Nerves. For Isabelle, they were always there. They didn't always bother her. Sometimes they were simply a feeling of hyper-awareness, the sense that all her senses were supercharged. She could catch every movement, hear the faintest whisper... That was the way her nerves were right before a game. It was almost like being a superhero--all the intensity boiling down to this charged over-awareness where she practically felt like she could hear her teammates' hearts beating.

Probably just her own, but still.

It would all go away on the opening kickoff. After the first hit, she'd be her regular self. No more tingly spidey-sense sensation, just the focus and concentration of playing a game that required a lot of both.

Walking out onto the field, she couldn't help but glance out at the audience, pale blue eyes scanning intently. Though football here was not the draw that it had been at home, there was a fairly good-sized crowd, all things considered. At least a few thousand people, maybe just a little less than ten. Good crowd. It made it hard to find one face in particular though...

And then they were lining up to kick off and she couldn't look anymore. Job to do.

Luci hadn't really known that going to a football game was going to involve being mauled accidentally by passing men with their busting guts painted spirited colors on the way to her seat. Nor was she aware that when sitting, she ran the chance of having something spilled on her as an excited fan jostled at some 'down' or 'yard' or whatever it was. Truthfully, Luci knew little to nothing of football. Her only real focus there was Isabelle, who in the beginning of the game she'd noticed was scanning the seats for her. Their eyes hadn't met because the game had started before she was spotted.

The green eyed rocker found that football fans could be just as unruly as a punk rock audience, only these supports screamed and yelled instead of throwing about their fists and fighting for seemingly no reason. A few times a man sitting a few seats away from her kept yelling and then throwing around a roar at his fellow crowd members for support of his yelling; it was like dogs and cats sitting in one space together and trying not to scrap. In the spur of the moment, the blonde got a little put off by the fact that she hadn't really said anything to support Isabelle because she wasn't really aware of what was going on. So when the best available moment presented itself; she screamed out in her best and clearest voice.

"GO ISABELLE!" Just as Luci yelled a few others in her seating row yelled it too because they were supporting her team. It was nice to know that Luci hadn't yelled in vain or embarassed herself. In that particular seating area, the blonde stuck out like a soar thumb with her studded leather vest and dark green camo 'emo' pants, her long light blonde hair pulled back into a messy pony tail. Next to Luci was a young man who'd spent a good portion of the first quarter of the game oogling at her left arm covered in a full-sleeve set of tattoos, every now and then acting like he was going to speak up and ask about one of the pieces.

As a whistle sounded somewhere on the field, Luci got excited watching Isabelle walk back towards the benches to meet with her team. Waving her arms and jumping up and down, the drummer screamed and yelled amongst the enthusiastic cries of the crowd. "Issy! Issy, up here!"

Isabelle was shaking her head as she jogged off the field, certain that the offense was going to be stymied by their opponent's defense again, despite the short field that had been handed to them. Setting her helmet on the bench, Isabelle planted her hands on her hips as she faced the field and studied the opposing team's defense the way a chess player would study the board. She was just narrowing her eyes at the other team's linebackers when she heard her name shouted from the stands. Turning to look in the direction that the yell had come from, Isabelle finally saw Luci--and then wondered how she'd missed the rocker in the first place. In a swarm of silver and black painted people, the leather vested Luci certainly stuck out.

With a grin, Isabelle gave a little salute, feeling a little more buoyant despite the fact that the numbers on the scoreboard hadn't changed. She turned back to the field just in time to watch the offense fail on third down. She was already reaching for her helmet when the offense then failed on a desperation fourth down.

It was the pattern of the night. The DU defense would manage to get the stop, only for the Raiders to return the favor. When the final whistle blew, Isabelle almost didn't care that they had lost. She had the whole night to get some wind back, finally. Thank God for conditioning, the blonde reflected, which was somewhat ironic, considering how much the conditioning drills sucked. Still, without them, she'd have been like some of the other players--puking on the sidelines.

