Early Sunday Morning.
Title: Early Sunday Morning (Something Has Changed)
Author:minacoleta
Part: Oneshot
Paring: Gen; pre Sean Van Vleet/Tom Conrad
Rating/Warnings: G / somewhat depressing subject material.
Disclamer: I own neither Sean Van Vleet or Tom Conrad. This story was in no way made to degrade or embarrass either of them.
Summary: Inspired by
"Early Sunday Morning" by Edward Hopper. Done for my Creative Writing Class in school.
Word Count: 2698
Author's Notes/Dedications: Nothing special, I just decided to use Sean as my character in my story for Creative Writing. And then, of course, Tomrad popped up in there. I might continue with this 'verse, but it really, really depends if I get enough inspiration or not. :)
It was the same routine every day, the same steps in the same direction on the same streets of Brooklyn. It had a charm that never ceased to amaze; the amount of sky, the sense than even though you were in the city there would be times when everything was dead quiet, the way the shops were warm and small and welcoming. Early morning, the weekend stupor of Sunday seeping into peoples bones and making them drag their feet down the streets.
Every morning Sean walked from his little brownstone above a grocery store that seems to have been closed for years and years, parked on a sun drenched street with a name no one ever remembers. Sean peers in Sunday morning, a kind of curiosity urging him to cup his hands around his eyes to block out the sun, squinting to see through the dust, only on the day he wakes up so early no one would ever see him doing such a foolish thing. Nothing ever changed, even though Sean tried to fool himself into believing that maybe something had shifted. Every morning he checks, just to find the same result; the shelf in the back was still leaning against the wall, a few cans sat on a counter, the pile of screws that Sean suspected had once fastened a register to the table sat in the same exact pile. Sean was never disappointed that there was no change. The store seemed like it was the only secure thing in his life right now, even though he knew that wasn’t true. He had a routine that he hadn’t failed to break since he’d moved to his little apartment two years ago.
There were two apartments in the brownstone, though it was only two stories. The original single apartment had been split into two, and the old woman who owned the building lived in the back, saying she could never stand hearing the hustle and bustle of the street below. Sean just nodded and smiled and was happy that he had found a place to live so soon after moving to the city.
He was from Chicago, and even though both cities were similar, he still missed him home town and the feeling he got from walking the streets in other gray city. He knew for sure he had never seen such beautiful sidewalks as this new street though, drenched in sunlight from the east every morning and from the west every evening. Sean always wondered how lucky was to have gotten a street aligned perfectly with the sun, two points on a compass he could always rely on.
He moved here because his fiancée had broken their marriage. He still didn’t know why he had the rings sitting in his beside table instead of on his finger, but he didn’t think of it much. Everything about Chicago for those few weeks had pained him enough that he needed to get far, far away. It may not have been the best idea, but it’s not like he had a job or a family to tie him down. He didn’t even have many friends, but the one’s he had been close to had been sad to see him go. All he really did was sit in his room, drink jack daniels and write music before passing out face down on his unmade bed, and so he followed the same pattern in his new home.
The old woman in the apartment behind him had him play for her once, sitting on the floor in her living room as she dozed in an armchair that seemed far to large for her small frame. He never asked her how she ended up here, in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn on a sun bright street that had too much traffic, how she came to own a building with an empty grocery store that Sean peered into during the sunrise every Sunday morning.
Now, see, Sunday mornings had always been this sacred time for Sean, a time when he hated to be interrupted, a time when he never made plans, and he woke up at five am even when he had been up until three. It was a thing. A thing he didn’t change. He would walk out, the cold air biting at his face and would go, the sun warming his back as he walked west, toward Chicago, and then his front as he gave up and walked east, going back home.
The old woman didn’t have family, but she had pictures. Many, many photo frames all over her house, showing family. Sean never asked, but he looked, wide eyes taking in what seemed like a large, happy group of people, laughing and talking and smiling. Sometimes he could spot the woman, sometimes he couldn’t. It was hard to not ask, but he had learned a long time ago that some things were best left unsaid. He came over for dinner with her sometimes, smiling wide when she thanked him and he would play a bit for her after until she fell asleep, finally covering her in a blanket and closing her door softly behind him.
