Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1579847.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      From_Dusk_Till_Dawn:_The_Series
  Relationship:
      Seth_Gecko/Kate_Fuller, Kate_Fuller/Richie_Gecko, Implied_Seth_Gecko/
      Richie_Gecko, Implied_Kate_Fuller/Richie_Gecko/Seth_Gecko
  Character:
      Seth_Gecko, Kate_Fuller, Richie_Gecko, Freddie_Gonzalez, Santanico
      Pandemonium
  Additional Tags:
      Adult_Content
  Series:
      Part 5 of we're_inconsolable.
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-05-07 Words: 4277
****** when i say this, it should mean laughter, not poison. ******
by hasitsclaws
Summary
     He’s got blood on his hands, his mouth, and she’s just looking at him
     with these big, green eyes and an expression of horror. “I’m sorry,”
     he says, and he falls to the floor crying but he doesn’t know why
     he’s falling to the floor crying, just that he is. “I’m so sorry.”
     part five of the 'we're inconsolable' drabble series.
He’s got blood on his hands, his mouth, and she’s just looking at him with
these big, green eyes and an expression of horror.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he falls to the floor crying but he doesn’t know why
he’s falling to the floor crying, just that he is. “I’m so sorry.”
 
They hadn’t seen Richie or Santanico for eight months, but boy had they heard
of them.
“She’s making an army to fight against the masters,” Freddie explained to Seth
over the phone on a warm, breezy Saturday morning. He could hear the newly
turned toddler (God Seth was getting old) cooing in the background. “It’s big,
man. There’s more vampires than the hunters can count.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” Kate asked after the call had ended, nibbling
her thumbnail in nervous habit.
“Keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Seth shrugged, pulling her up against his
side and holding her tight. “Survive.”
 
“It’s okay,” she whispers to him, touching his hair, his shoulder, trying to
reassure. “It’s okay.”
 
The hunters still hate them, have since Kate killed two of their own and then
Richie and Santanico had made it worse by slaughtering five more under Kate and
Seth’s names.
They’d catch up to each other regularly, get in a brawl or two before Seth
could grab Kate and get them the fuck out of there with as little casualties as
possible.
He’s a bastard, but he’s not a fucking bastard. He doesn’t like killing people,
not even if they hate him.
And hunters really hate him.
Except for one girl, whose name was Margot Vasquez, with hair like candy apples
and an attitude just the same, only more sour. Seth guessed her to be in her
mid-thirties, and she’d instantly taken a liking to Kate when they’d met at a
bar in Salvador.
“Aren’t you gorgeous?” Margot asked in Portuguese, and Kate had picked up
enough of the language to understand.
“Thank you,” she answered back, smile tight because somewhere along the line
both she and Seth have become pretty antisocial except for with one another.
And with Richie, but that’s way different.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Margot asked, and Kate just shook her head. “Aw, come
on. It’s only right to buy a fellow hunter some nice tequila.”
Both Kate and Seth simply gaped at the woman after she had said the statement-
- it’d been a long time since they’d seen another hunter that didn’t want to
slit their throats.
“Don’t you know who we are, lady?” Seth asked, because their faces were strewn
all throughout the hunting community with big red X’s drawn overtop.
“Of course,” Margot grinned. “You’re my way to infiltrate into the cult of
Santanico Pandemonium.”
 
They stumble out of the flooded building in a haze of red, his arm over her
shoulders as she holds him up, carries him like he’s some fragile thing that
needs protecting.
It’s true though, always has been.
 
The cult was easy enough to find with Margot’s help-- it was in another strip
bar, of all the fucking places it could’ve been.
“I don’t like this,” Seth said, eyeing Kate up and down with a frown. She was
wearing a too-tight dress, her breasts spilling out and her legs all in view
while she tottered on the six-inch heels Margot had suggested.
“We have to blend in,” Margot said, fixing the lapels on Seth’s suit jacket
with a smile. “You’re the big business man with two ladies on your arm, out for
a night on the town. Santanico won't be here, so no worries. We just need some
information from her lackeys, figure out an in for the non-undead-reptile
species.”
Seth and Kate had had a conversation about this, of course. Whether or not they
could trust Margot, whether or not they were ready for this. In the end it was
a simple say of they had nothing better to go with, that they were just waiting
to die in the end of this anyways. Seth had wanted to tell Kate she was going
to make it out even if he had to drag her kicking and screaming, but he
couldn’t, not when she was so desperate to have this finished.
I’m coming with.
He loves her and he’s never been able to deny her anything, after all.
 
