Here We Go Again

Who: Gavin and Janie
When: afternoon
Where: their house

Gavin had woken up to Janie's note, which had of course worried him. But he tried not to freak out completely, like she told him to. Instead he'd gone for a quick exploratory jaunt. And then raided the hardware store. He hauled home boards of all kinds of sizes, nails, tools, candles, anything he could hoof back to the house. Then the sporting goods store for knives and bats. Then it was to the grocery store. If looting was going to go on -- and he felt sure it was -- he was going to get their fair share out of the way. All the while, he kept his eyes peeled for his short dark-haired woman, but didn't see her. If she wasn't back by almost dark, he was going out looking.

By noon he was busy rearranging the furniture in the living room so that it would serve as a blockade easier, if they needed it to. He didn't know what the fuck was going on, only that it wasn't good, and they were probably back on their now-familiar Fend For Your Goddamn Fucking Selves footing.

Janie had wandered a bit, gotten a few odds and ends in said wandering, then went home to see how far Gavin was in his freak out. Walking in, she set her bags down in the hall, and grabbed up her little party popper streamer thingers. She stood in the doorframe of the living room and pulled one, sending little streamers into the air. "I'm home." she said. "...nicely easy to rearrange blockade for our living room." she noted. She'd zombie-proofed the mansion once, she knew what she was looking at. "Here, I got you a party hat."

He'd frozen the instant the door opened and looked up, ready to lunge for a strategically-placed bat and fuck a body up. But it was Janie. With streamers. The relief was almost painful. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, straightening up from where he'd been pushing the coffee table. He walked over to her, took the party hat with one hand, wrapped his other arm around her and kissed her solidly. See? He'd done well. No total freakout, only a bit of one. That done, he let her go to put the party hat on. "What'd you see while you were out?" he wanted to know.

She kissed him back, sort of giving him a hug while she was at it. Then she shrugged and tugged her bags into the living room proper as she dropped onto the couch. "Not a lot. Boarded up buildings. All the businesses still seem to be stocked and open though. I got you a few books." she told him, dropping them on the coffee table he'd been moving. One happened to be the Zombie Survival Guide, and another was Worst Case Scenario. There were a couple assorted other ones, like the Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse. "A few scattered people. everyone looks really lost, and kind of surprised." she noted absently.

Gavin flopped down on the couch next to her, picking up the books to flip through. They were good selections, which didn't surprise him at all. In fact, none of this did. Surprised was something that Gavin certainly wasn't. He knew trusting those motherfuckers in any capacity was a huge mistake. They should've insisted on going home. Should've fucking insisted. He nodded a bit at what she said, that was his assessment too. "I got building materials, nonperishable food, bottled water ... bats and hunting knives, shit like that," he said absently as he paged through Worst Case Scenario.

"That's cool." Janie said, looking through her bag more. She popped some more streamers. "I wanted cake. But all the display cakes were fake. That was disheartening." she offered. "Are you going to be building things?" she asked, looking up at him over the tops of her glasses, turning him into a vague dark blur.

"In case we have to board up the windows," he said absently, then looked up at her. It hadn't exactly occurred to him that it was strange she was celebrating this whole thing; it was Janie, after all. This was just how she reacted to things. "You promised me something shiny," he pointed out, looking past her at the bag she had.

"I did!" she said, then dug through her bags again. She pulled out a little kids toy, a flashlight that had a cluster of fiber optic bits fixed in front of the light. She turned it on, and the lights in the plastic slowly shifted through a rainbow. She held it out to him. "Here you go." she said, as if this was an appropriate and good present to be giving a guy like him. "It's shiny."

Gavin looked at it, blinked for a second, and burst into laughter. As insane as it was -- and he didn't claim anymore to be at all balanced -- it was hysterical for some reason. Here he was prepping for war as best he could in a transplanted retro hell, and she was giving him a kids play-flashlight. Putting the book down, Gavin took it from her and held it to his chest, just laughing. Good goddamn.

She looked up at him. "Glad you like it." she said. "I got you this too." she added, and tossed him a butane lighter. Which was also, in fact, shiny. "I'm just full of shiny things today." she added, leaning back on the sofa, and she propped her feet up on the coffee table. "Just what you needed. A rainbow of color to keep you happy." she added, watching the lights shift through colorspectrums as he held it.

The lighter bounced off of his arm and he picked it up, arming off his eyes as his chuckles died down. He tried it out and nodded in approval. She should've gotten like ... fifteen. "Hey, I never said I wasn't easily amused," Gavin said, flicking the flashlight off and then on again. And then off, because they might need every fucking battery they could get their hands on eventually. He slid sideways to put his head in her lap, looking out at the rearranged living room. "Here we go again," he muttered. Even though they'd never quite stopped going.

