fandomtownies | The Emporium is Open -- Friday

Kiki comes in and picks out a box of blueberry tea, a bag of peppermints and a bag of butterscotches. She then walks carefully through the produce section, and breathes a sigh of relief when she sees none of those horrible purple avocados lurking amongst the radishes and romaine. As she's paying for her things, she keeps glancing around. She seems a little nervous, and she's obviously trying to keep her errand quick.

"Hey, Kiki. How's business?" Michael rings up the purchases. "That's $5 even."

"Not bad - a little slow, but that's alright, I'm keeping very busy." Kik glances about the counter again. "Mr. Michael, this might seem like an odd request, but... if you see any bright purple or chartreuse-green avocados, could you please let me or Mr. Aziraphale know as soon as possible? I'm hoping...no, it should be okay. They must all be taken care of by now, they must," she concludes, more to herself than Michael.

Michael raises an eyebrow. "Okay. I will." He shakes his head. "Magic gone awry?" He tries to picture what you'd actually be trying to do to make purple or chartreuse avocados appear.

"Very much so," Kiki says, shaking her head and paying for her things. "They were supposed to be holly berries. I'm pretty sure they're all taken care of though, but...well, I'm pretty sure."

"Well, I'll keep an eye out, but I hope you're right." Michael pictures holly berries, and pictures avocados, and just how far off the two were from each other worries him a little. Magic makes him nervous these days. He takes the money and hands over the bag with her purchaes. "Have a good day now."

"Thanks, you too," Kiki smiles, albeit her eyebrows show she's still fretting. She leaves the emporium and hurries back towards Aziraphale's.

Aaron decided to take Ben up on a possible massage. He'd gone to work today and lost himself in drawing until Red came in. He stumbled in the doorway and frowned, bending to pick over the unhealthy green thing he'd accidentally kicked. Giving it a perplexed look, he walked into the shop and ambled up to the counter. Smiling a greeting at the two men, he solemnly handed over the avacado, "Hi, guys. Looks like someone dropped this just outside." He looked over his shoulder at Mikey wrestling with some decorations and commented dryly to Ben, "He's certainly in a festive mood."

"Hello Aaron." Ben looked up from his work and chuckled. "It's genetic, I think. I'm sure Deb has the whole shebang up at the diner already." Ben glanced down at the avocado and frowned. "That looks like one of the ones Kiki warned us about. Funny-looking avocados are popping up all over the place, she said." With a bit of trepidation he picked it up and dropped it into an empty postal bin behind the counter. "Hopefully it's not sentient...or if it is, it will behave itself." Taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes, Ben leaned back. "So are we going to work on your hands now?"

"Why would avacados be.." He began, and then quickly pinched his nasal bridge with a wince, "No.. please, do not tell me. I sincerely do not want to know or even speculate why embryonic guacamole has begun spontaneously generating all over."

Removing his hand and offering a lopsided smile in exchange, he gave Ben an almost pleading, puppydog look, "If you have time.. please? I could use it."

Ben laughed. "Seriously, I find it's better to just accept and not to ask. Especially around here."

He gestured toward the back room. "I set up everything back there -- it'll be more comfortable and quiet." Getting up, he led the way to the back.

((ooc: If there's anything in particular Ben would notice about his hands while working on them -- related to the pain or not -- let me know.))

Aaron gave a rueful grin, "For certain sure. This place is a living testimony of Murphy's Law - 'anything that can, will'."

He followed Ben into the back room, trying not to loom. He arched an eyebrow at the chairs, silently asking which Ben preferred him to sit in.

(OOC: His pulse is erratic but not usually alarmingly so. Hands are fairly callus free, and probably slightly cool since he was outside. His hands are just generally kind of stiff and the joints may be a little swollen. *cough* IC excuse for player's ooc sleeping through the days for.. uh.. this week. Stupid weather change.)

Ben motioned to the executive-style chair. "Make yourself comfortable." He took a seat of his own on a stool on rollers, and spread massage oil on his hands. "Starting on the right or left? Or do you have a preference?"

Aaron took a seat and hooked his feet over the wheel carrier. He leaned against the back and rested his right elbow on the arm of the chair, "Right, please. I'm right-hand dominant, and I was stupid and tried to sketch all morning." He watched the professional way Ben handled the oil and asked curiously, "You said you were licensed before?"

