maskormenacelogs | EVERYONE LOVES RANDOMIZED LIVING SITUATIONS...

april 21st; moving day!

[In all honesty, Jaime's been avoiding stepping foot in his new lodgings all day. He's gone around to see the sights, visited the malt shop, found a quiet spot to comb through the network and learn all he can, but actually seeing where he's supposed to live makes it all too real. Somehow, the fact that the housing actually looks surprisingly comfortable makes it worse; it looks more like comfortable upper-middle-class suburbia than a place that they are, for all intents and purposes, trapped. He lingers outside as long as he can, but eventually bites the bullet, knocking smartly on the door before letting himself in with the key he had been given.

He gets a couple steps inside before he remembers his shoes and hurriedly toes them off before he ventures deeper into the house proper. It's weird, coming here with no possessions to his name save for the clothes on his back and a seriously swanky phone that's a notable upgrade from his flip phone back home.]

Hello? [He calls out into the house, unsure as to whether or not any of his new roommates are home. Until he receives an answer, he'll be cautiously making his way through, looking far more like a guest than a resident.]

april 22nd-29th; getting used to the daily grind

[For the rest of the week, Jaime's busy just trying to get used to living independently. He's used to his own home, mother, father and little sister bustling in and out of each other's lives with very little privacy to be had. Living here with complete strangers is... different.

It looks like he's here for the long haul, at any rate, so he might as well make nice. Jaime does spend most of his time in his room, admittedly, but he can be found in the communal living areas as well, attempting to feed himself (cereal; the sugary kind, not the kind with actual nutrients), making use of one of the roomier tables to look at a few of the textbooks he's been given (these history textbooks tell a far different tale than the one he knows) or just taking part in the good old-fashioned American sport of channel surfing on their television.]

april 29th- just arrived :T

[With the sharp thud! or a car door closing, and some quiet cursing, Shinjiro is dropped off in front of the house, paperwork and communicator in hand preventing him from grumpily flipping off the government car as it leaves to return to the base. He doesn't have any luggage or many possessions, though by the thick woolen coat and completely unkempt appearance, it wouldn't be too strange to assume that even in his home he didn't have any.

(Which... isn't true, but to be fair the guy looks pretty homeless.)

A final, irritated huff and Shinjiro tucks the phone in a coat pocket, the folder of information on him under an arm, and approaches the door, just to... pause for a moment, before testing out the key. He'd been told some guys already lived here, so hopefully they were either expecting someone, or pretty flexible in general.]

...Hey. Anyone in?

[if not, he'll go find a room that looks the most empty, but man it would be better to find someone, instead of just opening up doors and nosing about. If he was gonna have to live with these guys, anyway.]

[Shinjiro hadn't been at the house for more than a few hours, mostly spent quietly in the room he'd claimed dealing with whatever existential bullshit came from the whole not being dead thing. But eventually navel-gazing had given way to curiosity and (mostly) hunger, and he found himself downstairs in time to find one of his (assumed) housemates looking through some obnoxiously-dense looking books.]

...

[A pause for a moment on the foot of the stairs-- Because maybe he should... introduce himself? Or something? But the guy looks busy studying. So Shinjiro will just.. act totally natural as he walks past the guy to the kitchen, rummaging about there for a few minutes, before returning with a bowl of suspiciously-familiar looking sugary cereal, pausing past the door to glance over where the guy studied.]

So you live here too?

[Sorry bro he doesn't know the food rules here yet. And also doesn't give one flying fuck about them.]

[George wasn't exactly expecting new people TODAY, but he knew that empty rooms meant people could show up at any time. At least it was a decent hour and they weren't all asleep or something. George was actually walking into the living room just as he heard the door shut behind someone and, a second later, heard an unfamiliar voice.

George walked into the front area and held up a hand.]

Hello. Either you have a key or you can walk through walls...but I guess it doesn't really matter if you're new either way.

[It's a teenager is the first thing George notices. He doesn't pay much attention to the appearance, mainly because when you were living like he did for four years prior to this place you got kind of used to the whole 'homeless' look. Although to be fair to the people in the Mount things had improved ten fold since they'd first set up.]

I'm George Bailey, can I help you?

[Funny enough, George had reacted much the same way when he'd first arrived. He had enjoyed a good flight or two around town and certainly a big, honking malt with an extra greasy cheeseburger before finally coming "home." He had gotten used to living in a more open space with no privacy and certainly not beds and furniture like this. Honestly, some of this stuff put his pre-ex apartment to shame.

