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 Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:18 pm
It was the first day of winter break from Sovereign Heights. It was also a Thursday, which meant that Marcella did not have to go in to the hospital for work. Of course, she was still awake at 8:30am, dressed and out of the shower by 9:30. She sat down for a breakfast of eggs and toast, and abruptly realized she had nothing to do.
The previous week had ensured that she was busy nonstop, between her classes and her job, but now, rather suddenly, all that had evaporated.
Marcella realized she was not sure what she wanted to do with herself.
Senshi obligations were always an option, of course. She had samples and things back at the hideout, but such was her frustration with all of what she hoped was research that Marcella was not sure she wanted to even look at the damn glowing bits of mushroom or the damn flasks they were sitting in. She could patrol and maybe fight a youma, but somehow going out in uniform during the day felt awkward to her.
Alternatively, she could clean her room, but it was already really pretty clean anyway. Her desk was scattered with books, but other than that, there was perhaps one or two articles of clothing out of place, nothing more. She had her movies, but there were so many choices and she just had so much time today that the girl had no idea what she wanted to watch.
As she chewed her toast, her sister came down, and Marcella abruptly decided that getting out of the house was the best idea. To avoid conversation with Julia, she opened up her cell phone and very intently stared at her (fairly short) list of contacts. Going out with Morgan or Evie would likely mean shopping, and Marcella was not sure how close she wanted to get to a mall at this point. And she realized she had no idea if Darryl was still in school or she was on break yet.
There were a few others she did not feel she knew well enough to call up out of the blue, until she came to Nathan's name.
... It could be more like babysitting than hanging out, or it could be fun. As long as he did not want to go run off and do senshi things. Or insist on watching horror movies or something.
Julia took a call on her own phone, and, as Marcella listened to her own ring, she stepped out of the kitchen to get away from her. And pondered her list of conditionals for spending time with Nathan. Nothing illegal, nothing stupid, nothing dangerous, no shopping, no youma hunting, no--
"Hello? Nate? It's Marcella."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:44 pm
Nathan Darrow did not do mornings. They were not his 'thing'. Waking up earlier than noon on most days was absolutely ridiculous in his eyes, and he could hardly see the point. What good was there in waking up early? It wasn't like the world woke up early, as well. Shops didn't open any sooner. People didn't start coming out until midday.
No, no one sane liked mornings.
When his phone rang he grunted and ignored the hell out of it, but it insisted and he had to do something about it before it shut up. He reached for it, fumbled, dropped it on the floor, swore, decided to leave it there, waited another ring before finally reaching down and grabbing it.
He held it to his ear, and it rang right into his eardrum, making him shudder and swear again before he hit the accept button and grunted something inarticulate from under his pillow.
It might have been 'hello', 'what' or something far more crude.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:02 pm
... Yeah, this had been a bad idea. Marcella sighed.
"Sorry, did I wake you up? I was just wondering if you wanted to get together or something today." Maybe she would have to offer to make it up somehow, for getting him up so early. She winced a little and offered, "We could play video games or something if you want."
He would have to start by showing her how to hold the controller, most likely.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 4:32 pm
"No, I always wake up earlier than the sun," Nate grumbled into the phone, shaking his head. He pulled the pillow from over his head, though, so he might actually be heard. Sitting up, he found he was facing the wrong way in his bed and wondered vaguely,a nd without much interest, how that had happened.
He grunted.
It took him a moment to realize that it was Marcella talking to him, and he relaxed a little. It was alright for her to bother him this early, maybe. But only for a good reason.
Hearing he was awake, Dogby padded over and began to lightly scratch at the door, whining in her high pitched way for attention.
He ignored her.
"Yeah, that sounds good. You bored or something? Haven't you heard of sleeping?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:27 pm
Marcella glanced out the window, opening her mouth to retort, then settled instead for, "Yeah, I've heard of sleeping. I'm just done for today." Then, a bit more grudgingly, "Sorry I called so early. I guess I'm just used to everyone being up for morning classes."
