Not Quite Oz

young man, there's no need to feel down

By the end of the third day wearing the sling, Ximena was quite over the whole thing, and didn't hesitate to let Crow Man know.

"I'm not wearing this to sleep tonight," she announced, and he arched a brow at her in a so you say kinda way. He still sat near her, though not as close as he had the first day and night she had been hurt. She knew, and was a little irked, that he was keeping an eye on her. Staying close in case she managed to mess her arm up again, as though he was worried she'd end up ripping it off just as his had been.

To be honest, she was rather proud that she had not.

"You could hurt your shoulder again if you take it off too early," he said knowingly, and that was another thing Ximena had noticed, though was less irked about. He spoke more, starting to use more complete sentences than one worded answers. Which was great, it was, Crow Man was finding his voice, and Ximena would absolutely be taking credit for that. But the thing about Crow Man finding his voice was that the jerk was downright sassy when he wanted to be.

She crinkled her nose and mimicked him under her breath. He heard it, he must have, because Ximena felt a flush of begrudging amusement from him.

"Well how long is it supposed to stay on anyway?"

"Depends." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Few days," he amended.

"It's been a few days!"

"Few more."

She inhaled sharply and clenched her hands into fists. As much as she wanted to throw herself back and flail in her annoyance, she didn't. Because then she might actually mess up her shoulder again and just prove him right.

Still, she was free to whine and complain all she wanted. He couldn't stop that.

"But I'm so tired of it! And I'm so bored!" She threw her head back and closed her eyes. When he didn't say anything, she peaked one open to look at him, and scowled at what a crap job he was doing from hiding his grin. "Rude," she muttered, and pushed herself up. He watched with disapproval, but she was tired of sitting around. She was getting antsy. She needed to do something. Needed to go out. Needed to feel something other than Crow Man's muted emotions.

"What's today?" she asked, not really expecting him to answer. But Crow Man was, despite saying he was not, obviously part robot.

"Thursday. The twenty-fourth," he added when Ximena gave him an incredulous look. Still, she took the information he offered and considered it, ignoring the reminder that her birthday was just over a week away.

Thursday, thursday, what's so great about thursday...

"Nico works today!" she exclaimed, remembering the importance of Thursdays, and she whirled around to grab her bag off the ground near her nest of blankets.

She felt Crow Man's confusion as freely as she would have felt her own, and a part of her was proud of him for not trying to hide it - even if he didn't know she could feel it. "Who is Nico?" he asked, and there was just a tint of suspicion in his voice that caught Ximena by surprise.

"He works at the YMCA over in the next neighborhood," she said, holding the bag with her sling hand - And really, why was Crow Man being so naggy about the thing? - and used her free arm to rummage through her cabinets. "If you ask real nice he lets you in for free to use the showers."

Ximena liked Nico, if only because he didn't really pay her any mind. He was older than her, and had a pierced eyebrow. He worked on Thursdays, so if she remembered, Thursdays were her days to go wash her hair. With the addition of Crow Man, she kinda missed the last couple weeks.