Neighborly

by breeeliss

Good things like this weren't supposed to be sustainable. But Paula let her feelings get wrapped up in this girl's enchantment, and now she was starting to realize how absolutely stuck she was. Paula x Noodle.

Title: Neighborly

Rating: T

Summary: Good things like this weren't supposed to be sustainable. But Paula let her feelings get wrapped up in this girl's enchantment, and now she was starting to realize how absolutely stuck she was. Paula x Noodle.

a/n: There is an abysmal lack of Paula x Noodle stories which I actually find surprising. I actually find it a rather charming pairing, so I thought I'd go ahead and try to do something a little more serious that isn't just gratuitous smut if you know what I mean. Hopefully you'll all take a liking to it.

OOO

Neighborly

OOO

"Paula, your fuckin' rent is late again, goddammit!"

The front door was rattling from all the relentless pounding on the other side of it, and it wasn't until a powerful kick made the wooden panels on the door shudder that Paula jolted awake and dropped the scotch glass she had fallen asleep holding.

The glass hit the floor with a pop and shards scattered across the wooden floors as Paula sat up on the couch rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes. Her temples were pounding and her stomach felt like it was going to curl in on itself. Her hand reached to her right for the coffee table and blindly grabbed for the bottle of liquor that was still sitting there. She blinked her eyes open and shook the bottle only to discover that there wasn't a drop of it left. She cursed and threw the bottle on the other side of the couch when the knocking and pounding started up again.

"I'm coming, you fuckin' blighter!" Paula screamed towards the door. She stepped over the broken glass and grabbed a shirt off the back of the kitchen chair. She ran her fingers through her hair and rolled the kinks out of her neck before she opened the door to find her landlord with his fist in the air, ready to let down another barrage of knocks.

Paula leaned against the door frame. "You look like you've gotten fatter, Mr. Brattstone. That wife of yours stuff you up with her shit food again?"

The old man took a quick look down and rolled his eyes before he kept his eyes resolutely on Paula's nose. "You couldn't put on trousers before you opened the door?"

"My house, I dress how I want," Paula shrugged. "'Sides, you woke me up, and now you want me dress up for you? You're fuckin' rude…"

Mr. Brattstone ran a hand down his face. "Your rent, Paula," he replied witheringly. "I need the fuckin' rent."

Paula snorted and walked back inside the apartment. "Isn't that due next week?"

"No, it's due on the 15th. Just like every other month. You know this."

She reached underneath the couch cushions and pulled out a mason jar filled with bills. She popped the lid open, pulled out a fat wad of cash, and started to thumb through it. "Are bar tips that smell faintly of scotch and whiskey acceptable?"

Mr. Brattstone held out his hand. "Isn't that what you always pay in?"

Paula laughed, folded up a few hundred pounds, and handed it off. "You know me."

While he was pushing the bills into his wallet, Paula looked down the hall and saw a pile of a few large cardboard boxes stacked up in front of the apartment directly next to hers. Last time she checked, that one had been empty for a few months. Good thing, too. That meant Paula could kick up her amp as high as she wanted without bothering anyone. The door was left slightly ajar and she could just barely see what looked to be an empty living room with more cardboard boxes inside. She exhaled thoughtfully and tipped her chin over to the empty apartment. "New tenant, Mr. Landlord?"

Mr. Brattstone looked over at the empty apartment. "Yes, actually. A nice young bird's movin' in. Do me a favor and try not to scare this one off, yeah?"

"That was one time, you fuck," Paula muttered.

Mr. Brattstone pointed at her nose. "Be nice, Paula. Don't wanna hear that girl coming to me complaining about you."

Paula clasped her hands together and turned her eyes up innocently. "I'll be a regular fuckin' saint."

Mr. Brattstone looked like he had more to say to her, but her merely sighed, waved a hand behind him, and started to waddle down the stairs to his own apartment. Paula shoved one of her heels in front of the door to prop it open before deciding to sit out in the hallway and finish her cigarette. She idly looked to her side and read the hastily written labels on the sides of the boxes that were piled in the hallway. Clothes. Shoes. Books. Vinyls. Misc. Things that might break. Nothing out of the ordinary, with the exception of the hope that her new neighbor had a somewhat palatable taste of music. Maybe the new meat wouldn't mind if if Paula started blasting the Beatles late at night to help her sleep.

Paula peered down the stairwell when she heard someone coming up the stairs. She saw the half open cardboard box before she saw the girl carrying it.

She was a tiny thing, probably didn't even make it to Paula's shoulders. She looked Asian as far as Paula could tell, but the girl had done something wild with her hair — dyed somewhere between blue and violet with a haircut that made her locks stand up all over the place. It was pulled back in two pigtails on the top of her head and made her look younger than she probably was. She was brushing droplets of rain off the shoulders of her jacket as she pushed the box in front of her door and dusted off her hands.

Paula blew smoke out her nostrils and decided to be nosy. "That's a lot of boxes for a little thing like you to be carrying all by herself."

The girl didn't seem surprised to hear her voice, and instead laughed at the comment. "Don't worry. I'm a lot stronger than I look." Paula raised a brow. She had a bit of an accent, although Paula couldn't tell from where the girl came from. She sure as hell wasn't from around here. The girl turned towards Paula and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. "Looks like we're neighbors."

She couldn't have been any older than eighteen or nineteen, but dammit if she wasn't a downright gorgeous bird. Paula felt her brows flit upwards for a moment and felt her mouth curl up into a soft smirk. She was a vision — brilliant eyes, adorable smile, cheeks that were full and pink from the cold outside. The only thing potentially marring her features was the split bottom lip that looked like it had only just started healing, and the yellowed bruises peppered around her cheekbones. She looked like she'd recently gotten pretty roughed up, which was oddly more intriguing than it was shocking.

Paula's mind starting filling with questions, and something about her made Paula want to scroll through her Facebook to see if she recognized her from anywhere, because something about her face made her brain want to make a connection it couldn't quite find. "Looks like it," Paula said, taking another drag. "Hope the sounds of the massive orgies won't bother you," she teased.

The girl shrugged and smirked. "Well, I won't complain about the orgies so long as you don't complain about the screams of torture. And disregard any large trash bags I may drag out of here. They're most definitely not bodies."

Paula cackled and let her shoulders shake from the effort. "You got it, dollface." She ashed her cigarettes against the wall as the girl pushed the rest of her boxes in the apartment. Paula stood in the doorway of her own apartment and shoved her shoe back inside. "You got a name?"

The girl toed off her boots in the hallway, smiled at Paula, and chuckled. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She promptly closed the door and fastened the chain lock on the other side. Paula snorted, rolled her eyes, and entered her own apartment with a smile on her face.

OOO

After laying around her parent's house for close to a year — unemployed and with nothing do to — her parents thought it'd be good for Paula to get off her ass and get a damn job. Her father was so adamant about kicking her out the house that he even offered to help her find something. She flat out told them both that the one thing she did well was mix martinis strong enough to knock out grown men. Give her something she could do with that, and she was golden.

So her father helped her land a job bartending at a pretty decent bar in London, which suited her just fine. She found that as long as she showed off her tits and smiled at old men enough, she pulled in about four hundred pounds on a busy night — plenty to keep Mr. Brattstone off her prick, keep the rent payments coming in strong, and keep the fridge full.

Her head still wasn't feeling too right — probably a bad idea to finish the rest of that bottle all by herself, but too late now, she supposed — but it was a Friday night and she needed to replenish all the money she'd dished out on rent this afternoon. An eight to four shift might do her some good.

It didn't take long before the bar was packed to hell and she was sliding pints down the counter and pouring a few blokes their sixth glasses of scotch. A few lightweight birds took their friend out for her eighteenth birthday and Paula took great pleasure in continuously pouring them cheaper and cheaper labels throughout the night and watching them not being able to taste the difference.

