RP: Flatmates? Who: Tate, Persephone When: March 30 Where: Persephone's flat, Victory Road What: Meeting a prospective roommate Warnings: None
Tate needed one more piece of the puzzle to fall into place before he would declare that things seemed to be looking up for him. He had found a job, while it wasn’t as high up in the kitchen hierarchy as he would have liked, he did appreciate having to start from the bottom and the fact that he was even given a job. He doubted his last boss had given a great reference when they had called, and oh he knew they had called. He knew the only thing that had saved him had been the fact that he could cook. It was the one he was good at and he used it to every single time. Unfortunately however, it wasn’t going to be able to help him land the open roommate spot. He had to rely on his charms and well… Those were a bit rusty.
He had showed up on time however, even five minutes early. He had dressed the part of what he was, a chef. He had worn his work uniform, though it was clean. It was just a pair of black slacks that he had paired with a black t-shirt that hugged his slender frame, and his white, clean, freshly pressed chef jacket that was left open. The only thing that seemed to be off about the whole, put together chef, was the hair. His hair just seemed to do whatever it wanted and today was absolutely no different. It was sticking up every which way and he couldn’t be bothered to try to tame it. He was more worried about what sort of first impression he was going to give off.
With a soft prayer of, “Please, let me catch a fuckin’ break.” He reached his hand up to knock at the door. The place was perfect in his mind already, it was above Sweet Nothings. The place was becoming one of his favorite haunts early in the morning, just before his shift. He’d go in for coffee and always seemed to find himself leaving with a neat treat.
***
Persephone was feeling optimistic though that was, admittedly, a fairly common state for her. She'd received a few enquiries after she'd started advertising for someone to take the second bedroom in her flat and even though none of those had panned out yet she was staying positive that the next person who was coming to take a look at the room would be the right fit.
She was in the midst of giving the kitchen worktops a quick once-over with a Healer-standard cleaning charm when she heard the knock at the door. Persephone tucked her wand away and looked down at herself to check that the casual shirt she was wearing wasn't covered in biscuit crumbs or anything like that. Out of her robes and with her hair in a couple of half-arsed plaits, she didn't look much like a Healer. Hopefully, she thought, she looked approachable,
She opened the door with a sunny smile. "Hello! You must be Tate."
***
For some reason the woman that answered the door was not at all what Tate had been expecting for some reason. She looked friendly and normal, that was more than he could have ever hoped for. It was just another reason that he really hoped he would get the room, he doubted that the other ads he had responded to had people that looked half this friendly and normal pulling the strings.
“I am, you must be Persephone?” Her last name had pinged something in him. It had sounded familiar and he knew why. He just didn’t know how to nicely ask if she was in any way related to Dora, he figured he would find a way to slip it into conversation as they went through the interview process. He had met Dora when he had been dating Teddy, Dora had been Teddy’s best friend. He idly wondered if the world really was just that small.
When he was let inside, he stepped inside. Since he was on his best behavior, he motioned towards his feet. “Do you want me to take my shoes off?” Some people were a bit ridiculous about that rule, his mother had been one of those people.
***
"Aye, that's me." Persephone held the door open wide for him to enter. "Come in, let me show you around."
By his first impression, he seemed nice. Tate wasn't physically imposing and didn't appear to be someone that she would need Dora to terrorise. Of course, they'd only exchanged a few words, so she could be entirely wrong, but Persephone liked to think the best of people.
"Oh, um, you can if you want. I don't mind either way." She was wearing slippers and wasn't very precious about that sort of thing. "Whatever you're comfortable with."
***
Tate debated for half a second with himself before he settled on keeping them on.
"You weren't kidding about the location. Sweet Nothings has become one of my favorite morning stops since moving back to London." The entire area was beautiful to him really. He loved what they had done with Victory Road. "How did you luck into this place?" He asked curiously, because it was a unique location. If Tate had not seen the ad in the paper, he wouldn't have guessed there was a flat above Sweet Nothings. He wondered if other shops had flats too.
