HOME | DD

Description
HARLON

Summer… It was summer… Right?

The months were going by so quick…why just yesterday it was spring. Then again I had my mind on other things half the time.

It was bothering me.

“Hey, are you ok?” Rev asked, poking at my knee.

I blinked and looked over at him. We were sitting at the top of the hill again, just looking out there into the valley and the woods. “…Oh uh…yeah, ‘m fine.” I scratched at my chin.

Thankfully no one ever came to the woods to look for us. By ‘no one’ I had meant primarily the military.

That didn’t mean they WEREN’T looking though… We couldn’t hide here forever.

“Look like you’re thinking awful hard about something.” Rev said again, shaking me from my paranoia.

I began to scratch at the back of my neck. “I uhm…Really, just…a lot on m’ mind is all…” I’d always give him half-assed answers, but I just didn’t want him to ask. Why wouldn’t he stop asking? He already gave me plenty to think about…

“Well…” He slid over closer and grabbed my arm, hugging it to himself before laying back into the grass. I exhaled and looked around nervously.

No one was watching…It was ok, for now. “Rev-“

“Hm? Gonna tell me what’s bugging you?” He asked, his eyes closed. He was still smiling though. At least one of us was at ease, so to speak.

“…Tell ya what? Ain’ much t’ tell. I’m a paranoid old bastard’s what.” That much was true.

“Oh? Well…I suppose not then.” He didn’t let go.

I frowned but eventually laid back too, trying to calm down.

The last few months had been… Something else.

Especially since he made the first move, so to speak. Just what the hell was I going to do with that?

I thought about it, and thought and thought, but I couldn’t ever come close to figuring things out.

I liked him. At least I think I did if I went about it according to something else down there…Sure, I liked him a lot. But WHY?

He sure liked me a whole ton. He wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary though… He’d always follow me and nag at me and do this and that even before all this came about, so it wasn’t a whole lot different… Yet at the same time it felt like it.

“…C’mon, I know it’s not just you… ‘Sit me?”

I had a lump in my throat. He’d ask that sometimes, if it were him that was what was bugging me. How could I tell him it was yes and no? I didn’t want to but…

This was…Was it wrong? In my mind, way in the back of my mind…

“Harlon...”

I had a wife, I still had Leta. Maybe that was nearly thirty years ago but… God it was a long time ago but I had been MARRIED once. This… This wasn’t-

“Hey? You ok?” Rev reached over and shook me by the shoulder again.

I took a deep breath. I was still here on the hill. It was summer, and I was running for my life and away from the southern government for the past twenty years. I got the rest of my kin out with help and now we were hiding in the woods.

And a southerner was lying right beside me.

“You started breathing all funny again, and you were making faces.”

Was I?

“Oh …Ahm…sorry about that… Thinkin’ bout where ta go ‘s all. Can’t go wanderin’ round th’ woods ferever.”

“Mmm…” He tilted his head towards the sky and looked up at the big blue expanse before us. Then he looked back at me. “…Maybe not forever, but you know what it feels like to me at least?”

“No, what?”

“Like a little spot of heaven that’ll only be around for so long.” He grinned and laid back again, taking my arm and putting it around his shoulders.

I didn’t move. I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. Right now I was leaning more towards the latter.

I didn’t always feel like this. Some days it didn’t feel like a problem at all, and during some others it did. At the moment it was a little bit of both.

“...Aheh,” He rubbed his nose and began to almost lean against me. “You gotta take it easy…You’ll go crazy if you don’t. I know, funny coming from someone like me but…It’s true.”

Yes, he was right. I knew that… Didn’t mean doing so was easy but he was right in that.

“…Well ah…Need all th’ help I can get sometimes…” I paused shortly afterwards.

What was I saying? No, no this was all wrong.

Why did I say that?

“Hm? Really?”

Stop, not another word.

“…Y-yeah…”

“Hmm…Well…” Rev sat up and got to his feet. “Maybe we could go find some other place to sit.”

I sat up and followed him soon afterwards, almost automatically. Too quickly for my liking. What the hell was I doing? Stop-

“Oh uhm… Sure?”

God I had that feeling again. It was like a train rolling down a hill without any brakes. I couldn’t stop and I wasn’t going to.

Whether or not Rev noticed remained a mystery to me, all the same he grabbed my hand and began dragging me back towards the trees.

There was this thicket we would always go to. Considering the others liked to wander (especially Atticus,) I was surprised none of them had managed to find it yet.

…Not that I wanted them to find it.

“Careful, you might trip,” Rev laughed as he led me through the trees. I almost did several times.

“I…I won’.”

We reached the thicket. Wait…why did we come here again?

Oh who was I kidding, I knew EXACTLY why we came here.

“So…”

I stared down at him. “…Ehm…So…”

It was summer sure, and my face felt like it was on fire (and it probably looked like it.) But…God damn it.

Rev raised his brows. I knew that look on his face.

I cleared my throat. “…It’s kin’a hot ain’ it?” It felt like it was a thousand degrees out here.

“…Might be…”

I don’t remember what happened next but I heard him laughing at me. Or laughing with me? Was I laughing too? I had no idea.

…Well…

Maybe this wasn’t so bad…Maybe.

That was a BIG maybe.
________________________________________________
WYATT

“Why yeh laughin’ Atti?”

“OHHH ye’ know…Th’ usual…”

Atticus had been giggling and snorting for the last half hour. Trotter on the other hand kept his face buried in his knees off to the side.

“Did somethin’ happen?”

“MMMM I wouldn’ think ye’d want me t’ answer such things. Ye might git nightmares if ah mention it.”

I raised my brow, “Oh, so it’s THAT BAD that it’d scare ME an’ not YOU eh?”

“Perhaps… Ah think ye’ll see when erryone shows up fer dinner though.”

It was still the early afternoon. We wouldn’t eat again for quite a while.

“…Ok…”

He didn’t say anymore and danced off somewhere else.

I looked over towards Trotter, “Ehy, boy. Yeh ok? What happened?”

Trotter looked up at me and shook his head before hiding his face again in his knees. The boy looked like a deer in the headlights. What was wrong?

“…Hrm…” I scratched at my chin and looked towards the woods.

“Any reason Atti is dancing around like’a fool?”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Shaw carrying a bundle of firewood under his arms.

“I ah… I’ve got no idea. He says he saw somethin’ that we’ll all apparently see durin’ dinnertime. If we find some game today that is.”

“Oh… Huh. It’s probbly nothin’ in that case. Where them two slackers?”

Slackers? Oh, yes. “…Oh, Morrison an’ the shrimp? Dunno, they went out there.”

They never came back with anything. If they did it sure wasn’t worth all the time they had spent out there, which was hours on end sometimes.

“Feh… Like they don’ think we know.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

Shaw didn’t answer me, and dumped the firewood into the small pile we had off to the side. “Finn, what’s th’ matter? Yer shakin’ like a leaf.”

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair.

The thing between those two was…a little more than blatantly obvious.

I guess I should be happy for Morrison at the very least.