saturday night fever (incomplete)
Nov. 1st, 2022 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysTitle: Saturday Night Fever
Rating: PG
Series: The Feasting Years
Wordcount: 1,227
Summary: In the Brighthounds' little sharehouse, Arthur's down with the sickness. This has some odd side effects.
Remarks: Decided to store the fic bits (a few complete, most in pieces) I wrote when qx and I were mucking around in the 'feasting years' setting, which was mostly deeply self-indulgent nonsense featuring superpowers, angry gods, benthic cults, inadvisable experiments, and an awful lot of people who can't be trusted to make responsible decisions.
Ruben emerged from the bedroom with a cloudy sigh and a silver packet that he tossed at the kitchen counter as he shut the bedroom door behind him. "That's the last of the Benylin."
"Oh for fffff..." Penny seemed determined to defy enforced shivering by taking up a ceaseless jiggling on her own terms. She dug her gloved hands deeper into her armpits, eyes glaring out the narrow window of the hoodie pulled smotheringly tight around her face, bouncing from one foot to another in dance familiar to anyone stuck waiting for a bus in a winter gale. "I can't take this anymore, I really can't."
"I'll make a run to Silverfields," Ruben offered, already nabbing his wallet off the counter and jamming it into a back pocket. He rubbed his own bare fingers over his cheeks, only to wince at the touch of cold skin and withdraw them to blow warm breath over his knuckles. "Should still be open."
"Going to make a run for Fiji," Penny moaned.
Lounged belly down and mudfish flat on the sofa under the spread wings of her green parka, Chroma's tawny eyes were the only thing that moved in her calculated huddle. "How is he?" she asked in her soft, husky voice.
"Sleeping. Is it a good sign? Maybe." Ruben exhaled another crystalline cloud in demonstration and shrugged wryly. "But I'm no doctor."
"Hmm." She followed the cloud as it curled and faded like a cat watching a pulled string. "Safe to say the fever isn't broken yet, I think."
Penny's explosive snort left no doubt as to her feelings on that, if ever there was any chance of doubting. She followed it with an equally explosive triple sneeze, half caught in one elbow, and growled indistinctly as she wiped a thumb under her nose and then down the side of her trousers.
"M'nose hairs are frostin' over," she said defensively to the pair of suspicious looks. "Here, let me get my boots, Rube, I'll catch you up. I need to thaw."
The squat man nodded agreement, and leaned back to knock gently on the bedroom door and share the offer of a walk with their last mobile member. Unsurprisingly, the piping voice from within returned a short, waveringly proud negative - but then defrosting was only a priority for those for whom the cold was anything but a comfort.
"Spliffs while you're out?" Chroma yawned as Ruben headed for the flat door and, when he quirked an agreeable smile, concluded, "Best. Love you."
She levered herself up into a sitting position as he stepped out, sliding her arms into the limp sleeves of her coat before it could fall off her shoulders, and yawned widely again, lips curling back briefly over long canines. Penny flopped onto the sofa seat that was now spare, the leather wheezing sadly under her violent compression, shoes in hand and a mulish jut to her chin.
"Look," she said to her boots as she jammed a foot in one, "I feel a heel, but I might have to mean it about moving out for a while. Starting to worry if I fall asleep I'm not going to wake up again, yeah?"
"I know the feeling," Chroma murmured.
Penny paused in the middle of yanking at her laces to eye her friend sternly over the rim of her glasses. "Not helping the other nightmare about waking up and finding we've gone and murdered downstairs." Another fretful pull. "All chunked in ice like mammoths or summat. Christ. The fuckin' flu."
"Calm thy nightmare tits." Chroma leaned back languidly against the couch, flicking her gaze at the front door. "Downstairs is cosy."
As always she gave no actual evidence for the statement but spoke it with such inarguable confidence that it seemed absurd to question whether she had any, and Penny huffed and shivered.
Chroma blinked at her. "Do you have somewhere else to stay?"
"Eh. Aldwych's got to have a spare in some house, right? Don't go giving my bed away," she added quickly. "Not talking for good or anything, just 'til Artie's feeling better, or it's at least not so bloody Baltic in here."
"Sweet Penny." Chroma cracked a smile under lidded eyes. The back of her hand - if she owned a pair of gloves without the tips cut off, Penny had yet to see them - patted lightly against the other woman's jaw. "Why would we think otherwise?"
