And be one traveler, long I stood

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie was only too happy to vacate her kitchen, it wasn't that she hated housework, she just forgot about it a lot. She was a busy woman and she had way more important things to do than wash dishes or cook food. She was legitimately bad at cooking anyway so why would she want to burn down her house for a scrambled egg? She shrugged her shoulders and did the younger boys bidding, her long legs easily taking her to the couch where she tossed herself down and picked up the remote. "Um...I don’t know, probably on the sink, I think that's where I put them last..." she mused as she turned on the news and started cooing at her cat that had jumped up to join her.

She scratched Watson behind the ears and changed the channel to another news program in time to see what the weather would be like for the week. "Oh yeah and I think the dishwasher might be empty....maybe...it could be full. I haven’t checked it recently,” she called over the couch.

[Deleted]

On the sink…right. Oriel found a couple of other things under the sink though. Fresh sponges, dishwasher detergent, steel wool, 409 spray…perfect. Oriel grabbed the lot of it and deposited it all on the countertop. “Right,” he called back when she pointed out the dishwasher. He eased it open and inspected the interior…half full…of…dirty dishes, great. And in a haphazard, disorganized manner, which had the neat freak twitching his eye at the sight of it. First things first, Oriel reorganized what was already in the racks, then started loading the shit that was festering in the sink, setting two glasses aside for him to hand clean while the rest churned in the washer.

With that set, he snagged one of the dish towels and the surface cleaner and started tackling the countertops. Then came what didn’t fit in the dishwasher. The whole process took only about 15-20 minutes. When he was more or less satisfied, he hung the dish towel off the side of the sink and set the sponge behind the faucet. Oriel filled both of the now clean glasses with water and ventured out to the living area. “Is that a new couch?” he asked, handing the glass over to the cop woman.

[Percie Hobbes]

The kid was actually cleaning her kitchen. More than anything else it drove home the image of himself that he had been explaining to her earlier. He was, at heart, a good kid who just happened to apparently have a temper problem. She stared at her TV without really watching it, mulling over behavioral things, Oriel and how she was going to try and handle him from now on when she was interrupted by him handing her a glass of water and his question about her couch. She frowned. "YES actually-," but she couldn't go any further due to the sudden bell ringing through her apartment. "Hold that thought," she ordered as she set the glass down onto a coaster on the coffee table and went down to get their pizza. It had taken Oriel the same amount of time to clean her kitchen that it took to make a pizza....somehow this information disturbed her but she wasn't sure about the specifics of why and what specifically made her sigh about it.

After paying for the pizza and tipping the driver she brought the pizza and the cola upstairs, setting them on the counter of the kitchen. She looked over at the dishwasher humming happily as it cleaned her dirty dishes. She'd really have to remember to turn that on more often, she liked clean dishes. She scowled when she thought about the scattered clothing in her bathroom where the hamper was. She took clean plates out and flipped the top off the pizza (just normal pepperoni) and put two slices on Oriel's plate and two on her own before returning to the living room and setting them down. That done she put the soda in the fridge, at the most it had taken just over a minute. "Anyway, yes new couch because I didn't even want to think about what you and your boyfriend did on the old one," she announced as she used her long legs to step over the back of the new couch, hoist herself up enough to get the other leg over before flopping back down onto the cushions.

[Deleted]

Just happened to have a temper problem. It wasn’t just a problem, it was a fucking temper problem, and one he had no idea how to get rid of, how to control, how to— Oriel didn’t want it. He wanted it to go away? But how was he going to get rid of it when everyone kept giving him reasons to keep it around?

Doing something that made sense, something that had a clear, definitive line for how it was supposed to work, something he knew in no uncertain terms that he was doing right…doing those kind of things helped get his head back on straight. Cleaning was one of those activities. It was either clean or it wasn’t. Easy, right?

Oriel couldn’t understand how other people could stand to live otherwise. If you didn’t have to live in a shit-hole, then why would anyone choose to?

He remained seated on the brand new couch while Percie went off to get the pizza. At least she had clean plates to put the slices on… “Ohh…and you think it’s any fucking different than the freaks you were getting on with Mr. Stalker-Daddy?” Oh yes. They may have been rushing out of there in a hurry, but Oriel knew what he saw on the way out. Oriel stuffed about half a slice of pizza in his mouth and chewed as he spoke. “Phoenix probly didn’t put it together…but I…ain’t fucking stupid.” Oriel swallowed, then took a drink from his water.

[Percie Hobbes]

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Percie scolded after swallowing her own bite of food that she'd almost choked on when Oriel spoke. "And anyway it's MY couch, I can do whatever the hell I feel like on it, I would know every, intimate detail," she said in a more clipped tone, full of self-satisfied smugness. "It's not like I go around screwing on the furniture of others. If I had been closer to sober that night I'd have never left you two alone," she took another bite and chewed quickly before swallowing again. "As it is I should really thank you, "Mr. Stalker-Daddy" is quite talented.”

