Chapter Text
“Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the eighteenth series of Taskmaster. I’m Greg Davies, and next to me is the man who…”
Jorja tunes out as Greg Davies begins the typical insulting of Alex Horne; even though she knows it’s scripted and a running gag, she still can’t bear to listen to people being cruel to each other. She holds a smile on her face, although the studio lights are really starting to make her feel uncomfortable.
“With us tonight are five comedians, fresh meat for the grinder, who seek to become the recipient of this lovely replica-gold replica-me,” Greg says, waving at the Taskmaster trophy, “Through the medium of completing pointless tasks. Our comedians are Brian Williams, Jackie Tyler, Karvan Ista, Yasmin Khan, and Jorja Smith!”
Jorja raises a hand at the studio audience, still smitten by the little wave Yaz always gives when she’s announced.
“Now,” Alex says. “We start each episode with a task where each competitor brings in a prize to meet a certain specification. At the end of the episode, this week’s winner takes home all the prizes, the lucky, lucky thing. So today’s prize task is to bring in the best heaviest thing. Brian, would you like to start us off?”
“I’ve brought my sofa,” Brian says.
Greg blinks. “Well, I suppose that is heavy.”
Alex pulls an image up on the big screen, and then they’re all staring at an extremely worn settee in a garish floral print. Jorja wants to hide from it. Specifically, and ironically, she wants to hide from it behind a sofa.
The audience gives a concerned group mumble.
“Was there… er… any alternative motive behind bringing this in, Brian?” Greg asks, eyebrows raised.
Brian looks completely innocent. If he’s pretending, he’s the best actor Jorja has ever seen. “Like what?” He seems to think for a moment. “Well, my son and his wife did suggest I bring it. Insisted, really. It is a great sofa.”
Greg turns to his sidekick. “Have you tested it, Alex? Is it a great sofa?”
Alex pulls a face. “It’s the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever sat on, and I once sat on a throne made of swords.”
Greg rolls his eyes. “That’s Game of Thrones, Alex. You are not the king of Westeros.”
“I could be.”
There’s a speck of something on Jorja’s chair. Fluff? Dirt? She pokes it but it doesn’t move, so she rubs it. Is it perhaps a tiny stain, or maybe that one fibre of the cushion is a different colour -
Yaz gives her leg three swift taps, their signal that she needs to pay attention to her surroundings. She snaps her smile back onto her face and realises that they’ve moved onto the item Yaz has brought from home, a weight bench. Nobody is looking at Jorja, so presumably Yaz had worked tapping her leg into her story somehow.
“- Jorja says the weight bench loses some of its greatness by not having me working out on it, but she’s a bit biased.”
The audience laughs, and Jorja gives a sheepish grin.
“Well, that’s another thing that’s heavy, though I’m not sure if it’s the best heaviest thing,” Greg says. “Along with Brian and Jackie.”
Shit, when did Jackie go? What did she bring?
“What have you got for us, Jorja?”
Jorja smiles, bouncing a little in her seat as she unleashes her inner science nerd. “Right, Greg, well you know how the heaviest thing in the universe is a neutron star?”
Greg smirks, leaning back in his throne-like chair. “Of course I know that. Alex, did you know that?”
“I actually did know that, Greg,” Alex tells him. “But, admittedly, only because it was in the notes Jorja gave me with the prize she’s brought in. In a similar vein, did you know that osmium is the heaviest slash densest substance on Earth?”
“I did not know that,” Greg says. “And honestly, I was bullshitting about the neutron star thing.”
“I thought that were common knowledge,” Jorja interjects, smirking at him. They’ve worked together a few times and she’s comfortable with Greg.
“The fact that I was bullshitting or the fact it’s the heaviest thing?” he queries.
“Both. Anyway, what I brought in is definitely the best heaviest thing because it’s the heaviest thing made with the heaviest stuff,” she tells him.
Alex pulls it up on the screen for them, revealing what appears at first glance to be a blue ball.
