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 Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:46 pm
<< Whelp, your required sustenance annoys me greatly. >>
< Your constant squawking annoys me greatly. >
<< Don't you talk back to me, whelp. I'll end you. >>
A roll of the eyes and a shrug, and Lex quickly made his way to the cafeteria for an apple. He'd been doing more training, and Regal was still saying stupid things like 'don't grip me so tight' or 'wipe you hands before holding me.' It was highly annoying, and Lex honestly just needed a break from all the yelling inside his head.
Unfortunately, Regal was never pleased. There was more squawking and feather rustling in his mind space, but Lex paid it no mind. The bird was being an idiot, and he'd let him be an idiot.
<< GRYPOHN, WHELP. >>
The tall man snorted as he finally got into the kitchen, and began looking for fruit. Where was it...?
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:57 pm
Sure he was now free from the hold the strange rose had on him, but that also meant his head was clear. That meant he could recall everything he'd said and done while under its influence. Otto wanted to die. Wanted to hide away under his blankets and never come out. However, he had duties to attend to. Duties he didn't intend on neglecting just because he was emabressed.
As far as he knew, not many people had seen him that way, save for Ami (who'd also been under its influence), Allan (who was just weird as a default), and whoever recognized him as a golem.
Maybe he'd be okay.
So there he was, cleaning the kitchen (LIKE A REAL MAN, REP) and trying to make short work of it. Currently he was head first in an oven trying to scrape off weeks of caked on mess from Lord knows what.
He seemed to be muttering about airplanes and spoons for some reason when Lex came in.
Crap... a person.... maybe if he stayed in the oven, he'd be invisible?
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:07 pm
"...you need some help, buddy?" Lex had found the apples, and was currently crunching down on one, which sent Regal into a fit about how loud the whelp was when eating an apple. Lex, for the second time that day, ignored the ranting Gryphon.
The life trainee was squatting now, trying to see who was in the oven and why. It was a male, as far as Lex could discern. Unless...well, unless it was a girl with an unfortunate taste in fashion and a terribly flat butt. He would feel pretty bad if that were the situation.
Crunch.
"You know ovens usually have a self clean setting, right?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:13 pm
Whoa... that was a voice. And a crunch. No... no the voice was his imagination and the crunch? That was just the spatula he was using to scrape off crusted grime, right? Right.
But then the voice was closer and it spooked Otto enough to yelp and hit his head against the top of the oven.
The teen groaned and crawled backward enough to get out of the oven, spatula long since dropped and a free hand rubbing the back of his blonde head. Looking up just enough to catch who was talking, he found it was a trainee. Someone new. Someone knew meant someone who hadn't seen him act like a mini-Allan.
Safe.
"I did but it didn't get the gross stuff off..." Otto muttered with an icy glare.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:27 pm
Oh, that looked like it hurt. "Oh, understandable. Should I go get a bandaid for your head? Ice pack? That looked pretty awful."
Lex gave the person a quick scan. Blonde, teenager, grumpy. An ice cold glare, probably a self defense mechanism from being bullied as a child. He'd seen it in the Vegas clubs all the time. Some scrawny little kid freshly turned 21 would come in with a glare like that, try to hit on all the women, and end up drunk and with a five hundred dollar hooker. Lex would always laugh about it later, after giving him a condom on the way out.
Because there was no such thing as a clean Vegas hooker.
"What's your name, bud? I'm Alexei, but call me Lex if you don't mind." A proffered hand and charming smile.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:37 pm
"M'fine." Otto grumbled, rubbing his head despite saying so. It hurt, but he doubted it needed anything more than a few minutes to stop hurting.
Otto's gaze fell to the offered hand, and back up to the face of the person extending it. His eyes narrowed some more. "That sounds like a chic's name." Otto muttered, before relenting and shaking his hand anyway. "Otto."
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:45 pm
<< BWAHAHA! WHELP THESE KIDS ARE TEARING YOU UP! >>
Lex's jaw clenched at the gryphon in his head, and the insult to his name. But no, he kept smiling, and shook Otto's hand firmly. "Yeah, it can sound girly. It's meaning is completely manly, though." He smiled and stood up out of his crouch, readjusting his scarf and coat. "Man's defender." He tried not to sound completely cocky while saying it, but probably failed just a little. "Pretty fitting for people in our position, right?"
