Hopelessly Devoted ~ Garroth x F!Reader

Ch 25: Damage And Repairs

*chapter included for context, but will likely be changed to better fit into the continuity of the new plot (aka the one you read before this)*

"I... Uh... was working. Yeah. That's what I was doing." Brendan looked away in shame.

"Working on what? Fixing something that isn't broken?" Katelyn asked pointedly.

"But Katelyn! It is broken!" Brendan whined as he resumed his strategy of avoiding her piercing gaze.

"What's broken then?" Katelyn looked Brendan square in the eyes.

He remained quiet.

"Okay. I'll go look." She marched up the ladder, with more force than you'd expect to have come out of her small, but built, frame.

"Okay, okay, okay. I'm coming!" Brendan quickly squirmed his way up the ladder behind Katelyn. From your viewpoint on the ground, you could only see the top halves of their bodies sticking out from the roof. You had no idea what they were looking at below them.

"See? Nothing is broken!" she yelled, followed by a whack.

"But it really is," Brendan pouted. The creaking of boards shuffling against each other ensued, then a solid thump.

"____, you need to see this." Katelyn shouted down to you.

You cautiously climbed up the ladder, unsure of what you were going to find on your roof. You pulled yourself over the ledge and stood up. Next to a pile of wooden boards was a huge gap.

"Brendan covered the hole with those planks. They weren't even secured." Katelyn glared at Brendan.

"I had to fix it somehow."

"Now we're going to have to panel up this whole section again! Do you know how many materials that'll take?"

Brendan peered down at the hole into your living room, the guilt evident on his features.

"We're putting an end to this once and for all. How did you even break it?"

"I-I was on the roof a few days ago, when we first started checking the house. Then I started to check out Kawaii~Chan's place." Brendan looked over at you, straying off-topic. "You have a nice view of the village from up here. Anyway, I dropped my tools and . . . There was that hole," he finally admitted.

"Let's replace the boards this time. Can you do that?" Katelyn lectured in the same way you'd chastise a child. Brendan nodded his head in shame.

"Without messing anything else up, or making it worse?" Kateyln clarified.

"I guess." Brendan mumbled.

Before grabbing his ear again, Katelyn made sure Brendan temporarily covered the gap back up for safety. He trudged back over to the hole and picked up the wooden boards he had been massacring with his hammer for the past few hours, then attempted to climb down the ladder with them, dropping a plank in the process.

"Brendan!" Katelyn growled.

Katelyn managed to berate Brenden enough into fixing his damage, as Garroth discovered when he dropped in to check on you.

"Is Brendan really still working up there? Maybe I should fix it myself," your knight in not-too-shiny-but-also-kinda-shining armor offered. "On the bright side, if he hadn't dropped his stuff up there, we wouldn't have known about the rot in the ceiling. Brendan's struggle isn't completely in vain."

Brendan was actually swinging a hammer the right way up there, which convinced you that at least a little more productivity was going on. You couldn't help but cut him some slack. Brendan was awkward, but at least it came with pure intentions.

Brendan nervously glanced over to his side, where Katelyn glared at him with her arms folded across her chest. She shrugged unapologetically when she noticed you watching her. "He just needs some motivation to get the job done."

"Hey, Katelyn!" Garroth called up to her, "why don't I watch Brendan? You could use a break."

Katelyn surveyed him, her harsh features melting. "Fine," she caved, "but only because it looks like it's about to rain."

You were tempted to ask if he was trying to impress you with his fragile masculinity, but cut yourself short at the sight of Lord Aphmau rushing down the pathway. "Garroth! There you are!" Lord Aphmau came to a halt and inhaled deeply, trying to either catch her breath or calm down. "I need you to go on patrol tonight."

"I'm more than happy to, but—please forgive me if this sounds rude—isn't it Dante's night shift?"

"Dante got sick out of the blue. I don't know what it is, but it might be going around pretty soon." Lord Aphmau shifted her weight before opening her mouth to continue talking. "So? Can you?"

The lively glimmer in his eyes dulled, his excited demeanor dropping. ". . . Sure," he agreed reluctantly.

"Is everything alright? Patrol used to be your favorite," Lord Aphmau pointed out, her motherly instincts taking over.

"Yeah, no, I'm good," Garroth said stoically. "Just concerned for Dante. I'll fill in for him tonight."

"Thank you so much, he really needs the rest." Lord Aphmau cast one last sympathetic glance in Garroth's direction before skipping along the pathway, resuming her own duties.