Starglow Basin We don't wanna go home

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: tw for language, drugs, slight suicidality

Aw but mostly a quick update to level set where she is. Can absolutely be read only

The withdrawal hit her like a truck. As her injuries slowly healed, ugly and scabbed as they became, the sickness became her primary hell. She refused any green that they might have attempted to give her. If she took the drugs she’d remember.

Fuck that. She wanted to forget.

Maybe, if it got bad enough, she’d finally be done with all of it. Tierra could almost convince herself she wanted that, if only because when that day came, she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this anymore. None of it.

Fuck him. Fuck her for trusting him. Nothing she cared about ever lasted, so yeah, maybe she’d been stupid to think this would turn out different. And then, just like that, he was gone. Leaving her here, in hell, with nothing but regret over ever letting herself care about him in the first place.

She should leave. She was too good for this place and didn’t owe them shit. Tierra had family out there, wolves who cared about her. But despite everything, Soto hadn’t let her die. And as much as she might want to, Tierra couldn’t hate him for it.

So she’d stay. But Sangre was his and he was gone. If she was going to stick around, it would be on her terms.

Tierra shivered as a chill ran through her, her gut churning again for the dozenth time that morning. If she lived through this, she’d stick it out as long as she wanted to. But no more hopes. And no more heroics.

Next time she’d know when to run.

sangre. his stunning, sleeping sangre.

she refused la bruja’s tonics, and soto’s offer of the green. as infection turned to virulent bodily anger and at last the fiery vestiges of sickness ebbed away to prevailing recovery, soto imagined he saw something reborn in sangre.

his red bird, rebirthed in the placental ashes of murder and loss.

they’d fled together, hid together, fought together, killed together. bound now by tethers of blood and the immutable rights of survivorship.

not once had soto left her unguarded, and as the days turned to weeks his attitude towards her subtly changed.

that was niño’s ghost in him talking, he knows — but as he looks out over the deeply red sands that stretch for miles and miles, soto smiles to himself.

that bastard, soto thinks as the steady rhythm of sangre’s breathing rises and falls in step with his own. it was just like him to leave them, and yet, never leave at all.

She didn’t know when Soto appeared there.  Maybe he’d been there the entire time and she just hadn’t realized it.  He usually was, lurking around, though it wasn’t like she could speak with him well.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to learn more.  That desire had died too, despite her current (intermittent) use as his translator.

She didn’t push herself up.  If she tried to sit she’d be sick.

I should’ve let you die instead, she said, but there wasn’t much venom in it.  Just hollow loss.  That was it, right?  He was in charge.  It was his fault they’d been attacked.  It was his fault there’d been any trouble at all.  It was his fault that Niño… Octavio… was dead.

But he’d saved her life, so she couldn’t even be properly pissed at him.  Didn’t even have the heart to say it in his own language. This guy had been the boss.  But they’d both answered the call.  Maybe they were all stupid.

She stared at him, but didn’t say anything more.  The gang had grown while she’d been recovering.  He’d been busy, replacing them.  So now what?

for a moment he closes his eyes and the phantoms behind them give it a rest; it's just him and sangre in this empty, black space.

her voice intrudes. words he doesn't understand.

he opens his eyes slowly, gaze affixing on her scarred features. in the present, she was so very different than the image octavio held onto in soto's head. it was like two images blurring over one another; the lines congruent and yet somehow, out of shape.

the green; he didn't touch the stuff but now he wondered if it was in the water or somehow his food. what was happening to him? did she see it? did everyone else?

he wanted to press her to ask what she meant, but the way she stares at him now forbids it.

soto frowns, licks his lips, and looks towards the northeast, where their enemy lies skulking like a puma in wait.

there's nothing to say, and he's never been a man for monologues anyway.

besides, the two ghosts in his head do plenty of talking and presently, they're bickering over which hole of sangre's they'd like better.

soto sighs as he studies a shape moving in the distance. he can feel sangre's stare burn into him, and somehow it aggravates him more than his wounds do.

He ignored her.  Figures he would.  It was what she wanted, the entire reason she’d spoken so that he wouldn’t understand.  She didn’t give a single fuck what he thought.

And then, suddenly, she was furious.  She was probably furious the entire time, but being faced with the back of his head brought the venom to the surface.  It struck like a snake, bursting forth.

Muerto.  She spat, getting shakily to her paws to glare at him.  Her stomach curdled with warning but she ignored it.  There was nothing in it to bring up anyway.  Tú.  Él no.  At least she knew enough to piece together something close to what she meant.

She didn’t know what she wanted from him.  An apology for living?  For letting Niño die?  Those weren’t coming and even if they did, it wasn’t like that fixed anything.  She just wanted him to hurt.  She wanted him to fight her so that, then, they’d both be angry.  And maybe then she wouldn’t feel so fucking alone.