[closed] two drifters off to see the world

Who: Joshua Graham and Aries
Where: Dead Horse Point, Zion Valley

Dawn, this time.

For just a few precious minutes, the scorched oranges and rusted golds of the overlook are drenched in coral and rose and dancing purples, thrown high by the Colorado deep below. Still, cool, calm. In an hour or so the sun will have burnt the blush from the land. If Joshua is lucky it will do the same for him if, when Aries finally arrives, he cannot smooth over his last attempt at companionship.

Because that is what this must be: companionship. They'd been too close in that small, stuffy little boxcar, and he'd let his guard down and his mind wander- and then wander further still on his return, which had not posed too great of a threat when he had distance to cushion his desires. Warm eyes, hands, scars like spiderwebs, ensnaring his thoughts when he least expected it. But that night had also made it abundantly clear that, no matter what, those thoughts were not to leave his head. Whatever version of Joshua that Aries wished to keep in his head would never survive intimacy; barely a whisper of his sins had been enough to poison the entire evening. This, Joshua tells himself, is a good thing. Any good man would be repulsed.

He has also told himself that the forgiveness of God and his family is enough to sustain him. How could he have known that he would crave it so from a man who had never even heard of the Legion until Joshua walked into his life?

No. Let go; begin again. He will be a good friend to Aries, and that will be enough.

It's quiet out on the road. He's tried reading to settle his nerves, but they've long won out. Dead Horse Point is not home, as such, but it is as close as Joshua Graham expects he will ever come to home again. As he squints out across the half-light, searching for that familiar silhouette, a curious kind of pleasure bubbles up within him at the thought of sharing it with someone else. Someone new. He's even, God help him, looking forward to the chaos that Aries will undoubtedly generate when they get back to the village.

This time they will leave smiling. This time, he will not fail.

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Aries had drank too much, taken his shirt off, and reminded Joshua that he once was a war criminal. It wasn't the worst first date! --Now, see, Aries, you can't joke like that. Joshua wasn't the kind of man anyone should date, or have a crush on. Crush. Made it sound violent, immature. That was exactly what those feelings were to Aries.

That night ended after their conversation about pets turned into an awkward exchange about war dogs. It was late, and they both needed to sleep. Aries dreamt that night of his family's taxidermy shop on fire. And despite that, he promised to visit Joshua in a few months time. He wanted to finish out his contract and say a few goodbyes.

Traveling across the wasteland that used to be the great American West? Why not? He cheated death, went into cryo, but he'd never been to New Vegas!

Joshua wasn't New Vegas, and in Aries' opinion, he'd rather be in Joshua's world that his own world alone (wait, weren't the the lyrics to Midnight Train to Georgia?)

He'd gotten pretty far with his Blue Ridge uniform alone, but a change was needed. Aries painted his mask with darker paint, swapped out his brightly colored caravan costume for something that wouldn't overheat him, but still hooded, still the same shape. On his back: his old plasma rifle, in addition to a pink baseball bat wrapped in chain. Because fuck you, and creative liberties, that's why. In his boot, Ever Upwards. Joshua's home had once been a state park, clearly, he needed a Scout's knife.

However, he hadn't drawn any of his weapons since he had crossed into what he believed to be the territory of the tribe that took in Joshua.

He felt watched, but not in danger.

The sun turning orange and pink and purple made Aries gasp-- a lot made him gasp, though. He was slow to see Joshua at first, as he was staring dumbly into the sky, like a thrasher during a radstorm (they say more dumb turkeys die from drowning than wastelander's guns).

Aries held back a shout when he finally did spot him, but did wave his arm up over his head, and it was entirely possible that he had a spring in his step, skipping and bouncing a few steps before going to jog the distance between himself and Joshua.

Perhaps it sounded unkind, but the most sensible region of Joshua's mind had been preparing him for the eventuality that, promised or not, this reunion would never happen. It was not that he doubted Aries' word; more that he believed the best thing the man could do for himself would be to let it fall to the wayside as little more than a polite suggestion.

By that account- by all accounts- Joshua's heart should not have lifted the moment he spotted the shape of a lone traveler plodding along the mesa. Nor should he have broken into a smile the moment he registered the shape of a hood, and the light reflecting off of two round eyepieces within it. It was not exactly what he was expecting, but Aries never was.

By the time he'd broken into a jog, Joshua was on his feet and walking (quickly) to meet him halfway.

