Heads up. Posted two chapters at once so if you skipped right to the end and landed here, you need to go back one chapter.
-Slit-
Oh yeah, she's an ugly sleeper.
Dune liked to do this thing where she slowly slumped back off her side until she was belly up with her mouth open and both arms over her head. Then the loud breathing would start. Well, it was just one arm up at the moment because I still had her other hand. At least it wasn't as annoying as the thing Nux used to do with one knee bent. His leg would sway side to side for hours and bump me constantly if I didn't kick his leg straight again.
It was probably around noon, I'd been awake since dawn going back and forth to the outhouse. I gave up taking the leg back off after the third trip. Literally everything was coming out of me and what hadn't been violently ejected hurt. Everything hurt, but Dune was there, nothing life changing had happened the night before, everything was still the same. Or was it? I almost knocked Phil's teeth out the night before over her. She's not a wife, not perfect, not fit for white, but she's strong-willed and if I had a type it'd be that.
Once it seemed like the frequency of needing to get up and test the endurance of that bridge to get to the dunny waned off to merely feeling like death, I had nothing to do but lay there with the canteen in one hand and her shiny one in the other. I wasn't getting back to sleep, so I watched her sleep. How do you like it, Nutter? She really wouldn't give a shit, I know this. I watched her eyes dart left to right under their lids, sometimes her lips would pull up at the corners in what was almost a grin, or her eyebrows would come together and make that space between them wrinkle. Her trigger finger would twitch, too. She was probably dreaming about putting lead in somebody. When I thought about how she looked the many times I saw her use that rifle to defend her territory or put maggot food in the tubs, it was a vivid combination of memories. First, she'd shush me, dump the long lookers into my hands, drop down on her belly like a beardie or sometimes to one knee, then she'd look down the scope and go somewhere else in her head. No matter how hot the sun scorched the world, all of her healthy skin would prickle as if she were cold. The hair on her left forearm would stand on end. A drop of sweat would roll down her temple, or maybe down her bicep. Finally, she'd take one breath and release it slow before she sent off her deadly greeting to the unwary target. When the body dropped, she'd come back to me, face all lit up and eager to get to looting the corpse. Those were probably the moments when she looked most chrome, sublime is a good word for it. I've heard this word, sublime, a few times but only ever when the War Rig, the Ripper, or the Gigahorse rolled through the garages for maintenance. Repair boys used to fight over who got to work on them. If Dune had been a War Boy instead of some random lunatic, teams would have fought to have a gunner like her just like they fought over Furiosa before she was an Imperator. I'd fight and I'd win.
She had flecks of dried mud on her nose and cheekbone, must have rubbed off of me and she wound up laying in it. Brushing the grime off was as good an excuse as any to touch her face. Watching her sleep when I'm stuck laying there awake wasn't a totally new thing. Before coming here, when I couldn't sleep I'd look at the little imp with blazing envy and then work on the car as loudly as possible. Lately, I'd watch what her face does, sometimes I'd chance following the shape of the tan lines from her goggles or get brave and see if I could run my fingertip over her eyelashes without waking her up. You know, what Wilson said when he described what she used to look like was still there, just beaten by sand, sun, and wind. There are times when weathering makes something better, puts a good patina on it. Her hair defiantly grew in dark although the sun would ultimately just roast the color from it. The many times I'd watched her wash both herself and her clothes in the nude I could tell that she had naturally darker skin than I did even in places that the burning eye never touches. Where the sun kissed her, it fucked me. Her scars, I don't try to imagine her without them, that's just the way we both are now. It's mediocre to fault someone for something you've got wrong with you too.
Thinking about it got me distracted, stopped me from being careful not to wake her. My middle finger explored the borders where thick scar fades to soft and supple flesh. Soft is never supposed to be good, but what Phil said about Joe the night before was sticking to the walls inside my skull, how Joe was trapping and indulging in soft things on the regular while his half-life War Boys lived like animals. Not even the shit paper was soft. I'm allowed to have this, enjoy a shine hand and play with the texture of skin on a this lead slinging nut-job's shoulder. I'm not a disappointment for being soft about this one thing. My hand looked white like sun bleached bones against her arm, I was still comparing the difference when I happened to see that her eyes were open and watching.
"Hey, Ducky."
"Hey, Maniac." I withdrew my fingers before it could become something with another, more complicated meaning.
"She feels like a murder of crows are squawkin' in her head." She groaned, hiding her eyes under the crook of her arm. "An' light hurts."
"I feel like I got run down under a truck last night." I replied.
"Dune believes it," That said a lot coming from her. If Wilson's story wasn't half exaggeration then she had literally been run over right after the slavers set her on fire, or at the very least clipped by a side mirror. She laughed, groaned again and massaged at her brows. "You're filthy."
"About that, whose pants am I wearing?"
"Bones' pants."
"...whose pants is he wearing?"
"'Nother set of his own. Bones is closest to your size. You got covered when you swapped knuckles with that Buzzard down in the mud. All of your pockets were full of glop. So... You get the idea."
I really hoped that I hadn't pulled off my pants and slipped into a borrowed pair in front of everyone. Thankfully, she rolled to bury her head in me and the direction of my thoughts changed. This strange, dangerous scavenger, curled up against me because she felt like hell too. I felt an unearned sense of importance.
"You're getting it in your hair."
"Dune don't care if you're covered in yuck. She'll wash us both up later if she has to."
Not a bad idea. Not that I'd ever tell her, but I always liked it when she scrubbed me. For a long time, I couldn't reach everything when I washed and Dune had to help me while I healed. I now regret screaming at her or telling her how terrible she was when she would take the time to look after me. Lately I missed it. I was just afraid of how it made me feel when she was so gentle with my broken body. Maybe if I knew then what I do now, I'd have been thankful. She had the right idea, hiding herself from the light. I pulled at the closest thing to cover our heads. It was that jacket which belonged to her father. It was dark, but warm.
"Mmm. This old coat still smells like choof and guzz. Or, maybe we smell like choof and guzz and the coat is trapping our stink."
"Yeah, I think it's us." I said.
It was a pretty strong funk, not a bad smell but potent enough to be nauseating. I tried to toss the coat away but Dune caught it and stuffed it behind her. I was then certain that she meant to keep it. Yet another sentiment I didn't quite get, but I wasn't going to mention it, instead I pulled the woman a bit closer and tried curling an arm over our heads to keep the light off our eyes. It seemed to work, Dune shivered and pressed her cold fingers into the cut-ups which spanned from hip to ribs. It was a thinly veiled search for body heat wrapped in half-assed admiration of my scars with her clumsy, damaged hand, which I knew felt very little. I moved my arm, winced at the glaring light coming in through the door and window, then put her hands closer between our chests. Next, I grabbed the jacket again and pulled it around our shoulders in place of a blanket. The fumes of that rager clinging to us couldn't get trapped around our heads this way and my maniac might just stop trembling. Things had changed, now more than ever I felt like I had a claim on her too, or rather that I was willing for the first time to acknowledge that I did.
Her shine hand flexed and her fingers wiggled to escape mine so that she could flatten her palm over my blood pump. Could be the hangover and an incredibly fleshy urge from that to seek whatever could possibly bring comfort to a body that had simply had enough of its owner's bullshit, but having Dune there and sharing this kind of contact only made me want more of it. She didn't complain when I pulled her in tighter and hid from the light in her hair, all she did was prop up a leg around my hip so we weren't knocking kneecaps. I think if didn't feel like a stale fart at the time, my meat suit would have liked all of this tangling of limbs a little too much. We slept like that for a bit, but probably not for long. Featherknife was at the door the next time I forced my eyes to open. Ah, they wanted us to come eat with them. Dune seemed to verbalize my exact thought.
"Ugh, Dune don't even wanna think about grub." And then she rolled over and pulled the jacket back over her head.
Featherknife was still there, mumbling about broken dishes and something that sounded like sarcasm about how they got smashed. Dune only moaned guiltily at that. I knew what happened to the dishes and so did Feathers from the looks of it. If anyone truly couldn't remember how that happened, then they must have been totally blasted last night. Dune was curling herself up and refusing to move as Featherknife left. Couldn't blame her, but the pushy fire breathing dragon woman would surely come over here herself if we didn't get up and make our way to the crow house. Ugh, I felt like I was made of lead. I'd done enough running back and forth to the can for one problem and just beyond the doorway of her parent's steel scrap box reeked of what was shooting out my face face hole. I didn't want to get up again just when it felt like I was done spewing the poison I'd guzzled down the night before. Dune might start chundering soon, or not, hard to say. I rolled off my back and rose slowly to sit. Oh, my leg ached, the good one. I pulled up the pant leg to see why and found a bruise as wide as my palm on the side of my knee. Must have banged the shit out of it on the metal leg. There were all sorts of smaller discolorations and scuffs everywhere else, right elbow was throbbing, but nothing pounded harder than my skull. Moving even a little seemed to make all of the flesh scream.
