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[curseshit]

The wedding is tomorrow!

Do what you gotta do. Decorate the church, decide what to wear, buy a gift for the happy couple, bake all the things... throw a bachelor party?

Oh and don't forget to water the apple trees. Never do that.

[ mission: work on breaking the curse or go through the symptoms if you've already gotten started. ]

Comments

[sawedoff]

Okay. [holds hand up to stall the mental breakdown. shh. paper bag, aaron. breathe.] He was a douche anyway. [between you me and the fence post. at least au graham is. cranky bitch. kind of half-smiles like, it's a joke, ehh? eh? crack a smile man. loosen up.]

[armedarchaeologist]

[shrugs and tries to breathe evenly. doesn't even really feel like defending craig, to be honest, which is a little odd.]

Well, so are you, honey.

[half-smiles back. that was a joke. remember last night? yes? aaron is making a visible effort to loosen up, but that's not really his natural state.]

Seriously, though. Thanks. For. For everything.

[co-parent, partner in crime, breadwinner. oh poor choice of narration but you get the idea.]

[sawedoff]

Yeah, yeah.

[clears throat and one-shoulder shrugs at him. don't be gay.]

Hey, help me get these decorations down. The wedding's off.

[armedarchaeologist]

What wedding?

[sorry, he was just really self-absorbed for a minute there. remembers in like a half-second.]

Oh! Good! I mean, not, it's not... No, that's definitely a good thing. I mean I know arranged marriages work some of the time, and marriages of convenience aren't totally intolerable all of the time, but I don't even think they like each other.

[gets up on a pew and starts untacking tacky things. eyebrows at john over "totally intolerable" because that was a joke and when aaron isn't panicking over craig it's pretty tolerable.]

Oh, that reminds me, Sergei wanted to apologize for upsetting you? Apparently kind of a lot.

[sawedoff]

He didn't upset me.

[upset is what housewives get when the electric bill is too high. i'm not getting the vapors. purses lips at his back while he pulls some strung up crap down and rolls it into a tangled ball. tosses it in a pile on a pew to get to later]

What d'you know about him anyway?

[like seriously if he actually thinks about it he knows next to nothing. he's just a weird guy with a russian name who's brother works for the mayor. he's always been around i guess? but they don't talk a lot. so he doesn't get why he got groundhog day deja vu from him]

[armedarchaeologist]

His name is derived from a Latin family name best translated as "servant?"

[shrugs as well as someone can when he's unpinning stuff from the rafters. celtic crosses. cardboard boob cutouts. you know, typical religious iconography.]

Next to nothing, I guess. Just the stuff everyone knows, I don't think I've had much of a chance to sit down and get to know him or anything.

[sawedoff]

[holds a hand out incredulously when he delves into nameology like, really, 1 how do you even know that and 2 why did you feel the need to tell me. nerd.]

I feel like I know the guy. From somewhere. It's...weird.

[points a finger at him to preemptively shut him up before he makes any offcolor assumptions. goes back to tossing junk into the pile]

Don't think he's ever said two words to me before today.

[armedarchaeologist]

[raises his hands in surrender when john points to him, because. he wasn't. he actually wasn't, because first of all it would be hypocritical in the extreme and second of all because it actually hadn't occurred to him.]

Maybe it's just, you know, the nature of the small town? I don't really know the feeling, I guess.

[sawedoff]

Whatever. I'm forgetting about it. It's gone.

[like some kind of past-life crap or something. he won't forget about it though. it's in his nature to latch onto weird. will obsess until he figures it out.]

That's good enough for now.

[finishes stuffing pile of decoration junk reduced to a tangled mess in a bag and holds it out for the rest of whatever daniels holding]

[armedarchaeologist]

Sure, if you say so.

[shrugs. hey whatever john wants to drop without further comment, aaron is just fine with dropping including tacky decorations. drops the handful of tacky decorations in the bag and climbs down from the pew.]

Hey, Smith and I made applesauce today and nobody died or skipped out on the bill, so... That went well.

[that's not even a euphemism.]

[sawedoff]

Wow, it's almost like you're a functioning adult.

[is that why you smell like baby food. ties bag off and tosses it in corner, dusts hands off. looks around church. handiwork pays off.]

[armedarchaeologist]

Careful, sweetheart, that almost sounded like a compliment.

[no it didn't, but sass is his default setting so this is familiar territory. surveys the church with john.

So are you refunding their deposit, or what? I can never remember the rules.

[sawedoff]

You kiddin? This is the church you're talkin about.

[pls. generous and benevolent until it comes to money policy. at least he's a self-aware priest.]

Money in the bank. We can hit the town later, grab a bite. What say you?

[he still has to finish up the day here but you know. got money to burn. make plans. not dates.]

[armedarchaeologist]

Sounds good, just as long as we don't go to the inn.

[wait. there's nowhere else in town. except the—

yeah they're not going to the bakery.]

On second thought, inn sounds good. It's not like they'll make me take another shift today. I hope. For everyone's sake.

[picks a stray shred of paper from the wall.]

I think the Joys are busy with the sheriff tonight, so Heather should be free.

[sawedoff]

Inn it is. Least Rita can fry up some decent steak n eggs. Wanna pick her up on your way out?

[pointed eyebrow raise. trusting you to do the thing and not fuck it up. heather not rita. don't pick rita up. you don't know where rita's been.]

[armedarchaeologist]

Yep. Meet you there when you're done here?

[eyebrow raise right back at john because what no he's not going to pick up rita what are you talking about rita scares him only slightly less than rita's wife who is really terrifying.

it's a really complex eyebrow raise okay?]

[sawedoff]

[eyebrow language. like he has any idea what goes on in that freaky head of yours. for all he knows all rita has to do is shake some bread rolls at you and you'll come runnin with your pants down]

Uh huh. Gimme a few hours to finish up.

[eyebrow language that is completely different to the conversation they're actually having apparently]

[armedarchaeologist]

[finds your lack of faith disturbing. justified, but disturbing.]

Okay. See you there.

[platonic shoulderpats on the way out. facepalms a yawn as he goes because he didn't sleep at all last night and they might not have invented coffee yet here in which case daniel is about to die.]