{MIW}You Talk To Him

[Erin Hackett]

Was Erin a littler jealous? Maybe. Was she wondering just how close Quinn was with this Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe? Yes. She knew about the girl from various things said about her on the internet in the past; that she only bothered to look up once she had spotted her friend Quinn talking to some girl. A pretty girl but a talking to someone when he was not really the type to socialize with other people. That had to mean that this girl was his friend of sorts, but did Quinn count her as a friend? What was this girl like? How come Quinn never told her about her?

Why did Erin even care to know all of this? It was not like Quinn had stopped being her friend; he even said they were friends out loud. Totally best friends; even if he never said that but he might as well have. Still, she could not help but to be worried that she was being replaced at Quinn's lesbian friend since this girl was a lesbo as well. A taken lesbo, but a lesbo all the same. She could see why the girl didn't remain single for long and she should not have had any worry but she still could not help but to be curious. If Quinn was going to replace her, he would come to regret it really quick.

It should have been noted that Erin had literally stalked down where this Zoe girl was, using her power to remain out of sight. Her head was starting to hurt a little but she ignored it as she closely observed the girl; and tried to keep her eyes from drifting over the girl's form too many times. Erin only came into view when someone ended up bumping her, causing her to literally fall right in front of the girl she had been basically tailgating this whole time. "Watch where you are...going..." Erin said, yelling at first before going really quite when the person that had bumped into her looked at her.

Technically she was at fault since even if they were watching where they were going, they would not have seen her. Now she was blushing and frozen in place as she hoped that maybe Zoe would have been too busy taking photos to notice her.

((Tag:Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe))

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

As per usual, Zoe had gotten wrapped up in her camera. This time someone had actually insisted that she venture out and take pictures. In particular that someone had ordered the entire photography club to go out and take photos of people moving in. Zoe had found herself drifting toward the Reception area that day, which was more or less being used for people to get refreshments and time away from the hustle and bustle of it all. Which also meant that Zoe, school camera around her neck, found herself quite busy.

But not busy enough to not notice someone effectively falling in front of her. Zoe actually let out a slight yelp and took a step back, nearly bumping into someone on her own. There was some yelling from this girl, and Zoe found herself holding still, trying to figure out where she'd even come from, let alone why there had been yelling. She looked and noticed an almost horrified middle-aged woman who had apparently been the unfortunate to bump.

"Photo!?" Zoe said almost too loudly, stepping to sort of stand between Erin and the woman. She held the camera up, the woman smiled, if unsteadily, and Zoe snapped the moment in time. The woman did linger for a bit, but Zoe was already drifting toward the girl. "Are you alright?" she nearly whispered, looking over at her while also trying to keep an eye on the woman, not quite certain that she'd defused the situation at all.

[Erin Hackett]

Erin did feel slightly bad that she had bumped into someone; it really was her fault because she had not been watching where she was going. It was not the other persons fault that they did not see her because she was literally using her power so no one would see her. Top it all off, the person was an older woman, not like old-old but not in Erin's age group. She had seemed to be startled, along with the Zoe girl that Erin had been falling around. Erin didn't move from where she had fallen, not in the way like she was getting up. If anything she just changed her position to best be on the ground but was also ready to bolt.

She had a very high flight or fight sense and the flight part tended to win out before any talking could be done. Zoe then seemed to try and be a distraction, jumping between Erin and the other woman to take a photo. If anything it just made Erin want to run all the more, and that was the plan. The only problem was that she didn’t want to leave Zoe behind to deal with the woman, so her plan was set. She didn't hesitate to reach out to grab a hold of the girl's arm and go to pull her off in the direction that she was now running in. Her eyes dilated, allowing her power to click in as she and Zoe would vanish and not be able to be seen or heard if Erin had managed to grab a hold of her.