***
"Everything is so delicious there, isn't it? And it smells so good first thing in the morning."
Persephone closed the door behind Tate and smiled. "Melinda, the owner of Sweet Nothings, also owns the whole building. She actually lives upstairs." She gestured towards the ceiling. It was quite nice having the landlord just upstairs: if there were ever any problems, it would be easy to get in touch. "We get regular deliveries from Sweet Nothings to my work and the flat came up when we got chatting one day." Though she had originally thought of moving to the Quatre just down the road so that she could be neighbours with ZJ, Persephone had changed her mind when she found out that Pandora and Ewan were living there too. She didn't want to mess up the rekindled relationship with her sister by always being around.
"So, it's a two-bedroom place. Only me living here at the moment. I moved in a couple of weeks ago."
***
First thing in the morning? Tate had not even thought of that possibility, his eyes lit up and he looked a bit like an excited child on Christmas morning. "You wake up to the smell?" That had to be the best way to wake up, he was sure of it. The only thing better would be if someone was bringing him the delicious treats directly in bed... He wondered if he could talk someone into doing that for him, at least once.
For some reason when she mentioned that Melinda lived above them, he looked up as if to find her there. That was convenient but bad. What if he was making a moron of himself at 2am, drunk, and on the street? He wouldn't dare put a roommate through his bullshit but a landlord could potentially find him outside being a drunk mess. He supposed it was just an added incentive to be on his best behavior if he got the place. "That's really great, where do you work?" He was making idle conversation. He had already mentioned in his e-mail that he was a chef, and he had shown up in uniform. He supposed it went without saying just what he did.
"Your ad said that you were looking for someone to move in right away?" The place looked furnished, which was a bit of a relief for him. "I will admit, I'm pretty excited that you seem to have furniture and things already. I don't have much to bring to the table that doesn't fit inside a kitchen." He had a bed, sure but that was the extent of it. He tended to just hang everything in his closet, so he had no use for a dresser. His boxers just got stuffed into a tote that held socks as well, in the closet. "I do have to ask though, is it communal grounds? The living room and such?" He had been to a few different interviews where the only space was literally the room, which he was okay with but he was hoping to find one where he didn't have to hide away in his room when home. He wanted a kitchen so badly. It was where those baby blues of his kept drifting to currently, trying to peek at the kitchen before they had even gotten that far in the tour.
***
Persephone nodded. "Yeah. The smell of croissants and pastries first thing in the morning is so good." It was so different to what she was used to, too. Campsites in Iraq weren't a patch on Sweet Nothings unless you were up all night working and were starving.
"I'm just down the road at the clinic. I'm a Healer. But my work hours are pretty regular. Unless a baby decides to be born in the middle of the night, which they do sometimes." She grinned. Since relocating to Victory Road, she hadn't had any call outs at unsociable hours but as she was building up a list of patients the likelihood was increasing.
"Yeah, that's right. Let me show you the room." Persephone had taken the larger of the two rooms, which was now home to the sleigh bed that she had got from Pandora at Inside and Out. The other bedroom was still a decent size, though, with a nice view down onto Victory Road. "Some of the furniture is mine, some came with the flat." If Tate took the room, she could do a bit of an inventory with him.
Walking across the room, Persephone twitched the curtains open. "Oh, of course. You stay out of my room, I'll stay out of yours. Everything else is communal. I'm used to sharing a space."
***
“It sounds like heaven. This place just seems to get better and better.” He gave a soft chuckle at her joke about the kids, nodding. “They tend to decide to come whenever they want. That sounds like an exciting job though, delivering kids. Did you always want to be a doctor?” He assumed she had not always wanted to deliver children, but you never knew.
