Business As Usual: Chapter 3
Title: Business As Usual
Author: Huggeroftrees
Fandom: Murder In Suburbia
Pairing: Ash/Scribbs
Warnings: Swearing, (later there will be flirting and possible affection)
Summary: For Ralst’s IDF 2009 "What If?" challenge: An AU-Fic of Ash/Scribbs (Murder in Suburbia) placing them in London during WW2, serving in the ATS.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2
~X~
Disclaimer: Realising I didn’t know more than upper school history I’ve read around the topic a little, but this isn’t the best researched thing I’ve ever written. I apologise for any glaring errors and hope that there’s nothing too much wrong with it. I know nothing about how lorries work but I am reliably informed by google that starter motors can be a reet annoyance at times. This story features a romantic relationship between two women, if that bothers you then this is your chance to walk away. I own nothing, the characters belong in their entirety to ITV and are used here without permission. No profit is being made from this work.
Business As Usual: Chapter Three: January 1941
Section-Leader-Ashurst walked briskly through the depot gates and swept her gaze over the bustle and confusion displayed there. Somewhere amongst these busily industrious figures in their dull green uniforms was Scribbs. However, despite her best efforts to search out that familiar ruffled blond head in the crowd she eventually had to ask a passing driver. Following the pointed finger she approached a gathering of vehicles at the far side of the yard.
“Turn it over again.”
The engine made a valiant effort but fell at the last hurdle, dying away into silence with a cough.
“Damn and blast it all to sodding hell!!” Scribbs, if that was Scribbs under the bonnet, appeared to have a wide and varied vocabulary when it came to expressing frustration. “Bloody piece of worn out…”
“Scribbs?”
Scribbs straightened up abruptly, cracking her head on the bonnet and further expanding Ash’s vocabulary.
“Ash?” She stumbled out into view, a hand to her head. “What are you doing here?”
Ash, struck dumb by the vision before her, realised she didn’t remember. The sight of Scribbs, her overalls tied around her waist had thrown a solid tree-trunk across the line, derailing the train of thought Ash had been driving merrily toward the station of light conversation. A ragged blue jumper had obviously been pulled on at some point during the afternoon to protect against the winter chill but with the numerous oily tears and holes revealing glimpses of a white under-shirt beneath, it probably wasn’t doing that great a job. Standing there, sleeves rolled up to reveal grease streaked arms, grubby faced with tousled hair above sticking up all over the place, she looked almost cute.
Did you just say cute? Ash mentally smacked herself on the back of the head in an attempt to get some kind of grip on her thoughts. Grubby people were not cute, it was a well established principle.
But you didn’t say people, you said Scribbs.
Ash blinked. Her train of thought was completely off the track now, the engine upside down in a field, wheels spinning freely. Scribbs wasn’t allowed to be cute. Beautiful, yes - sometimes. Funny, caring, great company, attractive to other branches of the soldiery of course, these were all things one thought about friends. But not “cute”. Apparently she needed to develop new rules for her thoughts about Scribbs.
She was having thoughts about Scribbs now? Thoughts she needed to confine within rules?
Putting that scary concept to one side, Ash concentrated on more reachable goals. First get the train back on the tracks. New Rule One: Scribbs was not cute. Not in any circumstances, not under any conditions. Even with a smudge of oil on her forehead. Coming out of her daze, she found Scribbs’ friendly face still waiting for her response and struggled to restart her thinking.
What had been her intention for coming here? Not to stand and gape at a grimy ATS driver in a raggedy jumper surely? Inspiration struck at last, “I was in the area and I thought I might pick you up.”
“Ah, ok.” Scribbs seemed to find this explanation satisfactory and reaching for a tool unfamiliar to Ash ducked back under the bonnet again. “I’m not quite ready though, can you hold on a tick? I’ve just got to get this up and running and then I’m all yours.”
There was an outburst of snickering from the cab above her, but Ash managed to ignore it. “That’s fine.” She moved around to see more clearly what Scribbs was up to. Not that that helped much. She had little understanding of engines at the best of times and her partner was buried somewhere in the depths of the engine, emitting embarrassing straining noises that resonated up off the metal.
“Did you try hitting it with a hammer? It always used to work for Daddy.” There was another outburst of snickering followed by an associated perfect example of ignoring said snickers by Section Leader Ashurst.
“I did,” Scribbs withdrew her head from the engine to flash a grin. “It just made the blighter hate me even more and refuse to turn over.”
