005: SILENCE

"So, are ya ever gonna talk to me again?" Satero asked, leaning over Corosa. They were both the same height when standing, but from Corosa's position sprawled out on the ground, the mastersmith towered over him.

Corosa shut his eyes again. "…No. Never."

Or at least not now. He hadn't been sleeping well for the past few nights, constantly jolted awake by pain when he mashed his amputated arm against something. He'd been dozing off just before Satero decided to confront him.

Satero laughed. "Ah, that's what I thought."

And a split second later Corosa found Satero's boot pinning him to the ground–thankfully, by his left shoulder. His eyes flew open.

With a grin, Satero said, "You and I, we gotta talk."

Corosa was just about to point out that he could talk very well without Satero's foot on him, but the mastersmith continued before Corosa could interject.

"First of all, you've gotta do something about your arm," Satero said. Both of them glanced over at the limb in question.

It no longer pained Corosa as much as it had before, unless he wasn't careful and jabbed it against something. But worse than that was the sensation of still having a full arm. At times he could feel phantom fingers moving, a missing forearm itching, non-existential bones cracking. It was infuriating, and constantly caused him pain. Corosa had not yet broken his habit of trying to do things with his right hand.

He looked back up at Satero. "There isn't much to do about it."

"Fuck that. Implants. Prosthetics. I was going to learn how to make 'em but I ran away before I did." As if reading Corosa's mind, Satero quickly went on before Corosa could ask what he'd run away from. "Don't tell me you're happy to be like this for the rest of your life."

"I fail to see where it concerns you," Corosa said, trying to shake his hair out of his eyes. "And I can talk without your foot on me."

"Sure as hell it concerns me. I'm the whole reason why you're a cripple now." At some point in time Satero had fished out another cigarette and was chewing on it again. "So, you planning to do something about it or not?"

"No." Corosa was not being wry this time. What mattered was that he could no longer shoot with his right hand, and no artificial limb was ever going to help him to regain that particular ability.

"Why not?"

"I don't see the point."

"Hell, look at yourself. You can barely do anything now, without your arm." Satero flicked the cigarette away. He'd literally chewed it to shreds. "Things'd be easier for you."

Corosa closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "I think I can handle this."

"I think you're fucking insane. Handle this? You can barely sleep." Satero put a little more weight on his foot, causing Corosa to flinch and grind his teeth together. Was the man doing that on purpose?

Whether that was the case or not, Corosa ignored the indignity for the time being and said, "It'll pass."

He'd gone through his share of injuries. The vast majority of them ended up in a few days' worth of sleepless nights. This one might end up in a few weeks' worth, but he'd get used to it in time.

"Huh." There was a very tangible 'we'll see' tacked on to the end, but Satero kept it silent.

A few more moments of awkward silence passed.

"I'd like to know when you plan to get off me," Corosa said, with a pointed look at the offending foot.

Satero pointedly ignored him again. "I still think that priest was wrong," he grumbled, closely scrutinizing Corosa. "We don't look exactly the same."

Corosa thought that the resemblance was still close enough to be eerie. As far as he could tell, the only major difference between them was that Satero seemed perpetually cheerful.

"You ever had any weird past involving missing siblings?" Satero asked, raising an eyebrow. "'Cause I sure haven't."

"None."

"Eh. That's good, I guess." The mastersmith frowned as if thinking, then shrugged, and finally stepped off.

By habit, Corosa tried to push himself up with his right arm. He jammed it into the ground, swore and clutched at the stump, and only managed to sit up after his ache started to subside. Above him, Satero snorted. Corosa bit back an irritated comment.

Satero crouched down beside him with a self-satisfied look on his face, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards as if he was trying to suppress a laugh. Corosa was sorely tempted to punch the man in his mouth, but instead he let his eyes flicker over to the bruise still visible on Satero's cheek. It'd been ugly a few days before, and still looked ugly now, but it was getting better.

"It still hurts." Satero might've been thirty but he could still sound like a whiny child when he wanted to. His pathetic act was almost convincing, if it weren't for the smirk plastered onto his face. Corosa suspected that Satero knew how guilty he felt for causing all this trouble. Surely the mastersmith had better things to do with his time than follow a crippled gunslinger around all day long. Though if that was the case, Satero certainly hadn't started complaining yet.

"My shoulder hurts," Corosa grumbled, trying to massage it. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, too.

"Yeah, two hundred pounds of mastersmith does that to you. Sorry." The smirk hadn't left Satero's face. Corosa found his apology unconvincing. Though he was inclined to change his opinion when Satero mellowed both his tone and expression, adopting a more concerned demeanor. "Need help there?"

Corosa shook his head. He hadn't meant his complaint to be taken seriously.

"We should start moving," he said, glancing up at the sky.

"What the hell do you plan to do for the rest of your life, anyway?" For once, Satero was frowning instead of grinning like a maniac. "The world don't have much use for a crippled gunslinger. You have a family or anything?"

"No." Corosa started to get to his feet. His children were dead before their time, and their mother, too. His own parents he'd abandoned himself a long time before. "You?"

"Hah. Never." Satero got up before him. "Say, if you didn't ever set foot in a city, what did you usually do?"

"Nothing." Corosa had led quite an uneventful life following his escape from his house. He thought about that, realizing that if Satero insisted on tagging along, he wasn't going to adapt to the monotony easily. "You don't have to follow me if you don't want to."

"Are you shitting me? Arm aside, I still want to figure out who the hell we are." Satero reached over and ruffled Corosa's hair, much to Corosa's discomfort.

"I can tell you that," Corosa grumbled as he started to walk away. "I'm Corosa. You're Satero."

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AN: OBVIOUSMAN TO THE RESCUE

lulz you guys have no idea how much I had to resist going "LONGCAT IS LOOOOOOOOOOONG" at the end there.