2024-12-16 - New Roomies and the Star Jar

Trace and Fin have made a pretty cozy little space out of their apartment. The furniture is warm, comfortable, and inviting. There are a couple of plants that Trace tries not to kill via over-watering. There's shelves with books and things and a television in the living room area. A dining table with four chairs sits in the area just off the kitchen. The place smells good. At the moment, like a spiced herbal tea.

There is, however, one remaining room in the apartment that has stood empty for a third and final roommate to move into. Occasionally some boxes that need to be recycled find their way in there for a day or two til they're taken downstairs, but otherwise it's been left empty for its new inhabitant.

Up until now, Gabriel had been living the life of mid-tier luxury at the resort while employee services worked out their housing situation. It made for a fun stay but without being able to properly unpack, one that hasn't made this new transition feel like home yet.

Luckily that's all been sorted. They arrive in front of apartment 203 with two great big rolling suitcases in tow. Their blonde hair is a bit messy and tossed up in places, likely indicating a certain struggle with the luggage on the way over, but otherwise they look well put together in a black denim jacket over a gray button down shirt and black jeans.

They knock on the door.

"I'll get it!" Fin calls out from the sofa she is lounging on. Trace made tea, and as she so often does, she used it as an opportunity to have some as well. She gets up, sets a book she was reading on the table next to her tea and half-walks, half hops to the door. Set to be in for at least awhile, she's dressed in a pair of shorts made out of gray sweatshirt material and a dark red hoodie. Her feet are bare and her hair is up in a lazy ponytail.

She looks through the peephole, but isn't sure who it is. The adventurous woman opens the door anyway. Stranger Danger be damned! "Hi!" she greets, eyes looking to the luggage then back to the person standing there. "Uh... I am assuming you are the roommate we were told to expect?"

Trace calls from his bedroom, "Okay!" when Fin says that she's going to get the door. His door is open and he's at his desk doing something or another, so he takes a couple more minutes to finish typing whatever it was that he was doing while Fin greets who he presumes is their new roommate out in the living room.

"Hi," Gabriel greets back with a little wave to Fin. They seem mildly nervous to meet new people but there's a certain bit of excited energy as well. Nervous but excited! They offer her a tiny smile. "Yeah, that's me. Gabriel. Hi. Is this a good time...to uh...move in?" There's a gesture out to the suitcases. At least there are no boxes to lug in as well.

"Absolutely not," Fin shakes her head, her red ponytail swinging. "So sorry. You'll have to come back some other time." But before Gabriel can took her too seriously, hopefully, she beams a smile at them and says, "just kidding! Sorry. I have a horrible sense of humor. Come in! Oh! I'm Fin, by the way." She steps out into the hallway, preparing to help Gabriel with one of the suitcases. "Trace! New roomie is here!"

Trace closes his laptop and then turns to wander out into the livingroom. He's got on a pair of faded jeans and a plain dark blue t-shirt with a pair of white athletic socks. He makes his way toward the door and asks, "Are there boxes? Do I need shoes?" just as he comes into view and sees Gabe there, recognition dawning. "Oh, hey," he laughs. "Welcome to 203."

Gabriel's jaw drops open by a fraction of an inch, momentarily surprised but seeming to get that surely not, right?! Fin's smile gets them huffing out a laugh in return. "Crisis averted. And I don't think that's horrible...that was a good one actually. My heart jumped into my throat." They tug one of the suitcases in while letting Fin help with the second. Her mention of Trace gets them furrowing their brow, then they look out to actually see him. "What a small world. Hi, again. I guess...roomie?"

"Psh. Shoes." Fin rolls her eyes as she starts to pull the suitcase in. To Gabriel, she says, "well, that's better than making it stop. I'll take it." The reaction of Gabriel to hearing the name 'Trace' and Trace's when he sees them has her stopping as she shuts the door behind Gabriel and herself. Then, unsure, she opens it again to make sure there was nothing else to bring in before closing it once more.

Giving a spin to the suitcase, she looks from one roomie to the other. "So... you know each other?"