Regardless; Erin was running from there, going for a place with a few more trees and going for hiding behind one before she stopped using her power and took a moment to catch her breath. She was not really the sporty kind of person, but she would most certainly set some kind of record for sort meter dash or something like that. Her father often compared her to a cheetah, really fast for a very short amount of time.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Okay, the woman seemed to be leaving. that was definitely a good sign, right? There was---oh, now the other girl was grabbing Zoe and dragging her off. Zoe almost tripped at the initial pull. She wasn't exactly a large or muscular person, so it's not like resisting was really an option even if she hadn't been caught off-guard. Her main instinct was to wrap her arms protectively around the camera.

They apparently darted from tree to tree, and Zoe thought she almost felt her skin tingling or something along those lines. This definitely felt odd, like they were being hunted or something. At least the other girl finally stopped. Unfortunately, Zoe wasn't exactly the most active or athletic individual either. She too had to stop and catch her breath.

"Wha---wha--" she stammered for a bit, before taking another deep breath, readying herself. "How--are you---okay?" There, that was at least an understandable sentence. Maybe they could come up with some sort of understanding as to what was actually going on here.

[Erin Hackett]

Running had to have been the best plan, at least that was what Erin thought. Sticking around could have ended up with the woman asking questions or having people around them start looking at them. It was indeed best to be off away from most of the people and hiding behind a tree instead of where they were before. Sure Erin could have kept using her power to keep them hidden but she needed to take breaks or else she was going to end up in a lot of pain. She already had a small headache from her stalking of the girl earlier, so she didn't want to push it.

Once they were 'safe', Erin was quick to let go of her hold on the other girl as she worked on catching her breath. Darn running, darn lungs, and darn other people existing in the world.[/i] Erin thought to herself as she worked on controlling her breathing, figuring talk could wait. The other girl didn't seem to think so and was sort of managing to get something out. Erin held up a finger while she took another deep breath before facing Zoe. Wow, she was pretty sexy up close. Erin literally shook her head to get her mind focused on why she was here and not in the gutter when she was around another girl.

Not that she even really wanted to think about other girls at the moment, but at least she still did. That at least meant that she was not broken, right? She would have to check her guide book to be sure, but for now it was time to talk to this Zoe girl. "I'm...fine. You okay?" Erin asked as she looked away from the girl and already started to play with the zipper on her jacket. "I'm Erin...Quinn's friend." Erin added shortly after. There, that was out of the way. Hopefully that helped give Zoe an idea why she was here or at least a clue to why she had sort of kidnapped her.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Fine, good, Zoe nodded at the question thrown back in response. She was tempted to ask why, if Erin was fine, they had just sprinted partway across the courtyard, but that did seem a bit rude. Plus, before she could even get it out, Erin was already introducing herself, even adding a tag line.

"Oh, I'm Zoe!" Zoe replied, adding a slight smile and a little laugh. "I'm, uh, also Quinn's friend? At least I'd like to think we're friends, but, well, he's not really the sort to really say as much, is he?" She had to look over at Erin with a slightly nervous smile on her face as she did. After all, for all Zoe knew, Erin got precisely that.

She did have to wonder though: "So, um, if you're fine then what was..." she turned and pointed back toward the more crowded section, where they'd been a few moments before, before Erin had decided that they needed to make an all-out sprint over here.

[Erin Hackett]

It probably did not make a lot of sense for Erin to run off and drag someone with her if she was fine, but it made perfect sense to her. She was fine in terms of not being hurt but that didn't mean she wanted to stick around to be asked questions or apologize. Not that she had a problem apologizing or anything, but she had basically been stalking and it just made her all kinds of jumpy once she was 'caught'. While Zoe had not been the one to catch her, Zoe had still spotted her, so she had to take the girl with her instead of running off.

Had Zoe not been involved at all, then Erin would have run off, waited for a little bit, and then resumed her stalking until she felt bold enough to say something to the girl. Now she had no choice but to 'man up' and say something to the girl since she had effetely taken her with her to hide. "I know who you are." Erin responded when Zoe gave her name. She felt so bad-ass for a moment at saying that, because it sounded like something out of a movie that a cool person would say and would look just all-knowing and mysterious.

