Derek Miller (throughthemill) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-08-09 21:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 18, derek miller, meghan callahan, | derek and meg |
Week 18 - Saturday
Characters: Derek Miller and Meg Callahan
Location: Outside, at the busted fence.
Summary: Meg brings Derek lunch and they bicker as usual until the conversation takes an unexpected twist.
Rating: PG-13 for language and violent imagery.
Searle had gone off to the house for lunch already leaving Derek behind to finish just one more thing. That had been twenty minutes ago and it was already clear that Derek wasn’t planning on coming inside to get anything to eat. Honestly, Derek just wanted to be finished with the damned fence. Months away from a law degree and now he had a lifetime of fencebuilding to look forward to. Besides, building anything with winter coming was going to be difficult. Already, it was getting harder to work in heavier clothes. He just wanted this damn project done at least.
When he heard footsteps, Derek figured it was Searle coming back after lunch. He wasn’t expecting Meghan and her dog. “Watch it!” he snapped at her, voice sharp. “I got tools and shit all over. You shouldn’t be coming around here when I’m working; you’re going to get hurt.” What was she doing out here? He didn’t have time to baby-sit.
Despite the warm welcome, there was a distinct lilting smirk on the blind woman’s face situated beneath the reflective surfaces of her glasses. “Y’know, that sparkling personality never gets old, Cupcake.” She didn’t say it with any sort of abrasiveness, though there was a touch of breath in her voice. Like a care-giver dealing with a regular, irate patient.
One hand was folded against the fabric of her jacket, pinning a small fabric bundle that contained a small serving of dried, salted venison, an apple, and a Twix bar that’d been hauled back with a stash of Vending Machine goodies from the last raid. The other was down at her hip, curled into the tanned leather of Sarge’s collar. She had decided to bring Derek some food when Searle came back to the house without him, figuring that building a fence wasn’t exactly light work considering the way the younger man wolfed down his food.
She and the former law student always seemed to be at odds, though not in any way either couldn’t handle. It was almost a routine, by now.
“I aim to please, sweetheart,” Derek shot back. “But it’s all fun and games until you step on a nail. You better believe, if that happens, I will leave your ass out here.” Derek had argued against letting a blind woman in the group and the two of them had never been able to see eye-to-eye most of the time. So to speak. On the other hand, Derek bickered with everyone so Meg wasn’t exactly special there. “What are you doing out here? Go back inside.”
“I brought you some grub, Princess...” Oh, how she loved her nicknames. “And I don’t think you have to be blind to accidentally step on a nail in a field.” Meg shifted weight from boot to boot. She also let go of Sarge’s collar and patted his head with a few fingertips: a non-verbal cue--he pawed at the frosted grass and settled on his belly, watching the nearby treeline. Probably for a squirrel he heard.
A little shake indicated the packed lunch in her arm. Her voice, this time, carried with it a less-than-subtle teasing, almost meant to invite further reaction. “Come have a picnic with me.”
Well, shit. Derek was at least self-aware enough to realize that if a blind woman brought you lunch, you looked like an asshole if you didn’t eat it. “If you think I’m going to sit on the ground, you’re crazy. But fine. Time for a break, anyway.” A couple of noisy rustles and clanks and Derek set down his tools. “I can just take it if you want to go inside,” he said, walking over to her.
As far as Meg was concerned, he would be a bit of an asshole whether he ate it or not. Good thing she normally didn’t mind assholes. In fact, there was a bone in the woman that was always a little tickled by the breed. Call it a sense of entertainment.
That, and her brother was an asshole.
“Sarge needs a little run-time anyway.” That was her way of saying she’d stay outside. The heavy-footed dog at her side glanced up on mention of his name, then hoisted his battering-ram body from the grass and leaned lightly against her thigh. “Yeah, just a second Mutt...” This murmured to the dog as she handed off Derek’s small, but protein rich lunch when he got close enough. With the way she tracked his footfalls with her ears, and the shades over her vacant, cloudy gaze...Meg could actually pass for normal in some circumstances.
A beat-to-hell tennis ball was produced from her coat pocket and tossed toward the empty pasture, away from the fence being mended (she’d followed the line of it, and knew the open field was situated to the east). Sarge twitched, eyeing the ball as it bounced twenty yards away, but wouldn’t leave Meg’s side til a flick of her fingers in the ball’s direction gave him permission---when it was given, he bolted, digging up mud and grass in the process.
Truthfully, the way Meg could track a person just by listening for them kind of creeped him out. It was a bit uncanny. Derek had never known anyone with any type of signifigant disability and he wasn’t quite adjusted to life with a blind woman around yet. He didn’t really care about making small talk, instead leaning against a fence rail that he knew would support his weight and watching the dog run. Still quiet, Derek opened his lunch pack, happy to see a bit of meat. “Thanks.” See? He had manners.
