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Agreed, a continuation of Arrangements

Jan4

Written to SkySailor’s commissioned continuation of
Live-In
and
Arrangements.

It too Adrian two weeks to decide. Sara tried, during those two weeks, to let him have all the breathing room he needed to decide. She made the most of crock-pot and one-dish recipes, shortcuts and take-out, to make sure he didn’t have to feel like meals were waiting on him; she did cursory cleaning every day, and she tried to get enough work done that it didn’t feel like she was waiting on his decision.

That last Friday, he didn’t make it home until past ten in the evening. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands were shaking, and his skin was ashen. He let Sara chivy him into a bathrobe and slippers without even a pretense of an argument, and sipped the doctored hot cocoa, thick with rum, until his cheeks began to get some color.

“Would… would you tell me what to do? If I agreed to be your housewife?”

Sara hesitated. He was so twitchy right now, it seemed like everything might send him over the edge. “I don’t want to boss you around…”

“But I liked it! When you told me to do things, before, I liked that. My job.. they never tell me, they just yell at me when it’s not done!”

Ah. “Ah. I can do that. I can give you direction.” She found herself smiling. “I can even reward you when you get it all done. right.”

“When? Not if?”

“Hey, I’ve seen what you can do. I might have to up the ante, start giving you bonus round tasks.”

“And you’re really okay with – with supporting me?”

“If you’re really okay with being my housewife. Yeah.”

“I…” He was quiet for a few minutes. Then Adrian nodded. “I’ll quit tomorrow.”

Sara gave Adrian a nice manly apron the day he left his job, and a ruffled one with pink polka-dots the next day. They sat down the next night to the best-tasting meal either of them had had in weeks, months, really; it took them less than a week to fall back into a comfortable routine.

And it was great. He’d ask her what he should do, and she’d tell him. He’d go above and beyond, and she’d do something special for him. Sara went back to getting work done, and Adrian was happy again.

Except…

“So, are you happy, being her bitch?” It was game night, and Ellery had been drinking, but that didn’t excuse it.

“When is he going to stop mooching off of you? I can’t believe he quit his job and you’re okay with him staying here!” Rachael wasn’t the best of Sara’s friends, not by far, but she was a shopping-and-coffee-on-Tuesdays sort of friend. Not that it made her opinion okay, but it definitely made it heard.

“Dude, are you just going to let her tell you what to do? What are you, her housewife?” Sara hadn’t even been telling Adrian what to do – they were watching movies with friends, and he’d asked her what wine she thought was good – when Craig came out with that one.

But it gave Adrian something to answer that he could actually answer. When he came back in from the kitchen, he was wearing his apron. The one with the pink polka dots, even. And somewhere he’d gotten a string of costume pearls.

Sara watched him pull himself up straight and hand Craig a glass of wine. “Yes.”

Their so-called friend had already forgotten. “Yes, what?”

Adrian was smiling. Grinning, really. Sara found that she was, too.

“Yes,” she filled in. “He is my housewife. And a damned good one at that.”

“Well, then.” Ellery was clearly trying to make up for his Game Night slip. “Where are you two registered?”

“Cook’s World,” Adrian answered promptly. And thus the idea for their nonwedding was born.

If you’d like to see more of this story, I bet there’s more to be written. Just drop a tip in the the tip handcuffs:


This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/878812.html. You can comment here or there.

Failure to Properly Case the Joint

Dec31

“Should we stop him?”

Anya was new to the guarding business, just out of the Academy and still shiny around the edges.

“Naw.”

Tobin, on the other hand, had been guarding Miss Anna’s Establishment for forty years.

“He’s gonna…”

“Darlin’.” Only someone like Tobin could call someone like Anya darlin’ and survive it. “It’s Miss Anna. And that’s her private audience chamber.“

“Oh?” It didn’t take her all THAT long for it to click. “Oh!”

“I’m pretty sure the last burglar to try to break in there is still ‘working off his debt.'”

“When was that?”

“Oh? Mmm… four, five years ago.” He grinned. “Let the guy get in. My boots need shining.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/876493.html. You can comment here or there.

The Ruins of the Caschitari, for the micropromptcall

Dec31

By the time the Earth ships found the Caschitari, it was too late. The Puradoon had already been through, and had wiped out everything; every building bigger than a shack had been knocked down, every lifeform they could find had been destroyed; the libraries, the data centers, the cultural spots had all been ashed.

From the readings, the human scientists estimated the Puradoon had come through about a decade past. They did that, the Puradoon, washed through star systems like locusts. Earth was close to stopping them – but too late for the Caschitari.

