Beautiful Neighbourhood - 1/2
Apr. 29th, 2015 06:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsback to masterpost
Part 1
There were winners and losers in most circumstances, and Ray Cortese was one of life’s winners. When the Pulse struck and the behemoths of the computing world crashed along with half of civilization, Cortese Tech Ltd was both small and flexible enough to adapt, thanks to the genius of Ray and his little sister Emilia. Now Cortese Tech was on its way to becoming the Apple of the Twenty First century, and the Cortese family were no longer merely comfortably off, but downright rich.
So when his little girl Genevieve graduated with her first class degree and told Ray she’d gotten herself a job as a journalist in Seattle, Ray took it in his stride. Nothing was too good for Gen, though he wasn’t going to tell her that to her face. He was a firm believer in letting his kids find their own path in life, because he never doubted they would be winners too. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to pull a few strings to make sure his baby girl was safe and relatively comfortable, so Ray quietly moved behind the scenes to help Genevieve ‘discover’ suitable accommodation in one of the more salubrious area of the city.
Hetty Heights consisted of three blocks of former high-class condos that had both waterfront and city views. Since the Pulse, this East Lake area had been renamed Sector 6, but had managed to retain some of its former grandeur. Farther along what used to be East Lake Avenue were several larger gated properties where Seattle’s elite lived – verging from the respectable, like arms manufacturer Robert Berrisford, to the less savory, such as the drugs baron Ramirez. Hetty Heights was no longer individually owned condos, the blocks were now owned by one of Ray’s oldest friends who had taken them over Post Pulse.
In the initial chaos after the Pulse many more apartments had been built in the spaces between the three main blocks, so that now the buildings formed an interconnected maze of dwellings reminiscent of ancient Kowloon in Hong Kong – but thankfully vastly cleaner. Ray checked Hetty Heights out and decided it looked a reasonable (if colorful) neighborhood to steer Genevieve towards.
Luckily, Gen agreed.
:::
Doubts set in about the wisdom of her move to Seattle precisely two minutes after Mrs. Hedges practically ran out of the apartment clutching Genevieve’s signed lease, together with her deposit and six months payment in advance. Sure, this offer by KIPH TV had pretty much been Gen’s dream job since high school, and the leasing agent had been totally correct about the fabulous views of the post-Pulse city and Lake Union from apartment number 501’s massive metal-framed windows, but it must have slipped both leasing agent and landlady’s minds to warn a gal about the residents downstairs who were evidently violating the no pets rule.
Because two minutes after Mrs. Hedges slammed the front door, loud music started up from apartment #401, directly below Genevieve. Which would have been annoying enough, but it was accompanied by what sounded like the yowling of dying alley cats. Gen started unpacking, trying to ignore the awful racket – and was that pre-Pulse Metallica being played there? – but after nearly sixty more minutes of unrelenting abuse, her ears protested that enough was enough, and she grabbed her door keys. Time to introduce herself to her singularly tone-deaf neighbor.
Standing in front of the green peeling paint of #401’s door, Gen almost wimped out of knocking. Although the stairwells and landings of Hetty Heights were relatively clean, and happily free from the smell of piss – definitely a plus and one of the reasons Gen had taken the lease so readily – Seattle was a big city, full of unknown dangers. And here was Gen, one tiny out-of-towner, about to pick a fight with her closest neighbor on her first day. Who was, if she remembered rightly from reading the assortment of labels next to the buzzers downstairs, one J. R. Ackles.
Gen hesitated, hand poised over the brass knocker, when an extra loud and discordant howl emanated from behind the too-thin barrier of the door.
“Oh come on, Cortese, man up!” she muttered.
She knocked.
:::
Jared was happy. The sun was shining for a change, Jensen had promised to pick up some of Jared’s favorite candy on the grocery run, and Jared would be getting a paycheck this month because New World Weekly had accepted his last article. Plus, they’d asked for a series of follow-ups. Jared hated that Jensen had to shoulder ninety per cent of the burden of their living expenses, even though he knew intellectually that it wasn’t his fault that he had to hide in the apartment all day. Being a transgenic who looked as different as Jared did wasn’t easy. The world just wasn’t ready for the knowledge that freaks lived amongst them. There was no way he’d fit in outside, with the ordinaries, no matter what Jensen told him.
“Jay, you’re a freaking hairy giant, and you sometimes smell a bit like wet dog, it’s true, but that isn’t a crime, even in this crazy city,” Jared bared his teeth at being likened to a canine, but Jensen just grinned at him, completely unapologetic. Jensen had some cat DNA in his mix, so Jared let the insult slide, this once. The tiger in Jared rumbled his displeasure, though.
“Come to PullCity with me, watch me dance tonight. You know I could do with seeing a friendly face in that crowd of lecherous creeps. Or you could just come to watch the rehearsals, then go home.” Jensen said, stroking the sensitive skin of Jared’s arm to sooth him. Jared always found Jensen’s wide green eyes hard to resist when they took on that pleading look, but even Jensen’s undoubted charms couldn’t persuade Jared to risk it.
He just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t walk out into the street in broad daylight without feeling completely exposed. He wasn’t even happy venturing outside in the dark. Jared had learned through bitter experience that every person out there was a potential hostile, just waiting to throw a punch or a handful of stones, to beat him to the floor and kick him until he cracked – just like four years ago, when he’d first escaped from Manticore to avoid a second ‘treatment’ by Psy Ops, and found his way to the dead heart of Seattle. Before Jensen had saved Jared from the beating and the streets, and offered to share his home.
Jared was endlessly thankful that Jensen had been left for dead by Manticore after nearly dying on a failed mission, because Jensen had been Jared’s salvation. Manticore’s ingratitude and rare carelessness had thrown them into an undying friendship that was like nothing either of the two rogue transgenics had ever known.
And just because Jared took the opportunity when Jensen was out dancing at the strip club to play the pre-Pulse thrash metal that he’d discovered he loved -- and that Jensen hated -- that didn’t mean he was ungrateful. After all the hours spent listening to the kind of music Jensen liked was something close to torture as far as Jared was concerned. There was only so much pre-Pulse Taylor Swift a transgenic tiger could take.
What was the saying? While the cat’s away, the mice will play? Something like that. Though the mouse analogy was really inappropriate, since Jensen was an X4 with cat DNA while Jared was an X4 anomaly with a touch too much tiger in his cocktail. No dogs in this house. Hence Jared’s inability to hold a note, and his reluctance to sing while Jensen was around, however happy he was feeling.
“So close no matter how far, Couldn't be much more from the heart, Forever trusting who we are, No nothing else matters…” Jared caterwauled to the less than dulcet tones of the late James Hetfield. He felt safe in the knowledge that the loft apartment above was untenanted, and at this time of day, the Reverend Collins from Apartment 301 below would be out getting the soup kitchens at St. Augustine’s ready for the evening’s influx of the homeless and dispossessed. Captain America in #201 was too far removed (he hoped) to hear anything, not being genetically enhanced like Jared and Jensen.
Even with his inhumanly acute hearing, the music and his own voice were so loud, Jared almost missed the knocking at the door. In fact, it wasn’t the noise that alerted him, it was an elusive and pleasant scent that reached his nostrils as he busied himself washing up last night’s pots. He stopped singing, sniffing the air.
“Nice,” he mused, following the scent all the way to the front door without even noticing he was moving. His hand was on the safety chain and in the act of opening the door before he realized what he was doing. He jumped back with a grunt of shock. What the hell was he thinking?
He flinched when whoever was outside restarted their knocking, more angrily this time. The hairs on his arms and neck rose, and every muscle was trembling. His heart raced.
What if someone had found them; had recognized Jared for the freak he was. Maybe it was those Steelheads who’d beaten him up so badly. Or worse, what if it was Manticore, come to claim him and Jensen? He didn’t want to go back to that life of virtual slavery. He didn’t want Jensen to be forced to become a killer again. He’d been reprogrammed once and that was enough – the screaming still haunted his dreams.
Tentatively, he leaned down to peer through the peephole in the door.
The last thing Jared was expecting to see was a very tiny, very pretty young woman. So petite, in fact, that she was barely visible even with the peephole’s fisheye lens until she took a step back and looked up – directly into Jared’s eyes.
:::
Gen was just about to give up on getting an answer when she heard the rattle of a chain being undone. She turned back to the door in anticipation of it finally opening, only to be disappointed when nothing happened.
