flavour of the day, rhubarb and strawberry with hot fudge, malt and fresh fruit
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Death Flu
Rating: PG (language)
Challenge: FOTD: malinger, Rhubarb ‘My Treat’ #13: if you can’t say something nice (someone takes offence at Newson’s potty mouth), Strawberry #2: curtains
Toppings/Extras: hot fudge, malt, fresh peaches, fresh strawberries, fresh blueberries
Wordcount: 1,890
Summary: Even Adele Merritt gets sick, unfortunately for everyone else.
Notes: I’m introducing some new baddies! Marina’s treat. Malinger: To feign or exaggerate illness or inability in order to avoid duty or work. Malt: One, two, three. Boom. Peaches: Be careful what you say and to whom you say it. Strawberries: Emergency pit stop! Blueberries: “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse.”
Adele Merritt took care of herself with the detached necessity of a mechanic caring for an appliance. Needless to say, despite the fact that she didn’t much care for inessential pampering, she was efficient and thorough about it and as such didn’t often find herself sick. It was the sort of thing that happened to Other People. Less professional people.
When she woke up that morning with an undeniable itch in her sinuses, her mood precipitated from colourless indifference to black instantly. The morning light stabbing through her curtains made her whole face hurt and when she drew in a breath, she could feel it scraping along every razorblade that had apparently taken up residence inside of her throat.
Wonderful.
She showered, washed, dried and changed reflexively, ignoring the near-convulsive shivers that told her being even marginally cold was not a good idea. Brushing her hair into its usual sleek bun seemed much more difficult than usual for some reason-her entire body liked to mutiny at once as opposed to just one thing at a time. While she smoothed on her lipstick, she momentarily lost vision as white clouds fizzed over her eyes and ended up smearing it.
It was going to be one of those days, then.
-----
As the elevator doors opened and revealed her within, the usual reaction shot down the narrow corridor it opened into like an electrical impulse down a neurone-except possibly faster. People jumped to the edges of the clean, white corridor and tried to look busy and blameless as she clipped smartly down the middle of them in her weaponlike high-heels. If anyone noticed the slight wobble in her step, they didn’t say anything about it.
News of her foul mood travelled quickly after she clobbered some poor man with her clipboard for daring to be standing on the exact piece of floor tile she had been intending on walking over, but not quickly enough.
In the busy office that separated the rest of the building from Newson’s own private office, some hip young man, possibly new to the job, was brightening the place up by playing music from his iPod, which he had plugged into some portable speakers. The sound of music was not appealing to Miss Merritt at the best of times, but at that moment the noise gave her the feeling of her teeth being ground to stubs. As she strode past his desk, she plucked the awful little contraption from its dock and promptly flicked it out of an open window, not even pausing in her step.
The young man almost called out in indignation but managed to choke it down just in time when he saw who it was.
-----
“Wow,” Newson said when he looked up from his screen. “You look like absolute shit.”
“What?”
Newson recognised the look of a soon-to-be homicidal maniac when he saw one.
“Nothing,” he said sweetly. “Why don’t you go get those sales figures for me?”
-----
Hallie fucking Rydan. Adele always looked immaculate: Hallie always looked beautiful. There was a difference. With her short black curls and bright lips, Hallie would look gorgeous whether she rolled into the office straight out of bed or dressed herself sharply as she could. That day she was wearing glossy black leggings with black heels and a long white blouse. She should have looked profoundly mediocre, but instead she looked exquisite.
“Do I really have to break them the news that we’re shutting them down?” Hallie pouted. “The manager’s a friend of mine.”
“I don’t care,” Adele said with a scowl. Her commanding voice sounded squeaky and she kept having to sniff. She didn’t like that at all-her voice was one of her most powerful weapons. It could cut through diamond on a good day, but on days like this she sounded like a stuffy, sneezing schoolgirl, high-pitched and whiny. “See to it.”
Tilting her head slightly, Hallie’s brows knotted.
“Are you feeling alright?” she asked. “You look a bit… pale.”
