Fic: You Owe Me One
Title: You Owe Me One
Fandom: Donald Strachey Mysteries, bookverse.
Rating/word count: PG, about 2,200
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Richard Stevenson.
Summary: It’s not as if Don had plans, but still - Sunday afternoons belonged to him.
Notes: Stellar beta services provided by nyteflyer. All mistakes are my very own. Written for Fest10 at smallfandomfest.
I didn’t make Sunday afternoon plans for a very good reason - I didn’t want any. Sundays were meant to be leisurely and nonproductive, and that meant I did nothing more strenuous than sprawl on the couch in my pajama bottoms, unshaven, unshowered and unmotivated.
Most of the time, Timmy excused my sloth. As long as he could get me to slave away part of my Saturday, he was satisfied.
On Sundays, I’d get up at noon, eat leftovers, read the paper, then settle in for about seven hours of whatever sporting events were on TV. I preferred football to basketball and baseball to golf, but they were all good because none of them required any effort from me. Once the games were over, Timmy would either call me for dinner or tell me to order a pizza. After that it was a movie of Timmy’s choice and then off to bed for dessert.
All in all, we’d developed a pretty good routine. So when I finally fell into bed in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I didn’t have any reason to believe the upcoming Sunday afternoon would be any different from the rest.
That is, until Timmy shook me awake.
“Get cleaned up and get dressed.”
I shoved my head under the pillow. “Go away. It’s Sunday.”
“I realize that.”
“I was on that stakeout until two. Give me a break.”
He lifted the pillow off my head. “I know you’re tired, but we have to get moving.”
I rolled over and forced open my eyes. “Please, Timothy. Please tell me why, on my Sunday off, I have to shower, much less get dressed?”
“Because Maureen has termites.”
“Tell her to call a doctor.” I curled myself around Timmy’s pillow. It smelled good. “See you later.”
“She needs our help, Donald.”
I didn’t budge. “The Jets are playing this afternoon.”
“I don’t care who’s playing this afternoon. Besides, Joe Namath isn’t any good anymore, anyway.”
I had to laugh. “Broadway Joe hasn’t played since 1977. You were still running around Washington Park with your towel in 1977.”
Timmy ignored my reference to his wild and wooly past. “Stop stalling. Get up and get ready. We need to leave as soon as we can.”
When he wanted to be, Timmy was immovable, like a pyramid or a mountain or a politician demanding school prayer. If I wanted to preserve domestic harmony, I would have to get up, get dressed and actually leave the house on a Sunday.
“What about breakfast?” I had lost the battle, but I couldn’t concede defeat, not yet. If I caved now, Timmy would think I didn’t care about Sunday afternoons, and he’d fill them with activities guaranteed to make me break out in hives. “I can’t do anything without sustenance.”
“I made chicken sandwiches. We’ll eat them on the way.”
“I haven’t had any coffee.”
“There’s a to-go mug with your name on it in the kitchen.”
“My clothes are all dirty.”
Timmy yanked the covers off me, letting cold air into my snug, warm cocoon.
“I did all the laundry yesterday while you were out slopping the hogs and chopping firewood. Check your dresser drawers.”
Silently, I cursed Maureen. Her termites were not my concern. But she’d made them Timmy’s problem, and in doing so she’d made them my problem. She would pay for that.
“Maureen owes me a Sunday afternoon,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and burying my face in my hands. “Tell her that for me.”
“I’m sure she’s quaking in her boots. Be downstairs in fifteen minutes. She’s got an exterminator on the way, but she needs help moving furniture and getting some stuff out of the garage.”
“I ought to exterminate her,” I muttered under my breath.
“What was that?”
“Good thing she got an exterminator.”
“I know. It’ll be expensive, being a Sunday.”
He left the room, closing the door behind him. I glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even eight yet. I cursed Maureen, out loud this time, and hoped the exterminator charged her a fortune. I stomped around the room, finding clean clothes and mourning the loss of my Sunday afternoon. Timing it to the last second, I made sure I was downstairs in twenty minutes. A man had to set limits, after all.
Timmy was waiting in the living room. He had my jacket, a bag of sandwiches and the coffee. Mr. Organized.
I made him drive us to Rochester. After all, I was the one who was getting cheated out of my day off. The least he could do was let me eat, drink and sleep on the way.
