Work Text:
Lillian and her trusty scouring pad had just reached a particularly stubborn bit of baked-on sauce at the back of the oven when she heard the kitchen door go, followed by a great clattering of boot and chair.
“Cor Lil, do us a cuppa would ya? H’I’m gasping, I am!”
Of course, she thought. There's only one person in the world who could make that much noise just entering a room.
Master thief my backside…
“You’ve got legs, haven’t ya? Get it yourself,” she called, not looking up. “Can't you see I’m busy?”
“Aww, but I’ve ‘ad an ‘ard day. H’I’m dead on my feet!”
“You’ll be dead under my feet if you keep carrying on,” she grumbled. “Though on second thought,” - she extricated her head from the oven and took off her marigolds - “I'd better do it for you. Who knows what you might set fire to if I left you to it.”
She clambered slowly to her half-asleep feet and finally looked over to see Nosy Parker seated at the kitchen table, covered in dust, trying and failing to stifle a chuckle.
“Looks to me like you’ve been burning a few things yourself, girl. Get a look at your face!”
Eh?
She limped over to the hob and checked her reflection in the shining silver kettle there, only to see a grime-smeared ragamuffin staring back at her.
“You could be an extra in H’Oliver!” Parker chortled, clearly delighted with his joke.
She just barely resisted the urge to fling the kettle at him - she had only just polished it, after all - and instead wiped her face with a nearby tea towel before flinging that at him instead. He spluttered some sort of outrage at the assault, but she noted that he never actually stopped smirking at her.
“Whatcha so ‘appy about anyway?” she asked, filling the kettle and setting the hob on. “I thought you was bone-tired.”
Parker yawned and stretched, kicking his boots off under the table, which earned him a royal scowl.
“I am. Been traipsing round a bleedin’ temple all day, ‘aven’t I? I’ve been shut in, shot at, gassed, nearly buried h’alive…”
“Well that's bad luck. Still, perhaps they’ll get you next time.”
He glowered at her, but carried on.
“Frankly I’m just glad we made it out in one piece. No thanks to Gordon Tracy of course - ‘e was no ‘elp at all. All that equipment ‘e brought, and what good did it do us? ‘Er Ladyship said the same thing. Well, not in so many words…”
“Is she alright?” Lillian asked, leaning casually on the countertop. Her Ladyship was a tough lady indeed, but for all his catastrophising it sounded like they'd had quite a time of it.
“Oh yes, right as rain,” replied Parker. “Save perhaps for a smooshed nose, courtesy of that great fishy lummox.’
“He did what?”
Lillian quickly scrolled through her various kitchen utensils in her head, working out how they might best be inflicted on a young Tracy’s sensitive bits. A jaded old bird she may be, but she didn't mess about when it came to Lady Penelope’s wellbeing.
That was one thing she and Parker had in common.
Perhaps sensing impending bloodshed, Parker held up his hands in an attempt to placate his companion.
“He never meant any ‘arm, Lil. It was my fault really, setting off that booby trap like that - he was jus’ trying to save ‘er from a fatal stabbin’. And ‘Er Ladyship gave ‘im a right ol’ earful over it, so I reckon the poor lad’s suffered enough.”
The kettle whistle blew and Lillian straightened to go and make the tea, still quietly plotting.
“The truth is,” he continued, “I think ‘e might be a bit sweet on her.”
Lil almost dropped her newly-polished kettle on her foot.
“Really?" she exclaimed "Gordon is?”
Parker nodded. “Like a puppy, ‘e is, following ‘er around, trying to h’impress ‘er, like; he’s like a little blond labrador.”
“A dogfish,” muttered Lil, grabbing a packet of biscuits from the overhead cupboard.
“Ha! H’exactly!” he chuckled. “Wet nose and wet behind the ears, that one!”
Carefully, she balanced the full cups on a tray and took it over to the table.
“But ‘e’s not that young though, is he? Twenty-three?”
“About that,” replied Parker, shovelling a hobnob in his mouth. “Seems younger though, somehow. Too young for ‘er, anyway.”
“You would say that though, wouldn’t ya? Nobody’s ever gonna be good enough for her s’far as you’re concerned.”
He grinned sheepishly and reached for another biscuit.
Lillian stared into her teacup, thinking.
“You don’t think she might like ‘im too, then?”
Parker’s biscuit fell in his cup.
“You wot?”
“Well I was just thinkin’,” she handed him a teaspoon to fish it out, “all this talk about how annoying he is and ‘ow he’s always getting into scrapes ‘n’ all that…” She took a sip. “It just seems that if she didn't like ‘im, she might not care quite so much what ‘e does.”
“Don't talk soft, woman!” exclaimed Parker, his slowly-disintegrating hobnob apparently forgotten. “She’s fond of all those Tracy boys, Gordon included. It's part of her nature to worry after ‘em. Nothing more than that, I'm sure.”
“If you say so…”
They sat in silence for a minute, pondering.
“Though…” Parker started. “...Nah.”
“What?”
“S’nothing.”
She picked up another teaspoon. “I’m going to stick this somewhere very painful if you don't come out with it.”
He scoffed. "You wouldn't dare.".
She smiled at him.
"...Sideways."
A gulp.
“Alright, alright, keep your ‘air on! It's only that I was just thinkin’, back there, there was a… a moment.”
“A moment?” She leaned forwards.
“Between the two of ‘em, when we were up on that stairway, starin’ death in the face…”
He paused, waiting for sympathy.
She brandished her spoon at him. “And?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Well, we all thought that might be it - ‘The H’End’, as it were…”
“Uh-huh?”
“An’ he was saying something about us not having much time, and it being now h'or never…”
“Yes?”
“And the way they was looking at each other, it was like…”
“Yes?!”
She was right on the edge of her seat now, tea and spoon both entirely forgotten.
He shrugged.
“Well anyway, then next thing I knew, we was grappling into the air and out the roof to safety.”
She blinked.
“...What? That's it?!”
She picked up the tea towel off the table and threw it at him again.
“You almost ‘ad me then, you bleedin’ tease! Gettin’ me all invested like that…”
“What? That's what ‘appened!”
She was fuming. “I thought you’d at least say he kissed her hand or something. ‘A look’, he says!”
He flushed. “It was more than that-”
“Load of nonsense. You’ve been watching too many of those serials on telly!”
She got to her feet and stormed over to the oven.
“I can't be sittin’ here listenin’ to this rubbish all day. Got things to do,” she grumbled, pulling her rubber gloves back on.
He folded his arms, glowering. “Well that's just fine then! Last time I tell you anything.”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
And so they retreated to their respective corners to sulk; her scrubbing the oven, him harrumphing in his chair, stormclouds hovering between.
A minute passed. Then two.
“You can finish up your tea before ‘elping me with the dinner, if you like?”
“...Yeah, alright then.”