#he only drinks on the field (which is still A Lot but less than red!demo) he’s kinda closed-off when off the battlefield if anything

[eldritch-muppetshow]

i was make a whole lineup of my blu team ocs but i’m super tired, so just take demo

[aggressive-positivity-network]

Do you have any autistic Scout headcanons? :P

Hell yeah!

I’ve actually thought about this a lot. A lot of people might think that Scout has ADHD, but I think he either has both ADHD and autism or just autism.

This is both because labeling Scout as having just ADHD is kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I also want to explore his symptoms a little more. So, in a word, I do, and thank you for asking about them!

*****************

Scout’s Spectrum:

So, where exactly does Scout fall on the autism spectrum?

First of all, he probably has both ADHD and autism, but wasn’t diagnosed with the latter until much later. This means that some of his symptoms were taken into account, but not all.

The ones that were paid attention to ramped up out of control, and the ones he didn’t hear about were stuffed away.

His ADHD symptoms include impulsiveness, need for stimulation, hyperfixations, forgetfulness, and insomnia; his autism symptoms include trouble with social skills, stimming, near inability to remember names and faces, lack of eye contact, hyperfixations again, and sensory processing issues, especially with noise and touch.

He used to have a lot of meltdowns when he was younger, usually about wearing new clothes and the amount of noise his eight brothers generated.

However, he was teased and pushed into masking nearly all the time, and made his whole personality about his ADHD, since that was what everyone accepted.

As he got older, he usually wrote off any autistic tendencies as either his ADHD or just “little habits” of his.

During his middle school years, he used energy drinks to bounce back from being exhausted every day after school. This would work, except those energy drinks would upset his ADHD, and would make it much harder to focus on even basic conversation.

After a while, he got such bad grades and had such a hard time making friends that Scout just stopped going to school altogether.

Baseball helped his focus, and the quick movement and thinking made a lot of sense to him. He never had to wait very long for the next development, and the instant gratification and community it provided supplemented what he never got at school.

With sports on his side, he rarely ever drank any energy drinks (the coach would never let them on the field), and he drank bucketfuls of water during every meet and game. Those teenage years were probably the healthiest he ever was.

However, with the amount of rumbles he got into with his brothers, and the turf wars that constantly raged in those neighborhoods, it was only a matter of time before his crime caught up with him.

After his first incarceration, he was booted from the team, which led to a downward spiral of unhealthy coping mechanisms - which included fighting someone tooth and nail whenever he could.

Even if he lost the fight, it not only catered to his impulsive nature and impatience, but also gave him roughly the same sense of friendship and camaraderie that baseball had.

One thing led to another, and by the time Mann Co. found him, Scout was a monster in hand to hand (and bat to bat) and had racked up quite the criminal record.

A perfect mercenary, ripe for the picking.

On The Team:

Scout very quickly adopted the “stupid, scrappy Boston boy” persona.

It was the only thing that made sense, and it kept him from having to try too hard in both the battlefield and socially.

Besides, that meant that he could be as silly, forgetful, and fidgety as he wanted, and no one would bat an eye.

And if he ever needed to take a break from the team, he figured everyone would appreciate the quiet.

The only thing that ever gave him away was him occasionally dissociating right when battle began, especially if the day had been stressful.

It was usually how he calmed down after a fight when he was young, but now he sometimes slid into that state when he was overwhelmed.

However, a yell from one of his teammates would usually snap him out of it.

Medic noticed this pretty early on, and wanted to look more into it, but Scout would keep making excuses not to get a mental examination.

He would blame it on zoning out, being tired, drinking too many Bonks - whatever it took for people to stop asking.

And, eventually, they did.

Even Medic stopped asking after a while - he couldn’t get a thing out of Scout.

This “try so little that when you do try it’s above average” charade worked for a long time. In fact, it went on for so long that Scout forgot how much he was actually capable of.

He began to internalize the stupidity, the exacerbation, the many comments on how dumb he was, everything.

The only time he ever gave his all was on the battlefield - moving fast, memorizing strategies, doing complicated footwork, knowing exactly how much force it took to crush someone’s skull with his bat.

That was one of the only things that he felt good doing, the only thing he could really work on without him being “found out.”