“Ah.” Ash scrabbled around for something more to say. Up this point in their friendship the fact she knew nothing about engines hadn't been a problem. They'd always found enough subjects of equal interest to keep conversation flowing and thus Scribbs' knowledge of pre-Raphaelite art was minimal and Ash couldn't tell a spark plug from a carburettor. However, she couldn't stand there staring at the way Scribbs' overalls were pulled tight around her bottom by her activities under the bonnet. Desperately scraping the barrel she finally dredged up an image, vague in detail of something Nancy had said once when the Ambulance was playing up.
“Has the dratted ring-brush lost its bristles?” She may have got the wording wrong judging by the blank look that Scribbs produced in response to her suggestion, but then suddenly something clicked and the light of inspiration dawned over her face.
“Hang on.” Scribbs ducked back under the bonnet and fiddled furiously for a moment. “Try it now?”
The engine spluttered and shook but appeared to be getting nowhere. Scribbs’ shoulders slumped and she was just putting up a hand to signal the unseen driver to let sleeping contraptions lie when suddenly the engine caught and roared into life.
“Huzzah!!” Their unseen sniggerer let out a cheer and revved the engine like mad, the noise deafening before allowing it to settle into a steady chumbling.
“Ash you’re a genius!” Scribbs broke out the massive grin that was only used on special occasions. Ash could only look on in dismay as the demon mechanic came ever closer, arms outstretched, obviously intent on picking up a certain person and hugging them until they squealed for mercy.
“Scribbs!” Ash fended her off. “What are my rules regarding oil?” Scribbs stopped, her brow crinkling as she attempted to remember.
“On other people, fine. Not on ME!”
“Oh,” Scribbs looked down at hands. “Ah.” Clarification dawned. “I’ll er, just go and clean up.”
“That would be a very good plan.”
Ash wandered over to the building after her and picked a path through the various oily, greasy and otherwise dirty obstacles that cluttered the garage floor. Scribbs was headed directly for the tiny lavatory at the very rear of the building, pulling her sweater over her head as she went. Ash was pleased to note that she had been right about the white under-shirt. Left to wait she dreamily turned over an array of screws, sorting them into tidy piles by size whilst her thoughts were pleasurably occupied recording and storing away information on the smooth curves that could be revealed by a simple off-white item of clothing.
“Better?”
Startled, Ash looked up. Scribbs had re-emerged with mostly clean but glowing red arms that indicated vigorous scrubbing had taken place and a matching face (now sans oily streak). Her overalls were gone as well, replaced by her uniform trousers and as she pulled on her uniform jacket over that white under-shirt she ran her fingers through damp hair where she’d obviously stuck her head under the tap, attempting to get the unruly spikes to lie down in something approaching a style. Ash thought she looked wonderful.
“Ash?” Scribbs was climbing into her duffel coat, her scarf already around her neck. “We’ll miss the bus.”
How long had she been stood there with her mouth open? Mentally smacking herself on the back of the head again, Ash nodded and fell into step behind.
As per usual Scribbs made her ride on the upper deck taking pride in forcing her friend to mingle with the hoi polloi. Tonight, not content with embarrassing her superior by making her pay for a thruppeny ticket when she knew she could afford the shilling, Scribbs hardly waited until they were settled into their seats before beginning to expand loudly on her bodily needs.
“I’m starving.”
The woman was incorrigible, Ash thought. Sitting there, stretched out, taking an entire seat to herself…
“There should be chips. I demand chips.”
Admittedly the bus wasn't full, but it was the principle of the thing…
“Let there be chips. O holy saints look down on your starving child and bless her this day with chips. Abundantly.”
And, completely against regulations, she had her feet on the seat!
“Scribbs.” Ash was grateful though, at least it was only hunger. Scribbs had been rather frank during another bus journey about other needs she was suffering.
“You went to proper school Ash, you’ll know all about the saints. Which saint is in charge of chips?”
“As far as I am aware Scribbs, there is no particular saint charged with addressing injustices amongst the population with regard to fried potatoes.”
Scribbs turned to look at Ash in astonishment, but her threatened rebuttal was cut short by the rapidly approaching bus stop. Grabbing Ash she rang the bell and hustled her to the back of the bus dragging her down the stairs, Ash only managed to pull her arm free at the last second before the idiot took a flying leap from the platform while the bus was still moving. The woman seemed to take joy in attempting to get Ash to jump off and on buses while they were in motion, a lag over from her more rapscallion days as an ill-bred London youth. As she waited for the vehicle to come to a complete standstill Ash wondered how else Scribbs intended cause her a heart attack tonight.
