[Runaways] Corner of 5th and Washington
I haven't written anything for chash in forever. Fixing that.
Title: Corner of 5th and Washington
Series: Runaways
Spoilers/warning: Nebulous short time after season one but before they find the new lair in season two
Wordcount: 1,130
Summary: Chase isn't romantic, Gert hates chivalry. It's not a date.
It was February thirteenth. Chase Stein and Getrude Yorkes were out by the Santa Monica pier in what was unequivocally, absolutely, most assuredly not a date.
For one, it was raining. The entire sky was overcast and suddenly, without a single warning or shift in pressure, the clouds would drop buckets over everything. Skyscrapers and sidewalks equally were drenched, as was anyone nesting in the streets without something to hide under. It was the kind of storm that perfectly characterized Los Angeles in the winter, fickle and lukewarm.
“Dude,” Chase exclaimed, pulling at the hood of his sweatshirt, “even the bums are hiding out right now.”
“It’s not hiding if they’re heading to public spaces. The library gets the most traffic on rainy days, didn’t you hear?” Gert was mumbling. She had to keep her head low so the rain wouldn’t completely cover her glasses, but even as it stood right now she would stop at the end of each block they crossed and try to wipe some of it away with the inside of her sleeve.
“So why are we the ones getting soaked when the rest of LA’s upstanding citizens are drying themselves out?”
“Because we’re out of food, I need a breather, and you smell like you haven’t taken a bath in five days.”
Chase’s jaw stuck out at the side, like he was chewing over something, probably an excuse because he hadn’t actually bathed that long. “I don’t smell as bad as a bum.”
“Yeah. But I’m not sleeping next to a bum,” Gert retorted.
Chase grinned, and in a move founded completely on impulsive courting rituals as explained by the lacrosse locker room discussions, draped an arm over her shoulders. His coat halfway covered her in the gesture, extra large and found out of a Salvation Army bin, it probably smelled just as bad. If anyone got the idea that he was trying to be gallant with something as dumb as covering someone already drenched with a ratty coat, he would have laughed. Gert hated the very idea of chivalry and she wasn’t too fond of possessive macho gestures in public. Really, he was just waiting for her to elbow him in the gut and tell him to get off.
She didn’t.
Chase thought he’d take his chances and followed up with, “Do I smell better now?”
Gert took the opportunity to wipe her lenses again. “You smell like wet dinosaur.”
“That’s gotta be a yes. You don’t complain about Old Lace when she’s around.”
“I don’t have to. Mind link, remember? Besides, unlike you, she listens.”
“Hey, I listen!” Chase protested. “Sometimes!”
“I shouldn’t have to tell you to take a bath.”
“Not my fault whenever you ever get me undressed you’re asking me to do something else.”
That was when Gert elbowed him in the gut. “Way to be completely disgusting.”
He winced and leaned over to get his stomach muscles back in working order. From this height he was just about at her eye level. The purple dye made her hair look like scraggly strings of muppet fur that had started showing the roots of her naturally dark hair. She wasn’t wearing makeup since she only had half a bottle of mascara left, and it was a just stupid errand in the rain. Plus she looked cranky and was giving him a dark glare over the corner of her 50’s style glass rims.
Chase thought she looked absolutely gorgeous.
“So what’s on the list?” he asked.
“No meat,” she said as if reading his mind. “Just some dried vegetables, rice or bread. Whatever we can get cheap. Diet coke. Definitely oranges.”
“Oranges?”
“To prevent scurvy,” Gert said completely deadpan.
“Hey, pirates get scurvy. That sounds like a badass thing to get.”
“Not if you want me to keep kissing you.”
“Fine, whatever, pirates are kinda gay anyway. Oranges it is.” He didn’t ask her if this was some girl thing to get him out and looking at all the Valentine’s Day stuff. Gert left all the mindfuck plans to their parents. In fact he was pretty sure all the hearts and cards stuff would make her gag.
So when he found her at the card aisle of the little convenience store, Chase had a brief moment of wondering whether or not she was replaced by a Skrull.
“Molly would like this,” she asked, but from the authoritative tone he wonders if she’s just showing him so he could say he helped later. It was pink, with glitter and some dude in a gay outfit holding out a heart asking for the reader to be his super valentine.
“It looks like Hallmark barfed on it.”
Gert shrugged and put it on top of the loaf of bread. “She always got a lot of cards for Valentine’s Day. Karolina and I were talking about how maybe having something like this would cheer her up.”
Chase heard that tone enough from Karolina and Nico to know they were talking girl stuff. But hearing it from Gert was a little surprising. He idly wondered how her old Valentine’s Days went. He figured she spent time traumatizing the other kids in her class with how St. Valentine was beaten and stoned before being beheaded outside of the Flamian Gates.
“It’s cool,” Chase added. Hoping she knew what he meant, he added. “Mol deserves it.”
“Yeah,” was all Gert said before she went to the check out lane with their food in tow. They managed three blocks with their arms full of plastic covered groceries. The bread was probably getting soggy, doubled bagged or not.
When they were waiting for the crosswalk to take them back out to the pier, Gert glaring at the red hand as if she could make it go faster by her pure will alone, Chase leaned over and kissed her.
It was brief, and kind of clumsy on account that his balance was weighed down by ten pounds of fruits and vegetables in each arm. It was sprinkling and she was standing at an odd angle. Lasted probably five seconds, enough for his tongue to flick at the bottom of her lip and pull back.
Gert blinked, looking almost affronted. “What was that for?”
By then the pedestrian crossing was going and Chase was ushering them on ahead. “You’re asking me why except I just wanted to kiss you? Dude, you were there, I went for it.”
It wasn’t a date, he reasoned. And just because tomorrow was some big event where guys would shell out sixty something bucks for flowers and candy and all that sentimental crap they’d forget two weeks later, didn’t make this any more or less romantic than what it was. And that was just fine with him.
Title: Corner of 5th and Washington
Series: Runaways
Spoilers/warning: Nebulous short time after season one but before they find the new lair in season two
Wordcount: 1,130
Summary: Chase isn't romantic, Gert hates chivalry. It's not a date.
It was February thirteenth. Chase Stein and Getrude Yorkes were out by the Santa Monica pier in what was unequivocally, absolutely, most assuredly not a date.
For one, it was raining. The entire sky was overcast and suddenly, without a single warning or shift in pressure, the clouds would drop buckets over everything. Skyscrapers and sidewalks equally were drenched, as was anyone nesting in the streets without something to hide under. It was the kind of storm that perfectly characterized Los Angeles in the winter, fickle and lukewarm.
“Dude,” Chase exclaimed, pulling at the hood of his sweatshirt, “even the bums are hiding out right now.”
“It’s not hiding if they’re heading to public spaces. The library gets the most traffic on rainy days, didn’t you hear?” Gert was mumbling. She had to keep her head low so the rain wouldn’t completely cover her glasses, but even as it stood right now she would stop at the end of each block they crossed and try to wipe some of it away with the inside of her sleeve.
“So why are we the ones getting soaked when the rest of LA’s upstanding citizens are drying themselves out?”
“Because we’re out of food, I need a breather, and you smell like you haven’t taken a bath in five days.”
Chase’s jaw stuck out at the side, like he was chewing over something, probably an excuse because he hadn’t actually bathed that long. “I don’t smell as bad as a bum.”
“Yeah. But I’m not sleeping next to a bum,” Gert retorted.
Chase grinned, and in a move founded completely on impulsive courting rituals as explained by the lacrosse locker room discussions, draped an arm over her shoulders. His coat halfway covered her in the gesture, extra large and found out of a Salvation Army bin, it probably smelled just as bad. If anyone got the idea that he was trying to be gallant with something as dumb as covering someone already drenched with a ratty coat, he would have laughed. Gert hated the very idea of chivalry and she wasn’t too fond of possessive macho gestures in public. Really, he was just waiting for her to elbow him in the gut and tell him to get off.
