2019-07-26 - Disaster Picnic

It's been a rough couple of days, so when the day and appointed time come round for his picnic with Eleanor, August desperately needs the break. He's managed to cook without any major disasters and only a few near misses. (Fumbled a knife, thankfully all it did was gouge the floor - check. Found the lemons had all molded, managed to borrow one from the woman living down the road - check. Ran out of pasta, had to make more, was out of flour (which he also borrowed from her, in exchange for sugar this time, as hers had been attacked by bugs) - check. But he got it done. Their meal of huckleberry barbecue dove, Alfredo noodles with diced vegetables, sourdough, and rosemary balsamic potatoes has come together against all odds. For desert, a pair of red velvet cupcakes. He's feeling pretty satisfied about it that morning as he packs it all into the Tupperware containers, those into the canvas bag. Please leave us alone, universe, he thinks to no one and nothing in particular. For at least two hours.

By the time lunch rolls around, he's already worried, mostly because it's been a sweltering and humid day, and he's not exactly...clean. No, a clean day it's not been. He even didn't assign himself any tree appointments and it didn't help. Not one bit. He hits the Y so he can shower, gets himself a lovely bruise on his right thigh when he slips in the locker room and gets up close and personal with a bench. But hey, his change of clothes stays clean and dry. He's not going to look like he just unloaded a few dozen bags of mulch and fertilizer only to have one burst open on himself and Cy.

Eleanor is afraid the universe is truly out to get her. It’s been a few days of near-constant mishaps. A banking glitch got her credit card cut up at the supermarket. A shipment of muffins was infested with ants and had to be thrown out, resulting in some very cranky customers. Her computer hard drive had a fatal error, and she had to pay to have all of her data moved to a new drive. It’s been quite a few days. She needs this date as a break from all the chaos and frustration. She managed to find a nice bottle of wine and has it securely packed in a picnic basket, along with plates, glasses, utensils, and a blanket. This will be just what she needs. Right?

Her first outfit of choice got coffee spilled on it. Her favorite sandals split a strap. And she ripped her last available set of contacts. So she’s in her glasses, her hair back in a low messy bun, and a cute sundress in white with lace details at the neckline and handkerchief style hem. White was her LAST choice because grass stains seem inevitable at a picnic, but her laundry load didn’t dry properly and it’s what was left. She waits just inside the door to her house to be picked up.

August pulls up, his car covered with a healthy coating of dust. If it's not mud, it's dust. This is what he gets for living down a dirt road while owning a black car. That, and one million degree seatbelt buckles in the summer, but at least Eleanor will be spared that particular problem thanks to the AC.

The heat has forced him into dark tan cargo shorts and urban hikers, but once again he's in a button down shirt, this one a slate blue gray. The makes the bottom edge of his left thigh tattoo just barely visible, where the feathers of a raven tail almost reach to his knee.

Eleanor sets the basket into the back seat before she gets into the passenger seat and gives August a bright smile. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she blurts out. Really, he is a sight for (literally) sore eyes. “The last couple of days have been a study in bad luck.” If she only knew! Her eyes sweep over him, landing on the tattoo peeking out from the bottom of the shorts, but she’s too shy to ask about it. “How have you been?”

August smiles a hello, looking relieved as well. "Yeah...seems like it's going around." His attention lingers on the glasses a second longer than the rest of her outfit. "You look great. Let's eat some lunch." He glances out the window, makes a face at some distant thunderheads. Well, they're a good few hours out, at least.

As he pulls out and heads the Outback towards the park, he says, "Bad luck, weird nonsense. Kind of wondering if it's not just...luck." He regrets saying it the second he has, shakes his head. He asides, "I forbid it to get in the way of our picnic, though."

Eleanor pushes the glasses up on her nose self-consciously. “I was going to wear my contacts but I ripped my last pair. I need to just give in and get Lasik at some point.” But the idea of someone lasering her eyeballs freaks her out. She glances over at him curiously.

“You too? It’s been a weird streak of just, silly things going wrong lately. But maybe I’m just noticing them more. Just know it’ll be a few days before we have muffins available at the shop again.”

August looks sidelong at Eleanor. "Really? You look pretty good with glasses." But since he doesn't have to wear his full time, of course he'd think that's a bigger factor than comfort.

