#puts Jeremy in a box and shakes it real hard

[rainbowspinch]

Would it be mean to say I love you the day before the worst mistake of our lives?

[ghstandpucks]

Cutting Edge ~ Nathan MacKinnon Ch.1

A/N: Hi everyone! Thanks for reading the prologue of this story and for your feed back! I loved hearing from you! Now I just hope this lives up to the expectations lol I would love to hear feedback on this chapter! Enjoy!

Prologue 

You were on your last handful of boxes as you walked into your new Denver apartment. You were about 10 minutes from the rink in a cute brick building. Large windows let in rays of sunshine as the warm September day came to an end. The downtown Denver lights where starting to come on as people milled about. You slowly unloaded some boxes; thankful the apartment came semi furnished with at least a couch, dining table and bed. You didn’t mind though, having an apartment back home in Anaheim, California, most of your stuff just came with you. What you didn’t need you either sold or took to your parent’s house to store it. You grew up only half an hour from Anaheim, and moved to an apartment there when you were 17. You had graduated high school early, and moved closer for training to focus on making the Olympic team. At first your mom had stayed with you, the both of you going home on weekends. Then at 18, your parents thought it was fine for you to be on your own, seeing as they weren’t too far away. On the other hand, moving to Colorado by yourself was going to be an adjustment.

Sunday morning you got up early and began your day at the grocery store. After unloading, you continued to unpack. Around 3 in the afternoon, there was a knock at your door. Opening it, you saw a package on the ground with your name on it. Taking it into your kitchen, you went about cutting the tape to open it. Inside was dark blue fabric with a card addressed to Coach Y/L/N. Opening the card, it read “Welcome to the Colorado Avalanche Coach Y/L/N. I hope you made it to Denver safely. We are looking forward to having you work with us this season. See you on Monday at 7am!” ~ Jared Bednar.

           You pulled the fabric out and found that it was the warm up/sweat suits that the coaches wear for practice. The jacket was embroidered with Coach Y/L/N on the upper right, and the Avs logo on the left. You smiled to yourself and ran to your room to try it on. Looking in the mirror, you could not help but laugh. The pants were just a little long and looked baggy, but you figured it was meant for men, and hockey players at that. Not your typical leggings or skirts for figure skating. Picking up your phone, you facetimed one of your best friends/ older brother figure, Jeremy Abbott. “JER!” you yelled as he answered.

           “Y/N! There is my favorite little superstar!” He yelled back just as happy. The two of you had always been close. You met at your first senior worlds competition while you worked with the same choreographer that he did that year. He took to showing you the ropes of the competition and took you under his wing. You were each other’s biggest supporters, with you even standing in for his coach at a few competitions. “Check out the threads!” he laughed as you modeled your new outfit for him through the mirror.

           “The pants are kind of baggy, but isn’t it awesome! I feel so official!” you squealed, overly excited.

           “I’m sure you can opt out of wearing those if you wanted to,” Jeremy suggested, unpacking one of his boxes. He was set to work with the Minnesota Wild this season.

           “Probably. But I at least want to show up tomorrow with everything on to show I appreciate it. I definitely was not expecting this,” you replied.

           “True. At least you got a whole outfit! I only got a t-shirt,” Jeremy laughed. You talked a bit longer with each other before saying your good bye’s and good lucks for tomorrow.

           Waking up the next morning, you were nervous but excited for this new experience. You put your coach’s outfit on, straightened your Y/H/C hair, and put on a little makeup. From always wearing a tone of makeup for competitions, on a daily bases you didn’t like to wear much. Most days you just threw on some foundation and mascara. You wanted to look nice for your first day with the Avs, but not like you were trying to hard. To be honest, you were looking forward to meeting the team, but you knew things had to stay professional because of the position you were in. And if you wanted to be a good spokesperson and liaison for the organizations, you had to remain professional. From training in Anaheim, you were friends with some of the Ducks, so you didn’t think it would be too difficult to work with the Avs.

           Upon arriving at the rink, Coach Bednar was waiting for you with a few others. Not only did it look like other coaches, but media people as well. You smiled as you walked up to them. “Good morning!” you spoke cheerfully.

           “Good morning Y/N. It’s good to see you again,” Bednar shook your hand as you walked over, a few pictures being taken. You were relieved when you saw that they were all wearing the same outfit as you. While you got ready this morning a thought crossed your mind that maybe they didn’t wear them and you would be left looking like you were trying to hard. After being introduced to the other coaches and taking a quick group photo in front of the rink, you followed Bednar as he showed you around. “And one more thing,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Now you are official,” he smiled, handing you a whistle. You were slightly embarrassed over how excited you became putting it around your neck. As you went to thank him, a voice came from behind you.

           “So you must be our figure skater!” You whipped around to see a handsome man with a charming smile on his face. “Gabriel Landeskog,” he held out his hand to shake. You smiled and shook it.

           “Y/N Y/L/N. It’s nice to meet you,” you replied.

           “Gabe is our team captain. The guys shouldn’t cause you any trouble, but Gabe will be looking out for you also,” Bednar said.

           “Of course. If you need anything just ask Coach Y/L/N,” Gabe nodded.

           “Thank you, I appreciate it. I’m looking forward to working with you all,” you stated. Gabe walked away to the locker room laughing to himself. Walking in, he went right over to Nate.

           “Oh you are screwed,” he joked. Nate looked up at him with concern.  

           “What do you mean?” he asked, confused by Gabe’s statement.

           “I mean, if you thought our figure skater was attractive on the video, which I’m pretty positive you did, you’re going to fall when you meet her. She’s adorable and I’m sure Mel will want to adopt her at some point,” he whispered so no one around them would hear. Nate couldn’t help the redness that started to creep up the back of his neck. So Gabe had caught his look the other day. He was trying to think of something to say as Bednar walked in.

           “Get ready and let’s go gentlemen. You all have a new face to meet and she’s already out on the ice,” he chuckled, before leaving the room to head to the ice himself. Gabe sent Nate a wink as he went to put his own skates on.

           One by one the team filed out of the locker room and out on the ice. You were standing around center ice listening to the coaches talk and getting to know them better. They seemed welcoming enough, which was comforting. You tried not to pay too much attention to the team skating a few warm up laps around you, forcing yourself to be actively engaged in the conversation the coaches were having. You could feel your heart start to beat a bit faster though as the nerves sank in. What if they didn’t like you and this whole program failed? Trying to shake off the negative thoughts, you forced a soft smile on your face just as you were taught when you first stepped onto the ice all those years ago. No matter what happens, you smile.

           Coach Bednar blew his whistle and the team started to gather in front of him, taking a knee. You turned to the team as you stood behind the head coach, in line with the others. You tried to avoid any prolonged eye contact as you swept over the team briefly. Nate on the other hand was having a difficult time listening to what Bednar was saying as he stared at you. He wasn’t the only one, others were also trying to size you up and figure you out. How much of the girl they saw in the clip were you in real life? As you stood there in the baggy coach’s outfit and your hair pulled into a ponytail, the only thing that seemed to resemble that girl was the smile you offered them. Eventually, Bednar finished what he was saying and turned toward you, motioning for you to join him. You glided over and placed your toe pick in the ice to stop, a slight motion that did not go unnoticed by a bunch of hockey players who had no toe picks. “This is Coach Y/L/N. I’ve already told you guys a bit about her, but why don’t you introduce yourself,” Bednar said to you. You nodded and your smile brightened a small amount. Here’s the performance.

           “Hi guys! My name is Y/N Y/L/N. I’m excited to be here with you all and I look forward to getting to know you and working with you. Um, I am the liaison for this program and partnership between the NHL and USFS, so if you have any questions about it feel free to ask me. I can pretty much answer whatever you want to know as I attended like every meeting and helped coordinate it all. And…yeah. I’m just happy to be here and excited to see how this goes,” You said, holding your hands behind your back to hide how much they were shaking. You may be the spokesperson and speak frequently at events, but that didn’t mean you were always comfortable doing so. You glanced around and were relieved to see some smiles, even if they were toothless ones. That was when you caught the eye of number 29. He gave you a soft grin and looked away, almost as if he had been caught. Nate was thankful he had a helmet on so no one could point out the redness creeping its way into his face.

~ ~ ~

           About an hour later, you had a group of about 8 players with you. Since you had to get to know everyone’s skating strengths and weaknesses before you could move forward with a plan of action to improve their skating, you ran them through a basic drill to see which edge and side they stopped and turned momentum on quicker. As you were watching their footwork intently, Nate was watching you, and Gabe was watching him. The captain had never seen his friend so interested in someone so quickly.

           You turned back to the group in a sharp movement after watching Kadri go through the drill and did not pay attention to your own foot placement. Before you knew it, the back of your blade got caught up in the baggy sweats by your other foot and you stumbled forward. Thankfully, from years of skating you had quick reflexes and righted yourself within a second, letting out an embarrassed giggle. You weren’t the only one with quick reflexes though as you saw at least 5 pairs of gloved hands lunge toward you to keep you upright. “You ok?” Nate asked. He had lunged the closest to you, something that did not go unnoticed by Gabe, or the others for that fact.

           “I’m fine, thanks. These things are too baggy. I’m not used to skating in sweats,” you replied, smiling at him and thanking the cold air of the ice rink for already turning your cheeks pink, and not just from embarrassment. You locked eyes with the center, and as his concern turned into a soft smile, you couldn’t help the butterflies that seemed to take flight in your stomach. It seemed like a Hallmark movie moment, until someone spoke up and ruined it.  

           “You could always just take them off,” a voice suggested. You looked up with raised eyebrows to find Tyson Jost looking horrified at the words that he had just uttered. “I didn’t mean it that way! I am so sorry. I meant that you could, like, wear something else. But definitely still wear something. And…”

           “Laps, now” Gabe gave a slight shove to Tyson and the hockey player took off with one more ‘sorry’ being uttered over his shoulder. Gabe then turned back to you.

           “He didn’t mean that in a negative way,” he tried to explain for his teammate. You broke into a smile and laughed lightly.

           “I know. It was kind of fun to watch him sputter though,” you shrugged. Gabe looked shocked. He didn’t think you would take this so lightly, with it being your first day and not knowing everyone’s personality yet. Everyone else started to laugh as they gave Jost a hard time as he came back around.

           “I think you are going to fit in just fine here coach,” Gabe chuckled. You smiled at him and the rest of the players who were laughing as well, nodding along. You turned your attention back to Nate who was still standing next to you and giggled as he sent you a quick wink before skating back to his teammates. Yeah, you think your going to like it here.

tags: @bqstqnbruin​

[misdirectionandmisfortune]

Springtrapped

Fandom: Five Night’s At Freddy’s

Warnings: Child death, child murder, kinda sorta death, torture, animatronics, horror, blood, gore

Word Count: 1275

Note: This is a part of the Labyrinth series, where I recount the entire FNAF story as I see it, through the eyes of the characters. I will be posting them out of order, but there will be a link to a masterpost with them in chronological order here. This is part of William Afton’s story. Enjoy.

Narration

  My heart pounded in my ears. I could hear it over air coming in and out of my lungs, hard and heavy and frantic. Nothing felt real. It was close, I could feel it. It was getting closer and closer, I could practically feel it at my back. It would catch me. I couldn’t let it catch me. 

  My eyes jumped around the room, searching for an escape, a weapon, something. I’d basically built this place, no one in the whole world knew this place better than I did. Where could I go? Where could I hide? The answer came to me suddenly, ringing in my ears, sharp and undulating, like an aluminum bat hitting a metal pole.

  The backroom.

  The backroom was my safe space. It was meant for blood to be spilled, for final screams, for the rush I felt when someone took their final breathes, for accidents that no one else would know about. It was made to cover things up. It was made to hide.

  I skirted down hallway after hallway, passing rooms with lonely tables and abandoned toys. I looked for the room, the one tucked away from customers and cameras. There. I tried to turn the knob, but my shaking hands and racing brain made my fingers slip and slide over the brass. Eventually, I managed it. The creaking and scraping of metal on linoleum was getting louder and louder. I slammed the door shut.

  The first thing I noticed about the room was the smell. It smelled of rot and sweat and blood. The room was dingy and made entirely of soulless concrete. Scattered patches of scarlet blood stained the walls and the floors. A moldy, golden fursuit lay in the corner farthest from the door. When I laid my eyes on the familiar bunny suit, all I could hear was screaming.

  So. Many. Screams. All of them overlapping, but I could hear them distinctly, somehow.

  I heard Charlie’s muffled cry as a knife entered her chest.

  I heard Susie’s wail for her long dead dog.

  I heard Cassidy’s wordless scream for help.

