Chapter Text
It wasn’t his dream – working as a handyman – but university master’s degree isn’t going to pay for itself, so Oscar really hadn’t had a choice but to find something to get some cash in his pockets. When a mate of his told him about the gig in his second year of bachelor’s, truthfully, Oscar wasn’t excited, but now, a year into the job, it has grown on him. Being a handyman wasn’t as graceful of a job, as Oscar was thinking he would be doing in university, like a barista or a sales assistant, but whatever puts food on his plate, right?
Wrong.
Oscar was so incredibly wrong.
See, when he got a notification about another call for help, he wasn’t expecting the house he would be working on to be such a disaster.
He arrived precisely on time, as he usually does, pressed the doorbell, and waited for the door to open in a minute or so. Instead, a nearby window flew open at once, through which he could hear loud music, something similar to club music of the 2000s but painfully distorted and somewhat off beat.
“Okay...?” Oscar muttered to himself, came closer to the window and said a bit louder, “Hello? Anyone there?”
The music stopped abruptly and, a couple moments later, a head with a fluffy, frizzy bush of curly hair stuck through the window. A pair of big surprised green eyes were now staring at Oscar on the porch.
“Oh!” he and the appeared head exclaimed in unison.
The head smiled at him with a toothy grin and slipped back into the house to later reappear in the doorway, after making a bunch of weird noises behind it. Now Oscar was able to see the owner of the head fully, and was met with a guy a bit shorter and scrawnier than himself, wearing a messy faded yellow sweatshirt with what seemed to be a bunch of splats of different nature all over it, one sleeve was rolled up to his elbow and the other hung almost to the guy’s fingertips. He was wearing what would appear to be some old swims with an atrocious Hawaiian print on them, and a pair of those plushie slippers in the shape of Sally from “Monsters Inc.”, which were, probably, the tidiest piece the guy was wearing right now.
“Hello! I’m guessing you’re the handyman, right? Wasn’t expecting you to actually be on time, sorry. And sorry for the music, I was a bit busy, and it helps me concentrate.” The guy smiled again, but didn’t move away to let Oscar in, so they were just kind of awkwardly standing, one inside the house and the other still in the doorway.
“Right, yeah,” Oscar finally said, “I was told there were problems with ventilation? I need to first see the problem to be able to tell whether I can fix it now, or I need to go get the needed tools, or if it even is unfixable— “
“Oh, nothing’s ever unfixable,” the guy said matter-of-factly, like it was an obvious truth, and Oscar was the crazy one.
“Okay, some things are, but alright,” Oscar wasn’t going to argue with a client. At least not today. “So, uh, where is the ventilation problem? Is it in one of the rooms?”
“Um, yeah about that, so it’s kind of,” the guy paused, seemingly searching for words, “everywhere? I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s what I noticed”
“Right, so it’s a heat exchanger unit problem then.”
This was met with a long blank stare from the guy and an unsure nod. The guy knows nothing about ventilation systems, not like it’s surprising, or anything.
And now they are standing in silence again, still separated by the doorway, still not having done an ounce of repairing.
“Oh, shit, right, come in!” the guy finally stepped aside, letting Oscar enter the house. He was immediately hit by the strong smell of some paint, wood and, strangely, duct tape, which he immediately found an explanation for – a frightening amount of things, movable and parts of the house, were taped up, in an attempt to fix them, he assumed. From where he was standing, he could see at least equal amount of stapled, tied or nailed together elements of the house’s interior.
“I’m Lando, by the way, sorry for keeping you outside!” the guy said and reached his hand out.
Oscar, barely out of brief shock from the sheer amount of DIY he saw, stumbled before shaking the offered hand.
“I’m Oscar, and no worries at all. You’re not my first awkward client,” Oscar said in a faint attempt to ease said awkwardness. The attempt seemed to work, since Lando smiled, what seemed to be a genuine smile, before looking up, into Oscar’s eyes.
“Good to hear, although, the word “client” is a bit icky, innit? Let’s just say we are,” Lando paused for a second, “friends to be. How about that?” he finished with excitement in his voice.
What. Was. This guy’s. Deal.
Okay, we don’t judge our clients, Oscar thought, even though he really wanted to right about now.
“Yeah, sure,” Oscar answered, not even trying to copy the same excitement in his voice, “so, uh, where is your heat exchanger, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know what that is.”
Right, Oscar thought tiredly.
“Right,” came aloud almost equally tiredly, “it looks like a big, usually white, metal, box with a bunch of pipes coming out of it.”
Nothing, not a single thought or idea behind Lando’s eyes. This is going to be a long repair.
“It’s usually somewhere high in the house, like an attic or right under the roof?”
“I mean, we can go check the attic, but, I think, there aren’t any metal boxes there”
There were several, actually.
When they reached the attic stairs, through insane amount of, what seemed to be, half-arsed, or genuinely bad, DIY, Oscar instantly saw the metal box – heat exchanger – he was talking about. The attic, surprisingly, featured a lot less “fixed it myself” projects but a lot more finished – Oscar hoped – art projects. Most of them were abstract, some more recognisable, but one, standing right next to the heat exchanger, was a stunning faceless portrait, made in great detail. From the hair on the person’s head to the clothing on the figure, you could see every string, every flake of dust – everything. It was obvious, how much time and effort were in the creation of this piece.
“This one’s not finished yet, it’s not that good,” Lando, probably seeing the attention Oscar gave the painting, approached him.
“Oh,” Oscar let out, half-turning to look at Lando over his shoulder, “why not?”
