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The problem was, no matter how much Jimmy scrubbed, he could still smell the soot on his clothes.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as he took a brief break from pummeling his shirt on the flat river rock in front of him, sighing gustily. The gorge was deep enough that the sunlight had already moved past him, and he could just see it tinging the tops of the distant grass with gold. He frowned. He’d wanted to spend maybe an hour cleaning their things, not the, gosh, probably three or so he’d been down there already. He looked forlornly again down at the shirt which, even water-dark, still looked kind of gray.
Their bed linens weren’t any better either, the formerly-white sheets were hung up to dry somewhat haphazardly from the branches of the single tree clinging to the rocks at the bottom of the gorge. Tango had scrunched his nose in a barely suppressed laugh when he’d seen Jimmy bundling the fabric into his arms.
“Really? Are we actually trying to save all that?” Tango had asked disbelievingly. Jimmy liked that even when Tango was looking at him like he’d gone a bit mad, he said ‘we’.
“I mean, yeah. Do you have a sheep stashed somewhere around here? Or things we can actually trade for wool?” Jimmy asked, almost wishing Tango would say yes. He hadn’t really been looking forward to balancing his way down the precarious path without being able to see his feet.
Tango, sadly, had only a reluctant nod and a shrug for him as he conceded the point. There had been an awkward pause then as Jimmy hadn’t moved to leave, wondering if there was a way he could ask the question on his mind without sounding weird or stupid or somehow insensitive. But when Tango had looked at him with those glinting red eyes he just couldn’t seem to get the words out, so he left it alone.
After all, if Tango wanted his clothes washed he would surely say something, right? It felt weird to ask because he didn’t want to assume Tango would want to strip down and let Jimmy go dunk his clothes in the river, but it also felt wrong not to ask. Jimmy would want someone to ask if his shirt looked that crispy on the back. Tango had reassured him that he wasn’t injured there, and Jimmy supposed he had to believe him. Still, there was a kind of pressure in the back of his head that wouldn’t leave him alone.
It meant that Jimmy kept absent-mindedly scratching at the back of his neck, or feeling a twinge at his shoulder blades that made him sort of wriggle in place trying to dispel it. His eyes kept flicking to Tango afterwards, the little surges of discomfort left a weird almost-taste in the back of his throat that reminded him of something. Maybe it was the way his tongue felt coated in copper when they took damage, or the smell of hot iron and gunpowder that had left his head pounding after they respawned. Jimmy tried to clear his throat of it.
Jimmy shook himself and stretched, deciding the shirt he was washing wasn’t going to get any less terrible with scrubbing. He wrung it out over the river and sighed as, after everything, the run-off still ran cloudy. He just wanted a clean shirt.
“Jimmy!” came a shout, echoing down the cliff path. Jimmy managed to not overbalance into the river only by sheer luck, and he grabbed a nearby rock a little roughly as he righted himself.
A familiar horn call came down the cliff face, and Jimmy couldn’t help the sappy smile that crossed his face. He unhooked his own horn from his belt, raising it to his lips in reply. He heard a distant Tango noise and then a gentle clattering down the precarious cliff path.
“Be careful!” he shouted up at Tango, shading his eyes as he looked up at his rancher clambering down towards him.
“I was starting to get worried you’d fallen in!” Tango yelled down to him, and Jimmy laughed.
“I think you would have heard me shout all the way up there if I had,” Jimmy shot back, grinning at Tango as he finally made it to the little outcropping of rock he’d colonized with their laundry.
Tango looked around curiously, a faint smile on his face - which Jimmy took as an absolute score. He hadn’t been doing that as much since the ranch burned. Jimmy was momentarily distracted watching the little light on Tango’s temple spin as he processed a thought. He liked it, it was like he was able to watch Tango’s brain tick from the outside. Jimmy didn’t let himself consider any other reasons he might like looking at Tango’s face.
“Do you need a hand getting all this stuff up the mountain?” Tango asked, and Jimmy was about to shoo him away before he realized that the fabric stretched out along the branches around him was still wet. He hadn’t even considered that before loading himself up with everything he could carry, but now there was no way he’d be getting back up by himself.
“Oh… yeah, that’d be good,” he said a little sheepishly.
