Petunia 'Coop' Cooper (driveeveryroad) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-07-03 01:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | adnan, coop, z - 1st tribe - day 26 |
So, Ah...If The Dog Isn't Enough Warmth For You Tonight....
Who: Coop and Adnan
When: late afternoon
Where: the path between camp and the spring
What: Getting to know one another better
Rating: G!
Adnan had helped with the cleanup efforts once the storm had given them some mercy, re-setting lean-tos and picking up scattered supplies from everywhere. He supposed they were lucky they hadn't had an all-out stampede of grazers. The entire time, his eyes wandered, looking for the vision in the red dress. Coop. He'd catch sight of her every now and then, but was determined not to hover right away. Not to mention the fact that it was sort of ridiculous that he was looking for her anyway, he'd only pulled her away from the hail a handful of hours ago, and there was work to do.
It only worked for so long. Once things started to wind down and people felt that they'd put the camp back together enough, he was left with not much to do. The fire was being stubborn about lighting, and he had the feeling it was going to be a cold night. He told himself that he should sit for a while, play some guitar, but he didn't do either. Instead he started walking around the area around camp, looking for that red dress. He was attempting to think of a reason for doing so, to give if she asked, but wasn't coming up with much more than the truth. He wanted to check on her.
Coop was in a strange place, and not just physically. There was no doubting this place was not like anywhere she'd ever been. Not after she'd seen the pesks, and the grazers and the tiny little monkeys that lived in the rocks. She'd spent a good portion of the early afternoon sitting and staring at a spot in the rocks where such a little thing had disappeared. The bowl of water she'd been sent to fetch pretty much forgotten in her lap. She might have numbly sat there all day if it hadn't been for the singing.
In a high, sweet and terribly off-key little voice, Ashwin had come up the path from the camp, towing her little brother who seemed to be in an unhappy state. Tripper had been waiting for their arrival, his entire being straining in their direction before Coop realized there was an imminent - if unintended - threat to the little ones. She snatched his collar and held him at her side as Ashwin finished up her stanza of 'This Little Light Of Mine'. Inching forward and dragging the boy behind her, Ashwin gave the dog a wide birth and cast an uncertain look at Coop. "Corbie peed his self," she informed the woman in red with a rather grave voice. Corbin's own expression crumped in humuliated and exagerated unhappiness. There was indeed a certain aroma around the boy.
What followed was a firm full body shake from Coop as she struggled past her own mental anguish and dove in to this childish crisis. Leather clothing was not as easy to deal with as the run of the mill toddler fare purchases at JC Penny but she did the best she could. Some time later, Tripper bounded ahead of them as she walked the two kids back to camp, both of them well watered and a bit cleaner between them. It was on the path between the camp and the spring that Coop spied the man who'd saved her from the hail that morning.
Adnan smiled faintly down at the children as they passed him. They were adorable, even if their presence was a bit disquieting. He'd asked someone and heard that they'd been found here, on their own. He bent down as Tripper trotted up, tongue lolling out, to investigate him. "Hey boy," he said to the dog, addressing him largely as a method of not staring and stuttering over his owner. Adnan crouched down to roughly rub the sides of the dog's head, and took the excited face-licking in stride. His culture wasn't terribly fond of dogs in general, and he'd never really understood why. There was something about them he couldn't help but enjoy. No matter if right now it was just to settle his sudden nervous stomach a bit.
When the children ran ahead on the path, Coop was left to curl her bare toes into the sandy earth beneath the hem of her dress. She'd surpassed cold at this point and wondered if she might be in some early stage of hypothermia. Thank goodness it had warmed up a little bit in the afternoon. Her cheeks coloured a little bit as she recalled cracking her eyes open again midmorning and finding that she had pretty much coopted this poor man - Adam was his name? She couldn't exactly remember. She'd pretty much climbed on top of him and had slept like the dead. And he hadn't moved her. Oh yes, her blush was furious but her smile was both shy and amused. "Hello," she said, resting the rim of the clay bowl she'd used for water on her hip. "I guess you got to meet Tripper while I was sleeping, hmm?" She had no doubt he had come to check on her again and again.
