(Rather than write the same vaguedrivel, here is a pretty gif to inspire you, a link to the weather for the week, and a link to londonist, a great resource for all things London related. As always this post is open all week. Tag in, tag others, check back often!)
"Join the club,' John retorted. He'd given up any hope of some kind of all powerful sky dude years ago. Judgement and justice were more of a personal responsibility, as he saw it. "Is your lack of belief responsible for those big-ass spiders, too? Or the platypus? Actually, let's blame all of Australia on the godless heathens, they have enough weird shit." Especially the spiders. John was not a fan.
"....Typing. Right." John still felt there was more to this guy than met the eye. You didn't get muscles like that from typing. "Your words per minute speed must be ferocious," he mused, eying a bicep.
Clint shook his head, remembering the last time he'd gone to Australia. It had been a couple of years back on a mission to escort and then extract. He had somehow managed to pick (and lose) a fight with a kangaroo, almost acquire a pet wallaby, and flush down the toilet a spider the side of a dinner plate.
Not his favorite trip.
"Seventy-five words a minute," he said with overinflated pride. "My accuracy's amazing."
"Sure it is," John replied dryly, before looking at the alpaca, which looked back at them both.
"So are you gonna feed that camel-sheep thing some hay, or is it just gonna eat your hand?" As if to show how it was done, John got himself a handful of hay from the loose bale nearby and extended his hand to feed the beast. It ate readily from John's palm, the furred jaw a little ticklish against his skin.
"....See? I kept all my fingers, too." John clapped Clint on the shoulder with the hand he'd just fed the alpaca, and wiped his hand clean in the process.
"I'm gonna let you feed that guy hay while I stand back here and supervise," he said, just as dryly.
The alpaca seemed content enough once it got its mouthful and Clint was immediately less so. "I put a lot of work into not getting alpaca spit on me, kid," he said. Now look where he'd ended up.
"You have a lot of expertise in supervising folks? I tend to buck hierarchies," John observed.
And just to rub it in (no pun intended), John raised his hand and gave Clint a twinkling little wave, demonstrating that his hand was now mostly all clean and dry and all that. "See, this is what happens when you don't hire good people. I'm not good people."
"Not really," Clint lied. "But I have expertise in standing back and letting other people put there fingers in the path of bitey livestock."
Raising a brow, Clint nodded. He could tell that the kid was bone dry, free of spit, which should have galled him. Here, it mostly just made his smile wider. "I think I saw some chickens at the other end. Araucanas, maybe."
"You're quite the hero," John drawled back. There was something off about this guy: but then there was something off about John, and it wasn't like he didn't have a secret history blah blah blah.
"Chickens aren't really my deal," John added with a shrug. "I'm a city boy. I only like Freaky Face here out of sympathy for all things odd and unloved." He gestured to the alpaca with a thumb, but his gaze didn't waver from Clint as he said it.
Clint snorted and gave John an amused look. "Do I look like the hero type?" he gambled. He didn't, really. It was part of why they kept him, the whole upstanding but unambitious midwestern look.
"Clearly, you've never seen an araucana chicken," Clint said. He pointed them out across the way, though at a distance it was hard to see their odd feathering that made them look like a particularly bewhiskered factory owner in a nineteenth-century portrait.
"They come in all shapes and sizes," John shrugged, all too self-aware to be doing anything else than wryly enjoying this conversation. "Or so I hear. Villains, too," he added, because yeah, subtlety was not his thing.
"That is one weird looking bird," John agreed, following the line of Clint's finger. He was more used to scoping the exits and looking for threats than noticing the local flora and fauna. "Don't tell me you used to juggle them or something." Because it was a circus, or a farm, or...something like that.
Clint smirked like he was probably supposed to but didn't take the bait to ask if John was a hero or a villain. John seemed like a good kid, whatever he'd once been, and Clint knew all about atoning for red in someone's ledger.
Instead he kept his attention on the fluffy chickens. "We had a couple when I was a kid. My ma thought they looked distinguished." His father had hated them. Clint turned his thoughts away from that. "They didn't follow me to the circus."
A smirk was a good reaction, John considered. Better than a fist to the face, anyway. If he'd known what Clint was thinking, he would have shrugged it off - self-preservation and cynicism motivated his change of heart, more than any consideration of guilt. He'd killed some people, and sure, it wasn't great, but at some point he'd make better decisions as to who to kill. The killing itself wasn't in question.
"And what did you think they looked like? Dinner?" The gibe didn't really hit the mark, and John's heart wasn't in it. "The circus probably wouldn't have been better even with the chickens."
"Rude," Clint said without any malice. "They looked like egg layers. Weird thing is, they laid blue eggs. Didn't taste much different, but they looked nice."
An araucana hen clucked at them from the distance where she was roosting and Clint nodded. "If she stands up, we could probably see them."
"Well, looks are important. I guess you want an egg layer to look like an egg layer." John absently thought about being back at school and in one of Baldy's philosophy lectures. Form and purpose, he dimly recalled, and thought it was Plato.
"It's good some kid hasn't tried to break the eggs or run off with a chicken or something," John observed a few moments later, when they could both see the eggs were all safe and sound. "Kids can be terrible." He'd been a terrible one, after all.