Janie looked down at him, and tugged the hat off of his head, tossing it onto the coffee table. She shifted slightly, so she was half leaning against his shoulder, as he had his head on her lap. "Something like that, I suppose." she said. Her voice was thoughtful. "I guess I hadn't actually figured it was over. This place is far too movie-set to be anything but a set up. Plus we have the rest of the year to ride out. What I wonder is when the first of the year hits if it'll be over-over, or if we're just done. I know I still feel like no matter what, the world isn't the same place. So...here. Out there...I think we'd still sort of be here. Or back in the mansion."

"... I'd been hoping," Gavin said after a moment's silence. He'd been wary of hoping, but it had been there somewhere. It had to have been, or he wouldn't feel that nagging crushed disappointment in the middle of his chest. He adjusted very slightly under her, making sure they were both comfortable. "I dunno if it'll ever be over. Maybe they'll just keep us here in never-ending cycling 'contracts' until we all kill each other or starve to death," he murmured. And right then? It seemed possible. Probable, even. They had no limits to their sadistic voyeuring, they knew that all too well. "Know what you mean, though. 'Bout still being here."

"Starving us to death probably wouldn't be any fun for them." Janie said. "Plus they did the fad diet thing so they already kind of went there. I figure that won't be on the menu, to y'know. Word things horribly." she commented. "Now the waiting for all of us to kill each other thing, that's much more probably in my mind. That I can see." Not that she sounded worried about it, but she could see it. "And yeah...I figure each of us is always going to be in this experiment, to some degree or another. Kind of always waiting for the puchline."

He couldn't help but agree. It was depressing as fucking shit, but there was no arguing with it. They'd all been utterly fundamentally changed, and there just wasn't any way around it. Or any way to pad it, make it any easier. But he learned that really all he could do was prepare for what he could and the rest would come as it would come. He lay silently for a moment, just staring into some middle distance. Then blinked a little and turned his head to look at her as best he could. "Let's get some candles, run a hot bath for us, and get stoned," he suggested. Because fuck it. Fuck it so hard. He could finish this shit later, they'd let them all squirm and flail for a while before anything else happened, if he knew them at all.

She smiled. "Sounds good." she said. She thought they had candles. And Gavin was bound to have gotten some, when he'd gone and got like, lumber and shit. "Is there hot water yet? If not, I'll start boiling." Because she wasn't going to give up on the idea just because of a little thing like work being involved. She'd be fine with that.

"Don't think so, not yet," he said. He didn't mind working for the cause either. He plucked up one of her hands from where it was and put it palm-down on his cheek, closing his eyes briefly. He'd keep her safe. That would be what he would do, until it killed him. There wasn't any other fucking goal he could possibly have anymore that would mean anything next to that. Gavin moved then, letting her sit up before he did too to shuffle to the kitchen and get started on a bath.

Janie got up to follow him, after she'd looked down at him for a while. They had a lot of pots and pans. She detoured to the bathroom, to go put the stopper in the tub, and she went to grab the candles to light in there. She shut the door so the candles could help heat it up a little bit, then went go to help with water boilage. Of things to do when the world has gone and proven there's sucking going on, she was a pretty big fan of this course of action.

Gavin was getting out pots and filling them up, glad that they had a gas stove at least. He looked over at her as she came in with a faint smile, and handed her a pan to put on as he went to the bedroom to get his weed and supplies. He'd been able to bring it with him -- and would've gotten violent with anybody who tried to take it -- but that didn't mean he had a joint ready for them. He plopped down at the kitchen table to pick and roll, something he hadn't done since they'd gotten there. "Lemme know when one's ready to carry," he told her.

"Why, am I incapable of carrying hot water?" Janie asked, turning all the burners up to high, and she looked over at him to watch him. "I totally think I can manage. Seriously. I've boiled water before many times, and while I may in fact not have had the experience of bringing it to dump into a tub, I'm confident in my ability to do so whilst winging it."

He looked up again, eyebrows raised. "I don't doubt your capability for a minute, it's just that if one of us is going to accidentally trip and fall face-first into boiling water, scarring us for life ... you're a lot prettier than I am, I'd rather it be me," he said sardonically, getting a nice little pile of weed going on the table.

She gave him a little half smirk at that. "So you're being potentially self sacrificing to preserve my beauty." she said. "...alright." She shrugged one shoulder. Really she had confidence in the ability of she and Gavin to walk the short distance to the bathroom without mishap. They were coordinated like that. She did stick closer to the stove though, as steam started to rise up from the pots. She filled another one too, so they'd always have one on there. Faster was good.