“Stop, stop,” he says, grasping onto her for purchase. “I can’t make it any
farther. You go. Get out. Live.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” she answers, stubborn little preacher’s daughter
that never listens.
 
The club was a lot more high-in than the Titty Twister was.
“I count fifty people,” Kate whispered. “What a feast.”
“Come in looking to get there dick wet, get themselves drained instead.
Pathetic,” Margot sneered, her hand finding Kate’s behind Seth’s back; he
bristled, not a man immune to jealousy. It was obvious Margot thought Kate was
pretty, and who could blame her, but Kate’s been Seth’s girl for a while now,
and he doesn’t like it when other people touch her.
Besides Richie, but that’s way different.
Kate didn’t say anything about it-- they’d been planning this with Margot for
two weeks now and the women had grown a little close with one another. When
Seth had questioned her about it, Kate had simply blushed and said it was nice
to talk about girl things with a girl, no offense to Seth.
He only took a little.
“I spy with my little eye a Cihuacoatl,” Margot whispered then, nodding to the
dancer performing solo on the big stage in the middle of the club. “I wonder if
your baby brother would dance for us like that, Seth?”
Both he and Kate bristled at that.
 
“Come on,” she begs. “Please. You’re all I have. Don’t leave me.”
 
Somehow, as is per usual with them, the whole night went to hell.
One minute they were all playing the part-- Margot signing Seth up for a lap
dance, Kate having a little too much liquor while Margot slid her hand up her
thigh-- then all of a sudden Santanico Pandemonium was taking the stage, making
a speech, and the bloodbath started.
“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” Kate hissed, chopping the head off of an
oncoming vamp. “We were just supposed to get information! What if she sees us?”
“All the better!” Margot said, cleaning blood off the blade of her machete.
“Maybe she’ll talk to us.”
“But we were supposed to surprise her! She might run,” Seth hissed, pulling a
stake out of vampire dust. “She always fucking runs from us.”
“Is she afraid?” Margot laughed. “Of little Katie-cakes and Sethypoo?”
“No,” said a voice from behind all three of them. “I just asked her not to hurt
you.”
“Richie,” Seth said as he turned to face his brother, would know that voice
anywhere. “Richie…”
“Hello, Seth,” Richie grinned. “Mind if I borrow Kate for a while?”
 
“I need you,” she says, trying to pull him up. “I need you, please, please,
please.”
 
It wasn’t way different this time when Richie took Kate’s hand and suddenly
vanished with her.
“Kate!” Seth screamed, trying to find them anywhere through the blinding lights
and seeping blood. “Richie, bring her back!”
“I see them!” Margot said, pointing towards the back. “I’ll go get her!”
“No, wait!” Seth tried to stop her, but then two vamps were pulling his sleeves
back and trying to sink their fangs into his throat.
It took a few minutes for him to get out of the struggle and when he finally
did everything was silent. There was no one left, all the humans dead and any
remaining vamps having taken off.
"Kate!" Seth screamed. "Kate!"
 
"Never thought I'd see you again," he says, swimming in and out of
consciousness. "Can die happy now that you're safe."
 
He hadn't seen Kate or Richie or Santanico or Margot for two weeks when
suddenly the redhead showed up at the door of his motel room, pistol pointed at
his head from the other side.
"Where the fuck you been, huh?" Seth asked, hands itching for his own gun.
"I found Kate," she said, and any wants of questioning the woman vanished at
the words.
Seth nearly barreled through the door with sudden intention. "Let's go get
her!"
"It's not that simple," Margot said, still wavering behind him.
"What do you mean?" he asked, turning to glare at the hunter.
Margot smiled sadly. "She's one of them, Seth."
His heart skipped a beat.
 
She's dragging him through glass. Or, at least, that's what it feels like every
time his skin scrapes against the ground.
"We're always battling monsters and we always come through," she says. "You
just have to do it one more time, for me."
 
