Chance Whitlock @justtakingchances - Tumblr Blog

Jun 8, 2023

Beary Annoying || Andy & Chance

TIMING: early may, after andy's run in with the qutrub & chance's reckless spill. LOCATION: the woods somewhere. PARTIES: @justtakingchances & @declinlalune SUMMARY: andy finds chance in a face off with a bear. CONTENT WARNINGS: parental death.

Chance was almost definitely lost. He had strayed too far from the path while going for a hike, something that wasn’t entirely uncommon for him anymore. Unlike the other times though, Chance had at least kept enough awareness to find a path again and make his way home. He was pretty confident that the same thing would happen again… he just hadn’t quite reached that part yet. He assumed that he’d come across the path any moment, but between fatigue and his limited mobility due to his still injured arm, he wasn’t exactly in peak physical shape to be roaming around endlessly in the woods.

Chance was still getting used to bandages and sling that his arm was stuck in for the foreseeable future, though he kept reminding himself that this was probably a better outcome than having actually broken the arm. At least he’d be out of this thing in a few weeks. Well, unless he never found the way home and ended up dying out here in the woods. He assumed he’d come back as a zombie and then be out of the bandages immediately. It wouldn’t be easy to explain, but it’d be pretty damn convenient right at the moment.

A large crunching noise took his attention away from looking for a path - and Chance paused as he glanced around in the direction of noise, cocking his head to study the huge mass of creature that stood probably a hundred feet away from him. “Holy Shit” Chance breathed, his chest feeling tight at the first sight of the bear. All of his instincts told him to panic. To freak out and try to back away as quietly as possible until it was safe to turn tail and run in the opposite direction. But the other part, the part that seemed to stay in control these days, was fucking ecstatic. All these years hiking in the woods and he had never come across a bear before. That’s so fucking cool. This didn’t just happen to anyone!

A second voice broke through Chance’s concentration and he turned his gaze to find another person standing not too far from Chance. Oh. Well apparently this happened to at least two people. Sort of ruined the experience, but Chance wasn’t one to turn away company. “You see this shit?!” Chance whisper-yelled to the women, a wide grin plastered across his face, “That’s a whole ass bear!”

The injuries that Andy had sustained after the run-in with the qutrub had nothing on the emotional distress that it had put her through. After she and Emilio had gotten themselves patched up at his office, she had sat in her jeep at the end of her driveway for over an hour in an attempt to put herself back together. It had taken her a bit, but eventually, she got there. Now, she was back to her daily routine– work, hike, repeat. If she weren’t in constant motion, then she’d start to think, and no good ever came out of that. She couldn’t afford to be paralyzed with her innermost fears, not when she had food to put on the table. Not that the hiking exactly helped with that, but what it did do was clear her head so that when she was at work or at home, she didn’t shrink into the shadows of her own making.

Instead of her usual pack, Andy wore a fanny pack in order to keep the strain off of her shoulder from where she’d been clawed by the qutrub. It was mostly healed now, and while she’d been told to ignore the pain in favor of living up to her full potential, she’d kicked the toxic do-better attitude her parents had instilled in her and opted for taking care of herself instead. Maybe taking care of herself wasn’t the right term, but she couldn’t just sit around and wait to be completely okay again. Where would that truly leave her, other than bored out of her mind?

The hike, so far, was uneventful. Squirrels– something that looked like a carbuncle, were the only things to cross her path. That was, until she heard heavy weight against the forest floor, as if something were stomping its way through the brush. She heard the voice next, low and breathy. She continued onward, pushing through the thick green to find a person and a bear. Why she couldn’t sense it took Andy a moment– it was just a bear, nothing more, nothing less. Which, all things considered, was worse than if it’d been a bugbear. At least maybe they’d be able to talk sense into the fear-monger.

