(technically canon one-shot. but canon is not heeded too closely)
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Things Derek knows about Anne von Blyssen:
She is 5’11’’. She has long, pale blonde hair. She has a prominent, pointed nose; a similar chin. She has the kind of eyes that photograph fearsomely well.
She’s eighteen, a straight-As student, and a dressage prodigy. It’s a toss-up as to whether she’ll be shipped off overseas for university or the show circuit; it’s a given, one way or another, that she’ll be shipped off the very hour she graduates Jorvik High. Today she’ll be photographed on that huge horse of hers, the only, according to some junior attendants on set, friend she has.
Which brings him to his final fact:
Anne von Blyssen is rude.
He doesn’t know this, not for sure—not from personal experience. There are stories, that’s all.
It’s a blue autumn day when he arrives at the stable. He drops his bag on a nearby table. The girl herself is seated in a makeup chair. Two artists are on her while she types furiously on her cellphone.
Derek takes a long breath, then goes to introduce himself.
“Hey,” he says, coming around to her side. Flashes his most charming smile. “You’re Anne?”
She looks up at him. “Hi. Yes. And you’re Derek.”
Not a lilt in her tone. The deadpan delivery would be humorous if not for the abject humorlessness in her deep set eyes.
Two ways to look at a girl.
From the artist’s perspective: She’s beautiful, that’s for sure. Her cheekbones are fantastic and her hair will shine in a perfect way. She’ll be easy, she’ll be perfect, and the hours will go quick.
From the twenty year old kid’s perspective: He’s got to get out of this conversation before she sees him blush.
“Yeah.” He huffs an awkward laugh. “Yep. Yep. So, yeah. I’ll be shooting you today, you and your horse—”
“Concorde,” she supplies. She’s got the most mesmerizing eyes. A slim teal headband holds back her impressive length of hair.
“Concorde! Yes. We’ll try to keep it quick.” He scratches his neck. “Yeah. Okay. So I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He turns and darts away. Might as well get set up.
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Anne von Blyssen is, in a word, elegance.
The girl he shot earlier today, Jessica, was also gorgeous, in that dark way that’s been so in style the past few years. Brazen in front of a camera, shooting her was quick, was good, was convenient.
Anne holds her massive horse by the reins. She wears a dark, spotless dressage habit, top hat and whip and all. That pale gold hair is swept up, pinned back—leaving nothing, nothing at all, to pull away from that horrible and extraordinary blue gaze of hers.
He doesn’t realize he’s staring until he realizes she’s staring at him, a stiff inquisition in her shoulders.
“Okay, Anne,” he calls. “I’m gonna get a couple shots with you on the ground, and then we’ll have you mounted. Sound good?”
She gives him a shallow nod.
“Great. We’ll get a wide shot, first. Then I’ll come up close.”
.
He was right. It goes quickly.
Anne von Blyssen is magic.
She urges her horse into a canter and then, as all the sun falls onto her face, she smiles—
.
She gets the job, suffice to say.
Anne von Blyssen, the new face of the Glamour No. 5 campaign.
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They start to see each other quite a bit. Autumn is stiff, freezing into winter. Anne wears a huge white sweater and jeans and fuzzy socks. She’s curled up in the corner of the dressing room, nose tucked to her shoulder, and he thinks, in a bizarre moment, that she looks like a swan, sleeping.
Then she blinks, and straightens, when she sees him approaching.
“Hey,” he murmurs, and holds out the coffee. “Two sugars, no cream. It’s still hot—”
She grabs it and takes a long sip, heedless of his warning. Her eyes flutter to a brief close. “You’re a gem, Derek,” she says, and pats the floor next to her. “God. I was freezing.”
“They’re working on the radiators now.” He sinks down next to her. He does his best to ignore how her perfume, warm and musky, fills the space.
“And the shoot?”
He checks his watch. “In the next hour or so. You tired?”
“No,” she says, in the tone that he’s come to learn means yes.
Anne is tired, most of the time.
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December.
She’s bundled up in a pale coat and three periwinkle scarves and laughs a small laugh as she leads him into the barn. “It’s high time you met him,” she says, matter-of-fact.
Anne’s monstrosity of a horse—Concorde—hangs his handsome head over the stall door. He gives a low nicker at the sight of his owner.
“He’s huge,” says Derek dumbly.
“He’s a sweetheart,” Anne tells him, and waves him off. “C’mere. Say hello.” She kisses the tip of her horse’s nose.
Derek steps up hesitantly. “Hello, Concorde.”
She grabs his arm in a hard grip and pulls him closer. “Not like that, silly. He knows when you don’t mean it. Be serious.”
“I was being serious!”
“Be serious,” she tells him seriously. Then she grins, and her whole face lights up. The worlds he sometimes sees passing beneath her pale eyes sparkle and gleam.
“Hello, Concorde,” he tries again, and ignores, for his own sake, how her long fingers are still gripped around his arm. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Derek.”
Concorde peers at him with one great dark eye.
“Don’t worry,” Anne whispers, “I’ve told him about you.”
“You have conversations with your horse?” he whispers back.
