Chapter Text
They’d had three new neighbors in the past two years they’d lived in apartment 4B in 2183 Normandy Court. Apartment 4A seemed to be some sort of dead zone, where no one stayed to the end of their lease. First, it was the old woman. She left within two months after claiming she was visited by spirits who threatened to microwave her decrepit dog that never shut the hell up, especially at night. She wasn’t cut out for this place anyway. Being old, there was no elevator, and everyone was constantly tripping up the stairs.
Then there was the tribe of dudebros, all trying to fit into the one bedroom split. There were bunk beds in the living room, and apparently two more shoved into the one bedroom. it was a chaotic mess and the lovely stench of marijuana and pickles was constantly floating through the vents.
The next guy to live there was a middle aged man, down on his luck. He stayed for about eight months, before deciding to drop everything and become a mime in the local park. Apparently, mimes did not need apartments. He seemed to be doing rather well for himself too, and they regularly passed him on their walks to work.
So when Kaidan saw someone else moving in, he had to believe that there was a ticking time bomb on this one as well. Nobody had lasted to their year long lease. This was going to be no different. He and Ashley had toured the apartment when they first began renting their apartment, but at the time, they’d both had significant others, and wanted bedrooms of their own, so across the hall it was.
Ashley peeked through the viewfinder as Kaidan heard clunking up the stairs. She stood on her toes to see out and eagerly awaited seeing who their new neighbor was. She wobbled several times, colliding with the door.
“Ash, they’re going to notice,” Kaidan grumbled.
“No they won’t. No one is going to look right through this thing and into our apartment. If they do, we have some weird ass neighbors and have to watch our backs. I will not be inviting them over for drinks.”
“Please, don’t invite the new neighbors over for drinks in the first place.”
“It looks like just one person so far. A girl.”
Kaidan grunted, pulling his blanket around his body tighter, and shut his eyes. He contemplated a second nap of the day where he ignored his responsibilities and became a sad lump on the couch, at least until he had work. Time off from work did that to him, rendered him useless to just overthink and mope. Ashley heard him move, and drew her glance to him. She sighed, crossing her arms.
“You going to move at all?”
He shook his head. “I have work soon.”
“Bad day?” she asked.
He nodded. Ashley kneeled in front of him on the couch. She pushed one of his dark curls out of his face and sighed sadly. He shut his eyes and pulled away from her just slightly, tucking himself under the covers. “Kaidan…”
“It’s fine, Ash. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Yeah, I do. You’re my best friend, and you look like shit. You hardly ever get off the couch now, and just aren’t the same. I mean, at least your hair is washed.”
“I’m coping,” he said.
“Hang on.”
Ashley vanished and slipped into his bedroom. He listened carefully as he heard an angry meow and Ashley hiss an expletive.
“Get over here, you piece of shit!” she snapped.
The cat hissed, but she won, scooping it up and carrying it back to the couch, mewling the entire time. Ashley returned to the living room with Oleg in her arms. Oleg was an ancient cat who weighed ten pounds more than normal cats were supposed to. It was actually a miracle he’d lived this long. They’d taken him in and convinced Zaeed - their downstairs neighbor - not to shoot him with a BB gun, but the cat had always been Kaidan’s. Ashley despised the obese feline, and took every opportunity possible to tell her friend such.
Oleg leapt from her arms to his owner, and curled up right next to Kaidan. He took his cat and draped an arm over the beast protectively. He opened up one eye and frowned at Ashley.
“Oleg doesn't like when you’re mean to him. He has feelings.”
Ashley nodded. “I know, and judging by his size, he eats all of them.”
Kaidan leaned down and kissed the top of Oleg’s head. The cat purred happily and nudged Kaidan with his head to demand more petting. “It’s okay, buddy. I still love you.”
“You need to get going to work,” she said, nudging him.
Kaidan nodded. “I know.”
Kaidan sat up, careful not to nudge Oleg. The cat curled up in his blanket and went back to sleep. Before Kaidan could head to his room to change for work, Ashley grabbed him and pulled him into her arms. Ashley was tiny, but so strong and fierce. She could hold him back and had a control over him that few others had ever had. She knew the inner workings of him, and how to get him to stop, how to get him to go. She knew it all by now.
“It’s going to be okay.”
Kaidan sighed and held onto her back. He rested his head on top of hers and let her stay there for just a moment. When she said it, part of him had to believe her. It took away the pain, and the longing that filled his chest more days than not. Of course, he had her, and while their friendship was hardly conventional, most of the time it felt like enough. Except more and more lately, nights tangled up in the sheets with her, holding each other close weren’t fixing anything. In fact, they made him feel worse after for just lying to himself.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
She picked his head up and looked at him. “I promise you it is.”