“I don’t know, I kinda…” Lando paused, lowered his gaze, kicking his feet, “lost the inspiration for it. It just wasn’t coming along like I wanted to and I— just— kinda gave up?”
“Well, hope you finish it someday,” Oscar said, smiling slightly and crouching in front of the heat exchanger, “I like it so far”
He set his bag of instruments next to him, took out a screwdriver and started unscrewing the plate on the side of the box. Once done with the first two screws, Oscar noticed Lando still standing next to him awkwardly, obviously not knowing what he’s meant to do now.
“You don’t need to be here all the time, you know,” Oscar muttered, not turning away from his work, “I’ll look at what is the problem and will come get you, if I won’t be able to fix it right away,” he said, finally looking up at Lando.
“Right, yeah, I’ll be in the studio, then,” he said, like he was ripped out of a trance, turned and abruptly started walking, before, just as abruptly stopping, turning back to Oscar, and continuing, “it’s on the ground flo— “
“I’ll find it by the blasting music, don’t worry,” Oscar interrupted him with a teasing smirk.
“Yeah,” Lando huffed a small, still awkward laugh, “okay, then, see you in a bit.”
“Yup,” answered Oscar to no one, and turned his attention back to fixing the heat exchanger.
Once the side plate was off, Oscar took a look into the mechanism and didn’t see anything obviously wrong – no smoke, no loose parts.
Must be an easy fix, then, Oscar thought.
If only he’d known how wrong he was, dear god. Nothing inside the box was making any sense, even if Oscar wasn’t particularly knowledgeable in the heat exchanger department. Not a single thing in it – aside from the screws, which simply couldn’t go anywhere but the designated spots – was where it rationally or intuitively would be. The organisation of its insides was blowing his mind and slowly turning into a headache.
Fortunately, Oscar was able to determine, that the whole problem surfaced because of the ancient tubes inside. With that, he proclaimed this to be a several days’ work, and decided to say so to Lando.
As he expected, when he and his bag of tools emerged from the attic, the whole house was shaking with music. Just like he promised, Oscar followed the music all the way to the studio. From behind the door, he could hear Lando singing along to something vaguely resembling a Rihanna song, though Oscar couldn’t be completely sure. He knocked on the door, sparing a thought about Lando not hearing it through the music, but that thought was quickly abandoned, as he heard the music stop and saw the door fly open, spitting Lando out, and just as quickly closing.
“Hi,” Lando said, looking like an embarrassed teenager hiding something or someone in his room from a snooping mom, “how’s the…uh…”
He already forgot what the damage was, Oscar thought, though not at all surprised.
“The heat exchanger,” Oscar supplied, getting a nod in return, “yeah, about that, I don’t think I will manage to fix it today. The main problem is in the tubes inside and I will need to basically rearrange the whole mechanism for them to be proper and new, and…” Oscar spared a glance at Lando, “you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Not in the slightest,” Lando replied cheerfully, “though, I’m sure you’ll manage tomorrow, or however long you need, right? Because I don’t think I’m getting proper airflow in there,” he gestured to the door behind him, “and it’s starting to mess with my head, mate.”
Oscar chuckled at that, “Yeah, I’ll manage in a couple of days, though, I was wondering, who was the last person to check on your…heat exchanger?” he asked doubting, whether Lando had already forgotten the name of his problem again, or not.
“My dad, probably, fiddled with it last, we kinda have— had a ‘fix it yourself’ policy here, so most things are— were regularly fiddled with,” Lando said interrupting and, what seemed like, correcting himself, “why?”
“It’s a bit…messy”
“Messy?” Lando asked turning his head a bit to the side. Just like a puppy, Oscar thought and immediately regretted it.
“Yes, messy, like I couldn’t find a single part that was in its place kind of messy. It’s not unfixable,” Oscar explained, ignoring Lando’s “told you”, “but it will take a bit more time than I initially expected.”
“So, what does it mean? You’ll be here longer today? Should I make you some tea?”
“Well, I can’t do much with the tools I have on me right now, so I’ll probably be back tomorrow,” Oscar checked his wrist watch while talking, “both for the repair and the tea,” he finished with his best charming smile.
Lando seemed to think about it for a moment, after a couple of seconds have passed, he looked up at Oscar only for them to speak at the same time, “What time are you available tomorrow?” “Well, come over whenever, then.”
“Oh!” they said in unison for the second time today already.
“Okay, well I can make it at one in the afternoon and be out of your hair by four without complications,” Oscar said in his “serious business talk” voice, or the best of it he could muster out right now.
“Yeah, that’d be great, I regretted saying ‘whenever’ as soon as it escaped, ‘cuz I’m not,” he emphasised the word, “waking up at six to meet you at eight, sorry, mate.”
Understandable, though, I doubt you would wake up this much in advance, Oscar thought, a bit judgementally.
“Great, then see you tomorrow at one, please don’t touch anything in the…box,” Oscar warned, already worried Lando would continue what his father started, “and I’m looking forward to that tea!” he winked as he turned to exit the house. Why would I do that holy shit.
“See you tomorrow!” Lando yelled in parting, though didn’t make an attempt to see Oscar out and close the door behind him.
Once Oscar was in his car, he spent about three minutes going over the visit in his head, in the end deeming it, although strange, pleasing and catching himself looking forward to tomorrow.
Slightly smiling to the thoughts of a messy, silly Lando still walking around in there in his plush slippers, he drove off home, only to spend much more time doing the same there almost all night long.