John James Searle (inneedofrepair) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-08-10 19:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 18, john james searle, meghan callahan, | meg and searle |
Week eighteen - Thursday
Characters: Meghan and Searle.
Location: The Farm.
Summary: Meg and Searle put away raided toiletries, which doesn’t fail to embarrass Searle at the end.
Rating: PG
Searle sat amidst various stacks of toiletries with Meghan, sifting through bins to find matching items to store in the proper place. At the end of raiding days, there was always so much to process, from the physical sorting of things to logging them into the inventory lists. If Searle had been in charge of a post-apocalyptic group he wouldn’t have been so organized, but then, that was probably one reason why he wasn’t in charge.
“How long do you think it’ll take for us to go through fifty rolls of toilet paper?” Searle asked, plopping another roll on the already existing pile, then noting it on the inventory sheet.
Meg laughed a little as she set a bottle of shampoo on the linen closet shelf, directly in front of the line of others. Perfectly placed. Meticulously memorized. Not because of an inherent sense of OCD, but because it was simply a necessity for finding things without constantly asking another member of their little household for help every time she needed something.
“Let’s just hope no one gets dysentery.” She said, light-heartedly of course. Though there was always the threat of some horrifying disease that had never been a problem before the global shit hit the fan, it didn’t stop the woman from making a few dark humored jokes. “Otherwise, maybe three weeks?”
Sightless eyes remained fixed to a vacant look directly in front of her as she reached for the last shampoo bottle waiting to be sorted, then followed the line of her other hand to the shelf, and put it away.
“Dysentery?” Searle asked, sounding both doubtful and confused. “Isn’t that something people only got in the old days?”
Seeing Meghan was finished placing the shampoos, Searle got up from his spot and grabbed a box of bar soap to place in her hand next, so they could be stocked as well. There were some things Meghan needed help with, but for the most part, Searle had been completely impressed with the way she got around the farmhouse.
Her chin twitched a little in the boy’s direction: Meg’s smile was a light, but slightly crooked thing that hinted of amusement. “Clearly you’ve never played Oregon Trail.” She was showing her age with that statement, but it wasn’t anything she was really worried about. The bar of soap brushed her fingertips under Searle’s direction. She reacted automatically, taking it from him and placing it on the small cache next to the shampoos on the shelf.
“Think.. diarrhea to the hundredth degree.”
“Ugh, and people already fight over the bathroom in the morning,” he half-joked, half-complained in earnest, while he pushed a pile of soap to where the shampoo had once been so Meghan could find it with ease.
“Most of the soap is going into storage.” Searle went back to the inventory sheet, looking it over. “I forget, do I subtract the ones we’re putting on the shelf from the total?”
She liked it when Searle was her sorting partner. He seemed to understand that she didn’t need to be handed every single piece of inventory without having to be told that fact. That, and she appreciated his laid back attitude. Everyone had their demons, including Meg, but being able to work through it in every day life was rare.
“No subtracting until something’s actually used up.” She recited, like an operation manual to her mental organizational flow chart, and stacked soap bar after soap bar in their place. Searle nodded.
“I have Born on the Bayou stuck in my head, and I have no idea why.” Meghan chuckled, shaking her head a bit to rid her face of a few errand piece of hair. “I guess its better than Christmas music.”
“It’s going to be Christmas soon. It’s going to be weird not having Christmas music blasting. It’s already weird not having music to play all the time. Some stuff stays with me, but other stuff ... I can’t remember the lyrics or tunes anymore.”
The next thing Searle had to tackle were razor blades, and he dealt with those in the same fashion as any other thing they sorted out. “It’s been nice having you around to play guitar. I might have to make you play Christmas music, too.” The smile on his face was evident in his voice.
She smiled warmly in response to his appreciative compliment, though her stare remained in the space in front of her, which happened to be the closet. It was always nice when people told her how they felt when she played, considering she couldn’t exactly see the reaction on their faces. “I don’t mind playing Christmas music--just don’t ask me to sing.” A few razorblades gripped in one hand moved to where the other braced on the shelf, then placed them properly.
“So what do you want for Christmas? Remember, I’m on a budget.” She teased him lightly, stacking disposable razors she could tell were the cheap, generic type.
“So asking for electricity is too much?” he joked in return. “I could use a new level, or I could ask you to sing one Christmas song.”
“Oooh, you don’t want me to sing.” Meg cracked a lopsided grin and laughed through her words. Sarge even groaned and rolled further onto his back in the hallway, as if agreeing with her. “I’d give your eardrums some sort of cancer.”
Searle laughed, particularly at Sarge. “I bet I’m worse than you.”
“Well you’re not gonna find out otherwise, cause I’m not singin’.” She said through a broad smile. “How’s everything else outside the house?” Meg only traveled a little beyond the yards and pastures, and that’s it. “They runnin’ you ragged?”
“Nah, I like working outside.” Searle smiled. “Stuff’s starting to shape up. Everything’s been pretty easy with Derek’s help, and I had experience building what we needed since I did it in Vegas. I just hope we don’t have to move on as soon as this greenhouse gets done.”
Ah, Derek. The extent of the warm and fuzzies harbored for the man reached only to Meg’s glee about thinking up a new, emasculating nickname for the him. She didn’t say anything to that effect, though. “Let’s hope not. I’ve had enough traveling to last my lifetime.”
“Me too,” Searle agreed, then paused as he spotted the last bulk item they had to stock: feminine pads. It would have been uncomfortable enough if he was the only one handling them, but something about passing the ones for the closet to Meg made heat rise in his cheeks.
Pauses were about as important to listen to as spoken words were, in Meg’s world of understanding. Searle went silent, and she twitched her chin in his direction. “We done?”
“Uh,” was Searle’s immediate answer, with the temptation to say yes rising higher as each second passed, but ultimately he shook his head. Then he remembered Meg couldn’t see him.
“No, there’s one more thing.” The words came out more grave than he’d intended, and so in order to seem less dramatic than he felt, Searle grabbed as many pads as he thought would fit in the closet and set them down for Meghan to store.
She could hear him moving something around, something small and covered in plastic and obviously so heinous that his voice teetered on cracking when he finally spoke. A quizzical expression turned in his direction, her hand wandered down to her hip where he had placed the thin---oh.
Meg chortled, and started putting the hygiene products in their place. “I won’t embarrass you by making you say it.” Only by talking about it. She wondered if she could feel him blush if she had a hand on his cheek.
“I’m not that embarrassed,” Searle said, moving away from the scene of the pads to make sure everything was on the cart to go into surplus - even though he knew it was all in order, since that was what he’d been working on the whole time.
“I believe you.” To a point. Meg still grinned at him after putting the last one away. “Now are we done?”
“We’re done now,” Searle confirmed, pointedly not looking at the grin on Meghan’s face. “Just have to move the rest of this stuff where it belongs. I can do it by myself, if you wanna quit inventory for the day.” He waggled the inventory sheet.
“You’re a peach.” She said conclusively, and smiling pleasantly. The last of the closet supplies put in place, Meg traced the edge of the door with one hand up to the handle, where she used it as leverage to stand up.
The heat in his cheeks from his embarrassment before remained, but tingled more pleasantly. “See you later?” he asked.
Meg offered an open hand in the direction of Searle’s voice, smiling ruefully as she helped him up. “I’m hard to miss.”