Walking over to the fence that separated the stands from the field, Isabelle waved at Luci, then leaned against the fence waiting for the other girl. Idly, she rubbed at her ribs through the jersey. Lots of punts had meant lots of punt returns, which meant being buried beneath pileups lots of times.

Each 'down' the people in the crowd would either react poorly or happily and in the midst of the crazed bafoonery; Luci was lost simply in the rush of being there. Something that also had her excited was the way with which Isabelle commanded her body. The way she would pound into someone with the leg strength forcing her forward at a rate of speed and agility that Luci could only dream of. Or how strongly she pulled another down to the ground in an attempt to end the other team's play. The rules and actual happenings of the game were lost on the blonde, but the way that Isabelle played was not.

The game had amazed her. Never had the rocker sat and actually watched a football game. When she'd seen football it was just seen as some mainstream high school activity that got the jocks and preps together on saturday nights to pork each other's brain out when the game finished. But now, as she watched the final whistle blow and the girl she'd watched like a hawk the whole night move to the fence, Luci was mesmerized.

Rushing forward through the receeding sea of painted bodies and half-enthuesed fans, the green eyed drummer collected up her Canadian Lager bottle and jogged to the fence to meet up with the other blonde who'd played, what Luci considered, a great game. "Babe, ye were fantastic!"

As she met with the fence, her free hand spidering onto the chain link eagerly, Luci felt the need to throw her lips onto Isabelle's in her glee. But held back. The girl was no doubt drained somewhat from her game and the last thing she needed was to have an unfortunate panic attack because Luci had rushed her physically in another fashion.

"I don't think I've had this much fun in... ages!" The blonde's hair was down, had flecks of body paint in it and her pallor but flushed face was smudged where an excited fan had grabbed and hugged her excitededly. Luci couldn't shake the grin on her features, despite the feeling of looking stupid.

Isabelle couldn't help but grin as she watched Luci scramble down to the fence. "I should give you my tickets more often," the blonde joked, pressing her hand to the fence and against the fingers Luci had hooked through the chain-link. "Nothing like a football neophyte to give my ego a good boost."

Studying Luci up close for the first time that night, Isabelle couldn't resist the urge to wipe at some of the paint smudging the drummer's face. And there was something about the flush blooming over the other blonde's features that made her want to forget that there were still fans and teammates milling about and hop the fence and bite Luci somewhere...

Instead, she leaned back, glanced down towards where most of her teammates were filing off to the locker rooms. "I've got to go shower and change. I won't be long if you wanna wait," Isabelle said, wiping at some of the sweat tickling her brow. She grinned, "Most of the guys are probably gonna go hit some bars and try to get laid--postgame ritual, win or lose." Isabelle didn't usually follow suit. When large, testosterone-charged men went out drinking, they usually ended up hitting on anything vaguely resembling the female form. She could do without.

"We could do something more... low-key, though. My dorm is in walking distance," Isabelle began, about to say more when one of her coaches interrupted her with a call of her surname and a wave. Grabbing her helmet by the facemask, Isabelle threw another quick grin Luci's way as she jogged to catch up with the rest of her team.

Luci caught the flicker of hesitation in Issy's face and found herself wondering if the girl had been caught up in the same want to kiss that she had. She laughed lightly and noticed all of a sudden the aftertaste of her beer, remindering herself not to drop the half-empty bottle in her hand. "I'll boost yer ego anytime, babe." The honey blonde woman winked playfully and rocked back and forth on her toes, her green eyes not leaving Isabelle's grey ones.

Issy said she would be only a minute if the other wanted to wait and all Luci could think of was screaming 'Nah! I'll go with ye!'. An image of the two walking in, hand in hand, to the locker room where Luci would sit back and watch the other shower and dress teased her mind and made her blush. Luckily her imagination let up and the drummer popped back to reality with a superficially jealous smack to the ears. Issy was being called away before Luci could answer.

Frowning slightly, the drummer waved the other off with a forced grin of her own, "I'll catch ye at the front entrance, babe." As the football player jogged away to meet up with one of her coaches, the other called after her, "Great game, Issy!"

