#like goddamn y’all I know you got the Protestant guilt going on but I’m fucking busting my disabled ass over here can you please let me rest

[roseate-rose]

I want a grilled cheese I want French toast and a milkshake I want a million dollars I want a back massage but most of all I want people to stop FUCKING spam calling me to wake me up on my only day off this week :((

[thewhumperinwhite]

Café: Forest

Previous: Teaser 1, Teaser 2, Hospital/Squad Car, Empty Bar, Used Car Lot 1, Used Car Lot 2, Gas Station, Roadside 1, Roadside 2.

Kent and Pax have incompatible methods for coping with trauma. Sol tries to make due with the trio’s one communal brain cell.

TW for: suicidal ideation which is not handled particularly well by companions, Kent gets triggered and doesn’t explain that to anyone, referenced past domestic abuse, gore, eye horror, terrible communication skills, Sol is trying his fucking best but nobody does a great job here, Vehicular Horror (as in many zombies get run over by cars idk how to warn for that exactly)

@whumpitywhumpwhump

Continues directly from Roadside 2.

Sol stares at Pax, revulsion rising in the back of his throat, but he’s honestly startled when Kent is suddenly on his feet and shoving Pax in the chest.

Pax stumbles back from Kent, who is suddenly his full six feet, eyes blazing.

“You goddamn bastard!” Kent screams. “How the hell could you— I might still have been able to— “

Pax slaps him.

“Shut the fuck up,” Pax says, their voice low and dangerous. “What, you think that was super easy for me, you spoiled little shithead? You think I liked that?” Pax is shorter than Kent, almost certainly, but their slap bowled Kent halfway over, and he hasn’t straightened, his hair hiding his face. “We all. Wanted. To help,” Pax snarls. “But we’re not all trying to feed ourselves to zombies, you dumb asshole, you don’t get to decide that for the rest of us. I’ve got my own reasons for wanting you to get where you’re going but I will not die for you, you got that? You want to be a martyr, go do it someplace else.” He rounds on Sol. “And what the hell is your problem?”

Sol, who has been tugging on Paxon’s sleeve, points.

“Oh, fuck me,” says Paxon.

It’s hard to really make them out in just the truck’s headlights, but there are at least three figures standing at the edge of the trees on the other side of the road. Backing up to stand behind Paxon— he’s pretty sure he’s past the point of being ashamed of himself— Sol spots a fourth. And— there’s a fifth, too.

“Back in the car?” Sol prompts, a tad desperately.

“Back in the car,” Pax agrees, taking a step toward the truck.

Sol reaches down to pick up his bat from the asphalt, and as soon as he closes his hand around it one of the figures breaks from the others and lurches at a jerking, unsteady run toward the circle of headlights.

“Shit!” Sol squawks, stumbling backwards, but Paxon, their sword swishing smoothly out of its sheath, surges forward to meet the man and slices through his neck in one clean swipe.

“There a reason you two idiots ain’t running yet?” they growl over their shoulder, and Sol shakes his head clear and takes off toward the truck, grabbing hold of Kent’s collar on the way past and dragging him along.

Kent stumbles after him, his head still bowed, and finally croaks, “Wait, we— we can’t just leave them to— “

“I think they got this,” Sol snaps, and glances over his shoulder to see Pax spin to neatly decapitate a second running, bloody-eyed figure. “‘Sides,” he goes on, a bit snidely, yanking the driver’s side door open, “how exactly were you gonna help without a weapon, genius?”

Kent climbs into the back seat, not meeting Sol’s eyes. He’s breathing heavy, and his hands are in tight, shaking fists in his lap. 

It occurs to Sol that he has now seen Kent slapped twice in the very short time he’s known him. There’s no time to think about that now, but it— maybe bears examination later.

“You know how to drive, right?” Kent mutters, at the floor of the truck.

“‘Course I do,” Sol snaps, throwing the car in reverse and taking a deep breath. “Mostly!”

He rolls his window down. “Coming on your left, Pax!”

Paxon pauses with their sword in the stomach of a very large man whose eyes have spilled out in bloody streams down his cheeks— Sol gags a little before he makes himself focus on driving— to glare at the truck over their shoulder, and then they readjust their grip and slice the man clear in half, before swinging their sword straight down through one of his ruined eyes. Sol sees Kent wince and throw a hand over his mouth in the rearview mirror.

“Take your time,” Paxon calls, sword flashing. There’s beginning to be kind of a large pile of bodies around them. “I’m enjoying myself out here.”

“Wow,” Sol says, focusing on reversing the car in such a way that he will not run Paxon over. He does his best to ignore the sickening lurch of the car as it rolls over one body, then two. “You really pissed them off.”

