Helen
A lovely afternoon it was, for what was felt an awful lot like the *Middle of the night*. It hadn't rained in a while, but it desperately needed to- humidity stuck stubborn and miserable to Magnus' back and palms, condensing under her thick mane of two-toned curls; she needed a shower, and needed to trim the shaven sides of her head, and needed to not be here, please and thanks. *Fuck*. Wasn't Sweden supposed to be cold or something?

Apparently, she wasn't the only one full of surprises.

The people at the office- nice enough, if not painfully hospitable- had told Magnus to head this way, and that most of her stuff should be here already. Hands too full to pull out her map, the short but sure-footed figure tried her best to remember which halls led where. The odd presence (classmates, now? Fellow inmates?) didn't go unnoticed. A well of charcoal and a startling drop of ice water scanned disturbingly nice architecture, signs she could read maybe half of at a glance, and some mighty strange fashion senses. All of these observations were muttered under her breath as she blew errant strands of misbehaving curls from her forehead and scanned the room numbers for what was apparently hers now.

The light filtering in through the windows would have been pleasant if she weren't dealing with two flights of stairs, residual simmering fury, and no free hands, but Magnus wasn't keen on letting that go. She was pissed, and righteously so, and if this place decided to be her problem, then it was only fair that she return the gesture.

There. Number 2388.

Two quick kicks from a gravel-scuffed red boot toward the bottom to serve as a knock, and then the begrudging newcomer stood back and straightened her back as much as she could.
_ _

Whoever opened the door would find her glaring up at them, stack of delicate boxes in hand, clad in an '80s-style neon windbreaker unzipped to reveal a faded black *Ghost* T-shirt and whatever serviceable shorts she had thrown on that morning, sort-of brought together by her favourite cherry-coloured Doc Martens. Not quite a fashion disaster, but decidedly a half-deliberate mess. 

Hair still messy from an impromptu nap on the ride there fell to stubbornly squared shoulders, falling chaotically over piercing eyes red around the rims but open unsettlingly wide. Small in stature, but undoubtedly intense. Hopefully. She pried her gritted teeth apart.

"Aaaaanybody home?"
_ _
Joey
Gabe was positively *Buzzing* With excitement. 

No more single dorm, for better or worse. Here he was, lounging on his bed, waiting for an auspicious knock on the door to arrive at any moment. The room was immaculately clean; after all, he wouldn't want to make a bad first impression. Every poster of a shirtless bodybuilder, or an actor on stage, or a landscape photo of the New Orleans sights were crisp without a wrinkle in sight. The cream colored rug was vacuumed to hell and back, and the various photos and mementos from home that dotted the room were wiped clean. A vase of lilies sat on his desk, their blossoming scent filling the room with a pleasant aroma.

Gabe's hand grazed a dirt spot on the small, dark green vase, tenderly wiping a small speck of dust away. He was going to give them to his mom on the day he was taken— he didn't get a chance to say goodbye, but somehow, the flowers survived the trip to Sweden. It was unfortunate, then, that they had been cut off from their home plant and forced to endure a slow death. No matter how well Gabe tended to them, they were destined to die. 

*Knock, knock*. Wait, no, were those kicks? Either way, Gabe jolts out of his previous train of thought, turning towards the door with a startled jump. *Thank god no one was here to see that,* He thought to himself.

A clear of the throat, and Gabe takes a moment to tidy up his appearance (first impression, after all, better make it a good one!): smoothening his sweater vest, rolling up his sleeves, and making sure his collar was in place. 

"Coming!" He opens the door, and... 

A figure, with hands currently occupied on holding up a painfully large stack of boxes. A weird (read: bad) sense of fashion, and a surprisingly *Intense* Aura about them. Gabe takes another look, eyeing them up and down, eyes trailing the two-toned blotches on their skin and hair. 

*At least they're like me in that regard*, he mused, looking at the dark patches of skin. *Nice*.

*Short*, is Gabe's first thought. *Ugly*, is his second. A small relief— he wouldn't know what to do if he was upstaged by his own roommate. Still, they didn't seem like someone he'd be interested in; the vaguely punk band shirt gave off 'loser who smoked weed by the dumpster during lunch' energy, and Gabe was positively sure that wasn't a compliment. 

