We Both Suck At This Who: Loren and Josh When: 2:00pm and onward Where: Billiards room
Loren had wandered the hotel aimlessly for hours, bored and anxious, unhappy. He didn't know what to do with himself, didn't have a job or anyone to really talk to right now. He found his way into the billiards room eventually, not sure what he would do here, but unwilling to go back up to his room to sulk either. Loren sighed and climbed onto the pool table, legs dangling over the edge as he made himself comfortable. He reached back and picked up a heavy red ball, turning it around in his small hands. The world now was boring, lonely...
His thoughts turned to his mother after a while, the poor older woman lost in the middle of the city, probably dead. It wasn't easy to live with, the thought that he'd never see her again. She had been his only friend for so many years. No father and no real friends, and now... nothing. Just this... just the people living in the hotel.
Josh had been wandering, too, although not quite for hours. He'd probably left his room on the first floor not more than forty-five minutes ago because his ability to stare at the walls and out the windows had left him. He was used to being outside most of the time, since he'd been living on the street for nearly a year, and it was odd to him to be confined to this one building, as large as it was. He'd meandered through the lobby to see which keys remained on the board behind the front desk-- as well as he could see in the dim light from the cloudy day outside, that was-- and then he'd gone into the kitchen to find something to eat. That taken care of, he plodded down the corridor and ended up making the turn into the billiards room for no reason in particular.
He almost darted back out again when he saw that there was someone sitting on the pool table, but he couldn't figure out how to do it gracefully, so Josh ducked his head down in a nod and gave the table a wide berth, making his way to the window as if he'd planned to do that all along. He stood there stiffly, blond hair still damp from the icy shower he'd taken right before he'd left his room, trying not to breathe too loudly as he looked out.
Loren perked up at the sudden appearance of someone else, more to disguise his own state of discomfort than anything. He straightened up his back and crossed his legs, head cocked to the side to watch the other man's short journey toward the window. When nothing was said for a few moments, Loren sat back and tilted his head to lean it the other way. "Well, hullo to you as well," he said, a slightly cocky tone to it. "Good day for a stroll around the boring 'otel, yeah?" He waited to see what this other person would say, curious about him and unfamiliar with him in the least. Introductions could come later, once they'd actually started talking.
There was no way to avoid talking to the man now that he'd spoken. Josh took a short, hopefully silent breath and turned around. "Hi," he said, his cheeks slightly flushed in acknowledgment that he'd been rude. He never meant to be rude; it was simply that he was so uncomfortable talking to people he didn't know. Sometimes he wasn't entirely comfortable with those he did know, but that was another matter. "There's n-not really... anything else to do," he said almost apologetically, as if to explain why he'd been wandering. He fiddled with the beltloops of his jeans, tried not to twitch too much.
Good lord, Loren thought to himself, shifting to hop down onto his feet. He approached Josh, bumping the pool table with his hip as he headed toward the other young man. Possibly younger? It was difficult to tell, but seemed important to Loren all the same. It was perhaps trivial, but age meant so much when you were young. "Yeah, I know," he answered, his tone almost too short. "Bollocks to do 'ere, really. Unless you enjoy cooking or working out, neither of which 'ave ever really been on me list." He stopped just in front of Josh, and then shifted as he was forced to look way up to see him eye to eye. It was definitely aggravating, being on the smaller scale. "What's your name, anyway? I'm Loren."
To Josh, Loren looked younger than he was. Possibly that was because of his height and the smoothness of his features. Loren's age wasn't a question he'd ask, most likely, due to his awkward shyness. "I d-don't do either one of those," he said, not wanting to just stand there and not try to make conversation. It might not come easily to him-- it especially didn't after the time he'd spent in his stepfather's genetics lab, locked away from normal life-- but in this new situation he felt the need to try. His accent was intriguing, and Josh wondered where he was from. He sounded English, but there was no way to really be sure. "I'm Josh," he replied, nodding, his thumbs in his beltloops for lack of anyplace better to put them.
