He sighed. "You don't." He replied with a small shrug. "But I won't." He studied her carefully. "For one thing, if I was going to do that, I would have just shot you as I came in, not purposely drawn you into conversation and put my gun away, therefore decreasing my own chances of survival substantially."
She awkwardly shrugged, “Fair.” Again, she went quiet, debating her choices and trying to decide of how much of a threat he was. Even if he did attack, it wasn’t like she could do much to defend herself with her leg in this condition. “Fine, but if you try anything I won’t hesitate to shoot,” She eventually said, setting her gun on the floor next to herself and propping herself up on her elbows.
Jay nodded, and slung off his backpack, searching through it until he found his first aid kit. He came over to her, and hesitated. "I need you to either take the pants off, roll this leg up really high, or let me cut this leg off. The pants leg, I mean. Not your actual leg." He said with a small, awkward smile.
She hesitated as well, looking at her only pair of pants with a sigh, “I know I can’t roll it up, and this is my only pair of pants I have. Guess I’m taking them off.” She pushed herself up to actually sitting and reached for her shoes, trying to untie the laces without bending or moving her broken leg.
Jay gently batted her hands away, untying the laces and pulling the shoes off, setting them to the side. He pulled his hoodie out of his bag, and set it beside her. "That's for once you get the pants off. You can put it over most of your legs while I work, if you want." He said, opening the first aid kit and sorting through it to find the supplies he needed.
Dalia nodded, unbuttoning her jeans and shimmying them down until the broken portion of her leg. She grabbed his hoodie and pulled it over her legs before starting to very slowly and carefully tug the pants leg over her injured leg. “What a first impression,” She said, joking but not cracking a smile, “Especially since you’re the first person I’ve seen in forever.”
He waited until she was done, and set her pants aside. He cracked a tiny smile. "Hey, on the bright side, it's not the worst first impression you could have made." He said. He sighed softly. "This is going to hurt, and the strongest meds I have are Tylenol." He said, pulling the three quarters full bottle from his pack. "I don't want to give you too many, because one, it can be bad for you, and two, this is all I've got." He opened it, and gave her three. "That'll take the edge off, but this is still going to really hurt."
“I don’t doubt this is going to hurt,” She replied, taking the Tylenol and popping them in her mouth without a second thought. Dalia rested herself back on her elbows and pressed her eyes shut, already dreading him having to set the bone back in place, “I might say some very colorful things if this hurts as much as I think it will, just ignore the language.” Reaching over, she grabbed her backpack and pulled it behind her for comfort.
Jay nodded. "Alright." He replied, brushing a lock of hair out of his face. He gently lifted her leg up slightly, one hand on either side of the break. "Get ready." He warned. He set the bone quickly, wincing at the scraping sound of bone against bone as he did so.
Like she said, her language was quite colorful between the yelps of pain as he put the bone back in place and her hands were clenched in tight fists. When he finished she sighed in relief and opened her eyes. “That..hurt, but thank you.” She said, looking at her leg and seeming very relieved that it wasn’t stuck out at an unnatural angle.
Jay nodded. "Not done yet." Was his only reply. He started wrapping bandages around the break area, as tightly as he could. Then he grabbed some wooden planks, and created a splint, working quickly. "I don't have plaster to create a cast with, so this will have to do." He told her as he worked.
Delia nodded, staying as silent as she could as he finished wrapping the break, “As long as I’m not going to die of infection because I don’t have a cast, this is fine.” She pulled her bag next to her as he worked, rummaging through it to try to find something to give him in return for helping her. After a few minutes of searching, she tugged out her last unopened granola bar and glanced at him. He seemed like he needed the food, she decided, even though she needed it as well it was the least she could give Jay for his work.
He finished, and sat back, packing his first aid kit back up. "Done." He said. "You'll need crutches of some sort, as you shouldn't put too much weight on that leg for a while yet." He told her matter of factly. He looked around, and frowned. "I could make you crutches, but they'd probably give you splinters." He shrugged slightly.
“I could wrap them in my other pair of socks,” She suggested, pulling out her warm wool socks from her bag before zipping it back up, “Then I wouldn’t get as many splinters.” Gently, she slid the granola bar she was holding across the floor to him, silently thanking him again.
Jay nodded, he looked at the granola bar, then at her, seemingly understanding. "You sure?" He asked. He reached over, grabbing two taller boards of nearly equal height. "These should work." He said, comparing them to her height.
