Coddled Eggs

Firebird9

K+

A promptfic for FoxFireside (Spring, friendship, razor), to celebrate a year since we started posting MFMM fanfic and, of course, a year since we 'met'. I've kept chickens for a couple of years but have rotten luck when it comes to their health, so when I discovered that a chook I thought was egg-bound was actually suffering from advanced cancer, FoxFireside very kindly let me use her promptfic as a way to give my poor wee girl a happier ending.

Warm baths and castor oil remain two of the standard home treatments for an egg-bound chook, although a vet will administer calcium and pain relief.

Tie-in to 'Waifs and Strays'

The spring wind tore at Phryne's coat and hat as she made her way up her front path until, having reached the door, she allowed herself to be blown inside and pushed it shut behind her with much the same air of satisfied finality that must have attended the lowering of the portcullis and the raising of the drawbridge in a medieval castle. Away from the wind, the sunlight slanted through the windows in a warm and pleasing fashion, and she smiled at the prospect of an afternoon spent curled up on the window-seat reviewing case-notes and playing with the kittens, which were still young enough to be an adorable distraction.

"Is anyone home?" she sang out, not really expecting an answer. Mr. Butler had the day off. Dot was at church helping to prepare for an upcoming jumble sale. Jack had intended to spend the morning catching up on correspondence before taking the dogs out for a run along the beach. She herself hadn't expected to be home so soon, but her luncheon engagement had stood her up and she had felt no need to linger once she realised that she was dining alone.

So she was slightly surprised to hear Jack's voice calling to her from the back of the house to inform her that he was in the kitchen.

Depositing her coat and hat on the stand she made her way down the hallway to find Jack and Cec sitting opposite one another at the kitchen table. Between them, on a sheet of newspaper, sat a thoroughly miserable-looking chicken. "Jack! What's going on?"

Both men looked up at her arrival, but it was Cec who answered, whilst at the same time continuing to coax the seemingly-oblivious hen to accept some breadcrumbs from his hand. "Chicken's sick, Miss. Reckon she's egg-bound. That means she's got an egg stuck that won't come out," he added, in case Miss Fisher was unfamiliar with the intricacies of chicken gynaecology. "Happens sometimes, especially this time of year."

"I noticed her when I took some breadcrusts out this morning," Jack added, continuing to gently stroke the chicken's back. Of course. When he was around the house he often spent time wandering among his various furred and feathered charges, distributing a biscuit here, a scrap of meat there. Now he turned his attention back to the bird in front of him. "I suppose I'd better go sharpen up Mr. Butler's razor." Jack was no stranger to the art of domestic poultry dispatch, and shared Mr. Butler's preferred method of wringing the animal's neck before cutting the throat with an old razor in order to bleed out the body, but he had never had much enthusiasm for the task, particularly when the bird to be thus executed was a young one which he himself had rescued – at risk of Phryne's ire – and which potentially had several years of good laying left in her.

"Could try to help her out first," Cec, who evidently felt much the same way, offered. "It's what my dad always did. No harm in trying, he always reckoned."

Phryne now found herself in what was customarily Jack's role, leaning back against the door-frame whilst he, in what was more usually her role, took centre stage. The friendship which had evolved between Jack and Cec through their mutual compassion for the waifs and strays of the world meant that the policeman and the communist were now established, if unlikely, allies in their private battle to improve the welfare of Melbourne's mistreated animals.

"What do you suggest?" Jack asked.

Cec shrugged. "Give her an Epsom salt bath. Might help relax those muscles. Then dose her up with castor oil and leave her somewhere warm and quiet to see if nature'll take its course. If not we can always finish her off come morning."

Jack considered this for a moment, nodding slowly. "It's worth a shot," he agreed. "I know Miss Williams keeps a box of Epsom salts around here somewhere, and there's an old wash-tub in the scullery that should do nicely for her to soak in."

"While you're taking care of that, gentlemen, I might just fix us all a cup of tea," Phryne suggested.

...

Some hours later the chicken was soaked, dried, dosed, and resting in a box by the stove, and Phryne was slipping into bed next to Jack.

"I suppose you think I'm daft, making such a fuss over a chicken," he remarked sleepily, drawing her close to him and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"A little," she admitted, "but in a rather endearing way." She pulled back slightly to look at him, slipping her hand between them to rest open-palmed on his chest. "You really do have a heart as deep as the Pacific Ocean, Jack Robinson."