“I’m fine,” Adele huffed, colour instantly flooding to her cheeks-unfortunately, bright pink wasn’t the right colour either. Turning away from her, she stalked away with as much dignity as she could, not that it worked very well when she ended up practically falling down the stairs.
-----
The Head of Maritime Forces, Demy Voskoy, made her want to bang her head into the nearest wall even on good days. When she was feeling like this, suicide began looking like a truly fascinating option. He was cocky and energetic, attractive in a strange way-he wasn’t classically handsome but his angular, catlike features and permanently messy hair held a certain lure.
That was probably why they had a lot of sex, though she still didn’t like him.
“You look tired, Dell,” he said, feet on his desk as usual, arms behind his head. He smirked. “Not been getting much sleep?”
What an insufferable pig he was.
“Don’t call me that,” Adele snarled. God, she hated nicknames. Why did people insist on shortening a perfectly good name into the silliest nonsenses? Were they really that lazy? “The cargo vessel Alsci 55 was obliterated by pirates last week. Get your ass in gear.”
“It’s not my fault Newson’s a total tightwad,” Voskoy complained. “If he gave us more funding we’d be way ahead.”
“You’d better start learning to work with what you’ve been given,” Adele snapped, “or you’re going to find yourself jobless.”
“As if,” Voskoy snorted. “I know too much about the black ops stuff to throw out.”
By the time he said that she was already on her way out of the door. She paused in the doorway, her back still to him, feeling his eyes taking in her figure. Ugh, she thought. She turned her head slightly.
“Sorry, did I say ‘jobless’?” she said. “I meant ‘shot’.”
-----
Because she took so much sadistic pleasure in firing people, when Newson had told her to inform one young lady that her services as a computer technician were no longer required, Adele had hoped it would brighten her day considerably. Unfortunately, the young lady had promptly burst into tears and the sound was hurting her head.
“Jesus, shut the fuck up, will you?” Adele groaned, head in her hands. “It’s a shitty job anyway. Go back to university.”
-----
Dealing with the folks down in black ops was always her least favourite part of the day, which was why she usually left it quite late. Moxley, Head of Black Ops, fascinated her in a creepy way but she still didn’t like talking to him.
As for the rest of them…
“Hey, Merritt,” Robyn Walshe said as she walked into the room. “You look…” When Adele’s glare intensified, the young woman shut her mouth before opening it again. “Er, you look great.”
“What can we do for you?” Wolfgang Sidone asked. He was generally a lot more level-headed than the rest of them.
“I need a-…” She sniffed violently and then flinched at the savage stinging that instantly ravaged the back of her sinuses. Blinking stars from her eyes, she continued, “I need…”
She couldn’t even remember.
“A holiday?” Bradley Dekeynel finished for her warily.
“Shut up,” she snapped, probing through the writhing fog of her mind to try and figure out what on earth she did need. She had been sent there for a reason, she was sure of it. Even Victor Blackledge was looking at her, seeming faintly surprised. At least he wasn’t smirking slightly, though. Unlike the others.
Ah, got it.
“You need to get medical checks,” she said, cursing the stupid, squeaky voice she had been talking in all day. “You’re all overdue. And it would be such a shame if any of you were to suddenly die. Well, not really, but procedures are procedures.”
“I think you need one, too,” Wolfgang said, continuing to scrutinise her.
“How about you piss off and mind your own business, Sidone?” she said, glowering at him. With that, she turned and stormed out of the room.
-----
Adam Kirby was the one that found her.
“What do you want?” she growled at him.
“Um,” he said, “I came here for another box of rubber gloves.” He pointed at a shelf over her head. “Why are you in the cupboard?”
“No reason,” she snapped in response, not moving her hands from the side of her head. She felt as though a barbed-wire snake was making its merry way around her brain and her face was searing hot. It wasn’t very dignified to be found crouching inside of a supplies cupboard, but Adam Kirby was nothing to be embarrassed about. He wouldn’t know what dignity was if it punched him in the face and ran off with his wallet.