“It’s a model of a neutron star,” she explains. “There’s a cross section -” The camera pans round to show the far side. “An’ it’s shiny cos it’s dusted with osmium dust. I would’ve used more but it’s mega expensive, I just happened to have some. There’s like two hundred quid’s worth on that.”
Greg looks impressed despite himself as they move onto Karvan, a comedian she’s met a few times who seems to have something against her though she can’t work out why.
She’s puzzled when he announces that the thing he’s brought is a large cage, big enough for a grown man, but apparently everybody else is puzzled too and it’s not just some wacky neurotypical thing.
“Why do you even have this?” Greg asks.
“Sometimes you just need one,” Karvan replies enigmatically.
“Alright, I think I’m too scared to dig into that one,” the Taskmaster declares. “So I’m just going to respond with points. Karvan, Jackie… two points each. It would be one but I’m currently a little more scared of you both than I’d like to admit. Yasmin and Brian get three - both heavy but not particularly interesting - and our winner of the first task is Jorja Smith with her heavy thing made of heaviness who takes away five points!”
Jorja grins in glee, shooting a triumphant look at Yaz who is trying hard not to look happy for her.
Greg and Alex do a quick intro to the next task before the director calls “Cut” and one of Jorja’s contract-mandated breaks starts. She darts from her chair, having been desperate to move for some time, and heads straight for the dressing room she’s sharing with Yaz.
The next task is throwing a potato into a golf hole without touching the red “green” around it. Jorja can feel herself blushing from the introduction and is thankful for her makeup that gives her the chance to keep her face impassive.
“Up first, we’ll take a look at Yasmin Khan, Brian Williams, and Jackie Tyler,” Alex announces.
Jorja gets a little giddy at the opportunity to watch her fiancée complete the task, her hands flapping at her sides as the video starts on the screen.
Yaz reads out the task, then steps over to look at the hole. She walks around it, muttering to herself.
The footage cuts to Jackie and then Brian, both of whom throw the potato and miss, then start musing over how they’re going to get the potato back.
Back to Yaz, who grins. “Got it.” She disappears off to the toolshed without another word. Alex shrugs at the camera.
Jackie throws one of her shoes at the potato to try and roll it off the green. She misses completely, and now she only has one shoe. She swears colourfully.
Brian sits next to the green for a few minutes, tapping his chin thoughtfully, then wanders off to the toolshed. Alex ambles after him with a cup of tea.
Yaz returns from the shed with a rake. She uses it to push the red carpet out of the way, folding it over as she goes, then gently pops the potato into the hole. She looks up at Alex and smiles. “Alright?”
“Alright,” he agrees. “Thanks, Yasmin.”
Jackie asks Alex to lie on his front on the green and grab the potato. He does, and is then slightly startled when the small woman sits down on his calves.
“Er, Jackie?”
“Yes, Alex?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not touching the red green, Alex.”
“Oh. Good.”
There’s a lot of laughter from the audience as it cuts to Brian, who has returned from the shed with a ladder and a length of drain pipe. “Hold the ladder please, Alex.” He climbs up, angling the pipe towards the hole, and drops the potato in the top.
It doesn’t come out again.
“Ah,” he comments.
Jackie inches her way along Alex’s back with her feet in front of her.
“Comfy?” he asks.
“Not bad thanks,” she tells him. “You?”
“I’ve been better.”
“You’re lucky, you are. Half the blokes in my estate would love to have me crawling all over them like this.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Laughter from the audience again as the video cuts back to Brian, who is wacking the pipe against the carpet. The potato comes flying out and rolls into the hole.
Brian climbs down the ladder and holds out his hand to Alex, who shakes it. “Nice day for it,” Brian comments before ambling back to the house.
Jackie plucks the potato from Alex’s hand and drops it into the hole. “Viola!”
“Do you mean ‘voila’?” Alex asks, his mouth mashed slightly against the carpet.
“I dunno,” Jackie says. “Do I?”
