Chapter Text
She had learned to sew for the boy who made the bullet wound she’s stitching.
Rebecca Two has always known well that it’s a miracle the pair of them have survived this long at all, but there is something far more palpable about the thought when the blood that makes her fingers slippery belongs to her sister. Her hands don’t shake, and her breathing is steady, deeply black irises fixated intently on their women’s work; The needle is not much more than sharpened fish bone, pulling and tugging flesh behind it with every stitch of the thread she had picked out of her Limiter fatigues. There is nothing neat about this, like her cross stitching at home. There is nothing relaxing. Rebecca One has been unconscious for a while now. Sometimes she’ll stir and mutter something, something vicious, something angry - And other times she’ll just watch her sister with faintly hazy eyes, the wet heat of the jungle leaving her gasping like a fish as she squirms against any treatment offered.
At least she is well enough to struggle, and that is a relief. But right now, Rebecca Two is glad for her compliance. Only a few more stitches. Her work is almost trance-like.
Beneath her, Rebecca One twitches, and her sister coos gently, gaze flicking up to her drawn, uncomfortable face; A few comforting, clicking noises deep in her throat that slip past her lips, like a whisper to a sleeping baby. Deeply inhuman. And yet not. If this where they will waste away, why should she ever speak their tongue again? It is not the first time in the day that she has sworn a bloody fate for Will and his ilk, for Topsoilers.
As she finishes stitching, the conscious twin feels her sister’s fingers twitch and bunch in the fabric of her shirt, grasping. She swallows, throat like sandpaper for far more than thirst, and there is a moment’s hesitation before she dips down to press her forehead to the other girl’s, muttering a few more unintelligible, soft sounds and lingering with closed eyes.
She feels exhaustion and sleep in turn creep as she sits bowed over the other, and so she sits up with a sharp breath out, and sets to bandaging the wound. Her sister’s face is only shades better than a sheet, save the dark circles around her eyes - But the bleeding has stopped at least. Not for the last time, she thanks every star she knows for Will’s pathetic nature, for the non-vital place he had shot her sister. He can’t even pull the trigger right.
She would love to watch him put the barrel beneath his chin and try again, she thinks, with a mirthful smirk. Not even he could miss then.
There is a brief moment more spent lingering, the pair sizing each other up. Rebecca One is coming to, properly; Her sister stands up and looks down at the wounded girl.
“You stay here. I’m going to find us something to eat,” she states at last, matter of fact, seeming to care little that she is unarmed and more lost than a Coprolite at sea. Rebecca Two simply nods, awake enough now to shimmy herself into sitting up properly with her back against a tree, and wets her lips with a dry tongue.
There is more silence.
“...No. Water first,” the uninjured twin says after a moment, as though agreeing with some unspoken suggestion, and turns to set her eyes on the jungle before them. As vast and uninviting as the Rookeries in the dead of night, her brows furrow and her jaw clenches at the thought of it. Of leaving her sister here. Apart, the both of them, and so very, very small.
She is loathe to feel small.
And so, as she sets off, she swears blood on Will once more. It is not the first time today. And it will not be the last.
Damn them.
Damn them for being perfect at everything they touched. Of course her aim was flawless, of course he was only alive because he put a bullet in her and staggered her on the follow through. Of course. Damn the Styx. Damn the twins for following him, damn them for pushing him to this, and damn them for being dead -
They are dead.
“Shit!” Will’s voice breaks on a cry of pain and surprise as Elliot yanks the scythe out of his shoulder, and as he gives her a smarting look, the corners of her lips twitch up in a hint of a smile.
“It had to come out eventually.”
He knows she’s right, but the sight of the blood weeping from his shoulder openly now is enough to make him feel faint. Blood is different, when it’s his. So is pain. Elliot compresses his shoulder with a bandage and he snarls, for a moment sounding more animal than human as he recoils from the touch. “Bitch!”
“Watch it,” Elliot warns, looking up from her work sternly, and Will looks sheepish.
“Not you,” he says, before falling silent.
They sit that way a while, in silence. When Elliot is finished bandaging his wound, Will’s eyes fall to the scythe beside him, blood drying to a thin brown dust. There is a change in the air of the campsite; His father had toddled off somewhere, and the pair is alone for the first time since they had set out that morning. Alone and conscious . It is a small distinction, but an important one.
“You’re sure we got them?”
“Yes. Only an amateur could have tried something like that and gotten away with it,” Elliot replies, and to Will’s estimate, still sounding testy. For a different reason, now, but he has come a long way since those oblivious days on the Great Plane.
He has, for one small example, learned to listen.
For the most part.
“You’re upset with me,” he says, his tone taking on a weak and tired sound. Bitter almost, but exasperated above all as Elliot wipes the blood from his shoulder and neck away with a damp cloth. “Fantastic. I always do this, I don’t know what to do, or to say, and then I-“
“Just shut up, Will.”
She helps him to his feet, lifting his chin with a fingertip to check for any blood she had missed. He feels his heart skip and his face burn, but does as he’s told, well aware the blush is probably indistinguishable from the hundred shades of sunburn he is sporting.
“What you did was stupid,” Elliot says, looking down at him before removing the gentle touch of her finger and letting him have his chin back.
He lowers it, rubbing it thoughtfully and feeling the tips of his ears burn as he looks away. He goes to speak in his own defense, or perhaps to apologize (he isn’t sure which) but she cuts him off, leaving his mouth open like a gulping fish.
“Stupid and incredibly, fantastically brave. And we got these.”
She lifts all that remains of a pair of thin, clear vials. Streaked with blood and dirt, the sight of them floods him with relief. One stopper black, the other white, but both cracked- Their contents left to the inferno in their wake. Thank god. Or thank Elliot, perhaps- She had saved him. She had put a bullet in the Limiter behind him with little more than a yard left to spare, she had carried his unconscious body here, she had dressed his wounds, and by the smell of it, she had prepared them dinner.
“So you’re not mad at me?” It’s all he manages to fumble out. It feels so very lacking, and he clamps shut his jaw.
“No,” comes her reply as she pockets the vials, brushing a lock of his wild, dirt streaked hair out of his face with little ceremony. “How could I be?”
He goes to reply once more, but as she kisses him on the cheek, the words die.
Will feels so very, very small. And he is grateful for it. As Elliot brushes past him to busy herself, his gaze drifts back to the scythe, all that is left of his sister.
Sisters , he reminds himself, and feels oddly hollow.
All that is left.