elseworldexiles | Tomb Raider III

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crusader

Tomb Raider III

It's an hour into the movie. Angelina Jolie runs from a giant boulder chasing her down a cooridor in homage to another great cinematic forray into archaeological cheese.

The dark theater is packed. The crowd hisses and boos at the traps springing up at the heroine's feet. Gretchen stares straight ahead, her gaze not slipping one inch to the side. Her eyes are on the screen, but her entire attention is on her arm. It's resting right alongside Sarah's on the padded armrest.

Swallowing hard, not daring to look, she nervously ventures a pinky over to touch Sarah's. It's an accident. Really. Honest.

Unless Sarah touches her back. Then it was totally on purpose.

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Sarah's attention has been completely on the screen, wide-eyed. Sure, they had the giant viewscreens and such back on Battleworld, and some of the folks from that Suburb in Denver had some videos that Peter was able to rig to play on said giant screens... but somehow its not the same. Those were obviously monitoring stations, meant for business, this is obviously meant for dragging the viewer into the movie.

And then there's Gretchen. She's not been quite sure what to make of the butterflies in her stomach, or the anticipation that somehow wasn't just going to see a movie.

The combination of invulnerability and being lost in the movie being what it is, at first she didn't even notice the pinky touching hers. By the time she did, and realized it had been there a few moments, it seemed like it would be more awkward to flinch, or any of her first reactions. So without looking, not daring to look, she leaves her hand where it is, still touching Gretchen's.

The butterflies in her stomach are trying to fly up and out her throat. Eyes forward, posture stiff, kinda hoping someone will shout fire and everyone will have to run out the emergency exits RIGHT NOW.

Gretchen ventures the pinky over to loop around Sarah's.

Sarah's thoughts are almost the same, the intensity of the butterflies matches only by the sense of nervous elation. She shfits hand hand a little, more under Gretchen's, a little hesitant and nervous, but going with it even so, butterflies be damned.

...did she? ...could it? Are they...actually kinda sorta halfway holding hands?

Gretchen can't believe it. Swallowing hard, she risks a quick glance over to see.

Her gaze meets Sarah's, doing precisely the same thing. Much to her surprise, it would seem, they are indeed holding hands, sorta, kinda, halfway.
Almost mirroring her companion's nervous swallow, Sarah gives her a nervous smile, only the darkness of the theatre hiding how much she's blushing.

Gretchen nervously smiles back, but when she returns her gaze to the screen, she can't contain her grin. Emboldened, she ventures a tiny squeeze.

Trying to relax a little, while her stomach keeps turning flip-flops, Sarah turns her hand over so they can hold hands properly, and returns the small squeeze.

Her thoughts are trying to go a million miles an hour, as a lot of things start coming together... but she tries, for now, to just enjoy the moment, and concentrate on Angelina Jolie.

Angelina slithers on her belly, her fingers stretching to their limits until...yes...the artifact is hers! The crowd cheers.

Gretchen sits there with a big grin on her face, enjoying the movie and the hand in hers and trying not to think about the fact that the credits are going to roll awful soon now. She'd freeze time right here if she could.

Sarah eventually catches up with the actual plot, and the crowd cheering, and the rest. For the last... however many minutes its been, she's found she's had a sudden awareness of Angelina that hadn't quite been there before, at least consciously. The hand in hers may have a lot to do with that, along with the general brain freeze. She's definitely lost all track of how long its been, or what exactly happened, other than figuring out the heroine won, and the final wrap-up scenes before the credits are up.

She glances at Gretchen, seeing the grin, trying to relax a little more herself, and giving Gretchen's hand a small squeeze again. Yeah, she's definitely sitting through the credits, at least. Because after that, she's pretty sure will come more awkwardness.

Gretchen's heart nearly pounds right out of her chest at Sarah's little squeeze.

The credits scroll by. Key Grip. Best Boy. Personal Assistant to Ms. Jolie. Reluctantly, Gretchen slides her hand out of Sarah's just before the lights go up. The theater is mostly empty by now, but there are a few clumps of people laughing and talking excitedly about the movie.

"So." Gretchen gropes for a topic of conversation. "Did it make any sense without having seen the first two?"

Blink... blink... Oh! the movie! One can almost see the wheels turning in Sarah's brain as she tries to get it into gear again.

"Oh, sure. Action movie... not that hard to follow. But really, uhm... exciting." she answers, fumbling, if anything, even more than her current companion.

Gretchen shuffles down the isle and back into the theater lobby.

"I like the Indiana Jones movies, too. Some people say Tomb Raider is all stupid because it's based on a video game, but I like seeing a girl get to go on adventures."

She risks another hesitant smile.

That gets a genuine smile. Sarah pauses to glance around, making sure they have some space and no one listening too closely. Not like most people tend to pay that much attention to a couple chatty teenagers anyway.
"I could have kind of guessed that from the karate, and the movie and everything." she replies, relaxing a little. "I don't suppose you have any favorite superheroines or anything?" she asks, hoping this world won't turn out to be some sort of anti-mutant capital or something and she'd just missed it. But suddenly she feels like she at least needs to know how Gretchen might react.

