"I will need to see the bedroom," I say, my voice remaining measured and deliberate as I gesture toward the closed door on the left side of the room with one large, deliberate hand. The movement is slow enough that she can track it easily, a courtesy I have learned to extend after years of watching people flinch at sudden motions from someone of my size. "And I will also need to confirm that the bathroom facilities are in proper working order. Plumbing issues are not something I am willing to overlook, particularly in a space this compact."
I pause, allowing her a moment to process this before continuing. "I assume you have already tested the waterpressure and verified that there are no leaks beneath the sink. If you have not done so, we will need to conduct those inspections before I make my final decision regarding the lease agreement."
"You're actually serious about this," she breathes, one hand coming up to press against her forehead. "You actually want to live here. In this apartment. With me."
"Yes." I tilt my head slightly, studying the way her shoulders are hunched up near her ears, the tension visible in every line of her small frame. "Is there a reason I should not want to live here?"
She gestures broadly at the chaos surrounding us, her movement sharp and encompassing. "Uh, yeah, there are like forty reasons you shouldn't want to live here! It's a disaster! It's tiny! It smells like paint thinner! The ceiling is probably going to give you a permanent neck injury! I'm a mess! The previous roommate literally fled in the middle of the night because she couldn't handle my lifestyle!"
"Your lifestyle," I repeat carefully, filing away this information for future reference. "Which involves oil painting in an inadequately ventilated space and consuming what appears to be primarily coffee and instant ramen."
Her mouth opens, closes, a flush of color spreads across her cheeks that has nothing to do with panic and everything to do with embarrassment at being so accurately assessed. "That's, I mean, that's not, okay yes that's pretty much exactly my lifestyle but you don't have to say it like that."
"I am simply stating observable facts," I tell her, then decide to be more direct because clearly the subtle approach is not effectively communicating my intentions. "I do not require perfection from a living situation. I require adequate space, functional utilities, and a roommate who will respect established boundaries regarding shared spaces and personal property. The rent listed in your advertisement is significantly below marketrate for this neighborhood. The location is convenient to my workplace. The lease allows for Orc tenants, which eliminates approximately seventy percent of available housing options in this city. These factors are more important to me than the current state of cleanliness."
She's staring at me again with that same stunned expression, like I am speaking a language she thought she understood but is now realizing contains entirely different meanings than she anticipated. "You, you're okay with all this?" She gestures again at the chaos. "This doesn't bother you?"
"It bothers me significantly," I correct, because I believe in absolute honesty in contractual negotiations. "However, it is temporary and correctable disorder, not permanent structural damage. I am bothered by many things that I am nonetheless capable of tolerating or addressing through appropriate action."
"You're going to clean, aren't you? You're one of those people. You're going to move in here and alphabetize my paint tubes and organize my closet and judge me silently for eating cereal for dinner."
"I do not eat cereal for any meal," I say, which seems like the most relevant point to address. "I will not touch your personal belongings without explicit permission. I will, however, maintain shared spaces to an acceptable standard of hygiene and expect you to do the same."
The apartment falls silent except for the distant sound of traffic filtering through the thin walls and the faint drip of what I suspect is a leaking faucet in the kitchenette. She's chewing on her lower lip, her eyes darting between my face and the briefcase I'm still holding, clearly trying to calculate whether this is actually happening or some kind of elaborate fever dream brought on by stress and caffeine overdose.
I decide to move the negotiation forward before she spirals any deeper into the kind of analysis paralysis that Ihave watched consume her entire evening, the same paralytic indecision that has apparently left her apartment in its current state of chaotic disarray. She is still chewing that lower lip, still caught in that mental loop of catastrophizing and second-guessing, and I recognize that particular brand of human anxiety from my years managing drunk patrons who could not decide whether to order another round or call it a night. The solution, I have learned, is to remove the variables and present fait accompli.