What the ever-loving fudge was going on?
The awful singing had stopped but music was still blaring out, and Genevieve was beyond fed up. Pulling herself up to her full height – which, okay, was only five foot one but she was still fucking formidable, right? – she banged on the door again. This time hard enough to make it rattle a bit in its frame. Over or under the bass beat of the music, she heard something inside the apartment, like a gasp or a deep breath. She took a half step back.
“I know you’re in there, so you can stop pretending.”
Nothing. This was ridiculous. She raised her voice.
“Look. All I want is for you to turn your music down, okay? I just moved in upstairs and I can hardly hear myself think…” she trailed off when a sudden blessed silence descended from inside #401. “Oh. Okay then. Thank you. Um…” Feeling somewhat foolish addressing a closed door, Genevieve was turning to leave when a slightly muffled voice arrested her progress.
“Sorry,” it said. It was a nice voice. It didn’t sound like the strangled whale that had been yowling earlier. In fact, it was a pleasant even tenor, with a touch of a rumble in its lower registers that was kind of attractive. “I didn’t know anyone had moved in upstairs, and the apartment below is usually empty at this time of day, so the music doesn’t usually bother anyone and I’m really sorry, it won’t happen again.”
In spite of herself, Genevieve was drawn back to the door. Which was still closed. That explained why the voice was muffled. Gen raised an eyebrow. This had to be one of the strangest initial encounters she’d ever been party to.
“Hi,” she tried, somewhat tentatively. “I’m Genevieve. Mr. Ackles, right…?”
“Oh. Um, Ja…Jay. Call me Jay.”
Gen smiled vaguely at the closed door, feeling awkward. She assumed Jay was watching her through the tiny peephole, which was at least three inches above her eye level, even if she’d been inclined to check if she could see in from out here. “Well, pleased to meet you, Jay. How about you open the door and we can get properly introduced?”
That innocent question seemed to cause some consternation behind the barrier.
“Oh no, I can’t let you in! I mean, I can’t open the door, I’m…I’m contagious. That’s right. I’ve got measles, and the doctor said I’m not allowed out of the apartment for…for several days. He said too many normals – I mean people – haven’t been inoculated since the Pulse so measles is very dangerous. And I’m just in the middle of spring-cleaning for J…for the rent inspection …and I’m not dressed. So sorry, can’t be properly introduced just now.”
Genevieve raised her eyebrows. Well this was going well. She’d only been neighbors with the guy for a couple of hours and it looked like she’d outstayed her welcome already, if that garbled set of excuses was anything to go by. She pushed down the temptation to enquire whether he was in the habit of doing the cleaning naked, though part of her was dying to know.
“Okay then, well, I hope you feel better soon. I’ll just…” she gestured in the general direction of the stairs.
“Okay then,” echoed the disembodied voice, still sounding pathetically apologetic, which was the only reason Gen wasn’t writing off this whole encounter and wishing she’d moved into another apartment as far away from here as possible. “But if you need anything, well, anything I can help with that doesn’t entail me contaminating anything with my measles, then just let me know, okay?”
“Thanks, Jay, I will,” Gen said, not actually meaning a word of it.
But that was before she got three quarters of the way through constructing her second-hand flat-pack bed only to have her hex key break. There were at least three more connections to make before she could haul the mattress onto the frame and collapse in a heap. That’s what you get for buying crap from a street market, Gen, her father’s voice admonished.
Well, shit. She looked at the two utterly useless pieces of metal and realized she was going to have to knock on #401’s door again after all. It was a no-win scenario. Either she tackled her weird naked neighbor and his closed-door syndrome again, or she could go in search of a store selling hex keys at – she glanced at her wristwatch and winced – gone nine thirty in the evening. In the rain. Because it was Seattle, so of course a glorious sunny day had been replaced by dark clouds the moment night fell, and it was pouring down.
Glancing out of the huge picture windows Gen had no illusions. The rain might have turned the night outside into a glittering, bejeweled treasure chest of cultured light, but she knew from experience it would be freezing, and she’d be soaked through in seconds. Plus Genevieve might be fresh into the big city from the country, but she was no hick. She understood how dangerous the streets could be after dark, even in one of the more ‘civilized’ residential sectors.
She sighed and grabbed her keys. Time to brave the Naked Measles Man.
:::
After Genevieve had left, Jared leaned back against the front door, then let his body slide down until his butt hit the laminate floor. His head tipped back, hitting the door with an audible thunk, and he stared at the ceiling as if looking for cracks in the smooth plaster. But the only cracks he found were inside his own head.
What was he doing? This was nuts. He couldn’t be talking to neighbors (no, not to any old neighbor, but to a young, attractive, fragrant Genevieve) as if he was a real person with an ordinary job in an ordinary life. And what had possessed him to babble on about measles and diseases? If she didn’t already think he was crazy, she probably had also gone away with the impression that he was some sort of untouchable. He’d made it sound like he was the Rider of the White Horse, about to single-handedly bring down pestilence and plague on Seattle.
On automatic, his genetically enhanced hearing tuned into the sounds of Genevieve returning to her apartment upstairs – the door closing, the metallic rattle of the chain being drawn across, her footsteps crossing the floor. Parts of his brain were analyzing, Manticore training that was hard to shed – sounded like she had wooden laminate in her main room, like Jensen’s, he thought idly.
He shook himself. What was he doing? Dissecting her every move like some creepy stalker. He might be a monster but he wasn’t a pervert. He almost ran across the room to flip the stereo back on, remembering to turn the volume down to a more civilized level. The ambient noise should distract him from being the audio equivalent of a peeping Tom.
He would make himself useful, instead of sitting around brooding about the normal life he couldn’t have, and the pretty, nice-smelling girls a freak like him could never get close to. Time to get on with that spring-cleaning he’d told Genevieve he was in the middle of. The least he could do was make sure Jensen’s place was spotless when he got back from working at PullCity.
An hour or two later, the last thing he was expecting was another knock on the front door. Scratch that. The absolute last thing he was expecting was to see his new neighbor on the landing outside their front door again. She was a little more disheveled than when she’d called round earlier, her long brown hair now caught up in a messy ponytail and a smudge of dirt on her nose he was sure she was unaware of. There was that tantalizing scent again, wafting through the door and making the sensitive skin on Jared’s face prickle.
She looked adorable and Jared wanted to bury his nose in her hair and lick the dirt off her nose.
His heart gave a little leap of excitement. He hadn’t scared her off forever after all.
:::
Genevieve heard Jay approach the door but he didn’t open it – of course. Looking up at the spyhole, she gave an awkward wave when he said hello.
“Hi again,” she said, then launched straight into her reason for being there to avoid any uncomfortable attempts at polite conversation. “I hope I didn’t wake you up or anything, but you did say to come back if I needed help. So, I’m building some furniture and my hex key broke. I was wondering if you have one I could borrow?”
“What’s a hex key?” Jay said, so she held the offending article up to the spyhole for him to see.
“Ah, I see…I don’t know, but I can have a look. We…I… have a tool box and I don’t know the half of what is in there. Why don’t you go back upstairs and I’ll call you when I find it.”
Gen wasn’t entirely sure she wanted this oddball neighbor to have her cell number, but she couldn’t really think of any excuse not to give it out. And she was stuck with living in the same building, so perhaps it was better he had her number and so wasn’t tempted to come knocking on her door when he’d recovered from his bout of measles...
“Okay, my number is seven one…”
“No need for phone numbers,” he interrupted, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “We can use the dumbwaiter.”
He must have seen the equally dumb expression on her face as he rushed to explain, eager as a little kid to show off a new toy. Apparently these apartments had been built a long time before the Pulse, and must have been the height of luxury at the time. They had been served by a common kitchen located in what was now the basement unit where the Mole people lived, but the apartments were still connected by the dumbwaiter shaft intended for conveying the hot food to the residents.
Light dawned.
“Oh! You mean that door for midgets in the kitchen wall! I’d been wondering what that was for.”
“Yes. I mean, no, it’s not a door for midgets,” Gen rolled her eyes a little. Jay was proving to be a bit literally minded; perhaps she would have to educate him in the meaning of irony. “Never mind. So anyway, when I find this key thing I can call up the shaft and then I can use the waiter’s lift mechanism to send it up to you. Saves you trekking up and down the stairs, and we reduce the risk that I contaminate you with my measles.”
