Hunched over a low table with pencil, paper, a ruler, and a very intent expression, Norm plans out a pattern for yet another suncatcher. He's sitting on a pillow on the floor, in jeans and a grey sweater with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Outside, the wind howls; inside, the house settles and creaks and groans. The apartment building Norm used to live in (with who knows how many other people) was quieter than here. Possibly it's just the absence of other living beings that makes him so conscious of every little sound. He can tell himself it's just a floorboard springing back, but he always looks to make sure.
One can never be too careful.

There's a knock at the door, startling in its loudness, sharp and quickly finished.

Mort stands outside, shifting from foot to foot and giving off that constant, vague sense of unease that he has about him, every move he makes at least slightly colored by fear. But mostly he's glad to be here; there's little that's frightening here, only Norman and his ghostly landlord, and neither have often been less than kind to him.

Norm gives a start, and the pencil digs a sharp line into the paper, wrinkling and tearing it. He sighs and drops the pencil, then carefully unfolds himself and pads to the door. There are only very few people who ever come by, so he doesn't hesitate about opening it.
"Hey." Norm grins, as if pleasantly surprised. Unexpected company is (almost) always a good reason to be pleasantly surprised. He steps aside, to let the Mort inside. "How's it going?"

"Hey." he waves, a little stiffly, smiling, and steps inside. "Not too bad. I did well on finals. How are you?"

"That's good." (Grades are very important.) "Me?... Ah, you know. Okay. Same as always."
He speaks offhandedly, but he's gone from a pleased grin to a more embarrassed one. Having a girlfriend is not usual, for him. Talking about her might jinx it, you know.
Norm turns, heading for the office/living room - the one Mort slept in during his stay.
"So, are you living on your own again, or...?" Yay for preemptive subject-changing!

"Well, all right." Mort raises his eyebrows, not sure if that's good or bad.
"Oh, I--well, I got them to put me in a hotel, temporarily, and I'll be moving into the dorms at Keaton at the beginning of next semester."
He trails after Norm, musing, "It will be weird to have a roommate."

'Well, here's to hoping you don't get stuck with anyone really obnoxious."
Norm smirks. Ah, the memories.
"When I was in uni, there was a guy on my floor who purposely drove off his roommate. Well, roommates, actually. It was so he could have a double room to himself." He gives a low chuckle. "He got kicked out of that dorm after the fourth one complained."

"That's insane!" Mort looks really shocked, big-eyed and everything; he and Cassandra weren't living on their own so long that he's forgotten how crucial it is to get along with the people you live with.
"I'm going to try to be pretty...quiet, even if I don't like my roommate. I'm already nervous about..." and he flicks one antenna just slightly.

He frowns, eyeing the top of Mort's head.
"Yeah,... those could be a problem." He grimaces. "If you're going to be living in close quarters with someone, it's going to be difficult to keep any secrets. Just being quiet is probably your best chance."

"Especially since wearing a hat all the time would just draw more attention to me," judging by the distant look in his eyes, he's just testing ideas in his mind to see if they would work or not. "I wonder if I could get someone to put up some kind of illusion, like the ones my sister had on me."

"Well, since asking your sister is definitely out of the question..."
He begins clearing the mess of stained-glass-planning supplies off the table.
"Uh..." He doesn't actually know many... people who could do that sort of thing. He certainly doesn't go looking for them. "How about that guy who was teaching you to control your,...well, yourself?" (He won't say 'powers'. He just won't.) "I know he can do something like what you'd need."

"You're right."
Mort hadn't thought of him because he finds him a bit scary.
"I'll...try to get a hold of him. Do you think he would charge?"

Norm looks up briefly, frowning.
"I don't think he would. I don't know, though. I mean, he didn't mention charging for teaching you, before. It shouldn't be different, this time."
The papers and whatever else he was using are stacked and set on the corner of his neat, if overburdened, desk.
"And, you know, if worse comes to worst, you really could just wear a hat. If anyone asks, tell them it's your lucky hat." He smirks. "You can practically count on there being people who do stranger things than constantly wear hats. You probably won't even register."

"I don't think I want to say I have a lucky hat--maybe they'd ignore it, but not everyone would. Someone might notice."
Once again, he's thinking aloud. Now his voice takes on a worried tone.
"Everything's so much more complicated with all these...strange things."

"Mmhmm..."
Norm finishes neatening the papers, then flops into the chair at his desk. He gives Mort a considering look, biting on the inside of his lip.
"You haven't got it easy, that's for sure. At least with me, nothing is actually visible." It's only that his thoughts pour right out of his head, without even going through his mouth. "Ever consider having your-" Cough. "antennae taken off? It's kind of extreme, but... if they're that much trouble..."

Mort looks up as if noticing Norm for the first time, and claps his hands over his head, eyes huge with horror.
"No. I--no! That hurts."
Well, no one ever accused him of being brave.

"Whoa, calm down." He holds up his hands, palms out - see, nothing's wrong here. "Just a suggestion."
Norm tips his head to one side, frowning, and slowly his hands fall.
"...One of them was taken off before, wasn't it? ...I forgot."

"Yes." Slowly, he moves his hands away from his head, letting them hang with forced relaxation at his sides.
"It was just like...I wouldn't know what amputation is like, but it was...similar to the way that is described. I didn't even know it was there, and then all of a sudden I could feel it missing."

Norm winces slightly. Okay, bad idea.
"Not something you'd want to happen again, obviously."
Sigh.
"I guess you're just going to have to hope nobody notices."