He looked up at her, standing there in a ground-length dress and a water bowl on her hip and just ... wow. He knew, intellectually, that she had to be completely shell-shocked, confused, and miserable, but there was just something about that picture. Maybe because it echoed back to home, maybe because she was just lovely in the afternoon light, maybe something completely else. It didn't bear figuring out, and he was staring. He stood up and rubbed his hands on his jeans, then was suddenly conscious of how dirty they were. How dirty he was in general. "Hello," he answered her back, with a small smile. There, that was a start. "Yes, we more or less got acquainted." He chuckled. The big hound had sniffed him thoroughly after checking on his mistress. He'd lain still for an undetermined amount of time while she slept, acting as a human mattress, and cradling her just right so she wouldn't slip off. Sleep was a foreign concept in that time, aware as he was of every breath she took, and every small sound from her throat. The dress was thin, and he was only human with an active imagination. But now she was awake and before him, and he had to put all that daydreaming aside. He looked at the bowl like he'd just noticed it, and lifted his eyebrows. "I can get that for you, if you want," he offered, gesturing to it.
Coop's face crumpled into comic dismay as she covered her mouth with her free hand. She shook her head twice before letting it drop away. "I'm sorry. I really should have warned you that I sleep like a rock. It's a running joke in my family that the house could burn down around me, I'd get rescued by big burly firemen and I'd wake up sometime after all the fuss, completely refreshed." She shut her mouth, her teeth coming together with an audible click as she tried to reign in her urge to babble. "Sorry, I, um, sure..." She handed him the large bowl of water, more than a little bit glad to be rid of the heavy thing. Coop heaved a sigh and looked embarrassed. "You were really nice to put up with me like that when there was so much going on." Tripper sat heavily between them, looking back and forth with his tongue lolling.
He took the clay container and shook his head, possibly a bit too quickly. "No, don't apologize, it was no trouble at all. It gave me an excuse to lounge for a while," he said, feeling a bit of warmth in his neck. Not enough to show, hopefully. He'd done more than lounge, in all honesty, but he couldn't exactly tell her that. A creepy pervy guy who'd spent ten solid minutes concentrating on the curve of her hips against his was the last thing she probably needed right then. He turned to walk with her back toward camp, though his pace was as slow as he could make it. "So ... I realize this is a ridiculous question, but ... how are you doing?" he asked, looking over at her a bit carefully.
She blew a breath out through pursed lips. "I'm totally freaking out," she said with a definite note of misery in her voice. "I'm so glad that Tripper is with me because he'd have died in the truck alone." She shook her head slowly. "I've talked to a few people today, some of them have been here for almost a full month. I...I can't imagine...I don't think I've ever been out of touch with my family for that long." She heaved a sigh, her narrow shoulders slumping. "And someone told me that a guy died here the other day, that storm this morning." She shook her head. "I've done my share of camping in my life and lived pretty sparse growing up but this is far beyond anything I've ever done." Her own steps were dragging. Seeing the camp in it's drowned state was just too depressing.
He was nodding as she spoke. He could relate, but for the being out of touch with family. Adnan had most definitely roughed it before, but this ... this was different. Even though he'd gotten lucky in what he'd brought with him -- such an odd way to think of it -- the entire tone was different. His strategy so far just seemed to be keeping as busy and being as helpful as possible. "I only arrived a couple of days ago," he said, watching the ground in front of his boots as they slow-walked. "It's overwhelming. And even that is not a good word for it." He couldn't even assure her that they were safe, because they so obviously weren't. But if nothing else, he would do what he could to keep her warm. "I wish I had advice for you, but I haven't been able to formulate any yet," he said with a smirk that didn't hold much humor.
She caught a bit of his smirk in a quick side glance and thought it was kind of cute. He was stubbled and dark. Kind of mysterious, especially with that accent. "You aren't from the States, are you?" she asked, curiosity creeping in to her voice. "I mean, I know it's an abrupt topic change but unless you want me sobbing for my mommy in a few minutes maybe we should try small talk." She gave him a sheepish smile of her own. "Just for a while."
"Of course," he said quickly, understanding that completely. How many times had he changed the subject away from his own family? Too many countless times. "To answer your question, however, no. Not originally from the States. Though that was where I ... was last," he said, trying to find a delicate phrasing there. He wet his lips and glanced over at her, then adjusted his grip on the water bowl. "I've been traveling the U.S. for quite a few years. I was born in Iraq. Kurdistan, but most don't know of it." He sounded a bit apologetic about that, in case she actually did.
Coop gave him a surprised smile, her dark brows creeping upward. "I do," she said, her voice clear as a bell. "I could point it out on a map." She loved maps and her entire childhood had been spent in a cabin utterly wallpapered in them. "It's where this is from." She extended her left arm, the colourful knotted and beaded bracelets were brushed out of the way so that she could show him the burnished wooden bangel she wore. It was old and beaten up, some of the paint beginning to flake off. Inside the wood was worn to a silky texture after so many years worn against the skin. Following the curve of the bracelet was a script etching in Arabic.
