#like I can plug my ears to annoying noise in real life- why can’t I do that here?! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

metinthehallway · 3 years

Text

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hello! Here is a simple little 3.5k fic! I thank @goldenbluesuit for hosting this spectacular fic challenge! I love what I've read so far and I can’t wait to keep reading. Also, thank you to @lilacobscure and @arrogantstyles for beta-ing and just being...awesome. I hope you all like it. :)

Warnings: mention of the word bloke from a non-Brit

Annie has had it. She’s holding two of her fluffiest pillows against both of her ears and has her white noise machine droning on at full volume. And she can still hear the sultry bass of Andy Williams singing his little heart out. She can hear him as clear as day, as if he were performing his very own live concert in the corner of her bedroom. Don’t even get her started on the Christmas lights. Annie had actually gone out and bought an eye mask in order to sleep, as her windows faced the neighbors front yard where Annie’s neighbor, apparently, was the sole reason their local supermarket was sold out of blow up decorations and string lights.

Harry Styles didn’t even have a lot of real estate to work with in terms of space. But he really made every centimeter count. One morning mid-November, whilst getting her mail, Annie counted about fourteen deflated pop-up corpses staked to the frozen ground, multiple candy canes lining his driveway that were about half the size of her, and masses of tangled lights strung up across every visible square inch of his home. If that wasn’t enough, he had a carefully crafted playlist he turned on every night at eight p.m. sharp that was approximately three hours and forty-nine minutes long before it looped back to the beginning song. She thought, fleetingly, that she should invest in ear plugs.

Annie prides herself on being a patient and understanding person. The only reason why she hasn’t held a covert operation at three in the morning to mercilessly stab a hole in each blow-up, or cut every single criss-crossed wire, or even ambush her neighbor while he walks out his front door in nothing but a fuzzy pink robe and no shoes, demonstrating that universal, oh shit the ground is cold, oh shit, oh shit, jerking walk, is because he only recently moved in next door. She was not about to be the one to ask him to maybe take it easy on the city’s power source, that she also needs electricity for her home, and also how do you fall asleep with this godforsaken music?

Annie is not prideful in this moment. All it takes for her to snap is hearing, “It’s the hap-happiest season of all,” for the forty-fifth time. With a loud groan, she tears off her beautiful, beautiful down comforter and stomps into her shoes, scaring Cindy, her sleeping Persian cat, off the bed. It’s two thirty-six in the morning, she realizes in a far off thought that doesn’t seem to make it to the forefront of her brain, and makes her way over to Harry’s front door. She has the immature urge to punch a smiling Santa sat atop a sleigh filled with presents as she passes it. All the lights are off in his house and Annie doesn’t feel a bit of remorse as she raises a half-asleep arm and slams it against the sturdy oak door of Harry’s house. For a full minute, it’s silent and there appears to be no movement from behind the door. A sliver of apprehension begins to worm its way into Annie’s bones.

There’s a better way to do this, Annie. Like, in daylight, during normal people hours.

She starts to turn on her heel, continuing her internal chastising and also external chastising, muttering to herself like a lunatic, when she hears the tell-tale creak behind her and a porch light flickering to life. Annie stands there, her right hand over her eyes, shielding them from the harsh yellow rays. She can make out Harry’s figure, dressed in flannel pajama pants that look like they were previously crumpled on his bedroom floor, a white T-shirt on backwards and inside out, and his signature pink fuzzy robe. His hair sticks up hazardously, sort of like a halo illuminated by the bulb behind him. His eyes are puffy, brows furrowed together and indenting a line in the center of his forehead. Lips as pink as a rose purse together as nostrils flare.

“Is there something I might be able to help you with?” Harry asks, a slight lilt to his gravelly voice. It’s a polite enough question, however it holds an air of carefully restrained annoyance. For a moment, Annie thinks she would be annoyed as well if someone pounded at her front door in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning. She quickly dismisses the thought, actually raising her hand in the air and waving it off as if it was a tangible thing. Harry raises one eyebrow.

“Good evening, well- morning, my name is Annie. I live next door, I’m twenty-two Ambrose Ave,” Annie starts. She doesn’t know why she announces her house number. She watches his eyes flick to his right where an engraved twenty-four lies, and back to hers. Annie shakes her head slightly before launching into a speech she never prepared.

“I’m here because I think the way you decorate is rude. Do you think, at all, of your neighbors? How do you fall asleep? Do you even have a job?! I never see you leave your house! Not that I’m keeping tabs, I’m just genuinely worried for your electric bill,” she continues, pausing to take a breath. “I have not had a single good nights rest since you started all of this, back in November. I have never hated the sound of Andy Williams’ voice more deeply than I do this holiday season.”

“Excuse me—,”

“Ah-ah! I’m not done, sir. Some of us are employed and have to work at eight a.m., some of us have cats that wake us up in the ass-crack of dawn anyway with their screeches and need all the sleep we can get. Do you know I had to buy a sleep mask because of you? Because of,” she pauses, a red rotating light from a candy cane passing over her face ominously as she turns around and gestures wildly to the commotion around her, “all this?”

“Can I just say—,”

“And the music. Are you eighty years old? The least you could do with this god-awful playlist is add some Mariah Carey, some Buble; even Ariana Grande has some sick Christmas tunes. The ones you chose haven’t been remastered since nineteen thirty-eight,” she finishes, eyes a little too wide, hair disheveled and falling in her face. Her hands are shaking and her heart is beating entirely too fast. Confrontation has never been Annie’s strong suit, evident of the lack of response from Harry as she cuts him off throughout the duration of her mini rant. He just peers back at her, face as still as stone as an uncomfortable silence falls between them. Frosty the Snowman rears its nasty head and Annie finds herself slowly closing her eyes and clenching her fists.

The second Annie starts to open her eyes, she hears the light closing of Harry’s front door and two locks click into place. She stands there, mouth slightly open as the early December chill works its way into her bones. She stares ahead of her and a murderous look takes over her face, cheeks red with the winter wind, lips chapped and tears starting to form on her lash line from the cold.

“What a fucking prick,” Annie mutters to herself. He can’t even respond to her? How childish. She turns around slowly, walking back through the winter wonderland, feeling defeated. She didn’t know what she expected to feel after finally expressing her thoughts, but she knew defeated was not it.

As she crosses the threshold into her home, she thinks, maybe I could’ve handled that better. Annie prides herself on her patience. She was not patient that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the course of the month, Annie and Harry bump into each other way more than either of them would like. Once, when the mailman dropped off her mother’s monthly care package to Harry’s house, another when Annie had to begrudgingly ask to borrow his shovel when she found her car snowed in one early morning and a broken handle on her own.

They’ve even begun to see each other in the aisles of their local supermarket. Annie enters the store, unsuspecting and looking for ingredients to make her world renowned charcuterie boards for a work fundraiser. She stops in her tracks and almost drops her jar of green olives when she sees a familiar head of frizzy brown hair.

Harry is hyper-focused, reading the back of a spray cheese can. Annie tries to sneak by him and grab a box of herb filled crackers. Tries. She is unsuccessful, however, when her purse strap catches on a display and yanks her arm backwards, making her lose grip of the glass jar. Everything seems to happen in slow motion, as she watches the jar sail past Harry and hit the ground, glass exploding all over his shoes. The chattering happening around her ceases, as all of the blood in her body travels to her face.

“Clean up in aisle four,” deadpans a nearby worker dressed in a horrid shade of neon green. He sighs heavily, murmuring under his breath that he doesn’t get paid nearly enough to be picking up all of these olives.

