Hiya folks! Here I am with another Grim Fandango oneshot-with some different characters this time. Though uh, be warned: this story's a bit more gruesome than my other ones.

Title comes from a quote from Salvador, when we first see him in the game.

Salvador stared out the break room window, which stood twenty-seven stories over the city. It was sunny for once—the first sunny day all week. Part of him hoped it would do something to improve his mood, if whatever clients he got today didn't.

The thought made his tall frame droop. Three clients yesterday, and all of them were issued walking sticks. He would have thought that just being a reaper at all was hard enough, but having to tell soul after soul that they weren't good enough to afford any help on their journey, that they would have to travel alone through the underworld…

"Oh, am I too late?"

Sal gave a start, turning around to see a woman with an unfamiliar red wig. "Pardon?"

"The, uh, donuts." The woman gestured at the box sitting on the table.

Oh. He'd been so deep in thought that he hadn't even thought to check if anyone had brought food in today. "No, I don't believe so," he replied. Opening the box, he found three pastries sitting forlornly within.

"Oh, great! No one takes the jelly ones." She snatched one up, taking a bite, and winced. "Ech, custard."

"Are you a new recruit, señorita?" Sal found himself asking.

"No, just visiting from a few floors up. Wanted to get away from the reapers for a while, and heard there was donuts down here." She chewed at the custard donut slowly.

"I see." So she wasn't a reaper herself—a desk worker then, perhaps. "Are the reapers… giving you trouble?"

"Nah, it's just the complaining. I send out the memos, but I'm not the one who divvies out the clients. But no one wants to complain to the boss, so they come to me instead."

At first Salvador only nodded politely—he had his own share of problems as a reaper, but he wasn't going to dump them on someone who was trying to get away from that sort of thing. But then he paused. "...What is it they are complaining about?"

"Oh, the usual." She gave up on the donut, tossing it into the trash. "Bad clients that can't get better than a walking stick or parcel post. Some of 'em come to me sayin' they thought their clients deserved better."

That sounded a little too familiar. "And this happens often?"

"Sure." The woman shrugged. "The usual reaper troubles, I guess." Turning to the clock, she did a double-take. "Aw, is it that late already?"

"Wait—before you go, would you tell me your name?"

She gave him an odd look. "Eva. And you're—?"

"Salvador Limones."

"Huh. Well, maybe I'll see you again, if someone orders jelly instead of custard."

With that, she went to open the break room door—

CRE-E-EEE-EAK.

Salvador's body seized up as the plants wrapped further around his leg, trying to push themselves between the two bones.

"Looks like you're going to have trouble getting around now." He felt Olivia's boot nudge his plant-infected leg, sending another surge of pain through it. "And you won't be able to get around at all if you don't fess up."

Shakily lifting his head over the flowers that surrounded him, he tried to see what was happening to his legs. But it was hard to twist himself around—the pain made it nigh impossible to move. When he tried to lift himself up on his arms, Olivia slammed the heel of her boot into the middle of his back.

"Ah-ah. You're not getting up until you talk." Her heel dug into his spine. "My boyfriend Hector won't be happy until you tell us where the rest of your men are."

"Never," he grunted, biting back a growl from the pain.

She'd shot him in the lower back, both to make him sprout more slowly and to keep him from getting away. The plants that weren't eating away at his bone were starting to dig between his fibula and tibia.

"I can wait, Salvador, but I'm not sure how long these plants can."

I will not talk, he thought, letting his face fall back into the flowers, trying to force himself to forget what they were all growing from. I...

"I cannot believe this!" He paced back and forth across his office, Eva watching with growing unease. "This is too many reapers to be complaining of too many low-quality clients!"

"Well, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if things were getting worse upstairs." Though her tone of voice said otherwise; she took a puff from her cigarette.

"You saw these numbers, Eva," he said, glancing at the open binder before pointedly looking away—it made him feel ill. "The world above could not possibly get this bad this quickly. People do not get this bad this quickly."

"So what are you saying?" She crossed her arms.

Finally he paused in his pacing, looking her in the eye. "What do you think this points to, Eva?"

Looking away, she took a drag from her cigarette in thought. "If people aren't suddenly taking a turn for the bad, then something's going on here." She looked back at him, exhaling smoke. "With the DOD's system."

"Precisamente!" he said in a harsh whisper. "Something is very wrong, and it's very wrong right here." He slammed his fist next to the binder.

CRACK.

Salvador couldn't help the gasp of pain that escaped him as he felt his fibula snapping under the strain of the plants.

"Poor baby. Did that hurt?" Olivia cooed behind him. He could hear the scrape of her axe against the ground. "I can make that stop, you know."

He tried to respond, but only a groan of pain left his throat this time. A tingling feeling at his back told him that the plants were starting to work their way up his spine.

"Looks like those long legs of yours are done for. I suppose you could always get around on your hands like that one freak lackey of yours… if you tell me where he and the others are."

The part of his mind that wasn't fighting a losing battle to stay conscious realized she was right—the plants had enveloped his legs, and if he somehow got out of this, he would never walk again.