“I’m sure, it’s the least I can do for your help.” The boards he grabbed were a pretty good length, almost perfect for her 5’ 8” height. She shimmied up into the best sitting position she could again and unfolded the socks so they could be wrapped around the makeshift crutches when he was done.
He nodded, and put the granola bar in his pocket. Sitting cross legged, he pulled a knife out, and started whittling down the boards so they were a bit thinner and less bulky. "This will take a bit." He said, not looking up from his work. "It'll be dark by the time they're done, so I hope you're okay with me staying here for the night. I'm not moving on in the dark." Wood shavings began forming a pile by his feet.
Pushing her pack behind her head again and laying down on it, she nodded, “Alright with me, just don’t try anything.” Her eyes flicked shut for a moment and she just let her body rest, though she was aware of every time he whittled a shaving away from the board with the knife and the sound it made against the wood.
He nodded, a dry smile quirking at one corner of his mouth. "Don't worry." He replied. He kept working, and after a bit started humming under his breath. The tune was steady, and rather melancholy. It was an older melody, from before the aliens had attacked.
She didn’t really notice when he first started humming, her ears only detecting the new noise after a few moments. Staying silent, she listened in for a moment before one of her hands that were behind her head as extra cushion started tapping along to the somewhat familiar beat. “What song is that?” She asked, breaking the silence with the question. The melody was really quite familiar but it was hard to tell the song. There hadn’t been an opportunity for her to listen to music in what seemed like eons.
He sighed, then shrugged. "I…don't actually know. I used to hear it a lot, but I never knew the name." He replied, then started humming again. He carved out handles on the tops of the boards, then started trying to get out the bits that would splinter. He had nearly completed one crutch, though it was very rough and only vaguely crutch shaped.
“Are there words to it?” She opened one of her eyes and looked over at him before closing it again. The crutch looked decent, better than she could’ve done, and with a little creativeness, it could easily work. Delia settled back into her silence as she tried to think of the words to the song, though none really came to mind.
He shook his head. "Strictly instrumental." He replied. He handed her the finished crutch, and started to finish up the second one. "If I had sandpaper, I could get rid of the rough edges, but…" He shrugged slightly, and kept working.
Delia looked over the crutch, nodding, “It looks amazing, thank you again.” She sat up and grabbed one of the two woolen socks, starting to tie it around the top of the crunch where her arm would sit. As she worked, one of the only songs she remembered by heart popped into her head and she started humming as well. The sun was growing darker as night fell and she knew, as much as she wanted one, a fire was not a option unless they wanted to draw more attention to themselves.
Jay nodded, and kept working. He stopped for a moment, and looked at her. "You never did tell me your name, but I believe I told you mine." He remarked, then kept working. "So what should I call you?" He asked, keeping his strange, golden eyes focused on his work.
“Do you want to know my name? Or the name you should call me by?” She joked, knowing herself that they were the exact same thing even if he didn’t. Once she tied off the end of the sock over the crutch top, she set it next to herself and laid back again. Her eyes flicked shut and she went back to her resting, not bothering to pull out her blanket from her pack. Using it as a pillow made more sense at the moment and she couldn’t make herself overly comfortable, she still needed to be on guard Incase Jay went crazy.
"Both." He replied with a small smile. He kept working on the second crutch, knife rasping along the wood and throwing shavings onto the floor.
She tipped her head and looked over at him with a tiny smile, only bothering to open one eye, “My name is Delia Wavernt, you can just call me Delia though.” Surprisingly, when she glanced down at her leg to make sure it was still doing alright, she realized it didn’t hurt as much as before. Probably because the Tylenol had kicked in a while ago.
Jay nodded. "Alright. Nice to meet you, Delia." He replied. He stopped carving, and looked at the crutch carefully, slowly running a hand along it. "Good, it's straight." He said, mostly to himself. He set it down beside the first. "There you go." He said. He stretched, yawning slightly. The sun had almost completely set by now.
“Thank you,” She said, pulling the finished crutch onto her lap and tying the other sock around the top of it. Once she finished the crutch she placed it carefully on top of the other, her mind wandering to life before the aliens came to earth as she settled back down against her pack. Her stomach growled and she sighed, easily ignoring it. Being hungry was something she was used to, there just wasn’t the food there was before. Most of it was either eaten in the first few months of he disaster or went bad, if you wanted food you either hoped there was canned food or an animal of some kind to catch.