RP:Roommates

Summary: Hudson and Sargaso meet, and agree to become roommates in a shack near Cenril's beach. Characters: Hudson, Sargaso

The Whaler's Bar

Hudson is seated off by himself within line of sight of the board. He's got a beer in hand, an amber ale of sorts, and is picking at a sandwich - bacon, lettuce, tomato. There's a paper in front of him, but for the most part his attention is focused on his food, to wit the careful Jenga-style extraction of rippled sheets of bacon from his sandwich.

Sargaso enters the tavern with a note dangling from his hand. Dressed in a blue sirwal, whale skin boots, and sea dragon tunic (authenticity up for debate), he matches the nautical pub’s decor. A brine and fish perfume trails him as he passes Hudson’s table. A few patrons greet him, most others don’t. As a modestly popular sailor, he must resort to message boards for broadening his social net in hopes of catching other fish. He posts his note.

Hudson is chewing thoughtfully on the piece of bacon he'd removed, savoring its saltiness, when Sargaso appears. Hudson, washing down the fatty edge of his meat, wonders if the man's a hipster or the Real Deal. He'd put money on the former. This was all ironic. But then the man passes, an odor of legitimacy radiating off of him like a maybe-actually bad smell, and Huds is minutely grateful that nobody had taken the other side of that bet. He watches the guy pin his note to the board, and out of nosiness finds his eyes scanning its contents. Huds weighs them after a bite from his sandwich, which is now with Less Bacon but still pleasant. He drinks more beer. Eventually he waves at Sargaso. "Hey," he says. "Your roommate ad. I'm keen."

Sargaso blinks twice. He can’t believe how quickly this message board nonsense works — or frankly, that is works at all. Selene must be smiling down upon him today. It feels great to know that every minor convenience in your life is brought to you by a micromanaging benevolent entity in the sea. “Oh, good.” Without invitation he slips into a chair opposite Hudson as if he belongs there, and there was never a time when Sargaso wasn’t sitting there, just like there was never a time when the ocean wasn’t there. “I’m Sargaso, servant of Selene. I work on the docks and at sea. And you? You a sailor?” By the look of Hudson’s sandwich, that’s an unlikely guess. Sargasso eyes the bacon sandwich suspiciously. Ordering a bacon sandwich at the Whaler’s Bar is like ordering a salad at a steakhouse, only acceptable when done by women or effeminate men. Pansies. He scans Hudson from head to toe. Is this one of those soft dandy men?

Hudson tries not to look too thirsty about the whole thing. He drinks more of his beer and, splaying his palms on the table, straightens his posture just in time for Sargaso to lower himself into the seat opposite him. Servant of Selene? Intense. Huds' introduction is less impressive: "Hudson Landon. You can call me Huds, though." Huds nudges at his sandwich with his fork, shaking his head briskly in the negative to respond to Sargaso's question. "Not really my schtick," he answers with a self-deprecating wince. "Alchemist, actually. Grew up around here. Live with my mum currently, like to move out for reasons that I'm sure are obvious." A waitress hovers about them like a fly around a honeytrap, and Huds eyes his diminished beer with some intent. "I'm going to order another. You want one?"

Sargaso nods slowly a few times when Hudson mentions he wants to move out of mum’s for obvious reasons. His nods say ‘Preach, brother.’ And he nods again at Hudson’s invitation to a beer — or at least he assumes Huds is buying him a beer. Assuming things has worked out well for Sargaso so far. “Thanks.” He notices the waitress lower her gaze and blush around Hudson. She’s never done that for Sargaso. He’s never met an alchemist before, and that does sound like a dandy profession, but this guy is evidently a chick magnet. Might be a good idea to have him around and see which hens come around their place to roost. “Oh an alchemist. A very noble profession.” Sargaso makes an effort to look impressed. “What about hobbies?”

Hudson is buying them beers. He is already making eye contact with the waitress, two fingers gesturing at his drink and then at the space-for-rent in front of Sargaso. The message appears to be received, with apparently some amount of inadvertent flirtation. Hudson hides a smirk in the last of his beer as he drains it, readying the space for its replacement. "Case in point," he says to Sargaso as he studiously turns the now-emptied glass so that the beer logo is displaying away from them. He knows that girl knows who his mum is, and his interactions with her are getting increasingly awkward. It's of no moment that he isn't a centaur named Mr. Neigh, probably. He meets Sargaso's eyes as the other guy goes about praising the nobility of alchemy. "It's cool enough, I wish I weren't so bad at it though," he says. "I'd keep the experimenting to my mum's place, if it bothers you. I haven't exploded anything yet, so... bodes well. Anyway, I play on the Cenril kickball team. We suck so bad, but it's great, whatever." Their beers appear, and Huds waits for the waitress to draw away before turning the question around. "You?"

