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 Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 6:23 am
The ad seemed innocuous enough.
Murmurs of the Craigslist killer buffeted about his thoughts as Alois left for the agreed-upon location. Darlene’s was the chosen location - a bar that Alois hadn’t yet gotten to visit - for its friendly atmosphere and promises of both good food and good booze. They were both of drinking age, so it sounded ideal enough.
In truth, Alois knew very, very little about this man. His name was offered in the initial correspondence, one Alexander Thorne, and little else. Perhaps this potential roommate disliked the thought of sharing information over the internet. Maybe he simply felt uncomfortable with written communication. And, of course, there was always that off-beat chance that he could be a serial killer waiting to murder Alois. Not that he’d mind, he figured - life was not so pleasant that he couldn’t part with it. So he continued his walk down to Darlene’s in the cool of the evening, absent his dog, accompanied by his idle entertainments of well-played murder.
When he found the location, he thought the bar looked like a dive on the outside with its ancient brick and mortar construction. The building itself was certainly old. Being of Saarland, however, he’d seen worse in his years and simply pushed past the doors to be greeted by a vastly different interior - his surroundings spoke of consistent care, of money well-spent and workers enjoying their jobs. It spoke of strangers having a good dinner with good drinks and good conversation. By Alois’ guess, Darlene’s was one of the town’s best-kept secrets for the number of patrons that eve and the atmosphere alone.
Alois did not immediately spot anyone sitting by their lonesome at a booth, however. Was he the first to arrive?elkbones hope this is ok! wasn't sure if this location was ok to use or not so i can definitely change it up if it's not!
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:10 pm
In the crazy s**t hell hole that had been the past few weeks, Thorne had all but forgotten he'd even had an ad out for a potential roommate. It had been a spur of the moment thing, less because money was an issue and more because he hadn't been interested in being alone before - well, everything Ashdown had thrown at him. It had fallen with a lot of things into a blank space in his head until he'd woken up one day with someone interested. Weird. But it wasn't like he was going anywhere soon, and why not split the cost of living? The apartment was big enough for two comfortably. And anyways, if he eventually worked up the courage to go home to his brother and say hello, he'd need someone to feed the cat and play with her as much as she demanded. Also the guy had a dog. Stepping into Darlene's, Thorne scanned the milling crowd. The bar wasn't somewhere he necessarily frequented, but he'd been here enough to know the layout of the place. There were only a few people alone, and none of them necessarily that matched the description except for a guy that hadn't chosen a seat yet. Sidestepping a waitress that flashed a smile at him, Thorne moved towards the other, appearing at his shoulder with the languid, predatory grace that came with a certain frequenting of clubs and midnight bars. "Alois, yeah?" He asked, his voice low and rolling. "Sorry I'm late. Let me buy you a drink to make up for it." Hetzerei its perfect!! sorry for this trash bag son
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 11:44 am
Alois laced fingers before his mouth in a knotted lattice of bone for a time, and he studied his surroundings in the bar. People milled about in an ever chruning stew of socialization and failed flirting attempts. A sports show was on the tv - football, at a glance (and not the American kind). The bartender kept busy constantly. One of the waitresses preferred to buzz around the corner of the place rather than take orders at a variety of tables. She preferred chatting up a man with a baseball cap sporting the cardinals logo. He wondered if they knew each other.
Then, an unassuming man loomed into his sight, and he looked up to the phrase of ‚let me buy you a drink‘. He did not object. „I would be a fool to turn that down. I’ll have a Fat Tire.“ It was a safe bet, he found, in America’s sometimes-unimpressive beer market. His favorites of German make often failed to breech borders.
„You must be Thorne. Sit.“ He broke his knuckles away from one another to gesture across from himself. The booth was empty, save for the usual stray straw wrappers that the bus boys missed on their first passes.
„I would’ve brought my dog for introduction, but bars usually have a policy against animals. It’s too bad. He rather likes beer.“ His hands fell to the table, forearms crossing one behind the other as he pulled himself up in his seat. Alois housed very little muscle by the look of him - he was all but an anatomical model from ostensible malnourishment. Still, keen eyes glanced over his pospective roommate. „So. Plants and a cat. There’s already a small conflict there - Schatzie likes to chase cats. He can get past it with time, but.“ Alois clicked his tongue. If there was more to the sentence, it was said without words.
„What else is there to you?“
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 12:49 pm
Thorne shrugged, ordering his own drink and Alois's before accepting the offered seat. He didn't know much about the other man but his quickest conclusion was: definitely not what he'd expected. Alois looked a lot like his quest in life was either to set something on fire for science or watch the world burn. It made Thorne feel uncertain. On edge. And curious. Perhaps a little too much. "Sounds like an interesting dog," Thorne retorted, his voice low and raw with amusement. He settled back in his seat, at ease, the heat of the oncoming summer apparent in the tank top and the tattoos on display, the very apparent scars that came with them. "And that's alright. My cat likes to chase dogs." His grin was slow and wild. "She'll live." His expression turned at the question, and he tilted his head at Alois. It was a searching, hungry look that spoke about something primal and cunning inside of him. Not quite wolfish. But more like the wicked edge of a fox's smile. He crossed his arms loosely, tattoos flashing thorns and birds and broken things. "I am an ex-military captain living in an apartment next to my ex-boyfriend." He shrugged one shoulder. "Honestly, I might find a new place and buy it to save my own sanity and find some space, and in that event, you are welcome to the spoils of it all the same. I don't mind being alone, but I wouldn't mind a roommate." Thorne paused, tilting his head to the side. "What exactly is it that you want to know?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:52 pm
What’s the look for? Alois held his gaze curiously. He acts predatory. Dominance challenge then? This isn’t a pissing contest.
Attention fell to tattoos spanning arms while the other man spoke. Much information was gleaned from his reply, though more came of his body language and inflections. Confidence boiled in him, writhing to escape through dress and gesture both. He demanded something of his potential roommates too, yet Alois had not yet decided if that demand was for a submissive role in the household or something else entirely. He erred toward the former due to the fact of being an ex-captain in the military, thereby holding charge over others before. And, evidently, he was privy to emotionally-driven decisions without consideration for the fallout. An interesting quality to have in a captain, he decided. Not all promotions were necessarily done by virtue and viability in the role.
„Ah, I see. The ex-boyfriend problem. I’m curious, did that become a thing before or after you moved there? I imagine after.“ Otherwise, why not move in with the significant other and save half the cost of rent.
It brought another point to mind, however, that left Alois regarding him with more chill to his natural reservation. He’s sizing me up to ******** me, isn’t he.
In a moment, he broke from his internal evaluations to come more fully into the conversation. „I want to know what your habits are. If you like leaving your underwear on the toilet seat and forget to pick it up after you shower, or if tend to come home at three in the morning piss-drunk and holding onto the carpet to stay on the earth. I want to know if you can pay the rent on time, whether you’ve forgotten to pay the utilities before, and if you have friends over constantly. I want to know if you smoke, if you get drunk often, if you have a history of violence. Living situation things. Oh, and if your ex-boyfriend likes to come over in his tidy whities and raid your fridge.
„As for me,“ he paused and shifted in his seat, „I’m a German transplant who practices taxidermy for a living. I have no family here, and no ex-girlfriends to drive my life into madness. I don’t have friends here either. I keep to myself. Oh, and I’m trying to stop smoking, so if I relapse it’s best not to complain about it. I’m sure you don’t want to find cigarette buts in your plant pots.“elkbones both of them are trash bag sons
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 3:08 pm
Thorne shrugged. There was a vulpine movement to his actions now. He wasn't necessarily sizing up Alois, but he did want to know where the other came from, and what he was like beyond shallow words if there was any chance at an agreement to room together. Thorne could be a solitary creature if he chose it. This was an adventure. A step in a different direction. His mouth curled, and he spoke slowly, as though tasting the words for poison before putting them out in the open. "After, unfortunately." Thorne's smile was calm for someone talking about a recent breakup. "I'm not made for relationships, I guess, but I don't mind." He shrugged and the gesture was enough to emphasize that it wasn't something he felt a need to wallow in. He gave another half-shrug at the demand, the smile on his face more familiar and warm, less vulpine now that it was back into a territory of normalcy. "I have insomnia some nights, but if I drink I do it in the house. I run an irregular schedule as a freelance artist. Sleep is nice but it's something I don't always take the way I should. I'm a damn fine cook if it comes down to starving or surviving, and I'm clean in the sense that you won't find my s**t all over. But I do live in a perpetual state of - ah - surrounding myself with books. Art. Whatever I need." He made a hand gesture mildly. "You won't have to worry about rent. I cover it on time, along with utilities. I have a few strays that come around once in awhile and at just as irregular hours as I tend to work, but sometimes I'll be the one going to them." Thorne tilted his head at Alois. "I'm not a smoker, I'm not a drunk. The most interesting thing you'll catch me doing is baking at 3AM because I can't think of anything else to do and sleep isn't an option." His smile then was slow and sure. "And don't worry. The ex-problem won't be a problem. I think he's made it a decision on his own part that we'll be safer without further contact with one another." And he was a ******** werewolf. Thorne laughed. A taxidermist? Just what was he getting himself into? "German, huh? Don't worry. I can live with a little smoke. Like I said, I'm looking into a new place, not an apartment exactly this time. And you're welcome to it if we find ourselves in agreement."