Annie is mortified. She is unable to tear her focus away from Harry’s soaked suede shoes. It’s only when he clears his throat and shifts his feet that she raises her head.

“I see… that you’ve really got a vendetta against me,” Harry scoffs, eyes trained on his feet, where the olive juice has to be seeping into his socks. No one likes wet socks.

“That was completely on accident! I swear! Why is that display sticking three feet into the aisle anyway? That has to be a a safety violation,” Annie pushes out in a rush. There doesn’t seem to be enough air for her lungs in this store. Especially not with Harry now looking intensely at her, almost like he could see right through her. She folds under his gaze.

“It’s okay. I didn’t like these shoes much, to be fair,” Harry shrugs.

“Really?”

“No,” Harry says.

“Oh. Well, I can buy you a new pair. How much did you pay for those?” Annie asks, pulling out her wallet.

Harry raises a single eyebrow, the left corner of his mouth turning up and a dimple appearing out of thin air.

“Too much. Really, it’s fine. The juice is translucent enough. I’ll just use them as house slippers,” he says. He opens his mouth to continue, but is interrupted by the loud squeaking of a bucket skidding across the floor. The neon green worker returns, a dingy looking mop in hand and a frown on his face. His free hand makes the shoo motion to Harry, starting to swipe at the floor, completely ignoring the glass scratching the linoleum that’s mixed in with the olives.

“Do you want any help?” Annie offers, stepping forward to at least pick up the larger shards scattered across the floor. The worker, whose name tag reads Roger, holds up a single pointer finger in her direction and shakes his head. Annie takes the hint, while Harry just shifts his gaze between Roger and the mess on the tiles, mouth somewhat agape. She nudges his shoulder with her own and gestures with her head for them to leave the aisle.

Annie makes her way up to self-checkout, Harry following suit. They ring their items up in silence next to each other. They find themselves walking through the front door together, and it’s only when they’re outside in the sunshine that Harry lets out the deepest belly laugh Annie has ever heard.

“Oh my god, my toes are so wet,” Harry says in between breaths. “Did you see the way that bloke’s vein was popping out of his neck? I thought he was about to commit second degree murder right in the condiment aisle.”

Annie’s heartbeat starts to pick up and she begins to laugh along with him. Tears form in both of their eyes and they sparkle in the cold afternoon sunlight.

“I feel so bad! I don’t even like olives. They were just for my stupid charcuterie boards,” Annie says, laughter dying down. She sighs, wiping at her cheeks. She looks up, meeting Harry’s eyes. He looks down at her, smile fading slowly but his face still holding traces of warmth.

“Well, I should be heading home. See you soon,” Harry bids his goodbye. Annie nods her head in his direction and turns, palming her keys and unlocking her car across the parking lot with a chirp. She unloads her groceries into the trunk and slides into the drivers seat, thinking for a brief moment about the shape of Harry’s smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The snow outside is falling. And it’s falling hard. So heavy and consistent that the power lines are drooping underneath the weight and the electricity in Annie’s house is flickering in and out. It’s Christmas Eve and all she wants to do is sleep the night away, then sleep the morning away, then sleep the weekend away. She draws back a curtain and peers at Harry’s lawn, the usual eyesore dark and covered in a blanket of sparkling white snow.

A sharp crack and the sound of something large tumbling to the ground close to Annie’s house makes both her and Cindy jump, eyes alert and tail all puffed out. She goes to open her front door to investigate and sees Cindy dart between her legs a second too late, a gray blur running into the stormy night.

“CINDY!” Annie yells, voice carrying eerily across the empty street. She takes off after the small cat, wearing only her pajamas and a pair of worn slippers. Annie loses her immediately in the snowfall. While outside, she sees the huge tree limb that fell onto Harry’s front yard, covering a third of his decorations, deeming a good chunk of them broken. She wonders for a short second why he hasn’t come out to check on the noise.

Annie’s heart starts to race as she tries to get a rein on her growing panic. Cindy is a strictly indoor cat, only having been outside for vet visits. She thinks of what would bring her cat back home, yelling her name sweetly and kissing her teeth loudly. She starts to walk towards the tree line, snapping her fingers and chattering her teeth.

“Annie?” She hears her name being called out from behind her. She throws her head over her shoulder and locks eyes with Harry, standing there in his infamous robe. He’s got his face turned away from the harsh wind and his face is scrunched up in confusion. “What on Earth are you doing out here?! Are you mental?”

“Cindy got out! I don’t know where she went. She ran in this direction. She never goes outside, I don’t know what to do,” Annie exclaims, feeling the urge to tear at her hair.

“Who’s Cindy?” Harry asks.

“My cat! She was scared by the branch falling and snuck right past me when I opened the door,” she explains, arms crossing over her chest as the chill of the night bites at her skin. She shivers, turning back towards the trees. They look like they’re beginning to come alive.

Harry looks her up and down and comes up behind her, wrapping that godforsaken robe around her shaking frame. She looks up at him, grateful for the extra layer. He has a serious look on his face, determined with a mix of compassion, and also curiosity. Annie is suddenly relieved that she has someone with her to handle the situation with more calm than she ever could.

“Why don’t you go inside and grab her favorite treats? And a blanket she loves? Something that smells like you would be best,” Harry says, listing off the necessary items as if he’s done this before. She looks at him, a bit puzzled, and he reads her expression easily.

“Our cats growing up were professional escape artists. I’ve done this once or twice,” he lets out a small chuckle. She nods and heads towards her house, grabbing everything they need and changing into a pair of winter boots and shrugging on a coat, shoving Harry’s robe towards him.

“I got everything. Here’s your robe,” Annie says, unable to meet his eyes. She already feels indebted to him, and they haven’t even found Cindy yet. “Thank you for helping me. I’m just… scared,” she confesses, tears starting to well up. She presses her fists into her eyes roughly as if she could stop them from falling.

Harry just nods, takes the garment, and starts shaking the treat bag. His deep voice carries into the night more than hers did as he walks around, zig-zagging across the snow. Annie holds Cindy’s favorite blanket that resides on her bed and wraps it around her. She follows Harry, both chorusing, Cindy! Cindy, baby! Come back! It’s too cold for you out here!

They walk the perimeter of Annie’s house, keeping to the tree line, when Harry shushes her. He stops in his tracks and listens to the silent night. Faintly, from the direction of Harry’s house, comes a small mewl. He walks briskly over, slowing his movements as he gets closer in order not to scare the small Persian.

“Cindy? Where are you girl? Come out for your mama,” Harry half-whispers, half-shouts. He’s still shaking the treats lightly, starting to open them. From their right they can hear a crumpling of plastic, a flash of gray shooting out from underneath the collapsed blow-up of Santa on his sleigh. Annie cries out in relief as Cindy comes running towards them at full speed, crashing right into Harry’s legs. He scoops her up swiftly with one hand and holds a treat out to her in his other.

“You had me so worried, Cindy! I cannot believe you. You want nothing to do with the outside world but decide to run out into the coldest night we’ve had so far! You’re crazy,” Annie half-sobs, holding the cats face in two hands. Cindy shakes the snow out of her fur and licks at Annie’s nose. Harry watches the interaction, feeling something unfolding in his own chest. He gestures for Annie to take her cat, picking long hairs out of his robe.

