Who: Bridget, Ira, and Staas When: Thursday afternoon, February 4th, 2010 (backdated) Where: Past Life Antiques Rating: PG-13 Summary: post-illness, the patient introduces his nursemaids to each other. Warnings: As we all should know well by now, Staas and swearing go hand in hand.
The wind had picked up from where it left off earlier that morning, stirring damp leaves and errant bits of trash around on the sidewalk into the slushy gutters outside. With the doors closed, the frigid bluster didn’t have much of an impact on those who would hide from the weather in antique shops, but Past Life’s big glass windows provided a little less insulation than Ira would’ve liked.
But it was to be expected of Pennsylvania in February, and with that in mind he’d bundled up tight that morning. Even with considerable of shirt and sweater and jacket and scarf over his unimpressive frame, Ira kept his gloved hands shoved uncomfortably into pockets for as much extra warmth as possible. Having just gotten over a bad cold, he did not want to get sick again anytime soon—especially after all the thought and care that Bridget and Staas had put into looking out for him last weekend.
Achy and groggy and gross, Ira hadn’t thought that he’d effectively communicated the gratitude that he’d felt when they had come knocking at his door with armfuls of food and tissues and coffee. But later when he was healthy and coherent enough to write and send them short thank-you notes, his friends had chastised him kindly with shrugs and smiles.
He still owed them, though. Never mind that he would have probably done the same; he knew that good, unconditional friendships didn’t – and shouldn’t-- work that way. Though Ira liked to believe that he held friends as close to his heart as he did his immediate family, apparently it wasn’t quite as simple as he so often claimed. He often felt more of an obligation to show his appreciation towards the generosity of his friends than with Papa or Ori, where it was pretty much always just a given (not that Ira didn’t ever thank his family, of course). It wasn’t a conscious sentiment, but there was always that faint, abstract notion in the back of Ira’s mind that if he wasn’t good enough at showing people he cared about, he’d lose them.
But Ira wasn’t thinking about that – instead he was glancing at the grandfather clock that loomed in the corner, its droning ticking barely audible over the wind rattling around outside. It was now fifteen minutes to one o’clock, and Ira was waiting for Bridget to arrive and take over his shift while he found something to eat for lunch. With a sniff or two, Ira shifted from foot to foot to stir up some of his circulation and weighed his options. Maybe El Torro, a nice spicy meal and possibly even a chat with Staas would make it worth braving the gusty cold. His stomach agreed with a plaintive lurch, and he smiled wryly at the sound.