thearena | The summer memory that just never dies

"I think it looks weird." she tells him with a grin, honest to a fault.

Clementine has never seen anything like the fish trap but she'd patiently and trustingly followed Nick's instructions, bringing him the materials he'd said they'd need and placing them down where she was told. "But cool. How does it work?"

She can see where the fish were meant to end up but wasn't sure why they'd end up there. Should they have some sort of bait inside?

Nick can't help but laugh at that. "Yeah, it does, huh? I told Pete the same thing when he first showed me how. I'll spare you the rant he gave me though."

And the disappointed earful he got for splashing around the river instead. So what if he did what most kids would do near a body water? He'd kick the water now for old time's sake, but this isn't exactly supposed to be a fun fishing trip to begin with.

"The fish are comin' from upstream, so they just swim right in. The current mostly keeps 'em from escapin' but I think they're just that dumb. Either way, it's why we laid out the rocks like that, to make sure they swim in."

Fish better turn up or Nick would feel like an idiot. He had done everything Pete said, but imagining his uncle nodding at him with approval is damn near impossible.

"...I hope it works."

"I think it'll work." Clementine tells him, speaking with confidence in her tone. "We worked really hard on it."

While that might not be a magic ticket to ensuring something did what it was supposed to do, Clementine has faith, particularly in Nick knowing what he was doing. "Is it true that fish can remember stuff for ten seconds?"

She'd heard that before or something just like it. If fish weren't smart enough to remember their own lives then they'd definitely not be smart enough to get out of the trap she and Nick had made.

Clementine's reassurance lifts the some of the weight he had been holding in his gut, with what's left mostly stems from his streak of bad luck. Still, her words are enough for him to not fall into total pessimism. "Some bait would be nice but cheese in a can ain't gonna catch us shit." And they can't just live off that either.

He raises a brow at her question. Not that he thinks it's a stupid one, but he sure feels dumbfounded that he doesn't have the exact answer either. Pete probably would know...or maybe not. There's that saying about having the memory of a goldfish but who knows if it's actually true.

"Honestly, Clem? ...no fuckin' clue." There's something about her asking that at all is somewhat amusing. Maybe he asked Pete the same question as a kid but he'd like to think that he'd have remembered if he did. Whatever it is, he can't help but smirk. "But I've seen 'em swimming into the trap and just sittin' in there before, so maybe."

The fish probably aren't even aware that their lives are in danger until something scoops them out. The same can be said for just about every living thing, including humans. He keeps that thought to himself though, not wanting to give the Gamemakers more ideas than they already have after all. "C'mon, let's see if there's anythin' useful around here."

"Oh, okay." She's not put out at not getting a definite answer to her question, it wasn't an important one, just an idle wondering that popped into her head when talking about the fish trap. Clementine smiles though when Nick says 'maybe' and figures he's following the same train of thought she did. "They can't be very smart, anyway."

Now they're done she's starting to fidget a little, filled with nervous energy left over from building the trap. Clem idly steps onto a particularly big rock at the edge of the water and balances on one foot, arms held out by her side. "How long should we leave it for?"

She's not going to lie, some fresh fish sounds good enough to make her hungry right now but she knows better than to expect immediate results. She can be patient for a few hours, she's gone longer without having anything to eat.

Nick rolls his sleeve back to look at his watch. It's still ticking, and so are they.

"I saw plenty on our way up here." It's how he had the idea in the first place. Better than trying to use some drawstring and fish hooks too. "We'll give it a few." He'd rather not stay, but they're starving and he'd rather come back with fish than leave and return later to find it being used by somebody else.

He goes over to one of the trees and leans against it, eyes looking across the river and around to make sure they were the only ones around. His eyes fall to Clem then, face relaxing as he watches her balance on the rock.

"Careful," he says with the corner of his lips tugged. "Keep wavin' your arms like that and the fish'll discover somethin' new to be afraid of."

Clementine's eyes go to the watch for a moment. She's glad... glad she thought to pick it up back in their world, though she hadn't known the significance of it at the time, and she's glad that Nick has it here. Not only as something practical so they could actually keep track of the passage of time but as something personal for him, the same way she has her hat.

"Okay!" she nods and then sticks her tongue out at Nick. "They won't be." she hops to another rock, maybe showing off a little, both for Nick and the camera's. Clementine's been here long enough by now to know the value of performance, whether that's in purposeful actions or just her own natural inclination to have fun.

"So... I guess we should go back to the cave until then?"

Once upon a time, Clem's cheekiness might have rubbed Nick the wrong way - like anything would when he's at his low points. This time he can't help but grin back. He knows with her, being the smart girl she is, that she's playing it up for the camera for the most part.

