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 Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 3:30 pm
Horace hadn't had to pick up any dead people today, which, in his opinion, was pretty great. There also wasn't a service scheduled soon. Instead, he was taking a moment to finish up some paperwork. The amount of paperwork surrounding a death was astonishing, but he kind of liked it, even. He didn't do much, of course - he wasn't a director or anything like that, but still. He knew he'd been lucky in getting this job. The funeral home has taken a risk on him, a transplant to Ashdown with no real skills. He'd gotten ******** lucky and he knew it. Horace chewed his lip and typed in a few words.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 6:57 pm
They had taken an incredible chance on Horace, and great was their reward; despite his lack of a proper education, he was a dedicated employee, and over time they had come to trust him with certain things. Even if it was just updating the computer systems with the dates, times, and officiating clergy for services that had already been finished. The information was on the paper files, in the neat hand writing of either Victor or Ripley - or on a rare occasion, Marianne - but it needed to go into the computer program they used, just in case. Little things, bits of paperwork here and there - nothing official, since official needed a license number - but they trusted him with it. Now, they rarely double-checked anything he did. They trusted him to do it right.
Which was why today, Ripley had left Horace in the office to catch up on the files. Sure, he wasn't keen on anyone else finishing up his work, since he always operated on a I started it, I should finish it mentality…but today, he had too many preps to do. He had no choice but to leave it in Horace's capable hands so he could hole himself up in the basement, in a sterile room under too-bright florescent lights, the radio on in the background to break up the sound of running water and the metronome tick, tick, tick of the embalming machine's pulse function.
Well, that had been the plan. An hour and a half after he disappeared into the basement, he climbed his way back up to the main floor, and towards the office where he had left the only other living person in the building.
"Horace?" He called casually before he even rounded the corner.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 8:54 pm
He looked over his shoulder. Horace could have sworn Ripley had been hovering, about to take over what was essentially data entry. The man worked too hard by half, thinking he could and would finish every single thing there was to be done. But it looked like, for once, Ripley had occupied himself elsewhere quite thoroughly. Horace pulled his hair out of the low bun it was in and sighed, turning back to the screen. So, when he suddenly heard Ripley, Horace jumped in his seat... despite the fact that Ripley had even called out before coming into the room. Well, he assumed it was Ripley - this place didn't seem haunted, despite the amount of deceased that moved through. Maybe he was just spiritually dense, and, for all he cared, he could stay that way. "I'm in the office, Ripley." He saved his progress and scooted the chair out to stand. (There has been an incident, fairly early on, where Horace had forgotten to save and the computer crashed. Luckily, it auto-restored, but now he was paranoid. He saved every ten minutes or so.) "What's up?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 9:17 pm
Oh, good, he was still in the office. That was a small blessing.
"I need a favour." He said gently. When he met Horace at the office, he seemed a little paler than normal, and trying to stay as calm as possible, as he always was. If the other man chose to look, he'd notice that Ripley was somewhat out of uniform, which was normal for him in the prep room; he'd abandoned his jacket, his tie was tucked into his dress shirt through the gap between buttons, his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he had a hairband on, keeping his short hair back from his face. More importantly, he was holding one hand tightly in front of him. The held hand was wrapped in a small, once-clean towel, but was turning a little red under his fingers.
"Please take me to the hospital." His tone remained even, as if he were simply asking Horace to run to the store.
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 6:30 pm
Horace's stared at Ripley's hand, a grimace and concern warring across his face. "What happened? Did you get a little too friendly with something sharp?" The other man was dressed less than utterly professional at the moment, but he'd been in the basement, so... Horace moved closer to Ripley, trying to edge out the door without touching him and towards the car. Ripley was pale...er than normal. There was a ghost joke somewhere in there, but he figured they should at least get moving first. "Uh... emergency room or urgent care clinic? And shouldn't ya tie it off - a tourniquet or something for blood loss?" Maybe those were only for vein wounds or something.... But the towel was turning red...
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Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 7:40 pm
"The scalpel flirted with me." Ripley replied as dryly as one would expect, though the corner of his mouth did twitch a little bit at the awful attempt at humour. Instead of dwelling on his poor joke, he turned his gaze to the clock on the wall, as if assessing it. "Urgent care should be fine." He likely wasn't in any immediate danger of dying, he supposed. The towel wasn't the thickest, more like a worn face cloth really; but it was the cleanest thing within his range at the time, and that made it more valuable than anything.
Through it all, it really only reminded him that he needed to do laundry for the prep room.
"Ah--" A small noise of realization, as if he hadn't considered a tourniquet. There was a moment of blank pause after that, as he considered yet another option; he could go back into the basement and get something that might help, or…
"Let's just go. Get the lead. I'll meet you." He uttered calmly, turning his back to Horace to walk to the front of the building - proceeding to turn off the front lobby lights and lock the door with his good hand. A little sign was taken from its hiding spot behind a vase, and put into the window. If anyone should need their immediate assistance, they should call the number below; the number was, naturally, Ripley's. It didn't occur to him to put up the sign with his Father's number on it.
Or to even call his Father, really.
On his way to the back entrance again, Ripley turned off all the lights in his wake with a trembling hand, the injured one pressed as tight as he could manage against his collar bone. Keeping the injury above his heart seemed like a great idea. Once he had thrown on the alarm and excited the back door - leaving it unlocked, as he didn't want to be bothered to find his keys, and what non-employee would brave going into the funeral home from the back door? - he crawled into the front seat of their lead vehicle, managing, however awkwardly, to buckle himself in.
"...Were the flowers ordered for Ekin?" He asked once he was settled, as if nothing else was happening.
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 11:43 pm
Horace raised a hand to his mouth quickly, to hide the laugh that threatened to break free at Ripley's dead pan answer. One day, he was going to somehow get the man to say 'believe it or not'. That day would be a glorious day. Horace shook his head as Ripley decided to just leave It would likely be fine in the end, but still... He headed out to get the car. The engine was running when Ripley came out of the back door. Horace had seen the telltale flicker that meant Ripley had taken the time to turn off the lights. The man was too cool-natured by half, he thought. "They are. For some reason, they said they couldn't provide wreaths this time - offered a standing spray instead." He glanced over at Ripley. "Please hold that cloth tighter; you've gotta put enough pressure on it, even if it hurts."
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