The bouncer winked at her from the front door at around two once the rush simmered down, and Paula took that as her cue to sneak a bit of tequila without anyone noticing to take the edge off. She quickly wiped down the bar counter and knocked back a rather generous shot. She plucked out the bundle of bills she had in her back pocket and licked at the rim of her glass while she counted through all her tips. Just a little over four hundred. Not bad at all.

Paula barely noticed when that Asian girl strolled into the bar silent as a mouse, discreetly handing over her ID and sitting at one of the empty barstools at the quieter end of the bar counter. Paula was stuffing her tips back into her bra and was wiping her shot glass clean while she let her eyes drift curiously over to her. She looked even smaller bundled up in that too-large jacket that looked like it had seen hell. The leather was completely faded on the elbows and on the shoulders and it didn't look like the zip was working.

The rest of the barkeeps were busy, so Paula popped her glass back under the bar and wiped down the counter as she walked down to the other end of the bar. "Well, well, if it isn't Little Miss Nameless Nancy."

The girl's head jolted up from her phone, stared at Paula critically and almost antagonistically for a half a second before her face relaxed in recognition. "You're from next door," she commented.

"Sterling deduction, Sherlock," Paula replied. "That what I should call you since you're allergic to introductions?"

The girl winced and had the decency to allow a little sheepishness to spread across her face. "Not allergic to introductions," she amended. "I just find a little mystery alluring. Spices up the day.

Paula felt herself smile wider than she meant to. "Think yourself alluring, do you?"

She laughed, letting her shoulders shake with the effort. "I've gotten your attention twice today. I'll say it's working."

Paula pulled a lowball glass from underneath the counter. "As cute as you are, you gotta buy something, darlin'."

Her neighbor leaned forward on her elbows and stared at the row of bottles lined up along the back wall. "Do you know how to make a red lotus?"

"Can't say I do, but I'm a quick learner."

"Vodka, cranberry juice, and some lychee liqueur. Though if you could lay it heavy on the vodka, that'd be nice."

Paula plucked off a bottle of vodka and chuckled as she poured out about an extra shot more. "That kinda night, huh?"

The girl snorted and ran both her hands through that damn head of hair that didn't look like it ever sat still a day in its life. "It's always that kind of night."

She took a few minutes to mix the drink — she didn't think she'd ever bothered to pull lychee liqueur off the shelf before, hell she didn't even know they had that — before sliding it down the counter into the girl's awaiting hands.

It seemed like she hadn't done a bad job with it judging from the girl's face, and Paula made it a point to grab a pen off of the register and write the recipe on the back of her hand just in case. A bit of a fruity drink per Paula's standards, but it sounded like a cute thing to offer the secondary school girls who already popped in here half drunk and ready to throw up. She started drawing scribbles and doodles on her hand as she leaned her hip into the counter. "Planning on staying in that new shoebox of yours long?"

She gave Paula a quick once over. "Any particular reason why you want to know?"

Paula shrugged casually. "Trying to start conversation. Part of my job. Gets me lots of tips," she leered at the end.

The girl smirked and ran her tongue over her lips before taking a deep sip of her drink. "Don't know yet. Just trying to keep my head down for a bit."

"Well, so long as you're getting Brattstone's rent in on time and you're not pushing skank outta your place, you should be just fine."

She gave Paula a large smile — one that made the apples of her cheeks pull up and made her eyes squint in a way that was far too precious to ignore. "Good to know. Thanks for the seasoned advice."

The faded bruises around the girl's cheek were less visible under the dim lighting, but Paula couldn't help but zero in on it when she watched the girl's eyes crinkle in amusement. Plus, every time the girl ran her tongue over her lips, Paula kept staring at her busted lip. Something about it wasn't lining up properly in her head and she opened her mouth before she could stop the words from spilling out. "So who do I have to go fuck up?"

The girl looked up from her drink. "What?"

"Your face," Paula pointed out. "Must have been some sick fuck that went and marked up such a pretty face like that."

Her neighbor smirked bitterly and hung her head while she stirred around the thin straw in her drink. "...I guess."

Paula felt herself wince and plucked up a nearby glass to wipe clean for the sake of having something to distract her. "...alright, bad bar conversation. My fault."

"No, it's fine," the girl promised, moving aside the hair from her face that was falling in front of the bruised eye. "I mean….I'm not really trying to hide it."

Paula sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and started wiping the rim of the glass. "A bloke?" she tried carefully.

"No."

"...a bird?"

The girl chuckled gently and shook her head. "No. Just a bad fight is all. But people keep looking at me like I'm battered or something."

"Nah," Paula assured. "You look like the kind of girl who'd pull a bloke's teeth out if he even looked at you funny."

The girl leaned her elbows on the counter and licked her lips. "How can you tell?"

Paula leaned in conspiratorially. "I've got a good eye."

"Are you usually on the lookout for people like me?"

Paula shrugged in response. "If I happen upon something interesting, I make it a point to stop and take notice." The girl did nothing but laugh, look down at her drink, and rub the back of her neck, and by then Paula knew she'd effectively embarassed her. Something about the smile she was giving right now was far too adorable for Paula to leave alone, and she had this really weird desire to try and ask for the girl's name again. Maybe she'd get it this time. But more people were sliding up to the bar counter and asking for orders, and Paula knew she had to take care of them before they got pissed.

She tapped the side of the girl's drink. "You need another drink, just call over. And don't worry. This one's on the house."

"Really?"

Paula winked. "Yeah. Enjoy the night, dollface."

The rush started up again in earnest, and Paula was too busy dealing with orders and sliding drinks to thirsty drunks to take the time to check back in with her neighbor nursing a drink all by herself at two in the morning. Paula only had time to hand the girl two more of those red lotus drinks and pass off a few smiles before she was called away again. It wasn't until last call that Paula finally had the time to breathe and start kicking people out of the bar. But by then, the girl had already left.

Paula was about to kick herself for not asking for the girl's name, but she looked underneath the empty glass she'd left at the bar and found a twenty pound note along with a message printed in neat writing on one of the bar napkins.

Thanks for the free drink. You still deserve a nice tip. :) -N

OOO

"Nameless Nancy" didn't show up at the bar for the rest of the week like Paula hoped she would, and Paula had to subsequently remind herself not to get so damn disappointed about it.

There wasn't much she could glean just from being neighbors with the girl short of holding her ear to the wall that separated their apartments and watching her door whenever she passed it. But from what she could tell, the odd young woman didn't do anything that was particularly odd or fascinating.

Her wretched alarm always went off at close to eight in the morning, and the only reason Paula knew that was because she heard it through the walls most days. It took Paula only a couple of days to figure out that it was because the woman jogged for close to an hour every other morning. She came back to the apartment all covered in a dewy sheen of sweat one morning while Paula was smoking out the window after she ascertained she couldn't fall back asleep. Paula would always hear her move around her apartment — turning on the television, playing music, moving things around, and whatever the hell else that dame got up to.

It didn't seem like she had a job yet, unless she was always working from home. Paula only ever saw her come back to the apartment from a jog or from a grocery run. Never really had visitors from what Paula could tell — no friends, no boyfriends, no girlfriends. If anything, the girl was strangely quiet and must have really been taking her whole mission to keep her head down and to keep out of people's ways rather seriously. She was such a straightforward girl, and Paula couldn't for the life of her figure out how the drinking and the busted face fit into her narrative.

Hell, Paula couldn't even figure out the girl's fucking name. She had a single letter to go off of — 'N' — and Paula didn't think that would be such a frustrating position to be in, especially since she'd only had one honest conversation with the girl.

