strawberry with caramel and fresh blueberries
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Daycare
Rating: G/PG
Challenge: Strawberry #9: puddles
Toppings/Extras: caramel, fresh blueberries
Wordcount: 761
Summary: Three people sharing a flat built for one is not ideal.
Notes: A few days post-Moonquartz Mystery. The ending to that is… madness. XD But it means it can lead to scenes like this. Quote for fresh blueberries extra: All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.-J. D. Salinger.
“Cairo! You are a bloody nightmare, you know that?” Robyn called, tramping into the main room of the flat a moment after her voice echoed through it. The crazy blue-eyed manchild that was Cairo Sparks leapt from an armchair as though the base had been spring-loaded and grinned as he dodged a cushion sent hurtling his way.
“What have I done now?” he asked, wobbling his bottom lip as Robyn folded her arms over the front of her dressing gown, tawny hair browned by the moisture from her recent shower.
“Next time you have a bath,” she said evenly, “-and I realise it doesn’t happen often-please don’t leave what could honestly be described as a lake on the floor. What the hell were you doing in there? Having a water-fight with your imaginary friends?”
She would not have been surprised in the least.
“Sorry,” Cairo replied, diving back onto the armchair and starting to twine himself up in a blanket that he had left there. He poked his head out from beneath it after a few moments of twisting around: he had wormed himself around enough that his legs were curled up against the backrest, feet in the air, and his head was down by the floor. “I’ll make you pancakes?”
“Don’t bother,” Robyn said, striding across the room. “Between your cooking and Victor’s, I think I’m going to be dead before the year is out.”
“Thanks a lot,” Victor said from the doorway, where he had just appeared. One arm was in a cast from his mishap with Finbar Breen. Robyn couldn’t help but giggle at his expression. “We have to be at the station in twenty minutes. Maybe you should get dressed.”
“Sure,” Robyn replied, bobbing out towards the bedroom.
Then Victor turned to Cairo.
“Are you sure you’ll be OK home by yourself?” he asked.
“I’m twenty-one!” Cairo replied indignantly, before sliding from the armchair and landing on his head, mass of blankets piling on top of him. Victor said nothing as Cairo thrashed around until he was lying on the floor in some semblance of order and no longer had his legs above his head. From there he continued his argument. “I can take care of myself!”
After a moment, Victor decided the best option was just to nod. Robyn burst out from the door a moment later, fully dressed (however haphazardly) and short damp hair swinging about her neck.
“Try not to burn our flat down while we’re out,” she called in a sing-song voice to Cairo as she bounded across the room.
“My flat,” Victor corrected her mildly, smile flitting across his lips. “Just because Scarlet burned your flat down doesn’t mean you gain automatic ownership of mine.”
“Just because you buddied up with a hobo on Satellite Saoirse…” Robyn said innocently.
“I like Cairo,” Victor insisted.
“I love you too!” Cairo called from across the room. Robyn arched one eyebrow. “And will you stop calling me hobo? I have a home now!”
“You are not staying here forever,” Robyn said.
“And you are?” Victor asked her. When she turned to shoot him a look best described as unimpressed, he couldn’t help but grin slightly. “We really should go now.”
“Is there any food around?” Cairo asked, rolling over on the floor and peering up at them from the carpet as Victor opened the front door. Victor had shorn off the boy’s mass of unkempt hair-which was just about starting to grow back-and Robyn made sure he bathed plenty, no matter how much he seemingly liked to splash. He looked almost ordinary, but only almost.
“Try the kitchen,” Robyn said, not unkindly.
When the two friends hit the streets of Valetta, Robyn turned to look at Victor with one eyebrow raised.
“Can we keep him?” she squeaked in apparent imitation of him.
“He’s a good kid,” Victor said, trying not to smile too much and gazing down at the pavement. “Saved my life, remember? More than once.”
Robyn knew her friend was right: they simply hadn’t had the heart to abandon Cairo once the entire ordeal with the Breen family was over. Though that wasn’t to say he couldn’t be a handful… and that was putting it politely. It was like having a child loose in their house. Or a hyperactive untamed animal of some sort.
She was about to respond when her gaze travelled to a large, gleaming clock face embedded into the schoolhouse down the road. Her eyes widened.
“Fifteen minutes? Shit, Bower’s going to kill me… come on!”