Chapter Text
“I’m not here to make friends,” Clancy pauses, voice shaking from exhaustion, thin, bony hands carding through his hair, “I’m here to seek refuge.” He felt bad for being as blunt as he was, but after such a long and arduous journey, he couldn’t take it anymore. He’d grown so accustomed to the silence within Trench that being suddenly bombarded by people asking to know more about him was too overwhelming. Clancy understood that the Banditos were only trying to help, they were just welcoming him with open arms, but he was tired. Too tired to answer all of their questions.
The sun had set below the horizon long ago by now, the faces of the Banditos around him now illuminated only by the light of the campfire that the Torchbearer had set up. Clancy wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, even if it meant sleeping on the ground, out in the open environment. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that he’s done that. But, as kind as the Torchbearer was being, he was also keeping Clancy from resting his eyes.
The Torchbearer recoiled a bit, leaning back, understanding that Clancy needed space. This was pretty typical of newcomers to their camp. Almost everyone that had arrived had been travelling for an upsetting amount of time, and though grateful for refuge, were often short with their answers and cold with their actions.
Clancy just needed time. The Torchbearer could see it from the way he sat, arms crossed over his chest, hunched over. Closing himself off to the world. Torch could see it in his shifty eyes, in his unsteady demeanour – Clancy wasn’t trying to be rude to the camp’s leader, he was just not ready to explain himself or his life story yet to a group full of complete strangers.
He wished that he had done things differently in that first interaction, that he had been more open and understanding of the way of the Banditos. Escaping and actually making it was overwhelming, unfamiliar. How could Clancy have been expected to just adjust right away to a lifestyle that was entirely unfamiliar to him?
But maybe, just maybe, if he had been more accepting and had adjusted quicker, he wouldn’t be here today. He would have been able to escape the cycle.
Nico lunges at him again, but Clancy avoids it. All he could do now was defend himself. His weapons were long gone, and the Banditos were still fighting their own battle. This was Clancy’s fight. It always had been, right from the very beginning. He just wished that things leading up to this had gone differently. Now wasn’t the time to backtrack and question how things could have progressed in a different manner, but it was all that he knew how to do. Overthink until you can't distinguish reality from your own anxious thoughts. Overthink, and then think again.
There wasn’t much else that he could do, anyway. Nico seemed to know his every move before even he did, making it impossible to land a blow that actually meant something. And he was cold, and he was unwilling to give up, and he was everything about this world that Clancy hated. How many times had he wished now to be right here just to have the opportunity to put Nico in his place? How many times had he run it through in his mind over and over?
But now, now that he’d been granted the opportunity, he was failing. He always, always failed.
The days passed by slowly, painlessly. It was a welcome pace of change for Clancy, though. Living in Dema was too fast-paced. Every moment, every passing second was a fight for survival, a constant battle against one’s own inner turmoil to not give into Vialism and what the Bishops wanted of Dema’s citizens. Day in and day out was a matter of plotting how to escape and mourning the loss of all the previous failed attempts. And Clancy was sick of it.
Not much went on during the first few days Clancy spent at the Bandito’s camp. He was still adjusting to living there, and they were adjusting to the presence of a new escapee. He caught bits and pieces of conversation here and there, plans of what the next step was in rebelling against the Bishops. A plot that Clancy himself had thought through far too many times.
He stayed away from the crowds of people that gathered by firelight at night and away from the groups that would go out during the day to look for supplies or to hunt. He was solitary, alone. That is, until the Torchbearer extended an olive branch, a sign of peace, a sign of trust. He hated seeing new members of his group struggle to fit in, because he himself had been in that same position long ago. Leaving the city and trying to find where you belonged in this world after the Bishops taught that you belonged in a grave was no easy task.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Torch asks, gently opening the flap of the tent that Clancy was residing in. Clancy drops the pen he had been using to jot down notes, before turning his attention towards the Torchbearer.
“Fine. It’s nice here, you and your people have made this place feel like somewhere worth fighting to get to,” Clancy smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Is it okay if I come in?” the Torchbearer asks. Clancy nods, a bit hesitantly.
Torch takes a look around, not to pry, but just out of genuine curiosity. Most of the Banditos took time to decorate their tents at least to some extent if they were staying there for more than a week or so. Clancy’s situation, however, could not be more different.
The few supplies and keepsakes he had brought with him remained in a bag in the corner of the room, untouched, unbothered. The only change that he had made to this room was the journal laying atop Clancy’s cot. Surely, then, this was something important to him, if it was apparently the only thing worth even glancing at.