The screen is off and they are back in the studio, the audience still laughing and the comedians exchanging good natured ribbing, but Jorja is still embroiled in pre-emptive mortification so doesn’t join in much. Greg calls a commercial break and Jorja finds Yaz’s hand on her leg.
“You alright, babe?” she asks. “You’ve gone very quiet.”
A runner brings drinks around and Jorja snags a bottle of water. “Nothin’ to worry about, I promise. You’ll see after the break.”
“Ohh,” Yaz says with a knowing smile. “How badly did you mess up?”
Jorja just groans and hopes that the embarrassment doesn’t trigger her muteness. If it does, Yaz will speak with Greg on her behalf, as they’ve arranged in advance.
Makeup artists dash in to get everybody looking up to scratch and then the cameras are on and Greg is welcoming the audience back. “Before the break we saw three of our comedians take on their first proper task,” he announces. “Now we’ll see the other two. Alex?”
“What we have here, Greg, is performances at two ends of a very broad linear spectrum.”
Jorja finally allows herself to bury her head in her hands and groan aloud.
“We’ll start with Karvan Ista,” Alex says.
The screen shows him reading the task. As Jorja knows from filming team tasks, Karvan has shown up to every task dressed as a dog, but it still doesn’t seem any less strange. He hadn’t been allowed to wear a mask, but the hood of his costume is quite realistic.
He gives the task back to Alex and picks up the potato, studying it for a second. Then he shrugs and tosses the potato over his shoulder. It flies straight into the hole, and the audience erupts in cheers.
Jorja claps, aware her mouth has dropped open like a fish. She could never have beaten that anyway.
“And finally we have a very different performance from Dr Jorja Smith.”
Jorja hides behind her fingers, peering through them to watch the screen.
Past Jorja reads out the task and jams the potato in the pocket of her grey coat. She walks towards the green to take a look at it.
Her shoelace comes undone.
She trips over it.
She lands face first on the carpet. Every part of her is touching the green.
“I’m fine,” she calls out as the screen goes dark.
Back in the studio, Yaz is patting her on the shoulder. “That’s the day you came home with that black eye!”
Jorja nods. “There were a rock under the green. Alex said sorry.”
“Aw, what a good boy he is,” Greg teases. “Jorja, I have to ask, did you somehow misread the task and think you had to get yourself in the hole whilst touching as much of the carpet as possible?”
She shrugs at him. “I don’t know, is that more or less embarrassing than just forgettin’ how walking works?”
He chuckles. “Jorja Smith with the great philosophical questions. So obviously Jorja gets zero points -” She gives an exaggerated pout, and Yaz pats her shoulder. “How did everybody else do?”
“We have Karvan Ista, who took four seconds,” Alex announces. “Then Yasmin Khan on one minute 27 seconds. Jackie Tyler was third fastest with three minutes 42, and finally two points go to Brian Williams on five minutes 16.”
The audience applauds, and Jorja settles back into her seat. She can’t think of any other task where she’d messed up so badly.
After her break, Alex introduces the next task, and Jorja grins. She’d been good at this one, which involved making a cocktail without making any noises over 60 decibels. If you made a loud noise, you had to pour it out and shout a phrase, which turned out to be something different for everybody.
Jorja had managed to produce a sparkling blue cocktail she named Galaxy, and only once had to yell “Brilliant!”
Yaz had several false starts but eventually made an odd vodka and whiskey concoction mixed with ginger ale (though only about a teaspoonful of the latter) that she named Pale Brown. She’d had to shout “Trick or treat!”
Brian tried many things but finally produced a mix of two types of whiskey and called it “Whiskey.” His shout had been “Always carry a trowel.” They heard it a lot.
Jackie got deeply annoyed during her attempt and presented Alex with a glass of milk with a dash of lemon that had curdled it. She had to yell “I’m in my dressing gown!” which Jorja found a little confusing, since she was wearing a pink tracksuit.