“I see everything’s all in order here, I’ll just—oh,” Harry lets out a grunt as this peculiar woman collides into his body, cat trapped between the two of them and licking at the pink fuzz surrounding Harry as if she were grooming a kitten. His eyes go a bit wide, arms frozen around Annie while she releases a string of, thank you so much, you have no idea how much she means to me, you didn’t have to do this but you did so I owe you, I’m sorry for what I said that night, I’m sorry about the olive juice, thank you, thank you, thank you, muffled into his chest. His hands find themselves resting on her back, stroking up and down in a means to calm her.

“Hey, hey… it’s okay. I know what it feels like. I’m glad she was okay,” Harry soothes. Annie pulls away, and a strange longing passes through his heart. He frowns slightly and clears his throat.

“I’m going to go to bed now, and get this little gremlin inside. Thank you so much, Harry. I really do appreciate it, more than you know,” Annie says, a bit breathless. Snowflakes lay themselves to rest upon her eyelashes, lips pink from the cold and Harry has the innate urge to tuck a piece of unruly hair behind her ear. He blinks, forcing himself out of his head.

“Really, it’s no problem. I’ll be heading in as well. See you soon, Annie,” Harry declares. Annie realizes with a jolt that Harry just said her name for the first time. She’s suddenly overheating, and gives a single nod, holding Cindy tight to her body as she walks up the few steps to her front door. Harry watches her leave, only taking his eyes off her when he can’t see her anymore. He then turns around, looking at the demolition of his lawn. He inhales deep.

“Fuck.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry does a double take when he sees Annie outside his home the next morning, attempting to break apart the large tree branch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the remainder of the season, Harry and Annie spend an inordinate amount of time together. From binge-watching their guilty pleasure TV shows to roaming the streets downtown at midnight, sharing the same love for empty places. It seemed as though, somewhere in the universe, a story began to unravel itself.

As the last snowflake melts on the first stem emerging from the soft ground, Harry kisses Annie. He wasn’t even planning on it. It was like second degree murder. He found himself looking at her looking at the bluest sky, the sky looking back at her like it wanted to kiss her as well; so he kissed her first.

#GBSxmaschallenge #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #christmas fic #thank you for reading!

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

24 for danbrey, nsfw please!

24: i’m absentmindedly making snowflakes in class and you’re the nerd who can’t quit glaring at me every time you hear my scissors. It is NSFW

If they were in one of the big lecture halls, Dani would not be having this problem. But the twenty-odd person room means the snipping of scissors is irritatingly audible. The noise is coming from behind and to the left of her. Turning her head, she spots the culprit; a girl wearing a denim vest under her coat, whose curly black hair is streaked with fiery red.

She’s cute, but Dani is still going to steal her scissors the first chance she gets.

There’s another tell-tale “snipsnip” and she glares over her shoulder, willing the scissors to melt. When that doesn’t happen, she looks up and finds the other girl smirking at her, then sending a wink her way.

Shoot, she’s holding the scissors at a level where it 100% looked like Dani was staring at her chest.

She flips her attention back to the front of the room. A flurry of snips makes her look back again.

The girl has made a heart instead of a snowflake. When Dani notices it, the other girl smiles. She looks even better when she smiles.

Damn it.

---------------------------

“Hi!”

The unexpected greeting makes Dani jump. It’s the Thursday lecture, and snowflake girl has sat down right next to her.

“Uh. Hi?”

“You’re Dani, right?”

“Yeeah? How did you know?”

“Um, because Professor Chicane takes role, and you always sit in front of me so I can see you when you respond. I’m Aubrey.”

“Dani.”

“Um, so, I’m sorry if the snowflakes were, like, distracting you on Tuesday. I do better in class when I have something to do with my hands but I can, like, doodle instead if it bugs you.”

“I just get a little on-edge from noise sometimes, it’s no big--wait. If you thought you were bugging me why’d you make a heart?”

“Because I thought there was also a chance you were flirting and I wanted to hedge my bets just in case.”

Dani blushes; she had no idea anyone could see her annoyed face and still hope she was flirting with them.

“Oh, crap, class is gonna start, I’m gonna move to my normal spot. The one with the nice view.” Aubrey winks over her shoulder and Dani impulsively blows her a kiss.

Aubrey sits down next to a short guy in “Monongahela National Forest” sweatshirt and whispers something in his ear. He high fives her.

Dani spends much of the lecture looking over her shoulder, even though Aubrey keeps the snowflakes to a minimum. In fact, she only makes one, which she leaves on Dani’s desk as she’s packing up her laptop. Written in the center of it, in red ink, is a phone number.

----------------------------------

Ideally, Aubrey would not have asked her out two weeks before the end of the semester, when Dani has to go back home for winter break. But they make the most of it. There are lots of “study” dates that involve more handsy make-outs than flash-cards, nights and afternoons snuggled up against each other in the little coffee shop by Aubrey’s apartment, and a memorable evening during which they discovered Aubrey’s immense, black rabbit, Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD, ate through the cord on the rechargeable vibrator (luckily before they plugged it in rather than after).

When break came, Aubrey walked her to the train station and kissed her goodbye, using Dr. Harris Bonkers paw to wave farewell as the train pulled away and down the tracks.

They text every day, Facetime or Skype at least once a day, usually when Dani has settled in for bed. She’s more than a little glad her brother is staying with his partner over the holidays; the walls of their rooms are thin and the two of theirs are next to each other. Jake stopped eavesdropping on her around the time he hit twelve years old, but the habit of not being able to quite relax while on the phone in her room remains.

She’s extra glad for it tonight, because she wants to show off a Christmas gift she bought herself (or, more accurately, she bought for the express purpose of riling up her girlfriend). The lace is a little fussier than she tends to buy, but it makes such cool leaf patterns, the pastel green and gold of the bra making her look stunning and the matching underwear hugging the curve of her ass in a way, if she does say so herself, is really flattering. But she’s more interested in what Aubrey thinks.

Fireblossom: Holy shit

Dani: You like it?

Fireblossom: Uh, yeah? Why are you so far away instead of here when I can show you how hot you look?

She laughs at the string of emojis that comes through next; flames, peaches, kissy lips, and…

Fireblossom: Sorry, moth emoji is from texting Duck to tease him about his crush. Did you for real buy that just for me?

Dani: Yep. You deserve some eye candy, cutie.

Fireblossom: I’m gonna fucking combust over here. Dr. HB is gonna be an orphan because of your cute butt.

Dani: I think we can do something about that.

Fireblossom: I’m stuck at family dinner time until nine and it’ll be hella sus if I sneak away to the bathroom for that long.

Shit, she should pull back on the teasing. Aubrey is typing something else, and she manages to get the strappy bra off in the time it takes for it to come through.

Fireblossom: They won’t notice me texting, though.

Dani: You sure? We can totally pick this up later.

Fireblossom: But I wanna make you cum in your fancy underwear ;)

She’s not about to turn that down, texts Aubrey the green light as she rifles through her duffel bag. It’s only a small bullet vibe, but it’s never failed her. Something she’s learned in her twenty years of life is to always have a vibrator on hand when traveling away from your hot girlfriend.

Dani: Ready.

Fireblossom: K. Turn on the vibe, but keep it outside the underwear for now.

The fabric is thin, and she gasps as she rubs the vibe in slow circles over her clit. She flips to voice to text, because now is not the time for an awkward autocorrecting or her one-handed typing.

Dani: what next?

Fireblossom: Feel yourself up for me, honey. Can’t my hands on those cute tits so you’re gonna have to do it for me.

She does as she’s told, massaging her chest and teasing her nipples the way Aubrey always does when they’re tangled up on the couch.

Dani: Fuck that feels good. Still wish they were yours though.

