Boys Will Be Boys
Who: Clay and Quinn Where: Somewhere along the stream. When: Mid-afternoon What: Shootin' the shit. Rating: G
Quinn had most certainly had enough. It was time for the filthy bindings to come off of his midsection and he'd sought a little privacy to tend to the matter. He hadn't really wanted to cut through the taut linen but he couldn't fumble the knot loose. It was in an awkward spot on his side and it had been thoroughly grimed for days. Impossible. So that just left the rapidly dulling knife he'd been using to carve his chess pieces the past few days. No need to mention how often he'd stabbed himself in the chest as he attempted to saw through the fabric. Finally, after what felt like forever, the two halves fell away. He breathed a sigh of relief and grimaced. Not quite healed yet but it still felt good, despite the ache. He swished the foul scrap of material through the stream before crushing open a soap pod and wading into the water to wash himself as well. It had been a while since he'd bothered, feeling pretty vile for the past two days. When he finally climbed out roughly thirty minutes later he felt refreshed and clean. With a quick glimpse around to be sure no one was peeking, he whipped off his pj bottoms, wrung them out really well and then pulled them band on damp. Dear lord, how he missed his boxerbriefs.
It was pure luck that Clay glanced up on his way back to camp and noticed Quinn, apparently in the act of getting dressed. He paused, silently debating whether to call out or just angle around this particular section of the stream and avoid the other man. Quinn wasn't on Clay's mental list of dangerous people, and he hadn't seemed like too much of an asshole the couple of times they'd talked. Not to mention, if Clay wandered too far from this landmark he risked spending the bulk of the afternoon lost in the woods. So it was with these thoughts in mind that he prepared himself to be friendly... That is, if Quinn was in the mood to reciprocate.
"Hey," Clay said loudly, remaining right where he was behind some bushes, a decent distance away. Walking up on a naked guy was rude and just plain creepy.
Quinn snapped the waist band of his flannel pjs into place just as Clay called out, damn near scaring him back out of them again. "Christ!" he muttered between clenched teeth before relaxing again as he turned toward the voice. Peering through the bushes he thought he caught sight of someone who classified as blonde, and not British nor Australian. Through process of elimination, he guessed it was Clay. "Hey," he called back. "I'm all done over here. No worries." With a groan he bent to pick up the scrap of linen that had been around his body. There'd been no getting the bloodstains out of it but at least it didn't reek anymore. Maybe he'd figure out a use for it.
Clay ambled over, taking the remarks as an invitation. He flashed a grin at the sight of Quinn without the wrapping he'd worn for so long. Guy had himself one hell of a farmer's tan there... Though not really, more of a fighter's tan, and since there was no such thing Clay kept his little joke to himself.
"Feeling better, huh?" he asked instead.
Quinn nodded, both in greeting and agreement. "Good enough to take that damn thing off. Even the pesks were starting to hate the smell of me. However many of them there are left. It was peskageddon yesterday." That brought something to mind and he tipped a curious look at Clay. "Where did you disappear to once everything went to shit yesterday? You missed some good fights." He couldn't help but wonder if there would have been more if Clay had stuck around.
Clay's elusive grin made a brief reappearance at the mention of 'peskageddon' and he nodded.
"Cooked a couple of the little fuckers yesterday," he said cheerfully. Meat raining down from the trees was too good to pass up, even if it was weird-ass flying rodent meat. A pause and a faint frown as he considered Quinn's comment about fights. Had the human beings been affected in the same way as the pesks?
"You all get tooth aches too?" Clay asked, ignoring the question about his whereabouts. He'd been worried for sure when those aches in his jaw had started up, certain that he was going to have to beg Payne to pull a couple of teeth, but that particular agony had ended as abruptly as it had begun. How headaches, toothaches, and pissed-off pesks fit in with shooting stars, Clay didn't know, but he suspected that somehow they all tied in.
Quinn nodded. "Yeah. Everyone seemed to get them. It made everyone irritable as fuck. I almost took a round out of the pregnant woman." He offered Clay a sidesmirk. "Except I'm too much of a gentleman to do that kinda thing." It had been a near miss though, something he'd regretted when he'd lain down to sleep with the sound of the rain pattering on the screen above his hammock. He'd been attempting to find a way or some sort of object to apologize with but nothing had come to his attention yet. "See anything cool on your wander?"
