Jump [Tag: Noah]

[Cherie Paxton]

Ah, RHS. Cherie ran her fingers against the dark silver of the rail that lined the few steps leading up to the front of the walkway that lead into Ramsa High School. She smiled a little fondly, remembering her time there. She wasn't like her siblings; Cherie liked school. High school had been fun for her - she was an A+ student, on the swim team and a cheerleader. What wasn't to like? She swept her almost unmanageably-long brown hair over her shoulder and smiled a little more, thrusting her keychain into her pocket so that only her three keys peeked out. She was supposed to be picking up Kenzie - Connor's orders. Kenzie was going to be babysat almost exclusively by one of the Anubi or whoever else he could wrangle up until after the Midnight situation was placated, whatever that meant.

Cherie walked inside, glancing back over her shoulder as she pushed open the doors. Everything even still smelled the same. As she turned back around, she noticed a man coming out about half a second before she slammed into him.

[Noah Carter]

Not that things should have been that different for him, but Noah was glad that things hadn't changed at the school between his vacation over the summer and the return to the school year, and that they were progressing exactly as he'd come to expect.  Considering how much his personal life had changed, it was nice that not everything had to.  He didn't know if he'd ever be accustomed to, nevermind comfortable, with what happened on his trip to Africa and its results.  Frankly, he still didn't understand it and it wasn't like he had someone to explain it to him.  All he had to go on were legends and the obvious worship of the jackal that the people of that village had, which didn't really make sense to him.  Those kinds of things weren't supposed to be possible.  

Yeah, they weren't supposed to be, but that didn't stop him from turning into a freakin' JACKAL.  Either the rest of the world had just stopped making sense, or he'd lost his mind.  He was more inclined to believe the latter, but he was a laid back kind of guy.  If he'd lost his mind, he wasn't causing any trouble, so what did it matter?  He was just going to go on with his life, keep teaching and making cool shit out of clay, and if he got to a point that he was dangerous, then someone would have to deal with it.

He hoped not.  That'd be a bummer.

Anyway, he was a friendly enough dude that he wasn't worried about it.  If he was crazy, he was one of those fun crazies, right?  Besides, he was an art teacher; they were expected to be kind of nuts.  He didn't want to disappoint.

Of course, his definition of a 'fun crazy' didn't include busting out of his classroom with a nice coating of clay dust on his skin and clothes just in time to smack into a young girl.  Yeah, because THAT was graceful.  One more point in favor of him being crazy, one more against him actually being right about being a jackal.  He was pretty sure they were graceful, and not all that prone to staring stupidly at young girls.  His bad.  "Whoa!  I'm sorry, totally wasn't paying attention there," he told her, making a movement to brush at her shoulder at the clay dust that she'd gotten on herself with the contact, but his hand just brushed more on her.  His face fell just slightly, realizing that he was pretty much useless on this one.  He'd just make it worse.

[Cherie Paxton]

 "Oh no!" she cried as they collided. She backed away a half-step, looking at the man as he uselessly tried to brush dust off of her and just made a solid yellow swipe against the dark navy blue of her very thin hooded jacket. There was a lot of the standard "I'm so sorry; No, no, MY fault" that was exchanged, but the entire time Cherie couldn't help but not take her eyes off of him. It wasn't that he was devastatingly seductive or that he glittered like a fairy or anything so purple prose as that - he was actually very handsome, she noticed - and that was the problem. Cherie never noticed anyone. It had taken Fin practically four "dates" before she'd realized they'd been dates at all.

Cherie was as oblivious as men were about a lot of things. It was either the Bardi in her or the "I have older brothers" in her, but whatever the case was, she had definitely noticed this man. The way he smelled, like art supplies and warm, summer days in tall grass - his jaw, how perfect his jaw was, and how inviting his eyes were...

Cherie realized she was staring, and he was still brushing her, and she stammered out some sort of, "It's okay, really... " before falling into a comfortable sort of silence with a man she'd never seen before. She shook her head and smiled brightly. "I'm forgetting my manners!" she exclaimed. "I'm Cherie Paxton. I'm here to pick up my little sister, Kenzie? I was told she had cheer practice and I don't think it's actually over yet so I was going to look around... "

Cherie couldn't help but be enthralled by him. He just smelled so... good. It was everything in her bashful nature not to just grab him and bury her nose into his neck.

