Down For The Count

World War III @ The Rodgers

Paisley's POV

Being grounded is kind of the worst.

I've never been grounded before, and I don't know why, but I didn't expect it to be so awful.

No phone, no TV, and no seeing my friends. I quite literally just lay around all day. I spend pretty well every second in my room, staring at the ceiling. It's awful.

I decided to go to the living room, needing some type of human interaction. Lin was sat on the couch, typing on his laptop with the news on as a sort of background noise, I guess. But as soon as he saw me enter he grabbed the remote and flipped it off.

"No, no, no, you can keep watching." I tried to persuade him. At this point, I was so bored out of my mind that I was willingly begging for him to turn the news on. I've hit a new low.

"Being grounded means no TV, Paisley." Lin reminded, not taking his eyes off of his laptop as he typed.

I groaned, sitting down on the couch and burying my face in a pillow. "This is not fun."

I heard Lin chuckle a little. "Yeah well it's a punishment, it's not supposed to be fun."

"I can't believe you guys grounded me over a bootleg." I groaned again.

"We didn't ground you because of a bootleg, we grounded you because we have strict subway rules in place that you did not follow."

Ugh, right.

Some absolute traitor took a picture of me riding the subway at 9:00 last night, thus leading to it somehow spreading all over Twitter, thus leading to Lin and Vanessa getting very upset with me, thus leading to me being grounded.

People are simply the worst.

"I broke the rules to make sure my friend was okay, I feel like I deserve an ounce of credit for that." I pointed out, causing Lin to nod.

"And that's so sweet that you care so much about your friends. But you can't be riding the subway late at night by yourself. There are so many sketchy people in New York, you could've just been plucked off the streets so easily."

"Not true. I could totally take them. My muscles are insane." I remarked proudly. For the first time since I entered the living room, Lin looked away from his laptop, looking over at me.

"That is so cute. Keep that mindset sweetheart, don't let anyone ever tell you different."

I smiled, but immediately stopped when I realized he was poking fun. "Hey, you're mocking me."

"I'm not mocking you." Lin chuckled. "I just...you know..."

"You don't think I could take on a grown man?"

"I don't think you could take on a butterfly." Lin mumbled. I gasped, feeling slightly wounded that he thinks so lowly of my physical strength.

His eyes widened as he quickly tried to correct himself. "Not that I don't think you're a strong young woman, because you totally are! I think you're so strong. But...I mean...come on now, kiddo. You wouldn't hurt a fly. You don't even let me kill the bugs inside, you make me take them outside and 'set them free'."

"Bugs have lives too." I mumbled.

"Not the scary ones that bite." Lin mumbled back. He turned his attention back to his laptop, his eyes widening. "Wow, okay. This conversation was very entertaining, but I have to get back to work."

"You don't like my company?" I frowned. Lin laughed a little.

"Of course I like your company. But I have so much to get done, and I'm very much off task. Let's put a pin in this conversation and we can get back to it later." Lin gave me a small smile before starting to type.