#titsy

Daisy Canard needed an oil change.

Let us also preface that with that fact that Daisy Canard had never ever missed an oil change in her life, not since she first got her car at 18. She took the utmost pride in caring for her car, and that meant diligent engine tune-ups and oil changes.

She was supposed to get an oil change in mid-November, though, and had put it off for half a month now. It was always in the back of her thoughts: at the gym, with her headphones in her ears (you need an oil change), in class, taking notes (you need an oil change), when she was at home watching a movie (you need an oil change).

The snaking fear of not keeping her car up to code began to overpower the fear that she would--well, that she’d run into Tito, mind you. She’d been doing her best to avoid the garage. Daisy had no idea how one handled ex-boyfriends. Back in lycee, it was easier. Teenage relationships were inherently transient.

This--this was different.

She figured she’d go in first thing in the morning, drop off her car, then walk to Hatter’s. Hopefully someone else had the Saturday morning shift. (She couldn’t remember Tito having it, mind you, so she figured she’d take her chances).

She dressed up pretty casually (as casually as Daisy Eloise Audrey Canard was prone to doing, anyway), a pink woolen coat over black slacks, high-heeled boots, hair pulled back in a simple bun, a white scarf and earmuffs. It had snowed a few days ago, but not since, so the snow that remained was grey and hard, the sky a stark steel-colour.

It will be alright, Daisy told herself as she stepped into the car.

It will be alright, she told herself as she drove the less-than-five-minutes from her flat to the garage.

It will be alright, she told herself, as she pulled in.

She got out of the car, saw who was working there, and told herself well, fuck.

“Hello,” she said, voice sounding far braver than she felt. “I need an oil change.”

Tito: If you feel like leaving

I'm not going to make you stay

But soon you'll be finding

You can run

You can hide

But you can't escape my love

Tito: I don't really like Enrique, but it kinda seemed appropriate or whatever. If going solo makes you happy then you should. I guess I just don't fit in your world, Daisy. I meant what I said though about feelings and shit.

This had been a week in the making. Tito had known for a while that Daisy would be going to and covering the masquerade and one day whilst working in the garage and hearing some asshole talk about his costume, Tito got the idea that maybe he should surprise Daisy and tell her he’d be busy the night of the masquerade (if she would ask him to be there) and contact another asshole to help him out. 

Through a week of annoying fucking Hermes telling him what to wear and what not to, chasing him around with makeup and eyeliner, and telling him he really needed a haircut, they finally made a compromise on his burgundy and black look (and a small amount of eyeliner). 

The mechanic had been waiting for his chance to appear from the hallway as Daisy was distracted by Hermes and his fuckin’ clowny joker jester bullshit when he was finally given a text and made his way over.

Daisy’s reaction was definitely what he was hoping for. His cheeks would probably blush if they could. He grinned and gave a shrug “Yeah well,  I made an effort. And yanno, dealt with this asshole's opinion on everything for like a couple days." Hermes took that moment as his cue to leave the two alone. Thank fuck. 

 "So you're not mad that I totally lied about bein' busy tonight?"

Daisy was set to go back home in two weeks and the thought of that was weighing on her mind greatly, but as usual, she tried not to let it bother her (except late at night, it seemed, as she stared up at the ceiling and did her best not to think). It was not even one particular thing she could pin down—it was all of it, really, and they scrambled her thoughts and sometimes she would catch her breathing speed up (or so it felt like to herself, felt like her heart was racing, her skin crawling, though she looked fine to the world, picture-perfect as always, not a hair out of place).

She was doing her best not to think of it all today.

School was out. Most of her responsibilities taken care of. She just had to sit back, enjoy two weeks of town festivities, helping with the play, spending time with her friends and with Tito.

It was Tito whom she was with right now, climbing at the stairs of her apartment building. She was talking about the play, costumes, the people. He had just gotten off from work, a little sweaty, a little dirty. It made Daisy blush a little, the pink coloring on her cheeks, and she fumbled for her keys and she recounted how Howl Pendragon was insisting on a bigger role than that of the apothecary.

“Hermes has been doing wonderfully in rehearsals, though,” she added, sticking her key in the doorknob.

She paused, hand still on the knob.

The door was unlocked.

Instantly, her mind began racing—she had locked it, hadn’t she? She always did. She always double-checked. Triple-checked, even. Sometimes she’d even run back up the stairs just to make sure.

Had someone broken in?

Would there not be more damage if that was the case? She didn’t know. Apartments getting broken into was something that always happened to Other People. Not her. Not her family. Not her friends. Friends of friends, perhaps. But more often friends of casual acquaintances. Not her.