  I heard Jeremy’s shriek of horror as Gabriel let out his own scream of pain.

  I heard Fritz’s call for parents who would never come.

  I heard the familiar scream of every child whose light I snuffed out.

  But, then I heard ones I’d never heard before.

  I heard the mournful howl of the parent’s of those same children whose lives I took for myself.

  I heard Elizabeth’s scream as her life was consumed by my own creation.

  I heard my son’s cry of fear cut short by the jaws I had crafted with my own two hands.

  I tore my eyes away from the SpringBonnie suit, and the screams cut off abruptly, leaving me with my churning stomach in a grim room filled with nothing but pain and fear. For a moment, for one moment, I felt guilt rise to choke me, but a pounding at the door caused everything to freeze.

  Shit. Fuck. Shit, it saw me. Fuck, shit. What do I do? I’m trapped. My eyes darted over every corner of the room. What could I do? There was nothing here, only windowless walls, blood, and--

  The springlock suit.

  That��� thing after me. It wanted revenge, didn’t it? It was them. The ones I’d locked underground with my daughter. And the suit. I always used that one, when I lured them. I could never bear to wear FredBear after what happened to him. They would be scared of it, surely. They were monsters now, but, deep down, they were still children. It could protect me.

  I scrambled to put it on. I tried to be careful of the springlocks, but the pounding on the door grew louder and louder, and my hands were too shaky and my mind too scrambled. I secured the parts to my body as best I could and then I waited. It was trying to break through the door. It managed to dent the metal but it held strong. Reinforced doors. I wasn’t stupid. I tried to control my breathing, tried to calm down, but my heart still pounded in my chest and my breathing was only slightly less rapid. Then, suddenly-

  The noise stopped.

  The world came to a halt, as did my breathing and my heart froze in my chest. My mind raced, but whatever thoughts went through my head, I couldn’t tell you. They disappeared as soon as they came, evaporating into the void. The door handle began to slowly turn, and I could feel my chest start to scream for air. It had learned how to open the door.

  The door creaked open agonizingly slow. The door blocked my view of the hallway outside, so I was forced to watch as that thing slowly slinked in. Metal parts and wires wriggled and writhed as it slithered into the room. It’s shape was vaguely humanoid, though cables and cords dragged behind it like intestines on the outside of someone’s body. It wore the head of a Funtime Freddy model, though it was dirty and broken. It locked eyes with me and we both froze.

  “You.” It said, it’s voice a chorus of metal scraps and static, the undertone of a Funtime Freddy voice box mixed in. 

  I swallowed, but said nothing. It did not approach. A beat passed. Then another.

  With a jolt, I realized that I was right. It was afraid. My thoughts had been frantic and not at all rational, but I was right. The relief swamped me, overwhelmed me, and before I knew it, I was laughing, feeling lighter than air.

  I laughed,

  and laughed,

  and laughed.

  I didn’t notice the springlocks of the suit loosening, nor the shift in attitude of the creature in front of me.

  “Fitting, that in your attempt to escape us, you end your own life.” It said. Before I could even pause to consider what the hell that meant, I heard a snap.

  Shit--

  A choke cut off my laughter as thousands of tiny metal rods pierced my throat, my skull, my limbs, my whole body. I gurgled as blood filled my throat, and I doubled over and collapsed on the ground. Blazing agony shot through my whole body as I began to drown in my own blood. And yet, laughter still danced in the air, mocking my pain. It… That creature was laughing at me. Rage set my body alight, and hatred bloomed in my chest. It was laughing at me, mocking me. I wanted to scream, I wanted to curse, I wanted to kill it, to break it down into small little parts and melt it into nothing, I wanted to hurt it. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do any of those things. I couldn’t even think. I could only writhe in pain on the floor, every movement sending a jolt of pain through my entire body. In that moment only three things existed. Pain, anger and laughter. 

  And that’s all there ever was. Even after the creature skulked out of the room, and the door shut, taking the light with it. The laughter echoed in my head as I lay twitching on the floor. Blood pooled around me, joining the stains of those children I’d killed, but the pain and the rage and the laughter never faded. There was a distant part of me that wondered why I hadn’t died, but to the rest of me, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was going to hurt it. I was going to hurt it so much worse than it hurt me.

[bcketts]

TASK 09. GOODBYE ALLIE!

thank you.

it's bittersweet waking up the next morning. she doesn't bring much with her, most of her stuff is still at georgetown, but she remembers thinking of when she first arrived at gallagher; how scared she was, how much she wanted to leave. she looks back at the fortress and pretty much thinks the same things, and by the time the hour-long car ride to washington d.c. is done, gallagher already feels a bit like a dream. the only thing that makes it seem real at all is jack's old watch, heavy on her wrist and clunky. it's already got a few scratches from where she keeps banging it on things, throwing her hands up in the air or about, whacking it on doors and windows. but it's a sturdy thing.

dazed and confused.

they're all allowed to pick up their things, which have been packed haphazardly into boxes for them by residential life, but allie gets two boxes. there's not much she can do with them but decide to ship them home, so she takes an uber to the post office with two boxes of things, not caring enough to go through what's inside, but mostly scared that she might start bawling. it's a weird thing, getting her phone back, and she doesn't expect it to be so dang heavy! she also thought she'd have missed a lot more text messages, but she supposes that she traveled with all her best friends, so how could they have texted her? she gets chipotle in town with a few of her friends before heading to the airport, and it feels nice to sit with the other members of the club and do something normal, just for a little while.

bring it on home.

getting home is the hard part, because she hasn't seen her parents in months and she's worried they hate her, but the second she sees them near the baggage claim, tears spring to her eyes and she's running at them full-force into a big bear hug. they smell the same. she loves her mom's perfume and her family's detergent and the way her dad laughs with his belly. but it's obvious that there's something missing, they can all tell, and the presence of their daughter just hammers home the absence of their son. the group hug feels awkward with just three people, like she's not sure where to put her hands without jeremy around, and her parents keep finding themselves saying "you two" or referring to allie as a plural when she's really just one, a half of a whole.

that’s the way.

"i'm sorry about that phone call, while i was at school," allie says.

"that's alright, you were under a lot of stress."

"no, dad, i meant it. i don't believe the same things any more." and she expects to get yelled at, to get chewed out, but he just looks at her and nods and there's a moment of prolonged silence between them.

"sometimes, i'm not so sure myself. but what else is there?" and that makes allie very quiet, and she thinks she understands why her dad clings so hard to the things he believes in, and it's the exact same reasons why she can't keep clinging to them any longer.

over the hills and far away.

what allie doesn't do: visit her brother's grave and mope around her sad house. what she does do: says forget about it and takes off to the hamptons.

she gets one perfect week. that's what she keeps calling it – her perfect week. where she goes to visit levi in his home in the hamptons, flinging herself into his arms and covering him with tiny kisses just because she can. it's a whirlwind of a week where she gets very sunburnt, laughs all the time, and forgets for a while what it's like to be arkansas allie. she misses gallagher allie sometimes, and she wonders if she'll ever figure out how to be the perfect balance between the two, but right now, she's happy to spend many hours feeling someone else entirely: and that someone is rich! or at least as rich as levi madden is! and that someone has a lot of sex and spends a lot of time laughing and even though she's getting a college degree from an ivy league that could make her a whole lot of money someday, allie thinks that maybe being a trophy wife wouldn't be so bad. she loves the way he smiles, or the way he smiles at her, and she tries not to count the amount of times he does it like each one might be the last and she's got to save every single one of them.

she cries her eyes out when they say goodbye at the airport because she knows it's for real this time, and the thanks him for all the ways he made her feel sane, made her feel like herself again when personhood seemed like an impossible label to reclaim. but she also knows that despite all their pretending, that he's from a different world than she is. "don't let yourself be alone," she says, "just because you won't have a normal person life doesn't mean you shouldn't have people." because most of all, she's terrified that one day levi will be forty-something and he'll look like jack, packing his bags up with no one to go home to. "okay? and please write. you promised. or, i guess you could text me, if you want to be all twenty-first century about it." and she kisses him one last time but she's so caught up in her head about it being the last time that she can't really enjoy it, not properly.

what is and never should be.

allie goes home sunkissed and smiling, because it's sad but it's the final goodbye in the weirdest chapter of her life thus far. and then, summer resumes like normal. she's going to church on sundays with her parents, working the food drive and the bake sale, and facetiming imogen, marlowe, or luce, or...whoever will pick up the phone at any chance she can get.

on the fourth week, she develops a urinary tract infection. this is because she hates to go to the bathroom and she's always holding it, because she knows to get to the toilet, she's going to have to walk by jeremy's room and remember that he's not inside, and wonder what it looks like. so, she makes herself sick, from holding it all in. but it's sort of a wakeup call, a way too obvious metaphor – almost like it was created by a really uncreative writer. she's got to face things eventually.

since i’ve been loving you.

allie can't even open the door to jeremy's room at first, mainly because her parents have plopped his big box of stuff right in front of the door. everything else is exactly how he left it. there's gum wrappers in the trash can, socks strewn across the floor. she checks under the bed and that's how she knows her parents haven't been there – there's still that box of dirty magazines, which atty used to make fun of jeremy for having. "you do know there's the internet, right?" but jeremy was into it for the aesthetic, there was something so much more authentic to jerking off to something on print rather than pixelated. and atty would say it was pretentious. conversations like this used to make allie want to die, and they still do, because she kicks the box back and whispers, "euch." and his weed is still in the sock drawer, which is a remarkably boring place to have put it. he never used to smoke or do anything until he went to college, but allie blames atty's influence. a while ago, allie would've been a good sister and thrown it out, in case her parents ever did catch him for all the weird stuff hidden in different drawers, but instead, she puts one of his led zeppelin records on and lights up, but she has to facetime milena to figure out how to use the grinder, so perhaps it's not as poetic as it sounds.

and then she goes through the box of stuff from his dorm. there's a lot of pictures of imogen, of course, and that makes her heart hurt, because she can literally see where he used to keep them on his walls, the holes of old push pins. his violin, his skateboard, all the things he used to do to keep himself occupied. allie never knew someone so busy and so lazy at the same time. she sighs, lays down on his bed and looks up at the ceiling, knowing every crack and line by heart. it aches, everywhere, but she has to get up to skip stairway to heaven, since that's just too dang ironic.

ramble on.

allie visits his grave on the last day of summer, but it's nothing like his room. she goes with her parents and allie's a sympathetic crier, so when her mom cries, she cries too, but she can't help but think that this isn't where jeremy is. with all the dead people. he's in his room, with all the things that made him himself, or he's at georgetown, laughing with her and her friends in an amnesty international meeting. he's still around, in a way. he's just not here.

bring it on back.

it's the first time that she's ever traveled from pointsett to washington, d.c. alone, but by now it's late august and she's feeling alright, almost excited for the fresh start – to see steph, hudson, and matt again, to start dreaming again how they'll save the world. because it's always more exciting to conspire with friends than alone. but of course, thoughts of gallagher academy linger in the back of her mind, and as she moves to get her bag, she whacks the clunky watch on her wrist on the overhead compartment. she shakes her wrist out, but she smiles as she wheels her suitcase down the aisles and head to hail an uber, grateful for the small reminder that she's not alone, and that it wasn't a dream.

[smokeybrand]

Breaking the Rules

So the Snyder Cut finally dropped. Four hours of Snyderisms like slow-mo, dumb kinetic camera work, and relentless edge. Now, I'm a card-carrying Marvel shill. Been real transparent about it for years. Marvel is my sh*t and Spider-Man is my favorite superhero. That said, i do like DC. I always give them a fair shake. Hell, my favorite capeflick is The Dark Knight. I even like Watchmen and that was a slog to get through. I’ve seen every film in the DCEU and they have left me wanting. A lot of DC heads write off my opinion because of my Marvel bias but let’s be serious; The DCEU is inferior to the MCU in almost every way. As it is, the DCEU needs to be better. It needs better storytellers. It needs a better plan. It needs a Feige. Snyder is not that dude and i don’t think Wan is either. I think WB and ATT have to figure out a way to coalesce this sh*t because it’s all wonky, especially now that we have this Snyder Cut. I’ve already reviewed a Justice League before so all of the observations i made about performances in that, stand. This is more what i think this version does better and worse.

The Better

This opening is much better and makes more sense. That Super Death Wail as the principal genesis of Steppenwolf’s conflict, the thing that wakes that first Motherbox, makes way more sense that whatever the f*ck Whedon did.

This thing definitely looks so much more gorgeous that that first run. Zack Snyder can’t plot a story to save his life but this motherf*cker can compose a shot, for real. Snyder is an idea man, a cat that just wants to make cool looking sh*t, but this ain’t the medium for that. You can have all the beautiful shots in the world but if they are tied together by a shoestring of a narrative, then it’s just polished sh*t, you know?

