Warnings: Along with the usual swearing and sex-talk, this story will also contain violence, blood-letting, and creative-or-slightly-disturbing use of blood/blood-splatters ... and garden gnomes. (I am serious.) Readers have described parts of this story as creepy, so please keep that in mind if you decide to read further. Thank you!

AN: Yes, this is a chapterfic. I have the first fourteen chapters written already, but after that I'll be a little slower to update. Please note that despite also including vampires, this story has nothing whatsoever to do with the Steve/Abe stories - just think of them as two different alternate-universe Australias. Concrit and feedback is always welcomed and appreciated.

Thank you to Lilgryphon, Kaybian and Svenjaliv for awesome, thoughtful feedback on this, all my friends for reading, and The Gak for inspiring Raif.

One – The Arrival

Parker peered between the dusty wooden slats of the venetian blinds obscuring his lounge window, watching as the small silver hatchback – looking like one of a million silver hatchbacks on the road, regardless of its make – came to a slow halt in the driveway beside his own. It had been nearly a month before the realtor found someone to rent the one-bedroom unit beside his (one month before the realtor found someone depressingly single who couldn't afford extra space) and the block had spent the last week gossiping the second the 'available to rent' sign had been taken down. Who wanted to move in here? Ten single-occupant (well, double if you could handle the lack of space) units in the cheaper part of town, inhabited by divorced dads paying half their wages in child maintenance, younger single men, one retirement-age grandmother and one cross-dressing art historian...

(He had gotten so used to seeing Georgina leave her unit in her silken dresses for a night out on the town that he'd nearly fainted in shock when he first saw George leading a tour at the local museum, giving school students the most snore-inducing lecture on WW1 art imaginable.)

The younger singles (amongst whom Parker liked to consider himself, thank you very much) had prayed it was someone female and younger than fifty. The divorced dads hoped for much the same thing. Elise didn't seem to care, as long as the new occupant helped her with her fuse box and lifting heavy parcels, didn't mind cats or garden-gnome decorated front lawns, and liked homemade plum jam. (Parker hoped the newcomer liked plum jam, too. He had fifteen dust-covered jars sitting in his pantry...)

He wasn't the only one taking a peek, because the blinds over at number five had shifted slightly, and Georgina just happened to drop her handbag by the kerb, spending an inordinate amount of time trying to find the tube of lipstick that had rolled underneath her left shoe.

The sudden sigh of disappointment as the driver's side door opened was almost palpable. Not a woman, but another straight man come to wallow in singledom, Parker suspected; he was a tall, painfully skinny man with sallow skin and very thin hair. Not even remotely attractive at all, his nose sharp in a narrow face, dark shadows around his eyes, clad in a too-big trench coat – Parker wondered if he were a cancer patient, too well for hospice care, come to die in a cheap unit on the edges of town. He struggled to carry an oversized red duffle bag, and watering eyes cringed at the dying evening sunlight. It looked like he wouldn't even be much good to Elise, never mind anyone else...

He backed away from the window just as Georgina finally found the lipstick and headed up the path, yanking his door open just before she reached it.

"Oh, goodness," she exclaimed, barging through the lounge area and into his tiny kitchen. (It looked just like hers, except that Parker kept old magazines and a maiden hair fern on his bench; Georgina crowded hers with nail polish bottles, all perfectly arranged in HEX code order.) "The poor thing! He looks like he's going to drop dead any moment..."

Parker just nodded as she helped herself to a mug, his coffee, and a packet of Tim Tams, sitting down at his bench with one leg folded over the other. Personally, Parker thought Georgina looked quite hot in a dress, but that was probably because she didn't look particularly female, in his opinion. (That was why it would never work, since it wasn't the cross-dressing that bothered Parker. Georgina wanted someone that saw the woman in the dress, and since he never would, they'd both agreed to settle for sharing coffee, biscuits, and the occasional drunken one-night-stand when they were feeling particularly morose.)

"He needs feeding up," she announced, dunking a biscuit into her coffee and slurping the drink through the bitten-off ends of the Tim Tam. "Perhaps we should suggest that to Elise..."

"Good idea." Elise prided herself on her Friday bake-offs, donating the fruits of her labour to the rest of the block. Joe and his dog were always supremely grateful, but Parker had never heard Joe's dog complain yet about scoffing scones, pies and date loaf. Everyone else made sure they had pressing appointments (dental if they could think of nothing else), and accidentally forgot about the basket or bag on the front doorstep that got rained on when they came home. Parker had never seen so many men with such astonishingly white teeth all in the same location. "I could take him around some jam..."

"And I'll bring yesterday's scones." Georgina shook her head. "Poor man, in such desperate need of help!"

Poor man indeed, Parker thought, wondering if Elise's cooking would help hasten the end. Lessening the term of his suffering was the least they could do for their brand new neighbour...