Margot told him that Kate was in Rio De Genaro with Richie and Santanico, that
she was one of the undead herself now.
Seth didn't know if he could kill her.
This entire time, for so very long, he thought it would be finished when he
killed Santanico, killed Richie-- but he didn't know if he could kill Kate. It
wasn't that he loved his brother less than her, just that he had known to his
core since they were kids that Richie was never going to make it, that he'd
spoiled somewhere along the way. That kick with El Rey had been just that-- a
kick. He'd wanted to pretend there was nothing wrong with Richie, that they
could go to some magical place and it'd all be better.
It never got any better.
And now he couldn't forgive Richie for this. Seth had spent his whole life
sacrificing for his little brother, but sacrificing the one, last person that
was like home to him was the final straw. Kate had always been a good kid,
despite everything. She had killed and she had shown no mercy about it, but
she'd cried her regrets to him at night like it was pillow talk. She was just a
lost teenage girl who had watched her family slaughtered and gotten mixed up in
things she never would have gotten mixed up with if it weren't for Seth and his
stupid fucking getaway idea.
This was his fault.
Everything about this was his fault.
 
"You're not dead yet," she hisses.
"Princess, parts of me have been dead for so long, you may as well let the
others follow," he answers.
 
Fighting their way to Santanico was easy considering Seth hadn't been fueled
with rage like this in a long time, not since that night at the Titty Twister
where he thought Richie had betrayed him, but he hadn't had any notion of the
full story.
Margot was good with that machete of hers, even better with an ax.
In the end it was just the two of them in a dark hall of some random warehouse
by the river, and Seth was still so adrenaline-fueled he barely noticed when
Margot cuffed his wrists behind his back.
"So sorry, Sethypoo," she said with a sinister smile. "Can't risk you hacking
at the mistress, now can I?"
 
"It fucking hurts," he says when she tries to make him stand again.
"If it hurts it means we're doing it to ourselves," she answers. "Suck it up.
Stay with me. If I'm living, so are you, fuckhead."
 
Santanico Pandemonium was as hot as he remembered up close, sitting on some
pseudo throne with her hair all wild around her.
"Thank you Margot," she said, and the redhead curtsied gracefully like the
bitch was a fucking queen or something.
"Of course, mistress," Margot said, and when Seth just stood there with his
head held high, she kicked his knees inwards so he fell to the floor in a
fucked up sort of bow. "Show her respect."
"Now, now, Margot." Santanico held a hand up calmly. "Don't be rude to our
guest."
"I'm sorry, mistress," Margot said, looking down in shame.
Santanico nodded before turning her gaze onto Seth, still slumped on the floor,
the back of his knees stinging like a bitch.  "Hello, Seth."
"Where's Kate?!" he snarled in greeting.
"She's safe," Santanico assured. "Richie's been taking very good care of her.
He loves her, after all. Maybe even more than he loves me. But not nearly as
much as he loves you. I don't think anyone's ever loved someone as much as
Richie does you, Seth."
"Why am I here? Why did take Kate-- she has nothing to do with this!" Seth
yelled, all hope draining from his stance as he realized he'd been duped, that
this was probably the end of the road and he had dragged Kate down with him.
"She has everything to do with this," Santanico said, words sharp. "She's the
only thing that would get you here of your own free will. I can't force the
brothers to go to the Underworld, Seth. They have to choose to!"
"Well tough fucking luck, 'cause it ain't happening," he growled.
"It will if you want Kate to stay human," said a voice from the other side of
the room.
Seth looked up to find Richie there, sliding in and out of the picture like
always.
"What do you mean?" Seth asked, glanced over at Margot who had just been
standing there like an obedient servant this entire time.
"We didn't turn her, Seth," Richie said, stepping fully out of the shadows so
Seth could make out more than just the shape of him-- he looked robust,
healthier than ever and Seth wondered how much Richie was drinking these days.
"She's safe. Happy even. Loved."
"You son of bitch!" Seth yelled. "Don't you fucking touch her!"
"She was going to have my child, Seth," Richie smirked. "You were there when it
happened. Your request is a little hypocritical because of that, don't you
think?"
"I'll fucking kill you!" Seth said, right before something struck the back of
his head and it all went black.
 
He's laughing even though he's pretty much dead and she's just beating on his
chest like she's trying to make his heart stay alive, like she can't see that
anymore it only beats because of her anyways.
 
