![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dialecticdreamerRoad Tripping
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1301
[11 am on Wednesday, 29 November of 2017]
:: Ready to face the day, Jules has to track down Blainn to ask him a very important question. Part of the Lodestar story arc in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::
“You are a hard man to track down, Blainn,” Jules declared, grinning.
Blainn turned away from loading boxes from the back of his surrey onto the royal blue dolly with dozens of chips in the enamel. The man with a death grip on the dolly glared at Jules for the interruption. The younger teen, however, simply punched the air and moved smoothly to pick up the next box. “You just won me twenty bucks, so thanks for that!” Blainn cheered.
“How?” Jules’ brow furrowed deeply.
“Your dad bet that you’d sleep the clock around.” Blainn snickered. “I figured that you’d been drinking water and coffee more than eating, so my bet was that your bladder would be more effective than an alarm clock.”
Laughing, Jules nodded. “Dead on. Want some help?”
The stranger shook his head sharply. “No, for legal reasons.”
“Fine.” Jules patted the air.
The man pushed back a length of dull brown hair, revealing a heavily pockmarked forehead, though his teens were decades behind him. “He’s almost done,” the stranger added in a more congenial tone.
Blainn loaded the last box, signed and dated a receipt, pausing to check the time on his vidwatch, then shook the man’s hand. The stranger waved and pushed the cargo toward the half-painted food truck in front of the welding shop. The younger teen turned to face Jules, but couldn’t hide all of his grin. “How’d you like your breakfast?”
“Imp,” Jules answered, rolling his eyes. He grew serious quickly. Was that the first time you’ve met Mariset?”
Blainn waved the issue away. “She popped by a couple of times while you were out, but I don’t understand why your dad got teary when she gave him a crank flashlight.” The teen pointed toward the Surrey. “Want to help me pedal to the next pickup? It’s only about five blocks away.”
Jules snickered. “This is industrial swirly maze crap. I’d believe it if that five blocks actually meant about two kilometers-” He huffed a sigh. “I mean, a mile and a quarter, away.”
“Got used to metrics, huh?” Blainn offered with a bemused grin. He settled in the left seat.
“It took a few weeks of really throwing myself into it, for every measurement. By the way, I love cooking with a digital scale. I’ll rework Dad’s recipes until they’re identical if I have to.” Jules took a seat on the passenger side.
“You tracked me down to talk about recipes? When you could be sleeping?” The younger teen arched an eyebrow in pointed silence.
Jules shook his head. “I wanted to take my new Surrey out for a spin and wondered if you wanted to come along.”
Blainn’s hands hesitated, then settled on the steering wheel. “I thought that you’d ask your dad, or go alone.”
“My relationship with Dad is unusual, but it is definitely not so intertwined that I’d take him on a joy ride in my first vehicle. That’s far more appropriate for the two of us.”
They shared a long, speaking look, then both burst into snickers. Blainn recovered first. “What kind of field trip?”
“Not a field trip,” Jules corrected as he buckled the seat belt. “A road trip. We need drinks, snacks, a half-planned destination, and a goal. The more arbitrary and silly the goal, the better,” he added loftily.
“Rolling,” Blainn warned. “Follow my pedaling.” He waited a beat. “Please.”
“Of course,” Jules agreed. “I might be older, but you’re definitely the more experienced Surrey driver.”
Neither spoke until they were moving smoothly in the right lane of the residential street. Blainn licked his lips. “So, destination? I’ve got… I can probably spare an hour but we’ll have to absolutely pick up some filling junk food for lunch.”
Jules nodded. “Absolutely. Have you had much interest in touristy stuff? Have you visited anything besides the county park and the children’s museum?”
Blainn glanced over, eyes narrowing. “I haven’t been to the children’s museum. I’m not a child.”
Jules stared, mouth dropping open. “You are kidding me, right? They’re some of the best ways for non-science geeks to really understand the stuff that Halley and Edison think of as so obvious it’s like saying that water is wet.” He waved the matter away. “We don’t have time for a whole day trip, so the kids’ museum is out.”
“There’s a new skate dot, out in the dome development,” Blainn ventured after a moment. “We won’t be able to do more than look around, but I’ve heard conflicting ideas about who’s welcome to use it, so I wanted to… have someone with me when I went to check it out.”
Jules nodded, already tapping on his phone. “Got it. There’s a deli on the way. We’ll buy extra bags of chips and that’ll meet the junk food criteria, okay?” He flashed a grin. “My treat.”
Blainn nodded, then glanced behind them before asking, “Where’s Mariset?”
“Working on her assignments. I’m not going to bug her, though I did remind her that she’s invited to dinner because she’s in the county limits.”
“You like….” Blainn paused, then cleared his throat. “You like having space, not spending every minute of the day together? It seems… different.”
Jules shrugged. “We’ll talk about that at home. It’s too… complicated… to be road trip conversation. Movies, music, and things that you either like or hate. If that’s not what you want, we can discuss it.”
He showed Blainn his phone screen, where the little green dot crawled slowly along the route planned there. “So, the deli’s got good food, great service, and it won’t seem unusual to order enough for six or eight people, especially if someone spots my new Surrey.”
“Where is that, by the way?” Blainn made a show of looking at the long expanse of empty curb on either side of the road. “It’s not the same if we take the road trip in my Surrey, is it?”
“Of course not!” Jules faked an outraged gasp. “Heathen! No ice cream for you!”
“It’s nearly December. The only reason that I’m not bundled up with three more layers is the amount of time I spend parked is less than one hour out of nine. And, well, it’s not… you know.” Blainn pointed at the sky.
“Storming?” Jules ventured after a moment. “I didn’t realize that you were superstitious about the weather.”
“Not…” Blainn considered all the way through the four way stop and watching the automobiles continue on their way. “Not really, but it feels like I have more control if I avoid the key word, and sometimes, the illusion of control is even more valuable than actual control.”
“Amen,” Jules agreed fervently. “Cassidy’s going to have a good life, but I needed to feel like I could control anything by the start of day three. Even if it was a self-delusion dressed up in its best clothes.”
Frowning, Blainn murmured, “is it too serious a topic to ask what you enjoyed about any of the job, besides the paycheck?”
Jules nodded once. “Yeah. That’s dinner conversation. I made some mistakes that I want to talk over with you so you’ve got the information before you need it. Remind me later, or a couple of days later, even. No rush.”
“So, where’s your Surrey? We should probably get this road trip started,” Blainn began doubtfully. “It’s not like I’ve been able to do many of them.”
“I stashed it up ahead in the parking lot at the grocery store. Your teams are very, very good passive security.” Jules grinned. “Or should I just say ‘good job’ and let the conversation turn again?”
Blainn spluttered a laugh. “Yeah. Remind me to tell you about Donnie tonight.
30
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
