"Midnight Run" (POW, 1974)
Sep. 28th, 2009 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
riptide_asylumTitle: Midnight Run
Rating: PG
Summary: It's amazing the kind of things you can take for granted. Peanut butter, for example.
They're running low on supplies, and could desperately use a trip to the grocery store. Problem is, Nick would do anything not to have to take Cody.
It's not that he doesn't want Cody with him; to the contrary, Nick's only ever easy in his heart with Cody right by his side. It's just that groceries come from stores, and stores have people in them, usually crowds of people, and Cody and crowds don't do too well. At least they didn't the last time they tried this.
About a month ago, on the way back from the ocean, down to half a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, Nick made a quick detour to Ralph's in Torrance, about five miles from the Route 84 turnoff leading to the airstrip. The minute they walked through the doors, Nick knew he was in trouble. The buzzing fluorescent lights, the slackjawed stares of the cashiers, and the shoppers, shuffling like zombies along the aisles, pallid skin and flowered muumuus, polyester bowties and things he wouldn't have thought twice about, except that one look at Cody and Nick knew he wasn't seeing a single goddamn housedress. From there, all it took was one person getting between them and the doors and the night's excursion was over in a flurry of struggles and shouting, Nick hustling Cody back to the enclosed safety of the truck cab, gunning the old Ford out of the parking lot, tires squealing as they headed back along the deserted, scrub-banked road out to the airstrip. Nothing but peanut butter to eat for the two of them, but at least the trailer wasn't jail, wasn't in-country, wasn't the mint-green hospital ward that haunted Nick's dreams until he woke up in a panic, grasping at his partner's soft, worn hoodie, desperate for the reassurance that he hadn't been locked up, locked away from Nick.
The sickly carbide lights loom large in the desert night as they come up on the shopping center, and Nick doesn't hesitate a moment, doesn't think about turning the wheel, just steers them straight ahead, steady speed through the stoplight, the nose of the truck pointing east on 84, east towards the mountains, east towards the airstrip and the quiet of the hard-baked land half a world from the horrors they'd left behind, even when it's right next door. Cody stares out at the dark land beyond the open window, the breeze rifling his hair. As they leave the lights of town behind, Nick feels him ease back against the bench seat. The lights give way to a dark, star-speckled sky. A perfect night for flying, Nick thinks, then catches himself. There'll be no flying tonight. Just the two of them and their trailer in the desert, bound to the land until Nick can find a way to bring Cody home.
They got used to peanut butter, even when the bread ran out.
Not like either of them have much of an appetite anyway.
Rating: PG
Summary: It's amazing the kind of things you can take for granted. Peanut butter, for example.
They're running low on supplies, and could desperately use a trip to the grocery store. Problem is, Nick would do anything not to have to take Cody.
It's not that he doesn't want Cody with him; to the contrary, Nick's only ever easy in his heart with Cody right by his side. It's just that groceries come from stores, and stores have people in them, usually crowds of people, and Cody and crowds don't do too well. At least they didn't the last time they tried this.
About a month ago, on the way back from the ocean, down to half a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, Nick made a quick detour to Ralph's in Torrance, about five miles from the Route 84 turnoff leading to the airstrip. The minute they walked through the doors, Nick knew he was in trouble. The buzzing fluorescent lights, the slackjawed stares of the cashiers, and the shoppers, shuffling like zombies along the aisles, pallid skin and flowered muumuus, polyester bowties and things he wouldn't have thought twice about, except that one look at Cody and Nick knew he wasn't seeing a single goddamn housedress. From there, all it took was one person getting between them and the doors and the night's excursion was over in a flurry of struggles and shouting, Nick hustling Cody back to the enclosed safety of the truck cab, gunning the old Ford out of the parking lot, tires squealing as they headed back along the deserted, scrub-banked road out to the airstrip. Nothing but peanut butter to eat for the two of them, but at least the trailer wasn't jail, wasn't in-country, wasn't the mint-green hospital ward that haunted Nick's dreams until he woke up in a panic, grasping at his partner's soft, worn hoodie, desperate for the reassurance that he hadn't been locked up, locked away from Nick.
The sickly carbide lights loom large in the desert night as they come up on the shopping center, and Nick doesn't hesitate a moment, doesn't think about turning the wheel, just steers them straight ahead, steady speed through the stoplight, the nose of the truck pointing east on 84, east towards the mountains, east towards the airstrip and the quiet of the hard-baked land half a world from the horrors they'd left behind, even when it's right next door. Cody stares out at the dark land beyond the open window, the breeze rifling his hair. As they leave the lights of town behind, Nick feels him ease back against the bench seat. The lights give way to a dark, star-speckled sky. A perfect night for flying, Nick thinks, then catches himself. There'll be no flying tonight. Just the two of them and their trailer in the desert, bound to the land until Nick can find a way to bring Cody home.
They got used to peanut butter, even when the bread ran out.
Not like either of them have much of an appetite anyway.