He woke up in a room on a bed softer than any he'd laid on in the last seven
years.
Kate was there.
"Am I in heaven?" he grinned over at her hazily, and she just smiled.
"Close," she whispered, and she kissed him. "Not too far from Hell, either."
"Fucking Margot," he said.
"No one's worth trusting but each other," she whispered back to him.
He found the sides of his face with his fingertips and kissed her again in
agreement.
"Did Richie touch you?" he asked around her mouth, holding her close because he
was afraid that if he let go then it'd all be a dream and she'd be gone when he
woke up.
For her part, Kate had the decency to look like she kind of hated herself when
she said, "Not without my permission."
Seth sighed. "I guess I should've seen that one coming. You love him after
all."
"I love you both," she said, the first time she'd ever admitted any sort of
inclination of love for anyone besides her family. It kind of sucked,
considering she didn't mean the words for Seth himself but Richie too.
But because with Richie it's way different, Seth accepted it.
"You're not...?" Seth began, remembered the last time-- the blood and the
crying and her leaving.
She shook her head. "I'm not going through that again. Ever. I'm not bleeding
twice for him."
Both of them were silent for a moment before Seth sighed again, propped himself
up on the bed and found the room around them to be better than the Ritz, full
of glitter and gold and silk. He whistled low between his teeth and made a joke
about how they'd kept Kate a prisoner in style.
"You know why they have me though, right?" Kate asked him, green eyes a little
watery now that the fuzziness in Seth's vision had faded and he could see her
clearer. "You know what they want?"
"Yeah," Seth answered. "And I'll give it to them if it means keeping you safe."
"No," Kate said. "You won't."
 
He spits up blood and she swallows it down, keeps breathing into him, stubborn
little preacher's daughter who just won't let it be.
 
Somewhere between Kate arguing that he had to say no, pushing him on the bed
and fucking him so hard he couldn't see straight all over again, much less
argue with her, Richie came into the room.
"Did I miss the party?" he asked, Kate pulling the blankets over herself
protectively and Seth not even bothering to tuck himself back into his jeans
for a few moments, just sneering at Richie with all the malice he could muster.
"Ah, I see I wasn't invited, then."
"Fuck right off, Richard," Seth said, sitting up to put his body between Kate
and his brother. "You're even fucking crazier than I remember."
That got a muscle in Richie's jaw to twitch. "Don't call me that."
"Why?" Seth asked. "Because it makes total sense you're following an undead
cunt around South America trying to go against some ancient evil that oppresses
vampires? Who cares about them?"
"I am them," Richie said, and Seth could feel Kate's hand cup his elbow
protectively as Richie took a harsh step forwards. "Or did you forget that,
brother?"
"I didn't forget," Seth said. "How could I forget what a monster you are?"
At that, Richie just laughed. "Look who's talking. I thought you didn't kill
people who don't deserve it, Seth? What a load of bullshit."
"I see you've finally got your balls on, huh?" Seth asked. "Acting all big and
tough just because you're holding an innocent teenage girl as leverage against
me."
"You didn't care about how innocent and teenage she was when we fucked her,"
Richie said, making Seth shake with anger, the only thing holding him back
being Kate's grip on him. "When you fuck her nearly every night in your stupid,
petty motel rooms. Tell me, how many times did she say my name when she came
before she said yours?"
"Richie," Kate said, trying to stop him.
"That many, huh?" Richie chuckled, whole stance going calm again. He tilted his
head thoughtfully and said, "It could work, y'know? All of this could work and
we could all be together, if you'd just give in to Santanico's plan. Give in to
me."
"I'd rather die first," Seth said, spitting onto the floor to make his point.
"You won't," Richie said, and in a flash he was by the bed, pulling Kate away
from Seth, wrapping his hands around her throat as he stood her up against him.
She was in just the dress they had given her to wear, front unbuttoned, legs
trembling. "But Katie-cakes will."
"You won't do it," Seth said, calling his bluff. "You love her."
"Then why not turn her so I can keep her forever?" Richie smiled, nails growing
to claws at an alarming rate-- he scraped the edge of his thumb down Kate's
throat to draw a line of blood and she whimpered. Seth tried to lunge, but
Richie pulled her back farther and shook his head. "Ah-ah-ah. One move and I
bite. I'll drain her dry so the venom takes, Seth. Then she won't be our girl
anymore. Just mine." He laughed again, the sound making Seth shiver because it
no longer sounded like his brother, nothing close to the quiet, stormy little
kid Seth had grown up with and looked out for all his life since the fire. "You
know, mine-- like you used to be."
"Richie," Kate said, voice strained from the palm Richie had digging into her
windpipe. "Richie, please let us go."
"Oh, Kate," Richie said. "When are you going to learn that the Gecko brothers
don't let go? It's kind of our weakness. Right, Seth?"
 