Setting the briefcase down on the narrow strip of clear floor near the door, I pop the brass latches with two quick clicks that sound unnaturally loud in the small space. Her eyes track the movement with laser focus, watching as I lift the lid to reveal the carefully organized interior, documents in one side, the leather pouch in the other.
I lift the pouch, feeling the satisfying weight of it in my palm, and cross to the coffee table, which is currently buried under a collection of dirty mugs, sketchbooks, and what appears to be half of a day-old bagel. I sweep the surface clear with one arm, depositing the items onto an already-cluttered armchair, and set the pouch down with a heavy thunk that makes the flimsy particleboard surface shudder.
"Six months' rent," I say, my voice emerging as that familiar low rumble that reverberate through the small apartment. I work the drawstring of the leather pouch loose with deliberate, unhurried movements, savoring the moment of her reaction before I even tip the contents. The cord slides free, and I angle the pouch over the coffee table with the careful precision of someone pouring something infinitely precious—which, to be fair, it is.
The coins begin their descent in a glittering cascade that occurs in slow motion, each gold piece catching the overhead light as it tumbles through the air. They land with a series of softmetallic chimes, a sound like a thousand tiny bells, and begin to pile atop one another in an ever-growing mountain of wealth. The effect is immediate and dramatic: gold coins accumulate across the scarred surface of the coffee table, their warm, buttery reflections dancing across the walls and ceiling in a way that transforms the cluttered, dingy apartment into something that briefly resembles a dragon's hoard.
I release the final coins and let the pouch fall onto the growing pile with a soft thud. "Paid in advance," I add, tilting my head slightly to better observe her expression. The formality of my phrasing carries absolute certainty, a transaction already completed and documented, not a proposal but a statement of fact accomplished through the simple mechanism of ancient highland currency meeting contemporary fiscal desperation.
The coins spill across the table, solid and ancient and unmistakably real, catching the overhead light and throwing it back in warm, buttery reflections. They're family coins, minted three generations back in the northern highlands, each one stamped with the Goir clan mark and worth considerably more than their weight in standard currency. I've been carrying them since I left home, a inheritance from my grandfather that I've never had reason to spend until now.
She makes a noise that might be a word or might be her soul leaving her body.
The coffee table, already fragile beneath six months' worth of accumulated rent in ancient gold, groans with the sound of wood fibers surrendering to physics. The particleboard surface bows visibly under the concentrated mass of the coins, the flimsy legs straining against the burden in a way that suggests this piece of furniture was never engineered to support the wealth of an entire northern highland estate.
Then one leg cracks with a sound like a gunshot, loud and splintering, and the whole structure lists violently to the left,sending gold coins sliding and bouncing across the tilted surface toward the floor.
I catch the table before it can collapse completely, holding it steady with one hand while she gazes at the small fortune currently threatening to scatter across her paint-stained carpet.
"Is this acceptable?" I ask.
3
CHANTEL
My brain short-circuits somewhere between the crack of splintering particleboard and the moment his hand shoots out to catch the listing table edge, stopping the entire structure mid-collapse with the kind of casual, effortless strength that suggests he could probably bench-press my car if he felt like it. The muscles in his forearm bunch and shift beneath the slate-green skin, visible even through the perfectly pressed sleeve of his henley, and I realize with a jolt of mortification that I am actively staring at his biceps like some kind of feral Victorian woman seeing an ankle for the first time.
Gold coins are still sliding lazily across the tilted surface of the table, pinging softly against each other in a sound that my lizard brain interprets as "financial salvation" and "also maybe drug money," and I cannot for the life of me look away from the way his fingers wrap completely around the cheap furniture, steadying it with the kind of rock-solid grip that makes the whole thing look like a child's toy in his massive hand.
"Is this acceptable?" he asks again, his voice rumbling through the small apartment with that same low, resonant bass that I swear I can feel vibrating in my ribcage, and the absolutecalm sincerity in his tone snaps me out of whatever weird fugue state I've entered.
