The Slow Seduction of Jack O. Trades: 02
May. 1st, 2008 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lslinesThe Slow Seduction of Jack O. Trades
Step One:
Breakfast
Breakfast
Prompt: I'll paint you valentine evenings, spin you mornings of gold.
Series: Named - TSSOJOT
Warnings: Pre-established slash [m/m], eventual threesome [m/f/m]
Authors Notes: The next part! No idea when I'll have the third piece done, sorry... It's still only outlined, so it could be quite a while before I write it all out properly. But I enjoy writing these guys, so hopefully not that long.
It’s still raining come morning. The sky is a bleak grey and in the moments when it isn’t raining the thick fog still remains sitting over everything like a blanket. Jack thinks it looks quite beautiful, and spares some pity for all the poor people hurrying to and from work, stuck in crowded train stations or traffic jams. She pushes away from the thought that soon she’ll be out there with the rest of the unsatisfied masses, riding on the slippery roads, weaving through those traffic jams, too busy to take in the delicate prettiness of the day. Just like everyone else in the whole damn city.
Sitting quietly at the kitchen table while Ansel hums idly and fusses about breakfast, Jack turns away from the window. She still isn’t quite sure what to make of Ansel. She’s lovely, certainly, beyond lovely, and her hospitality is something Jack finds herself very grateful for. Yet this is a little too much hospitality for a complete stranger and she still can’t help but wonder if the wiry-haired woman has ulterior motives. Jack forces herself to stop fretting about possible downsides to her luck at how seemingly nice the first Alphabetian she’s ever met has turned out to be. Instead she wonders what her mother might be thinking. She should probably call her, she knows, but... The situation will keep a while longer without a phone call. Besides, she tells herself to steel her resolve, I’m old enough to move out; and she can’t file a missing persons report for forty-eight hours regardless of how worried she might be. She’d only convince me to come ‘home’ and that’s somewhere I never want to go again.
Undermining her reasoning, years of instilled filial obedience still says that maybe she should call before she leaves, just in case something’s happened.
All thoughts of her mother die away instantly when Ansel lays out a proverbial feast in front of her. Pancakes and syrup, bacon and eggs, fried tomatoes and chipped sweet potatoes—it looks like a page out of a restaurant review, so out of place in the cluttered kitchen. Ansel grins at the sight of Jack’s dropped jaw and seats herself across from the girl. “Well, don’t just look at it. Help yourself!” Leading by example she deftly stabs a stack of pancakes and transfers them to her plate.
Jack does the same, loading up her plate with some of everything as if she expects it all to vanish if she doesn’t move fast enough. She’s halfway through a mouthful of bacon when she reaches for the coffee to swallow it down, smiling awkwardly at Ansel. “This is brilliant, Miss Wra—I mean, Ansel. We never had anything like this at home except on Christmas mornings.”
“Speaking of home and the fact you aren’t there,” Ansel’s fork hovers above her plate, waiting patiently for a train of thought to pass before it continues en route to her mouth. “What do you plan to do now? You couldn’t possibly set out for Soupkitchen in this weather. And you said you had little money...”
Jack looks at her warily, chewing as slowly as she can get away with. Eventually faced with the need to swallow and lacking an excuse not to reply, she brings herself to answer. “Well. I still have a cash little left. And my uncle lives in SK, if I can’t find somewhere I can afford... I mean, I haven’t seen him in years but he writes to us often enough I know his address by heart. And a little rain’s never stopped me before. So, I guess I’m planning to leave as soon as I can.”
She only has to glance at the firm slash of dissatisfaction that has become Ansel’s mouth to know that this plan is Not Approved Of. Similarly, she only has to compare the way things went over dinner last night to know that behind the hazel eyes currently watching her closely, there is a Cunning Plan that is about to be set in motion. A plan she just knows she won’t like but won’t be able to say no to. “I don’t think that sounds like a well thought out plan,” Ansel’s voice is motherly and radiates disapproval. “It doesn’t sound very safe, either.”
Willing to take the bait before Ansel tries to goad her into it, Jack sighs. “Have you got a better idea, then?
