Up On The Roof

[hat_writes_stuff]

Title: Up On The Roof
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Monster High (webisodes, doll diaries, and TV specials set to 'frappe')
Characters: Deuce Gorgon, Rochelle Goyle, Roux; mentions of Medusa, Cleo De Nile: exceedingly brief mentions of Frankie Stein, Perseus the rat, Smokey
Word Count: 2,448 (excluding author's note and diary entry)
Rating: G
Pairing(s): Background Cleo/Deuce, potential pre-Deuce/Rochelle
Warnings: Exceedingly G-rated false pretenses; gratuitous French
Author's Notes: Yes, I am aware Rochelle using Roux to get Deuce up to the roof with her was problematic. I'm disappointed in her, but I'm rolling with it as a thing that happened. The text of the relevant diary entry and more extensive author's notes follow the vignette.
Summary: The events of Rochelle's diary entry from October 19th... from Deuce's point of view. When a gargoyle griffin steals his ball and gives it to the one person he can safely look at, Deuce figures there's no harm in hanging out for a little while.


"Roux, qu'est-ce que tu as là? Où avez-vous eu ça?"

Deuce knew that accent-- "Rochelle?" What was she doing up on the roof? ... Wait, no, she was a gargoyle, so that was kind of a stupid question to think, let alone ask. Gargoyles and rooftops kind of went together.

But there she sat, with a puzzled expression on her face and Deuce's casketball in her hands.

"Deuce? This is your casketball?" She turned back to the gargoyle griffin that had snatched Deuce's ball right out of the air. "Avez-vous de voler cette? You very bad griffin. Je suis désolé-- I am so sorry." Rochelle stood and crossed the roof to hand Deuce his ball back again. "Roux is better at hunting toys instead of pigeons, I am afraid, but still she brings me what she catches."

"That's okay, really." Deuce couldn't help but smile-- no harm done, right? "Pets do their own thing sometimes. ... Do you mind if I...?" He touched the ear of his sunglasses, not quite taking them off.

"Of course not," Rochelle said, immediately.

But it was hot, for late October, and some days it was just good to see the world un-tinted, and Deuce had just chased a griffin up a fire escape. He pulled off his glasses and hung them from his shirt, wiping sweat off his face with his wrist.

Then he deliberately opened his eyes-- then shut them again. "It's safe for your griffin too, right?"

"Oh yes," she said, so Deuce opened his eyes again. Rochelle was smiling, and that was... well, that was nice. Usually Deuce only got to see people looking surprised or panicked in those brief moments before he turned them to stone. Sure, Rochelle was still made of stone, so it wasn't like he was getting any amazing revelation about skin tone, but she was also still soft and moving around, and the kind of statues he ended up making didn't wear lipstick. "She is a gargoyle griffin. Like me, she is stone always-- immune."

"Wow. Maybe I should've looked for pre-stoned pets-- I've got a rat at home." And he loved Perseus-- rats had way more personality than most people gave them credit for-- but Deuce also understood the risks. Smokey's statue was still down there in the catacombs, waiting for the next anniversary.

"Ah-- the wingless pigeon?"

"That's not exactly--" But no, Rochelle was smirking a little-- her English was better than Abbey's, apparently. "You're messing with me."

"Seulement un petit peu," she said, holding up thumb and forefinger about an inch apart-- so, a little bit.

"You're gonna make me wish I spoke French," Deuce told her. "I mean, I get it, but I don't understand it."

"It surprises me how many monsters here only speak English and understand Zombie," Rochelle admitted. "But Scaris is a tourist-town. It is always best to know how to help someone who speaks another language when they ask 'how much' or where to find the little ghouls' room."

"Would you believe my first language is Greek?"

"... I would be surprised it was your first," Rochelle admitted. "You were not born here?"

"Hatched," he corrected, "which made it a lot easier on Mom. No, Mom and her sisters have an island off the coast of Megara. But Mom heard about Monster High and moved here when I was little, so I'd get some of this culture, too."

"How sad, to be so far from home for so long."

"We go back every summer, but I think Mom misses it more than I do."

"It is her home," Rochelle concluded... which made Deuce wonder.

"Do you miss Scaris?"

She nodded, and went to sit on the ledge... thing. Or railing. Rochelle probably knew what it was called. "I do, but I think not as much as I could. To know more of the world, to be among other kinds of monsters, is very important to me. And Scaris will stand without me there, I think."

"I'd be impressed if it wobbled," Deuce told her, and went to sit beside her. Roux came up to sniff his sneakers, and he reached down, curious, to pet the little griffin.

She absolutely felt like stone, but she also obviously liked the petting. Her ears were smooth and warm, but her head was textured-- still warm, though. Alive, and mobile. It was amazing how natural, how fluid her movements were-- like any cat, just with a set of wings and a beak. And the impressive ability to fearlessly look up into Deuce's eyes and chirp at him.

"You will have to take your hand away, or she won't let you stop," Rochelle advised.

"It's just-- it's so cool. I'm looking right at her and nothing's happening. She's fine." It was amazing, not being a danger.

