contains: human alternate universe. mentions of TOO MANY PAIRINGS TO COUNT OMG nothing explicit

If you asked Marlene whether she liked her flatmates, she probably wouldn't be able to answer you straight away. She'd say, "Like it here? What, with those four downstairs constantly doing... whatever they do, I honestly have no idea anymore, and those insane party-crazy guys on their floor – don't know how they manage to party with that crazy loud music all night every night – and... oh, our landlord Alice – lady, I mean – pretty much hates us and... well, I guess Roger's quite nice, actually. But yeah, you know. You know."

And then she'd pause a while, and think about it for a few minutes, and finally say, "But... I guess, yeah. Yeah, I think I do like it here."

Marlene's lived here for as long as she can remember – well, maybe not in this exact same apartment, but she's been a city girl in Manhattan as long as she can remember. She doesn't think she could cope living anywhere else (in fact, she's heard from the guys downstairs that she goes a little crazy whenever they've had accidental expeditions to the countryside, but she doesn't remember any of it), and her lease basically means she's stuck in this apartment for her whole life, as far as she thinks about it. (She's not, but why would she ever want to move out?)

And, well, not all of the other residents are that bad. There's... uh... well, there's Roy, who seems like an okay guy even if she's never really spoken to him. There's Burt, who she knows about as well as Roy but she suppose he's an okay guy too. They all live way upstairs, so she doesn't get much chance to talk to them. Too high up, really. Though she does have pleasant memories of the four who used to live in the other apartment on that floor – she remembers that dancer Alex, who she was absolutely terrified of at first and she can't think why, because he was so sweet really. A bit thick, though. Apparently he freaked out when he found out that steak was dead animal flesh, after claiming he was a vegetarian.

Then again, he did have a pretty scary hairdo. Maybe that was why?

And there was Marty, always good for a laugh, and Gloria and Melman... she heard from the guys upstairs that Melman and Gloria are dating now, which was a bit of a shock. That was a couple that didn't match up at all, right?

Because. Yeah. Gloria was kinda... large, and Melman was stick thin and constantly looked like he was going to collapse from some new illness of the week. So.

(Marlene's a bit jealous if she's honest though, because she is secretly a bit desperate for some handsome Spanish guitar virtuoso to come in and sweep her off her feet. So far, her one serious dating adventure had been with Fred the equivalent-of-a-village-idiot. It had been far too embarrassing to ever try doing again.)

Anyway, digression over – Alex and those guys moved out a while ago, and she hasn't heard from them for... not sure how long... ages. Last thing she knew, they were off in Africa to find Alex's birth parents, and there's a postcard in the elevator from a year ago saying how they'd be back soon.

They still weren't back.

So after a bit of reshuffling, the insane party-crazy guys moved in, next door to those guys downstairs. And that's how things are now.

No, wait – there were a few more changes – Roger the Broadway singer moved in a month or so ago, and Marlene is relieved because he's possibly the first sane, normal person to live in this place. A guy called Barry who no-one knew because he never came out of his room. There were a few mishaps with finding new residents, most notably Marlene's single attempt at a roommate, Rhonda.

At least Marlene could now be one hundred per cent certain she did not want a roommate.

There had been Savio the circus contortionist and knife swallower, who turned out to be a creepy stalker who may or may not have been a serial killer (honestly, she didn't want to know). There was Clemson, who'd kissed up to Julien's ass (probably literally) for a couple of weeks before attempting to cheat him out of his whole year's rent money. There were those two distant relatives of Marlene's, Becky and Stacy, who were... well, Marlene doesn't remember banging their vapid heads together in rage, but everyone tells her that she did. Probably a few more, but they come and go. She doesn't bother thinking about all of them.

Even the visitors were crazy – especially any visitors for those guys downstairs. Skipper's slightly deranged Dane of an ex-boyfriend who ended up locking Skipper out of his own apartment after yet another let's-get-back-together turning into an argument turning into a no-holds-barred martial arts beatdown, for example. Although Marlene still quite liked him, if only because he baked the most delicious pastries.

A random homeless guy called Max who the guys downstairs were inexplicably fond of. A disabled scientist with a wheelchair obsessed with predicting – and causing – global warming. (He also brought with him a large collection of live lobsters and various different types of facial moisturizer, for some reason.) Mrs Duc and her brood of children, the youngest of whom Marlene was sure the guys downstairs were trying to induct into their "special ops" fold...

Marlene really wants to call those guys downstairs some proper team name, instead of just saying "those guys downstairs". As far as she can tell, they're some sort of weird vigilante superhero-ish team who set out on special 'missions' every morning, afternoon and evening to save New York from some new terrible threat, like a little girl losing her Princess Ponyprincess dolly. Or something.

Also, they are completely and utterly insane.

Skipper's the leader – actually, Marlene's pretty sure that's not his real name because seriously, who is actually called 'Skipper' on their birth certificate – and he's a good guy. Just. Completely insane. Honestly, she can't understand how and why the other three actually go along with his plans and orders and "paramilitary training". But they've saved her butt a few too many times for her to even consider turning them in to the authorities (there are so many reasons why she should call the police on the entire block), and... they're fun to watch. She's still amazed at how seriously they take this whole military-vigilante-Operation-Save-the-Day routine.

The kid, Private (that can't be his real name either), is Skipper's cousin or something – maybe – and that's probably how he got dragged into this whole thing. Marlene is a bit worried, though, because he's so earnest about it; he clearly hero-worships his cousin, does everything Skipper tells him to without a moment's thought, and he can't be much older than 17 or so. For example – well, there was that one time when Skipper 'assessed' Private's skills by letting him walk across a floor covered with mousetraps.

