Heartbeats

[The Delaney Twins]

She gasped. "Oh, Mr Ford, I am shocked! It is none of your business who I have 'been with', as you put it, other than my lovely little murse."
She could understand it, she supposed. Well, anyway, she could try. After all, it wasn't like she had had the most usual upbringing, and so she couldn't really claim to have been well-versed in the reasons why Amsterdam was such an apparent den of homosexuality. And she didn't really get the Cass thing, either. Yes, it could be construed as being short for Cassandra, but whatever. Caspar was obviously a man's name, anyway.
Except, of course, that when Caspar came up, the words as in the Friendly Ghost invariably came up too, and that wasn't all that helpful in the masculinity department. But it didn't matter. If it didn't bother Cass, it didn't bother her. In fact, now that she thought about it, he must have been pretty dàmn secure in that department, putting up with all those... compromising factors.
She dropped the virtuous act - she wasn't fooling anyone, she was sure. "But actually, now that you mention it, no. I guess I can't be sure, then. Jesus," she said, her voice taking on a joking tone, again, "I guess it's just as well he left!"

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

“And there I was thinking of you as little Miss Purity,” Russ laughed. “You almost had me fooled there.”
She was right, though. It was none of his business, and to be honest, he wasn’t sure that he actually wanted to know. It was a classic case of not thinking - and also an example of why you should think. He’d got lucky this time, but sometimes, by not thinking your questions through (Russ never did), you could find out things that you didn’t want to know. Such as exactly why your current girlfriend was left by her ex. Or why your boss showed up late for work with a rumpled shirt with pink lipstick on the collar (and no, it wasn’t what it sounded like - that would have been better). Or why your colleague hadn’t shown up for work in the morning. Or the story of when your mother lost her virginity.
Point being, sometimes Russ should learn to think before he spoke.
And ever though he had only just remembered that maxim, a second later, he went on regardless of how Lynn could respond this:
“Well, now he has left, we’ll have to fix the unsure-ity, won’t we?”

[The Delaney Twins]

And just a second after that very, very compromising sentence left Mr Ford's handsome lips, Lynn's phone started blaring:
A-bah-bah-bah, Ba-Bar-Bar-Ann
Went to a dance, looking for romance,
Saw Barbara Ann, so I thought I'd take a chance...
She grinned - she couldn't not smile, after all, could she? Obviously he wasn't being serious. And jokes needed smiles, or people looked like psychopaths - and said, with perfect composure, "I think I may have been saved by the bell, Mr Ford. Or the Beach Boys, anyway. Just a moment."
She pulled her phone out of her pocket, glad that she hadn't thought to leave it back in her kit in the changing room. If it had rung at any other time in the conversation, she would have been irritated as hell, but as it was, it was nice not having to think of a suitably flippant way to respond to him.
She flipped her phone up, held it to her ear, and greeted whoever was calling, "Hola?"
"Sally? Sally, thank God. Listen, you're going to need to come home now. Seriously. It's not good. It won't stop making the bloody noises and I've tried walking it and it's just not helping and you didn't tell me what to do!"
Lynn blinked.
"Right, Ken, could you speak a little slower? Please? You're going to break the sound barrier, I swear to God. What is it?"
A deep, frustrated breath sounded from the other line. "It's the dog. Why the hell aren't you replying to my waves? I've been messaging you for the last ten minutes!"
"I've been distracted," she said simply. "Can't spend all my energy watching out for my idiot brother's distress signa- Wait. Hold on. What the hell have you done to my dog?"
"I haven't done anything! I don't know what the hell's going on! It just keeps - "
"He just keeps."
"What?"
"He, Kennedy, not it. It's not a thing."
"How is that relevant?"
Lynn was not impressed by his tone of his voice. "Jesus, you cretin, what have you done?"
"It wasn't me! It just keeps making these whining noises and I don't know what to do with it!"
"Oh, my Lord. Kennedy Matthew Delaney, I swear to the little baby Jesus, if you have managed to be enough of an idiot to damage Terry when I just left him with you for one fùcking hour, I will end you. I will have you turned over to the RSPCA. They will put you away."
"For God's - Look. I have never claimed to understand this beast. I never wish to understand this bea-"
"Call yourself a man, being scared of a bloody dog..." she muttered.
He sighed heavily. "Look, just get over here. I wash my hands of this business."
"Oh, don't you dare hang up on - "
Beep.
Oh, fan-bloody-tastic.
She turned back to Russ, snapping the phone back and slipping it into her pocket. "Crap, I'm sorry, I have to go now. Apparently my cretinous fùckwit of a brother" - she was in no mood to be generous right now - "is not capable of looking after a small animal for more than two minutes. I wouldn't have thought it was rocket science, but apparently... Well, I'm going to have to take a rain check."

