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“You need not bandage that yourself,” the synth girl says. She has clean hands, narrow and dainty with smooth white crescents of nail. Her hair is short and neatly brushed. Like one of those cats that hang around Sanctuary, too sleek to be completely feral, too friendly for their own good. Smells like lemon and antiseptic, something clean and warm.
Cait grunts, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from saying a harsher word. “I’m used to taking care of myself.” Keeps wrapping the gauze in place. She’s had worse-- would let the Vaultie bandage her if it was worse. But it’s a scratch, really. Just another reminder to watch her back in a fight. She got too caught up and missed the raider who snuck behind her, half-turned and half-dove to the side to duck his swinging machete. Slammed her ribs into a table, a bone-deep bruise, but better to take a machete to her shoulder than her head. At least her pauldron took most of it, and she got him with her shotgun before he could try another swing.
“It does not mean you must.” Her brow furrows, a tiny crinkle of concentration as the synth girl folds her hands and sets them in her lap. Like she’s still not sure what to do with them. Literally. Just last week she was a flying ball with bits, and now she’s got limbs and feet, and sometimes counts her own breaths like she’s afraid she’ll forget. “I can help, if you wish.”
Cait narrows her eyes. Watches-- spine tense, back muscles tight. Like weights suspended from her shoulders, holding herself up against their pull.
Synth girl’s still got her hands neatly folded, face earnest and hopeful. Might not be ‘human,’ yet, still got all her old Nanny-bot programming. Probably wouldn't even recognize sex outside of a textbook.
Still not sure why the synth girl wants to help, but at least it’s not a ruse for a shag.
So Cait nods, forces herself still. Tendons jumping beneath her skin, blood jittering through her throat.
Synth girl’s got soft hands, some sort of sweet and powdery scent to it. Like lotion, like a ceramic pot from the cosmetics section of a wrecked department store. She works gentle too, slow and sure. She’s only had hands for a week, but still moves with confidence, like they’ve been calibrated for this purpose. Wraps the bandage smooth and even, the white cloth looking suddenly shabby against the synth girl’s clean skin. She finishes tying it closed, smoothes her palm over the tuck and smiles broad and beautiful as the moon. “There, Miss Cait. If you need any further assistance, I am at your service.”
“I didn’t need this,” Cait snaps. Flares her nostrils, nails biting crescents into her palm. “Don’t be getting ideas now. You asked, I let you.” The dangerous ones are the soft ones, the ones who settle the chains smile-soft and gentle around your neck before yanking them taut.
“My sincerest apologies, Miss Cait.” The synth girl folds her hands, stands just out of reach. Shoulders loose, toes in straight parallel-- and Cait realizes she’s trying to give space, not duck in case Cait swings a fist. “You do not require assistance, but if you feel accepting of such, I am free for the asking. I still have much to learn about behaving as a human, and it would be most helpful for me.”
Cait grunts, noncommittal. Surreptitiously shrugs her shoulder, testing the wrap. It’s firm without sliding, a better job than she could have done by herself. “Sure.” Turns away, back to the house she’s picked out as her own. Not enough settlers yet she’s gotta share. Likes it that way.
Belatedly, she turns back. Words stone-heavy, sour and strange on her tongue. “And thanks. For the bandage.”
. . .
Synth girl-- Curie, Cait reminds herself, a name that tastes like cakes and powdered sugar, like silver cutlery and uncracked porcelain-- gets her hands real dirty, for someone with such clean nails. Spends mornings on her knees in the dirt, grubbing through the muck and tending the crops with everyone else. Always wears a ridiculous floppy sunhat and chides others to do the same. The MacCready kid grumps at her, says she’s not his mom. Deacon indulges her, but mostly because Cait figures he wants an extra hat. And even Strong-- well, shit. Seeing the mutant in a floppy straw hat with a sunflower on the band is a barrel of laughs.
And finally, after Cait spends too long in the sun and the back of her neck’s peeling and itchy, her nose blistered red as fuck fuck fuck thank fucking god for that numbing cream Curie gives her, Cait starts wearing one of those hats too.
Keeps her from getting sunburnt, at least.
