alexseanchai | (no subject)

niqaeli's playing you-drabble-me-I-drabble-you. I am kind of cheating here.

Title: Costume
Rating: PG
Summary: How Ruby got her name.
Pairings: OFC/OMC, for given values of 'OFC'. (

grimsqueaker et al, not a word)
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 400

There's a Subway in—well, the post office says it's not Pittsburgh, but everyone outside the Pittsburgh metropolitan area says it is. There used to be a young woman who worked there. Her name's Sarah. She'd wake up at five most mornings, shower and dress and hop the outbound bus to the community college, spend three hours in class, then hop the inbound bus and get off at the stop nearest the Carnegie Library and spend twenty minutes there before heading the three blocks to Subway for the lunch rush, and then the dinner rush, and then prep and cleaning while Padma manned the counter, and then the bus back to Sarah's crappy apartment.

One day Sarah walked into her economics class, swearing she wouldn't lose her nerve this time, and she sat down next to the cute guy, and she said hi I'm Sarah and he said hi I'm Tim. And one thing led to another, and for Sarah's birthday in July Tim gave her this piece of costume jewelry with a big red glass stone. Ugly as sin, but she got revenge with this hideous Hawaiian shirt for his birthday in August, and he wore the shirt so she kind of had to wear the necklace.

Then it was September, a new semester, and Sarah wore the necklace the first couple days of classes. She didn't see Tim once, but they did an icebreaker activity in oral communications and for some reason people kept calling her Ruby.

October. November. Sarah ditched Tim's cheating ass in December and bounced the necklace off his skull into the bargain. January, March, May, and Sarah was waiting at the bus stop after work, half her attention on Latoya from oral comm that fall and half on the Tanya Huff she'd gotten from the library that morning, when a whole bunch of lights blew. Sarah wasn't quite clear on what happened next, but right after that she heard Latoya, Ruby are you all right, Latoya's voice faraway and clear as mud, and another voice. Ruby, huh? I like it. We have got to do something about your wardrobe, though, this shirt is uglier than hell.

I'm fine, Sarah tried to tell Latoya, and go to hell, she told the voice, but Sarah's mouth didn't move, and the voice just laughed and said, been there, sweetheart, done that, got the ugly maroon polo shirt.