Chapter 3: Bloodshot Finger-Painting
It was no surprise that two suns could make so much heat. Beating down in waves it seared the pavement and boiled the scum ponds reflected in the sizzling metal of our bandit technical. Skags rolled in the dust, lolling their tongues and watching the rakk bump into each other above, grilled under the heat and probably brain dead from exposure.
Here we were, bumping around in a rusty death-trap and sweating like midgets on a shield in the middle of The Dust, on a mission to save a man we'd never met from a dam we'd never seen.
Goddamn, it's hot. Short term goal: hat. Caps weren't my style and didn't last long when we spent half the day on fire but anything to stop the sun from burning spots on my dome would be appreciated. Maybe we'd snag a bucket helmet off a goliath at the bloodshot dam, rip it off the guys shoulders along with his skull and half his spinal cord. Or maybe our bald head will boil under the heat like an egg on a breakfast platter before we get that far and I'll forget the thought entirely. I outwardly grunt in agreement, "Only the insides of humanity can contain my BRAIN BACON!"
In a pinch we could rip open a skag and shove it over our head but I don't expect our companions to appreciate the smell or save us from the impending heatstroke. The commando deliberately drives us over a bump and I struggle to keep a firm grip on the side where I'm hanging on like a common lunatic. Axton's a smug bastard and he throws us a look in the mirror and hits the gas pedal, maybe payback for letting his ass get blown up in the last fight, or maybe just trying to boot my ass off the car and finally get rid of me. Prick.
Outwardly we don't seem to mind. The rush of wind bites our skin and road kill splatters our pants, we scream with joyful cackles and clang the blunt end of the axe against the bars, yelling for Axton to go faster. We're just too dense to care couldn't give a damn if we tried.
The rest of our group didn't seem as thrilled to knock around in the bed of the vehicle but didn't offer us any complaints, instead berating our driver and whining about losing their breakfasts. Their voices are near mute on our ears, the wind roaring past drowning out their bickering. Maya shouts something, as barely audible as the others, but our ear was keen to pick up the panic in her voice and I spare a glance her way. She was bent over the seat pointing and yelling something, pointing past us, and I realize that in our joy we hadn't been looking at where we were going. Neither had Axton.
We crash into the Bloodshot gate and I hear my bones crack as I face-plant into the searing metal. There are times when the mask is more than cosmetic and I thank my luck that the metal casing protected the cartilage of our nose from receding into our brain. I taste blood regardless and peel myself from the gate like a flattened cartoon character, landing in the dirt with a thud next to the totaled technical.
I gargle blood and incoherent words fall from my split tongue, cursing Axton through the concussion, "Ohh your liver will be my hood ornament…"
The soldier's pretty face is stuck in his airbag and from my spot lying on the ground I hear him trying to wriggle free from driver's seat and breathe. Everyone else is either like us on the ground or groaning in the remains of the technical. I feel a twinge of disappointment when Axton pries himself free and asks if everyone's ok, and Gaige answers him with about as much ire as I did.
"WE'RE FINE JUST HONK THE DAMN HORN!" Gaige screeches, dislodging herself from between her teammate's limbs.
"Ach, fine geez." Ax finds the steering wheel and a shrill defeated honk is intended to alert the bandits of the other side to our presence, as if they didn't already know we were here from the noise and the stream of smoke peeling off what used to be the engine.
I made an effort to prop myself up in the dust and shook the blood from my ears, feeling something mushy swishing around in my skull and feeling like the world's beefiest snow globe. Even the Bloodshots wouldn't buy our poor attempt at impersonation. We'd have to get a new car and try tomorrow, maybe tie Axton to the hood.
"Yeah yeah, I'm openin' the damn gate," A marauder voice rang from the other side and I scoff through my mouthful of blood and loose teeth, lifting up the mask to spit the mess on the ground and rising to lean on the wreck. Maya was strung over the side and had vomited up breakfast like she said she would, but otherwise didn't look worse for wear. We share a tired look and I dote, brushing hair from her face and dabbing puke from the corner of her mouth with the pad of our thumb, mumbling about there being more meat-chunks to come. She was either used to us touching her or too sore to care, but she took our hand and let us lift her out of the car as the gate rumbled upwards and nearly took the technical up with it, rising at the order of the bandit on the other side.
Maya leaned on us for a moment and gave herself a pat-down, checking her damage balanced on one leg with a hand firmly around our bicep for support. The mask comes in handy again because it shields our splotchy blush and tense lips, and I'm just thankful that she was too distracted to notice the sweet chill that went up and down our body in the midday heat. If I was allowed to touch her face she was allowed to touch any part of me she wanted, but even then the contact electrocuted us.
She seemed satisfied she hadn't broken anything and steadied on her feet, but her hand lingered in its place. "You know," she says in my direction, watching the gate grind to a halt above us and expose the camp within, "before a riot or a fight, the monks would say prayer. Something for protection, or strength, or...whatever."
I can't tell if this is nervous small talk or just her concussion talking but between her sweaty hand on my skin and her eyes on mine I feel more than flustered and sickeningly romantic, and I want to tell her that she doesn't need divine protection with me around, and that she's the only force I pray to. My tongue fumbles and I can't make the words, but my hands clap together in a mock gesture of praying and I offer her a botched psycho-psalm anyway. "Holy BACON, mother of gore, PREY on us sinners, NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH!" I let the words hang in silence for a second and look back down at her expectantly. She squints up at us but smiles anyway.
Reluctantly releasing her hold on us Maya shakes her head and finishes the verse with a sigh, "Amen."
