Work Text:
Sighing, Mel leans against the counter in the laundry room before checking the time on the dryer once more.
It feels like it’s been running forever, which actually might not be far off given that this is the fourth (and, thankfully, final) load of the day.
She’s already decluttered the counters in here—why do they have three different bottles of Windex?—and tackled the main things in their bedroom—reorganizing nightstands, dusting the dressers and lamps—while waiting for the washer and dryer to chime at various intervals.
In the long run, she knows it’s a benefit, that it keeps her from spiraling spectacularly once a year, but right now she wishes she could just be enjoying their weekend off.
The second one in as many weeks.
It’s really a small miracle, one that should be celebrated.
No, instead she’s thrown both her and Frank into a mountain of “spring” cleaning.
It’s mid-August.
But it was something she’d implemented years ago.
Not long after they’d lost their mom and she was struggling—fighting—to find a routine for her and Becca. Something that meant they could both thrive.
It probably hadn’t helped that she was still buried under grief, but there had come a weekend when she looked around at the piles of paperwork, the blankets thrown haphazardly over every piece of furniture they still had, and had screamed until she cried.
Luckily Becca had been at the other end of the house, headphones on as she painted.
Still, Mel vowed to never let it happen again.
It actually ended up being the first thing she could solve easily; tackling how to keep their space admirably liveable. Inviting and warm, full of them but without the chaos that made her feel itchy.
Spring cleaning became Monthly Prophylaxis, a weekend each month (sometimes every other depending on how busy things got) where they’d reorganize things, dust and clean, wash all their bedding and towels.
And since some tasks don’t need to be tackled every time, Mel came up with a chart. A core group of items (the linens, dusting, etc.) and then everything else rotated in and out. March meant flipping the mattress; June: cleaning out the medicine cabinet; August: reorganizing the fridge.
Frank had gotten roped into it not even two weeks after they started dating and he hadn’t protested at all.
Said her focus and precision was hot.
Even three years later it makes her blush.
Knowing that what others (even some friends) viewed as too bizarre or regimented was something he found attractive.
The dryer is, somehow, still running and she taps her foot against the floor, wondering if she accidentally bumped the timer up when she tossed the last bunch of sheets in.
The kids' bedding really shouldn’t be taking this long.
Tanner and Penny had just spent an extended summer break with them, two and a half weeks where they managed to only work a handful of days each—they were going to be covering for every emergency call out for the next three months; neither of them cared—and stayed up past everyone’s bed time.
It had been great, perfect, but now all their things had to be thrown in with the rest to be cleaned.
It’s not a big deal, it just somehow added a whole extra washing cycle to the day.
The time finally appears to be dwindling—honestly, it seemed to be stuck at ten minutes for at least the last fifteen—and she cups her hands against the door, watching the colors spin.
She loves the whimsy of the kids’ sets—sharks for Tanner, dinosaurs for Penny—and doing things for them is never a hardship.
She’s already covered their mattresses with fresh sheets, the fun Halloween ones Becca insisted on buying them after they all watched A Nightmare Before Christmas.
(Yes, it’s still August but her pumpkin chai is back, Mel is ready for Halloween things.
They both are.
Frank had spent part of family vacation trying to come up with a group costume Tanner would approve of.
Penny is still perfectly happy to go with the flow.)
At least their sheets are much smaller than the ones for her and Frank’s king—no, he could not stop laughing when they went furniture shopping—bed.
It’s just a lot of sorting and folding, trying to keep track of what belongs where.
And it’s not like things are in complete chaos, the house feels lived in in a way she misses when the kids aren’t here.
But she does not remember the laundry taking this long before. Maybe she’s somehow fallen into an episode of The X-Files where some creature has lured her here in hopes of eventually sucking her into the lint trap.
Laughing at herself, she glances at her watch.
Honestly, she’s in a good spot, though there’s still—
She shivers, a blast of cool air drifting down from the vent above her as she ducks to double check that everything is out of the washer.
The podcast she’s been listening to is just ending and she contemplates swapping to some music before deciding against it. It shouldn’t take too much longer to get these sorted and then she can go find Frank.
