It had started out horribly.

Sara had allowed Adrian to move in with her out of something like compassion and something like building-good-karma: he’d ended up in a bad spot with his last roommate, so when he lost his job he had no place to stay, no savings, not even a futon. Sara was doing pretty well, so easy enough for her to let Adrian sleep on her futon.

And that was fine, but Sara wasn’t used to having other people in her space, and Adrian wasn’t used to not having something to do, so for the first three weeks all they did was yell at each other (mostly Sara yelled) and pester each other (mostly Adrian pestered).

It was a disaster, and all their friends knew it. Until Sara, absolutely done with everything, turned around and spat out, “if you’re that bored, do the dishes!”

And he did.

And then he came back to ask “what next?” and Sara gave him the laundry – and then dinner prep for the next day, and then, when he was still asking her for things to do, suggested he scrub the bathroom floor.

When he took even that without complaint, she took him out and bought him ice cream.

After a couple weeks of this, Adrian stopped asking Sara and just did the things that needed doing. After a couple more weeks, Sara found herself relying on it. If Adrian did the dishes, she could write for twenty more minutes. If he did the laundry, she could steal ten minutes at the coffee shop. If he cleaned the floor… it was clean for the first time since she’d bought the apartment.

And then Adrian got a job.

If you’d like to see more of this story, I bet there’s more to be written. Just drop a tip in the the tip handcuffs:

Written to perfectworry‘s prompt.

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/865782.html

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