"Okay, if you're going to pout about it, let me just carry the big one," he said teasingly, gesturing with the rolling paper to the larger of the two pots. He sighed as though that were a big concession to make and went about rolling the joint. It would be faster with two of them, and he was a fan of actually getting the hell in the bathtub with her.

"Well I was considering pouting about it." Janie said with an nod. "You know me, I'm pouting all the time. People on the street, they stop and shake their heads. 'That Janie', they say. 'What a little pouter'."

"And then if I'm in earshot, they get a good pop in the mouth," Gavin said, sounding satisfied with that idea. Hell, he'd punched out two members of the clergy for her, regular shmucks were nothing now. He got the joint rolled properly, licked it to seal it shut, and left it on the table as he came up behind her and wrapped one arm around.

Janie leaned her head back against him, then tilted it up so she could look up at him from an awkward angle. Like the bottom of his jaw, where there was stubble. That she felt the need to reach up and brush her fingertips over. "I think we might be fresh out of priests, or nuns, or decons, or bishops. They're usually the ones who want to pick on me most." she said, mind going to the same place his had.

"That's a good thing, though," he told her, a little smile cropping up. "But I'm versatile, I'll also hit ministers or preachers or mullahs or rabbis ... I don't discriminate, y'know? We're all human, everybody needs a good punch in the mouth sometimes." He dipped his head to nuzzle at her cheek for a moment. "I'll secure a seat in everybody's hell."

She laughed a bit at that, wrinkling her nose. "You're all scratchy!" she noted. Not that she was trying to squirm away or anything. She wasn't. She'd gotten used to Gavin's affections a long time ago. She never minded, unless she was actively doing something else at the time. She wasn't right now. They were waiting for water to boil. "Well so long as you're thorough. Maybe you'll just confuse everyone and they'll let you walk just due to all the legal red tape."

"Well you're all soft, so there," he said with a grin, making a point to rub his stubble on her some more before giving her a smooch. There were times when he felt like they were flirting with the edge of being a normal couple, but those never lasted long. Not that he minded, not anymore. He'd gotten used to her general lack of demonstration, and just made up for it himself. Gavin had accepted that he loved her dearly, and she cared about him as much as Janie could care about anyone, and that had to be enough. It was, most of the time. "That'd be nice, though. Confusing everyone," he said, letting her go some to check the other pot. The first one was close. "I'll just repent on my deathbed, whatever."

"Doesn't that only work in Catholicism?" Janie asked, also going to peek into one of the pots. Then she went to fill up the extra one she'd put out, so they could switch it up right away. "So like, you'd have one religious get out of jail free card, and everyone else would still be vying for court time, to try and see who can sentence you the worst."

"Yeah, I think so. Mom tried to raise me that way -- it didn't work, obviously -- but I think I could pull it off. Dazzle them with bullshit, somebody famous said that." He pulled the pot off of the stove that had begun to boil and got a good grip on it, heading off to carry it into the bathroom. He poured it into the bathtub, looked down, and decided they definitely needed bigger pots if this was going to be a regular thing.

Janie put a new pot on the stove while Gavin dumped the first one, then took the second pot and started to bring it in to dump as well. "Dazzle them with bullshit. Nice motto. How's that worked out for you so far?" she asked.

"Or wait, it's ... if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit, I think," he said, squinting one eye and trying to remember just one of the bits of random crap in his head. Then he shook it, moving aside for her to dump the pot. "You tell me. Do you feel dazzled?" He smiled faintly at her as he passed to fill up the hot pot and put it back on.

"You know, thinking about it, I might. Dazzled on me looks just like everything else, really. So I'd say I could be levels of dazzled. I'll go with it." she decided, nodding firmly. "Did you shut the bathroom door so we could keep the heat in?" she asked, glancing over in that direction. "My theory is the candles'll heat the air up more, and the hot water steam will too, and we'll have a hotter bath for longer. And a warm room. I've tried cold rooms and cold baths before, they're not for me."

He hadn't, so Gavin pivoted in the kitchen and went back to close the door. "You, my dear, are a genius," he said affectionately. "Y'know, with your knowledge of simple logic and physical science and stuff." He walked back into the kitchen that she'd made it to first, and filled up the pot in his hand to put it back on. "So maybe I should be the dazzled one."

"I know. People really don't generally appreciate my superior expertise in normal, simple logic, but it's nice to know it's finally getting recognized." Janie said. "So, if you choose to be dazzled, then go for it. Now do your little 'oh my god I'm just so dazzled!' dance!" she demanded, as if he should have one he'd been just waiting to break out at any given time.

