easy goes it [pacey]

[CASSADEE ILSE BEAUFORT]

i got lots of jealous lovers that all wish they had me back got a pistol for a mouth my old mama gave me that making my own road out of gravel and some wine and if i have to fall then it won't be in your line i'm a bad woman to keep make me mad i'm not here to please paint me in a corner but my colour comes back once you go black you never go back -------

i'm a black sheep

as luck went, cassadee considered herself a fairly providential young woman. it wasn't as if she struggled with school; she did well, happened to be born in a well-to-do family, and so on and so forth - and rarely had misfortune found its hand as a major factor into her life. however, it seemed that lady fate was intent on playing a cruel, cruel joke on the eldest beaufort child - because, as it turned out, lady fate was assigning her a project with an earth elemental.

now, it wasn't that cassadee didn't like the earth elementals. it was just that she had been brought up to be a very elitist child - elitists in the mildest sense of the form, and it had then blossomed into a greater form of snobbery as the years it went by. there was no denying that, generally speaking, their classes did not get along. dee had never personally met this 'pacey' character, but she knew from the start that she would not enjoy this project at all.

one small consolation was that the project could be done at her house. she had demanded it at the very least; if she was going to be stuck on a literature project with some kid that she wasn't even likely to want to mingle with, she was going to do it in the comfort of her own home. and in the mind of cassadee beaufort, this was a completely reasonable demand.

the spacious living room was cleared, pillows against the front of the couch to make for comfortable lounging and soft classical music playing. she'd splayed the books out along the floor. the only reason they were doing this was for the honors program, and of course they'd asked them to do a project. the slender brunette rolled her eyes - and just as she did, the doorbell to the two-story beaufort residence rang, and she was on her feet and moving to open the door.

"oh, good," she sighed when she opened the door. "you found it. come in then, i guess."

[PACEY LUCAS BAEK]

Though they apparently made some people anxious or whatever it was, large, impressive homes had never particularly confused Pacey, at least not in any recent years, because his family was also pretty wealthy. Of course, they didn't live in the fancy upper class neighbourhoods of Maple Hollow, but that was because they didn't live in any part of Maple Hollow -- but Toronto was his home, in many ways. He thought, with almost an amused smile as he drove up, that perhaps if his parents had decided to relocate to the Hollow at some point in the past, he could have been Cassadee's neighbour or something, which was a very amusing thought. He wondered if, had they been neighbours, he would still be this... not scared, but intimidated by her.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on what the correct answer to be the above was) they were not neighbours and his family still lived in Toronto and therefore Pacey still loved in a dorm up at school, which meant that he would never know, in fact, whether or not he'd still be this... er, intimidated. Oh, he was sure she was fine and lovely to her friends, or at least he hoped, because otherwise that sucked for them. Unfortunately, she was less fine and lovely to him, and though the girl had never done anything to him outright, Pacey had known her since ninth grade, and the alliances were notorious for forcing wedges in between people. Hopefully, it would be alright today, because the school project should be enough to keep them on task and busy and not fighting or anything, right? He hoped so. Pacey wasn't a fighter at all.

He rolled up to her driveway, at the address she had given him, and parked outside, not knowing where else he should park, before wandering up to the front door and ringing the doorbell. "Yeah, I made it," was all he could say, relieved that she didn't bite his head off the moment that he got there. He couldn't think what she would do that for, of course, unless maybe she took particular offense to his only just recently dyed orange hair. Uh, oops. That probably didn't look very professional, he thought, cringing. Of course, his past few hairstyles probably hadn't been what he'd call "professional" either, but -- although he did really love the orange -- he felt kind of like a highlighter or something, and this really probably wasn't the best way to make an impression. The stubborn part of him believed that he could do as he pleased, however. "Thanks," he said, stepping inside. "Um, I brought some books and stuff, and... stuff." Nice. The kid was usually more articulate than that, at least. "D'you think she'll be a hard marker?" He was referring, of course, to their teacher -- just trying to make simple conversation, really, but it was true that he really didn't know anything about their teacher.