Tyler Lockwood (lockwolf) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-03-04 23:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alice liddell, tyler lockwood |
Who: Tyler and Alice
What: Personal training
When: This afternoon
Where: The gym Tyler works at
Rating/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete
Alice was a little nervous about what to expect from a personal trainer but Tyler had come recommended by one of her costars and when she’d reached out to him to set up this appointment he’d seemed nice enough in his responses. Or at least not part of the group who were determined to view her as some slut or fallen woman or whatever people were throwing at her thanks to Rita Skeeter. That was enough of a reason for her to be willing to give him a shot. The doctor had said it was okay for her to exercise as long as she was careful and had someone making sure she didn’t do too much and that’s why she was looking for a professional to help her.
***
Tyler had never been one to care about, or pay attention to tabloids. He liked watching movies, and he liked listening to music, but the only celebrities he ever really concerned himself with was sports stars. The name Alice Liddell had sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until she walked in for her appointment that he actually recognized her.
She had mentioned being pregnant in their text exchange, though she couldn’t have been too far along yet, because, if she hadn’t told him and if he couldn’t hear the heartbeat of the baby, he would have never guessed. It did make things easier. He’d studied all this in university, but so far he hadn’t had any pregnant clients. At least for now they could still do things the normal way, just so long as he pile on too much.
“You’ve got to be Alice,” he said, stepping out to greet her. He extended a hand. “I’m Tyler.”
***
Alice hadn’t realized that Tyler was already there until he stepped out and she was a little embarrassed by the fact that she hadn’t been more observant of her surroundings. That was something she was going to have to work on too at some point. She’d been in such a bubble all her life but that wasn’t a good thing as she was learning now.
She gave him a friendly smile as she shook his hand. “It’s nice to meet you in person Tyler. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.” She said, trying to resist the temptation to adjust her tank top. She was still trying to get used to the work out clothes. Minako might have had a point about Alice needing to wear less dresses and more pants.
***
“It’s my job,” Tyler said jovially, shooting an Alice a bit of a smile. “Follow me and I can start showing you the equipment. I guess we should start with what you’re hoping to get out of these training sessions.”
***
Alice nodded her head in agreement for Tyler to show her the equipment, reaching up to tighten her ponytail as they walked. “Mainly I’m hoping to stay in shape as much as possible. I don’t want to have a whole lot of baby weight to lose after delivery.” Yes it was a little vain but she made a living partly on her looks, on her doll like qualities appealing to casting directors and giving her a leg up on other actresses that came in to read for the same parts she did. Talent and looks were both equally important and she knew it.
***
“Sounds good,” Tyler said. And easy. Keeping someone at their current level of fitness was a lot easier than helping them train for something in specific. The pregnancy would make things a little more difficult, but it was nothing that he couldn’t handle. “So today we’re just going to figure out your current fitness level. We’ll start you on the elliptical.”
***
This was pretty much what her costar had told her to expect in working with Tyler. At least for their first session. “Sounds like a plan.” Alice said, following him over to the machine and climbing on. “Is there any particular setting you want me to put it on?”
***
Tyler shook his head. “No, we won’t use any resistance today,” Tyler said. “I’ll get a better idea of what I’m working with without it.” He checked the elliptical to make sure that there was no resistance set, and then backed off so Alice could get on it. “If you want to get your cardio in, an elliptical is really your best bet. That, swimming, or bicycling. They’re all low impact, so once you start gaining the extra weight, it will be easier on your joints, and you won’t have to deal with a jiggling belly.”
He frowned to himself, suddenly not sure if talking about a woman’s jiggling belly and weight gain was even okay, even if they were talking about a pregnancy.
***
“Makes sense.” Alice said starting to work out on the machine, making sure she didn’t push herself too far or too fast. That was one of the things her doctor had stressed - she needed to listen to her body. It would tell her if she was pushing herself too hard. The way her doctor had put it was her body knew what to do right now even if she didn’t.
She looked at him when he stopped talking, trying not to laugh at his expression. “I’m all for keeping the jiggling to a minimum if we can.”
***
Tyler smiled, glad that he hadn’t managed to offend her. He checked the stopwatch on his wrist, and then said “Okay. We’re going to have you pick up the pace. We’ll have you go as hard as you can for about thirty seconds, alright?”
***
“Alright.” Alice said, picking up her pace on the machine steadily until she could feel her body wanting to scream at her if she went any faster and then staying at that pace, listening for Tyler to call time at the end of thirty seconds.