Curie spends a lot of time in the dirt, but also a lot of time up to her elbows in blood and gut. For all she demurs about having trained in medical research instead of hands-on work (and literally, ‘cuz she didn’t have hands for however long she was locked in that fucking vault as a Nanny-bot) she rises to the fucking occasion, like a cork bobbing on the waves. She’s calm for such a pretty thing, says all the nice noises while stitching someone up. They learn real quick that any injury, send for Curie. She keeps the lights on for long hours in her dinky little clinic, surrounded by medical journals and practicing her stitches on cuts of meat, mixing stimpaks and RadAway at the chem station. Fingers alkaline with chemicals, with antiseptic and metal, all washed away in clean white froth as she soaps her hands in the bathroom with the door open.
Curie’s set up her clinic near Cait’s hidey-hole. But during the first week, when they were still setting up the kitchen and lights, aiming for more than a skeleton of space, Curie asked Cait if she could use Cait’s kitchen.
Cait grunted ‘sure,’ since she wasn’t using it anyway.
So Curie starts fixing herself breakfast, soft giggles and trial-and-error under Mama Murphy’s guidance. Cracks eggs with one hand, rapping them against the counter before popping the shell open and emptying it into a bowl. Stirs simmering pots of razorgrain and fries slabs of radstag. Makes pan-fried potatoes with wedges of carrot or onion tossed in. Always makes extra-- doesn’t announce it, but when Cait wakes up bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed, there’s always an extra plate on the table. And Curie, smiling, asking how much Cait would like as she holds out a sizzling pan. A mug of hot tea already beside the plate, steam rising in long syllables of promise.
. . .
Curie’s a fussy girl, always scrubbing her hands. Washes more than anyone Cait’s ever seen. She takes little slivers of lemon soap, sudsing them up in her palm and scratches her nails through them. Hums a little song under her breath, an old rhyme that tugs at Cait’s memory. Snakes a whisper in her ear, some longing thing. Not something her own mother ever sang to her, but one of the things Cait’s picked up that most people were supposed to know.
Nice, listening to Curie hum like that.
And she’s still figuring Curie’s angle. Trading favors, maybe-- when she talks nice with Sturges, she usually ends up with extra supplies for her growing clinic. When she reads to Strong, the mutant follows her around like a puppy and does any heavy lifting she asks.
Except Curie keeps giving Cait things, too. Like a bottle of painkillers, little red tablets that rattle like broken promises when Cait gives it a shake.
“Ibuprofen, Miss Cait. It is not as strong as Med-X, but can help with minor pains and inflammation.” She smiles, eyes twinkling. Her eyelashes casting shadow on her skin. “Please do take with food.”
“I’ve had worse,” Cait says.
Curie bites her lower lip, white teeth dimpling the flesh-- and that’s a new mannerism, something she must have picked up from Piper, or maybe Marcy. She's had to learn body language along with eating and breathing, all becoming a learned second nature. “Just because it has been worse does not mean it does not hurt, no?” Another smile, soft and awkward with eager good-will. “Please use it with care.”
. . .
Sometimes Cait wonders why Curie set up that clinic near her-- lots of chems in that clinic.
Except that she wouldn’t backstab Curie, not when Curie’s showing that kind of trust.
(The truth that claws: Curie doesn’t keep Psycho in stock. Cait never asked, knows it’s not a proper ‘medical’ drug for treatment, but still slipped over while Curie was in the field and gave the locks a friendly sort of handshake, humming and fiddling with a bobbypin. Found vials of glittering Med-X, chalky little tablets of Buffout and gleaming amber bags of RadAway and tubes of antibiotic cream and clamps and saws and forceps and all kinds of shit that looks like tools for torture, not medicine, but didn’t find any Psycho.
Still, next morning at breakfast, Cait tells Curie to replace any of the locks that took her less than a minute to crack. Chomps her bitter greens and garlic, gulps it down like medicine. Better than admitting the truth.)
. . .
Cait does not like being beholden. Owing favors just gives people hooks, nasty place to gouge their fingers. Excuses to claw you to ribbons, demand you enjoy it. Call you ungrateful when you don’t.
Curie’s not angling for any favors, yet. Cait keeps waiting for it.
When she squints at the rising sun and shades her eyes to spot Curie, she figures going to cash in her debts. Curie’s got that sort of purpose to her walk, short brisk steps, the flat paf of her soles hitting the dirt on every stride. Probably going to ask for help lifting something, or for Cait to ‘volunteer’ at the clinic. Maybe ask Cait to go search the woods for some glowing fungus so Curie can make another batch of RadAway.
