Mission #34: A Night To Remember
Face has a date. With a teenager. That can't go well, can it? The fact that there's a PPC mission into the story kind of answer that question.
A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts taken from A Night To Remember by Emerald Princess 20.
-oOo-
Tasmin surveyed the crowd in her response centre: what were all these people doing here? She saw Allison bouncing from one little group of agents to another, holding a large bottle of rum and speaking amicably. Tasmin felt a pain in her side. She glared down at the chubby blonde that had poked her. "What are you doing?"
"I just- I just wanted to see if you were real," the agent stammered.
"You must be new here."
"Yeah, wow. 25 missions. I just had my first. 25, that is... wow."
"Don't overexcite yourself."
"I don't think I could make it up to 25, or 20 even."
"Well, not if you go around poking unsuspecting, senior agents," Tasmin said mildly and patted the agent on the shoulder. She turned away from the blonde and wondered what could make all these people leave.
The console came to her aid and let out a loud and long beep. The chattering in the room came to an immediate stop. All heads turned toward the console, anxiety was a common facial expression among them.
"Everyone that's still in here in 10 seconds is coming on this mission,"Tasmin said.
When the dust had cleared, Allison, who sat on the floor where she had fallen after Tasmin had grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, said: "Wow. You really know how to clear a room."
Tasmin shrugged and walked over to the console to check out the mission. A moment later she turned around to glare at her partner. "You asked for a change of stories. You challenged the Laws of Narrative Comedy. I don't want to hear one word that could be contrived as a complaint coming from your mouth. You brought this on you yourself." Tasmin stabbed the keys on the console with more malice than usual. A portal opened and the two agents went into the fic.
-oOo-
"We're going into badfic and I can't complain? What kind of sadist are you?" Allison looked around the ball room and surveyed the bobbing and bouncing crowd of dancing teenagers. Then her eye fell on her own disguise: a prom dress. "I repeat my question: what kind of sadist are you?"
"This fic is set at a junior prom. I thought it best if we blended in."
"Then why are you blending in as an adult supervisor and did you make me wear this?"
"Must have been the Laws of Narrative Comedy that did that." Tasmin suppressed a chuckle.
"You can't blame everything on them. Particularly not if the colour fuchsia is involved." Allison glared at her partner.
"And you think I know what colour fuchsia is?"
"You may have a point there."
Tasmin bit her tongue and turned around to see if she could spot Face anywhere. He was on the dance floor with a young girl.
So far the night had been perfect. She was dancing with the man of her dreams. His strong arms held her close. She could feel his burning gaze looking at every inch of her. He led her for a while and she then led him.
"Charge, Face can see every inch of this person despite holding her close, which would leave very awkward angles for looking."
Allison rolled her eyes. "And how do you suppose I write them down? This dress doesn't have pockets. Or did you hide the notepad in the corsage?" Allison jabbed her wrist at her partner.
Tasmin rolled her eyes in turn. "Use mine." She handed her partner a notepad and pen she dug up from her duffel bag. "And add that this Sue seems unaware that in ballroom dancing the convention is that men lead. A convention Face is unlikely to break."
The music changed to a tango, and while Face made the Sue spin, the change in tenses made the PPC agents spin.
Templeton Peck takes Susan into his arms and leads her into a breathtaking tango. They own this dance floor. He spins her around and around until she was dizzy and takes back into his arms.
"Oh, yeah that tango is breathtaking. The way a lump wedged in your throat is breathtaking." Allison beat herself on her chest is if to clear her windpipe. "First of all, tango is a sensual dance. There is nothing sensual about making your partner dizzy. You're supposed to make her feel good. If Face wants to make her feel good by making her dizzy, he'd stand a much better chance if he took her into an amusement park ride that spins around. Spinning is a salsa move, anyway," Allison said with slight disgust. "Not something you do in a tango, not more than once, not unless you are going for something that is not even recognizable as a tango any more."
Tasmin nodded. "I hope you've written that all down."
"How about I rant and you write for a change?"
"I could rant about the bad grammar."
Allison crossed her arms. "Go on then. Let's hear it."
"I can't while your watching. It's like peeing in public." Tasmin walked away, leaving her partner shivering in disgust. She strolled around the room to the table where Face offered a seat to the Sue.
He quickly walks around her and sits down by her side. “Would you like something to drink?” he asks. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.” She responds to him.
"Take a note: speaking in the same..." Tasmin looked around. Her partner had not heeled. She was still on the other side of the ball room, shivering. Tasmin tried to make her come over by the power of her glare. It seemed to work as Allison came over.
"In your opinion, as an asexual, a kiss on the forehead does that spell 'daddy's little girl' or 'come to papa, baby'?"
"I'm not an asexual," Tasmin said.
"Someone in this fic must be, 'cause there is nothing seductive about Face kissing a woman on the forehead. It's gesture of being protective and caring. If you want to be seductive you aim for the mouth. But then, it's a Sue."
"And you want to stay away from her mouth as far as possible," Tasmin agreed. "She might actually eat you."
