[Emily Littleton] Aparment 2F is a one-bedroom, wood floored unit with a nicely sized kitchen and a seemingly open floor plan. It was easy to appear spacious when the only things cluttering up the living room were a stack of IKEA boxes and three moving boxes, one with a table lamp perched atop it and plugged into the outlet controlled by the outlet. (Fiat lux [it works!]). The lack of furnishings made the space echoey and left it feeling colder, but Emily stepped out of her shoes by the doorway nonetheless, and welcomed them in with a little flourish.
This was her castle, her keep, her nascent attempt and building and home.
And it was empty.
There was a bright square of fabric by the window, where she and Riley had sat earlier in the afternoon and taken tea (proper tea [steeped to aromatic and not beyond, or scalded]). Her kitchen showed more signs of life than any other space : a sticky on the fridge with the wireless passphrase, a kettle on the stove, a couple things left to dry on a fabric towel beside the sink.
Where there are glimpses into her personality, her belongings, these are colorful, cheerful, vibrant things. Brightly colored kitchen towels (from Provence [yellows and reds and blues). Someday, it is easy to imagine, this will be a lively, alive, lovely space. For now it is somewhat bare and lacking.
"Welcome!" she says, a little more brightly than necessary. "I'll put the kettle on... and you can find a place to sit. We can move the picnic blanket wherever you like..."
If she's embarassed, it doesn't quite show. Yet. It's the best she has, and they are friends. Somehow it will work itself out.
[Chuck Carmichael] Chuck drove his own car, and he actually arrives a bit behind the girls; he stopped on the way, and picked up some things. There is cheese and fruit and crackers and veggies and pepperoni, and he's pretty sure he can manage to arrange this neatly onto a cutting board or tray of some sort without setting Em's kitchen on fire - so he does so when he comes in (after taking off his shoes) with a couple of bags from the nearest grocery store that's open. There's also a couple bottles of wine, a couple six packs of nice, local beer, and the requisite [for the geeks] energy drinks, some of which are sugar free, and thus for him. He's been in this space before, if only once or twice, and he fits in nicely enough.
"I'm not picky about where we sit! But, I brought fun stuff."
It doesn't do to come empty handed, after all.
[Riley Poole] Riley bends at the waist to unfasten the straps of her sandals and slip them off her feet at the door. She sets them carefully to the side, and a moment later, her laptop bag comes to rest on top of them. She's a tidy woman, is Riley Poole, especially when in someone else's space. And extra-especially when that someone else's space is so spartan that any article out of place glares balefully at the apartment's occupants.
That's sort of how she feels about Em's place. She's already offered to help decorate beyond IKEA, if Emily wants furniture warmer than the inside of a minimalist photo.
Chuck isn't the only one who brought something. When Riley arrived earlier, she came with a bottle of wine from Bardolino, wrapped carefully and tucked away in her suitcase in order to make the return flight intact. She doesn't mention the bottle, which was for Emily to do with as she wished (hopefully she wouldn't throw it out).
She pads barefoot over to the colorful bit of cloth that served as their sitting place earlier, crosses her legs at the ankles, and folds herself into a seated position. She doesn't mind sitting on the floor; it makes her feel vaguely like a kid again. Now if only she could find a chair high enough to swing her legs.
"I'm fine with right here," she says, releasing her wavy hair only to haphazardly clip it back up again. "Gosh, Chuck," that word doesn't exist in her vocabulary except for teasing, "you seem pretty comfy."
[Owen Page] When Emily had phoned Owen Page at some point to explain her whereabouts and what she had been up to, her newly-minted Mentor [almost] had in his possession three expressions she could not see but likely imagine. The first, at mention of a particular Cultist's name was a deeply furrowed brow, the second was a lighter version of the first and the last some hint of amusement at the invitation to come to her place.
Agreement was forged, and the young Brit rang off, and tended to her guests in her sparely decorated apartment. Owen himself had noted in their conversation that he would be a little late, as he wanted to stop by and pick something up on the way across -- he had not explained what that was, though Emily shouldn't have been surprised at that -- her friend was nothing if not reticent when it came to details. At some point after Chuck pulls up in his car, and arrives bearing food of various sorts -- there's another dark-clad figure that creeps up the unlocked [or sneaks past on another's arrival, either are quite possible] entry doors and stairs; a piece of furniture braced against one shoulder; easily carried up two flights of stairs.
