Archive of Our Own

But what he did know was that he finally had enough money to put down on a room where he could actually stay. Was it his first choice? Fuck no. But was it somewhere he could stay for a full month instead of jumping around dingy motels week to week? Most definitely.

The Italian man looked up at the other, sitting across from him in his office. "Emil is it?" He asked and smiled at him. "You're in luck, not only did you catch us in the quietest time of the day, but we've got a room available just for you. Are you sure you want to stay for just the month?"

The other man, Emil, nodded. "A month is all I'll need, thank you." It's not like he'll have money for next month's rent to give anyways.

The Italian man nodded. "Well, welcome to our home, we hope you enjoy your stay." He opened a drawer next to him and pulled out a key. "You'll be staying on the 3rd floor. 301. First door on the left. We have breakfast at 8 am, dinner is at 6 pm, family time is at 8 pm, and quiet hours start at 10 pm. The doors are locked, and the alarm is set at midnight. So we ask that you're here before then. Unless there is an exception of late-night work, then you'll have a house key on those days to get in. On the weekends, we have breakfast at 9 am, house cleaning starts at 12, and we also go on group grocery trips afterward. Have your sheets stripped off your bed Saturday morning for fresh sheets. Dinner is still at 6 pm on the weekends. Quiet hours start at midnight, and the doors are locked at 3 am on the weekends. The front door will be locked at its regular time, but the back door will be free to use on the weekends. We don't have many rules, as so far all we've had has been adults that come to live with us. We just ask that you respect the other tenants and their spaces. If you smoke; please don't smoke in the house, smoking is for the back porch. Keep your bathroom items in a caddy to keep from having so many items in the bathroom, you're free to occupy any common area, and the attic is forbidden."

"Why is the attic forbidden?"

"It's best to keep it that way. Going into the attic will result in termination of your room contract, very serious stuff."

Emil winced. "Yeah, pretty serious."

The Italian man gave Emil his key. "That's all I have for you, Mr. Emil. Would you like a tour of the house or would you rather just explore on your own?"

Emil took his key and stood. "Um, I'll just do some exploring on my own, thanks."

"Okay, that's perfectly fine. If you need anything, my name is Feliciano. I'll be here in the office doing boring paperwork."

"Alright, I'll be...around I guess." He said and gathered his bags and suitcases before shuffling his way out of the office.

The first thing Emil did was drag all of his items up to two flights of stairs, gasping for air as soon as he reached his room. Room 301. "At least this stuff won't be coming back down until a month from now." He spoke tiredly. Emil used his key to unlock the door and pushed the door open.

It was a pretty big room, came with a desk, a single bed, a wardrobe, and a window that didn't show much, but at least it let some natural light in. The room even came with a mini-fridge, how convenient.

Emil went to work unpacking his things. He didn't have much of course, so unpacking was light work. He put his clothes in the wardrobe, set up his laptop at the desk, and placed his camera next to it. He'd bother with his other camera equipment when he had to actually use it.

Emil sat down on the bed before falling back on it, looking at the ceiling. "What the hell did I get myself into?" He asked himself quietly.

There was a knock at the door, and Emil sat up. Another knock at the door. Emil quickly got up and went to the door, pulling it open. The other side of the door revealed a young girl, with brown hair, and brown eyes lighter than her hair. "Um, hey. I just heard a lot of moving and shuffling going on in here, and I was a little confused. I didn't know we'd be getting a new tenant today." She held her hand out. "I'm Sophia, Sophia James."

She had a strong accent, a strong Australian accent at that. Emil held his hand out, shaking her hand. "Emil Steilsson, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too Emil." She said, giving him a small smile. He was really cute, thank God it wasn't some creepy old guy moving up here with them. "How long are you gonna be here?"

"Just for the month."

"Just for a month? Sheesh, I wish I was only staying here for a month."

"How long have you been here?"

"Six months, but it's not bad at all honestly. The people that live here make it worth living here honestly."

"Well that sounds nice and all, but one month is all I really need before I head out again."

"Where are you going next?"

"Not sure yet, I've got a month to figure it out though." He said with a shrug. "But in the meantime, I guess I'll just keep to myself and try to stay out of everyone's way. That's usually how life goes for me anyway."

Sophia shook her head. "Yeah, okay, we'll see how long that lasts." She muttered. "Anyways, just a thing about living on the third floor, you have to jiggle the handle to get the toilet to stop running, and the door at the end of the hall is the attic, don't touch it, don't look at it, don't even breathe in its general direction."

"Okay, what is it so mysterious about the attic? It's just a damn attic."

"A damn attic that's off-limits, got it? Especially for you, Mr. One-Month."

Emil rolled his eyes. "Sure, whatever, the attic is off-limits."

The girl nodded at him. "Good, glad you understand."

"Anything else I need to know? Anything of importance?"

