"So you've never been camping before?" Maka smirked as she looked at the shrugging young reaper.
"Nope, never." He replied simply, mindlessly tossing small twigs and leaves in the fire and watching as they slowly burned from the outside in.
"Wow, you didn't have a very good childhood, did you?" The blonde joked, a friendly grin tossed Kid's way.
"Of course I did! I had an amazing childhood! Just… not a very… standard one." He laughed to himself.
"You can't have a real childhood without camping at least once." Maka declared, holding up a finger for emphasis.
Kid thought on it for a minute. "Well I guess we are, in a brutish, twisted sort of way, camping. And last time I checked, one isn't officially seen as an adult until the age of 18." Kid smirked. "I could count this as 'camping during my childhood'. And see? I'm even camping with a friend."
The scythe meister pondered it while nodding her head, "I suppose your right." She finally giggled, though her mind seemed to suddenly be else where. It was quiet for a minute, and then she finally spoke. "Alright, Kid. It's been three days." As if to make her point, she stood up and evenly distributed her weight to each foot. Kid could still see her wincing and the pain that threatened to overthrow her face, no matter how much she tried to hide it. She was tough, but he already knew that. Kid sighed, they had just been having such an enjoyable conversation, though he figured talk of her ankle was sure to be brought up at some point during the day. Just as he had done almost ever few hours now, he told her to have a seat and gently rolled up her pant leg and compared the size of her injured ankle to the size of the healthy one. Liz and Patty had taught him some things, but not everything, and he was working with what he knew. "See? The swelling is down." She encouraged.
He did agree, the swelling had gone down quite a bit, and the bruised purple was beginning to fade into a simple red, but it was still far from healed. "But Maka, how does it feel." He cooed, trying to encourage the truth. "What good would it be to have a busted ankle for the rest of your life?"
"It's fine; really. It's better." She nodded, not meeting his gaze. Better and fine where two entirely different things and he knew that. He knew that she knew that, but if he were to bring that up, it was sure to cause some sort of argument; and he didn't particularly want a repeat of what happened at the Gallows. He looked up at her one last time, trying to tell her through his eyes that it was ok, that she didn't have to act tough around him. He was trying to give her an out, but unfortunately, somehow it was lost in translation and she simply looked back at him, her expression portraying nothing.
"Alright, Maka." Kid said, trying to hold back the regret in his voice. "Get some rest tonight, it's almost sun down, and we'll go search for them in the morning."
They had become very accustom to taking nonverbal queues from one another over the past few days, and if you subtract the fact that they were in a dying world with no connection to anyone else, Kid might have even called it enjoyable; and he assumed Maka felt the same way as well. It was almost like meeting an old friend after several years of separation and catching up with them. Their conversations were far from uncomfortable, seeing as they habitually played 'the question game' until one answer would intrigue the other and they would both engage in deep, and sometimes philosophical, conversation. The topic of discussion always seemed endless with no limitations, but neither of them ever cared. They seemed to have an unspoken agreement of 'what is said here, stays here'.
Arguments often broke out, however, just as the do with true friends. One would word something that unsettled the other; this mixed with stress, Kid's neurotic behavior and sleep depravity was a recipe for disaster. The stress and OCD attacks where inevitable, but the lack of sleep had been what really took a toll on their health. Between the two of them, only Maka had been able to get abruptly 3 hours of sleep; though it was incredibly restless and she felt it did more harm than good.
"Hey Kid, I'm gonna walk around for a bit." Maka announced, leaning heavily on a nearby tree to steady her as she got up. "If we're going to go search for them in the morning, I might as well try to get the stiffness out of my ankle so I can walk properly."
