Email-Sending Mansion on Phoenix Way, Tuesday

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Email-Sending Mansion on Phoenix Way, Tuesday

From: Mike Lane <michael@mikelanecustomdesigns.com>
To: < every damn adult on the island and probably some off-island ones >
Re: HALLOWEEN PARTY AT THE MANSION!

Hey all,

it's been a few years but it's finally that time again: a Halloween party at the mansion! Dress up, don't dress up, it's all cool (but it's cooler if you do dress up). There'll be beverages and snacks but feel free to bring your own, too.

So, quick recap:
WHAT: Halloween party, how many times I gotta tell you?
WHEN: tomorrow night (October 31st)
WHERE: the mansion on Phoenix Way

Welcome!

- Mike (you know, from Saturday nights at Caritas)

After he was done sending the email, he took a quick look at the draft of a 'room for rent' ad he'd been writing last night. Yeah, he was still pretty sure that needed some more polishing. And he was also pretty sure that could wait until later. The goal right now was to maybe get someone in by the beginning of December, maybe the beginning of January at the latest.

So he went back to work. This vanity wasn't going to finish itself.

[ooc: open for emails back and visits in person! Expecting one.]

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Eddie had planned on checking out his new work situation before swinging by the potential room for rent, but navigating this place was... a thing. But that was fine. He was juuust fine with this weird island with way too many stairs. Yep.

He looked down at the newspaper where he'd circled the room for rent ad to make sure this was the right place.

"Spooky mansion. What's the worst that could happen?" he muttered to himself. Then immediately added, "Don't answer that."

And then knocked.

At least the house didn't look as spooky as it had before Mike had shown up. But, yeah, it was still an old mansion in the woods. Creepy went with the territory.

Mike wasn't expecting anyone - and usually, that meant that only Brooke came knocking, so that was who he expected to see when he made his way to the door.

But... No.

"Uh, hi?"

"Hey, so I saw your ad for the room?"

Why are you making it a question?, Venom demanded. Show more confidence. We could eat him easily.

"Nope," Eddie said, making a face at the suggestion before covering with, "I mean. There wasn't a phone number, so I thought I'd just come by."

And not eat anyone.

For a few long seconds, Mike didn't even know what to say to that, opting instead to stare at Eddie with a somewhat confused look on his face.

"I -- did not send the ad in yet."

That seemed like a good start. But, had he? No, he was pretty sure he hadn't.

Which was indeed a statement. A valid statement.

Eddie slowly lifted the paper to look at the ad again. Yep, it was still there. "Uh, you sure, buddy?"

"Yeah."

He'd just been in Fandom long enough to know that that didn't mean that there wasn't also an ad in the paper. Both things could be true, and way too easily.

He held out his hand, suppressing a sigh. "Gimme that?"

Eddie handed over the paper without any fuss, immediately shoving his hands in his pockets once the paper was out of them. "So... is this a case of late night ad writing?"

"No." And now that he was looking the ad over... "This isn't even what I was gonna write."

A beat.

"Well, 'part from there being a room for rent." Which was the most crucial element of it anyway, so. Guess he could roll with it, even if he did look mildly perplexed about this turn of events. This time, he did actually sigh, right before he looked up. "But, room's upstairs, you wanna take a look?"

"Yeah," Eddie replied slowly, waiting for literally any explanation for the ad. "Yeah, sure."

It could in no way be worse than his old place in New York. Or the shitty place post-Anne is San Fran.

Mike had no explanation beyond Fandom, and he wasn't sure there was any way to say that without coming off crazy. Because he was also pretty sure this guy was new.

So he stepped out of the way to let the guy in. "You just arrive on the island?"

Fresh off the apple cart new!

"Yeah, I got a job here," he replied, pleasantly surprised that it didn't look at all spooky on the inside. He offered his hand to shake. "Eddie Brock."

Benefit of six years of work on the house itself, plus Mike's undying desire to live in a house that looked like a home and not something that could also double as an unsettlingly realistic Halloween attraction.

"Mike Lane," he said as he shook Eddie's hand. "Whatcha gonna do, Eddie?"

His first guess was always bartending, just because there were way too many bartenders for this small an island.

They needed all those bartenders to deal with the island!

"I'm a journalist."

Mike was not going to ask him whether he was going to also print ads that were weirdly prescient.

"Oh yeah? Like, on the island?"

... Did they have a newspaper on the island?

That would be a way cooler superpower than bodysharing, to be honest.

"The... Fandom Island Gazette? Editor there offered me a pretty nice job."

He did not realize the editor was a deer just yet.

"Huh." Yes, this was the face of a man who didn't think he'd seen an edition of Fandom Island Gazette since... maybe when he'd first moved here? "Well, that's... Yeah, sounds like a decent job."