“Why, I do actually.” Her practically untouched breakfast forgotten and pushed carefully to one side, Ansel leans across the table with her eyes glittering in the grey light of the morning. Jack thinks it makes her look like a mad scientist, but doesn’t have much time to dwell on that as the Cunning Plan is revealed. “That spare bedroom I mentioned last night, the one you slept in? Well, I was thinking of renting it out, and since you’re here already and looking for somewhere to stay yourself...” She trails off, and Jack supposes she should make the obligatory token protest even though the suggestion isn’t nearly as bad as she thought it might be.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”
“Of course you could,” Ansel waves her hand dismissively. “Don’t even try to give me the ‘imposing on your hospitality’ routine. Or the ‘I don’t even know you slash you don’t even know me’ one. And if you so much as think about the ‘but I have no money for rent’ line I will take away the rest of your breakfast and shant feed you lunch.”
Jack laughed. Strange as she may be, Ansel did seem to have all the angles covered. “Let me guess the answers I’d get if I did try any of those,” Jack took another sip of coffee. “‘I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t want you to impose yourself on my hospitality’. ‘I don’t know the Gorgetti backpackers and they certainly don’t know me, but we get along just fine’. And of course, ‘whatever you can afford is plenty’.”
Ansel picks up her own mug, smiling at Jack over the rim. “You forgot the part about help around the house and doing the groceries to make up for the rent. Are you sure you haven’t done this before, Jack?”
“Ansel, I’d never even been more than five kilometers outside my town before yesterday,” She answers honestly between bites of sweet potato, something she had never before seen with a breakfast meal but which she certainly wasn’t querying. It tasted too good for that. “I’m lucky I can even follow a map properly. I’ve just watched a lot of television.”
Ansel frowns, opening her mouth to say something only to find herself interrupted by the doorbell. “Hang on a moment dear,” She says apologetically as she gets to her feet. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jack nods once before tucking in again, and Ansel wanders towards the door. “Hold on,” She calls as she fumbles the key off it’s hook beside the door. Pulling it open she blinks interestedly at the sight of Flea, Babel and a large multicoloured umbrella. “Morning boys,” She says cheerfully upon noting Babel’s slight scowl and the connotations behind it. It’s slightly-upset scowl number four, and it means that Flea has a plan that Babel doesn’t quite approve of yet has agreed to go along with anyway. “What can I do for you this morning?”
“Er,” Flea shrugs, an interesting looking motion while he has his hands in the pockets of his overly large and neon orange jacket. It’s zipped all the way up, the colar almost reaching his eyes and the little of his cheeks that Ansel can see are brushed pink in a way that has nothing to do with the cold. “Is Jack still here?”
Ansel smirks and opens the screen door for them, taking the umbrella from Babel as Flea rushes past excitedly in the direction of the kitchen. “Why don’t you boys come in? Have you had breakfast yet?”
“Not yet, Sel,” Babel says dutifully, wiping his feet on his way in and eyeing with no small amount of distaste the muddy footprints leading down the mahogany floorboards and into the kitchen, the unmistakable tread of Flea’s sneakers. “We were hoping we could get you to feed us. Uh. I’ll clean that up for you, and tell him off.”
“No, it’s alright. It’s still wet, it’ll come right off with just a brush of the mop. And you know as well as I do that that boy won’t learn a thing even if you were to hit him upside the head with a cinder block.” She shuts the door behind her, leaving the umbrella folded and dripping on the front porch. “But you’re in luck, there’s still plenty of breakfast left to go around.”
“There always is.”
“Come on then,” Ansel chuckles, pushing past him and back to the kitchen, the sound of Flea yammering away already causing her to roll her eyes even before she sees him, draped over as much of the table as he can cover without dipping himself in maple syrup, his face right in front of Jack’s as she calmly continues to eat.
