InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Cafe Tropical"

Alice | Resident Evil (mynameisalice) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2009-08-24 00:02:00

Entry tags:

!closed, alice, eliot spencer

WHO: Eliot Spencer and Alice
WHAT: Eliot meets his new roommate.
WHEN: {Backdated} Not long after this.
WHERE: Room #203A
RATING: TBD
STATUS: In Progress

It had been over five years since Alice had been in a place where her life wasn't constantly in jeopardy. Needless to say, she wasn't quite sure how to handle such a drastic change and was still on edge as she made her way from the steps of the Grand Library to the Housing Complex as per the directions her PDA had provided. She had an assigned room, it seemed, and a roommate by the name of Eliot Spencer.

Briefly, she considered trying to contact him over said PDA before just showing up at their door but opted against it. She wasn't entirely positive just how to go about doing that, in the first place, and honestly didn't want to give him a chance to figure out some way to prevent her from getting inside their shared living space.

Besides, so far the people she'd spoken with seemed decent enough. So she had no reason to think that this guy would be anything different. Not to mention Alice wasn't exactly a typical female and liked to think that she was easy enough to be around. She'd long since given up on the concept of appearing glamorous so she wasn't going to take hours in the bathroom, and she knew how to clean up after herself. She didn't have many belongings, either. Just the clothes on her back and the veritable arsenal strapped to her person.

Making her way into Building A, then up the stairs to the second floor, she kept her senses honed outward as she walked. So far Claire was right. There weren't any T-Virus victims roaming around, at least not that she could sense. It was enough to make her almost willing to relax if it weren't for the fact that she had reached the door clearly marked 209A. It even included a gold plaque above it with her name engraved upon it. Well, her first name at least. Apparently even this place didn't see fit to include a last name she'd long since forgotten and saw no point in bothering to remember.

"Might as well get this over with," she muttered lightly to herself, allowing her long coat to fall across her body so as to conceal the various weapons strapped upon her limbs and to her hips and torso in various, convenient locations. There wasn't any sense in freaking the guy out by looking like she was there to rob the place, after all.

With a quick glance downward to make sure she looked presentable enough (or as presentable as she could manage in her sand-colored mishmash ensemble), she knocked lightly against the door and waited for someone to answer.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

mynameisalice
2009-08-25 03:30 am UTC (link)

Well, Alice decided as she took in Eliot's smile and question, at least he seemed friendly enough. That was definitely a good thing. Handsome, too, although not quite her type. Not that she necessarily had a type, really.

"My name's Alice," she greeted him. Waiting a heartbeat she added pointedly, "My name's on that plaque." She nodded toward the one she was talking about before holding up her PDA. "And according to this little gem, I'm supposed to be staying here."

She made no move to try and get inside although she was sure she easily could if she put forth the effort. She didn't want to start off on the wrong foot, though, so instead she stood there and waited for him to agree to let her in,

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

doesntlikeguns
2009-08-25 04:21 pm UTC (link)

Eliot relaxed slightly, his grin growing a little more genuine. "So you're my new roommate," he said, nodding towards the two plaques on the door. "I was wondering when you were going to show up." So he'd only just spotted the plaque when he'd come back from the gym. There was only one name, no last, like Parker. And she was a little on the strange side.

He stood back, pulling the door open wider for her. "Come on in. My place is your place now." While he preferred living alone, it looked like he didn't have much of a choice here. Whoever was in charge had already made him share with a teenage girl from World War II. As long as Alice didn't have a homicidal streak, he figured they'd get along all right.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mynameisalice
2009-08-29 04:18 am UTC (link)

Alice nodded her head and flashed him a brief smile as she stepped inside. Quickly her blue-eyed gaze scanned the part of the apartment that she could see from where she stood. When it was obvious that they were alone and it didn't seem to be some sort of trap, her body relaxed ever so slightly and she moved further into the room.

"Thanks," she remarked idly as she looked around the living room. She took stock of the door leading to the balcony, and the doors that led to what she assumed were the bedrooms. "I guess whoever brought us here thought of everything, huh?" She glanced back of her shoulder at Eliot, a hint of a grin of her face that while not entirely sincere was as close as she could manage while still a bit out of sorts from her arrival.

"I don't think I've been in a place this nice in... six years? Somewhere around there." She shrugged a bit as though to say it didn't matter before tipping her head toward the bedroom doors. "Which one is mine?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

doesntlikeguns
2009-08-29 03:40 pm UTC (link)

He shut the door behind her and then followed her into the living room. Instead of sitting down in one of the chairs, he crossed his arms and leaned against the arm chair, by all appearences, casual. As she studied the room, he studied her, trying to get a feel for his new roommate. The way she carried herself, he'd guess she'd seen a fight or two.

