beautiful night. (open)

[eli ackerman]

WAVING FROM SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS.
"Come down now," they'll say.

---

At least it was a nice night. Well, nice enough. How did that song he liked go again? 'A beautiful night for being lonely'. That's definately what he was. Lonely. Eli didn't even have Duncan with him tonight. The dog was impressive; of everyone he had ever met, Duncan was the only one who could 1. sleep comfortably curled into a ball half his original size, and 2. sleep at all with people screaming across the house at eachother. Eli cleared his throat in a subtle way, knowing some of the disgusting sounds people could make with their vocal chords (despite being alone, with no people around to disgust). Having taken part in the screaming, he was a bit hoarse; it was a big house to shout across. Let sleeping dogs lie. That was the rule, and Eli took it into consideration when fumbling for his car keys and slamming the back door behind him.

Eli hadn't been able to deal with Dan anymore, which wasn't uncommon. Over the past few months especially, he had burned up more gas than ever before with all the drives he took. Grocery store, that had been his excuse. He had ripped the slim piece of paper from the refrigerator and stuffed it into his pocket when he went out the door. That's another thing that had changed within the past few months: the small family never seemed to run out of anything food-wise. It was because Dan got extra irritable this late at night, and the grocery store was the innocent only part of this place open all hours of the day and night. The list of food was small and petty, some items impatiently underlined, meaning Dan wanted them. Those that were circled and underlined meant he really wanted them. Eli knew he was going to "accidentally" forget a lot of them.

Mainly because the grocery store wasn't the point. The grocery store was never the point. Whenever he needed to get out of the house, immidiately, he used the grocery store as a cover and took a walk under the stars. Something he never really did, considering he was a runner, and never walked when he could run, and considering that he was an only child and his mother was more than nervous about murderers and kidnappers roaming the streets. Truthfully, the city had made Eli the same way, which means it was stupid of him to be trekking through dimly-lighted streets in the middle of the night, after all, he could trekk through the well-lighted Kennedy Boulevard just as easily. Hell, he could trekk through the grocery store. But there was something about the night air that calmed the boy.

He had taken his walk, contemplated using the one lonely cigarette he had stolen from Dan a ways back, then decided if the nigh wasn't enough to settle his frustration a cigarette wouldn't either, and headed back to his car. It was close to three o'clock now, and even a peaceful town like this had cops. And at the annoying age of seventeen, Eli was still subject to curfew. And so he started the car and headed away from the park (making sure he checked the backseat for any kidnappers before leaving.) With his foot firmly holding the brake pedal, the boy suddenly felt a tearing emotion close to depression. A night for being lonely, it seemed that stage had passed. He needed someone to talk to. Someone other than the stars in the sky. Maybe he would swing by Kennedy Boulevard anyways.

The boy had just exited the parking lot when the car gave a grand sputter, an exceptionally ugly noise, enough of one to cause Eli to pull over in front of the school, as he knew what that sound meant. That was Noise #4. And of all the problematic noises, #4 was the worst. Kind of like someone's soul was dying, throwing up, and scratching its especially long nails across a chalkboard simultaneously. The old Skyliner looked brand new: a still-retractable white hood (rare for its age) and a sparkling cherry-red body, the car was practically Grease Lightning. Except for the engine. Much unlike the famous, powerful, street-racing greaser car, Eli's sputtered and coughed at him at the most unintelligible times. Like now, when he simply wanted to find someone else in this world, just one person. Of course, Eli could merely drive cars, fixing them wasn't anywhere near in his range of talents. The car had cost him nothing, as it was a present from Dan's grandchild-loving, richer-than-God parents, despite the fact that Eli was technically not their grandchild. Maybe that's why the car was so great but the engine was so useless: he was only an almost-grandchild to them.

Eli let out a sigh and got out of the car, there was nothing he could do other than pop the hood, stare at the mess of machinery and hope someone driving by knew their way around the inside of a car. From what he could tell, the engine wasn't letting out intimidating smoke like it did when the car made Noise #2, the most uncommon and severe of the problems, and nothing was obviously out of place like Noise #5 situations. Noise #'s 1 and 3 had something to do with a shortage of gas and oil, or so he thought. Noise #4 was the tricky one that had given him no clues. The car was so impressive, and when the engine decided it was feeling good, it showed. Now, however, it was embarrassing, he almost didn't want anyone to stop by. But that was a huge lie, he needed human contact, needed it. He refused to go to bed knowing the last person he spoke to was Dan.

"Awesome," Eli muttered, tolerance level shrinking. Now he needed someone for reasons other than throwing a rope down the pit of despair to drag him out. In his loneliness, the boy was stranded. Leaning against the side of his car, his eyes watched the street closely. For any sign of headlights or footsteps. Anyone who could save him one mental breakdown and an auto repair bill. At least it was a nice night.

[/blockquote][/color]

---

EVERYTHING LOOKS PERFECT FROM FAR AWAY.
"Come down now," but we'll stay.[/font]

---

STATUS; complete.[/size]
WORDCOUNT; 1,034.[/size]
TAGGED; open.[/size]
JAMS; beautiful night -- burden brothers.[/size]
NOTES; eli is just about as socially deprived as his rper right now xP.[/size][/center]

[addi isabella alves]

Each time that Addi returned to Sunset Beach from a visit with her dad, she would hole up in her bedroom for a few hours and try to pretend like her life was far better than she felt it actually was or ever could be. Sure, she was a pretty lucky girl if you took one quick glance at her – she was healthy, well groomed, had good friends and more money than anyone could ever possibly need – but she believed that all of these things were just a shell of a person. Underneath the aesthetically pleasing capper to her life, Adalia was exceptionally dissatisfied and bored to death.

