searchingfordistraction

Entry tags:

moving day

". . . you want me to what?"

"I know you heard me."

"I think," Moran said, "it's time we discuss my next pay rise."

Jim rolled his eyes. "This isn't a job, Seb, it's a favor. You're free to say no."

Moran eyed him for a moment. Then he pulled out his mobile.

Long story short, here he is now, in a fake flat, with fake possessions in need of fake removal to another fake flat, with Jim all kitted up as Rich Brook on the sofa next to him, waiting for the doorbell to announce the arrival of a man who decided Icarus Removals was the kind of name that would inspire confidence in potential customers.

Jim fucking owes him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Martin notices this, and the look that comes with damaging something that's a bit expensive to replace.

"Is it all right?" he asks, loading this set of boxes into the van.

He has no inkling of any subterfuge going on. Because that would just be a mean, horrible trick to play on someone.

Rich would never play a trick like that on someone. It would be wrong.

Frowning slightly, his focus more on the mobile than on Martin, he is calmer and more together than he has been since Martin first turned up.

". . . Yeah, I think so," he says, his expression clearing as he runs his thumb over the screen. "I need a cover for this thing, I'm not going to keep getting lucky like this."

"They come pretty cheaply now," says Martin. "I'd suggest the sort that break apart, instead of those squidgy ones. They protect your phone better."

Spoken like someone who's lost a phone or two to damage.

He finishes with the boxes and starts back inside. He has no idea what Rich is doing, and figures he's probably avoiding him, since people do tend to do that after a while. Probably for the best, because just because nothing will ever happen between the two of them doesn't mean Martin doesn't still want it to.

This time Rich does follow him in, saying,

"I'll remember that, thanks."

(The inscription on the box Seb finished with earlier catches his attention; he glances at it and doesn't quite roll his eyes.)

Martin loads up the last of the packed boxes, and before taking them out to the van as well, casts a quick glance around the flat.

Moran wasn't kidding about failure to pack. Oh well. If Martin were a disreputable removalist, he'd go relax in his van while these two increased the size of their bill.

Instead, he takes these boxes down and comes right back up to help pack the rest of it.

Crieff will be getting a decent tip out of this fuck-up of a day, at least. That'll probably be down to Moran, as Jim is likely to get bored and invent a reason to leave long before that detail crops up, and Moran appreciates proper professional behavior when he sees it.

Martin likes return business, and he doesn't get it by being like any of the other ten a penny removalists out there.

He takes the packed boxes down to the van as they fill up, and soon, the van itself fills up.

"I can't get much more in there without risking anything getting broken. One of you want to go with to let me into the other one so I can unload what we've got so far?"

He knows the horrible old van his dad left him is rather crap for this sort of work, but it's better than nothing.

And Jim is, inexplicably, still here, so Moran knows what the correct answer is to that.

"Yeah, I'll finish up here," he says, digging his keys out of his pocket and tossing them to Jim.

Who promptly drops them and scrabbles a bit to pick them up again.

". . . okay. Yeah."

Smooth.

Martin doesn't even give Seb an annoyed look or anything. He just cocks his head toward the door.

"Ready?" he asks once Rich has the keys back in his hands.

"Yep."

He shoves the keys into his pocket.

"Ready."

Martin heads back outside and unlocks the front door for Rich before heading to the back of the van to make sure everything's secured and locked up back there. There's nothing worse than having everything fall out on a busy A-road.

Well, except for maybe having everything fall out on a busy motorway.

Convinced neither of these will happen, he gets into the cab and goes through a quick (silent) checklist of everything up there before starting out.

"Marylebone, right?" he asks, confirming what he wrote down during the phone call with Seb earlier.

"Yeah," Rich says, going on to add a few details that Martin no doubt also has written down already.

He does seem more relaxed than earlier, though, now everything is in full swing. Even he can't be awkward forever, not when there's no concrete reason to.

And of course there isn't. He was just surprised before, is all. He's never met a fellow Milliways patron back home before.

Speaking of, narratively speaking...

"Does your friend go there at all?" he asks. "Milliways, I mean. Not Marylebone."

He laughs quietly, though not the sort of nervous titter that happens when he's absolutely failing to chat someone up.

He smiles in unconscious reaction to the sound of it.

"Not when he can avoid it," he says. "It's a bit much for him. He thought he was going mad until I let slip about it one night when we were drinking. And even then he half-thought for a while that he was contagious or something. I guess it's not for everyone."

"Yeah, I wasn't sure what to make of it at first. There was some kid there who thought I was someone else, which wasn't really helping."

Three guesses who.

He's just as cautious with his driving as he is with anything else, and if he takes a bit longer at a stop sign than most people would, well... he wants to make sure there's nothing in his blind spots, is all.

"Oh!" he remembers, "that reminds me, well, sort of, I've got a double there too. I mean like actually me, another Richard Brook. So. In case you run into him and he doesn't know you, that's him. Uh, not me blowing you off. Sorry I forgot to mention last time."

He thinks it's only polite. He'd hate for Martin to get his feelings hurt by his double because Rich didn't think to mention the man's existence.

"Yeah, I have one too, apparently. Only the other one has a pet penguin or something." If he doesn't sound like he knows what he's talking about, it's because he doesn't.

"At least, that's what Arthur says."

And everything Arthur says should probably be taken with a few grains of salt.

"But, I guess the same thing goes for me, then."

". . . oh."

He blinks.

"Okay. I'll just keep an eye out for the penguin, then, that should tip me off."

"I can't actually vouch for the penguin. Or anything else," Martin warns. "But I do apparently have a few doubles who aren't actually me, but taller and better looking."

And just all around more successful at everything, but that's beside the point.

Rich does not say, does not even think, that he finds that hard to believe.

(Not least because of his supposed employer, but Jim tucks that inconvenient detail away for the time being.)

"'Apparently'?" he repeats. "Is that how people describe them? That's a bit rude."

"They're not ginger," Martin says in a way that suggests he would give his left arm to permanently get rid of that little detail about himself.

And the freckles, too. Damn the freckles.

A late-model Lexus cuts them off, and Martin just barely avoids hitting it.

"Very cute. What are you even doing out here?" he asks the Lexus.

He does not give it the satisfaction of blowing his horn at it.

Whatever Rich had been about to say - probably something about liking gingers that would sound appropriately reassuring in his head and completely embarrassing out loud - is lost to posterity when the Lexus cuts them off. He gives a surprised little yelp instead.

"It's... fine. He does that all the time," Martin says, sounding exactly like someone who is frequently cut-off by a late-model Lexus.

"Are you all right?"

He's pretty sure Rich hasn't been injured, but he does look pretty nervous.

Lucky they're almost to the other flat.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Now he mostly looks embarrassed by his own reaction. He runs his hand through his hair, asking,

"Do you know him?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject