Around Town | Late Thursday Morning

[knife_bender]

Okay, well, it had been pretty well established that patrolling the town was useless, but what else were people like Diego supposed to do? It had been hammered in his head since birth to take action, even if the efforts were futile.

Which probably also explained Five's determination to stop the apocalypse even though he had nothing to go on.

So, yeah. Walking around town yet again. For some reason. Maybe he'd find a hole to jump in.

[For a few!]

Comments

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, yeah, but it's like, the bowling alley and stuff." Annie made a little noise of frustration, reaching a hand up to anxiously tighten her ponytail. "I just want to do something."

Which, like, she knew Diego would get, but being impotent together didn't feel any better.

[knife_bender]

"I know," he said, reaching over to put his arm around her waist. "Neither of us are good at being useless."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, I can totally find us something else to do, usefully, in another universe," Annie offered, slipping her arm across his back in return as she leaned into him (carefully in all regards -- knives and all.) "But I hate this."

She paused, struck by an idea that seemed so simple that it was probably too dumb to work. "Should we -- should we dig our own holes?"

[knife_bender]

"How about that'll be after the dead people plan, and before the explosion plan?" he said. "I mean, if we dug our own holes they wouldn't be all magic and shit, right?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Maybe if we dig far enough we'll run into the magic holes?" Annie suggested, trying to sound like she wasn't blatantly grasping at straws. "I wonder if I could get, like, a backhoe rented from the mainland."

[knife_bender]

"Okay, maybe we've done enough patrolling for today." They were not going to rent a backhoe, Annie.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'd let you drive it," Annie tried. "And come on, we've barely started. We haven't even seen anything."

Which was, you know. The point.

[knife_bender]

"Do you think we are going to see anything?" he asked.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"We definitely won't if we go home," Annie said resolutely, shrugging a shoulder. "We could go look things up, if you'd rather. 'Cause like, I keep thinking it might be like that volcano thing that happened before."

Mmmm, nerd work.

[knife_bender]

"Couldn't hurt," he said with a shrug. "Not something I usually do, but we're really running out of ideas here."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I think a lot of the nerds fell in the hole, maybe," Annie suggested, pulling out her phone to check her little list. "But like, if people are being held hostage over a volcano and we don't know 'cause I didn't think to look up something that happened a year before either of us ever got here. Though...I also don't know if these things ever repeat, really."

[knife_bender]

"You know way more about this than I do," he said. "Maybe I'll see if we've got archives or something at work."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I swear I think every person I talked to when I first got here wanted to talk about that damn volcano," Annie said with a little smile. "So I've heard that story a lot. But I also feel like this is going on a really long time for...how this stuff usually goes. Like, what people have told me. Everyone was really informative about this kind of stuff for awhile 'cause I was trying to, you know, do the Starlight thing here."

[knife_bender]

Well Diego didn't really invite conversation, so it probably wasn't surprising this was the first he had heard of a volcano.

"You think people would have learned something with how to deal with this."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"This seems pretty unprecedented," Annie said, shaking her head. "Like, we should look it up to be sure, but -- like, the volcano thing was that this goat Santa guy kidnapped the bus of new kids and took them to a volcano? Something like that? So it's still different from this thing where people disappear one-by-one. Sometimes with buildings."

[knife_bender]

"Okay..." Diego really had no idea how to respond to that whole thing. "Somehow we could overcome that, but everyone is stuck on the holes thing? I feel like an idiot."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Me too." Annie took a moment to just go on her toes and press a kiss to his cheek, kind of needing a little bit of comfort even if she was worried enough for this to be a pretty focused patrol. "Like, I'm never the...plans-y one, anyway, but I feel exceptionally stupid right now."

So at least Diego shouldn't feel dumb alone.

[knife_bender]

"I think we're in good company with that," he said with a sigh. "Kind of makes me feel better."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"And at least we're together," Annie added, bumping her shoulder against his arm. "I'd probably be such a wreck if you'd fallen in."

She wasn't exactly doing great, emotionally, with two of her best friends in there.

[knife_bender]

"Don't jinx us," Diego said lightly, leaning in to kiss her cheek. "I'd lose my damn mind."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"No jinxes," Annie agreed, smiling the tiniest bit as she looked around and gently tapped on a tree with her knuckles. There. Superstition fulfilled. "We'll figure it out, Diego. We have to. Even if we don't, someone will."

And until then, they'd...keep walking in circles while Annie prayed and came up with increasingly stupid plans.

(The backhoe was kind of an okay idea, maybe.)