Toyger: After Hours (closed to joining)

Smirking a little, Norman turned his focus back to the screen, fully prepared to give it his all.

Blegh, this is gross. I’m just gonna like, skip to the end of the game or something because anything I try to write for the last round is bad and gross so.

-

Once the game was over and Norman had crossed the finish line, the young detective smiled and looked back over to Time, leaning back against the couch. “So, is a certain hooligan ready to eat his words?” He asked teasingly, resisting the urge to yawn. By now it was...really late, or perhaps even, really early, depending on how you looked at it, and this was usually around the time where Norman would make his way back to his room and crash for at least two to three hours before he had to wake up.

However...he could keep going, especially if Time needed the company, he just had to make sure he didn’t yawn or something since that always gave it away.

Just then, as if thinking about it made it happen, he yawned.

Stealthily trying to hide the yawn, Norman looked away from Time. “So, anything else you wanna do?”

Norman frowned, turning away from Time as he idly began to clean up the consoles and tidy up the area. It was late...er, early, and he did have to work tomorrow...today? But sleep had never come easy to him, and he definitely doubted it would come easy now. However Time...well he made a pretty valid point there, with work in a couple-ish hours, he really should at least try to get some sleep.

Hiding another yawn, Norman looked back over at Time. “Uh right yeah, you must be pretty tired now, huh? I can let you get some sleep,” he agreed, very pointedly making this more about Time than himself. Out of the two of them, Norman probably needed to sleep more since he hadn’t gotten any yet, but it was just easier to pretend he was going this on Time’s behalf and not the opposite.

Stretching a little, Norman offered Time a small smile. “This was fun though, it’s been awhile since someone’s played Mario Kart with me,” he explained, gesturing behind him towards the tv.

Norman smiled at his response. “Yeah, playing again sounds really nice,” he agreed, stretching back a little as another yawn escaped him. He really did need to get some sleep soon. Still, this...this had been fun, and it had helped make this whole thing a lot less awkward as well, because apparently Mario Kart was just a good way to bond with the homeless man you had invited to your apartment to stay for a bit.

If anything it was a good ice breaker and he would have to use that tactic in the future as well, if he ever needed to.

“Well, I’ll let you get some sleep now, but yeah, thanks for playing with me, I had fun,” Norman told him, starting to make his way back towards his room, pausing for a moment to glance back over at Time. “...G’night,” he told him with a quick wave before entering his room again to attempt to get at least some sleep in before work in the morning.

Eventually, Norman had been able to get some sleep, which was good since he had work the next day.

Though it was an entirely uneventful day due to the fact that he had been stuck doing paperwork for it instead of out and about stopping criminals. It was okay though, it was Norman’s own fault that he had ended up on paper duty, besides it had given him a chance to fix any of the little mistakes his filing system might’ve had; not that it had many mind you, Norman just liked to touch up on it every now and then and improve it a little bit.

However now that work was over, he was returning home. Honestly, it was a little awkward.

Usually people weren’t...waiting for him at home.

Unless his brothers had crashed in while he was gone or one of his friends but they always made sure to tell him beforehand.

This was different.

Entering the building, Norman nodded slightly to Leigh as he made his way to the elevator. ”Leigh,” he greeted shortly and the pink haired woman at the desk beamed happily at him.

“Hi Norman! How was work?” She asked cheerfully and Norman shrugged in response.

“It was alright, I worked on my filing system a little more,” he explained, getting inside the elevator. “Now if only Callie would actually listen to it...” He grumbled under his breath as the elevator door closed.

Seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard to follow. Everything was color coded, alphabetical, and chronological, everything had a place that was easy to find, yet no, apparently you could just throw the files anywhere and it would be fine.

Getting off the elevator, Norman paused outside his door.

Right, hopefully Time had been okay while he was gone. Norman assumed he would be, it wasn’t like he had left a newborn puppy alone or something like that.

Unlocking the door, Norman walked inside his apartment, looking around to try and spot Time. “Hey! I’m back!” He called out, taking off his shoes.

Shoes and jacket in the closet, Norman nodded to Time as he entered the main living space. “Hey, hope you weren’t too bored, luckily I shouldn’t be working late this week since I’m just doing some office work,” he explained lightly as he washed off his hands in the kitchen. He preferred being out on the field but between his foot and what happened with Ives and Tortie, he understood why the whole “office” hours were necessary in this case.

“So, I was thinking, if you’re up for it at least, we could do some shopping and stuff today, I mean, you kinda need new clothes...and a towel...and a toothbrush...and well, kind of everything,” Norman explained as he finished washing his hands and moved back over to stand just outside the kitchen, looking over at Time.

Clothes, hygiene supplies, more gluten free food to account for the celiac disease...that...that would get kinda pricy.

His mom usually had an abundance of extra hygiene essentials for visitors, he could probably grab a couple of those for Time to cut down on some of the cost. His mother was fairly chill, he doubted she would mind.

Everything else though? He’d have to make do with the money he had.

Norman waved off his worries with a flick of his hand. “Don’t worry, I figure we can get some things from my Mom’s since she always has extra stuff, and I can ask my brothers if they have any clothes they don’t need anymore, you look like you’d fit into Kai’s clothes the best though, Niko and Ty are pretty tall,” Norman explained with a small shrug. Time didn’t seem like the tallest guy out there, he was still taller than Norman by a long shot but that...that wasn’t exactly hard to do, most people in general were taller than him.

Time seemed to be about Kai’s size though, and they could work with that. “I don’t have a ton of money, but I really don’t mind buying some things to help you get back on your feet,” he added with a small smile. Norman wasn’t all that rich, but obviously he was doing better than Time was and he wanted to help the guy out.