He sighs. "Silly and not so silly. The kinds of things that could easily get someone hurt if they go wrong enough." He's thinking of Jendy's fall the other day. He sighs. "What's it all the astrologers always want to say? Mercury retrograde? I read that in a book somewhere."

The park is moderately busy, since it's warm out. Who wants to be inside with barely-adequate air conditioning when they can be outside getting snow cones in the park. August manages to get them a spot under a tree, so the car shouldn't be hotter than the surface of the sun when they go to leave.

Eleanor blushes at the compliment. “Thank you. They just, you know, are a bit of a pain. Getting fingerprints on them, not able to wear sunglasses with them, losing them. Just, surgery of any stripe makes me nervous so I haven’t signed up to get LASIK.”

Ellie climbs out of the car and retrieves the basket from the back seat. “Well at least we had this little bit of luck, parked in the shade!” she declares cheerfully. The guy thinks she’s pretty with glasses. For her this is absolutely winning.

"Honestly, can't blame you on that one," August says, mouth flat. "Even if paying for lenses and cleaning glasses is a pain in the ass." But then, his experience with surgeries is extensive and bad, so he would think that.

He squints up at the tree, makes a face. "Yeah. Birch, though...gonna be covered with sap." He sighs. Well, he should wash it anyways. He gets the canvas bag of Tupperware containers out of the hatch, and they're off to find a spot.

...but the shady trees and tables are, in fact, all taken. This is hardly a surprise, considering. They find a spot which will be in the shade, in like an hour, at the base of an old madrone. "I guess we can keep an eye out, see if anyone leaves."

“This is fine,” Eleanor insists. Because she brought sunblock right? Only...nope, it was in the other bag, not the picnic basket. Crap. That’s ok! It’ll be shady in an hour, she won’t burn that fast right? It’s not like she’s a GINGER or anything. She sets down the basket and pulls out the blanket, setting it out and then unpacking the rest of the contents.

“I got a bottle of Malbec. I’m not much for white wines, is that ok with you?” she asks with a smile. It’s not an expensive brand, but it has a cork in it instead of a screw top so there is that.

And of course, August didn't think to pack any of the foldable, linen sun hats he lives and dies by, because gardening. Well, it's only an hour. At least he wore shorts. "I'm not going to complain about any wine you bring, but also, that should go well with what we're having." He takes out the Tupperware, tries to ignore the sense of dread he has when doing so. But everything's fine: the huckleberry barbecue doves, Alfredo hand-made noodles with carrots, peas, and onions, rosemary balsamic potatoes, sourdough bread, and red velvet cupcakes survived the trip.

Overhead something rustles in the branches of the madrone. August glances up, frowns. "Great. Don't look now, but we have interested parties."

A small, masked face peers down between the leaves of the madrone. No...two faces.

Eleanor gets the corkscrew out of the basket and works on getting the bottle of wine opened. At August’s comment she looks up and grins. “Awww, aren’t they cute? Shooo, this is fancy food. Nothing for you here!” Her eyes move over the repast and she looks stunned. “You weren’t kidding when you said you could cook,” she notes.

Pop! The cork comes out of the bottle and she sets it aside to let it breathe for a couple of minutes. “That all looks delicious. And smells even better!” The wine WOULD go with it beautifully, but the bottle was sealed poorly and has turned into vinegar. Which they’ll learn when they try to drink it in abit.

"I try," August says, and sets to plating their food. "I don't eat out much. Goes back to that whole not living in the city thing. So it was eat bad food, or sort out how to make good food. I'm no Ignacio, but it's really not too hard once you practice."

More rustling overhead. The raccoons are gone. "Don't you dare," he murmurs, offers Eleanor her plate, gets out a little bowl with extra barbecue sauce. "In case you want more for the meat. Doves are pretty much only dark meat." It occurs to him he should have asked about that. Well, here's hoping.

He glances down at something that's making his calf itch. It's an ant. A lone ant, for now. He flicks it aside, looks out over the park. Dogs bark, kids scream and run around.

Eleanor seems surprised to learn it’s dove, but she’s willing to give it a try. She thanks him quietly for the plate and takes a forkful of the meat to place in her mouth. She glances upwards at the rustling, and her brows raise when the raccoons have disappeared. “I like dark meat,” she assures him, before eating the forkful of food.

