Flash Fic Challenge: Strike Night

 Strike Night

 

It all started when I'd just made assistant stage manager for our local theatre. That means I was responsible for begging, borrowing, making or otherwise finding all the props for each of the plays, looking after them while they were in our care, getting them on and off stage at the right time, and getting them back to their owners afterwards. It was the last day of this play, which meant three performances followed by set strike (and strike goes until we're finished removing everything even if it means we're still going at two in the morning)

Because it runs so late, the theatre company puts in a takeaway order with one of the local restaurants, so that the backstage crew can eat. It’s the task of the most junior crew member to collect the food before the restaurant closes. That night, the task fell to me. I hastily shoved various props into places they wouldn’t get damaged and ran down to the Mexican restaurant.

Inside, the server laughed when she saw me, and handed over the bag of food for the theatre without quibbling. “Here, you go, princess,” she said. “All as ordered.”

I nodded, took the bag, and hurried back to the theatre. It was shaping up to be a very long strike, and everyone was hungry. I didn’t remember until I was handing out meals that I’d shoved the prop tiara into my hair to keep it safely out of the way while my hands were occupied hauling furniture. No wonder the server had laughed.

I guess not many women get to meet their future wife in paint-stained jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and a glittering princess tiara. But me, I’ve always been the exception to that kind of rule. This time was no different.

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Being Earnest

 Being Earnest

Ernest Hunt turned his head as he heard the familiar tap of a cane approaching and saw Nestor Locke's lanky figure picking his way through the library shelves. Ernest clicked his tongue quietly to let his partner know where he was. An equally soft double tap on the cane let him know Nestor was heading over to him, and he cleared the stack of books he was reshelving off the nearest chair.

He was just in time for Nestor to sprawl into the chair, long limbs draped over the edges, cane propped beside him. “Should have known I'd find you hanging around books.”

“Just helping out a little,” Ernest told him. “Somebody pulled every book on clown costumes off the shelf and left them in random piles.”

“What fun.” Nestor's smile was a little too thin and a little too sharp to reassure anyone, but its familiarity was comforting nonetheless.

“Quite.” Ernest placed a light hand on Nestor's arm. “It won't make me late home.”

Nestor covered Ernest's hand with his own. “I'll put your share of the takeaway in the warming oven anyway. Then if your students do start clowning around in clown suits, it'll be waiting whenever you finally make it.” He flowed back to his feet again. “And if they ask...”

“You were never here, I know.”

Nestor's grin was sharper than ever. “As always, we Hunt as one.”

“And I shall keep that thought Locke'd in my heart.”

They didn't kiss, but Nestor nodded to him, and turned for the door. Ernest watched until he vanished behind a shelf, and then went back to sorting his stack of books.

Flash Fic Challenge: Love After Death

 Love After Death

Everyone agreed that the house was haunted. It seemed to have a particular grudge against couples who sneaked in to have a bit of relative privacy for kissing - or more.

“And well,” Josephine mused as she wrapped her arms around Annie, their long skirts merging in the gloom, “'everybody' isn't exactly - wrong.”

Annie laughed and leaned back into Josephine. “Just those who don't know their history and would be doomed to repeat it.”

Behind the two women, some of the graffiti stood out.

One said, “Rubber.”

Another read, “Baby Buggy,” complete with illustration.

“Bumper!” exclaimed a third.

Annie and Josephine fell silent as a boy tugged a girl through the broken doorway. He wasn't listening when she turned her face nervously away, only lifted her chin with two fingers and leaned in for a kiss, small sounds echoing softly from the graffitied walls.

Annie tipped her own head back. “Tell me the old, old story. How does it go?”

“Once upon a time,” Josephine whispered, watching as the boy dismissed the girl's concerns and covered his own with bravado, “there was a boy with a charming smile and a girl who fell in love with him.”

Annie picked up the tale, stepping sideways so that she could hold Josephine's hand rather than be held by her. “He said that he loved her, and she believed him, so he took her somewhere private, and they made the beast with two backs.”

