Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2026-01-16 12:24 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2026-01-16 12:24 pm
Entry tags:
Fanfiction: The Sensible Thing (The Goes Wrong Show, Robert/Vanessa)
You know, I wasn't expecting to write a Robert/Vanessa fic. I just wanted to write something following up on Vanessa's accidental proposal to Dennis, a man notable for not being Robert. And then it somehow became this.
I'm not complaining; I'm delighted by any opportunity to write fanfiction heavily featuring Robert Grove! But I am a little surprised. I don't think anyone in the world ships this pairing, but I'm going to throw this fic out into the fandom and see what happens.
Title: The Sensible Thing
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Robert/Vanessa
Wordcount: 2,900
Summary: In the aftermath of Vanessa's accidental proposal to Dennis, Robert employs his remarkable talent for making things worse.
The Cornley Drama Festival’s second half is postponed for Chris’s recovery. The society’s usual policy is to push on through the... occasional mishap, but they do typically make an exception for being shot on stage.
Some of the drama society’s more senior members seem to have taken it in their stride, but it’s all left Vanessa a little shaken. She finds herself wandering the stage once the theatre has cleared, restless, the sound of the gunshot echoing in her head.
She turns with a start when she hears someone approaching.
It’s Robert. Vanessa’s gaze flicks to his pockets, the line of his hips under his clothes. He can’t still have the gun on him, can he?
“I thought I should congratulate you on your engagement,” Robert says.
Her engagement. God. In all the panic over Chris, she’d somehow managed to forget that particular fiasco.
“I personally think you could find an actor who’s more on your level,” Robert is saying, “but Dennis certainly seems happy, and—”
“I’m not engaged!” Vanessa exclaims. “I mean – I didn’t mean to get engaged. I wasn’t trying to propose.”
“Oh.” Robert pauses. “Really?”
“What do you mean, really? It was an improv session! Of course it wasn’t a real proposal!”
“Well, yes,” Robert says, “but it’s Dennis. I assumed you knew how he would take it.”
She really should have. God, how could she have been so stupid?
“You’re not getting married, then?” Robert asks. “Shame. I was looking forward to a moderately competent person entering the household.”
It takes Vanessa a moment to make sense of that. “Wait, you thought I’d move in with you and Dennis?”
“What? Of course. What’s the alternative?”
“It’d be more traditional for the married couple to live by themselves,” Vanessa points out.
“Oh. I suppose you’re right.” Robert falls quiet for a moment, which feels like a slightly surreal event.
“I think it would be better if you moved in with us,” he says at last.
“I’m not marrying Dennis,” Vanessa reminds him. She hopes she isn’t, at least. She still has to tell Dennis they’re not getting married, and it might be an effort to find the heart. “You, ah... you want to live with me?”
“I don’t recall using the word want,” Robert says. “Just thought it might make sense. We could travel to rehearsals together. Fewer cars means fewer opportunities for someone’s vehicle to explode.”
Every so often, Vanessa catches implications of events that must have happened at some point before she joined the drama society. They are almost universally terrifying. “Not much point in speculating, really, if it wasn’t a real proposal.”
“I suppose not.” Robert falls briefly silent again. “Do you want to marry me?”
Vanessa opens her mouth. Something she can only describe as half a noise falls out. She’s not sure what noise, exactly.
“I mean, for God’s sake,” Robert says, “I’m a better actor than Dennis.”
“That’s not – that’s not—” She finds herself gasping for breath. “That’s not the only consideration!”
“All right; list them.”
“Well, for—” Thinking on her feet has never been her strong suit; why does it seem to be a constant requirement in her life? “For one thing, wh-what?”
“That’s not a consideration,” Robert says. “That’s a noise.”
“Okay,” Vanessa says, hastily. “Okay, I’ve got one. Don’t you think it would hurt Dennis if I turned him down and then turned around and – and married you?”
“You’re marrying Robert?” Dennis’s voice asks, bright and alarming. “Oh, that’s brilliant!”
Vanessa whips around.
“I don’t really know how to be married,” Dennis says. “I’d probably be bad at it. But Robert’s great at things, and this way you can still live with us!”