"Save your energy, Aries! You're not there yet." he called ahead of himself. He didn't even try to sound stern. As soon as they were close enough he reached out, both hands clapped to the man's shoulders. His clothing was lighter, the little strips of skin visible beneath his sleeves a touch deeper than Joshua remembered.

In spite of everything, he softened. "I've missed you, my friend."

Edited (tenses.........) 2026-06-12 22:08 (UTC)

Aries huffed and puffed, but at least his respirator didn't have to work as hard as it did back East. He tried to hide the fact that he was out of breath, because then he'd draw even more attention to the fact that he nearly ran at Joshua the way a dog to it's master (no, not the dog business again!)

Joshua's hands on his shoulders, and he wasn't sure how to return it. Instead he tipped his head forward and up-- in an attempt to bop his mask's respirator against Joshua's forehead.

And he couldn't help it, "Missed me? Pfft. It's normal for an old man's eyesight to get shitty, keep practicing, your aim will get better again."

Aries then braces himself, to be told that he was impossible, or some other fond way that Joshua called Aries 'annoying.' (Aries thoughts, not the truth).

Mask met brow and Joshua closed his eyes, a moment of contact to be relished and remembered in lonelier times before he had to let it go. Diligently, he did not think of it as a kiss on the forehead.

"Are you offering to help?" he shot back, head canted. "I wouldn't turn down a new target."

When they parted he allowed one hand to fall away from Aries' shoulder; the other he used to steer Aries towards the path back. There was no need to rush. Aside from giving Aries a chance to catch his breath again, Joshua wasn't sure how ready he was to share him with the Dead Horses just yet.

"How is Zion treating you? The 80s aren't as prolific as they used to be, but they still watch the roads in and out."

Aries, however, does think of it as a kiss on the forehead. He's able to keep himself from making a silly sound (like 'muah!') to magnify the action. He will let it stay there in the air as it is. Just as when Joshua returns the silly joke, Aries can only silently appreciate how quick it was served back to him. It was difficult for him to keep his fond feelings as silent thoughts, but if he wanted time with Joshua, he'd have to just shut the hell up. Easy as that.

And the other man's hand stays on his shoulder, and somehow his heart doesn't beat from it's cage. The way that they were touching was casual, platonic-- but it reminded Aries of summers were he didn't realize how hot it was, how much he had been sweating-- until he was in the shade or in front of the ice box. The light touch felt much heavier, so much so that he thought he was going to choke.

It really had been too long, freaking out over the smallest gesture.

"They saw me, and said to their selves, eh, give him a chance, he ain't hurtin' nobody." The Appalachian sing-song-slur in a dirt-scratchy voice, and you could tell he was smiling despite no visual confirmation. "Other than that... s'hot. Long stretches of road... but it's getting dark, we can try the constellations again."

And if it wasn't obvious that Aries had been thinking about that night nearly constantly: it was now.

Joshua could count on two hands the number of people with whom he'd ever enjoyed bantering. With Aries it, like so many things, seemed to come as easily as breathing- or perhaps he simply couldn't resist whatever bait the man threw his way, knowing how quickly his own sobriety could kill a conversation.

"A wise choice on their part." Joking did not make it any less true. He'd seen Aries shoot. As for the remark about constellations...

Though his strides held steady, internally, Joshua faltered. That conversation had stolen his sleep on more nights than he would ever have admitted aloud- playing it back, over and over, wondering whether he could have taken another, safer avenue, and where it might have led them. Somewhere warmer, he thinks, and that is half the problem.

"I'd like that," he said, a fraction too late to play the pause off as natural. "But we shouldn't wish the day away. The Dead Horses will want to meet you, of course, and we will have to get you set up for your stay." He glanced at Aries, trying (impossibly) to gauge the man's reactions. "I have a small cave to myself, if you'd like some privacy. We could use the ranger stations dotted around the park, too."

It's no surprise to tell you that Aries often blurted things out-- hemming and hawing, overthinking, practicing the conversation in his head-- and yet there he was, just letting the basic thought out of his mouth (respirator) and into the shared oxygen.

Joshua's pause confirmed what Aries thought, or rather, what he obsessed over. That was definitely a poor end to that night. Joshua suggested sleep and Aries agreed, curling up in the bathtub outside. It would be different this time--

"I've seen the ranger stations. They look exactly like the ones in all the other parks buuuuut, if you wanted to try that target practice, I could run around in the dark." Oh, but the next thing Joshua said took him by surprise!