The extended Aquaman intro was outstanding. Whedon didn’t let this scene breath and, seeing it as it was intended, that was a mistake. Seeing this version of Justice League kind of makes Josstice League in it’s entirety, a mistake. It’s weird that this was cut because it’s so good and shows so much more of Arthur.

Jeremy Iron’s Alfred continues to be my second favorite Alfred after Michael Caine. Sorry, Michael Gough...

Wonder Woman’s first scene in this, the one with the terrorists, is ridiculous. This one scene is a perfect example of the difference between the two versions of this film. Snyder’s is better, if way more brutal than it needed to be. Still, i love the warrior version of Diana so I'm good with this.

Speaking of Amazons, Snyder, apparently, put them in more clothes this time around? I couldn’t really see for sure because of the color correction but it didn’t seem like they weren’t rocking those iron bikinis like in the Whedon cut. I think Joss Whedon might be a bit more problematic than we think. Between the half naked chicks, the way he kept sexualizing Diana, the fact that there are no people of color in his version or the way he shortchanged the entirety of Cyborg’s plot... Breh.

Steppenwolf is SO much more menacing in this version of the movie. Dude feels like a force, like a proper threat an not just some stop-gap for something better. Ol’ Wolfie was a decent antagonist for an initial run at an Avengers-esque team up for the DCEU. Definitely more Loki this time around and less Ultron like the first time.

Also, the Parademons look much more dope. The first time, they looked like fodder. This time, they actual felt like a force, like a horde.

Hey, we got an Atom sighting!

Not a ton of Iris West but enough to wet my appetite. Anytime i get to see Kiersey Clemons in stuff, I'm happy. Having it tied to an outstanding sequence demonstrating Flash’s powers was just icing on the cake. Seriously, Snyder did a great job visualizing Barry’s abilities. That scene where he saved everyone from the debris and then the subtle reversing of time; All of it was dope to see.

Are those Starros that Steppenwolf is using to “interrogate” the cats with Motherbox stink on them? They look like little mechanical Starros. I hope they’re Starros.

Lots of Cyborg stuff. Like, intricate Cyborg stuff. The sh*t Whedon cut of Vic was instrumental to the coherency of this story and dude was just like, “Nah.” It’s no wonder that version of the movie doesn’t make any f*cking sense.

Hey, we got a Spectre sighting! Nice.

The explanation for the Motherboxes and their mcguffin-ness goes a long way to soothing the whole “resurrecting Superman” thing. Snyder basically tells the audience they’re magic boxes that can do anything because of magic-technology. It’s a little ridiculous considering what Motherboxes actually do in the comics but whatever. It makes sense in this universe i guess.

All of the action scenes are better. All of them. Snyder is nothing if not a cat that can actualize a dope punch-out. Dude can’t get out of his own way when telling a story but if you need a fight scene, Snyder is definitely your guy.

Speaking of, that climax was WAY better. It carried far more weight and there were times when the heroes felt like they could lose. There’s an unrelenting tension that grips you hard and doesn’t let up until it finally does. I appreciated this way more than the first one, even if it’s dumb edgy for no reason.

The Worst

Zack still doesn’t understand these characters, man. It’s very apparent to me that a lot of this is just window dressing for kind of a Zack Snyder fan fic version of DC and that’s fine i guess? Sh*t’s not my cup of tea but a great many people seem to like it. Dude’s writing can definitely be tighter and he can skew a little more toward the heart of these characters but i mean, it’s called Zack Snyder’s Justice league for a reason.

The Snyderisms, man, they are all over this thing. Look, i just don’t like how Zack makes movies. Too much style, not enough substance, or rather, not enough focus. He has a ton of great ideas but gets too bogged down in how sh*t looks, or tumbles down his rabbit hole of concept but never expresses any of them clearly enough. Outside of 300 or Dawn of the Dead, this film is probably the most focused I've ever seen Snyder and it’s still kind of all over the place yet, never where it needs to be.

So many plot holes, man. Less than before, but so many threads left untied.

This thing didn’t need to be four hours long. Not even close. There were several shots that i thought could have been cut. Like, that three hour version which got the standing ovation was probably the best version of Justice League and we’ll never see it. This version is definitely better than the theatrical run but f*ck is it long. You really feel that sh*t, too.

Cyborg still looks gross to look at. You’d think they’d try and make his weird, angular, body look a bit better upon the redo but nope. This what we get i guess.

Also, why the f*ck the Atlanteans sound British? Why they make Amber Heard do that accent? She can’t do that accent, man. You’re actually asking a chick who’s professionally pretty to act and she can’t act. She’s just pretty. That actually brings up an interesting question; Is Aquaman canon to this universe because Mera in that doesn’t have an accent and her Pops is still alive. This one has an accent and her parents are dead. Or maybe the accent makes it easier to recast Heard later with a British actress? Maybe the Mother of Dragons really is about to be the Queen of the Seas?

Why is this Knightmare sequence in here? Sure, it was awesome to see, pure fan service, but this is the blue balls of blue balls because we don’t have a movie to follow this one. This is it. This is all the Justice League we’re getting. There is no part two or whatever. Why even hint at something more?

The Verdict

There’s a lot to like about this version of Justice League. It is, hands down, better than Josstice League in almost every way. Sh*t is a better film, man, and should have been what we got to begin with. WB did Snyder a disservice by letting him go and then letting Whedon butcher his movie. I don’t like Snyder’s take on DC. I think it’s try-hard, edgelord, nonsense but it is it’s own thing and i commend him for that. Dude has a vision and I'll never take away from from a creative’s inspiration. That said, this thing was a slog to get through. It’s definitely better than what we got before but it’s still not that great and it’s way too long. Three hours is more than enough to tell this story if you make prudent cuts. Still, I’m glad it exists and, if you’re a fan of this world, a fan of Snyder’s work, you’ll love it. For me, as a cat who has no skin in this game, I'm not all that impressed. Per usual, Snyder has too many ideas and that leaves the plot unfocused and meandering at times. In a genre that is predicated on storytelling, you can’t be a bad storyteller like that and just gloss over it with spectacle. That’s disingenuous. At the end of the day, it was entertaining. It was pretty to see. It was a Snyder film.

[whatsrealanyways]

Little things I noticed in BMC on broadway

WARNING: contains spoilers from the broadway previews of the musical Be More Chill

Feel free reed to add on any other cool details you noticed if you’ve seen the show :)

•Christine has rainbow boots in the first couple of scenes (like hardcore holographic)

•When Jeremy buys the Squip, the box opens and smoke comes out of it

•Sync up (new song) before Be More Chill Pt. 2: Jeremy becomes friends with all of the popular kids, it’s really cool cause it further shows how the squip advanced him to the top

•Even at the beginning of the show, Rich slaps his neck and cringes, showing how he’s being controlled by the squip. It’s subtle, and hard to catch if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

•Be more chill pt. 1: instead of “Jesus Christ” after “Everything about you makes me wanna die” it’s “god, this was a mistake”

•Also has brooke and squip making upgrade way more uncomfortable ,, I mean like they’re really close to Jeremy and touching him weirdly

•Brooke and Jeremy kiss a lot in the show, why aren’t we shipping them they seem like they really liked each other.

•A really cool new change is how it shows that all of the popular kids have their own struggles, like not wanting to be who everyone sees them (Jake) and how they want to be seen (Brooke and Jenna) It really explains why the squip would try to connect them. Before there was no character depth to the popular kids.

•Different lyrics and added in notes from jake and Christine’s upgrade lines, new add on shows that everyone doesn’t want to be how people see them. It more serious than the original lines “we’ll get all sporty and play cricket, or get a fourty and just kick it.. etc.”

•Mr reyes lost his british accent, its whatever

•Brooke checks out Jeremy a lot in “Do you wanna ride”

•Squip has holographic converse with his first outfit, I was mesmerized

•I swear to god will started crying during “loser, geek, whatever”

•Troy Iwata is amazing, since George was sick last night I had the privilege to see Troy perform. He even sounds like George while still playing Michael incredibly well. He’s also a skinny legend

•The character who sells the Squip is very creepy, I’m talking shaggy hair (sideburns definitely),has “dying inside” on his dirty and ripped jacket, kinda reminded me of Igor

•In “Guy that I’d kinda be into”, the squip throws confetti into the audience during the “guess there’s a part of me that wants to”

•Gerard (rich) spits a lot

•Squip (Jason Tam) looks like a mix between Andrew Rannells and my old math teacher

•Do you wanna ride: Chloe shows Brooke how to “seduce” Jeremy in the background

•Brooke slaps Jeremy with a straw in do you wanna ride

•“He’s not gross brooke!” Brooke then crushes her soda can in anger in the scene where Chloe talks to Christine about Jake

•Chloe shoves Brooke off of the seat while talking to Christine in the same scene. Poor Brooke she doesn’t deserve this

•Squip has blonde highlights after upgrade

• There’s moving lockers as props and you can see Michael walk behind one, Jeremy shouts “Hey, Michael!” And Michael suddenly disappears (with an electronic sound showing that the squip blocked Michael from Jeremy’s vision) and Jeremy says to himself “huh I could have sworn I saw him”

Act 2

•The squip does some sick spins during Haloween. I’m talking like pirouettes and shit

•Brooke yeets her banana off stage in “The smartphone hour”

•When the squip malfunctions cause of the alcohol he passes out face first on jake’s parent’s bed, later so does Chloe so they just kinda lay on each other the rest of the scene

•In “Michael in the bathroom”, Michael (performed in my show by Troy Iwata) gives a real Ben Platt/Evan hyperventilating singing aspect. He really put everything he had into that performance.

•Right as Michael in the bathroom started playing this dude behind me whispered “this is the song!”

•During the play the squip’s outfit is black with eyeliner and really emo hair, like black gelled hair covering half his face

•During “The smartphone hour” the cast is dressed as girls and rich is in a rainbow unicorn onesie

•Dressed as high school girls, Michael and Mr Heere/Mr Reyes are lifted down from the top of the stage and it’s majestic

•Michael has a jet black bob cut ^^^

•In order to explain his actions when the squip entered him at the mall, Jeremy tells Christine that is was “performance art”, Christine tells Jeremy her dream of performance art which includes getting banned from the bowling alley and “that’s when I give birth to the bowling ball!”

•You can physically see the squip come up with his plan during the pitiful children

•During the play Michael gets knocked out and just kinda lays there in the front

•The play costumes are mostly bright like green and every single one covered head to toe in sequins.

•On the poster for “a midsummer’s night-mare” it says “Seauins donated my Natasha

•Micheal fucking smashes through a wall to make an entrance

•When Jake pours out the Mountain Dew red it took like 30 solid seconds for him to do so, it was 2 liters of it and it made it really awkward.

•When Jake starts pouring out the Mountain Dew, Jeremy and Michael scream in unison “NOOO *gasp* OOO *gasp* OOO”

•The squip being destroyed is real dramatic. Jason really pulled it off well, glitching, screaming, plus the stage and borders of the stage (the stage looked like a computer screen) flashed so much it could of given someone a seizure.

•Michael wears a red velvet jacket in “voices in my head”

•Christine changes keys to a minor key mid way through her part of the play (when she sings ‘Jeremy”, giving it an erie sound

•“Rich asks Jeremy is he (Michael) your boyfriend? Jeremy shakes his head.. I was really disappointed how could Will do that to us

•Rich has his lisp come back at the end

•The squip coming back in “voices in my head” is still there, and there’s videos and glitching of the squip on the borders of the stage, showing he’s still there

•I met Joe Iconis, he was sitting in the back of the theatre just chilling there, I didn’t know how he wasn’t swarmed by people. Of course I freaked out, said “Hi jOe” and ran away, but I did manage to get a photo with him. He was so nice.

[honestgrins]

The Worst || Klaroline

Caroline's always looked forward to finding her soulmate, only to find him while dying on her birthday. He's just...the worst.

.

“Hello, Earth to Caroline!” A pretzel landed on her textbook, shaking her from her zoned-out stare. She found Bonnie watching her with concern. “Are you okay? You’ve been acting weird since your birthday. Brooding, almost.”

Bristling, Caroline couldn’t help the wave of alarm rolling down her spine at the mention of her disastrous ‘funeral’-turned-near death experience. “Um, I think I’m still processing the whole thing,” she shrugged. “Post-traumatic stress or something.”

With a cant of her head, Bonnie didn’t seem convinced. But she just reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “Tyler’s a dick for biting you and running away. Maybe he and Jeremy can go off on an adventure together,” she joked with a sad smile.