That explained a lot, Clay supposed. He'd been irritable, all right, but since his default setting was 'angry young man', he hadn't really noticed that much of a difference until Quinn had pointed it out. Clay smirked right back at Quinn, resisting the impulse to ask if Payne had taken a swing at anybody.
"Nah," he replied, "just walked along the stream. Busted some of them melon-things," he added noncommittally. "You tried 'em yet?"
The melons were everywhere and Quinn had kicked one around the other day. It had been a bitch and a half to get it open and then it had tasted so sweet that it made his teeth hurt. He'd thrown it away in disgust. "I tried one but I'm not sure if it was ripe yet. It was pretty gross. Did you find some that weren't bad?" he asked. Since they were walking along the stream, you had to watch your footing. The ground was thick with the melons.
"Yeah, they were okay." Clay strolled along in silence for a minute. "Can't eat nothing but melons," he opined slowly. "What happened to this plan of moving someplace else?" That had confused him, though he wouldn't admit it to Quinn. Big-ass meeting and everybody talking about heading out, and then... Nothing. Made a guy wonder, especially when their supposed leader--that little Chinese woman--took off with the big psycho guy. Maybe Quinn could shed a little light on the subject.
Quinn shrugged. "Way I understood it, there's an island out in the grasslands somewhere that all of those big grazers go at night to be safe." He shot a glance at Clay to see if the blonde guy believed that to be true. "Helena and that big bastard - whatsisname? Cross? They walked out to go see if that island was habitable for people. I guess the idea is to have a place where the laughers can't get at us, no risk of falling out of trees and we know the meats always gonna come strolling back to us every night." He turned to peer into the stream as they passed closer to it. Whatever citruscress was left was reduced to crumbs. The water ran clear, free of mirkweed tubers. "Sounds good to me. Seems like we did a number on the plants around here." He chuckled. "Plus, I hate that fucking tree."
Clay let out a soft snort. He did recall the report of an island. "Better be a big island," was his comment, followed by an apparent non sequitur. "You ever seen a cow?"
That brought a surprised look from Quinn. "Sure. On tv. Never in person though. Why? Did ya see one?" He chuckled at the thought. It had been long enough in this strange wilderness that Quinn was pretty sure he'd lose his mind completely if, while blundering through the woods he stumbled upon something so familiar.
"Nah. Not here," Clay clarified. "Seen 'em back home..." There'd been an ill-fated expedition to the outskirts of the south side, once, where sad struggling little dairy farms still existed. Everybody drunk and looking to tip cows. Turned out that the big mothers pretty much couldn't be tipped; bastards were solid. And big. That was Clay's point, and after some rumination on just how to word it so Quinn would get the picture, he made it:
"They're big. And they got big poops. Big wet steamin' cow plops," he elaborated. The bold cow-tippers had all been so wasted, none of them had avoided stepping in the shit. Literally. "You don't wanna be trying to sleep mixed in with a herd of grazers, not if they're anything like cows," he concluded.
Quinn cringed. "That's...fuckin' gross. You're right. I'd take sleeping in a tree over being shat on by something that big. Or...anything, really. Any day." He frowned and filed that away for his question and answer period when or if Helena and her colossal bodyguard ever made it back. That dawned a though and he shot another glance at Clay. "So what if they never come back? You got a game plan?"
Clay's smile at Quinn's reaction vanished at the next questions. "No," he said shortly. He wasn't the planning type. Clay supposed he and Payne could go off on their own, but if he was honest with himself, there were doubts there. Payne might very well hit the road, but with someone else. And for all his bravado when talking to Ryan, Clay couldn't see himself going it alone. On his own, he'd never find his way back to... Well, to anywhere. He still got turned around and had trouble finding the camp, some days.
"Why?" he ventured to ask Quinn. "What would you do?" Quinn might not be dangerous, but he was smart.
