Electra
-
Posts
11,284 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Electra
-
When they broke off this time, Stesha's face was pink and she was holding on partially so her knees wouldn't give out. "Let's go back to camp," she suggested with a smile that was just a little nervous. Raising a hand, she touched one of the flowers in her hair, and sent them both rushing through a world of green for a moment before they reappeared from the large tree next to the cabana. They were both dripping seawater, but the air was warm and Stesha, at least, was too distracted to care. "We both want more," she said, her voice a little breathless, "so why not?" Taking his hand, she led him into the tent, the smell of flowers still perfuming the air.
-
Once outside, Erin swiftly closed the distance between them, running in smooth strides to catch up before the kid knew she was behind him. Darting up the steps, she neatly cuffed his wrists with her hands and pinned them behind his back. "Hey Joey," she said conversationally, "does your probation officer know you're hacking at the library on weekends?"
-
Erin is catching up with her move action, and going for an all-out no damage grapple attack, attempting to pin his arms behind him with her hands. Attack roll is 31. Grapple check is 46.
-
Erin's initiative is 24!
-
"That's it, he did something," Erin muttered as soon as the little object was in place. "Check and make sure it's not a bomb or something. I'll make sure he doesn't get away." Without bothering to ascertain whether Mike knew what a bomb looked like, Erin was off, weaving her way between shelves and carrels, trying to keep the kid in sight without actually having to tackle him before he got outside. A fight in the library would be easier for her, but it was also more dangerous for everyone around them. Maybe he'd just come quietly, but she didn't hold out much hope for that.
-
"Yeah, better tell her," Erin murmured, glancing around for a glimpse of Nerd-boy anywhere among the computers or the stacks. "Maybe she can give him a quick check. They got community service," she told him, looking like the words tasted bad, "so if he's not doing anything actually wrong, we have to leave him alone." Despite that sentiment, she was already up on the balls of her feet, looking ready for a fight to break out.
-
Erin gave Mike an odd look for the wink, not really a facial expression she associated with him, but figured he was acting a little weird because Mark was around. Guys got weird when they were competing over a girl, and maybe he figured that emulating Mark was the way to go. "Okay," she said, heading back towards the banks of terminals behind the reference island. They'd barely cleared the reference librarian's desk when Erin jerked to a halt, jabbing Mike with an elbow hard enough that she'd have knocked the wind out of a weaker person. "Look," she muttered. "It's Nerd Boy's buddy, Alakazam or whatever," she muttered. "What do you think he's doing here?"
-
They both explored the excellent idea for quite awhile, as the sun shone down and the scent of flowers wafted on the warm ocean breeze. Stesha slid her hands down his back so they were holding onto each other, rather enjoying the wiry muscles and the warmth of his skin. When they finally broke off to breathe, she gave him a slightly dazed smile. "So," she began, "after the way our date ended last week, I got to thinking. I wanted to be sure, you know. And I'm pretty sure now." Before he had a chance to respond, or even to think about it, she was kissing him again, a little breathless, but still game.
-
Erin resisted the temptation to roll her eyes, for all she was standing behind Mark and Alex. She handed off the last of Alex's books, then cracked her knuckles, releasing the small cramp in her fingers. "I'm going to go play with the computers," she told Alex. "We can meet up when you're ready to check out." She didn't have a library card, not having any valid ID from anywhere, but generally they didn't check too hard on the public terminals here. And while books were well and good, the internet was a lot more fun.
-
Stesha laughed. "It's funny when he flirts," she pointed out. "It still makes me tongue tied sometimes, but it's not like he really means it, or like he's going to be offended if you turn him down. It's just the way he acts. He could probably teach lessons in that if he wanted to, and I figure maybe I'll pick up a few pointers if I just watch him for awhile. But wrestling..." She thought about that for a minute. "I don't know. I think flirting while you're throwing someone around or being thrown around would be a little weird. But I've never even met Arrowhawk. Isn't he a long-range fighter?"
-
Erin shifted from foot to foot, carrying Alex's hefty pile of hardback books like they weighed nothing. She wasn't exactly sure why she'd been asked to come along on this trip, with both Mark and Mike surely willing to carry her books for her, but then, she wasn't entirely sure why Mike was along, either. He'd never struck her as a big "recreational library" type. Maybe it was all part of Alex's master plan for getting Mark and Mike to be friends and getting Erin off-campus more often. It wasn't as though she had much better to do, for once. With school starting, her schedule had really slowed down. It was sort of a relief, but it was also nice to keep busy enough to not have a lot of thinking time. "Yeah, it's nice," she told Mark, for lack of anything better to say.
-
Stesha made a face. "Yeah... I really can't foresee any situation where I would ever willingly get within arms reach of Jack again. But maybe it doesn't need to be a superhero. I mean, there must be people who can be hired for self-defense lessons. It's not like we'd be going in costume or talking about fighting villains, we'd just learn how to subdue an attacker and hold him still long enough for a giant plant to eat him." She grinned. "Maybe leave that last part out. But there's got to be something between badass-death-machine training and what we saw in there today."
-
She sputtered and laughed at the splashing, grabbing hold of his shoulders to keep from overbalancing into the water. It would've been perfectly easy to splash him again, but here they were, in the middle of a deserted paradise, just the two of them, and her body was already pressed against his... Standing on tiptoe, Stesha closed her eyes and kissed him. It seemed like a really good idea.
-
Pleased with his response, Stesha waited up for him so they stepped into the water together. "It's a lot warmer than Lake Michigan!" she said with a laugh, squishing her toes down into the wet sand. She put an arm around his waist for balance as they waded out a little deeper, past her knees and nearly to the tips of her hair. That felt very nice and got her heart beating a little faster as the gentle waves lapped around them. "And you're right about the salt, too. This is great." Indeed, she looked about as happy as a plant controller could be, half-submerged in warm fresh water and with sunlight streaming down all around them. Playfully, she reached out her free hand and scooped it through the water, giving him a little splash.
