Snippet #2062927

Oliver Tanuki

In the end, Oliver never got the nerve to say another word to Pandora about the things going on in his head--because, really, that was probably all there was to it and everything was probably literately all in his head and he'd only bug her with his stupid, irrational paranoia--and they parted ways, both heading off to do their respective things. Sometimes he would be wandering around the Box at this time and catch sight of her doing the same and sometimes he wouldn't see her at all. Sometimes he wouldn't bother going out wandering at all and just opt for staying in his room to watch cheesy romance films or the occasional craptastic action thriller that he would hate to admit that he actually might like unironically. He checked the rooms and ended up feeling too off-set about the possibility of the steel walls around him caving in on him, so he went back to his room and read a bit of a book he'd only ever read a hundred times already.

By the time his internal clock told him it was morning, his eyes opened to a blaring light that he was surprised he didn't wake up to earlier. Unless they were just coming on. At one point early on in their first few weeks there, he'd managed to convince someone to mess with the tech on the fifth floor to turn his lights on automatically when he felt was a good "time" for morning. Not that anyone in their right minds knew what time was around here aside from how long it took for the microwave to heat their food or the oven to heat their meal, since clocks and watches were all but useless, stilled things when magically transported here by whatever source of suspicious black magic was being used to provide them with whatever they basically desired. But that was all besides the point. The point was Oliver had some sense of false time and if people weren't up already, he was going to make sure they got up.

He walked past the backside of a mirror--one that used to be facing the right way until he decided early on that he hated his appearance and turned it the other way, not willing to get rid of it completely, mostly since he didn't know how--and into the bathroom to get his morning routine through with. This consisted of brushing his teeth, taking a shower, drying out the hair that never wanted to fall the right way for him, and then getting dressed in clothes that were probably too relaxed for his own good as a leader. At one point, Oliver considered wearing something dressier to accommodate his imaginary position, but tossed that idea to the side when he realized it would probably only earn him more open-faced mockery than he would swear he already received. Moderately satisfied with his attire, he decided to head to the door only after shoving a hand into his pocket. At the crunch of folded up paper, he winced and shivered, looking around the room that his eyes said was empty, but his mind said was not.

Oliver swallowed and decided to just pretend he hadn't felt a thing at all, walking out of the room to inspect the others down the other array of unnecessary hallways. Everything was so spread out around here, it took forever to get used to. But after a year or so, it was basically all you had to do. First came Pandora's door. He knocked lightly without spending much time there. Next came Ivonne. Another door that he passed by after knocking on since he didn't want to meet the morning face of that guy. Not that he was intimidated or anything. Following that, Oliver made his way over to knocking on Drew's. "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty! No amount of sleep will ever fix that face of yours!" he called through the doorway, knocking a few more times for good measure before moving on. He knocked on Kanari's next, shouting a quick "Wake up, bright-eyes!" in a sarcastic tone before quickly moving on to avoid whatever early-morning terrors Kanari might put him through.

Last came Cassius's room. Oliver knocked twice before letting himself in without waiting for the say-so, because he automatically had the authority to do so, that's why. Cassius came last because he got special privileges. And although he'd proved plenty of times in the past that he was fully capable of dressing himself, and getting himself ready for the day, and accomplishing tasks any four-year-old on his first day of Kindergarten could do, Oliver still felt the over-annoying urge to just make sure of that fact every single morning and periodically throughout the day. "Get up. You're lucky I'm not pulling the curtains aside to show you the bright and shiny sun outside your window while singing You Are My Sunshine in a pretty floral morning gown." He reached down and pulled the covers away, frowning down at the boy who couldn't even see it. "Or maybe I am, you wouldn't know." That might of been a little rude. Crap, throw that one to the pile too. "I mean, sorry. That was too much. Sorry. You got enough sleep, right?"