“Consider it,” Robert says, nodding solemnly. “I give a substantial life coaching discount to spouses.”
“I think I need to leave,” Vanessa says, “um, immediately.”
-
“As your life coach,” Robert says, “I suggest that it’s time to start thinking about matrimony.”
Vanessa stares up at the ceiling. She’s not sure whether lying on a leather couch is standard life coaching practice, but Robert insists on it. “It’s occurred to me that there may be a conflict of interest here.”
“Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest? Ludicrous. As your life coach, I suggest that it’s time to stop worrying about conflicts of interest and seize the day.”
“Why do you even want to marry me?” Vanessa asks. “I mean, you’re not—” She finds herself hushing her voice to a near-whisper, as if they’re discussing something scandalous in public. “You’re not in love with me. Are – are you?”
“In love? Don’t be ridiculous. This is a matter of pure practicality.”
He’s not in love with her. It’s a relief to hear it, of course, and yet some part of her is a little wounded. “Ridiculous is a strong word.”
“I always use strong words,” Robert says. “I refuse to make concessions to weakness.”
It feels like a mistake to bring this up, but she’s desperately curious. “You know we’d have to sleep together for the marriage to be valid, don’t you?”
“Hm,” Robert says. “Yes. Well, I’m sure that would be fine; we’re both actors.”
Would she have sex with Robert, if the role called for it? She’s already simulated sex with him in their production of Lord of the Flies, banned for obscenity halfway through its first performance, in a scene described as ‘baffling’ by reviewers. It’s an uncomfortable memory, although that’s largely because there were no beds in the setting; they were forced to go at it directly on the stage, which collapsed half a minute into the sequence.
She doubts the reality can be any worse than that production. “I suppose so.”
“Is that a yes?” Robert asks, sitting forward significantly.
“It is absolutely not.”
“So it’s a no, then?”
Vanessa hesitates.
“If you don’t want to marry me, Vanessa,” Robert says, “all you have to do is say no. N-O. It’s an extremely short word, although I did once manage to make it last three minutes when it was the only line our esteemed director allowed me in my role as Janitor No. 3.”
“I just – you know I’m not good with being put on the spot like this.”
“Put on the spot? I proposed two days ago; you’d think you’d have taken a moment to think about it.”
She’s thought about very little else. It’s hard to find the thread of the thought in her mind; she doesn’t know where to begin untangling it. The thought of marrying Robert feels inherently insane, but she can’t just make decisions without knowing exactly what’s involved. “I think I – I think I need to understand your reasons.”
“Well, as I said, it’d be convenient to travel to rehearsals together,” Robert says. “We could practise scenes at home, too. And you’re pleasant enough to look at.”
“Thank you,” Vanessa says, uncertainly.
“The more members of the society I have in my corner, the easier it’ll be to overpower Chris Bean when necessary,” Robert says, ticking things off on his fingers. “My marriage will demonstrate to Denise how undevastated I am by our breakup. I’m an excellent lover. That’s not one of my reasons; that’s a selling point.”
Is that... true? Is that Robert’s own assessment, or is it something he’s been told by others? She’s hesitant to ask.
“Greater supervision will increase the odds of Dennis’s continued survival,” Robert says. “Plus I enjoy your company, of course.”
That’s not something Vanessa was expecting to hear. Robert’s never been unfriendly to her, exactly, but he takes the business of acting so seriously that it’s hard to gauge how he feels about anything outside it. It’s strange to hear him say it so directly; it leaves her feeling off-balance, or more off-balance than she felt already.
“So?” Robert asks. “Have you made a decision?”
“I—” Surely she’s made a decision. Surely she’s about to say no. “I need more time.”
“Hm,” Robert says. “Very well.”
-
Vanessa is a planner, a weigher of the factors; she rarely makes any kind of choice without setting things out on paper beforehand. Right now, she’s sitting in front of an A4 sheet headed Pros and Cons of Marrying Robert.
Under the Cons heading, she writes one word: Robert. She attempts to scale it to a size that reflect that particular con’s significance. It reaches approximately halfway down the page.
After a moment’s thought, she adds Dennis, slightly smaller. It seems those two are firmly agreed on the idea that marriage would mean Vanessa moving in with them.