"Your own cave... golly gosh. It must be good to have your own place."

And in spite of all the trouble it had gotten them into- particularly when, out of sheer proximity, he ended up catching said bad habit himself- Joshua wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"What sort of challenge would that be? I would hear you breathing from a mile away." A cheap shot, but Aries could take it. "It isn't very impressive- just a place to sleep and store a few things. I'm afraid it's not as comfortable as your boxcar. But if you aren't overly attached to privacy, I'm sure I could make space for you."

Could, and already had. The night before he'd experimented with crates and bedrolls and shelves, trying to find a solution that would not have them sleeping on top of each other again. Anything to avoid another night rolling restlessly from side to side in a lonely little bed. Or the scent that had lingered on his clothes for a day or so afterwards, tobacco and liquor and something muskier that made his throat twitch.

Joshua smelled like gun oil and smoke (the latter could have been imagined, part of the scary monster's backstory). That smell stayed in Aries' bed, causing him to sleep elsewhere-- or stink it up again with his own scent, while sleeping in his mask.

Aries let out a guffaw, "Sure, but I'm wearing my desert variant now, and the air and is a lot cleaner out here..." Maybe his sinuses would finally stop acting so foolish, and he could leave the mask off! The tribe might appreciate that-- Aries wasn't sure, though.

"You know for a fact that I don't care about my privacy, especially not when it comes to you." He probably should stop himself while he's ahead, "Don't make too much space, I hope we get to cuddle this time." And then Aries slapped his hands together, only to then rub them greedily after.

Joshua hummed, amused. Underestimating Aries would be at his own peril, of course. He'd seen the prizes mounted above his bed in person; you didn't drive a vicious species of cryptid to the brink of extinction without knowing a thing or two about survival. But...

"You forget. You're in my territory now." And Joshua knew this place like the back of his own eyelids.

Still, joking or not, it seemed bad manners to open a visit with threats of violence- until Aries demonstrated the other end of the spectrum by talking about cuddling, rubbing his hands together like some sort of clingy little goblin. Joshua does not shove him away quite yet (and, if he is being honest with himself, doubts that he will full stop).

"Aries. You've been on the road," he protested, which was not the same as a no. "You're taking a bath before you come anywhere near me."

Clean. He smelled clean. Either from the bandages or maybe it was aura. Vibes. The holiness of it all. Too clean to touch, but that didn't stop Aries from imagining it. There's lust, of course, but that only came after Aries realized he couldn't stop looking at the other man. Hearing his voice in the back of his head. He worked through conversations in his mind, trying to make his words magnificent.

Aries thought he might laugh until he cried. He stifled it. "I could stand in the river, I'm not above a little nature, washing away my sins." Joshua and everything around him was perfect and clean. Clean. The bombs touched everything, but it seemed as if it just caressed this area-- while his home was full of lush trees and swamps, Joshua's home was dry and warm.

Which mean Aries was sweating, every crack and crevice was drenched. Not to mention the smell that would come out of his mask once he removed it.

He sighed, "I want to talk to you before we get back home." His voice cracked in distress. It wasn't his home, but he wanted it to be. "It feels like lying if I don't tell you something... prickly."

Not for the first time in Aries' presence- presumably because the man had already figured out all the most efficient ways to tease him- Joshua wrinkled his nose.

"Your sins aren't what will keep me awake half the night. You'll do more than stand in it if I have to hold you under myself."

It was not so much an empty threat as a threat so thoroughly void of substance that it at any moment could collapse in upon itself like a white dwarf. But Aries was not laughing anymore. Joshua's head snapped up, searching his new mask for some sign that he had somehow pushed too far- and then that sigh knocked the air from his own lungs with the force of a blow. I want to talk to you. That sound, like breaking glass.

So they'd finally come to this. After their last conversation, he didn't know why he still had the gall to be surprised. Why it still squeezed the life out of him to hear Aries call it home, too.

Joshua's eyes, wide and fixed on that implacable expanse of glass and rubber, had not yet blinked. Abruptly, he shook his head a little and tried to steel himself.

"Then talk to me." He sounded calmer than he thought he might. Without surprise, he noted that he must have been preparing himself for this all along.

