Mieczyslaw "Stiles" Stilinski (sarcasticfriend) wrote in onewaythreads, @ 2017-10-13 22:48:00 |
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It didn't take Sharon long to find the snap traps and the glue traps and the live traps and the... the poison. It was gross stuff. She stood for a few minutes in that aisle in the hardware store, reading the fronts of the boxes. After some brief research online Sharon had decided that she wasn't going to use poison or glue traps for whatever rodent problem she had in the garage. It was barbaric, and could cause some serious problems for the ecosystem (if an owl got its beak on a mouse that was poisoned, for instance) so that left the snap traps and the live traps. She collected up about fifty dollars worth of snap traps and live traps, and then headed home. She was running a couple of minutes late, and didn't want Stiles to arrive before her. When she pulled into her driveway she was glad to see he wasn't waiting on the front porch, but he should be there any second. So she climbed out of the car with her bag and headed inside. Stiles hadn't been in too much of a hurry to reach Sharon's house since she said she'd be home around six. That meant he didn't need to rush. He had been thinking about their conversation and he couldn't help but snicker to himself. How can somebody never have dealt with something like this at least once? Oh well, she was about to get a crash course in rat trapping. It was sometime after six when he finally made it to Sharon's. He saw her car there, which meant she was home and that he wasn't early and wouldn't have to wait around. He walked up the pathway that lead to her front door and then he knocked. Sharon had just put the bag on the counter and was unpacking its contents when she heard the knock. Stiles worked at the precinct, and she got along well with him. It was a no-brainer to accept his offer of help. Besides, the poor guy had been through a break-up recently, so perhaps this was doing him a solid, too--giving him something to distract him. She answered the door and gave him a warm smile, still wearing her work clothes. She looked a little tired, but pleasant. “Hey. Come on in.” The home was moderate, but very clean. She had nice furniture and fixings, nothing over the top or too artsy. It was homey, with warm sunlight coming in through the windows. The place looked yellow-orange in the fading light. Stiles rocked on the balls of his feet and looked around as he waited for the door to be answered. He was about to knock again, but that's when he heard movement coming towards the door and then it was opened. "Hey," he greeted right back and then stepped inside. Sharon looked a bit tired, but he didn' want to mention that. He also wasn't going to stay too long, especially if she wanted some alone time. He was there to help her with her rat problem. And it was something to do. It kept his mind off of the breakup with Malia. "Nice place," he told her after he gave it the once over. "So, what did you end up buying at the store?" “Thanks,” Sharon said, closing the door behind him. “I’ve got the bag in the kitchen. Right through here.” Motioning for him to follow along, she led the way from the foyer into the kitchen on the right. There was an empty, brown, paper bag on the counter, surrounded by snap traps and live traps of all shapes and sizes. Sharon gave a Vanna White motion with her arm. “Ta da! Unless I didn’t get the right kind, and then not ta da.” Stiles followed Sharon into the kitchen and it wasn't long until he saw everything that she had bought. "Wow..." He figured she'd just a few traps and that would be that. She got a lot. The rat definitely didn't have a chance of surviving. That was for sure! "Ta-da away. You got the right ones." He grabbed one of the snap traps. "Got any peanut butter?" He asked as he started to open the package. “Yeah.” Sharon was pleased she’d picked up the right kind. It was always a crapshoot, buying new things, figuring out the household stuff she didn’t know how to do. She’d made friends with the man who ran the local hardware store when she had to buy about six fastenings for her leaky faucet, and return the five that didn’t work. Since then she’d always spent a little extra, and come back for more advice later. “Here,” she pulled a jar out of her fridge and set it on the counter beside him. “Is creamy okay?” While Sharon got the peanut butter out, Stiles opened up a few more traps. “Yeah,” he said as he looked up and grabbed the jar, “That works. The real point of using it is because they can’t get it off of the trap unlike cheese.” He opened up the peanut butter jar and then set it down next to the traps. “So, how come you’ve never had to do anything like this before?” He was curious. He had figured most people would have known how to do this or had some kind of idea. “You’re not one of those girls who screams and jumps up on a chair when you see one, are you?” he jokingly asked. “Oh.” Sharon pulled out a butter knife and dug some of the peanut butter out of the container. “They’re smart enough to take cheese off the trap?” She asked. “Maybe I’ve been underestimating these little buggers.” It was only half-kidding. There had been times when she’d seen rodents before, but never in her own apartment. There was always a building superintendent to take care of the pests in common spaces. “What? No. That’s silly.” Sharon offered him the peanut butter covered knife, wearing a little smirk. “They startle me, but I’m not afraid of them.” “Yeah, they’re that smart. Never underestimate rats or mice. Those little furry monsters know what they’re doing.” He took the knife and started to put the peanut butter on the trap. “Oh, good. Then again it would have been funny to see you do that.” He flashed her a quick smile and then handed the knife back to her. “See where I put it,” he said as he showed her, “After you’ve done that then you do this,” he said as he started to set the trap. “And that’s it. You have to put them near or up against the wall since that’s where they scurry around most of the time.” Sharon snorted good-naturedly. “I suppose I can jump up on a chair and squeal if you really want me to.” It was completely undignified, but that was