Caroline was grateful for the easy excuse and almost let herself play along. Holding back the truth wasn’t exactly helping, though, and she probably needed to talk to someone. A witch who could help her brainstorm magical solutions certainly seemed as good an option as any, especially when it was her best friend. “It’s not that. I’ve got this...problem, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“What kind of problem?”

The kind felt like lead in her stomach, she wanted to say, dread scratching at her nerves until she shoved a handful of pretzels into her mouth. Eating her feelings was a lot easier than facing the biggest disappointment of her human life, no matter how short it was or the fact that it was officially over. She forced herself to swallow, but couldn’t manage to meet Bonnie’s eyes. “I think I found my mate.”

Bonnie blinked at her, clearly not expecting that. Worse, she didn’t seem to know how to react. “You don’t look happy,” she finally said, which explained her hesitance. “You’ve been dreaming about your soulmate for forever, and you look...” She trailed off, pity thick in her voice. 

“Scared,” she finished hoarsely. “I’m scared, Bonnie.”

Their hands grasped for each other over their forgotten textbooks, high school midterms suddenly less pertinent than whatever hell had just descended on Mystic Falls. “Tell me.”

Biting her lip, she was terrified of what saying it out loud might mean. Bonnie could hate her for it, Damon would probably kill her as soon as he heard. But pretending it wasn’t real, keeping this secret might kill her all the same. Eyes wide and pleading, she silently begged her friend to love her anyway.

As it turned out, she didn’t even need to say it because Bonnie could read the pain and fear in her face. There weren’t that many new people floating around town, and only one could inspire such a visceral horror.

Klaus.

She used to dream about her soulmate. All kids did, to a point, but it became something of a project for in elementary school. What they would look like, how their hugs must have felt, no detail was too silly for a young Caroline to consider as she methodically listed traits that made her perfect match. They’d listen to her - really listen - and care what she had to say. She’d love cooking them dinner and watch lovingly as they did all the dishes, like her parents did.

Her dad found his soulmate just after her twelfth birthday; the divorce happened not much later. While some figured she’d be put off the whole concept, it only reinforced her belief that love was best meant for the other half that existed somewhere in the universe. She may have learned to be slightly more flexible in the possibilities, but she wanted it more than ever. Finding a mate must be an incredible, undeniable experience. Her dad never would have left her behind for anything less than that, right?

Growing up was a lonely time, made more so by her mother’s promotion and the empty house that remained. She threw herself into school and clubs and every conceivable opportunity in Mystic Falls to keep herself busy, maybe around people who wanted her around. Bonnie and Elena would always be the nice girls, more popular and generally well-liked in a way her abrasive personality would never allow. But Caroline could be useful. She liked being useful.

That, however, often led to being used. Her soulmate could never use her, she thought. They wouldn’t want to, they just wouldn’t.

She’d read every self-help book about soulmates, scoured advice columns, and all but interviewed every mated couple she knew. Caroline wanted to know how they knew. What made a soulmate, and how could they be recognized? For most, it was the first brush of skin, a handshake or a hug. Others claimed there wasn’t one moment, and they couldn’t quite remember when they realized a friend was a soulmate - but it was absolute and they never looked back. Some knew on their first date, others after having sex for the first time. Bonnie’s Grams said she found hers just by meeting his eyes from across a crowded party; she kind of wanted to chalk it up to the Bennett magic, as romantic as the story was to little Caroline.

Whatever the set-up was, the punchline was always the same for human soulmates: a hole in their chest, one they never noticed or worried about, felt full and warm and right.  And she’d felt that lying in Klaus’s arms, his blood staining her lips. She’d been scared, achy, and livid - she also felt right staring up at this beautiful monster, promising her a thousand more birthdays like they were a gift. Like he hadn’t just held her life in his hands and gambled with the outcome.

Her soulmate had tried to have her killed. That should have been the horrifying part of the story, her mate being a thousand-year-old wolf-vampire hybrid with the power to compel her, all while he made her friends’ lives a living hell. Despite the supposed bond they were meant to share, she had no doubt that he would use her for whatever he wished and toss her away just as easily. But there was more. 

“Bonnie,” choked out, “I don’t think he recognized me as his soulmate.”

.

Klaus scrawled the note as an afterthought, having originally planned to drop the dress and his mother’s invitation on the doorstep with nary a word otherwise. But he had hesitated before ringing the doorbell. She’d looked tired as she arrived home, a little wary - far from the fighting spirit he’d met on her birthday. Plaguing his thoughts since, she would suit the dress well. He wanted her to know it was from him. 

So he left his note and flashed away, content to let the matter settle in the back of his mind until the ball that night. 

That was his plan, anyway. In truth, he spent an hour or two sketching details of her obstinance. Another hour wasted away with him focused on the curve of her mouth as she fought against sleep, something like awe in her expression. That face had haunted his own dreams, and he couldn’t understand why. Baby vampires were a dime a dozen, and he’d killed hundreds - thousands - just like her in his life. She wasn’t even the first one he’d saved with his new, uninhibited blood. 

Yet, she lingered, and he didn’t quite know what to do with that. Caroline Forbes had intrigued him. With the new era of peace his mother supposedly wanted, perhaps he could while away the days seducing the sheriff’s daughter into her new life beyond mere mortality. 

Klaus found he quite liked the idea.

.

She never meant to tell him. The ball had been a disaster, pretty dress or no, and she’d ended up tossing the diamond bracelet at his feet. For someone so adamant he couldn’t possibly have a soulmate, he’d worked pretty hard to appeal himself to little, old her. 

And he’d seemed so wistful about being a product of his mother’s soulmate, how Mikael had hated that love and punished him for it all those years. She thought...maybe... But she wasn’t going to tell him. Naming herself as his mate would just sign away her freedom, if he didn’t kill her outright. The guy was nuts and always looking for his next power trip, and Caroline refused to just hand it over in the form of her stupid, fated heart. 

Curiosity had always been her hallmark, though, and she asked one question too many. 

He seemed sad, even when he was flirting with her. Heart pounding, she kept her arms tightly crossed to keep from reaching for him. It was a stupid impulse, yet it felt so natural to want to lace her fingers through his and give a comforting squeeze. But he was just so aggravating, and she wouldn't let herself feel sorry for him - and she told him exactly what she thought about siring hybrids for his own amusement.

"You're making assumptions," he said in a soft voice that belied the danger in his expression.

"And you're lonely," she accused right back. "So you compel yourself minions and cart your family around in boxes, or you try to buy people off." She unlatched the bracelet like it had burned her wrist and let it drop between them. "Life doesn't work like that, Klaus."

A smirk clawed up his cheeks as he looked at her like prey. "Life works however I wish it, sweetheart. You're young, likely still hoping to fulfill all those human dreams you've yet to let go. College, a career, maybe even a happy marriage with a soulmate meant just for you."

Warning bells sounded in her head, but she forced herself to seem unaffected. "Why not? Being a vampire doesn't have to change that."

"Best of luck, sweetheart." His tone dripped with disdain, anger bright in his eyes. "If you don't find them in this lifetime, you'll be spending those birthdays I promised alone."

"Are you sure about that?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Caroline wasn't thinking, it just fell out of her mouth, bitter and pained. She could feel him watching her closely, and she needed to leave before she did something worse. "Never mind," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. " You don't connect with people because you don't even try to understand them." Though she dearly wanted to sprint all the way home, she kept her pace steady and tried to find peace in the haughty clack of her heels.

But she wouldn't find peace, not with Damon and the rest throwing her to the hybrid as the little, blonde distraction. Once more, she found herself surprised with the effort he put forth. Not surprising at all was how charmed she felt by his attention, and she hated herself for that. He'd been so earnest, though, daring her to get to know him and looking up at her with those big, hope-filled eyes. Whatever game he was playing, he had all the right moves to keep pulling her in when she should have known better. Her ignored instincts were proven right when his whole persona turned on a dime, gripping her by the arms and staring her down with pure rage.

He was the soulmate of her nightmares, and she felt doomed to love him anyway.

.

Burning the half of his sketchbook he'd already filled with her likeness felt like an empty gesture, but a necessary outlet for the chaos of emotions she seemed to inspire in him. He ran after her, pulled beyond comprehension to follow her confident stride - passing cars and better judgment be damned. The thrill of victory as Caroline sat with him was familiar and yet new, and he was wary of what it all meant. 

His fears, as always, were well-founded considering the attempt on his siblings' lives, and he'd thought to kill her for her part in the scheme. It should have been a simple task, and she would have had no chance at deflecting his attack. She floundered when asked, looking around for someone to save her yet resigned that no one would. 

Klaus didn't like that, and he didn't know why. He'd physically recoiled at the terror on her face, instead distracting himself with pursuing the more immediate threat. With the Salvatores momentarily put off, however, Caroline appeared to be a more sinister presence in his life than he anticipated.

If only that didn't make her so damn intriguing, then he could finally be rid of her. A part of him wondered recklessly whether there was more to the young vampire than the sudden infatuation of a hybrid set free of both curse and father. Then he'd quickly discard that line of thinking; it simply wasn't possible.

.

They were going to kill him.

Bonnie was the one to tell her about the storage locker, warning her not to do anything rash. With Damon and Alaric gunning for him, though, she only had so much time to debate the pros and cons of letting Klaus die. She was in her car before Bonnie had even hung up, half-formed plans running through her mind as she drove.

Parking behind a large truck in case Damon was still lurking about, Caroline didn't let herself hesitate to find the coffin he had hid her soulmate in, the dramatic ass. Luckily, the building was deserted as far as she could tell, and she flashed to the unit where Klaus was supposedly stowed. Her heart clenched at finding him in chains, only to jolt in surprise at finding his eyes open and watching her. "Hi."

He just blinked, and she could just see the gears turning in his head. "You're...the worst," she sighed, looking down to break the lock. "You are a power-hungry control freak who takes his daddy issues out on everyone who dares to make their own choices," she continued, moving onto the loosened chains. "Compulsion, sire bonds, straight up murder, none of that is good. I'm scared there's no line you won't cross, and I'm scared that it still won't be enough for me to leave."

It looked like a gargantuan effort for his desiccated forehead to crumple in the shadow of a frown. Gritting her teeth, she blew out a long breath. "But I'm more scared to lose my soulmate before he even knows." Caroline bit into her wrist and shoved it against his mouth, daring him to fight her claim when he tasted her blood for the first time.

Eyes wide and alarmed, Klaus dutifully drank until his skin gained back some color and his veins began to recede. When she made to pull away, his hand suddenly circled around her arm and held her still. He retracted his fangs from her skin, but left his tongue to tease the slowly healing cuts and clean any remaining blood. 

Shakily, she stepped back and he let her go, though he quickly stood to follow her. "Caroline," he said, voice low with awe. 

"Not now." She shook her head, flashing out to the car, confident he wouldn't be far behind. "We have to get going before anyone notices you're gone. We're gone," she corrected.

Klaus slid into the passenger seat, seemingly unable to look away from her with a small grin on his face. "Rome, Paris, or Tokyo, sweetheart?"

Rolling her eyes, she put the car in gear and sped away from the storage center. "Wherever we go will just be ruined if you come back and kill my friends," she pointed out. "I know you weren't really looking for a mate, but I won't be controlled, Klaus. And I won't let you hurt the people I love."

"And you won't let people hurt me." Her mouth fell slack at the implication, and she slid her gaze to find him watching her intently. "Intriguing," he said, almost to himself. "You are certainly more than meets the eye, Caroline Forbes."

"Yeah, well." She gave a helpless grin, completely unsure of anything other than the fact her life would never be the same. "Good luck with that."

[growingpaynes-art]

The Lion King 2019 Review: What I Liked, What I Didn’t, and How It Compares to the Original

Non-spoilery overview and note to anyone debating watching this- 

If you’re looking for this film to give you something that the original didn’t, you will be disappointed. This is a nearly shot-for-shot exact recreation of the original for most of the movie. There are some minor changes, but no major differences in plot. 

However

It’s definitely worth seeing- once on a matinee ticket at the very least- if you enjoyed anything about the original. It’s pretty faithful to the source material and the hyper-realism of the animation really is best viewed on a big screen. The comedy is solid, the changes they made to the story and characters were good decisions, and as a guy that was literally raised on the original movie and grew up loving every part of it, i did legitimately enjoy seeing this remake with my mother (who introduced me to the original when I was very little) and getting to share this story that I loved with my younger sister for the first time.

If all you are here for is the “Let’s Go Lesbians” guy you will be satisfied

Spoilers under the cut

What I Liked:

The visuals of the opening sequence alone are worth the price of admission. They’ve lovingly recreated the iconic intro nearly frame for frame in astounding detail. It really succeeded in taking me back to my three-year old self seeing the original for the first time on my family’s little box tv, captivated by the visuals and score. 