Aries hated when things got too real. He liked his reality chopped up and spread out. He liked to lie and distract. Fluff things up, let the truth mist around where he could avoid it with his gas mask. This was important. He didn't want to hurt Joshua, and he didn't want to hurt. Honesty is always the best thing.

Aries knew how to be honest, but he didn't want Joshua to worry about disappointing or hurting him-- which in turn, would hurt Joshua. Aries didn't want to do that, so he would put it all out there. Joshua could then use his knowledge to steer clear of Aries.

Defintely not because Joshua felt the same. Not at all.

I don't want to accidentally make it so much worse. Put the fire out before it spreads.

"I'm flirting with you... I'll stop if it makes you uncomfortable." He groans, or sighs, or maybe he was dying, it was hard to tell with the way his throat crackled with snot and spit (so alive!) At least it was nice and dry out here--

"I have... ah, romantic feelings for you." Quick, pack the wound before you bleed out. "I can stop that too, if it makes you uncomfortable."

Gross, his mask might fog up if he lets it fill with all his little tears. He blows his air out through his mouth and it registers as a robotic, staticy sound. A face that doesn't move, and a heart that will never break (never ever).

But that was the trouble with the fires that started in Joshua Graham's presence. No matter who lit the match, or how low the embers seemed to smoulder, they were doomed to spread from the moment the first spark was struck.

The front of Aries' discomfort arrived with a sudden weight, strange and suffocating. This was not like that night, Joshua thought, sweat prickling at the nape of his neck in little thorns, because this time he had no idea what was going to happen- only that it was as inevitable as a storm in the moments before it breaks.

Lightning struck.

Joshua stared. Truly stared, his eyes like great blue marbles as the mind behind them tore Aries' words apart for some other meaning, something, anything but what it sounds like. But they kept coming, and the fires climbed ever higher until Joshua could scarcely hear Aries at all anymore over the roar in his own ears.

"No- you-" The ground was burning out from beneath him. As if he were hearing his own voice on a holotape, Joshua noted that he sounds frightened. "Don't. Please. I'm not- you- you know who I am. What I have done. This infatuation, it will-"

He thought he'd released Aries' shoulder- but no. His hand clung on, gripping the man's shirt as if were the only thing keeping him on this earth. Traitor.

Now would be the best time, Aries thought, to kiss him. Passionately, in the purple dusk with the orange sky and the stillness that Aries only remembered from back when it actually snowed.

That would never do, both their mouths were covered, which felt like a cosmic joke. The whole thing was a joke: failed mad scientist with a hole in his heart... and the co-founder of the most hated and feared faction in the west who was thrown into a ravine for an example to be made.

They had both nearly died. Aries changed his name, Joshua came back to religion. Aries took a long cold nap and ended up somehow, lonelier than before. Joshua was a ghost story. He was clean on the outside, bandaged and pure white. The man himself was probably a gnarled mess beneath the bandages and even more so deep in his heart.

But right then, Aries doesn't register all that. He feels Joshua's hand balling up the shoulder of his shirt in desperation.

It was like every little atom in his body was crowding around his chest, all clenching there and in his stomach. Tears started to burn a little. Thank the so-called God that his face was covered.

He nodded slowly, but spoke brightly "Yeah! That's all right. I'll stop." I know enough and I still feel this way, the words could just evaporate now.

Aries nodded, Joshua held his breath- the entire world held its breath, the Colorado's murmuring falling into stunned silence below, the crows pausing mid-takeoff to watch.

Once, when he was so small it was a surprise he still remembered it at all, Joshua's father told him that Dead Horse Point was named for the herders that would drive wild horses to the top of the mesa, to select the strongest to wrangle. With nowhere left to run the horses would be forced to stand for inspection, else they bolt over the precipice to a short, brutish death at the bottom of the canyon.

Aries spoke; he saw the tangle of snapped limbs and ruined hides among the rocks. And, for the second time, Joshua fell.

It will be better this way. What had seemed an inextinguishable onslaught of words snuffed themselves out. There was not enough oxygen in his lungs to sustain them, no matter how quickly he tried to drag breath into them. This is what you asked for. Still he hung on to the man's shirt.

What right did Aries have to sound so content? How did he not see the way that his acquiescence, in that stupid cheerful growl, bled him dry? Anger flared beneath the hurt-

- and burnt out. "... yes. Alright." He sounded exhausted, older. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. "It'll be dark soon. We should move on."