The raven haired boy looked up at her as she waited for a reply; not that he could stop her if she had already set her mind to it. He let his eyes wander off into the sky; they didn't exactly keep track of specific time anymore, but if the moon was anything to go by, he'd say it was around 2 a.m. "You might want to consider staying here…" He hesitated; any undermining choice of words could set the blonde off when it came to things like this. "If you just get some rest tonight- try to sleep-"
"I've done nothing but rest since we got here." She retorted, though her voice wasn't particularly hostile yet, it still held a very unfriendly tone. "And if it's the Rotters you're worried about, we haven't seen any since we got here; besides-"
Kid raised his hands in a surrendering position. "Don't think I'm trying to belittle you, Maka. I'm not your boss, I can't tell you what to do. I know you can handle yourself, hell, if I was to chose anyone from our team that could handle their own, I'd pick you. But, the fact of the matter is I can still offer my suggestions. If you want to go, by all means. I'm just asking that you stay close." The thought of going with her crossed his mind once or twice, but he figure it would just add on to her frustration, there for making everything he just said sound hypocritical.
Maka tried to avoid his calming gaze, feeling foolish for getting all worked up over something simple. She nodded and tried to walk as normally as possible out toward the woods, though not without grabbing her trusty machete first; she knew if she showed any hint of pain, no matter how often Kid says he's not her boss, he would make sure she stayed put for another day.
All she really wanted was time alone to clear her worried mind. She needed some space from the small clearing they had called home for the past few days. The only time she had really ever left it was to wash up in a small near by stream and to use the restroom. Kid had been the one to get the firewood. Kid had been the one to walk around the small perimeter to ensure their safety. Maka felt completely and utterly useless. She knew Kid was far too much of a gentleman to even think about complaining or asking for help and she was grateful for that, but the scythe meister really did want to pull her own weight. Her ankle was now healed and there was nothing stopping her now; once she got back from her little walk, she would tell Kid she was going to help him out whether he liked it or not. Besides, they were running low on food and she highly doubted Kid knew very many edible plants, seeing as he wasn't particularly the outdoors type. Maybe she could even catch a fish.
While deep in thought, Maka failed to hear the soft creaking of the branches above her. She was being followed, and she didn't realize it before it was too late. Out of nowhere, something jumped down on her shoulders, steadying itself by grabbing on to fistfuls of her hair and began beating her over the head with a decent sized stick, all the while letting out a high pitched noise that sounded like a mix between a shriek and a growl. Getting over the initial shock of the aerial attack, Maka grabbed her assailant by what she assumed to be a shirt and easily threw its lightweight body to the ground where it squirmed under her restraining grip. "Imma kill you!" It growled just before she was about to bring her blade down upon its forehead. She stopped immediately and dropped the blade, trying to examine the writhing body in her grasp.
"Maka?!" Kid's panicked voice sounded behind her, "Maka are you ok?!" He gasped, his voice sounding increasingly closer.
"Lemme go!" The voice growled again, but Maka couldn't help but chuckle in relief.
"What the-" Kid stared in shock at the small creature in Maka's grasp. It was a little boy.
Today was pretty freakin great. First, I was woken up by my father handing me a package from the mail that contained my Death The Kid rings (which I'm proudly wearing now) and then I found out I will be going into my senior year one credit away from having an associate degree o.o So I celebrate by writing :D because this chapter was going to et posted tomorrow night. But you get it early. Because today was beast.
Replies~!
Mikaela- Thanks for the suggestion! I shalt defiantly take it into consideration! And yes, I be Liz would be spazing. Can't tell you how they are though, sorry. Not unless you want a major spoiler o-o I can say, some questions will be answered soon, but it will also raise other questions… anyways, I'm glad you're enjoying it so much! You are, like, a beast-mode awesome reader for commenting on almost every chapter! it really does mean a lot to me.
Checkered Brooke- I'll have you know, that every since I began writing this story, I've ultimately known how it was going to go, but I never really knew the details of how. But your comment that you left made me think of something, and that something lead to another something, that lead to another something, that ultimately led to my final, true ending of this entire fiction! I'm not saying the ending has anything to do with what you said, so it's not really a spoiler; but I just wanted to thank you for the comment! It helped me out so much! And like I said to Mikaela above, you are just one of those beast-mode awesome readers that comment on almost (or maybe even every) chapter I've written! Thank you Soooooo much :D
They were the only two reviews, so they get long replies :D Thanks you guys!