Karvan was terrible. He couldn’t seem to be quiet for anything, and the audience is falling apart laughing at his repeated yells of “I’m a good puppy!” in a tone of ever-increasing rage before finally handing Alex a glass containing nothing but a single closed cocktail umbrella.
Jorja is feeling more comfortable now, so she doesn’t dash off during the break between tasks. Yaz smiles at her. “Feelin’ better?”
She nods. “Why is you yellin’ ‘trick or treat’ the cutest thing I’ve ever seen?”
Yaz laughs, leaning in close. “I dunno, maybe we need to get you a puppy.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Karvan Ista growls. Jorja flinches; she hadn’t realised he was still nearby.
“What?” Yaz asks.
“It was just a task. You can let it go,” he says, glaring at them both.
Jorja opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She rolls her eyes, annoyed with her voice for absconding when she wants to argue.
“We weren’t even talkin’ about you,” Yaz snaps. “How about you butt out of other people’s conversations?”
“Everything alright over here?” Alex asks, and Jorja hears Yaz take a deep breath and let it go.
“It’s fine,” Karvan says gruffly. “I’m going to get some fresh air.”
“He’s delightful, isn’t he?” Yaz murmurs.
Jorja nods. Other people say he’s alright, but he’s always like that with me, she signs, careful to keep her hands out of sight of the audience. Team tasks were interesting.
Yaz chuckles. “I bet. I’m just gonna head to the loo, you gonna be alright?”
“Course she will,” Jackie interjects. Apparently comedians are big on eavesdropping. “I’m here. I’ll talk her ear off and she can teach me some signs.”
Jorja shoots Yaz an alarmed look, but her girlfriend is already on her way out.
“Okay,” Jackie says. “Before I get too carried away, what’s the sign for ‘shut up’ so you can make me stop?”
Reassured, Jorja grins.
“What have you got for us now, Little Alex Horne?”
“Next up we have our first team task of the series!”
Jorja applauds and grimaces at the same time, shooting an awkward look at Karvan.
“It’s time for some lovely music and a woman who probably deserved better,” Alex concludes.
On the screen, Yaz walks into the Taskmaster sitting room to find Jackie on the sofa. She stands up to give Yaz a welcoming hug, and they both sit down and face the woman sat awkwardly in a chair opposite them.
“Hello,” Yaz says.
“Hi,” the woman says with a polite smile. The task in its envelope, stamped with the Taskmaster crest, is tucked between her knees
“Can I take the task?” Yaz asks.
“Be my guest,” the woman says.
It cuts to Jorja, who opens the envelope. She sits on one end of the sofa, Karvan as far away as possible at the other end, with Brian in the middle. “Write and perform a song about this woman.”
Back to Yaz. “You have five minutes to talk to the woman, and 30 minutes to write the song.”
“Your time starts now,” Jorja says. She looks at the woman. “What’s your name?”
“Martha,” she says. “Martha Jones.”
Yaz and Jackie fire question after question at Martha, all of them quite ordinary.
On the other team, Brian asks sensible questions. Karvan and Jorja seem to be trying to outdo each other with strange ones.
“What do you do for a living?” asks Brian.
“Are you straight?” asks Jorja.
“If you had to save one person’s life out of everybody in the world, who would it be?” asks Karvan.
They blur together.
“Are you single?”
“Have you ever fallen through the roof of a train?”
“Do you believe secret government agencies can plant chips in your brain to control your behaviour?”
“What do you like to do for fun?”
“What’s the best thing you could build out o’ spoons?”
“Have you ever kidnapped anybody?”
“Do you have kids?”
“Have you ever repaired a boat?”
“Which animal do you most closely resemble?”
“How old are you?”
“Do you think you could repair a spaceship?”
“Would you rather have a house that fits in your hand or a cage that can fit a whole person?”
“What’s your favourite bird?”
As filming returns to the studio, Greg gives Jorja’s team a puzzled look. “I have to admit, I’m curious to see what you came up with.”
“You’re going to have to wait and see,” Alex says, “Because we’re starting with Jasmin Khan and Yackie Tyler.”
