Herakles (dontcallmeherc) wrote in olympian_rewind, @ 2010-02-07 20:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | alana kellings, gregory lyon, herakles |
Who: Herk and Alana
What: Catching up
Where: Alana's home
When: Afternoon, around the 22nd of Jan, so BACKDATED
Warnings: None
Alana had no idea what was blasting out of her speakers, but it was loud (within the house) and it had a good beat. Pirate seemed happy to try to jump for the ball in her hand as a way of dancing with her, and, all in all, it was a good way to forget about work things and decompress for a bit. She started to wear the dog out in such a fashion before opening her door to the backyard and tossing the ball out. Canine properly distracted, she turned her attention to the kitchen. The question would be if she'd hear the front door. And if she didn't, had she left it unlocked?
A pretty good question, and one that Herakles was wondering himself. He had knocked but had gotten no reply. But he could hear music, and assumed that she was inside... or, she had very dumb robbers. "Alana? Alanaaaaa..." Jiggling the handle, he realized it was open.
Well... she was expecting him... Hoping he wasn't intruding, he walked in, calling her name again.
"Kitchen!" Alana shouted out, now easy to hear that he was in the house. Pirate came inside, and ran straight for the god, a new squeaky toy in his mouth. It was a stuffed duck. He hadn't yet gotten to ripping it apart or hiding it.
"Hey!" After poking his head in and waving at Alana, he turned his attention to the dog. "Hey, you, isn't that cute. My dog had one like that... He ate the head."
Pirate threw and caught the toy in his mouth, tail wagging, as the duck squeaked it's protest at the treatment. He did it again. The duck quaked. This was a novelty to the dog and had not yet worn off.
"Hey," Alana came into view to check on him. "I'm cooking up some food. You want some?"
Herk chuckled and gave Pirate a pat. To Alana, he said with a smile, "Sure, whatcha making?"
"I got some shreds, I'm cooking ground beef, got tortillas, sour cream, some salsa... cook some mushrooms maybe..." She'd let him put together what mix he wanted, but it was easy food. She waved him toward the kitchen space.
"Oooh, I was craving Mexican, weird." He followed along behind her when his ringtone went off. "Oh, sorry, one sec." The god pulled out his phone and turned his back to Alana to answer.
She arched an eyebrow at him as he answered, then turned to check on the meat. This was more a mash of whatever was at hand than something planned, but it worked well enough. Maybe she had chips.... She began to poke around for them as he took the call.
"Hello? Oh, hey. Yeah. Yeah, that works. No, I'm at Alana's." Long pause. "No. I'll see ya later tonight. Okay, have fun, bye." And with a sigh, he hung up and tucked the phone back into his pocket, frowning at it briefly before turning back to the kitchen.
"Anything wrong?" she asked casually, glancing at him as she grabbed tortilla chips and began to dump some in a bowl. She was going to make a mess of her food. She also didn't care.
"Oh, um, just a call from Jenny."
"Ohh..." Alana grinned. "From Jenny~" she teased, sing songing the name as she said it, before chuckling. Then paused. "Before I forget, don't use the sink in the downstairs bathroom. It's leaking and I haven't gotten to it yet."
"Oh, sure." He made a note to try and fix it, before realizing that Alana was just as good at fixing stuff as he was, if not better. "So, present?"
She would fix it, once she took the time to really study the problem and figure out what parts she needed. This one wasn't a simple tightening issue. Until then, there was a pan to catch any drips of water that slipped out. "Guest bedroom..." She paused once more, then wiped off her hands on a dish towel and headed toward the stated room. "I'll show you. Nothing fancy, I'm sorry to say."
He followed after, shrugging. "I didn't expect as much. Don't really want as much, either."
"Well, I decided to stick with food for ya, since it just made the most sense." They both knew he could put away food, and she'd found some good stuff. Walking into the spare bedroom, there were rows of bottles of beer standing grouped on the ground. The variety was pretty wide. "Gift part one," Alana stated, handing Greg two folded six pack carriers, "Mix and match as you wish two six packs. It's mostly the various microbrews from home, things I haven't found around here, but there's a big selection too."
Laughing loudly, he smiled down upon the beer. Mmmmm. Tasty~ "Damn! You shouldn't have."