Timon and Pumbaa were legitimately funny and are stronger characters than in the original.

They kept the aspects of Scar that made him sinister, conniving, and creepy without stepping into queer-coding territory. They also didn’t apply racial coding to him in the overt way they did in the original.

At first I was disappointed by Rafiki’s lack of a staff in the opening, but I was later pacified by its appearance for the final battle. I would however, have liked to see the “oh yes, the past can hurt” bit between him and Simba, which was absent in this version.

I felt that the introduction of the hyena characters in the elephant graveyard was stronger in this version, but i do wish that the chase scene had gone on for longer. It’s significantly shorter than the original, and the cubs don’t fight back like they did in the original.

The hyenas played a larger role where they had much more agency, and the relationship between them and Scar was on more equal footing. Shenzi was an especially welcome change, presenting a truly chilling presence easily rivaling Scar’s. Florence Kasumba’s performance really stands out. Additionally Eric Andre and Keegan-Michael Key’s hyena characters served as quality comic relief without any jokes straying into possible able-ism.

The ‘pinned-ya’ scenes were re-choreographed to be more like two kids wrestling and didn’t have the awkward sexual implications some people point out in the original.

This version offers a quick explanation as to why Scar is living with the pride despite the typical customs of real lions

The mouths were really animated very well, and were for the most part very expressive. They were a bit hard to track during the songs, but generally words were formed pretty believably in their mouths and expressions such as smiles or grimaces were rendered very clearly without looking foreign on an animal face. This was by far best achieved on Timon and the hyenas, but was decent on the lion cubs, Scar, and most of the minor characters as well. The other adult lions weren’t as expressive, but they’re weren’t terrible either.

The animation of Timon, Pumbaa, and the hyenas continually impressed impressed me throughout the course of the film. They were simultaneously the most consistently realistic looking and the most expressive. I honestly don’t understand why some people are coming for Pumbaa and saying he’s ‘nightmare fuel’, his design was both very friendly looking and accurate to real warthogs. He and Timon seemed to be the favorites of both the kids and adults in my theater. 

The short scene where adult Simba gleefully pounces after a pair of butterflies and invites a scared Hartebeest hang out, oblivious to his own  status as a carnivore, was pretty adorable.

Timon and Pumbaa were more or less confirmed to be a gay couple, and are shown with their own piglet during the ending sequence. This isn’t lingered on for longer than necessary, just long enough for you to appreciate how adorable the little striped piglet is, and thus it comes off as more genuine than performative allyship (it’s definitely better than Beauty and the Beast’s “exclusively gay moment” or Endgame’s Gay Joe Russo). It also helps that Timon isn’t being portrayed by a straight guy leaning as hard into the camp gay stereotype as possible. It was a moment that I, as a queer person, actually enjoyed.

What I Didn’t: 

I felt that the musical score wasn’t as strong as the original. I wanted that first note over the sunrise to shake the theater, to bang across the screen in brilliant gold, and when it didn’t, I was disappointed. I felt this way regarding the score and soundtrack for much of the film.

While much of the dialogue matched the original nearly word for word, the delivery of most of it was much more subdued. I understand that they were going for a grittier tone that was less cartoon-y, but a lot of Scar and adult Simba’s lines seemed like they were mumbled off at the end of a work day and they’d just given up on trying to get a better take. Donald Glover seemed to teeter between Marshall Lee and complete disinterest a lot of the time. 

I would have liked to have seen more of Rafiki than what we got, and I’d been hoping for an expansion on his role from the original rather than a reduction. 

The “I killed Mufasa” bit was done very well- Chiwetel Ejiofor’s delivery of the line was chilling (although not as much as Jeremy Irons’), the expression in Scar’s eyes was very sinister, the light of the fire hit him just right. The following revelation of this truth to the lionesses however was bumbly, and seemed like it was originally written to be longer but was quickly and awkwardly condensed. It really didn’t flow as well as the original.

The end battle between Scar and Simba was anti-climactic. The choreography and visuals were much more creative and suspenseful in the original. The blows didn’t really have much weight or ferocity to them, and they didn’t coincide as well with the score. There also was no sick kick move, Scar literally just accidentally rolls off the cliff. The showdown between Nala and Shenzi is far better- it’s vicious and animalistic, with a few shots having them silhouetted with fire roaring behind them, Nala’s massive teeth shown off impressively in profile. 

From the very first introduction of Scar, it’s strongly and very overtly implied that Sarabi is the one that gave him the scar after he attempted to advance on her despite her rejecting him. This is revisited again when he commands Sarabi to be his queen upon his assuming of the throne. She again rejects him. With this moment being played twice, I expected this to be a plant for a later third scene of Sarabi temporarily putting Scar back in his place, or at least threatening to take his other eye, to replace the scene from the original where he slaps her across the face. Scar and Sarabi do eventually come to blows as Simba and Nala return to Pride Rock, but it’s very brief and sort of just a clumsy grapple without a clear winner, and with no reference to their apparent backstory. This comes off as a case of planting without payoff. I expect that either a scene such as the one i described was originally planned and cut for time, or it was thought that the implications of such a scene might bring the film up towards a PG-13 rating.

I wish that in the more harrowing sequences, such as the elephant graveyard chase and the stampede scene, that we could see some real fear on the character’s faces. There’s some really good tensing of the body and some bared teeth, but there’s not much in the eyes. I feel the emotion would have been communicated better if the pupils were dilated, if the eyes were darting back and forth with the whites showing at the edges occasionally, the ears flattened down hard against the head.The child actors put forward some really believable fear and sadness through their voices, but the faces just didn’t quite match it. I do however understand that this is a kid’s film, and that showing a hyper-realistic lion cub gripped with sheer terror or coming to the understanding of the gravity of death is probably too much for most young kids. I personally just prefer to have truly heartwrenching, impactful, and emotional scenes in the media I consume, and I often walk away unfulfilled in this respect (although, i admit i am very difficult to please in this area- i’ve been a die-hard mcu fan for the better part of a decade and i left my first watch of infinity war almost completely unaffected.)

Continuing from the last point- The eyes on most of the characters were very static. They rarely blinked, only really looked straight ahead and lacked any range of expression beyond neutral and slightly squinted. The expression of emotion could have been greatly facilitated by the use of the brow muscles, dilating and contracting of the pupils, more squinting and widening, some side-eye or eye-rolling, etc. Even using some more body language would have made a world of difference (for example- an excited cub wriggling with excitement, his paws shifting and his little butt scooting in the sand because he just can’t contain himself, his shoulders shaking with high-pitched giggles) Emotion was delivered quite well through the mouths, but almost not at all through the eyes. This made the scene where Simba discovers his dead father especially awkward looking. JD McCrary delivers some heartbreaking cries and a few tear-choked lines, and the little cub body shakes and cowers, but Simba’s cgi face retains a completely neutral expression. Its a very cute, and perfectly realistic face for a lion cub, but it’s a face that feels inappropriate for this context. Adult Simba and Nala are the worst offenders in this respect. Simba looks almost like a plush doll, almost never changing expression at all. Nala looks superbly hyper-realistic, but... too realistic. She’s as perfect of a cgi lioness model you could possibly ask for, but because of this, there’s no intelligence in her eyes for some of the shots. It’s strange and distracting to hear a human voice come out as her mouth moves realistically while the eyes retain a vacant animal stare. This is really weird to me as there are multiple moments in the film where they absolutely nail the eyes- the sequence where Simba chases Rafiki through the dense jungle, several shots of Nala sneaking away from Pride Rock by moonlight, the close-up of Scar as he reveals to Simba that he killed Mufasa. The commonality between these shots seems to be strong directional lighting, where light from the moon or a fire can catch the irises and make the expression in them really pop. Closeups of Mufasa’s face showed that they had unprecedented control of the facial muscles- they moved with intricate complexity under the skin and fur- and yet the eyes were blank. It’s disappointing that they clearly had the capability to get the eyes right and apparently just didn’t allow the cg artists enough time to apply this consistently.

The slow motion zoom away from Simba’s face as he watches his father fall from the cliff face is admittedly ridiculous looking in cgi. This “long live the king” doesn’t come anywhere close to the original. Mufasa’s climb up the cliff is pretty good, but the fall feels flat and unemotional. 

The sequence tracking the wad of Simba’s hair went on for too long.

The story seemed much faster paced than the original, and each scene seemed to be too short, leaving me wanting more. Some of the scenes feel awkwardly chopped or condensed, and some of the dialogue is a bit bumbly. This movie kinda relies on you being very familiar with the original. 

[softboywriting]

Shifted | A Place To Call Home | Werewolf AU | Shawn Mendes

Summary: You finally escape your former pack and Shawn teaches you to shift. [mention of violence] [dominant alpha shawn] [fluff] Takes Place after Fault

Words: 2k

|Masterlist In Bio|

The feeling of freedom and safety is like no other. It eases the tension in your chest, melts the cold grip of fear around your heart. The realization that you've escaped, truly, once and for all. No longer afraid of who might come in the night. No longer sick with worry for your new found pack. Safe is what you are now and how you swear you'll remain, no matter how hard you have to fight.

Several days following Emmett's attack the alphas of your ex pack came for you, sick of sending betas who only scouted the house. It was a night you cannot forget because never in your life had you felt so terrified, so weak and so god-damned useless. Shawn had locked you in his bedroom, leaving Jeremy to guard you when the wolves began to howl outside and you knew that this would be the turning point in the building tension between the two packs.

The sound of wolves snarling, growling and crying in pain echoed throughout the house. You couldn't block them out, terrified your pack was being slaughtered, but praying it was the other way around. You never wanted this, never wanted bloodshed on your behalf, but the alphas attacked first and Shawn was not going to let his pack die.

Silence fell suddenly. The sound of your heart pounding in your chest must have sounded like a freight train to Jeremy. Your blood was rushing to your head, dizziness threatened to bring you to the floor. You had forgotten to breathe, waiting for an indicator of what was to come next. You looked to Jeremy and he looked to the door, waiting just the same as you were. Just as tense.

The door knob turned and your heart nearly stopped. Shawn walked in, wearing just a pair of sweatpants, chest bruised and scratched. He looked between the two of you and said, “Pack everything up. We're leaving.”

________________

That night everyone packed everything they could fit into their cars and followed Shawn in his Jeep as he headed out of town. You fell asleep against the passenger side window, not knowing where you were headed. Not caring. You had nothing left in that town, anywhere was better than there.

When you woke up, Shawn was parking his Jeep in the driveway of a big brick house. There were no other homes around and the only light was that of the security lamps over the garage doors. Shawn briefly explained this was the house he grew up in, that his parents left it to him when they moved away to England a few years ago.

Everyone unpacked quickly, hauling in bags and boxes of thrown together items. The house was fairly large and still furnished, not even very dusty. You asked how far it was from the old town and Shawn said not to worry, that it was plenty far. You had no choice but to believe him, to trust that he was going to keep you safe.

________________

New. New home. New pack. New beginning.

You never asked Shawn what happened that night. Rosa and Emmett never talk about it. You aren't sure you want to know. All you do know is that you're safe and Shawn is eager to start training you. He wants you to become a wolf, to shift and feel one with the pack, but you know he holds back sometimes. Not letting the other wolves get too rough with you, or keeping you out of some of the pack meetings. He protects you, but only because you're still learning.

“Again!” Shawn yells from the opposite end of the yard. You circle around the tree you've been using as a place marker. He has been having you run and run and run some more, for at least an hour now.

“I need a break!” You huff and puff as you jog toward him.

“That's not running.” He tuts, knocking two fingers under your chin and narrowing his eyes. “Should I chase you?”

“Shawn, I need a break. I'm too tired.”

“You're not getting a break until you shift.”

“I can't!”

“You can and you will.” Shawn unbuttons his dress shirt and peels his tee beneath it off over his head before he starts unbuttoning his slacks. He had just gotten home from work, and wasted no time getting you outside to train. “You're not at a breaking point yet. That's how omegas shift.”

“Pretty sure I am at a breaking point,” you mutter as you turn and get ready to jog again. Behind you Shawn shifts and you hear growling. “Enough Shawn. I'm not shifting today I-”

Shawn lunges at you and you step back, startled by his sudden movement. He's snarling, teeth bared as he stalks towards you. It's definitely terrifying and the fear is very real as you back up.

“You're freaking me out.”

A bark and a growl, he stalks closer, eyes hard set on you.

“This isn't-” You turn and start running as Shawn jumps for you again. Okay he wasn't playing, he was really coming at you.