Percie doubted that anything surprised or embarrassed Oriel anymore (he really didn’t seem like the kind of boy that would be embarrassed about things like sex and intimacy) but on the off-chance that she COULD catch him off-guard with her statement she’d totally take it as a victory and dance about it later. Though, admittedly even mentioning her sex-life to a kid was a bit strange, she’d have to stick to thinks like terrible puns or…..something. "How's the pizza?" she asked.

[Deleted]

“I talk with my mouth full of Phoenix all the time, and he understands me perfectly!” Oriel announced with a sneer. He rolled his eyes at her response, not buying in a bit of it. “Hey, nobody forced you to guzzle down half a bottle of wine. With kids around, no less. Ain’t you s’pposed to be the adult here?” Oriel was not going to let up on this flawed “adult-logic” that adults seem to like to toss out at kids whenever they screw up. It was always that fucking “do as I say, not as I do” bullshit that they never gave good explanations to. Kids were just supposed to eat it because they were kids and “didn’t know any better”. Fuck that shit.

Oriel took another bite of the pizza, essentially finishing off the first slice completely. “Uh-huh…thanks for giving me that image, I’ll wank off to it later.” He probably wouldn’t….maybe.

“Revolting,” he lied, starting in on the second piece, going at it as quickly as the first. “But edible. Fuck, I’m hungry.”

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie rolled her eyes, she really should have seen that coming. When Oriel scolded her about her drinking though she couldn't help the amused look that crossed her face as she smiled. "You're right, that was incredibly irresponsible of me, thus the non-alcoholic beverage tonight," she allowed without further argument. She didn't feel like fighting any more than she had to, she was determined that the two of the could have an actual conversation like normal people. "You're welcome then," she added, feeling strange at the idea that anything about her could be possibly used for personal gratification.

"Well, there's always an upside," she allowed after Oriel's frank assessment of the pizza. "If you're still hungry then, feel free to grab as many slices as you want when you get more," she told him as she finished her first slice and reached to take a drink out of her glass, the cup finding its way back to the coaster. She was about to make a comment about liking Thai better than pizza anyway when she noticed the score of the football game she had missed earlier today. "SONOVA MONKEY'S UNCLE!" she swore viciously. "How the crap hard is it to move a freaking football down a field? What are you even being paid for?" she snapped to the entire team who wasn't able to listen to her anyway and wouldn't be inclined to anyway.

[Deleted]

“Oh-ho! Kudos on admitting your folly,” Oriel congratulated his companion, though his tone was patronizing something horrible. “Color me impressed. Most adults just shove the blame on whatever’s the most convenient at the time.” And usually, that was Oriel, or at least it had been in his experience.

“Mmm…should’ve gotten two,” Oriel assessed as he finished off his second slice as quickly as the first and dove into the box for more. “I can finish this whole fucking thing myself. Watch me.” Oriel tossed two more slices on his plate and sank back into the sofa. He slid his eyes to the side when Percie started shouting at the television, then rolled them back into place. Oriel never understood why people did that, especially not when it came to sports and shit like that. Oriel snorted. “Hmph….you’re like my fucking foster “dad”,” he observed with something sour in his voice. “Always yelling at the fucking TV like it made a difference…” At least she wasn’t drinking. Oriel took another bite of the pizza, though he was slowing down some. “I don’t get it.”

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie merely shrugged, she'd come to expect a certain amount of snark from the boy on her couch and was prepared to simply let it go. "Two? If you want another one I can order one," she told him. She'd rather have some left overs in her fridge later than let a kid leave her house hungry. That shit just wouldn’t fly for the maternally aligned detective. She was not expecting commentary on her obsession with trying to coach through her TV. Oddly she'd thought that was the one "mundane" thing that everyone did and no one questioned. "Ah, well...you know," shoot she had nothing to explain away the fact that she ALWAYS yelled at her TV, especially when sports were involved.

"It makes me feel better," she finally answered. "Pretty sure everyone does it," she added almost petulantly as she finished her slice of pizza and leaned back, changing the channel to something true crime documentary related since crime drama's tended to piss her off for their wild depictions of police work and procedure...she liked Bones though. The two settled in to watch the program, Percie enjoyed the calm after the storm. It always felt promising, good things came after storms, she didn't except anything less from her and Oriel's experiences today. The road might not be easy or quick but she felt fairly confident that steps had been taken in the right direction. She supposed she would just have to take it slow and see what happened in the future. One thing she did know for certain was that after the boy on her couch had left she was calling Derek for some TLC…she totally deserved some.