maybe the beginning of MIU2
Feb. 27th, 2007 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdTitle: Ghouls
Author: Angel![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
valarltd
Fandom: original, slash-style
Rating: PG
Summary: One has to be a little ghoulish to love the undertaker, Picture is worth 1000 words challenge
Andrew Gough resisted the temptation to run his fingers along the barbed iron fence to hear it ring. Such behavior didn’t suit the necessary gravitas of his position. The two assistants carrying the wicker would have borne tales back. He walked up the path, ignoring the red and yellow tulips on each side. He rang the bell of the great stone house and doffed the black silk top hat. His men set the wicker down on the porch.
The lady of the house answered, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair and black dress rumpled. “Yes, Mr. Gough. We’ve been expecting you. Come in, he’s...” She choked, swallowed and regained her composure. “He’s in the spare room. We’ve already washed him.”
The assistants went up, and Andrew followed the widow into the parlor. The maid brought tea. He sipped a single cup, no sugar.
“Mrs. Walker, did your husband make any last preparations?” he asked, keeping his voice low and respectful. Of course, Thomas Walker hadn’t. Men like him never did. Their wives did because they were too busy being college presidents.
The high cravat and stiff collar made him keep his head up, keeping his posture perfect. Andrew hated the formal undertaker’s dress, outdated finery of fifty years before, but knew the clients expected it, just as they expected the horse-drawn hearse for an in-town burial. Those who were buried in the new cemetery, out of town, got the black Cadillac hearse.
He listened as the widow talked, and remembered he had their plans on file in his office. It would be a standard funeral to finish a standard life: visitation, the Episcopal priest conducting the service the next day. All of it would take place at his funeral parlor, which meant no transportation fees, and no inconvenience.
The assistants came down with Chancellor Walker’s body. Andrew rose and bowed to the widow. His manners had to be as old fashioned as his appearance. It made the clients more comfortable.
The maid let them out, and he could hear Mrs. Walker sobbing in the parlor. The iron fence was no temptation this time, not when there was work to be done. The assistants loaded the wicker into the station wagon and they went to work.
The Gough Funeral Parlor resided in an old Victorian house in the southern part of town, about three-quarters of a mile from the college and a quarter-mile north of the cemetery. The assistants took Chancellor Walker in by way of the cellar doors, down to where Edward waited with his tools and potions to embalm him.
Andrew went upstairs, to the rooms above the business and stripped out of his formalwear. If Edward saw him in it, neither of them would get a thing accomplished. He set the silk top hat with its trailing black band on the bureau, and hung the rest of his suit in the closet. It would be time to have another made soon, he thought. Perhaps slightly more Edwardian than Victorian.
He went down and dug through the filing cabinet of his wealthy clients. Yes, there were all the instructions. Joe was helping with the embalming, so he summoned George to help him carry the coffin in from the outbuilding that had been a carriage house before the Civil War. A red convertible, its tailfins glinting in the sun, whizzed by on the street. The frat boys in the back rose up and jeered, “Never laugh when the hearse goes by or you might be the next to die!”
Andrew ignored them and he and George carried the coffin into the parlor. The muted velvet drapes stifled the noise as they broke the crate away from the mahogany wood with silver fittings. George cleared away the crate and excelsior and Andrew polished the coffin and made it ready for its inhabitant.
It was well past supper-time when Edward and Joe emerged from the basement, smelling of formaldehyde and decay. Chancellor Walker was strapped to a board between them and they carried him in and casketed him. Edward whipped out a black pocket comb and arranged Walker’s slightly tumbled hair. Andrew watched approvingly.
“Visitation begins at five tomorrow night.” Andrew shook Joe and George’s hands. “Have a good evening, gentlemen.” The assistants left, turning out most of the lights, leaving only the casket display lights burning.
When they were gone, he looked at Edward. “You, sir, need a shower.”
Edward gave an infectious grin. Andrew was impervious. “I know. Anything good for dinner?”
“We have cold roast beef. It seems appropriate with a dead man beneath our floor.” Andrew still hadn’t smiled. He knew the Grave Undertaker would arouse Edward more than any affection. His long-time companion was a bit on the ghoulish side. It was a hazard of the trade.
They went upstairs for dinner and Edward’s promised shower. He came out, wearing only undershorts of a hideously garish card-and-dice design. Andrew had supper laid out, two roast beef sandwiches and some carrot sticks for each of them. The crystal water goblets were full of milk.
“It was an easy job today,” Edward said, sitting down and picking up a sandwich. “Old Tom, he’d been gone long enough that rigor was past.”
“Don’t bring your work to the table, Ed. If I wanted the noxious details of your unholy travails, I would have been an enbalmer myself.”
Edward shot a passionate look over the table. Andrew wanted to smile, lean over, kiss him, maybe even have him there on the table, breaking dishes and smearing food. Instead, he set his features into a mask of coldness and finished his meal silently.
The dishes done, Edward caught Andrew and pushed him into the bedroom. “Say it,” he demanded.
Andrew, not smiling, donned the top-hat. “Dearly beloved–“ he began, only to have his mouth stopped with Edward’s kiss.