Right. Now for the pros.
Well, there’s the promised life coaching discount, and living with the other two would most likely cost less than living alone. She’s not in desperate financial straits just yet, but her finances have taken a definite hit with the non-refundable deposit Dennis placed for the wedding venue; it’d be nice to actually be able to use it.
She’s thinking too much about this. She goes back to the cons column and circles Robert’s name a couple of times, just to make sure she keeps her head on straight.
Robert. What would marrying him be like?
Robert is a friend of hers, she thinks. She respects his acting skills, and he apparently respects hers, to at least some extent; she was startled by how high he put her in his ranking of the society, she’s been buzzing a little from it ever since. He advocates for her when Chris is being intimidating, but he also does his fair share of intimidation himself. He’s arrogant, insensitive and mildly terrifying.
It’s hard to envision any world in which being married to him wouldn’t be a nightmare. He’s not even in love with her; she’s certainly not in love with him; she should just tear up this list and forget about the whole thing.
Later, though, lying awake after a half-hearted supper of buttered toast, she finds herself picturing life with Robert and Dennis. The journeys to and from rehearsal. The meals together; Dennis is banned from getting anywhere near anything resembling an oven, but she knows Robert can cook, and she could help out with food preparation. The arguments; the many, many arguments, over performances, over tidying, over Dennis eating all her lipstick.
I enjoy your company, Robert said.
It would be a bad idea. It would be a terrible idea, obviously.
But the quietness of living alone has been getting to her, and she certainly wouldn’t be able to accuse Robert of being too quiet.
-
Halfway through rehearsals, Max accidentally goes careening into the ladder they’re using for the balcony.
Vanessa’s heart nearly stops as the ladder jolts out from her. She grabs for a handhold that isn’t there, she feels herself falling, and—
It takes her a moment to register: she’s not hitting the floor. She has become intimately acquainted, in her time with the Cornley Drama Society, with the experience of impacting various hard surfaces. But – she’s okay, someone’s caught her. Robert has caught her.
She’s—
She’s aware of him, intensely, in a way she’s not used to. The solidness of his arms around her, his chest against her shoulder and side, warm and inescapably there.
She’s breathing too fast, she’s shaking, her body full of adrenaline with nowhere to go. It’s the fall, she knows, but—
Robert sets her down. She’s still a little shaken, in more ways than one; she has to hold on to his arm to keep herself upright.
“You’re all right?” he asks.
He’s a handsome man. The beard looks good on him. She’s never really thought about it before.
It occurs to her that she should probably have broken eye contact with him by now.
“Right!” Chris claps his hands together. “Let’s try that scene again, please, ideally with less sexual tension between the siblings. Robert, this isn’t the sort of problem I usually expect of you.”
-
Okay. She needs to keep her head. She is a sensible woman, and she can make sensible decisions.
She can – she can probably make sensible decisions. She is, admittedly, a member of the Cornley Drama Society, which has, admittedly, proved to be a more high-risk activity than she was expecting. A sensible person would probably quit. But something has been keeping her there. The people, the company?
No. She can’t let herself think that. She can’t conclude that she’s staying for the people, because Robert is one of those people, and she’s already taken more steps than she’d like down the dangerous road of thinking too fondly about Robert Grove.
It’s bizarre that she still hasn’t explicitly turned him down. Surely the obvious answer was set from the start. She is not a spontaneous person, and accepting a marriage proposal from someone she’s not even in a relationship with would definitely qualify as ‘spontaneous’.
Which means her life coach would advise her to do it, of course. She’s not sure she can rely on her life coach in this specific situation, for obvious reasons, but...
Well. Her lack of spontaneity is still, nonetheless, a genuine problem that she’s trying to overcome.
Is she trying to talk herself into this? Is some part of herself really so tempted?
She’s – she’s walking towards Robert’s dressing room right now, isn’t she? How long has she been doing that? She hadn’t even registered.
The sensible, cautious, restrained thing – the Vanessa thing – would be to turn around.
She breaks into a run.
-
Vanessa slams the door to Robert’s dressing room open so hard that, by the sound of that crunch, the handle embeds itself in the wall.
