Sy’s last roommate had been a great guy. They’d worked together, actually, doing… escort things. He wasn’t a dancer, though. Sy tried to avoid rooming with his dance crew because a) they fucking saw enough of each other, honestly and b) he liked the feeling of hierarchy that was implied by them not knowing the ins and outs of his personal life. Having that privacy made him seem a little less like a fellow human and a little more like a captain.

In short, Symon liked to be in charge. He wasn’t bossy, nor was he a particularly private person, but when it came to the revue, he definitely liked to be front and center. It was his idea, after all.

So when his last roomie’d gotten offered an actual job halfway across the region, Sy watched him go with an entirely supportive, but slightly embittered front. That was fine, dude. Thought we were buddies, but you go on ahead and succeed without me.

Wow, that’s a lot to unpack, Doctor Boxington, Sy thought, as his doorbell-- and his potential new roommate-- rang.

The place itself was a detached house off of the Lilycove main street, walking distance from the mall, but enough off the beaten path that the tourists only occasionally got lost on their way, as opposed to them being there all the time. They shared a slightly misshapen half-circle drive with the house next-door, but it was too small for more than one car to be parked there, ever.

Bang in the heat of a Hoenn summer the storm door was open so Caden would be able to see through the screen into the postcard of a screened-in porch-cum-mudroom, and then a narrow hallway that was 2/3rds the staircase to the upper floor. Bright yellow lighting accentuated the warm, orange wood flooring that was original all through the main floor. The walls were painted a pale, daisy color and cut ⅓ of the way up with old-fashioned shiplap boards, hinting that, once upon a time, an old person lived there.

Sy thumped down the stairs, tugging a shirt on over his head-- he’d remembered it at the last second-- and opened the screen door.

“Hey,” he said, holding out his hand to shake, and then sweeping it aside to invite Caden in. “I’m Symon. You here to see the place, yeah?”

At the end of the hallway on the main floor there was a small, rectangular dining area; a bay window opened to the narrow alley between houses and, given that it didn’t let in much light, it was stuffed with shelves bearing loads of houseplants. There was a cheap faux chandelier with a couple of the crystals knocked off above an oval glass table with a set of unmatched, but comfortable, dining chairs. Beyond this was a door to the kitchen-- also small and slightly dated, but sparkling clean-- and, surprisingly, a full bath complete with a plastic refitted tub. This was also minute, but pristine, done up in babydoll pink with an eggshell tiled floor and a full wall mirror. The door to the backyard was off the kitchen.

On the other side of the dining room was the living room-- and where the rest of the house lacked in opulence, this more than made up for it. A huge, comfortable L-shaped sectional sat across from a massive flat screen. Gaming systems of all types were organized in the glass and iron TV stand, and there were bookshelves in every corner stuffed with a liturgy of titles from biology textbooks to fantasy novels to biographies of famous individuals. Instead of a coffee table there were two dark side-tables that each had a lamp and more houseplants.

“The bedrooms are upstairs,” Sy explained, as he gave the tour. “Mine has the ‘en suite’,” he used finger quotes to illustrate just how inaccurate the title was, “but that’s why my rent is slightly higher."

Caden, he realizes, has a good handshake and a nice head of hair. Sy’s been friends with others with less. He was cute, too, which didn't hurt things, but Sy's heart was stuck solidly in no-mans-land at present, going to war for a certain adorable scrawny nerd.

He sidesteps and spreads his arms wide, beckoning the newcomer into the abode. “Of course. Come on in.”

He points. “Living room.” Jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Kitchen.” He turns and leads the way into the room in particular, opening a door on the left-- “Bathroom.” Tastefully decorated in babydoll pink with a seashell motif, which generally surprised people given who was living there.

Sy pushes through a door at the back of the kitchen. “Yard. Or what of it there is.” A small set of wood deck stairs led down to a postage stamp of green, with high privacy fencing on all sides. The short porch overhang was dotted with potted hanging plants.

“I’ll show you the room,” Sy said, smiling, as he slid past Caden and headed for the stairs. The gentle sound of T-Pain playing through a semi-decent speaker system filtered down from the upper floor.

Sy doesn’t even blink. His own industry usually keeps him out at all hours of the night, whether dancing or escorting, and he does most of his sleeping during the day. He’s also a heavy sleeper. Good for roomies with busy schedules, bad for those who tend to attract murderers.

