Gaunt wasn’t exactly what Kiki had expected.

Her name really didn’t suit her, for one thing- she was tall, very tall, with a heavy build. A bit older than her, maybe early twenties. Her hair was messy and dirty, but under that it was black and in a pixie cut. She was glowering, but Kiki got the sense that it wasn’t a conscious expression. More like it was her default. She was hurt- there was the bulk of bandages around her middle, and various scrapes and bruises on what little skin was exposed. She was slouching, shoulders slightly raised and turned in, which was interesting. Based on that and the texts, Kiki would guess she was a lot more timid and passive than her physical appearance might suggest.

She wasn’t exactly what Kiki had expected, but there were always surprises while meeting someone new, and Kiki didn’t see anything immediately concerning.

“Nice to finally meet you too, I guess.” Her voice was deep, the sort that could easily belong to a man or a woman, and a little monotone.

Okay.

The coyotes were gone and there was no immediate danger she could see.

“How badly hurt are you? Is there anything I need to help you with immediately?”

“Uhh yeah, I am. Worms or something in my gut. If you… I don’t know. If you have any supplies I’d gladly take them.”

Well, that was almost certainly more urgent than her wounds.

“I have sedatives, and three types of medicine. One is an antibiotic but I don’t know which. One is the ‘bone pain’ pills Lyre mentioned. I don’t know what the last one is. I also have alcohol if you need something sterilised…”

“Yeah no I’ve got antiseptic, I have it handled–”

“Which I will be using on these,” Kiki explained as she fished out her knife and some wire to bend into tools, “so I can remove the worms without giving you an infection.” She started working on the wires first, twisting them into loops and hooks. Parasites could be deadly. She had to get them out as soon as possible, with as little damage as possible. “Sit down over there, please, and take off your shirt and bandages.”

“Alright. Sure, then.”

Under the bandages it was messy. Very messy. There were signs of infection. When she looked closely, there were little holes in the flesh here and there. Gaunt seemed surprisingly calm about the whole thing.

“Okay. Sorry, this will probably hurt, but I’ll get them out as fast as I can. Let me know if you need a break.”

When she held up a hook to one of the holes, Gaunt jerked away, scrambling to her feet and nearly backing herself off the building.

“Stop, you’re near the edge- Okay. Um. Would… would a sedative make this easier for you?” Please say yes. Now that they were together, Kiki was really, really hoping things would be easier and not harder.

“No! No. Shit, I, I don’t… Just don’t. I’ll do it myself, it’s fine. Just… Yeah, I’ve got antiseptic in my bag. You just… do your own thing.”

…It seemed like the easiest option here for everyone would be to do what Gaunt suggested. Trying to convince her would probably just stress them both out and strain their already weak partnership.

Kiki reached into her backpack, fishing out the whisky bottle, and set it down between them. “Alright. I’d recommend using this to sterilize things instead, but it’s up to you.” She grabbed a hook, a noose, and the knife, placing them all in Gaunt’s outstretched hand. “Let me know if you need any help.”

At least now she had time to look at her own injuries. She sat down by the edge, feet dangling over the side of the roof, and took off her shirt, looking down at her chest.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-” Her scream cut off as she gasped, staring down at the holes now familiar to her. There was movement under her skin, and she slammed a hand over her mouth, biting down on it.

Worms. Worms inside her, crawling, feeding-

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“Shit, what happened– Oh fuck. Those.”

“Knife. Hook. Give them to me,” Kiki forced out.

She felt each being placed into her hand, and immediately set the knife aside, forcing the hook into one of the holes and feeling around for the worm. The wound was totally numb, which made it easier, but also made her panic a bit more because what were they doing to her?

She felt the hook make contact with something soft, curved it around, and pulled it out with a writhing grey worm attached. She flung it off the edge, away, far away, and immediately went to the next spot.

After she’d managed to remove the worms- thirteen of them, and she was sure she’d gotten all of them, none of them had broken off- she was bleeding from the holes they’d left behind, aggravated by the sharp hook. Not a lot. Not a dangerous amount. It would heal if she kept it clean.

Just to make sure, she counted the holes. Thirteen.

Just to make sure, she felt around, searching for any sort of wriggling.

Just to make sure, she reached around and snatched the whisky bottle from beside Gaunt- oh, she should have sterilised the hook- and splashed it onto and into the wounds, to kill any eggs or fragments they might have left behind.

Had she missed any? Maybe she needed to make a knife incision, just to make sure-

“G-Gaunt? Um, does it look like I got them all?”

“Um. Yeah, looks fine. I can’t tell for sure though, they kind of blend in with everything else.”

“Do you see any movement?”

“Well they might be dead by now.”

“They’re parasites, they wouldn’t just- Nevermind, not important.” She fished out a new wire, made another hook- not a good idea to reuse a bloody one- and dipped it in the whisky bottle before giving it to Gaunt. “This works well for getting them out.” She rubbed a hand over her face, then continued, “Stick it in the entrance hole and you should be able to hook them and pull them out.”

“Thanks.”

Gaunt didn’t see anything. She’d gotten them all. It was fine.

She grabbed her water bottle and took a few sips.

“Are you, uh… Do you have extra?”

“Extra water? Yeah.” She stood up, walking to her duffel and unzipping it before pulling out the four-liter jug. “You can take some. I don’t have an extra drinking bottle, though.” Gaunt did, in fact, look rather thirsty.

“That’s okay, appreciate it.”

“While we’re on the topic, though, can you spare any food? I haven’t eaten much in the past few days.” She wasn’t hungry now, courtesy of adrenaline and pulling worms out of her skin, but she felt shaky and food would hopefully help with that. She wanted to have a bit of a steadier hand before getting to bandaging, and stitching up some of Gaunt’s wounds.

“Yeah, I probably have something. Lost some of it though, let me check…” Gaunt took a swig of water and turned, opening up her backpack and rummaging around inside for a moment. She pulled out a few cans. Looked like tuna or something similar. Then she backed off, moving a bit further away and sitting down to use the hook on herself.

Kiki picked one up. Yup, tuna. She glanced over at Gaunt, just to make sure she had permission. Gaunt looked over, but didn’t have any strong reaction, so she figured it was fine.

As soon as she pried open the lid, she could smell it, and now she was hungry. She scraped out chunks with her fingers, stuffing it in her mouth, and the can was empty far too quickly. She ran her finger around the sides, to catch any bits she had missed, and popped it in her mouth.

“Can I take a second can?”

“Uhh, sure? Yeah, sure.”

The second can disappeared pretty much as fast as the first, and then Kiki felt a little bit better. Time to deal with the less urgent stuff.

The wounds in her chest needed to be covered, same with the rat bite and the infected cut in her shoulder. Gaunt needed stitches for the curving gash on her side , and maybe parts of her abdominal wound- how had she made it here with that? It looked awful- and then bandages as well. Kiki… did not have much in the way of cloth, so unless Gaunt had something they’d have to stretch it a bit.

Most importantly, they both needed antibiotics, which meant figuring out which pill was the right one somehow. Hopefully not more trial and error, that had gone badly last time.

“You said you have antiseptic. Anything else? Bandages, needle and thread, painkillers?” At this point, it looked like Gaunt was done taking out the worms. She must have had less of them.

“Yeah, I’ve got bandages and gauze, that’s it though. Oh, and some thread and a needle, I think.”

“Okay, that’s pretty good.” Kiki paused for a moment, thinking, before she continued. “You might want to stitch the cut on your side. I’m guessing you want to do that yourself, but if you’d like I can watch and give advice while you work. Up to you. I have some stuff I can improvise bandages from, so use what you need first and I’ll take anything left over. And, uh, we do both need antibiotics pretty soon so we’ll have to sort out the pill thing after that.”

“Nah, it’s shallow, it’s fine, and I’ve got it handled. But yeah, I was kinda hoping you’d have something to be honest. I don’t… I don’t really have a plan or anything. I’m shocked we even got to meet up in the first place.”

Kiki let out a short, quiet whistle. No kidding. It was mostly because of Gaunt, but she wasn’t gonna say that. “Yeah, things haven’t been going well for either of us. I didn’t manage to find much in the apartments before the dust storm, but… I was thinking after we treat our injuries, maybe we could check it out a bit more. First though…” She grimaced, fishing the bottle of pills out of her bag and tapping a few of each into her palm. “I don’t suppose you have any guess which is an antibiotic?”

“Not familiar, sorry.”

Great. Just great. It was what she had expected, but still. She looked down at the pills in her hand. One long white pill, a fat colourful one, and that weird yellow ‘bone pain’ pill.

She’d already tried this gamble once, and it really hadn’t gone well. Then again, now someone was here to help her if she passed out foaming at the mouth, so really, now was the best time to check.

The colourful one was pretty. Looked like a berry.

“Fuck it.” She grabbed one of the colourful pills, popped it in her mouth, and washed it down with a bit of water. The rest, she poured back into the bottle. “I’ll be the guinea pig. If I get sick or it doesn’t work, the white one’s the antibiotic. Otherwise it’s the red and yellow pill.”

Gaunt looked a bit startled at first, but then shrugged and nodded a bit.

“Alright.” Kiki clapped once before continuing, “Let’s cover up our wounds and go scavenging.”

As it turns out, Gaunt only had enough bandages for one person, so Gaunt (she insisted Kiki have the bandages) was stuck hacking apart the towel with the knife, using up the rest of the whisky to try and sterilise the pieces (It was sandy and dusty and had god knows what bacteria in it, Kiki was absolutely NOT letting her use it as is) and tying that around her injuries. God, what had their life become? How the fuck did they end up like this?

Would she be stuck here forever, with only Gaunt as company? Never get back to her family and friends, never meet Spike or Lyre, base survival without actually living?

“Okay, let’s go,” Kiki said, her voice shaking ever so slightly.