POP! (Peyton)

[Elisia Lark]

Such a long process for something that was supposed to relieve stress. Filling the balloons, tying them, pinning them on the board and placing them just far enough that it was hit or miss. But also trying to keep them at random. Gosh she didn't know what this was going to do for her. Maybe she could have invited someone to come hang out with her or something, but during times like this, she wasn't sure she really liked the idea of someone lurking about trying to dig into her mind for information about what was going on in her life. Okay, that was assuming people would be clawing at her thoughts to get her to talk. Carter wouldn't, Callie wouldn't, she hadn't seen Zac in...she couldn't even remember when it was and she didn't want to bug Jack because he'd already had to put up with her big ball of stress enough as of late.

Once the wall of balloons was finally set up, she wiped her forehead of sweat and left a bright blue streak across it. Turning around, she found the darts and chewed on the inside of her cheek. What if she ended up poking herself through her hand? Or dropped one on her foot? Shouldn't there have been someone around to supervise? She needed to just get over this whole thing and de-stress herself. This was going to be fun. It was a new way of relaxing while having a chance to get expressive and messy, but in a new light. It was a new form of art, one that she was still trying to figure out. How did someone express themselves by popping balloons full of paint and having them overlap each other? It didn't make any sense to her.

Elisia turned on the little stereo that was on the desk and put on the channel that played any kind of music that came on. She didn't know what kind of mood she wanted to be in and seeing as how she felt the same thing that the writer did, she figured it was best to just let it go randomly. The first song that came on was fairly upbeat and she took a deep breath before shaking off the stress and lining up for her first shot. How hard could it be right? It was just throwing a dart at the board, the balloons were everywhere. She totally had this.

With a nod, she finally threw the first dart and it stuck to the board, not even hitting a balloon. She frowned. Of course.

And so she continued throwing before having to re-gather the darts, all of which had missed. So much for being easy.

[Peyton Turner]

The day was good. Or, at least, pretty good. He was starting to get a little nervous about his whole tutor-date-whatever thing, and what on earth he was gonna do for that. Spinning a pen between is fingers (nervous habit, hard to break), Peyton strolled down the mostly-empty hallways, glancing through the windows into classes, wondering if he'd find anything interesting. He was about to turn right when he heard an odd noise coming from a room down the hall to the left. It was like a sort of squeaking and some music, and a faint murmur that was probably annoyance.

Well, squeaks and murmurs! Surely something interesting was happening.

Doing a wide turn down the opposite hall than he'd originally intended, he followed the noise to a room that was labeled the art studio. Something was up over the window in the door, so he didn't have much choice but to open the door, with no real regard for any consequences. For all he knew, he was walking into a room full of angry monkeys with wrenches. Or, based on the noise, perhaps someone was attempting to create an indoor slip and slide. He really had no idea. But he was bored, and curious, and intrigued, so he braved the potential of murderous monkeys and opened the door.

As he walked in, his face lit up. "Ellie!" He was tempted to go give her a hug, but that would be abusing the sanctity of special hugs, so he refrained. Instead, he turned his attention to the wall full of balloons. He raised an eyebrow, highly amused. "...Okay, I feel like there's some sort of secret... something..." He held his hands up, but he wasn't even sure what he was gesturing about. "...Yeah, I don't even... Something awesome, right?" He looked to her for some sort of explanation.

[Elisia Lark]

Ellie hadn't even heard the door and when Peyton called out her name, she jumped and poked herself with one of the darts. Owwww. She waved her hand back and forth and stuck her finger in her mouth briefly. Then she suddenly felt like an idiot for her reaction because she should have been paying attention. Then again, she could have blamed it on the music distracting her and the fact that she was so completely immersed in focus and determination to hit one friggin' balloon! Either way, she could only imagine what she looked like. Maybe she shouldn't have been trusted with darts.

"It's a..uh, stress relieving thing. At least....that's what I was told," She said with a hmph. She really just did not know what she was doing. This was supposed to be fun and yet she found it more stressful than it should have been. All she had to do was pop freaking balloons for crying out loud. She bit her lip and looked down at the neat and tidy poncho she had that was protecting her clothes. Sad thing was...it didn't even need to protect her clothes because she couldn't hit anything to make a mess!

Elisia looked up at him with a slight smile, "Wanna try?" Because maybe if he failed at it, she would feel less like a moron. "There's extra ponchos and aprons in the drawer over there. And if you need goggles," she teased with a bit of a wider smile. Despite the stress of things, she really had to admit, she didn't have any reason not to be happy. Jack asked her to the dance. She was going out with him again. But there was still that possibility that she could mess it all up again and this time he wouldn't come back to her. Her smile fell briefly and she turned back to the board. These balloons were going down.

[Peyton Turner]

"It's a..uh, stress relieving thing."

Aww, she was so adorably frustrated. "It doesn't seem to be working," Peyton teased with a grin.

"Wanna try?"

Besides the fact that this was about popping balloons (come on, who could resist that?), the 'stress relief' aspect of it was, he had to admit, a little appealing. Because he was slightly stressed. Not that he was really going to think about that, his way of dealing with stress was to attempt to ignore it. He glanced down at his shirt as she suggested a poncho. "Yeah - I wouldn't want to get this beauty messed up." It was said in jest, but he was kinda serious.

Most people didn't know this, but Peyton's massive t-shirt collection was actually more like a cycling rotation. It had started when he went to the academy (his 'special school' year) and his friends had decided to send him off with some shirts that would help break the ice. He'd already had a ton of them, but he was always glad to have more. But then they'd started to do this thing, where they would send a box of shirts every couple of months, and he would send some of his, and they ended up sort of swapping shirts so they could always have something new. And once he'd made more friends at the academy, they got in on it too, when they went home. So now there were about five of them that would swap shirts every few months. It made them look like they had an endless closet. They each stuck their initials on the tags, so they could get them back if they needed them, but currently only a quarter of Peyton's closet was his own clothes. This shirt... he honestly didn't remember who's it was. But it would be best to keep it clean-ish.

When she offered the goggles, he declined. "Nah, I'm good. I go hardcore like that - no eye protection, woohoo!" He raised a fist in mock victory. He wasn't especially worried. Ellie's aim couldn't be that bad, right? "So," once the poncho was on, he rubbed his hands together excitedly, "How does this work - just peg 'em at the wall?"

[Elisia Lark]

Ellie was pleased when he agreed to try it out. Who knew, maybe having a partner in crime would be fun and more efficient when it came to popping all of the balloons she spent so much time filling up and placing on the darned board. Those balloons were totally going down! This was going to be fun, just a nice little hang out with one of her friends, no talking necessary. Especially about her former boy issues. Gosh Peyton would probably think she was a slut with as quickly as she went from Guy back to Jack (with Zac in the middle). Man, maybe she was kind of slutty.

"Hardcore, right. Well, hopefully my hand doesn't slip and you don't go to the infirmary with a dart in your eye. That'd be really bad," She was joking, but still, she knew there was a possibility. She was clumsy with these dang things. Pricking her finger because he got scared, who knows what would happen if she got to excited about hitting one. Darts everywhere! The image, funny as it was, was also kind of freaky and she tried focusing back on what was going on.

"Oh, uh yeah, just pop the balloons. It's not as easy as it looks though, seriously." It was actually a total pain in the butt. And very frustrating. But it kept her mind off of the other stresses she had right? Maybe that was the relief of it all. "Want me to show you how it's done?" Or rather, how it's not done.