The Torchbearer felt a pain in his chest. What had Clancy been through to feel like he couldn’t even be safe out here? It appeared like he kept everything neat and orderly as if he expected to have to flee at any given moment. He was far from the first newcomer to behave in this manner, but most others weren’t this far withdrawn. Torch desperately wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure how to.
There was something different about Clancy, something sacred, something worth protecting. Not that the lives of the other Banditos had any less value, it was just that Torch saw something within Clancy that was a unique kind of hope. This strange man with no given backstory intrigued him, and if Torch was anything, it was determined. And he was determined to figure out what lay behind the quiet, skittish demeanour that Clancy shielded himself with.
“So, how have you been adjusting?” Torch asks, careful not to add any preconceived bias to the question, not letting his curiosity get the best of him.
“Okay, I think. Why do you ask?” Clancy replied.
“Well, I am the leader here. It’s kind of my responsibility to make sure that people are settling in alright, yeah?” Torch smiles, taking the moment to sit on the edge of Clancy’s cot, attention focused all on him.
“I don’t see you giving anyone else this kind of attention,” Clancy retorts, smirking slightly. But it quickly drops just as soon as it comes, the smallest glimpse of sun behind arrays of dark storm clouds.
“You caught me,” Torch chuckles, a soft sound, a delicate one. Something that didn’t totally set Clancy on edge unlike just about everything else in this world.
“I’m just curious. I want you to feel comfortable here, but it’s hard for me to tell if you are when you seem so withdrawn. I just wanted to know if there’s anything I can do to help you adjust. I care about everyone here, you included.”
Clancy takes a moment to process the Torchbearer’s words, his eyebrows furrowed in thought.
Care? He wasn’t sure he knew what that meant. The Bishops claimed to ‘care’ about him and the other citizens of Dema when they preached their definition of salvation. Their followers would say they ‘cared’ when they asked Clancy to become a part of the glorious gone, claiming it was for his own good. But he knew better than to trust them, but not enough to know what true affection felt like.
“I don’t know. I don’t need anything. I’m fine here, really, this is more than enough. It’s just…” Clancy then trails off, shaking his head. He wasn’t about to tell anyone what Nico had done to him over and over again. The perpetual cycle of leaving the city, feeling fleeting moments of freedom, and then being smeared and dragged back all over again. He couldn’t relax even in the calmest of circumstances because at any moment, his worst fears could come barging through the tent, ready to start the process all over again.
“You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to. But I’m here for you if you ever decide to,” the Torchbearer expressed, gently placing his hand on Clancy’s shoulder before standing up to exit the tent.
“Just know that you can always come to me. That’s what I’m here for,” he concludes, smiling bright. A unique energy, a foreign force among the bleakness that Clancy had always lived beside.
“I will. Thank you,” Clancy replies softly, letting the sentiment sink in that someone actually did seemingly have his best interests in mind. He didn’t have the time to process why that might be before Torch had already left, leaving Clancy alone with his thoughts. Typically, that was a bad thing, but today, perhaps not.
The fear of Nico coming to track him down again would remain ever-present, because he worried that the second he let his guard down, it would all be over. He trusted the Banditos, he trusted this camp, and most of all, he trusted the Torchbearer, but he wondered if that trust would be enough to one day call this place his home. Those doubts though, were somewhat quelled for now.
Clancy picks his journal back up, continuing to write, but this time, his words had a little bit more hope to them.
It was becoming harder for Clancy to find the strength to keep on fighting. He wasn’t strong, he never had been, and nothing proved that point better than his failed attempts and standing up again after every punch Nico threw. From the moment he began scaling the tower – no – from the moment that he had even conceived of that plan, he knew that this is how things would go. In fact, he was surprised that he had been as successful as he had. Taking down the other Bishops had been easier than he had expected. But in the end, Nico would always find him. He would always be there to try and make Clancy give into the worst parts of himself. And he wasn’t ready to do that.
The last better part of a decade had been the roughest but most rewarding years of Clancy’s life. Being taken back to Dema and being forced against his will to do as the Bishops said for six years was a kind of torture he would never even wish upon his worst enemy, but even in those moments, the Torchbearer did his best to stay by Clancy’s side. The sheer hope that Torch had was astounding, and without it, Clancy doubted that he would have made it back to the mainlands of Trench in one piece.
And it was for that reason, along with the other countless times that Torch had stuck by his side even though his worst moments that Clancy knew giving up wasn’t an option here. Even if he ended up losing, he had at least tried. He was not going down without a fight no matter what it took.
