A/N: Well, helloooo there. Allow me to express my thanks to you all for joining us on this most spectacularly RIDICULOUS journey.
Huge, epic, massive, and MAJOR thanks to my sexy as shit betafish, Lexiecullen17. Without her, this would be a bigger disaster.
Ladies, and if there is the possibility of Gentlemen, I give you… Hackerward!
Disclaimer: We don't own Twilight. We're just letting the characters make their own decisions.
"Thanks for helping me out with this, Emmett. I appreciate it," I said, climbing out of my car and walking over to the moving truck Emmett parked in front of my new building.
"Aw, no problem, lil' bro," he answered, stepping out of the cab and ruffling my hair in his massive hand.
"Stop it!" I whined, pushing his hand away and attempting to tame the wild mane of copper-colored hair on my head. Not that it would help, as I always looked like I stuck a fork in an industrial-grade toaster. Albert Einstein had a better look than me.
"Glad to help. It's about time you moved out of Mom and Dad's basement."
"Shut up, Emmett. You know it wasn't like that..."
"Yes, it was!" he exclaimed. "You live on your damn computer! I get that you're all 'high-tech ninja' or whatever, but come on! At least now you're living in the real world. And maybe we can get you some sun. You need it."
Looking down, I noticed that my skin appeared almost translucent in the bright sunlight as we walked to the back of the moving truck to remove the boxes. Maybe I did need to catch some UV's - channeling my inner Casper was not the way to mesh with society in New York City during July. I yawned and pushed the frames of my glasses further up the bridge of my nose.
"You might be right about the sun thing, Emmett. Aren't I bit pale for this neighborhood?" I asked, looking at the tanned New Yorkers walking along the street. Climbing into the moving truck, I passed two boxes to Emmett and watched as he placed them on the ground. Graceful, he was not - more like an elephant in a midget village, he typically looked eight sizes too large to blend in anywhere.
"Bro, you're a little pale for every neighborhood. But chicks dig that whole, pale and scrawny thing. Plus, you're like, King of the Nerds...it'll work for you."
Chicks. The one part of life I hadn't quite figured out yet. That wasn't true. I had ...once. One night during my senior year of undergrad at MIT, there had a girl...well, not for the whole night. Fine, not even for half of the night.
Okay, it lasted less than ten minutes, fuck off. No one but me had ever touched my dick before...
She didn't take the whole, "I'm sorry, just give me a minute, a map, and detailed instructions," thing well and teased me for being a fumbling idiot. I'm fucking sensitive, so I stayed away from the fairer sex. And by stayed away, I mean hid in my parent's basement doing what I do best for the past four years. Hacking.
Then again, what else was I supposed to do with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT? Not that any of my skills were learned in actual classes. Most of what I knew came from hours of self-learning back in high school...in between sessions of self-love, because face it, seventeen year old boys are all about masturbation. My knowledge merely expanded during my undergrad years. It was perfected, and as soon as I graduated, the world was at my fingertips. All from the comfort of my parent's basement. With the only pussy I would ever need - Linux.
She's my cat, you sick bastards. It's not like I kidnapped a girl and kept her chained in the basement with me...
"Edward!" Emmett yelled, breaking me out of my trip down memory lane. "Stop having sex with yourself in your head and move your shit!"
"I wasn't fucking myself!" I shouted back, and several bystanders looked at me in horror. Emmett laughed. "Just, help me out, will ya?"
While Emmett grabbed the two boxes from the curb, I walked back to my car to remove my "gear" first and move into my new home. There was no way I was leaving my fucking computer shit in my hot-as-balls car for anyone to take when I wasn't looking. This may have been the West Side, but... I wasn't taking any chances.
"Hey, Em?" I called out from the truck of my Volvo. "Can you handle another box on this trip?"
"Yeah, sure." Handing Emmett the case with my self-enhanced Macbook Pro, I grabbed the boxed holding my two 27" iMacs, hit the "lock" button on my keys, and made our way through the lobby towards my apartment. Why the building had apartments starting with the number two was beyond me, but it meant I didn't have to climb up and down stairs, which was fucking sweet.
"Shit!"
"What, Edward?"
"I think I fucking forgot to lock my car."
"Dude, I heard it beep."
"Just, head down. It's 201A. And I'll be over in a second."
I ran outside to the street under the guise of locking my car, when in fact, I went to grab my box 'o porn. Emmett would never let me live it down if he saw it. Granted, the majority of my porn was on my hard drives, but I'd taken to collecting all issues of Maxim, Playboy, and Sports Illustrated from the past few years.
Fuck you, I read the articles.
