breath is bated

The girl nodded and her face softened.. “Yes, well Ezra and I started in Ithaca, New York. We had been at college at the time. Our car ran out of gas somewhere between there and West Virginia-that’s when we-I mean I met them.” She said quietly, unsure of why she had even been telling the stranger all this. 

“Wait, you’re with Ezra? Are you two, like, related or something? Or, like...y’know?” The new, potentially exciting bit of information was enough to pique his curiosity, but it also caused a little twist in his stomach - sometimes it felt like everyone else got to keep someone from their past that was important to them, but not Chip. He wasn’t the type to hold it against someone, though, and he listened to her intently. “Oh. Well, I’m glad you guys made it here, then.” He smiled, the corners of his lips twitching downward for a moment before he cast his eyes at the ground.

The lip bite was more of a distraction to Rick than any blushing could have been. He wasn’t distracted enough to not mark the action down as a tell, however. Had it been done in any other point of Chip’s turn, Rick would have let it go. But it happened just as the cards were selected, and choosing a wrong card was as good a reason as any to perform the act. The game had just started, however, and there were only three cards on the table. Rick decided to wait it out - to let the risk of lying escalate. 

Chip was exceedingly glad that he hadn’t been caught in a lie on the first move. For the trash talk being exchanged, that would’ve been embarrassing, and he wanted Rick to think...well, he wasn’t sure what he exactly wanted Rick to think of him as. Maybe cooler than he was, except that sounded stupid when he even thought about it, and he shook his head imperceptibly at himself. How ridiculous. But still...

“I fixed about three rifles yesterday… who is Gordon again?” she asked with a yawn that she tried to cover up. “Sorry, been the night… and yeah everything needs to be kept properly, even if they seem like their okay, regular maintenance is still needed. Can you imagine if something just blows up because of lack of well.. maintaining?”

“Gordon, the one with the red hair and the headband he refuses to take off, that one.” Chip shrugged, watching her carefully for a moment. “Well, you know better than I do. The police academy taught me how to take a gun apart, but not much more than that. And yeah, let’s not...I’d rather not have something blow up in my face. I agree.”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s disgusting but I thought it could lighten up the mood a bit. Besides, it’s not at all as gross as other things these days are. I didn’t shower for like months before I found this place, that if anything was gross.”

“Ew, right? Makes me glad I got lucky to have found this place when I did. I feel bad for all the people just getting here, y’know?”

Thank your teddy bear face.

“What? There’s strawberries?”

“Ah…I hear ya.” Oliver sidestepped to let himself fall back at Chip’s side. There was no point in trying to stay ahead of the younger man if they were going to have a conversation. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie’s pockets to keep them from fidgeting, though he almost wanted to immediately pull them out again. “We could talk about somethin’ else,” he offered, shrugging and glancing back to their path. “Unless you wanna try and figure out what’s wrong. I’ve had that feelin’ before, y’know…I know it ain’t fun - but…might help to talk ‘bout it.”

Chip wanted to talk about something else, he really did, but he wasn’t sure what to say. His fingers twitched slightly, as if he wanted to work with something - a pack of colored pencils and a big sketchbook would’ve been great right then - but they grasped on air only. “Okay,” he said, unable to stop himself from frowning, though, as Oliver continued. “I...I don’t know what to talk about, though. It’s not anything that happened or didn’t happen. It just does.”

thirdhemsworth:

Rick’s eyes scanned his cards once before he set them face down on the table, each one’s location written into his memory. He lifted his gaze to Chip as the younger man spoke, the corner of his mouth lifting up in a smirk as he listened to the attempted trash talk. His fingers tapped against the first two cards in his hand as he watched for any signs of an early sign - maybe Chip didn’t have any twos, since Rick had been invited to start. Or maybe he had three of the four aces. Rick only had one, and luckily enough, at that. 

Chip looked at the card carefully, then at Rick’s face, wondering if he was lying. Card games were probably one of the few things in which he felt comfortable calling out other people, something he normally wouldn’t dare to do otherwise. Chip hated confrontation and would avoid it if at all possible - it was probably the reason he so often found himself in submissive roles even when he had something on his mind that actually mattered to him. Still, cards was fine, even if Rick still made him feel funny.

