muses_w_remotes | 8.16. Wallace & Gromit quote
8.16. "I have a hunch this is going to be a night to remember!"
| Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Co-written with paramedically & notskywalker
[Follows THIS]
If anything, Ali was observant. Something had been wrong with Andrew on their date, but he wasn’t forthcoming with any details. He picked at his meal with disinterest, though did keep the conversation rolling between them. Coupled with that, he was sucking down the glasses of water like he hadn’t had a drink for the last week. Then he had fidgeted his way right through the film they saw together and didn’t want any of their shared popcorn. If she was the paranoid type, she would have gotten herself a major complex by the time they were hailing a cab to head back to her apartment. It could have all been construed as him not wanting to be there, but he had made no excuses to leave and seemed to be making a concerted effort to hold out on their date, even if something was clearly eating him.
She rolled with it for the duration of their date. Despite the restlessness, she was still enjoying his company and they could always try again another time, right? But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to get to the bottom of what was bothering him. As it was, she was thankful she even got a moment to touch on Christmas Eve with him. Luke had called her earlier in the day and explained that he and Tab were having a Christmas thing with some of their New York chapter on Christmas Eve before they all went to Jersey and then he broke the news that Andrew had turned down the invitation to come. That seemed odd until Luke went on to admit that Andrew had lost his love of Christmas in the wake of his father’s death and had apparently put his hand up for seven straight shifts that coming week just to distract himself from it. It surely had been news to Ali on both fronts, not that she had thought to raise the issue of Christmas before now. She seized the chance on their date and inevitably received confirmation that 1) Christmas wasn’t a happy time for him this year, and 2) he was working Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
She hadn’t wanted to push him. She had no real Christmas plans herself with her family being in England with her grandparents. She was just going to hole up in her apartment with a tree and Sunshine and try not to think about how much she missed everyone. And she didn’t want to push Andrew into something he was clearly upset over, so she had just given him a kiss and told him she understood. She would have to break the news to Luke in the morning that they would have to take a raincheck on Christmas Eve because Andrew was working. Then she just went right back to worrying about why he had suddenly turned into Most Restless and Distracted Person of the Century.
They were waiting for the cab when Ali wrapped her arm around his waist and he shied away from the touch just a little. “Okay, sweetheart, time to lay the cards on the table again. Have you got worms or am I really just a bad date?” she asked. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you didn’t like the food or the movie was boring as all hell, but now you’re just worrying me.”
Andrew looked down at her. “No… no, Ali. I’ve had a really good time. There is nothing bad about you as a date,” he insisted. “This is me. Not you.”
Ali pressed her lips together wryly. “Did you just feed me the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ line?”
“No!” Andrew immediately protested and then made a frustrated sound. “Not like that, anyway. I didn’t want to ruin our date, but I clearly have. It’s nothing, I promise.”
“It’s not nothing, Andrew,” Ali told him. “Something has been bothering you all night. Are you going to tell me what it is? Or can you just not tell me? Don’t want to tell me? Has something happened? Are you having second thoughts?”
Andrew pushed his hand through his hair with a sigh. “It’s my stomach. I haven’t been feeling well all afternoon but I didn’t want to pull out of our date because I knew you were looking forward to it. I thought I could just forget about it and it would be cool. I hadn’t realised I was being so obvious and I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was a pain in the gut to stuff it all up.”
Ali let out a sharp and turned to him to feel his forehead with her fingers. “Fucking hell, love. Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling off? We could have made this another night. We could’ve stayed home and watched a DVD.” She moved her palm to his cheek. “You do feel a bit warm. It’s just a pain in the stomach? At least now it all falls into place.”
Ali’s winter-chilled fingers felt nice on his warm cheek. “I just wanted us to have a good time,” he explained regretfully. “Now I kind of just want to go home and go to bed. I think the week is just catching up with me.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Ali agreed and gave him a soft kiss. “Do you want to stay at mine? I mean, I can’t promise you an unbroken sleep with Sunshine how she has been of late, but at least you wouldn’t be alone when you’re not feeling good. I can make you a hot water bottle for stomach and keep you company.”
Andrew smiled with a nod. “I’d like that.”
* * * * *
It was much later and right in the middle of Jamie’s one am feed when Andrew scrambled out of Ali’s bed and threw himself into the connecting en suite bathroom. Ali had her hands and boobs full with feeding her daughter, but she winced when she heard Andrew start to be sick, though she had wondered if that was on the cards most of the evening. She was going to call out to ask if he was okay, but clearly he wasn't. She couldn’t get up just yet to check on him, though, or chances were Jamie wouldn’t go back to her feeding and would wake even earlier and hungrier next time. Instead, she just continued to feed the infant whilst biting her lip in concern and listening to her new lover throwing up in the next room.