Most teenage girls would turn to their mothers for comfort in a time of unhappiness and lethargy, but Addi was fairly certain that her mom would have preferred to stick her hundred-dollar acrylic nails into her eye sockets before comfort her own daughter. It wasn’t just this annoyed mood that made her think so negatively about her mother’s maternal instincts (or lack thereof), she had her reasons, and plenty of evidence to back this belief up. Her mother always made some excuse to leave the room or change the subject when emotions were brought into the rare conversations that they shared – and this did nothing for Addi’s other belief. The one where she believed that her mother didn’t love her. At all.

With every snarky or sarcastic comment that Addi made in the gentle spirit of humour and charm, her mother would snap, “You are just like your father!” and storm away to eat sushi or crap-viar with her new and perfect family. Usually she took that comment as an insult – not because there was anything wrong with her father, which there wasn’t because her dad was wonderful, but because it was widely known that her mother absolutely detested her dear old dad. Nobody knew why. It was never discussed, just like everything else meaningful about life. Her mother never even brought her dad up in normal conversation – it was always just when Addi misbehaved. In fact, her mother often referred to her new husband, Sergeant General Idiotface (or Joseph, Lord of Bastards), as her ‘father’ or ‘dad’, if a paternal parent was brought up at all. Addi was always very quick to point out that he was not her father. Typical stepdad-stepdaughter scenario.

Sunset Beach paled in comparison to the colour and life of Sunset Pier. Even her beautifully decorated SB bedroom seemed substandard to her messy, poster covered bedroom at her dad’s little shack of a house – and as she lay on her Egyptian cotton sheets, staring up into the marble fan that swooshed and hummed quietly over her, she longed for her other scratchy sheets and her other broken fan in her other home... but she wouldn’t be allowed to see it or another few weeks. Her mom and dad shared her and her brothers in the summertime. Her father’s week ended today. Now she was stuck in hell with the Swiss Family Suck.

The night was pressing down upon the large house like a heavy blanket, and Addi could tell that she was never going to get to sleep tonight. It was too hot and stuffy, something not even a ridiculously expensive fan could cure, and she had way too many negative thoughts fluttering around in her brain, so she decided to not even try. It would only depress her further to be alone in a quiet room with her insane mind, so there was only one other option.

Sneaking out really isn’t as hard as they make it seem in the movies. All she had to do was be as quiet as possible, and she got out free of capture – she knew her route well, though, so that helped. She knew exactly where to place her feet on the stairs so that she didn’t make a sound, knew how to distract the poodle thing so that it didn’t growl at her like it usually did, and knew how to greet her own German shepherd so that it didn’t piss himself with excitement at seeing her, and she knew how to tiptoe out the back door with her dog and shut the door as quietly as possible behind her. After a few yards of still quiet walking, Addi broke in to a run, Spike, her dog, leaping and yapping happily after her.

She didn’t stop running through the streets until she thought that she heard her dad’s car squealing.

Slowing down to an idle position, she panted and tried to listen for it again, cocking her head to the side. When she heard another noise, her head snapped in the other direction, and she began walking quickly around the corner, a small smirk tugging at her lips as she silently praised her father for knowing that she was suffering and coming to get her. She just figured that his antique car crapped out again and he was stranded just a mile from her house, and was thus unable to save her. Obviously too happy to realize the extreme unlikelihood of that ever happening, her smile still faltered when she rounded the new street and saw that it most definitely was not her father or her father’s crap car. It was just some dude. Leaning on his crap car.

Spike immediately shot off, barking madly in the direction of the guy, and Addi sighed as she advanced cautiously. She knew to be wary of strangers in the middle of night, but her insane dog didn’t... though, granted, this guy did look somewhat familiar.

“Sorry...” she mumbled as she finally got hold of the dog’s collar. Addi glanced at the car behind him, and then turned her green eyes to meet his. “What have you done to your car?”

[eli ackerman]

WAVING FROM SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS.
"Come down now," they'll say.

---

So, recap of this lovely situation. Eli was alone. He was devestatingly alone, and with every passing minute he felt more and more deprived of social contact. His frustration-curing walk hadn't been successful, and he was more frustrated than ever. He needed someone to talk to, someone to a. listen to his thoughts, b. get his mind off everything, or c. all of the above. He wouldn't find that at home. Oh well, things could be worse. At least he wasn't stranded by the beach at three in the morning with a broken car and a mere fifteen dollars and seventy-five cents in his pockets. Oh, wait... No, it wasn't all that great of a situation to be in. Which was why Eli was glad to see a figure running down the street towards him.

Even if it was a dog. Having one himself, Eli knew how easy it was for an animal that size (or one with as much energy as Duncan) to leap a fence and terrorize the neighborhood. That's what his neighbors called it anyways. For a dog of Duncan's energy level, a little yard just wouldn't cut it. And a dog the size of the barking German shepherd tearing down the street probably couldn't handle its yard, either. An intimidating bark it had, despite being a dog person Eli had to contemplate turning tail and leaving his beloved car behind. Of course, in time of need, such as now, dogs were always coming to the rescue. Like Lassie or Balto. Eli soon remembered this, and felt an unpredicted smile crossing his face as the animal approached.

"Sup dog," he said, to himself mainly. A joke even Duncan had gotten sick of, and Eli was nearly positive Duncan didn't speak English. With caution he held out his left hand (saving his right should the dog be not-so-friendly. German shepherds are guard dogs, after all.) before proceeding to lightly scratch the dog behind the ears. He knew it all long: someone would come. Now, if only this dog knew how to operate a car and use jumper cables... Soon enough, the shepherd was restrained, a firm tug on its collar and an apology thrown Eli's way. Looking up, the real savior appeared. The dog's owner, no doubt. He understood well enough, having been in her position. It seemed his own dog always escaped at night, when his prominately black fur was nearly invisible. Eli had spent many a nights tracking down his own pet.

