024: ABANDONED

The one time Corosa dared to leave Blackened and Satero alone, he couldn't help but feel as though he had made a horrible mistake in doing so. They were certainly both asleep when he left, which should have made him feel safer. But it struck a wrong chord in him -- because Blackened had proved himself to be just as bad an insomniac as Corosa. If not worse.

Trying to rear all the children in the world couldn't be worse than trying to preserve the peace between Satero and Blackened. Satero threw insults faster than he chewed through cigarettes, and Blackened held it all inside until he exploded -- about five times a day. Corosa was on the edge of shooting both of them.

It was too much.

He thought half an hour wouldn't hurt-- or rather, wouldn't hurt him any more than usual.

He came back and both of them were awake. It was too dark for Corosa to see them, but he knew because both called out his name at the same time when they heard him approach.

"Where the hell did you go?" Satero asked.

"For a walk. We're not as lost as you thought, the road's over that way," Corosa said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You're both awake?"

"Yeah, asshole woke me up," Satero said.

"Jackass kicked me," Blackened said, at the same time.

Neither of them sounded as angry as Corosa had expected.

But the worst thing was -- he thought, when he woke up the next morning and had a clearer idea of what was so wrong -- the worst thing was that after that, no one said a word.

Twelve eleven ten nine eight seven six five four three two one--

"Black, ya mind staying with the bastard over here? He won't get any closer than this, trust me."

Corosa blinked and whipped his head around to stare at Satero. That...was far from what he'd expected.

"What?" Blackened asked, looking absolutely outraged. "Why can't you--"

"I've got things to do, an' I'm not leavin' him out here on his own."

"I don't need taking care of," Corosa said, slightly irked by the assumption, especially when Satero was by far the more childish one. More likely to get in trouble.

"I've gotta look for Sharak," Blackened argued.

Satero covered a yawn. "I'll do that for you, I bet I know more people there than you do. What, he's got a missin' eye, right? Tendency to make trouble? I can spot that."

"No--"

"Shut up, 'less you wanna try dragging 'rosa in with us."

Blackened opened his mouth again, then shut it in a silent snarl.

"Shame really. 's a pretty place," Satero muttered, sticking a thumb between his teeth. Corosa saw his jaw close in a little, but not enough to draw blood. He also saw Blackened curl his lip back even further.

"Oh yeah-- I think I'll finally mail that letter for you," Satero said, turning again to address Corosa. He paused, waiting for a response, and when he received none he rubbed his eyes. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Corosa said. He barely moved his lips.

"Sure," Satero said, a little dubiously. He glanced up at the sky to squint at the sun. "I don't know how long I'll be gone, 'cause I'm gonna see if someone'll let me use their forge. Hopefully be back before nightfall, though."

"Can't stay longer?" Blackened asked. He crossed his arms. For once, Satero ignored the jab.

Corosa didn't.

Can't stay longer? she'd asked in a different voice, eyes already narrowed in suspicion.
She didn't believe him.
That was alright, because he didn't believe himself, either.
So he just ran a hand through her hair,
distractedly,
the same way he ran his hands through his own hair,
and it wasn't that much of a difference.
She had his hair. Not her mother's.
To him, there was always the feeling that she was something the cat had dragged in.

Blackened abruptly asked him a question, a long while after Satero headed off towards Al De Baran. The city was out of sight from here, but Corosa thought he could still hear water splashing through the canals. He'd visited the place-- once. Pretty, Satero had said. Corosa wished he could see it again.

"What?" Corosa asked, startled by Blackened's voice. Blackened was sitting on the edge of the lake. He'd taken off his shoes and rolled up his pants to stick his feet out into the water.

"I said, you angry at him for leaving?" Blackened asked, leaning back on both hands. "You sure seem like it."

Corosa shook his head.

Blackened shrugged and and breathed in deep. "You know, he took your case with him."

Shit. That was enough to make Corosa look around. The last scraps of memory fled to the back of his mind. The bastard had run off with it

Blackened grinned. "He might not be there yet, if you wanna go after him."

"It's not worth it," Corosa said, sitting down next to Blackened and pulling his knees to his chest. "I don't think he'd sell anything, anyway." Satero wasn't going to run off with everything now, not after all this time.

