,. ( FEELINGS START TO PERMEATE )

[andreocovas]

, andreo xavier valentín covas



^{WHAT A BEAUTIFUL FACE I HAVE FOUND IN THIS PLACE THAT IS
CIRCLING ALL ROUND THE SUN WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DREAM THAT COULD
FLASH ON THE SCREEN IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE AND BE GONE FROM
ME SOFT AND SWEET LET ME HOLD IT CLOSE AND KEEP IT HERE WITH ME}

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<sup>americans liked to make a big deal of breakfast. this was one of the first cultural differences between the united states and his native spain that andreo had picked up on after his arrival in valkyrie, california. his cousin corazón got up early every morning to make waffles and eggs and bacon for the entire household and arrange it all neatly on pastel colored plates, which were all in turn arranged neatly on the stylish dining table, surrounded by what he suspected was designer silverware. for andreo, this was an enjoyable change. he was hard pressed to recall a single morning in all of his twenty two years of life before coming to the united states during which he had consumed something other than hot chocolate and toast for breakfast.

every morning he awoke to the delicious smell of foodstuff wafting from the kitchen and spent the subsequent half hour or so wolfing it down, pausing intermittently to read the newspaper and chat with ariadna and corazón. this particular morning, however, was slightly different. ariadna had an early appointment with a local eye doctor and wouldn't have the time to sit down and eat breakfast with her two roommates. andreo wasn't aware of this until she apprehended him when he was stumbling eagerly in the direction of the kitchen after having just rolled out of bed. she grabbed him by the arm and tugged him into the area that constituted as the living room of their spacious apartment. "i have an appointment," she said as she attempted to secure the placement of her left earring. "i have to go. make sure she eats." andreo stifled a yawn and ran a hand through his tousled hair. "what?"</sup>

[/color] it was early in the morning and she was speaking quickly. give him a break. "corazón," she said. she had finished with her left earring and begun to button up the last few buttons of her blouse. "make sure she eats her breakfast." andreo squinted. "ah." he vaguely considered asking her to elaborate on this, but she was in a hurry and it was too early in the morning for anyone to have any business in trying to procure explanations of any kind.

ariadna said goodbye and headed out the door while andreo turned around to resume his interrupted journey to the kitchen. corazón was standing at the dining table, shoveling scrambled eggs from a skillet onto the plate that he surmised to be his, because she never ate any of the eggs that she made for breakfast. "buenos días." cora glanced up at him through her brown hair momentarily before returning her attention to attempting to prod the eggs lying upon his plate into a shape that she found suitable. when she was finished she said good morning and then returned the skillet to the stove. andreo stood still for a moment, eyeing her groggily as she sat down at the table. "ariadna said that i need to make sure you eat,"[/color] he blurted out, without taking time to stop and consider the possibility that ariadna had perhaps spoken to him in private for a reason. corazón looked up from her plate, which she had been staring at quite intently, and it looked to andreo as if she were holding back a smile. this was strange, because she almost never smiled. "why?" she didn't say anything for a few moments. it felt like a long time. finally, she tossed her head slightly, sending brown locks of hair shooting over her shoulder. "because i'm crazy." by the time he had taken his seat at the table and picked up his fork, multiple pieces of information that had been floating around somewhere in the expanses of his consciousness had clicked together to support the hypothesis that he had produced upon hearing cora's response to his question. she always cooked all the meals that they ate at home. she was very particular about how food was placed on its plates. she ate very slowly and deliberately and was always the last to finish. ariadna frequently, albeit very casually, asked about the meals that cora ate outside of the apartment and her own presence. cora didn't let anyone else clean up in the kitchen because she had all the food and utensils organized just so. and, of course, ariadna had recently just come right out and told him that she apparently thought that there was a possibility that cora would not eat if she wasn't supervised.

he felt rather like an ass hat for having not figured it out much sooner.

they ate in silence for several minutes. andreo skimmed through the local valkyrie newspaper, humming a jaunty tune that from time to time lead to the singing of half a verse or so under his breath before lapsing back into the humming. "could you pass me the butter, please?" corazón asked, interrupting him in the middle of a particularly enjoyable singing verse. "en español, por favor," he said, without missing a beat or looking up from the paper. cora paused. "pásame la mantequilla, por favor." "¡excelente!" he finally deigned to look up from the periodical in order to locate the requested butter and hand it to his cousin. "gracias." andreo quickly speared another piece of waffle with his fork and gobbled it down before he replied. "de nada, prima mía."

he had all but finished with his breakfast, when something in the paper caught his eye. it was a picture of a young woman with full lips and long hair that looked glossy and voluminous even through the grainy ink of the newspaper. una guapa. she was incredibly familiar. he knew her, he was absolutely sure of it. he squinted... and then it hit him. "¡dios mío!" he yelped and leaped inadvertently from his chair, banging his knee on the table in the process. corazón stared at him bug eyed. he paid her no mind, for he was leaned far over the table, his face approximately three vertical inches above the surface intently scanning the article accompanying the photo of la guapa. something about a local nightclub called m or something... blah blah blah ...m lounge's owner, magdalena giovanni... it was her! it was really her! he was so excited that he completely disregarded the fact that her name was listed with an alien surname. he didn't care. it was her, he was sure of it. she was here, in valkyrie! he had to see her! he dashed away from the table, shouting "¡me voy! ¡adios! ¡gracias por preparar el desayuno!" i'm leaving, goodbye, thank you for making breakfast.

