aware (peterick)

9

Stepladders are actual death traps. I'm really not looking forward to using mine, but I'm afraid without it my small arms aren't going to be able to reach high enough for the task I need to complete.

Patrick sits cross-legged on the only clean space of floor in the room, sipping contently from a blood bag as he watches me go about clearing up the mess he'd made yesterday. At the moment I'm sort of just standing here with my hands on my hips, silently screaming at him to stop moping around like a clueless toddler and fucking help me. The least he could do is leave me alone and mope somewhere else so I don't accidently trip over him and crack my head open on the wardrobe.

But I'm too nice to say that to his face. Very few people are grateful for the privilege that is my company, and he's quite content to sit quietly, so I'll let him be.

Hanging these blackout curtains isn't exactly going to be the most efficient task in the world, as there's a number of things in this room I could fall over and break my neck on, but I'm racing against the sun here, so really, they're a first priority.

Why on Earth did I choose to hang them up in my trashed bedroom when there's a perfectly decent spare bedroom right across the hall? The logical answer is because Patrick is too scared to sleep on his own. The honest answer is because the spare bedroom is pretty bland compared to mine, and these curtains are going to look swanky as hell by the time I manage to get them up, so I plan to keep them that way long after Patrick leaves.

But this also means we're going to have to share the bed every day. Even if he decides at some point he's okay sleeping on his own, I'm not abandoning my bed for an old, creaky one, and the couch is a no-go with the state my neck's in.

And if Patrick enjoys my cuddles as much as he says he does, then hell, I'm not complaining.

Stripping down the dusty, torn blinds is the easy part, and the most fun, too; tearing them from their hinges gives me an excuse to destroy stuff without feeling angry about it. Work is perpetually stressful and I hardly ever get the time to let off steam.

Every so often I glance over my shoulder to gage Patrick's reaction to my antics, but to my chagrin he's too busy fumbling with the faucet of the half empty blood bag to be paying any attention to me. At least he's pacing himself this time, but he's obviously not as hungry as he'd made out to be in the store.

With the old blinds making themselves at home on the floor, I move on to the new ones. The curtain itself is one huge blind the size of my window, rolled tightly around a pole with two metal rings at either end, and conveniently, I already have two hooks nailed into the wall to hang them on. I'll have to keep the window closed to stop the blind from swaying in the wind, which in turn welcomes the perfect growing conditions for mould.

It wouldn't kill me to clean up the horrible damp that's been festering for months. I seriously regret not buying air freshener. I also regret thinking that one small man could be capable of completing a two-man job. But I'm going to attempt to do it anyway, because I'm an idiot who thinks he's cool and smart and shit, when in reality he just... isn't.

I adjust the stepladder against the wall and slip out my phone to call Brendon. No reason why; I just feel the need to stick my nose into whatever business he's up. He picks up after the first ring while I place my foot experimentally on the bottom rung, smirking to myself as I balance expertly on my toes.

"Thanks for checking up on me to see if I was still alive yesterday," Brendon croaks. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I'm having a bit of a crisis, actually," I say, crouching down to pick up the roll of swag, and then stepping up to the second rung. "I need to hang up these blackout curtains, but they're heavy and I can't do it by myself."

"Doesn't the vamp have an extra set of hands you could use?"

"Patrick doesn't count. He's here to live, not to help me rebuild my house."

"Have you passed his name on to anyone?" he asks.

I come to the top of the stepladder, four rungs high, and I crane my neck at a ninety-degree angle to grip the phone between my shoulder and my ear. Rising up on my tiptoes, I reach up with both hands and successfully hook one end of the pole to the wall on the first try. The metal contraption under my feet trembles only slightly.

"I didn't think it mattered if I did."

"Did you tell anyone his name?" he demands, his voice hoarse.

I bite my lip. "Just you."

"Good."

"Why, what are you doing?" I enquire, regaining my balance.

"The NSPCC have his file," Brendon explains. "They want to keep it to themselves, for obvious reasons. They know a vampire murdered his family and they believe he was kidnapped by the same one, but I've assured them that he's human, and they're not questioning it. They know he's safe in your hands for now, and they don't expect the rehoming process to happen overnight, but you still have the responsibility of telling them when he's well enough to leave your care. They'll only wait so long for you to come back to work."

My tongue pokes out through the corner of my mouth, and I bite down on it in concentration, trying to take in everything Brendon is telling me at the same time as trying to fix the other end of this goddamned pole to the wall. "And how long do you think that'll be?"

"A good few months," he reckons. "By which point I'm hoping to get them to sign the court forms to make you his legal guardian. And I know you're worried about the VCA butting in, so doing this means they will have no rights to evict him from your home. You guys will be able to sue if they so much as try."

"But what about between now and then?" I point out. "My agreement with the VCA states that I'm to evict him as soon as he's tame. Sooner or later they'll come knocking at my door and take him away, quite possibly to kill him."

I have this terrible hunch that that's going to be the case. It doesn't matter when Patrick leaves, or whether it's me that conducts the eviction or not. They're probably planning on killing him either way. If he's lucky, they might let him run, but the moment he steps an inch out of line...

Death or loneliness? How is that a fair choice?

"Because of Patricks circumstances the guardianship process should be done and dusted a lot faster than your usual case," Brendon continues. "All you have to do is prove you're worthy enough to take care of him, and Patrick will have to say he's ok with it, too, of course. But I'm not going to file a petition just yet; our co-workers would get suspicious. So, are you willing to keep him hidden until then?"

"I'm willing to keep him hidden for as long as possible," I breathe shakily, my knuckles white and palms slick around the pole. My knees start to tremble with the effort of standing on my tiptoes for so long.

Brendon pipes and he changes the subject. "I've got laryngitis, did you know that? I'm on bedrest and I'm not supposed to be talking to anyone. What makes you think I'm in any fit state to help you?"

"Absolutely nothing," I admit through gritted teeth. My arms aren't quite long enough to reach the top left corner of the window; I'm barely managing to keep this heavy cylindrical object suspended above my head. "I'm doing fine on my own. Just needed someone to talk to. Patrick is selectively mute."

"Fun."

"There are worse people," I grunt. "Dammit, why am I so short?"

"You good? Because if you're really struggling, I'm not busy-"

"I'm good," I grimace. "It's just this fucking window. It's too tall."

The spaces between my toes start to sweat; they're losing their grip fast as the stepladder begins to rattle uncontrollably beneath my feet. I really should have worn shoes for this... Frustrated, I throw my phone to the floor without saying another word to Brendon, grabbing the curtain pole and steadying it with my free hand.

The metal ring settles into the hook with a satisfying clink.