Not that he'd voice those thoughts out loud. At the end of the day, they didn't seem *Dangerous*, and it was good enough for him. Gabe plastered on a large, charming grin, eyes crinkling in just the right places.

"Welcome," *Miss*? *Man*? "...Fella. Here, let me help you with those boxes." He beamed, craning his head down to look them in the eye and rest a stabilizing hand on the sides of the other's luggage. "You're probably tired from moving in, huh? Might as well rest a bit and let me do the hard work." 

*Brownie points. Nice.* Gabe mentally patted himself on the back.
Helen
Ah! Hello, person Magnus would be sharing a space with for the next three years. You're objectively gorgeous. His voice hit her tongue as it sank into her ears, unfamiliar and buzzing with the potential of a newly unlocked dungeon, risen from the sand after a deviously solved puzzle, a flash of light, and a tremendous rumbling. *Insert the Zelda mystery sound.*

"Tangy! You add that yourself? Fascinating."

Her voice mimicked the taste, tingling like ginger ale, swishing it around before discarding it in favour for her own natural tones. Despite her still stubbornly crappy mood, Magnus flashed back a smile of her own- striking eyes met her immaculately-postured roommate's and stayed there as dimples creased and the gap between her front teeth glinted from behind an inexplicably devilish grin.

"Yeah, uh, if you insist," She eked out, reluctantly loosening her hold on the contents of her arms. He wouldn't find them particularly heavy, but distinctly *Cold*. "Drop 'em, and I turn your fingers into replacements! Kidding. Mostly."

Her tone was lighthearted on the surface, but with no efforts made to conceal her disgruntled mess of a mood. Scratchy and androgynous, just like the rest of her. 

"Also, I'm feeling girl-ish today, but that's subject to change. My bracelets are in here somewhere..." 

Slinging her backpack onto what she deduced was her bed, Magnus talked while straightening her spine, *Finally*. First meetings were always awkward. Blegh. She spoke as though she was used to the blanks in her bizarre speech being filled in automatically, the lore preceding the strange fragments of scattered dialogue. The same language, but a dialect meant for.. Someone else.

"Looks like they dumped most of my stuff here beforehand. Makes me want to cry, just a little."
_ _

She shrugged off her jacket, and flexed her fingers. An undertone of lingering sweetness bloomed in Magnus' mouth at the glint of silver on her ring finger, a bird nested in the wrong place. *She's here*, he thought, surveying the room. *Never split in a way that matters.* The lilies snapped her out of her trance, and her eyes came back into focus when they landed on the vase.

They seemed.. Out of place? What were lilies doing here? *Lilly...* Focus. The bright-eyed girl-today laced her fingers together behind her head, lifting her hair from her neck for a moment and tilting to face ..Whatever his name was. Should probably ask that.

"Also- it's Magnus, before I forget. You been here long? This place is weirdly clean. That's not bad, it's just, well, weird. *Lemme see, where are my paints..*"

The indeed unsettlingly-clean place was like this dude. Postured. No dorm is this nice, and no dude is this pleased to be here. Damn preppy kids, with their layers of sweater-vests and midnight cable commercial smiles. *Sleep Country Canada- Why buy a mattress anywhere else?* **DING!**

The corners of her mouth twitched a little as she forced herself not to laugh too loudly at her own unspoken joke. This was going to be interesting, and by the spotless carpet silently sobbing beneath her grungy boots, Magnus was *Interested.*
Joey
*Uh, ok, weirdo.* Gabe remarked internally at the weird phrases and shallow threats she made, before picking up all of the boxes in her hands— and a suitcase or two, just to show off. 

She... Seemed like a *Lot*, certainly one of the more eccentric characters at the Cradle. The craziness didn't stop with her too-loud fashion taste or the odd patterns that graced her skin, it seemed. Gabe contained an already exhausted sigh, and went to pile even more suitcases on his shoulders. 

"For now? Alright, uh, tell me when that's subject to change then, miss." He follows in the room after her, before plopping the boxes on the top of the bare, newly-owned mattress. 