Alana snickered. "Hey, what others don't claim for themselves, I get. Win win for me." As she pointed him to look over the selection, she went to a box beside the bed and began to dig through it.
He did so, bending down to check them over. Ooh, this was nice, he hadn't had any in a while... The god ended up picking one box of local stuff he knew to be very good, and his old standby Budweiser. "Thanks, 'Lana."
"No worries. Thanks for the gift too, by the way. Shoulda said that sooner." Or had she? She couldn't recall if she'd mentioned it in the weeks after coming back at the hotel or not. Eh, said now. "These," she said, tossing a few large bags of chips onto the bed, "are also for you. Only found in the Northwest." Five different flavored of thick cut potato chips stared up at him. A small envelope followed.
And his heart grew two sizes larger that day...
"You know me too well."
"I've learned a few things..." Like just how much he could eat. She pushed the envelope toward him a bit more. "Open it."
"More? Seriously?" Chuckling, he opened it up. "Ooh, Outback. You really stick to a theme, eh?" Greg looked back up to her and leaned down to plant a fond kiss on the top of her head. "Thanks, once again."
"You're welcome," she grinned. "Food is an easy theme. It was just gettin' it all here that was the tricky part."
"Thanks!" Man, he was saying that alot. He felt a little awkward; tradition told men to give gifts, but not how to act when receiving. "I really appreciate it. How was your vacation?"
"Good. Same stuff as always." She shrugged and headed out of the room back toward the kitchen, calling over her shoulder. "Hey, I'll lookin' to take a trip in the end of Feb. You gonna be good to watch the pup for me?"
"Oh, sure. Where to?" he asked as he popped open one bag and began to sample the chips.
"I do have other food cookin' and basically ready ya know," she mentioned with a grin, teasing. "But... Greece I think? Shit, I think that's what we were talkin' 'bout."
"Greece?" He tilted his head curiously. A piece of a broken chip stuck out of his mouth, caught in mid-chew. "Who's the other person?"
"Vadimas. Apparently he's got an office over there as well, and was possibly offended when I said something about buying an airline ticket...." She wasn't sure about that one, and wasn't really concerned either. She started to put together her food bowl, layering ingredients over the chips she'd poured before.
"Oh... Are you going together?" he asked, and immediately regretted it. Stupid, that was kind of an obvious question. He didn't even have to bother adding the 'with him, instead of me' bit. Arrrgh. Dunce.
"Basically." Then Alana paused, and turned to look at Greg, raising her eyebrows. He wasn't seriously going to try to make this into something was he? "As friends." For fuck's sake, please don't let that become my new catch phrase...
"Totally!" he added just as quickly, offering her an apologetic smile. "What part of Greece?" Distraction!
"Hopefully a few parts. Not sure though. Kinda just goin' with it." She gestured to the kitchen and all the things that had been set out. "Help yourself. Or I'm gonna start teasin' ya endlessly 'bout Jenny."
"S'nothin' worth teasing over," he shot back, and stuck out his tongue for good measure. "She just invited me out to dinner." Not the other way around. And he hated that he felt like he had to point that out to her, even knowing that she wouldn't much care either way.
She cared. The same way that she cared about any of her friends getting invited out to dinner. Well, maybe a little more. He was just an easy target when it came to teasing. "She know how much you eat?"
"We've had lunch a few times, at work. So, she's got a good idea. I'm gonna be the gentleman and pay for us both." Ouch. His wallet. "She's... nice."
Now both of Alana's eyebrows went up as she watched him, the temptation to make further comment being resisted only by shoving a loaded chip into her mouth. She took her time chewing it. "Uh huh."
He looked up from his bag of chips and gave her a Look. "What does that mean?"
"Nothin'. Nothin' at all." She grinned, then frowned. "Giant, you're gonna be through that bag of chips in no time flat and there's all the makin's you could want of a burrito standin' not five feet away..."
"I'm not really hungry right now," claimed the god. "And I've known women long enough to know that 'uh huh' doesn't just mean nothing."
Kali:"Hey, I'm tryin' ta be good and not point out the time gap before 'nice'. It's like the fuckin' gap that screams 'what's the least insulting word I can use right now?" She wasn't ready to buy the food line, though she wouldn't press it.