“Hey, hey, wake up! It’s just a nightmare, it isn’t real. Clancy, wake up!” the Torchbearer tries to shake the other man awake, to no avail. Their tents had been set up close enough to each other for Torch to hear Clancy screaming in the middle of the night, a gut-wrenching sound that sent Torch into fight or flight mode. Only someone who’d been through hell and back, or maybe was still stuck in hell had nightmares bad enough to have that visceral reaction from them.
It takes a few more attempts, but Clancy eventually wakes with a start, eyes wide, gasping for breath. He looks around the tent for a moment, taking note of his surroundings. He was safe. He was still in Trench. His eyes settle on the presence of the Torchbearer beside him, something he could ground himself with.
Neither man speaks, the Torchbearer waiting for Clancy to explain himself if he wanted to, and Clancy being too stunned to make out a coherent thought, let alone an intelligible sentence. He glances down at his hands, stained with black, and it sends his fears rushing to the forefront of his brain all over again.
“Nico, he–” Clancy starts, but forcefully shuts his eyes, trying to block out the mental images and flashes of the nightmare he had just woken from, but that only seemed to make matters worse. He brings his hands up to his ears, blocking out all sound, shutting out the world that had been nothing but cruel to him.
But the Torchbearer, thoughtful and patient, was not ready to let Clancy be alone with those thoughts. They were still pretty much strangers, but no one else was around, so Torch decided to be there while Clancy struggled.
“Shh, don’t think about that for right now. You’re safe here. He can’t get here without the night patrol taking notice,” Torch reassures, reaching out on instinct, but withdrawing himself out of uncertainty. From what little he knew about Clancy, he had a feeling that he wasn’t the kind of person who appreciated unannounced physical contact.
“It felt… It felt so real, though. You don’t understand.” Clancy closes in on himself, curling up until he was smaller, practically nonexistent. And all Torch could do was watch in anguish, his rage towards the Bishops growing more with every passing second. Clancy wasn’t fragile, far from it, but in this state, all the Torchbearer could see was the hollow shell of a man who at one point didn’t live in fear like this. And he wished to return him to that state, but he didn’t even know where to start. Seeing Clancy, he wasn’t sure where his pain ended and where his strength began.
So this time, not knowing what words would calm him down, the Torchbearer reaches out with less hesitation. All he does is place his hand on Clancy’s shoulder, a gentle touch, a soft one. Just enough to get Clancy’s attention to turn towards him and hopefully break him out of his internal downward spiral.
“Would a distraction help?” Torch asks.
“What do you mean?” Clancy responds softly, brushing away newly forming tears with the back of his hand.
“Just follow me. If at any point you want to return here and go back to sleep, just tell me. But I think my method of comfort may help you as well.” And with that, Torch walks away to exit the tent, but not before turning back one last time to smile hopefully at Clancy.
Too tired to argue back and too afraid to want to stay in his tent alone, Clancy reluctantly follows after the Banditos’ leader, confused, but figuring that anything at this point would be better than sitting with the horrific memories that the dream brought back to the forefront of his mind.
It was the middle of the night – dark, darker than Dema ever seemed to be. The miles of neon gravestones that surrounded the city created a horribly unfortunate kind of light pollution that made seeing the stars nearly impossible on most nights. Replacing the beautiful natural light of the sky, the gravestones lit the horizon with a vague tint of neon blue, a nauseating colour, one filled with regret and a hint of rage. But here, out in Trench, the stars shone brightly, but it wasn’t enough to illuminate the campgrounds fully, not without a full moon to aid in doing so, something that was lacking on this particular night.
Clancy looks around for the Torchbearer, to see that he hadn’t wandered far at all. He’d expected Clancy to take him up on his offer, even though he had all the reason to believe the contrary. His smile lights up a bit when Clancy strolls over. That smile did more to illuminate the night than the full moon ever could, Clancy thinks, but quickly shakes the thought as Torch explains himself finally.
“I thought we could walk around together for a bit. Just going for a walk calms me down, usually.”
Clancy considers, but given that he had already gotten out of bed to be here, it doesn’t take him very long to agree with Torch’s proposition.
“Okay. Where to?” he asks, taking a look around the camp that was surrounded by the endless expanse of Trench’s wilderness. He’d been out here for far less time than the Torchbearer, or really, any of the other Banditos had, and as a result, he hadn’t had the time to adjust to the environment yet. The only place out here he was familiar with was the camp itself, so the concept of wandering out in the middle of the night seemed daunting, but it was nowhere near as terrifying as everything else Clancy had been through prior to this, so what was the worst that could happen?
But that question was practically begging to be answered with the worst what-ifs imaginable. Nico could be anywhere right now, tracking Clancy down, waiting for just the right moment to strike. Sure, the Torchbearer would be by his side, but Nico was nothing if not persistent. He’d kill Torch if that’s what it took to take Clancy back and quell the rebellion, and Clancy absolutely did not want to be the reason that the Torchbearer met that fate.