But Curie stops, smiles. Pulls a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of her white coat, pressing them to Cait’s unprotesting hand. They’re in damn good shape too, with only a minor scratch on the earpiece.
“It promises to be another sunny day in the Commonwealth, and I know you do not enjoy the hat,” Curie says. And it’s a damn good thing Cait’s got the sunglasses now, since Curie smiles like a fucking nova. Blinding bright, hurts the back of her head and makes Cait feel all grubby.
Cait always pays back what she owes.
Caps-- she calculates real quick. If caps were what Curie’s angling for, she wouldn’t be running that clinic at cost. Rattling caps at her would make Curie do one of those goddamn smiles and push it back, all altruistic goodness and sun shining out of her ass.
So journals, maybe. Except Curie’s let all the traders know she wants first dibs on any journals they carry, and Cait’s not about to schlep all the way to some mutie-infested hospital on the off-chance that she can scav some medical rag that Curie hasn’t read already.
That leaves service for service. But Curie’s never angled for ass, and the only other piece Cait figures she can offer are her fists. And Curie’s not the type to ask her to go punch someone, so…
Well, shit. Cait’s fists make even trade.
. . .
So they square off in early evenings, Curie all delicate angles and soft edges in loose clothing. Her thumbs tucked, fists raised, stance loose. Poised and elegant, like a dancer rather than a fighter. Cait barks drills, works with her to pound muscle into memory into motion.
“Not programming anymore! Gotta feel it in your blood, synth-girl!” Cait grunts, slamming her shoulder down to rattle Curie into the wall.
Curie gasps, a pained wheeze as her heels kick up yellow dust. Sweeps her foot, bounces off the wall and uses her momentum to knock Cait on her ass. She smiles, bruised and beautiful as the sunset, and kneels to offer Cait a hand. “My blood is not the same as yours, my friend. But I appreciate this extra training.”
Cait pushes herself backward, eyes Curie’s hand before deciding to accept it. Curie’s hands are still soft, slick with sweat and her palms uncalloused. Still clean little white crescents of nail. But that brings her uncomfortably close to the other woman. The synth. There’s distances, body language-- all the things Curie’s still picking up. A new kind of code.
Cait takes a single step back. “Yeah, but remember-- if it’s a real fight, kick ‘em while they’re down. Stomp the knee, break something.” Smacks her fist into her open hand, emphasis on every kick, stomp, break. “Or shoot ‘em. Don’t let them get up again.”
“It seems a shame to break what might be saved,” Curie says, a milk-soft wistfulness that makes her sound younger than she is. Shit, centuries old if Piper’s right about where Curie came from. Still new and damp for actual living.
Cait shakes her head. “Don’t worry about ‘saving’ anything other than your own ass, Curie. World’s full of assholes.”
“It is a good thing I have friends to correct that balance then, no?”
And that Curie considers her a friend hits harder than any of Curie’s sharp-knuckled fists. Bruises her down to the core.
. . .
Curie starts collecting souvenir pennies, rattles them in an empty tin. It smells of metal and mint, the copper warm and blood-bright in that little container. More heft than bottlecaps, slither smooth over one another. She likes to turn them over in her hands, let them glitter red and orange in the light as she examines the little images, the tiny letters spelling names of museums and zoos that she has never seen, will never see in their full glory.
A penny was the lowest unit of currency before the war, according to Codsworth. Cait’s seen the old signboards on gas stations, knows how little a penny could buy. Bills were worth more-- could fold them, crumple them, even the smallest one-dollar bill worth a hundred pennies. But now the faded green money’s worth only the paper it’s printed on, the linen and cotton pulled out for other projects.
But now-- copper is precious. Souvenir pennies even more precious because they can’t seem to find the damn machines that press them, gotta dig out the flattened pieces and hoard them safe.
Cait keeps her eyes open. Checks out the kiosks at tourist destinations-- old museums and libraries, the crumbled remains of prewar zoos and galleries. Picks out the tiny flattened pieces, polishes and blots them with an old rag. Tends them as meticulous as her shotgun, a rattle of hopes instead of shells.
(Curie’s smile hits like a fistful of sunshine, punches Cait right in the gut every time Curie thanks her.)
. . .
