There'd Better Be Pie Who: Devin and Skylar Where: the greenhouse, then onward When: afternoon
When Devin left Eatzy’s, he had the faintest aroma of alcohol hanging around him. It might’ve been from where he’d spilled some on his hoodie, or it might have been his breath. Not that it mattered that much. Justin had cemented Devin’s opinion of him and even raised it a notch: the guy was seriously fucking cool for sharing his stash of booze with him. Not that it had been anywhere near enough to get him plastered. No, it was just the right amount for him to lose some of his usual edginess. He didn’t even mind the intermittent pissing rain all that much; he simply pulled his hood over his head and tugged the denim jacket he wore over the hoodie more tightly around him. He was only walking over to the greenhouse anyway, and it wasn’t that far.
He and Skylar had hung out a few times, and they got on okay. Plus, the guy always had weed and sometimes tobacco. Devin wasn’t a big weed-head, but he didn’t mind it once in a while. Letting himself into the greenhouse, he called out, “Skylar! You here?” He made a mental note to be careful walking, since there wasn’t much light to speak of with the gloomy day and the power out.
Skylar had spent a good part of the day with Clementine, snuggling under the blanket and eventually going to the lumber yard to pick up something to repair the holes in his roof. He’d gotten up there, but in the rain and cold he’d just opted for tacking down a tarp and hoping it lasted until it wasn’t raining. He had plants to harvest anyway.
And he was finishing up when someone yelled out his name, which distracted him from the stack of tools he’d been putting away and when he turned to answer the precariously stacked pile fell and sent a crashing noise throughout the greenhouse, loud enough that even Skylar ducked like something might get him. When the noise stopped, he checked himself for injuries then called out. “I’m alright!” As always it wasn’t easy to tell if he was talking to someone, or himself.
Devin smirked. “Well, I guess you’re here,” he said, hoping he’d be heard over the metallic clanging sounds. He pulled the penlight out of his pocket and turned it on, wandering through the place until he found Skylar. “The hell’re you doing?” he asked. “Building a tower of tools, or was that an accident?” He squinted, finding that the penlight didn’t illuminate his surroundings as much as would be desirable. Power outages sucked.
Skylar spun when the voice was closer and frowning at it until he realized it was Devin and he let out a sigh. “Um..it fell.” He didn’t mean for it to, but it did and he wound up just shrugging and stepping around the pile of tools. “You need something?” People didn’t usually drop by in a power outage to just hang out.
Actually, what else was there to do during a power outage? Not like he had anyone to spend quality time with, and he wasn’t the super sociable sort. Why not hang out? Although it was true that he hadn’t intended to stay up here for the rest of the afternoon. “Want me to help you pick those up?” he asked, flicking the beam of the penlight over the fallen tools and then shrugging. “Wouldn’t mind some cigarettes if you got ‘em.”
Skylar looked back at the pile and waved at it. “I’ll take care of it later.” He’d already messed with them and fiddling with them now felt like a waste of time. Nodding at the request he started through the greenhouse, not needing the light to find his way. “I’ve got tobacco for sure. Just dried out a small crop.” It was harder to grow in the greenhouse than pot actually more accustomed to fields and the like, but he kept a few plants going year round as that was what more people were after and it brought in some extra revenue that he didn’t really need. Despite the job he had on the books, he did better than most and wanted for very little. “Might have some rolled. Definitely have some rolling papers. You have a preference?”
“Cool,” Devin said, quickly following after Skylar. He kept the penlight on, not being nearly as familiar with the layout of the place as the other guy was. If he could grow tobacco, he’d be set for life. He’d been smoking since he was fifteen, and his mom had always told him he was just asking for lung cancer. Now he was still alive, and she wasn’t. Never a happy thought, so he pushed it aside the way he did most anything else he didn’t want to deal with. “Whatever’s cheapest,” he replied when asked for a preference over rolled or non-rolled.
Skylar almost laughed. He was used to that answer. He nodded then motioned for Devin to wait before he let himself into a locked room in the back of the greenhouse. He was only gone a few minutes before he was back again, with a small package he handed over. “About fifteen, already rolled. They’re older, from the last crop so I’ll give ‘um to you for ten.” It was about half the cost, but Skylar wasn’t really ever out there to make money. Just to keep the greenhouse going.