You take off into the trees, Shawn hot on your heels. It feels like your legs can't carry you fast enough. You're tripping on sticks and other deadfall. Shawn is growling, insistent on his acting, really convincing you that if he catches you, you're dead. One big branch sends you sailing, tumbling down a slope toward a creek. Fear sets in, memories of that cold water soaking you to the bone, a wolf after you, out for blood.

Just as you hit the bank of the creek and tumble to a stop, you feel your body ache, skin seeming to stretch as if it were too tight and something were trying to break through. Your heart races, eyes darting around for an answer to this feeling as Shawn appears before you. You fall limp, arms and legs not able to keep you up any longer. Suddenly you're not so cold, there's a strange stiff feeling as you stand up, not able to get up off your hands and knees.

“You did it,” Shawn says and you stare at him. He's still in wolf form but you can hear him just fine. His mouth isn't moving. “Pup, you're a wolf!”

“I don't like it. It's itchy and I'm stiff. Why can I understand you?”

“The itching and stiffness is normal.” He walks over and bumps his head against yours. “You'll get used to it, and you can hear me because wolves communicate telepathically. You didn't know?”

You shake your head. “I wasn't told anything before becoming a wolf.” You take a shaky step and fall down, legs feelings strange and like jello. “I want to change back. This is weird.”

“That's up to you Pup. But why don't we try at least walking first?”

You stand, legs wobbly and unstable. Trying to walk on all fours felt wrong, hell, being at the height you were at was wrong too. A gust of wind ruffles your fur and it's bizarre, the way it feels familiar as if the wind were blowing through your hair, but foreign because it was all over your body.

“I can't walk? It's too hard. My legs don't work.”

“You're awfully negative today. You also said you can't shift remember? But here we are. Now get yourself moving. Stop thinking about it and just let your body move.”

He's right and you know it and hate it. You are over thinking, caught up in the wrongness of it all. You weren't allowing yourself to relax and just be a wolf, to just move how it felt right. You can do this. It's like riding a bike or learning to ice skate. Just do what feels right.

One step, two, three. You stop and look at Shawn, still much larger than you. He's sitting patiently for you a few feet away. You walk over and sit in front of him. It was odd, you know you look just like him right now, but it still feels like you're a human sitting in front of a wolf.

“I walked. Tell me how to change back.”

“I already told you, that's up to you.” Shawn stands and turns to walk into the woods. His actions are dismissive, like he is refusing to help you. You knew learning from him would be hard, that he won't hold your hand, but guide you enough to find your own way. You know he's not being mean, but firm, and you also know he's doing it for your own good.

You follow after him, quite a bit slower, but nearly at his pace. Just enough to keep his tail a few feet ahead of you. He leads you back to the house and shifts back in the yard, putting his pants back on while he waits for you to catch up. You didn't think about that, your clothes must be in shreds somewhere along the creek, you had been too caught up in the moment to notice. Thank God you had worn some hand me down clothes from Rosa today.

“Tell me how to shift back!”

Shawn reaches down and scratches your head. “I see your determined eyes. I know you want to shift back but it's up to you. There is no big secret.”

“Shawn. Don't leave me like this.” You growl and he just chuckles, heading for the backdoor. He was really going to leave you stuck as a wolf.

An hour passes, still no luck in shifting back. You're laying on your bed, trying everything you can to make yourself human again. You try relaxing, eating, picturing yourself human. Finally you just fall asleep, too exhausted to try anymore.

When you wake, it's from a nightmare. You we're running through the woods, the alphas were after you. Snarling, barking, trying to catch you. You were a wolf, legs still unfamiliar, lower line of sight throwing you off balance. Somehow you are keeping away from the alphas, until you stumble, yelping as you go sailing over a downed tree. Much like today, you went tumbling and landed on the bank of the creek. Warm hands touch your back and that's when you wake up.

Shawn is standing over you with a blanket, seemingly getting ready to cover you up. You look at your arms, your hands. Your human hands. You've shifted back in your sleep.

“Easy, Pup. I'm just covering you up.”

“Thank you,” you mutter as Shawn lays the blanket over your naked form. “When did I shift?”

“Just now, you were dreaming I think.” He grabs a bottle of water off the dresser and hands it to you. “You seemed upset, kicking and yelping, so I came to check on you.”

You sit up and take a long drink and nod. “I was having a nightmare about my old pack.”

Shawn sits beside you, passing you a shirt on the bed that you pull on. It's one of his. The scent is strong, like your sense of smell has heightened from the shift. “How are you feeling since the shift? Fatigue? Hunger? Pain?”

“I'm hungry. Starved actually. Is that normal?”

Shawn chuckles. “Yes, shifting burns a lot of calories. But pain isn't normal. Do you have any? If you do I need to know.”

“No, I'm alright. Just starving and tired.”

He nods. “If you don't mind, I'd like to check you over. I want to make sure your body handled the shift well.”

“Today or...”

“Tomorrow is fine. I'll have you come to the clinic with me in the morning since I have the early shift tomorrow.”

“Alright. Can we get some food now? I think my stomach is chewing on my back bone.”

He chuckles and stands. “Any requests?”

“Pancakes?”

“Alright, pancakes it is.” He leans down and kisses the top of your head, holding your cheeks in his big hands. “I’m proud of you for shifting by the way.”

“Thanks.” You flush and he smiles at you, eyes so soft and warm. So full of love and pride you have to look away. No one had ever looked at you like that, especially not an alpha.

Shawn tilts your head up and you are forced to look back up at him. He still smiling as he says, “Get dressed, Pup, we have pancakes to make.”

____________________________

A/N: Thank you for reading! I know there will be some questions with this part, namely about Shawn, and I promise as I build this series they will be answered. 

For reference though, because I don’t think I had really clarified ages:

You/Reader: 21

Shawn: 25

Rosa: 24

Emmett: 25

Jeremy: 22

[aevus-blogging]

animorph lads and controller gents

Oh. Anon no. Anon, you have given me a nugget for angst by god. Okay okay. So. Sorta yes, sorta no. You ready for a rambly oneshot? Be ready for a rambly one shot

According to the yeerks, James Ryan Haywood and Epslin 413 were dead and devoured by the creatures of the cruel and blistering arizona desert. This was only true for one of them though.

Ryan, he had been an involuntary host, picked up from his dreadful foster home by the Sharing with the promise of free food and a safe zone. He had been too trusting of the altruistic organization, up until the point he was being escorted down into the underground bunker area and having his head forced down into that cursed murky water, a slug alien entering his ear and taking control over his actions.

Years he had suffered in silence, fighting tooth and nail when he could. He watched as the Yeerk piloted his body around, forcing him into an arizonan college (closer to the yeerks home base) and into an IT program, minoring in theatre to keep the facade of Ryan’s love of theatre intact, despite the fact the yeerk despised it. Of course he passed with flying colors and soon found himself in an IT job. Still, eight years later Ryan still fought against the yeerk in his head. It was only by luck that Ryan would find his freedom again.

It had been a call, of him having to hop in a car and drive a few hours away to assist a job. It had been utter luck for him that his car broke down mid way through the drive, even more so that he was on the day his yeerk needed to head into the pit to recharge. Ryan could feel himself laughing at the Yeerk’s misfortune. 24 hours and he was a free man once more. While he was excited, the Yeerk was terrified. He had no cell phone, no Yeerk communication device either. He was alone.

Eventually night fell, and so did Ryan’s body in fatigue. As the night drawled on the Fugue started to hit, racking the yeerk and host both in pain. Slowly Epslin 413 died, memories of former hosts invading Ryan’s mind and leaving themselves there. Four other hosts before Ryan. One Gedd, two Hork-Bajir, and one other human, a teen that had been an involuntary host as well, one that managed to free himself the only way he could in the cage, by death. After what felt like an eternity the Yeerk receded out of Ryan’s mind, shriveled up on the cold desert ground. For the first time in forever Ryan laughed, he was free.

It wasn’t until morning that a trucker would pull off and pick Ryan up, that was the true birth of Ryan the free man, and the final nail in James the Controller’s coffin. That was the start of his hitchhiking to Los Santos, ignoring the news of the search for James Ryan Haywood. He stayed low in the city. Always wearing something to obscure his face, no use in someone actually recognizing him, even worse if it would be a controller.

It was no surprise he was mistaken as a hitman, with the whole paranoia and face hiding thing. It was a surprise that Ryan actually went along with it. Maybe it was the fact he had seen too many deaths in his time as a controller that he was numb to it all, maybe a lingering malicious will of the yeerk that controlled him, or, most terrifyingly, maybe he had always had the capability and willingness. But becoming a hitman was a blessing as much as it cursed him. It gave him more freedom, It made it so when he killed a high level controller the Yeerks didn’t think it was a Yeerk thing but a human thing. So he passed the years like that, picking off the controllers he could, making money off his kills.

Then the Fake AH Crew formed. He was sent an invite, a nice little postcard in his mail from one Geoff Ramsey. At first he panicked. Then he decided if this was somehow Yeerk related it would be best to play along right? Thankfully for him it wasn’t yeerk related. It was a bonafide crew, a gang of criminals. Yet as time drawled on in the crew became more and more of a dysfunctional family. Then the day came when they all died, but at the same time they didn’t. They all came back. Some, like Gavin, were up almost instantly, but others, Ryan, took hours to repair the damage. When Ryan did come back it was full of panic and wondering if Hell was home, which of course causes Geoff to laugh. Ryan gets a welcome to Immortality speech (distantly Ryan is glad that he’s yeerk free, the things the yeerks would have done to him if they knew he was immortal). After that the crew gets closer, due to their immortal status and that the more elder ones finally having people who wouldn’t die in fifty years for the first time in centuries, if not millennia.

Ryan went soft, he had relaxed. Most days he only lounged around the penthouse in simple face paint. It had been a mistake. A grave mistake. Geoff started going off on more and more ‘meetings’ spending little to no time in the penthouse for a month. Then one night the lads didn’t come home. There were reports of a meteor hitting Mount Chilliad (Ryan doubted it was a meteor, it was probably a bug ship that malfunctioned). Ryan just hoped the lads hadn’t gone to it, but knowing them and the fact they weren’t home made Ryan anxious. Jack tried to calm Ryan down, telling him that the lads probably were just drunk and that’s why they weren’t answering their phones.

Then they came home, looking ragged as hell, scorch marks on their clothes. They were full of anxious nerves, distrust showing in their eyes as they looked at the gents, like they were expecting them to attack. Then they asked a damning question.

“So, what do you think of the existence of Aliens?” Gavin asked, the calmest of the lads. Then again Gavin was a grifter, more than a century poured into his craft. But the reactions were imminent in the crew. Ryan froze, flashbacks to Epslin 413 and his time as a controller rearing his ugly head. Ryan wasn’t the only one to react though. Geoff had frozen as well, staring the lads down, expression unreadable.

“Why do you ask Gavin?” Jack asked, genuinely confused. Ryan glanced at Jack, of course she doesn’t know. Ryan was willing to bet Jack had never knowingly interacted with a controller before. Ryan went to drop a retort when he saw Geoff reaching for something out of the corner of his eye, his heart turned to ice as he saw what it was. A Dracon Ray. Ryan didn’t think, he just acted. He leapt for Geoff, wrestling the blaster away, dimly he was aware of the Lads yelling, but adrenaline was high in Ryan’s veins. Geoff was a controller. God knows for how long. In the end Ryan won and was holding the alien gun, pointing it at Geoff’s head, snarl on his lips. The room was silent, the lads recognizing the blaster as alien, and immediately were on edge, reaching for their own weapons.

“Yeerk Fucker.” Michael growled, eyes darting from Ryan to Geoff, trying to figure out who the Yeerk was. Ryan could feel himself shake, but stayed focused on Geoff, the one confirmed Yeerk in the room.

“Bet you can’t even work that.” The Yeerk growled out. Ryan barked out a laugh, deftly armed the blaster from years of practice ingrained in his muscle memory.

“Oh don’t I? These haven’t changed since I was a controller.” Ryan said darkly. The Yeerk inhabiting Geoff twisted his friend’s face into a sneer.

“There are no cases of Hosts getting free.”

“My enslaver was Epslin-413. I was used with the intention of working IT and working my way up in a promising company. ‘I’ had to drive through the Arizona desert from one town to the next for a job. The Yeerk was supposed to go to the Yeerk Pool in the small city after the job was done to recharge there. Fortunately for me my car broke down. No one came along that road, not till the fugue set in and Epslin 413 was long dead. I am James Ryan Haywood. I faked my death to escape you parasites, today you will get a small taste of the helplessness you put my friend in.” Ryan growled out, glancing to the Lads.