Tango shook his head at him as he huffed a laugh, and Jimmy once again saw the charred fabric at his back.
“Do you-” he began, before he could stop himself.
Tango turned to look at him.
“What?” he asked. Not annoyed or upset, just looking at Jimmy like he wanted to hear whatever he was going to ask.
“Do you want a hand with the- all of the… y’know, on your back?” Jimmy asked haltingly, and he watched Tango’s expression shutter for a moment. He swallowed the lump in his throat. There was a long pause where Jimmy regretted ever opening his big mouth in life up until that moment, but then Tango looked down and gave a slightly defeated shrug.
“I mean… probably. I didn’t wanna bug you with it or anything,” Tango said, tone muted and quieter than Jimmy was used to hearing him.
Jimmy couldn’t help but cross his arms at that, looking at Tango a little reproachfully.
“We take care of each other, remember Tango? Why wouldn’t I want to help?”
Tango looked at him, and Jimmy saw… something there. A kind of guarded thing that worried him. Without saying anything else, Tango began to shrug stiffly out of his vest. Jimmy wished he was still holding a piece of laundry, that he had something to do with his hands other than stand there and fidget as Tango’s face scrunched in discomfort. The light at the side of his head spun yellow.
“Do you want-” Jimmy started to ask, and Tango waved him off.
Jimmy watched as Tango set his vest down next to Jimmy’s basket, and then paused awkwardly.
“Actually,” Tango began, and Jimmy was moving practically before he’d finished speaking, crossing the few steps to Tango’s side in an instant. That was probably a little too eager, a little too awkward, but Jimmy was trying not to worry about it.
“Yeah?” Jimmy asked, and he saw Tango’s eyes flicker to the side, avoiding his gaze. Jimmy felt a strange restlessness in his chest, but he didn’t know what it needed in order to settle. It was some kind of weird nebulous want to help that refused to sit still long enough to become any one action or word. So instead he tried to just project his willingness to do anything at all, and tried to wait for Tango to speak.
Tango seemed to struggle with the words he needed for a moment, before grumbling under his breath and slowly turning around, posture so stiff his shoulders were practically up to his ears. Jimmy could see how the back of Tango’s vest had taken the brunt of the damage from the fire, but great singed holes still dotted the back of Tango’s shirt, revealing hints of Tango’s synthetic skin underneath. It looked like Tango hadn’t taken any of his layers off since the fire, and if Jimmy was reading Tango’s deep discomfort right, that was exactly what had happened.
“Look, there’s some stuff back there I just need to get cleaned off probably, and then I’ll be fine,” his tone defensive before Jimmy had even uttered a word.
“Yeah, ‘course,” Jimmy said automatically, a little furrow forming between his brows as he tried to figure out exactly what had Tango so twitchy. There was a beat of silence where neither of them moved, and Jimmy coughed politely.
“Do you wanna, y’know, take your shirt off Tango?” he asked, and he saw the tips of Tango’s ears flush blue.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tango said, and he sounded almost like his normal self again, in that playfully exasperated way that somehow never got Jimmy defensive or confused. He reached up, and Jimmy saw him tug the zipper of his shirt down roughly. Something in Jimmy’s heart did a funny little thump as it drew attention to the bandages still on Tango’s hands. They were getting old after a few days of their rebuilding efforts, and by now they were more than a little stained with soot. But Tango had carefully tucked in any loose or trailing ends, and seemed to be in no hurry at all to take them off despite that. It was nice. It made Jimmy feel helpful .
Tango paused with his shirt dangling half off his shoulders, and Jimmy held up his hands suddenly, a thought occurring to him.
“Hang on a mo,” he said, and reached for the empty basket, turning it upside down next to a flat-topped rock and gesturing to it. “There, sit, sit,” he urged as he plopped himself on the rock, squeezing his hands between his knees because he didn’t know what else to do with them.
Tango looked at him skeptically for a moment, and then stepped over and carefully lowered himself onto the basket. It rocked a little precariously on the uneven ground for a moment, but settled under Tango’s weight. Tango fidgeted with his shirt, head jerking to the side like he was resisting looking back at Jimmy, then shrugged his shirt off his shoulders.
Jimmy wished he could have stifled the gasp that left him.
