Primrose take a break challenge (impossible)

Another day, another visit paid to the Heavenly Embassy. Despite how far out of his usual way it was, Morgaine had enjoyed incorporating these trips into his routine. The long walks gave him quiet time to think, and he always enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere of the Embassy, compared to the more bustling streets of Burrowgatory.

Well, usually it was peaceful. Today, as Morgaine drew near one of the various buildings that stood to welcome visitors and new arrivals from the Heavenly Meadow alike, he could hear the telltale sounds of someone frantically rushing around inside. Aggravated muttering, just loud enough to be audible but not to clearly make out what was actually being said, echoed down the hall, carried by the acoustics of the wide-open architecture. Every now and then, the noise of someone stumbling over and bumping into furniture in their haste was added into the mix.

It wasn’t a great surprise to see that Primrose was the one rushing about, once Morgaine reached the inner recesses of the building. Slightly more surprising was the way that Primrose seemed to be dual-wielding cleaning implements, a feather duster in one hand and a broom in the other. Predictably, this wasn’t getting a ton of actual cleaning done, or at least not cleaning as efficiently as intended.

“Hey Primrose, what’s going-” Before he had even finished the sentence, Morgaine found the feather duster unceremoniously shoved into his hand. “Um?”

“No time to talk.” Primrose’s tone couldn’t be called “brisk” so much as “on the verge of snapping.”

“Why not?” Primrose’s frantic state didn’t spur Morgaine into action by his side so much as glue him to the spot in utter bewilderment. “Did something happen?”

The question did stop Primrose in his tracks as well, and he wheeled around to fix Morgaine with a wild-eyed stare.

“Did something- did something happen!?” Primrose echoed incredulously, as though that was the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever asked him. “Things are always things happening around here!”

“Well, that sure is true,” Morgaine drawled. In the same way that he might deal with an unruly bar patron, his tone automatically slowed and dropped to be more even - not that Primrose bore any resemblance to a belligerent drunk beyond the flush of his cheeks, which was obviously due to agitation.

Disappointingly but somewhat predictably, Primrose was not swayed by this tactic. Maybe appointing himself head of the Embassy and thus master of all public relations and customer service rendered him immune to the techniques of other customer service professionals. It would explain a lot about his occasional clashes with Beanny.

“Things are always happening, and there is never enough help, and wouldn’t you know that when people do agree to help, they cancel at the last minute-” Primrose had in fact launched into a full-blown rant, though it wasn’t really directed at Morgaine so much as the room at large. Most likely he’d been teetering on the edge of ranting for a while, and Morgaine’s appearance and question had provided the last little nudge over that cliff.

“Gotcha, gotcha. So maybe you should-” Morgaine tried vainly to cut in and suggest that Primrose stop and sit down for a little while, or at least pause and take a deep breath, but he was cut off.

“Honestly, I should know better than to rely on other people, nobody takes things seriously when they should-” On and on Primrose went, manically sweeping the same spot on the floor over and over as he ranted.

Yep, this was seeming more familiar now. Morgaine’s boss sometimes got like this when somebody missed a shift without calling ahead one time too many. Not often, thankfully, but it happened.

“Hey, hoss? Primrose.” Primrose initially showed no sign of heeding his words, so Morgaine caught him by the shoulder and spoke in a firmer tone. “Primrose. Sit down a minute.”

Primrose blinked at him owlishly a couple of times, seemingly startled out of his aggravation by the sudden physical contact. He seemed to actually take in Morgaine’s presence for the first time and register that yes, a real, live bun was standing there in the room with him. He looked from Morgaine’s face to the feather duster that Primrose had shoved into his hand, to the broom in his own hand, and back again, and then he promptly turned cherry-red in mortification.

“Time to sit down,” Morgaine nearly sing-songed at him before he could start saying whatever the hell you might say in this situation, firmly steering Primrose by the shoulder over to the nearest chair. (Not that he wasn’t curious about just what Primrose might say, but priorities.)

