chloe price (partnerintime) wrote in the100, @ 2016-03-14 09:08:00 |
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While others mourned their missing friends and family members, Chloe Price worked harder. It wasn’t just that the kitchens and sanitation were down a few workers, although that was certainly accurate. No, Chloe worked her ass off because people left at home, and people left here. It was an old wound, one that she tried to deal with in a mature way and more often than not didn’t, one that had her scrubbing pots too hard and getting snippy at her coworkers. “Fuck this shit, I’m out,” she announced at the end of her shift, grabbing her jacket and clomping out of the kitchens and away from the oppressive smells of half-done food, disinfectant and steam. That smell clung to her now as surely as an oppressive perfume. Most days she didn’t mind - it reminded her of how her mother used to smell following a long day at the Two Whales diner - but today it only further irritated her itchy, restless mood. Spying a semi-familiar head of blonde hair a few paces ahead, she trotted to catch up, sliding into pace next to Mindy Macready as if they were old friends. “I’m fucking going to kill someone if I don’t get out of this Mountain,” she announced, indicating the main door with a jerk of her shoulder. “Want to do your superhero shit, prevent a homicide, and freeze to death with me?” The disappearances had only reinforced one thing for Mindy: she had nothing to lose here. It was somehow both a fucking depressing realization and a relief. No one to lose meant she could just mentally check out when everyone buried the network in sad. But it also left her looking for trouble whenever downtime crept up on her. It was pretty damn convenient when trouble found her instead. Smirking, Mindy glanced over at Chloe and shrugged. “I suppose if it’s life or death,” she sighed. As soon as the snark was out of her mouth, though, Mindy’s face lit up. “You want to blow something up? That always puts me in a good mood.” “Shit, yeah.” Chloe had been about to suggest that they use her stolen handgun to shoot trash off of boulders and branches, but blowing shit up was so much more interesting. Despite what nearly everyone over the age of 25 back in Arcadia Bay said about Chloe, she wasn’t nothing but trouble. She was also a raging anger complex that paired well with her abandonment issues, and sure, a lot of that had been helped by Max staying, by Max fighting for her, but well. Sue her. Explosions were fun. “What’ve you got?” Chloe asked, eyeing Mindy’s (very normal-looking) outfit. No hidden grenades, that she could see, but hell. Whoever designed the clothes at Mount Weather were believers in pockets. Mindy laughed. Talking about anything that could make a mess of inanimate shit and people probably wasn’t cool if Chloe was pissed at anyone in particular, but as someone who was usually carrying around at least a half a tank of rage, Mindy tended to recognize when anger had a target. “I’ve got a lot more on me than you’d ever know just by looking at me,” Mindy said matter-of-factly as she headed towards the exit. Bragging would come later. When there wasn’t just anyone in hearing range. Once they were outside, she flashed a grin. “Full truth, though? I’ve been making stash points in the area. Never know when you’ll end up without weapons and stranded out here. Plus people are dicks. It literally always pays to have plans in place for getting the hell away from them as fast as possible.” Mindy pointed to the west. “You’re cool, so I’ll show you one. If you and your girlfriend need to bail, you can use it.” “Oh my god, how are you so much cooler than like, everyfuckingone else?” Chloe grinned and clapped her hands together once in something resembling pure glee . “Stash points. Had something like that back home in the junkyard--” And just like that she thought of Rachel, and then she thought of Rachel buried in the junkyard, “--but I mean, haven’t worked on it here any. Not like I came with anything on me worth hiding.” Chloe didn’t talk about her bullshit. What was the point? Everyone here had some crazy-ass drama in their lives and there was no point in rehashing it. Mindy was fun and wasn’t asking her why she was in a bad goddamn mood, because what did it matter? Bad moods happened sometimes without having any real reason behind them, or tragic past, or quirks of personality. And even if it was related to a bigger problem, who the hell wanted to talk about it when blowing stuff up was on the menu? Jesus. Chloe’s pause mid-sentence earned her a sideways glance. Mindy wasn’t usually the prying type unless she needed information to cover her ass or protect someone else, but that didn’t mean she didn’t pay attention. Mindy recognized some of her own baggage in Chloe, which was probably why she felt more at ease around here than some of these other assholes. It was also why she didn’t think twice about heading straight for her closest hiding spot. Crouching in front of a tree, Mindy twisted a knot in the wood to pull away a chunk of bark, exposing the hollowed out hidey-hole inside. It was full of odds and ends, short wooden spikes, and a number of containers. “I had some stuff. A lot of guns and ammo mostly. But I’ve been making simple weapons, traps, and getting the stuff together for homemade bombs since I got here.” Looking up over shoulder, Mindy held