Fireblossom: Soon, beautiful, I promise

She shifts her hold on the vibe, which gets it to just the right angle to curl her toes.

Dani: Can I go under the fabric?

Fireblossom: Aww, you’re remembered to be good and ask first. Yes, you can.

“Thank god.” She slips the vibe under the silk, closes her eyes and imagines it’s Aubrey using it on her, grinning in that unfairly captivating way of hers as she tells Dani how good she’s being, how good she looks, how she’s so lucky they’re together.

She picks up the pace, groans when she sees the next text.

Fireblossom: Cum for me, honey, use both hands

Dani shoves her free hand down and pushes two fingers inside, moaning as she envisions Aubrey kissing her as a reward for doing it. It doesn’t take long, she’s been low-key horny all day and turned on ever since she got that first message back from Aubrey. The orgasm is short and satisfying, bursting out from her and making her feel like every one of her limbs is tingling with exhausted delight.

Dani: Came. Holy fuck. How are you this hot just through a screen?

Fireblossom: A magician never reveals her tricks ;)

Dani: A magician should make an exception for her girlfriend who’s still seeing stars.

Fireblossom: Flatterer.

Dani sighs, rolls onto her stomach so she can text more easily, not sure what’s she’s supposed to say now.

Fireblossom: That was really hot though. And now I miss you even more.

Dani: I miss you too, fireblossom. I can’t wait to come back to you.

Fireblossom: Me neither. Can I Facetime you tonight?

Dani: Totally.

Fireblossom: If I get lucky, will you help let off all the steam I just built up?

Dani: Of course, babe.

Fireblossom: GTG, nephew is bugging Dr HB. Talk to you soon, you make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world <3

Dani: Don’t be silly. That’s obviously me, because I’ve got you <3

#aubrey little/dani #danbrey #winter fills #college au

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serenlyss · 5 years

Text

Growing Up

Rating: G Pairing: Background terumob Summary: Shigeo decides to branch out a little. Crossposted to AO3: Growing Up

Here's my second stab at @bisexualwinry‘s fluff prompts!

On an unrelated note, I've been looking for fellow mp100 writers here with the potential of creating a writer's discord! Specifically I've been looking in the mp100 fandom since that's the one I'm most active in rn but it's open to all fandom writers. I haven't created it yet bc I haven't seen enough interest but I feel like it could be a really fun place for writers to get together, find beta readers, workshop ideas, etc! If you're interested, hmu here on tumblr or my discord (LyssaGirl1998). You can send me an ask or an im, whatever you prefer!

“Master Reigen,” Shigeo says one day from his spot on the couch in Reigen’s office, “I think I’d like to learn to play piano.”

Reigen looks up from where he’s tapping away at his keyboard. It’s still odd to hear Shigeo call him that, after he’d admitted to being a fraud, but despite his insistence that he doesn’t need to anymore, he still does anyway. Shigeo reclines against the couch, one leg lifted so that his ankle rested atop his opposite knee. He has a book open in his lap, which he’s been quietly reading up until now.

“Piano?” The voice of Reigen’s unwanted and self-imposed secretary butts into the conversation before Reigen can reply. Tome leans forward in her seat, the seat that used to be Shigeo’s, before he’d stopped coming around as frequently. “What would you want to learn something like that for?”

Shigeo shrugs with a small smile, slipping a bookmark between the pages of his novel and setting it aside for now. The smiles are less rare now, more generously offered and less stifled and withheld. “It was thinking that it could be fun to learn how to play an instrument,” he explains. “I don’t have a lot of hobbies, after all.”

Reigen’s more than a little surprised that piano is the thing that Shigeo has decided to pursue. He’s never seemed like much of the musical type, aside from whatever music he liked to listen to in his free time, and he’d only ever taken interest in a few random activities, like exercising. But he’s in his third year of middle school now, and he’d finally started letting go of the tight hold he’d kept on his emotions for all those years, so it’s only natural for him to want to explore those hidden and repressed sides of himself now. Besides, Reigen finds the idea of careful Shigeo sitting at a piano quite easy to imagine, once he puts his mind to it. “Hmm, I think it would suit you,” he comments. “Why piano, though? Any particular reason?”

“Well, Teru knows how to play, and he’s even offered to teach me a few times,” Shigeo replies, his smile turning a bit more shy and fond with the mention of his boyfriend. “He’s really talented, and I bet he’s a good teacher.”

At her desk, Tome makes choking noises and pretends to be sick.

Reigen ignores her entirely. “I think it’s a good idea,” he says. Shigeo deserves encouragement and support, and if he wants to try something new, Reigen firmly believes that he should.

Shigeo, at least, seems pleased with the answer, nodding with a confidence Reigen still isn’t quite used to seeing before returning quietly to his book. Reigen lets himself stare a moment longer, noting that Shigeo’s gotten taller. It won’t be long before he shoots over Reigen’s head and starts rivaling Serizawa.

He huffs out a breath that ends up sounding annoyed, turning back to his work. These stupid kids, they really do grow up way too fast.

---

Teru and Shigeo meet after their club activities often to study and, occasionally, to have a brief piano lesson. Teru can’t fit a keyboard in his little apartment, so he comes to Salt Mid instead, and the two of them take up residence in one of the school’s open practice rooms in the music wing.

Shigeo’s fingers are inexperienced and uncertain, and he’s quick to doubt the soft way he presses the keys, so different from Teru’s quick and confident playing. He’s stubbornly dedicated to learning, though, and his ear is incredibly sharp. He picks out his mistakes quickly after he makes them, fingers jerking into the correct positions with little need for Teru to correct them for him. Teru’s quick to praise him for his progress and gentle when he points out his missteps, and they quickly fall into a routine in their lessons of sitting on the bench together, close enough to brush shoulders, Teru leaning over to mess with the music while Shigeo does scales and arpeggios and sight reads the kind of music meant for three-year-olds and pretends not to notice how the proximity makes his chest warm comfortably.

---

Ritsu hears Shigeo practice, sometimes, when their mother goes to run errands, their father isn’t quite home from work yet, and it’s just the two of them in the house. Usually it’s when Ritsu is up in his room, working on his homework. He’ll catch the faint, distant sound of piano melodies as Shigeo plays whatever comes to mind: random little tunes that Teru’s taught him, old folk songs and nursery rhymes, and occasionally something of his own creation.

The tunes start out rough and shaky, large breaks between bits of the music Shigeo hasn’t quite committed to memory yet. Ritsu wonders how he can see so little progress and yet still not find himself frustrated. He shakes his head and goes back to his homework, drowning out the quiet plinks of the piano beneath him with headphones and his own music.

---

Shigeo graduates middle school.

Reigen gets invited to come sit with his family for the ceremony, and Teru does as well. They find a seat off to the side, easy to spot but not too overbearing. The ceremony is widely unnecessary, in Reigen’s opinion, and drags on for far longer than he believes it should, but that doesn’t stop the rush of unprecedented pride he feels when he hears the principal call Shigeo’s name.

He watches, speechless, as the boy he’s known for the last five years of his life crosses the stage, and hides the fact that he’s on the verge of tears by pretending he’s sleepy and rubbing his eyes. Ritsu shoots him a look that says he sees right through Reigen’s bullshitting, but not even Shigeo’s snarky younger brother can steal his good mood away from him when he eagerly goes to congratulate his student after the ceremony has concluded.