"Hey! She is nice. Just... I dunno?" He frowned. Clearly, there was a reason she had asked him, and not the other way around. "Kinda, uh, frilly I guess."
"I'm sure you've dated frilly before..." She grabbed another bite of her food.
"I don't really like frilly," he said with a shrug. A quick mouthful of chips, and he added, "Not really my style. If I have to go away and be all hero-ish, I want to know any gal I leave behind can defend herself, y'know?"
Alana blinked. This wasn't adding up right. "I thought you liked girls who could be girlie? That you could take care of... Ain't frilly right up that same alley?"
"Girly and frilly ain't the same thing. Girly means happy, cute, sweet. Frilly means kinda... Frilly." Argh. She was asking a man of not-alot-of-words-or-at-least-good-ones to explain somethign hard to explain!
"Didn't say same, said same alley." Alana knew the difference. She just chose to ignore it. "And you said she was nice..."
"She is. I mean, she's not bad. Could do worse." He fell off, not liking where this was going. Could do better, his nasty little thoughts told him. Sigh. "... Athens is nice around February."
Alana laughed. "Got it. I'll leave ya be. You want anythin' from Greece?"
"Ah, no, I'm okay. Just, have fun?" he offered with a smile.
"That's the plan. Just gotta clear time off with the old man. But I figure it's after Valentine's Day push, so it should be good." She shrugged and turned back toward her food.
"Oh, V-Day. I forgot about that," he said with a bit of a groan.
She chuckled. "Yeah, well, I'm sure it's sneakin' up on a lot of guys. You've got time. Maybe you can cook a meal and woo Jenny for the day. I think it lands on the weekend even..." Considering, she went to look for the posted calendar to check.
Woo Jenny? Herk considered it and shrugged. "Maybe," he said with a tone that suggested 'probably not'.
"If you get real bored I bet they'd let you be part of the bachelor auction that happens each year. Let someone else pick your date for you." Now that could be interesting... She'd have to go just to watch.
Eh? Snapped out of his thoughts, he blinked at her. "What's that?"
"The bar Adam works at does it. Women -- well, mostly women -- bid on guys to have them for the night for a date. Shiri asked me to make a bid on Adam once so she could surprise him with some massive romantic gesture or soemthin'." She shrugged and turned back to her food.
"That does sound kinda fun. Heh, actually sounds like something D would put together, huh?" he chuckled.
"No, D would probably include stripping, and other things I don't even fuckin' want ta ponder," she pointed out, before going to the fridge and digging for something to drink. "Which, you could prob'ly ask him about if you wanted."
"Oh, I don't have to ask. I hung around him enough in his real heyday," the god pointed out with a bit of a smirk. "Anything he does now is still tame."
"I don't consider that a comfortin' thought," she mentioned, grabbing the drink and food as she moved to sit at the counter island on the edge of the kitchen.
That didn't sound like a happy tone... "You two get in a fight?"
"Not recently.....?" Alana shot him a curious look.
"Oh, you just kinda sounded... eh," he said with a shrug. Wordy descriptions were not his forte, as she knew.
And she wasn't really interested in explaining the non-relationship between D and herself. "Whatever. Either way, you've got choices for ya on the day if you decide to do anythin' at all. Or go underground." As she was.
Conversation dropper, that. He chose to pick up on it and said, "I'll probably spend it at home. Don't really wanna give the wrong message by giving out Valentine's or some such."
"And that is why you should go to a bar." It would be her cure all solution for the moment. She smirked and finished off her food. "Hey, you got any plans for tonight?"
He shook his head. "Not tonight, nah. You?"
"Not really. I was just thinkin' I should take the pup for a walk. Wanna come?" He'd claimed his gifts, so there wasn't much reason not to leave the house.
The god smiled and nodded. Was it even a question at this point if he wanted to hang out with her? Guess so... But hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. "Love to."
"Awesome. Pirate!" The dog came running at the call, and Alana went to get leash and ball. Let the immortal deal with the slobber covered toy after a few throws. Not like he'd mind much.
Teddy stood and picked up the ball to toss for him, thoughts of romance suddenly piled in his head as he watched the mortal walk off. Confusing, conflicting romance.
Sigh.
Summary: The two friends catch up and chat when he comes to visit.