Welcome to Gaia! ::

Alba paused in a defeated way. "I seem to be committed, either way." He considered the offer as he tried and failed to pry off the oversized bell. "Thank you. I'll have to decline for now on a complete tour, but a guide to and from the dining area would be appreciated. This thing could probably lead the way to the nearest food source, but I doubt I'd have much luck getting her to lead me back." He tried removing Spook again, and, again, failed spectacularly.

"That is, if it's not too much trouble." He was having some second thoughts. Sure, he didn't want to end up sleeping on the floor somewhere. But he'd already dislocated his new roommate-- Alba would have to get used to this-- from half of the living space, unintentionally messed with his firearms, and he'd brought in a possibly loud and disruptive child of a Pokemon with him. Alba wasn't in a hurry to make any friends, but even he wasn't dumb enough to purposely tick off someone he'd be sharing a living space with for an unknown length of time.

Alba hid his relief well, but some of the tension in his seemingly permanent, at attention stance visibly lessened. Not that he seemed to notice. "Thanks." He stood to the side to give Lucas room, and let the older man lead the way out the door.

((LEEEET'S DO THE TIIIIIIIME WAAARRRRP AGAAAAAAIIIIN! 8D ))

Good heavens, the underworld must've been freezing over. Alba was smiling! ...Well, okay, maybe more of a good-natured smirk, however that worked out. But it wasn't a wary frown! "You're serious?" he said, continuing the random conversations that had started clear back at the cafe table. Getting food had turned out to be a good idea. Spook's bottomless pit of a stomach seemed to be satisfied for the time, and she had taken to riding sleepily on her trainer's shoulder. Her grip on his ear slipped a bit more, and Alba unconsciously reached up a hand to help support her as they returned to the room. "They really have Starmiebucks, all the way out here?"

"Ah, yes. Now there's a business I wouldn't mind seeing again." Alba followed second into the room, feeling more at ease than he had when they'd left. He wouldn't say it was a big change yet, but maybe, just maybe, if he was lucky for once, he just might be able to settle in. To a degree, that is. The paranoia and mistrust in others would probably always be there, if he was honest with himself, and it wouldn't take much to make it all come plummeting right back. Oh well. For now, he'd just enjoy the cold remains of his coffee that had been left forgotten on his dresser, which he picked up again as he passed.

Spook woke up a little as they neared Alba's bed, and Alba was able to lift her from his shoulder with no trouble. For all the energy she had in the day, the Chingling was a regular rag- er, metallic- doll when it came to naps or outright sleep. That didn't stop her from huddling right up against her trainer's side as soon as he had sat and propped himself against the headboard. He took a sip of coffee, never mind that he'd had one during their meal before finding the room, then another large black coffee during the food run with Lucas. That meant he'd had, what, five decent sized coffees today? Or was he at six? That reminded him... "So what's it like here at the infamous TRHQ between days? Any lights-out curfews or early morning bugle wake up calls?" he asked casually, with a slight hint of amusement, and set his gaze upward on a portion of ceiling.

Alba gave a small groan. "Like the academy all over again, then," he absently muttered to the ceiling. Damn. He hadn't meant to let that slip. "Academy" was a general term itself, sure, but just how many kinds of academies were there to chose from really? Thinking of how to safely change the topic, he tilted his head so as to look at his new roommate, though not in time to catch the shudder. "Guess I'll just have to set my alarm or something then. Anyway, I keep seeing you pick up that thing. Any good?" He tipped his head in a way to motion at the guitar in Lucas' hands.

"Hey, that's something." Alba shifted his weight in how he sat, but the bed's headboard still dug a little into his back. He'd just had two doses of caffeine in the last hour, though. Surely it would be safe to rest his head and neck for a while. Craning his neck, he located the nearby desk and placed the can on the corner. There were still a few sips left, but he knew he would need that measly amount to get moving again after a while. At the same time, he reached for an olive green sweater and his uniform gloves that he'd draped over the back of the chair before leaving. The gloves were tossed back to the chair, but the sweater he pulled on over his head and briefly straightened. It was one more downside to his underweight-ed-ness: it didn't matter that the building or rooms weren't exactly cold, or that the trainee uniform had an upturned collar, long sleeves, and long pants. If Alba was going to be still for just about any length of time, odds were he was going to feel a chill.

"I had to take piano lessons as a kid. Something about my grandparents saying it would make me smarter. It'd be a miracle if I could remember any of it these days, though. Just a lot of dots, lines, and curly squiggles." As he spoke, Alba eased himself down the bed until he could put his head on his pillow, and then folded his hands behind his head. Maybe he should've thought twice about that move. Even just laying on top of the covers, with a sweater over his uniform and a Chingling snuggling into his side, it was the most comfortable sleeping place he'd had since leaving Kanto. And he'd been sleeping on a worn, hand-me-down couch back then! "Still, if you know the lingo, I guess it all comes down to practice after that. What kinds of songs have you learned so far?"

Alba bit back a yawn. He should sit up soon, he thought... Maybe in another minute. "Guess it's too hard to just write the dumb letters. Go figure."

He listened intently as Lucas started to play. His legs were crossed at the ankles, and the top foot tapped along with the rhythm in the air. "Not bad," the yawn he'd been fighting finally escaped, and he quickly stifled it with the back of his hand. "Not bad at all..." His free hand came back down at his left side, where it curled with ease around the form of his sleeping Pokemon. And that was that. Alba blinked a lot more than could be considered normal, and the longer he listened, the longer his eyelids seemed to stay closed per each blink.

At the back of his mind, a part of him was demanding that he should sit up, that he should be more on guard, and that he should get another coffee if that's what he had to do. Anything to keep from falling asleep in an unknown building owned by a crime ring, filled with absolute strangers who were members of that crime ring. It was a losing battle, though. By the end of the song, his head would finally lull to face more toward the wall than the ceiling, his breathing would even out, and Alba, despite all his determination to never again be caught off guard, would fall into a deep, exhausted sleep. Oh well. He could worry about hating himself for it later, right after he was done apologizing to Lucas for sleeping during a performance.