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 Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 6:57 pm
Sleep had helped, as had a shower and a change of clothes. It really was the little things that made things normal or abnormal, Jordan reflected as he headed down the dorm hall, absently braiding his hair as he walked. The sense of hollow unreality that had followed him into sleep and colored his dreams had faded. If he hadn't been a student before, he might have felt stranger, he thought; but dorm life, even in a new building and a place where reality had totally altered, was familiar enough to be almost comforting. Bare walls when you moved in, generic furniture with marks of the previous resident's use, communal bathrooms, the etiquette of evening quiet and hallway right-of-way - that was all the same.
Now, though, there were two things that he wanted, in variable order: coffee, and to talk to his - his team? His friends? He wasn't entirely sure what title to put to the tentative existing relationship. His Phoenixes. Whatever else happened, he'd promised to watch their backs, during the test, and that still held. He studied each door he passed, looking for the half-familiar names he'd memorized. Some doors were marked with names, others were blank, bearing only their room numbers. He should put his name on his door. Mental note.
Room 102 bore a name - Madison McKenzie. A2, he remembered, and hesitated only a moment before raising his hand to knock on the door.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:10 pm
Madison had woken up on the early side, at least for her - it wasn't a weekend, she didn't think, and she'd automatically roused in a panic a few minutes past when her alarm would have gone off, had she been at home. Had she been going to school.
She hadn't remembered where she was at first, and only realized when she flung open the door and saw the hallway. A bemused white-coated figure had raised one eyebrow at her as he walked by, and she'd closed the door again and leaned against it.
Hunters. Right.
She'd counted out her precious makeup - what she'd had in her backpack was now all she had. Her original clothes were too gross to wear again... possibly to wear again ever, but she wasn't about to toss anything. Even the smallest things were now precious mementos of her old life. She'd gotten dressed (in a pair of simple, very much not-designer jeans and a t-shirt), then stood in front of the floor-length mirror and put on her makeup. Sparingly; she didn't know if she'd be able to get more.
Finally, after finishing her makeup and doing her hair, she felt more human... more herself. Hungry, but she wasn't sure where to go and didn't feel like going through all the effort to find out just yet. Instead, she sat on her bed and poked through her original backpack, taking full inventory of her belongings. There was the homework she'd left unfinished and no longer had to complete, a few textbooks, and a fashion magazine.
Joy.
The knock on the door had startled her into dumping the backpack onto the floor, and she'd kicked it under the bed before smoothing her hair back and hurrying to the door... only to see Jordan on the other side.
A faint blush that had little to do with makeup suffused her cheeks for a moment. Why had he come to see her? "G-good morning," she said, with a nod. "Um. What's... what's up?" She pushed the door open wide.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:22 pm
"Hey," Jordan said, and tried on a smile. Awkward? Possibly. He'd rarely started conversations, before. Probably best to just be direct. "I just wanted to check on you guys. See how you were doing. After yesterday." He stuck his hands in his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting too obviously. "And I was going to see if I could find the dining hall. If you wanted to come along."
Madison was - well, even in casual clothes, she was hot. Nobody he'd have walked up to and started talking to; but this wasn't his old life, and he wasn't quite who he'd been. She looked tired too, the edges of strain drawing at the corners of her eyes and mouth. It made a little snap of anger flicker in the back of his head, a protective urge he hadn't ever suspected in himself. She shouldn't have to be alone now. None of them should.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:26 pm
"Oh! Yeah, sure, I'd, lik-" She cut herself off halfway through the word. "I would like to come," she finished, then sighed. "Sorry. Bad habit. Trying to, l-... Trying to break it."
It would, evidently, be a harder battle than she thought.
"Um." She turned, tried to figure out what to bring with her, and settled for tucking the key to her room in one pocket. "I guess I'm not used to traveling light," she said, trying to sound nonchalant and not uncertain.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:37 pm
The corners of Jordan's mouth quirked, but he managed not to laugh. Not tactful, really shouldn't, especially because she was trying. "It's hard to break established habits," he offered instead, neutrally. "Starting a new habit takes a couple of weeks. Breaking one may take about the same time."
He smiled a little at her second comment. "Me either. I'm just glad I thought to put a change of clothes in my backpack," he admitted. "Forgot another wrap for my hair, though." He tweaked the long braid at the nape of his neck. "The one I was wearing got dirty."
He looked down the hall. "I don't suppose you know where the others' rooms are?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:53 pm
Madison stepped out into the hallway, then thumbed the lock and clicked the door shut behind her. "I'm not sure," she confessed, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly. "I kinda... ran back here and jumped in the shower and fell into bed. After, I mean."
Certainly didn't flip out and cry herself to sleep, no. Absolutely not.
Her gaze followed his braid for a moment, before a faint blush colored her features once more and she snapped her focus back to his face. "I only barely remember people's names. Just Phoenixes, I mean. Like, the others? No idea..."
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:00 pm
Both of them seemed to be looking in the wrong direction, though the vibration of the floor and the unmistakable sound of clumping footsteps coming from behind should have ticked them off. Suddenly Madison's world turned upside down (literally, for once), as big, strong arms wrapped around her middle, flipped her end to end, and held her against him.
Robert stepped up to take her place beside Jordan, slapping the man on the shoulder with his free arm.
"Hey Boss, look what I found. Can I keep it?"
Before the man could even ask, Robert sniffed the air, looking just a touch neanderthal in his expression.
"JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER I AM STARVING. I smell food. If that food doesn't arrive in my stomach within the next, like, ten minutes, I'm eating Maddie."
He hefted the girl for a moment, then nodded.
"She probably tastes like cotton candy." Man, he missed cotton candy. What were they talking about again?
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:09 pm
"She certainly looks sweet," Jordan answered, deadpan. He managed to keep a straight face for all of three seconds before a grin cracked the facade. "Let the woman walk, dude. She's got legs." Nice legs. Unwise to say that, probably, yet.
He clapped Robert on the shoulder. "Mind if we go find Ennea and Petra first?" He'd gotten the names right, hadn't - yeah, he had. "Just want to make sure all of us are okay."
Something in him had relaxed a little when Robert showed up. The big man had been a reliable companion, a competent and comforting presence, and Jordan hoped silently that it would keep working that way.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:48 pm
Madison shrieked as something scooped her up - but it turned from a shriek of fear into one of amusement as she quickly realized what had happened. "You always pick up girls this way?" she said, slapping lightly at his knees, deliberately ineffectual.
The blush on her face deepened when Jordan said she looked sweet, though it was probably unnoticeable under the blood already rushing to her head, thanks to her being held upside-down. "Gonna like, carry me to the food?" she added, with a grin.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:57 pm
"******** YEAH I'm gonna carry you to the food. Unless I decide you are food. Then I don't have to carry you at all!" Robert laughed, a booming sound that echoed across the hall. Reluctantly, he flipped her over and set her on her feet, if only because Jordan told him to. It was the mention of Petra that really had him flipping her over, though, and he gave Jordan a nervous grin. "Yeah, sure. Petra's still asleep, she was gonna meet me at the caf when she woke up anyway, so she'll probably meet us all there instead. Where's Ennea's door?" The entire sentence had been said in a rush of air, ending with a higher pitch as if the last sentence was more of a distraction than anything.
He looked from door to door, obviously not reading any tags as he screamed out.
"OI. ENNEA. WHERE YOU AT."
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:42 pm
Someone was bellowing her name. Ennéa started guiltily and nearly fell as she climbed around on the dorm's roof outside. "Whoa!" she pinwheeled her arms and dropped to her knees. She immediately ducked down, lying low on the roof shingles, hoping that whoever had called her name didn't actually know where she was.
Ennéa had woke early that morning, just as the sky was starting to lighten, and lacking anything better to do, had gone out exploring. Staring at the four bare walls of her dorm room was boring and most everyone else was still asleep.
She wasn't quite brave enough to go poking around on the upper floors of the dorm where it seemed the senior hunters lived, though she had climbed the stairs for a peek. There were a couple white coated people awake but she had quickly and (mostly) quietly scurried away before they noticed her.
So that just left exploring the outside. And the roof once she noticed that the gutter was easily climbable, much easier, in fact, than the trees over in the park by her apartment where she once lived.
Ennéa waited a couple breathless moments longer, but when no angry official came out to shout at her for being places she wasn't supposed to be she relaxed. Carefully, she slithered down the rest of the roof to the edge and quickly climbed down the gutter to the ground where she had left her shoes. It was easier climbing barefoot, more traction that way.
She stuffed her feet into them without untying the laces and then walked as innocently and nonchalantly as she could back into the dorm building.
There were people standing around in the hallway and Ennéa brightened when she recognized them. "Good morning!" She called.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:45 pm
Robert stuck his finger out sharply like a bloodhound, pointed at Ennea.
"GUYS. Guys. I found her."
Where was his treat.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:55 pm
"It certainly seems more effective than most pickup lines," Jordan said, unable to resist the pun. At Robert's hurried sentence, though, he gave the taller man a sidewise look. Something was off here, clearly. Just as clearly, Robert didn't want to talk about it. The two appeared to have a shared history, something between them that wasn't settled. But now was not the time to ask, and Robert had neatly removed the moment anyway. Well, Jordan would just trust that Petra would indeed meet them in the cafeteria, and save his curiosity (nosiness, a little voice in the back of his head whispered) for when one of them felt like talking.
Somewhat to his surprise, when Ennea appeared, she did so from outside. Up early, maybe, taking a look around? She looked like she was feeling better, anyway. That was a relief. "Good morning," he answered, smiling. "Good to see you. We're going to go grab something to eat. You want to come with?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:57 pm
"Huh?" Ennéa asked as she walked up to the group. She quickly and a little guiltily tried to brush off some of the grime on her shirt. She wasn't climbing in places she probably wasn't supposed to be, nope.
"Good morning~" she replied cheerfully to Jordan, beaming at his greeting. She waved to Madison and Robert. "Sure, I'll go with you guys. I'm starving. Do you think they have anything good to eat around here?"
She had visited Tobias' college a couple of times, enough to be somewhat familiar with dorms and dorm-life. Hopefully the food was better than the cafeteria Tobias' school.
Though it had been fun building miniature sculptures out of mashed potatoes with her brother. Ennéa smiled at the memory.
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:06 am
Madison had to stand still for a minute to get her sense of balance back, once Robert released her - then flinched as he seemed determined to wake up the entire first floor!
Thankfully, nobody opened the door and screamed at him to keep it down. Yet, anyway. Relieved, Madison offered Ennea a shy smile. "Good morning," she echoed. "What were you doing up there?" she added, curious.
Then she glanced back at the guys. If Petra was meeting them there, then... that was everyone, wasn't it? Five? "Do you guys know, lik- ... Do you guys know where the mess hall is?"
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