"No problem," he responded with a small smile. Yes, smiling predictably now. Half because of common courtesy, and half because karma had compensated. He was still stranded in the middle of the night with a broken car and nearly sixteen dollars, but he wasn't alone anymore. "I know how it is, they get away easy." Too esay. "Kind of a scary bark on this guy, I almost thought he was a cop's dog." Only once had he seen the police-trained dogs in action: during a training session. He wouldn't want to get in the way of one. Ever. Hopefully the world would never see the day when the dogs were released on kids out past curfew. He wasn't sure the windows on the Skyliner were strong enough to hold the weight of an angry German shepherd.

Eli gave a bashful sort of smile at the mention of his car, taking a glance at it from the corner of his eye. What had he done? He had tried to start it. "It's kind of prehistoric..." he began, knowing that he was stating the obvious. "And I say that because it sounds like a dinosaur, no doubt you heard it before you saw it?" Of course she did. Everyone in the general tri-state area heard it. In the middle of the forest small deer and rabbits stopped eating grass and lifted their heads to listen. "That was noise number four, trust me, it never gets and worse than that... But then again I haven't tried the windsheild wipers in a while." No matter his mood, Eli was always able to make a joke when a girl was present. Especially a pretty girl. That's right, he had noticed. He noticed when he wondered what sort of evil was awaiting him next time he tried to clean his windsheild.

"I'm Eli," he introduced himself, hoping that maybe this conversation would last longer if she knew his name. "You don't happen to know much about fixing cars, do you?"

[/blockquote][/color]

---

EVERYTHING LOOKS PERFECT FROM FAR AWAY.
"Come down now," but we'll stay.[/font]

---

STATUS; complete.[/size]
WORDCOUNT; 767.[/size]
TAGGED; addi.[/size]
JAMS; earth to bella (part 2) -- incubus.[/size]
NOTES; sorry this one took so long, i had an emergency core break when i realized how many poptarts i've eaten today O,o.[/size][/center]

[addi isabella alves]

Even though she had a tight grip on Spike, it didn’t stop him from continuing to bark much louder than was natural for this time of night at the stranger. It took a moment to shush him, during which Addi felt memories flooding back to her of all of the times that this dog had warned her and her family of danger, and all of the times that he simply barked at people that he liked, unsure of how else to show affection when he was restrained. This stranded dude was pretty much right, though, in a way – Spike had been given to her by her uncle, who was a cop once upon a time. Supposedly Spike never really took to the whole police training thing... which surprised Addi beyond belief. What kind of police officer wouldn’t want a dog that banged into screen doors and tripped down the stairs on a regular basis? He was a trained killer.

Addi adjusted her grip around the dog’s collar and bit the inside of her cheek, feeling a quick stab of shame hit her hard in the stomach. She was embarrassed by her instinctive assumption that the noise had come from her father’s car – how ridiculously childish could she be? So many times she found herself perking up in her SB home at the sound of an old car rumbling by, or a motorcycle tearing through the subdivision, but it was always fruitless. Her father never stepped foot in Sunset Beach these days... not for many, many years at least... and the fact that she always secretly counted on her dad to save her from what she couldn’t fix herself, such as her crap life with the new crap family, thoroughly frustrated her. Maybe it even frustrated her more than the fact that he had never really tried.

Her thoughtful frown seemed to lighten slightly at the Jurassic car joke, and she was grateful for it, even though he probably hadn’t even noticed her sudden distance from the situation, and even if he did, he might have just taken her for slow. She stared down the vehicle as he explained just how much it sucked, stroking Spike’s neck as she observed it, and raised her eyebrows at the mention of windshield wipers. “I wouldn’t,” Addi commented lightly, trying to hide a smile. “Seems like an angry car to me. The wipers would probably just hop off and beat you.” She didn’t expect him to understand her humor, so she didn’t even bother to regret the statement.

“Hello Eli,” she greeted at the introduction, completely unable to hide her smile now. Maybe it was just the moonlight, or the fact that her crazy dog seemed to like him, but she was amused to find that she felt at least amicable toward the cute guy... or, Eli, as he was apparently called. Not ‘cute guy’... she would have to be careful now... usually when she made up a nickname for someone in her head, she eventually would let it slip in normal conversation. That would just be embarrassing.

Under normal circumstances she would have been immediately defensive and wondering why a stranger would assume that she cared at all about his broken car and how old it was, but he sort of got on her good side immediately when he didn’t run shrieking away from Spike’s killer attack. She didn’t offer her name, though. Not yet. Not until she was sure he wasn’t some creep... though she was fairly certain he was alright enough -- 'Cute guy' had kind eyes. God she was ten kinds of lame.

Addi laughed now and let go of the dog’s collar, allowing him to take off running madly like dogs sometimes do. She wasn’t too worried; he wouldn’t get far and always came back when she called for him. “You must be new around here,” she jested, already rolling up her sleeves as she moved toward the front of the car. She knew this simply because everyone in both Sunset Beach and Pier knew that she was the daughter of a mechanic slash tattoo artist, and was a bit of a wrenchgirl. She’d spent hours upon hours helping her dad and her brothers as they fixed cars and motorcycles, and everyone that knew her knew this about her. Everyone who knew this did not approve of it, though. She was supposed to be a lady and wear dresses and heels and paint her nails – all of which she did, but only when she was done working on the Harley. “Careful handsome, wouldn’t want you to get grease on your nice shirt.”

“It's probably just the flux capacitor,” she assured him with a smirk. Pulling up the hood expertly, she began to feel around inside for whatever problem there could be. If her dad were here, he would have been able to fix it in a heartbeat – he loved to drive his old crappy car to the point of it nearly falling apart on the road, and then fixing it again and driving it until it broke again. She was probably going to end up the same way. So she tried not to show on her face that she actually liked Eli’s fairly attractive car, even though it had an ancient soul. “Hey, not that it’s any of my business or anything, but what’s your story?” she asked from behind the hood. “Why are you driving a broken dinosaur around at ridiculous o’clock at night?”