"Yes, if that Keye can't do anything."
Mort's personal opinion is that Keye didn't seem all that intelligent. It was only the ghost girl who had done any good.

"Yeah. Well, he seemed to know about that kind of thing. Maybe he can help."
He made a piece of paper glow, and he knows more about weird things than Norm does. This, in Norm's opinion, quaifies him for the task.
"Oh, guess what?" Time to change the subject to something slightly more cheerful, or at least distracting. "I got around to cleaning the fireplace last week,...or was it the week before? ...Well, anyway. There were old birds' nests in the chimney."

"Nests?"
Mort tilts his head with interest and takes a step forward.
"Were there any birds? Did you save them?"

"No, no birds. The nests were abandoned. There were bits of shell in one of them, though. Funny bluey-green ones. I think that means it was a robin's nest, but I really don't know." Norm quickly scans the room, his gaze landing on a beaten-up cardboard box stuffed in a corner with 'Dishes' scrawled on it in marker. "I kept them. Probably I'm going to throw them out, though. They kind of smell."

"May I look at them before you do?"
Mild curiosity--Mort isn't much given to excitement, but he's pleased to have something new to examine. He straightens his glasses with a faint smile.

"Oh, yeah. Sure."
He nods to the 'Dishes' box.
"They're in there. They're kind of brittle, so..." Norm catches himself, and chuckles. He's too used to thngs around him being breakable. "Well, I'm throwing them out anyway. No need to be careful."

"All right..." he wanders in that direction, rather vague-eyed, and begins to sift through the nests, handling them with light, careful fingers.
"So," he says, hands now comfortably occupied, "What have you been up to? Were you working on a new suncatcher before I came? I saw the drawing before you took it off the desk--a strange shape, so I couldn't think of anything else it might be."

"Uh,... nothing much. Just hanging around with people."
He's suddenly awkward.
"Yeah, it's a suncatcher." And just as suddenly, he isn't awkward anymore. "It's, uh,...well, it's not anything. I just liked the shapes."

Mort looks over his shoulder and grins, his glasses sliding partway down his nose.
"You were right: robin's nest. What colors will it be?"

"I don't know. I was thinking blue, maybe green. Down at the shop, they have this iridescent sort of specialty glass I've been wanting to try, but I wouldn't want to use it on something I just threw together." He shrugs. "Maybe if I think of something that's actually a picture instead of just sharp bits, I'll give it a shot."

"There is nothing wrong with sharp bits," Mort replies with a shrug. "Abstract art."

"Yeah. I guess." Norm gives a small nod. "If I can start getting things to fit together properly,... maybe then."
Shrug.
"Hey, how about we get a fire going? I think I've got the graham crackers and things for s'mores, you know, like we talked about that other time."
He's just full of random subject changes, isn't he.

Mort blinks at him for a moment, then breaks into what is, for him, an unusually broad grin.
"You did?"
He's shocked (and delighted) that Norm even remembered.
"Sure! Let's do that!"

"Alright." Norm smirks, pleased at the response. He gets up, pushes his chair back up to the desk. "You know where the kitchen is, right? Could you go get the marshmallows and things?"
He jerks his head in the general direction of the fireplace.
"I'm going to light the fire."
He feels it would be rather insensitive to ask Mort to do the fire-lighting instead, what with one thing and another.

"Okay. I'll be right back!"
He stands, placing the nest gently back down in the box and trots off towards the kitchen, stopping once to look back in faint confusion. It wasn't lost on him that Norm had taken it upon himself to light the fire and sent Mort to root through his kitchen, though he's not sure whether Norm did it on purpose or not.

Norm gives a smile and a small go-on nod when Mort looks back, seemingly oblivious to the confusion - he doesn't want to make an issue out of it, if he can help it.
"The stuff's in one of the cupboards under the counter. I think the one below the phone."
Norm's quite neat about the kitchen. They shouldn't be difficult to find. The only things even remotely messy in there are his written phone messages, on a small pad of paper - reminders to 'Call Jonathan', or meaningless bored-while-on-thephone scribbles, of spirals, or varying sloppy portraits of a girl with sunglasses and/or cat eyes.

He turns and begins digging through the lowest desk drawer, and fishes out an unopened package of cheap lighters from under an old (also unopened) pack of cigarettes.
And on to light the fire.

Mort scuffles for a few minutes (he is at least passingly familiar with Norm's kitchen) and comes back with a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers. and a handful of wooden skewers. He kneels beside Norm, looking somewhat morosely into the fireplace, though he's still smiling.

Norm is kneeling in front of the fireplace, nudging a piece of splintered kindling into place over a small flame.
"Oh, good, you found them."
Norm tosses him a grin, his expression becoming edged with puzzlement when he sees the peculiar look on Mort's face. To comment, or not to comment?
"...We just have to wait for it to catch, and then we can start."
Not, apparently.

"Great." Distracted by Norm's words, his smile flares to full life again, the faint images of windows pouring flame fading back out of his consciousness. He sits too neatly for someone about to make s'mores, in a cross-legged position, and begins placing marshmallows on skewers and opening chocolate bars.

Norm watches him for a few moments, and then cautiously mimics hm.
"I've never actually made these before," he remarks. "I tried putting marshmallows in the microwave once, though, to see what would happen." A low chuckle. "It really isn't as fun as everyone says it is."

"I did that too, when I was little," he grins ruefully. "I got in big trouble. A bunch of people sharing one microwave, and I ruined it."