Tower 348. Floor Three, Apartment 3/6 (Eric's)

[Eric]

Eric nodded and stayed quiet on the squished train journey. Maybe it was habit or training, but he'd never been one for talking aloud about private matters on trains. Once they were off Eric swung by a frozen food vending machine at the bottom of the tower and nabbed two cheese pizza's. He wasn't imagnative with food. Then up the stairs to the third floor. There was an elevator, sure. But it was only three flights and it was good for exercise.

His key card beeped approval for entrance to the flat, and Eric let out a long sigh. As soon as the door was open two dogs rushed over and you could tell they wanted to jump up, but they didn't because they knew they'd get in trouble. The red head grinned and padded further in, beconing the kid to follow and eventually flumped down on a couch.

Every Flat was the same, save the ones specially designed for the bigger families. This one opened immeditably into the living area, where Eric had a large couch with a big black and white checkered rug over it. The dogs bounced up on it with him, licking his face and reciveving various coos and cuddles from the DPS officer. There was a small dividing wall that sepertated the kitchen from the living area, and there was carpet with swapped into linolium. The kitchen was to the right, then there was two doors to the right:- orginally bed rooms but the left one had a computer and desk and a few pictures on the wall, and the right door was closed. Evidently Eric's room. There was bathrooms en suite to both.

Between those two doors, taking up the whole wall and on a hefty low table, was a huge fishtank that was teeming with tropical colours and plants and well, lots and lots of fish. There was also a shark (a small columbian shark) swimming around in there, but at present it was probably lurking around somewhere in the foliage. Eric glanced over his shoulder at Tristian.

"We'll worry about getting your room sorted later. I'll move the computer into my room and a bed and a bunch of boxes that contain the rest of your stuff should be here soon. When do you want to eat?"

One dog, evidently a puppy that was only about 10 months old, who happened to be an Old English Sheepdog, bounced over the back of the couch and padded over to the boy for a tenative sniff. The other dog, a tanny shaggy mongrol sprawled herself across Eric's lap and eyed the youth with obvious distrust.

[triss]

The train ride was quiet for Tristian as well. Be it because there wasnt any conversation between Eric and the kid, or that the young child was too busy gawking at anything his large brown eyes could come across, there still wasnt much talk. He was ammusing himself, in the simplest ways. Most of the people on the train had an mp3 or a book to read, not Tristian, oh no, he just had his eyes.

When they went to get the pizza, he didn't make a stink about what kind it was. He wasnt picky, but later on in his stay he would definetly be cooking something for him and Eric. Eric would soon learn tha Tristian's stomach had difficulty taking in any fast food, or anything with preservatives, save canned beans. Pizza was alright with him, but because of his akward stomach condition, fresh meals were going to be made, unless Eric wanted a vomiting child with the runs. Maybe, his lack of fast food was why he was so skinny, he never touched it in his life, pizza was an exception only because well, it tasted good. Mmm pizza.

He wasnt surprised at all when he saw the flat, besides, all of them were the same, how boring. He could only imagine what this house could have been, and it was all such a waste in his eyes, to have every single house to be exactly alike, it was a shame really.

All was quiet, his shoes were taken off and tucked away neatly in a corner, where the silence was broken by a low, strong growl. This growl was his stomach, demanding to be fed.

" Well erm...now would be nice...hey DOGGIE!!!"

Aww what a cute little dog. There was a smile on his face, a sweet greeting to the puppy and a good few pats on the head. Obviously the kid wouldnt have a problem with the animals running about. Actually, he would enjoy them a whole lot, just like the fish, wich after petting the puppy, he spent a little while to stare at the wonderful colours.

[Eric]

At the yell of doggie the puppy started and bolted back to Eric, bouncing onto the couch and wriggling under the other dog, who growled in complaint. Eric huffed a bit under the too dogs, scooped his arms under them and pushed them off. Both landed on the carpet and scuffled off, the DPS officer sitting upright and flicking some hair out his eyes.

He grinned a little, picking up the pizza's and moving through to the kitchen to get plates. "You want to watch the dogs. Meg, the old english sheepdog puppy is a little skittish, as you can see, but will warm up to you quicker than Jenny. It's likely Jenny never will take a liking to ya...She's just that kinda dog."

The Pizza's he tipped onto two plates and then padded back to his couch, sat back on it and set both plates on the table top. The dogs padded off to their basket and curled up with each other in it, eyeing Eric and watching Tristian from the safe distance. They knew not to bother their boss when he was eating, as their dinner would be cooked up soon enough.

Oh, Eric could cook. He just chose not to.

"Dig in kid." And with that he flipped on the TV, green eyes fixing onto the blinking ads on the TV screen. As usual there was nothing on, but Eric watched the news anyway.

[triss]

Ah the dogs, they were typical dogs in his eyes, sweet little animals, innocent unlike the people. There was something wrong, why was eric watching the news? There was nothing on television, nothing good happened, nothing bad happened. There was nothing to celebrate and nothing to mourn, nothing to worry about except for the extreme nothingness. With his sigh, anyone could tell that this upset Tristian. There was no local news, no anything. All the buildings were the same, nothing seemed to have any flavour anymore. Why did they watch the news, nothing ever happened, nothing was allowed to happen, although everyone was taken care of and provided for, there was nothing. Nothing for them to do, they kept it that way, they kept it so that they hadnt any choice.

Put all that aside, hey look there was pizza! A two syllable sentence coming from Eric was hardly even finished before the kid had downed at least four peices of pizza. With a filled stomach, and sitting down comfortably on the floor. He was shy to sit beside Eric, and wouldnt until he got the ok from him. However, Tristian was still disturbed by the news. There was nothing on it, he doubted it.

[Eric]

Eric shifted, glancing at the kid when he sat on the floor. "Hey, easy on how you eat that stuff, you'll get heartburn. There's soda and juice and shit in the fridge in the kitchen. And the seat isn't rabid you know."

Eric ate slowly, and little. It was evident he wasn't a very good eater at any rate, but he forced himself to eat at least three meals a day. He had to, if he was to stay fit and healthy. The news flickered between local news, events that were beging organised, the planning of a new quarter that would pubs and clubs and cinemas. Say that the people here had nothing to do was a lie. There was plenty, and they were always encouraging people to take up work and work in these places. Not everything was the same, ok, so all the apartments followed the same basic structure, but people *were* allowed to decorate and pick their own furniture.

The new bit he'd been waiting for came on. There had been an explosion in the early hours of the morning in working quarter, putting out a factory that supplied the computers and causing a hell of a lot of damage that would take three months to repair. They were showing the CCTV footage of the incident, but for some reason it was, well. Fuzzy. The image didn't show correctly The face of culprit couldn't be made out, but what was clear was that they had broken into the factory and stolen something. They didn't know what, as all the goods hadn't been accounted for and half of the stuff was destroyed in the blast anyway.

"Image distorted because of damage to the lines my ass..." Eric said softly under his breath. "What were you wanting from there Max? What are you plotting now?" And with that he idly tossed the remote at the kid, got up and began to start cooking the mince for the dogs and their dinner.

[triss]

Easy on the stuff you say? Well, by the end of that phrase, he was just about finished twelve peices. Strange wasn't it? Someone so small, with such a tiny little bely could practically inhale an entire box of pizza by himself. Of course he wouls share with Eric. He bought the pizza afterall, just because he could eat it by himself, doesn't at all mean that he would. Tristian was a good kid really, so he would share just about everything he owned.

Well, either way he had eaten enough pizza, crust and all so he was going to give it a rest and wash it down with a cold glass of milk. Soon after a day or two Eric would learn that Tristian drank only milk, but would stop if it somehow became an issue. Sure he liked juice, and the soda was nice, but milk just went down easier, and he always drank at least three servings a day. He was healthy like that.

When he returned from his trip to the fridge, he sat down on the couch, seeing that it was now alright for him to take a seat. It was a nice couch, comfortable and cozy, he was glad he sat on it, catching the remote tossed to him as if he knew it was coming all along. Now that the remote was in his possession, he flicked through a few channels, but found nothing. Most of his anime shows were on friday night, and his other favourite show, Sesame Street had been over since this morning. So he watched the weather network, least he knew what the weather would be like on his trip to school the next day.

[darkhairedangel]

There came a knocking at the door, Reverence sweeping her ever loosening braid from her shoulder as she knocked again, small stack of envelopes in her hand. She had just got home after an extra long shift and now she had to give other people mail. Well at least the weather wasn't too bad. It could have been worse.

The fact that the CCTV footage, stayed draggingly in the back of her mind. That, had kept her so very busy today. People coming in on and off to question her about it, about every five minutes to be exact. She'd started timing it. It annoyed her, that word had not spread, that she had nothing to do with that sector. But it was done now, and she was looking forward to a nice oriental dinner, a nice glass of milk and maybe a good margarita later, but just a small one.

She waited for Eric to answer, she hated when people weren't trained properly, this was the fourth time this week, that she'd had Eric's mail in her box.

[Eric]

Eric was cooking mince. It sizzled, and the dogs were both sat at his feet drooling. Although Meg, when Jenny wasn't looking, creapt over to where Tristian was and stole a pizza crust that Eric hadn't eaten. He's only eaten about two slices, and left the crusts of both. Meg scoffed them both, taking them under the table and crunching on them.