Let's take a minute here to describe the tall figure that arrives, looming at the door for a moment before its opened when a fist politely raps at it. Owen Page was 6'1, and tended to tower over many, but not all, people he met. He had a handsome face, as far as faces went, with a prominent brow [he often had said it was a caveman's in his teenage years] and a sharp, angular jawline. His eyes were a very particular shade of midnight blue, and tended to be one of the more memorable facets of his persona -- they could be unnerving, when their quiet intensity was turned on you. His body shape was best described as lean, but muscular. An active life, both in work and personal time had carved long ropes of muscle into Owen's arms and legs and it was this that allowed him the ease to which he carried a chair up the stairs without stopping for breath.
When Emily tends to the door, he's standing back, one arm braced in a pocket; a tiny smile suggested at the bank of his lower lip. "Hey," he says, a typical Owen greeting, then taps the back of the chair. It's an old rocker, dark mahogany with inlaid carving on the back. "I brought you a chair."
Because, naturally.
It was what anyone brought to a party.
[Owen Page] [Per + Alert, how you doin'?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 4)
to Emily Littleton
[Emily Littleton] Chuck brings stuff with him, things to fit into the one space Emily had actually attempted to inhabit. He brings energy drinks, and wine, and beers, to tuck into the fridge no doubt. (He'll find it already quietly inhabited, with more esoteric vegetables (leeks and fennel and kale) and nothing more processed than nice cheeses and pastuerizd milk.) It is a simple place, goverened by simple rules, where things are in their places and peaceful.
Now the food to beverage ratio is disturbingly low. The carrots are outnumbered by beers.
Emily goes through the motions of putting on the kettle. It is an absent-seeming thing, ritualistic. There's the click-click-fwoosh) of the old stove lighting, the whisper rush of water filling the kettle, the little thud as it settles on the burner.
Riley's bottle has found its way to a small wine rack in the pantry, reserved for a later date (why yes, Emily appreciated it and would enjoy it). The other girl had offered to help decorate beyond IKEA, and Emily might have made a rather candid comment that her original intent was to troll Good Will for previously loved items... and left it at that.
Yes, the space would need to warm up a little. And given time it would. And Riley wouldn't have to feel so out of place in it.
Emily had a few things of her own to offer. While Chuck, comfy as he is, is putting together his plate of things to gnosh on, She had found a him a cutting board, pulled a well-honed knife from the block (rather than leaving him to fetch his own) and set a kitchen towel beside that work station. Meanwhile, Emily pulls a carefully-wrapped loaf of bread from the fridge and cuts coarse wedges from it to add to the assembly. It smells strongly of yeast and butter, and is likely home-made (simple).
"Would you like tea, coffee, water, wine, beer," Emily eyed the energy drink label cautiously, then read the alien syllables aloud for Riley to consider as her final option. Not quite final, as she tacks on: "I think I may still have some apple juice, too..."
Then there is a knock on the door and Emily is wiping her hands on her own towel. Setting it beside the sink. "Oh, that must be Owen," she says, mostly for the sake of her other guests. There's a smile here, which put Owen firmly in the category of Things Invited rather than any other potential classification.
The door opens, without Emily so much as pausing to look through the peephole. She's incautious in this way, again unsurprising. She pulls it open, resting her hand on the narrow flat of the door, peering past it to welcome him.
There's a smile, surely, and it's warm and welcoming. It's steadier, as it had been at his place not long ago. But there's a thin something underlying it. I brought you a chair -- that deepens, momentarily, then smooths.
"Hey," she replied, stepping out of the doorway to let him pass. "And... thank you," she added, meaning it even if it sounded a little off-kilter. Her home (could she call it that quite yet?) was filling up with things. In the space of days, she'd gone from owning no more than what fit in her car to ... IKEA boxes and rocking chairs. It was overwhelming.
"I put the kettle on," she said, to Owen. "Would you like something to drink?"
And then, out of order, because... because she was not practiced at this. "Owen, this is Chuck and Riley. Riley, Chuck, this is Owen." Soon, soon, she'd be retreating toward the screaming kettle. Smiling, though, and happy (in her own way).
[Chuck Carmichael] "I need to make sure to eat, is all," he says with a shrug and a grin to the teasing - she knows of his habits by now, at least while they're together. Small meals like clockwork, far more often than most, and a diet nearly devoid of refined sugars and low in carbs. His mountain dew is always diet and splenda sweetens his coffee when he sweetens it at all - it adds up to a fairly easy to read picture for those with any idea about these things. "And it didn't seem right to not bring enough to share with the class. Thanks, love," he says to Em when she provides him with the things he needs but hasn't brought.
Then there's the knock at the door and the declaration that it's Owen; this isn't surprising to the older Vdept, and does nothing to change his smile. The rocker, when it makes its way into the room, gets eyed appreciatively. "Nice chair," is his pronouncement as he's making his way to the blanket but pauses to offer the Chorister his hand for a shake. "Hey. We met, but only briefly. Nice to do it right, now." It's with a grin, friendly, open and honest - as Chuck generally is.
