Welcome to Gaia! ::

He held the door open for Demy, entrance to the small house, ranch style, in need of upkeep, and more especially perhaps in need of 'love' one might say. It was a house, it was not a home.

The colors were dull, beiges for the carpets, whites for the walls, and ghastly prints of sloshed together colors that gave it the feeling of a hotel.

"You -positive- your up for this? Thier pretty bloody..." He said as he wandered into a kitchen with peeling linoleum and a dust rhinos roaming in herds in the corners, if you listened carefully enough you might hear them crackle as they moved in migratory patterns in accordance with little drafts.
The look Z shot them was one that said he took their very existence personally. He may not be -the- cleanest person in the world when it came to their dorm, but he was better than that.

"Popcorn? soda? I think theirs some store brand in the corner... but I got some of the good stuff too, I swear the name brand uses less sugar sometimes..." he grumbled as he swung open a pantry. A can escaped from a precarious perch and rolled away on an effort to escape. Peas... he let them go, the dust rhino would feast tonight, he thought bitterly and fished out the popcorn, and a bag of stale marshmallows.

He stared at the raver-dust-rhinos for a long pause before answering as he shoved the popcorn into the microwave, punched buttons and stepped back.

"She works..." He said simply, like that explained -everything-. "...and I'm not home now." He added. I'll clean some before we leave. He muttered and fought to open the fridge without removing the handle by accident. "As long as the microwave and freezer work, she's pretty ok now. I think she likes it better not cooking." He stopped but it sounded incomplete, like he'd stopped mid thought.

"Cola or Sprite." He asked, he already knew Dem hated root beer (for some reason, it wasn't like those abysmal root beer 'candies' after all, whom were topped for disgust factor only by 'boston baked beans' and 'crazy core skittles'.

"Hey! Don't...." he sighed and just rolled his eyes as Demy made his way to investigate the rest of the house. Whatever, it wasn't like there were any surprises... except...

oh hell his pandas. Yes he knew about Mr. Tenebrous but he didn't know about the -rest- of them. He snagged the paper bag of popcorn and the whole bottle of sprite and set off to try and catch him first.

He did not...

---

The door to what was clearly Z's room was painted black, yes, like that old song, strung with police tape or an imitation of it declaring it a crime scene, that, was adjar, and inside it was little brighter. Posters of goth bands, or just bands with mad at the world themes littered one wall, while classical tapes and books of sheet music littered the floor with their rocker cousins. Books upon books, odd things, like bits of string left over denoting interests littered the book shelves from psychology to 'how to get ahead in business without really trying"

and then there were the pandas.
Half the bed was covered with them, big, small squishy fuzzy, beady eyed, sad eyed, some wearing leather collars, some wearing dog tags in a plush avalanche that trailed off the end of the bed and into a corner. A single poster of a bamboo forest gave the brightest color by the head of the bed, and a few branches of eucalyptus gave the room a medicinal but almost nice smell even with the liberal use of Fabreeze that clung to much of the house.

"Darn it Dem..." He groused from behind the taller boy.

the flush spread across Z's face and he ducked past Dem and into the room and opened a desk drawer to fish out DVD's

"I've... been collecting a while." He mumbled not sure what else to say. Oh yeah, that was it... "If you tell anyone else... I'm shoving a glow stick where the sun doesn't shine" He said with a blush that would have done a tomato proud. "Here's the sprite."
It wasn't like he really -expected- Dem to tell anyone, it was just one of those things you -had- to say when someone found your most embarrassing collection of -anything-.

"Guys don't collect -pandas-" He fired back, well -he- did but that had been a LONG standing source of contention.

"Of -course- I'm hostile, if you think I get picked on NOW can you even IMAGINE what they'd do if they knew I owned that many plus Pandas?!?"
He held up the movies triumphant.

"Saw... one through 'currently on DVD'" he said waving them "Brilliant stuff..." He added and led the way towards the Den. He stripped the plastic off the couch and dropped it on the floor with an expression of 'god I can't believe that thing exists' and popped open a rather decrepit looking player and stuck in the first movie.

Z pushed play and returned to the couch, flopping own beside Dem and tugging open the bag of popcorn to let the steam escape and offering it to Dem while he opened the soda and poured it into a pair of dixie cups, that oddly resided beside the TV for some reason.
He'd already watched them of course, so he sad less attentivly, and actually more like he was working on becoming 'one' with the sofa.

Z nodded and grabbed a handful of popcorn. "Preettty much, he's really not doing the harm -to- them for...most of these anyhow, theirs always a way out, they do most of the harm to themselves, and its always some tie in to something they were doing in their day to day lives."

He munched the popcorn complacently and ... hm, oh yeah, squeaky tone wasn't generally good.

He glanced at Dem and patted his arm. "It's just a movie... " He said quietly. "Its not -real- blood its just corn syrup and CG, maybe a few prosthetics.

"....did you need a panda to hug?"

"Yep...fine. Your doing -great-" he said with just a touch of sarcasm staring down at the popcorn that was jostled from his hands, glad it wasn't soda he'd been holding at the time of the 'cling'
"Want me to turn it off?" He asked a little more seriously. Honestly, who reacted like this to -horror- movies.