"Well, Josh that doesn't do anything," Loren teased, shifting his weight as he ran his tongue over his teeth. "You wanna do stuff with me, so 'at we don't 'ave to be bored or nothin'?" He wasn't really sure what he wanted to do, but it seemed like the right thing to ask. "We could like, spray paint somethin', or like... gorge ourselves on chocolate, or like... I dunno, try to play, like... cards or some shit." He had picked up already that Josh was timid -- and therefore, easily dominated. It wasn't a conscious thought in his mind, but it was there all the same.
Josh wasn't all that sure how to deal with people who started in with teasing right away, and he most likely looked uncomfortable as he stood there with Loren looking up at him. He actually was the sort who'd go along with what someone else wanted to do in order to avoid conflict or, sometimes, simply having to make decisions. He didn't know if Loren was serious about spray painting things or eating chocolate or if he was simply talking to fill air space. "I-if you want to," he said with a shrug, removing his thumbs from his beltloops and putting his hands in his pockets. He guessed it was a better option than turning and walking out, because what else was he going to do but wander around some more?
Loren narrowed his eyes at this Josh person, not sure what to make of him just yet. He seemed too willing to go along with whatever he said, which was good and bad. Loren was already bored, and having Josh follow him around quietly didn't seem like much more fun than what he'd already been doing. "Well, where'd you come from?" he asked, decidedly changing the topic. "I mean like... what'd you go through in order to get 'ere? I was almost eaten by a crazy monster man. It was all draggin' me around by me ankles. Bloody unpleasant experience."
Josh moved toward the pool table and began fishing the colored balls out from their holder, needing something to do besides standing there with Loren looking at him. Often he'd found that he could converse more normally either if the other person couldn't see him or if he was doing something else at the time. "Monsters're everywhere," he said quietly as his fingers sent a solid red ball skittering across the felt-topped table. "They t-tried to get me too. Several times." He chewed at his lower lip, stole a glance at the other blond. "H-how'd you get away then?" He couldn't remember from the meeting what, if anything, Loren could do.
Loren followed Josh, intrigued by the idea of actually playing pool. He wasn't sure if he remembered how to do it right, but he'd give it a go if Josh was willing. "They're not easy to get away from, that's for sure. An' for the record, I didn't do anything. It was all Tony. He saved me from the thing 'at was tryin' to eat me." Loren made a face like the monster, just for fun. "He like, came to me rescue or whatever, an' then we rode off in the sunset." Loren giggled, and then started laughing as he pulled out a pool stick. "You wanna 'ave a go?"
Before everything had happened and Josh had ended up so far from home, held against his will, he and his grandfather had played a lot of pool, just for fun. He never minded when someone else didn't know how to play all that well, though. "So you c-can't do anything to them?" he asked, unable to remember if Loren had had a power. Some people at the meeting had said they didn't. His lips twitched in a faint smile at how jovial Loren seemed, and he didn't feel as odd or out of place suddenly. "Sure, why not? S-somethin' to do, I guess." He racked the balls and then went for a stick of his own.
Loren hopped toward the pool table happily, waving his stick around without really thinking about it. He whacked the wall with it and winced, ducking his head as though avoiding being hit. "Uh... oops, I umm... anyway, I can make like... I can scream real loud, I guess." Loren made a miserable face, a sort of wince twisting his features. "S'not pleasant, though, to use it. It like... things can... um..." The memory of dead bodies flashed through his head, making it difficult to explain his power exactly. "Things die, an'... fall apart. An' me throat bleeds." Loren tapped his throat with his fingertips, remembering the last time he'd laughed really hard in Landon's presence and bled again for hours. "So sorry, um, if it 'appens while we're like... 'angin' out or whatever. I don't do it intentionally." He shrugged and smiled again, almost shyly as he gestured for Josh to start the game. "You go first. I'll follow by example or sommat."
