Josh Castillo (forecastle) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-07-20 20:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [07] july, joshua castillo, maizie wolfe, olivia jensen |
WHO: Josh Castillo, Olivia Jensen, and Maizie Wolfe
WHAT: Olivia and Maizie give Josh a tour of the LBJ, and Maizie watches them for any indication of romantic feelings towards each other
WHEN: Backdated to July 16
WHERE: LBJ
This was so totally not a big deal. It was just Josh, after all, coming over to hang out with Olivia and her friend Maizie. At her sort-of house that happened to be a museum. After Maizie had just gone over to the Dog Park to visit her dad and make sure he wasn't turning into a zombie. None of that was a big deal at all.
It wasn't like she had expectations or anything. It wasn't like she'd barely been able to sleep the night before because Josh was coming over and she was going to introduce him to one of her like, three friends in this sad post-apocalyptic world.
Everything was fine.
Except that when Josh appeared, Olivia's stomach seized up and she bit her lip hard, trying not to smile too much. But that was a totally normal reaction to seeing one of your friends. Right? Right.
"Um," she said, giving Maizie a sideways glance as she stood up, suddenly wondering how to even greet him now that Maizie was there and why was she suddenly so panicked about this? "So that's Josh." And then, when he came closer, she gestured towards her friend. "And this is Maizie. You may have seen her around yesterday at your park."
--
Yesterday's trip to the Dog Park had made Maizie feel better about how the Hellhounds were taking care of Dad, and most of the time she was clinging to that like a life raft. For the duration of Josh’s visit, however, she’d had decided to put her worries firmly out of her head.
Which, of course, was hard to do when that was the very first thing that got brought up when Josh arrived.
Luckily there were better things to focus on, like the fact that Liv was acting totally WEIRD and awkward. Maizie shot her a look as she stood up, silently telegraphing the message that she needed to pull herself together. Then she turned to give Josh a bright grin and held out her hand.
“It’s great to finally meet you, Josh,” Maizie said. “I actually don’t think I saw you at the park, did I? Anyway I just wanted to say thank you for helping search for Dad, and for everything you guys have done for us. Have you been to the library before?”
--
Of course, Josh had passed by the LBJ about a million times since he’d started going to school in Austin, but it hadn’t felt nearly as intimidating as it did right now, not even when he’d picked Olivia up to go exploring. He drove up to the entrance slowly, and parked his bike near the entrance. He had his backpack with him as usual, and his old ID from the UMCB in his pocket, which Josh soon dug out to present to security. In attempt to appear less threatening, he’d decided to forego his patch and had arrived in blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and threw an unbuttoned flannel over it. Granted, Josh barely looked threatening in his Hellhound gear, but in a plain t-shirt and jeans, he looked like he belonged in a college classroom and not a biker gang.
As expected, the security team searched Josh even after they cleared his ID. Josh mostly looked up at the ceiling, trying not to breathe too quickly. There wasn’t a reason to be nervous, not really. The LBJ wasn’t run by the Capitol and as of right now, their leader was residing in their own camp, recovering from his kidnapping. Harming a Hellhound would definitely not help their shaky, tentative alliance.
Soon, as Josh moved back farther into the library, he found Olivia standing there, waiting for him, with a younger girl he assumed was her friend. Maizie. Wolfe’s daughter. “Nice to meet you,” Josh gave her a kind smile, and shook her hand firmly. “I don’t think we ran into each other at all, actually, but there was a lot going on yesterday, so,” he shrugged, and then felt his face warm when Maizie thanked him for all their help. “I’m just glad your dad’s responding to the medicine so far. He looks much better already.”
At the question of whether or not he’d been to the library, Josh shook his head easily. “No, this is my first time here. Are you two giving me the grand tour?” He raised his eyebrows at Olivia, and then realized he’d never actually said hello to her. “Hi, by the way,” Josh grinned.
--
It was pretty interesting how all of this between the library and the Hellhounds was starting to shake out. Besides Josh, Olivia had always steered clear of them, knowing just how dangerous they could be. But now Gray was sitting pretty over at their camp and everyone was getting chummy, even Day. Funny how quick things could change.
Olivia grinned back over at Josh, his casual clothes giving her an almost instant flashback to college. He could've almost been coming over for another tutoring session if she squinted her eyes enough. "Hey yourself," she said, hesitating only a moment before sidestepping over to give him a half-hug, one arm moving around his waist. "That's awesome that Gray's doing so well. All that studying paid off, huh?"
Olivia glanded over at Maizie conspiratorially. "You betcha this is the tour. All the documents and stuff have mostly been cleared out but the exhibit walls are still around. I live in the 'social justice' wing myself. Maizie is in the Oval Office replica."
--
Well, if Josh didn't want to make a big deal out of it, Maizie wouldn't either, but she knew the truth. Dad was only alive because of the Hellhounds. The important thing, though, was to make a good impression here, since Josh was obviously important to Liv, one way or another.
"Which was totally weird at first," Maizie added onto Liv's comment. "It still looks like the Oval Office, even with all the pieces of the exhibit gone, but you get used to it. Plus, we put our own stuff in it and that helps."
Liv was right, though: there honestly wasn't that much of interest, historical interest anyway, left in the library. The Presidential limo, which used to be right there in the lobby, had been moved along with almost everything else. The few things that remained had all been adapted for the shelter's use. But the LBJ was different from both the Dog Park and the hospital, and maybe that was enough to make it interesting.
"Anyway, you've already seen our brilliant security in action. So, yeah. Why don't we start with the 'social justice' wing, then, Liv?" Maybe it was a little bit mean to suggest they take their tour through what was basically her friend's bedroom, but Maizie couldn't resist the suggestion. It wasn't like there were a lot of other options anyway. "I'm sure Josh would be super interested in seeing where you live."
--
He returned Olivia’s half-hug, wrapping an arm loosely around her shoulders. Josh wasn’t sure what Maizie knew about him and Olivia and their past…involvements, so he let Olivia call the shots and decide how to play this one. Since she was only giving him a half-hug, he assumed they were being just friends today, nothing else. Which made sense, considering they weren’t together and they were hardly in a private space, but it felt weird to Josh. Growing up in a Hispanic family met a lot of physical affection, with big hugs and kisses on the cheek in greeting. Then again, Josh hadn’t had that since the zombies, but some things were harder to get accustomed to than others, he supposed.
“Yeah,” Josh smiled. He wanted to choose his words carefully, though, given Maizie was Gray’s daughter and he didn’t want to scare her by listing every single last thing he’d had to do to keep her father alive. “I couldn’t have done it without Marcus, though. I’ve had to learn how do a lot of the smaller things, like placing an IV and figuring out the right amount of painkillers, but having him there freed me up to do more of the bigger things that I was actually training to do. I’m glad it was two of us working together - it really was a team effort.” Josh insisted, refusing to take full credit just because he’d handled the broken bones which made up at least half of Gray’s injuries. The operation was much more than that, and he was grateful that he hadn’t had to do it alone.
He widened his eyes at the mention of the Oval Office exhibit. “I never even thought about that,” Josh admitted, and reached up to scratch the back of his neck. “That’s still gotta be weird, even with exhibit furniture moved out.” He glanced at Olivia when Maizie mentioned where she called home in this gigantic preservation of American history. “Sure, lead the way. Don’t you have like, seven roommates?” Josh asked, as they started down to wherever the social justice wing was.