Gen had to agree, that made a certain kind of sense.
Back in her apartment, Genevieve sat on her brand new, plastic covered sofa surrounded by cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked, waiting for contact via a hole in the kitchen wall.
“Genevieve Cortese, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?’ she huffed then threw up her hands dramatically. “Great. Now I’m talking to myself…”
:::
Bored of waiting for her neighbor to pull his finger out and find that replacement key, Genevieve was halfway through unpacking her boxes of kitchen paraphernalia – why she’d brought half of this stuff from her parent’s home she had no idea – when she heard a muffled shout, followed by a rhythmic knocking. She assumed, correctly, it was Jay.
She opened the midget door and cautiously stuck her head inside. Looking down the square shaft was dimly illuminated for a few feet from the kitchen light behind her, after which it was swallowed up in general murk. A murk which was broken maybe twelve feet down by a square patch of light on the back wall. Gen assumed, correctly, the light must be from Jay’s apartment. As she watched, a shadow appeared in the middle of the patch of light. It looked like someone moving around.
“Hey,” she said, “Is that you, Jay?’
“Yes,” he called back. “I found a bunch of those hex keys, hopefully one of them will fit. So if you just hang on a minute while I winch the dumbwaiter up, I’ll have them with you in a moment.”
Sure enough, she could hear a rattling followed by a creaking noise, and then Jay’s light disappeared. There was a brief pause then the noise started up again, getting louder. Now she could see something moving up the shaft. She pulled her head back in and waited, and, a few seconds later, the dumbwaiter arrived at her midget door. It was basically a simple wooden box, but a welcome sight nonetheless, as there inside it were the promised hex keys, in various sizes.
She took the keys with a smile of relief, then winched the dumbwaiter up out of the way so she could look down the shaft again.
“Thanks, Jay,” she said, aiming her voice at the patch of light still showing below. A shadow moved, so she assumed her neighbor was still there. “You’re a life saver. I’ll bring these back tomorrow, if that’s ok.”
“Send them back down in the dumbwaiter,” Jay said. “I hope they work. I’m usually around, so just call if you need anything else.”
“That’s very sweet of you. So you work from home then?” Gen asked the question, then almost kicked herself. Why was she drawing out this conversation? Apart from the guy being a bit weird, she had a bed to finish building.
“Yeah, I’m a writer. Freelance,” Jay replied. “What do you do then, Genevieve?”
“Really, a writer, huh? I’m a journalist. I just moved here to take a junior research job at KIPH TV.”
“KIPH? That’s cool. What sort of research?”
“I don’t really know yet, I start on Monday. I guess I’m coming in at the bottom of the pile, you know, so I’ll find out when I get there. I’m a bit nervous, to be honest. I don’t have much experience – all I’ve done since college is local stuff for my hometown newspaper. This is so different. ”
“Don’t you worry, I’m sure you will be awesome.”
“I…well, thank you, that’s nice of you to say. Look, I’ve got to go, I need to finish off my bed or I’ll be sleeping on the floor tonight. Thanks so much for loan of the keys, Jay.”
Gen closed the small door over, and slowly made her way into the bedroom. She was somewhat bewildered by her sudden urge to over-share with her mysterious neighbor. Still, he had seemed really pleasant once they’d started talking, so maybe she should give him a chance, quirky or not.
:::
The rest of the weekend was taken up with the joys of unpacking, interspersed with shopping for groceries, and all those essential items she thought she had only to find they’d either gotten broken in transit or somehow disappeared from the box she thought she’d packed them in.
She hadn’t met all her neighbors yet, though she did bump into the Reverend Collins from #201, a delightfully disheveled guy in his thirties, who was a lot younger and more attractive than any vicar she’d ever known. “Call me Misha,” he’d told her, blue eyes twinkling, as he’d pumped her hand in enthusiastic greeting. She’d thought of asking him about Jay the Measles Man, but Misha had been in a hurry – soup kitchen duties, he’d said as he’d passed her on the stairs – so she had to rein in her curiosity for now.
She’d had another enjoyable chat with the mysterious but sickly resident of apartment #401 when she’d returned the hex keys. She’d put them in the dumbwaiter with a thank you note, but when she winched the box down, Jay had been there – as if he’d been waiting around for the opportunity to talk. Genevieve was sure she should have found that creepy, but somehow it tipped the scales on the endearing side.
On Monday she started her new job at KIPH TV. She’d expected to find herself being treated as an office junior, but instead she was largely ignored. The newsroom was in total chaos over a series of illegal broadcasts by someone calling himself Eyes Only, and it took most of the day before the editor who’d hired her even noticed she was there. All in all, not the best first day ever.
That evening Genevieve passed a startlingly attractive but intimidatingly tall young woman on the landing between #301 and #401. The green-eyed beauty flashed Gen a white-toothed smile before disappearing down the stairs in a flurry of feathers and glitter. She asked Jay via dumbwaiter who the mystery woman was, but Jay just got flustered and mumbled something about exotic dancers that Gen didn’t quite catch. Gen hoped the woman was immune to measles, as the only apartments above that landing were Jay’s and hers, but she let Jay change the subject to speculation as to the identity of Eyes Only. It was none of her business who J. R. Ackles chose to entertain in his rooms, after all.
Tuesday evening the dumbwaiter rattled and Gen smiled, surprised to find she was fighting down a little flutter of excitement at the thought of talking to Jay again. She opened the midget door and laughed when she looked inside the box to see a red velvet cupcake with pink frosting sitting on a white china plate. Perched on the kitchen counter next to the open midget door licking sugar from her fingers, Gen discovered that when J. R. Ackles wasn’t sick or writing, he liked to bake in his spare time.
“Don’t worry,” he said, just as Gen was chasing the last few crumbs of cake around the plate with one sticky finger. “I wore a mask and disinfected everything.” Genevieve felt like kicking herself instead of the cupboard doors, because she hadn’t even thought about the risk of infection.
On Wednesday morning she was a bit late for work because she nearly fell over a two-year-old kid sitting on the stoop outside the main security door of Hetty Heights. After looking all around the street and seeing no sign of any frantic parent, Gen went back indoors, holding the fortunately placid child’s hot moist hand. Genevieve tried not to wonder why the kid’s hand might be wet. She scanned the mailboxes in the hallway, looking for a clue as to where the kid might have come from. She could dismiss #401, and probably the Rev. M. Collins in #301, which left the scratched out name (possibly S. Rogers) in #201, Mrs. Altefrau in #101 and the Basement full of the nameless people Jay called Moles.
Deciding the one definite female was her best bet, Gen was about to knock on #101 when the door burst open and what felt like a whole football team of children spilled out. Gen was swamped in seconds, buffeted by noise and various small bodies. Then just as suddenly as they’d appeared they ran back into the apartment, like a tsunami retreating, leaving Genevieve somewhat breathless and devoid of the two-year-old.
“Billy! What did I tell you about putting your brother outside? How many times do I have to tell you, he’s not going to be collected by the faeries!” came the shout from inside, then a surprisingly petite woman appeared in the empty doorway. She pushed a stray strand of dark hair back from her thin face and smiled. “I’m sorry about that,” she said, “My middle boy is convinced Harry is a changeling and the faeries will bring him a ‘proper’ brother if he leaves the kid on the door step.” She shrugged. “Kids, huh? What can you do?”
Gen smiled back in what was meant to be a sympathetic manner, then made her escape before any of the other kids decided to make a bid for freedom.
The delay meant that she arrived at work at the same time as her office furniture. KIPH internal operations had finally managed to rustle up a desk for her, albeit in the corner farthest from natural daylight and next to the photocopier that sounded like a sack full of dying rattlesnakes. Gen was becoming part of the team, and cemented her feelings of belonging by putting a photo of her family on her desk. “No photo of your boyfriend, then?” Jay asked that evening when she told him about her day, and Gen didn’t think she was imagining the sound of relief in his voice when she told him she didn’t have any attachments right now. She didn’t know why that made her smile.
On Thursday call-me-Rosie the IT man connected a battered third-hand computer for her, so she could make a start on the research demands that had been piling up since her presence had registered with the seven journalists who she was supposed to be supplying with information. She gently brushed off Rosie’s clumsy attempt to ask her out, even though he was kind of attractive for a bald-headed IT geek. Somehow the thought of her nightly conversation by dumbwaiter was more exciting than the possibility of a computer engineer’s tongue thrust down her throat. However talented that tongue might be, if it lived up to half of its owner’s promises.