He looked genuinely surprised, and stopped walking to see what she was talking about. Holding the bowl against him with one hand, Adnan reached out to turn the bracelet toward him. Despite it's wear, he could read the Arabic clearly, and to see it outside of the Qu'ran he carried gave him an honest pang. He read it and smiled, then let go of it and dropped his hand. He wondered if she knew what it said, and if it would make him blush to tell her. It was possible, as aggravating as that was. He'd thought his time on the road had more or less stamped out that part of him, but old teachings died hard sometimes. And she was just ... beautiful. "Have you ever been?" he asked, eyes intent on her face now.
Coop's nose crinkled up just a little bit as she shook her head. "No, my mother went when I was about two or three. She was sort of traveling around in the Middle East, meeting and learning from all of these amazing potters. That's what she does." She smiled fondly as she spoke about her free spirited mother. "I wish I had a talent for it," she gestured at the basic but serviceable bowl in Adnan's hand. "Sadly, only thing I could ever make out of clay was mud pies."
He chuckled a bit, and picked up the slow-walking again. His grandmother had had a talent for that, potting. He barely remembered her; she'd passed on when he was very young. "I think I would be right there with you," he said. Then nodded in the direction of her wrist again. "I was never any good at the small crafts. Too much fine-finger work. Give me something large to hammer and fit together and I am passable, but ..." He trailed off and shook his head. It hadn't been until he was on the road with tons of time on his hands that he'd learned guitar, after all.
"Ah, not me." She smiled and shook her head. "I don't have any artistic talents at all I think," she said as she heaved a sigh. "Just one really practical one. I'm an excellent driver. I can drive anything on land or water." She gave him a quick smile. "I was planning on getting my pilots license but I never got around to it." Maybe they could invent a plane here, somehow. Once they figured out how to machine parts. Or smelt ores. Or mine. She didn't even try to hold back another sigh. "Not much use here."
"How about musically?" he asked, not wanting to dwell on what was useful here and what wasn't. One never knew, and he was of the opinion that nobody had been there long enough to know for certain what they would need and what they wouldn't. So he focused in on the arts with her instead, curious as well as wanting to stay on lighter topics.
She shook her head. "I don't know. I love music but I've never tried to play an instrument before. I've never had lessons anyways. As far as singing and dancing goes, I'm not sure if I'm good so much as I'm enthusiastic." She chuckled at the description and thought it was pretty accurate. "I'm guessing that music is your special skill? Other than building big things with hammers?" Camp was coming in to sight now, the bushes all around full of blankets that were flapping in the wind. Coop eyed them with naked jealousy. "It was so hot in the sleeper cab in my truck," she heaved a sigh. "I didn't get under the covers." No pillow, no blanket. No shoes. Hell, she didn't even have a bra.
He'd always been of the mindset that enthusiasm outweighed talent. It was more about enjoying things than blowing other people away with them. In Adnan's world, anyway. "I don't know about being my special skill, but I enjoy it," he said, looking at the blankets, then back to her. He kind of regretted giving his extra clothes to Helena to pass out at that moment, then chided himself. Coop was more covered up than some of the men in camp. But he did still have his jacket. "I have a coat you can use, if you need it," he told Coop seriously. He was wearing a full shirt and jeans, after all. "I've been using my rolled pack as a pillow, as well, until something better comes along." Which meant it would have to be made, but that wasn't out of the question.
Coop looked surprised by his offer and almost refused. "Thanks, I'll probably take you up on it," she told him. "I don't know if I'd survive a night out here in the wet, with just this thing on." She fingered the long skirt of her dress. "I was in New Mexico last night. Hauling a load of tin down to Mexico." She shook her head slowly. "I don't understand this. Why would something abduct me? I'm just a truck driver." As Tripper bounded back up the path toward them, checking their progress, Coop gestured at him. "Or my dog? Why him? Not that I'm not grateful about that." She scritched one of Trippers floppy ears. "He'd definitely have died alone in that truck. It was too hot."