"Strong Simba's pretty cool." She leans in a little, whispering conspiratorially. "I bet she can control animals other than tigers, but it'd totally ruin her image if she sicced a herd of fighting squirrels on people. Plus, that muscle's all her. She works out, like, four hours a day."

Sarah leans in for the whispering, grinning along, even if she's never heard of Strong Simba, but its at least a pretty good sign so far. Then she pauses again, hesitant, almost sure this is a bad idea, but going ahead with it anyway. Between the butterflies and the elated feelings, she's feeling the need to get one of those other 'big secrets' out of the way. Still whispering conspiratorially, "Gretchen... can you keep a secret. I mean, a really big secret?" she asks as she heads out of the theatre.

Gretchen's eyes go wide. Something clicks in her brain. Military family. Always on the move. New in town.

"Ohmigod...your parents are that couple on the run for flooding that military sperm bank with gamma radiation, aren't they! I promise, I won't tell. I promise! And, like, you can totally hide in my mom's basement if you need a place to lay low while your parents go to another state. I never said a word about what really happened to that shipment of cargo pants last summer..."

By the time Gretchen is finished talking, Sarah has gotten to the edge of the theatre, and stepped into the alleyway. Gretchen's promise to hide her for... uhm, whatever happened there has convinced her. By the time her friend catches up, Sarah will be hovering about six inches off the ground, keeping close to the alley wall to reduce the chance of anyone seeing her.
"Not exactly." she replies with a small smile, somehow feeling whole lot more confident and capable now that she's flying, even if just hovering bit.

Gretchen's mouth forms a silent O. She blinks in surprise, looking up and down between Sarah's feet and hair half a dozen times.

"That's..." Her face breaks into a grin. "SO COOL!"

Sarah grins... then blushes, taking a deep breath, and then holding out her good hand. "Come on, hold on tight, I only have one good arm... but we're going flying. I just had to make sure you weren't anti-mutant or something."

Gretchen looks genuinely confused at the idea of someone being anti mutant. She doesn't let that get in the way of taking Sarah up on her offer. She steps forward and wraps her arms around the other girl's waist.

Sarah sees the confusion, which only makes her feel more comfortable. This world really is nice.
She wraps her good arm around Gretchen, lifting her like she weighed nothing, and then lifts off slowly, peeking over the building to make sure no in is looking, before really climbing for altitude. Even if anti-mutant prejudice is not big in this world, she sees no reason to draw attention... oh, and holding Gretchen like that is awfully nice too.

She's not afraid. Really. Honest. She's just snuggling in because Sarah's warm and soft and gosh, she smells good. Really. That's all.

Whatever the reason, Sarah doesn't seem to mind. Nor does she show the slightest problem holding on. "Don't worry, I'm stronger than Strong Simba... a lot stronger." she says with a grin, levelling out and starting to fly forward, not too quickly. "You doing ok?"

"Uh-huh." Gretchen's unashamedly holding on tight now. They're awful high up. Without a plane. It's kinda chilly.

Still, she peers down at the city in wonder.

"Springfield's so pretty from up here."

Springfield... huh... she wonders which one. But only briefly. More important things on her mind right now. She shifts a little, making sure Gretchen can hold on easily. She responds to the 'pretty' comment, but she's looking at Gretchen when she does. "Yeah, it really is."

Gretchen looks up to catch Sarah's gaze. Her blush starts at her cheeks and flushes all the way to her ears.

Sarah's blush is almost as dark, but she's still smiling. She can't even find the words, so she just strts flying instead, keeping Gretchen close... for warmth, yup, just to keep her warm, that's all.

Warmth. Uh-huh. That's it. Gretchen nuzzles in, resting her cheek against Sarah's neck.

This is a ton better than holding hands.

That... feels really nice. Her pulse jumps a little, and there's the butterflies again. The flying, super-strength, showing off thing helps, but she's still feeling totally giddy.

She flies in silence for a while, not taking the whole soaring over the city thing for granted for the first time in a long time, even if she's barely noticing the city down below.

"I hope you get to stay for awhile," Gretchen whispers.

Gretchen's not looking at the city any more, either.

Sarah looks at Gretchen again, blushing bright, but not s hesitant now. "Yeah, me too." she whispers back, sincerely.

"Tonight...I mean...y'know...what's your curfew?"

Her stomach has given up flopping in favor of acrobatics.

"I..." she pauses, the words catching again. "I don't have one." she whispers.

Steeling herself, she leans in to kiss her. Its awkward... pretty obvious she's never kissed anyone. Likewise, its brief, whether kissed back or not, drawing back quickly, the look of being totally unsure back on her face.

Gretchen's eyes go wide - and not from the lack of curfew. She awkwardly puckers back, more of a clumsy brushing of lips than anything else.

Ears aflame, she buries her face in Sarah's collarbones.

She can't help herself. Within seconds, her body shakes with nervous giggles.

Sarah is a little longer in the 'uncertain' phase, laying the side of her face against Gretchen's forehead. Then she, too, gets the giggles.

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Tomb Raider III

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