As a result of the backlog in her workload, she was later than usual getting home. She was tired and hungry, and totally unprepared to be confronted in the stairwell by an exceedingly polite guy dressed in a blue and red spandex suit like a pre-Pulse comic book character, who insisted on carrying her bag of groceries all the way up to her door. She closed the door on him saluting her, having only just managed to stop him bowing and kissing her hand.
“Honestly, I really appreciated the kindness, but it was so funny when he tried to kiss my hand. I mean, who does that? And then, for real, Jay, he saluted me like I was his Commander in Chief or something,” she told the shadow in the patch of light down the dumbwaiter shaft, swinging her feet in the air like a kid on her usual counter perch. “Who is that guy? Does he live here?”
Jay chuckled, a deep rich sound she’d come to enjoy. “Oh yeah, that’s Captain America, he’s in #301” he said. “We don’t know his real name. Jen thinks he might have forgotten it himself, as he never gives it out.”
“Jen? Who’s Jen?” Genevieve didn’t recall Jay mentioning a Jen before. In fact, she couldn’t remember him talking about anyone apart from politicians, or people from television shows, so she was extra curious now, especially remembering the striking woman she’d bumped into on the stairs earlier in the week. She refused to acknowledge the curl of something cold in her stomach that might be jealousy, because that would be ridiculous.
“Oh. Um, yeah. Jensen’s just a friend of mine, nobody you know,” Jay said, a bit hurriedly. “He’s a dancer at PullCity.”
“PullCity? Isn’t that one of the strip clubs in Sector 9? I’ve heard it’s pretty raunchy.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been. Jen’s invited me but …” Jay’s voice trailed off and Gen couldn’t resist the urge to finish his sentence for him. Her brother had always complained about her doing that, but it was a bad habit she’d never grown out of.
“But strip clubs aren’t your thing? I can understand that, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s kind of admirable, actually.”
“It is?” Jay’s voice sounded surprised but eager, and Genevieve smiled.
He really was cute. She was actually looking forward to his quarantine being lifted…and there was a thought. Surely it was about time?
“Yes, it is, quite admirable,” Gen said firmly. Then rushed on before she could second-guess herself. “Hey, I was reading up on measles, and you must be close to being over it by now, am I right?”
There was a moment’s silence then Jay came back, sounding a little hesitant. “Yeah, the doc said a week’s isolation, which makes tomorrow my first day of freedom, I guess.”
“Cool. So…” Gen hesitated a second then dived in. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? “…so perhaps you’d like to go out for a coffee, or something stronger, after work? Unless you have something else going on, of course, you must have things to catch up on after being cooped up for so long…” she shut up before her babbling embarrassed her any further, but she couldn’t help the dismal swoop of disappointment in her stomach when Jay replied with a too-emphatic no.
“Of course, sorry, you’re busy and I must have misread the situation, yeah. That’s me all right, always getting it wrong.”
She jumped down off the kitchen counter and had her hand on the midget door, ready to close it on the whole sorry mess, when Jay’s voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Wait! I can’t go out tomorrow but what about Saturday? Maybe you could come round here instead? For coffee, or I could cook you something. You know I like to cook…?” Jay trailed off into uncertainty again – it seemed to be a habit – causing Gen to turn back. Whether it was pity or curiosity or something else entirely, she wasn’t entirely sure, but she found herself agreeing to some sort of lunch date at the weekend. She just hoped she wasn’t making a massive error of judgment.
:::
“You did what?”
“I invited our new neighbor round for dinner tomorrow,” Jared said, looking up at Jensen from behind his shaggy hair. For a feline-based human, Jared was really much too adept at this hangdog look. It was annoying, all the more so because Jensen didn’t even like dogs. He stared at his flat mate with incredulity.
“This from the man who won’t even walk down the block to the Quickie Mart in the middle of the night when there’s nobody around, in case someone notices he’s not a normal human being.” Jensen might have done air quotes around the normal human bit. So sue him, it was sore point, and sarcasm was Jensen’s last remaining weapon in the face of Jared’s puppy-eyes.
Jared flushed, making the faint stripes in his skin pigmentation, which were normally barely noticeable, stand out. Jared waved a hand towards the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece.
“I’m not normal, Jen. You know I’m a freak. Look at me. What human being has eyes like mine, or skin that’s striped like this? That’s why I need you to be here, Jen. I need you to…” Jared paused and Jensen raised an eyebrow, waiting.
Jensen understood why Jared was so afraid to go outside, and refused to mingle with people. Jensen hadn’t forgotten the terrible state his friend had been in when he had first encountered Jared in the back alley outside PullCity all those months ago. Jensen had never told Jared that he’d half killed the three Steelhead punks that had been whaling on the big guy, before he’d carried Jared, unconscious and bleeding, back home to Hetty Heights. Manticore training was good for some things – putting the fear of god into a few vicious thugs being one. The ability to administer first aid was another.
It had taken a long time for Jared’s physical injuries to heal, and Jensen was well aware that his friend wasn’t really healed yet at all. He hadn’t spoken to a living soul face to face since then, and was even reluctant to answer the telephone. It was annoying, but understandable.
So now, having Jared actually voluntarily talk to someone new, and even more extraordinary, to want to meet them face-to-face? Well, it felt like a breakthrough. But looking at Jared’s face, Jensen feared there was a catch somewhere. He was right.
“What, Jay? What do you need me to do?” Jensen said. If he sounded impatient, he couldn’t help it. He loved the oversized Tigger – Jared had filled a huge empty hole in Jensen’s heart that he hadn’t even been aware was there since his separation from his other brothers and sisters at Manticore, but that didn’t stop him being driven crazy by Jared sometimes.
Now being a case in point.
“You have to pretend you’re me.” Jared blurted out.
“What?”
Jared managed to combine embarrassed and stubborn in equal measure but pressed on regardless. “You have to pretend it was you who’s been talking to her through the dumbwaiter, and invited her over. I’ll just hide in the bedroom once I’ve prepared all the food for you both.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, Jen, please. You have to do this. I can’t let her see me, she’d be terrified.”
Jensen sighed. He’d tried so many times to show Jared that he wasn’t the monster he thought he was, but nothing he said or did could shake Jared’s conviction. Jared was so certain that his height, his amber-gold eyes and the strange body pigmentation that grew more noticeable when he was agitated, all added up to make him the freak Manticore had designed him to be. Sure, Jared was taller than most at six-five, and it was true that they had all been grown in test tubes. Basically none of Manticore’s creations would ever be normal, but Jensen refused to wear a label. Not any more. And he hated that Jared couldn’t shed his fear, even while he understood the reasons.
He absently ran his hand over the back of his neck where his barcode had used to be. One of the first things Jensen had done when he’d healed enough to leave the hospital was to find a tattoo artist. Jeff had been a talented guy who’d transformed the old code tattoo from a brand of ownership into a work of art. Although Jensen couldn’t see it, knowing it was there had been a constant reminder of abandonment and betrayal, whereas now it symbolized his freedom. He’d done the same favor for Jared, though as the big guy refused to step outside the door, Jared’s tattoo was done by Jensen, and as a result it was less artistic and more – interpretive.
He pulled his mind back to the present and Jared’s pleading expression.
“You like her,” he said, more a statement than a question. Jensen didn’t need to wait for Jared’s shamefaced nod of acknowledgement. Jensen closed his eyes in resignation. Great. They were really going to do this.
“Okay, okay, I’ll pretend for you. But you’re doing all the cooking. And,” he raised a hand to stop Jared interrupting with thanks, “you’re gonna have to brief me on everything you’ve been chatting about this last week. Otherwise she’s gonna catch me out on something before we’ve so much as picked up a fork.”
Jared’s face lit up and before Jensen could move he was enveloped in a bone-crushing hug. When he finally extricated himself, he watched with bemused affection as Jared rushed off to start a frantic cleaning of every possible surface, even though the place was already spotless.
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” he muttered, foreseeing a long couple of days ahead trying to contain Jared’s excitement. It was a good thing Manticore had trained its operatives in crisis management, which was weird to say. Jensen had never thought he’d be grateful to them for anything.