It was another good five minutes before the toilet flushed, followed by the water running in the sink. Andrew soon appeared in the doorway looking worse for wear; sweaty, pale and flushed across the cheeks. “You okay there now, sweetheart?” Ali asked in concern. “Just two more minutes and I’ll be right there.”
“It’s okay,” Andrew assured her hoarsely, though the way he was holding his stomach was belying his words. “I just need to lie down. You’ll be wishing I went home now.”
“Bullshit,” Ali murmured as Jamie eased off from the sucking. She shifted to prop the baby up in her in her lap and held a towel under her tiny chin so she could pat her back to burp her. “Do I look bothered that you’re ill, love? I’d rather you here puking your guts up than home alone doing it. And I’m going to be right over there to help you as soon as I get this one back to bed.” Almost on cue, Jamie promptly spit up about everything she had just eaten all over Ali’s lap simultaneous to Andrew bolting back into the bathroom for Puke Round #2. Clearly it was not going to be an easy night. The baby barf was expected; Andrew as sick as a dog wasn’t, and Ali was worried about him. She actually even toyed with calling Luke to ask Tab to call her twin brother, but didn’t want to jump to irrational conclusions. Instead, she just started to clean Jamie up and ready her for sleep again so she could move on and be nursemaid for her boyfriend.
…fuck, was he her boyfriend?
* * * * *
It was even later still (pushing 4am) when Ali’s panic set in. She sat on the edge of the bath tub holding a wet cloth to Andrew’s burning forehead as he continued to be repeatedly sick into her toilet. She was starting to think she should get him to the ER or something… anything. It couldn’t be their dinner that made him sick because according to what he said earlier, he hadn’t been feeling well all afternoon. It was just these past few hours that went from having a sore stomach to a sweaty, vomiting, exhausted mess. Plus, he kept clutching his stomach so she didn’t need him to continuously verbalise that he was in pain. But she was a Forensic Analyst, not a damn doctor and she couldn’t handle seeing him so miserable anymore.
She took the cloth away and pressed a kiss to his sweaty temple. “I’ll be right back, baby. I just need to quickly check on Sunshine,” she murmured and received a slight nod as Andrew rested his cheek against the rim of the toilet.
Jamie was still sleeping peacefully, so Ali just gently tucked the bunny rug around her and then left the bedroom to run up the hall towards the kitchen. She fumbled with the cordless phone and plucked a torn piece of paper from under a magnet on the fridge and punched in the number that was scrawled there. She said a string of silent, advance apologies to the received for the unsociable hour she was calling, but it was important.
The mumbled, muffled, sleepy answer meant Ali couldn’t tell if it was Luke or Tab who had picked up the phone. Either way, they sounded put out, understandably. And she didn’t give a toss. “Luke?” There was a grunt of confirmation at the question. “Right, good. Listen, Luke, it’s Ali. I need your arse up and coherent for a minute. It’s Andrew.”
A beat and a slight ruffling sound on the other end of the line. “Andy? What? Ali, it’s four am…”
“Yeah, I can read a clock,” Ali threw back snippily. “I’ve been up since one. Look, I don’t know what to do but I know Tab’s brother is a doctor, so maybe you can throw a few suggestions in my direction? Andrew’s sick. He said he had a sore stomach all afternoon, then still felt crap on our date. Now he’s been puking for hours and I don’t know whether I should take him to the ER even if he’s telling me he’ll be fine soon.”
“Shit… literally hours or does it just seem like that?”
Ali sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes. “Since Jamie’s one am feed. Luke, I need your help. He’s miserable and he’s sweaty and in pain. What if he’s got an ulcer or something?”
“I’ll call Riley or I’ll call Lachlan… someone. Lachlan’s only a few blocks away, he might be a better option. Riley’s in Princeton.”
Ali looked at the clock on the stove through her fingers. “Who’s Lachlan? Does Andrew even know who he is?”
“He’s Riley’s best friend. He knows of him. You can trust him, I promise. Lachlan is a good option where Riley will probably panic because he can’t be there to help.”
Ali pushed off the counter and nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Call me back, okay? Or have whatever doc you can get call me back. I just want to know if this is just a twenty four hour bug thing or if I need to take him to the hospital.”
“Give me a few minutes,” Luke assured her. “And it goes without saying because I know you’re already doing it, but take care of him.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Ali said tiredly and ended the call.
