Warmup: 180 [2]

Here is the other warmup that I promised last week!
It's still Wednesday over here.

---

Abel stared into the mirror as he pushed his tie up to the collar of his shirt, stared hard at the tiny curves on his mouth. It looked oddly like a smile, and Abel could not bring himself to push the corners back down.

He turned and glanced at the bundle of covers that slowly rose and fell, and he thought to himself, "Why am I realizing this just now?"

He picked up his pre-prepared briefcase and walked out the door, locking the house from intruders immediately after. He slid the key into the ignition and fired up the engine, backing up from his long driveway.

The sun shone brightly in the sky, and today Abel didn't squint or look away. He drove on, silent, admiring the way the sun's rays reflected off the car's hood, the roads, and buildings. No one on the roads obnoxiously sneaked past stop signs and red lights as Abel swore they did every other day. Actually, now that he thought about it, today was stranger than all other days. Different.

Abel reached the tallest, highest bank in the city, one that nearly dominated all the other small banks. Cars sat in all of the parking spaces in front of the building. Abel shrugged mentally and drove around to the back. He parked and pulled his briefcase out with him, locking the car as swerved around to the front to enter.

The receptionist smiled at Abel as he approached. "All of the spots in the front were occupied, sadly."

"I don't mind," Abel said.

The women stared at him, blinking as if she just watched a parent smacking their child's cheek harshly. "You don't?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Stuff happens, it's all right."

He left the receptionist in her stupor and walked along halls and stood in an uncrowded elevator. Once the dig indicated his floor, he stepped out and walked down a hall until he entered his own shiny office, seeing "ABEL WILTSHIRE" on the door.

Again, why was he just realizing this now?

He slid into his chair and set his briefcase on his desk, opening it and pulling out papers in neat stacks, bound by large clips. Today, instead of being a train wreck, work would be a peaceful meditation full of mathematics and people being screwed over by money and someone offering helpful advice.

Today, Abel was a good guy.

"I'm home," Abel said as he entered his house, glancing back at the door that was left unlocked. He walked into the living room, shoes deposited at the door, and saw Mark sitting on the couch with the television glowing with a music video. Mark's eyes blinked at the phone in his hand, his fingers tapping swiftly. When Abel sat on the couch, Mark quickly hit the "send" button and laid his phone next to him, eyes resting on Abel.

"Oh, hi. I guess work was pretty good today, huh?"

"Any reason you guess so?" Abel said with a smile.

"You're in a good mood. Usually if it's a bad day, you pout or something."

Abel chucked, causing Mark to flinch. "Not at all, it's quite the opposite! I'm sure I helped some people from financial debt for six years. That is definitely something to be happy about."

"Wow, okay," Mark said, leaning into Abel with a second glance. "Nothing bad at all?"

"Not at all."

"I'm glad that you are glad," Mark sighed happily, watching the random commercial on the television. "I like these days."

Abel ruffled Mark's shaggy hair and nuzzled him. "So what would you want for dinner?"

Mark shrugged.

"I can make whatever you want. Or buy to your wishes. Or we could go out? Or perhaps you would rather wait for later or hang out with friends, that would be okay with me."

Mark turned to face Abel. "If I skipped out on a dinner with you for friends, you would be okay with that?!"

"That's what I said, wasn't it?"

Mark slowly turned back to the television and shrugged. "I just didn't think you would be, I dunno, okay with missing a plan."

"Trust me, I'd be okay." He nuzzled Mark once more and he felt Mark shudder under him. The younger boy scooted away from Abel and looked at him.

"You're acting different."

"I am?"

"Yeah. All... nice and stuff."

"Is that bad?" Abel asked, his head tilting.

"I guess not, but it's kind of freaking me out." Mark bit his lower lip.

Again, Abel chuckled. "I would have never thought that kindness would freak you out."

Instead of further prying, Mark just stared at Abel for a few moments. Next to his hands, his phone vibrated, and Mark's face visibly brightened. He glanced at his text and looked up at Abel. "Oh, dang, looks like Nellie did want the group to eat after all. Sorry, is it okay if I go with them?"

"Of course. I can occupy myself here in your absence," Abel said, no glint of rage in his eyes.

Mark nervously smiled and walked to the door, slipped on his shoes, and dashed out the door.

Warmup: 108 [1]

Yet another weekly warmup from The Periwinkle Pen!
A character wakes up and their personality is the total opposite.
I'm also going to post another of the same exercise (with Abel instead of Mark) for next week.
I do have longer stories, they are just either: a) incomplete or b) getting feedback.

---

Something reeked of freshly pressed suit.

