Remy Macmillan (remac) wrote in hotelcali, @ 2016-02-03 01:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | remy macmillan, zac fallon |
Who: Zac & Remy
What: Hike + Follow-up ice cream
Where: Temescal Canyon, then Rori's Artisanal Creamery
When: Tuesday 2/2, starting about 11 am
Rating: ice cream
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“You sure you’re gonna be able to keep up with me, Gimpy?” Remy asked Zac. They had just started their hike on the Temescal Canyon trail loop. It was a shorter hike than Remy would normally take, but she wasn’t entirely sure what Zac’s knee could handle. Even so, she wasn’t above goading him about being able to keep up with her – something she would have done regardless of whether or not he had any kind of injury he was recovering from. Other than a quick hello-goodbye when Zac had first appeared to visit Clare after he had returned home, Remy had only run into Zac again at Thanksgiving when she had gone with Clare to the Slade-Fallon thanksgiving dinner at Sammy and Avi’s dad’s house. Aside from that she had only talked with him over text. She had also heard about what had happened on New Year’s Ever from Clare as well. For obvious reasons, she wasn’t about to mention that, though. She had asked Zac earlier in the week if he wanted to go on a hike with her and her intentions were to treat him just as she normally would have treated him, as if he was just home and not home because he had been injured and couldn’t return to service.
Zac tipped his head back slightly and laughed. “Big words from a little lady,” he teased her with a smirk. “Why don’t you set the pace? I think my longer legs will balance us out, I’ll be just fine,” He said. His knee brace was a less cumbersome one, specific to exercise to keep his knee stabilized enough to support his weight while jogging, running or climbing about angles of terrain. He was still a bit anxious internally since this was his first bit of hiking since the accident. Most of his exercise had been in physical therapy or at the gym doing the specific routine his physical therapist had set up with him. His knee as faring better but that didn’t keep him from feeling worried, though he did his best to make sure none of his concerns were outward. He certainly appreciated Remy so far ignoring mentioning it other than her initial joke. He knew that, much like her aunt, Remy was a worrier. He also knew she could be blunt about things too, also like her aunt. It seemed she tended to save that bluntness for necessity, though, because she preferred to go the route of deflection into jokes.
“Alright, Old Man,” Remy grinned as she fell in next to him and set heir pace, keeping it leisurely. “Do let me know if you need a break, I know you’re getting on in age after all,” Her
glances over at Zac were timed with their conversation so that she could assess whether or not her pace was too quick so she could adjust it without either of them having to comment on it. She knew Zac would pick up on that stuff eventually, but it was one thing to pick up on it, it would be another to acknowledge it.
“Keep squawking there, little bird – soon enough you’ll hit your peak and find it all downhill from there,” He teased her right back just like he would for one of his siblings. It was an easy progression for them since the first time he had ever met Remy after her grandparents, Clare’s parents, had passed away. She had been much younger then, though. She was just as hilarious as she had been back then, if not more so now.
He fell into step with her and just as easily they fell into conversation while they made their way along the trail. “I don’t get it, her name is Bay?” Zac had finally remembered he wanted to ask Remy about this term she had used when talking to him in November. “Like, a body of water, Bay?”
Remy snickered as she took a drink from her water bottle. She shook her head as she swallowed and let the bottle hang by its loop by her fingers. “Oh man, I’m so glad you’re still a doofus,” Remy teased, reaching out to jut her elbow into his ribs jokingly. “No, her name is Regan-,”
“How do you get ‘bay’ out of ‘Regan?’” Zac huffed out a laugh.
“I’ll tell you if you let me finish!” Remy admonished with a light smack to his shoulder as Zac laughed again. “It’s Bae – B-A-E. It’s a silly little internet acronym for ‘Before Anyone Else,’” She explained.
“Ahhhhh,” Zac arched his eyebrows and slowly nodded. “I see…so you’ve gone full sap on this relationship, then?” He teased.
Remy’s cheeks tinged just a tiny bit pink but she was grinning stupidly all the same. “Guess so,” she shrugged.
“Aw, Remy,” Zac sung out, reaching out with his index finger to poke her cheek lightly as they woke. “You’re blushing!” He teased as she smacked his hand away with a laugh.
“Oh shut it, Doofy!” Remy stuck her tongue out at him as she pulled her hoodie off and tied it around her waist while they trekked.
Zac laughed. “And she’s your roommate?” He asked, a little more out of breath than he normally would have been on an easy hike like this.
Remy nodded. “Yeah, she’s squished in there with my and Limey,” she smiled but Zac saw the corners of her mouth falter a moment before the grin was put back into place.
