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 Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:10 pm
When you sat on a small island with the same people for more than three weeks, you either sank into madness or you started doing something about it. So Dawson cut down the palm trees day after day, not questioning how on Earth they were back at dawn regardless, and eventually constructed a ramshackle hovel to conduct his business.
Because the last thing any hunter needed was more of an excuse to get crazy. And with time ticking past with no help in sight, even Dawson was starting to turn stir crazy, no matter how much time he spent working, fishing, or carving. If he could help smooth over the bumps that would inevitably appear, at least something changed.
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 6:27 pm
Give and Take
Melvin sat on the island, seeing Dawson for their "walk" whenever they had time when they weren't just occupying themselves with something to do. The phones had stopped working and things were getting bleak.
"You okay?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:22 pm
Give and Take
Dawson adjusted his hat, which had now started to fade in color and smelled of sweat and sand. "I should be askin' you that first," he teased. "I'm...eh." He sighed. "I'm doin' what I can. How 'bout you?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:32 pm
Halloween
The coconuts and palm leaves made good costumes...for both of them. Maybe for everyone, the people who could still try for fun at least. Then again palm leaves and coconut made for good everything as they'd had to find out.
America'd never been shy to handle a knife, but her carving had improved by leaps and bounds, not least because of quiet times. They were decorating the little counseling hut, carving Jackoconut-lanterns to decorate it for the holiday. It felt a little like waving hello to the world they hadn't seen in so long.
"Do you think we're dead?" The question's asked out of nowhere, as she holds her handiwork up to admire. "In the TV show Lost, they were all dead."
A pause.
"Spoiler alert."
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Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:36 pm
Christmas
The tree was made of branches, artfully put together with little carved ornaments of wood and fishbones and shells strung about it. There's a bit of quiet between bouts of caroling, and into that quiet she ventures, "I'm sorry...about Maebe."
And she was. She'd lived through what the loss of her mother had done to Trucks. She was sorry to Dawson alone sometimes, even when he was in the center of a group. Even when he was with her.
So she meant it, and it was also easier to say she was sorry about Maebe, than it was to say thank you for not abandoning her.
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:46 am
Halloween
Dawson took the Jackoconut-lantern, gave it an appraising look as he turned it this way and that, and then grinned in approval as he returned it.
"Naw," he replied easily. "Lucky fer you, I couldn' keep up with that hot mess. But here, nah, I think this's...iunno, some sort of limbo." He was learning, slowly, not to treat America with kid gloves. Forced to, really. "'Cuz the island stays the same everyday, right? Erry day there's coconuts in the same trees, same fish in the same ocean."
The only difference was the cove sometimes calling out to people, but you just didn't talk about it on holidays.
"Reminds me a bit've a story I know," he said thoughtfully, like he wasn't trying to goad America into asking.
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:56 am
Christmas
He had been doing well, he liked to think. When you fell into a cycle of a schedule, it could quickly blur the days. Maybe it had only been a week and not months. America's question popped that bubble, took away the cheer from "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells."
He thought about trying to brush it off, but it would have been insulting to both America and Maebe's memory.
So instead, he sighed a very quiet, "Yeah." It ached more than it should have because he had wasted so much time before. Dawson wanted to time travel to the past and kick his own a**. And then fast forward to the squid battle where he would make sure neither he nor America ever stepped foot out until the tidal wave was gone.
"But," he turned to her in earnest, "tha's fer me t'deal with. I have you here, right?" And it had been clear thus far how much that meant to Dawson, whose eyes were starting to shine a little just thinking about it. He tried to blink it back as he clasped America's shoulder. "You mean the world t'me too. You know that, right?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:06 am
Give and Take
"I know it's not real or true but I can't help feeling like this is a punishment. That I wanted things to just be simple again and for things just to stop moving in order to keep what I had. Back in the past when I thought I had something back in my old relationship. Now I'm stuck on a loop far away from the life I wanted, both the past I wanted to get back and the future I am looking to now, like some hell re-run of Groundhog Day." He said as he stared out to the ocean.
"Like even wanting something was wrong."
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:30 am
Give and Take
"Mm." Dawson looked grim for a moment. The whole island thing was probably a punishment of some sort for them all anyway--at the very least for pissing that squid off. But he chose not to put that out there.
"Bill Murray's character didn' do so hot either at first. But he got better in the end, y'know," he looked to Melvin, dark expression gone, "so tha's not so bad. Wantin' somethin' ain' necessarily bad either. Wantin' stuff's, like, a real human deal. So you have two major wants."
He listed them on his fingers. "In the past, you wanted time t'stop. Mean, who wouldn'? But that's not realistic, right? Time don' stop fer nobody. Now you got a new want fer a house, n' that's totally doable. Past one was always gonna setcha up fer failure, but this one's totally yours."
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:51 am
how to deal
He sat with his back leaning a little against Dawson's shoulder. One leg jittered, raised so that it was bent, an arm resting over his knee so that Chance was hunched slightly, head bowed forward. Black curls fell in a tangled mess around his face.
"I can't do this."
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 8:02 am
how to deal
Dawson continued to carve at the stone. It wasn't runic viable, but he wasn't about to let that skill get rusty, no matter how long he waited for the cavalry to come get them.
"Why not?" he asked patiently.
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:07 am
how to deal
His hand pushed aimlessly through the sand, sun glinting off of the starry, silver band on his left ring finger. It had dulled a little from constant wear, but it was still there, ever present out of the corner of his eye.
"I can't..." Chance's voice was low, barely audible. The words came out jerky, unrefined, nothing like his usual calm, collected self. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the sun, but it was always there too, pinpricks against his eyelids, stinging.
"I'm not - it's been six months. I thought I could do this, but I'm not - used to - being alone anymore, I don't want to be here."
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:57 am
how to deal
Some part of him was alarmed to see Chance's usually lazy demeanor become unstuck, but he couldn't visibly show it on the job. He had to be a rock while in this shack, something the constant waves could smooth and erode at but not crack and destroy.
Dawson understood the context of alone went beyond the hunters stuck with him, and so he said, "Here." And he gave Chance a coconut half that had been smoothed out and used as a cup to hold fresh water from the cove. "How's yer insomnia been?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:15 pm
Halloween
"Isn't limbo like...for dead people," America sassed even as she settled in on the ground with a grin. "Is the story about dead people?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:20 pm
ChristmasSmushing her face into Dawson's shoulder, more to let him have a bit of privacy for any tears he might have than to sop up her own, America nodded. She wasn't sure...if it was okay, though. At least not anymore. To build a world around the people who kept slipping away, one by one. It's okay to build today around them, though. "She'll understand...once you get back. I think she'll be really happy." She doesn't know Maebe. In the other woman's place, she'd probably be happy. Probably. "It'll be such a good day. Are you gonna marry her?"
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