Or, maybe I like to scan some of the images on my computer and animate them using flash. You would too. Don't fucking lie and say you wouldn't want to watch Eliza Dushku dance to Warrant's "Cherry Pie"...
Unlocking the car, as I knew it was locked, I snatched the box from the backseat. That box was really fucking heavy, and I strained under the combined weight of the laminated pages. The damn thing must have been at least a metric "you're-going-to-remain-a-practical-virgin-forever" ton, but I managed to push it through the lobby. Emmett was standing in the hallway, taking up all of the space possible, and I saw the shoes of someone behind him from my bent-over perch on the heavy box.
"Emmett," I chastised, "move your behemoth-self out of the way, assbag. Someone is trying to get by you."
"Oh, sorry," he apologized and squeezed himself against the wall, looking ridiculously uncomfortable. Kind of like you'd imagine an orange would feel when you're making fresh OJ. I laughed. That was when I saw something beneath his fucktardedly large foot.
"Em, what did you drop?" I asked, angrily. I knew that asshole would fuck with my shit.
"What are you talking about?"
"There's something underneath your foot. Move your big fucking feet, Sasquatch." He lifted his right foot. "No, the other one."
Whatever was below his mammoth stompers was stuck to his shoe. Pushing my way next to him outside of my apartment door, I reached down and grabbed the piece of paper. Or tried to. It was stuck.
"Get it off, Edward! I'm not walking around like some clueless broad with TP attached to her hooker heels, damn it!"
"Fuck, I'm trying! It's like, cemented!"
The hallway was humid from the summer air, and when I tried to remove the paper, it split in half. Attempting to grab the remnants of what looked to be a cat litter coupon, I ended up destroying the paper into five different pieces before I discovered the culprit. Gum.
"Emmett, you've got gum on the bottom of your shoe."
"Fuck! What was it?"
"Gum. Maybe grape or something."
"Not the gum, asshole... the paper."
"Oh," I said, pushing the papers in my pocket. "Not too sure. I'll look at it inside. I don't want to just stand around in the fucking hallway trying to put together a puzzle." Then again, I could solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute. I was fucking good like that.
Or, maybe I needed something to do with my hands while my dick recovered from self-abuse...
"Alright, well... open the fucking door. Your shit is heavy." Emmett's voice was strained.
He could have just put the shit down on the floor while he waited. Fucking idiot.
I stood up and tried to unlock the door, failing for a minute before finally being able to get the damn thing open; the overwhelming stench of hot vegetables bled out into the hallway. Turning my head away, I closed my eyes and tried not to throw up.
"Eddie," Emmett coughed out. "What in the fuck is that smell? It's smells like the nursing home where Grandpa Aro lives."
I put my hand over my face to try and mask the stench. "Fucking hell, that's awful. Look, I'm going to call a professional cleaning crew and stay at Mom and Dad's tonight with Linux. I can't have her living in here. The building said they were getting rid of the smell."
"Well, clearly they lied, bro. Okay, let's get the rest of your shit."
Walking into the "garbage-dumpster-behind-a-Chinese-food-restaurant" smelling apartment, I noticed the entire entryway was littered with envelopes, magazines, and various pieces of paper.
"What the fuck?!" I exclaimed. "Where did all this shit come from?"
Emmett placed the boxes on the floor and picked up an envelope. "Looks like it's Isabella Swan's mail."
"Well, why the fuck is it here? Has she never heard of address forwarding?"
"Guess not. Who is she?"
I just stared at him for a minute, and then he made a gesture like, "well, come on...tell me about her," in the air between us. "How the fuck should I know, Em?"
"Because nothing around you and that fucking computer of yours is a secret."
"Well, this is the first I've heard of her," I said. Not that it would last. I was determined to figure out the mystery that was the previous tenant. "Anyway, let's just get the rest of my stuff, and I'll deal with this in a minute," I rushed out. The smell was overpowering as the air conditioning hadn't been turned on since the last tenant vacated the apartment.
"Seriously, bro. What's that fucking smell? You should get some incense. That may help."
"Incense?" I asked rhetorically. "Em, then the place would smell like a hippie's vegetable garden."
"Well, it'd be better than the cabbage stench you've got going on now."
"Cabbage!" I shouted. "That's what that is. Wait, Em..."
"Yeah?"
"Didn't you used to play with those dolls when you were younger? Cabbage Head Fuckers, or something?" I teased.
"They were called Cabbage Patch Kids, asshole. And it totally got me the ladies in Kindergarden."
"Nice. Because that doesn't scream 'giggalo' from the rooftops."
"Well," he started and puffed up his shoulders, attempting to look macho and all-knowing, but he just appeared constipated. "Those dolls got me into Jenny's pants while we were playing 'doctor.'"
