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 Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:49 pm
It had been a while since Daniel had time to just sit down for a chat with who was probably his best friend, states-side. Hell, probably one of his best friends all around at this point, given that most of the people he had known in Germany had all but forgotten about him. With finals kicking into high gear for both of them, most of Daniel's time had been spent studying.
With his last final finally done, he had more room to breathe now - the only thing he had to do was his volunteer work at the library. He hadn't been asked to come around today, so it had been perfect.
For now, through, he was talking into his cellphone, his mother, from the sounds of it. Through, thankfully, he hung up just as he saw Chris come inside.
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:47 pm
It was definitely a relief to get some time to breathe after exams, and catching up with friends who had also been trapped due to finals was the only thing he wanted to do at this point in time. He was so done with projects and studying for the summer.
Chris grinned when he made his way into the building, noticing his friend as he hung up his cell phone. Not that it was all that difficult to see each other. They weren't exactly short, after all.
"Hey, sorry I'm late," he apologized once he was in talking distance. A couple minutes probably wasn't considered all that late to others, but Chris liked being early if he could help it. "Annabel was pitching a fit about staying in the apartment," he further explained. Daniel had met the young dog before and had definitely heard about how she liked being temperamental at times, but Chris hated using it as an excuse.
"Your mom?" he guessed, nodding to the phone.
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 5:25 pm
"It's fine, don't worry." Daniel wasn't upset in the least - really, with the impromtu call, it had worked out rather nicely. He would have hated to hang up on his mother, but he also would have hated to have ended up babbling in front of Chris in german.
"Ja, ja." He said with a smile. He'd know at least that much german, after all these years. Yes wasn't a hard word to remember. "She's touring this summer so im probably not going home till late august, if I go at all. So she just calls me whenever she gets the chance. You know her."
"Oh, that's fine. Maybe next time we should eat outside so you could bring her along ?" To say Daniel adored Annabel and would use any opportunity to dot on the Finnish Spitz would be an understatement.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 8:50 am
Ah, but babbling in German in front of friends was always fun, wasn't it? Just kidding. Chris knew very little German, unlike his father, and even less French, unlike his mother... Chris had taken Spanish in high school since he thought it would be cool to learn the language from the country he was born in. Not that a Naval base wasn't still considered part of the U.S., and he hadn't been there for more than a year, but still. Needless to say, Chris was fluent in English and that was all.
But yes, by this point he was at least able to pick up a little German here and there, and he grinned when Daniel confirmed that he'd been talking to his mother. "That sounds like fun. Anywhere in particular? Peter has been trying to get my parents to 'tour' Europe with him this summer, but I think they're pretty set on sending him to camp again," he said, rolling his eyes at the thought of his ten-year-old brat brother going on a trip to Europe.
"Of course! Just like my mom," he said with a laugh, and then small grimace as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it out he found that, sure enough, his mother had texted him. "Can't seem to get away from them, even in college," he said under his breath, sending a quick text back and shoving the phone into his pocket again.
"I'm sure she'd love that, so yeah, next time, definitely," Chris agreed, thinking his dog would probably very much enjoy the company. "Did you want to go up and get food?" he asked, nodding towards the cafeteria. Hey, they were still only freshmen, so it wasn't that strange for them to be eating at the cafeteria, right...?
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:33 am
"If she still manages to mommy me from another whole damn continent ? Yeah, I don't think there's much hope for you, Chris." Daniel laughed. It was a soft, nearly inaudible kind of laugh, through with his friend, he was much less withdrawn and shy than he usually was.
"She's in London now. Just finished with the concert for the night, and she was about to go to bed." Oh, time zones. Weren't they lovely ?
"Sure thing." He got up then, mindful of the messenger bag that rarely ever left his side.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 12:47 pm
Chris grimaced again, although it was half-joking and nothing serious. He knew they just happened to have mothers who tended to want to be more involved in their lives than others' mothers. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, really. He didn't mind, at least.
He followed his friend towards the line, picking up a tray to pass to Daniel before getting one for himself. "That's not the same bag from high school, is it?" Chris asked, nodding to the messenger bag in amusement. "The same one I pulled from the trash can before I met you?" he wondered with another little grimace on his face. "I hope you've washed it, at least." He was only joking, of course, and since four years had passed by since they'd met, he figured it was okay to look back on those incidents and laugh.