He would sometimes take the train into the city and walk around, sitting in Tompkins Square or Washington Square park, watching people. Sometimes he would walk around, walk into random little coffee houses and stay until someone kicked him out or the people’s conversations next to him would get to be too annoying to bear. He would never bring his guitar out, as much as he wanted to, because he was too afraid of it getting snatched out of his hands. He sometimes thought about getting a job, but his savings would last a bit longer. Just a bit longer.
The old woman knocked softly on his door one night and he smiled and followed her into her apartment when she motioned him to follow. He felt like a child all over again when he settled on the floor next to her chair, but he felt as if it would be disrespectful to sit in the over stuffed chair next to hers, even larger than her own. He folded his legs under himself and looked at the scrapbook she drew out, showing him photos and ribbons and a diploma for her daughter. It was sad, watching her shaking hands turn the pages, reminiscing as she drew her fingers over gray faces of family members that were long gone. She showed him a picture of what the store had once looked like, and he smiled at the sunlight, just as bright as it was when he left his tiny apartment every morning.
She hesitated on a photo of a boy, color, towards the back of the album. He was young, and looked uncomfortable and a little upset in the suit he was wearing, his floppy brown-blonde hair falling over his bright blue eyes. He was with the woman Sean was sitting next to, and when he looked up he could see the fondness in her eyes. He was her only grandson, she said. Turning the page, the boy was older, with a woman with long brown hair and the same blue eyes, and he was smiling, his nose ring glinting in the sun as he posed for the shot with his grandmother, who was sitting on a bench next to him. The next few photos were actual photographs, taken of flowers and the view out the back window, of the train that was a few blocks away. She told Sean that he had taken them, Tom, and had given them to her.
Tom hadn’t visited her in a very long time, the sadness in her eyes said. Sean covered her hand with his own and smiled up at her, hoping that he was helping, just a little. She said the clear quality in his eyes reminded her of Tom, and Sean thanked her.
Sean wanted to help her get in contact with Tom, but he never actually did anything. He thought he had time to look, to get up the nerve to speak to someone who had, in concept, abandoned his own grandmother. He sat in his room, guitar in his lap, light off, and stared up at the sky that was blackened out by the lights of the big city. Would anyone be there for him when he was old, or would he be alone, just like he was now?
A few weeks passed, Sean visited the old woman every day and played for her, or just sat and read as she dozed. He kept her company as she aged in her chair, too big for her, cradling her body. She never took out the photo album again, but she asked him to framed the a photo for him one day, one he hadn’t seen before. It was Tom again, looking at the camera, his blue eyes a bright focal point, hair still falling over his eyes, but there was stubble on his cheeks and his face was sleepier, as if he hadn’t really been rested in years. Like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it was an effort to even look into the camera lens. Sean took it and noticed the writing on the back only when he was struggling to open the frame he had bought, simple enough to leave the photo as the thing you look at, but not cheap.
To grandma. I hope you like the photo. Remember little jonny walker? He took it special just for you. I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. I love you.
Sean found her a few days later and cried only after the ambulance had taken her away, up in his room, because now, he really was all alone in this big city.
How could he have ever tricked himself into believing that this was his home, that he would somehow fit in here, one day. Who really would care if tomorrow he didn’t follow through with his routine? Would that boy at the counter of the coffee shop he went to every Tuesday noticed when Sean didn’t come in? Would the girl at the register in the grocery store noticed when he didn’t shop for his groceries on Friday? Would anyone notice at all, if he just got up and left?
He stayed in his room for a while, unable to even walk out in fear of being confronted by her door across from his own, maybe still even slightly ajar from when they had taken her away. The doorbell rang on Sunday, the first Sunday in two years he hadn’t left his apartment, and it was a man, a lawyer in pressed suit that eyed Sean with disdain when he came downstairs in his ratty jeans and an unwashed shirt.