“Hey–” Andy inhaled sharply through her nose, watching the bear as its ears twitched. It was just a black bear, but if threatened, it could fuck them up. It wasn’t her first run-in with a bear. She’d seen plenty back in the Smokies, so she knew what to do and what not to do. When the stranger asked if she was seeing it, she stared at him in disbelief. “No shit I’m seeing it, are you–” Andy cleared her throat. What a day to leave her pack at home. She did have her knife as well as some repellent– though, it was the supernatural kind. It had said on the back that it could do away with bears, too, but Andy didn’t want to hurt it, just scare it off. What kind of person would she be if she went around hurting the bears she was trying to protect by removing the bear traps? Even if they weren’t necessarily meant for these kinds of bears.

Andy knew that the key to evading this thing was to make as much noise as possible– to appear bigger than it was, but she was only 5’6” and she was sure that the bear on its hind legs would be bigger than herself. As she looked back to the stranger, she noticed that he was in a sling. Of course. “Take a step back. Now.” Andy’s voice was raspy as she spoke. She knew that by ordering him to do so, the bear might take it as an invitation to fall into its curiosities, so she scooped up a broken branch and raised it in the air and let out a yell. “Get away! Go!”

The woman seemed much less excited about the bear sighting than Chance was. Either she was hard to impress or she saw a lot of bears. She certainly seemed more outdoorsy than Chance was. She seemed dressed ready for a hike, complete with a fanny pack while Chance had worn the same clothes he would to class or into town. He was still getting used to hiking. A couple years ago he never would have gone off trail, if he could even be convinced to go at all. This was all new to him. He made a mental note to asking the woman about good hiking gear. Assuming the two of them didn’t get mauled by a bear right now. Granted, he’d walk it off, but he couldn’t guarantee the same fate for her.

She seemed to take control pretty quickly too, commanding Chance to take a step back before picking up a branch and swinging it around wildly. “Hey! Jeez” Chance said, stumbling backwards and raising his arms up in defense, “You’ll poke an eye out with that thing.” He had no idea if that would grow back post death. He was willing to give quite a few things up in his undead afterlife, but he’d prefer to keep the vision.

“Maybe he just wants to play? Consider that?” Chance leaned forward slightly, peeking up to get a better view of the bear. “Maybe this is totally wrong but I really feel like bears would like me. It’s just a vibe I get.” The woman had definitely grabbed the bear’s attention. It was now staring the two down, unmoving from the spot that Chance had originally found it in. It must have been weighing it’s options on whether it was worth it to turn the two passerbys into a midday snack. Either that or it just wanted to be petted. Chance was hoping for the latter. “You deal with bears a lot? How many of them just wanted a little chin scratch?”

“You don’t play with bears, man!” Maybe some people did, but it wouldn’t happen on Andy’s watch, not with this kid who clearly had a death wish. Why had he not run from the bear, and why was he excited about coming across it? There were questions to be answered, but there weren’t time for any, because if this bear decided to attack instead of run, Andy needed to be at the ready. “Yeah, the bear would like to fucking eat you, probably, now stop it–”

“Chin scratches?” She stared the stranger down, entirely convinced that she’d been thrown into some kind of portal where only stupid people existed. What the hell was this kid talking about? She could understand having fun, even being adventurous, but this was something entirely different. Something that could kill him, and yet, he was acting like it was a small cat in a cardboard box. “No, you won’t be doing that, and even if it did let you pet it, there’s no telling if it’d take your hand off in the next instant, anyways!” She raised the branch further over her head and stomped forward, yelling loudly enough for the bear to match with its own step backward, the fur on the back of its neck starting to rise.

The strain in her shoulder was overcome by the sudden bout of adrenaline. This wouldn’t go like it had with the qutrub. Even if it was a bear and not a person, she didn’t want to hurt a living animal, not if she could help it. “Dude, can you just please take a few more steps back, or at least shout– pick up a stick, I don’t know?”

“Not with that attitude” Chance side-eyed the woman - thoroughly unimpressed by her complete lack of an imagination. Winnie the Pooh never would have eaten Chance. Unless he was covered fully in honey for some reason. “I think you should have more faith in bears, personally. All bears don’t want to eat us.”

