Soundtrack: 'Farther Along' - Josh Garrels

{Cary}

The way was steep. The incline on the path winding up the side of the mountain had increased so gradually that Cary didn't notice until he was using his hands as well as his feet to pull himself up the rocky face. There was no path. Split-lip was just ahead of him, picking his hand and foot holds with care; Cary put his feet and hands exactly where Split-lip had climbed. It was a long way down behind them, the tops of evergreens soft with distance.

Cary's muscles were shaking and his fingers were scraped and raw when the storm rolled in. Split-lip took a look at the thunderous clouds gathering above them and called down to Cary, the wind whipping his hair over his bearded face. "Not much farther! You can make it!"

Above, he could see the lip of the rock face, an old tree leaning over the edge with its roots hanging onto the cracks in the stone. Rain pelted out of the sky, and gusts of wind drove the drops like needles against his skin. With a grunt, Cary pushed his anchoring leg straight and reached for the next hold. The wind felt like it would tear him off the cliff face, and he tried to dig his bruised fingers deeper into the cracks. His chest was burning, and he was soaked—not just from the rain, but from the sweat of the climb. He hugged the rock face for a second, pressing his cheek against the hard stone and squeezing his eyes shut, barely hanging on. He didn't think he was a strong as Split-lip thought he was.

"You all right?" Split-lip's voice came down faintly. He found his way back to Cary, light and neat as a mountain goat, not tired at all. "Oh boy, here she comes," Split-lip said, and Cary heard the scrape of his feet finding new holds. "Hang on." Abruptly, Cary felt Split-lip swing into place behind him, pressing his body against the cliff. Split-lip was bigger than he was and he'd somehow found holds on either side of Cary, keeping him in place with his own strength. Cary could release his death grip on his fingers and relax his legs a bit with Split-lip taking some of his weight.

That's when the wind picked up with a scream. It started to hail, bullets of ice striking Cary on all the parts of his body that were still exposed. He tried to duck his head into the shelter of Split-lip's spread arms, but he couldn't escape the violence of the storm. It stole his breath and tore the skin of his arms and sides and whichever cheek he didn't have pressed to the rock. He heard Split-lip breathing by his ear and felt the steadiness of his chest against his shoulders. He shifted the weight on his feet, trying to hold on and believe that this would end and there would be anything left of him to finish the climb.

By the time the storm blew past, he was soaked and frozen. His arms and legs were like blocks of ice; Split-lip had to move them for him. When they got to the top, Cary stretched one arm over the grass and pressed his cheek against the ground--Split-lip heaved him up the rest of the way. Cary dragged himself away from the edge and collapsed, curling on his side and putting his hands against his face. Tears leaked hot from his eyes, melting his icy fingers.

"There's a place nearby," Split-lip said. "I'll get it ready and come back for you."

"No." Cary's voice was thin and ragged. He got his knees under him and tried to get up. "Coming too." His body was heavy, and he propped his aching head against the ground between his hands, trying to push to his feet.

There was a soft thump beside his head—Split-lip's knee against the damp ground. Large hands went under Cary's shoulders and knees as Split-lip gathered Cary against his chest. He felt Split-lip's muscles bunch as he stood with Cary's weight in his arms. He was so exhausted he couldn't even brace himself in case Split-lip was going to hurt him. Split-lip started to move in an easy walking rhythm, and Cary buried his face in his chest and fisted his battered hands in the front of his shirt, trying to soak up the warmth from his body.

///

Cary lifted his pencil off the page, massaging his right elbow. He'd been drawing a lot the past weeks, since Jon had stopped talking to him. He lifted his eyes to the wall beside his door, which was plastered floor to ceiling with drawings—many of them about him and Split-lip. The world they inhabited felt as real as this bedroom in the Whites' house, and Split-lip hardly felt like a made-up creation. As he drew he felt like he was watching the story unfold in his mind. He had begun to pencil in in dialogue with his dark, blocky printing, because the things Split-lip said were as vivid as the things he did.

