Wishbones and Cracked Skulls

Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Part III)

Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Part III)

~Deep Purple~

It's 1 something in the morning here and I might be seeing double and half crazed from caffeine and bout of inspiration so I'm sorry in advance for my shit grammar or wrong spelling, English is not my first language so please bear with it.

*****

Small gloved fingers traced the smile from purple painted lips on the framed photo of a happy Skull wearing a ridiculously frilly apron. The teen in the picture has his eyes solely focused on the small heavily bandaged figure sitting across him, all giddy and expectant as he holds a perfectly made mochi between his fingers as he attempts to feed the other.

Skull was the only color in the otherwise monochrome picture, against the gray walls of the communal kitchen with its black and white tiles and grayscaled furnitures and appliances. He stands out more than just his bright colors and through the photo alone his vivacious personality can be felt in an otherwise cold lifeless picture.

Bermuda can still imagine the very scene in his head, how it all played out and how the picture was even taken.

(He misses him already. Through their soul link Bermuda checks on the other tentatively and was greeted with gentle carding Flames that his own can't help but purr into.)

It was taken during Skull's last visit two weeks ago, when Jack had visited the man to whine about missing his cooking and baking, and because Skull is a soft-hearted fool, he had let himself be taken from his motorcycle tinkering to just bake and cook for them.

Which was a fool's errand when all of Vindice are partly undead and mayhap almost tasteless taste buds and have no real need to eat for sustenance.

(Being nearly not able to taste food of choice for their lifetime is just one of the reasons for their ever long list of grievances towards The Man with the Iron Hat. One of the side effects of becoming a walking corpse is to be stripped of the simple pleasure of eating and tasting.

They're already stripped of their humanity, eternally mangled, forever to be one with the night and its darkness. But even simple pleasures that they once had in life were taken from them. How cruel and maddening, they can't even use the lack of sleep as an excuse for their insanity and short fuse for the ability to rest is lost to them. They were simply cruel and mad as it keeps them alive and hounding for revenge.

Vindice stands for vengeance, and they will not stop until their own personal justice is served, until all of their combined bitterness and despair was felt by that elusive vermin.)

But Skull's food, for no reason at all, is different.

They can actually taste it for one. So Jack, whining about Skull's cooking is not entirely for baseless reasons. The simple pleasure of being able to eat and actually taste something had been one of the many driving forces as to why they kept contact with the otherwise civilian stuntman.

Skull's Flames lingered in his food and it's entirely accidental on the man's part.

The sweet intent of wanting someone to enjoy his cooking always clung to their tongues and the ever mysterious Flames have done its owner's pure wishes and the result was fantastical.

Bermuda thinks that even if Skull's food was not as palatable, all of Vindice would still love it and come to miss it just for the sake of tasting it and not being another bland paltry mush, it's just an added bonus that the stuntman happens to be a phenomenal chef.