Dune isn't as loony and fun in this chapter. She has a serious face on today. I mean... Her patient just punched her in the face so I'd be kind of serious too.
We're not nothing. Just because we're broken and hungry and missing parts of us, it doesn't make us nothing. Poor Ducky. So hurt inside, so much loathing for himself and it didn't even have to be that way. I hadtoldthe battle fodder that I'd shine him up til he sparkled again. My word is my word and I keep my promises.
I've heard things about the Citadel from the other scavengers when we met on Wilson's territory by chance. His turf is like a neutral zone, no one fights because we all come there to heal. There I'd hear about War Boys and their god king. Bits and pieces came together in my head like an awful mural depicting child soldiers and a leader who would keep their heads empty of anything but devotion to himself and his legacy.
Slit was a child soldier, fed a steady diet of lies and grown on it until there was only a little boy desperately seeking a surrogate parent's praise while trapped in a man body. I couldn't really hope to change that, the damage is already done, but I could maybe show him other things. Freedom to think for himself, that his opinions are valid, that he's deserving of respect even if he's missing a leg.
After returning and finding him all curled by the entrance to my home, looking like a black bird whose wings were broken, I briefly considered Wilson's words with seriousness. Should I kill him? End his pain? No. No one ended my pain. A person I loved like the dingo loves the moon hadforcedlife down my throat and refused to answer my plea for a deep cut in the neck to end it all. Mum had known that I'd be alright, make my way and be happy as a murder of crows on a cadaver after healing up. And I was. Life is splendid, gorgeous, worth every breath. He'd learn, just as I had.
He's worthy of a second stab at life I decided as I pulled off his grimy dressings and tidied him up. The unwrapping hurt him because the bandages tend to stick unless I get him damp with water first, but the blisters were fading, parts of him had scabbed over and he was not oozing so badly. It seemed like a good sign.
His leg I worried about though. I'd never treated something like it. I wondered if it should smell like it did now. It had a thick metal scent before, Now that I'm back from my trip to find food it had changed, giving off a faintly rotten odor. Or it could be the stench of the War Boy in general. He had been slick with sweat and his trousers reeked like musk and piss when I found him laying in that pit of sand.
I cleaned him up real good, hoping it was just my imagination. As always he cringed with his head thrown back and went rigid when I got to cleaning up around the burnt stump. He didn't roar and howl anymore like he once had back on the first days I hauled him into the cavern, but he'd gasp a strained puff of air and mutter profane things. Occasionally he'd also hold his breath and try to kill me with a murderous stare.
I didn't mind, he could not harm me, not like this anyway. Hmm. He could be quite a handful once he heals up. Deadly even. He might just seek revenge on me for the trouble I'd gone through to keep him breathing. I'd still be quicker though, with two good legs...
Nah, too much thinkin', best climb that mountain when you come to it Dune.
Soon the deed was done and I sat there glutting myself on water patiently collected in the basin, just thinking about the way he'd so slack in my hands whenever I applied the burn gloop. What struck me was the way he let his face lay in the palm of my unfeeling right hand whilst the goo went on the milder burns on the back of his head and where they licked up by his left jaw line. Those eyes would go far away every time, like when people stop thinking and the mind goes blank. I only ever had my hands on him when I had to, since he growled at any move to approach him I figured that he wasn't keen on being touched. Yet, he'd go limp on me and only curse once I had moved on to the task of wrapping him back up. This time no curses had followed. He had surrendered to his exhaustion while I worked and I let him lay, tossing a rat hole riddled afghan over his legs to give him some dignity. The necessary nudity didn't bother me any, but when he slept the thing in his lap had a mind of its own and I didn't feel like looking at it.
That night I'd listened to his nightmares. He'd throw his head side to side and begin rocking on his right shoulder where the skin was still perfect. Then he'd wake, staring at the wall, sniffling and holding his breath to quell whatever had disturbed his dreams. My poor, poor Ducky.
When I asked about the one called Nux -a name I've heard him shout like a filthy profanity and sometimes talk to in his dreams- he looked to me as if I had struck him with my fist. His answer was just as cold as his eyes. He called this person trash.
This Nux doesn't sound like trash. A treasure maybe, or a brother.
I moved closer when he turned his head away. The damned war mongrel made me so recklessly curious. Those older scars, I pondered their meanings and how they must have hurt to receive. I wanted to touch, feel the ripples and hard edges of intentional scar tissue. Slit was a delightfully dangerous creature. Like a serpent. I wondered if he would feel cool and strong in those spots where the skin was ruined on purpose. Snakes feel like cold sand wrapped in a silk scarf.I wonder, I wonder...
Suddenly it was as if lightning had stuck the spot between us, jolting us fully awake and startling us apart. I had touched without thinking, the hand which still feels had been drawn to the prettily adorned flesh like a compass needle is pulled north.