Mark sat up in bed and scratched at his head, hair filling his fingernails. His fingers yanked at tangles and smoothed out his hair. Throwing the covers aside, he let his legs swing over to the edge, facing the bathroom door. He could hear water running from behind.

For once, Mark thought to himself, I'm actually awake in the morning.

A minute later, the water shut off, and then Abel opened the door, nearly jumping when he found Mark staring at him. "Why are you awake so early?"

Mark found himself narrowing his eyes. "I don't need a reason for my body to wake me up."

He expected a snap--for Abel to growl with his eyebrows forming an incomplete V--but Abel just opened his mouth, but then just shut it and blinked. Dumbfounded. Mark felt his own mouth curl into a smirk.

Abel shook his head and walked to his clothes, which laid over a chair. Dressing himself, he said, "When my body feels shocked, I say questions. It's not my fault you /somehow/ took that the wrong way." His tone grew intense.

"Whatever you say. Because God knows you can't ever be wrong."

Glaring, Abel's head turned to Mark as he slipped his shoes on. "Something is wrong with you."

"There you go again! It's me, like always, right?!" Mark stood up and headed for the door, and over his shoulder, he added, "You're a perfect little princess."

Mark could only reach the end of the hall before he felt a hand grab his shoulder and turn him around. Abel lowered himself to eye level, glaring. He searched his eyes before saying, "Did you take strange drugs? Hit your head on something hard? Because you're acting like an asshole, not the Mark I know."

"Oh, excuse me? An ass, you say? I guess you're kind of shocked, looking into a mirror after all."

Abel's hands squeezed Mark's shoulders, and Mark could feel the rage slowly leaking out through them. "What are you going to do, hit me? It's not my fault you can't handle the truth."

"For one," Abel said, sucking in breath and letting his grip loosen a bit, "I don't deliberately say shit to piss you off. And second, this is not how you usually act. You're not an ass. You're not mean. You're not supposed to hurt other people. You're--"

"So I'm not usually supposed to be strong? Thanks. Thanks a lot, Abel."

Mark slipped away to fetch a new outfit, staying in his personal room until he knew for sure Abel left for work. He texted his friend, Gil, to pick him up, and he paced outside for almost ten minutes when Gil's car pulled into the driveway. Mark felt himself roll his eyes as he walked to the car.

"Took you long enough," Mark sighed, stepping into the passenger seat. Gil performed a double take and pushed his glasses up his nose.

"What?"

"You heard me."

Gil shifted his weight but continued to stare at Mark, eyebrows concerned. A head poked out from the backseat. "Mark, are you feeling okay?" Nellie asked, wrinkling her freckle-covered nose.

"Just stop right there," Mark sighed, exasperated and lifting a hand up in emphasis. "You're going to sound like Abel."

"/I'm/ sounding like Abel?" Nellie asked incredulously.

"You going to sass me?"

"This is weird," Gil said looking out the window on the driver's side.

"You're acting different, Mark." Nellie said, shrinking back just slightly. "I'm only concerned. I didn't mean to sound accusing or anything."

"Just because I'm irritated doesn't make me ill. That's what I hate," Mark said.

"If you're too irritated," Gil began to mumble, "we don't have to hang out today."

Mark looked between them for a moment, and then he started to slowly nod, a strange smile cracking his face. "I get it, I get it, you two. You don't want me around because I'm not all happy and stuff. That's fine, have fun, you two."

And out the car he went and into the house, stomping.

Gil and Nellie glanced at each other in disbelief.

"Did that seriously happen?"

"I don't know. Pinch me."

The Second

To the ones that have been living in my head,
to the ones that changed my life,
to the ones that helped me through a hard time,
to the ones that led me to improvements,
to the ones that make me feel giddy when thinking about them,
I love you. Happy Second Anniversary, my idea babies. <3

---

[The Second]

"Oh my gosh, I can't even begin--"

"You can say, 'thank you so much, I love you.'" Abel said, smiling.

Mark's face continued beaming at the little box in his hand. He bit his bottom lip with his mouth curved upwards, and then he looked directly at Abel. "'Thank you so much, I love you.'"

With a satisfied chuckle, Abel kissed Mark gently on the lips and scooted closer. Mark leaned into him and looked again at his gift. After some thought, he said, "You do know we're the past the stage where we have to impress each other. It's been that way for over a year now."

"I know," Abel said, his smile slightly flattened. "I just wanted to get you something special this year. Something that will last long."

"I know, I know. I'm still not used to it. And, hey, memories last a long time."

"Until you develop Alzheimer's."

