SOTF Mini

((Santiago Ibarra continued from A Lo Hecho, Pecho))

The door stuck as it began to open, so Santiago tried to put his foot through it.

To its credit, the door gave way eventually. Pieces splintered off from the booting region, but the door was now ajar. The boy strode through into what looked like the kitchen through the low light of the day, looked around, and continued going through.

The house was a pigsty. This looked to be the ghetto of the arena, but worse. Even his own place back in Colorado was done up better than this, and his family had no wealth to speak of. Probably had something to do with being abandoned, but it wasn't like he was going to contemplate the fate of those individuals rather than berate them in his mind for their entirely possible inability to keep the house clean.

It had a single floor - a kitchen attached to a TV room attached to a hallway attached to other rooms which looked to be bedrooms and a bathroom. He couldn't hear anyone, at least not at first, and the front door was still closed compared to the back one, so it looked like the place was fine, at least for now.

Santiago turned around to remind himself of who, if either, of the two from the dock had followed him.

((Harland Stranged continued from A Lo Hecho, Pecho too!))

Where the fuck was Nathan? Harland couldn't believe it. He'd just totally fucking abandoned Nathan. He felt a tinge of guilt, but he kept justifying it with the fact that, hey, they were all gonna die anyways, so it wasn't like it mattered, right?

Fuck this was so fucking fucked up.

He'd lost sight of Drowny, too. Harland'd been following him from a distance; if Drowny was in a pissy mood, Harland wanted to stay away.

Eventually, he stumbled into an urban area - well not urban per say, but still more urban than the pier. Shit looked like, well, shit. Like some foreign village you'd see on the news.

After a few minutes of aimless wandering, Harland heard a noise that sounded like someone fucking a wall with a jumbo-sized sledgehammer. Seeing as he had nothing else to do, he decided to check it out. You only live once.

Upon moving closer to whatever the source of the sound was, he noticed that hey! It was Drowny fucking the wall with a sledgehammer (or in this case, a door with his foot). Boy howdy some luck he sure had. Drowny finally kicked the door open and walked inside the shit-hut, leaving Harland alone outside, still apparently unnoticed.

Ooooooooooh Harland had a fun idea. A real fun idea. Drowny thought he could escape Harland. Drowny was wrong.

Harland moved closer, out of sight from the view of the doorway.

"You're a fucking monster!" He hollered. "That poor door had a family!"

Harland thought he was being really clever by following behind several shadow distances, but Santiago was always aware of there being someone there. It was either him or Nathan, and seeing as how Nathan wasn't Harland, Nathan wasn't there at all. Santiago would have felt guilty over leaving him, but he was perfectly capable of making his own choices, seeing as how he'd already patched up his leg and he'd already killed someone.

But regardless of his feelings on the one who remained, there needed to be a thing to be dealt with.

As Harland finished yelling his stupid attempt of a joke, Santiago strode forward, pushed the other boy against the wall next to the door, and clasped a hand over the other boy's mouth.

"Listen. Harland. Do you hear that?"

Santiago fixed his gaze to the door, to the open village air.

"Do you know what that's the sound of? That's the sound of nobody saying anything."

He stared back into the other boy's eyes, continuing his harsh, loud whisper.

"That's also the sound of people staying alive, because they're not being loud, obnoxious jalao and letting every fucking wannabe killer with a gun know they're there."

His hand resisted the urge to grip harder.

"Now, I know you don't give a shit. But for the moment, I give a shit, Harland. I may have had my little novela momento back on the docks, but that doesn't mean I'm going to just throw my shit at the wall and pretend like I'm going to let anyone kill me. And I know you and your stupid little emo actuación means you can pretend like nothing matters, but that doesn't mean you can fuck it up for me. If we come across some crazy little gringo with a gun and a grudge who wants to get out of here then by all means, by your insistence, I will kick your ass to them and you can see how well your little one-liners work with them, but you will not-"

His hand failed to resist the urge to grip harder.

"-I repeat, you will not, take that choice away from me."

Santiago's eyes bore deep into Harland's, and he held his statement in the air for several seconds.

"Got it?"

As the hand clasped over his mouth, Harland thought he was about to die.

As he realized it was Drowny's hand, he thought he wasn't about to die.

As Drowny asked him if he heard a noise, Harland thought he and Drowny were both about to die.