"Please don't murder our new roomie. Remember all the paperwork we had to fill out after the last one?" Trace jokes, smiling a little crookedly. Then he says to Fin, to alleviate her confusion, or increase it as the case may be. "I know them, I ran with them once upon a dream. I know them, marsupials chased us to an underground stream." He actually half hum-sings as he drifts over and sits on the arm of a couch. "We had one of those shared dream things.. then I met them at Nora's in the morning afterward."

"Heart attack on day one would be bad, yeah," Gabe agrees easily. They roll the suitcase aside to let Fin lead the way to wherever the extra room is, pausing at Trace's joke. "Yeah see. Paperwork. Not worth the effort." But it's Trace's whole rhyme that actually gets them barking out an honest to goodness laugh.

"Yes. That, exactly. Except I can't rhyme for shit."

"Oh gods. That was horrible. Like 50 forms! Never again." Fin pulls the suitcase again, now toward a closed door across the room. "Ohhh," she nods to Trace. "Well, cool that we're not all complete strangers."

She opens the door and gestures inside the empty room, saying to Gabriel, "tada! Here is your new domicile." Rhyme? What rhyme? She has to think a moment before she realizes, "oh! yes, once upon a dream..." She is then humming the famous song as well, letting Gabriel take a peek at their new room if they choose.

"Totally not worth the effort," Trace agrees, grinning a little at how easily everyone seems to fall onto the same page, there. "So yeah, that's your room. Fin's got the master so she has her own bathroom. You and I get to share the other one. I moved all my stuff over so that there's room for whatever you need in there," he informs Gabe as Fin shows them where their room is.

Gabriel wheels the suitcase after Fin into the empty room, then takes a second to do ye olde hands-on-hips-nod-at-everything. "This'll do. I'm not picky. A shoebox would have been fine too. Glad it's not a shoebox, though." With Fin humming the song, they huff amusedly and gesture at her. "That's the one." They also take a peek at the bathroom and nod back to Trace. "Thanks. I don't have a lot of stuff but I promise I'm tidy. And boring. Neither of you will have to worry about me throwing a party or anything."

"Primary," Fin says with a nod. "I do have a lot of stuff." She grins broadly. "But I think Trace was just being nice and gave it to me." Looking directly at Trace then, she adds, "which I absolutely appreciate. Earned him all kinds of points on the roomie scoreboard."

Gesturing with her hand as if to brush something off, she says to Gabriel, "don't worry. The roomie scoreboard doesn't actually exist." She returns to her seat on the sofa and sits sideways, cross-legged. "The rooms aren't grand or anything, but I did enjoy decorating mine." Hers is covered in colorful removable wall paper, scarves hanging about, and a bunch of other colorful things. Her bathroom also serves as a makeshift film-developing studio, complete with light on the door that warns not to open it.

"We aren't throwing party people either, or haven't been yet at least. Maybe more go to a party people than have one at home party people. Sounds like you might fit right in."

"I don't have a lot of stuff," Trace admits. "I mean I do, but not here. I didn't bring a lot with me to the park." He then grins over at Fin and says, "I figured you'd appreciate the more private bath is all, really."

Trace's own room, which is visible from the hallway through the door is neatly decorated in an entirely different style from Fin's. His has pale wood bookcases floor to ceiling and then a dark rich blue accent wall that has some art hanging on it -- a mixture of prints of paintings and some photographs. His desk is neat and tidy with his laptop on it and a pile of books and some other odds and ends.

"Yeah, we are more.. go to parties elsewhere then come back here to hide when the peopling gets too much sort of people."

Gabriel's mouth tugs into a half-smile at the idea of a roomie scoreboard. "You sure? Maybe you're onto something there. Positive reinforcement and all that." And now of course they take a second to peek into everyone's rooms nosily, just glancing around at the decor and any personal touches. "I can be pretty quiet around new people. It kinda takes me a while to warm up so I'm more or less bad at parties."

They gesture to Fin's room. "Photographer?" Then to Trace's room. "Uhhh, book...person?" Trying to guess at their jobs.

