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its 5

The doctor seen you yet?

what

Hijikata told me.

told you what

That you've gotta see the doctor before you can go to the beach.

[his chest and throat unclench]

[of course, the rest of him tenses up in anger]

what the fuck says fucking who !

Says me, I'm not carting you around everywhere if you're gonna drop dead on my upholstery
So did you?

why the fuck would i drop dead its just a stupid eye !

I dunno, infection.
It's not a tricky question you know, either you did or you didnt

i did

You sure

why the fuck wouldnt i be sure its my fucking face can we just go already !

[she figures she probably isn't going to get much more from him, so she'll just have to take him on faith]

[not the easiest thing]

Ok, chill out kid
Wait out the front for me

[she bought it???]

[shit, she bought it]

ok

[carol rocks up about five minutes later, the top down on the shiny new convertible that she's not gonna lie, she kind of loves. pretty things that go fast. her interests are not that complex.

since she can't change her hair or her outfit on a whim anymore, her dumb blonde fauxhawk-or-whatever (hairdressers in new york just call it the "captain marvel" at this point) has been growing out; it's too short to tie up, too long to look anything but shitty. it creeped her out what a precise fit the two-piece swimsuit in her closet was, so she threw it under her bed somewhere and is instead wearing some navy shirt she found and a pair of denim shorts. suck on that, landlord.

there's a bag of stuff on the passenger seat. she throws it in the back after she pulls up onto the curb.]

Get in, small fry.

...Cool car.

[actually, everything about meeting Carol is weirdly, absurdly, unexpectedly cool; he'd seen her over the network, sure, but first she'd been yelling at him and then they'd both been distracted, talking about their situation]

[she doesn't look like an off-duty cop, with that cool blonde hair and those cool shorts and that awesome car; she looks like a rock'n'roll star from the TV]

[he doesn't even remember to bristle at 'small fry,' jumping into the car without further hesitation, maybe even a little urgency (please please don't figure it out before I get there)]

[slam, he shuts the door, stuffing his towel wherever the hell]

[she eyes the kid as he gets in, making a note of how much scrawnier he looks in person, how much more scraped-up and breakable, with those bandages all over him. whether or not he'd been outright lying to her about the doctor, at least somebody's wrapped him up properly and the linen looks reasonably clean.]

Seatbelt.

[he'll see why in a minute. she pulls out easy, the front tire bumping down gently onto the asphalt, but as soon as she's got a clear stretch of road -- she flies.

it's not like she's seen any speed limit signs around the place, and carol is not gonna let a car like this go to waste. anyhow it's perfectly safe, just fast enough to be exhilarating; she knows what the hell she's doing behind a wheel.

she grins big as spikes of her hair whip up at her face.]

Still cool?

Haaah -- !

[a similarly big grin splits Badou's face (probably the first one that, since his arrival, was not somehow mean-spirited)]

[they never had a car; they were always too expensive, the City always too cluttered with car pollution. not to mention, if you didn't have a car, it couldn't get stolen, or impounded, or ID'ed as you were fleeing the scene of the crime]

[that doesn't mean he hadn't looked, though, and wondered what it would be like]

No! It'd be cooler if you went faster!

[now, he knows]

[the kid looks more like a kid now than carol's seen so far, and something in her chest tugs. her family was not the greatest (she thinks objectively; she can't feel anything about them anymore) but at least she grew up safe. he doesn't get to have that.

she shrugs lightly.]

Remember, you asked for it.

[of course, this is not exactly safe for him either, but she does it anyway: the engine revs sharply and they pick up speed, the houses alongside them whipping past, pleasantly pastel-coloured blurs.

another car passes theirs in the street and the horn blares, long and irate. carol throws up a hand in a carefree wave as they zoom on by.

maybe she can't fly anymore, but there's still this.]

[he's too young to be a real adrenaline junkie, a suicide punk, living a "hardboiled" life, like some people (blow it all on one big party, bad boy); but where living is rough, so are the joys (and Badou is growing up with a spark inside him that wants to light fires)]

[he barks a laugh at the stupid honking car even as he throws out a hand for purchase on the dash (doesn't even notice when that hand fails the task, nerves not sparking in kind, like he is)]

[orange hair whips around from the wind and a craning neck; even with only one eye, he wants to look at everything from this fastfreenew perspective (so like the old but so different, too)]

[every so often, though, he makes sure to look forward instead of backwards or sideways; he'll watch that dark blue rise up, like it always did in his imagination]

[there's nothing more that really needs saying in the face of this kind of speed and freedom, so carol doesn't say it. just drives, and every now and then she'll look at badou, or close her eyes and smile -- not for more than a second, she's not about to get them killed, but she'll let them flicker closed and just breathe.

she's felt so stifled up til now, suffocated by the enormity of what's happened to her. but this has always been the thing that makes all that go to pieces and blow away in the wind.

speaking of the wind, her cheeks are flushed pink from it when she finally slows down, where the road tapers out into a ridge of bright green grass and trees with the ocean visible beyond. they roll up onto the grassy shoulder and she kills the engine, leaning back into her seat with a whump.]

Make sure you've got everything, kiddo.

[she grins at him and gets out, leaning into the back seat to retrieve the sports bag from where it's haphazardly fallen.]

[before Carol can even sit back up with her bag, the reverberation of the car door slamming closed rocks through the car, and the passenger side is empty -- aside from Badou's towel, which he (naturally, not being the type to heed his elders) left behind]

[the boy hesitates for just a moment at the edge of those trees; they grew them from chemicals and science and shipped them out in bulk, back in the City, but never so many, never so close together -- for all that Badou is a wild boy, he's never been a Boy in the Wild]

[maybe he should be, but he's not fearful of it; he dashes in, shoelaces whipping]

[if the car had a roof, she would've smacked her head on it. as it is, she jumps when the bang of the door sounds like a shot.]

Hey, watch the car--

[her precious new car, her baby, she loves the thing so much she's thinking about giving it a name, for god's sake.

badou's off into the wild blue yonder but carol stays a second, slinging the bag over a shoulder to check on the passenger door. it opens and closes just as smooth as ever. no marks on it. the kid is lucky.

when she deigns to follow him into the trees, it's with his forgotten towel draped over her other shoulder and a feeling of great sympathy for the noble pack mule.

she's lost sight of him in the delay.]

Hey! Kid! We don't run off, okay!

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action u buttfaced punk

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