Author's Note: So before I get into the story, yes, this is an OC story, sort of like a biography, but with Pixar magic injected into it. The person the emotions inhabit will not be perfect, but I'm going to try to make him likable, while somehow making him like me (hear that? That's going to be personified.) Enjoy the story!
It was a normal day in the life of Noah Sanders and his emotions. Joy was sleeping in, per usual, and Disgust was already sat at the couch, where she was likely to spend the entire day. She was flipping through the pages of The Mind Reader, criticizing the font and how it's "hard to read without a microscope." Really, the font was perfect, but Disgust hasn't had much to be disgusted over lately, so she was trying to fill in the gap with fake criticism. (familiar?)
Sadness was at the console, moping over 'the first day of 9th grade and how awful it's going to be;' this would be the part where Joy steps in, but she tried that for over 2 years and it hadn't worked, so she just gave up last Summer.
Anger is standing off to the side, clutching Fear by the shoulders, intimidatingly calm. "Fear, it is very important that you don't make Noah look like an idiot in the halls. Otherwise, well, remember 8th grade?"
At this, Fear shudders and frantically nods. "I-I'll try and stay away from the console."
"That's a good boy," Anger says, letting go of Fear and stepping towards the console.
"So, Sadness, what's been happening out there?" Anger prods casually as he approaches the console.
Keeping her eyes on the monitor, Sadness replies, "Well, we seem to have everything ready for school, but we probably forgot something." Sadness pushes a button on the console so that Noah reminds himself of this. "Put that memory in high priority so we can keep it in the back of our head at all times," Sadness said, pointing to the blue-red memory that just rolled in through the side. "We'll need it to mock ourselves later."
"Can't argue there," Anger said, shrugging, as he brought the memory to the console, laying it in a little dent in the surface designed for holding memories. Anger was quite satisfied they were using it, considering Anger 'made it' himself. The memory fit perfectly into the dent, and Anger took a step back, admiring his work.
"Ooh, Dad went out and got bagels. Toast that, throw some butter on it and we've got a good breakfast," Disgust said casually, flipping through The Mind Reader, the headline being 'Noah Sanders Part Jewish.' Anger laughed at the harmless stereotype.
"Maybe once we stop stuffing our face with bagels, we can check our email," Sadness said somewhat bitterly, which took the other three by surprise.
"Sadness! Did you really just say that?" Fear worried, shocked enough to stop pacing from the back of Headquarters.
Sadness kept a hard glare on the monitor, but it softened somewhat. "Huh, I don't know. I'm sure it's nothing." Sadness managed a rare smile when she suddenly reminded herself of Joy, almost like when- erm, not now. Sadness would rather not have that memory plague her mind. No one seemed to notice, but a single strand of Sadness' blue, shaggy hair turned black.
Any sort of conversation, however, was interrupted when the handlebars on the console moved forward of their own accord. As Noah opened the cupboard and reached for a cup, Anger groaned, "This again?"
Disgust yelled sarcastically from the back, "Gee, I wonder what we're drinking!"
"You know, this addiction is not healthy. 'One cup a day,' Mom would say, but no, we have to drown ourselves in sugar and caffeine." Anger continued to rant as Noah grabbed a Pepsi 2-liter bottle out of the fridge.
"I'll try and have him stem the flow early," Sadness said, pulling back a lever gently. Suddenly, a strange PA System sounded from out of nowhere, one that was never heard before.
"Save some for the rest of America, fatty," The hidden speaker blared harshly. Sadness, with the other emotions, stared in shock as Noah stopped pouring about halfway empty.
"Hey Sadness, I know that you love leading, but criticizing him is my job," Anger said, looking awestruck at the pudgy blue girl standing to his right.
Sadness was just as astonished. "I mean, I wasn't even trying. Hey, can someone wake Joy up? I really think Noah should feel good for that."
Disgust chuckled from the couch behind Sadness. "The beast is awake when she feels like it," Disgust chuckled some more before going back to The Mind Reader, the headline now reading 'Shortage of Sugar and Sunshine.' Meanwhile, Anger is noticing something... different with Sadness. He can't quite put his finger on it, but she seems different. Even as he searched for what was wrong with Sadness, the sleeves of Anger's white T-shirt elongated slightly.
