It's Only Natural (Selection) [[471 Words]]
Britannia High
Danny/Claudine, implied Danny/Lauren
set at the end of 1.06
references to past child abuse, abandonment. Partner betrayal, a kiss.

You're nothing to him. Your Daddy only needs one woman in his life, and he's got me. You've got no one. No one would care if you didn't exist, you snotty little bitch. You're nothing. You don't matter.

You're worthless.

She thinks of those words when Danny presses his mouth to hers, fingers light on the side of her face, because oh, how the tables have turned. Worthless—Lauren had said the same thing, hadn't she, and look how that had come out.

It's easy to win when you're playing against a kid, she'd tell her mum if she could go back now. It's easy to win when your opponent doesn't even know the rules.

She knows the rules now. She's learned and discarded them, used them and whatever else fell across her path—and now, no one can call her those names.

Except Lauren, and look how that had ended. Claudine had shown her, and her, that dark figure standing tall in the kitchen doorway, red-manicured hands on hips and cold, lipsticked smile. Immaculately-curled lashes framing eyes that sparked with hate.

But that woman can't hurt her anymore. Claudine is better now, stronger—today it's her on top, her towering overhead. If you aren't first, you've lost the game, and Claudine is second to no one now.

Now she has Danny (not Daddy; this is nothing to do with him, she'll tell anyone who asks. There's a two-letter, ten-year difference, there, and if Lauren sometimes looks a little like her mother when she scowls, it's only a trick of the light). She has him, she's won this time, and no one can take this from her.

She sees Lauren's reflection in the giant prop-mirror at the side of the set and leans further into Danny's kiss, feeling vindicated. This time, it's Lauren who's too slow, too weak, and she'll just have to move to keep up or get left behind.

Really, Claudine's doing her a favour. She has to learn sometime that you can't keep anything you didn't earn. You can't go through life hiding behind the headphones on your cheap discman; the music doesn't really make you invisible, you won't disappear between one beat and the next, no matter how hard you wish, no matter how the wanting makes you ache.

Life isn't like that, like some scared, weak little girl's fantasy—and the sooner you grow up, dab on the makeup like war paint and go after what you want, the sooner you stop being the victim.

For her part, Claudine is done with wishing and hiding. She reaches to pull Danny in closer, runs a hand up his thigh in a way that could only be called possessive. It's only fair. To the victor go the spoils, after all, and Claudine only plays to win.