A thoughtful look pressed it's way across Quinn's face and he walked in silence for a while. "Don't think I'd do so well on my own. I think you gotta have ties to the group, you know? Maybe make up some spears, find myself some boots and go out to hunt. Like...some sort of roving hunting party, like what they did when they went east the first time." He ducked around a tree branch before continuing on. "Maybe take a girl along for fun, but she'd have to keep up," he gave Clay a matter of fact and very masculine knowing sort of look. Everything but the ribnudge. "Come back every once in a while with a haunch of meat and some furs. Drop 'em off and come back later to pick up some leather or tools. Whatever they've been doin' while I was away." He gave Clay his most scholarly look next. "Easier to feed and take care of just one or two, right? Maybe as many as four so you can get some good pack hunting maneuvers going on. Just don't worry about the rest." He shrugged dismissively, cool as a cucumber.
That was a lot to process, but the gist of it was basically what Clay had been thinking himself. In a perfect hallucination-slash-alien planet world. Him and Payne, hunting and trading and exploring. Hell, he already had the spears and the boots. It could work... Right. The whole notion required a bit more optimism than Clay was used to feeling.
"Would suck to be the one left behind," he said, thinking of the artisans. The skinny guy, Bazzer. He could stay put with his smelly pissy pile of hides, for all Clay cared. But it was kind of a shame to think of Ryan left back at camp to mess with pottery. "Hunting's the way to go."
"Yeah, but not all of them can hack it, right? In a few weeks I'll be back in shape. Ribs all healed up. Then it'll be time to work on some skills, like you've been doing with your sling." He gestured toward Clay. Not a whole lot slipped past Quinn when all he could do was watch the world go by. "It would suck but maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the island turned out to be safe. At least all the people who can't hunt don't have to worry about being eaten." He shrugged as they rounded another curve in the stream
Clay ducked his head, half pleased that someone had noticed his efforts, half embarrassed. He kicked at a melon as they passed through a particularly thick patch of the fruit.
"Guess we'll find out when they get back," he said, referring to Cross and Helena.
Quinn nodded as the camp tree came into sight. "Yeah, just have to wait and see what the story is." That's all he'd been doing since he'd arrived in this place. Playing a waiting game. It wasn't at all his style and he'd passed antsy days ago. More than anything, he wanted a pair of sturdy boots, his physical strength back and some spears of his own. He'd run out and do a little bit of providing of his own.
Clay's steps slowed. He wasn't eager to get back to camp just yet. He cast a sidelong glance at Quinn, wondering if he'd be as open to the notion of hunting Laughers from one of the trees as Ryan had been.
"Might be able to hunt sooner," he suggested, his voice pitched low. "Laughers come straight to us, huh? Man, I still wanna take one of them fuckers down before we clear out of here."
Quinn gave Clay a surprised look. "Have you tried to get one yet?" He wasn't sure but he thought he heard some mumbles about Clay and Doc Baker making an attempt on one. Only problem was that the big fuckers had no trouble dragging off the corpse of one of their own. He was pretty sure that was why they seemed so crazy - because they devoured their own dead, or so it seemed.
"Nah. Just messed with 'em some, one night," Clay said. The attempt had started off as observation, then turned serious, but Clay wasn't about to admit it, to Quinn or to himself. He and Thorne had failed, so he'd just deny that they'd ever tried.
"Would take a few guys to do it right." Either way you looked at it. There was his own half-crazy tree-hunting scheme, and then there was the pit trap idea. Which Jasper and Payne had each come up with independently; it would figure that the women would go for trapping. Clay didn't bother to mention this alternative to Quinn. Who the hell would want to dig a pit trap with sore ribs?
Quinn nodded. He could see Clay messing with them. Quinn himself, while lying awake in pain, had tossed a handful of pebbles down at the bulky shapes of the monsters after the initial terror of them had worn off. "Maybe we could get a big enough rock into a tree to bash one of their head's in," he mused thoughtfully. But once that was accomplished, how would they keep the others from eating their kill. Not that laugher was all that tastey. They had all eaten the one that Kenneth had killed. They didn't taste bad, exactly, but there was something...wrong...in the flavor of the meat. It had made Quinn sick to think that their meal had gotten fat on human meat before it had died at the end of Ken's gun.
