InsaneJournal

Who: Jo Harvelle & Chuck Shurley
Where: Dean's Camp
When: Sunday afternoon
What: Cuteness + Marriage arguing
Rating: PG probably?
Status: In progress; starts off as a gdoc log, then thread



He was kind of freaking out right now.

Chuck wasn’t entirely sure why he was freaking out so much, waiting for Jo to get back. He was supposed to be used to it, when she went out on a job, by now, right? And it wasn’t like what he wanted to talk to her about had anything to do with it, because this was far from the first time they’d had this discussion, and it probably wouldn’t be the last one, either, unless she finally agreed...

...which he didn’t really think she would do, because she hadn’t so far, and Jo wasn’t one for changing her mind about things, but he was going to give it a try, anyway, because if he didn’t that was letting her win, and Chuck wasn’t willing to let her win on this.

Maybe it was just that she was running late for some reason, that had him so uneasy. He didn’t really know what was up - no one was supposed to tell him any of the important details, and that was perfectly fine with him most of the time ...except for when Jo was involved, in which case it became sort of a huge deal because for all he knew she could be out there being chased by zombie vampire monkeys from friggin’ space and no one would tell him what he had to worry about so he just worried about everything that could possibly go wrong and that didn’t really help anyone.

The sound of the vehicles entering camp had Chuck moving around the cabin in a frenzy - checking to make sure everything was clean and nice, peeking out the window in hopes of catching sight of her (and half-terrified that the glance he’d see of her would be someone hauling her broken body back to camp, or putting her down if she got infected, he was always half-terrified of that but couldn’t just not look because if he didn’t look just because he was scared he would live in the closet and he’d never do anything, and he wouldn’t be of any use to anyone at all that way), slipping outside onto the porch to wait because he knew she didn’t always like it when he came to find her after she got back. If something had gone wrong, and she wasn’t in the best mood, he didn’t want to, like, smother her, or something.

The ring hanging on the chain around his neck was removed and tucked into his pocket - he didn’t know if she knew he wore it, while she was gone, but he didn’t really want to admit to it if she didn’t; he’d give it back to her, and hopefully this time she’d agree that it was about time they got actually married, since for all they knew the world could end tomorrow. He wasn’t an optimist, he didn’t think this would ever be over in any kind of a good way, and waiting for a day that would never come to do something that would be awesome? Yeah, no fun at all.

On this particular day, Jo was in a pretty bad mood, though she didn't really let it show. They'd been ambushed on the way back, and lost some of the supplies they had picked up. No one had gotten killed this time, thankfully, but it had been rough for the entire team. As she killed the engine in the truck and hopped out, she glanced down at her clothes and let out a small, exasperated sigh. A rock richote'd by one of the attackers had caught her arm, the sharp edge leaving a tear in the sleeve of her jacket, and knicking her flesh. She was annoyed that she would now have to sew up the jacket because sewing was one of the things she hated to do, but did anyway because it needed to be done (even though she wasn't very good at it unless it was flesh she was sewing up), and also because as soon as Chuck saw the blood, he'd probably panic and try to demand that she not go back out there again. They both knew that she would anyway, but Jo knew it made him feel better if he was able to worry over her, so she let him. Had that sentiment come from Ruby or Dean, she would've told them (politely) to go to hell. Not that she'd hear that from Dean, because he wasn't the type to give a shit about things like that. Not anymore.

As the others unloaded the bags and headed for the supply cabin, she shouldered her shotgun and headed for the cabin she shared with Chuck, inwardly hoping that he would be at the supply cabin and she could hide the jacket for a couple days before he spotted the blood. As she neared it and her dark eyes picked him out on the porch, she realized there would be no such luck. Forcing a smile as she got closer, she reached a hand back to her hair and pulled out the scrunchy, then started to comb her fingers through to unbraid it. She was tired, in serious need of a shower, and hungry. And by the look in Chuck's eyes, she could tell it'd be a while befor eshe got most of that. He had 'The Look' in them, the one that had so often sent her running to the other side of the camp when she saw it.

"Hey. Missed you." Hoping to stem off any arguments or panicked words, she took the four small steps in a single movement, leaning in to him to lightly kiss his lips. "Got dinner?"