He nods at her question, moving back to the trap to give it one last look. It's hard for him to hide his surprise when his eyes catch a glimpse of movement inside the corner of the trap. That's not just the current. He gently wades through the water, reaching into the trap and praying that what he pulls out isn't going to have a massive set of teeth.

Clementine can probably hear a short laugh coming from him. He turns around to reveal a trout just barely over a foot long. It's not the biggest its species can grow, but if they can catch a couple of more, there would be enough for everyone.

"Looks like you didn't scare 'em after all." With a smile, he sets the fish back in the trap, watching it huddle back to the corner where he found it. Their luck's finally changing. "What'd you say we wait for a bit? It won't be long before we'll end up with more."

Edited 2015-02-27 14:38 (UTC)

"What're you--" she turns and then lets out a delighted sound at the sight of the fish, "Wow!"

Clementine's hopping back over towards Nicky to get a better look at the fish, now back inside the trap. "It's pretty big," it looks big to Clem anyway, "if we get more like that we won't go hungry at all." she nods vigorously to the suggestion. "Yeah, then we can really surprise Luke."

Hopping back onto the bank is easy enough and Clem turns, looking at their surroundings and then up at the huge pine tree's that are growing by the river. "What should we do till then?" they could maybe go exploring, or just head back to the cave.

Edited 2015-03-03 17:50 (UTC)

Circumstances are different but danger is everywhere all in the same. It has been surprisingly quiet all day though and it would be easy to believe that they never left the cabin if the damage hadn't been done. At least there aren't any bodies in this river.

Nick takes watching her nod like that as a sign that she's as hungry as the rest of them. Despite the luxury of the food in the Capitol, it's hard to forget what it's like to go hungry for days. It makes dealing with these arenas a little bit easier when it's apparently not that big of a deal to go one day without food. But things are looking up for them now, and it's actually worth smiling about.

He walks past her, lightly pacing about to think about what to do. There doesn't seem to be anything of use here, but it'd be pretty dangerous to just stand around out in the open. That's when Nick looks up, thoughtful.

"We can wait up there and it'd be harder for folks to see us." He turns to Clem, looking at her slightly challenging. "You've climbed trees before, right?"

"That's a great idea!" So Clementine thinks, the tree's have lots of sturdy looking branches to hold onto. "I used to have a treehouse," she reassures Nick. "It wasn'tin a tree like these one's though... and it had a ladder."

So maybe she hasn't really climbed a tree properly but it can't be that hard. She's climbed lots of other stuff in her time, usually to escape Walkers. This time there won't be that added pressure to move quickly, she hopes.

"Let's do it." she starts walking up the bank towards the treeline.

"Yeah?" Nick didn't have the pleasure of having one. He's pretty sure if he did, he'd spend a good amount of time in there unless he had somewhere else to be. Nevermind that he was afraid of falling (it's not the height, it's the falling. There's a difference) when he was about her age and it took a lot of nudging from Luke for him to get over it. At least a locked bedroom was as good of a sanctuary as any.

"You can reach that branch up there, probably. You might need a boost." It's an offer he's prepared to give, but if Clem wants to try it herself first he won't stop her or tell her she can't otherwise.

"I spent so much time in there, it was like my own secret hideout." she chatters as they come to the base of the tree. "I used to keep a bunch of my stuff in there. It... actually saved my life when the Walkers appeared. I hid up there till Lee showed up."

Clementine looks up at the branch Nick is pointing out and nods. Determined she decides to try to get up to it on her own, stretching out her hand and rising on her tiptoes she just about manages to wrap her fingers around the branch. Then she had to try and haul herself up, which is where it gets difficult.

A few seconds of trying to heave herself up and dig her feet into the tree trunk ends up getting Clem nowhere, except embarassment city. "Um, Nick, help?"

Lee. The guy that took her in when it all started. That's about as much as Nick knows about him, aside from the fact that he had died long before Luke and Pete found her. Nick knows he's not the only one that has suffered losses at the hands of the lurkers, or at the hands of people that went batshit as a result of the world changing for them. "It was a good thing he found you when he did," he replies with a tone laced in sympathy.

He crosses his arms as the wind blows a slight chill past him, watching Clementine attempt the climb and letting out a little snort when she ends up hanging like a monkey. He unfolds his arms again as he makes his way over to give her the boost necessary to climb up that branch.

"All right, I got you." He replies with the same words Luke had encouraged Nick with when it was his first time climbing a tree. They had to have been seven or eight then.

"Yeah..." she shakes her head after a moment of thinking about it. Lee's a sensitive subject at the best of times, nevermind in the middle of the arena.

