E04: Biscuit
She woke with the sun, as she had before even the Legion demanded it so. Sometimes she'd been awake before dawn spilled upward into the sky, starting work while the cold darkness reigned endlessly overhead; well into her day and dirt by the time it finally cracked.
That's what it meant to live off the land.
Optavi stepped outside of her patchwork tent and took a moment to watch the sun rise. She closed her eyes, breathing deep of the river behind her, and tried to conjure the memory of her life before this: freshly turned earth, the river closer still, and the husband calling out to her from across the field.
She had trouble pulling up the sound of him, hearing instead another man's voice.
She opened her eyes to desert, their meagre camp in the midst of it. There was nothing here but the fire to start and supplies to rummage through for breakfast.
Optavi had dollops of wheat batter sizzling in the pan when the larger, nicer tent's flaps parted and Regor emerged, squinting in the light, rubbing absently at the stubble on his chin. She looked away before his eyes fell on her, keeping her attention steadfast on the cooking pancakes.
"Smells good," he said as he approached, in the voice that supplanted her husband's. She looked up at him and he smiled, and she wondered not for the first time if it were a blessing or a curse that he was more handsome than Trev had been — not that it was a high bar to begin with, truth be told. She'd loved her husband for the way he looked at her, for his family who adored her — so unlike her own, always fractured and fighting; for his ambition that had them hit the road on their honeymoon and leave the back-breaking work behind. When their caravan was attacked, she'd loved him still, even as he fled without her.
She'd loved him when he hit the ground, bullets in his back. It was all too sudden for her to know any better.
The smell of soil and the river's song were what she missed from her last life. Optavi flipped the pancakes and was another woman entirely.
"It's almost ready," she said to Regor, smiling back. He regarded her as Trev once had, when he was alive and not a coward. He tucked some of her hair delicately behind her ear.
A blessing.
Then he looked behind her at the Colorado and was distant again. Optavi searched his face for a split second before dropping her eyes to the pan once more. She was well familiar with the things men said in the silent planes of their features; set jaws and knit brows and thinned lips that meant things like, I am thinking of someone else. I am not telling you the truth. I am leaving you.
She didn't want to hear it.
Regor exhaled and crouched next to her, bumping her knee with his.
"With just the two of us having breakfast, it's kind of like a date, isn't it?"
Optavi frowned at him right away, glancing at the tent. "What about…?"
Regor grunted, waving his hand. "It'll take all this food to make up the energy we need to wake Dina up."
"She wouldn't be happy about a date," Optavi said, moving away to take the pan off the fire. Regor followed her close as she dug out their jar of syrup.
"She's not happy about a lot of things," he scoffed. His face softened around a smile. "Not like you, Optavi. You always take things in stride."
He was generous with praise, and she would have quietly preened at that; but in the early morning air, where she remembered ground and water and her heart's spilled blood, she remembered also what she used to be called, something she hadn't heard out loud in years. Regor had named her when he bought her. Like a pet.
Optavi looked over to the river they would cross today, thinking of the girl who'd knocked him unconscious somehow and fled. The sliver of a dream that had pierced her disillusionment, if only for a moment.
She hoped Oyente was far, far away by now.
‖ « first quarter 2 days ago slower more down. simple makes it drip forget ►
"Why not just stim her?" Declan asked, knowing they had a respectable stock of Stimpaks handy, but it was Al who shook her head.
"We've only got regular ones, and they're too dangerous to use when we're not sure what's wrong with her. She needs a doctor."
"Can't risk the one 'round here," Butch said, scowling, "but Linefel's still half a day away."
Aggie, physically struck by her own realization, squeaked with excitement. "We know doctors in Sixty! That's only, like, an hour west of here."
Butch's scowl deepened. "Sixty's got a pop' of sixty arms and legs combined — if it even is that many. When'd it get doctors — plural?"
"One's more of an animal doctor," Declan supplied helpfully, though Butch's face shockingly did not read as finding the information any more enlightening. "They like to travel to different settlements and help out for a few weeks. They'll be in Sixty for about another month."