Crunch.

The mince cooked, Eric set aside to cool for a while and then reached into a cupboard and pulled out some bran flakes that he tipped into a bowl and began to mash up. And mash up, and mash up. He left Triss to his weather watching, hoping to establish a routine of 'you do your thing and I'll do mine.'

Meg began to take her chances and looked at Triss hopefully in case the boy decided to give her some of the left over pizza. That was when the door knocked. Half way through mixing the bran in with the mince, Eric reached for a handtowel to wipe his hands. "Hey, that just might be the rest of your stuff..."

Moving over to the door he glanced at the girl who always seemed to bring him his mail. He didn't know her, had no idea who she was, and frankly he didn't really care. Eric raised an eyebrow. "Oh, wrong mail box again. I'll yell at someone." With that he snatched it out her hand, and then closed the door over with a "Thanks!"

He began to flip through it. Advert, advert, advert, something from Dennis who he used to be stationed with, and something from someone who he didn't know. Meh. The letters unread he dumped on the table top and resumed making the dog's dinner.

"I guess it wasn't your gear eh Triss? Guess it'll turn up soon enough."

[triss]

Tristian was sitting there, munching on his thirteenth peice of pizza, watching the weather. First it was all about how the weather lady talked about the high and low fronts, a bunch of red and blue squiggly lines he didnt understand, with a satellite image of the earth with the magical swirly clouds. Then it was you know, this and such a natural disaster here and there, and the weather news. Today he got to watch the asian lady talk about how earthquakes happened. Boring, useless, whatever, he was learning that sort of stuff in geography already.

Then, finally there was the part he cared about. YOUR LOCAL WEATHER!!! What the temperature was going to be like in his area. The more he watched the more pleased he grew with what he saw on the television. It was going to be only a high of 10, with a cold breeze and scattered showers. Finally, things were beginning to cool down.

Tristian was not at all fond of the boiling hot sun, often enough the heat would make him tired and drowsy, kill his appetitie and leave him feeling sweaty and gross. NO matter how almost naked you were in the summer, you couldnt escape the heat. Winter was different, it left him cool and refreshedm the cold air only woke him up and excited his skin, and he always got this warm fuzzy feeling about winter. He couldnt wait for it, and enjoyed it every year.

Thoughts about his winter wonderland had been disturbed when Meg began to try to sneak another peice. He closed the pizza box, and slid it out of her direction, stealing and eating the peice she was going to nab and smiled.

" Nice try, your dinner is on the way"

He patted the dog on the head, and when the dioor knocked, his head snapped in its direction, eyes watching it closely, wondering who could possibly be on the other end. What he also wondered was, since Eric was so busy, should he answer it? No, he shouldnt, he just got here and it wasnt his house, besides he knew it wouldnt be for him anyway, it was Eric's house afterall, people would be calling on Eric. When he saw Eric open the door, take the mail and close it, he knew that he was right and turned off the television, answering Eric with a one syllable sentence.

" Yeah..."

Tummy now bulging with pizza, he sat there completely full, and stared at the blank screen, moving his hand and watching the reflection on the screen, ammusing himself some more.

[Eric]

Eric yawned somewhat lazily and began to throw the mince and bran together. In addition to that, he reached into the fridge and pulled out some gravy from his dinner the other night and tipped that in too.

Mashing it all together he made the dogs sit and lie down before he set their food bowls down in the kitchen. Then left them to it. That done Eric headed through to the kitchen, occasionally muttering under his breath about this thought or that thought.

It would seem like all random gibberish unless Tristian actually paid attention, then the kid might've noticed that, well. Eric was always making a refrence to stoneage or Maxwell Conner. Always, more often than not about the Maxwell Conner. To say Eric brought his work home with him was an understatement. What he did while he was muttering however, was feed his fish, and then move the computer from what would be Tristian's room into the front, and then shifted the desk to one side.

The door went again and this time it was Tristian's stuff. Eric waved at the boxes in a "check everything is all there Triss." kinda way, and then took the bed into the room and began to assemble it. He swore a few times at the bed frame, but other than that at least it was keeping him occupied.

[triss]

Tristian did as he was told, everything was all there, and luckily it was all in one peice, which was his greatest concern. His art work was alright, some of them unfinished, but alright, and everything was in order. It was when everything was being set up that Eric may have a chance to sneak a peak at exactly what Tristian did. Tristian brought his things into the room, and tudcked them away neatly, watching Eric assemble his bed.

