Hey there. I fast forwarded to the future because I'm a butthole. Lots of taunting, smack talk and the angry lizard equivalent of flirting ahead. Enjoy.


When I was a kid I loved the sun. Still do, even if it kills whatever it caresses for too long.

"You're baking yourself. Get in the shade nutter. I'm not rubbing you down in that old man's burn goo again if you get toasted."

I looked back at where Slit lounged in the shade of the rock formation, half snoozing. This was a very different creature from the one I hauled home seven hundred and twenty four days ago. To protect his scars and pale, unpainted body from the cruel fireball in the sky he wore a long sleeve shirt salvaged off the two men I killed when we ran out of food. Over that was a patchwork leather vest that was missing most of the bottom and two of its buttons, and he had two inches of hair on the parts of his head that hadn't burnt or had healed enough to let it grow back. His left temple couldn't grow hair anymore. It grew in with curls when it was clean, when saturated with sweat and grit and grime it laid straight and limp against his head, and it was dark.

"You know you love it when Dune asks you to slather up her ugly hide. Scar fetishist."

"Scars are shine. The rest of you is rusty as fuck. Not interested. At least put your shirt back on." We bickered a while longer until finally all he would get from me in retaliation was a low hiss. I'd know when the sun starts to roast me.

He resigned himself to oiling up the gears and cogs in his metal leg. He undid the straps and pulled it off, laying it across his lap and unzipping the leather sheath that protected the delicate parts from getting sand logged so he could tinker with it. We'd built it a little more than six hundred days ago, well, he built it and I just salvaged the parts. It was far better than the first version which was just a wooden stick with straps and a slot to slide his stub into. This prosthesis -as Wilson called it- was a thing of beauty. It gave him a functional knee again with a knob that he could slide up and down to make it work for running, or to fold completely to kneel, or lock straight so he could lean on it while he worked on the car. There were also two rods of steel that could slide into each other and a heavy duty spring fashioned around it to absorb shock. Real shiny-green and pretty.

When he first got this leg together, he'd taken the Impala and sped off, not returning for more than a month. I thought he was gone for good. A crow nursed back to health and set loose to make his own way. I'd felt a sting in my heart, but I knew it was only fair that he was free to come and go. Had to remind myself that I wasn't a slaver, people shouldn't own people. Yet, return he did! I'd never been so delighted, but he did not match my elation. He didn't speak for a week after he got back. I swear to this day, he was in mourning. I never asked why, I didn't need to. In the time he was gone I'd overheard from the other scavs who frequent Wilson's place that the God King Joe had fallen. My Ducky must have felt that there was nothing to go back to now.

"You see anything yet?" He interrupted my wandering thoughts.

I lifted my long lookers and did a quick sweep of the territory."This scav sees not a thing shimmering on the horizon. Sun is done rising, soon it will begin its exodus."

"You're full of shit then. You lost the bet, you're turn to clean out the maggot farm."

"Ohh, sod off Slit. I know what I saw, and I'm still bettin' that it's now a convoy route. I see um leavin' the Brewer's old territory with bushels and bushels of green shit every month... Wonder if they killed those moonshiners for their spot. Haven't seen them hooch runners around almost since I found your ornery arse."

"I haven't seen shit of what you're claiming. You're imagining things because the sun is cooking your brain."

"You don't see things because you're always slacking off in the shade like some lazy lizard. Can't scout the lands with your eyes closed. Good thing you got Dune, or else you'd make a real 'mediocre' scavenger." I said and I meant every word. Without me, A: he'd be dead. B: if I abandoned him now he'd starve to death in a week. Goddess grant mercy, ex-war boys swallow up food like sink holes swallow up sand.

"Says the ONLY idiot in the wasteland who can't drive stick. Calling me mediocre. Tch, You're mediocre."

"You suck ass and swallow at everything but fixing cars and driving them Ducky." I taunted, but it was affectionate. His knowledge was precious. He'd even taught me to repair and properly care for my Mama's old motorcycle.

"Would you shut up and get in the shade already? You're wasting Aqua-cola sweating out there." He was starting to get crass about it, but I really liked sunning myself. Felt good. Could almost remember working the fields with mum when I felt the burn of the noon light.

"Fine. Fine." I shouted. Then pulled my shirt back over my head and shrugged on Mama's vest before making my way to where the over hanging rock created a narrow strip of shadow. I had to kick at his boot for him to make room.

