i.
Butch Deloria is a semi-permanent fixture at the clinic, less than the sum of his parts - black eyes and broken noses and gin blossoms and ripped fingernails. On bad days, he's a hairline fracture; on worse days, a patchwork quilt.
Nim just thinks some people just aren't meant to be whole.
"Yeah, so mind the goddamn gap," he spits, on midnight runs when his mouth isn't too full of blood, "What are you looking at me for, Nosebleed?"
"Nim, go back to bed," her father says, as if to temper the abrasiveness of Butch Deloria's whole being. Silk and sandpaper. Paper over the cracks.
"No," she replies. She's never been as sure as she is now. She'll probably never be.
Her father sighs, and pours the last drops of vodka from the bottle not-so-carefully hidden in Butch's jacket.
It's just ethanol and water, Nim thinks (because that's what she always does, think), you're an idiot, Deloria.
Butch winces. Nim likes to believe it's because her words somehow wormed his way in him. Nim likes to believe it's not because of the pain.
Dammit, Nim, no more sympathy for the devil.
"Show's over, Nosebleed," Butch rasps, and - when he thinks they aren't looking - pockets some extra vouchers on the way out. Extra rations of vodka, Sugar Bombs, jumpsuits (he's growing too fast for all of this); damn you, Nosebleed, for being such a bleeding-heart.
(He likes it.)
ii.
Butch Deloria's the best example of nature-versus-nurture. He's a breathing social experiment (but aren't they all social experiments in this vault, isn't the vault a goddamn experiment, too?).
"Don't go all Freud on me, Nosebleed," he would snarl at her, on good days. On better days, he'd ignore her and advance on Amata. A vulture circling.
Nim's just genuinely surprised he knows who Freud is.
"Don't reduce me into psychological crap you don't even understand," he would growl - less animalistic, more arid. Dry, so dry, but never warm.