A/N: Hello again...hope I got their characters right, I just kinda flowed with it. A bit of seriousness with a touch of humor. I did my best.
Chapter 6: der Schattenmann, der vor mir sitzt
Arriving at their first station they took their seats across from each other at a picnic table. In front of them were pieces of white paper, markers, crayons, and pencils.
"Hello teams, and how are we all doing today?" the camp counselor stood at the head of the large picnic table.
"Here you can see you have drawing utensils and some paper. Today you will be drawing your heroes. Whoever or whatever that may be. So, whenever you would like to start, but don't forget, you only have half an hour before the next station change. We only have you guys for a week unfortunately. Go ahead…" and with that the counselor sat down and started to flip through a nature magazine.
Alex just stared at Bobby who was staring blankly at his paper. Then she saw it, the gears started to turn, that bionic hamster started running on its wheel with fury, he was thinking.
She glanced down to his chest and read his name tag to herself, only this time in her head, she stifled a giggle. A moment of inspiration struck her, her hamster was not comatose in her head; it just wasn't on uppers like his. She reached into the basket of markers and found a black sharpie.
Leaning over the picnic table and into his space she grabbed a hold of his shirt and pulled it out towards her. For a millisecond or two he didn't even notice her doing anything, and then he thought she was trying to write ON him.
"Hey, what the?" he stilled her hand and finally made eye contact; she knew that meant he was out of his head and back into reality.
"Nothing…Bobby." She said his name in a way to accentuate the second 'b'.
He took notice of this and glanced down at his name tag. It now had a slightly crooked squiggly coming out of the top of the extra 'o' which made it a sloppy but much appreciated correct 'b'.
She smiled when she saw the grin take over his face and sat back down on her side of the picnic table.
"Thanks." He said quietly, he looked up at her and gave her that grin she had come to love.
"So what are you going to draw? Or who?" she put the sharpie back in the basket and took out some pencils; she started sketching on her piece of paper.
"I won't tell you till I'm done, but even then, I'll make you guess." He too took some pencils and started working.
"Well in that case mine's a secret too." She covered her paper with her left hand pretending to hide the doodles she had drawn. He covered his eyes and she stole a glace at his paper, she saw a magnifying glass taking shape. She was starting to think of some guesses.
He uncovered his eyes and saw her peeking.
"Hey! Cheater…" he scooted his paper closer to him; she just rolled her eyes and started back on her own work.
They worked silently for 15 minutes and finally it was discussion time.
"Now you don't have to share with everyone if you don't want to, but you do have to share with your partner." The counselor had put down his nature magazine only for a moment; after he was done giving directions he sat back down and seemed less than interested.
Goren gave her his look and she didn't have to say or give any response, she knew. He didn't want to share with everyone, exclusively her, always.
He handed her his paper and folded his hands onto the table in front of him. He just watched her study it.
She couldn't quite place it, she recognized parts of this…person I guess you would call it, but she couldn't put it together.
It was a drawing of a tall broad shouldered man, holding a mighty sword in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other. Half of his chest was exposed, large and muscled; the other half was concealed under a dark overcoat. Surrounding the man was footprints and funny swirls, but the part that stuck out the most for Alex was the shadow of the man. Shaded underneath all of this display of obvious intellect and brute strength was the shadow of something much smaller, something much more delicate. It was a flower, a tall flower, as big as the man, with leaves coming out of the sides to represent the arms and the roots of the flowers tied the shadow to the man's feet.
She couldn't tell what kind of flower it was by its shadow but she was pretty sure he would be able to identify it, even if he hadn't drawn it himself.
He continued to stare at her waiting for her response.
To be perfectly honest with herself she was a little taken aback at the complete honesty in his drawing. She didn't think hers went that deep into her psyche.
"Any guesses?" he pointed to the paper and then refolded his hands.
She nodded "Well, it's not batman, and it's not superman, its not Einstein and I don't think its Lucien Freud…it's not me…damn I thought I was your hero." She set the paper down.
"No, you're just the wind beneath my wings." He couldn't help himself.
"I give up, who is it… or what is it?" this time she folded her hands waiting for his response.
He picked up his drawing and used his finger to help explain all the different parts, however he was brief. A picnic table at a camp was not the place to bare his soul to his partner.
"See this half of the man? That is none other than Sherlock Holmes."
"I should have known."
"That half represents intelligence, cunning, determination…"
She nodded.
"And this half is supposed to be something like the highly misunderstood barbarian Conan of Cimmeria. He represents the darker side, but the necessary side. I won't really get into that…and um this," he pointed to the shadow "represents the sensitive soft side that I believe should be inside of every man and that's a part of yourself that you shouldn't let die. Or something." He set the drawing down and blinked unsure of himself.
She absorbed it all and even though she understood all of these parts of her partner already it made her very grateful that he decided to share this much with her.
"Wow…" she finally mustered out some words. "That's really good Bobby. I don't think they expected that much from us, makes my drawing look like a paint by numbers. I didn't really give mine much thought."
She handed hers to him and he looked at it. Hers was a picture of superwoman clad with a badge, but also she wore a cooking apron. Seemed pretty self explanatory but Alex thought she should clarify for him anyway.
"A real superwoman, a cop who can cook and clean, be domestic and aggressive. A mom figure with a big set of brass ones ya know?"
He knew she was that and so much more. "You did a good job, we should keep these and frame them or something, or at least yours."
The counselor stood up again and this time he blew his whistle.
"Ok people, take your pictures with you, thank you for this fun, fun, fun half hour, you may go to your next stations."
And with that everyone stood up and gathered their schedules and maps, folded up their drawing and start off in different directions.
Goren and Eames started walking down another path together, "I never knew you had such artistic talent Eames."
She playfully smacked his arm. "Well thanks. I never knew a man could be as wonderfully complicated as you."
He stopped on the path and she stopped too to turn and face him.
"The sin and the jest of the times am I
Since destiny's dance began,
When the weary gods from the dews and sods
Made me and named me man."
He continued walking again and so did she.
"What the hell was that?" she gave him that look again.
He just smiled and said "Robert E. Howard my dear."
"Pfft…show off." She knocked his hat off his head and sprinted towards their next station.
That was a quote from a Robert E. Howard poem called "The Dust Dance" (version II) from his books of poems called "Echoes from an Iron Harp".
I thought it sounded like something Goren would say and something he would know. Also a slight reference to the fact that Vincent D'Onofrio was in the movie "The Whole Wide World" which was about Robert E. Howard.
Also, I am just a fan of Robert Howard.
Thanks again for reviewing. Do you think I should make slight hints at romance or flirtation sometime in the future or would you all like to see this stay strictly friendship? It can go either way really...I haven't really decided which way I'm taking it.