Heya Roomie, What Should I Call You? (Ace)

[Julien Duval]

Today was the day. Julien finally had a roommate. He'd been starting to worry. It actually took a long time for someone to reply to the flyers he'd put around Pilot Ridge and he'd been beginning to think he'd put the wrong phone number on them or something, but he finally got a call from a guy who was moving to Pilot Ridge from Minnesota and he sounded nice enough, and now the guy was moving in. Mason Walker was his name, although he decided to go by Ace, something Julien wasn't really sure about. He wasn't sure why the nickname was deemed so cool, but would call him that if he wished. At least now he wouldn't have to pay the rent on his own.

He was tapping away on his laptop, looking at financial aid options for his college year, which was going to start in the fall. He'd decided on the University of Vermont and was glad he found a place not far from it. His parents were slightly disappointed he wouldn't be returning to France and Julien didn't exactly tell them that it was because he'd found he was living in a town infested with meta-humans.

[Mason "Ace" Walker]

Ace didn't know what he would have done if he hadn't had found Julien's ad buried beneath a few suspicious looking flyers. He'd only had a little bit of money saved up and he didn't have any backup plans except for staying at the nearest reasonably priced hotel. It wasn't like he could have stayed with Oliver and he didn't know anyone else in the town.

The Minnesotan picked up his rather full bag out of his passenger seat, the rest of his possessions sitting in his truck bed or waiting to be bought. He threw the bag across his shoulder before double checking the address on the flyer, hopping out of his truck to head up to the apartment door. With any luck Julien would turn out to be just a normal dude and Ace wouldn't have to worry about living with a meta. Sleeping with one eye open just didn't appeal to the male.

He practically jogged up to the door and rapped on the outside gently with his knuckles, hoping to every god, goddess, and deity above that this was the right apartment. It wasn't a joke flyer. And that the guy on the other side was not a meta.

[Julien Duval]

When there was a knock on the door, Julien got up quickly, leaving his laptop behind to go to the door. Surely it was his new roommate. He threw open the door, a little too excitedly and looked at the guy in front of him with bags. He was taller and looked a little rough around the edges. "I'm Julien," he told him, breathing a sigh. "Guess we're rooomies. You go by Ace, yes?" He held out his hand for the other guy to shake.

First meetings were awkward.

[Mason "Ace" Walker]

Ace stood outside the door, listening to the shuffling inside while he waited for his new roommate to open the door. It took a bit of effort for the boy to resist the urge to fidget, wanting to seem like a normal guy and not some kind of nervous wreck. As the door opened slowly to reveal his messy haired, slightly shorter future roommate Ace let out a big grin of relief. "Hey Julien." He responded, nodding with the question as he tried to think of suitable nickname for the guy he'd be living with. Maybe he could call him Jewel? Resisting the urge to laugh at his own thoughts, Ace quickly captured the guy's hand to shake it to get formalities out of the way. "Yeah. I go by Ace," he nodded again before looking past into the apartment. "Think we could do a tour before I go out to get the rest of my stuff?"

[Julien Duval]

"May I ask why?" Julien asked as his new roommate introduced himself. He didn't really understand a lot of nicknames and tended to cringe when people tried to give him one. "And yeah, definitely." The guy seemed nice enough. Polite, just like he'd been on the phone and so Julien held the door open, gesturing for him to come inside. "You said you were from Minnesota, right?" he asked as he shut the door behind him. "What brings you all the way out here?" He was truly curious, it was in his nature to be curious about most things.

Right when you walked in the kitchen was to your right and so Julien gestured widly over to it. It was a fair size. He began walking further to show that beyond that there was a living room which also doubled as a dining room and then a short hallway with a bathroom and two bedrooms. Julien had already moved into one and threw open the door to the other. "Well, this is your room."

[Mason "Ace" Walker]

The question regarding Ace's (nick)name had the Minnesotan pausing briefly, actually having to think about when exactly his name came into existence. It happened so long ago. "You know what, Julien? I don't actually remember why I'm called Ace." He responded honestly, chuckling softly as he walked past Julien and into the apartment. Immediately glancing around to check that there wasn't any weirdness, he was pleased to see that it just seemed like any old apartment. Once discovered, he nodded his head almost to himself and turned to his slightly disheveled roommate with a sheepish grin. "Well, I applied up here for college. To Greenview actually. I have a friend going up to that super fancy boarding school thing, and I got tired of waiting for him to come back home. So! I packed my things and here I am." There was nothing for Ace to hide when it came to his story, except maybe that-which-shall-not-be-named-or-discussed.

Ace shoved his bag further on his shoulder as he followed Julien around the apartment, humming softly and adding a positive sounding noise every once in awhile. After his first assumption of everything being normal he was content with knowing there wasn't any funny business and seeing the rest of the place only confirmed it. As they came to a stop in front of the empty bedroom he was claiming for his own, Ace nodded gently. "Alright then. How about before I start the process of moving my stuff in here we go over what all I'll be helping pay for, boundaries, that sort of thing."

[Julien Duval]

Julien gave him a quizzical look. He wondered how it was possible to obtain a nickname, something that you went by more than your own name and not remember how it came to be. That was like losing your identity or something, but he decided not to commment and instead chuckled as well with his new roommate.

"Yeah, it's a really simple place, but I like it enough. It'll get me through college," Julien mused as Ace looked around. "So...would you like me to call you Ace then?" The question came out quite awkward and Julien smiled sheepishly. "Oh okay, yeah. I was thinking about going there. Less pressure compared to U of V, but in the end, I decided to go there instead...so I guess we'll see." When he mentioned a friend going to a fancy boarding school, that really caught his attention. "Do you know what the school is called?" People who knew Julien knew he had two ways of conversing. Small talk or rapidly firing questions. This was one of those times when the switch flipped.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," he said, running a hand through his curls. Should he have prepared this ahead of time? Man, being an adult was hard.

[Mason "Ace" Walker]

"As long as there are beautiful women and my best friends... I don't really need more in a town." Ace smiled some at his new roommate and shrugged some. "Call me Ace or call me Mason, whichever one works. Most people go for Ace or Walker though." He was rambling towards the end. But considering how nervous he roommate looked and sort of sounded, Ace was going to pretend his minor slip up wasn't that bad. Or he would have, except for the fact that his roommate seemed to emerge from his cocoon of nerves to assault Ace with rapid fire talking. Which did nothing except make the Minnesotan smile harder. "I would have gone to... U of V but its cheaper to start out with my Gen Eds from a community college. Especially considering this is out of state tuition."

The question about the school made him frown lightly as he walked back to the question. "Not sure... Hammel I think?" Okay. So he should really work on his ability to know the details on Oliver's life. But he would claim he was just thrown through a loop that Oliver had gotten back with AJ. He shrugged some and sat down on the couch to look over at Julien. "Alright. So. We're splitting rent and utilities down the middle then? How much is it going to be?"

[Julien Duval]

"That's....a good outlook to have, I suppose," Julien agreed with a nod. He wasn't sure what else to say. When Ace tried to help him decide what to call him, Julien decided that he'd rather call him Mason. It was different. And he wasn't really one for nicknames either, especially when his always happened to be Jules. "Mason, you're Mason," he announced.

"That's the smart thing to do, especially with out of state tuition. I'm out of country so...I'm gonna owe a lot of money. But this town..." he trailed off. He wasn't going to go on about meta humans. Was that supposed to be how you acted anyway? Was it really taboo?

But then Ace said the magic word. Hammel. And he couldn't help himself. How was he supposed to. "Your best friend is a meta? He was way too excited, so it might have seemed as if he'd jumped down his new roommate's throat with his excitement.

"Down the middle is equal," he agreed. "300 each."