Remember The Past's Demons

Remember the Past's Demons 1

Yelping loudly as he pulled off the baseboard with a crack, falling onto his ass, Richard winced. Leon poked his head around the doorway, raising an eyebrow as his friend and fellow houseowner rubbed at his ass, the broken baseboard and the crowbar before him. "You alright there?" he asked.

"Yeah. Don't worry. I just can't believe some idiot glued the baseboards with what amounts to as super glue," Richard gripped. "You would think that with the fact that it was supposedly done by professionals, shit like this wouldn't have happened. Not to mention, I found another fucking mark," he said, pointing to a small charred mark on the back of the baseboard. "I could swear that they're runes."

"They're not any that I know," Leon said. "And most of the baseboards are coming off okay." He tilted his head. "Now, tell me why I agreed to this again?"

"I have the really great credit, I was able to put you on the loan as person two, and that will help your credit become sparkly and pretty. This should also get you off your ass to ask whoever you've been drooling over the last four months since pretty credit means good apartments in the future without dying trying to pay rent," Richard stated. Leon huffed, letting his head fall forward.

Leon shook his head before lifting his head and walking to his friend who was still on the floor. "Here. Go work on the wallpaper that I was doing," he said, handing over his scraper. "I think I found that door to the basement that the blueprints said was there, but I'm not that sure. And me and that steam machine have issues."

Richard rolled his eyes at his friend, picked up the baseboard, stood and brushed off his ass. Leon watched as his friend headed into the other room, tossing the baseboard into a large gray trash bin on a wheeled platform. "Why do I always attract the odd friends?" he asked the wall before him, eyeing the mark. He made a note to take a picture of the new mark to add to the five others that they had found under the wallpaper before jamming the crowbar into a new part of the baseboard.

As he tugged and loosened it, Leon's mind turned to how he and Richard had gotten to the point where they lived in a house with history and neighbors who watched it with a wary eye.

Richard had come to him, talking about buying a house to flip and live in for a short time so that he didn't have to deal with asshole landlords and renting fees. He had offered to put Leon on his loan application to help his credit since his credit score was shit because his first girlfriend had stolen his credit card and ran up the bill. He had gotten most of the money back from her after taking her to court, and had gotten even more taken off of the bill, but he still had to pay the rest of it back.

Living in a family who had to feed four kids, had a mortgage, school fees, and going to high school himself, he had to work as much as he could and pay it back where he could. He had been paying off the minimum amount before college started, and had gotten lucky with having a scholarship to pay for college.

He had paid it back in full after the first year of college, but he had missed some payments and that hurt his credit. Now that he was in his second year of graduate school for his history degree, he had found himself buying a house with his friend to make his credit look good for his future.

"Can you remind me why we're doing all of this ripping shit up and not having someone do this for us?" Leon called out when he heard the steam machine start up in the other room.

"Because I grew up with parents who flip houses for a living and this is a good house with some need for cosmetic updating?" Richard called back. "The inspiction didn't have anything pop up, outside of the door. And so far that has been held up. That and I can use this for a few of my classes as a final project."