Love's Gross

Until They Come Home

Love's Gross

(Based on Project Inheritance)

By DaringDanger

3 days left...

Alright. This store is getting cleaned. Today. Cordy jolted out of her bedroll, still in her underwear and a loose sleeveless top. It took ten minutes to even find a broom, but she did it. She was home alone for most of the day, and that meant no one could get in her way.

Top to bottom, including the walls and ceiling. Not an easy task when it was abundantly clear that Arthur and Scott didn't even know there was a behind to each bookshelf. At times the dust was as thick as smoke, and that was only the living area on the upper floor.

She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, broom held out like a lance. She was ready, a knight prepared for battle. Clearly Scott and Arthur never thought about any place that was out of sight and it came down to her, a broom, and even the tip of her dagger in a few places to clean the place up. If she had the time and supplies she'd polish the tables, but she didn't, and had to prioritize the clutter and dust.

Then came the knocking. Of all the things. Instead of breaking her broom in half she elected to stomp down and open the door. Alistair stood on the other side. She gasped and attempted to cover herself, and the boy quickly turned away. Wait. Why was she embarrassed?

"Sorry." She slowly lowered her guard. "I'm not... really sure why I freaked out. I literally wear this around my friends all the time."

"If you want to change you can. I don't want to overstep your boundaries."

"I'll be okay. I don't know, it's like... I want to present myself as pretty for you, for some reason... maybe. I'm so fucking confused."

"You can't give more than who you are at the end of the day, even if it is just 'confused'."

"No one's home, get in here. You're helping clean now."

"Yay, chores." He groaned.

"You're here, I'm not done, you're helping." She sprinted up the stairs; the closet she'd found the broom in also had a scrub brush. She squeaked the door open, the brush sitting on top of a locked box which she only just noticed had writing on it after moving the brush. 'Break in case of emergency.' She looked around a bit and slammed the brush on the lock, knocking it loose, as well as a few shards of wood from the brush.

"You have to be shitting me." Cordy pulled rocks out of the box. That's what was in it. She supposed that was fair, Scott had some kind of curse or something that made him crave eating rocks, everyone had some kind of useless curse or ability. She tried it. Not for her.

Cordy ran back down the stairs and threw the brush like a javelin into Alistairs' hand.

"Who lives in this place normally?" He asked.

"Only men, if you can't tell." She chuckled. "You can't even see what some of the books on the shelves are because of the dust."

"Someone would suffocate if you used wind magic in here." Alistair joked. Cordy froze a bit and glanced down at her hand, her mark of the storm. Never again. Not after the acid river.

"You good? Your entire face just went pale?" Alistair asked.

"I... did something bad with wind magic. The thought just was running through my head."

"You have wind magic!? Cool!"

"I don't use it anymore."

"What did you do? Murder?" Tears began filling her eyes a bit. "Oh." Alistair looked a bit nervous. "That was meant to be a joke to lighten the mood."