When a Dude Meets a Dude A'Comin' Through the Snow

Who: Madock and Joshua
When: After school
Where: The streets of Marquette

A date. He had one. And there wasn't much time to get home from school, get showered and dressed without drawing too much suspicion to himself and get out of the house without one of his many brothers and sisters, or his parents for that matter, questioning his motives for the day. His parents, they were easy, he could tell them the truth, but his brothers and sisters would never stop teasing him about having a date, or a girlfriend or whatever else they could come up with.

So he'd chosen to walk home, giving at least the twins time to get home and get back out again before he even got there. At least he hoped so. Right now he was too busy thinking about what one wore on a ice skating date, wondered what she'd be wearing, wondered if she'd even like him after today and wondered how many times he'd bust his back end on the ice. His attention was definitely not on the sidewalk as he walked, or anyone else walking for that matter and he bumped into someone.

Another one, Madock? Watch where you're going.

"Sorry, man."

Joshua? Had sort of been floating on cloud nine since Halloween, roaming spirits be damned. Everything just ... kind of looked better. Which was probably ridiculous, people lost their virginity every damn day, but he'd just felt more buoyant. Even the fact that Lullaby and Dean were coming back into the country didn't phase him. He hoped they were awesome. He hoped everybody was awesome and people were seeing their dead loved ones and that everything was cool for everybody, like it was for him.

He had a bit of time between his last class and work, and so he'd decided to go for a stroll. It was cold as balls, but that was okay. He had a hat on his head and his hands stuffed down into his coat pockets and was looking up at the sky with a stupid grin plastered on his face when he came into contact with somebody. Or vice versa, whatever. He heard the apology the very same second he felt himself losing his footing. The sidewalks had been salted and everything, but leave it to his sneaker to find one little bit of ice still hanging around. Joshua hit the ground in a twisted sort of way, with one arm under him. Pain jolted up through his shoulder, but all he could really do was laugh. At least he hadn't hit his head this time!

Great, not only had he ran into the guy, he'd knocked him over too. "I'm really sorry." he said, as he held out a hand to catch hold of the guy, hauling him up fairly easy. "Didn't mean to knock you over, wasn't paying attention, lot on my mind I... Hi, I'm Madock." he finally finished off. Might as well give the guy a name so he could know who to be annoyed with.

Joshua didn't seem in the least bit annoyed, and let himself be helped up. His arm and shoulder hurt like a bitch, but it didn't phase him, not in his mood. "No worries, man," he said, the Irish brogue in his voice obvious as always. "Wasn't watchin' my own feet either." He patted the dude on the arm amiably, nodding as he gave his name. "Joshua Barclay, nice to meet you."

Well at least he was in a good mood! And so was Madock because he had a date! Soon! Today! He grinned. "Madock Barrow." he clarified once more. "Been doing that whole running into people thing for a while now. Sometimes it's not so bad though. At least I meet a lot of people that way." he told the boy. Hell, yesterday it'd gotten him a date. Course, he fell onto the poor girl, but oh well, that didn't matter, good had come of it. At least he thought so. "Irish?" he questioned, unable to keep that much back when he heard the accent.

"Irish," he confirmed, shrugging his shoulders to right his backpack again. At least he hadn't said Scottish or London or something stupid like that the way some people did. "Eh, s'nothin'. I more or less trip myself off all on my own a lot of the time, so it's nice to have a different excuse now and then," he said with a good-natured grin. The guy looked to be a little bit younger than him, but it was always hard to really tell. He looked happy enough, though, and that was a good thing in this town.

"Oh, I do that too. A lot. Falling, tripping, running into things. Mostly because I have this thing where I just... don't pay attention." He frowned a little at that, but it was the truth. "So uh... I don't think I recognize you... you don't go to the high school do you?" he asked. Like Madock would actually not be nosy, might as well make a little small talk after knocking the guy over, right?

Joshua wished it was just that he didn't pay attention. But he didn't say so, not wanting to spill his guts and life story out to some random dude. That was never a good policy. "Nope, out of high school," he said with a little smile. Then half-turned to gesture back in the direction he'd been coming from, even though you couldn't see the campus from where they were. "Goin' to the uni. My first year of it, at least."

"Nice. I should probably start my applying process, but yeah... sitting down and doing that is gonna have to have like a whole weekend set aside to even come close to getting it done. And I got time anyways. Senior." So the guy wasn't that much older than him. Probably not much older at all, seeing Madock started school a little late due to all that moving around his family did.

