Finding my way around this new place

[Kode]

Kode was getting used to this town and time but it was time to go out and look around. He had help from Ronan getting his grounds, the guy was like some magic hacker and pulled him out of the code he was stuck in. Yes Kode was stuck in the digital world for some time where he throught he was going mad. He work and worked on getting it just right a way home. but was never right he couldn't even get a connection.

That was up until Ronan worked his magic, he shared with Kode how he heard his signal and then BAM! Kode appeared. And he was in the real world just in a different dimension. He and Ronan were working on how to get him home. But For now Kode was enjoying the real food and people to talk to.

Wondering the apartment complex it was spring so everything was blooming all the trees and bushes were full of color. Looking up to the sky it was pleasantly blue with a few big puffy clouds.  Turning around, he heard something that startled him. He litarly had his head in the clouds. It was so nice to be able to look up into the sky and know it's real.

Back to who or what was behind him, Kode scanned the area but he didn't see anything. But he was now alert to his surroundings. No more cloud watching. Maybe people watching that would be safer.

@open

[Stefjan Auer]

"Hey man, you gotta go home."

Stef ambled up with a wave, wholly unconcerned, while his phone vibrated to the texts of Ronan freaking out about his roommate. Sheesh. He was acting like the guy was from another planet or something, and didn't know how to retrace his steps home.

Honestly Stef wasn't even stalking Ronan this time--this was the way back to his house from the shelter. Stef's 'supervisor' at the shelter ditched him because of some emergency and the guy who replaced him was nice enough to give Stef a ride into town. It was a pretty chill day after Ryland left, he had to admit; the dogs were content to laze around and so was Stef.

He caught up to Ronan's roommate and landed a hand on his arm. "Ronan's flipping his shit, you better head on back before he calls the cops man. Oh and I'm Stef by the way."

[Kode]

He wasn't out that long that he thought, Kode just wanted to get out and look around. Ronan was a bit protective of him he told Kode about all the weird things here. Ronan included being a raiju. It was hard to take in but it must have been hard for Ronan to take in everything Kode told him about his digital world.

"Ronan? Cops? All I did was go for a walk." Kode was caught of guard and put his hand up. "Stef, I'm Kode with a K. You must be a friend of Ronan's. I am grateful for him taking me in. I love the tree's and clouds there...so pretty and real." He looked up to the trees and smiled. Everything was so bright and colorful and he was just taking all the beauty in.

"Why is he flipping his shit? Did he think I was going to be hunted or lost?" I didn't go far, did I?" This was his first time out alone without Ronan he could easily get lost and scooped up by a monster in the streets.

[Stefjan Auer]

"That's what I told him. You're not two years old, and it's not like you're retarded. Are you a helpless baby or a girl? No," Stef scoffed as he trailed along after Kode with a K--weird name, but what else was new? Since he didn't know where Ronan lived, if Kode was lost then he was pretty much fucked. Stef only knew Ronan from class; the stalking was mostly coincidentally heading towards the same building on campus.

"Besides," he continued, "nobody gets kidnapped in broad daylight." That would be some kind of dumbassery, to roll up in a rape van and just shove a guy into it. Even the supernaturals didn't come out until after dark, and this was hardly the most dangerous part of town.

It was the fucking suburbs, for christ's sake!

"He's kind of a dick, huh?" Stef looked at his phone, brows raised. Now he understood why people regretted asking Ronan out. Nowwww he got it but it was also sort of funny. Stef was a jerk too, so he was in familiar territory at least. "Like... look at this. What a dick!" He showed Kode his phone and the messages on it. Geez.

"You DO know the way back home right? We're heading the right way now?"

[Kode]

This guy was funny the way he talked was silly Kode smiled at the crack about not being retarded or a child. He walked in the direction of where he came from. He tracked his steps so he knew how to return. The last thing he wanted to do was get lost. Ronan was the only person he knew or trusted.

"Right and I'm a pretty big guy, I think I could fight off a kidnapper seeing that I am not a kid and close to 6 foot tall." They walked on the pathway to the back of the complex and made a right.

Kode leaned over to read the text on the screen and laughed, "He can be blunt I think is how he puts it."

"Yeah he lives right here, but upstairs," Kode said as they walked up on the stairway.

[Stefjan Auer]

"Exactly. You can take care of yourself, easy."

Personally, Stef thought it was insulting to be babied and coddled. For a man, that was like saying "Yo bro, you got no balls but it's okay, another bigger, stronger, manlier man is here to take care of everything for you." Nah. He'd rather die first.