He hadn't told Pete because he didn't know what Pete would say about someone like him taking license with someone as important as Jesus. And if Pete took Split-lip away, Cary thought he might just curl up and die. He had so little reason to keep breathing anymore, and coming home to his drawing book and Split-lip every day kept him putting one foot in front of the other.

///

The cave was dry, but dark and cold, and Split-lip set about building a fire. Cary huddled where Split-lip had set him, in the corner of the rock wall and floor. His knees were drawn up, and he was shaking so hard his teeth rattled. A spark lit the darkness, then grew into a warm glow, and Split-lip made a satisfied noise. He got to his feet and came around to Cary, who tipped his face up to him like he was the fire. He produced a fluffy, white towel from somewhere and rubbed Cary dry with his clothes on, then used it on his own hair and beard so they stood up like a brown-black mane around his face.

"Let's have a look at you," he said.

Cary stripped his still-damp T-shirt off with numb fingers, and Split-lip laid it over a stone close to the fire, where it started to steam. Cary braced his hands against the ground as Split-lip knelt beside him; he did not like this part of the day.

Almost all of the staples were gone—the front of Cary's body was open along the seam of the 'Y' incision. When they were walking and moving, he could hold it closed like a fist. When he relaxed, the incision gaped open, hollow and red—an almost-empty space encased by the rack of his ribs. At least most of his inside was red now, and his skin was pink. The damp greyish tone of his flesh had taken on the proper colour since Split-lip had started treating him.

Split-lip made a humming noise, laying his hands on either side of the incision, his fingers ticklish against Cary's sides. "Are you up for doing two staples today?"

Cary stiffened his back against the stone, closing his eyes. He wanted those out, and he trusted Split-lip's hands but cutting the staples and draining the poison behind them was painful and exhausting. "Yes."

"Maybe just one tonight, and then I have a surprise for you."

Cary looked warily at him—he did not like surprises. While he was distracted, Split-lip cut the staple and pulled the ends out of his flesh with quick jerks. Cary made a sound behind his clenched teeth. Split-lip gently pressed his ribs open—a bad smell emerged, like rotting meat. "This is infected," he noted.

Cary turned his face aside, hating that Split-lip had to do this for him. Something icy cold trickled down his ribs, black and viscous as tobacco juice. Split-lip used the towel to wipe it off his skin, stroking his fingers around the incision to press more of the poison out of his flesh.

///

Cary let out a shaky breath, letting his pencil fall and dropping his head back against the wall. His birthday dinner with his mother was as thick as poison in his memory, and he wasn't frozen anymore. Watching her walk away hurt like she'd scooped him hollow and taken his insides with her—and all the times she had done it before followed like links in the chain: dropped him at the shelter with the shit beat out of him, turned a blind eye when he could barely get around their monstrous house, and never asked, never asked, never asked why he was so fucking clumsy they had to visit every Medi-clinic in the city for his broken bones. The hole Split-lip had opened was deep, and there he was at the bottom, crying himself to sleep on a pile of drop cloths, knowing she was just upstairs—if she would care enough to come for him.

Cary tipped onto his side in his bed, dragging his blankets over his head and drawing himself into a ball in the dark. He was too spent to pick up his pencil again, but he went to the cave in his mind's eye because Split-lip was the only person he knew who could make this better.

///

"Does that feel like we got it all?" Split-lip asked.

Cary couldn't find the energy to dry the tears off his face—they just kept dropping over the corner of his jaw and running down his neck. "I never had a mom." The pain in his chest made his voice frayed and soft. "I always wanted her to take care of me—and she never."

Split-lip sighed. He used his thumb to wipe the tears off Cary's cheeks, then cupped his face and touched his forehead to Cary's. They stayed like that, Split-lip's breath sweet like crushed herbs. "Shall I wash this for you?" he asked in his low rumble.

Cary clenched his fingers over the gap of his stomach, his breath hitching. "I wish you didn't have to do this for me," he whispered.

