Hey guys! Got a nice start on the first one, but while I got a lot of views and fav/follow's, I had only a few reviews. I don't mind, but I would like to know why you like it. I wanna know what you want to see and what I should improve on in the future. If I'm not doing a good enough job, just tell me and I'll stop the fic on a light note.
More reviews on what to see and improve will make me post more (plus more motivation, everyone likes reviews!).
But until then, this Train of Thought ain't stopping until it done with this particular short.
Be My Nightlight
Joy, for the most definite part, was worried of a particular emotion in HQ.
But it wasn't just her, but Disgust and Sadness were also worried for their friend. Even Anger himself was as close to looking like he should step in and stop the madness. (Hehe, there's a joke in that sentence somewhere...)
Who, of all the emotions, is acting reckless in the line of protecting Riley?
Well it's obvious as to who they were worried about. (You don't need to read this to know just who exactly.)
Riley has been a lot more careful than usual, reacting on instinct and reaction to the normal dangers, but it also went overboard towards something as simple as a sharpened pencil, the edge of a magazine or class notes, and even the volume on the laptop and phone.
The proof was on the wall, outnumbering even the happy yellow memories lining the short-term memory shelves.
When Riley finally went to sleep, Fear was at the console with the others, but he had a more sullen look, like he wanted nothing more than to sleep. His cup of coffee, his 10th one today, kept him up but was threatening to make him crash.
The worst part, in which the others eventually noticed, was that Fear has been doing dream duty for three days straight.
It was completely out of the ordinary, and even though Fear was pulling through it, he kept denying that nothing was wrong when they began to ask if he was okay.
And many were beginning to wonder why Fear was pushing himself so much, for he was never like this. They knew that if something were to happen to Fear, they couldn't keep Riley safe, just like how Joy was gone and couldn't make Riley Happy.
Once the fourth night came, which was tonight, Anger decided that enough was enough.
He'd admit, Fear would always get on Anger's nerve, which is funny since Fear is easily depicted as the one who get's 'nerve-jumpy' in the group. But he knew that it was about time someone put a stop to this recklessness.
For safety purposes, Anger warned the female's of the group to go to bed while he dealt with Fear. Especially when he quoted that 'He can be very persuasive'.
When they left with uncertainty in their eyes, he ensured them that he won't do anything drastically.
The only reason Anger was doing this was because he represented what he believe is fair for Riley.
And he can see that what Fear is putting himself is unfair for Riley, for she needed to be safe.
And so Anger would fix it the only way he knew how; Direct confrontation.
With an irritated scowl and a deep growl in his gut, Anger stormed to an unsuspecting emotion just staring at the monitor, waiting for the dream to come on with his 11th cup of coffee.
"Ahem."
Startled, Fear yelped, but calmed down when he saw Anger, but he had his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed at him like he was a heat-seeking missile.
Fear has never felt more awake in these past few days under Anger's glare.
Anger wasn't a 'touchy-feely' emotion like the others. He always got down to business and to the point.
And that's what He did in a very unorthodox way.
Anger looked to him with sad eyes, something Fear has never seen before, and Anger said, "Fear, is something wrong with you? What do you think you're doing?"
Fear looked to him with worried eyes. Anger saw him with some jitters, his eyes very baggy from being somewhat sleep deprived.
Anger went up and snatched the hot coffee from his hands, Fear's only lifeline to staying awake, and questioned, "How much coffee did you even drink? You're jittering like your suffering from hypothermia."
Fear started to get worried. He couldn't be found out. He didn't want to go back.
He just needed to wait a few more days for it to get here.
Immedeatly, Anger had the suspicion that Fear was on something, but the only thing here was coffee.
Anger knew then and there that the jittery-worried nerve didn't have an explanation, and so he didn't have a reason or an excuse to stay on Dream Duty.
So there was one thing left to do.
Before Fear's very eyes, he watched as Anger dropped the cup, coffee spilling onto the ground.
Fear gasped loudly and shouted, "What are you doing?!" before trying to leap at the cup and save some from spilling.
But Anger was quicker.
He held the nerve by the neck in one hand with a grip that was like a bear trap. Fear couldn't move as the contents of the caffeine fully spilled on the floor.
Anger pulled Fear to his level, which is pretty low, and stated, "Fear, I'm only doing this for you once because what your doing to me and the rest of us is both unfair and dangerous to Riley. You been on Dream Duty for three nights now and you look like your gonna drown yourself in coffee to stay awake."