It was finally setting in. He was going to be sharing a room with *Someone* Else, and the neurotic, over-controlling part of his brain began to go haywire. Would she contribute with the dorm chores? Or play music late at night? Or—*Or even touch his off-limits mini-fridge?* He felt faint.

"Of course it's clean. Wouldn't want to have someone move into a messy, filthy room, now would I? That'd just be poor manners on my part." Gabe remarks sweetly, the edges of his voice almost saccharine before the latter half of her sentences catches up with him. 

"Wait, *Paints*? For the *Walls*?" He stutters out, momentarily jolting as she reaches for her paints. "You— you can't do that. You'd get in trouble." *And it'd look like shit... Wait, maybe a little hasty, wouldn't be surprised if she was an eccentric artist type.*

"Oh, as for myself, well..." Finally, he'd been waiting this— a routine practiced dozens of times in the mirror. He turns to face her with poised, confident posture, gripping her hand in a perfectly firm handshake (firm enough to show off just how strong he was, not too firm to be *Overcompensating*). With his other hand, he slips an off-white business card into her palm with one, fluid gesture.

"Gabriel. Gabe Darius Trahan. It's a pleasure to meet'cha, Magnus." White teeth shine back at her.
Helen
Well!
Well, well. This fellow is *On another level*! Spiffy, though, she'll give him that.

"Pleasure's all mine, Gabrielll," Magnus trilled in response, gripping his hand back. Her handshake had more power behind it than one would expect, the patchwork hand nearly engulfed in Gabe's insisting upon itself appropriately. Still, though. *Damn.* Those muscles were no joke. Was it bad to immediately jump at the opportunity to use him as a drawing reference? ..Never mind that. He seemed like he would be game.

...

*Man, what the hell?* A *Business card?* In *Juvie?* She really did need something to make her laugh today. A bewildered cackle built up in her throat, just barely held back by pressing her plush lips together as hard as she could (for both of their sake- people didn't tend to like Magnus after she laughed at them to their faces), a childishly amused snort briefly shaking her shoulders before she recalled the memo in her back pocket.

"Man. You're Looney Tunes! Good for you, honestly. So, tell me, which circle of Hell were you a used car salesman in before the IKEA Doom Squadron wrangled you up here?" That counted as asking someone about themselves, Typical Conversation Procedure. 

"Ah, reminds me-" Shit, which pocket was it in again? Magnus gingerly clamped the card between her teeth and stuck her hands into all the pockets in her horrendously frayed black denim shorts. *Cellulose,* Murmured a sense in the side of her brain. There! The note from the office. "They wanted me to give this to you? Apparently they forgot. Told me not to read it, but of course I did anyway."

Magnus did indeed read it. Short and sweet, to the effect of *"Watch this freak of un-nature, or else they'll make something atrocious with their spare time, and that will be a massive headache for all of us, yadda yadda something about looking out for humanoid forms."* Whatever made them feel better.
_ _

She stared, blew a strand of spun-cloud off of her nose, and set about wrangling her blankets out of whatever she had shoved them into.

"It's pointless, really. I've learned my lesson." Another snort. "Not about what I did. My methods have drastically improved, though. One hundred percent going to do it again, and better, just out of spite."

What next.. Books? Art supplies? Clothes? *Clothes, yeah.* Lilith's voice in the back of her mind, sensible as always. Though the back of Magnus' neck prickled with more sweat at the sight of it, her black, haphazardly-spiked motorcycle jacket was good to have in her hands again. Into the closet to stay a while, it goes. 

Beneath her pissed-but-relaxed-enough demeanour, however, Magnus felt as though she had scarfed down sea urchins floating in orange juice for breakfast. Gabe's presence was utterly *Dazzling*, but in a way that felt.. She couldn't piece together how exactly he unnerved her. Like his gaze still grabbed at hers even when they had broken eye contact, the jarring sight of an immaculately curated picture of a man after a day of half-dead airport-goers and city folk blurring together in the background sticking out like a perfectly manicured thumb. Was he to be trusted? What was it that put him here, on her level?
Joey
This person certainly talked as funny as she looked. Which was... Well, pretty weird. It was nothing compared to the most unsettling thing about Magnus— the omni-present gleam of *Something else*, a deep, unbridled curiosity that made the hair on the back of Gabriel's neck stand up straight. He could tolerate her *Biting his business card*. (Could he? Those were *Expensive.*) He could tolerate her threatening to paint the walls like a toddler with a crayon. 