"I'm glad to," Split-lip said simply. He folded up the hem of his shirt, where the line of a wound ran pink along his brown skin, and set a bowl on his knees. The bowl was smooth and polished as gold, glinting in the firelight. Split-lip put a hand to his side and pressed his wound open—blood spilled red over his skin and dropped into the bowl with a soft, musical sound. Cary was captivated by his peaceful, downturned face as he bled, careful not to spill a single drop. When the bowl was full, he pressed his fingers over the lip of the wound to seal it again. It had never scabbed and healed in all the time Cary had known him, only sealed until his blood was needed again. Split-lip carried the wound as if it were a great treasure, and never behaved as if it caused him pain.

He lifted the bowl and set it against Cary's chest, tipping it so his blood ran into the hole in Cary's body. Cary gasped, hanging onto Split-lip's shoulder. The blood was hot as fire running down the walls of his hollow insides.

"There," Split-lip said. He got to his feet, looking down on Cary. His face was alight with an expression Cary still didn't have a name for—not a smile, but a joy and purity so transparent that they came off his skin like light. Cary bent forward and clasped his bare ankle with his hand.

"Thank you." The words didn't begin to cover it. His skin had gone from grey to pink because of Split-lip's life blood.

Split-lip ruffled up Cary's hair in a wordless "You're welcome," then lifted him to his feet. Cary found his legs, though rubbery with exertion, were able to hold him again. "Now for the surprise."

The floor at the back of the cave was sandy, sloping gently upward until it turned a corner and a shallow opening led out onto a ledge under the night sky. Small oil lamps made of pinched clay gave a soft light to the pool of water, which was steaming under the indigo sky.

"Time for a soak," Split-lip grinned. "Do you like it? I made it for you." The sweep of his arm could have encompassed the whole night sky or simply the rock-lined pool.

Cary's eyes were wide, and goosebumps chased over his skin. It seemed like he had been cold for years. Split-lip laughed at his expression and pulled his shirt over his head. "Last one in's a rotten egg!" he called and barreled into the water.

Cary picked his way over the stones in his bare feet, lowering himself into the water where it was shallow. It was so warm. He made a little sound of pleasure, sinking up to his chin with a sigh.

Split-lip ducked his head under water and came up with it streaming off his hair and down his back. He was singing a song in a language Cary didn't recognize, soft guttural throat sounds and a melodic tune that seemed to pluck the air and move the stars. His shoulders were crossed with scars like Cary's, faded to a pale silver against his brown skin.

Cary put his hands against his front under water, looking at the wavering shape of the red gap down the centre line of his body. "Split-lip?" he asked slowly. "Is this going to heal?"

Split-lip turned, his eyes dark and spangled with galaxies.

"It looks better, but it's not—it's not closing. I cut a lot—before—and it always..." he knit his fingers together to try and show what he meant. He waited, holding his eyes, afraid of the answer. As long as he was like this, if Split-lip ever left him, he would go back to being grey, numb and barely alive.

"That goes more than skin-deep," Split-lip said. "Things were taken that you need back inside you before it will heal." He was picking his words slowly, watching Cary to see if he was following, same as he did when they were climbing the cliff. He put out his hand, the pit of his scar plain on his wrist. "Half your organs are missing."

Cary pressed his hands against his ribs, feeling the emptiness give under the pressure. "How can I get them back?" His voice cracked and his nose stung. He couldn't look at the thought directly, but the edge of it was there—the person who had taken the pieces he was missing and how little they would care to return them. "Am I just—like this now?"

Split-lip was quiet, moving his hands over the surface of the water.

Cary crossed his arms over himself, drawing his eyebrows down. "You can fix me. You can put new things in." His body tightened, instinctively guessing what it would cost Split-lip to do that. "Maybe you don't want to. That's fine, okay? I don't care—as long as you don't leave." His throat was tight, and he knew Split-lip could see his fear that he would be discarded again. He firmed his chin, not backing down. "If you leave—I'll keep coming after you until I find you again or I just...die by the road. There isn't anything else for me except you."

Split-lip's scarred mouth curved in a smile, and his eyebrows lifted. "Thank you, Cary," he said. "That means a lot from you."

