Ween Hallow's Eve And The Single Gal (Liz/Wesley)
This was written for blithers's prompt "Trick-or-treating works differently in England. (Of course it does.)" over at the Halloween Comment Ficathon. :) I, of course, feel frightfully guilty breaking up Liz and Criss even in fanfiction - Liz Lemon's happiness has become intensely cherishable and almost sacred to me, okay!! -- but, hey. You just know this could be the greatest comeback love story of all time.
Ween Hallow’s Eve And The Single Gal - 30 Rock ; Liz/Wesley ; 1,193 words. What to do when you break up with your boyfriend, sabotage your own job, and lose everything. (Answer: hide out with Wesley Snipes in England on October 31, obviously.)
+
"Wait," Liz says, bewildered, as the front door to Wesley’s flat closes and the tuxedo-clad kids scamper off into the night. “Did those kids just give us candy?”
"I told you, Liz," Wesley says, the words the vocal equivalent of an eye-roll. He also rolls his eye-eyes, just to be thorough. And annoying. Then he flaps the folds of his black coat for dramatic good measure. Liz still thinks it’s a load of crap that he got to be Sherlock. (Not that she’s complaining about getting to wear a nice toasty sweater and call it a costume. But. That’s just between you and her.) "Paying tribute to one's elders via various sweetmeats is the most sacred tradition of Ween Hallow's Eve."
“Please stop saying that. It’s creepy.”
“Sweetmeats, or Ween Hallow’s Eve?”
“Both. Either.”
“Never. If you want to fit in as a true Brit, you’re going to have to pick up some of the terminology, Liz. Show some respect to the country that’s lovingly cradling you in its bosom as you recover from your mental, emotional, and spiritual breakdown.”
“Fine,” Liz says sweetly. “Feck off, ye olde wanker.”
“How many times must I tell you, ‘wanker’ is just a made up term Americans started putting in movies with Hugh Grant in them to make us seem exotic and mysterious,” Wesley says, heaving a sigh. “The authentic English phrase is actually ‘brolly throttler.’”
“I hate you so much,” Liz says, because it’s a lot more sensible than what she really wants to say, which is, Dude, that is AWESOME. It’s totally going in her next Mythbusters fanfiction.
She turns her attention from Wesley - always a good life decision, because it’s not like she likes him; she’s just drowning her sorrows in his stupid company and country until her life decides to stop reminding her that she broke up with Criss and tried to take down NBC from the inside - to the candy bar in her hand. “What’s a - Kidney Pie Dreamsicle?”
“Pretty much what it sounds like,” Wesley says. He has the decency to look a little sheepish.
Liz considers the wrapper, which boasts the flavor as A MEATY VANILLA. Huh. “Wanna split it?”
He beams at her. “Need you even ask?”
They settle back down on the couch - which, beeteedubs, is not and never will be a lounge cusher, no matter what Wesley says - and Liz gets to work unwrapping the (literal?) sweetmeat. It really does smell both meaty and vanilla-y - and yet not in a vomit-inducing sense. She’ll give it to ‘em: England is definitely an intriguing land of weirdos.
“And how are you this evening, my sweet?” Wesley asks, which is a tactic Liz is pretty sure he picked up from the ending scene of Pride & Prejudice.
He sits with his hands clasped in his lap, watching the unveiling of the Kidney Pie Dreamsicle with some Oliver Twist style earnest anticipation, and beneath all the levels of hatred, she feels a little surge of appreciation. Wesley has been a pretty good friend to her in the past couple months, even if he refused to be the John in this whole Platonic Couple’s Costume scenario.
Like: who really lets their ex-fiancee take over their spare bedroom after her life falls apart and her immediate response is, for some reason, to away to England? Who, exactly, makes said ex-fiancee (hearty gruel for, but still) breakfast every morning even in spite of the fact that she text-dumped him at a wedding for a man named Carol and told him she hated him like sixty eight times? Answer: Wesley Snipes. Sure, it could just be because he’s a sad, desperate human being, but at least he’s a sad, desperate human being whose sad desperation jives with Liz’s.
“You know what?” she says - truthfully, even. “I’m okay.”
“I’m glad,” he says simply. Two words that require no translation to the language of sanity, for once.
Liz feels a sudden, uncomfortable (in that this-should-be-more-uncomfortable way) awareness of how close they’re sitting. It’s probably the costumes. Homoerotic subtext attacks! “You are, huh?”
“Pleased as brunch,” he reports, grinning. Ah. There it is.
“That’s not a thing,” Liz reminds him.
He sits up taller. Probably channeling Sherlock. “Oh really, Elizabeth? Do tell: what makes you more pleased? Punch, or brunch?”
