Players:
Summary: Trent moves in to Theo's room. Hello roommate!
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2011. 7:13pm
Log Title: Make Yourself at Home
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Theo and Trent's Room
This room is spotless. Every pencil is in place, every sock in line. There is no dust permitted, oh no. Theo's desk is organized to such a degree that everything seems to be painted into place. His bed has a green and blue bedspread, and you could bounce a quarter on it. Decorations are scarce, no pictures of family or friends are found anywhere.
There is, however, one very obvious decoration. An HO Railroad model is suspended from the ceiling, and the train can often be seen traversing around the room, just above the door level.
Dinner time is over, but Theo hasn't been around for most of the day. After classes were done, he didn't even go back to his room. He instead went straight to work. He was there all afternoon, and just now is getting back to the school. The technopath pulls his keys from his pocket, josling them a little as he sticks them in the lock of the door. A sigh escapes his lips. Nothing like the privacy of his own room to relax in. Well, by relax, he means work on homework, but to each their own. The door begins to swing open.
It's scent, like pizza maybe, that'll be picked up first, as well as that the lights are on inside the room. The empty side of the room has been invaded by boxes, although there aren't very many. Most of them are open, and there's an array of neutral colored clothes in mid-unpacking status on that bed. Currently seated in the desk chair that was clearly unused would be a stranger, who immediately turned to look at the moving door with a watchful paranoia often found on young skittish mutants. He has a plastic takeout style box, which appears to contain the scent source, a red pasta thing of some nature. He chews what's in his mouth, so there's no verbal greeting yet.
Theo's brow furrows, who has pizza? He isn't expecting that it's his own room until he opens it the rest of the way. The light is on, that's not supposed to… he stands, rather surprised at what he's seeing. "Uh…" he glances around the room. There is another bed in his room now. There's not supposed to be another bed. "Hi. You have pizza in my room," he announces. The tone is neutral, but the his face seems to slightly disapprove of the situation. "Who are you?" He pulls his backpack off of his shoulders, and places it at the foot of the bed. He grabs the laptop out, and ritualistically places it on the desk, perfectly parallel to the edge, still staring at the invasion. Yes. Invasion, that's what this is.
Finishing the chewing, Trent watches Theo's arrival and reactions, but without too much expression either way. The initial worry and nervousness tones back to a pretty mellow expression, shoulders shifting a little merely to shrug tension off and continue to eat his food. "Not much left of it," he says of the food, more observationally than anything else. "I'm Trent Greene. This is the room I've been assigned," he says, simply. The invasion isn't intentional. He doesn't ask who Theo is; he actually was told, so. He cocks his head to the train set. "Trains?" he asks, curious. It's not judgmental, but more as if he wonders if they do something special or cool.
"Trent Greene," Theo observes. "Well, welcome to the school, I guess," he says. "Theodore," he introduces himself. "Yeah, so now that you've been welcomed, we don't do food in here," he says. "I don't like ants." Straight to the point. "And yes, trains are possibly the greatest form of transportation people have ever come up with. They are practical and reliable, and have been used for centuries."
"Thanks," Trent says, despite the 'i guess' tagline on the welcome. "There's an ant problem here? Not mutant ants, right?" Dismayed by that idea. But apparently willing to accept the rule, seeing as there IS an ant problem, though. He glances around and at the floor, though not out of paranoia, but just to see if there were ants hanging around. But it seems Theo keeps the place spotless. "I don't think I've ever been on a train," Trent comments idly, pausing as if to reflect on that, and then continues to eat, as if it wasn't a big deal, really.
"No, there's not an ant problem," Theo says, "And I like to keep it that way." He moves to the bed and sits down on it, staring at the boxes of stuff. "Well, when you visit the city, you'll use one. It's the fastest way to get there," he says. "So what team are you gonna be on?" he asks, loosening a little. His elbows rest on his knees. He's actually dressed rather nicely, button down shirt and khakis.
"Do students often go into the city that way? On weekends or something?" Trent asks, perking up, with the gleam of New Tourist to the city evident in that reaction. No doubt he'll want to see the statue of liberty and other things of that nature. He was nearly done with the food, and wolfs the rest of it now, closing up the emptied box with the plastic fork tucked away inside it, standing and going for the clothes that are on the bed, to work to put them away. "Team? I don't know." He slows to think about that. "Maybe I'm too dangerous." It's not offhanded stated, just thoughtful. Uh huh.
"Too dangerous?" Theo laughs, "Dangerous?" He shakes his head, "You have no idea. In the time I've been here, people have been shot, blown up, turned into zombies, sucked into the future, possessed by demons, and shot some more. Whatever dangerous you are, I'm sure the people who run this place have seen worse." See, he just wants to put Trent's mind at ease. "By the way, you ain't queer or anything, are you?" Theo adds. He seems fully serious about the question.
Theo gets stared at as if most of that was being made up, but Trent is amused to a degree by the outlandishness of it. His laugh is brief. Either way, the rundown did seem to smooth Trent out: whether he believed the commentary as real or not. However, the next question strikes him as just bizarre. "….Queer? What, gay? Pft, no. …. why? You're not going to flirt with me, right?" Trent asks, with a disgusted look that he only partially manages to hide.
The boy looks relieved, "Okay," Theo says. "Cuz, gotta warn you, there's a lot of them around here." Them. "Fortunately, they stick to their own for the most part." He reaches under his bed, and pulls out a small…something. The something is about two feet long, with legs folded underneath it. Four spidery looking mechanical legs, with two hands on the back. It suddenly comes to life. "So you don't freak out," Theo says. "This is Proto. He won't bite. Not yet. And don't try to screw with him, his AI is finnicky enough as it is." A snakelike camera protrudes from the front of the little robot, and the hard drive can be heard spinning up inside.