Turning sharply on her sneaker clad heels, the wavy haired blonde took a final chug from her beer and flung the bottle into a trash bin, the metal against glass resulting in an inevitable shattering sound. "Damn it." The image of Isabelle getting undressed and sauntering into a shower, Luci sitting back against a set of lockers watching lazily with a smile on her face; it just wouldn't die. She actually shook her head abruptly, "Stop it, don't get yer hopes up!" The tone Luci used when speaking to herself may have left an onlooker thinking she was either crazy or way too hard on herself, but it was just how the recovering addict had grown accustomed to speaking all by her onesy.

-------------------

A half an hour passed in which Luci found a stone wall to sit on at the front entrance, the coolness under her body making it react all the more to the mental stimulus she was continually trying to shake loose from. A couple times she considered rushing off to a nearby port-a-john to .... fix her problem, but had figured it best to just sit and wait for Isabelle. Fearing mostly that if she took off for even a minute, fate's cruel hand would make it seem that she'd left and Issy would be angry and never talk to her again.

Luci wouldn't risk missing out on alone time with the girl she'd met at the club only a few days previous. In that time though, they'd spoken on the phone a few times and even gotten to a place where they, or at least Luci, considered each other friends.

Swinging her leg over one edge of the high wall, the other slender leg bent up to balance Luci where she pressed her back against the adjacent wall, the blonde bit her lip. "Stop it, stop it, stop it." She growled to herself.

If it would have calmed Luci's mind any, Isabelle could have told her that there was pretty much nothing sexy going on in the locker rooms. It was mostly a bunch of really big, sweaty, smelly guys getting yelled at about their performances as they stripped and ran into the showers. As a girl, Isabelle got a special curtain where she could change out of her uniform and into her clothes, which she did as quickly as possible. Eighty-five sweaty guys made for quite a smell, one in which few would like to linger.

Even with the fairly quick turnover and number of shower stalls, it took Isabelle some time to get her turn. Though this was her second year in the DU program, she still felt a bit awkward about having to shower with eighty-odd men in the same room. In high school, she'd been forced to wait until all of the other players had finished before she was allowed to wash up--which had sometimes left her in the locker rooms long after a game.

Her hair was still dark with water when she stepped out of the facilities, the dark gold locks still casually rumpled as Isabelle rarely did more than swipe at it with a towel when she finished showering. Out of her uniform, she was certainly more distinguishable as a girl. Isabelle wasn't much for fashion, so she stuck with a simple button-down and jeans, both of which looked good on her athletic frame.

Slinging her equipment bag over her shoulder, the blonde headed towards the spectator entrance. She spotted Luci, whose back was to Isabelle, almost immediately and headed towards the other woman. As she approached, she heard Luci talking to herself. "Stop what?" Isabelle asked as she stopped just shy of where Luci sat and cocking her head, her pale blue eyes curious as she looked up at the drummer.

Luci had been just on the brink of jumping down from the stone wall to find a port-a-john in desperation when the wanton voice of the football player questioned the light blonde's antics. "Oh, just tryin' not ta think of -" ye completely naked... The drummer held her thoughts back by biting her tongue, literally, and changing the subject. "I was considerin' fauning over ye after such a great game, and the indecision was makin' me crazy!" Her tone was sarcastic and playful again but something in it suggested that it wasn't exactly what she'd been thinking about.

Jumping down from the stone wall, the recovering addict smiled at her new friend. The way Isabelle dressed mixed with the wetness of her short honey coloured hair made for an enticing image. If the two escaped this night without completely going crazy on one another; it would be a miracle.

"So where we off to now, Issy? Gunna go get some pizza and party down at yer place or did ye have something better in mind? Are ye even hungry?" The words were rushed though Luci's body language was laid back and half-minding. Hands in her butt pockets, she pivoted in one spot, the blonde's green eyes wandering over the stone wall she'd been sitting on with a disconcerted interest before snapping back to Issy.

