Old Friends are Bliss |Heidi|

[Luke Bowers]

* LUKE ( OLIVER ) BOWERS ,

Listen Luke. He pressed his forehead against the cool wall as she began to speak, not even noticing her change of tone until she continued speaking. It must have been her lecture voice or something – something he hadn’t ever heard from her before. But at the same time, he realized it was probably fear talking as well. He turned around as she apologized and sat on the floor opposite of her. She was right. He probably shouldn’t voice stuff like that out loud, even though it made him feel calmer. It was his way of coming to a sudden realization with the situation he was in and that he needed to find a way to get out of it if something unexpected happened. But he guessed he would just have to play it out in his head from now on.

”If anybody should be apologizing, it’s me.” He crossed his legs and leaned back against the wall. It was messed up how it was only about an hour ago when they had been actually having fun out in the forest. They had even gotten to swim for a bit. Now they were in the dorm building while it stormed outside and threatened to toss them into complete darkness. He was pretty sure it wasn’t even a little storm either. ”I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, though you have probably noticed, but during bad situations, I’m a go-go-go type of person.” He tilted his head so that he could look at her and sighed as the rain picked up again. ”I wasn’t purposely trying to worry you or be too rough back there.” Back there being in the hallway when he had pulled her along behind him. Apologizing didn’t come easy to him, even though he could admit when he was wrong. But he was talking to Heidi – he had known her for a long time. ”So... I’m sorry.”

Luke rested his head on the wall as the hallway started to fill with silence, minus the rain and wind outside of the building. Both wanted desperately to get in, but they weren’t going to if he could help it. He looked over again when she started talking again. It had one of those tones people got when they were trying to recover from something bad or awkward. This situation apparently called for one. Luke laughed a little and shrugged. ”We have monsoons in Arizona. We were in a hurricane once when we traveled somewhere. Not only that, but I’m majoring in Environmental Design, so I’ve researched storms a few times.” He probably did more work than he needed to, but he found it interesting all the same. Not crazy storm chaser interesting, but a little research never really hurt anybody.

He stood up and walked down the hallway towards one of the rooms. Locked. He continued trying rooms until he found one that wasn’t and went inside. After digging around in the room for a few minutes he came back out and started back down the hallway with two blankets in hand. As he stopped in front of her, he held them out towards her. ”Which one do you want?” Now that he thought they were pretty safe, he didn’t think there was really any point in being so uptight about everything. That was why he was letting her choose one, rather than just giving her whichever. The storm was there so matter what, so they could sit there in total silence or they could do something to get their minds off of it. He just wasn’t quite sure what that was yet. ”Feel free to try and take a nap if you’re tired.”

tagged , Heidi
words , 616
lyrics , run this town - jay-z
muse , None.
notes , None.
credit , rora @ hos

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[Heidi Valentine]

”If anybody should be apologizing, it’s me.”

She looked up from her crouched position and glanced over his way briefly, still huddled up in the corner. Not out of fear, but simply because she was trying to retain heat. The walls were cold to the touch, and not helping the whole warmth thing. "Luke, please-" she cut off, letting him finish.

”I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, though you have probably noticed, but during bad situations, I’m a go-go-go type of person.” She couldn't help but smirk a little at this, and even subsided into chuckling a little as she nodded her head, applying this to the day's events since the weather started to hit. Thunder boomed from outside as she turned her head around to face the wall, half expecting to see it came in from the grand vibration it gave off. Hearing him apologize was something she wasn't quite used to hearing. They'd never really gotten into anything that was worth apologizing over, and only saw each other before now only a couple of weeks here and there out of the year when he was on vacation. Still, it wasn't something to reject.

She bit her lip once and half nodded, then resorted to shaking her head. "You don't have to be sorry, Luke. Guess it's part of the whole 'fight or flight' response, huh?" she mused rather softly, reclining her head to the wall behind her as she used a finger or two to tuck the hair behind her ears and out of her face. Man, she should've gotten a hair tie or something. Tired hazel eyes dropped to the floor tile just before her feet, then, and idly traced it's outline. "Anywhoo, your 'go-go-go'ness, as you call it, is what got us safe and sound. So it's cool." She cracked a smile and continued to trace the outline with her gaze. ”We have monsoons in Arizona. We were in a hurricane once when we traveled somewhere. Not only that, but I’m majoring in Environmental Design, so I’ve researched storms a few times.”

