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A year later and I have a sequel to the last thing I posted here. Ha.
Title: Timing
Characters/Pairing: Brick; one-sided(?) Reds, Greens.
Rating: T for language.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the PpG and please do not tell CMcC I exist.
Summary: Brick’s on a roll, until he isn’t.
Notes: Follow-up to small talk. Because apparently I couldn’t let the pop-up encounter go. Expect a couple more parts. Un-beta'd.
timing
-sbj
It wasn’t typically Brick’s day to do the produce, but he told Buttercup he was up and out anyway so he might as well.
“Be my guest,” she slurred, her voice rough with sleep at ten past nine in the morning, and he heard Butch yawning somewhere beyond Buttercup as he hung up. He cued up his usual album, unintentionally inflicted on him by Boomer years ago. Normally he wouldn’t listen to this shit but the day it was first played was an exceptionally productive one for him, and now it was his go-to for powering through a series of tasks. The response was almost Pavlovian and inspired maximum efficiency. He jammed his headphones on and pocketed his keys on his way out the door.
Brick was not a talker. He didn’t know any of the farmers or vendors by name. Chit-chat interfered with his routine. His communication style was limited to grunts, one-word responses at most. Maximum efficiency. He got his shit, handed over his cash, and was out of there.
He drove past Townsville City Hall three times: Once on the way out, once on the way to the store for everything he couldn’t get from the farmer’s market, and once on the way back to Buttercup’s. Tracks 3, 10, and 15, respectively. Not exactly great timing—the songs were too slow, and he was hoping for a track with a little more “Fuck you” energy to land, but whatever. Kismet didn’t exist.
His boss and his brother were just-awake when he arrived, both of them standing at the stove and eating breakfast directly out of the pan as he hauled in the ingredients for the night’s dinner service. He killed his music—a perfectly timed trip, almost an hour and five minutes to the dot, the length of the album itself—told Buttercup what she owed him, and started unpacking.
“Jesus, you’re on it today,” she said, handing her fork to Butch so she could Venmo Brick the money. Butch, the poster child for advanced civilization, started eating their omelet with both forks.
Brick grunted. It always took a minute to get out of Maximum Efficiency mode.
“You need breakfast?” she asked, and behind her Butch offered him one of the forks.
“Nope.”
“It’s good,” Butch said, as if this was the issue.
“Obviously it’s good,” Brick said, jerking his head at Buttercup, because duh. He saw her reaching for the calendar and, before she could get a good look, said, “Hey, I want to change dessert tonight.”
“Oh?” She glanced back at him.
“Yeah.” He loaded the fridge up, careful to avoid the roast that had been chilling there since yesterday. “I was thinking cream puffs.”
Her expression dipped into a warning. “You need the oven for that.”
“Yeah.”
“I need the oven. Like all day.”
“That’s fine. I’ll prep them and get them in after the beef.”
“Want me to go out and get another oven?” Butch offered, and both Buttercup and Brick looked at him, exasperated.
“We can’t put another oven in here, man,” she said.
“Where the fuck is it gonna go?” Brick asked, gesturing at the counter.
Butch shrugged, unperturbed as he offered a bite of omelet to Buttercup. “Just trying to help.”
“I can do the whole thing in like an hour, and that’s without superspeed,” Brick explained. “They’ll go in as soon as the beef comes out. It’ll be fine.”
“Temperature?”
“They cook at the same temp.” Brick shut the fridge and stood, balling up the grocery bags to discard.
“Yeah and then I’ve got twelve people sitting around for half an hour waiting for their dessert course,” Buttercup said. “No. The timing is terrible. Why can’t you just do the panna cotta again? We’ve got everything for that.”
“Babe,” Butch said, sticking another forkful in her face. “Eat.”
She made a face. “Butch don’t—that’s very sweet, but don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Feels weird. Not feelin’ the nickname.”
“You don’t feel like a babe?”
“Then I’ll make the cream puffs now and freeze them. And just reheat them after the beef is done. Same temp. It’ll be like five minutes.”
“That’s a better plan,” she conceded.
“Because you are a babe.”
“Thank you. That’s sweet. But nah, no ‘babe,’ please.”
“’Kay.”
“I’m not into the panna cotta tonight. I just want to do something different.”