She soon found out, Scribbs dragging her into the first fish and chip shop they came across. Settling themselves at the end of the queue, Scribbs inhaled deeply of the tempting aroma drifting over the counter while Ash struggled to close her nostrils against the incipient invasion of fat droplets. She watched as Scribbs followed the handover of every neatly wrapped packet, almost salivating despite Ash's frequently applied elbow to her ribs and whispered directions to “stop drooling for pity's sake!” When they eventually reached the till Scribbs enquired politely as to whether Ash wanted anything but receiving only a frown in response she answered her own question. “Ah yes, Rule 7 for eating out, no food that isn’t served on a plate.”
Ash turned down the first offer of a chip, the hurriedly opened packet thrust under her nose as they hurried through the blackout toward the welcoming warmth of the Warden Post. She turned down the second offer as they dropped off their belongings in the cramped hut, though the heap of squishy salty starch nestling amongst greasy paper was becoming more appealing in line with her developing hunger. As they walked the street, doing the first house to house check of the night, Ash thought of the cold sandwiches awaiting her and reached for the almost empty bag.
“They’re pretty much cold now.” Scribbs looked at her in surprise but proffered the package anyway, magnanimously not commenting on the breaking of at least three unbreakable rules.
By the time they returned to the Warden's Post the bag was empty and rejecting Ash's offer to deal with the rubbish Scribbs instead leant back in her chair, balling up the packaging to throw it perfectly into the waste bin. She celebrated loudly, ignoring Ash as she sighed disapprovingly before returning her attention to making up the log.
It was a quiet night and Ash made use of her rank and the knowledge that Scribbs had had a hard day whilst she had been merely sat at a desk to make the woman take the first shift asleep. Watching her sleep Ash found snippets of the day replaying over in her mind. Dreamily watching the shadows sway as the lantern swung in the breeze she smiled as a scruffy ragamuffin flashed her a wide grin before ducking back under the bonnet of a broken lorry, a laughing open face proffered a packet of greasy aromatic chips in her general direction and further back in the early hours of the morning inscrutable eyes caught hers over a lit cigarette and winked.
“Scribbs?”
“Hmm?” The blanket wrapped lump gave birth to a sleep-tousled head and a bleary eye swivelled to find her in the gloom.
“Would you like to come home with me one of these weekends?”
~X~
Author: Huggeroftrees
Fandom: Murder In Suburbia
Pairing: Ash/Scribbs
Warnings: Swearing, (later there will be flirting and possible affection)
Summary: For Ralst’s IDF 2009 "What If?" challenge: An AU-Fic of Ash/Scribbs (Murder in Suburbia) placing them in London during WW2, serving in the ATS.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2
~X~
Disclaimer: Realising I didn’t know more than upper school history I’ve read around the topic a little, but this isn’t the best researched thing I’ve ever written. I apologise for any glaring errors and hope that there’s nothing too much wrong with it. I know nothing about how lorries work but I am reliably informed by google that starter motors can be a reet annoyance at times. This story features a romantic relationship between two women, if that bothers you then this is your chance to walk away. I own nothing, the characters belong in their entirety to ITV and are used here without permission. No profit is being made from this work.
Business As Usual: Chapter Three: January 1941
Section-Leader-Ashurst walked briskly through the depot gates and swept her gaze over the bustle and confusion displayed there. Somewhere amongst these busily industrious figures in their dull green uniforms was Scribbs. However, despite her best efforts to search out that familiar ruffled blond head in the crowd she eventually had to ask a passing driver. Following the pointed finger she approached a gathering of vehicles at the far side of the yard.
“Turn it over again.”
The engine made a valiant effort but fell at the last hurdle, dying away into silence with a cough.
“Damn and blast it all to sodding hell!!” Scribbs, if that was Scribbs under the bonnet, appeared to have a wide and varied vocabulary when it came to expressing frustration. “Bloody piece of worn out…”
“Scribbs?”
Scribbs straightened up abruptly, cracking her head on the bonnet and further expanding Ash’s vocabulary.
“Ash?” She stumbled out into view, a hand to her head. “What are you doing here?”
Ash, struck dumb by the vision before her, realised she didn’t remember. The sight of Scribbs, her overalls tied around her waist had thrown a solid tree-trunk across the line, derailing the train of thought Ash had been driving merrily toward the station of light conversation. A ragged blue jumper had obviously been pulled on at some point during the afternoon to protect against the winter chill but with the numerous oily tears and holes revealing glimpses of a white under-shirt beneath, it probably wasn’t doing that great a job. Standing there, sleeves rolled up to reveal grease streaked arms, grubby faced with tousled hair above sticking up all over the place, she looked almost cute.
