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 Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:19 am
Quote: New Year's Eve has gone awry for you when pretty snowflakes turn into an ugly snowstorm in a matter of minutes. Your walk through the snow (to wherever it is that you were headed to celebrate the new year at) is becoming less magical by the minute and judging by the size of the hail pieces, you need to get out of it fast before you find yourself on the receiving end of some vicious bruises. Unfortunately, the wind and the snow have made it impossible to navigate through and after a series of twists, turns and attempts to shield yourself from the storm, you find yourself on the doorstep of a clearly neglected cabin-type house. You're not sure where it came from but you don't have much choice but to make your way inside to avoid the fierce weather. Inside, there's enough wood to make a fire in the fireplace, a small cot with a few dusty quilts, some half-burned candles and several canned goods (all that seem decently aged). You might even be able to find some alcohol hidden away, if you're lucky. Judging by the way the wind is howling and the snow is piling up, though, it looks like you're going to be bringing in the new year stuck in this unfortunate place - better make due with what you've got!
It seemed that convincing his older sister to walk with him to the Gamestop's New Year celebration hadn't been the very best of ideas.
Namely due to the fact that Alrik had misjudged the distance - not to mention failed to read the weather forecast - before dragging his older sibling out into the cold, citing that no one needed to bring in the New Year by themselves, much less staring at a computer screen while doing so. He'd managed to convince her by pointing out that if she didn't attend it with him, then he'd simply have to invite Cass out with him to join in on the festivities.
She didn't have to know that Cass probably wouldn't consider mingling with a bunch of nerds to be a fun way to spend the last year of 2018 but he wasn't going to mention that part to his sister.
Snow had started coming down the moment they'd left the house, the walk to the mall a fair distance away from her apartment complex. He'd made the trek regularly but hadn't calculated the extra time it would take to do the walk through the snow... nor the effort it would take to figure out where they were going when the snow got so bad that they couldn't see three feet in front of their face.
"I'm pretty sure we're headed the right way," he offered, raising his voice to compete with the bursts of wind surrounding them. His coat had already come off and was being slung over his sister's head, a weak attempt to protect her head and hair from the hail starting to fall.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:45 am
Penelope had no shortage of potential plans, if she chose to consider them, when it came to the end of the year and celebrations into the New Year. But in true Penelope Rey fashion, she had carefully declined all of them, citing that she was already too busy to attend, implying that someone else had gotten to her first. In truth, she hadn't picked any one event to attend because she preferred leaving the people wrapped around her finger wanting.
Except...
Alrik had asked her to go to his work event with her and as much as she would have preferred to pass and put the finishing touches on one of her latest romance stories. Pen had nearly turned him down too, until he mentioned his stripper of a girlfriend and how if his sister didn't go...then he'd be forced to take his girlfriend and, considering Penelope didn't much care for the green-haired harlot, she'd agreed almost immediately.
Her brother was her person, the only one she was every truly authentic with and she still hated the prospect that his girlfriend could create a divide between them.
So here she was, bundled up with Alrik holding his coat above her head to protect her from the snow flurries. "We should have just driven, Ali," Pen huffed, huddling closer to her favorite person to leech his warmth.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:04 am
The huffed out comment made him wince because Alrik knew she was right but gut-reflex had him wanting to defend his choice... and having no sensible, logical reasoning to back up his defense, he simply left it at a quiet, almost equally fussy, "Sorry."
Sorry wasn't nearly enough to make up for his grievous error, though, as the hail started to come down even harder within minutes as they trudged their way through the snow. One particularly large, nasty piece managed to smack him directly on the temple, making the tall boy let out a pained yelp in response.
"We gotta find some place to take cover in, at least for a few," he finally caved, feeling miserable and defeated (mostly because his idea hadn't panned out at all). Alrik could barely see his nose in front of his face -- were they close to the shopping district, at least? Or did they need to go another block over, east? "Maybe we can find an Uber out here or something."
That is, it would have been a good idea, had the cell service on his phone not decided to go haywire, no doubt because of the horrible weather.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:16 am
Blue eyes widened when she saw the hunk of hail smacking her brother's forehead. She wanted to check on it, on him, but the storm was getting worse and she could barely keep herself from getting dinged.
"Yes," she agreed, trying to direct them somewhere out of the worst of the storm. She just wanted to find a place to take cover, where they could use Alrik's jacket to keep them mostly dry while she checked out.
