theweakhavepurpose | Hadriel Inbox

[a forced laugh] Yeah. Guess so.

That's okay. What would you do with a car here?

[she follows along, phasing through roots and fallen branches]

Spin donuts back on the ice planet? I don't know. But man, my car was great. Candy red pygmillian with a racing stripe. It's probably been blown up or smashed by now. Or has cult symbols all over it.

[He finds a decent enough spot, setting down the supplies and pulling some vines and brush aside to make a clearing.]

I wonder if I'm still pulling my paycheck. Direct deposit and all. I bet I have a shit ton of money in my account.

[she makes a face]

Personally, if I had something like your car? I'd much rather have it blown up or smashed. It would still be yours. Having cult symbols all over it would make it theirs.

[her contribution is finding a decent sized branch and pulling it over to give them somewhere to sit]

You might be? I don't really know how time's supposed to work outside of here. We could all be stuck in a moment for eternity. [a pause] I don't like the thought of that.

That's what Kate said, that when she went home no time had passed at all. Like the world was frozen.

I hope that's not it. I don't want to go back right where I was, I want to have fucking vanished and have Jacob wondering forever how I got out and where I went.

[He makes a small pile of kindling, getting it started with a silver lighter from one of his pockets and blowing on it gently to get it to catch.]

But you're right. I don't want them to have anything of mine. Maybe the resistance has it. I don't know. Likely won't ever find out either.

[she shivers a little] I. . . really don't like the sound of that.

You will. You'll be long gone from there and Jacob will have to stew on it forever, wondering where you went. And he'll never know.

[she watches curiously as he builds and sets the fire. she's been in manors with grand fireplaces before, but she's never seen them actually being used]

...probably not. So might as well hope for the good option?

Yeah. And you know me, full of hope and optimism.

[At least he's self aware enough to realize he's a miserable mess.]

Here, pour those corn kernels into the pan and set it down on this rock. It'll heat up and they'll start popping.

[she gives him an affectionate smile at his self-assessment. she knows that he's doing better than he was when he first arrived]

It's that easy? Okay. [she does as she's instructed and it's not long before the popcorn's popping] Look at that! [she sounds delighted]

Yeah it's pretty easy. I didn't know either, I always made it in a microwave.

[He smiles almost contentedly, sitting down nearby.]

We just let it do that for a few minutes and then it should be nice and puffy and ready for eating. Ideally you want salt and butter for this, but I don't have butter so we're gonna make do. It was pretty good last time without it.

[she gives him an innocent look] A what? [then dissolves into laughter] Kidding! Kidding! I've heard of microwaves before.

[she watches it continue to pop contentedly] I'm sure that it'll be fine. Better than fine. Salt and butter aren't good for you anyway.

Of course not, that's what makes them delicious. No one drinks kale smoothies for fun, because health food is disgusting.

[He picks one out to taste it, licking his fingers after because that's still really hot.]

How do you cook food in the future?

If you don't like kale smoothies, obviously they haven't added enough kiwi.

[she plucks one out as well, popping it into her mouth, chewing, and swallowing] It's good!

[a sheepish smile] To be honest? I don't cook. I've always had servants or gone out to restaurants or had something catered. Even in the Legion, we had a cook.

We had a cook at the Veteran's Center. But he mostly served raw meat and MRE's so I don't think that really counts.

I'm only good at microwaving and grilling, and haven't done any of that here really.

[And popcorn apparently. They seem to have stopped popping and he pours them into a bowl, adds a little salt and gives it a stir.]

Man I miss restaurants though. And french fries.

Raw meat? [she wrinkles her nose] And what's an MRE?

Didn't people mostly grill fresh meat? That's hard to come by around here.

[she waits until he signals that it's okay to have some]

So do I. French fries are junk food, so mother didn't want me to eat them. So of course, every time I got away from her, I had some.

Meal Ready to Eat. It's a packaged thing that cooks itself in the bag when you break the heating element.

They taste like garbage, but they last forever so people stockpile them. Where I'm from there's a whole lot of preppers who think the world is gonna end. Which.. I guess they were right about. But they kept hundreds of those things around to eat during the apocalypse while they locked themselves in their bunkers.

I dunno that I'd call that living though.

I sure wouldn't. If something's wrong and you know it's wrong, you've got to fight back. It's not easy, but--it's necessary.

Why fight back when you can hide out in a bunker and let everyone else die? I guess that's how they thought about it anyway.

I guess it was. It just seems like the easy way out.

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