BSG RPS: Your Wish Is My Command (Happy Birthday, Ingrid!)

[scribblinlenore]

Tomorrow is the dear, dear ingrid_m's birthday, and I have been promising to write Kandyass for her...well, for a really, really long time.

So here it is, and happy, happy birthday, my friend! I hope you have a good one! *smooches*

Title: Your Wish Is My Command
Fandom: BSG RPS
Pairing: Kandyse McClure/Alessandro Juliani
Rating: R
Warning: Special pink Barbie hell! Also, I actually don't watch BSG, so...yeah, it's like that.

Summary: Kandyse insists on tagging along to a sound recording. Alessandro makes his own entertainment.



Your Wish Is My Command
By Lenore

The problem with being a man who loved women too much, Alessandro often thought, was the unfortunate tendency to say "yes" to requests that anyone with a functioning sense of self-preservation would greet with an adamant "hell no." It was his own fatal flaw--everyone had one, at least everyone who'd paid any attention to Shakespeare--and Alessandro's mortal weakness had at present saddled him with Kandyse in the passenger seat of his BMW, humming Barbie theme music under her breath, loudly enough that he would know she was doing it, not so loudly that she couldn't pretend innocence if he called bullshit. This was the "moral support" she'd insisted on providing for the voiceover session he was doing today, the latest in a long line of Barbie-flavored fairytales released straight to video.

"Do you think the studio will be all in pink?" she mused out loud.

Alessandro took the high road and ignored her.

"Will you get an advance copy of the movie, do you think?" she asked. "You could throw a party and screen it for all your friends. Pass out Ken dolls as party favors."

He turned on the radio, tuned it to AM, and stopped at a station playing a medley from Cats sung by the Utah Mormon Children's Chorus. Show tunes made Kandyse go practically cross-eyed under the best of circumstances, and Alessandro figured the boy-soprano version of "Memories" was enough to cow almost anyone into behaving herself.

Kandyse, however, remained undaunted. "Shouldn't you be wearing tights or something? To get the proper motivation for your character?"

He glared over at her. She fluttered her eyelashes at him, as if that was going to get her out of trouble. Because, of course, that's exactly what it had been doing since she'd hit puberty.

"Remind me again why I let you come along?" he drawled.

"To inspire jealousy in the hearts of sound engineers everywhere?"

Okay, so maybe she did have a point there.

"And why ever did you want to come in the first place? Besides, the obvious need to torment me."

She widened her eyes at him, as if disappointed he couldn't figure out something so obvious for himself. "All the free M&Ms I can eat?"

The studio was in an office tower in the business district, and Alessandro wheeled into a nearby parking garage. They went up to the twelfth floor, buzzed at the door marked "Soundtronica," a giant mural of dancing musical notes on the wall next to it. The door clicked open, and inside there was a new girl behind the desk, just as young and perky as all the other receptionists before her.

"May I help you?"

There was a hint of appreciation in the smile she directed Alessandro's way, and that had him leaning against the desk like plant to sunlight.

Kandyse piped up, "Your Prince Charming is here."

Alessandro shot Kandyse a don't-taunt-the-help warning look, which she met with a wide-eyed "who me?" stare.

"I'm here for the Enchanted Garden recording," Alessandro clarified.

"Ah, okay." The girl pointed down the hall. "Third door, near the end of the hall."

Alessandro had to keep a hand on Kandyse's arm as they passed the kitchen with its baskets of muffins and welcoming plates of cookies. For someone who spent most of her life in mortal terror of carbs, Kandyse had an odd weak spot for free junk food.

In the recording room, the sound engineer Marco met him with a friendly clap on the back. "Alessandro. Good to see you."

They'd been down in the Barbie trenches together before.

A guy Alessandro didn't recognize, tall with bony elbows, stepped forward to shake hands. "Bill Price. I just took over as producer. It's great to meet you." He practically crushed Alessandro's fingers in his enthusiasm. Clearly, he was rather excited about his big Barbie break.

Alessandro put on his best actor's smile, that odd combination of cloying intimacy and heavy-lidded coolness. "Good to meet you." He nodded his head toward Kandyse. "My muse. Kandyse McClure."

Marco nodded casually. Bill Price, however, had apparently never seen a beautiful woman before, because his mouth dropped open so wide his jaw looked as if it had come unhinged. Alessandro tilted his head and studied Kandyse, who did look rather delicious dressed in a soft pink skirt and an even softer white top. Kandyse met his eye, and the corners of her mouth turned up. Sometimes she lived to be admired. Sometimes it just made her laugh.

Bill Price surged forward, glommed onto Kandyse's hand before she could strategically position it out of reach. "It's nice to meet you, Miss McClure. Just so very, very--"

Kandyse raised an eyebrow at him. "Nice?"

