A/N: Yay for quirky little MoJo things because I don't think I write enough of it. Enjoy my lovely readers, I send my affection to each of you.
Disclaimer: I don't own Maureen or Joanne, but I DO own over two hundred pairs of socks.
Socks Box
It started a few years ago, back in the early years of city life.
Maureen had adapted quickly to the quick pace, the crowds of loud, colorful array of people pressing in on her at all times. She'd grown accustomed, even, to the fact that cash was scarce… pretty much always. It was easy enough to pick up a date and, thus, their wallet, on any day of the week with a body as hot as hers.
Some days, though, were slower and she had ended up with just a few measly dollars, roaming the flea market. A box of brightly colored socks, stitched with cute little kitten images, caught her eye…
That was when the collection had started.
One pair of kitty socks had become five pairs of neon toe-socks and it had taken off. It never really crossed her mind that it was a waste of an awful lot of spare cash that would be better spent elsewhere. Not many people would have guessed that Maureen Johnson, the rubber-clad minx of Avenue A, had a secret sock stash. Honestly, though, who was going to lift her jean cuffs and inspect the nature of her socks?
Mark had thought it was cute, anyways, and that was validation enough for her.
"… Maureen, pardon my French but, ce que l'enfer?" Joanne stopped in the bedroom door, a baffled expression crossing her face. The brunet kneeling on the wooden floor surrounded by enough ornate socks to cover the entire bedroom floor were they not in neat little piles, color coded upon further inspection. She looked up with a bright smile.
"I'm relocating my socks," she explained airily, sliding another unsorted pair into the correct pile.
"I can see that… But why?"
The lawyer slid purse off of her shoulder and tossed it onto their bed before carefully stepping around the piles and sitting beside it, legs crossed in front of her as she watched her fiancée sort. Maureen shrugged, matter of fact, still absorbed in her task.
"Oh, you know. They won't fit in the top drawer anymore- so I got a box."
She gestured vaguely to the corner and Joanne's eyes were drawn to the short, plastic set of drawers sitting in front of their closet door, the bottom compartment open and ready to receive the first pile. Despite herself, she felt her lips twitching up into an exasperated smile.
"We need a second dresser for your socks?"
"It's not a dresser! It's just drawers," Maureen pouted her full lips, pausing in her work to regard her darker-skinned lover petulantly.
"They're the same thing, honey," Joanne laughed, sliding down to the floor beside her and taking her hand, toying with the multitude of rings on her fingers. "How many do you have?"
"Not that many…" Chewing her lip self-consciously, Maureen averted her eyes for a moment before admitting, "… Two hundred and four."
"What?" The lawyer felt her eyes widen in a twisted kind of awe. "What- when did you get so many?" The last she had checked, the number hadn't even hit the triple digits…
She had a sneaking suspicion that this was what all of those mysterious charges were on her favorite credit card.
Maureen widened her eyes innocently. "It's not that many, pookie… It's only a little over two hundred! Imagine if it were three hundred-"
"Do you ever even wear these?" Bemused, Joanne reached and plucked a pair of camouflage socks out of the green pile, waving them in her fiancées face.
"Well- well not those ones-"
"How about these?" A pair of knee-high plaid socks was thrown at her, and Maureen huffed as she caught them, hugging them to her chest.
"O-kay! I get it. I don't wear all of them. So what?" She raised a perfectly plucked, challenging eyebrow and Joanne nearly lost her train of thought just looking at her.
Sometimes she remembered, out of the blue, that this perfect, sexy woman was all hers. It was needless to say that it was a Good Feeling.
"So… Have you thought about all of the homeless people in this city- on this street alone, that would love to have just one pair of these?"
Her pout faltered, and Joanne had to brace herself not to feel bad for being responsible for the guilt creeping into Maureen's posture. "… No…" She swallowed, looking across the floor at the piles and piles of decorative socks. "I guess I haven't."
"Two hundred is a lot of socks," Joanne murmured, stroking the back of her hand with a thumb. She smiled at her reassuringly. I don't think you're selfish- I think you're oblivious. "You could make a lot of kids happy for Christmas."
"Yeah…" With a sigh, Maureen nodded, looking troubled. She straightened her shoulders, bracing herself. "… You're right." Joanne relished the words that she rarely heard, smile growing. "I should- I should give them away… But I'm gonna miss them!"
There was the Maureen she knew. Joanne laughed at the whine, nodding. "I know you will, honeybear. But think of all those little kids who'll have warm feet for the holidays!"
Maureen reluctantly smiled back, leaning in for a soft peck on the lips. As she pulled back, she surveyed her color coded piles sadly. "You have no idea how long it took me to do that."
"I can imagine," her fiancée commented drily, squeezing her hand and pulling her up to stand. "C'mon. I'll get a garbage bag and we can take these down to the clothing drive."
Nodding, the brunet began pushing the piles together with the ironically bare toes of her feet. She waited until Joanne had returned with the promised piece of plastic to ask, hesitant, "But I can keep a few, right?"
"It depends. How many is a few?" Joanne asked suspiciously.
"… Like…. Thirty?"
"Maureen!"
"Okay! Okay! Twenty?"
"No!"