"It's always the first thing to cross my mind. It's the blessing and the curse of a nymph. I can take almost any sentence and make it sound sexual. There are some I can't. Take Jesus loves you for an example. All I have to do is add the words from behind and it screws with the meaning of it. Add in bed to the end any fortune cookie and it's hilarious. Add except in bed to the end and sometimes it's even MORE hilarious. I love my perverted sense of humor."

Romeo stretched and yawned but got up anyway. "I've got to head back to work, but I'll definitely stop by after. Even if it's just to keep you and your cat warm for a little while." He smiled at Gavin and stood there trying to figure out if he should hug the man or shake his hand. He felt like they had gotten to the stage where he should do SOMETHING when meeting and leaving him. He just didn't know what. The loss of what to do was apparent on his face.

Gavin stood and stretched only a little, trying not to expose any of his skin. "A perverted sense of humor is fine as long as you don't let it dominate everything you hear people say. That can get annoying." He slung his bag over his shoulder and stiffly began to walk off. "See you later," he said with a slight wave.

"Later."

Romeo sighed and waved after Gavin. Crisis on how to handle the situation was averted, but he still didn't feel right leaving without doing anything at all. He shrugged and let it fall off of him. He had bigger things to worry about. Like exactly what was going to happen when he made his way into Gavin's place for the first time. Nervous? Him? Never. But still... that thought just settling in the back of his head made him wonder on his way back into the office.

A while later, Gavin was asleep in his old uncomfortable single bed, under a pile of very old blankets, some of them older than he was, and some with faded patterns of dinosaurs and rocket ships and teddy bears that must've belonged to him since he was a small child.

An old teddy bear wearing a gray t-shirt with 'Gavin' embroidered on it sat against the wall on the corner of the bed. A brown kitty tail hung down out of the blankets, twitching a little. Two metal folding chairs sat a few feet away from the middle and the end of the bed, space heaters sitting on them and pointed at the sleeping lump under the blankets.

It was right at an hour after work that Romeo had shown up. He didn't work quite that far away, but he had stayed at the office to print off directions from "MapQuest.com" and actually made a stop at the local general store to pick up a couple of spare pillows. If he was going to be staying over there, they should at least have enough pillows for the both of them and he didn't want to move the ones he had at his home over here in case he needed to make a quick escape one day. Not that he was planning on doing anything to piss off Gavin that bad, but it was a new relationship and one never really knew what could happen.

That should have only taken him 45 minutes with driving time but he did get a little lost. Accidently going through a stop sign he was supposed to turn at. Once he finally got his bearings again he felt a little silly. He was almost hoping that Gavin wouldn't notice the time difference once he got there. With his luck he'd be sitting out there for another hour collection snow while waiting for Gavin to wake up. He walked up to the door and knocked. Once lightly and after a few moments, he knocked a bit more loudly.

"Hello?"

A mew from under the blankets alerted the sleeping man that someone was there. With a tired utterance, he pushed the blankets away and sat up. rubbing the side of his face for a moment. His apartment was rather bare on the inside, a single room about the size of a dining room and living room combined, with a claustrophobically small bathroom in the corner near the kitchen. There were two huge windows along the wall that was at the head of his bed, the window closest to his bed having a black tarp over it to block out the light of the outdoors.

Getting up, Gavin yawned and made his way to the door, peeking out the peep-hole. Black cotton pajama pants and a gray tank top looked almost out of place as he unlocked the door and opened it, allowing Romeo to come inside.

The only pieces of furniture in the apartment were five folding metal chairs, the two by the bed with space heaters, one with a small television on it, and two that sat around a folding metal table. He also had a very old plush chair with a sheet over it. Cardboard boxes were piled up against one wall, a couple of them on the floor at the foot of his bed. The little kitchen wasn't even cut off from the rest of the room, with only a small counter, a sink, and a small electric stove, and no dishwasher. A small refrigerator and freezer sat against the wall to the only enclosed area in the apartment - the bathroom - and a handful of pots and pans hung from the wall above the sink and stove. He only had two small cabinets for food and dishes, and the cabinet under the sink was full of out of date cleaning supplies.

