Wrote this after the episode where Croach gets shot. (Spoiler alert; he dies. Another spoiler alert: he doesn't stay dead).
Sparks/Red, not my usual ship but I was inspired. I don't own these ornery buckaroos, and I will probably be struck by lightning for calling them that (Sorry Acker&Blacker)
Don't Let Me Spend the Night Alone
"Goodbye, Croach." I murmured, taking my hand off the coffin. The wood was rough, made of recycled materials, carved all over with words of prayer and memory from members of our tribe. It made me angry-they'd hardly known Croach. Not the way he was towards the end, the person he'd turned into because of his time riding with Sparks Nevada. They hadn't asked me to make my mark on the surface. I didn't know what I would have said if they had.
Nevada stood beside me, holding a handful of the soil which we would soon return him to. I scooped some of it into my hand, dry and dusky. Red apparently, like my hair, like my name. A color I couldn't see. There had to be some ironic meaning to that.
"Ready?" Sparks asked softly, and I inhaled deeply and nodded. We opened our palms, spilling the dirt like blood from our hands to land atop the wooden box that held the body of the Martian who I think we both loved. It pattered dryly and slithered off. Then the shovelfulls started to fall and I turned away, chewing hard on my lip, and felt a hand touch mine. I turned to look at him, and we held on tightly to each other until the hole was filled in.
We rode away from the Martian burial site, slowly at first, then faster, faster, until Mercury and Carbonite were sweating and steaming, and I don't know when it became a race but it did. We sprinted through the gathering dusk as if we could run so fast we'd turn back time and fix all the mistakes we'd made. As if we'd bring him back.
When the sun faded the stars bloomed, and we finally came to a stop in an open area good for camping. I dismounted and gazed upward, wondering if the Martian legends were true and Croach had become one of those points of light. I also knew they were burning balls of gas billions of miles away, and couldn't decide which thought was less comforting.
He built a fire and I dipped into my food stores, contributing squirrel jerky and some root tea to the can of beans and whiskey he produced. We didn't speak while we ate, just stared into the flames until they died.
"Think I'm gonna turn in," he said at last, tossing back a hefty gulp of the whiskey, and I nodded, taking a deep sip of it myself. He leaned over, cupping my neck, and pressed a heart-wrenchingly tender kiss to my forehead. He moved away too slowly, and our lips brushed, my breath stuttered. He took my shoulders and put some space between us.
"Red...I reckon we prob'ly shouldn't," he murmured, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
"Why not?"
"I mean...it's a little disrespectful, don't you think?"
"He would want us to be happy."
"And this is what you think will make you happy?" He sounded gentle, uncertain, everything he wasn't in the light, and I took his hat off, laying it beside us.
"All I know is I don't wanna be alone tonight."
We crashed together with bruising kisses; he smelled like smoke and dust and leather and sweat. We tore the clothing from our bodies, and lay down together in the nest we made of blankets and coats in the cold night air.
He wasn't gentle, and his hands were rough. I wasn't patient, and my voice was too loud for him and he kept whispering 'shhh' in my ear. We coupled clumsily-it had been too long, and we had to relearn the planes of each other's bodies.
When the pitch of his breath in my ear reached a breaking point he pulled away, spending himself into his bandana, and we lay side by side in the night before our sweat cooled on our flesh and we burrowed under the blankets in each other's arms.
"I miss him, Sparks," I murmured, and he just pulled me to him and kissed my hair.
"I miss 'im too."