"Well, you were right," Fin says with a smile to Trace. Laughing, she says, "well, we can always start one! Work out a point system, some reward for points. I dunno though, it seems like a lot of work."

"Yeah, Park Photographer, and lover of photography in general," she responds to Gabriel with a shrug. "Uh, do you like your hto taken or is it against your like, personal code? I often have camera in hand and don't want to stick it in your face if you'll hate it. Not that I take a ton of photos in the apartment, but, some."

"She's a menace," Trace says to Gabriel, "Always up in my face with that camera when I'm trying to fish something out from under the couch, trying to get something out of my teeth, doing laundry.." but its very clear that it's all lies, so many lies, by the grin on his face. "Really, I think I'm kind of insulted by how few pictures she's taken of me." That's a lie, too.

"Pyrotechnic Engineer," Trace says when Gabriel tries to guess their occupations. "I just like to read," he grins. "Also, I think we totally need a points board, with little star stickers."

"It does kinda seem like a lot of work, I guess. Unless the rewards are too good to pass up." Gabe doesn't seem too invested either way, though they do perk up when Fin says she's a park photographer. "Oh cool. And I don't really mind having my picture taken but I generally looked pissed in most? So as long as you're okay with there being an angry ghost haunting your photographs..."

There's another soft laugh at Trace's copious amounts of lies flying about. "Yeah? I totally believe you." But the grin says otherwise. Their brows lift in surprise when Trace turns out to be a pyro engineer. "Wow okay well I guess I really am boring. I just work at Nora's." A shrug there. At least until Trace brings up star stickers and they're quick to look over at him. "There we go. Who doesn't want a gold star?"

"Absolute menace to society. My face is on wanted posters and everything." Fin arches a brow up at Trace. "Want me to go get my camera now?" She feels challenged by his lies! "I'll make all your lies turn into truths." There is a playful wink sent his way though then a crooked smile to Gabriel. "Angry ghost hauntings are welcome. As are other ghotly hauntings. I have two forms in photographs. I think I look lovely, or I look like an utter beast." She laughs and shakes her head. "There really isn't an in between."

But then when the gold stars are discussed, she falls quiet, her eyes taking on a bit of a faraway look. "I'm getting an idea...." There's a pause. "We can get a big jar or something and like, when one of us does something that pleases another of us, we can write it on a little slip of paper and slip them in there. Then, we can read them like, once a week or every other or whatever. Ooh! And for the stars, we can each have a color and for each awesomeness slip of paper about us, we get a star to decorate the jar with. The reward is spreading positivity and appreciation." She smiles and looks at each of them with the kind of expression that says 'huh? huh? What do you think?'.

"Oh god, no," Trace laughs when Fin threatens to make his lies a reality. "What have I done?" The angry ghost comments get a chuckle out of him. "I'm alright with angry ghosts."

"I kind of like the star jar." Why? Because it rhymes. "Just fill it up and whenever anybody's feeling shitty we can just pull out the little papers with the stars and read them to cheer up."

"Yeah that in between is probably what they sell to tourists, right? We're not allowed such luxuries?" Gabriel breathes out sharply through their nose, almost a laugh but not quite. They look back and forth between Fin and Trace, enjoying their banter in that kind of way an introvert appreciates extroverts for their contact energy high.

They go quiet when Fin gets her stroke of genius, face remaining neutral for that whole explanation until the very end where they smile, big and proper. Moreso when Trace calls it the star jar. What do they think about it though?

"I think I just won the roommate lottery."

"Created a menace to society, it seems," Fin answers to Trace's question about what he has done.

"Yes! Star jar! Amazing idea trace, and, better for you than eating a pint of therapy ice cream... we can still eat a pint of therapy ice cream though right? She smiles at Gabriel and says, "I think we all did. Roomie high five for the Star Jar!" She holds her hand up to collect high-fives, but then decides to get up and give them herself.

Carrying her cup to the kitchen to refresh her tea, she asks, "Gabriel? Trace? Want tea?" It seemed like they were going to be chatting a little while yet, might as well have a nice warm beverage while they do.