All muses referenced with permission
Word Count | 1,983
| Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Co-written with paramedically & notskywalker
[Follows THIS]
If anything, Ali was observant. Something had been wrong with Andrew on their date, but he wasn’t forthcoming with any details. He picked at his meal with disinterest, though did keep the conversation rolling between them. Coupled with that, he was sucking down the glasses of water like he hadn’t had a drink for the last week. Then he had fidgeted his way right through the film they saw together and didn’t want any of their shared popcorn. If she was the paranoid type, she would have gotten herself a major complex by the time they were hailing a cab to head back to her apartment. It could have all been construed as him not wanting to be there, but he had made no excuses to leave and seemed to be making a concerted effort to hold out on their date, even if something was clearly eating him.
She rolled with it for the duration of their date. Despite the restlessness, she was still enjoying his company and they could always try again another time, right? But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to get to the bottom of what was bothering him. As it was, she was thankful she even got a moment to touch on Christmas Eve with him. Luke had called her earlier in the day and explained that he and Tab were having a Christmas thing with some of their New York chapter on Christmas Eve before they all went to Jersey and then he broke the news that Andrew had turned down the invitation to come. That seemed odd until Luke went on to admit that Andrew had lost his love of Christmas in the wake of his father’s death and had apparently put his hand up for seven straight shifts that coming week just to distract himself from it. It surely had been news to Ali on both fronts, not that she had thought to raise the issue of Christmas before now. She seized the chance on their date and inevitably received confirmation that 1) Christmas wasn’t a happy time for him this year, and 2) he was working Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
She hadn’t wanted to push him. She had no real Christmas plans herself with her family being in England with her grandparents. She was just going to hole up in her apartment with a tree and Sunshine and try not to think about how much she missed everyone. And she didn’t want to push Andrew into something he was clearly upset over, so she had just given him a kiss and told him she understood. She would have to break the news to Luke in the morning that they would have to take a raincheck on Christmas Eve because Andrew was working. Then she just went right back to worrying about why he had suddenly turned into Most Restless and Distracted Person of the Century.
They were waiting for the cab when Ali wrapped her arm around his waist and he shied away from the touch just a little. “Okay, sweetheart, time to lay the cards on the table again. Have you got worms or am I really just a bad date?” she asked. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you didn’t like the food or the movie was boring as all hell, but now you’re just worrying me.”
Andrew looked down at her. “No… no, Ali. I’ve had a really good time. There is nothing bad about you as a date,” he insisted. “This is me. Not you.”
Ali pressed her lips together wryly. “Did you just feed me the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ line?”
“No!” Andrew immediately protested and then made a frustrated sound. “Not like that, anyway. I didn’t want to ruin our date, but I clearly have. It’s nothing, I promise.”
“It’s not nothing, Andrew,” Ali told him. “Something has been bothering you all night. Are you going to tell me what it is? Or can you just not tell me? Don’t want to tell me? Has something happened? Are you having second thoughts?”
Andrew pushed his hand through his hair with a sigh. “It’s my stomach. I haven’t been feeling well all afternoon but I didn’t want to pull out of our date because I knew you were looking forward to it. I thought I could just forget about it and it would be cool. I hadn’t realised I was being so obvious and I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was a pain in the gut to stuff it all up.”
Ali let out a sharp and turned to him to feel his forehead with her fingers. “Fucking hell, love. Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling off? We could have made this another night. We could’ve stayed home and watched a DVD.” She moved her palm to his cheek. “You do feel a bit warm. It’s just a pain in the stomach? At least now it all falls into place.”
Ali’s winter-chilled fingers felt nice on his warm cheek. “I just wanted us to have a good time,” he explained regretfully. “Now I kind of just want to go home and go to bed. I think the week is just catching up with me.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Ali agreed and gave him a soft kiss. “Do you want to stay at mine? I mean, I can’t promise you an unbroken sleep with Sunshine how she has been of late, but at least you wouldn’t be alone when you’re not feeling good. I can make you a hot water bottle for stomach and keep you company.”
Andrew smiled with a nod. “I’d like that.”
* * * * *
It was much later and right in the middle of Jamie’s one am feed when Andrew scrambled out of Ali’s bed and threw himself into the connecting en suite bathroom. Ali had her hands and boobs full with feeding her daughter, but she winced when she heard Andrew start to be sick, though she had wondered if that was on the cards most of the evening. She was going to call out to ask if he was okay, but clearly he wasn't. She couldn’t get up just yet to check on him, though, or chances were Jamie wouldn’t go back to her feeding and would wake even earlier and hungrier next time. Instead, she just continued to feed the infant whilst biting her lip in concern and listening to her new lover throwing up in the next room.