But he'd given himself to the cause—he wasn't going to destroy their efforts just to spare himself a little pain.

One root squeezed between two vertebrae, threatening to break his spine in two.

...Or a lot of pain. He tried to tell himself it didn't matter. He would die a second time if it meant protecting the rest of the LSA. The pain didn't matter, none of this mattered, none of this—

CRACK.

"Watch it, Sal!"

Salvador winced at the noise as he hefted the machine up again. "Does it look bad?"

"You did a number on the casing, but I think the guts may be all right. Come on!"

Their legs were shaking by the time they moved the computer into their hideout, and they groaned as they eased it to the floor. "Are you all right, Eva?" Sal asked, rubbing his aching shoulder.

"Yeah, just never make me do that again." Arching her back with a few satisfying pops, she sighed and leaned against the machine.

"You will not have to, if this works." Sal bent down to work on hooking up the computer to the wall behind it.

"It might, if you didn't break anything from dropping it back there."

Nodding grimly, Sal plugged the computer into the wall and hit the power button. For a short eternity, he and Eva waited… and their metaphorical hearts leapt as the machine booted up.

"It works!" His frame sagged in relief, only to tense up again. "Wait—"

A light flashed from the machine, and an error message blared on the monitor. "Mm, forgot about that part," Eva said, shaking her head. "It needs a dental scan."

"...And mine will not work."

"And whose fault is that, mister 'I-refuse-to-support-the-enemy-and-their-cause-any-longer?'"

Sal turned away in shame. "I… I could not continue handing out walking sticks to souls that deserved better. You know I could not."

Eva's hand was on his shoulder. "I do, but… You know they'd just keep assigning those cases to other reapers."

"...I'm sorry."

"Well, it's not the end of the underworld yet. We just need to recruit another reaper that hasn't been eliminated from the system yet."

"A risky task." He turned to face her. "But one we must do to progress."

"That's the spirit, Sal." A grin crossed her face. "Now, I think I know someone we can recruit… I'll do my part, but you'll need to—"

"—wake up."

Salvador reeled back into consciousness to an explosion of pain in his ribcage that was not fading. Every one of his ribs was creaking, and blue flowers were poking through his coat. He wasn't sure when he'd been rolled onto his back, but he was greeted by the sight of Oliva staring down at him, leaning on the handle of her axe tauntingly.

On the bright side, he couldn't feel any pain below his waist anymore.

...Come to think of it, he couldn't feel anything below his waist anymore.

...Oh.

"Funny," Olivia said, snapping him out of his dull horror. "I expected the head of the LSA would be a bit tougher than this." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Then again, you don't lead a very large group, let alone a strong one."

Drawing in a breath around the foliage in his chest, Sal managed to wheeze out a retort: "If the LSA is as weak as you say, you would not have bothered to hunt us down."

Olivia's smile twitched. "I never liked rodents in my club, and my boyfriend doesn't like pests in his city. Don't think so highly of yourself."

"I believe it is Hector who thinks too highly of himself"—he drew in another breath, more shallow than the first—"b-believing he… d-deserves the tickets… t-to…"

"What's that? It's getting hard to understand you. Let me help." Reaching down, Olivia grabbed a fistful of flowers on his chest, and gave them a firm yank.

What was left of his body seized up as the thought that his pain could not possibly get worse was rapidly proven wrong. The plants' roots desperately clung to his ribs as Olivia pulled. Some of the vines did eventually snap, but not before his ribs did.

"You're crazy, Sal!"

She refused to look at him, glaring down at her radio.

"I am not. Every precaution must be taken." He stood behind her calmly, only because he refused to let his thoughts linger on what he had done.

"You could have at least told me first!" Eva cried, pounding her fist on the table. The demon pigeons fluttered their wings in surprise at the sudden sound before settling calmly back into their perches.

"No," Sal replied with a slow shake of his head. "I knew you would disapprove if I did."

"Because it's a terrible idea!" Finally she whipped around to glare at him.

"I am too important to the cause, friend," he said, finding himself unable to meet her gaze. "Should the enemy capture me, they would do anything to wring me dry of information. It could destroy us."

"Sal, it would destroy us to have you gone!" Eva stepped closer, leaning forward while he remained straight and rigid, though still looking away. "What would the LSA be without you?!"

He didn't reply—not because he had no answer, but because he knew his emotions would get the better of him if he did. Getting emotionally invested in things only worked when his emotions aided the cause—not when they could hinder it.

Though he kept faced away, he saw her, out of the corner of his vision, move to feed the pigeons. He turned to watch her—her movements were quick and stiff. Perhaps she was feeling the same way.

"...I do not wish for it to come to that, you know," he said, and she went still for a moment.

Her voice was quiet. "Then why would you go and do something like that in the first place?"

"Hector's strength and influence grows daily. We must always be prepared for the worst."