The women drifted closer to the couple, their clothing centuries apart, but heart and tale and purpose all identical.

“He only claimed he loved her until she got with child,” Josephine whispered, and no wall echoed her voice.

Only Annie echoed her. “She got with child,” and they both swept forward together, crying, “and then she died of it!”

The couple shuddered at their touch. The boy fled.

The girl watched him go. She didn't turn and look for the women, only said, “Thank you. He didn't want to listen. I won't intrude on your privacy anymore.”

Then she too was gone.

“And then,” Annie finished, “I met my sweet Josephine. May I?”

Josephine laughed and pulled her in for a kiss. “You may, always and forever, love of my death.”

Flash Fic Challenge: Shift Change

 Shift Change

Sam pulled off the highway into the Rusted Musket truck stop with a yawn, parked their truck tidily enough, and then leaned through to poke her sleeping wife. "Hey, Pan, your turn to take over."

Pan stuck her head out of the sleeping bag and growled hopefully, "Coffee?"

"Truck stop," Sam retorted. "Pay up or put up, sweetpea."

Pan yawned and crawled out of their shared berth. "Pay up," she declared, and smacked a kiss on each of Sam's cheeks in payment.

Sam pulled a face, then climbed out of the warm cab and trudged through the chilly middle-of-the-night darkness to the one open store. She got two cups from the hot drinks dispenser (one coffee, one hot chocolate) and a pair of cornish pasties for breakfast/supper from the rather depleted display, paid up, and headed back to their truck.

Pan was now dressed, and fastening her last shoe. She looked over and grinned at Sam - or perhaps at the coffee. "My saviour." She clutched the cup and made room for Sam to sit beside her, all but inhaling her coffee, before grabbing her pasty and biting into her breakfast.

They ate curled against each other. Sam felt the tension of her driving shift melt away with the chocolate and food, and Pan looked more awake by the minute.

Once they were done, Pan stuffed the wrappers into a rubbish bag and slid behind the wheel. Sam stripped down to her sleep outfit, and crawled into the still warm sleeping bag. As the truck pulled out onto the highway once more, she let the hum of the engine and the rhythm of her wife's driving lull her to sleep.

Flash Fic Challenge: Returned With Interest

 Returned With Interest

Tom kicked a pebble ahead of him as the two young men trudged down the country road.

Beside him, Ray reached out and they tangled their fingers together. "Only one more day of walking and then we'll see what the next town is like."

"Hope it's better than the last one," Tom kicked viciously at the pebble, which shot off the road into the hedge. He brightened as the evening camp site came into view ahead of them. "Hey, we made good time! Want to clean up a bit?"

"Sure."

When they reached the campsite, Ray set up the tent while Tom hauled buckets of water from the well. It would have to be a cold wash, but in the heat and dust of the summer day, that was more pleasure than hardship.

Tom had just shucked his travel-stained shirt and was reaching for a cloth, when a sopping wet sponge hit him in the back. He yelped and turned to see Ray there, also shirtless. Snatching up the sponge and re-wetting it, Tom took off after his lover.

Some things deserved to be returned with interest.

Flash Fic Challenge: Loving Lines

 Loving Lines

"Can I draw you?" Steph asked.

Callie turned and looked back over her shoulder. "Here?" she asked incredulously, indicating the footpath that ran along the edge of the field.

"Well..." Steph hesitated. "Just a sketch? The light's nice here."

Callie sighed and then shrugged with amused resignation. "Very well, as you wish. How do you want me?"

Any way I can have you, Steph thought but didn't say out loud, only asking Callie to stand so that the sun caught and highlighted her hair and face.

Callie struck a teasing, dramatic, pose, then settled into something more comfortable to hold.

Steph drew quickly, wielding her preferred fountain pen in swift, sure, loving strokes to bring Callie to life on the page. Details, like love confessions, would have to wait.