(Untitled)

[downsidedarling]

Dreamer is cleaning bloodstains out of Shay's boat fort.

It's taking a lot longer than she thought.

Certainly long enough that she forgot why she started in the first place, but hey. Not like she has anything better to do.

Slosh. Clank. Scrubscrubscrub. Slosh.

This is oddly restful.

Comments

[hero_farmboy]

It's also noisy. Or, at least it is if you have superhearing and you're sort of keeping it amped up more than usual because your not-quite-girlfriend is a magnet for trouble and you need to be on alert.

So Clark finds his way back out to the ship (and he's still not over that) and frowns up at it.

"Shay, that you?"

[downsidedarling]

"Nope," says Dreamer, cheerfully.

There's the sound of someone climbing a ladder in a hurry, and then she pokes her head up over the side of the ship and waves.

"I'm cleaning his fort for him. Swear that dude's got a screw loose somewhere."

[hero_farmboy]

If Clark said such things, he'd agree. As it is, he just snorts.

"How'd he talk you into doing his dirty work?"

[downsidedarling]

"Honestly? I fucking forget."

Dreamer grins, a little wry, a little bashful.

[hero_farmboy]

"Then why are you doing it?" It seems to be the next logical question. "I mean, helping out is great and all, but it looks like a pretty big job for one person."

[downsidedarling]

Snort.

"It gives me something to do, and hey, it's familiar."

The bloodstains moreso than the cleaning of them, but Dreamer knows her way around both.

[hero_farmboy]

Clark shrugs. "If you say so." Who is he to begrudge someone cleaning if they want to?

"Other than being pressed into service, you settling in okay?"

[downsidedarling]

"More or less, yeah."

She leans on an intact section of railing and smiles down at Clark.

"Hey, thanks for gettin' me out of that cave, eh?"

[hero_farmboy]

That gets a small smile out of him. "No problem. They're not the most comfortable place to be in, I know."

[downsidedarling]

"Spend a lot of time in there yourself?" she asks, dryly.

Honestly she's not sure whether or not to expect an answer in the positive. People here, she's discovered, are strange.

[hero_farmboy]

"Enough," he replies with a half shrug. "Sort of a school project that got out of hand."

Oh, the lies.

[downsidedarling]

If only Dreamer had the slightest clue.

"God, I can't fucking imagine," she says, wrinkling her nose.

She really can't. There are no caves in the settled parts of Downside, and they're mighty scarce in Ottawa, too.

[hero_farmboy]

"There not all that bad once you get used to them, but of courese, I didn't spend days down there at a time."

[downsidedarling]

Smirk.

"Yeah, I can't say getting used to them was really an issue."

She tilts her head.

"What the hell were you studying down there, anyways? Rocks?"

[hero_farmboy]

He nods. Sort of.

"That and there are supposed to be cave paintings in them. I was mostly helping out with mapping the area." Which isn't a total lie, if you look at it sideways and squint.

[downsidedarling]

"Works for me."

Dreamer grins.

"Well, okay, it doesn't. I'd go nuts if I had to study something that boring."

Many negative things can be said about the contractors' academy. Boring, however, isn't one of them.