Emmet stared in surprise as Kitty trotted up to his side, a pie in her hands. She kept pace with him as they crossed the street in front of her house, and gave Emmet a sheepish grin in answer to his questioning look. "I never did get around to greeting them," she said. "I got nervous about meeting them alone. But Benny texted me last night, said you'd be coming over today, so I thought, why not go together? I'm not sure I really believe your vampire theory, but something's kind of weird about them, and this way if they try anything we'll have each other's backs, right?"

Emmet sighed in relief. "Oh thank goodness. I really didn't want to go alone either, but Lucy thinks the whole thing is dumb, Benny's asleep, and Jonas honestly still kind of intimidates me…"

Kitty grinned and hooked an arm around Emmet's elbow, leaning against him. "Ooh. Is that your amazing shrimp scampi I smell?"

Emmet laughed. "It is! And loaded with garlic, too."

"Benny said you were testing them but didn't say how." She smirked. "There's certainly much worse ways to go than your cooking."

Together they stepped up onto the porch. Emmet took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell, listening as it rang inside the cottage. They stood there waiting for a minute, but just when they were about to give up and turn around, the door finally opened. Emmet wasn't sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved when the man on the other side didn't immediately burst into flames.

He was surprisingly tall, and very good-looking, Emmet thought, taking in the soft dark brown hair, vividly green eyes, and broad shoulders. He wore a pair of round-framed glasses and a sleepy smile. "Hello?"

"Hi!" Kitty chirped back. "I'm Katlyn, but you can call me Kitty, and this is my friend Emmet! We're your neighbors!"

He chuckled softly at her enthusiasm. "Alastar," he said. "And it's really 'Cat-lyn', not 'Kate-lyn'?"

She grinned. "That's why they call me Kitty."

"We're sorry it took us so long to come say hi, but we wanted to give you a chance to settle in first," Emmet picked up. "We brought you some stuff to say welcome to the neighborhood!" He held the bowl of pasta out to Alastar for inspection.

"Oh my," Alastar said, accepting the bowl. He popped open the lid and took a sniff. "Ohh, that smells heavenly…"

"It's his mom's famous shrimp scampi recipe," Kitty explained with a snicker. "Everyone loves it. And I brought pie!"

"Oh!" Alastar exclaimed. "Lunch and a dessert! How thoughtful!" He set the pasta aside to accept the pie tin. "Thank you so much! I'm sure Cary will love the pasta."

"But not the pie?" Kitty teased. Alastar smiled.

"My brother isn't very fond of sweets. I certainly am though, and I can promise you I will enjoy every bite of this." Kitty let out an excited squeal and bounced on her toes. "I don't mean to be rude, but if you'll excuse me, we do have work tonight…"

"Oh!" Emmet gasped. "Of course! Sorry for interrupting your sleep, and it was nice to meet you!"

"Likewise." Alastar offered one last friendly smile before closing the door. The pair stepped off the porch, and made it back to the street before Emmet finally slumped. Kitty patted his shoulder.

"At least now we know they're not vampires?" she offered.

"Yeah, but now we're back to square one with trying to figure out what they are…"

"I don't know, Emmet, he looked like a normal human being to me. Don't think I've ever seen eyes that shade of green before, though. Very pretty."

"I guess," Emmet mumbled, still disappointed.

"Tell you what. I'll talk to Bruce, give him some of the details we found out today, and see what he comes up with. He's pretty good with investigative-type stuff."

Emmet perked back up a bit. "Okay, that sounds good. And hey, maybe he can help keep an eye on them since he's up at night too?"

"I'll bring it up with him!"

Benny wasn't at all surprised when Emmet texted him later that evening that the 'tests' did not go at all as expected. Really, vampires? Emmet could be surprisingly imaginative at times. He hadn't been very willing to answer the most important question though. The most Kitty had been willing to tell him was "yeah, he was cute". Completely unsatisfactory.

So he made up his mind and took himself over to the cottage shortly after the sun set. It was surprisingly reassuring to see they had lamps on inside. Perhaps the brothers were perfectly normal, and they were just letting their imaginations run away with them. He knocked on the door.

Reflective sunglasses and a frown were what met him when the door opened. "…We're not buying."

"Whah? Oh, no, I'm not selling anything!" Benny hastened to assure him as the door started to close again. "I'm Benny! I live a couple doors down from you guys!"

"More neighbors?" came another voice from further inside.

"Just one," the brother at the door grunted back. Benny fought not to fidget.

"Uh." Benny cleared his throat. "So." Well, at least now he knew Emmet hadn't been exaggerating when he said they were tall. It was hard to tell what Sunglasses really looked like, dressed in a dark uniform and backlit as he was. "Welcome to the neighborhood! I uh. Wanted to extend an invitation to you both to come over, whenever you're free. I work nights too so I don't care if you guys don't come til later in the day."

"Oh, that sounds lovely!" the hidden twin said, finally coming to the door. Benny relaxed. Unlike Sunglasses, Spectacles looked pretty friendly. He fought down an amused snort. Good Cop and Bad Cop, he thought to himself.

"Not interested."

"Nonsense," Spectacles said, waving his brother off. "I'm sure Benny is a perfectly wonderful host. We'd love to come."

Benny gave them a brilliant grin. "So… What are your names?"

"I'm Alastar, and this is Cary!"

"Why did you tell him that?" Cary snapped.

"It's called being neighborly, brother dear, you should try it sometime."

Cary huffed. "…Our next day off is Friday," he grudgingly admitted. "We'll see you then."

"Rad!" Benny cheered. "I'll see you guys around!"

I don't know how many readers I have here, but it's not likely I'll be uploading any more chapters of anything to FFN. This site seems to be going the way of the dodo, there's so little activity here anymore, but if you enjoy my stories, you can also find me on AO3. I have many more fics there than what I've shared here, and it's also the first place I update so I have more finished fics there as well.