As it so happened, he did! Or it was just a generic little dance, a small hip-swivelly groove in the kitchen. "There. Living proof that I am dazzled like a motherfucker," he told her, amused. He took the next pot that had started to boil toward the bathroom to add it to the fun. He missed working hot water heaters already.

Janie had another pot on the stove while he switched that one out. "Well so long as things aren't getting old. That's what I do. I keep it fresh." she said, deadpan as she eyed the pots critically. This was going to be a while. That blew. Did they have a huge pot they could stick in the oven or something? Hmmm.

Gavin remembered to shut the door this time, and headed back. How damn big was that fucking tub anyway? No wonder people back in the day didn't take baths so much, it was a pain in the ass. He refilled the one he'd taken and put it on the stove again, patting Janie's butt affectionately as he passed her.

Janie was looking for a roaster or something. And she found one! Which she promptly filled with water then stuck in the oven, turning it on. "From here out, I'm appreciating running hot water. I was iffy on it before, but I would like to take that hot bath now, and this is tedious." she said, even if she didn't actually sound at all like it was bothering her.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to back you up on that one," Gavin said with a chuckle. He shifted the stove-pots around a bit, but none of them were really boiling yet. Bastards. "I can't imagine trying to do this every damn day." But cold water up here was not an option, especially not for just washing the essentials.

"Well, in theory, someone'll get the water back on. Or, we'll all have to find a building to huddle up in. Which actually we should think about anyhow." Janie said thoughtfully." What building in this place would be best suited for holing up in? This house won't be. It should be one of the bigger, public buildings. We should think about proofing that at some point. For emergencies."

"Maybe the rec center?" he suggested. He thought they probably had showers and stuff. And much as he hated the idea of being crammed in together with a bunch of assholes again, she had a point. With them all spread out like they were, if something happened to someone across town, it'd be hard to know. "It should definitely at least be proofed, yeah. I have a feeling there's gonna be a lot of forcing us together again."

"The rec center might work. I'll have to go through and see what buildings look structurally sound enough. And of course start assigning people to squirrel away food there. And supplies." she added, thinking. "But there's a pool. we could totally throw pool parties when we're bored." then she paused and eyed Gavin thoughtfully. "Do you mind? Us being shoved together again?"

"Do I mind?" Gavin repeated, looking over at her with wry amusement. "I think they've kind of made their point that that doesn't matter at all. But ... I dunno, I was kind of enjoying having actual privacy and shit, not having to listen to people tromp around all the time and be involved in their bullshit. I mind. But if that's what we gotta do, that's what we gotta do." Another pot was boiling, so he picked that one up to truck it into the bathroom.

"Well, I don't really give a shit what they think, or if they mind, I was asking you because I'm interested in your opinions and insight on the matter." Janie commented. She filled another pot to put on the burner while she was at it. "Privacy's pretty cool." she added thoughtfully.

"I think it'll blow balls, but if it keeps more people alive through their bullshit, so be it," Gavin called from the hallway. He balanced the pot and opened the bathroom door, pouring it in with the rest of the water and closing the door behind him as he came back. "If anything, all this has only made people more fucking crazy than they were to start out with, and I think it'll be more of a clusterfuck than it was before."

"Well, we only really know the level of crazy of people we were with. Other experiments might have people that are far more crazy, even." Janie commented. Which she knew wasn't comforting at all. "Maybe there should be more than one location, too. Hm." she pondered things over.

"The bowling alley for sure has a kitchen," he said, trying to think logistically. "It's got a lot of doors, and the machinery in the lanes would probably make some people nervous, but we could squeeze a helluva lot of people in there if we needed to. There's some big houses around ... fuck, I dunno. I bet when they get the power back on, there'll be a meeting."

"Yeah. When there is, we'll have to go." Janie said. "I mean, meetings may have done absolutely nothing before, but new people, new situation, maybe it will now." she said. "Plus, if it fails miserably again, at least we can say we tried." She shrugged one shoulder like it didn't matter one way or the other for her. And really it didn't.

For his part, Gavin didn't much want to think about it at the moment. Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen, and he'd learned that you had to pick your battles and right now the motherfuckers had them by the balls. He filled up the pot and put it on the stove, wrapping his arms around Janie from behind for a moment. "We'll see," he muttered, and kissed her cheek. "Right now I just want a bath and a smoke and a naked you, the rest of it can fuck off."

"Okay. We'll do that then." Janie said, agreeing to drop the subject for now. It wasn't as if it was a subject where there was a clear end to anything. So, she'd be happy to just do this. Might as well. It would be distracting for a while, and she was good with distracting.