[crow]

He'd probably have a better time managing his funds if he kicked the alcohol habit though. The boxes were full and he hadn't even finished. The living room and the bedroom were mostly clear, but there was still a good deal of them lingering in the kitchen. He had to enlist the bedroom wastebasket and a bucket he'd found in the bathroom for the rest. When he was done, he had a collection that could have been either real impressive or real pathetic, depending on one's stance. In his current mood, he was leaning toward the latter.

It was funny though, how much cleaner his apartment looked after he'd taken away all those bottles. Like someone half-way respectable might have lived there, instead of him. That, as far as it went, was misleading. Even with the addition of Faber, the apartment still didn't have any respectable residents.

[crow]

The place could stand for some other cleaning, but the removal of the bottles and cans did so much for the look of the apartment that Akala decided to stop there today. Besides, he still needed to fix dinner for himself. He'd gone shopping a couple of days ago out of necessity, so there was stuff in the fridge to work with. However, as he looked at the selection of vegetables and meats, he felt at a loss. It was late, he was tired, and he didn't want to waste a lot of time making anything. On the other hand, he hadn't picked up any instant food, because that stuff always ended up being more expensive. He was regretting it now, a little. These days instant food tasted pretty good too.

[crow]

Well, there was always fried eggs. Just as he'd done the morning that Faber woke up, he got out his skillet and fried himself up a couple of eggs. He forgot the salt, but they tasted okay even without it. He ate quickly and tossed the dishes in the sink. He'd done some of them the day before, but there was still a pile, which he'd get to... tomorrow, probably. Definitely not today. If he wasn't in the mood to cook, he definitely wasn't in the mood for dishes. What he was in the mood for was a nice eight-hour date with the bed.

He actually tried to kick the bottles out of the way before realizing he'd picked them up just before. Rubbing at his face, he closed the door and fell backwards onto the mattress.

[crow]

He didn't even bother to pull the covers over himself. He just kicked off his socks, turned onto his side, and fell right asleep. Whatever other problems he had, Akala had always possessed the gift of easy sleeping. If he was tired, he could sleep anywhere.

He woke the next day to the sound of guitar music. That meant Faber was in today. He remembered clearly telling the boy that he wasn't allowed to practice in the house lest he upset the neighbors, but he'd dropped that point by now. Nobody had complained, and it wasn't as if the kid did anything else disruptive. He just liked his music, or his guitar, or something. For all Akala knew, it might have been some sort of important keepsake. It wasn't doing anyone any harm and, more to the point, he didn't think it would be too easy to get Faber to stop either.

[crow]

Akala got up and opened the blinds, wincing back as the sun blasted him full in the face with its light. He stumbled out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, still squinting as he squirted toothpaste onto his brush. Faber perked up as he saw Akala walk out the door, but said nothing for the moment. Having a conversation while one party was brushing their teeth wasn't the most practical idea. Faber had learned that lesson the wrong way when he spat toothpaste onto Akala by accident.

A few minutes later, Akala emerged from the bathroom washed-up for the morning. Faber was sitting on the couch, still strumming his guitar, but he got up at Akala's approach. There was a donut in his mouth, and more of them on the coffee table. He picked out a chocolate one and offered it to the older man.

[crow]

“Don't mind if I do,” Akala said, taking the donut and biting into it. How long had it been since he'd last had one of these? He was probably going to regret having sweets for breakfast later, but at the moment he was content to enjoy the treat. It did make him wonder at where the donuts came from though. As far as he knew, Faber wasn't employed, and Akala didn't give him money. He wanted to give Faber the benefit of the doubt, but admittedly, teleportation abilities would make stealing a cinch. “Where'd you get these, anyway?” he asked, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

“Oh, I made some money playing in the park yesterday. There's a bakery not too far from where I was, so I went and got these.” Now that he mentioned it, Akala realized that the glaze on some of the donuts were running a little, as if they'd been there a while. Oh well, he wasn't one to be picky about his food. He'd eaten expired stuff before; half-day-old donuts were nothing. He was just relieved that Faber had gotten his food legitimately, though he didn't say so out loud.

[crow]

“Oh, is that where you were last night?” Akala said. He regretted it almost as soon as the words left his mouth. They made him sound like some sort of concerned parent, which wasn't what he was going for at all. But if Faber noticed, he didn't seem to care. He just nodded, chewing mightily at his mouthful of donut. He'd bitten off half in one go, and looked as if he was starting to regret it a little.

“I have to tell you,” he said around a mouthful of pastry, “about what I found.” He looked as if he was going to launch into the story there and then, but thought better of it at the last minute and swallowed first. With his mouth clear, he started again. “I think I've found another one.”

[crow]

Talk about your big surprises. The kid definitely wasn't pulling the punches this morning. “Are you serious?” Akala said, more out of surprise than doubt. Faber nodded.