Now there was a question with some loaded answers, Penny thought, but the sound of the door clicking open caught both their attention, heads turning as Ruben sidled in through the gap, grimacing and stamping his shoes on the mat.
"Forget something?" Penny asked.
Ruben paused, halfway into shrugging his coat further onto his shoulders in an inverse of the usual homecoming ritual, and frowned at them.
"I did text," he said. "Did something happen?"
Chroma sat up further, abruptly looking as alert as she had all afternoon, ears almost visibly pricking. Her nostrils flared around a long inhale, pupils widening minutely.
"Who lit a fire under you?" Penny asked, bemused. "Asking for a friend with a numb arse. It's me, if you were wondering. Seriously, tying up with gloves on is a pain, that's all-"
"Rue," Chroma said, her deep voice a brutally efficient steamroller over all competitors. "Where have you been?"
With his brow deeply furrowed, Ruben took on the particularly flat-faced appearance of the rugby regular, but the sharpness of his gaze betrayed the cogs whirring hard.
"To get the Benylin," he said slowly, lifting the small plastic bag wrapped around his fingers, summoning a burst of aggravated raspberrying from Penny as she flung the laces on her last boot down.
"You couldn't wait two seconds?" Penny drew a breath to launch the second barrel of her offensive, then held it, blinking. "How'd you do that in two seconds."
Ruben looked at the plastic bag, then at Penny, then at last at the closed bedroom door just down the hall and the faint rime of ice sheening its round handle, and the cogs clicked cleanly into place. "Huh," he said.
"Never mentioned this side of the inheritance," Chroma said with a soft, almost reverent thoughtfulness, a sharp thumbnail tapping against her wide lower lip. "Well, well."
"What?" Last to the finish line, Penny glanced between them a moment longer before understanding dusted down like snowfall. "No. You're having me on." Penny's denial held all the flatness of an automatic defense, wide blue eyes darting a fierce plea for someone to start laughing at the joke. "No fucking way."
He pulled out his phone, but just shook his head helplessly over whatever was showing on the screen. "I was out - forty-five minutes, maybe? Silverfield's was shut, I had to go one over-"
"They close early on Sundays." Penny twisted on the couch, voice scaling the octave unsteadily. "Christ on a sinking submarine, how long have we been in the flat?"
Rating: PG
Series: The Feasting Years
Wordcount: 1,227
Summary: In the Brighthounds' little sharehouse, Arthur's down with the sickness. This has some odd side effects.
Remarks: Decided to store the fic bits (a few complete, most in pieces) I wrote when qx and I were mucking around in the 'feasting years' setting, which was mostly deeply self-indulgent nonsense featuring superpowers, angry gods, benthic cults, inadvisable experiments, and an awful lot of people who can't be trusted to make responsible decisions.
Ruben emerged from the bedroom with a cloudy sigh and a silver packet that he tossed at the kitchen counter as he shut the bedroom door behind him. "That's the last of the Benylin."
"Oh for fffff..." Penny seemed determined to defy enforced shivering by taking up a ceaseless jiggling on her own terms. She dug her gloved hands deeper into her armpits, eyes glaring out the narrow window of the hoodie pulled smotheringly tight around her face, bouncing from one foot to another in dance familiar to anyone stuck waiting for a bus in a winter gale. "I can't take this anymore, I really can't."
"I'll make a run to Silverfields," Ruben offered, already nabbing his wallet off the counter and jamming it into a back pocket. He rubbed his own bare fingers over his cheeks, only to wince at the touch of cold skin and withdraw them to blow warm breath over his knuckles. "Should still be open."
"Going to make a run for Fiji," Penny moaned.
Lounged belly down and mudfish flat on the sofa under the spread wings of her green parka, Chroma's tawny eyes were the only thing that moved in her calculated huddle. "How is he?" she asked in her soft, husky voice.
"Sleeping. Is it a good sign? Maybe." Ruben exhaled another crystalline cloud in demonstration and shrugged wryly. "But I'm no doctor."
"Hmm." She followed the cloud as it curled and faded like a cat watching a pulled string. "Safe to say the fever isn't broken yet, I think."
Penny's explosive snort left no doubt as to her feelings on that, if ever there was any chance of doubting. She followed it with an equally explosive triple sneeze, half caught in one elbow, and growled indistinctly as she wiped a thumb under her nose and then down the side of her trousers.
