#“You might think -could you pass me the gravy? thank you- that your roast beast is all that *scoops more peas onto his plate* but it's not!”

[flowery-laser-blasts]

Dr. Drakken visiting the Possibles during Christmas be like.

[this-is-a-love-story-fleabag]

Lunchtime in Hell

Fleabag and the Priest go for lunch at Dad's place. 1841 words. Also on ao3.

"Gosh, is that a bikini?" said my godmother. "Aren't you brave."

Aw.

Her capacity for saying something that sounds like a compliment but is actually spectacularly cruel will never cease to amaze me. All of the words individually are perfectly polite, but when you put them together you create a masterpiece in passive aggression.

Sometimes it takes me a couple of hours to work out that's she's insulted me. She should teach a class.

Not quite knowing how to respond, I looked at the priest, and tried not to pout.

He gave a sympathetic grimace and finished his mouthful of wine. "Not as brave as explaining erotic artwork to teenagers, I bet."

She looked devastated. Brilliant.

We were two streets away from Dad's place when I started having second thoughts.

"We could just say I had another miscarriage."

The priest stopped short. To his credit, he didn't sigh as loudly as I knew he wanted to. "The parable of the boy who cried wolf might-"

"Yeah, OK, I guess I can't do that one again." I thought for a moment. "We could say I broke my leg!"

He closed his eyes and pressed hard on the bridge of his nose. "No."

"No, you're right, too easily falsifiable. Maybe I could actually break my leg. Find a heavy log or something."

"A log."

"Yeah."

"In the middle of Kensington."

Balls. "You're no help at all."

"It's not going to be that bad."

I decided not to dignify that with a response, and started back on my grim march. Slouching towards Bedlam.

We reached the front door and he rang the doorbell, before he noticed that I was edging backwards off the step and onto the garden path.

"Oh, no, no, don't you run off," he said, grabbing my hand.

"Aren't you supposed to save people from Hell?"

He gave me a fond look and a kiss on the forehead in response. He looked unreasonably gorgeous in the blue jumper with the good sleeves, and I, as usual, was dressed like a teenage girl who'd just finished her A-levels and wanted to act grown-up.

I am under no illusions about my fashion sense.

Ominous footsteps approached the door. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," I murmured. He grinned. Handsome bastard.

My godmother opened the door with a theatrical flourish, wearing the kind of elaborate silk gown that a thrice-divorced heiress might throw on to be told by the police that her wealthy husband had died in a mysterious accident.

It suited her, the bitch.

"Darling!" she crowed, rushing out to give air kisses to our cheeks. Her hand lingered for slightly too long on my priest's bicep.

"Your father's just in the kitchen, why don't you go and help him?" she asked in her typically imperious manner, hustling us inside and closing the door. "Father, come and sit down for a glass of wine."

He gave me a terrified look as he was ushered into the pristine front parlour, but if he wanted to be rescued he should have agreed to the running away plan earlier.

I found Dad with his head in the oven, frantically basting a roast chicken.

"Alright, Dad?"

He started, and narrowly avoided banging his head on the top of the oven. "Oh, hello dear. I was just, er, with the, yes. How are you?"

"I'm fine." I leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "How's the cooking?"

"Oh yes, fine. I could use your help, actually. The little pastries need to go onto the serving, er, thing."

When we returned to the front room, my godmother was practically sitting on the priest's lap, and he was visibly sweating. He stood up as soon as we entered the room, emanating relief.

"Let me help you with that tray," he entreated.

I passed it over with a raised eyebrow, and he made an unnecessarily complicated show of placing it on the table, moving to a different chair in the process. Very smooth.

"I was just telling Father here about my new philanthropic project," the satin-clad tentacle beast cooed.

"Yes, it's really very, you see she's-" started Dad.

"Thank you darling, yes, it's very important work, you see." She had one clasped to her chest and her eyes closed in an expression of great vehemence. "I'm taking the sexhibition to the local schools to show to the children." She opened her eyes and gazed at them beatifically. "It's just so important to me that underprivileged young people have the chance to really appreciate my work."

Wow.

The priest gave me another pleading look.

"That's very selfless of you," I managed to choke out, a hysterical giggle rising in my throat.

She tilted her head to one side, looking as though she was proud of me for understanding the magnitude of her sacrifice. "I know."

She continued her self-centred monologue as we sat down at the dining table in front of heaping plates of roast dinner. There was a brief lull as everyone tucked in.

"So dad, how have you been?" I asked through a mouthful of carrots.

"I-"

"He's taken up gardening, haven't you, darling?"

"Yes, I-"

"Terribly good at it, his raspberry canes are just fantastic this year."

Dad, bless him, just babbled nonsense for a moment until he gave up.

"It's a very spiritual act, gardening. Don't you agree, Father?" She was touching his bicep again, which was clearly making him very uncomfortable, but the position was making her trail her sleeve in the gravy, so it wasn't all bad news.