Before him was…a lightning strike, etched into the back of Tango’s body. It looked like someone had taken a nail and hammer and shattered the shell of his spine like a pane of glass. A map of white, uncolored android scars interspersed with thirium-blue ran in a jagged line down his back, and Jimmy felt his hands instinctively reach for them. He stopped himself only millimeters from actually touching, and then jerked his hand back like he’d been shocked.
“Tango…” he breathed, and Tango’s shoulders slumped a little.
“It’s fine, Jimmy. Don’t worry about it,” Tango said, and Jimmy frowned fiercely at the back of Tango’s head.
“Since when am I not gonna worry about you when you’re hurt?” he asked almost incredulously, crossing his arms in emphasis, even if Tango couldn’t see him. Tango huffed so sharply it almost sounded like a hiss.
“I’m fine , Jimmy, it’s an old - I’m fine. I just need a hand cleaning up, that’s all.”
Jimmy’s eyes migrated from the hole he was glaring in the back of Tango’s skull, trailing down once again to the scar snaking down Tango’s skin. He could see smears of charred fabric and ash where his clothes hadn’t quite protected him, and around the edges of the scar he could see those tiny particles of soot settling into almost invisible fine-line cracks in Tango’s shell.
He wanted to ask, he wanted to ask so bad. It took everything in him to hold back the questions that bubbled up in his throat. Who did this to you? Why hasn’t it healed - or no, been fixed?
Why hasn’t someone already helped you, Tango?
Jimmy swallowed.
“I can do that,” Jimmy said after a pause, and stood to grab one of the shirts of his he’d deemed ‘too ruined’ and had set aside to become rags. He tried to stop his heart from thumping quite so loudly. He wondered for a moment, if it was just his heart doing that, or if Tango’s inner pump was working just as hard as his own.
Jimmy stood and dipped the cloth in the cool, clear water of the river, grimacing a little as he wrung it out.
“This’ll be cold though, sorry,” he apologized.
He could see Tango hesitate for a moment, almost turning to look at Jimmy with a confused tilt to his head.
“S’fine, don’t worry about it,” Tango said finally, and Jimmy was already getting a little tired of hearing that. Somewhere in the muddle of his emotions, he realized he was maybe a mite protective of his right to worry about Tango. Looking at his rancher now, it looked as though Tango was trying to still enough to fade into the background, like maybe he could just disappear if he tried hard enough. Things were slowly falling together in Jimmy’s mind, not quite clear enough that he could see them yet, but enough that his eyebrows stayed scrunched together in thought.
Jimmy sat back down on his rock, and surveyed the surface of Tango’s back in the slowly blueing light. Everything about Tango’s posture screamed ‘DONT TOUCH ME’, and Jimmy hesitated before slowly reaching his palm out to rest on Tango’s shoulder, well away from the scar.
“You sure this is okay?” he asked, a little terrified of messing everything up. This was some kind of trust that Jimmy wanted to handle so, so carefully, because it felt fragile in his hands.
Tango nearly flinched away from the touch, but after a tense moment Jimmy felt him settle under it. Jimmy might have been imagining things, but he almost thought he felt Tango lean into him a little.
Tango paused, then nodded, not making a sound. Jimmy wasn’t so sure, but he could only take Tango at his word.
Squeezing the cloth in his hand to wring out just a little more of the water, he reached up and brushed it oh-so-delicately across the top of Tango’s scar. He saw Tango’s whole frame twitch, and for a moment a red light glowed on the edge of his periphery. Jimmy slowed his movements, but didn’t stop. Something told him stopping every time he got nervous wouldn’t get anything done at all, and he wanted to trust Tango’s word. He wasn’t going to give Tango that same kind of pitying treatment that made his skin crawl, when people looked at him like he couldn’t be trusted to make decisions for himself.
So Jimmy kept going. He kept the pressure light as he felt the slight texture changes under his fingers. He tried to keep his touch light but not ticklish, cleaning first the surrounding skin, and then the ridges and cracks that criss-crossed his spine. The sound of the rushing river covered the slight shakiness in his breath, and he tried not to focus on the way his body kept drifting closer to Tango’s as he maneuvered the cloth in slow, soft circles.
