2025-01-19 - To the Slopes!

The Sneak Date has ended. It took a bit to get to the evening. Peyton had to go pick up clothing from her place. There was a joke about just leaving a set of clothing at his room. The night progressed. Sadly no hanky. No panky. Then there is morning. Peyton has regrets about this idea when she has to get out of the warm bed. She makes 'don't make me noise' but eventually she gets out. She may have actually hissed at him at some point. Like a straight up hiss.

They finally get to the ferry. There is a grumble as she all but curls into his body to take his heat.

Then the bus where her eyes become honey brown and her nails look normal again. This again she had no sense of his personal space. She just drops her head on his shoulder and she's out. Luckily, she doesn't snore on the bus nor drool. His pillow at home might not be that lucky though. She may have drooled.

The final leg finds them about to grab the ski lift for the first time.

All evidence suggests that Peyton is quite possibly an actual cat, unrelated to the magic of the islands. It makes sense to him, since his housemate is a Toon and they knew each other. The conspiracy of People Who Are Not Actually People begins to widen in scope.

Somewhere between the ferry and the bus, his tail just went away, which has resulted in an awkward gait now and then - he'd just started to get used to walking with it, and now it was gone.

Wesley was, at least, happy to provide warmth along the way - and a living pillow on the bus. Sans drool, of course.

"Alright, you ready?" Ski suits, on. Skis at the ready. He flashes her a grin, "This was your idea."

"Of course I am!" Peyton offers. There is a slight curve of her lips as if she knows all the jokes in the world, but is not telling them. "It's fire." These two words cause a moment of laughter for her. It's silent laughter but it is there. She gives a slight glance at the lifts. They don't look hard.

Peyton nods her head and gets in position. Swoop... it impacts her butt, but not the right angle to lift. Thus, she is now face down and ass up in the snow. Step one. She nailed it.

Wesley steps out of position as Peyton lands in the snow, grinning behind his scarf as he steps over to offer a hand up, "You know, if you wanted to be in that position we were just in my bed earlier." A very unfair thing to say since he'd turned down hanky-panky, but whoever said they were fair to one another?

Peyton turns to look at him for a moment. "This was less disappointing of a turn out." She says this very straight faced, but grabs his hand before he changes his mind about helping her. "I should probably say that I can't remember if I've ever gone skiing."

"You probably should've mentioned that earlier, yeah," Wesley manages not to laugh, shaking his head, "Alright. We should probably start -easy- then, uh, do you at least know the basics at all? Pizza and fries?"

There is a moment of silence as she stares at him. "How dumb do you think I am? Of course I know how to eat pizza and fries." She gives him the strangest look before reaching out to drag him towards the ski lift. She's going to make him help her.

"Nnnnno, I mean, that's the mnemonic for how to ski," Wesley's explaining as she drags him towards the ski lift, shaking his head. He may be grinning. It's hard to tell, he has a scarf in the way. Probably on purpose. "You point your skis inward like a pizza slice to go faster forward, get it..?"

He's moving to help her with the ski lift, though. This is going to end up in tragedy for everyone involved, he's sure.

Peyton is looking down at her feet when he explains this. She slides her feet out and then she slides her feet in. Then she slides them back our. Then back in. She's not paying attention as the lift comes up again. This time she's holding his hand. She doesn't get knocked on the ground. She misses it entirely. Which means he's probably going to come off of it.

"Okay, so now just let it lift--"

Thud. Thud. Now they're both down in the snow, and Wes slowly raises his head from the powder, trying to ignore the amused looks and snickers being aimed in their direction. He shifts to get up and move out of the way, reaching out to tug her with him, "...maybe we should watch some other people do it first."

Peyton sighs a bit to this as they are in the snow. She looks at him for a long moment. Then she nods. "Okay. We can watch this." She doesn't seem put out about falling. "I would appreciate in the future when you fall that you let me stay up."

"You fell first," Wesley points out, muffling a laugh as he gets up with her and moves aside, "Alright, just-- watch what the next people do, alright?"

