Tying Loose Ends || A Proxy Fanfic

7 - Inevitable

Inevitable

Unable to be avoided, evaded, or escaped.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was early. It's cloudy and humid. Morning dew was stuck on the grass and the crickets had ceased their singing.

I spread my arms to stretch, blinking until my eyes adjusted to the sunlight. I was sitting on my bag, slumped against a tree. Leaning against my side was Toby. He slept quietly, his mask covering his mouth and his hoody draped sloppily over his hair. He must've fallen over after we dozed off.

I quietly tried to move away from him without waking him up. Of course this did not work and he calmly opened his eyes just as I stood up.

"Good morning." He yawned.

"Sorry for waking you." I said rather sheepishly.

"It's fine. My fault for m-making us go to sleep so late."

He sat there for a few minutes staring in front of him, yawning a couple of times.

Just as I was about to say something he stood up and opened his backpack. He took out two of the food packets and held them up.

"These are our food packets. They've been precooked and packed for use during missions when we don't have access to a kitchen."

He handed one over to me. I took a look at the packaging. Vegetarian pasta with cheese sauce.

"It's ready to eat like this but you can heat it u-up with a fire."

"Can we make a fire?"

"Nope"

He opened his food and dug in. Knowing it won't get any hotter by staring at it I decided to just do the same and start eating.

"So how long until we're back at the mansion?" I asked.

He quickly chewed away at his food before replying.

"We'll probably be back late in the evening. Can't w-wait to have a normal bed."

I chuckled in response. "It would indeed be nice to sleep in my bed for the first time."

He closed his food package and stuffed it away before grabbing two waffles from his bag.

"Interested?" He looked at me.

I nodded eagerly.

He handed one to me and bit down on the other one himself.

"Hey Toby?"

"Hm?" He responded with a mouthful of sugary sweetness.

"I had 12 of these food packets with me. So far we've had dinner and now breakfast so I've got 10 food packets with me. Why so many?"

"Simple. You eat two to three packets a day. So 12 packages lasts at least 4 days for you. This mission was smoothly executed but you never know when you get stuck out here for whatever reason. That's when food and water starts to become problem."

"Did you ever have that problem?"

He shook his head. "If I knew it would be a really long mission I'd take extra but normally I'm only assigned the hit and runs."

"Who takes the longer missions?"

"Ben t-tends to be quite a fan of them. Mostly because he is easily able to move around."

"Why is that?"

"He's everywhere. I guess you could say he o-originates from a game. He has managed to spread all o-over the internet. How he gets his physical form I don't know but what works, works."