Blue Christmas (OPEN)

[Adrianna Carstyn]

~Set December 24th~


Merry, happy, jolly, joyous. The lovely holidays that everyone seemed to get so excited for. Usually it filled everyone with glee, and for the most part Hammel did seem quite cheerful. The big difference was that the usual peppy, party girl from Cali was not her usual peppy, partying self. This Christmas was a lonely one. No family to spend time with, no friends to hang out with, all alone on one of the biggest holidays of the year. And how was the brunette spending it? By running and trying desperately to get her ankle strong again. She couldn't afford another injury after what had happened when she'd been practicing. It hadn't been too serious, but she still couldn't have weak ankles.

It wasn't just that she was building strength though. Adrianna was focused on clearing her mind and her heart of everything, if only for a few hours. She was one of those people who could run all day if she felt like it. It was her escape from emotions whereas dancing just made her emotions escape. She didn't want to feel anything except the cool, brisk air brushing against her cheeks as she ran. That would help her get through this dreary day and possibly through the next day.

Amelia had felt awful when she told her daughter that the hospital wouldn't let her go and neither Adrian or her mother had enough money for Adrian to visit California for the holidays. It was a change, but she'd need to get used to being alone soon enough. After all, she couldn't expect her mother to be around forever. Even if she managed to survive this illness (which was unlikely as it was), she'd die before Adrianna.

She pulled her hair back in a pony tail and stretched before running out on the track to begin her thoughtless run. The only things she'd be thinking of was breathing and where she was going. No other thoughts or emotions would be necessary.

Well, unless someone found her...

[Luke Pyrrhos]

"This darned weather," Luke muttered to himself as he zipped up his under armour jacket as far as it would go. His lady was running the place tonight, and it was his night off, so he would do what he could to stay occupied, and what with so many options here in Pilot Ridge, he really couldn't choose just one thing to do. But first things first, he needed to make sure he didn't gain too much weight from the Christmas Ale he'd been enjoying on those hot steamy nights by the fire in their condo down a bit from main street. It was minimalist and gorgeous, big open windows, a real fire place, spacious in design and structure...basically Luke's favorite place to be in all of the northern bit of America. He would have stayed there the entire time, watching Titanic or lighting some candles and setting the mood for when his love came home, except it was a long ways away, and as he was so close to Hammel right now, why not stop on over for a spell?

He had plans of trying to get a job there later on, maybe in a year or two as a trainer or security guard. But probably as a trainer. It would be awesome to find a use for his skills and practice it on a daily basis if he could, and that's what trainers did, if the students sought them out for help and advising. But of course they would, because everyone loved him. No question about that. Or maybe if they hated him then they could try to vent to him through the training. Either way, he'd be on the training field, doing what he loved most; showing off and looking good doing it.

As the restaurant wasn't that far away from campus, he decided to jog on up there, under the dark blue sky above. It sure was nastily cold, but as his body was naturally warm, the jogging would only help him heat up a bit. And the under armour would act as another layer of insulation that should keep him toasty warm. Within a few minutes, he was already back to a normal level of warmth, and with that, he was as comfortable as he would be running shirtless on a warm spring day. Boy, how he missed the spring, with the blossoms coming out and all the girls wearing less clothing in celebration of the weather changing. Somewhere in his head he knew he had to behave, and think only about his wife, but the little diablo on his shoulder laughed at the idea, and Luke tended to go with that little fella. What did people expect? He was a guy for goodness sake, a rich and ridiculously good looking one too. It wasn't his fault that there were so many pretty girls prancing around...

Speaking of pretty girls... Luke looked ahead of him onto the track to see a familiar frame of a girl that he had a bit of a history with. He could make the decision to stay away from her, considering, or he could go up to her and talk to her. Adrianna..what a beautiful name. Too bad she'd always been so sad. He wished a lot of the time that he could cheer her up with his sexy wiles, but it didn't work all the time, although when it did, she had a smile that could light up this whole world. You see, this girl was significant because she was the only one that he had actually dated, and not just hooked up with once or twice. In fact,...now that he thought of it, they really didn't ever go through with the hooking up actions that he had originally thought he needed to survive. Odd..how did he make it through without exploding? Luke didn't really know the answer to that question, but whatever he did, here he was today, alive and sexy and healthy..so something about her must have kept him going.

Why not push the envelope? Luke sped up his pace to near lunges as he snuck up behind the lonesome girl and started up casually, "What's Miss California doing out so late tonight, and especially all by herself?" He shot her his signature smile and kept pace with her, hoping she wouldn't freak out and sock him in the face.

[Adrianna Carstyn]

Not thinking was easier than she would have expected. It helped that she was focused on keeping her stride even and strong. She wasn't aware of anything else. The cool air didn't have much of an affect on her. Her nose was a little pink, but that was the only indication that it was cold. This might actually be helpful. Things were already looking up.

But that familiar tingling sense of her power at work picked up someone else nearby. It was a warm feeling, clearly a pyrokinetic. She only knew a few in her time at Hammel. One was Zaeric's friend Ember and the other...well she knew him on a more personal level. Not that she really liked thinking about him. It was really nothing against him really, it was more of what happened because of his absence. It was all quite involved and she really was focusing on not thinking about what had happened with either men that came to mind. There was simply no way that the pyro she'd thought of was there so it was either Ember or someone else.

