This is a slash romance fic, don't like, don't read. Gwen and Reshan belong to me, anyone that you recognize, (ie: Toni, Eric, Caity, the 'weird appalachian dude' Hosea and the 'moving gargoyle' Greystone) all belong to Mercedes Lackey.

Have a nice night.

Gwen sighed as she punched in the code at the front door of Guardian House. It had been one year and three months since she'd moved here, and she'd only gotten one job so far, and that one had ended two months ago.

Another failed audition, and the money she'd saved wouldn't last much longer. Her 'job' as a night waitress at the strip club, The Dive was fine, but she didn't know how much longer she could stand it; the eyes, leering at her mostly exposed body in those horrible six-inch stilettos and that short, gaudy skirt that half-showed the thong she was forced to wear. The shirt covered her a little bit, but not much, and her boss insisted that she walk so that her breasts bounced, and the men constantly ran their hands down her exposed skin. It was awful and she hated it.

Barbara, one of the other 'waitresses,' had told her about the regulars; those who came to watch the dancers and those who came for dancers and waitresses, so she managed to act a little less slutty around the pervs. It still annoyed the hell out of her, though. And she had gotten rejected as a dancer for West Side Story yet again. She had gotten to callbacks as usual, but they said she didn't have enough emotion. Dancing was her passion! How could she not have enough emotion in her dancing?

She slumped up the stairs to her fifth-story corner apartment, avoiding the elevator altogether; a sign outside the door had mentioned that it was broken. Obviously Jose hadn't gotten around to fixing it yet.Her little apartment might not have been the best one in the building, or even on the floor, but she could afford it, she liked it, and she had no need for the second bedroom in 5-A anyway. The only problem was that gargoyle outside her window that seemed to vanish from time to time, though so far she'd managed to chalk it up to stress and not enough sleep. Nine times was a mite much, though.

She pulled a piece of paper off the door and let herself in before banging on the wall she shared with her next door neighbor to let Reshan know that she needed to lower the music that always seemed to be blaring from apartment 5-C.

Currently, they were the only two tenants of the floor; Thom had moved out a few weeks ago and Toni was still trying to find a new occupant.

Funny how the House seemed to be full of artists; not just the painter types, but musicians, illustrators, writers, all sorts of people, all artistic or talented in some way. And they all seemed to be. . . well, pure, or as pure as artists could get. None were the debauched type, and none did drugs that weren't purely medicinal, excluding cigarettes and wine. And even those weren't used much. As nice as the people seemed to be, she didn't really associate with any of them, blithely assuming that they were quiet, like her, and wouldn't want to talk much. They never seemed to when she met them in the elevator (when it was working, that was) except for Reshan.

Dropping her duffel bag on the worn kitchen table, she started sorting through the mail she had picked up before coming up.

Junk; junk; letter from Bryce; junk; junk; junk; bill; junk; bill; end. The notice from the door announced a basement party; the other tenants held them every so often, about once a month or so. She ignored it, as usual, and was heading for the T.V. when someone knocked on the door.

"Come on in," she called. "Door's unlocked."

There was no need to worry about a criminal or something like that; you could only get in by punching in one of the ten-digit codes at the door on the outside of the building, and only the tenants knew it. For some reason, none of the tenants had a record of bad behavior or crime that she knew of; Toni was good at screening out the bad ones somehow, so logically, her visitor could only be a nice, safe tenant.

The door swung open, and there stood Reshan, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Or maybe not a safe tenant, Gwen thought with a mental groan

"Did you get the notice?" Reshan asked Gwen accusingly. "It wasn't on your door, so you must have it."

"Ye-es," she drew the word out.

"Are you coming?"

She sighed. "Do I ever come?"

"Why don't you come?" Reshan inquired. "We're all nice people, we don't bite."

"Why do you want me to come?" Gwen countered, hoping that opposition would make the redhead go away.

"Because we don't know you. You're the only tenant here who never shows. Everyone else has come at least once. C'mon. You'll like it; we don't drink much, if at all, and everybody always brings something. That weird mountain guy makes really good homemade… whatever-they-ares…"

"I can't cook," she replied bluntly.

"So go buy something," was the bright reply. "Please come. We all want to meet you, and just know you want to meet us."

Gwen sighed again. "If I say yes, will you leave me alone?" She just needed some time to think. Maybe she could say she was sick or something.

Reshan grinned again. "'Kay. Try to bring two bottles of…. Retsina. Just two, though. They'll go a long way."

"Okay…."

"The basement at eight. Casual dress, and be ready to chat."

Gwen nodded, and Reshan practically flew out the door.

When the door closed, she groaned and dropped down into a chair, laying her head on her arms. What had she gotten herself into?

Damn!

She just remembered. This was her one night off!

§

Four hours later, a very nervous Gwen stood fidgeting in the elevator, a bottle of Retsina in each hand, and dressed in a black button-down shirt that she'd tucked into faded blue jeans that covered the tops of her black boots. Reshan hadn't mentioned a dress code, so Gwen had opted for casual. It wasn't like this was going to turn out to be a cocktail party, right?

She stopped the elevator at the lobby and walked the rest of the way down the stairs. Maybe she could slip in unnoticed and just stay on the wall. Maybe she could leave after an hour. Maybe she-

"Ah, look who's here," Toni said as she descended the stairs behind Gwen, three bags of ice in her arms. "God, these are cold."