“What does she do?” Zac asked. Before Remy could reply, he added, “Not to survive living with the two of you, but for a living I mean,” He smirked.
Remy made a show of rolling her eyes and gave him another joking swat to the shoulder. “She’s a social worker,” She answered.
Zac nodded. “How’d you meet her?”
“We met when I started at UCLA, Dad,” Remy sent a smirk and sideways glance his way. “She was already on her graduate degree stuff when I started.”
“Ohhhhhh, so you’re dating a cougar? Does it still count as a cougar if it’s two women?” Zac teased to get her back for the Dad quip.
“Wow,” Remy shook her head. “She’s not that much older than me,” She retorted.
“How many years?” Zac asked for curiosity’s sake.
Remy tilted her head and squinted for a second. “Five years,” she answered. Zac let out a long whistle he had been prepared to release regardless of how many years Remy had said and received another swat, this one a backhanded swing to his abdomen that made him huff out another laugh. He took note of Remy adjusting their pace slower and fell into step with her without question. “Oh hush!” she told him again, but she was still smiling about the conversation topic regardless.
“And your aunt approves of this union?” Zac asked.
Remy narrowed her eyes, squinting at the terrain of the trail ahead of them for a moment. “I don’t know, actually,” she shrugged. “It was kind of awkward for a bit before we started dating,” She said. “So I’m sure she has reservations about the whole…roommate aspect of things on the chance things go south,” she shrugged again. “It is a curse year, so, can’t blame her there.”
Zac nodded a couple of slow times as he listened. “Ah,” He nodded. “So the roommate part came first?”
“Oh,” Remy nodded. “Yeah. Best friend turned roommate turned less than sober hook up, turned awkward avoidance…turned Bae?” She hunched up her shoulders in a small shrug. “I mean, what could go wrong there?” She joked with a small chuckle.
“Soooo, you think she has a problem with it?” Zac arched his eyebrows as he listened to all that.
“I don’t think she has a ‘problem,’ with it,” Remy reasoned. “So much as it’s a potential pain in the ass for her since now she’s doing things like clearing out of the booty castle so we can have Valentine’s dinner in, so,” She shrugged once more and took a drink from her water.
Zac almost choked on the drink he was taking from his own water bottle. He carefully swallowed and wiped his mouth off. “’Booty Castle’??” He asked.
Remy smirked a little. “Yes, booty castle.” She nodded. “Our emoji stand in for home. You know the little picture of the peach and the castle? Booty Castle,” she nodded.
Zac shook his head. “Clearly I am behind on my proper terminology anymore.”
“This isn’t for every humble abode,” Remy pointed out. “Just the Macmillan-Burke Booty Castle,” She said. She shrugged a moment later and went on. “Anyway, I think that part’s probably irritating. She also doesn’t appreciate my attempts to convince her that we should totally get a dog.” She added.
“Can you really blame her for that after the last one you had?” Zac reasoned.
“That was a severely…tragic and traumatic case of murder, yes, I agree,” Remy nodded.
“And it’s a curse year,” Zac added.
“Yes, I’m aware,” Remy sighed.
“Cheer up, I’m sure you’ll get a dog someday, kid,” Zac gave her shoulder a playful shove.
Remy smirked and batted at his hand as she fell back into step with him. “Yeah, when I move out,” she said.
“Are you planning on that anytime soon?” Zac asked as he looked over at her.
“Maybe?” Remy shrugged noncommittally again. For whatever fronts she put up or things she let roll off her back and joked about, there were some things that made Remy more anxious or scared than others. With their family history of…well, death…Losing her aunt was at the top of the list and as a not always rationally sound person, thinking about moving out tended to exacerbate her paranoia that something bad might happen to Clare. It was stupid, sure, but she couldn’t help it. It was a curse year for one thing. For another, Remy liked their house and up until her text conversation the other day with Clare (even though she knew her aunt was just joking around and picking on her) she had thought that the three of them managed to live together pretty smoothly as far as roommates went. She had been considering a lot of things over the last couple of weeks, though.
“With Regan?” Zac asked once he realized the silence that fell between them was because Remy was overthinking whatever she was thinking about specifically.
Remy blinked and looked over at Zac. She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it a moment before she finally answered. “Well, I mean yeah,” she shrugged and looked ahead at the trail again. “If she wants to,” She added.
“You think she won’t?” Zac might have been guilty of wanting to ensure the topic of conversation strayed away from questions about what he was up to and such, so he kept finding questions to ask Remy. So far she hadn’t called him on it and he was okay with that.
“No, it’s not that,” she shook her head. “I mean, it’s not like we don’t already have an idea of how we get along living together,” she cast her eyes to the ground and smiled a bit.
