pip's original fiction

( alone/together )

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author notes: truc_d_ouf's poem for week three of august used a similar reflective pattern which was shamelessly stolen for this entry, though something different came of the reflection in this piece. credit for that idea! dedicated to my platonic partner, who rambled at me over the phone for half an hour while i scribbled ideas and muttered incoherently before the poem itself would deign to be written.

I don't usually do author's notes, but I thought I ought to for this one. This is the first time I've written with these characters, but I do plan to continue using them for the next few contests. Too much to explore for one entry, unless I want to spend hours writing it only for it to be too long for anyone to read!
I'd planned to start with them last week, but I didn't have the time to write at all. Still, "clouds" is the topic that gave birth to these characters, a connection that will become clear in later installments.

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He drags himself out of bed at what has to be a horribly un-Godly hour, but instead of checking the clock, he keeps his eyes wedged shut to block out the sliver of light in the hall. Goddamn streetlamps. Goddamn law that says he can't put a blackout curtain on the window in his front door. (Goddamn police who fined him three times and threatened to throw him in jail if he so much as thought about putting it up one more time.)

The door nearly rattles in its frame as his unwelcome visitor pounds on it again. "Jonathan William Anderson, I know you're in there! Let me in out of the snow!"

He rests his head against the frame and fumbles with the lock, not bothering to take off the chain. As he eases the door open, he pries his eyelids up the tiniest bit and groans at the light. "What."

"Take that ridiculous chain off your door and let me in."

He forces his eyes open even further and makes out the blurry shape of an old woman on his stoop. "What do you want?" he asks as his lids slide shut again.

She sighs loudly. "To come in. Out of the snow."

"Why should I let you in?"

She sighs even more loudly. "Because you're causing a scene."

"You're the one causing a scene, beating down my door at god-knows-when, god-knows-why."

"Does family mean nothing to you anymore?"

He cracked his eyes again. "You're not my father. Last I checked, that was all the family I have."

"Johnny--"

He groans and shoves himself upright. "It's Jonathan, thank you. Now give me one reason not to close this door and go back to bed."

She sighs yet again at his impassive face. "Because I'm your grandmother?"

Jonathan opens his eyes as wide they'll go, not altogether an impressive showing. "You look nothing like Gramma Helen, and she died ten years ago, anyway."

"Mercy, I'm not Helen Anderson, and I never would like to be. That old stick-in-the-mud. No, I'm your mother's mother, and you'd do well to let me in before that headache of yours develops into a full migraine. The Graves family is not meant for city life, and I'm going to just wring your mother's neck for not leaving you at least some sort of hint about what you are before she left. If my own head doesn't explode first, that is."

He shuts the door, smirks to himself at her indignant squawk, and unfastens the latch. "Bedroom's dark," he offers.

"Fabulous," she says, sweeping into his house as though it were her own. He latches the door behind her and follows her bemusedly down the hall and into his refuge.