"What the fuck did I DO last night?"
"Fought a buzzard. Threw giant darts. Helped me make an ass of us dancing. Balanced a chair on your face, which then fell on your face. Not necessarily in that order. You were ripped."
"Uh..." I didn't remember much of that. How much of the sauce had Dune chugged? She seemed to recall a lot more than I did. Maybe she was making shit up, definitely felt like I fought something, though.
"Can we jus' blow off breakfast?" I was whining. She only grunted at me and pulled on my arm to have me laze around again. So we lay there, wanting to be left alone to sleep off the regrets, but it couldn't last. Phil was at the door next, speaking far too damn loud, thank V8 all the crap in here prevented an echo.
"I'm leaving to pick up the kiddies. If you wanna eat while it's quiet, do it now. Bones is cooking down his hangover cure. You'll want that."
I only lifted my head to look at him for one squeeze of the bloodpump before dropping it back to the mattress the nutter and I shared. I grunted at him, a dismissive sound, and he seemed to get the hint.
"Suit yourself." He said, then left us.
I was perfectly content to remain where I was and snore the whole day away with the lunatic under my arm, but she was stirring and pushing herself up on her elbows.
"Dune's going. That swill he makes works." She announced and I felt obligated to go.
I should probably feel like some freakish accessory being forced to tag along with Dune everywhere she went, months back I totally felt like that, now I just wanted to be near her all the time in case something completely random happened and I should be there for it. I also hated the idea of being left behind. I still protested, trying to convince her that we could simply hibernate in this shipping container until we became almost human again. I didn't want to get up.
"Ugh. It's easier to just not move, though."
She snorted. "Well, Ducky, if you're that committed to your suffering then this scav is happy to partake of the blessed elixir without you."
"Fine! Nngh... Fuck." I snapped at her, but immediately regretted the noise. I tried again, far softer for the sake of my own skull. "Fine."
So, we got up, trudged across that rickety bridge and entered the crow hovel. It was a right mess. Featherknife was laying across the fold out with his head hanging off the edge over a bucket. Someone had the decency to tie back all of that dark hair he had into a tangled nest on the back of his head. The harpy, I almost sympathized with her. She was balled up under an sheet next to Feathers and moaning pathetically in between full body tremors. There was trash everywhere, a broken chair. A box full of shattered dishes, a few other inebriated bodies lazing in various corners. I saw boots sticking out from under the futon, someone had passed out there and stayed that way. Bones was more with it, seated on a low wooden stool by a cast iron pot sitting in the smoldering embers of a dying fire. He still belched a greeting to us and groaned as he waved us in.
"Cripes! Did anyone die last night?" Dune exclaimed, a chorus of unified grunts and whimpers came in reply.
"No, but some wish they did." Bones replied.
My pants, vest and long sleeve were hung on a drying rack next to the fire pit. They looked clean.
"Um. Nobody had to do that. I woulda done it," I had to amend that statement as I tested the canvas of my slacks between my fingers to see how dry it was. "later."
Ardith pulled her cocoon from her head and stained to see through what could only be a roaring headache. "Phil washed um. Felt bad for getting you so messed up. We heard ya running to the crapper all morning."
Oh good, everyone heard that. I might have replied with that level of sarcasm, but I was pretty eager to put my own pants back on and be done with the topic. One problem, my threads were clean but I wasn't. Every time I moved, bits of filth fell off me in dark crumbs.
"Wash bucket?" I asked as took a look at what he was putting together in that pot. It looked... disgusting. Smelled better than it looked but, blech. It was all grease and chunks of whatever was left over from the last few meals shared around the fire pit, definitely bird bones in there too.
Ardith answered my question. "Around back, bucket is under the spigot. ONLY fill it this much. Dump it when you're done. No one is gonna wanna bathe after you, Mudcrab."
She held up a hand to show exactly how little water with her thumb and forefinger. Three inches. That's fine. I looked back to Dune. She was sitting next to bones, too close for my liking, and being served some of this supposed "cure" in one of Ardith's surviving mugs. Bones was pouring it through a sieve to catch all the dreck flowing out with the amber colored fluid. She tucked right into the liquid breakfast while the ginger jerkhole waved me over. "Don't bother washing 'til you've had some. You'll have to share a mug."
"Also, what flaming dick-nozel broke my good china?" Ard demanded answers.
Dune, care free as usual, told her. "You did. You told me and Skinky Poo to use um as targets."
That got a tin can thrown at her, she scratched at the back of her head and chucked it back. While those two were bickering back and forth, I had the chance to take the mug from her hands and take a cautious taste. While distracted, she couldn't bitch at me for sticking my tongue into the cup to test it. It was better than it looked and it instantly woke up my guts so they could demand more than a taste.
"What is it?"
"Bone broth and a hair of the dog that bit you." He swiped his fingers over the bones stitched to his jacket. "And the boiling cleans up the bones for me."
So that's why he's always dressed like a crypt keeper for feathered pests.
Dune had to be jabbed a few times with an elbow before she would turn around and take the mug back. I was done with it. Everyone seemed to sigh with relief that those two were finished growling at each other. My guts weren't initially pleased to be bombarded with hot stuff sloshing around in there, but after a while it wasn't so bad. My headache wasn't so horrible either. Dune and I wound up seated, I laid there like a bloated body in the sun and dozed off again with the distant sensation of the maniac's fingers picking at the muck stuck on me. She was pulling out hairs with her plucking and preening, I swatted at her hand but it didn't do much. She kept slurping away at that mug and scratching off the layer of earth crusted to my skin.
That semi-comfortable snooze with my head on her lap ended abruptly with the squealing and hooting of the pups arriving with Phil. It wasn't just Ardith's brats, it was a whole pack of them swarming in through the front door to find their respective hungover parents and tell them what happened the night before. In between the pulsating in my good ear every time one shouted, I heard that they we're pretty much up all night being told stories and dancing under the full moon or something to that effect.
Not that I ever had the urge to reproduce, so this was never a thought I had before, but I was extraordinarily grateful at that exact moment that I was not in any way responsible for any miniature humans that might kinda look like me. The mighty V8 has, shall we say, an interesting sense of humor. I was immediately punished for that thought when Ardith's daughter ran through the door, tripped over her own foot, flopped down face first and bounced her tiny little nugget off my metal leg. Instant screams, big fat tears, and I swear to the fabled heroes that my blood curdled at the sound of the absolute anguish. I had no bloody clue what to do.
Now, I've been around pups. They run amuck all through the war tower in groups, but they grow up knowing that everyone and everything they encounter has sharp edges and tools hidden in pockets which aren't fun at all to run full force into. So, War Pups know to run with grace and walk with caution by the time they leave Nanny's dens to be with the general populace. I've seen war pups hurt too and anyone will tell you that no matter how chrome you are, you're gonna pick up a screaming pup, and I did. I sat up and gathered the kid under the arms, she just went limp and wailed at an even higher decibel with a hand clapped over her forehead, and that's when the horror took hold. No, I didn't see blood, but whatever I thought I was going to do for her clearly wasn't going to work. Couldn't tell her to nut up or shut up like any small boy coated in white at the Citadel.
"You don't look hurt?" I said, weakly.
Dune saved me for the hundredth time, swooping in to take the tiny shrieking human from me and taking it where it clearly needed to go.
"Aw, love let's get you to mum and see what happened." She said, and the cries seemed to quiet a bit.
Pups have a great talent in making you feel at fault for their accidents merely by being in their path. Ardith was up and ready to take her spawn as soon as Dune stood with her. The little hand was peeled away and revealed only a small red welt. I still felt like a bag of shit for laying in the middle of the floor like a tripping hazard.
"I'm sorry?" I tried, Ardith waved me off.
"She's a clutz like her father. You're fine." Now both she and Featherknife were fussing over the pup.