The brown tabby crawled out of bed and stretched, before sauntering over to Romeo and meowing loudly, as though expecting a present before allowing him to pass through the doorway.

"Tiki, leave him alone," Gavin muttered, crouching down to pick the cat up. Standing back up he scratched her behind the ears. "Sorry about her, she thinks she's a guard dog." Tiki meowed again, staring up at Romeo with huge eyes.

"Thought you could use these, espically if I'm going to be spending time in your bed."

Romeo grinned brilliantly as he walked into the room, pulling out the two pillows which were still in their plastic, complete with bows attached and handed them to Gavin as a welcoming gift. He smiled a bit before looking at Tiki while she was mewling and ended up sneezing, covering up his nose and mouth with the crook of his elbow.

"Crap I forgot..."

Romeo dug into his pocket and took out a bottle of little pink pills, popping two of them into his mouth and swallowing them without water before turning his attention to the "gaurd cat". He scratched Tiki between the ears and massaged between her shoulders while she was being held by Gavin. He looked up into Gavin's eyes and smiled.

"Give me about half an hour for the pills to take effect and I'll be right as rain again."

"You've conditioned yourself to react to cats that way. I told you before, she doesn't trigger allergies. No one that I've ever known to be allergic has had a reaction to her. And my little brother ends up in the hospital after being around cats." He shrugged a little and put the cat down, shutting and locking the door.

He gave the pillows an odd look and shoot his head a little, tossing them into the plush chair. "I don't think you'll be in my bed just yet," he went over to the side of the apartment farther from the bed, turning on two more space heaters in an attempt to warm up the rest of the drafty room. "Welcome to hell, by the way."

Tiki merowed and trotted over to her food and water bowl, staring up at Gavin with huge eyes. Gavin rolled his eyes and went to meet the cat's demands, pulling a bag of hard food out of the cabinet and filling her bowl. Using a glass next to the sink, he filled it with water then poured it into the water bowl.

"He might have a different kind of allergy. I don't react badly but I do react to all kinds of cats even the short haired ones. You could be right... it could be me conditioning myself. It could just as easily been dust particles in the air that triggered the reaction. But... I'm a better safe than sorry kind of person. I've never been around one of the hybreds that's supposed to not trigger any allergies at all... so I don't know that their claim for hypo-allergenicness is real or not." Romeo shrugged. "Anything is possible and until proven otherwise I'd just as soon be on the meds. Give me... a week to adjust to your particular cat. I'll probably stop taking it then."

He had spent the entire time he was talking surveying his surroundings, including the claustrophobia-inducing bathroom, the teddy bear with Gavin's name embroidered on it, the miniscule kitchen space, and the boxes piled against the wall. He started to wonder if Gavin was happy living here or not. Him calling it hell only confirmed suspicions already in place. He wondered what Gavin would think of Romeo's barren empty space he called home that was constantly clean.

"I like it. It's COZY." He put emphasis on that word because it's usually what people say when you've got too much shit to fit in the space you have. "Although I have to say I can't complain much about where I live because I've seen your place now." He laughed and winked at Gavin. "At least you've got your cat to keep you warm at night..." His features softened and he scratched the back of his head, laughter dying away a bit.

"She's not a hybrid," he replied, stretching a bit and walking over to his bed to sit on the edge of it. "Pick a seat," he said, almost embarrassed.

Romeo sat on the closest metal folding chair to the bed. Gavin had pratically told him that he wasn't supposed to just jump into his bed and he had every intention of following those desires. He slouched down, legs spread wide and arms folded behind his back. It was a look that didn't really go with the nice tailored suit and dress shoes, but one that the face above the suit jacket looked very comfortable in. He put his hand over his mouth and attempted to suppress a yawn. He had stayed up late last night making sure he was taken care of so he would be in control of himself this evening. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up to him.

"I didn't mean to say it like she was...I figured she was a regular short hair... my mind sometimes just goes faster than my mouth and occasionally I'll jump topics without mentioning the link because it makes prefect sense in my head and I keep forgetting that not everone can hear my thoughts. Or more precicely that i'm not speaking my thoughts out loud. The seemingly non-allergicness of your cat reminded me of the ones that were bred to be hypo-allergenic. I apologise for leaving out the link."

