Ficlet: Birthday #4: Make Me a Willow Cabin (Slings and Arrows)
The fourth ficlet in my little impromptu Five Birthdays project. And, hey, the next time I mention wanting to write several ficlets in a short period of time, I want y'all to remind me that I fail at ficlets because I am apparently incapable of writing something shorter than like 1000 words. OK? OK.
Birthday #4: Make Me a Willow Cabin. Slings & Arrows, Geoffrey/Ellen. PG-13 for language, pre-series. Yet more shameless indulgence of my Shakespeare kink.
Geoffrey started awake to a loud clatter from somewhere in the dorm, and what his bleary brain vaguely identified as swearing in a familiar voice. He glanced at the clock on the night-table; it read 3:07 a.m., and short of anything taking place in his immediate vicinity and involving nudity, he clearly wanted no part of whatever might occur at that hour. Decided, he pulled his pillow over his head and did his best to sink back into sleep.
Which worked brilliantly until there was a loud knock on his door, followed almost immediately by the door creaking open.
"Geoffrey." The low, cigarette-rough voice and silhouette of curly hair sticking out at all angles could only mean Maria, their assistant stage-manager.
"Fuuuck," he replied, by way of greeting.
"Geoffrey, my room is down the hall from the kitchen, and Ellen is in there doing God knows what, and if her understudy wasn't so awful I swear to God…"
"Ellen? Is in the kitchen?" Maybe he was still asleep after all.
"Yes, and tomorrow's tech for Triumph of Love, and my call is in about five hours, and I was up half the night last night helping Tom re-hang lights, and I don't want to disturb you but I need to sleep, there are seventy-eight cues in that show, and-"
"OK, OK, all right. I'm going. Fuck." He sat up and rubbed his face.
"Thank you, Geoffrey. I really-"
"Good night, Maria."
"Good night." And the door creaked shut again.
Geoffrey groaned and rolled out of bed, pulling on the closest things that seemed to be shirt- and trouser-shaped, all to the accompaniment of more clanging and swearing from downstairs. He stumbled down the staircase in bare feet, dragging a hand through his hair, banged his shoulder on the kitchen doorway and hardly felt it, struck numb by the sight that greeted him: Ellen, her hair wild and her burgundy silk pajamas covered in flour, standing with her head down over a pan that appeared to be filled mostly with blackened lumps of carbon.
"Ellen?" he said, when he could speak.
She whirled, and he could see a couple of dark smears on her cheek now; she whisked a battered oven mitt off her hand and held it behind her back. "Geoffrey!" she said, with a smooth, endearing smile that would have fooled most people. "What in the world are you doing up?"
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I could ask the same of you."
"What, this?" She shifted so that she was standing in front of the pan. "I just… I was in the mood for some chocolate cake."
"So you… decided to bake one? At three in the morning?"
"What? Is that so strange? So unimaginable?" She had that arrogant Ellen tilt to her chin now, that how-dare-you-question-me-mere-mortal expression that drove him mad in several different ways.
Unfortunately, they'd been fucking for months and dating for only slightly less time than that, so by now, he could see right through it. Not that it tended to turn him on any less. "Ellen. Two days ago you lost a button off your shirt, and you walked a kilometer to the costume shop and harassed Brenna until she fixed it for you."
"Well, of course!" Ellen laughed and held both hands up in front of her, the oven mitt dropping to the floor. "My body is the tool of my craft, Geoffrey-we can't very well have Viola wandering around with band-aids on her fingers because she pricked herself sewing on a stupid button, can we?"
He refrained from pointing out that she easily could have burned her fingers on the oven, particularly since some parts of what was in the pan looked like they might very well still be smoldering, and continued, "You hate the coffee maker."
"Only because it's a foreign conspiracy to give us needlessly complicated appliances. The instructions are barely even in English! It's shocking, really-"
He sighed. "Ellen."
