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 Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 12:24 pm
Tai chi class at the rec center had sort of sucked today, but Ian decided it was for the right reason: it was the middle of December, and his phone's weather feature was telling him that it was 65 degrees out. And the center had left the heat on in many of the classrooms, including the studio where Ian had spent his Saturday morning learning form five. The class itself had been relaxing, as always, but it had been uncomfortably warm, and he waved his arms like a chicken as he stepped out of the rec center afterwords.
A bit cold to be going without a jacket, but hey, he had just had a good workout and really needed to air himself out a little.
He pulled his phone out of his coat pocket and slid it open to check for messages - there was one from Vanessa, which brought a small smile to his face. He had not heard from her lately, and Ian, being Ian, had started to worry that he had done something to make her give up on him or whatever.
Meet her at the skate park? He glanced off to one side, at the skate park that was set up outside of the rec center, then started to text back a reply to ask which one.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:12 pm
Vanessa had neither seen Ian nor gone skateboarding in a criminally long time. She missed them both and demonstrated a rare stroke of genius when, on one mild afternoon, she endeavoured to combine them. Free time was difficult to come by these days. When Vanessa wasn't working she was usually either patrolling Destiny City as Sailor Vulcan or doing something with Kam.
It would be nice, to shake up that routine a little with an old friend and an even older hobby.
Dressed appropriately for the weather; she stood on top of a ramp at the edge of the skate park, board tucked comfortably under her arm, and retrieved her cellphone from the pocket of her hoodie after it vibrated. She smiled, pleased to see that Ian had both received and returned her text, and then almost answered him.
Out of the corner of her eye Vanessa recognized a shock of bright red hair, lingering outside the rec centre. She straightened at once, swivelling on her heel to get a better look, and then lifted her hand high into the air.
"IAN," Vanessa's beckoning wave was enthusiastic, "OVER HERE."
It was probably not necessary, to shout as loudly as she did.
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 2:17 pm
Ian's head snapped up as he heard his name, and laughed as he saw Vanessa. Stuffing his phone back into his jacket, he zipped the pocket shut, then tied the sleeves of it around his waist as he made his way over to the skate park.
The ramps looked even stranger up close; Ian, not a terribly athletic sort and certainly not the variety of boy to get near a skateboard, realized he had never been this close to one in person before. Just his walks past it on the way to and from tai chi class, coupled with the occasional YouTube video of an epic success or epic failure at a skateboard trick.
He stopped at the railing, understanding the reasonable need to keep out of everyone's way, as well as feeling a less reasonable nervousness that he might somehow not be allowed to set foot on the pavement as one who had never owned a skateboard.
"You do tricks here?" he called out to her, an eager smile on his face.
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:12 pm
It made Vanessa smile, to see that Ian was doing well. The last time she'd seen him the other redhead was in poor repair after an unfortunate run-in with what had sounded suspiciously like a Negaverse officer. Vanessa had promised herself, afterwards, that no harm would come to Ian so long as Sailor Vulcan roamed the streets of Destiny City.
And then she'd forgotten herself, and was too consumed by grief and anger over the things that she'd let happen during Operation Rota to do much of anything useful. Every time she henshined up Vanessa had felt undeserving of her fuku. Consequently, she'd spent more time punishing herself than protecting the helpless.
But Ian looked okay.
It did her heart good.
"Yeah," she grinned, and beckoned Ian up onto the ramp with her, "I've been skateboarding since I was a kid. I haven't done it in awhile, but I'm not worried. This is the sort of thing you never forget."
And she was no stranger to injuries, regardless.
"Have you ever been to a skate park before?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 11:01 am
Ian shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets, glancing around at the ramps and rails and tried not to look like he regarded them as an alien landscape. "Not really," he admitted. "Just walked past this one a few dozen times, I guess."
Maybe not even that often.
"I uh, started taking tai chi lessons here," the red-haired boy added, putting one hand to his previously-injured shoulder and flexing it a bit. "To help my shoulder get better and all." Ian laughed at himself. "I should probably stay off of skateboards until I'm feeling one-hundred percent again." It had been several months since the injury, but those joint injuries always healed slowly. Very slowly.
And Ian was hardly in a hurry to embarrass himself on a skateboard anyway.
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