That and drawing, though he never showed the actual pieces to anyone. It was all stick figures and crooked lines with everyone else.

Sometimes, though, Scout wouldn’t be paying attention and he’d let something slip.

One time, Engineer was looking for his screwdriver, and couldn’t seem to find it anywhere.

Scout, not looking up from his comic, said, “Under the couch cushion, hard hat.”

Engineer bent down and reached into the couch, and his hand came back with his red and yellow striped screwdriver.

“Well I’ll be damned…”

At first Engineer thought Scout had just hid it, but Scout explained, still not paying attention:

“Last time we went out on th’ field, you had it on your belt, like always. But I was walkin’ by your workshop, you were usin’ a quarter to tighten a screw or somethin’. Your screwdriver had to be somewhere between the battlefield and your workshop. Engie, you’re like freakin’ clockwork. Every day, after a fight, you go to the kitchen, get a water, go to that couch, between the second and third cushion from the left, and sit there. Then ya go back to the fridge to get lunch and a beer, and ya go to your workshop until somebody needs you for somethin’. Your back loop in your tool belt is looser than all the others, ‘cause the screwdriver pulls against it when you sit down. The shank was probably in between the two cushions, and when you got up, it fell in. Demo, Pyro, and Heavy all sit on the second or third cushion at some point, so it got shimmied down. And since that’s the only time you sat down, ‘cause you woulda heard it if it dropped on the floor, and I…uh…”

“I’ll be damned,” Engie repeated, and felt the back tool belt loop. It was indeed loose.

Scout finally looked up, and realized what had happened.

“Uh, uh - l-lucky guess, huh Engie?”

Engineer squinted behind his goggles. “Yeah…real lucky…”

What ensued was Engie trying to get Scout to turn into a B.L.U Spy by chasing him around with his wrench. After a few good hits, though, Engineer saw that it was the teammate he knew and loved.

“But…how didja…?”

Scout threw his hand up, the other rubbing the back of his head where he’d been hit.

“I toldja Engie! Lucky guess! Jesus!”

Ever since then, Scout chose his words more carefully.

The Breakdown:

But, unfortunately, Scout could not pretend forever.

There was one week where Scout’s assignment count was so high that, if he wasn’t in a fight, he was on a mission.

Usually, Pauling wouldn’t trust him with so much, but no one else was available - or willing - to do the jobs.

Even when she was getting concerned about the amount of hours Scout was putting in, he blew it off.

“It’s no sweat, Miss Pauling! Their practically givin’ me the pay day. Those yahoos don’t know who they’re messin’ with.”

Over time, though, Scout had a harder and harder time staying focused and alert.

He’d sleep through alarms, stare off into space, zone out completely during briefing (not that he didn’t already do that), have a hard time hearing people in battle - even through his headset - ignore Spy’s taunts, and even forget to bring his bat onto the field.

Nothing seemed to help - Bonk!, warming up, stretching, cold showers, setting reminders, nothing.

And the team was starting to notice.

At first it was with the regular frustration - maybe Scout was just being lazy.

But as time went on, and his condition grew worse, their scorn turned into worry. They implored Medic to do something, but he had no way of getting through to Scout.

The doctor wasn’t above simply sedating him and dragging him into his lab for a check-up. However, he had a feeling that this was more than a physical issue.

The worst came when Scout was doing a routine battle with the B.L.U team on the field.

Everything had started out okay - he even remembered to bring his bad this time - but suddenly, everything was ear-splittingly loud.

He couldn’t focus on more than one sound at once, much less communicate the best course of action to his teammates.

He ended up hiding in a dilapidated shed, in a dusty, dark corner, somewhere between zoning out and panicking.

Scout’s head was in his knees, he was shaking, close to crying, when a sudden splitting of wood roused him.

A B.L.U Soldier had kicked his way into the shed, either having heard Scout or to hide from the other team.

Scout was stunned at first, but something of a blind terror filled him. He picked up his bat, screamed, and started pummeling the surprised Soldier.

At some point, he threw aside his bat and began to swing punch after punch, just like he did in his gang days when he had felt overwhelmed. Still screaming. Still crying.