“Okay, okay.” Buttercup reclaimed her fork with the last of the omelet speared on it and headed back for the calendar to check the guestlist. “Do something different.”
Butch had started rooting through the cabinets and pulled out a can of instant coffee. He turned to Brick and waggled it. “Want some?”
Brick grimaced and swiped. “Get that trash out of my face. Ugh.”
“You stuck up bastard.” Butch laughed, digging out a mug for himself.
“You could brew compost and it’d still taste better than that,” Brick said.
“Blossom’s coming tonight,” Buttercup said, and Brick felt her eyes on him.
“Great,” he muttered, and reached for the flour canister. “Fun.”
“Uh huh,” she said in a monotone, still watching Brick as he opened it and sniffed. Yep. Smelled like flour.
He looked up and met her gaze dead-on. “You got something to say to me?”
Buttercup crossed her arms, her mouth curling into an approximation of a smile. It was a good look. Terrifying to the right audience.
Because it screamed, I see you.
“Get started on your choux,” she said, electricity crackling in her voice. “I need my oven in an hour.”
***
Blossom was late.
Not that it bothered him. If anything, it was somehow validating. She couldn’t even keep an appointment. Meanwhile, Brick had been on a roll all day. Errands in an hour, negotiated a day-of menu change, had even gotten ahead in the kitchen, all underscored by the magic album in his ear, infinitely repeating, still going even now. Oh, and his choux pastry came out fucking perfect.
So, yeah. Who was the real failure, huh?
God, he felt like fucking royalty when he pulled them out of warming in the oven, a few minutes after Buttercup had served the next to last course, and she stopped and whistled.
“Oh, you are that bitch,” she ribbed, holding one up and admiring it.
“I am indeed that bitch,” Brick affirmed, using a spatula to load up the pastry cream into a bag.
“How’s the crème pat?” Buttercup asked, then, without waiting for an answer, snatched the spatula away and licked it.
“Fuck off! I’m not done!”
“God damn. Can’t hear you, it’s too delicious,” she said, and he grumbled as he pulled the other, shittier spatula out of the canister next to the stove. “Seriously, nice work. And thanks for not fucking up my menu.”
“Well, as you said,” Brick muttered. He got the last of the cream into the bag, twisted the end of it, and squeezed to get it going. “I am that bitch.”
“I should tell Blossom to keep coming over so you two can keep trying to one-up each other.”
“Shut up and let me concentrate,” Brick said. Buttercup tossed her spatula into the sink and left to do the rounds with the guests. He turned the music in his ears up and within thirty seconds was back in the zone. Maximum efficiency.
His timing was great. Hers was terrible.
He faintly registered the door opening and a footfall whose sound shouldn’t have been so familiar to him. He’d already filled the first line of cream puffs, custard at the ready for the second row, but in his mental rehearsals he had envisioned her arriving earlier, at some point when he was between tasks or doing something menial like wiping down the counters, not right when he had to pay attention to proper proportions, and as soon as he heard that door open he was suddenly hoping he didn’t run out of custard like an idiot. Like some kind of fucking amateur.
Your custard is fine, he told himself, more than a little annoyed, and now even moreso because he was losing precious seconds to collect himself and recover and get back in the game, and besides, why would he have such a stupid insecure thought when he’d made this enough times to have the proportions down, for Christ’s sake, why was he suddenly wasting time thinking about this?!
Time. It was the timing. He looked up, then immediately back down because she wasn’t even visible in the doorway yet. He could hear her shifting out of her coat and exchanging vaguely bitchy remarks with her sister, who was giving her shit for her tardiness.
“Some of us have real jobs, Buttercup,” she said with a sigh, but underneath the air of exhaustion there was pride. When was there ever not?
Buttercup snorted. “Yeah, but at least I’m getting sleep.”
“You sure about that?” Butch laughed as he went by, and Brick heard him get punched, before they all started moving, and Brick blinked because there was a piping bag full of custard in his hands and a bunch of things in front of him that he couldn’t remember the name of that he had to do something with, and when he ran through this in his head in the days and hours leading up to tonight he realized he’d always envisioned her arriving somewhere a little more punchy, like somewhere at the end of track 4 or maybe around the bridge of track 6, but instead it was the fucking opening track and that was bad, because this was too soft and earnest but he had to look up or he would miss his moment.
