hi home

[peachfuzz]

Connie had a terrible habit of wandering without notifying anyone that he'd be doing it. If no one ran into him while he was prepping to go, and asked what he was up to, he would leave people guessing when the last time they saw him was. He never planned on making anyone worry, of course, but Connie had long since gotten used to doing things on his own and though he liked the crowd he now ran with at the compound, it never occurred to him to report something like this to them.

It had only happened a few times in the month and a half since his arrival, and until then the longest he'd spent out was two nights. With all the fuss that was kicked up over that, he'd then tried to limit his outings to afternoon excursions or something that would get him in early the next morning before anyone realised he'd been gone at all, but this time he got distracted and ventured further without thinking on who might be wondering about his absence.

And so this time, it had been twelve days since anyone had last seen him.

He came back mid-morning with his old school backpack he'd managed to hang onto despite everything on one shoulder and a newly found but dirtied neon orange messenger bag over the other. Both were packed full of his findings, and he was chewing on some turkey jerky he'd uncovered in his travels as he strutted back into familiar territory.

His shirt had an entirely new tear in it, from getting snagged in a tree branch on his way down from where he'd been sleeping one night, and his hair tie had broken, leaving his mass of hair bobbing with every step, but Connie was, in fact, completely okay.

Comments

[lordofthefries]

He can still call her rude. It's okay. It'll roll right off her back. "No, stop running off without us. We have to stick together, you know."

She knows he knows, but yet he still doesn't seem to listen. Maybe under all that hair, he has a thick head. Sasha could stand to scold him a little more for making her worry for two whole weeks, but like a magpie attracted to something shiny, her attention is pulled away from his misdeeds and onto this something.

"You got me something?" She pulls away, hands still on his shoulders, looking excited like a kid on Christmas. To be honest, this like Christmas for her. "Is it something to eat?"