For some strange, strange reason, the old woman had left the apartment to Sean. The entire building belonged to him, including the shut up grocery store that hadn’t been open for years, the very same one that Sean peered into every Sunday morning. It took a week, exactly a week, for Sean to walk downstairs, the cold November wind biting into his bones. He had forgotten his jacket, but wasn’t bothered enough to go back upstairs. The sun was low and hardly warm, just casting a misgiving glow on everything. The shadows of the store were dark, as the sun couldn’t reach the interior through the dusty windows. Finally, when Sean’s fingers had gone numb, he fumbled the key into the lock and opened the door.
It was untouched, the air stale with years and years of stillness. The open door swept the dust into the air and made Sean’s eyes water and his nose tickle. He sneezed and looked around, before closing the door and slowly walking the aisles, his shoes making footprints in the dirt covering the floors. A mouse skittered away from him as he approached. It seemed that now that he was inside, there really wasn’t much special about the store at all.
Every Sunday, he peered through the glass at something that had intrigued him, an empty space with a story that could be told through some medium he had yet to discover, a photograph, maybe, or a note, written down and tucked somewhere safe. There were tales he had never heard in the peeling paint and the pile of screws on the counter and the empty shelves. It was dark, but Sean wasn’t scared; just disappointed, for some reason. With a heavy weight in his stomach, he left the store, locking the door behind him, and went back upstairs to his small apartment.
They came for her things in a few days. Sean stayed in his room after he had let them in, playing his guitar at the open window, watching them haul the chairs, the big blue one that was always empty, and the smaller white one she had always sat in. It didn’t seem so big now, dwarfed by the truck and the big men carrying it. A man looked up at the window Sean was looking out of, not one of the workers. He was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and flip flops despite the almost freezing air. His blue eyes were deep and sad, almost covered by his fringe of brown-blonde hair, his nose ring shining just a bit in the sun. It was scary how long it took Sean to realize he was looking at Tom.
Sean shouldn’t have been surprised that there was a knock on his door a minute after Tom had disappeared from his sight outside the window. He opened the door because how could he not? This was Tom. He owed this conversation to the old woman, even though Sean had experienced a rush of anger at the man for abandoning his own grandmother when she had loved him so dearly. Tom fidgeted in the doorway, like he knew what Sean was thinking. There was no furniture left in the woman’s apartment across the hall, and Sean felt another wave of sadness at the emptiness of the mantle, the way the rugs and chairs and curtains were no longer there. It seemed so bleak now, just plain and white where there had once been a life.
Tom was quiet for a long time, looking at Sean from under his hair, and Sean just looked past him, out the window in the other apartment. The silence was thick and unsettling and Sean was torn between saying something to break it or the reckless urge to just slam his door in Tom’s face and never come back out. But then Tom apologized, voice simple and without inflection and Sean’s face tightened before he could calm himself down enough to respond with a “Why?”
Tom didn’t say anything again for a while, finally turning his eyes down to his own feet. “I owe it to her. The apology. And you were really close to her in the end, so I feel like I also owe you an apology. For deserting her. Deserting you both.”
Sean swallowed and still didn’t meet Tom’s eyes. “I don’t even know you.”
Tom was looking at him again and Sean finally looked back. “I also owe you a thank you. So. Thank you. I’m Tom.”
Sean sighed and leaned heavily against the doorframe, closing his eyes. There was silence again and when he opened his eyes, Tom was still watching him. His eyes were dark and didn’t even look blue in this low lighting, but Sean looked at him longer and could see the deep sadness, the struggle not to show what he was feeling. He looked even worse than the picture the old woman had given him to frame. In the photo, he had looked like he was able to bare the weight upon his shoulders, but now, behind the blank façade, it seemed as if he was going to crack.
Sean straightened up just a bit, but his shoulder still rested against the doorframe. He didn’t feel strong enough just yet. “I’m Sean.”
