Toyger: After Hours (closed to joining)

Mario Kart.

The family friendly game that was supposed to be fun and chill but in actually tore friendships and families apart and brought out the true savage of a person.

That sounded like a good choice for a little bonding with his new roommate.

"I'm in," he replied, shooting a glance toward Norman's silhouette. He wasn't sure just how good he'd be, especially since he didn't know how good Norman was, but it was worth a shot. Time wasn't the biggest gamer out there, but he did dabble in a few here and there. He'd play video games with his dad sometimes and that had always been fun. Mario Kart was fun too, even if it was actually a game that brought out everybody's feral energy.

Maybe it would be a good idea to get some feral energy going. It would be better than the awkward energy that kept happening. If anything it would be something different.

Let it be known that Time did suck at Mario Kart. He had never actually won a game so far, and that was okay with him, but there was a small part of him that hoped Norman was worse than he was at the game. He doubted it since he really sucked at it, but Time could live with that. The point of a game was to have fun, even if that fun was feral and some anger might get involved.

He took the controller as it was handed to him, noticing the look on Norman's face.

Oh yeah, that was the look of somebody who knew what they were doing. Time was going to be destroyed.

Taking a moment to prepare himself, he looked down at the controller in his hand and then back to Norman. "I'm ready."

As Norman turned on the game, Time focused on getting everything ready. He had a go to character for the game and picked everything out that he wanted, getting the game ready to actually play. Once he had done that he glanced over at Norman for a moment, about to answer but falling silent for a few seconds. There weren't any huge red flags or anything, but it was a bit obvious that Norman needed more sleep than he had gotten. If he had gotten any at all. Time felt bad for him, knowing that sleepless nights were not fun, but he should probably just focus on the game instead of bringing all that up. Right now was time for fun and games. Literally. Besides, maybe a game or two of Mario Kart would perk Norman up or maybe even get him relaxed enough that he could sleep.

Once that had been mentally settled, Time nodded. "Yeah, I don't play just a whole lot, but I have played it before. You could say I'm a bit rusty," he admitted. Which, he was. He hadn't played the game in a while, but at the same time the "I'm a bit rusty" excuse could only go so far and it wouldn't take Norman long to figure out that Time wasn't rusty, he just sucked at the game in general.

Time couldn’t stop himself from giving a faint chuckle at Norman’s comment. He could tell it wasn’t anything to be offended by or even take as rude, it was just a simple comment that was meant to start up a conversation until they got really into the game. It was probably a bit of a wake up conversation as well, one to have that wasn’t all that in depth and that a tired mind could keep up with.

The topic of his family was an interesting one, and Time did feel like it was a bit tricky to navigate through, but he didn’t mind talking about them to Norman. At least bits and pieces. The pieces that weren’t questionable with the law, the pieces that were weird but at least weren’t worth getting in trouble over.

The man gave a light shrug. ”My dad’s really into gaming when he has the time, and he likes to get the rest of the family involved whenever he can. He can do that but he never learned how to make anything other than sandwiches or the occasional burrito.” Amusement was apparent in his voice. It was nice talking about the simple things when it came to his family, the parts of his family that he could get along with. It was...all the other stuff he’d rather stay away from in conversation, but so long as they stayed on simple topics everything would be fine.

"Yeah," Time started, glancing away from the screen for a second as he thought about his family some more, specifically his dad. "If anything he was always good at trying to get the family together for things. I can't say he doesn't love our family." That didn't mean a lot of the things he did was exactly things that Time enjoyed, though. There were moments when Time got along with his dad and had fun with him, but then there were the moments that weren't that great. His dad never got mad or anything with him, but Time could tell his dad was, at the very least, disappointed that his son wasn't following his footsteps. If anything at least there was Warp. Even if he wasn't biologically part of the family, he was still family, and Time was sure the younger boy would be a son their dad could be proud of.

By the time he had snapped out of these thoughts, Time realized he was falling behind in the game. He knew he sucked at it, but he was sure he could do better than this. He just needed to focus more on the game rather than thoughts about his family. He could do that. Yeah, he could do that.

Maybe.

Having found the trash can and thrown away the smoothie cup, Boston Waldo hurried to join the others in dragging everything over to the main room. However that would probably take awhile, given the fact that there was a lot that needed to be moved from upstairs to downstairs. “Hmm, I wonder if there’s a quicker way for us to get this all down there,” he mused softly, picking up a large pillow and looking of over.

They could probably throw it downstairs, but that did leave the risk of them hitting something and breaking it and while Boston Waldo was beginning to feel more comfortable here, he wasn’t comfortable enough to risk breaking something. “What if we slid it down the stairs? Maybe we can have someone at the bottom of the stairs to grab them and bring them into the living room?” He asked, looking back over to Antoine and Dorothy.

That could work, if they had someone slide the pillows down the stairs and someone else catch it.

Might not work with the blankets though...

“Ooh! We can also wear the blankets on our backs like capes until we’re ready to make the fort,” he suggested, dropping the pillow in favor of picking up a blanket and dramatically throwing it over his shoulders and tying it around his neck like a cape.

As the topic changed with Aria’s question, N glanced down at the gray tabby in his lap for a moment, watching as the cat stretched a paw out with a yawn. If this cat didn’t stop it N was going to end up impulsively adopting the cat when he knew full well that his other cats would be angry at him for not warning them in advance.

Cat aside, he managed to turn his attention back to Aria to answer her question. It was hard looking away from the tabby, but he managed it even if barely.