"What?" she snapped back, and that was textbook Ellen, too-disdain first, then distraction, and if that didn't work, full-on frontal attack. He felt his mouth curving, and moved closer to her.
"Come on. You're not really in here at oh-fuck-thirty in the morning, keeping poor Maria from her well-earned rest, because you had an overpowering lust for shitty chocolate cake from a box, are you?"
"It's not shitty! It's extra-moist!" she protested, and she looked so hurt that it stopped him in his tracks.
"Ellen," he asked, completely boggled now, "what the hell is going on here?"
"It's just-I just-" She spluttered for a few seconds, then finally heaved a deep breath and glared at him. "It's your fucking birthday, all right, Geoffrey? Brian told me, and I wanted to make you a fucking cake, only I couldn't find the mixer and I forgot to get oil and this piece-of-shit oven burns everything, and-"
He held up a hand. "Wait. You. Are baking me. A birthday cake." He was having no small amount of trouble wrapping his brain around that concept.
"Yes! Or I would have, if it hadn't been for the fucking oven." He could feel the corner of his mouth twitching, and she brandished a warning finger at him. "And don't you dare tease me about this, Geoffrey, or I'll… I'll…"
"Make me eat it?" he couldn't help blurting out, and instantly regretted it when her eyes went hard and bright with tears.
"Oh, fuck you, Geoffrey."
"No, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said quickly, closing the remaining space between them so that he could fold her sticky hands between his. She was glaring again, but she didn't pull away, and he took that as a hopeful sign. "It's the middle of the night, I'm an asshole. It's just…" He shrugged a little, kissed the tip of her index finger. "It's just not like you."
"Because I'm useless, is that it?" she demanded.
"No," he returned firmly, "because you're Ellen fucking Fanshaw and you've got packed houses swooning at your feet every night. Baking would seem to be fairly low on your list of priorities."
In the glow of the crappy kitchen lights, he could see her cheeks flush, but she narrowed her eyes at him. "Actors are so full of shit."
"Yes," he agreed, smiling, "but in this case, it happens to be sincere shit." He lifted one of her hands, closed his mouth around a smear of chocolate on the pad beneath her thumb. "Mmm. Extra moist."
She inhaled sharply, her chest rising and falling just a scant couple of inches from his. "I should be punishing you," she told him, her expression caught between mischief and mutiny.
"I see you what you are, you are too proud." He reached out with one finger, traced it along a tousled spiral of hair near her cheek. "But if you were the devil, you are fair."
She rolled her eyes, but her smile broke through at last. "You'd make a terrible Viola."
"Maybe." He shrugged, grinned. "But I could do a passable Cesario."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "Geoffrey, the men get Hamlet, Maccers, Lear, Angelo, Prospero, Othello, Benedick, and almost all the histories. Leave Viola to the experts, please."
"You know," he pointed out, "in the Bard's time, Viola would have been played by a boy."
"Yes, and in the Bard's time, I'd be wearing seven different layers of clothing and you'd have to ask my father's permission to hold my hand." She pressed up against him, warm through the thin silk of her pajamas. "Thank God for progress."
He chuckled and slid an arm around her back. "Well, I can't argue with that." The scent of her was heady, expensive perfume and faint traces of makeup remover and rich chocolate over the top of it, and the whole house was asleep and it was his birthday, after all, but first things first. He kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you for the birthday cake."
"You're welcome," she answered, winding her arms around his neck. "Happy birthday."
"Thank you." He let his mouth ghost over her face, tasting chocolate and cake mix on her cheek, her temple, the corner of her mouth. A cake. She'd been baking him a cake. "I love you, Ellen," he murmured, suddenly drowning in it.
"You do?" she asked, like she occasionally did, like she couldn't quite believe it.
"Oh, yes," he whispered close in her ear. His hands slipped under her pajamas to find the smooth skin of her ribs. "With adorations, fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire."
