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Chilly Boulder, Friday Afternoon

Ulysses had survived the beginning of another term!

No, it hadn't actually been hard (except maybe the horrible wheelbarrow part of whatever the everloving fuck Wednesday had been), but that didn't matter. He'd survived, and for that, he was treating himself to some monstrous ice cream concoction at Chilly Boulder. There was probably like an entire donut somewhere in there. And more sprinkles than a human could possibly need.

He had, surprisingly enough, not treated himself to anything else yet today. But he'd do that later.

You know, if he was still conscious after devouring this entire thing of sugar.

[ooc: Open! I just really want ice cream rn, you guys.]

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Doing magic always made Julius hungry and he still had a surprising amount of money left over, thanks to the massive discount he'd gotten buying clothes on Sunday. So he set himself off to town to indulge a bit in something good and high in calories.

Ice cream. Perfect.

He entered the store, eyebrows shooting up at the sheer size of the menu. This was way more than he'd expected, wow.

...Kind of the island's theme, now that he thought about it.

As Ulysses reflexively glanced up at the sound of the door opening, his eyebrows also went up, although for (obviously) a different reason.

The first thing he did was check his reflection on his phone's screen because he did not want to go into this moment with like chocolate syrup all over his chin or something.

The second thing he did was -- pause and question his urge to immediately say hi. He wanted to be cooler this time, right? So maybe just calling attention to himself right away messed with that. But, then again, if he just pretended he hadn't even noticed the guy walk in yet, maybe Julius would not notice him on his own and how awkward would that be?

Okay, fuck it. He cleared his throat. "Julius? Hey."

Edited 2020-05-15 18:32 (UTC)

Julius started a bit at the sound of his name, shoulders coming up in an unconscious hunch before he turned and saw Ulysses sitting at one of the tables behind what was probably a whole dragon's worth of ice cream. As soon as he saw who it was, his posture relaxed and he grinned in response.

Uly could thank Nina for that. The whole 'Ulysses was hoping you'd be on our team' made him feel like a million bucks.

"Ulysses, hi!" he said, bright green eyes on Uly's own. "Good day for ice cream, huh?"

Okay, Ulysses really hadn't taken the whole 'fantastically green eyes' bit into account when he'd decided to go this route. It threw him for a serious distracted loop for a second there.

But only a second! Possibly because he was getting a boost from that grin.

"Uh, yeah," he agreed, with a quick glance down at his ice cream monstrosity. "I mean, it's Friday and we just got through the first week of classes, so..."

Yeah, Julius had definitely needed some ice cream therapy after his class today. Between his teacher, y'know, asking questions and finding out his roommate was trained to kill dragons, it was ice cream or alcohol and drinking sounded like a fantastically bad idea right now.

"I think you're onto something there," Julius said with a nod. He glanced back up at the menu board. "My plan too, just as soon as I finish figuring out just what I want. There are a lot more options here than I was expecting."

"Welll..." Ulysses said, really drawing that word out just a little too long - and almost cringing at himself as soon as he had. "Uh, if you want like recs or something, I could probably help. I, I kinda come here a lot."

'A lot' was relative. But he did generally lead a life that called for a lot of treats.

"Really?" Julius asked, looking back at him with another smile. "I was debating asking for some help, but didn't want to look like an idiot."

"An idiot? Please," Ulysses scoffed, and managed to actually sound relatively smooth about it.

He was slightly less so about getting up from his seat and wandering over to Julius and the menu (but mostly Julius), but, oh well. "Right, so... What are you into?"

"Oh, pretty much anything," Julius said. "I'm really not picky."

Ulysses deserved a medal for the thing that did not come out of his mouth, right there.

"Seriously?" he asked, instead. "Not even like a, I don't know, a chocolate versus fruit kind of preference?"

Julius mouth twisted up into something that would almost be a smirk if it wasn't tinged with so much wryness. "Big family," he explained. "Usually I was lucky to get any at all."

