Hitchhiker (open to 1 female)

[DrStein]

Logan disliked winter in the north. He was thankful he'd made it out of New England before the first snows hit, otherwise he would have been in trouble. As far as he could remember, he was somewhere near Chesapeake Bay, possibly outside of D.C, or Baltimore. Hard to say. He'd been camping along the road for two days now and wasn't making as much progress as he'd hoped. He wanted to try and get to Florida and spend the winter before heading back to California, but things seldom work out the way you want them to when you're a vagabond.

His long curly hair and beard provided a little insulation against the chilly winter winds. The cold didn't bother him that much, it was the winds that were the problem. Windchill and precipitation made travelling without a car much, much worse. Still, he went on. His rugged hiking boots were a little weatherworn, but still up to his long journeys. Two pair of jeans layered kept his legs warm. And a fleece bomber jacket and gloves helped the rest of him. A wide-brimmed hat sat on his head to keep more heat from escaping through the crown of his skull. Slung across his was a heavy frame backback and a hardshell case for his acoustic bass guitar. A burden he had gotten used to over the last 5 years.

Now in his twenties, Logan had travelled across the United States, and was now planning to finally go back home. Hitching a ride was the only inconvenient part.

His ears perked slightly at the sound of an engine coming down the road. With any luck, this would be the good samaritan he was hoping for. Turning to face the incoming vehicle, Logan stuck his thumb out and hoped for the best.

OOC: Looking to RP with a young woman who would be attracted to Logan's artistic side and sense of adventure.

 

[sharingfantasies]

Teri was tired. She had been on the road for several hours and still had a couple more to go before she would be home. What had started out as a lark had turned out to be anything but. She had woken early to the sun streaming in the window. Not the strong sunlight of summer but a thinner, colder version. Still the sun was shining for the first time in three days and Teri had the entire day off. It was just too nice to stay home so she concocted her Grand Lark. She would drive north and visit the historical area of Philadelphia.

First she had gotten a late start, then the roads in the city were packed with holiday shoppers. How she could have forgotten THAT would happen she hadn't a clue. Thenher new camera jammed and then rush hour hit and so it had been late when she left the city and headed south for home.

Now all that seemed minor compared to what she had been driving in for the past hour. The strong winds kept buffeting her car so that she had to hold on tight to the wheel to keep control. Her muscles were tired, her eyes felt like they were glued open, and she was seriously considering stopping in a motel and calling in sick to work tomorrow. She certainly did not feel like her usual optimistic and chipper self.

The wind flung her car towards the other lane and Teri jerked it back. Peering into the dark she saw some kind of movement at the side of the road. She immediately slowed down to try to figure out what was moving in the dark. At first she thought it was a deer but it was moving along the side of the road and most deer tended to cross if they got that close to the blacktop. A few more yards and she could indentify the figure as that of a human. But what would a human be doing out in this horrible wind? She hadn't passed a car stranded on the side of the road and besides this person had a full pack on his back. Some military guy out on some kind of maneuver? That didn't make sense either.

Yep, definite human, probably male was her final analysis. Now what to do about it? He was hitchhiking and had his thumb out but that wasn't a very common sight this day and age. Was he dangerous? hurt? needing a ride or looking to cause trouble? Ten years ago she might not have thought twice but the reports of trouble seemed to have multiplied at very scary rates every year and now, she was hesitant to stop and hesitant to leave a living creature out in this biting wind.

Hoping she wasn't about to become a statistic, Teri pulled over and rolled up behind him. She kept the doors looked and sat and waited for him to come to her. She wanted to see what he looked like. Not that she knew what a rapist or serial killer looked like. She was a researcher for a gentleman that wrote serious historical non-fiction books about the events of the nineteenth century America. Historical researchers didn't tend to have a lot of interaction with rapists and serial killers as far as Teri was aware.

She watched him fight the wind, even as her car seemed to sway. Logically, she knew it wasn't so much the car as the branches blowing across the road that was making every thing seem to move, but she was keeping her fingers crossed that the tires were still on the road. As he leaned into the wind, she was disappointed to see that facial hair covered a large portion of his face. While she was sure it was keeping him warmer, it didn't let her get a good look at him, other than that he seemed strong and wiry and she wasn't sure that those characteristics were helpful at the moment.

When he got to the side of her car, she rolled down the window a little bit, shocked at how far the temperature had dropped. From the smell of the air, there was a storm coming soon and she crossed her toes that it wouldn't hit until she was safe in her cozy apartment. The wind kept whipping his words away from the car so all she could hear was bits of what he was saying. Something about a ride... Washington.. California.. and the word cold.

Shaking her head she moved her hand in a semi-circle indicating that he should move around the car to the passenger side. When he was in front of the car, she undid the lock and then waited for him to get settled on the seat. The air he let in was bitter cold and she was amazed that he wasn't shivering. The blast of air that struck her made her shiver violently and she was glad when the door was closed and the running heater eased the chill.

Before setting off once again, she turned towards the man, a much younger one that she had first thought and asked, "Are you all right? Do you need medical care? I am shocked that you are out here in this weather and wouldn't be at all surprised if you had hyperthermia. Where are you going anyway?"

 

[DrStein]

Logan clutched the pendant beneath his shirt and let a silent thanks pass his lips. He tried to explain himself through his chattering teeth, as considered himself lucky that he didn't scare the young lady in the car off. He quickly stuffed his possessions in the back seat and hopped in the passenger seat up front. He immediately put his hands by the heater, trying to get some feeling back into them.

