Room for More

Jude had grown up an only child in a very, very large house. It had been him and his father from the beginning, and the fact that the house could easily have held another half dozen people without running out of space had never really occurred to him. It was only once he'd moved into Sentinel Square, surrounded by people, that he realized he kind of liked being around people. Just himself was quiet. Just himself was... oddly lonely. Maybe it would have been different if he'd had his dad around, but without him the idea of moving into a dorm with just himself most of the time was...

No. Officer Genovese was comfortable having him around, even when Jude insisted that it was fine and he'd be alright going to the dorms. Apparently there'd once been almost a dozen kids living there, but almost all of them had moved out, leaving a ton of empty rooms. Reasonably, he could have moved every member of the Defiant in and had rooms to spare.

Which was what Jude was thikning about right then. Kaiju'd already declined, and he was sure Adrastia and Blade (when she got there) would, but Charlotte? Charlotte had always been around a family, and while she might be tempted by the idea of independence, Jude thought there was a reasonable chance she'd consider moving in.

He'd met her down by the community center, and then went with her up towards the house. It was a fair distance, but the bus had a stop that wasn't too far. A brisk walk, rather than a major marathon.

"It's off up in the woods for security," Jude explained as they walked. "I'd say Officer Genovese is paranoid, only it's pretty much the same stuff I got used to growing up."

Jude was very good at a lot of things. He could recite large chunks of wikipedia at you from memory. He had access to the knowledge of entire civilizations.

He could not read people very well at all. Janelle in particular had always proved hard for him to read. Her experiences were, in a lot of ways, totally unknowable to him. He didn't know what it was like to have a normal school life. He didn't know what it was like to have two loving parents. He'd never felt any desire to act out and be a delinquent as she so obviously did--his teenage rebellion had been running off to be a hero, but that had been because that was his desire, not just a rebellion against his father.

"There's security on the borders," Jude mentioned. "And there's light at the gates. It's actually kind of nice--there's a part of the roof you can walk out onto at the top if someone wants to fly off of it, but it's really nice for looking at stars. Not as much light pollution on the island as there was in Halcyon city, and there's even less up here in the hills."

The stars were the same as home. Different locations, since they were somewhere else in teh world, but still the same stars.

"Officer Genovese is really nice. Honestly I think he might be an absolute master at rolling with the punches, because he didn't even seem that bothered by who he was once he'd figured out I wasn't an assassin breaking into his house in the middle of the night."

She probably would look just fine, flying off the roof. Jude had always been (secretly) sort of jealous that Janelle could fly, but he'd never given it all that much thought. Not since arriving on the island, anyway.

"Officer Genovese is what I'm going with. Or... I don't know. Mr. Genovese. Only that was what a lot of people called my dad, so it's weird."

Jude paused, frowning as they walked the path up to the house. "Really, it's going to be weird no matter what. You can just... call him whatever you want. Or whatever he's comfortable with."

Angelo was waiting by the door, leaning against the frame as he watched them come up the drive. He was casual--no uniform, just jeans and a t-shirt--and doing his best to look normal enough.

"This your friend Jude?" He called up as Jude headed up the porch.

Jude could not keep a straight face. No way. Was she trying to be polite? Was that what was happening? Jude fixed Janelle with a look, the scrutiny obvious, and Angelo raised an eyebrow.

"Nice to meet you," Angelo said, offering his hand for a shake. "Jude had good things to say about you guys, and I have rooms to spare. I don't have any issues putting you guys up, as long as you're willing to obey the house rules. I think they're pretty simple. If you're going to be out overnight, let me know where you're going to be. If you need something, ask. Dinner's at half past whenever-I'm-of-work."

He paused, giving Jude a look and shrugging.

"Anything I missed?"

"Don't do anything illegal," Jude added.

Angelo raised an eyebrow, sliding his eyes over to Jude as if expecting a response. Jude kept himself quiet, refusing to look at either Angelo or Janelle, mostly out of fear he'd crack up.

"Well, we'd love to have you. You'll mostly see Roa around--have you met Roa?--and me. Shay stops by sometimes. There's a bunch of rooms, but everyone else has moved out. Mostly back to hell."

There was a pointed look by Angelo, a clear attempt to gauge how bothered Janelle was or wasn't by the whole hell thing.