Ulysses' eyebrows bounced in an almost comical fashion. "Oh shit, really?" he asked, and looked at menu again. Properly, this time. "Then I'm pretty sure you gotta go all out, man."

He gestured towards the particularly outrageous part of the menu.

"Like basically ignore everything else and just focus on these ones."

"You know how siblings can be," he said.

Only now picture them meaner and more vindictive!

"Oooh, okay," he said, focusing on that part of the menu. "This all sounds really good. Hmm." He pointed to a sundae that seemed to feature both fruit and chocolate. "Have you tried that one before?"

"I... have," Ulysses confirmed, squinting at the menu. "And it is pretty delish, I'm not gonna lie. Has that good mix of fresh and sweet, you know?"

A beat.

"A little like y--"

Don't say it. His mouth snapped shut mid-sentence. "I mean. It's a good choice."

"What was that?" Julius asked, glancing back at him with those green, green eyes. He'd been looking at the different ice cream flavors. "A good choice?" He seemed pleased that Ulysses agreed with his choice, like he wasn't used to having his opinions validated. "Cool. I think I'll try that. Thanks, Ulysses."

There had to be laws against having eyes like that, right?

Or smiling like that.

"Uh, nothing." So smooth, Uly. So smooth. He ran his hand back through his hair, as if to push it away from his face. A few curls flopped immediately back down. "No problem. Happy to help."

"No, seriously though," Julius said. "I probably would have stood in front of the menu for twenty minutes, trying to figure out what to even try."

He took a few steps towards the counter and then paused. "Uhh, after I get my ice cream, would you mind if I sat with you?" he asked, nodding at Uly's table.

"No," Ulysses replied, just a little too quickly, which kind of made it sound like the opposite of what he was trying to say. Or was that just his paranoia? "I mean, no, I don't mind," he clarified. "At all."

He jerked his thumb back towards the table in question, already taking half a step back.

"I'll, just -- I'll be there."

Julius's face had already started to fall at Ulysses' initial fast no - and then immediately brightened when he clarified. "Great!" he said, grinning again. "I'll be right over!"

Well, okay. A little longer than 'right over.' The crew at the counter seemed determined to have him try samples of every different ice cream flavor.

Everybody was so nice.

Edited 2020-05-15 22:25 (UTC)

He could take all the time he needed. It gave Ulysses some space to try and get his wits together while he watched Julius at the counter.

It wasn't even just that he was hot, although he was. (He really, really was.) That was what had made Ulysses trip at the picnic, sure, but he was pretty sure what had affected him more after that was the guy was just so... sweet.

And Uly really didn't know what to do with that.

So he was thankful that right at this moment, all he had to do was eat ice cream, and wait.

Between the samples and then waiting for the sundae to be made, it was closer to ten minutes before Julius came over, his bowl slightly precarious with the extra scoop of ice cream on top. "Sorry for the wait," he said, taking a seat with easy grace. "How was your first week of classes?"

Ulysses straightened up from his slouch when Julius finally came to the table.

"Pretty much what you can expect around here," he replied with a shrug. "Kinda weird and like, vaguely pointless." A thoughtful pause, which coincided with a spoonful of ice cream. "But I actually got the classes I picked, this time. So I guess that was kinda cool."

"I have no idea what to expect around here," Julius pointed out with a soft smile. "Do you not normally get to pick your classes?"

Julius hadn't, but he was assuming Bob had. Maybe it was just how the system worked?

"Sometimes? But sometimes it's like this past spring, where -- I don't remember anymore what class I was trying to take, but what I ended up with was making hats for birds."

A beat, and he held up a hand.

"Not as relaxing as it might sound like."

"Birds are kinda jerks," Julius said with a small chuckle.

Look, when you shared the sky with them, you learned a few things. Most animals respected the whole 'apex predator' thing he had going on, but some birds just saw that as a better reason to divebomb.

"Why would anyone want to make hats for them?" he asked. "And what are you in now?"

"Fuck if I know, even the teacher didn't want to be teaching that one."

Which reminded him that he really needed to check in with Duke about some stuff they'd talked about in the volcano, now that he finally wasn't one of his students anymore.