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Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 6:00 am
“I’m not sure most people understand how to discern relationships from fancy anymore,“ Alois commented at length. „Most people are still clinging desperately to the old Victorian tales of love ever after and wealths of happiness to come for ages. And then there’s the dichotomy of love ever after to love never after, like you say. People are a perplexing sort. And the interest behind it all drives one to madness. But I say too much of it now.“ Fingers laced betwixt one another again, and Alois perched a fair chin on its hammock of bone. „You’re free to ignore me at any time. If I get in a mood over something, I talk too much.“ He smirked faintly. A devilish dare remained in his countenance, as he nearly begged the other man to defy his instructions.
One of the many waitstaff swung by, and perched with hip against the table to take orders. She looked at ease, as though pleased with herself from an earlier conquest, or simply content in her own confidence for the day. Alois did not raise eyes to meet her but instead remained focused on his conversation partner. He gave his order, and she paused for Thorne’s, and afterward swept away in a quiet storm toward the latter counters for delivery of their requests.
„Being a good cook is of great benefit to me.“ He must’ve enjoyed it, Alois wagered, or he would not be so noteworthy of it. All the better for he, as Alois found no relish in the task. „The only cooking I’ll ever do is for my dog. You can probably tell that I eat far too much Progresso soup.“ And his words were true enough, as long black-and-grey striped sleeves often sagged downward to expose bony wrists and forearm. Overfeeding has, at a glance, never been a problem that he endured. „And sometimes I’m the one up at 3AM too, though not usually in the house. I work in a small studio, and run my shop out of it. If I burn the midnight oil, it’s almost always there. Books, also, aren’t a problem. I don’t know what I’d do without them.
„My dog, Schatzie, is housebroken and well-mannered. He won’t be a problem, and will listen to you if you order him. I’ll have to teach you the commands - they’re in my native tongue - but they’re close to English and easy enough to remember.
„Maybe it’s too quick of me to say, but you seem amicable enough as far as roommates go. It surprises me.“ In spite of his words, however, he narrowed eyes suspiciously at Thorne. Never before had he been presented a deal so wholesome without consequence. Where was the catch, the ever-present and ever-hidden drawback that rendered all high qualities moot? At what point might he discover these terrible, unseen faults? „You’re clean, you pay rent on-time, I can’t smell you from here, and you don’t seem to have any deep abiding struggles with nymphomania or some other disruptive affliction. I would be your roommate.“ Of course, it would be my luck if you turn out to be a creature out of Other Ashdown. But, somehow, I don’t think that will be such a problem.
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Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:34 pm
Thorne tilted his head, listening as Alois spoke. He was mildly amused - it wasn't often that he found himself in the presence of a cynic anymore when it came to the concept of love. His smile curved at the end of it, and he tilted his head to the side, laying his cheek against the knuckles of his fingers, elbow propped on the table. "The answer is probably that they don't," he said, eyes flicking to Aleksy. "Just as you said, people cling. People want happy endings. The Victorian Era? What about this one? We're saturated in this concept of happily ever after." Thorne chuckled, his mouth quirking slightly. "Even still, the spectrum of relationships is endless. Some people just don't understand the quick spark of something that isn't meant to last. Something that's good - for what it's worth, but isn't permanent."
He shook his head and leaned back, dropping his arms to his lap. "It's alright," Thorne said slowly, drawing the words through his teeth, "I'd prefer a roommate with the ability to hold an interesting conversation once in awhile. But don't worry, I'm - I can hold a conversation, but I don't mind the silence." He barely paid attention to the waitress, only making sure to flash her a winning smile before she was off again, and his eyes found Alois.
"That's a goddamn sin," Thorne retorted, but he didn't seem judgmental. In the Academy he'd all but lived off of protein bars and as much free drinks as he could get people to buy him at the nearest bar. Model student, terrible human being. "I usually cook with a lot of spices, but you're free to yell at me if I ever make something too hot. According to others, I have a wildly skewed concept of what spicy is supposed to mean to the average American."