Ben shook his head. "Just took some classes. I was working toward certification, but things sorta...happened." He took Aaron's right hand and began working on the muscles in the palm. "Got sick, was in the hospital, and the classes just sort of got sidetracked. I was only going to use it for volunteer work, really, to help out at hospices and the like, so it wasn't as if it sidetracked me professionally not to follow through. I just never got around to getting back to the classes." Carefully he began working down the length of each finger individually. "I taught at a university for a career, before I took time off to write, and before my husband got lured to the small-town life here by his mother."

The tension eased out of Aaron's face as Ben worked on his hand. "That's helping," he said encouragingly, "I can feel the muscles loosening." He listened to Ben speak and nodded, "I had a friend in New York who became a massage therapist. Her specialty was working with kids in the trauma recovery unit, kids with nerve and muscle damage. She said mostly it wasn't that they needed the manipulation, but that they needed touch, you know?"

Relaxing more into the chair, he continued, "If you continued it here, would you work with the hospital on the mainland, or open a general practice here? The only clinic on the island that we know of is the one up at the school."

"I really don't know. I haven't seriously given it much thought -- been more of a joke, sort of." Ben entwined his fingers with Aaron's and pushed gently, hyper-extending Aaron's fingers and stretching them. "I don't know what the restrictions are on licensing here, or on working as a therapist for that matter. If I decided to pursue it, I'd probably just open up something small, part-time here."

He worked at the palm, then the fingers, keeping his focus on the hand and not on Aaron. "Thing is, some people would probably not be comfortable with me touching them too much, considering my medical condition." Ben paused, letting Aaron's hand rest in his. He didn't recall mentioning his condition to Aaron, and he never knew what to expect from people when he did. "I'm HIV positive. Even though casual contact like massage isn't really a risk, some people have a tough time with it." He waited for Aaron's response before he would continue.

Aaron tips his head back and tried to relax neck and shoulder muscles as well, "Well, you'd have to take the National Bodywork exam. I actually have the VA licensing requirement book for bodyworkers at the shop, if you want to borrow it. I didn't look at the massage therapy part, just the tattoo relevent stuff."

He nodded as Ben mentioned the HIV. "You mentioned that when you told me about your book. Most of the MT's I know wear nitrile gloves these days, or work over clothing, because the stupidity about lawsuits over nothing is so high. I mean.. nick someone with your fingernail, they don't properly clean it, suddenly they sue you for it. If you did that, there's no risk, right?" He shrugs, "Never heard of anyone catching HIV from a backrub before, period. Unless the backrub lead to unprotected sex, but then? Still can't blame the backrub."

Ben smirked as he finished the right hand and moved on to the left, adding more oil to his own hands. There was less tension here, but he could tell the hand was still stiff. "The only person who gets a backrub leading to sex from me is Michael, and even then we keep it safe. No worries there. I don't know that there's really much of a demand with the small population here in Fandom -- not enough to be worth the hassle of finishing up classes and exams and fees." He shrugged. "I might look for classes again on the mainland, though. It'd be one way to break out of the rut I'm in, even if I don't get the certification."

[ooc: and have I mentioned I hate LJ?! Lost the thread and got no notifies. :( I suck! Sorry!]

Aaron relaxed more as Ben massaged the tension out of his hands and fingers. "Probably true," he acknowledged, "We have a pretty small population, all things considered, and the bodywork prep is kinda spendy. At least, it is for massage, and I expect it's no cheaper for massage therapy. You could check.. Virginia might be one of the states where it's not regulated. In which case, you could just hang out a shingle and go for it."

He tried to flick his hair off his forehead without using his hand, but failed. He scowled at it briefly and then grimaced ruefully in a 'what can you do' gesture. He tilted his head to at least get it out of his eyes, and asked Ben, "A rut? You mean with the writing, or just here in town in general? Life around here seems kind of sedentiary, but .. well.. for me, that's not a bad thing."

"With everything, I suppose. I'm used to being active, involved...back in Pittsburgh I had my hand in a lot of different things at the university, with the gay and lesbian center, with friends and my husband." Ben shrugged, finishing up Aaron's left hand. "I'm sort of at a loss here, I guess. I'm not teaching, everyone's so open that there's no need for a GLBT center, and we don't have friends we hang out with on a regular basis." Ben wipes his hands on a towel and hands one to Aaron. "There's a sink in the corner if you want to really get rid of the oil," he says, pointing. "I guess I just need to figure out what I want, while we're here. I feel like I'm rattling around like a pinball sometimes, aimless."

The Emporium is Open -- Friday

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