Maureen, who had the same sixth sense as her annoying brother, emerged from her front door the second we arrived. Her mouth started moving before we could even park the car. Years on the job had madet me a proficient lip reader, so there was no mistaking the word “fucking.”
We got out of the car and were greeted not by a “thank you so much for coming” but by an “about time you got your asses here.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
She ignored me. “I can’t believe it. The exterminator’s here and he thinks the little bastards are all over the west side of the house. It’s ruined. The entire house is ruined. We’ll never be able to sell it like this.”
Timmy put his arm around her shoulders in a brotherly gesture. I’d have strangled her, but that was just me. “You’re selling the house? I didn’t know that.”
“We’re not selling it.”
“But you just said-”
“Imagine if I tried to sell it. I’d have to disclose the termites.”
“Better than disrobing them,” I said to myself.
Maureen turned around to glare at me. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
We trooped into the house. I was in hopes of getting another cup of coffee, but Maureen had apparently forgotten her manners. No coffee was forthcoming. Instead, she led us into the dining room and started issuing orders.
“We need to move all the furniture at least four feet away from the west wall. The exterminator has to get in there to spray along the baseboards. All the outlet covers have to be removed, too.”
Of course, the west wall was home to the family sideboard, an oak monstrosity covered with hideous antique vases and filled with their grandmother’s china and silverware. There was no way to move it as it was. We’d have to unload it, move it, then move it back and reload it.
“When you’re done with the sideboard, come into the living room. I can manage most of the furniture myself, but I’ll need help rolling back the rug,” Maureen said.
She left us to it. I stared at Timmy. He stared back. We got to work.
We carried the vases, china and silverware to the dining room table which could, in a pinch, seat fourteen people. Once it was empty, I was all set to give the sideboard an easterly shove, but Timmy informed me that the top of the sideboard had to be disengaged from the bottom and the two pieces moved separately.
“You’re kidding. Why can’t we just move the whole thing and be done with it?” Unless it was sex, I wasn’t about to do twice what I could do once.
“It’s old. If we try to move it all at once, it’s likely to break.” Bugs Bunny-fashion, Timmy produced a screwdriver out of thin air. “Hold onto it with both hands.”
“If it breaks then we never have to do this again.” I gestured at the table filled with crap from County Cork and was told to keep both hands on the sideboard. “Get rid of it all. Start fresh. Isn’t that what immigrants are supposed to do? Whatever happened to coming to America with only five bucks in your pocket and the clothes on your back?”
Timmy removed the first of three screws, along with a heavy washer. “Is that how the Stracheys arrived? Broke and in dirty clothes?”
“We didn’t charter our own ship, I can tell you that much.”
“Neither did we. Some friends were coming here on a lark, and we decided to hitch a ride. Plus, there was that pesky potato famine.” He removed the second screw and washer. “Now, hang on tight. This last screw is the only thing that stands between us and disaster.”
“What a shame.”
Once again, Timmy ignored me. As soon as he pocketed the last screw and washer, he helped me carry the top of the sideboard to the other side of the room. It was heavier than hell, and I told Timmy he could forget about sex for at least two weeks. It would take that long for my back to recover.
Timmy patted my cheek. “Are you getting old on me?”
“And it’s all your fault. I’ll be incapacitated for life.”
“I’ll see that you get into a nice nursing home.”
“Thanks.”
I trudged across the dining room and helped him move the bottom part of the sideboard. I wished I would have seen a nest of termites chewing through the striped velvet wallpaper, but I didn’t.
We spent endless hot, sweaty hours moving furniture, rolling back rugs and hauling junk out of the garage. Much to my eternal dismay, the exterminator, a short, red-faced guy named Hank, decided to treat the entire inside perimeter of the three-car garage, both inside and outside, which necessitated clearing three walls instead of one.
“Just to be sure, don’t you know. Can’t give these little bastards so much as an inch. They’ll ruin the whole goddamn house if we do.”
Now it was “we,” as if this were my termite-infested saltbox. I was about to set the record straight when Tim shoved a can of Coke into my hand and told me to shut up and drink.
While Hank did his thing, Maureen ordered a couple of pizzas. I only had time to eat two slices before she was bellowing at us to start putting everything back in place.