"Blunt." His tone was skeptical; blunt was just a nice way of saying 'dick.' So was 'honest to a fault' and 'has no filter.' All ways to say that someone was a dick and all things that coincidentally had been said of him at some point or other, by man, woman and child.

But this was the apartment of the almighty hacker of passwords, was it? "Nice place." Stef looked around; typical apartment stuff. Nothing set this building apart from any of the other buildings, except that inside somewhere there was a guy who crawled into people's navels who lived with someone from a digital world. Stef still didn't know what that meant and some part of him thought that it was better not to ask.

The less he knew, the less he was culpable for later on.

At the door, he was first to reach out and knock, rapping smartly with his knuckles. "Wait wait. Let me." He applied his eye directly to the peephole so that whoever was on the other side would get an eyeful of... a very blue eyeball.

[Ronan Engel]

Heaving a sigh, Ronan flipped his phone over onto his bed and forced himself to kick back the blankets. Ronan was sort of/kind of a big proponent of sleeping. Didn't matter what time it was, he was glad to slide between the sheets or plop onto the couch and take naps. Of course, that was between work related things and sometimes class related things. With a yawn and a stretch, Ronan slid his feet into his house slippers and started toward the door.

Per usual, he looked to see if it was the annoying girl down the hall but all he saw was one giant eyeball staring at him. It actually startled him more awake and he took a step back--and then he was annoyed at himself for being startled. Shit. Shaking his head, he unlocked the door and opened it to find that his "exchange student" roommate and the guy he'd just been talking to on the phone were standing there.

Well. Duh. He should have gathered that by the direction of their conversation concerning Kode. He shook his head again and moved aside to let them in.

"Didn't think you'd actually come up here," he said to Stef, mostly because he was pretty much just wearing a pair of sweats pushed casually up his calves and a thin cotton tank top. To Kode, he added, "And you should have told me you were going out."

[Kode]

"You were in bed, I thought you were asleep," Kode said as he slides by Ronan. He did have a point he should have told him. Kode didn't have a key so leaving and not informing the one that lives there can cause a problem. Kinda like the one they're in now.

Kode was being careless and that was being stupid and stupid could get him killed. Okay, that was going overboard a little. But Ronan had valid reason to be upset.

"I'll tell you next time." Kode made a face and made his way to the sofa feeling a bit dumb.

[Stefjan Auer]

What a dick, Stef thought in equally fond and annoyed terms as he stood in the doorway, greeted by somebody with a case of bedhead dressed in PJs—or the male equivalent of PJs, anyway. Hardly the kind of sexy entrance he imagined Ronan making... although Stef did just appear at his door without warning, toting his not-so-helpless roomie along. With his eyeball to the peephole.

"Hello mousey," he said with a crooked smile as he followed after Kode, since Ronan stepped back to let them both in. But in passing, grinning mischievously, Stef reached out and patted Ronan on the ass. No grope, not to cop a good feel, just a swat to see what goods he had requisitioned.

"Man he treats you like you're his son, doesn't he?" Stef sighed as he plopped down onto the couch beside Kode, throwing an arm over the back of the couch and loosely around his shoulders. "You gotta let baby bird stretch his wings a little, you know? How else is he gonna learn man?"

[Ronan Engel]

"I probably was." Sleeping, that was. Ronan liked his sleep, all right? And as a creature that needed his sleep, he had no reason not to take his time napping when he had a spare moment. Especially since living life as a human person meant that he didn't get nearly enough time to himself to sleep as much as his body demanded.

Ronan flicked a gaze over Stefjan as he walked past and gave his ass a nice... touch. Not even a grope. It was a weird moment but not a bad one. Ronan didn't give away anything in his expression, however, only watching impassively as the pair made themselves comfortable.

With Stefjan speaking as if he weren't there, Ronan was about to make a snarky comment but then Stefjan addressed him and Ronan slowly sank down on the other side of the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"I don't want him to die before he learns."

[Stefjan Auer]

"Everybody's always so dramatic," Stef sighed as he threw up a hand dramatically.

DIE was a strong word. Kode wouldn't DIE if he walked away from the apartment for an hour or two. People disappeared once in a while, sure, but that was only because they wandered into sketchy parts of town or associated with undesirables. It wasn't like danger lurked around every corner, waiting to strike. If he didn't know better, he would've thought that protective streak meant something else.

