Nick meets Julian

[x-wolfcub.livejournal.com]

Meeting with his neighbor leads to a little bit of friendly competition.



The summer definitely had its ups and downs. On the positive side, Nick had a lot of down time to lay on his bed, stare at his ceiling, and think about things. On the down side, when Nick thought about things, it didn't usually settle on the most pleasant of thoughts. Gleason found himself in one of those funks as he had long since finished his most recent book, but hadn't summoned enough strength to wonder down to the library to find a new one. Suddenly he heard noise in the suite area and quickly rolled to a prone position. He hadn't been a people person his entire life, but anything that could get his mind off of the images of a flaming house was a welcome relief at this time. He quickly jumped to his feet and walked to the door. He began to open it, fully expecting to see his roommate Johnny on the other side. "Hey Johnny, do you know how far it is to the grocery..." He froze and cut off as he looked up to see an unexpected face.

Julian had greeted the new arrival on the school journals, but hadn't met the new guy yet. He presumed he was a feral, given what Kyle had said about jeans, but the guy looked normal. "Yeah, not Johnny," Keller got up from the couch where he'd been opening his laptop to check his Facebook account. With a slight swagger, caused by a mixture of confidence and dominance, he approached his new classmate and extended a hand. "Julian Keller, nice to meet you."

The new addition to the school turned his head to the side as he reached out and shook the hand of his suite mate. "Nicholas Gleason." Something about this guy didn't seem rub Nick the right way. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly, so he decided to do his best to ignore it as he took a quick step back further into his room, rocking back on his heels and biting his bottom lip, the typical nerves he felt whenever he met someone knew in the mansion. "You must live in the room next door. Johnny's told me a little bit about you guys."

With a smile, Julian gave his new suitemate's hand a firm squeeze. "Heh, yeah, Johnny likes to talk. I live with Fred, have you met him yet?" Keller returned to the couch and opened up his laptop again, swiftly logging onto the social networking site of choice.

Nick strode forward, leaning against the side of the door frame. "Yeah, he seems like a pretty cool kid at least." Gleason let his gaze fall to the ground again, noting that it was kind of awkward to talk over a computer screen. "I'm just trying to convince him to teach me how to play Street Fighter."

"Ah, a noble pursuit!" Julian immediately shut the laptop and set it on the end table. For a suite with now four young men living in it, their surroundings were immaculate. "Who did you want to learn?" He studied the confused look on Nick's face, "I'm usually Ken, Fred is E. Honda and Johnny seems to favor Vega."

"I haven't played in years, but I remember a little bit from when I used to play it on my dad's old Sega Genesis with my sister." He pushed his eyebrows together as he tried to remember the gaming days of his youth. "Wasn't there a green guy with crazy hair? I think I used to play as him all the time."

It took him a moment to remember the name of the green Brazilian fighter, "Blanka, I think." Which would work out perfectly since the slouching form of the electrically charged monster lent itself to a ground fighting technique. The meant that Ken would have the high ground in their fights, though Fred would be at the same level. "Why would you want to be him though?"

Nick had an unconscious smirk suddenly tug at the corners of his mouth. "Let's just say that initial appearances aren't everything." He chuckled slightly at his own bad joke before deciding that it was safe to venture a few steps further into the common room, but not too far. "So what are some of the things that people do for fun around here?"

Julian shrugged, "I guess that depends what you're into." As the game loaded up, Keller gave his new suite-mate an appraising look- but was unable to come up with a conclusion about him. "For me, there's working out, hanging out with friends and kicking ass at Street Fighter." Plopping down back on the couch and holding out the player two remote, he gave a noncommittal smile, "What are you into, Nick?"

Nick finally left the secure base of the his room and walked forward, taking the controller from Julian as he slowly lowered himself down onto the couch a few feet away. "I don't know. I guess I kind of keep to myself. I spend a lot of time out in the woods, and I used to be into theater back home." Between his words, Nick kept taking quick glances down at the controller in his hand, hoping that he was able to figure out enough buttons so he didn't get completely slaughtered. "Yvette told me that there's a drama club around here, I was thinking about checking that out to occupy some of my time."