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

“A-bah-bah-bah, Ba-Bar-Bar-Ann..”
Russ had to laugh as the sounds of the Beach Boys spilled out of Lynn’s phone. "I think I may have been saved by the bell, Mr Ford. Or the Beach Boys, anyway. Just a moment."
“The very definition of good timing, right?” he chuckled.
Lynn pulled the phone out of her pocket, and Russ pressed the play button on his mP3 player so as not to listen in to the conversation.
… that proved easier said than done.
"Right, Ken, could you speak a little slower? Please? You're going to break the sound barrier, I swear to God. What is it?"
A pause, before Lynn responded, “I’ve been distracted,” – causing Russ to choke on a laugh. “Can’t spend all my energy watching out for my idiot brother’s distress signa- Wait. Hold on. What the hell have you done to my dog?”
Oh, shít. ‘Ken’ had killed her dog.
“He just keeps.”
Or maybe it was okay. But still, the look of outrage on Lynn’s face was something to be seen – it was the first time he’d seen her with anything other than a smile on her face, and seeing her looking angry was a lot more amusing than it should be.
“He Kennedy, not it. It’s not a thing.” Pause. “Jesus, you cretin, what have you done?”
Russ couldn’t stop the laugh being aloud this time, but he was pretty certain that Lynn was too angered to notice.
“Oh, my Lord. Kennedy Matthew Delaney, I swear to the little baby Jesus,” – at this point, Russ turned the mP3 player down again - “if you have managed to be enough of an idiot to damage Terry when I just left him with you for one fúcking hour, I will end you. I will have you turned over to the RSPCA. They will put you away.”
There was another pause, presumably where Kennedy Matthew Delaney was making his excuses and apologies – or, so Russ thought until Lynn spoke again.
“Call yourself a man, being scared of a bloody dog,” she muttered angrily.
Kennedy was a Carer.
"Oh, don't you dare hang up on-" Sally snapped, before clearly being cut off. Fuming, she turned to Russ again. "Crap, I'm sorry, I have to go now. Apparently my cretinous fùckwit of a brother is not capable of looking after a small animal for more than two minutes. I wouldn't have thought it was rocket science, but apparently... Well, I'm going to have to take a rain check."
‘Cretinous fúckwit’ had to be the response to ‘Sally’, then.
“No problem,” Russ said, hoping the amusement he was feeling wasn’t visible on his face – because it was definitely there in his voice. “I don’t have any siblings, but if I did, and they damaged Jake, I’d end them too.”

[The Delaney Twins]

What did it mean, when Terry whined?
She didn't know. She had to admit that she didn't know. Lynn, unlike her eejit of a brother, did actually know how to care for other living things (she swore that even cress would not last for more than two days under her brother's care. That was why she had forced him into Biology classes with her - maybe, she had thought, a little more rudimentary knowledge of how things stay alive would help him figure out how to keep them that way, but apparently, she had had no such luck) and so the dog had had no cause to ever whine in her presence. Well, proper whining, anyway. She got a lot of the look-at-the-helpless-little-dog-and-give-him-your-tasty-sandwich whining, true, but she was fairly sure that even Kennedy wouldn't mistake that for something serious.
And by God, if he had, he was going to be eating his own sandwiches through a straw for the forseeable future.
"No problem," Russ said amusedly, bringing her back into reality. This was more pleasant, naturally, than contemplating how best to murder her brother. "I don't have any siblings, but if I did, and they damaged Jake, I'd end them too."
Jake...?
"Oh, wow," she said, a good deal of the anger leaving her voice at this revelation. "Do you have a dog, too? Wow, that's brilliant!"
She'd been waiting for something like this to happen. "Here - in that case, what say you to making an arrangement for us to walk our dogs together? I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to rope you into this. I have been walking Terry on my own for months, now, and it is just not on. It's so lonely!"
And then something occured to her, and her expression darkened slightly. "Well, provided, of course, that I still have a dog to walk by the end of the day..."

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Russ laughed. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, it’s probably a bit difficult for your brother to have killed your dog in the space of an hour.”
Still, Lynn was back to her usual – well, what he saw as her usual – smile again, even if her eyes had darkened a little just there, so the dog had to be alive.
“And that’d be great – I can’t get anyone to walk Jake with me either, and iPods and cigarette smoke aren’t so great for conversation.”
Actually, the stir-craziness seemed to be getting to Jake too. The forest was huge, but Jake seemed to be getting fed up with walking in the same place all of the time, so Russ was trying to vary it with Cardsdale and trespassing on the fields, but it was making him sick of the routine, so it was probably still doing the same for Jake.
But Lynn would provide a good distraction from the monotony of it all, he was sure.
“I should warn you though, you called Terry a “small animal” – Jake isn't what you'd call small, so they’re long walks. Will Terry be okay to keep up with that?”

