Chapter Text
The screaming started way too fucking early.
Who the hell was awake earlier than 7AM, anyways? Especially on a Saturday.
The neighbour across the hall had moved in less than a week ago, and Cullen had to admit that despite not yet having had a full conversation with her, she was driving him crazy. He tried to be patient, moving in to a new apartment could be an extensive ordeal that much he understood, but it seemed like she had a never ending parade of people storming down the hall. Practically from dawn 'til dusk it seemed like there was someone bringing her something or pounding on her door or, maker preserve him, just shouting.
Cullen could only take so much. He worked long hours in a loud office building, and when he got home he just wanted to relax. Alright, so he mostly poured over his paperwork when he got home, true enough, but usually he was at least able to do so in relative peace and quiet. Not anymore, clearly. Which is why he was so frustrated when the shrieking started before the sun had even gone up. He waited a beat for her to stop, assuming that she had probably just opened her door to let in a friend she hadn't seen in a while, like she had done two days prior, but the racket didn't stop.
With a groan of disbelief he threw his covers aside and rolled out of bed. When the din only grew louder, as if the woman had run in to the hall, he couldn't help the worry that balled in his chest. What if she was actually in trouble here and he had just ignored her? He tripped over himself running for the door, fumbling with the security chain, and grabbed an umbrella from the stand beside the door to wield.
When he threw the door open he was met with the woman from across the hall, standing outside her open doorway in just her underwear and a thin tank top. She had long legs, and her auburn hair was falling out of the knot on the top of her head. His sudden appearance seemed to have startled her, indicated by her wide dark eyes and the way the shriek died in her throat. Her eyes flicked between his equally bewildered expression and the bright blue umbrella he brandished like a sword while she gasped for her breath. Briefly he realized that he, too, was in nothing more than a white shirt and his boxers.
There was a pregnant pause between them.
“I know we've never talked before but there is a fucking huge spider in my apartment can you kill it for me?” the woman asked, rambling. Her hands were shaking slightly. Cullen blinked owlishly at her as he registered her rapid speech.
“What?”
She seemed to remember herself as well. “Oh. Amelie Trevelyan, nice to meet you. And, uhm, good morning. You are?”
He couldn't help but regard her with what he imagined was the same expression as he would a crazy woman. “Cullen Rutherford.”
She nodded and took his arm with a smile, reaching past him to tug his door shut behind him and leading him back through her still-wide-open door. “Fantastic! I haven't actually met anyone else in the building yet, so thank you for coming out to help me. I hope I, uh, didn't wake you?” She gestured to his attire.
“It's fine,” he ground out. “Would you just show me this spider so I can get back to work?”
She smiled at him sheepishly and let go of his arm. Cullen did his best to calm his agitation, knowing that many people were genuinely afraid of arachnids; he didn't really have a reason to be upset with her anyways, it's not like he had actually complained to her that her friends were disturbing him yet, how could she solve a problem she didn't know about? He sighed and offered her a small smile of his own as a peace offering to show he was not truly as unbearable a grouch as he seemed.
She led him to her bathroom. He noted that her furniture was mostly nice stuff, but her style seemed to be haphazard to say the least. As though perhaps she just collected furniture that interested her and did not particularly care for an overarching theme. This contrasted the plain modern furniture that decorated his own apartment quite drastically, but it seemed to come together in a rather charming if wild assortment of pieces in its own right. There were still a wide assortment of variously sized boxes stacked around, but she seemed to be making steady progress in getting unpacked.
Despite himself, Cullen also dedicated a few moments of taking her in. He had seen her coming up and down the hall a few times, but usually from a distance. She had always been with a few people so he hadn't really been sure which person stopping by was the one moving in for the longest time. It wasn't until he saw her waving goodbye to some people on his way home from work that he decided it must have been her. But she looked younger than he had assumed her to be, now that he had seen her up close. He almost wanted to ask her age, because she couldn't have been more than twenty at best, and that was certainly a little young to be moving into their first apartment.
“How... do you like the building so far?” asked Cullen politely, while Amelie stepped around a stack of the aforementioned boxes and cleared a safe path for Cullen to tread.
She smiled over her shoulder at him as she slipped a nearby sweater over her bare arms. “It's nice! This wasn't my first pick of apartments to be honest with you, I was supposed to be living further downtown but the place fell through. Flaky landlord, you see. So really this seems the better choice in the long. Alistair is a very nice man.”
After several long minutes of small talk, though she didn't seem to feel the awkward atmosphere as heavily as Cullen did standing around a stranger's house in his underwear so perhaps it was only a few moments at best, they finally cleared a decent path into her bathroom.
“It's in the tub,” she told him, hovering just outside the door.
Cullen leaned in to the room and peeked over the edge of the porcelain basin. Before he burst into laughter. Loud, genuine laughter that practically shook his entire body. He wiped tears from his eyes when he could finally find his voice again and raised his eyebrow at her. “This is your 'fucking huge spider? All this fuss over that?”
Amelie had the decency to flush bright red with embarrassment, but she managed to look indignant at the same time. Her cheeks puffed as she sputtered at his practically hysterical outburst. “He's gross alright?! Would you just get rid of him please?”
Without breaking eye contact (or wiping the smirk off his face), Cullen twisted the nozzle on the water and popped the tab so it would redirect to the detachable shower head. He then used the water to spray the little spider that sat in the corner of the tub for only a moment before it washed down the drain without further delay. When he replaced the nozzle and turned his body back to face his new neighbour he started to chuckle again at her face. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her expectantly, one eyebrow raised in a judgemental stare.
“Alright, alright, my hero,” she groused. “Shut up. And thanks. Can I treat you to coffee for your valiant efforts, or should I let you get back to work now?”
Hesitating, Cullen shrugged his broad shoulders. It was a Saturday, certainly he could spare half an hour or so on caffeine and getting to know his silly neighbour a little better. “Coffee sounds good. Though I wonder if I could get my pants on first?”
As if for the first time, Amelie surveyed from him head to toe, a lingering once over assessment that made Cullen himself blush his own pretty shade of red. She smiled toothily at him before nodding her consent. “Alright, whatever floats your boat, Curly,” she teased, and he realized his hair must still be a mess as well, “but be back in fifteen or less, or else I'll end up forced into giving up your share to my friend here.”
“Oho, no, don't mind me. I'd hate to interrupt whatever... this is,” a deep voice chuckled.
Cullen whirled around to see a new man leaning against the doorway. A short man, with a newspaper tucked under one thick arm and an empty mug held in the opposite hand. Amelie seemed to be entirely unbothered by his presence, despite the fact that she herself was still quite clearly in sleepwear as well. Without a word Cullen marched past him back across the hall and closed his own door again quickly behind him, wincing when it accidentally slammed, unable to process the embarrassment of the entire situation.
How was it the tables always turned on him so quickly?
“See you in fifteen!” Amelie shouted, and he could once again hear her crystal clear even through the closed door. Her friend was unreasonably loud as well, and he could hear the man grilling the young woman over who the handsome stranger in her new apartment was.
Maker's breath. What had he gotten himself in to now?