"All right," she said breathlessly, "I'll let you get away with that one," and they both laughed as he hoisted her up onto the counter.
Four down, one to go! And it is way too late for me to be watching the BSG finale, yet... I may just do that anyway.
Birthday #4: Make Me a Willow Cabin. Slings & Arrows, Geoffrey/Ellen. PG-13 for language, pre-series. Yet more shameless indulgence of my Shakespeare kink.
Geoffrey started awake to a loud clatter from somewhere in the dorm, and what his bleary brain vaguely identified as swearing in a familiar voice. He glanced at the clock on the night-table; it read 3:07 a.m., and short of anything taking place in his immediate vicinity and involving nudity, he clearly wanted no part of whatever might occur at that hour. Decided, he pulled his pillow over his head and did his best to sink back into sleep.
Which worked brilliantly until there was a loud knock on his door, followed almost immediately by the door creaking open.
"Geoffrey." The low, cigarette-rough voice and silhouette of curly hair sticking out at all angles could only mean Maria, their assistant stage-manager.
"Fuuuck," he replied, by way of greeting.
"Geoffrey, my room is down the hall from the kitchen, and Ellen is in there doing God knows what, and if her understudy wasn't so awful I swear to God…"
"Ellen? Is in the kitchen?" Maybe he was still asleep after all.
"Yes, and tomorrow's tech for Triumph of Love, and my call is in about five hours, and I was up half the night last night helping Tom re-hang lights, and I don't want to disturb you but I need to sleep, there are seventy-eight cues in that show, and-"
"OK, OK, all right. I'm going. Fuck." He sat up and rubbed his face.
"Thank you, Geoffrey. I really-"
"Good night, Maria."
"Good night." And the door creaked shut again.
Geoffrey groaned and rolled out of bed, pulling on the closest things that seemed to be shirt- and trouser-shaped, all to the accompaniment of more clanging and swearing from downstairs. He stumbled down the staircase in bare feet, dragging a hand through his hair, banged his shoulder on the kitchen doorway and hardly felt it, struck numb by the sight that greeted him: Ellen, her hair wild and her burgundy silk pajamas covered in flour, standing with her head down over a pan that appeared to be filled mostly with blackened lumps of carbon.
"Ellen?" he said, when he could speak.
She whirled, and he could see a couple of dark smears on her cheek now; she whisked a battered oven mitt off her hand and held it behind her back. "Geoffrey!" she said, with a smooth, endearing smile that would have fooled most people. "What in the world are you doing up?"
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I could ask the same of you."
"What, this?" She shifted so that she was standing in front of the pan. "I just… I was in the mood for some chocolate cake."
"So you… decided to bake one? At three in the morning?"
"What? Is that so strange? So unimaginable?" She had that arrogant Ellen tilt to her chin now, that how-dare-you-question-me-mere-mortal expression that drove him mad in several different ways.
Unfortunately, they'd been fucking for months and dating for only slightly less time than that, so by now, he could see right through it. Not that it tended to turn him on any less. "Ellen. Two days ago you lost a button off your shirt, and you walked a kilometer to the costume shop and harassed Brenna until she fixed it for you."
"Well, of course!" Ellen laughed and held both hands up in front of her, the oven mitt dropping to the floor. "My body is the tool of my craft, Geoffrey-we can't very well have Viola wandering around with band-aids on her fingers because she pricked herself sewing on a stupid button, can we?"
He refrained from pointing out that she easily could have burned her fingers on the oven, particularly since some parts of what was in the pan looked like they might very well still be smoldering, and continued, "You hate the coffee maker."
"Only because it's a foreign conspiracy to give us needlessly complicated appliances. The instructions are barely even in English! It's shocking, really-"
He sighed. "Ellen."
"What?" she snapped back, and that was textbook Ellen, too-disdain first, then distraction, and if that didn't work, full-on frontal attack. He felt his mouth curving, and moved closer to her.