Shigeo’s parents shell out to buy him a nice graduation gift: an electronic keyboard of his own, one that he can easily put up in his bedroom and take with him when he eventually goes off to college. It’s full-sized, with the nice weighted keys that feel like a real piano’s, but compact enough that he doesn’t need to worry about how much space it takes up. Reigen pitches in to help pay for the accessories as his own congratulations, and it’s beyond satisfying to see the way Shigeo’s eyes light up at the sight of the crisp, new black-and-white instrument already set up and waiting for him when they all go back to the Kageyama house to celebrate.

---

Shigeo keeps practicing. He gets better every time Ritsu hears him, his pacing more consistent, repertoire more confident. It makes him happy that Shigeo has found something he likes, that he’s willing to practice and get better at. He hopes he sticks with it.

---

Shigeo grows older, taller. His daily exercises with the Body Improvement Club show in the lean muscles he hides beneath the sleeves of the better-fitting high school uniform. His shoulders broaden and his face loses its childishness in favor of more mature, angular features, but it retains its softness in the laugh lines around his eyes and the toothy smile he no longer hesitates to show.

Larger hands and longer fingers make playing the piano that much easier, after the initial adjustment he has to make to account for his newfound clumsiness. He runs into things constantly now, banging his feet on chairs and tables that he swears are too far away to be problematic and hitting his head on low-hanging objects and shelves he used to be able to walk right under. He forgets sometimes that he can reach the high shelves now, the ones even Reigen can’t get to unless he uses the little step stool by the pantry.

He joins a music club at his new high school and uses it as his designated practice time, putting his hours into the well-worn pianos in the music room while the other club members hone their own talents all around him. It’s been months since he first touched a piano, and he’s grown confident and deft in the way he moves his fingers over the keys. He can sight read now, at least certain things. He plays whatever he feels like playing, not confined to classes or grades or any sort of classical training. He picks out song with tunes he thinks sound pretty or interesting and then he recreates them, with or without music, content to play on a whim instead of by necessity.

He never becomes so good at the piano that he’s asked to perform outside of occasional pieces he plays for his friends or classmates at his music club. He learns a few duets, with Teru or with friends who play other instruments, but he doesn’t perform in front of large crowds or even attempt to.He’s perfectly content to play for himself, and only himself.

---

Shigeo loves playing the piano. When he feels stressed, it’s an easy way for him to relieve some dormant energy and express those feelings in a productive way. He plays happy things when he’s feeling sad, somber things when he’s feeling contemplative, whatever comes to mind in the moment. He plays easy things and complex things, whatever sounds pleasing to the ear, and challenges himself by picking up pieces that he thinks may be a bit beyond his skill level. He surprises himself by putting in the time and effort into making what seemed impossible his new glass ceiling, and shatters it with every day he pushes himself out of his comfort zone.

Sometimes he plays out loud, for anyone to hear, and other times he plugs in a pair of headphones and plays just for himself. He plays as a break between homework assignments, putting his brain to work in a completely different way, plays when he’s feeling bored and has nothing else to do.

Sometimes he doesn’t play at all, too wrapped up in the business of his schedule as he balances occasional work for Reigen with hanging out with Teru and his brother and all of their friends. He never goes too long without playing, though, his attention inevitably going back to the keyboard set up by the window in his room, where he can glance outside at the neighbors walking their dogs down the street while his fingers drum against the plastic keys. It’s peaceful, and takes his mind off his other concerns.

---

When he finally leaves his parents’ house, he takes the keyboard with him.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mp100 fluff bomb #terumob #kageyama shigeo #hanazawa teruki #kageyama ritsu #arataka reigen #fanfiction #mp100 fanfic #serendipitousfics

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sumigakure · 6 years

Text

Skyfall

To: @modernart2012

From: @pwnie3

Title: Skyfall

Rating: T

Wordcount: 2896

Prompt: Pacific Rim AU. Preference for MadaTobi, but I’m open to any pairing, romantic or otherwise. Doesn’t have to follow the movie

Warnings: Brief suicidal ideation, character death, excessive use of italics

Summary: Madara wakes up and doesn’t open his eyes, because he knows that if he does he’ll roll over and Izuna won’t be there in the next bed over. He feels like the ground has been torn out from under his feet and now he’s just falling alone into empty sky.

Drop, Category II solo, let’s do this, first blow comes, harness cracks, Izuna, Izuna, Izuna get up, “Kaleidoscope Burst please respond”, Izuna’s down, Izuna’s down, IZUNA–

Madara wakes up and doesn’t open his eyes, because he knows that if he does he’ll roll over and Izuna won’t be there in the next bed over. He feels like the ground has been torn out from under his feet and now he’s just falling alone into empty sky.

It feels strange, to not have Izuna there. Even as a little presence in the back of his head, like the way it feels to talk to someone using two soup cans and a piece of string, is gone. He and Izuna have– had always been notoriously strong ghost Drifters, to the point where they could divine each other’s emotions from across a building.

Tears well up in Madara’s eyes, and he presses the heels of his palms into them. His breath starts to shudder in his chest.

“Madara?” a scratchy voice asks, a hand laying itself on his thigh. “You in there?”

He scrubs at his eyes, then opens them to see Touka.

She looks about twice as bad as Madara feels. Her hair is a rat’s nest, her eyes are bloodshot and the bags underneath are deep enough to run a river through. She smiles at him wanly and runs her other hand over the crown of his head. “We didn’t think you were gonna wake up.”

I wish I hadn’t, he almost says. “How long was I out?”

She takes a deep breath and retracts her hand. “It’s been almost a week. Kaleidoscope Burst took most of the damage, but…”

But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much of the kaiju’s attack the Uchiha brothers’ Jaeger took, it wasn’t enough to save Izuna.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Touka sniffs. “You know those old Mark Twos as well as I do. Flimsy harness couplings and all that, right? If anyone is to blame then–” a sob catches in her throat– “then it’s me.”

“Touka–” Madara starts.

“No, I was supposed to check everything in that conn pod, but who thinks to check on the pins holding in the damn harnesses?” She laughs bitterly, then sobers. “I checked the box without even looking because hey, you’d never had trouble with it before, why would you start now and it’s cost me my husband–” she chokes on her words and devolves into ugly, halting tears.

Madara pulls her close. She twists her hands into his hair, identical to Izuna’s except for the sheer volume of it, and bawls into his shoulder.

After a minute or two, she pulls back and takes a deep breath, then gives another little laugh. “Look at me, Madara. A week without Izuna and I’m already falling to pieces.”

“You think I’m doing much better?” he croaks eventually. “I feel like I just saw him five minutes ago and I’m already in shambles.”

“What a pair we make, huh?”

Marshall Uzumaki lets Madara rest, heal, and grieve for a week before she has him back in the ring for another copilot. She supervises him for every bout and Touka, who’s been reassigned from engineering to the command center since Kaleidoscope Burst’s last drop, calls out strikes as they land.

Like it means anything. All twenty-three of the bouts Madara’s gone in the past hour have ended 4-0 in his favor, and by this point the candidate pool is shrinking back into the audience.

Mito is one of Madara’s oldest acquaintances, and even if he can’t speak to her without losing his temper half of the time, he recognizes the look on her face when she leans over to whisper something into Touka’s ear.

“That will be all for today. Thank you for participating. Madara, come here,” Touka says. Madara steps forward. “We think that maybe a test is in order.”

He levels the two women with the most unimpressed look he can muster. “Did I not just spend the last hour doing tests?”

Mito makes an amused noise. “A different kind of test, Madara. Report to the drop bay in an hour.”

“Oh, hells no.”

