OPEN •• [[ just play.

[hunter caspian shaw]

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
The rhythmic bounce of the basketball echoed in the male’s ears as he dribbled it against the concrete on which he ran. It was not a fast run, just something a tad speedier than a jog and a hell of a lot more impatient than a walking pace. His slender, colorless finger tips pressed the ball down as it bounced back into his hand. It made no more than a second of contact before it was shooting down toward the ground again. He ran with the ball bouncing at his side, toward the park today where he intended to shoot some hoops and have a little fun since he hadn’t in a while. He’d been swamped with work and various other things that were just consuming his life. Granted, he liked being busy, he would rather be busy than have nothing to do, but he really liked to have a little free time to just go and do stupid things like run down the street while dribbling a basketball.

Covering his torso was a long sleeved shirt, and a sleeveless black leather jacket. It was not the warmest choice of clothes, but he’d run all the way here, dribbling the basketball the whole time. Being warm wasn’t a matter too this guy, he could withstand the cold, and even though he didn’t like it, he forced himself to endure it. Steamy breath escaped his nostrils and mouth like fire from a dragon as he pushed through the slightly chilled October air. His breathing matched the pace of the basketball, divided by two. He could breathe out one time for every two that the basketball made contact with the ground. The light colored steam would sweep up and over his pale features as it escaped the holes in his features. It didn’t ruffle his thick brown hair in the slightest because it was styled with gel from his morning’s shower. He’d made sure to keep it neat and wild looking this morning so he’d used plenty of gel and spray. Now he was running down the sidewalk, his hair standing tall and motionless atop his head.

He reached the park and continued to dribble the ball until his converse covered feet led him to the basketball court. There was no one already there, and that was nice. He didn’t have to be with anyone to enjoy basketball, but sometimes there were people that didn’t share the court, and that was when he preferred to play alone. When people didn’t share it wasn’t good for anyone else. When that happened he would just walk away and find another court, but he was lucky today. A small smirk crossed over his features and he ran up to the hoop, jumping and shooting.

He wasn’t tall enough to dunk it, but he could jump and sink it, most of the time. Sometimes he just failed and missed, and that’s when he would laugh. The ball fell through the net and he went to retrieve it, moving quickly across the blacktop before the ball bounced into the grass. He scooped it up with his left hand and dribbled it back into the court, standing still for a moment before he put his arm out and started dribbling again, his back facing the hoop. He was ‘blocking’ someone in his mind and was trying to avoid their grabby hands as they tried to knock the ball right out of his. He hunched down a little bit, keeping his arm out and quickly moving away, running across to the far hoop and shooting. The ball hit the backboard and hit the rim and missed. He ran to catch the rebound and tried again, sinking it. He grinned a little before running to get it. He stood at the line and bounced it in, running in to catch it again before he started to run across the court. He almost tripped over his lengthy shoe laces and in turn, he lost the ball. It bounced away and through the grass, making it’s way over to the path that he’d ran in on.

[charlie allen stewart]

Charlie had never been one for sports. No, that was his older brother Adam's talent. Charlie had never really bothered to play much sports when he was younger. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't play them for fun sometimes. When you only had one brother and three sisters, chances were you were going to choose to spend time with your brother versus your sisters. Charlie, of course, had learned that the hard way. One too many makeovers and a dozen or so times being announced as Charlene and Charlie got over trying to stay indoors. Adam's sport of choice was football, but he was good at many others as well. He played soccer for fun, and a few years during high school he played basketball. As the older brother, and despite what he always considered Charlie's handicap (he hardly understood how being gay was a handicap, but whatever), Adam was willing to let his younger brother follow along. This, however, only proved that Charlie could play. Not, of course, that he was good at it or that he didn't prefer to watch other people play. In fact, these days, Charlie preferred to stay away from the basketball courts as much as possible. Mostly because he wasn't so good and no one was as lienient as Adam had been while they played.

All of this though did not keep Charlie from walking passed the courts. Clearing his head, he called it. Really it was just wasting time, something Charlie did really well. He could waste plenty of time taking a walk from his dorm to Olympic Sculpture Park and beyond, maybe even back. It meant less time he had to spend contemplating when he was going to clean his portion of the room or do his homework. He wasn't so much lazy as he was avoidant (excuse Charlie for believing those two things aren't generally the same thing in his case). More simply put, the boy was taking a long walk to nowhere. He had a cigarette between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, smoke spiraling off the end of it and polluting the air. He'd noticed he'd been smoking a lot more since he'd returned to school. That would certainly have to stop, but he never anticipated his sophomore year to be harder than his freshman year. Adjusting last year had been all to easy, the break over the summer must have slowed him down more than he anticipated because even now, in October, he found himself less inclined to get back into the groove of school work and dorm life. Not that he wasn't dealing, of course, that was something he had to do. He was just spending less and less time doing those things and more and more time getting lost and smoking. He made a mental note to straighten himself up before he started seeing a visible decline in his health.

Charlie's shoes padded softly against the pavement. He was only walking, not running or jogging or doing anything that would steal away any of his energy. He could barely hear the thud, thud, thud of his sneakers and he decided that was a good thing. If he wasn't getting tired he could walk for a longer distance. Of course, he didn't take into account that he might not have been able to hear his footsteps because of the loud booming noise coming from the basketball courts. Leave it to Charlie to forget the world around him. The constant slam of the ball to the ground had slipped right passed him, lost in the static of background noise. That was, of course, until it stopped. The silence seemed to be louder and Charlie was nearly puzzled as the basketball that had been making the soundtrack to his stroll through the park came rolling toward him. He paused, walking halted quickly, and allowed the ball to come closer before he bent at the middle to pick it up. He spun it in his hands for a brief second before glancing around, looking for the owner.

In his white coat, that generally made him look like a skinny marshmallow with fur, Charlie looked misplaced when he took steps onto the basketball court. No, he didn't belong there, but the dirty orange ball in his hands did. Obviously someone had been using it and Charlie was too polite to just let it roll away until it was lost. No, that wasn't fair. No one had done anything wrong enough to lose their ball over, or at least no one within a ten foot radius of Charlie had, because he certainly hadn't seen anything. "This yours?" He asked, dribbling the ball once a few feet in front of the dark haired male. Charlie had only spotted him within the last few seconds and since he was generally the only person around, he had to assume the ball belonged to him. He pulled the ball to his chest, elbows out, ready to make a pass if this boy claimed the ball.

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