CYOA Page 239
Sep. 10th, 2013 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12You and Joel are sprawled on the ground... and the air is still now. No more bullets whizzing back and forth. The two of you had just like... grabbed each other and yanked each other down.
"Ellie! You okay?"
"Yeah... you?"
"Fine. Shit... I thought for sure that bullet was gonna hit you." He starts to get to his feet.
You follow suit. "Me too! Hit you, I mean." He looks okay to you, other than having picked up some dirt from the ground. You brush him off (which is totally not just an excuse to swat at his ass...).
He smirks at you a little before pulling away and jogging over to the man he just killed. "Come on... there might be more of 'em in those woods. We didn't look very far in... guess we should've. Stay alert."
You bite back a smartass remark to that; you really don't need to be told, given the circumstances, but he's Joel so he has to tell you. "I only heard one shot... was there just one guy or did you strangle a bunch first?" You're mostly teasing... you don't think he had time to strangle that many, plus you guys had just been through there and found no one. You walk past him while he's looting the body.
"Just the one. An' he came in after me... I heard the gate. Hey, wait up."
You slow your pace but don't exactly 'wait up.' "I knew you didn't leave that gate open. Even though you were gonna be in there less than five minutes, I had a bad feeling when I saw it open like that... actually, I thought you opened it cuz you were coming back, and then you weren't out here... you scared me, Joel."
He catches up to you, and the two of you head over to the little footbridge boardwalk. "That was real mean of me. Sorry."
"Yeah, you owe me now," you add, since he's playing along...
"Shit. What do I owe you?"
"Um... I'll let you know by the end of the night."
He quirks an eyebrow at you. "I figured it would be somethin' like... a kiss?"
"Pfff. You give me those all the time. I'll come up with something better. Something more, I mean. Not many things better than--"
"Ssshh-- look over there. You got the binoculars?" he asks quietly.
"No, I left them on the boat." You didn't think you'd be using them now, when it's nearly dark and after making camp for the night. But you do see what he's looking at: a campfire!
"Don't turn your light on."
"I left that on the boat too," you tell him. "Should we go back and get more stuff?"
"No... I don't think anyone's over there. But let's move up stealthy-like, all right? From cover to cover. We can go back if it turns out there's more than a couple of 'em."
You stick close to Joel as you move closer and closer to the fire. "Is that like a... piece of slide over there?"
"Looks like."
With no one around, you get to find out soon enough. "It's a slide-sled!" you exclaim. "Try and say that ten times fast!"
Joel examines it; it's like one half of one of those tube slides, holding a freshly-dead elk. "Huh. Clever... the curve of the slide makes a natural cradle... looks like they jus' shot a hole up here to tie the rope to it, an' it's good to go. I know we already ate, but..."
"I could eat again!" You've only been eating maybe half as much on the road as you're used to eating at home anyway, and it would be a shame to waste a fresh kill. Besides, you only had a cold dinner before. Those almost don't even count.
"Guess we interrupted their dinner."
"Except not really: they didn't even skin their dinner yet. They must've just got back from hunting and built a fire and then... saw us, or heard us... or the horses, maybe?"
"Maybe. Might as well make use of their fire. Bastards even left us a knife."
"Yes! Does that mean you'll start carrying a knife around instead of those stupid shivs?"
"I do carry a knife. We--"
"I mean on your person!" You're not letting him count the hunting knife in the 'kitchen stuff' bag. He has a thing about keeping that one for food prep only. Even though on your Boston trip, your switchblade had to double as a weapon and a utensil, and neither of you were any worse off for it.
"No. We'll take this one home. Unless maybe the hospital can use one."
"Well, you can still carry it if we take it--"
"Not real easily, unless you see a sheath for it layin' around here." He grabs the elk's hind legs and tugs it off the slide, into the dirt.
"We can make one or something. Or maybe one of the hunters has one on their belt -- you didn't even search the first guy, right? Cuz you just came running out of there."
"Will you just let me keep my shivs in peace?" he chuckles. "They work just fine."
You watch as he starts to cut. "Need help with that?" You already know what he's going to say...
"No. I'll do it -- you just keep watch."
...Yep! Just like I thought. And you'd rather do guard duty than chop up your dinner; you prefer to leave all the cooking-related things to Joel. He seems to enjoy it more than you do, at least. "Ah, just like old times. Remember how I used to get all squeamish with the animal guts?"
"Not for long, you didn't."
Repetition definitely desensitized you to it. You love animals, and it was hard for you to get past that at first. Human guts, though? No biggie. Because you don't eat humans. And, unlike animals, they're not innocent. "It wasn't really 'til you got hurt that I got good at all that stuff, though. Good thing you taught me first."
"Good thing you paid more attention than I thought you did," Joel adds.
"I always pay attention to you," you lie.
"Uh-huh. Did I or did I not just tell you--"
"Yeah, yeah -- I am keeping watch. There's no one around. You killed them already."
"Still... less talkin', more watchin' please."
Dinner #2 is indeed very reminiscent of old times: since you can't be bothered to go allll the way back to the boats to get your dinnerware and shit, you skewer the meat with sticks -- and eat it right off the stick when it's ready. One noticeable difference? We're sitting WAY closer together. And between bites, you lean in now and kiss him on the cheek. You never did that on your first trip!
"What was that for?" he asks, sounding smile-y.
"Nothing. I just love you." You take another bite of delicious elk.
"That's sweet. I love you, too."
You chew thoughtfully. "Did you have any idea, when we were doing this two years ago..."
He chuckles. "You've asked me that before. The answer is still hell no."
"And a hell yes for me," you giggle. "Guess I'm just smarter than you."
He smirks at you. "Except that 'hell yes' is just bullshit."
"Nope! I knew it all along," you insist. "I was just waiting for you to figure it out. Sure took you long enough."
"Well, we can't all be geniuses like you."
You grin. "You're just lucky I'm so patient."
"You? Patient? Don' make me choke on this."
You lean in and shove him with your shoulder. "I'm very patient. I waited almost two years for you to catch up."
"Two years ain't a long time."
"Pfff -- it's like twelve years in Joel-time."
"Twelve? How'd you figure that?"
"Rounding up." Also known as 'I just pulled it out of my ass.'
"Way up. It's more like..." He thinks for a moment. "Between six an' seven. Closer to six."
You have no idea where he got that from, but you suspect an actual calculation was involved. "Okay, maybe you're smarter at math than me. But I'm smarter at us."
He chuckles. "I'll give you that one. Seein' as how I never would've kissed you, left to my own devices."
"Even after I turned eighteen," you add, shuddering dramatically at the thought.
"I'll always be too old for you, no matter how--"
"No you won't! You're not too old for me now. Being old doesn't make you too old."
"That don' make any sense."
"It does. It's just the whole... smarter-than-you thing. You don't get it. But that's okay -- you're cute. That makes up for it."
"You're the cute one."
"Nope -- I'm the brains, so... you're the beauty."
This time, he does nearly seem to choke, but he recovers quickly. "I beg to differ."
"Well, I can't be both the brains and the beauty."
"Says who?"
"Everyone knows that's not how it works."
"Oh. Well, I didn' know. You forget, us dumbshits need to be told these things sometimes."
You giggle. "Sorry! I'll keep that in mind."
"What if I'm the beast?"
"...the beast?"
"As in, Beauty and. Does that balance things out better for you?"
"Oh! Hey, yeah, I like that. We just need one more 'b' thing for perfect balance... big? But that's--"
"Brawn."
"Brawn?"
"Brawn. If you're talkin' clichés, it goes with brains the way beauty goes with beast."
"Okay, you can be that, then."
This both is and isn't like old times... you've always felt comfortable with Joel (well, maybe not like... right away? But it didn't take long), and campfire time -- on the days that you had it -- was your favorite time of day. But back then, you didn't have the same camaraderie you share now. Joel's humor was hibernating, mostly... hell -- yours was, too, later on. That trip was fucking brutal... long and strenuous... scary... full of uncertainty... it brought us together, but it also wore us out... wore us down.
Plus, back then you didn't get to kiss him! And you didn't get that tingly feeling inside... didn't get to tell him you love him, and hear him say it in return...
The good old days might be fun to remember, but the good new days are even better.
If you'd like to start another adventure, return to page 1.
Carlos
Date: 2021-02-23 12:18 pm (UTC)I was thinking on read you new story here, since you post it in here too.
Re: Carlos
Date: 2021-02-23 02:00 pm (UTC)