Home Is Where...

[Ixtlilton]

Every year, Jacob got a new roommate. Jacob wasn't sour about it, knowing that Mr. Dmitri Abelev valued his ability to make unstable or anti-social people more comfortable. But this year, he'd been kind of hoping he'd get to room with Zeke. He knew that was completely illogical, since Zeke was finally ready to socialize more with other people, and that was kind of the point of the whole getting-a-roommate thing. It had just been a silly little hope.

Jacob was laying on his bed, re-reading the assigned summer reading book to make sure he knew all the fiddly little details he might be tested on. His new roommate hadn't arrived yet, so Jacob had the room to himself. Come next year, if he managed to land a teaching role, he'd always have a room to himself. That was a weird concept... A room without having to worry about walking in on his roommate having an orgy or sneaking in alcohol or doing drugs or having a panic attack and liquidating Jacob's bed... It would be weird.

Since he had time til his new roommate arrived, he'd pulled his bed out from the wall towards the middle of the room. The only reason he did this was because it let him lay on his stomach with both of his wings spread out, which was heavenly comfortable when compared to his normal cramped position. He wouldn't really miss dorm rooms if having his own room meant a place to spread his wings now and then.

[Jaydee]

All things considered, Alex was doing well. The campus would be pretty if the grounds surrounding it weren't covered in dead medieval soldiers, but inside wasn't so bad. His funky hair didn't stand out like a sore thumb; in fact, it seemed like one of the tamer cases compared to what he'd seen in the halls so far. Overall, it was gonna be okay. There was really just one obstacle left, and that was... meeting the roommate. He'd had roommates before. How bad could it be? Mutant or not, he knew how this was supposed to go down. It wouldn't be any different from St. Andrews, except the other guy would breathe fire or something, right?

That was... comforting.

"Ffff-- three forty-five, where are you..." he muttered to himself, wandering down the hallway in no particular hurry. His father's battered old suitcase bumped and rolled along behind him, stuffed with everything he could possibly need to survive a natural disaster - his parents had made sure of that. At least they cared.

Ah, here it was. He glanced up at the room number and back down at his little slip of paper, just to be sure, then raised his fist and knocked one, two, three times. "Hellooo?" Alex didn't wait for an answer, choosing to open the door and peer right inside anyway (roomie was just going to have to get used to that).

Speaking of roomie, there he was; the first thing to register in Alex's mind was, holy shit, those are wings. Holy shit, this guy had wings. And funky hair and hey, he was cute, but those things weren't important right now because fucking wings!

"Hey, someone is in here," he said, stepping all the way inside. "Whassup?"

[Ixtlilton]

Jacob heard the door squeak, which was his first and last warning that someone was coming in. He snatched his wing up fast, knowing that if someone walked in without looking first, he was going to get stepped on, and that hurt like you would not believe. That might have sent a few feathers flying, but his roommate was going to have to get used to that sooner or later anyway.

He twisted around and sat up, flapping his wings lightly twice before settling them in against his back. "Hey. You must be Alex, right?" he said, slipping a bookmark into the book and closing his note-filled binder. "I'm Jacob," he said, extending his arm for a handshake. "I promise I'll put the bed back next to the wall, I just like having the extra space to stretch." He stood up and began doing that, but as he did, he looked at Alex with a wink and asked, "So, what're you in for?"

[Jaydee]

Alex watched the scattered feathers drift to the ground, thinking idly that he'd be seeing a lot of those this year. The wings, though - just knowing that there was a human being out there who had them more than made up for it. He smiled and shook Jacob's hand, noting the odd placement of the bed.

"It's all good," he said as he closed the door behind him and moved to sit down on his own bed. He gave the mattress a little test bounce first. "I don't mind messes if you don't." Finding the mattress satisfactory, he flopped down onto his back and proceeded to make himself comfortable.

"Oh, y'know, the usual. I guess I'm the antichrist now? Or maybe just a grunt in Satan's mutant army, I dunno." Alex grinned up at Jacob. "For real, though... I get visions. Like, from the past. It's kind of lame. What about you? Just the..." He gestured towards Jacob, his wings in particular. "...all that?"

[Ixtlilton]

"Visions of the past, huh?" Jacob said, shifting his wings backwards for balance as he brute forced the bed back against the wall. Oh, he would miss being able to stretch his wings halfway across the room. But he'd manage. That's what the outdoors were for.

"That's gotta suck," he said as he folded his wings back in and plopped back down on his bed. "Lots of people dying, I'd assume. Ever see anything good?" And he didn't say it, but damn, visions of the past? Unless he became a history teacher, how would that ever come in handy? It wasn't even visions of the future like that Dominic kid, which could be useful. PAST. 'Oh, don't worry, everyone, I can save us with my magnificent ability to see whether or not the guard has already passed here! Please stop looking at me with that pitying look!' Maybe if he fine tuned it he could use it retro-actively eaves-drop, though, that would be pretty...

Jacob realized he'd been thinking far too much about it.