After assuring Butch that there was in fact a human's doctor in addition to the animal doctor, they all gathered their belongings and left Avi-Avi under the cover of a quiet dawn, before much more light broke through the sky and any patrons were awake enough to bemoan their hangovers.
Charon carried the still-unconscious Oyente on his back, his pack and shotgun entrusted to Butch, and Oyente's pack on Aggie. The extra weight was clearly a burden by the time they came upon their destination, but Charon likely could have walked all the way to Linefel without breaking a sweat — not that Declan was sure, exactly, if he was one of those ghouls who could still sweat.
Sixty Shrubs was small enough that for a while they saw nothing ahead, and then suddenly the whole of the little village was spread out before them, a handful of shacks and Brahmin and plots that were more like afterthought gardens than farmland, all against the backdrop of a mountain range that gave Declan goosebumps to gaze upon. But for one or two people puttering about, Sixty looked abandoned.
The last time he'd been here was in the dead of night, so there had been at least a few lights on, giving the place some semblance of activity.
"Talk about podunk," Butch grumbled around his third or fourth cigarette of the morning. "I don't see no doctors."
"They're staying at the butcher's," Aggie said cheerfully, leading the way. They filed into the open door of one shack, bypassing the counter behind which an elderly woman was sat and snoozing, but Aggie stopped short, causing the rest of them to pile up behind her in the narrow hall.
"What now," Butch complained predictably. Declan craned his neck to look over him, Al, and Aggie to see that the stock room the doctors had been set up in was completely empty now. Aggie turned to him with panic on her face.
"Dex — they're gone!"
Declan frowned at the room, not fully comprehending the situation — Elaine and Shaun had been pretty clear about their schedule, and he couldn't imagine much had changed in the last four or five days since they'd seen each other.
"You lookin' for those medikos?"
The elderly woman was awake now, though the way she peered at them under heavy lids threw that into some question. She bared scant teeth in what looked like might have been a grin, if only her facial muscles were strong enough to get it there.
"You know where they are?" Aggie asked, hopefully. The old woman nodded delicately, then held her hand out, curling it twice in a sharp, quick action that was completely at odds with the rest of her countenance. Declan resisted the urge to roll his eyes; he was well acquainted with the markers of avarice, seemingly the one thing the woman had that was not weathered by age.
Aggie started digging in her pockets, while Al sighed, flicking open a hip pouch. "You take dollars?"
The woman remained motionless until the bills were offered. She snatched them and settled back into her chair.
"They're out back," she croaked.
Aggie sputtered, and Butch gave her a pat on the back as he and the rest of them filed out, trudging around the little house to find that the two doctors were indeed still around, but not for long, as they were in the process of taking down their medical tent.
Elaine noticed them first, pushing her dark hair out of her face and nudging her husband, who blinked up at her, then at them, then stumbled back.
"Oh — shit! Oh, man. Sorry," Shaun said to Charon. "I thought you had some crazy growth on your back, but you're obviously carrying someone. Um. I'm Shaun." He extended a hand that Charon summarily ignored.
"Good heavens, hon'," Elaine sighed.
"He's had worse," Butch said easily, putting the man out of his misery by shaking his hand.
Aggie went and hugged Elaine, then Shaun in greeting after Al did the same. "Why are you guys packing up? I thought you were staying for a while still."
Husband and wife exchanged a look. Shaun started. "After you all came by, we thought that maybe it would be better if we started heading to Sheephole sooner rather than later."
"What? Because of the Deathclaws?"
"No one's seen a Deathclaw come down since…" Butch trailed off, glancing over at Declan, and he knew they were both remembering their conversation that first night they met, when Butch was trying to figure out if Declan was some sort of polygamist wife beater and Declan had eased his concerns by telling him they were just harmless, money-grubbing bounty hunters. In hindsight, not the greatest reveal to a man they'd been trying to work over, but there was no changing the past now.
"I mean, sure," Shaun went on obliviously. "But we don't want to court misfortune by staying so close to the mountains, not with Elaine — uh, under the weather."
