Greetin's, all. Hope everybody's still doing well. I apologize for this chapter being a little late, but I still hope everybody enjoys! Really excited for writing Chapter 10. I'd like to think it's a bit of a milestone for Halfmoon. I'm glad to see the story's carried out this far, and I hope to keep writing it all the way through to the end.
The first week came and passed like a light summer's rain over the Mojave; quick, and so small and insignificant, it could pass you by as easily as a blink of an eye. After the second week dawned and Joshua still lie unconscious, Raul's concern for the man's survival grew, while Remi only seemed to become progressively more determined to have Joshua's wounds healed by the time he supposedly would awake. This, as well, raised concern to the ghoul mechanic. He worried about how Remi would take the news if Joshua were to never see another sunset like the one over the Colorado just two weeks ago.
About 6:30AM, Remi sat on the top of Raul's shack with his legs dangling over the edge of an awning, a half-empty bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla clutched in his right hand while the left rested in his lap. His eyes were glued to the horizon as he watched the sun slowly peek its head over the Wasteland and gradually spread its warm light across the dry land. This became a habit of Remi's; watching the sunrise. Alone, for the most part, as Raul was usually either still sleeping or heading out to Freeside for supplies this early in the morning. Remi sighed as he watched the light soak the pale sand of the Mojave, its yellow glow serving as a natural alarm for the people of the desert to wake and begin their days.
It served a similar purpose for Remi. He used the sun as a cue throughout his day; before the sun rose, he awoke to head up onto the roof, and after the sun settled in the sky, he went off to replace Joshua's bandages. At noon, he helped Raul around the shack granted the ghoul himself asked for it, even going as far as assisting in repairing weapons for him. Mid-afternoon, he checked Joshua again, often making sure he wasn't lying in any uncomfortable position despite his inability to feel such. At sunset, he returned to the roof with a flask of whisky, and finally, after darkness filled the sky, he settled in for the night and slept. Or, tried to, at least. This was how it was every day now, and his routine was beginning to become more and more natural to him as he got more so adjusted to beginning and ending his days to it for nearly two weeks.
He often wondered if this was how life had gotten for Joshua. Waking up and doing the exact same thing every day, and falling asleep with the knowledge tomorrow would be no different. With the exception, however, that Remi always went off to bed with a hope that the next day would be different, and that Joshua would be there to greet him when he next awoke with a look of forgiveness in his eyes. If he slept, that was. Often times Remi would stay up in his bed with a flask while thoughts swirled around in his mind, periodically watching Joshua with uncertain eyes as he hoped to see him stir and sit up in his bed at any moment. Thus far, such a hope hadn't payed off to Remi yet, though he was never willing to give it up. Through all of his many faults, one of his outstanding triumphs was his determination and sense of optimism.
About 7:30AM, Remi found his bottle empty and the sun high in the sky. Time to tend to Joshua. With a little puff of breath and sigh, he hopped down from the roof onto the ground and tossed his Sarsaparilla bottle into a metal bucket by the door filled with many others like it. After deciding he was coming up to watch the sunrise with a drink every morning, he'd put that there so he even had a routine way of discarding emptied bottles. Inside Raul's shack, the wooden home was dimly lit by streams of sunlight passing through gaps in the wooden plank walls and a single lamp sitting on Raul's desk. On the far left side of the room, two beds and a bedroll set side-by-side, closely tucked against one another in their small space. One bed against the leftmost wall, while the other lie horizontal to that, and the bedroll set down on the floor beside the one more prominently against the wall.
In the leftmost bed, Joshua lie on his back, completely still, with his arms set neatly at his sides. Remi passed a disappointed sigh as he entered the shack to see this, as it was exactly what he'd come inside to yesterday. Still unconscious, still not moving an inch, but still alive nevertheless. Remi grabbed a chair from Raul's desk and slid it beside Joshua's bed, backward, and straddled it as he took a seat. This way he could use the back of the chair as a rest for his arms; like a makeshift desk. Beside Joshua's bed was a small nightstand where Remi kept all of his medical supplies, from which he grabbed a bottle of vodka and a roll of clean gauze bandage.
Gently taking hold of Joshua's arm, he set one hand under his bicep to hold it up while the other hand unraveled old bandages from his wound. Underneath, Remi was met with several thin whip welts and a thick scabbed over gash, all which, despite their size and varying severities, lacked the reddened surrounding skin that would serve as evidence of infection. Remi made damn sure to meticulously keep Joshua's injuries clean.
