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Daisy was a 1930’s starlet— or at least should have been on if she’d lived long enough. And if she would have lived, and lived the life she was going to if she wasn’t destined to die, and be one of the undead, she had said she was going to be in Gone with the Wind.
She was exactly the type of woman he was meant to be starry-eyed over. Beautiful, higher class than him by eons, someone he would have watched on the telly when he was young. Completely out of his league. Utterly unattainable.
In interaction, she was hard to talk to, relate to. She had a strong sense of self, and a weak sense of anyone who wasn’t. She was self-absorbed and self-obsessed and completely disillusioned by him. Of course he had to set his sights on her. It would never happen.
But she was a fellow reaper. She was technically older than him by decades, but she’d also never age. She could see his true form.
So, so what if she barely recognized he existed unless he was flinging an oversaturated compliment her direction? Or causing reason for her to have to reject him with a big smile painted on her lips?
She carried herself like royalty, like she needed someone to carry her bags and fix shitty appliances for her. He was never much of a chivirist, never very traditional in his own time. But he was four decades out of that time, which meant he was fundamentally old fashioned in some sense. She remained him of simpler times, when he was a child and seeing films with his mates.
She was the best he could ever do, realistically. To starve off the long set loneliness he felt, starve it dead with true companionship that he’d found could not be with any amount of meaningless hookups. And the more he was around her, the more he was sure that she needed someone too. Even if she didn’t realize it.
He’d felt this fear early on in his life as a reaper. The panic had sat it. Some brand of grief, he supposed. He’d been surprised by it. He’d never thought about settling down or having kids or calming down in his old age before he’d died. But then, he’d died and realized those options were gone. Or at least vastly limited.
He’d once asked Betty out because of it. A few years into the job. She’s sweetly but firmly set him in his place. He hadn’t thought he was her type at all, hadn’t really expected her to go for it, and he was sure it didn’t help she knew how he’d died. Saw him for the gruesome, idiotic death he’d caused himself. He was sure it also didn’t help that they could feel the generational differences between them. Sometimes she reminded him of his Grandma Nell. He hated to admit that was a small part of him been drawn to her because of that. Which was definitely fucked up, but it only in the sense that she made him feel safe and at home. Something he knew from the day he’d died that he’d never really be again.
And that was about as far as his options went.
George was too young.
He may not ever look it, but that train of thought would make him a lecherous old man. They never should have met like this under normal circumstances, outside of her maybe volunteering at a old care home. Which he can’t imagine her ever doing in the first place, dead or undead.
He could try to shag college girls, and enjoy the sight of beautiful women, but this was different. This was George. Rube called her Peanut.
Even if she’d ever go for it (and that was a big, huge, unlikely if), he’d be taking advantage. She was still so fresh with her grief. Lonely and searching for connection. She’d died at 18 by a space toilet seat, for Christ’s sake.
He was no saint, but he had some morals. They might have been dormant a lot of the time, but they still rattled around enough where he couldn’t completely ignore their existence.
Those were the only ‘buts’ he could find for Georgie. She was also gruff and sarcastic and would reject him if he ever tried anything at all, he was sure.
The thought just made him smile.
He thought she was marvelous.
He liked the way she pissed Rube off without even trying, and how she needed an answer for every unanswerable question, ones he’d never even thought up in all his years as a reaper.
She’d wanted to dismantle the system that had been in place since the dawn of time for all he knew, in her first days on the job. She cared about people, even if she didn’t realize just how much she did. That was clear by how many she had tried to save from their inevitable fates. Himself included.
And she also reared against so much of societal expectations, uninterested in so much of the mundane. Like she was looking for something better than the ordinary drudge of life (or unlife?), something meaningful in all the meaninglessness. Like chasing an impossible high. Now that he could understand better than anyone.
He liked how his arm felt draped over her shoulder, how he could feel the twinkle in his own eyes when they met hers across the booth at breakfast, across a park bench— a light he hadn’t had felt in a long, long time. A silent shared joke just between them, one they’d been telling from the first day they’d met.
He liked the way her hair fell over her face when she slept, the way it lingered there for a few minutes before the sleep settled out of her features. That’s why he came over to wake her out of her slumber sometimes, just to hear her grumpy mumblings and see her sleepy smile when she finally opened her eyes to see him leaning on the bed. For a moment, it was almost domestic. Quiet and dim and homey. Just the two of them for a moment in time.
She’d never outright told him to stop letting himself in, and he never planned to stop unless she explicitly did.
Maybe. Someday, he told himself. Maybe.