DOWNTOWN: Strife Delivery Service

     Quaint is certainly the word to describe the interior of the Strife 
Delivery Service. Well, other than utilitarian, anyways. It has everything one 
would expect from a modern businessplace, kept reasonable clean and organized 
with everything in its proper place. There are a few chairs littered about for 
sitting as well as a simple desk the dominates the scenery. Parcels of various 
size are usually stacked upon it, a noted pad lying off to the side with 'place 
your order here' scrawled across it what appears to have been a haphazard manner.

     A set of stairs leads to the upper floor, a ringer built into the wall next 
to it so as to inform the tenant above when there's business present.

Contents:
Cloud
Obvious exits:
Upstairs  EXIT

     It's been a remarkable stroke of luck Jake's had since coming here, really. 
Coming into a shop where she could pick up some easy resellable loot to tide her 
over for the first few days, then rescuing a random stranger who turned out to 
be filthy rich and needed a bodyguard, and then being able to wear gorgeous 
things and attend numerous parties, all for her job... it's really been one of 
the best jobs she's had. If only she didn't have to dance attendance so much. 
And if only she didn't come back from all that to a crappy twin-bed motel room.
     Today, though, she's vowed to change that. She's finally received an ID and 
proper paperwork, set up a bank account, gotten a cell phone, and now she just 
needs to find a place to stay in. Having done her research, she's circled all 
the potential places she found in her 'roommate wanted' or 'apartment to let' 
searches. Something not too expensive, she hopes; she doesn't really need a lot 
of space, and doesn't know how often she'll be spending in it.
     The one at the Strife Delivery Service (and what an odd name that is--
Strife?) is closest to the internet cafe where she'd made her search, according 
to MapQuest, and so she heads there first. It looks like an office on the floor, 
though, so she doesn't bother knocking on the front door, instead simply opening 
the door and walking in, looking about curiously.

     It's been an incredible stroke of bad luck since Cloud came here, recently. 
Finding himself alone in a strange, new world with the only familiar faces 
belonging to enemies, then running into a girl who just had a propensity for 
causing him all sort of problems -and- being unable to keep an innocent store 
from being robbed and blown up all on top of it! Of course, Cloud's naturally 
pessimistic view of thing lessens the blow all this would have on an average 
person, and he's able to deal with it reasonably well.
     What he has much more trouble dealing with is the absolute chaos of a 
schedule he's put himself in. Deliveries every day, missions from the DFA almost 
every night..it was a wonder he was able to get any sleep at all. It just so 
happens that he's on break right now, sipping at a cup of coffee (The fuel that 
makes maintaining such an absurd schedule possible) and scanning newspaper for 
any 'strange happenings' that might require investigation later on. Hard to tell 
what Sephiroth could be up to, after all, or something else.
     he bell on the door rings as it swings open, a customer had arrived! 
Getting up to his feet initially, Cloud almost balks when he sees just who it is 
that's entered and jumps a few steps back, assuming what most would probably 
find to be a laughable attempt a combat stance (Hey, fists aren't his specialty, 
okay?!), "We don't have anything worth stealing here, really!"

     Oh, well, if you want to look at it like /that./ Jake hasn't been too fond 
of the 'stranded alone in a strange new world' aspect, either... although, 
admittedly, it's a lot easier for her. This world is nearly exactly the same as 
her world's California, save for the absence of Middanka and personal abilities, 
which makes fitting in much easier. Hell, the city is even not too dissimilar to 
Middanka itself, although smaller and less cosmopolitan. At least, so far as 
she's seen. But hey. Considering that she is stranded here, with no way that she 
knows of to get home, things have been remarkably good. Better to look at it 
that way.
     The first thing Jake sees as she scans the office is a familiar spiky head 
of hair--unmistakable, despite having seen him only once in poor conditions--and 
the first thing she hears, a rather defensive spill of words. So, the first 
thing she does is burst out laughing.
     She regains control of her amusement quickly. Waving a hand in a placating 
gesture, she grins. "Relax. I'm here on perfectly legitimate business. I'm 
guessing it was you that put the ad in the newspaper about having some space to 
rent?" She waves the relevant printout toward him, heading a few steps closer.