he showered, brushed his teeth and dressed with record breaking speed and was soon on the streets, headed for downtown valkyrie. he had heard of this m lounge place before, but he wasn't sure of its exact location. lord only knew if the goddamned thing was open at nine o'clock on a weekday morning. andreo didn't really care. if he couldn't find her there, then he would be resourceful and find a way to track her down from there. he couldn't fucking believe it. she was here, in valkyrie, california. it was nothing short of fucking insane. about twenty minutes of enthusiastic speed walking found him outside of his destination; m lounge. it wasn't exactly buzzing with activity. he paused, shoving his hands into his pockets and craning his neck back to gaze for a moment to survey the establishment. this was some sort of gentleman's club, if he wasn't mistaken. the fact that the teenaged girl he had met years ago was now running a place like this didn't surprise him in the least. god, she was so marvelous.[/sup][/font][/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote]

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STATUS complete.
TAG maggie!
CREDIT lyrics by neutral milk hotel. <3 graphic by the lovely ruby.
ATTIRE here.
NOTES okay, yeah, it's weird. and probably hard to reply to. let me know if i should change anything. also, if it's really horrible or incoherent, it's probably because i've been up for about twenty two hours now.

[magdelena e. g. giovanni]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-image:url(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d100/lilpuppyluver2003/bg.png); width: 457px; padding-top: 30; padding-bottom: 30; -moz-border-radius: 35 35 35 35; -webkit-border-radius: 35 35 35 35;] hi » PHANTOMS OF THE PAST. pregnant. holy shit she was pregnant. well this sure as hell turned things on their side. maggie wasn't quite sure how to come to terms with all of this. she'd never thought herself capable of being a mother. she knew she was good with kids. she'd hit it off with rocco from the very moment she'd met him and that good relationship continued well into luca having to leave town and all that. she'd always been good with her little siblings as a kid and thoughs he hadn't seen them in ages, well she assumed she could get along with them still. dominic was no child now though and hannah was well onto the double digits. still, maggie was good with kids. she knew kids. kids she could do. but kids of her own? well they'd never even been a possibility before. strike that. that was a bit of a lie. maggie remembered that she'd let herself drift into fantasyland one too many times when she and luca had been in their honeymoon stage and she'd let herself go there. she had imagined little tiny half-mexican half-italian babies running around some with luca's eyes some with her chin, you know, stupid little daydreams that you have when your punch drunk on happiness. it happens. of course maggie never thought it would actually happen. this wasn't a life for babies. she didn't know how to raise babies. she didn't know how to feed them or anything like that. and this meant a whole lot of thinking about herself for a whole slew of new reasons and it was just...a lot to take in. not to mention the fact that maggie hadn't completely warmed up to the idea of luca being back in the loft so for the moment she was going at this alone. of course if luca knew she was thinking that he would set her straight immediately. the way things had gone down when she'd told him had been...something else. it was nice that he wanted to be involved and it was nice that they now had just one more reason to want to make things work, but maggie was the eternal skeptic. she wanted to believe that luca wanted this so that they could be together but what if he now felt like he had to stick it out because of obligation? she had no doubt that they could make things work as a family but were they now in it for the right reasons? it was just all too much stress to handle. maggie flopped over in bed, her mind reeling from all of the events of yesterday. going from one emotion to the next just kept making her head spin and maggie wasn't a fan of it. she didn't like wondering what emotion she was going to feel next. she wanted to sit around and read baby books and get excited about what was now going to happen. she wanted luca to be a part of it and she wanted to feel like he was invested in this now because he loved her more than anything, not because she'd trapped him with a child. ugh. the light filtering through the holes in the blinds didn't help maggie's restlessness at all as she looked over at the clock and groaned. six in the fucking morning. of course it was that early in the morning. just her luck. finally maggie couldn't stand it anymore and she was forced to get up and actually do something productive with her day. she pushed her tangled hair out of her face as she walked to the bathroom, turning on the shower and hopping in. once out maggie dried her hair and put on some light makeup before sliding into something she was sure she wasn't going to be wearing in a few month's time. she looked over at the clock atop the oven as she stepped out of the bathroom, well that had managed to kill about an hour. that was nice enough. she'd be heading to the lounge later that morning so it wasn't like it was too much of a bad thing that she'd been up so early, but sleep was a luxury maggie hadn't indulged in in a long time and damn it, she wanted to indulge. she helped herself to a cold glass of water as she looked out the window at the view she had. it wasn't much, just a few buildings, some streets, and a hint of the park, but it was nice to look at when people were going about trying to start their day. she moseyed around her nearly empty loft, making a mental list of all the things she needed to replace. maggie had torn this place to hell the night that luca had surprised her in her house with a bunch of men. she still had scabs on her hands and feet from the many cuts she'd gotten on broken glass and whatnot. at least the cleaning crew had done it's job. must have been time for a remodel then seeing as anything that wasn't intact had been removed. she wasn't going japanese here. maggie killed time 'til around 8:30 when she hopped in her car and headed to the lounge. the day was supposed to be for practice and more routines with a break at around one before the crew would come back at six for the night's shows. it was rigorous but it paid good and it kept people fit. if anyone had fucking complaints about it they could deal with the hormonal pregnant woman since that was what she was bound to become now. she pulled into the parking lot and spotted the crew intermingled throughout the parking lot. good. they were here. she tossed the keys at one of the dancers who unlocked the door and headed in. maggie brought up the rear after grabbing a few of her things. as she started walking to the door something, or someone caught her eye. someone in the parking lot who wasn't inside. she looked over her shoulder to eye the figure and stopped in her tracks. "no way."