My Sunday afternoon advanced into evening - six, seven, eight o’clock. I’d gone from annoyed to angry to exhausted, and all I wanted to do was collapse on Maureen’s bug-ridden floor and go to sleep.
She called a halt just before nine.
“That should do it. Hank will inspect everything in two weeks. I’ll let you know if I need help.” She wiped her forearm across her brow, leaving a streak of dirt. “Thanks for coming, guys.”
I stared at her. It was a four-hour ride back to Albany. I couldn’t contain myself; truthfully, I didn’t bother to try.
“You’re not putting us up? We spent all day shoving your furniture back and forth and you’re not even offering us a bed for the night?”
Timmy’s sweaty arm slid across my shoulders. “We’ll just say good-night. Say good-night, Donald.”
“Good-night, Maureen. I hope the bedbugs bite.”
I stalked out to the car. I sat there, fuming, until Timmy joined me.
“Now you’ve got her worrying about bedbugs.” He started the car. “She’s thinking about calling Hank.”
“Good.” I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. Timmy jostled me awake a few minutes later.
“We’re here.”
I sat up, disoriented. We couldn’t be back on Crow Street, not so soon. And we weren’t. We were in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn.
“Consider this is our home away from home for the next two days,” Timmy said. “Help me with the bags.”
“I thought we were going home,” I said as we got out of the car.
Timmy opened the trunk. “I’m tired, filthy and I don’t want to have sex in Maureen’s guest room. So we’re staying here.”
He hefted his suitcase and waited until I’d grabbed mine. We stood there in front of the open trunk, looking at each other’s dirty faces, smelling each other’s sweat, and then none of it mattered. Not the back-breaking work, not Maureen’s distracted ingratitude, not my lost Sunday afternoon.
“You planned this.”
Timmy nodded. “I’d have told you, but I wasn’t sure we’d get a reservation at such short notice. I actually didn’t know for certain until an hour ago.”
I bumped his knee with my suitcase. “Do I owe Maureen an apology?”
“No. Just your understanding. She’s always hated bugs.”
“I’ll send her a rubber spider for Christmas.”
Timmy led the way into the hotel. “I’ll help you shop for it.”
Fandom: Donald Strachey Mysteries, bookverse.
Rating/word count: PG, about 2,200
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Richard Stevenson.
Summary: It’s not as if Don had plans, but still - Sunday afternoons belonged to him.
Notes: Stellar beta services provided by nyteflyer. All mistakes are my very own. Written for Fest10 at smallfandomfest.
I didn’t make Sunday afternoon plans for a very good reason - I didn’t want any. Sundays were meant to be leisurely and nonproductive, and that meant I did nothing more strenuous than sprawl on the couch in my pajama bottoms, unshaven, unshowered and unmotivated.
Most of the time, Timmy excused my sloth. As long as he could get me to slave away part of my Saturday, he was satisfied.
On Sundays, I’d get up at noon, eat leftovers, read the paper, then settle in for about seven hours of whatever sporting events were on TV. I preferred football to basketball and baseball to golf, but they were all good because none of them required any effort from me. Once the games were over, Timmy would either call me for dinner or tell me to order a pizza. After that it was a movie of Timmy’s choice and then off to bed for dessert.
All in all, we’d developed a pretty good routine. So when I finally fell into bed in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I didn’t have any reason to believe the upcoming Sunday afternoon would be any different from the rest.
That is, until Timmy shook me awake.
“Get cleaned up and get dressed.”
I shoved my head under the pillow. “Go away. It’s Sunday.”
“I realize that.”
“I was on that stakeout until two. Give me a break.”
He lifted the pillow off my head. “I know you’re tired, but we have to get moving.”
I rolled over and forced open my eyes. “Please, Timothy. Please tell me why, on my Sunday off, I have to shower, much less get dressed?”
“Because Maureen has termites.”
“Tell her to call a doctor.” I curled myself around Timmy’s pillow. It smelled good. “See you later.”
“She needs our help, Donald.”
I didn’t budge. “The Jets are playing this afternoon.”
“I don’t care who’s playing this afternoon. Besides, Joe Namath isn’t any good anymore, anyway.”
I had to laugh. “Broadway Joe hasn’t played since 1977. You were still running around Washington Park with your towel in 1977.”