[Noah Carter]

Okay, so he felt really stupid.  They both threw out the 'I'm so sorry's, but his attempts at getting the clay dust off of her clothes had only made things worse, which meant that his 'pawing' at her didn't do any good whatsoever.  He wasn't a fan of that, especially when she was young and pretty and definitely standing in the school.  He hoped to god that she wasn't a student, though she didn't look quite that young.  Even so, they looked older faster now than they had when he was that age.  He'd swear to that.  Those girls were trouble.

Actually, he was of the opinion that all girls, all women were trouble.  They were.  He'd been infected with whatever he had by that crazy woman that had totally been all about banging him back in the 'cradle of civilization'.  Yeah, women were crazy, and he was keeping his distance for a long while.

Wait.  Had he LOOKED at this girl, yet?  Sure, he'd apologized and tried to get clay dust off of her, but that didn't do anything to make him really LOOK at her.  That made a difference, especially since it caused him such a shock that he breathed in hard and sudden.  Bad idea, if he wanted to keep himself away from women, since that deep breath of HER completely flooded his senses.  Shit.

Well, if he were going to change his mind about that whole 'staying out of trouble with women' plan, she seemed like the perfect girl to try it out with.  She was polite, for starters, beautiful, and then there was just HER.  SHE was all that mattered suddenly.  He heard her mention Kenzie, but it took him way too long to register who that was, and why he cared.  Miss Cherie Paxton's first impression was just so much more interesting.

"I'm No--Mr. Carter, Kenzie's Ceramics teacher.  Noah.  I didn't know she had a sister," he offered up suddenly, it being the truth, but a very lame attempt at covering up his uncertainty over his introduction.  He could admit it.  Of course, he hadn't ever tried to find out if Kenzie had any siblings; boy, would he have been surprised.  Kenzie just didn't interest him that much, except that she was utterly ridiculous in his class.  He didn't understand how the 'easy credit' was even worth it to her, given how horrible she was about it.  Was it okay for him to chat up her sister?  Was it okay to be friendly, to be 'Noah', instead of 'Mr. Carter'?  Normally, he wouldn't, but he wanted to this time. 

Why did it have to be Kenzie's sister?

[Cherie Paxton]

 Cherie was smiling so big that it made her face hurt. She couldn't take her eyes off of him - or she did, but it was only because of how surprised she was at her own behaviour. She couldn't explain this overwhelming urge to just grab him and shove him down onto the ground so they could roll around and wrestle - her eyes widened at the thought of it, but it was punctuated with a laugh as he said he didn't know Kenzie had a sister.

"Well, sure, she's got lots of sisters!" she said cheerfully. "Me and Anni aren't blood related, though. Kenzie's sister is married to my brother," she explained. "Anni and I went to school here, though," she said with a smile, thrusting her hands into her back pockets girlishly and rolling onto her tiptoes a little. She rocked back and forth like that and then held her hand out to him, gesturing in the direction he'd been going.

"I'm sorry, am I keeping you? If you need to be somewhere, I can go! I just, uh - well, Kenzie's going to be a while," she said, stuttering. "You're the Ceramics teacher, huh? She doesn't have much to say about this class except that she has no artistic talent and it shows. She breaks the same amount of delicate-ware at the house, I assure you. Girl can do a back flip on a balance beam, but if she carries a plate and a glass in either hand..." she smiled.

Why was she even telling him any of this? Cherie didn't usually talk about her family with anyone. She caught herself and closed her mouth, still smiling, but she couldn't help look around a little, confused. She had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him, just a fingertip or two - just his hair. It looked so soft and nice..

[Noah Carter]

Her smiles were contagious (or at least, he thought it was her smiles, but it was really just her), to the point that he finally grinned himself, watching her explain her sibling situation.  It sure as hell sounded complicated, and he didn't even hear about most of her brothers, just the one married to Kenzie's sister.  He didn't hear about half of the Paxton situation, and really, he didn't need to know the whole deal just yet.  All he cared about was Cherie, despite their conversation currently revolving around Kenzie.  Right, Kenzie, who was horrible in his class, completely untalented and uninterested.  He almost felt bad for her, honestly.

Then, she'd sit with her friends and one of them would make a crude clay dick, and he wouldn't feel so bad anymore.  Fucking high schoolers.

