"Well, if you don't like it you can always go and find somewhere else to live."
Your cutting tone didn't go unnoticed. Van's eyes narrowed a little, the smirk falling quickly away but not for long. He folded his arms across his chest, fixing you wit...
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"Alright love? Good day at work? Oh, bloody 'ell, doesn't look like it judging by the look on yer face!"
It was becoming too regular to just be a coincidence. You'd come home from your shift at the hospital thoroughly exhausted, wanting nothing more than to switch off from everything and submerge yourself in a bath of warm, fragrant bubbles, only to be met by him.
No matter what time of the day or night you returned he always seemed to be there, lingering like a bad smell on your shared driveway, cigarette in hand, propped up against the brickwork by his front door.
You were often too tired to make conversation after a shift, having had a full eight hours of tending to patients and dealing with their friends and family members. Sometimes you felt as much counsellor as nurse, a comforting shoulder to cry on or an unbiased source of advice, a calm and reasoned voice to placate angry or upset patients and their kin. It often drained you so thoroughly that you felt like you had nothing left to give. The last thing you needed was a sarcy comment or a mocking joke at your expense.
So you narrow your eyes as you approach, your nerves already bristling.
The arrival of your new neighbours a week ago had been bittersweet. Sweet because you'd become firm friends with Bondy who was a kind and gentle soul, bitter as Van had completely lived up to the first impression that he'd indelibly left on you.
"A full day's hard, honest work does tend to knacker you out actually Van," you state dryly as you step up to your front door. "Not that you'd know anything about that."
You almost wince as the cutting remark leaves your lips but you keep your head held high, enjoying the effect your perhaps slightly unfair comment is having on the man who's fast becoming the bane of your life. He's said worse to you after all over the past week.
He falters briefly, jaw going slack for a moment until he quickly recovers, that infuriating trademark smirk of his taking shape once again. "Oh that's right. Why don't you go and get yourself a proper job? That's it isn't it? Good one. Like I've not heard that one a million times before."
"Maybe you should try taking the advice then!" You reply with a faux-sweet smile meant to provoke and it does. Van immediately pushes himself off from the wall, flicking his cigarette butt to the floor as he steps closer. Your heart rate increases as you turn and plunge your hand into your bag to find your key.
This goading discourse has become like a game between the two of you, each one trying to incite the other to bite and lose their temper. Van infuriates you. He's loud, arrogant and brash with a fiery temper to match. A typical Leo.
You'd told everyone who would listen about your new neighbour and how he was making your life a misery. The loud music that was a constant disturbance. The sarcastic comments that he fired at you over the garden fence. The parties that would carry on until the early hours despite your complaints. He was, quite simply, the neighbour from hell.
