Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor any places, things, characters, or ideas therein. The aforementioned belong to Masashi Kishimoto, Shounen Jump, TV Tokyo, etc. I am writing this story for entertainment purposes only, not monetary gain.

Summary: It's Halloween, and Tenten is all alone in the big, creepy Victorian house she and Neji bought. What is that strange noise she's hearing in the dead of night? :Neji x Tenten:

Rating: T

Warnings: Violence

Pairing(s): Neji/Tenten

Spoilers: None

Universe: AU

Author's Note: That old adage about writers drawing off what they know? Yep, it's actually mostly true. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, but this happened to me... I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!

*~Chirp~*

.:fyd818:.

The house just felt so empty.

Sighing heavily, Hyuuga Tenten stared at the darkened screen of her television, which she had just turned off in preparation for bed. Standing, she picked up her empty wineglass, balancing her saucer on top as she headed for the kitchen, flipping off the sitting room light on her way past.

"Time for bed," she told herself firmly. Tenten knew she was being ridiculous - she'd lived by herself for several years before she married Neji and they moved in to their new house. But the two-story Victorian - complete with tower, spacious front porch, and even a stained-glass window - felt so empty. With Neji gone on a business trip for his uncle, who owned the marketing empire Neji worked for, this was Tenten's first time spending the night in the new house by herself. And she had two more after this one to look forward to before he finally came back home.

"I really need to get a dog." Tenten checked to make sure the front, back, and side doors were closed and locked before heading upstairs. The darkness of the house's first floor crept up behind her, as if chasing her, and she picked up her pace for the last few steps. "I'm not a coward. But I am, apparently, crazy, since I'm now talking to myself."

Her vivid imagination was one of her strengths, since her fanciful thoughts gave her plenty of material for the series of young adult fantasy books she wrote. She'd recently finished the third out of a planned seven-novel series, and it was currently with her editor. However, at the moment Tenten's imagination was working against her, since her mind could quite easily envision all sorts of dark, unsavory creatures lurking in the darkness behind her.

As soon as she reached her bedroom, Tenten slammed the door behind her and slumped against it, letting out a breath. "You're being ridiculous," she told herself. "Just because you're in this big creepy house all by yourself on Halloween does not mean you're in danger from ratchets, or a banshee, or anything like that. Geez." Shaking her head at herself, she set her phone on the nightstand before stepping out of her slippers and tugging off her robe. "And look at the bright side! I can celebrate completing my next book and sending it to my editor by sleeping in. No alarm for me!"

With that decided, Tenten climbed into the tall mahogany-framed, canopied bed, tugged the covers up over her, then clicked off the light. Laying there quietly staring up at the frothy ivory curtain above her, she thought back to some of the costumes she'd seen on trick-or-treaters earlier in the evening, before she'd turned off the porch light and settled in for TV and a glass of wine to unwind. She'd seen everything from Disney characters, to superheroes, a couple of ninja, and even two characters from her books (which was more than flattering) on older kids who were supervising their younger siblings.

She waited for sleepiness to come, but it didn't. The darkness of the room folded around her like a blanket, creeping up towards the bed (and her) on restless paws-

No! Tenten rolled over onto her side, pulling the covers up to her chin and burrowing her nose against her husband's pillow. What is wrong with you tonight, Tenten? You're being beyond ridiculous. Just because it's Halloween - and technically it's not even that any more, since it's after midnight - doesn't mean you need to be creeped out.

Oh, how she wished Neji were here with her, though.

Tenten stared at the wall across the room, barely visible in a crack of moonlight coming through the drapes, and waited for sleep to claim her. She was just playing around with the idea of turning on the television across the room to watch an episode (or two) of her favorite show about a 200-year-old immortal living in New York when she finally, finally, dropped off to a restless sleep...

...Only to be awakened what seemed to be a few moments later by a strange chirping sound. Tenten sat straight up in bed, blinking owlishly in the darkness, her eyes immediately going to the glowing green numbers of her clock to see what time it was. It's only 1:35? I haven't been sleeping that long. That's not my alarm...

And then she realized it was the smoke alarm. Grabbing her phone, Tenten snatched up her robe, jamming her feet into her slippers as she headed for the door. After testing the doorknob to make sure it wasn't hot, she opened the door and poked her head out, sniffing.

Now the heavy wooden door was open, the sound had elevated from a chirp to a piercing shriek. Tucking her phone into her pocket, Tenten put her hands over her ears and did a quick check of the house - she didn't smell smoke, but she wanted to make sure there was nothing on fire.

There wasn't. And since none of the other smoke alarms in the house seemed affected, she felt reasonably sure there was no fire anywhere in it.

Going back upstairs, Tenten retrieved the stepstool from the guest room, which she'd been renovating on and off for the past six months. Climbing up onto it, she hit the Test/Silence button on the smoke alarm just outside the guest room down the hall from the master suite before climbing back down, muttering mutinously under her breath as she returned the stepstool before heading back to bed.