“That sounds like a pretty reasonable rule.” He agreed as he followed after her, taking in the apartment as they went. “If you don’t mind my being nosey, how many other applicants are you considering?” He stuffed hands into his pockets as he glanced up at her. “Just curious as to what my odds are.” He was nervous about the question and answer part of the interview. He assumed she had questions for him and he just hoped he would be able to answer them correctly, as well as honestly.
***
Persephone shrugged. "I guess. I think other people figured out that I'd be a Healer before I did." There had been a bit of a feeling of obviously coming from some people when she'd announced her intentions. "But the baby thing is new for me. I was with Healers Without Borders for a few years until just before Christmas."
She was relieved that Tate was asking questions. The last person she had shown the room had pretty much just stood there and stared at her, which had been both unnerving and annoying; they were most definitely out of the running. "I've had a couple of viewings," she admitted. "And two that I've turned down flat. I don't want to live with a couple. Not that I have a problem if you have a partner, I just don't want two roommates."
Glancing around the room, she tried to remember if there was anything else she should say about it. "Have you just moved to London?" she asked, the accent a good indicator.
***
Tate smirked a bit, “That’s cute that they knew before you did. Did you play doctor a lot? My sister did that, she was always covering me in band aids.” Though really, his sister had not gone on to be a doctor. She had gone a completely different path, so he assumed that the band aids were subjective. “You did that? That’s amazing.” Tate sounded genuinely interested, “How long did you do that for? Did you enjoy it?” Tate couldn’t imagine being in the middle of nowhere like that but it had always sounded interesting to him.
That wasn’t bad, only two people. It wasn’t bad odds, or so he hoped. “Oh, uh yeah no it’s just me. I’m single too, though I’ve got a friend that tends to hang out often? He means well, his name’s Sid.” It was probably best to voice that now, Sid would come by at some point so it was better to warn her. He would warn Sid to be on his best behavior, at least that was if he got the flat. He had to remind himself that was still up in the air, she could still have other people to interview that were better candidates than himself.
“Oh, uh,” Tate’s hand came up to rub nervously at the back of his neck, nodding his head. “Sort of, yeah. This is my second time living in London. My father and I moved here from New York, we moved to France when he remarried, I learned on the job while out there, and only recently moved back to be closer to family.” He supposed that covered everything, in a blanket sense. She didn’t care about the family drama, how he was still a bit of a mess about all the death of his father and mother, or the fact that he had just recently discovered he had two extra siblings instead of the one he had thought there was.
***
"A wee bit. I suppose I've always been the helpful, nurturing type." Smile smiled, thinking that sounded a bit silly actually saying it aloud. "Oh, about four years. Straight after I finished training. It was great, but I felt like settling down in one place for a while."
Persephone shrugged. "That sounds alright to me. I'm used to being around people - that why I want a flatmate. Being alone is... weird."
Leaving the bedroom, Persephone told him that she'd show him the rest of the flat. "So you're quite well-travelled? And you're a chef?"
***
"It must be so strange being back, after four years away. What's the hardest thing you've had to readjust to? I mean," He gave a nervous laugh, glancing around the flat. "Other than living alone. I can't blame you, I never cared much for living alone. I lived with my father for a while when I first moved to France, I only moved out when his wife got pregnant. It seemed like I was intruding on that whole thing." He gave a slight shrug, he knew he was sharing just a little too much but he didn't know how much was too much. This was an interview to live with someone, he assumed you'd want to know a lot.
"I am, I can even give you some references in town." He said with a laugh, "Though, it might just be Teddy and Dora in the city that's had my cooking. Oh, I guess and maybe Sid? He's biased though." He always teased Sid for moaning while he ate, it was the oddest habit. It always seemed to get worse the more he pointed it out, until he would end up in a ball of laughter with his friend. "Have you only been out with Healers Without Borders? I mean, have you ever been on vacation?"
***
"Hmm. Phones and stuff," she said with just a little bit of a pout. "I'm just not used to it, but I'm adapting. Sort of miss writing actual letters, though."
Persephone raised her eyebrows. Dora? How many Doras around their age - presumably - were there likely to be?