[eli ackerman]

WAVING FROM SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS.
"Come down now," they'll say.

---

It was a complete and utter miracle that Eli had found one person in Sunset who understood what a joke was. His humor was usually hit-and-miss, but since his move from Detroit it seemed to miss-miss-miss-every so often a lucky hit-miss-miss-miss... It's like they all had a completely different perspective on humor than the rest of the world. Which was why, upon hearing the phrase about evil windshield wipers, the boy's eyes switched their focus from the car to the girl. He quirked an eyebrow subtly, more to himself than anything. Most other people he had met would have classified him as a grade a basketcase and fled the scene, leaving Eli and his joke to comfort one another. But a genuine reply? That was new. Eli didn't skip a beat when responding: "Oh, no worries, the steering wheel is horribly territorial. I don't think it'd let anything happen to me."

The sad thing about it was the near-truth of the statement: Eli's car owned him more than it was vice versa. Over the year and a half that it had been in his posession, the car had broken down a total of fourty six times. Well, fourty seven now. That was about once every two weeks. With the sensors on the dashboard just a little bit off, the passenger side door making a funny noise when opening, and the radio collapsing on itself not once, not twice, but three times, Eli had paid quite a pretty penny to see all the inconveniences fixed. He didn't keep track, but he was sure he had paid more money than the car was worth, walked a quarter of the driven miles to get help, and nearly crashed enough times to shave a few years off of his life. It was a love-hate relationship between the boy and his car, but it was one Eli couldn't end; in this relationship, he was genuinely whipped.

The girl laughed when he asked about her car knowledge. That could either mean 'how stupid of you for assuming I know anything!' or 'how stupid of you for questioning the car knowledge of ---!" That's right, he hadn't gotten her name. Eli was smart enough to know that meant he hadn't earned the priveledge yet. He wouldn't push it. Only bad things came from pushing things like trust. Eli just had an optimistic trust. Optimistic enough to trust someone with a big dog running around the streets at three in the morning, anyways. "A social butterfly," Dan would always joke, then laugh that annoying laugh and down the remainder of his beer. People were good, that's what Eli believed (though it's strange that he did considering the company he kept), but that's not the way everyone saw the world.

"You must be new around here,"

The girl's assumption was strangely accurate. Sure, highschool kids in Sunset gossiped at a calibur unknown to Eli's midwest culture, but there was no way the news of some new stud could circle through the entire student body in two months. Said stud would have to be reeeally studly. Only in Eli's dreams. Obviously she meant she was the one known for something. In this case he was in luck, for it was mechanics. Suddenly she was taking a peek at the not-so-pretty inside of his car, and warning him (affectionately, by the way) to stand back incase he should want to keep the grease off his shirt. Having been taken a bit off guard by the 'handsome', he simply smiled in return, and despite the warning, peered into the hood of the car from a short distance. It wasn't the grease that he worried about, knowing this moody car it would probably open fire with hunks of metal...

The girl asked the question he was awaiting: What was he doing out here? He couldn't unleash his whole life story to someone who didn't trust him, just like he couldn't ask her the same question. She was helping him fix his car, that was it. And him? What sort of excuse could he come up with? Giving a shrug, he responded: "The people in my house make a point to keep me awake. I'd probably have a better chance falling asleep here and now." As uncomfortable as the pavement was, Eli preferred it to the atmosphere that polluted the house. "Besides, this broken dinosaur comes alive at night, it's not my fault if he was out partying all day. I told him to go to bed early" Speaking of early... Eli checked his watch. "But I guess that makes me a hypocrit, doesn't it?"

[/blockquote][/color]

---

EVERYTHING LOOKS PERFECT FROM FAR AWAY.
"Come down now," but we'll stay.[/font]

---

STATUS; complete.[/size]
WORDCOUNT; 782.[/size]
TAGGED; addi.[/size]
JAMS; fascination -- alpabeat.[/size]
NOTES; i love dinosaurs :].[/size][/center]

[addi isabella alves]

As she stared into the depths of the car engine, Addi felt strangely content despite the complete emotional rollercoaster that she had been on for the last few hours. Working on cars was really and activity that was always left in her other home, in her other life, so she felt like she must have done at least something good to be awarded by the fates with a broken car to play around with in Sunset Beach. Fixing vehicles relaxed her. Though she figured that Eli would feel differently, especially if he really liked his broken dinosaur car... and she couldn’t exactly blame him if he did... one thing that she knew well was that you could never assume men didn’t care for their cars just because they couldn’t fix them. Addi had seen grown men cry at her dad’s shop while their cars were in being serviced. Hopefully this new guy wasn’t the crying type, though. She would save his car –she was confident that she would.

The comment about his house made her stop tinkering around and she glanced sideways at him, offering him a sad sort of smile. “Oh, please don’t sleep out here,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a jungle out there. I mean, there are girls running around insanely in the darkness... large, scary dogs foaming at the mouth...” Waving her hand in the direction of Spike, who was now rolling around on his back on the pavement for whatever strange reason that was beyond her, she rolled her eyes. Leave it to Spike to be the largest, most intimidating looking German shepherd in the world and to do absolutely nothing cool with it. She was going to have to train him to at least pretend like he could harm someone.

She definitely understood the need to escape the suffocation of a house. That was exactly what she had been doing, only she didn’t think enough to ‘borrow’ her mother’s car and floor it out of town – she was just so used to walking everywhere in Sunset that she it never even crossed her mind. Maybe it was the fact that the noise of the engine would have woken the family up and she would have been in complete shit, but that had never stopped her before... tilting her head to the side while she pondered why she actually hadn’t just taken the car that night, she couldn’t come to any conclusion but one that told her that she probably just never planned on getting too far from home anyway.