By the time Scout had dissolved into a rocking, sobbing mess, the Soldier was long dead, with a gigantic pool of blood staining Scout’s shoes.

No one even knew where Scout was until a few hours later, when Spy heard a faint note of “Sexbomb” coming from Scout’s Walkman.

Scout had crawled into the shed’s framework, between the outer and inner wall, and was playing a specific verse over and over and over again, looking like he was on another plane of existence.

Spy immediately called for Medic, who had to lift Scout out by the underarms through a jagged hole in the side of the building. By then, the fight was over, so they could take him directly to the lab.

Medic’s Evaluation:

“I’m guessing zhis is your first mental breakdown?”

“Mental…doc, I ain’t crazy. Wait, you’re not goin’ to put me in a straight jacket, are ya?”

“If you’re not doing anyzhing later.”

Medic started to laugh, but quickly realized this might not be the time.

“No, Scout, everyvun has a mental breakdown at least vunce in their lives. It’s a…how do you say…a vake-up call of sorts. Vhen your body has no other options left.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“For zhe past few months, you health, both physical and mental, has been deteriorating. You eat less. You talk less. Your attacks are lackluster. You have bags under your eyes. You flinch vhen somevun yells for you. You stare off into space. Your routine, vhich usually has at least some changes, has become stringent, as if you can’t possibly expend any more energy into extra activities. You have avoided Demoman on zhe battlefield, even though you usually use him for cover.”

Medic flipped through his notes.

“I have pages and pages of your decline. However, as a scientist, I believe it is caused by zhe same source. And, though I usually respect my patient’s right to privacy vhen it comes to these sorts of matters, I believe you’ve been keeping something from me. Something that I should know as your general practitioner…your doctor.”

Scout shrugged, already shutting out the conversation.

Medic sighed.

“Maybe I tried to talk to you about zhis too soon. After all, you’ve just had a very sudden and exhausting episode. But…perhaps…”

Medic took a sheet of printer paper from his clipboard and a spare pen from his pocket.

“…zhere is an alternative.”

Scout was still unresponsive, but Medic continued.

“Zhere is a patient in my vaiting room vis a metal pole through the chest. It vill take me at least an hour to properly remove it, and a few minutes more to heal zhe area. Vhile I do zhat, vhy don’t you draw how you feel?”

Medic smiled.

“I know how much it grounds you.”

It wasn’t until Medic left that Scout actually picked up the pen, but he began drawing immediately.

For the first time in a while, he wasn’t trying to hide his strokes or scratch up the cleaner lines. No more stick figures. No more pretending.

Five minutes later, he was fully engrossed.

Medic started to walk in at one point, but, seeing how relaxed Scout was, decided to give him a few more minutes.

He deserved it.

[need-a-fugue]

We Grow Together (6)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC

Summary: Relationships can be tough, especially when one person is a recovering-from-being-brainwashed-and-tortured former assassin and the other is an overworked mutant scientist. But hey, every couple has their struggles. Right?

Warning(s): some angst, some emotional and mental turmoil… some bad language words… much fluff

Chapter Summary: A successful mission means... revels! 

“You’re lucky Helen was here,” she snaps at Tony as he enters the med room. He hands a green drink to Clint, who’s still lying back on the table as the portable regeneration device heals his torso.

“I’m lucky?” he says, grinning at her.

She turns on a heel and stares him down, thrusts a pointed finger in his face. “I told you when you first assigned me here, I am not a clinician.”

“You’re doing great,” Clint tells her, the pain meds making his voice just a little lighter and a little more enthusiastic than normal.

She gives him an incredulous look. “If Dr. Cho hadn’t been here to demo this… this… thing,” she says, waving her arms to indicate the contraption in the center of the room, “you’d be dead.”

“Was that a threat?” Tony asks, clearly amused by her anger.

“I’d have been fine,” Clint says as he sucks down his juice. “You’d have saved me just like you did before.”

She closes her eyes and tries for a deep, cleansing breath, which is surprisingly easy to do now that her nose is completely healed – thank you Helen for demonstrating the device’s effectiveness on me. “You would have needed surgery. I am not a surgeon.”

“You dug that bullet outta me just fine,” he says, referring to their adventures in Minsk a few years earlier.