Erin could not help but to smile a little as Zoe did not seem too sure if she was Quinn's friend or not, which was a reaction she had expected to hear and was happy to hear. Now she felt a little less worried about being replaced by some other 'cute' lesbian. "No...you have to work at it a bit." Erin said with her smile not going away. She wanted to brag about how she and Quinn were super close but the words would not even reach her lips. Then Zoe was bringing up the whole...event. "I uh...I didn't feel like sticking around after I had ummm...sort of made a scene. A-and I uh...took you because um, yeah...wanted to talk to you." Erin managed to get out as she took a few steps back from the other girl.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

The comment took Zoe aback. She actually pulled back slightly, blinking, not sure how to really respond to that. So apparently Quinn had talked about her? or, well, she supposed that it really wasn't all that hard to figure out who she was. There were the videos Tim posted on his blog, and the DL articles, and everything. If you just asked around someone could probably locate the shy lesbian photographer for you.

At least she managed to make Erin smile, which definitely proved that the other girl knew Quinn. You only had to talk to him for a few moments to reach the same conclusions that Zoe had, after all. Apparently Erin had done more than that, as her agreement indicated. Zoe nodded along, more than willing to accept that Quinn had other friends. She held still as Erin stammered through.

"Oh, well, it's alright. I mean, I wouldn't want to stick around there either, if I had, well, not that you had but, well..." Zoe trailed off, chewing her cheek and trying to figure out how to restructure this sentence to add something. "It's fine, really. I don't mind talking to you. Honest. Did you, um, want to go sit down somewhere?" Zoe gestured slightly, turning. "There are, well, there's benches, and there are some nice grassy areas if you really want to avoid everyone..." though Zoe probably should stick to the crowd, what with the camera and all. Still, she doubted anyone would begrudge her a break.

[Erin Hackett]

Erin did feel a little piety about all of this, but she could not help it. She worked so hard to get Quinn to accept her as a friend and to just make friends in general. She didn't want to be replaced by some other girl for whatever reason so she just had to know a bit more about the girl. She had already looked up a lot about the girl on the internet from DL post, blogs, and even some hidden stuff on the school system; thankfully she didn't get busted for that. It was safe to say that she knew a lot about Zoe but she still wanted to know her in person in order to really be certain if her spot for 'Lesbian Best Friend' was still safe.

The other girl was a little nervous, or at least she was having trouble saying what she wanted to say; which didn't help Erin calm down. She was very much affected by another’s behavior when she was dealing with them and needed the other person to be calm in order for her to calm down as well. There were times where she was able to push past how the other person was acting, but that was typically with those she was close with and she was not close with this Zoe girl just yet. If she would ever be. Zoe didn't mind talking to her and was asking if they should move to sit down somewhere.

"H-here works." Erin quickly answered. She picked a place to be out of sight for a reason and had no problem sitting down in the grass; minus the bugs. With us being alone like this I don't have to worry about anyone seeing anything. Not that I'm going to go all slasher film on her but...I have watched too many horror films with Alex. Erin thought to herself as she took a deep breath to calm herself down further. "I wanted to talk to you...about Quinn. How close do you think you too are?" Erin just went ahead and asked as she started to move around a little in place.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

As always, Zoe felt like she should be the more outgoing one around someone else paralyzingly shy. So she smiled. She gracefully sat on the grass, moving aside her skirt to make sure she didn't expose anything and that nothing got too horribly dirty. She had just settled down when she heard Erin talking again. Zoe looked directly at her as she explained, and the question actually caught her off-guard. Zoe stared, blinking for a few seconds.

