a bump in the road → jackess
"You have no idea what the fuck you're supposed to do with this, do you?" Tess knew asking such a thing would just lead to her having to acknowledge she had no better idea of how to drive a car, but that didn't stop her from pointing out Jack's failure. It already took them long enough to come up with a method of turning the thing on and getting it to start a few days beforehand. Now, even after several stretches of driving success, they still got stuck once in a while, both thanks to unknown issues with the vehicle, and Jack's lack of car expertise. She didn't consider the young man sitting next to her to be a fountain of knowledge on any subject, aside perhaps from how to be a douchebag. Yet for some inexplicable reason, she originally just expected Jack to know how to operate the car. It probably came down to how much emphasis he placed on his superior awareness of all sorts of things they encountered, but apparently, even the guy who got to experience several extra years of pre-apocalyptic life didn't have the answers to everything. It made her laugh, and that was exactly what she did as she sat there with her arms crossed, watching him fiddle with a few things until one strange noise turned into a less worrisome noise and they jutted forward again.
Their trip didn't make her stomach want to empty itself as much as it had on the first day. Jack began to get the hang of some parts of the contraption, for which she felt incredibly thankful. She had gotten dangerously close to getting rid of her lunch on the first day, and was likely saved only by the fact that they had not, in fact, eaten anything for lunch. Apparently the thing was going to run out of fuel soon, which made it sound pretty useless to the shorter traveler, but it carried them a good distance without tiring them out, so she knew better than to complain too much about it. "I thought you made a lot of noise trampling along when your leg was all busted up, but this piece of shit doesn't ever shut up." It seemed like every time they solved one problem, another one arrived, and she was pretty sure they were prone to attract more attention riding in the car than they did while walking.
Slumping back in the seat, Tess slid down a bit and then propped up her legs, staring at the uninviting landscape before them. Nothing about it appeared interesting or beckoned them to delve farther, and so she didn't say much about it. But while she remained quiet, Tess found herself intrigued by whatever they saw, even if it wound up as relative nothingness. Each piece of scenery still looked new to her untraveled eyes, and every now and then, they'd pass something that showed signs of once existing as a more magnificent structure. For now, she just stared and tried to find Jack's inexperienced driving less tumultuous than it really was. "How many cars do you think there still are?" She knew the military had some, thanks to the great encounter the two of them had with a few government officials earlier in their journey, but she had little concept of how many existed or could be made. Even if Tess threw a lot of questions in Jack's direction to which he didn't have the answer, she found his annoyance at not knowing something almost as entertaining as actually learning something new. Plus, it broke up the return to silence between them ever since leaving Fiona.
Tess looked down and turned over her right arm, inspecting prominent mark there. It didn't yet resemble its partner on her other arm, but she remembered vividly how the other one had changed over time. Nothing about it looked appealing, and she wasn't about to poke at it. Maybe it wouldn't have been so unpleasant if her sleeve hadn't been ripped aside by someone trying to eat her a while back, but she supposed having to occasionally glance at a bite mark was better than being consumed for dinner. Before she could give any deeper thought to the newer of the two bites, they hit some sort of bump, and she grabbed onto the seat, muttering out a quick, "shit," out of surprise. "How do you even know we're going in the right direction? I know you've walked all sorts of places, but doesn't the wind, you know, toss some of this junk around and make the place look different?"