Chuck pretty much had the eyes of a freakin’ eagle, sometimes. Or, okay, not really, not at all, that was what the glasses were for, except for how he rarely needed to wear them anymore, but the point was, he was alarmingly good at picking out little things like the little abrasion on Jo’s arm, and it made his stomach twist and his hands shake where they were gripping at the railing. He didn’t see anything else worth worrying about - it wasn’t like there was a whole lot of blood or anything, and she was walking and she didn’t seem to be broken or anything, and that was probably the only reason he wasn’t having a full-blown panic attack or anything, because, geez, this whole apocalypse crap was seriously stressful.

As she came up onto the porch, he managed to pry his hands off the railing to loop an arm around her waist as she leaned in to kiss him, his own “Hey,” sounding kind of wobbly and thin, though he did his best to keep his smile bright and real, because she was alive and okay and here, so it was okay. It was fine.

”Wasn’t sure when you’d be back so I didn’t start it yet, but I managed to grab some tomato soup when the supplies were brought back last time, since I know you like it, so I figured we’d have that? It won’t take long to make, so,” he waved a hand towards the cabin, “You can, you know. Get cleaned up and make sure that’s... is that- are you okay?” More gesturing, this time at her arm. He knew the answer would be yes - he knew she was fine - but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to hear her say it, just to be sure.

She leaned into his embrace a little more than she normally did, letting him - and only him - see that she was a lot more tired than she let on. Giving her hair one last shake, she smiled again, the look a little more 'real' this time, because she really was very glad to see him. She slid her arms around him for a quick hug, then just left them there. "You got tomato soup?" The smile shifted into a delighted grin. It'd been months since she'd had any, and while she had heard someone on the last run mention them, she hadn't spoken up. She didn't want to take anything away from the group just because she wanted one of her favorite meals. "I'd love to have some." At his mention of cleaning up, she gave a nod.

"I need to shower...I think I'm starting to smell like a freaking truck now." She sighed and let him go, taking a step towards the door, then stopping at his gesture. She glanced at the arm and made a face. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sharp rock caught me. Only a flesh wound, promise." But she did want to clean it up and take care of it...they had all learned early on that even scratches let go too long could get infected, and things weren't pretty after that. "Things okay around here?"

“Yup. Perks of the job,” he responded with a shrug and a nod and his own grin grew - he liked seeing her actually happy, even if it was over little things like her favorite kind of soup. Part of being in charge of keeping the storage area orderly and inventoried meant knowing when the ‘good stuff’ came in. Not that he generally took all - or even most, or a lot - of the ‘good stuff’, because they tended to ration everything out as equally as possible... but it wasn’t like everyone was clambering for a can of tomato soup, or anything. Different opinions on what the ‘good stuff’ even was meant a lot less debating and fighting over food than he’d expected when he’d first started out with this whole thing.

Her explanation of her injury made him feel a little better - she was okay, there was an extremely low risk of her having been infected, she wasn’t going to get sick and die, as long as she didn’t, like, rub dirt in the wound, or something, probably. It could have been a lot worse (and, no, he wasn’t going to sit here and think about all the ways it could be worse - at least not now, because she was here, now, and he had other things to think about).

“Everything’s fine, I think,” he responded, moving to hold the door open for her, “I mean, nothing huge and dramatic happened, anyway. Shelf in Storage B broke, but I fixed it, so that’s fine, now...” For an ex-Prophet of the Lord living in apocalyptic times where a freakin’ demonic plague was turning people into monsters and everyone lived in glorified refugee camps, his life could be pretty mundane sometimes.

"Sometimes, I really love your job." She grinned again as she stepped into the cabin after he pulled the door open. Once inside, she unslung her gun and propped it against the wall, then started heading for the bathroom, stripping as she walked. "Wanna hear something funny? I kinda feel like I can taste that soup already." She shook her head absently, stepping into the bathroom and leaving the door open in case he wanted to talk or join her or something. She started the shower and stepped in, automatically shivering at the first icy cold blast. Hot water was a luxury they just didn't have in the camp, unless they tried to use one of the few tubs around and heat water that way. Not that she wasn't completely used to it by now. She closed her eyes and ducked her head under the water, then started to scrub away dirt and dried blood with her hands.

"Any of the other shelves getting shaky?" She called out from behind the curtain, over the sound of the water.

“Sometimes, I don’t hate it,” he agreed with a grin of his own, following her inside and closing the door behind him. A lot of the time, he did hate it - mostly just because it was stressful, but then again what wasn’t when the world was literally ending? There was a reason, though, that he’d never been good at holding down jobs before, and it had little to do with the visions he used to deal with, and a lot to do with his inability to deal with stress in an appropriate way.