Aries thought before he spoke, he really did. It would echo in his mind for a moment as if he were going to recheck the thought to be said aloud-- only for it to escape anyway. Less escape, more diving off a cliff. He knows he should, he knows he could, and that Joshua asked for it: stop feeling that! Keep moving, drop it! Change the conversation to the weather!

LOOK AT THAT SKY

He coughs, or barks, doesn't matter, it comes out anyway, "...then lemme go."

Aries immediately regrets bringing attention to Joshua still holding onto him. He's not sure for the reasoning behind the lingering grip, but he feels as if it were something he was supposed to ignore.

Ah. That stung- or rather, would sting, when the sun set and he shed his armor and they were both lying alone, barely a foot apart in the same little cave. But at least then he would have the cover of darkness.

For now, Joshua's flinch was barely more than a twitch of the lid. His hand fell, but that was just a formality. How could he possibly tell Aries that he had never let go of anything in his life, not unless it had been ripped out of his hands?

"Let's go."

Without a physical hold on Aries he could walk just a little ahead, one foot in front of the other, until the rhythm at least began to take his mind off of- well. Everything.

"The closest ranger station to the village is east," he said, and though he did not look back he gestured for Aries across the scrubland. Whether Aries realized it or not, he was being given an out. "But don't be too concerned about losing your way. The tribe's scouts will no doubt be keeping an eye on you for the time being."

Maybe Aries did actually know when to shut up. He followed Joshua on the vague trail, just like he followed Joshua all the way back west. He didn't yap on about cryptids, or about the weather, or about the stars-- not even about the bighorners he'd seen on the way.

He wasn't angry with Joshua. What he felt was shame, as he just made his friend uncomfortable. Aries was at war with himself: saying that he killed his ego and he's just the id; he's not Calvin, he's Aries; he's a jolly ol' trickster! He was so very desperate to throttle his own personality out of him, he just made it stronger. His self-awareness was dangerous levels, having bared the small, injured animal that might have been his heart. The blood was turning brown now that the air hit it.

"Wh--" He was hot, he was hungry, he was torturing himself. "C'mon, don't make me go. I'll... be good." Aries hands went up as if he were being held at gun point. The croaky sound in his throat broke, his own body betraying him once again and letting his pain be audible.

"What?" That caught his attention. Make him...? Joshua came to a sudden halt, nearly barrelling straight back into Aries with the force of his u-turn.

At once he was struck with the only thing more pitiful than Aries' voice: the man himself, hands up, staring at him like a frightened hound awaiting another kick from its master.

It was as if he had swallowed glass. Joshua did not need a glimpse behind the mask to know that he'd seen this face before, heard that tone, the begging. He had not thought himself so deluded- he'd spilled too much blood to think his hands clean- yet, even after all of this time, it came as a shock to know that he could still be as thoughtlessly cruel as any legionary to those he should have protected.

"You don't have to go anywhere." Though he reached for gentleness there was a note of panic there too that he could not snuff out, a certain hastiness. "I was just showing you landmarks. For when you decide to explore on your own."

Another shift and Aries gasps slightly, it gets caught in this throat, and he barks a cough.

"Well-hell-ell, I've been wrong before. To be fair, I've been in the heat all day, I'm hungry, and I thiiiink I might have freaked my friend out."

Aries thinks to himself that he's a genius, he will always be clever and beautiful and live forever by changing the subject-- "Is this more of a village, or a camp?"

He's heard about the land, he's heard some of Joshua's people (not "people" as if Joshua were a King, that whole idea felt gross). He didn't really know how they lived. "Those were y'alls scouts? It's like the trees have eyes! Is anyone going to meet us?"

Joshua tried very hard to believe Aries. Whether or not he succeeded was irrelevant. Yes. Of course. The heat and the road and the hunger. It had nothing to do with the the man before him or the hurt his legacy could inflict with only a few poorly chosen words.

"You didn't do anything of the sort," he said, eventually, so softly he might almost have been missed because he did not know if he could say it any louder... and the conversation, mercifully, rolled on.

This at least was something he could speak on with authority, and not a little pride.

"That's right. Their reports are how I knew you would arrive today." After all, there weren't many other people who'd fit the description of a bizarre man wearing a hood with enormous eyes and a snout. "The Dead Horses have lived here for generations. There are smaller encampments set up all over the canyon for hunting parties and the like, but we'll be staying at the village itself."

He could feel himself relaxing, even as the path became steeper and the rocks beneath their boots looser, each step scattering little pebbles.