Jimmy kept feeling almost imperceptible little twitches under his hands, things that he might write off as his imagination if they didn’t happen every time his cloth brushed the edges of a crack. He was afraid for a moment that he was hurting Tango, but it didn’t seem like he was hurting Tango. Maybe it was just sensitive. Jimmy didn’t really know the first thing about how androids like Tango functioned, but if Jimmy had an open wound like that on his back, even if he was a kind of amazing invincible powerhouse of a machine, he was pretty sure he’d feel a little tender.
There was something about this position that made Jimmy think about the night the ranch burned- aside from all the obvious things, that was. His hands twinged a little bit thinking about it, his own bandages had come off before he had washed their things, and the new, pink skin was still tender. He could see little patches of his skin that had burned, places where he’d gripped Tango and his soulmate’s skin had seared him. It wasn’t just the ash of their home that made him think about it though, even as it ran down Tango’s back in dark little rivulets as he squeezed the cloth.
It was the way he’d barred Tango across the chest, holding him close even though it felt like opening a blast furnace full in his face, or like pressing a hot iron to his heart. Jimmy hadn’t just been trying to hold him back from running after Scar, but sort of… hold him together. He could feel something through their bond that felt like Tango’s brilliant mind fraying at the edges, like he was spinning away from him, unspooling their red thread further and further away. He hated the memory of Tango’s eyes glowing iron-hot in his head, his face twisted in an anger that made him look alien, something elemental in his rage.
This felt like that, too. He could feel Tango pulling away with some kind of shame or fear or buried anger that Jimmy couldn’t really read. Each pass over his skin was Jimmy trying to hold him together in his hands, to cup the pieces of him before they could spill away.
Jimmy was probably being overbearing with it, he was sure. He didn’t want to mess this up. This moment, or this game, or them . He liked Tango, and this game had been so far removed from every single one of his expectations. It felt perilously important not to screw things up, to lose Tango’s partnership or his friendship, he didn’t like the snapping, bitter tension in the air between the other feuding soulmates. He didn’t want to be like that with Tango.
Cracks under his fingertips slowly came clean, as the sunset slowly turned the sky above them orange. Tango’s torso rose and fell under his hands with slowly lengthening simulated breaths. Jimmy could never really tell if he was actually pulling in air or not, but whatever weird little body process it served made it seem like he was slowly relaxing. Jimmy smiled.
Tango cleared his throat.
“There’s a little bit still - kinda down and to the left,” he said, and his voice was more gravelly than usual. Jimmy’s gaze snapped to where Tango said. Without the cloth, he pressed a gentle touch where he thought Tango meant.
“Here?” he asked, and that time Jimmy was pretty sure he didn’t imagine the shiver that ran through Tango.
“Um, yeah, a little up,” Tango squeaked, and Jimmy dragged his fingertips a little bit up, skating so carefully over a hairline fracture there.
“Oh yeah I see it,” Jimmy said, and he leaned in a little to see what he was doing, squinting in the fading light. He felt his breath ghost over his hands as he gently worked the area clean with the rag, and he hoped it wasn’t making Tango too uncomfortable to have him so close. His spine had gone a little weird and stiff again, and when he straightened back up he could see a haze of blue dusting across his cheeks, even from behind.
“You feelin’ better?” he asked, and Tango nodded.
Jimmy almost didn’t need to ask, because that terrible kind of itch in his spine had eased. He could feel their level of tension slowly drain as the ravine got darker and darker. Jimmy hadn’t realized that his hand was still resting on Tango’s back, but he didn’t really want to move it just then. It was nice to feel the heat coming off of him, to feel that slow rise and fall of his not-breathing. The light on Tango’s temple light flickered blue.
“S’gettin’ late, we should get home before a mob ruins all my hard work,” Jimmy said jokingly, and he saw Tango huff a laugh.
“Yeah no more creeper sneak attacks please,” he said, and Jimmy grinned at the way his voice sounded. He sounded lighter. It was nice.
Jimmy pulled his hand away slowly, smoothing his fingertips over the outer edge of the crack in Tango’s shell. He blushed suddenly. Hadn’t meant to do that, probably a weird thing to do.
Something shot over the soulmate bond, and Tango’s light spun abruptly red before settling back in yellow. Jimmy held his breath.