"Good," August says, sounding relieved. He has a bit himself. The dove's cooked just about perfectly, the barbecue sauce a sweet, smoky flavor over the game bird flavor of the meat. Really, the food's quite good.

The ants agree. Fortunately they're just going for the containers, but it's still a thing. "Shit," August hisses, dusting a few off his leg. Oh yes, they've laid down a pheromone trail in record time. (Or they were here when the blanket went down. Either way.) He carefully sets his plate on a tree root to keep it out of ant reach, goes about moving the ant-infested containers off the blanket so he can rinse it later, and maybe draw them away.

“Oh no, those rotten things! I was definitely going to go for seconds!” Eleanor sets her plate down to pour the wine into the pair of glasses, and hands one to August. “Well, here is to good food and good company,” she lifts the glass to toast, clinks, then sips and...

...splutters the vinegar that was once wine out all over the blanket. “The hell!?” she exclaims, looking shocked and appalled.

The ants do seem much more interested in the containers, and leave off the blanket for now.

August raises his glass to Eleanor. "Good food and good company." He pauses to smell his wine before sipping, which puts Eleanor a few seconds ahead of him, which means he stops with the glass just short of his mouth when she encounters a mouthful of vinegar. He slowly lowers it. "Cork failed?" He looks down at the glass, sighs. "Eh, well...maybe you can cook with it. Make some sekanjabin or a shrub."

Something rattles right behind them, and August half turns to see his plate is being ransacked. By raccoons. "Hey!" He says, reaching over to snag it. One raccoon grabs the remainder of his dove, the other the largest single thing left--the cupcake. They race off, leaving August with his potatoes and noodles, and who knows if they got their paws and faces into them. He looks down at his plate, rubs at his eyes with his free hand. He refuses to think or say What's next but it's lurking, there, in the back of his mind.

Eleanor’s expression clearly echoes his ‘what’s next?’ one. But she chucks the wine out of her glass into the grass and picks up her plate, moving to sit right next to August, to share her dove and cupcake with him. “So it’s less of a meal and more of a snack for two, but there’s still good company?” she offers, looking halfway like she’s about to either cry or laugh hysterically at the fiasco.

"It's fine, we can, get something after," says August, the guy who almost never actually buys anything from a fast food place or a restaurant. But that's the kind of day it's shaping up to be: a day for solutions you'd never thought you'd go for.

He tosses his wine out into the grass as well, sets the cup aside. "A snack for two it is." He only accepts a couple of bites, though, letting Eleanor have most of it. Sitting like this, Eleanor can see a bit of the tattoo on his leg: the lower halves of a pair of ravens, one holding oak leaves and the other what looks like a hellebore.

For at least a few minutes, all is calm. No raccoons. No ants. They get to nibble in close proximity.

It can't last.

“What is your tattoo of?” Eleanor asks curiously between bites of food. She makes happy sounds with every bite. Everything may be going wrong, but his cooking is right as rain.

It can't last, and, it doesn't.

"Ravens. One's got a hellebore and the other's got some oak leaves. Because my last name's Roen, and one of the possible meanings for that is from 'raven'. I've also got--" August stops suddenly, blinks. He slowly reaches out and sets a hand down on the blanket. "Ah, okay. We...need to move. Very, very, carefully."

It's the slightest twitch of the ground, a minute shudder in the tree behind them, but Eleanor can feel it, and not just in a mundane way: the ground underneath them is going to give out. There's a sinkhole under this tree, and now is when the thin, root-supported layer of parkland over it is too weak to hold up any longer.

Maybe if she wasn’t in a sundress with a pair of sandals she doesn’t normally wear, she could move easily and quickly enough. But Eleanor is not, and with the way her luck has been going today, it’s not really much of a surprise when the earth gives out beneath her, swallowing the blanket, the plates, and her in a POOF of dirt, debris, and shrieking.

August can't get himself and Eleanor off the blanket, so he winds up sort of half-in, half-out of the hole in his attempt to catch her. It's not too deep, maybe all of four feet. Plenty to cover them both in dirt, maybe give Eleanor some lovely bruises for her trouble.

August lets himself drop into the hole, because in for a penny. Roots stick out all around them; earthworms flail in despair. He leans over to help Eleanor up. "I think we're at 'hide on the couch' levels of failure, here," he says.

