Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

August 8, 2018

Even at night, you could always hear noise around the Bandito camp. There was the crackling of the fire pits scattered around camp. The faint bustling of movement from the medical tent working and healing late into the night. If you were to walk close by some of the tents, you might be able to hear light snoring. 

Maybe the noise is why no one heard Clancy get taken that night. 

Clancy had woken up late in the night, which wasn’t unusual for him, constantly being plagued by nightmares of his time in Dema. He turned onto his side in his cot. He could see Torchbearer still asleep in their shared cot. That was a new development as of late. Sleeping next to Torch, getting to trace his eyes over the details of his face as he slept. Clancy was used to sharing a tent with Torch. There were no open tents when Clancy had arrived back at the camp. Torch had immediately offered Clancy a place in his tent. He claimed that since he was the leader, he had a bigger tent, so it just made sense. Now, after what had happened between them a few days ago, Clancy thinks there might’ve been more to it… He hopes there was more to it… That’s not what mattered at the moment, though. What mattered was that he had the most gorgeous man asleep next to him, and he really had to go to the bathroom. 

Clancy took a few more minutes to relish in the peace of it all. Torch always looks the most relaxed when he’s asleep, and Clancy loves that he’s the only one who gets to see it. Unfortunately, he knew he had to get up, and Torch wouldn’t stay asleep for it. Being a light sleeper as a Bandito only made life harder. 

Clancy brought his fingers up to Torch’s cheek and ghosted them down his face. He watched as Torch’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at Clancy for a moment before closing them again and nudging Clancy’s hand. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice raspy from just waking up. Clancy smiled and brushed a curl behind his ear. Torch opened one eye and looked back at Clancy. “Nightmare?” 

“Yeah,” Clancy whispered. “I’m fine, though. I just have to go to the bathroom.” Clancy pushed himself up onto his elbow and gently pushed off the blanket the two were sharing. He looked back at Torch to see a slight frown on his face.

“Okay…” he said. He glanced over at Clancy’s now abandoned pillow. “Just come back soon.” At this, he locked eyes with Clancy again. 

“Of course,” Clancy assured. “Just go back to bed. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Clancy hesitated for a second before pressing a quick kiss to Torch’s forehead before rushing off and putting his shoes on.

Clancy didn’t look back to see his reaction as he left his…boyfriend? Partner? Just.., Torch? He wasn’t sure what to call him, honestly. Everything between them was still so new, and they hadn’t really been able to talk about what they were. He knew that he wanted to call Torch his boyfriend. He wanted Torch to be his and for Torch to call him his. But he didn’t know if that’s what Torch wanted. Maybe Torch didn’t really care about him like that and just wanted the…benefits of whatever was going on between them. 

Clancy shook himself out of his thoughts as he rounded a corner and came to one of the fire pits. As he got closer, he noticed a figure farther away on the other side of the fire pit. He assumed it must’ve been one of the other Banditos that also just couldn’t sleep that night. The figure stepped closer into the light of the fire, and Clancy’s assumption was proven wrong. A chill ran down Clancy’s spine as he saw the red robe of a Bishop (it had to be Nico. It was always Nico) on the other side of the fire. Clancy didn’t think Nico had seen him yet. He took a quiet step back, hoping to get away before he was noticed (he had to run. He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t-). He took another step and turned away, getting ready to book it back to his and Torch’s tent, but he was met with two other people behind him. 

They, too, weren’t Banditos. They were wearing the classic grey uniforms of Dema. He faintly recognized them hanging around the Bishops and Clancy’s cell when he was last found and brought back to Dema. Before he could even open his mouth to say something, anything, one of the two swung and punched him square in the jaw. Clancy stumbled back when he got another punch to the bridge of his nose and forehead. Now both his head and jaw were pounding, and they gave him one final punch to the gut. Clancy fell back onto the ground from the force of the punch, hitting his head as he landed. 

The next thing he could process was being hefted up into a sitting position and then feeling a tug at the collar of his jacket. He distantly could hear his mind telling him to break away, but his body couldn’t catch up. Clancy could only watch as he began to be dragged away. He tried to focus his eyes and catch a final glimpse at the camp. He wouldn’t see it for a while until he could escape again. He could see his feet limply dragging through the dirt and rocks, leaving a path as he was taken away. Maybe Torch would come and find him again. 

