Work Text:
Charlotte should have known that there was something wrong when Sam had gotten home the night before. It hadn't been that he was late. That happened all the time, and he had called her earlier to tell her to cancel cuddle night because he'd been kept out long. Apparently, something had crashed into the Starlight Theater. But when he did finally come home– long after she and Ted were done, luckily–, his behavior was strange, almost unnatural. When he opened his mouth to talk to her, she had expected that pretty shade of purple she loved so much, but she flinched when she saw an electric blue instead. His voice was the wrong color, why was it the wrong color, why was it blue?
"Um, Sam, baby?" Charlotte asked tensely, ignoring the sharp greys from the floorboards creaking under his feet.
"Yes, Charlotte?" He answered robotically, filling her vision with that disconcerting blue again.
"Are you alright? Your voi-"
"I feel wonderful, dear," he interrupted her not quite harshly, but not the way her Sam would have said it to her. Not that he did too much talking to her lately, anyway. "Good night." She saw a slightly brighter blue as he walked to their bedroom with a whistle. Luckily for Sam, she was too distracted by the color to see the blood in his hair, or the lipstick smudge on his cheek.
Charlotte stood up from the couch and hesitantly followed him, stopping in the doorway in surprise a moment later. She hadn't expected to see the leafy green of his snoring that quickly. He had just gotten home, and he couldn't have been in the bed for longer than thirty seconds, if she was being generous. So how could he already be asleep?
Must have just been a long day at work, she figured. That made sense, right?
She stepped out onto the porch and lit a cigarette, desperate to take her mind off of things. Thank goodness that awful storm had finally passed. She sat down on a chair and let the sounds of an evening in Hatchetfield fill her senses with colors. White, orange, silver. They were brighter and livelier with every drag she took. Yellow, indigo, pink. The night was calm, she was relieved that she could finally let herself relax for a moment.
The calm melted when she was hit with a bright flash of blue, that same shade of blue she had seen when Sam had spoken to her. She snuffed the cigarette and walked back inside to see if he had woken up, but the second she opened the door, the blue was replaced by his green snores. Before she could pick up on any more colors, she rushed inside, locked the door, and flicked the porch light off. She needed to get some sleep, she was imagining things. Sam's voice would be purple again in the morning, and it would all be okay. She was sure of it.
~•~
Charlotte opened her eyes and that saturated blue came back, this time accompanied by the sound of singing.
But it couldn't have been his singing. Sam didn't sound like that, did he? He hadn't been a bad singer, per se, but this morning, he sounded beautiful. This was the voice of an angel, and its cobalt blue was stabbing at her senses. She tried to push it away and listen to what he was singing. It was just some silly little song, something along the lines of "la dee da da day," but she couldn't concentrate on anything but the color. There was something wrong with his voice, and she just couldn't shake it. It should have been purple, not blue. Why wasn't it purple? What had changed in him to make his singing better and his voice blue?
Before she could take a guess at what it was, the blue was gone. He had stopped singing and she saw a slightly dimmed version of the color when he called, "Charlotte, darling, don't be late for work, now." He had never called her 'darling' before, but he was right, she needed to get to work.
She got dressed and drove to the office as quickly as she could, seeing only everything's regular colors– even when Paul asked her about Sam's singing, there was no blue– until Melissa told her that Mr. Davidson wanted to see her in his office. Her voice was that artificial-looking blue, too, and it was supposed to be a corally pink.
Charlotte shook it off and walked past Paul's empty desk into Mr. Davidson's office. He gave her a strangely terrifying grin the second he saw her and, with no prompt or explanation, immediately launched into a musical number the moment she sat down. She was too focused on her confusion and his blue voice, which was normally light yellow, to properly listen to the lyrics.
The maroon from Ted screaming for help caught her attention. She ran out of Mr. Davidson's office before he could stop her to the sight of Ted and Bill being backed into a corner by Melissa, who was singing with a softball bat in her hand. Charlotte knew she had a killer swing, so she quickly pushed her out of the way and dragged the two of them down the stairs, listening to their panicked voices to check for blue. Maroon and turquoise, just like normal. She sighed in relief and tightened her grip on their hands for a second, finding it hard to believe that it was suddenly so nice to see anyone's regular colors. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but the more she saw of that blue, the more she felt there was something sinister, almost menacing about it.
Everywhere they went, it followed. All over downtown, wherever they turned, everything was that eerily similar shade of blue. The people sang in beautiful, expressive voices, but spoke in the same monochromatic monotone. It was unsettling how perfectly synchronized they all were, she had to wonder if it had been planned somehow.
When Ted abruptly yanked her and Bill toward a quiet alleyway and told them to hide in some trash cans, the scraping of the metal was the dull amber she had expected, which did comfort her a little bit. She hadn't been sure if she should have, but she decided to call Sam and tell him where she was so he could help them. Just because he had a blue voice didn't necessarily mean he was part of all of this. At least, that's what she was telling herself. She trusted him, right?
The next voices she heard, albeit muffled whispers, were beige and dark green. The beige was distinctly Paul's, the green she didn't recognize. She heard Bill opening his trash can, though its color was covered by stabs of beige and green. She heard Paul say something about giving them a warning, so she hit her can before getting out, and as the same amber cleared from her vision, she saw that the green was from one of the baristas from that cute little coffeeshop a block from CCRP. She was listening to them explain the situation when the amber mixed slightly with Ted's maroon as he jumped out of his trash can and barked something about the barista to Paul.
Her attention drifted away to identify the little sounds and colors around them, and she was just starting to feel a little calmer when a nauseatingly familiar blue suddenly clouded her vision, accompanied by the sharp sound of police sirens, which were supposed to be orange. She ignored it. Sam was here, he was going to help her, and she refused to believe anything else. She ran up to him and her hopes were crushed when he started singing, blinding her with an all-too-familiar blue.