Lifting her eyebrows at Luci's joking outburst, Isabelle couldn't help but wonder if something was bothering the drummer. She had a decidedly flustered air and spoke in short, twitchy sort of sentences that completely contrasted the lazy stance she slipped into as she hopped down from the wall. Still, since Luci had spoken playfully, Isabelle responded in kind, saying, "You have to debate over stuff like that? Come on, just get all the fawning out of the way... then the urge won't be bothering you later."

As she spoke, Isabelle's pale eyes swept over Luci. Talking on the phone was nice, but seeing Luci again... Earlier, just the thought of it had made the muscles in her belly shudder. Now that Luci was actually here though, close enough for Isabelle to catch a whiff of the other woman's scent... The football player took a deep breath, which really didn't help, except to drive her even further to distraction.

"So where we off to now, Issy? Gunna go get some pizza and party down at yer place or did ye have something better in mind?"

Casually, Isabelle let her duffel bag drop to the ground. "Pizza? I guess pizza would be good," she said thoughtfully, shifting towards Luci, blocking the drummer between the wall and herself. "But you're right, I definitely had something better in mind..." Trailing off, Isabelle moved in a little closer. She had a way about her, a sort of economical grace, a laziness that belied just how quickly she could move. In the space of a breath, Isabelle had her hands over Luci's, tugging the light-haired drummer closer as her mouth hungrily landed on hers. "I'm starving."

The football players comments to fawning over the win made Luci genuinely laugh, take a step closer and stand, hands together and clutched near her face like a fan girl. "Ye were amazin', Issy! I've never seen anyone play as well as ye! The game was mind-blowin'!... Ye know... Even though ye lost." It was of course half-fun sarcasm and half-seriousness, all wrapped into a laughing and stupid expression of a young fan-girl swooning over a football player. Though in this case Luci was the older woman.

Luci's green eyes flitted over the duffel as it met with the cool stone walkway. Isabelle's suddenly very in-control way of walking towards the drummer made her stomach flop excitededly. Feeilng unsure yet not wanting to see Issy fall back into another panic attack, Luci only smirked and quirked a fine dirty blonde brow at her. "Is that so?"

Their hands met and suddenly Luci was trapped between the beautiful DU student and the stoney wall she'd made her place of waiting for forty-five minutes. Their kissing was slow... Needing... Like if they took their time with each gentle manipulation of their lips that they would actually fill themselves up with the other. The light blonde with dark makeup about her eyes closed them against the kissing, opening them once again to return comment to Isabelle's. "Ditto." A smile pulled at the corners of her full lips before the unfortunate and very familiar, nagging feeling of jonesing for her ember drug began fight for dominance over Luci's want for Issy.

Weasling one of her hands out of Issy's more rough ones, the drummer slid it into the girl's right butt pocket and pull her in close enough so their bellies touched. The lust for Issy taking a small lead over her want to get high.

((Psst... they lost. ;)))

Isabelle was usually tired after a game and uninterested in doing much more than finding something edible and passing out for a few hours. But this time she felt like she was revving--like she did before a game ever began. She would have sworn she felt her nerves tingling like live wires sizzling away. When Luci drew her closer, she almost heard the snap of current.

The blonde had never been the kind to think about relationships. The idea had always seemed so foreign. Isabelle had never been that interested in boys, and though her family had certainly been open-minded, she had always brushed even the faintest consideration that she might have been lesbian into some dark corner to be forgotten. But here, with Luci, it refused to go quietly into that dark corner. There was something about the other woman that had nestled itself under Isabelle's skin.

As Luci tucked her hand into Isabelle's pocket, the taller girl felt a tremor--and she couldn't tell if it was her or Luci. In some ways, the effect the drummer had on her was almost frightening, a torrent of new sensations and emotions that threatened to overwhelm. Isabelle was used to control, used to being sure of herself. With Luci, she wasn't completely in control, something that was both exciting and nerve-wracking.