It looked pretty painful.

Or there was that time when Skipper blindfolded Private and proceeded to beat him up with a baseball bat-like hunk of wood – okay, it wasn't as bad as that sounded, because Private was somehow ready enough to counter, avoid and disarm Skipper without any harm done. While blindfolded. But still, that didn't completely counteract the "Oh my gosh PLEASE DON'T WHACK PRIVATE!" nail-biting tension.

It's like... sure, Skipper is pretty awesome sometimes with his fifteen types of martial arts and/or self-defence training, but putting Private under similarly heavy 'training' in this superhero team thing can't be good for the kid's mental health. Private's such a nice, innocent boy. He watches My Little Pony every morning without a trace of irony, and runs around on sugar highs when he eats more than two chocolate bars in ten minutes.

Marlene's forgotten what Kowalski's first name is, but it's alright because she's sure that everyone has too. Kowalski is a bona fide genius. He's got some fancy physics doctorate from some fancy university, and Marlene is quite sure that there's a better use for his collection of over seven thousand original inventions than as part of Skipper's arsenal.

(Except for the transdimensional toothbrush, maybe. Marlene still can't think of a good use for that one.)

Seriously, though. A time-machine. An invisibility ray. A date-finding machine to detect true love... oh wait, that didn't work. (Damn you, Fred the village idiot.) A telekinetic helmet. Another time machine. Marlene's given up on being surprised at any of this. It's just another side-effect of living near Kowalski.

The list goes on. Skipper's always loudly talked down Marlene – or anyone else – who so much as suggests that Kowalski should brush off the dust on that old mind-switching machine, write up a paper in a nice normal scientific journal and be awarded a few dozen Nobel prizes. It's... maddening, really, but as long as Skipper lets Rico supply Kowalski with all the materials he could possibly want for his lab work, Kowalski doesn't seem to mind Skipper's authoritarian control. Unless it comes down to destroying his precious little innocent cubes of sentient gelatin.

And that brings the list round to Rico, weapons expert and supplier of... just about everything. He's... Marlene's brain can't quite find the right words for him. He's a bit of a scary brutal aggressive mad psychopath, she thinks. And that's probably putting it mildly. She doesn't really know. The large scar down half his face, right down over the side of his mouth, makes it impossible for him to say more than a few mangled words at a time, or smile in any way that isn't "creepy and unnerving." (But he does have a very nice opera voice, she recalls. And a mohawk.)

And from what she's seen, he has possibly the largest and most extensive supply of heavy weaponry and explosives outside of the US army – wait, no, probably more than they do.

He also has an array of payphones stored up in his room. And an anchor. And a few thousand ball bearings. And a rather nice collection of ladies' shoes. Marlene doesn't think she can remember any more of Rico's collection than she can of Kowalski's inventions.

But Rico, despite his disconcerting love for all things violent and painful, is as devoted as the others to following Skipper's every word.

It's pretty weird, Marlene thinks. But they're meant to be her friends, so it's not like she can just saunter up to a police station and report Skipper for insanity and weird emotional abuse or something. They all seem pretty happy, anyway. It's just that they don't really seem to have any life outside The Team.

(Actually, she's forgetting something. Rico, at least, isn't as single-mindedly focused on The Team – there's that airhead dolled-up blonde girl he's dating, isn't there? Marlene can't understand it. Rico is, well, Rico, and that little miss perky is so brainless that she probably couldn't work out how to eat food by herself. Then again, Marlene thinks, maybe that's why she's dating Rico... they're quite sweet, she supposes. Rico probably could do a little better, though.

Even Skipper had that brief thing with the fighter pilot – Kitka, wasn't it? She was, in a word, intimidating. All that talk of hunting down the enemy and aerial combat manoeuvres. A bit too much even for Skipper. And of course there had Hans the Danish baker (in both senses of Danish-ness), as well as that not-very-interesting girl whose name Marlene couldn't remember to whom, gossip said, Skipper had married in Vegas and promptly forgot about the week after.

And of course, thinks Marlene while mentally rolling her eyes, that time he painfully attempted to ask her out on date because he'd mistaken her for a hot blonde stranger. Called Arlene. So... nope, not trying hair dye again after that. Marlene shuddered.

The others? Private likes to cuddle toy unicorns in bed so maybe he's just not interested yet, and Kowalski... likes science. And that hippie Doris. And. Also. Marlene has suddenly burst into their flat more than a few times to see Kowalski and Rico cuddling on the sofa (or chair, or slumped on the lab table, or a bed) in various stages of undress. (It's surprisingly cute.) But as far as she knows, that's not an 'official' situation, and doesn't look like any more than just... cuddling.)

But, Marlene thinks forcefully, digression over, those guys definitely do have issues with, um, everything and not even Rico's Barbie-like girlfriend makes any difference to that.

So there it is.

But.

At least.

At least they're not as bad as their neighbors, the trio of party-crazy insane lunatics.

Because Marlene has no idea how she'd even start to explain King Julien to a new flatmate.

A/N: I am English so there are probably plenty of mistakes when it comes to writing 'in American'. After catching up with all the recent PoM episodes, I'm very tempted to write a proper human!AU with a plot and everything! But I don't have time or energy for that, so I dealt with those temptations by writing a human!AU introduction or something.