"You cannot control it at all?"

Deuce shook his head. "No, not real control. That's why I wear shades all the time. Like, I can sometimes control how long it lasts-- but I can't really stop it, you know? I keep working at it-- someday, I want to be able to sit like this with anyone." He hoped. Mom could, if she stayed calm, but she was the first, and one of the oldest-- Deuce knew how long it could take, and that some gorgons never managed it.

"... Your Cleo has never seen your eyes," Rochelle concluded, and Deuce thought she sounded a little sad.

"Only on accident, and I had to spend the rest of the week apologizing," he admitted, rubbing at the back of his neck. That week had alternated the silent treatment and a lot of yelling. Shrieky yelling.

"Was she frozen long?"

'Frozen' was an odd way of putting it-- but Deuce guessed to somebody who was made of stone all the time, the inconvenient part would be not being able to move. "Most of the day. Not the longest stoning I've ever done, but I closed my eyes as soon as I realized what was happening. Sometimes it seems like the longer I look, the longer it lasts. At least it's not like Mom-- with me, it always wears off. She can make it permanent."

"Your maman-- your mother, she helps you practice?"

"When she can. She says it's nerve-wracking-- like teaching me to drive was. And that was all white knuckles and 'oh Zeus's beard, my baby.'" Okay, so his mom didn't actually have a voice that high and she'd never put her hand over her heart like that, but it got Rochelle to smile openly. (And 'Zeus's beard, my baby' had actually happened, but only once he passed Driver's Ed. ... And when he started Monster High. And when he lost his first tooth. And when his mother realized he was reading his picture books all by himself.)

"You are her youngest, or her only child?"

"Um, youngest, but also kind of only? I have a couple of half-brothers, but they're... complicated, and they've been out of the house for a couple thousand years. Monster aging," Rochelle probably knew how it went.

Or at least she was nodding. "It is rare for gargoyles to go far from their family homes unless they mean to make a new one somewhere-- this is what your brothers did?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Okay, so one of his brothers was a little more complicated than that, but leave that to Bellerophon. "Do you have any sibs back home?"

Rochelle shook her head. "Non. A few cousins. My parents talk about having another child, but gargoyles live a long time and like to do things slowly, to plan carefully. My parents say another child is not a decision to be hasty with."

"That makes sense." He wondered how tactless 'so just how slowly do gargoyles age?' would be as Rochelle waved away a fly away-- but its altered flight path put it right in Deuce's gaze. There was a green flash, and Rochelle's hand shot out.

... She actually managed to catch the stoned fly as it fell.

"Wow. Good reflexes."

"They are necessary, for Skultimate Roller Maze." But she stood up and took the fly over to the building's ventilation system, setting it up on top, out of the way. "There. Now he will not be broken."

"Is that... is that something you worry about?"

She shrugged and scooped up Roux, petting her head. "Not all the time. Scaris has seen its share of revolutions. Sometimes the architecture is caught in the revolutions, too."

"Wow." He kept saying that. "I'm really sorry..."

"I was very little. It is all right." She smiled and came back over to the ledge-thinger to sit near him. (Not too close, and Deuce frowned as he tried to figure out if that was manners or if he'd upset her.) "... I think you don't worry too much about keeping your thoughts from your eyes, non?"

"... No, I've never really had to. Sorry. I was just-- did I mess up, asking about that?"

"I brought it up. It is all right," she repeated, but this time her smile was more reassuring and less sad.

"Okay, but let's talk about something else, anyway. How long have you been playing SKRM?"

"Only since coming to this country," she admitted. "A few years. I was very surprised the Granite City team never realized my deception."

"You are definitely not a boy," Deuce had to agree-- and Rochelle blushed. "What did you tell them your name was?"

"I never spoke, only nodded or shook my head. I wrote down my name as Roche when I signed up. ... I am sorry, what they did to you on the track-- I am sorry I did not stop them."

"Hey, I knew it would be rough when I signed up," Deuce pointed out. "But it's a way better game now that they let girls play. You're lighter-- uh." Bumping into Rochelle in the halls had been like bumping into a very skinny wall. "Most girls are lighter, and your center of gravity is different. It makes you play different, and that makes it a bigger challenge."

"Then why did you not rejoin the team?"

Deuce rubbed at his neck, embarrassed. "Well, between Mom and Cleo and the idea of someday needing to have rotator cuff surgery scaring the scales off of me, I sort of figured I better stick to casketball."

"There are fewer hazards," Rochelle admitted, although it took a minute for Deuce to understand 'hazards' in a French accent.

"More like regular sports, less like a video game. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome game, but I'll stick to the stands from now on. ... I noticed you didn't join the team this season, either."

"There will be other seasons," she said, shrugging. "I would like to know Monster High a little better before I give so much time to a sport."

"Yeah, it helps a lot to make some friends your first year here, especially if-- gargoyles age really slow, right? So you could be in high school for a while?"

"Mais oui. So it will be better to go slowly, in making commitments, I think, and make some friends first."