Fuck, my brother played games mirroring more than sixty percent of porn when he was a kid? I shake in fear thinking about what he came up with in college.
"Real impressive, Em. Did you learn that game from the 'How to Become a Douche When I Grow Up' handbook?"
"Nope, Dad's Playboy collection." I looked at him in horror. "You're just jealous that I know the bliss of being between a woman's thighs, Eddie. One day, you'll figure it out."
And, as much as I hated to admit it, part of him was right. Women and Emmett had gone hand in hand for as long as I could remember. I think he stole all of the "I get pussy" genes from our parents during his time in the womb. Asshole.
"Well, fuck it," I said from the kitchen in my apartment. Let's grab the rest of my stuff before I get sick." Emmett walked out, and I followed, closing and locking the door behind me because I didn't trust the fuckers in my building either.
-~-
Four hours, twenty-eight trips, and three bottles of water later, all my stuff was finally moved into the apartment and Emmett was overseeing the cleaning crew inside. You've got to love how you can order anything, anytime, whether it be food or services in this city. Sitting in my car, I pulled the pieces of paper from my pocket and tried to put the mangled note together again. And, just as I suspected, it was a coupon for cat litter. I was pissed; I could have used it, too. Planning on trashing it, I noticed a black stain near the barcode at the bottom, and when I flipped over the note I saw the letters, "-bai" in what looked like cigarette ash.
Who the fuck writes messages in ash?
I flipped the papers over and tried to read the message, but the majority of the note was smudged. I adjusted my glasses and squinted to try to read the hidden meaning in the note.
"Whatchya got there?" Emmett asked, leaning into my passenger side window. I hadn't realized I'd left it open.
"Nothing," I answered quickly.
"Looks like you've got a note written in mascara."
Again, I was dumbfounded at Emmett's Sherlock Holmes-style detective skills. He was a plethora of useless knowledge.
"Mascara? Like, the shit that goes on a girl's eyes, and she looks like a raccoon?"
"Um, it can be a great beauty tool, Edward. It adds definition and volume," he stated.
"Yes, but does it tell me where you left your balls?"
"Fuck you, Edward. Let me see," he said while climbing into the car. He leaned over. "Hm, looks like... Dear new 201A, You have my mail. Please return to 51 or 91 W. 86th or 88th St. Apt #3D. Or #30. kthxbai."
LOLcats? Isabella speaks LOLcats?
"Wow, Em. How the fuck did you read that?"
"A girl used to pass me notes in class all the time in mascara." He shrugged. We were silent for a minute as he didn't expand on the matter.
"Aaanyway," I drawled. "Is the cleaning crew all finished?"
"Yep, just need to let the place air out for forty-eight hours. Then, it's all yours."
"Awesome. Thanks again for helping me out today."
"No problem," he said, punching me in the shoulder. "You have all of your computer shit back in here?"
"Yeah. Moved it back before the cleaning people showed up."
"Alright, well, I'm going to bring the moving truck back..." he trailed off.
"I'll follow you and bring you back to Mom and Dad's, right?"
"Sounds good. I'll catch a train back to NYC later," he answered and climbed out of the car. The moving truck pulled away from the curb, and I followed him as best I could through the Manhattan traffic.
-~-
It was completely silent in the basement at my parent's house in Jersey except for the sounds of Powerman 5000 blaring through the speakers on my laptop. Since the address Isabella left me was pointless, I figured I would have to track her down through...alternative means. After hacking into the Post Office's mainframe to acquire her new address, I'd discovered that she lived a few blocks away. It took less than five minutes for me to find her e-mail address, and after the eight beers I'd finished thanks to Emmett, I wrote her an e-mail.
To: brssmnkyjnkie (at) gmail (dot) com
From: SecurityThru0bscurity (at) gmail (dot) com
Date: July 12th, 2009 2:03am EST
Subject: New Tenant at 201A
Isabella Swan,
I got your gum-covered message today on the floor. Address was unreadable. Where should I send the mail?
- New Tenant -
P.S. What's with the cabbage?
See? I can use my skills for something productive. I won't steal her address from the Post Office...that way I don't seem like a stalker...
My drunken thought process was flawless.
Somehow, I managed to shut down the computer in my inebriated state and climbed into bed before promptly passing out with Linux against my face. Not even my last thought could keep me from losing consciousness thanks to my alcohol intake.
Shit, how the fuck do I explain how I got her e-mail address?
A/N: We've got Yoga up next yet again! Much like you, I have NO clue what that means, but I'm looking forward it. Hope you enjoyed it!
Again, smooches to all of you that read, review, alert, or lurk out there. It means the world to us both.