Tossing the old bandage into a small rusted waste bucket beside Joshua's bed, Remi began to unravel clean bandage from the roll he held and started to tightly wind the white mesh around Joshua's wounds, layering the fabric several times before ripping it from its roll and pinning it down against Joshua's arm with a small, bronze clothing pin. After he did so, he gently set and adjusted Graham's arm by his side, even going as far as to move his fingers so that they weren't cocked in odd directions or twining around one another.
After checking Joshua's arm over once again to be sure his work was satisfactory, Remi stood from his chair and swung it back over to Raul's desk, no longer in need of it. He took the roll of bandages and slipped his hand through the spool, resting it on his wrist, and clutched the bottle of vodka in his hand. After doing so, he took one hand under Joshua's shoulders and pushed him forward, arching his upper body upward enough for him to shift into a seat behind him on his bed, sitting on his pillows. With his legs lied straight outward and at either of Joshua's sides, he took his hand away and let Joshua fall limp, thudding against Remi with his back propped up against him and head to his chest. Remi grumbled quietly. Sometimes he found working with Joshua was like working with a huge, muscular ragdoll.
Setting his vodka by his side, Remi set both palms to Joshua's shoulder blades and pushed his body forward until Joshua slumped forward, back hunching and head hanging down. "I'm really glad you at least can't complain when you're sleepin'," Remi muttered, sliding his hands down to Joshua's lower back, where a large span of bandages covered the vast majority of his torso. "Not that you complain all that much, anyway." These bandages covered not only numerous whip lashes, but the gash in Joshua's stomach that'd nearly killed him. That thing probably bled out a half to a whole liter of dark red fluid, at the least. It was a nasty, nasty wound, and rose the most concern for Remi in regards to Joshua's recovery.
This set of bandages took Remi nearly a minute to fully unravel and remove from Joshua, having spanned from just below his chest all the way down to his hip line. After the layer of white mesh was removed, Remi slid the entire length of it through his hands, brows furrowed and eyes intent. He stopped as a faint, faded crimson staining the material caught his eye. It was barely visible, and that's how Remi wanted it. He checked for bleeding every day, as a way to tell him if Joshua's stitches were still in tact, and used the bandage as manner of giving him such answers. A faint, transparent mark such as this meant Josh was alright. There was only to be concern if deep, rich red painted the white bandaging.
Sighing through his nose and tossing those bandages, massed into a sloppy ball, into the waste bucket, Remi took the bottle of vodka back into his hand by its neck. Popping the cork out with his teeth, he spit it out onto the sheets and used one hand to pull Joshua's body against him, leaning his back against Remi's chest. Leaning himself over Graham, Remi reached a hand over Joshua's torso and gently poured a stream of warm alcohol onto his widest, stitched up gash. Keeping it clean the best way he knew how. Remi gave a little sigh as he watched the clear liquid dribble down Joshua's skin.
"I know you're probably a whisky kind'a guy, Josh, but this is some damn good vodka. A real throat-burner. Third bottle of it, too, and this shit tends to get expensive," he complained, speaking to Joshua despite his outright knowledge that Joshua couldn't hear him. He liked to speak to Graham regardless, however, as he liked to think the former Legate was somehow acknowledging him. It kept him held down and believing Joshua was still there at all. "I really spoil you, y'know. Hope 'ya know that," he commented, leaning back once again, slumping Joshua forward as he did so, and taking the vodka to his lips for a sip before re-corking it and setting it on Joshua's nightstand.
After putting the vodka away, Remi took the clean roll of bandages into his hands and started to unwind them, wrapping them around Joshua's lower back and pelvis first and gradually progressing upward 'till he was up to his ribcage in white. Remi doubled the layering several times over his worst wound, and broke the rope of meshed fabric off between his shoulder blades, using another clothing pin to hold it down. After running his fingers over the wraps several times to make sure there were no creases or uneven areas, he leaned back to admire his work and gave Joshua a short, hardy little pat on the back. He grinned.
"Well, all done, buddy. I'll get to your other arm and legs after noon rolls around," he said, picking himself up and stepping off Joshua's bed, then laying him back down, careful to set his head comfortably on his pillow and keep his neck angled nice and properly. Wouldn't want Josh to wake up with a sore back, right? Remi figured as much. Though, nice prospect as that was, it seemed to be slipping his mind entirely that Joshua's pillows shared their comforting responsibilities with Remi's ass.
