She stared at him across the expanse of dirt between them. "Um..."

Did she have anything else to talk about? Were there any questions bouncing around in her head that she just had to get out?... Not really, but she could dig up some if she needed too, she supposed.

"Why do you hate Euro food so much?"

And, while she was at it, "And why didn't you think this was going to be a fun time?"

She had been mildly affronted at the idea that there could ever be a boring pumpkin patch adventure, in the sense that he had 'wanted to see' how it went. It's not like she'd literally been planning it into her schedule for next year! She hardly had a schedule for the next week.

"Why do you hate Euro food so much?"

Ask, and ye shall receive, huh? His mood darkened a little bit, and he sat up a bit, silent for a moment. He looked into the flames. "I uh... At a point in my life I ate a lot of Greek food. That part of my life is painful to think of. I prefer not to be reminded about it, is all."

He frowned a bit. Thinking about everything that had happened with Andrea sucked, for lack of a better word.

"And why didn't you think this was going to be a fun time?" He blinked a few times, and looked up to her.

"What made you think that? I mean, I'd never been to a place like this before, so sure, I didn't know for sure if I'd like it but- oh... Um... I get what you're saying... so... Yeah, I guess I was a bit thrown off when you said we should do this next year... You know? I guess we never talked about our relationship like that before. You, eh... you want to talk about it?" He was nervous, that much was obvious. He didn't have a lot of experience with this kinda thing.

"Ah, well... consider Greek off the menu, then. It's not gonna kill me to avoid it if it makes you uncomfortable."

She shifted a little when it came to him explaining the maze thing, and suddenly it clicked. Ooooh, It wasn't the maze or the pumpkin patch itself that he was being weird about. It was her choice of wording. Well, in some ways that made more sense... sorta.

"Sure, we can talk about it." Though... she wasn't sure exactly what there was to talk about, or why he seemed so nervous about it. Where did they start?

"...So... what exactly do you want to know? I'm an open book."

"Thanks..."

The Masochistic Mutant nodded in appreciation of her understanding. He was happy she didn't press any further; he wasn't ready to talk about Andrea just yet...


She asked him what he wanted to know, and he stared at her cautiously for a moment.

"Uh... Well... What do you want out of this relationship, I guess... Like... Long term, short term? Dating forever, marrying, white picket fence and kids? What's up?" Clearly, he'd thought about this too much, but that was part of what he did; either thought too much, or not enough. There was no happy medium for Saphirus.

Her eyes widened progressively more the further he elaborated. Jesus! He'd thought about this a lot, hadn't he? "Woah! Slow down there, dude." She took a moment to stare at him awkwardly, before reminding herself that staring was rude, and she probably wasn't making him feel any better.

"Okay... so... lemme take one step back and explain myself a little, before I launch into an answer for your question." Shelby settled herself, plucking away at a piece of grass nervously as she collected her thoughts. "Okay, so... I don't really plan out relationships like that. Like... I'm not the type of girlfriend who's going to be celebrating one month anniversaries, or whatever it is teenagers do these days. I'm also generally not the type to plot out how long I intend to be in a relationship with someone. What I said before, about making this a tradition? I didn't mean that like... literally. Also, because it's not like we'd have to be dating to come here. I went to pumpkin patches all the time with friends, in Washington."

She wrinkled her nose and waved a hand absently. She was getting off track. "But that isn't the point. What I think i'm trying to say is i'm really not one to plot out the relationships I have with other people. If it's going good I stick with it. If not, I move on."

She pushed her hood back and scratched at the back of her head. "Now, for a more direct answer to your questions... I feel like we, as a couple, are doing pretty damn well. I will do everything I can, that i'm comfortable with, for as long as I can to keep that going as long as you feel the same way."

"I can't necessarily say if I am for or against picket fences and getting hitched or whatever, because I typically deal with things like those when they pop up."

She glanced at him. "...What are you looking for within our relationship? What do you want?"

@#$%. She turned it back on him. It was like a verbal acrobatic pirouette, redirecting his question back at him.

"U-uh- I. Is that him calling?" It wasn't him calling. Was that a bird over there? He looked, nope, no bird. He really had to answer this question didn't he? @#$% @#$^ @#$^, what was the right answer? Was it a trap? He had to speak. He was out of time.