As Drowny answered his own question, Harland realized he was getting lectured.

All in all the past few seconds had been quite eventful for Harland.

Drowny's hand was mushing Harland's lips against his teeth and it kinda sorta really fucking hurt, so he looked up into Drowny's eyes and gave a pleading look that probably failed to translate considering half of his face was obscured. Drowny continued on with his rant, calling Harland a jalapeno and stating that the noise was all the living people, and that all the noisy people were dead, which Harland could kinda get, but then again, all the dead people were silent probably, unless they were like ghosts or something like that. That'd be pretty spooky.

Drowny laid in further with his lecture, and truth be told, Harland wasn't exactly prepared for it. He'd had never really, well, been disciplined much at all, let alone been pinned against the wall by an angry Mexican. He started tearing up. This was just too fucking much right now.

"Got it?"

Yup Harland definitely got it.

Drowny removed his hand, and Harland immediately collapsed to the ground against the wall, tears streaming from his eyes.

"F-Fuck dude shit I'm sorry...", he sputtered.

As Harland fell to the ground, Santiago went to the door, closing it as well as it could. It was plainly stuck at the open, but that just meant he could jam it closed as well as it could and a racket would sound if anyone wanted to come in. Or if they wanted to get out, come to think of it, but that was a problem for another time. If they were going to stay the night, there needed to be precaution taken.

At least Harland was quietening down now. Crying tended to do that. He wasn't sobbing, just really struggling to get words out. Santiago looked down at him on the ground, and wasn't really sure what to think. He hadn't really intended this kind of reaction, he just wanted him to shut up, stop screwing around, and for all intents and purposes he'd gotten his desired outcome.

Before he began to feel bad, though, Santiago remembered how much of a cocky fuck Harland had been back at the docks, how he'd stood there and lectured him on living and nihilism and pointlessness as though he'd lived a tough life and had to go through shit to reach that point of view. But if he broke down after one yelling it, well, it really had to have all been an act, huh? This wasn't the first time Santiago had laid down the law, as Stevan could attest to, and Santiago himself had had the same sense smacked into him by Alberto or Andre on occasion, and it wasn't some earth-shattering moment even the first time, let alone the repeats.

It wasn't something Santiago took pleasure in, seeing the other boy sprawled on the ground against the wall, but when the picture started to become clearer he didn't actually feel that bad.

"Well, look who lost their machismo, hermano."

He cracked a brief flicker of a half-smile before scowling his lips again.

"So you wanna sit there crying, or you gonna go help check the rest of the house to make sure we're the only ones here? Or are you looking for sympathy or something, because you'll have to find another house for that."

If you were going to talk shit, you best learn to handle getting hit, and Santiago wasn't one to pull punches.

Harland's mouth hurt and his face hurt and most importantly his feelings were hurt because literally everyone watching at home just saw his ass get wrecked. Slowly, he pulled his beanie down over his eyes so that nobody would see him crying.

"Well, look who lost their machismo, hermano."

¿ muh muh muh my name's Santa or whatever huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu sí séñór dé lós tácó dél muérté hñññññññgggggggg ? Yeah well FUCK YOU too buddy, because when Harland got up he was sure gonna be REALLY GRUMPY!

Harland wished he could just sink into the ground and not have to deal with this anymore.

Unfortunately, there was no sinkhole underneath Harland for now, so he had to deal with Jose bitching at him and making him choose between laying on the shitty floor and getting killed by whoever was hiding in the house or walking around and getting killed by whoever was hiding in the house, and neither of those sounded like much fun to him, but one required less energy so he'd go with that choice.

A realization suddenly found its way into Harland's brain. A realization he hoped would make Juan-Carlos even grouchier. A smile crept onto his face.

"Heh... dude," he sniffed. "If there's anyone in this house, they know we're here already because you fucked the door open, dickhead."

Well, looks like Stella got their groove back.

Santiago wasn't chomping at the bit to get back to business as usual as far as interacting with Harland went, but there was a weird normalcy in it. Either way, he still hadn't provided anything useful as far as actually talking went. Just as normal, really.

"And that's why we'd be checking, because people can hide. Singao."

Another lecture felt necessary, but honestly? Santiago had no time for this right now. He turned on his heels and strode off down the hallway, leaving instructions as he went.

"Unless you've got another wisecrack, I suggest you close that door and get something in front of it if it won't shut."