That look in her eye, though...? It made his eyes twitch with wary, his cool gaze following her movement as she trapezed around the room unpacking her items.

"Which circle of Hell I was in before I came here...? I don't know, does the South count? Certainly hot enough. How about you? Where are you from?" The corner of Gabe's mouth twitched at his own joke, and he forced the movement of his lips into a winning smile. 

A smile that... Would not last long, as Magnus handed over the letter addressed to him, and his two deep brown eyes scanned the letters contents. Again, and again, each reread leading to him jutting his head closer to the letters on the page in order to properly have their meaning sink in. 

"I'm *Babysitting you?!*" Gabe blurts out incredulously, manners briefly forgotten as a tiny groan escapes his lips. "God, as if this place couldn't get any *Worse*." 

His toned hands briefly cup his temple, as if trying to pre-emptively stifle the migraine Magnus' presence would inevitably cause. Not that Gabe was bad at babysitting, per se, but he certainly was *Sick* Of having to do it.

 It was the one reprieve this place had offered; As much as he loved Blanche, the pressure of constantly having to play father to her and guiding her when he remembered things that were common sense to 18 year olds didn't necessarily make the most sense to kids half his age. "*No, Blanche, please do not hide under the pew during service. No, the priest doesn't fight vampires. Please don't try to drink the holy water.*"

__ __

It was fine. It was *Fine*. It was fine, truly! He'd better be getting brownie points from the administration for his unwilling community service in keeping potentially mad-scientist (or a human trafficker?) off the streets. 

Gabe leaned against his bed frame, resting his forearms against the top of his bed. Hopefully, she'd be a least a *Little* Prone to reason when he'd inevitably bring up the topic of 'ground rules for the dorm', but as Gabe watched her eye the paints with a mad gleam, he realized how futile that hope was.
Helen
*Ah. So, there it is.* The crack in that gleaming Disney prince smile, that separated him from the rest of this mess of a place. Just enough. Magnus was angry at the facility for scooping her up, at the neighbours back home for not minding their beeswax, at the cops they called for a *Whole mess of things*, at her creation for getting her into this shitstorm, and at herself for, well, everything that monstrosity of golden alloys with the driftwood bones did. 

All that, but Magnus.. Wasn't so angry at Gabe. Not particularly.

There was still something about him that twisted wrong in her gut, but it occurred to her as she slid her paint-splattered books with the wrinkled and uneven pages into their chosen drawer that she ought to throw him a bone. She had spooked him plenty. Might as well throw him a bone before resuming her terrorizing of him.

"Eh. Thing only says to watch out for human-y things. I'm working my way back up to those. I don't want you in my hair, like you don't want to be in it!" 

An aggravated *Thump*, another bag to be unpacked hitting her bed.

"I'm here because of nosy people jumping to conclusions regarding my sanity and *Totally* Overreacting." She snorted. "Don't believe the stereotypes of Canadians being nice. One tiny disturbance, and they're farther up your ass than an action figure in a drunk college student."

Her father had told her to tone back the vulgarities upon meeting new people. But Lilith giggled when she said horrendous things. Only one of them had remembered to shove her favourite bracelets into her pocket before she left, though. So.

"No feathers to be suffered here, that I didn't make," She put bluntly. Was that reassuring? Hell if she know. It sort of came out backwards. No, sideways. Magnus tipped back onto her bed and fiddled with an errant SNES controller, marginally more self conscious. 

Ah. Now would be as good a time to ask as any, while the iron was still hot.
_ _

In a voice.. A little more tired than seething, she finally asked,

"So how are the prospects of blowing this popsicle stand, Prince Charming?"

Her eyes glimmered darkly as she propped her head up on her hand and awaited his answer.
Joey
<THIS BITCH DONE, YEET>