Anger then let Fear go, making him trip and land on the couch. Anger then pointed at at himself and him while saying with much seriousness, "As of right now, I'm on Dream Duty; And you are going to go to sleep, even if I have to drag you and tie you to the bed like some psycho in an asylum."
Fear looked to him with what could best describe his own name as he begged, "Anger please! Don't do this! I can't go to my room!"
Anger gave him a questionable look with one eyebrow up, seeing how Fear was finally spilling the beans. Anger then asked with arms crossed, "Tell me why and I'll consider you staying here with me."
Fear opened his mouth to say something to make him stay, but when the words came to mind, he quickly closed it.
The reason he stayed up would sound so ridiculous to Anger, so Fear decided to give in.
Getting up, Anger saw Fear give the look of defeat and said, "Fine; I'll go to bed."
With a surprised look on his face, Anger expected an explanation; Fear wasn't that hard to crack when he wanted to know something from him, but Fear accepted defeat like a man and slowly left as he went to his room.
While he didn't get the explanation he wanted, Anger succeeded in making Fear go to sleep. Anger had a smirk that said of 'a job well done,' but then he looked down and realized that he now had to clean the coffee up before it left a giant stain on the floor.
With the top of his head glowing yellow with flame and a deep growl of frustration, he brought the mug to the sink and left to go get a mop as a dream came up.
Fear entered his room and saw only darkness, until he opened his bedroom door more open.
He was scared of the dark, but with the hallway light on, it illuminated most of his room.
The first and only thing Fear did was go to the corner of his room.
As the back of his antenna began to loop downward in a sad manor and his bottom lip began to quiver in fright, he opened his drawer to look at the damaged object.
He picked the pieces up and looked more closely at the remains of the small plug-in socket, knowing it was pointless to try and fix it again.
The reason for all of his tired frustrations, large quantity of coffee consumed, and taking Dream Duty was all because of this little broken light.
In the middle of the night, the lightbulb's glass blew from it's casing and only managed to bounce of the wall it was on until it hit the ground. Fear was awoken by the sound of breaking glass and the never-ending darkness plaguing his view. Not only this, but he was afraid of getting up from bed in fear of stepping on one of the broken glass.
He didn't sleep that night, which mean't he didn't sleep for four days.
When Riley awoke, Fear cleaned up the glass and saw the damage it done.
Silently, Fear ordered for a replacement to the workers on the Train of Thought, but due to the order of a more custom look, it would take almost a week, 5 days if he was lucky, to get it.
And delaying the inevitable got his closest friends worried about him.
Even if he stayed in his room, he couldn't leave the door open, people could look inside and guess he needed the light to sleep. If he closed the door, he couldn't leave his normal lights on. No one does that when they sleep.
While he could of just ordered an ordinary replacement and waited for the custom one, he still couldn't sleep. However, this was no ordinary nightlight. This plug-in bulb was bright white and only bright enough to illuminate one part of a wall, making the room bright enough to see through and dark enough to sleep better.
The bulb was broken.
The casing had that of the bright North Star with 4 long points going vertical and horizontal, along with 4 other smaller points filling in the spaces between.
The case cracked from the glass, making the star look broken.
Fear has never felt so scared of waiting for something in his life, which is a first, but he knew now that time was something he should be afraid of.
Before he could put the broken nightlight away, Fear was startled by a concerned voice.
And a familiar glow.
"Are you okay Fear?"
Like the jumpy-nerve that he was, he shrieked and jumped, running in a random direction-
-only to hit a wall and fall back down to the ground.
As he laid on the ground with pain going through his head, he heard a giggle and the sound of light footsteps approaching him, then that same glow began to get closer.
Fear eventually got up and opened his eyes...
...To see Joy with a beautiful smile on her face. Her hair was still up as she was beginning to go to bed but she didn't have the same normal yellow-green dress that she usually wore. In it's place is a very thick but sightly loose dark blue nightgown with white flower patterns adoring her body as they hugged some of her curves. What made her look so beautiful in Fear's eyes was how that nightgown blended with her wide blue eyes and gleaming blue hair, but contrasted from her sunshine skin, giving the room a glow of both sun yellow and ocean blue.
