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Dec. 16th, 2023 at 5:56 PM
[Racing down the interstate as fast as they fucking can, Johnnie tugs Chrissy closer and ducks low over his bike. They're streamlined now, they'll pick up just a little bit more speed, and then they can outride this giant evil fucking wasp for sure -
His eyes blink slowly against the light in the room, and then he frowns and lifts his pillow from under his head and flings it at the alarm clock on the bedside table. That shouldn't work, except that it falls off the table and unplugs in the process, leaving the room blissfully silent.
And now he doesn't have a pillow. Shit.]
Ugh. Hey, you up?
[Like Chrissy could sleep through that.
Soon enough though, he rolls on out of bed, gets the water going, tugs fresh clean clothing out of his bag, then checks on that shower. Yep, nice and hot. Time to get clean and ready for the day.]
Whatcha think? Wanna check out the cafe for breakfast? Maybe we can make 'em do some eggs an' pancakes even though they're gonna say it's dinner only now. I hate when places do that, it's such fuckin' bullshit.
His eyes blink slowly against the light in the room, and then he frowns and lifts his pillow from under his head and flings it at the alarm clock on the bedside table. That shouldn't work, except that it falls off the table and unplugs in the process, leaving the room blissfully silent.
And now he doesn't have a pillow. Shit.]
Ugh. Hey, you up?
[Like Chrissy could sleep through that.
Soon enough though, he rolls on out of bed, gets the water going, tugs fresh clean clothing out of his bag, then checks on that shower. Yep, nice and hot. Time to get clean and ready for the day.]
Whatcha think? Wanna check out the cafe for breakfast? Maybe we can make 'em do some eggs an' pancakes even though they're gonna say it's dinner only now. I hate when places do that, it's such fuckin' bullshit.
Comments
Fish are pretty gross looking before they're cooked though. Ick.
Once they're seasoned she goes to help him finish gathering some brush and twigs to get a fire going. It's going to burn bright and fast, and she worries about keeping one going if it gets cold down here at night. That's a problem for later though.
They work together to get the fire made and the fish on the fire to cook. And then they sit in the shade a good distance away, because it's just too damn hot to sit right beside it. This time, she rests her head on his shoulder, and fights dozing off for a nap.]
I really need to rest a little after we eat. You don't mind, do you?
[He grins and pinches at her nose with his fingers, because apparently he's now a lobster, then snickers as he watches the fire. Yeah, this one won't last, but as long as it gets the fish cooked it'll be fine and they can deal with bringing it back to life later tonight.]
Maybe I'll keep my gun ready for any rabbits, see if we can't get us some rabbit for dinner. So if you hear a gunshot, uh, sorry. Figure it ain't any real danger. But that's only if I see a rabbit, an' it's been real quiet down here.
[No, he can't handle it, he has to get up and poke at the fire, flip the fish over. There, cooking.
Off in the bushes, something moves, and his head snaps toward it, hopeful that he's just summoned a rabbit on command - but whatever it is, it scurries off without him even getting a glimpse. Might've actually been a rock rolling down off the canyon wall, and that thought gets him to look up the wall in speculation.]
Okay, well, that's a kinda noise I wasn't hoping for. That shit better not come down any time soon. 'Course, it's been there how long now? Fuckin' thousands of years? Hundreds of thousands?
[How old is the Earth anyway? Who knows.]
Well, as long as you're using the gun to protect me from mini crabs or hunt dinner, I guess I can't be angry if you wake me up.
[An apologetic kiss is pressed to the area of his cheek she just pinched, but her mind is too focused on that sound they just heard to be fully playful. It's hard not to wonder what that movement was, and she hops up to her feet to edge in closer to the bushes so she can try and figure it out.
Her footsteps fall silently against the ground as she tiptoes in closer and closer...only to have a bird hop out at her and fly directly at her face. She shrieks and covers her head with both hands, and drops down to a crouch so it can fly over her. ]
Shoot that bird! It's a menace!
[She's laughing though, because there's no way a little bird like that would make a good dinner.]
Fucking bird! Shit, I was ready to stick whatever it was in the eye. Get outta here bird!
[No chance of shooting it now, it's long gone. Still laughing, he links his arm with hers and tugs her back to where they were sitting, then eyes the fish. Not quite done yet, but getting on their way.]