"You can count me in," he said. "Especially if..." Okay, how could Deuce put this that didn't make it sound creepy or like he wanted to cheat on Cleo? He frowned, fidgeting with his sunglasses, staring at his hands.

Rochelle's hand settled over his-- warm and smooth and more flexible than soft. "You want a friend you can look at," she concluded, "with nothing in the way."

He met her eyes, partly because it was really good to be able to do that... and partly because he really needed to make her understand why he had to be careful, no matter how nice it was to be able to see somebody with just his own eyes-- with nothing in the way. "Yeah. But... it's you and me, alone, and even though that's just for safety-- you're a girl, if Cleo hears about that... I mean, we've had a couple of cheating scares."

"... What is a 'cheating scare'?" Rochelle asked.

"Mostly misunderstandings. A really confusing week where I met Operetta, this one time with Frankie... We got it worked out in the end."

Rochelle didn't look happy. But her frown turned into her usual serious expression. "Well. Then we must have something besides only fanging out together, to set her mind at ease. Maybe we can practice with your powers, since they cannot affect me? Neither of us is on the SKRM team, so we shall have some time."

"... Yeah-- yeah, I think that'd-- that could work," he agreed. He had to agree. Being able to practice-- to let loose, even, without worrying about accidentally turning his mom to stone (after Smokey, he'd been afraid to open his eyes around anyone he cared about for months, and a little of that still lingered)-- that could only help. "I'd really appreciate that, Rochelle."

"De rien. I would be happy--"

Deuce's iCoffin went off, vibrating and playing Cleo's ring. "I gotta get that, it's Cleo." Rochelle nodded, and went quiet as Deuce answered-- "Hey, babe..."

It wasn't exactly a load of nothing-- more like a load of the usual, Cleo making sure he remembered they had a dinner-and-a-movie date that night, giving Deuce advice on how to dress, and Deuce agreeing. And agreeing. And agreeing. "I gotta let you go, though-- I've been in the park playing casketball and I gotta book home to clean up."

"Please do. There's definitely a point where how you smell is more important than how you look," Cleo told him.

"Yeah, I know. Okay, I'll see you in a couple hours?"

"Two hours and forty-five minutes. Don't make us miss the movie."

"I won't, Cleo, I promise. Bye?" The question mark always helped; Cleo liked to hang up first.

"Don't be late. Bye, Deuce!" Predictably, Cleo hung up first.

He looked to Rochelle, sheepish. "So... I gotta go..."

She only nodded, once, not quite as curt as Abbey might've been. "Of course. I will see you another time, non?"

"Absolutely. ... Is there a way down from here besides the fire escape?" Rochelle laughed a little, and showed him to the stairwell. Deuce collected his ball and said his goodbyes-- he did have a date to get ready for, and that really did mean he needed a shower.

"Deuce!" Rochelle called, and he looked back over his shoulder at her. "Vos lunettes," and she pointed at her eyes.

Deuce swore, and put his sunglasses back on, dimming the day again, as usual.

Fin


Rochelle Goyle's Basic Diary:

19 Octobre

I think I did a bad thing today that I am not very proud of maybe. Deuce was playing casketball at the park close by my building. He was playing by himself and I told Roux to bring me the ball. Roux flew down and snatched the ball from the air and flew back up to our roof. I could hear the yelling and running below so I knew she got the ball. Deuce made it to the top of the building and I pretend to scold Roux for being a bad griffin. Deuce was surprised to see me and happy to have his casketball back. He took off his glasses and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Ahh ... such a beautiful green ... we hung out on the roof and talked for what seemed like the hours about many things. He is also très drôle. I did not know this about him. Then Cleo called him. He put his glasses back on and he had to go. Yes I know, I know. This is a thing that can only end in tears and I do not want that.

Further Author's Notes:

I want to repeat again that I know Rochelle did a very bad thing, making her faithful pet steal Deuce's casketball to get him up to the roof, and then scolding Roux for it. False pretenses and honestly, rather poor pet ownership. If you scold them for doing what you told them to do, it will only confuse them. I also know that Rochelle left a boyfriend behind in Scaris... BUT I would like to note that at this point, Rochelle doesn't know that. Garrott's letters had stopped, and Rochelle thought he'd decided to drop the long-distance relationship for something a little more close-to-home without bothering to tell her about it.

She's also at least aware she's playing with fire.

But I wanted to do this scene from Deuce's point of view, not Rochelle's. I wanted a chance to brush up against how Deuce must be tempted to spend time with Rochelle, not because he's feeling lonely or thinks she's pretty, but because he can't hurt her. Because there's a whole race of monsters out there he can look at without even being an inconvenience.

I mean, sure, Rochelle lured Deuce up to the roof... but she never says that she asked him to stay, or suggested he could take his sunglasses off if he wanted to. I think those would be things she'd confess to her diary, while she was confessing things she felt guilty about.

I think it's a real pity the basic Scaris dolls didn't get diaries. We know what Rochelle thinks about Deuce, but not much of what Deuce thinks about Rochelle.

This is tagged 'gen' because it's all from Deuce's point of view, and Deuce is a little oblivious when girls aren't devastatingly obvious about their crushes on him.