[/b] she whispered under her breath. "andreo?"[/b] she said aloud, calling across the distance to him. [/div]

1,045, outfit, TAG: ANDRAGGIE.

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THIS TEMPLATE WAS MADE BY WILMETTA OF CAUTION.

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[andreocovas]

, andreo xavier valentín covas



^{WHAT A BEAUTIFUL FACE I HAVE FOUND IN THIS PLACE THAT IS
CIRCLING ALL ROUND THE SUN WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DREAM THAT COULD
FLASH ON THE SCREEN IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE AND BE GONE FROM
ME SOFT AND SWEET LET ME HOLD IT CLOSE AND KEEP IT HERE WITH ME}

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<sup>m lounge. it sat before him, motionless and palpable, displaying exactly the sort of behavior one generally expected out of a building. andreo didn't know why, but now that he had had time to stand here and process the scene, he realized that he had been expecting something a little more extraordinary. perhaps it was because this building was a proof in monument that magdalena corinthos was here, in valkyrie, possibly even within several hundred feet of where he was standing at that very moment. or perhaps it was just that his mind had, under the diress of standard morning-time tiredness and adrenaline that stemmed from seeing her in the paper, conjured up something that was illogically impressive.

all sorts of aspects of his consciousness seemed to be regaining some of their standard clarity, for he suddenly became aware of a spattering of people milling about in the parking lot. from where he stood, he couldn't identify any of them as magdalena. none of them appeared to scantily clad beautiful women, either, which was a pity. suddenly, however, an audible voice cut across some undetermined distance to him. "andreo?" he wheeled around and scanned the parking lot, dark eyes darting rapidly from side to side, until he focused in on a tall, slim female figure standing still and apparently looking straight at him. he recognized her immediately afterward. of course. perhaps it was the distance and the almost giddy feeling of excitement that was coursing through him, but she hardly even looked real. she was too damn beautiful for her own good and always had been. presently, andreo was relatively certain that he could have mistook her for an extremely realistic statue of some mythological goddess in skinny jeans. "magdalena!" he shouted across the parking lot to her, his tone jovial and upbeat, as he spread his arms aloft in their respective directions. he began to stride speedily across the parking lot to her, memories overtaking him with every step he took. they were both teenagers once again and their eyes were meeting for the first time. he was nudging the friend at his side with his elbow and pointing to her while she was looking away, because she was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. they were talking, laughing, walking down a peaceful street, he was agonizing over whether or not she would pull away if he tried to kiss her; he wanted to kiss her so badly. he was belting out a shakira song like an idiot and she was laughing at him, he was reaching for her hand for the first time, they were hugging, smiling, kissing. he was asking if she was sure and she was saying yes. he was brushing a lock of her perfect hair behind her ear, she was leaning her head on his shoulder while he hummed a rambling tune. they were saying goodbye and he was smiling even though he wanted to cry. the clarity of all these images was almost a little frightening. after they had lost touch, he had settled into the assumption that they probably wouldn't see each other again. but here she was, before him, growing larger and realer with every stride he took.

it was kind of silly... no, it was very silly that she was still capable of affecting him like this. these sorts of things never happened to him... but it was her. she was special.

and finally he had eliminated the distance between them. he stood grinning at her for a fraction of a moment before exclaiming her name once again. "magdalena!" he swooped forward to bump his face against each of her cheeks in the 'dos besos' (or 'two kisses') of the traditional spanish greeting. god, she was so beautiful. "¿cómo estás?" how are you? he hardly gave her time to answer. "what are you doing here? how on earth did you manage to become even more gorgeous?" he crossed his well muscled arms over his chest and applied just enough pressure to lean back ever so slightly, fixing her with another wide grin. it had been years and for all he knew by now she was a completely different person, but just seeing her, her eyes, her face, her hair, her fabulous body... it made him happy. it was likely he wouldn't have been able to have contained his smile if he had tried. she was like a walking, talking encapsulation of summer and being lighthearted and carefree, staying up all night to look at the stars and knowing deep down that everything was well with the world even though it was not. the possibility of this meeting becoming somehow awkward had not yet even managed to occur to him, despite the fact that all the ingredients for an awkward situation were present and probably poised to strike. the two of them hadn't spoken or met with each other in years, and during one of the last times they had met they had seen each other naked.