“Good entrance,” Robert says, approvingly.
“All right,” Vanessa says. She’s breathing so fast she thinks she might choke on it, but just the fact of having made a decision helps to calm her down a little; she knows what she’s doing now, she’s not trying to navigate this insane limbo. “I’ll marry you.”
Robert starts applauding. “Aaaaaand scene.”
Vanessa just stands there for a long moment, trying to make sense of that. For a couple of minutes, in fact.
Robert is still clapping. It’s becoming increasingly clear that he will continue until he is stopped.
“Scene?” she asks. “Was this – don’t tell me this was—”
“An improvisation exercise,” Robert says, beaming. “Improvisation is all about being presented with a situation and deciding how to respond to it. Well, it’s about that for you. I create the situations, of course, but I’m at a much more advanced level.”
Vanessa swallows. “An improvisation exercise.”
“You worked out how to respond to the situation. You passed! I mean, your response time was well over a fortnight, which isn’t ideal, but with my training—”
“You didn’t want to marry me,” Vanessa says.
A frown crosses Robert’s expression. “You didn’t want to marry me. What’s the problem?”
“If I don’t want to marry you,” Vanessa says, her throat and voice strangely tight, “why did I just say I would?”
“Oh.” Robert pauses to consider that for a moment. “You know, that’s not a bad point.”
A few seconds of silence pass between them. Vanessa stares at the floor, feeling humiliated, with a lump in her throat that she doesn’t seem able to swallow down.
“D’you think we should actually get married?” Robert asks, eventually.
Vanessa shakes her head. “On second thought, that would be an absolutely terrible idea.”
“That,” Robert says, with an air of great pride, “was much faster. Well done.”
-
The final performance doesn’t go as smoothly as anyone would have liked, in spite of all their rehearsals. Once she’s made it out of the theatre, Vanessa takes a moment to catch her breath and look back at the flames.
“Everyone safely out?” Robert asks, sidling up to her.
“I think so,” Vanessa says. “You know, I think this is the first fire I’ve seen where we didn’t just play through it.”
“Well, yes, we only keep performing through small-to-medium fires. We’re not maniacs.” Robert stretches. “Shame, though. I thought it was going rather well up to that point.”
For a while, they just watch the theatre burn.
“You’re not in love with me, are you?” Robert asks.
Vanessa thinks about that.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t think so.”
“You agreed to marry me. I suppose that’s quite a thing.”
“I knew you weren’t proposing for love, though, even if I didn’t know...” She gestures, vaguely, her eyes on the growing blaze. “The proposal... made me look at you differently, I suppose, but I think mostly I just wanted company. Someone to live with.”
“Well,” Robert says, after a moment, “it’s my understanding that it’s possible to live with someone even if you’re not married to them.”
Vanessa looks at him. “Are you... housemate proposing to me?”
Robert shrugs. “Well, why not?”
There are a lot of reasons why not. She should get a sheet of paper, The Pros and Cons of Living with Robert and Dennis, and then she should throw it in the bin without bothering to list anything; it’s obviously a bad idea.
“I’ve got a wedding venue booked for June,” she says. “We could throw a hell of a moving-in party.”
Robert breaks into a grin. “Better: a celebratory theatrical performance!”
It’ll be a disaster. The performance will be a disaster. The cohabitation will be a disaster. Everything about this plan is a disaster waiting to happen.
She smiles back. “I’m looking forward to it.”
I'm not complaining; I'm delighted by any opportunity to write fanfiction heavily featuring Robert Grove! But I am a little surprised. I don't think anyone in the world ships this pairing, but I'm going to throw this fic out into the fandom and see what happens.
Title: The Sensible Thing
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Robert/Vanessa
Wordcount: 2,900
Summary: In the aftermath of Vanessa's accidental proposal to Dennis, Robert employs his remarkable talent for making things worse.
The Cornley Drama Festival’s second half is postponed for Chris’s recovery. The society’s usual policy is to push on through the... occasional mishap, but they do typically make an exception for being shot on stage.
Some of the drama society’s more senior members seem to have taken it in their stride, but it’s all left Vanessa a little shaken. She finds herself wandering the stage once the theatre has cleared, restless, the sound of the gunshot echoing in her head.
