Clara Oswald is going the long way round (alwaysbeenthere) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-02-12 18:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, clara oswald, james kirk |
Who: Clara and Jim
What: Camping, S’mores
When: This weekend (11/12 February)
Where: Mountains
Status: Log | Complete
There was a bit of a conflict for Jim. In his dreams he was more of a planner when it came to vacations. At the least he liked to get an idea of what he was going to do. Awake he was a lot more spontaneous. And marshmallows and s'mores to escape for a weekend was kind of spontaneous. So was inviting Clara, but he figured she could use the escape as well. And it was a lot better to be cold with a person than alone.
It was much colder up in the mountains, but his tent would keep the from freezing to death. Probably.
Clara’d had no real plans going on when Jim had suggested running away to the mountains to get away from it all after saying he was exhausted in all senses of the words. So because she was worried as that sort of exhaustion was not a good thing, and because she had no conflicts, she had agreed. Spontaneous was something she was good at.
Mostly. She was still a neurotic control freak, but that bit of her personality had mellowed out some as she had adjusted to Orange County and the dreams. And well, the whole inability to die until she had the Trap Street dream again also made her a lot more reckless and spontaneous.
For now though, it was just camping. She barely noticed the cold now. She was vaguely aware of it, but there was no real discomfort or anything of that nature. For now, making s’mores.
How did cold and being dead even work? Jim didn’t really know, but he wasn’t going to ask. Some things you didn’t talk about and other things you saved for when they clearly needed to be talked about but the person was being stubborn.
“You know, I haven’t actually made s’mores in years. It’s like I’ve forgotten a camping tradition.”
Things that didn’t need to be discussed, the specifics of her current state of being frozen in time. Mostly because Clara didn’t have answers and well, she didn’t feel it necessary to talk about. It wasn’t like she was being reckless or anything of that nature. Well. Not at the moment.
“I wouldn’t know.” S’mores weren’t exactly something that was common in the UK. There were biscuits which could feasibly work but they weren’t the graham crackers that seemed important, let alone different brands. Either way, she was excited to try it.
It was an exceptionally clear night, and Jim looked up at the blanket of stars overhead. “Then you’re in for a real treat. Ooey gooey goodness trapped between a sweet pair of crackers.” He made it sound like it was some kind of gourmet delicacy.
Honestly, it was better than a lot of gourmet food.
“Talk it up and you better hope it lives up to your description.” Clara was certainly amused. She had read plenty about S’mores. She knew it was some sort of American staple when it came to camping and the like, but it just wasn’t something she had known. Mostly she was just teasing Jim though as she had no doubt that it would be good.
“I think you’d know by know I always live up to my descriptions,” Jim said, his teeth gleaming in the firelight. “I have extra marshmallows too. I did promise roasting them.”
Which was also important. He came over and sat next to her so he could show her how to make the s’mores.
“Well yes, but sometimes men like to overcompensate on well… anything. Americans do as well so I mean, I just need to make that clear that I’m onto those tricks.” Grinning as she was just teasing, Clara watched as she was shown the proper way to make s’mores. It was rather ingenious all things considered. A bit unhygienic in practice (really, a skewer?) but brilliant all the same.
“I’m not going to deny that,” Jim admitted. Not that he thought he had much to overcompensate for, but he probably did sometimes all the same. “But sometimes it can be a little fun to exaggerate. I like to think I haven’t exaggerated certain things too much.”
The marshmallows had that lovelyburntsinge around them and the chocolate was melted, so Jim gestured for Clara to try it. He didn’t bother to warn her it was hot though.
Given Clara tended to enjoy messing with her friends, she just shrugged as Jim mentioned he liked to think he didn’t exaggerate certain things too much. Let him ruminate over it. Honestly she couldn’t think of anything but it was all part of the joking manner they had going on. That and as this was supposed to be a recharging camping trip, there was no need to get caught up in the mire of things. Well, unless they came up. Sometimes that happened as well.
