The Hunt
Title: The Hunt
Fandom: Pretty Little Liars
Pairing: Caleb/Hanna
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Hanna goes on a scavenger hunt. It doesn’t go well. Pure fluff.
It shouldn’t have been this difficult. Caleb had said follow the clues and it would lead her right to him but, unless his plan really was to chop her up in the back alley behind Mr. Foo’s Chinese restaurant, then this couldn’t be right. This alley, with the garbage and the sickly sweet rotting smell, was definitely not romantic and it was their anniversary and he was ruining it with his stupid “super secret and romantic anniversary scavenger hunt.”
Hanna wasn’t known for her brains. She wasn’t stupid and she had some common sense and a quiet conniving side but she wasn’t Spencer-smart when it came to school. Which was why, when Caleb had told her “scavenger hunt”, she had replied “make it easy.” But it wasn’t easy - she’d had to use Wikipedia at least twice already because, really, she could have been bothered reading all of ‘Anna Karenina’ this past semester and she still didn’t quite get the question about Marco Polo but that was how she got to Mr. Foo’s and she was starting to suspect that maybe Spencer had helped with the questions which was not a genius idea in Hanna’s book. So now she was stuck wandering through a creepy and gross alley looking for her next clue and quietly thanking god that ‘A’ had been taken care of a few months before. Although with how spectacularly awful this night was going, Hanna wouldn’t have been surprised if ‘A’ popped out from behind one of the dumpsters and forced her to eat another dozen cupcakes or run her over with a scooter.
The plaintive wails of Justin Bieber broke Hanna out of her ‘A’-induced reverie and Hanna fumbled for her phone in the dark. The name ‘Caleb’ along with a highly unflattering, but truly hilarious, image of her boyfriend sporting a ‘Bieber’ greeted her and she took a moment to suppress the growl of frustration which threatened to erupt from her throat.
“Hanna, where the hell are you?”
“Behind Mr. Foo’s.”
“Doing what exactly?”
“Looking for my next clue.” There was a pause. A long one. That probably wasn’t a good sign.
“Why?”
“Because Marco Polo went to China and Mr. Foo’s is the only Chinese restaurant in town and why are you laughing? It was your stupid clue and your stupid scavenger hunt and you probably shouldn’t have let Spencer write your clues.”
“Hanna,” Caleb sighed into the phone. “Spencer only wrote the ‘Anna Karenina’ one which I agree was a stupid Spencer clue. I had each of the girls write one, I thought it would be easier.”
“Who wrote this stupid Marco Polo one then because it is gross and I think a rat is following me.”
“Emily and the rat is not following you. She was talking about Marco Polo like the game, the one you play in the pool, like the school pool, which you would go behind to find your next clue.”
This was not how the night was supposed to have gone. She was supposed to have left the house looking fabulous, whipped through some silly clues and then spent the rest of the night with her boyfriend in romantic bliss. Instead she was trapped in an alley with an evil rat, wilting hair and, she was pretty sure, a fresh layer of garbage stink clinging to her skin. This was not the anniversary of her dreams, far from it.
“Caleb?”
“Yeah?”
“I kind of hate you right now.”
“I know. Hanna?”
“Yeah?”
“Want me to come get you?”
“Yes, please, god, now. And Caleb?”
“Yeah?”
“Next year just cancel the scavenger hunt.”
“No problem - next year I’ll just pick you up at your front door and take you straight to dinner. See you in a few, love you.”
For the first time since she had started this “super secret and romantic scavenger hunt,” Hanna smiled. She may smell like garbage and that was possibly a body over there, but her boyfriend loved her and there was always next year.