neutral_omens | (no subject)

Entry tags:

pepper,
wensleydale

(no subject)

Date: January 8th, 2001
Status: Private - Wensley and Pepper
Setting: Kitchens
Summary: Someone needs to talk about why that didn't go so well....

Pepper hadn't run into Wensley at all in the past week. Not even seen him going up the stairs while she was coming down, or any of that. So she took matters into her own hands. What Adam had said aside, hiding in a big, old stone cold mansion was not helpful to anyone's health.

She wandered down into the kitchens, hoping to find that the Spectacled One had buried himself in work, like he usually did when he was feeling uneasy or depressed. The scents coming from the kitchen had never been better, so she had to assume that she was right.

She pushed the door open. "Allo?"

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Wensley was fervishly stirring several different pots, working through fogged glasses and minor finger singes in a thoroughly devoted manner. It took three more calls and a few frantic finger snaps to pull him out of work mode.

"Pepper! How've you been? Would you mind bringing me the cream on that counter?" He took a moment to wipe a fe beads of sweat away with a handkerchief.

Oh dear. He was a bleeding mess, or her name wasn't (unfortunately) Pippin Galadriel Moonchild. She grabbed up the cream from a nearby, over-glistening countertop and handed it to him.

"You, ah... how you doin' then, Wens?" She had already set herself up as awkward right there, but she wasn't really sure he'd notice at this rate.

"Fine. There's been more work than usual to do here. Everyone seems to want room service lately." He laughed a little, mostly to himself. "Still feeling a bit lazy since the holidays, I suppose."

He looked more closely at his friend, wondering why she was here. "Are you alright, Pep?" He remembered the cocoa Adam had requested a few days before. "Feeling under the weather?"

She hopped up onto the counter right next to him, getting flour on the seat of her pants and not noticing for one second. "No, 'm fine. Spent time tearin' up the greenhouse, which was a bit of a challenge, but everthin' other than that has been okay...." She glanced nervously into to a corner. Bugger. She was so bad at this. "I was actually wonderin' if everythin' was goin' okay here. I mean, you've been busy, but you kinda dissappeared after New Years...."

Well, that was... unsubtle.

Wensley stiffened. He really, really didn't want to go there.

"Be careful," he told her, turning back to his soup. "I was rolling out biscuits there earlier today."

She sighed. Well, that hadn't gone at all the way she'd planned. So she wiped her fingers in some of the flour by her hip and flicked it as his face. "Hey - last I remember, chicken soup practic'lly cooks itself." She huffed briefly and blurted out, "Will you look me in the eye? 'M not goin' to bite you."

He wanted to point out that it was celery soup, not chicken, but her tone of voice told him that being ornery wasn't going to work anymore. Looking up, he met her eyes and waited for the lecture that he assumed was coming.

He was about to be surprised then. Because lecturing was the last thing she had on her mind. "Why dun't you tell me what's goin' on, hm? I'm not sayin' I c'n fix it, it jus'... it might be good to talk about. The soup isn't gonna make it better, whatever it is."

Wensley sighed and turned down the flame under the pot. It would keep for awhile. Moving to the other side of Pepper, he pulled his body onto the counter as well.

"Okay, so remember New Year's? After the party, Brian stayed to help me clean up?" She nodded, and he continued. "Well, we started talking about New Year's traditions, and I brought up what they do in America, and," he buried his face in his hands, mumbling the rest. "I kissed him."

She pressed her lips into a thin line as she listened. Poor Wensley didn't really seem to have a good idea of what had happen. After all, he wasn't the only one doing the kissing there. "I know," she said quietly, once he'd finished. She hoped she wouldn't scare him off by confessing that, but it didn't seem honest not to tell him. "I walked in on accident when it happened and backed out pretty boody quick b'cause I didn't want to interrupt anythin'. What I meant was... what happened after? Because you've both been avoidin' each other, Adam and I c'n see it."

"I walked away, and I just haven't seen him since," he said again, sounding miserable. "And it isn't like I've been hiding, either. I went looking for a few days, but I didn't see him anywhere." Personally, he thought Brian had taken this chance to go on another tour of the continent, but didn't say it aloud.

Then what she had said sunk in.

"You knew what had happened, and still made me say it?"

Pepper frowned and said petulantly, "Didn't make you say nothin'. You got free will much as anyone." She sighed. "Besides, it's good to say aloud sometimes. Helps to... I dunno, think it out easier."