"It's a ten-year alarm. It was installed earlier this year. Figures we got a defective one. But hopefully that'll shut it up, and I'll look at it in the morning - at a more reasonable hour." Taking off her slippers and robe again, Tenten climbed back into bed and snuggled down under the covers, ready to go back to sleep.

Until the alarm went off again.

Tenten's eyes popped open, and she sighed as she tossed off the blankets and dragged out of bed for the second time in ten minutes. Once again, she retrieved the stepstool, climbed up, and hit the Silence button again. "Demented thing," she muttered.

But this time she left the stool where it was, and made herself sit down on the bed instead of lying down again. Tenten watched the clock, counting the minutes as they ticked by, until ten minutes later, right on cue, the alarm started shrieking again.

Groaning, Tenten repeated her earlier process: Out into the hall, up the stepstool, hit the button, back down, head for her room-

She wasn't even halfway there when it shrieked at her again.

Spinning, she glared up at it, waiting for it to stop on its own. When it didn't, she dragged back up to hit the Silence button again, jabbing it viciously. "Be quiet!" she told it before descending.

This time she made it back to her room and sat down before it chirped again. Tenten got to her feet, but before she made it two steps it stopped on its own.

Then repeated the process when she sat down.

That blasted thing is taunting me! Tenten stared at the open doorway of her bedroom with bleary eyes, wishing she knew of some way to take the cover off. But since it was a ten-year alarm, the cover was sealed and wouldn't come off. She couldn't unhook the battery or anything like that to shut it up.

Swallowing back the sudden, uncharacteristic urge to cry, Tenten stared at her phone. Should I, or shouldn't I?

It would be almost four o'clock in the morning in New York now, and Neji was undoubtedly trying to get a good night's sleep before his eight-thirty meeting. But Tenten was literally at her wit's end.

Wincing, she picked up the phone. Sorry, Neji. Dialing his number, she listened to the phone ring a few times before her husband picked up.

"Tenten?" His sleep-fogged voice, deep and raspy, sounded worried. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"Physically, yes. But Neji, the smoke alarm over the guest room keeps going off, and I swear to you that thing is possessed and taunting me." She explained the object's strange behavior, ending with, "I know the cover doesn't come off, and honestly, I don't know what else to do since that doesn't work. You installed them before I moved into the house, so do you know of any way to get it to shut up?"

At that moment, it shrieked again, and Neji made a strangled sort of sound on the other end of the phone as Tenten repeated the process of climbing up, turning it off, and descending.

Then it went off again, twice, then stopped on its own. Like it was laughing at her.

She turned and gave it her most frightening glare. Downstairs, she'd converted one of the unused rooms into a mini-museum for her extensive weapons collection. Tenten knew how to use every single one of them, and was tempted to turn every sharp pointy thing on the smoke alarm - if not for the fact she'd probably damage the wall, too.

At this point, she'd even willingly go after it with a hammer, so it would just be quiet and let her sleep!

"I can't do this," she moaned into the phone. "I'm sorry, but it's driving me crazy."

Neji sounded a little more alert when he replied. "I understand. I can hear it from this side of the phone. There's no way to turn it off, especially if the silence button isn't working. Just get it down off the wall and set it in the garage. It'll keep shrieking, but hopefully you won't hear it there. Then we can just toss it in the dumpster on Tuesday, and they'll take it away."

Where it'll probably keep shrieking for the next nine and a half years. Tenten glared up at it. "Okay," she agreed grudgingly. "Thank you. Sorry I woke you."

"It's okay." Neji yawned. "You know how to get it down, right?"

Why hadn't Tenten thought of that? Perhaps the shrieking had worked its way through her ears and into her brain, and it was fritzing out her ability to think straight. "No. How?"

"Twist the unit counter-clockwise, then just give it a tug and it should come right off the wall. You might have to get tough with it, but it'll come off."

"Trust me, getting tough with this thing is not going to be a problem." Tenten cringed when it started shrieking again. "Thanks, Neji. I love you."

"Love you, too. Good luck." They hung up, and Tenten went to do battle with the smoke alarm.

She'd had them in her old apartment, naturally, but they were older models on which the front had popped open, and she'd had to replace the batteries every year. Since Neji had installed all the ten-year smoke alarms in the new house before she moved in, she didn't have any experience with them and didn't even know where the instructions were. So if this didn't work, she was pretty sure she'd be up a creek without a paddle, because she sure wasn't going to call poor Neji again and wake him up.

Hanging on to the top of the doorframe with one hand so she wouldn't overbalance and topple off the stepstool, Tenten grasped the smoke alarm with her other hand - after, of course, smacking the Silence button again. As she twisted it to the left, it shrieked at her yet another time, as if in protest of being removed.