Cait sits across the table from Curie as Curie pinches gloved hands over a slab of molerat meat, needle flashing as she weaves in and out of flesh, placing a thin line of black stitches. Curie frowns, sticking her tongue between her teeth as she pulls the thread taut. Practice for her patients, still learning the finer calibrations of her hands and eyes. Muscle into memory into motion, but where Cait’s ripping people apart, Curie’s always putting them back together again.
Cait feels Curie’s presence as a prickly thing that digs, aches. Like a needle hooked in her skin, tugging torn muscle and sinew. The kind of pain that heals, itchy as a new scab, painful as bone crunching into place after a bad break. She knows her heart’s a gristled flap of meat. Grey and oozing, stinks of old iron and copper. Raw and bloody, but Curie sees what can be saved, salvages good muscle where she can and sets her hands soft for healing.
There’s a peace to it, the silent way they sit across from one another. Cait’s starting to learn the layout of her own kitchen, and when she fixes tea she sets the less-chipped mug next to Curie. Pours for her, one hand under the spout for balance as she pours a fragrant stream. Watches the steam rise as Curie continues stitching. They come together now at the end of the day, the same sort of tender as a bruise rising on skin. Except even if it hurts, Cait doesn’t want to let go.
. . .
Hurts, hurts.
Can’t let go, curled up in a mess of sweats and twisted blankets, her tongue stale and bloated. Spits blood past her teeth. Light stabs, everything’s red--
Needle in the vein, under her skin. Cool rush of Psycho, helps the red fade so it shimmers just behind her eyes. Colors mute, grow stable. Lets her breathe. Lets it in, out. In. Out. Lungs heavy with breath.
Another failed attempt at going clean, Addictol no longer cutting it. Not even taking the worst edge off, keeps her jitter-legged and raw, all the colors bleeding through her vision, all the anger clear and sharp.
Addictol doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
(If nothing helps, there’s still always the shotgun.)
. . .
Curie sits in front of her, stirs an extra dollop of honey in Cait’s tea. The spoon tinkles against the cup, one last swirl before she pulls it out and sets it on a saucer. Presses the warm mug to Cait’s hands.
“Drink,” she says. It is not a request.
Cait drinks. Stale bile washes down under sweet chamomile, clears the nausea and lingering headache. She first starts drinking out of duty, a dull sense of obligation but it becomes urgent, sweet, something to banish the dry cobwebs of her failed detox.
Curie purses her lips, crosses her arms and holds her elbows. Holding herself together like she might fall forward, crumble like all of Cait’s resolve. “How long have you been using Psycho?” Curie asks.
“Asking as my friend or as my doctor?” asks Cait, mouth tight. A jagged seam of disappointment, waiting for the scolding.
Curie’s mouth softens, falling open in an ‘O’ of surprise. Eyes round, eyebrows high and near-vanishing off her face. “Your friend, of course.”
So Cait talks. Slow, rusty, like the first drip of brown water from an old faucet.
(Curie’s so pure-- clean hands, white coat, grey eyes gleaming like purified water. Even now she smells faintly of lemon, sweet citrus on her skin.)
It trickles, pours. Cait empties it out like blood, like a crimson tide washing her sins out to light. Dark and clotting, thick and slimy over her lips.
“I need to get clean. I can’t keep living like this anymore,” she finishes, raw-voiced and aching. Hands clutching the mug, shaking. Jittering it against the table, the rapid click of ceramic on wood.
Cait tells her about the Addictol, how it doesn’t work anymore-- and Curie listens, nods. Lets her finish before Curie finally says:
“I would like to help you, if you let me.”
. . .
First thing Cait learns is that Addictol isn’t a one-shot drug, doesn’t ‘instantly’ cure addictions as much as the chem-pushers try telling it. Curie gathers her sources, takes out precious vials of Addictol-- tablets, not just the inhalers Cait’s seen used for overdose. Curie sets up a dose tapering regime, helps Cait clean the last vials of Psycho out of the house. They rattle out the syringes, clear liquid dancing like crystals- a farewell to ghosts, a haunting goodbye as Cait already tries to calculate how long until withdrawal hits, the ticking of her heart counting down the beats until the Psycho leaves her system, drip-dripping through her veins.
