FF: In The Town Where I Was Born
Title: In The Town Where I Was Born
Author: Quaggy
Category: Various
Rating: G
Notes: These drabbles can be separately or all together as one united fic. Each of these drabbles are exactly 100 words so that they would qualify for tww100. The current challenge (#181) is “Water.” Wasn’t that convenient! For those of you who care about things like this, the last drabble features Nora and Aaron. Thank you to edgeriffic, gatsbyfan and caz963for the beta and to teresadivicenzo for finally giving Aaron his name! :-) And, of course, thank you to flippet for such an inspiring idea! Ages ago, I wrote a silly little drabble about singing in the shower. Flip thought that Donna listening to Josh sing Yellow Submarine would make a good drabble and I promised to write it for her birthday. Flash forward many months later, and I’ve written her five. Which is only fair since I missed her birthday a while ago. Sorry, for the delay, Flip! Happy belated birthday!
Surprise
They’re grown men who will, with any luck, soon be running the country. So how come the words “black tie event” suddenly makes them so inept? Lord knows what they would have done if you hadn’t stopped by.
You’d finally gotten Josh off the phone so he could shower and had just untangled the mess Sam made of his bow tie when ungodly sounds (which could be called singing, if they weren’t atonal) start echoing from the bathroom. You think you’re a little horrified.
“Josh sings Yellow Submarine when he’s in a good mood,” Sam shrugs, grinning at your discomfort.
Weak
He’s so weak it scares you. He falls asleep without warning. Just standing tires him out, but he’s still insisting on taking a shower. His will remains strong as steel. He won’t wait for the nurse and you aren’t allowed in the bathroom with him. He can’t stop you from sitting outside the door, though. Just in case.
At first, you think he’s talking to himself. His voice is too faint to be heard over the water, but the chorus of Yellow Submarine is made to be sung as loudly as possible. He’s off-key and he sounds wonderful.
Break
You want to pummel them all with a baseball bat. Carrick. Congress. Even Leo. They all tried to break him just because they could. So Josh works harder. Stays longer. Because he won’t be the first to break.
After three days of not going home, you force him to at least take a shower. You stand outside the door, like a prison guard. Even though you know that you can’t actually hear if he’s under the water, you press your ear against the door… and discover that he’s singing Yellow Submarine. But you can tell his heart isn’t in it.
Freedom
You can hear the shower running and Josh singing about yellow submarines. It’s like nothing has changed. Except everything has. You’re not his assistant anymore. You now can enter the bathroom while he’s in the shower. Even get under the water with him if you so choose. You don’t know what to make of this freedom.
He emerges with only a towel wrapped around his hips and flashes you a grin, before rummaging in his suitcase for something to wear. And suddenly it doesn’t seem so strange. This is who you are now. And who you’ve always wanted to be.
Duet
Nora’s completely occupied with her dollhouse but she took the thirty minutes until bedtime warning with fairly good grace. Whether she will take the ten minute warning so well remains to be seen. Not wanting to borrow trouble, you head down the hall to see if Josh has succeeded in giving Aaron a bath without causing a flood.
You can hear him singing from down the hallway. Yellow Submarine, of course. But tonight there’s something new. Aaron is singing along with his father, just as loud and just as off-key.
You don’t think you’ve ever heard anything quite so lovely.