Am I Shredding Loud Enough?

[Charlie Wickham]

The wail of a guitar rang through room 315 as an improvised solo was played. It went on and on with the most important ingredients of a solo were accomplished with confidence and practice: a slide, pull offs, and hammerons. Charlie had closed his door, but the use of his amplifier didn't do much to dull the noise. He knew he should be conscientious towards his roommates, but old habits really did die hard. It didn't help that he had lived a life of privilege before coming to the academy. Hell, back home he had a separate room as a music studio. It was sound proof for damn's sakes!

After pulling off his last note, Charlie let it ring for four counts before sliding it off in a clear finish. Charlie let out a little whoop of victory and bounced on the spot. His ears were ringing, a bad sign. If he was hurting from the loud guitar, he wondered how his roomies felt... and how his ears would feel later. He really needed to stop doing that. Wasn't he deaf enough? Even in spite of his own health, should probably turn down the noise he made if he wanted to keep the peace in his dorm.

Reaching down, Charlie clicked off the amp and removed the cable from his guitar before making his way to the door. Was he... afraid to open it? Yeah, he sorta was. Despite his love for people, he was secretly afraid of them hating on him. Which he could never understand  considering he took critisism of character quite well. Mostly. Maybe. Or was that a lie to himself? He wasn't sure at this point. Basically, he was making a lot of ruckus and didn't want to see how mad he made people.

Reaching for the worn knob of his room door, he gave it a twist and pushed it open to expose himself to the shared living space. As an introduction, or rather, finale, he held a C chord and strummed it rapidly while he headbanged to it. Without the amplifier, the sound was dulled and very acoustic in sound. When he struck down a final time, he raised his strumming hand up and into the devil's horns, saying with the utmost sarcasm, "Thank you! I'll be here all night! I love you, Kalispell!"

[Tami Mullins]

So at least one of her roommates was loud.

Tami could hear the blaring guitar straight through the wall as if it wasn’t even there. Once she came back to their dorm and heard the music (from a mile away coming down the halls), she immediately went into her room to fetch earplugs and heavy headphones. With both of those combined, she managed to buffer the sound down to a tolerable “background” noise while she prepared some food for herself. Initially she’d debated about simply leaving to get away from the noise, but she wanted to watch Dying Light so she’d do it.

Subtitles didn’t bother her too much.

She’d been sitting on the couch all bundled up, dinner already eaten and lights all off but for the television, when Charlie burst out of his door. It took her a few seconds before she even realized the sound had stopped and he was (sort of) addressing her. She blinked at him and observed him for a few heartbeats. Was she personally annoyed? Maybe, though her power didn’t really allow her to feel it for very long. Tami had made peace with the noise a while ago. Would her other roommates be annoyed?

Charlie was probably lucky they seemed to be the only ones in at the moment.

“I’ve heard that a prolonged exposure to high levels of sound can have very bad long lasting effects later in one’s life. While I don’t think I understand how some might continue to pursue such a thing, I suppose it’s up to the individual.” She commented casually. Tami offered Charlie a polite smile. “Hello Charlie. I don’t think the others are in. Have you had dinner already?"

[Charlie Wickham]

Charlie stared blankly in Tami's direction for the few moments it took his eyes to adjust to the lighting. With a sway of his head, he glanced at the screen, not recognizing the images that were flashing by but assuming it was something scary. For the life of him he couldn't understand why anyone spent actual hours of their life watching scary shows and playing scary games. Admittedly that was because stuff like that creeped him out.

Charlie smiled at Tami, listening to her musings as he leaned back into his room long enough to place his guitar on the stand. "Yeah, yeah, I know." He added, walking over to the couch and sitting on its arm. "Loud noises are bad, my ears can testify to that."

There were times people thought he was ignoring them thanks to his terrible hearing. Between his love for loud concerts, jam sessions, and, you know, his freak sonic scream ability... his hearing has taken a beating for the worse. "I know you're just saying that because you care." Or perhaps her comment was a way to get him to be quieter. Either way, he knew he should stop blasting his music.

Charlie's eyes grew as large as moons at the mention of food. He slipped from the arm of the chair to the spot beside his roommate. He leaned in close, his eyes begging like a mutt's looking for food. Her question would, with no doubt, lead into him getting a plate of her food. Charlie always wanted to eat. "Nah, I've been busy. I haven't ate a thing."

