Happiness is a rush of endorphins (Open)

[Idalia Tsavaris]

It had been a strange week. Normally Idalia worked regular hours with two weeks on days and two weeks on nights. But with a sudden rash of illness that had been passed like the plague through the small and close quarters several forecasters were under the weather. But someone had gotten ill and elected to come to work instead of take an off day. Idalia couldn't say she blamed them, she couldn't count the number of times she either attended as class or otherwise done work when her face was flushed with a fever. Some things just couldn't be missed. So strange hours had been passed around and any research Idalia had been working on was on hold as she manned the forecasts and worked double duty with what was left of the forecasters. This was why after a long day, night? at the weather station she was here finishing up her day-night with a trip to the gym. She was ready for things to be back to normal. She would have to have a talk with her staff, no more getting sick.

When she pulled up to the gym the sun was just starting to rise. Grabbing a bag she walked through the doors looking just a little disheveled in her skirt and blouse. She swiped her membership card and dropped into the locker room coming out soon after in a pair of short spandex and a tank top. Taking a moment to stretch out before she dropped onto the erg, rowing machine. She set the time for twenty minutes and slipped her headphones into her ears. As the music started she started pulling. Almost immediately her legs started to burn ferociously and she started to think that twenty minutes was too long. With a glare at the screen she swore to keep her numbers low. Back straight and legs kicking off the foot stretchers Ida fought to ignore the pain racing through her as she rowed. It started to feel wonderful right around the five minute mark when her body resigned itself to the rest of the piece.

She wasn't nearly as good at this as she was in college. But either way it felt good and the last minute crept up faster than she anticipated. She sat there sliding back and forth on the slide from the left over momentum and rolled her shoulders back to get a little of the ache to vanish. She finally found the strength to rise and wobbled a little bit. Maybe she overdid it. She made her way over to the mats and started to stretch out. She had a gym membership she should do this more often. As she took a moment to breath she looked around at the people out an about. A few had night jobs, a few others were coming in before work. She envied those, but at least she could shower and collapse into bed after this. Idalia stood and pull her leg up from behind to stretch a little more and her eyes caught on the class list. She finished her stretches and wiped a hand over her wet brow. After peering at the class list Idalia whirled from the paper, the music in her ears had prevented her from hearing that someone had walked up nearby and when she whirled she gasped as she almost smacked into them. "Whoops, sorry." Ida said pulling her headphones out of her ears. The whir of machines was a stark contrast to the pounding bass that had been in her ears. "Just been one of those days, not paying attention." Idalia waved a hand around her head giving the person a smile and laughing at herself.

[Dylan Alexander]

Figuring he had time to squeeze in one gym visit before he had to go to work, Dylan was found at the chin-up bars, trying to see if he could do one hand chin-ups instead of his usual reps. He was finding it just slightly difficult but it was still doable, thankfully.

Much like everybody else in the gym, Dylan had his ears plugged with earphones to the blasting music from his portable music player. Half of the time he was in the gym, he was lost in his own world.

He blamed the fact that he almost barrelled into a petite woman on that. Yeah, it had nothing to do with the fact that he was clumsy.

At her apology, Dylan shook both his hands in an effort to stop her from it. Pulling out one earphone, a small smile appeared in the corner of his lips in an attempt to reassure the woman.

"I think the fault's mine. I have two left feet." He looked down as if to emphasise his sentence. "One of those days huh?" He nodded, knowing what she meant but also not really. Looking down at her, she did look a little tired, which wasn't a rarity when it came to mornings but it didn't hurt to ask, right? "Tired?" He asked, rolling his shoulder back and wincing when the pull was a little tighter than usual. He was definitely not going to try one hand chin ups again.

[Idalia Tsavaris]

Idalia was a little more looping than normal. But weather never stopped and consequently that meant that the job never actually stopped. She might get days off but she was always on call. She honestly probably shouldn’t have worked so hard on the erg it always made her stumble a little but then add her weariness onto of that and she was surprised she hadn’t face planted yet. She wasn’t sure if it was the weariness or if it was tired or maybe it was a little of all of them but she started losing her train of thought. He was cute. Of course she would run into someone attractive when she was looking so very… not. She smiled at him and shook her head resisting the urge to giggle. She brushed a strand of loose hair away from her face.