up a jar of clear liquid with a red paint stripe around the lid. “Don’t drink this. It’s hydrochloric acid and it’s the only jar I have so far. Not that you seem like the kind of dumbass to drink shit from random unmarked jars in trees, but let’s be honest, I don’t actually know you that well. If you were living in a junkyard, you could be all kinds of crazy for all I know,” she smirked. “You’re like a hella more violent MacGyver.” Chloe appreciatively took the jar from Mindy and peered at it - it was heavier than it looked - and resisted the urge to give it a shake. She wasn’t up on her chemistry but “hydrochloric acid” sounded pretty legit. “And hey, I’m from a town of like, three people, not including the rich douchebags who come to Arcadia Bay for art school. The junkyard’s the best place to hide if you’re middle class trash. It’s fucking camouflage.” Mindy had obviously been working on her hiding spots for a while now. Chloe envied her ability to think ahead; she and Max had been trying to keep their heads down for a while now. Maybe it was time to start raising hell again. “So, what, are you preparing for another apocalypse? Or are you one of those responsible ‘prep for the worst, hope for the best’ assholes?” Mindy shrugged, snagged back the jar, and tucked it back inside the tree. “I'm a ‘plan for all the shit to hit all the fans eventually’ asshole. My daddy died because we weren’t paranoid enough. My friend’s dad died because we underestimated the shit level we were dealing with and didn't get ahead of things. I tried pretending I was normal for a while and all that did was make things worse. I’m... just trying to follow my gut now. Stay ahead of things.” Sitting back on her haunches, Mindy narrowed her eyes at Chloe less with suspicion and more with awkward curiosity. “Why’d you have stashes? What did you need to hide?” Chloe crossed her arms over her chest, jutting her hip out in a natural “fuck you, fuck everything” pose. She’d been through the ringer enough in the last few months that the poses were comforting by now, even in times when she wasn’t feeling particularly hostile. “After Dad died, Mom remarried. We didn’t get along.” Understatement. Now that she was far from home - now that there wasn’t much of home left - Chloe could feel clearer about the situation. “...I didn’t make it easy for him,” she added begrudgingly, “but yeah, he was a controlling douche about everything too. It was just, you know, a clusterfuck. I smoked up back home, kept shit I didn’t want them to find in the junkyard. Some of it was just like, stupid teenager shit they wouldn’t have cared about, but... “ A tight smile. “Privacy, right? Control.” “Yeah. Yeah I get that,” Mindy nodded, a somber twist of her mouth mirroring Chloe’s smile. “My foster dad wasn’t a douche, but...he didn't really get me. He knew what he wanted me to be, but you know. Kinda too late for all that?” Digging back into the tree trunk, Mindy pulled out two small tin cans, a coil of coated string, and a box of matches. She didn't have a lot of materials to waste, but the cans were more small distraction bombs anyway. They were easy enough to replace. And all this talk about family - all this talk being a few sentences, but hey, that was more than enough for her - Mindy really just wanted to watch something explode. “Anyway, you can keep shit here if you want. I won’t mess with any of it.” Mindy covered the hole back up and held one of the cans up. “You still want to blow something up?” “Too late for that,” Chloe agreed, because really, that had been most of the problem. She was already furious that her father had died before her step-father had managed to piss her off further by merely having the gall to exist. She smiled - just a little, corner of her mouth - when Mindy offered to let her hide shit out here. Chloe didn’t say “thanks”, or really acknowledge it, but it meant a lot. Good to know. “Yeah, I still want to blow something up. Let’s see what you got. This is waaaay the fuck better than shooting Coke cans off a dead fridge.” Mindy laughed and stood, scanning the area for the best thing to destroy. Story of her life, really. Wall up and look for a target. At least it felt right. Not like the last few months playing some stupid part. “Well I don’t know about waaaay the fuck better, but if we set it up right…Wish I had about a hundred of these things. I’m not sure I’ll ever be over the fact that I can’t just jump on the internet and order whatever the hell I want, you know?” Wrinkling her nose, Mindy smirked and pointed towards a dried out husk of a tree laying on its side a few hundred yards away. “Come on. If we pack one of these things inside that tree and surround it with dead leaves and stuff, I’m pretty sure we might even get a little lift off.” She thought for a beat and then rolled her eyes. “We’ll have to clear out the shit around it, though. Don’t want to set the entire forest on fire.” “Good plan. Only you can prevent forest fires,” Chloe said in a dour Smokey the Bear voice, already digging her blunt nails into a hole in the bark. Dead wood, some bugs, moss… nothing too gross. “All right. Houston, we are ago for launch. Almost. Hold the fuck up, one sec, let’s put the shit in the shit.” Some people talked through the problems. Some ignored them entirely. Chloe was glad that at least she’d met someone around her age that preferred to blow them to smithereens. |