It wasn't until a week after Paula had spoken to the girl at the bar that she found out something interesting.

It was close to three in the morning when she heard it, and had Paula not decided to stay up and watch television before bed, she probably would have missed it. But just as she was heading to bed and pulling the sheets up, the light sounds of an acoustic were flowing through the otherside of Paula's bedroom wall. Paula pressed her ear to the wall and smiled when she knew that it was coming from that strange girl's apartment. Paula really couldn't pinpoint if it was a particular tune or a cover of a song, but it was still some bloody gorgeous playing. It was the kind of lazy, warm, gooey songs Paula would play late at night with a glass of whiskey and a pack of fresh smokes, and Paula found herself staying against the wall and listening to her playing for a few minutes before curling up in bed again, and letting it lull her to sleep.

Just like that, Paula had a way in.

So the next afternoon, Paula muttered a quick apology, purposefully over tightened the high E string on her acoustic, and smirked when it snapped and broke.

Paula was holding her guitar by the neck behind her, knocking on the girl's door, all the while hoping that this wasn't going to look too planned, too obvious, or too damn stupid. But, it didn't take long for her neighbor to open her door, clad in nothing but underwear and a loose skimpy tank top that Paula couldn't help but stare at for a couple of seconds. She recovered quickly and leaned casually against the door frame. "Afternoon, Nameless Nancy."

She looked perplexed for a moment, but responded to the quip with a sharp smirk. "Is that my name now?"

Paula shrugged. "Well, not like you'll tell me your real one. All you gave me to go on was 'N.' Nancy starts with 'N.' Close enough, eh?"

"Nancy" snorted. "Interesting name to peg me with," she answered honestly. "Although, for your reference, I do answer to most nicknames"

Paula winced. "Ooh. Careful. That's a dangerous thing to pull around me. I'm very creative with nicknames."

"Can't wait to see what you come up with."

Paula raised a brow, but nodded in agreement. "I'll do my best to accommodate, dollface. Although, unless you have any objections or plan to tell me what the hell 'N' actually stands for, I'm gonna call you Nancy."

The girl rolled her eyes, but relented with a firm nod. "Alright, fine. Nancy it is." She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the same side of the doorframe as Paula. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Actually, you most certainly can." Paula pulled her guitar out from behind her and displayed it between them. "Seemed to have snapped one of my strings on accident, and I couldn't help from noticing that you play too."

Nancy blinked. "How did you — ?"

"I heard you playing through the walls," Paula explained. "They're pretty thin, you can hear a pin drop on the other side. Heard it totally on accident. But, anyway. Thought I could ask for an extra E string if you had one."

Nancy asked for the guitar and Paula happily handed it over. "Did you pluck it too hard or something?"

Paula clicked her tongue against her teeth. "Eh...I guess you could say that."

Nancy huffed dramatically, but smiled and tilted her head towards the inside of the apartment. "Alright, come on in. I'm sure I have an extra one lying around somewhere."

Their apartments were laid out in exactly the same way. The doors to her bedroom and bathroom were shut tight, but Paula looked around the living room and the small kitchen and couldn't help but smile at the little bits of furniture and decoration she could see lying around. Turns out Nancy had an acoustic and an electric as well, and they were sitting on little stands in the far corner of the room. There was a punching bag, some weights, a few exercise mats in the corner, and Paula wondered if the girl knew any martial arts or something. There were piles of vinyls and CD's around various walls of the room, old band posters and vinyl sleeves on the walls — Bowie, The Who, Santana, Hendrix — , large poster papers with Japanese lettering, and paper lamps hanging from the ceilings. There was a small portable speaker on the kitchen counter that was playing music from her phone that Paula didn't recognize.

Paula let out a soft whistle as she looked around the apartment. "You look pretty cozy in here. Not bad after just a week."

Nancy smiled back as she climbed over her couch and headed for her bedroom. "Thanks," she called back. "Thought it'd be a nice change of pace. Oh! Sit down or something. Couch is fine."

Paula collapsed into the couch and heard some rustling going on in the girl's room before she came out with a small case that was filled with packs of guitar strings, picks, folded up sheet music, and what looked to be like a deconstructed set of mini speakers that had seen better days. Paula chuckled as she watched Nancy pull out different guitar string packs and try to find the right one that Paula needed. "Change of pace...do you usually not decorate?"

Nancy sat on the arm of the couch and gestured for Paula's guitar. She pulled out some pliers from the box. "You don't mind, do you?" she asked, gesturing to the broken string. Paula shook her head and smirked, almost intrigued to see the girl string a guitar by hand. "It's more that I usually don't stay in places long enough to justify decorating. All this stuff's been in storage for….wow, years." She paused for a moment as she pulled out the bridge pin and held it in between her teeth. "I had all this shipped over here when I got the apartment."

"So you're staying for a while then," Paula stated.

"Hopefully," she answered back, pushing the bridge pin back in and tightening the new string. "I mean….I can't know what'll happen in the near future or anything. But, I'm trying to make this a little more permanent. Maybe for a year or so."

Paula frowned. "You sound like you've been travelling for years, yet you don't look all that old to begin with. What are you, eighteen?"

Nancy chuckled and started stringing the new string through the tuning pin near the headstock. "Good guess. Turning nineteen in October. I don't know. I've always felt like sometimes you need to breathe the air that hasn't been touched by those closest to you for a while. It's the only way you'll grow and learn about yourself."

Paula snorted and leaned her head back so she could look at the lamps hanging from the ceiling. "That something that people should take up as young as you did?"

Nancy shrugged and clipped the excess string with the pliers before she started tightening it. "I….wouldn't recommend most of what I do to anyone, really. It's not like I regret it, but….let's just say that I'm not very typical."

Paula's eyes immediately looked to the girl's eye that looked like it was almost done healing, and the cut on her lip that had finally closed up. Paula wasn't ever in the habit of judging lifestyles, but there was something almost sinister and strange about a young teenage girl on her own for a number of years and getting into fights that left her bloody and bruised. She knew she wasn't going to get any clarifications on that front, so she smirked and answered, "That's for sure. You're eighteen, and you talk like you're forty."

She laughed. "I guess I should take that as a compliment."

"If you'd like. When I was eighteen, I was screaming my head off about getting a job, buying my own house, and living to the nines. Fucking idiot."

"And at the age of thirty five, have you since learned from your mistakes?"

Paula nudged Nancy's leg when she started laughing. "You little fucking tart! I ain't that old!"

Nancy was plucking the new string and trying to tune it back up properly. "Okay, um...twenty five?"

"Twenty eight," Paula relented. "Got two good years left."

"Oh please, that's hardly true. You have at least ten. Trust me."

Paula smirked and lowered her voice teasingly. "Is that your way of telling me I've got good genes?"

Nancy plucked the new string, seemingly satisfied, and handed it back off to Paula. "If you're in the mood for fishing for compliments, then absolutely."

"You really are a tart."

Nancy winked. "So I've been told."

Paula rolled her eyes, but cradled the guitar in her hands and tried out the new string. She strummed out a few chords and nodded in satisfaction as she delved into something she was making up off the top of her head a couple of nights ago when she couldn't get to sleep. "Not bad, princess. Thanks." It was a shame, because she hadn't been touching any of her guitars lately for reasons she still wasn't sure of. Probably a combination of being too tired half the time, and always coming back from work too wiped out to even bother picking it up. But her fingers always fell back into the habit easily, just like they were now.

She barely noticed Nancy watching her hands slide across the frets and pluck along to a rather morose tune. "I like that," she told Paula. "Did you come up with that yourself?"

Paula shrugged. "Ah, I was just fucking around one night when I couldn't sleep."

"Sounds kinda sad," Nancy frowned.

"Hadn't noticed," Paula responded, looking down at her own fingers. "Didn't mean to make it sound sad."

