Welcome to Gaia! ::

It seemed like the job of keeping the dorms clean never really ended. This really shouldn't have been surprising, but given how little they had now, and how everyone was responsible for keeping this place clean, Liam had to wonder how it got so dirty in the first place. Seemed to him that this job would be a lot less involved everyone else put in the effort to just pick up after themselves.

This was, perhaps, Liam's least favorite task.

He was crouched beside his bucket of cleaning supplies, going through the contents to make sure he had everything he was going to be need, while he waited for whoever his partner in crime was going to be for the this.

His hair was still pulled back, but at some point over the course of the last few hours he'd lost the hoody that was clearly two sizes too big for him.

There was a certain quality to that throat clear that was altogether too familiar not to recognize. Liam froze for a second, apparently startled by Austin's unexpected presence, but then went back to checking his supplies without looking up. There was a pair of gloves(important), a scrub brush, a sponge that looked like it had seen better days, and a half empty bottle of what looked like watered down dish soap.

"Isn't that something we're all looking forward to?" Now he looked up, balance shifting onto the balls of his feet as he rested an arm across one thigh. "Pretty sure these aren't idle living conditions for anyone."

It was hard to tell if Liam had simply missed the implied meaning of Austin's comment, or was simply deciding not to answer to it.

"Are you my partner for this?" Twice in one day, after a month of being stuck here together. What were the odds? Of course, now that he'd fallen onto Austin's radar again, Liam suspected he would probably being seeing more of the older boy.

Liam stood as Austin came over to poke in the bucket of supplies, taking a small step back, then taking it back after realizing what he'd just done, cheeks darkening just a touch. He didn't want to give Austin any sort of power over him, not again, but the taller boy was notoriously good at reading him and pushing all the right buttons to elicit the responses he wanted. Trying to simply leave never seemed to do him much good, nor did sticking around. Silence was just as damning as responding to his baiting. There was just no winning.

Resigned to failure, then. "Sure. I'm practically running for the doors as we speak." It was thick with sarcasm, and only now did Liam actually move away enough to give the room a proper once over.

It was incredibly dusty in here. "Can you hand me one of those rags?"

Liam did a fullbody cringe when the damp rag hit him in the back of the neck and curled around his scalp and shoulders. Hurriedly yanking it off, then turned and threw it right back at Austin, only to have it miss entirely and land in another bucket of question fluid. Welp... He was a soccer player, not a baseball player.

"Damnit." Did they even have anymore rags?

With a huff he went back to the bucket to check.

You'd think Liam would be used to deal with Austin by now, but he was woefully out of practice. To be fair, though, he'd never been all that good at dealing with the other boy. Maybe he'd just gotten used to him?

Or maybe he'd just given in to the inevitable.

Yeah, that sounded more accurate.

Grabbing another rag, Liam headed over to start to work on the dusting. He wasn't good at it, never had been, but he did put forth a certain amount of earnest effort, even if he did leave rather notable streaks across the surfaces of the shelves.

Although this time it might not have been his poor cleaning skills that were to blame for the less than stellar dust job. The room was more or less enclosed, and mid way through the process the small space began to fill up with the overpoweringly strong smell of bleach. At first he'd ignored it. Then, when it'd gotten too strong, he'd tried pulling the collar of his shirt up over his nose and mouth, but that didn't really seem to do as good a job as the media portrayed.

By the time he was finished his head was spinning, and when he turned to discard the rag back with the rest of the supplies the room started to tilt to one side, making Liam snap an arm out to grab hastily for something to hold onto, only to drag one of the shelves he'd been dusting right off the wall.

Thankfully it had been an empty one. Unfortunately the edge of it smacked him across the bridge of the nose.

It was a little jarring when Liam didn't hit the floor, but it came with relief as well, because that would have hurt, and his nose was already aching. Not that he could really focus on that with his head swimming like it was.

It took him a moment to register what had happened. Austin's arm around his waist, face hovering over him. When he did he didn't seem especially happy about it, but nor did he try to pull free either. "No." Sullen. "Just need to get out of this room." It started to spin again, and he closed his eyes to let it pass. "Why'd you use so much?"

Hard to argue with that logic, even if Liam was petty sure Austin hadn't done it for that reason. Still, the fumes weren't getting any thinner. "Maybe if you'd opened a window." He still sounded sullen, and he still hadn't moved. The combination of bleach and the shelf to the nose was giving him a headache.

With a wince he tried to stand on is own, but he couldn't get the balance of it. Sagging again, he turned dark blues up to Austin's face. "If you're done bleaching the floor, can we just get the hell out of here?" He wasn't directly asking for help, but that was the gist of it.