Now she did laugh. “Well, good thing we’re not dancing,” Idalia said with a smile. Her smile never left her face and internally she kicked herself. What kind of line was that? It was time for bed. Ida nodded emphatically feeling as though she had met someone who might understanding the wearying working world. Most of the world seemed to think that Meteorologists just sat around and talked about clouds. Which, admittedly, was partially true. But it was more like cloud physics, or which clouds would cause rain. And it was wearying working on a computer all day, sometimes her eyes just wanted to give up. There was so much going on and a vast majority of the work was prep work and by the time they got the images they wanted it was time to write the paper and analyze and no real time to appreciate the true beauty of the atmosphere.

Idalia nodded, “You have no idea. I’ve been at work for the past… What time is it?” Idalia craned her head around searching for a clock somewhere, forgetting that her phone was in her hand and had the time on it. Well, he probably had a normal person job. Granted Idalia could work normal hours if she wanted to, but she was a forecaster first and foremost and if something happened she had to be at the station anyways. She’d rather just keep her hours as they were. As chief meteorologist she was responsible if anything happened and she was also responsible for shift work. And whenever she was at work she could do her research and work on the models. But forecasting ate a lot of time. She wondered what this guy did for a living. She realized she was staring at him blearily and blinked her eyes away wondering how long she had zoned out.

[Dylan Alexander]

"I could very well decapitate you if we were dancing." Dylan chuckled, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. He was pretty sure he was being an idiot right then but he figured, might as well just continue with it. She didn't seem to mind.

At the question of time, Dylan looked down at his wrist and whistled lightly. "I've got an hour before I gotta go to work. Damn, girl what do you work as?" He asked, squinting to see if there was even a hint of what she did in her face. It was a stupid move but he was far too engrossed in his little guessing game.

[Idalia Tsavaris]

Idalia giggled very relieved that he had jumped in along with her joke. “Noted,” Idalia said, “I rather like my head, it’s been very good to me.” She laughed a little unsure why decapitation was a concern. She was honestly more concerned about the welfare of her feet. She turned back to the board and slid her finger along the list of classes. “Well there’s a Cardio Dance Class, you might wanna check out.” She smiled up at him. He was easy to talk to and Idalia was finding him very charming. “Though to avoid medical emergencies I would have to require that you let me know if you’re planning on attending.” Idalia beamed good naturedly teasing the shy boy.

Idalia sighed wistfully and felt a tang of bitterness. Normal people and their normal hours. She leaned back a bit as he peered at her and her eyes darted away from his piercing stare. And to avoid the fact that standing here she was in danger of yawning she shifted a little. It was way past her bedtime and here she was talking to a boy, just like college. Idalia felt herself flush at the thought and it was only made worse by his close examination of her. Pulling away the hand that had crept up and started to twirl the tail of her pony tail Idalia shrugged. “I’m a meteorologist.” She said warily. She had gotten quite a few interesting replies to that. They ranged from ‘Why can’t you people predict the weather?’ to ‘Oh my god! You’re that girl on the news’. While the latter was not inaccurate those closer to the first were definitely things she would snap at someone for. Forecasting was not as easy as it sounded.

Idalia’s power was even weather focused and her forecasting skills were beyond a doubt the best. But the future was the future and whenever the models got muddled Idalia’s power tended to get muddled as well. Rain was a hard thing to predict. The models did a very good job but even they were wrong, and Idalia was wrong. “So you have work in an hour, what do you do?”

[Dylan Alexander]

"That's not funny." Dylan said with a small laugh, shaking his head at the girl's sense of humour. He was starting to believe that he was actually decent at being a conversationalist.

A small frown disappeared just as fast as it appeared when he heard the girl sigh. He wondered why she sounded so...sad? "Meteorologist? That blows." Dylan winced slightly, laughing apologetically. "Sorry but yeah I mean you've probably got the worst job here in Pilot Ridge. I mean...freaky thunder storms keep happening. And uh...sudden heat and um...hail. Like...they appear out of nowhere and it's pretty hard to uh...predict isn't it?" Dylan should have quit while he was ahead. He almost talked about metas to someone who probably wasn't one! Like they didn't already have a stigma against metas. Here he was about to blab about it.

"Uh me? I'm a music teacher. At the school...up there?" He said uncertainly. Even being closely related to the school was a dangerous thing sometimes. Although she didn't look like the type to judge. He hoped she wouldn't.

"And also the swim coach. Sometimes. When the kids feel like swimming. They don't usually." He shrugged.

[Idalia Tsavaris]

And yet Idalia laughed nonetheless. “Sorry,” she lied giving him a grin. She had a rather dark sense of humor and was glad he didn’t just give her a ‘who is this crazy lady’ look. Either way she thought it was rather funny. Sometimes she had it like a whip and other times she could stand there thinking of something clever to say for an hour and when she finally got it the moment was so far passed that she would definitely get strange looks bringing it up.