Monsoons? Really? She blinked once or twice in amazement, and curiosity. Maybe Arizona wasn't some desert waste land she'd originally thought it to be after-all. How interesting. "Huh. So sounds like you've done your homework there," another half smile was made as she closed her eyes, body aching all over from the exhilaration of the day. It was forcing her to sleep, begging and pleading with her still buzzing mind to finally put it's self to rest. Sleep her canine half spoke up, whining. Often times, she liked to sleep as her shifted form back at home on those rare occasions when she would shift at all. Or if her body was too tired, it was known to force the shift more or less. But that'd only happened one other time that she could recall. But, in the current situation with impending doom just on the other side of the walls, Heidi reasoned with herself that shifting might not be the best idea.

She hadn't even noticed Luke's absence until he'd returned, his footsteps stopping just before herself. One eyelid pried open as it landed on the two blankets that were outstretched before her. The other soon followed as it, too, lazily worked it's self open. "Uhh.." she blinked, not holding any particular favorite from one blanket over the other. Reaching out with her right hand, cold fingers laced around the nearest one, which just so happened to be a dark navy looking color with some kind of floral print on it, and brought it closer to herself. "Thanks!" Looking down at it, she observed the design and grinned. "Y'know, Luke, if you positively can not live without this gorgeous floral print, I'll trade you?" she joked, trying to lighten up the mood some. Overhead, the lights gave a little flicker, momentarily throwing the duo into a pit of darkness for only a couple of seconds.

It would have been easy to miss, had someone not been paying attention. But for Heidi? Every little millisecond that dragged on was noticed, her eyes instinctively growing wide in the brief 'black out'. When the lights came back on, it was only then that she realized she'd been holding her breath for the few seconds that gripped her with fear, and she let it out in a cool breath, pulling the blanket up around herself. Nope. Darkness was not her friend in the slightest. ”Feel free to try and take a nap if you’re tired.” She jumped slightly, almost forgetting she was in the company of someone else, and had to laugh a little at his offer, despite it's sincerity. "I think I'm beyond tired, but if the lights keep doing that, sleep is probably going to be the last thing I'll be able to do." She paused and looked up at the ceiling, squinting as she practically dared the lights to go out again.

Figuring they were fine for now, she pushed herself off of the wall and dragged the blanket with her. Standing up, she turned to face the corner she'd been huddled in and flapped out the blanket, spreading it out smoothly in it's square shape. Squatting, she grabbed one edge of the blanket and flipped it over to it's matching opposite, then stretched over to do the same with the bottom. In the end, it came out looking like a sleeping bag, kind of. Only, without the zipper. Satisfied, she stood back up and dusted her hands off on her pants for no real apparent reason. They weren't dusty or anything. Tossing a look over her shoulder, she eyed the door to the dorm building that rattled then turned to look down into one of the dorm rooms that Luke had snuck into to get the blankets. "That should probably be supported, huh?" She asked, hooking her thumb over her shoulder towards the door as she looked back towards Luke.

Not expecting an answer, she turned and made her way down to the half open dorm room, peeking her head inside to make sure no one was there. Heidi got the willies from even thinking about taking something that wasn't hers, but... she figured this one time couldn't hurt. Besides, it was an emergency, right? I'll just.. put it back when I'm done. Came the reasoning as she slipped into the room and out of sight from the hall. The room was hardly furnished, she noticed; hardly anything above the bare essentials. Either whoever lived in there wasn't into decorating, or they were just moving in. In any case, the bare looking computer desk idling in the corner was just what her eyes were scanning for, and she quickly half-skipped over to it. Palms slapped down on the thick dark wood, and fingers found purchase just under the lip.

Heidi gave a tug, and was shocked at how heavy it was. It didn't look like it was real wood from just the appearance with the nice finish it had, but that's what it had turned out to be. Solid wood. Frowning, and growing more determined to get it to move, she bent her knees, arched her back, and gave a little grunt of effort as she pulled. Finally, the reluctant piece gave way from the wall it was beside and started to obediently, yet reluctantly, following along to Heidi's will. Ignoring the rain sounds from outside for the moment, she focused more on tugging the heavy object across the floor and into the hallway. It was narrow enough to just barely fit through the doorway, she noticed, but incredibly long. Enough to fit two computers comfortably. Once out in the hallway, Heidi gave a sigh of effort as she hopped up on the surface, body begging for her to stop, and climbed over to it's other end.