"Shelter, few pieces of clothing, sometimes a vehicle. Seems fair enough when you remember we can't leave," he replied, shrugging as he glanced around. "Don't know if you've been told yet but take that PDA to the bank and they'll give you a hundred. After that, you're on your own to get what you need." He gave her a wry smile. The one thing that pissed him off about the place was his multimillion account was gone and he was starting over from scratch. While he didn't love money like Parker, he'd worked his ass off and had a few near misses to earn it. It also meant he had to go looking for jobs or find a legal one. The latter he'd done. "There's a few places looking to hire around here."

He frowned in thought at her next comment. "Makes me wonder where you've been." He'd seen some hellholes in his time, third world prisons and hideouts, but none of them had been a six year stint. Eliot pushed away from the chair, motioning towards the far door. "That one would be yours."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mynameisalice
2009-08-30 03:59 am UTC (link)

Money. It had ceased to have any real meaning for Alice after the T-Virus wiped out the bulk of the world. She had a hard time imagining living somewhere that it once again mattered. Although honestly, she knew if that was the hardest adjustment she had to make to being in this place, that was getting off pretty light.

"I've been..." Alice exhaled softly and turned her attention from the room he'd pointed to, back to Eliot. "In Hell on Earth." There was a ring of honesty to her tone, a flatness that showed either she wasn't joking or she was a damn good liar.

After a second, she slid her PDA from out of one of the many, deep pockets of her jacket. "Some guy on here said that I was fictional," she stated with a slight shrug of her shoulders. She glanced down at the PDA and frowned a bit. She'd looked at a few things online on her way over and was... disturbed, mostly, at what she'd found. Sticking the device back into her pocket, she peered back up at her new roommate.

"Where I've been sure as hell didn't seem very fictional to me." After a second, a ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Then again, everyone's a sucker for a zombie flick, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

doesntlikeguns
2009-08-30 04:25 am UTC (link)

Hell on Earth. The way she'd said it, the look on her face, he believed her. There were damn good liars around, some he'd even worked with, that could sell anything. But when it came to something like that, there was a look that was hard to copy. "I'm sorry." He genuinely was, even if they had just met. "This place isn't anything special but it's far from Hell on Earth."

An eyebrow arched as he glanced at the PDA in her hand. "Yeah, I don't even know how to explain that one," he stated, shrugging. "The impression I'm getting is even if you exist as fiction to someone, you're real where you come from so you're real here. Or something like that." Several things about how this place worked had gone over his head, frustratingly. He wasn't about to tell the woman standing in front of him that she wasn't real either, because she sure as hell looked like it to him.

"Zombie flick?" He whistled. "You weren't kidding about how bad it was. I guess the good news to that is we haven't had any zombies." Yet. Anything was possible in the city and he hoped that was one of the choices the person in charge never decided to use. "They're all fictional where I come from, along with vampires, demons, superheroes. This place is a real shock to the system."

Eliot nodded towards the kitchen. "You want something to drink? There's water, packets of tea, beer, carton of orange juice hidden behind the Chinese take out."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mynameisalice
2009-08-30 04:51 am UTC (link)

"You have Chinese food and beer," Alice repeated. There was no question to her tone, but rather a flatly made statement laced with awe. Staring at him, her blue eyes almost comically wide, she quite suddenly smiled. "After six years of whatever water I managed to scrounge up and stale food snagged off of abandoned shelves and crops, you're talking about things I never thought I'd see again."

Of course, just because they were available didn't mean that Alice was necessarily going to jump at the first chance to drink - or eat the man's food. Instead she glanced toward her bedroom then back to Eliot. "I think I'll put my stuff up before I do anything else," she decided. The guns were ever-present in her mind and, while they added security, she also wanted to be able to relax a bit in the comfort of what looked to be her new home. It was hard to do that with several semi-automatic weapons pressing against her skin.

It didn't take long for her to shed her coat and toss it over the foot of her bed, or stick two of her weapons under her pillow and mattress, respectively. With one of her hand-made blades slid into a carrying case across the small of her back serving as her only weapons aside from her own hands, Alice re-emerged a few moments later and moved toward the balcony to have a curious glance outside.

"People are becoming something of a rare sight, back home," she admitted as she watched a few people bustle through the courtyard and into the other building across the way. "I just sent the last few decent ones I know to Alaska in search of an outpost that might have sustained the outbreak."