Idalia gave a little bark of a laugh then paused for a moment her tired brain catching up. “Oh that was punny!” She started giggling like mad. She wasn’t sure if he had meant it as a pun but Idalia was sad she hadn’t thought of it first. She sobered enough to catch the tail end of his rant. She nodded with great emphasis and then groaned a little bit. “Oh you have no idea,” Idalia said with a longsuffering sigh. Oblivious to his worry she continued. “I mean I know they’re just kids but I mean the forecasts are hard enough and it pretty much makes us look like a bunch of idiots a lot of the time!” Idalia was a meta herself and she understood control problems, but couldn’t they keep it over Hammel? Idalia had more than once gone to Hammel to speak to the vice principals and try to figure out a way to get the kids to understand that changing the weather here, doesn’t just change it here. Teleconnections were crazy and half of her job was to predict when out of the ordinary things happened. It made her eyes bleary and painful sometimes.

“You mean Hammel?” Idalia asked raising a brow and glancing around unsure of why her voice had dropped to a whisper. Maybe his paranoia was getting to her. Or maybe she just realized that he probably had a good point about not advertising to the world that he was a meta, if he was indeed one. Oh well, mostly anyone with internet could look Idalia up and determine that she was a meta. She didn’t advertise it in her forecasts but sometimes she had to pull a few strings to get people to listen. “Oh, I swam in High School. It’s a great sport. Does the ‘school up there’ have a good team anymore?” When Idalia had been there she had been a captain her senior year and they had been a team of strong swimmers. They still competed despite the unnatural worry that they were cheating with their powers.

[Dylan Alexander]

The habit of rubbing the back of his head came on strong and soon enough, he was doing just that, out of amusement this time though. Her sense of humour was certainly something to get used to. He still couldn't believe he was carrying an actual conversation with the opposite sex without chasing her away.

When she caught up to the fact that he had made a really bad joke, he was surprised she found it remotely amusing. She must be really tired.

The mention of kids made him have a lightbulb moment, putting him at ease that she was indeed not a metaphobe. Her verbal confirmation made him sigh a little with a smile, nodding. "Yeah. Sorry. I had to make sure you uh...didn't have any trepidations towards them." He was still not sure whether he should even broadcast his genetic status. But by then, it was probably obvious.

"You did? So did I! Wait, how old are you?" He asked before shaking his head. "God, I can't believe I just let my manners go poof just because I'm finally not stammering in front of a pretty girl. I'm Dylan...by the way." He reached his hand out to her for a shake, completely oblivious to the fact that he had blurted out that he thought she was pretty.

[Idalia Tsavaris]

Idalia cocked her head at him. He must not recognize her looking so sweaty and gross. Either that or he never watched the local news. “Of course not, as much as I wish they would stop it’s certainly helpful that I have my own little advantage.” She gave a wink to him now and giggled. Yes, she was tired. Everything was starting to become hilarious. Idalia was finding this guy funny and charming. And he was attractive and socially awkward, not unlike her equally attractive neighbor. Of course once she got out of a dry spell she met two wonderful men, though chances were they were too young for her. Oh the bane of growing older!

“So you work at Hammel then, good for you looking out for your kiddies.” She grinned at him, she wondered if he knew Evan, they must work together or at least know of each other. “If you happen to run across a weather manipulator go ahead and tell them to keep an eye out on the weather.” Idalia unscrewed her water bottle and took a swing from it as her mouth started to get dry. She wasn’t sure if it was still dehydration or if it was the fact that she was talking too much. She definitely talked too much. Idalia almost choked on what liquid was in her mouth but luckily was able to swallow before giving him a shocked look. Had he just asked her how old she was? Well that was indeed direct.

She didn’t have much time to dwell as he kept rambling. She covered her mouth to hide her smile and she felt the heat rising from her face. With a crimson blush she timidly took his hand and shook it. She found herself giggling again completely flattered. “Oh, you’re too sweet, but you don’t have to lie,” Idalia said waving a hand to indicate her sweaty self. “I’m Idalia. I graduated in 2002.” She already was guessing she was older, as she didn’t recognize him or his name. “Was Coach Benly still there when you swam? Oh he was such a slave driver!”

“Do you play an instrument?” She asked suddenly remembering he was a music teacher.