"Well, ah, we're friends? I don't think we're too terribly close, if I'm--if I'm being honest," Zoe flushed at that, shifting again, running her hands down her legs. "We've met a few times. I've known him for months now. But most of our time together has been dealing with photography club or cameras or something along those lines. I'd say we're friends though."

Zoe looked over at Erin, smiling and leaning forward. "He's not your boyfriend, is he? You really don't have to worry: I've already got someone," a girl someone too, but Zoe figured that if Erin had heard of her at all, she'd know that. Which did make her wonder why the girl would be so skittish around her. Or why someone like her would be dating Quinn, for that matter, but they did say that love was blind.

[Erin Hackett]

Erin didn't get how this shy lesbian was shy when she so did not seem to be all that shy. She must have been similar to Erin in where she was mostly shy but with certain people or certain situations her true self came out. That had to mean that the other girl totally thought dirty thoughts and would be bold in a aromatic relationship, much like Erin would. Well...mostly. At any rate, if all of that was true, that even gave her more reason to be worried that Quinn was going to replace her. Perhaps he didn't like being around a natural red head and wanted someone with a different hair color.

Or it could have been the accent, maybe he wanted to be cool and have a friend with an accent? Damn, wish I spoke broken English better so he could think I had a cool Japanese accent. Erin thought to herself as she got comfortable sitting down right where she had been standing. Damn it all, she needed to get to the bottom of it all and that was what she fully planned to do. Her question had been asked and Zoe seemed to be struggling with giving an answer back, which made Erin feel a bit better about her position with Quinn. Clearly the other girl was not super close with Quinn like Erin was.

Quinn and Erin were like pals, told each other their secretes, watched movies, and shared snacks together. One of those was a bit of an exaggeration but it was Erin's mind and that was how she saw it. "Right, seems like Quinn." Erin said as she nodded a few times. Then she started chocking on her own spit with how hard she had swallowed at Zoe's question. Was she insane? Mental? High? Did she not have a gaydar? What was wrong with this lesbian?! "NO! N-no, Quinn is just a friend. He does not have the right parts to be with me. I get girlfriends, not boyfriends. N-not that I have ever had a girlfriend...not the kiss and sex kind, but you know like...gay. I'm so gay. Very much gay." Erin stumbled about her words, nodding her head a lot as she started to blush more. She missed whatever Zoe would have said after because she was quick to cut her off once she stopped chocking about the question of Quinn being her boyfriend.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

The sputtering almost had Zoe flushing. Had she hit too close to home? No, wait, almost the opposite. Erin didn't think about Quinn that way: she thought about girls that way. The stumbling sounded oh so very familiar to Zoe, who'd blundered her way through conversations like that more times than she'd really care to count. She had to fight the urge to laugh, instead smiling and nodding.

"Well, I'm very much gay too," Zoe replied, feeling that using the term would help. "My someone's a girl someone: Riley, and she's quite wonderful. I'm sure there's someone out there for you too," Zoe chewed her cheek for a moment, trying to figure out what to say or what to do here. "But really, I'm just... just friends with Quinn. It's nothing more than that. I'm not, well, I'm not looking to... to replace anyone? Or cut into time or anything like that. We just, well, there's a lot we have in common, and I look up to him, and he can be... fun sometimes."

Zoe didn't know how else to put it or what else to say. She almost felt like giving Erin a hug, but the other girl struck her as one who didn't really appreciate physical contact and, well, Zoe knew that contact from her had decided... drawbacks.

[Erin Hackett]

It was a good thing that Zoe didn’t end up laughing at Erin because she was likely to take it in a bad way when she was trying to make it clear she and Quinn were not like that with one another. If anything she felt like Quinn was something like a brother, one that you had no blood ties to, wanted to kill sometimes, and who pissed you off on and off. However; he was still someone she cared for and did like to hang out with him when he was not being a butt, for lack of a better word. Zoe was smiling, nodding, and then voicing how she was very much gay as well.