Landing on the floor with a thud, she spotted Luke down the end of the hall and gave a tired smile. "Think this'll do it?" she yelled down to him, now behind the grand antique as she started to push it down the hallway. It went easier this time, more willing to slide against the tiled floors than drag against the carpeted dorm. Heidi was well past tired at this point, but there was no way she was going to take any kind of nap with the possibility of that door swinging open and drowning her in rain water, or those lights threatening to go out. She'd have to figure out a way to accommodate for that later. The wood creaked here and there as she pushed it down the length of the hallway, finally meeting back to where she'd been before. Panting lightly, Heidi straightened herself up and gave a proud slap to the top of the desk's surface. "Wanna help me prop it up?"

TAGG? James
WORDS? 1485
NOTES? Super Desk al rescate! (<-- "To the rescue" )
CREDIT? hey it's SHMEY ! @ caution 2.0

[Luke Bowers]

* LUKE ( OLIVER ) BOWERS ,

Luke knew what happened in situations like this. It made people go crazy sometimes. They lost their temper easier, just because they were scared or frustrated. Not everyone wanted to admit that – even he didn’t want to admit that out loud. But he knew that was what happened, and he didn’t want to end up fighting with Heidi because of something like that. They had their disagreements, but it was rare to see them ever actually have an argument, or one that lasted more than half an hour. ”I guess, but I don’t have to be so rough about it.” Too bad he noticed that now and not earlier. That was Luke for everyone, though.

He nodded slightly, but shrugged. ” I guess we’ll learn more on the down the courses, but you know what happens around me when I get curious…” He forced down a yawn, trying to convince himself that he was not tired. Which wasn’t true at all. The Jaguar could see through it. It was tired and he was tired. Next time he would think twice about having a race with someone. He hadn’t even noticed anything strange before it was right on top of them, though. It wasn’t cloudy that he could see and it wasn’t even all that windy. He wasn’t about to use the race as an excuse for a distraction. In the least, the Jaguar should have picked it up. Animals were good at telling when storms and other bad things were going to happen. Much better than a human could.

When he had returned with the blankets, he suddenly remembered something else that he should get. But first he had to wait for her to choose which blanket she wanted. She picked the one in his left hand and he handed it over. He laughed slightly and shrugged. ”I think you know me well enough to know that if I favored one more than the other, I wouldn’t have given the choice to choose.” As a matter of fact, he hadn’t even looked at the designs on them when he picked them up. He just grabbed them and returned without paying much attention. It was until the lights flickered off and back on that he actually had time to wonder what would happen if the lights stayed off permanently. That’s how fast they went off and back on.

Luke laughed and dropped his blanket to the floor. ”I’m not going to let anything happen to you, so you don’t have anything to worry about.” He admitted that there were always things that were out of his control, but he didn’t want to think of it like that. Plus he couldn’t be reassuring if he through that out there at the end. He watched as she rolled the blanket up to act as a sleeping bag. He kind of dazed out with watching her until she spoke and he looked up in time to see her gesture towards the door. He started to say something, but she walked off before he could even get anything out so he started searching the rooms for something useful. He felt like he could honestly get a little of the frustration out if he kicked open a few of the locked doors. Somehow he thought there would be more bad things about doing that than good. Although it wouldn’t hurt to have claimed that there had been a good reason for it, minus releasing his frustration.

It wasn’t as if anybody else was actually there. He wondered where they were all at. Probably holed up in the cafeteria. That’s where the majority probably was- that’s where they would have been if they hadn’t needed to get clothes to wear once they shifted back. Once he left the room he noticed she had managed to get a desk part of the way into the hallway. She smiled down at him and asked him if he thought that would work. ”Sure.” He ran down to help her push it over to the door. Luke paused as she asked him if he wanted to help her prop it up. There was a likely chance he would have said something smart or sarcastic in any other case, but in that situation and how tired he was, he just didn’t feel like it. He nodded and turned it around, carefully picking it up where needed so that he could prop it against the door and keep it from coming open. ”I think that should do it. Wait here.”