"Yeah, it took me a while to get all my paperwork and shit together, y'know?" he said, shrugged his good shoulder. Not that this guy would probably have all the immigration stuff he had to work out. Joshua sometimes was amazed he'd even gotten to go at all. "I started the semester really late. But you got time." He was a senior, which begged the questions of if he knew the people that Joshua know. Like Claire. Or Lullaby. Neither of which he was in a rush to ask about, honestly. "Weird shit with all these ghosts, huh?" he grinned. It was a conversation starter, for sure.

Madock glanced around and wondered if there were any ghosts around at the moment, but he didn't search for long before letting those bi-colored eyes of his flicker back to Joshua's. "Weird shit." he agreed. "Confusing shit. Everyone running around trying to decide whether God's coming back or the Devil is taking over... or something. Hell, I dunno. It's freaky shit. That's all I know."

Joshua chuckled and shook his head, though he could easily see those theories floating around back in County Kerry. People and their religion. His family had it, to some degree, but they knew from having a long line of angels in their midst that there were alternate answers to things. "Freaky shit for sure," he agreed, however. At least this was something that people couldn't ignore or forget about. "You lived here long?"

He shook his head. "No, not that long really." he told the guy. "Just a little while. Moved here from California with the rest of the family." So my sister could get hitched to some guy. he thought, but as always, he didn't spread that information around at all. "How bout you? You're probably not from around here originally right?"

"Nah, got off the boat ... I dunno, six months ago? It's hard to remember anymore. But been in Marquette long enough to know it's kinda fuckered, if you know what I mean," he said with a wry little lip-twist and a shrug. He felt far less hesitant about warning people now. It was better to look kind of nuts than to let people go along blindly and risk their lives. Things had gone too far to pretend they hadn't gone anywhere at all.

Madock knew that Marquette was strange at best. He didn't really know everything that went on, but he liked to keep himself from getting dragged into all the craziness if he could help it. "Yeah. Definitely fuckered." he agreed, logging that word away for future use. "What made you come here?" he asked, nosiness coming up again. He just couldn't see why someone would choose Marquette, Michigan over Ireland ever.

It was actually something he got asked pretty often. Americans seemed to have a really romanticized vision of Ireland, and he got the 'why'd you leave?' sort of attitude all the time. Sure, he loved home, but he'd spent forever there. Joshua shrugged. "Just wanted to get away, get out on my own," he explained, which was pretty much all he had. "Here was just ... seemed like the place to be, for some reason. Dunno. Why'd you guys come here? Kinda culture shock from California, yeah?"

Well that was a question he had to think up a quick answer for. Something other than the truth because the truth would just get him a fucked up look, or the guy would think he was crazy, or both. "Parents decided it would be good for us to get away from the sun and sand I guess." he smiled. "Can't really argue with 'em when I live with them and everything." he shrugged. "So, they packed up the kids that live at home and we came out here. Definitely a culture shock though. Getting used to the snow. And the cold..."

Speaking of romanticized, from everything he'd heard about California, that seemed crazy, but ... who knew, right? Maybe they lived in a bad part of the state or something. He wasn't one to question a family's motivation for doing anything. Joshua nodded in a sort of sympathy, idly kicking at a little clump of snow nearby. "Yeah, this is just the tip of the iceberg and shit anyway," he said, though he couldn't sound too down about it. Not today. They'd just have to live through the snow; people kept doing it, after all. "Welcome anyway," he added with a little smile.

Madock grinned, eyes flicking down to the kicking motion of Joshua's foot. He didn't say anything for a moment as he watched the clump of snow fall apart when it landed. "What? Oh, yeah. Thanks. You too... belatedly and all that." he smiled. "Snow and cold like this already, I bet I'll try and hibernate when it gets really bad, but on the bright side, we didn't have snow days in Cali."

"Yeah, too bad they're pretty prepared for that kinda shit here, or you'd prob'ly get more," he said with an amiable grin. They were more apt to have Fucking Crazy-Ass Disaster Days in Marquette, but he didn't put that in there. Poor guy would find out soon enough. "Y'never know, though, maybe we'll get blizzarded in, and we can all do that hibernating thing."

"Hibernating sounds damn good." he grinned. He wouldn't mind a lot of sleep. That'd be fucking fantastic. "Well... I hope I'm not hindering you from something." he smiled, offering out a hand. "It was nice to meet you, probably bump into you, though hopefully not literally, again sometime. I don't live far from here actually." he said, pointing down the road. "Can't hurt to have a couple new friends."

"Hell, I wander around a lot, man, I'll prob'ly see you," he said, taking Madock's hand in a firm shake, and offering up a grin. It was a small town, after all. "Take it easy, yeah?" It had been a while since he'd had a guy-buddy to dick around with. Even that Zephyr kid seemed to have disappeared. Which might be just as well, in this place, but it never hurt to know people, like Madock had said. Joshua tipped him a little salute and started to head off, looking for ice on his way.