Peyton nods her head for a few moments. Then there is a light's on moment. Her eyes slide up to his in all her brown glory of not metallic. She pauses and then laughs softly. "Aren't you glad that you came with me now?"

This means they do get up on the lift this time.

Wesley just laughs, shaking his head as he moves with her-- and gets on the ski lift with her.

He doesn't even let go of her hand early just in case. So he must not be regretting it that much.

"Puff, you didn't answer." Peyton comes off the lift with him. There is a slight tightening of her hand on his to be the only break in her confidence. "So, we go to the biggest slope that they have, right?"l

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Wesley looks over to her, managing to keep an absolutely straight face as he lets her know, "The most challenging ones are labeled the 'bunny slopes', 'cause of all the jumping and bouncing."

Peyton just looks at him for a longer moment. "I know they are called bunny slopes for beginners. I know things, Puff. That is one of the things that I know. You don't have to be a dick." She's not really mad. She's just bad at skiing.

She does move towards those bunny slopes. "Let's do this show off."

"So remember," Wesley says as he heads towards the slopes after her, "Pizza and fries. Spread them out to slow or stop, and together to go faster--" Is she listening? They'll find out soon, won't they?

He doesn't apologize for the bunny slope thing. He's trying to make sure she doesn't die'.

Pizza and Fries. X's and O'x. Ohs make you go. In makes you slow.

Peyton is probably not listening to him. Or at least not remembering correctly. She takes off and offers, "I got this."

Narrator: But she does not have this.

The good? Peyton stays up
The bad? She's going fast and can't stop

Wesley watches her go... and then keep going... did he just hear a shriek or did he imagine that? Either way, he exhales a swear-- and a laugh in the same breath-- and then he's shooting down the slope after her, soon keeping pace and shouting over to her, "Feet out! Duck feet! Like a Y! But slow, not all at once!"

Will she listen? That's a different question.

Duck feet
Y
All at once

Peyton tries to turn those around in her brain. Wait. NOT all at once. NOT.

She slowly starts to widen her feet to pizza feet. As she slows just in time not to take out the kids on the slopes. Then she waits for him to catch up to her.

Wesley slides past her swiftly, turning to come back up and around her in a circle briefly before stopping near her with a spray of snow-- looking over to her, his eyes bright as he calls out his encouragement, "There you go! You did great!" She still has a score of 0 children knocked over, which to be honest is a better score than he expected her to have by now.

Peyton looks up the bunny slope. Then she nods. "I did do pretty good. Let's do it again." Her lips curve up just a bit more to that. "I stayed upright."

"You did!" Wesley grins, nodding in the direction of the ski lift, "Back up, and we'll do it again. Practice makes perfect."

Well on the bright side... she has figured out the ski lift. They get up! The bad side, she has false hope and she goes to one of the adult versions of the bunny slope. The other good of this, less chance to taking out the kids.

As she goes down the slope. There is some jokes. Then there is that one moment. THAT ONE MOMENT. Her ski hits just right and she starts to go down. There is an impressive tumble of skis over head and down. Look at her falling head over heels. When she finally comes down and is sprawled out on her back. She hangs out there. She's moved a bit out of danger range before she stares at the sky and rethinks her life choices.

Wesley's there, offering advice and support and praise when she succeeds, and then... oops.

He slides to a halt beside her, pushing the pole into the snow to keep him from going further forward-- leaning over and offering a hand, both eyebrows raising a little, "You alright there, Heidi?"

Peyton is still lying there. However, her eyes roll over towards him as she offers her hand up towards him. "My ankle hurts." The three words that seals his future fate. She pouts and holds up her left foot. "I think you are going to have to leave me here to die."

Wesley's eyes roll briefly at her words. "I'm not gonna leave you here to die," he replies wryly, reaching out a hand to her, "C'mon, maybe we've done enough for the first day out. You did pretty good."

Peyton lifts her hands up to get assistance, but she actually pulls hard to bring him into the snow with her.