He smiled and gave her a long, lingering kiss on the lips. "I'm just glad you're willing to tolerate it," he replied when they parted.

"Never 'tolerate'," she countered, nestling into his chest. "It's one of the things I love most about you, not just something I endure."

He kissed her head again before, in the practised manner of a life-long soldier and shift-worker who never quite managed to get enough rest, falling suddenly and completely asleep with his arms still wrapped around her. Phryne shook her head fondly and rolled over, pulling his arm closer about her waist. Jack wasn't the only one going daft, she thought. Had anyone told her before she embarked for Australia that, once there, she would lose her heart utterly to a man, any man, to the point where she would not only invite him into her home but then allow him to fill it with all manner of needy animals, she would have laughed – and been on her guard. But the same gentle compassion that could charm a frightened dog or soothe a sick chicken had worked its magic on her, too, and she who had seldom known tenderness or safety now slept easy because she was wrapped in Jack's loving arms.

...

She woke, as she so often did these days, to the sound of Jack's morning routine: the splash of water and the scrape of razor across stubble, followed by the rustle of fabric as he dressed. "What time is it?" she asked, rolling over to face him without opening her eyes.

"Early," he replied. "I want to see how that chicken's doing before I head to work."

That reminded her of the sad task that might await him, and she opened her eyes, blinking sleepily at him. "And if it's done badly?"

"Then I'll take care of it." He finished knotting his tie and bent over her, kissing her brow lightly as he often did before he went downstairs for breakfast. "Go back to sleep," he suggested, before shrugging on his waistcoat and heading out the door.

But she found herself unable to do so. Jack did not want to kill that chicken, and she didn't want him to have to. He could, of course, have Mr. Butler do it, but Jack would never ask another man to do something he himself was perfectly capable of doing simply in order to spare his tender feelings. No, she thought, sitting up, Jack would not, but she was still the mistress of this household, and she most certainly would. Of course, she would need to figure out a way to do so without denting Jack's masculine pride, but she was confident that something would suggest itself.

Wrapping herself in her favourite robe, she padded barefoot to the kitchen. Mr. Butler was at the stove, frying sausages and bacon. Jack and Dot were both seated at the table, Dot buttering a piece of toast while Jack sipped a cup of tea.

"Miss!" Dot rose hastily when she saw her. "I wasn't expecting you up yet –"

"Finish your breakfast." Phryne waved her companion back to her seat. "I just wanted to see how Jack's patient was doing."

"Relieved of her burden, and wanting her breakfast," Jack responded with satisfaction. "It's no wonder she was struggling." He held up an egg, which had until then been sitting unremarked in the middle of the table. Phryne, who had once seen a kiwi skeleton alongside a blown kiwi egg, arched her brow at the size of it.

"No wonder at all. That thing's enormous!" She walked over to the stove and peered into the cardboard box next to it. The hen cocked her head and blinked up at her as though wondering what all the fuss was about. She made a small interrogative sound and then, apparently realising that this human was unlikely to present her with food in the immediate future, turned her attention back to the piece of crust at the bottom of her box. Phryne smiled and pulled a chair close to Jack, sitting next to him and leaning her head upon his shoulder. "Clever you," she remarked.

"It was Cec who pulled it off, not me," he replied, slipping his arm about her waist.

"It's still alive, then?" Bert commented, as he and Cec arrived in the kitchen. "Just as well, or he'd be moping all bloody day."

"Alive and well." Jack directed his words to Cec, rather than Bert. His friendship with the former had resulted in no more than a slight thawing of relations with the latter, although even that was enough to impress Phryne. Bert was not known for his tolerance of the tools of State oppression, nor Jack for his tolerance of mouthy, frequently-intoxicated rabble-rousers.

"And I think a celebration is in order," she said brightly. "Eggs for breakfast, Mr. B. Fried, scrambled, or Benedict: I'll leave it to your discretion."

"Not coddled, Miss?"

She caught her butler's eye and smiled wickedly, though he retained a poker face. "There's nothing wrong with a little coddling," she remarked, giving Jack a look that made Dot and Cec blush, and Bert clear his throat awkwardly, "under the right circumstances."