Isabelle broke the kiss to suck in a breath, feeling the cool air like a slap after the heat of the kiss. It occurred to her that they were embracing practically beneath the university logo, where anyone could see. The thought didn't bother her as much as it might have, once, but it did pose certain issues... "My dorm is, like, a fifteen minute walk." A smile slid over her lips even as she pressed them against Luci's again, "Wanna go?"

It was like a tango. The quick, abrupt shift of attention from one thing to another coinciding with the way the tango was danced; the succession of movements in each part of the dance sexy but still telling a story of struggle between the pair dancing. Isabelle was someone Luci had been attracted to very quickly, for reasons still evading her reasoning.

The girl was sporty and boyish at times, but Luci didn't care in the least. How the other blonde moved with the contrast elegance of a female but a sports player at the same time. Or how she seemed to panic at the closest moments one time, then fall perfectly into them as if she'd never been afraid in the first place.

Luci bit her full lower lip, still tasting Issy on it, her green eyes washing over the other's face to catch and reflect the smug smirk. The small kiss between Issy's statement and her question of going to the dorm was done with half-masted eyes, fingers digging into the DU girl's buttock harder.

"Love ta." The burn of her jonesing flared but the blonde pushed it from her mind forcefully; if she was finally going to be alone with Issy, there was no way a craving was going to kill that time. Pulling her pallor hand from the football players butt pocket, Luci placed her hands on the other's waist and pushed her away gently, keeping her own hips against Issy's. Once on the outside and nearest Issy's equipment bag, she smiled, slapped one more tender kiss on the other's lips and bent down to pick up the pack. She immediately failed.

Yes, Luci was a drummer and had to be strong to go for hours on end at shows that called for rough playing, but she was still a recovering addict. The straps of the equipment back straightened out and the blonde got the bag about an inch off of the stone walkway before it thudded back down heavily. It was embarassing to say the least, and to some degree humiliating because Luci didn't want the other to learn of her past addiction.

Luci was at the six month mark. One of the three major marks that made or broke your soberiety. There was one at one week, one month and six months. After that it was supposed to be a little easier, but it did explain why the poor blonde had been going crazy with the jones' for the last few days. Peering back to Isabelle she blushed, the light freckles on her cheeks sticking out more noticably, "Can't carry it."

Isabelle was not used to this feeling of... of ineptitude. Of confusion. She was used to being sure of herself, to know what she was doing and what her role was in a given situation. Student, sit and take notes. Player, follow orders, make the play. But with Luci, there was no knowing. There was, instead, blindly following desire because, if she new nothing else, she knew she wanted the drummer. It was disorienting. It was a sense of fumbling when she was normally sure-handed, of stumbling when she was normally cat-footed.

Isabelle was used to holding back. The athletic blond was the type who might go to a party and spend the time nursing a beer and watching everybody else get wasted, or to linger and listen to a discussion after class to listen without joining in. With Luci, the need was startling, leaping up like sparks from a fire, prodding Isabelle to do things she wouldn't normally do--mostly, to not hold back when she usually would. It made for a shifting set of emotions and actions, of slipping suddenly, and then catching herself, only to lose her footing once again.

Fortunately, Luci seemed not to mind.

Even though she craved to continue the kiss and embrace, Isabelle was vaguely uncomfortable with the easy way Luci slipped against her. The sensation of the drummer's hand in her back pocket, resting teasingly against her butt, was foreign, both exciting and awkward. In a family that had been male-dominated, casual touching that way had been rare. There'd been quick hugs, the back-slapping kinds, but no lingering embraces. In all honesty, Isabelle would have been more comfortable with Luci putting her in a headlock.

And yet. At the same time, she didn't want Luci to draw away. It was like standing on shifting ice, and wanting to leap from one floe to another, while also wanting to not move at all.