Still, there wasn't quite enough space for two. Slit took advantage of that and turned himself around until his head was practically in my lap. Ah, he'd had an ulterior motive in beckoning me over here.

You see, long ago when I had begun tracing the shapes of his scars and calling him pretty where others might say he was an ugly milk-mother fucker, I'd created a monster. He was almost always asking for contact like this. Maybe it was because of the place he came from where he didn't know life without countless other white painted bodies pressing in around him. Alternatively I might have simply spoiled him rotten on this brand of affection.

He even kept his face shaven now so that I could follow the path a knife once tore through his cheeks easily with my fingers. I never asked about where the scars came from either. Part of me didn't want to know. Enough of his life had been bad and confusing. He didn't need to be reminded of it in the midst of learning the true scav way of life.

He wriggled and arched his spine to grind the back of his head deeper into my thigh, as if to remind me that he was there waiting for what he felt he was entitled to. Needy war fodder. I relented to his desires and ran my thumb over his lower lip, next dragging my fingerprint up the side of his face and stroking the two remaining staples. One of the three chunks of metal had fallen out about a hundred and eighty days ago. He had been gloomy about losing it but later bent the metal so that he could hang it like a bead on a slender cord around his neck. I circled the two deep pock marks left when the staple fell out and he grunted like the happy lounge lizard he was.

From the look of us now, life in the bountiful wasteland might seem like nothing but lazy days in shady spots and sweet touches, but that's just not true of us. Nope nope nope. The sun was no longer behind us, and the shady spot was shrinking just as I started to enjoy it. I jerked my knee up to roll his head out of it's spot.

"Hey! I was comfortable!" He grumbled and tried to scoot back onto me, now threatening to pin me under his back so that I wouldn't be able to shove him off so easily.

I pushed back. "Get off of Dune you fatass! You've had the shade all bloody morning and it's not big enough for the both of us anymore so shove off!"

"No!" Slit flipped over onto his belly and spread out his three remaining limbs, pushing me out of the shadow as his lips pulled into a malicious snarl. "I'm not movin' so, you'll just have to lay right on top of me if you want a piece of the shade!"

Don't challenge Dune.

I growled back, a long rumble from somewhere deep as I kicked at his shoulder with everything I had. Oh, it was on now. He managed to launch himself out of the shrinking shadow with all the strength in his single leg and land like a boulder on top of me, grappling for my wrists.

We've broken fingers and created gorgeously colored bruises with this game. I kicked up my left knee and threw my head forward, cracking him in the temple and mashing him in the only spot that's soft on a man.

"Ahaww!" His scarred fingers released my wrist so he could press the heel of his hand into his now bruised crotch.

Twisting out of his other hand was relatively easy now that he was distracted. Once free I scrambled out from under him, bolting for the gradually narrowing strip of cool stone.

"GAH! No you don't!" I felt him lurch into my legs, sending me crashing in a belly flop onto the hot rock. Ah! I knee in my back, an elbow grinding into my shoulder. The son of a bitch was crawling over me back into the shadow.

"AHH! CUNT WAFFLE!"

"That the fuck's a waffle?"

"Dune don't know!" I screeched, reaching out swiftly to wrap my good hand around the cockeyed rat tail on the back of his head. The pretty little beads he let me shove up onto the length of man fur tore out as I dragged him back out into the unforgiving light.

"Bitch!"

"Dickhead!"

Things had disintegrated into hair pulling and cheap, dirty moves quickly. The fun ended abruptly when his rough hand shot up my blouse and twisted my right tit. Oh, bad form Ducky. Bad form.

My sharp and yellows sunk into his bicep and I twisted my neck to pull. He yelped, shouted, cursed and when he finally tore free of my teeth he was just as done with this game as I was. I was physically flung away and nearly rolled right off the stone pile.

Lucky me. I dug in and managed to hang on with nothing but fingernails stopping me from dropping several feet down into shale and things that like to break ankles when you land on them. I clawed my way back up and spat in his general direction as he rolled up his sleeve to check the damage. A small red crescent of blood had already bloomed into the once lightly colored fabric.

I'd been preparing another slur when a distant sound hummed in my ears. I turned my head. Squinting at the horizon. There it is. The convoy.

"Hey. Slit."

Once I had his attention I tilted my head toward the north east where a line of black dots in the distance was moving fast toward the canyon, kicking up plumes of dust.

"Looks like Dune won't be the one clearing out the bones and sludge from the maggot farm after all."