"Dune felt your arms around her - felt safe - felt that all was right with the world and then she woke up wrapped up in him... Sorry Dune hasn't come to talk in a while. I hope you haven't had the chance to missed me, Mums."

When I turned my head Slit was there, watching as I relayed the tale of recent weeks to Mama. I felt a little embarrassment burn at my cheeks, he was often mentioned in the tales I told to my Mumsy but always in annoyance or concern. Seldom did I mention him in adoration, approval or confusion like this time. Usually, Duck was an easy beasty to understand. I still could not fathom why I would wake to be held tight and all tangled up in his limbs at Wilson's. That had been nearly a month ago yet it still made about as much sense to me as Buzzard speak.

Right now he was bloody, black and blue blooming across his face from his nose out to his cheekbone. I knocked his face around good but from the feel of my own head he might have bashed my skull in just as bad. I had a nice knot on my forehead, at least as big as a crow's egg. His nose was crooked. If I didn't put that back the way it should be then it would heal that way and stay cockeyed.

"Come here Ducky,"

He needed his face fixed up. He was probably expecting the good touches he always enjoyed and I let him believe that was what awaited him as I extended both hands, waiting for his cranium to fill them. He had trouble with his metal leg. It was jammed up so, he fell on me more than he did sit properly.

Ah, yeah. I broke his nose real good. My fist ached with the memory. Whacking him in the face was like punching a boulder. My hand still wept crimson from the split across my middle knuckle. I gave him a gentle touch or two, to bring sensation to his lips with my thumb and watch him be lulled into trust before I pushed his nose back on straight. He uttered a guttural stream of curses as he slapped my hands away. Had to shove a rag under his face to catch the new gush of body fuel which glistened black like oil in the torch light. It pooled in the hollow between his throat and collarbones.

"A little warning would be frickin' chrome, bag of nuts..." His words were muffled by the rag.

He groaned and began pulling at the mangled straps of his metal leg as I held the bloody cloth to his nose for him.

"How bad did Dune bust it up?" He needed that leg, I hoped that I didn't wreck the thing completely.

He growled as he lay the thing across his lap and started exposing all of the delicate inner works. "Bad enough that I almost wanna pound you again... I'll need the rusty wooden peg leg for a few days while I fix it."

"Dune is-... Damn." Sorry wasn't something either of us threw around lightly. I didn't say it but he seemed to get where the words were going before they got caught up. He just grunted and shook his head ever so slightly in a refusal of the half apology. I always found things like that hard to say, even before all of the aftermath of the lightning.

"Say you're sorry Dune. Apologize to your brother."

"He started it!"

"Well, I started you, so do as I say."

The memory came on strong. I saw it flash before my eyes, Mama with her arm around Flick's shoulders. He'd been eleven, her stepson, but already taller than her. I'd bitten him for something or other. A childhood squabble I don't remember a reason for. I tried to shake it out of my head but they only blurred before coming back into focus, gaining more clarity and color. Green crept in around the edges, escaping through the cracks in my skull and overgrowing the cavern.

"You still there? Hey, Maniac. You with me or off somewhere else?"

I shook my head again, scratching at the fuzz that grew on the sides of my dome. Slit managed to come in clearer through the vision. Only a messed up face like that could possibly be a sight vividly real enough to break the spell.

"No. N- not entirely. Either way... Green shit everywhere."

I had dropped the now sodden rag and Slit had to replace it himself, sopping up the last drops of life liquid seeping from his face. His nose and brows scrunched up the best they could after the wallops he had endured. He was going to have a black eye. I probably would too. He looked confused, maybe a little put off too.

The blissful flickers of home kept on trying to overwhelm my vision at every blink, fading out and coming in stronger each time. I was about to get lost in it again when Ducky's face grew closer and closer until - forkin' shit. Something wet and hot slid up my chin and over the corner of my lips.

"HEY! Gross."

"What?! Your mouth is leakin' red."

"So you're disgusting, war fodder solution is to use your tongue?"

"Well, the rag's already full of my red stuff, which was your doing, a tongue is better than nothin'."

"UGH! What is that smell? Is that your breath? Gods you stink!"

Well, if nothing else, he was accomplished in pulling me out of a near waking dream. Maybe that had been his intention. Slit tended to be somewhat transparent without realizing he was -and shallow too- but as a general rule so was I. He was grabbing at my face and licking his own lips as he tried for a second sweep across my cheek bone where his knuckles had opened me up. I twisted out of the hold and flung myself toward the water basin. I yanked a clean rag off the drying line and dumped that into the water to wet it, then hurled it at him. It made a wet smack against his face, at once stained in smudges of red that had almost been dry before the damp rag found them.

"Scrub yourself, for the love of seeds. And rinse your mouth out when you're done. Scrape all that gunk off your teeth."

He swatted his hand through the air to dismiss me. Finally something normal. Sure, we almost never bloodied each other up so thoroughly, but this – THIS is our normal. Nothing but bitching and moaning at each other. I'll call him filthy and repulsive, he'll call me mental and then we'll sleep back to back, a hand width apart like the hundreds of nights before.