He looked up, towards the open doorway. Just as Blossom passed by.
Her attention was on her sister, her expression slightly annoyed, her dress professional, her makeup recently redone. That last observation made his eyes widen, but he checked himself and furrowed his brow to scrub the hope off his face.
Blossom cast her gaze to the side and met his eyes.
***
The timing was off tonight.
It was one moment where their eyes held, stretching into an eternity that couldn’t possibly last long enough. He realized maybe it would have been better if he’d been doing something else. Something that made him feel more confident, collected, smug even.
But you know how to do this, he thought to himself.
So maybe just something else. Maybe it was wrong to be in the middle of a thing. Maybe it would have been better if he’d been done with the big tasks, with nothing left to do but look like he’d forgotten she was coming. Which was impossible because he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
It was off. It was all off. He was in the middle of finishing dessert and her makeup was impeccable and the voice in his ear was singing about golden ages and good and right and real and it was the worst possible moment for Blossom to arrive, never mind that he’d known she’d be coming tonight, now, here, for over a week.
Blossom’s gaze pulled away first, refocusing on her sister. Brick stared too long, and then she was gone, out of sight, taking a seat at her table.
He turned to look down at a tray of sweets that suddenly looked like nothing to him. He couldn’t recognize what these were or where he was or what he was even supposed to be doing right now.
What did you even think would happen? he wondered, because the mental rehearsals didn’t really go much past this. There had been more blushing, he realized, in the rehearsal. More blushing, more shyness from her. But of course that had been a stupid assumption.
He thought back to the last time she was here. Her hand on his shoulder, her knee bumping against his. Leaning close. No blushing shy maiden then, so why had he expected that tonight?
You idiot.
Brick stared the dessert he had changed last minute, the dessert he was supposed to be finishing. Something close to an epiphany hit him.
“Shit,” he whispered.
Terrible timing. Absolutely fucking terrible timing.
-fin-
Also for those of you who came looking for the spicy stuff, that's not finished yet, sorry but ♥ you for the interest!
AO3 | FFNet | AskFM
Characters/Pairing: Brick; one-sided(?) Reds, Greens.
Rating: T for language.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the PpG and please do not tell CMcC I exist.
Summary: Brick’s on a roll, until he isn’t.
Notes: Follow-up to small talk. Because apparently I couldn’t let the pop-up encounter go. Expect a couple more parts. Un-beta'd.
timing
-sbj
It wasn’t typically Brick’s day to do the produce, but he told Buttercup he was up and out anyway so he might as well.
“Be my guest,” she slurred, her voice rough with sleep at ten past nine in the morning, and he heard Butch yawning somewhere beyond Buttercup as he hung up. He cued up his usual album, unintentionally inflicted on him by Boomer years ago. Normally he wouldn’t listen to this shit but the day it was first played was an exceptionally productive one for him, and now it was his go-to for powering through a series of tasks. The response was almost Pavlovian and inspired maximum efficiency. He jammed his headphones on and pocketed his keys on his way out the door.
Brick was not a talker. He didn’t know any of the farmers or vendors by name. Chit-chat interfered with his routine. His communication style was limited to grunts, one-word responses at most. Maximum efficiency. He got his shit, handed over his cash, and was out of there.
He drove past Townsville City Hall three times: Once on the way out, once on the way to the store for everything he couldn’t get from the farmer’s market, and once on the way back to Buttercup’s. Tracks 3, 10, and 15, respectively. Not exactly great timing—the songs were too slow, and he was hoping for a track with a little more “Fuck you” energy to land, but whatever. Kismet didn’t exist.
His boss and his brother were just-awake when he arrived, both of them standing at the stove and eating breakfast directly out of the pan as he hauled in the ingredients for the night’s dinner service. He killed his music—a perfectly timed trip, almost an hour and five minutes to the dot, the length of the album itself—told Buttercup what she owed him, and started unpacking.
“Jesus, you’re on it today,” she said, handing her fork to Butch so she could Venmo Brick the money. Butch, the poster child for advanced civilization, started eating their omelet with both forks.
Brick grunted. It always took a minute to get out of Maximum Efficiency mode.
“You need breakfast?” she asked, and behind her Butch offered him one of the forks.
“Nope.”
“It’s good,” Butch said, as if this was the issue.
