CALL ME MR. RATTLEBONE — VISITOR-ISH?

[B. DELORIA]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4; color:black;"][color=#4467ab]"Grade-A idea, Butchman. Invite Mr. Independent on a vacation, let him go take a stupid mailman job, split up, what could go wrong?" Fuck, look at him: talking to himself, probably completely off his rocker, but honestly that could be the blood loss. Or something. Val was the nerd, not Butch. He could tell him about all the bones in his body and drone on about it all day so long as Butch paid enough attention, and then he'd forget everything Val said within the next hour because all of that- medical mumbo jumbo went completely over his head. He missed that, though. Val had been gone too long delivering some stupid package, and Butch wasn't able to wait around forever hoping he'd come back, so here he was, out on yet another "find the guy who went off to who knows where and pray he isn't dead" quest. Which...if Val knew he called it that, he'd either get a torn ear, or he wouldn't see him for a few days, because that last search journey didn't end so well. As in the death of Val's father, who they'd spent so much time looking for only to find him ready to toss in his life for the sake of some science-y shit.

Val nearly did too, so Butch really wasn't thrilled about letting him traipse around alone without someone to keep him from dying over something stupid.

Look at himself, though, right? Bleeding from several places, limping along through grass he couldn't see over. Without Val to bail Butch out, he wound up in situations like this: beaten, bruised, and put through the wringer. It wasn't long before he had to stop, shakily lowering himself down. His back leg hurt something fierce, while he had to keep swiping blood out of his right eye from the gash above it. The border collie squirmed, twisting around to close his teeth around the picture tucked in the collar of his jacket. He dropped it on the ground in front of him, propped against one of the clumps of towering grasses, and he set his head on his paws. The picture was an older one, just two white spotted shepherds, one a child with floppy ears that would later perk up. Val was a real fluff-ball in this one, reminding Butch of how much he missed his fur, even though Val would always bitch at him when he offered to clean it. He looked happy in this, though, content with his father.

It'd been a while since he'd seen that.

[color=#4467ab]"What'd you get yourself into this time?" He sighed, grimacing at the discomfort of his position, but walking again wasn't an option, otherwise he wouldn't have stopped in the first place. Val would never forgive him if he died, would probably find a way to force Butch's spirit into haunting him so he could give him a real tongue-lashing. Wasn't that a picture? The border collie snorted, sapphire eyes drifting shut; he just needed a few minutes to rest. Just a few.