#snippet saturday
In an attempt (yet again!) to keep up with all of my ideas and actually finish something, I will be sharing snippets of fics, WsIP every Saturday, until I manage to finish at least one. bloody. Thing!! I’ll be sharing raw, unedited bits for the most part, and though I mostly have an outline planned for everything I write, I very much welcome comments and discussions about the what/ why/ where/ how/ whatthefuckery of it all, because it’s the bits in between that tie me up in knots. Thank you!
So… Here we go, Snippet Saturday No. 1:
“Well that settles it,” Serena mutters as she finally sits down with her last glass of wine.
“Settles what?” Bernie asks, as the screen wobbles. “That’s not your usual wine, is it?”.
“No, why? And where the hell are you?” Serena responds, almost irritably, as Bernie wobbling around the screen starts to give her nausea.
“I’m on the stairs. It’s the only place the signal is any good.
You’re pulling faces every time you drink.”
“I’m pulling faces every time you move, you’re like a minecraft model!” Serena shoots back, nevertheless pulling a face as she drains her glass.
“What on earth is minecraft?” Bernie asks, her fringe bobbing and breaking up the screen.
“I’d tell you to google it, but we’d lose the connection and you’d still be buffering by the time there’s a COVID vaccine,” Serena quips, lost into the ether.
It cements it, in Serena’s mind - once it’s caught up with her thoughts, of course - when she has to finally give up on the video call and phone Bernie in what she’s now labelled “the old fashioned way”.
“There you are!”
Her irritability melts somewhat at the sheer relief and warmth in Bernie’s voice.
“Here I am,” Serena affirms. She puts the phone on speaker on the table as she opens a tidy bottle of wine. “And I assume there you are, still sat on the stairs?”
She suddenly feels bad at Bernie’s confirmation; sees her perched uncomfortably on bare wooden stairs whilst she’s sat in the kitchen, ensconced in her second - first nice - bottle of wine.
“Actually, Bernie, don’t worry, this can wait, it’s not-”
She’s cut off by Bernie’s protestations.
“Honestly, Serena, at least I’m getting a nice draught. It’s quite refreshing, actually, after being folded in the airing cupboard surrounded by duvets with the headphones on for most of the day.”
Serena blinks.
“Is that where you’ve been the whole time we have team meetings?” she asks, flabbergasted. She can almost see Bernie’s shrug, more clearly than if they were talking in person.
“Outside the flat is very busy. And everywhere inside echoes. The sound techs suggested it for a walk-in wardrobe. I don’t have a walk-in wardrobe, and the spare room, as small as it is, is still too big to soundproof with duvets, so the airing cupboard it was. Honestly, the audio finish is quite professional, you might have noticed - they know their stuff!”
Serena’s glad for the ‘old fashioned’ call; glad that Bernie can’t see her fishing for words; knows that she’d find pity and bristle at it. Doesn’t know what to do with all the sympathy and empathy that she’d normally channel into a hug or at least an arm rub, so she clears her throat, and returns to her original trail of thought.
“I think you should move in with me.”
