Fic: The Facts Are These
More advent fic! This time it's for calikalie who wanted some post-series Pushing Daisies fic. I've never, ever written for this show before and it has been a long time since I watched so I really hope you like it! :)
The Facts Are These
Pushing Daisies. Chuck. PG. ~1100 words. No one deserves to be sad if they're alive and should be dead.
She perches in the sitting room, her hands curled delicately around a fine china tea cup full of earl grey and whiskey. The claustrophobic wallpaper with its explosion of floral almost glows in the warm orange lamplight around her. It is cold outside, with snow resting lightly on the window panes. Around the edges of the heavy brocade curtains blue Christmas lights from outside fight against the orange. Chuck takes a sip of the honeyed concoction she has brewed in the tiny nook kitchen she inherited from Olive and grimaces at the unfamiliar taste of alcohol.
She places the cup carefully on the embroidered lace coaster protecting the polished wooden coffee table and draws her knees up to her chest to prop her chin on.
Chuck surveys the room around her-taking note of every chintzy detail and all the little changes she has made since it became solely her home.
Olive now lives in the head of the Intrepid Cow not so very far away with her books of macaroni and cheese recipes and her perfect husband with his shiny, white teeth. The apartment is now Chuck’s and she wishes that she were more excited about having this space to call her own.
Chuck has never really wanted to own anywhere. Unlike Ned she had the most steadfast idea of home and family while growing up. She has no real desire to create another.
She can hear him-in the next apartment over-trying to busy himself rather than encroaching on her independent time.
Chuck thinks it’s sweet.
They never seem to run out of things to talk about, things to bake, adventures to have.
The second thing on Chuck’s life list right after her ill-fated seaborne vacation was losing her virginity. Several things have hampered this however. Initially it was the homeschooling and the self-inflicted captivity while she looked after Lily and Vivian. Then she was murdered. Then she was alive again but she fell in love with a man she can never, ever touch without dying again.
All in all things have not gone particularly in favor of that plan.
Sometimes in a dreamy, very non-sexual way Chuck imagines full body condoms and how wouldn’t Ned perhaps be too tall and need them custom made, then how on earth would someone breathe inside them and would it be easier, all things considered, for her to be the one wearing them.
It’s never a very serious concern.
There are things they can do, a majority they can’t and a few clever innovations Ned has cooked up to help them.
Nothing, surely, can be sad when you’re alive instead of (how you should be) dead-least of all falling in love.
Chuck is immeasurably happier than she was cooped up with her aunts, making honey and learning languages. Not that she wasn’t happy then, just that on the bell curve of life she is now an A most days.
Today she is drinking whiskey from a teacup and hiding from Ned.
Aunt Lily and Aunt Vivian did not take the news of her being alive as well as Chuck has-ever optimistically-hoped they would. It would have been simpler to tell them the whole truth down to the smiley face on the plastic bag which killed her and the precise feeling of waking up alive again to see the exact shade of Ned’s eyes as they softened in horror and relief.
Instead she told them she had faked her own death and been travelling.
Chuck wanted to spare them and protect Ned-she never anticipated how callous her story would come across to the women who raised her. This was perhaps another reason the visit should have been less spontaneous, or much, much more spontaneous-eighteen months more spontaneous.
Later she realizes another flaw in her story and it is Ned who first points it out. The tale doesn’t ring very true to Chuck’s character. Nobody who has ever met her-though the list is short-would, could, truly believe that she would do something so selfish and adventurous.
Unfortunately with no other explanation for her sudden, deceitful departure from this life and subsequent return after three half-birthdays Chuck is left looking ungrateful and-for the moment at least-unforgivable.
It was-in all honesty-a disaster.
Upon opening the door to find Chuck very much alive and well Aunt Vivian had fainted right away. It was only after removing her heavily jeweled eye patch, cleaning it vigorously and redundantly and replacing it that Aunt Lily followed her lead.
Chuck still feels terrible whenever she thinks of the sight of them both sprawled awkwardly across the immaculately clean floor. Ned had helped her move them to the old velvet sofa in the center of the room and then to find some old smelling salts in an upstairs bathroom.
“Charlotte, dear, are we dead?”
Vivian’s lids fluttered slowly open as she reached out one pale, frail hand toward Chuck. For one suspended moment everything is quiet, peaceful and all the people she loves-the ones who are still alive-are huddled together around her.
That is the moment she holds onto now-that possibly, somehow she may feel that again. It has been 165 days, 17 hours, 12 minutes and 10 seconds and the aunts have spent the majority of it in Europe touring with the Aquacade as they had always dreamed of doing once more. Chuck is thankful they did not give up that dream for her-still; she would have loved to share the joy and excitement… even from afar.
She has had not so much as a postcard while they have been on the road.
A soft knock on the door interrupts her reverie. It doesn’t sound like Ned’s knock-which is purposeful yet slightly awkward. It’s far too timid for Olive who would never knock anyway but bustle in with her spare key and a thick trail of sweet perfume. Chuck can’t imagine Emerson ever visiting her at home and if he did she can imagine even less that particular knock belonging to him.
She pulls the velvet day robe closer around her shoulders and shuffles toward the door. The movement gently ruffles the marabou of her slippers. Curling bangs fall down across her face.
The door creaks ever so slightly as she pulls it back, the kind of sound that becomes lost in the noise of everyday life.
Chuck steps back-half from shock, half from habit-as framed in the doorway her diminutive aunts look both radiant and nervous. Right behind them Ned has his head ducked sheepishly.
