"No-Arlo I'm fine, seriously!"

Ariel's walking around his new apartment. It's small, two bedrooms though the one can hardly be considered a bedroom, Ariel opted to turn it into an office instead. A bathroom at the end of the hall and a not badly sized kitchen and living room.

The apartment was suspiciously cheap. Ariel had chalked it up to an old building and the apartment itself being oddly cold.

"Arlo, I'm fine" Ariel repeated, sitting on the floor in front of some boxes, picking at the cardboard as he listened to his brother,

"Ariel, I'm just worried"

"There's nothing to worry about, I moved is all..."

"Ugh, fine....but I will be visiting soon"

Ariel snorted, "I'd be sad if you didn't" he said fondly before sighing, "I should hang up, unless you wanna listen to me cuss as I put stuff away and build my bed frame"

"Mmmm yea, I'll hang up" Arlo chuckled, "call me later!"

"Will do" Ariel says before he hangs up, sighing a bit and looking around. There was more boxes than floor space and he really wasn't looking forward to unpacking at all.

"Better get to work I guess" Ariel grumbled, standing up and starting to get to it.

~!~!~!~

Ariel fell into a routine.

His house was still a bit cluttered, having to go to work every day at his boring job before coming home exhausted. He could really only unpack on the weekends.

His apartment was still rather chilly however, due to it being summer, he didn't really mind too much.

He figured if the heater was still broken by fall, he could talk to the landlord.

Stuff started to get moved around. A misplaced cup, a sweater in his office instead of bedroom, his keys on a different hook.

Ariel usually just chalked it up to him still unpacking and being exhausted coming home from work.

He also felt watched sometimes. Whenever he would watch TV, cook or read. He felt like something was watching him and eventually, he took to talking to the force.

He would carry whole conversations by himself really, deciding he was just lonely and homesick so he'd occupy himself by talking to thin air.

"And then Barbra basically told Kathy to go fuck herself" Ariel said with a sigh, "those two are only good for drama"

No response. As usual.

Ariel sighed heavily, pausing cutting up his lettuce,

"...maybe I need to get outside"

He shrugged, that could wait, for now? His focus was on filling in the nothingness about his day and making a chicken Caesar salad.