Author: Angel
valarltdFandom: original, slash-style
Rating: PG
Summary: One has to be a little ghoulish to love the undertaker, Picture is worth 1000 words challenge
Andrew Gough resisted the temptation to run his fingers along the barbed iron fence to hear it ring. Such behavior didn’t suit the necessary gravitas of his position. The two assistants carrying the wicker would have borne tales back. He walked up the path, ignoring the red and yellow tulips on each side. He rang the bell of the great stone house and doffed the black silk top hat. His men set the wicker down on the porch.
The lady of the house answered, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair and black dress rumpled. “Yes, Mr. Gough. We’ve been expecting you. Come in, he’s...” She choked, swallowed and regained her composure. “He’s in the spare room. We’ve already washed him.”
The assistants went up, and Andrew followed the widow into the parlor. The maid brought tea. He sipped a single cup, no sugar.
“Mrs. Walker, did your husband make any last preparations?” he asked, keeping his voice low and respectful. Of course, Thomas Walker hadn’t. Men like him never did. Their wives did because they were too busy being college presidents.
The high cravat and stiff collar made him keep his head up, keeping his posture perfect. Andrew hated the formal undertaker’s dress, outdated finery of fifty years before, but knew the clients expected it, just as they expected the horse-drawn hearse for an in-town burial. Those who were buried in the new cemetery, out of town, got the black Cadillac hearse.
He listened as the widow talked, and remembered he had their plans on file in his office. It would be a standard funeral to finish a standard life: visitation, the Episcopal priest conducting the service the next day. All of it would take place at his funeral parlor, which meant no transportation fees, and no inconvenience.
The assistants came down with Chancellor Walker’s body. Andrew rose and bowed to the widow. His manners had to be as old fashioned as his appearance. It made the clients more comfortable.
The maid let them out, and he could hear Mrs. Walker sobbing in the parlor. The iron fence was no temptation this time, not when there was work to be done. The assistants loaded the wicker into the station wagon and they went to work.
The Gough Funeral Parlor resided in an old Victorian house in the southern part of town, about three-quarters of a mile from the college and a quarter-mile north of the cemetery. The assistants took Chancellor Walker in by way of the cellar doors, down to where Edward waited with his tools and potions to embalm him.
Andrew went upstairs, to the rooms above the business and stripped out of his formalwear. If Edward saw him in it, neither of them would get a thing accomplished. He set the silk top hat with its trailing black band on the bureau, and hung the rest of his suit in the closet. It would be time to have another made soon, he thought. Perhaps slightly more Edwardian than Victorian.
He went down and dug through the filing cabinet of his wealthy clients. Yes, there were all the instructions. Joe was helping with the embalming, so he summoned George to help him carry the coffin in from the outbuilding that had been a carriage house before the Civil War. A red convertible, its tailfins glinting in the sun, whizzed by on the street. The frat boys in the back rose up and jeered, “Never laugh when the hearse goes by or you might be the next to die!”
Andrew ignored them and he and George carried the coffin into the parlor. The muted velvet drapes stifled the noise as they broke the crate away from the mahogany wood with silver fittings. George cleared away the crate and excelsior and Andrew polished the coffin and made it ready for its inhabitant.
It was well past supper-time when Edward and Joe emerged from the basement, smelling of formaldehyde and decay. Chancellor Walker was strapped to a board between them and they carried him in and casketed him. Edward whipped out a black pocket comb and arranged Walker’s slightly tumbled hair. Andrew watched approvingly.
“Visitation begins at five tomorrow night.” Andrew shook Joe and George’s hands. “Have a good evening, gentlemen.” The assistants left, turning out most of the lights, leaving only the casket display lights burning.
When they were gone, he looked at Edward. “You, sir, need a shower.”
Edward gave an infectious grin. Andrew was impervious. “I know. Anything good for dinner?”
“We have cold roast beef. It seems appropriate with a dead man beneath our floor.” Andrew still hadn’t smiled. He knew the Grave Undertaker would arouse Edward more than any affection. His long-time companion was a bit on the ghoulish side. It was a hazard of the trade.
They went upstairs for dinner and Edward’s promised shower. He came out, wearing only undershorts of a hideously garish card-and-dice design. Andrew had supper laid out, two roast beef sandwiches and some carrot sticks for each of them. The crystal water goblets were full of milk.
“It was an easy job today,” Edward said, sitting down and picking up a sandwich. “Old Tom, he’d been gone long enough that rigor was past.”
“Don’t bring your work to the table, Ed. If I wanted the noxious details of your unholy travails, I would have been an enbalmer myself.”
Edward shot a passionate look over the table. Andrew wanted to smile, lean over, kiss him, maybe even have him there on the table, breaking dishes and smearing food. Instead, he set his features into a mask of coldness and finished his meal silently.
The dishes done, Edward caught Andrew and pushed him into the bedroom. “Say it,” he demanded.
Andrew, not smiling, donned the top-hat. “Dearly beloved–“ he began, only to have his mouth stopped with Edward’s kiss.
