Title: Remodeling
Author: SneetchesToo
Rating: PG
Pairing: Rox and Ethan friendship; hints at Ethan/Leanne; also hints at some Ethan/Mario bromance, because let's be real, its bound to happen
Summary: Rox is curious as to how exactly Ethan manages to live in that house of is.
Author's Note: I couldn't help myself.
Ethan had just settled down at a table in the cafeteria, a cup of coffee and something that somewhat resembled a breakfast burrito on the table in front of him, when he heard the chair across from him being pulled back. Expecting it to be Leanne, or possibly even Ariel, he didn't pay any mind to his new visitor, instead, he pushed his plate outward, offering his guest some of his food.
"No thanks." Rox's voice was the last he expected to hear but he refused to take his eyes off of his phone, praying that maybe she would go away and leave him be.
After she had showed up at his house this morning, and then subsequently let herself in, he had been on edge around her. His house was a sacred place, his sacred place, and only people he really trusted were allowed inside. In fact, other than Leanne and Ariel, Mario and Noa were the only people who had ever been there, despite having lived in LA for several years. However, it was definitely not a place that he had planned on ever inviting Rox into. Especially not after she had caused such a rift between him and Leanne. Not when the simple mention of her name was enough to send Leanne into a tizzy. He had been incredibly thankful that Ariel had still been asleep when she had showed up, because he could only imagine how that would've gone down.
"Why is your place such a mess?" Rox's question broke him from his thoughts and he let out a sigh when he realized that she wasn't going to go away. "Haven't you been in LA for a while?"
"I'm remodeling." He spat out, his hand reaching out to pull his plate back toward him. He stabbed at it with his fork as he brought his eyes up to hers.
"Remodeling?" What exactly did she think he was doing there anyway? Did she really think that he just lived in a dump?
"Place was a disaster when I moved in." He mumbled around his bite of food. "My bathroom was magenta."
"Magenta?" It was true, the disgusting shade of pink had made him gag when he first looked at the house. But then the realtor had said that the owner was willing to take almost $3000 off if he didn't request any kind of 'aesthetic' changes and Ethan had figured that he could make it work.
"I didn't make that choice." Why anyone would he had never understood.
"Is it still magenta?" Of course it wasn't still magenta, what did she think he was, crazy?
"No. The color legit hurt my eyes." It did hurt his eyes, a lot, and even thinking about it was putting a bad taste in his mouth. "And Ariel said the wallpaper border of tiny cherubs gave her nightmares."
"Cherubs?" So in truth he hadn't actually done anything with the bathroom until last summer when Ariel started staying with him. Mainly because he had just learned to deal with it, but also because he figured he couldn't be living in a house that looked like it belonged in a Stephen King novel with a teenager around.
"It was the first room I tore apart." Which was true. Other than ripping up his front porch and replacing it almost immediately after moving in he had done nothing other than a few minor fixes around the place. He really didn't spend that much time at the house back then. And he had left for a 14 month deployment not long after he bought the place, so he wasn't really around much. But after getting the job at Angels, after growing closer to Leanne and Ariel, he had started spending more time at the place and had started to realize just how horrible it really was.
"Was the whole place like that?" He wanted to tell her that it still was, but she had seen the living room, so surely she knew that it wasn't all still painted horrific colors.
"Oh you have no idea." However, at one point, it totally had been. His bedroom had been various shades of teal, and not a pretty teal either, a disgusting shade of teal that made him dizzy. And his kitchen, well he didn't even have to turn the lights on at night the fluorescent orange was so bright.
"It didn't look so bad." Well of course not, he had done a lot of work to it over the past year. "Other than the fact that you have no furniture. And there's sawdust everywhere."
"I put down new floors." He took another bite of his burrito and silently reminded himself to never make that choice again. He had had better things out of a pouch.
"You mean someone put them down for you?" Her question brought his attention to her once more and he raised an eyebrow. Did she think he was capable of doing anything?
"No. I did it myself." In reality, he and Mario had done it, but he figured he would take the credit since the younger man probably didn't want anyone to know that he spent three consecutive weekends laying down wood floors in Ethan's house.
"You did not?" He wanted to tell her to ask Mario for proof.
"Yeah." But he figured that wouldn't end well for him at all.
"Between work and Ariel when did you have time?" He really didn't know how they managed to get it all done in three weekends. And they worked on top of it.