but, again, she was special. she was maggie. his first legitimate romance. the first girl that had caused him to lay awake at night, giddy almost to the point of nausea with the thought of her. the first girl that he had hardly been able to put out of his head. the first girl, other than the depth less and impossible girls in magazines, that he had seen naked. she was spunky and intelligent and independent and beautiful. and she was here, substantial and real and bona fide, right in front of him, an occurrence that he had written off as almost entirely impossible several years ago. he was almost tempted to refuse to believe it, but the entire scene was almost bitingly concrete. the beating californian sun, the blue and nearly cloudless sky, the tedious and gum spotted cement beneath their feet, the faint smell of her shampoo. it was all irrefutably genuine. he felt the grin splayed across his face widen.

god, she was beautiful.</sup>

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STATUS complete.
TAG maggie!
CREDIT lyrics by neutral milk hotel. <3 graphic by the lovely ruby.
ATTIRE here.
NOTES --.

[magdelena e. g. giovanni]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-image:url(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d100/lilpuppyluver2003/bg.png); width: 457px; padding-top: 30; padding-bottom: 30; -moz-border-radius: 35 35 35 35; -webkit-border-radius: 35 35 35 35;] hi » PHANTOMS OF THE PAST. out of all the memories of her past that she'd ever had, well pretty much most of them were terrible. maggie couldn't tell you how many times hearing her father saying that he wanted her dead outweighed any good times she had in the corinthos compound. that place was never a home. she'd never felt safe there. mostly because she'd always had to rely on herself. there hadn't been a single time where maggie could recall having depended on anyone in her father's 'compound' during her time growing up. there were a few stray bodyguards who were nice to her and there were a few strangers who had done the same but the story was that no matter what happened maggie had to fend for herself. it was okay. after a point it was what maggie got used to. it was the psychological damage overall that really cost her. maggie wasn't like other people nowadays. she wasn't one to openly feel anything for anyone. she wasn't one to openly trust. she was the eternal skeptic. take luca for instance. he said over and over again how much he loved her and that he'd show her or whatnot but there was never a point when maggie could definitively say that she felt deep down like luca meant every word coming out of his mouth. no matter what she always felt that niggling sensation in the back of her mind that whispered soft little questions into her head like 'are you sure he's not just saying it to get you to give up?' or 'you know there's ulterior motive there right?' it was like she could never be satisfied with anything she had at the moment or in the moment. that was because maggie wasn't use to having anything worth losing. maggie had plenty of that now, scary as it was. she had a family she could count on as long as they still loved her. she had a husband who she really did love more than life itself, she just didn't trust him to the full extent at the moment. she had relatives that she could rely one, people who stepped in when she was at her worst and helped to make things a little better. she had friends who liked to do the same and over luca's absentee stint had checked in on her every once in a while to make sure she was still breathing. not to mention the topper to her cake...she was pregnant. of course she never thought she would have ended up here, or at least at this stage of her life, while she'd been growing up under juan corinthos' roof. there had never been a doubt in her mind that she would have ended up dead at some point had she stayed in mexico and tried to achieve the things there that she'd managed to do here. without the location juan wouldn't have partnered her up with some lowly italian scum who she'd hated from the very first moment she'd laid eyes on him. she wouldn't have fallen in love with said scum of the earth and she wouldn't have ended up where she was now. in bringing her to the states in an effort to ruin her, juan didn't realize that he'd set her up with the most absolute perfect life for her. she was surrounded by a big, loving family who supported her beyond a doubt, she had small little family members to take care of and look after, not to mention the fact that she had a backing from one of the most powerful men in all of california, and that he supposed her every business venture as long as he was able to reap most of the profits which maggie was happy to give. all for the sake of family right? the giovanniw asy of life wasn't lost on maggie. she understood that her branch of things was only allotted to her because she was good at what she did and because no one else with giovanni blood in their veins knew a thing about drugs the way maggie did. it was her golden ticket in and she used it to her advantage. now she was in and fausto loved her but that wasn't the only success maggie had under her belt. aside from making her a necessity to the giovanni business maggie had insinuated herself into the lives of her family members, lives of people who now loved her and wouldn't want to see her going anywhere. it was the kind of relationship that ensured you lived to see another day. it was the kind of thing maggie had always looked for at her own home but had never found. of course there had always been a few exceptions to the rules. there were the guards who were nice to her, the ones who she didn't frequently see after her father caught on and made a point of reassigning her. she'd always find them but they weren't the same after her father had moved them. that was always the case. she was the lone wolf of the corinthos family back in the day. she hadn't been the golden child. she'd been the eternal fuckup. while raoul had been shunned for his own reasons of being a complete waste of space, maggie had never done anything to warrant such behavior. one would think that any excitement to taking initiative would have at least pleased juan to some extent but no. instead her every breath seemed to insult him and all he'd ever wanted was for that breathing to stop. it was scary to think that a parent could manage thoughts such as that. a willingness to harm your own child just seemed so completely out there, especially now that she was expecting a child of her own. she, maggie giovanni, was expecting a little boy or a little girl. scary. of course that wasn't to say that maggie wasn't good with kids. she could be good with just about anyone as long as they never showed her any ill will. kids were easier though. they were innocents. they said what was on their mind and they liked to be blunt and honest because they didn't know any other way to live. sometimes it hurt feelings and sometimes it was just something that needed to be said that no one else could seem to manage to get out. kids didn't have hidden meaning in their words. their lies were much more transparent. maybe she really could raise some kids. it was a nice thought right? maggie was pretty fond of the idea. even if it did mean coming into work early as hell and even if that meant battling some serious morning sickness in the process. the one thing she couldn't have fathomed when she'd woken up way too early was that she'd be running into a blast from her past. andreo was...well he'd been everything to maggie way back when. he was the one person who was her age who was honest and kept absolutely nothing from her. he told her when he felt something and that in turn left her trusting him and eventually giving her heart to him. he'd been the first of a very short supply. after all there had been practically nothing after andreo until she'd met luca. she'd pretty much just had a handful of one nighters, meaningless and trustless flings, before she'd met luca. it was then that they'd been forced together and maggie'd had no choice but to get to know him and to fall in love with him but before all of that there had been andreo. that had been so...natural. it hadn't been forced by any misery stricken partnership. it hadn't been weighed down by old girlfriends and bullying remarks or any of that crap. it had been two fairly innocent kids falling head over heels in their first serious relationships. it was something you certainly didn't forget and maggie hadn't. the moment she saw him all of that came flooding back, but the emotions had been dulled. after all she'd met the love of her life and that wasn't going to change, but that didn't mean that maggie didn't still feel something for the kindred spirit. she still felt overjoyed when she saw him and she still wrapped her arms around him the moment he got within grabbing distance. it had been so long since she'd come into contact with any spanish customs. she'd almost forgotten how to react to him but like old times everything just came rushing back to her. "oh hush you devil. look at you! you're no where near as spindly as you were back when i remember you. i think you grew into your feet."

