Log: Matt & Artie | Monday Suitemates

[x-daredevil.livejournal.com]

Monday afternoon, Matt meets his new roommate and the only other high school guy, Artie. It's...friends at first...fight?



Matt would never admit it, but his new room was pretty sweet. The walls and ceiling were soundproofed, if the floor was, he wasn't aware of it, but it was still pretty cool. There was also a white-noise generator, which sounded odd, but really did a good job of keeping the outside noises out and just like the name indicated, Matt quickly tuned it out. The sheets and blanket on the bed felt like sandpaper, but that was nothing new. Going in the room and closing the door made him feel better almost instantly. There was still noise, he made noise, but it wasn't the pressure of it all that he normally experienced. Crazy mutant school or not, this had possibilities.

For the moment though, Matt had the door to his room open as he unpacked his things. He always unpacked his things, taking care to make sure he knew where his shirts and everything was in the drawers so that he could find them again. He didn't have much. Everything he owned was currently in two trash bags and a small duffel on the bed. With the door open, things were louder, but still somewhat muffled, which Matt liked. It gave the pretense of friendliness, at least until he got to know his suitemate. Then all bets were off.

Artie never bothered to pack his things properly when he was moving from one suite to another. Consequently, he'd simply bundled piles of odds and ends into a couple of milk crates, which he carried stacked on atop another, while his clothes were in a duffel bag and backpack. He'd go back for a second and third load later, quietly glad that while he still got a suitemate, he at least rated his own room this time. Juggling the crates, he opened the door to the suite and then the one to his room, blinking slightly at the soundproofing attached the the walls and dropping the crates to the floor just outside the door (carefully, since his laptop was in the top of one).

He raised a hand and waved to the new boy, projecting a quick "Hello!"

Noise of the outer door opening caught Matt's attention as he heard someone moving about the main room. Facing the door to his room, he shook his head, the damn sort of lines bothered him sometimes. "Who's there?" he demanded, knowing that someone was, but not sure who. He'd been told that he would have a suite mate there, the other boy in the high school, which Matt appreciated. As glad as he was to have his own room so he could sleep undisturbed, Matt had never really had his own room either. Well, his time in solitary in juvie because of his disability and migraines didn't count.

Artie blinked slightly at that, frowning at the fact that the new guy wasn't actually looking at him. So, either rude, bad at people, or and this was a long shot, kinda blind. And, ah, hell, he already had a headache from powers training earlier and couldn't really be bothered with the rigmarole of projecting images. He tapped the wall and held up one one, pulling his laptop out of the crate, flipping it open and dropping into a crouch to type, pulling up the text to speech program. "Hey new dude. I'm Artie. Who're you?"

Oh, this was just PERFECT. "Are you shitting me?" Matt asked, dumbfounded. He recognized a computer voice when he heard one. "You're deaf? They've got me rooming with a deaf guy!?" Oh, no. No, no, no! This was straight out of a bad movie, he could already tell. Was he on one of those reality TV shows where they filmed people to see what they would do in a specific situation?

"I'm not fucking Deaf. I just have some funky mutations to my throat and things, meaning I can't talk," Artie replied. Points in the new guy's favour at least, in that he hadn't started shouting at him the moment he pulled up the computer voice. Which was why he never used the thing. "What's your deal?"

As a general rule, Matt didn't shout. Not even when talking to the deaf guy, because it hurt his own ears and that was just stupid. He pointed in the general vicinity of his face, "Blind, moron. Not a mutation," he added, as if that meant something. Maybe it did. Maybe if he hadn't been in the accident years ago then he'd have super eyesight too. That was a less than reassuring thought. "Fucking great. Just great." Apparently, this place was not quite all that and a bag of chips. Good. He'd been scared that it was too perfect. "This has got to be someone's idea of a joke."

Artie rolled his eyes. Seriously, the blind guy in with the guy who used sign language? He was so going to complain to Mr Haller about this. "Yeah, and it's not funny." He took a moment to look around the suite and down at his own milk crates. Guess that meant he couldn't just kick his shoes wherever anymore. "I've dropped a couple of milk crates down next to my door - 12 feet three inches in front of you, three inches to the left of the door and two out from the wall. So you know."

That was....incredibly specific. Matt wanted to make a joke about it, to insult him, but he didn't. It was useful information, "I'm still unpacking," he finally replied, "I'm gonna stay in my room for a while," he had explored his room, though not as thoroughly as he wanted to yet. He'd explore the rest of the suite later. "So you don't gotta worry about me tripping and busting my head open on your shit."

"Cool. You do that, I'll keep moving my stuff in. But, hey, what the hell is your name? I can't just keep thinking of you as New Guy or something."

Oh, right. A name. "Matt. Matt Murdock," he replied, not offering his hand. He knew to, but...nah. "So uh...what do you do then? Other than not talk?" Because he was new to this whole mutant thing. He had no idea how it worked.

Artie shrugged and typed, quickly, "I project holograms - 3D ones, moving ones, fake ID, you know, anything that needs images. So my brain's kind of set to remembering, describing images, stuff like that. You?"

That was kind of neat, in a way. Useless to Matt, but sort of neat. "Enhanced senses," he replied, "minus the obvious. Mostly, they're a pain in the ass," he didn't mention the drugs and rehab and all that.

"Enhanced senses, huh? Cool. Guess that's why they soundproofed my room, too?" He always thought that people who ended up with nothing but enhanced senses got kind of a raw deal.

It was definitely a raw deal. Absolutely. Matt would be the first to tell anyone that. Enhanced senses were shitty. "I guess," Matt agreed, "I get migraines and stuff, 'cause of them. Things're too loud. So my room is supposed to be quiet. Maybe not silent, but...manageable," and it was pretty amazing actually at how well the stuff they did worked. Matt didn't care if they had boarded up the window or whatever to do this either.

"I hear that's meant to go away eventually. I think maybe it happened to Terry when she was a kid, too and she got over it," Artie typed. "Let me know if I'm x-boxing too loud or anything, and I'll just put the TV on my desk instead, since you know, you can't really use it."

"Asshole," Matt replied, but it was without rancor. "I watch TV. So bite me," okay, so he liked the Simpson's. There weren't a lot of shows with descriptive video services since it wasn't required, but he did watch some when he could. Movies were sometimes better if he saw them in the theaters with a headset for the description, but movies were so expensive, he rarely had the money.

"Whatever." Artie shifted restlessly, his legs starting to cramp from crouching over the laptop. He stood and carried the laptop across to the couch and shook his head, realizing his mistake. Of course blind people could watch TV.

Going back to unpacking his things when Artie moved away, Matt had to shake his head. This was ridiculous. Absolutely. The blind guy and the mute guy? It was a recipe for disaster. But whatever, he hadn't decided this or anything like that. Going back to his duffel bag, he made sure it was empty before smushing it down and shoving it under his bed. He didn't have everything unpacked, but at least the important stuff was put away.