He shook his head and smiled at the commentary on the dog. It was interesting that here and now he was getting someone who spoke a different language to his companion. Maybe it was a good thing in the end. Thorne had been craving a new language to learn lately. "That shouldn't be hard. I speak a few languages already as it is, picking pieces of a new one up shouldn't be difficult." He was glad for assessment and pleased that Alois seemed not to mind him.
Still, he wondered how good they would be together in a single space in reality - but if what Alois said was true and they were both night owls with separate workplaces... well, just how interesting could that prove? Thorne rumbled, the sound deep in his throat. "I've been told I'm a very surprising person," he retorted. "The only days I might be out of sorts are days with fireworks tagged to them. But that just means I'll either be in bed all day or trying to kill a bag at the gym." There was a lopsided smile on his face as he spoke, but something darker and wild edged in his eyes, a glint of steel. Something un-caged.
He folded his arms on the table, at ease with his entirety, his surroundings and this strange man in front of him. "I'd be pleased to have you," Thorne responded. And it was a rash response maybe. It was that kindled, wild thing inside of him that had been burning ever since he'd been set free and freewheeling from old relationships.
We'll get along, Thorne couldn't help thinking, like a house on fire. At least it will be interesting.
After all, what the ******** could go wrong?
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 11:01 pm
“Where do you think ‚happily ever after‘ came from? That notion is from the wistful days of the Victorian Era. We just haven’t gotten rid of it - if we ever do. I expect that won’t be in our lifetimes.“ Slowly, meticulously, Alois popped his knuckles under the table. „And the notion of ‚til death do us part‘ came from even beyond that. Look back at the early centuries when Christianity dominated Europe, when the Pope and Catholicism had power, for all those centuries between then until a couple hundred years ago you have this concept that once you’re married you either need an annullment dispensed by the Pope or your lover has to die. Henry VIII, remember? Think of all the wives he went through because of his own emphatic search for a son. For all those years we’ve been saturated in a culture that thinks love is forever.
„And, that used to be correct. Back when people only lived forty, fifty years, love did last a lifetime. Now that people are living into their eighties, however, they’re stumbling across a few flaws in that logic. Have you ever read Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov? If you did, one of the beginning paragraphs talks about the enigmatic romanticism carried on by high-class women. It mentions that one of them, who shared a love affair with a man she could’ve easily married, instead chose to commit suicide by throwing herself into a river. That book was written in the end of the Victorian Era, too. Flings and whimsy aren’t news to the culture either. America is just being stupid about it.“
Alois sighed then, and raised his hands above the table to form a hammock for his chin. It felt good, at least, to verbally spar with someone - even if he was carrying on a topic he should’ve swept to the side. But, he decided, he could never forfeit a chance to be bitter and jaded.
„I like it when my roommates are out of the way,“ he commented after a silence. „I like it when I don’t have to cook, either. Just don’t let my dog convince you that he’s absolutely starving for a piece of raw chicken. I don’t know what it is about it, but he just can’t resist raw chicken. I’ve never quite broken him out of begging for it. „Miserable, but…“ He shrugged.
„So, how do you want to arrange this? Are we both signing into a lease, do you have a place that you simply need to add me onto, or do you have another idea?“
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Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 11:21 pm
Thorne tilted his head at Alois, considering his words with an unknowable expression on his face. He felt as though he were being tasked with a discussion far deeper than was necessary for a roommate interview - but then, perhaps that's what made Alois an interesting fit. His mouth curved, curious and considering.
"You speak like a scholar," Thorne remarked, and he sounded admiring, sharp, hungry. "Human beings are cyclical in nature. Love is eternal only in that we are starved for it, and that we cannot hold onto it, not really, not forever." He smiled, something steely and edged at the corner of his eye. "It's a wrecked schema. Do you really think they'll ever learn?" He tilted his head, pressing his hand to his chest. "Humans want to feel. Here. That's why they are so romantic, even when it is in failure. You grow up and you grow jaded. And then you want to feel again, and what is on the other edge of love but heartbreak?"
He shrugged. At least if they lived together, they would be two cynics forever confronting each other over philosophical debates that carried no true answer to the question posed. Thorne didn't mind it. He flicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. In fact, it might be a fascinating ordeal.
He'd always been too impulsive, they said.
"Good, because I always make an obscene amount of food. And I'll try not to make your dog fat." He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms with a mild huff. "I already have a place. If you're willing, I'll add you, and you can monopolize the entire downstairs. I'll give the address if you want to have a tour first. It's unconventional, but that's how I've always been."
His eyes flicked to Alois, a smile curving across his face.
"So, what do you say?"
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