Not just yet.
Author:minacoleta
Part: Oneshot
Paring: Gen; pre Sean Van Vleet/Tom Conrad
Rating/Warnings: G / somewhat depressing subject material.
Disclamer: I own neither Sean Van Vleet or Tom Conrad. This story was in no way made to degrade or embarrass either of them.
Summary: Inspired by
"Early Sunday Morning" by Edward Hopper. Done for my Creative Writing Class in school.
Word Count: 2698
Author's Notes/Dedications: Nothing special, I just decided to use Sean as my character in my story for Creative Writing. And then, of course, Tomrad popped up in there. I might continue with this 'verse, but it really, really depends if I get enough inspiration or not. :)
It was the same routine every day, the same steps in the same direction on the same streets of Brooklyn. It had a charm that never ceased to amaze; the amount of sky, the sense than even though you were in the city there would be times when everything was dead quiet, the way the shops were warm and small and welcoming. Early morning, the weekend stupor of Sunday seeping into peoples bones and making them drag their feet down the streets.
Every morning Sean walked from his little brownstone above a grocery store that seems to have been closed for years and years, parked on a sun drenched street with a name no one ever remembers. Sean peers in Sunday morning, a kind of curiosity urging him to cup his hands around his eyes to block out the sun, squinting to see through the dust, only on the day he wakes up so early no one would ever see him doing such a foolish thing. Nothing ever changed, even though Sean tried to fool himself into believing that maybe something had shifted. Every morning he checks, just to find the same result; the shelf in the back was still leaning against the wall, a few cans sat on a counter, the pile of screws that Sean suspected had once fastened a register to the table sat in the same exact pile. Sean was never disappointed that there was no change. The store seemed like it was the only secure thing in his life right now, even though he knew that wasn’t true. He had a routine that he hadn’t failed to break since he’d moved to his little apartment two years ago.
There were two apartments in the brownstone, though it was only two stories. The original single apartment had been split into two, and the old woman who owned the building lived in the back, saying she could never stand hearing the hustle and bustle of the street below. Sean just nodded and smiled and was happy that he had found a place to live so soon after moving to the city.
He was from Chicago, and even though both cities were similar, he still missed him home town and the feeling he got from walking the streets in other gray city. He knew for sure he had never seen such beautiful sidewalks as this new street though, drenched in sunlight from the east every morning and from the west every evening. Sean always wondered how lucky was to have gotten a street aligned perfectly with the sun, two points on a compass he could always rely on.
He moved here because his fiancée had broken their marriage. He still didn’t know why he had the rings sitting in his beside table instead of on his finger, but he didn’t think of it much. Everything about Chicago for those few weeks had pained him enough that he needed to get far, far away. It may not have been the best idea, but it’s not like he had a job or a family to tie him down. He didn’t even have many friends, but the one’s he had been close to had been sad to see him go. All he really did was sit in his room, drink jack daniels and write music before passing out face down on his unmade bed, and so he followed the same pattern in his new home.
The old woman in the apartment behind him had him play for her once, sitting on the floor in her living room as she dozed in an armchair that seemed far to large for her small frame. He never asked her how she ended up here, in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn on a sun bright street that had too much traffic, how she came to own a building with an empty grocery store that Sean peered into during the sunrise every Sunday morning.
Now, see, Sunday mornings had always been this sacred time for Sean, a time when he hated to be interrupted, a time when he never made plans, and he woke up at five am even when he had been up until three. It was a thing. A thing he didn’t change. He would walk out, the cold air biting at his face and would go, the sun warming his back as he walked west, toward Chicago, and then his front as he gave up and walked east, going back home.
The old woman didn’t have family, but she had pictures. Many, many photo frames all over her house, showing family. Sean never asked, but he looked, wide eyes taking in what seemed like a large, happy group of people, laughing and talking and smiling. Sometimes he could spot the woman, sometimes he couldn’t. It was hard to not ask, but he had learned a long time ago that some things were best left unsaid. He came over for dinner with her sometimes, smiling wide when she thanked him and he would play a bit for her after until she fell asleep, finally covering her in a blanket and closing her door softly behind him.