Nancy pouted her lips for a moment before grinning and jumping off the couch. "Wait a second. Keep playing!" She bounced over to the corner of the room where her guitars were sitting. She plucked up her acoustic and began messing with the tuning pegs and plucking at the strings while she sat back down on the couch next to Paula. Paula started her little melody from the beginning and Nancy watched her fingers move through the tune for a few more seconds. Then, after counting herself in, she added a quick, uppity little layer on top of Paula's to accompany it.

Paula raised her brows and watched the girl's tiny fingers move like she'd been playing guitar since she could walk. Paula was never one that gushed over other musicians or starved to surround herself with them, but she couldn't deny that it felt incredibly nice to finally get to play with other musicians, let alone another guitarist. Nancy was grinning and nodded in satisfaction. "How's that?"

"Mean fingering, darling," Paula winked. "I mean that in the most innocent sense of the word"

Nancy actually laughed at the joke and rocked back in her seat a little bit with the effort. "Sure you did. No, no! Don't stop! Keep playing!"

Paula hadn't meant to make a long visit out of this whole plan of hers, but it wound up being just that. For some reason, playing duets with this girl was incredibly entertaining. She was a damn good guitarist, probably one of the better ones she'd ever run into in her life, and she took to playing the instrument like it was her one joy in life. Paula had to respect that, and it was that fact alone that made this nameless girl all the more intriguing. They spent close to an hour coming up with different accompaniments and variations of the tune that Paula started playing, and then Paula insisted that the younger girl start playing her own music. Of course this led to the darling little thing digging into her room and pulling out folded up pieces of papers of old tabs she had come up with and written down ages ago.

It was close to three hours later — the street lights already starting to flicker on for the night — when Paula was strumming along lazily to a Beatles song after she had practically bowed at her neighbor's feet for playing a Zeppelin solo that was nothing short of devilish. Nancy was laid out on the couch with her guitar leaning against her chest and her feet resting in Paula's lap. She was playing a few random block chords to accompany Paula's playing when she turned to the television by the wall and looked at the time. "Are you hungry?" she asked Paula.

Paula shrugged lightly and kept playing. "Eh, sort of. I was just gonna order in something later tonight."

Nancy made a disgusted sound. "Order in? No, no, unacceptable. You're eating here then."

Paula laughed. "Oh, what, so you're cooking for me now too? I thought coming here on my knees for a guitar string was enough of a favor."

The girl stopped playing, returned her guitar, and hopped over to the kitchen. "Consider this my treat. Besides, it's been a long time since I've gotten to play with someone else. I have to thank you somehow."

Paula laughed and turned her body towards the kitchen, switching into a faster tempo. "Well, far be it from me to discourage a pretty young thing from cooking me a meal. I may swoon."

"Don't expect me to catch you now."

"Oh, come on, pet, that's just mean."

Nancy giggled and started pulling out pots from her cabinets. "I can't possibly spoil you at all hours of the day can I? Is pasta okay?"

Paula smirked charmingly in response. "I'll eat anything that comes out of your kitchen, doll. Don't you worry."

OOO

Paula had never really dated a bird before.

Oh, she'd fucked plenty of them. On the nights when she wasn't working, Paula would venture off into the parts of London where she knew the bars and clubs were practically bursting at the seams with lovely women who were interested in being eaten out in bar bathrooms. Sometimes, if Paula was feeling particularly randy, she'd even manage to find a straight woman who was drunk enough to want to be a little adventurous. But these were never birds that she let stay in her apartment for more than a night, and she made a very strict rule about never sharing bacon and eggs with a bird she'd slept with.

Once she was out of Crawley and away from her parents — who, needless to say, would have had fucking conniptions if she had brought a woman home for Christmas — there was always this rush to get the fill that she hadn't been able to get for the past 20 or so years. One woman turned into two, to five, to seven, and quantity became so much more important than quality. It was like dunking your head straight into a bucket of ice cold water instead of easing your way inside. Paula wanted to know what she was missing out on now, and not a moment later.

Honestly, Paula wondered if she had met the nameless little darling from next door drunk at a bar, whether she would have just dragged her home, had her silly, and left it at that. Because, for some strange reason that Paula wasn't completely comprehending, the thought of that felt pretty fucking awful, and not something she really ever wanted to ruminate on. Nothing about Paula's previous encounters with women felt empty per se, but with this one, it would have been.

Paula didn't know how it happened, but she was knocking on Nancy's door practically everyday, and eventually Nancy was doing the same. She supposed they had quickly fallen into a friendship, but Paula was more enamoured with the charming process of learning little things about Nancy that she hadn't known before. The fact that she rattled off in Japanese when she was frustrated. The fact that she didn't eat meat and actually convinced Paula to try some of that strange imitation meat she liked so much. The fact that Hendrix was one of her heroes. The fact that she refused to play guitar with a pick. Even the fact that she never scrambled her eggs for breakfast and always cooked them sunny side up or into omelets.

Whenever they weren't laying out on Noodle's couch together bumming around on their guitars, they were laid out on Paula's carpet making good use of her record player and sound system. Paula was always giving Nancy movies and CDs to borrow and Nancy was always cooking for the both of them. Paula always complained about work, and Nancy would pity her and listen to all of her horrible stories, adding in appropriate commentary and hilarious quips when the mood seemed appropriate. There were even a couple of times when she came down to the bar again during one of Paula's shifts and always asked for the same drink — Red Lotus with an extra shot of vodka.

It was easy to hang out where Paula lived and where Paula worked. It was easy to water that down to friendly interactions, something that neighbors — maybe even friends? — did. But two weeks of that had Paula yearning for something that required a little bit more effort, something that involved the two of them purposefully venturing outside together to do something. Not just the two of them sitting out on the stoop of the apartment and bumming through some cigarettes for lack of anything else to do, but actually leaving the comfortable places where Paula always spent time and doing something special.

Lunch. Going out for a cuppa. Going to see a film. Or whatever else it was that couples did. The one good thing about dating men was that they were always the ones who came up with the ideas, came up with the dates, and did most of the work. Paula appreciated that only because she knew that she probably wouldn't be good in trying to put in that much work into anybody. It was only now that she was willing to try.

Paula's mind was on autopilot, thinking through possible courses of action while she buckled down and dealt with a deathly busy night at the bar, running only a small sliver of the she ask this girl out? Was she too young? Was Paula too old? Was it too early for that sort of thing? Where the fuck would a dame like this one want to go?

It was already close to four in the morning and Paula was just about ready to go home and collapse into her bed now that her shift was over. She reeked of liquor more than she usually did and her feet were fucking killing her. Just when she was hanging her apron and about to go tell the boss that she was turning in for the night, one of the bartenders that was attending the other side of the bar for the evening tapped her on the shoulder and jutted his thumb over his shoulder. "Hey, need your help, hon. Gotta poor girl passed out on the counter. Figured you should handle it."

Paula rolled her eyes, but nodded and finished shelving the rest of the liquor bottles she was using this evening. She wasn't really in the mood to call a cab for a poor primary schooler and wait for her to get home safely, but she supposed it would have been fucked up to leave her like that. Except, when Paula was about to shove the girl's shoulder and get her to sober the fuck up, she realized that she recognized that messy head of hair and recognized the scar on her lip that was only just starting to fade away.

"Dollface?" she muttered as she leaned over the girl's slumped form. Nameless Nancy was pillowing her head on her arms which were spread across the bar table, and she was surrounded by about six lowball glasses that she must have polished off by herself. Paula brushed the girl's hair out of her face, but the girl merely winced and turned her head away.

Paula turned back to her coworker. "How much liquor did you put into her drinks?" she demanded. "The dame always gets the same fruity drink every time, there's no way she got drunk off that."