Instead she waited for the cue from Jim in regards to her s’more before placing the marshmallow and chocolate on the graham crackers. And…. bloody hell that was hot! She’d even waited a bit because of course it would be. But she didn’t expect that!
“Tastes like burning.”
“It’s a bit like eating molten lava at first isn’t it,” Jim said, his grin going from ‘wide’ to ‘shiteating’. “Met an alien race like that. They were from a part of a planet in constant seismic flux so they’d evolved a way to digest molten rock. Probably because they were basically rock.” They reminded him of the Horta.
Rolling her eyes as Jim went into shiteating mode, Clara took a break with the s’more so that it didn’t destroy her tastebuds by burning. Okay well it wouldn’t matter in a bit, but that was irrelevant. She wanted to enjoy the s’more now, thank you very much. “Oh just a bit.”
Not necessarily a bad thing, but still. It was also very… gooey. Which she supposed made sense but it wasn’t something Clara was used to and it was quite distracting to her.
“A little bit.” Jim had a momentary thought of a dog trying to chew on peanut butter, with Clara and the gooey marshmallows and honestly it only made him smile harder. It was a really cute mental image, comparing Clara to a puppy.
So he kept grinning at her.
Having been distracted by the gooey-ness of the marshmallows on her fingers, Clara didn’t notice the grinning at her until she looked up.
“What?”
Only to scrunch up her nose as she had thought she was free of the marshmallow attack only to realize that there was still marshmallow goo a finger.
“Nothing. I’m just enjoying your suffering under that gooey mess.” True friends enjoyed each others’ suffering, especially when it was the kind of suffering one could laugh about. Beat the hell out of the other kind.
“Good, but messy. Like some other things in life.”
“Rude.” But it was true. Friends did get to enjoy one another’s suffering when it was something of this nature. Other sorts of suffering were not the type to enjoy and if you did, you probably weren’t really a friend. Still she did quirk a brow at the next comment, distracted from the gooey mess of melted marshmallow.
“Oh?”
Jim took a moment to deal with his own gooey mess before he was able to reply. He ticked them off on sticky fingers. “Sex. Food. Friends. Family. All good, all messy at times.”
As Jim ticked off the different things, Clara just quirked a brow. Well, okay then. Though it was a fairly accurate description. “Well, that is true. They can certainly be messy at times. Just sounded like there was more there given you were wanting to recharge because of being exhausted.”
Shrugging, Clara tried her now not burning death version of a s’more. Okay, definitely not the worst thing ever.
"Relationships can get messy. What's going on in the world can get messy. Those aren't good messy." They were things that Jim didn't really want to think about at the moment. Recharge, then find ways to fight again. "Got enough bad messy going around to share, really."
“Well yeah, of course they can. They take effort and work.” That was sort of the thing about relationships. They didn’t come easy and took actual work and sometimes they were complicated but that didn’t necessarily make it bad. “You put work into the things that are worth it.” As for the part about the world being messy, that was an understatement.
“If you make your decisions on what to do or not to do because of what’s happening in the world, then you let the world win.” And who wanted that? Still she did look at Jim at the last bit. “Just because it’s bad messy right now doesn’t mean it will always be that way.”
It was a good peptalk, and the kind of thing Jim needed to hear. In the absence of his dream friends, he needed people to keep him grounded. Oddly enough, the Space-Time babe was just that person. “You’re right. Maybe we could plot the downfall of an authoritarian regime over s’mores.”
Somehow, that seemed like something that could happen to his dream self.
Between having to do so with her dad even before the dreams, and then with the Doctor in the dreams as well as out of them, Clara was very good at being able to determine if someone actually took what she said to heart and would think about it or if they were just pacifying her. If it were the latter, she would have pressed the issue. But as she could tell that Jim took what she said to heart and wouldn’t brush it off, she was content to let it go and discuss plotting the downfall of authoritarian regimes instead.
It was something that needed to be done and really, it wasn’t the strangest thing she had done.
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Because who wouldn’t want to discuss such downfalls over s’mores?