[/b] she said in a mocking tone but her face showed nothing other than her happiness in seeing him again. "you have anywhere you have to be? oh of course not. come in. they've got practice but we can catch up at the bar if you like."[/b] maggie said in a rush. she was so overwhelmed she didn't know how to react to him actually being here. happiness was an emotion long forgotten until now. [/div]

1,543, outfit, TAG: ANDRAGGIE.

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THIS TEMPLATE WAS MADE BY WILMETTA OF CAUTION.

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[andreocovas]

, andreo xavier valentín covas



^{WHAT A BEAUTIFUL FACE I HAVE FOUND IN THIS PLACE THAT IS
CIRCLING ALL ROUND THE SUN WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DREAM THAT COULD
FLASH ON THE SCREEN IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE AND BE GONE FROM
ME SOFT AND SWEET LET ME HOLD IT CLOSE AND KEEP IT HERE WITH ME}

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<sup>of all the places for these two people to end up. a small city on the coast of california. the world seemed to be of a habit of being very small for andreo and maggie. the two hispanohablantes had met by chance one summer, intentionally run into each other again, lost touch and now were once again meeting by chance, in a place different from where they had ever met before, a country that was foreign to the both of them. it was a bit mind boggling. it didn't make any sense at all, actually. what were the chances that this would happen? andreo was no mathematician... in fact he often listed numbers as one of the banes of his existence, but even he had reason enough to know that this was some sort of astronomical chance that had happened upon the two of them. it was almost like fate.

at the thought of the idea of fate, andreo couldn't help but picture the three sisters of fate of greek mythology, spinning, measuring and cutting the threads of human life. it was a rather daunting image; the destiny of all people in the hands of three old, unyielding goddesses, to say nothing of the idea that a person's destiny is wholly fixed and predetermined by someone else and completely beyond their own control. pursuant to that idea, humans were essentially just puppets, or cars on a cable, their notions of free will ultimately nothing more than an illusion. it tended to give andreo headaches, which was exactly why he chose not to dwell on such things. he often preferred to think about things like performing and food and beer and sleeping and pretty girls. hey, speaking of pretty girls, maggie was a pretty girl. one of the prettiest girls he knew, with wits and personality to back up even the most excessive prettiness. he didn't know why beautiful girls without brains had become such a commonplace item. perhaps in most cases god tried to keep things even and so, as a result, many people were either smart and homely and moronic and comely. or maybe people blessed in the ways of looks often received so many subliminal messages throughout their life times that pretty people didn't need smarts or personalities that they couldn't help but subconsciously mold themselves to fit the oft-sent communiqué. or, maybe, there was actually an even mixture of pretty, dumb persons and ugly, dumb persons, but because people so enjoyed complaining about stereotypes, or anything really, that they made a habit of perpetuating them.