"The bird was ordering straight whiskey the whole night, Paula," the employee explained. "Told her to lay off it but she handed me a fifty and told me to keep 'em coming. Wasn't going to say no to that."

Under different circumstances, Paula wouldn't have minded the behavior — hell, she frequently took large tips from customers in exchange for a constant flow of alcohol — but Paula brushed the bartender away in annoyance and went to go get her jacket from the break room along with a bottle of water. She shrugged on her jacket, opened up the bottle, and nudged the girl away. "Pet. Come on, it's me, Paula."

Nancy's nose crunched up and she blinked blearily in Paula's direction. She took what looked to be a rather painful swallow and grinned lazily. "Hi, Paula! Was….waitin' for you."

She was completely smashed — absolutely legless. It was oddest thing because Nancy usually only ordered a couple of drinks when she headed to the bar to meet Paula, and even those occasions weren't all that often. She was a girl that seemed to keep herself healthy and also seemed to keep herself out of trouble, and Paula didn't think this was something that was at all typical of her.

Paula pressed the rim of the water bottle to Nancy's lips. "Come on, darling. Drink up. You're trashed to Hell. I'm gonna take you home, okay?"

Nancy groaned and pulled her face away from the bottle. "Noooo. Leave me here. I want 'nother drink."

"You're not having anything to drink other than water," Paula insisted. "Come on, sweetheart. Drink up."

It took a few more pushes, but the girl finally took the bottle from Paula and nearly drank half of it in only a few gulps. She was sitting straight up in her chair now, rocking back and forth like she was terribly dizzy, and wiping insistently at her mouth, while Paula zipped up her jacket, tied her scarf around her neck, and put on her gloves. Paula stood on Nancy's left side, wrapped her arm over her shoulders and forced her to stand up. "Alright, love, come on. Up you get. We've gotta go."

Nancy seemed to be listening as far as she was walking in step with Paula towards the exit of the bar. But as Paula was waving over to her boss and gesturing that she was done for the night, the girl was burying her face into Paula's side and drunkenly complaining. "No. Don' wana. Don' …. don' take me to the studio. Don' wanna see their stupid faces."

Paula didn't know what the hell the girl was talking about, but she pushed them into the street and started heading down the block in the direction of their apartment. "Not going to no studio, dollface. We're going to your place. Nice cozy apartment. Put you right to bed. Sound good?"

Nancy's head was nodding back and forth. "But you gotta come with me, Paula. Wanna stay with you. You're gon — gonna stay with me, right?"

The smaller girl started making retching noises, and Paula had to run with her to the nearest waste bin just in time so that she could retch into it. Paula was pulling the girl's hair out of her face and over her shoulder while she patted her back and talked to her soothingly. "Not going anywhere, pet," Paula promised teasingly, trying to keep the mood light. "Gonna stay with you until we get you back home, alright?"

"Good," Nancy muttered into the waste bin before vomiting one more time. "Cause those guys left me….didn't look for me….especially him. Left me all alone. Didn't look — look for me, Paula, didn't even fucking look for me, God. Didn't even l-look."

Paula narrowed her eyes worriedly. She wanted to believe that this was nothing more than just drunken, babbling nonsense, but at the same time there had to have been a reason for someone to want to drink themselves dead in a bar all by themselves this late at night. Instead, she wiped the girl's mouth with the cuff of her coat and pulled her along the sidewalk.

It took a while for Paula to get to their apartment — all the while Nancy was babbling things in English, Japanese, Spanish, and about three other languages that Paula didn't even recognize, and since when the Hell did this girl know so many damn languages? About half-way to the apartment, Paula had to collect the girl on her back and carry her piggyback style, and while she wasn't all that heavy to begin with, it did slow the trek down considerably. They also had to stop about two more times so that she could drink more water and throw up. But Paula finally sighed in relief when she trudged up the stairs to the apartment and stopped in front of Nancy's apartment.

She shook the girl who was snoozing on her shoulder. "Hey, love. Where are your keys?"

Paula got nothing but a headshake in response. She groaned, reached around, and started digging through the girl's coat pockets, feeling them shoved deep inside one of them. "You're killing me here, dollface."

Paula struggled with the keys before pulling them out, unlocking the door, and kicking the door open with her foot. She walked around in the dark for a moment before she flicked on a lamp by the couch. She walked to the back of the apartment and found the door to the bedroom before she finally deposited Nancy on her bed. She looked around the cluttered bedroom and tried to look for a blanket and some clothes that she could wear to bed.

She grabbed a sweatshirt off the bedside table and found a throw blanket in the closet. She started to untie Nancy's boots when the girl started muttering again. "They….started without me."

Paula pulled off the girl's tights, balled them up, and stuffed them into her boots. She decided to humor her and respond. "Who started what, doll?"

Nancy laughed. "The album," she slurred. "They started the album without me. Replaced me. Mm, I dunno if they even know 'm alive."

Paula scrunched her brows and chuckled as she sat the girl up, pulled off her jacket, and got up to hang it in her closet. Boy, who knew that she was one of those babbling drunks. Paula almost wanted to record this. "What do you mean they started the album? What album?"

This caused a raucous laugh to bubble from the girl's lips. "I never told you," she said in between chuckles. "I'm — I'm in a band. Leeeaaad guitarist. And I'm not — not there to make the album. Stupid, Satanist bastard."

Paula's ears perked up when she heard 'satanist bastard' and of course her mind immediately made the connection to one bassist in particular that she had made her life's work to forget about. Of course, there's no way this girl knew anything about that, and she had to have been talking about something else. She lifted the girl's arms and tried to force the sweatshirt on her body. Paula even lifted the hood on Nancy's head and patted her head through the material. "Look. Tell me about it in the morning, alright love?" She stood up, fanned out the blanket, and covered Nancy up. The girl immediately snuggled into the material and hugged one of her pillows under her head.

Paula sighed in exasperation and rubbed the girl's shoulder. She was about to stand up and go to bed herself until Nancy spoke up again. "Stupid, stupid, stupid….bassist. When I get back — I'll break his nose again." She laughed at her own sentence. "How many breaks'll that be Murdoc?"

The name had Paula practically spinning on her heels and she looked down at the girl frozen in shock. Satanic bassist? Murdoc? New album? Paula dropped back on her knees and hovered over the girl. "Murdoc? Murdoc Niccals?"

Nancy laughed. "The very same! God….doesn't care 'bout….anything but himself and his band!"

His band. The same band that Paula was a part of for only a few weeks before she was kicked out. And it couldn't have been a coincidence that Gorillaz had also just recently announced that they were putting out a new album. It's not like Paula religiously followed the band's progress anymore, but she couldn't help but hearing that their young, bright lead guitarist had also disappeared and been presumed dead after an accident at a music video shoot. Every Gorillaz fan on the face of the planet was heartbroken at having heard the news. Of course, the conspiracy had always been that a body had never been found, and what if it happened to be that she had merely disappeared, and she was out there living her life somewhere and no one knew about it….?

Holy fucking shit. So many things were adding up now. The guitar playing, the young age, the moving around, the reason her face looked so familiar for reasons Paula hadn't picked up on until this moment. Shit.

This couldn't be her. What the hell were the chances, and why would it be Paula of all fucking people to figure it out before anyone else? This had to have been a joke. Some sort of sick, cosmic fuck up, or just the result of Paula's tired brain taking advantage of her. Because, no, this would change everything.

Paula smoothed the girl's hair back, and her voice sounded cracked and shaky when she finally spoke. "Noodle?"

Noodle smiled into the touch and sighed out. "Yeah, Paula?

Paula's breath caught in her throat for a long second and she hissed out a quieted curse. She bit down on her lip and tucked the blanket under Noodle's chin. "Nothing, doll. Get to bed and sleep that shit off."

