ArchivedLogs:Plenty of Trouble

Plenty of Trouble
Dramatis Personae K.C., Kyinha, Taylor
In Absentia	2015-12-05 "Been a long. Week." (Part of the Flu Season TP.)
Location <XS> Lake
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. Though it's not all that late it's quite dark, chill, a good while after dinner already and crisper still down by the water. Taylor is out by the lake, in thick corduroys and boots, a sweatshirt, jacket, a heavy blanket draped around his shoulders. He sits at the end of the pier, hands wrapped around an insulated mug though all that's inside it is some plain chicken broth. There's a dark knit cap pulled down over his skull, a strip of bandaging over part of his jaw, though it doesn't quite covered up the mangled scarring that twists half of the lower part of his face. His eyes are focused outward, across the water; his phone is in his lap, though at the moment he's not looking at it. A canoe comes gliding in from out on the lake, lit by a LED lamp at its prow and the fiery glow from the eyes and mouth of its pilot. Kyinha paddles infrequently but with tremendous efficiency, and with a few quiet strokes brings the sleek vessel up alongside the pier. Standing up without any difficulty in the rolling keel of the canoe, he lifts a battered old cooler full of ice and fish out onto the pier. He's wearing a button-up shirt covered with overlapping triangles in many shades of blue and zip-off khaki hiking pants. Hopping up onto the pier itself, he nods a greeting to Taylor as he drags the canoe out of the water. There's a pattering of paws racing eagerly down the beach, slapping first into sand and then onto stone. A solid black-and-white pitbull lopes down the pier, running up to Taylor to nose at his neck. Lick. Slurp. Tail wagging furiously. Suga Mama is soon followed by a dissonant mental screech. K.C. does not eagerly lope, trailing after the dog at a slower trudge, hands shoved in the pocket of her jacket. "Woah, lick, lick, lick. Ask first, not polite." Taylor glances up, tracking the approaching lights with a wrinkle of his brows. His hand lifts -- his two standard-issue arms are the only ones actually in view, tentacles packed away under his jacket to leave it misshapen-bulgy-looking. He exhales sharply, a crooked smile on his face as the dog comes up to him. The smile fades, though. Into a grimace, a sharp tightening of his shoulders. "... the /dog's/ alright." Kyinha smiles at the dog, also. Hoists the canoe up onto its rack and returns to the cooler, closing it and patting the lid. 'Fish for dinner,' he signs, then, realizing his hands are probably near invisible in the poor lighting, switches to Spanish, "{Taylor, you're cured, yes? And she was never ill.}" "Rude dog." K.C. gets closer, resting her hand atop Suga Mama's head as the dog licks at Taylor's ear. "Silly dog. Dog is alright. Dog is alright. Huh, fish. Fish." The dog is leaving off her licking to bound to the edge of the pier, nosing at the cooler hopefully. "Not for you-fish. Silly dog. Ask first. Everyone out here. Why -- why. Just sitting. Why." Taylor's eyes scrunch up, the tightness not leaving his shoulders. "I'm not sick. Anymore. She's not sick." Shrug. "Fish -- better than canned beans." His brows furrow, and he shakes his head. "Why? Quiet out here." One side of his mouth pulls into a crooked thin smile. "Well. It was." Kyinha also shrugs. Sits down on the cooler and offers the dog a concilatory scratch behind the ears in lieu of fish. "Fish, maybe for dog too, eventually." His English carries a heavy and obscure accent. "Have to eat something, no? Me, I was fishing, all afternoon." He looks up. "Already missed dinner, I guess." Sighs, rollings his shoulders. "Maybe fish for /breakfast./" "Not sick. I'm not sick. I'm not sick -- okay, sick," K.C. finally agrees with a frown, tapping at her nose, "/cold/ sick, not zombie sick, too many tissues." Her nose wrinkles, a loud snuffle accompanying these words. "Fish for you, fish for him, fish for dog. She likes fish." Suga Mama rests her large head on Kyinha's knee, tail thumping against Taylor's side while she gets scritches. "Dinner over. Done, over, every day, same time, of course over. Always over by now, you should know that, you're a teacher." Taylor tenses harder when K.C. says she is sick, but relaxes once more at the sniffling. "I have some shitty convenience store apple pie if you missed dinner. Like the kind in the -- bag." He gestures about the size of a small single-serving mostly-hydrogenated-oils apple pie. His breath sucks in abruptly hard and sharp when Suga Mama's tail thwacks against him, and he shifts quickly to the side to move out of the way. Kyinha's eyes go wide, and a faint fiery halo flares bright enough around him for a moment to be seen, then fades again. "Ah. Not /that/ sickness, though. Being a teacher," he holds out a hand, palm up, "doesn't guarantee you a good sense of time. And it gets dark so early now..." He looks up again, wistful. "Thank you, if you can spare it I should be ever so grateful. Though I probably can /manage/ without-- " But when Taylor gasps, he tilts his head. "Are you injured?" "Apple pie," K.C. echoes, "apple pie where. Mr. Holland apple pie. No. Convenience store. No." A small shake of her head. "No convenience store here." She shakes her head again when Taylor gasps, leaning closer to peer at his side. "Suga Mama." Her fingers snap, forefinger pointing down to her side. The dog returns to her side, licking at the finger that she points. "Very strong tail." "Ah --" Taylor's hand has been moving to the bulging side of his coat, but lifts instead to press at the side of his temple. "No. Jax cooks way better pie than this shit. This is like. The terrible chemical stuff that will probably --" He grimaces, then shoots a twisted grin down to his lap. "-- that /does/ last through the apocalypse." He shrugs kind of stiffly at the mention of injury. "Been a long. Week." "Not many pies can compare with Jax's," Kyinha agrees, his mouth twisting to one side, "but can't be too picky in an apocalypse, huh?" Then, with a good-natured shrug, "Been a long /month/, but the new guests...well, I know a lot of them haven't been friendly. They giving you trouble?" "Long week. Long week, long week." K.C.'s fingers continue to press down against Suga Mama's head, rubbing behind her ears. "Too many people. Too many people. Everywhere people. Awful." Her head shakes, and she rocks a couple times back and forth. "A lot of people not friendly before anyway." "They're a bunch of scared humans." Taylor shrugs, managing a huff of laughter. "K.C.'s right. People /here/ are awful. I wouldn't expect people outside to be any better when the whole world's going to hell." "Neither do I, but I was guessing that might have been why you had a long week, yes?" Kyinha runs a hand through the mess of jet black hair that just looks like and extension of his jet-black head (and, momentarily, his jet-black hand). "But it's true. Plenty of trouble here already. And plenty of other things to make a week long." This with a weary shake of his head. "Whatever it is -- if you wanna talk to me, can find me out here early mornings or late afternoons, most days." He rises, picks up the cooler. Flashes a grin, "And not necessarily because I'm a /teacher/, though if you need help working through a trigonometry problem, I'm good for that, too." He waves to the students and, turnign to go, gives the dog a pat on the side on his leisurely way up the pier. "Plenty of trouble." K.C.'s echo comes with a momentary stillness. Her shoulders sink, head bowing. "Yeah, plenty of trouble." She turns, too, snapping her fingers to her dog as she jogs back down the pier.