“Wow,” Zac smirked. “You’ve really got it bad, huh?”
“Sure do,” Remy grinned even as her cheeks turned pink again.
“Okay, so if it’s not that, then what is it?” Zac prodded again. It was nice to not be the center of attention being interrogated about things.
“We’ve been dating for less than four months,” Remy shrugged. “I don’t want her to think I’m rushing her or anything.”
“You’ve know each other a long time though, right?”
“Yeah,” Remy nodded.
Zac arched his eyebrows. “So she probably has some idea of how the mechanics of that goofy little brain of yours works, right?”
“Sure,” Remy nodded again. “But she also had a somewhat tumultuous childhood revolving around her parents slash step parents and watched some shitty relationship things go down in her formative years,” She said.
“You had a pretty tumultuous childhood yourself,” Zac reasoned with a shrug. He wasn’t saying it to wound her, just pointing it out in comparison.
Remy considered it a moment with a furrowed brow. “Pretty sure my childhood woes made me a lot more codependent on the people I grow close to, compared to hers.”
Zac tilted his head and furrowed his brow and gave her a lopsided grin. “Did you just call yourself clingy?”
“I think you’ve done enough quizzing and it’s my turn to ask the questions, Bub,” Remy poked him in the ribs with a finger.
Zac snickered and jokingly swatted her hand away. “Awww c’monnnn, we were just getting to the good stuff that really embarrassed you, though! Look at how pink your cheeks are!” He teased.
“Quit pickin’ on my happiness!” Remy shoulder checked him, but not enough to actually knock him over of anything.
“This is possibly the longest span of time you've ever gone without trying to jump on my back for a piggyback ride, y'know," Zac reached out and ruffled up her hair even though it as tied up in a loose ponytail.
Remy scrunched her eyes shut and swatted his hand away. "Quit itttttttttttttttt!" She whined with a smirk as she pulled her hair tie out and fixed her hair. "Anyway, I'm obviously not going to attempt to hurt and ancient human of your age," She stuck her tongue out at him.
"Are you really happy?" Zac asked after rolling his eyes at her, segueing right back into talk about her situation.
"Yeah," Remy nodded. "I am," she said. "Now stop deflecting back at me. Let's start our new discussion talking about what it's like to have your mom dating your sister's girlfriend's dad," She smirked.
Zac tipped his head back and laughed. He reluctantly let her slowly turn the conversation to what was going on wit his family which eventually led to asking him about what he was thinking of doing eventually down the line for work, or whether or not he wanted to go to school and what he wanted to go for. Eventually, they made it through the entire trail, stopping around the peak of the loop for a small break.
Remy waited until they were in the car and hooked into their safety belts before she looked over at Zac. "Ice cream stop on the way back?" She suggested with a grin that Zac could have only described as 'childlike' in nature.
"Who could turn down an offer like that?" He had replied easily. He hadn't been surprised at all that she had an ice cream spot in mind nearby. They parked and made their way inside. Zac settled on a sundae and Remy grabbed waffle bowl filled with 'black pepper pistachio' ice cream in a waffle cone bowl before they settled into a couple of seats across from each other.
"What's the allure of Black Pepper Pistachio ice cream?" Zac asked as he watched Remy dig in with amusement.
"I dunno," She shrugged. "It's something new to try," she grinned and pushed her bowl closer toward him. "Wanna try?"
Zac eyed up the ice cream warily and shook his head. Black pepper didn't seem right in ice cream. Remy shrugged and went back to eating. "This is a fitting way to recharge after all the interrogation."
"I wouldn't have had to interrogate you so firmly if you had offered answers as freely as I had," Remy retorted.
"Says the woman who spaced out while considering moving into a new place with her girlfriend - wait I'm sorry, with her Bae," Zac teased.
Remy tilted her head. "I wasn't contemplating that part," She argued. "I have no qualms about that part. Privacy on that end would be awesome. We get a long great. I love her. She loves me. It would work. We could get a dog..."
Zac arched his eyebrows up his forehead and waited for her to go on while he ate a spoonful of his sundae.
"I like our house. I like the three of us being there. It's nice. We get along." she shrugged and poked at her ice cream with her spoon. "I guess I've just been thinking a lot about whether or not I've overstayed my welcome," she shrugged and scooped up another spoonful of her ice cream.
Zac blinked. "Wait, is this a pity party of you thinking Clare wants you out of the house?"
Remy furrowed her brow and shook her head. "It's not a pity party at all," She shrugged. "I think she'd like her space to be her own space after having to share it with me for so long."
Zac arched his eyebrows slightly and almost scoffed at her comment.