And, okay.
“Fine,” she sighs. “I’ll allow it.”
“Huzzah!” he says, and punches the air in triumph.
Who even is this person.
The doorbell rings again, playing out those three “oooh-OOH-oooohhhhh!” notes from the Doctor Who theme song. Wesley starts to get up to answer it, but Liz puts a hand on his knee to stop him. Even if it’s freaky candy, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s candy.
“I’ll get it!”
Wesley stares down at her hand.
“Very well, Watson,” he says, in what are obviously supposed to be brusque Cumberbatchian tones. They come out a little moony.
Yeesh. It is getting really gay in here.
Liz makes a face at him, just to remind him that falling for THIS is not the best life decision a guy can make, then goes for the door. As she does, she sneaks a surreptitious bite of the Kidney Pie Dreamsicle. It’s disgusting in that way that’s somehow exactly right. She thinks she’s in love.
With the candybar, that is. Come on! Get your mind out of the Snipes gutter.
She opens the door. Three kids - one wearing a fancy hat with a bird on it, one dressed like a maid, and one in a sheet - chime out, “Ween Hallow, Ween Hallow, have sweetmeats to swallow!”, shove some candy at her, and leave.
“Seriously,” Liz says, turning back toward Wesley. “Why is every kid we see dressed up as a character from Downton Abbey? Do kids even like Downton Abbey?”
“We the English are a humble people, Liz. We don’t turn our noses up at whatever international success fate sees fit to grant us.”
“Yeah,” Liz says, “I’m pretty sure that kid was dressed up as the dead Turkish pervert.”
“Pamuk, you scoundrel,” Wesley sneers under his breath. Then he perks up. “Ready to carve a gruesome visage into the spaghetti squash?”
“Why not?” Liz agrees. That gets another grin out of him. “I have to admit, Wesley, Halloween here-”
“Ween Hallow’s Eve.”
“-hasn’t been the worst.”
He looks stupidly pleased. Pleased as brunch, some might say. Liz knows she should probably be worried.
“Just wait ‘til Thanksgiving,” he promises.
When you’re still here, the words seem to ask, and - well, why not?
“You guys don’t do Thanksgiving,” Liz reminds him.
“Oh, don’t we, Liz?” Wesley says coyly. He swooshes the folds of his coat again, then sets off for the kitchen with the kind of purpose that only Jack o’ Lanterning a squash can give a man.
It is pretty mysterious and exotic. Damn it.
Wanker, she thinks, maybe the slightest bit unhatefully, and follows him.
Ween Hallow’s Eve And The Single Gal - 30 Rock ; Liz/Wesley ; 1,193 words. What to do when you break up with your boyfriend, sabotage your own job, and lose everything. (Answer: hide out with Wesley Snipes in England on October 31, obviously.)
+
"Wait," Liz says, bewildered, as the front door to Wesley’s flat closes and the tuxedo-clad kids scamper off into the night. “Did those kids just give us candy?”
"I told you, Liz," Wesley says, the words the vocal equivalent of an eye-roll. He also rolls his eye-eyes, just to be thorough. And annoying. Then he flaps the folds of his black coat for dramatic good measure. Liz still thinks it’s a load of crap that he got to be Sherlock. (Not that she’s complaining about getting to wear a nice toasty sweater and call it a costume. But. That’s just between you and her.) "Paying tribute to one's elders via various sweetmeats is the most sacred tradition of Ween Hallow's Eve."
“Please stop saying that. It’s creepy.”
“Sweetmeats, or Ween Hallow’s Eve?”
“Both. Either.”
“Never. If you want to fit in as a true Brit, you’re going to have to pick up some of the terminology, Liz. Show some respect to the country that’s lovingly cradling you in its bosom as you recover from your mental, emotional, and spiritual breakdown.”
“Fine,” Liz says sweetly. “Feck off, ye olde wanker.”
“How many times must I tell you, ‘wanker’ is just a made up term Americans started putting in movies with Hugh Grant in them to make us seem exotic and mysterious,” Wesley says, heaving a sigh. “The authentic English phrase is actually ‘brolly throttler.’”
“I hate you so much,” Liz says, because it’s a lot more sensible than what she really wants to say, which is, Dude, that is AWESOME. It’s totally going in her next Mythbusters fanfiction.
She turns her attention from Wesley - always a good life decision, because it’s not like she likes him; she’s just drowning her sorrows in his stupid company and country until her life decides to stop reminding her that she broke up with Criss and tried to take down NBC from the inside - to the candy bar in her hand. “What’s a - Kidney Pie Dreamsicle?”