Kaidan didn’t want to think about it, really. He spent enough time doing that as was, and feeling sorry for himself. But sometimes, it was just all too hard to forget. Ashley bounced on her toes and kissed his forehead. She smoothed her hands down his chest and smiled.
“Okay, time for work.”
Kaidan smiled back and stepped into his room, with Oleg following. The cat used all its strength to hop onto his bed and curl up there. Kaidan stripped his shirt off and changed into his god awful work uniform. Khakis and a horrendous royal blue Best Buy polo shirt. He always made sure to take it off right away so that the damage was minimal when he came home. He’d been working there for a year and a half, and still… it was way too funny to her.
He stepped back out of his room and took his keys, sliding them into his back pocket. “Alright, I’ll see you later.”
She nodded. “Have fun. Save those computers.”
Kaidan rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”
He pushed open the door, and glanced across the hall to the open apartment. He couldn’t make out the tenant, and presumed they were hidden somewhere behind the wall of boxes on the ground in the living room. He hoped they were… well… normal. Not a disturbance at least.
The apartments at 2183 Normandy Court contained an eclectic bunch. Some of the tenants had been there for ages, and others were newbies like them. There was Garrus and Tali two floors below them, the young couple who seemed to have an alarming amount of dietary restrictions, but were fun nonetheless. Kaidan enjoyed their company because both of them loved to talk programming and tech about as much as he did, and for Ash, Tali adored trashy soap opera marathons. And then Jack directly below them, constantly playing loud music and offering to give Kaidan free tattoos whenever he wanted, which he had yet to take her up on. Next to her lived Liara, the quiet doctor who Ash had been trying to coax out of her shell for months now.
And downstairs, on the bottom floor, lived Zaeed and Samara, across the hall from one another. Samara was a quiet woman who kept to herself, offering some kind of psychic service out of her apartment, and did lots of yoga on the front lawn. Zaeed, a retired cop, who Kaidan and Ash theorized was actually a hitman, was normally found outside as well, with a BB gun in hand to shoot off any animals that tried to eat through the trash.
He was outside at the moment, when Kaidan walked by. Zaeed tipped his glass of whiskey at him and tilted his sunglasses down.
“Nice shirt,” Zaeed teased, while his own shirt was something hideous and yellow with white hibiscus flowers on it.
“Yeah, you too, Massani. Keep up the good fight,” Kaidan replied.
Zaeed cocked his gun. “Rodent bastards.”
Kaidan smirked and kept walking until he reached the large Best Buy down the street. The store was situated next to a new gym that had just opened up, and when he worked morning shifts, he frequently had to dodge the soccer moms trying to get to their morning Zumba classes. He had just a few qualms with their location choice. Just a few.
He quickly checked the schedule, and saw that today, he’d be working the IT desk, and sighed. It was far easier for him to explain to clueless older people that they just had to turn their iPhone on and off to get it to work right again than to try to sell people computers and gaming consoles. Part of it, was also that here, he had to smile and pretend to be happy far less frequently.
Miranda, one of his co-workers and immediate supervisor, sat at her desk near the help desk and greeted him.
“Afternoon, Kaidan.”
“Yeah, you too,” he said, taking a seat.
“Hackett needs you to take a look at that iPod on the counter there. Check for water damage.”
He sighed. “It’s always water damage.”
Miranda nodded and held her hands up in surrender. “I know it is. However, the mums and dads never want to admit their child dropped their electronics in the toilet.”
“Well, would you?” he asked.
She laughed under her breath. “Well, no, but we know better. At least I’m not as bad as you, cranky-pants. Telling people without damage that there was…”
Kaidan crumpled a memo on his desk and tossed it at her. “Hey, that kid was going to demand the parents buy them a new one anyway. I gave them a discount. Little punk-ass.”
He reached for the flashlight on his desk and shone it down the audio jack of the gadget and sighed. Half of the jack was tinted slightly pink“Yep, water damage.”
“Alright, I’ll go tell them.”
“I can do that?” he said.
She stood up, smoothing out the uniform that somehow looked great on her. Miranda could pull anything off. Sometimes Kaidan wondered if she had some kind of genetic engineering or how she won the looks lottery so big.
“You look like shit, and I can tell you’re miserable. You man the phone.”
He sighed. “Fine. And Miranda… thanks.”
She nodded. “Sure thing.”
Just as Miranda left, a middle aged woman with a neon pink polo shirt and white Bermuda shorts approached the help desk. Kaidan smiled and looked attentive as she set her iPhone down on the counter.
“Hi, young man,” she started, “I seem to be having some trouble with this darn phone here. It’s doing a weird thing where I can’t get onto Facebook.”
Kaidan held out a hand for the phone and sighed. “Ma’am, have you tried turning it on and off?”