Aggie turned to Elaine with wide eyes. "Oh no, are you sick?"
Elaine cleared her throat primly. "Just a little cough. But better safe than sorry, you know. We don't want to be caught unaware if something happens and Deathclaws start swarming around. Right, hon?"
"Yeah, and especially not with some guy —"
Shaun cut himself off quickly, looking over at Charon again, and the rest of them turned curiously to see Oyente shift, brows drawing together. It was the most life Declan had seen in her since she'd left with Aggie and Al to hit up the casino. Her mouth opened and she mumbled something indiscernible before her body gradually slackened again.
In a strange thought he dismissed as quickly as it struck him, Declan could have sworn he caught a snippet of static.
"What'd she say?" Butch asked.
Charon paused before answering. "Too close to them."
It set Declan on edge to hear, but Butch nodded like it was totally normal. Butch turned to Elaine and Shaun and jabbed a thumb toward Charon and Oyente. "We need help for our crazy growth, there. She's been unconscious and unresponsive for about twelve hours now. 'Cept for that."
Elaine's eyes widened, and she looked over at the girl who had suspicious dark stains on her dress. "Was she injured?"
"Nah. We could've taken care of that."
Shaun dragged a cot out from where it was folded and leaning against the butcher's house, setting it up and directing Charon over. Together they lay Oyente down on it and Elaine checked her eyes with a penlight, then went to feel for a pulse, timing it against her wristwatch.
"What happened?" Elaine asked, in between muttering to herself. "Did she pass out out of nowhere?"
Butch slid his hands into his pockets with all the airs of someone who had better things to do; Declan wouldn't've been surprised if the man had been particularly petulant with authority figures as a youth. "She had kind of a shock. Probably."
"A man was trying to kidnap her," Al explained. "Then she was able to get free when he — Charon — shot him dead… but she fainted after that."
Shaun and Elaine both flicked a look over at the ghoul, wary, but they continued their work around Oyente's prone form, with Shaun gathering and handing over tools and Elaine taking readings and jotting down notes. It was lucky that they had left their medical supplies to be packed up last of their things.
"Everything's coming up well within normal bounds, but BP's a little on the low side," Elaine said, biting her lip. "Hon', salt of Bighorner? And you're sure she wasn't injured?"
"I don't think so," Aggie said, frowning.
Shaun dug through one of their medical bags and produced a little jar, which Elaine took with gratitude. As she examined the crystalline substance against the sunlight, Shaun braced himself over the cot and, heedless of what were now clearly dried splatters of blood on her dress, settled an arm across Oyente's shoulders, to which Butch began to protest.
"It's just in case," Shaun said. He had a calm, reassuring cadence that made it hard to want to argue with him. "If she does have an injury, we don't want her to accidentally jerk around and make it worse. Can you keep her head steady?"
Butch grumbled, the spitting image of a large sulky teenager, but he stepped up all the same, placing his hands as directed. Elaine popped the cork from the jar and held it near Oyente's chin, gently waving it back and forth.
Aggie took Al's hand and watched. There was a moment of stillness that stretched on as it seemed no one dare disturb it by taking a breath or making a sound, then very suddenly Oyente inhaled sharply, with Shaun and Butch tensing over her as her chest rose and she began to cough and sputter. Elaine pulled the jar of salts away and closed it, setting it aside.
Oyente's eyes fluttered open, watery and squinting in the light. Shaun removed his arm and straightened up, bidding Butch to do the same. Oyente quickly brought her hands up, one to cover her mouth as she cleared her throat, and the other to shield her eyes from the sun.
"'Bout time," Butch groused, while the rigidity in the line of his shoulders diminished considerably. Aggie hugged Al, grinning; but Al glanced at Declan and he knew she felt the same apprehension he had since Oyente mumbled from Charon's back.
"Hey, sweetie," Elaine said softly, tilting her head to try and observe her patient better. "How are you feeling?"
Oyente was panting still, but she lowered her hand to take the stranger in with wide eyes, then Shaun, then Butch next to him.
