Gabe looked at him, into his exhausted eyes swimming in pain. Feeling him tremble. “You’re in pain?”
Damian looked at his swollen arm. “Yeah… a bit… this would need some rest, I guess…” He raised his hand. “No an option, ok? I’ll get used to it.”
Gabe ran his fingers over that swollen flesh wedged in the splints. “I might need to loosen this.”
“Come, let’s haul your catch up and bring it home. We’ll eat it with the poisonous potato stuffs. And you can deal with my arm, too.”
Gabe helped him take the ray out and set the net back up. “Home?”
Damian smiled at him. “Might as well call it that…” His eyes drifting to that empty horizon.Lost… insane… the whole world at arm’s reach… invisible.
Back at camp, they put the roots in the embers, the ray on the bamboo grill, just sitting then, almost reeling with fatigue.
Gabe took Damian’s arm, holding the knife. “I’ll cut the strings and we’ll see. It might hurt.”
His face flinched, shooting Gabe a tired look. “It already hurts like hell.” Biting back a moan when Gabe took the knife and cut through the strings, the pieces of plastic he’d used as splint plummeting to the ground. Damian had laid his arm on the ground, on a piece of tarp, but even like this, he almost fainted at that raw pain. Saliva flooded his mouth, and he breathed hard against his nausea. “Fuck… ah…”
Gabe’s heart iced over. “I’m sorry…”
Damian just collapsed, his eyes on the violet sky, trying to stay conscious. Panting. “Just… just do your thing…” He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, feeling Gabe’s fingers probe gently, push those plastic pieces of junks under his arm.
“It will be better. I have larger ropes now… more solid… and some plastic road tape… God knows how it got here…” Pulling those tapes tighter.
Damian cried out, tears rushing out of his eyes.Fuck.A sullen madness at himself, showing that weakness. Trembling with pain as Gabe put the splint back. A gentle caress on his shoulder, so he rolled his head towards him and opened his eyes.
Gabe’s soft voice. “Better?”
“Maybe… for now, it feels like somebody is trying to saw it off…”
“Let me know if you can’t feel your hand, ok?”
“Sure…”
“Here… let me help you up. We’ll eat, you’ll feel better.”
Damian grabbed his hand and sat up, sweat pearling down his face, his forehead, cold. That mad urge there to swallow a pill and down it with whiskey.Fuck. Shivering despite the hearty fire. Watching his hands, puzzled a bit, dirt wedged under his fingernails, raw wounds and scratches marring that skin which had tanned under that merciless sun. Not even daring to turn his palm up, it hurt so much. Thinking of those sessions at the manicure salon every week. He chuckled, almost whining, his eyes burning.
Gabe turned to him. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.” But his shoulders were shaking a bit with silent laughter. He shook his head. “Absurd. Life.”
Gabe smiled, wide. “Sometimes.” He piled some ray meat on their plastic plates, and those dubious looking potato style roots, and served Damian. Blowing on that scorching food which smelled so divine, it made their mouths water. “So, let’s see this potato root… we might die.”
Damian just swallowed a bite, his hunger overriding his caution. “Doesn’t matter… Mhm…. Tastes fucking great… can’t be poison. Eat. My God… this is heaven.”
Gabe followed, and they ate in silence, fast, only stopping when they had eaten everything up. Their stomachs painfully full of that hot food. A tidal wave of fatigue, their eyelids heavy.
Damian glanced towards their hut. “We need to crawl up there… otherwise the bugs will eat us…”
“I can’t move…”
“Same here… but we have to. Come.” Pulling him up.
They climbed the ladder and collapsed on the bedding, unable to move. Damian moaned. “Fuck… I feel like a bulldozer ran me over… I have never ached like this in my whole life.”
“Yeah… same here…”
Damian grinned, lying on his back. “Not a gym rat, huh?”