Hmm, what was going on with him? Nothing really. He had a pretty boring life. What was going on in the precinct? He had already mentioned TJ, and that was about the newest thing that had happened there recently. Well, he supposed there had been more than just that going on around the precinct. ”We’ve had a few pretty good arrests. Even Cuni managed to get one. He’ll have to put in extra hours and work hard if he wants to win this bet everyone has on who can get the most arrests in a certain amount of time, but I can’t say he’s not working on it.” That would be interesting to talk about, right? People liked bets. Even if N wasn’t completely into the whole thing himself he wasn’t about to ruin any of the fun, and he was participating if only because everybody else was and he didn’t want to be that “loser” who didn’t know how to have fun. Plus, why not try it out? Everybody else was having fun with it and it was helping bring more cases to an end, so really N didn’t see the harm in it and his co-workers seemed to really be enjoying the competition.

Norman’s comment got a light chuckle from Time. He shook his head and then gave a shrug. ”Well, I never said I was good at this game.” He’d admit to being bad at it. Mario Kart just wasn’t a game he had ever really gotten the hang of, but that didn’t bother him. It was a good thing he wasn’t a sore loser or he’d be pretty mopey right about now.

Time could appreciate what Norman was doing with the best two out of three, but it wasn’t going to give Time a winning chance. ”I really doubt that’ll give me a winning chance, but you’re on.” Even though he knew he was going to lose he still gave Norman a challenging look. Even if he knew his fate already he was willing to play as many rounds as Norman was down for - losing or not, Time was having fun and that was what mattered.

Norman had a point there. Practice did make perfect even if Time doubted that practice would help him get better at Mario Kart. Some people just sucked no matter how hard they tried, and Time understood that. He already sucked at most things and practice had never made him any better, so why would that be any different with this game?

Even still he found it comforting that Norman actually thought he could better. It was a nice thought so long as he didn’t let himself take the thought any further and think about how he could end up disappointing the other man.

His attention was turned away from the game when Norman asked about sleep. ”I got enough,” he replied. ”I mean, it’s probably the most sleep I’ve gotten in a while.” Despite having woken up a few other times throughout the night Time was sure it was still the most rest he had gotten in...in a long while, so even if it was five in the morning he felt awake and ready to do anything - even if that anything included multiple rounds of Mario Kart.

Norman was right about that. Living out on the streets hadn't been easy, and while Time had been able to handle himself and was lucky to sneak into places from time to time to sleep and whatnot, it still didn't mean everything was fine and dandy. "Yeah," he murmured, not saying anything beyond that one word. Not having a home to go to at the end of the day wasn't something he was proud of. 

Though the topic at hand was a bit tricky, Time managed to keep up well enough on the game. He wasn't winning by any means of the word, but he wasn't as far behind this time as he had been the first go around. Maybe he had a small chance at beating Norman. Pssh, who was he kidding? He had no chance at all of beating Norman at this game.

Time really didn't have a chance when Norman asked his question. Time looked away from the screen for a moment, unaware he had slowed down in the game. "It...it was for a while." His voice was quiet as he thought it over, trying to even remember when exactly he had left home. "Maybe almost two months?" The words came out as more of a question and he shook his head. It had been a while, that was for sure. Long enough for him to really look the part of a homeless guy so it could have been longer than that, or shorter, honestly for somebody with a name like Time he wasn't doing too well remembering the timeline here. Then again everything had happened so fast for him that it wasn't like keeping up with the days had been his top priority.

In all honesty Time was mostly upset at himself for this. It was his fault he had been out on the streets. He didn't have to run away from home or anything like that. If he had just gotten over himself then he'd still be with his family, would still have a place to call home. Though he was sure if he went back he'd still have a place to call home, his parents were...interesting people, but they weren't heartless to their kids. They'd take him back in, they'd help him get a place of his own, they'd help with a lot. He wouldn't be able to get away from them like running away had done, but it would be better than this. Probably.

Time shook his head. Now wasn't the time to get himself caught up in those kinds of thoughts. He was trying to have fun, trying to bond with the guy that had taken him in despite knowing little to nothing about him.

At first Time didn't notice anything suspicious about Norman's character in the game. Time was just trying to catch up somehow and make up for the fact he had been slowing down, though it wasn't long before he did catch on to something. Instead of be upset or something like that about Norman seemingly trying to lose the round, all he did was cast Norman a quick look of amused question. "Did you suddenly forget how to play or something?"

Mind back on the game, Time was able to get back up to speed and catch up to where he had started to trail off. He was doing pretty good now, good enough to the point that suspicion started to settle in. He glanced over at Norman, unable to hide the amusement pulling at his lips in a smile when he heard the other man speak up in response to his earlier question. ”Is it really?” He asked, the amusement in his gaze echoing in his voice. ”I’ll have you know breaking the law doesn’t scare me.” Now that was a pretty big lie. If that were the case then he wouldn’t even be here right now - he wouldn’t have met Norman if he wasn’t afraid of illegal activity. But that didn’t matter right now. Time was trying to keep himself far away from those kinds of thoughts. He wanted to chill and have fun right now, not worry about all the things he had run away from.

Maybe it was because he was awake at 5am or maybe it was just because the word was funny, but hearing Norman say "hooligans" honestly had him laughing for a bit there. "I'm a hooligan now?" He asked, raising a brow as he shot a glance toward Norman before turning his attention back to the game. He was still pretty sure Norman was losing on purpose, and the suspicion only grew when he passed Norman, but he wasn't going to say anything against it. Plus...it was kind of nice to know that Norman would be willing to do something like this for him, that he was willing to do a lot for somebody he had only met the night before at a gay bar.

"Well, I guess I kind of am in some ways," he added with a shrug after a few seconds of silence on his end. After the words slipped out his character in the game crossed the finish line and with as much of a smug look as he could muster, he looked back at Norman. "Even if I am a hooligan, I'm a hooligan that wins."