The camera pans around the Taskmaster garden, showing a small stage and a deckchair for an audience of one. Martha sits, eyes concealed beneath sunglasses. In the background a handful of onlookers lean on the gate to watch.
Yaz stands behind a keyboard, which takes Jorja by surprise; she’d have thought Yaz would have mentioned she knew how to play. Then she chuckles as Yaz ceremoniously presses a single key that leads to a sort of drum rap-backing demo thing. Then she collapses into complete silent laughter as Yaz and Jackie start taking it in turns to rap.
“She grew up in London town,
Learnt to be a doctor, no she never backed down,
People ask me would I like to be a sailor but I’d rather
Be a badass A&E physician like Martha.
Her brother is Leo and her sister is Tish,
People think her ex-boyfriend’s a bit of a dish,
People ask me would I like to be a drummer but I’d rather
Be a badass A&E physician like Martha.
She once broke her arm falling off a swing,
Decided of the A&E she was gonna be king,
People ask me would I like to be a pilot but I’d rather
Be a badass A&E physician like Martha.”
In the studio, Yaz has her head in her hands while Jackie has her arms over her head, waving in acknowledgement of the standing ovation from the audience.
Greg strokes his beard with his thumb and index finger, unable to dampen a smile. “You know, I had no idea how much my life was missing you two performing a rap duet.”
Yaz peeks out from behind her hands. “Thank you?”
“I’m not sure my day can get any better from here, but let’s take a look at the other team.”
“Coming up, we have Brian Williams, Jorja Smith, and Karvan Ista, whose names I have not yet been able to think of a funny way to say.”
As Jorja looks at the screen, this time the camera lingers on the watchers at the gate, and she releases a small gasp as she recognises a dark head of hair. But then comes the familiar clinical detachment of watching herself onscreen - usually she would be analysing her comic performance, so this is an interesting change.
Karvan sets up a slow beat on a drum kit, and a couple of bars later Brian comes in on the mouth organ, playing a surprisingly soulful tune.
Jorja steps close to the microphone, closing her eyes to focus on the music (and pretend she’s singing in the shower with nobody watching).
“She would walk the world for a year
For the people that she loves,
For her son, for her sister,
For the flight of a dove.
She would walk the world beneath the moon,
And repair a spaceship
With a manual
And a star made of spoons.
She would walk the world or repair a bike
And ride across the Earth.
She falls over on trains but doesn’t fall through,
She would walk the world for someone she barely likes.
She would walk the Earth to heal and set the bones
Of a child she doesn’t know,
Though it takes her a year or more she’s gonna be there
It’s our Doctor Martha Jones.”
Martha remains expressionless beneath her sunglasses, but Jorja really hopes she’d liked it as filming returns to the studio. She pushes that twinge of recognition from the beginning of the clip aside, focusing on holding her smile in place. She glances at Yaz then away quickly with a hard swallow when she recognises the way her fiancée is looking at her.
“Wow,” Greg says once the applause has died down. “That was… surprisingly beautiful.”
“If it helps get past the emotional impact of the song,” Alex says, “Karvan and Jorja argued nonstop the whole time they were writing it.”
“I wanted more of a metal feel,” Karvan growls.
“We got it done though, didn’t we?” Jorja protests. “An’ who knew the mouth organ could be that pretty?” She gestures down the row at Brian, who received another enthusiastic round of applause.
“Well, I’m glad nobody died in the conflict,” Greg says. “I actually really enjoyed that round… but how to score it? Let’s see… Four points for Jackie and Yasmin, five points for Brian, Jorja and Karvan!”
Alex brings everybody up to date with the scores. “And now, everybody please make your way to the stage for the final task of the show!”
In real time, of course, they’d had a break first. Jorja had indicated to Yaz that she needed to be alone, so she sits in their shared dressing room with headphones on and her eyes shut, bouncing on an exercise ball and listening to Vivaldi until the buzzer on her watch tells her it’s time to return to the studio. She doesn’t want to think about him here, even if he’s made his presence known.
