Bear Hunting
Who: Owen and Chris
Where: Heading up towards the video store from the east side of hill street
When: Midday
He didn't want to admit that he felt about as useful as a duck in a snowstorm. That'd mean that he had to acknowledge the fact that he'd been doing nothing over the last couple of days other than hiding out with Jeremy and making freaked out noises at his bird. Who, he had noticed, was starting to get cabin fever. And he'd probably been driving his poor roomate insane. The man'd taken to sleeping in the bathtub for gods sake, and he didn't have the faintest idea what to do about that, considering he'd practically slept with his head out the window the night before.
Which hadn't been really smart because it'd started raining as soon as the sun rose. He'd noticed when he'd ended up with water on his face at seven in the morning. Wrinkling his nose, he tugged his gloves down a little further along his arms. He'd lost weight. It was stupid, but he had, and his gloves didn't fit him properly anymore. He'd have thought that the whole being sedintary thing might have had the opposite effect, but no dice. Clarkson had decided that his foolishness was something he had to experience on his own and taken residence in a tree on the way out, refusing to budge.
Her loss. He'd decided that he was going to do something that day, and that was all there was to it. He'd managed to accquire an umbrella over the last couple of days, so he held onto that as tightly as his hands would allow him, the packet of advil burning a hole in his jacket pocket. He hadn't had one in a couple of days. He'd had the stupid idea that maybe they were making it hard for him to concentrate. His hood flew back with a particularly mean gust of wind and he swore, tugging it back up, the light, persistant rain doing quite the opposite of grating away at his nerves. He loved rain. He just didn't like getting a cold, hence why he looked like the marshmallow man.
Maybe the video store would have something interesting to watch, bar anything actually -useful- like he'd told Jeremy he was going looking for. Or a bear. MAybe a bear would be interesting to run into, before it ripped his face off with a casual swipe.
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Chris had largely the same idea, though he didn't actually feel at all guilty about the fact he hadn't helped out lately. or at all, in fact. let them do what they wanted - he was still making attempts to contact the scientists, sure that they would want him to start working for them. Any day now. he was positive. Surely the fact he'd heard nothing from them was simply an oversight. Surely.
In the meantime, he was entertaining himself - though there was little to do when the weather was so shitty. So, today was videos. Hopefully, if there was anything worth watching there. he caught sight of the guy up ahead of him with an umbrella and smiled, lengthening his stride as he felt the water trickle down his neck. "Hey, man - any chance of sharing?" he asked as he stepped up beside the guy - getting out fo the wet for a while would be good.
Blinking and looking over his shoulder, Owen tightened his hold on the umbrella for a moment. Being alone for as long as he had, he hadn't really taken the time to have a look around, instead lost in his own head. Nodding, he smiled, holding his arm out and up so the umbrella covered most of the both of them. It didn't make sense NOT to share, and the guy hadn't just tried to take it, so.
"Sure. No sense in either of us getting wet. Uhm, 'm Owen. Nice to meet you?" He felt and probably sounded a little awkward, like he usually was when talking with people. Not at all confident or assertive, but he was happy to be companionable if it meant he didn't have to walk around alone.
"Chris," he replied, turning out a charming smile, glad to be out of the rain for a bit. "And thanks - was never one for wet weather, though I suppose that this'll all turn to snow soon enough. Where you headed?" he asked, sounding pleasantly interested, making a point of not taking more than his share of cover.
Owen was quite happy to share, really. Shrugging, he waved a gloved hand up the street, towards the video store.
"Thataway. I was going to have a poke about where I was working and see what's going on. If there's anything useful up there. And then maybe go find something else to do. What about you?" He asked, rather belatedly. He didn't want to assume that the guy'd be heading in the same direction as him, but if he was going home or something, Owen was happy to walk with him. No sense in the guy getting wet again.
"Where you were working?" Chris asked. "Where was that then." He'd never bothered to get a job in this place - maybe if it had turned out to be what it'd been sold as, but it hadn't - it was something else entirely. "And me? I figured I'd check out the video store - have to admit, the rain's bugging. Needed to get out for a bit," he admitted.
Surprised, Owen nodded. "I was headed that way. I mean, I was working there before everything got closed down. uhm." Adjusting hishold on the umbrella, he smiled, looking up the street.
"I kinda like the rain. Not enough to get a cold, but I like it. Were you looking for a movie or something or just wanting to poke around?" He had the keys of course, but he had no idea if it was boarded up or not. He hadn't been back since the town had started to fall apart.
"So, does that mean you're gonna charge me for a rental?" Chris asked, jokingly. He'd assumed the place would be abandoned, like most of the other stores in town. "And honestly, I don't know - I was just bored, thought I'd check the place out. Is it all like the rest of town seems to be and vintage? Or do they have more uptodate stuff?" he asked, skipping commentary on the rain.
"Oh, totally. It'll be an arm and a leg." Shaking his head, he grinned, keeping the umbrella at the right height. "They've got some newer horror movies, which I suppose is kind of funny, and a couple of thrillers, but most of the others are all from the fifties to the ninties. Nothing newer. Unless someone's restocked it when I haven't been looking." Which, recently, might have been likely.
They very much might have restocked, Chris knew. he'd been on switch-round duty enough whilst working as an intern in his experiment to know that it was one of the scientist's favourite games. Change things round when people weren't looking. Maybe that had just been in experiment a, but Chris doubted they would have gotten tired of the game. "I'm sure I'll find something - even if it does cost the earth," Chris told the other guy with a smile.
Shrugging and smiling, Owen tugged the keys out of his pocket, fumbling with them slightly before getting the right one to open the door. It hadn't been boarded back up after he'd taken the boards off a while ago, but it didn't mean he trusted it.
"You might wanna hang back for a second. Here." he said, holding the umbrella out to him and looking over his shoulder. "I don't wanna get stuck in the doorway if anything's gone wrong."
Chris raised an eyebrow, but stood back anyhow, taking the umbrella - he didn't want to get any wetter if he could avoid it. "Gone wrong?" he asked, curiously. He didn't honestly think there was anything that would have gone wrong in a video store. And anyway, he was an intern - the scientists wouldn't fuck him over. Surely. He was safe and protected - he was on their side.
Owen really, really didn't want to take the chance that someone'd else'd get hurt just because he wanted to go have a look at where he used to work. He completely blocked the fact that Chris had already been heading there, never really having had a good memory for little details like that. Smiling at him, he shrugged, unlocking the doors and pushing them open with a good hard shove, because they'd gotten a little frosted together at the bottom. He winced at the bang, apologising as he headed into the building, wrinkling his nose at the smell.
"Good thing they're in cases. It's damp in here." He said, looking over his shoulder.
"'t looks okay. C'mon in."
Chris' nose also wrinkled as he stepped inside the musty-smelling store. "God, what crawled in and died in here?" he muttered, under his breath. A few choice answers came to mind, but he knew better than to voice them in unknown company. "Power still working?" he asked - not that there was any reason for it not to, but this place smelled damp and you could never tell.
"I hope so." He muttered, almost to himself as he wandered over to check if the light switches still worked. The back globes blew as he turned the power on (and he jumped what easily must've been a foot in surprise and a little fear) but the front ones came flickering on, humming steadily like most flourescent lights are wont to do. Sighing and scrubbing a gloved hand over his face, he made his way over towards the register.
"Damnitt. The bottles of water 'd left here are gone. -Bastards-."