"Need to… go…" she rasped, so quiet it was almost tangled up on the scant breeze. She started to pull herself up into a sitting position.
"It's alright, Oyente, Nicky's gone now," Aggie said, stepping forward. Oyente turned to her, looking alarmed, then she turned again the other way and craned her neck back. Declan looked up as well; the Dead Mountains in the distance were a silhouette of jagged menace cutting into the sky.
Declan came forward, and before he could say anything, Oyente whirled around again and pinned him with that same agitated stare. He grimaced, guilty that he felt too disconcerted himself to take any pity on her — so small and scared after an evening that must have been, by all accounts, terrifying.
But her terror was for these mountains, and it ran so deep it had stirred her where none of their efforts could. It spoke so intimately to his own deep dread of the man they'd encountered in them that he couldn't fathom it was for anything else.
"Is it what's up there?" he asked, his limbs, his shoulders tight with tension. "Is that what you're afraid of?"
She flinched, grit her teeth, but met his eyes before nodding slowly. She kept him pinned with the weight of her gaze, and as his trepidation mounted, her own seemed to dissolve away; stiff, adrenaline-borne posture melting down into a sombre resignation. For a moment her eyes flicked over to Al behind him, before returning to his, lips thinned.
Softly, Oyente said, "you've met him," and Declan did not refute her.
‖ ► Stranger things will come your way… ►
"I grew up with my sister and grandparents in Havasu, on a little farm by the river — but before we settled down there, we were part of a travelling caravan. On one of our routes, we came across a boy orphaned by a raider attack. Our grandparents took him in, and he was raised alongside us as our brother.
"He was a deeply troubled child, though I didn't understand that at the time. All I knew was that he and our sister were always fighting, and he was never very nice to me, either. He was always trying to tell us what to do. Our grandparents were endlessly patient with him, and after a while, he seemed to respond to them — he started arguments less, helped with chores more, and showed a kindness to the livestock that we had never seen in him before.
"Then, when we were teenagers, our sister disappeared. He thought it was his fault, that he'd fought with her one too many times and made her run away. I worked for a while at the inn near the crossroads, mostly to see if I would hear anything about her, but he didn't like that, so I quit. I didn't want to make him mad. I believed him a bit, when he said he made our sister run away — not because they fought too much, but because I finally noticed all these little things that made me think he could do it.
"He always ended up getting his way when he fought with us. My grandparents' patience with him was unfailing, and they never extended it to us the same way. And he never, not once, had a problem with the animals. I thought, maybe, he made our sister run away the way he was making our grandparents listen to him, the way he made the animals listen to him, and that he could make me do things, too.
"A year or so later, Abela passed. I can't remember what the doctor said happened, because all I could think was that, somehow, my brother had something to do with it. But Abelo had been having a hard time with his memory, and it only got worse when it was just the three of us left. There was hardly any time to be frightened for what happened to Abela, or angry, because Abelo needed more and more help each day, and my brother barely spent any time at home anymore.
"On the nights he didn't come back, I would wonder if he ran away like our sister did. Sometimes, I hoped he had. But he always came home eventually, and he started to pressure me to leave with him — to abandon Abelo and start somewhere fresh. I was still wary of my brother then, still didn't want to make him angry, but I refused to leave Abelo. After years of his love and care, he needed help, he needed me, and I wanted to be there for him as long as I could.
"When Abelo died, I knew it was my brother getting his way again. He was worse then, too — not only controlling, but scared as well. He thought he was being hunted, and he was so sure of this that I started to fear getting caught myself. We left Havasu and headed north in a panic.
"He made us take on different names. He called himself Jasper, and called me Maricris. He said they were the names of his real siblings, that he had real brothers and sisters but they were all gone and he was the only one left. I didn't know what to think of it. I just listened to him and did what he wanted, because if I didn't… I was sure I'd be next.
"Eventually, we made our way far up enough to Avi-Avi. We started working there for room and board, and I think the constant changing faces appealed to him, made him feel anonymous, because we stayed there for longer than we'd stayed in any other place. He relaxed more, and I began to fear him less. I made friends with the other workers, and that made me feel safer. We got comfortable. We got along.