"The beast is awake," replies a groggy Joy, trudging down the steps in her green hoodie and jeans. She lets out a huge yawn and chuckles, "and that's my roar." The others looked back, surprised at Joy's early awakening.
"Wow, Joy, you're usually not awake until noon," said an amazed Sadness.
"Well, after taking my Summer-long hiatus, I've decided to get back into action. So what can I do this morning? Make him excited for school? Help him make friends?"
Sadness looked to the console guiltily, "Well, Noah rationed his Pepsi, so I think he needs a little encouragement there. About friends though..."
"What if we mess this up? What if we become the school freak like at Warner and East? We can't be the school freak, Joy. We're spending the next 4 years with these people! OH GOD, WE'RE GOING TO LITERALLY DIE OF EMBARRASSMENT!" Fear screamed, running frantically around Headquarters. Despite Anger being eager to punch Fear in the face in order to stop him, he couldn't help but feel sympathy for Fear. No one seemed to notice as a small hood appeared on the back of the shirt. Anger looked with mild sympathy as Fear writhed on the floor. He recovered soon enough and locked his eyes on Anger.
"Wow, Anger; I've never seen you look like that at me before," Fear gazed up as Anger caught himself and glared hard at Fear.
"It's called pity. You wouldn't know, considering you have no one to pity for." Anger said, forced hate seeping within each word.
"Still a hard-ass, though," Fear replied and chuckled sheepishly. Anger looked at Fear, but didn't really feel like punching him. In fact, he sort of took Fear's words personally. He didn't show it, though; he would've been awful at his job if he did. He just grumbled and waddled back to the console, his black shorts elongating to his upper calves.
Meanwhile, Noah was now sat down and eating his breakfast, two buttered bagel halves. Joy pushed a few buttons, savoring the great taste, and sat down at the couch with Disgust. "So what's going on outside of Headquarters?" she casually asked, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.
"Oh, well, it looks like that whole trial about masturbation is still going on in the Moral Court. Other than that, not too much."
Joy closed her eyes, satisfied with the little bit of news. A content smile faded, however, as Disgust kept talking.
"Isn't masturbation so gross, though? It's not even worth it when it's done. Noah feels good for five seconds, and then there's sticky liquids all over him."
Joy opened her eyes and leaned forward, looking at Disgust quizzically. "Really? Are you even aware of what I do for Noah?"
Disgust smirked, "Yeah, you showed us last night when you were rolling all over the console."
Joy's eyes widened, and she sat back, not willing to go further into the argument. That's when Fear came into the conversation.
"Doesn't it make hair grow on your hands or something?" Fear said, genuinely worried.
The other two emotions laughed (one more than the other,) and Disgust, who finished laughing first, sought to correct Fear. "No, Fear, that's just a myth. You don't actually grow hair on your hands. I'd make us stop if that were the case, pleasurable or not," Joy gave Disgust the evil eye. "What? I just don't want to look like a werewolf. The shedding would be awful!"
Joy laughed at the increasing ridiculousness of the situation. "I think I understand the premise of Teen Wolf," she joked, and the three erupted into laughter.
"Ohmygod, Noah needs to get in on this," Joy said, hopping up from the couch and rushing to the idea bowl, searching through the giant pile of bulbs before finally finding the joke. She then just as quickly rushed to the console and stuck the idea bulb into its respective slot. Noah took it into account and chuckled a little. Joy, a smile of satisfaction on her face, looked at the two emotions to her right, noticing Sadness' mixed hair color. "Hey, I like what you did with your hair, Sadness. Though black isn't the best color to match with blue. Can I get some back-up on that, Disgust?"
Disgust looked up from his newspaper, "Honestly, I don't even know," she said, eliciting a chuckle from Joy. Sadness, however, had a different expression; she was very confused.
"What are you talking about?" Sadness asked quizzically. It would be an understatement to say she was perplexed.