The Sue got up and walked out onto the balcony where Face joined her a moment later with two glasses of punch. After disposing of the drinks he wrapped his arms around her. The Sue admitted to being cold and Face gave her his jacket.
"Is this story part of a challenge?" Allison asked. "Try to put as many romantic clichés into a fic: guy pulling out the chair for the girl, getting her her drink, wrapping his arms around her from behind, guy giving up his coat because his lady is chilly. If a guy behaved like that on a date with me I'd've punched him half way through the evening."
"Yes, well, try to refrain from punching Face." Tasmin glanced at the Words. "In stead, you may want to get some punch for us."
"Why? You don't usually approve of eating the food in the fic." Allison carefully eyed her partner.
"The romantic clichés are going to continue for a while."
"Say no more." Allison turned on her heels and made her way over to the buffet line.
Face turns her around. His ocean-colored eyes gazing into her greenish-bluish eyes. They move closer together. Susan wraps her arms around his neck. Face moves closer to her. They two well-dressed couple kiss. Fireworks explode and bands played.
"I have no idea what is worse." Tasmin shook her head. "Face's eye colour, the redundancy, the sentence that doesn't make sense, or the fireworks comment?" She checked her clip and considered shooting the kid who lit the fireworks on the balcony now. Waving her gun at him proved enough of a threat as the boy rushed back into the dance hall.
The boy rushing past her nearly made Allison spill her drink. "Do you want the spiked or the not-spiked punch?"
"Someone spiked the punch?"
"No, they're all too dim for that." Allison jerked her head to the crowd on the dance floor. "But it could be spiked if you want it to be. Then again, it could also be apple juice or milk." The colour and consistency of the drink in the glass Allison held out to her partner turned to that of milk.
"If you stop fooling around with the details, I won't tell you what you just missed."
"Deal!" Allison gave the glass to Tasmin and quickly stepped away from her lest she should change her mind. She turned her attention to the dance floor.
Hannibal Smith sees his second in command and his lady love getting to know each other better. “I love it when a plan comes together!” he says as he turns around and takes hold of a beautiful redheaded woman and takes her into his arms for a breathtaking tango.
"Oh, come on! Not all tangos are breathtaking. Besides, I would have figured Hannibal more of a line-dancer."
"Why's that?" Tasmin had turned to her partner after her outburst.
"Because it's the only dance you can do while chomping on a cigar. All dances where you dance face to face with your partner you risk burning them."
Tasmin dropped her head and stared at her feet for a beat. Like a shot she lifted her head again. "You're forgetting one thing about Hannibal though: when has he ever been encouraging about Face's love-life?"
"Something must have snapped when he started taking tango lessons." Allison quickly jumped out of arm's reach of her partner. "Writing down OOC Hannibal."
Tasmin shook her head and turned her back to her partner. Face and the Sue had finished kissing and were now hugging. Tasmin shook her head at that too. She was glad the chapter had come to an end, and with that the prom.
“What do you want to do now?” Face asks. Susan adjusts his tuxedo jacket on her shoulders. “I have a room across the street at the Adam’s Mark.”
Tasmin looked from the Sue to the Words and back at the Sue. It were Face's lips she had seen moving, but it was definitely the Sue's voice she'd heard say the last line. "Bad paragraphing leading to confusion about who's propositioning who."
Face checked with the Sue if she was sure about the indecent proposal she made him. She kissed him in reply. The Sue and Face left.
"C'mon." Tasmin grabbed her partner by the shoulder.
"Where're we going?"
"Across the street to a hotel room."
"Yuk. This is a junior prom. That Sue's 16 or 17. Face is twenty years older. This is the US. Is that even legal?"
"We're in Alabama. The age of consent it 16 here."
"Still, the age difference is a major yuk-factor."
"Yes, but bad taste is not a charge."
"It is if canon characters of fine taste suddenly display bad taste."
"Face has dated younger women before."
"Not so young that he couldn't offer them a glass of champagne while wooing them. And why are you defending this Sue?"
"I'm not. I'm holding a Socratic investigation."
Allison stopped walking, collected her thoughts and caught up again with her partner. "Just remember that Socrates received the death penalty for his practices."
Tasmin chuckled and held open the door to the staircase for her partner.
"Why aren't we taking a lift?" Allison took off her shoes. "High heels and stair climbing don't belong together. Don't you know?"
"Remember that Socrates was given the death penalty for asking too many questions."
Allison threw a shoe at her partner. Tasmin ducked the size four without effort.
Face and the Sue made it to their hotel room kissing passionately along the way, barely pausing to go through the door. They ended up on the bed together.
“I need to you ask you something.” Susan wraps her arms around his neck. “What?” “Have you ever done this before?” A brief silence fills the room. She rolls out from underneath him and walks over to the window. Face walks over to her.
Tasmin and Allison stopped in front of the hotel room door. Allison leant against the doorpost to catch her breath from running up the stairs.
"First the clichés and now the melodrama. If this also has purple prose sex I'm going to smack a bitch."
Tasmin frowned at her partner. "I wish you'd stop picking up phrases like that in the employee-lounge."
"What are you talking about? If there's purple prose sex in there I'm going to thump that Sue. And then I'll charge her."