But that was not for right now.

He leaned back in his seat a little. "I'm taking Time Management, and, um... Something about making an entertainment? They mean movies, basically. I forget what the actual title was." Because 'Radchaai' had not yet entered his vocabulary. He'd get there. "You?"

Edited 2020-05-15 23:41 (UTC)

"Uhhh, How To Tame a Willful Wife," Julius said, the tips of his ears turning red because he knew how that sounded, "Magical Theory and Practice, Try Not to Die, and Weapons 101," he said, with a reflexive grimace.

Once again, eyebrows were climbing up. "Wow, you're actually, like, taking classes."

Not everyone's a slacker like you, Uly.

"Wait, what's the point of that first one? Is that... something you're looking to do...?"

Of course he'd zero in on that one. The answer was somewhat relevant to his interests.

"Oh, I didn't pick them!" Julius said quickly, since he didn't want anyone thinking that he was interested in 'taming' anything. "I'm pretty sure my brother Bob signed me up for them! I didn't have a say at all! Just showed up and my name was on some lists!"

His real name, even.

Okay, that was a lot objecting. Ulysses maybe relaxed a little again. Unless he was just shifting. he would never tell!

"Coulda also been the moose at the school office."

"That's still really weird," Julius said, taking a few bites of his ice cream. And - wow. Okay. Ulysses wasn't wrong about this being good. "Mmmm..." he groaned, demolishing a quarter of it in a few quick bites.

"...Sorry," he said. "This is just really good."

... Julius, you were killing him. Which was to say Ulysses made a surprised, strangled little noise in the back of his throat, then tried to mask it with a cough.

"No, no, it's fine. It's good that it's -- good."

Jesus.

"Yeah, glad you're... enjoying it."

"I think this is the most ice cream I've had at once, like, ever." He turned to give an appreciative wave to one of the people behind the counter. "The cream cheese ice cream is amazing!" he called. "Thanks for the rec!"

He turned back to Ulysses. "This might just be my new favorite place in town," he said. "At least until I get a chance to check out the arcade."

"Don't think I've been there, either," Ulysses offered, having mostly shaken off the little Moment he'd had there.

His head tilted way to the side.

"Actually, not sure I knew we had one."

"Jules is supposed to show me where it is," Julius said. "...Do you wanna come along? I mean, I don't know if you're an arcade kind of person or anything. But if you wanted to check it out with us?"

Ulysses looked surprised. But at least his brain and his mouth were starting to work together a little quicker today, so there wasn't a super long awkward pause there or anything.

"Uh, sure," he said. "Sounds like fun."

Parts of it, anyway! And he could work with the rest. Like how he wasn't much of an arcade guy, no.

Julius would be surprised, because he was still half-expecting a 2090s arcade. But hopefully the whole 'retro' vibe would still be cool.

"So what else is fun to do around here?" he asked, digging out a maraschino cherry.

Ulysses was from this time, and he kind of thought arcades just in general seemed like a pretty retro thing. But, this was Fandom, so you never really knew.

Anyway.

"I don't know, I kinda don't really do all that much," he admitted, even as he wondered whether that made him sound boring. "One of the bars in town doesn't card? But I just kinda like to take my bike out on the mainland and... explore."

And look for trouble, maybe. Sometimes.

Edited 2020-05-16 20:32 (UTC)

"Just...go?" Julius asked? He didn't sound bored, at least. "Anywhere? No limits?"

Hell, he almost sounded...wistful.

Ulysses shrugged. "It's not like there's anyone here to stop me."

He considered Julius's tone there, for a second, then added, "Or you."

"So weird," Julius said with a quick shake of his head. "I mean, cool? But weird."

He ate another few bites of ice cream before realizing, "Aww hell. I sound like a total shut-in, don't I?"

"Hey, man, I just said I basically do nothing on this island," Ulysses pointed out. "I don't judge."

In general, he judged plenty, of course. But not right now.

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Chilly Boulder, Friday Afternoon

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