Lessons on Pocketing Balls - [Robbie tags Ann]

[Robbie Wilkes]

Well school was a tool. As always.

Although English wasn't too bad, the whole day was still a bust and Robbie was ready to unwind. The snow was still falling in clumps but even that didn't cheer the weather manipulator up. But notably, the weather didn't change at all despite the mood he was currently in.

He bumped into a few girls though and the encounter elevated his mood despite being turned down by two out of four of them. It was a good laugh for him. His steps were considerably lighter and it became lighter once he caught sight or a familiar figure heading in his general direction.

Waving her down, Robbie shouted her name across the quad. "Ann!"

Although they didn't have anything concrete planned, Robbie remembered that he owed the empath a lesson in playing pool. Of course, Robbie had other things in mind besides pool but hey, a pool playing partner! Albeit a partner who knew close to nothing about the game but he's going to teach her anyway so she would definitely be in good hands.

"Finished with classes?" he asked once he neared her.

[Ann Hudgins]

She was still a little dazed from her training classes, both Jackeroe (as he insisted she call him) and Dr. Collier (he'd given up getting to call her Adam) had worked with her touching abilities and after touching the both of them within three hours, her body was shaken from it. She'd built up a sort of...muscle resistance to the touch and could keep herself from getting sucked in, however momentarily. It was a new 'muscle' that would only get stronger by working it out, which meant Ann would be forced to grab her trainers hands a lot more in the future, which set her jaw to clench and her fists to curl tightly.

She was walking across the quad to quickly rest for a spell before she went to go to the Library to work on a paper that was due in her English class in a week or so--Ann always liked getting them done really quickly. It was when she heard her name being shouted that she nearly jumped and fell. In crowds, or even in hallways, she never expected anyone to acknowledge her existence, let alone call her name. It also didn't help the fact that she had been so engrossed in her mind that she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings. She let out a calming breath and then tried to seek out the person who had called her name.

"Oh hey," she responded first before she actually remembered his name (She had to think back to snow angels and bad hot chocolate), "Robbie." She smiled faintly as he came close to her, she dug her hands into her pockets so she didn't fidget to much. Yes, she'd already met him but that didn't make her any less shy. "Yep," she replied to his question with a bob of her head, she glanced around as she felt awkwardness start to creep up, she wanted to say something like ...
'and?'...but that was rude. "How have you been?" It'd been a few days since they had hung out, or whatever it was you called it, and figured it was the right thing to ask. Ann nibbled on her lip, because that was what she did when she was uncertain.

[Robbie Wilkes]

"Hey, you remembered my name this time!" Robbie exclaimed, pulling Ann to the side so they didn't obstruct the walkway. As always, Robbie was oblivious to the discomfort people felt whenever he got physical. He didn't understand the concept of being uncomfortable with people either throwing their arms around him or holding his hand or giving him a hug...it was just something people did.

"Me? I've been good. I mean, nothing to complain. I managed to make a blizzard the other day during training so that was fun." He grinned widely. Robbie lived for the small pleasures in life and didn't take any of it for granted. It explains his excitable nature. Much like a puppy, small things grab his attention.

"Okay," he grinned. "So you're here and I'm here, you wanna go see if the pool table is available?" He asked.

[Ann Hudgins]

At his mention of her remembering his name this time, more of their conversation was coming back to her, and how at the beginning of it, she hadn't known his name but he had remembered hers. She laughed slightly awkwardly at being reminded of it, but he really hadn't seemed to mind (completely) then and was joking about it now. When he pulled her out of the way of the traffic of the students her eyes widened at the hand on her sleeve and tried to back out of his reach without getting a lot of attention. No, he hadn't been close to actually touching her skin, but the jumpiness of almost being touched would stay with her for a long while. And it had been a sudden movement she hadn't anticipated.

"Yay. Blizzards." Ann didn't like snow, at all, and hearing him say he had created one made the muscles in her forehead contract into a frown. Though it was only momentary, because she realized that him being able to do so with his power was a good thing--at least pertaining to his control over his power. "But really, that's cool." She didn't want to undercut his victory by her dislike of cold weather and hurt his feelings or anything.

She grinned faintly when he mentioned the pool table--because like a lot of that day, she had forgotten about it--but the idea of not holing herself up in her room to do work (that wasn't due for a few days) was enough to have her....think about it. Robbie was nice, and she had enjoyed spending that afternoon with him well enough, before and after Zac left, so she found herself nodding. "Sounds alright to me."

[Robbie Wilkes]

He was starting to notice subtle things Ann did that he never noticed before. Was that sarcasm he detected? A smile lilted at the corner of his lips. And Zac thought she had no sense of humor. "Thanks, I'm quite proud of myself." He goofed off in a proud pose before chuckling.

When Ann agreed to playing pool, Robbie contained his excitement and showed a small grin instead. "Cool." Once again, Robbie forgot that people didn't like having their personal space invaded as his arms circled around Ann's shoulder to maneuver both of them in the direction of the student lounge.

"So you've never played pool before like...ever?" Robbie asked with a sideways glance at the pretty girl beside him.

[Ann Hudgins]

As it turned out, with periods of exposure to one Mr. LaRousse, Ann's sarcasm kicked in quite a bit, as Zac himself tended to be quite the cynic. Even at times when Ann hadn't seen him (as far flung as those days are) the sarcasm and eye rolls tended to stick, at least until she realized she was being unfair or even mean, and in that case she apologized and clammed up. At this current point in time, she didn't notice. She laughed when he posed proudly before her, as it was goofy, and felt a bit glad at how easy the laughter came--not that Ann always had to force herself to be happy, it just wasn't her default reaction to things.

She felt his excitement at her agreeing to play, which made her grin a little. At least one of them was really looking forward to it. Ann always had a slight hesitant nature when it came to trying new things, mostly because of the whole 'new' thing, but also because she didn't like to fail. Especially in front of other people.

Ann's hesitation to playing was forgotten when he trapped her with an arm around her shoulders. Her breath left her in a jagged surprised exhale, which sounded like a choked off cough. Her eyes flew everywhere, trying to distract herself from the warm arm and body she now felt against her sides--not the emotional contact, just the heat of his body. It wasn't enough to suck her in, but it sure as hell made her uncomfortable. He seemed completely unfazed by it (why would he? He wasn't crippled with skin contact).

He asked her a question, which she somehow managed to ear behind all the roaring in her ears and brain. "Uh...yeah. Never. I've watched my parents play before, and like on Tv..." She rambled quietly, her eyes still flying here and there looking for any sort of distraction. It never really occurred to her to just take a step to the side. "I was just never curious enough to learn on my own." She was also scared of hitting the cueball too hard which would send another pool cue flying at someone or through a window.

[Robbie Wilkes]

Had he known Ann was still trying her best to get used to being touched, he would have let go. He wasn't an intentional jerk, he really wasn't. But he had gotten a little out of touch with his emotions that he just couldn't see that other people had them too.

So as it were, Robbie kept his arms around Ann as they approached the student lounge. Lo and behold, it was pretty empty save a few people who were playing their consoles and the lone pinball machine. The pool table was surprisingly empty so he took the opportunity to slide his hand down to grasp Ann's and pulled her over to the green felt table.

"It's okay if you don't know. I mean it's all about the angling and trust me, when I started, balls were flying everywhere! I mean even my stick hit someone's face. It was a bit brutal. But all it takes is practice so don't worry about a thing. I'll be sure to clock in a few lessons with you if you wanted." He dropped the solid colored and the striped balls into the triangle. "You want to crack them?" He asked, looking up at Ann as he grabbed two cue sticks for the both of them.