“Where exactly does a dinosaur party during the day?” Addi wondered out loud, patting the side of the car affectionately. “Because that would be awesome, and I need to go there immediately.”

She had known since opening the hood of the car that she wouldn’t be able to fix it with her own two hands, and that she would probably have to go home and get some of the tools that were stored away in the garage in order to right the dinosaur. But she tried not to let on that she couldn’t do much for him right now, and just felt around, taking her time. It was incredibly selfish of her to use Eli’s car as a tool for therapy, because he probably had better places to be than the dark street alone with her, but she couldn’t resist it. It was totally cheesy, but she felt like the more she messed around with the engine, the more relaxed she was becoming. The dinosaur was quickly absorbing all of her negative feelings; but although Eli hadn’t run screaming from her yet, she was sure that he would look at her funny if she didn’t start fixing something soon.

“Maybe,” she grinned at his hypocrite statement, her attention still on the engine in front of her. “But if you weren’t one, then I would never have gotten the chance to meet a real dinosaur. I would have just been locked in my bedroom with zero social contact while normal people slept soundly through all of their problems.” Whoops, she had probably said too much for the first meeting.

She thought for a moment, and then stood up straight, turning to look at him. “I’m Addi, by the way.” An amused smile. “Or Adalia... if you want me to beat you up.”

[eli ackerman]

WAVING FROM SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS.
"Come down now," they'll say.

---

Eli shifted his weight between feet nervously, daring to take a step closer to the car. For all it put him through, he seemed to care too much about it. Which meant it was probably a good thing he didn't try to muck about in the depths of the engine. It was hard to do too much harm with his still, cautious photographer's hands, but it had been proven time and time again that no one knew Eli's strength, including himself. Perhaps it was his height, making him appear lanky, which made people underestimate him. All Eli knew was that he belonged behind the steering wheel, where he could release all his strength on the gas pedal. Testing his means of power was not to be tested under the hood.

Concern in the girl's voice broke his concentration. She was telling him not to sleep outside his house, for fear of crazy girls and frightening dogs. With a sort of bemused smile, he rose an eyebrow the way he often did. If Eli had one talent (though he could count at least two), it was within his left eyebrow. With one little quirk, his mood and mindset shifted. For example: he was previously thinking bitter thoughts about having to go home and face the dark creature that lurked there, but suddenly... BAM. It all disappeared. Sometimes he worried that his subconscious and his eyebrows were in cahoots, their combined power would surely eventually corrupt them both, but until then...

"Sounds pretty dangerous," he mused to himself. Forget about the kidnappers and serial killers, Eli had now been introduced to the real terrors of the night: A pretty girl and her big-but-harmless dog. The boy decided he should stay out late and let his car party late more often. Infact, why go home at all? "But I think I can handle it." Actually, it was possible that he would have to. "The real question is," his focus switched back to the vehicle. "Can my car?" Eli's worry was reflected in the question. It was a miracle the only girl running around insanely in the darkness he found was some sort of mechanic, but he knew the drill when it came to noise number 4: there was only so much she could do without resouces. If needed, he would take the car in tomorrow and find some way home.

"Oh, dinosaur parties?" Eli was glad dogs didn't speak English, or the German Shepherd might just have thought them both crazy. "I wish I could tell you, the truth is they're pretty exclusive. Most of the world doesn't even realize they exist." The real truth was (and Eli had faith that the girl knew this all along), the supposed party took place in Eli's garage as the car sat beneath the rafters all day while the boy caught up on sleep and did whatever chores were assigned to him. There were no guests except for the occasional chipmunks that found their way in through the holes that Dan didn't think existed. No food. No drinks. No music. No dinosaurs. Woo. Party...

Eli wasn't sure how he should respone to her next statement. After all, he didn't even know her name yet. Though, she seemed to be pretty bright, surely from his subtle anti-home statements she found about his situation, maybe it wasn't so bad that he knew something similar about her life. "That sounds familiar..." he put in sympathetically. Although there was one big difference: Dan wouldn't sleep, and Eli would never be locked in his bedroom. His stepdad had gone as far as throwing one of his clod-hopper wingtips at Eli's door before, making it impossible to close fully. With a moment of hesitation, Eli offered another shrug. "I guess that means I'm glad I got stranded."

Finally, she introduced herself: Addi. Addi, not Adalia. By no means did Eli want to call her Adalia. That much was made clear. Still, he found a small need to poke fun. "Tough girl?" he asked. Although he very much believed her. "Don't see many of those around here."

[/blockquote][/color]

---

EVERYTHING LOOKS PERFECT FROM FAR AWAY.
"Come down now," but we'll stay.[/font]

---

STATUS; complete.[/size]
WORDCOUNT; 704.[/size]
TAGGED; addi.[/size]
JAMS; tear -- red hot chili peppers.[/size]
NOTES; ooo... i stayed up too late last night @,@.[/size][/center]

[addi isabella alves]

Addi typically didn’t have this sort of good fortune. Usually, when things came down to the fates, the fates would never deal the cards in her favor – and that’s when bad things would happen around her, and she would be blamed for it all whether it was actually her doing or not. So the fact that breaking the rules by sneaking out in the middle of the night led her to a guy that had a pretty awesome sense of humor and a car for her to fix, made her feel sort of suspicious. Something had to go wrong. Surely the cops would come soon or something... and they would naturally assume that Addi had attacked this dude and then broken his car... or the car would actually morph into a dinosaur and ingest her... even the latter seemed more plausible than things actually going well for her for once. It had to be a sign from God, or Buddha, or Allah, or even the frigging Flying Spaghetti Monster -- but a sign for what...? Breaking the rules more often? She did that enough, and usually just by accident. That couldn’t have been it. Inwardly she told herself to shut the hell up and just enjoy the moment, because it wouldn’t last long.