Eleanor is on her rear at the bottom of the hole and as August helps her up, dirt cascades off of her. Her pretty white dress is now dirty gray brown. She looks like an apocalypse survivor. She leans against him for a moment, just to gather her wits, which then release. She laughs. She laughs and giggles and snorts and laughs some more. “Oh my God. We should have just gone for Netflix and chill!”

August is relieved when Eleanor's reaction is to laugh. He can't help it, he laughs too. "Well, we still can. I'm sure there's an entire selection of bad movies we can watch." He grimaces at the two of them. "...after we shower."

A couple of people react to Eleanor's yelp and come over to help get them and their stuff out of the hole. A Park docent marvels at it. "Well I knew some of these trees were in trouble but this is a new one," she comments to August, who sighs. He rests a hand on the tree, ostensibly to steady himself, but really just to check it. Nope, tree's fine. He wouldn't be surprised to see the hole miraculously refill itself, somehow.

But the day's not done with them. The good news is, the temperature has been dropping for the last few minutes. The bad news is, that's because those storm clouds which had been hours away are now quite close. The wind gusts, sending people's hats flying. The air's heavy with the smell of rain.

"Yeah," August says, to no one in particular.

Eleanor accepts the help out, and she’s brushing more dirt off her dress. “Well, at least it didn’t ruin my favorite sundress. I spilled coffee on that this morning and the dryer went on the fritz after I washed it.” Rumble rumble. That sounds like thunder coming in. She blinks up at the sky. “OH COME ON!” she addresses the clouds with a shake of her head as she scrambles to gather their things.

"Small victories," August says of the dress. He squints up at the clouds, sets to helping Eleanor gather everything up. He knocks the ants out of the containers as best he can, not wanting an ant-infested car.

The rain really starts coming down when they've just about made it out of tree cover, towards the parking lot. All around them people are scattering for cover. No one's bothering with an umbrella; this is the Pacific Northwest, after all. They're above those!

And now her dirty dress is muddy. And even that starts to wash out. And Eleanor remembers she is wearing WHITE. And now it is see-through and displaying her underthings through it. She yelps and wraps the picnic blanket around herself.

For once, old habits serve August well. In the back of his car, at all times, is a gym bag with a change of clothes (for him, so that won't do Eleanor much good) and a couple of towels. Big sheet bath towels. In a positive turn, they're not gross because he just changed it all out the other day.

He yanks one out, offers it over to her, very carefully doesn't look below her collarbone so he's not getting an eyeful she doesn't intend to offer. "So. Netflix," he says, tossing everything else into the back of his Subaru and shutting the hatch decisively. "And kettlecorn. And...whatever. Pizza, I don't know." If they don't make it, it can't get ruined, right?

Eleanor gratefully takes the towel and wrings out her hair before wrapping it around her. “That sounds good. Pizza, Chinese, whatever we don’t have to make ourselves. And lots of pillows on and around the couch just in case of an earthquake because at this rate, we might get one!”

They duck into the car, and August starts it. He puts his towel on the driver seat, since his hair's short enough to not be an issue, but he'd rather the seat not get more wet than needed. (Given this week, it'll mold.) He pauses a moment to sigh, stares out at the pouring rain. Then, "Chinese sounds good, actually. You like Mu Shu? Maybe some...sesame chicken?"

“That sounds delicious. I just don’t think we should open any fortune cookies today,” Eleanor murmurs with a chuckle. She watches people scatter out of the park with a small frown. “This storm wasn’t supposed to happen for a few more hours, was it?”

"Didn't look like it, but," August shrugs, gestures against the steering wheel as they make their way out of the parking lot. "I guess I'm no meteorologist." Or, it's just one more oddly bad turn in this ongoing week of oddly bad turns. "I was going to say we could bake some muffins for your store, but that sounds like a really bad idea to try right now." He gives her an apologetic, sideways glance.

“Apparently neither is the meteorologist. I checked this afternoon and it was definitely not supposed to roll in til dusk,” Eleanor murmurs. “I think you’re right about the muffins. Today has just been crazy disasters one after another. So let’s tackle the couch, wrap ourselves in a bubblewrap cocoon, and watch some movies.”