"...The worst?" Eva turned to face him again, but she didn't look angry anymore. "Are you really preparing to fail? 'Cause that doesn't sound like the Salvador I know. What happened to you, Sal? Why are you losing hope now, after we've made so much progress?"

"I have not lost hope." Finally he stepped forward, placing his hand on her shoulder. "I have full confidence that the cause will succeed with or without me, because the alliance has you."

Eva froze.

"Should anything happen to me," he went on, "you will take my place."

She stared up at him for a long moment, then gave a humorless laugh. "Well… as potential future leader of the LSA, I say don't go planting sproutella bombs in your jaw without telling me first."

"...I will try, Eva."

To his surprise, she wrapped him in a hug, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I'm serious, Sal. Don't try to get yourself killed… again."

And yet, here he was.

Olivia wiped the sap from her hands, eying him through her shades. "There. I'd say that gave us another ten minutes or so," she said, stooping down next to his head. "How are you feeling, Sal?"

As though I cannot talk. It was a delicate balance between holding back the moans of pain that he did not want to give her the satisfaction of hearing, and trying to avoid grinding his teeth in just the wrong way.

Though he could.

He didn't have much time left anyway, and Olivia was just about close enough that the sproutella cloud could reach her, too.

And yet…

Eva's words were still echoing in his mind—her fear of losing him to the cause.

She wasn't the only one who was afraid, either.

He could feel the roots and vines worming their way through his body, clinging to his bone and spreading further and further. He'd described the process of being sprouted to new and potential recruits many-a-time, but his colorful speech didn't come close to showing how agonizing the process was.

Not to mention the end of it—no one knew what happened to the souls that perished in the underworld.

And in a few moments, Sal would find out.

He wasn't ready, he realized in a flurry of panic. He needed to warn the others about Olivia, he needed to tell them the location of the meadow, he needed to say goodbye to Eva…

...No. He couldn't do those things—it was too late now. But he could prevent Oliva from betraying anyone else, if he just—

A deep, fiery pain exploded in his throat before fading very quickly into numbness.

"Enough stalling," Olivia growled, and it was then that Sal noticed the axe planted directly below his head. All of the pain he'd been in was gone… as was every other feeling in his body. "I think it's time we move on ahead, don't you?"

And with that, she scooped him up.

He could have done it then, he reflected later, after he was tossed into the passenger seat of the car. He should have done it. Olivia had been carrying him-it had been the perfect opportunity. He'd been prepared to bite down on the bomb and finally end everything.

But he hadn't been prepared for the sight of his own body, lying twisted and headless on the ground, and slowly being devoured by plants.

His mind had gone blank in shock. By the time he'd started to come to his senses, it was too late.

"If you're ready to talk now," she went on, sliding into the driver's seat, "I can put you out of your misery. In fact, my boyfriend might even have a can of the fast-acting stuff somewhere."

Sal said nothing. He would have closed his eyes if he was able, but as it was, his eyesockets drooped.

He was very tired.

To his dulled surprise, Olivia didn't threaten him further. He felt the rumble of the motor as she started the car and began to drive.

"Let's see if a little drive won't change your mind."

It wouldn't, but he didn't care to inform her.

They drove in silence for a few miles, and Sal tried his best to regain his senses. He'd missed his opportunity to take out Olivia, but perhaps another one would arise. He would just have to wait for her to pick him up again, which probably wouldn't happen until she stopped the car.

...Wait.

"Where…" His voice was clear again, now that he didn't have a ribcage full of leaves. "Where are you taking me?"

"Back to the base, of course."

Salvador suddenly felt very dizzy.

"I thought you might want some company… maybe from that little spy you spoke so highly of."

For the first time, he was glad his body was gone—Olivia didn't notice what little was left of him tense up. It would be foolish to let her know that he was afraid for Eva, but then would that stop Olivia from doing anything? He couldn't even warn her…

I am sorry, Eva, he thought desperately. In a moment of weakness, I have failed you… and all of the LSA.

He could sprout himself now, but it wouldn't matter—if he missed Olivia, she would go on to interrogate Eva, and his death would be for nothing.

But then the car slowed and Olivia looked up in surprise, rolling down one of her windows. "Well… what's this?" Outside were the distant sounds of demonic birds screeching and a woman's screams. The window was rolled back up, and the car sped up again—only to screech to a halt, nearly knocking Sal off of his seat.

"Quick, get in!" he heard her say, and a split second later the back door quickly opened and shut.

"We were supposed to have coverage back there!" a familiar voice cried as the car began moving again. "Where are all of Salvador's men?!"

"I don't know," Olivia replied, and faster than Salvador could react, she flung him into the back seat. "He hasn't told me yet."

And Salvador found himself staring up at Manny's horrified face. At first Sal was just as shocked as he was, but then he caught side of the briefcase on Manny's lap—and the hint of golden paper sticking out of it.

The tickets… Manuel Calavera had the tickets...

Tickets that Olivia would want to take straight back to Hector.

He'd been given a second chance—both him and Eva.

With an uneasy smile to his voice, Salvador finally spoke up. "Hola, Manuel."