In most social situations it is considered good when two strangers find something that they have in common, and in most social situations these people would be pleased to discover what that thing was, but Addi was far from happy to hear that he shared the same feelings about home life that she did. Even though misery loved company, she really didn’t wish those negative feelings on anybody... but there was always the chance that she was misunderstanding him. She didn’t know him; he could be referring to something else entirely and she was reading too much in to it, as she often did with people. However, a very large part of her felt like she understood completely what he meant, and it made her feel guilty for accidentally adding to his unhappiness. “I can really bust the car up while you make a run for the next town,” she stated, her eyebrows raised in mock-seriousness. “I’ll make it look like a kidnapping or something.”

Tough girl. Addi lifted her chin proudly, narrowing her eyes at him. She wasn’t so sure that she liked that kind of label, but it was often placed on her and she couldn’t blame him for calling her out after she just threatened to beat him up. It seemed like the ‘tough’ girl in movies and books and the like were always butch girls with short haircuts and studded necklaces -- and though these girls were awesome, it was just not the way she wanted guys to be looking at her... but labels were hard to escape in Sunset. She knew this all too well. “I’m not so tough,” she said quietly, laughing a bit. It was a lie though. She was pretty tough. “Put me in a room full of cats and watch me cry like a baby.”

“Not really,” she shook her head at his comment about there not being many like her around. “Not in Sunset Beach anyway... but I guess that depends on your definition of tough. I mean, there are girls who’ll sic their butlers and maids on you if you insult them. Those girls are the ones to look out for, not me.” Frowning slightly at the truthfulness of her statement despite the humor she coated it with, she then moved her head until she could catch his gaze, and offered the smallest of smiles. “And you’ll learn this for yourself soon enough. Sunset High, yeah?”

[eli ackerman]

WAVING FROM SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS.
"Come down now," they'll say.

---

Eli gave a bittersweet smile when she offered to put the sputtering car out of it's misery and kill it completely. While it would be great to get away, the boy loved his car all too much to let it die. Besides, all his prized possessions, his dog and his camera and his music, what would become of them? The whole situation and all of Dan would be totally worth it so long as Eli could hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers pound through his speakers at the end of the day. This wasn't the first time the idea of riding off into the sunset (the natural beauty, not the town) had crossed the boy's mind. But it was the first time he hadn't had a functioning car. Which meant he had rationalized the situation, something Eli rarely did.

"I'd prefer if you got it running and pass if off as a hostage car-jacking," he started. "But we only get so many miracles in our lifetime. And besides..." Eli's grey-blue gaze fixed on Addi as he smirked. Again, he rose an eyebrow. "...I think I'm finally taking a shine to some people in this town." The smitten feeling he knew came all too easy to him, or so it seemed. Eli was among the spontaneous: the first girl he meets (maybe he could safely say 'befriend') at three in the morning and suddenly he'd made his decision, Sunset didn't suck so much after all. His earlier opinion had been wrong too; despite the lack of crowds, the park was seriously kicking at this time of night. Dogs and dinosaurs and beautiful people, oh my!

'Tough girl' seemed to have been the magical phrase of the evening, for Addi shifted to a more prideful position. Eli grinned to himself, having struck gold. A minor miracle, the boy's social skills made it possible for him to be out and about at the ungodly hours of the night, seeking help. There wasn't a day that went by where Eli wasn't grateful for his keen sense of body-language observation and Johnny-on-the-spot replies. "Yeah, it's the same way with me and stickers." Eli felt every ounce of confidence drain out of him. So much for smooth social skills. He had just announced his one forbidden secret: his fear of stickers. Never ever should he bring that up, how did he make that mistake? "But, I guess that was sort of a weird thing to say..." he almost salvaged himself with an awkward smile, still somehow managing to maintain eye contact in his embarassment.

It was all forgotten when he found himself letting out a small laugh. Half out of Addi's comment, half from his own thankfulness that not even Dan was fortunate enough to hire a maid. It was the defense maids and attack butlers that did it, she really did have a similar sense of humor to his own. But taking note of the way her smile faltered, Eli's laughter retreated into the realization section of his mind: it was a joke but she wasn't kidding. Maybe this place really was like all those TV shows: get a dent in the car, and Daddy's credit card will get a new one, even though the chauffer will put more gas in it than anyone. "Don't worry, I'm a city kid, I think I can hold my own." The real question was should he have to?

Eli pronounced his fate with a grim nod: Sunset High loomed in his future. "That's what they tell me. How is it? Am I going to be able to get a study group together or do kids just dump their homework on Mary Poppins and Jeeves?" Eli congratulated fate, once again, for giving him seemingly the only rational person in the entire town.

[/blockquote][/color]

---

EVERYTHING LOOKS PERFECT FROM FAR AWAY.
"Come down now," but we'll stay.[/font]

---

STATUS; complete.[/size]
WORDCOUNT; 647.[/size]
TAGGED; addi.[/size]
JAMS; where is my mind? -- the pixies.[/size]
NOTES; finally here... not great, but here...[/size][/center]

[addi isabella alves]

The girl nodded firmly and earnestly at the mention of a hostage car-jacking, but felt her joking side shift into something else when he closed his statement, and she returned his smirk. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out just where the hell this guy had come from. Nobody cool ever came here... and certainly, nobody cool was ever up at three am roaming the streets armed with awesome wheels or kind eyes or dinosaur jokes. The only people that were ever up now were the slightly psychotic bums that dug through all the rich people’s trash at night – Addi ran right by a few on her frenzy to get away from her prison cell aka house just a short time before – and of course, Addi herself was up and about, which was never a good thing for anybody. So what was this guy’s story? What were his reasons for avoiding his own home? She wanted to ask, but they seemed like pretty personal questions to ask someone you just met... so instead of divulging in her curiosity about this mysterious stranger guy, she bit her lip slightly, and turned her attention back to his poor car. “I bet they’re taking a shine to you too,” she replied, almost just to herself.