"You know, they spent all that money on that coastal radar system, so be careful who you say that in front of," August says, laughing. The rain comes down in sheets and the thunder booms; fortunately the streets are clear, so there's no risk of August needing to deal with good old Washington State drivers and their NASCAR in slow-mo mannerisms when faced with weather. They stop by Golden Dragon first (for all that it's a small town, Golden Dragon has been run by the Yao family for almost twenty years, and is quite good) to order some take out; August goes in to handle this, since he just looks damp, as opposed to Eleanor's state of 'muddy river maiden'. Then it's back to Eleanor's house to hide from the universe. The rain pauses for a bit, but another storm is hot on the tail of the first one.

Eleanor lets them into her little house, and directs August to the guest bathroom so he can shower if he needs to. Meanwhile she goes to the master and does the same, changing into sweats and a t-shirt with the Espresso Yourself logo on it. She braids her wet hair.

While she is cleaning herself up, he might get a gander at the “home office”. It’s clearly her research room, with a large map of Gray Harbor on one wall, in which pins with different colored heads and little numbered flags have been stuck. Colored embroidery floss connects some of the pins to others. Another wall is covered in newspaper clippings and print outs from websites concerning “incidents” in the town. The one that looks newest is the recent Gazette article titled “City Stalked by Murders”.

On another wall is a white board with a sort of to-do list on it. William Gohl, Pond Monster, and Dog-killing Beach Thing are listed. There is an L-shaped desk with a currently turned off PC, dual monitors, and various peripherals, and several filing cabinets with four drawers each.

August does, in fact, take a shower, because dust has become mud and gotten into all kinds of places it does NOT belong. He changes into his spare set of clothes, which isn't much more than a soft, dark red t-shirt, a black hoodie, and some black commuter pants. The kind of clothes you wear when you're telling the rest of the day to fuck off.

He glances at the office, curious, but resists the urge to poke around. She'll show him if she feels like it. Instead he comes back out into the living room to see about this food they bought, which unless the universe wants a personal autographed 'fuck you' from both if them is going to be delicious and disaster free.

Eleanor emerges and it’s clear, from her face and arms, that she did get sunburnt. She has a container of aloe gel which she sets on the coffee table in case he needs some too. She gets a couple of beers out of the fridge which, fortunately, are not skunked and gathers plates and utensils for them to eat with. “I feel almost human again,” she quips.

Also of note, there are no mirrors or mirror-like surfaces in her home. Furniture is all wood. The art on the walls are wrap around canvases rather than anything with frames and glass. All the fixtures and appliances are brushed stainless or nickel, so there are no reflective qualities. The windows in the microwave and oven have been covered with that press and seal stuff to make them matte instead of glossy and reflective. All the windows have shades pulled down.

August pauses in the living room to look around, takes in the complete and total lack of reflective surfaces with mild curiosity. He remembers her comment, about no mirrors, so can't be surprised it really does mean no mirrors. Well, he's certainly not one to talk when it comes to that kind of thing.

When she speaks he glances at her, laughs and shakes his head. "Yeah. Here's hoping it lasts for more than an hour, right?" He spies the aloe gel on the table, squints at Eleanor, scrutinizing with more than just a visual check. After a second of this, he says, "Did you want me to..." He gestures at her arms, raises his eyebrows.

Eleanor looks down at her arms and she might be blushing but there is no way to tell. “Oh, um. Well if you want to, but isn’t it kind of like using the force to change the tv channels? Overkill? I mean it’s just a sunburn.” Star Wars jokes. She is a special level of nerdy.

She helps gather up the stuff to spread out on the coffee table. Her couch is comfy and facing a good sized television. There is an afghan on the back of the couch, and pillows with embroidered butterflies. She gestures at them. “Mom was a seamstress before she retired. Now she sends me all of her sewing projects.” She chuckles.

The house is a cute craftsman bungalow 3/2 and it has most of its original features but updated appliances and fixtures. Her decorating taste is clearly bohemian which shouldn’t be terribly surprising for an independent coffee shop owner.

August grins at the Force joke, opens his hands. "Can go either way on that. You probably took a few scrapes and bruises on the way down into that sinkhole, right?" He tilts his head and admits, "Also if I was tired enough you can bet I'd use the Force to change the TV channel," with a wry smile.

He collects the to bring to the coffee table: mu shu pork and the pancakes for it, sesame chicken, and a side of chow mein. There's rice to go with the chicken as well. With the way their day has gone, he half expects to trip and fall, sending Chinese food everywhere, but he doesn't. Once he's laid out the containers (on placemats--oh yes, he's not taking chances anymore), he turns and looks at the pillows. "They're nice. She ever think about doing botanical? I could sell those in the shop." He doesn't ask again about healing her, leaving that for her to decide.