Kent glares at the floor of the truck. Yeah, they’re going to have to have a long conversation about this later, assuming they can actually get out of this.

When the truck rolls to a stop beside them, Paxon yanks the passenger side door open and climbs in, turning as they do so to shove their sword straight into a lunging man’s open mouth and up into his brain.

“Uh—” Sol swallows. “You good?”

“If you are,” they snap, settling into their seat and slamming the door closed.

“We, uh, we are, we’re—” He clears his throat awkwardly. Kent is still glaring at the floor, and Paxon is staring out the window, which a woman with blood running down her chin is now throwing herself against. “We’re great. Yeah.”

Sol puts the car clumsily into drive and slams his foot down on the gas, apparently a bit too hard.

A small dark figure is illuminated by the headlights for a second before they disappear under the truck’s tires. Sol forces himself to keep his eyes on the road and orders himself not to think about it.

He almost swerves to avoid the next one, but Paxon reaches over and puts their hand on the wheel.

“Just hit ‘em,” they say in a low, flat voice. “It doesn’t make a damn difference either way.”

Kent makes a horrified sound from the backseat, and winces badly when the car thumps over the woman’s body.

“Uh,” Sol squawks.

“Look at ‘em,” Pax says. “They’re running right at the damn tires. They don’t give a fuck what happens to them, so why should we, huh?” They look straight forward through the windshield, and don’t look at Kent, who Sol can see jolt in the backsea; Kent tangles a hand in his own hair and pulls it, hard; Sol winces.

The next one Sol hits leaps right at the front of the car and slides up onto the hood, hitting the windshield with a sick crack. Kent squeezes his eyes shut, and Pax glares straight ahead, though their hands tighten into fists on their bloody pant legs.

“Um,” Sol says. “Are we gonna talk about this, or...?”

“No,” Kent says flatly.

“Ain’t a damn thing to talk about,” Pax snaps.

Sol rolls his eyes. “Oh, yeah, right, fine. My bad.”

The last one is another woman, and the headlights catch in her blonde hair for a second, and Sol can’t help but swerve to avoid her. He very carefully does not look at Paxon, who scowls at him.

Finally he rolls his eyes and shoots Paxon a glare, and then he glances up at the rear view mirror to include Kent in it, too. “I’m not picking sides here, okay? I think y’all are both fuckin’ nuts.”

Pax pouts. Kent does too, a little bit.

“First of all,” Sol says, “fucking cool it with the martyr complex a little, okay, Kent? Jesus.” Kent flinches, and opens his mouth to protest, but Sol holds up one hand for silence, keeping the other carefully on the wheel. “And you,” he says, rounding on Paxon. “It’s great that you swept to our rescue, and everything, but fucking forgive us for being a little slower to adjust to the whole ‘zombie apocalypse so murder is okay now’ thing, dude. We’re not all fucking naturals like you apparently are.”

“I saved your life,” Paxon says shortly.

“Yeah, I guess,” Sol says uncomfortably. “And, like. Thanks? But do you for real not get how watching you cut a bunch of people’s heads off does not make us more likely to trust you, man?”

“Oh, Christ, not you too,” Paxon snaps, swinging their sword off their back and slamming it down at their feet. “Do neither of you kids get it yet? The world has changed. Y’all’s idealism or whatever is cute, but it’s also gonna get you both killed.” They reach out and shove at Sol’s shoulder, although not very hard. They don’t even look angry anymore, not really, just— tired. “You’re not supposed to trust me, dumbass. You listen, okay, both of you. I do not require that you trust me. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. And I’m not gonna trust you. And then none of us are gonna be disappointed. Okay?”

Sol blinks, feeling kind of confused and— weirdly hurt. “Uh— yeah, fine. Yeah.”

“Don’t worry,” Kent says, sharply. “We won’t.”

Pax turns back to glare at him. “Well good,” they say with their teeth bared. “You shouldn’t.”

Then they both turn and glare out opposite windows.

The tension is so thick that for a second Sol is almost glad when the engine emits a sharp pop and a puff of smoke and the truck begins to roll to a stop.

“Aw, shit,” Sol says, trying to gun the engine. “Aw, shit, no, not now—”

Paxon presses their hands over their eyes and makes a noise that sounds like it would be a scream if their teeth weren’t clenched. Kent leans forward between the passenger and driver’s seats to watch the plume of smoke drift upwards from the engine.

“Either of you know how to fix that?” he says flatly.

“I know how to hotwire cars, not fix them, man,” Sol says, flopping back in his seat and closing his eyes.

Kent hesitates. “...Paxon?”