“Obviously it’s good,” Brick said, jerking his head at Buttercup, because duh. He saw her reaching for the calendar and, before she could get a good look, said, “Hey, I want to change dessert tonight.”
“Oh?” She glanced back at him.
“Yeah.” He loaded the fridge up, careful to avoid the roast that had been chilling there since yesterday. “I was thinking cream puffs.”
Her expression dipped into a warning. “You need the oven for that.”
“Yeah.”
“I need the oven. Like all day.”
“That’s fine. I’ll prep them and get them in after the beef.”
“Want me to go out and get another oven?” Butch offered, and both Buttercup and Brick looked at him, exasperated.
“We can’t put another oven in here, man,” she said.
“Where the fuck is it gonna go?” Brick asked, gesturing at the counter.
Butch shrugged, unperturbed as he offered a bite of omelet to Buttercup. “Just trying to help.”
“I can do the whole thing in like an hour, and that’s without superspeed,” Brick explained. “They’ll go in as soon as the beef comes out. It’ll be fine.”
“Temperature?”
“They cook at the same temp.” Brick shut the fridge and stood, balling up the grocery bags to discard.
“Yeah and then I’ve got twelve people sitting around for half an hour waiting for their dessert course,” Buttercup said. “No. The timing is terrible. Why can’t you just do the panna cotta again? We’ve got everything for that.”
“Babe,” Butch said, sticking another forkful in her face. “Eat.”
She made a face. “Butch don’t—that’s very sweet, but don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Feels weird. Not feelin’ the nickname.”
“You don’t feel like a babe?”
“Then I’ll make the cream puffs now and freeze them. And just reheat them after the beef is done. Same temp. It’ll be like five minutes.”
“That’s a better plan,” she conceded.
“Because you are a babe.”
“Thank you. That’s sweet. But nah, no ‘babe,’ please.”
“’Kay.”
“I’m not into the panna cotta tonight. I just want to do something different.”
“Okay, okay.” Buttercup reclaimed her fork with the last of the omelet speared on it and headed back for the calendar to check the guestlist. “Do something different.”
Butch had started rooting through the cabinets and pulled out a can of instant coffee. He turned to Brick and waggled it. “Want some?”
Brick grimaced and swiped. “Get that trash out of my face. Ugh.”
“You stuck up bastard.” Butch laughed, digging out a mug for himself.
“You could brew compost and it’d still taste better than that,” Brick said.
“Blossom’s coming tonight,” Buttercup said, and Brick felt her eyes on him.
“Great,” he muttered, and reached for the flour canister. “Fun.”
“Uh huh,” she said in a monotone, still watching Brick as he opened it and sniffed. Yep. Smelled like flour.
He looked up and met her gaze dead-on. “You got something to say to me?”
Buttercup crossed her arms, her mouth curling into an approximation of a smile. It was a good look. Terrifying to the right audience.
Because it screamed, I see you.
“Get started on your choux,” she said, electricity crackling in her voice. “I need my oven in an hour.”
***
Blossom was late.
Not that it bothered him. If anything, it was somehow validating. She couldn’t even keep an appointment. Meanwhile, Brick had been on a roll all day. Errands in an hour, negotiated a day-of menu change, had even gotten ahead in the kitchen, all underscored by the magic album in his ear, infinitely repeating, still going even now. Oh, and his choux pastry came out fucking perfect.
So, yeah. Who was the real failure, huh?
God, he felt like fucking royalty when he pulled them out of warming in the oven, a few minutes after Buttercup had served the next to last course, and she stopped and whistled.
“Oh, you are that bitch,” she ribbed, holding one up and admiring it.
“I am indeed that bitch,” Brick affirmed, using a spatula to load up the pastry cream into a bag.
“How’s the crème pat?” Buttercup asked, then, without waiting for an answer, snatched the spatula away and licked it.
“Fuck off! I’m not done!”
“God damn. Can’t hear you, it’s too delicious,” she said, and he grumbled as he pulled the other, shittier spatula out of the canister next to the stove. “Seriously, nice work. And thanks for not fucking up my menu.”
“Well, as you said,” Brick muttered. He got the last of the cream into the bag, twisted the end of it, and squeezed to get it going. “I am that bitch.”