“Well, when you put it like that, sure, heal away,” Eleanor says with a chuckle. She does have a bad bruise on one hip from her less than graceful landing. She loads up a plate with a little of everything, grinning a little at the placemats and his thoughtfulness.

“I can ask her. I’m sure she’d love something to do. She is really, really bored down there and she needs something to distract herself.”

"Thoma and Ully are convinced we should carry more things like that," August says, tone somewhat resigned. "You know--for tourists, like with native, local plants, that kind of thing." He can't deny they sell good during tourist season. "So, if she's interested, I wouldn't mind working out something."

He assembles his plate, sets it aside for the moment. "Okay. Sorry if this seems weird, it's just usually easier if I touch someone when I do it." He hold out a hand. A sunburn and a bruise shouldn't ruin his appetite. He hopes.

As if being touched by him would be a bad thing. Eleanor settles her hand in his lightly. “I’ll run it by her. If it keeps her and dad from killing each other, it’s worth it,” she murmurs with a chuckle. There is no greater test of a relationship than being retired in Florida together, apparently.

August's attention shifts to a spot somewhere on the coffee table, though he laughs about Eleanor's parents getting on one another's nerves in their retirement. "This is why my mom and dad have all the hobbies they do. So they don't have to spend too much time around one another," he murmurs. He winces for a second when he first touches Eleanor, but a moment later the sunburn and bruise fade, then vanish entirely, and his expression eases when they're gone. He lets out a breath, focuses on her. "There you go. You can save the aloe for some other day you forget the sunscreen."

Eleanor’s expression relaxes as the pain goes away. “I can’t believe I forgot the sunscreen AND a hat. I mean, I’m a ginger. I don’t go anywhere without those things.” She settles in and hands him the remote for the tv. “I have Netflix,” she announces, before she starts in on her food.

August runs his thumb along Eleanor's knuckles before she takes her hand away, accepts the remote in its place. "And me my hats. I've kept them in the back of that car for years." He sighs, shakes his head. "Okay. What are we feeling like. Bad horror movies?" He clicks through the interface to Netflix--the only TV he has, so he's familiar with it--starts to peruse. "Do they still have Dog Soldiers? That one's pretty fun. Unless you want to go old school, like Day of the Triffids."

“Ooh yes, Dog Soldiers is a good one. So are Monsters, and the Host. The Korean movie, not that steaming pile of Stephanie Meyer feces,” Eleanor declares. Then blushes, which can be seen again because he fixed the sunburn.

"The Host, don't think I've seen that one." It takes August a second to find it, as he's never been entirely comfortable with Netflix's interface ('Would it kill them to hire anyone who has an idea of how to design something I can use?' he's asked his tablet on more than one occasion), but eventually, they get there. He settles back, takes up his plate. Outside they hear the wind gust a bit as the next thunderstorm rolls in; August points at one of Eleanor's light fixtures with his fork, mumbles, "Don't you dare," between bites.

Eleanor sidles over beside him comfortably and eats her food as the movie starts. “This is sort of Alien meets Little Miss Sunshine. Kind of brilliant.” And subtitled. As he gives the light fixture his warning she murmurs, “No way will the power go out. Our luck can’t be THAT bad.” That sounds like tempting fate.

The lights waver, threatening a brown out, but it doesn't come. August relaxes against Eleanor, making his way through his food steadily. "Sounds good." He's glad to see it's subtitled, something he got used to while his hearing was still healing up all those years ago. Now he just has closed captioning turned on all the time, it feels so natural.

As the chemical gets dumped into the water, he says, "Ah, good old poisoned world monster movie. I like this kind." He doesn't sound like he's exaggerating. As the movie continues, he asides, "You know, there's all these really interesting animals and plants now living around Chernobyl, because of the disaster. I think of that when I see movies like this."

“Me too. And also what things could be altering in the waters where chemical and nuclear waste has been dumped, or oil has been spilled. Toho touched on that with Shin Godzilla in 2016,” Eleanor murmurs excitedly. Having someone to geek out over horror and monster movies with is pretty much the best date ever, despite all the prior disasters. She finishes her food and sets her plate aside, pulling the afghan off the back of the couch to spread over their laps for warmth.

