Archive of Our Own

Mary settles back with her book and heaves a big sigh. To her right, her husband Michael does likewise. In all honesty, they’re not doing anything much different than what they would be doing at home on a Friday night, but something about doing it in a hotel makes it seem just that much more hedonistic. It isn’t a fancy hotel by any means, but the point of the vacation is less the hotel and more the trips they get to take during the daytime, and if their daughter wants to foot the bill, well, Mary isn’t about to start complaining.

She glances at the digital clock to her left. Seven fifteen. After an early supper, she is looking forward to a nice, long evening of reading in bed before their tour of the bug-type conservatory tomorrow.

Just outside the door, she can hear their neighbours chattering in the hallway.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here and play some cards for a while?” a woman’s voice asks.

“Nah,” answers a heavily-accented male voice. “Me and Wobs was gonna spend the night checkin’ out the facilities. Ain’t that right, Wobs?”

“Wobba!” answers a third voice, who Mary can only assume is ‘Wobs’.

“Well, if you’re sure,” the woman says. Then, “Get my bags.”

“Right away, dearest,” says another male voice, this one with a strange accent that Mary couldn’t even hope to place. There is some shuffling, and the sound of a door swinging shut.

“Come on, Wobs,” the first male voice says again, to what Mary assumes is his pokémon. “Let’s get on with our explorin’.”

“Wobbuffet!”

“By the way, you still got those earplugs?”

“Wobbuffet.”

“I know we’s at the other end of the hall, but I ain’t takin’ any chances.”

“Wobbuffet?”

“… I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

The sounds of the duo fade away, and all is quiet for a few minutes. If she listens closely she can hear the faint sounds of two people giggling from the other room.

“What time is our tour tomorrow, dear?” Michael asks absentmindedly.

“Ten-o’ clock,” Mary answers, looking up from her book. “So set the alarm for seven, I think.”

“Noted,” Michael replies.

Mary returns to her book, as does Michael. However, she only gets about a page further before she hears the woman next door shriek.

Her first instinct is to bolt out of bed and see what’s wrong, but then she hears the woman shriek again.

And again.

And…

“Oh… my,” says Michael, looking up from his book at Mary with his eyebrows raised.

Mary stares back for a moment, then laughs. “It's alright,” she says. “They'll probably get it all out of their systems quickly.”

They do not.

Over the next several minutes, Mary does her best to ignore the litany of shrieks, as well as the comments of, “Oh, your muffled moans are so cute!” and “Get back down there, I’m not finished with you yet!”

After what seems like ages, the woman finally lets out one incredibly loud shriek that Mary swears they can hear the next region over, and then silence falls.

“Finally,” says Michael, with a shake of the head, and Mary has to agree.

There is a bit of shuffling behind the wall, and Mary settles back into her book.

More shuffling, some muffled talking, and then:

“Are you talking back to me?” the woman’s voice is clear, even through the wall.

“N-no, I-!”

“You know what happens when you talk back, don’t you?”

Mary steels herself and prepares for another round of obnoxious noises. Nothing, however, could have prepared her for what she hears next.

“Prepare for trouble, you've made me mad,” the woman says with a grin in her voice.

“And make it double because I've been bad.”

What?

“To revel in the joys of consummation.”

What?

“To unite two people in copulation.”

What in hell is going on over there?

“To embrace the evils of truth and love.”

“To extend our reach to the stars above.”

“Jessie!”

“James.”

“Team Rocket blasts off all through the night!”

“Accept my surrender, I won't put up a fight.”

As if this weren’t already awkward enough, she knows their names now. She’s never going to be able to look anyone named Jessie or James in the eye, ever again. They were rhyming. Who rhymes at a time like that? They have to have planned it. Who plans that? Who does that?

All of these questions and more circle Mary’s poor head, and then:

“Looks like all those kidnapping classes came in handy,” the woman purrs, and Mary’s head snaps up sharply.

“What in the Sam Hill are they doing over there?” Michael asks.

Mary is sure she doesn’t want to know.

Now it’s the man moaning and groaning and making all sorts of noises Mary never asked to hear from him. Occasionally he squeals, or squeaks, rather, like someone stepped on a squeak-toy. She can’t imagine anyone finding that sexy, but ‘Jessie’ sure seems to like it. She tries to get back to her book, but can barely hear her own thoughts over the litany of, “Feels good, feels good, feels good!”

After what feels like an hour, she hears James whine, “But, Jess- !”

“Ah-ah! What did I say about whining? Now, roll over.”

Wait, what was it they were- ?

More shuffling, a few grunts.

“Are you ready to blast off?”

“I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes!”

