish?
I throw the door open and walk firmly down the stairs, slugging a woman on her shoulder on the way. I jump the last two steps and I ignore the redhead, who stands up upon seeing me, bills seemingly glued to her hand.
“Finished already? That fast?” she asks, following me as I make my way across the floor. I don’t answer, keeping my eyes fixed on the door, and I push through it without hesitation, the creaking still as loud and disturbing. I give the door one last kick before turning around and facing the way I came, determined to start anew and push all my memories with him aside.
“Danny!” a voice calls out from behind me, and I turn immediately at the recognition of its owner. Tom is running toward me, his corseted dress hanging from an arm, barefoot and naked still. “Danny, wait!”
He wraps his arms around my neck, the silky fabric flowing elegantly in the night air, and I reach my own around his back, the familiar sensation filling my body like it did three years ago.
“I want to leave with you, Danny, I love you,” he says desperately after facing me with sad eyes, dropping his arms a little. “Damn, it’s cold.”
I chuckle and pull him closer, more to express my exhilaration that to share my body heat, and I feel him replace his hold around my neck, kissing my neck relentlessly with fervor.
“Hold on,” he says, and he disentangles his arms to put on his dress. “It’s fucking cold, I’ll freeze out here.”
I place a hand on his to stop the action, and I shake my head when he turns back to me.
“You don’t have to wear that dress tonight,” I assure him, slipping my arms from around him to unzip my jacket. I slide it off my shoulders and position it around his frame, smiling at each other as he drops the dress on the dirty ground. It is then that I realize he had worn the necklace, and I link my arm with his, giving him a kiss on the cheek before we set off out of the alley and into a new beginning.
Author: valquiris
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones
Genre: AU
Summary: I shake my head, not heeding any alternatives. I want him and only him, the way I’ve wanted him ever since we parted three years ago.
Prequel: You Are My Heaven On Earth
A/N: I have been listening to El Tango De Roxanne and the idea just came to me in a flash. I just wrote this last night, so forgive any errors. As always, enjoy! ♥
I stop before the building, its walls pockmarked by peeling white paint, the fluorescent light flickering on both sides of the door, illuminating the darkness surrounding me for but a second at one time, and I crinkle the dampening paper in my hand subconsciously. Moving closer to the door, I crane my neck upward to inspect the sign screwed secure just over it, the words FEMMES DU NUIT scribbled untidily with red paint upon its scratchy surface.
I lift my hand and expose the soggy flyer to the night air, swirling around my sweaty skin, stinging me with cold needles. With my other hand, I unfurl the paper carefully, not wanting to rip it. Succeeding, I look at it as a whole, and I compare the words plastered at the top with the ones on the sign. FEMMES DU NUIT.
This is the place.
I crumple the paper and throw it on the ground somewhere, and, looking both ways with scrutinizing eyes, I slip my hands in my jacket pockets before advancing closer.
The door contains no knobs or bells, so naturally I don’t know how to open it. I look at the metal rectangle for a minute, moving my head in every direction to scope out anything I may have missed. Locating none, I elbow the door as a last resort, and it opens with a loud creaking, setting off a couple of dogs in the distance. The door closes with a bang, and the barking is muffled immediately after I take a step inside the minimally lit sitting room, only to be replaced by the amused cackling of women from somewhere not too far off.
An aging woman with red hair is sitting in the far corner, a cigarette holder placed between her lips as she counts the money fanned-out in her hand. She is wearing a tight black corset above a red silk dress riddled slightly with holes and tears, her bosom heavily pronounced against the garments, and she notices my appearance at once. With vulture-like eyes, she uncrosses her legs and taps the floor with the tip of her high heels before standing up completely. I stand my ground in the middle of the room, eyes discreetly washing over young women passing through, leading men into doors that lined the area.
“How may I help you tonight,” she asks me in a raspy voice, a trace of an incomprehensible accent lacing her words, before taking a few steps forward, her hips shaking sultrily on either side, her waist seeming non-existent due to the corset. She makes me uncomfortable how old her face looks in comparison to her youthful body, and I step back slightly at her advance. She laughs and moves closer, eyes never leaving mine. “Don’t be afraid. I don’t bite.”
I smile weakly in response, and I inch closer after letting a tall brunette lead a fellow woman in one of the doors. She stops and files the bills neatly, folding them and sticking them between her breasts afterward.
“I’m looking for-” I start, but the words are caught in my throat when she shakes her head.
“No, no, no,” she says coldly, her sweet persona shattering in an instant. “No more looking for specific girls. The last time, we found her in the dumpster with her throat sliced open.”
“But I’m not looking for a girl,” I persist, questioning her logic with my own, and she eyes me like a curious feline.
“Oh?” she asks, interest sparked, and she steps closer, leaving behind a trail of smoke from her lips in her wake.