Dune and I weren't even necessary anymore, and the loon was getting fidgety and moving weird too. She came back and pulled on my arm.
"Let us wash." She said as she gathered my dried clothes over her arm, and I couldn't agree more.
It had suddenly gotten very loud in here and neither of us wanted any part of it. She didn't have to push me at all to get me up. My knuckle dusters, knife, and tools which lived pockets were sitting next to the now empty drying rack in a box. I guessed that Phil had washed the filth from those items too. I took that half soggy square of cardboard holding my crap before we left, but happened to notice something that didn't belong. It was the keys found on the day Dune told me, or screamed at me about how she got where she ended up. I could have tossed the keys into the fire pit where rubbish belongs or left it for Ardith's children to mess around with, but I dropped it back into the box and took it with me. There was just something about them. I was picking up Dune's bad habits and keeping worthless junk.
I followed Dune out without a qualm over leaving the girl pup to whimper in the company of her parents, but I couldn't really help but look back and see for sure that the she wasn't seriously damaged by falling into the cursed metal leg. She was fine, but it was interesting seeing Featherknife kissing her head and running fingers over the red spot on her bruised scalp. No one ever did that for me when I was a pup. I pushed the thought out of my head. Dune and I soon had a bucket under the spigot on the cola collection drum and we got our three inches of clean aqua to wash with. The loon emptied her pockets and dumped all of her rags in there to soak.
"It's cold today... What if we went back to mumsy's kip and started a fire. Plenty of rubbish there to burn."
Her suggestion was taken. It got us out of the way of both excited pups and Phil, who didn't seem at all hungover. He'd wagged his brows at me as we left to take our wash water to her parent's kip. I didn't even want to guess at what he was insinuating with that. All I wanted was to laze around until I felt functional again, after that, we might leave for Dune's kip.
A fire was built, it was around back behind the shipping container and it was plenty warm enough to undress next to. We burned rubbish, Dune handed over my clothes. The last time we washed within arms reach, things got complicated. This time it couldn't get that way because we were too tired for that madness. Usually I'd be sure to face away from her, careful to keep the new scars a secret for fear that she'd disapprove. This time it just didn't matter. She's seen everything now, what was the point in hiding? We had no questions left for each other. She simply pulled off her clothes and knelt by her trash fire to wash her hair, and things were simple again. For once there was nowhere else I'd rather be.
The mad scavenger kept her word, she tried scrubbing at me with a torn square of soggy cloth and customarily I hissed and spat at her, yet leaned into every pass of the wet scrap of fabric. She cleansed the dirt and grit from the scarring on my left side, then insisted that we both slather up with Wilson's burn goo. We always had it, helped with the tight dryness which plagues the scars long after healing. When it was all finished, we finally had the peace to sleep off the fatigue left over from the night before. She was yawning and rubbing at her eyes long before we decided where we would drop for the afternoon. We chose the car, because it was familiar and we had the mats and something to cover up with in the back. Although we were close to the Crow Fisher dwelling it wasn't too noisy from where we were outside. Dune was dead to the world within minutes and I was only awake long enough to watch a few of their guests leave through the back window. I wound up rolling down the windows for ventilation but throwing the tarp over the back to block out light. We slept easy after that, and I dreamed.
It was bound to happen, I was always going to end up back here. Nux just wouldn't shut his gob. He'd talk himself to death if it were possible. Strange, they were both here. Nux and Dune were here with me on top of the Skull Tower, pruning the weeds and planting the season's crop. Nux would poke his finger into the dirt and Dune would drop a seed in it.
"What are these gonna grow again?" Nux stopped to look over his shoulder and ask.
"Dune dunno. They're from home, should be good, but I won't know till they come up."
"Might have to move um once they're sprung up, if they're not the kind that like direct sun." I said, Nux just nodded and grinned till his face looked like it was going to crack.
"Glory, I wonder what'll come up?! Could be anythin'."
Dune smiled at his enthusiasm and continued dropping seeds. The scav wasn't a scav. She wore a layer of white clay like us and her eyes sockets were darkened with soot and ash. She'd prod at Nux with her trowel to keep at it instead of talking so we could get this done. What was I doing? I looked down at my hands and found no tools, no dirt in the creases of my palms, just car keys. The bauble hanging on the key ring said: "I love my idiots"
I woke before the woman and thought about that dream and all the things about it which made no sense yet should have been anticipated. All this thought and talk about the Citadel over the last two weeks, I should have known I'd start having dreams about being there. Dreaming that Nux was still there was just blind hope, and hope is dangerous. Dune all painted up in the War Boy uniform was now a reoccurring thing and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that imagery. She was rolling and muttering in her sleep, so I pulled off the cord around her wrist and gave her shoulder a shove.
"Hey, wake up, you're throwing a dream fit."
She groaned, rolled over, stretched and looked at me with the bloodshot eyes of someone who wasn't done slacking off.
"Had the weirdest dream, Slit... Dreamt my grandma told me that I had the best legs in the family but I squander it by not shaving um."
"Who the hell shaves their legs." That whole concept struck me as odd. I get shaving your head and excess hair above the belt, but nobody ever looks at you from the kneecaps down so who cares?
"Dunno... Dune's never even met her granny, where does she get off-" She was raising her voice now and getting a little too excited about it.
"It was just a dream. Don't go off yelling at me over it or I'll give you a reason to. I could probably top that dream of yours for weirdness, anyway."
"Well then, are you gonna tell Dune all about it or are ya just gonna to sit there lookin' like you need a leak?"
"Actually, I do."
I half wanted to tell her about it, half wanted to forget it and hope that she would too because it was another one of those dreams that left me awake and disappointed. She agreed and we both got ourselves over the seat and out to find some relief. We weren't sure what time it was but we'd clearly slept all of the daylight away and it had grown dark out. I could still hear voices inside so I figured that it wasn't so late that everyone would have gone to their bunks. Dune went inside, I'm assuming to a place Ard called her 'powder room' which seemed to be a women only place. The name confused me, so I once made the mistake of asking and she made the mistake of answering honestly. She's said 'Have you ever tried to pot train a boy? Or lived with men?' She only caught herself in a stupid question on the last word and you could see it on her face. Phil had started laughing, no attempt to stifle it until the nag finally snapped and gave Phil's ear a pinch before making her final statement on the subject. 'I refuse to walk in piss every morning when all of you can take your willies and wee on or in almost anything else in the world besides my pot.' was what she said to me. I honestly agree, no one liked the stench of the shitters back home, or the pervasive slick of urine on the floor around them. No one ever cared enough to do anything about the filth either, I certainly had better things to do. Well, Ardith's rule was one I could obey, around the side of the garage and out of sight was where I typically dropped my stream and that's where I went.
I was tired. Something about expelling everything your guts could possibly have held sucks the half-life right out of you. I knew enough to understand that I had to drink a ton of cola after that or risk drying out. Well, I drank plenty after the worst was over, and what goes in must come back out. I knew how to spell my name and... err. I did. There was just a sliver of light left on a horizon I couldn't see, it lit up the mist with an eerie deep red. I hadn't seen that around here before. Usually in this place everything lost color and just got darker and darker until you're enveloped in a thick blanket of black. The scattered light even made my own skin look red today. If I had been wearing war paint, I might even have looked pink like sun burnt flesh. I was up in my head thinking all this wistful shit while I had my dong out, once I was done I tried putting my thoughts elsewhere, like the fact that Dune would be really hard up to get something going on in the maggot farm as soon as we got home, which meant going shooting. It was her favorite thing. I was looking forward to that, watching her get serious and put a body in the crosshairs. When I turned to walk back to the car the image of Dune taking aim was heavy in my mind, what I damn near ran into was a far cry from that chrome thought. Phil's grinning face greeted me, much too close.
"Jesus-Fucking-Chrysler!"
"Don't throw a wobbly! Nothing I ain't seen you do already. So, about last night..."
He paused. I paused. I realized I was still unzipped so I fixed that. Phil was smirking with his brows high on his head and creating wrinkles as he motioned with his hands as if there was some grand, ultimate answer I was supposed to give him. Maybe I looked as dumb as I felt. He rolled his eyes and made this pistoning motion with his fist.
"You and Dune... what happened with that? You guys vanished and we all thought-"
"Thought what exactly?!" I suddenly knew precisely what he was getting at.
He shrugged, made the motion with his hands again. I could lie, but that might make this conversation worse off, then Dune might spin a story that didn't corroborate my own, then it would be a mess.