“—then he was all like, ‘Yeah?’ and there was probably a warning in his voice or something, at least that’s what Babel says, but I’ve never been really good at taking subtle cues like that when I’m worked up, so anyway, and then I was all like ‘A parrot, obviously,’ and then he kicked my ass six ways from here to Sunday, but then he still changed his hair back which means that my saying so must have made him realise how much of a bad idea it’d been and how weird he looked, but I still have photos to prove it, so he’s never gonna escape it. And. Yeah.”
Jack raises an eyebrow as Flea finishes to take a breath. Sipping at her coffee, she asks, “A parrot?”
Flea nods enthusiastically. “Yeah. A parrot. I can show you the photos later if you like.”
“Hmm.” She says, taking another sip and knocking his hand away from the coffee pot without looking. “I don’t think you need any of that, Blondie.”
“Aw. Fine, I’ll just have—ow!” Still not looking up from her mug, she staves off his hand as he reaches for the maple syrup.
Babel nods solemnly, clapping Ansel on the shoulder and squeezing past her to pull Flea back into his chair and off the table before sitting to Jack’s left. “Nice moves with the fork, Miss Jack. It’s no easy feat keeping that one away from things he shouldn't have.”
Jack nods and twirls the implement in her hand. “I can imagine, and thank you.”
“There was no need for violence,” Flea mumbles, his hand sporting four red circular indents and a smear of egg yolk, which he carefully licks off. “Why is everybody always so violent?”
“Because you’re a little ratbag,” Ansel supplies happily, still standing in the doorway. “And don’t pout at me like that young man, or I won’t make you any toast.”
“Toast?” Flea perks up instantly. “With honey?”
“If you like—oh don’t look at me like that Babel, you know you have no problems with dealing with the boy on sugar. Just as I’ve no qualms about feeding him what he wants.” Moving to the bench and busying herself with the toaster, Ansel goes on. “Not that I mind having the two of you dropping in unannounced at any hour of the day, but is there any particular reason you’re here?”
“Oh yeah! Ansy, is it okay if we steal Jack for the day?” Flea grins, looking between the two of them eagerly. Babel rolls his eyes.
“What he means to say is, Jack, would you like us to show you around town? We know you were hoping to leave today, but given the rain...”
“That’d be... Nice,” Jack says slowly. “Ansel’s given me a something to... Think about, as it is. It doesn’t look like I’ll be going anywhere for a while. So, yeah, I guess that would be...”
“Nice,” Flea finishes softly, collapsed across the table again with his chin in his palm, smiling up at her like a dog who’s been thrown a treat. “There’s a market on over in Little Miranda. We could start there.”
“Ooh,” Ansel exhales in delight, eyes watching the timer on the toaster slowly tick over. “That sounds like a brilliant idea. Do you think you could keep an eye out for more of those incense sticks I like so much while you’re there?”
Babel nods. “Of course, Sel, don’t we always?”
“I’ll go get my shoes and coat and we can go, I guess. Gimme a minute.” Jack pushes her plate away and drains the last dregs of her coffee. she stops halfway out the door, fingers curved around the frame and a puzzled smile on her face. “It’s nice to make friends so fast.”
As she vanishes from sight, Flea and Ansel look at each other. Babel watches their staring competition interestedly, until Flea turns his eyes away in an admittance of defeat, although of what Babel can only guess. “We’ll be back by six,” Flea mutters to the table, pointedly not looking up as Ansel nods.
“Dinner’ll be at seven, so make sure you are.” She levers his toast out as it pops, spreads it quickly and pushes it towards the edge of the bench for Babel to pick up and pass along.
When Jack stumbles back in, one boot halfway onto her foot, the tension in the atmosphere has dispersed and she’s instantly pushed back down the corridor by Flea with a slice of toast hanging from his mouth, and Babel’s thoughtful expression as he follows them into the wet street is the only sign of the curious exchange.
“Where are we going again?” Jack asks as Flea continues dragging her down the footpath, her free arm over her head in an attempt to keep off the water, glaring up at the grey clouds until a rainbow umbrella cuts into her vision, obscuring the sky.
“Little Miranda,” Flea says with a grin.
“A market,” Babel answers, having caught up to them. “Flea, do you ever think? The umbrella was right by the door, it only would have taken a moment to grab.”