“I’m looking for Thomas,” I say, finally granted the chance to finish my sentence, and I watch her hopefully, fingernails digging in my palms inside my jacket.
“You are a special customer, then,” she smiles, feline transforming into a sly fox, lips curling upward from ear to ear. “You do know it costs more.”
“I understand. I want him, if I can.”
“You do not want the girls?” she asks, skeptical at my preference. “You can get three good ones for his price. Three times the pleasure. You can go home a happy man tonight.”
I shake my head, not heeding any alternatives. I want him and only him, the way I’ve wanted him ever since we parted three years ago.
“No, I want him. I don’t care about the price,” I say sharply, the thought of sharing a bed with women-not to mention three-repulsing me. She laughs, her breasts jiggling slightly, and I try my best to keep my eyes on her face, the spectacle attracting me much like a clown would in a funeral.
“I only think of the customers,” she says, turning her back and walking back to her place in the sofa, the clacking of her heels congealing with the smoky atmosphere dancing in the air. She raises a hand and motions for me to follow her, and I feel my feet drag me forward like a piece of metal to a magnet.
“Here’s the money,” I say, lifting a hand out of the pocket and digging in the one in my trousers for the pre-arranged bundle of bills sitting peacefully at the bottom surrounded by a tangled necklace. She turns around almost instantaneously, eyes falling to the money as I raise it up for her to see.
“Very well,” she says without so much as a deliberation, and she snatches the pack from my fingers before I could spot her hand moving. She turns to her left and stretches out an arm, fingers snapping at someone leaning against the wall, blending in with the shadows, and forward steps a stony-faced young woman with legs that seems to go on for miles, her only garment a tiny corset reminiscent of the redhead’s, a tattoo of a cross splashed on the inside of her thigh. She is easily taller than I am, and in her blood-red heels, I only come up under her chin.
“This is Darla,” the older one says, motioning her hand in my direction. The one called Darla strides over to me and places her hands softly on my shoulders, long nails coated thickly with red nail polish tapping my collarbones. “She will show you to Thomas’s room.”
Darla quickly steers me around and pushes me to action, though not forcefully. She leads me up a spiral staircase, and I catch one last glimpse of the first woman sitting in the same position as our meeting, fingers counting my money, with a devilish smile.
“Thomas is the best this house can offer,” Darla says without warning, her voice syrupy and velvety, and I almost take a wrong step at the suddenness. “Trained by Madame herself. The rest of us didn’t get as lucky. I can’t blame her; I’ve seen him in action before Madame polished him up. Women and men alike keep on coming for more after one go. That’s why he has his own fixed portion in the flyers. The rest of us alternate with every newcomer.”
I know Darla was telling me this as part of their customer service, telling me things I want to hear-although this isn’t what I want to hear. I don’t want to hear about him servicing other people after he told me he was only for me to enjoy.
We stop before a large door at the topmost flight, and I feel Darla’s fingers sliding off my shoulders.
“This is his room. I expect you’ll have the best night of your life tonight. Leave him undamaged.”
With a flip of her hair, she disappears down the stairs, echoing of her steps growing fainter and fainter as she descends. I turn back to the door, and for the first time since entering, I feel my heart rush, my hands tremble, my knees shake.
Three years it’s been and I still remember his face clearly in my head. I just hope he’d stayed the same.
I press my palm on the wooden surface and I push slightly, lending the aid of my other hand after having a fair bit of struggle. The moment the door opens, I step inside, and I stare in awe at the lavish design that seems only exclusive to this one room.
Draped around the walls are purple silk curtains, their ends tied together with small ropes, and the walls themselves are decorated with intricate floral patterns of varying colors and adorned with dimmed lamps. In the center stands a large bed that seems to have been based on Victorian architecture, where still more curtains drape all around.
And lying on the bed is him.
He is wearing a corset similar to the rest of the women, though his is pure white, covering only his abdomen so that his chest is exposed. Underneath the coutille garment is a white dress, the upper portion deliberately cut off with the purpose of showing only the skin above, and it contains a slit that runs down the middle, where his privates lie undisturbed with the absence of undergarments, and spills out on the mattress like spilled paint. I move closer.
“Tom,” I say meekly, stopping inches from the edge of the bed and tracing his features. Those brown eyes, that narrow nose, that singular dimple, those lips…. Definitely him.
He sits up and watches me with mixed expressions, and I feel my heart beating quicker than ever. It’s the same look he gave me before he ran into the night, leaving me alone in the deserted park with only a necklace to hold on to.
“Danny.”
The sound assaulted my ears like a swarm of bees, and my mind relays to all the times he said my name. I move closer still, until the tips of my feet disappear under shadows of the bed. I keep my hands in my pockets.
“I’ve missed you.”
He gets on his knees and rests his palms on his thighs.
“How did you know where I was?”
I stare at my feet, finding them suddenly fascinating.