Fear was baffled by what he saw. He did nothing but look with wide eyes and his antenna stand upright in a zig-zag fashion, mumbling to himself random words in a low voice out of simply being nervous.
Joy's smile turn into a face of worry as she asked, "The others and I overheard what happened between you and Anger. I didn't want to ask you this, but why have you been doing Dream Duty a lot? What's been bothering you?"
Fear immediately stopped muttering. His response would of been to deny it, to say that he was fine and that he was going to sleep, but the sympathetic look Joy gave him made that thought melt away. His next thought was to just tell her why. After all, this was Joy, not Anger or the others. He never saw a reason as to why he should tell Joy how he felt.
But he also couldn't tell how he felt in THAT way, even if she suspected and asked.
With sad eyes and a quivering lip, Fear grabbed the pieces that made his night light and placed them into Joy's hands.
With confused eyes, she looked at the pieces of the bulb and casing and then looked back to Fear.
Fear began, "I can't sleep without the nightlight. I ordered for a new one but it would take a few more days for it to come here. I've been on coffee and Dream Duty ever since to stay away from my room. Even if I stayed here, I still can't sleep in the dark."
Fear looked down as he explained this, thinking that Joy might see him as a 'big royal baby,' as Anger always putted it, afraid of everything and demanded to be protected from the littlest of things.
But instead, he was pulled into a comforting hug from Joy.
Joy said as Fear returned the embrace, "Aw, Fear. I'm sorry your nightlight broke."
Being the optimist, Joy was immediately trying to figure out how to fix Fear's darkness problem. She knew the others don't use a nightlight, and she doesn't know of any spares here. Plus, Joy knew Fear liked this type of nightlight.
Then Joy thought if she ever used a nightlight. But she never used one, for she always easily navigated through the dark because of her-
-then, like the white lightbulb in Fear's case, Joy's eyes sparkled with a very unique idea.
Letting go of Fear, she gave Fear a very clever smile, which somewhat worried Fear for what Joy might be thinking.
Joy told Fear something he wouldn't expect, "Get dressed and go to bed. Tell me when you're in it."
Fear's wide eyes told her just how afraid he was of that, but Joy assured that she will leave the door open to let him see what he was doing, but she will stay outside out of privacy and to make sure no one peeks inside.
Once Joy was outside was when she fully blushed by the idea that she had earlier. But she realized that she was willing to do this for Fear until he got a new nightlight.
But it wasn't just that.
She always wondered what it was like to be close to Fear, and so she was going to find out just how close she can get.
Just to see if her suspensions were right.
She silently hoped they were right.
Then, Joy heard Fear say that he was ready. Joy entered the room again to see Fear in blue pajamas, under his blankets. Joy could already see fatigue plague his eyes as he is ready to sleep.
Joy walked in soon after, getting close to Fear's bed.
Tired, Fear got up a little and looked lazily to where Joy was on the other side of the bed.
Only to snap out of it when Fear saw Joy pull the covers away on that side...
...and began to climb in, covering herself with Fear's shared blanket. Seeing how this bed was a queens size, it aided Joy's purpose to her idea.
Fear blushed red and stuttered with shock, "Wh-What ar-re you-do-"
Immediately, Joy placed a finger on Fear's lips, silencing him. But for that brief moment, Joy felt just how soft his lips were on her finger.
It was like lightly squeezing a marshmallow between her fingers.
Joy soothingly said to him in a sweet voice, "Shhhhhh. It's okay Fear. I'll be your nightlight."
This would of shocked him to the point where if he was just like Anger, his antenna would of caught lightning from the quick pulses in the nerves of his brain.
But a strange thought came to him...
...I'll be your nightlight...
Fear saw Joy's glow in the darkness, reflecting the entire room partially with her bright aura of happiness. Seeing Joy do this for him made Fear give a rather relieving and thoughtful smile.
As if he was being guided, Joy placed her hand on his shoulder and slowly brought him down on the bed again, his gaze facing the ceiling, seeing the interplay of yellow and blue in his vision due to Joy's breathing.
After giving a quick kiss goodnight on the cheek, turning Fear to stone once more, Joy said to Fear in a very sweet voice, "Goodnight Fear."
Then she rolled around, her back facing him, with her head against the bed while neck-deep in his shared blanket.