He's breathing and it's terrible and her hands feel like lead in his sides as
she drags him into the big, white building before them, blood trail left
behind.
 
He didn't really understand how it had happened, how one minute Richie was
sinking his teeth into Kate's neck and the next Kate was driving something
sharp into Richie's side. And while it wouldn't kill him, it was enough to
stun, Richie falling backwards and clutching at the wound as Kate pulled Seth
to his feet and screamed to run.
Seth noticed then that Kate had a set of keys in her hand, Richie having been
so busy gloating he hadn't noticed her grabbing them off of him (Seth had
taught her how to pick-pocket a few months after they'd made it out of the
Titty Twister, and the girl had gotten good).
"What the fuck did you stab him with?" Seth asked after Kate had unlocked the
door to the room and they were running as fast as possible, surge of adrenaline
and fear.
"I filed down the curling iron they gave me to use," Kate said, taking twists
and turns in the hall-- Seth wondered if she knew where they were going. "Pays
to live in style."
They ran for what felt like a million years, encountered one vamp after the
next but were always able to outsmart them as not to get killed, just maimed a
little. They had smashed the legs off a stray side table lining one of the
walls in decoration, made weapons from it, fought with everything they had if
only to get the other out of this, not to die in some shitty warehouse in Rio.
Finally they ended up back in what Seth had dubbed the throne room, the entire
place nothing but darkness and silence.
"Very well done," came a voice from all around them.
Seth grabbed hold of Kate and clutched her tight, refused to let go even if it
killed him. Despite their success fighting off Santanico's little minions,
they'd both gotten pretty beat-up in the process. Kate was still bleeding from
where Richie had bitten her, cuts and scrapes all over, and Seth had gotten
clawed down his back, dripping what felt like buckets of red through his shirt
as his heart pumped his blood faster to keep up with his terror. Kate hadn't
noticed yet, and he was glad for it because she would have stopped everything
just to make sure he didn't bleed to death. Right now Seth didn't care about
that-- he just wanted to make sure Kate was safe.
"You did better than I thought you would."
The lights flickered on very suddenly, blinding Seth for a moment before he
could make out Santanico's vague shape across the room.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he asked, looked around him to find
vamps hanging at every angle, looked back and found Richie sidling up next to
Santanico, blood on his dress shirt but hair still perfectly slicked back, like
being stabbed had been just a minor inconvenience.
In that moment, Seth truly hated his brother.
"Why, you passed your trial with flying colors," Santanico said with a smile.
"I can't wait for the real thing."
The lights went back out.
 
He wakes up in a hospital bed with monitors beeping at him; she's hunched over
in a chair holding his hand.
"Princess," he says, jostling her.
She wakes up, frantically pressing her hands into him-- he winces in pain, but
he's doing it to himself.
"You're okay," she whispers, pressing her lips against his.
"Let's go home," he says back to her.
 
When the lights came on again, they were alone.
"What happened?" Kate asked, confusion written across her face. "Was this all
just some sick test?"
Seth blinked, adrenaline numbing down so that he could finally feel the extent
of his injuries and-- fuck. "Yeah, I guess," he laughed, fell to his knees in
the same spot as last time, a pool of his own blood below him.
"Seth!" Kate yelled, dropping down with him. "Seth! Oh my God-- I didn't think
it was-- oh my God! You need help!"
"It's alright, Princess," he told her, glancing to the blood on his hands.
"It's probably better like this." He laughed again, ribs rattling, blood
slipping through his teeth. "If this was just a test, I don't wanna take the
exam."
"Seth!" Kate said again. "Seth! Come on! We have to move!"
"I'm sorry," he said to her then, because if he was going to die, he had to say
it at least once. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault that you're here. All of
this is my fault."
"Stop, don't do that. Don't give up," she whispered.
He was crying now, didn't even really know why. "I'm so sorry, Kate. I never
should have taken you and your family. I never should have tried for El Rey. I
knew it wouldn't work but Richie-- with Richie, I..." His voice cut-out,
drowned by blood and spit and regret.
But he wanted to say that it's just that with Richie, it's way different.
 
Home for them is a cheap motel room and each other.
She helps him through the door and sets their duffles down, but he's still not
strong enough to stand on his own and sort of just falls over. She falls next
to him without a sound. They clutch their bellies and roll on the floor towards
each other-- it should be from laughter, not poison.
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