Timmy ignored my reference to his wild and wooly past. “Stop stalling. Get up and get ready. We need to leave as soon as we can.”
When he wanted to be, Timmy was immovable, like a pyramid or a mountain or a politician demanding school prayer. If I wanted to preserve domestic harmony, I would have to get up, get dressed and actually leave the house on a Sunday.
“What about breakfast?” I had lost the battle, but I couldn’t concede defeat, not yet. If I caved now, Timmy would think I didn’t care about Sunday afternoons, and he’d fill them with activities guaranteed to make me break out in hives. “I can’t do anything without sustenance.”
“I made chicken sandwiches. We’ll eat them on the way.”
“I haven’t had any coffee.”
“There’s a to-go mug with your name on it in the kitchen.”
“My clothes are all dirty.”
Timmy yanked the covers off me, letting cold air into my snug, warm cocoon.
“I did all the laundry yesterday while you were out slopping the hogs and chopping firewood. Check your dresser drawers.”
Silently, I cursed Maureen. Her termites were not my concern. But she’d made them Timmy’s problem, and in doing so she’d made them my problem. She would pay for that.
“Maureen owes me a Sunday afternoon,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and burying my face in my hands. “Tell her that for me.”
“I’m sure she’s quaking in her boots. Be downstairs in fifteen minutes. She’s got an exterminator on the way, but she needs help moving furniture and getting some stuff out of the garage.”
“I ought to exterminate her,” I muttered under my breath.
“What was that?”
“Good thing she got an exterminator.”
“I know. It’ll be expensive, being a Sunday.”
He left the room, closing the door behind him. I glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even eight yet. I cursed Maureen, out loud this time, and hoped the exterminator charged her a fortune. I stomped around the room, finding clean clothes and mourning the loss of my Sunday afternoon. Timing it to the last second, I made sure I was downstairs in twenty minutes. A man had to set limits, after all.
Timmy was waiting in the living room. He had my jacket, a bag of sandwiches and the coffee. Mr. Organized.
I made him drive us to Rochester. After all, I was the one who was getting cheated out of my day off. The least he could do was let me eat, drink and sleep on the way.
Maureen, who had the same sixth sense as her annoying brother, emerged from her front door the second we arrived. Her mouth started moving before we could even park the car. Years on the job had madet me a proficient lip reader, so there was no mistaking the word “fucking.”
We got out of the car and were greeted not by a “thank you so much for coming” but by an “about time you got your asses here.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
She ignored me. “I can’t believe it. The exterminator’s here and he thinks the little bastards are all over the west side of the house. It’s ruined. The entire house is ruined. We’ll never be able to sell it like this.”
Timmy put his arm around her shoulders in a brotherly gesture. I’d have strangled her, but that was just me. “You’re selling the house? I didn’t know that.”
“We’re not selling it.”
“But you just said-”
“Imagine if I tried to sell it. I’d have to disclose the termites.”
“Better than disrobing them,” I said to myself.
Maureen turned around to glare at me. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
We trooped into the house. I was in hopes of getting another cup of coffee, but Maureen had apparently forgotten her manners. No coffee was forthcoming. Instead, she led us into the dining room and started issuing orders.
“We need to move all the furniture at least four feet away from the west wall. The exterminator has to get in there to spray along the baseboards. All the outlet covers have to be removed, too.”
Of course, the west wall was home to the family sideboard, an oak monstrosity covered with hideous antique vases and filled with their grandmother’s china and silverware. There was no way to move it as it was. We’d have to unload it, move it, then move it back and reload it.
“When you’re done with the sideboard, come into the living room. I can manage most of the furniture myself, but I’ll need help rolling back the rug,” Maureen said.
She left us to it. I stared at Timmy. He stared back. We got to work.
We carried the vases, china and silverware to the dining room table which could, in a pinch, seat fourteen people. Once it was empty, I was all set to give the sideboard an easterly shove, but Timmy informed me that the top of the sideboard had to be disengaged from the bottom and the two pieces moved separately.
“You’re kidding. Why can’t we just move the whole thing and be done with it?” Unless it was sex, I wasn’t about to do twice what I could do once.
“It’s old. If we try to move it all at once, it’s likely to break.” Bugs Bunny-fashion, Timmy produced a screwdriver out of thin air. “Hold onto it with both hands.”
