Scarification

[dog_eat_dog]

For vaccination and alloveragain :



A lifetime ago, Tess dabbled in chemistry.

This was not the sort of chemistry she learned in high school labs. It wasn't done out of curiosity. From the start, she knew what skin did when sloshed with battery acid, or what happened to a body too close to an ammonium nitrate blast. It was pure necessity, or at least what felt necessary at the time. After a few bad incidents, she switched to selling materials. No more checkpoint bombings. No more Fireflies. It's been a few years since she did even that much.

The willingness to do what needed to be done for survival stuck around, though, and she never really forgot what she was doing.

The relevant bits come back to her now, preparing ingredients in between household chores. Joel is out on patrol, due back in a few hours, and Ellie is out running errands, due back soon, and Tess is going to be ready for both. She has good timing for these things.

She nips out into the backyard, a pair of old rubber gardening gloves shoved in the pocket of her jeans, and she rounds the far side of the house. It's the least trafficked side of the yard, nestled beside a row of trees, and so no one has been tending to the wooden barrel there but her. She crouches down, pulls on the gloves, and drags the thick plastic dish bucket out from under the raised bottom of the barrels. The lye water sloshes precariously, and she lifts it and takes it into the house. It's been filtered through the white ashes multiple times now, and though she doesn't have a test to measure the pH, she's sure it's almost on par with sodium hydroxide. An alkaline. Highly corrosive. A metal hydroxide.

Also used for making soap, if anyone snoops and asks.

Tess brings it upstairs to Joel's workshop, setting it down carefully on the workbench, far enough down that no one will accidentally disturb it. She goes to the linen closet next and pulls out a couple of mismatched wash clothes and towels, and those go on the bench, too.

She gives the vise grip a considering look and then winds it open, turning the metal arm over and over and over again until it is wide enough to fit a wrist. She tests it on herself, seeing how awkward it is, how risky it is to the whole arm if the wrist is locked in there. It won't be comfortable, even with a washcloth or two padding out the harsh metal. It's not going to be comfortable period.

Tess goes back down the hall a third time, this time to the bathroom. She plugs the sink and fills it with cold water. She props the door open, blocks it that way with the corner of a laundry hamper. The path needs to be clear.

All ready.

Just in the time: the sound of the front door opening.

Comments

[vaccination]

She's tired of hiding the fucking scar on her arm.

They haven't been in Jackson long enough, but Joel's warning about keeping her bite hidden so people didn't ask questions made her stomach sink. So, what? For the rest of her life she's supposed to wear long sleeves in the middle of the fucking summer? No. It was a reminder of too much, and she knows if she doesn't find a way to get rid of it, she's going to hack her whole fucking arm off.

Okay. Maybe not that dramatic, but it's what she tells Tess, and now here they are. Ellie pokes her head inside the house. Quiet, save for some movement upstairs, and even though Ellie saw Joel leave with Tommy, she checks the first floor just in case.

She feels her heart beating faster and faster as she confirms Joel isn't around. This is happening. And maybe she feels a little dizzy, going up the stairs. This is gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt a lot, and Joel's gonna be pissed, but it's for the best. And so Ellie swallows down the nerves and as she pokes her head into Joel's workshop and sees Tess, ready.

"Hey. You got everything?"