On the outside, Joy could give away her situation as a small portion of the room suddenly had a slight reddish hue towards where she was facing. But on the inside, Joy was going back-flips, summer-salts, worm-wiggles, moon-walks, the Gangnam Style, that weird arm wiggle from that car commercial Riley saw, and every other dance move while singing every song she ever heard before in Riley's head. With a pleasant smile of content, she enjoyed the comfort of Fear's sheets, and was able to smell his scent in it as well.
Her senses were surrounded in Fear's musk, the smell of freshly-cleanned cotton blanket calmed her particles, and the feel of the silken bed sheets she was lying against almost made her hand want to run through its softness, and the particles that released her body heat made the bed feel more like a cocoon made of softness rather than an actual bed, which was actually more softer then her own bed.
The scent and warmth of the bed slowly stilled her mind as she began to close her eyes, waiting for sleep to overtake her.
It was a while before Joy could eventually feel sleep began to overtake her, but before she could sleep, she felt Fear get closer...
...and soon his arm was around her waist, holding her close to snuggling. Seeing how Joy didn't have a pillow for her head, Fear nudged his pillow under Joy's head so that both could feel comfortable. Fear said back in a low and grateful voice, "Goodnight Joy."
With Fear being this close to her, she nearly had a heart attack out of excitement and pure surprise by Fear's boldness to cuddle against her, but did nothing to stop him. She could tell that her face was hot and that she was glowing brighter, but that didn't stop her from being bold herself.
Joy nudged herself backwards until her back was flushed against Fear's chest, enjoying the feeling of being held by him in such a manner. His warmth made her sigh in content, enjoying how he embrace dyer in such a sensual manner, but she can feel his fast and nervous heart beat beating from his chest against her back. Fear, while nervous the whole time, saw how his boldness was being reciprocated, making him genuinely happy, so much that his fear of the darkness was lost to the glowing beauty in his arms, and it is that happiness that made Fear therefore wrap more of his arm and his other arm around her, bringing his face into her hair, subconsciously enjoying her scent as well.
And so, sleep began to overtake the two emotions in their embrace, one with a content smile on her face and the other with a goofy grin for being brave for the first time in his life.
The first thing Fear felt was the absence of warmth from a certain emotion.
Slowly, Fear opened his eyes to see a box in place of where Joy slept. And on top of it was a small note.
Fear picked his head up slightly and looked at the note that he took from the top of the box;
F,
Didn't want to wake you up.
Got it for you early.
I have my ways, so don't ask.
X) -Joy
P.S. - Personally added a few details you might like.
With wide eyes and a gaping expression, he looked to the box with much happiness.
He opened the box, which was already opened by Joy from earlier, and saw some of the styrofoam beans has already been removed to reveal his new nightlight.
It was exactly like the nightlight he had before it broke, but the star had blue swirls and decals on it that brought out the stars shape, almost like it was hand-made. The lightbulb was there too, but the outside of the glass had light tints of yellow and blue.
Fear couldn't stop smiling when he plugged it in and saw the mixture of yellow and blue light decorate his room.
After getting dressed and heading downstairs, he saw Sadness, Anger, and Disgust at the console, and he saw on the monitor that it was morning and that they were deciding if it's a good idea for Riley to start an Instagram account on her new iPhone that she got as a gift for good grades and due to their dad's business, Brang, becoming a success. Disgust was obviously winning the debate.
Before he made his presence known, he felt a tapping on his shoulder. Turning around, he immediately smiled when he was face-to-face with Joy. In her hands was a familiar cup of coffee, his favorite, and so with a caring smile, she offered it as she said, "Good morning Fear."
Joy was immensely glad to see Fear have the biggest and most brightest smile on his face, one that impressed Joy, as he gratefully took the warm mug into his hands and said back caringly, "Good morning Joy."
With a smile, she suggested as she basically skipped towards the console, "C'mon. We were deciding if Riley should start an Instagram account on her new iPhone. Disgust may have won us over for the moment, but we need to be sure if it's safe to do it. What do you think?"
With a roll of his eyes, Fear look forward to seeing what other dangers the others would get him and Riley into this time.
But while thinking over the topic of Instagram, a strange and heartwarming thought came to Fear.
And it is that no matter what happens to him, if he ever got lost again, Joy will always be his nightlight.
Put a lot of thought into this one and have been editing for errors this time. Please leave a review! The support means a lot to me!
Plus, where do you want to take this Train of Thought next?