Onward to Part 2 (because LJ's page limits suck)
Part 1
There were winners and losers in most circumstances, and Ray Cortese was one of life’s winners. When the Pulse struck and the behemoths of the computing world crashed along with half of civilization, Cortese Tech Ltd was both small and flexible enough to adapt, thanks to the genius of Ray and his little sister Emilia. Now Cortese Tech was on its way to becoming the Apple of the Twenty First century, and the Cortese family were no longer merely comfortably off, but downright rich.
So when his little girl Genevieve graduated with her first class degree and told Ray she’d gotten herself a job as a journalist in Seattle, Ray took it in his stride. Nothing was too good for Gen, though he wasn’t going to tell her that to her face. He was a firm believer in letting his kids find their own path in life, because he never doubted they would be winners too. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to pull a few strings to make sure his baby girl was safe and relatively comfortable, so Ray quietly moved behind the scenes to help Genevieve ‘discover’ suitable accommodation in one of the more salubrious area of the city.
Hetty Heights consisted of three blocks of former high-class condos that had both waterfront and city views. Since the Pulse, this East Lake area had been renamed Sector 6, but had managed to retain some of its former grandeur. Farther along what used to be East Lake Avenue were several larger gated properties where Seattle’s elite lived – verging from the respectable, like arms manufacturer Robert Berrisford, to the less savory, such as the drugs baron Ramirez. Hetty Heights was no longer individually owned condos, the blocks were now owned by one of Ray’s oldest friends who had taken them over Post Pulse.
In the initial chaos after the Pulse many more apartments had been built in the spaces between the three main blocks, so that now the buildings formed an interconnected maze of dwellings reminiscent of ancient Kowloon in Hong Kong – but thankfully vastly cleaner. Ray checked Hetty Heights out and decided it looked a reasonable (if colorful) neighborhood to steer Genevieve towards.
Luckily, Gen agreed.
:::
Doubts set in about the wisdom of her move to Seattle precisely two minutes after Mrs. Hedges practically ran out of the apartment clutching Genevieve’s signed lease, together with her deposit and six months payment in advance. Sure, this offer by KIPH TV had pretty much been Gen’s dream job since high school, and the leasing agent had been totally correct about the fabulous views of the post-Pulse city and Lake Union from apartment number 501’s massive metal-framed windows, but it must have slipped both leasing agent and landlady’s minds to warn a gal about the residents downstairs who were evidently violating the no pets rule.
Because two minutes after Mrs. Hedges slammed the front door, loud music started up from apartment #401, directly below Genevieve. Which would have been annoying enough, but it was accompanied by what sounded like the yowling of dying alley cats. Gen started unpacking, trying to ignore the awful racket – and was that pre-Pulse Metallica being played there? – but after nearly sixty more minutes of unrelenting abuse, her ears protested that enough was enough, and she grabbed her door keys. Time to introduce herself to her singularly tone-deaf neighbor.
Standing in front of the green peeling paint of #401’s door, Gen almost wimped out of knocking. Although the stairwells and landings of Hetty Heights were relatively clean, and happily free from the smell of piss – definitely a plus and one of the reasons Gen had taken the lease so readily – Seattle was a big city, full of unknown dangers. And here was Gen, one tiny out-of-towner, about to pick a fight with her closest neighbor on her first day. Who was, if she remembered rightly from reading the assortment of labels next to the buzzers downstairs, one J. R. Ackles.
Gen hesitated, hand poised over the brass knocker, when an extra loud and discordant howl emanated from behind the too-thin barrier of the door.
“Oh come on, Cortese, man up!” she muttered.
She knocked.
:::
Jared was happy. The sun was shining for a change, Jensen had promised to pick up some of Jared’s favorite candy on the grocery run, and Jared would be getting a paycheck this month because New World Weekly had accepted his last article. Plus, they’d asked for a series of follow-ups. Jared hated that Jensen had to shoulder ninety per cent of the burden of their living expenses, even though he knew intellectually that it wasn’t his fault that he had to hide in the apartment all day. Being a transgenic who looked as different as Jared did wasn’t easy. The world just wasn’t ready for the knowledge that freaks lived amongst them. There was no way he’d fit in outside, with the ordinaries, no matter what Jensen told him.
“Jay, you’re a freaking hairy giant, and you sometimes smell a bit like wet dog, it’s true, but that isn’t a crime, even in this crazy city,” Jared bared his teeth at being likened to a canine, but Jensen just grinned at him, completely unapologetic. Jensen had some cat DNA in his mix, so Jared let the insult slide, this once. The tiger in Jared rumbled his displeasure, though.
“Come to PullCity with me, watch me dance tonight. You know I could do with seeing a friendly face in that crowd of lecherous creeps. Or you could just come to watch the rehearsals, then go home.” Jensen said, stroking the sensitive skin of Jared’s arm to sooth him. Jared always found Jensen’s wide green eyes hard to resist when they took on that pleading look, but even Jensen’s undoubted charms couldn’t persuade Jared to risk it.
He just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t walk out into the street in broad daylight without feeling completely exposed. He wasn’t even happy venturing outside in the dark. Jared had learned through bitter experience that every person out there was a potential hostile, just waiting to throw a punch or a handful of stones, to beat him to the floor and kick him until he cracked – just like four years ago, when he’d first escaped from Manticore to avoid a second ‘treatment’ by Psy Ops, and found his way to the dead heart of Seattle. Before Jensen had saved Jared from the beating and the streets, and offered to share his home.
Jared was endlessly thankful that Jensen had been left for dead by Manticore after nearly dying on a failed mission, because Jensen had been Jared’s salvation. Manticore’s ingratitude and rare carelessness had thrown them into an undying friendship that was like nothing either of the two rogue transgenics had ever known.
And just because Jared took the opportunity when Jensen was out dancing at the strip club to play the pre-Pulse thrash metal that he’d discovered he loved -- and that Jensen hated -- that didn’t mean he was ungrateful. After all the hours spent listening to the kind of music Jensen liked was something close to torture as far as Jared was concerned. There was only so much pre-Pulse Taylor Swift a transgenic tiger could take.
What was the saying? While the cat’s away, the mice will play? Something like that. Though the mouse analogy was really inappropriate, since Jensen was an X4 with cat DNA while Jared was an X4 anomaly with a touch too much tiger in his cocktail. No dogs in this house. Hence Jared’s inability to hold a note, and his reluctance to sing while Jensen was around, however happy he was feeling.
“So close no matter how far, Couldn't be much more from the heart, Forever trusting who we are, No nothing else matters…” Jared caterwauled to the less than dulcet tones of the late James Hetfield. He felt safe in the knowledge that the loft apartment above was untenanted, and at this time of day, the Reverend Collins from Apartment 301 below would be out getting the soup kitchens at St. Augustine’s ready for the evening’s influx of the homeless and dispossessed. Captain America in #201 was too far removed (he hoped) to hear anything, not being genetically enhanced like Jared and Jensen.
Even with his inhumanly acute hearing, the music and his own voice were so loud, Jared almost missed the knocking at the door. In fact, it wasn’t the noise that alerted him, it was an elusive and pleasant scent that reached his nostrils as he busied himself washing up last night’s pots. He stopped singing, sniffing the air.
“Nice,” he mused, following the scent all the way to the front door without even noticing he was moving. His hand was on the safety chain and in the act of opening the door before he realized what he was doing. He jumped back with a grunt of shock. What the hell was he thinking?
He flinched when whoever was outside restarted their knocking, more angrily this time. The hairs on his arms and neck rose, and every muscle was trembling. His heart raced.
What if someone had found them; had recognized Jared for the freak he was. Maybe it was those Steelheads who’d beaten him up so badly. Or worse, what if it was Manticore, come to claim him and Jensen? He didn’t want to go back to that life of virtual slavery. He didn’t want Jensen to be forced to become a killer again. He’d been reprogrammed once and that was enough – the screaming still haunted his dreams.
Tentatively, he leaned down to peer through the peephole in the door.
The last thing Jared was expecting to see was a very tiny, very pretty young woman. So petite, in fact, that she was barely visible even with the peephole’s fisheye lens until she took a step back and looked up – directly into Jared’s eyes.
:::
Gen was just about to give up on getting an answer when she heard the rattle of a chain being undone. She turned back to the door in anticipation of it finally opening, only to be disappointed when nothing happened.