He smiled again, and went to the freezer to grab a bag of frozen peas. Tossing them Otto's way, Lex went a little fatherly. "You really should ice that, goose eggs are the worst."
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:59 pm
Otto shook his hand firmly back, also pushing himself to stand. A little shaky at first from being bent in an oven for a while. "Ya'sound like you're graspin' at straws, dude." Otto replied, rubbing the forming bump on his head.
Otto caught the bag of peas with his free hand, giving Lex an incredulous stare.
"Fine.. whatever. Thanks." Otto mumbled and held the cold bag to his head. "New?" He asked as he eyed the other hunter's coat. Sure there were many full hunters out there he had never seen, but trainees tended to see each other often enough to gage who was new.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:07 pm
<< Whelp, he really does have you pegged. I like him as much as that short woman who pinned you to the ground. >>
< Go to hell. >
<< That's for Demons, idiot. >>
Lex ignored the comment about grasping at straws. Yes, Alexei was a girly name. Why else would he rather have people call him Lex? Because it sounded cool? Well, that was actually part of the reason.
"Yeah, can you tell?" A light hearted laugh, and a shake of the head. "Woke up about a week ago." He looked at Otto's coat, seeing it was bordered differently. "Oh...you're a rank above me, aren't you?"
He really disliked calling teenagers "sir."
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:21 pm
Woah, so he was pretty damn new. The other newbie he'd met recently had been Melvin. That guy had been so easy to piss off it was almost sad. Sad and hilarious.
"Yeah, but other than some fancy embroidery and more experience there aint much that separates trainees from intermediates." Otto answered with a bored expression. "We're all pretty much bait in missions."
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:38 pm
"Yeah...that's what Marcus and Gale told me. Mission bait." Lex cast a look off to the side, inwardly sighing. So much for saving the world, it seemed. Just duties and training and shooting the breeze.
Another crunch of his apple.
"What made you sign up for this, Otto?" Lex's tone was more serious than it had been, but still held a bit of mirth, while his eyes narrowed in introspection. It was a random question, yes, but one that could reveal a bit about the teenager he was conversing with. It was good to have connections.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:45 pm
No one ever really asked him that, so when Lex did, Otto was at a loss for a moment. It had been over a year since he'd left home, and almost a year since he'd first woken up here. So much time had passed he'd nearly forgotten why he was here at all.
"Oh.. uh.." Otto continued to hold the bag of frozen peas to his head, his gaze falling as he tried to remember. Sharing wasn't something he really cared to do, but the fact he'd been stumped made him want to remember for remembering's sake.
"Just didn't wanna be scared to go to bed anymore, y'know? Thought doing something about it might help.." He said in a passive manner, shifting in place uncomfortably. "Ain't it the same for everyone?" He was pretty sure that was the bigger reason he'd left. Many little details helped, but were juvenile in comparison. He'd been 16 when he left home. Teenager problems always seemed bigger at the time then later on.
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:58 pm
"Yeah, I know the feeling..." Lex sighed, remembering his days as a small child. There'd always been this dread of walking down the hallway to his bedroom, a sense of something following him. He'd never been an easy sleeper since the first time he felt something touch him when he ran down the halls.
But he'd gotten past that eventually. "I joined because I saw too many of...them. They loved the clubs, the casinos. I was tired of them, tired of their antics, you know? It was just too much to take." A sigh, and Lex craned his head upward. "I was tired of seeing them mess with my fellow human beings like that." Another sigh, and Lex closed his eyes.
"I don't think He likes it much either."
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Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 8:56 pm
While circumstances were different, everyone there had similar problems. At least similar in their source. It's what made Deus more comfortable for Otto than back home was. People here understood. They all knew. For the most part, anyway. And even if he was just bait most of the time, at least he was doing something. "He?" Otto asked, taking a step back so he could lean against a counter.
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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:21 pm
A lump caught in Lex's throat at Otto's question, a result of the tall man realizing what he had said. Not everyone believed - growing up in Vegas taught him that - and sometimes saying the wrong thing to the wrong person meant you were in for a wrong night.
But he was going to try to play it off.
"The Big Man Upstairs." Lex sighed, before taking another large bite of the apple. "If talking about religion freaks you out, I won't bring it up again."
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