Clay hadn't really thought about dropping big rocks onto Laugher heads; he was counting on mid-sized rocks hurled with force to achieve the results he wanted. But that was a minor detail. The fact that Quinn was buying into the general idea idea was good enough for Clay.
"Think about it some," he suggested. "You, me, Ryan and Thorne." Clay figured Quinn had the brains to figure out the details. "Ain't like we got anything better to do," he added with a grin.
Off the top of his head, Quinn couldn't think of any use for Ryan on a hunt other than as bait. He knew it was a thought that crossed the line a little, though, so he kept the opinion to himself. His eyes trained upward on the canopy. "I will. Oh man, I have lots of ideas," he suddenly realized. "Every watch stuff like Indian Jones? Like those huge spiked logs tied up in the roof or in the trees somewhere? And at the right time you cut a rope or yank it free and the huge spiked log swings down and impales people? That kinda thing could work." His voice became more animated as they sort of lingered on the edge of camp.
"Yeah! Yeah, that's the stuff." There was a hint of animation in Clay's voice too. Leave it to Quinn to take his simple idea and run with it. Clay frowned, debating whether to even bring up some of his own logistical hurdles. No point in having a brainiac on board if you couldn't ask them for help, he decided.
"We're gonna need a lotta rocks. More than just a couple pockets full," he elaborated, indicating the small stash of stones he'd taken to carrying around everywhere that was weighing down his front pockets. Not so long ago the arrangement would have been unworkable, but weight loss had effectively turned his jeans into cargo pants.
That thoughtful line between Quinn's brows didn't smooth out even a little bit. ... "Well, what about hunting up more blankets? ... Seems like people find them in the woods all the time. ... We could bundle a bunch of rocks into the middle," he shot Clay a glance and mimed the motion of piling rocks. Not in a condescending sort of way but, as was becoming evident as Quinn felt better day by day, the man spoke with his hands when he was excited. It was a habit that Quinn squashed the moment he got into some sort of competition, but when relaxed and with his guard mostly down, he couldn't help it. "Wrap it all up in vines and hoist it up on a really sturdy branch? Then wait for a pack of laughed and bam," he clapped his hands together sharply. "Bring it all down like a ton of bricks. We might even be able to get more than one of them that way." Quinn was practically smirking at his low level genius.
Clay was following along just fine until Quinn clapped out a boisterous 'bam!' like that asshole chef guy you sometimes saw on TV. He blinked. What the hell was that about? Oh. Quinn wanted to drop a ton of rocks onto the Laughers. More power to him, Clay decided. Meanwhile, he'd solved the problem of storing his own slingshot ammunition up in the tree. Quinn was turning out to be a useful guy to have around.
"Just tell me what you need." The offer was accompanied by another quick flash of white teeth. This guy was the fuckin' brains; Clay would be the muscle.
Seeing the look on Clay's face, Quinn simmered down a couple of stages but he was still on the go. His hamster was hustling in his hamster wheel, as it were. "Yeah, I will. I'll have a look around for stuff that could be used and a good spot to set it all up." He immediately craned his neck to look up at the cross crossed branches overhead. He made a speculative noise. "I'm sure we could come up with something deadly. Whether we eat the bastards or not, it doesn't hurt us to take their number down a bit." The idea of endangering the laugher species was mighty appealing.
Clay nodded, giving in to a full-on no-holds-barred grin when Quinn mentioned thinning the Laugher pack. Now the guy was coming around to his way of thinking. Kill the ugly mother-fuckers. Didn't need no reason, other than payback. And for fun. He gave Quinn a light punch to the shoulder--just a touch, really, in deference to injuries that were still healing--to indicate his supreme approval.
Chuckling, Quinn nodded in acceptance of the well meaning tap. It didn't even hurt, which was a plus. He realized that he was going to have to actually provide dead laughers for Clay now that he'd talked it up. He felt sure that the other guy would help him with whatever plan he cooked up, but it was on Quinn. Fine by him. He felt sure he could set that up. With a vague salute, he sauntered on into the camp, mind churning over what materials he had on hand that could be directed toward murder and mayhem.