TRAIN TRACKS ➣ chris chambers x reader

004

"Have gun, will travel reads the card of a man, a knight without armor in a savage land," You could faintly hear the boys singing the Ballad of Paladin around a hundred meters ahead of you on the tracks, literally yelling the lyrics so loud that people in fucking China could probably hear them. You'd purposefully fallen behind when they had first started the song a while back thinking that you could enjoy just a tiny bit of silence, but clearly you had underestimated how loud they could sing if you thought you'd be able to get any quiet time. Especially with Teddy involved, who seemed to have quite a lot of experience with screaming and yelling.

"I- oh my god." You half-laughed half-cringed when Gordie tried to force his childish voice to hit a low note while Teddy had his fiftieth voice crack in a row, covering your ears with your hands in a pretty shitty attempt to muffle this literal trainwreck. Even from nearly a hundred meters away, you could still hear their singing as clear as Gordie's skin [I can't be the only one who thinks Gordie's skin is so fucking flawless, this boy needs to drop his skin-care routine]. They were that loud. So instead of uselessly trying to block the noise, which was turning out to not work at all, you began digging through your bag and pulled out an old f/c sketchbook and a 2B pencil, then began to sketch the boys singing and walking along the train tracks in front of you. It wouldn't help that much, but it would at least be a tiny distraction from the guys' horrible singing skills.

A few minutes passed and drawing actually turned out to be quite a good idea, it sort of drowned out the sound of everything else and let you relax in silence. In silence means without having to listen to four boys screeching the lyrics of some shitty song they heard on the radio. They were still singing as loud as ever, but since you were so focused on your drawing, you just didn't hear any of them. In fact, you were so into it that you hadn't even noticed Chris fall behind from the group so he was walking right by your side until you felt an arm wrap around your shoulders.

"Hi."

"Hi, Chris." You looked up for a second to acknowledge him, then went back to sketching. "When did you get here? I thought you were still walking with the other guys?"

"I was. But Gordie told me to tell you we're stopping at the junkyard later on so we can refill the canteens. His dad said it's a safe well." Chris explained. You nodded. "Oh, okay."

"Anyway, what are you drawing?" He leaned in closer to see what you were working on, his chin practically resting on your shoulder, then smiled. "Hey, that's us!" He pointed at the four figures drawn on the train tracks. "There's me and Gordie, there's Vern, and there's Teddy at the back."

"Yeah, I just thought it looked like a nice setting with the tracks and the grass and shit."

"It looks great. You're real talented, you know?"

You could feel your face turning red and cursed yourself for being so fucking awkward. This boy was going to be the death of you. "Thanks, Chris."

He was about to reply but Teddy, who looked like he was pretty tired of waiting, had stopped singing and turned around to yell at you impatiently.

"Hurry up, you guys! We don't have all day!"

He continued to bitch even when you and Chris finally caught up with the others, saying shit like how the kid probably wouldn't even be dead by the time you all arrived and just kind of insulting you two in general. Neither of you took anything he said personally, Teddy always liked to complain just for the sake of complaining so it wasn't really anything new. He was just annoying. But he's still great. Stan Teddy to get clear skin like Gordie's.

"Hey," His whining was eventually cut off by Vern, and you thanked God he was there to interrupt. "I'm kind of hungry. Who's got the food?"

Teddy instantly stopped walking and smacked his forehead, staring at everyone with a "we're fucked" expression. That couldn't mean anything good. "Oh, shit. Did anybody bring anything?"