"The day before his birthday, I cut my shift short so I could wrap and hide his gift in our room — but he was already there when I came in. He'd torn the place apart, and was stuffing things into a pack, muttering to himself. I thought about running, like I'd never come upstairs, but he noticed me before I could get myself to move.
"He said we had been caught, and we had to leave. He heard one of the patrons talking about him and what he'd done and we were no longer safe at Avi-Avi. But I didn't want to leave. And I had friends there, friends that were his, too. I didn't think he hurt them like he'd hurt Abelo.
"And I was right. The only one he hurt was me.
"Hard as I try, I can't remember what he did. I only know that, one moment, we were arguing, and the next, I was somewhere in the desert, far from Avi-Avi… far from anywhere I knew. I tried to piece things together but doing so brought on intense headaches. I couldn't understand it, and I kept on losing memories to grasp at. By the time we arrived at the slave pens, I had nothing at all. Not even a name.
"An elderly woman decided to call me Oyente. She said it was because I was a good listener. Listening was all I could do. I was desperate for any scrap of what I could feel was missing. It wasn't until last night… someone recognized me. They called me Maricris. They mentioned Jasper. And then I was in the desert again, being dragged under the stars, and I remembered.
"I remembered all of it."
‖ » You should have listened to me. ►
"Your brother's up there in the mountains," Declan said. He could always be counted on to forge ahead when Al and Aggie were lost in the details; focused and straightforward, sometimes too much so, while they grappled with the delicacies of social niceties and the human condition.
Besides that, he was the only one in this conversation with Oyente, despite the fact that they'd all stayed and listened to her story. Aggie and Al were leaning against the wall of the butcher's shack, with Charon on their side past the doorway, standing upright and stockstill since Oyente awakened. Butch was perched on the edge of a worn old bench that was less a piece of furniture and more like a slab of ancient wood had fallen over and people, like him and the doctors next to him, figured it was good enough for a moment's repose.
The rest of them an audience, it was Declan alone engaged with Oyente, sitting next to her on the cot. He didn't show much on his face by way of sympathy or pity; he was only concerned with putting the pieces together. "His real name is Eugene Stier, isn't it?"
Oyente twitched like just hearing the name was a slap to the face. "How did you know?"
Declan patted at his pockets, pulling a folded page from one, and one more tattered and wrinkled from another. The first — the list — he handed to Oyente, who took it delicately, opening it the way one would handle petals. "Did he mention any of those other names? Were they all his siblings?"
She lifted a shoulder in a listless shrug. "He told me some but not all of these… I can't say for sure if they were all related. But he said he had brothers and sisters, plural, and they were all dead now except for him."
Al let out a breath, looking over at Aggie next to her. Aggie was fixated on Oyente, but ran her thumb over Al's knuckles in response.
They had that list for nearly a year. For months they'd worked on it, travelling across territories and wilderness alike, hunting for any rumor, any throwaway name in an anecdote that might point them to one of the names. They'd struck gold, nearly died for it, and decided to double back and try again with someone else because Eugene Stier and his Deathclaws were more than they'd been ready for.
Not only was he the worst of them, he was the last of them.
"We came across this at the Mojave Express outpost in Primm," Declan explained, opening and smoothing out the second sheet of paper with perfunctory care. "For a while, it was our only lead, but eventually it pointed us up there."
He held it out to her and Oyente set the list down to take it lightly by its edges. She frowned as she read it, the way the three of them had time and again — it was less a letter and more a string of words that chased thoughts they would never catch up with, marred with blocks of striked-out text and unidentifiable stains. They'd been able to glean a scant clue or two from the barely coherent content, but their biggest hint, the reason they'd held onto it for so long, came from four little letters: m.c. in the salutation, and e.s. in closing.
Oyente's fingers curled into the worn paper. "This is… from Eugene?"
"And to you — well, unless it was for the real Maricris." Declan waved a hand with resignation. He considered her a moment longer before turning his head to address Al and Aggie. "Looks like we get to head back up there sooner than we thought."
