#bymwriteswrites

WIP that writer-cord enjoyed

Art by @elikesthis on Twitter (https://twitter.com/elikesthis)

    Twin peaks of boxes sit in an entryway. One grows larger as discarded cardboard, sliced through with mechanical precision, is piled atop it; the other shrinks as the yet sealed vessels are pulled from its slopes. In the valley between them sits a blonde woman, silently going about her work as a sing-song hum carries from the shallow depths of the Los Angeles two-bedroom apartment. The rhythm of her task unconsciously steps into time with the rhythm of the music as her mind automates the labor and her thoughts become free to wander. They move to thinking, as they often have in recent times, on the truly cosmic good fortune she’s found herself in. That she, who had made so many mistakes in so many different ways with the songstress of the tune, would ever get to come home to listen every day to verses of growth and better times… Well, if it’s more than she deserves, she’s not about to confess her unworthiness to whatever deity oversees such things.

    The scar that’s adorned the right side of her face for over a decade now creases as she smiles to herself, her head tilting left and right to the rise and fall of the song, until she pulls a box from the mountain to her right. The smile tenses as, in her state of melodic reverie, she yanks a box from the center of the mass without thinking and watches the mover’s mountain wobble over her, threatening disaster. The smile falters, then fades completely as the threat becomes a promise, replaced with a look of indignation at the universe daring to punish her carelessness, as the stack collapses inwards onto itself and then over onto her, burying its would-be dismantler beneath a wave of packaged paraphernalia and ‘ This end up ’ tape.

    She lays there, hands sticking out of the pile into open air, like a victim of a landslide who had just barely fallen short of safety while the rest of her sits mildly battered at worst from the actual impacts. The embarrassment of the ordeal does more to account for her immobility than the actual weight atop her, until socked footsteps slide to a stop in the tiled hallway.

    “You okay, dude?” A voice, still light with the airiness of song, calls down to her from above her packaged predicament.

    Even with her eyes barricaded by boxes, the blonde can still make out by tone alone the soft sigh of sweet concern; though even louder to her is the smirk its owner must be wearing, and the blonde can’t keep a defensive tone from her reply.

    “I’m fine, just got betrayed by physics,” she mutters, the sound muffling as it moves through the horrendous acoustics of piled cardboard cuboids. A high-pitched titter is all the response she gets, muffled as well by its maker covering her mouth in a small but appreciated attempt to save what remains of the stuck woman’s pride. Some golden strands of hair silhouetted by the dark tiles of the entryway flooring and a pair of hands are all that the rescuer can see of the woman on the floor as she continues to barely restrain her laughter.

    “Yeah yeah, very funny,” the loosely entrapped woman bemoans, despite the smile that’s returned to her face, brought about by the familiar laugh of her new flat-mate. “Pull me out please?” She asks, making little grabby motions with her hands as they stick out from her prison.

    "Sure,” the free woman squats down, mirth subsiding at last, and grabs the proffered hands. She makes no effort to point out that her oft gym-bound companion would have no trouble escaping by her own means as she clasps calloused hands and counts down. “Three… Two… One…” A single strong yank and boxes tumble to both sides as Sasha Waybright slides out from beneath them, coming to a rest beneath the still smirking visage of Anne Boonchuy. “Saved your life,” Anne teases as she boops Sasha’s nose.

Finish reading: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43708329

Check out elikesthis, she’s the awesome artist who made the image above: https://twitter.com/elikesthis