He crouched down too, tilting his head to one side.
“Have you eaten today?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she said, agitated. Why in the world would she eat when she felt so bad? Queasiness curdled in her stomach and she pressed her lips together as her horrible, itchy, lumpy throat shuddered of its own accord.
As ever, his ridiculously bright blonde hair was blinding her, but that wasn’t a problem for long because her vision started to fizzle into whiteness again.
“Here,” he said, and helped her to her feet by the elbow. She usually would have crucified him for so much as touching her, but she gingerly allowed him to lead her to a seat. She put her head in her hands and heard him walk away. When he came back, he had a glass of water. “You should drink this,” he said helpfully.
Stupid helpful people.
“I don’t feel like drinking…”
“OK,” he said. What a dick. He could have at least made a bit of effort to convince her. Grudgingly, Adele lifted the glass to her lips and took a few sips. The heat on her face didn’t exactly reside, but she felt a little better. After a few gulps, the tasteless wash of water and the heaviness of it in her stomach started making her feel ill again and she slammed it back down onto the worktop.
She took a deep breath. Adam had opened a window. Well, it looked like he wasn’t totally useless after all. Groaning, she kneaded at her forehead.
“God, I feel horrible. What is this, Death Flu?”
“You should take a few days off,” Adam said, to which Adele just laughed humourlessly.
“Yeah, that’s not happening.”
Apparently with nothing to say to that, Adam shrugged and walked away across the lab to get on with his usual tinkering. Adele put her forehead to the worktop, pleasantly soothed by the cool plastic surface. The very base of her skull was thumping and her stomach felt like it was trying to fight its way out of her skin. She struggle to her feet.
Goddamn it, she would get her work done if it killed her.
-----
When she staggered back into Newson’s office a few hours later, he said without even looking up from his computer screen: “Where the fuck have you been? Malingering?”
It was meant to be a joke. In retrospect, it was clear that a lot less damage to his office would have been done if he’d simply set off an atomic bomb.
Title: Death Flu
Rating: PG (language)
Challenge: FOTD: malinger, Rhubarb ‘My Treat’ #13: if you can’t say something nice (someone takes offence at Newson’s potty mouth), Strawberry #2: curtains
Toppings/Extras: hot fudge, malt, fresh peaches, fresh strawberries, fresh blueberries
Wordcount: 1,890
Summary: Even Adele Merritt gets sick, unfortunately for everyone else.
Notes: I’m introducing some new baddies! Marina’s treat. Malinger: To feign or exaggerate illness or inability in order to avoid duty or work. Malt: One, two, three. Boom. Peaches: Be careful what you say and to whom you say it. Strawberries: Emergency pit stop! Blueberries: “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse.”
Adele Merritt took care of herself with the detached necessity of a mechanic caring for an appliance. Needless to say, despite the fact that she didn’t much care for inessential pampering, she was efficient and thorough about it and as such didn’t often find herself sick. It was the sort of thing that happened to Other People. Less professional people.
When she woke up that morning with an undeniable itch in her sinuses, her mood precipitated from colourless indifference to black instantly. The morning light stabbing through her curtains made her whole face hurt and when she drew in a breath, she could feel it scraping along every razorblade that had apparently taken up residence inside of her throat.
Wonderful.
She showered, washed, dried and changed reflexively, ignoring the near-convulsive shivers that told her being even marginally cold was not a good idea. Brushing her hair into its usual sleek bun seemed much more difficult than usual for some reason-her entire body liked to mutiny at once as opposed to just one thing at a time. While she smoothed on her lipstick, she momentarily lost vision as white clouds fizzed over her eyes and ended up smearing it.
It was going to be one of those days, then.
-----
As the elevator doors opened and revealed her within, the usual reaction shot down the narrow corridor it opened into like an electrical impulse down a neurone-except possibly faster. People jumped to the edges of the clean, white corridor and tried to look busy and blameless as she clipped smartly down the middle of them in her weaponlike high-heels. If anyone noticed the slight wobble in her step, they didn’t say anything about it.