The camp came into view, sandy yard reflecting the sun and making it too bright to focus from our spot in the shade of the gate. There were tin roofs the same as any other bandit camp that nearly hissed with heat, waves of it radiating off them hot enough to burn. It was nearing noontime and all was calm as it could be in a stronghold. Psychos wrestled in the dirt like skags in heat and marauders stood watch lazily lounging in the shade of the shacks. Most had stripped their armor, laying about in tank tops and midriff shirts, scarves and masks thrown aside in the sweltering heat. They didn't care that the gate had opened and they didn't think anything of the intrusion because we were all too bent to start fighting. It was unusual and unnerving to see bandits relaxing and it occurred to me that their gate might have quieted them a little, sheltered them. Made them soft.
A psycho gets one look at my hulking silhouette and buzz axe and jumps up from dirt, pointing and screaming at what he thought was a badass psycho, "MOMMY? IS THAT YOU?"
The bandits jump and swear in a wave that rocks through the camp, taking cover and pulling their masks back on as my newfound meat-son fell over himself sprinting towards me. I hadn't signed up for parenthood but outwardly I welcome him with matched exuberance and an open embrace. Motor oil is no substitute for blood and the slick ooze coats my palms and streaks my wrappings, mixing richly with the rusty stains of our past victims on my outstretched arms.
"It's time for a SPANKING," the psycho leaps at our neck axe-first but we catch the him by the forehead with one fat hand and lift him into the air as the bullets start to fly and the others jump into action around us. Our axe hacks into my sweet boy's neck and we scream together about counting his good-boy points.
I drop my wayward son in the dirt without a neck and carnage carries me forward, bodies dropping and turning the white sand red. In the rush it's easy to confuse friend for foe but after getting chopped, shot at, or phaselocked by almost every vault hunter in attendance we've learned from our mistakes and color code the battlefield to reduce the social bruising. When grandpa burps Patrick obeys but our own color scheme works just as well without the snappy sentence, the most important thing to remember was that blue meant 'stop' and camo meant 'maybe continue'.
Blue also meant healing.
I pause and fall to the ground panting, my hand is empty as I stroke a gash in my side deep enough to reach a hand into, sweat rolling off my brow and something sticky coating the mask, maybe intestines and maybe mine. My good eye scans the field and parses the screams, looking for where our axe ran off to while the dark closes in. Rampaging was riding the line between life and death like a motorcyclist on a high-wire and I kick myself for throwing the axe, still stuck in the nomad guarding the door. My blood addled brain can't decide whether to salt the wound or cauterize it but there's no time to think before I feel something on my back and my head whips around, eyes met with the cool blue hue of shining tattoos.
"Keep shooting," Maya's voice is steady but low, serious, "I've got you."
The infinity pistol warms my hand while her hands tingle my side and it makes my guts churn with dead butterflies and my mouth sputter with excitement, "OH BLUE, what're you doing to me?!" Our bullets light up the marauders ankles and cripple them to the ground as we shoot from the dirt and savor the breeze of her breath on our neck and her pounding heartbeat through the blue magic, gasping from the loss of pressure when she pulls away. We protest, loudly. "Hnng, I was enjoying that!"
"ENJOY THIS, SKAG BAIT!" A grenade lands between us, thrown from one of the shacks and counting down. We scoop it up and toss it back without thinking, half hoping it goes off in our hand and laughing while Maya ducks behind us, not expecting our aim to be this good and missing the gore-splosion as we pitch out the sorry marauder with his own firepower.
We roar and cackle, squinting our eye shut as guts splat down and paint our shoulders red, feeling like the artist and the canvas all at once, "OH BABY-JUST CALL ME POLLOCK!" I flick a piece of liver off my tit and turn back towards Maya whose head is cocked, looking clean and confused and a little bit impressed, by the MLB level pitch or by the art reference, who knows. She opens her mouth to say something but we're interrupted by a pointed haiku being yelled at us three meters away.
"Very cute you two, perhaps you could spread the love, help out your teammates?" This was the closest we'd come to hearing Zer0 angry and even then it was more of a simmer than a rage. We both turn to see the skinny assassin ripping through a badass nomad with his sword and clearly frustrated at our low fatality count, :( emoji displayed. I don't feel bad for hogging Mayas attention but realize we've been letting the others get messy while we discuss fine art. Classy.
Maya let's out an 'oh shit' and rushes in, phaselocking another badass and shooting, making the beefed up bastard easy prey when we run in climbing up his coat and recovering the axe from its place in his shoulder, hanging in the air for the sweet moment that she gives us. I grunt and groan and enjoy the waves of blue magic kissing my chest as I cling and hack into the nomads face, suddenly attuned to my creative side, screaming between swings. "Every good painter paints what he is and I, am, PAIN!"
The magic runs out and we fall to the ground, landing on something soft for a change. I'm breathing hard again and still mumbling about scalpel paint brushes with my thumbs in the dead man's eye sockets before realize that the fight has ended around us and look around, dazed and high from the thrill of making art in the cradle of her powers. Behind our eye colors are burning from the intoxicating mix of blue and red and I taste them both. Maya passes by us and the corpse and our eyes follow her, enjoying the brush of her hand on our shoulder as she goes, the palm coming off red.
We pry our fingers from bloody sockets and holster the axe, following on her heels like a puppy and considering asking her to finger paint with us. She's clean aside from the hand and as we come up to walk at her side she inspects it, crinkling her nose in mild disgust. I almost want to apologize for the mess but I know that would include the word 'nipples', luckily before I can even think the word areola she casually wipes her hand down our washboard abs and smears the red mess there, leaving her small handprint and finger-sized streaks down our chest. She's made modern art across our skin without thinking and it's better than anything I could've made.
I must've looked shocked and dumbfounded because she offers a shrug, "Red's more of your color." I feel blessed to be so casually painted on but wonder how much she'll like me if I never bathe again.