"Probably why the coops are so far back." He pointed out the way the little roost was backed up against the wall, their temporary run surrounded by wire enough that thieving fingers would have a difficult time.
Not that it didn't change how rotten kids could be sometimes.
"I was a real little shit. At least that's what my dad used to say."
"I ran away from school," John observed absently, looking at the layout of the roost and the fencing with a keen eye that was more strategic and analytical than strictly needed to happen with regards to chicken coops. "Burned down some buildings." It sounded like fairly regular wild teenager stuff, right?
"Same," Clint said. It was the truth, in a roundabout way. Once he and Barney were orphans they'd fucked off. So it wasn't really running, just leaving, quiet and unremarkable.
"I joined a gang," John continued in that absent tone, looking around at the other animals, the people, just observing the way of it all. "What was the circus like? All sweeping up elephant crap?"
"Ninety percent sweeping up elephant crap. Ten percent juggling." And a lot more stealing, scamming, and scheming between because circuses didn't run on peanuts and his had been mostly a front for sharpshooting thieves.
"Diverse range of skills. Must make for a great résumé." There was just a pause, and John shot Clint a somewhat wolffish grin: "What industry do you work in, again? I don't think you mentioned, but then what's another corporate faceless behemoth between friends."
Clint snorted, pulling together his usual persona, all dumb bluster. "I don't work in any industry besides assisting for my boss. She's a consultant with a lot of different companies. They're all higher-powered than me."
John looked at the guy: he still thought there was something off about the dude, but he could appreciate a good liar, at least. And didn't we all have something to hide?
"Surprised to see you out enjoying yourself, then. I didn't think you consultant types got let off the leash so easily."
Bless the kid for providing Clint with the perfect setup, just as a handler passed with a juvenile piglet on a lead. "She thinks it's a family reunion," Clint deadpanned.
There was a long, drawn out pause, before John gave him a slow clap. "Good line," he acknowledged. "I'd buy you a beer, but I should be getting him to my guy." He didn't sound that keen about it, frankly.
Clint let a grin sneak out the corner of his mouth when John admitted it was a good line but he could also tell that the kid was supposed to be somewhere, even if he maybe wasn't happy about it.
"Yeah, but it was good to bump into you. Enjoy sweeping up that corporate shit," John said, with a shrug as goodbye, and stuck his hands in his pockets before heading off.
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"....Typing. Right." John still felt there was more to this guy than met the eye. You didn't get muscles like that from typing. "Your words per minute speed must be ferocious," he mused, eying a bicep.
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Not his favorite trip.
"Seventy-five words a minute," he said with overinflated pride. "My accuracy's amazing."
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"So are you gonna feed that camel-sheep thing some hay, or is it just gonna eat your hand?" As if to show how it was done, John got himself a handful of hay from the loose bale nearby and extended his hand to feed the beast. It ate readily from John's palm, the furred jaw a little ticklish against his skin.
"....See? I kept all my fingers, too." John clapped Clint on the shoulder with the hand he'd just fed the alpaca, and wiped his hand clean in the process.
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The alpaca seemed content enough once it got its mouthful and Clint was immediately less so. "I put a lot of work into not getting alpaca spit on me, kid," he said. Now look where he'd ended up.
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And just to rub it in (no pun intended), John raised his hand and gave Clint a twinkling little wave, demonstrating that his hand was now mostly all clean and dry and all that. "See, this is what happens when you don't hire good people. I'm not good people."
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Raising a brow, Clint nodded. He could tell that the kid was bone dry, free of spit, which should have galled him. Here, it mostly just made his smile wider. "I think I saw some chickens at the other end. Araucanas, maybe."
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"Chickens aren't really my deal," John added with a shrug. "I'm a city boy. I only like Freaky Face here out of sympathy for all things odd and unloved." He gestured to the alpaca with a thumb, but his gaze didn't waver from Clint as he said it.
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"Clearly, you've never seen an araucana chicken," Clint said. He pointed them out across the way, though at a distance it was hard to see their odd feathering that made them look like a particularly bewhiskered factory owner in a nineteenth-century portrait.
"And neither you nor the alpaca are unloved."
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"That is one weird looking bird," John agreed, following the line of Clint's finger. He was more used to scoping the exits and looking for threats than noticing the local flora and fauna. "Don't tell me you used to juggle them or something." Because it was a circus, or a farm, or...something like that.
"Me and the alpaca are best friends."
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Instead he kept his attention on the fluffy chickens. "We had a couple when I was a kid. My ma thought they looked distinguished." His father had hated them. Clint turned his thoughts away from that. "They didn't follow me to the circus."
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"And what did you think they looked like? Dinner?" The gibe didn't really hit the mark, and John's heart wasn't in it. "The circus probably wouldn't have been better even with the chickens."
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An araucana hen clucked at them from the distance where she was roosting and Clint nodded. "If she stands up, we could probably see them."
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"It's good some kid hasn't tried to break the eggs or run off with a chicken or something," John observed a few moments later, when they could both see the eggs were all safe and sound. "Kids can be terrible." He'd been a terrible one, after all.
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Not that it didn't change how rotten kids could be sometimes.
"I was a real little shit. At least that's what my dad used to say."
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"But we joined the circus."
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"Surprised to see you out enjoying yourself, then. I didn't think you consultant types got let off the leash so easily."
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"Time for me to let you go, hm?"
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