It had been the cell phone that had alerted Chris to the supposedly discarded bag in the trashcan down one of the halls of Azure High School. Classes had already let out that day, and if he hadn't been on his way to a club he'd signed up for, and had the halls not already been emptied, he probably wouldn't have noticed it. After almost falling in, himself, he'd managed to extract the bag and then answered the phone, only to try and explain to the woman speaking German that he didn't know what she was saying.
So really... he'd 'spoken' to his mother before he'd even met Daniel.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:51 pm
Daniel accepted the tray then stepped in line as well. At the mention of the bag, he couldn't help but laugh. "It is ! Look, not even a strain !"
Yes, it was much easier to look back and laugh, now. Back in the day, the whole accident had him in tears... Until a kind, brown haired boy came down the hall with the bag in tow.
Odd how the oddest things brought people together. Chris had then become the savior of Daniel being shoved in lockers everywhere - he was a bit of a black sheep in Azure, everyone knew it - until the magical day when he had grown too tall to fit in them anymore.
Thank you, genetics.
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:41 am
Christopher stood awkwardly in the empty hall, staring down at the phone in his hand, really hoping that he hadn't just hung up on the German lady. He didn't know German, so he wasn't sure if she was trying to say goodbye or something else. He held on to the messenger bag by its strap, lifting it up to carefully tuck the cell phone back in where he'd pulled it out, before looking up and down the hall for the owner.
Why would someone throw their bag away with their cell phone and... it looked like it had all their books in it, too.
Making sure no one was coming down the hall, Christopher squatted down where he was, balancing on the balls of his feet as he flipped open the front of the bag, pulling out the first notebook he found, trying to find a name or ID card or something that would help him find who it belonged to. Sure, he was planning on bringing it to the lost and found, but if he happened to see someone wandering around like they were looking for something, he would then be able to ask if they were looking for the bag he'd just turned in. It seemed like a good idea to him, at least!
"Daniel... S... Shh aa... fer?" he said out loud to himself, unsure of how to pronounce what he assumed as a German name... since he'd, you know, just finished trying to speak to a German woman. He was in the process of putting the notebook back into the bag when he heard it...
What it was, he wasn't entirely sure, but it sounded like crying...? A ghost, maybe? If ghosts existed...
Christopher almost lost his balance as he stood back up, trying to support numerous books in his bag he had on his back, the bright red of his backpack clashing with Azure's issued uniform. He made his way quietly down the hall, following the soft noises until he came to a locker with the bolt undone, but still preventing the clasp to open.
Pulling the bolt out of the way, he opened the locker, blinking in at the boy stuck inside. "Are you okay?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:49 pm
America, Daniel had decided, was a very strange place. No one had ever done anything so nasty to him back in Germany ! Sure, they called him names but... shoved in a locker ?!
And they even took his bag... That bag had his cellphone ! And his last story ! Oh, he needed to get that back ! Through, really, he needed to get out of here first.
Oh, how he wanted to go home now !
The bullies were long gone, but when the door of the locker suddenly opened on him, Daniel couldn't help but recoil as much as he could, dull gold eyes wide as if he'd been a deer in the headlights. Through, when he noticed this wasn't one of the boys that had shoved him in there, he seemed to calm down slightly.
"Ahhh... I think ?" The accent was to thick you could probably have cut through it with a knife. "T-They took my bag..."
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:34 am
Christopher blinked at the boy in the locker again, before glancing down at the strap of the bag he was holding onto, and then up at the boy.
"You're Daniel?" he asked, holding up the bag for him to see. "It was in a trash can down the hall. I was wondering why someone would throw a bag with books and a ph-- oh! I think I hung up on your girlfriend or your mom or someone," he suddenly remembered, wincing in preparation for the other boy to be mad at him.
Either way, he held out a hand to help him out... and then retracted it, wondering if Daniel would get mad for him thinking he'd need help... but then offered it again, figuring he would just step out of the way if the other boy didn't want or need help, and then, uh, at least he'd be out of the locker...?
"You must be that student from Germany everyone has been talking about," Christopher said, still watching the other with utmost curiosity. "I mean... aren't you? Or... maybe that was someone else, I don't know. They were just talking about how little he was and that he was strange, but, I mean, you're little, I guess. I'm kind of short, too, though, so I can't really compare to you being little. And I don't think you're strange. Your bag is cool," he rambled, not even realizing that he was talking to himself.
Oh!