"S-sounds a little bit like a movie I saw once," Josh ventured, carefully taking the rack off of the balls and setting it aside. "There were these guys, a-and they could scream. Make people bleed and die." He couldn't remember what the movie had been called, but many of the characters had had psychic abilities like telekinesis, precognition, will-working. He felt a bit nervous at the thought of Loren doing that around him, because what if he accidentally set the guy on fire? That was absolutely something he didn't want to do. "Okay," he said when Loren told him to start. "W-we don't have to play for points. We can just s-see what we can hit. I'll be solids, you be stripes." He aimed for the red ball and missed; it had been a long time since he'd played. This was okay, he decided. Now that he'd warmed up a little and felt less painfully awkward.
"That sounds weird," Loren answered, not even really taking a moment to think about it. He didn't watch a lot of movies or television... well, he hadn't, when the world had still been functioning. Now, he didn't have the choice. He hopped forward when it was his turn, pausing to bend down and look the balls over. He took aim... and skidded his stick across the top of the table. "Oops," he said, blinking, embarrassed. "Do-over. Just a sec..." Loren took another shot, this time hitting the white ball into the group in front of him. There was a soft tap, but not much movement. "Uch... bugger."
"Weird, yeah," Josh said with a nod. He'd always loved movies. Watching DVDs was really the only form of entertainment he'd been allowed when he'd been at the lab, and he'd watched as many as he'd been able to get his hands on. There had to be something to take his mind off the fact that he'd been taken away from what had been left of his family and trapped against his will. Horror and paranormal had been a particular favorite, and now here he was right in the middle of some seriously crazy shit. He didn't mind Loren's do-over; he'd never been fanatical about keeping score while playing pool, anyway. He just liked to see if he could make the shots he chose to line up. "M-maybe you'll get the next one," he said, moving around the side of the table. "G-green," he added as he bent over the side of it. "Corner pocket." This shot he made, and he smiled.
Loren grumbled to himself when Josh made the next shot, shrugging like he didn't care before he stepped up to try again. "That 'un," he said, mumbling downward as he lined himself up with what ball he wanted to hit. He ended up missing entirely though, knocking around another few balls and doing nothing at all remarkable. "This game is rigged," he said, giving Josh a smirk -- despite there being a very mild tinge of jealousy in it. "So what did you do before the world ended, Josh?" Loren leaned on his pool stick, bent forward a little to see what the taller boy would do with his next shot.
It was always rigged when you were losing, Josh thought with some amusement. Not that they were keeping score, and not that he'd ever say that out loud. It took quite a lot to provoke him into confrontation as a rule. "Orange... s-side pocket," he said, and missed completely. The ball he hit toward the orange one didn't even come close but bounced off the opposite end of the table. Oh, well. When Loren asked what he'd done before the world ended, his gaze twitched down to the felt-topped table. "N-not much," he said quietly. "I was livin' on the street for almost a year." He'd never held a job unless one counted working in his grandfather's bait and tackle shop when he'd been a young teenager, and he would've had no idea how to go about it. Plus, he'd feared he might be found, recaptured. Now, at least, he supposed he didn't have to worry about that.
Sniffling a bit, Loren watched as Josh missed his mark. At least he wasn't that much worse than his companion for the afternoon. He moved up to the table to bend over it, but paused abruptly when Josh told him he'd been homeless for a while. "What?" he asked, blinking as he straightened up again. "What a'ya mean, you lived on the streets? Like... really? Like no 'ome at all or anything?" That seemed bizarre to Loren, completely incomprehensible. He'd heard of and seen homeless people, of course, but until the sudden moment when the world ended, he'd never really been able to grasp the concept. He had always been taken care of, fed every day, clothed, babied... It was intriguing to him, the idea that there was a person here that had actually experienced being homeless.