Did you just say cute? Ash mentally smacked herself on the back of the head in an attempt to get some kind of grip on her thoughts. Grubby people were not cute, it was a well established principle.
But you didn’t say people, you said Scribbs.
Ash blinked. Her train of thought was completely off the track now, the engine upside down in a field, wheels spinning freely. Scribbs wasn’t allowed to be cute. Beautiful, yes - sometimes. Funny, caring, great company, attractive to other branches of the soldiery of course, these were all things one thought about friends. But not “cute”. Apparently she needed to develop new rules for her thoughts about Scribbs.
She was having thoughts about Scribbs now? Thoughts she needed to confine within rules?
Putting that scary concept to one side, Ash concentrated on more reachable goals. First get the train back on the tracks. New Rule One: Scribbs was not cute. Not in any circumstances, not under any conditions. Even with a smudge of oil on her forehead. Coming out of her daze, she found Scribbs’ friendly face still waiting for her response and struggled to restart her thinking.
What had been her intention for coming here? Not to stand and gape at a grimy ATS driver in a raggedy jumper surely? Inspiration struck at last, “I was in the area and I thought I might pick you up.”
“Ah, ok.” Scribbs seemed to find this explanation satisfactory and reaching for a tool unfamiliar to Ash ducked back under the bonnet again. “I’m not quite ready though, can you hold on a tick? I’ve just got to get this up and running and then I’m all yours.”
There was an outburst of snickering from the cab above her, but Ash managed to ignore it. “That’s fine.” She moved around to see more clearly what Scribbs was up to. Not that that helped much. She had little understanding of engines at the best of times and her partner was buried somewhere in the depths of the engine, emitting embarrassing straining noises that resonated up off the metal.
“Did you try hitting it with a hammer? It always used to work for Daddy.” There was another outburst of snickering followed by an associated perfect example of ignoring said snickers by Section Leader Ashurst.
“I did,” Scribbs withdrew her head from the engine to flash a grin. “It just made the blighter hate me even more and refuse to turn over.”
“Ah.” Ash scrabbled around for something more to say. Up this point in their friendship the fact she knew nothing about engines hadn't been a problem. They'd always found enough subjects of equal interest to keep conversation flowing and thus Scribbs' knowledge of pre-Raphaelite art was minimal and Ash couldn't tell a spark plug from a carburettor. However, she couldn't stand there staring at the way Scribbs' overalls were pulled tight around her bottom by her activities under the bonnet. Desperately scraping the barrel she finally dredged up an image, vague in detail of something Nancy had said once when the Ambulance was playing up.
“Has the dratted ring-brush lost its bristles?” She may have got the wording wrong judging by the blank look that Scribbs produced in response to her suggestion, but then suddenly something clicked and the light of inspiration dawned over her face.
“Hang on.” Scribbs ducked back under the bonnet and fiddled furiously for a moment. “Try it now?”
The engine spluttered and shook but appeared to be getting nowhere. Scribbs’ shoulders slumped and she was just putting up a hand to signal the unseen driver to let sleeping contraptions lie when suddenly the engine caught and roared into life.
“Huzzah!!” Their unseen sniggerer let out a cheer and revved the engine like mad, the noise deafening before allowing it to settle into a steady chumbling.
“Ash you’re a genius!” Scribbs broke out the massive grin that was only used on special occasions. Ash could only look on in dismay as the demon mechanic came ever closer, arms outstretched, obviously intent on picking up a certain person and hugging them until they squealed for mercy.
“Scribbs!” Ash fended her off. “What are my rules regarding oil?” Scribbs stopped, her brow crinkling as she attempted to remember.
“On other people, fine. Not on ME!”
“Oh,” Scribbs looked down at hands. “Ah.” Clarification dawned. “I’ll er, just go and clean up.”
“That would be a very good plan.”
Ash wandered over to the building after her and picked a path through the various oily, greasy and otherwise dirty obstacles that cluttered the garage floor. Scribbs was headed directly for the tiny lavatory at the very rear of the building, pulling her sweater over her head as she went. Ash was pleased to note that she had been right about the white under-shirt. Left to wait she dreamily turned over an array of screws, sorting them into tidy piles by size whilst her thoughts were pleasurably occupied recording and storing away information on the smooth curves that could be revealed by a simple off-white item of clothing.
“Better?”