[Tami Mullins]

Now that he wasn’t actually playing music, Tami took off her headphones and removed her earplugs. She’d completely forgotten about them until she noticed Charlie’s mouth moving and couldn’t hear a single sound coming from him. Truthfully she’d missed what he said, but she still offered him a smile all the same.

She nodded at his next set of words, which Tami thankfully could hear this time. “It would be tragic for you to lose the one way to listen to what you’re most passionate about.” She agreed. Even if she went about all this with her typical calm air, she was worried to a degree over Charlie’s sense of hearing. Boy, could he get loud sometimes with his music. Sometimes it felt like the whole dorm was vibrating from it. Tami couldn’t help but be a little worried over it even if she didn’t always show the concern on her face for too long.

Though a small fraction of her advice was directed at getting him to quite down just a little (lot) more.

The moment food was mentioned Tami was on the receiving end of a big pair of puppy-dog eyes. She had to giggle at the sight. “Dinner is just as important as breakfast, Charlie.” She scolded lightly, though there was no bite to her slow and playful words. Humming with thought, Charlie slipped out from her multiple blankets to stretch. “I suppose I could get you something to eat." She mused.

[Charlie Wickham]

Charlie's smile grew so large his cheeks began to ache. As soon as Tami moved, Charlie was with her. It seemed she had gained a second shadow for the time being. Any promise of food made the boy drool with anticipation and love for the giver. "You are my fricken hero, man. If I had to eat another box of mac n cheese I would actually die." The thought crossed his mind that he should have listened to his mom and learned to cook when he was offered the chance. But hey, he was a busy kid so who could blame him for never getting around to it?

He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Hey, speaking of cooking and stuff, do you wanna teach me how to do it? I could pay you. Or give you a favour per lesson that you can cash in whenever you need. I would do anything: pick you up from town, help with homework, bail you out of jail, move some furniture. It's up to you. I even have cash if you would rather not see my face more than you have to. Ha, everyone likes getting paid."

It didn't even come as a thought that he could be asking too much. Cooking lessons would require Tami to put in time and effort to teach Charlie's poor little soul how to do the basics that he could honestly just google. But to him, youtube was meant for music and not cooking. Besides, he was a hands on kind of learner.

"You can say no, obviously. I'll only be mildly heart broken." His cheeky smile was back and he hoped it was charming enough to persuade Tami.

[Tami Mullins]

The look that spread across Charlie's face was enough to set Tami to laughing. Indirectly she'd noted the types of meals he'd been having in place of real, nutrious ones. "Mac n' cheese is certainly tasty, but I don't think it's creator intended for it to be a regular replacement to all other food." Tami pointed out in a tone that could be scolding if there wasn't the playful ring behind it. Sometimes you had to eat what you had to eat, and Tami would not judge someone for that.

As Charlie rambled on (not that Tami minded since she tended to do the same), Tami searched their fridge for ingredients or plain old left overs she could fashion into sometime. Was Tami the world's greatest cook? By no possible means; but she was at least competent enough to feed herself.

Or in this case: her hungry roommate.

"Favours?" Tami repeated, turning her head to glance back at Charlie. A minor wicked grin crossed her features for a moment. "Careful there. Extending favours can be a dangerous thing, especially ones with little limits." Then her face settled and she went back to extracting ingredients. She settled on making an omelette since that seemed to be what they had the most for. "But you don't need to pay me. I may take you up on those favours, but I certainly hope I won't need them for something extreme.." Like, for instance, getting bailed out of jail. "We could have lessons on the weekends."

As Tami set to work, she paused for a moment to glance at Charlie. "What would you like on an omelette?"

[Charlie Wickham]

Charlie raised his eyebrows incredulously. "Well, damn, girl, what do you plan to ask of me? I ain't gonna do nothing illegal, so don't go giving me a hitlist. But I mean, if you need an itch scratched... Ha!" He couldn't help but smirk. Though Tami and him lived together, he couldn't say he knew her all too well. Hell, he was constantly busy doing things either out of the dorms or locked up in his room. It was hard to get to know people like that. But he was learning here that Tami was friendly, entertaining, and interesting.

"Ham, bacon, turkey, chives, mushrooms.... that kind of stuff. Nothing gross like spinach." Charlie reached up and scratched the back of his head, much happier (if that was possible) now that he had his own personal instructor to teach him some basics. "And Tam? Thanks for it. I don't mean to bother you with, like, teaching a guy how to feed himself. I figure if you wanted to that you'd be a food instructor... or a mom."

Once again, Charlie was regretful for not letting his mom teach him how to cook. Damn, that would have been a good lesson. His mom was the best chef he knew.