Flea makes disinterested and indignant noises. “Little Miranda is far more than just a market.”
Jack frowns. “That doesn’t really help answer my question, then.”
“You’ll find out when we get there!” Flea sing-songs, suddenly dropping her arm from his and pulling on his hood, racing ahead and splashing through puddles.
“I’ll find out when we get there then,” Jack shrugs and Babel moves into step beside her. “Are we walking the whole way? How far is it?”
“Lets say you’re going to wish we had a car by the time we get there.”
Jack groans, and Babel just tries not to smile.
Sitting quietly at the kitchen table while Ansel hums idly and fusses about breakfast, Jack turns away from the window. She still isn’t quite sure what to make of Ansel. She’s lovely, certainly, beyond lovely, and her hospitality is something Jack finds herself very grateful for. Yet this is a little too much hospitality for a complete stranger and she still can’t help but wonder if the wiry-haired woman has ulterior motives. Jack forces herself to stop fretting about possible downsides to her luck at how seemingly nice the first Alphabetian she’s ever met has turned out to be. Instead she wonders what her mother might be thinking. She should probably call her, she knows, but... The situation will keep a while longer without a phone call. Besides, she tells herself to steel her resolve, I’m old enough to move out; and she can’t file a missing persons report for forty-eight hours regardless of how worried she might be. She’d only convince me to come ‘home’ and that’s somewhere I never want to go again.
Undermining her reasoning, years of instilled filial obedience still says that maybe she should call before she leaves, just in case something’s happened.
All thoughts of her mother die away instantly when Ansel lays out a proverbial feast in front of her. Pancakes and syrup, bacon and eggs, fried tomatoes and chipped sweet potatoes—it looks like a page out of a restaurant review, so out of place in the cluttered kitchen. Ansel grins at the sight of Jack’s dropped jaw and seats herself across from the girl. “Well, don’t just look at it. Help yourself!” Leading by example she deftly stabs a stack of pancakes and transfers them to her plate.
Jack does the same, loading up her plate with some of everything as if she expects it all to vanish if she doesn’t move fast enough. She’s halfway through a mouthful of bacon when she reaches for the coffee to swallow it down, smiling awkwardly at Ansel. “This is brilliant, Miss Wra—I mean, Ansel. We never had anything like this at home except on Christmas mornings.”
“Speaking of home and the fact you aren’t there,” Ansel’s fork hovers above her plate, waiting patiently for a train of thought to pass before it continues en route to her mouth. “What do you plan to do now? You couldn’t possibly set out for Soupkitchen in this weather. And you said you had little money...”
Jack looks at her warily, chewing as slowly as she can get away with. Eventually faced with the need to swallow and lacking an excuse not to reply, she brings herself to answer. “Well. I still have a cash little left. And my uncle lives in SK, if I can’t find somewhere I can afford... I mean, I haven’t seen him in years but he writes to us often enough I know his address by heart. And a little rain’s never stopped me before. So, I guess I’m planning to leave as soon as I can.”
She only has to glance at the firm slash of dissatisfaction that has become Ansel’s mouth to know that this plan is Not Approved Of. Similarly, she only has to compare the way things went over dinner last night to know that behind the hazel eyes currently watching her closely, there is a Cunning Plan that is about to be set in motion. A plan she just knows she won’t like but won’t be able to say no to. “I don’t think that sounds like a well thought out plan,” Ansel’s voice is motherly and radiates disapproval. “It doesn’t sound very safe, either.”
Willing to take the bait before Ansel tries to goad her into it, Jack sighs. “Have you got a better idea, then?
“Why, I do actually.” Her practically untouched breakfast forgotten and pushed carefully to one side, Ansel leans across the table with her eyes glittering in the grey light of the morning. Jack thinks it makes her look like a mad scientist, but doesn’t have much time to dwell on that as the Cunning Plan is revealed. “That spare bedroom I mentioned last night, the one you slept in? Well, I was thinking of renting it out, and since you’re here already and looking for somewhere to stay yourself...” She trails off, and Jack supposes she should make the obligatory token protest even though the suggestion isn’t nearly as bad as she thought it might be.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”
“Of course you could,” Ansel waves her hand dismissively. “Don’t even try to give me the ‘imposing on your hospitality’ routine. Or the ‘I don’t even know you slash you don’t even know me’ one. And if you so much as think about the ‘but I have no money for rent’ line I will take away the rest of your breakfast and shant feed you lunch.”