"Oh. I did a few short trips when I managed to take some time off. And family holidays when I was a kid. But never a lying on the beach kind of thing." She waved a hand at her face. "Too pale and pasty." Wrinkling her nose, she added, "Speaking of family, is Dora short for Pandora, by any wee chance?"
***
"I rarely use mine like I should. It's completely filled with pictures of food and recipes and that I'm interested in." He rarely used the phone for anything useful, he tended to break them or drop them into food too often and replace them.
"Oh, uh yeah. Do you know her? I met her a few years back through an ex of mine." They had recently bumped back into each other at the same ex's birthday party. He had gotten the invitation by mistake but had gone anyway.
***
"If it's the same Pandora, it's my sister. About my height, Scottish, whisky drinker?" Persephone grinned, remembering the text the Pandora had sent her after she'd placed the advert for a flatmate. "She's actually threatened to terrorise any dodgy applicants, bless her." Pandora was probably joking.
Probably.
"If you're a chef, you'll probably want to take a look at the kitchen?"
***
Tate gave her a lopsided smile, chuckling as he nodded his head. "It definitely sounds like the same Dora. You're her sister? Maybe.. You shouldn't tell her you met me." He admitted with a laugh, "She and I have gotten pretty shitfaced together, I don't think you want to hear some of my moron moments from her." Though, she might. He knew he had done a few epically stupid things in his time, they could be amusing. He just hoped that it wouldn't hurt him with the standings in the roommate pool.
"I'd love to see the kitchen. What appliances does it come with? I do have a lot of my own things to bring, I think I mentioned that?" He was nervous, reached a hand up to brush through his messy locks and chuckled. "Sorry, shall we?" He motioned towards the door, letting her go first through the doorway before he would follow after her.
***
Persephone laughed. "Yeah, we're sisters." She wasn't going to go into how distant and complicated their relationship had been over the last decade. But if Pandora said Tate was even just okay, that was practically glowing praise. Knowing how guarded Dora had become, getting really drunk together had to mean there was some level of trust there.
"Er, there's a cooker." Persephone wasn't much for spending time in the kitchen. She wasn't a terrible cook, but she was more interested in eating food than making it. "It seems pretty good so far. Melinda must have picked it out, I think." She was glad she'd given the kitchen an extra bit of cleaning. "I don't have much kitchen stuff," she explained. "But if you theoretically did need more room, we can probably do some charms."
***
It was a small world and he was going to have to ask Dora to not tell Persephone about that one time... She had already agreed not to but he still needed to double check that this still held true when the flatmate would be his sister. He chuckled, nodding his head. "Then that means you're good people." It did make Tate feel just a bit better about the entire thing, the fact that she was related to a good friend of his meant she had to be good people. "I can see the family resemblance." It was probably just the hair, but he thought their eyes were similar too.
"Do you cook?" Tate asked curiously as they entered the kitchen and he went about poking around. "I can teach you to use anything that I have, and whatever else in here if you ever want?" He didn't know how much cooking she did but it didn't sound like much, which was fine by him. He always made more than enough food and would end up feeding her if she didn't watch it. He loved to have someone to cook for, even if it was just a roommate.
***
"I'm not much of a cook," Persephone admitted leaning against the worktop and casually crossing her arms. "But I'm excellent at washing up." No one knew how to disinfect and sterilise like a Healer; you could eat off any surface once she was done with it.
"So, do ye mind if I ask where you're living at the moment?" It wouldn't hurt to get to know what Tate's current situation was and whether he'd be looking for a quick response about the room.
***
"It sounds like a match." Tate said with a chuckle, he would never turn down someone offering to clean up. He never minded having to do the dishes but it was always nice when someone offered to help out with that part of the night. He usually helped too, dishes always somehow went faster when someone was drying them as they were rinsed.