andreo had actually noted many things like this... people made themselves believe things that were not always necessarily true far more often than most of them realized.

which was one of the things he had always liked about magdalena corinthos. she was sensible and didn't put up with bull shit from anyone. andreo had had a lot of experience with those of the female persuasion, but magdalena had always stood out amidst the minority of them that he actually genuinely respected.

it threw him off a bit when she wrapped her slender and stealthily muscular arms around him, because he felt a small but undeniably acceleration in his heart rate. this was something that he had grown a bit unused to since becoming the smooth operator that he now was. perhaps he was doomed to have these kind of effects afflicted upon him whilst interacting with her. "oh hush you devil. look at you! you're no where near as spindly as you were back when i remember you. i think you grew into your feet." her english was very good, mercades would have been proud. prior to coming to the united states, andreo hadn't exactly been very confident in his own english speaking skills, only to realize, after arriving, that all his english classes and shakespeare practice and watching english movies (at the insistence of his sister) and conversing in english (again at the insistence of mercades) had prepared him well. everyone seemed to talk awfully fast and some of the slang was still a bit beyond him, but even so, the fact that he understood pretty much everything that everyone said had come as a bit of a surprise. but anyway. maggie appeared to be attempting to mock him, but she was absolutely beaming. she was very pretty when she was happy. and she seemed to be more or less the same magdalena that he had known before, which was good, because he liked her an awful lot.

"i believe that your memory fails you," said andreo, not bothering to keep rascally note out of his voice. "i have always been far too attractive to be spindly." he cracked a crooked grin and resumed staring at her, trying to take her all in, every wonderful inch of her. it was still so hard to believe that he was standing here, talking to magdalena corinthos... it felt too good to be true. the annoyingly logical part of his mind was telling him to not be surprised should this whole thing turn out to be part of a dream. "you have anywhere you have to be? oh of course not. come in. they've got practice but we can catch up at the bar if you like." she spoke very quickly. she almost seemed a bit flustered or something. his grin widened. "¿por qué crees que no tengo ningunas otras obligaciónes?" why do you think that i don't have other obligations? he feigned his wounded tone. "i am at a gentleman's club at nine o'clock on a wednesday morning. don't i seem like the busy, important person that i am?" he paused, uncrossed his arms and extended one to her. "but, if you insist. lead me to your bar. but don't try to get me drunk and take advantage of me."</sup>

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STATUS complete.
TAG maggie!
CREDIT lyrics by neutral milk hotel. <3 graphic by the lovely ruby.
ATTIRE here.
NOTES hi. :] ignore how this is short.

