Title: After Romeo and Juliet
Author: Carmarthen (lacorneille@earthlink.net), at least temporarily dedicated to proving that West Side Story fic is possible.
Fandom/Pairing: West Side Story; primarily Chino/Anita
Disclaimer: West Side Story belongs to Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim. The novelization, from which I borrowed very little, is by Irving Shulman. I don't own the characters, but if I did, Action and Chino would be a lot busier than they are now. I am making no profit.
Rating: R for language (mostly of the Spanish sort), non-graphic sex, and adult themes.
Spoilers: For much of WSS, unsurprisingly. Set after the events of the musical.
Summary: After the events of West Side Story, Chino and Anita work through issues. Definitely a Shark-centric story, although Action plays a fairly major role.
Warnings: Het, contains discussion of past rapes.
Archive: My personal site (http://thewritegirls.populli.net/carmarthen), others ask.
Notes: I was not particularly interested in West Side Story until recently, having only a passing acquaintance with "America" and a total lack of interest in anything set after 1900. Then I worked on costumes for a production of WSS, and after essentially living with the music and the characters (not to mention the actors) for a month, developed an entirely new appreciation for the musical. Our production happened to be rather hallucinogenic and dark, so this really has nothing to do with the movie or any other stage production. Some bits of this story definitely require suspended disbelief (how Chino got off so easy, for one). I don't like it, but it was the only way I could get the story to work. For a more detailed set of notes on each section and translations of the Spanish (which should be clear enough), see the detailed notes.
with thanks to the cast and crew of our production, for their hard work and the inspiration they provided me with, however unwittingly
It had been a year since that fatal rumble, a year since Chino had shot Tony and Maria had stood down two gangs with nothing but a gun and the force of her anger. Riff and Bernardo were dead; Action and Chino led the Jets and the Sharks. They always called it "The Rumble," in hushed, respectful voices. There were no other rumbles; previous ones paled by comparison and there were none after.
No one was quite sure how Chino got off, though it might have had something to do with Chino's decision not to be tried by jury. He had guessed, and probably rightly, that an American jury would not be kind to a puertorriqueño. Perhaps it had something to do with the witness who had explained about Tony killing Bernardo. Perhaps the judge had looked at Chino's previously clean record and given him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it was because Chino was so obviously pale and distraught in the courtroom. Regardless, he was sentenced to only three years for aggravated murder and allowed out on parole for good behavior after one and a half.
Leading the Sharks was not what it used to be, since now it involved keeping them from fighting more than encouraging them to fight. Chino sometimes wondered why he even kept the Sharks together anymore.
There had been an uneasy peace between the rival gangs since. Oh, they still talked big and roughed each other up now and then, but when it came down to things, none one really wanted any more deaths. Even if they had, Action and Chino had well-developed senses of self-preservation, and the less attention they attracted from the police and dear Lieutenant Schrank, who was only looking for an excuse to clean up the neighborhood, the better for all involved.
But there were no more "get-together dances." They danced, as they always had, to release energy, but they danced on opposite sides of the gym, and matters never got quite as wild as they once had.
Occasionally a brawl would start between some of the more hot-headed members of the gangs at one of these dances, but Action and Chino would take the offending boys outside and quietly remind them of what had happened with Riff and Bernardo and Tony. Then the Jet would be impressed by Action's uncharacteristic and somewhat frightening calmness and the Shark would be quieted and suddenly afraid of what he saw in Chino's dark eyes. They would all go back in as if nothing had happened, and Chino would dance with Anita or perhaps another girl, all the while watching the brawler over the girl's shoulder, and Action would stand by the wall and brood.
Luis and Gee-Tar (whose name, it had turned out, was Paul) had left their respective gangs, for reasons known only to themselves, and had gotten respectable jobs. Their mothers were happy and their comrades missed them, but only they could have said for sure if they were happy.
It was not as fun anymore.
It was on the night of one of those dances that most certainly were not get-together dances, but rather stand-apart-and-ignore-each-other dances, that Chino went to ask Anita's advice. Chino was not a natural leader; soft-spoken and shy, he had never liked fighting. If you had asked any of the Sharks before that fatal night, he would have said that Chino would be the last of them to kill someone. No one except perhaps Anita, ever-perceptive Anita would did not always speak of what she noticed, and who was much more open-minded than might be expected, noticed the depth of his devotion to Bernardo. Perhaps even Chino himself was unaware of it. So when Bernardo's death forced Chino into that position of leadership that he was not suited to, it was Anita to whom he most often turned to for advice.