Sargaso has no idea what kickball is, but is soothed by the word ‘ball.’ A sporting man is the kind you can depend on to pay rent every month. You can’t trust a man that’s all brain and no gut, his mother used to say. However, his mother didn’t have anything to say about people who admit to sucking at both brainy pursuits, such as alchemy, and sports. Sargaso needs to wing it in this case. Maybe Hudson is just being modest. That’s a virtue, after all (or so they say). “I don’t know what kickball is, but I’d be curious to learn. I like just about any sport with a round ball. Don’t care for the egg-shaped ball games.” He takes a long drink of his beer. “I kayak. A bit of a cultural tradition.” His chest puffs a bit as he explains, “Ocean kayaking, not lakes and rivers.” Sargaso racks his brain for anything else he may need to know before letting this guy check out the shack. Questions about cleanliness, sleeping habits, visitor policies, drug use, and other important queries necessary for successful cohabitation are discarded for being too womanish. “If you don’t have anywhere to be after this beer, I can show you the shack.”

Hudson latches on to Sargaso's cautious interest in the Cenril kickball team. "Come to a game, I think it's universally amusing," he says, siphoning the foam off of the top of his beer. "If nothing else, there's beer and sometimes girls." The key elements to a good time. He finds himself looking in the direction of the waitress; she's not to be found. Huds drinks his beer and considers that probably for the best. "Hardcore," he says of Sargaso's kayaking hobby. "I bet you run into mermaids doing that," he adds with a subtle smirk, lifting his eyebrows to silently convey all that needs to be said about mermaids. He drinks his beer in the brief companionable silence that interjects itself. "That sounds good to me, mate. I've got a bit and wouldn't mind a look. I expect right on the beach's going to be a sweet location, especially for your kayaking slash mermaid watching." / nods at Hudson’s invitation to a game. “Sure, I’ll go to one. Let me know when.” Then Hudson commits a common non-sailor error: thinking mermaids are up for a good time. Sargaso’s expression grows somber, but he doesn’t seem annoyed or upset. He drinks his beer and waits for the right moment to shatter Huds’ illusion. It isn’t the alchemist’s fault. Countless books and plays feed into this fiction of mermaids as sexpots. Sargaso, as a servant of Selene, is here to correct that misconception. “Oh, they are beautiful, but have you come to wonder why there’s a vacancy in my shack? My last roommate got lured out to see by a siren’s song. His half eaten body washed up on shore a week later.” He finishes his beer and pushes the empty bottle towards the center of the table. “But let’s go,” he says, his tone burdened by the death of his friend. He stands, waits for Hudson, then leads the way out the pub. Amazingly, his morbid burden lifts and makes space for a cheerful bounce in the time it takes to cross the tavern floor. Hudson would be forgiven if he assumed that mermaid story was bull.

Sea Breeze

Hudson definitely is under the delusion that mermaids are there for his aesthetic appreciation and possibly a good time. Whether he'd like to have that good time - tail and all - is up for debate. He's not had to make a choice there, nor does it seem at all likely. In any event, Huds wasn't born yesterday, but he is just for the most part engaging in wishful thinking, a great deal of it in fact, and Sargaso's cautionary and personal tale peels back the veneer of the hopeful varnish Huds had put on all his interactions to date with mermaids. He finishes his beer while he collects his thoughts on the subject. "Right, well, point taken," he manages, slapping a few coins on the table as he rises to go. He falls in step beside Sargaso as they head out and move through town. Huds' writer is happy to gloss over the subjects put forth by Hudson for this journey: the rules of kickball, the absurdity of the fact that Gualon is somehow in the league, and the longest distance ocean kayaked by Sargaso (he assumes Sargaso is exaggerating a little, as men tend to, in the presence of other men).

Sargaso asks obvious questions about kickball, and is completely ignorant of its most basic rules. Is there a goalie? No. A shame-faced grimace follows. This shame encourages Sargaso to exaggerate even more than usual his kayaking record. Not only did he kayak all the way to Rynvale, but he circled the Rynvalian islands. The rule of thumb when guessing the truth of a self-professed record is to divide the number by two. In this case, divide by four. As they approach a cluster of wind-blown wooden shacks, Sargaso is explaining, “The trick to long distance kayaking is to surrender to the currents. You can’t paddle against nature. That’s what Selene taught me one day when— Ah, here’s home.” Huds narrowly escapes a Selene sermon. Take heart, dear alchemist, for if you accept this room you will undoubtedly be subjected to countless sea sermons. Sargaso unlocks a rusted padlock which at this stage in its deterioration is purely decorational. Inside, the shack is lit by sunlight filtering through two windows to the right and left. A curtain in front of the men curtains off this ‘foyer’ area from the rest of the ‘house.’ A barrel and two crates, cleaned and polished, stand in for a dining table and chairs. To the left, a small sink stands precariously on 2x4 wooden stilts below a window. A small table next to it serves at the kitchen counter. Next to that is a metal stove with a kettle on it. “Here is the kitchen and dining area.” Sargaso, both in speech and in his note, is careful to never call it a dining room. He pulls back the curtain and reveals his own room. It’s larger than the dining area and boasts a full size bed. On the far wall is a closet door, yet Sargaso’s belonging are tied to nets that stretch like tapestries against two of the four walls. His seal-skin kayak hangs upside down from the ceiling over the bed. “This is my room, and if you come this way…” He opens the closet door to reveal the tiny, vacant room. Calling this shack a two-bedroom home is a deviation from its original design. A twin-sized bed frame stands raised like a bunk bed. Beneath the bed like are two crates pressed together. A panel has been cut out of each crate, on the same side, to allow legs to slide beneath the top panels, so that they serve as a desk. It has a swivel chair, the height of luxury. The bunk bed is low enough that Hudson could sit up in bed and just graze his scalp on the ceiling, but high enough that he cannot stand in bed. A net hangs against a wall as a storage solution similar to the one Sargaso employs in his own room. At least the room has a tiny, round window. The only exit or entry to this ‘room’ is through Sargaso’s room. “I’m out most of the day,” Sargaso says.

Hudson is legitimately interested in the ocean kayaking, though less so in Sargaso's religious leanings. Mercifully these are cut short by their arrival at the shack, which is... leagues less pleasant than the current middle income place that he lives in with his mother. Huds exhales rather sharply, as if about to lift a very heavy object. Everything separated by curtains, muses Huds, who discovers to his horror that this is actually not the case, and that his room would be through Sargaso's room - hilariously undiscreet - and his bed elevated on a loft and tiny. Well. It's not as if his mother would immediately purge his things from his room. He could afford this place, he knows for a certainty (it's a dump). And perhaps it would be nice to live with another dude. "What a dump," says Hudson in a friendly tone, flashing Sargaso a grin. "Think of the parties we could have though. Let's do it."

Sargaso laughs at Hudson’s review of the shack. “Yep, but what a dump.” He grins right back. “A steal for 50 gold each a month.” More so a steal for Sargaso, who under this agreement pays half for use of 70% of the real estate. He points out the window in Huds’ room and say “That’s the outhouse. Bring your own paper. I keep some in the kitchen under counter.” One thing that could be said for this dump is that Sargaso keeps it tidy. “Yea, we should throw a real rager. The other shacks,” he gestures towards the cluster, “usually party together too. It becomes a party village. You can invite whoever you want.”

Hudson issues an approving grunt at the price of the shack. Definitely not breaking the bank at 50 gold. Sure, it was not optimal on several fronts - the lack of doors, for instance, the railroad nature of his proposed bedroom - but perhaps they could engage in a little carpentry and make things better themselves. He's feeling optimistic. Kicking the can down the road for later appeals. Besides, he had his mum's place if he felt like having someone do his laundry or cook him food or pamper him. He can see how the open layout of the place would really shine in a party situation, though, and he envisions a massive beer pong table, and a space for a band and a bard. "Sounds awesome. I'm down," says Huds, extending a hand, palm up, to grasp Sargaso's. "When can I move my garbage in here?"

Sargaso shakes Hudson’s hand and tries to train the relief off his face. He was worried Hudson would reasonably try to negotiate a better price. The clergy of Selene have no salary. He literally scrapes by day to day, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. Faith has a way of elevating his looks along with his spirit. “Whenever you want. Today, if it suits.” He pulls a spare key from his hidden sirwal pocket. “For the padlock.” His hands land on his hips as he looks around then let out a low whistle. “Well, I should head to the dock as the fishing boats come in. Get some work.” Peak day laborer time for a man like Sargaso. “I’ll see you tonight if you move in now, or whenever. Nice meeting you, Huds.” He has no problem leaving a near stranger in his shack. Either he has no valuables, or his faith is no sham parlor trick. He truly believes.

Hudson has the bank of mum as a guarantor, which helps. "Thanks, mate," he says, accepting the key, the necessity of which he questions, but hey. Sargaso has the right of things; Huds doesn't plan on keeping valuables here either. Their shack may as well have been a dormitory room with an open door policy, as far as he could see. Huds rifles through his pockets and comes up with some of the cash, about half, which he passes to the other man. "Don't have all of it on me, but I'll get you the rest when I move my stuff in tonight and tomorrow," he says, his chin jutting up in a nod. Huds looks to the small room, wondering what sort of wall hangings he might rustle up, though he turns back in time to see Sargaso depart. "Nice meeting you, mate. See you!"