[magdelena e. g. giovanni]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-image:url(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d100/lilpuppyluver2003/bg.png); width: 457px; padding-top: 30; padding-bottom: 30; -moz-border-radius: 35 35 35 35; -webkit-border-radius: 35 35 35 35;] hi » PHANTOMS OF THE PAST. there weren't many good memories that maggie had about her past in tijuana, but if there were ever pieces she wanted to remember they would have included besting her father, hanging out with her brothers and sisters, and the time she spent with andreo. that was a very short list for someone who'd spent all of their teenage years in one place. the saddest part might have been though that everything changed when she moved to valkyrie, california. though maggie had only spent a rough five or so years in this city it had already given her so much joy, so much in fact that it still felt like a fantasy world. none of this would have been possible if maggie had still been a captor to her father's anger, an anger maggie still didn't totally understand. as a man, juan was not the most lovable characters to begin with, but the fact of the matter was that maggie was his child. there were no ifs ands or buts about it. the whole reason why maggie and her mother had lived in tijuana was because juan had made a point of breaking into the united states just to get his daughter back because he couldn't imagine not having his child under his roof. somehow that didn't make sense. none of it really seemed to register now. the man had come so far and worked so hard to bring back a child that he hated. maggie still didn't understand it but it wasn't like she was going to be getting any answers from him any time soon. still he'd worked so hard to bring her back and he'd even gone so far as to marry her mother in some badly timed attempt at making an honest woman out of sophia. so what was the deal? maggie had been asking that question for years. did juan corinthos blame his daughter for being the product of a faulty condom, if one was even involved to begin with? either way the man had made a point of making her feel like she didn't belong in the family. it was strange too, just how he went about doing so. you see out of six children, juan really didn't pay attention to only two of them. juan junior, also known as j.r., had been the golden child. j.r. could have done no wrong despite the fact that he wanted desperately to have nothing to do with the business. j.r. had made a point of being so far away from the business that even juan's attempts at blackening his heart hadn't worked. even though he'd forced j.r. to do terrible things in an effort to break him of his stubborn moral streak, j.r. still wanted nothing to do with the business. then there was raoul. raoul was probably the only kindred spirit to maggie in the corinthos house even though that hadn't stopped them from not getting along. maggie figured that juan probably laid the blame of his first wife's death on raoul, though how he could blame an innocent newborn for the death of his mother when it was a rival gang who had murdered her was beyond belief? if anyone was responsible for the death of paulina it had been juan. the man had made the castillos a personal target and had given the police information enough to take them down and all the while had made plays against the castillos to cast them out as he basically adopted all of their propert and everything else from them. because though the police were good for some things they were often so corrupt that you could do anything you like in mexico. his actions brought about subsequent reactions that had left his first wife's bloody body in the streets bext to her first born. it wasn't something that could be blame on anyone other than juan corinthos but that didn't seem to stop him from pawning off his hurt onto someone else. then there were the other three children besides maggie, the ones you didn't really hear much about because they were, in a sense, as normal as a person could be with a past like theirs. bella, maggie's sweet little biological sister, was in college by now and making something of herself, something that wouldn't have happened if she'd stayed in tijuana. but there had never been much worry about that. bella had always been the most eligable of the corinthos kids to get out of this life and live normally. she'd always been so innocent, so naive, and it had worked in her favor. she'd never seen her father's dark dealings and she'd never let it have an effect on her. she'd lived her whole life at that compound thinking that bodyguards were just friends of her father that liked to make sure she was safe. she thought of the compound of just some extra security because tijuana wasn't that safe of a city. there must have been all kinds of reasons why bella saw past the darkness and the evil in that family. either way it had proved beneficial to her. she now knew the truth but at least now she was away from it all, had given it all up, to have a normal cookie cutter life. maggie wanted that for her littler sister. she just couldn't handle a life like this. then there were the youngest two, dominic and hannah. they had always been so young in comparison and honestly maggie didn't know them very well. it was hard to see the people they were going to become when they were still only in elementary school. maggie only hoped that they would get out and get past the life they were raised in. lord only knew that there needed to be more corinthos kids out there like bella than there needed to be corinthos kids like j.r. and maggie. she wasn't a prideful person. she knew that this life was dangerous and that involving people in that might as well be a death sentence. funny seeing as how she was now bringing and innocent life into this mess. but it was all she knew how to do. maggie couldn't go out into the world now and be someone's bitch in an office. she could own the m lounge and just use that as her only business means but it wasn't her passion. this job, this life, this was her passion. there was no other way around it. maggie knew that she would be doing this job until she died, premature or not. she almost felt bad having friends involved in this lifestyle but in all sincerity most of the friends that she had were already in this life and had been for some time. she wasn't recruiting people to die. maybe that helped make things a little better. it was just when people like andreo showed up, people who were seemingly untouched by the kind of evil she possessed, well it was only then that things got a little stretched."oh does it now?"

[/b] maggie said in response to him, a smirk on her lips. "but you still grew into your feet."[/b] despite how much she didn't want to get him mixed up in this, it was so good to see him. it wasn't like andreo was completely oblivious because there was a reason why his family knew hers in the first place, but she was pretty sure that andreo had no clue the lengths that she was involved in this.

she couldn't help but smile as andreo busted out the native tongue. it had been a long time since she'd even heard it for anything other than business. it was nice. "no, no of course not. you look like a very important and sought after individual. but everyone needs a break now and then. besides, you just got here. i'm not letting you out of my sight."[/b] she winced slightly at his choice of description for her club. "aye no. not a gentleman's club. no one gets paid for sex here love. this is a burlesque club. less clothes, but pure, clean family fun."[/b] alright so she scoffed a little toward the end but it was true. this wasn't a whorehouse. it was specialized entertainment at it's best. she took his arm with a chuckle anyways. "can't make any promises."[/b] she said as she lead him to the back door and inside. it was a little darker inside and backstage but her eyes quickly adjusted and she maneuvered easily around the backstage area until they'd both wound up on the right backhand side of the stage where the dancers were in their workout gear and laid out on the floor stretching. "run through the numbers and work out the kinks. teach that new girl her position and make sure she'd got it down completely before tonight's show got it?"[/b] maggie said to the lead dancer who liked to take charge in these matters. she could always trust that one to make this place look like what it was intended to look like, perk. of course mrs. giovanni. as you insist. she said before making a signal to the d.j. at the back of the room above the bar and walked over to the new girl.

maggie lead andreo down the stage steps and over to the bar where she sat him down in a chair before walking around behind the bar. she poured herself a ginger ale from the handheld dispenser hose before she looked up at him. "so what's your pleasure?"[/b] she said with a smile, hands gesturing to the treasure trove of alcohol located behind her. "because it's five o'clock somewhere right?"[/b]
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1,623, outfit, TAG: ANDRAGGIE.

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THIS TEMPLATE WAS MADE BY WILMETTA OF CAUTION.