"And no. A few of the younger scouts wanted to meet you right away, but..." He paused, his glance wry and apologetic. How foolish he had been. "I thought that you might like to walk back alone."

Every time Aries thought he figured out other humans, it came to his attention how different every single living thing was completely different (and alone!) His mind was a bulldozer at times, telling him that he and (whatever he was currently obsessed with) were in synch and important and ever lasting. The therapist at Bysshe said he "dissociated" but she also said they couldn't "prescribe" him any of the "good stuff."

He couldn't even tell Joshua that story, the idea of a therapist evaluation at an energy company might be too much to grasp for an anecdote. The future is now!

"Is there anything I should avoid talking about around them? It's all good and fine for me to refer to them as a whole, as Dead Horses?"

At one point in time, Aries thought that the world was so small. He grew up near the mines and would be considered by most a 'hillbilly.' Then nearly all people died with just the bombs' impact, the planes falling from the skies, the power loss. The violence and greed that came from it, the kind of stuff that tore apart neighbors and families, and cultures. He saw it first hand, and knew that adapting was the most important. He'd rather make friends than enemies, above all things.

Besides, no one liked an ignorant asshole walking into camp and pretending he knew everything. (Apparently they had already went through that, ha ha, Joshua).

Aries wanted to answer questions and be respectful and would honestly eat anything they put in front of him without hesitation. Maybe he could swap recipes! The idea that someone wanted to meet him, especially after someone he was so smitten with (what was it that Joshua called it? Infatuation)-- they were the one to describe him. Most people heard about Aries from people who hated him! (See also: Vinny).

Joshua's glance feels like a jab, a little heart-shaped arrowhead piercing his skin. "Not alone-alone. Alone with you, I do. I'll calm down once I get my mask off and eat something. I really want to eat one of those geckos, Jos-shwa."

That was, he thought, one of the things about Aries that he found so terribly, disarmingly endearing. For all his strangeness- perhaps because of his strangeness- he was not an inconsiderate man, able and above all willing to keep his little idiosyncrasies in check. Not that it had taken long for Joshua to become accustomed to them. If anything it would have hurt a good deal more if Aries had decided to reign them in again.

"'Dead Horses' is fine, and no. Nothing comes to mind." Nothing that didn't go without saying- be polite, be respectful. Aries was the last person he needed to remind. "You're probably the most exciting thing to have happened to them all year. If anything, they might ask you questions that you would rather not answer."

They would not hold back, either. Joshua had seen first hand the way some of the tribe liked to prod outsiders, some out of naked curiosity and some, more brazenly, for their own amusement. But even the most jaded among them could appreciate a quick mind and an easy laugh. If anyone could roll with their punches it was Aries.

Oh, no. The worst of it would be saved for Joshua himself: you've never invited someone here, before, Joshua. Why now? And how could he possibly answer that? Because I am a fool and I could not be away from him for a day longer?

A problem for later. Now he wanted to be here, alone, with Aries, smiling in spite of himself the way he always seemed to in the man's presence.

"Save your appetite. There'll be bighorner waiting for you on the fire." Which, if Aries were to look up, he would see the evidence of in little curling plumes, rising above the canyon walls. Not far now. "Have you ever tried banana yucca fruit?"

It took Aries far too long in life to realize that when a person is making fun of you, when someone is teasing-- don't freak out. Bounce a bubble of buffoonery back at them, and it's like you speak their language. As it was stated, Aries tried to hard to figure out what made him different for so long. Sometimes, he has a stroke of clarity when he realizes he can move between countless types of people if he just pivoted, imitated, repeated. Just a little something he picked up over the years of anonymity, which came when he was hiding and trying to heal his gaping throat wound.

The smell wouldn't reach his nose until he'd removed his mask, and his eyes watched Joshua's own gaze, to see the physical proof of dinner. The mention of banana perks Aries up, more excited now than nervous. "Bananas??" Maybe Joshua should let Follows-Chalk introduce Aries to the fruit that is inedible until cooked. He hasn't had a banana in over 200 years!

"I used to get a banana cream pie on my birthday. Shelley bought it from the Slocum Joe's that was in the nearby city..." If he can see the smoke, he can hang on a little longer.

"Don't forget, I gotta get a river-shower."

oh yes yes an excuse to use his image~

omg mad max mode activated

midnight train to georgia mode activated!

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