It was another good five minutes before the toilet flushed, followed by the water running in the sink. Andrew soon appeared in the doorway looking worse for wear; sweaty, pale and flushed across the cheeks. “You okay there now, sweetheart?” Ali asked in concern. “Just two more minutes and I’ll be right there.”
“It’s okay,” Andrew assured her hoarsely, though the way he was holding his stomach was belying his words. “I just need to lie down. You’ll be wishing I went home now.”
“Bullshit,” Ali murmured as Jamie eased off from the sucking. She shifted to prop the baby up in her in her lap and held a towel under her tiny chin so she could pat her back to burp her. “Do I look bothered that you’re ill, love? I’d rather you here puking your guts up than home alone doing it. And I’m going to be right over there to help you as soon as I get this one back to bed.” Almost on cue, Jamie promptly spit up about everything she had just eaten all over Ali’s lap simultaneous to Andrew bolting back into the bathroom for Puke Round #2. Clearly it was not going to be an easy night. The baby barf was expected; Andrew as sick as a dog wasn’t, and Ali was worried about him. She actually even toyed with calling Luke to ask Tab to call her twin brother, but didn’t want to jump to irrational conclusions. Instead, she just started to clean Jamie up and ready her for sleep again so she could move on and be nursemaid for her boyfriend.
…fuck, was he her boyfriend?
* * * * *
It was even later still (pushing 4am) when Ali’s panic set in. She sat on the edge of the bath tub holding a wet cloth to Andrew’s burning forehead as he continued to be repeatedly sick into her toilet. She was starting to think she should get him to the ER or something… anything. It couldn’t be their dinner that made him sick because according to what he said earlier, he hadn’t been feeling well all afternoon. It was just these past few hours that went from having a sore stomach to a sweaty, vomiting, exhausted mess. Plus, he kept clutching his stomach so she didn’t need him to continuously verbalise that he was in pain. But she was a Forensic Analyst, not a damn doctor and she couldn’t handle seeing him so miserable anymore.
She took the cloth away and pressed a kiss to his sweaty temple. “I’ll be right back, baby. I just need to quickly check on Sunshine,” she murmured and received a slight nod as Andrew rested his cheek against the rim of the toilet.
Jamie was still sleeping peacefully, so Ali just gently tucked the bunny rug around her and then left the bedroom to run up the hall towards the kitchen. She fumbled with the cordless phone and plucked a torn piece of paper from under a magnet on the fridge and punched in the number that was scrawled there. She said a string of silent, advance apologies to the received for the unsociable hour she was calling, but it was important.
The mumbled, muffled, sleepy answer meant Ali couldn’t tell if it was Luke or Tab who had picked up the phone. Either way, they sounded put out, understandably. And she didn’t give a toss. “Luke?” There was a grunt of confirmation at the question. “Right, good. Listen, Luke, it’s Ali. I need your arse up and coherent for a minute. It’s Andrew.”
A beat and a slight ruffling sound on the other end of the line. “Andy? What? Ali, it’s four am…”
“Yeah, I can read a clock,” Ali threw back snippily. “I’ve been up since one. Look, I don’t know what to do but I know Tab’s brother is a doctor, so maybe you can throw a few suggestions in my direction? Andrew’s sick. He said he had a sore stomach all afternoon, then still felt crap on our date. Now he’s been puking for hours and I don’t know whether I should take him to the ER even if he’s telling me he’ll be fine soon.”
“Shit… literally hours or does it just seem like that?”
Ali sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes. “Since Jamie’s one am feed. Luke, I need your help. He’s miserable and he’s sweaty and in pain. What if he’s got an ulcer or something?”
“I’ll call Riley or I’ll call Lachlan… someone. Lachlan’s only a few blocks away, he might be a better option. Riley’s in Princeton.”
Ali looked at the clock on the stove through her fingers. “Who’s Lachlan? Does Andrew even know who he is?”
“He’s Riley’s best friend. He knows of him. You can trust him, I promise. Lachlan is a good option where Riley will probably panic because he can’t be there to help.”
Ali pushed off the counter and nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Call me back, okay? Or have whatever doc you can get call me back. I just want to know if this is just a twenty four hour bug thing or if I need to take him to the hospital.”
“Give me a few minutes,” Luke assured her. “And it goes without saying because I know you’re already doing it, but take care of him.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Ali said tiredly and ended the call.
All muses referenced with permission
Word Count | 1,983