“I know.” Erin responded. Was it odd to say that she knew? She did in fact know, so it was not a lie. She knew a lot about the other girl for a reason; mainly being because she was worried about her ‘Best Lesbian Friend’ status. That I know was all encompassing of what was falling out of the girl’s mouth about who her special someone was. Erin didn’t really care, since it had nothing to do with Zoe’s status with Quinn. However; since she was already certain that she was safe in terms of her standing with Quinn, it didn’t hurt to hear things she already knew.

Well, it didn’t hurt but Zoe was kind of wasting her breath, but it was not like she knew Erin Hackett and who she was. Thinking in their person, awesome. Erin thought to herself for a short moment before pulling her mind back from wondering off like it had started to. “T-that was why I was here. Why I wanted to talk to you. Like…I don’t mind you being Quinn’s friend; he needs friends, lots of them. I was just…uh worried that like…well you are a lesbian…I’m a lesbian…” Erin said, her words dropping off near the end and just kind of hoping that Zoe would get what she was getting at. How can she? You didn’t even say anything! Erin was mentally scolding herself about it.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Erin kept stammering, and Zoe naturally fell into an almost rapt silence as she did so, wanting to listen, not just hear, but actually fully listen to what was going on, what Erin was saying and what she really meant when she said whats he said. So she caught about the Quinn's friend and...

...and...?

"I'm not going to replace you," Zoe insisted, shaking her head adamantly. "I don't--that's not what I want to do. I mean, I do like Quinn, as a friend, and I, well, i want to spend more time with him, because, well, I think he... deserves it? And I hope to learn from him, but I would never want to take someone's place," Zoe shook her head, again wishing she could somehow imbue the motion with more oomph and feeling. She took another breath, looking at Erin's eyes.

"Why don't we be friends?" Zoe offered. She nodded and gestured between them. "You and I. We're both friends with Quinn, and, well, I'm always willing for more friends. Plus," Zoe shrugged, "I, ah, don't have many lesbian friends? Well, I do, ah, have two friends that are in a lesbian relationship, together, but they're, um, not just... it's different," Zoe flushed, not sure how to really explain how Vera and Devyn were different. She did know that Vera was... wider in taste and that Devyn was... as well?

[Erin Hackett]

Erin could not help to stammer, especially because she was talking to a female of all people to talk to. Zoe was a very attractive girl and while she was taken, that didn't stop Erin from her mind wondering places and daydreaming a little bit. She was happy to say that it was not as bad as it used to be because Alex's was consuming a lot of her thoughts but she had not stop appreciate and enjoying the view of every girl as a result. Erin's mind was going to wonder further until Zoe spoke up about how she was not going to be replacing Erin or anything like that. That made her feel a little bit better to hear from Zoe herself that she was not trying to take Erin's spot as Quinn's lesbian friend.

Well, technically Zoe would fall into that category as well, but Erin felt a little bit better that Quinn was not going to stop talking to her or anything like that. Erin was going to speak up and say thanks or something along those lines but then Zoe was asking if they could be friends. Them? Friends? Why? Well, the real question would be why not? Well she is a lesbian, an attractive lesbians, is in a relationship so you are likely going to have to deal hearing about that at some point. You are attracted to her already on some level and you still feel slightly threaten about her status in Quinn's books. Erin thought to herself for a moment.

"I...I mean if...if you think it would be a good idea, we could try." Erin responded as she looked away and kept fidgeting with the zipper on her jacket. Zoe did have a point about eh whole being friends with Quinn and she did get what and who Zoe was talking about. She did a lot of research on Zoe and was very much aware of Devyn and Vera and how they were both bi and in a lesbian relationship with one another. She also knew who Zoe was with and pretty much knew about anyone that involved themselves with this Zoe girl. "I uh...other than Quinn I just don't really think we have that much in common which could like uh...make things awkward from time to time." Erin pointed out. Zoe and Quinn had photography in common. Erin and Zoe had...being lesbians in common.