She didn’t.
Chase thought he’d take his chances and followed up with, “Do I smell better now?”
Gert took the opportunity to wipe her lenses again. “You smell like wet dinosaur.”
“That’s gotta be a yes. You don’t complain about Old Lace when she’s around.”
“I don’t have to. Mind link, remember? Besides, unlike you, she listens.”
“Hey, I listen!” Chase protested. “Sometimes!”
“I shouldn’t have to tell you to take a bath.”
“Not my fault whenever you ever get me undressed you’re asking me to do something else.”
That was when Gert elbowed him in the gut. “Way to be completely disgusting.”
He winced and leaned over to get his stomach muscles back in working order. From this height he was just about at her eye level. The purple dye made her hair look like scraggly strings of muppet fur that had started showing the roots of her naturally dark hair. She wasn’t wearing makeup since she only had half a bottle of mascara left, and it was a just stupid errand in the rain. Plus she looked cranky and was giving him a dark glare over the corner of her 50’s style glass rims.
Chase thought she looked absolutely gorgeous.
“So what’s on the list?” he asked.
“No meat,” she said as if reading his mind. “Just some dried vegetables, rice or bread. Whatever we can get cheap. Diet coke. Definitely oranges.”
“Oranges?”
“To prevent scurvy,” Gert said completely deadpan.
“Hey, pirates get scurvy. That sounds like a badass thing to get.”
“Not if you want me to keep kissing you.”
“Fine, whatever, pirates are kinda gay anyway. Oranges it is.” He didn’t ask her if this was some girl thing to get him out and looking at all the Valentine’s Day stuff. Gert left all the mindfuck plans to their parents. In fact he was pretty sure all the hearts and cards stuff would make her gag.
So when he found her at the card aisle of the little convenience store, Chase had a brief moment of wondering whether or not she was replaced by a Skrull.
“Molly would like this,” she asked, but from the authoritative tone he wonders if she’s just showing him so he could say he helped later. It was pink, with glitter and some dude in a gay outfit holding out a heart asking for the reader to be his super valentine.
“It looks like Hallmark barfed on it.”
Gert shrugged and put it on top of the loaf of bread. “She always got a lot of cards for Valentine’s Day. Karolina and I were talking about how maybe having something like this would cheer her up.”
Chase heard that tone enough from Karolina and Nico to know they were talking girl stuff. But hearing it from Gert was a little surprising. He idly wondered how her old Valentine’s Days went. He figured she spent time traumatizing the other kids in her class with how St. Valentine was beaten and stoned before being beheaded outside of the Flamian Gates.
“It’s cool,” Chase added. Hoping she knew what he meant, he added. “Mol deserves it.”
“Yeah,” was all Gert said before she went to the check out lane with their food in tow. They managed three blocks with their arms full of plastic covered groceries. The bread was probably getting soggy, doubled bagged or not.
When they were waiting for the crosswalk to take them back out to the pier, Gert glaring at the red hand as if she could make it go faster by her pure will alone, Chase leaned over and kissed her.
It was brief, and kind of clumsy on account that his balance was weighed down by ten pounds of fruits and vegetables in each arm. It was sprinkling and she was standing at an odd angle. Lasted probably five seconds, enough for his tongue to flick at the bottom of her lip and pull back.
Gert blinked, looking almost affronted. “What was that for?”
By then the pedestrian crossing was going and Chase was ushering them on ahead. “You’re asking me why except I just wanted to kiss you? Dude, you were there, I went for it.”
It wasn’t a date, he reasoned. And just because tomorrow was some big event where guys would shell out sixty something bucks for flowers and candy and all that sentimental crap they’d forget two weeks later, didn’t make this any more or less romantic than what it was. And that was just fine with him.