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Tweak says, "Ja, for sure, from Sweden...."

Samuel T. Anders (cbuck) wrote in vas_captio_rpg,
@ 2009-05-01 17:05:00

Entry tags:

!dropped, !incomplete, day 05, location: gym, open, sam anders, sid jenkins

Who: Samuel T. Anders, Sid Jenkins, OTA
What: Gym inspection
When: Day 5, Afternoon
Where: The gym
Rating: TBA
Status: Active

According to the map, the gym was somewhere in the direction of the thrift store and the majority of the buildings, then down, which he only understood because it was the opposite direction of the church. At least that's what he thought the map said. Whoever drew it wasn't exactly clear.

Upon approach, the building looked like many gyms he had seen before, just grown over and decaying like most of the buildings. There was a trail among the dirt and dust where people had come and gone from a common door, which told him that this was one of the more frequented spaces around here.

"Do you think someone's in there?" Sam asked over his shoulder to Sid. Every building he had been in so far had been occupied except for the Thrift store, which was eerie when empty. After the fall, Anders wasn't extremely fond of going into building alone, especially after one nearly collapsed on him. To himself, Anders wondered if there would be a setup already for pyramid, only to remember that no one here knew what it was.

The pursuit of pyramid wasn't because he was aching to play. Pyramid had become his distraction from horrible situations and a safe way to blow off steam.

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emo_underdog
2009-05-04 12:54 am UTC (link)

Sid tried very hard not to gawk. Anders made it look so easy. He caught the ball like it was nothing. No effort whatsoever. Yeah, he was a professional, Sid understood that bit, but... "Fuck..." he breathed in amazement in spite of himself. But then he shook his head as if to shake the thought and looked back at Anders' face when he spoke. "Oh, right. Yeah. Definitely, mate," he said as casually as he could, which actually came out sounding more like nervous laughter.

And then the ball was sailing back toward him and Sid reached up with one hand, trying to duplicate the movement Anders had made. Huh, lookit that, I was taking notes... he found himself thinking as the ball hit his outstretched hand. When he tried to mirror the cradling movement, though, the ball floundered and Sid's arms flailed, trying to recover it. He managed it, which was surprising in and of itself, but he must've looked like a complete twat doing it. "Heh...bit rusty, yeah?" he chuckled awkwardly, before trying to throw it back a bit less aggressively the second time. His brow furrowed a bit with frustration when he overshot far to the right. If Anders caught that one, Sid might just have to give up on principal alone, because he'd never be that good.

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cbuck
2009-05-04 01:01 am UTC (link)

"Usually the ball is small enough you can catch it with the one hand," he instructed. The tossing was just the warm up, and a good way for him to gauge Sid as a player. Through this, he could tell what his instincts were and where he could focus to get the game right.

The tall man went for it like a shot, his hand tagging it and slapping it towards himself. The deflection landed the ball in his prepared other hand. Yep, he still had it. Military training had just made him faster. It made him wish he could rematch against the Picon Panthers right then and there.

"Ok, when you throw, you want your fingers to follow through towards your target," he spoke as he illustrated his words with his own motions, with the ball tucked under his unused arm. "So, I'm throwing at you, and my fingers are going to point right at your chest."

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emo_underdog
2009-05-04 01:07 am UTC (link)

"Oh, right," Sid said with a nod. He remembered just then that Anders had said the softball was a better replication of the size of a Pyramid ball. Although, if Sid was honest, he rather preferred the larger ball because there was no way he'd have caught it otherwise. He was lucky he'd caught it as it was.

Anders lunged again and Sid blinked. "Christ..." he said a little louder. "That is..." he paused and smirked. "That is bloody impressive, that is, mate." Credit where credit was due and all that. If Anders had thrown the ball astray, Sid would've fallen over trying and the ball would've rolled all the way across the gym, probably.

Sid watched and listened, trying to take it in. Well, he could absorb the information into his brain with no problem; Sid was a highly intelligent person, so that wasn't really the problem. The problem was the execution. He nodded his understanding and almost mirrored the motion with his own hand, but thought better of it when he considered he'd look like a half-retarded child if he did. He'd just try to do it when he threw the ball next. "Right. Got it," he said. And he did, as far as processing the words went, anyway.

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cbuck
2009-05-04 01:10 am UTC (link)

"Ok, and when you catch it, watch it into your hand, er, hands." Teaching made Anders feel better. A lot better, all things considered.

With that bit of instruction done, he popped the ball up briskly into his throwing hand like it had just been shot up from nowhere, and cranked his arm back to throw again. The ball sailed through the air, directly on target once again.