He pulled his shirt up over his head and threw it in my general direction, probably to egg-on another round of smack talk. I didn't honor him with snark. This time, I simply gave the discarded garment a sniff -goddess I must be a glutton for punishment- then chucked that toward the metal basin where I scrubbed clothes every once in a while. Slit just stunk so strongly, especially after a fight for some reason. He was being lazy about the whole washing thing, not scrubbing near hard enough at his skin. I knew he hated doing this because he was quite the little weenie when it came to feeling cold after.

"Get your reeking pits too, Duck."

He threw his head back with a reptilian sorta snort. I could practically hear his eyes rolling in their sockets too.

"If you're so fuckin' concerned that I can't even wash myself right," He thrust out his hand at me with the hole-riddled cloth wadded up in it. "then why don't you just do it your-damn-self?"

I'd been readying my eating bowl with a little water and a rag so that I could clean up my own face as he said that.

"Can't do anything without Dune's help. No? 'Cept fixing cars."

I snatched the rag from him and started by scrubbing the dust out of scarring on the back of his neck. It was a symbol of how the fallen king had owned him. There was more scarification below that, it was now barely discernible through the newer scars made with flames. The faint traces of the design followed the length of his spine, hard not to focus on cleaning that when I was curious to know what it was. He said nothing of it and I moved on to the rest of the expanse of scar tissue sweeping from his left side toward the right of his back without overtaking it entirely.

I soon became aware that I'd been lured into fulfilling Ducky's touch fixation. A badly suppressed groan or a sigh that I could barely hear would buzz in my ears as he leaned into every pass of the moist scrap of fabric.

"Dune knows what you did there. Nothin' but a wicked and needy deceiver."

He leaned heavier into my knees as I crouched behind him, dropping his head back to glare at me upside down and show off his teeth. Yes, now that's the look which belongs on his delightful face made of nightmare fuel. I hissed back. It was a custom between us, as good as far more innocent gestures of acknowledgment among companions.

This was sort of what we'd both wanted. I'd thought about tidying him up myself earlier, before our ass kicking match. The only reason I'd wanted to do it myself was to make sure it got done well and proper, there was no other reason there. Nope. Although Mama's eyes were long gone, I could somehow feel her gaze burn across the back of my shoulders as if she was amused with me.

"Just bein' friendly, Mama. Not that kind of friendly."

"Hmm?" Slit's eye cracked open and his head tilted once more to look up. I could feel my lips twisting into something that was neither a scowl nor a grin. I dragged the rag over his face to stop his gaze right there.

"Wasn't talking to you, battle fodder."

"Nut-job..." His gruff mutterings had to come to a halt as well when I began scrubbing the black smudges of grease out of the puckered scars through his cheeks.

Habits are easy to make but very nearly impossible to break. After two days back to business as usual, Ducky found it far simpler to tie our wrists together than to set up noise makers to wake him when the sleep walks came for me on a nightly basis. My dreaming adventures became incredibly short. I'd wake only as I was being pulled back into the pile of sleep mats and worn out bedding. I was often still confused by bizarre dreams of acceleration as I was forced to lay still. This I was moving faster and faster across the endless stretches of sand as if I was leaning out of the window of the Impala while Ducky downshifted and then fanged it up into the sixth gear. My hands would open and close, looking for Mama's Enfield for it had been in my hands as I dreamt.

"Need to reload... Duck. Bullets. Dune's got a target wide open. Let her go so she can shoot this asshole."

"You're dreaming Nut Bag. Hold still. Stop squirming."

For those two nights and the ones that would follow, green would not encroach on the edges of my vision. It seemed that they couldn't so long as Slit's left arm and remaining leg held me fast to the now shared sleep spot. Being tied together at the wrists made it difficult to sleep back to back. Side by side was not an option either because Slit snored like a chainsaw when he laid on his back. I hated being the little spoon at first but It soon became normal, even reassuring since like this I could never wake up in the middle of nowhere at the mercy of alluring visions. Even the reek of engine grease and his body odor became a small comfort in a world where such luxuries are few and far between. Still, appearances had to be kept lest the battle fodder begins to think he is the one in charge of things. He had to struggle each evening to get a hold of my wrist long enough to tie a cord around it. The one he went for was always my left hand, the one he liked better for some odd reason.

On the fourth night, the game of keeping my hands out of his reach ensued with fervor.

"No, Slit. Sod off!"

"You mean, Yes Slit. Rescue me from my nightmares. Blah-bluh-blah."

"Dune don't talk like that! An' they ain't nightmares. Them's memories, or maybe prophecy. She don't know which but they're pleasant and nightmares ain't ever pleasant!"

"Whatever, just give it!"

"No!"

"I swear to the mighty Veeight that I will hold you down and-"

"FINE! Rust and dust here. Take it." I gave him a hand alright, palm slapping under his chin to push his head away.