[Dylan Alexander]

The poor thing was actually correct about him not watching the local news. He was a lazy butt when it came to watching TV, unless they were Saturday cartoons. He liked those. A lot.

He laughed at the wink, feeling his cheeks heating up before realising what she meant when she mentioned the advantage. She was a meta too!

"I try to do the best I can but I hardly think I'm looking out for them." He laughed a little, rubbing at his eyes a little tiredly. At least he was coaching a pretty strong team and so far...at least he hadn't gotten any complaints.

"Oh I always do. Did you know I had to actually cast a shadow over a huge patch of Hammel because one of the weather manipulators got a bit...uh...happy down there?" He quickly looked down to make his point before returning his eyes to her face. Her...very pretty face. That didn't help at all. So he concentrated on the machine behind her.

He didn't realise how sensitive the topic of age was, even as he saw her reaction. Although in his defense, he was actually not entirely sure what the reaction was for.

"Lie?" Dylan asked, a little confused. What lie was referring to? He thought to himself before shaking his head at his confusion. "Coach Benly...Oh I think I got the coach after him. Coach Masterson. But yeah, I heard of Benly's coaching methods. I did not envy the previous batch." He shook his head, a little in amusement and a little in sympathy. He did a little mental calculation before realising that she was about two or three years older than him. Drats. Just when he thought he was getting along with a girl so well.

"Ah...yeah, I do." He nodded, slightly distracted from his previous calculations. "I'm an all-rounder, I guess. I play wind, string and uh electronic instruments. Most of them by ear but I do know notes. I mean...I do teach music. Uh duh." He silently berated himself for pointing out the obvious. She must really think he was a dork.

"Uh...you look really tired. Um...do you need to go home and rest? You weren't just coming into work were you?"

[Idalia Tsavaris]

Idalia smiled behind a hand as he blushed. He was adorable and she was kicking herself because she knew her imagination was running away with her and she really hoped he wasn’t a mind reader. That would get embarrassing very quickly. She waved a hand dismissively at his humility. “You’re very protective, I can tell.” Idalia said teasingly shaking her shoulders and rolling on her heels a little bit. Wow she met an attractive man and she turned into a flirty teenager all over again. Geez, she was a mess. Well, she had to admit at least he looked equally tired. Well, perhaps tired in a different way, she was endlessly jealous that he had been sleeping but today and tomorrow she was off and she was planning on hibernating.

Her eyes went wide and she gaped at him. “Oh my God! I remember that! I thought out instruments were broken at first then someone called in. Thank goodness it was contained and thank goodness you protected Hammel. She giggled a little when she heard the conclusion and unable to stop herself her eyes followed his and jumped back up when his eyes did. She hoped he hadn’t caught onto her and so she just kept smiling. Why did stuff like that still make him shy? Was he getting happy down there? The thought made her almost burst out in laughter and turn red but luckily she just was able to keep the color from turning into laughter.

“Ah,” Idalia nodded knowingly. Benly hadn’t been there too long after she had graduated. As much of a hardass as he was she loved him he was probably the best coach the school had ever had. She bit her tongue, better not say that in front of the current swim coach. “Oh he was the worst! But I remember some of the freshies telling me about Masterson. They really seemed to like him.” The good news was that meant he probably wasn’t fresh out of college and not that much younger than her. She didn’t find two or three too outrageous. She didn’t realize that age was such a turn off for him and so she kept smiling.

“Oh nice, yeah, I never was good at the whole music thing. I’m one of the people who just needs to sit back and appreciate it.” She chuckled a little at her own joke and shrugged. He was definitely talented. She wondered how he found the time, then realized it was probably the same way she found time to work and row and go to school. If someone loved something they made time for it. Idalia’s hand flew to her face and she realized she must look very awful if he was calling her out on looking tired. “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” she laughed to hide her embarrassment, “I just got off of work, things have been hectic. But yeah, I should get home, I need to feed my dog…” She trailed off her mind working through all of the things she had to do. She shook her head. “Anyhoo, it was great talking to you, Dylan, I’ll see you around!”

[Dylan Alexander]

He grinned and shrugged, thinking it was better for him to let her think he was a good guy. It was a really good thing he didn't know what else she was thinking because that would have just made him into a blubbering pool of awkward.

Laughing at her reaction to his anecdote, Dylan nodded. "Although I think I overexerted myself and I had to stay in for a week. I guess it's a good thing I like sleeping in." He grinned, completely unaware what Idalia was thinking about him right then.