He ran back upstairs and towards his room. It only took him a minute to find what he was looking for before he returned to the first floor. Part of the rush was that he didn’t want her to be down there by herself, but he also didn’t want her to be if the lights went out again. He knew that was something she didn’t like at all. Once he returned, he held out his hands and grinned. In each one there was a flashlight – he tried to be prepared for anything. ”Think these will come in handy?”

tagged , Danielle
words , 856
lyrics , run this town - jay-z
muse , The storm, I think.
notes , I don’t think this was my best post, though I did like typing it up.
credit , rora @ hos

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[Heidi Valentine]

Heidi shouldn't have been surprised as she was to see him come running down the hallway to help push the ridiculously heavy desk back. That was the sort of person he was. ”I guess, but I don’t have to be so rough about it.” She glanced over his way and shrugged lightly, almost grinning. Almost. "Don't worry. There's no bruises or marks so, you're in the clear." Something about his tone and pace of words made her curious, though. Was he tired as well? The eyes seemed to say so, from what she could tell. It made sense, anyways. After their long walk through the slightly shaded path, to their brief swim in the pond, and then to the invigorating race back home, Heidi herself was almost to the point of pure exhaustion. It was a wonder she was even able to pull and push the desk as she was now.

Her arms and legs hurt more than anything else, but she refused to curl up anywhere and sleep until A) that door was sealed shut and B) those lights were taken care of. And if Luke didn't need anything else, well, then sleep would be right around the corner. ”I think you know me well enough to know that if I favored one more than the other, I wouldn’t have given the choice to choose.” Heidi snorted once and laughed, weakly due to lack of strength. "Yeah I guess you're right. Just thought I'd offer you one over the other just in case, smarty pants." The desk was back down at the end of the hall now, and she scrambled around to help him prop it up against the door. It seemed pretty stable, heavy as it was, and she couldn't hear the rattling of the door behind it anymore now that it had something to press against. "I'd like to see the rain get through now.." came the smug remark, her hands positioning themselves on her hips proudly.

Well that took care of problem A. Nodding once, she turned away from the door, no longer concerned with it, turning to the sound of Luke's voice instead. ”I’m not going to let anything happen to you, so you don’t have anything to worry about.” Gullible as she was, this was quite easy for her to believe. She didn't stop to think about the realistic outlooks of things, or anything that could prove his statement wrong. A tired smile cross her lips as she had to once again brush the bangs out from her eyes. Man, she needed to pin these up or something. "Thanks. I'm no mighty cat of the jungle, but I'll do my best to ensure the same for you." The smile spread into a grin as she nodded once again, and blinked as he told her to stay put.

It wasn't until she saw his frame bound down the hall back towards the stairs that she gathered he was going somewhere. Before long, she was alone on the floor of the dorm building, nothing to keep her company other than the sounds of an angry, PMSing Mother Nature. Heidi sucked in air through her nose as she tried to remain calm. He won't be gone long.. she told herself, retreating back to her blanket with arms hugging her wait tightly for some sense of security. Sitting down on it, she crossed her legs and turned her neck some before grabbing her obnoxious hair, dividing it into three pieces, and braiding the lion's mane quickly. Not only would it keep her hair out from her eyes, but it'd give her something to do while she waited for Luke's return.

Ears strained to listen to the above floors, desperate to hear something - anything - that might've been Luke. Before she had a chance to get halfway down the french braid pulling at her skull, the boy was back and holding two flashlights. Breathless with both relief of his return and the excitement that picked up in her chest at the sight of the objects, her fingers stopped working as she beamed up at him. "I think you just read my mind!" she stated excitedly, extending her arm to take hold of one of the flashlights. She immediately clicked it on once, just to check the batteries, and sighed. "Well that takes care of problem number two." Hand twisted the light to point back up to the overhead lights after she clicked it back off. "And since we're giving confessions.." Heidi started slowly, setting the life saver down by her side and resuming back to finishing the braid.

"I don't handle.. the dark very well. At all, really. Kind of like a.. phobia. I don't know if you've already figured that out or not, though." A pause, then a mock chuckle. "Which is part of the reason why I kind of rushed us out of that pond-thing so fast and get on to the race. I didn't want it to get dark while we were still.. y'know, out there." Her fingers no longer having anything to keep themselves busy once the braid was done, they retreated to her lap. Unable to help it, a powerful yawn sneak attacked her while she was off guard, and sent the girl rocking back some with the effort, a hand shooting up to try and cover it with her elbow as much as possible. Shaking her head, the collie girl knew she was spent past her limit as she laid down reluctantly, and crawled under the top half of the blanket. "So, thanks." Arms folded under her head to provide a pillow as she looked up at him a moment. "I think I'm a little beyond 'tired' at this point." A grin.

TAGG? James
WORDS? 961
NOTES? It -was- a good post. .o.!
CREDIT? hey it's SHMEY ! @ caution 2.0