(SHORT) please send help! {Matt}

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle was trying to help more around the house. She couldn't cook, because she wasn't allowed in the kitchen but she could (conceivably) do the grocery shopping. She could have been out on this wonderful Sunday morning doing something interesting like fishing, or working on the cars, or playing her guitar up in her room. But no! She was determined to help out more around the house. She'd obtained the list from her grandfather and a small handful of coupons for a store located around the mall, the list itself was incredibly specific and included the brand, the type of food, and even the amount she should buy. Her grandfather had handed over slim billfold filled with the family food budget (much larger now that she ate enough for three additional people at any given point in time) and she'd put the wallet into her purse along with her cellphone and the shopping list before getting into her car and driving to the mall.

Driving was always somewhat of an adventure for her since she could put her foot through the floorboards. However, thanks to the help of her father and her grandfather they had reinforced the frame of her Mustang and some of the equipment so that Axelle could put her foot down a bit more comfortably, and drive without fear of immediately yanking her steering wheel off, but she still had to control herself quite a bit as she drove. After safely arriving at the mall and locking her car she found a cart abandoned far out into the lot and carefully steered it into the store. She fumbled in her purse for the list her grandfather gave her and set off to find the needed items. There was a mixture of household and food items on the list and she decided to get household items first....until she was distracted by the cereal aisle. There was cereal on the list and she could buy anything she wanted as long as it was a certain size box and brand (according to her grandfather's list). Deciding that she was super tired of Cheerio's she decided that she wanted something colorful and loaded with sugar...but the cereal she wanted was on the top of the shelf.

Axelle glared at the offending placement and knew she was too short to get the item she wanted. To make matters all the worse, she couldn't seem to find an employee lurking around to help her. It was rude to ask other customers, and besides none of them were around either, a few having left when she entered the aisle and another coming and going while she stared at the cereal she really...really...really wanted. Why did everything have to be just out of her reach?! Maybe she could just go and get something else and come back to get it later? Feeling obstinate and irritated she got on her tip toes and reached futilely for the box anyway, cursing her inevitable failure under her breath. "Ugh, shit..."

[Matt Davis]

Matt would normally ride his bike into town, though today he had abandoned his bike in favour of the public bus. While riding to the mall was fun and a good workout, he found that taking the bus was actually a more enjoyable outing. He wasn’t all sweaty and his hair wasn’t a mess… Heck he actually looked how he liked, and he was able to comfortably wear his jeans and jacket without getting all hot and feeling uncomfortable.

Looking neat and not sweaty was only a happy coincidence, though. The main reason he had decided to take to a combustion engine rather than his own pedal power was that he would be hauling a lot more on the way back. After a few jobs fixing up cars around town, he had enough money to do something he’d wanted to do for some time. An old fashioned cookout! Burgars, dogs, steak, corn, chicken, baked beans, and who knew what else! He had a while left until the bus would be swinging around, and he decided that he’d pick up all the meats a little bit later so that they wouldn’t be sitting in the warm basket too long. He already had a grill purchased and a bag of coal, so he’d be alright to just hang around for now.

He grabbed some corn meal and some peanut oil, and a few other things while he was milling about. His basket was filled with some stuff for the grill, like tongs and a fork, as well as a few personal things like the axe scrubbie-loofa-thingy. Now he was looking for some quick and easy meals. Chef Boyardee was his favorite cook these days and he was taking advantage of the ‘4 for 5 dollar’ deal. Next on his mental list would be stuff to fill him up in the morning. He’d grab some frozen stuff at the most awesome of all isles, but first he’d grab some dry cereal.

When he turned the corner to the cereal aisle he made a bee-line for the special K. It was the healthiest choice after all. According to the commercials with the happy people sucking on their spoon after each bite and giggling. It never made him giggle though. What did make him giggle was the misadventures of Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch and the S.S. Guppy.

While walking down the aisle he noticed a girl ahead of him, a cute little thing with bright red hair. Familiar red hair. He had walked a few meters before he realized why that was the case. It was the car-tossin’, guy chunkin’, super strong mutant he boxed near. Matt figured it’d be best to grab is cereal and leave. He dropped the special K and considered leaving the Cap’n for now, since it’d draw him closer to her…

Unfortunately he watched her a little longer than he should have. She had just come down from her tip toes, unable to reach the top shelf. Matt paused in his steps, not the kind to just walk away from someone who needed help, even if it was just a little help. Come on man, just walk away Matt thought. It wasn’t him, though. He had to help. Matt walked along the sweeter cereal line and grabbed a cap’n crunch box with berries. He tossed it into the basket before coming to Axelle’s side.

“Want some help?” He asked while reaching up, not giving her the chance to say no and save her pride, and he grabbed the box she was reaching for. He brought it down and offered it to the fiery haired meta. “Here...Axelle, right?”