"We talked. I still don't understand why this is so important to you."
I didn't expect Phil to stop and think about that, yet he did. He didn't look at me, but he nodded.
"No, actually, that's good. I'm glad. She's being gentle with you."
"Gentle!? I don't need that!"
"When you're a little older you'll get what I mean, Pup."
"I'm not a pup, Phil."
I didn't then understand what he meant, maybe I still don't understand, but I do know that she was indeed being cautious because she wasn't sure what I knew and what I didn't. Also probably because she very very wrongly thought she'd be taking advantage of me or something. All I could do in that moment was take offense to what Phil had said to me. I didn't think I needed a gentle hand. I thought I needed the fury of the world and to have a fist full of thunder to feel whole, even then as I doubted the world which made me. I was wrong, I'd never felt whole, but Phil wasn't the type to point that out to me. He only smiled at me and pretended he hadn't been watching me piss.
"Slit, me an' Ard have been talkin' an' that's really why I'm here. I want you to stay. I like having you around. I'm from the generation before you, but you still grew up the same way I did. I don't need your help, but I want it. I want you here while we figure out all the details, you see? We want you and Dune here, you are us. A part of the clan. We want you guys. You can stay for the next month. If you want. We'll feed and keep you. Also, it'll make my wife happy..."
Distantly, I could remember how it was Crank that brought cola, grub, and bandages to us when it was just me and Nux hiding in his crews spot, surviving the shit show of what had happened to us. I wonder now if he felt guilty for everything, for not being able to save us from where we ended up, separated and hateful. I think it was the part of me that never left the warrens that asked this, a question that needed to be asked because I still couldn't accept his new name when the old one had meant something which almost resembled trusted at one point.
"If I do, can I... Can I just call you Crank?"
"Slit, You c'n call me anythin' you fuckin' want."
We kept talking. We sat in the sheltered part of his garage and I told him about the last few months before Nux went traitor and I got wrecked. Though nothing I had to say about the final days before the road war were at all pleasant, his face never changed or denoted blame, he only nodded. Dune must have gotten into talks with Crank's wife too, I didn't see her again till later when we were all made to sit and choke down real food. Dune needed no convincing when the idea of staying yet longer came up.
-Dune-
Ardith was looking better when I stepped inside to use her much friendlier variation of the can, alert and active. Ards youngest was attached to her hip, blissfully suckling his fingers and falling into a late snooze. She watched me from the front door to the closet which served as her personal restroom. I was pretty jealous of the way she had it done up in here. A nice wooden chair with the original seat cut out and a proper toilet seat nailed on in its place. Under it all was a real chamber pot with a lid to remove first.
When I was done I emerged into a fast emptying room where Skinktail sat in Ard's place while she was busy shooing out both the sprouts and Jacky. I had a suspicion about what was coming and tried to follow the kids out the door with great haste. I was stopped, much to my complete dismay, turned around with Arddie's arm hooked around my elbow and made to sit on the edge of the foldout between her and Skink.
"So, did he noodle your tuna?"
I choked on my own spittle at Skink's question. Ardith, in her sober wisdom, stopped Skink from further questioning with a lifted hand and simply shifted her wee lad from her side into her lap for his nap, then leaned over him a bit to pull out a bin from under a table. She squeezed a leather pouch from the bin in her hand and emptied some of the dry green bits into a smaller square of fabric, tying it off and grabbing my left hand to place the bundle into my palm.
"Don't ask how I got it, 'cause it's none of your business. It's catnip. Boil it down strong and drink it daily for a while if you think something might germinate. Should stop all but the most stubborn of seed."
I could feel my expression phasing through concern, confusion, and embarrassment. Ardith rolled her eyes.
"Don't look at me like that. I know you and the war boy played nekid twister last night and I have three kids, so my hobbies include hanging laundry and not ever getting pregnant again. You don't want those hobbies, as a matter of fact we should throw some nip in a pot right now for both of you horny toads."
"Do you still have those old board games?" Skink asked, completely ignoring the rest of the conversation.
"No one got 'nekid' last night, Arddie." I clarified as I tried to give back the pouch. Ard looked skeptical as she pushed it back into my hands. I could feel my temper rising. "Just because you two keep talking about my sex life doesn't mean I have to have one!"
"Well, you almost had one and that could happen again. Keep it anyway, just in case. I won't bring it up again."
"I'll definitely bring it up again." Skink had to endure two sets of eyes burning holes in her face.
I guess I was keeping the damn thing. Surprisingly things didn't linchpin on this awkward conversation like they had the night before. Somehow, we got to talking about Ard's experience with child bearing, which would probably be the most effective deterrent away from irresponsible bedroom practices that I have ever heard.
"...I can't even share a wash rag without getting knocked up." She said, ending a string of confessions about just what kind of 'joy' children bring, both physical and mental.
I was more curious about how she ended up with three husbands, and I asked. "How did you get this posse of yours? Hm. Not to be overly traditional but you're the last person I think of when it comes to getting friendly with men."
"Oh, I s'pose it was just a matter of finding out our mothers probably had it wrong. Actually your mom was on point. Wasn't exactly easy at first, some of the women that stayed convinced themselves that we'd all be reduced to bed slaves or dish washers if we tried banding together with the men who stuck around too... We got thirsty, then desperate, then sick because there was shit in the water. Actually, I was blowing chunks all over the place when I met Phil and half delirious. He was helping the elder Fishermen take care of the dying. And uh, I was dying when we met. I guess he felt bad that I was gonna 'burn out a quarter through' as he'd say, so he tried harder to keep that from happening. I was young and we were just friends for a long time."
"Oh, mum would probably smile on that, lovey. And now, I should put together my thanks speech for Phil... but I meant how'd you get three of um?" "
She smiled and answered the best she could. "He was taking care of them too, 'cause they saved him an' Jacky once. They all love each other. They're thicker than thieves and tighter knit than a hacky sack. How could I love one without loving the other two?"
It was sweet. I couldn't help my smile and the warmth crawling through my veins, but it could be the hot tea we were soon passing around too. Only one mug had survived our riotous rampage under the harvest moon. She told me more about how she got closer to Phil first a few years after the big merge between the remaining Many Mothers and the Sky Fishermen. He was funny and she laughed at his jokes, then the other two were always with him, and she cared for them too, then they all sort of fell into a routine and a way of life that stuck. Skink seemed to think this Eyeball man might stick around for a while, but even she said that she didn't count on it being permanent. Skink was fast and she preferred a man who would keep up with her. It would take a special kinda guy to keep the pace. From what I learned, Skinky was a peddler, taking wares she or her associates grew or gathered and moving the product to other locations. When I asked what she moved and where, she gave a wink and said that she never jeopardizes the anonymity of her clients. Ard continued her story. Oh everyone in the room knew the ins and outs of how sprouts come into the world so the stories made perfect sense to us, but as soon as Slit entered the room there were new questions. Phil was too busy digging around in a crate of junk to answer any of these questions himself. Part of the problem was that Slit seemed to begin listening just as Arddie was regaling us with the tale of her youngest's birth.
"Well, Red was a hard one. We were all thinking he was gonna come out sideways and then-"
"Come sideways out of where?" Slit interrupted, all he could really be blamed for was his curiosity.
"Out of my baby cannon. That's where." She answered tersely, the very child she spoke of in her arms and curled in her lap, resting sweetly before he'd wake up to terrorize everyone later in the evening.
"Define baby cannon." He demanded. To spare him the trauma, I tried explaining more gently than my old dear friend would.
"Ducky, It's not a cannon. It's the lady bits. Eh... The place yir supposed to stick it for fun, but sometimes fun turns into a sprout."
"They come out the same way they go in?!" He blurted, an expression of terror on his face. All I could do for him was offer a sympathetic cringe and nod as I pulled him down to the floor by the sleeve.
"Where did you think they came from, War Boy? Cabbages?" Skink laughed out and Ard smirked.
He shrugged and lifted his hands, palms turned up, but halfheartedly defended himself with a low grumble of uncertain words. "I know WHERE they come from just didn't think- ngh, whatever."
He probably didn't know what he thought because why would he even have to think about that?Certainly he wouldn't know how little ones arrive. He might know how they are made but why would a War Boy know anything about birth? The story continued on, in spite of how Slit's exclamation stirred the sleeping seedling.