It didn't add up, though. He wasn't saying something. "What happened before you left? Somethin' had to 'ave happened, or you wouldn't 'ave walked away."

He frowned, trying to remember exactly why he had walked away. "He pulled back and asked me what that had been about," he said finally. "So I apologized and left."

She blinked owlishly and stared at him. "Y'know, jus' because Brian asked you what it was about doesn't mean he didn't like it. He might jus' have wanted to know what brought it on." She felt this was as good a time to mention it as any... "He was kissin' you back, Wens, I saw it."

"If he was kissing back, he wouldn't have let me walk off," he replied dully. He felt a flicker of something like hope in his chest, but shrugged it off.

She tried not to roll her eyes. Really, she did. "Don't be so thick, it don't suit you. 'Course he coulda let you walk off, 'f he thought you wanted to. I mean, you 'f all people should know that Brian looks big and solid, but he's really just a puddle of goofy smiles most the time." She tilted her head, trying to catch his eyes. "He was prob'ly scared, Wens. I mean, you were too... that's why you left, wasn't it?"

Wensley looked back up at her, then looked down again. "I suppose I was scared," he admitted. He looked back over at her. "You really think so?"

She nodded imploringly. Something had to turn out right from all this. Someone had to have a happy ending, and she was going to make sure it bloody well happened. "I do. And I think you better talk about it, y'know. Can't just pretend it didn't happen and go back to scufflin'. Too big for it now."

"I have tried to talk to him!" He sounded more angry than dejected now. "I've been looking for him all over the Manor, and he's been nowhere at all." He wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but to Wensley it felt like he was losing a cosmic game of hide and seek.

"Well, then leave a note under 'is door to let 'im know you want to talk," she insisted. "'S not that hard to figure out. Just make sure that you get through to 'im. You can't do this, not now. We got to stay together now that we're all 'ere again."

Wensley sighed. She was right, of course; no matter how brashly she phrased her explanations, in the end she was always right.

"I know," he reassured her. "I might have mentioned this before, but I missed all of you."

"I missed you too, pain in the arse that you are." That would have been mean on someone else perhaps, but she was smiling too wide. "It was sort of sad bein' Pippin at uni. Pepper sorta got kept in a dusty box under the bed, an' she didn't like it much."

Wensley was too used to Pepper's brand of love; he smiled almost as widely at being called a pain.

"Peppers don't grow very well in the dark," he agreed sagely.

"No, they just get all shrunken an' brassed off," she informed him. She leaned over until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder. "You gonna be all right?"

He didn't move, let himself soak up the contact.

"I'll be fine," he reassured her. Then a thought hit him. "Is Adam chasing down Brian like you did me?" he asked, somewhat suspiciously.

Pepper smirked. "You know full well s'not my business to say what Adam does." The she paused for dramatic effect. "But yeah, he is. Had to make sure he got an earfull or a ear to bend too. So don't feel funny 'bout it. S'our job."

"I was just makin' sure someone else go to be as embarrassed as I have been," he replied, smiling a little more. It felt better to have talked to someone about all this, even though he wasn't exactly reassured, and even though they had already known. (Why was it that if he was so bloody smart, Wensley wondered, everyone knew the important things before he did?)

She laughed. "All for vengence, then, eh? We'll make a real pirate out of you yet." She nudged his ribs with her elbow. Wensley was the smart one. Just sometimes he was smart about the wrong things.

"Yarr, me matey," he replied, curling one hand into a hook and squinting an eye. He laughed, then, dropping his pirate guise. "You three are better pirates than I am," he admitted. "I'll just make sure the loot gets evenly divided."

"Well, someone has to," she agreed sagely, trying her very best not to cackle at his pirate voice. He never really was one for parroting of any sort. "Otherwise the loot would be so mucked up it'd be useless. Sensible just like always. That's all you've got to do now, jus' keep bein' the sensible one. Then everythin'll be fine." She was sure of that.

"Right," he said. Just like always. That should get him through this ordeal.

"Don't you have some gardening to do, or some other boys to threaten?" He would be fine now, and Pepper surely had other things that needed attending to.

She nodded. "Yeah, should get back to it. You should come visit me sometime, y'know. I really dun't bite anymore, even if the plants do. And if you dun't I'll get worried again and come after you, so you better."

She pushed his glasses back up on his nose, hopped down from the counter and headed back to the greenhouse.

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