chocolate chip mint and chocolate with hot fudge and malt
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Babysitter
Rating: PG
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #8: incessant, Chocolate #4: frustration
Toppings/Extras: malt, hot fudge
Wordcount: 417
Summary: Lord Ashdown makes Miss Merritt very, very angry. She seeks out a remedy.
Notes: This is how Pia ties in! Malt PFAH; Newson : That’s a dealbreaker, ladies!
Miss Merritt stalked into the office looking absolutely thunderous. Never a good sign. With a short sigh, Newson looked up from his desk and watched her come to attention in the centre of the office, searing glare emanating from her dark, suede-blue eyes. Newson was used to seeing Miss Merritt looking angry-she always looked angry-but today it seemed she could scarcely restrain it.
“If I have to spend five more minutes with Ashdown, I swear to God I will fucking kill him,” she said in a low, seething voice. Newson grinned. He couldn’t help it. Seeing his robotic PA losing her temper was always extremely entertaining to him.
“Oh dear, Merritt,” he said, tilting his head. “What’s happened now?”
“It’s not a matter of what’s happened, sir,” she snapped. “It’s just him. Babysitting that moron is the worst task you’ve ever set me to. This so-called tactical genius you’ve hired walks into doors. And don’t-even-start me on the incessant, ridiculous bleating that comes out of his stupid face...”
“Give him a break,” Newson said, still grinning broadly. “He’s from one-and-a-half thousand years in the past. Things have changed.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Miss Merritt replied, scowling. “He has taken it as his sole responsibility in life to irritate and insult me in every single way possible. And his goddamn bodyguard gives me the creeps. You’re going to have to find another babysitter, sir, because I swear to God people are going to start dying...”
“Fucking hell, Merritt,” Newson said, rolling his clear blue eyes. “Tell it to your shrink, will you? I’m assuming you have one considering the sheer magnitude of issues you have bouncing around in your neurotic little head. If you hate him that much, just find someone else to keep an eye on him.”
Miss Merritt took a deep breath, infinitely glad that she had achieved the ends she had wanted to. Not that her rant had been manufactured: Ashdown made her want to stick a knife in his gut and Prowse made her want to stick a knife in herself.
“Fine,” she said. “I will.”
“But,” Newson interrupted before she could walk away, leaning forwards. “Whomever you hire, make sure that he or she is expendable.”
“Lower levels, then,” Miss Merritt nodded, stepping away.
“Take a bodyguard with you, Walshe or someone,” Newson said as she reached the door. He smiled his most unpleasant smile, reserved solely for his strange PA. “I would hate for something to happen to you.”