“That’s fine,” he says, cresting the landing at the top of the stairs, “my schedule’s a bit crazy, too.” Caden’s bedroom is directly through a doorway to the right. It’s mostly empty, at present, save for a spare desk pressed up against the rightmost wall and some sheer curtains over the window looking out over the driveway and sideyard. “Not much of a view, unfortunately.” It's mostly of the siding of the neighboring house.

Sy’s room is up ahead and to the left, but he doesn’t take Caden that far.

“We’re walking or biking distance to everything on the main drag. And we don’t get a lot of tourists, except by accident.” He shrugged.

Sy runs a hand through his hair, eyes diverted demurely down and away in what he’d learned was proper and right when talking about his chosen profession. “Some modeling. Mostly I dance,” he said, having come this far in life believing honesty was the best policy, “At the mall. My troupe and I do a revue show Friday and Saturday nights.”

Then there was the escorting and the stripping and the occasional solicitation of interpersonal favors for money. But leaving those out wasn’t a lie, even by omission.

He isn’t expected Caden to acquiesce so fast. “Oh, uh. Hold on, I think I saved some stuff on my laptop…” he walks to the end of the hallway and into his room, which is-- it’s not dirty, it’s just cluttered. Piles of clothes, an unmade bed, more houseplants. He finds his laptop on his desk where he left it, cracks it open, and brings it back.

Leaning it on the stair railing, he clicks to a rudimentary lease template that he sends to the printer downstairs.

“I didn’t expect anyone to bite so quickly,” he confesses, leading back down the stairs to the living room. “It’s… cozy.”

By that he means it’s small, but he hasn't worked for so many years in the personal satisfaction industry without learning how to phrase things properly.

“Yep,” Sy says, the oft-practiced phrase running through his head like a blaring marquee sign, “revue show, Friday and Saturday nights.” He flashed Caden two thumbs up. "I never say no to supporters! But don't feel like you have to if it isn't your thing." As much as he tries to make it technical and structured, dance-wise, it would always just be men in skimpy costumes flexing.

Yeah, his room is a mess. It’s fine. Just, clothes mostly. He needs to do laundry but he’s been working pretty hard lately, been away from home. His grandmama would box his ears.

“Aren’t we all, these days,” Sy said with a chuckle, “end of the world and all.”

Caden sort of suggests that he might, maybe, be into Sy’s show, and that was a good sign. One that, at least, their lifestyles weren’t so heinously clashing they could never get along. But Sy didn’t mix business with pleasure, as a rule: he didn’t fuck around with his troupemates or his roommates.

His relationships, such as they were, all happened far outside the sphere of his working life. So distantly they were barely personal. Which was counterproductive to relationships and probably definitely most likely why they all fizzled out.

“I don’t think it’s a sham, but I don’t think… I can’t let myself think--,” he amends, pointedly, “that it’s really, truly, the end. I’d get too depressed. Gotta keep trucking, no matter what. Show a little hustle, and all that.”

He squints at Caden, then, when the guy mentions research, wondering if he was, like, an art major, or something. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d posed for a drawing reference, nude or otherwise. Sometimes it paid good money. “Research for what?” he asks, taking the bait.

Sy shrugs, doing a good job of masking his disappointment when Caden reveals himself as, potentially, a huge bummer. “I guess,” he says, running a hand through his hair and leading them back out of his bedroom and down the stairs. “More like… gotta have some sort of hope, you know? Otherwise, why keep getting up in the morning.”

He was, by nature, a ray of sunshine. It was endearing to some, and annoying to others. If Caden wanted to be sad and depressed and boring, well, that was his prerogative.

He went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the fridge and turned in the archway to give Caden a knowing smile.

“Yeah. Some people find it attractive.” Unbothered, he cracks the fridge, grabs two bottles, and offers one to Caden. Because it isn’t, really, hook, line, and sinker. It’s one hot person talking to another. And Sy doesn’t mix business and pleasure.

He is also hopelessly crushing on someone, so that adds a bit of a buffer, as well.

“Oh, I have one of those,” he says (if Caden doesn’t take the water bottle he’ll just set it on the table) and moves back into the dining room. “I’m not, like, super popular. But it’s kinda fun.” And an easy, legal way to make a buck, which he has never turned down before.