what the stereotypical woman (okay, maybe one from the 1950s, anyway) would do. Sharon wasn’t a stereotypical woman from any age. She was a highly trained, field operative, who had more blood than she cared to admit on her hands. But it was fun to pretend. “Against the wall. Got it. It’s not like I have a pet cat or dog that might stumble across it. Or any kids running around.” She glanced around the place, trying to figure out where the best spot to put traps would be. “I should probably put them in the garage. That’s where I’ve seen the buggers.” Stiles looked over at Sharon and grinned. “Well, I mean, if you want to entertain me, I say go for it! Show me your best girly squeal while jumping up onto something.” It was ridiculous and he knew it, which is what made it funny since he kind of figured most girls weren’t like that when they saw a rat our a mouse. “We’ll put most of the traps in the garage then since that’s where you saw it,” he told her as he put peanut butter on a few more traps. “We’ll just put a few around the house, just in case.” Sharon gave a playful, “ahh!” and waved her arms in the air. It was absolutely half-hearted. Not a very girly squeal, and she didn’t actually jump on anything. Then she laughed lightly. “At the end of a long day of work that’s about the best I can do. Sorry. Next time you’ll just have to catch me in the morning.” She moved to the garage and pulled open the door. Something shot across the floor in the light flooding in from the kitchen. Sharon actually startled a little, nearly dropping the trap she’d been carrying. Then she felt like an idiot for being startled, and flushed--sincerely hoping Stiles hadn’t seen her jump. Stiles watched as Sharon did a half-hearted freak out. “Eh,” he waved it off as not even worth the effort . “Oh, okay. I will drop by before school,” he sarcastically told her. “You better be up and ready to give me a good freak out or I’ll be very disappointed that I came all this way in the morning for nothing.” He grabbed a few traps and then followed right behind Sharon. Stopping when she did. He waited for her to go into the garage, but that wasn’t what happened. He had noticed that something startled her and he was grinning to himself. “Is your furry friend out there?” Sharon laughed and shrugged her shoulders after her failed attempt at flailing. “I can’t make any promises. So, it’s probably best if we give up on that.” “Yes.” She gave a little, frustrated sigh, and turned around to face him. She felt rather foolish, a little embarrassed, and tried to laugh it off. “It’s startling, all right?” “I guess I don’t have to come back for my fake freak out. You kinda just did it,” he teased. “Do you want me to go out there first?” he offered. “If you keep that door open, it will decide to come in here and I doubt you want that.” “No, I definitely don’t want that.” Sharon paused for just another moment, then pushed forward into the garage far enough that he could follow behind her and shut the door. “Okay, so… along the walls, you said?” There were some spots along the walls under a shelving unit that would be perfect. “Maybe behind the fridge?” Once Sharon moved, Stiles could too. And once he was in, he quickly shut the door with his foot since his hands were full of traps. “Yeah, along the walls.” He walked over to the other side of the garage and set down one of the traps. “You can set one there. Anywhere you think it might go or where you’ve seen it the most.” He set the other trap down in another spot. There were a handful of traps, and they managed to space them out quickly. Sharon put one behind the fridge, and another under the shelves where she’d seen the little things scurrying about. It was a little unnerving--something about the chance the trap might snap! at any moment set her on edge. It didn’t take long, though. “So, how’d you get to be an expert in mice-catching?” Sharon asked, dusting her hands on her jeans after setting the last trap down on the floor. “I watched my dad set up traps when I was a kid,” he told her. Yep, that was all there was to that story about how he knew how to do all of this. “Exciting, huh?” He joked as he started to head towards the door. “I’m out of traps. I’m sure you’ll get the furry monster now. And then you can happily live a rat-free existence.” Sharon laughed softly, moving to the door. “Very much so. I love your stories,” she teased, following him back into the house. She quickly closed the door behind them to keep the monsters in the garage. “Oh, I’m sure I will.” Beat. “Well, fingers crossed, anyway. And I’ll pay you back … how about I bring you breakfast at work tomorrow?” “That’s just the start of them,” he told her, smiling. Once inside of the house, he glanced back smiling even more when he saw how fast Sharon closed the door. “You’ll get it.” There was no way in hell that rat was going to last long. Not with all of the traps they laid out for it. “I say that sounds like a very good way to pay me back.” She didn’t have to, but if she wanted to, he wasn’t going to turn it down. Sharon actually chuckled. She moved around him in the kitchen to start tidying up the counter. There were plastic wrappings from all the traps they’d set littered on the counter. She was able to put the rest of the things back into the bag, too, so she could take them back to the shop. It wasn’t too much of a mess. “You’ve got it. I’m thinking a bagel sandwich with egg, sausage, and cheese.” Sharon gave him a smile. “Sounds good?” Stiles helped with the plastic trash from the traps since he did help create the mess. It was the least he could do since he didn’t just want to stand there and watch Sharon clean it all up. “I’m already drooling at the sound of it,” he told her. “Is it tomorrow morning yet?” Sharon chuckled. “Soon. You’re like a kid at Christmas.” She walked him to the front door. “Now go home.” She teased, playfully. “I’ll see you in the morning.” “Well, can you blame me? You mentioned good food.” He followed her to the front door and then gave her a fake look of shock. “Oh, I see how it is. Use me and then toss me out once you don’t need me anymore,” he teased right back. “See you tomorrow. Have fun with Mister Rat.” He flashed her a smile and then headed out. |