"You know, hair color. There's like this streak of black in it, and I quite like it. Still, though, could have done a different color," Joy rambled on, only succeeding in confusing Sadness even more.
Anger joined the conversation, "You know, I was thinking something was different about you, so that definitely clears things up." Sadness is still confused, but then notices something about Anger.
"Anger, you usually just wear a t-shirt and shorts, right?" Sadness queried, her full attention on her colleagues.
"How would I not? It's like 200 degrees in this place," Anger said, fanning his face.
"I wonder why," Disgust mumbled sarcastically. Anger let it seem as if he didn't hear it.
"In fact, if you look at my outfit, I'm currently wearing-wait, what? This is not what I put on this morning," Anger looked, confused, at the hoodie and sweatpants he would never think to wear in a million years.
"Something's going on, Joy, and I don't want to wait around and see what happens," Fear joined in, walking into the conversation, "We need to figure out what's happening."
Joy was skeptical, to say the least. "Oh, I'm sure it's nothing. It's completely harmle-"
"Joy?" Sadness spoke, catching Joy off guard; very rarely does Sadness interrupt anyone, especially Joy. "I really think we should get to the bottom of this."
Joy stood there, a contemplative expression conquering her face, before she seemed to reach a conclusion. "Well, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt if we looked into it. Only question is, how do we figure this out?"
Disgust stood up from the couch and walked over to the console, "Well, while you guys were talking, I was making connections between Anger and Sadness, and I noticed that the two seem to be transforming in some convoluted way, and probably not for the better."
"What?! That's absurd! Surely there's some sort of explanation for this?" Fear reasoned.
"Well, there's always the manuals," Disgust said, shrugging.
"Great idea, Disgust! Why don't you get cracking while we help Noah? You always say you never have anything to do, so... there's a thing to do!" Joy exclaimed jubilantly, motioning towards the library in the back, where the manuals are kept. Disgust groaned a little, reluctant to do any actual sort of work on someone's orders, but she did eventually trudge to the back.
"Well, until he finds an answer to all of this, I suppose we just go about our day. How about we follow tradition?" Joy asked as Noah made his way to the couch, willing to sneak in 15 minutes of sleep before taking a shower.
"You know, we could use this time to wake ourselves up instead of sleeping it out. I heard that this kind of sleep isn't the kind of sleep that is effective for rest." Sadness said, a thoughtful look on her face, her eyes squinted and her lips pursed slightly, "Maybe I should tell him that we can do better with our time..."
Joy quickly slapped Sadness' hand as it reached for a button. "Sadness, we can't run the risk of you changing more. Please, do this for Noah."
Sadness looked indignant, and wasn't afraid to show it. "Why should I do this for Noah? Is it my fault he's a fatty and an insomniac?" Sadness tries to reach for the console again, but Joy holds Sadness back from the console.
"Anger, Fear, can you guys watch Sadness? I don't like the idea of a 'Circle of Sadness,' but we might need to go to that if things get too far." Fear and Anger take Sadness, but neither like the idea.
"Joy, it didn't work in Inside Out and it won't work now," Fear, struggling to hold Sadness back, who was uncharacteristically ferocious, "I don't think this Sadness will oblige to standing in a corner on someone's orders." He gasped, losing a little of his grip on Sadness. "You don't think she's going rogue, do you?"
Joy thought for a second, a worried expression covering his face. "We can't be too sure right now, so let's not act on that front yet. However, we can try to possibly call up some materials and make a makeshift cage, just in case."
The idea of a cage seemed to magically tame Sadness. She released himself from the arms of Anger and Fear and visibly tried to calm himself down. Once she was totally calm, she went over to the couch and sat down, her hands in his laps. Not a word was said as the awkward silence permeated throughout the room. Even Disgust looked up from the manuals for a second, confused as to why the conversation had stopped.
Joy was the first to break the silence, a smile spreading across her face. "Thanks, Sadness. We're trying our hardest to make do with the situation." Sadness' lips curved upward ever so slightly, though inside, she was still getting more and more frustrated with Noah. Her anger, however, proved worthless as Noah's eyes closed and headquarters entered into an artificial night. "If all goes as planned, things will be back to normal by tomorrow."