[Axelle Flint]

She’d had been so focused on her failure of obtaining the cereal that she had more or less forgotten that she was in public. Axelle jumped a bit when someone loomed over her, asked if she needed help and then helped her anyway. She turned her head so quickly it sent her sea-horse earring all a flutter with the movement as she stared up, and up, and up at the person who had helped her and met the eyes of the boy she'd met earlier this week. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. He was tall, way taller than her...taller than her father, he just kept going. She jealously wondered what it must be like to be that tall, to never have to get a stool, or use your tip toes. It must be lovely. "Yes, thank you...Matt," she finally got out when she realized that she'd been staring at him this whole time without saying anything. Since she didn't need him to think she was any more weird or unstable than he already (most likely) thought she was, she carefully put the cereal into her basket and pulled it backwards so she could turn it to pass him.

She would have rather gone quickly, but being careful dictated that she needed to move a little more slowly than she would have liked. Since he'd beaten a hasty retreat the last time they had talked, she assumed that he wouldn't want to be near her any more than he had to be and was attempting to be mature about the situation. Normally she would have relished the idea of making someone uncomfortable with her presence but she was in public and she was trying to show her guardians that she was a responsible adult. Annoying someone because you could was not responsible; in fact she was quite certain that it was the opposite of responsible. She pushed her cart past him with a nod of her head and traveled down the aisle to get her grandfather's cereal...that the fates had deemed should also be on the top shelf because the sections she could have reached on her top toes was empty (as far as she knew). She even reached and felt around anyway because she would not be denied! Alas, her questing hand met only the metal of the shelf and nothing else. She stared forlornly at the boxes out of her reach and then decided, for the sake of prudence that she would simply tell her grandfather that there were no Cheerio’s to be had…anywhere.

Decision made she began to leave in order to get the other items on her list.

[Matt Davis]

She was staring at him for some time, he thought. She was probably rolling over their last meeting, or trying to remember his name. It didn’t look like it was coming easily to her. When she finally snapped to it, said the correct name, and moved away she seemed to be doing so uneasily. Had he been bothering her? Or was she thinking about their last meeting. Maybe refraining from blurting out that she didn’t want his help and throwing him? He swallowed and shifted the bag some. He hadn’t even realized he was watching her at first. His mind simply went to the idea of how strong she might be. What she could do to him, or in this store. Heck if she got frustrated she might just topple an aisle over or something.

When he realized he had been staring at her, he blinked and made out what she was doing. Reaching her hand back to try and find something in the darkness of the shelf. He moved some to see where she was reaching. She wasn’t finding anything, but instead of finding help or a stool or anything she just went on. He sighed some, almost glad that she didn’t ask him.

Why, though? He would’ve helped her of course… Even if he didn’t want to at first. Why didn’t he want to? She obviously -needed- some help. It didn’t matter if he wanted to or not, someone needed something that he could do. Maybe she wouldn’t try harder to keep from growing angry and throwing a fit, or cars, or people. Before he even knew it, or even considered helping her, he was moving. He stopped by the gap in the cereal and peered down at the cheerios hidden at the back. He reached in and grabbed a box before looking at the back of her head.

“Hey.” He called out while walking up beside of her. She may have not known he was speaking to her though, so he moved faster. He was quick, and quite capable of keeping pace with her as she carefully moved forward. “Hey...Did you need this?” He offered out the cheerios she was reaching for. “... Or, you know… I’ve got some time to kill, if you need any help with...anything else. I’ve seen the stockers, they put things pretty high…”

[Axelle Flint]

Axelle had heard him yell behind her and was sure he must have seen someone he knew, so it was another shock when he came back into her line of sight and offered her the box of Cheerios that she'd been trying to reach. She stared at it for a moment, as if she couldn't quite believe that it was there and then looked at him as he offered to help her. Did he feel bad about their first meeting? He hadn't necessarily been as big a dick to her as Lucas had and if this was his way of saying sorry she was a bit more inclined to forgive and forget, but she didn't want to get too optimistic about whatever his motives might be, he could just feel sorry for her. That made her frown a bit as she took the cereal from him, she did not need pity! She was just short! But…he had offered, so that was a good sign right? For as competitive as she could be, Axelle wasn’t actually all that combative unless she had a reason to be. Matt wasn’t giving her a reason.

“Thank you,” she finally said with a bit of hesitation at the end. “I might…need your help, so…okay,” she wasn’t sure what else to say after that. She wasn’t flustered but she was confused and she really wished she wasn’t. It would probably be a lot easier if she could… “Hey, don’t you like…not like me or something?” she asked finally, point blank. She’d rather know now than have it eat away at her as she was shopping. “I mean like, you ran out pretty fast that time we met in the training rooms and you didn’t seem all that happy before then either,” she added as she looked up at him and waited for him to answer. Even before the whole thing with her CD player had happened he'd distanced himself from her pretty fast so she felt like it was a legitimate issue to address.