She must’ve forgotten to lock it.

Aside from the moment of hesitation, she said nothing, just continued to talk about Hermes’s costume which was helping to design, pretending that her key had gotten stuck and mentally cursing herself for not triple-checking when she left in the afternoon.

It was dark in her flat and she stepped inside, kicked off her shoes, and flipped on the light switch.

“Anyway, so we were thinking of a cape—MAMAN.”

Daisy nearly dropped her keys.

Seated at the counter of her kitchen, helping herself to a glass of wine, blonde hair in a tight bun, knees crossed, back straight, was Lilian Canard. Daisy’s mother. Daisy’s mother who did not know that Daisy had a boyfriend. Who must certainly did not know that Daisy had a boyfriend who was covered in car grease.

She wondered if she could shove him out and thank him for helping her drive her car back.

“Is that any way to greet your mother, now?” Lilian laughed and descended from the stool. She turned her head, lips in a pleasant little smile, like the one she used to talk to the staff or order catering. She walked over to Daisy, eyes steady, forward, her face not betraying a lick of emotion. “Well,” she said, lifting a single, blonde eyebrow. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Daisy—Daisy felt frozen. No, she was frozen. Both feet planted on the ground, hands still. The only thing that was not still was her heart, which was tapping away as if something were chasing it, something fast and with claws and she could feel it all in her throat.

“I am waiting,” said Lilian, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her fingers.

Daisy opened her mouth, but no words came out.

So Tito was off. That’s really the only way to put it. After the whole, Harry Potter thing Tito didn’t really know what to think. Despite Tito thinking Lou was an asshole, strangely he and Daisy just sorta fit and once he saw that right in his face, well, it was hard to forget and hard to keep his brain from tormenting him with it. 

Tito didn’t fit in Daisy’s world. He knew that. He knew that her parents would probably disapprove of him and that he looked like some slacker who’s just fixing cars and going nowhere and has no value to his name or whatever the fuck rich people cared about. Lou was good with words, good with Daisy’s world, hell he even spoke French and it wasn’t like they weren’t already friends or whatever. Insecurities began to plague Tito but he didn’t really talk to Daisy about any of it.

Why? Well, one, he kept telling himself that would be stupid because it was all in his head. Two, Daisy had enough stress, she didn’t need him whining about his own bullshit to her. And three, if he brought it up, maybe he’d see something that he didn’t want to see or hear. 

The one thing Tito was doing in the days after the Harry Potter fiasco was attempting to balance being supportive and being concerned. Daisy was stressed. Anyone could see it. Tito gave her her space to just not worry about him and them and just do her school work and all her other stuff, but when he felt that maybe she was overdoing it, he’d try to nudge his way back into the space by dropping by with food or something, cause she had to eat right? 

And that’s what Tito was doing today. He’d let her be for a bit, found out from Clarke when she’d be back at her apartment for a bit and not in the library toiling away, and set his plan into motion.

Tito was making Daisy dinner, but since they were short on time and he didn’t know quite how she’d react and what they’d accomplish, he was gonna make her dinner and then bring it over. Cooking from all the family secrets he’d learned from his abuela, he made just about every Mexican dish to span any sort of mood and type of protein. And hey, if she didn’t eat somethin’ that was leftovers for her to have during her studying later. 

With containers stacked on top of containers (hopefully keeping it still warm on the trip over) inside a shopping bag, Tito knocked on Daisy’s door. “AI, Daisy! Clarke told me you’d be here, I brought food!”

Daisy was not doing well in Potions. There, she said it. She’d been fine on her OWLs, gotten an EE, which was perfectly fine, but she hadn’t expected NEWT-level potions to be so hard.

Now, one was probably wondering why Daisy did not just ask Toulouse, who was practically a savant at potions for help. And the reason was simple. Daisy was embarrassed. She was always practically perfect in every class, and usually if she needed help, it was something particularly difficult that she did not feel ashamed asking for help. But it was the end of the term and quite frankly, Daisy had spent too long pretending to know what was going on and right before finals, it was all catching up to her.

Thankfully, she’d spoken privately the Professor Prydain, who had thankfully always been kind to his House, and he arranged for her to meet with a tutor.

She was seated in dungeon three, with her books and her cauldron and her kit of ingredient, brows furrowed, trying to figure out what exactly Golpalott’s Third Law was saying exactly.

Daisy heard footsteps approaching and she glanced up shyly, but then her brows knit together when she saw who it was. Hogwarts was not a terribly big school and she knew all about the hot-headed Gryffindor who just walked in.

“Excuse me,” she hissed. “This room is reserved.”

@newspaperburritos-forbreakfast