He dropped low in the water and took a seat an arm's length away. "We're staying here a while. The rest of those staples to do. Some good soaking time." He cupped the water and let it run through his fingers. "Healing stuff, this."

Cary could taste it, salty, on his lips. "Is it a hot spring? Where does it come from?"

"It's tears," Split-lip said simply.

Cary looked sideways at him, absorbing that. Someone had cried a lot to fill this pool.

"I'm never leaving you, you know," Split-lip slid down so his lips were almost at the level of the water and his words ruffled the surface. "If I get up one morning and find you gone—I'll keep coming after you until I find you again." He met Cary's eyes through the steam and smiled. "I think you're stuck with me."

///

Cary washed his face and brushed his teeth shortly after he heard Jon's sisters head to bed. The soak in the pool of tears seemed to have washed away all his anxiety and left him limp and exhausted. He thought he could sleep for a week without dreaming.

He met Jon's mom in the hall as she came out of the girls' room. Her eyes looked up at him, worried through her thick, dishevelled bangs. "Oh, Cary—I didn't hear you come in."

He hid his face. He didn't have any strength left to close his expression over what was inside him. "How's Jon?" he asked.

She let out her breath, distracted for a moment. "Sleeping now, thank God. He spent the day in the bathroom being sick."

He wanted to duck into his room, but she was in his path. She touched his arm and he couldn't hide his flinch.

"How did it go with your mom?"

He took a slow breath, lifting his shoulders. "Not great. Don't think she wants to see me again. It's just easier. For her—to not. Not have me in her life." The words were dry, but he got them out. He thought he sounded okay with it.

"Oh, hon," Mel said softly. He spread his hands against his front to try and keep it together, stuck with her standing in his way. "I was so hopeful for you."

His shoulders bowed. He thought he'd cried all his tears, but heat was building in his eyes again. "Me too."

She put her hands on his shoulders and drew him close. Jon's mom was as soft as pillows, not all corners and angles like his own mother. She hugged him tightly, like she would keep him together with the strength of her own arms. It broke the little control he had, and he hid his face in her shoulder for her sweater to soak up his tears.

He pulled himself together as quickly as he could, drawing away. He was embarrassed to have cried in front of people so much today, and to have needed that hug as much as he did. His hands closed, remembering the soft feel of Mel's shoulders, and he immediately regretted his haste in pushing away so quickly. He felt like someone who had been starving for so long that he'd stopped feeling hunger—until someone started cooking nearby.

"Is there anything I can do?" Mel asked.

He folded his arms around himself, making his shoulders small. "I'm okay." He pressed his lips together, then realized he should tell her so she wouldn't worry. "I used to cut because I couldn't cry. All I've done today is cry. So."

She put her hand on his upper arm, stroking it down with her palm like she did when her girls came to her upset or afraid.

It was like she stroked the words out of him. "Do you have time—?" Cary turned his face aside. It was stupid. He should shut up.

"I have time." She looked at him questioningly.

"Do you think you could...tuck me in?" He almost strangled on the question and wished he could swallow it back. "Just a—bedtime prayer. If you have time. For me."

Her hand still clasped his arm. "Sure. Now?"

He nodded, mute.

"Get your PJs on. I'll be there in a minute." She said it exactly like she said it to her own children every night, and his very real, very flesh-and-blood heart skipped a little in his chest.

He got into his pyjamas, tidying away his clothes and making his bed neat and tight. She rapped on his open door and smiled when she saw him, sitting waiting, hanging onto the edge of his bed.

"Do you want me to pray from here, or there with you?"

"Here with me?" he said in a small voice that lifted uncertainly at the end.

She crossed the tiny room and knelt next to his bed. He got to his knees beside her, folding his hands on the bedspread. He didn't remember the words she prayed, just the warm hum of her voice, and her hand resting light on his folded hands. When she got to her feet she bent and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. "Good night, Cary. Sweet dreams."

He crawled under his covers, still feeling her hand on his, and his mind filled with the memory of the other woman with the flame-red hair praying with him at his bedside. Maybe these scraps were all he had. He tucked them into the empty space of his chest to keep them like treasure.