“Hey…what am I doing Armless?” Cru held out his hands inquisitively for a moment and then scratched the bald spot under his headband.
“You’re getting a knife.” Jess leaned forward and pressed his heals against the lateral supports of his stool, adjusting himself.
“-oh Yeah.” Cru slid open the drawer directly facing him and examined his options before selecting the first stake knife he saw. He gripped the handle and hesitated in a half second of perplexity, then raised it to his side at eye level without turning, keeping his other choices in view.
“No” Jess was patient “Just a butter knife.” Jess was always patient; that’s what losing two portions of weight would do to you; his options conclusive with the accident were either ‘be patient’ or ‘don’t survive’. If you got frustrated over every little thing, you just wouldn’t make it.
“Ah” Cru’s eye smiled out from under his bandages as he turned to look at Jess “I remember now! Do you want peanut butter on yours?” Cru side-stepped toward two pieces of bread, already lain on a napkin beside their scanty, cold-water-only sink.
“C’mon Cru, you could at least remember that much” Jess smirked in the calmest, slightest, manner, his eyes studying the numerous nicks and watermarks in the table.
“Heh- m’kay.” Cru really didn’t remember, but at Jess’s tone, he started to thin out a glob of the chestnut colored paste on the left slice of bread. Jess’s sardonic remark wasn’t insensitive, just playful. “Well if you’re gonna be that way why don’t you just do it yourself?” Cru joked back.
A smile grew more definite on Jess’ face as he made a single inaudible chuckle at Cru’s wilily response, indicated only by a single spasm of the diaphragm conducive with laughter; his typical laugh. He leaned and rested on his nubs as Cru approached with the two pieces, and laid one in front of Jess. He sat down to the right of Jess, on the arm of the backless armchair because the seat was too short for the table. Once he’d propped his own piece up to his mouth by resting his left elbow on the table, he reached over and held up Jess’s piece for him. Waiting for Cru to lift his bread to him, Jess watched as Cru’s slice floated in the air in front of his face. Cru’s bread was plain.
“So… we’re out of peanut butter?” Jess inferred after taking a bite.
“Yesss… we are.” Cru hissed his Ss to stall so he could think on his answer, and concluded the affirmative once he was sure.
Jess took a deep breath through his nose, “You could’ve have had some.”
“Nah.” Cru folded his bread in his hand, “There wasn’t much left, anyway.” He tore off a generous piece with his lips. It was true; Jess’ piece had only a thin spread on it. But Jess accepted it wearily since Cru had none, as they didn’t get peanut butter often; they had gotten this jar a few months ago as a Christmas gift to themselves. However, Jess was grateful, and tired, and so he refrained, as usual, from arguing.
Jess fit his mouth around the edges of the bread and swallowed a mouthful, dappling his cheek with tan flecks of peanut butter, so that by the time he’d gulped down the last of his crust, he busied himself with trying to lick it all off.
Cru snickered lightly at his struggling tongue, and enjoyed a moment of amusement before aiding Jess by wiping his face with their napkin. Jess thanked him quickly, as usual, to which Cru nodded after cramming his remaining bread into his cheeks.
“We’d better be getting ready for bed.” Jess slid off his seat and leaned to look at the clock hanging above their bed. “It’s ‘bout eleven thirty.”
“Ok.” Cru went to shut off all the kitchen lights. “Hey, do you think you could read a little tonight?”
Jess shuffled to their bed. It wasn’t really a bed, more like a sack with old bits of mattress foam and blankets, all stretched over a shoddily built frame. “I donno, its kinda late.” Jess gazed upon a reasonably sized stack of dumpster books that sat at the foot of their bed “I guess we could sleep in a little tomorrow.”
Cru came lofting over in unusually bouncy strides “How much?” Cru grinned and started undressing into his sleepwear.
Jess decided to use his toes to pull down his pants, wiggling in an effort not to pull down his underwear with them, “About… Five oh one.” Jess was already shirtless because of his bandages.
“One minute?” Cru whined. He stuck out his tongue and bit it in his usual pouting expression.
Jess sat on the chair next to the closet, across from the bed. “You still want to read?”
Cru didn’t answer, but proceeded in fishing Jess’s feet through his pajamas. Once he was dressed from the hips down, Cru unraveled Jess’s bandages and put his nighttime ones on in their place. Both were old and worn, but at least the night bandages were relatively less covered in filth.
Once he had finished with the dressings, Cru hesitated a moment with a concerned visage, “What time is it?”
Cru looked up at Jess, appearing to be more diminutive than his actual size, as Jess stood “Eleven thirty.” Cru searched Jess’ face tentatively for an answer to his most frequent question, as Jess offered, “You should redo your bandages too, now.”
Cru’s expression eased, and he sat in the chair and did as told.
~To Be continued~