Jack laughed. Strange as she may be, Ansel did seem to have all the angles covered. “Let me guess the answers I’d get if I did try any of those,” Jack took another sip of coffee. “‘I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t want you to impose yourself on my hospitality’. ‘I don’t know the Gorgetti backpackers and they certainly don’t know me, but we get along just fine’. And of course, ‘whatever you can afford is plenty’.”
Ansel picks up her own mug, smiling at Jack over the rim. “You forgot the part about help around the house and doing the groceries to make up for the rent. Are you sure you haven’t done this before, Jack?”
“Ansel, I’d never even been more than five kilometers outside my town before yesterday,” She answers honestly between bites of sweet potato, something she had never before seen with a breakfast meal but which she certainly wasn’t querying. It tasted too good for that. “I’m lucky I can even follow a map properly. I’ve just watched a lot of television.”
Ansel frowns, opening her mouth to say something only to find herself interrupted by the doorbell. “Hang on a moment dear,” She says apologetically as she gets to her feet. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jack nods once before tucking in again, and Ansel wanders towards the door. “Hold on,” She calls as she fumbles the key off it’s hook beside the door. Pulling it open she blinks interestedly at the sight of Flea, Babel and a large multicoloured umbrella. “Morning boys,” She says cheerfully upon noting Babel’s slight scowl and the connotations behind it. It’s slightly-upset scowl number four, and it means that Flea has a plan that Babel doesn’t quite approve of yet has agreed to go along with anyway. “What can I do for you this morning?”
“Er,” Flea shrugs, an interesting looking motion while he has his hands in the pockets of his overly large and neon orange jacket. It’s zipped all the way up, the colar almost reaching his eyes and the little of his cheeks that Ansel can see are brushed pink in a way that has nothing to do with the cold. “Is Jack still here?”
Ansel smirks and opens the screen door for them, taking the umbrella from Babel as Flea rushes past excitedly in the direction of the kitchen. “Why don’t you boys come in? Have you had breakfast yet?”
“Not yet, Sel,” Babel says dutifully, wiping his feet on his way in and eyeing with no small amount of distaste the muddy footprints leading down the mahogany floorboards and into the kitchen, the unmistakable tread of Flea’s sneakers. “We were hoping we could get you to feed us. Uh. I’ll clean that up for you, and tell him off.”
“No, it’s alright. It’s still wet, it’ll come right off with just a brush of the mop. And you know as well as I do that that boy won’t learn a thing even if you were to hit him upside the head with a cinder block.” She shuts the door behind her, leaving the umbrella folded and dripping on the front porch. “But you’re in luck, there’s still plenty of breakfast left to go around.”
“There always is.”
“Come on then,” Ansel chuckles, pushing past him and back to the kitchen, the sound of Flea yammering away already causing her to roll her eyes even before she sees him, draped over as much of the table as he can cover without dipping himself in maple syrup, his face right in front of Jack’s as she calmly continues to eat.
“—then he was all like, ‘Yeah?’ and there was probably a warning in his voice or something, at least that’s what Babel says, but I’ve never been really good at taking subtle cues like that when I’m worked up, so anyway, and then I was all like ‘A parrot, obviously,’ and then he kicked my ass six ways from here to Sunday, but then he still changed his hair back which means that my saying so must have made him realise how much of a bad idea it’d been and how weird he looked, but I still have photos to prove it, so he’s never gonna escape it. And. Yeah.”
Jack raises an eyebrow as Flea finishes to take a breath. Sipping at her coffee, she asks, “A parrot?”
Flea nods enthusiastically. “Yeah. A parrot. I can show you the photos later if you like.”
“Hmm.” She says, taking another sip and knocking his hand away from the coffee pot without looking. “I don’t think you need any of that, Blondie.”