Well, better that than a rock, last thing we need's a rockslide down here. Hey, maybe if we leave crackers out though, we can lure some birds in for dinner. I want big ones though, not fuckin' pigeons or whatever that was.
[He gives it a few more minutes, then goes to his bag and gets the little camping mess kit he'd grabbed, stackable bowls and foldable forks. The fish go into one bowl once he fetches them out of the fire by the fins, then he sits next to her and passes over a fork and the other bowl.]
There we go, we can split these up. Man, that smells good though, huh?
I'll grab the tortillas I put in my backpack, I think there's only a couple. We probably don't need to add anything else to make tacos.
[Unless he brought the jar of salsa, which isn't likely, but also might be a very real possibility.]
You didn't grab the salsa, did you?
[It sounds like such a ridiculous thing to bring along in his backpack that she giggles as soon as she asks it, and hurries over to grab those tortillas she mentioned. As soon as she's back, her attention goes to grabbing one of those little folding forks, so she can work at shredding the fish to make taco filling.]
We should catch another couple of fish. Crackers won't lure in a big bird, but dead fish sitting out might. But I guess it might also lure in bears. Do bears even live around here?
[Her head tips upward as she looks around those canyon walls. It doesn't seem very bear-y out here.]
[Fish in tortillas sounds great to him though, he's not picky, and eagerly waits for her to shred the fish so he can take his share and wrap it up in a sort of taquito.
And goddamn, if the peanut butter on bread was good, this is even better. He's never had fish better than this, fresh caught and cooked right away. And man, he has to thank the inventors of the tortilla for making the perfect edible on-the-go food container. Who need plates or anything? Thanks, ancestors.]
Mmmmm. Hm? Bears? Dunno, but I'm gonna say no. We woulda seen some up top with all our food around. Hey, this fish is perfect, though. Damn, we make a good team.
[But meanwhile, he has to think. Leaving out fish might bring in big birds, but probably not the kind they want to eat. Ravens and vultures sound gross. Things that eat dead stuff taste like dead stuff, he has to figure.]
Well, maybe we don't leave out our food to hope somethin' we wanna eat shows up, 'cause if it's just mice or crows then we're out food an' don't get anything for ourselves. Man, though, who cares! This fish is the way to go. I got more hooks I think, maybe we just set some lines out while we explore this afternoon, an' come check 'em later.
All that pride isn't going to get in the way of her eating though. As soon as she's got fish wrapped up in a tortilla, she's digging in. And gosh, she's so hungry she could probably eat five of these before taking a nap. They need to conserve what supplies they have though, so she'll just content herself with one and eating any remaining fish with her fingers.]
Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.
[Her taco sadly is gone in about three big bites, so she settles in to picking up what's left to nibble at.]
If I'm not awake in an hour, come wake me up, okay? I want to do some exploring too.
[They're eating, but that's no reason not to lean in for a quick kiss. It's shaping up to be a great afternoon, and she's in a really content mood.]
Once his hands are empty, he returns the kiss along with a squeeze.]
You got it, babe. 'Course, I don't got a clock out here but if you don't get up an' I'm gettin' too bored I'll wake you up, how's that?
[He'll wash their dishes up, meanwhile - river water and a drop of soap should do the trick. Then they can set out to dry on some larger rocks while he pokes around through the brush and the river-worn stones, looking for lost treasure or things to shoot. It really does make him feel like he's in those old stories, or the new ones set in older times, anyway - looking for lost miners' gold, living off the land, fending off potential threats.
It's that last one he has on his mind as he watches the heat waves ripple in the canyon and swears there's a shape to them. But maybe it's just that the canyon walls are vertical, maybe the heat waves ripple off them only to create the illusion that something rests between them, filling the negative space. He's convinced himself that that's all it is until he sees the footprints.
They haven't moved, they're old, but they're fucking enormous, spanning across most of the river so that he'd missed them at first. They're not neat, well-defined tracks because the thing has used the river as its path, and here and there just a single toe has marked the muddy bank.
Man, whatever that was, it almost looks like the footprint of a huge fucking bird. Or a dinosaur. And that? Is very cool. He's quick to backtrack so he can keep an eye on camp, but nothing emerges to eat him, so probably it's fine.]
Hey Chrissy, you up? I found somethin' real crazy! You gotta see these!
Well, she can't just lay around with an offer like that on the table. She climbs to her feet and jogs over to him.]
It better be real crazy if you woke me up, bub!
[She's joking, of course, no actual trace of venom in her voice. The laughter as she pokes at his chest and then the tip of his nose further proves she has no malice. The little nap she had was perfect, and she's ready to look around and explore the area.]
[He jogs on ahead for a moment, but it's not the easiest thing to do as the density of all that brush at the riverbank grows thick and challenging. Excited, but cautious, he leads her a few minutes from their campsite to where he saw what he now recognizes as one of the tracks - just a claw print in the mud, eroded.]
There! Okay, you see that? I know it don't look like much but then look about eight feet past it, there's another. It's tracks. Somethin' real big walked here, I dunno how long ago. A while maybe?
["A while" isn't a real measurement of time but that isn't the point. She sees them, right? He looks at her face, hoping she sees it too, knows it's not just a random gauge in the mud.]
Eventually things start to shape up, and her jaw drops as she gasps out a single word.]
Dinosaurs.
[Although that makes a whole lot less sense, dinosaur tracks would be huge and would be...different somehow. These seem a whole lot newer. Not new,
but not ancient either.]
That monster is real. This is proof, right? Let's see if we can follow the tracks and see where they go.
[Now traipsing through the brush and mud feels simple as she tries to go from track to track, only to have them stop at the river. So it clearly goes into the water. Maybe it lives in there somewhere.]
[And smart is scary, potentially. Smart animals are trouble and so are smart people, more often than most of them would admit.
But he's definitely up for trying to follow for as long as they can, now that he doesn't feel like he's abandoning Chrissy to do it. Scraping through the brush sucks even with jeans on though, it's not easy traveling. He takes an experimental step into the river, figuring his chucks will dry if they get wet with all this desert heat, but the mud sucks his foot downward and he immediately staggers out of it and gives up on that idea.]
Aw, shit. I was hoping there was enough rock in there to make it easy to walk on. Now I just got a real squishy shoe.
[Gross. It squelches with every step.]
[She looks grossed out by getting mud all over his foot, only to glance down and realize she's feet deep in the mud too. Well, that makes her eyes widen as she comically tries to lift one foot and then the next, stumbling back a little as she does.]
Now we're both squishy shoes.
[Which means they'll need to let them rinse and dry off eventually. That's the least of her concern though, as she tries plodding on ahead to see if there's any sign of a river alien monster.]
Let's go back and check our fishing line. Then we can head out on a longer walk.
[The wheels in her head are turning. If this thing goes into the river, then maybe it eats fish. And if they can get enough fish...maybe they can lure it in close enough to at least see it.]
[Time to turn around, squelching and all.
It doesn't even take that long to get back - they didn't manage to get all that far after all. With a sigh, Johnnie grabs a handful of weeds and takes off his muddy shoes and socks. Barefoot is fine, and scrubbing mud off his shoes should help them dry faster.
He sets his stuff aside on the rocks to dry, then pulls up the fishing line. The worm is gone, eaten off entirely by something no longer here.]
Damnit. I must be cursed when it comes to fishing.
[Chrissy fondly laughs as she leans over to kiss his cheek. She's busy cleaning off her shoes and setting them out to dry, but she can pull her attention off of that long enough to give him some much needed encouragement and affection.]
You're not cursed. Let's try again somewhere down the river. We'll bring the fishing stuff with us.
[She can dig for worms and bugs just about anywhere along the riverbank. It's not a big deal.]
[He gives a more dramatic sigh than necessary, then snickers to himself as he coils the line around his hand and heads back over to their stuff. It all seems safe enough here, there's basically nothing down here except fish and bugs and mystery footprints, and they're going to go investigate the latter anyway.
But he'd like his shoes to dry before they really go traipsing around too far, so he flops himself down on the sleeping bags. Ultimately, camping is okay but tends toward boring, that's what he's decided. It has lots of really nice moments though, but a few days of this and he'll have had enough. Good thing Vegas will offer a great contrast to it all.
Really, it's just that right now, waiting for shoes to dry sucks, that's his actual problem.]
Hey, c'mere, when you're done with that.
[For lack of anything better to do, he's looking to get his arms around her. Maybe she'll help block the sun that's trying to get into his eyes. He flops an arm over his face, meanwhile.]
She winds up sliding down onto her knees beside him, and reaches over to try pulling that arm off of his face so she can see him better.]