Or so they thought. Until the sensors picked up strange readings, deep in the basement of what had been the great museum of the Caschitari. A seed? A seed, the scientists agreed. A seed of…

They brushed dirt off of an ancient drinking vessel, and noises began. Talking noises, whispers, at first, and then louder. Building noises, all at once.

From the tiny seed deep in a drinking vessel, the Caschitari civilization was rebuilding itself.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/875008.html. You can comment here or there.

After the Fire

Dec31

Fire kills everything.

Fire ruins everything.

Fire engulfs everything, consumes everything, destroys everything.

And yet, after a fire, a forest begins to emerge again. After a fire, a community emerges again. After a fire, a phoenix rises again.

I thought I’d lost everything. No, I knew I’d lost everything. But after the fire, only after that horrible fire, did my wings emerge.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/874834.html. You can comment here or there.

Arrangements, a continuation of Live-In

Dec14

Written to [personal profile] perfectworry‘s commissioned continuation of Live-In

Adrian was home late for the fourth time in a week. Sara ordered pizza, washed the dishes from last night’s dinner, gathered all of her dirty clothes and his into a pile, and tried not to swear at the mess.

This was his third week of his job, and they’d held him late almost every day. He was new, he wanted the money, and he “didn’t have anyone at home.” Not, at least, the way his bosses understood having someone at home. Roommates didn’t count.

Sara got the wash in and sat down with her budget book. Adrian had insisted on paying rent the minute he’d gotten a paycheck, but the thing was, somehow it wasn’t making her balance any bigger.

She opened a document – and swore as the pizza arrived. How had she gotten any work done before Adrian moved in? How had she had any time at all to think?

She put the pizza in a warm oven, snatching just one piece, and managed to get a couple hundred words scribbled before the laundry was done. That finished, she was just about to sit down to work again when Adrian stumbled in the door.

He looked like shit. Pretty eyes sunken, complexion sallow, hands wrinkled. His work clothes were just as wrinkled, and his tie was twisted at the bottom, as if he’d been fiddling with it.

“Clothes off,” she demanded, like she had the right. “Into the tub, right now.“

“But dinner…”

“I ordered pizza, and you can eat in the tub. Come on, boy. Clothes.”

Like a good obedient boy, he stripped off his clothes.

“In the tub, come on with you.” She started the tub, coaxing him every step of the way, putting in some of her favorite bath oil and setting up the silly little caddy that she never used. “Here, in.”

She took a moment to look at his bare butt, purely out of aesthetics, and then she was setting a plate of pizza on the caddy and fussing at him until he was up to his shoulders in hot water.

Since they’d come this far, it seemed reasonable to sit down on the toilet, lid closed, and eat her own pizza while Adrian, slowly, so slowly, relaxed. “What happened?”

“June called off. I think she quit, actually, but nobody tells me anything. And then everything she screwed up was suddenly my fault, and I had to stay late to fix all of her mistakes, and then later to do my own work.” He thumped his head against the back of the tub.

“Stop that.” She slid a folded towel behind his head. “I gotta ask… is it worth it?”

He opened his eyes, two dark pools studying her. “I don’t want to mooch off you.”

She took a breath. “Adrian… you weren’t. You were doing all the housework and more than half the errands. You were… you were pretty much being my housewife.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. He bit his pizza, so she bit her pizza. He took another bite. She took another bite.

He swallowed, sipped the soda she’d brought him, swallowed again. She’d never watched his throat so intently. “Can I have a floral apron?”

Sara’s laugh was half because of the joke, but it was half sheer relief. “You can have as many aprons as you want. The minute you quit this job.”

If you’d like to see more of this story, I bet there’s more to be written. Just drop a tip in the the tip handcuffs:


Next: Agreed.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/865782.html. You can comment here or there.

A Physical Detail

Dec5

His wrists caught my attention first.

You wouldn’t think it would be wrists, but these were bony wrists, slender, so thin I could circle each wrist with my forefinger and thumb. He had nearly-hairless arms, and these bony wrists between lanky long arms and long-fingered skinny hands.

I think I fell in love with his wrists before I ever made it to his eyes

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/861023.html. You can comment here or there.

Thought Experiments

Oct30

“I’m going to ask you to imagine…”

The classroom, as a single individual, shuddered. They all closed their eyes obediently; they grasped the padded edges of their desks carefully. They began to imagine, as they were told. But they did it all with the air of someone being told to walk themselves to the electric chair.

The teacher either did not notice or did not care. The lights went down, certain switches were flipped, and the electrodes attached to the students’ skulls began to do their dirty work.

“…that you and your tablemate were partners in a crime. A theft. And you are now in separate rooms in the jail, while the DA speaks to you about confessing.”