"Um... Shit, I dunno. I don't know what I want. I like what we've got. I just. Where is it goin, is what I was wondering. I mean, what if we do hit a rough patch? You the type to fight for a relationship? Not saying that's gonna happen, but it'd be nice to know if I can depend on you that way. As it is... I can say I would. I kinda like having you around. Alot. Is all."

Well, if she was doing acrobatics, he was stumbling through the room like Gerald @#$%ing Ford.

Shelby spent a silent moment digesting what he'd said, before she grinned. "Should there ever come a time when hit a 'rough patch', yes... I will fight. You should already be well versed in how stubborn I am."

She stood, dusting her backside off and edge around their little fire so she could plop down on his lap and rest her arms around his shoulders. "So, if I interpreted all that correctly this is what we are gonna do: We're gonna run with it, so long as both of us are happy and willing, and whatever our relationship evolves into later on down the line is just fine. Yeah?"

Her phone went off not a moment later, and this time instead of answering it herself she handed it to Saph. "Kick'is ass."

Saph smiled a bit, nodding slowly at her response. "Sounds like a plan... well, a non-plan, but one that works." He winked at her, an opened his mouth to talk, but the phone rang.

He grabbed up the phone when she offered, grinning widely and pressing the talk button.

"Howdy there, squirt."

"Wait, who's this? Did I dial the wrong number?"

"Oh, no, little buddy; the CornStalker would never make such a rookie mistake, would he?"

"Are you making fun of me? I-I'm in charge, here! You can't talk to me like that. Who the hell do you think you are? I've got you trapped!"

"I'm one of the X-Men. And the way I see it here is... We got you trapped." The other side went silent for a moment.

"Like, really?

"You know it; ya f#$%ed up, kid. How you gonna make it right?"

"...Let you out?"

Saph laughed aloud at that.

"Ho ho ho buddy... that ain't gonna cut it... You're gonna hafta to do a lot better than that to avoid the biggest ass whoopin of your life. So tell me. How you gonna make it right?"

Ten minutes later, they were loading Saph's junky car with some free pumpkins.

Saphirus stopped to wipe his head, and then nodded at the sinking sun.

"You know what? I could do this every year if you wanted."

Five free pumpkins, two of which were too heavy for her to even attempt to lift, and an arm full of free corn later and they were ready to skedaddle. She wiped her hands off on her pants, blinking at him when he mentioned doing this every year. Then a smile slowly crept onto her lips and she turned so she could snap another picture of them standing together, with the setting sun in the background. Of course, after a serious one came one with the ugliest face she could make.

"So," She started, as she attempted to get the passengers side door open. "Back home to carve and make a mess in the kitchen?" She gave up, choosing instead to get in through the back and just climb into the front seat from there.

After buckling herself in (possibly crossing herself at the thought of the ride home) she set about looking back through all of the pictures she'd managed to capture throughout the day.

"Heeey! When did you take pictures of my butt? And remind me to teach you how to use the focus. These are awful."

She skipped past them, unwilling to delete them no matter how bad they were, and instead focused on the pictures of sleepy!Saph she'd gotten that morning. He was really quite adorable when he was tired and grumpy.

Feeling triumphant, he climbed into the vehicle, giving her a smiling nod in response to her pumpkin carving suggestion.

The drive home was worse than the drive there; the weight of the pumpkins caused havoc on his suspension, so the car rocked around like a boat on light waves. He didn't seem to notice much, driving merrily an humming along with the music on the radio.

He grinned when she brought up the booty pic. "Sure thing. Hey, can you teach me how to use the focus on that some time? Thanks." He snickered, swerving a little as he nearly drifted from the lane.

They only had to stop three times to let the car rest on the way back. When they did, Saph grabbed two arm fulls of pumpkins, holding one by it's stem an one under his arm in each hand. She only had to carry one. By the time he got to the kitchen, he was hating himself for doing that. He set the two large pumpkins on the table, the other two on the ground, and then shook out his hands.

"Yeesh, they never had pumpkins this big at the grocery store. What do you plan to do with all of that gourde?"

