#pump 19

***

Adora Belle Dearheart thought herself a sensible woman, but recently, she questioned whether this was still the case. 

It may have had something to do with that funny, sparkly cretin Moist, who barely came past her brow and somehow managed to get her excited just by making her look at his stupid face. That and the fact that she was standing outside his office door at about two o’clock in the morning. 

But, to her defence, it is not every day that a woman gets to hear her--damn it, where had her dignity gone, and would it be back soon?--love interest muttering in his sleep, and most definitely not with an Uberwaldian accent.

One hand groping in her inside pocket for a cigarette out of habit, she held her breath and leaned down to put her ear to the keyhole. 

“...Zere are many zingkts to do vitt letters,” came Moist’s voice, sounding very cross, “so tell Vetinari he can schofe his up his---”

She bit down on her lip very, very hard, but the snort left her nostrils anyway. It gave way to a spasmic laughing attack and the appearance of a faint red glow on the walls.

“Miss Dearheart,” came Pump 19’s voice as she writhed, bent double, at the doorframe, producing a knotted string of very indelicate snorting noises. “May I Ask What You’re Doing?”

“A moment, Pump 19,” she told him, after it was safe to unclamp her hand from her mouth. “This is very, very important.”

“It Is Half Past Two In The Morning.”

“Yes.”

The golem stood still for a moment. Not that this was odd behaviour for golems. Adora thought he was trying to understand the situation.

“The Postmaster Seems To Be Sleeping, Miss Dearheart,” he said after a good few seconds.

“Exactly,” she said. “Does he do that often?”

“Sleep, Miss Dearheart?”

“Talk in his sleep,” she muttered, pressing her ear to the keyhole again. There were no cigarettes in her pocket. Probably a good thing; sparking one only would have woken Sparkly up. He used the things as a damn beacon whenever he wanted to seek her out.

Idiot.

“Often,” Pump 19 replied. 

“What does he say?”

“Things Of Little Sense, Miss Dearheart. Amongst Things That I Am Told I Ought To Speak Only In My Head.”

Adora shushed him as politely as she could, for words were wriggling through the little keyhole again.

“Spangler’s dead,” Moist snapped, sounding muffled. There was a rustling noise. Sheets were crumpled. “You vant papers to profe it? You kan schofe zose up yours too.”

***

Moist was going to die. 

Well, no, he wasn’t. He just really wished that the consequences of jumping headfirst out of his office window were only fatal temporarily.

He was furious. At himself, which only made him angrier. He had let himself slip. He had become slow. Slow and fat, like an overfed, lazy, pampered pet of a young, well-bred girl, and he had let himself slip in front of his entire post office staff.

It was the repair men’s fault, see. Some half-brained nitwit had gone up there on a ladder to replace some of the Glom of Nit letters and somehow managed to dislodge the entire bloody sign just as Moist was walking out of the building. There had been a gasp of horror--from Mr Groat, mainly--as it knocked off and crushed his golden winged hat. Moist had briefly wondered afterwards whether he would have gotten the same reaction from the Senior Postman if it had been his head flattened beneath that board, and decided that he probably wouldn't have.

And Moist had lost it. Quite unlike his golden self, really. And to top it all off like a cherry decorating an iced Argle’s muffin, Adora Belle had been about two steps away from the entire scene. Oh, her eyes had lit up like two sparklers as an uncensored avalanche of Uberwaldian had poured from his mouth.

Now, a mere fifteen minutes after the incident, she had him cornered. Her arms were folded. And she was dressed, as usual, in a long, sensible, plain black dress, and she was blocking the exit.

To his utter agonisation, she had that look on her face, which meant that if she had in mind to ask him to sit on his hind legs and bark for her like a little poodle, he would have made little whining noises to boot. Hell, he thought, as he gulped and stared at her, he’d never seen such an expression. Not even when he’d kissed her. Not for the entirety of his pathetic excuse of a life had there been such foreboding glee on a woman’s face in his presence. Not even at Spangler’s execution.

Gods, he thought, drops of sweat forming beneath his hairline, she’s going to slay me. And it was too late to go and whimper hysterically with a handkerchief in his mouth before taking her on. There weren’t any stakes to raise here either; this was Adora Belle Dearheart. This was Spike. 

Adora smiled sweetly as she sparked a cigarette. Moist twitched and shifted on his grand Postmaster’s chair, and realised he was sitting neatly with his hands and knees pressed together. He stifled a cough, and tried to ease his damp shirt off his back and himself into a more manly position.

After a noxious silence, Adora breathed out a grey column and said:

“So. Uberwald, Mr Lipwig?”

Moist chomped down on his tongue.

“Uberwald?” he squeaked. He swallowed down some blood and lowered the pitch of his voice a notch. “What are you talking about, Adora?”

She tapped some ash out of her cigarette, and smiled, showing her teeth. A warm, tingly feeling slopped and mixed together with the yellow gales of agitation in Moist’s stomach. He whimpered as the tingling fizzed along his nerve cells and made his fingers grip into the soft of his chair with a soft tearing sound.

“You know,” Adora said, “you never did apologise properly for making me lose my job at Sto Lat.”

Moist sprung up. “I let you stand on my foot!” he cried with indignation.

“Really?”

“Twice!”

“Hmm.” Adora frowned lightly as she inhaled smoke again. “I remember no such thing,” she said. “But let’s just say that I won’t mention it ever again... and that's a promise…”

Buckle up, here we go, Moist thought bitterly as he dropped back down.

“...If you do just one little thing for me, my dear Moist.”

Moist swore under his breath and realised he’d begun to tear the stuffing out of his chair. He tried to negotiate it back in and to look up at Adora.

“Fine,” he said. He flung the handfuls of cotton stuffing on the floor and wiped his hands on his golden trousers. “What do you want me to do?”

Adora beckoned with a finger. He gulped again, stood with purpose so that his chair rolled back, but the stride in his step faltered as he crossed half the distance. He came to a stop.

Adora beckoned again. “A bit closer, I think.”

“Now look here, Spike…” he began.

“Just another two steps.”

“...It isn’t even that funny,” he said, inching forward. “It’s… It’s just a blasted accent.”

“And just one more…”

They were now almost standing toe to toe.

“This is ridiculous,” Moist said. Whispered, more like. It was quite quiet in the room. Then, he grumbled, “Let me guess. I suppose you’ll now want me to repeat after you. And if I don’t do it with a few vees and zeds in the right places, you’re going to try and turn my big toe into a ringed doughnut with your heel.”

Adora raised an eyebrow. She was standing very close. Something in Moist’s head was about to explode. He opened his mouth and hesitated.

“I suppose zat if I ask you to marry me now, you'll chust laugh at me, right?”

Adora’s jaw went slack. Then, she snorted, grabbed him by the ears, and kissed him violently on the mouth. Moist was almost knocked off his feet.