“Saw your face in a flyer.”
He is silent, and I lift my gaze to meet his more properly.
“Now you see what I’ve become,” he says grimly, rearranging himself back to the same position he assumed before I came in. “Why didn’t you move on?”
I smile, my teeth refusing to appear, and I slip a hand from a pocket to dig for the necklace.
“I can’t forget you, Tom,” I reply after retrieving the silvery material, the small chains wrapped around my fingers. “I still love you.”
His eyes widen at the remark, and he swivels his eyes to meet mine, turning his head only so slightly. I continue, having rehearsed all I want to say before coming here.
“And I know you still love me. Feelings like that don’t just go away, Tom, just look at me. All this time, I’ve tried to look for you, but you keep slipping past my fingers whenever I would get the chance; or, at least, that’s what I’d like to believe. Prove me right, Tom. Tell me you still love me.”
“It’s been three years-”
“Tell me.”
“Danny, please-”
“No, tell me.”
He sighs, defeated; he knows me, he knows I like my requests granted.
“I do.”
I smile, wider this time, and I place a bended knee on the bed.
“Then why did you leave me?”
“You know why I had to leave,” he says, sitting to a more comfortable position with his legs crossed over each other. “My parents were mad, and they’d have killed me had they obtained the chance. I wanted to go somewhere where I felt wanted, felt loved. And God know I wouldn’t find it in their house.”
I move closer and envelop his hands with mine, eyes locked undisturbed with his.
“You could have stayed with me. We could’ve run away, together. At least we’d had each other.”
He shakes his head and makes to pull his hands away from mine, but I keep my grip tight, having no intention of letting him go a second time.
“I couldn’t do that to you. It was my problem, not yours.”
I narrow my eyes, not fully comprehending what he is getting at.
“What are you talking about? You said it yourself you love me, so I don’t get why you didn’t want to be with me.”
He stays silent, averting his eyes and settling them on a far off table on which a lone rose stands in a thin glass vase.
“So you found love in this whorehouse.”
His eyes snap back to me, and he yanks his hands out of my grasp, anger in his features. He jumps off the bed, his dress billowing behind him, and he turns to me with fury.
“At least here I’m wanted, I matter, I’m loved!”
It’s my turn to stand up, and I look at him with equal intensity.
“In this place where love is for the highest bidder?”
His words falter him, and he scoffs instead at my remark, ripping off his corset and his dress along with it. He stands fully naked in front of me, eyes smoldering, and he places his hands on his hips, waiting.
“My job is to serve the customer,” he says coldly, and I stare incredulously at his ending the subject abruptly. “Not to talk about my past. So if you’re only here for that, I suggest you leave. If not, then please let me do what I’m paid to do.”
My words fail me as well, and I only stand looking at him, arms hanging limply on either side. I find a replacement in shaking my head, and I throw the necklace on the bed.
“Three years, I kept my love for you. That necklace there signifies that, and I’m finally letting it go.”
He drops his arms, confusion etched on his face.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you either leave with me right now or you don’t. Simple as that.”
He doesn’t answer, and I take his silence as the latter. I turn to leave, not giving him one last glance. Three years thrown out the window; how could I have been so foolish?
I throw the door open and walk firmly down the stairs, slugging a woman on her shoulder on the way. I jump the last two steps and I ignore the redhead, who stands up upon seeing me, bills seemingly glued to her hand.
“Finished already? That fast?” she asks, following me as I make my way across the floor. I don’t answer, keeping my eyes fixed on the door, and I push through it without hesitation, the creaking still as loud and disturbing. I give the door one last kick before turning around and facing the way I came, determined to start anew and push all my memories with him aside.
“Danny!” a voice calls out from behind me, and I turn immediately at the recognition of its owner. Tom is running toward me, his corseted dress hanging from an arm, barefoot and naked still. “Danny, wait!”
He wraps his arms around my neck, the silky fabric flowing elegantly in the night air, and I reach my own around his back, the familiar sensation filling my body like it did three years ago.
“I want to leave with you, Danny, I love you,” he says desperately after facing me with sad eyes, dropping his arms a little. “Damn, it’s cold.”
I chuckle and pull him closer, more to express my exhilaration that to share my body heat, and I feel him replace his hold around my neck, kissing my neck relentlessly with fervor.
“Hold on,” he says, and he disentangles his arms to put on his dress. “It’s fucking cold, I’ll freeze out here.”
I place a hand on his to stop the action, and I shake my head when he turns back to me.
“You don’t have to wear that dress tonight,” I assure him, slipping my arms from around him to unzip my jacket. I slide it off my shoulders and position it around his frame, smiling at each other as he drops the dress on the dirty ground. It is then that I realize he had worn the necklace, and I link my arm with his, giving him a kiss on the cheek before we set off out of the alley and into a new beginning.