Clementine huffs when she hears that little snort, but is glad he restrains himself from going ahead and outright laughing at her predicament. It's not her fault these tree's are so big! She wonders for a moment how the Capitol even grows them so fast to be ready for the arena.

A helping hand soon has her scrambling onto the branch, very carefully standing up on it while bracing her hand on the trunk for support. "Can you get up okay, Nick?"

No, Nick isn't one to laugh at this sort of thing. He's been in the receiving end of it before, he knows the feeling of being discouraged all too well. Although he's pretty sure even that won't stop Clem from trying and succeeding. She has that quality that he lacked when he was her age. Luke was the only one who didn't make him feel bad for being afraid of trying something new.

To Clem's question, his answer almost comes off as nonchalant to those who don't know him well enough. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

He jumps to grab at the branch across from where Clem is sitting and hurls himself up, trying not to look too spooked as he mentally prays to whoever that the branch doesn't end up giving. It doesn't - thank god, so he whips his leg around to sit on the branch, mirroring Clem as he also braces his hand on the other side of the trunk.

A sigh of relief escapes him as he looks over to Clem with a small smirk. They're not as high up as he and Luke used to climb, but it's enough to look at the river ahead.

"We used to climb trees all the time," he says while looking out ahead. "It was the first thing Luke ever got me to do."

"Okay." Clementine says, smiling down at Nick but still watching closely just in case as he hauls himself up. If the branch gave then... well she doesn't know if she could do anything but she'd still try. Luckily it all turns out well.

"Yeah? Luke seems like he'd like climbing tree's." she grins. "Was that when you were kids?"

It's weird to imagine adults as kids to her. Adults always seem to be there, full formed like they'd always been that way.

"Yeah," he says as he looks on the river ahead, smiling as if the memory's playing out right in front of him. "We were 'bout nine or ten years old, I think. Me, him, and a couple of our other friends were playin' freeze tag. I was It." Of course. He rolls his eyes at that although not without a smirk. Luck just wasn't on his side during the deciding round of Rock, Paper, Scissors. "I tagged them all out 'cept for Luke. That asshole climbed up a tree."

"That ain't fair, Luke!"

"You gotta catch me or you looooose!"

Nick paced around the tree like an impatient puppy as if expecting a step ladder to show up. The others behind him were "frozen" but he could hear them snicker. As far as he knew, they couldn't climb trees either!

"I can't, okay?"

"Just throw a ball at him or somethin'! My arms are tired!"

"Shut up, David!" Luke chided from above, turning his attention back on Nick who was already getting impatient. He definitely recognized Nick's 'I don't wanna play anymore' face. "C'mon, Nick. It ain't that scary and nowhere near as hard." He sat down on the branch, leaning onto the trunk with one arm while the other beckoned Nick to climb up. "C'mon! Just try!"

Luke wasn't making fun of him. In retrospect, it probably wasn't even about tagging him anymore. He just wanted Nick to do things with him that others couldn't.

Knowing that he'd probably never hear the end of it later, Nick groaned as he grabbed whatever part of the trunk looked the easiest to grab, drowning out the impatient ushering from the others in favor of putting all his concentration into moving up. All he heard was Luke's telling him that he could do it and that he just needed to keep going.

He nearly didn't make it to the top if it wasn't for Luke's help. He had extended his arm out and Nick grabbed it without any hesitation.

"Wasn't so hard, was it? You win by the way!" Luke asked with a big smile as he patted his friend on the shoulder.

Nick gasped, curling his hands hard enough to peel some of the bark off the branch. "...can we go back down now?" He squeaked.

"That was the first thing he ever convinced me to do." Nick says, feeling slightly relaxed. The branch creaks a little as he shifts a bit, but it doesn't bother him. Not anymore, anyway. "Sure as hell wasn't the last either. There had been dumber things."

Clementine can't help but laugh when Nicky calls Luke an asshole for his strategy. She knew Luke had a fun streak, though it came out rarely when their lives were all toil and neverending worry. Worry about Walkers or Carver or the Capitol. It was nice to hear stories about him from before.

"How long have you two known each other?" she asks, a little eagerly to know. "What other stuff did you two do together?"

"It's been 'round twenty years." Nick could've sworn he told her this already, but recalls that she hadn't experienced what he and Luke had. Given where they ended up, he'd like to think it's for the best. "I was the new kid in town. Luke was in the same class as me and it didn't take long for us to find out that we lived pretty close to each other too." And they'd been close since.

"Stupid shit, y'know. Dumb boy things." The branch creaks a bit as he shifts in his seat. There's something about Clem being interested in all this is...nice, like telling stories to a younger sister. It's exactly what he's doing right now actually. It's nice and Nick can't help but scratch the back of his neck to sooth his nerves.