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[andreocovas]

<sup>andreo sometimes wondered about the astronomical odds that had been stacked against him becoming who he was, genetically speaking. out of all the particles of genetics that had been at his parents' disposal, of all the multitudinous combinations of their dna, he had wound up with the one particular set. there were so many different people that he could have just as easily existed instead of him but for the chance of the circumstance. and yet here he was, andreo valentín covas, the cumulative result of specific genes that had come together to make him the dark haired, dark eyed male with all the other natural attributes that had gone on to shape him into the person he was today. the same was equally true for just about everyone else, excluding those "test tube babies" and the suchlike. which meant that at one point it had been likely that all the people that andreo cared about would never wind up existing, which was kind of a disquieting thought.

take magdalena corinthos for example. andreo really did not like the thought of the possibility of never having had her in his life at all. even if they had only lasted for a brief amounts of time during a few hazy weeks of summer, he would most likely be at least somewhat grateful that it had happened at all for the remainder of his life. which meant that he was very obviously glad that maggie was who she was. he knew that she didn't have a very good relationship with her parents and didn't hold them in particularly high regard (he could recollect her usage of a colorful term or two in describing them in a conversation from long ago), but andreo had to reason that they couldn't be all bad (as far as he was concerned, at least) if they had managed to create such a glorious creature as magdalena.

so, in a way, he supposed he was somewhat appreciative to them for that, even as maggie smirked cheekily at him and continued to insinuate that he had once been a gawky, scrawny little nerd boy who had at long last grown into his feet. she wasn't entirely off her rocker or maliciously lying, however. there was some truth in saying that andreo had not always been the strapping muscular, filled out specimen of humanity that he was today. however, in response to her teasing he did nothing more than simply heave an exaggerated sigh of derision, roll his eyes and settle into a slightly defeated pose to try and communicate something along the lines of "i give up on trying to reason with this hysterical woman; she simply will not see reason." hopefully it did, for he had practiced extended communication through body language a lot over the years. he was an actor, after all. "no, no of course not. you look like a very important and sought after individual. but everyone needs a break now and then. besides, you just got here. i'm not letting you out of my sight." andreo chuckled appreciatively, only to have his amused expression be lessened by a degree or two and have it become interspersed with curiosity and a small amount of sheepishness at maggie's wince and the next words that came out of her mouth. "aye no. not a gentleman's club. no one gets paid for sex here love. this is a burlesque club. less clothes, but pure, clean family fun." was the term "gentleman's club" synonymous with the term "brothel?" that was his mistake. "well, the less clothes the better, as far as i am concerned," he said with a jovial smoothness as she took his arm. it was nice to touch her again. it helped to reassure him that she was not some fabulous phantasmal illusion. "can't make any promises." suddenly andreo felt very contented. he was in a nice little city in the sunshine with a wonderful girl and there was absolutely nothing about to bother him. "qué terrible eres, magdalena." how terrible you are.

maggie led him to the back entrance of the club, arm in arm, into the backstage area. it was rather dimly lit, but as she maneuvered them towards wherever it was she was trying to take him, andreo thought it was safe to surmise, from what he saw, that this looked like his kind of establishment. they paused in an area of the backstage area where strewn about on the somewhat scuffed floor were an assortment of dancers, stretching. andreo eyed them with adept surreptitiousness for a few moments before sending a charming crooked smile in their direction. "run through the numbers and work out the kinks. teach that new girl her position and make sure she'd got it down completely before tonight's show got it?" said maggie to one of the dancers. andreo sensed that she was some sort of figure of importance. "of course mrs. giovanni. as you insist." the contented feeling that had fallen over andreo seemed to fall through his chest at the double take that the dancer's words necessitated from him. mrs. giovanni. he suddenly remembered the name he had read in the paper not an hour earlier. magdalena giovanni. had she gotten married? maggie? holy shit. never in a million years would andreo have pegged her as the type to get married by this age. she had always seemed far too independent and uncontainable for that. he felt a sinking, sickly feeling in his stomach, something vaguely akin to nausea. what? was he disappointed? or jealous? though he picked up on some conscious indicators to the affirmative, he ignored them, because it was just foolish. he hadn't seen maggie in years. she had every right to marry whoever the hell she felt like marrying. but still. he couldn't shake his sickly, cheerless feeling.

she led him down a set of steps descending from the stage and andreo was diligent in keeping his facial expression and body posture normal so as not to give himself away. magdalena giovanni. it didn't sound right. she took him to m lounge's bar, pushing him into a seat and fixing herself a ginger ale behind the bar. magdalena giovanni. "so what's your pleasure?" she gestured at the bar's bounty of alcohol. booze so early in the morning? "because it's five o'clock somewhere right?" well, andreo was sold. he cracked yet another grin. "una cerveza, por favor." a beer, please. "nothing fancy." he hummed casually as she procured the said beverage for him and as soon as he had it in his grasp he raised it ceremoniously. "to the prosperity of this fine establishment and its gorgeous proprietor," he said airily, with a faint satirical note that stemmed from the fact that he was making such a toast before ten o'clock in the morning. "¡salud!" he downed a gulp of beer and paused for a moment before an ever so slightly devilish smile extended across his face. "so. who is mr. giovanni?"</sup>

STATUS complete.
TAG maggie!
CREDIT lyrics by neutral milk hotel. <3
ATTIRE here.
NOTES bit of a gm in there.