"Come on. You're not really in here at oh-fuck-thirty in the morning, keeping poor Maria from her well-earned rest, because you had an overpowering lust for shitty chocolate cake from a box, are you?"
"It's not shitty! It's extra-moist!" she protested, and she looked so hurt that it stopped him in his tracks.
"Ellen," he asked, completely boggled now, "what the hell is going on here?"
"It's just-I just-" She spluttered for a few seconds, then finally heaved a deep breath and glared at him. "It's your fucking birthday, all right, Geoffrey? Brian told me, and I wanted to make you a fucking cake, only I couldn't find the mixer and I forgot to get oil and this piece-of-shit oven burns everything, and-"
He held up a hand. "Wait. You. Are baking me. A birthday cake." He was having no small amount of trouble wrapping his brain around that concept.
"Yes! Or I would have, if it hadn't been for the fucking oven." He could feel the corner of his mouth twitching, and she brandished a warning finger at him. "And don't you dare tease me about this, Geoffrey, or I'll… I'll…"
"Make me eat it?" he couldn't help blurting out, and instantly regretted it when her eyes went hard and bright with tears.
"Oh, fuck you, Geoffrey."
"No, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said quickly, closing the remaining space between them so that he could fold her sticky hands between his. She was glaring again, but she didn't pull away, and he took that as a hopeful sign. "It's the middle of the night, I'm an asshole. It's just…" He shrugged a little, kissed the tip of her index finger. "It's just not like you."
"Because I'm useless, is that it?" she demanded.
"No," he returned firmly, "because you're Ellen fucking Fanshaw and you've got packed houses swooning at your feet every night. Baking would seem to be fairly low on your list of priorities."
In the glow of the crappy kitchen lights, he could see her cheeks flush, but she narrowed her eyes at him. "Actors are so full of shit."
"Yes," he agreed, smiling, "but in this case, it happens to be sincere shit." He lifted one of her hands, closed his mouth around a smear of chocolate on the pad beneath her thumb. "Mmm. Extra moist."
She inhaled sharply, her chest rising and falling just a scant couple of inches from his. "I should be punishing you," she told him, her expression caught between mischief and mutiny.
"I see you what you are, you are too proud." He reached out with one finger, traced it along a tousled spiral of hair near her cheek. "But if you were the devil, you are fair."
She rolled her eyes, but her smile broke through at last. "You'd make a terrible Viola."
"Maybe." He shrugged, grinned. "But I could do a passable Cesario."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "Geoffrey, the men get Hamlet, Maccers, Lear, Angelo, Prospero, Othello, Benedick, and almost all the histories. Leave Viola to the experts, please."
"You know," he pointed out, "in the Bard's time, Viola would have been played by a boy."
"Yes, and in the Bard's time, I'd be wearing seven different layers of clothing and you'd have to ask my father's permission to hold my hand." She pressed up against him, warm through the thin silk of her pajamas. "Thank God for progress."
He chuckled and slid an arm around her back. "Well, I can't argue with that." The scent of her was heady, expensive perfume and faint traces of makeup remover and rich chocolate over the top of it, and the whole house was asleep and it was his birthday, after all, but first things first. He kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you for the birthday cake."
"You're welcome," she answered, winding her arms around his neck. "Happy birthday."
"Thank you." He let his mouth ghost over her face, tasting chocolate and cake mix on her cheek, her temple, the corner of her mouth. A cake. She'd been baking him a cake. "I love you, Ellen," he murmured, suddenly drowning in it.
"You do?" she asked, like she occasionally did, like she couldn't quite believe it.
"Oh, yes," he whispered close in her ear. His hands slipped under her pajamas to find the smooth skin of her ribs. "With adorations, fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire."
"All right," she said breathlessly, "I'll let you get away with that one," and they both laughed as he hoisted her up onto the counter.
Four down, one to go! And it is way too late for me to be watching the BSG finale, yet... I may just do that anyway.