The Shiny Happy Comment Ficathon!

[dollsome]

Winter is coming; daylight is fleeting; for the students among us, end-of-semester hell is just about to rear its ugly head. What better way to combat such woes than with a super-cheerful comment ficathon?

Ergo:

Comments

1/2 - Pushing Daisies - Ned/Chuck - Loophole

[polychromic]

Sorry, this didn't turn out quite as shiny/happy as I'd like! I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

It was a normal Tuesday morning at The Pie Hole, and as the Piemaker touched a bowlful of moldering strawberries back to a pleasantly ripe state, he thought about how Chuck was now a part of his normal Tuesday mornings and how much better his life seemed for it. Although Digby had always proven to be a constant and dependable companion whose taciturn nature was nonetheless comforting, Ned’s daily life was now filled with a whirlwind of colour and cheerful chatter as well as a certain sense of completeness that he’d been missing since that fateful day 19 years, 43 weeks, 5 days, and 25 minutes ago.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Chuck as she carefully applied the lattice crust to her “Seize the Date!” pie, flour smudges on her cheek and berry juice staining her apron.

“You do a lot of thinking,” he paused with a smile that teetered on the edge of bashfulness, “I like that you’re such an intellectual thinker and I always appreciate it when you share the thoughts that you’re thinking with me. Not in a ‘you have to tell me everything ever because I’m a controlling and overly concerned boyfriend way”, just sort of in the vein of ‘I appreciate the privilege of being worthy enough of your confidences’.”

Normally he would have expected a hum of laughter at his unnecessarily long-winded reply, but Chuck merely applied the last piece of pastry to the pie with an air of soberness. “Are you happy, Ned?”

The Piemaker was taken aback by this question and the warm, fuzzy feelings that he had been indulging in only moments before promptly fled to make room for panic. “Happy? Of course I’m happy! Why wouldn’t you think that I’m happy?”

And then he blurted out the next, terrible thought that had dawned on him. “Chuck…” he said with all the courage of a quaking leaf, “Are you not happy?”

She looked at him a little forlornly for a second, but when she smiled he felt every tense muscle relax with an almost audible sigh of relief. “No, it’s nothing like that. I just wonder…” and she watched a little wistfully as a couple sitting in a booth reached their hands across the table to each other, “if all these by-proxy, prophylactic expressions of affection are enough. Sometimes I think with all the things you’ve been through, you deserve a little more. Well, a lot more, actually. I at least had my aunts growing up, but you didn’t have anyone.”

“I had Digby,” he said a little stoutly, and the golden retriever thumped his tail happily from his spot on the kitchen floor at the mention of his name.

“But you couldn’t touch him, Ned,” her smile waned a little, “I’m not trying to upset you but I can’t help feeling a little bit like I might be holding you back from really being happy sometimes. It’s like I’m reaping all the benefits of being Alive-Again and selfishly enjoying them on my own while you’re carrying all the burden.”