Disgust was less enthusiastic at that statement. "Joy, there's more manuals than a day can cover."
"Well, I trust you can start with the most likely candidates," Joy said bluntly, clearly not in the mood for anyone's complaints, minus Sadness. She walked over to where Disgust had several piles of manuals to her right and left, each stack about 8 or 9 books tall.
"Here, let me put you on the right track," Joy said, looking through the piles and pulling out a particularly thick one, dusting it off, and opening it up. "Let's see here, 'Mind Manual, Volume VII: Co-worker Conundrums and How to Fix them.' How about you start on this one?" Joy handed the heavy book to Disgust, who looked at it with a sort of resentment. "If you need more help, give me a holler," Joy said before casually making her way back to the console, where a half-realistic dream was playing.
"How's the dream?" Joy asked, settling up on the console, Sadness and Fear to her left, and Anger to her right.
"Quite touching actually. It's about that one girl we had a crush on back in 6th grade. She's much nicer now, and is more appreciative of our humble kindness," Anger said, clearly immersed in the romantic dream.
"'Touching?'" Fear asked, torn between being humored and worrying about how hard Anger will punch him in the face. Despite the remark, however, Fear didn't hear anything out of him. He decided to push further. "Honestly though, this dream is kind of trashy. How do you like it?"
"Don't question me!" Anger shouted, succeeding in making Fear flinch. "I'm vulnerable," he muttered, only loud enough for himself to hear it.
While Anger and Fear fought, the dream crush on-screen grabbed Noah's hand, yanking it towards her. An upset Sadness sighed and leaned under the console, ripping open a panel.
"Out of sight, out of mind," Sadness groaned as she searched the mess of wires, pushing the curtains of red, blue, yellow, green, and purple out of the way as Sadness reached for the manual override button at the back of the console. Upon pushing the button, the dream turned off and headquarters was spared yet another reminder. Ducking out, Sadness noticed that in every other bundle of wires, there was a stray black or white wire, the contrast apparent. Sadness took note and stood up, putting the panel into place.
Upon standing up, Sadness noticed that Noah was awake again, and was now walking to her bedroom. Joy was quick to engage what he liked to call 'shower mode'.
"Okay, we're going into shower mode! I repeat, we are going into shower mode!" Joy said, serious about this menial task. Lucky for her, so were the others. Disgust slipped a bookmark into the manual and dropped it, rushing to the console.
"Let's, see, we want a white T-shirt, jeans, any form of undergarment, long socks, and…"
"Our Mackinac hoodie!" Joy said, urging Noah to pick out the thick white hoodie. Noah looked at it and smiled, as a memory was recalled, golden with a small streak of red.
It was just two months earlier in July when they got the hoodie in Mackinac Island. It was a $100 hoodie, but sales brought it down to $50.
Noah pulled the wallet out of his back pocket, fishing out $40 from it. "Hey Mom?" Noah asked, his brown eyes searching for her, "Can you possibly cash in ten bucks for this coat?"
Noah's mom was nearby and came over to the rack of coats, her son having pulled out a white hoodie with the words 'Mackinac Island' on it with black and white font. "Well, I do owe you some money, so why not? Try it on."
Noah put the hoodie on, finding it's a size or two big. Noah, however, knew what Mom would say. "I can grow into it," Noah reasoned, "After all, I kind of want a coat that I can wear through high school," he said further, taking it to the register and putting it on the counter, putting his part of the money with it.
Noah's mom followed up with the remaining money, the hoodie was bought, and despite the temperature that day, Noah instantly put it on, and knew he would at least wear it through high school. As he put it on, the tags proved to be a slight annoyance, but he managed.
"So?" Mom said, attempting to draw an opinion from her son.
"I love it," Noah said, smiling a weird, toothy smile, and continued to do so as they left for the boat back to the mitten of Michigan.