"I'm Christopher, by the way. Since I already know your name..." Er... maybe he should shut up...
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:38 am
"Ja... Oh. I-Imeanyes." The poor boy seemed to embarrassed by what was perhaps the easiest mix up in the world.
Hung up on... Oh, my. "I heard it from here." Daniel accepted the offered hand and finally managed to get out of his locker-shaped prison. The freshman was indeed, tiny. Short, to be exact, with what seemed to be a constant wide-eyed look to match.
"I can call her back and explain... D-Don't worry." The english was just a little bit choppy, alongside the accent - it sounded like he knew a lot of english, but wasn't truly used to speak it.
That was when Chris started his run-on sentences, and Daniel head-tilted a bit, doing his best to follow along. He didn't seem upset about it - morel like amused.
"It's fine. I know im strange." He just smiled. "Thank you, Christopher. I was starting to think I was gonna be in there until the janitor came back tommorow..."
And the simple thought of that seemed to scare him.
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:39 am
Wow, Daniel really was tiny... Smaller than even himself! He wasn't horribly short, but compared to the other guys there, Christopher was kind of scrawny.
Golden eyes blinked at the other boy, holding the bag out for Daniel to take, before frowning rather seriously. "Do you remember that the guys looked like? The ones who did that?" he asked, not wanting any jerks from getting away with what they did. What did they think this place was?? Hillworth?? One would think the people at Azure Valley would be above bullying!
Christopher shook his head. "I don't think you're strange," he reassured him. "I mean, we only just met, so I don't really know you all that well, but you seem like a normal person to me. You're not from here so it's not your fault if there's cultural differences or things like that. My dad travels a lot and if it's during the summer I get to go with him, so I know it can be strange in a new place.
"How long have you been here? Not in the locker, I mean, but in the States? Are you a freshman?" he accidentally started rambling again. He didn't usually catch himself when he did that unless someone told him, and even then, he had trouble realizing how much was too much.
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:51 am
"They were big and tall and... They kept telling me to stop talking funny." Not much help there. It wasn't like he could stop having an accent ! Daniel took back his bag with a nod of the head in thanks. It was going to need a good cleaning, but that couldn't be helped now.
"Just a month ago." He said. "Im... first year ?" He didn't quite know what freshman meant, yet. "I-I should go call my mother... She's probably worried." He gave another of those shy smiles.
"I'll... see you tomorrow ? Maybe ?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:17 pm
"You were so awkward back then," Chris pointed out, trying to hold back his amusement as they reminisced over old times. "Not that I was much better," he conceded with a small shrug, poking at the french fries he'd bought from the line and was now sitting across the table from Daniel. He hoped it was obvious that he was joking, since... he didn't think either of them were more awkward than the other... and they'd luckily shot up several inches around the same time. That was a blessing.
In the days that had followed, Chris almost had himself shoved in a locker for trying to confront the guys who's done so to Daniel. The only reason he hadn't been was because he fought back... In the end, that probably wasn't the best decision since Daniel only ended up in lockers more and more, as if to spite the both of them.
"I haven't seen your dorm yet," Chris said, abandoning the fries for the bowl of fruit he'd purchased as well, stabbing a strawberry with his fork. "Or do you live in an apartment...? I can't remember. Jeez, it's already the end of the school year and we really haven't been to each other's places?? Well, part of that is my fault. Zia only recently saw my apartment," he rambled, sometimes forgetting to break up his sentences around people with whom he felt comfortable.
With his mention of his childhood friend and long time neighbor, Chris frowned, leaning in so only Daniel could hear him. "You haven't noticed anything weird going on with the city, have you...? More so than usual, I mean."
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:37 pm
"I was !" Not that he still wasn't, though there had been a small improvement. And well, Chris had been upgraded to 'not scary' status a long time ago.
He still was pretty shy, through.
"Yeah, im in an apartment. Father wanted me to learn to take care of myself." He let out a chuckle. As if he hadn't had that down pat already. He was poking at his salad as he spoke. "You just give me a call whenever, ja ? I live alone, so..."
Unfortunately for Daniel, the next question came when he was drinking. And so he choked on his juice.
"When is this place not weird, really. Through, I can tell you something." He let down his drink. "T-The monsters. They're real, Chris. One of them jumped me. Then some other guy in armor with a shield came by and killed it with another guy in a white trench." He gluped. "It was scary as s**t. This place isn't safe. You promise me to be careful, okay ?"
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