Paxon removes one hand from their face long enough to give Kent the finger. “Fuck you, blondie, I can’t do everything around here.”

Kent frowns at the dashboard as if he can somehow guilt the engine beneath into running again. “Oh,” he says. There isn’t really much else to say.

There’s a long and very pregnant pause. Paxon massages their temples. Sol counts to ten, twice, and tries without much success to regulate his heart rate. Kent fidgets and turns in his seat to look out the back window.

“Um,” he starts, unconsciously tapping the back of Paxon’s chair like an impatient five-year-old. “I don’t think you quite— got all of them,” he says hesitantly.

Paxon takes in a long breath and then lets it out, and then they drop their hands and toss their long red ponytail. “Yeah, yeah,” they say, yanking the door handle with a little more force than necessary. “It was getting a little cramped in here, anyway.”

“H-hey— hold on!” Sol yelps, reaching for their sleeve. “Are you out of your fucking mind? We can’t go out there!”

They’re already on their feet outside the truck and repositioning their sword on their back. “Yeah, well, it would also be pretty dumb of us to stay in here and get surrounded. Rein in your underage martyr and let’s jet, babe.” They shoot Sol a shiny and very fake grin and cross in front of the truck toward the woods, boot heels clicking against the pavement. They swing their sword out of its sheath as they go and the metal glints alarmingly in the light from the headlights.

Sol frowns after them, feeling... more intimidated than he wants to.

“I hate to say it,” he mumbles at the back of Kent’s head— the blonde is kneeling on the back seat and staring out the back window— “but I think they’re probably kind of right, man. You coming?”

Kent is silent for a moment, watching the vague forms milling about in the darkness behind the truck.

“Hey,” Sol says, reaching out for his shoulder. “...Kent?”

Kent winces when Sol’s fingertips brush his coat collar, and then he looks down at his hands and mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “sorry”.

“Huh?” Sol retracts his hand hastily. That was a bad idea. In fact, it didn’t happen. He 100% did not notice Kent shaking and reach out to comfort him like somebody’s goddamn mother.

“I said, ‘you’re right,’” Kent says, turning to give him a shaky smile.

Sol blinks at him, debates calling him a liar, reaches for the car door instead. “Yeah, sure, whatever, man. Let’s just— let’s go.”

The sky is starting to spit rain, and Paxon is waiting for them with their hand on their hip and and expression of almost violent impatience on their face. They raise an eyebrow at Sol and pointedly do not look at Kent. “You took your sweet time,” they say tightly.

Kent, hugging himself a little against the cold dankness of the air, raises a hand to catch a few raindrops and frowns up at the sky. “It’s raining.”

Paxon frowns at him, and then rolls their eyes, turns on their heel and stomps off into the trees. “Yes, sunshine, it is. Thank you for pointing that out.” They sneer at him over their shoulder. “At least you’ve got your looks, kid.”

Kent wrinkles his nose at them, following. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned that,” he says, a few slivers of ice in his voice. “I’m flattered, I guess, but you’re actually not my type, Paxon.”

“Now there’s a surprise,” Paxon says, rolling their eyes.

“Oh my god, you guys,” Sol runs a hand through his hair and tries to focus on not tripping over tree roots. The woods are getting thicker, and Pax is walking very quickly. “Will you please shut the fuck up.”

Kent grumbles, but shuts his mouth. Pax picks up their pace slightly, the ass.

The drizzle is turning into something more like a downpour, now, and still companionable silence is apparently too much to ask.

“What I meant,” Kent snaps after five blissful minutes of nobody snapping at anybody else, “was that it is raining, and we have no shelter, or changes of clothing, or food, or�� or anything.”

“Some of us have weapons,” Paxon says sweetly. “That’s not nothing.”

Kent huffs. “I’m sure that’ll be a great comfort when we’re— what, huddled in trees, freezing to death?”

Sol wrinkles his nose. His own coat, while thick enough to stop the old man’s teeth, is not waterproof and is starting to get kind of heavy with rainwater. By morning it’ll probably smell like a wet sheep, too. Kent might be okay in his oversized black coat, but Paxon’s poncho and leather jacket don’t look warm at all, and they’re certainly not waterproof.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s, uh, a fair point. Do you have, like, a plan, Pax?”

Pax turns on their heel, half-skipping along backwards, dancing over the rough ground in a way that doesn’t really seem fair. “Plans are for squares, kid. Everyone knows that.”

Kent glares at them, discomfort written clear across his face. Sol looks from Kent’s shaky irritation to the tight, tense set of Paxon’s shoulders and their white-knuckled grip on their sword.

“We’re all gonna die,” he says flatly.