One thing that did convince Chance to keep his distance from the creature is the uncertainty of how he’d be revived once he goes down. Sure, the bite guaranteed him a take two. But what if the bear beheaded him? Chance was pretty sure that wasn’t growing back. Weighing his options quickly, he decided that taking that chance probably wasn’t in his best interest. “Fine, fine. You win. We’ll go the boring route.” Chance finally relented, eventually choosing to join in with the woman. “I’m a pretty loud person I think I was born for this.” He glanced around, picking up a stick and waving it around wildly and flailing his body in a way that was definitely not recommended for someone in a sling.

Chance only took breaks from this to continue asking the woman questions. “How do you know so much about bears?” and “What happens if the bear thinks we’re at a super sick rave and comes over to join us? Can I pet it then?”

Andy stared at him as if he had fifteen heads growing off of his shoulders. Was he being serious? She couldn’t tell. Andy was a risk taker, she knew how to have fun, but this was something else entirely. This kid could get himself killed by doing something like this, even if the bear had a higher chance of hightailing it away from them than it did with attacking them. She inhaled sharply through her nose. “Obviously not, but that doesn’t mean they won’t maim you or something, even if they don’t eat you.”

Maybe she should have just turned around and let the stranger play out his fantasy of winnie-the-whatever-the-fuck, but Andy knew that if she read an article the following day about a young man mauled to death in the woods by a black bear, she would never forgive herself. So instead of leaving, she stayed.

The minutes before the stranger finally realized he was being a jackass were the longest of Andy’s life. When he finally relented, she pushed out another breath deep from within her chest and looked over at the bear again, who, really, seemed to be growing disinterested by the second. The ranger watched as he picked up a stick, and with a firm indented frown pulling down over her previous aghast half-grin-half-grimace, she felt the situation regress.

It was what she had told him to do, but did he have to do it so obnoxiously? “I hike a lot, can you just trust me!?” Andy waved the stick a bit more in the air and stomped forward, which simultaneously sent the bear on its hindlegs, to spin around, and take off in the opposite direction. Only when she could no longer hear it crashing through the brush did she lower the stick. She turned her attention back to Chance and her frown deepened. “Are you stupid? Genuinely, what the fuck makes you think like that, dude.” She pushed past him as she followed the way the bear had gone, eyes scanning their surroundings to make sure it hadn’t just stopped. But she didn’t hear it anymore, so she turned back to the stranger.

“Do you have a death wish?” Andy asked with an arched brow.

Clearly, the woman was displeased with Chance. That much was evident. The reason why was also pretty evident, considering his whole lack of self preservation and general inability towards any rational decision making. For that reason, he tried to not hold the whole situation against her, even if he was entirely unimpressed with his dream of befriending a bear growing less and less likely as the bear started to lose interest in the two.

Chance was impressed that her advice worked though. In his eyes, parading themselves around with sticks and yelling seemed more like an advertisement for a buffet than a deterrent for the bear. But the thing barely gave the two a few seconds of its time before it spun around - adorably, Chance may add - and went off the opposite direction. Chance wasn’t going to take it personally. He had already convinced himself that he was plenty desirable to the bear, and their blossoming comedic friendship was ruined by the other human with him instead.

“I really guess it depends on who you ask, honestly. Stupid is pretty subjective. Though my grades have dropped in the last year.” Chance started answering absent-mindedly, pausing only when the woman started to walk away from him and in the direction the bear had just gone. If she had changed her mind and was now following the bear, Chance was about to be so pissed. But no, she spun back around fairly quickly. It seemed she was much more interested in scolding Chance. Honestly? Fair enough.

“I do actually, thank you for asking. Though most of my death wishes involve Celine Dion singing. You don’t know Celine Dion do you? Oh my god… do you know Celine Dion?” Of course she didn’t, it was just another pipe dream. Chance’s ideal scenario would be a heartfelt rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ while Chance was pushed out to sea and set on fire like one of those viking funerals. But he wasn’t sure his zombie body would come back from being burnt alive so he had to rethink. The dream death was still in being workshopped. “I’m Chance. And while I can tell I’ve gotten on every last bit of your nerves, I promise I’m like actually a really chill dude. Friends?”

