When night finally falls, Tussle pulls over, moving towards the back to properly see what the van holds.
Food is only one need. The drinks are their water, air is universally available right now, and they have clothes on their backs. Good, sturdy ones, too.
That leaves shelter. With the van currently loaded to capacity, it means that they mostly will have to sleep outside, camping style. At most, the most tired ones can take the front and get some cushioning.
Because, unfortunately, they don't have any supplies for camping.
"Well, looks like we're sleeping under the stars tonight. If it gets too cold, we can move into the van and keep driving until we find a decent place."
"If there's a bunch of abandoned buildings, we could sleep in hotels or something," Snow suggests, settling down as if on a mattress and not the rocky dirt just beyond the van's ramp. "Or just look for a proper supermarket. The one by my old house had camping gear, though not the best stuff."
"Oooh," Sparky draws out the sound. "I would love to get my hands on more materials. If we can, I want to see about getting us another vehicle, but we also probably need to check the fuel, right?"
Tussle tunes out right about then.
The way they're talking, the way they're acting, and even Sparky's question...
"Oh, you fucking churls!"
He gets three very confused looks, so he elaborates (while dramatically gesturing and stomping around their 'camp').
"Here I am, worrying you're about to have existential crises, and turns out you've known before I even found you! If you knew, you should've led with that! Bastards."
"Well, excuse us for thinking you would prefer us not knowing! I forgot that we shouldn't worry about fuel if we're in a game, so sue me!" Sparky snaps back. He glances at her, finding she's not so much angry as trying to shock him.
Because they think he's panicking?
"I'm fine, I'll be fine, as long as you lot are fine and understand the dangers, let's just focus on finding something to make sense of this. I'll take watch, you three sleep."
He goes to sit down on the ramp, grabbing one of the energy drinks to overcaffeinate his brain.
There he was, worrying and fretting, and now he finds out he did it all for nothing! The interns have had their realizations, they probably figured out they can't actually die or that they don't need to be concerned if he's not. Still, Tussle can feel the weight of knowing they have questions.
Questions that might have answers, and also might not.
~
"So, what's the plan?"
He glares at Thrasher, because none of them should be as chipper as they are. They slept on the cold hard ground! Sure, Tussle stayed up all night, but that doesn't mean that they didn't sleep with only vests and bags for pillows!
"We find a supermarket. You three eat some apples, I'll drive. No, I'm not tired, yes, I'm fine, but we're going to the supermarket. Once there, we'll look at some of our options. Granted, we might need to load it on top of the van if there's too much, and that means figuring out how to install a ladder or step, too."
"As long as you're sure you can drive safely, we got no issues. Can we steal the cash registers again?"
Sparky's smile is way too innocent for such a question. He regards her for a moment, then asks his own question.
"Did you already crack that safe, too?"
"I got a total of seven hundred ninety-two cash, and thirty-seven change in coin."
"Well, if we ever decide to buy something instead of steal, that works. Don't know how the money here works, though." He pauses. "Let me see those bills."
He's seen many types of cash, from silver and gold and sometimes copper, to papers of various colors. The type he's paid in, that he used to buy things from the vending machines, the bills are shades of green, with the darker the color of the paper, and the lighter the writing's color, showing the worth is less. The coins are basic valuable metals, so that bills that are used more are harder to dirty and harder to tear, while coins are obvious in order of worth.
These ones are blue, with the only difference being the numbers. Everything, down to the symbols on them, are the same beyond that. The coins are in, oddly, colored order, also with numbers. The ones that say low worth happen to be purplish or bluish, while the singular more orange-toned coin is the highest amount of them all.
"Definitely not the same place. I ain't never seen money like this before." He hands the money back. "Put it somewhere safe. Sparky, you drive, and I'll point out the places to stop. We'll load up on bags and things, too, so we can carry more. Who here is opposed to some physical training?"
"We'll learn to lift."
"It's carrying, but good to know. C'mon, load up."
Tussle starts shoving at the interns' shoulders. They laugh, hurrying into their seats and closing the van. Snow even shoves him back!
He's much happier dealing with these idiots now that he's free from emotional burdens.