“I dumped some vodka on your arm and dug around with my fingers until you passed out from the pain.”

“But eventually, you got the bullet out and I was saved.”

“There,” Tony chimes in. “See? You’re a hero. The greatest doctor we could ask for.” Dr. Cho enters the room and quietly slides over to Clint to check her machine’s progress. “And now that we have this fancy-shamncy… thing, you don’t have to worry about doing surgery. Or not doing surgery.”

“This is still a prototype,” Helen tells him softly. “We know that cellular regeneration is possible with the cradle, but how much… how far this technology can go, we don’t know the answers to that yet.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now that we’re working with U-Gin and we’ve got two of the greatest minds on this,” he says, waving his hand to indicate both Helen and Tessa, “it’s only a matter of time before we revolutionize the medical field.”

“It scares me when you get like this,” Tessa mumbles.

“We’ll have one in every trauma center by 2020.”

Helen raises a single brow as she continues to evaluate Clint’s vitals. “That’s ambitious.”

Tony’s face splits into a wide grin. “That’s my middle name.”

“Really?” Clint asks, his face wrinkled in confusion. “I always thought it was Gary.”

“What?” Tony turns on him as Tessa snorts out a laugh. “Edward. Why would you think it’s Gary.”

He shrugs as best he can in his current position. “You look like a Gary.”

“Wait… so it’s not Ambitious?” Tessa asks with furrowed brow. “You’re middle name is Edward? How boring.”

Clint slurps down the rest of his drink. “Gary would have been better,” he mutters absently.

“Right,” Tony starts, thrusting himself upright. “I hate all of you. Also, we’re setting up for a party tomorrow.” He turns to leave, calling out as he goes, “You all will be there.”

000

Tony’s parties were, simply put, the best. Even the business affairs – the parties that required mingling with rich old men and straddling the line between bragging about scientific breakthroughs and giving away detailed research data – were designed to be fun. The drinks were always plentiful, the food exceptional, the decorations impeccable, and the guests companionable. There were many things that Tony Stark was great at, but in Tessa’s estimation, throwing together last-minute celebrations was his greatest strength.

“Really?” Bucky sits idly on her bed as she explains this to him, her back turned as she rifles through her closet.

“Yes, really.” She reaches in the back and pulls out a deep burgundy cocktail dress with thick straps and a triangular cutout in the back. “You’ll have fun. I promise,” she tells him, spinning herself around and holding the dress up for him to see.

He raises his eyebrows appraisingly, but seems less than impressed. Or convinced. She moans and thrusts the dress back into the closet. “I just don’t like being around a lot of people,” he tells her shyly.

“It’s not people,” she explains. “It’s me. And Steve. And –”

“Everyone else, plus some.”

“I don’t want to sound like an asshole here…” She turns to face him, two more garments now draped over her arm. “But, get over it.”

“Get over it?”

“Yes. Get over it.” She flings the dresses onto the bed next to him and he has dodge the wooden hangers as they narrowly miss his face. She marches over, rather dramatically, and stands in front of him with her hands on her hips. “I didn’t want to go to Mexico. But I did. I didn’t want to take a day trip to Coney Island in the middle of January. But I did. I didn’t want to do that thing last week. But I did.”

He reaches up and slips his fingers beneath hers on either hip. “I thought you liked that thing,” he says with a mischievous grin.

She rolls her eyes and, bringing her hands to his shoulders, gives him a rough, playful shake. “That isn’t the point!”

“Okay, okay,” he relents, laughing as he pulls her to him. He wraps his arms around her middle and rests the side of his face against her ribs. “I’ll go,” he mumbles into her shirt.

Her hands are still resting on his shoulders when she says simply, “Thank you.” She tries to push him away then, but he doesn’t let go, too content in holding her close and listening to the steady beat of her heart. “James,” she tries, when he refuses to loosen his grip. She digs her thumbs into his shoulders and tries again to push him away, wiggling her hips as she moves. “Jamie,” she whines, smile perking the corners of her lips.

“No,” he says, petulant quality to his voice.

“Uuuugh,” she sighs, dropping her hands and stopping her struggle. Then, with a chuckle, “You’re impossible.”