Another deep breath and relaxing sigh. "And yeah, kind of bored. I don't have work till tomorrow, and none of my teachers really assigned anything over break. If you're not up for hanging out, that's fine." Did she really feel this awkward on the phone? "Otherwise, I guess I could pick up some bagels or donuts or something from Bread Basket, too?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:24 pm
"Those people who are dumb enough to willingly go to school," he countered, grunting. Not a morning person. At all. Ever.
He was sitting up though, and he was able to get his bleary eyes to focus on things around his messy room. It was light enough, even with his windows tightly shut and blinds drawn, for him to know he was not going to get back to sleep even if he tried.
Once he was awake, he was awake. which was why he often tried very hard to stay asleep as long as possible. Opening his eyes was the worst mistake he could have made.
Alas, his morning was gone.
"Alright, but you better bring something good. Where do you want to meet up? My house, good answer. Come over with food." He felt he could make demands since she had woken him up. But he probably would have made the same demands even if he had called her.
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Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 8:19 pm
Marcella sighed and decided to ignore his comment about her going to school. If he ever needed her to patch him up or something, he would change his mind; she was confident of that. Besides, she was clearly not sure what to do with herself outside of school, as evidenced by her present dilemma. Unless the brown-haired girl just ended up working more at the hospital instead, in lieu of classes....
"Alright, that's fine," she replied calmly. "I hope you like raisins. Will forty minutes be enough time for you to wake up?"
Either way, it took Marcella a bit longer to get there; apparently everyone decided to go to the Bread Basket at the same time, and it took more time than she had hoped to get a dozen bagels, two kinds of cream cheese, and a box of coffee.
She set the box down and held onto the bag of bagels as she rang the bell at the Darrow household. Hopefully she had enough food. And Nate was ready for her.
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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:47 am
It wasn't enough time. But then, Nate never tried too hard to be on time.
Raisins?
Like any teenager with the mentality of a petulant six year old, he certainly did not like raisins. On the sole reason that they were, in fact, raisins. What other reason did he need? Of course, when he ate them in cereal or cookies or something he never complained, and didn't waste his time picking them out. Mostly because he rarely noticed. He didn't actually dislike them if he didn't notice them.
It was just a matter of pointing something out to him, and giving him the opportunity to complain about it.
Nate moved to open the door when it rang, though he wasn't sure how much time had passed. He might have fallen into a dozing nap-like state while sitting up, though he hadn't stayed that way. He ended face down in a pillow, either way, though he couldn't sleep no matter how hard he tried. He dragged himself to the door eventually. His hair was a mess and he was still in his pajamas. Which were just boxers.
Pulling the door open, he was walking away from it even before it had fully opened, moving into the kitchen. A small kitten mewed and trotted very slowly toward the door. It was timid, and didn't seem to want to go outside, but it wanted to take a look despite its every instinct telling it to go and hide under the sofa. Maybe it smelled the bagels.
"Come in," Nate said, though he imagined the invitation of an open door was more than enough. "You got food?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:18 am
Marcella waited patiently for the door, and started inside when invited-- and stopped halfway in, looking away as she saw Nate in his boxers and not much else.
"I've got food if you're ready for breakfast," she replied, moving to the nearest table and setting the box of coffee down. Though she was more surprised than genuinely embarrassed, she tried not to let on that there was a difference, and continued to pointedly look away from Nate. "Do you need me to leave to get more, to give you some time to put some pants on?"
Marcella also did not think Nate was bad-looking, but admitting that with even so much as a lingering eye was out of the question. "I hope I'm not overdressed."
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:06 am
Nate watched her, noting that she didn't seem comfortable. He was not really sure what to do with this information: it was not a part of his nature to go and do something to make someone feel better when around him, when he was just doing what he always did. He was one of those 'well, why should I change just for you' kind of guys.
Or so he liked to consider himself.