"I think--" She cut herself off, forgoing huddling close to her brother in favor of just lacing her hand in his and tugging him along as she attempted to lead them out of the storm and to somewhere with shelter.
And she saw something! Just up ahead...
It was...a cabin?
It was a chunk of hail to her cheek that had knocked her out of her stupor and she shook her head. "There, we can get out of the storm there."
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:13 am
Alrik looked towards where his sister was pointing, eyes squinting through the flurries of snow and hail to see the darkened cabin she was referring to. How the hell they could have gotten this lost to end up finding a cabin was beyond him - but however they managed, they had little choice but to make their way to the seemingly deserted home as temporary refuge from the storm.
Once under the porch, his hand slipped out of hers as he tried the doorknob to the old cabin. Knocking was probably the most polite thing to do but judging by the thick layer of dust on the doorknob itself, the occupants had long since abandoned the residence.
And hell, if anyone was inside, he'd be more than happy to introduce them to General Epidote in a heartbeat.
"C'mon, let's get inside." One hand opened the door for her while the other gently guided her into their new, hella musty sanctuary. Out of habit, he reached for his worthless cell phone and flicked on the flashlight, aiding them both to see inside the otherwise darkened residence.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 1:55 pm
The first thing Penelope did when they stepped inside, after checking to make sure there was nothing potentially life threatening there of course, was drop the coat on the ground and peeled out of the soaking sweater she was wearing. Beneath it was a damp button up blouse that had fared better, but not much so. Her skirt, for the most part, had come out unscathed but her stockings had tears in them and there were even red welts on her skin from where meaner pieces of hail had nicked her.
Once they were more settled in the musty cabin, Pen would peel them off and examine her legs. For now, it was more important to find some way to stay warm or getting out of that nasty weather wasn't going to matter much.
Her own phone had been fished out, the pair of phone lights helping illuminate the cabin. There were candles half burned, a fire place...oh, quilts!
"Ali, there's some blankets. And wood in the fireplace, maybe we can get a fire started and wait out the storm?" It seemed sensible and she knew how, practically, to start a fire, even if she'd never done it in practice. "Get out of the worst of the stuff you're wearing, I don't want you getting a cold."
Penelope looked concerned, having already grabbed a quilt and dragging it over. "Please."
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 6:44 am
"I'm not gonna get a cold," he countered, holding his tongue from adding the unspoken mom to follow. Still, Penny did have a point. As he stood there, looking around, he couldn't help but shiver from the way the freezing snow and hail had clung to his shirt, thanks to his gentlemanly efforts of shielding his sister with his coat.
The coat was tossed onto one of the old chairs, left to hang and dry as he tugged off his long sleeved shirt, leaving him in his undershirt - video gamed them, of course. He debated shucking off his wet jeans but he also didn't care to hear his sister's teasing about how his boxers matched with their own video game related pattern, so he forced himself to endure the ick feeling as shoes and socks were slipped off, also hung out to dry off. The offered quilt was slung over his shoulders, an impromptu cape for the moment.
Phone in hand, he tasked himself with trying to figure out how to whip up a fire. Thankfully - thankfully - he found an old, mostly used up box of matches near the iron pokers sitting in the vicinity of the fireplace.
Wood and twigs were tossed in, Alrik using what little knowledge he had of creating fires (mostly thanks to survival-themed games, truth be told) to create an appropriate set-up. The first match failed miserably. The second almost did too - but it finally, thankfully, caught on to one of the twigs and soon was lapping up the provided wood to create a small fire, immediately warming the nearby area.
Crouched in front of the fireplace, he worked to nurse the fire into full flames, thumbing his flashlight app closed before slipping the phone into his back pocket.
"Find anything else interesting, Pen?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:55 am
Blue eyes drifted down, taking note of the very wet jeans her brother insisted on keeping on. Lips pursed and she gave him a look. "Once the fire's going you should take those off and put them close so they can dry."
Pen didn't care if Alrik thought she was being naggy, he was her favorite person and she wanted him to stay healthy.
The second quilt was wrapped around her own shoulders as she made her way across the cabin. There were a variety of things to be found, mostly dust, but also canned goods that looked...edible, but not appetizing. She could only hope that they weren't stuck in this cabin long enough to need to eat said canned goods.
