Outside Work We... •[TNN One-shots]•

Safe and Accessible •|| MIALOTTE ||•

[A/N: Yes. This is a Mialotte version of Char's Instagram story. :')]

Prompt: Mia needs to change the batteries of Charlotte's doorbell and needs a screwdriver.

The soft chime of the Ring app on Charlotte’s phone had been persistent all week, a cheerful yet increasingly annoying reminder that the batteries in the doorbell were running low. She’d ignored it at first, reasoning that she’d get to it eventually, but Mia had finally had enough.

“Sweetheart, if that thing goes dead and we miss a delivery, I swear—” Mia stopped mid-sentence, waving her hands dramatically. “Hand me the batteries and the screwdriver. I’ll do it myself.”

Charlotte smiled sheepishly, pausing from folding laundry on the couch. “Are you sure? It’s not a big deal. I can do it later.”

Mia gave her a pointed look. “Do you even know how to change the batteries?”

Charlotte opened her mouth, then closed it. “...No,” she admitted.

“Exactly,” Mia said with a smirk. “Give me five minutes. Where’s the screwdriver?”

Charlotte furrowed her brow. “Oh, I put it somewhere safe and accessible when I first got the doorbell.”

Mia nodded approvingly. “Smart. Where’s that?”

Charlotte froze, a flicker of panic crossing her face. “Uh… I don’t remember.”

Mia raised an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”

“No,” Charlotte said, looking around the room as if the screwdriver might materialize in front of her. “But it’s definitely somewhere safe. And accessible.”

“Char…” Mia groaned, rubbing her temples.

°•°•°--**--°•°•°

An hour later, the two of them were knee-deep in a fruitless search. Charlotte was rifling through a drawer filled with random odds and ends, muttering under her breath. Mia was crouched by a cabinet, pulling out everything from old manuals to a tin of buttons.

“How do you live like this?” Mia said, holding up a dusty bag of screws that clearly didn’t fit anything in the house.

“It’s organized chaos,” Charlotte retorted, waving an expired warranty in the air. “I know where most things are!”

“Do you?” Mia deadpanned, tossing the bag of screws back into the cabinet.

Charlotte sighed, brushing her hair back from her face. “I swear, when I got the screwdriver, I thought, ‘This is so clever. I’ll always know where it is.’”

“Well, Past Charlotte was an optimist,” Mia muttered.

°•°•°--**--°•°•°

Finally, Mia slumped onto the couch, arms crossed. “It’s hopeless. The batteries are doomed.”

Charlotte hesitated, then reached into her pocket. “Would you believe me if I said I just remembered?”

Mia blinked at her. “What?”

Charlotte sheepishly pulled a screwdriver out of her hoodie pocket. “I put it in my ‘important stuff’ drawer in the hall. Apparently, my brain thought it was safer in my jacket after all.”

Mia stared at her, dumbfounded, then burst into laughter. “You’re something else, you know that?”

Charlotte blushed, handing over the screwdriver. “You still love me, though.”

Mia snorted, standing up and heading to the doorbell. “Yeah, yeah. But if I have to look for something you’ve ‘safely stored’ ever again, I’m installing a tracker on everything you own.”

Charlotte grinned, watching Mia expertly unscrew the doorbell casing. “Deal.”