"Coach Masterson was pretty laidback, I think that's what everyone liked about him. Very encouraging but knows when to push. I think Coach Benly was like that, but he was a little rougher than Coach M." He nodded, scratching at an itch on his face. Had he known that she thought he thought age was a turn off, he would have probably defended himself. In the most awkward way possible. It wasn't so much a turn off as it was a fear that he might either look too childish in someone's eyes or too much of an old fart. He liked to think he acted his age. Most of the time.

"I love just sitting back and enjoying music too. Maybe we could do that together? I know this jazz club in Burlington that showcases new talent every other week. And the local legend usually drops by to play something new." He offered, without even thinking that she could say no.

He would have died had he known that was what she thought he was thinking. Oh the things he was thinking besides her looking tired...

"Uh...yeah okay." Shoot, had he said something stupid? Trust him to ruin a pleasant thing. "Uh...maybe I'll see you around...again?"

[Idalia Tsavaris]

Idalia frowned to herself and shook her head. “That’s too bad, it was quite an interesting few days after that.” She was immediately jealous, she missed sleeping in. Hell, she missed having a normal schedule! “I’m jealous, I would kill to sleep in.” She had in between days to sleep in but normally her body just rose because it was ready to start the day. Then she had to come to a screeching halt and switch to the opposite schedule. No one ever got used to it and the first day of shift change was always an interesting day. Nothing ever did quite go right on shift change day. Idalia did see him as the good guy, she didn’t see why he wouldn’t be. “So you’re power is darkness manipulation?” Idalia asked curiously.

“Oh Benly was definitely a pusher. What was your stroke? I was a backstroker, and did a little bit of distance.” Idalia laugh and nodded in understanding, she wondered what Masterson was like and had another little twinge of jealousy. She had never been one of the stars, she’d been a solid and consistence swimmer, all she had was hard work and drive, she had talent but she didn’t train enough to be worth of a title. She had definitely been better academically than physically, but that never stopped her from trying. “When did you graduate?” Idalia asked suddenly her filter was faulty this morning and she was having a lot of direct brain to mouth connection problems.

Her thoughts on leaving stalled when he said the word ‘together’. Idalia perked up a bit. Had he just asked her out? Her heart leapt despite her previous mortification about the way she looked. She smiled broadly and found herself almost hopping with excitement. She contained it though there was a light in her eyes, she hadn’t been on a date since she and her last boyfriend had broken up a few months ago. “You know I’d love that,” Idalia said with a beaming smile. Still giddy with excitement and maybe a little bit of overreacting imagination she turned away intent on showering and already thinking about what she’d have to wear to make up for her current state. And with that she dismissed her and as she started to turn.

His question called her attention and she whirled back to face him. “Oh! Yeah, definitely, here, let me give you my number.” She reached into her bag and pulled out her own phone and waved it at him with a beaming smile. She was walking on air and she now knew that she needed to shower. “I work in Burlington, but I’ve never really explored much.” She added not even wondering how quickly she had gone from leaving to hovering and waiting for his number. She really did have to feed Ike though. And crash, sleeping sounded very nice.

[Dylan Alexander]

"I'd offer you m-" Dylan stopped himself from going any further when he actually realised, in time, that what he wanted to say sounded wrong by principle. That was lucky. "I mean...don't you get days off?" He stumbled over his words, rubbing the back of his neck lightly.

"Uh no no. Shadow manipulation actually. Although it's sort of crappy and really slow on a good day. I can cover something with a shadow but only if there's actually some form of a shadow." He nodded, explaining his power at length. The poor woman did not even ask for a word for word explanation.

"Butterfly and breast stroke. But mostly the latter. Masterson was hard on me but I knew he only did that because we were in dire need of a trophy then. I didn't mind. Kept my mind on a straight path. Earned me a scholarship." He smiled, feeling his cheeks heat up a little at the incessant talk about himself.

"Uh...2004? Or 2005? I think? I can't remember." He chuckled, rubbing at his five o-clock shadow of a beard.

It didn't register in Dylan's head that Idalia was actually enthused about going to the jazz club with him but when she gave him her phone, the shadow manipulator's grin could not get any wider. Programming his number into her phone, he gave his a quick miss-call and handed her the phone back.

"It's cool. I've lived here awhile but there are some places I haven't properly visited yet." He grinned and waved her down, eager to see her again.

"Okay. Um...have a really good sleep at home! Sweet dreams." He said before making a face to himself, turning around quickly so Idalia couldn't back out from what he thought was an actual date promise.

Dylan Alexander actually had a date.

Right?

[OOC: Wrapperoni! ^^]