"Yes, it can be very meditative," he said, using his Priest Voice. "The act of nurturing life that way is quite beautiful."

He has one plant, a cactus in a flowerpot on his windowsill. It's dead.

"Now you simply must show me the photographs from Turkey."

Clearly angling to see pictures of the priest in his swimming trunks. Joke's on her, he spent the whole time slathered in sun lotion, hiding under a t-shirt and an oversized hat. That man does not tan well.

He brought up the photos on his phone, selfies the two of us outside the Hagia Sophia, one at a restaurant, one of me holding a plate of kebab meat as big as my head, one of him eating a piece of baklava in the least dignified way possible, and the jackpot, one of the two of us on the beach. He was wearing at least three layers of clothing (and still somehow managed to get sunburnt), and I looked fucking great, tanned and skinny in my swimming costume.

"Gosh, is that a bikini?" said my godmother. "Aren't you brave."

Aw.

Her capacity for saying something that sounds like a compliment but is actually spectacularly cruel will never cease to amaze me. All of the words individually are perfectly polite, but when you put them together you create a masterpiece in passive aggression.

Sometimes it takes me a couple of hours to work out that's she's insulted me. She should teach a class.

Not quite knowing how to respond, I looked at the priest, and tried not to pout.

He gave a sympathetic grimace and finished his mouthful of wine. "Not as brave as explaining erotic artwork to teenagers, I bet."

She looked devastated. Brilliant.

"Your sister's doing very well," said Dad, changing the subject. "You really should try asking her about your little café."

"Hey," I said, keen to cement my place as Best Daughter. "Claire has to live in Finland. I'm the successful one now."

"And so modest, too."

My godmother reached over to cup my face with one soft hand, leaving a trail of gravy on the tablecloth. "Well, you're got a lot to be modest about, don't you, darling."

"Thanks." I think?

"Weren't you going to expand your premises?" Dad pushes on. "She could help with your, er, your business, er, plan..." He waved a vague hand. "...thing."

The shop next to me is up for sale so I'm going to put an offer down and get a little more space, but I need to take out another business loan. It's fine, Claire's all over it.

"She's already helping me. I mentioned it to her and there was no stopping her after that."

Dad chuckled and topped up my glass. "Is there ever?"

I took a sip. "As long as she doesn't start suggesting some kind of Finnish-inspired pickled fish menu I'm all for it."

"Surely they don't actually eat that in Finland," interjected the priest.

"You think they're just trying to trick the tourists?"

"Must be, yeah."

"That way they can keep all the delicious reindeer meat to themselves."

"Bastards." He smiled at me and squeezed my knee under the table.

My godmother refused to allow us our peaceful moment of reindeer-nonsense, and broke in with her own opinions on the topic. "You know, I think the Scandinavians have a real appreciation for more unusual tastes. They're a very experimental people."

I raised an eyebrow.

"When we took the sexhibition to Sweden it was very well received."

There we go.

Several excruciating hours later, when I'd fully satisfied myself that my dad was alive and well, and meted out the appropriate amount of politeness to his wife to keep things smoothed over, I excused myself for a quick and restorative fag on the front porch. It didn't take long for Dad to join me. I handed him a cigarette and we smoked together in companionable silence. We have an understanding these days, a relationship lived through these quiet moments away from everything.

On my return inside, I could hear my godmother's strident tones through the wall. "Gosh, you are a saint to put up with her."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" said my priest slowly in his most dangerous tone, dripping with polite menace. Cold enough to give you frostbite.

I felt very loved.

"She's just a bit-"

She cut off her sentence abruptly when she noticed me standing behind her but didn't have the self-awareness necessary to look ashamed of herself. He was staring daggers at her, but stood when he saw me and came over to wrap me protectively in his arms.

"I'd really like to be heading off," he murmured, making an affectionate and rather pointed show of giving me a kiss.

"Would you look at the time?" I said theatrically to the room at large. "We'd better be going, we've got that thing."

"Fuck, yes, the thing. Very important thing." We're a flawless double-act.

With some stuttered pleasantries from dad and more air kisses from his wife, the ordeal was finally over. We walked down the road for ten minutes in meditative and rather shocked silence, enjoying the fresh air and taking the opportunity to process our trauma.

"Fuck," he said eventually, succinct as always.

"Quite."

"I mean, I've revised my stance in recent months on the merits of repressing your sexuality, but maybe it would be good if she could fucking repress hers a little more."

"There's definitely a middle ground between total celibacy and being a raging sex-dragon."

"I like to think I've struck the balance quite well."

"Was happy to help with that, by the way."

He drew his arm around me and I leaned my head on his chest. "I'd say you've been fucking instrumental."

"I really want to just go to a canyon somewhere and scream the word 'cunt' into the void for like an hour."

"Is there a canyon near here?"

"Not that I'm aware of. I might just have to scream into a pillow."

He stopped and drew me closer, stroking my head and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "I think we can arrange that," he murmured.