Welcome to Gaia! ::

"It'd be a lot more convenient if there was power in this place." Allen muttered to himself as he tried to decide what to eat. He settled on a cold cinnamon bun and a package of candy. The breakfast of champions. "Well, let's see..." He said in reply to Shade's question, setting his food down at the table on which she sat. "We could...break into the toystore and try all of the battery-powered games and toys. We could break into the music store with a battery-powered CD player and listen to any CD we want, we could laze around boredly all day wondering what to do, we could hang around here and stuff our faces with cold food all day," He was smiling humorously as he listed the ways they could spend their day with a hint of sarcasm. "You look very nice, by the way. That outfit's very flattering on you." He complimented her suddenly, spontanteously, reaching out to adjust a stray wisp of her hair with sudden affection.

"About what?" He asked, a twinkle in his eye. "The way you look, or the way we can spend the day? If you're talking about the way you look, I wasn't being sarcastic." He moved his hand to teasingly take her chin, the gesture turning out to be far more affectionate than he'd orignally intended as he met her eyes perhaps for the first time that day, and immediately felt their odd pull on him. Unconsciously, he leaned forward slightly, as though the pull wasn't only mental but physical as well. He jerked back suddenly as he realized how close he'd let himself get to her, his hand holding her chin having drawn her closer to him. "Sorry," he splutered, trying to shake the moment away. "I didn't mean to-" He looked away, not even sure how to finish the sentence, his chest rising and falling heavily. His breathing had sped up as he'd pulled her closer, and for a moment it had almost been like he was going to kiss her. But that was insane! He didn't even know her! She was too young for him. What was wrong with him?! She must take him as such a perverted fool. He sank into a chair, once again struggling to calm the quick pulse of his heart, unable to look at her as he hid his face in his hands, exhausted suddenly.

His breathing still heavy, he listened to her words. How did she know these things?

Well...okay. In this case, it was pretty obvious. He'd known her for what? Ten hours? And everytime he looked into her eyes he went all weird and possessive and intimate when he wasn't otherwise. She could probably figure it out.

Now if only he could.

"I'm sorry." He said again, for lack of a better thing to say. He seemed to be constantly apologizing to her, whether it was necessary or not. "I'm usually not...so..." He didn't even know what he was trying to say.

He looked up at her face as she avoided looking at him. This was too much for him. It was too bizarre. First there was the odd familiarity with her from the start, then the way she always seemed to pop up out of nowhere and the way she could practically read his mind, then there was his immediate and growing attraction to her, despite everything...and her eyes. He squeezed his own eyes shut. "This is...weird." He siad with a small, helpless laugh, trying to lighten the situation. He was locked in an abandoned mall in the middle of a blizzard all alone with a teenaged girl that he was rapidly falling in love with. Oh, yeah. Just another average day in the life of Allen Gray.

He couldn't help but laugh out loud at how bizarre everything was turning out to be. "Everything!" He laughed hopelessly. "I feel like we're in one of those super-unlikely movies that they make purely for entertainment despite the fact that they couldn't possibly be real." He shook his head, battling the temptation to pull her into his lap and make the story of theirs even more unlikely. He shook his head quickly to clear it. "Alright," he said, leaning back in his chair to look up at her where she sat. "Distract my naughty mind. Tell me about yourself."

He grinned, somehow finding how extremely different they were even more entertaining. "Alright, I'm Allen Gray, freshly twenty-three and fresh out of college and beginning practice as a lawyer. I grew up in a well-rounded family of four children, majored in law in college, and am possibly the first lawyer in the history of politics that can't stand coffee." He continued the Q and A. This was turning out to be more entertaining than he'd imagined. She'd had an attractive sense of humor. "What brought you here yesterday evening to be locked in this mall all alone with a complete stranger in a blizzard in the middle of April?"

"I have friends who think my life isn't interesting enough. It is their opinion that I desperately need a lovelife, so the losers signed me up for the silly little match-making program yesterday without my knowledge, then forced me to go." He shrugged. "Worst seven hours of my life, I'll tell you that." He looked speculatively at her. "Until I met you, that is. After that, things got interesting really fast." He had no need to remind her again of the bizarre situation they were in.

"I guess this is a perfect example of those old sermons where they say that some people have to fight tooth and nail all the way through life and others seem to have the easy way out of every rough situation." He mused. "Though, you know, for all their preaching, I can't figure out any easy way out of this situation at all."