This poor damn car of his. She wished that she could fix it for him right away, but in truth, there was nothing she could do with her bare hands to save it. If she had all of her proper tools there she would have been able to figure out exactly what it was that was causing the engine to scream like a banshee being attacked by a sick walrus... but then that would mean that he would be on his way, and she wouldn’t have his car to calm her down from a seriously disturbing evening with her so-called family. She didn’t even have her cell phone on her so that she could call her dad, or a tow-truck or something for him – all that she had in the world to offer him right now was herself and her dog, and unless he wanted to help her attach Spike to the car and see if he could drag it back to his house, they were screwed for tonight. They could walk to a pay phone or something...

Addi went quiet and blinked up at him again, slightly startled when he came back at her comment about fearing cats with a confession about stickers. She wasn’t entirely sure how one was supposed to react to a statement like that -- she may have just met him that evening under exceptional circumstances, but she knew that he was quite capable of making a joke -- and the small deflation she saw in him after he said it led her to believe that he was, in fact, that’s right, frightened of stickers. The guy who didn’t budge at all when a gigantic German shepherd ran to attack him in the darkness of night was afraid of little smiley-face sparkly things. It was enough for her come right out and girlishly “Awwwh” him, but she stopped herself and just managed to tilt her head slightly and smile at him, keeping his gaze, and her calm composure at the same time. “I’ll tell you what – you keep cats from me, and I’ll keep the stickers away from you,” she offered, and then opened her mouth to ask him if he worried about the official stickers on the windshield of his car, but stopped herself again. Stickers. Really? She couldn’t see it... unless he feared them smothering him in his sleep... or sticking eternally to his skin... or coming to life and carrying him off into the abyss, or... and now Addi Alves was afraid of stickers. Typical.

Thank God the subject changed before she really started cracking jokes. She wouldn’t have done it to make him feel embarrassed or anything, but when she was faced with too much silence Addi would often fill said silence with observations and comments that she herself found funny – and that tended to get her into bad situations, especially with guys. Guys around here didn’t really expect girls to try and make jokes – just bounce around their fake boobs and nod a lot. She prayed Eli wasn’t like that... for his sake. The girls at school, if he even went to her school, were going to eat him alive. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, city kid,” she said, giving him a significant look. “I bet you haven’t seen anything in the city like a complete butler and maid ninja smackdown.”

“Oh, no, of course not.” She waved a passive hand at him. “Jeeves is complete crap at school. He usually just sticks to bribing all of the teachers insane amounts of cash to give out good grades.” Addi paused for a moment, studying his face carefully. Maybe she should offer some sort of kind, assuring advice or comment to make him less likely to go home and beg his parents to move again, but that was kind of hard when the place you need to promote is actually a place that you hated. “It’s actually alright,” she managed to say, giving a small shrug of her shoulders. “I mean... high school is high school, no matter where you are in the country. Catty girls, obnoxious football players, rivalries... In Sunset it’s just a big exaggerated... like the whole Pier and Beach thing. Heard of that craziness yet?”

[eli ackerman]

WAVING FROM SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS.
"Come down now," they'll say.

---

It was eight words. Eight words that left the girl's mouth, but it changed everything. At least, it did for Eli. Not on the outside, for his reaction was rather unnoticable. He didn't say anything in reply, made no real movements of any sort, nor did he do anything notable of any kind. He smiled. Due to the amount of grinning the boy had put into this conversation, it wasn't unnatural. His appearance hid things well, because he was beaming on the inside, flying on the wings of hope. Hope, not for his car; Eli was sharper than people seemed to think he was, his keen sense of observation told him that by this point nothing would be done for the Skyliner until morning. No, it was a different kind of hope.

He had hope for his entire Sunset experience. The entire summer he had been dreading the school year, knowing the rivalries and broken friendships that he would have to settle into. Would he be pulled into seven different groups or shunned immediatly by ten? The whole move seemed like a death contract, that Eli had no choice but to sign. But in the short conversation between the two, suddenly he knew: it didn't matter who he met, who he hated, who he liked, so long as he knew Addi. Those eight words were a simple reply, and he didn't care if they were spoken with sincerety or not, Eli just cared about one thing: his judge of character. He could tell there was something special about this girl. It might just be the magic of the moon by three am, but he trusted his gut feeling. The best part about it? Eli had no idea what it was.

Miracle. He had used that word too many times in his mind, but he found himself using it again. This time, because he managed to slip out of his sticky situation, or more specifically, his sticker situation, unharmed, with his pride still entact. But then again, his car was still entact, just broken. "Best deal I've made all day." Or night. Whatever it was. Time seemed to blend together, and for all Eli cared at the moment, time seemed to freeze. With the exception of a small pocket of people. And a dog. But not a car, that was frozen, too. Eli was a dog person, meaning there was no way he would want to get ahold of a cat. Often times he was surprised Dan hadn't brought home a litter of cats just to annoy him, but that was beside the point. The point was this: even if he wanted to throw a cat on Addi, there was no way that giant dog of her's would let him.