While she headed into the bathroom, he moved to the stove - it wasn’t like they had a separate kitchen, or anything. It was almost all one big room, aside from the bathroom and the closet. So he was able to hear her (and sneak peeks in the open door, whatever) without much trouble, calling back over the sound of the shower in return while he emptied the can of soup into the battered pot, putting it on the single burner of the little stove and turning it on. “Nah, not that I know of. I think that one was just put up wrong.” Some of the storage sheds were old, converted from storage for kayaks and scuba gear for the old summer camps to large pantries, and the shelves that had been put in could have just been done wrong - good enough to hold for a while, but over time, with heavy cans on them, not so much.

Not that things stayed on the shelves that long around here, though. Friggin’ people ate everything like it food wasn’t scarce at all, or something. They’d need to plant another garden, soon, maybe get someone out there to go fishing... there was a lot that needed to be done, and he couldn’t do anything more than suggest it, and hope someone listened. These days, no one really seemed to - Dean had better things to do, and aside from Jo, he didn’t really talk to that many people, especially not people who had anything to do with getting people to do what needed to be done.

“So did the mission go okay?” he called, stirring the soup around a little with one hand while his other slipped into his pocket to wrap around the ring there.

Jo closed her eyes under the shower spray, biting back a sigh. She didn't really want to talk about the mission, but she should have known he'd ask. "Well, the first part went perfectly. We managed to get everything on your list. But on the way back...there was an ambush. Not Croats-another camp, I think. One that's not in our little family." She moved as fast as she could in the shower, not wanting to be under the cold spray for too long. "We ended up losing about a third of the supplies." She was disappointed, and it was obvious. A few minutes later, she shut off the water, then stepped out and wrapped a towel around herself, heading towards the kitchen where he was.

She sank onto the couch, dragging a hand through her hair to try and dry it somewhat. "I'm sorry, Chuck." She gave him a small, sad smile, watching him at the stove. "Have you been adding more to your list of stuff that needs to be done around here?"

The word ambush made Chuck’s stomach twist uncomfortably, and he focused on the rest of Jo’s words while trying to unknot his insides, at least long enough to offer a fairly genuinely unamused “That sucks,” over the sound of the water. A third of one load of supplies, that was kind of a lot. That probably meant Dean was going to be in a pissy mood, he didn’t like when things went wrong, and if Chuck was telling him something was wrong as a result of something going wrong, he liked it even less.

He just hoped the freakin’ raiders hadn’t taken the toilet paper, if they’d even found any. They were getting kind of low, probably only another month’s supply left... and he was pretty sure they didn’t have the means to create their own toilet paper, and dealing with hygiene was hard enough with it.

“Hey, what for?” Her apologizing broke his worrying interlude, and he frowned, looking up from where he’d been sightlessly staring into the pot of soup, “I’d rather have you back safe than all the supplies, so it’s fine.” It wasn’t fine, exactly, it would make things a little harder, but it wasn’t like it was a horrible thing, comparatively. If she didn’t come back...

...that would really, really be a lot worse.

"Have you been adding more to your list of stuff that needs to be done around here?"

“Yup. Or, well. Not the literal list. The mental equivalent, though, yeah,” he kept stirring the soup - these little burners packed a lot of heat, thankfully, so it wouldn’t take long to cook, but it also wouldn’t take long to burn if he left it alone too long - “Mostly just getting ready for when it gets cold. These cabins are freakishly drafty, and we’ll need to have more stuff stockpiled, in case we get a blizzard or something and can’t go raiding for more...”

Ugh, just thinking about all the stuff that needed to be done was exhausting.

"I know how important some of those supplies were. We shouldn't have lost them. I should have been watching for signs more closely." Even though it wasn't fully her fault, she usually shouldered the blame, at least when talking to Chuck, or Ruby. She hated when things went wrong on missions. curling up in the towel, she gave a small nod in reply to his words.

"We didn't lose the blankets, so that should help, at least for some of the worse off cabins, and the ones along the edges that get more weather-wear." Like Dean's, but she didn't say that out loud. "And there has to be someone here who knows how to insulate the cabins more. We can even look into building more fire pits." Of course, there was a danger to that as well, because there was more of a hazard of something catching on fire, but if that's what would keep them alive, then she would suggest it.

"It's getting colder earlier this year, I think. I'm getting the feeling this winter is going to be the worse yet."