"Well, hopefully they won't try to touch me," Trent says, with some private amusement that probably won't make any sense at all to Theo. However, the small mechanical robot is FAR more interesting, and gets all of his attention, as he stares at it. "What is it? Is it like a room-ba?" Trent asks, eagerly. It's not an insult, he clearly likes room-bas. He doesn't approach, he stays with his clothing at the bed, peering at Proto.
"This," Theo presents ceremoniously, "is Proto. Proto is my own creation. First one, hence his name. He can learn, he can do stuff, but don't ask him to do anything that might make a mess." Proto's camera suddenly adjusts, and clicks a picture of Trent. "Hello, my name is Proto," the little bot introduces himself. He holds a mechanical hand which protrudes from his back out to shake Trent's hand.
"You /made/ him?" Trent asks, clearly impressed, and surprised. "Shit," Trent observes, grinning. He watches the bot, but fearlessly, watching the small hand move, and waiting for it to stop moving before carefully, as if afraid of damaging Proto, accepts the hand. "First one— Prototype, then." A nod. "Is your ….ability… something to do with him?" Trent asks, clearly curious but selecting extreme tact.
Theo beams a little with pride. "Hell yeah," he says. He seems a little cautious when Trent asks his ability, but the tact serves him well. "Yeah," he says. "Though just control. I built him because," he shrugs. "I wanted to see if I could. I've gotten a lot better now." The robot speaks again. "It is good to meet you, Firstone," the little bot answers. Apparently he thought that's Trent's name. "Erasing. Please, state your name again, I did not catch it." Theo interprets. "When he shakes someone's hand, he expects them to introduce themselves," the boy explains. "Still working out some of those bugs."
Trent snickers a little bit at the bot's mistake, but seems to have no issue with correcting it. "Trent," the boy states clearly at the little bot, and will wait until it echoes it back properly. He withdraws his hand watchfully, again as if the little machine were brittle or delicate. "Can it do your homework, too?" Trent asks in amusement. Evidently playing with the robot is more important than putting his clothes away, because they're forgotten on the bed now.
"It is nice to meet you, Trent," Proto answers. Theo watches the robot. "I wouldn't be able to build stuff like this if I made it do my homework," the technopath points out. "It's not how you get a job with Tony Stark, either. So what about you? You know what your studies are gonna focus on?"
Trent nods a little bit, laughing softly. "Yeah, I was joking anyway," Trent says, honestly. He was more fishing for other things that it could do; homework popped to mind, it seems. "Ah, studies? You mean, beyond like, normal subjects, or?" Trent says, hedging for the first time, showing some stress towards the question, since he isn't sure if he's being asked about mutant special ability training, or just normal ones.
"Yeah, you can pick all kinds of stuff here, it's kind of nice, because the school's accredited, which I was nervous about when I first got here. It would suck to graduate and have your GPA count for squat. I take most of the technology classes, helps me focus on something I want to work in. Though most of my learning for technology doesn't happen here. It's like being in a prep school," the boy compares. "You got plans for college?" Apparently, he isn't asking about Trent's power.
Immediately, Trent picks up on and rolls with the clarification, pretty much as soon as the mention of graduation and GPA were brought in. He's on the same page, now. "Yeah, I want to either do graphic design, or go with English and writing. I haven't really decided which way I'll go, but I figure I've got at least a little while longer until I absolutely have to know," Trent agrees. "Don't worry, I don't do messy art. Mostly sketch work, no throwing paint at the walls," Trent adds, suspecting that might be a worry of the pristine roommate.
"Yeah, you'll get to hang out with Robyn," Theo gives a limp wrist action with the mention of his name. "You'll probably have some classes with me, and with Kisha if you're doing computer stuff. And I don't really care about mess as long as it's not in here. I'm a little OCD about my room, so as long as you stay clean, we can get along. And as long as you're not stupid."
Trent arches a brow a tiny bit at the limp-wristed action, and nods once. Information about Robyn conveyed. "Who's Kisha?" Trent asks, following that line of questioning with more interest, for whatever reason. "I can stay clean, yeah," Trent says, and snorts a little about the stupid comment. "Don't try to touch me or throw things at me, and I won't be stupid," Trent says cryptically, with a flaming humiliated flush of red, and well-timed turn back to clearing his bed at least enough to where he'll be able to use it.
"Don't," Theo says with a grin. "Yes, she's single, but no, she's not available. Let me save you a lot of headache. She's kinda weird. She can't se anything past surface value. She's in Africa right now, anyway. There's some field trip out there to…see the rain forest or something." Theo nods at the boxes. "So, you need help putting anything away?" he offers. He stays seated for the moment, not getting up until requested. There's no comment made on the red face. He doesn't seem to be the prying sort.
"I usually like to meet a girl first before all /that/ is even a question, but thanks for the warnings," Trent says with a wry smile. "No, I'm just being slow about it," Trent observes of his belongings. "I'm jet lagged though, so this morning was pretty severe, so I'll probably crash soon here," he admits, with a quick, loose rub of wrist against his forehead, the flush disappearing.
Theo nods, "Okay," he shrugs, laying back on his bed. He is on top of the bedspread, and puts his hands behind his head. "I'm just gonna work on some homework, I won't bug ya. He closes his eyes, which doesn't look like doing homework, but his computer is silently opening several files at once, and he's running the software as the computer rests on the desk folded up and looking docile. For the observant, the computer has a serial number on it. Property of Stark Industries.
For all Trent knows, Theo is practicing his lines for his acting class inside his head, and Trent doesn't bother him, just doing some quiet moving-in style stuff, before he ends up in bed, passed out from a long day. And he doesn't appear to snore. …Could be worse, right?