***
Tyler intermittently looked at his his watch and back at Alice, looking for any signs that the increased pace was causing her trouble. “Okay, and slow back down to a fast walk,” he said once the 30 seconds were up. “We’ll keep up the slower pace for about a minute, and then pick it back up. How’re you doing?”
***
“So far so good. I’m definitely learning some things about myself with everything that’s going on. Like the various ways my body will let me know it’s had enough or has reached it’s limit.” Not just in regards to working out. She’d been discovering the utter limit of her body’s ability to handle stress and her reaction to the press had definitely been tested in different ways than she’d ever dealt with before.
***
“Good,” Tyler said. “Learning to listen to your body is probably the most important thing you’ve got to learn. When it needs more or when it needs less. That kind of thing.” Knowing when he was working his body too hard was something that he’d always had trouble with when he was human. Working out until his muscles were too shredded to do anything more. It had been a way for him to work off all the pent up aggression he’d had, but those days recovering after didn’t do much more than get him more frustrated. But now that he was a hybrid, well, he hadn’t even come close to overworking his body since.
***
“It's a hard lesson but I'm learning it. I never really thought about it until the movie contract. It's a lot more taxing than a show.” Alice had also always taken it for granted how easy she'd been able to stay in shape on campus just walking between classes. That just wasn't enough anymore.
***
“Yeah, I hear that,” Tyler said. He’d never had much interest in acting himself, but his parents’ parties had often had actors and actresses in attendance and so he’d talked to a few of them about such and such a role or contract. “What’s your contract require of you anyway?”
***
“I have to be on set a certain number of hours per day which really isn’t that different from shows but it’s more days and longer hours. I have to make promotional appearances closer to the release date and not say anything negative about the movie. Which I wouldn’t because it’s fun. It’s different than anything I’ve worked on before.” And she loved the director. He’d always treated her, all of his actors actually, really well on and off projects. “I’m just glad that there was no morals clause in it. And that they were willing to keep me on after I got pregnant.” Alice found Tyler easy to talk to and it wasn’t like she was telling him anything private.
“They did add to my contract when I got pregnant. I have to get clearance from my doctor on a regular basis to work because there are some more physical aspects to the movie. Nothing action movie like but it’s a werewolf movie so a lot of running in places. And a few falls. They want to make sure I’m going to be okay. Which considering some of the horror stories I’ve heard about people on their first movie set I’m glad of.” She knew she was lucky to be having the experience she was.
***
“Morals clause?” Tyler asked, though it was pretty easy to know more or less what that meant. “I don't think I could do any job that told me what I could and couldn't do once I clocked out.” He knew that a lot of major sports contracts had clauses that prevented their athletes from doing anything that might cause an injury that would prevent them from playing, but that was different than say, being told you couldn't have sex or drink once you were on your own time. “But they must’ve really wanted you if they’d keep you on after you got pregnant.” Even activity reasons aside, it was kind of hard to hide a pregnancy bulge from the camera.
The werewolf movie caught his attention. He’d been a werewolf for a year, and even now still thought of himself as a wolf even though he was also a vampire. There was a kinship among wolves that didn't really exist in the vampire world. “A werewolf movie, huh? What's it about? Other than the obvious, I mean.”
***
“I wouldn’t have signed it if they had one. What I do off the set is my own business.” Granted there had been times when she hadn’t made the brightest decisions as evidenced by a picture that had been published of her and her boyfriend in a restaurant but that hadn’t been either of their faults. That had been the temples influencing people. “But some companies still do them because they think certain behaviors will hurt their brand. Mostly I think it’s companies that are marketed towards kids and teenagers.” She smiled at him. “I’ve worked with the director before and when he got the go ahead on the script he called to ask if I was interested in a part. It wasn’t about zombies so - I jumped at it.”
“It’s a horror comedy. Think Shaun of the Dead type only with werewolves. And the werewolves aren’t the bad guys which I’m really enjoying that change from the norm.”
***
That all made sense. It wasn’t like companies like Disney really enjoyed dealing with the personal life drama of stars like Lindsay Lohan. “Not a fan of zombies, I take it?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah, werewolves tend to get a bad rep,” Tyler said. Not that he blamed them. When he was in wolf form, he had no control over what he did. When he was forced to change on the full moon, he tried to make sure to lock himself away so that he wouldn’t hurt innocent people, but that hadn’t stopped him from nearly killing Stefan on his first transformation. “Sounds interesting though. Let me know when it comes out. I’d buy opening night tickets.”
***
“The idea of them is terrifying to me. And after having an encounter here with them I’ll happily stay far away from them. In my work and in my real life if possible.” Alice said grimacing a little as she remembered that run in. It still made her skin crawl to think about how close a zombie had come to grabbing her.