She often has him to keep her company in these lulls, but he’s been struggling to put a new set of bookshelves together all afternoon.
The loud buzz from the dryer rings at last and she flings the door open, almost hitting it against the wall in her excitement.
Pulling the sheets out, she piles them on top of the ones from the previous load and then scoops up the whole mountain, carrying it into their bedroom and tossing them onto the foot of the bed.
It doesn’t take long to sort everything out—shark sheets, dinosaurs, their navy striped set—but folding it all becomes its own nightmare.
The pillowcases are always easiest so she starts there, pulling the opposite corners together and then turning the material until she makes each one into a small triangle that tucks into itself.
The flat sheets follow. Again, not too hard, though she wishes Frank was here to help with the one for their bed; her arms just aren’t long enough and she ends up draping it between the side of the bed and the storage bench against the wall, hoping she doesn’t drag it across the floor in the process.
Which only leaves, goddamnit, the fitted sheets.
Briefly, she wonders if she should open another YouTube tutorial, but they never, ever work so she decides to just get on with it.
Power through.
They just need to be pulled together enough that they fit where they belong, it’s bad enough that she already had to split them into two different—
“Hey, I think I finally got the shelves almost done, do you want to come look?” Frank leans against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “I might have made a miscalculation and need to see if it’s in the right spot or… Mel?”
He pushes into the room, chuckling as he realizes she’s muttering to herself, shaking her head, eyes narrowed at the fabric in her hands.
“This is hopeless. You would think by now I’d have it figured out but no, every time…” She tips her chin towards him, acknowledging his presence and he wonders if she actually heard him or just sensed he was there.
Sometimes she gets like that, even without music or environmental noise, locked in on a task fully until it’s completed to her satisfaction.
It’s part of what makes her an amazing doctor, a thoughtful partner (the amount of times he’s had it turned towards him is thrilling, incredibly sexy), but every now and then she needs something—someone—to pull her out of the fixation.
“Honestly, I don’t get it. How do housekeepers do this at hotels?! That’s so many sheets a day." Frustrated with how it’s laying, she drops the tangle of cloth in her hands and tries to start over. It’s no use though, she’s immediately back to where she just was, the corners ballooning up, the center sections not quite meeting. “Oh my god, it’s fucking impossible.”
Frank has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing outright.
It’s a close thing though, his eyes widening, fingers flexing against his thigh as he swallows the sound.
He hates that she’s so frustrated.
Aggravated.
But it’s so charming—borderline delightful—that this is one of the few things that makes her curse.
(It’s this, extremely dark thrillers that cause her to throw the book across the room, and the times when they’re tangled in bed together.
Mostly when he’s eating her out.
He’s inordinately proud of that last one.)
Stepping around the edge of the sheets, he sighs as she blows out a frustrated breath, stares down at her hands as though they’ve personally betrayed her.
“Ok, do you want me to do it?” He strokes his hand down her arm, gently wraps his fingers over her wrist to halt her progress. “Maybe sheets should be my department from now on…”
“It’s usually fine! I don’t know why today—”
“Melissa.”
“I know.” She rolls her lips together, blinks in the fading sunlight. “I should have just waited for you, but I hate not finishing something I started and I knew you weren’t done with your stuff yet.”
“It’s ok, I get it, Mel.”
And the thing is, he does.
He understands how she works, what she prioritizes; knows when to push her and when to just sit back and offer support.
Which he cannot put off doing a second longer.
“Can I help?”
“Ohmygod, yes.” She blinks up at him, turning her hand so their palms press together for a long moment before she shoves half the fabric into his grasp. “I know this isn’t your favorite either so maybe we just plan to share it every month now?”
“Mmm, sounds like a good strategy to me.” He does laugh now, carefully taking a few steps back to pull the sheets taut between them. “I just wonder what the poor dinos did to you.”
“It’s not the dinos! I actually really like the stegosauruses and raptors. I know Penny is partial to the pterodactyls, but there’s only a few of them on here and I really take issue with them being pink. I know it’s visually appealing, but that’s not a color found in nature… at least not for animals…”
“Hmm, yeah, that’s more the shade of a flower.”