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emo_underdog
2009-05-04 01:26 am UTC (link)

Watch the ball into his hands. Right. Sid wasn't not watching the ball, he didn't think, but Anders was the professional and he seemed pretty confident in his teaching, so, maybe Sid hadn't been watching as closely as he'd thought he had been. So, this time, he didn't take his eyes off the ball until he caught it. The catch was still a bit clumsy, but far less so than the last catch he'd made. "Safe!" he said excitedly, looking back at Anders again. "Thanks, mate, you're a bloody good coach," he added.

Now, though, came the hard part. Fingers follow through to the target, he reminded himself. Throwing at him...point at his chest. He'd try it first with both hands, since he was still fairly uncomfortable with that ball in contrast to the fact that Anders seemed to feel very much at home with it. If he could pull it off with both hands, then he'd try it with one. So, he gave it a throw and tried to follow through. It still sailed a bit to the right, only at least that one was probably a much easier catch than the last. Right, at least he was improving. At least, Sid thought he was.

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cbuck
2009-05-04 01:39 am UTC (link)

This one was a lot closer. "Good!" Anders exclaimed as he nabbed the ball from the air. "Definitely better."

There were so many things in the universe that one could use for distraction. Sex, drugs, drinking, Sam had tried all of those, but in terrible situations like this, the best thing to do was just relax. For the first time since finding out the dark truth that he was one of the final five was therapeutic. Of course, that was on top of the fact that he had been somehow kidnapped and brought here to this weird place where people were being experimented on. Pyramid made things a bit better.

Anders decided to just let Sid work on it a bit, lobbing him the ball again without new hints.

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emo_underdog
2009-05-04 01:55 am UTC (link)

Anders probably had no idea what the praise meant to Sid. He wouldn't say, either, because he wasn't a bloody girl or anything, but...the fact that he was trying - and apparently improving - and Anders was noticing as well as pointing it out, meant an awful lot to Sid. He'd never had a mentor figure telling him was doing something right. Usually their response was more along the lines of, "...well, fuck..." and usually rightfully so.

"Thanks, mate," he replied with a broad, proud grin. Sid decided to try catching the next throw with the one hand sweeping sort of motion Anders was doing. The first part of the move worked. He managed to nab the ball and start to sweep it in toward his chest, but the ball was bigger than his hand would allow and he lost hold on it before he could bring up his other hand to trap it. So, rather than catching it, he unintentionally batted it away. "Oh, bollocks," he snapped at himself before jogging off to retrieve it.

Maybe it was the pride Anders had put into him with the previous praise or maybe it was sheer dumb luck, but when Sid grabbed the ball and launched it back over his shoulder toward Anders in one surprisingly swift movement, it actually headed right to the other man. Again it was off to the right, which Sid supposed was something he'd have to focus on to correct, but he was so in awe of the way he'd managed to send the ball back that he simply stood in place and blinked in amazement.

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cbuck
2009-05-04 02:10 am UTC (link)

Anders let out a triumphant laugh as he caught the ball. For all the times that he felt like he'd never do stuff like this again, threw himself even harder into this moment where he was as he used to be. All this brought to mind a trip they made to a high school where the team was trying to get the students involved in the sport. Mind you, these students were a few years younger than Sid, but still, he could remember the sounds of all those pyramid balls dropping and thudding. He could hear the whoops of joy.

That was one thing that sports could be counted on for, feeling good when he was down. Even more so making other people feel good about themselves by getting them into it.

He tossed the ball back, watching it go and staring down the ball's trajectory to see Sid's reception.

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emo_underdog
2009-05-04 12:42 pm UTC (link)

The triumphant laugh from Anders earned an incredulous one in reply from Sid. He hadn't seen that coming, not in a million years. But, somehow he'd managed actually pulling off a pretty cool move just then.

When Anders tossed the ball back, Sid steeled himself and decided to try again with the sweeping catch. He could see that the ball was pretty much right on target, so he took a step to the side in order to force himself to reach for it. Again, he watched the ball until it hit his hand and this time, when he swept the ball toward his chest, he brought the other hand up in time to trap it. And then, Sid grinned brightly and raised his eyebrows in question as he looked back at Anders for approval. "Yeah?"

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	cbuck 2009-05-04 07:34 pm UTC (link)
	Having someone to throw around with, even though he was just a rookie, was great. Playing the game at Joe's was one (drunken) thing, throwing around with someone for the sport of it was doing wonders for his psyche. After all this time, it was still the best stress relief he could have. Sharing the joy of someone learning was just a bonus. "You got it!" (Reply to this) (Parent)

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