"Okay, let's stop being negative," Mark said, kissing Abel's cheek. Abel tried to turn his face away, but Mark grabbed his cheek and turned him around. Mark's eyes lost their giddy shine, and he straightened his face. "Really, I'm very glad for this. For these two years. For these struggles. All that you've done, really." After a pause, he added, "When you're sweet, you're very sweet."

Closing his eyes, Abel brushed away Mark's hand and wrapped his arm around his boyfriend's shoulder. "To that, I'll say my thanks for you. Thanks for dealing with the rocky beginning. Thanks for dealing with the obvious problems with being with me. Thanks for putting up with my personal demons and stupid shit like that." His voice dwindled down to silence.

A train horn whistled, and the chuggs of the engine and wheels slowly gained audacity. Mark sighed happily and looked again at the box in his hand. He set the box down on his knee and reached into the box. "That's what being in love is about, isn't it?"

In his hand, he tightly clutched the skull ring with the words "Through struggles and strife, I love you."

Exercise: Text

I made up this exercise out of nowhere, the exercise being: a character gets progressively mad to the brink, but something happens (very vague) that simmers them down, maybe to the point of a happy smile. This is simple, but it was fun to write anger! This exercise intentionally continued from the previous morning routine, to later in the day. There's no "night" routine with these characters because 1) I haven't thought of one and 2) they would just eat and have leisure time, then either sleep or have sexual intercourse, then sleep. The exercise was started around mid-October.

---

[Text]

Hands clenched into fists, a vein here and there becoming visible. The teeth inside his mouth gritted against the other row. Nostrils flared, and if he were able to, smoke would shoot from them. The laptop in front of him was set to a page of a client’s financial information, but it wasn’t the root of the anger. Abel glared at the screen nonetheless, the screen vicariously suffering unspoken, silent wrath. What Abel wanted to do was to grab the damned piece of technology and transfer his anger into it; he wanted to feel it all drain out and let the area be claimed rightfully by content, as it had earlier. And to prevent the anger from doubling back, he would chuck the laptop at the wall and watch it fall apart, bringing the anger down with it.

But that wasn’t rational.

If only people weren’t so dumb, he wouldn’t have to suffer so. Pointless questions (which could be answered with common sense) spiraled endlessly, drilling into his head like a child’s slide hours a day. Dumb looks that reflected no logical skills faced Abel, who was not fortunate enough to have a client who had a vague idea of what they were going to do. Meetings would be arranged and wasted by either cancellation or the client not following advice, pushing them deeper into their own problems. People would screw themselves over and blame him. “Why,” Abel thought to himself, "must I, who is smart and successful and stressed, have to deal with all these imbeciles?!”

They made his job hell.

Abel took a deep breath and exhaled. It'd do absolutely no good to blow up while at the office. If someone heard, he could get in trouble or fired. Control over emotions was always a struggle. All the emotions wanted to do was to pour out and rebel against the ego's better judgment. Needless to say, the emotions always won, no matter how hard he tried to cage them in. It didn't help that the emotions were always consisted of anger and rage--which is why people believed he had anger issues.

The impulse to destroy circulated throughout his body. How simple would it be to launch the object and watch it shatter? Watch it fall apart? Become broken? Too easy.

"You'd be an idiot to do it," his ego told himself. "You didn't succumb to such savagery any other time, so why now?"

"Everyone's pissing me the fuck off!" the id said, "Why can't I?"

"Because you'd have to pay consequences," spoke the superego.

The ego didn't want one side to be displeased. "Why not take it out on something insignificant?"

Instead, Abel's eyes were drawn to a stapler. It couldn't cause too much damage to the wall, and the noise wouldn't attract roaming people who would jump at the chance to get a co-worker fired. The cost of replacing it wouldn't be high, either. Definitely a step up from the laptop.

He reached to it and grasped it in his hand--

His leg left a vibration, and he released his grip. He withdrew his phone and glanced at the screen. A new text message.

Only one person ever sent texts to him.

Abel slipped the phone under the table--even though he was the only one in his office--and checked his messages. Naturally, as he assumed, it was from Mark:

hope ur having an ok day so far I love u and I’ll be waiting for u when u get home. :)

Somehow, neither the laptop nor the stapler looked appealing to throw at the wall.

Exercise: Morning Vigor and Stupor

This is yet another writing exercise I've taken from The Periwinkle Pen called "My Morning Routine." As the exercise title states, it's about writing a character going through their morning routine. It sounds simple, but it really is fun. I don't usually think about a character's morning, so this helped develop two characters even deeper. This was started way back in late September 2010, on the 28th.

