fandomhigh | The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World

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getting by

The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World - Period 2

Today... Was a pizza day. Or, rather, a pizza with some salads on the side just-in-case day. Call Reno crazy, but he suspected that most of the students in his classroom hadn't been in any state of mind to go and get food yesterday after cleaning up from their respective traumas, and the weekend had been pretty low on eating for the people stuck in that wasteland with him, so...

He was sitting on the top of his desk, mowing down on a slice of pepperoni with extra cheese when the students made their way into the classroom today. He even stopped to chew and swallow before speaking! Be thankful.

"I'm gonna try to take it easy on you today," he said, not even bothering with his ritual 'yo' as an icebreaker. "Don't wanna take it too easy, though. This lecture was supposed to be the important one. Grab some food, it's free and it ain't gonna make you sick. Make yourselves comfortable, yo."

As comfortable as you could in a school desk. Sometimes Reno forgot that what he considered comfortable wasn't what the rest of humanity preferred.

"This week ain't about gettin' over the shock, it ain't about survivin' the day after. Today's about the rest of it. Lookin' ahead and puttin' up the framework to rebuild, either once the worst is gone, or once you find a way to work around it, yo. Food is the obvious one, yeah. We been goin' over that one again and again since the start of the class. But it don't just end there. People need ways to communicate with one another. Sooner or later, you might wanna find other survivors, other pockets of people that you can talk to or trade with or settle with. To do that, you'll need reliable transportation, that's gonna differ from place to place, situation to situation."

He managed, by some miracle, to resist the urge to inform the class that chocobos were still way cooler than horses.

"Roads don't build themselves. Communication networks don't show up overnight with the wave of a hand. You might want to start lookin' into doling out them responsibilities, choosin' the most capable people to sort out the pieces, to put them together in a way that works. The start of government, if you're lucky enough to be in a situation where you get to choose. There are gonna be people no matter how bad it is who just want the power to themselves at the end of the day. Keep your eyes out for them, too. Most of 'em ain't gonna make life easier."

He went quiet for a moment, lost in thought, trying to sort out more helpful things to say. He hadn't let it show all weekend, and he was trying like hell not to let it show now, but he was tired, and the effort of trying to keep an eye out for a handful of lost and scared students was catching up with him, hard.

"Beans are easy to grow, your world's equivalent of a horse is still one of the most reliable forms of transportation you can find, careful what water you drink, careful what food you eat, careful what air you breathe. And don't, no matter what the situation is, ever take anything you got for granted. Now... eat your friggin' pizza."

[OCD ~~on the waaaaay~~ up!]

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There's a lot of it in a variety of ~~moddable~~ kinds. And there's ~~just as moddable~~ salad, for those of you who don't do well with tomato sauce or meat or cheese or whatever.

... And juice. And coffee. And tea. And chocolate milk. Don't judge Reno. He's drinking the chocolate milk, today.

Eat. Talk. Stare at walls. Leave early. Reno isn't going to judge any of you if you feel as if you need to.

Quinn filled her plate with salad and a small piece of cheese pizza, which she picked at thoughtfully.

She wasn't used to thinking of herself as helpless, but between this class and her time in Rivet City, that was about how she felt. Growing beans didn't sound that much easier to her than whipping up a cell phone network from scratch.

Pizza. There was pizza. Screw it being too early for pizza, Jake would be over here and eating way, way too much. Yesterday he'd been too tired to even think of it, today he was going to make up for lost meals.

Scully was carefully making her way through a slice of ham with pineapple, but smiled to see Jake. "Hey. You're okay. I'm glad you're back."

"I'm glad to be back," Jake assured her glancing up. "Were you here?"

"Yes." Scully sat down next to him, and nibbled a little more. She'd forgotten to eat for large portions of the weekend, but didn't want to gorge now. "We were terrified we couldn't get you guys back." She'd been terrified, anyway. "Were you where Claudia and Peter were? That underwater city?"

Why not? Jake was gorging, there was nothing wrong with it.

He shook his head, his look darkening at hearing that Claudia had been somewhere else too. Maybe it hadn't been as bad. "No, I wasn't. Is she okay?"

"Um." Scully was not the world's best liar, but she could deflect well. "Physically she's fine. Cuts and bruises. And exhaustion." She took another bite of pizza, determined to have it stay down. Anxiety and the aftermath tended to kill her appetite, but she wasn't going to go down the 'eating nothing' route.

"Lemme guess, the place was like hell?" he grabbed another slice and with much of the same stubbornness, he bit off a mouthful.

"From what little she and Peter said, yes," Scully admitted. "They were exhausted, and Peter had some kind of hook in his shoulder when he arrived." She grimaced. "I think I might have seen one of the things that did it here, possibly." She studied him, but he seemed physically unhurt, and she really didn't believe that 'talking it out' always helped. "Was anyone else where you were?" she asked instead.

Jake winced at the mention of the injury. He was lucky, looking only like he'd missed some sleep.

"Yeah, we were with a group," he said. "We managed to stick together. No one's got too badly injured."

Scully smiled in relief. "I'm glad." She took another celebratory bite of pizza, her eyes narrowing in thought. "This one sounds like it was much worse than the 'invasions' from before. I suppose we should be glad we got through it all."

Then again, Reno's class was kind of a sobering reminder that some people had to do this long-term. Her world, if the Consortium and their cronies had their way, whatever their goals were.

"It's a lot easier fighting monsters and knowing where you are than thinking you might just be stuck there," Jake admitted. "It should rain ice cream next," he decided. "Much healthier."

"Much." Scully grinned at him in amusement. "We'll get a break before anything happens again, right?"

Jake rubbed the back of his neck. "I think assuming that might just challenge the island," he said, "but maybe it'll just be embarrassing instead of horrifying."

"I can be okay with that," Scully said, picking a bite of pineapple off her pizza and eating it. "Being bright blue or dancing or thinking I'm Madonna... As well as my Advanced Silliness class tomorrow, and sports on Wednesday." She tilted her head. "Maybe I'll visit my mom on my day off. Since I couldn't see her yesterday."

Jake for a moment thought of his pack. He hadn't gone off island yet to bring them up to speed, and he had very little desire too when the images were still so fresh in his mind.

He shook off the thought. "I'm sure she'll be glad to see you in one piece." He paused. "I didn't think you'd be a Madonna fan," he joked.

Scully turned pink, and wondered if she'd just dated herself again, then said with immense mock-dignity, "She's an artist whose work has been under-valued in her own time. Just wait. In 2050, they'll declare Most Influential of her century."

Nah, that'd require Jake to actually be thinking of anything like that. He simply thought Scully was embarrassed over her music taste now.

"Most influential something. I'd more think her century's past and doesn't that go to the Beatles or something?"

Oh, mourn. It was still 1999 where she was from. Scully couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. "Probably, although it's got a few more months to run for me. And I'd take Material Girl over Eleanor Rigby, but I think you're right."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Material Girl? Seriously?"

She grinned, then said magisterially, "Eleanor Rigby is ... a downer." She sniffed. Then grinned. "And that's all I'm going to admit to."

"I shouldn't be surprised," he mused after chewing on another bite of pizza. "I met you while you were hungover in a graveyard."

Scully facepalmed. Then grumbled good-naturedly, "You're never going to let me forget that. Are you."

Jake leaned back in his chair, grinning wolfishly. "Nope. Definitely not. When stuff like that is handed to you, you're obliged to use it to the best of your abilities."

The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World - Period 2

Eat Your Friggin' Pizza

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