"Thanks for the lift." Now that he was able to speak normally again, his smoky baritone voice rolled up out of his chest without trembling or being blocked by chattering teeth. "I'm Logan. Logan Masters. Where ever you're going is good enough for me. I just need a warm city to hang out in until I can get a lift back to LA."

Once he got the feeling back in his hands, he pulled off his gloves and shoved them in his jacket pocket. He unzipped the jacket and pulled out the pendant from under his shirt and held it between the first finger and thumb of each hand. It was a small pewter medallion with a bas-relief image of a howling coyote. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, silently thanking his totem spirit for the good luck.

 

[sharingfantasies]

Although Teri was warm she cranked the heat up as far as it would go and aimed the vents in his direction. He smelled of fresh cold air and her nose twitched appreciatively. When he unzipped his jacket, she glanced over at him. He held a pendant in his fingers. In the dark she couldn't make out what it was but from the way he was holding it she could tell it was important to him.

She started to tell him her name but his head went back against the head rest and his eyes closed. As tired as she was, he had to be even more tired. She had been concerned about hypothermia but his speech was clear, his hand movements steady. Even the shivering he had been doing had stopped. He seemed to be breathing steadily and although she thought he was asleep, he could have been just resting. She hoped he wasn't unconscious because that would be bad, but if he was, there wasn't much she could do for him since he was breathing on his own. Teri figured as long as he was breathing and oxygen was getting to his body and brain, then he would be alright. They were on a long stretch of road between towns and she wasn't sure where the nearest hospital was. She thought about calling emergency help but she couldn't have even told them where she was exactly, and by the time they triangulated her signal she might have found a hospital.

She drove on, fighting the wind, occasionally glancing at him, listening for his breathing. When, fifteen minutes later, he reached out and turned down the heat, she let out a deep sigh of relief. He was conscious and warm, it was going to be all right.

 

[DrStein]

Logan sighed happily as the coldness passed. "Sorry if I gave you a scare there. I've been a little down on my luck the last couple days. Where you headed?"

He took off his hat and attempted to comb some of the tangles out of his hair with his fingers. He took a moment to look over at the woman who'd been so gracious to help him. She was very beautiful, but he didn't dare say a word or stare. He knew that his situation was not a comfortable one for her and the last thing he wanted to was to do something to give her the wrong impression about him. He did not want to go back out in that weather!

 

[sharingfantasies]

The wind was still buffeting the car while Teri fought with the control. She was still tired but it was helpful to have someone in the car with her. She really liked the sound of his deep voice which made something deep inside her vibrate. She wished he would keep talking but she didn't want to pry.

"I am glad you are all right. I'm Teri. I am heading home to Virginia. You say you are from California? You are a long ways from home."

 

[DrStein]

Logan shrugged in response to her comment. "Been gone five years, decided to head back just last week. It's a long story... One that could fill up at least two Johnny Cash albums, but I'm not Johnny (may he rest in peace) so I'm not gonna try."

He sank a little deeper into his seat, thankful to have some comfort again, no matter how temporary it would probably be. He had willingly forsaken basic comforts of modern society, which made him appreciate them all the more when he could get them. Few people really understood how great a commodity it was to have a warm bed, the luxury to refuse food they didn't like, or even how much of a wonderful thing hot and cold water were.

"I'm looking for a place to rest for the winter. As soon as the spring thaw hits, I'm on my way back to LA. If things don't work out there, there's still plenty of West Coast to live in."

 

[sharingfantasies]

"That is true."

Teri fell silent. She wasn't sure what else to say. He kept his words brief and to the point so anything else she said would be prying.

The wind seemed to be getting worse and Teri knew it was foolish of her to keep trying to battle it. No human ever truly beats Mother Nature and Teri knew it. Still there wasn't a lot of choices. She could pull off the road and try to wait it out but the days of her youth when a person could spend the night in their car on the side of the road were over, there were just too many people that were out looking to make trouble. Though honestly, she hadn't seen another car for quite awhile. There hadn't been anything like a building or lights for at least a half hour except for a farm house now and then. So the rotten reality was, there were no choices, she had to keep going. She just wasn't sure how long she could battle the cross winds. Her arms ached and the heater made her sleepy but it was too cold to turn it off.

"Deal with it," she muttered to herself. The words were those of her mother's, said when Teri's father had died. Actually her mother had said, "We will miss him, you and I, but we will deal with it." Teri had taken that phrase literally many times in her life and somehow she had done just that, dealt with whatever came up.

She wrenched the wheel back into the lane and squared her shoulders. If it is was one thing she knew, it was that she could and would deal with it. All she had to do was keep the car on the road, her brain alert, and watch for a town or crossroad or someplace where there were some lights and a building that was open so that she could get out and stretch, then she'd be fine. That and get her passenger somewhere that was a reasonable place to let him out.

She turned the radio on low to a southern rock station and hummed along softly, not wishing to bother the man next to her but needing to keep her mind occupied so she didn't zone out watching the white lines of the road.

 

[DrStein]

The music was pleasant, though Logan was a ska musician himself. Of course, he doubted that there were any good ska stations locally. The genre was practically unheard of in the Midwest, and on the East Coast it was still a relatively rare phenomenon.

"Where in Virginia do you live? I need to get my bearings again."