What the ever-loving fudge was going on?
The awful singing had stopped but music was still blaring out, and Genevieve was beyond fed up. Pulling herself up to her full height – which, okay, was only five foot one but she was still fucking formidable, right? – she banged on the door again. This time hard enough to make it rattle a bit in its frame. Over or under the bass beat of the music, she heard something inside the apartment, like a gasp or a deep breath. She took a half step back.
“I know you’re in there, so you can stop pretending.”
Nothing. This was ridiculous. She raised her voice.
“Look. All I want is for you to turn your music down, okay? I just moved in upstairs and I can hardly hear myself think…” she trailed off when a sudden blessed silence descended from inside #401. “Oh. Okay then. Thank you. Um…” Feeling somewhat foolish addressing a closed door, Genevieve was turning to leave when a slightly muffled voice arrested her progress.
“Sorry,” it said. It was a nice voice. It didn’t sound like the strangled whale that had been yowling earlier. In fact, it was a pleasant even tenor, with a touch of a rumble in its lower registers that was kind of attractive. “I didn’t know anyone had moved in upstairs, and the apartment below is usually empty at this time of day, so the music doesn’t usually bother anyone and I’m really sorry, it won’t happen again.”
In spite of herself, Genevieve was drawn back to the door. Which was still closed. That explained why the voice was muffled. Gen raised an eyebrow. This had to be one of the strangest initial encounters she’d ever been party to.
“Hi,” she tried, somewhat tentatively. “I’m Genevieve. Mr. Ackles, right…?”
“Oh. Um, Ja…Jay. Call me Jay.”
Gen smiled vaguely at the closed door, feeling awkward. She assumed Jay was watching her through the tiny peephole, which was at least three inches above her eye level, even if she’d been inclined to check if she could see in from out here. “Well, pleased to meet you, Jay. How about you open the door and we can get properly introduced?”
That innocent question seemed to cause some consternation behind the barrier.
“Oh no, I can’t let you in! I mean, I can’t open the door, I’m…I’m contagious. That’s right. I’ve got measles, and the doctor said I’m not allowed out of the apartment for…for several days. He said too many normals – I mean people – haven’t been inoculated since the Pulse so measles is very dangerous. And I’m just in the middle of spring-cleaning for J…for the rent inspection …and I’m not dressed. So sorry, can’t be properly introduced just now.”
Genevieve raised her eyebrows. Well this was going well. She’d only been neighbors with the guy for a couple of hours and it looked like she’d outstayed her welcome already, if that garbled set of excuses was anything to go by. She pushed down the temptation to enquire whether he was in the habit of doing the cleaning naked, though part of her was dying to know.
“Okay then, well, I hope you feel better soon. I’ll just…” she gestured in the general direction of the stairs.
“Okay then,” echoed the disembodied voice, still sounding pathetically apologetic, which was the only reason Gen wasn’t writing off this whole encounter and wishing she’d moved into another apartment as far away from here as possible. “But if you need anything, well, anything I can help with that doesn’t entail me contaminating anything with my measles, then just let me know, okay?”
“Thanks, Jay, I will,” Gen said, not actually meaning a word of it.
But that was before she got three quarters of the way through constructing her second-hand flat-pack bed only to have her hex key break. There were at least three more connections to make before she could haul the mattress onto the frame and collapse in a heap. That’s what you get for buying crap from a street market, Gen, her father’s voice admonished.
Well, shit. She looked at the two utterly useless pieces of metal and realized she was going to have to knock on #401’s door again after all. It was a no-win scenario. Either she tackled her weird naked neighbor and his closed-door syndrome again, or she could go in search of a store selling hex keys at – she glanced at her wristwatch and winced – gone nine thirty in the evening. In the rain. Because it was Seattle, so of course a glorious sunny day had been replaced by dark clouds the moment night fell, and it was pouring down.
Glancing out of the huge picture windows Gen had no illusions. The rain might have turned the night outside into a glittering, bejeweled treasure chest of cultured light, but she knew from experience it would be freezing, and she’d be soaked through in seconds. Plus Genevieve might be fresh into the big city from the country, but she was no hick. She understood how dangerous the streets could be after dark, even in one of the more ‘civilized’ residential sectors.
She sighed and grabbed her keys. Time to brave the Naked Measles Man.
:::
After Genevieve had left, Jared leaned back against the front door, then let his body slide down until his butt hit the laminate floor. His head tipped back, hitting the door with an audible thunk, and he stared at the ceiling as if looking for cracks in the smooth plaster. But the only cracks he found were inside his own head.
What was he doing? This was nuts. He couldn’t be talking to neighbors (no, not to any old neighbor, but to a young, attractive, fragrant Genevieve) as if he was a real person with an ordinary job in an ordinary life. And what had possessed him to babble on about measles and diseases? If she didn’t already think he was crazy, she probably had also gone away with the impression that he was some sort of untouchable. He’d made it sound like he was the Rider of the White Horse, about to single-handedly bring down pestilence and plague on Seattle.
On automatic, his genetically enhanced hearing tuned into the sounds of Genevieve returning to her apartment upstairs – the door closing, the metallic rattle of the chain being drawn across, her footsteps crossing the floor. Parts of his brain were analyzing, Manticore training that was hard to shed – sounded like she had wooden laminate in her main room, like Jensen’s, he thought idly.
He shook himself. What was he doing? Dissecting her every move like some creepy stalker. He might be a monster but he wasn’t a pervert. He almost ran across the room to flip the stereo back on, remembering to turn the volume down to a more civilized level. The ambient noise should distract him from being the audio equivalent of a peeping Tom.
He would make himself useful, instead of sitting around brooding about the normal life he couldn’t have, and the pretty, nice-smelling girls a freak like him could never get close to. Time to get on with that spring-cleaning he’d told Genevieve he was in the middle of. The least he could do was make sure Jensen’s place was spotless when he got back from working at PullCity.
An hour or two later, the last thing he was expecting was another knock on the front door. Scratch that. The absolute last thing he was expecting was to see his new neighbor on the landing outside their front door again. She was a little more disheveled than when she’d called round earlier, her long brown hair now caught up in a messy ponytail and a smudge of dirt on her nose he was sure she was unaware of. There was that tantalizing scent again, wafting through the door and making the sensitive skin on Jared’s face prickle.
She looked adorable and Jared wanted to bury his nose in her hair and lick the dirt off her nose.
His heart gave a little leap of excitement. He hadn’t scared her off forever after all.
:::
Genevieve heard Jay approach the door but he didn’t open it – of course. Looking up at the spyhole, she gave an awkward wave when he said hello.
“Hi again,” she said, then launched straight into her reason for being there to avoid any uncomfortable attempts at polite conversation. “I hope I didn’t wake you up or anything, but you did say to come back if I needed help. So, I’m building some furniture and my hex key broke. I was wondering if you have one I could borrow?”
“What’s a hex key?” Jay said, so she held the offending article up to the spyhole for him to see.
“Ah, I see…I don’t know, but I can have a look. We…I… have a tool box and I don’t know the half of what is in there. Why don’t you go back upstairs and I’ll call you when I find it.”
Gen wasn’t entirely sure she wanted this oddball neighbor to have her cell number, but she couldn’t really think of any excuse not to give it out. And she was stuck with living in the same building, so perhaps it was better he had her number and so wasn’t tempted to come knocking on her door when he’d recovered from his bout of measles...
“Okay, my number is seven one…”
“No need for phone numbers,” he interrupted, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “We can use the dumbwaiter.”
He must have seen the equally dumb expression on her face as he rushed to explain, eager as a little kid to show off a new toy. Apparently these apartments had been built a long time before the Pulse, and must have been the height of luxury at the time. They had been served by a common kitchen located in what was now the basement unit where the Mole people lived, but the apartments were still connected by the dumbwaiter shaft intended for conveying the hot food to the residents.
Light dawned.
“Oh! You mean that door for midgets in the kitchen wall! I’d been wondering what that was for.”
“Yes. I mean, no, it’s not a door for midgets,” Gen rolled her eyes a little. Jay was proving to be a bit literally minded; perhaps she would have to educate him in the meaning of irony. “Never mind. So anyway, when I find this key thing I can call up the shaft and then I can use the waiter’s lift mechanism to send it up to you. Saves you trekking up and down the stairs, and we reduce the risk that I contaminate you with my measles.”