"Yvette would know more about that than I do," he said, selecting Ken in his traditional red uniform. "We did a play recently with one of the high schools, A Midsummer's Night Dream...more like nightmare, man. This invisible kid started sabotaging the production...but in the end we caught him and got to share the stage with Frank and Leslie Dean." A sudden pang of sadness hit him, Karolina was gone and seeing her again was unlikely- he missed his midnight coffee friend.

Nick raised one of his eyebrows for a second. "An invisible kid huh? Well you couldn't have a bunch of mutant kids doing a show without something crazy happening." Nick couldn't help but let out a throaty chuckle. "But imagine what he could do with the special effects." Scanning through the characters, Nick spied the green, beastly looking character near the top of the selection screen. He had to stare down at the buttons one last time to make sure he hit the right one to choose Blanka.

"The guy was a douche. He coated the inside of all the girl's costumes with itching powder and actually watched them strip out of them...granted, if I could turn invisible..." Julian said, adding a chuckle as he left the comment hang. "Speaking of, what are your powers?"

"I think the best way to put it is that I'm kind of like a werewolf with a personality disorder." Gleason leaned back into the cushions of the couch. "When I get upset, or angry, or when I want to I turn into John Gilbert from that old monster movie." He nods his head slightly as he continues. That was one way to put it. "What about you? If you say you can turn invisible, I might have to judge you a little bit."

'A werewolf? Do those actually exist?' "I do this," Keller smiled and gave a flourish of his hand above his head. All together, every unlocked door in the suite, every cabinet and drawer, slowly opened with a faint greenish glow surrounding them. "And this," again as one, with another flourish, everything slammed shut. "Telekinetic, gotta love it...by the way, if you ever find stuff in your room turned around or rearranged...I can't always control my powers when I'm sleeping, so just let me know and I'll move it back."

Gleason stuck out his chin for a second, being sure to make a note in his memory. "Good to know. And if you ever find me coming back to the suite with a pair of destroyed shoes and clothes that look like got into a fight with a lawn mower, you'll know that my posers and I also had a bit of a misunderstanding." As he made this last comment, Nick leaned forward slightly, ready for the pairs virtual fight to commence.

Julian opened with a hadoken, keeping his distance from the green Brazilian by jumping backwards with a flip. "Have you ever played this before?"

Nick used the only technique he had a prayer with. The time-tested button smash and pray. The orange hair of Blanka flew all over the screen, as he looked like a five-year-old flailing around after his baby sitter fed him way too much sugar. Unfortunately none of his techniques were connecting "I used to play the second one, but was years ago."

"This one is a little different than that crappy, old version," Julian scoffed, hitting Blanka across the screen with a spin kick. "Don't worry, you're about as good as Fred was when he started out...now I can hardly beat the big guy."

The green beast flew across the screen and let out a yelp as he slid down the side of the television screen. Nick let out a sigh as he sat the controller down in front of him, the announcer in the game clearly letting out the word "Perfect." Gleason let out a quick smirk. "Well luckily it looks like I have a lot of time over the summer to practice huh? I mean I don't know where anything is in the mansion and I get lost every time I leave, so I'll have a lot of time right here."

"Heh, yeah, it can be pretty daunting," Julian remembered back to his first few weeks in the mansion. The second round began and he eased up on the slaughter, giving Nick time to get a rhythm built up. "People are pretty cool around here though...just...stay away from the Stepfords."

Nick raised his eyebrow again, noticing the slight shift in Julian's tone with the last word. "Sounds like there's a story there. As he continued to struggle to even pull together a basic combo, he decided to venture forward slightly. "Care sharing a little bit of it?"

"I really would actually," he said, launching Ken into a lethal combination of blows that had Blanka knocked out in a few seconds. "Just trust me, they're bad news."

"I'll keep that in mind." Sitting the controller down between the himself and Julian, Nick decided that he had taken enough of a beating for one day. "Thanks for the game. I'm on my way down to try and find the library. Wish me luck that I don't take a wrong turn and end up in Oz."

"Yeah, if you end up there, tell the chief of the lolly pop guild that he still owes me ten bucks." Julian shut down the game and picked his laptop back up, not entirely sure what to make of the new kid.