MOAR BRAVESTARR PLZ.
Mundy's is my OC. Follow up of 'Back Before the Smoke Cleared' If you haven't read it, go read it or you won't understand this.
Thoughts on a Monday Night
Sometimes Mundy reminded Fuzz of him.
The deputy still remembered the day Tex Hex had appeared on the horizon; a deadly, scheming stranger with a malicious glint in his eyes. With the gun and ship in tow, Fuzz's friends and family were forced to mine kerium for the purple-skinned man; anyone who dared go against him was met with a gun pointing at their heads. So, without any form of defence, they complied.
Fuzz remembered who it was that led him straight to them. None other than one of their own, one of his family, his first cousin Scuzz. At first Fuzz hadn't realized...but after Tex spoke to his cousin, (In English, a language Fuzz could only just grasp at the time) it had dawned on him.
He'd spent the next few, laboured hours glowering furiously yet silently at his smirking cousin, silence being the only form of dignity he and the rest of his people could muster. With the frustrating, distressing heat bearing down on him and the fear for his family numbing his mind, Fuzz had completely forgotten about the tiny bundle that Tana held in her arms.
It was only after they'd left, breaking the Cliffside into bits and sending the poor man McBride spiralling towards horrible injury, that Fuzz spotted Tana a little away from the rest of the crowd, eyes cast away from the sight of the ship vanishing into the distance.
He'd approached warily, yet sympathetically. But, before he could speak, Tana spotted a relative of hers slouched nearby and, upon seeing he needed help, turned to him with a pleading look and held out the bundle towards him. Fuzz had been confused at first, but after a second he hastily took the baby from her arms and watched uncertainly as she hurried over to help her disorientated relative.
Fuzz had looked down at the baby a moment later, finding him to be asleep (miraculously, considering the events that had passed) and noticed his unruly, black main of hair sticking up all over the place. He couldn't help but smile.
But despite the striking resemblance the hair had to a certain first cousin of Fuzz's, the baby's face was gentle innocent and to this day the memory of it brought a smile to the Deputy's face.
The baby didn't have a name yet; due to their culture of naming the baby at a certain ceremony, but when the time came, most of the prairie people were taken back at his mother's choice.
Maybe this was because it sounded a lot like a Human's word for a day of the week.
The boy, at first, was like any other prairie child. Or at least that's what many wanted to believe. He was aloof, smart beyond his years. So very aware. Other children didn't avoid him; he avoided them.
Fuzz could recall as plain as day the times the boy had wondered too close to a sheer-drop in a cavern, or fiddled with Ex-Kerium, or that frightful time the youth hijacked that dingo's ship...
That memory never failed to make him shudder.
More so where the memories where the boy reminded him of Scuzz.
Over the twenty years Scuzz and Fuzz hadn't spoken, seen or heard of each other, Fuzz found it like some weird switch, or a new state of living. Though it was hard to explain it, Fuzz could only say that Mundy had arrived, Scuzz had vanished. Thinking of the two in the same place, the same time or even mentioning each other sounded alien. Like the stars and the suns. Yet, despite the figurative barrier between them, Mundy would sometimes remind him of Scuzz.
The times he could be spotted shoving other children when arguing; the glaring and sniggering...the fluency in human talk (at least, Scuzz had always been able to talk better English before Mundy started babbling) and the interest in the surface. He didn't play with pickaxes and mining equipment or gaze warmly at the keriam lights- Mundy basked in the harsh sun above, preferred mechanics and guns to tools and as soon as he grew older he was barely seen beneath the ground.
Fuzz worried about the boy he fussed over and cared for; He and Tana (and others) had so wanted him to turn out alright. So when he left they were afraid.
But Fuzz wasn't afraid for him anymore. Standing here beside the gates of Fort Kerium with Wuzzella, Bravestarr and Thirty-Thirty, he knew he didn't need to worry about Mundy.