The tablets dissolve, bitter and alkaline beneath her tongue. Still not enough for a high, but takes some of the edge off. Not enough-- a screaming, howling thing that chews her inside-out, carves a nest inside her ribs. Buys its bloody chunk of meat in feverish shakes, vomits and hot sweats.
Angry-- so angry, the smallest thing a vault to a towering rage. She screams at Curie for putting her up to this, for hiding the Psycho-- swears up and down she’ll rip the clinic apart, claw broken-nailed and bleeding through the rubble, punches the wall but never, never, never crosses the threshold, never goes past Curie and her crossed arms and her pain-soft reminders that it gets better, it gets better.
Time goes rubbery, melts and twists like a bubbling clock, molten and ragged through her temples.
The world swims into focus-- next day? Next night?
“Cait, it is time for your next dose,” Curie says gently. Her face serene, a gentle understanding that stabs worse than a scolding.
Funny to think it takes chems to get off chems, but Curie gives her medicine for the shakes, little scored tablets that crack into neat halves. They help, a little-- turn the world soft and dreamy, a waking haze of confused memory. Hurts to be around people, always fuzzy-tongued and losing the thread, unable to stitch herself to the present, ground herself into place. Worse to be alone and wallowing in misery.
So Cait follows Curie to story-time with Strong, curls up at the back of the impromptu classroom on an overstuffed cushion with her back to the wall, one arm over her eyes to shield her from the light. Smells of old paper and sour ink, and the waxy, half-melted stubs of crayon. More childhood pieces Cait never got, can’t wedge into place. Too late for that now, like taking old jigsaw pieces from a half-dozen different sets and trying to make them fit.
Cait dozes off halfway into Macbeth and wakes up during Strong’s stumbling recitation of, “O brawling love! O loving hate! O anything of nothing first create!” His face furrowed in deep concentration, finger underlining the words as he shapes his mouth to unfamiliar sound. All awkward hesitancy, letting the words seep through her sleep-fogged brain.
A brawling love-- because this has to be a kind of love, and nothing can hurt near as bad as this love-sickness, the Psycho leaving her gutted out and hollow, cheeks gaunt and dark shadows beneath her eyes, heavy and bruised. Scraped out and emptied-- a lot of ‘nothing’ waiting to be filled. Worthless.
Except Curie keeps talking to her, keeps making breakfast and smearing sunblock on her, helps her with doses and sits side-by-side on the roof to watch the sunset, and the world seems so sudden-washed in newness-- a chalky softness, pastel colors smeared across the sky-- that Cait’s eyes prickle, a lump in her throat as she edges her hand closer to Curie’s. Close enough to feel the warmth of her skin, but not touch-- a tiny prickle of electricity, like a current running between them. The wooden roof warm and rough beneath Cait’s palm, the air thick with sun-baked salt and longing.
“Curie? Are you my friend or my doctor?” she asks, and this time it’s a plea, not an accusation. Layers of bramble pried back to reveal the tender bud, a tiny, pulsing thing that has not yet lost all hope.
Curie’s eyes stay fixed on the clouds, the horizon-- warm gold splashing across her face, the last fingers of sunlight stretching long and lazy across her face. Tiny butterfly-shadows of her lashes against her cheek. “I am always your friend, dear Cait.”
“If-- if you are my friend, if you think I can get through this without screwing it all up to hell and back-- d’you want to try being ‘more than friends’ once I’m sober?” Holding her breath, like she can freeze this moment in her lungs.
Curie turns her head, tilting sideways. “I do not know if it is good to make promises,” she says, the gentlest let-down in the world, and the sky presses down in all its weight, all its wide vistas and cold breeze and crushing, infinitesimal smallness of Cait against the universe-- but Curie continues, “I care for you very much, but this is also a time of great upheaval.” She blushes, a pretty pink that bleeds into the sunset, drips down the tips of her ears and to her nose and cheeks. “Romance is a complex thing even in the best of situations.”
“And I never been the best,” Cait admits. “Fuck up everything I touch.”
Curie shakes her head, and Cait’s heart aches, crashes against her ribs. “You do not.” Firm, decisive as a surgeon’s slice. “I love you dearly as a friend. I would love you dearly as a lover, but the two should be miscible.” She smiles at Cait’s puzzled frown. “Friendship and romance should be able to mix in all proportions, inseparable and indistinguishable. I refuse to believe the two concepts are so contrary to one another.”
“So we cannot date because we’re friends?”