"M'nose hairs are frostin' over," she said defensively to the pair of suspicious looks. "Here, let me get my boots, Rube, I'll catch you up. I need to thaw."
The squat man nodded agreement, and leaned back to knock gently on the bedroom door and share the offer of a walk with their last mobile member. Unsurprisingly, the piping voice from within returned a short, waveringly proud negative - but then defrosting was only a priority for those for whom the cold was anything but a comfort.
"Spliffs while you're out?" Chroma yawned as Ruben headed for the flat door and, when he quirked an agreeable smile, concluded, "Best. Love you."
She levered herself up into a sitting position as he stepped out, sliding her arms into the limp sleeves of her coat before it could fall off her shoulders, and yawned widely again, lips curling back briefly over long canines. Penny flopped onto the sofa seat that was now spare, the leather wheezing sadly under her violent compression, shoes in hand and a mulish jut to her chin.
"Look," she said to her boots as she jammed a foot in one, "I feel a heel, but I might have to mean it about moving out for a while. Starting to worry if I fall asleep I'm not going to wake up again, yeah?"
"I know the feeling," Chroma murmured.
Penny paused in the middle of yanking at her laces to eye her friend sternly over the rim of her glasses. "Not helping the other nightmare about waking up and finding we've gone and murdered downstairs." Another fretful pull. "All chunked in ice like mammoths or summat. Christ. The fuckin' flu."
"Calm thy nightmare tits." Chroma leaned back languidly against the couch, flicking her gaze at the front door. "Downstairs is cosy."
As always she gave no actual evidence for the statement but spoke it with such inarguable confidence that it seemed absurd to question whether she had any, and Penny huffed and shivered.
Chroma blinked at her. "Do you have somewhere else to stay?"
"Eh. Aldwych's got to have a spare in some house, right? Don't go giving my bed away," she added quickly. "Not talking for good or anything, just 'til Artie's feeling better, or it's at least not so bloody Baltic in here."
"Sweet Penny." Chroma cracked a smile under lidded eyes. The back of her hand - if she owned a pair of gloves without the tips cut off, Penny had yet to see them - patted lightly against the other woman's jaw. "Why would we think otherwise?"
Now there was a question with some loaded answers, Penny thought, but the sound of the door clicking open caught both their attention, heads turning as Ruben sidled in through the gap, grimacing and stamping his shoes on the mat.
"Forget something?" Penny asked.
Ruben paused, halfway into shrugging his coat further onto his shoulders in an inverse of the usual homecoming ritual, and frowned at them.
"I did text," he said. "Did something happen?"
Chroma sat up further, abruptly looking as alert as she had all afternoon, ears almost visibly pricking. Her nostrils flared around a long inhale, pupils widening minutely.
"Who lit a fire under you?" Penny asked, bemused. "Asking for a friend with a numb arse. It's me, if you were wondering. Seriously, tying up with gloves on is a pain, that's all-"
"Rue," Chroma said, her deep voice a brutally efficient steamroller over all competitors. "Where have you been?"
With his brow deeply furrowed, Ruben took on the particularly flat-faced appearance of the rugby regular, but the sharpness of his gaze betrayed the cogs whirring hard.
"To get the Benylin," he said slowly, lifting the small plastic bag wrapped around his fingers, summoning a burst of aggravated raspberrying from Penny as she flung the laces on her last boot down.
"You couldn't wait two seconds?" Penny drew a breath to launch the second barrel of her offensive, then held it, blinking. "How'd you do that in two seconds."
Ruben looked at the plastic bag, then at Penny, then at last at the closed bedroom door just down the hall and the faint rime of ice sheening its round handle, and the cogs clicked cleanly into place. "Huh," he said.
"Never mentioned this side of the inheritance," Chroma said with a soft, almost reverent thoughtfulness, a sharp thumbnail tapping against her wide lower lip. "Well, well."
"What?" Last to the finish line, Penny glanced between them a moment longer before understanding dusted down like snowfall. "No. You're having me on." Penny's denial held all the flatness of an automatic defense, wide blue eyes darting a fierce plea for someone to start laughing at the joke. "No fucking way."
He pulled out his phone, but just shook his head helplessly over whatever was showing on the screen. "I was out - forty-five minutes, maybe? Silverfield's was shut, I had to go one over-"
"They close early on Sundays." Penny twisted on the couch, voice scaling the octave unsteadily. "Christ on a sinking submarine, how long have we been in the flat?"