News of her foul mood travelled quickly after she clobbered some poor man with her clipboard for daring to be standing on the exact piece of floor tile she had been intending on walking over, but not quickly enough.
In the busy office that separated the rest of the building from Newson’s own private office, some hip young man, possibly new to the job, was brightening the place up by playing music from his iPod, which he had plugged into some portable speakers. The sound of music was not appealing to Miss Merritt at the best of times, but at that moment the noise gave her the feeling of her teeth being ground to stubs. As she strode past his desk, she plucked the awful little contraption from its dock and promptly flicked it out of an open window, not even pausing in her step.
The young man almost called out in indignation but managed to choke it down just in time when he saw who it was.
-----
“Wow,” Newson said when he looked up from his screen. “You look like absolute shit.”
“What?”
Newson recognised the look of a soon-to-be homicidal maniac when he saw one.
“Nothing,” he said sweetly. “Why don’t you go get those sales figures for me?”
-----
Hallie fucking Rydan. Adele always looked immaculate: Hallie always looked beautiful. There was a difference. With her short black curls and bright lips, Hallie would look gorgeous whether she rolled into the office straight out of bed or dressed herself sharply as she could. That day she was wearing glossy black leggings with black heels and a long white blouse. She should have looked profoundly mediocre, but instead she looked exquisite.
“Do I really have to break them the news that we’re shutting them down?” Hallie pouted. “The manager’s a friend of mine.”
“I don’t care,” Adele said with a scowl. Her commanding voice sounded squeaky and she kept having to sniff. She didn’t like that at all-her voice was one of her most powerful weapons. It could cut through diamond on a good day, but on days like this she sounded like a stuffy, sneezing schoolgirl, high-pitched and whiny. “See to it.”
Tilting her head slightly, Hallie’s brows knotted.
“Are you feeling alright?” she asked. “You look a bit… pale.”
“I’m fine,” Adele huffed, colour instantly flooding to her cheeks-unfortunately, bright pink wasn’t the right colour either. Turning away from her, she stalked away with as much dignity as she could, not that it worked very well when she ended up practically falling down the stairs.
-----
The Head of Maritime Forces, Demy Voskoy, made her want to bang her head into the nearest wall even on good days. When she was feeling like this, suicide began looking like a truly fascinating option. He was cocky and energetic, attractive in a strange way-he wasn’t classically handsome but his angular, catlike features and permanently messy hair held a certain lure.
That was probably why they had a lot of sex, though she still didn’t like him.
“You look tired, Dell,” he said, feet on his desk as usual, arms behind his head. He smirked. “Not been getting much sleep?”
What an insufferable pig he was.
“Don’t call me that,” Adele snarled. God, she hated nicknames. Why did people insist on shortening a perfectly good name into the silliest nonsenses? Were they really that lazy? “The cargo vessel Alsci 55 was obliterated by pirates last week. Get your ass in gear.”
“It’s not my fault Newson’s a total tightwad,” Voskoy complained. “If he gave us more funding we’d be way ahead.”
“You’d better start learning to work with what you’ve been given,” Adele snapped, “or you’re going to find yourself jobless.”
“As if,” Voskoy snorted. “I know too much about the black ops stuff to throw out.”
By the time he said that she was already on her way out of the door. She paused in the doorway, her back still to him, feeling his eyes taking in her figure. Ugh, she thought. She turned her head slightly.
“Sorry, did I say ‘jobless’?” she said. “I meant ‘shot’.”
-----
Because she took so much sadistic pleasure in firing people, when Newson had told her to inform one young lady that her services as a computer technician were no longer required, Adele had hoped it would brighten her day considerably. Unfortunately, the young lady had promptly burst into tears and the sound was hurting her head.
“Jesus, shut the fuck up, will you?” Adele groaned, head in her hands. “It’s a shitty job anyway. Go back to university.”