And then, it's over to take up his spot on the blanket and set the food in the middle - bringing a simple water with him for now.
[Owen Page] The Chorister picks up his offering, bracing an arm through the gap in the wood at the back and carries it inside, setting it down and resting both hands on the back, his attention quite fixed for a beat on Emily's face; his eyes caress the slope and formation of it, returning as always to her eyes, absorbing whatever minute details he does as always without verbal mention.
There's the briefest of smiles, a tiny, private thing that opens up Owen's face, opens him up a touch. She thanks him for the chair, he nods. "Tell me where you want it," simple as, wherever she points to is where he dutifully carries it to and sets it down, the chair doing its purpose in creation and gently moving to and fro.
Introductions are made; Chuck offers his hand and Owen grasps it in a firm grasp, fingers around the other man's wrist as their eyes meet. "Hey, man," the Chorister says, and then politely offers Riley his hand to shake in turn, his dark eyes lingering on her face only long enough to measure it, and memorize all that it entailed in turn. "Hey," he says, and then his eyes travel over Emily's apartment.
"I like it." He commends.
[Riley Poole] "That's not what I meaaaaant," Riley practically sing-songs from her place on the floor. Of course Riley knows Chuck's eating habits, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what those particular clues point to. It's why when they're out on jobs, even though Chuck is a grown man and perfectly capable of taking care of himself, Riley always keeps an eye out for places where food can be purchased quickly and easily. Sometimes she keeps something in her bag, but not always. She's no mother hen, she just tries to be aware. And Chuck's her partner. Of course she's going to look out for him, and she would expect the same from him.
Not that she has any difficult eating patterns or illness or conditions to work around. Except that temper, that fury that seems so non-existent when she's sitting on the floor in denim shorts and a cream colored camisole, smiling a knowing grin at her friend as he makes his way to the kitchen of a woman he is obviously in some kind of relationship with. So the Geek Squad double-agents each have their issues to work around and adapt to.
There's a knock at the door, and Riley is being introduced to a tall guy bearing a rocking chair. She leans back, resting her weight on the heels of her hand, shoulders hunching. Even seated with her legs folded, it's obvious that Riley is tall, long-limbed, lithe, slender. Her eyes are dark and warm, her skin faintly olive complected, mixed heritage. When she sees the chair in better detail, she sits up again, eyes lighting up.
"Oh, that's lovely. Em, do you think that'd go with that table you mentioned?"
[Owen Page] ...or rather, Owen moves to where Riley is seated on the floor, and leans over to offer his hand to shake, before commenting on the apartment that Emily had taken up residence in. The question of drinks was broached, and for a second, Owen's eyes rest on the beers and wines on display; his brows knit for the briefest moment before he shakes his head, smiling slightly.
"Just a soda."
[Emily Littleton] Later, when there are fewer eyes to watch her inspect it, Emily will carefully go over each turn and curve of the rocking chair. For now, though, there is an overlong look at it (noticeable by the perceptive Mr. Page) and a somewhat quieter smile. They find a place for it, readily, in that sea of emptiness she calls a living room.
Emily pulls the kettle from the stove just before it begins to sing. She snaps off the flame and goes about getting everyone else's drinks ready before steeping her own tea. The water, after all, should not quite be boiling. Chuck had water, Riley wanted (something [she'll speak up in turn]), but then Owen asks for a soda.
Emily frowns a little and ducks her head into the fridge to look through the things Chuck has brought. "I... don't usually keep sodas," she confesses. "Would you like juice? Tea?" Emily brings out one of the energy drinks, wearing a somewhat skeptical expression, "One of... these?" she offers. No, probably no, that goes back into the fridge.
She'd had one, once, when Henri offered it. It had not gone well.
Water then, yes, that's easy enough. She gets a glass and pours him cold water (no ice) from a larger container in the fridge. This is handed over and Emily goes through the motions of steeping her tea (Jasmine Green [floral, gentle, soothing] loose leaf).
"I think so," she tells Riley. Owen likes her apartment, this broadens the smile. The evening is getting better, by degrees. "I don't really worry, much, about whether things go together though." She brings her tea out to the picnic-on-the-floor. If they're all settled around the fabric square, now, she'll kneel at the margin to join them. (Not sitting cross legged in a summer-length dress). If not, she'll stand near them.
[Chuck Carmichael] Chuck sits cross-legged in his jeans and a t-shirt (this machine pwns n00bs, green with white guitar and lettering), equidistant between Riley and Emily, which leaves the four corner - similarly equidistant - or just about anywhere else for Owen. He is taller than anyone else here by a few inches but doesn't slouch, nor does he (purposely) tower.