“S’alright,” Tango said, and Jimmy looked at the back of his head, confused. He had no idea what Tango was saying, and for a long moment neither of them moved. The movement in Tango’s chest was still, like he was waiting.
Jimmy wiped a suddenly sweaty palm on his pants, and then, with as much care as he could possibly muster, reached out to brush the edge of the scar again. Tango didn’t jump, or whip around and demand to know what Jimmy was doing. He got brave enough to slowly lay his palm on the unblemished skin and brush his thumb along the slight raised edge.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, nearly whispering. It felt wrong to speak any louder than that, with the twilight rolling up the river towards them and a few stray fireflies blinking steadily across the water. It was a space apart, something soft and still and quiet.
“I don’t feel pain like that, Jimmy,” bit Tango, and Jimmy felt like his answer was about more than the scar on his back. “I’m not human.”
Jimmy went to take his hand away, almost like it had been burned again, but Tango softened under his hand, and Jimmy hesitated.
“No, not how you’re thinking. It’s just… annoying, more than anything,” Tango finished.
Jimmy carefully thumbed over that spot again, and tried to press the emotions he felt through the skin where they were touching. It was fanciful and silly of him, but he didn’t have the words to say I wish it didn’t bother you at all.
What he said was, “Yeah… good.”
Dumb. That was a dumb response.
“‘M sorry,” he said. He hoped it didn’t sound like he was saying I’m sorry you’re broken , or I see you differently now , but he needed to say it anyway. “Dunno what happened but… I’m sorry.”
Tango shook his head a little jerkily, but didn’t respond right away, and Jimmy watched the light on his temple spin and spin and spin. It went orange-red-yellow and back again, and Jimmy didn’t know what was happening in there, but he knew he was watching Tango process a whole lot at once. He pulled his hand away gently, and tucked it in his lap so he wasn’t tempted to reach out again.
“It was a long time ago,” Tango said, and it felt like the end of the conversation.
Jimmy should have stopped talking, but he didn’t.
“Well, y’know if it’s any consolation it looks pretty neat. Not that like, that’s something you’re worried about or anything! Not saying you should be, or - it just looks like lightning,” he finished lamely.
Tango finally turned around to look at him. Tango’s eyes met his, and Jimmy felt like he was see-through for a moment, like Tango was searching for something. Jimmy gulped but held his gaze, just a little worried about what Tango would see there.
Tango shook his head a little bit as he turned back around and slowly levered himself to standing, but Jimmy saw a wry grin crack his face.
“Yeah?” he asked, “Like lightning?”
Jimmy nodded.
“Pretty metal,” he said, and then winced. “No- no pun intended.”
Tango laughed, and Jimmy eased.
“Do you wanna go home?” Jimmy asked, desperate to change the subject, and Tango offered Jimmy a hand up.
“Yeah,” Tango said. “Let’s go home.”
When Tango reached for his soot-stained shirt, Jimmy shooed his hand away and handed him his cleanest, driest overshirt.
“Let me wash that first at least, jeez,” he said, wrinkling his nose. He felt more than saw Tango staring at the side of his head as he dumped it at the bottom of the pile of clean laundry. “I’ll come down and clean it in the morning. Now c’mon put that on and we can go,” he urged Tango.
Tango paused before slowly sliding his arms into Jimmy’s shirt. It was big enough across the torso for Tango to cross the two fronts over, and the unrolled sleeves went a little past his wrists. Tango shoved them a further up his forearms as he leaned over to grab the heavier basket before Jimmy could so much as touch it.
“Alright then, c’mon, it’s dark already,” Tango said, and he sounded like… himself. The look he shot Jimmy had a warmth in it that made Jimmy’s lungs hurt, but in a sort of good way.
Jimmy hauled the stack of folded sheets into his arms and felt the slight-dampness in them still. Tango started up the cliff path, and Jimmy could just make out the glow of the ranch’s torches over the crest of the hill. Maybe they weren’t so perfect, but it was a good effort.
Jimmy smiled to himself. Yeah. A good effort. Tango was halfway up the path, and stopped to look back and jerk his head in a beckoning motion.
“C’mon slowpoke, you coming?” he yelled down.
“Gimme a minute! Bossy…” he shouted back up, and watched Tango laugh.
A very good effort.
He began the climb towards home.