“I'm not completely sure, but it felt like the pull, only in different directions this time. And I think they noticed me,” he said. He seemed pleased by the discovery, which was heartening to see. Even if he wasn't as invested in this as Akala was, he still found it interesting or worthwhile enough to get excited about his progress. Akala still wanted to ask him about tapping into the fragments' abilities, but for now, that could wait. News of another fragment owner was of more pressing importance.

“So you know what they look like too?” he asked. Here Faber faltered a little.

[crow]

“Like I said, I'm not sure. But I have a feeling.” That was about as good as it was going to get, Akala supposed. Faber had found him on gut feeling too. He did believe that Faber had picked up the presence of another fragment, and that was enough for him. He didn't know how many fragments there were in total, but three was better than two, wasn't it?

“Either way, that's great! Let me know if you find them again,” Akala said, deciding it was best not to push things at the moment. He waited a bit to see if Faber had anything more to say, but the boy was absorbed in his donuts again. “Are you sticking around today? I was thinking maybe you could show me how to work this thing,” he said, holding up his own fragment.

[crow]

Faber looked up, grinned, and nodded. Akala found himself grinning back. “Alright then, let me know when you're ready. I'll be... ugh. Doing dishes,” he said, glancing in the direction of the kitchen and wincing. He could see the pile from where he stood. That wasn't going to be much fun, but he had to do it at some point, so it might as well be now. He put on an apron to protect his clothes from the water, then rolled up his sleeves and turned on the tap.

He always avoided washing the dishes as long as he could, but once he started, it wasn't that bad. He never made the kind of food that really gunked up a pot, so it always came off with enough dish soap and scrubbing... in theory. The problem was, he'd left some of the plates alone for so long that the food had dried onto it as a hard crust that not even the water could fully soften up again.

[crow]

In the end, he was forced to break out the steel wool after all. Akala made a mental note to stop procrastinating. If he did this every day, he wouldn't be in this situation now, would he?

That was what he told himself every time, and yet it somehow never panned out. He knew he was a lost cause. Nothing short of getting married or getting a roommate who cared about this sort of thing was ever going to whip him into shape when it came to cleaning. If such a roommate existed, however, Faber wasn't it. If anything, the kid seemed to care even less than he did about the state of the place he was crashing at. Fair enough, Akala was the one who owned it and paid for it, but a finickier individual might have protested the conditions, instead of sleeping on top of Akala's dirty clothes and nonchalantly stuffing his face. Not that Akala was complaining, mind you. It wasn't as if he enjoyed being nagged either.

[crow]

By the time he finished up, Faber was done eating, and was back to playing his guitar. Akala had bought him a notebook to compose with, since that was what he looked like he was doing, but Faber's reaction had been mostly baffled. As it turned out, he never formally learned music, and couldn't read it, let alone write it. He'd learned the chords by watching other people play, and by hands-on tutoring from the occasional willing musician. Akala should have expected that. The kid didn't really look like a formal-anything type, but he was so absorbed in his music that Akala had thought it might be the exception.

It was sort of admirable that he managed as much as he did that way. Akala couldn't appreciate it fully, since he had no idea about music himself, but Faber's playing sounded nice enough.

[crow]

Akala made his way out of the kitchen, and Faber looked up at him. “I've been thinking about it,” the boy said. There was another one of his pauses before he spoke. “It's tough to put it into words, what I do when I jump... Are you sure you don't remember when you used your powers?” Akala had been afraid of that. Counting on someone who was--- meaning no unkindness--- sort of scatterbrained to teach him to do something this complex was bound to have its problems.

For his part, Akala shook his head. He hadn't even been aware that he'd used his ability when it happened, much less how he'd tapped into it. That was why he was asking Faber now. Well, that and because he wanted some reassurance that someone would be there to bail him out if it went wrong. Come to think of it, counting on Faber for that wasn't the best idea either.

[crow]

Though, now that he thought back on it, maybe his deliriousness in the cave wasn't just him getting lost and panicking. If jumping made him nauseous, then it wasn't too much of a stretch to think his own time-jump had made him dizzy. Still, it wasn't much of a lead to work off of. What did he have to do, make himself sick and freaked out again? He could drink that expired milk and lock himself in a closet, but that wasn't how he wanted this to go.

“Uh, okay. How did you first find out you could jump?” he said, trying a different tack. As soon as he saw the expression on Faber's face though, he knew he'd made a misstep. The boy looked down, his fingers clasped together and white at the knuckles from the force of his grip.

[crow]

“Hey, hey, it's okay. You don't have to talk about it. Sorry, I didn't know,” Akala said, putting a hand on Faber's shoulder. He should have known better, in retrospect. His own ability had apparently been triggered by a bad situation, so it was only logical that Faber's might have been as well. Jumping forward in time on top of all that probably hadn't made the memories any fonder for Faber... unless he'd tapped into teleportation first? But of course he couldn't ask, not anymore.

Faber recovered almost immediately, shrugging off Akala's hand and smiling again. “It'a alright, I'm fine,” he said. Akala doubted that, but if Faber wanted to be fine, he'd go along with it. So Akala smiled back as brightly and reassuringly as he could, and let it go at that.