The electricity of my foolish move still crackled between us, locking us into an eye battle. His features were hard in spite of the wetness pooling on his lower lashes, lips thinning as they pulled tight against his blunt teeth in a fearsome grimace. I found there, looking so closely, that his left eye was a dim shade of blue. I had never really cared to take note of that before. I'd always been far more enamored with the wounded eye and it's streaks of white and red up until now.
I licked my lips, shifting my crouch slowly to sit on my knees as the feeling hand searched forward once more. He did not budge.
He wasn't cool like a reptile, he was warm under my palm. This doodle under my finger was a tool, a wrench carved into his underbelly. I followed its shape, then moved on to the abstract design that trailed from his belly button into the coarse, mildly singed hair of his crotch. I ventured no lower than that since his dick was not something I was at all interested in at the moment.
He started out tense, the muscle under my nails twitching with every move however once I spoke he settled.
"So many doodles... All so pretty. You do that yourself?" He slackened, answering with a slow nod as he tilted his head up to keep an eye on what I was doing.
There was a little car in there, lines behind it to indicate that it was moving, little swirls and spirals and senseless lines that no longer made anything at all because the fire had encroached on the living art. He'd drawn all of these little things himself. No, he'dcutthem into himself. No wonder he hadn't gone whacko like me from the pain of his injuries, tough son of a bitch knew pain personally and had shaken its hand long ago.
I shifted again, easing myself against his right side and stretching out my legs in front of me. The right leg of mine didn't lay flat. It couldn't. Skin didn't work that way anymore. If I could bring myself to care enough, I'd try to therapize with careful work and bending it like Wilson often suggested. Make it better. But it worked well enough to do what I do. It didn't really matter. Once settled I took to exploring his right forearm. He'd really carved himself up anywhere he could reach properly, hadn't he? I wondered what it might look like if I asked him to carve something into me. It was just a stray thought. He'd probably stick the blade in and twist what with all I've put him through.
He made the same mewling noise in his throat that he'd wheezed when I found him. More bizarrely, I don't think he realized he was doing that when he turned into me and pressed his face up against my kidney. It was like when I apply the salve but more,stronger. Soon he had my legs pinned under dead weight. The thickly bandaged arm was thrown over my knees and his head and shoulder pressed into my guts heavily enough that I almost wanted to lurch up some of that water I had chugged down. Nope, my chuck button is broken, this scav does not waste food or water in such a fashion. He moved like this, all merely in response to the moment I ran a finger around the chunk of metal that held closed a gnash in his gut, an older wound that had looked like it was still healing when I hauled his carcass home.
As much pondering as I do about this poor broken Slit, I never really thought much on what might have caused those deep, gnarled scars that made his face so unique. I followed the path that the worst slice made from the corner of his lips nearly to his ear. Poor, poor Ducky. Someone did this to him, it's not something anyone in their right mind would want.
You're one to talk about right minds Dune.
He panted out a low noise, maybe remembering how this wound got there as he burrowed deeper into me. What a mess. Has he never felt a kind hand appraise him before? Hmm. He needed a shave. The stubble on his chin was getting thick and his hair was growing back where his scalp was still unmolested by flame. He'd need to keep some on the top of his head or else one day the sun would cook his brains inside. I'd prefer it if the face stayed smooth so I could keep on seeing these lovey, jagged lines which stretched his grin wide and wicked.
At around the same time I decided that I was hungry, I also resolved to make this touching business a habit. I liked it even better than our hissing and quip matches.
I slid out from under him and fed us then. I'd had a few tin cans full of lizard and potato sitting on a pile of smoldering embers for a while now. Should be cooked up just fine. Ducky ate ravenously and found that he had too much energy in him to sleep any more. I however could not be bothered to keep my eyes open. I barely managed to kick off my boots before falling into dreamland somewhere that wasn't even my sleep spot.
The next morning came, and I found that I had slumbered near to Slit but not quite touching him. Realization that he could have taken the knife off my belt and murdered me while I slept came and left me feeling foolish. I knew how horribly, murderously angry I had been while my very old burns had healed long ago, though I'd have been more inclined to end my own life rather than to end my Ma's.
I thought of the night before, reaching out with the hand that still felt once more to fondle the staples in his face. He was sweating, but almost as pale as he'd been when he still had the war paint on. And he was hot. Real hot.
Oh no.
I flattened my palm to his cheek bone and slid it up to his faint hairline, feeling the heat spread through my fingers until my palm was adding its own moister to the streaks of sweat streaming down. Fear twisted a knot in my bowels as he turned his head into the hand that touched him, wrinkles in his forehead forming under my fingers as his brows turned up.
"Nux?" He whispered with a shiver that rattled him.
"Oh, Duck- you're roasting. On fire all over again..."
Le gasp! Cliff hanger!
