@herflame + the last of us AU.
The girl had shown up battered, bruised, and warm to the touch. His mother assumed the worst, and suggested the do what any sane person would do when they assumed someone was infected. A bullet between the eyes. But Mateo and Ella both had this gut feeling that it hadn’t been infected that did this to her. After all, Mateo couldn’t find any bite marks –– none. He wasn’t about to rip the strangler’s clothes off to find out, but if she had run into a a few infected they wouldn’t have left her body this much in tact. It had to have been people. Which was almost a more worrying thought.
His mother finally caves, agreeing to check the girl over for more bites. They one of the tents, agreeing that they would all sleep in shifts anyway, and there was no harm in treating the girls wounds as long as someone kept an eye on her during the night.
A few hours pass and Mateo offers to take the first watch. The fire has lowered to a relaxing crack as he sits on the ground about a foot away from the opening of her tent. The flaps have been pinned back, making watching her easier. But Mateo wasn’t exactly watching her all too closely. His thoughts always ran wild on night watches. He spooked easy generally, and he was thankful that his mother would wake up in a few hours to take over the night watch for him.
But he hears the girl begin to stir in the tent. His eyes flicker to her, watching as she seems to start to wake up. His gun is on his hip, but he doesn’t reach for it. He simply waits for her eyes to open and for them to settle on the man at the entrance of her tent.
“Don’t freak out.” Mateo says, voice quiet. It wasn’t an unusual request when you were deep in the woods at night. Infected could be wandering around, and the faintest sound could draw them closer. “We found you injured a few miles back... Thought you could use a place to rest.” That was putting it mildly. Mateo’s voice is warm with a Spanish accent. The whole group spoke Spanish more than English. Traveling through the south and down into Mexico when all four of them were Spanish speakers made the choice easy enough.