~!~ cherry chan ~!~ (seresa) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-05-13 21:37:00 |
|
|||
Three days since Bunny's man hadn't come home. A whole week since Teagan up and disappeared during a blip in the blob rain. The amount of sadness and anxiety that was bottled up tight in Cherry's corner of the Dog Park was almost enough to feel stifling, like some kind of fucked up carnival where the ceiling seemed like it came this close to crushing you where you sat. As much as she'd wanted to avoid the bonfire after Vic's wedding -- really, avoiding Max -- it was the kind of night when Cherry felt restless with too much energy to hold in tight. Bunny seemed convinced with some kind of supernatural fervor that Nate was obviously still alive, just wandering around somewhere with a camera and a drink or something, and her optimism -- surely it was pretend? -- just made Cherry sadder. She knew how stories like this ended, after all. At least Bunny had moved in with Bishop for the time being. At least the bonfire was still raging, just like it always did. There was some kind of music playing, just loud enough for her to pick up a thrumming, insistent kind of beat as she weaved her way through the people gathered 'round. Drinks, first, then dancing with whoever she could find. That was the plan, at least, until she ran into a familiar face in line for a moonshine jar. "Hey, stranger," she told Art, unable to stop herself from running one hand through her hair and tossing it some. Last year had gotten kind of messy between the two of them and Bishop, but hey. It was a new year, wasn't it? "How's your night going?" Art looked up at her, watching how her black hair danced in the night. It seemed to be both part of the sky and part of nothing at all, and he wondered just how drunk he’d managed to get. It was always a little funny to him that he got drunk at these events so easily- he’d come to Austin to get sober after all. But that was a million years ago, a million moments of pain and suffering with only a handful of joy to sprinkle over the top. “Lonesome,” he responded. Sitting on a worn out bench he made room for Cherry to join him, handing over the military grade canteen he’d stolen from a reserve shop. While other people had raided grocery stores and markets at the first sign of apocalypse, Arthur had made a beeline for army stores, mechanic shops, and REI. He didn’t regret it. “Yours?” Though his face was older than Cherry’s, wrinkled and more sun damaged, his eyes seemed young. The only looked a little tired, they weren’t lost yet. "That kind of night, huh?" She took the canteen and, without even bothering to ask what was inside it, took a sip -- tentative, at first, then a longer, healthier one. The burn in her throat was familiar and welcome. "Mine's going okay. Just went over to check in on Bishop and the boys. Did you know Bunny's moved in with him?" The unspoken sentence -- since Nate never came back home -- felt like it lingered between them still. She shook her head again, this time to dismiss all the sad, anxious follow-up questions that she didn't feel like asking. Art reached up- not for the canteen- but for her. He pulled her down on the bench with him with as much gentleness as he could, stealing the booze back and taking a sip. “Did I ever tell you why I was here in freaking Austin?” Arthur asked. He told the story every time he was getting drunk. But he never told it when he was fully drunk, so it wasn’t exactly a bad sign- just more of an omen. “Rehab. Because I drank too much, and I guess it was a success, because I don’t drink as much as I did then. Something about the world going to shit makes having a bottle or two of whiskey a day seem a bit like overkill.” He handed it back to her, letting Cherry have the last mouthful and a half. “I was gonna get better, and then go back to Boston.” The same script- but with a new sentence added on. “We were all gonna get better, I guess.” She shook her head, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments as she allowed herself a moment's sadness. God, she was tired of this shit. How many times could a person witness so much loss before it broke them? It must have just been a couple of seconds before she took a deep breath, doing her best to sigh out the worries, then put on a smile. (And if she wasn't sure if the act was more for his benefit or for hers, well. That was besides the point.) "There's still good things going on," she said, leaning sideways to nudge her shoulder against his, putting on the kind of optimism she sometimes could barely stomach, herself. "We're alive and we're here. There's nowhere else in Austin that has what we have. The open sky, the fire… People say a lot about us, but at least we know how to live. We're not stuck up in some boring building, packed on top of each other like sardines." One of her eyebrows lifted then slightly, barely noticeable in the bonfire light. "Unless we want to be on top of each other, of course." Arthur moved naturally- his arm went around her slender waist, settling on the hip. He took another drink, nudging her right back. “You make it sound like we’re pirates, or cowboys,” he said, not sounding overly upset by the comparison. In fact, he seemed to puff up a little bit at the comment. He put his cup down, and reached over to play a little bit with her hair. Sure it was close, and sure she was a flight risk. But she was also glowing in the fire and Arthur’s heart hurt. He always wanted forever, but for once he knew a little better. “So, you a wench then? I always thought they didn’t get enough credit. Basically just capitalists who didn’t have to make a product.” She laughed, shaking her head; another bitch might've been taken offense, but her sense of humor -- or maybe a pang of guilt at the way she'd treated him last year -- allowed her to roll with Art's unpredictability. "It's a sound argument," Cherry agreed. She put a hand on his shoulder, twisting to better face him and angling her face up, anticipating the inevitable. "No cost of goods… just pure profit." And some nights, like tonight, she never considered doing anything else. |