Al shuddered as Aggie exclaimed her disbelief, but Butch was the one who responded, in a lazily arrogant tone that was at odds with the hard glare he pinned on Declan. "We're headin' to Linefel like we planned and —"
"Yeah, we should go to Linefel as planned," Declan interrupted. "The guy's living in a Deathclaw nest that he can control. We didn't make it within a hundred feet of him last time before getting our asses kicked."
"Keep pushin' it and y'won't make it ten feet before I kick your ass," Butch sneered. "We ain't your mercs and we ain't here to make up for your mission failure. This kid is clearly not in the condition to be traipsin' around Deathclaws and a psycho orphan who handed her off to slavers."
Declan turned quickly back to Oyente, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out. Oyente was very still, staring at the letter in her hands; it crumpled further in her white-knuckled grasp.
He tried again. "Oyente." After a second's delay, her eyes snapped to his. "The head of Vegas — the very wealthy head of Vegas — wants Eugene Stier brought to him, and I think, with you there, we have a very good chance of bringing him in."
He stopped short as Butch shot up and stalked over, but Aggie was quick to hold the older man back, Al quick to flank him. He shook them off and gestured angrily over at Charon, but the ghoul simply looked on impassively.
"It's okay," Oyente said softly, facing Butch. "It's okay. I — I think he's right…"
"You don't know anything," he bit out. "Not about being okay, and not about monsters," and Oyente tried and failed to repress a scowl.
"He's my brother —"
"You're just a fuckin' kid —" and then Butch cut himself off, frowning tremendously. He was an irritable man at the best of times, always contrary, but Al had never seen him angry like this. From the look on Oyente's face, a clash of offence and unease, she hadn't, either. It was so potent it seemed to hang and tremble in the air of silence around them.
Oyente got to her feet, her hand lingering on the cot. Butch's face morphed from enraged to stricken, then to something cooled and cultivated, a mask well-worn. Whatever spark had ignited was smothered at that.
"I want to see him," Oyente said.
"Fine," Butch replied at a tepid 68 degrees, "but you're getting a fuckin' haircut before we go."
As if that made any sense to her — because Al certainly didn't understand it — Oyente nodded, and turned to Declan.
"This man… Garrett Deth. What if he wants to hurt Eugene?"
Declan shrugged and gave her a superficial smile, never one to shy away from the cold hard truth. "It's possible. He might deserve it, don't you think?"
Leaving Oyente to ponder that, Declan gathered his pages and refolded them. He got up and bobbed his head in the direction of the doctors, silent parties to their drama. "Do you think you guys can stay put here for a few more days, just in case?"
"So we can wait for you to kick the Deathclaw nest again?" Elaine drawled, unimpressed, but she peeked at Oyente and softened. Lips pursed, she turned to her husband, who kissed her temple and settled his hand on her back. She gave him a little smile before looking back at Declan, falsely cavalier. "We can stay a little longer."
Shaun suggested giving them a quick check up before they hit the road, and Al, having nursed her tender eye since they'd been here last, was grateful for the opportunity. The backyard of the butcher's shack was full of activity again, with Elaine and Shaun turning clinical once more, and the rest of them sorting themselves out with preparations for the day ahead.
If there was a thread of anger around them still, it faded completely soon enough.
‖ ► You abandoned me, how I suffer… ►
The butcher's bathroom was cramped enough with its own amenities, let alone a pair of people and a stool wedging themselves in there, but it was the only place with a mirror and so it was where Butch and Oyente were holed up, even if half the stool and all of Butch had to stand in the shower stall to fit.
He'd worked in worse conditions: caves where the campfire's flickering served more to cast shadow than illuminate, and sometimes there'd be a glow from strange fungi that was suspicious at best and nauseating at worse; back in the vault, where the lights were bright and sterile, space was ample enough, and his equipment was always pristine, but the clientele was boring, condescending, or both; Kansas, where there were amenities and sunlight, and Charlie finally told him to just shave it all off after Butch had grown quiet, trying to figure out how to salvage what was left.