"Anita, do you know why Rosalia has been acting oddly?" Chino asked, sitting on Anita's bed. He toyed with the fringe of the blanket, noting absently that the quilt and blanket had seen better days. Guilt pricked him; he should have seen how Anita was getting on more often. Glancing at her sequined velvet dance dress, he concluded that perhaps the state of her bedding was merely because she preferred to spend her money on clothes.
"Oddly?" Anita turned and shrugged, brown shoulders rolling eloquently under the black velvet straps of her dance dress. "No. We do not get along, I and Rosalia. Why?"
"I knew she was not going to the dance with anyone, so I asked her if she'd come with me. She reacted...violently," Chino said, his hands making stifled motions in the air. Chino was tall, thin and relatively pale, with hawkish good looks that owed more to hidalgo blood than native Puerto Rican.
"Oh?" Anita arched one eyebrow. "How so?"
"No sé...as if I had threatened her, perhaps. Frightened." He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. "I cannot describe it."
"Have you spoken to her before?"
"Un poco. I know the girls little."
"I will talk to her. I cannot promise that she will talk to me." Anita finished teasing her hair into curls and squinted into the mirror. Then she spun around to face Chino and pouted prettily. "How do I look?"
"Lovely as always. Who are you going with?"
"I'm not sure," Anita said flippantly. "I think his name is Ramón. He's just come over."
"I see." Chino wondered when and why Anita had become like this. She had a new boy nearly every month, their names and faces seemingly interchangeable in her mind. She had always been a girl who knew what she wanted, but she had been loyal to 'Nardo. The Sharks treated them as if they were married, and everyone assumed that they would tie the knot sooner or later, when Bernardo found a job, perhaps, though that would make it more later than sooner. Surely it had not been merely the shock of Bernardo's death that had changed her.
"I think you do not see at all, but that is all right," she said, a momentary expression of bitterness fleeting across her face. Anita picked up her wrap from the back of a chair. "Why are you so concerned abut Rosalia?"
Chino shrugged again and stood. "She is one of ours. It is what 'Nardo would have done."
Anita stopped in the doorway and returned to stand in front of Chino. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she said very seriously, "'Nardo would not have noticed."
She turned and left, the chiffon flounces of her skirt rustling. Chino simply stood in the middle of her cramped room, staring at the faded wallpaper and wondering what had just happened.
The dance was like the others before it: Sharks and Jets with their girls, dancing on opposite sides of the room, pretending that the other gang did not exist while very aware that they did. If anything, the dancing had become more aggressive than ever, perhaps because fighting was no longer an option.
Chino poured himself a glass of punch and watched for a while. Anita was dancing with her boy whose name she hardly knew as if there was no one else in the gym, and Chino looked away, embarrassed. The others whirled by in a morass of ruffled dresses and pressed shirts: Nibbles and Estella, Moose and Francisca, Anxious and Chavela, and others who went by too fast to recognize. Raquel, Yolanda, and Conchita stood around the punch table, gossiping rapidly in Spanish with another girl, just over from Puerto Rico.
"Chino," said someone, tugging at his sleeve.
Chino turned to see Juano, the quiet, efficient boy he had chosen as his lieutenant. Neither of them were 'Nardo, but Chino had figured that another Bernardo would do the Sharks more harm than good at this time.
Juano inclined his head too one side. "Look," he said softly.
Chino looked, and saw Pepé and Consuela arguing in a corner. Consuela had dyed her hair blond again since Pepé had dumped her and started going with Rosalia, but she had no more brains now than she had ever had. Chino could not hear what they were saying, but he heard the slap that cut through the music and chatter and saw Consuela flip her hair back haughtily and storm outside. Chino nodded to Juano, who said something to his girl, Lucía, who followed Consuela outside.
Pepé shrugged and started making his way through the crowd to Rosalia. Chino frowned. They had not gone more than a week before they split. He frowned again as he remembered that it was about that time that Rosalia had begun to act oddly, losing her usual sparkle and looking as though she were afraid of something.
Rosalia looked up and saw Pepé moving towards her, said something to her companion, and quickly began making her way through the crowd. Chino lost sight of her and was somewhat surprised to find her in front of him when he turned around.