Josh stared at Loren, puzzled by his reaction. He had to wonder what was so shocking about that. The fact that he'd lived on the streets was as much of his life's story as he felt willing to tell anyone here; he had no intentions of going into the rest of it. It sounded peculiar and melodramatic, like a made-for-TV movie, but sadly it was true. Anyway, nobody in this brave new world needed to know about it. "Yeah," he said, leaning against the table a little to wait for the blond to make his shot. "I'd shower at the homeless shelter as m-much as I could, but I didn't want to stay there. There's some real creeps." He'd never had to take care of himself before then, either, but he'd managed pretty well, all things considered. He hadn't had a choice in the matter.
"Wow," Loren said, a little more respect for Josh built up in his mind. He was definitely intrigued by the other boy now, thinking him much more interesting. Eyes on the table again, Loren searched for the next shot he would take, moving around to the other side of the table. He bent over and lined up, checking himself briefly before shooting toward a blue ball in front of him. Calling shots hadn't quite made itself into his mind yet... "Well, now we're all without real 'ouses and stuff, so I s'pose it doesn't matter any. We're all kinda on the same level, yeah?"
Josh blinked, not having thought of it that way. On the same level. He was used to feeling less than, used to struggles. But really, Loren was right. They were. "Yeah," he said, nodding a little. "Th-this is our house, kinda." A house without light and probably soon without gas and water, but they weren't out on the street with the monsters. That was definitely something for which to be thankful. He wandered around to the other side, seeking out that perfect shot now that Loren had gone.
Loren's eyes followed Josh as he moved around the table, thinking about their situation more seriously than he tended to. He didn't like to dwell if he could help himself. It only seemed to make things worse for him. "Yeah... we're all like... kinda like family, yeah? I mean... obviously unrelated, but like... s'like a family gathering, only with monsters." He smirked, giggling to himself about it. "An' like, Terry's gran an' Joyce is like your favorite Auntie, makin' something good in the kitchen... y'know, without power or anything." He smirked. "An' then we 'ave grumpy Uncle Zane."
The name Terry was familiar, because he was one of the leader guys, and Joyce was, of course. "Joyce was one of the p-people who found me," he commented. "I don't know Zane." He'd been at the meeting, but he'd kept his head down, only speaking when it had been time for him to tell everyone his name and what he could do. Most of it had been a blur to him. He selected another solid ball to try to sink into a pocket and completely failed. "Missed again. 'S'been a long time... since I played." It would be something to do, getting his game decent again. He wasn't sure what all would happen in the coming days, but they were bound to need distractions.
"Not really familiar with Joyce meself," Loren answered, a shrug coming up as he turned back to the pool table. "She seems nice, though. An' Zane... dunno 'ow I feel about 'im. He seems crabby or sommat. I dunno, though. Maybe the guy likes flowers an' puppy dogs." When Josh took his shot and missed, Loren couldn't help himself -- he started laughing. "Lord, we're not doing very well, are we? Maybe this was a bad idea, mate." He lined up for another shot anyway, though, gesturing with his stick toward the ball he wanted. This time he did actually hit it, though it didn't quite make it into a pocket. "Bugger."
"It's n-not a bad idea," Josh said sheepishly. "We just really suck." Loren didn't seem to mind that they sucked, since he was laughing. That was good, right? Did he really just say bugger? He couldn't help but find that amusing and he wasn't even sure why. "Maybe we should quit for now," he suggested. He was getting warm again, something that seemed to be a recurring problem for him, and he swiped at his neck with his fingers. "I th-think I wanna go find something to drink." If Loren wanted to come with him, fine; if not, he could go on his own, certainly.
Loren immediately dumped his pool stick when it was suggested that they stop. "We do really suck at this, don't we?" he said, agreeing with the other boy. There was laughter in his voice as he shrugged and headed to the door. "C'mon, let's get some of the last bit of juice, yeah? There's OJ I think, an' then water... so like, or... there's liquor an' shit too, but I've 'ad enough of that for a while I think." He smiled over his shoulder and went out into the hallway, glancing down toward the kitchen and back to Josh briefly. He was glad they seemed to be getting along. It was a good thing, finding himself making friends... it was probably the first time in Loren's life that he didn't feel so entirely alone.