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 Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 6:54 pm
"It's so weird to think of you as an adult!" exclaimed Tallulah, and staked a claim on the sofa. This was another thing she'd missed over the summer - helping her oldest friend move into his first real, grown-up apartment. She'd known Xavier about as long as she'd been able to talk, and a full summer wasted in a coma had left a serious gap. She hadn't seen it when it was nice and new and freshly moved into, and now the take-out containers and empty energy drink cans were starting to accumulate. Well, that was that. Xavier actually lived here.
"Didn't this couch used to be in your basement?" she asked conversationally, picking at the upholstery. It was definitely familiar - she'd watched The Terminator on this couch at age eight, and that kind of memory didn't go away easily. They'd watched practically the entire movie through their fingers.
Absentmindedly, she plucked a hair from the upholstery and examined it.
Cat hair.
"A cat!" exclaimed Tallulah. "Xavier, you got a cat?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:05 pm
"Psh." The blonde sitting beside her laughed. "Me ? An adult ?" Never. But he couldn't deny that apartment life was nice - he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, without his dad looking over his shoulder constantly.
The gap didn't seem to have affected Xavier all that much, beside the part where he had lived more at the hospital than at his home, but it was probably better to not mention that. Seeing Tallulah in that coma had been heart-wrenching, and he had spend the whole time hoping against hope itself that she would wake up. Thankfully, she had, so all was well in the world.
"Well... Yeah." He shrugged. "Dad wasn't using it, so it was either me taking it or him throwing it away. I mean, we watched Terminator on that couch when we were eight, don't you remember ?" He laughed again. "You were shaking like a leaf through the whole thing, Tal."
It was really good to have his 'little sister' back.
"Oh, yeah..." Ah, busted ! "Yeah, I got her at the shelter once I was settled in. I dunno where she's hiding now..." He clicked his tongue once, twice, and a black and white face peeked out from under the couch. "Ah, there she is !"
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:24 pm
It was good that the couch had been rescued from Mr. Avery's next trip to the dump, agreed Tallulah, although she wasn't content to let Xavier pretend that he had been a macho man through the whole Terminator experience. "Like you didn't nearly wet yourself," she scoffed, and leaned over to peer at the cat.
"Oh, aren't you pretty!" she cooed, holding out a cautious hand. "Are you taking care of Xavier now?" This was, of course, directed at the cat. Tallulah glanced back up at Xavier. "What's her name?" she inquired enthusiastically, and turned her attention back to the cat.
"Are you shy?" she asked it quietly. "C'mere, I'm not gonna hurt you. I like cats."
(This was an understatement.)
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:33 pm
"That's what you'd like to think." He totally had gone trought it like a boss.
...Okay, he had nearly wet himself indeed. But it was all details.
"Her name's Tempo. They told me she was something like... two when I got her." He just simply let go the 'taking care of him' comment - Tallulah's attention was on the cat now, anyway.
Tempo peeked out a little further, sniffing at the outstretched hand curiously. As she slid out from under her couch-slash-hiding-place, her tuxedo coloring became visible in its entirety.
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:50 pm
"Oh, you are pretty!" exclaimed Tallulah, scooping Tempo up and setting her on her lap. "Yes, you are!" she added, scratching the cat behind the ears as she turned her attention back to Xavier. "Sorry," she insisted, "I'm listening and - Oh! I think I remember her!"
Tallulah worked at the shelter - this wasn't to say she saw every cat that came through its doors, but she did see most of them. And a pretty tuxedo like Tempo wouldn't have escaped her notice. She was always looking for cats to foster, even though Angus and Nellie were holding firm on Casper and Wendy being the only cats allowed in the Cowden household.
"Anyway," she added, settling nicely around the cat, "Are you going to give me The Grand Tour? Or do I have to go poke around myself? I'll give you five minutes to go hide your dirty magazines."
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:56 pm
"You do ?" Well, probably wasn't surprising, given that she worked there, but to be able to remember a cat just like that, given how many there were ? "Well, she seems to remember you too."
Indeed, Tempo was now happily sniffing about, pawing at Tallulah's tight before curling up in said lap. "I kind of wanted two at first, but I figured I should start with one and see from there." He had no doubt that she would kick him in the balls if he ever accidentally caused harm to a cat.
Xavier rolled his eyes at the last comment. "I don't keep dirty magazines." And certainly not where nosy little girls could see them. "It's not a very big place, but it does the job. You can just settle Tempo against your shoulder, she loves that."
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:14 pm
Tallulah did as instructed with the cat, and was rewarded with a purring neck warmer. She got to her feet and cast a glance over her shoulder at Xavier. "Probably better to just stick with just one. It would suck of you got two and they wound up getting all territorial."
"Besides," she said, crossing the room to look at a poster for a local battle of the bands, "You're busy enough with school, and cats can get very demanding of individual attention."
And then she turned her attention to the side table where the empty cans were starting to evolve into modern art. "Should I get you a recycling bin, Zay?" she asked, pursing her lips. Really, she shouldn't judge - there was a pyramid of Ener-TEAs on her desk right now - but it all wound up in recycling eventually. And maybe it would encourage him to clean them up - she certainly hoped part of the reason they hadn't been disposed of was because he didn't want to put them in the trash.
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:22 pm
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Not just school, but also work - though that didn't really need to be said. Or did it ? Had Tallulah been awake when he'd gotten the job ? He honestly couldn't remember.
"Hey, that's what you get for dropping in here with only a cell call 5 minutes in advance as a warning." She should know this by now, really. At least the pile hadn't developed sentience and started to stage an hostile takeover yet. "I should just get one in the living room." He had one in the kitchen, yes, but he drank all that red bull at 3am when either messing on his turntable or his computer... in the living room.
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:32 pm
Tallulah shuddered and forced a laugh. A red bull youma? Princess forbid! She could go the rest of her life without eating licorice, but she didn't think she could handle a traumatic experience involving energy drinks. Surely the cans wouldn't animate themselves now that he'd said that? It was rare to encounter a youma when you weren't already henshined up and-
Tallulah forced the train of thought to stop dead in its tracks, but kept a wary eye trained on the pile of cans just in case they decided to get up and move. "So you mentioned getting a job?" she asked. This was her first real chance to catch up with Xavier since the summer. They'd talked a few times online and on the phone, but things were always busy with the start of the school year. Life was easier come October.
She forced herself to look away from the empty cans. They weren't moving. They were not moving. End of story.
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:35 pm
"...You're okay ?" She was looking at these cans very, very oddly. A little too oddly, really.
"Yeah, Gamestop hired me. I can't remember if it was before half the town went coma-happy, or during." He frowned a bit in thought, and started to move toward the kitchen, away from the pile of cans that seemed to have Tallulah so worried.
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:56 pm
Tallulah blinked, her moment of senshi paranoia passed, and followed Xavier towards the kitchen. "Yeah," she assured him, shifting the cat to her other shoulder. "I'm fine."
To convince him just how fine she was, she spent a good minute investigating the stove - had that come out of the Avery house, too? "Did your dad redo the kitchen or something?" she asked. "It's like you took half your house with you when you moved out."
"Gamestop sounds perfect for you, though," she added with a smile while she scanned the crown moulding for a smoke detector. Surely he had one? This gas stove made her kind of nervous otherwise.
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:03 pm
"Yeah, he did, probably just as an excuse so I wouldn't need to buy all this crap. You know him." Xavier let out a chuckle, hands sliding in his pockets. His dad just wouldn't allow his son to fly truly solo... not at 18, anyway.
"Top left." He seemed to know exactly what Tallulah was looking for - predictably. "Yes, there are actually fresh batteries in it, and no, im not setting something on fire so you can be sure."
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:14 pm
"I taught you well!" exclaimed Tallulah, breaking into a grin. She shook her head hurriedly - "No, no, I trust you - have you figured out how to make anything besides ramen noodles and pizza lunchables yet?"
She didn't trust him that much. Tallulah set down the cat, who was starting to get a bit squirmy, and brushed some black fur off her uniform top. "If you're going to show me your bedroom," she said, "Don't use some cheesy line about magic happening there, because this isn't an episode of MTV Cribs."
Also it would just be kind of corny. "I'll lose all respect I have for you. But seriously."
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:23 pm
"Of course I did." He huffed. "I can make mac and cheese." Food of the gods indeed.
"Well, unless you count me sleeping as magic. If im not just falling asleep on the couch." And so he led her to his bedroom, which... wasn't any much different from the one he had at his dad's house, really. All the same things, just arranged differently. And no dirty magazine in sight.
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:30 pm
Tallulah greeted the bedroom with some genuine slow claps. "So," she said, taking in what was a rather familiar sight, "Basically you put your room from home on a truck, and reassembled it when you got here."
"Zay, you didn't move out," she laughed. "You forced your house to undergo mitosis."
Somewhere, doctor Perry Westerman was weeping manly biologist tears at her misuse of the word 'mitosis.' But Tallulah figured that as long as she knew what it actually meant (and could accurately diagram the four phases of it), she could use it for whatever slang she wanted.
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