Primrose resisted somewhat, but he stopped short of actually digging his heels in, seemingly cowed by embarrassment more than Morgaine’s direction. Morgaine even dusted off the chair’s seat with the feather duster before directing him to actually sit.

Cheeky? Yes. And he’d do it again.

Of course, with the dust settled (so to speak, since Primrose had done a pretty good job of obliterating any dust that dared to exist within his reach) that meant that the awkward aftermath of Primrose’s outburst also had to settle over them. So, Primrose and Morgaine spent the next couple of minutes just sort of looking at each other with nothing to say.

“So…” Morgaine began after the silence had stretched on a little longer than necessary. “Feel better?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Primrose said stiffly, still holding the broom in a death grip across his lap. Morgaine glanced at the white-knuckle grip he was keeping on the broom’s handle and doubted the truthfulness of his words, just a little bit.

“You want a glass of water, or…?”

“No,” Primrose said immediately, then paused and reconsidered. He had worked up a bit of a sweat in his little frenzy. “...Maybe.”

“If I leave to get you a glass of water, will you stay put on that chair, or are you going to jump up and start sweeping like a madbun again?”

Primrose did still have the energy to look mildly affronted. Morgaine waggled a finger at him. “Stay.”

Primrose huffed and did finally set the broom aside, leaning it against the wall and then sitting back and crossing his arms. “Fine, fine.”

Morgaine was sure that there was a water cooler, or at least a sink and glasses, somewhere in this building. It took him a little while to find the kitchenette, given the welcome building’s cavernous size, but he did eventually return victorious with the water. Primrose accepted it with a quiet thanks and took several gulps.

“So your help didn’t show up today, huh?” Morgaine asked while he drank. 

Primrose made a disagreeable noise into the glass, but at least he wasn’t still so worked up that he tried to start speaking before lowering it. “Yes. This shouldn’t need explaining, but maintaining these buildings isn’t exactly a one-bun job. We don’t have the kind of money circulating through the Embassy that some businesses down in Burrowgatory do, so a lot of the cleaning and other maintenance is done by volunteers.” He cupped the emptied glass in his hands, tapping his fingers irritably against it. “And some, it seems, have decided to embrace laziness at the expense of others.”

Morgaine pursed his lips at the obvious jab at succubuns in general, but Primrose did actually seem to have a point in this case. An onslaught of angry cleaning was a productive response at least, if one that was bad for Primrose’s blood pressure.

He sighed. “Well, looks like I’m here, and I’m already holding the duster.” He shook the feather duster in Primrose’s direction to punctuate his point. “I can’t stay all afternoon, but I can finish up this room at least - if you sit down for a few more minutes,” he added, when it looked like Primrose was about to rise from the chair.

Primrose huffed. “I don’t need to sit for that long. I’ve had enough of a break.”

“Uh-huh. How long were you at this before I got here?”

Primrose just frowned at him, either unsure of the exact amount of time or unwilling to answer because he knew it would prove Morgaine’s point.

Morgaine waggled the duster at him again. “Ten more minutes.”

“Five. I’m not going to just sit idle and watch you work, like some people-”

“Alright, alright, don’t get your ears in a twist. Five minutes.” With any luck, Primrose would get a feel for his own energy level or lack thereof in the five minutes, and maybe he’d decide that ten wasn’t such a bad prospect.

Or he’d get his second wind and work himself up into another cleaning whirlwind as soon as Morgaine left. Both seemed equally likely.

Morgaine sighed. Honestly, Primrose hadn’t left that much to do in the current room, but there was enough to take up the next few minutes. His time might be more spent keeping an eye on Primrose to make sure he didn’t try to get around the agreed-upon five minute break.

“You ever heard of unions?” Morgaine asked idly as he started on dusting the windowsills.

“What?” Primrose asked, nonplussed.

“Nothing, nevermind.” Well, it wasn’t like they could unionize Primrose against himself, at any rate, but it was food for thought.