He tightens his grip for just a moment more before twisting his face so that he’s looking up at her. “If I don’t have fun, I’m bringing you right back here. And we’re doing that thing again.”

She presents her right hand to him, ready for a handshake. “Deal.” He drops his arms from her middle, shakes her hand firmly, and lets her escape back to the closet. “Now go ask Steve if you can borrow something pretty to wear.”

By the time Steve finally convinces him to wear the red button down instead of an old – and torn – sweater, and they make it upstairs, the revels are in full swing. He sees her immediately, but doesn’t chase her down just yet. Instead he takes the beer Steve offers and half-heartedly listens to the rest of his friend’s story as he watches her from afar.

She’s talking and laughing with Natasha and Bruce, though Bruce doesn’t look like he’s having much fun. The man is bright red and ducking his face in obvious embarrassment as Tessa gets more animated. Whatever story she’s telling the pair is greatly amusing the Widow. Not so much the doctor.

Bucky leans against the wall, continuing to gaze across the room. Tessa’s wearing a tight black pencil dress that traces the lines of her body – from her knees up to the gentle cure of her hips, up alongside her ribcage. From his vantage point, he can see the shimmer of the gold zipper that runs from the base of her back to the base of her neck. And he’s desperate to yank it down and peel the fabric back.

“Buck?” he hears Steve say. Swiveling back to his friend, he raises a questioning eyebrow. “Are you listening?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head and taking a long pull from his beer.

Sam snickers next to them. “At least he’s honest.”

“I was telling you about the mission,” Steve complains.

“Yeah, but we weren’t there, so we don’t care,” Sam responds.

Bucky gives him a tired look – “I didn’t say that” – then turns to Steve. “He doesn’t speak for me.”

“Okay, well –” he says, trying to continue with his story.

“Actually, now I am saying it,” he tells him, raising a single, silencing hand. “I don’t care.” He pats his forlorn friend on the shoulder and makes a beeline for his girl.

He tries to skirt past Stark and Thor as he approaches the bar, but Maria Hill stops him before he can reach the other side where Tessa’s standing. “Sargent,” she nearly exclaims. “You’re actually at a party. And all cleaned up.”

She sounds impressed, but Stark is less than enthused when he mumbles something akin to, “That’s cleaned up?”

“I was just telling them a War Machine story,” Rhodes chimes in, obviously eager to try the tale out on someone new.

“Where’s Tessa?” Maria interrupts before he can get started.

Bucky’s about to point across the bar at her and then politely excuse himself, but – “Yeah, and Pepper,” Rhodes says, “She’s a no show?”

“And Jane? Where are the ladies, gentlemen?”

Stark and Thor make excuses for the absences, bragging openly about their better halves, while Bucky attempts to back up and move around the group unseen. But there are too damn many people at this party and he’s penned in. As he turns to the other side in search of an escape route he hears Hill cough out what sounds like “Testosterone.” When he looks back, she and Rhodes are eyeballing an opening in the crowd, hoping to sneak off as well.

“But Jane’s better,” Thor leans in and tells Tony.

Which prompts Maria to turn to him. “What about you, Sarge? You want in on this?”

He gives her a quick look, then turns his gaze to Tessa, who appears to be moving off into the crowd. “Sure.” He clears his throat, finishes his beer, and sets the empty bottle on the bar. “My girl’s a brilliant geneticist and the lead physician for Earth’s mightiest heroes. She’s beautiful and talented, smart and funny. And she can deflect bullets.”

“Wait, what?” Rhodes chokes out as Bucky finally finds an opening and steps out into it.

“And she’s actually here,” he tosses over his shoulder. “So I win.”

Thor grins as he walks off. “I like him,” he says with a small chuckle. “He’s spirited.”

“Like a horse you need to break,” Tony mumbles.

He dodges through the crown, issuing mumbled apologies to those he bumps as he goes. “Tess,” he says, reaching for her arm as she’s about to head downstairs. “Hey.”

She turns to face him, nearly tumbling backwards down the steps when someone accidently nudges her as she spins. He wraps his fingers tightly around her upper arm to steady her, and almost immediately winces, realizing he’s grabbed her too tight. He tugs her to him and drops his hand, watches as she brings her fingers up to absently rub the red marks he’s left. “I was wondering when you’d get here,” she says with a smile.