She turns with a start when she hears someone approaching.
It’s Robert. Vanessa’s gaze flicks to his pockets, the line of his hips under his clothes. He can’t still have the gun on him, can he?
“I thought I should congratulate you on your engagement,” Robert says.
Her engagement. God. In all the panic over Chris, she’d somehow managed to forget that particular fiasco.
“I personally think you could find an actor who’s more on your level,” Robert is saying, “but Dennis certainly seems happy, and—”
“I’m not engaged!” Vanessa exclaims. “I mean – I didn’t mean to get engaged. I wasn’t trying to propose.”
“Oh.” Robert pauses. “Really?”
“What do you mean, really? It was an improv session! Of course it wasn’t a real proposal!”
“Well, yes,” Robert says, “but it’s Dennis. I assumed you knew how he would take it.”
She really should have. God, how could she have been so stupid?
“You’re not getting married, then?” Robert asks. “Shame. I was looking forward to a moderately competent person entering the household.”
It takes Vanessa a moment to make sense of that. “Wait, you thought I’d move in with you and Dennis?”
“What? Of course. What’s the alternative?”
“It’d be more traditional for the married couple to live by themselves,” Vanessa points out.
“Oh. I suppose you’re right.” Robert falls quiet for a moment, which feels like a slightly surreal event.
“I think it would be better if you moved in with us,” he says at last.
“I’m not marrying Dennis,” Vanessa reminds him. She hopes she isn’t, at least. She still has to tell Dennis they’re not getting married, and it might be an effort to find the heart. “You, ah... you want to live with me?”
“I don’t recall using the word want,” Robert says. “Just thought it might make sense. We could travel to rehearsals together. Fewer cars means fewer opportunities for someone’s vehicle to explode.”
Every so often, Vanessa catches implications of events that must have happened at some point before she joined the drama society. They are almost universally terrifying. “Not much point in speculating, really, if it wasn’t a real proposal.”
“I suppose not.” Robert falls briefly silent again. “Do you want to marry me?”
Vanessa opens her mouth. Something she can only describe as half a noise falls out. She’s not sure what noise, exactly.
“I mean, for God’s sake,” Robert says, “I’m a better actor than Dennis.”
“That’s not – that’s not—” She finds herself gasping for breath. “That’s not the only consideration!”
“All right; list them.”
“Well, for—” Thinking on her feet has never been her strong suit; why does it seem to be a constant requirement in her life? “For one thing, wh-what?”
“That’s not a consideration,” Robert says. “That’s a noise.”
“Okay,” Vanessa says, hastily. “Okay, I’ve got one. Don’t you think it would hurt Dennis if I turned him down and then turned around and – and married you?”
“You’re marrying Robert?” Dennis’s voice asks, bright and alarming. “Oh, that’s brilliant!”
Vanessa whips around.
“I don’t really know how to be married,” Dennis says. “I’d probably be bad at it. But Robert’s great at things, and this way you can still live with us!”
“Consider it,” Robert says, nodding solemnly. “I give a substantial life coaching discount to spouses.”
“I think I need to leave,” Vanessa says, “um, immediately.”
“As your life coach,” Robert says, “I suggest that it’s time to start thinking about matrimony.”
Vanessa stares up at the ceiling. She’s not sure whether lying on a leather couch is standard life coaching practice, but Robert insists on it. “It’s occurred to me that there may be a conflict of interest here.”
“Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest? Ludicrous. As your life coach, I suggest that it’s time to stop worrying about conflicts of interest and seize the day.”
“Why do you even want to marry me?” Vanessa asks. “I mean, you’re not—” She finds herself hushing her voice to a near-whisper, as if they’re discussing something scandalous in public. “You’re not in love with me. Are – are you?”
“In love? Don’t be ridiculous. This is a matter of pure practicality.”
He’s not in love with her. It’s a relief to hear it, of course, and yet some part of her is a little wounded. “Ridiculous is a strong word.”
“I always use strong words,” Robert says. “I refuse to make concessions to weakness.”