And Riley's still teasing, and Chuck gives her a playful nudge in the arm. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," is all that he can really come up with on the spur of the moment, for now, though she's heard him give some zingers at work on occasion.
All this - the things that Chuck takes as par for the course (housewarming gifts and the like) - is new to Emily, and she's not sure how to take it. He's not sure how to help in this, but he does what he can - smiles, laughs, is . . . well, is Chuck. It's simply the way he is, no helping it. He sips his water and sets it aside, then makes himself a little meat and cheese open-faced sandwich from the tray he'd set down in the middle; he should be more thoughtful, let the ladies go first, but he knows when he needs to eat.
"You're doing better than I am. The one time I have more than a person or two over in, like, five years, everything goes crazy. Might be a while before I do it again," he offers Em's way.
[Owen Page] Emily passes Owen a glass of water, and he takes it with a quiet nod, and sips from it. He's nowhere near the level of openness and easy-laughter that the Virtual Adept present is; he does not have a familiarity with anyone present save for Emily, and even between them, in public such as Owen views this, he is quieter with her than he might have been in private; in his apartment.
This is not his own space, and thus he treats it with the reverence it warrants.
He remains standing for some time, simply observing, his eyes observing every small nook of Apartment 2F. He does not sit in the chair he had brought for a very specific reason -- it was not his to christian as a part of this place, that was up to the young woman it had been given to. "You mentioned Nathan on the phone," there's no anger in Owen's voice, but a trace of irritation at the man's name.
"How'd that go?"
[Riley Poole] Owen crosses over to the square of colored fabric that serves as something like a picnic blanket, off to the side of Em's sparse apartment where Riley sits. "Hi," she greets, smiling and shaking his hand in return. It's not the manliest of handshakes, but at least she doesn't simply offer him her fingers like a girly girl. She meets his gaze long enough to notice and admire the color of his eyes, and then they release.
She falls silent while Chuck finishes preparing his food and Emily finishes gathering drinks. She doesn't speak up or ask for something to drink, not yet, or if she needs something she's perfectly capable of finding it herself.
"Well," she says, shrugging a shoulder, "even if some stranger walked in and thought everything clashed on every possible level? There'd still be something that draws it all together. Because you picked it out and it fits you."
Owen turns to Emily and asks about Nathan. Riley turns to Chuck and asks -- because she hasn't been to work yet, "How's the BB? You and the boys didn't burn it to the ground while I was gone, did you?" There's mock hopefulness there. Neither Adept strictly needs the job they share, but they go anyway, despite rude customers or difficult work-ups or crazy managers.
[Emily Littleton] Ah yes, Nathan.
It is purely coincidental that Emilyi finds her tea very interesting and worthy of her attention when Owen brings up that name. It has nothing to do with the burr in his tone, or what might happen if she meets his eyes while answering.
"It didn't." A small pause. "There were too many people around, so we'll meet later to talk," she says with a small shrug. Emily sips from her tea. Chuck and Riley talk about work. It's a little belated when she does look up and over to Owen again (I'm fine [don't worry]). He's offered a small smile, but no more words to cross over Chuck and Riley's conversation.
Owen is still standing, so Emily is still standing. But Riley and Chuck are sitting. This is approaching awkward, so she offers her soon-to-be Mentor a slight cant of her head (shall we?), a quirked eyebrow, and waits.
[Chuck Carmichael] "You know," he says with a shrug. "Same shenanigans as always." He says this casually, so easily! Honest, honest Chuck. As if he hasn't done all sorts of crazy things he doesn't tell anyone about. "Everyone'll be glad to have you back! Mostly me," he says with a grin.
And then, "I want stories. The pics you emailed were great! But apparently I might be traveling in the not too distant, and I need reassurance that stepping away from my wi-fi isn't the same thing as stepping off the edge of the world."
[Owen Page] Emily avoids his eyes and offers a non-answer. Owen merely looks at her, sipping his water before she reluctantly meets his gaze and suggests they join the others in their make-shift picnic spread on the floor. He consents by means of an eyebrow, winging upward on the right in a manner that was both knowing [we'll talk later] and playful [oh, we're playing at being social].
"I'd like to tag along on that meeting," is all he eventually says on the subject, before letting it pass for the moment. The Chorister neatly folds himself down beside Riley, his heavy duty boots thudding heavily against the floorboards. He sets his water beside himself on the floor and studies the others; rather than the food. It's a habit of his, and makes some sense of why his drawings tended toward such detail. He was a practiced student of human watching; both Sleepers and Awakened alike.
So the study was never unsettling [expect for the times when it was] but rather flattering, as if the landscape of any one face was a particular view he could not get enough of.
[Emily Littleton] (( PAUSE! To be continued later! ))
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