[Ann Hudgins]

Had Ann known that if he'd known he woulda stopped, she would have mentioned something. But since she didn't, she kept trying to imagine shrinking until he wasn't touching her. It didn't work as they got all the way to the student lounge with his arm still around her. Once inside she stepped away, finally, and made it look like she was looking around. When he grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the table. Her heart froze over with fear, but she (thankfully) had been wearing her winter gloves so his touch didn't actually do anything--besides scare her half to death.

Once at the table, And folded both of her arms around her, hiding her hands from him, and watched as he racked up the pool cues and started talking in billiard speak. She barely missed him suggesting he give her lessons, which was kinda nice of him, but judging from the time they'd already 'clocked' together, he did a lot of touching which Ann was definitely not comfortable with.

"Uh...crack them?" She looked at him with a blank expression, as it obviously meant she had no idea what he was talking about. She then went to retrieve her own stick and felt like she was carrying a dangerous weapon. She then looked back at he pool cues in their triangle prison and then looked at him. "How do I...hold it?" She asked as she tried to think of how it would work but apart from swinging it like a bat, she couldn't think of it. Some part of her realized she probably should have asked for a demonstration on how to hold it instead.

[Robbie Wilkes]

Robbie grinned at Ann's blank expression before showing her how to hold the stick. He could have made the douchey move by going around behind her and helping her with the placement of her arms but he restrained and demonstrated it to her from his end of the table. "So when I say crack them, I mean hitting the cue ball, this white one," he grabbed the white solid and threw it in the air, catching it and knocking it down on the table a couple times to make it stick. "Straight through the colored ones. So they break. It's also called breaking, by the way." He smiled, shrugging at the word use.

"Okay lemme show you how to crack it. The shooting is pretty simple. You just gotta make sure that the thin end of your stick is resting over the back of your thumb, like this..." Robbie pressed the pads of the fingers on his left hand lightly before doing exactly what he had said, positioning the rubber end of the cue stick as close to the cue ball as possible. "You can slide the stick back and forth to get a feel of how fast or how slow you want the ball to move. But usually if you're cracking the set, it's better to hit as hard as you can." And he did so, making the triangulated set of balls disperse in all directions.

One solid almost dropped into the pocket but it lazily rolled to a stop just at the lip of the pocket. "Damn." Robbie pulled his cue stick from the table and gestured for Ann to take the cue ball. "So you want to try?"

[Ann Hudgins]

She vaguely mimed how she was supposed to hold the stick as he demonstrated and nodded her head continuously as he went through how to break and what it meant. She looked at the balls then and noticed some where striped while others were solid. "So...why are only a couple of them solid and the others have white on it? Are those worth more points or something?" Ann asked and watched as one almost went in but didn't.

She moved into position when he gestured to the white ball (she knew that you were only allowed to hit that one with the stick) and held it how he demonstrated and aimed at the closest ball to hers, she guessed if she hit it hard enough, it'd bounce off the side and knock itself into a hole. So she pulled back on it and hit it, only it didn't go straight like she had thought, it went off to the side and knocked a ball a few inches towards another ball. She straightened back up with a frown on her face. "Darn." She muttered, "It's not as easy as it looks, then. Why'd it go to the side instead of straight, like I wanted?" She asked Robbie, as she turned to look at him. She was sure she had held it like he had told her to.

[Robbie Wilkes]

Ann's question left Robbie shrugging. "It's just to differentiate between which one you have to pocket when you play with another person. Like see," Robbie aimed for the solid that was close to the pocket, and shot the cue ball into another solid ball which hit the one near the pocket. "So now I know I can only pocket the solid while you have to pocket the ones with the stripes."

Robbie turned to Ann and grinned. "So we're playing the fifteen ball pool yeah? That's why there are you know...fifteen balls. The black ball that has the number eight should be the last ball that gets pocketed." He nodded. Her question baffled him before he just shrugged. "It's kind of how you angle yourself and the stick. Here, lemme show you." And then Robbie did the douchey move and went behind Ann and helped her position herself properly.