It feels like a mistake to bring this up, but she’s desperately curious. “You know we’d have to sleep together for the marriage to be valid, don’t you?”
“Hm,” Robert says. “Yes. Well, I’m sure that would be fine; we’re both actors.”
Would she have sex with Robert, if the role called for it? She’s already simulated sex with him in their production of Lord of the Flies, banned for obscenity halfway through its first performance, in a scene described as ‘baffling’ by reviewers. It’s an uncomfortable memory, although that’s largely because there were no beds in the setting; they were forced to go at it directly on the stage, which collapsed half a minute into the sequence.
She doubts the reality can be any worse than that production. “I suppose so.”
“Is that a yes?” Robert asks, sitting forward significantly.
“It is absolutely not.”
“So it’s a no, then?”
Vanessa hesitates.
“If you don’t want to marry me, Vanessa,” Robert says, “all you have to do is say no. N-O. It’s an extremely short word, although I did once manage to make it last three minutes when it was the only line our esteemed director allowed me in my role as Janitor No. 3.”
“I just – you know I’m not good with being put on the spot like this.”
“Put on the spot? I proposed two days ago; you’d think you’d have taken a moment to think about it.”
She’s thought about very little else. It’s hard to find the thread of the thought in her mind; she doesn’t know where to begin untangling it. The thought of marrying Robert feels inherently insane, but she can’t just make decisions without knowing exactly what’s involved. “I think I – I think I need to understand your reasons.”
“Well, as I said, it’d be convenient to travel to rehearsals together,” Robert says. “We could practise scenes at home, too. And you’re pleasant enough to look at.”
“Thank you,” Vanessa says, uncertainly.
“The more members of the society I have in my corner, the easier it’ll be to overpower Chris Bean when necessary,” Robert says, ticking things off on his fingers. “My marriage will demonstrate to Denise how undevastated I am by our breakup. I’m an excellent lover. That’s not one of my reasons; that’s a selling point.”
Is that... true? Is that Robert’s own assessment, or is it something he’s been told by others? She’s hesitant to ask.
“Greater supervision will increase the odds of Dennis’s continued survival,” Robert says. “Plus I enjoy your company, of course.”
That’s not something Vanessa was expecting to hear. Robert’s never been unfriendly to her, exactly, but he takes the business of acting so seriously that it’s hard to gauge how he feels about anything outside it. It’s strange to hear him say it so directly; it leaves her feeling off-balance, or more off-balance than she felt already.
“So?” Robert asks. “Have you made a decision?”
“I—” Surely she’s made a decision. Surely she’s about to say no. “I need more time.”
“Hm,” Robert says. “Very well.”
Vanessa is a planner, a weigher of the factors; she rarely makes any kind of choice without setting things out on paper beforehand. Right now, she’s sitting in front of an A4 sheet headed Pros and Cons of Marrying Robert.
Under the Cons heading, she writes one word: Robert. She attempts to scale it to a size that reflect that particular con’s significance. It reaches approximately halfway down the page.
After a moment’s thought, she adds Dennis, slightly smaller. It seems those two are firmly agreed on the idea that marriage would mean Vanessa moving in with them.
Right. Now for the pros.
Well, there’s the promised life coaching discount, and living with the other two would most likely cost less than living alone. She’s not in desperate financial straits just yet, but her finances have taken a definite hit with the non-refundable deposit Dennis placed for the wedding venue; it’d be nice to actually be able to use it.
She’s thinking too much about this. She goes back to the cons column and circles Robert’s name a couple of times, just to make sure she keeps her head on straight.
Robert. What would marrying him be like?
Robert is a friend of hers, she thinks. She respects his acting skills, and he apparently respects hers, to at least some extent; she was startled by how high he put her in his ranking of the society, she’s been buzzing a little from it ever since. He advocates for her when Chris is being intimidating, but he also does his fair share of intimidation himself. He’s arrogant, insensitive and mildly terrifying.
It’s hard to envision any world in which being married to him wouldn’t be a nightmare. He’s not even in love with her; she’s certainly not in love with him; she should just tear up this list and forget about the whole thing.