Growling under her breath, Tenten jabbed the button for what felt like the thousandth time, then muttered threats as she twisted the device again before finally wrenching it off the wall. Clutching her spoils of war in her hand, she backed down the stool, then stomped down the steps, down the hall, and across the sitting room to the side door which led into the garage. After placing the cursed thing on one of the shelves next to the door, she slammed the door, relocked it, then headed back up the stairs to her room and blessed, blessed sleep.

"Now, finally, I can sleep. Just so long as another one doesn't go off." Tenten froze next to the bed and tilted her head to the right, listening and daring another smoke alarm to take her up on it. When the house remained quiet, Tenten smiled, flipped off the light, then snuggled under the blankets again.

The shrieking came as soon as her head hit the pillow - muffled because of distance, walls, and doors, naturally, but still very audible nonetheless.

"Argh!" Tenten screamed loud and long, not even caring if any of her neighbors heard. (Even if they did, they undoubtedly also heard the infernal shrieking of that thing-which-shall-not-be-named, so she figured she was justified.)

"Oh, that is it!" Tenten got out of bed, went back downstairs, then yanked open the door to the garage and hit the opener for the big door on her way past. Going around her car, then Neji's, she dug around in the tool box for a few seconds before she found Neji's hammer. Then she went back for the smoke alarm, and took both items around the side of the house to where the dumpster stood, ready to be taken to the end of the driveway on Tuesday - still four days away. Way too long for that shrieking to keep going uninterrupted or otherwise.

Setting the device on the sidewalk next to the dumpster, Tenten got down on her knees next to it, hauled back her hand with the hammer, then let the stupid thing have it.

The smoke alarm let out a few token squawks as she attacked, but then, mercifully, went silent. Tenten kept going until it finally broke apart, then obliterated its innards to make sure there was no possible way it could go off again. Then, in the bluish white glow of the security light on the side of the house, she fastidiously swept up the remains and dumped them into the trash.

Calmly, she returned the hammer to the tool box, closed the outside then inside doors, and went back up to bed.

For a few long minutes, Tenten repeated her earlier actions. She lay in bed, staring at the wall, waiting, just waiting, for something to happen.

Then, when nothing did, she finally fell into a deep, blissful, restful sleep.

...Only to be woken at eight o'clock by her ringing phone.

Prying open her eyes and resisting the urge to cry, Tenten picked up her phone and stared at the screen, trying to make her bleary eyes focus on the name. She considered ignoring the call, but her editor's name made her answer. "H'llo?"

"Tenten!" Shizune's voice was far too chipper for this ridiculously early hour of the morning. "I was up almost all night reading your book, and it is great! It might be your best yet. But there was one part in the middle that I think needs a little work - it feels like it's missing something. And I had an idea. Are you ready to hear it?"

No. I'm ready to go back to sleep for another few hours. Tenten swallowed back the knee-jerk response, dropped her head back against her pillow, and replied listlessly, "Sure. Hit me with it."

Not seeming to notice the author's obvious reluctance, Shizune powered forward. "The part with the heroine in the forest, surrounded by the hordes of the Unseelie Court? Well, I was thinking, it would add so much to the scene if she heard a banshee screaming, off in the distance, you know? Your readers know the myth and lore, and think about how ominous this will be, if Riko hears that sound. And with the fire closing in - oh, it's so perfect!"

In Tenten's exhausted mind, the banshee's scream took on the piercing tone of a smoke alarm's shriek. No! No no no no no no no! Rolling over, she buried her face in Neji's pillow and started laughing until tears began to stream down her face. Of all the crazy coincidences...!

Six hours later, when she sat down to write the scene, the words flowed from her fingers, through the keyboard, and onto her screen with absolutely no problem.

The next day, Shizune praised Tenten again for the scene, especially for how well she'd described the quality of the banshee's shriek.

Fourteen months later, Tenten's newest novel won an award for Most Descriptive YA Novel.

Who said authors didn't draw from their own experiences?

*~The End~*

Author's Ending Notes: That bit at the end, talking about authors drawing from their own experiences - yep. Totally true. This actually did happen to me. (Okay, so I wasn't entirely alone in the house, it wasn't Halloween, and it wasn't at night. But the rest of it is totally true.) And I'm not kidding, that demented little thing was laughing at me. And wouldn't shut up until I took a hammer to it. It was quite therapeutic, actually. But after the incident, I figured it might make for a fun fic (and I was way overdue for another NejiTen fic, and this was the perfect idea!). So with names changed to protect the innocent, and the details of day and time changed to add atmosphere, Chirp was born. (And if anyone is curious about Tenten's favorite TV show that I briefly mentioned, it's a real show called Forever. It's my favorite show, too.) I really hope you all enjoyed it, and thank you so much for reading!