“Sorry.” He mumbles the word as he leads her off to a corner, then he gingerly touches her arm to inspect the blossoming bruises. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re really fucking late.” She glances down to her arm, then up at his worried face. “Oh… about keeping me from falling down the stairs?” She lets out a snort of a laugh. “Yeah, don’t worry ‘bout it.” And she brushes his fingers away.

He takes in a deep breath. “I’m sorry I’m late too.”

She’s still all smiles when he looks up at her and it makes his heart catch a bit in his chest. “I was talking to Helen earlier,” she starts, eagerly. “You would not believe the kinds of things they’re doing at U-Gen. She invited me out to tour the facilities and spend a few days getting to know the staff and actually work in her lab.” Her eyes light up like a toddler at Christmas and her voice rises in pitch as she continues. “I mean, I thought Tony was just looking into a new investment idea, like he always does. But this is… Well, look at my nose!” She pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and works it around. “Doesn’t hurt at all! And no scarring!”

“Yeah,” he says with amusement. “I can see that.” He’s glad she’s excited, but the level of excitement seems a little crazed, especially considering that they’ve already spent most of the last two days talking about Dr. Cho’s research and advances.

“And Clint. Did you see Clint?!” She twists around to try and find the archer in the crowd. Her balance is shot almost immediately, and she throws a steadying hand out to his chest.

He catches it and laughs as he steadies her. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Psht, like two glasses of wine,” she tells him, turning back to face him. “Or three. With Nat while we got ready.” She furrows her brow. “Maybe four. I don’t know.”

He looks down at the drink in her hand. “And once you got here?”

“A few of these,” she says, bringing the martini glass to her mouth. “Just a few.”

“Just a few,” he repeats, shaking his head.

“Ah ha!” Tony calls out as he saunters over to the couple. “Found your girl, I see.” He turns to Bucky and in a low tone says, “She’s been blitzed for about an hour. Had to cut her off.” Looking at back at Tessa and at the drink in her hand, he asks, “How’d you get that?”

“Natasha,” she says, hint of challenge to her voice.

He hums in disapproval. “Well, guess that’s what you get for being late to the party.” He drops his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, causing the smile to completely disappear from the soldier’s face. “She’s gonna start puking in, oh, about 30 minutes.”

They turn their faces to Tessa in unison, watch as she downs the rest of her drink. “Probably,” she mutters.

Tony smiles, wide and wily. “Still think you win?”

It’s more like fifteen minutes before she barrels into the hall bath and blows chow all over the sink. Bucky flinches at the scene, but steps forward and holds her hair back all the same. At least he got her back to her apartment. When she finishes, he lets her hair down and she leans against the wall and slowly slides to the floor. “That was disgusting,” he tells her as he turns on the water and starts to clean the sink.

“Sorry,” she mumbles softly.

He raises the lid and the seat on the toilet and points at it. “Aim there,” he tells her before heading into the kitchen for a bottle of water.

He hands her the bottle when he returns but she refuses it. “Boot and rally,” she tells him tiredly. “I learned that in college.”

“Out of curiosity, is this the fun that you promised me tonight?”

She lets out a pained laugh. “You were late. If you’d been there sooner, you would’ve had fun.”

“I can’t get drunk, doll,” he tells her, taking a seat on the cold tile across from her. “Not like this, anyway.”

“Shame,” she intones, slipping off a single high heel and slowly moving her foot into his lap. She traces the inseam of his pants with her toe. “You wore real pants,” she observes. “Not just jeans.”

“You told me to put on something pretty.”

“Ha!” She throws her head back to laugh, banging it on the wall.

“Baby,” he sniggers, moving over to her side and cupping the back of her head. “You’re a danger to yourself.”

She looks up at him, eyes red rimmed and glassy. Her face is flushed and the goofy smile she’s wearing makes it’s hard for him to suppress the laughter that he’s trying to stave off. “I like you,” she says dreamily.

“I like you too. Even if you smell like vomit.”

She purses her lips and takes on a more serious countenance. “I’m going to throw up one more time,” she tells him. “But then I’ll be good. And I’ll let you do that thing.”