However, it'd been nearly a month now and George had settled in easily enough. He wasn't exactly expecting people to just walk in, but if they had a key then it wasn't like he could stop them. Besides, he'd noticed they had empty rooms here so it was only a matter of time before they were filled. That much made sense to him.

So when George heard a door and someone call out he called back from the kitchen.]

Hello, current resident in the kitchen.

[George would be found standing over a stove boiling water for pasta. He wasn't the best of cooks, but he knew the basics and enough about the kitchen not to burn things or cut himself. Granted, cutting himself was pretty much impossible with anything found in your typical kitchen so it might be better to say he wouldn't break any knives.]

[A lifted hand shows the key dangling from it, if only to show that: no, he cannot walk through walls. But the fact that the man suggests it and seems to consider it a perfectly normal suggestion speaks volumes. The key is stuffed back into his pocket, and he rolls a shoulder, dark eyes glancing down and to the side as he speaks. With the hunched posture and lack of eye contact, he may seem shifty-- but really, it's mostly because this is really weird what the hell is he supposed to say.]

Shinjiro Aragaki. The suits that dropped me off said I'm gonna crash here.

[Once again that shoulder rolls in a shrug, taking a moment to look past George and over the main room, before finding their way back to the man.]

So-- yeah. Like you said, I'm pretty new here.

[Isaac doesn't spend too much time out in the common room, really. He much prefers to keep to himself. That's not to say he isn't friendly or even sociable when the situation calls for it. It simply means he likes to talk to people on his terms, not he other way around. The house has been quiet recently, though, so he risked it.

And someone new was dropped off that day, and another young man by the look of it. He turns toward the call and nods, an older man, probably pushing 50, with graying hair the eyes that said he'd seen things, smiling.]

Hey. Or should I say 'welcome home'? I'm Isaac Clarke.

[For his part, Jaime's busy trying to catch up. As it turns out, muttering something about not having context for anything is a double edged sword; his teacher had been more than happy to provide information, certainly, but she had also provided him with the textbooks from classes he had technically missed.

Still, if he's going to live here, he'd better at least skim through the details. He's halfway through a particularly dull passage when an unfamiliar face walks in with a bowl of the cavity-inducing crap that he had ended up gravitating towards. It could be that they just have similar tastes, but somehow Jaime doubts that's the case.

Which is pretty crappy, because he doesn't exactly have much to his name right now.]

Uh, yeah, [he says, closing the textbook - History 8 - with a loud thump.] You just move in here?

[Jaime winds his way into the kitchen at George's call and pauses in the doorway, strangely comforted by what he sees there. The military suits are nowhere to be seen, and the sight of a guy just hovering over the stovetop is familiarly domestic.]

Hey, [he says with a quick wave of his hand before jamming it back into his pocket.] Sorry for just butting in here.

[He offers George a crooked sort of smile.] Apparently this is where I'm going to be staying from now on.

[Jaime's expectations for his first time living away from home had been slightly different from his impromptu kidnapping; for one, he had expected to be rooming with people that were closer to his own age, not someone around his dad's age. Still, tired eyes or not, Isaac's greeting is far friendlier than he had been given reason to expect.]

Welcome home works, [he says, returning Isaac's smile with a quiet one of his own.] I'm Jaime Reyes - and obviously, I'm kinda new here. Nice to meet you.

[Isaac nods at the kid's introduction.] You too, Reyes. I know it's a little weird, but all this isn't so bad, especially when you think about getting a second chance out there, you know?

[George nods at the key. It certainly answered the question, although now George kind of wished the government would warn them or something before new house guests were going to show up. What if he'd been in the shower or something?

Oh well, no sense worrying about it now.]

Yeah. There are some empty rooms back this way.

[He gestured with his head towards a side hallway.]

I can show you around. It won't be a long tour but it's better than standing awkwardly in the living room, right?

[Even George can pick up on that much. He offered a smile in the hopes of relaxing things a bit.]

[George moves the boiling pasta off the stove, the noodles apparently cool enough. He shrugs as he turns to look at the young man entering the kitchen.]

No problem. I'm guessing they just dropped you off with a key...it happens.

[George was the new guy not even that long ago so he can easily sympathize.]

I'm George Bailey. You want to eat first or would you like me to show you around? I've got to admit you have pretty good timing since the pasta just finished.

I'm pretty happy with my first chance.

[Jaime says it lightly, trying not to sound too sullen about it, but he's not planning on thinking of this as a second start. He has every intention of going back to his first one.]