Stef generally felt safe when he walked around town. Then again, he did also have the benefit of his shifter's sharper senses to guide him. Also, he traveled in a literal pack with his friends so it was difficult to isolate him long enough to do anything to him. Stef did plenty to himself as it was--like get tangled up with the guy who chose to sit on the floor instead of on the couch.

"Why're you sitting all the way over there?" A more well-behaved person would have left well enough alone; Stef, however, was rowdy. He patted the section of couch beside him as he squished against Kode to make even more room. They were definitely cozy now.

"Enough room for you right here. Come on, come over here. I don't got long, like I said, I have to pick up my dumb little sister soon and I gotta see the mouse thing before I leave."

[Kode]

It was a little awkward for Kode he didn't know Stef so he stayed quiet. Up until Kode was being snuggled up to and what was this talk about a mouse? He was pressed up against the arm if couch now, he awkwardly smiled at Ronon. His face was calling out for help! Stef was a very touchy guy with the ass pat and now this.

"Should I even ask?" Kode wondered if he should have kept his mouth shut. He and Ronon had an odd relationship so whatever came out of their mouths was expected.

Every day he was learning new things thanks to the aid of Roaon, Kode was grateful. It wouldn't be so bad to be stuck here and live his days out. The thought had crossed his mind often. The life back there wasn't something he wanted to live in, he often felt like he was living in the wrong time.

Sometimes Kode felt like this was a curse put on him for doing something so bad in his past life. Something unforgivable to be punished the way he was. He was lucky to come out of this with his mind intact. 

[Ronan Engel]

"What? Show you? Here, now?" Ronan asked, raising a brow as he remained where he was. Kode and Stef looked so content, he didn't want to break them apart. Plus, he hadn't told the whole truth about his belly button sleeping patterns. It was... a sort of comfort thing and he couldn't just do it upon command. Well.... It was sort of like that, but he had to pull the energy from a certain source--that source being a storm itself, from his creator himself.

"I really underestimated your curiosity," Ronan said with a slight smirk as he settled his chin against his hand and looked over at Kode, who was wondering aloud if he should ask. Ronan's lips moved upward slightly and he shook his head gently. "No, I don't think you should."

And back to Stef, he eyed him up and down once, then hid his mouth behind the palm of his hand, almost like a coquettish woman of the court. No fans here, no fanning himself to control the "vapors" but he definitely was having fun flirting in his own confusing, baffling way.

Slowly, he lowered both arms onto the coffee table and criss crossed them, like a prim little cat.

"You'll have to wait until the next thunderstorm, sadly."

[Stefjan Auer]

What.

Wat.

Not here? Not NOW? Stef was given to believe that the mouse-in-belly-button trick was an on-command thing. Who said that it was? Nobody. He went ahead and assumed, like any normal human being would. Logically, a cool party trick like turning into the world's most minuscule mouse would be a point of pride—and something to show off at every opportunity.

Not that, like, Stef shifted to show off to his friends. At every opportunity.

He cocked a brow at the weird thing Ronan was doing, hiding behind his hand, and he cocked the other brow to join the first when he looked over and saw Kode looking like a squished mouse. Dude was leaning so far away, he was going to spill over the side of the armrest.

"I'm not even gonna be around for the next thunderstorm!" He got up since Ronan insisted on not coming over and walked all three paces to the other side of the coffee table. Then he plonked himself down beside Ronan and eased an arm around his shoulders not-so-subtly. "Listen. What if you just turned into the mouse, but didn't get in the belly button?" Was that how it worked? Stef felt like that was how it worked. "Are you shy? Is it him? Does he need to not be here?" He pointed at Kode with the hand draped against Ronan's shoulder.

[Kode]

He believed Ronon and left it at that. But now any time it's storming Kode will wonder about this conversation. "Maybe I should leave you two to be?" Kode got up from the sofa and went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. He could feel the flirty tensing and wanted out of it.

Today was just an odd on that just kept getting weirder. The cap made a pop sound as it opened and Kode took a drink. "Thanks again Stef for helping me back."

Shuffling his feet as he walked awkwardly down the hall. "Just let me know when it's safe to come out Ro." Kode gave him a wink and disappeared into the bedroom. Giving the two a moment to be alone. He was kinda the third wheel.

He didn't really see anything bad happen here but he believed Ronan when he told him it wasn't safe. Just being here shouldn't be possible si be believed in the danger that lurked around this town. This was now two he knew from his time and place.

The bedroom door shut quietly The place was small so he could hear them talking and he tired his best not to listen but the mouse thing had Kode himself curious.