“I don’t think this movie is going to change the overwhelming opinion of some people but it’s different. And I’m hoping people like it.”
***
“We had zombies?” Tyler asked, raising an eyebrow. It must have been when he was still in the Appalachian mountains, because he was pretty sure he would have remembered something like that.
“Well, most people don’t believe werewolves exist in the first place,” Tyler pointed out. “But hopefully I’ll like it at least. Sounds like it’s right up my alley.” He looked at his watch again. “Alright, how’d you feel about moving on to some weights?”
***
“I don’t think that’s what they were called in that person’s dream world but - they were zombies. Or at least that’s what I’m going with since they were reanimated corpses wanting to eat people.” Alice said with a shrug.
“True. I think my definition of what can really be out there has changed since I started dreaming and learned everything that really happened here.” She smiled at him. “And if not you can be honest and tell me. I’m not entirely sold on some of the scenes but - can’t argue too much with the writers.” She stepped off the eliptical machine. “Can I get some water first?”
***
For all the other faults Tyler’s dreams had, at least he could say that there weren’t zombies. Or, if there were, he and his friends had never encountered them. The living dead in his dreams fed off of blood, not brains, and they were, thankfully or unthankfully, depending who you asked, capable of coherent thought.
“Honesty’s my specialty,” Tyler said with a wink. He could be a bit of a dick sometimes, but at least he was a usually honest one. “But yeah, you can have water whenever you want. Did you bring your own water bottle? If not, there’s a water fountain just over there,” he said, pointing to the water fountain near the door.
***
There was a little laugh at that wink and she went over to the water fountain, making a mental note to make sure she brought her water bottle with her the next time. She’d thought she’d tossed it in her bag with the rest of her things that morning but when she’d gone to change before coming over she’d discovered it wasn’t there. And she hadn’t had time to call any of her friends to ask them to bring her one without making herself late. She placed a hand on her stomach, rubbing a gentle circle there without thinking about it as she drank. This was more activity than the baby was probably used to her doing but it was going to be okay.
“I’ll remember my water bottle next time. I thought I had it but - must be one of the things that I left on the table on the way out.” She said, walking over to the weights and waiting for him to tell her what he wanted to see.
***
“Yeah, I’ve done that more than once,” Tyler said. “Even once you get into the habit of it, it’s a pretty easy thing to forget. I like to keep an extra bottle in my car for when I forget mine.”
He led her to the bench press and took the weights off the end of the barbell, placing them on the floor as if 20lb weights weighed no more than a feather. To Tyler, they really didn’t. “We’re just going to start you on the bar today,” he said. “It’s still 45lb on its own, so it’s got a bit of weight to it. But we’ll work on your technique before we start adding weight. If you come to work out on your own, it’d be better to use the weight machines though,” he said, gesturing to said machines.
***
“I might have to start doing that myself. With a change of clothes and probably a million other things that I find myself forgetting.” It was something she’d found herself doing more and more lately. Her mom kept telling her that it was just a pregnancy thing but she didn’t like that answer.
She raised an eyebrow at the way he moved the weights off, eyes noticing the numbers printed on them. He was clearly in better shape than she’d even imagined a physical trainer would be. “I guess this is the time to tell you I’ve never actually lifted weights like this before right?” She asked, remembering what the football players she’d dated in high school had shown her about positioning themselves on the bench and following their example as she laid back on it and put her hands on the bar to move it.
***
“I didn’t think you had,” Tyler said, grinning. Most people who came to a personal trainer hadn’t had much experience with this kind of thing themselves. He didn’t notice anything in her form that needed immediate correction, so he let her move it on his own, prepared to step in if it looked like she needed help. Still, he didn’t think that she’d need too much help at this point.
“How’s that feeling?” he asked. “We can add a bit more weight if you’re feeling up to it.”
***
“It feels heavier than my backpack but not necessarily a bad way,” Alice said, hoping she was making sense. It felt like she was using muscles she'd either forgotten about having or never knew she had in the first place. But even that didn't feel bad. Just strange. Different.
***
“That’s good,” Tyler said. “Today we’ll just see how you do at this weight, but we can start adding more weight on your next session.” He really was just trying to get a measure of where she was at now before he really started making her sweat.
***
Alice nodded her head, focusing on her breathing to keep it steady. “When do you think that’s going to be?” She asked him, wanting to put it on her calendar when she got home so that she wouldn’t forget about it.
***
“Let’s say next week? Same time?” he asked.
***
“Same time next week works for me.” Alice answered him, planning on putting it in as a recurring appointment so she wouldn’t have to keep hoping to remember to put it in the calendar.
***