Bill Price's face turned pink with pleasure, as if Kandyse had read his mind. "Exactly."

Alessandro slipped a proprietary arm around Kandyse's shoulders. "So, anything I should know before we get started?"

"Oh, right," Price said, as if he were just now remembering why they were there. "We've had a few changes to the script. Let me get the new pages for you."

He dug through his bag, and the moment his back was turned, Kandyse flashed a triumphant smirk at Alessandro. Aren't you glad I came along? her expression clearly said.

Alessandro smiled at her sweetly. "Don't you have some complimentary candy to consume?"

She made a face, but flopped down on the couch next to the industrial-sized jar of M&Ms nonetheless. Alessandro flipped through the pages of dialogue. Certain unfortunate turns of phrase leaped out at him. Whatever reason the script had been rewritten, making it better apparently had not been the objective.

"I'll just need a moment to look through it," Alessandro said.

Bill Price swiped a hand over his hair. "There's something else. You know how Emily Forster, your Princess Wilhemenia, was supposed to be patched in from the studio in LA? Well, she came down with a bad sore throat and had to cancel. I can reschedule a session with her when I get back to California, but I was hoping we could go ahead and get your part done today." He leaned in confidentially. "We're a little behind on the production schedule. I know this is an imposition, not having someone to work with. But do you think you could still--"

Alessandro waved his hand. "That is why you hired a consummate professional, isn't it?"

Kandyse snorted from across the room. Alessandro directed a "shush" at her over his shoulder.

Price let out his breath, his expression embarrassingly grateful. "Thank you, thank you."

Alessandro headed into the booth, cracked some jokes so Marco could get a sound level.

"Okay," Price told him. "If you just want to do a few practice takes before we start taping."

Alessandro nodded. He amused himself as he warmed up, trying something different each time, Prince Sergei as Homer Simpson, Prince Sergei after a long night drinking vodka, Prince Sergei who liked to wear women's underwear beneath his waistcoat and breeches. This last one, in particular, had Kandyse grinning.

Bill Price, on the other hand, had started to sweat, obviously fearing Alessandro had some kind of arty "vision" for what was supposed to be a sweet, old-fashioned animated romance.

"I think Prince Sergei should be more...suave." Price's eyebrows drew together, as if this bit of direction took all his powers of concentration.

Alessandro nodded seriously. "Suave. Good insight."

Kandyse rolled her eyes. Alessandro was tempted to stick out his tongue at her, but then, oh yes, he had a much better idea.

It hurt his professional pride, but he made himself muff his way through sixteen takes, his performance as flat as a stretch of Kansas highway. Bill Price did his best to encourage him with utterly transparent flattery, "That was great, really great. You've got such an amazing voice. You're so talented, I know you can do anything. So…maybe just a little more umph this time?"

By the time Marco was cuing up for take number seventeen, Bill Price's collar was askew, his hair was standing on end where he'd been pulling at it, his fingernails bitten down to the nub.

At last, he sighed. "Come on out for a minute, Alessandro. Let's talk this over."

Alessandro left the script in the booth and went out to join him.

Bill did his best to smile. Always be nice to the talent was the first rule of being a successful producer. "Maybe we should try again when Emily's available? I can fly back up here if I need to."

"I don't know why I'm having such trouble getting into the spirit." Alessandro knitted his brow, as if doing some complex problem solving. "Maybe…if someone could just read the lines with me, I could put more feeling into it."

Bill Price and Marco looked at each other, and they all turned as one toward Kandyse, who had long ago stopped paying attention, and was caught now with her hand in the M&M jar like a guilty, chocolate-snarfing deer in headlights.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"We'd really appreciate your help," Bill groveled, "if you wouldn't mind, of course."

"Huh?"

Alessandro pretended to cough.

Bill frowned. "You do have voiceover experience, right?"

"Well, yeah," Kandyse admitted.

"And certainly no one knows more about being a princess," Alessandro added helpfully, earning him a look from Kandyse that would surely have shriveled a lesser man's balls.

Alessandro smiled jauntily. He lived for the things that would shrivel other men's balls.

"Of course, if you don't feel comfortable…" the director said, his expression fairly begging.

"Yes, sweets," Alessandro chimed in. "If you're not up to it…"

Kandyse eyed him darkly, and Alessandro was beginning to wonder why he hadn't thought to invite her to a recording long ago. Really, it was pure entertainment.

"Fine," she said huffily, getting to her feet, flouncing over to the booth.

Alessandro winked at a rather googly-eyed Bill Price. "I'm sure things will pick up now."

"Alessandro Juliani is never getting laid again," Kandyse said cheerfully into the microphone as Marco took a level.

Alessandro laughed, and Kandyse elbowed him in the side, and Bill Price was starting to look nervous once more.

