flavour of the day, strawberry shortcake and blueberry cheesecake pocky chain
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Friend Like Me
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: pip, Strawberry Shortcake #15: friend like me, Blueberry Cheesecake #27: man’s best friend
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, pocky chain, fresh peaches
Wordcount: 800
Summary: He’s never had a friend like him, and supposedly still doesn’t.
Notes: Aha, Ashdown returns! Pip: (of a young bird) to break out from the shell. Peaches: as soon as you feel emotional, there may be a more structured force telling you to be reasonable.
Perhaps this had been a bad idea.
Since his business had started to take shadier turns, Ashdown needed a bodyguard. The man mountain that was Isaac Prowse didn’t intimidate him (intimidated by the peasant classes? As if), but getting used to him was difficult.
“Honestly, Mr Prowse, you’d think you’d never had a hot meal before,” Ashdown remarked a little coldly as his manservant-in-training (among other things) wolfed down his food. Prowse cast him a sulky look.
“I’ve cut throats for less,” he muttered. Ashdown was fairly sure it was just to shut him up, but he stopped talking anyway.
-----
Prowse distrusted his new master. Wouldn’t anyone?
The child prodigy, they said. The boy businessman. A bloody freak was what he was, and a cold-blooded one at that. He was yet to see him smile-unless one counted those chilling vampire lip-curls he occasionally offered in his especially patronising moods, which he didn’t.
Uncertainly, Prowse eyed him from his place against the back wall in his study. Head bent over paper as usual, slender fingers seeking out ledgers without so much as glancing up. So much power, those little books had, but inaccessible to the likes of him. Only Ashdown.
-----
Rationally, he shouldn’t have been surprised. This was what he’d hired him for.
But Ashdown was anyway, a little, when Prowse woke him up and asked him what he should do with the body.
“The body?” he echoed. Still not quite on the ball; he blamed the fact he’d just awoken.
“He was creeping around with a knife,” Prowse said with a shrug. “Presumably to stick you. I didn’t ask.”
His first assassination attempt. Perhaps he should crack out a bottle of champagne.
“Keep them alive next time,” Ashdown said dismissively instead. “I’d quite like to know who sent him.”
-----
These meetings bored Prowse out of his mind. It was only for the sake of keeping up the illusion he worked as some kind of aide (and, he suspected, to intimidate competing company hands) that Ashdown bothered bringing him along.
“Did you have to bring your pet, Ashdown?” sneered a silk merchant over the tea set. “I’ve never even heard him speak.”
A pause. Ashdown regarded him coolly.
“Mr Prowse doesn’t waste his time on small fish,” he said with that strikingly insincere politeness he’d perfected. “You understand, I’m sure.”
The merchant looked nonplussed. Prowse tried not to look astonished.
-----
“It’s my birthday today,” Ashdown remarked casually as they stepped onto the Thames-side wharf. There was a pause-there often was, talking to Prowse. He’d started thinking occasionally.
“Happy birthday, sir.”
Ashdown couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
“I’m eighteen,” he said, “not eight.” A real man now. Supposedly.
Eyes landing on the vessel they were after, Ashdown was pleased to find that it wasn’t too badly damaged after the reported attack-the goods should be intact. When he turned to his bodyguard, he saw the man looked a little sorry for him.
“Yes, Mr Prowse?” he inquired coldly.
“Nothing.”
-----
The young lady was leaning close to him, talking in the low and thrilling tone often employed by beautiful young women with a goal in mind. Despite his off-putting personality, Prowse was surprised it didn’t happen more often: Ashdown was very wealthy. When needs must, etc.
Maybe it was the stone-cold reaction. When she touched a hand to the small of his back, Ashdown looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be horrified or embarrassed. As per usual, he settled for a searing look of contempt. She was raising her eyebrows at him.
Prowse stood back and enjoyed the show.
-----
-----
The situation seemed contained-or as contained as a situation was possible to be when Jacob Graham was involved. Ashdown’s nose crinkled as he surveyed him; what a disgusting man he was.
“Christ,” Graham sighed, shackled up and unhappy about it. He nudged Prowse, who frowned. “Why d’yer work for this whinging fop?”
“That’s a long story,” Prowse said absently. He added after thinking, “And none of your business.”
“Mate!” Graham crowed towards Ashdown. “Your own man didn’t disagree that you’re a fop!”
Ashdown wasn’t, as such, distraught. Especially when Prowse went on to smack the pirate upside the head.
-----
Prowse hadn’t been too sure about ships at first, but now that he spent practically his whole life on them, they were growing on him. He didn’t even get seasick anymore.
Ashdown seemed to feel the same way. One point of convergence, at least.
“Thirteen years, is it?” Prowse asked lightly.
“Pardon?”
“Since I started working for you.”
Ashdown’s lips pursed. “Yes.”
“Feels longer.”
“For goodness’ sake, Mr Prowse, we’re not bloody married.”
“Thank God for small favours,” Prowse replied innocently.
“Sir,” Ashdown corrected him, starting to look irritated. “We aren’t friends.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You work for me-.”
“Sir.”