Noodle nodded, closed her eyes, and fell right asleep without any further provocation. She was snoring softly by the time Paula snuck out the bedroom and closed the door behind her. She stumbled into her own apartment, grabbed the pack of cigarettes she kept on the coffee table, and fell gracelessly on her couch. She raked a hand through her hair while she sucked in a huge drag.

"Son of a fucking bitch."

OOO

Paula's first instinct was to finally follow through with her old fantasy of fucking with the girl mercilessly to play out her well deserved and petty gesture of revenge.

She remembered a time where just seeing that damn little girl's face threw Paula into a rage. It wasn't even just that she was replaced, although for a while she thought that this was the primary reason for her wanting to ruin Murdoc's band and strip it of all it was worth. But that little girl that had happened upon the band purely by chance turned out to be a tiny bundle of pure joy and light that everyone was immediately attracted to. The fans had fallen in love with her, the press couldn't get enough of her energy, and even her band members were thoroughly entranced by her spirit. Even Murdoc — that fucking bastard of a man who had nothing good to say about anything — couldn't dare mutter a bad word to that girl no matter how hard his crooked little heart tried.

That had truly been the rub of it all. Because Paula's name brought up nothing but bad tastes and even worse memories within the band. Granted, her own actions probably had a lot to do with that — she was a fucking idiot when she was younger — but it didn't change the fact that she was always treated as the horrid joke that the band was able to laugh over and forget about in favor of their newly found success and their newly found guitarist who played better at the age of eight than Paula probably could ever manage. And honestly, how was she supposed to measure up to that?

Pulling that girl from her pedestal had always been the intention, and for a while Paula thought it would make her feel better. But she knew that she couldn't dare manage that now. Because the same thing that made Paula hate the girl was the same thing that made Paula just want to rush to the girl's apartment, forget what she knew, and just sprawl across the girl's couch, closing her eyes and listening to Noodle play that gorgeous cover of "Let it Be." She wanted to see her smile, hear her laugh through a movie, and make fun of her while she danced to the Beastie Boys. Paula went and fell for the same bewitching, brilliant, bright darling right along with the rest of the world.

So why the fuck did she still feel so damn awful?

Paula was knocking on Noodle's door the next afternoon, and she was sort of hoping that she would feel the vestiges of some of that jealousy to reemerge when she saw Noodle again. Then she could go back to her apartment, hate her in private, and go back to living her life the way it had been before the damn girl had even moved in.

But of course, despite the very probably hangover she was suffering through, Noodle opened the door and gave that exact same smile she always did — the one that made the apples of her cheeks pull up and made her eyes squint closed. Her hair was rustled, she was pulling at the too-long sleeves of a sweatshirt she'd stolen from Paula, and she was rocking back and forth on her toes like she was truly and honestly excited to see her. Paula's chest immediately warmed at the sight, and she knew at that moment that she was a goner no matter how much she didn't want to be.

"Hey!" Noodle exclaimed. "I've been meaning to come over to thank you. You took me home last night, right?"

Paula laughed. "You actually remember that much?"

Noodle winced in embarrassment. "I remember you finding me at the bar counter, and then everything after that is a total blank. I just assumed."

"Well, be glad I was the one that found you," Paula scolded half heartedly. "A pretty thing like you drunk out of her wits? Who knows who would have taken advantage of that…"

Noodle smirked, grabbed Paula's hand, and pulled her into her apartment. "All the more reason to come in and let me thank you properly," she insisted. "I bake when I'm hungover, so I hope you don't mind being thanked in sweets."

The morning news was droning on the lowest volume on the television, Noodle was playing music from her phone again, and she was pushing more cookies into her mouth from the huge baking sheet that she had laid out on the kitchen counter. Paula wanted to laugh because it was like nothing had changed, but everything felt so different. Paula rolled her eyes and snorted when Noodle proudly sat on the couch, balanced the baking sheet on the cushions next to her, and shook it around, insisting that Paula take some.

Paula sat on the arm of the couch, humoring the offer, and asked, "Feeling any better?"

Noodle nodded and pulled the hem of her sweatshirt over her knees. "I think so. Just a bit of a headache and a stomach ache, but nothing too bad." She stared at Paula soberly. "I'm serious, you know. Thanks for taking me home. You didn't have to do that."

Paula looked down at her hands and started picking at her nails. "About that….do you mind if I ask?"

Noodle shrugged. "Ask what?"

"You know," Paula explained. "The whole 'keep the straight whiskey coming until I pass out' stunt you pulled last night. What was that all about?"

Noodle's eyes were fixed on the television and she merely offered a shrug in response. "Bad night," she answered shortly.

"That's it?" Paula insisted. "A bad night?"

Noodle spoke through a mouthful. "Are you expecting details?"

Paula didn't want to mention that all the drunken details that Noodle had offered last night were enough of an explanation, but she supposed that Noodle wasn't exactly going to be forthcoming with a lot of information on that front. "Well," Paula began. "I mean I was expecting some clarification. Kinda worried me back there."

Noodle nibbled on her lip. "I didn't mean to worry you. I honestly didn't even realize you were working that shift. I thought you only work on the weekends."

"I was covering for someone," she explained. "And that's not the point. What happened?"

"Nothing," Noodle insisted. "Look I was….just being silly. It's nothing for you to worry yourself over. If anything, it was rather trivial."

Paula shook her head in disbelief. "Bullshit, darling. Nothing about you is trivial."

Noodle swung her head in Paula's direction. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, let's do a little review, shall we?" Paula announced. "You won't tell me your name. You've been on your own hopping around since you were a kid. Apparently you've got no family to speak of. You look like someone seriously fucked you up good and proper days before moving here. And, judging from what you were mumbling last night, you've got some serious hang ups over some people. So yeah. I say something's up with you."

Noodle's eyes were widening in the middle of her sentence. "I said something last night?"

Paula leaned in close to Noodle. "Word of caution," she continued. "You're a blabbermouth when you're drunk. I'd avoid getting shitfaced if you've got stuff to hide."

Something about Noodle's expression changed and morphed into a face that Paula hadn't seen before. Something about the way her eyes narrowed just a tad, and the way her face hardened in apprehension, like she suddenly she felt like she was being threatened. "What did you hear?"

Paula was undaunted. "Oh, I think something about breaking Murdoc's nose for the umpteenth time for replacing you and releasing an album without you. Although, considering those super soldier genes of yours, you might just kill him, eh Noodle?"

She saw Noodle visibly wince, and for a few seconds it looked as if she were setting herself up to deny everything that Paula was saying. But she eventually pursed her lips, and closed her eyes in embarrassment. "...shit."

Paula shrugged. "For what it's worth, I fully support it. I mean, I saw the man get his nose broken twice already, but I definitely think the bastard could use another break. Hell, give him a blessing from God, that might actually make him implode."

Noodle looked like she was struggling to catch up to Paula's words. "Wait, wait, what do you mean you've seen him get his nose broken? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, did I not mention?" Paula leered. "Since we're being so honest with each other now, you're looking at the old bird you replaced, sweetheart."

It took a moment for the message to sink in, but once it did, Noodle's eyes widened almost comically and she was suddenly sitting ramrod straight on the couch, her knees dropping from her chest and her feet pressing flat into the floor. Her lips were struggling to form words before she finally sighed out in astonishment. "...you're Paula Cracker."

Paula winked and clicked her tongue. "You got it, dollface."

Noodle was appraising her — looking her up and down, zeroing in on her face, blinking a few times as if she couldn't see quite right — and Paula already knew that she probably looked leagues different to Noodle now. Noodle was staring at her like suddenly she was a bad person, a person with a history, the brunt of a joke, someone Noodle wasn't ever supposed to see again. Paula knew exactly how that felt, and all of a sudden the two of them were facing off again like they were strangers for the very first time.