Blackened laughed. It was the same demented laugh he'd had when they first met, and hadn't changed in the slightest. But Corosa had gotten used to it as another one of Blackened's quirks, while Satero still regularly swore to strangle Black for it. The threat usually made Blackened laugh harder.

"Sure," Blackened said, dipping a finger into the water. "Still think we should go after him. Why'd he want you to stay behind, anyway?"

Corosa wished he could avoid the question. "I'd rather stay."

"Huh. What for? Al de Baran's not a bad place." Something about that sentence made Blackened frown, too.

"I'd rather not," Corosa said, not answering.

"Why? You don't like cities?"

"No," Corosa answered. That was innocent enough, wasn't it?

Apparently so. Blackened made no further comment, except to gripe about how Satero probably couldn't spot Mukhari if the missing man hit him in the face at a hundred miles an hour. This was, according to Blackened, an entirely realistic scenario.

"What'd you say his last name was?" Corosa asked, suddenly.

Blackened shook his hair out of his eyes, spitting some out when he accidentally caught it between his teeth. "It's Sha--"

Blackened cut himself off, suddenly jerking his arm forwards to snatch at something in the water. Too late. Corosa saw a glint of metal, slipping through Blackened's fingers and carried back into the deeper parts of the lake. Blackened swore in a voice somewhere between a strangled scream and a whisper, already running off after it, kicking up water as he went.

Then he fell when he reached the drop off, suddenly vanishing into the water with a splash.

"Shit!" The curse exploded out of Corosa's mouth before he could stop it, and likewise he found himself shrugging his coat off and chasing before he knew what he was doing.

The drop off wasn't far from the shoreline. Corosa felt the sediment under his feet suddenly give way to rock, and the rock dropped off into nothing. And there Corosa's entire body suddenly rebelled, twisting and knotting and deciding that no, it did not want to leap headfirst into another void--

--too deep. Yawning. And maybe, somewhere, somewhere at the bottom if there was a bottom snapping, cracking, like jaws crushing in from somewhere below too much too loud too often too much

Blackened hadn't surfaced yet.

Corosa stared, and did not think, because thinking brought back memories and worst of all fear, and forced himself to dive.

The smiles melted into each other, fused together by too much sunlight.
Maybe, somewhere, a head turns to hear a splash.

Blackened was somewhere yards miles? beneath the surface, getting further and further away with every stroke. Corosa's eyes stung, and he wanted to close them, but closing meant blindness and blindness meant helplessness and helplessness meant death and soon he didn't know who was going to die, him or Blackened or all of them at once together and no one would ever know, wasn't that for the best? Who, out there, would lose them? Someone who couldn't even remember her name. Not much lost but a couple of voices.

Corosa
can't swim
with one arm?
Shit.

He kicked like hell.

He thought about one night, maybe two, him and a half-asleep and very irritated mastersmith fighting on the ground and Corosa left with nothing but his legs to deflect Satero's stronger, harder blows, and he'd kicked like hell that night too but at least he could breathe that had been his fault, he supposed, except now he can't feel guilty about it because his ears are ringing ringing ringing like they had been back somewhere else not here not here not here

But close enough, he thought.

Because there was enough water between him and the surface. Enough that the light was disappearing, not strong enough to pierce through all the water, not strong enough to fuse anything together--
--sort of like a ceiling, huh?

Corosa grabbed Blackened and shot for the surface.

"I can swim, jackass! I don't need you!" the priest screamed, as soon as they were within reach of air and Corosa could feel his heart piecing itself back together.

"Shut up," Corosa gasped, staring at the shoreline and nothing else. Don't think. Don't think.

Blackened kicked against him. "Fuck you, I almost had it! It was Mukhari's, dammit, goddammit, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you-- it was his, I swear it was, I swear it is! I swear it is!"

Later Corosa learned that it was not a cross.

Just another necklace, one that glittered like silver and rusted like iron. Something Mukhari had worn ever since Blackened first met him, and nothing of emotional importance to him. Cheap, useless jewelry. But Blackened recognized it because it'd been flung into his face every morning for years, when Mukhari didn't have the strength so early in the morning to fling his bible instead.

It didn't wash up again.

author: I gues it was about time that something interesting happened, huh? ;;