Their military hideout was just as she anticipated it would be in its cold, lifeless glory.
Her eyes danced to walls so white they seemed to bleach everything. Rue felt the sting of antiseptic burning in her throat and grimaced at the awful loneliness of every single piece of furniture in the room. Colour was stolen, absent and wanting from each corner of the massive room despite the modern technology—artificial intelligence sang against the cement in dancing blue pulses of light.
With detail so blatantly stolen from soaring walls, Rue felt swallowed by the lack of everything and the dullness of nothing. Technological advancement should be celebrated in its cleaner, more efficient and simpler state. And yet Rue hated it all. She wanted her tearing Victorian rug, frayed at the seams. The rickety old furnace which coughed and spat soot every so often, and the sofa that was a hundred years old but could still hold her weight.
Not geometric walls and an architect's wet dream.
"This is a fucking jail cell," she groaned, the complaint burst free as she peeled off her shoes—old, yellow sneakers with a bite mark on the heel from a rabid dog—and noted a couple of others. They stood on the rack, arranged with meticulous precision. She counted seven black leather boots before the helios beside her let out a laugh. Mirth turned shrewd eyes mellow.
"You don't like it?" he hummed, smacked lips.
"It looks like you cleaned this place up for authorities to hide all evidence of a drug syndicate in the basement," Rue sniffed, bouncing on one foot. She noted the pause in the stray rays of light that danced behind her. Her head turned and glanced at the alien who'd by now decided that pants were a good decision. His dick was now gone, hidden behind sweats that did nothing to hide the curve of a hard bulge. "Was I correct?"
"Might have cleaned it up onlybecause you were coming," he murmured, voice spicy with a strange emotion. Husky, but not because he was flirting with her, dropping low into a purr that seduced. It was borderline hostile, a snappy remark that portrayed the soul-sucking hatred he had for the situation.
"Don't think I enjoy colour?" she sniffed, glared at roses painted white, and eyed him once over.
"This is a dormitory for the military," he replied, stoic and aloof, "we don't stay here for long."
They were hiding something, of course, they were. She'd just entered their home. But she wouldn't care to dissect him on day one, she had much bigger problems to deal with. Rue would see the state of the common room eventually: messy, cluttered with stray cups of instant ramen and balls of used tissue all over the counter.
If they were anything like her people, she'd be seeing drugs, condoms and alcohol. Maybe more Omega girls passed out cold on the couch. Her smile twisted into a scowl. Alphas. Or perhaps he was being honest, and they truly only spent the night, which meant that the entire floor would be hers. Rue's lips pulled into a grin at that thought.
"Thought I'd care about the mess?" she teased, trying to give him the benefit of doubt.
She stared at the kitchen, well-lit and pale from white tiles, fitted with the latest food printing technology waiting for capsules. But there was no robot chef ready and waiting to fry up their meals. Not that it mattered, because her eyes were on the stove and the sink.
All she needed was access to fire, and they had it here. Good old fire, none of that synthetic shit.
Fire was somewhat primitive technology. Some communities continued to enjoy the domestic art of cooking, treating the subject as a skill to be learned. Others just didn't have the money to buy high-tech ingredients that could be scanned and 3D-printed by a machine. Rue couldn't afford for a new pan that catered to the latest fire-free technology. She just needed shit to burn and her food to cook.
And she could do that in the stinkingly modern dormitory.
"First impressions matter," he told her, shrugged and seemed a tad irritated as if he already didn't like her. And now her brow twitched at his words.
"Are you sure?" She tested the waters. "You weren't looking so good when we first met."
"Yeah?" the corners of his lips twitched upwards now. "And what did you think?" His answer was proof that he'd fucked a girl on the doormat just to welcome her. She snuffed a laugh behind her palm and wondered about the schematics of his plans.
Had he stood at the elevator waiting for her to come up? Positioned himself ready to fuck the moment her legs stepped through the door? The decision-making was astounding. And for what? Bullying?
"You're proving to be," she couldn't help the tease, "very dedicated in your hospitality." Her voice rolled, dipped low and soft as she turned to pull a finger across the grey of the desk. It came to her, free of dust, clean. "What's your name?"
"Hm," he chirped, blinking as he stared at her with a lovely smile, "and why should I give you that?"
Oh, guns were fired.
She turned to look at him now, faced him full-frontal as she basked in the glory of his glow. And good lord did he glow. He radiated like a celestial being, encompassed by holy light that drenched her skin with warm light. His curls seemed to float, soft and pretty on his head, and his skin shimmered with shards of light. He could turn her into pulp.
A lesser being would cower under a helios with the potential to fry her skin and steal her energy, but Rue? Weak, human Rue didn't care, at the very least if she died the school's insurance would ensure her mother's future out of the den. And she didn't want to give a bully the power over her mind.
It seemed that making friends with her roommate was an impossible task.
"You want us to be cute?" she hummed, "nicknames on the first day we meet? You're giving me a lot of power." His lips parted, juicy and sweet, then closed as his brow dug deep and his eyes snapped to hers. She noted now that they were the warmest, sweetest chocolate which was a far cry from how he seemed to be. "Wanna be Dick?" She faked a frown. "Oh, wait how about Son of a Bitch?"
A smile twitched on his lip, and he sighed as if defeated, unfairly pretty when he groaned out his reply, the light of his skin sliding down into a much more muted territory. "I'm Kieran." Finally, he was being sociable like a little puppy crawling out of tiger skin. "I stay a door down from your room, not that it matters, the place is small."
"Cute."
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