By now, it was late morning, and Remi found himself with nothing to do until it came time to tend to Joshua's other injuries. With a sigh and incoherent grumble, he flopped down in the chair at Raul's desk and slumped over with his hands in his lap. Staring at the broken up metal pieces and machinery scattered about the ghoul mechanic's desk. This was how every day in which Raul was absent came to be for Remi since he and Joshua had come to Raul. As Remi was too paranoid of Joshua waking up and being alone, Remi stayed in Raul's shack every hour of the day, and found himself with with nary a thing to go about doing without Raul's provided instruction. Granted, he could always try his hand at repairing and building things, though Remi never took much interest in that, as he often broke what he aimed to fix. Raul never took much interest in that, either.
Grunting through his nose after at least a minute of staring at the desk he'd practically mapped out by this time, Remi set his chin on the rusted metal furniture with an audible thump. It wasn't comfortable setting his head like that, no, but it required less effort than sitting up. With eyes peering around at all of the items he already knew every inch of, Remi drew his hands up to the desk, setting his chin on one forearm which he tucked under his jaw while the other hand went to tinker with a busted fusebox lying but inches from his face. Twining wires around his fingers, Remi watched as the moving metal glistened and shined in the thin sunlight hitting it, playing with angles and differing degrees of reflectiveness. Using this is as makeshift entertainment.
After minutes passes and Remi remained unmoved in his position, his head leaned lazily against his arm as he continued to play with copper wires, even going as far as testing pricking his fingers at their broken ends, trying to find just how hard he could poke without drawing blood. Bearing in mind Remi did these sorts of things nearly every day, each and every one of his fingertips were dotted with little pokes and pricks, each given to him by idle experimentation with metal wires. It never seemed to come to that Remi he should learn better than to prick his fingers, as he was fully aware of what he was doing, and that it was the simple prospect that he didn't care. If anything, the little welling drops of blood that the wire prods caused kept him vaguely entertained.
As morning faded into noon and Remi still tinkered with wires, he'd eventually fallen into a limp position at the desk, putting no effort into holding his own weight. His head lie on its side against his arm, and his fingers set uncoiled against the desk as he lacked even the mere effort of balling them into loose fists. The fingers messing with wires eventually stopped doing so and simply cupped around the fusebox, his eyes idly watching as the angle of sunlight hitting copper slowly, subtly shifted as the sun moved in the sky above. A familiar sight. Yellow, warm light to metal, striking it in different mannerisms as the sun crawled down its eternally fixed path in the sky.
Oh, and what a comfortable thing familiar sights such as this were. Comfortable enough to put Remi to sleep, his mind losing focus and the will to hold him up and awake just as his body already had.
Mid-afternoon rolled around like tumbleweed on the empty Mojave roads, and the sky began to tint pale pink as sunset grew dauntingly closer. With the day beginning to meet its later hours, Remi still lie at Raul's desk, quietly snoring in a shallow sleep. The light on his wires had left, and the copper was rendered a dark, rustic brown as it was met with the uncanny darkness native to Raul's shack. This lightless atmosphere didn't last much longer as the door to the mechanic's shack swung open and evening light flooded into the room, spilling over Remi's face and wrapping his skin in unwelcome warmth. He furrowed his brows and grumbled under his breath, though didn't quite wake as he turned his head opposite to the light, persisting in his nap a little longer.
Raul stood at the doorway to his home with a wooden box of scrap metal parts in his hands, stepping inside and giving his eyes a roll as he caught sight of Remi outed at his desk. Not the first time he'd caught him like this. He kicked the door closed as he entered his shack and set down his heavy wooden crate with a loud thump, one which sent a vibration through his desk that forced Remi to groan and tuck his head tighter into the arm upon which it sat. Raul huffed and chuckled under his breath at Remi's stubbornness.
He gave The Courier's shoulder a couple taps to get his attention, then cupped his hand around that same shoulder, leaning a little closer so Remi'd hear him better before he spoke, "hey, boss, don't forget about your friend before you catnap on my desk," he commented, walking past him to the other side of his room as Remi immediately perked up, eyes widening with the realization and reminder that he hand't tended to Joshua's other injuries at noon, like he'd said he would. Like he always did. Raul grinned as he peeked behind him to see Remi scrambling up from his desk and over to Joshua. He knew, if anything, that'd be the one thing to wake him up.
Remi quickly picked up his roll of bandages and threw his chair into a backward position by Joshua's bed, straddling it like he had this morning as he went to work. Remi found himself all but baffled and in a place of unfamiliarity now. He never forgot to tend to Joshua's wounds; not once throughout his time here in Raul's home. This was the first time he'd broken routine, and he felt an odd guilt because of it. He felt, somehow, despite Joshua being unconscious, Joshua's appreciation for perfect timing and daily rituals still persisted and applied to each every day.