Noodle was raking her hands through her hair, her eyes not leaving Paula's face. "How did I not recognize you?"

"The hell if I know," Paula said with an eye roll. "You'd think that with all the Japanese shit, the Hendrix albums, the guitar playing, and everything else I'd have put two and two together too. Guess we're both fucking idiots."

The severity of the statement hit home, and all those weeks of friendship seemed to have dissolved into an uncomfortable sort of awkwardness that Paula seriously wished would have never developed. But she supposed they hadn't really known much about each other up until this point, and everything they'd recently discovered had no choice but to spread out in the open and aired out for them to come to terms with.

Nothing was said for a long moment, and there was nothing but the television and Noodle's music serving as white noise in the background. Paula's questions were mounting by the second, and she was sure that Noodle had her own, so she decided to bite the bullet and go first. "You're supposed to be dead," she stated simply.

Noodle looked like she didn't want to answer the question, but she scowled and shook her head. "I….disappeared. Everyone thought I was dead, and after a while, I wanted to keep it that way."

Paula snorted. "That why you were being all coy about your name?"

"Look, you don't know the half of what's going on and it would take too long to explain" Noodle cut in curtly. "Needless to say, Murdoc's problems became my problems, and I have to wade through all of the bullshit he got himself involved in. That enough for you?"

To be quite honest, it was barely scratching on the surface. Paula couldn't pretend she knew all that much about Murdoc, but the little she did know was that the fucker could get himself into scads of trouble just by sneezing. "What, are you running from someone?" Paula asked.

Noodle shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Not running. Like I told you, I'm trying to keep my head down for a bit. I muscled out of something big and I'm trying to….I don't know….breathe for a while before I go jumping back in." She eyed Paula carefully. "We're both perfectly safe if that's what you were worried about."

Paula supposed if there's anyone's words she was supposed to trust, it would be the girl that apparently was only one password away from fucking exploding like an atomic bomb and destroying everything in her sights, at least if half the shit in their autobiography was meant to be believed. It certainly did clear up a few puzzling things that Paula was running through her head, but she didn't have the time to ask for clarification before Noodle whirled on her. "But let's talk about you," she countered. "Last we heard of you, you were sending us death threats and were apparently stark raving mad. What happened after that?"

Her eyes narrowed and she chewed on the inside of her teeth. "Therapy, actually. And pills. Lots of pills. Take 'em every morning and every night, and I'm all fixed," she assured, knocking on the side of her head. Paula smiled sarcastically. "But thank you for asking!"

"Do you blame me?" Noodle asked in disbelief. "You were the jealous ex-band member who sounded like she was prepared to do anything to get back at the people who kicked her out."

"Oh, cry me a river, pet," Paula sneered. "I'm sure that was the last of your worries. You had the world at your fingertips and you were a regular fuckin' starlet. But I guess all that doesn't matter anymore because you were dumped on your arse and replaced too. Feels like fuckin' shit, doesn't it?"

"God, you are so vindictive!" Noodle exclaimed in frustration. "I've done nothing to you except take the spot that you vacated because of your own stupidity. Don't you dare try and suggest I got what was coming to me."

"Easy for you to say, you precious little fucking princess," Paula spat. "Everyone loves you on sight, and you don't even need to lift a finger. Meanwhile I work my fucking arse off to get half that love and I get shit on in return. So don't you try and make yourself seem like the goddamn victim!"

Noodle was looking up at her like she wanted to throttle Paula, and to be honest, Paula sort of wanted it to happen. It would have simplified things immensely. It was easier to deal with people on this sort of assumption — that you and the other person were practically engineered to be dissonant and there was little to nothing that could be done about that. Paula wanted it to be cemented down and confirmed so she could finally just go back to her own apartment and forget she had ever run into the girl again. This sort of rot was always going to be brought up and it didn't matter what the hell Paula was thinking when she opened the door and saw Noodle's face again. She couldn't forget this sort of thing, and apparently, neither could Noodle.

Paula was waiting for the snap in the tension, but instead, Noodle smiled mirthlessly and let out a hollow sounding laugh. "What the hell just happened?"

"What are you on about?" Paula asked.

Noodle gestured between the two of them. "This. We were fine not ten minutes ago. You smiled when I opened the door and you let me pull you inside to offer you snacks. And now we're yelling."

Paula frowned. "Yeah, well that's what happens when two people who don't like each other — "

"No….no!" Noodle insisted, her annoyance suddenly dissolving into worry. "That's rubbish, we don't hate each other. I borrow your vinyls and steal your clothes, you eat my food and nap on my couch. People who hate each other don't do that."

"Neither of us knew who the other was then," Paula deadpanned. "Obviously shit's different."

"Oh, please, absolutely nothing is different!" Noodle argued back. "We learned each other's names, and all of a sudden we're supposed to hate each other? No. I'm not buying that for one second. What's wrong?"

Paula cackled. "Would you like a fucking list?"

"Stop bullshitting me," Noodle glared. "We were friends. We are friends. That hasn't changed. And if you seriously think it has, then you're senile."

Annoyance was beginning to replace the exasperation. "We're not meant to get along, why the hell do you not get that?" Paula asked. "Everything that just happened is proof of that. You're supposed to be with your sodding band, and I'm supposed to be here hating the sodding band you're a part of. We're perfectly separate, and it was always supposed to be like that."

"Except it isn't like that, and we did the exact opposite of what you think should be happening," Noodle said. "We got along….and I liked that we got along. I'm supposed to just forget that because I found out your last name?"

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say that all of this was too good to be damn true and Paula finding out who Noodle really was was just proof of that. Good things like this weren't supposed to be sustainable. She let her feelings get wrapped up in this girl's enchantment and now she was starting to realize how absolutely stuck she was. Paula wasn't about to fall into that trap where she couldn't find proper footing.

But the words weren't forming like she wanted them too, and right when she thought she'd finally just be short and final about it, she felt sick and wrong about it. Almost like the thought of actually severing this young girl from her life was enough of a fear tactic to keep her mouth shut.

"Darling," Paula sighed tiredly. "You shouldn't be here. It's not right. God, I'm the last person you should be getting attached to. We're completely at odds."

Noodle laughed. "You're full of shit. And do you want to know why I know you're full of shit? Because I know you. And not from that damn book we published with all those quotes that made you seem like this horrible, terrible joke. I know you because I learned about you. I've been coming to this apartment of yours for weeks, and you lay yourself out on my floor like you belong there. I don't care what you say, and I don't care what you think we're supposed to be doing. You care."

"You don't know shit about me, love, alright?" Paula said. "No one does. And to be quite honest? I'm going to keep it that way."

Noodle grinned knowingly. "You don't mean that. You wouldn't have let me in so much if you did."

Paula was being backed into a corner and she wasn't sure how to talk her way out of it. She didn't want to talk about friends or letting people in or caring or anything of the sort. She wanted to go back into her apartment, crawl into bed, and try to forget that she even attempted something as ridiculous as intimacy with a person she thought she wanted to destroy for much of her life. As far as she was concerned this was just a horrid attempt at friendship that became fucked up beyond all recognition. Just like always. And, just like always, Paula just wanted to move on from it.

Noodle looked like she had more to say, but Paula was done. She slid off the arm of the couch. "I'm not doing this."

She was about to walk out the apartment before Noodle stood up from the couch and took a couple of steps towards the door. "You hate romantic comedies," Noodle declared. "You think they're trite and shallow and ridiculous, and you'd rather watch something that'll make you cry. You buy groceries to keep your parents happy, but you'd much rather order out because it's easier for you."

