Hunting for a way home - Shalnark x Reader

Chapter 16 - Well, is this considered a date?

"When you said foraging I didn't think you meant stealing from a prestigious botanical garden." Looking out the window you couldn't help but smile at the scenery as Shalnark drove towards the botanical garden you planned to steal samples of the flowers you needed from.

"You didn't ask and I didn't see a reason to tell." It was peaceful looking at the scenery some things were definitely similar to your world but other things were distinctly not, and you couldn't hold back the wonder looking at them. "You sure are something, I'll tell you that." You both still had a few hours until you'd arrive in the city the gardens were located.

If you were being honest with yourself you were pretty surprised he hadn't put up a fuss when you told him the plan he only smiled and said 'Guess we will need the car then!' And that was it. What surprised you even more was the fact it was just going to be you two. For some reason you thought he'd ask one of the others to come along but he didn't so much as tell them what you were doing before you both walked out the door.

It had been pretty quite so far and you looked over to him. "You wanna listen to something?" He smiled, "You can try!" You hit the radio button and heard nothing but static you adjusted it to every station you could think of when something did start playing you felt hopeful but only for a moment until a weird banging music started playing and you looked at it appalled before turning it off. "What the hell was that supposed to be!"

"That's the best you're going to get around here." He was laughing at your outburst. "To make it worse you guys haven't even created an AUX cord so I can't even play music from my phone!" You were outraged. "I forgot how much this sucked now I'm going to have to live through this again, like it wasn't bad enough the first time." He was really laughing now, "Aw! Sounds like future advancements really spoiled you!" He had a teasing smirk and you glared. "Whatever! You wouldn't understand! No more having to lug around a bunch of CDs, and no more digging through the radio to find a good station. It was bliss!"

"Mhm, must have been real convenient!" He had a smirk, you only crossed your arms before something you said had you excitedly popping the glove box open. Eagerly you snatched at the CDs tucked inside and flipped them over eyebrows scrunching you looked at him appalled. "I can't believe I'm saying this but please tell me you stop this from an old woman and it's not one of you with piss poor music tastes." You tossed them in slamming the glove box closed and he burst out laughing.

You weren't good at silences so after a while you broke and started peppering him with different questions. He seemed happy enough to answer but after a while he began asking you a some about your world hesitantly you found yourself answering. It helped the time pass. "What did you do as a job before you ended up here?" Looking at him you considered if you wanted to answer or not. It was the first personal question he had asked you and you weren't sure if you really wanted to answer but you found your eyes looking out the window again this time finding the approaching city.

"..I worked at an old bookstore. The old man that ran it was really kind. I got the job by accident honestly." He quirked on eyebrow, "Mhm, how so?" Letting out a breath you tried finding the words to answer, "Well, I guess I just spent a lot of time there and was already so familiar with so much anyways... and there'd be times he was busy and people would want to ask him questions anyways so I'd just chirp up I guess and casually help them." You looked out the off to the side, "I guess after a while he just decided to hire me on because one day while I was sitting reading a book he slapped some money down on the coffee table in front of me and told me if I came back the next day willing to really work there was more money where that came from." You shrugged, "So that's what I did. Hence the accidental job." Shalnark had been listening carefully and briefly looked over to you, "Sounds like you ended up in something that made you happy at least." You thought on that for a moment, "It's strange though.. I hadn't thought of him or my job the whole time I've been here."