Nothing But Bones

24: A Quick Detour

Tiff stumbles onto soft, unmown grass and loses her balance quickly enough that she falls on her face. The scales of a discarded pine cone dig into her cheek. She pushes herself up and peels it away.

"See, Elton," she says, without looking, "I was right. Something did went wrong— Went? Go. Fuck. I'm so looped about this damn portal. There's a reason they called me Beefany for two years."

There's no response except the gentle panting of a slightly-panicked dog looking for the boy he has been protecting.

Dog. Not a rat. Fuck.

Tiff rolls onto her back and side just to look through the blur of mace and faulty eyes and make sure. Sure enough: it's just Dingus. No Elton. No Kepler. No Boris Covington. Just Dingus and Tiff, on the side of the road somewhere. She'll figure it out in a moment, she supposes. She'll get her head back on her shoulders— she'll breathe like a normal goddamn person— and she'll figure out where to go from here, wherever here is.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath just to make sure she still can; she pushes herself to stand on still-wobbly legs, leaning on something else's bone in the bright lights of a summer evening and neon signs across the street. If she squints through the pain, she can make it out: this is the corner where the Old Burger King is. The Verizon store mocks her, a magenta beacon-testament to all the things she's done wrong.

Well, shit. She can't heal herself here. It's pretty frowned upon to inject yourself with dubious chemicals on the side of the road, and she doesn't need more rumors about herself circulating.

She ducks behind a tree into the wooded area she's adjacent to, takes a seat against it, and gestures for Dingus to follow her. He does, trotting confusedly.

She doesn't get dogs. Hellhounds, either. It might be a topic for later. Denny's easy. She's not a dog; she still has a human mind when in her remarkably dog-like wolf form; she can still communicate, however nonverbally. It's hard to get what Dingus's deal is, though, or to know how to reassure him.

She lets another long breath and looks up at the lab. It's more horizontal than subservient. "Well, bud. You're getting the Kepler deal. I'm sorry in advance."

She pauses like she's interpreting the distressed look he's giving her. (How intelligent are hellhounds? Maybe she could go to Hell sometime and find out.)

"He's probably fine, Dingle. We'll get back to him. Elton's going to be fine. I just— I need a minute, and I need a—" She pauses, considers it with her head cocked the way Dingus's is. "I need a power source that isn't me. Then we'll get back to him. A more stable, more reliable portal. And bandages. Those, too."

She nods, like that's assuring in the slightest. It isn't. It's so hard to breathe about it.

It's also hard to see. This isn't the first time she's been pepper-sprayed— she did it to herself months ago, just to see how it would feel— but this is the first time she didn't have an eyewash station handy. It hurts like a mother.

A literal mother. Fuck, that's not something to think about right now. She simply chooses not to.

"First things first," she announces. "Let's flush my eyes and then— We'll go from there."

Dingus whines. It smells a little bit like grief and sulfur.

"I know," Tiff assures him, even though she doesn't. She doesn't know what's going on or what she's supposed to be doing anymore.

It's just the next best step, right? That's the step she's supposed to take, right? She gestures for Dingus to take a seat next to her. While he buries his head in the tall grass next to her, she squints her burning eyes into the depths of her bag.

Jackpot. It's not a saline solution or anything, but half a bottle of water from days ago is better than nothing. She leans over to the side that Dingus isn't on and splashes as much as she can up into her eyes, just to flush them out in the hopes that it'll stop burning.

She sighs, sticks the empty plastic back between the bounds of fabric. "Well, Dingleberry. We're in a real pickle. Second things second: I have to stop the bleeding. I may not be able to die, but I can still pass out from blood loss. I'd rather not do that again. Hold this—"

She shrugs off her jacket and drapes it over him. It's something he doesn't seem to know what to do with. He just sniffs at the blood coating the inside of the left sleeve.

That's enough, though, for her to realize, "Fuck! Dammit, Dingus. We need to let Elton know what's going on."

She pulls her phone out of her pocket, astounded that this one isn't broken yet. It isn't like she's been playing around in wet holes, though. She's just been playing in bony ones.

"Hold still," she demands, even though Dingus (though keyed-up, certainly) is already doing that. A quick picture with the flash on and a text sent ("We're in Lake Wonder. Will be back soon. Thoughts on chemicals in your body?"), she puts the phone away and turns to the empty air.

Now, though, she needs to figure out how to keep the blood inside her body.

Fuck. Is she really going to do this again? Wincing at the way the fabric scrapes her bruised ribs and wishing she had scissors so she could just cut off a bit of the fabric, she takes off her shirt, holds it out in front of her, and uses the sharp bone to cut off one of the sleeves. It'll work as a tourniquet until she can get home, grab some bandages to cover and add pressure to the puncture wounds. There's a quicker fix in the interim, though. A quick dose of healing reagent closes the holes just a little; she can see the skin start to regrow in a way that's probably going to scar, which is just going to be a wonderful thing to explain to her family members the next time she isn't wearing long sleeves. "Oh, no big deal. Just stuck my arm in a giant snake's mouth. Hope it wasn't venomous!"

Tiff puts her shirt back on, takes the jacket back from Dingus, and shoves everything back in the pencil case, back in the pockets, just generally back in the bag. She has a sharp bone; she has plenty of blood. Though she may not have consistent power sourcing from herself since she just opened a portal maybe five minutes ago, time is really of the essence. She needs to stop back home and grab the bandages for herself and for Elton, and then get her ass back to Canada, because that's a meat boy and he's going to get himself killed.

Meat boy? Just how much blood has she lost?

Whatever the case, it probably isn't a great idea to risk losing more— but she doesn't really have much of a choice. She's stranded here otherwise, since her bike is back at the house and the Honda is in goddamn Beaverdell.

She wipes her hands on the sides of her jeans. "Okay. We're going to try it again, Dingle. Are you ready?"

His ears perk up, but he doesn't do much.

She gestures to the uncut air in front of her. "Another portal, bud. We're going to go to my house for a second, and then back to Boris's."

His demeanor doesn't change.

"Let's try this again. You and me, Dingus. Or— just me. You're not involved. You're just going through." She palms her forehead, digs the heel into the frontal bone.

Now or never. Concentrate. One more try, once more for the ocean. (Is now really the time for a Slothrust reference?)

"Focus." She demands it of herself. "Get it together."

There's more than enough blood on her wrist— symbolism of the connection between herself as an energy source and the portal she's trying to open, even if it isn't going to pull from her. She swipes the bone through the air, cuts a sliver of a hole into it. It's unstable; it won't stop flickering; but she trusts it. Does she really have another choice?

She hooks Kepler's leash, still on her belt, to Dingus. She gives him a firm, confident nod. "Come on. Let's go through."