Inside the mangled remains of Kaleidoscope Burst’s conn pod– the only intact part of her left– waiting and hooked up to her Pons system, is Hashirama of all people, with his little brother looking annoyed as usual behind him.

Madara gestures to Hashirama, looking straight at Tobirama. “Is this-?”

“Is this the test Mito ordered? Yes.” Tobirama looks all too pleased to be plugging someone else into Hashirama’s head. He spent four years Drifting with his brother before Hashirama screwed up his leg and got the Hidden Leaf, the Senju brothers’ Jaeger, removed from duty. “She wants to make sure your head will still let you Drift at all.”

Madara scoffs. “‘Can I still Drift’, of course I can still Drift! Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hashirama pipes in. “Well, saying that you can Drift is like saying that you can do art. It’s a generalization. Just because you can make ice sculptures doesn’t mean you can fold origami worth a damn.”

“Just because you could Drift with Izuna doesn’t mean that you can Drift with anyone else. Mito wants to make sure you’re physically capable of finding a new copilot before she spends more time on the matter,” Tobirama clarifies. “And seeing as how Hashirama is the easiest Drifter we have on site, he’ll be your partner for this exercise.”

It’s for the sake of his age-old friendship with Hashirama that Madara refrains from making a joke about how Hashirama is easy, and he knows that Madara knows exactly what he’s definitively not doing.

He takes some measure of gratitude that at least it’s Hashirama and not some green cadet that’s never even seen a kaiju. Hashirama is familiar, he was the first person Madara ever Drifted with even though he’s not the one that stuck.

“I’ll be observing your Drift from here just in case something goes wrong.” Tobirama steps back to his sleek control panel– which looks oddly different from the ones in the LOCCENT. “Initiating neural handshake,” he says, getting ready to flip switches. “In five, four, three, two, one.”

Hashirama’s memories rush into Madara’s head. Little brother, Mother is gone, new mother, more brothers, Madara, Tobirama, Madara, Madara, Madara, police academy, the first kaiju taking away Father and Itama and Kawarama, the Jaeger program, why is Tobirama here he should be safe at home, Drift compatible, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory, pain and loss, you’ll never pilot again with a leg like that, Mito, command track, oh god Kaleidoscope Burst please respond–

Madara is thrust violently back into his own body with a jolt and knows that Hashirama just felt the same thing.

“Handshake successful. Try waving hello with your right arm,” Tobirama directs.

It works, as every other command Tobirama gives them does. It goes so well in fact that only Hashirama has to listen to what Tobirama’s saying Madara just follows his lead. Hashirama exists in Madara’s head as a long road he’s compelled to follow no matter where it may take him. He’s similar, in many ways, to Izuna. Bright, happy Izuna who was like the blinding, guiding sun on a summer’s day. Izuna’s wedding was on in the middle of summer, Izuna, Izuna, Izuna-

“Right hemisphere out of alignment,” he vaguely registers hearing before he’s disconnected from the Jaeger.

He comes out of the Drift like waking up from a dream, groggy and absent and with a faraway look in his eyes. All he wants to do is sleep and not think about the report Tobirama will be presenting to Mito and how he can guess exactly what it will say. Is capable of Drifting but chased the rabbit in almost record time. Unfit for duty. End report.

A few days later, Madara– who hasn’t been asked back to the sparring ring and is completely blaming that on the report Tobirama probably filed– is tasked by a newly-busy Touka with delivering a sheaf of Important papers to the R&D department.

The “R&D Department” is actually just three guys in a too-small room with a tiny budget that mostly gets spent on whiteboard markers, takeout, and weed. After Hashirama started Drifting with Tobirama but before Madara and Izuna got a Jaeger of their own, Izuna used to split his time between flirting at Touka in Maintenance and getting high with the R&D team. Madara used to hear a lot of stories about his friends’ crazy theories and that one time they all got crossfaded and woke up ten hours later having forgotten their own names.

But the budget has been cut down even more than usual this year, and so it’s not three guys anymore. It’s just one, and it happens to be the infuriatingly snarky one with white hair and tattoos that shouldn’t look as good as they do.

Tobirama isn’t paying attention when Madara walks in– he’s shoulder deep in a, well, in something, and his white button-down is discarded across the room in favor of the tank top that shows off real, honest-to-God biceps that he didn’t have the last time Madara saw his arms (granted he had been seventeen to the albino’s fourteen at the time, and knew what would happen if Hashirama even thought Madara had a thing for his brother) and also keeps his clothes from getting stained too bad by all the machine oil.

“Hey,” Madara says to get Tobirama’s attention.

The younger man startles, and in his haste to turn around flings a streak of oil in Madara’s face. He hisses and goes to wipe it off, but Tobirama slaps his hands away with a towel. “Don’t do that, you’ll just smear it.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” he demands. “Be blind for the rest of my life?”

Tobirama makes a frustrated sound and kicks his ankle gently to guide him over to a chair. There’s a sound like a metal hatch closing, probably from the machine he was working on. “Sit down, I have something for this.”

A few moments later, Tobirama starts dabbing a wet cloth over the oil-stained portion of Madara’s face. “If this is acid–”

“If I wanted to kill you, Madara, I have other ways. It’s just something I mixed up to remove oil and grease stains,” Tobirama rebuts.

“Why not just wear gloves?” Madara blinks hard and then opens his eyes wide when Tobirama backs off.

“I’m allergic to latex and this facility doesn’t buy anything else.” The younger man lets the awkward air hand between them for a few moments. “So why are you here?”

Madara fumbles with the sheaf of papers. “Touka asked me to bring you these.”

Tobirama finishes cleaning the oil off his arms and then gives the folder a cursory glance, but Touka has always been bad at labelling things. “Do you know what it is?”

“Something about Burst’s specs.” Madara shrugs.

“Oh.” Tobirama’s eyes widen. “It’s notes about her Pons system. I’ve theorized that her previous engineer made some kind of neural processing magnification modification to the Pons system to enhance the combat abilities of the Drift team.”

Madara is no genius, but he did take an AP class or two in high school (one of them with Tobirama, who had no business being a freshman taking senior-level classes). “Based on what evidence?”

Tobirama swiftly makes his way over to one of four desks covered in so many papers it nearly hurts to look at. He rummages around what’s either the world’s most complex sorting system or just a mess, and after a minute he sounds a victorious shout and pulls a thick file from the bottom of a pile and lays it out on the one clean half of a desk he can find.

“These are neural performance records taken from one of your Drifts with Izuna in Burst,” Tobirama says, pointing to one long scanner sheet of paper, then to a second. “These are records taken of Izuna when he was Drifting in Burst with Touka.”

“Wait, what?”

“It was her birthday and she failed the Jaeger program’s physical but they were Drift compatible and I helped him out with giving her the birthday present to end all birthday presents, okay?” he points to a third record. “This is the scan I took of them from their anniversary Drift a few months later, this time at using the system I have here.” He gestures to the piece of machinery he was tinkering with when Madara walked in.

Madara studies the records. “The performance levels are completely different.”

Tobirama nods. “And this is a scan I took of you and Hashirama the other day, compared to the record I took of him the last time we snuck into Hidden Leaf.”

Again, the performance scores are wildly different. “So you want to prove that there’s something up with my Jaeger?”

The younger man nods. “Yes, and there’s just one more scan I need to prove it.”

Madara bobs his head too. “A scan of me outside of Burst.” He gives Tobirama a Look. “Did you tell Touka to send me over specifically with the specs?”

He nods again. “You’ll be Drifting with me this time.”