"I don't sleep much." And in truth, apparently neither did Mario, because they seemed to do the majority of their work in the middle night while the girls slept down the hall. How they hadn't all murdered each other he would never understand.
"So you're remodeling it yourself then?" Wasn't that part obvious?
"Every last bit." And it was true. He was going to do it all himself, well mostly. He had enlisted Mario's help for the floors, and they had plans to put in new windows in the upcoming weeks. Leanne and Ariel had tasked Noa with helping them strip the atrocious wallpaper down and paint. But he surely wasn't paying anyone to do the work for him, except for in beer and pizza. "Except for the new plumbing in the kitchen. I don't mess with anything that has to do with water or sewage."
"Well that certainly explains why it's taken you so long to get anything done." He resented that remark. He had been working real hard over the past year to make progress on the house. And while it still looked like a hot mess, it was much better than the horror film set he had bought.
"It's a work in progress." He shrugged his shoulders as he took another bite of his food. No matter how horrible it tasted he couldn't seem to get enough.
"And Ariel doesn't mind?" He wondered what her fascination with asking questions about Ariel was. She seemed awfully interested in his relationship with the teen.
"Well she didn't." And that part was also true. She had hated the horrible mess that it had once been and she told Ethan that there was noway she was sleeping in the room with the ugly clown wallpaper. She had had nightmares her first night there and he remembered laughing at her. Until she made him switch rooms with her and he woke up in the middle night feeling like he was being watched. They had started tearing down the wallpaper the following day. "Until I put her bed in the dining room and ripped her closet doors off."
"Your teenager daughter is sleeping in your dining room?" And then he had decided to completely remodel her room two weeks ago and make it more appropriate for a teenager. Which was also code for letting her spend all his money on buying new furniture and decorations, including building a desk into the former window seat.
"There's a door. She can close it." Which was exactly what he had told Leanne when she gave him the same reaction. She had wanted to tell Ethan that maybe Ariel should just stay at her place until he was done, but that had lasted all of two nights before Leanne claimed she needed him to keep an eye on her. Which was code for she was driving Leanne insane.
"You're ridiculous." Maybe he was, but he seemed to be doing just fine.
"She doesn't seem to mind." At first Ariel had thought it was weird sleeping next to the dining room table, but then she discovered that she could have snacks in the middle of the night and not have to bother Ethan to get them. "It's closer to the kitchen. And much further away from me."
"So where did all of your stuff go?" It's not like he had much to begin with. His living room furniture just moved into the den, his table got pushed against a wall, and the bedroom furniture had been evenly dispersed throughout the house. He and Ariel had seemed to make do living out of suitcases for the past few months.
"Some of it's in the garage. Some in the shed." He didn't mention that his garage was also housing a rundown 1967 Corvette that was missing an engine and a left front tire. Or that his shed housed more tools than a Home Depot. "A few pieces are at Leanne's."
"You're keeping your furniture at Dr. Rorish's house?" What was so weird about that? He had gotten the same reaction from Jesse when he had told him.
"Yeah. Well not so much my furniture, more like my breakables." It was true. His boxes of valuables, what little bit he had anyway, were at Leanne's for safe keeping. "I don't really trust those in anyone else's care."
"How long do you think this remodel will take?" His brother had asked him that question when he had first bought the place. He had sent him pictures of the horrific nightmare that he had walked into and Jack had teased him mercilessly about his horrible taste.
"Well, it's been over a year since I officially started," Although he had done minor repairs off and on over the past seven, "and all I've done is put down new floors and buy a new stove..." His hope was to have it done by the time Ariel moved out. "So... another five years probably."
"Ariel will be in college!" Apparently Rox found that idea just as appalling as Leanne did.
"Then I can turn her room into an office!" Which was also true, he had his eye on that window seat turned desk as it was, but he had been unable to convince the teen to switch rooms with him. She claimed that she liked the view from hers better.
"I can't with you." He was perfectly fine with that, especially when he saw Jesse making his way toward them. He knew that he was the one who had been ratting him out to Leanne, telling her about how they had shared a few drinks at the pub, how they were always making small talk. He knew Jesse was just looking out for her, but he really didn't want to fight about it anymore.
"I gotta go." He grabbed his phone without another word, leaving his dishes on the table with a huff as he stood, pushing his chair in quickly. "Finish that burrito will ya?" And then he was gone, praying to God that Jesse hadn't seen them together, or that if he had, he didn't think twice of it.
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