Wesley grabs her hands and then-- promptly is pulled off balance and tumbles into the snow with her. And on top of her, naturally, and now their skis are tangled and it's going to take some doing to figure out. He spits out some snow as he leans up, smirking down at her, "...well. Now we're both in the snow."

Peyton actually laughs as he goes down with the snow and all. She does lift up her hands to frame his face and try to wipe the snow from his face. "I'm really stuck now. I can't move and you are over top of me, Puff."

"Well, that is," Wesley laughs, wrinkling his nose briefly before grinning down at her, "What you keep asking for, isn't it?"

Peyton laughs to that. "I feel like I've been saying hey we shouldn't. Then when I get all flirty it's your turn to say we shouldn't. We have a balance." She teases lightly. She's not in a rush to get up (not that she can) nor does she look trapped. Her eyes meet his for a few moments though as she falls silent.

Wesley leans into the touch of her hair, snow encrusted on her fingers and some clinging to his eyebrows still. "Well, we're in agreement, then," he points out, meeting her eyes for a moment. "Terrible idea," he completes, even as he leans in just a little closer, the tip of his nose nearly touching hers.

Peyton keeps her eyes on his. She holds them as she nods her head just a little bit. "Yeah..." Her eyes drift to his lips for a moment and then she looks back to his eyes. A breath is released from her lungs. "... terrible."

"Yeah," Wesley murmurs, watching her for a moment, "Good thing never of us ever make terrible dec--" And somewhere before the end of that word, he makes a terrible decision, head tilting down the rest of the way to try and kiss her.

Peyton tenses for a moment. It's a bad decision. It's also just a kiss. Then he can feel she sighs into the kiss. The hands on his face soft at first, slide around behind his neck. Peyton shifts just a bit before drawing him down towards her. A smart decision would be to make a joke and get up. The decision she makes? She just deepens the kiss.

That feather-light kiss, as her fingers slide around his neck and she pulls him in, definitely becomes something more as he follows her deeper into the embrace. But it's just a kiss. It's not like they can do anything else without extricating themselves from the uncomfortable tangled snow-hell they've ended up in, so what's the harm?

After a long, and very warm moment considering that they're in the snow, Wes breaks from that kiss slowly, drawing in a breath equally slow. Half-lidded gaze watching hers uncertainly for a moment, he murmurs, "We should... mmn, probably work on getting up."

Peyton gives a soft protest when the kiss ends, but she doesn't physically deny it. A breath is exhaled. "We are going to get kicked out if we don't get up. We are in public and it is daylight." Peyton offers in a low voice. Her lips curve upwards at him. "Or... hear me out. We earn that arrest." She doesn't really mean it. Right?

A low laugh stirs past his lips, and Wesley points out quietly and amusedly, "If we didn't get arrested, we'd die of frostbite, you do realize that, right?" He shifts as if to try and push up, then pauses, "...plenty've time on this trip, after all."

"To get up? Not really. I don't actually like the cold that much, so you should probably get off...." Peyton pauses for good measure there. "... me. I'm sort of trapped by you and the skis."

"Yeah, that's, uh..." Wesley shifts, twisting a bit to look back, "...this is gonna be an interesting one. Alright, I'm gonna need you to just-- keep your feet like that, yeah, and-- push me back and up--"

This may take them a few minutes of awkward clambering. They will just get increasingly covered in snow in the process.

They do get to their feet because Peyton is the most athletically gifted person that has ever existed. So amazing this one right here. People should be jealous. They get up. They get their skis off because they have to to untangle. It's all snow covered and niceness. Except for three things....

The first. She gets up and immediately pelts him when he's not suspecting with a snowball.

The second. Peyton's next attempt in thwarted and in the attempt to show Wesley who's who and what's what. She manages to turn just right.

The last thing. There is a definite spraining of her left ankle

Wesley takes stock of the situation. The snow. The ankle. The pleading, lash-fluttering eyes. He sighs, and crouches down a bit, bending a knee.

"...get on my back. Just this once."

He'll have to carry her back to the lodge.