The first bedroom was clear.

"And do it quietly, okay?"

The bathroom was clear. Santiago lowered his voice.

"Or don't, just make up your mind and do it."

Time to check the second bedroom.

Ugh, fuck you Juan, Harland didn't want to do things. He groaned as he slowly stood back up, leaning back against the wall. He lifted the beanie back up above his eyes. So, Diego wanted him to make a barricade? Well go fuck yourself, Diego, because he wasn't gonna do none of that bullshit. He could barely lift a jug of milk, let alone something heavy enough to block the door.

Nah, he was gonna have to make Enchilada do it once he was done checking the rooms.

"I, uh, I think I'll, uh...." Harland paused, trying to think of an excuse. "Let's make the barricade when you're done, yeah? 'Cus, like, in case there's I dunno, like a crazy dude with a grenade strapped to his chest, we'll need a place to run, y'know?"

Hey, that was actually kind of a valid excuse. And if Sombrero got murdered to death by some jackoff hiding in a closet or whatever, Harland could just bail and not have to deal with any of that. Just because he knew he was gonna die didn't mean he was exactly gonna jump at the chance to do it.

The second bedroom was empty. Good, that pretty much meant the house theirs, as long Harland actually upheld his end of the-

"Let's make the barricade when you're done, yeah? 'Cus, like, in case there's I dunno, like a crazy dude with a grenade strapped to his chest, we'll need a place to run, y'know?"

Oh fuck off with that lazy shit, Harland. Santiago wasn't his fucking maid.

Santiago rolled his eyes so far back into his head they could have done a flip. Resisting the urge to instinctively punch the wall, or Harland's face, he spun on his heels and walked back to the kitchen area. He spotted a cabinet nearby that wasn't nailed to the wall, and began pulling it across the floor. It skidded initially, but no noise escaped the room. Eventually, it was in front of the door, jamming it shut. The only way through that door was through the tiny window at the top, and that couldn't get a cat through, let alone a teenager.

Not even paying Harland any more mind, he wandered into the living room connected with the other door and dragged the TV cabinet in much a similar way. No fear of screeching, the carpet made sure of that, and eventually the other cabinet blocked the other entrance to the house.

All was done, no thanks to Harland.

"Alright, I'm gonna assume you don't wanna sit around and shoot the shit all night, so just choose a room and get some sleep. If you wanna kill me in the middle of the night, you better not wake me up, 'cause that won't end well for you. Hell, even if you're not killing me, just don't wake me up."

Not even paying him another glance, he wandered away into the house. He'd probably set something up in the first bedroom. It looked roomier. Kind of like home.

"...'Kay..."

Fuck, so Guy was pissed. Like definitely super pissed, like "im gonna kill you >:C" pissed. Harland now faced a choice. A choice between being murdered in his sleep by Drowny or being murdered elsewhere.

It was an easy choice for him. He was a being powered purely by spite. If he ditched Drowny now, Drowny would either get murdered in his sleep or wake up and be like even more incredibly pissed, and Harland found both these options to be appealing ones. He didn't know what exactly he was gonna do all by his lonesome, but he'd figure it out later probably.

Slowly, he got back up off the ground and ran the fuck out of the door.

[Harland continued in Oofy Ouch Oh No]

Minutes passed as Santiago sat on the edge of the room's bed with no sound coming from the rest of the house. It quickly occured to him that Harland had left and he was suddenly all alone.

What the fuck? Had he really scared Harland that much? He got much worse from his uncle back home and he hadn't even raised his hand that badly. Part of him wanted to venture out and bring him back, knock some sense into him, but Harland was just like every other clueless white boy at that school - thought he knew everything and nothing could hurt him, lessons he'd learned just by imitating them all these years.

Santiago pulled a water bottle out and downed it within a minute. He wasn't careful, spilling some on himself, but his clothes were still fairly damp so it wasn't like it mattered too much. He pulled these clothes off, excluding his underwear, and hung it on the frame of the bed. He then walked over to the door, closed it behind him, and then pulled the nearest dresser across the carpet until it blocked either of them from moving.

He looked at his handiwork, then ran his hands through his hair.

"Ghetto security. Fucking A."

Without even so much as a second thought, Santiago collapsed onto the bed, and before he could even register how heavy his eyes were he'd fallen asleep.

((Santiago Ibarra continued elsewhere))