“If it breaks then we never have to do this again.” I gestured at the table filled with crap from County Cork and was told to keep both hands on the sideboard. “Get rid of it all. Start fresh. Isn’t that what immigrants are supposed to do? Whatever happened to coming to America with only five bucks in your pocket and the clothes on your back?”
Timmy removed the first of three screws, along with a heavy washer. “Is that how the Stracheys arrived? Broke and in dirty clothes?”
“We didn’t charter our own ship, I can tell you that much.”
“Neither did we. Some friends were coming here on a lark, and we decided to hitch a ride. Plus, there was that pesky potato famine.” He removed the second screw and washer. “Now, hang on tight. This last screw is the only thing that stands between us and disaster.”
“What a shame.”
Once again, Timmy ignored me. As soon as he pocketed the last screw and washer, he helped me carry the top of the sideboard to the other side of the room. It was heavier than hell, and I told Timmy he could forget about sex for at least two weeks. It would take that long for my back to recover.
Timmy patted my cheek. “Are you getting old on me?”
“And it’s all your fault. I’ll be incapacitated for life.”
“I’ll see that you get into a nice nursing home.”
“Thanks.”
I trudged across the dining room and helped him move the bottom part of the sideboard. I wished I would have seen a nest of termites chewing through the striped velvet wallpaper, but I didn’t.
We spent endless hot, sweaty hours moving furniture, rolling back rugs and hauling junk out of the garage. Much to my eternal dismay, the exterminator, a short, red-faced guy named Hank, decided to treat the entire inside perimeter of the three-car garage, both inside and outside, which necessitated clearing three walls instead of one.
“Just to be sure, don’t you know. Can’t give these little bastards so much as an inch. They’ll ruin the whole goddamn house if we do.”
Now it was “we,” as if this were my termite-infested saltbox. I was about to set the record straight when Tim shoved a can of Coke into my hand and told me to shut up and drink.
While Hank did his thing, Maureen ordered a couple of pizzas. I only had time to eat two slices before she was bellowing at us to start putting everything back in place.
My Sunday afternoon advanced into evening - six, seven, eight o’clock. I’d gone from annoyed to angry to exhausted, and all I wanted to do was collapse on Maureen’s bug-ridden floor and go to sleep.
She called a halt just before nine.
“That should do it. Hank will inspect everything in two weeks. I’ll let you know if I need help.” She wiped her forearm across her brow, leaving a streak of dirt. “Thanks for coming, guys.”
I stared at her. It was a four-hour ride back to Albany. I couldn’t contain myself; truthfully, I didn’t bother to try.
“You’re not putting us up? We spent all day shoving your furniture back and forth and you’re not even offering us a bed for the night?”
Timmy’s sweaty arm slid across my shoulders. “We’ll just say good-night. Say good-night, Donald.”
“Good-night, Maureen. I hope the bedbugs bite.”
I stalked out to the car. I sat there, fuming, until Timmy joined me.
“Now you’ve got her worrying about bedbugs.” He started the car. “She’s thinking about calling Hank.”
“Good.” I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. Timmy jostled me awake a few minutes later.
“We’re here.”
I sat up, disoriented. We couldn’t be back on Crow Street, not so soon. And we weren’t. We were in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn.
“Consider this is our home away from home for the next two days,” Timmy said. “Help me with the bags.”
“I thought we were going home,” I said as we got out of the car.
Timmy opened the trunk. “I’m tired, filthy and I don’t want to have sex in Maureen’s guest room. So we’re staying here.”
He hefted his suitcase and waited until I’d grabbed mine. We stood there in front of the open trunk, looking at each other’s dirty faces, smelling each other’s sweat, and then none of it mattered. Not the back-breaking work, not Maureen’s distracted ingratitude, not my lost Sunday afternoon.
“You planned this.”
Timmy nodded. “I’d have told you, but I wasn’t sure we’d get a reservation at such short notice. I actually didn’t know for certain until an hour ago.”
I bumped his knee with my suitcase. “Do I owe Maureen an apology?”
“No. Just your understanding. She’s always hated bugs.”
“I’ll send her a rubber spider for Christmas.”
Timmy led the way into the hotel. “I’ll help you shop for it.”