---

[Morning Vigor and Stupor]

A generic beeping sound shot through the early morning, with the sun fresh over the horizon. Abel’s eyes opened without a struggle, and he slowly sat up in bed. His eyes narrowed, the alarm hurting his ears, and knowing he didn’t require the help of a clock to wake up; his internal clock was accustomed to waking daily at six in the morning sharp. The alarm was for his partner.

Abel turned to the sleeping form that lay next to him, submersed under covers that rose and fell regularly. The form neither shifted nor squirmed. A question that came to Abel almost daily once again resurfaced: how could someone sleep through the ruckus of a rather loud alarm clock?

The sound became unbearable, and Abel quickly shut the alarm off. Despite being awake under five minutes, his senses were fully with him, and his mind was already working normally. It was one of the advantages of being a morning person.

“Wake up, Mark,” Abel called, and though the intention was supposed to awake someone, he said it quietly. Softly, he shook the smaller form’s shoulder, trying to disrupt his dream and rest.

Now the partner turned and looked up with barely open blue-gray eyes. “What?” Mark asked, his voice nearly transforming into a yawn. Unlike Abel, he wasn’t a morning person, and his mind never operated properly unless awake for at least ten minutes.

“If you want a good breakfast, wake up.”

Mark struggled to keep his attention focused on Abel, and he only turned over and said, “I’ll be fine if I have some cereal.”

Abel frowned at the thought. Cereal was too easy to make and common. Surely, there should be some effort put into starting the day out right? Instead, he tried another approach to waking his partner.

“It’s the last time you’ll see me for several hours.”

Mark roused himself up and clumsily wrapped his arms around his neck. “I’m sorry that I’m tired. Love you.” Translation: I'm not getting up.

“Try to be awake by the time I’ve showered,” Abel said, and he escaped from Mark’s weak hold on him. With no great effort, Abel stepped off the luxurious bed and headed to the bathroom. Almost happily, clearly still drained, Mark resumed his place under the covers, trying to plug in more minutes of sleep.

The shower was quick and warm, with absolutely no disturbances (though if it were from Mark, Abel wouldn’t mind). In hardly any time at all, he stepped back into the bedroom, a towel wrapped snug around his waist. At its previous spot the form still lay. "What a child," was Abel’s immediate thought, and it justified why he shouldn’t be quick to anger over something meaningless. Children stayed up late and paid the toll for it in the morning.

He moved to his closet and picked out a clean white shirt, a fresh suit that was dark blue with matching pants, and picked out a tie—not a required uniform, but one Abel stuck to by his own choice. Taking a piece of undergarment as well, he dressed himself accordingly, checking the result in the mirror.

Abel checked his watch: six-nineteen. In about an hour and forty minutes—which left enough time for a good breakfast—he had to be sitting in his office at his desk, prepared to rigorously accomplish tasks. Again, he found himself at Mark's side. "Wake up."

Eyes opened, unfocused.

"You'll need to be awake for school," continued Abel.

"First class starts at nine-something," came the mumbled reply.

"There's no reason not to wake up now."

Mark whined, hiding his face in his soft pillow, too drained to argue how tired he was.

Abel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. A hassle, a struggle, a child was Mark. Mornings were a role play: Abel as the mother harping endlessly for her child to be prepared for school. Mark could very well be Abel's child. A child who was five years his junior, went to college, held an unstable job, drank, and engaged in sex.

"I'm making breakfast now, so get up."

He went into the kitchen and set out a pan; he was in the mood for traditional bacon and eggs with a biscuit on the side. Always careful when cooking, no worry clouded his mind about staining his clothes with grease and grime.

Mark still hadn't woken up.

Eating alone when company was preferred and not impossible to obtain was dejecting, the silence hollowing out the room more so, yet Abel kept a content composure. It was still early in the morning, and nothing of great concern happened yet; at least try to be fine before hell came forth. Only then would it be appropriate to gather up piles of rage to build a looming fortress.

After the meal, dishes were calmly placed into the sink. A plate of bacon was left on the table while leftover eggs took refuge in the fridge. Easy enough for a certain someone to find.

The next destination was the study, Abel's room that contained a clean desk perfect and all materials needed for work. Items needed displayed in Abel's night from the previous night, and because the room was precisely organized, it didn't take long to gather and place them in his briefcase. Abel shrugged his jacket on and the outfit of a nearly perfect hardworking man was complete: nice hair, clean shaven, snazzy suit, a non-tacky tie, and a briefcase.

Abel took one last look at the still sleeping figure in the bed, only locks of black visible among the sheets. A shame there would be no goodbye kiss, as seen in black-and-white movies of the man and the housewife.

He'd better eat the bacon and eggs.