“I was thinking we could walk down to the cliffside that oversees the Paladin Strait. It’s nice there, peaceful,” the Torchbearer offers, glancing over to gauge his companion’s thought process on the matter, given how silent of a person he seemed to be in his time so far at the camp.
“That’s fine. Lead the way,” Clancy agrees.
The two men set off, the Torchbearer lighting a torch so that the two of them weren’t walking in complete and total darkness. The light didn’t make the atmosphere feel a whole lot safer for Clancy, though. Despite having the Torchbearer with him, he still looked around him at all times, paranoid that he was being followed by the very thing he feared the most in this world. The torch was enough to light up the nearby vicinity, but would not help show Nico if he was more than a few feet away.
With even the smallest of sounds, Clancy would jump, goosebumps prickling before he could calm himself down and reassure himself that it was just a wild animal or maybe even just him snapping a twig beneath his feet. It was second nature at this point, unavoidable. No amount of reassurance and company could keep his mind off of the thought that one of these days, he’d be taken back. The cycle would repeat itself, and he’d be trapped all over again.
It isn’t long before the two men make their way to the cliffside and settle down to enjoy the view of the Strait from here. At night, the water reflected the stars, dark blue against the pitch black of the sky above. It was peaceful, but in an almost haunting sort of way. Still, it was more delicate and appeared more freeing than anything within Dema ever was. Even the freezing water would feel like home compared to the lifeless concrete Clancy had spent so much of his life surrounded by.
“Why are you doing this? You should be asleep right now. I know that you’re busy day in and day out,” Clancy notes, fidgeting with the tape rings he wore on his fingers.
“I know. I’ll be fine. It’s you that I’m worried about,” Torch responses, sighing as he runs his hands through the soft blades of grass beside him. Almost as if he was trying to ground himself, like this world, this sense of freedom could vanish right from underneath him at any given second. A fear that all of the Banditos had every now and again.
“Don’t. Don’t do that. I’m not worth your time.” Clancy pulls his knees to his chest, not looking at Torch, only at the waves that crashed far below.
“Why do you say that? You’re not any less valuable then any of the other Banditos just because you’re new here. I wouldn’t give up on any of them, so I won’t give up on you either.” And the Torchbearer says those words with so much confidence and heart that Clancy finally looks up, eyes locked on the man beside him.
He analyzes his face for the first time, feeling more comfortable doing so in the dead of night, with no one else around, and with minimal lighting. The distinctive profile of his face, the way his curls stuck out beneath his beanie, the silver nose rings he wore – Clancy takes it all in, memorizing every detail, every flaw, every thing that made the Torchbearer him. And Torch doesn’t seem to mind, tilting his head in confusion, but still smiling that perfect, soft grin he kept throughout even the most stressful moments in the encampment.
“You don’t have to respond, I was just–” the Torchbearer starts, but Clancy shakes his head, clearing his thoughts and breaking himself out of the trance that he had found himself in.
“Sorry. I was just thinking. I’m not saying that I’m less-than, but I don’t see you going out of your way for anyone else like this. The other Banditos don’t talk about you waking yourself up to break them away from their darkest thoughts. So why do you do so with me?” Clancy asks.
“I help them in other ways. And it’s not that you’re weak, or that they’re necessarily stronger than you are, but they’re more accustomed to life out here and the difficulties that come with it. I just assumed that you were more of a one-on-one type of person, and would prefer if I didn’t ask you about what was going on in front of everyone else,” the Torchbearer explains, his voice quiet, thoughtful.
Clancy can’t help but to see how much the leader of the Banditos did truly care about his people. It wasn’t an easy role, certainly not one that he would want to have for himself. Being the face of the rebellion, the face of hope in an otherwise despairing world was anything other than simple. For the Torchbearer to still have as much resilience and kindness as he did took a lot. Patience, determination, hope, and maybe even pure spite built him into the man that he was today, someone who was so careful to keep everyone safe and cared for even out in the wilderness of Trench.
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not that… It’s not that I don’t like the company of everyone else, I just don’t really know how to deal with it. I mean, you lived in Dema at some point, right? You know how it is. Socializing is kept to a minimum unless it’s about Vialism, and maintaining actually decent friendships is pretty much forbidden. To keep us isolated. So, being out here is just a lot,” Clancy summarizes, leaning back to lay down in the grassy field, surrounded by the yellow daisies that grew wild out here.