"It's alright, I understand," he replied with a small smile. "I'd offer you something to drink or something, but I doubt I really have anything that you'd like. Mostly just a couple beers, grape soda, a few energy drinks, milk, orange juice, and some really bad Koolade."

"I'm actually a big fan or Orange Juice. I usually prefer it in the morning....but it works well at other times in the day. Vitamin C does the body good." Romeo flashed a smile at Gavin and sat up, put his hand in one of his hands, his elbow balancing on the knee that he had crossed over the other to give it more leverage. "I'm really picky about my beer and I don't think you have my variety, it tends to really only come on tap in this area and only at specific places."

"I have the cheapest nastiest beer available. I just like the taste of the yeast. It's so weak that it really can't get you drunk anyways." He got up and went over to the small fridge, pulling out the carton of orange juice and setting it on the counter. Opening one of the cabinets, he got down a glass and poured the orange in it, returned the carton to the fridge, and returned to Romeo, handing him the glass.

"Thank you very much." Romeo started sipping his orange juice. "So, are the other tenants and landlord/landlady here bad or decent?"

Sitting back down on the bed, he sighed. "My landlord treats everyone like shit. The building isn't up to code. And the other tenants... Well, I like to pretend that I'm the only one in this piece of trash building." He shivered a little and grabbed one of the blankets, wrapping it around himself and pulling his legs up in front of him, crossing them for a little added warmth.

Romeo sighed. "I wish you'd let me do something to keep you from being so cold." He tilted his head and locked his eyes on Gavin's. "It seems as if you're always doing something to push me away. The only time you even took my jacket was when you were asleep. And you couldn't very well protest then." He laughed but he brought his legs up to his chest, placing his heels on the edge of the chair and used his knees as a place to rest his chin. His eyes as uneasy as last night when he was opening himself up and telling Gavin about his past.

"It takes a little while for me to be physically comfortable. I'm just afraid of getting too close too soon. I don't want to end up in another bad relationship, I need a chance to step back before it's too late. You know?" He smiled a little awkwardly. "It hasn't been that long you know... Everything is a huge leap for me..."

Romeo nodded. It was easy to understand. He, however, thrived off human contact and the lack of physical closeness was draining him. "I'll back off then. I don't want to rush you into anything you're going to regret. I'd really prefer that if anything happened then it happen when you're completely ready to accept me and be happy with me." He looked around the apartment a little bit more and smiled. "So, outside of reading and taking care of Tiki, what do you do with your spare time?"

"I like to sketch, and I like to write. I also have a thing for writing psychological essays. It's just what I like to do. I guess I just hope that maybe in helping others I can keep them from becoming like me, or that I might be able to find the miracle solution to fix myself. I don't get too much time to do things in though. And I'm lucky to get a day off a month, other than Sundays."

Romeo's mouth twisted into a peculiar frown as he looked up thoughtfully. "I thought your field made decent money... if you're working so much then why..." He looked back at Gavin and gave him a funny expression. "Are you in debt?"

"My field makes good money if you can land a good job in it. Like I told you before, I lost everything when it got out that I was gay. I can't find a good paying job in this field because of that. No, I'm not in debt. But in this day and age it's impossibly hard to live without getting into debt. I'm living barely within my means, and struggling to save up for a better apartment. I'll be damned if I live here the rest of my life. This place is going to drive me to my grave."

"Not if I can help it it's not. And even if you're too stubborn to accept my help I'll find ways of helping. At the very least making you feel better when you're not dealing with the rigors the rest of the world has provided." Romeo's expression smoothed into his natural relaxed state and he let his eyes soften. "Back massages, hot cocoa... ask and ye shall receive." He winked. "Just don't start taking advantage of my good nature and desire for servitude or I might actually start asking you for things in return."

"Unfortunately the only things I have to offer in return are my mind and my body. I'd rather offer my mind though, I'm not fond of the idea of prostitution."

"You've got more than just that... you've got your spirit. You've got your heart. You sketch. You've got a cat I can cuddle with. You can inspire. There's a lot more things other than your body and mind that you could share. And I would never ask anyone to whore out their body to me. It's demeaning."