Alice glanced back at Eliot with a slightly saddened smile. "I think I'll take that beer now, if the offer still stands."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

doesntlikeguns
2009-08-30 01:59 pm UTC (link)

"General Tso's," he replied. It had been a late night and he'd been hungry but too worn out to stand around the kitchen and wait for something. "It's yours if you want it." He understood the effect a regimine of stale food and little water could have on someone, how just about anything sounded good after that.

As she disappeared into her room, Eliot picked up a few of his things that had been scattered around the living room and pushed open the door of his room, tossing them onto the bed. The hooded sweatshirt was next to go and then he headed for the kitchen, pulling open the fridge. "It still stands." He pulled out two bottles and headed for the balcony, holding one out to her.

"That's not something you're going to have to worry about here. There's plenty of people around, sometimes too many." It'd been a long time since he'd shared an apartment with someone and that had been a roommate of his chosing. "This sounds heaven sent for you then. No zombies, a clean bed, fresh food and water. All the things you miss days on the run." He twisted off the cap and took a drink before looking back at Alice.

There was something familiar, and now that she said fictional, he was wondering if he had seen her before. He'd never sat down and watched a zombie themed movie all the way through but Hardison had taken over the wall for his own use sometimes and he'd caught a couple of scenes here or there. He was going to figure out eventually, whether through the boards or he was going to remember, whichever came first.

He glanced towards the outside. "The locals, they're all right until you try to get information out of them about this place. Then they shut up pretty quick and nothing will make 'em talk," he said. "What little anyone knows comes from the people who have been here the longest putting the pieces together."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mynameisalice
2009-09-01 06:34 am UTC (link)

"I miss... peace," she decided with a sardonic smile that didn't quite reach her eyes as she took the offered beer. Twisting off the lid, she relished the taste of the drink as it slid down her throat. When she'd finished, she eyed the label almost fondly.

"Looks like we have ourselves a regular, old fashion mystery," she mused idly before peering up at him. Raising the beer bottle to her lips again, she smirked around it and pulled her PDA out of her pocket with her free hand. A few presses of the button as she drank some more of her beer then she was meeting Eliot's gaze once more and handing over the device with an image available on the screen.

"Let's just get it out of the way," she said simply, a small hint of amusement in her tone. "I'm sure you're curious and I already checked it out myself on the way over. That's pretty much how it played out too, a few years back." She snorted humorlessly into her beer. "Like I said. I miss peace, the most."

With that, Alice fell silent and let Eliot have a glimpse into the world she'd left behind while she meanwhile enjoyed simply staring out at the new world that surrounded her.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

doesntlikeguns
2009-09-01 04:57 pm UTC (link)

"You might finally find some here, although it does have its days. Weeks," he amended, shrugging one shoulder before he took another drink of beer. "Everyone just got done with a round of some of us turning into mirror selves for a few weeks, then changed back." He hated being at the whim of whatever was in charge but until they found a way out, it was going to have to be dealt with one step at a time. "But right now, yeah, you might find some peace and quiet."

He took the PDA, giving the image on the screen a look before glancing up at her. Disappearing into his room briefly, he returned, sliding on a pair of battered wire rim glasses as he took up his position again, hitting the button to play the video.

There was silence as he took in the fight, once he'd gotten over the initial surprise of the thing she was fighting against. He had seen this before. What was it, Resident Evil that it had been called? After the video had ended, Eliot looked up and held out the PDA, a look of understanding and respect on his face. "I can see why. When you fight to survive, you take every minute you can get."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mynameisalice
2009-09-02 07:09 am UTC (link)

Alice took the PDA with a slight nod, realizing that he did seem to actually understand. It made her curious, about him, about what he'd seen and where he'd been before. Very few really could understand what she'd experienced, very few knew what it meant to be the 'it' person when it came to a fight... and just how much pressure that could put on you to make sure you were always at your peak.

Slipping the PDA into her pocket once more, she took a long drain from her beer before smiling faintly at the bottle. "So what about you?" she questioned, glancing back at him. "You said there aren't any things that go bump in the night where you're from. So what is home like, for you?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

doesntlikeguns
2009-09-02 01:01 pm UTC (link)

Eliot's fingers tapped lazily against the glass bottle as he looked out at the courtyard. Explaining the world he knew would've sounded boring in comparison but he knew it was far from it. "It's what you'd consider normal. People go to work, kids go to school. You've got your crime, the corrupt looking to make a few bucks off the easiest marks, and then there's the good samaritans, trying to make a difference wherever they can." He shrugged before raising the bottle to his lips to take a drink.

He smiled faintly. "There's still others trying to kill you off but they're all human, no matter what you might think otherwise after going a few rounds with them." It wasn't something he'd admit after just meeting someone but after what he'd seen in that video, he knew that Alice might understand the twisted humor behind it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -