We Started This Op'ra...Stuff...

[Maxwell Clayton]

10:34 PM

Everybody!  

Get down, get down now 

S-s-s-stand up, don't be shy!  

People, people, people 

Get up, get up, get up 

Everybody testify! 

Maxwell was slouching lazily in a chair, notepad and pen in hand. His expression was almost blank, his mouth slightly agape and his gaze absorbed into the TV. How he felt about it was hidden from those without empathy or telepathy or the sort. The older student didn't even look down as he was writing odd scribbles and thoughts about the movie: Repo! The Genetic Opera. It was a movie he adored and had seen countless times before, but only in a purely viewing manner. Pleasure was not the goal for him tonight, but rather study. Maxwell had analyzed this movie before but only in his head. He figured the next time the Cinema Club met, he could discuss the movie in greater detail with them. 

The student lounge was, oddly enough, empty at the time, something Maxwell had taken advantage of. The TV was turned up very loud. His chair of choice was front and center. Maxwell's usual aroma filled the area, faintly at a distance but stronger towards Maxwell himself - cigarette smoke mixed with burning charcoal. Such was the smell of a fire breather who smoked half a pack a day. Fittingly enough, another of Maxwell's habits was present in the student lounge; the fire alarm had been dismantled and was laying in pieces on a nearby table.

Something made Maxwell shift from his near inebriated state however. Without even sitting upright, Maxwell hit the Pause button on the remote. Pavi Largo's face-on-a-face was frozen in HD across the giant TV screen. To some, it was a rather glorious image. To others, potentially creepy and perhaps terrifying. Maxwell tilted his head to the left, barely looking up over his shoulder...

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

Monroe stifled a yawn as he walked down the hallway, hearing loud music coming from inside the student lounge. He raised an eyebrow and pushed open the door. The first thing he saw was the dismantled fire alarm, which gave him a clue as to who it was. The second thing was the television, with the movie playing. "You're watching this again?" he asked. It was Max, of course. They'd had classes off and on at Hammel and he didn't try to call him Thomas and vice-versa, Monroe didn't try to call him Maxwell. It was a nice agreement they had. Besides, the guy was different and Monroe could identify with that.

[Maxwell Clayton]

"Heeeeeey, how's it going Monroe." Maxwell said as he gave a soft chuckle paired with a smirk. "It's not even elev-"

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

The fire breather's chronic cough interrupted him; it was a deep cough too, one that someone might get from double pneumonia. He instinctively covered his mouth with a fist, his slouch snapped upright.

"Urgh, never mind. I was gonna ask why you were yawning, but I sort of answered that didn't I?" Hammel Institute was riddled with cases like theirs. Maxwell suffered from his cough, while Monroe was a dream walker. Yawning was something he always did.

Maxwell paused for a second motioned for Monroe to shut the door, standing up to walk across the window. He cracked it open by several inches, and sat on the window sill. The cold air from outside was sucked into the room, and the fake breeze it made was very refreshing. He reached into his coat for his lighter, but left it at that. Monroe was a smart guy, he'd probably see that and if he didn't want Maxwell to smoke, he'd ask and Maxwell wouldn't.

Maxwell had always considered Monroe a friend since he first met him all those years ago. They had classes together, had similar temperaments. Maxwell had many acquaintances, but few he considered actual friends. Monroe was one of them. He liked the guy.

"Take a sit man, but no I really wasn't watching this again. Taking notes really, nothing special. What's up?" Maxwell was actually in more of a chatting mood tonight, but hadn't realized it until Monroe turned up. "How's whats-her-face...? Or you, for that matter. Don't see you as often ever since I moved off campus." Maxwell then nodded to the television. "Sadly, my place doesn't have a TV though."

The last question was both a small joke meant to poke at his friend, and a shot in the dark since he had no clue who Monroe was interested in these days unless he hadn't changed and Maxwell knew better than to guess incorrectly and instead of poking fun at Monroe poke a sore spot.

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

Monroe raised a hand in greeting as Max had a short coughing fit. He was used to that with his friend...due to his power and his addiction to cigarettes. He moved further into the room and shut the door. "Yeah, you did," he said, his lip twitching upward into a half-smile.

He moved towards the sofa as Max stood up and moved towards the window. He didn't smoke, didn't approve of it or like the smell, but as long as Max stayed near the window, which Monroe knew he would, he didn't have a problem. "Taking notes? For the Cinema Club you're involved in?" he asked, kicking his combat boots up on the sofa with him. "Not much really. Was headed back to my dorm to maybe possibly try and take a nap, but that rarely works out anyway. Then I heard the t.v blasting." He shrugged his shoulders. "By what's-her-face....you mean?" Ah man, had he somehow heard about the vision? That weird vision Sebastian had that meant he was apparently going to fall in love with this blonde girl named Eloise who he couldn't see himself with at all? Did he mean Adaryn? Did he even know either of them?

[Maxwell Clayton]

As Monroe hadn't yet asked Maxwell not to indulge himself, the smoker did indeed indulge himself. With a swift practiced motion honed by repetition and addiction, Maxwell reached into his coat and took out his pack of cigarettes. It was mostly full; Maxwell didn't smoke all that often compared to other chronic smokers, half of a pack a day at most. Maxwell was used to smoke in his lungs, and made sure each cigarette lasted as long as he could make it last. A sharp flick, a sizzle of burning tobacco and paper, a drawing of breath, and a relaxed sigh later, Maxwell had finished his first drag before replying.

"Bingo. It's a good movie, rather cult but not as cult as I once thought. Apparently."With a shrug and another drag, Maxwell listened on but after hearing...

"By what's-her-face....you mean?"

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

A rather large plume of smoke bellowed for Maxwell's nose and mouth as he coughed again. This cough was both chronic and reactive. Monroe had either called him out on his friend's bluff on purpose, or by accident, but which one didn't matter. After recovering, he let out an exasperated sigh.

"...I mean, well... ah damn." Maxwell's lips curled into a sly smirk. "I didn't mean anyone, really, was just a stab in the dark. Part small-talk, part curiosity, part teasing knowing you. But seriously." Maxwell's smirk faded quickly as he took another drag, but afterwards set the smoldering cigarette hanging on the sill, ash-tip outside off the wood.

"Knowing you...is there anyone? By the sounds and looks of it, there might be. I don't mean to pry though Monroe, you don't gotta talk if you don't want too. Hell, lie if you want, I wouldn't know the difference. Nor care too, no offense. You know me."

[Thomas "Monroe" Montgomery]

"I've only seen parts of it. Remember you made me watch it with you last year? I don't know if you noticed because you were so immersed in the film, but I kept dozing off throughout the entire thing," Monroe told him, a smirk on his face. It wasn't that it had been boring, it was hardly that. It was that Monroe was always exhausted.

He winced as Max was sent reeling into another storm of coughs. It almost didn't seem to affect him anymore, as if he was so used to it. That's what happened when you had one of these powers, you were forced to live with it, adapt to it.

He chuckled. "Dude, it's fine. I wasn't calling you out on anything," he said. "And there really isn't any sort of...relationship or anything. It's mostly the idea of having one that's come up recently." Sebastian's vision, Adaryn...everything. His head hurt. "My friend...he's a pre-cognate, had a vision that I would end up with this girl...and I've met her and it's not exactly a match made in heaven..." he trailed off, shaking his head at the whole situation.