Paula started shaking her head and reached for the doorknob. "Noodle, don't start this — "

"You hate it when I put peppers in your omelets," Noodle continued, her voice taking on an edge of desperation that Paula hadn't heard before as she walked closer to Paula. "And you always pick them out without me seeing instead of just telling me you don't like them. You hate smoking lights because they don't give you the burn you like. You hate exercising. You have the oddest obsession with the Beatles and don't want to admit it. You don't like Massive Attack which is possibly the worst affront to mankind."

Paula couldn't help but turn around, and Noodle was right in front of her, keeping Paula's back pressed up against the door. She couldn't quite describe the way that Noodle was looking at her, but it was keeping her rooted and keeping her quiet. "You check your mail only once a week," Noodle continued. "You always keep your blinds open. You hate using guitar picks just like I do. You have a great singing voice even if you don't think so. And you never add anything to your tea."

Paula blinked for a moment, a bit taken aback. Noodle was tugging on the sleeves to her sweatshirt again — Paula's sweatshirt, the sweatshirt she borrowed from Paula — and she was smiling so sadly that Paula was afraid her resolve was about to completely crumble on the spot. "I may not know everything about you," Noodle told her. "But don't you dare suggest that I know nothing about you."

Noodle licker her lips nervously, reached up with shaky fingers, and brushed Paula's hair away from her face. "You're beautiful," Noodle said sincerely. "And hilarious, and charming, and wonderful, and I like you. And I know you like me too. I mean, come on," she joked. "No self respecting guitarist doesn't have extra strings lying around."

Paula wasn't moving or speaking, and Noodle was taking full advantage of the silence. "I'm sorry for what I said, I didn't mean it," Noodle promised. "I'm really sick and tired of being alone all the time. I love being around you so much, and I just wanted you to know that before you think that couldn't possibly be true."

Noodle's hands brushed back Paula's hair one last time before her hand dropped slowly, her knuckles brushing gently down her jawline, as if she were reluctant to stop making contact with her. Paula was pushing into the touch and brought a hand up to hold Noodle's hand against her cheek. Noodle was licking her lips, and her eyes were darting from Paula's eyes, down her nose, and stopping at her lips before slipping all the way up. The lucid part of her brain was telling Paula that this was probably the closest she'd ever come to a confession — a pure, honest, spilling of feelings that were all good and directed at her. She didn't need to ask if Noodle meant it, because the girl had the most annoying habit of being so damn earnest. She looked so hopeful and so prepared to do whatever she needed to get her point across, and Paula wasn't sure she could resist or ignore that.

There was something ready on Noodle's lips, but Paula didn't let her finish. She braced a hand on the back of Noodle's neck, and gently tugged her towards her as Paula swept down and kissed her.

Noodle's lips were only frozen for a fraction of a second before she sighed out and brought an arm around Paula's neck to press deeper into the kiss. Paula's hand slid down to Noodle's hip and she pulled her body flush against her own as she opened her mouth wider and pulled Noodle's bottom lip in between her own. Noodle's nose brushed with her own as she tilted her head and pushed herself up on her toes to wrap herself closer around Paula. She was aware of so many little things — Noodle's bare legs pressing against Paula's, Noodle's grabbing a handful of Paula's hair for leverage, the fact that Noodle tasted like the sweets she was eating, and the warmth that Paula could feel blooming from Noodle's cheeks as she groaned into Paula's mouth.

She pulled Noodle around so that she was pressed up against the door instead, and Noodle immediately lifted one of her legs so that her knee was pressed up against Paula's hip. Paula's hand slid along the smooth skin from Noodle's knee all the way up her thigh, and she smiled into the kiss when Noodle gasped and opened her mouth wider. Paula licked along Noodle's bottom lip, and Noodle brushed the tip of her tongue against Paula's, gasping at the feel and tightening her grip on Paula's hair. Something inside of Paula was rapidly uncoiling, because her lips were moving almost desperately, and it felt like she was trying to swallow up as much of Noodle as she could. She wanted everything to be multiplied so she could revel in more of it — the smell of Noodle's hair, the taste of her mouth, the sounds of Noodle's sighs, the trembling of her skin wherever Paula's hands passed.

Their kiss slowed, and Paula leaned her forehead against Noodle's as she spoke against her lips. "Oh, fuck…."

Noodle chuckled softly and leaned in for another short kiss. "My sentiments exactly."

Paula was rubbing her thumb along Noodle's cheekbones and letting her fingertips trace circles on Noodle's hip when she kissed her again. Her heart felt like it was bursting, and she muttered something that sounded just a little too honest. "I don't know how to keep you."

Noodle's hands were cupping Paula's jaw, and her fingers were brushing gently along her skin. "Why do you think you can't?"

Paula smiled sadly. "Because you're going to go back to them. And I'm going to stay here. And you're going to be loved, and adored, and with people that love you….and I'm still going to be here," she shrugged. "Didn't seem worth trying."

"So you just quit?" Noodle asked.

"I don't know what I was trying to do," Paula admitted. "I just know this is going to get pulled away from me just like everything else. I just wanted to let you go calmly."

Noodle pulled Paula towards her into a hard kiss that left Paula's lips throbbing when she pulled away from it. "What makes you think I'm going to let myself get pulled away from you so easily? You don't think I'm capable of trying as hard as you? I wouldn't have said all that if it meant that I didn't want to try."

"You're gonna leave this shit hole eventually, Noodle," Paula smirked at her. "And I'm not following."

"You're so damn stubborn," Noodle teased. "You make everything sound so tragic. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. Learn to snatch up nice things when they're in front of you, dammit."

Paula laughed, her nerves shining through and making it sound just a little too breathy. "So just fuck all and take it?"

Noodle shrugged and winked. "I certainly don't mind."

Paula grinned and buried her face in the crook of Noodle's neck. She sighed out against her neck and felt Noodle shiver in response. "You're an optimistic little thing, aren't you, dollface?"

Noodle was pressing kisses to the side of Paula's neck, and Paula knew right away that she could definitely stay like this for days. Maybe she was being too tragic, but Paula was getting a lot of good feelings almost too quickly, and she didn't want to build them up only to lose them once they really started to feel nice. But Noodle was still in her arms, and Noodle was gripping her so tightly, and it felt so nice just to lay here against her and know that she at least wanted to stay here just as much as Paula did. Noodle said she wasn't going anywhere, and she was trying with all her might. She supposed that was something worth putting a little faith in. Besides, Paula really couldn't kid herself and say she could just let go and walk away. She'd be the biggest fucking idiot in the world to go on and try that.

Paula sighed and straightened up, looking down at Noodle. "You're lucky you're so damn gorgeous."

Noodle nodded solemnly. "I heard that helps."

Paula sighed. "You gotta promise me something, alright?" She knocked her forehead gently against Noodle's. "Don't just slip away without telling me. Or move your things out overnight. Or keep that kinda shit you were babbling about yesterday all locked up in that pretty head of yours. You've gotta tell me things. You do that, and I'll try."

Noodle smiled with all her teeth and chuckled brightly. "Deal."

"And if I drag you out somewhere, you have to pretend to like it no matter what," Paula teased.

Noodle scrunched up her nose. "Absolutely not," she declared. "It has to be somewhere good."

"Do you doubt me?" Paula exclaimed.

"I've got nothing to go off of," Noodle explained. "Now if you wanted to go on a test-run date and show me what you've got, I'd hardly be opposed."

Paula chortled, grabbed Noodle's hips, and pulled her away from the door. "You're a demanding little darling, aren't you?" She swooped in and grabbed one last leisurely kiss. "You watch, I'll do something that'll shut that mouth of yours."

Noodle grinned wickedly and wrapped her arms around Paula's neck. "Looking forward to it."