"Ah, no, you're not keeping me at all.  I was actually..." he hesitated, trying to remember if he'd been doing anything important, and decided he hadn't been.  Oh, filling his water bottle.  That was it.  Otherwise, he'd been firing some of the kids' projects, right along with one of his own.  It was small, but he liked it.  Not everything had to be massive to be impressive, in his opinion.  "I was just firing some of the projects."

He took the step or two to the water fountain now that he remembered that he'd been refilling the bottle in his hands, then turned around with a slightly more subdued smirk as he took a sip of it.  He had an idea, if she was interested, and he hoped she was.  "Did you want to see how it works?  Not sure if you were an art kid in school or not, but it's still a neat process," he offered, shrugging casually in case she said 'no'.

[Cherie Paxton]

Just as Cherie had opened her mouth to ask what he meant by firing the figures, he was inviting her along with him. "Yeah?" she asked, unable to hide her excitement. It would probably make Noah happy to know just how interested in... utterly everything he said or did that Cherie actually was. "Can I? I always wondered how this worked. I didn't do much in the way of ceramics when I was here, so you must be new. I had Mrs. Atherton, and she was sooo addicted to watercolours. I actually won third place in an art fair the community had, it's probably still hanging up in the hall. I painted a bunch of Black-Eyed Susans, heh. Evidently they liked it," she said with a laugh. "I like flowers," she added cheerfully, practically skipping after Noah.

She inwardly slapped herself. I like flowers? What the hell kind of thing had that been to say? She may as well have dusted herself with flour and said, "I like turtles." She winced as soon as Noah turned away from her, but it went right back to a smile after only a moment to reflect. She had the urge to reach out and grab his hand, but she didn't. She almost slapped herself for trying. How inappropriate that would have been. Of course he didn't want to hold her hand; he'd just met her!

"So you're not from here, I'm guessing," she said with a grin. All of the teachers knew the 'Paxton Clan' kids. They were literally everywhere.

[Noah Carter]

That she was so excited over what he was talking about really DID make him happy, which in turn made him more excited about showing her.  It was a cycle of happy, and it was bound to go somewhere interesting.  He wasn't betting on a scene out of 'Ghost', but he'd have been okay just keeping her attention for awhile.  She certainly had his attention, so why not?  He absorbed every last thing she said, thinking it over and picturing it just like the artist he was.  He actually knew the painting she was talking about, too. 

"Are you serious?  That is still up!" he told her, his smile erupting into a full-fledged laugh.  He hadn't known that painting was that old, frankly.  All he knew was that it pre-dated his own time in the school.  "I guess they did like it."

She wasn't the only one fighting the urge to touch, but he was lying to himself and thinking that he just wanted to grab her hand to lead her off into the ceramics room, much like a child would to show an adult something super!exciting.  "I always liked painting, but I'm into pretty much anything artsy.  I don't discriminate," he explained pleasantly, gesturing with his water bottle for her to follow him into the classroom so that he didn't actually take her by the hand.  He didn't know why it was such a big deal.  He wasn't usually that interested in getting touchy, even with the hot redhead that taught English.  Cherie was something else entirely. 

She commented on him not being from around there, which was amusing enough that he ducked his head for a second, taking a moment to laugh at himself and set the bottle down on his desk.  "Ah, no, I'm actually not.  I'm fairly new in this area, to be honest, but I'm liking it so far.  What gave me away?"

[Cherie Paxton]

"Well, I'm amazed it's still there," she said, following his gestures to the classroom. "Anyways, the question of your newness is mostly answered because you don't know who I am - or, rather, who we are. Kenzie doesn't share my last name, but the Paxton kids are kind of notorious here. My brother and sisters went here and certainly still strike fear into the hearts of the staff. That you don't immediately ask me if I'd brought them with me and then run down the hall flinging papers everywhere pretty much indicates that you're not from here."

She grinned. "The rumours aren't that true, though, so don't worry. Evan was a troublemaker, but Annika is just cynical and funny. Generally stern educators frown on that. Seems that Kenzie got dealt a better and more lenient hand than when we were here," she said. "But enough about me - let's see all this cool stuff you promised me," she said.

She'd never been around a male Anubi that she wasn't related to before. She was still so enamored that she didn't even recognize that he was an Anubi, but she'd figure it out soon enough. Until then, she was at war with her hands, wanting to just attack him - and that worried her enough that she did the exact opposite, though she couldn't stop smiling.