"Anyway, he was up in me sideways and we weren't sure he was gonna turn on his own, decided to go ask Heta what to do. She got him turned around. Day comes, finally, I pop. By then he got himself turned wrong, again..."
Slit appeared morbid but engrossed in the retelling of a tale I had heard many times as a child myself from many different mothers about different children I was raised up with in our green hills. Birth stories were common and favorites of many, but my personal favorite was a story about long before birth. That's a yarn for another time. I couldn't read Slit. He just sat cross legged on the floor next to me, leaning forward and listening. Sometimes his jaw would clench, or his brows would twitch but that was about it. Arddie was telling us how this one in her arms popped out two weeks late, feet first and gripping his own cord in his hands. There was a great deal of flourish, pride and theatrics to these discussions and that's customary. Slit looked a bit green by the end, and not the pretty kind of green. Poor Duck.
"We practically had to lure that kid out with a fried lizard sandwich." Featherknife added as he stepped inside, Bones, Jackie, and the kids following along as they gathered around the fire pit.
Ardith might have gone a bit to heavy on the details to twist a reaction out of Slit. He appeared to awaken from a state of quiet, perhaps trying to absorb the imagery Ardith had instilled. He stood and left the fire to help Phil with what ever he was turning the room upside down for. Sump and Trellis darted around him to reach the fire, Trellis tiptoeing a little more carefully around Slit's left side to avoid his replacement leg, and each child dumped what they held into the pit. They'd brought dried brush and twigs and garbage, Bones had what looked to be a scavenged mail box post. Phil was still digging in his scrap piles with Slit's help, muttering under his breath and pulling his mask over his mouth as the others started the fire. The younger men and Jacky all had felled birds hanging from their belts. Time to help pluck! There's something morbidly satisfying in pulling out feathers and cleaning a carcass. Ard had a box for collecting the feathers and mentioned that she was considering the idea of working on a cloak which incorporated them for Furiosa, but not in reverence. A gift to grease up a ruler is never unwise. Ever shrewd, Arddie surely realized that no one here truly knew the situation at the Citadel, or the deeper reasons for Furiosa's betrayal. She might have simply wanted to have her laugh at Joe, although it seemed like she had meant to bring his ex wives to what this place once was, if she did indeed pass through looking for green as the elders speculated. All we could hope for was generosity on the basis that we came from the same place, and that to a pair of our own, the Citadel was home. Truly, we'd be asking a great deal.
My initiate sister's youngest boy was waking and getting fairly irritable about being jostled lightly while his mother tore feathers from birds. He hadn't wanted to wake. He was passed to Bones, who he resembled. The boy then slapped his captor about the face and neck before uttering quite the ferocious wail. Some toddling children certainly do not appreciate being woken up, and this trouble was a near nightly event as he rose from his afternoon nap. Tonight's routine was running later than usual, what with everyone using today to recover from the events of the night before, and this kid just wasn't having any of this nonsense. He was passed to Phil next, who seemed to have the best luck getting the little one to calm down by carrying the child on a hip while he continued his mysterious search of the home for something. There was only peace for a minute before another shriek broke loose and the seedling went off like a broken horn with a red face.
"Ard, he wants you, honey." Phil said as he took a moment to bring the child back to his mother.
"I wanted to wait and see if he'd do without till tomorrow morning." Her words came in a defeated breath as she took him back, pulled down the loose collar of her blouse and put him right on for a drink while we continued on washing and plucking.
This was no novelty to me, little Red liked his morning and evening time with his mum and I had seen it all before throughout my youth. As it so happened, this was the first time Slit had been in the room when Ard fed her sprout in the most motherly fashion. I looked across the room to see what he thought. The former War Boy seemed interested in what was going on and I caught him stealing a glance or two in Arddie's general direction. Phil put a stop to that quick, just about knocked the eyeballs out of his head with a palm swiping across the back of his skull.
"Those ain't fir you, Pup. Get those eyeballs lookin' under furniture. I'm looking for a red bag. RED. How the hell did I lose a bright red bag in here? Ah, fuck it. Help me check outside."
Timing was off today, and I supposed all the fuss could be that Ard may have held off this morning to let the booze work its way out of her body. No one likes milk with that kind of kick. Being made to wait might have been what had the little thing all steamed. Ard had also been trying to start weening him off, she told Skink and I as we worked, but he was very willful about what he wanted and when he wanted it. All the birds were plucked and being handed off to Featherknife and Bones for gutting and cooking. No one else came to join us, probably all off nursing their hangovers. Phil reentered the room laughing and lifted that red duffel bag he'd been looking for over his head.
"Knew I hid it somewhere good!"
"It was behind the outhouse under a stick." Slit deadpanned, apparently taking no joy from the joke inherent in Phil's lie. The older man simply seemed pleased to have found what he was looking for.
"Alright, Sunshine, it's time to split the booty... Heh... Don't think too hard about that."
"Did... I win last night?" Slit inquired as the bag was sat on the floor and unzipped.
"Pfft! Nope, you were way too shit-canned by the time we were four matches in. Couldn't hit sand if you fell off a boarding wagon, but, Eyeball kept trying to out drink you and you whipped his skinny ass so either way I got what I wanted and won my bet. Ahh, got ya this little beaut!"
He lifted from the sack a prosthesis, an old world one! Crazy! The thing had an almost real looking foot on it, scuffed up a bit but real ultra green!
"... Is that a-"
"Yup!"
"...Phil, I can't use that. I'm gone from the knee down, this thing is just a foot and ankle."
"You don't get it mate, we could take off this foot part and put on in your leg and then you could wear an entire pair of boots again! Eh? Oh, c'mon! It'd be chrome."
Slit looked over at me then, waving me over to look at something I thought, but nah. He had something to ask of me.
"Hey, I think we should stay a while."
Honestly, not much of me missed the caverns anymore.
-Slit-
In the thirty odd days we stayed, I helped Crank mod few more chariots fit to traverse that mountain pass. Dune helped Ardith scavenge supplies and food. Most nights we were too tired to talk or do much of anything, but when darkness surrounded us we always piled up in the back of the Impala and slept tangled even though there was enough room in the back to spread out just a bit.
Sticking around had helped us. Dune and I didn't have to worry about the maggot farm while we were here. All we had to do was help Crank and Ardith with their chores and we would be fed and watered at the end of every day. For a month we didn't worry, but that thirty-one days passed quickly. I know Dune hadn't slept much around the end of our stay, she'd tried to milk every day for everything it was worth to avoid leaving this place without a lifetime worth of memories with Ardith and Skink. The three were always together. I almost didn't want to leave either, but we needed time to gather the supplies we had promised the caravan. When it was finally time to pack up the shit we brought, Crank had a look on his face like I had pulled a part of him off his corpus.
It was like the first day, Dune and Ard embraced like it was the first and last time. I thought that they might meld together like molten metal. Skinktail too, even though they seemed as apt to harass each other as I had once been with Morsov. They touched and their brows came together so they could breathe each others breath. No one here wanted to separate. Crank and I had taught Bones and Featherknife as much as they could absorb, and I felt as if it was a crew being split up between Imperators. There was nothing else I could compare it to on the day Dune and I left that place. When she climbed into the car, I pulled her across the seat by the collar of her vest and into my side where I held her tight against the scars she had helped to heal. She sniffed, I know she'd been wasting cola from the eyes, but she said nothing of it and only instructed me on directions so we could go home. But there was one stop before we could leave. She wanted me to take her to her old home one last time. It was there that she pulled her knife from its sheath, the same one she had once considered slitting my throat with at the very beginning, and carved my name into the tree with the names of her family on it.
"There. See? You're part of the clan now. One of us."
I know I've said this a lot, but I didn't know what to feel. It was like belonging to something again, like being a War Boy but not. Lastly, she loomed over the graves and took a cord of her carefully collected trinkets from around her neck to hang on a knot in the trunk of the tree before returning to the car. I drove, she didn't need to direct this time because I remembered the way, but listening to her talk was fine. She seemed to be lost in her skull for a little while, but once we escaped the mist of her homeland, she escaped the fog in her head too. Dune stood on the seat and poked her head out through the roof hatch to watch the sun crawl toward the west horizon. The windscreen had been doing its job so the moment that hatch was open, I felt it the cool air sweep through. Dune was wearing that denim jacket to keep warm. I was wearing an extra layer too, thanks mostly to the junk heap of her old home.
