Fic:: Listening Their Fear [S&A]

This is not, as may be very clear, my original AMSF story, which is a lot longer than this, and also a lot less, er, finished. Last night I changed prompts, changed fandoms and wrote this in one fittingly crazy go.

Fic:: Listening Their Fear
by Raven
R, Slings & Arrows, het, Geoffrey/Ellen. For hawkfromhandsaw.

45. “Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.”
--Tony Kushner

( birds sing, trees grow, Geoffrey Tennant goes mad )

Bookshop follies

Last night at twenty-five past five, a customer came storming in and howled: "WHERE'S YOUR MANAGER?"

Assistant Book Monkey and I both looked up, startled, and chorused: "Manchester."

The man took a deep breath and yelled, "My daughter ordered her book and you BLOODY FLOGGED IT!"

( cut for me ranting about three days of people shouting at me )

Okay, enough of that. Things about which to be happy:

1. Every time I refresh my flist, another story pops up on hawkfromhandsaw. So far, this ficathon has been much more painless than the last one (touch wood), unless you count the person who blithely told me to give everyone a week's extension. Er, horribly-rude much?

2. The shop printer ran out of ink today. I rummaged in the tea-and-coffee drawer for the spare cartridges and bemusedly discovered £120 in assorted cash. Some detective work later, it would appear that this is the same money that went missing, presumed stolen, six weeks ago.

3. The horrible books have actually arrived from THE. At least when people come in to shout at me, I'll have books to hand over.

(THE are a book wholesaler. In the continuing saga of my recent stupidity, ABM asked me today, "What's the website for THE again?"

"Why don't you google for it?" I asked.

He gave me his best what-is-wrong-with-you? look and said, "Why don't you try it and see?"

Er. I am stupid. Also today I fell off the kerb.)

4. Contrary to all supporting evidence regarding my intelligence, my LSAT score has apparently leapt by eight points. Whoop.

5. Thanks to a demented three hours last night, I actually have a story for my own ficathon.

6. And, finally, I'm going to Berlin on Friday to see the_acrobat, in what I am reliably informed will be the Visit of OMG 1.75. I've never been to Germany before. I can't wait.

So, yes, on balance, it was a good day. Hell, it's always a good day when you find money in your teabags.