“Merry Christmas, Charlotte.”
The Facts Are These
Pushing Daisies. Chuck. PG. ~1100 words. No one deserves to be sad if they're alive and should be dead.
She perches in the sitting room, her hands curled delicately around a fine china tea cup full of earl grey and whiskey. The claustrophobic wallpaper with its explosion of floral almost glows in the warm orange lamplight around her. It is cold outside, with snow resting lightly on the window panes. Around the edges of the heavy brocade curtains blue Christmas lights from outside fight against the orange. Chuck takes a sip of the honeyed concoction she has brewed in the tiny nook kitchen she inherited from Olive and grimaces at the unfamiliar taste of alcohol.
She places the cup carefully on the embroidered lace coaster protecting the polished wooden coffee table and draws her knees up to her chest to prop her chin on.
Chuck surveys the room around her-taking note of every chintzy detail and all the little changes she has made since it became solely her home.
Olive now lives in the head of the Intrepid Cow not so very far away with her books of macaroni and cheese recipes and her perfect husband with his shiny, white teeth. The apartment is now Chuck’s and she wishes that she were more excited about having this space to call her own.
Chuck has never really wanted to own anywhere. Unlike Ned she had the most steadfast idea of home and family while growing up. She has no real desire to create another.
She can hear him-in the next apartment over-trying to busy himself rather than encroaching on her independent time.
Chuck thinks it’s sweet.
They never seem to run out of things to talk about, things to bake, adventures to have.
The second thing on Chuck’s life list right after her ill-fated seaborne vacation was losing her virginity. Several things have hampered this however. Initially it was the homeschooling and the self-inflicted captivity while she looked after Lily and Vivian. Then she was murdered. Then she was alive again but she fell in love with a man she can never, ever touch without dying again.
All in all things have not gone particularly in favor of that plan.
Sometimes in a dreamy, very non-sexual way Chuck imagines full body condoms and how wouldn’t Ned perhaps be too tall and need them custom made, then how on earth would someone breathe inside them and would it be easier, all things considered, for her to be the one wearing them.
It’s never a very serious concern.
There are things they can do, a majority they can’t and a few clever innovations Ned has cooked up to help them.
Nothing, surely, can be sad when you’re alive instead of (how you should be) dead-least of all falling in love.
Chuck is immeasurably happier than she was cooped up with her aunts, making honey and learning languages. Not that she wasn’t happy then, just that on the bell curve of life she is now an A most days.
Today she is drinking whiskey from a teacup and hiding from Ned.
Aunt Lily and Aunt Vivian did not take the news of her being alive as well as Chuck has-ever optimistically-hoped they would. It would have been simpler to tell them the whole truth down to the smiley face on the plastic bag which killed her and the precise feeling of waking up alive again to see the exact shade of Ned’s eyes as they softened in horror and relief.
Instead she told them she had faked her own death and been travelling.
Chuck wanted to spare them and protect Ned-she never anticipated how callous her story would come across to the women who raised her. This was perhaps another reason the visit should have been less spontaneous, or much, much more spontaneous-eighteen months more spontaneous.
Later she realizes another flaw in her story and it is Ned who first points it out. The tale doesn’t ring very true to Chuck’s character. Nobody who has ever met her-though the list is short-would, could, truly believe that she would do something so selfish and adventurous.
Unfortunately with no other explanation for her sudden, deceitful departure from this life and subsequent return after three half-birthdays Chuck is left looking ungrateful and-for the moment at least-unforgivable.
It was-in all honesty-a disaster.
Upon opening the door to find Chuck very much alive and well Aunt Vivian had fainted right away. It was only after removing her heavily jeweled eye patch, cleaning it vigorously and redundantly and replacing it that Aunt Lily followed her lead.
Chuck still feels terrible whenever she thinks of the sight of them both sprawled awkwardly across the immaculately clean floor. Ned had helped her move them to the old velvet sofa in the center of the room and then to find some old smelling salts in an upstairs bathroom.
“Charlotte, dear, are we dead?”
Vivian’s lids fluttered slowly open as she reached out one pale, frail hand toward Chuck. For one suspended moment everything is quiet, peaceful and all the people she loves-the ones who are still alive-are huddled together around her.
That is the moment she holds onto now-that possibly, somehow she may feel that again. It has been 165 days, 17 hours, 12 minutes and 10 seconds and the aunts have spent the majority of it in Europe touring with the Aquacade as they had always dreamed of doing once more. Chuck is thankful they did not give up that dream for her-still; she would have loved to share the joy and excitement… even from afar.
She has had not so much as a postcard while they have been on the road.
A soft knock on the door interrupts her reverie. It doesn’t sound like Ned’s knock-which is purposeful yet slightly awkward. It’s far too timid for Olive who would never knock anyway but bustle in with her spare key and a thick trail of sweet perfume. Chuck can’t imagine Emerson ever visiting her at home and if he did she can imagine even less that particular knock belonging to him.
She pulls the velvet day robe closer around her shoulders and shuffles toward the door. The movement gently ruffles the marabou of her slippers. Curling bangs fall down across her face.
The door creaks ever so slightly as she pulls it back, the kind of sound that becomes lost in the noise of everyday life.
Chuck steps back-half from shock, half from habit-as framed in the doorway her diminutive aunts look both radiant and nervous. Right behind them Ned has his head ducked sheepishly.
“Merry Christmas, Charlotte.”