Gen had to agree, that made a certain kind of sense.
Back in her apartment, Genevieve sat on her brand new, plastic covered sofa surrounded by cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked, waiting for contact via a hole in the kitchen wall.
“Genevieve Cortese, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?’ she huffed then threw up her hands dramatically. “Great. Now I’m talking to myself…”
:::
Bored of waiting for her neighbor to pull his finger out and find that replacement key, Genevieve was halfway through unpacking her boxes of kitchen paraphernalia – why she’d brought half of this stuff from her parent’s home she had no idea – when she heard a muffled shout, followed by a rhythmic knocking. She assumed, correctly, it was Jay.
She opened the midget door and cautiously stuck her head inside. Looking down the square shaft was dimly illuminated for a few feet from the kitchen light behind her, after which it was swallowed up in general murk. A murk which was broken maybe twelve feet down by a square patch of light on the back wall. Gen assumed, correctly, the light must be from Jay’s apartment. As she watched, a shadow appeared in the middle of the patch of light. It looked like someone moving around.
“Hey,” she said, “Is that you, Jay?’
“Yes,” he called back. “I found a bunch of those hex keys, hopefully one of them will fit. So if you just hang on a minute while I winch the dumbwaiter up, I’ll have them with you in a moment.”
Sure enough, she could hear a rattling followed by a creaking noise, and then Jay’s light disappeared. There was a brief pause then the noise started up again, getting louder. Now she could see something moving up the shaft. She pulled her head back in and waited, and, a few seconds later, the dumbwaiter arrived at her midget door. It was basically a simple wooden box, but a welcome sight nonetheless, as there inside it were the promised hex keys, in various sizes.
She took the keys with a smile of relief, then winched the dumbwaiter up out of the way so she could look down the shaft again.
“Thanks, Jay,” she said, aiming her voice at the patch of light still showing below. A shadow moved, so she assumed her neighbor was still there. “You’re a life saver. I’ll bring these back tomorrow, if that’s ok.”
“Send them back down in the dumbwaiter,” Jay said. “I hope they work. I’m usually around, so just call if you need anything else.”
“That’s very sweet of you. So you work from home then?” Gen asked the question, then almost kicked herself. Why was she drawing out this conversation? Apart from the guy being a bit weird, she had a bed to finish building.
“Yeah, I’m a writer. Freelance,” Jay replied. “What do you do then, Genevieve?”
“Really, a writer, huh? I’m a journalist. I just moved here to take a junior research job at KIPH TV.”
“KIPH? That’s cool. What sort of research?”
“I don’t really know yet, I start on Monday. I guess I’m coming in at the bottom of the pile, you know, so I’ll find out when I get there. I’m a bit nervous, to be honest. I don’t have much experience – all I’ve done since college is local stuff for my hometown newspaper. This is so different. ”
“Don’t you worry, I’m sure you will be awesome.”
“I…well, thank you, that’s nice of you to say. Look, I’ve got to go, I need to finish off my bed or I’ll be sleeping on the floor tonight. Thanks so much for loan of the keys, Jay.”
Gen closed the small door over, and slowly made her way into the bedroom. She was somewhat bewildered by her sudden urge to over-share with her mysterious neighbor. Still, he had seemed really pleasant once they’d started talking, so maybe she should give him a chance, quirky or not.
:::
The rest of the weekend was taken up with the joys of unpacking, interspersed with shopping for groceries, and all those essential items she thought she had only to find they’d either gotten broken in transit or somehow disappeared from the box she thought she’d packed them in.
She hadn’t met all her neighbors yet, though she did bump into the Reverend Collins from #201, a delightfully disheveled guy in his thirties, who was a lot younger and more attractive than any vicar she’d ever known. “Call me Misha,” he’d told her, blue eyes twinkling, as he’d pumped her hand in enthusiastic greeting. She’d thought of asking him about Jay the Measles Man, but Misha had been in a hurry – soup kitchen duties, he’d said as he’d passed her on the stairs – so she had to rein in her curiosity for now.
She’d had another enjoyable chat with the mysterious but sickly resident of apartment #401 when she’d returned the hex keys. She’d put them in the dumbwaiter with a thank you note, but when she winched the box down, Jay had been there – as if he’d been waiting around for the opportunity to talk. Genevieve was sure she should have found that creepy, but somehow it tipped the scales on the endearing side.
On Monday she started her new job at KIPH TV. She’d expected to find herself being treated as an office junior, but instead she was largely ignored. The newsroom was in total chaos over a series of illegal broadcasts by someone calling himself Eyes Only, and it took most of the day before the editor who’d hired her even noticed she was there. All in all, not the best first day ever.
That evening Genevieve passed a startlingly attractive but intimidatingly tall young woman on the landing between #301 and #401. The green-eyed beauty flashed Gen a white-toothed smile before disappearing down the stairs in a flurry of feathers and glitter. She asked Jay via dumbwaiter who the mystery woman was, but Jay just got flustered and mumbled something about exotic dancers that Gen didn’t quite catch. Gen hoped the woman was immune to measles, as the only apartments above that landing were Jay’s and hers, but she let Jay change the subject to speculation as to the identity of Eyes Only. It was none of her business who J. R. Ackles chose to entertain in his rooms, after all.
Tuesday evening the dumbwaiter rattled and Gen smiled, surprised to find she was fighting down a little flutter of excitement at the thought of talking to Jay again. She opened the midget door and laughed when she looked inside the box to see a red velvet cupcake with pink frosting sitting on a white china plate. Perched on the kitchen counter next to the open midget door licking sugar from her fingers, Gen discovered that when J. R. Ackles wasn’t sick or writing, he liked to bake in his spare time.
“Don’t worry,” he said, just as Gen was chasing the last few crumbs of cake around the plate with one sticky finger. “I wore a mask and disinfected everything.” Genevieve felt like kicking herself instead of the cupboard doors, because she hadn’t even thought about the risk of infection.
On Wednesday morning she was a bit late for work because she nearly fell over a two-year-old kid sitting on the stoop outside the main security door of Hetty Heights. After looking all around the street and seeing no sign of any frantic parent, Gen went back indoors, holding the fortunately placid child’s hot moist hand. Genevieve tried not to wonder why the kid’s hand might be wet. She scanned the mailboxes in the hallway, looking for a clue as to where the kid might have come from. She could dismiss #401, and probably the Rev. M. Collins in #301, which left the scratched out name (possibly S. Rogers) in #201, Mrs. Altefrau in #101 and the Basement full of the nameless people Jay called Moles.
Deciding the one definite female was her best bet, Gen was about to knock on #101 when the door burst open and what felt like a whole football team of children spilled out. Gen was swamped in seconds, buffeted by noise and various small bodies. Then just as suddenly as they’d appeared they ran back into the apartment, like a tsunami retreating, leaving Genevieve somewhat breathless and devoid of the two-year-old.
“Billy! What did I tell you about putting your brother outside? How many times do I have to tell you, he’s not going to be collected by the faeries!” came the shout from inside, then a surprisingly petite woman appeared in the empty doorway. She pushed a stray strand of dark hair back from her thin face and smiled. “I’m sorry about that,” she said, “My middle boy is convinced Harry is a changeling and the faeries will bring him a ‘proper’ brother if he leaves the kid on the door step.” She shrugged. “Kids, huh? What can you do?”
Gen smiled back in what was meant to be a sympathetic manner, then made her escape before any of the other kids decided to make a bid for freedom.
The delay meant that she arrived at work at the same time as her office furniture. KIPH internal operations had finally managed to rustle up a desk for her, albeit in the corner farthest from natural daylight and next to the photocopier that sounded like a sack full of dying rattlesnakes. Gen was becoming part of the team, and cemented her feelings of belonging by putting a photo of her family on her desk. “No photo of your boyfriend, then?” Jay asked that evening when she told him about her day, and Gen didn’t think she was imagining the sound of relief in his voice when she told him she didn’t have any attachments right now. She didn’t know why that made her smile.
On Thursday call-me-Rosie the IT man connected a battered third-hand computer for her, so she could make a start on the research demands that had been piling up since her presence had registered with the seven journalists who she was supposed to be supplying with information. She gently brushed off Rosie’s clumsy attempt to ask her out, even though he was kind of attractive for a bald-headed IT geek. Somehow the thought of her nightly conversation by dumbwaiter was more exciting than the possibility of a computer engineer’s tongue thrust down her throat. However talented that tongue might be, if it lived up to half of its owner’s promises.