“Yes.” Her eyes sparkle as she leans close. “He’s my very best friend and he thinks you’ve got a good nose but ridiculous hair.”
He lifts a conscious hand to his messy, unstyled hair. “Not funny.”
“Not me. I think you’ve got lovely hair.”
Then, for god’s sake, he blushes, and Anne smiles again.
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Things Derek knows about Anne von Blyssen:
She’s an avid reader. Prefers Emily to Charlotte but has never tried her hand at Anne, ironically. She likes calculus despite generally disliking math. She had a gray cat named Fiona when she was little. She thinks about Fiona every time she rides by the oak outside the stable. She does not say why.
She doesn’t like new people. She has a hard time with people in general, she admits wryly. Even when there’s nothing going on she feels like there’s too much going on. She likes winter because everything’s quiet and the sun is warm but it isn’t hot. She likes the snow even when it’s sludge.
Her cheeks go bright pink when she smiles, when she laughs for real, and her eyes squeeze shut. When she’s really laughing, she doesn’t make a sound except a faint hissing. She cries when she laughs like that. She doesn’t laugh like that often but it’s always hilarious when she does.
She doesn’t have many friends. She knows a lot of people, she tells him, but she doesn’t have many friends. She thinks she wants to be closer with a couple girls from school. They ride too, she says. They board their horses with Concorde. He likes them.
She’s tired most of the time. She’s sad a lot, too.
She doesn’t tell him that, but he can tell.
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Spring, and the flowers are shy. He finds her sitting on a small hill outside the stable. Her boots are half unlaced and her hair is loose, sweaty bits still plastered to her temples. She doesn’t turn at the sound of his approach, but her shoulders shift near indecipherably. Her own hello.
“Hey,” he says.
She pats the ground and when he joins her, she looks at him, and smiles. “Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Good. How are you?”
“Fine.” He rests his arms on his knees. She’s normally quiet. She’s very quiet today, and has been all throughout the shoot and her lesson after. “Want to use my camera?”
She cocks her head, pale hair sliding over her shoulder. “Hm?”
“Want to take a picture? It’s easy. I’ll even pose for you.”
Rolling her eyes, she takes the proffered camera. “Idiot. I know how to use a camera.” She tosses her hair back and shifts to face him. “Okay, Derek. Give me your best look.”
Suddenly conscious of her eyes behind the lens, he gives a panicked kind of a smile, tight-lipped, and it becomes genuine when she snorts a laugh. Click.
“How is it?”
She holds her hand over the small screen, squinting. “It’s good,” she says. “Let me take another one. Smile.”
He obliges.
Click.
“I’m beautiful, aren’t I?”
He intended it to be in jest. She doesn’t laugh—but she nods solemnly, and raises the camera again. “Yes,” she hums. “Very.” Then she pauses. “How do you zoom? Zoom in?”
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Anne is cold in summer, shining with sweat and victory though she often is; she rarely speaks. He sees glimpses once again of the girl he was told of. But he knows her too well now, and loves her a little, too. He gets a soda from the vending machine and plucks a pink straw as a plus.
He puts it in front of her, where she sits at a peeling green picnic bench. She takes it with a disgruntled look.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. You okay?”
She nods firmly, taking a long sip.
“I’m heading out, then. I’ll see you…” He frowns. His calendar is packed.
“Monday,” she murmurs.
“Monday,” he echoes. She’s so pale, has she always been this pale? Her long hair is splattered over her shoulders. Even in the heat she’s a pillar of ice, an iron wall, cold to touch. “Anne,” he whispers, and leans over the table, closer to her. “Talk to me.”
She scowls fiercely. Her eyes burn and gleam. “What do you want me to say, exactly?” she hisses. “You wouldn’t listen. You’d say I’m crazy.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You would.” Her fingers are white around the soda can. “Weren’t you just leaving?”
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Monday she finds him first. Offers him a cold, sweating soda. A pink straw already shoved in.
She is more beautiful when she’s real, he’s learned. Cut offs and sneakers and a ragged gray tank top, cheeks shining red; a pimple patch on her chin.
“Thanks,” he says eagerly, before she can dart away.
She doesn’t make an escape, though, and silently hops up beside him on the tall stone wall. They sit like that for a while. Watching the paddock dirt simmer and wave in the heat.
“Everything’s going to change,” she tells him, in a sad voice.
He looks at her and her face is open in a rare way. Despair and grief and resignation are written all over her strong nose and taut cheeks and mouth, drooping and long. The worlds in her eyes are dim and gray.
“Anne—”
She silences him with a fierce look. “Everything will change, Derek. I know everything. I’m eighteen years old.” A line appears between her pale brows. “I know too much.”
The cicadas are shrill as the afternoon fades. He’s sweaty and hot but Anne is beside him, strands of her hair stuck to her neck. Eventually he reaches over and puts his palm under hers. Her hand is warm. Her fingers interlace with his.
i think that anne and derek are very much beards and if i worked at sse i would make this canon not because it’s my hc and i love it but simply to piss of homophobic parents. thank you.
