"Oh! No." Bam groaned as October flipped through the channels and stopped on a familiar scene. "Can't we watch something else?" He pleaded.
October kissed his lips and patted his knee under the blanket. "I promise we will only watch one episode and then you can pick a movie."
Narrator: Tonight on Alaskan Bush People;
Bear and Gabe help Noah build a brick oven. Birdie and Rainy practice their cooking skills. Billy and Ami remain stuck in Seattle. Matt and Amber forage in the woods. And there's trouble in Browntown paradise for Bam and his bush beauty.
"Bush beauty?" October sneered. "Nevermind. We can watch something else." She started to get up from the couch. "Where did you put the remote?"
Bam actually laughed and grabbed her around the waist to sit her back down beside him. "I changed my mind. This is a good episode. You might like it."
Narrator: Deep in the Alaskan wilderness lives a newly discovered family who was born and raised wild. Billy Brown, his wife Ami and their seven grown children – 5 boys and 2 girls – are so far removed from civilization that they often go six to nine months of the year without seeing an outsider. They've developed their own accent and dialect, refer to themselves as a "wolf pack," and at night, all nine sleep together in a one-room cabin. Simply put, they are unlike any other family in America.
"Did Discovery Network actually think people were going to believe this?" October asked as she snuggled closer into his side.
Bam shrugged. "I don't know. In the beginning, we thought they might but it began to unravel pretty fast."
The falling temperatures and dwindling daylight make it harder and harder. They'll use what the land provides to construct their small home and will also have to contend with other rogue bush people. It'll be tough, but having lived this way for decades, the family wouldn't have it any other way.
"Do you like participating in the show?" October asked.
Bam shrugged. "In the beginning, sure. It was neat and we thought it was pretty cool to be on TV. Then the scripted parts started to outnumber the reality parts and it really went downhill from there.
Narrator: Noah, the inventor of the family, is building a brick oven out of fire-bricks he found whilst browsing through the Hoonah garbage dump.
Bam rolled his eyes at the TV. "He didn't find those bricks at the dump! The production company brought a load of them in, dropped them off and gave Noah a set of blueprints for an outdoor pizza oven."
Noah (in interview): I like to look at things other people have thrown away and just imagine all the possibilities.
Bear and Gabe are shown stacking the bricks in a box-like shape. "Here's where the fire will be." Noah points to a flat surface. "This is the cooking surface and this part is the chimney. The oven needs to have good ventilation in order for it to get hot enough to bake a loaf of bread."
"Or a big pizza!" Gabe stands up and yells.
Narrator: In another part of Browntown, oldest brother Matt and his girlfriend, Amber are setting off to forage for edible wild plants.
Matt (in interview): Many people don't know this but there is actually quite a lot of things you can eat in the forest if you just know where to look.
Amber (in interview): Matt is going to teach me how to tell poisonous mushrooms apart from the non-poisonous.
Matt (in interview): Haha! Just call me the shroom expert!
Amber is sitting on the front step of the main cabin tying her boots. Matt stands beside her checking the ammunition in his gun. "Do you have the basket?" He asks. "Yes, right here." Amber replies, standing up. "Do you have your knife?" Amber pats the leather sheath hanging off her belt. "Right here." She smiles. "Anything else?" Matt thinks for a minute and then grins. "Yeah, one more thing." Matt grabs Amber by the back of her neck and plants a loud kiss on her lips. Amber ducks her head in an attempt to hide her blush from the camera. The next shot shows Matt and Amber walking into the bush.
"I only met her once. She seemed nice." October murmured.
Bam nodded. "I don't know what she sees in Matt but she's really good for him, like the yin to his yang. She balances him out."
October giggled at that. "I'm looking forward to seeing that!"
Bam laughed. "You will."
Narrator: In the kitchen of the main cabin, Snowbird and Rain are finding it a challenge to cook for five grown men.
Bird (in interview): I can't believe how much food my brothers can eat!
Off-screen voice (producer):Who eats the most?
Rainy (in interview): Definitely Gabe.
Bird (in interview): Yes, Gabe for sure!
Birdie and Rainy are shown pulling various ingredients out of the cupboards and discussing what they should make that evening for supper. Rainy flips through one of Ami's cookbooks and shrieks in delight as she points a page out to Birdie. "This will be perfect!" Birdie exclaims and hugs her little sister.
October looked up to Bam as a small smile graced his lips.
"You miss them, don't you?" She asked.
He nodded. "Yes, very much."
Narrator: 1500 miles South of Browntown, in Seattle Washington, Billy, the family patriarch, is waiting to find out if he has been cleared to return to Alaska.
Billy (in interview): The worst part about this is being away from the kids. We are always together and this being apart is killing me.
Ami sits beside him and nods.
Bam's body tensed as his father appeared on the screen. October put a comforting hand on his chest but said nothing.
Billy and Ami sit in a small exam room. The door opens, a tall man with a lab coat and stethoscope comes into the room. "Well, Mr. Brown, I have some good news and I have some bad news." Billy sits forward in his chair. "The good news is you have shown significant improvement since we started this last round of medication."
"And the bad news?" Billy asks.
"The bad news is you haven't improved enough for me to let you return to Alaska. You need to remain under observation for a while longer."
Billy (in interview): Not the news I wanted to hear today.
Ami shifted in her seat beside Billy and wipes a tear from her eye.
Narrator: Meanwhile at the trapper shack, Bam is busy making improvements to his abode before Bambi makes it her place of residence.
"...and I think this should be moved over there..." Bambi continues to chatter incessantly while moving all of Bam's things from where he liked to keep them. Bam watches her with his mouth pressed into a thin line.
"Let's move the stove to the other side of the room and put this trunk right there." She looks at Bam with a saccharine smile.
Bam, obviously nearing his breaking point, shakes his head. "You can't move a stove without having to rip out the stone hearth, build a new one and relocate the chimney." He grumbled.
"Oh, but you could do that for me, right?" Bambi coos.
Bam (in interview): I'm starting to lose patience with Bambi's constant complaining about my living quarters. The trapper shack was perfectly fine before she started messing with it.
Bambi (in interview): I like to think of myself as the Bush Designer. Every space can use a little bit of sprucing up. Just because it's in the bush doesn't mean it can't be pretty.
October groaned. "Is she for real?" She clenched her fists. "I think we should just shut this off before I throw my shoe through the screen."
Bam cradled her face in his hands and kissed her soundly. "You are so cute when you are jealous."
October pulled back, her eyes glittering. "Jealous? I most certainly am not -" Bam cut her off with another kiss, this one more aggressive than the first.
"And you're not wearing any shoes." He reminded with a grin.
"Do you think this is funny?" October snapped. "I hope you enjoy sleeping on the couch tonight."
_______
Hello my darling readers,
I hope this chapter wasn't too difficult to follow. It's a bit of a take-off from my usual writing style but I really wanted to include this part in the story. I hope you are still enjoying this as much as I am enjoying writing it. Thank you for all your votes. I love hearing from you in the comments! Part two will be up as soon as I can write it!
XOX -PC
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Not Expecting to Collide (COMPLETE) - ABP Fanfiction
FanfictionAn Alaskan Bush People Fanfiction. Two people from different worlds would never have had their paths cross under any typical circumstances, but in the modern world of reality TV nothing is ever typical.
