Chapter Text
While the Banditos washed themselves in the river, Dema was on fire.
Torch first noticed it in the distance, some flicker of orange and yellow; so subtle and swift he assumes it’s a lighter flickering in the darkness. But the light doesn’t die down. He flips soaking wet hair backwards and gazes back towards Dema and sees the city engulfed in flames.
His stomach hurts. He can’t tell if he’s excited by this or terrified.
“Holy shit,” Mark says, having followed Torchbearer’s eyes. “Dema…”
One by one, the Banditos turn their attention to the distant pyre. Even Clancy, more exhaustion than human, gazes upon the city like it means something. Whatever message it displays, he can’t make sense of it. None of them can.
“Did the Bishops do it?” someone asks, voice quiet. She sounds almost shaken by the possibility. “I didn’t think…”
“I doubt they’d try,” Mark says. “The whole… I don’t know. If they’re trying to find Clancy, what purpose would killing him serve?”
Clancy mumbles something to himself, something Torchbearer can’t hear. Something in his gut tells him that he probably doesn’t want to ask Clancy to repeat it.
“We should move out.” Torch speaks before he thinks, but it’s the words of a leader, and he’s glad that his instincts are still running right now. “The light might give us away here.”
“Good call, Torchbearer.”
No one rushes to redress themselves, but it’s not a relaxing jaunt. Something more like hesitance—no, reluctance. Even in this weather, it felt good to be clean. Moving meant traversing the woods beyond Dema, between here and Trench. More dirt, more blood, more discomfort. At least in the firelight of the city, they can tell what surrounds them. That luxury can’t be extended to Trench.
Torchbearer puts his coat back on, letting wet hair stick to his neck. Clancy sits by the water’s edge, watching him with that same lucid focus as before. He at least seems more cognizant than he was earlier, albeit more exhausted.
“You ready to go?” Torch asks him. Clancy nods, but doesn’t speak. He pulls himself off of the mud and stumbles a bit as he tries to approach—Torchbearer practically falls over his own feet to catch him.
“Need a hand?” Jordan calls, rushing over. He would always be one to leap to Torchbearer’s aid—family runs deep, even in Trench. Torch was grateful, beyond anything, to have his brother here with him. When Torchbearer nods, Jordan eases an arm under Clancy’s back and helps lead the march from the front.
“Where to?” Jordan asks, as if he was talking about the weather. “What’s our next stop?”
Torch has to remind himself that there’s company now. That he won’t fall asleep under that cave-like tree and wake up far from here, away from the Bandito camps etched in the woods and deeper towards the canyons. They’ve accomplished their goal, they have Clancy.
“Home,” he says. Jordan beams.
“Home,” he parrots. “Man, it’s been… ages since then. You wonder if the house is still there?”
“I hope so.” Torch feels Clancy slip and readjusts his hold, earning a grateful mumble in response. “It’d be a shame to have, like… gone through all this and wind up on our asses in the Columbus real estate market.”
Jordan barks out a laugh. “I’m not even going to will it into existence. You two will make it home safely, just like you promised each other.”
“Yeah,” Torch says. “Can’t wait to sleep in a real bed again…”
The brothers let out a shared, wistful sigh. Where was Columbus, in reference to Trench? What nation was this? The continent of Trench—Torchbearer hardly remembers how he got here. He just knew he woke up one morning at the precipice of a mountain, and he knew in his heart it was Trench. He knew his job. He knew where he needed to go, what he needed to do.
He’d barely stopped to consider anything else.
But this was a different place entirely. Torch knew that by heart. He’d mapped out the continent over and over, both in desperate attempts to find Clancy and in loose measures of finding a way back home. It was an island surrounded by the sea, with no sign of land in the distance; somehow, his siblings ended up here. Mark and Paul came after. None of them recalled being anywhere else when they woke up, just that they had a job to do in Trench. That they were Banditos.
Torchbearer is lost in these thoughts for a while. He and Jordan help Clancy lead the pack while wet footsteps shuffle behind them in droves. At some point, Clancy starts to fall forward; when Torch peels him back to look at him, he’s somehow fallen asleep standing up, legs still moving in a tired march. Clancy is light when Torch finally picks him up. Too light. Carrying him over his shoulders is easier than anything else, so the disgraced Bishop becomes extra luggage, too fragile to hold without both hands.
Even still, no one really talks. With the moon now hanging in the sky, it’s likened more to exhaustion than trepidation. The Banditos had just fought a war. They’d lost many of their own in the process. Even Torch was tired, but stopping now with the firelight still in their peripheries was too dangerous to risk. The trees aren’t far.
It’s Jordan that finally speaks, breaking the hour-long silence that plagued their trip to the woods. “Josh?”
Torch blinks. He wasn’t used to that name, not out here.
“Jordan,” he replies, voice soft.
“How are you feeling?” Jordan gestures to the figure slumped over his shoulder. “About..?”
Torch can’t help but laugh. “Fuck, uh… Good, I think? Bad, also?”
Jordan smiles, but it curves down at the edges. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Torch says. “Like… We finally got him back, and he’s alive, but he’s… I don’t know if he’s…”
“If he’s going to go back?”
“Yeah.”
Jordan hums to himself. “All we can do is keep an eye on him,” he says. “We’ll take turns like we always do with the rest shifts, yeah? If Tyler runs, someone’s gonna notice, and they’ll catch him before he can leave camp.”
Tyler. It feels good to hear that name again. “Tyler,” Torch whispers, finding once more how the name fits onto his tongue. “Yeah… we’ll keep an eye on Tyler.”
“When should we start calling him that, by the way?” Jordan’s gaze isn’t judgemental, but there’s impatience there, and Torchbearer can feel it. He wished so badly that there was an answer that didn’t feel like hot fire.
“When he remembers that he’s even Clancy. He… he thought he was Nico, earlier. Trying to introduce him to his actual identity right now might make him bolt. I just…”
Jordan presses a hand to Torch’s back. He takes a deep breath, anchoring himself in Clancy’s breathing on his shoulder—something he hadn’t heard in so, so long.
“I want him to get there himself, almost.”
“I get it,” Jordan says. “He’ll get there.”
From a ways behind, a voice calls out—Paul. “Is this the tree?” he asks. Torchbearer peels his eyes from his brother and is greeted by the overhanging oak tree, with branches brushing earth and leaves making a canopy large enough for a campsite.
Torch smiles. “Good catch. Everyone, we’re settling here for the night. Make up camp, organize shifts, and we’ll make the rest of the trek to base camp in the morning.”
Relief crashes like a wave from behind. Bags crash into dry earth and people finally start talking amongst themselves in voices Torch can’t hear. He sets Clancy against one of the roots as he starts to make his own tent, watching him more than he watches himself. He’s terrified that he’ll look away and Clancy will be gone. That maybe he’s imagined this whole ordeal, that he’ll wake up in the canyons by himself.
He accidentally stabs himself with a tent dowel. Torch bites back a shout and finally puts his full attention into the rest of their setup. It feels good to lift Clancy into his arms and finally set foot into shelter again, even if he’s not awake to experience it in full.
“Goodnight, Clancy,” Torch says. He pries his green jacket off of himself and drapes it over him like a makeshift sheet. “Please… please be here when I wake up.”