He would sometimes take the train into the city and walk around, sitting in Tompkins Square or Washington Square park, watching people. Sometimes he would walk around, walk into random little coffee houses and stay until someone kicked him out or the people’s conversations next to him would get to be too annoying to bear. He would never bring his guitar out, as much as he wanted to, because he was too afraid of it getting snatched out of his hands. He sometimes thought about getting a job, but his savings would last a bit longer. Just a bit longer.
The old woman knocked softly on his door one night and he smiled and followed her into her apartment when she motioned him to follow. He felt like a child all over again when he settled on the floor next to her chair, but he felt as if it would be disrespectful to sit in the over stuffed chair next to hers, even larger than her own. He folded his legs under himself and looked at the scrapbook she drew out, showing him photos and ribbons and a diploma for her daughter. It was sad, watching her shaking hands turn the pages, reminiscing as she drew her fingers over gray faces of family members that were long gone. She showed him a picture of what the store had once looked like, and he smiled at the sunlight, just as bright as it was when he left his tiny apartment every morning.
She hesitated on a photo of a boy, color, towards the back of the album. He was young, and looked uncomfortable and a little upset in the suit he was wearing, his floppy brown-blonde hair falling over his bright blue eyes. He was with the woman Sean was sitting next to, and when he looked up he could see the fondness in her eyes. He was her only grandson, she said. Turning the page, the boy was older, with a woman with long brown hair and the same blue eyes, and he was smiling, his nose ring glinting in the sun as he posed for the shot with his grandmother, who was sitting on a bench next to him. The next few photos were actual photographs, taken of flowers and the view out the back window, of the train that was a few blocks away. She told Sean that he had taken them, Tom, and had given them to her.
Tom hadn’t visited her in a very long time, the sadness in her eyes said. Sean covered her hand with his own and smiled up at her, hoping that he was helping, just a little. She said the clear quality in his eyes reminded her of Tom, and Sean thanked her.
Sean wanted to help her get in contact with Tom, but he never actually did anything. He thought he had time to look, to get up the nerve to speak to someone who had, in concept, abandoned his own grandmother. He sat in his room, guitar in his lap, light off, and stared up at the sky that was blackened out by the lights of the big city. Would anyone be there for him when he was old, or would he be alone, just like he was now?
A few weeks passed, Sean visited the old woman every day and played for her, or just sat and read as she dozed. He kept her company as she aged in her chair, too big for her, cradling her body. She never took out the photo album again, but she asked him to framed the a photo for him one day, one he hadn’t seen before. It was Tom again, looking at the camera, his blue eyes a bright focal point, hair still falling over his eyes, but there was stubble on his cheeks and his face was sleepier, as if he hadn’t really been rested in years. Like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it was an effort to even look into the camera lens. Sean took it and noticed the writing on the back only when he was struggling to open the frame he had bought, simple enough to leave the photo as the thing you look at, but not cheap.
To grandma. I hope you like the photo. Remember little jonny walker? He took it special just for you. I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. I love you.
Sean found her a few days later and cried only after the ambulance had taken her away, up in his room, because now, he really was all alone in this big city.
How could he have ever tricked himself into believing that this was his home, that he would somehow fit in here, one day. Who really would care if tomorrow he didn’t follow through with his routine? Would that boy at the counter of the coffee shop he went to every Tuesday noticed when Sean didn’t come in? Would the girl at the register in the grocery store noticed when he didn’t shop for his groceries on Friday? Would anyone notice at all, if he just got up and left?
He stayed in his room for a while, unable to even walk out in fear of being confronted by her door across from his own, maybe still even slightly ajar from when they had taken her away. The doorbell rang on Sunday, the first Sunday in two years he hadn’t left his apartment, and it was a man, a lawyer in pressed suit that eyed Sean with disdain when he came downstairs in his ratty jeans and an unwashed shirt.