Madara lets out what’s definitely not a squawk of outrage. “You want me to Drift with you? We don’t even know if we’re compatible!”

“Please. If you can Drift with numbskulls like Izuna and Hashirama, you can Drift with me,” he scoffs. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m almost as easy to Drift with as Izuna or Hashirama.”

This is different, Madara wants to scream. Hashirama is different, Izuna was different. How long has it been, since he tried to Drift with someone who wasn’t his best friend or his brother?

“Just because we can both Drift with Hashirama doesn’t mean anything,” Madara exclaims. Tobirama let out another wordless noise of annoyance, but before he can say anything Madara interrupts him. “Just because a positive magnet connects with a negative magnet does not mean that two negative magnets will connect!”

“Just put on the damn headset and let me get my results.” Tobirama shoves the headpiece at Madara’s chest.

He grumbles. “I hope no-one believes your results.”

Tobirama is wearing a matching headset as he reaches for a button. “Initiating neural handshake in five, four, three, two, one.”

Mother, Hashirama, a big treehouse, loss, learning, top of the class, accelerated learning courses recommended, he’s too young for this class, why is he here, beat them all out, what’s a kaiju?, Hashirama don’t go, ‘Tobirama why are you here”, Drift compatible, Hidden Leaf, success, saving people, killing kaiju, failure, injury, find a new copilot or find a new job, Izuna, Izuna oh God please no–

If Hashirama’s mind is a path and Izuna’s was the sun, then Tobirama’s can only be described as an endless freefall over a cliff into the sea. Being in the Drift feels like Tobirama is his parachute. Through the Drift he knows that Tobirama views Madara like a chained lion, and he can feel the euphoria the other man knows as he sets the lion free.

Madara comes back into his own mind feeling like he can take on the world and win, in a way that Drifting with Izuna had never provided.

When Madara first entered the PPDC, the team he and Izuna took over from– a pair of women who piloted a wonderful Jaeger named Whirlpool Dawn– told him that there was Drifting and then there was Drifting. Maybe, he thinks, this is what they meant.

He looks over to Tobirama, and finds that the albino’s crimson eyes are just as wide and his face is just as flushed as Madara’s own must be. He watches Tobirama’s adam’s apple bob as he swallows thickly.

“I think we need to go talk to Mito,” Madara hears, though despite being aware of Tobirama’s every move he doesn’t know if the words were said aloud or if he just understood Tobirama’s intentions through the Drift.

“I think you’re right,” he replies.

Two months later finds Tobirama and Madara in matching Drift suits and getting ready to test drop for the first time together.

They had argued for a long time about which Jaeger they would pilot. They went back and forth with their reasons; Hidden Leaf was in better condition, but Kaleidoscope Burst was the newer and safer mech, for example. But before they could come to a conclusion (which many figured would never happen at all) the victorious new head of engineering, an early twenty-something called Sarutobi, informed them that they wouldn’t have to decide at all because he’d gone around them and gotten the all-clear from Mito to combine the two Jaegers.

So here they stand, ready to pilot Konoha Burst under the watchful eyes of Touka, Hashirama, and the entire world. What Sarutobi’s done by combining two defunct Jaegers is unprecedented, and even with a hundred different news crews waiting for the results of the test Madara isn’t scared.

He doesn’t have to look or talk to know that Tobirama is putting on his helmet and raring to go, but he does it anyways.

“You ready to rock the world, Skyfall?” he drawls.

“You know it, Lionheart.”

If you enjoyed this piece, why not take a look at other pieces written by the same author on AO3.

#rated: T #Sumigakure Winter Wishes 2017 #Sumigakure Stocking Stuffers 2017 #submission #sumigakure #rank: b #pwnie3

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wellmeaningshutin · 7 years

Text

Short Story #31: Selfish.

Written: 1/28/2017

Curled up at the bottom of the shower, she let the warm water wash over her, extending her time in the shower so she would have a couple extra minutes to not face real life. In the shower she could think about whatever she wanted, it was like it existed outside of time and reality, her real problems melted away. Eventually, though, she had to turn off the water, grab a towel and dry herself off, and step out into the bathroom to start her day. Life wasn’t hard for her, there were no significant problems she had to escape, she wasn’t depressed, and nothing of importance was even happening that day, but that was the problem. Everything had become boring.

Brushing her teeth, like always, up down, left right, over under, up down, left right, blah blah blah, spit, rinse, clean the tongue, rinse, floss the teeth, one two three, one two three, one two three, until almost every tooth was cleaned out. Her eyes met with that of her reflection, but neither of them really saw into each other, their eye’s glazed, even in a reversed world she was still dead inside with boredom. The routine marched onwards, she had to sit and dry her hair, then take the same steps to make sure it was presentable, she had to put all of her clothes on, everything blurred, next thing she knows she’s driving to work, then entering data like always, then she’s driving home, eating a little bit then going to sleep, and then she’s back in the shower, then cleaning her teeth, then driving to work, then doing her job, and on and on and on and on, some point hoping that she’ll die so that she can have a way of stopping all of it, but she doesn’t, her car doesn’t crash, she doesn’t choke alone, her house isn’t broken into or burnt down while she sleeps, everything keeps happening with the exception that she slowly gets older as time passes, and people start to care less and less about her, the same amount that she stops caring about herself, until one morning she decides not to get out of bed.

The alarm keeps wailing but she doesn’t get up, doesn’t bother to even put pillows over her head to drown the noise out, she just lies there and stares at her ceiling fan, which is spinning like always, but she never really noticed. Beep beep beep. The fan isn’t particularly interesting, but its weird that she never really paid attention to it before, to the type of wood the fan was made out of, the way it looks when it spins, the amount of dust stuck onto the blades. Beep beep beep. Did she always sleep with the fan on? She never questioned that before, and wasn’t sure if she turned it on before sleeping, or just never bothered to turn it off. Beep beep beep. Immediately sitting up, she turned and hit her alarm clock so it would shut off. How old was she? She had to focus, she wasn’t sure. Every birthday the same thing happened, the same family members with the same shitty cake, dry and yellow with stiff, chocolate frosting slabbed on like mortar waiting for bricks. Some shitty, numbered candles put on each time, what were last years numbers? She couldn’t remember. What year is it? Here, she also drew a blank, so she checked her phone, subtracted the year with her birthday, and apparently she was… 23? That couldn’t be right, that was around the age she started her office job at.

Walking quickly into the bathroom she looked into the mirror and, to her surprise, she was still young. She could’ve sworn she was much older, but she couldn’t remember paying attention to herself in the mirror before. She could definitely remember at least ten birthdays being celebrated at her office, all hers, even if they were all the same, but how come she was never promoted in this time? She slumped to the floor, staring at the towel rack across from her, one towel striped green and brown, the other solid black, both clean. How? She never washed them, her routine never changed, so how could they be clean after years and years of daily use? Looking around the bathroom, it all seemed reasonably clean too, the only thing that was slightly messy was the waste bin, but it was only half way full. There were no memories of her ever emptying it.

After sitting on the floor for quite some time, questioning why her house was so clean, why she was so young, how come she never had to change her clothes for the weather, why nobody at her work ever seemed to be promoted, the same songs always played on the radio, her phone started to buzz. She looked at the caller ID and it was her boss, probably upset because she wasn’t at work, so she answered, “Hello?” It would’ve been reasonable for him to give her an earful, and she braced herself.