“I should tell Blossom to keep coming over so you two can keep trying to one-up each other.”
“Shut up and let me concentrate,” Brick said. Buttercup tossed her spatula into the sink and left to do the rounds with the guests. He turned the music in his ears up and within thirty seconds was back in the zone. Maximum efficiency.
His timing was great. Hers was terrible.
He faintly registered the door opening and a footfall whose sound shouldn’t have been so familiar to him. He’d already filled the first line of cream puffs, custard at the ready for the second row, but in his mental rehearsals he had envisioned her arriving earlier, at some point when he was between tasks or doing something menial like wiping down the counters, not right when he had to pay attention to proper proportions, and as soon as he heard that door open he was suddenly hoping he didn’t run out of custard like an idiot. Like some kind of fucking amateur.
Your custard is fine, he told himself, more than a little annoyed, and now even moreso because he was losing precious seconds to collect himself and recover and get back in the game, and besides, why would he have such a stupid insecure thought when he’d made this enough times to have the proportions down, for Christ’s sake, why was he suddenly wasting time thinking about this?!
Time. It was the timing. He looked up, then immediately back down because she wasn’t even visible in the doorway yet. He could hear her shifting out of her coat and exchanging vaguely bitchy remarks with her sister, who was giving her shit for her tardiness.
“Some of us have real jobs, Buttercup,” she said with a sigh, but underneath the air of exhaustion there was pride. When was there ever not?
Buttercup snorted. “Yeah, but at least I’m getting sleep.”
“You sure about that?” Butch laughed as he went by, and Brick heard him get punched, before they all started moving, and Brick blinked because there was a piping bag full of custard in his hands and a bunch of things in front of him that he couldn’t remember the name of that he had to do something with, and when he ran through this in his head in the days and hours leading up to tonight he realized he’d always envisioned her arriving somewhere a little more punchy, like somewhere at the end of track 4 or maybe around the bridge of track 6, but instead it was the fucking opening track and that was bad, because this was too soft and earnest but he had to look up or he would miss his moment.
He looked up, towards the open doorway. Just as Blossom passed by.
Her attention was on her sister, her expression slightly annoyed, her dress professional, her makeup recently redone. That last observation made his eyes widen, but he checked himself and furrowed his brow to scrub the hope off his face.
Blossom cast her gaze to the side and met his eyes.
***
The timing was off tonight.
It was one moment where their eyes held, stretching into an eternity that couldn’t possibly last long enough. He realized maybe it would have been better if he’d been doing something else. Something that made him feel more confident, collected, smug even.
But you know how to do this, he thought to himself.
So maybe just something else. Maybe it was wrong to be in the middle of a thing. Maybe it would have been better if he’d been done with the big tasks, with nothing left to do but look like he’d forgotten she was coming. Which was impossible because he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
It was off. It was all off. He was in the middle of finishing dessert and her makeup was impeccable and the voice in his ear was singing about golden ages and good and right and real and it was the worst possible moment for Blossom to arrive, never mind that he’d known she’d be coming tonight, now, here, for over a week.
Blossom’s gaze pulled away first, refocusing on her sister. Brick stared too long, and then she was gone, out of sight, taking a seat at her table.
He turned to look down at a tray of sweets that suddenly looked like nothing to him. He couldn’t recognize what these were or where he was or what he was even supposed to be doing right now.
What did you even think would happen? he wondered, because the mental rehearsals didn’t really go much past this. There had been more blushing, he realized, in the rehearsal. More blushing, more shyness from her. But of course that had been a stupid assumption.
He thought back to the last time she was here. Her hand on his shoulder, her knee bumping against his. Leaning close. No blushing shy maiden then, so why had he expected that tonight?
You idiot.
Brick stared the dessert he had changed last minute, the dessert he was supposed to be finishing. Something close to an epiphany hit him.
“Shit,” he whispered.
Terrible timing. Absolutely fucking terrible timing.
-fin-
Also for those of you who came looking for the spicy stuff, that's not finished yet, sorry but ♥ you for the interest!
AO3 | FFNet | AskFM
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second thing: brick's yearning and hopefulness plays out so innocently and earnestly. there's a learned gentleness in his actions that makes me believe that maybe he won't self-detonate if, somehow, they end up making it to the relationship stage.
pls tell me there is more coming.
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