Gods Under The Dome

9.1

《Smile》

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The Titav HQ is unremarkable, which is the point. I would never have ambled down the street outside and thought for a second this wasn't the third in a row of V-cafes. While the outside retains the shabby facade - cracked brick, grimy windows, and the pale pink neon sign of others of its kind - it's insides have been converted, much as they can be, to make a sustainable place to lay low.

All the sofas and lounge chairs that at one time must have been staggered through the front staging area, where guests would plop down and wait to be serviced, have been moved to the backroom, which has been gutted of anything unnecessary, though the Titav maintain the liquor locker, entering and exiting it with arm fulls of stoppered beige bottles. 

A washbasin sticks out of the wall on my right, a few cots beside it. A shower curtain depicting yellow rubber ducks in rain slickers hangs between the cots to offer a semblance of privacy. Quint lays on the cot nearest the sink, while Marava obsesses over him. The sleeve of his right shirt has been ripped at the shoulder and he's got gauze wrapped around his bicep to his elbow. He tries to sit, but Marava keeps shoving a palm into his chest and slamming him down. The way she fusses over him, it's like watching a mother hen with the most mischievous of her chicks.

A few Titavs dare to approach the pair, as Marava's clucking - all in a fast-paced garbled Spanish - has managed to scare them all away. When Marava stands, to re-dampen a rag in the faucet, Quint flashes me a pleading look.

I shake my head. "No can do," I mouth.

Marava didn't know the Titav and she'd given the few who had come bearing fresh bandages and bottled water, a tongue lashing that left them reeling. Mars knew and hated me. I'm afraid that if I breathed in that direction, she'd be wrenching my head off my neck with her claws. "You're on your own," I add.

Quint's face falls, his brows knit together. Marava plops down beside him and lets the rag sit across his forehead. He smiles at her, and takes her hand in his, peppering it with tiny kisses. Keran swings back around on her swivel stool to face me, a strip of gauze stretched between her hands. I shake my head and she frowns.

"Della told me to bandage you up."

I laugh. "You'll hurt me on purpose."

Her hands squeeze the gauze. "I'll shove this gauze where the sun don't shine if you-" she advances on me, grabs my wrist, pulls me toward her. I almost slip off the chair.

"Let me see." She turns my hand over, inspecting the purple flesh of the knuckles. She prods one with her fingertip. I yelp and resist the urge to smack Lieutenant Strong Hands away.

Quint and I lock eyes, and he gives me that same helpless, 'you're own your own' look I'd given him seconds earlier. I understood. He had his own pain master driving him insane.

Keran frowns as she begins to wrap my hand. "I think it's sprained," she moves the gauze expertly around my knuckles and palm. Not too tight to hurt, or too loose to fall off. "Bruised to hell, but the bones seem intact."

She glowers, while reaching for a pair of scissors on her lap. "If you take care of it, should heal in about three to six weeks." She snips the excess gauze and grabs a roll of medical tape.

"Three to six weeks?"

Once the tape's secured the new bandages, she lets my hand go. I look at it and blink. It'd take that long? Keran points at my ankle, then at the space she's cleared off on her thigh.

"If I had the supplies for a splint, it might take less time to heal. But knowing you," I heft my foot up and place it on the designated spot, "You'll end up making it worse. Three to six weeks is an optimistic estimate."