The youth wasn't a child now, not the vulnerable baby he'd once held. He was waving back at him from the Mechanical Cart, driven fast and furiously by a random looking robot and wide-eyed purple humanoid lad beside him. Mundy was waving back at them with that smirk of his, waving his pilot hat in the air and letting his wild black mane fly in the wind. Thirty-Thirty glared sourly back, Bravestarr shaking his head at the sheer hilarity of those boys. Wuzzella and Fuzz waved back.
Mundy was different, yes, destructive and so on...but he wasn't bad.
Later on in the night, long after Mundy and his pals had sailed off into the sunset after helping defeat Sandstorm and Vipra, Fuzz had bumped into someone he never thought he'd bump into off duty again.
Literally.
"Watch were you go, you no-good ta-"
Scuzz and Fuzz, sprawled ironically in mirrored positions on the floor, stared at each other in alarm. Fuzz scowled a second later, His cousin stuffing his fallen cigar back into his mouth. Fuzz glanced behind him and saw the tavern a little while away, and could just make out Thunderstick arguing with the Bartender.
"What you doin 'ere?" Fuzz questioned as he hopped back onto his legs, fists comically clenched, ready for a brawl need one be started. Scuzz glared back at him sourly.
"Aw, go suck up ta Bravestarr, cousin. I'm busy." With that, the grey-haired prairie person shoved past Fuzz, once again sending the other crashing onto the ground. Fuzz felt his temper flare.
"Busy have worse breath in world?" Fuzz grumbled back, climbing back onto his feet. He turned and saw Scuzz halt a few steps away and glare at him over his shoulder again, looking like he swallowed a lemon. Fuzz hid a smirk. Even Scuzz knew his habit was bad, though he'd never admit it, even if you dangled him in front of Stampede.
"Wha' I do ain't not your business. Goodbye." Scuzz turned and began marched off. At first, Fuzz's thoughts drifted as to why Thunderstick wasn't following him and was instead fighting with a bartender of all things (a robot can't drink, can they?) but then the red-haired deputy replayed what the slightly older prairie person had said in his mind.
Seconds later, he'd sprinted back to stand in front of Scuzz and block his path, breathing in so his chest looked a little bloated; an action he did whenever he felt he needed to look tougher. Scuzz only rose a brow and wrinkled his nose at him, however.
Fuzz poked him in the chest angrily. "Is ma business, you low-back stinky-breath trai-tor! You gots alot you ain't paying for!"
"Liiike what?" Scuzz asked, incredibly enough, sounding very impatient. Fuzz 's scowl deepened.
They stood there for what felt like the longest two minutes of their lives,; neither expression or glare shifting. It was a real difference from the brawls they'd usually have.
Then, silently, Scuzz's eyes narrowed. Fuzz did the same. Then, the former turned around sharply, so fast that the ash from his cigar sprinkled onto the sand below. Scuzz adjusted his belt and said,
"That was a long time ago, cousin." He gave a short cough, "Ain't got no meanin' now."
Fuzz half-wished he could see his loathsome face, but decided against it. "Yous wrong Scuzz, you always be."
Scuzz grumbled to himself darkly and stormed off back towards the tavern, not looking back at Fuzz once. His cousin stared after him furiously.
"He done needed you, Scuzz!"
Scuzz halted, and turned around again, marched straight back towards Fuzz with fury that could probably mean a fist-fight was due. He shoved Fuzz back roughly, scowling at him. "Don't talk dirt, Fuzzball. He better off wit'out me, anyway! You goody-goody people should know that!"
With that extra insult thrown into the fray, it seemed that Scuzz couldn't help but grin. Then, for the last time, he spun around and wandered back to the tavern, back to where the oblivious Thunderstick was still badgering the Bartender who wasn't Handlebar.
Fuzz found his scowl had lessened, and like many thoughts and times with Scuzz, he felt...unsure. Like an unsolved problem.
He didn't care if he never knew what went through his cousin's head. Being him, a dirty dealing, vile and downright horrible person with the inability to care for others.
He just wondered why on New Texas had his last words sounded...right.
La-de-daa.