“I appreciate the gesture,” he says. “But I think you should go to bed.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” she teases.

“No,” he says with a laugh. “You throw up again if you need to. Drink this water. And then I’m putting you to bed. To sleep.”

She looks at him very seriously for a long moment before bringing her hand to his face, gently stroking his stubble-covered jaw. She tucks a few errant strands of dark hair back behind his ear and gives him a small, tender smile. Then she launches herself at the toilet and violently empties her stomach.

It may not seem like the best end to an evening, but they’re the only people in the building who spend that night in bed, sleeping peacefully while the building shakes and shatters around them.

[lindoig8]

Sunday to Thursday, 8-12 August

Sunday

We packed up at leisure and got all set to go (the couple in the other car left fairly early) but before we left, we went for a walk back to the river where I had walked last night. Less birds today, but a bunch of young cattle were there. They were not at all perturbed to see us there and continued munching on the grass and leaves when we walked among them. Any other place we have been near cattle, they have skedaddled away as soon as we have got anywhere near them, but we were within a metre or two of several cows today without interrupting their breakfast. It was very peaceful.

The rest of the trip to Gemtree was uneventful. They have sealed at least another 20 kilometres of the road since we were here in May and have another 30 kilometres almost ready to seal – so we had a couple of long detours off the main road – but all on excellent gravel.

We really like Gemtree and have booked in here for four nights: the last one of which is Wednesday when they put on the Camp Roast so we have booked in for that too. We got set up just a couple of sites east of where we were a couple of months ago.

We downloaded a heap of email as we passed Reception – the only place near here with a signal – so we looked at that over a cuppa and started on a shopping list. We are going in to Alice on Tuesday to do some shopping and so that Heather can have her hair cut and legs waxed. We probably won’t get another chance to do much shopping until we reach Kununurra in almost 2 weeks’ time and well over 1000 kilometres away. We will take the opportunity of filling up with fuel at about a dollar per litre cheaper than the last few (and probably next few) fills and we need to get our puncture fixed too.

I went for a walk in the bush around the camping area and saw quite a few birds, but none that we haven’t seen regularly around here before.

We caught up with Anne-Marie and family by phone over dinner and watched a fairly dark DVD - one of the ones we picked up in Boulia.

Monday

We did a load of washing straight after breakfast and ordered one of Gemtree’s sensational meat pies for lunch. I mentioned them when we were here before. They are great, but you have to claim them early because they are always sold out by mid-morning at the latest – so we ordered it early so they would hold it for our lunch.

Once the washing was on the line, we walked up to the shop and sat outside to pay some bills, answer some emails and do a few other tasks online. We ordered some hot chips to go with our pie and when they were delivered, we walked back to the van to enjoy a great early ‘pie and chips’ lunch. Of course, we could have stayed in the van and ordered our lunch if we had wanted – they provide free ‘room service’ by quadbike.

After lunch, I went back to the shop and spent another hour or two on my PC and was just walking back to the van as Heather was walking down to post some of her FB and blog material. While she did that, I drove out to the nearby dry riverbed to collect some firewood and then did a big clean and reorganisation of the inside of the car.

I then headed back towards the shop, only to find Heather on her way back – and Happy Hour almost imminent.

We lit a fire and spent an hour or two enjoying it before roasting a big piece of pork in our double sided frying pan – and Heather prepared some more bread to cook on the coals of our fire. In the interim, I had spied a few birds in the trees around us and added one species to our trip list and to the Gemtree bird-list I had created for them last time we were here. It really surprised me - it was a Grey Fantail and they are pretty common, so I was amazed that we had not seen any earlier in our trip.

Tuesday

It was a really big day today – nearly 14 hours on the go without pause. Of course, 3½ hours was just driving, not entirely without challenge, particularly the first and last half of the trips to and from Alice Springs. We just zapped in, did what we had to and came home again – but that was still over 300 kilometres.

We were on the road just after 9am and the most notable feature of the drive into Alice was the number of budgerigars we saw. I reckon at least one flock of them passed in front of us every hundred metres or so for the first 100 kilometres. The flocks ranged from the occasional 8 through the more common 40-50 to the not infrequent 2-400. I haven’t done the sums, but I reckon we saw tens of thousands of them within about an hour. On our way home again, however, most of the trip was in the dark so we only saw a few hundred close to Alice.