"There's another person that lives up here, right across from you in 302 actually. Her name is Lili, she's at work right now, but you'll love her. I think it'll be kind of nice up here now, having all the rooms filled with people your age. Well at least I think you're around my age, you look like a young twenty-something."

"Twenty-four."

"Ah, yep. I'm twenty-three, and Lili is twenty-two, and if you like going out, you're happy to join our nightlife crew. I mean we rarely go out, but when we do, phew, cray-zy."

Emil nodded slowly. "Interesting. Well, just let me know when you guys go out, maybe I could come with sometimes."

"Cool, well I should get back to my room, I've got a couple of commissions I need to finish up and get sent out. Nice talking to you though, hope you enjoy your one-month stay. See you at dinner." With that, Sophia turned on her heel and headed back to her room.

"See you at dinner," Emil called before closing the door behind him.

In the time between last seeing Sophia and dinner, Emil busied himself with looking up some of the points of interest around town. It was a small town, but there seemed to be some interesting places. He didn't think he'd be getting any shots of the town itself, too bland, but maybe he could go out to the city and see what they had. He'd also have to call around to see which magazines were accepting submissions and email local blogs that wanted to collaborate.

Emil looked at his watch, almost six o'clock. Alright, a moment of truth. Time to go see who all lives in this house. Hopefully, no one too creepy, too old, too young, or too annoying was living here. He left his room and went down the stairs, following the scent of food. Something smelled delicious. He found himself walking into the dining room, where he found a decent amount of people at the table. A guy whose hair was so light it looked white, a girl that was devastatingly beautiful but looked scary to talk to, a pair of twins with weird strands of hair sticking out their heads, an Asian guy, and Sophia. At least that it was one person that was familiar. Emil went over to Sophia and sat next to her.

The man with the white hair looked over at the beautiful girl sitting across from him. "Hey Nat, you know who that guy is down there?"

Natalya looked down the table, making eye contact with Emil. "Either a new tenant or an idiot." She spoke in a thick accent.

"Oh don't be so harsh Natalya, not everyone is as vocal as yours truly." The twin with the shorter strand said.

"Maybe he's waiting for everyone else to come to the table." The other twin spoke in a much quieter voice.

"Or maybe he's just an idiot."

Emil winced. "Is there something I did?" He whispered over at Sophia.

"You didn't say 'hi' to anyone. Speak to the other tenants." She told him.

"Oh right, sorry. I'm Emil, I just moved in today."

"Well, you weren't here yesterday."

Before he could say something else, another tenant came into the dining room. He pulled his blonde hair back, showing off his full face of makeup. He pouted some. "Ugh, if I knew we weren't eating yet I would have totally like wiped my makeup off first." He said with a roll of his eyes before sitting at the table. "Do you like it Nat? I just did a unicorn-inspired makeup tutorial." He said looking from side to side, to show Natalya batting his lashes.

Natalia studied his purple and blue eyeshadow, and pink highlight, and periwinkle colored lipstick. "It's….very bright Feliks, but screams unicorn."

Feliks grinned. "Totally what I was going for."

"Alright, I hope everyone is hungry." A woman with her long brown hair pulled back, carrying in a dish of chicken primavera pasta, and placing it down in the middle of the table. Feliciano came right behind her carrying a plate of breadsticks, and a bowl of garden salad, placing those on the table as well. Lastly, coming behind Feliciano was another man with dark hair and glasses, carrying two condensating jugs in his hands. Once the three of them sat down, plates, and drinks, and food swapped amongst the other tenants was underway, and Emil could barely keep up. While everyone had full plates of food, Emil was still struggling to get something to drink.

Sophia managed to get the pasta, breadsticks, and drink jugs down to their end of the table for Emil. "Don't worry, you'll be able to keep up soon." She told him.

Emil looked over at her. "Thanks." He said before making his plate.

"So if you all haven't noticed, we have a new tenant in the house," Feliciano said. "So Emil, if you could please introduce yourself to the house?"

Emil looked over his glass of lemonade to find everyone looking at him, waiting for him to speak. How weird. He put his glass down and cleaned his throat. "Um, I'm Emil. I live on the third floor."

The woman with brown hair smiled. "Emil. What a cute name. What do you do for a living Emil?"

"I'm a freelance, landscape photographer."

Natalya raised an eyebrow. "A photographer? What are you doing here then?"

"I think that would be the 'freelance' part of his job." The Asian guy replied.

"So do I get to know who all of you are?" Emil asked slowly.

"He asked like we're a cult or something," Feliks commented.

"He's going to think we are if you guys won't stop being so weird." Sophia murmured as she poked at her pasta.

"Well as they always say, it's best to know who the hero is first, and that'll be me. I'm Alfred, and this is my twin brother, Mattie, though he likes to go by Matthew."

Matthew looked over at his brother. "I could have done my introduction myself, you know Al." He said with a small smile.

"I know you can, but didn't it just sound so much better with me introducing the both of us?"

That made Matthew roll his eyes. "Sure it was Alfred." He said with a sigh.

"They're our youngest tenants, still in high school." Feliciano chimed in.

Feliks smiled and waved at Emil. "I'm Feliks, hairdresser, makeup artist, and YouTuber. Make sure you subscribe FeliksSlays, and follow all my other social media; also FeliksSlays."

Emil blinked. "Um, okay?"

Feliks narrowed his eyes. "Don't like, say 'okay' if you're not going to do it. I'm turning on my notifications for you, and I better see all of your social media pop up on my phone, telling me that you followed me on everything and subscribed to my YouTube channel, got it?"

"Alright, alright, I got it."

"I'm Gilbert, and I'm the most awesome person you'll ever meet."

The man with dark hair scoffed. "More like the worse person you'll ever meet."

"Well, no one asked you, Roderich, now did they?"

Natalya rolled her eyes. "I'm Natalya, I dance."

"You dance?" Emil questioned.

"Did I stutter?" Natalya questioned back.

The Asian man cleared his throat. "I am Kiku; I live stream playing video games for a living."

"And I'm Elizabeta, and this is my husband, Roderich. He plays in a jazz band in the cafe I'm a barista at."

Emil nodded. "And that's everyone? Where's—" Emil stopped himself when he heard the front door open and close.

A young woman came into the room dining room, smiling at everyone. "Hi everyone, I hope I'm not too late to dinner."

Feliciano smiled at her. "You're just in time Lili."

The young woman, Lili nodded and went over to the empty seat next to Emil. "Is this seat taken?" She asked politely.

The earth had seemed to stop Emil. Who knew the girl living across the hall from him would be a living, breathing angel? Her sweet smile and soft green eyes stole his heart. How would she look photographed? He's never shot a person, let alone an angel, but God did he want to know.

Lili blinked. "Excuse me?" She asked curiously.

Emil blinked as well and quickly shook his head. "No, it's not taken, you're free to sit here." He asked quickly.

She smiled at him and took her jacket off and put her purse on the back of her chair. "Thank you." She said and reached for her purse to pull out a small hand sanitizer. "So you must be new, I'm Lili, and you are?"

'In love.' Emil thought to himself. "Emil." He tried to answer back at a reasonable time.

She smiled at him. "Emil. What a lovely name. Welcome to the house on Morningside Drive."

Dinner had been a lot easier with Lili there, and what's crazy is that she didn't even know she made dinner easier for Emil, but she did.

After dinner was family time, which wasn't as awkward as Emil thought it would be either. It was movie night, and they all sat in the parlor around the television watching some cheesy comedy he couldn't remember the name of. After the movie, Emil went up to his room to get ready for bedtime. He changed into his pajamas and grabbed his toothbrush, heading over to the bathroom, stopping when he heard voices on the other side of the door.

"So, he's only staying here for a month?" He heard Lili say.

"That's what he told me. But he's around our age and seems kind of cool. He doesn't have a lot of manners for people living with him, though. He didn't even speak to everyone until I told him to."

"Well, maybe he's just used to being by himself? He'll get used to the house and everyone in it, I'm sure. In the meantime, why don't we just be friendly to him first, so it'll be easier for him to warm up to everyone else?"

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea. He did say that he'd want to come with us whenever we went out."

"That's a start. Come on, let's get out of here, we have a bathroom to share now."

With that, Sophia opened the door, jumping when she saw Emil on the other side. "Shit, you're not this quiet all the time, are you?" She asked.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, just came to brush my teeth." He said, waving around his toothbrush and toothpaste.

"Sorry if we were taking too long," Lili spoke, looking up at him. "Um, we know you're new here, and I just wanted to let you know that we're friendly people, and would love to hang out with you anytime you'd like."

She was so sweet. Emil gave a small smile. "Thank you for the offer, Lili. I'll be sure to take you upon it. Have a good night."

"See you at breakfast, Emil." Sophia said, walking in her room.

"Tomorrow's house cleaning, so prepare to have the house spotless."

"I'll wear my cleaning clothes."

Lili laughed at that. "Good night Emil." She said, going to her room.

"Good night Lili." He said as he watched her slip into her room and close the door.

Emil hung his head in shame. "'I'll bring my cleaning clothes.' Seriously?" He asked himself before going into the bathroom and locking it.

A moment later, the attic door lock made a soft click, and the door squeaked open. A shadowy figure slipped out, closing the attic door behind them and slinked down the stairs.

Emil came from the bathroom and went to his room, locking the door behind him and heading to bed for the night.

The shadowy figure came back up the stairs with a plate of tonight's dinner, and back through the attic door, locking the door again behind them.