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Aodh may have only faintly went pink at the fall but then Jaro was speaking. Never mind that he had both arms on him and steadying him. His fingers stretched out against the taller man's bicep (which was bad; Jaro was-) and then curled to hold a moment.

A moment that stretched into a longer once because he went entirely pink. So pink that it stretched across his nose to his cheeks and then to his ears.

"You're kind of the best at being worst, Jaro," he huffed at the teasing. Jaro really was but Aodh knew he had walked into it and he couldn't hold it against him (or think about the fact that he maybe, just maybe still had that crush after all these years).

Aodh was, surprisingly enough, not easy to embarass at all except when it ca-

Not the place.

Straightening himself up, Aodhan just scowled at Jaro and started walking off in front of him. The young man did not say a word but the pink to his ears and his face was not fading as quickly as he wanted and this was the worst and why did he still have to-

Jaro was the worst.

Aodhan came to a stop somewhere a little further away, turning to face Jaro and look around the clearing.

"It was supposed to be out there, right? Someone else hasn't already picked it up?" The blonde started to walk in a circle around Jaro, checking to see if he saw anything in the trees or maybe tracks or ...

This was kind of annoying.

Aodh was starting to get suspicious but Jaro was right. There were no signs of a vehicle having even been here in the first place. When the other man checked his phone but did not say anything, he was coming closer to get a look at the phone but then he was already moving.

Further into the forest and not going back to the path.

The wink did not help and Aodhan went immediately pink again.

"Jaro ... Next time, GPS coordinates. I'm sure they could've given them to you ..." Not that he was not stepping after him, hands shoved back into his pockets.

Aodh just kept up with Jaro, sometimes getting ahead and then sometimes slowing down so that he was not getting too far away. As much as he did not put much faith into the stories around town, he had been raised here and sometimes ...

Sometimes the forest spooked him.

Not that he'd say so.

Instead he was just giving Jaro a grumpy look when he sat down without prompting. It lead to Aodh taking a seat himself on the ground next to the rock. He leaned his head back towards it with a sigh. "Whenever you say? There's another clearing ahead and you said be ready for a hike? Not like I'm tired or anything." Athlete, remember?

His attention flicked back to the stream they were near. Oddly enough the sound of running water and the stream itself eased some of the tension. As much as he was annoyed by the rabbit chase, the entire thing was oddly relaxing.

Aodh was leaning back on his palms, his eyes closed because he was enjoying the sun through the trees and the noise. It was relaxing. He made a noncommittal noise at the alright, simply letting it go. Clearly they were just enjoying the moment right now.

At the next phrase, however, grey eyes were opening up and his head fell back. He was looking at Jaro very seriously, frowning briefly before his head fell back down to look forward. It was not like he had not noticed. Perhaps others did not but he was used to there being something new every so often. The entire scrap yard looked stagnant. As if things had not changed at all since he had left for college.

"I'd ask if you've got any clue why but ..." Aodh knew Jaro better. Knew he would have already chased everything. Talking about it? That meant this had been going on for a while. Instead, he asked a more important question. "How long?"

"You didn't have anything new in the yard and the stuff I saw outside ..." Aodh leaned back against the rock that Jaro was sitting on. He would not bother to mention that what he had seen, the pieces for sale, lacked that flair that he was used to. They seemed all very normal.

His head tilted back and he looked up at the other, grey eyes studying his face. He wondered what would have made him lose this direction. Jaro had always had vision, knew where he was going and how he was going to do it-

Hearing he didn't? It was disheartening and oddly reassuring at the same time. It made him think of himself and his aimlessness. "Did you piss off your muse, Jaro?" he asked, mostly in teasing with a small smile. "Or maybe find yourself one if everything is boring."

Aodh frowned, an honest frown. After enough years he could, for the most part, tell when Jaro was pulling one on him when it came to teasing ...

This did not sound like his usual attempt at sympathy.

"Not sure if they do but if you were going to find a muse, this is probably the forest to find one in." He pushed himself up and dusted his hands along his pants before raising his head to look at Jaro with a smile.

"Inspiration is fickle." Aodh was an art student. "Even I know that. So maybe you just need to find something that puts thoughts into your head. Something fresh, something new, something you haven't done before ..."