“Is that..?” Mary asks, bewildered.

“Shakespeare,” Michael confirms. “Much Ado About Nothing, Act One, Scene Two.”

“But why..?”

Michael shrugs helplessly.

There is silence for a moment, then a sudden slam from next door that nearly jolts Mary out of bed, accompanied by the sound of two incredibly loud voices.

“Good heavens!” she cries, but she can barely hear herself over the sounds coming from next door.

The wall shakes as the headboard hits it over and over.

“Alright, I’ve had just about enough of this,” Michael raises his fist and pounds on the wall, but the couple can’t hear it over their own noise. After a few more seconds he sighs and gives up, defeated.

“Good lord,” Mary says

“But soft- ah! What light through y-yonder window breaks? It is the East, and you are the sun!”

“More Shakespeare?”

Her husband nods in horror. “More Shakespeare.”

The headboard thumps, the wall shakes. The words, “I love you” have all but lost all meaning to Mary, so much have they been said. At least her neighbours have a good relationship, she supposes, but good god does she wish they didn’t feel the need to share it with everyone else.

Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty? Alright, at this point they’re just showing off. Damn younger folks.

After what must surely be an (incredibly awkward) age, twin screams ring out fit to shatter glass, and then, all is silent.

“Oh, thank the lord,” Mary closes her eyes and allows her head to loll back against the headboard.

“Now we can finally get back to reading,” Michael agrees. Mary nods and tries to return to her book.

 For a few blessed, glorious minutes, there is silence. Mary even nearly finishes the chapter she has been working on. And then:

“So, do you want to be the maid this time, or the eccentric millionaire inventor?”

No. No, they cannot. They simply cannot. Mary turns slowly to look at her husband in abject horror.

“Ooh, surprise me!”

Mary stands, gets her bathrobe, and puts it on.

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” Mary says. “Away from all that. And I’d suggest you join me.”

Michael nods in relief.

“Agreed,” he says, and turns to go for his own bathrobe. Voices echo through the wall.

“But Detective Bartholomew died on that case, didn’t he?”

“Not died, he was murdered!”

“By the masked vampire, no doubt!”

“But how do we prove it?”

Mary turns, hand on the doorknob. “Aren’t you coming?” she asks her husband.

“Well, hang on,” Michael says, sitting up and putting his ear to the wall. “I want to hear where this is going.”

“Michael!”

Mary readjusts her purse strap as she makes her way down the hall, stifling a yawn as she goes. She and Michael had spent what they both considered to be a goodly amount of time out of the hotel room, only to hear, “Want to try the dragon princess and the warrior ballerina?” upon their return, at which point they had simply forgone any hopes of getting any sleep at all. They had both slept through their alarm as a result, and although they had still managed to make their tour, the entire thing has left Mary rather irritated.

“Hold on,” she says, as Michael goes for his keycard to let them back into the room.

“Mary?”

“There’s something I need to do,” she says, and marches determinedly down the hall.

Mary has never been good at confrontation, neither she nor Michael are, but after all that she heard last night, she feels like a little friction might be necessary.

Screwing up her courage, she walks up and knocks on the door. “Excuse me!” she calls. “Excuse me!”

There is some shuffling from behind the door, someone sniping, “Those are mine”, the sound of footsteps, and then the door swings open.

“Yes?” the woman asks.

Mary stares, before her are the faces she can now put to the names, Jessie and James, both in bathrobes clearly thrown on at the last second, and oh, no.

They’re both pretty.

Mary is even worse at talking to pretty people than she is at conflict. She has never considered herself among the good-looking, although Michael would claim otherwise, and she has made peace with that. Still though, it doesn’t stop her from returning to that awkward, clunky schoolgirl looking up at the shining, popular class diva every time she has a conversation with someone pretty.

James looks at her. Big green eyes, long lashes, back in high school she would have been a puddle on the floor. Jessie cocks a hip and Mary all but gapes. She’d never had a figure like that even before having kids.

“N-never mind,” she says, losing her nerve. “Wrong room.” Shuffling awkwardly away, she returns to her husband. Behind her, Jessie and James shrug and return to their own room, the door swinging shut behind them.

Michael chuckles. “Couldn’t handle them?”

“Shut up,” Mary replies, red in the face. “You know I’m no good at confrontation, you should never have let me go up to that door.”

“I should never have let you?”

“Ooh!” Mary swats him on the arm and he chuckles again.

“It’s alright, dear,” he says. “No sense in going around making enemies after all, I suppose. I just hope that they wore themselves out enough that we won’t be up all night again.”

“Well,” Mary says, giving her husband a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe we can make a little noise of our own tonight.”