The letters increased. No physical contact, rather words spoken through ink and fibres of paper. They were simple things: reminders about garbage day and mail on the postal box downstairs, warnings about Limbo's frequent travelling and notes and inside jokes formed over that unspoken, yet so loud, connection.
Sometimes, Teuta would get pictures of Max, wreaking havoc on the other side of that wall. Sometimes, she would get pictures of Limbo playing the piano with a serene smile. Sometimes, she would send pictures of herself, hard at work in some story or another.
She does not know who he is. She does not know what is his job. She is still confident in that musician theory, as he had the same crazy hours her guitarist father used to keep, but perhaps not. Perhaps he was a flight attendant or a pilot, due to his often trips who knows where. Perhaps he worked as a banker or a financier, since his suit was always on point whenever she stole a glance from the safety of the peephole.
It became habit. She got her wish, he was her friend, but now she is being too greedy. Because now she wanted more. She only caught flashes of him getting in or out of his apartment, and he only got flashes of her, feet swift as they brought her silently and nimbly through the corridor. Habit and patterns and something strangely domestic.
The girl had been ruminating about it, trying to pick out what had started to shift, when she saw it: a roach. The size of her thumb. Staring across from her on the far wall.
Needless to say, she screamed.
Insects, roaches, any sort of small animal or rodent, they all scared the living shit out of her, and Max was not here to deal with it because he had started taking more frequent leaves with one Limbo Fitzgerald in Apartment 4A.
She eventually learned his last name, after two weeks of begging for more information. Especially after he learned all about her life somehow.
As the young woman screamed her throat out, the brown demon started flying, and she screamed again. Bloody murder, that is what she was screaming, because there was a fucking murderer the size of her blasted thumb flying around her minuscule living room.
Teuta ran, narrowly avoiding the three-inch beast, hoping to find some sort of salvation in the kitchen, or maybe the bedroom down the hall, or maybe her knight in shining armour was the source of the sudden banging on her door.
The frightened journalist heard her name being called. Familiar. She tried to discern who could possibly be. However, when the roach flew after her, she ran on the opposite direction, and the next thing she knew, she was fumbling with torturous locks and sticky bolts as she fought with her front door. She finally got it open, yanking it away and attempting to find safety in the corridor.
Instead, she was met with a wall.
No, not a wall. A chest. A heaving chest. Warm and moving and alive. Limbo caught her, pulling her behind him as he stared at her apartment. He was waiting for the murderer who was doing the murdering to come out. The source of her screams.
"What is it?" He was shaking the wheezing girl. "Is there someone in there?"
Her heart ran miles and marathons in her throat, and then cleared up as she saw the distressed look on his face.
"R-Roach." Teuta stuttered, feeling the fear shrink down again. She was feeling rather stupid at this point, actually.
Limbo looked angry. He looked like he was about to scream at her, maybe yell for being so idiotic, but then, he shifted. A laugh burst out of him, loud and booming in her ears.
She shoved away from the arms around her, her cheeks flushing. "It was going to kill me, Limbo. What was I supposed to do? Stay quiet?"
"It's a roach. It can't hurt you." He pointed out with humour. "I thought you were being fucking killed, and it was a roach."
Teuta was going to retort, to support her case that roaches were little demons sent from hell, but then she caught a glimpse of it flying past her. It moved right in the space between her and Limbo, mere centimetres from her nose, landing on the wall across from her door.
The short-haired woman screamed one last time, grabbing onto her neighbour like some sort of shield. "See? It's fucking huge."
Limbo bit his lip to hold back the laughter. Then, slowly slipped his shoe off, careful not to scare the bug off, and, before she could hide some more, he hit the sole to the exact spot the bug was sitting.
Where it sat. It was more than dead now.
She would have screamed again if he did not hold his hand over her mouth, muffling it.
"Scream one more time." He said, breathing still a little uncontrolled. "Scream one more time, I tell you, and you're next."
"Asshole." She muttered as his hand unblocked her mouth, but could not help the smile on her face. The grin, more like it.
Limbo looked at the bottom of the shoe in his hand. Wrinkled his nose at it. "I needed new ones anyway."
Teuta laughed, a giggle coming from somewhere far and childish. "Thank you for your sacrifice. Future generations will dedicate statues in your honour."
She turned back to her living room, watching it carefully. She did not want to go back in there. There could be more. Maybe an infestation, an invasion of her home and…
"Oh, for God's sake." He sighed, exasperated, but there was a matching grin hidden in the tone. "You can stay with me. Just on the couch, don't worry. Go get your stuff."
Teuta looked at him, then her open apartment, then back. "What if I see another one? What if it touched my clothes and my things and…?"
She was screwed. Because, while she had no issue sleeping on Limbo's sofa, it was pretty obvious that she would expect that everything in her house required a deep cleaning before she even considered touching it.
Limbo sighed again, giving in. "What do you need? Tell me and I'll go get it."
The girl stared at him a moment. Smiling. Then, she gave him a list. Every location and description of her clothes and keys and important belongings. He shook his head at each one, cursing her slightly, but never dropping that quirking of his lips.
She watched from the doorway, eyes peeled for any more demons — roaches, she meant — and making sure nothing else came and attacked him. He grumbled through it all, finally entering her bedroom to get the last of the clothes, her keys with it.
And on they went next door.