Alice by heart one-shots

down, down, down

*So this was a little writing exercise I tried, it was raining outside and I tried to incorparate that into the fic, I thought I was gonna write some cute lazy rainy day Alice x Alfred fluff and then it turned into a vent fic so uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh.........sorry about that guys oops XD hopefully you still like it :)*

Alice sat curled up on the couch, resting her chin in her hands and gazing at the rain outside. She hadn't felt well recently, it felt like something was always gripping her shoulders and her jaw, bringing them up up up and clenched tight tight tight. She didn't even notice it anymore, unless it was directly pointed out by soft hands on her face and shoulders. The soft pitter patter of the rain outside and the clacking of her fingers on her keyboard every so often were the only sounds that echoed through the empty house. She had to write, she had so many things she had to say, had to admit, and yet, she didn't have the words to say them. Here she was, twenty, a published author, and yet she had no words to convey the feelings all welling up inside that she wanted to talk about. How could she say that despite being well loved at work, despite the praise for her and her book, despite talking with her loved ones almost every day, she felt lonely? It was like a pit within her soul, and no matter what it couldn't seem to be filled. Alfred and Tabatha both had their own lives now, they couldn't be responding to Alice's every thought and joke and that was okay, she understood that, and she was so happy for them that they were out in the world enjoying life and doing things they'd been unable to do before, but somehow the greedy pit within her wanted things to be how they'd always been. It wanted Tabatha's kind advice and protective warmth, it wanted Alfred's warm hands and lips with his chaotic jokes, it wanted to be with them always. It wanted to spend every moment with them until the day the earth shattered and faded away. And when the universe reset itself it wanted all of that again. Alice had spoken with them yesterday, she'd texted with them last night, and yet now in the light of day she felt so damn lonely. She didn't know why, when they'd been in school together she could go the whole weekend without talking to them and be fine, so why was it different now? Why was it that now a day, even a couple hours sometimes, felt like hell? She took a deep breath, looking out the window at the gray skies and the rain-kissed leaves. Rain fell like pools of tears from one leaf to another, down and down and down the backyard tree. Alice almost wished she would just cry, crying usually made things in the moment feel better. But she felt too empty to cry. Not a numb empty, just an empty as gray as the rainy sky. She hated that she felt like this, she hated every change around her, she hated that she couldn't just be okay with it, half the time she hated every sound she'd hear and she'd just want to scream, she hated that she was so full of hate, she hated she hated she hated. Alice looked at the screen of her laptop to find she'd written a whole paragraph while she'd been lost in her thoughts. She took a deep breath, then another. This was fine, she was fine. She'd just been overreacting because she was tired and felt behind on her writing. As Alice began to read and edit her paragraph the rain started clearing up outside. She'd be fine, it would be a good day, she'd edit this and go work on putting away laundry, then she'd work on writing more. She'd go to bed early and all the bad, overwhelming feelings would clear up. She'd be fine.