“West Virginia?” Chip’s eyes widened slightly as he tried to remember where it was on a map. Geography hadn’t been his favorite subject, along with all the others. “Wow, that’s a long way...it’s by New York, isn’t it?”

“Wrong again, Mr. You’ve been a good sport though, can’t deny that. The answer is that he needed his bone and marrow.”

“Wait, huh? I don’t - oh!”

Matt nodded his head, though he was perfectly content with the food they had. He’d be lying if he said the opportunity to mix some things up during meals didn’t excite him slightly. “Some new things could go over well, yeah. Put people in a better mood.” Matt let out a breath from his nose, laughing lightly. “I dunno what would even be on the TV. I doubt there are any stations left even if we did have one.” He listened to Chip talk, nodding. “I’m sure you’re still good at it,” he replied, figuring it was a normal thing to reassure someone when they were doubting themselves. “You should get one of the runners to keep an eye out for some.” The next question, however, made him pause, licking his lips. “Erm, I guess… sleep? I don’t… take a lot of free time, so. I’m either out here or sleeping. Keeps me busy.” He let out the fact that it kept his mind from wandering, too. And that was the most dangerous thing to Matt. Reliving the past. Because the past was the past. He wasn’t getting it back.

“We could make up our own tv, yeah? Shakespeare and shit, y’know?” Chip grinned. “I mean, you look like you’d be a good actor. You and Nora, prob’ly.” Merely shrugging at the other’s reassurances, he reached up to scratch at the stubble on his jaw. “They got enough to look out for, I bet. Can’t be wasting time on colored pencils when there’s food and medicine out there.” At Matt’s pause, Chip tilted his head slightly. He too liked to sleep, but only very often when he was in a peculiar mood. “Doesn’t sound like much fun, though. I mean, it’s not like plants can talk back, right?”

“It’s fine Chip, honestly,” Nora assured him, even though it wasn’t. There was no way she would get to her post in time and now she was going to go most of the day without something to eat. She glanced back to the kitchens, knowing that going back would mean more time that she was late. “I have to head out. I already overslept and I need to get out there before someone starts screaming.”

Chip knew it wasn’t really okay or at least he felt like it. He knew how strict the patrols could be sometimes, and how Nora probably wouldn’t get to eat something before she left. “Nor - I mean, I’m really sorry, it’s all my fault, you could just tell them that maybe, and, or I could go out and cover you for a little, I guess and that wouldn’t be a big deal hopefully...”

“Ah, uh…yea, yeah, sure.” He nodded, stepping back in the direction he had been headed. There went his plans of thinking to himself - but if anyone were to interrupt them, he was glad it had been Chip. Oliver felt he could still have his own time, even with the guard around. Though he felt that this time things would be different, seeing as he couldn’t seem to keep himself from wondering if the younger man was alright. He turned after speaking, lagging compared to how he had been walking earlier so that Chip wouldn’t be left behind. “What’s up, kiddo?”

Chip followed at Oliver’s heels practically, wishing he were a little more awake for this. Or for something. He wasn’t sure what. He rubbed a hand through his already disheveled hair, frowning for half a second at something Oliver said that triggered some flash of memory he couldn’t quite place.

Chip shrank slightly at her expression, but curiosity overwhelmed his immediate urge to retreat - new people were something of an oddity; not rare enough to be immediately obvious, but Chip enjoyed getting to know some of them, and they all carried stories of the outside.

If you were anyone else, your ass would black ‘n blue. Actually, no, it’d just be on the ground. Luckily for you, it’s you. Good mornin’, porkchop.

“Wow, uh, I believe that too. Surprised I’m not on my ass right now, heh.”

“A party? Now someone is talking. I remember lots, it was one of my favorite things to do for my friends.”

“Sooo...would you be down for, like, helping me plan one? Brooke said I could, but I realized, I’d never thrown any parties before all this.”