He finally forced his head to lean back to see who was dragging him. He found the face of Nico already looking back at him. 

He found him. 

Chapter Text

August 9, 2018

Torchbearer woke up cold. This would have been fine and normal if he weren’t expecting to be a bit warmer due to his boyfriend Clancy sleeping next to him. His name may be Torch, but Clancy was the one who was a walking heater. Torch decided to blindly throw his arm over to where Clancy should be, only for his arm to hit the sheets of the cot. He finally opened his eyes and turned to see that what his hand had told him was true. Clancy wasn’t there. 

He sat up and looked around the tent to find he wasn’t anywhere in the tent either. His shoes were gone, next to where they had both left them near the entrance to the tent. Normally, Torch is the first to wake. He’s used to early mornings after all this time leading the Banditos. So, to find that Clancy is gone before Torch has even woken up? Something’s off. 

Thinking back to the previous night, he vaguely remembers Clancy leaving for the bathroom. He had said to go back to sleep since it wouldn’t take him long. He had… he had kissed Torch’s head too before he left. Torch hadn’t even had the chance to say anything before Clancy rushed out. But now the fact that Clancy wasn’t there in the morning? Torch’s gut had a bad feeling about it. 

He quickly stood up and put on his shoes to head to the main area of the camp. It was still early, so not many of the other Banditos were up, but some other early risers lingered around the campfire. He walked over to join them to find all of them staring at lines in the dirt. Torch looked to find that the lines started right where he had just walked from, as if whatever had made them had taken the same path he had just taken. The tracks continued all the way into the forest. In the exact direction of Dema. 

Chapter Text

August 9, 2018

When Clancy came to, it was quiet. That, paired with the dismal gray he saw when he opened his eyes, was a sure sign he had made it back to Dema. God, Clancy thought. I can’t do this again. He dug his palms into his eyes and dragged his hands down his face. 

He threw himself out of the bed in the corner of the cell. He briefly glanced around and took in what else was in the cell. It was the same cell they put him in every time he was taken back to Dema. Dreary, gray stone walls spattered with random spots of blood from when Clancy couldn’t bear it anymore. When he was so tired and angry, the only thing he could do was slam his hands or his head into the wall until crimson stained the soulless walls. There was one chest against the wall opposite the bed. It never held much, typically just a change of clothes. Clancy never had anything of value to keep in the chest or the cell at all, for that matter. Everything he cared about was outside of this colorless city, beyond the walls. Clancy didn’t belong in Dema. He belonged out in the open fields and forests of Trench with the Banditos. With Torch

Torch. 

Clancy had promised he would be back in just a few minutes, and now he was back here. He had to leave. He had to get back. Back home. His actual home, not what Nico and the bishops tried to convince him was home. 

Clancy rushed to the door of the cell, hoping, praying, that it was unlocked. Before, it had always been left unlocked for Clancy despite it being, well, a prison cell. Clancy knew it was because he was the favorite. They wanted him to stay; they wanted him to make a conscious choice to stay. He never did. Ever since the idea had first crossed his mind of escaping, he had always done so. And he was going to escape again. He was not staying here.

The door was open. He pulled on the handle and flung the door open hard, causing a loud bang when the door collided with the wall. Clancy didn’t care about being discreet this time. The only thing on his mind was out. 

He ran out the door and went right. He knew his way through these corridors over years of planning escapes again and again. He kept running: a left, a right, another left, and then another. He kept running and turning, not caring about who saw him or how loud he was. Just sprinting to an exit, any exit. Until he heard his voice.

“Clancy.” Nico always whispered, but his voice still seemed to echo throughout the hallway, all the same. Clancy turned his head to look at the Bishop. That split second of being turned away caused him to trip over his own feet, and he fell to the ground. The adrenaline pumping through his veins forced Clancy to keep going. There was barely any pause in Clancy’s dash; he was down for a blink of an eye and then bolting down the hallway again, almost back to full speed. His thoughts were a chorus of run don’t stop run run torch get out. 