August is a little slower with his eating, since his attention's solidly fixed on the film, but eventually he sets his plate aside. He's halfway to reaching for a fortune cookie out of habit before he remembers Eleanor's earlier comment. He stops, sits back. "Maybe save those for," he grimaces, "next week." Or never! Maybe never.

He resettles the Afghan, then leans back on the couch to get more comfortable now that there's no plate of food to spill (since that was always a risk, by today's standards). "Sometimes I wish movies like this got a bigger release over here, but then I think...would our theater even show it?" He sighs. Probably not. The theater that serves for Gray Harbor and Hoqaim isn't exactly a 12 screen multiplex.

“Probably not,” Eleanor admits. “But thankfully Netflix and the like seem happy to pick them up and give us a chance to see them, even if it’s on a much smaller screen.” She settles in too and leans against him lightly. She’s already see the film, so she can steal little glances at him now and then.

"Yeah, Netflix is kind of a lifesaver." August makes a low, amused sort of sound. "Would've been nice to have it back when I first started at Forestry." Those long winters at snowed-in assignments. He did a lot of reading, at least.

In response to Eleanor leaning on him August shifts so she can get more comfortable; he's more than aware that his height and size make him a bit of a space hog on anything but the largest of sectionals. He glances down at her, reaches up to disentagle a bit of hair from her glasses. "So do we get to see you in these until you get more contacts?" His attention shifts back to the movie.

“Afraid so. My order is in but they are somehow out of stock on my exact ones at the moment, so it’s going to take at least a week to get new contacts,” Eleanor mutters, as if this is not the norm. She watches him and the film alternately, getting more comfortable as it progresses, to resting her head on his shoulder.

August smiles, looking far too pleased. "Well, I'll try not to enjoy it too much, since I know glasses can be a pain." He rests his head against hers. "I can wear mine in solidarity, if you want. I only need them some of the time, but..." He shrugs, glances down at her to see what she thinks of that.

“Oh goodness. You in glasses? I might faint from the hotness,” Eleanor blurts out, before realizing she did it. She covers her mouth with her hand in embarrassed laughter. “Seriously, wear what makes you comfortable, either way, you’re a strikingly handsome man.”

August laughs, low in his chest. "Well now maybe I have to wear them," he says, rueful. "And feel free to accidentally say things like that as much as you want, I absolutely don't mind." He manages to say that without laughing too much, kisses the top of her head. He stays like that a time, attention only half on the movie. "You're very cute when you blush, so, the more you do it, the better," he murmurs against her hair.

Eleanor mutters, “Well then you’re in luck, because I blush all the time. I think it’s a ginger mortification alert.” She chuckles a little and breathes in his scent while he kisses the top of her head. “This is nice. Maybe today’s bad luck was really good luck. It got us here.”

Teasing, August says, "It's a defense mechanism, obviously. You blush and then no one can think about what they should be doing." He sighs, takes her hand in his. "Yeah, it is. But, don't say that too loud, the bad luck will hear you. We've ditched it for the moment."

Eleanor squeezes his hand then twines her fingers with his. “Well it’s a moment I’m grateful for,” she says with a bright smile, the movie mostly forgotten as background noise now because he’s dishing out compliments about things she sees as her flaws.

"Mmmm, same." Likewise ignoring the movie, August reaches over with his other hand to trace the line of her jaw. "I wouldn't mind more like it, if you're interested." His mouth twitches in an almost-smile. "If you don't mind a guy who's a bit banged up and lives in the woods and climbs trees for a living and whose glimmer looks like a lighthouse, I mean."

“Your glimmer should be telling you just how much I don’t mind at all,” Eleanor murmurs, her lashes lowering at his touch, and that blush creeping across her freckled nose again.

August huffs a soft, voiceless laugh. "I try not to use it like that when I don't need to. Spoils all the fun." He leans down and brushes his lips over hers, not quite kissing her. "Besides, it's nice to hear you say it."

“Then I definitely want more,” Eleanor murmurs against his lips, finally tilting her face up to allow him a proper kiss.

Smiling, August says, "See how easy that was," and kisses her, gentle and sweet, mouth open a little. Nothing too presumptuous, at least not yet. He settles his free hand at her neck, strokes her cheek with his thumb. "We'll try this whole picnic thing again when the world's not out to get us."