bakerstreet | ( picture prompt meme )

( i, ii, iii, iv )

[ It's the kind of day where the rain is light but still so very wet, the kind of day where the horizon looks hazy and unreal and puddles spring up in the strangest of places. Kieren keeps meaning to ask Jem if she's cold, if they should go home, but each time he opens his mouth the words die in his throat. Asking would be the same as admitting that it doesn't bother him, and while things have been getting better he's done throwing strangeness in her face. He doesn't want to start that again. So he stays silent, sitting next to his sister, watching water start to pool in the potholes along the road.

They're on one of the many crumbling stone fences that are dotted around Roarton. It's not comfortable, but it is quiet. When he swings his feet back the stone shifts beneath his heels and skitters into the dirt. Kieren wonders how long he'd have to sit here, kicking his feet, before the whole thing disintegrated. Probably centuries. And it's not like he wouldn't have the time. But that's as depressing a thought as the cold and so he shifts a little, moving so he can see Jem's face, semi-obscured by a bottle for a second. ]

So I was thinking of heading into town on Saturday.

[ His voice is light, careless. Like just a few weeks ago he wasn't confined to just his house. ]

I need some new pencils. Maybe paint. [ He's been drawing again, but there's a yearning inside of him for more of that. ] D'you want to come with?

[ She might have plans. He doesn't know. But he'd like to spend more time with her anyway. ] We could do something fun.

[It's the kind of weather that looks like its not much, but it doesn't take long to seep in by the threads of your clothes, seeking out skin to spread the chill. Jem supposes that she's cold; her hands are stuffed into her jacket pockets, but the jacket itself is puffy and thick. Her hair is another matter entirely, slightly soaked and still dry enough that it's started curling along the edges of her face. Her thighs are freezing, while her feet kick back and forth. She's had a lot of time to get used to this weather and braving the worst of it.

For a while, she's zoned out of the conversation. Soft 'mhm's' as her mind travels elsewhere, turning to flash small, patient smiles in between the silences. She comes back into focus somewhere around 'Saturday' and 'pencils', teeth chewing the inside of her cheek. There's a moments hesitation, her fingers drumming into her numb thighs while she considers all the things that are involved with getting on a train to go into town.

She can't remember the last time she bothered. Over a year, she thinks. Not that long after the trains had started back up again. ] Something fun. [She doesn't mean to say with suspended belief, but it does come out that way, a little bit. It's not a bad idea the same way getting out of the house for a few hours hadn't been a bad idea, two hours ago. ] Could go shopping, maybe.

[What the movies don't tell you about the zombie apocalypse is the small, insignificant things. The trains stop working and for people like Jem and everyone else in Roarton, it means you're stuck with what you've got. Limited supplies from the road going to the council and everything else from the out dated outlets south of the valley. Jem's been living off hand me down's for years. The first time she went back to the city, with her mum, she'd been too overwhelmed to even look at more than one shop. Most of them hadn't gotten themselves back together anyway.

Her nails scratch idly against her jeans which, really, might have actually been Kieren's, once upon a time. Hard to tell, now. ] I haven't been in ages, though. Might have to get dad to look out a map.

[ It's not a no.

He half expected a no, if he was honest with himself. He wouldn't blame Jem. Sitting out in the rain in a town she probably knows like the back of her hand is not the same as going out somewhere together like they used to. It's one of those things that you can't help but notice the cracks in, like a china plate someone's carefully glued back together. He'd broken one of his mum's once, tossing the remote control at Jem after an argument about which Saturday morning cartoon to watch. Kieren still feels a little guilty when he sees it in the cabinet. It's the same, but different, because you know something's been lost.

So the fact that it's not a no is a little more bolstering than it should have been. He smiles, half the way and crooked, watches her as she picks at a thread. ]

Maybe some flares too, in case we get lost.

[ He wonders what another town would be like. He hadn't got very far the last time he tried. ]

I'll even carry your bags with only mild complaining, if you like.

[What other towns must be going through, strangely, hasn't really every gone through Jem's head. Not often, anyway. She can't imagine most are any better than Roarton or any more well off. The city's -- the real, big one's -- had been hit the hardest and of course, had gotten the most when rebuilding had started. London, she thinks, looks like it's barely seen a day of war. Others haven't been so lucky.

It's hard to say if any of that is actually reassuring, when faced with the prospect of visiting one of them. ]

Don't know if I'll have that many for you to carry, really. [She means it as a joke, but there's a blithe, grim reality of saying it.] I reckon most of the shops are charity shops and a single, sad looking Primark on the corner. All the places we used to go'll be gone, now.

[Fairly certain even if she has no idea. She can't imagine many of them survived five years of no business. She can't imagine any of them stayed south at all. ]

[ He makes a noise, an almost laugh. ] Well, at least Primark survived. [ The rows and rows of disorganised clothing and weirdly abandoned cardboard boxes had never inspired Kieren to much. Or at least, when he managed to stop his mum from buying his jeans he'd been able to stop going in them altogether. Christ, had he actually been worried about street cred, once upon a time? ] But you never know.

[ It's terribly optimistic, to think of the world rebuilding itself. It's probably more foolish, really, when he considers how suspicious and broken the world still is. Getting back to normal isn't a hope many people have when they're still picking up the pieces. He just wishes ...

He doesn't know. He wishes something. He can't run away from what happened but he thought he might try and find the world again. ]

It's a stupid idea.

I don't think it's a stupid idea. [She says this quickly, a little too eager to dissuade his thought process from changing his mind. It sounds guilty, probably. A lot of what Jem says nowadays sounds vaguely guilty and not at all certain. She swallows down a particularly uncomfortable lump and reaches for his hand, squeezing.] To be honest with you, you've been wearing those jeans for three months, so you probably need to. Go to the city, I mean.

[Of course Kieren hasn't been wearing the same jeans for three months, but they've always similar taste. She knows he has the same pair twice over, but the joke is easy and familiar. It's who they used to be, before everything turned upside down and got washed down the toilet. ]

Oi, I've worked hard on this image. You want me to change it now?

[ His mouth twitches, not yet a smile but getting there. He looks at their hands when she squeezes his and then knocks her elbow with his own. He nods at her own choice, his voice teasing. ] Anyway, I'm not the only one. I have noticed those are mine, y'know.

[ Not that he minds, not that he ever minded. They were always kind of in each other's pockets. He's glad they can be comfortable with each other again. ]

Edited 2017-02-10 18:00 (UTC)

Well -- they were just lying around, for a bit.

[This is a sensitive subject, mostly, and that's not exactly true. That they had been lying around. All of Kieren's clothes, the one's that hadn't been in his room, had eventually been washed and carefully tucked away into his drawers. For weeks, Sue hadn't touched his room until one day she started cleaning in a moment of forgetfulness and then hadn't stopped. Jem had to go looking, is the thing. They both know that.

Still, it's just. One of those uncomfortable things that are sentimental and a little funny at the same time. Nothing about their lives here comes without being tainted with some form of tragedy. ] They look better on me anyway. If I started doing squats again, though, I'd be in real danger. They're def made for lads like you with no arse.

( picture prompt meme )

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asdhsja guess who messed up their filters on gmail? this girl. sorry for the wait

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