When Luci bent down to pick up her equipment pack, Isabelle couldn't help but lift an eyebrow in surprise. She had to give the girl kudos for even getting it off the ground. Most girls couldn't budge it. "No worries. It's heavy," Isabelle said with a smile, the muscles in her arms rippling as if to prove her point as she hefted it, settled the strap cross-body so that the bag itself sat against the hip opposite Luci. Her ice-colored eyes tracked over the faint flush that had swept across Luci's cheeks, a little bit surprised. The punk drummer didn't seem the blushing type.

Isabelle gestured down the sidewalk. "Shall we?"

The blonde had felt embarassed that she couldn't lift the tote, but it wasn't a great deal surprising considering her condition. But it was nonetheless attractive to see Issy heave the bag and cross the strap over her body with ease. "So I noticed." Luci retorted playfully with a side-long smirk. It was enticing to watch those muscles ripple slightly under the act of lifting the heavy tote; something that would normally have been beyond Luci to even notice at all. Most of the time women weren't ripped or even muscular in any way, just fat or flat. But Issy's build was something of a perfected statue that the rocker wanted nothing more but to see it bare.

It was strange to hesitate for her. Something that was as out of character for her as if she were carrying a purse and reciting lines from 'Pretty In Pink'. But she did it - Luci Ashlin hesitated. Miliseconds after nodding and acceptance to Issy's proposition to continue forth, the drummer had wanted to take her hand, but didn't. In the recesses of her thoughts she was scolding herself for being afraid to take the other's hand. But then again, logic suggested that perhaps there would be unforeseen and unfortunate consequences for Issy if she were physically involved with another woman. It was disgusting for Luci to even think for a moment on the unjust treatment of homosexual people in the mainstream. But she wouldn't endanger the girl's relationship with her school career just for the sake of holding hands for a few blocks.

Turning on her sneakered heels as if going into a military attention, the recovering addict smiled at the other and completely hid her fear of the mainstream reprocussive prejudices. "We totally shall." As they began their walk towards the haven where no doubt physical affections and personal boundries would be pushed to their limits. Luci considered for a few moments while they walked, Issy's shudders and gasps at certain contact. The anxiety that she had when the rocker touched her in a wanton manner, that sometimes bubbled up and killed the moment and sometimes only made it more exciting. Luci felt pity on Issy for her fear; but with time it would go away and the college girl would learn to adore the simple touches and hot embraces.

Hot embraces... Oh, how Luci wanted to get to the dorm. Wait, dorm?... "Issy, do ye share yer dorm with anyone?" Quarking a fine brow, the woman smirked questioningly. She was sometimes up for putting on a show; but alone time with the other was what she really wanted.

With a slow smile, Isabelle turned as well to lead the way back towards her dorm. Part of her wondered what she was doing, and if it was wise. Isabelle wasn't the type to take someone to bed after meeting them twice. Hell, she wasn't the type that usually 'met' someone in the first place. She'd gone through high school and halfway through college without ever having dated anyone.

Was that what she was doing now? Was she dating Luci? Or was it 'hooking up'?

Though she didn't think of herself as such, Isabelle was kind of shy. Part of it was just that she was naturally shy, something that had only been exacerbated by her past. In a sense, Isabelle, athletic and brash and tomboyish, had never really had a chance when it came to relationships. But meeting Luci had made her realize something...

She was kind of lonely.

Or, maybe those times when she'd been thinking about Luci and trying not to, that she felt lonely. Isabelle wasn't sure. Either way, she knew that Luci stirred something in her that was new and exciting... and nerve-wracking. It would have been foreign territory to feel this things for a guy, but at least then Isabelle would have known the basics of the script, the right role to play, or at least the ones to choose from. Instead, she was flying blind.

"My dorm?" Isabelle repeated, shaken out of her thoughts by Luci's question. "Well, the building itself, yeah, but since it's the football players' dorm and I'm the only girl, I get my own room." She smiled, flashing that somehow charmingly crooked tooth. "Lucky me, right? When I came to Demaitre U, the were kind of wondering just what to do with me--stick me in the football dorm or the women's teams dorm. Anyway," she pointed at a brick building. It wasn't an ugly building, nor a particularly attractive one. Just a building. "That's it."