Heather had appointments for a leg wax and a haircut and I had to arrange to have the puncture in our car tyre fixed. It turned out to be a stick or something similar that had penetrated the crown of the tread and pulled out again but left us with a slow leak. Fortunately, even though we pulled into the tyre repair place 15 minutes before they closed for the day, they kept the place open and fixed the tyre for only $30. Due to a funny set of circumstances, the strange NT liquor licencing laws and because we were tied to a schedule, we had 2 trips to Coles for groceries, 2 trips to Liquorland for booze, 2 trips to the servo for fuel, 2 trips to (two different Milners) for alligator, camel and goat meat and fish – but only one trip to Bunnings. We seemed to be racing from one part of the Alice to another trying to beat a deadline almost all day.

We bought a pie for dinner at our last stop at the servo, but had purchased a huge inventory of food and drink to tide us over for the next 2 weeks and although we were back at the van at 8.15, it took us until almost 10pm to put the perishables away – all the rest had to wait until tomorrow!

Wednesday

It was a wild, wild night and I had to get up at 2am to wind the awning in – otherwise, we might well have finished the night in a tree several kilometres away. It certainly was wild. (And a week later, we are still being buffeted by unseasonal winds for at least some parts of every day.)

We were up early to go fossicking for zircons. We arrived at the shop at 8am to be allocated our tools and to get segregated into the garneteers and zirconians – and there were just three couples in our contingent. It was only 17 kilometres to the zircon field and our guide gave us a demo of how to do it – and scored himself as much zircon in his few minutes of work as the rest of us combined all morning. The opposite of beginners’ luck!

It was really hard work in very hot conditions but we toiled away for a couple of hours or so before needing a break. We got a few small zircons and a lot of apetite – a softer, yellow form of stone that our guide reckons is rubbish. To us, they were all treasures and once we were back in the Gem Room, the assessment of our zircons was that at least 3 were cuttable (3-mm earing-type gems) and one was a possible 4-mm stone. We have a few other smaller ones and at least one bigger one that is not cuttable due to internal fracturing. We have no interest in cutting them – they are just tiny souvenirs for us. To us, the value of these keepsakes or mementos far exceeds any value they might have as jewellery.

The fossicking field is adjacent to a former mica mine and we walked over the levy to see the huge pit and resultant lake that sustains many thousands of birds. It was quite noisy inside the crater due to the huge flocks of birds whooshing past us every few seconds. The water obviously is the drawcard, but there must be plenty for them to eat too judging by the huge number of birds around.

After lunch, Heather cleaned all the windows in the van and hand-washed most of the curtains – that lightened the caravan by about 10 kilos of red dust! I collected some more firewood and cleaned a bit more crap out of the car. We also did a significant (major) reorganisation of car and van to give us more room and make some things more accessible – all of which occupied most of the afternoon.

Heather cut my hair during the afternoon and we both showered and changed before dinner because it was Camp Roast night and we had booked for that. It turned out to be a really great night. People sit 10-to-a-table (round tables) and we were just lucky to have a great bunch of dining companions. We probably contributed more to the conversation than at any social event I can recall, but it was a very comfortable, engaging and entertaining evening.

Thursday

It was noon by the time we got away. On our way out, we stopped in at the shop to have a chat with one of the owners. His partner had a serious heart attack the previous night and had had to go to Alice Springs by ambulance and then to Adelaide by Flying Doctor and we wanted to hear how he was going and to pass on our best to them. We have become quite friendly with them (and some of the other park managers along the track) and we sincerely hope Steve recovers quickly and well. (I also had to explain that I was going to email them an updated bird-list for the park after seeing the Grey Fantail a couple of days earlier.)

It was an uneventful drive today, 70 kilometres west to the Stuart Highway and 250 north to the site of the WWII Barrow Creek Staging Camp (about 40 clicks north of Barrow Creek). There were a few other campers there, but none near us so we set ourselves up, lit a roaring fire and enjoyed Happy Hour outside. I went looking for birds, but saw very few. We were both pretty zonked and I think we were in bed with the lights out by about 8 or 8.30pm.