For some strange, strange reason, the old woman had left the apartment to Sean. The entire building belonged to him, including the shut up grocery store that hadn’t been open for years, the very same one that Sean peered into every Sunday morning. It took a week, exactly a week, for Sean to walk downstairs, the cold November wind biting into his bones. He had forgotten his jacket, but wasn’t bothered enough to go back upstairs. The sun was low and hardly warm, just casting a misgiving glow on everything. The shadows of the store were dark, as the sun couldn’t reach the interior through the dusty windows. Finally, when Sean’s fingers had gone numb, he fumbled the key into the lock and opened the door.
It was untouched, the air stale with years and years of stillness. The open door swept the dust into the air and made Sean’s eyes water and his nose tickle. He sneezed and looked around, before closing the door and slowly walking the aisles, his shoes making footprints in the dirt covering the floors. A mouse skittered away from him as he approached. It seemed that now that he was inside, there really wasn’t much special about the store at all.
Every Sunday, he peered through the glass at something that had intrigued him, an empty space with a story that could be told through some medium he had yet to discover, a photograph, maybe, or a note, written down and tucked somewhere safe. There were tales he had never heard in the peeling paint and the pile of screws on the counter and the empty shelves. It was dark, but Sean wasn’t scared; just disappointed, for some reason. With a heavy weight in his stomach, he left the store, locking the door behind him, and went back upstairs to his small apartment.
They came for her things in a few days. Sean stayed in his room after he had let them in, playing his guitar at the open window, watching them haul the chairs, the big blue one that was always empty, and the smaller white one she had always sat in. It didn’t seem so big now, dwarfed by the truck and the big men carrying it. A man looked up at the window Sean was looking out of, not one of the workers. He was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and flip flops despite the almost freezing air. His blue eyes were deep and sad, almost covered by his fringe of brown-blonde hair, his nose ring shining just a bit in the sun. It was scary how long it took Sean to realize he was looking at Tom.
Sean shouldn’t have been surprised that there was a knock on his door a minute after Tom had disappeared from his sight outside the window. He opened the door because how could he not? This was Tom. He owed this conversation to the old woman, even though Sean had experienced a rush of anger at the man for abandoning his own grandmother when she had loved him so dearly. Tom fidgeted in the doorway, like he knew what Sean was thinking. There was no furniture left in the woman’s apartment across the hall, and Sean felt another wave of sadness at the emptiness of the mantle, the way the rugs and chairs and curtains were no longer there. It seemed so bleak now, just plain and white where there had once been a life.
Tom was quiet for a long time, looking at Sean from under his hair, and Sean just looked past him, out the window in the other apartment. The silence was thick and unsettling and Sean was torn between saying something to break it or the reckless urge to just slam his door in Tom’s face and never come back out. But then Tom apologized, voice simple and without inflection and Sean’s face tightened before he could calm himself down enough to respond with a “Why?”
Tom didn’t say anything again for a while, finally turning his eyes down to his own feet. “I owe it to her. The apology. And you were really close to her in the end, so I feel like I also owe you an apology. For deserting her. Deserting you both.”
Sean swallowed and still didn’t meet Tom’s eyes. “I don’t even know you.”
Tom was looking at him again and Sean finally looked back. “I also owe you a thank you. So. Thank you. I’m Tom.”
Sean sighed and leaned heavily against the doorframe, closing his eyes. There was silence again and when he opened his eyes, Tom was still watching him. His eyes were dark and didn’t even look blue in this low lighting, but Sean looked at him longer and could see the deep sadness, the struggle not to show what he was feeling. He looked even worse than the picture the old woman had given him to frame. In the photo, he had looked like he was able to bare the weight upon his shoulders, but now, behind the blank façade, it seemed as if he was going to crack.
Sean straightened up just a bit, but his shoulder still rested against the doorframe. He didn’t feel strong enough just yet. “I’m Sean.”
Not just yet.