     Yes well, hang around Cloud long enough and you learn to see just about 
everything from the negative perspective. There wasn't too many similarities 
between this city and Midgar aside from..well, an oddly similar name. Unless you 
wanted count the fact that bother had cars and people, but Cloud didn't! Still, 
things hadn't been all bad, he supposed..but it really did pale in comparison to 
the legitimately bad stuff. Honestly, no hope for this one.
     He relaxes a bit when he realizes Jake isn't here to try to take anything, 
but a certain tension remains around him as she comes closer. She -was- a thief, 
after all, he could say that much...of course, so was Yuffie..and he -did- keep 
a certain of alertness around that grabby ninja, so this all made perfect sense, 
yep!
     "Ad? I..oh right, the ad!" The one he'd put in a week or two ago that he'd 
almost forgotten about, "Yes, I put it in there. Thought it would help to get 
some extra income flowing in, what with things as they are." He'd been taking 
less missions after all, and doing less routes with much more of his time 
devoted to..shall we say, other pursuits. Sure, Squall had kept up the same 
amount of activity, but he couldn't do it all by himself.

     Please to not compare her with the Wutaian kleptomaniac, kthnx. Jake is not 
so much a thief, really, as a born opportunist. Planning heists isn't her style, 
but hell, if she's in a shop ripe for the picking and no one around, and other 
people there to take the fall if need be? ... well, she always did want an iPod. 
And now she has one. Although no computers or music to store on them, which is a 
drag. Note to self: put computer next on list of things to buy, and decent 
Internet. She has a good paycheck now, might as well make use of it.
     "Right, right. So how much are you asking? And let's see the place." Jake 
asks forthrightly, shoving the printouts back in her pocket and glancing toward 
the stairs. "Upstairs?" It seems logical, so she begins to move toward the 
stairs, intent on walking right up if not stopped.

Sure, sure, semantics or something, whatever. Bottom line is he knows where to 
look first if things just start randomly disappearing for no reason! Really, 
it's okay, Cloud's pride isn't particularly sore over the store ordeal, 
considering that would require having some pride in the first place, and Jake 
wasn't the one who blew it up either. He's half-way curious as to what happened 
to that guy too, but he thinks he'd rater just not know.
     "About $500 a month." He answers the first question after doing some quick 
and simply math in his head of adding another person to rent payment, "And yeah, 
it's up here." No movement is made to stop Jake's ascent, and Cloud simply 
follows her up.
	Upstairs is relative simple, with a nicely spacious hallway ending in a 
blank wall at the end, a series of four doors on either side, "This place used 
to be small inn run by a kindly old couple, apparently." He explains as he 
approaches the landing, "So we actually have quite a few spare rooms. Right now 
it's just me and one other person living here."

     Jake should dig a little and make a new bottom line, then, something along 
the line of 'you touch my space without my permission and you end up twisted 
into a tiny pretzel and stuffed into the floorboards.' Pretty simple concept, 
really. (We won't go into how it doesn't apply to her.)
     Hmm, $500 a month is pretty damned good, especially around here. There has 
to be some sort of catch--maybe the two living here are loud, or slobs? 
"Including utilities?" Jake asks, heading to one of the rooms on the end and 
putting her hand on the knob. Assuming she's not stopped because it's one of the 
other tenant's rooms, she'll go inside; if it is, she'll still open it, but just 
long enough to take a peek inside before choosing another until it turns out to 
be empty, and take a quick look around. Best to get an idea of what the personal 
rooms look like, if she's going to be living with some other people. "What about 
kitchen and bathrooms and things? Or TV? And what kind of Internet connection do 
you have?" Good to know how much she'll have to buy, after all. Though it may 
not be such a pressing issue, depending on how much time she does end up 
spending here. As he explains just who the place used to be owned by, her head 
turns slowly toward him, and a grin creeps across her face. "I don't fucking 
believe it. Someone actually /uses/ 'kindly old couple' to describe a pair of 
oldsters? What the hell are you, a pulp writer?"
     But getting back to business, after that amusing digression. "So who's the 
other person?" she asks idly, prowling around the empty room space. She'd prefer 
something as far back from the entrance as possible; means more time for her to 
pick up sounds, and easier to get away through windows or back exits, even if it 
is further from the stairs. More private that way, too.