THIS IS WHY PRINT MEDIA IS DYING, MIKE. DON'T BE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

"So. Gainful employment," he said like that should be a point in his favor.

If Mike had been at all prepared to talk to possible tenants today, he might've even thought to ask about that one on his own!

"Yeah, that's good to know," he said, nodding towards the stairs that would lead them to the second floor before heading that way himself. "I tend the bar at one of the clubs in town on Fridays, but other than that I work on my custom furniture business. I have a work space out on the mainland, but I also have one here, so... I work from home for like half the week, give or take. Depends on what the orders are like."

"No shit? That's pretty cool," Eddie said, following after him. "You make the stuff here?"

"Most of what's here right now is stuff I made, yeah." Explained why so much of it looked like parts had been repurposed from things that hadn't originally been furniture. "Prototypes gotta go somewhere, you know?"

"That's neat." Maybe he could do, like, a puff piece on it. Get things started. "I know... fuck all about buildin' stuff. Pretty good at writing, though."

No you weren't, Eddie. Not with that Buzzfeed bullshit.

"Thanks, man."

Also, hey, Mike knew nothing about writing. It was all a matter or perspective!

But anyway, they made it up the stairs. Mike flicked the switch for the lights in the hallway - upgrading the look from semi-Gothic to semi-okay - before he went to open the door to the room in question.

"This is it," he said. "A friend of mine used to live here, but it's been a couple of years."

It smells like dog and stupidity, Venom hissed in the back of his brain.

"Did he, uh, own a dog?" There, that was a normal question that wasn't invasive or rude.

Edited 2018-10-31 12:24 (UTC)

"Actually yeah," Mike said, glancing over. "Just, like the smallest dog you can imagine, that was the dog."

Puppy Joe, you were ridiculous.

"That a problem? You got allergies or something?"

Puppy Joe was a god among dogs, don't front.

"Nah--" We should take a better room. With less stupid. Kill him and take better room "--No," he repeated more firmly, walking in to inspect the room.

"What's the common area situation like?"

Mike shrugged. "Pretty much every room that's not, like, my bedroom is pretty free to use," he said. "Plus there's other rooms up here that aren't in use right now, but they need some work."

He'd been mostly focusing on the downstairs, apart from that time he'd had to fix part of the roof after the shark incident.

"Haven't gotten 'round to those yet, but everything downstairs is pretty polished."

Venom continued to grumble unhappily at the stupid dog room, doing what Eddie assumed was the symbiote version of a cat angrily flicking it's tail back and forth. Only, you know, inside Eddie's chest cavity.

"Cool," Eddie croaked. "You don't, like, play loud music at 1 am or anything, right? Last apartment had That Guy right across from me."

"Nah, like to keep my loud music to the daytime hours." Because he was getting old. Or at least that's what it felt like, the reasonable hours he was keeping these days. "But, my girlfriend lives in town, but she comes over a fair bit. So, that and everything that goes with it is... a thing."

It just seemed like a fair warning.

Eddie tried to keep a straight face as he nodded at that. "I got you," he said, holding up his hands. "I might keep weird hours with the job."

It was a topic that made it straight faces pretty difficult, all around. Which was part of why Mike had no intention of lingering on it.

"So," he said. "That's the house and the room, more or less."

"So, do you need references or anything? Because I am definitely interested in the room."

And he could probably get Anne and Dan to help him out.

"Couldn't hurt, at least," Mike said. "I mean, you seem like a decent guy. But I gotta at least pretend I'm not just this cool with letting strangers who show up with ads I didn't even write move in at my house."

Even though he was exactly that kind of guy.

He totally was a decent dude! Who occasionally ate people and had an alien in him.

"Yeah, I can give you some numbers," he said, patting his pockets for a pretty old fashioned note pad to jot down a few.

Hey, nothing wrong with being a little less modern.

"Thanks, man," Mike said. "Just a formality."

"It's cool," Eddie replied easily. "I got a hotel room back in Baltimore if you need to take a little time. With the weird... prescient room for rent ad and all."

Venom... still definitely wanted to eat him and take the place for their own, but Venom needed to learn some fucking boundaries.

Venom needed to learn some manners.

Mike shrugged. "Should probably be able to get back to you a little later," he said. "I mean, the ad thing was weird, but it's not like it wasn't an ad I was actually working on."

It was a work in progress!

"Oh, great. I was gonna swing by the paper to check it out anyway. I'll give you my number."

Yay, we don't have to host and have something terrible happen!

Then:

This is Steve Rogers, by the way.

Hello, Steve, and welcome to where parties have usually been pretty normal!

Please don't let me have jinxed myself by saying that.

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Email-Sending Mansion on Phoenix Way, Tuesday

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