“Pretty much what it sounds like,” Wesley says. He has the decency to look a little sheepish.
Liz considers the wrapper, which boasts the flavor as A MEATY VANILLA. Huh. “Wanna split it?”
He beams at her. “Need you even ask?”
They settle back down on the couch - which, beeteedubs, is not and never will be a lounge cusher, no matter what Wesley says - and Liz gets to work unwrapping the (literal?) sweetmeat. It really does smell both meaty and vanilla-y - and yet not in a vomit-inducing sense. She’ll give it to ‘em: England is definitely an intriguing land of weirdos.
“And how are you this evening, my sweet?” Wesley asks, which is a tactic Liz is pretty sure he picked up from the ending scene of Pride & Prejudice.
He sits with his hands clasped in his lap, watching the unveiling of the Kidney Pie Dreamsicle with some Oliver Twist style earnest anticipation, and beneath all the levels of hatred, she feels a little surge of appreciation. Wesley has been a pretty good friend to her in the past couple months, even if he refused to be the John in this whole Platonic Couple’s Costume scenario.
Like: who really lets their ex-fiancee take over their spare bedroom after her life falls apart and her immediate response is, for some reason, to away to England? Who, exactly, makes said ex-fiancee (hearty gruel for, but still) breakfast every morning even in spite of the fact that she text-dumped him at a wedding for a man named Carol and told him she hated him like sixty eight times? Answer: Wesley Snipes. Sure, it could just be because he’s a sad, desperate human being, but at least he’s a sad, desperate human being whose sad desperation jives with Liz’s.
“You know what?” she says - truthfully, even. “I’m okay.”
“I’m glad,” he says simply. Two words that require no translation to the language of sanity, for once.
Liz feels a sudden, uncomfortable (in that this-should-be-more-uncomfortable way) awareness of how close they’re sitting. It’s probably the costumes. Homoerotic subtext attacks! “You are, huh?”
“Pleased as brunch,” he reports, grinning. Ah. There it is.
“That’s not a thing,” Liz reminds him.
He sits up taller. Probably channeling Sherlock. “Oh really, Elizabeth? Do tell: what makes you more pleased? Punch, or brunch?”
And, okay.
“Fine,” she sighs. “I’ll allow it.”
“Huzzah!” he says, and punches the air in triumph.
Who even is this person.
The doorbell rings again, playing out those three “oooh-OOH-oooohhhhh!” notes from the Doctor Who theme song. Wesley starts to get up to answer it, but Liz puts a hand on his knee to stop him. Even if it’s freaky candy, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s candy.
“I’ll get it!”
Wesley stares down at her hand.
“Very well, Watson,” he says, in what are obviously supposed to be brusque Cumberbatchian tones. They come out a little moony.
Yeesh. It is getting really gay in here.
Liz makes a face at him, just to remind him that falling for THIS is not the best life decision a guy can make, then goes for the door. As she does, she sneaks a surreptitious bite of the Kidney Pie Dreamsicle. It’s disgusting in that way that’s somehow exactly right. She thinks she’s in love.
With the candybar, that is. Come on! Get your mind out of the Snipes gutter.
She opens the door. Three kids - one wearing a fancy hat with a bird on it, one dressed like a maid, and one in a sheet - chime out, “Ween Hallow, Ween Hallow, have sweetmeats to swallow!”, shove some candy at her, and leave.
“Seriously,” Liz says, turning back toward Wesley. “Why is every kid we see dressed up as a character from Downton Abbey? Do kids even like Downton Abbey?”
“We the English are a humble people, Liz. We don’t turn our noses up at whatever international success fate sees fit to grant us.”
“Yeah,” Liz says, “I’m pretty sure that kid was dressed up as the dead Turkish pervert.”
“Pamuk, you scoundrel,” Wesley sneers under his breath. Then he perks up. “Ready to carve a gruesome visage into the spaghetti squash?”
“Why not?” Liz agrees. That gets another grin out of him. “I have to admit, Wesley, Halloween here-”
“Ween Hallow’s Eve.”
“-hasn’t been the worst.”
He looks stupidly pleased. Pleased as brunch, some might say. Liz knows she should probably be worried.
“Just wait ‘til Thanksgiving,” he promises.
When you’re still here, the words seem to ask, and - well, why not?
“You guys don’t do Thanksgiving,” Liz reminds him.
“Oh, don’t we, Liz?” Wesley says coyly. He swooshes the folds of his coat again, then sets off for the kitchen with the kind of purpose that only Jack o’ Lanterning a squash can give a man.
It is pretty mysterious and exotic. Damn it.
Wanker, she thinks, maybe the slightest bit unhatefully, and follows him.