He hissed as he wrapped his thumb and forefinger around my right wrist like a shackle. Seeds and sprouts, it was incredibly bothersome and insulting when he used only two fingers to restrain an entire limb of mine. He did it because he could and he knew it annoyed me something fierce that our respective upper body strength was so wildly unequal.

"Other one. I want the shine hand, not this scarred up one."

Needy, whiny, grabby bastard. "If you don't release Dune by the time she counts thrice, she swears by the light of the goddess that a song will be sung!"

I shoved my free hand under my bottom to keep it away just a bit longer. "One."

"Oh, come on. Give it."

"Two."

"This is stupid."

"The HILLS are alive with the sound of- MMMHHnhg!" His other hand clapped over my mouth to stop the flow of classical lyrics from Mama's favorite musical. My natural reaction to such a counter-assault was to scratch at his fingers. It was my undoing. He quickly had a hold of the phalanges he so desired and slid the loop of cord over them swiftly, tightening it and sliding his own into the second loop.

"You're nothing but a pain in the dick." Slit grumbled.

"That must be an awful lot of pain, seeing as you're a whole ruddy bag full of dicks."

Slit let loose a growl as he shoved at me to roll over toward the wall. There was always a great deal of wriggling involved when getting comfortable like this. I was not accustomed to sleeping on my right side and the ex-War Boy's hands tend to twitch as he drifts into a true slumber. His restless fingers were an issue for me, as with our wrists bound together his arm had to lay over my own. Slit's fingers curling unexpectedly against the back of my hand would startle me awake, so the best fix I could come up with was to lace my fingers through his and hold down that fidgety paw. Much to my ire, he seemed to enjoy that. He'd practically frozen solid the first time. The second time I grabbed his hand Slit managed to thaw himself, then wriggled in closer until I could feel his breath tickle my neck and the thumping of his heart against my spine.

It became yet another thing he silently demanded, just like the times he threw himself into my lap and wouldn't leave it until I caressed the little doodles in his skin. Goddess, are all of the creatures Immortan Joe raised in a pith of ignorance so starved for a gentle hand?

Now, after only a few days it was already typical of him to waggle his digits under my palm until I obliged and grasped them tightly. He always makes himself into the initiator when he discovered something he wanted more of.

Sleep would come to me far easier than it did for him. I was nearly walking in a dream world when he shifted in a way that must have been intentionally disturbing to my rest, then he asked a question I didn't want to hear.

"When are we going to your Green Place?"

"Aw, Slit... Go to sleep." I kicked at his ankle in my annoyance, he kicked back.

"You never agreed or said no. I want to know if we're going or not."

"The answer is no. Now sleep, damn you."

"I wanna know why not."

"Gah! Pain in the cunt!" I lifted my hand and flung it back, still gripping his in it and forcing him to smack himself in the head. "Are you that thick in the skull? Can't you understand that Dune doesn't want to go back to that place and see it as it is now? Yeah? No? She doesn't want to remember it so... so- Wrong!"

The rumble climbing up his throat helped to quiet me. He reversed my hold on his hand and pinned my own back down. "Yeah. I understand that. Prolly better than you think Loon."

I turned my head and looked back up at him as he braced on his elbows over me. "Your Citadel?" I asked and he gave a curt nod. I could only sigh as I turned back toward the wall.

"We're still busted up from that fight." I reasoned.

"That'll heal."

"Your leg ain't fixed yet." I tried a new reason.

"Find me some leather scraps and I'll have it fixed by morning." The war fodder had an answer for everything, didn't he?

"We don't have enough guzz." This was my ace card -whatever that analogy means- and I'd intended it to end the conversation.

"I can get more... Trust me."

"Trust you? A Slit has never said that one before. And just where do you intend to get extra Guzz from? Hm?"

"I got a source. Don't question it. How far do we have to go?"

"What does the distance matter?"

"Just answer the question nutter."

I wanted to slug him across the mouth. He was still hovering over me, healing nose no more than an inch from my ear now. "Too far. A two-day ride to the east if we haul arse. A week at a leisurely cruising speed... Forever at our usual meander."

"That's fine. I can make it happen."

He was so insistent on this. Why? Gods why? Why the hell was he so obsessed with seeing that awful place? It's not like I could ever describe enough to truly make him understand what it was before. I couldn't bare it to see the devastation there, to see the stilt mongrels which replaced we of The Many Mothers.

"Slit, don't make me agree to this. Please."

"Please?" He mimicked my tone. It was infuriating. Usually, if I could force words to come out sane like it took him aback. Not this time. He was determined. "A lunatic has never said that one before."

I tried to ignore the cruelty of his taunt. "Why are you asking this of Dune?"

"Because. You're not well. Might help to see it, even if it's rusty as fuck."

That was unlike Slit to say, so much that I considered whether he could have a few rocks in his own skull, rolling around and making a mess of him. Maybe I was the rock tumbling about in his head.

"Fine... Okay."

He nodded once more and flopped back down. "Seven days. Then we go, no pussing out."

I wasn't looking forward to it. Yet, I could already feel the hundreds of stories teetering on the edge of my sharp and yellows, waiting to be said.