But you're right, it could be a lot worse. [He pauses, glancing around the room. It's bigger than his family's house, that's for sure.] It looks like they give you a pretty nice place, for one.

[A roll of the shoulder while he finishes crunching down on some of that sickly-sweet cereal. Not what he'd have picked, but it's something to put in his stomach, either way. (And don't worry, Jaime-- you'll have mysteriously appearing home-cooked meals soon enough.)]

Yeah, just a bit ago. Went through the whole 'take your paperwork, live in this house, go do something heroic' shit.

[The dry, unimpressed tone is enough to show was he thinks of that, but Shinjiro doesn't linger on it.]

Shinjiro Aragaki, by the way. [And hey, he might as well sit at the opposite end of the table. Roommates and junk, yeah?] You researching something?

[Another nod. Sorry, George, your new housemate doesn't have terribly much to contribute besides questions and potentially griping for now. While he doesn't return the smile (Or even soften his perpetually-neutral expression,) his shoulders do relax slightly, falling back as he lifts his head to make eye contact.]

If you want. Rooms upstairs?

[At least he's good at going and getting things done. Though this might be a decent opportunity to get some bearings.]

So when'd you get dumped here?

[He nodded at the comment.]

Yeah, but it's a little cramped when everyone's home. There are five of us now.

[Jaime decides to let the cereal thing go for now - it's this guy's first day, and he'd make a pretty terrible roommate if he objected to him getting something in his gut.]

Jaime Reyes. Nice to meet you, [he says with a nod, then spins the textbook around so Shinjiro can take a look if he wants to. It looks like a regular textbook, ridiculously large, heavy, and crammed full of tiny print interrupted sporadically by pictures.] Not really research. School. [He rolls one shoulder in a shrug.] But it's a decent way to learn more about this place.

[It's not much, but George will take it at this point.]

Yep. This way.

[George has nothing better to do so why not give a personal tour of the place. He directs Shinjiro towards the stairs and on to the next floor.]

I guess it's been nearly a month now since I arrived at the end of March. So I still feel fairly new myself.

We got a new kid a few days ago, maybe a little younger than you, he took that room. [George indicates a different room and then points towards a door at the end of the hall.] I'm in that one, should it come up. The second one on the left should be unoccupied though.

What, really? [Jaime says, taken aback that the guy - George - is generous enough to share his meal with some stranger that showed up in his home. He already cashed in on the free malt back at the diner, but he's sixteen years old and perpetually hungry. If George is offering, Jaime will take it.] Thanks, that's nice of you. I wouldn't want it to go cold, so...

[Jaime whistles low.] Full house. So does everyone get their own space, or is this a bunk-bed situation?

[Please don't be bunk beds, please don't be bunk beds...]

'Least I ain't the only newbie, I guess. [It's... almost reassuring, the fact that he's not the only person in this clusterfuck of a situation-- and this George guy seems (from the few seconds Shinjiro has known him) relatively well adjusted. But that's not quite enough to entirely stamp down the nagging notion of how bizarre and wrong it feels to be here.]

So you were given the whole 'go be a superhero' thing too, right? [A nod at the room assignment-- he's not terribly picky about that, and it will work fine. Absently, he rubs at his tattooed wrist.]

Any idea on what that all really means?

[careful, Jaime, it's like training a puppy- you let it slide once, and it will just keep on happening.]

[His nose wrinkles a bit at the notion of school and studying, though he does give the text a cursory glance-through-- though it takes a moment for him to frown at it and really get used to the whole 'digital tattoo communicator translation' bullshit. What a pain in the ass.]

This place that much different from yours, then?

[Or maybe the guy is just-- studious like most people he knew back home. (As interesting as history could be, Shinjiro still hated sitting down and actually reading through it all, really.]

[He nodded. It was a full house, after all.]

We all get our own space. I'm actually working on getting my own place elsewhere, so it won't be so crowded. I need some work space, and as you can tell, there isn't anything around here.

[His last goldfish died a premature death. Maybe pets just aren't for him...!]
[Jaime doesn't bother taking the book back just yet. Useful or not, he can't say that he's exactly having the time of his life going through this crap, but recent events have taught him that knowing history and context is more important than he'd ever thought it was.]

Not as different as it could be, but yeah, it's still pretty weird. All this Cold War stuff...

[He just shakes his head. He's still trying to get his mind around it.] How 'bout you?

EVERYONE LOVES RANDOMIZED LIVING SITUATIONS...

JAIME REYES

Shinjiro Aragaki

hay bro haay | 29th

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april 21

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21st!

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