***
Kaidan pulled himself up the four flights of stairs to get to the apartment, and couldn’t wait to throw himself on the couch with a couple shots of whiskey and beer, and fall asleep with only the hope that tomorrow wouldn’t feel this terrible.
He heard grunts at the top of the stairs and a loud thud. It was quickly followed by a woman spewing profanities. He reached the top of the stairs and saw that the door to 4A was still wide open. Except this time, he caught a very tiny woman trying to haul a massive box across the apartment. He bit on his lip and knocked on the doorframe. She grunted and placed the box on the ground, giving it a small kick before heading to the door.
“Hi, can I help you?” she asked.
She was short, probably no more than a few inches above five feet, with short red hair, pulled into a messy bun atop her head. Her nose and cheeks were littered with freckles, and she had the brightest green eyes Kaidan had ever seen. She wore leggings and a big cut off t-shirt, and had hardly a drop of makeup on her face.
She was… well… beautiful.
He immediately bit down on his lip and chided himself for even thinking it. There was no point in thinking it if he was never going to act on it, and he certainly wouldn’t. He didn’t have anymore room for heartache.
“I… uh… I was going to ask you the same thing?” he started. “I live right here, in 4B, so I guess you’re the new neighbor. Uh, hi.”
The girl bent down and tried to hoist the box again with no success. Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Do you need some help with that?”
She looked back at the massive box in her apartment and groaned. “Yeah, actually, that would be great. Normally, I’d tell you to shove it, but that size box isn’t kind to someone with a short arm span like me.”
Kaidan stepped closer, tripping over the half step to her apartment. There were technically two and a half between his and her place, and he naturally, had tripped on the last half. Excellent.
“Yeah, no problem. Where do you want it?”
She stroked her jaw. “Well, I was trying to get it to the kitchen that way I could take the contents apart to go into the bedroom, but now that I’ve got a nice strong man here, can you just stick it on the bed for me?”
She directed him to the bedroom behind the kitchen and crossed her arms as he carried it into her room. He placed it carefully on her bed and groaned as he placed it down.
“There you go,” he said.
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
He took a moment to look around the apartment. The whole building had been a warehouse back in the day, before they gutted it and turned it into a housing complex. But the builders had left the large, somewhat charred and dirty windows intact, which made for a nice, rustic atmosphere. It had been a selling point for he and Ash.
“This is a pretty nice place,” he said, “my roommate and I toured this one, but I guess they did some renovations.”
The woman nodded and fixed a stray hair leaving her bun. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool, and it’s close to work, so it works out nice.”
“Oh, where do you work?”
“The gym that just opened up down the street. I’m working there as a personal trainer starting Monday.”
Kaidan nodded. “Nice. I work next door. I’ll probably… see you around.”
“Yeah, I might, Geek Squad,” she teased.
He blushed and rubbed his neck again. “Oh, well, yeah…”
“It’s okay. I know who to come to when I break something.”
They paused for a moment, and Kaidan stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Uh, I’m Kaidan, by the way.”
She looked up and smiled. “Just call me Shepard.”
“Shepard? That’s it?”
She nodded. “Yeah, uh, it’s my last name. I just prefer it. It’s what everyone calls me.”
“Alright, Shepard…”
“Can I get you anything? A beer, some kind of food as a reward for helping me out?”
Shepard glanced down at his hand, noting whether or not there was a ring on his finger. He looked away and bit down on his bottom lip.
There should have been something there.
Kaidan met her bright green eyes, and something tightened in his chest, and it wasn’t good. He knew this wasn’t normal, some kind of distortion in his head that made him feel like there was no one to trust, no one aside from Ashley and his family. That anyone else was just bad news.
She’s just a girl, he reminded himself. She’s not out to hurt you.
“Um, no, I’m good,” he said, swallowing. “I should get home to start making dinner
“Okay,” she added, her voice trailing off. “Well, thank you. I guess I’ll see you around?”
He nodded. “Yeah, of course. Have a nice night.”
He stepped backward out of her apartment and sighed as she shut the door. He was stupid, and he wished he wasn’t like this more and more each day. It was too easy to blame the person that made him this way, too easy to push the blame on them. But god, he wished he could.
Ashley opened up the door. “Oh, hey, I thought I heard you come up the stairs.”
He shook himself out of his anxiety and looked up. “Oh, yeah… sorry.”
“You alright?”
He furrowed his brows and breathed in. A smell, spicy and strong, slipped out from inside the apartment. He looked up.
“You cooked?”
She nodded, twiddling her thumbs. “Well, I tried to. I knew you were having a bad day and I felt bad. I tried to make steak, but I didn’t really know how to cook it, so I cut it up and made fajitas because I do know how to make that. And there’s beer. Come on in.”
Kaidan smiled. “Thanks, Ash.”
“Don’t mention in. Now get your ass in here before the food gets cold,” she teased, pulling him inside.