He couldn't deny that their closeness got to him quicker than he imagined but that feeling was there anyway. "So you bend your body a little," Robbie pushed against the small of Ann's back to get her to bend down. "Okay and relax your arm and pull back."

[Ann Hudgins]

Ok, that made sense. It was like a chess sort of thing, with the two different playing pieces. That she could remember. She watched as he took his shot and sank one of them, a solid one, which meant she was to sink only the striped ones. She looked between all of them, and where the cue had ended up and she didn't like her odds. None of them looked particularly easy, but she moved to strike it anyway.

She had been expecting him to 'show her' how to hold it, like another demonstration, but when he came up behind her she jumped a little, which brought her knee into a sharp collision with the table which brought a curse from her--it was almost enough to distract her from the boy now pressing on her lower back, but not quite. Her eyes were the size of hubcaps at the contact and she shrank down and away from it as far as she could, while still trying to keep her hold on the stick. She took a long and deep breath as she tried to relax her arm, and just focus on the balls.

She pulled back and sent the pool stick at the ball again and she watched, in vain, as the white ball crashed into a striped ball which sent it approximately two inches from one of the pockets. She let out a groan and then slid away from him (it wasn't retreat.) And scratched the back of her head. "That was....better?"

[Robbie Wilkes]

Robbie felt her tense up under his hand but as per usual, he didn't quite care. Invading personal space was his niche. When Ann almost pocketed her ball, Robbie winced, hissing at the close call. "Damn, that was close. But yeah, better." He nodded as Ann moved away from him. Robbie went around the table to where the ball was and hit it to pocket two more balls before losing the third one.

"Okay, let's make this interesting. Every ball you pocket I have to get you a real mug of hot chocolate." Robbie said in a decided tone of voice. "What do you say?"

[Ann Hudgins]

Ann's competitive edge started to harden and awaken her sense of purpose. She didn't like losing, and she didn't like getting things wrong, so when Robbie got two in a row, her expression hardened. If she was more outward, she might have declared 'the game was on.' She tightened her hold on the pool stick and turned to look at him when he said to make it interesting. Another tickle to her competitiveness.

"Okay...but what about the balls you pocket? What then?" She looked at him slightly suspiciously, but she couldn't turn down mugs of real hot chocolate. She moved around to the cue ball, with a determined look on her face, she mapped out the paths of each striped ball in her head, and picked the most likely one and set herself up to strike it. She let out a breath before she really put some strength into it and hit the cue ball. She watched as it hit the ball she had picked out and grinned as it bounced off the edge then went straight into the center pocket. "That's one, then!" She turned to smile at him before she repositioned herself to send in another one, she set herself up again, but this one, sadly, went just shy of the corner pocket.

[Robbie Wilkes]

He thought hard on what could be interesting to auction off if he were to pocket all of his cue balls and he got jack squat. "I dunno," he shrugged with a grin. "I never think too far ahead...OH! I know! Every ball I pocket gets me something from the vending machine." He stood straight and looked at her with a smug grin. Either way, it was a win situation for him. So long as Ann doesn't bring a date for their hot chocolate runs and she didn't think dropping things off at his dorm was enough to qualify as getting him something from the vending machine, Robbie thought he was good.

He cheered Ann for getting one in but the next one wasn't so lucky. "Alright, Ann Hudgins." Robbie grinned, clapping his hand. It was his turn and he was actually torn between getting the ball in or not. Huh, he hadn't ever done that before. Especially with [what he thought was] high stakes of hot chocolate and vending machine snacks. He was distracted enough to not actually pocket anything. "Dang it." He snapped his fingers before letting Ann go her turn.

Part of the game was Robbie giving Ann a chance but the girl was a fast learner and Robbie was distracted by that trait and ended up having two balls left when Ann pocketed the coveted 8 ball. Robbie jumped up in surprise when it dropped into the pocket. "Ah! You won! I...I lost oh man you won!"