"What?" Remy balled up a napkin and tossed it at him. "Don't look at me like that! I'm not trying to say she wants to kick me out or anything crazy." Zac was still contemplating her comments, or at least looking at her funny and Remy dropped her eyes to her ice cream bowl. "Even if she wanted to, I know she wouldn't," She added. "At this point she definitely much deserves to do her own thing in her own space. It's not like she asked for me to come barging in to take over her life and all."
This time Zac did scoff. "Really?" He asked. "You're going to treat it like that?"
"I mean, c'mon - it's true," Remy shrugged. "I've certainly affected the entire outcome of her life path or...whatever."
"So?" Zac said. "It's not like you asked for what happened either," He pointed out. "More importantly - and I shouldn't have to point this out - She did what she did because she loves you. You didn't force her to do those things," although admittedly, their circumstances sort of did. "So don't use that as your scapegoat for whatever about moving out scares you, huh?"
"I know she does. I'm not scared of moving," Remy insisted. Zac arched his eyebrows and smirked over at her. "Okay, maybe I am, but it's a curse year and I'm happy! And at some point something terrible will happen to change that and maybe I don't want to be in a place far away from whatever that is because what if I can't do anything?"
"Remy-,"
"Zac," Remy cut him off. "I know you think it's hokey-,"
"No I don't-,"
"But it never fails. So we should be prepared."
"It's just as likely something could happen while you're living under the same roof."
"I know."
"So what's the real hold up?"
"That is the real hold up."
"So then we've just solved it for you?"
"You're going to tell her everything I've said aren't you?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you always did."
"Maybe you should tell her."
"Ha! 'So, I've come to a decision that I want to stop impeding your independence and fucking up your life - so I'm moving! And I'm probably taking your other rent paying tenant with me! Hurrah!' Bet she'd love that."
"Maybe have a serious talk with her instead of deflecting with jokes?"
Remy silently played with her ice cream. "Why did we stop talking about interrogating you, again?" she asked when she looked across the table at him.
"Because I'm an expert at turning the conversation back to your deep thoughts on life and fears, obviously." Zac answered with a smirk.
Remy looked down at her ice cream and ate her way through a few more spoonfuls. "Okay, it's your turn to fess up then. Deep thoughts and fears, what happened on-," Remy was just about to delve into asking about New Year's Eve when one of the little kids standing in line with her mom and siblings, knocked over a wet floor sign that fell into a shelving unit and knocked a few items off the shelves onto the floor. Remy's sentence cutoff as she watched Zac's pupils blow out and cover the entirety of his irises. He looked like a robot whose
memory had suddenly been wiped clean as the color drained from his face.
"Zac?" She said his name as she stabbed her spoon into her ice cream blindly while watching beads of sweat gather on Zac's forehead in seconds. "Hey...Zac?" She waved her hand in front of his face but kept it on her side of the table. Zac just stared, his muscle tensed and his breath coming in shallow rasps as he gripped the table edges until his knuckles were white. "Zac," Remy said his name more firmly. She reached out and put her hand over top of one of his but he seemed to be rapidly nearing hyperventilation or a panic attack. She wasn't sure but she wondered if this was maybe what had happened on New Year's Eve when he was out with Aunt Clare. "Hey - Zac!" Remy wasn't sure if she was supposed to snap him out of it or not, or if it was like a nightmare where you were supposed to let it run its course. But she kind of panicked herself, so she reached out and put a hand on either side of his face. "Zac!" She said again, louder, firm, afraid.
Zac blinked suddenly. His eyes seemed to focus after a minute and he looked at her in confusion. "Huh?" He asked. His sweaty brow beneath his hat was furrowed. His breath staggered. "What? What happened?" He sat back to pull free from her grip and looked at their ice cream on the table and his hands gripped the edges. He blinked a few more times as frowned as he realized something had made him zone out.
"Are you alright?" Remy asked, her voice going back to a quieter tone, full of concern.
Zac shifted in his seat. "Hm?" He asked. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," He said suddenly with a nod. "I'm fine, I, uh..." He cleared his throat and pushed his sundae forward on the table after peeling his hands free from their grip on the table. "I think I just over did it on the trail..." He nodded.
Remy frowned but slowly nodded. "Okay," She studied his face a moment and decided she'd let him excuse this away for now. "Why don't we head out then? I'll drop you off so you can rest?" She asked.
Zac shifted in his seat. "Yeah," He cleared his throat and pulled himself to his feet as Remy watched him the whole way. "Yeah, that would be great, thanks." He nodded and headed out of the shop and toward Remy's car without another word. Remy frowned and thought about calling Clare or taking Zac to their place. She didn't want to upset him more, though, so she threw out their trash and then jogged out to catch up with him.