“No. I wish to court because we are friends.” Curie smiles and picks up Cait’s hand. Presses soft lips to the back of Cait’s chapped knuckles. “I wish to have a proper courtship. I would love you to ask again, when you are sure it is not an exchange of one addiction for another.”
(And Cait knows deep in her heart that yes, it could be-- could be an addiction, if she lets it. Drown in Curie’s grey eyes, fill her veins to bursting with the honey-drip of soft words and gentle touches, but maybe it’s only chasing because she’s still trying to fill that void. And Curie deserves better than that.)
. . .
A month passes, every day a revelation, like flipping through a battered tarot deck.
Wishes she could heal pretty-- some days easier than others, some harder. Things smell sharper, stronger. Colors burst brighter. Even music hits her ear different, rattling down her spine and plucking her heart like a string. Wishes the healing were easy, painless-- leave no trace of its passing, just ripple out of her like memory on water.
But every time she looks down, she sees her arms-- knows the ugly tracks of needles, scars ripped through skin, memory on flesh. Too long-buried to be cleaned away with stimpaks, no matter how good Curie’s medicine. Wouldn’t even recognize her own arms without the landmarks of pocked keloid.
“You must really think there’s someone worth something, after all this shit clears out of me system,” Cait says grimly. Rolls her bottle of Addictol in her hand, tablets just-visible through the amber vial.
“No,” Curie says still soft and gentle. “You are already worth something. You are my friend.”
Cait snorts, pounding her chest with a fist as Curie rubs small circles on her back. “When you first set up at your clinic, y’know, I picked the locks. Was looking for a fix of Psycho.”
“I know,” says Curie. No judgment, silver-clear as untainted rains.
“How come you’re still my friend?”
“I love you like the breath in my lungs and bread in my belly, dear Cait,” Curie says, and she makes it sound easy, easy-- simple as sums, one plus one equals two and maybe that’s all they are, in the end. Like friendship and love are two sides of the same coin, flipping endlessly in the pit of Cait’s stomach. A dizzying lurch of realization.
Must show on her face, since Curie smiles, blushes with her chin tucked to her chest. “Love must be more than the romantic impulse. Marcy loves-- loved-- Kyle very much, and Sturges loves Dogmeat, Piper loves Nat. Hancock falls in love every few months. And I love you.” Curie smiles, her hand resting on Cait’s spine. A warm comfort between Cait’s shoulders. “These are all strange and new to me, wonderful sensations I could not have had before inhabiting this body. It is a wonder even when it hurts, such as when I have to remind myself to breathe. Going without breath may end my life, but holding air too long can choke my lungs. I must eat to fill my belly-- but there is pleasure in it, as well as pain if I bloat myself on food.” She smiles, presses her cheek against Cait’s shoulder. Lemon-scented sweetness and warm sunshine tucked in the curve of her lips. “All the things we love can hurt. All the things we need can hurt, but that does not make them less essential.”
“It’s not about need. It’s about the fact I fucked up, I fuck up.”
“To believe people incapable of change-- especially when they are struggling to do their best, when they are making it better through actions instead of mere words-- is to do a most profound disservice to humanity.” Curie crinkles her nose, gives one decisive shake of her head. “I would not be inhabiting this body if I thought humans incapable of change.”
. . .
It would be easier if they were ‘just’ friends, if there weren’t hope rattling Cait’s teeth every time their eyes meet, if Curie weren’t adjusting her doses for her, if Curie weren’t tangled up in every part of her life like scar tissue, like a bruise worn beneath the skin.
Cait struggles, sweats, stays clean. Goes to Curie for support, for a sympathetic ear and soothing words when she can stand it, goes to Mama Murphy when she can’t. Two tough birds roosting together, picking through a game of cards and both trying to pretend the deck’s not marked.
“Her hands look so clean, only because she washes. Healer’s hands are the bloodiest. You would not foul her with your touch,” Mama Murphy says, voice soft and drifting. Shuffling the deck, a velvet whisper of sound as the cards slip through her hands.
Cait squints her eyes, juts her chin. “Thought you quit the Sight.” A different kind of accusation than with Curie.
