with you [clouis]

[chapter five]

Clementine yanks the basement doors open, only to gag when a nauseating scent of vinegar knocks her in the face.

"What the hell?" she coughs.

"C'mon!" Willy grabs her arm and hurries down the stairs, dragging her with him. "Mitch! Clem's here!"

Something heavy and metallic drops hard to the cement. "Shit!" Mitch curses. "Told you not to do that, Willy!"

"Sorry!"

She follows the young boy deeper into the basement and finds herself amazed at Mitch's set up. The work desk is completely covered with drills, hammers, saws, files, batteries, a few of their solar panels, and other machines she didn't recognize. Flashlights are wired in the air pointing directly at the anvil Mitch sits in front of. There's a chipped bowl filled with a clear liquid sitting on top.

"Finally," Mitch says when he sees her. Clementine's startled by his more than usual unkempt appearance- hair standing in every direction, dirtiness staining his hands, shirt and face, and the weariness lining his eyes.

"Uh, are you okay?" she asks him.

"Yeah, yeah," he waves dismissively, standing from his stool, yawning heavily as he tosses a dirty rag away.

Willy rushes to help him scoot the various tools aside so Mitch can reach something closest to the wall. It's a small, brown box.

Clementine approaches the two boys, trying to hide her eagerness as she asks, "Well? Were you able to fix it?"

Mitch scratches at the back of his neck and turns away. "Not exactly," he says, "It sorta got ruined when I messed around with it."

Her heart drops.

"Ruined how?"

"I may have broke it."

"Broke it!?"

Mitch whips around, holding up a hand. "Now, don't cry about it," he says quickly, "it was a shitty ring, anyway. Louis would've broken it himself if you gave it to him... maybe." He grabs a small wrench from the table and swings it around on his finger nervously.

"Mitch," she can't help that her voice came out so miserably angry. "If you couldn't fix it then you should've left it alone! What am I supposed to do now?"

"Woah, hey, don't freak out! Just listen for two seconds," he says. "I didn't mean to break it. We started messing around with some stuff to try and reshape it but then it snapped and James came wandering down here and the whole thing was a shitshow. There was no saving that thing. Kind of a piece of shit. So," he looks away as he shoves the brown box towards her, "We did you one better."

Willy's practically vibrating with excitement next to them as he motions eagerly to the box. "Open it! Open it!"

Clementine takes the box and pulls the lid off. It takes her a moment to process what she's seeing.

There's a clean piece of fabric bunched up at the bottom, and within the folds rests two matching silver bands. Her head snaps up and her jaw drops.

His exhausted, shit-eating grin is enough of a confirmation that what she's seeing is real.

"Oh my god!" she gasps. "Where did you get these?"

"Made 'em."

"What? You-" she blinks up at him in disbelief, "-you made these?"

"Super awesome, huh?" Willy laughs. "I told'ja we had it under control!"

"The smell'll wear off, too," Mitch says, "had to polish 'em with vinegar."