"Dune missed these skies, Ducky. She almost forgot what color there was to be seen in the rest of the world." She sighed.
Dune had looked as chuffed as a driver forced to walk home a pedestrian up until this point. It was a flaming sky, it made everything look red as apposed to the usual tones of blue and purple which painted the parched earth as the sun set on summer days. Now was a time when winter was taking hold, every night would be cold and unbearable. We had spent so long in Dune's Green Place that we forgot time and underestimated the wrath of the winter dessert. The sky did look fierce, though, even I was impressed with it. Going over the sand dunes meant that we were losing sight of it and finding that the intensity was greater every time it came back into view with each climb up the shifting mounds. I let Shirley slow to a stop once we reached the apex of the next hill, I knew Dune wanted to watch the light die on the day and I sort of did too.
"Hey, we should eat now and walk around so we don't get food lazy tonight. It's gonna get too cold to sleep without a fire, I think."
"Yeah, alright." She still seemed fairly depressed about leaving, or maybe tired now that the whole thing was over. Dune was noticeably subdued. "You already hurtin'?"
"Yep." Was all I needed to answer with. Usually when the temp was dropping like a rock, everywhere I've sprained, snapped, or broken the worst through my half-life got tense. That was definitely something I only noticed out in scav country with Dune. It could either be the fact that I'm almost old for a War Boy and I'm starting to fall apart or that the mad scavenger and I were always at the mercy of the elements. Dune is only two or three years younger than me and she thought it was nuts that I could tell how cold it was gonna get by how much my flesh complained. Good nuts, not nutso nuts. The reason she didn't get stiff and crunchy like this was probably her full-life, or she did but wasn't as aware of what her meat and bones were doing as I was of my own.
Night in the winter wastes is a frosted hellscape and it's not wise to let your guard down. Winter means danger everywhere, even if there's no one for miles around. Having a wander around the car might keep us from getting grub tired or road hypnotized later, give our guts time to digest what we were feeding through them too. Food always makes me want to sleep. It's just less to worry about if we drive through the night awake. Nux and I never had to do it. War Boys didn't go raiding through winter and when my driver and I did patrol we were always on day watch, but the night patrol had their stories of lancers and gunners crammed into tight cabs with their drivers where it was almost warm. As long as you're not leaking coolant and the heater core works, you shouldn't have too much trouble heating up the cab, so long as you still had your glass on all sides, but you can't leave an engine idling all night to keep heat on. Better to just drive and sleep in the day when its warmer.
We had bird jerky and the dried up plant junk Ardith seemed to enjoy torturing everyone with. Dune liked the stuff, or I thought she had. When we were eating with the others she'd stuff those vile things down first. Dune was just scowling at the burlap bag and pushing it away. We had the cola to soak it if she wanted it. Water probably wouldn't boil in a tin can on the hood but if I used the usual old trick, tuck the can of cola inside near the radiator to get it reasonably hot, it could get warm enough to soften up that tripe.
"We c'n manage cookin' that if you want it."
"I ate it in front of her 'cause it's polite, Ducky."
"Knew it. How does she have so much of that poison?"
"It ain't poison Slit, it just tastes shitty. Dune thought that could be something else they trade for, maybe some smarty with a grow operation. This scav knows the plant, bitter roots, tasty yellow flowers, seeds that fly. Didn't see any of that around her place. Hmm. Maybe one of the others in their clan found a way to do it. Could work if they had old potting soil that didn't get radiation sick like the rest of the dirt. They'd need lots of good happy dirt."
"Huh," I got stuck on the concept of flying seeds and didn't hear the rest. "How'd they fly?"
"They had little white puffs attached to them. The flower closes up, then when it opens again it's time for their seeds to fly away on the wind." She motioned with her hands to show me. Wouldn't mind seeing something like that.
We got out, sat on the hood while it was still warm, and gnawed on the dry bird. It was tougher than Dune's lizard jerky, maybe too much salt on it too. We drank an entire canteen between us to wash down the taste and dry mouth. She was right about the sun being something to miss, but it wasn't just that, seeing a fair distance was something I didn't know I needed before that mind numbing fog. The smoldering eye turned the sky around it every type of hot color before sinking behind the distant mountains in the West, which we could not yet see but knew lay out there.
"The view is better from the Citadel. It's like from up top you see everything, you're above all of it."
I hoped to see some renewed excitement about that prospect but she only turned her eyes my way and cocked her head as she pulled her knees up toward her chest.
"Seems like that's what was wrong with the Citadel."
I had wanted her back at a hundred percent, minus the idiotic smiles and painfully sunny disposition, she was just about there and saying confusing crap again. Damn trip, couldn't even ignore the ridiculous mysticism anymore. She probably meant something by that. It shut me up, maybe that's what she meant to do.
We kept on, I drove and Dune stayed quiet for a long while. She might have dozed off for a bit but I couldn't really tell, she could just as likely be watching out the window while everything got swallowed up in darkness. At least both headlights worked now and I could see any obstacle ahead fairly clearly, but staying awake on a long drive through roadless nowhere is easier said than done. Dune, as it turns out, had been wide awake and begun to push at my side and shake me by the collar of my shirt to wake me.
"Hey, you were veering an the chainsaw was runnin'."
"Wha- Chainsaw?" I was pretty confused and disoriented, as far as I was concerned I had just taken a long blink.
"You were snoring. Like a chainsaw. You're mouth was open and everything."
I could definitely sense that my jaw had been hanging wide open and inviting the flies after a good feel around with my tongue. I stopped and pulled the parking break so I could find the canteen and maybe wake up some. I also put the compass up on the dash to see the needle in the moonlight. That was more than veering, we were facing North now.
"Ah shit. How long?"
"Dunno. Dune was all zoned out. Only noticed when you started snoring."
Great, now all we could do was head West until we saw a familiar land mark. Nothing out here ever looks familiar because it's always just more of the same. Sand, rubble, more sand, still more sand.
"Wouldn't be firing off Zs at the wheel if you weren't being so damn quiet."
"How's this Dune's fault?!" She huffed and snorted indignantly. "Kiss my char broiled arse!"
"I'll pass on that." For now. Weird thought, had to ignore it.
Every time I blinked I wanted to melt into the seat and give in to the strong urge to just let my eyes stay closed. I needed something else to do. I made a snap decision, cut the engine, then leaned to my left to feel my way around Dune's torso to find her vest pockets. I caught a hand across the mouth for that, hissed and threw an arm across her shoulders to keep her pinned to the door and unable to get her teeth around any flesh while I searched out the spark torch.
"You coulda asked, dick." The moment I let her go, she tried kicking her heel at me and caught nothing but the metal leg. Still sent a lovely jolt of ugly sensation from my stump up into my hip.
"Rrrgg! Shut it, yir gonna learn somethin' tonight even if it kills me."
That got her reasonably curious, asking all possible questions about what I was doing while I held the torch with my teeth so I could see down around the pedals. Crank and I had worked out a better method for using the clutch with the metal leg. A little engineering and a few odd parts to create a mechanism that sat on the floor boards between the petals to allow me to throw out the hook foot of the metal leg that I used to use to keep it on the clutch. The old way I had to do it involved holding the leg's weight off the pedal for hours to avoid riding the clutch and screwing the the flywheel. Without a flesh knee, I didn't have much control over what the metal foot was doing and almost no sensory perception to know if it was on the pedal or not. With the mechanism Crank and I fixed up, all I had to was slide the metal foot into a slot, let the leg rest, and lift it for a moment to trigger a pulley that engaged the pedal. Wished I had thought of it myself and much sooner. The only problem with the setup, if anyone with two good legs wanted to drive, it would take a few precious minutes to get my crap out of the way. Had to detach the cable and spin a few wingnuts to free it from the floor boards.
"What're ya doin'? Don'tcha need that to drive?"
"Jus' keep your pants on and wait."
"Pfft, With that attitude of yours, they're most certainly staying on."
Another weird thought followed her words. Just ignored it. I put my driving crap in the back behind the seat and tossed the spark torch back into Dune's lap.
"Alright, now we switch." I instructed, there was no response so I started scooting over and trying to pull her over me to physically put her in the driver seat. She just failed and clawed at the dash to stay in her spot.
"Hold on now! Have ya gone to loony town? Dune can't drive!"
"Ow! Get your elbow outta my neck!"
