Disclaimer: I don't own the Scarecrow. I'm working on it, but so far nothing has panned out.
This is part of the CAT series; it takes place after BiteMeTechie's "Don't Make Me Axe You Again" and before my "TINSTAAFL." It is now available on the timeline at freewebs dot com slash catverse. At the time I wrote it, this story came as a surprise even to me. It was written mostly in a laundromat in San Francisco on the notorious Road Trip of Doom.
Enjoy!
Net Gain
Something was wrong.
Well, that wasn't very specific, or out of the ordinary. Better to say that something else was wrong. Something new. Something undefined and unexpected.
Jonathan Crane was not a morning person. He did not appreciate being woken up at a thoroughly unreasonable hour by the feeling that a train was passing within feet of the building. Especially when he knew perfectly well that he didn't live anywhere near the tracks.
So what was that rumbling? Why did he feel a slight vibration as he heard something rocking back and forth?
He stumbled over to the door and then froze, remembering at the last moment that he was no longer alone in the lair. He couldn't just walk around in his skivvies when there could be three giggling women looking around every corner. In fact, he was going to have to find a more secure way to lock his door at night. He didn't trust their promise to stay out.
He couldn't even begin to define what moment of weakness or temporary insanity had induced him to allow them to stay. Even they had seemed confused. He hadn't been nearly so amenable before.
But it wasn't as if he would be keeping them forever. He estimated three weeks at most before they outlived their usefulness and his newly acquired minions became just another set of test subjects.
He threw on yesterday's clothes, not at all in the mood to be fastidious when something was rattling his floorboards.
The noise increased when he opened his door and ventured out into the hall. It was coming from…the kitchen?
Oh, no. Something told him he should turn back while he still could. He didn't want to know from personal experience why Al wasn't allowed in the kitchen.
But he was still not a morning person. Once committed to a certain course of action, it was going to take far more than some vague sense of self-preservation to make him change his mind. Besides, the kitchen was where the coffee was.
He had to stop for a moment in confusion when he ran into a wet towel.
Why was there a wet towel strung across the doorway? He pushed it out of his way and stumbled into what they had dubbed the "common room," (common, not family) a large, spartan area furnished with an elderly television set, a rickety coffee table, and the couch he had found in the basement when he'd moved in.
At least, that was how it usually looked. Now it was far from spartan, with lines running back and forth across the room, hung with sheets, towels, and more women's clothing than he had ever seen in one place outside of a department store.
Crane edged away from the row of bras—dozens of them, in three different sizes and every color and style imaginable, a teenage boy's fantasy brought to life.
What the devil were they doing? The clothes all looked wet. Had one side of the lair flooded? Had a pipe burst? What the hell?
He reached out to touch the nearest item, a lacy black A cup, to see how damp it was.
"Squishykins! You pervert!"
Oh, no. He snatched his hand back, feeling irrationally guilty. Not that he got his kicks from fondling girls' underwear. And he shouldn't have to explain himself to the three women staring at him from the kitchen door.
And grinning. They always grinned like that when they thought they had caught him "being human"—showing some weakness, admitting some imaginary form of affection, even eating the food they gave him was grounds for smirking.
He hated them when they looked like that.
"What the devil are you three up to this time?" he demanded.
"Laundry," said Al. "Ain't it great?"
Laundry? He glared at her.
"There's a laundromat down the street. Why are there wet…things in my lair?"
"We didn't feel like making the trip every week. Besides, people use laundromats. I'm sure you have things you don't want to be seen. So we brought the laundromat to us."
"You stole a washing machine?" She nodded cheerfully. "And not a dryer?"
"Well…those things are heavy." She favored him with a winning smile.
"Does this building even have the proper hookups?"
"It does now," Techie said.
Crane sighed. Then, for lack of anything better to do, he sighed again.
"What does that mean?"
They giggled.
He really hated them when they giggled.
"Stop that," he snapped. They giggled more. "Either stop laughing or share the joke."
"But you won't think it's funny," said the Captain. "You never laugh at anything, Squishykins. You have no sense of humor."
"Try me."
"Okay, well…we have this axe…" She gave him a shrug and a hopeful grin.
"Ha," he said dryly. They giggled again. "Is anything going to collapse or explode?"
"Probably not."
He sighed yet again, wondering how they could possibly manage to be that exasperating without even trying.
"Anything you may have chopped your way through is going to need reinforcement before it falls in. After you take care of that, I want you to go back to wherever you got the washing machine and either return it or get a dryer. I'm not having all this mess in here."
"You're a sexy devil when you're giving orders, Master," the Captain purred. He deftly avoided the hand she tried to put on his arm, and she laughed at his discomfort and backed off.
"Don't touch me, do as you're told, and stay out of my lab. I have work to do today, and if you disturb me, so help me I'll remove your spleens."
They all giggled again. How was he supposed to intimidate them when they just giggled at all his threats?
"Can I do your laundry?" asked Al. He glared at her.
"No."
"But you're stinky." She grinned.
Stinky? Oh, damn. That would turn into another nickname if he let it.
"Fine. Do my laundry if that's what it takes to shut you up. Just leave me alone while you do it."
"Does that mean you don't want a sandwich?" the Captain asked. He ignored her, continuing to glare at Al.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Oh, just working out the best way to get you out of your pants."
Swearing under his breath, Crane turned and left the room. There was just no other way to respond. They all collapsed in a fit of giggles behind him. He refused to give them the satisfaction of a backward glance.
This was not going to work out. He could not deal with having three women living in his home, chopping holes in his walls and hanging frilly things in his doorways.
It didn't help that he did want a sandwich. He couldn't go back and get one, though. Returning to the kitchen now would just give them more occasion to giggle.
And he was not giving them an excuse for that.
He stripped the sheets off his bed and cringed inwardly when he realized just how long it had been since he had slept on clean bedding in his own home. Any place he lived was going to be temporary, anyway, so there didn't seem to be much point in keeping things clean. As long as there was nothing blatantly unsanitary, he hardly even noticed anymore.
He couldn't have slept on these sheets more than ten times, total, but they hadn't been changed in over a year.
So. He wasn't going to admit that it was a good thing that they were taking care of this…but maybe it wasn't entirely unacceptable.
He dumped the sheets in the hallway just outside his door, along with all the clothes that had been putting off washing. He hesitated over allowing them the option of pawing over his underwear, but…well, it wasn't as if they were going to find anything they could use against him. He wouldn't assume they had too much respect for him to do anything stupid, but as long as everything came back clean and in its original condition, he was willing to lie to himself.
But God help them if they turned anything pink.
Shower. A shower would be good, provided they hadn't used all the hot water. Shower. Then breakfast. Then, once he was properly awake, he could spend the rest of the day in the lab. Alone. Perfect.
Shower first.
xXx
The girls finished hanging up the rest of the wet laundry, still giggling. Their last load was in the machine. After that, there was just whatever the Scarecrow trusted them with, and they would be done.
A good day's work, in Al's opinion. Laundry skills were so much more useful than cooking or scrubbing floors.
She took a moment to inspect the back of the machine. Amazingly enough, the connections hadn't leaked at all. So the Captain was right when she said, "Duct tape fixes everything." (That was the polite version, anyway.)
She was just standing up again when the wall twitched and she heard a loud bang from the general direction of the Scarecrow's room, followed by a startled exclamation.
"Um…which pipe did you tap into?" she called to her friends. Techie and the Captain walked very slowly back into the room.
The expressions on their faces told her all the needed to know.
"Oh, my God, y'all. Hide the axe."
Author's note: Thank you for reading! Next on the menu is the April Fools' Day yumminess of "TINSTAAFL." Change your socks!