Remi put his hand through the spool of bandage, hanging it off his wrist, as he reached his hand over to a patch of bandage covering a wound on Graham's collarbone which had masking tape keeping it in place rather than a clothing pin, as this bandage didn't loop all the way around his body and was simply several strips layered over a wide cut. He gave a slow sigh as he set his hand on the white fabric, eyes drifting to Joshua's closed eyes for a moment, "Sorry I'm a little late, Josh, I guess I needed some extra sleep today," he apologized meanwhile pealing off the wound's dressing. Once off, he tossed it into the waste bin and went to unraveling clean bandage from his spool, eyes moving to the hand which did so.
As he ripped a piece of clean gauze off and returned to Joshua, he set one hand against his chest to hold him steady as the other hand went to place the fabric strip. As fingers pressed into Joshua's skin, he felt a faint twitch below his fingertips, like tiny tremors in the earth, though nothing quite enough to get his attention. That happened often. To Remi, all it meant was that he'd poked a sensitive nerve or something of that likeness with his fingernail. After laying down the first strip of bandage and layering it several times, he turned away from Joshua to grab a roll of medical tape from the nightstand.
Returning to Graham, he pulled a short piece of tape from the roll and bit it loose, taping the end to his fingertip before connecting it to white mesh and skin. As he did so, he pressed into Joshua's skin, and was met with another faint twitch. Presumably, this was a sensitive area of Joshua's body, as his collarbone, after all, had been fractured and badly damaged. It was all to be expected that Joshua's body would twitch and contract at harsh pokes and prods. Unconscious or not, his body and each of its nerves still operated as they always would.
As Remi finished dressing the collarbone wound to his own standards of neatness, he gave a faint sigh and looked back to Joshua's closed eyes, a short grin tugging at the corners of his lips as he did so. "You're lucky you have me to be your doctor," he said, "Raul'd probably just fuck you up even worse," he chuckled, passing a grin back to the ghoul of interest, who had shrugged off the comment from his desk despite having heard Remi. "What d'you think?" He asked, eyes turning back to Joshua. He paused a moment, as if either fantasizing some reply for Joshua or forcing himself to acknowledge he still couldn't say anything in return.
"Yeah. I think I'm a pretty good doctor, too," he replied to himself, going about turning to the nightstand for his bottle of vodka meanwhile. Next he would be tending to a harsh whip's cut on Joshua's thigh, which he'd had to sew, and thus he needed to clean similarly to the gash on Joshua's stomach. As he took hold of the glass bottle in one hand, he pulled the cork out with the other and took a quick swig before turning back around to Joshua. Remi thought it was only fair for him to get some share of the vodka, too, as he'd bought it, after all. For twenty caps a bottle, who couldn't argue?
Before Remi would go about scooting his chair further down so that he could tend to Graham's wounded thigh, he grinned as he remarked, "now, this is gonna sting a little, but I know you ain't one given to complaining anyway, so we should be fine," he said, glancing between the bottle in his hand to Joshua's relaxed, unconscious expression. Then, Remi took his eyes away as he was about to stand to move his chair a couple feet down toward the end of the bed, though something, something very particular and out of routine, stopped him. Something he'd only thought he'd imagined and had to double-check in the span of a split second before he went back to his work. He thought he'd caught a glimpse of that iconic slate blue native to Joshua Graham's eyes.
Frozen with the opened vodka bottle in his hand, Remi's wide eyes went to investigate, hopeful though anything but expecting to actually see Joshua awake. This wasn't the first time Remi thought he'd seen such a thing as Graham's familiar gaze; in fact, this happened often. Remi hoped and expected him to wake up every day, and so much so that he would occasionally imagine such hopes being fulfilled. Though, as he became painfully aware, this'd never yet come to be true.
As pale blue eyes looked over the face of the man he'd nearly killed, he was met with-
Gray. A colorless, flat, and dead tone of colorlessness that seemed as if it were a void, absorbing and devouring light rather than reflecting it. A wide, tired iris of gray, encircling a small pupil black as the night. As light streaming through the window over Joshua's bed cast onto the ring of color, a fleck of faint blue glistened within the strings of pale shades. Joshua's eyes; alive, but as dead as Remi'd ever seen them. And, as their slate color began to sink in, as furious as he'd ever seen them, too. Ready to reach out and latch onto Remi's neck, choking him until he felt nothing more than regret for the lies he'd said.