He shook his head, "I don't mind at all. I'm actually staying on my brother's couch. I'm sort of couch hoppin' between his couch and a friend of mine." Well, technically it was friends because it was the twins but he had opted to go back to his brother's couch because he was feeling like a burden.
***
"That sounds uncomfortable," Persephone said with a slight wince. Sleeping on couches couldn't be good for his back, at the very least. Tate would probably be looking to move in soon, which would suit her just fine, though there was one more person who had contacted her about the room this morning and Persephone was a little too kind-hearted: she was at least going to give them a chance to see the flat. Being fully aware of her options was no bad thing!
"Are there any questions you want to ask me?" She pushed up her glasses. "I've never looked for a flatmate before. I should have looked up things to ask."
***
Tate actually winced, she had hit the nail on the head. "It's incredibly uncomfortable. I feel like I'm constantly under someone's feet. It's why I was looking for my own place, I had not really expected to be on his couch for that long but I took a little too long catching up with old friend's and not looking for a job right away." Which had definitely been a small part of it, another larger part had been that he had just not been able to find a job right away. He had bombed a few interviews and showed up drunk to another one. He had found a job though and was doing well at it, so long as he stayed there.
When she turned the tables, he gave a useless shrug. "I think the most pressing one is just making sure that you're not a serial killer?" He was grinning moments later, laughing at his own joke. "I think I asked everything I needed though. Did you want to know anything else about me?"
***
"Hmm." Persephone's gaze turned upwards as she adopted an innocent look. "Remind me how many murders you have to commit to be a serial killer?" Ooh, a bit of a dark joke, but she was Pandora's sister, after all. She grinned and shook her head. "No, I tend to try to keep people alive, I promise."
Did she have everything she needed to know about him? "I don't think so," she said slowly. "But can I send you a message if I think of anything else later?"
***
"I think it's something like three people? Though there has to be a pattern." He gave her a playful smile, the fact he knew that information was probably a bit morbid but hey.. He was friends with Dora, and Persephone seemed to be a bit morbid herself. It would work out just fine, he was sure of it.
"Oh! Definitely, do you have my number?" He thought he had included it but he couldn't be sure. "You can definitely reach me just about anytime to ask anything else you might need." Tate was a bit too eager and he realized it, he was just excited that he had a prospect that actually looked good, to get off his brother's couch.
***
"Let me check..." Persephone looked around, trying to remember where she'd put her phone. "Oh, there." In the fruit bowl, for some reason. She thumbed through the few messages that she had saved until she found her correspondence with Tate. "Yeah, I have your number." She smiled. "I promise I won't keep you waiting for long. I like to keep things organised."
***
When she produced her phone from the fruit bowl, he gave a chuckle. "You really don't cook, do you?" He wondered just how her phone had ended up there but he supposed there were worse things. He would just make a note that if he did get the flat, he would check the fridge and things for her phone before doing things.
"Thank you, I appreciate it. I think I might hit up Sweet Nothings on my way out.." He made his way to the door then, nervously wiping his hands on his pant legs before holding one out for her. His palms were just a bit wet from nervous sweats. "It was nice to meet you."
***
"Eh, not so much." Persephone wrinkled her nose. "It keeps ending up there. Normally I like things to be in the right place, but my phone..." She made a soft noise of dislike. "I'll find a home for it eventually."
Persephone nodded. "You should. I practically live off their pastries at work." She met his hand with a firm handshake. "Really nice meeting you too, Tate."
***
Tate chuckled softly, "It is new to you. You'll find that most people believe the place for the phone is either in their palm or in their pocket." It wasn't where Tate thought the phone needed to believe at all the times, though he did tend to keep his on him. It was mostly due to the fact that it was his lifeline to most people since he had friends scattered across the globe.
As he left the apartment, he was sending out a prayer to whatever Gods were out there that he got this place. It seemed perfect for him. Right above one of his favorite places, the sister of one of his good friends would be his flat mate, and it was ideally located. It was too good to be true, he was sure of it.