-----
Dealing with the folks down in black ops was always her least favourite part of the day, which was why she usually left it quite late. Moxley, Head of Black Ops, fascinated her in a creepy way but she still didn’t like talking to him.
As for the rest of them…
“Hey, Merritt,” Robyn Walshe said as she walked into the room. “You look…” When Adele’s glare intensified, the young woman shut her mouth before opening it again. “Er, you look great.”
“What can we do for you?” Wolfgang Sidone asked. He was generally a lot more level-headed than the rest of them.
“I need a-…” She sniffed violently and then flinched at the savage stinging that instantly ravaged the back of her sinuses. Blinking stars from her eyes, she continued, “I need…”
She couldn’t even remember.
“A holiday?” Bradley Dekeynel finished for her warily.
“Shut up,” she snapped, probing through the writhing fog of her mind to try and figure out what on earth she did need. She had been sent there for a reason, she was sure of it. Even Victor Blackledge was looking at her, seeming faintly surprised. At least he wasn’t smirking slightly, though. Unlike the others.
Ah, got it.
“You need to get medical checks,” she said, cursing the stupid, squeaky voice she had been talking in all day. “You’re all overdue. And it would be such a shame if any of you were to suddenly die. Well, not really, but procedures are procedures.”
“I think you need one, too,” Wolfgang said, continuing to scrutinise her.
“How about you piss off and mind your own business, Sidone?” she said, glowering at him. With that, she turned and stormed out of the room.
-----
Adam Kirby was the one that found her.
“What do you want?” she growled at him.
“Um,” he said, “I came here for another box of rubber gloves.” He pointed at a shelf over her head. “Why are you in the cupboard?”
“No reason,” she snapped in response, not moving her hands from the side of her head. She felt as though a barbed-wire snake was making its merry way around her brain and her face was searing hot. It wasn’t very dignified to be found crouching inside of a supplies cupboard, but Adam Kirby was nothing to be embarrassed about. He wouldn’t know what dignity was if it punched him in the face and ran off with his wallet.
He crouched down too, tilting his head to one side.
“Have you eaten today?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she said, agitated. Why in the world would she eat when she felt so bad? Queasiness curdled in her stomach and she pressed her lips together as her horrible, itchy, lumpy throat shuddered of its own accord.
As ever, his ridiculously bright blonde hair was blinding her, but that wasn’t a problem for long because her vision started to fizzle into whiteness again.
“Here,” he said, and helped her to her feet by the elbow. She usually would have crucified him for so much as touching her, but she gingerly allowed him to lead her to a seat. She put her head in her hands and heard him walk away. When he came back, he had a glass of water. “You should drink this,” he said helpfully.
Stupid helpful people.
“I don’t feel like drinking…”
“OK,” he said. What a dick. He could have at least made a bit of effort to convince her. Grudgingly, Adele lifted the glass to her lips and took a few sips. The heat on her face didn’t exactly reside, but she felt a little better. After a few gulps, the tasteless wash of water and the heaviness of it in her stomach started making her feel ill again and she slammed it back down onto the worktop.
She took a deep breath. Adam had opened a window. Well, it looked like he wasn’t totally useless after all. Groaning, she kneaded at her forehead.
“God, I feel horrible. What is this, Death Flu?”
“You should take a few days off,” Adam said, to which Adele just laughed humourlessly.
“Yeah, that’s not happening.”
Apparently with nothing to say to that, Adam shrugged and walked away across the lab to get on with his usual tinkering. Adele put her forehead to the worktop, pleasantly soothed by the cool plastic surface. The very base of her skull was thumping and her stomach felt like it was trying to fight its way out of her skin. She struggle to her feet.
Goddamn it, she would get her work done if it killed her.
-----
When she staggered back into Newson’s office a few hours later, he said without even looking up from his computer screen: “Where the fuck have you been? Malingering?”
It was meant to be a joke. In retrospect, it was clear that a lot less damage to his office would have been done if he’d simply set off an atomic bomb.