"Thankfully, not just the wings, since my bones aren't hollow and I'd never get myself off the ground. I can manipulate air. Manipulation is a pretty common ability, right up there with shifting," he added modestly. "We've got a fire manipulator in the basement and a water manipulator in the next tower over. And I think we just got a really grumpy plant manipulator, but I'm having trouble teling her apart from the girl who turns into shadows." He grinned. "It's a bit of a menagerie."

[Jaydee]

"I can't really tell the difference between good stuff and stuff that's actually happening, like, right now, so it's hard to say. Probably. But I saw so many dead guys on my way in here... I guess I should've expected it. Castles, man. At least inside isn't so bad." He kept his tone light and casual like he always did when it came to his visions; it made them easier to deal with, both for himself and others.

Alex listened to the spiel about manipulation and shifting and all that cool shit that he couldn't do. Elementals, turning into shadows, wings, Christ - what didn't they have here?

"So you can like, lift yourself up with the air? That's so cool," he said, genuinely interested. "Man. There's some wild stuff here. I keep thinking I'm gonna wake up and find out that I forgot to take my meds again or something."

[Ixtlilton]

"Huh... so it's not even convenient visions with a trance-y beginning and end? That's gotta suck." Jacob didn't say what he was thinking, which was several ideas for techniques that might help him reign it in. Meditation, of course. Meditation helped everyone with everything. Can't stop turning into a shark in the middle of class? Meditation. Can't figure out how to set things on fire when you WANT to? Meditation. Can't stop craving human blood? Meditation! He'd ease Alex into that, though... he didn't seem like the meditatey type.

"I can now," he emphasized. "I only managed to figure it out last year, and for the longest time I could only do it on really windy days. I'm still practicing it."

He chuckled along while mentally reminding himself to make sure Alex always took whatever medicine it was he was on. That had the potential to be awful. At least Alex wasn't one of the kills-other-people-dangerous ones and also on medicine. That was a combination for disaster. "You might not even be able to tell," he joked along. "We've got one girl this year who refuses to walk to class... she just pops into her seat right when the bell rings. She's the shadow one, so it's easy to figure out how she's doing it. And, of course, Lia actually just turns invisible, literally, so... It's easy to wonder if you're just seeing things!"

[Jaydee]

"It kinda does, yeah. Not gonna lie." Alex shrugged as if to say, what can you do? He handled it well enough on his own. Though that may become a bit more difficult to do here - how was he supposed to get his booze? A rather urgent question, now that he thought about it. He could go for a little tingly-burny right now...

"Well when you do get the hang of it, it'll be awesome," he said, laughing. "Man, so much cool shit. I'm jealous. Do you know everyone here or something?"

[Ixtlilton]

"Weeell, yeah, actually," Jacob admitted. "I've been here since I was six--I'm eighteen now--and this year I was in charge of giving all the new students tours. Let me know when you want yours. So I kind of know everyone in the school right now. It's a pretty small school. Plus, you know, someone's got to keep track of that sort of thing," he added with a laugh.

"One thing's for sure, I'd make a great wingman." Yay, groan inducing puns! Now if only he could find someone who's power was making rimshot noises. ...Wasn't there that one parrot kid? He'd have to get that child listening to some cheesy comedy, stat. He was sure that Rune would absolutely appreciate that.

[Jaydee]

"Since you were six? That's insane! I mean, I guess with the wings and all..." Damn, he couldn't even begin to fathom that. Twelve years in this place? It seemed like a perfectly nice school, but the idea did not thrill him.

Oh, god, he had puns. Alex tried to scowl but it ended up turning into a grin instead; he couldn't help it. "Ba dum tssss," he said as he rolled over onto his stomach. Well, the roommate situation was turning out rather well; he'd be okay here, after all.

((Suck and fail. I'm tireddd ;A;))

[Ixtlilton]

"Yeah," he said, rubbing his head sheepishly and not mentioning his best friend had been here since he was two. "Once it became pretty obvious that my wings were growing and growing, and weren't just going to stay tiny little things, Mom dropped me off here. You'll probably see her if you stay long enough; she drops in now and then to visit.

"It's not as bad as you're thinking," Jacob insisted, reading Alex's scowl. "There's a town nearby, and the school grounds are private and protected. There's plenty of room, and plenty of people to socialize with. Well, you'll see it all on the tour. And as for the town, teachers take students out semi-regularly... you know the, uh... the ones that can pass."

In other words, not him, not Zeke. Not the ones who had obvious physical abnormalities that would make it obvious to anyone glancing at them that they weren't entirely human.

[Jaydee]

Alex wondered absently if his parents would be able to visit, as well. Their schedules were always so busy...

"Ah, right... I heard a little about that when we first found this place." Just the students that could pass. In other words, himself. He couldn't help but feel a little guilty, thinking of those wings again - they really were an unfortunate mutation. Maybe he could bring back something nice for Jacob if he ever went on one of those trips, if only to make himself feel better about it. White hair was odd, but it wasn't a total giveaway; most people assumed he bleached it. Kinda faggy, but at least it wouldn't get him arrested in most countries. Maybe the town had a liquor store! How would one go about sneaking a bottle of Jack in here...? Security was always pretty tight at his old schools, but these people had a whole new reason to be paranoid about what went in and out of their castle.