“You are so welcome.” Yes, there was just a little bit of friendly sarcasm in her voice. She wasn’t bothered, but neither was she about to ease up on him just cause he had a bout of conscience. Sarge barreled through the field after his bouncy prey, then scooped it up in his teeth before trotting happily back to Meg. He sided up to her again, drawing the length of his head under her hand before dropping the slobbery ball in her palm for another throw.
Derek chewed his venison. The sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed and Derek was half tempted to try and convince Meg there was a bug in his food or something. He didn’t because something like that was more along the line of what a kid like Searle could think up. “What? Was that not grateful enough for you? Oh, Meg, thank you so much for bringing me lunch. It really must have been so much work to collect and apple and a candy bar.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Better?”
Sarge was bounding back with his soggy catch again, his tags clinking together with each heavy, somewhat awkward step. Meghan just chuckled genuinely at Derek’s retort. He never did disappoint.
“No, Sugar-Tits. You know I won’t be satisfied ‘til you’re groveling on your knees and singing my praises.” She tossed the ball again.
Derek smirked. “Girl, you got a dirty mind. Too bad I don’t grovel. You want unconditional gratitude and praise, you better start hoping the dog learns to talk.”
She actually laughed at that one. Genuinely too, without the usual bite of their sarcastic to and fro. By the sound of Sarge’s jingling in the distance, he’d found something more interesting than the tennis ball, so she turned in her slightly abrasive company’s direction, pulling something from the back pocket of her jeans. The collapsible walking stick. “I never said anything about it being ‘unconditional’.” The thin piece of plastic shot out to the ground with a flick of her wrist, and swept the area in front of her footsteps as she approached him and the fence.
She situated herself and her trajectory by the sound of his voice, and leaned against the fence beside him after the stick found it’s mark. “I’d be entertained even if it was forced.” She collapsed the stick against her palm and pushed it back in her pocket.
Derek smiled too but it faded a little at the sight of Meg’s walking stick. For some reason, that made him a little uncomfortable, like he should be guiding her or something. He didn’t want to do that and Meg would probably cut his hand off if he tried. Derek was quiet again, concentrating on his food. “Good luck with that, Ray Charles,” he offered when he swallowed his bite.
Meg snickered lightly, leaning back with a certain sense of laziness on the fence rail. “Now don’t be insultin’ Ray Charles like that. I don’t have nearly as many women as he did.”
Derek coughed once and then laughed. “Funny. Neither do I. Hell, I don’t even have as many as Jamie Foxx.”
Meg didn’t laugh or chuckle at his obvious half-choke, but she did show a cheek cutting grin: one that leaned pretty deep to one side. “Just hang in there. I’m sure we’ll get more. Midgets, dominatrixes, or whatever weird shit you’re into.”
“Yeah, like a Black woman.” Derek didn’t want to talk about women with Meg but that came out before he could stop it. Half muttered, but still spoken out loud.
The thoughtless tone of voice wasn’t lost on Meg, and neither was the context, which oddly enough, she found amusingly ironic. She turned her chin in his direction as she hoisted her rear onto the top fence rung: her feet dangling, easily balanced. “You do realize that means nothing to me, right?”
Derek turned his back to her. What would she care? She was blind. “Yeah, how nice for you. It does to other people.”
If Meg’s eyes understood how to roll, they would have. Instead, she smirked deeply and shook her head. His voice was aimed away from her, quiet and almost sulking. “Skin color, Precious.” Or any color, for that matter. “I can’t feel if someone’s red, yellow, black, green or fuckin’ polkadot.” It didn’t take a genius to figure he’d closed himself away like a frustrated six year old. “You always turn your back on people talking to you? I didn’t know you were that popular.”
Derek sighed and he did roll his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, turning back around, “Thus the comment about other people or are you deaf now too?”
She felt the full brunt of his voice, fully facing her, and despite the context of his words, Sarah grinned right at him--a clear expression that she approved of direct confrontation rather than someone sulking or avoiding her for whatever reason. “What do you care what ‘other people’ think? Not like there’s too many left to be judgemental.” Clearly, Meghan wasn’t worried about it.
Derek was scowling now, nearly glaring at Meg and more annoyed than he’d been during this conversation so far. “Why do I care? You know what a lynching is? That’s why I care.” His voice was short and harsh. Somehow he’d managed to start thinking about that and now he had, all Derek did was get angrier.
Of course her smile was instantly gone, but it wasn’t replaced with the snarl she could hear on his voice. She didn’t feel it was necessarily deserved, on her part... but it did well enough to get her thoughts stuck in the back of her throat for a minute.
A lynching? Meghan was silent for a moment longer. “...Christ, Derek... We might not be bosom buddies all the time, but you know I wouldn’t heap that sort of shit on someone.” Beneath the mirror of her glasses, her brows were pushed down, pinched together over her nose in a furrowed expression. It hardened the normally gentle lines of her face.