Devin knew that was a great deal, so he didn’t hesitate to haul out his wallet and hand over a ten. They might be a little older, but they’d still be good. They weren’t talking years or even months old, so hey. “Thanks, man,” he said, tucking the package away inside his jacket. He seriously didn’t know if he’d be able to make it without smokes. You had to have a few vices in life, and there weren’t that damn many here.
Despite the fact that people got by on quite a little, Skylar wasn’t a big fan on giving his customers poor product. He was surrounded by fresh so even a week or so was old to him. Almost too old. “Sure thing.”
Devin glanced around now that the business transaction was taken care of, squinting a little. “Man, how do you deal with having no fucking light in here?” In his opinion, the power outage blew. It was tough to cook anything without power, unless you wanted to use the fireplace. Not exactly precise. He couldn’t imagine taking care of plants in the dark either.
Skylar did the same thing, looking around the greenhouse before shrugging. “I guess I just know it well enough. I sleep here sometimes.” So he was used to it being dark. “You don’t know your way around the diner in the dark?”
For some reason, it didn’t surprise Devin much that Skylar slept in the greenhouse on occasion. He couldn’t even have said why. He might’ve slept in the diner and felt comfortable if he’d ever had the opportunity. “Yeah, guess I do. Hard to do anything there without power, though.” He shrugged a shoulder, then exhaled a breath. He was seriously restless today, probably enough so that he wasn’t great company. Of course, it was debatable if he ever was anyway. “Gonna wander on, let you get back to what you were doing,” he said. Whatever that might have been.
Skylar thought about that then nodded. “I guess not. Besides eating whatever’s in the fridge.” He paused for a moment, then his eyes lit up. “Do you think there’s pie?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Devin said. “Oh. Probably ‘cause I was too busy drinking the moonshine my boss gave me. Fills you up.” He loved to cook, but he wasn’t a guy who’d empty the refrigerator when he got the munchies. Of course, he didn’t smoke pot the way Skylar did. Skylar probably lived in a state of constant munchies. “There’s always pie,” he added with a smile.
“The boss has moonshine? Wait...he’s related to Nic. Scratch that. That doesn’t surprise me.” Then Skylar was wandering into the greenhouse to find his jacket. “Then what on earth are we doing here?” he called out over his shoulder, finding the leather jacket tossed on a shelf and pulling it on. “Let’s get pie.”
Devin didn’t know if Justin would still be at the diner, given that it was technically closed, but he figured it was worth a try. “Alright,” he said with a nod. “If he’s already gone and we can’t get in, there’s pie at my place.” He didn’t know that Justin would share the ‘shine with just anyone-- on most days, the guy might not have shared it with him-- but that was a non-issue. They had a plan of sorts in place. Plus, Justin had given him half a bottle of the stuff. Devin might decide to share some of it.
“Did they not give you a key?” Skylar asked, starting for the door and pulling out his own keys to lock the greenhouse. The weather was still shit and it was much colder than the greenhouse, but there was pie in question and Skylar could suck it up for the moment. “I love you diner people. There’s always snacks at Clementine’s too because Zania lives there. And Nic can cook.”
“Nah,” Devin said of having a key to his workplace. “It’s fine though, I don’t really need one.” Admittedly, it would have been nice when he’d been waiting outside earlier, but he’d wanted to have a cigarette anyway. So whatever. He tucked his hands into his pockets, not really a fan of this weather. “People who can cook rule the world. I should know.” He smirked.
“You sound a little biased,” Skylar said, smirking back.
“Me?” Devin asked with arched eyebrows. “No way.” He totally was. There’d been a girl or two during the time before the domes, when he’d been living with his mom, that he’d impressed with makeshift meals with whatever he’d been able to find. He liked being versatile. “So c’mon, walk faster. I’m done with being out in this for a while.” Plus he wanted another cigarette.
“Yes way,” Skylar said, but grinned with it. He pulled his coat tighter around him and quickened his pace as instructed. “Definitely. There’s gonna need to be some bad ass pie at the other end of things to make up for this for sure.”
Skylar was always amusing. That was one reason Devin kept seeking out his company occasionally. Okay, so the main reason was to get tobacco, but so what? It wasn’t the most common thing for him to find people he was fine with spending time around. “Bad ass pie, coming up,” he said. Whether at the diner or at his house, he knew there’d be some.