Gwen pushed the door open for her and followed Toni into a semi-loud room filled with people. We have this many tenants? was her first thought.

They deposited their baggage onto a table already groaning under the weight of food and drink, and Gwen tried to slink over to an unoccupied section of wall. Tried.

She was halfway there when a hand attached to a green-clad arm grabbed her shoulder. The owner of said arm pulled herself into view, and Gwen blinked. It was Reshan, but a very differently attired Reshan. Instead of the usual torn, paint covered shirt and faded, baggy jeans, she was wearing a long-sleeved green button down shirt with three buttons open, and tight black jeans that hugged the curves of her legs.

"Um, hi."

"You came! I knew you would. Come over here and meet some people."

'Some people' turned out be what seemed like everyone in the room, hence, everyone in the building. Reshan dragged her all over the room, introducing her to everyone.

"This is Gwen. She dances," was the usual first half of the introduction, and the only variation on the latter part of the introduction was the person's name and what they did. Then it was off to the next person. "This is Mike, he sings." "Kira here plays guitar." "Caity illustrates children's books."

"Gwen, this is Eric. He's a flautist." She was introduced to a quiet-looking young man, a few years older than herself, perhaps, with shaggy long brown hair and a weary smile on his face.

"Amanda's a writer. She actually pretty quiet, but she makes damn good cookies." "Ariel draws those whatchamacallit-" "Manga," the weary Ariel replied, and Reshan said, "Right. Manga,"and then dragged the dancer off.

It went on for another half hour, and Gwen's spirits grew until she laughingly pushed herself out of a group chatting about the upcoming Ernst and Copel movie,and over to the drinks.

She poured herself a glass of cider and grabbed some of Amanda's famous cookies. Situating herself near some of the musicians and writers, she ate her snack and listened to some of the conversations.

"So, how'd it go?"

"Meh. Okay, I guess. We had to record like twenty times to get Finch's song right, though."

"Wow."

"Did Resh break up with Tanya?"

"Yeah, thank the Goddess. Four weeks ago. You know they don't last long, and no one here liked Tanya anyway."

"Mmm. She was quite the looker, though. Too bad they're both lez. Ah, well." said the male speaker, a game designer named Vance.

The question turned to other topics including a discussion on 'Tanya the Looker.' Gwen wasn't interested, though.

Resh had to be Reshan, so… Reshan was a lesbian? She found other girls attractive, and sometime slept with them, even carried on relationships with them?

Gwen shook her head. Why should it matter? Reshan was cool. Pushing the thought from her mind, she enjoyed her cookies and cider.

§

Reshan couldn't believe it. She had finally gotten her ever-so-elusive, mysterious next-door-neighbor to come to a basement party and all she did was hang out by the wall? No fair! She could at least enjoy herself. Annoyed, Reshan shook her short, shaggy hair out of her eyes and stalked over to where the current occupant of apartment 5-B sat.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "Mingle, get to know everyone."

"I did."

"Well, mingle more."

"I did."

The semi-argument soon turned into friendly bantering, and a few hours later saw the two of them helping Toni to clean up the basement and pack everything up.

"Thanks."

"No prob."

"So, what dancing do you do?"

"Most everything. Hip-hop, break dancing, step, tango, ballet... You know, I once danced in a Brittany Spears music video."

"Really?"

"Yeah, remember the Pepsi commercial that was always playing in movie theatres?"

"No way!" Reshan said, impressed.

"You must get a lot of job offers, then," Toni said, smiling.

The happy expression on Gwen's face faded, and a look of slightly sour melancholy replaced it.

"Yeah, a whole lot."

An awkward silence descended over the trio until Reshan coughed. "I'd better get back up. There's an exhibition tomorrow and I don't want to be late."

"We're pretty much done here," Toni offered. "I'll finish up here and the two of you go on up."

"Thanks. Night, Ton."

"Thank you for inviting me, Toni."

"Thank you for coming, querida." "No, thank you." "Please, you-"

"Come on, Gwen," Reshan broke in before it could go on all night.

They called the elevator, rode it up in silence, and exited.

Grinning, Reshan escorted Gwen to her door, bowed, and beat a hasty retreat to her own rooms.

As soon as she got into her quarters, her grin faded, however, and she slumped onto her couch.

"Why now?" she mumbled out loud to no one in particular.

"Why now and why her?" Reshan couldn't deny it. She found Gwen attractive; she always had, ever since she had first helped Gweneviere "I'm quiet, and I like the quiet. Would it be okay if when I knocked on the wall, you turned the music down?" LeBelle move in next door.

Gwen was funny, charming, and nice enough, and she hadn't mentioned a partner of either sex. The painter had never seen one, either. And- Reshan had never felt this strongly about someone. Most of her other dalliances were just that- dalliances. Gwen- Gwen made her feel warm, with a nice cozy feeling in the pit of her stomach, and none of her other partners had made her feel like this.

She closed her eyes and sighed. Now what? This was going to make relations with Gwen even more difficult. The girl wasn't exactly a social butterfly, but being appealing to Reshan, not to mention being on her 'things to fix' list, was going to make the 'get this girl some friends' plan into a situation that could heat up rapidly.