Standing there neatly in a corner, hands lost in his large baggy sleeves, he listened to Eric's cursing, and couldnt help but wonder if he would be of any help. It was unfair really to have Eric do all that work, and not have Tristian lift a finger. He had just moved into the house and already so much was done for him, first the pizza and now this, eventually he would have to somehow repay him. Not wanting to get in the way, he watches Eric, wide eyed again, as always and searches for the words in his throat, gathering enough courage to ask if he could help, because you know how easy it was to help, and end up being more trouble than it was worth. He spoke hesitantly, praying to himself that he would not be laughed at.

" Um....you need any help Eric?"

He said this shyly. Eric was obviously capable of doing this himself, but you can never have too many hands. Tristian just wanted tobe a good boy for Eric, just being here made him feel like he was a bit of trouble. However, Eric was an orphan too, surely he understood how it was to be bounced from one place to another. Well, at least he was trying. It could have been worse for Eric, he could have gotten an annoying trendy teen girl, or some punky loser or whatever those other morons in his class did. This wasnt half bad, nope.

[Eric]

Eric grinned some. "Yea, you could actually. Could you put the pillows in the pillow cases and the duvet cover over the duvet?" The DPS officer waved in the vague direction of a pile of bed sheets that was by the door. It had arrived with the bed, and Eric let out a long sigh and flicked some hair out his face.

Eric tended to curse a lot underneath his breath when working on something, it was a fact that Triss would soon learn. From this point on it was extremely unlikely that Eric would nosy through Triss' art, mainly because he knew how he hated to have his stuff pawed through and gawked at when he'd been punted from home to home. It wasn't an easy way to live, sure, but it gave the kids that when through the DPS system backbone. And since most ended up working for the DPS...

He slammed the last fixture into place, and hauled the matress onto the frame before shoving it up against the wall.

"Tomorrow..." Eric said, pulling his hair out the bandana. "We'll go and get you some paint and shit to make this room more...your room. Kinda thing. Kay?"

[triss]

He blinked once, twice, and imediatly began to work on the task given to him. Finally, he was doing something, finally he felt useful. This was much better than stuffing his face with pizza and sitting about watching the news. One nod of his head and he was off , putting the pillows in the pillow cases.

" Right."

And within a few moments he did as he was asked, everything all taken care of. Now he needed something to do. But wait, shouldnt you paint the room and then put all the furniture and stuff it? What Tristian was hearing was confusing him! Maybe they would paint around the bed? No complaints from him though, maybe if he was allowed he could paint up something pretty, that would be fun! Well, he knew there were ythings for him to do around the house, like oh say that pizza box! It needed to go somewhere!

" Kay so erm...about the pizza box uh...where does it go?"

Most of the time the pizza boxes were left in the oven and or beside the counter until taken out to recycling in a lot of the houses he lived in. But still, it may have been different here, so he would ask. Just a curious kid, learning through all the questions he asked, and trying to make himself useful.

[Eric]

"There's a chute out in the hallway by the elevator, the one marked recycling. Ram it in there. Watch the dogs too, once their out in the corridor they'll run around a bit and probably irritate one or two of hte neighbours. Just shout on them if they start to be a bother."

He grabbed the bedding then and made the bed. Tristian needed somewhere to sleep tonight, and to decorate they would haul the bed into the middle of the room and paint around it. They could've left the furniture out, but Eric wouldn't ask anyone to sleep on the couch, and having the kid sleep in his room would be weird. And wrong. Very wrong.

Eric got up and looked at the piles of the kids boxes. They could stay there for tonight, and get unpacked once the room was painted. He'd need to go to work for a few hours tomorrow, but he cuold leave Triss with the dogs, they'd look after him. Eric let out a long sigh, headed over to the couch and flumped down on it.

[triss]

" K Eric...wont take long."

And with a sharp turn about, his hair flicking behind his back he was out of the room, picking up the pizza box and eating any crumb of a leftover that was left. But of course, Tristian wasn't one to leave leftovers behind, heck the kid practically inhaled the entire pizza on his own. What could he say, he was a growing boy, only fifteen years old. Well, he only wished he could say that he was growing, problem was that he had been stuck at this height for a long time.

He envied the other boys, they were so much bigger and stronger than he was. He was shy about a few things, that was for sure. He hid near the back of the boys change room during P.E seeing how he was a couple feet smaller and didnt want anybody to see his sesame street boxers.

Still, although small the body was functional, folding the pizza box in half without effort, on his way out into the hallway. He walked out, watching the dogs, exiting facing inwards, making sure they didnt end up anywhere near the door, wich they didnt, they were far toobusy eating their food.

When he returned, several things were dug out of his bags, like a toothbrush to brush his teeth and some jammies to sleep in, hello kitty ones at that, then he slept.