3 replies to this topic

[Gabriel French]

It was unbelievably, strangely easy for Gabe to make friends in his daily life. All it took was his genuine smile and a few ridiculous puns and people understood him; of course there was the occasional jerk that didn't take very well to his personality, but for the most part it came naturally to him. He was good at reading people, but slow to mistrust, which often made him as naive as a goofy dog wanting love. Somehow or another, he hadn't been taken advantage of just yet-- but that, perhaps, was a matter of time.

 

Certainly the average person would have been skeptical of Scott and Silas. The setting in which they'd met hadn't been the most friendly, considering Gabe had stopped by on short notice to grab a quarter of weed. They'd been chill with him, though, letting him sit around with them after they'd smoked him out, and soon enough a night with plans had gone right by. A few more hangouts and they were solidified as fast friends, nearly inseparable even if Gabe could be radically different from both of them.

 

And he'd made fairly fast friends with Mickey-- at least in his mind, he had. He wasn't aware just how obnoxious and irritatingly firm he could be when he decided to include someone in his circle. The extrovert in him refused to see the warning signs, any sort of indication that Mickey might not be so keen on getting to know him, much less wanting to live in the same apartment. Either way, Gabe had practically coerced him into visiting.

 

Because, you see, they had quite a dilemma, one that they shared with Mickey. They needed one more roommate and he needed three, so it seemed like the simplest solution in the world to Gabe. Never had it occurred to him that, perhaps, these personalities were incompatible. That was outright silly-- they were all nice people, weren't they?

 

So he strode into the apartment with his typical goofy grandeur, shouting a greeting that Scott barely glanced up to acknowledge. He was high af and immersed in a video game, but Gabe dealt with that in the best way he knew how-- by immediately placing himself in between his friend and the television, blocking his ability to continue entirely.

 

Exasperated, Scott put his controller down and glared at him, though it didn't take him long to see the guy standing behind him. And just as he'd done at the party in which they met, he assumed he was someone else.

 

"What the fuck is he doing here?" Scott raged, looking at Gabe as though he'd committed a huge betrayal.

 

"He's our new roommate!"

[Mickey Laslow]

This was a no good, very bad idea.

Mickey had lucked up initially, somehow, in losing his dormmate only a week into the quarter, which was a heavensent bleeding straight from the gods themselves to be quite honest. He would have truly been content just living on his own, too. That was actually a bit of a fantasy of his, if not just his dream come true. People congregating in places were likely his biggest fear, even if it was just one person, and even if it was in his own homestead. He just... couldn't deal with them. He wasn't misanthropic or anything, not really; he didnt hate people or anything so much as he feared them.

Truth be told, there were maybe two people total in his life that didnt terrify the everloving shit out of him, and one just happened to be family.

So meeting Gabe wasn't quite the anime shower of cherry blossoms that Gabe had seemingly assumed it was. How he missed the hunched back, wide eyed look of terror often scripted behind Mick's glasses was a mystery, but to onlookers surely it has to look like a predator dragging its prey from one apartment to the next. All that was missing was the bear trap that snagged him and some poor flannel fashion choices and the scene would honestly resembled some mangled hunting scene on a b-list station morning line up.

The entire situation was a blue, as much of their encounters had been. Social anxiety for Mick came with a nice little hair trigger button that threw his consciousness in the background of his mind while he watched on in horror as he stammered and stuttered his way through the motions, attempting to seem human and normal all the while. How all those blunders ended up in some successful invitation to live with Gabe was... well, a damn mystery.

But here he was, deer in headlights in front of a face he remembered all too well.

"I... uh... I don't..." The school wasn't small by any means so he never expected to come face to face with the guy that had all but harassed him at some stupid frat party. Poor kid. He had assumed himself safe so long as he stayed indoors, but now he couldn't even do that properly. Already he was edging behind Gabe, chickenshit as he was, avoiding eye contact with the dude at least twice his size.

[Scott Emerson]

Scott, first and foremost, had a reactionary personality. He knew how to hide certain emotions behind a veil of jokes and general idiocy, but his anger came through undeterred, an unhealthy default when he was confronted with situations like these. "You have got to be fucking kidding me," he said, damn near starting forward to lay the guy flat. 

 

Yet Scott wasn't entirely guided by his rage-- he did have a brain up there. The more he looked at him, the more it dawned on him that this wasn't Nich. A hazy memory came floating out of the marijuana cloud that was his mind, and he finally remembered that Nich had a twin brother. That he'd met and conversed with for a little while, no less, but it wasn't out of the ordinary for Scott to completely delete social interactions from his mind if he thought they carried little weight.

 

So he struggled now, trying to piece back together what fragments he had of who this guy was. Certainly he was terrified now, but Scott just waved him off. "Ah, gotcha. It's just this kid." With that he shrugged, plopping back down lazily on the couch, eyes glancing toward the television. A few beats passed before his mind caught up, though, and he blinked over at the two of them.

 

"Wait. Roommate? You found a fourth roommate?" A lazy half smile crept onto his features as he processed what Gabe brought to their door-- endless entertainment, a little scared thing that wouldn't even know how to deal with the three of them and their antics. Already he was looking forward to it. His smile widened to a cheshire grin, then, mischievous intent dancing in his eyes. "Excellent."

[Mickey Laslow]

Things had been somewhat settled the last time Mickey had crossed paths with the lumbering rage giant that was Scott Emerson, but that didn't mean a single thing to Mickey at this point. He would have been terrified of the guy regardless of the mix up but certainly that little Freaky Friday switcheroo didn't make anything any better, that much was for sure. It also didn't help matters much that Scott seemingly forgot about the whole twin thing. Already he was curling into himself defensively, arms raising to cover his face as he saw the distance between them start to shrink.

And then, just like that, it stopped, a thought clicked, and his safety was assured, though by then anxiety and genuine fear had already done its damage to poor Mickey's overworked nervous system. There went another year off of an already paranoia shortened life. Poor kid.

And there was that word again - roommate. How had that even been decided? He had certainly never verbally agreed to it. Then again, he had never disagreed to it, either, if only because getting that many words out in a row successfully was, well, a bit of a stretch. Add to that the fact that he thought they might be slightly confrontation words and, well... you know the rest. Still, he had to try.

"Uh, I... I actually don't... I mean, you guys are nice and all, but..." Poor kid. He had tried, he really had, and success was on the horizon, right there in his reach, when just as he prepared to deny any alligations of future roommate situations, someone else entered the fray.

He was a little less intimidating than Scott, at least. Messy hair, sleep hooded eyes, he had clearly just woken up (at two in the afternoon, no less) and was a little confused as he slinked into the room, hunched over and wincing. "What the hell, man, volume control."