no one round here's good at keeping their eyes closed

[Maraoone]

((Diego Larrosa continues from Gimme, Gimme Shelter, or I'm Gonna Fade Away))

Lorenzo had had unknown company for the past couple of hours. Diego was good at that, staying unseen. Fading into the background.

He was waiting for Lorenzo to enter another building. If he tried to approach Lorenzo by sneaking from behind, in the woods, where the threat of a killer was always lurking, then Lorenzo would turn on him, plunge the hammer into him, and that would be that. He had to be smart, patient about this. Meeting in a building would allow him to give them both a warning, to prevent any surprises. Also, if waiting meant putting off the moment of confrontation for a few hours, then he would welcome it. He still didn't know exactly what to say. So, he stayed in the background, waiting for his moment to come.

The rain continued to soak him, through him, his bags, his clothes, his bones. There had been moments where he tripped, scratched himself, and then he paused, silently begging that Lorenzo didn't hear him. And he didn't. So, they continued, one a horizon behind the other. And, Diego continued without even the slightest hint of doubt, despite the rain, the scratches, the thirst, the hunger, the fatigue that had set into his joints, because Lorenzo was all he had, all he needed at this point. Anyone else, anywhere else would be inertia leading to Chris at the pier, to the corpse at the temple. He needed to cross the ocean.

Eventually, mercifully, Lorenzo stopped, just up the slope. Diego took cover behind a tree, just in case Lorenzo happened to glance this way.

Further into the green edge of Diego's vision was Emil. Dumb kid, blew his ear off, about all he knew of him. He couldn't hear the words, but he could make out the faces. Emil, dumb kid. Blew his ear off. All that mattered about him.

A roar came from the slope, Lorenzo swung his hammer, and Diego told himself that he would see this to completion. He needed to, he had to. He wanted whatever happened next to burn into his retinas, to acclimatize to it, become numb to it the same way a song loses any joy after listening to it on repeat for long enough.

He kept his eyes wide open during the first few swings, the first trade of blows, up until the hammer landed in Emil's face. A minute or two. There was a spray of red, the boy staggered. Diego's eyes stung, but he blinked tears away, let the wounds and bruises viewed from afar embed themselves in his pupils.

That should've been it, he thought. It was a blade in the face, no one should be able to recover from that. But, Emil tossed his jacket aside. Still remained standing. Lorenzo lunged, swung again, Emil sidestepped, and all of a sudden, his only hope was on the ground.

Get up, Emil said to Lorenzo, a horizon away, unheard by Diego. "Get up," Diego whispered, a horizon from Lorenzo, unheard. There was no one else. If Lorenzo died, right here, then there wouldn't be anyone else Diego could turn to. No one else could change Diego the way he needed to be changed. He didn't look up to anyone else the way he looked up to Lorenzo, even now.

Seconds in a Hunter High hallway, walking from one class to another, Lorenzo going the other way. Lorenzo's green hair would stick out above the crowd. Diego's eyes always lingered four seconds, not three on Lorenzo. That extra second meant everything. It was enough to force Diego to turn his head, watch as he turned the corner, one boy or another hand in hand with him. Diego, a face in the crowd, wanted that. He wanted to be able to do that, to clasp his fingers around through another man's hand. He wanted someone to grab him by the hand. He wanted to be the someone hand in hand with Lorenzo.

He wanted no one else.

"Get up," Diego whispered, a quiet prayer.

"Get up," he said, a plea.

And Lorenzo obliged. Held breath exhaled from Diego's lungs.

Another boy entered the scene. Emmett, another member of Lorenzo's clique. He shouted something, Emil looked.

Lorenzo swung.

A scream, he wasn't sure whose.

More shouting, a spray of red. And Lorenzo swung again, into Emil's face. Again. And again. And again. The slap of meat against a chopping board. A cracking, muffled by the cushion of flesh surrounding it.

Chunks of bile splattered on the ground, next to Diego's feet. Screams came in the background, from someone other than Emil.

He almost didn't want to follow, after that.

Diego was complicit, in a way. Lorenzo had been out of his element. If he had been so inclined, he could've walked up to Lorenzo while he was preoccupied with Emil. He could've walked up, and made those same sounds himself, the same slap of meat, the same muffled cracking.

But that would be missing the point. That would leave him without whatever had brought him halfway across the island.

And complicity was progress, anyways. Another step to wherever Lorenzo was, right now.

He looked up to see a gun pointed, wavering. Demetri's, he'd always hated him. Feared him. He had heard of what he did to Emmett, how he outed him, how he could maybe perhaps do the same to him. It still mattered to Diego, slightly.

All that quickly became irrelevant, as Lorenzo ran away. Diego wiped his mouth, and followed.

((Diego Larrosa continues in Still Waiting))