"Fast forward to high school," when they were just at the age of not quite being adults yet, but detest being called kids too. "We got bored one weekend and started jumping around rooftops."

And then he looks at Clem like he's making a confession to stealing a cookie. "I fell and broke a rib - or maybe three, I can't remember - on the garden faucet."

He can speak plainly about it now but he can't forget the seething pain like a hole was put through him. They should've just stayed in and played videogames, but nope.

"Ow." Clementine winces sympathetically when Nick tells her that. "That must have hurt so bad." On a faucet no less, not even just the ground.

She's never broken a rib yet, which is some miracle considering everything she's been through, both at home and in the arena's. Maybe she's bruised them but definitely never broken, and bruising had hurt bad enough alone.

"Whose idea was it to do that?"

"It sure fuckin' did. Had to go to the emergency room...we went a couple of hours later."

God, Nick had always known that they had great moments of idiocy but to actually say them out loud puts it at a whole new level.

"Can't remember whose idea it was, to be honest." It very well could have been his. The tendency to hesitate seemed to have followed him to adulthood but that recklessness had to have come from somewhere. "But I didn't want Pete to know," here is where Nick breaks into a series of chuckles. He remembered how much it had hurt to talk, but he powered through it for the sake of begging Luke to 'DON'T...tell...Pete!'

"So Luke took me back to his place to look up ways to take care of it. A couple of painkillers didn't do shit, so he took me the hospital. Couldn't hid that part from Pete...he found out eventually. Gave us both an earful and grounded me for a month...not that I could've gone anywhere."

Nick lets out a long sigh as if he's been letting out something he had been holding in for a long time. That's true to an extent...he misses his uncle and life from before. It's hard not to frown at what used to be. He shakes it off for now, looking over at Clem to cant his head towards the river. "Anyway, what'd you say we go look at what we caught? Pretty sure more have turned up by now."

"Oh my God." Clementine stares at him when he tells that story, "That... that was kind of dumb." she starts grinning and then shakes her head in a way that looks fond. "At least he didn't save grounding you for when you were able to move."

Nick had probably scared the crap out of Pete with that stunt, Luke too.

She looks back towards the river and nods. "Sure, then we can take them back and show them off to everyone!" Clementine leans forward, trying to work out the best way to get down from the tree now. Jumping may not be so bad from this height.

If she had been there to tell him in that agonizing moment, he'd have cussed her out to next week. ~~And apologize later.~~ But now, looking back, he can freely admit that the both of them were being reckless idiots. Life was simpler back then and Nick had the first taste of paying off his own medical bill. Pete was a hardass but the whole incident taught Nick a lot about debt.

But not necessarily avoiding it, as it showed later in life with the failed business. Mistakes like that were laughable back then and even thinking back on it now makes him smile. He figures he ought be the one to get down first in order to help her do the same - if she needs it. The branch creaks again as he prepares to slide ride off. "'Kind of dumb?' You're goin' pretty easy on - oh SHIT!"

His arms flail as an instinctive attempt to grab for something but the half second of falling seems to feel like forever as his heart rate sky rockets and continues to go even as he lands face first onto the ground. He appears motionless at first, though still very conscious and aware. The first thing he does is feel around the inside of his mouth with his tongue to see if he had broken any teeth. Once he finds out that they're only just ringing like church bells, he manages to let out a groan.

Edited (#lifewithnick) 2015-06-06 11:49 (UTC)

"Nick!" Clementine starts to call when she hears the creak, then -- the crack! as the branch splits and breaks underneath them. She yelps and grabs fruitlessly for anything in reach as she they both tumbledown to the ground.

Luckily she doesn't land on top of Nick. Unluckily that means she lands on the hard unforgiving ground.

"Oww..." she whimpers, pushing herself up onto her elbows. That's going to leave some serious bruising later. Clementine shakes her head, nothing feel broken... "Nick, Nick are you okay?"

The branch falls next to him but what gets him to come to is the sound of Clem's yelp. Panic had settled in him quicker than he'd like to admit, but he lets out a sigh of relief when she appears okay. He lets his body rest there for a second, just to shake off the excess adrenaline. A little fall isn't much (especially compared to the one he just told her about) but if she so much as landed wrong, he wouldn't forgive himself.

"Yeah...I'm good. I've had worse." With a sigh, he ignores the bruises likely forming around his knees and pushes himself up. He goes over to Clem and holds a hand out to her. "You?"

The summer memory that just never dies

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

pfft sorry for the drabble. Couldn't help myself ;u;

it's wonderful, never apologise <3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject