See disclaimers & notes in Part 1.
Thanks to everyone who's commented on this story so far! It should be complete
by this weekend.
Runaway Trains at 3 AM (4/7)
Since leaving home, Clark had: spent the night sleeping under a park bench
in Wichita; washed beer glasses in a theme restaurant in Dodge City; hitched
a ride with a guy whom he seriously suspected of having recently escaped from
La Junta State Prison; and gotten completely lost in the Garden of the Gods.
He was currently the furthest away from home that he'd ever been, and having
a better time than in the previous four days combined.
"Wheeeee!"
The floors at the 20th Street Greyhound Bus Station were waxed at 4 A.M. It
was probably a convenient time for it, since the first buses of the day
departed at 6:15, and the likelihood of anyone accidentally slipping, tripping
or falling on the freshly cleaned floor at that time of night was pretty
low. Most customers would have left by midnight, when the last bus of the
night headed out, and there would only have been a skeleton crew left inside the
station.
"Whoa!"
Still. That didn't take into account *deliberate* sliding from the reservations
counter to the luggage counter in sock feet.
"Do it again!"
It was important to get a good running start from a point by the chairs next
to the west wall, running just fast enough to get up a good speed without
any bus station employees noticing anything... *weird*, and then slam on
the brakes just as they reached the dividing wall between the waxed hallway and the unwaxed main lobby. The resulting momentum could carry them at
least sixty feet, and fast enough that Clark felt a breeze through his hair
as they whizzed across the slick floor. Making sure he had a good grip on
Dawn's hand, not too tight and not too loose, was the tricky part. Too
tight and she could get whipped into the wall, which had happened the first
time, fortunately without her getting hurt. Too loose and she got left
behind, and pouted at him when he reached the other side of the lobby
without her.
They were starting to get really good at this. Even if they had ended up in
a upside-down pile against the bottom of the luggage counter this time.
"Again!" Dawn was already on her feet, holding out a hand to help him up,
her face flushed and giggles escaping her every other second.
"A-*hem.*"
Clark glanced up guiltily, recognizing the cough of authority even before he
met the eyes of the bus station security guard. He scrambled hastily to his
feet, grabbing the luggage counter when his feet almost slipped out from
under him again. "Um. Hello, sir."
"Yeah, hello. Nice to meet you." The guard crossed beefy arms and raised an
exasperated eyebrow. "Can't you kids do something else? Like sleep? Or maybe
just hang out? You're gonna hurt yourselves, pulling stunts like this. And
you could wake up the other passengers," he added, gesturing over to some of
the adults sleeping in the lobby chairs.
"We're not sleepy," Dawn answered. Not snottily, Clark noted--- just
matter-of-fact, as if she really didn't know that they were definitely doing
stuff they shouldn't be. Well, not that there was a sign against it, as
she'd pointed out earlier. But they'd still *known* that someone was going to
come over and ask them to stop. Eventually.
But it had been fun while it lasted.
"And we're stuck here, and you don't even have a television. Or any food,
other than the snack machines. And it was probably all that chocolate that
wound us up in the first place." She sighed long-sufferingly, as if the
guard were imposing unfair expectations on her and she was trying very, very
hard to be reasonable. "I guess we could go get some more... That'll keep us
busy for five minutes. Maybe."
The guard pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing with his eyes closed.
"Uh, no. Look... why don't you go to the 7-11 across the street, get
something to eat over there? Maybe work off some of the sugar-high _outside_
the station?"
Dawn's delighted smile was only a tiny bit smug. "You'd let us leave and
come back? I thought we had to stay inside the station. That's what you said
an hour and a half ago."
"Yeah, well, that was then. Now, I'm thinking I'll let you leave and come
back, if you just go *away* for a while."
"We're sorry to be so much trouble, sir." Clark could feel another blush
working its way up his neck, and stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugging
apologetically. Dawn was rolling her eyes at him, but he ignored that
without too much difficulty. "We're just a little... bored."
"Yeah, yeah, I get that, whatever. Just--- don't come back 'til you're
calmer, okay? I know you're not trying to bust up the place, but people are
trying to sleep, and the floor doesn't need any more polishing. Got it?"
"Yup!"
"Yes, sir. Sorry. Again."
"Yeah, yeah... go."
Five minutes later, Clark watched the hot dogs turn slowly on the metal
spit as he shook his head, half in wonder, half in embarrassment. "This is
definitely your fault. I've never gotten thrown out of anywhere before."
Dawn jumped up on the counter next to the microwave, shoved a burrito inside
of it, and closed the door, hitting the defrost button before leaning back
on her hands, heels drumming on the cabinets below her. "Really? Never?
Hunh. See, you're experiencing more firsts. It's a good thing you're hanging
out with me... Burrito?"
"Hot dogs. Two." He handed his money over to the cashier and waited while
the woman helped the next customer. He wanted more--- he'd have been
happy with five or maybe six hot dogs, his outsize appetite probably due to
the floor-sliding maneuvers --- but he didn't have enough money for that.
Not if he wanted to call home before he left Denver. And he did. He really,
really did.
His mom had practically begged him to come home the last three times he'd
called, and his father had promised they wouldn't be mad if he would just
turn around and head back to Smallville. He couldn't, though. He just
couldn't. Not yet.
"Xander says the hot dogs are made with rat guts."
Clark frowned. "They are not. Pig guts, maybe, but not rat." At least, the
ones at home weren't. And who was Xander, anyway? His frown deepened at the
continued guilelessness in Dawn's eyes as she smirked at him.
"Are you sure? How do you know where that hot dog's been? Or *what* it's
been?"
"How do you know that burrito wasn't made with tofutti and plastic?"
"It's the same kind of burrito they have in *all* the 7-11's." She cocked
her head thoughtfully. "Although, that doesn't mean you're wrong,
really...."
"Another mystery worth solving." He smiled his thanks at the clerk as she
brought him his hot dogs over to him, then turned to the large condiment
jugs next to Dawn and slathered one with ketchup, the other with mustard and
relish. He took a bite out of the first and sighed in relief, the empty
feeling in his stomach lightening nearly immediately. "But not now," he
added through a mouthful of meat and hot dog bun.
"Nope. Doesn't matter if it's recycled bug people, I'm so hungry I don't
care." The microwave dinged, and Dawn hit the button, fishing her burrito
out of the machine. "Have you ever been to Las Vegas?" she asked, unwrapping her
food with careful fingers. "I stopped there--- I think it was yesterday--- and
there was this all-you-can-eat buffet at Circus Circus, for, like, four
dollars. I ate like a *pig*. Stuffed myself until I thought I was going to
explode or yak. And it wasn't even that good, I just hadn't had anything
since I left California."
"Pigs don't actually eat like pigs," Clark pointed out in his sanest and
most-knowledgeable voice. "That's a myth."
Dawn narrowed her eyes at him and he fought to keep a straight face. He
widened his eyes, and the little frown lines appeared in between her eyes.
"They don't," she repeated skeptically.
"Nope. They're very clean. And reasonable. Compared to people, they only
eat... oh... a third as much, proportionally speaking. Weight-wise."
"Really."
"Uh-hunh."
"You're lying again, aren't you?"
"Maybe." He grinned around his next bite of food, and swallowed back a smile
as Dawn snorted at him. "But you can't tell about which part, can you?"
"So? Like I want to, Mister Farm-Boy? As far as I'm concerned, the hamburger
at the supermarket is grown in the plastic, and Lunchables grow on trees,
like in the Oz books." She poked him in the side with her foot and took
another bite of her burrito.
"I always liked those. I kept waiting for a twister to take me there, when I
was little. I thought it was actually possible I could wake up and there'd
be winged monkeys outside my window." It shouldn't have been impossible. It
made more sense than how he'd *actually* arrived in Smallville, anyway.
Dawn snickered, then nodded her head ruefully. "I looked for a closet that
would take me to Narnia for *years*. When I was twelve, Giles --- one of my
sister's teachers --- had us over to his house for tea and cookies, and he was
English, y'know? And even though I was way too old to believe in it, I kept
wanting to check out his closets, just in case. 'Cause lots weirder things had
happened before *that*. And if there was a chance, just a little one...
well...." The most wistful expression he'd seen since he'd met her flickered
across Dawn's face; then she shrugged her shoulders and wouldn't meet his
eyes. "Too bad the cool stuff in books isn't the stuff that's true."
"Yeah." If he had to be from anywhere, why couldn't he be from Oz, instead
of outer space? At least that might have meant there was a way back to
somewhere where everything in his life made sense.
"Do you want a Slurpee?"
"I don't have enough money..."
"My treat, for the slippy-sliding. Grape or Cherry?"
"Blue."
"Bleah. Okay. Guess you didn't get super taste-buds, along with
everything else...."
"What's wrong with blue?"
"It's *blue*."
"I like blue."
"Weirdo."
"Delinquent."
"Dork."
"Geek."
"Large?"
"Medium's good. Or small. Thanks."
"No problem. Doof."
"Adrenaline junkie."
"Stick-in-the-mud."
Giggling at the Slurpee machine resulted in a good bit of the ice getting
spilled, but fortunately Clark's reflexes kept it from getting *too* messy.
***
Chris Kiki Chaos }|{
kikimariposa@prodigy.net
Thanks to everyone who's commented on this story so far! It should be complete
by this weekend.
Runaway Trains at 3 AM (4/7)
Since leaving home, Clark had: spent the night sleeping under a park bench
in Wichita; washed beer glasses in a theme restaurant in Dodge City; hitched
a ride with a guy whom he seriously suspected of having recently escaped from
La Junta State Prison; and gotten completely lost in the Garden of the Gods.
He was currently the furthest away from home that he'd ever been, and having
a better time than in the previous four days combined.
"Wheeeee!"
The floors at the 20th Street Greyhound Bus Station were waxed at 4 A.M. It
was probably a convenient time for it, since the first buses of the day
departed at 6:15, and the likelihood of anyone accidentally slipping, tripping
or falling on the freshly cleaned floor at that time of night was pretty
low. Most customers would have left by midnight, when the last bus of the
night headed out, and there would only have been a skeleton crew left inside the
station.
"Whoa!"
Still. That didn't take into account *deliberate* sliding from the reservations
counter to the luggage counter in sock feet.
"Do it again!"
It was important to get a good running start from a point by the chairs next
to the west wall, running just fast enough to get up a good speed without
any bus station employees noticing anything... *weird*, and then slam on
the brakes just as they reached the dividing wall between the waxed hallway and the unwaxed main lobby. The resulting momentum could carry them at
least sixty feet, and fast enough that Clark felt a breeze through his hair
as they whizzed across the slick floor. Making sure he had a good grip on
Dawn's hand, not too tight and not too loose, was the tricky part. Too
tight and she could get whipped into the wall, which had happened the first
time, fortunately without her getting hurt. Too loose and she got left
behind, and pouted at him when he reached the other side of the lobby
without her.
They were starting to get really good at this. Even if they had ended up in
a upside-down pile against the bottom of the luggage counter this time.
"Again!" Dawn was already on her feet, holding out a hand to help him up,
her face flushed and giggles escaping her every other second.
"A-*hem.*"
Clark glanced up guiltily, recognizing the cough of authority even before he
met the eyes of the bus station security guard. He scrambled hastily to his
feet, grabbing the luggage counter when his feet almost slipped out from
under him again. "Um. Hello, sir."
"Yeah, hello. Nice to meet you." The guard crossed beefy arms and raised an
exasperated eyebrow. "Can't you kids do something else? Like sleep? Or maybe
just hang out? You're gonna hurt yourselves, pulling stunts like this. And
you could wake up the other passengers," he added, gesturing over to some of
the adults sleeping in the lobby chairs.
"We're not sleepy," Dawn answered. Not snottily, Clark noted--- just
matter-of-fact, as if she really didn't know that they were definitely doing
stuff they shouldn't be. Well, not that there was a sign against it, as
she'd pointed out earlier. But they'd still *known* that someone was going to
come over and ask them to stop. Eventually.
But it had been fun while it lasted.
"And we're stuck here, and you don't even have a television. Or any food,
other than the snack machines. And it was probably all that chocolate that
wound us up in the first place." She sighed long-sufferingly, as if the
guard were imposing unfair expectations on her and she was trying very, very
hard to be reasonable. "I guess we could go get some more... That'll keep us
busy for five minutes. Maybe."
The guard pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing with his eyes closed.
"Uh, no. Look... why don't you go to the 7-11 across the street, get
something to eat over there? Maybe work off some of the sugar-high _outside_
the station?"
Dawn's delighted smile was only a tiny bit smug. "You'd let us leave and
come back? I thought we had to stay inside the station. That's what you said
an hour and a half ago."
"Yeah, well, that was then. Now, I'm thinking I'll let you leave and come
back, if you just go *away* for a while."
"We're sorry to be so much trouble, sir." Clark could feel another blush
working its way up his neck, and stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugging
apologetically. Dawn was rolling her eyes at him, but he ignored that
without too much difficulty. "We're just a little... bored."
"Yeah, yeah, I get that, whatever. Just--- don't come back 'til you're
calmer, okay? I know you're not trying to bust up the place, but people are
trying to sleep, and the floor doesn't need any more polishing. Got it?"
"Yup!"
"Yes, sir. Sorry. Again."
"Yeah, yeah... go."
Five minutes later, Clark watched the hot dogs turn slowly on the metal
spit as he shook his head, half in wonder, half in embarrassment. "This is
definitely your fault. I've never gotten thrown out of anywhere before."
Dawn jumped up on the counter next to the microwave, shoved a burrito inside
of it, and closed the door, hitting the defrost button before leaning back
on her hands, heels drumming on the cabinets below her. "Really? Never?
Hunh. See, you're experiencing more firsts. It's a good thing you're hanging
out with me... Burrito?"
"Hot dogs. Two." He handed his money over to the cashier and waited while
the woman helped the next customer. He wanted more--- he'd have been
happy with five or maybe six hot dogs, his outsize appetite probably due to
the floor-sliding maneuvers --- but he didn't have enough money for that.
Not if he wanted to call home before he left Denver. And he did. He really,
really did.
His mom had practically begged him to come home the last three times he'd
called, and his father had promised they wouldn't be mad if he would just
turn around and head back to Smallville. He couldn't, though. He just
couldn't. Not yet.
"Xander says the hot dogs are made with rat guts."
Clark frowned. "They are not. Pig guts, maybe, but not rat." At least, the
ones at home weren't. And who was Xander, anyway? His frown deepened at the
continued guilelessness in Dawn's eyes as she smirked at him.
"Are you sure? How do you know where that hot dog's been? Or *what* it's
been?"
"How do you know that burrito wasn't made with tofutti and plastic?"
"It's the same kind of burrito they have in *all* the 7-11's." She cocked
her head thoughtfully. "Although, that doesn't mean you're wrong,
really...."
"Another mystery worth solving." He smiled his thanks at the clerk as she
brought him his hot dogs over to him, then turned to the large condiment
jugs next to Dawn and slathered one with ketchup, the other with mustard and
relish. He took a bite out of the first and sighed in relief, the empty
feeling in his stomach lightening nearly immediately. "But not now," he
added through a mouthful of meat and hot dog bun.
"Nope. Doesn't matter if it's recycled bug people, I'm so hungry I don't
care." The microwave dinged, and Dawn hit the button, fishing her burrito
out of the machine. "Have you ever been to Las Vegas?" she asked, unwrapping her
food with careful fingers. "I stopped there--- I think it was yesterday--- and
there was this all-you-can-eat buffet at Circus Circus, for, like, four
dollars. I ate like a *pig*. Stuffed myself until I thought I was going to
explode or yak. And it wasn't even that good, I just hadn't had anything
since I left California."
"Pigs don't actually eat like pigs," Clark pointed out in his sanest and
most-knowledgeable voice. "That's a myth."
Dawn narrowed her eyes at him and he fought to keep a straight face. He
widened his eyes, and the little frown lines appeared in between her eyes.
"They don't," she repeated skeptically.
"Nope. They're very clean. And reasonable. Compared to people, they only
eat... oh... a third as much, proportionally speaking. Weight-wise."
"Really."
"Uh-hunh."
"You're lying again, aren't you?"
"Maybe." He grinned around his next bite of food, and swallowed back a smile
as Dawn snorted at him. "But you can't tell about which part, can you?"
"So? Like I want to, Mister Farm-Boy? As far as I'm concerned, the hamburger
at the supermarket is grown in the plastic, and Lunchables grow on trees,
like in the Oz books." She poked him in the side with her foot and took
another bite of her burrito.
"I always liked those. I kept waiting for a twister to take me there, when I
was little. I thought it was actually possible I could wake up and there'd
be winged monkeys outside my window." It shouldn't have been impossible. It
made more sense than how he'd *actually* arrived in Smallville, anyway.
Dawn snickered, then nodded her head ruefully. "I looked for a closet that
would take me to Narnia for *years*. When I was twelve, Giles --- one of my
sister's teachers --- had us over to his house for tea and cookies, and he was
English, y'know? And even though I was way too old to believe in it, I kept
wanting to check out his closets, just in case. 'Cause lots weirder things had
happened before *that*. And if there was a chance, just a little one...
well...." The most wistful expression he'd seen since he'd met her flickered
across Dawn's face; then she shrugged her shoulders and wouldn't meet his
eyes. "Too bad the cool stuff in books isn't the stuff that's true."
"Yeah." If he had to be from anywhere, why couldn't he be from Oz, instead
of outer space? At least that might have meant there was a way back to
somewhere where everything in his life made sense.
"Do you want a Slurpee?"
"I don't have enough money..."
"My treat, for the slippy-sliding. Grape or Cherry?"
"Blue."
"Bleah. Okay. Guess you didn't get super taste-buds, along with
everything else...."
"What's wrong with blue?"
"It's *blue*."
"I like blue."
"Weirdo."
"Delinquent."
"Dork."
"Geek."
"Large?"
"Medium's good. Or small. Thanks."
"No problem. Doof."
"Adrenaline junkie."
"Stick-in-the-mud."
Giggling at the Slurpee machine resulted in a good bit of the ice getting
spilled, but fortunately Clark's reflexes kept it from getting *too* messy.
***
Chris Kiki Chaos }|{
kikimariposa@prodigy.net