Later, though, lying awake after a half-hearted supper of buttered toast, she finds herself picturing life with Robert and Dennis. The journeys to and from rehearsal. The meals together; Dennis is banned from getting anywhere near anything resembling an oven, but she knows Robert can cook, and she could help out with food preparation. The arguments; the many, many arguments, over performances, over tidying, over Dennis eating all her lipstick.
I enjoy your company, Robert said.
It would be a bad idea. It would be a terrible idea, obviously.
But the quietness of living alone has been getting to her, and she certainly wouldn’t be able to accuse Robert of being too quiet.
Halfway through rehearsals, Max accidentally goes careening into the ladder they’re using for the balcony.
Vanessa’s heart nearly stops as the ladder jolts out from her. She grabs for a handhold that isn’t there, she feels herself falling, and—
It takes her a moment to register: she’s not hitting the floor. She has become intimately acquainted, in her time with the Cornley Drama Society, with the experience of impacting various hard surfaces. But – she’s okay, someone’s caught her. Robert has caught her.
She’s—
She’s aware of him, intensely, in a way she’s not used to. The solidness of his arms around her, his chest against her shoulder and side, warm and inescapably there.
She’s breathing too fast, she’s shaking, her body full of adrenaline with nowhere to go. It’s the fall, she knows, but—
Robert sets her down. She’s still a little shaken, in more ways than one; she has to hold on to his arm to keep herself upright.
“You’re all right?” he asks.
He’s a handsome man. The beard looks good on him. She’s never really thought about it before.
It occurs to her that she should probably have broken eye contact with him by now.
“Right!” Chris claps his hands together. “Let’s try that scene again, please, ideally with less sexual tension between the siblings. Robert, this isn’t the sort of problem I usually expect of you.”
Okay. She needs to keep her head. She is a sensible woman, and she can make sensible decisions.
She can – she can probably make sensible decisions. She is, admittedly, a member of the Cornley Drama Society, which has, admittedly, proved to be a more high-risk activity than she was expecting. A sensible person would probably quit. But something has been keeping her there. The people, the company?
No. She can’t let herself think that. She can’t conclude that she’s staying for the people, because Robert is one of those people, and she’s already taken more steps than she’d like down the dangerous road of thinking too fondly about Robert Grove.
It’s bizarre that she still hasn’t explicitly turned him down. Surely the obvious answer was set from the start. She is not a spontaneous person, and accepting a marriage proposal from someone she’s not even in a relationship with would definitely qualify as ‘spontaneous’.
Which means her life coach would advise her to do it, of course. She’s not sure she can rely on her life coach in this specific situation, for obvious reasons, but...
Well. Her lack of spontaneity is still, nonetheless, a genuine problem that she’s trying to overcome.
Is she trying to talk herself into this? Is some part of herself really so tempted?
She’s – she’s walking towards Robert’s dressing room right now, isn’t she? How long has she been doing that? She hadn’t even registered.
The sensible, cautious, restrained thing – the Vanessa thing – would be to turn around.
She breaks into a run.
Vanessa slams the door to Robert’s dressing room open so hard that, by the sound of that crunch, the handle embeds itself in the wall.
“Good entrance,” Robert says, approvingly.
“All right,” Vanessa says. She’s breathing so fast she thinks she might choke on it, but just the fact of having made a decision helps to calm her down a little; she knows what she’s doing now, she’s not trying to navigate this insane limbo. “I’ll marry you.”
Robert starts applauding. “Aaaaaand scene.”
Vanessa just stands there for a long moment, trying to make sense of that. For a couple of minutes, in fact.
Robert is still clapping. It’s becoming increasingly clear that he will continue until he is stopped.
“Scene?” she asks. “Was this – don’t tell me this was—”
“An improvisation exercise,” Robert says, beaming. “Improvisation is all about being presented with a situation and deciding how to respond to it. Well, it’s about that for you. I create the situations, of course, but I’m at a much more advanced level.”
Vanessa swallows. “An improvisation exercise.”
“You worked out how to respond to the situation. You passed! I mean, your response time was well over a fortnight, which isn’t ideal, but with my training—”
“You didn’t want to marry me,” Vanessa says.
A frown crosses Robert’s expression. “You didn’t want to marry me. What’s the problem?”