Andy rolled her eyes at his comment about his grades. Grades had nothing to do with whether or not somebody made stupid choices. She knew that. She wasn’t even a highschool graduate, so if his grades were bad, then she was not the one to judge him for that. The stupidity he had put on display over the bear, however, was enough to make Andy believe that he genuinely had no clue how dangerous the situation could have gotten had she not been there.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” What did Celine Dion have to do with this? Wasn’t she the singer of Everytime We Touch? She had heard that song once and became obsessed with it. No, that was Cascada. She rubbed her temples and let out another long, drawn out sigh. There was no getting through to this kid, now named Chance. Andy’s brows were bound to weave their way into her hairline with the comments he let run free.

“Friends? Dude, you’re like, fifteen.” He looked a lot older than that, but his obnoxious behavior mirrored that of a child too tall and too big for their shoes. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person to be chill.” She could be not chill when she wanted to be, but her idea of fun wasn’t calling in a bear mauling while she held pieces of sinew and bone together. She had seen it already– the way that blood could stain hands, the way flesh looked when it was stripped. She cleared her throat and tried to focus on the now and not the forest floor and how it had looked after her parents were killed. Andy grimaced and poked a nearby branch with the toe of her shoe to tip it over onto its side. “I’m Andy. But that doesn’t make us friends.”

“You know what? Not important.” Chance waved it away. Of course she didn’t know Celine Dion. Chance wasn’t that lucky. Plus, if he met Celine Dion now and then died in front of her while she sang to him it would be a whole thing. Chance couldn’t handle the emotional weight of traumatizing the Celine Dion.

“First off, I can legally drink. For the record.” The woman couldn’t have been over thirty, meaning that the two were basically the same age. Give or take like five years maybe. Chances were, Chance wouldn’t make it to twenty-two anyways. While he wasn’t exactly a zombie expert, and the only zombie he did know had disappeared to never be seen again, he was pretty sure once he died he wasn’t getting any older. “And I’ll have you know I’m very chill. Like, I’m totally down to do chill things.”

The woman didn’t seem impressed, and Chance crossed his arms defiantly. As he studied her, it seemed like she had mostly lost interest in Chance. Kind of rude, but Chance wasn’t going to take it personally. The two did barely know each other. And for some reason this woman - Andy - didn’t seem thrilled to get to know Chance any further. Hurtful. “Doesn’t make us friends, yet.” Chance corrected, a grin breaking out across his face, “I really feel like we’re making good headway already. We already know each other’s names, we both like hiking. See? So much in common already!”

“Congratulations?” So this kid was older than Alex. Maybe their combined traumas had aged both herself and her sister. Andy hadn’t been afforded moments to act dumb, even when she wanted to. Sure, she could joke, and she could have fun, but doing something like this– to say whatever she wanted to say with little regard to how things might play out, she wasn’t so lucky. She stared at him a moment longer before shaking her head. “Right. Well, tell that to the bear that could have ripped your throat out.”

“Yet..” Andy stared at his arm, then looked back up at him. She wondered, for a very brief moment, how he had gotten hurt, but decided that whatever had happened could have been in the realm of normal. He seemed like the kind of guy to jump off of rooftops and into pools, anyway. “You like walking in the woods. That’s different.” She paused, realizing that he probably wouldn’t make it out of here alive if she didn’t lead the way. “Do you even know how to get out of here?”

Chance wasn’t convinced that he was befriending this bear hating woods enthusiast that allegedly just saved his life. He wasn’t convinced. If Korra can befriend a polar bear then he could befriend a non-polar bear. That thing might have been part dog actually, but that hardly seemed relevant right now. About as irrelevant as comparing real life to the domestication of fictional creatures from a kid’s cartoon show. “Do you not walk in the woods while hiking? Seems pretty similar to me.”

Andy brought up a decent point. Chance didn’t know how to get home from here. At least not within any time frame that would prevent his cousin from calling the police and maybe the national guard just for extra measure. “Technically speaking, yes. Just keep walking until the woods end.” he laughed slightly, knowing that by saying it he’d only annoy the person more. Contrary to popular belief, Chance never intentionally set out to piss people off. It just seemed to happen as a byproduct of his new blasé attitude. “But realistically that’s probably not the smartest option here.” He shrugged the statement off before adding that teasing tone back into his next words, “You know if you want to hang out with me longer you could just say so. I’ll totally keep you company out of the woods.”