Startled, Ash looked up. Scribbs had re-emerged with mostly clean but glowing red arms that indicated vigorous scrubbing had taken place and a matching face (now sans oily streak). Her overalls were gone as well, replaced by her uniform trousers and as she pulled on her uniform jacket over that white under-shirt she ran her fingers through damp hair where she’d obviously stuck her head under the tap, attempting to get the unruly spikes to lie down in something approaching a style. Ash thought she looked wonderful.
“Ash?” Scribbs was climbing into her duffel coat, her scarf already around her neck. “We’ll miss the bus.”
How long had she been stood there with her mouth open? Mentally smacking herself on the back of the head again, Ash nodded and fell into step behind.
As per usual Scribbs made her ride on the upper deck taking pride in forcing her friend to mingle with the hoi polloi. Tonight, not content with embarrassing her superior by making her pay for a thruppeny ticket when she knew she could afford the shilling, Scribbs hardly waited until they were settled into their seats before beginning to expand loudly on her bodily needs.
“I’m starving.”
The woman was incorrigible, Ash thought. Sitting there, stretched out, taking an entire seat to herself…
“There should be chips. I demand chips.”
Admittedly the bus wasn't full, but it was the principle of the thing…
“Let there be chips. O holy saints look down on your starving child and bless her this day with chips. Abundantly.”
And, completely against regulations, she had her feet on the seat!
“Scribbs.” Ash was grateful though, at least it was only hunger. Scribbs had been rather frank during another bus journey about other needs she was suffering.
“You went to proper school Ash, you’ll know all about the saints. Which saint is in charge of chips?”
“As far as I am aware Scribbs, there is no particular saint charged with addressing injustices amongst the population with regard to fried potatoes.”
Scribbs turned to look at Ash in astonishment, but her threatened rebuttal was cut short by the rapidly approaching bus stop. Grabbing Ash she rang the bell and hustled her to the back of the bus dragging her down the stairs, Ash only managed to pull her arm free at the last second before the idiot took a flying leap from the platform while the bus was still moving. The woman seemed to take joy in attempting to get Ash to jump off and on buses while they were in motion, a lag over from her more rapscallion days as an ill-bred London youth. As she waited for the vehicle to come to a complete standstill Ash wondered how else Scribbs intended cause her a heart attack tonight.
She soon found out, Scribbs dragging her into the first fish and chip shop they came across. Settling themselves at the end of the queue, Scribbs inhaled deeply of the tempting aroma drifting over the counter while Ash struggled to close her nostrils against the incipient invasion of fat droplets. She watched as Scribbs followed the handover of every neatly wrapped packet, almost salivating despite Ash's frequently applied elbow to her ribs and whispered directions to “stop drooling for pity's sake!” When they eventually reached the till Scribbs enquired politely as to whether Ash wanted anything but receiving only a frown in response she answered her own question. “Ah yes, Rule 7 for eating out, no food that isn’t served on a plate.”
Ash turned down the first offer of a chip, the hurriedly opened packet thrust under her nose as they hurried through the blackout toward the welcoming warmth of the Warden Post. She turned down the second offer as they dropped off their belongings in the cramped hut, though the heap of squishy salty starch nestling amongst greasy paper was becoming more appealing in line with her developing hunger. As they walked the street, doing the first house to house check of the night, Ash thought of the cold sandwiches awaiting her and reached for the almost empty bag.
“They’re pretty much cold now.” Scribbs looked at her in surprise but proffered the package anyway, magnanimously not commenting on the breaking of at least three unbreakable rules.
By the time they returned to the Warden's Post the bag was empty and rejecting Ash's offer to deal with the rubbish Scribbs instead leant back in her chair, balling up the packaging to throw it perfectly into the waste bin. She celebrated loudly, ignoring Ash as she sighed disapprovingly before returning her attention to making up the log.
It was a quiet night and Ash made use of her rank and the knowledge that Scribbs had had a hard day whilst she had been merely sat at a desk to make the woman take the first shift asleep. Watching her sleep Ash found snippets of the day replaying over in her mind. Dreamily watching the shadows sway as the lantern swung in the breeze she smiled as a scruffy ragamuffin flashed her a wide grin before ducking back under the bonnet of a broken lorry, a laughing open face proffered a packet of greasy aromatic chips in her general direction and further back in the early hours of the morning inscrutable eyes caught hers over a lit cigarette and winked.
“Scribbs?”
“Hmm?” The blanket wrapped lump gave birth to a sleep-tousled head and a bleary eye swivelled to find her in the gloom.
“Would you like to come home with me one of these weekends?”
~X~