"There's some food that looks...well there's food." She fished around and found another set of half-empty matches, using them to light the candles which in turn exposed an unopened bottle of wine.
"Oh, there's wine." She picked up the bottle and carried it over to him, crouching when she looked at him concerned. "It's not warming up fast enough. We should probably keep each other warm."
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 1:59 pm
He wrinkled his nose at her insistence, knowing any argument with Penelope Rey was a lost cause in his book. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd won an argument - and, really, that one time was only because they'd been children and he'd rigged the question from the get-go, just to spite his know-it-all older sister.
Alrik chose to shuck off his jeans when she was off wandering through the cabin, draping them across the back of another dingy chair before drawing the musty old quilt around him tighter, hiding his boxers. It wasn't that he was embarrassed to be seen in his boxers - heaven knew that poor Penny had been subjected to her lazy brother walking around the apartment in his underwear before - but this particular pair were his 1-Up ones, which didn't exactly match the Triforce themed shirt he was wearing right above it.
"Anything that looks good to munch on?"
He'd bee saving his appetite for the pizza that had been promised at Gamestop, as he was always a sucker for some good pizza. Sadly, it seemed he would not have a final slice for the year 2018 but instead whatever moldy old canned foods provided by god only knew who.
She didn't care to bring over any of the food for his inspection, it seemed, but instead a bottle of alcohol and her own quilt. The floor looked about as dusty as the rest of the cabin, the candles lighting up the ancient-ness of the abode.
Her prompting seemed reasonable but the idea of sitting on that dilapidated old cot just sounded... ominous. Hell, the old metal looked like it would cave under his weight, much less two people's.
So, without prompting, Alrik shuffled over towards the cot and proceeded to tug the old mattress from off the iron frame, dragging the worn out cushion across the room until it was placed directly in front of the fire. Brushing off any additional wayward dust, he held on to his quilt in one hand while gesturing towards the mattress with the other.
"Your seat, m'lady."
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 7:59 pm
Penelope was pleased when her brother listened to her and had shed the too damp jeans and set them out to dry. She knew that it was naggy, she knew that he hadn't exactly wanted to, but she was his sister and it wasn't like she hadn't seen him in various states of undress before or like she didn't know that he was a nerd.
She grew up with him, she worked on her stories while he played games on her couch. Their parents had never been the most attentive, so it'd always been Penelope and Alrik, one rarely seen without the other.
It hadn't changed much since they'd grown up and Pen refused to let it change in the future either.
It was the Rey siblings against the world.
"I wouldn't eat anything left in this place. It looks like it survived the apocalypse once already." Her nose wrinkled with distaste even as she watched him drag the mattress over and offer her first sit. "We should sit like we used to when you'd game," Pen suggested, even as she took a seat on the dusty thing.
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Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 11:10 am
"But I'm hungry," he was quick to whine back, though fairly aware that if she said things were post-apocalyptic, it didn't mean there were any spaghetti-o's or twinkies readily available for snacking on. Probably something like beans or yams or something gross like that - ugh.
He'd simply have to waste away and starve to death over the next however long they'd be stuck there. Great. Talk about a crappy way to bring in the new year.
Flopping down on the mattress beside her, it didn't take a genius to see the way the older girl was shivering, even with the quilt tossed around her. She looked like a mess compared to her normally composed appearance - hair awry thanks to the weather, legs bruised and covered with welts from the hail, the cold chill of the cabin kissing every exposed inch of her.
Alrik felt bad. It had been a dumb mistake on his part and now his sister was paying the price for it.
Shifting where he sat, he collected the older girl and dragged her into his lap, adding his own quilt refuge to her own as he tried to help her warm up with his own body heat. It also gave him the opportunity to snatch the wine bottle from her, the soon-to-be twenty year old taking a quick swig before returning it with the chance of reprimand. The alcohol was quick to burn, producing a nice, almost warm feeling on its own.
Definitely was not the way he wanted to ring in the New Year, stuck in some dingy place with soaked clothes, a small fire and hail the size of golf balls slinging into the windows.
Still... at least he wasn't alone. And Penny wasn't testy with him, which was a blessed relief in and of itself.
"Happy New Year, Penny," he offered, uncaring of the actual time as he took advantage of the bottle for another, pseudo-celebratory sip. "May next year be even better than the last."
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