Or, Crewel learns what can happen to a dorm when there is no one taking care of it for 50-some years
AN: I started writing this one on a lark, but I really liked it so I figured, why not post it? There's a lot of little background things that I haven't gotten into in this story but I may get to them in a later chapter.
Crewel wasn't a fan of the Ramshackle Dorm. As far as he was concerned, it was an eyesore on the esteemed Night Raven College's campus. He'd never understood why the Headmage hadn't had the place torn down and replaced with something more useful to the school after the dorm had been shut down.
Although, at the moment, he supposed it was a good thing that he hadn't done that. Since it gave them a place for the magic-less puppy to stay after the school carriages accidentally snatched him.
(They needed to have that checked out. The carriages picking up people who weren't even students was a problem.)
He was uncouth and unrefined, but at least he seemed to be sensible.
The puppy had taken time to approach each teacher after class and warn them that some of his assignments may be turned in late throughout the year, as he had to do repairs to the dorm he was staying in along with the work he needed to meet the school's criteria. And the unspoken fact that he would be doing all that by hand on his own, as the barely tolerated familiar staying with him would be all-but-useless for such a task.
Crewel did have to give the puppy credit. He wasn't afraid of hard work or getting his hands dirty.
But he had begun to wonder if, perhaps, such a task would be too much for a single student to manage alone.
The buckled floor head found when the student led him to the mostly cleaned sitting room certainly suggested it. (Sort of cleaned? It seemed cleaner than the great of the place at the moment. The whole place was still repulsive.) It was the first of many clues as to the house's state.
Though he couldn't help raising a brow at the chairs lying on their sides near a very large garbage bag. And with the windows wide open as well, the curtains he knew had once been there were gone.
Upon closer inspection of the heaps, he could see rubber gloves and a rather sharp-looking knife lying there as well. The puppy caught the look and let out a huff.
"Yeah, you're gonna want to sit on the plain wood chairs in here, Prof. Anythin' with cloth on it is a giant mold patch now thanks to the leaky roof and the cracked windows. I'm carving as much of it off as I can to throw it out." He rocked back on his heels, nodding to the garbage bag. Well, that explained that. "Might be able to salvage the wood parts, but the cushions are goners. Grim is outside with Ace studying because this shi- er, stuff was making him sick. I've been tying a rag that I got from the school store over my face to keep from feeling the same."
Ah, mold. Yes, that made sense for how old the dorm was and how long it's been since anyone was staying there. Of course, there would be- Wait.
"Leaking roof?" he asked, a trickle of alarm in the back of his mind. Water leaks could do a lot of damage, but when it froze and melted during the winters…
"Oh yeah, the roof's got a lot of them. Found out during the storm a couple days ago. Had to dig through every closet I could find to get enough buckets for 'em." He let out a gusty sigh, scratching at his still-growing mustache. He glanced upward with a grimace. "I'm dreading when I finally get to clearin' out the top floors of this place. Which is why I wanted to ask you about stuff for clearing out mold."
He pointed to a door further down the hall, his jaw setting.
"Especially for the bathroom down there. I think one of the old students forgot some medicine in the cabinet when they left the dorm. I wouldn't be surprised if it could get up and walk by now if it felt like it, so I need something strong to get rid of it. Even if I can't use the bathrooms very much right now."
"And what makes you say that?" Crewel asked. Surely the bathrooms weren't that disgusting.
"Cause the pipes might blow if do."
What.
"The pipes have probably frozen over multiple times over the years. So it's probably messed them up a lot." He continued, not even noticing the way his new teacher had frozen. "If you send pipes into full use after something like that, it can cause the weakened seals to burst, and you can't just patch 'em or else you might end up breakin' them up in your hands. I'd love to hire a pro to take a look at 'em and see how much can be safely patched and how much would be better off replaced but…"
He shrugged helplessly at Crewel. He didn't need to finish the sentence.
Because of his arrival, he had nothing but the clothes on his back. And he certainly had no money to do all the repairs and refurbishing that Ramshackle needed to be inhabitable for a student. Surely the headmage was allowing some form of budget to cover the boy's efforts to restore the dorm? He wasn't expecting the boy to do it all out of his own pocket by working at the school store, was he?
The boy certainly couldn't ask his parents to help pay for it all…
"And how much of this is our esteemed headmage helping cover?" The puppy tilted his head in confusion. He felt his heart sinking. "The headmage has given you a budget for this work, hasn't he?"
"No? He hasn't really said anything about helping cover the repair costs for this place. Ace, uh, one of the Heartsyble guys, has been helping with food ever since he got booted from his dorm for eating a tart from the communal fridge without asking first. Most of it's dry stock but… Yeah." He looked a bit uncomfortable, glancing back toward the kitchen.
(By the Seven, he didn't even want to think about the state of the kitchen if the rest of the building was anything to go by.)
Crewel was rapidly re-evaluating the knowledge he'd had about the dorm, the skills of his student, and the stupidity of the headmage for just dumping a student there without even considering the health and safety risks of them staying there.
He took in a breath, held it, and then slowly let it out.
"We will make a list. Of the essentials needed for this building to be comfortable, and safe to live in for however long you're going to be here. I will call the needed people to get price evaluations and speak with the headmage about setting a repair budget for your work." He looked down at the student in front of him, who stilled at the sharpened edge of his gaze. "If you are going to be doing the work restoring this building yourself, then you need the funds to do it right. Now, show me the rooms you've been looking at using and we can start building up the basics."
This was going to be far more work than he had been ready for, never mind a lone, magicless student that had been abducted and left to (practically) fend for themselves. (The dorm barely counted as a safe place to stay in its current state.)
And Crewel fully planned to make Crowly share in the misery as well, until he put in the work to fix it.
(Crowly was not ready for the list of extreme hazards that their student was facing being thrown on his desk by the furious Crewel. But it took very little persuading to set a budget to rebuild the dorm. They could justify why the abandoned dorm needed this much work to the school board later. For now, they needed to ensure their student wasn't poisoned by airborne mold spores or worse while they were stuck at the school.)
(Cab was just happy when Crewel told him that both a plumber and a handyman had been booked to come by in a few days to take a look at the bathrooms and Kitchen.)