Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Prism of Winter ❯ Waking ( Chapter 2 )

Waking

Alex turned over in his sleep, suddenly cold. He thought muzzily that he must’ve kicked the blankets off at some point and groped for them in the dark. He pulled a handful around him and noticed there was something soft and warm underneath. Too asleep to care, he wrapped himself around it to keep the cold away.

Alex woke again when the lights came on. He hit his face against something hard before he opened his eyes. A girl’s voice demanded, at the same time he did, ‘What are you doing in my room?’

Alex’s voice trailed off when he saw that he was not, in fact, in his room. He did not own an intricately carved oak desk, nor a fuchsia and pastel purple boombox. Very few men would lay claim to the legions of Beanie Babies that occupied every spare corner of the room, or the floral sheets on the bed. Apparently, the girl standing in the door with her hands on the light switch did.

‘Get in or get out, don’t stand there staring,’ Alex said before the girl could recover. She was the sister of the guy who’d thrown the party, a bony high school junior with rabbit teeth who still managed to be sorta cute. ‘The bed’s big enough for two– three.’

‘Ow. What hit me? And why am I in bed with you?’ asked the girl already in the bed as she pushed herself up. Her trademark tie was loose, with the knot hanging at breast-level, and her white shirt hung half-open and rumpled from sleep. The bed’s owner turned around and slammed the door.

‘I wouldn’t know, Mike. The bed was empty when I got here. Then someone stole the blankets.’ Alex looked down at the old Swiss Army watch he wore everywhere except the shower. ‘Damn. 3AM. Worst time to be awake after a party. Get the light, will ya?’ The young man wrapped his share of the blankets around his shoulder and lay back down.

‘Oi! Don’t go to sleep when I’m talking to you!’ Mike punched him in the arm and continued, ‘Are you gay or something? Think about where we are!’

‘I sat five exams in the last two days. Lemme sleep and I’ll make it up to you in the morning. Or go find someone else.’

‘Who else is there? Everyone else at the party has either hooked up or left by now. Besides, I know you’ve had a crush on me since high school.’ Mike crawled on top of Alex as she said this. Her face was flushed and her breath smelled of whiskey. ‘I can show you what you’ve been missing out on all these years.’

‘What disease are you trying to pass on to me this time?’

‘Ryan Parson started that syphilis rumour because I wouldn’t put out for him!’ Mike screamed in his face. She raised a hand to slap him, but fell against his skull instead. She rubbed her forehead and wormed her body under the sheets as she said, ‘Fine. Be that way. Maybe I’ll just tell everyone you couldn’t get it up.’

The light was still on when the alarm clock woke them. The sun shone a fuzzy yellow through the blinds, and birds sang loudly outside. Alex stretched out his left hand to turn off the alarm, only to slap bookshelf beside the bed. His right arm was trapped under Mike’s chest. Powerless to stop the noise, he began to sing softly, ‘Wake up, Maggie, I think I have something to say to you….’

‘Sing the second verse and I swear I’ll rip your balls off and shove them up your ass,’ Mike murmured from her position on his chest. She rolled off him to hit the alarm and continued on to land upright on her feet beside the bed. Alex pushed himself up and out of bed a little slower, saying, ‘Come on, let’s raid Scott’s kitchen and see if he has anything worth eating.’

‘Gimme a hand with my tie, will you? I can’t get it on right.’ Mike tugged at the knot, but it’d gotten tangled in the night and refused to slide. Alex sighed, moved behind her, and retied the shiny blue length of silk. ‘Hey! What’re you doing back there?’

‘Calm down. This is the only angle I can tie it from. There. Now let’s get downstairs and eat all the good stuff before anyone’s up.’



Notes: Just a little sketch of two old friends and a strange night that came to me unbidden. Tell me what you think of their previous relationship based on this little thing.

The song Alex was singing is ‘Maggie May’ by Rod Stewart and the second verse begins, ‘The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age, but that don’t worry me none: in my eyes you’re everything.’ Another line mentions that Maggie ‘in the morning kick[ed] [him] in the head.’ I do not think any fan of M. Stewart would appreciate hearing it from a bedmate first thing in the morning.