WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

twelve | thread and needle

The morning began with a snap.

Cole jerked awake, eyes darting, and turned his body towards the cave's entrance. A bird fluttered lightly from against the dead branch of a tree, which failed under its weight and dropped into the fresh snow below. Exhaling, he looked down to see his hand stretched out at his side, reaching for a non-existent axe.

Watery morning light splayed out against the dead fire, against Alistair's sleeping body. The fur was tousled beneath him. Cole eased the nakedness of his bare palm and rubbed his hands together – he missed his axe, he missed the surety of it.

He had stripped out of his chest-plate, undercoat and boots and left them to dry off on a nearby tree, and it felt like he was exposing the crook of his neck to be strangled. He wore no armour near the mindrenderer now, and sat in only his still damp trousers and undershirt. He didn't even have a weapon on him. The mindrenderer had his hands.

Cole swallowed down his paranoia. They had agreed not to try anything – if the mindrenderer wanted to attack him, he would've done it by now.

His eyes roamed the dislodged shoulder, wrapped up in the shirt-sling.

"Hey," he said lightly, but Alistair didn't move. Then, harsher, "hey."

Alistair startled awake and turned around to face him. His eyes were dreary with sleep and his hair was tousled against his neck, sand-blond. He untensed when he saw Cole sitting with his knees to his chest and dropped down onto his back, staring up at the cave's jagged roof.

"Sit up," Cole nodded. "I will fix that shoulder."

Alistair's head snapped to the side and his eyes narrowed on the dark-haired boy. "You're not going to come near me."

"And you thought I was the paranoid one?" I am, he thought silently. "It cannot heal like that. Come closer."

Catching a pink bottom lip between his teeth, Alistair warily straightened, cast his eyes aside and picked himself up. They both situated themselves above the fire. Cole watched his eyes before lifting his dead-weight wrist, arm out, and Alistair fought back a visible wince, waiting for the push and click.

"You know how to do this?" He asked quickly.

Cole nodded, shrugged and positioned his arm. "I've seen it."

"So you haven't done it before?"

Cole felt the corner of his mouth lift unwillingly, and suddenly he was grinning softly. "No, I haven't."

And then, guiding the ball of his arm back into the shoulder socket, Cole pushed it back into place with a hard shove. Alistair cried out, an ungodly screech of pain, and his eyes went wet. He drove the edge of his palm into Cole's shoulder and pushed him back a step.

"You – you animal!" The mindrenderer felt at his shoulder, face flushed like blood under snow. "Maybe warn me next time?"

"Warn you that it would hurt?" Cole scoffed and cursed lightly in Welish. "You knew it would hurt."

"Well..." Alistair tutted. "Not like that."

Cole turned away and began the clean-up. "You're the healer here, not me."

Alistair flushed deeper. "Not a very good one," he knelt and bundled up the furs. "And I was more of an assistant. Well – doctor-in-training. An assistant doctor-in-training."

Cole wanted to nod and hm in distant acknowledgement, but something urged him to press further, something curious and small and a little bit ashamed. This was more knowledge he had ever obtained about everyday Chrysosian life, and even against his better judgement, there was a mindrenderer in front of him who was willing to share. So he couldn't stop himself from asking.