he wakes up to a quiet hum of a battle hymn. sang to this one before, he thinks absentmindedly, but he can’t remember the lyrics. can’t remember anything. charcoal eyes blur, clear, then blur again. the clink of a wrench, the overpowering scent of gasoline. can’t remember, where am i now, what’s going on, why am i here, why –

 

 

the battle hymn goes on.

 

 

 

 

the tide came in that day. washed them to shore. red in the water. bleached the sand with blood and iron and rust, synonyms for death.

 

the tide came in that day. his left arm didn’t.

 

 

 

 

“it’s hollowed titanium,” he hears the next time he wakes. she catches wires between her teeth – red, blue, and gold. sets them inside plating, tangles them through connectors. his left shoulder throbs. dark lined eyes meet his as she reaches over for a sip of whiskey.

 

“you’re lucky it was just your arm,” she muses, smears of soot over her forehead when he focuses on her face. taps a finger against his metallic bones. “no one’s going to be able to break this one.”

 

 

 

 

the diamond graft skin comes the next day.

 

 

 

 

he hears about it when someone comes to change his iv drip. a mechanic, affectionless charcoal eyes and soot smeared skin. jiyeon’s a mechanic.

 

and what does that make me? the apprentice coughs, gasoline wafts into his nose. gotta get the air filter. too much soot in the air. jaeseop rubs his fingers together, black smudges over the ridges of his fingertips. soot on his skin, too. breathes it in. out, plumes to rain down on his face once more.

 

 

 

 

the arm feels slow. heavy. clumsy. he doesn’t try to lift it when he gets up.

 

she stares him down to the soles of his feet. a little sharp, a little hard, all critical – the whiskey does that, he assumes.

 

lift it.

 

 

 

 

“you’re lucky it was just your arm,” she laughs. all bitter, like burnt up crust. washes it down with whiskey. he lays down and listens to the iv drip.

 

holds his gaze, unflinching, unforgiving. “my brother went to war, too. except he lost his head in an explosion.” washes that down with whiskey too.

 

he lays down and listens to his ears ring in the feedback of an explosion.

 

 

 

 

he lifts the arm.

 

 

 

 

jaeseop wishes there was some way to fix his mind, fix the ringing of his ears, the explosions, the battlefield, the gun shots, the blood in the water – so much thicker, sinking down and staining triggerfish caked crimson. the color of death. death, he carries it on him still. death, it reeks through the drips of gasoline and soot, titanium and diamonds, dark lined and charcoal eyes, affectionless. smudges the shadows of her eyelashes with tears, the salt clearing pale spots across her cheeks.

 

 

 

 

he falls asleep to a battle hymn. sang to this one before, he thinks absentmindedly, but she doesn’t even know the words. doesn’t know the world outside gasoline, soot, and whiskey – doesn’t want to know the world outside her brother’s head.

 

he doesn’t want to know, either. whispers the last line before he drifts into sleep, into nightmares and holes of dreams, sleep tight my little vespertine.

 

 

 

 

fight well my little vespertine.