-
"But I don't want to have slugfests!" Stesha protested. "He keeps chasing me! I would be happy if I never had to fight a villain. And this one is really screwed up in the head. If he gets out of jail again, I think I'm going to have to move, or he'll keep chasing me down. And I really like my place, so that kind of sucks." She frowned at the remains of her ice cream. "But maybe if I learn enough self-defense, I can fight him without help... Guess we need a better class," she offered.
-
Erin nodded at Mike. "Yeah, and see if you notice anything along the way. Let Alex know if you see anyone, or if anyone looks like they're trying to get out. Stay low if you're going to fly," she added with a glance at Eddie, "there's no reason to make a big deal of this if we're wrong." She approached the fence to the waterpark, looking through to see if anything was moving on the other side.
-
Stesha shook her head, licking up the ice cream that was threatening to fall out of the cone. "I don't even understand how people like you and him can keep doing that sort of thing day in and day out," she admitted. "I would've been scared to death. I know I couldn't have gone back the second time to take on the bad guy. Guess that's why they pay you the big money," she added with a wink. "Even if you aren't always hitting the bad guys, just being there is more than most people could do. That's one reason I was so reluctant to go out with Ace and do this costume thing. If you have a costume, that's a commitment, you know? You're saying, at least to yourself, that you're not some florist running around at night like a crazy woman, you're actually a hero. Which is kind of scary."
-
Stesha's eyes were wide, a trickle of ice cream melting down onto her hand as she listened to the story. Absently, she dabbed at it with a laughably thin paper napkin. "He stabbed him? I didn't even know that was possible in that form," she admitted. "My hands just pass right through him when he's like that... so what happened then?"
-
"Yes, I'd like that," Stesha agreed, nibbling the edge of her chocolate dipped cone. "We don't really talk very much about what he does with the Knights, but I'm curious to know." She grinned. "Most of the time, when we're out together, it's nice to just be people and talk about normal things, even if we're a million miles away, but that doesn't mean I don't like to hear a good heroic story sometimes."
-
Stesha finished chortling into her birthday cake cone and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Well, there's not much punching involved," she quipped, then settled down. "We've been dating for a little while now. Moira introduced us. I really, really like him." She considered saying more, but decided not to. Even she wasn't entirely sure about all her feelings at the moment on that score. "Sometimes he seems a little clueless, but then other times I think he understands everything and just doesn't let any of it bother him. Which is weird, but I'm getting used to it."
-
Erin glanced at her and rolled her eyes, a smile twitching the corners of her lips. "Now there's faith. I've never let you get splatted before, have I?" She shifted smoothly into drive and took her foot off the brake, letting the truck coast for a moment before starting to accelerate. It was a lot more responsive than the old Jeep she'd taken halfway across the country, and leapt forward just a bit before she figured out the proper amount of pressure. "Big engine," she commented blandly, resettling her hands on the steering wheel and accelerating at a much steadier pace. She didn't go for the track of cones, just driving the big vehicle in a wide circle around the open lot. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth part of the time, but the trip itself was not bad, for someone self-taught who hadn't driven in a year. "It's easy to steer," she told Alex. "I don't know I'd want to try and park it on the street, though. You should try driving it."
-
"Me neither," she told him with a laugh, sliding her fingers through his hair and behind his ear once before disengaging and stepping away to pull off her clothes. "I'm from Chicago, after all. But the water's so clear and blue, it has to be shallow for quite a ways. We'll just wade, and dig out the snorkeling stuff later." She tugged her t-shirt over her head and slid out of her shorts, leaving both puddled in the sand while she straightened the small mess the movement had made of her hair. Her swimsuit was blue and green, as promised, an abbreviated tank top that revealed everything from ribs to navel before the bottom part started up. Stesha was all too aware she didn't have a model's physique, or a superheroine's for that matter, but if she ever planned to show him, well, everything, might as well start with the tummy and thighs. For all that the saleswoman had assured her that the curves she was showing were exactly the right ones in the right places, she wasn't entirely reassured. She released her hair and let it fall loose down her back, past her waist, and stepped towards the water, sneaking a glance over Derrick's way to see what he thought. She'd spent hours picking out the wretched thing, so she hoped he appreciated it.
-
She looked up and smiled at him, her arms still looped around his waist. "I did ask," she agreed. "I want to know more about you, even if some of it is sad. But I'm glad you've been able to work it out." She still felt a little bit of unease, not so much for his situation as about her worries with the secrets she kept from her own family, but for now she could push those aside. All those worries were, literally, a million miles away for the moment. "Want to go in the water?" she asked.
-
"I'm sorry," Stesha told him softly, touching his cheek with her fingertips. "That must have been hard for both of you. I think it's hard for anyone who hasn't been outside of everything people think of as normal to understand how much goes on, and how much there is to think about. I mean, I only have the smallest glimpse myself, really. I'm sure your brother is grateful, wherever he is, that you're back now and able to help. Nobody can say what might have happened, but you're doing the best you can now. That's important." Impulsively, she reached out and gave him a hug, because it seemed like he could use it, and she could too. It was a very sad reminder of how this sort of work could pull you away from what had been most important before.
-
"That's nice," Stesha said, a little wistfully. "That she knows, I mean, and it isn't a big secret. Though maybe you should tell the kids now," she added with a smile, "so they're still young enough to think it's very cool. Did she take it well when you told her the truth?" she asked, turning a multicolored seashell over in her hands. "Was she upset or anything like that? She must've been glad just to see you alive again, after all that time."