“Exactly.” She smiles softly, counts the number of pterodactyls on the section of fabric in front of her; three. “Anyhow, it’s not their fault that folding laundry is my archnemesis.”
“The origin of your villain story?”
“Possibly. It’s just so…” She waves her arm, hand flapping as she struggles to come up with a word for how annoying—infuriating—it is. “There has to be a better way!”
“Maybe we need to just start buying new sheets every month.”
“I don’t think our budget could handle that.” Biting back a smile, she hands him the newly folded fabric to place in Penny’s pile. “Not to mention, it doesn’t seem very environmentally friendly.”
“Definitely not.”
They make quick work of Tanner’s sheet, tucking the corners together and overlapping the material easily and Frank actually sees Mel’s shoulders loosen, her jaw relaxing.
“See, it’s really not that hard.” She almost drops the section of navy sheet she’s gripping now, she lifts her head so quickly to glare at him. There’s an underlying tease to it, the way her chin tilts, the corner of her mouth twitching, and it takes everything in him not to throw aside what he’s holding to pull her to him. She might get legitimately annoyed if he derails the progress they’ve made. “Ok, ok, it is pretty ridiculous.”
“That’s all I’m saying.” Grinning, she steps towards him, looping the excess cloth over her arm before guiding it to meet the edge he’s grasping. “Whoever came up with this as a solution probably made a lot of money on a very flawed design.”
“We should put Becca on the case. Maybe she can invent something better.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her.” She exhales slowly, shakes out her arms as Frank places the final folded sheet with the rest. “Thank you for the save; I would have gotten there eventually but this was so much nicer.”
“Anytime, sweetheart. Like you said, we’ll just count on this being a team project from now on.”
“Yeah.” She hums softly, settling on the bed next to the pile of towels she washed and folded earlier. “If we can complete it as quickly as we just did it shouldn’t even disrupt—”
“Oh, maybe I should have timed us.” He bumps his knee against hers, taps a finger against the dimple in his chin. “Well, next month; we’ll keep track to see how often we can break our own record.”
“Yes! That might actually make it fun, not that working together isn’t fun on its own, but it’s an added element that—”
“Mel, you’re going to strain something.” He chuckles, lowering himself to the bed next to her. “I know what you mean; it’s like having a scoop of ice cream with those sea salt caramel brownies you make—really good to start, but the addition takes it to another level.”
“Yes, exactly!” She nods, turning slightly to double check that all the laundry is out of the dryer and accounted for. “Can you put the kids’ sheets back on the top shelf in the closet?’
“Of course, but first…” He reaches out, snagging Tanner’s throw blanket from where it’s rolled up. Quickly he shakes it out, tossing it over Mel’s lap, his hands rubbing warmth into her horripilated arms.
“Frank! This was clean!”
“Shh, it still is.” His nails scrape over the inside of her wrist and she shivers, leaning against him. “It also still feels a little warm from the dryer, which I’m not sure any human can resist.”
“No, no I can’t really argue with that.”
“Good, remind me to check what the a/c is set on later; we can’t have you turning into a popsicle.”
“Mmm.” Her fingers twist in the hem of the blanket, tugging it a little higher as her head falls to his chest. “Other than preventing my breakdown and struggling with shelves, how was your afternoon?”
“Actually pretty good. I organized the coffee and end tables between trying to decipher the instructions—I’m going to leave a very strongly worded, detailed review on Wayfair—and wiped off the oven and counters. We just have the fridge and floors down there, but they can wait until tomorrow.” He smiles over at her, carefully straightens her glasses. “I really could use your opinion on where the bookshelves are going though.”
“Of course, can we just stay another five minutes?” She falls back flat on the mattress, pulling him with her; his knee knocks into the pile of towels in the process, sending them into a jumble near his hip. “That… tell me that wasn’t the sheets…”
He laughs softly, presses a kiss to her shoulder. “No, the sheets are good.”
“Good.” She sighs, tangling their legs together as his thumb brushes along her collarbone. “I might be tempted to use them for our Halloween costumes otherwise…”