She pulls off her headphones and places them on the dresser then makes her way back towards the studio, where one of the makeup artists touches up her face and sorts the mess made by her headphones. “Thanks,” she mumbles; the close contact always makes her a little uncomfortable.
Yaz appears at her elbow and takes her hand. “Ready?”
She wishes she’d found her before the makeup artist did; Yaz is wearing a shade of lipstick that makes her look even more delicious than usual and she would like to mess it up. “Yup. This bit feels more… comfortable, I guess? Not too much different from a gig, except I know less about what to expect. So more like Mock the Week or something.”
Yaz nods, lifting Jorja’s hand to kiss the back of it. “Come on, then. Let’s go knock ‘em figuratively dead.”
“Welcome to the stage, ladies and gentlemen,” Greg says. “Who’s going to read out our task?” Unusually, he’s on the stage himself, sitting at a table with a wooden screen between him and the chair opposite.
“Today’s task will be read out by Karvan Ista,” Alex says. “Karvan?”
Karvan clears his throat. “Read the Taskmaster’s mind. He will be looking at a picture of either a horse or a laminator.”
“Ooh, I love a laminator,” Jorja says. The audience laughs.
“You will receive one full Taskmaster point for each correct guess,” Karvan continues, glaring at her. Jorja raises her eyebrows; that could be an interesting boost. “If you guess incorrectly, you are eliminated.”
“Any questions?” Alex asked.
“So it’s just blind luck?” Karvan says. “No skill to it?” Jorja thinks he sounds disapproving. Or possibly constipated. Sometimes she gets those two confused.
“You have to read the Taskmaster’s mind,” Alex responds levelly. “Jackie Tyler, please face the Taskmaster.”
Jackie sits in front of Greg, glaring. Jorja wants to step back; she wouldn’t like to meet that glare down a dark alley, or even on a well-lit stage.
“Horse,” Jackie says at last.
Greg spins the screen round.
“Damnit.”
Greg chuckles as Jackie heads back to her spot, pointless.
“Karvan Ista,” Alex intones.
Karvan drops into the chair opposite the Taskmaster, looking bored. “Laminator,” he says.
Greg reveals that it is indeed a laminator, and the audience applauds.
“Horse,” Karvan says.
Right again.
“Horse.”
And again.
“Laminator.”
It’s a horse, and Karvan stomps to his spot, looking disgruntled. Jorja wonders why he’s even doing the show. She’s seen some of his comedy and it’s not really her bag; it’s too negative.
“Yasmin Khan,” Alex says.
Yaz takes her seat, shooting a quick smile at Jorja that wipes her brain for a few moments. It really is unfair of her fiancée to go around being so pretty.
Yaz gives Greg a steady look. “Horse,” she guesses.
She’s correct, and Jorja bounces on the spot, grinning.
“Horse,” Yaz says again, and Jorja groans at the unveiling of the laminator. Which isn’t something she ever thought she’d do.
“Brian Williams,” Alex says, and the older man sits opposite Greg.
“Hello Greg,” Brian says.
“Hello Brian,” Greg says, smirking.
“Laminator,” Brian guesses.
Correct.
“Laminator.”
Correct.
“Laminator.”
Correct.
“...Laminator?”
Correct.
Brian pauses. “Surely it can’t be a laminator again…”
Jorja wishes she could interject to remind him that while the chances of it being laminator five times in a row are low, the likelihood for each individual guess is still 50/50. Unless of course the person assembling the pile of papers had been feeling particularly horsey or laminatory that day.
“Laminatory” is a fun word, and she plays with it in her head for a moment.
“Laminator,” Brian guesses again.
Correct.
Brian shrugs. “Laminator.”
It’s a horse, and Jorja grins. She hates waiting, so she’s in the chair before Brian’s even made it back to his spot.
“Jorja,” Greg drawls.