She was just about throwing a fit over the mere suggestion that she was going to be behind the wheel. It was probably my fault she didn't want to. The last time I tried to teach her to drive hundreds of days back, I ended up throwing open the driver side and kicking her out of the car. She was aggravating to try teaching and sitting in a chariot that was jerking around and grinding gears was absolutely nauseating. I'm not insane, I know the result will probably be the same this time, but it might wake my happy ass up.
This became a really strange test of wills and flexibility, not quite an ass chewing match, but pretty close. Dune could wiggle and twist herself out of my grip so long as I didn't grab her around the wrist, and even then she could sometimes turn her hands and reverse the hold to push back. Grappling with her without the joy of exchanging real blows was something like fighting with a hundred and twenty pound bag of sand which wants to flow right out of your arms any chance it gets. Once I got my right foot between us, pushing her into the driver side by sheer force was easy. She shoved my boot away with a pout and a deadly glare.
"Dune don't feel like the shouting and carrying on that always accompanies this silliness, Slit."
"Well, I don't feel like wrecking and killing the both of us, so you're drivin'."
"Hhhhhnnngghh."
"Quit moaning, step on the clutch and turn the key."
She did as I told her to, but once the engine turned over that defiant streak reared its head and she just sat there with her hands in her lap and looking at me as if she was incredibly bored. No amount of eye rolling would convince her to make this any less difficult.
"Put your hands on the wheel, Dune. On ten and two, don't be a smartass. Put it in first."
She was still glaring. She almost got it into second gear, but I'm pretty sure she stalled out on purpose. Hard not to think it was intentional when she was making hard eye contact the entire time.
"Again. Start over."
Now it looked like she understood that she wasn't getting out of this. We started, stalled, and parked Shirley probably a dozen times a piece. Her failure rate was still higher than any success she had getting the car moving without lurching and grinding gears horrifically. This is why the thing needed so much work when she brought it home, she'd probably almost murdered it. The final time she stalled it, I had already lost count and had begun to feel like my head as going to explode.
"Do I have to put you in my lap and teach you like some pup?! How are you THIS bad at stick? It works the same as the bike but reverse limbs! It's not that fucking hard!"
"Gah!"
She squawked at me like a pissed off crow and chucked a hand full of something from her belt at me. It didn't hurt, but it startled me and I threw out a hand to grab her wrist to stop her from throwing something else. I grabbed some of what she threw from where it rolled down into my lap to see what it was.
"Did you throw bullets at me?!"
"Better than shooting you! And yes, if you're gonna get Dune driving manual then that's likely what you're gonna have to do! So spare us the embarrassment!"
Either she was legitimately trying to weasel her way out of this or it truly was that damn frustrating for everyone involved. I was awake, goal achieved, but now I felt somewhat determined to remedy this problem. We just sat there doing war with our eyes for a few long seconds. I decided that she really should know how to drive properly.
"Pull the parking break an' c'mere."
"Huh? Just what do you think you're- HEY!"
It was easier this time to grab her and put her where I wanted her to go, she only failed and slapped at my arms for a moment before going stiff as a corpse on top of me with her hands floating in the air as if she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing with them. Setting her straight would have to wait until after I adjusted the seat and got comfortable. She was certainly longer and heavier than any pup. I never did much teaching in this department, just scathing commentary while Nux helped out Tank and Notch by showing a few of their crew's rising pups how it's done. I was sure I could manage this. First, I grabbed her hands and put them where they needed to go. Right on the wheel, left on the gear shift.
"Put your guzz foot over mine, Nutter. Get your left foot on the clutch."
Honestly, it was already easier to figure out how to show her what she was supposed to be doing like this, with her hands under mine so I knew for sure that they were where they were supposed to be. Yeah, it was beyond personal and I hated it but fucking delighted in it too. I couldn't tell why on the latter part. Could be that Dune was clearly not comfortable and that might just do for the revenge I owed her. Could be the way body parts and heat were getting mixed up too.
"This is humiliating." She admitted as if she'd heard my thoughts.
"No worse than being helped to the piss pot every morning and being stripped naked and scrubbed twice a day."
"Ugh, will you just let that go? Would you have been happier if I let you whizz on yourself constantly?"
I pretended I didn't hear that. I definitely would not have been happier to lie in a pool of cooling piss any more often than I already had to endure while the burns were healing.
"Alright. Whoever had this before converted it from left to right hand drive. Which is why the dash doesn't match the rest of the interior. They didn't do too bad a job but the lights on the dash don't work so you aren't gonna be seein' your RPMs right now, no problem. Just have to listen to her and feel it out."
Everything that just ejected itself from my mouth stopped me for a second. All of that made me sound like Nux. Soft and rusted for a psycho. This was ridiculous but, going better than just trying to talk her through all the steps. Still had to explain everything while I led her hands around but I had a reasonable level of control to stop her from fucking up the transmission or stalling. Start, move, park. Start, move, park. We managed to move up through every gear and then back down to neutral to shut it off and start it up again. Buff, polish, and repeat.
She still asked constantly before doing anything but after a while she relaxed on top of me, moving on her own to shift gears and experimenting with the guzz. Felt safe enough to give up the pedal to her. She didn't have to be told too often to mind the clutch either. I could show her how to adjust the mirrors the right way tomorrow. I was just about ready to quit this and let her have the seat before she started thinking I was going mediocre on her, but she swerved and her hands locked up on the wheel and stick. I swore that the whole car bounced twice, we just ran over something and it didn't feel like a rock.
"The hell was that?" I kicked Dune's foot off the gas because she'd floored it and shoved her hand out of the way of the gear shift to get control back.
"I THINK I RAN OVER A GUY!"
I didn't hear anything slap the bonnet before going under. I didn't see whatever she claimed because I didn't exactly have a great view around her shoulder, she was frantic and just about trying to claw her way over me to see behind us. I didn't hear any engines and I didn't see any fire light.
"I didn't know what it was until we were already rolling over it! He was just laying there." She was still shouting at me as if my ear wasn't six inches from her friggin' mouth.
"Clutch... CLUTCH."
Might have been a sand drift that sort of looked like a person. I didn't want to stop, if we had just run over a man, he could be from any faction and there could be others around. It could have been bait. It could have been anything, but Dune was getting hysterical and this lesson was very over. I needed to put my shit back together so I could drive. Fuck, was I ever awake after that.
Parked and prone, I shoved her off my lap and checked that the colt on my belt was loaded, it never wasn't but you should always check, I then threw open the roof hatch to have a look around. I didn't see any camp fires, no headlights, didn't hear any engines either. Dune had her lead slinger in her hands by the time I slid back down to the seat.
"I didn't see anyone, but load the rifle anyway."
First thing, I put my pedal setup back the way it should be, then made a u-turn with the high beams on to see what exactly she had gone over without having to get out and walk. This could easily be an elaborate trick to steal a car and corpse the occupants, fitting seeing as Dune acquired it under similar conditions. The headlamps revealed what I'd hoped not to see. There was indeed a body, lying face down only a few yards from a rat-rod of a dirt bike, also laying there as if the rider had fallen off it and crawled a short distance.
"Oh gods! I hit a pedestrian! This is just like the time Russel tried to show me how to run the tractor and I ran over a wombat."
Here we go, talking in the first person and freaking out really loudly when anything could be out here trying to bait us.
"You shoot people all the time, Its not that big a difference. Keep it down." The more I ignored Dune's hysterics and thought about the scene before us, the less I thought this was a trap, could be worse than that. I wanted to see what direction the tire tracks from the bike had come from. "I'm getting out, stay in the car, but get your lead spitter up and cover me."
With my own pistol in hand and ready, I stepped out to have a closer look. I gave the body a swift kick to make sure it was dead. It didn't take long at all to figure out where this one came from. A leather kutte covered in bottle caps and frayed rockers sewn to the back, nearby was a rider's helmet adorned in long cords of twine and wire like a mane of garbage, two demon horns glued to the top.
"I think this was a rock rider."
"Everyone said I killed what coulda been the last wombat. What if I flattened the last Rock Rider?"
"Oh, veeight, Dune. Rock Riders are like junk rust, they're never really gonna go away. And could you please be quiet?!"
"Eh, why would you say that? Do you got rust on your junk?"
"What- no!" There was a definite smell rising up from the body, that kind of funk you only find on rotten flesh. I locked the metal leg straight and used it to push the corpse over. Its face wasn't there, just sloughing gore and maggots pouring out from the mouth and eye sockets. I took a step back and shook off the wrigglers that had hitched a ride on my peg leg. "This bloke was dead before you ran over him, Dune... Let's get the he'll out of here."