You're not sulking because you're bored, are you?
[That's a tease, mostly. She knows this has to be moving really slow for him, and she's so happy that he's taking the whole thing in stride.]
[Just to be clear. But with a grin, he reaches up to pull her down onto him, and kisses her before nudging her to settle her head on his chest so he can stroke her hair.]
Just that waitin' here for shit to dry sucks. Maybe I should try to make that one-string guitar. Only thing is, I dunno what to use. Not a single real branch or anything down here, just rocks an dry bushes.
[What a shame. He'll figure something out by necessity eventually, but for now he's content to just not move, now that he has her here. She's helping just by feeling nice against him. He really is easy to please.]
Her head rests on his chest and she lets her eyes close as his fingers work through her hair. It's warm out, but laying over here in the shade isn't bad. ]
I made a guitar out of a tissue box when I was little. Maybe we could reuse that gross cracker box.
[Her laughter implies that's only a joke, because no one wants to turn a box that held fish into an instrument. They might out of sheer desperation later on, but for now the idea is only a joke.]
We don't need a guitar to sing, though. We can still make plenty of music without one.
[So when he laughs at her suggestion there, he's definitely laughing with her, not at her.]
But we can sing, yeah. An' maybe get creative with rocks an' make some shitty drums. I guess that's what people musta done once upon a time, right? Guitars weren't the first ever instrument. Singing an' clapping hands was, I guess. then hitting stuff.
[He's enjoying this little indulgence of lying with her, though, and in no rush to go invent instruments right now. When he gets even more bored, maybe he will. For now, this is pretty perfect. He's not even feeling like fucking, not right away - he's still full from the fish and the peanut butter and content to digest and cuddle, for once.
So, okay, what was boredom moments ago is now cured, at least temporarily.]
I wonder if you can turn fire into an instrument? Like, throw stuff into it at the right time, stuff that makes it pop or, I dunno, fizzle. Sounds like fun to try sometime.
That makes me think it would be fun to try exploding things to music sometime. Like fireworks, only bigger. And brighter.
[And better, obviously. But how could they time explosions and fire just right to music? They probably couldn't. It's fun to imagine them trying and succeeding though. So much fun that she has to lift her head so she can dip down enough to kiss him. Her kisses trail their way down his chin and jaw to his throat, but she lets them die off with a little laugh as she once again settles her head on his chest.]
[It's not the kind of thing that would be allowed in an indoor venue, which means they have to do it sometime just to shock people before getting permanently banned from a venue. Sounds too damn good. Maybe after they get real good at it though with the folks at home, just so the crowd can protest when some manager kicks the band out of the best show an audience has ever seen in their lives.
Those are plans to be made another time, though. For now, he snickers at picturing it and lightly drums his hands on her back.]
Hey, let's look for wood when we go walk farther out, there's gotta be some around here somewhere. Maybe in those old camps on the map. They musta built shacks or wagons or somethin', some of it's gotta be good still for fire.
[They might have to really work for it down here, but that's okay. It'll be worth it. Any effort is worth getting to make a fire, just for the sake of burning things. Staying warm at night will be nice too, so it's not like there isn't a purpose to setting one this time.
Those words are whispered into his ear with a soft giggle, her nose nuzzling against his lobe before she kisses at the spot right behind his ear.]
And that way, we can burn whatever other people left behind, so this area will be nothing but ours.
[But oh well. Maybe there will people here still a thousand years in the future to see it then too.
And that kind of makes him want to get up and carve something now. But, well, damn shoes. Is it worth putting on soggy wet shoes to climb up the slope of scree and try chipping letters into these rocks? It's something to do, but it could be done any time, really, so maybe they'd better wait until they have dry shoes to do that in.
With a resigned sigh, he kisses Chrissy's head, and scratches his fingers lightly down her back.]
Fuckin' hate waiting around like this. How does anyone ever do it?
[She teases, laughing as she lifts her head to smile down at him. He's just so handsome all the time, but he's particularly cute now. Him slowing down and being perfect and cuddly really does things for her.]
But if you're that bored, there's ways to take care of that.
[She does a casual rock of her hips against him, grinding in a way that's completely teasing.]
Except -
[She sits up a little more, head turning to peer up at the canyon walls.]
Do you think people can see us all the way down here?
[It's impossible to see anyone up there, so probably not. She's sure it's fine.]