Fic: bare bones - chapter 2 (April Fic Challenge)

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Pretenders
Chapters: 2/?
Author:csi_sanders1129
Ratings: T
Word Count: 704
Pairings/Characters: Shaggy Rogers/Fred Jones, Scooby Doo, Daphne, Velma
Synopsis: In which Shaggy inherits a creepy, old house and hires a local handyman to help him fix it up.
Comments: Written for my April Fic Challenge 2021, Prompt: Sunshine. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!

Chapter 1 |

The next day the work begins.

Fred shows up bright and early, right on schedule. Shaggy shows up with coffee and donuts (that he only just manages to keep Scooby Doo from completely devouring). And the two of them get to it.

Fred spends most of the first week of work on the house split between the attic and the basement sorting out the absolute mess that is the wiring situation, though the rather sizable wasp nest he finds in a corner of the attic does hold things up for about half a day while he and Shaggy figure out the best way to get rid of it and on top of that there are just entirely too many bugs with entirely too many legs crawling around the basement for anyone's comfort.

Shaggy, meanwhile, spends most of his first week hauling the seemingly never-ending piles of junk out of the house and filling up the dumpster he had delivered – he's going to need another soon enough. He tosses out the broken furniture and the stacks of newspapers and some of the more haggard looking taxidermy specimens. As he comes across things that are in good enough condition to donate or sell, he starts piling that stuff up in one room, so that it's out of the way enough for him to keep cleaning.

By the time Fred is ready to deal with the wiring in individual rooms, Shaggy has most of the junk cleared out of them, enough for him to get the access he needs to the walls, at least.

"Need a break?" Shaggy asks, bearing ice cold glasses of lemonade sometime just after noon, and Fred accepts eagerly, joining Shaggy and Scooby on the front porch where they've cobbled together enough junk to serve as a table and chairs. They sit in the shade, where a rare cool breeze gives them a little relief from the stifling Georgia sunshine that relentlessly beats down upon them.

The inside of the house isn't much better. It's roasting in there and Shaggy's already determined that his next project will involve getting the windows – which all seem to have been painted very decisively shut decades ago – to open. He's hoping that even the meager wind will help air out the stagnant house a bit. He'll have to clean them, too. They're coated in a thick layer of dust that doesn't let in much sunlight at all.

"How's the wiring going?"

Fred sips his drink and laughs, "As bad as it was, it's going better than I expected," he says, "I'm almost finished with the office. I'll be able to get started on the library before I leave. Speaking of, I might know someone who can help you out with the books. A friend of mine runs a used bookstore in town. I can call her if you want, see if she's interested?"

"That'd be great," he says. "I can use all the help I can get with this place."

"You can say that again," Fred agrees. "I should be done with the wiring early next week, so long as there are no major problems in the rest of the rooms."

"Then plumbing?"

"Then plumbing," he confirms. "Once that's done and the house is…well, debatably livable, you're going to start staying here, right?"

Shaggy nods. For now, with barely functional electricity and haphazard plumbing, Shaggy's been staying at a hotel back in town. "Yeah. I think I'll set up in that room off the kitchen. That one's out of the way enough that it won't be a problem." He doesn't even consider picking a room upstairs – there's still too much to do up there and the summer sun has made the conditions even more unbearable there.

Fred seems on board with his choice though. "I'll get to that room tomorrow, then," he decides, "And I'll swap out the fixtures while I'm at it." He downs the last of his drink. "I should get back to work. Thanks for the lemonade."

"Like, anytime," Shaggy says, gathering up the glasses as Fred braces himself for his return to the overpowering heat of the house's interior. Shaggy does the same. He has a fight to win against some stubborn windows.