Giving a small shake of his head, Norman leaned against a wall. “Don’t worry about paying me back or anything, I’m not one of those people they depend repayment for stuff, especially not stuff like this,” he explained and looked over at Time. “Which, I’m thinking we might wanna leave now, if you’re okay with that? We’ve got a good amount of stops to make,” Norman told him.

Not only did they have a lot of stops, but Norman would also crash if he didn’t keep moving. He hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep last night...or really for the last couple nights, so he was kind of running off of fumes at this point and if he allowed himself a break, he was surely going to crash and he couldn’t afford to do that right now.

"At the moment, it's Val," N answered after a momentary pause to think over the numbers of arrests his co-workers had made in the following days. Everybody involved was working hard to pull ahead, and over the past few days more and more arrests had been made and added to the totals everybody had. ”Jules isn’t that far behind, if I’m remembering the numbers correctly.” Since he was t as invested in the whole bet thing like others, N couldn’t quite bring the exact numbers to mind on the spot, but he was sure he wasn’t that far off on the numbers and who was in first and second place.

When asked if he had anything in on the bets he looked away for a moment, the smallest of smiles pulling at his lips. ”I don’t have much in on it, but I put in a month’s worth of pudding.” N realized how lame that sounded, but he wasn’t going to bet anything too valuable since he knew he wasn’t going to be the one to win the bet anyway, plus who wouldn’t want enough pudding to last them a month? He would even go out and buy the winner’s favorite flavor, and if they didn’t want pudding there would be other options so long as it stayed within the same price range. N knew how to manage his money effectively, but he wasn’t going to spend ridiculous amounts on this bet.

Oh right, they had to pick someone to go down before and get all the pillows thrown at them. It could be fun, but it could be hurtful. One time, he got into a pillow fight with Margo, Jai, and Sia, and Margo accidentally broke Sia’s finger with a pillow. She was apologetic afterwards but Sia still had to go get a cast on. So clearly, as much fun as pillows were, they could also be dangerous.

Well.

Considering he had been the one to suggest this, it was only fair that Boston Waldo himself, faced the pillows head on. “I’ll do it,” he spoke up and looked over to Dorothy and Antoine. “It was my idea, it only seems fair that I’m the one to do it.”

Luckily after the Uber had arrived, it didn’t take them too long to get to his mom’s house. It was a rather large house, one that anyone would probably be envious of, it even had one of those “in the ground” pools in the backyard. Not that he had ever used it though, on account of him absolutely hating the water.

Once on the doorstep, Norman searched for the keys in his pocket. “Right, so, my mom is at work right now, but my kind of brother is probably still here, he’s blind but I can guarantee you that he’ll know we’re here anyways, he used to be a detective like me,” Norman explained to Time with a small shrug. His family life was...complicated. He had his adopted family and he had his birth family and then he had his adopted brother on his birth family’s side.

It was confusing.

Opening the door, Norman walked inside and gestured for Time to follow him. “Lukas!” He called out for. “Hey, Lukas! Are you here?”

No reply.

“He must be in the back or something,” Norman explained with a small, causal shrug.

When Time mentioned that Norman’s family seemed full of detectives, Norman couldn’t help but let out a small, sharp laugh. “Oh you have no idea...” He muttered under his breath. Between himself - the actual detective -, his mother - a police captain -, Lukas - retired detective -, and his...his....biological father - an FBI agent -, his birth family was full of plenty detectives.

Luckily none of his brothers had picked up on it. Niko was a fireman, Kai was a scientist, and Ty...Ty was trying his best.

“Anyways, with Lukas outside, we should probably just get the stuff we need and go,” Norman explained as he looked back at Time, gesturing for the other man to follow him up the stairs. Usually his mom kept her extra supplies in the main bathroom upstairs, so that’s where they’d go first, and then stop by the laundry room after for some towels and stuff like that.

”Yeah it’s alright, I used to spend my summers here when I was a teenager,” Norman explained as he walked into the bathroom upstairs. “My brothers would sometimes stay for a few days, those were the best days,” he added, already rummaging through the cupboards. From fifteen to eighteen, he spent his summers here with his mother. They had been fun, even if it was a little weird to be without his brothers.

“What was your home like?” Norman asked, pausing after as a realization hit him. “Er, if you don’t mind me asking, it’s okay if you’d rather not,” he added, glancing over at Time for a second.

He probably shouldn’t ask the guy that was homeless what his home was like before he was homeless.

Norman did his best to make it seem like he was only idly paying attention, he didn’t want to seem over eager to know about Time’s personal life, however he couldn’t deny that he was curious. Plus as a detective it was in his nature to get to the bottom of things and this was definitely one of those things where he really wanted to know what was going on. However he tried to play it cool and simply started collecting the things he knew they’d need if Time was going to continue living with him for the time being. “Wow, no rules? That must’ve been something.”

As a teenager, he had always wished there hadn’t been rules. Not because he wanted to go out and party like all the rest of the idiots his age did, but rather because he wanted to stay up late reading, or put Red Bull in his morning coffee or chase down those car thieves that had been running amuck in his neighborhood. Those were just a few of the examples that Norman had been told specifically “not to do” because it was “a bad idea” or “dangerous” or something like that.

...Didn’t stop him from doing it though.

“I only started living without rules when I moved to Rhode Island and was all by myself for a few years,” Norman explained, gathering together the last bit of stuff they’d need from the bathroom. “I went a little crazy with it for the first few months, regretted it, and realized those rules were probably there for a reason.” Turns out, eating half a cake at one in the morning because you were stressed was not a good idea.