City kid. He beamed. It was obviously the equivilant to his aformentioned 'Tough girl'. Eli wasn't one for nicknames, but somewhere in the back of his mind he hoped this one would stick. "I consider myself warned," he replied with confidence. Because now he actually had some confidence to face the ferocious tigers that awaited his arrival. "No, I suppose I haven't. The extent of interesting happenings in the city is limited to 24-hour restaraunts, swingin' nightclubs, people vomiting on street corners and dinosaur parties." Eli hid no admiration for the city in his playfully sarcastic statement. Really it was sort of a final goodbye to the bright lights he was used to. "But that's nothing compared to butler fight clubs and crazy girls with rabid dogs terrorizing the streets."

It was almost alarming the way the two senses of humor meshed. It was like a puzzle, niether of them skipping a beat. "Man," he answered with false enthusiasm. "I've gotta get in good with Jeeves." However dreadful the thought used to be, Eli could nod with understanding at her next statement. It was highschool, there was drama, some people hated it, some people dove into it like they were characters on a soap opera. What Eli hated the most about it was when the soap opera and real life finally met, and everyone involved was surprised. And that's why he remained in group number one: they started trouble, but in a different way. But the way Eli's world seemed to work meant one thing: no matter how hard he tried he was always placed smack in the middle of everything without wanting to be or trying to be.

"It's hard not to have heard about it." He was of course speaking of the giant rivalry between the two sides of Sunset. That's probably what had first intimidated him about the town. He knew of the rivalries in highschool, but he had never in his life heard of one this enormous and blown out of proportion. "Two months I've been here, and I think I might already be part of it." Unless someone's house was built exactly on the dividing line between Sunset Beach and Pier, which Eli's wasn't, they were part of 'it'. 'It' seemed generally pretty stupid to him. "So, where does your alliance lie?" It was a joke, of course, which was obvious enough by the tone of his voice. He was only asking because Addi, too, had expressed disappointment in the world for creating such alliances. Where did the respectable population head off to?

[/blockquote][/color]

---

EVERYTHING LOOKS PERFECT FROM FAR AWAY.
"Come down now," but we'll stay.[/font]

---

STATUS; complete.[/size]
WORDCOUNT; 905.[/size]
TAGGED; addi.[/size]
JAMS; who'll stop the rain? -- creedence clearwater revival.[/size]
NOTES; alright, finals week is over, meaning i can start posting regularily again. yay![/size][/center]

[addi isabella alves]

Addi wasn’t sure what sort of place Eli had previously lived in that had all of those things going on, and she was even less sure that he would find Sunset much different. Of course, here there wasn’t much vomiting on the street corners – this was an insufferably snobbish town, and everybody knew everybody else. If anyone’s kid was spotted being obnoxiously drunk and wandering the roads, the neighbours wouldn’t hesitate before dialling up the parents and chewing them out for allowing the disgraceful teen to destroy the integrity and righteousness of their lovely area. Addi felt like she would have much preferred to live in the city – the one that Eli spoke of, with all-night eating and no shortage of places to go... she had always planned on getting out of this place, to get to a town that didn’t stop long enough to let your mind wander to how horrible you actually have it. She would have gladly accepted people vomiting on the sidewalk to people shrieking at you for stepping on their award-winning lawn, but at least Eli brought the dinosaur parties with him to Sunset for her to enjoy, so she had that.

This boy was an anomaly. There he was, calling her crazy (granted jokingly, she figured) and telling her that she was a night terror, and she was actually worried that he would make her blush. He also mentioned fight clubs, which peaked her interest in the conversation even more if possible.“First rule: you do not talk about fight club...” came another one of her quiet warnings, with an amused sort of look. Her green eyes flicked over to the giant ‘rabid’ dog that was sprinting madly in all directions like dogs sometimes do, and the amusement turned for the briefest of moments into admiration while she allowed her mind to wander... or focus, whichever was a better word. The harder she tried to keep her attention on the running dog, the more aware she was of Eli’s presence out of the corner of her eye.

Addi was entertained by how much truth was hidden in the sarcasm being tossed between the two teenagers. Clearly they shared the idea that turning devastatingly real things into humor was the better route to go, because in reality, butlers and maids were vicious creatures. Everyone was a vicious creature here – she was surprised that National Geographic hadn’t done a special on the residents yet. Watch housewives in their natural habitat as they compete against each other in just about every aspect of life... observe as the young daughter cries about not being given the right colored Porsche... it was a jungle here, and the reality of it was actually quite serious. She wondered if Eli knew what he was getting himself into by coming to Sunset - and if he’d decide after one day at Sunset high that he needed to move to Canada. She hoped not.

Offering him a sad smile when he mentioned how difficult it was to not know about the stupid war going on, her smile seemed to freeze when he expressed that he may have already been tangled up in it. This poor guy was already being pressured to choose a side and to go down fighting for it, and he had barely enough time to find his feet yet? The question of where her alliance was made her smile brighten into a real one that touched her eyes, and she laughed lightly. Her alliance? “With my friends,” she answered with that stubborn pride, lifting her chin again. She hesitated before realizing that he had no way of knowing who her friends were or what they were like, and sighed. “I try not to choose. I have friends on both sides...” Another short hesitation. She wasn’t sure how much he would actually be interested in hearing about her. “My dad lives in the Pier, and my mom and my step-dad in the Beach, so I’ve always had to split my life in two. I can’t justify judging someone on that kind of thing. It doesn’t make sense.”

She contemplated this for a moment while she studied his face, and found herself wondering where it was in the world of Sunset that he belonged. It would have been against everything she just said to ask him, so she left it up to him to say if he wanted to. “But you can judge me...” Addi said, shaking herself out of her trance and turning back to his car. Frowning, she lowered the hood and patted the top of it. “...for not being able to save her. I’m sorry... I need tools to be sure what’s wrong, and unfortunately my whole Vulcan mind-meld thing isn’t as great as it used to be, so you might need a real mechanic to figure it out.” Vulcan mind-meld!? Seriously? She busied herself with playing with her hair nervously to avoid his eye. Vulcan-frigging-mind-meld...