“If I don’t want to marry you,” Vanessa says, her throat and voice strangely tight, “why did I just say I would?”
“Oh.” Robert pauses to consider that for a moment. “You know, that’s not a bad point.”
A few seconds of silence pass between them. Vanessa stares at the floor, feeling humiliated, with a lump in her throat that she doesn’t seem able to swallow down.
“D’you think we should actually get married?” Robert asks, eventually.
Vanessa shakes her head. “On second thought, that would be an absolutely terrible idea.”
“That,” Robert says, with an air of great pride, “was much faster. Well done.”
The final performance doesn’t go as smoothly as anyone would have liked, in spite of all their rehearsals. Once she’s made it out of the theatre, Vanessa takes a moment to catch her breath and look back at the flames.
“Everyone safely out?” Robert asks, sidling up to her.
“I think so,” Vanessa says. “You know, I think this is the first fire I’ve seen where we didn’t just play through it.”
“Well, yes, we only keep performing through small-to-medium fires. We’re not maniacs.” Robert stretches. “Shame, though. I thought it was going rather well up to that point.”
For a while, they just watch the theatre burn.
“You’re not in love with me, are you?” Robert asks.
Vanessa thinks about that.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t think so.”
“You agreed to marry me. I suppose that’s quite a thing.”
“I knew you weren’t proposing for love, though, even if I didn’t know...” She gestures, vaguely, her eyes on the growing blaze. “The proposal... made me look at you differently, I suppose, but I think mostly I just wanted company. Someone to live with.”
“Well,” Robert says, after a moment, “it’s my understanding that it’s possible to live with someone even if you’re not married to them.”
Vanessa looks at him. “Are you... housemate proposing to me?”
Robert shrugs. “Well, why not?”
There are a lot of reasons why not. She should get a sheet of paper, The Pros and Cons of Living with Robert and Dennis, and then she should throw it in the bin without bothering to list anything; it’s obviously a bad idea.
“I’ve got a wedding venue booked for June,” she says. “We could throw a hell of a moving-in party.”
Robert breaks into a grin. “Better: a celebratory theatrical performance!”
It’ll be a disaster. The performance will be a disaster. The cohabitation will be a disaster. Everything about this plan is a disaster waiting to happen.
She smiles back. “I’m looking forward to it.”
no subject
Absolute blinder of an opening.
“I don’t recall using the word want,” Robert says. “Just thought it might make sense. We could travel to rehearsals together. Fewer cars means fewer opportunities for someone’s vehicle to explode.”
Impeccable logic, Robert.
“I don’t really know how to be married,” Dennis says. “I’d probably be bad at it. But Robert’s great at things, and this way you can still live with us!”
I love this entirely stupid approach to polycule formation.
She’s already simulated sex with him in their production of Lord of the Flies, banned for obscenity halfway through its first performance, in a scene described as ‘baffling’ by reviewers.
And by me. What.
“The more members of the society I have in my corner, the easier it’ll be to overpower Chris Bean when necessary,” Robert says, ticking things off on his fingers. “My marriage will demonstrate to Denise how undevastated I am by our breakup. I’m an excellent lover. That’s not one of my reasons; that’s a selling point.”
Again what
Under the Cons heading, she writes one word: Robert. She attempts to scale it to a size that reflect that particular con’s significance. It reaches approximately halfway down the page.
You have beautifully conveyed that he is his very own catalogue of cons, yes.
over Dennis eating all her lipstick
A man has to have sustenance, Vanessa!
“An improvisation exercise,” Robert says, beaming. “Improvisation is all about being presented with a situation and deciding how to respond to it. Well, it’s about that for you. I create the situations, of course, but I’m at a much more advanced level.”
Amazing. God-tier dickery.
Vanessa looks at him. “Are you... housemate proposing to me?”
Much more sensible!
no subject
This really made me smile.
I spent a while going 'what could they perform that might include a sex scene between these two?' before going 'actually, it's the Cornley Drama Society; they could just put a sex scene in something absolutely bewildering.'
Thank you so much!! It was such a delight to get this comment, particularly as this isn't a fic the fandom is likely to have much interest in. ♥!