His elbows bumped into the tiles if he wasn't careful, and the single lightbulb didn't seem to be putting much effort into its singular duty, but the mirror was whole and Oyente looked content to let him work as he wished, nodding easily as he slid his hand up and up in the air by her face, stopping just by her ear. It was possible she would end up crying after she saw the final product — he'd suffered that before, not because he'd done a bad job because he was a fuckin' artist at this point, but because people sometimes did not realize just how closely tied they were to their image of themselves until it was too late.
Butch gathered her hair at the nape of her neck. It was heavy in his fingers; healthy, glossy, black. It was going to be a shame to shear, but sentiment would only weigh you down.
"I owe you an apology," he said, after the first cut. Oyente in the mirror looked from his hands to his face. "When I was your age, this kid I knew left the vault and went on a crusade across the Capitol. Her dad was this egghead whose life's work was bringin' clean water to our end of the Wastes. He died. She wanted to. She — she tried to."
Butch's hands stopped for a moment so short that he didn't notice it himself. "She knew walking in there would give her a massive dose of rads, but it was the last step to completing her dad's project, so of course she did it. Then the Brotherhood finally got off their asses and got her some goddamn medical attention. It didn't happen right away. Took nearly a decade. But she got what she wanted."
He paused anew and clenched his jaw, glaring at the back of Oyente's head. This was something he'd thought about since that day at the Jefferson Memorial — when he'd only been out of the vault for a few months — but not once had he been able to speak it past his lips. Not even to Charon. Butch swallowed, and his fingers were deft again, combing and cutting.
"If any of those guys — the scientists, the Brotherhood — if they'd had their shit together enough to clean up their own messes, she'd be alive and well today. But they called her their hero and she was happy to play the part, right up to when it got her killed. Now all that's left of her is a pile of bones under some statue that don't even look like her."
Butch took in a deep breath, exhaling steadily. He kept his eyes on Oyente's hair, shorter than his now, nearly evened out.
"We were really just kids, y'know. It hadn't been long since we were arguin' over who would really win between Grognak 'n' Grelok — uh, comic book characters," he amended, catching sight of Oyente's furrowed brow. "See? That was old for us, and we were young."
Oyente smiled a little at that, and Butch moved to set his scissors down, cursing as he banged his elbow spectacularly against the shower stall. He rubbed it vigorously, grabbing a small brush used to dust stray hairs off his clients.
"What I'm tryin' to say is, you, you're like we were. 'Cept we were babies. We grew up in a vault, and not one of those fucked up experimental ones, neither. It was oppressive as hell, but cushy. Normal. Up 'til Charlie left, the scariest thing I'd seen was a radroach."
He finished up and set the brush down, peering into the mirror and using his hands to arrange Oyente's hair just so. She had a good face for different styles, and this shorter cut highlighted the androgyny in her features; with the shirt and overalls one of the Sixty Shrub settlers was happy to sell to them, whoever was out there hunting the Oyente that was a runaway slave would be hard pressed to give this person a second look.
"You, you're young, but you're not a kid like we were." He held her gaze, then dropped it, starting to gather his things. "Shouldn't've yelled atcha. There're all sorts of slaver groups across the U.S. and I ain't never seen a pretty one."
"I was mostly left alone," Oyente said softly. "Um. Until the end."
Butch snorted. "Lucky you. Guess your brother's the bigger fish? He sounds a lot worse than a radroach."
"He's not a monster," she said to that, standing and twisting to pin Butch with reproach. The fresh cut let her fully shed the skin of the lost girl that stumbled onto their farm, and she was coming into her own as she remembered herself; someone with a spine and a stare. Unfortunately for her, Butch was well acquainted with spines and stares in a multitude of fashions. Impassive, he rose a single brow in response.
"O. How much of that little story of yours was the truth?"
He could see it in her eyes how she quickly closed herself off. "Most of it."
She turned back to look at herself in the mirror once more, lifting her chin and tilting her head to check out different angles, finding the facets of a face that she probably hadn't been able to see in a long time.
■.