strangetrip | Missing (OTA)

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Missing (OTA)

Liz stood in the middle of the lobby with a quiet, panicked look on her face. She turned around a second time, surveying the scene around her, but the second pass didn't help any. She ran a hand through her hair and then headed for one of the couches. She pulled back the cushions, digging her hand into the crevice of the gaudy plush decor and when her hand emerged empty, she felt her chest tighten.

Liz's journal was missing.

She thought she had brought it back to the room yesterday after studying in the cafe, but this morning when she went to review her notes from the day before, she had discovered that the familiar book she had so many things in was gone. She had checked the library, the restaurant, the cafe, even the kitchen itself. It had to be somewhere, right?

(ooc: Find her pretty much anywhere. Also! Feel free, if your character would so choose, to find the journal and read all or some of it because I am a cruel mistress.)

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Peter gives Liz a cute, goofy little smile.

"Any time."

He stands up, then walks over to the other side of the table and gives her a kiss.

"See you in 30," he says.

And Peter takes his bottle and heads in the direction of the pool.

Half an hour later, Liz was waiting in the lobby and she held the journal close to her chest. She looked mostly relieved, though there was some lingering worry about who might have actually read part or whole of the journal.

She stood there waiting for Peter. And now, of course, she also felt bad he had ran around and designed a flyer for naught, now.

It's a little over 30 minutes later when Peter returns. "I checked the pool -- there was no sign of i--"

And as he's finishing up his sentence, he sees Liz holding her journal close to her chest.

Immediately, Peter's expression brightens.

"You found it! Where was it?"

She looked sheepish. "Um. I guess someone found it and put it in the library? Like on one of the shelves." Liz glanced down at the journal. "Corbie rescued it from the shelf." Which she was grateful for.

"I guess someone must have found it and thought it belonged there." Which probably bodes well for no one having actually read it. It would have probably been immediately obvious if someone had opened it and read even the first page.

"I'm glad she found it again, though." Better for Corbie to have found it than a lot of other people.

"Me too." And Corbie always seemed to okay with all the embarrassing stuff. Liz really admired her.

"Thank you, though.... everything you did to help me. That was, really nice. I'm sure there was something better you had planned to spend your morning doing." She smiled a little.

"Not really," Peter says. It's the truth. Even if he did have something to do, though, he still would have dropped it to help. "What do you have planned for your afternoon?"

"Actually... I was planning on going to this small lake I found?" Or maybe it was more of a pond, really. "And trying to draw it for Piotr and.. well, I keep thinking about the gallery Caroline and I are organizing and I want to put some things in there I'm not embarrassed about." Which was already a tall order.

Peter thinks that there's plenty of things that Liz's made that she shouldn't feel embarrassed about. He also knows there's no use telling her not to be embarrassed about it. She knows already that he loves her artwork.

"Did you want some company?" he asks. If she does, he can probably bust out his sketchpad, too. He hasn't done any artwork lately.

"Sure." She paused, then her smile turned a little more goofy as she pretended to be 'very serious'. "As long as you promise not to distract me, of course."

"I'll do my best," Peter returns with a failed solemn look. "I'll grab my stuff and meet you down here in ten."

They're doing a lot of meeting today.

--

The weather's nice today -- not too hot, not too cold. A few clouds drift aimlessly above, blocking the sunlight from bouncing off the lake. True to his word, Peter's trying hard not to distract Liz, even though she's distracting him by existing in close proximity. Sometimes, it's hard for him to focus with her around.

He resolved to focus, and sets his pencil down to the page. He starts with a single line on the page first -- the distant horizon -- then tries to trace the shape of the lake. It's hard, especially since it's coming at them at an angle. How do people draw? Peter doesn't know.

Liz sat beside Peter and had the same sort of thoughts that Peter was having. Peter just being beside her was equally as distracting. Every little movement he made, even shift on the ground, she was aware of it. A part of her just wanted to look over and watch him draw. She liked watching him work out problems - the way his brow furrow just the slightest bit, how his eyes focused, and how it was so obvious - at least to her - that his brain was making a million connections to come to some conclusion that almost always was right.