“Greg,” she drawls back. She studies him, trying to get a sense of how he's feeling. She isn’t great at reading facial expressions, but with a friend she can kind of feel for what they’re thinking. Some of the time, anyway. “Horse.”
He spins it around and she smiles at the little horse.
“Horse.”
Correct.
“Laminator.”
And again.
“Horse.”
“Laminator.”
“Laminator.”
“Laminator.”
“Horse.”
“Horse.”
“Honestly, Jorja, I am starting to question whether you’re actually psychic,” Greg says as he spins the screen again.
“Horse.”
“Laminator.”
“Laminator.”
“Horse.”
“Laminator.”
“Horse.”
“Horse.”
Greg makes the sound of an incorrect answer buzzer. “I’m afraid it’s a laminator, but I’m also pleased because it means you’re less likely to be kidnapped by a secret government agency. Let’s all return to our seats while Little Alex Horne tots up the points.”
Jorja already knows she’s won, so she zones out for the summing up, tuning back in when Greg asks “So, what have we learned?” because she does love to learn.
“We’ve learned that Yasmin Khan and Jackie Tyler can rap but probably shouldn’t, and that Brian Williams plays the harmonica with the haunting beauty of a foggy forest at dawn. But most importantly, we’ve learned that Jorja Smith is today’s winner, with 29 points! Jorja, go and collect your heavy prizes.”
She shoots Yaz a panicked look as she realises she has no idea how she’s going to get all that stuff home, but Yaz meets her gaze with steady reassurance. She climbs up on the stage where all the heavy things now are. Ohh, Jackie brought a bowling ball, she notes. She picks it up and nearly drops it on her foot, so puts it back down quickly.
She pats Yaz’s workout bench, knowing her fiancée will be glad to have it back, and throws her little neutron star in the air and catches it one-handed before fumbling it and putting it next to the bowling ball. Finally she steps inside Karvanista’s cage. The door swings shut behind her and locks automatically.
“What the fuck?”
“You alright babe?” Yaz asks when Jorja walks into their bedroom. She’s sitting on the bed, legs crossed, reading something on her phone, though she puts it down when Jorja approaches.
Jorja groans in response and flops down on the bed, sprawling over Yaz’s lap. Yaz strokes her hair and wiggles to remove her knee from Jorja’s ribs.
“I can’t believe he wouldn’t unlock that cage,” Yaz commiserates. “What an arsehole.”
“He really don’t like me,” Jorja mumbles, mouth half pressed against the duvet. “Dunno what I ever did to him.”
“He’s a man of very questionable taste.”
“Mmhmm. ‘M pretty great.”
“Alright, bighead.”
Yaz continues to stroke her hair for a while then pauses. Jorja can feel her tense up.
“Did you see him?” Yaz asks. “On the singin’ task?”
Jorja sits up, though it feels harder than it should. “Yeah. He were by the gate. Must’ve been following us longer than we realised.”
Yaz shivers. “He’s so creepy.”
“He’s a creep,” Jorja agrees. She doesn’t know why she feels so calm about this; it may be because O is already behind bars.
Yaz starts stroking her hair again. “Y’know what though. He didn’t hold my attention for more’n a few seconds, because you started to sing.”
Jorja sits up, straddling her legs. “Yeah?”
Yaz looks bashful, blushing down at the duvet. “You were just… entirely too hot. I was havin’ trouble not jumping you right there in the studio.”
Jorja raises an eyebrow, smirking in a way that she knows drives Yaz mad. “Yasmin Khan, are you asking for a private concert?”
“I… erm…”
Adorably, Yaz’s blush deepens. Jorja places her hands on the bed frame, bracketing her head. She leans forward, her lips brushing her fiancée’s ear lobe as she starts to sing in a husky voice.
“A duck walked up to a lemonade stand
And he said to the man running the stand,
‘Hey, got any grapes?’”
Yaz pushes her off. “Not that, you idiot.” She’s laughing though, and Jorja grins in triumph.
“Your idiot, though.”
“Absolutely.”