None of them opened their eyes. They could not if they’d wanted to, and they didn’t need to. They knew who their tablemate was; that never changed. And the scene was already playing out in their heads.

Carrie looked around the interrogation room. The DA was a tired-looking man in his late fifties, his trenchcoat old, his hands older. “We know you did it. The question is if you’ll confess first or if your partner will.”

She could feel the handcuffs around her wrists. She could feel the cold seat pressing against her bum. She could feel, more, the panic making her heart race, thump-thump, thump-thump.

The DA looked at a monitor. “Looks like your partner panicked and died. You’re off the hook this time.”

In the front row, one student slumped. The teacher flipped two switches.

Written to [personal profile] thebonesofferalletters‘ prompt.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/841128.html. You can comment here or there.

No Monster, No Lurking

Oct30

Let some vampires lurk in the shadows. Let some of them hide in dark alleys, creeping along for their prey. Let some of them scrabble from day to day for their blood, hoping to get enough to survive, hoping not to be noticed.

Antonius had decided many, many years ago that he would not lurk, he would not scrabble, and he would not creep. He had decided that he would not leave his prey wounded and dripping in filthy alleyways. He wouldn’t sneak into vigins’ bedrooms to steal a sweet taste. He was not going to be the one you didn’t want to go home with from a bar, nor the one that showed you why good girls and boys didn’t walk home alone at night.

Those vampires were monsters, beasts, creatures. Antonius was a gentleman, and he was blessed well going to act like it.

But, of course, he was still a vampire, and as such, he needed blood to live.

He studied human physiology for decades, practicing on volunteers and “volunteers,” learning how much he could take from any donor without killing, then how much would cripple the donor, and then how much would leave him sated and the donor still walking.

It was long work and hard, but it gained him status among scientists. He learned how to handle blood transfusions when it was still an infant technique among human doctors. He learned how to screen for blood-borne diseases, and then, because he liked having a clean food source, he learned how to cure them. He learned how to keep a sanitary environment, so that his donors did not grow sick from associated contaminants – and because he enjoyed working in a well-lit, clean environment.

Not for Antonius the back alleys, not for him the grubby lurking in the dark. No. He would take his blood with science, not violence, and he’d do so in the shining halls of the laboratory.

After all, he was a gentleman, and no monster at all.

Written for the Three Word Wednesday prompt Blood, cripple(verb), lurk.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/840861.html. You can comment here or there.

Weaving a Plan, for #Thimbleful and #FridayFlash

Oct30

“I never thought this would come in handy. Those underwater basket-weaving classes you took in college, your ‘easy a’s’…” Amelie shook her head. “I thought you were coasting.”

“Everybody thought I was coasting.” Brent finished the repair with an elaborate knot. “It’s hard to explain that you know you have to learn something. So I went with Liberal Arts because it allowed me to dabble…”

“And used your psychic powers to take classes you knew you were going to need?”

“Well…” Brent swam up. Below, a basket wrapped around a shifting seal, holding an Old One in their place. “Yes.”

~

To this week’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt, 100 words. Also for Friday Flash.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/840457.html. You can comment here or there.

Live-In, a story for the Dungeon Cave call

Oct29

It had started out horribly.

Sara had allowed Adrian to move in with her out of something like compassion and something like building-good-karma: he’d ended up in a bad spot with his last roommate, so when he lost his job he had no place to stay, no savings, not even a futon. Sara was doing pretty well, so easy enough for her to let Adrian sleep on her futon.

And that was fine, but Sara wasn’t used to having other people in her space, and Adrian wasn’t used to not having something to do, so for the first three weeks all they did was yell at each other (mostly Sara yelled) and pester each other (mostly Adrian pestered).

It was a disaster, and all their friends knew it. Until Sara, absolutely done with everything, turned around and spat out, “if you’re that bored, do the dishes!”

And he did.

And then he came back to ask “what next?” and Sara gave him the laundry – and then dinner prep for the next day, and then, when he was still asking her for things to do, suggested he scrub the bathroom floor.

When he took even that without complaint, she took him out and bought him ice cream.

After a couple weeks of this, Adrian stopped asking Sara and just did the things that needed doing. After a couple more weeks, Sara found herself relying on it. If Adrian did the dishes, she could write for twenty more minutes. If he did the laundry, she could steal ten minutes at the coffee shop. If he cleaned the floor… it was clean for the first time since she’d bought the apartment.

And then Adrian got a job.

If you’d like to see more of this story, I bet there’s more to be written. Just drop a tip in the the tip handcuffs:

Written to [personal profile] perfectworry‘s prompt.

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/865782.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/839656.html. You can comment here or there.