She felt her gaze threaten to drift toward him again, her pencil pausing as she tried to work on the way the grass around the side of the lake hit it. She refocused. Even after another twenty minutes, though, Liz was more aware of Peter's presence than anything else. Finally, Liz put her pencil down.

She turned her head to look at Peter, and in a moment of confidence found herself asking, "Do you want to go swimming?"

Peter managed to get very little done other than a lot of erasing in the time they spent at the lake. When Liz finally speaks to him, it comes as a relief; he can't focus, and everything he puts to page just looks bad.

"Swimming?" he asks, as if he's unsure if he misheard the word. "I thought you didn't want to be distracted." He's grinning.

She playfully nudged him with her shoulder and laughed softly on an exhaled. "This is like, a study break. To keep our minds fresh." Even if they hadn't been at it for any similar length as when they actually studied.

"A study break, to keep our minds fresh," Peter repeats, sounding skeptical. Still that doesn't stop him from pulling off his shirt in apparent response.

Liz wondered if Peter realized that when he took his top off like that it was really hard not be distracted. It was also hard not to reach out and touch him, though Liz somehow was able to endure.

"It's a thing...somewhere." She tried not to smile at that, but failed. "Probably." Or probably not.

Of course, Liz knew neither of them actually had bathing suits on - well, maybe Peter did. She looked around just for a moment. The nice thing was that the lake was surrounded by trees so at least it wasn't out in the open and it was a little ways off so the likelihood of people seeing them was slim... probably.

Biting her bottom lip, Liz pulled off her tank top and revealed a bra Peter had seen a few times before by now. After you saw your boyfriend naked and he had seen you, underwear seemed less embarrassing.

Peter is not wearing swim trunks, but he is wearing boxers. Maybe not ideal, but it worked in a pinch. Peter kicks off his shoes, then tugs off his khaki shorts and sets them next to his shirt.

Months ago he'd have been embarrassed at just the thought of Liz seeing him in just his boxers. Now, though, things had changed. They'd changed a lot.

"I'll go check out the water," he tells her and he heads towards the lake. When he steps inside, sure enough, it's pretty cold. Not as cold as the ocean had been a few weeks ago, but still cold.

Still, Peter proceeds further into the water while he waits for Liz to change out of her clothes.

She pulled off her jean shorts - her underwear is matching - and her sandals, pulling the hairband around her wrist off and putting her hair up.

"How is it?" She walked down to where the water met the earth and stepped in. Definitely cold, but she has swam in a lot colder. "Did you know that there are a lot of benefits to swimming in colder water. Like it's good for increased circulation and gives you an endorphin high." Which were both true. And Liz didn't see how that might be perceived as some weird pick up line.

Edited 2018-06-20 19:48 (UTC)

"When did you get so water smart?" he asks, smiling. When Liz is submerged, he swims towards her, then wraps his arms around her.

He rests his chin on her shoulder.

"For warmth," he says.

She looked a little surprised when he closed the distance, but not unhappy. He was right, though, his body provided a lot of heat against her. She felt herself flush a little as she wrapped her arms around him.

"Maria's mom is really into natural healing."

"What else was she into?" he asks, chin still on her shoulder. He's just heard everything about water healing, it sounds like.

She made a soft humming sound as she thought about it. "Essential oils. Maria carries around like three little vials for things. Eucalyptus calms her down when she's having a panic attack. Her mom also believes in the healing force of minerals and rocks and that sort of thing."

Maria's mother is a hippy.

"You ever use it?" he asks. "Does it help? The Eucalyptus, I mean."

Peter draws the line as healing minerals and rocks.

"It helped her." Liz didn't find it particularly calming. "Although, one time, she brought these drops to school. I don't remember what was in them, but she wanted to take her mind off of Michael. She'd drop some on her tongue whenever she got flustered or wanted to kiss him or whatever. It tasted disgusting."

Peter finally pulls his chin off her shoulder.

"Why'd you try it?" he asks. He wonders if it being disgusting was exactly why it functioned as a distraction.

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