“Its ten o’clock, why aren’t you at work yet?” The voice was calmer than she had expected, “Is something wrong? You’ve worked here for twenty years and have never been late.” That couldn’t be right. While waiting for her to answer, heavy breathing filled the other end.

“Sir, that, that can’t be right. I checked the calendar and-”

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Why did you do that?” He sounded pretty annoyed, and it was clear that he was holding in some anger. “Just.. Never mind, just come back into work.”His voice wavered as he said this. “We’ll sort this all out when you get here.”

“I think I should stay home,” not understanding why she was filled with a sense of dread, the same way she felt as a kid before she opened her bedroom door to find her dog, dead, after it choked on one of her stuffed animals it attempted to swallow.

“No you don’t, that’s not what you think, you want to come back into work, like always, don’t you?” Silence on her part. “Don’t you?”

Instinctively, she took the battery out of her phone, and threw both the phone and the battery into her toilet. Oddly, she did want to go to work, because maybe he could clear something up, but she trusted her gut. What was she supposed to do now? It was surprising to realize that she didn’t know what to do with her free time, she wasn’t sure if she had any before. What did she do during weekends? Nothing recent came up, her memories were just a blur of work days, she wasn’t sure what she did in her down time. Did she have any friends? Did she have any hobbies? She wasn’t sure. Remembering what she used to do in college, she decided to sit on her couch and watch television.

Fiddling with the remote, ass planted firmly in the couch, she couldn’t figure out how to turn the damn thing on. There were batteries, she checked. The television was also plugged in, and the power wasn’t out because she could switch the living room light on and off. No matter how often she pressed the buttons on the television itself, it wouldn’t come on, and she was in a terrible mood, not knowing how to pass the time, until she finally found a phone number, on the back of the television, that she could call if it was experiencing any technical problems. However, she was quickly disappointed again when she realized that her phone was in the toilet, and she wasn’t sure if she had a land line, but after some searching it turned out that there indeed was one in the kitchen. How come she didn’t instinctively know if there was one or not? How come she had a nice television but never tried to use it before? She punched in the number and it didn’t have time to ring before somebody picked up, immediately saying, “Hello, how may I help you today?”

“Hey, uh, I can’t seem to turn my television on. Its plugged in and everything but nothing seems to work.”

“Hm… that is a problem. We’ll send some people out there real quick to help you out. What’s your name and address?”

“My name is Caroline Sherwood, I live at…” where did she live? “One second.” She had to put the phone onto the counter and walked towards her front door, so she could check the address, but right as she touched the doorknob she heard a knock at the door. Something told her not to answer. Impatient grunting could be heard outside, the shuffling of feet, more than one person was out there. Quietly stepping backwards, she planned on talking to the customer service rep in case anything bad was going to happen.

“Caroline?” It was her boss. He rang the doorbell three times. Ring ring ring. “Are you okay, I just want to check on you.” Muffled sounds could be heard of him talking to somebody outside.

She grabbed the phone, put it up to her ear, and before she could talk she heard the representative say, “We sent somebody to your address, answer the door.”

A different voice, “Television repair, open up.” Ring ring ring.

“Don’t you want it fixed, wasn’t that why you called? Answer the door.”

“I’m worried that you might be sick, you’ve never missed a day of work before, what’s gotten into you?”

Ring ring ring.

“Hey, lady, I just need to fix the television. If this is a prank call I’ll have to charge you for coming out, so let me in!”

“He’s waiting outside, miss. Why won’t you answer the door? Why are you being so difficult?”

Promptly, she hung up the phone. At least that was one less voice making demands of her. Somebody at the front was shaking the door knob, there was a thud, as if somebody hit it with their shoulder. Grabbing a chair, she moved to put it under the door knob, an attempt to keep the door shut, but a knock on her glass back door made the hair on her neck go straight up, and she froze, not knowing weather to turn around and look at the person outside, or to finish blocking the door. “Caroline,” a voice all to familiar, “Caroline. Its your father, turn around and look at me girl.” Standing with her chair held to her chest, she slowly bent her knees down and crouched to the floor.

“If you don’t open this door you’re fired! This is a busy work day and we need all hands on deck here, and you’re being awfully selfish taking a day off right now!”

“I just need to fix the television lady, why are you making this so hard?”

“Its your mother, she’s sick, open up, let me in, I need to talk to you about your mother now.” Of course mom was sick, hadn’t she been sick for… years now?

The phone started ringing again, just another noise shouting at her. Shakily, she stood up and, moved, clumsily, to put the chair under the door knob. The door shook a couple times more, the knocking on the glass door resumed, but she didn’t bother to turn around, the yelling never stopped, the voice mail clicked, and she could hear a new voice start to talk, “Hey Caroline, its me, Trish, from college, remember? Remember the crazy times we used to have? Hahaha, that was so long ago, wasn’t it?”

“You’re being selfish by locking me out, you’re mothers really sick! How many years did she spend supporting you? Is this how you’re going to act when she needs your help? Ungrateful!”

“Look, miss, if you don’t answer the door I’m going to have to call the police. I have grounds to believe that you might be in danger in there, since you called but won’t answer.”

Ring ring ring. Thud thud thud. Tap tap tap.

She slumped down against the chair, watching the front door shake, refusing to turn around and look out the back door. She could feel somebody out there, watching her. Shakily she put her hands over her head, and started to quietly cry.

“My boss is coming today, so its not just your ass on the line, but mine too! I was ready to give you a promotion! Wouldn’t you want that, huh? But you won’t get that if you won’t open the fucking door!”

“I was just in town for a little while and I was hoping we could get together, hang out, you know like the old days. I just got divorced and I was hoping that we could have some fun, I’m at the coffee shop that’s not too far from your place, the one on your way to work-”

“They say she might not last long, why wont you go and say something to her before she dies?”

“I’m going to count to three, if you don’t come out you’re fired!”

“Okay lady, you forced my hand, I called the cops, they’re on their way.”

Tears began to stream down her face, she didn’t understand what was happening.

“One.”

“-so come out and meet me now, don’t be selfish! Don’t throw me away now that you have some fancy job, like what makes you think you’re better than me?”

“After everything your mother did for you”

“Two.”

She turned to run deeper into her house, she wanted to hide but she didn’t know where. When she was standing up she locked eyes with the man outside, and his face made her freeze in her tracks. That wasn’t her father, was it? Whoever he was, when she saw him he began to open the sliding glass door and walk into the house. Stepping backwards towards the front door, she could hear somebody yell “Police!” and the door was kicked in, the chair shattering from the impact of the blow, and people flooded into the house, all feeling familiar but off, all grabbing for her, pulling her hair, arms, clothes, legs, mouth, dragging her outside as she tried to scream and fight it.

A crowd had amassed outside, all of her neighbors, coworkers, old friends, relatives, all out there yelling and jeering at her. “Why wont you visit your mother, how selfish of you!” “Why can’t you go to work, and instead you want to watch television and rot, how selfish!” “You think you’re better than everyone because you have a job” “Selfish!” “Ungrateful!” “Selfish!” “Bitch!” The mob pulled her into the middle of the street and for a second she thought she could get free, or at leave move around, but they were just letting the people outside have a go at her. They screamed in her face as they all clawed at her, pulling her in different directions until her limbs came off, blood spurting into the faces of her attackers, they cheered, she came apart into many pieces, her intestines slumped onto the asphalt and her other organs followed, people hoisted up limbs, others crowded around her insides, devouring them, all knowing now that she’d be grateful for everything they did for her.

#Well Meaning Shut In #Free Write #Short Story #Writers on Tumblr #Getting Better

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