As a result of the backlog in her workload, she was later than usual getting home. She was tired and hungry, and totally unprepared to be confronted in the stairwell by an exceedingly polite guy dressed in a blue and red spandex suit like a pre-Pulse comic book character, who insisted on carrying her bag of groceries all the way up to her door. She closed the door on him saluting her, having only just managed to stop him bowing and kissing her hand.
“Honestly, I really appreciated the kindness, but it was so funny when he tried to kiss my hand. I mean, who does that? And then, for real, Jay, he saluted me like I was his Commander in Chief or something,” she told the shadow in the patch of light down the dumbwaiter shaft, swinging her feet in the air like a kid on her usual counter perch. “Who is that guy? Does he live here?”
Jay chuckled, a deep rich sound she’d come to enjoy. “Oh yeah, that’s Captain America, he’s in #301” he said. “We don’t know his real name. Jen thinks he might have forgotten it himself, as he never gives it out.”
“Jen? Who’s Jen?” Genevieve didn’t recall Jay mentioning a Jen before. In fact, she couldn’t remember him talking about anyone apart from politicians, or people from television shows, so she was extra curious now, especially remembering the striking woman she’d bumped into on the stairs earlier in the week. She refused to acknowledge the curl of something cold in her stomach that might be jealousy, because that would be ridiculous.
“Oh. Um, yeah. Jensen’s just a friend of mine, nobody you know,” Jay said, a bit hurriedly. “He’s a dancer at PullCity.”
“PullCity? Isn’t that one of the strip clubs in Sector 9? I’ve heard it’s pretty raunchy.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been. Jen’s invited me but …” Jay’s voice trailed off and Gen couldn’t resist the urge to finish his sentence for him. Her brother had always complained about her doing that, but it was a bad habit she’d never grown out of.
“But strip clubs aren’t your thing? I can understand that, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s kind of admirable, actually.”
“It is?” Jay’s voice sounded surprised but eager, and Genevieve smiled.
He really was cute. She was actually looking forward to his quarantine being lifted…and there was a thought. Surely it was about time?
“Yes, it is, quite admirable,” Gen said firmly. Then rushed on before she could second-guess herself. “Hey, I was reading up on measles, and you must be close to being over it by now, am I right?”
There was a moment’s silence then Jay came back, sounding a little hesitant. “Yeah, the doc said a week’s isolation, which makes tomorrow my first day of freedom, I guess.”
“Cool. So…” Gen hesitated a second then dived in. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? “…so perhaps you’d like to go out for a coffee, or something stronger, after work? Unless you have something else going on, of course, you must have things to catch up on after being cooped up for so long…” she shut up before her babbling embarrassed her any further, but she couldn’t help the dismal swoop of disappointment in her stomach when Jay replied with a too-emphatic no.
“Of course, sorry, you’re busy and I must have misread the situation, yeah. That’s me all right, always getting it wrong.”
She jumped down off the kitchen counter and had her hand on the midget door, ready to close it on the whole sorry mess, when Jay’s voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Wait! I can’t go out tomorrow but what about Saturday? Maybe you could come round here instead? For coffee, or I could cook you something. You know I like to cook…?” Jay trailed off into uncertainty again – it seemed to be a habit – causing Gen to turn back. Whether it was pity or curiosity or something else entirely, she wasn’t entirely sure, but she found herself agreeing to some sort of lunch date at the weekend. She just hoped she wasn’t making a massive error of judgment.
:::
“You did what?”
“I invited our new neighbor round for dinner tomorrow,” Jared said, looking up at Jensen from behind his shaggy hair. For a feline-based human, Jared was really much too adept at this hangdog look. It was annoying, all the more so because Jensen didn’t even like dogs. He stared at his flat mate with incredulity.
“This from the man who won’t even walk down the block to the Quickie Mart in the middle of the night when there’s nobody around, in case someone notices he’s not a normal human being.” Jensen might have done air quotes around the normal human bit. So sue him, it was sore point, and sarcasm was Jensen’s last remaining weapon in the face of Jared’s puppy-eyes.
Jared flushed, making the faint stripes in his skin pigmentation, which were normally barely noticeable, stand out. Jared waved a hand towards the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece.
“I’m not normal, Jen. You know I’m a freak. Look at me. What human being has eyes like mine, or skin that’s striped like this? That’s why I need you to be here, Jen. I need you to…” Jared paused and Jensen raised an eyebrow, waiting.
Jensen understood why Jared was so afraid to go outside, and refused to mingle with people. Jensen hadn’t forgotten the terrible state his friend had been in when he had first encountered Jared in the back alley outside PullCity all those months ago. Jensen had never told Jared that he’d half killed the three Steelhead punks that had been whaling on the big guy, before he’d carried Jared, unconscious and bleeding, back home to Hetty Heights. Manticore training was good for some things – putting the fear of god into a few vicious thugs being one. The ability to administer first aid was another.
It had taken a long time for Jared’s physical injuries to heal, and Jensen was well aware that his friend wasn’t really healed yet at all. He hadn’t spoken to a living soul face to face since then, and was even reluctant to answer the telephone. It was annoying, but understandable.
So now, having Jared actually voluntarily talk to someone new, and even more extraordinary, to want to meet them face-to-face? Well, it felt like a breakthrough. But looking at Jared’s face, Jensen feared there was a catch somewhere. He was right.
“What, Jay? What do you need me to do?” Jensen said. If he sounded impatient, he couldn’t help it. He loved the oversized Tigger – Jared had filled a huge empty hole in Jensen’s heart that he hadn’t even been aware was there since his separation from his other brothers and sisters at Manticore, but that didn’t stop him being driven crazy by Jared sometimes.
Now being a case in point.
“You have to pretend you’re me.” Jared blurted out.
“What?”
Jared managed to combine embarrassed and stubborn in equal measure but pressed on regardless. “You have to pretend it was you who’s been talking to her through the dumbwaiter, and invited her over. I’ll just hide in the bedroom once I’ve prepared all the food for you both.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, Jen, please. You have to do this. I can’t let her see me, she’d be terrified.”
Jensen sighed. He’d tried so many times to show Jared that he wasn’t the monster he thought he was, but nothing he said or did could shake Jared’s conviction. Jared was so certain that his height, his amber-gold eyes and the strange body pigmentation that grew more noticeable when he was agitated, all added up to make him the freak Manticore had designed him to be. Sure, Jared was taller than most at six-five, and it was true that they had all been grown in test tubes. Basically none of Manticore’s creations would ever be normal, but Jensen refused to wear a label. Not any more. And he hated that Jared couldn’t shed his fear, even while he understood the reasons.
He absently ran his hand over the back of his neck where his barcode had used to be. One of the first things Jensen had done when he’d healed enough to leave the hospital was to find a tattoo artist. Jeff had been a talented guy who’d transformed the old code tattoo from a brand of ownership into a work of art. Although Jensen couldn’t see it, knowing it was there had been a constant reminder of abandonment and betrayal, whereas now it symbolized his freedom. He’d done the same favor for Jared, though as the big guy refused to step outside the door, Jared’s tattoo was done by Jensen, and as a result it was less artistic and more – interpretive.
He pulled his mind back to the present and Jared’s pleading expression.
“You like her,” he said, more a statement than a question. Jensen didn’t need to wait for Jared’s shamefaced nod of acknowledgement. Jensen closed his eyes in resignation. Great. They were really going to do this.
“Okay, okay, I’ll pretend for you. But you’re doing all the cooking. And,” he raised a hand to stop Jared interrupting with thanks, “you’re gonna have to brief me on everything you’ve been chatting about this last week. Otherwise she’s gonna catch me out on something before we’ve so much as picked up a fork.”
Jared’s face lit up and before Jensen could move he was enveloped in a bone-crushing hug. When he finally extricated himself, he watched with bemused affection as Jared rushed off to start a frantic cleaning of every possible surface, even though the place was already spotless.
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” he muttered, foreseeing a long couple of days ahead trying to contain Jared’s excitement. It was a good thing Manticore had trained its operatives in crisis management, which was weird to say. Jensen had never thought he’d be grateful to them for anything.
Onward to Part 2 (because LJ's page limits suck)