Derek sighed again, setting his lunch down on a fencepost to pinch the bridge of his nose in an effort not to kick something. “I’m not even talking about you! You think I’d still be here if anyone in the group was like that? I mean, come on.”
Clearly, Meg was missing something. A big something... and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. She was quiet for another moment or two of reflection, and in the meantime, Sarge had caught the tense piece of conversation, and was already back from whatever it was he had been interested in. He stalked close to Meg’s dangling legs, switching looks between his master and the man she was next to.
Meg put her hand down on his lumpy head, on instinct. When she spoke, it was quiet. “Who are we talking about, then...”
Derek’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. He was not going to have this conversation. Would not. He’d managed to avoid talking about it until now and he was not about to start. “Forget about it. Look, I got work to do; why don’t you go back in the house?”
“Nu-uh... No way.” Meghan stood her ground with the best line of logic she could come up with in a split second of decision. “I’m not gonna walk on eggshells around you because of something you won’t even explain. Like it or not, we’re gonna be working together on some fairly important shit...” She backed off then, at least in her voice. Internally, she was chiding herself for stepping on an pretty obviously dangerous nerve with him, but how could she have known if he refused to explain? “So just... tell me what you’re talking about, and I’ll drop it. Deal?”
“Some people tried to lynch me, okay? Christ!” The confession was out before Derek could bite back the words. Despite the fact that Meghan seemed to have a sixth sense when he had his back to her, he turned around again, not even wanting to look at her. The secret made him feel week and ashamed and Derek wished he hadn’t said it.
Meghan’s mouth dropped half open just before she could catch it. She felt her stomach twist with the news that, in hindsight, she probably should’ve picked up on from the latest bits of their conversation... but her reference points were just a little skewed from most, not to mention the fact that she hadn’t really placed anyoneof their group in a particular ethnicity until now.
Her lips twitched in an attempt at speech, then closed again... her chin dipped toward her chest as she resorted anything she might have said. Finally, “...I said I’d drop it, and I will.” What else could she say? It sickened her that he’d been put through something like that, and what really turned her stomach was the slightly similar experience she herself had gone through at the hands of one of the violent, roaming gangs.
“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
There was nothing Meg could say to change what had happened or make it better so Derek barely acknowleged her sympathy, making a soft noise and nothing else. No story, no explanation, nothing. As far as Derek was concerned, after today they weren’t going to talk about this again. First he was going to do one thing. “Give me your hand,” he requested, closing the distance between them.
Hoping she wouldn’t claw his face off, Derek ducked his head, bringing her hand up to touch his hair. He needed to find some electricity for a pair of clippers and cut it or find somebody to braid it before it got any longer. “That’s black,”
The sudden request for physical connection was certainly not what she expected from this twist in conversation, as shown by the way her breath caught when Derek unexpectedly grabbed her hand from where it sat on the fence. Because the touch was more insistent than it was forceful, though, at least she didn’t flinch.
She had been through this sort of ritual with just about every acquaintance she had before the epidemic, and even a few afterward... She had a good number of friends and peers who identified themselves as ‘black’, and she understood the difference in texture of their hair than her own and others of different ethnicities. Just... never in this instance. Nevertheless, after she pressed down on Sarge’s muzzle (he’d tensed considerably when Derek went for her hand), her fingertips drifted very gently through the slightly overgrown, tight curls.
“...this wasn’t really necessary.” Her voice was as gentle as her touch, which had slowly drifted down the line of his temple and cheekbone. Besides Molly, who’d let Meg ‘see’ her face when she first started to recover from the fever that almost did her in, this was the first time she was able to put an ‘image’ to a voice of this group. “But thank you anyway.”
If Derek had been really thinking about it, he would have described the sensation of Meg mapping his face as intimate. But he wasn’t thinking.Instead, he held perfectly still until she was finished. This whole conversation had turned from their usual bickering to something more surreal. He wasn’t sure how they’d got here and Derek really wished they’d hadn’t.
He pulled away. “It’s cold. You should go inside.”
Below the reflective surface of her glasses, Meg’s lips pressed into a straight line. They had just gone into a territory neither one of them would’ve ever expected, and she wasn’t exactly sure if it was a good or bad thing. She nodded, though, short and curt. She’d told him she wouldn’t bring it up again, and for both their general comfort zones, she wouldn’t.
Meg tuned in to the sound of two retreating footsteps, though the fact that he was still facing her stuck out in her mind. Nothing was said as she slipped down to the grass and gripped Sarge by the short lead off his collar. “S’go home.” This murmured to the dog, and together they made their way toward the opening in the pasture fence: Derek to her back. Only after she’d gone a few paces did she call back into the windless day. Maybe as a favor to him, or to them both... to set things back to some sort of awkward normal between them.
“You catch a cold, I ain’t feedin’ you soup.”
Derek watched her go, taking several hopefully calming breaths. Actually, Meg’s call back to him was a relief, as if it was a way to pretend the last several minutes hadn’t happened. “Whatever you say, cream ouff,” he called back.