"Okay," Marco said with a sigh. "Let's...try again. Kandyse, start with Princess Wilhemenia's line at the bottom of page three, when she unexpectedly comes upon Prince Sergei in the forest."

Kandyse cleared her throat, nodded that she was ready.

Marco typed commands into the computer and cued it up, "Barbie In The Enchanted Forest, take seventeen."

"Prince Sergei." Kandyse gave the words the wary inflection of a nervous virgin. "I wasn't aware anyone else liked to walk in this part of the woods."

Alessandro slid into the warm caramel of Prince Sergei's voice, "I find the scenery here most enchanting."

He let his eyes fall on Kandyse and glide slowly up her body, his expression hopefully conveying all the naughty possibilities shifting through his mind.

"You mean to charm me," Kandyse said, the delicate shells of her ears turning pink.

Alessandro smiled. "I mean to do more than that."

It was a Barbie movie, so the prince of course meant that he was going to sweep the princess off her feet and make her his bride. Alessandro gave Kandyse a sideways look, so she would know that he meant to strip off her clothes the moment they got home, push her down onto the bed and do that thing with his tongue that made her sound like a dirty little humming bird.

A flush start to creep up the back of Kandyse's neck, and Alessandro laid the double-entendre charm on thick, his voice plumbing the lower octaves as he promised to "lavish on her all the attentions a royal princess deserved."

Bill Price, who wouldn't know seduction from a production matrix, was smiling, giddy at the prospect that he might not have to make another trek up to the Great North to get this project completed. Marco was trying his best not to smirk. By the time they'd gone through three scenes, Kandyse was looking rather warm, a sheen on her forehead that someone who was not the gentleman Alessandro was might call sweat.

"Uh, can we take a break?" Kandyse asked. "I could use some coffee."

"Sure, sure," Bill Price said hastily, obviously petrified that if Kandyse got tired she might quit, leaving Alessandro with muse-less. "That was great, you guys. I mean it. Just really, really--"

"Great?" Kandyse said, her ironic lilt completely wasted on Bill Price, who stared after her adoringly.

"I think I'll go tag along," Alessandro told Marco with a wink.

The hallway was quiet. It was getting late, and most everyone else seemed to have gone home already. In the kitchen, Kandyse had the refrigerator door open, although Alessandro suspected she was just being nosy.

At his approach, she straightened up and put her hands on her hips. "You can stop that anytime now."

He cocked his head. "Stop what?"

She whacked him on the arm, and that encouraged him to slide his arm around her waist, pull her close. "You know you like it."

He kissed her before she could say anything, always a good strategy with Kandyse. He maneuvered her back into the corner, against the wall beside the refrigerator, as protected from sight as they could be in a completely open room.

"What--"

He flipped her skirt up, his fingers tracing patterns over the front of her panties.

"My queen," he whispered.

She whimpered despite herself, and he slipped his fingers beneath the damp silk. She was hot, already wet, and he pressed two fingers inside, hard and fast, his thumb skimming gently over her clit. Her eyes went wide, and she made a breathy little sound. He knew just where to touch, the places that made her dig her fingernails into his shoulders, say his name like a promise…or a threat. When she came, her mouth was a perfect circle of startled pleasure.

"Jesus," she said afterwards, as he was smoothing her skirt back into place.

He grinned and kissed her and said, "You're right, by the way.. I am glad you came."

She rolled her eyes, and he laughed, and they headed back to the recording suite. If Marco or Bill Price noticed that Kandyse's hair was mussed or that Alessandro looked suspiciously bright-eyed, they didn't say a word.

An hour later, the taping was finished, and the four of them shook hands. Bill Price called them geniuses so many times that even Alessandro, with his ego, found it a bit much.

Price handed Kandyse his card. "I'd love to work with you again. We're looking for a Little Red Riding Hood Barbie. You'd be perfect."

Alessandro regarded Kandyse with perfect seriousness. "We could get you a red cape to help you find the right motivation for the part."

She gave him a hard-eyed look that said, you're just lucky I can't kill people with my mind, and told Bill Price, "Call my agent."

They went back down in the elevator and out to the parking garage. As Alessandro was unlocking the car door, Kandyse stomped her foot at him. "Stop smiling!"

He bowed gallantly. "Yes, my Queen."

She narrowed her eyes and did her best to look menacing, but the giggling pretty much gave her away.

Alessandro pulled the car out into traffic and said, "I suppose you think I owe you dinner now."

She raised an eyebrow. "Among other things."

"Do you still have that tiara?"

She looked confused. "You want to go someplace fancy?"

He shook his head. "I was thinking about afterwards."

His gaze slid over to her. She was watching him with hot eyes.

"Drive faster!" she demanded.

He smiled and stepped on the gas. "Your wish is my command."