The Traitor and The Communist

Antiquing With Clowns

Song-Daydreams By: Easy Life

"Uuuuugh." Tom drawls, he lightly hits his head on the steering wheel of Edd's car. Tord looked out the windshield at the road, they were driving through a construction zone, due to this the road was backed up a mile or so behind them. The gears clicked in Tord's arm as he adjusts his newly repaired hoodie. Tord turned to look at Tom, who was rubbing his temple, wincing every time a car horn honked behind them. The car was quiet aside from the distant honking, Tord scratched the back of his left hand with his right.

"How come you and Matt don't have your own cars?"
"Cheaper." Tom snaps his head still low. It was resting on the steering wheel, Tord stays quiet and watches Tom. Tom's shoulders drop then he rolls his shoulder blades, before closing his eyes. With a sigh, Tom brushes some stray hair off his forehead and stares at the road with a softer look.

"Sorry," Tom mutters scratching his chin with one hand, "Matt can't drive actually, I can't remember if he didn't get his license or what. So really it's just me and Edd, just makes more sense to have one car. We can easily carpool to work and we live near a shop, so."

Tord nods and looks away from Tom and down at the shopping list in his left hand. The car moves forward slowly as Tord skims the shopping list. As he reads Tord mutters the list under his breath, mostly generic groceries and odds and ends, cereal, fresh veggies, some meats, non-toxic sealant, some eggs, napkins, junk food, cups. Things like that.

They leave the construction zone and Tom lets out a quick breath of air.

_
Tom parks in front of a street of stores, a restaurant, bookstore, junk place, for rent spot, plus a few others Tord couldn't read the signs of or just couldn't see what they sold. One building on the far right at the end of the line up was the biggest store, which happened to be a grocers from what Tord could tell.

They hopped out of the car, Tom waited for Tord on the sidewalk. Once he caught up they started walking up the street, to the left of where they parked. Tord passed the list to Tom. He looked down at it and shoved it into his jeans pocket.

Store fronts advertised various things as they walked by. Tord looked in the stores window's briefly but stayed along side Tom the best he could as they walked.
"Alright," Tom said, snapping his fingers as he stopped next to an old looking building.
"This one's first."

They stopped in front of an old brick and mortar shop, the brick was slightly choppy due to it being worn down with age. On the steps by the door there was a couple of potted plants, but other then that the store looked standard.
"Want to go antiquing?" Tom looked over his shoulder at Tord with one hand on the guard railing.

Tord wasn't sure what he was expecting when Tom said antiquing, but it wasn't this. Contrary to the largeness of the outside of the antique shop the inside made it feel cramped and small. The walls were lined with things, pictures, posters, vinyls, weird art from old grannies attics. Where there wasn't things on the walls there was a book case shoved into the empty space, the shelving was stuffed full of little useless thingys and whatnots. Or books so old the cover and spine would turn to dust if you sneezed in the same room as it. Old toys plus forgotten relics decked the floors and long tables that were everywhere in the room. If there was space there was junk, besides a shovelled path through the store to get to everything.

The excess of dust in the air made Tord's nose have the perpetual feeling of needing to sneeze. He could practically hear his nose clogging at all the dust. Tom on the other hand looked perfectly fine, he was currently looking over the top layer of stuff on the closest table.

He picked up an intricate looking flask, it appeared to be made out of silver and had a twist off top. The edge near the head of the flask had detailed etchings of flowers twisting and twining with each other, racing to get to the side of the flask. Tom turned it over in his hand an almost identical design was on the other side, though some of the flowers and their petals appeared to be bigger.

Tom looked at the bright neon orange coloured tag, he winced and set the flask back down. He shook his head slightly as he moved farther down the table. Tord watched him go before picking up the flask himself. Its metal felt hefty in his hand, it appeared to be made out of silver with leather accents in the corner. The flask clicked as he set it back down on the table.

Tord saw a lamp out of the corner of his eye, it was one of those old Hawaiian dancer lamps with an ugly floral lamp shade. He winced and turned away from it more, it hurt to glance at it no matter how low Tord's fashion sense is.
"Man this thing is ugly." Tord looks over to where Tom is currently standing, near the back of the shop.

He was holding a small clown doll, it had a half red half white suit on, with yellow buttons. It's hat was also half red half white except on the opposite sides the suit was. The hat had a yellow brim and pompom on the tip. Tord walked over to where Tom was to get a better look at it. It's mouth was frowning whilst the red and white paint around it tried to give the doll an illusion of smiling. It's eyes were sunken in and staring back with a tired gleam.

Tord looked from Tom to the doll and back again,
"Well, your cursed now." Tom made a fake offended scoff, before setting the doll on a pile of books on the table.
"It's going to, like, crawl into your dreams forever now."
"Yeah, yeah."
"No really, it is. I saw a movie about it." Tord moved his hands through the air as he talked Tom through the plot of the movie, almost knocking several things off of the surrounding tables. Tom carefully grabbed Tord's left hand with his right as Tord talked, he held it and led Tord through the antique store towards the back.

"That's why I think the Sasquatch shouldn't have drove the armoured vehicle." Tord stopped talking as Tom squeezed his hand, he looked in front of Tom and saw he was trying to talk to an old man, presumably the owner of the store. He muttered a sorry and squeezed Tom's hand back apologetically, before letting go.

Tord put his hands in his pockets as he waited for Tom to finish, he was playing with a coin that got left in his pocket when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He stopped moving the coin for a moment and subtly looked over his shoulder, pretended to check the table he 'accidentally' bumped. There was a dim corner of the room, Tord could swear he saw something move in the darkness, yet he hadn't seen anything.

Tom was chatting pleasantries with the shop keeper, he was now holding a few guitar picks and two different sized coils of wire. Tord stared into the shadows of the corner, his eyes flicking back and forth trying to detect movement as he chewed the inside of his lip.

A warm hand place's itself on Tord's shoulder,
"You okay?" Tom asks,
"I'm fine, yeah." Tord answers, he try's to pair it with a reassuring smile.
"I, uh, I got what I needed," Tom holds up the wire, "we can go shop somewhere else if you want."
"Oh, okay, yeah sure."
_
Tord grunts as he shifts the bags in his arms.
"You don't have to carry those, we have a trolley for a reason, y'know." Tom gestures to the shopping trolley he's pushing in front of himself, containing various foods. Tord blows a raspberry and shrugs,
"It's fine."

The cart squeaks as Tom and Tord walk around the store grabbing various foods on the shelves. Tom picks up two boxes of cereal and compares the boxes. Tord looks over his shoulder at the other person in the aisle, they were comparing two different types of soft drinks. The bottles looked identical except or a big diet label slapped on one of them. He watched as they turned to look at him, before fumbling one of the bottles almost dropping it.

Tom tapped Tord on the arm to follow him,
"We're almost done, then we'll take this stuff back to Edd's car." Tord sighed in relief, he could still feel the hair on his neck standing on end.

"Seriously, you don't have to carry those." Tom grabbed at one of the bags in Tord's arms. Tord twisted the bags out of reach, holding them above Tom's head,
"S'fine." Tom looked up at Tord studying his expression.

He snatched two of the bags quickly, before Tord could protest more and dropped them into the cart.
"Alright, let's go home."
"Fine by me."