“Lockdown, three days. No one leaves or enters the penthouse.” Ryan said, voice hard.

“Yes, yeah. Lockdown. Force the Yeerk in Geoff into a fugue. But uh. I have to get one person and we need to explain ourselves.” Gavin said, dashing to the elevator. Ryan bit his lip, wanting to go after him, but the possibility of Geoff Yeerk getting Free was too much to risk. So Ryan tied Geoff down, and Jeremy tied Jack down. Jack was confused, but was willing enough while Geoff thrashed about, causing Michael to have to hold the older gent down.

By the time Geoff was tied down Gavin was back, with someone who looked very very similar to Trevor, if Trevor wasn’t white. The clothes he was wearing were ill fitting, obviously not his own, and he didn’t even have shoes. The new Guy was looking around before zeroing in on the thrashing controller and then looking at Ryan and the Dracon Ray.

“So that’s the former Controller! Hi I’m Alfredo, not my real name but I like that name much better than my birth name. I’m an andalite and I’m here to help!” He said, then to prove his point he started morphing, ripping and shredding the clothes on his body as he went from ethnic Trevor to alien centaur with stalk eyes. Ryan was immediately at attention, memories of Visser Three flooding his mind.

“Andalite.” Ryan said, nodding to the alien.

“Okay. Story Time on what we did last night.” Gavin said, clearing his voice.

“So last night we were fucking around on Mount Chilliad. We met Trevor up there, he was doing some space stuff. We started fucking around, planning shenanigans. Then the ship fell. We of course checked it out, thinking we could snag some cool military grade shit and then gtfo. It was an Andalite ship. Inside was Alfredo and Elfangor. Elfangor was badly wounded, he was dying. Alfredo was in much better shape. Elfangor told us about the Yeerks, gave us some psychic images of them and imprinted some data of the yeerks in our minds. Then he gave us this.” Gavin nodded to Jeremy, who produced a glowing blue box that had Yeerk Geoff’s eyes bugging out.

“The Escafil Device. Or as we’ve been calling it, the Blue Cube. He. He gave us the morphing ability and told us to take Alfredo and run. We did. Visser Three, he was arriving as we were sneaking away. We heard him kill Elfangor. We ran, once we reached our car we realized we were fucked. Couldn’t take them down. And we couldn’t walk about with a blue horse thing. Alfredo, he did some fancy shenanigans and acquired us all and made his own human morph. So began our two hour at a time trek back home after putting Alfredo in a spare set of Michael’s work out clothes. We eventually got home, told Alfredo to wait in the garage, and well you know the rest.” Gavin said.

“Where’s Trevor then?” Jack asked, frown on her face.

<Glad you asked that oh friend of mine.> A voice buzzed in their heads, sounding like Trevor. In a few seconds a fly began enlarging and becoming more and more human like, grotesquely morphing into one Trevor Collins.

“Put your clothes on.” Michael huffed, tossing some clothes to the stark naked man.

“We’ll have to figure out clothes that go with our morphs.” Gavin muttered as Trevor pulled on his clothes.

<Later. Right now is making sure your gent friends are free of any and all Yeerk infestations.> The andalite Thought spoke.

“Are we tying up Ryan too or?” Jeremy trailed off, not looking like he particularly wanted to. Probably didn't help that he was still holding the blaster. Ryan disarmed it and gently set it far away from Geoff.

“If you want, it’s fine. I understand.” Being a previous host he really could understand.

<I think he’ll be fine. Besides what are the odds he overpowers all five of us?> Alfredo responded, causing Jeremy to snort.

“Pretty damn high. Ryan’s our resident murder hobo.” Jeremy said, causing Ryan to huff and mutter am not.

<What’s a Murder Hobo?>

The three days followed a semi strict schedule, Alfredo took the night shift guard with Ryan. Then Michael or Jeremy would relieve them when the sun rose and tell them to sleep. They wouldn't and would linger about till Gavin and Trevor took over at noon as well as feeding. Jack was always cooperative while Yeerk Geoff was as much of a bastard as possible. Then six hours would go by and whichever of Gavin or Jeremy didn’t take morning took night till twelve am in which another feeding would happen with difficulty. Then at Midnight Alfredo and Ryan took over. Over and Over again.

Till the fugue started for Yeerk Geoff. Then it was all hands on deck. While Alfredo hung back, the crew was there to help Geoff through it. Ryan repeatedly apologising to Geoff. He knew what it was like to go through the fugue, the hell of pain that came with it. Not once did Ryan leave Geoff’s side. When Geoff went limp and the Yeerk slug slid out of Geoff’s ear and shrivelled up, only then did Ryan let himself relax.

“You made it Geoff.” He said gently.

“Just barely. God, you went through that too?” Geoff asked, voice hoarse after the Yeerk used it to yell and rage for so long before giving up.

“Yeah. Fun times.” Ryan huffed out, causing Geoff to bark out a laugh as Gavin undid his bindings.

“Super fun.” He drawled out.

“So what next?” He asked

“We wait one more day for Jack, sorry Jack. And as long as she’s clear, we pass off the ability to morph to you three and we start planning a guerilla war?” Jeremy said, the last part coming out more as a question than statement. Ryan nodded at that. Made sense to do it all at once, and to make sure Jack wasn’t harboring a well fed Yeerk.

“Immortality and shapeshifting? We’re going to be set for eternity boys. Good thing Thelon 1111 was a greedy bitch and didn’t want to give up an immortal hist to a sub visser or visser.” Geoff said, causing Trevor to gasp and Alfredo to be taken aback.

<Immortals, that is impossible> “What, y'all are immortal too?” Alfredo’s denial and Trevor’s excitement overlapped as they were both said at the same time.

“Respawn of Six minutes.” Gavin said proudly.

“Damn son. I only have a respawn of two hours.” Trevor huffed out. Ryan stayed back as the others began arguing with Alfredo over this, the andalite refusing to believe such a thing. Until Gavin shrugged and shot Michael in the head. Thankfully Michael was a fast healer and the wound was already stitching itself up, shocking Alfredo to silence as Geoff ranted about killing in the house. This was his home, his family. For the first time since he regained his Freedom Ryan felt strong, felt powerful, like he was more than just a pawn in some galactic game of chess. He would be able to fight these bastards once and for all. The Yeerks thought James Ryan Haywod was dead. They were dead wrong.

[portraitsofivy]

things i noticed whilst watching newsies live again today

- during seize the day when Jeremy Jordan and Ben Fankhauser run offstage bc they can’t dance

- how during king of new york ben f. is shoved to the back where you cant see him and when you do see him he is very visibly counting along to the music

- SPECS DOES THE WORM ON THE TABLE IN THE BACK NEAR THE END OF KING OF NEW YORK’

- at the end of Watch What Happens (Reprise) when Les says ‘and I gotta date!’ and Davey steals his hat, Jack hits Les with his own hat, Les steals back his hat and promptly hits Jack on the chest with it

- I want to applaud the costume department for giving Katherine’s dress a little hook so she could hook the skirt to her belt for the dance solo

- how Ethan (Les) is also shoved to the back during king of new york

- when Tommy Boy is doing the pirouettes at the end of the song he does the focusing thing where you keep your eyes on one spot as long as you can and then spin your head real quick and get sight of the spot again to avoid getting dizzy and its really cool to watch because you wouldn’t notice unless you knew the trick and the above shot shows that his head is turning much slower than his body

- when jack says ‘keep your shirt on!’ to the kid in front of him just before the world will know and the kid starts pulling at his shirt as if saying something like ‘oh you want me to keep my shirt on, eh? what if I just take it off?’

- the same kid leaping clear to the other side of the stage when Les yells “LET THE MAN WORK IT OUT!”

- at the end of the world will know when they get thrown out of Pulitzer’s office and Davey is lying on the ground holding his hip like an old man

- on a similar note; Les yelling at that guard dude? inspirational? i love one (1) boy??

- at the end, during the Finale, Ben Fankhauser is visibly counting again so that he gets all the moves right

- Les sitting on Katherine’s lap during King of New York and she grabs his hands and shakes them around like you do when teaching a little kid how to do the pattycake rhyme

- when Katherine first walks into Jacobi’s to ask for an interview watch Ben Cook’s eyes bc they are all over her butt and whenever she turns to face his direction his eyes snap up to her’s but when she turns away he almost immediately goes back to staring at her butt

- during Brooklyn’ Here when Spot takes his hat off Romeo looks at him out of the corner of his eye for a second before snapping back forward like he suddenly remembers he’s not supposed to be looking

- at the beginning when Jack asks to be selling partners and Les goes ‘50/50 are you trying to pull something on a little kid” or smthn like that if you see Specs over Jack’s shoulder he’s making the ‘ooooooooooo’ face

- right after Race says ‘can’t you smell smoke?’JoJo ?? takes off his hat and hits Race with it but it isn’t onscreen so all you see is JoJo take off the hat and if you listen carefully there’s a smack and when it pans back out Race rubs his arm and JoJo puts his hat back on

- harmonies? more like I’m dead from the absolute beauty of it

- right after the kid says ‘why do old people talk?’ Elmer looks at Race, realizes he’s not supposed to know Race speaks next, looks at the floor, and looks back at Race when he says ‘to prove they’s still alive’

- Race is a never-ending optimist

- I have a rant later about King of New York don’t let me forget it

- right before Santa Fe when Jack is rolling on the ground you can vaguely see a black bowler hat and he kicks it offstage

- ELMER DANCING ON THE TABLE AT THE END OF KING OF NEW YORK

- ADORABLE

- I LOVE HIM

- anyways

- when Davey says ‘there’s no escaping us pal, we’re inevitable’ he smacks Jack on the butt with the newspaper and Jeremy’s head snapped up so fast

- what self-respecting theatre technician let him take a bucket of water onstage?

- even when sick and having literally thrown up thirty minutes before I can’t not sing/scream “POoR GuY’S hEaD iS sPiNNiNg!”

- poor Jeremy Jordan can’t dance either

- remind me to also post a rant about the color schemes

- when Snyder shows up if you look in the top right corner Race is selling/reading the pape and when he sees Snyder he swiftly walks away (he does not run, running calls attention and that is one thing he doesn’t want at that time)

- Right before watch what happens reprise all the newsies run over the set looking for Jack

- right before once and for all when everyone has candles to show that they’re walking in the dark to get to Pulitzer’s house

- during that’s rich jack sees Katherine and starts waving to her across the theatre but she either doesn’t see him or ignores him (he stands up halfway through the song to grab her attention)

- why in the world is there some Disney smoking commercial that starts this thing?

- sometimes the light shines just right and I usually don’t like blue eyes but then I see Ben Cook’s and DANG 

- before Watch What Happens Reprise when Les is talking about a girl and Katherine just stares at Davey the whole time and he looks up and asks “what?’ with his eyes and she replies ‘I don’t know’ with her eyes

- Katherine’s little ‘yeeeah, okee’ after Jack says ‘can’t you see it, in my eyes?’

- how long was Jack’s ‘old man’ in his life? how recent was his death? was he a good dad? I have so many questions

- ‘do you wanna bust up your other leg?!?’ ‘no, I wanna go down.’

- the overacting in that scene kills me every time

- I pulled up newsies in a different tab bc I forgot some stuff I was gonna say abt King of New York and it started playing and it confused the heck out of me bc I could’ve sworn my Spotify wasn’t on

- #LetCrutchieSayFuck2k18

- why is Elmer the only one who puts on more clothes for Act 2

- Davey, babe, who taught you the word ‘hoedown’ (I actually have a hc I’m working on abt this) I’m literally from south and the only time I have ever said hoedown was when I was mocking my fellow southerners or when singing along to an old Hannah Montanna song

- Elmer, Romeo, why do you have a roll of cotton on your hairline like you just got a perm? That thing will not stop the blood, ok, it just makes it look like you left the hair salon early

- Albert, what is with the stick

- ‘Jack don’t run from no fight!’ ‘take it down shortstop, I’m just reportin’ the news’

- the way BTC spreads his legs just before his opening solo

- Davey looks more than confused at ‘erster.’ Les is used to hearing words he doesn’t understand, Davey is his older brother

- Romeo’s sarcastic clap when Race finishes his little solo

- why do everyone’s socks match?

- hey @ Albert and Tommy Boy, what it the purpose of your sticks with rubber stops at the bottom? they’re too short to be walking sticks and also you are a teenager why would you need a walking stick

- SPOON FIGHT!

- how many of them played spoons before they joined the cast?

- why does Jacobi have so many spoons in a box in the dining room

- Davey, why do you yell “katHERINE” during the spoon fight? was she in imminent danger? was she about to get spooned? was a boy trying to spoon out her eyeball?

