I had been out of the hospital for a couple days now. We finally got everything moved into our apartment. it was larger than I had expected, but the rent for it was cheaper than I had initially thought. It was more like a small two story rent house. it had an upstairs, downstairs, a backyard and a front yard, a study, the room assigned to me had a balcony in it and there were two full sized bathrooms. I was impressed. I had been stressed out to all hell. Karkat had a room downstairs. The other room, which was supposed to be a study, ended up being big enough for a small room, which Cronus took. Karkat had more stuff than both Cronus and I. I pulled a book off the bookshelf. It had a very unsuspected book cover. You can take one look at me and tell I don't care at all about vampire novels. I flipped through the pages. Yup still intact. I knew my father wouldn't have known. I put it gently back into the bookshelf. It was cleverly hidden among other fiction works. I looked around. Yeah, everything was in a good spot. I cant believe Cronus kept it a relatively same setup to my old room, rather than asking me where he wanted me to have them. The only thing that he did was make sure it wouldn't block any doors or windows. In my old room I had no windows, so I had a lot of artwork hanging around. Now I don't have any wall space for my artwork. I took time to look around my room longer. I opened my closet door. It was pretty large. A walk in closet. It had a full sized mirror on the opposite side of where the door was. All of my clothes were hung up nicely. In order of colour. On the door my red sweater hung on a peg hook. I shut the door and walked over to another one on the opposite wall. I opened it and was greeted with a shared bathroom. On the other side of the bathroom was the door leading to Cronus' room. I closed the door and made a mental note to remember to lock both doors or give Cronus a heads up.

I walked over and sat on my bed. Why was I even bothering going over everything I already had many times? I figured I was subconsciously avoiding Cronus. I don't know why though. I stood back up and walked to the kitchen. I pulled some bacon out of the refrigerator and started making myself lunch. I heard the door open and shut. I looked into the entryway, where Cronus was taking his shoes off.

"hello" he looked up at me and smiled.

"hey"

"how did it go?"

"what school?"

"yeah"

"pretty good" he stood, now wearing socks for footwear and followed me back into the kitchen. "it was pretty boring though"

"nothing new there, but in my case I just can't hear anything. Too many people gossiping"

"seems to be a lot of that happening everywhere" I nodded and got some lettuce and tomatoes out of the refrigerator.

"yeah that's not a surprise. People have strange rituals on earth" I slammed the head of lettuce on the cabinet, and broke the core. I unwrapped the plastic from around it and removed the core. I heard music start playing behind me. It sounded like rock, but wasn't familiar with the artist or genre to know who it was singing. I opened the drawer we kept silverware in and chopped up the lettuce. I quickly finished preparing the sandwich.

"so what have you been up to today?" I turned and noticed how close he was to me. I tried to step back, but was unable. I was as far against the counter as I could be. My face was burning.

"not much of anything" I responded. I was trying as hard as I could to keep my composure. He was so close.

"are you okay?"

"y-yes I'm fine" I lied. I needed him to back up. "I'm a little claustrophobic though, could you give me some space?" he nodded and took a few steps back. I took a deep breath. "thank you" I picked up the plate that held his sandwich and handed it to him. I placed some more bacon on the skillet. Skillet. That's what was playing. Christian rock was playing. I raised an eyebrow. "you listen to Christian rock?" there was a pause, I thought he had left. I turned to look where he was last. He was chewing. He noticed I was watching him, and he nodded. I turned back and flipped the bacon over.

"well I listen to Skillet and Three Days Grace, I'm not a fan of most gospel music. I'm not a Christian you see, so I only listen to it if it is subtle about its.. well religion"

"are you spiritual at all?" it didn't surprise me he didn't listen to it for the sake of it being religious.

"not really, I'm agnostic" I nodded. He was open-minded. He appeared next to me out of the corner of my eye. He washed his plate and placed it in the dishwasher. "I'm going to assume that you're a Christian?" I shook my head. I had never admitted to it before. I always said I was, even though I wasn't. I didn't want to give my dad another reason to beat me. I hear him pull a chair out. I assumed he was sitting at the island. I finished making my sandwich and sat it on the island. I put everything away and poured myself and Cronus a glass of kool-aid. I handed him his glass and sat down.

"I always told people I was, when I lived at home"

"because of your dad?" I nodded and took a bite of the BLT. I looked up at Cronus. He was watching me. Well, more like studying me. As if he thought I was a rare species that he was trying to learn about, or maybe he wanted to know if talking about my father upset me. I swallowed my food.

"yeah, like I said, he's a minister, so it would 'shame him' if he had two atheist children" I shrugged and placed the BLT back on the plate. Suddenly I wasn't hungry. I wasn't really hungry when I started making it. it was something to do, so I made it. "you want the rest of this? I just realized the only reason I made it was because I had nothing better to do" he reached across the table and picked it up. I watched him take a bite right where I had. Did he not care if there was a possibility of me having a disease? I took a drink out of my glass and set it down.

"could you do me a favor?" I looked up at him.

"sure what do you need?"

"there's a cd in my room. its on my nightstand. On the top of the stack there. Could you put it in the cd player in there?" I nodded and got up to go get the cd. I opened the door to his room and noticed he also had a balcony. I walked to his nightstand and picked up the cd. 'Get Scared' it was a pretty good band. I listened to them on occasion. I took note that the balcony connected to my room as well. It was strange I never noticed before. I walked into the living room and replaced the cd just as the last song on the Skillet album finished. I walked back into the kitchen and sat back down with my drink.

"okay one Get Scared album in the stereo" he smiled.

"you like them?"

"I listen to them when I get the chance so, yeah"

"what's your favourite song?"

"depends on my mood. I mostly listened to Don't You Dare Forget the Sun but I'm also partial to Sarcasm"

"my two favorites as well" I smiled. I was happy to know that we could agree on music at the very least. He stood up and washed the other plate and put it in the dishwasher. I couldn't tell if it was actually a habit, or if he was doing it because I asked him to. His room was clean, albeit cluttered. He sat back down in front of me. And took a drink of the kool-aid. He stuck his tongue out. "damn that's sweet" I looked down at my glass. Come to think of it I wasn't even tasting the kool-aid. I took a sip of it again. It WAS sweet. So sweet. It was grape flavored. Barely. Most of what I tasted was sugar.

"Karkat must've made it" I picked it up from the top of the glass. And swirled it around. He had never made kool-aid before. I smiled and took another drink, shuddering at the taste. "I'll be sure to make it from now on or something. Until then I'm going to be nice and drink it, not his fault he never made it before" Cronus took another drink. I noticed he shook slightly. He probably wasn't used to sweets or anything. It didn't surprise me. He sat the glass down and took a deep breath before picking up the glass again and swiftly drinking the rest. Some of the kool-aid dribbled out of the side of his mouth. It rolled down his chin and throat. I could feel myself getting turned on slightly. This never happened before. I watched his Adams apple bob up and down as he drank. I picked up my glass and looked into it. I could see my reflection was a bit flushed. "excuse me I have to get some homework done" I stood with my glass in hand and left to my room. I could not believe I was getting aroused by something like that. He was just drinking. I shut my door and opened my laptop. This was going to be a bad living situation if I couldn't control myself.