InsaneJournal

Who: Patrick and Aine
What: An 'inspirational' run-in with a fairy
When: Friday afternoon
Where: An import shop in Brooklyn
Notes: Beware of the silliness. But oh my god, I love it.



The way it happened was so quick it was nearly inconsequential.

Patrick had been wanting Jaffacakes for some time. He had sampled them in London when Padraig insisted he tried one, and he had fallen in love with the chocolatey-orangey goodness. He knew of a shop that imported British things and if he stopped by, he could pick some up as well as a few goodies for himself; a treat for getting through the trials Famine had put him through. Now that he could gain weight, he would do it in style. British style.

He hadn't expected someone from his past to be shopping at the same import shop. And he certainly didn't intend to drop a can of spicy carrot and coriander soup on her foot because the jangle of the shop door bell gave him a little fright.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Patrick hissed as he heard someone cry out after the can left his hands. He bent over to retrieve the can and only when he straightened up, the wayward tin in his hand, did he see who he had just accidentally assaulted.

Aine, the Irish fairy queen of summer, stared back at him. One of her golden eyebrows arched and her cold blue-grey eyes felt like they were piercing his soul. And he just knew she was going to do something horrible like magic his balls away in return for Christianising Ireland and taking most of her worship away, so he giggled nervously and then without thinking, he held out the can of soup as if it was some kind of lame peace offering.

"It's the Holy Youth," Aine said, ignoring the can offering completely.

Patrick's lips twisted as she referred to him by a moniker he hadn't heard in centuries and he placed the slightly dented can back on the shelf. "Er...not so young nowadays," he said breathlessly. "I didn't mean to...do you want me to look at your foot? I mean to see if I hurt you, not to- Not for anything weird." He was rambling and he clamped his mouth shut, giving her a desperate look.

"You have strawberry hair," Aine commented in her strange and airy way. It was as if she plucked words from the sky sometimes, decided they would do, and went with them. "And you smell like jam."

"My brother, he has...jam. I got some on my shirt." Patrick grimaced. This was not going well. He was stuck in an overpriced import shop with a magically endowed fairy who likely hated him, and suddenly he couldn't remember what he had come in here for. Some kind of delicious biscuit? It seemed to matter less than his impending lack of balls. "Uhm. Hey, so I'm sorry for- I'm just sorry."

"It's not an offensive smell," Aine replied, as if he had simply been attempting to apologise for that.

"Oh? Well...good-"

"I find you boring, even if your hair suggests otherwise." Aine stared at him as if daring him to disagree.

Patrick blinked. "Uhm. Okay."

Aine smiled at him then, and Patrick decided it was the most terrifying expression he had ever seen. "Don't worry, Holy Youth. I'll find some way to amuse myself." And then she turned and wandered away from him, leaving Patrick with the acute belief that he understood how a recently deflated balloon must feel.

Slowly, feeling incredibly paranoid and slightly ridiculous, Patrick left the shop. He sniffed his shirt as he did so, and he found that he did indeed smell of jam.

As he walked up the steps to his building, he paused and then slammed his palm against his forehead. "Jaffacakes, dammit!" He had returned empty-handed, slightly wary, and still smelling of jam.

Though that was nothing compared to what Aine had in store for him.