Mama Murphy sets down the deck, rolls up her sleeves. Turns her wrists over, pale flesh marked with old lines. “Don’t need Sight to tell what’s obvious. Could make each other very happy you know,” she says, picking up the deck again and dealing the cards. A pause. “No, wrong words. You are already very happy, each in your own way. You add joy to each other’s lives. You could be more, but that kind of love doesn’t care if you call each other friends or lovers.”
. . .
Habit’s worn grooves through her skin, long tracks of instinct. Cait learns new ways to keep the jitters at bay, clacks a spoon around a hot cup to stir tea against a blue night, digs her toes in muddy waters to anchor against an orange-crisp day. Sinks deep into her bones, breathes huge and expands to fit her skin. Rooted in her body, in this moment-- grounded and real. Authentic to the core.
She joins more story-time with Curie and Strong, Deacon dropping by with a thick volume of Whitman and a nagging whine for variety. Deacon rushes through the poetry, a breathless rhythm as he gasps long over the vowels and draws out the dying syllables. Strong reads with his finger on the page, lips moving even when not reading aloud. And Curie is always beautiful, smooth and cool-- deep waters, fathomless depths that wash over Cait in sound and glory.
Cait doesn’t like reading out loud, her voice a creaking hinge next to Curie’s. But she tries, licking her lips as if to slip the words out smoother. The consonants crumble past her mouth, dead and dry. She continues stubbornly, shaping doggerel to verse. There is a meaning to them, a story that endures like the radio-shows and the comics. And if she can pin them down, then maybe, maybe, under the blood and death and lies and drama, she can understand the building blocks of her own story.
(Or at least have something else to chase her mind in circles instead of the silver-song call of Psycho in little syringes.)
. . .
One month clean-- off the Psycho and Addictol both, and Cait wears the accomplishment around her wrist, a braided cord with a tinkly blue bead on it. Like a piece of captured starlight, cool and gleaming.
“One,” Curie chirps, tapping her nail against the bead so it chimes. “One more charm for each month. You shall earn a full bracelet.” A wooden box in her hand, rattling with charms. Bursts of orange and red beads, more little glass pieces that flicker like flame against the woodgrain. One green teardrop that shimmers opal in the light. Carved wooden suns and moons, little tokens from a passing trader or some prewar jewelry set. One tiny silver key, no larger than the first joint of Cait’s thumb.
“You got a lot of charms,” Cait says, eyeing the box with hunger and wonder.
Curie smiles, eyes soft. “Because you will have many months chem-free.”
. . .
Cait counts her months like a rosary, wonders how long until addiction rips its roots from her bones, untwines itself from her spine. How long until she can truly say she ‘was’ an addict. Her thumb wears smooth over the cord, pad catching soft over each bead and charm. Counts down like pulling petals, a broken-heart litany of ask her/don’t, ask her/won’t, ask her/she can do better…
Unfair to ask Curie to play doctor, friend, and lover all in one skin-- but also unfair to assume Curie says anything but what she means, to think they don’t deserve another shot.
(And somewhere inside her ribs, the monster stops gnawing at its chains.)
Cait approaches Curie again-- as equals, friends and partners. Still lost, but sure-footed and confident over the uneven stagger of her heart. Uncharted territories, no less filled with wonder for how strange they are. Asks her question, bold and bright, holding a bouquet of ferns and hubflowers starred with tiny white buds. Because Curie deserves a proper courtship, deserves soft tenderness and more than the rough-knuckled affection Cait is used to.
And Curie says ‘yes, yes, yes’ and takes the bouquet, sprinkling tendrilled leaves and loose-headed blossoms as she laughs and wraps her arms around Cait’s shoulders, twines over her like sunlight across an ivy-soaked wall, and Cait sweeps Curie in the circle of her arms. Spins Curie radiant against the sky, feet flying up in a wild whirl of laughter and ‘yes, yes, yes.’
That month, Curie adds one of her own souvenir pennies to Cait’s charm bracelet, punches a hole with an awl and drops it into Cait’s hand. Cait closes her fingers over it, lets the metal edges bite her palm. Strings it on the cord, bright and beautiful, another promise fierce against her skin.
The knit of flesh and bone and healing bruises-- the press of skin and breath, Cait’s chapped mouth against Curie’s balm-soft lips. Soft and hard, like muscle and memory. A coming-together of tissue and platelets. Messy in all their parts, but it is a pain that heals.
And Cait will hold her tight and warm, string each victory around her wrist and call it hope.