"Dance with me," she said, her eyes frantic. "¡Por favor, Chino!"
Chino hesitantly caught her waist as the music slowed and whispered "¿Estás bien?"
Rosalia shook her head, than nodded. "Sí." She looked up at him in what was probably an attempt at flirtatious, he decided, but the attempt was marred by the tears in her eyes and the hectic pallor of her face. She looked down again. "Is it a crime to want to dance?"
"Of course not," Chino said reassuringly. "Has Pepé said anything to you?"
She stiffened in his arms and pulled away. "Pepé? No! He has said nothing!"
"I just thought--"
Rosalia burst into tears and ran, pushing through the crowded dancers.
Chino tried to follow her, at the same time looking around for Pepé, and was relieved to note that the ever-observant Juano had engaged him in conversation.
Chino paused on his way out of the gym to grab Luía's arm. Anita might have been better, but it was true that she did not get along with Rosalia, and she was nowhere to be seen anyway.
"I never knew you cared, Chino," Lucía drawled once they were in the hall.
At another time Chino might have blushed, but he was too concerned with Rosalia at the moment. Whatever was going on between Rosalia and Pepé did not seem like the usual lovers' spat. "Rosalia just ran out in tears," he said. "I thought it would be better if I had a girl with me when I talk to her."
"I see," Lucía said. She, too, had noticed Rosalia's unusual quiet and been concerned. "Which way did she go?"
They found Rosalia in a deserted classroom, curled up under a desk and sobbing.
"She'll probably talk to me if you're not there," Lucía said quietly, and Chino nodded and stayed in the hall.
As he shut the door, he heard Lucía murmur, "Rosalia, querida--" in a coaxing voice.
Action took another drink of punch; somewhere during the evening some enterprising person had spiked it with brandy, although not too much, since they'd figured out by now that the dance would be over quickly if Action or Chino found the punch to be too alcoholic. Then he looked around for Anita who had been Bernardo's girl.
Action was a short, stocky boy, with brown hair and fair skin that tended to flush, particularly when he was angry. He had been the angry one before, even more so than Riff, but his with leadership of the Jets had come responsibility. He had thought he wanted it before, when Riff was alive, but now he was not so sure that he should not give the Jets over to Snowboy or Big Deal and give the straight and narrow a shot. Of course, Tony had tried that and Action had seen where it had gotten him. So he held his anger and the guilt that too often came with it close. It had become easier with practice and the blind rage that blurred his vision and made him forget who he was hardly ever rose in him anymore.
He finally spotted Anita, walking towards the hall, without her date. Action made over to her and said, "Señorita--" He knew his accent was terrible, but he did not feel the right to call her by her name and what else was there to call her?
She turned to face him and her face went chalky under her makeup. "Dios," she whispered.
"I wanted to talk to you," Action said slowly, the words coming only with difficulty.
"No!" she said sharply. "I have no need to talk with you. Do not speak to me again or I will tell Chino what happened when I went to fetch Tony."
"Please--" Action said, trying once more.
"¡Vaya al diablo!" Anita hissed. He did not know the words, but her meaning was clear enough. Temporarily defeated, he turned and rejoined the Jets.
"Chasing after PR girls now, Action?" Snowboy asked mockingly.
"Bernardo's girl, no less!" Big Deal said, laughing. "He must be getting pretty desperate."
"I think Action needs to get some action," Clarice said huskily, draping her arm over Mouthpiece's shoulder and tossing her blond curls.
Action shut his eyes and set his jaw, wondering why Clarice's words struck him as odd. They were true, more or less. He hadn't had a girl since before The Rumble, and that had only been a little fling with Minnie, nothing to get very hot about. Since then, well, he had thought of Anita and what he had done and had felt that it would be best not to go after any chicks. Perhaps it was just that no one commented on it.
"I'm going to get some fresh air," Action said harshly, his words clipped. "Don't start any fights while I'm out." He nodded to Diesel, who snapped his fingers and winked in reply. Diesel was a good man in a fight, but Action knew he could count on him not to start anything stupid.
Outside in the cool night air, Action felt the stirrings of anger dissipate. He was not very worried about Anita's threat. Whether or not she would actually tell Chino was unimportant; Chino was unlikely to do more than try to rough him up, and Action had no doubt that he could take on Chino in a fight. He had to try to make amends with Anita if he ever wanted to leave the streets. He was just no longer sure he knew anything else anymore.
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