Pushing Daisies: Black Coffee and a Spoonful of Brutal Honesty
Title: Black Coffee and a Spoonful of Brutal Honesty
Fandom: Pushing Daisies
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ...Is loverly.
Word Count: 650
Rating: PG
Characters: Olive, Emerson, Ned
Summary: It which Olive gives Emerson a taste of his own medicine.
Disclaimer: It's still not mine. Really.
Author's Note: Yay for randomly finding things in notebooks and tweaking them a bit?
Olive tapped her fingers on the table to the rhythm of whatever tune was currently playing in her head. "I have no one to talk to about this," she finally blurted out. "I would talk to Chuck, but that has the potential to be unbearably awkward. I could talk to Chuck’s aunts, but... Well, that also has the potential to be unbearably awkward for a completely different reason."
Emerson Cod sipped his coffee and contemplated things best left unsaid. "And so because the universe as a whole despises me and enjoys putting me in these sorts of situations, you have to take your personal matters to me?"
"Is it in an inconvenience?"
"Would it change your mind if it were?"
Olive shrugged. "Probably not."
"Then what does it even matter?"
There was a long pause between them and Emerson blissfully believed that perhaps the subject had been dropped and he could go back to his coffee and pie in peace without the little blonde hovering over him. That, unfortunately, was a false hope.
"Do you ever sometimes wish love didn’t exist?" Olive asked, cocking her head to the side, as if she, herself, had just recently decided to ponder this matter.
Emerson sighed and prayed to whatever God was out there to either smite him or do something about the clingy blonde before he did something that no God would really approve of. "Love for material objects or love for people?" He asked, through gritted teeth in the hope that maybe humoring her a little while longer might sate her appetite for conversation.
"People."
"Yes," Emerson nodded coolly, before taking a long sip of his coffee. "People, you see, generally aren’t the best companions. Material possessions, however... Well, they don’t talk back, don’t nag, don’t waste your time, and if you want them out of your sight, all you gotta do is stick ‘em in a drawer." He punctuated the last statement with a glare in the waitress’s direction, but she didn’t seem to notice what he was insinuating. "To tell the truth," he went on, "the world would be a much happier place if more people loved things instead of other people."
Olive chewed on that statement for awhile. "That’s really cynical," she finally accessed.
Emerson shrugged. "Yeah, well you asked the question, and I gave you a brutally honest answer."
"I hate brutally honest," Olive replied, her voice a little bit above a whine. "You know that."
"And I hate it for you."
Olive glowered and got to her feet, pulling his empty pie plate away from him. "I’m going to get you some more pie, you insensitive, cynical, miserible, old bastard." Each word seemed to be punctuated by a thin layer of venom coating her normally honey-sweet voice, and, noting the look on Emerson’s face, she added with a snide grin, "How’s that for brutal honesty?"
For the first time in his life, Emerson Cod was actually thrown by something that came out of the waitress’s mouth, rather than annoyed or slightly amused-in-an-aggravated-way as he usually was. "Did you hear what she called me?" He asked Ned, who had just exited the kitchen around the time that Olive had decided to make her grand exit.
"I did, and I can’t say you didn’t deserve it," Ned shrugged. "You say things like that to her all the time. It was inevitable that she was going to react like that one of these days." He paused. "You aren’t going to complain about her, are you? Because if you do, I’m going to have to fill out one of those complaint sheet-things, and I really, really don’t want to have to do that."
"No, I’m not going to complain about her," Emerson rolled his eyes, while still managing to keep them firmly fixated on the kitchen where Olive could be seen milling about in an irritated huff. "In fact, if she starts bringing an attitude like that to the table, I might start to like her."
Fandom: Pushing Daisies
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ...Is loverly.
Word Count: 650
Rating: PG
Characters: Olive, Emerson, Ned
Summary: It which Olive gives Emerson a taste of his own medicine.
Disclaimer: It's still not mine. Really.
Author's Note: Yay for randomly finding things in notebooks and tweaking them a bit?
Olive tapped her fingers on the table to the rhythm of whatever tune was currently playing in her head. "I have no one to talk to about this," she finally blurted out. "I would talk to Chuck, but that has the potential to be unbearably awkward. I could talk to Chuck’s aunts, but... Well, that also has the potential to be unbearably awkward for a completely different reason."
Emerson Cod sipped his coffee and contemplated things best left unsaid. "And so because the universe as a whole despises me and enjoys putting me in these sorts of situations, you have to take your personal matters to me?"
"Is it in an inconvenience?"
"Would it change your mind if it were?"
Olive shrugged. "Probably not."
"Then what does it even matter?"
There was a long pause between them and Emerson blissfully believed that perhaps the subject had been dropped and he could go back to his coffee and pie in peace without the little blonde hovering over him. That, unfortunately, was a false hope.
"Do you ever sometimes wish love didn’t exist?" Olive asked, cocking her head to the side, as if she, herself, had just recently decided to ponder this matter.
Emerson sighed and prayed to whatever God was out there to either smite him or do something about the clingy blonde before he did something that no God would really approve of. "Love for material objects or love for people?" He asked, through gritted teeth in the hope that maybe humoring her a little while longer might sate her appetite for conversation.
"People."
"Yes," Emerson nodded coolly, before taking a long sip of his coffee. "People, you see, generally aren’t the best companions. Material possessions, however... Well, they don’t talk back, don’t nag, don’t waste your time, and if you want them out of your sight, all you gotta do is stick ‘em in a drawer." He punctuated the last statement with a glare in the waitress’s direction, but she didn’t seem to notice what he was insinuating. "To tell the truth," he went on, "the world would be a much happier place if more people loved things instead of other people."
Olive chewed on that statement for awhile. "That’s really cynical," she finally accessed.
Emerson shrugged. "Yeah, well you asked the question, and I gave you a brutally honest answer."
"I hate brutally honest," Olive replied, her voice a little bit above a whine. "You know that."
"And I hate it for you."
Olive glowered and got to her feet, pulling his empty pie plate away from him. "I’m going to get you some more pie, you insensitive, cynical, miserible, old bastard." Each word seemed to be punctuated by a thin layer of venom coating her normally honey-sweet voice, and, noting the look on Emerson’s face, she added with a snide grin, "How’s that for brutal honesty?"
For the first time in his life, Emerson Cod was actually thrown by something that came out of the waitress’s mouth, rather than annoyed or slightly amused-in-an-aggravated-way as he usually was. "Did you hear what she called me?" He asked Ned, who had just exited the kitchen around the time that Olive had decided to make her grand exit.
"I did, and I can’t say you didn’t deserve it," Ned shrugged. "You say things like that to her all the time. It was inevitable that she was going to react like that one of these days." He paused. "You aren’t going to complain about her, are you? Because if you do, I’m going to have to fill out one of those complaint sheet-things, and I really, really don’t want to have to do that."
"No, I’m not going to complain about her," Emerson rolled his eyes, while still managing to keep them firmly fixated on the kitchen where Olive could be seen milling about in an irritated huff. "In fact, if she starts bringing an attitude like that to the table, I might start to like her."