[The Delaney Twins]

Cigarette smoke?
Ahh. So that was what that smell was. She had been wondering. It wasn't exactly unpleasant... per se, but it wasn't the sort of thing that she was used to, by any means.
Well, didn't matter. You could get used to anything.
She grinned. "Terry is a Border Collie; I think he can keep up. He's not small, don't worry - apparently, I exaggerate."
She'd need to tell Jamie she was going, so she held up one finger, said "Just a moment," and turned back towards her friend's treadmill. "Jamieson!" she shouted.
"Yup?" Jamie asked, not turning around.
"Jamieson, I'm afraid I'll have to go now. Issues."
Jamie did turn around at that, her feet still hitting steadily against the track without faltering. "What sort of issues?"
"Kennedy," Lynn said. She wouldn't need any more explanation than that.
Jamie rolled her eyes. "I'll see you later, then."
Lynn smiled apologetically at her, then turned back to Russ. "Tomorrow at seven-thirty, then? Sorry, I'm afraid I'm a morning person. And my evenings are all filled up, event-wise."
After all, she couldn't abandon Ari in their training sessions now, just after she'd started to make some progress with him.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

“Seven-thirty is good,” Russ nodded. “Entrance hall?”
Lynn may be a morning person, but Russ was not. In the slightest, really. Seven thirty wasn’t all that early, ‘course, but he could be like a bear at that time, especially if he hadn’t had coffee, or a smoke.
On that subject, he needed to get more cigarettes on the way home. Madeleine would give him hell for it again, as she did every time he bought a packet, but if she hadn't reported him yet, then she was never going to, so Russ wasn't really bothered. It wasn't like her bollockings were going to hurt him, was it?
'Sides, she couldn't have a Warrior on withdrawal, anyway. Now, that wouldn't make sense.
“Well, I’ll not keep you any longer,” he added, with a grin. “I hope your ‘cretinous fúckwit’ hasn’t damaged your dog too badly."

[The Delaney Twins]

"You and me both, but being the cretinous fúckwit he is, I can't be sure." You could just feel the sibling love, couldn't you?
She slipped her phone back into her pocket. Obviously Kennedy was not going to call her and inform her of Terry's progress any further. She'd just have to get back there as quickly as possible.
Lucky for her that she could teleport. Most of the time she didn't like doing it, because hell, would she get out of shape fast if she teleported everywhere, but in situations like this it was pretty useful.
She shook her head. "But no, I'm sure it's fine. After all, if he's not OK, I don't get to walk him with you tomorrow, and I'm not going to let that happen, never you fear. I'll see you then!" she said, and grinned at him before turning to leave. A little bubble of excitement welled up in her chest as she walked away. This was going to be brilliant. This meant that she was going to get to see him every day, wasn't it?
Lynn always got ridiculously excited at the prospect of new friends; but this was different. This was going to be better, she could tell. She'd only met Russ twice and already she had a better time with him than a good deal of her long-standing friends - as horrible as that sounded, she couldn't deny that it was true.
Mornings were going to be a hell of a lot of fun from now on.
Just as she reached the door, she was seized with an urge that had, apparently, been building up for quite some time, now, although she hadn't realised it.
She shouldn't do it. She shouldn't do it. It was immature, it was stupid, considering what they'd been talking about, and if Jamie saw her, she'd never hear the end of it...
But she'd been so good. Couldn't she just take one little look? Would that really be so wrong?
She turned around.
Luckily for her, by now, he was back on the cross-trainer, and so he didn't see her ogling his bare chest. Unluckily, Jamie, on the other hand, did, and raised her eyebrows at Lynn again. Scandal!
Well, that was crap. And settled it. She was never going to hear the end of this one.
But Jesus Christ, was it worth it. It took her a moment to get up the willpower to drag her eyes away and grin into the mock-horrified face of her friend.
She didn't worry about it, just now. If Jamie was going to make fun of her for this (and she probably would, because those who travelled in Lynn's group of friends didn't know any better. Didn't want to know any better, either), nothing she could do now would stop her, anyway.
So she took the very mature option of sticking her tongue out at Jamie, before turning and walking back into the changing room.
She hadn't actually got any work done today, had she?
Ach, well. Didn't matter. She didn't mind.
She composed herself, grabbed her bag and walked through the mirror in the bathroom, out into the common room.
Kennedy looked kind of terrified when he saw her. Served him right.
This was going to be fun.