One crazy drive home later...

She watched him heft four of the pumpkins into kitchen on his own, while trotting along behind him like a wimp with one of the smaller ones. She deposited hers on the counter with the pile and grinned at him mischievously.

"Well, the two big ones are for us to carve normally." She fidgeted with one of the bigger ones, being very critical with which side she thought was perfect for a face.

"And with the other there we're gonna make a pumpkinman. Like a snowman, but with pumpkins... and terrifying." She fished out a scrap of paper and a pen from within the kitchen and started doodling designs.

"See, like this!" She turned the paper and pushed it toward him. Her pumpkinman doodle, while quick and a little sloppy, surely had the capacity to be terrifying if she could translate it onto pumpkin properly.

Saph stared at the pumpkin man iteration blankly for a moment. "Looks like a bad criminal face sketch." He chuckled at the joke, and handed the paper back, nodding a bit.

"Alright, then. Let's do this." He walked over to the kitchen drawer, and pulled out a knife. "Now, I ain't an artist by any stretch, but I do now how to carve a pumpkin or two. Pumpkin off?"

He waggled his eyebrows at her, and then walked over to the bigger of the two big gourds, stabbing into the top and starting to carve around so he could make a hole in the top; had to get rid of the guts, right?

Soon, he had all of the innards in a bowl, and messy hands. He opted to chase after her with them, making zombie noises. Fun times were had.

His carving style was... rudimentary and rough, but it suited the spirit of the season. He utilized the innards to make it so the pumpkin was vomiting.

When he was done, he stepped back, putting his hands on his hips, and sighing contently at his work. He then turned to see what hers looked like.

Pumpkin guts and zombies. This was probably the happiest she'd been in quite a while. After gutted her own pumpkin, she salvaged the seeds from her mess and some from Saph's so she could throw them in the over later.  Then, after rolling up her sleeves, she got to work. Saph finished his a little bit before she finished hers. She hadn't wanted to go into too much detail, seeing as that would take so long... but she definitely put some thought into the design. 

When he finished and turned his around, she stepped back from hers for a moment in order to turn it around as well. "Not totally finished yet, but... Ta-da!" Hers was a fairly detailed carving of Frankenstein's Monster. Some minimal shading with light carving for contrast, with the rest intricately cut our from the gourd. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was still quite good. She attempted to wipe her forehead with her sleeve, and ended up smearing some pumpkin guts in her bangs on accident. She still had to finish the chin portion, and then it was done!

"Wanna make the face for the pumpkin man while I finish this?" She gestured with her knife at the three untouched pumpkins.

Saph's expression went flat when she showed him her work. He looked at his pumpkin, and then back to hers again. "Yeah, shoulda seen that coming." Frankenstein. Detailed Frankenstein. Of course. She probably thought it was just a casual doodle, too.

He set about gathering the other pumpkins, and poking at the top of the one that would make the best head. "Where we gonna put these anyway?" He hadn't really thought of that. A bunch of the students probably had theirs outside by now.

"You have the whole pumpkin man thing planned out from the start?" It was a pretty neat idea, honestly. He'd never seen anything like that before. Then again, his creation was thus far the extent of pumpkin art as he knew it until he saw hers... What else did people do with these damned things?

Soon, he was scooping even more pumpkin guts.

A sly, mostly evil grin settled on her lips as she finished her pumpkin up. "Why, right outside next to all of the other pumpkins, of course!" Specifically, she was going to set hers right next to the sugar skull pumpkin someone did. Right. Next. To. It.

"And, No, I didn't have the idea for the pumpkinman until we were wandering around looking for good ones. I mean, I coulda tried to get that bigass pumpkin instead... remember? That one I couldn't even lift?" She'd tried, multiple times. Now she had mud on her backside from falling over when her hands slipped.

"Instead I though a few smaller ones would be better, and since it would be a pain to try and carve all of then... pumpkinman was born!"

She wiped her hands on a towel, done with her project, and scooted outside real quick to fine branches for the arms. A few minutes later she was back with two scraggly branches that, she felt, were just perfect!

She sidled up beside him and waited, interested to see what he would do with the face for this one.