     "With water and electric, yeah. Apparently some crazy legal work was done 
to devalue this place before it was sold, I don't really know too much about 
it." Cloud says, trying to explain the insanely good deal this sounds like. Both 
rooms Jake checks are empty, and suitably quaint. Not huge, but big enough for 
an ordinary person to fit all the comforts of usual room inside, "The kitchen is 
downstairs. It was an Inn, so all the rooms have bathroom adjoining them. 
We..ah..don't have much use for TV or the internet, so you'll have to buy those 
things yourself." Both spent too little time actually here to really need 
anything like that.
     Jake's next comment draws something of a confused look across the blonde's 
face, unsure precisely how to respond, "I..uh..(Oldster?)..well, no, i'm a 
courier." ...And that's one way. Very good, Cloud. "The other person is my 
associate, and he's currently not in at the moment." Which also reminds of 
something, "We tend to keep slightly odd hours due to the nature of our work, so 
that might be something to keep in mind."

     "Sounds shady," Jake comments, bouncing a little on her toes in front of 
the door to check for squeaking floorboards. Peeking inside the adjoining 
bathroom, she nods to herself and wanders right back out again, heading down the 
stairs again to check out the kitchen. Well, the main office area seems in 
pretty neat order, as does the kitchen. Which is adequate enough for her 
purposes, her purposes being mainly drink refrigeration and someplace to store 
leftover pizza; she /can/ cook if she has to, but rather prefers not to. 
"Amazing--a couple of guys and they keep the place cleaner than a hotel. Never 
thought I'd see the day. And no TV or internet? Jesus fucking Christ, what are 
you, cavemen?" She arches her brows at Cloud in disbelief.
     The note on hours is acknowledged with a nod and a careless lift of one 
shoulder. "I don't mind. I'm probably going to be keeping some odd hours too, so 
it's all good." Folding her arms, she glances around again, before nodding, as 
much to him as for herself. "Sounds good to me. I'll take it, then." It's close 
enough to the subway and Wayne Enterprises to be convenient, a couple of 
roommates who are cleaner than her and apparently aren't around much (which is 
what she interprets as the meaning of having no TV or Internet; that, or they 
really are cavemen). Not to mention cheap. It's a deal she can't pass up--and 
moreover, it was the first place on her list, which means she doesn't have to go 
searching any more, which is a good. Because she's lazy. "Where's the 
paperwork?"

     "I guess. I didn't really concern myself with it much, to be honest." A 
good price is a good price, and so far the roof hasn't collapsed in on them, so 
Cloud would say it's going pretty good. "We just don't spend a lot of time here, 
is all." Shrugging off Jake's disbelief, he sets on back downstairs trying to 
remember where he'd put the lease. As he goes down, the repercussions of this 
begin to play with his head. Should he lets Squall know about this? It might be 
good idea, he supposes, but she seemed like the impatient sort, and he was out 
right now and here she was offering to sign up right now. And since he'd been 
the first one renting this place out, he supposed authority on this kind of 
thing did go to him. It would be all right, he'd just let him know...at the same 
time he let him know Molly was staying here too for a bit, for free. Nah, it 
would be alright, he couldn't complain about having to pay less and Molly's 
situation was just temporary anyways.
     "Oh, right, it's over here." Walking into the kitchen, he opens up a drawer 
and pulls one of the copies of the lease he'd made, handing it over to Jake to 
review and sign, "How soon do you think you'll be able to move in?" Geez, was he 
really doing this? It all seemed rather sudden.