"If you feel over dressed you can always just take something off," Nate teased, though at least her words alerted him to what was bothering her specifically. He had a choice now, to be nice and go get changed or to continuing being a jerk and sticking to his 'no change' guns. Quite literally, here, considering he needed to go get changed into proper clothing.
He was fully prepared to remain in his boxers, but it was a bit cold and he actually wanted her to stick around.
"Hold on," he said, wandering off and pulling on some clothes from the mess that was his wardrobe in his room. He returned a short time later, looking more like himself. Or, at least the himself that wore clothes. His hair was still a mess, but he sat down heavily in the kitchen to investigate her offerings.
"You can look at me now, it's safe for your dainty eyes," he grinned at her teasingly.
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 4:02 pm
Marcella had heard tales from people she knew who stayed in dorms of guys randomly walking out of their rooms or the bathroom in boxers or less without an apparent second thought, but she had not yet encountered the phenomenon herself. Calm and collected, she could do, but she knew that did not work on Nate, and she was not sure how to deal with half-naked guys anyway.
Fortunately, he volunteered to put on pants, and, once dressed, Marcella was content to pretend the situation had never happened.
"Good, you're back," she replied. "I don't want to eat all these bagels myself." The brown-haired girl slid the bag of bagels across the table to Nate. Then, to make conversation, she asked, "What video games do you have that don't contain zombies?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:40 pm
Nate looked very thoughtful for a long moment before voraciously attacking a bagel. He chewed and half way through he was done with that task, quite far from swallowing at least, he began to speak.
"They make games that don't have zombies in?"
He finished half the bagel before he hopped off to the sofa and then over it to dig through his games. He had a few to pick through and he was sure they would find something that wouldn't give her nightmares for a week after.
As long as they didn't go to space and find something oddly similar to the game they played, of course.
"You any good in cars?" He held up a Saint's Row game. He hated driving around, and imagined she would be his driver if they played. He was ready to waste the day, out of the goodness of his heart, for her benefit. She could dig through his games too, of course, and see if there was anything she wanted to play.
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:00 pm
Marcella finished her own bagel with a bit more delicacy, and made use of one of the tiny paper napkins in the bag to wipe a bit of cream cheese from the corner of her mouth. Then Nate picked out a game and she walked over to see what he had.
"Cars?" she repeated, eying the box. "Like driving them or shooting them? I like to think I'm pretty good at driving, but then I'm used to a steering wheel and pedals, not a video game control thing."
She figured she was both passing time and keeping her friend out of trouble, so Marcella considered this a service, as well. Crouching beside Nate, she glanced over the game titles, most of which she had at least heard of, but they meant little to her. Then she shrugged. "If you don't mind me being bad at it, I can try that one," the brown-haired girl told him, pointing to the box he had picked out first.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:31 pm
"Shooting from them while driving them," he said, grinning as she came over to play with him.
He was always glad to have her over, as he did not get to play video games with other people very often. Online usually sucked, as he was not really a fan of being yelled at by fourteen year olds. And he was one of those guys that made life very hard for other gamers.
Camping was a way of life.
He put the game in and turned it on, handing her a controller and settling in. it was very easy to get wrapped up in the game, and to lose hours playing it. Not that he cared: he had no where else to be, and she had come over to waste time, hadn't she?
All in all, he felt it was a mission accomplished.
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:43 pm
"Shooting while driving?" she repeated. "How many hands does that take? In real life it takes at least three. Is the game any easier?" She chewed her lip for a second, then asked, "Or is it a cooperative thing?"
Marcella settled in beside him, neatly crossing her legs, and reached for the closest controller.
"Just tell me what buttons to press and when, and I'll try not to let us die."
And in that moment, Marcella realized that she had never really experienced games of life or death. She was a senshi, and she worked in a hospital, where everything was very real ... but video games gave multiple chances, as many as you needed.
Either way, she was not about to late Nate down. He would tease the hell out of her.
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