Andy rolled her eyes. There was no getting through to this guy. “There’s a difference. Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out eventually.” Or maybe he wouldn’t, and Andy would be faced with seeing his face on the front page of the newspaper explaining what an upstanding citizen he’d been. Keyword been. Andy wasn’t sure what was with this town and the amount of people who wanted to feign ignorance. Maybe she had the short end of the stick– being entirely too aware for her own good.

“I’m taking you home. Let’s go.” She ignored his comment about hanging out longer. Andy wasn’t normally the one to let people’s stupidity get under her skin, but this kid was just asking to be killed out in the middle of nowhere. If he had mouthed off to the wrong person like this, then it’d be game over. To her, he was human, but if he wasn’t? And if he’d run into either a warden or a slayer? Andy didn’t bother focusing on the fact that the monster in this situation was somebody raised like her and not something that she had been brought up to hunt. “But actually, try and lead the way, I want to see if you can do it.” Really, she just wanted to see how painfully wrong he’d be.

“I’m going to choose to ignore the sarcasm.” Chance mentioned casually. He grated on some people, he knew that. His personality wasn’t for everyone, though he did tend to overdo the attempt to get people to like him. A semi tense conversation was better than nothing and walking home completely alone and in silence. Still, he didn’t tend to let things bother him. He was a lover, not a fighter after all. He’d rather brush off someone’s comments than waste time and energy getting angry over them. He might have unlimited time left on Earth, but even then wasting it being angry just seemed to useless. “And instead I’m going to ask about you. So do you get like paid to be out here looking for people trying to befriend bears or are you like my guardian angel?”

“Oh ha ha. Very funny.” Chance let out a few loose, dry laughs. Obviously they both knew Chance had no clue which way would get them home. “Let’s see” Chance spun around a few times holding his arm out and his index finger pointing around. In his head, he hummed a quick tune to gauge when he figured he’d stop the game. “Maybe here?” Chance finally paused, settling on a particularly tall tree out in the distance as his randomly chosen direction of choice. “If I actually got that right, we are both about to be hella impressed.”

“Yeah, sure, you owe me twenty bucks.” It was a joke, obviously, but maybe he’d believe her and hand over the bill anyway.A part of Andy wanted to be relaxed and to joke around with him, but she wasn’t sure how. Not when the image of her parents kept flashing in her mind. Plus, his jokes were corny and they were kind of annoying. She wondered if he actually had any friends, or if everyone just thought he was the joke.

As he began to spin around, Andy rolled her eyes. He pointed in the wrong direction and she shook her head, and then raised a brow as he began to point another way. “No. Come on, let’s go.” She motioned for him to follow her, the ache in her shoulders all the more noticeable now that the adrenaline from the nearby bear had worn off. “Sorry to disappoint you, buddy.” She led the way in the direction they needed to go, knowing that they weren’t that far off from the mouth of the trail that’d lead to the parking lot. She hoped it’d been the trail head he’d used so she wouldn’t have to drive him to his car, but if she had to, she could set her annoyances aside.

“You’ll have to open a tab for me” Chance shrugged, not exactly loaded in a lot of cash. Or any for that matter. He wasn’t sure that this woman had any plans of seeing Chance again after this chance (no pun intended) encounter anyways. Under most contexts, Chance would probably be considered an idiot. But he wasn’t completely dumb. He preferred willfully ignorant.

“I was pretty close though.” Chance bragged, both of them knowing damn well that he was no such thing. Luckily, as with most things, Chance didn’t have to think about the consequences. As usual, it all worked out. Now he had some park ranger or bear guru or whatever Andy’s job title was to guide him out of the woods safe and sound. People wasted so much time freaking out over nothing. “I don’t usually waste my breath getting disappointed. I’ve already moved on.” He was now happily strolling along behind Andy, the pep in his step back in full swing. “You know, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, believe it or not.”

#c: andy #beary annoying #parental death mention tw #I love ci and apologize for how slow I am LOL

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