"What do you think a Rock Rider would be doing this far out away from the mountains, Duck? Doesn't seem right, does it?"
"Yeah, that's why I wanna get the fuck away from here."
I really hoped that this sod was just a wandering nomad, that he wasn't this far East to avoid something going on in the West. When dawn broke, lighting the world from behind us and casting long shadows on the empty land, we sought cover and found it under the very same stone formation we had sheltered by for a day nap on the way to her green place more than a month and a half ago. That Rock Rider was stuck in my head, Dune had long forgotten the ordeal and slept like a rock under my arm. I couldn't fathom a reason for a Rock Rider to be alone, out here, so far from where they camped and did their daredevil stunts in the crumbling mountains. I didn't want to take my leg off, just in case someone else besides the corpse was out here and stupid enough to approach the car. I needed to be able to hop over the seat quick and have all my limbs. I didn't get any sleep until I rolled the maniac over to face me so that I could hang onto the pistol and the woman at the same time without worrying about accidentally blowing her face off if something spooked me. I still fought sleep until Dune shifted about like she was going to try getting up for a sleep wander, but instead her arm wormed its way between us til it got to my face, something I can't fight.
Oh, the wreck again. The Razor Cola was still on fire this time, though. You start realizing that you're in a dream when things repeat, but there's usually small differences and inconsistencies that keep you from losing interest in whatever your brain is doing to you. I could never seem to wake up from dreams on my own, even if I knew I was dreaming. The hole was back too, so was the blood. Fucking miserable, mediocre, rusted bucket of busted flaming scrap. That was me, that was the Razor Cola, that was this whole fucking day that kept replaying in my skull no matter how much I tried to forget it.
I watched the car fire from too close, there could be another leaking pool of guzz or a gas can which didn't quite ignite when the primary tank blew me to pieces. It could blow again, but I didn't care. The heat didn't even bother me anymore. I looked away from the fire because I thought I heard someone laughing, the high pitched chirping and hiccups of a pup no more than hip high. It was just standing there, next to the twisyed remains of what had once been the right fender, looking at me and grinning. It took a moment, but I saw that it wasn't a pup, it was just a ghost.
"Nux?"
For whatever reason it didn't strike me as at all odd that Nux's ghost would appear as he'd been thousands of days ago. I tried to come around the nose of the dead chariot and grab him, pups shouldn't be allowed to run around outside under the noon heat and where wrecks would attract scavengers. He ducked out of my reach with supernatural speed and danced his way around the vehicular corpse. The climbing flames obscured him from me as I limped my way around the other way to catch him, but when I reached the other side there was nothing, just a trail of my own red leading me back to the other side.
"I could polish you up. Make you sparkle again. All you have to do is keep breathing..."
I swear, I've heard someone say that to me before. When I turned around, Dune was there with a matching wound through her chest and her hand held out to me, just like how the last dream had left off. Again, there were differences. She still wore a charred and ash stained linen frock that billowed loosely in the wind and left no aspect of her shape to imagination, she was still sending constellations of hot embers racing through the air, flames still crawled up her back and sent up a pillar of smoke, but now, Nux was standing beside her. He was still little, fragile, vulnerable, but who in their right fucking mind would hurt him now, while he stood next to what any sane person might interpret as a deity of flame and punishment. And shedoes punish, strangles down chrome fury with shine touch to render you soft and obedient. I was insane to try to touch her, knowing I'd get burned for grasping the shine hand. Nux spoke, and his words stopped me.
"Keys. She needs the keys to make it work, Slit. She can fix it."
"Fix what?"
"It."
"That's real helpful, Nux."
I still dug around in my pockets anyway to pull up the keys for Shirley on their carabiner. Nux shook his head and buried his face in the Scavenger's side, smearing himself in her ashes. What wasn't I doing right? When I tried to hand over the keys, they fell right through her fingers. That was when she turned her hand over and extended a finger to point into the hole carved through me. I looked down at it and all I saw was the blood, but she kept pointing and Nux nodded against her hip. I didn't want to touch it, I didn't want to reach into the wound, but my fingers searched and found metal inside me. Out came the useless keys I found in the bog with it's worthless charms and gibberish words on a plastic trinket. I don't read well, but you can do whatever you want in your dreams. It said "I want to go home" this time. She tilted her head and turned her finger inward toward herself, to the wound and the metal embedded in her, too. Keys. Ignition cylinder. Makes sense, but every time I tried to isolate a key and bring it to the keyhole, her flames raged higher and hot air blew me back.
I could hear Nux screaming, I could hear Wrecker commanding him to shut up, and I could see the fire turning Dune into nothing but ash flying away in the hot air. I couldn't get close, my hands were already burned black and I couldn't feel my fingers anymore.
"Slit, it's alright. Wake up."
"Slit! Aw, shh, it's just a dream."
My eyes stung because they were full of sweat, but I could see her and she was solid, she wasn't on fire and she didn't fall apart like ash when I pulled down the collar of her shirt to make sure there was no hole. She looked at me like I'd gone mad, which felt something like being expected to drive somewhere backwards. No hole, no ignition cylinder, no smoldering bits of her flying off, but there was hot air, and she was soaked in sweat too. Fuck, I left the windows rolled up. Never had to think about this much before getting the front glass. Dune was trying to do her usual coddling, but I was flat out roasting. I didn't know how she was tolerating the heat in here. No wonder I dreamt of fire and ash. I lifted myself off the floorboards, peeled the mat from my back and dove over the seat to get at the passenger window and roll it down. The handle in the back was snapped off on one side and the glass was stuck on the other. Dew from our breath gathered at the foot of the glass as it slid down into the door. It was either midday or close to it. The air outside the Impala wasn't too bad, but I simply couldn't cool off enough. I was sprawled over the back of the seat with my head hanging out of the window and a hand braced on the dashboard.
"Cola, where is it?" I wheezed.
She handed up the canteen. It was piss warm, so it was foul to drink, tasted of the canteen it sat in getting hot for hours, and helped exactly not at all. I had no choice but to waste some. I crawled the rest of the way into the front of the cab, wet my hands and drenched my face with them. Leaning out the window again, I dumped the last sip over my head and stayed there, just letting it evaporate while I blindly undid straps to take off the metal leg. I could feel the sweat squelching in the socket and saturated into the sock. My aching stub felt instantly cold and tingled as it was left naked and damp on the seat under me. Dune joined me in the front, opening the other door and not quite closing it over and over to pump out the stale, humid air.
"How the shitting hell can you sleep like that? Coulda choked to death in here."
"You woke me. I guess I was too far gone to care." She muttered, but not crass like she might've been if I'd woken her on purpose. "You were saying his name again... and just about crushing a scav to death."
When I picked up my head to look over, she was pushing at her ribs with the heel of her hand. Either I'd been laying on her or grasping her too tightly. One look in the back and I could see that the pistol that had been in my hands before I slept was pushed to the far left against the outer wall of the trunk, forgotten.
"Sorry."
"Don't say that. Not to me. Never Dune. Don't need to."
She was already in the driver seat. She wound up taking my pedal shit and getting it out of the way to move the car into the shadow of the stones which had moved with the rising sun. Only the overhanging part of the rock had any shade for us. No stalls, but I wasn't awake enough to tease praise at that. With half of the car still sitting in the sun, we decided to throw the mats out between the rock and the car to sit out there to wait for the cab to air out and my leg to dry. After that, we'd have to keep moving. A good sleep would have to wait for her kip. Out there, where we could breathe and laze around somewhere questionably more comfortable, I thought about the dream and how Nux had instructions for me I couldn't carry out. I try not to give dreams too many meanings or thought, because all of them are completely whackadoo anyway, but this time? I pushed my hand into my pocket, it was twisted up on its contents and stuck to my leg from sweating myself soggy, and found what I was looking for. Out came the useless Pontiac keys to hang on my middle finger. Dune was laying on her back, arms over her head, knees bent and slacks rolled up over her knees to cool off. I dropped the keys on her chest to get her attention, then used her trunk to prop up my head while I joined her on the ground.
"Do you... Uh... Still want to know about what Nux and I were like before we were grown War boys?"
I couldn't see it, but I felt her core tighten as she lifted her head to look at me.
"O' course, Ducky. Anything you wanna tell Dune, she'll hear it."