Adrian knew better than that though. She'd gotten good at not only controlling her power, but getting a better feel for it. Every power had a different feeling. And every person had a different essence to that feeling. She'd only vaguely picked up on it before when she'd spent time with this particular pyro. It was a passionate heat that filled her, not the fierce heat she got from Ember.

That only meant one thing.

The voice was a tip off, but Adrian wasn't surprised by it. She kept her eyes on the track in front of her and didn't even so much as glance at him. She smirked slightly in that confident way of hers. Despite her previous problems with men, she'd still managed to keep her confidence level up somehow, or at least the facade of it. Not many people could see past it, only people that knew her fairly well would pick up on it. "I'm not always surrounded by men drooling all over me. And I'm a runner, the time of day doesn't really matter to me." She said with a slight shrug.

She finally glanced over at him. He hadn't changed, not really. He was still clearly gorgeous and it made her smile at how good her taste in guys could be. At least in the looks department. "I hadn't heard you were back in town." She said simply.

[Luke Pyrrhos]

A smirk was all he needed. She didn't even aim to punch him in the face. This was a slight improvement on what he was used to for a lot of other girls that he'd dated or messed around with in the past. And good too, because he really didn't want to explain how he had gotten a black eye to his fiancee. She started conversation, so he felt that it was a good thing to keep things simple with her just as her responses were to him.

Keeping pace with Adrianna, Luke replied, "Yeah, I run the Greek Restaurant in town, on Main Street. Pyrrhos' Place." He figured it was pretty obvious of a statement, although his ego couldn't get over the fact that she hadn't been there, or all of the campus hadn't yet gone either. Who didn't love the best darned food on the planet? They must have been crazy, or just uninformed. He knew that Adrianna wasn't crazy, maybe a little sensitive, but not crazy, so he opted with the second option. "We've got the best darned baklava in the whole of Vermont. You should come on over and give it a try, let me know what you think."

Luke wanted to say more like 'How have you been, I've missed that smile', but would that really be appropriate? Not to say Luke was one for being appropriate, but he hated to see a bella mad or upset or anything of the sort. He was a charming, nurturing sort of guy, but this situation was sticky. What could he say that wouldn't make things awkward? Did she even know about Alexandria? I mean, he wasn't afraid to show off his beautiful fiancee to the world, and certainly a few other students he'd been friends with at Hammel had seen her, but for obvious reasons he hadn't exactly introduced his fiancee to his ex. She was his world though, and he would sometimes interject a conversation with his babbling daydreamy thoughts of the love of his life. But he couldn't just go and blab about it to Adrianna, that would be pretty catty, would it not? Perhaps it would be better for him to ask about her love life instead, as he hoped she had found someone and that all thoughts of who they used to be would be left untouched, as well as the happen-stance of his current love life.

"So how are things? How are you personally, if I may ask? Any prince in shining armor to sweep you off your feet?"

[Adrianna Carstyn]

Adrianna nodded absently as he spoke, her expressionless face focused strictly on running for the time being. She had no intention of letting him know how torn up she was inside. Especially because it started right after he left. Part of her blamed it on him for leaving her. But that was the irrational side that she tried to ignore. It wasn't his fault she'd gone downhill so fast. She'd nearly cheated on him with Tal. She deserved what she got. Even if it had hurt more than what she had dealt with before.

Despite the hard feelings she had of him just magically appearing in her life, she was happy he was back. He'd been one of those few guys she could actually talk to and depend on. Craven was out of the picture for the time being so she needed someone who didn't know Craven to talk to. Robbie was clearly not going to be helpful in the Craven category. Not to mention he was too busy with his tongue down Dani's throat. Ew.

"Maybe if I have time I'll stop by for a sec or whatever." She said nonchalantly. This was the solemn side of Adri that Luke surely had never seen. When she'd been around him, her life had been peachy. Perfect minus her mother's illness. Now, things were a little rough. Her mother was worse, every guy she'd turned to had hurt her in some way and she was just fed up with people in general.

She sped up a little and tried further to clear her head. Talking to him was making her think which was something she hadn't come out here to do. It was nice having him back, sure, but she didn't know him anymore. How much had he changed since he left? Had he found a new girl? Most likely he had, they were similar in the way of finding someone of the opposite. Usually, they had a choice of who they wanted next. It wouldn't surprise her if he was already married with a baby on the way. Still, she wanted to be able to know him like she used to. Heck even before they'd dated. She wanted back the sense of camaraderie that she'd lost when he left for Greece.

When he asked about her prince she almost tripped over her feet. Adrianna wasn't ready. She couldn't up and tell him that she had an interest, but that interest had an interest in another girl. It was confusing in her own head to think of it that way. If she told him she had no one, what would he do? Look down on her and think that maybe she wasn't as amazing as she'd been once. The thought of it made her frown, but she refused to lie. "Bad. And no, every prince is taken as of right now." Her answer was blunt and still completely emotionless.

She wouldn't lie, but she also would reveal just how much it hurt her to think about the fact that no one wanted her. "How about you? Married with kids yet?"