The Sue admitted she had never had sex, but that she had always wanted to make love to the man of her dreams.
"Always?" Allison made a face. "So, it's like a childhood dream of hers? I don't think I started to dream about proper sex until I was fifteen or so."
"Late-bloomer?"
“Face, I want you to give me a tour of life’s sensual pleasure’s. I want to feel like a woman who is loved, even if it’s for one night.”
Allison balled a fist. "When do we go in?"
"Just a little bit longer."
Face and the Sue kissed and started to undress each other. Face asked again if she was sure this was what she wanted.
"I'd be surprised if there was going to be any sex even if we weren't going to break it off -- and we are going to break it off. We are going to step in before they have had time to talk about condom use."
"They aren't going to talk about condoms. This is a romance fic; condoms aren't romantic."
"Neither is being asked whether you're sure. That question is a real mood killer. Yet it is asked repeatedly."
The Sue assured him she was sure. They went into the bathroom.
"Tasmin? Foreplay is about to begin. If we don't want to catch them naked we must move quickly."
Tasmin pulled out her Beretta 92SB and screwed the silencer on. "Now we go in." She shot the lock of the door.
Allison kicked the door in for purposes of decorum. The door gave in easily and she stumbled into the room. The door banged against the wall. Attracted by the noise Face and the Sue came back into the room. They had not yet undressed any further. They startled when they saw two women, one with a gun pointed at them.
"You, get dressed and get out." Tasmin picked up Face's shirt and tuxedo jacket and threw it at him.
Face hurriedly put on his clothes and ran out of the room.
"Face, come back. Don't leave me here like this," the Sue cried out.
"If he'd been in character we'd've been in trouble," Allison remarked.
"You. Sit. On the bed."
The Sue stumbled and nearly dropped herself on the floor in front of the bed. She cried for Face once more.
Allison tutted. "With any luck he's already forgotten about you. And could you put some clothes on." She threw the Sue's dress at her. "Strapless bras always look a bit painful to me."
The Sue used the dress to cover herself holding it in place with her hands. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"We're agents Allison and Tasmin of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. We want to charge you."
"Charge me?"
"Hmhmm. We charge you with being a Mary Sue; with inviting Face to your junior prom, I'm surprised they even let him through the door; with dancing a 'breathtaking' tango, while what you actually did only had in common with the tango that it involved two people and a dance floor. It was more like murder on the dance floor." Allison consulted her notes. "Let's see, technical charges. We charge you with bad grammar, apostrophe abuse and switching tenses multiple times. Rule of thumb when it comes to tenses: pick one and stick with it. Although you did seem to stick to present tense in the end. We charge you with having two people talk in the same paragraph. We're you trying to make us as dizzy as Face was making you? That's another charge: making Face a bad dancer. Even if spinning is part of the dance, making your dance partner dizzy is not.
"Further, we charge you with sucking all the seductiveness out of Face, making him ask the 'are you sure' question over and over again, and using every romantic cliché in the book. And by book I mean a 1960s romance novel. We charge you with making Hannibal out of character by having him encourage Face's love making to a minor, or to anyone of the female persuasion for that matter. And by love making I mean that 1960s phrase for flirting. Which technically Face didn't actually do because of all those clichés. Face does not use clichés like that. So, you had him out of character too. That's another cliché you used: why can't you Sues be happy with just one of the guys out of character? Still, I suppose we should be happy Murdock and BA were left out of the story. Anything else?" Allison looked at her partner.
"Charge her with giving Face ocean-coloured eyes," Tasmin said.
"What?" Allison slapped the Sue. "That's for using purple prose. Face's eyes are blue. Not that horrid grey colour it has by the time the Atlantic rolls up on the English shore."
The Sue was near tears. "Why are you being so mean to me?"
"Because you were employing melodramatics at the start of a love scene. I'm sure there are men out there that are turned on by insecure women that run away from them rather than confidently say: 'I've never had sex before, but I'd like some now'. I doubt Face is one of them though."
"You just ruined my perfect evening." The Sue started to cry.
"You did the same to mine. Your evening is about to get worse, though. You've been charged. Tasmin will shoot you now."
The Sue didn't even look up before Tasmin put a neat bullet through her head. The Sue slumped back over the bed.
"That takes care of that." Tasmin unscrewed the silencer.
"You know, we have a dead body here. And Face was just seen running away from the hotel. They might think he did it," Allison said.
Tasmin shrugged. "I think such a story has already been written."
"Really? I haven't heard of it. Can't have been badfic then," Allison mused as she followed Tasmin through the portal back to their response centre.
A/N: Lots of girls fantasize about older men (FFnet is evidence of that, and so is Catherine Zeta Jones), but for these stories to be entertaining to other people they have to be realistic (would this man fancy a girl this young?) and/or very well written. Romance clichés don't do the trick for me, but that's just a personal preference. What is not a personal preference, but rather a rule of writing is: don't have more than one person speaking in the same paragraph. Also, the main action in the paragraph and the dialogue in the paragraph should belong to the same person. At least, if you want to avoid any form of confusion among your readers.