     "What you don't know can't hurt you?" Jake chuckles, and shakes her head. 
To be honest, she doesn't really care much, either; if it /is/ shady, the worst 
that can probably happen is that they're be turned out, or that she'll wake up 
one day to find the place under a bomb alert or surrounded by gunmen. Well, all 
right, so the last two don't seem very likely. Plunking the received papers down 
on the table, she looks up. "Got a pen?" Once a pen is in hand, she'll set to 
the tedious work of filling it out with her information and signing her name and 
so on.
     "Hmm," she says absently, hooking her hair behind an ear and looking up at 
the inquiry in mid-filling. "An hour? I don't have much, and I'm not too far 
away. Not like I've anything better to do right now, anyway." Although she 
should probably go shopping for niceties. Like a bed and blankets, at the very 
least. Maybe a chair. And a hamper. Speaking of laundry... "I assume you have a 
washing machine and dryer, right?" she asks, just to make sure. Detergent and 
drying cloths, then. Perhaps a desk. And a TV and stereo system and computer 
and--
     Yeah, her new bank account is going to be stretched rather thin this month. 
Fortunately, the good part about pretending to be a billionaire's girlfriend is 
that one goes to a lot of events with food.

     "Here you go." Cloud pulls a pen from the same drawer, offering it to Jake. 
Once taken, he'll nod and muse at her answer, "An hour? ..Wow, yeah, I guess 
that'll be fine." Did this sort of thing really happen so..ah..suddenly? Then 
again, how quickly did Squall move in? Granted, that was a bit different but..oh 
hell, just shut up, Strife. In no more than an houe you'll have shave $250 off 
your monthly payments. It's a -good- thing!
     "Actually, there was something I kinda wanted to ask you.." He decides to 
go on, having had a niggling thought since the night he first saw her, 
"Exactly..how did you get into that store after it was locked? You didn't seem 
to be with the guy who was breaking in and..well, i've just had a little bit of 
trouble making sense of at all." This coming from a guy who, from Jake's 
perspective at least, walks around at night with a gigantic sword(s) saying 
there's something weird about -that-. Go figure.

     Probably not normally. But in this case, Jake's more interested in speed 
and ease of the thing than in normality; and she also doesn't have the tons of 
furniture and paperwork and notifications that would bog most other people down.
     At the question, she barely pauses in her writing. After a second, she 
flourishes her signature at the bottom of the page, lays the pen down, and looks 
up. "Magic," she says blandly, fully expecting him to take it as a joke. So far 
as she's seen, there's nothing like that here. Technically gifts weren't /magic/, 
per se--there's supposed to be some complicated explanation by the scientists as 
to how they worked--but she's never kept up with that discussion, and magic is a 
good enough answer for now. "I have a question for you, too," she adds, standing. 
"What're you called? And the other guy, too, I guess. Name's Jake Legard." She 
sticks her hand out to shake.
     A second later, another thought occurs to her. "Oh yeah--do you allow 
smoking and alcohol? And what about visitors?" For a second, she wishes that 
she'd thought to ask that before signing--but oh well. It's too late now, no use 
crying over spilt milk.