Adnan wished that he had an answer for her. For any of them. But all he could do was shake his head and shrug a bit. "I hadn't really thought of it as an abduction, but ... who knows. I was just a drifter, a girl I spoke with yesterday just worked at Lowe's ... if there's a connection between all of us, I don't think anyone's found it yet." He nodded down at Tripper, certainly seeing how she could be grateful for that. Perhaps that was why he was taking things so well. He hadn't exactly left anyone substantial behind. He'd lived a rather isolated life since Iraq; made acquaintences, brief friends, but hadn't settled down anywhere yet.
Coop's mouth drew down in thought. "A drifter? You just...hitchhiked?" She saw plenty of them on the road. Even on the interstates, which was ridiculously dangerous. She always got a little nervous when she had to pass them, horrified of clipping some more person with a jump from her trailer. "Dangerous life," she commented. "I guess I was sort of a drifter too, though. My home was the sleeper cab of my truck. Movable real estate," she said with a faint chuckle.
"Hitchhiked, regular-hiked, got rides from people I befriended ..." he said, looking over at her with a faint smile. "I even had a car for a while. I bought it for three hundred dollars, and it got me through Utah." He didn't comment on it being a dangerous life; he had some scars to prove he knew that. The guitar he had was actually his fourth one; people stole instruments with surprising regularity. And if you didn't have anything they wanted ... well. Or they got violent simply on the fact that he had darker coloring and a Middle Eastern accent. It had never stopped him from walking, and it never would. There wasn't much else for him to really do, he didn't feel.
Coop tipped her face up to look at him with more than a little bit of curiosity. "I was never one to pick up hitchhikers. It would have lost me my job, for sure, if not gotten me in to some other kind of trouble." She traveled with a dog for a reason. True, Tripper was a wuss, but no one but her knew that. He could be noisy and unfriendly looking if he wanted to be. "But I know what you mean about continually being on the move." She chuckled and looked around herself. "This is probably the first thing that qualifies as a vacation from driving that I've taken in..well, almost a year." With no truck to get back to, she wondered what she'd do with all of her time here.
Adnan nodded, kind of weirdly glad to hear that she never picked up hitchers. He'd ridden with countless truck drivers, but they were always big burly men who could hold their own. Even with a dog, a beautiful young woman ... but that didn't really bear thinking about. "Probably for the best that you didn't," he said, knowing that was an understatement. "I've stopped for a couple months at a time before, when I found good work, but ..." he trailed off and shrugged. Nowhere had ever felt like home. And he was starting to think that nowhere ever would. He eyed the camp they were almost walking into now with a critical eye. He wasn't sure 'vacation' was the right word for it, but he was hoping to at least make it liveable. They all deserved that, at least.
Coop sighed and nodded. "I was always really careful." She flashed him a smile. "You sound almost like my brothers right there. 'Probably for the best' was always a disguised 'you're so lucky you didn't, or I'd have to kill you.'" Coop chuckled and shook her head. "Overprotective, and yet, all three of them are ramblers just like me. We got it from our mom." She'd already mentioned that her mother had passed through the Middle East many years ago. When the kids were young she was always wandering off for three months here, a month there. All in the name of her art. They might have held it against her if they all hadn't been just like her.
He chuckled along with her, though he wasn't sure if it was a good thing to be compared to her brothers or not. She obviously had affection, but ... well, it didn't matter. Because he was just being ridiculous anyway, there wasn't any room for that sort of interest here. Especially on her first day. "It's a wonderful life, even with the downsides," he said with a firm nod. Drifting suited him. Whether this life here -- or what they could make of it -- suited him or not, he wasn't sure yet. It would remain to be seen. He glanced out at the camp and then back to her. "Where was this supposed to go?" he asked, nodding down to the water bowl.
"Ah, just over by the fire. I brought it down for people who want to wash some of the mub off." She pinched the skirt at about midthigh and pulled it away to show her own feet, muddy to the ankles. She shrugged. "I guess it was silly, everyone will just get muddy again and the water is cold but...I think I just used it as an excuse to go and sit by myself by the spring." She gave him a sheepish smile. "I don't like falling to pieces with an audience. Especially people I don't know." She tipped her chin up as if to say that urge had passed and she was back to being strongand useful again. "I did notice that there are some big and uneven chunks of shale lying around up there," she gestured back toward the spring. "I think that when I start my own lean-to I'm going to gather some of that stone to make a flagstone floor." She shrugged her thin shoulders. "It might be a hard bed but I'd prefer that, something I can sweep clean, to the mud that seems to be at the bottom of everyone else's lean-tos today."
