@muutos , [ . . . ] cont'd from here.
she’s persistent, he’ll give her that. can't help admire it, through the churning bemusement that settles in his stomach - a pit, a rock. she's talking to a gun, he hopes she knows that. a bland, forgettable rifle that only remains because she's decided to string him along. and she talks to it. as if he would ever be as motivated for life, for justice, for... -as she was. boone's pessimistic by nature. mother earth, who derived from love, from war, from man-made cruelties, only allows his existence to remain so he may - what? bask in another's unfiltered determination? -...he lets her quips melt in the air, gaze stuck to the blistering gorge of her leg. dried blood, ripe blood, clings under his nails between pulls of textile, tight against muscle.
"no, i wouldn't have." simple, plain, truthful. he'd decided to always be truthful with her. finds it's the least he could do, considering. "i don't think you'd have listened, anyways. you're not the type."
he's not either. see? there's a red string tying her to the heart of the world. boone, the rifle, remains strapped to her back. they're not necessarily the same - just similar. fate's decided that this wound, now gnarled with sunlight and toxic air, is theirs to nurture. and sure, he could walk off. leave her rotting in this dirt where a home likely once stood, now ashes in the wind: but as i said, he's only a gun. what little purpose he's had in life has been laid to rest. what little he wants in life, well... caesar was only human. and guns.. they needed to be shot.
so he stays put. readjusts his grips on her calf, gentling, if only to finally tie off the ends of the bandage - once at the front, then again towards the back. with a surprising amount of care he then lowers her leg from the make-shift dais, just until her ankle could meet the dirt below.
".. think you can stand?" knows, rhetorically, she's walked to this point, that if given the chance she'd likely grit through the pain again, and adds, "-only stand. start walking and i'll have reason to scold."