     "Oh, okay." No, really, he lets it drop there. Don't worry, Cloud will 
probably realize that's a funny to answer to give in this world before he goes 
to sleep tonight, but not before then! Magic, after all, is a pretty common 
thing where he's from, and while he can't offhand think of any materia that 
would just let a person slip in like that, there's probably something out there 
he doesn't know about.
     "Cloud Strife." He takes her hand, seeing as how she offered and all, 
"Squall Leonheart is the other tenant." What does he say now? Nice to meet you? 
But he already met her, and that particular experience wasn't precisely what 
he'd call nice...gah, shut up Cloud!
     At Jake's follow-up questions he purses his lips together a moment to think, 
"Yeah, alcohol is fine." Heck, he enjoyed a shot every now and then, usually 
with friends, "I'd prefer if you smoked outside, or open a window if you're 
going to do it in your room." Yeah, Cid could smoke on the Highwind, but that's 
because if you brought up you earned yourself a one-way express ticket to the 
ground. Smoke kind made him nauseous. "Visitors are fine..I actually have one of 
my own staying right now, so it'd be kind of hypocritical for me to say you 
couldn't. Just see that they don't overstay their welcome."

     The calm acceptance of her tongue-in-cheek answer nets a confused look from 
Jake, before she realizes that yes, apparently he really is just going to take 
that as a genuine answer. Or maybe he doesn't really care, or decided to humor 
her. Her expression just gets more confused--or perhaps disbelieving is a better 
word for it--at the names dropped. "So... Cloud. And Squall." Cue a long moment 
of silence as she attempts to not snort rather impolitely in his face. The 
attempt fails, though, and she can't quite manage to stifle the snort of 
laughter that worms its way out. At least she doesn't say what's on her mind, 
though: 'No, seriously, what the shit /are/ you guys?'
     The declaration of having to smoke outside is met with a sigh and a 
somewhat annoyed look, but she simply shrugs. Whatever. She'll deal. And it's 
not like the weather here gets very cold at all, though it does occasionally get 
rainy. "Fine. I guess that should be all right, then." Tucking her hands back 
into her coat pockets, she offers a nod. "I'm going to go get my stuff now, then. 
If you have a spare key lying around, I'll take one; if not, are you going to be 
in here in an hour?" Which reminds her of something else. "Do the doors to the 
private rooms lock?"

     "Yep. And Jake now, I suppose." Cloud's not really sure what to make of 
Jake's half-snorting laugh, he figures she must've just remembered something 
funny. After all, the names seemed perfectly normal to him..well okay, Squall's 
was a little strange, but it was kinda befitting for a kid who was a little 
strange in the first place. "A key? Not right now, i'm afraid we'll have to get 
a copy made for you. But I won't be going anywhere for a while." At least, now 
that he's relieved some of the burden he can put that delivery off a little 
longer.
     "Yeah, sorry about that. Oh..and you don't have any pets, do you?" Pets 
were kinda...well, Cloud would prefer not to deal with them. Unless it was a 
fish or something else confined to cage, "But the doors do lock, yes." Racking 
his brain for any other thoughts on the matter, he finds nothing of significance, 
"..Is there anything else?"

     "All right, then. I suppose I'll try to hurry." Depends a bit on the subway 
schedule, and if anything happens along the way, or if the motel decides to give 
her trouble on checking out; but really, she doesn't think anything /should/ 
happen, knock on wood. But privacy is a good thing, yes. "From the outside, 
too?" she adds, to clarify her question. It's all well and good if it locks 
while she's inside, but it would be nice to keep it locked when she's away. 
She's not paranoid, precisely--she doesn't have anything worth stealing right 
now, anyway--just protective of her property and her privacy.
     The question of pets earns a chuckle and a shake of Jake's head. "No 
worries. Can't stand most animals, and anyway I'm allergic to most furry 
animals." To dogs primarily, but cats and most other furry animals are pretty 
similar. The one exception would probably be snakes; she likes them, but the 
possibility of having one anytime soon doesn't seem likely.
     Tilting her head to the side, the blonde woman considers for a moment, 
before shaking her head decisively. "Can't think of anything else myself. If 
there is, I'll be back soon to ask." With a shrug, she turns on her heel to head 
toward the door, lifting a hand from her pocket in a casual, backward wave. "See 
ya."