Adnan blinked and looked surprised. "That's genius," he murmured, though he knew it really wasn't. It was just an idea he hadn't had. Well he was definitely going to incorporate it into his ideas. Stone held up better than wood floors, that was for sure. That part of his brain spiraled off in the planning direction and he looked distracted for a moment or two. "I'm going to talk to the council -- probably tomorrow -- about starting building on more solid structures," he explained, in case she'd missed that part of him talking to Aaron that morning. "That's actually a really good idea. I was thinking of wood floors, but stone wouldn't warp like wood does ..." He started that same slow-walk toward the fire pit, to put the water down. It still wasn't very heavy to him, but he was ready to get rid of it.
Coop followed after him. "Really? Like a place with walls and doors and windows as well?" she asked, curious about what he was hoping to build. "I remember something about Aaron having tools and nails. You two were talking about building when I drifted off." She gave him a sheepish smile. "I'm terrible when I'm tired, I know. I sort of tune everything out," Coop chuckled. "I think it was shock related this morning." She'd passed right out despite being uncomfortable, cold, wet and in the company of strangers.
"Well ... I don't know about that ambitious, right off," he said with a chuckle, squatting to put the water down. He brushed his hands off on one another and looked at her. "More a large one-room building, for gatherings and as shelter if we get hit with another bad storm. And smaller ... homes for people, I suppose. That are sturdier than then lean-tos. Even if we just get a frame up, we can make temporary walls out of the palms and mud. Make thatched rooves. But the big one ... I want it to be solid," he said, giving a firm nod. They needed to feel safe, and have something to close them in against the world around them. Even if it wouldn't hold up against everything -- the huge bird skeleton cross his mind, unbidden -- it would be something.
Coop nodded along with what he was saying. "Well, I'm not really a builder but I can carry and fetch like a real pro. When you start to build let me know and I'll come to help as well." A project like that would be the perfect thing for forgetting about all of one's woes. Woes such as long lost family. For now she could get away with considering them as unreachable but still out there. For now, she could tell herself she would see them again some day. She hoped she would. However, she didn't relish the idea of sleeping in the mud that night and would love the chance to help him build some place that would be warmer and much more secure.
"Oh I will," Adnan said with a faint chuckle. He planned on recruiting everyone who wanted a roof over their heads. They could all do something. "Thank you," he added, since she'd offered, at least. He wiped his palms on the legs of his jeans, and ended up slipping his fingers into his back pockets. At that moment he felt strangely awkward, like he wasn't sure what to say anymore. "So, ah ... if the dog isn't enough warmth for you tonight ... I usually set up over there," he said, nodding to one of the carts that they'd set up in the rough circle around camp. It was the best roof he could do for the moment. " ... for the jacket, I mean," he added hastily, just in case she thought he meant ... oh hell.
Oh, she had. A dusky blush had settled over her broad, flat cheekbones and her teeth had sunk into her lower lip as she debated how to respond. As he stumbled across the finish line by bringing up the jacket, she nodded, jumping on board quickly as he tried to recover. "The coat! Ok, I will." She clasped her hands behind herself, unsure what to say now. The poor guy looked like he wanted to strangle himself with his tongue.
He was internally smacking himself in the forehead as he glanced down at his muddy boots. Excuse, he needed an excuse. She seemed better now, mood-wise, and he'd just stuck one of those filthy boots in his mouth, so it was time for an excuse. "Ah, well ... I need to get back to planning, I suppose, so I've got some things of substance to present to them tomorrow," he said, glancing back up briefly. He'd made her blush. And it looked lovely on her cheeks, but still. Idiot. "I will ... see you around," he said. What was he, fifteen? Apparently so.
Coop nodded, amusement stealing across her face along with the blush. She nodded and gave him another quick smile. If he couldn't look at her until he got his embarrassment under control, he could at least hear the smile in her voice. "Good luck with that. I'm sure they'll agree that it's necessary." Her dog was barking at something down the beach and she inclined her head toward him. "I better go see what he's found," she said, seizing her own excuse. "I'll see you later, Adnan." With a little wave she turned her back and bit in to her lip to suppress a giggle and carefully picked her way through the organized debris of camp.
"Thank you. See you later," he said, and Adnan looked up just in time to see her turn and start off. Which was a sight that he took the moment just to watch. The breeze flapping her light red skirt around, against the curves of her legs. Well ... okay, so he'd proven that even being thrown into an insane alien world had done nothing to quiet his libido, that was something good to know about himself. Chuckling very faintly, he turned to head back to his pack and hopefully get some work done.