“Our camp is a new start. And whether or not you choose to meet new friends here is up to you, but I figured I already fit into that category,” the Torchbearer chuckles before mirroring Clancy, laying face-up in the grass, eyes darting between the countless stars in the night sky.
“Of being a friend? I guess, yeah. You’ve been far kinder to me than anyone else in my life this far has been, so I think that’s grounds enough to call you one,” Clancy affirms.
“Really? Didn’t think it would be that easy.”
“Well… Well, I mean, it kind of is, right? You’ve gone out of your way to be here for me. That’s what friends do, isn’t it?” Clancy seems genuinely curious, second-guessing his definition of the word. It had been a foreign concept to him for most of his life, so it was no surprise that the confines of what it meant didn’t exactly come naturally to him.
“Precisely. And I’ll be here for you when you need me, got it? Don’t ever think you’re a burden or anything like that. Believe me, I deal with this all day long. It kind of comes with the job of being the leader,” the Torchbearer jokes. And for just a split second, Clancy feels a tinge of… Jealousy? It was odd. Barely a week ago, he hadn’t even held a conversation with the Torchbearer, but now, he felt like he had some oddly close connection with him. Like they’d somehow known one another for way more time than Clancy’s mind was letting on. He enjoyed just laying here beside him, stargazing, and having the thought in his mind that he really wasn’t any more special than anyone else in the camp hurt him a bit. The Torchbearer wasn’t doing this because Clancy was any different, he was just doing what he would for any other Bandito, albeit in somewhat of a different manner.
Not wanting to seem awkwardly quiet, Clancy whispers a quiet ‘got it,’ before redirecting his attention to the stars. He reaches his hand up absentmindedly, tracing patterns between them, painting pictures in his mind of the stories that they told.
Even if the light pollution in Dema wasn’t nearly as bad, there was little chance that Clancy would have gotten this opportunity there at all. Stargazing was a frowned-upon practice, especially by the Bishops. They’d teach that the stars held no meaning, that they were inconsequential. You didn’t live among the cosmos when you passed away, you became one with the Glorious Gone. That was your fate, whether you liked it or not. Dreaming of a kinder fate, one with less cruelty and more creativity was prohibited, much alike nearly everything that Clancy enjoyed.
“Do you ever… Do you ever wonder about what we’ll do after all of this?” Clancy asks suddenly, dropping his hand back down to his side.
“After we overcome the Bishops? Of course I do. Every day. I wouldn’t be leading this group if I didn’t have a plan that far in advance. Why?” the Torchbearer responds.
And the stars shine in response, like they always had, like they always would. A home, a sanctuary, light amidst the darkness that kept a death grip on what little individuality that had not yet been stripped of the Banditos. Clancy keeps his eyes glued to them, falling victim to the vast beauty of the pinpricks of light dotted across the blanket of the night sky.
“I think about it a lot. Of what I’ll do next. And I just… I don’t know. I don’t. I’ve spent my whole life running and living in fear of the next bad thing that will happen. I find it hard to imagine a life where I don’t have to do that anymore. I’ve been driven by fear for so long that I struggle to imagine what will drive me when that fear is gone,” he murmured. Saying the words out loud was much different from repeating them over and over again in his mind. It made that thought seem all the more real, and he didn’t want to think about that. He wanted nothing more than to live to see a future where the Bishops had been overthrown, but what would replace them? What would replace the fear that kept him going?
“Our desires, I think. The things we want out of life. I mean, obviously we all want to take down the Bishops and reshape Dema into a place worth living in. But beyond that? There’s so much more to life that none of us have had the chance to experience. Friends, family, celebrations, love. Things we hear about that are so limited out here, and entirely non-existent within the walls,” the Torchbearer speculated, doing his best to dispel Clancy’s doubts.
Hearing that said wasn’t enough to entirely get rid of the spiraling and overthinking that Clancy was best at doing, but it certainly helped a bit. Somewhere out there, in the future, was a reality much better than this one. One where Clancy could be at peace with the world and wouldn’t have to always look over his shoulder for Nico.
“That sounds nice. You really think we’ll get there one day?” Clancy questions, propping himself up on his side as he turns towards the other man.
“Of course. We’ll shape that future together. You and I and everyone else here.” the Torchbearer says it with so much confidence that it’s enough for Clancy to believe it, at least in this moment. And as they continue to speak, voicing concerns and thoughts about the future, the sun begins to rise over the horizon, illuminating them in a soft golden glow.
“We should probably head back so that they don’t assume anything’s happened to us,” the Torchbearer says, standing up and brushing the dirt off of his pants. Clancy follows behind, still concerned, still fearful, but far less than he was an hour ago.