"I never liked that smile," Sadness said from the couch, flipping through The Mind Reader. "We really need to get braces so we can distinguish ourselves from a horse." Joy ignored this, as did everyone else; they knew she didn't mean it. Before long, everyone remembered why they had picked out the hoodie in the first place.
"Okay, let's go, let's go!" Joy said, the tap tap tap of her fingers on the console resonating throughout Headquarters. Noah rushed to the closet besides the bathroom and picked out a towel, rushing into the bathroom.
"Water comes on," Joy mumbled. Noah turned the knobs quickly as water rushed out of the faucet and into the tub. Noah quickly turned the knob in the middle so that the water comes out of the shower head and not the faucet. He strips down while the water warms up.
"AGH!" Anger said, as Noah reached his hand out to the touch the water, now a little too hot. "Turn that shit down!" Noah obliged quickly, and got in the shower. The warm water soothed Noah, a little too much, in Fear's opinion.
"Come on, faster, faster," Fear said, urging Noah to get through his shower as quickly as possible. The Mind's Eye was close to collapsing in on itself as the warm water ran across Noah's body. Still, though, Fear was able to keep him as awake and aware as he could possibly be.
"Remember to get the shampoo," Disgust said, and Noah quickly reached for the bottle of shampoo, squeezing it so that a liberal amount of the gellish material ends up on his hand. Disgust practically guided Noah's hands through his hair as the shampoo seeped through his hair, falling to the floor of the tub the lay below Noah's feet.
"Now for the soap," Disgust mumbled, as Noah reached for the bar of soap in front of him and scrubbed every body part he could reach… err, minus a select few.
"Okay we're clean," Joy announced as she ordered Noah to get out of the shower. Noah stands on the towel that lay on the floor and begins to dry off. The drying off takes no more than 2 minutes, and soon they are sitting on the toilet, the towel draped across the toilet cover.
"Almost done, folks. We'll be out of here in no time," Joy said as Noah reached for the pair of underwear he took from his dresser. He speedily slipped everything onto him, and finally picks up the hoodie, putting his arms through the sleeves and zipping it up.
"Okay, we are out of here. Good work guys," Joy said. Fear and Anger calmed down a little, but Disgust stayed up there. "You know what you need to do, Disgust." That was enough for Disgust.
Finally fully clothed, Noah went to the sink and picked out his toothbrush, toothpaste, and comb. After brushing his teeth, Noah worked carefully in combing his uncontrollable hair in just the way he likes.
"We don't have time for this, Disgust!" Fear yelled. "We have," Fear checks his watch, "10 minutes to be ready! It's impossible to finish at the rate you're going!"
"Oh please, Fear. Let me do my work, and you… can do whatever you do," Disgust said, her eyes locked on the screen. Finally, after another minute or two of fiddling around, Disgust stood, satisfied. "Great, we're ready. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll continue saving our butts." Disgust sauntered to the back of Headquarters, where she picked up the manual she was reading and took the bookmark out.
"Okay, are we all good?" Joy said, facing the other four emotions. Fear raised his hand, a worried look on his face. "Fear, you don't need to raise your hand," Joy sighed, a slightly annoyed chuckle escaping her lips, "but regardless, what do you need, Fear?"
"Uhh, yeah, um, we need to remember to bring our saxophone," Fear said, looking at his feet as they shifted ever so slightly. A smile conquered Joy's face.
"Oh, of course. That would be embarrassing if we were the only one without our instrument," Joy pushed a few buttons, telling Noah to put his alto sax case by the door. Noah obliged, and in 30 seconds, he was ready to walk through the door.
"Ready?" Dad said, sitting in his chair and reading a book. If Noah's alarm hadn't woken him, Dad would have, and Noah is definitely grateful for that.
"Yep, though I'm probably forgetting something, you know. It always happens the first day," Noah said, and inside his head. Anger looked to the memory in high priority as it shone slightly more than it had. He let a smile cross his lips as he read a copy of The Mind Reader alongside Sadness, while Fear was standing behind Joy, making sure to be within close proximity to the console.
And with that, Noah walked out of the door into the 30 degree weather of Farmington Hills, Michigan.