Standard Disclaimer: No recognizable characters are mine.
Notes: Based on a discussion on the LJ A-Team Prompt community: young Murdock's babysitters. The discussion veered towards cracky; this however, is more melancholy. This could be set within in the TV!verse, but my mind's eye tends to see the characters from the movie, so I'm putting it here. Feel free to substitute a younger version of whichever Murdock you prefer.
Enjoy!
There was a list held by a magnet that looked like a daisy on the refrigerator.
Bedtime is 8:30
NO TV until homework and chores are done
No sugar
No red dye
No telephone
No climbing on the roof
No going near the electric fence
NO snakes brought indoors
No chasing/roping/riding cattle . . .
The list was organic in that occasionally it grew. Like he did, although it didn't have little pencil marks on the doorframe to mark it. New objectives were added as needed.
Most sitters didn't need the list. Granma didn't, that was for sure; she even added to it. The ladies from the church—Granma's friends—didn't either. They knew the rules, just like he did, and as long as he was quiet, they let him alone so they could watch their stories on the TV.
"NO TV" didn't count towards them. He supposed it didn't really count towards him either, when they watched, especially when sometimes they wanted him to turn the dial ("Don't spin it so fast!") to a different station so they didn't have to get up off the sofa.
He hated their stories. Everyone on them was too pretty, too perfect, with problems that made no lick of sense. He had to do things to keep from being bored!
Usually after he got bored the list got bigger.
He knocked some of the dust off his broken down sneakers ("Shoes off in the mudroom") before kicking them into a pile of footwear after school, and went into the kitchen. He was allowed a snack after school, after getting off the bus, before doing his homework, and Granma and the ladies from the church usually had a dry sandwich and glass of milk waiting for him.
He pulled up short at the teenager in the kitchen. A young lady, his Granma would say.
She looked up from the book she'd been reading on the window seat and smiled.
"You must be Hamish," she said. "Hi!"
note: Also in discussion was Murdock's first name. I understand many people who write A-Team fanfic have settled on 'James' for him. I personally don't care for it. I prefer something that goes along with his initials (H.M.), and wanted something that was going to fit him but also be something he'd maybe just want to forgo and use his initials instead. Creative license, I suppose.