Finally, as he rounded one last corner, Clancy saw what he recognized as the main door to the maze of a prison the Bishops kept him in. He had been sprinting without taking a moment to breathe for so long. His lungs burned, his legs began to ache, but he was this close. He had almost made it. He could practically feel the texture of the wood against his palms as he would thrust it open. Just a few more feet and he would be out, back with Torch and the Banditos and-

Something–two somethings–pulled on his arms, flinging Clancy back. He tried yanking his arms free, but the grip on his arms was tight. Frantically looking to see what was holding him back, he recognized the faces of Keons and Sacarver behind the shadows of their hoods. They shoved him around to face the way he had just come. Nico was standing there at the end of the hall, looking as calm as ever. 

“Clancy…” This time, when Nico spoke his name, it wasn’t an order, and it didn’t strike fear into Clancy. No, this time he was disappointed. He was chastising him like a disobedient child. Clancy attempted one last tug to break free from the Bishop's hold, but it was a pointless effort. The tiredness was quickly seeping in, leaving him with no strength to continue his escape. His head hung towards the floor, and his body sagged in the arms of Keons and Sacarver.

Nico brought his hand to Clancy’s chin and guided his gaze up to make eye contact. “You’ve never retaliated this way before. They’ve changed you. Corrupted you,” Nico said. He spoke with such… sadness and- and dissatisfaction. Clancy had never, in all of his years in Dema, heard someone speak with that much emotion in their voice. Dema was built on soullessness. For a Bishop, for Nico, to defy that? Clancy knew this time he had truly messed up. Whatever happened next would be different. The thought made the pit in his stomach grow.

Nico turned away from Clancy and dropped his grasp on his head. Clancy just let his body go limp like he did every time Nico caught him. Nico turned to the other Bishops. “Take him back,” he ordered. Clancy heard his footsteps as Nico walked past them towards the same door Clancy had just tried to go through. He heard the door open and close, simple as that, and then Nico was gone. 

He felt himself being pulled back down the same path he had run. His mind was static now, the opposite of the constant thoughts it was spewing minutes before. He hadn’t realized they had already made it back to his cell before he felt his body hit the cold floor and the sound of a lock being turned in the door. Clancy swore he felt his heart stop. He crawled over to the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. He kept turning the handle and pulling on the door in a panic. They hadn’t once locked him in. He was truly trapped this time. He couldn’t get out. 

Clancy pushed himself back with his feet until his body collided with the wall. His breaths sped up, and his vision went out of focus. He felt he no longer had control of his body. He leaned his head back over and over again, banging it on the wall. He could distantly hear his own choppy breathing and sobs escaping his lips. He sat there for who knows how long until his vision faded back to black. 

Chapter Text

December 23, 2018

137 days. Clancy had been gone for 137 days, and they hadn’t heard anything. 

It was easy to tell that Clancy had been taken back to Dema based on the scene they found that morning. They had tried to sneak into Dema and help him escape again shortly after that. Without Clancy, though, it was hard. The Bishops had been trying to use Clancy as their pawn for years. The Banditos, however? They saw Clancy as their secret weapon. Well, obviously, Clancy wasn’t just a weapon to them, but he brought a lot to the table.

Clancy had broken out of Dema time and time again. He knew practically every way in and out of that city. Clancy’s disappearance made it extremely difficult to sneak in. That first attempt, roughly a week after Clancy was taken, ended with at least five Banditos being recaptured and smeared. Torch had felt so guilty that the plan had gone so horribly wrong that he didn’t leave his tent for two days. Torch felt guilty a lot in those past few months.

It had also been 137 days since Torch had last spoken a word. 

He didn’t truly know why, but this time, with Clancy gone so suddenly in the middle of the night, Torch just couldn’t find the words. He hadn’t found his words in 137 days. Every day the Banditos turned to him and asked him questions on what was next, as they should because he’s their leader. And every day he has nothing to say. He knows he needs to be able to communicate these things to the people he leads. So far, he had been getting by with writing down what he needed to say or simple movements to get his point across. Torch knew that he couldn’t keep doing that forever, though.

He knows all of it very well, but he just…can’t. He doesn’t want to. With Clancy gone, he just can’t really find a reason to speak. He can’t find a reason for most things. Some days, Torch worries he is falling into the exact mindset Dema tries so hard to enforce. So, Torch forces himself to keep going. To keep trying. For Clancy. Always.