There was a dusty quiet to the Casa Madrid. There was noise, yes, the sound of moans and squeals of pleasure a steady background soundscape, but from his spot seated on the staircase Joshua Graham only heard the swing of the front door, brief snatches of conversations drifting in from the outside, the quiet murmur of the proprietress extolling the virtues of her human wares.
He opened his beer – a rare treat for a tongue more used to the sweet softness of rain water – and sat on the second step from the bottom, patient and still.
Tomorrow he'd walk into the clinic of Dr Usanagi, a sack of caps in one hand and a letter written in the scrawling handwriting of Courier's doctor friend, and maybe he'd walk back to Zion with a few more years on his card. The doctor had been blunt and Joshua held no expectations, but to have some of the deepest scars healed anew was a temptation too strong to resist. To spread his fingers without the split of weeping flesh, or eat a meal without fresh rips of raw skin gathering at the corner of his mouth.
A little hope was enough. Pain was a burden that he'd earned for sins willingly committed, but even Joshua Graham allowed himself a little hope. Less infections and little agonies, a few years without the rot settling into his hands. Little hopes, little victories.
He blinked away his daydream, schooling himself against dwelling on expectation and disappointment. That was tomorrow and this was today, and today the Burned Man moved amongst people who would never realise that the Malpais Legate was seated on the staircase of a whorehouse, his shoulder braced against the wall and a beer held between two pitch-gloved fingers.
A young man barely grown into his adult teeth finished his conversation with the woman leaning against the wall, staring opening at Joshua as he scuttled up the stairs.
"If you hang around here, people are going to think we've got a charcoal club happening." The women pushed herself off the wall only to settle back against it, the leather of her jacket rubbing as she folded her arms and eyed him. There was a pattern of seared flesh licking its way from her chest to her hair, the skin melted and warped. For a moment Joshua wondered if he'd ordered her to be burnt all those years ago.
"You're here for something special?" The voice of a true businesswoman, curiosity quashed in favour of angling for a few more caps over his rent.
Joshua took a long drink of his beer, rolling it around in his mouth and letting it wash over the different taste buds of his tongue. Here it was almost sweet, there it was tart, and the bubbles bit at the tip of his tongue with sharp little bursts of carbonation. He swallowed. "Only passing though."
There was a long silence after that, enough for him to finish his beer and get up with a hiss between clenched teeth, throwing the bottle in the bin with more force than was needed. The woman called out to him when he was halfway up the stairs and he turned, knowing that the loosely tucked bandages across his jaw were sagging away to show skin scarred shiny and silvered, taut against the black marks where pitch had burnt all the way into the bone.
Joshua Graham + Pretty Sarah, 'The Skin We Live In' 1/2
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There was a dusty quiet to the Casa Madrid. There was noise, yes, the sound of moans and squeals of pleasure a steady background soundscape, but from his spot seated on the staircase Joshua Graham only heard the swing of the front door, brief snatches of conversations drifting in from the outside, the quiet murmur of the proprietress extolling the virtues of her human wares.
He opened his beer – a rare treat for a tongue more used to the sweet softness of rain water – and sat on the second step from the bottom, patient and still.
Tomorrow he'd walk into the clinic of Dr Usanagi, a sack of caps in one hand and a letter written in the scrawling handwriting of Courier's doctor friend, and maybe he'd walk back to Zion with a few more years on his card. The doctor had been blunt and Joshua held no expectations, but to have some of the deepest scars healed anew was a temptation too strong to resist. To spread his fingers without the split of weeping flesh, or eat a meal without fresh rips of raw skin gathering at the corner of his mouth.
A little hope was enough. Pain was a burden that he'd earned for sins willingly committed, but even Joshua Graham allowed himself a little hope. Less infections and little agonies, a few years without the rot settling into his hands. Little hopes, little victories.
He blinked away his daydream, schooling himself against dwelling on expectation and disappointment. That was tomorrow and this was today, and today the Burned Man moved amongst people who would never realise that the Malpais Legate was seated on the staircase of a whorehouse, his shoulder braced against the wall and a beer held between two pitch-gloved fingers.
A young man barely grown into his adult teeth finished his conversation with the woman leaning against the wall, staring opening at Joshua as he scuttled up the stairs.
"If you hang around here, people are going to think we've got a charcoal club happening." The women pushed herself off the wall only to settle back against it, the leather of her jacket rubbing as she folded her arms and eyed him. There was a pattern of seared flesh licking its way from her chest to her hair, the skin melted and warped. For a moment Joshua wondered if he'd ordered her to be burnt all those years ago.
"You're here for something special?" The voice of a true businesswoman, curiosity quashed in favour of angling for a few more caps over his rent.
Joshua took a long drink of his beer, rolling it around in his mouth and letting it wash over the different taste buds of his tongue. Here it was almost sweet, there it was tart, and the bubbles bit at the tip of his tongue with sharp little bursts of carbonation. He swallowed. "Only passing though."
There was a long silence after that, enough for him to finish his beer and get up with a hiss between clenched teeth, throwing the bottle in the bin with more force than was needed. The woman called out to him when he was halfway up the stairs and he turned, knowing that the loosely tucked bandages across his jaw were sagging away to show skin scarred shiny and silvered, taut against the black marks where pitch had burnt all the way into the bone.
"What happened to you?"