“Aw. Fine, I’ll just have—ow!” Still not looking up from her mug, she staves off his hand as he reaches for the maple syrup.
Babel nods solemnly, clapping Ansel on the shoulder and squeezing past her to pull Flea back into his chair and off the table before sitting to Jack’s left. “Nice moves with the fork, Miss Jack. It’s no easy feat keeping that one away from things he shouldn't have.”
Jack nods and twirls the implement in her hand. “I can imagine, and thank you.”
“There was no need for violence,” Flea mumbles, his hand sporting four red circular indents and a smear of egg yolk, which he carefully licks off. “Why is everybody always so violent?”
“Because you’re a little ratbag,” Ansel supplies happily, still standing in the doorway. “And don’t pout at me like that young man, or I won’t make you any toast.”
“Toast?” Flea perks up instantly. “With honey?”
“If you like—oh don’t look at me like that Babel, you know you have no problems with dealing with the boy on sugar. Just as I’ve no qualms about feeding him what he wants.” Moving to the bench and busying herself with the toaster, Ansel goes on. “Not that I mind having the two of you dropping in unannounced at any hour of the day, but is there any particular reason you’re here?”
“Oh yeah! Ansy, is it okay if we steal Jack for the day?” Flea grins, looking between the two of them eagerly. Babel rolls his eyes.
“What he means to say is, Jack, would you like us to show you around town? We know you were hoping to leave today, but given the rain...”
“That’d be... Nice,” Jack says slowly. “Ansel’s given me a something to... Think about, as it is. It doesn’t look like I’ll be going anywhere for a while. So, yeah, I guess that would be...”
“Nice,” Flea finishes softly, collapsed across the table again with his chin in his palm, smiling up at her like a dog who’s been thrown a treat. “There’s a market on over in Little Miranda. We could start there.”
“Ooh,” Ansel exhales in delight, eyes watching the timer on the toaster slowly tick over. “That sounds like a brilliant idea. Do you think you could keep an eye out for more of those incense sticks I like so much while you’re there?”
Babel nods. “Of course, Sel, don’t we always?”
“I’ll go get my shoes and coat and we can go, I guess. Gimme a minute.” Jack pushes her plate away and drains the last dregs of her coffee. she stops halfway out the door, fingers curved around the frame and a puzzled smile on her face. “It’s nice to make friends so fast.”
As she vanishes from sight, Flea and Ansel look at each other. Babel watches their staring competition interestedly, until Flea turns his eyes away in an admittance of defeat, although of what Babel can only guess. “We’ll be back by six,” Flea mutters to the table, pointedly not looking up as Ansel nods.
“Dinner’ll be at seven, so make sure you are.” She levers his toast out as it pops, spreads it quickly and pushes it towards the edge of the bench for Babel to pick up and pass along.
When Jack stumbles back in, one boot halfway onto her foot, the tension in the atmosphere has dispersed and she’s instantly pushed back down the corridor by Flea with a slice of toast hanging from his mouth, and Babel’s thoughtful expression as he follows them into the wet street is the only sign of the curious exchange.
“Where are we going again?” Jack asks as Flea continues dragging her down the footpath, her free arm over her head in an attempt to keep off the water, glaring up at the grey clouds until a rainbow umbrella cuts into her vision, obscuring the sky.
“Little Miranda,” Flea says with a grin.
“A market,” Babel answers, having caught up to them. “Flea, do you ever think? The umbrella was right by the door, it only would have taken a moment to grab.”
Flea makes disinterested and indignant noises. “Little Miranda is far more than just a market.”
Jack frowns. “That doesn’t really help answer my question, then.”
“You’ll find out when we get there!” Flea sing-songs, suddenly dropping her arm from his and pulling on his hood, racing ahead and splashing through puddles.
“I’ll find out when we get there then,” Jack shrugs and Babel moves into step beside her. “Are we walking the whole way? How far is it?”
“Lets say you’re going to wish we had a car by the time we get there.”
Jack groans, and Babel just tries not to smile.
