gotham_knocking | Housewarming

Housewarming

The new apartment awaits its guests. Brand new folding chairs line the walls of the dining room, and the living room is as clean as possible.

Almost everything is ready. Let the housewarming begin!

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"Well, between you and me, beer suits me better. But Raps has been trying to expand my pallet just a bit. I even know how to use a corkscrew." He smirks, trying to show that he's really not quite that hopeless.

"Well, you're one up on me," Steph confesses, grinning. "I shoulda got you an instruction booklet instead, huh?"

"Maybe. Or we can just let Raps teach me." He looks around the place. "Gotta say, having a woman's touch isn't such a bad tihng in my life."

Steph grins. "Yeah? What was it like before?"

"My old place was a mess. Ask Kita. She helped me clean for the move, and earned every penny. It was...standard American bachelor headquarters. It's a wonder Raps never said a thing, but I think she sometimes indulges me.

"Now...well, with any luck we'll keep it form getting the way it was. And we even have a guest room, for anyone from the Bar who needs a night away."

"Really," Steph says, with a devious sort of expression. "Reeeeeally. You know that's just letting yourself in for a whole world of disaster, right?"

"Probably. But the city can bill me, I can always get new furniture, and worse comes to worst, I can sneak down to police headquarters and turn on the signal." He looks totally calm. Clearly, he's never actually had a teenaged daughter.

Steph giggles. "You're totally still letting Kita and I stay a night, right? Unless I start fading away, that'd kinda suck."

"You two are welcome anytime. As long as you let me know in advance so I can make sure Raps is here, too." It's mcuh better that the neighbors don't think he's some kind of perv. Which in the Gotham area is a fair assumption, sadly.

"Fade away?"

"I start going all ghost-y if I stay out of Milliways too long," Steph explains, and changes the subject quickly back to Rapunzel. "So is she gonna be here? Am I gonna get to meet her? Should I be on my best behaviour?"

"Yes, yes, and I don't think that will help one bit." He smirks at Steph. "Be yourself. Never mnd that she was once a princess. She's just people. And she was a teenager once, too. Just long before TV or proms." He bets that the teenaged Rapunzel would have loved to have had a few friends like Steph instead of a one room flat in a tower.

"So that means I can tell her all the embarrassing stories about you I can remember, right?" Steph teases.

"Yup. I bet she knows half of them already." Not like he embarrasses easily. "Just make sure you get the details rights. Embarrassing is one thing. Incorrect? That's omething else."

"Oh, c'mon, it's no fun if I don't get to make bits up to improve the story."

"No fun, but facts are facts. Besides, I am sure that the facts do the trick for a man like me."

Steph grins. "Sure, Al. Sure they will."

"Al? Do I look like an Al to you?" He seems genuinely offended.

Well, not so much offended as merely bemused and surprised.

"You know, I'm not actually sure," Steph says, thoughtfully. "I haven't figured out quite what to call you yet. Somehow 'Allie' doesn't seem to cut it."

"Everyone in the Bar calls me Alex. Most of my coworkers call me Knox. And you don't want to know what my bosses call me." He resists saying "as long as you don't call me late for dinner."

"Allie...I used to suit me fine. Not sure when that changed, but you might be right."

Steph leans back to survey him thoughtfully.

"I guess I could call you Allie. It's just kind of girly."

Her scowls at Steph. "No. Alex. Or Knox. I am NOT girlie.

"Besides," he says with the scowl receding," Raps and I know a kid named Allie and she IS a girl. Ten years old. Raps' sort adopted her."

Steph grins at him. "I know. I wouldn't dare really."

"We all do that a bit here, don't we?" she asks, thoughtfully. "There's this adorable tiny ghost boy, Santi, I'm totally adopting him. Poor kid. And I have family now I never used to have." She's a bit wistful, thinking of Barry, Arithon, Dick. "Everyone moves on in the end, though, I guess."

"Yeah, I guess." He knows well eonugh that sooner or later, Raps would go home, too. "Better to just take what we can get then. And make the family we can." He doesn't quite think of Steph as family, but since she is so attached to Kita, she's at least part of the larger group if nothing else.

Steph grins. "It seems to have worked out all right so far."

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