- ?? Henry’s ?? face during the entire thing

- all the boy’s grabbing their crotches after Katherine picks up her leg as if they didn’t just do something harder than that a few minutes earlier

- the Katherine/Les dance battle

- when all the newsies start in on the dance battle thing? amazing? I love?

- Ben F. breathing v hard after Seize the Day while the kids next to him look barely winded

okay I think that’s all for now I’m sure I’ll come up with more later tho

[mindfulwrath]

Nasty Accident

We’re nearing the end of this strange little series of vignettes....

Words: 1,481 Warnings: Some blood & gore, a bit of gross body products

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | | Part VII | Part VII.5 (NSFW) | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X (Final)

AO3

Ryan knows there's someone else in the apartment the moment he walks in the door.

He's not sure what it is—some wrong air current, a whiff of a scent, some single object minutely moved by an intruder's passage. He doesn't have his gun on him, but he has a lot of knives (he always has a lot of knives). He rests his hand one of them casually—it's better if whoever it is doesn't know he knows they're here.

He has a moment of panic—Edgar, what if they'd done something to his cat, fuck fuck fuck—before he remembers that Edgar is staying with Lindsay because. . . .

Well, because Gavin said something to somebody at some point, probably involving the words sociopath and cruelty to animals, and now Ryan doesn't have a cat anymore.

Focus. First things first.

Ryan pads through the apartment, which is spacious and used to be nice. It's gone a long way towards hell ever since Ryan started living in it. He hasn't cleaned it once. He slips through the kitchen, with its grimy floor and sink full of dishes, and then the living room that reeks of cat piss, and then the hallway and his bedroom. The floor is covered in crap, discarded clothes and books and boxes. The closet door is ever so slightly ajar. Ryan eases his way inside, pretending he hasn't noticed.

Just as he expected, the closet door flies open, and someone leaps out.

Someone short, and stocky, and familiar.

"Surprise, bitch!" he cries, leveling a gun at Ryan's head. "Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me!"

Ryan stares at him. The hair is brown now, a weird cut on the side of his head, but—but—

"You're. . . ." Ryan wheezes. No air is coming in or out. His head is spinning, vision narrowing down to a tunnel.

The man says something, but Ryan can't make it out past the roaring in his ears. Darkness is closing over his vision.

For the first time in his entire life, Ryan passes out.

He comes to with Jeremy leaning over him, one hand on the back of his head.

"Jesus fucking Christ, what the shit," he's muttering to himself. His face is pinched with confusion—maybe concern?

"Mmnh," says Ryan. His tongue isn't working. He's lying on the floor, and Jeremy's holding him. From the lack of a giant goose-egg on the back of his head, he assumes Jeremy caught him when he passed out.

Jeremy's head snaps up. His face goes hard. He drops Ryan and fumbles around and then the gun is pressed to Ryan's chest.

"Don't move," Jeremy orders.

Ryan just stares up at him, taking in every detail of his face. That cut is nasty, streaked from his left eyebrow back over his ear. The hair around it is peach-fuzz, and now that he's closer Ryan can see where stitches were criss-crossed down its length. Slowly, it coheres that—that's where Ryan shot him. That's where the bullet tore his scalp open and made him look dead.

But Jeremy isn't dead. Jeremy's here.

"Hi," Ryan says, breathless.

Jeremy's eyebrows pull together, the corners of his mouth turn down.

"Hi, don't talk to me, I'm killing you," he says.

"Okay," says Ryan. "Uh—but. . . ."

"What?"

Gently, ever so gently, he wraps his hand around Jeremy's, guides the gun down about three inches. Jeremy's hand is warm, warm and strong and alive.

"Heart's right there," Ryan says. "'F you wanna."

Jeremy glances down at his hand, at the gun, at Ryan's heart. He licks his lips. His eyes linger, just for a moment, on Ryan's throat, his mouth.

"I wanna know why," he says.

"Gavin told me to," Ryan answers.

"Gavin? Who's Gavin?"

Ryan taps his earpiece. Jeremy's frown deepens.

"He tell you to fuck with me, too? Before you fucking shot me in the head?"

With a shrug, Ryan says, "Yeah. I mean. He didn't tell me to let you go, that was . . . me. But the—everything before that was, uh. His idea."

Jeremy's jaw clenches. His other hand flicks to Ryan's ear, and two thick fingers jam in, and then he rips the earpiece out. Ryan's eardrum pops like a balloon and he yelps, clapping a hand over the ear. Jeremy goes rigid. He looks down at the earpiece in his hand, whey-faced. Fluid is pooling in Ryan's ear, and he can't hear anything but a faint ringing from it, and that whole side of his head aches.

"Uh," says Jeremy. "Oh. Um."

One eye scrunched up, Ryan looks over at the earpiece. Bits of skin are dangling off of it, and it's caked in brown wax. He looks away again very quickly, nauseated.

"How . . . long . . . has that been in there?" Jeremy asks faintly.

"Don't know," Ryan mumbles. His voice sounds weird. The fluid is starting to trickle out of his ear. "A . . . a while. Longer than the microchip."

"Microchip?" Jeremy exclaims.

"Well, yeah," says Ryan. He flaps his left arm like a dead fish. "For . . . keeping track of me. Y'know. So I can't. . . ."

He trails off. He doesn't want to finish that sentence.

Jeremy's jaw clenches. He drops the earpiece on the floor and then, before Ryan can do anything, smashes it with the butt of his gun.

"No!" Ryan cries, reaching out for the little crackly mess on the floor. "No no, no, you can't do that, you can't—you can't—"

His lungs won't inflate. Everything from his esophagus to his asshole is tangling itself up in slimy knots. He's going to pass out again. Gavin's going to know, Gavin's going to ask questions, Gavin's going to be so fucking angry. . . .

"And I'm getting that microchip out, too," Jeremy declares. "Where is it, lemme see."

"No—Jeremy, no, you don't understand, you can't—"

"I'm not doing this as a Mr. Nice Guy thing, Ryan," he spits. "I'm not having your fuckin' handler siccing you on me again, and I'm not getting caught 'cuz you had a fucking microchip. So it's comin' out, like it or not."

Ryan shuts his mouth. There's a definitive tone of command in Jeremy's voice that's familiar. That's a voice you don't say no to.

God, but he's well-trained.

Jeremy takes Ryan's wrist and kneels on it. He keeps the gun handy, which makes things difficult when he starts rolling up Ryan's sleeve. Nonchalant, Ryan takes the gun from him while he's distracted.

"Hey—" Jeremy cries, tensing up. Ryan just sets the gun aside.

"It's a two-handed job," he says. "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Jeremy scowls at him for a moment, then reaches down and takes one of the knives out of Ryan's belt. It's close, and it's professional, and it's. . . .

Okay, it's kinda hot.

The knife bites into Ryan's forearm, and he hisses a breath through his teeth. Jeremy's really not fucking around with this microchip removal. He cuts a short line, mashes on the hard little node with his thumb until the microchip splorches out with kind of a lot of blood. Jeremy's kneeling so hard on Ryan's wrist that his whole hand has gone numb, and the cut stings and aches and oozes, and Ryan must be on some next-level shit right now, because the only thing running through his head is how much he wants Jeremy to raw him, preferably right there on the floor, preferably while making about two dozen more little incisions.

Jeremy wrinkles his nose at the microchip, then flicks it off into the corner of the room.

"Okay," he says. His voice is shaking, just a little bit. There's blood on his hands. "Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna come get into my car, and we're gonna go . . . someplace else. Where you haven't been tracked to. And then . . . I'm gonna shoot you in the head. For real."

"Sure," Ryan manages. Jesus, he's fucked. It shouldn't be thrilling to be cut open and kidnapped and executed. The prospect of being dragged off somewhere where Gavin can't find him shouldn't be appealing.

Where Gavin can't find him.

Oh.

Jeremy picks up the gun and hauls Ryan to his feet. Ryan belatedly puts a hand over the cut on his arm, staunching the flow of blood. There's quite a bit of it on the floor, plus the smashed earpiece. He still can't hear out of his right ear. He suspects the eardrum actually burst when Jeremy yanked the earpiece out, because of vacuum or something. There's fluid trickling down the side of his face, now. It might be blood.

"Come on," Jeremy says, tugging on his arm. "Let's go."

[fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction]

Circus Baby Steps

Many thanks to @ryukodragon for help with the title!

It’s good, sometimes, to admit to one’s own mistakes and grow from them. It’ll help inspire other growth.

As much as it annoyed Ven that he would wander off while the artist was still in need of awareness to work on his commissions, Vincent insisted on going to check on the digital ghost living with Meera. Ever since the two of them opened the new Freddy's Pizza at the old location, Lucian had been acting oddly agitated. Vincent would be lying to himself if he said he wasn't worried despite the other swearing he wouldn't intentionally go after children.

Old habits die hard, after all.

So here he was at the pizzeria, walking around and past people who shivered slightly at his passing. Where was Lucian?

"Three, and two, and three, and four...."

Vincent blinked, hearing the other man's voice softly muttering not too far away. He looked around quickly, searching for the electric blue color of the digital ghost. Where was he? Would he be in the Circus Baby body, performing on stage? Vincent glanced towards the cheap wooden stage, mouth twisting at the sight of the stationary trash can with the balloon 'head'. No, Lucian would stay away from that mess. Despite his current choice of 'vessel' being built much lighter than his previous forms, Baby's figure would be counted as too heavy for that stage to support.

Baby was in the shop, anyway, being upgraded for easy switching of outfits and accessories.

"And five, and three, and three, and two...."

Vincent followed the voice and finally spotted him, the blonde leaning forward almost lazily against the counter of the pizza order station near the buffet bar. Ah, that's why he was overlooking him; the digital ghost had the ability to hard-light himself, appearing solid and 'real' to interact with the world and be seen by living people. In that instance the only blue on him would be his clothes as his skin and hair returned to the color Lucian had in life.

As Vincent headed over, sidestepping a child that ran by in happy screams, Lucian blinked slowly, then scowled.

"One. Puppet, get 'em."

An animatronic that looked eerily similar to the Marionette popped out of a gift box near the stage and floated along, targeting the lone child Vincent avoided walking through. He stopped and watched in concern, wondering what was going on. The Puppet continued floating along, following the lone child around like a puppy until the child's mother caught up and collected the kid.

The Puppet promptly turned away and floated back to the gift box. Vincent raised an eyebrow at the scene and looked back towards Lucian in time to see the man breathe a sigh of relief. "That happen often?" he asked and Lucian scowled again.

"Not as much as you're thinking. What do you want?" he returned irritably. Vincent shrugged, making his way to the station and exerting just enough force to be able to lean against the wall by the opening without falling through.

"How's business? This place looks pretty bare budget still," he asked instead, dodging the question. He wasn't sure himself what he wanted, or if he did know then he didn't want to face the knowledge just yet.

Lucian wrinkled his nose in answer. Vincent sighed softly; small talk wasn't going to work today. He looked the other man over, studying him a bit more. After making that mistake some time ago, he was determined not to let it repeat.

The blonde looked equal parts bored and tired, green eye glowing faintly as his gaze tracked children around the dining area. Now and then Lucian would look towards the stage, frowning at the sight of the cheap 'animatronic' attraction. Suddenly, Lucian's gaze snapped to him and Vincent jumped a little in surprise, eyes widening as his face heated up from the attention.

"Que estas haciendo?" the blonde grumbled, squinting at him. Vincent fidgeted; the context was easier to understand than the words.

"I just wanted to check up on you," he admitted with a slight shrug. Lucian gestured at the dining room flippantly.

"Everyone's still alive. You're welcome." His tone was both sarcastic and resentful, and Vincent winced. "Just admit you don't trust me around anyone. I'm tired of you pretending you're a better person just because you don't have anything to regret doing." Lucian shifted in place with a huff, lifting his arms up to rest his chin on his hands as he continued watching the crowd.

He wasn't entirely right; Vincent regretted holding his grudge against Lucian tightly enough that he lashed out at the digital ghost after he'd expressed regret for his crimes, apologized for his actions, and actively tried to atone for them. It made his attempts to repair relations between them so much harder, as Lucian internalized the fighting into a far deeper self-hatred.

"I didn't come to start a fight, Lu-," Vincent began quietly, cutting himself off at the sharp glare Lucian directed at him. Right, right. He had objectified himself to the point of rejecting his name. "Digi. I'm not here to fight. I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Lucian gave him a distrustful look before sighing and folding his arms back down on the counter, shifting in place again. "I'm fine. You can leave now," he replied and waved a hand at Vincent as if to shoo him away.

He frowned, still watching him carefully. Lucian leaned more onto the counter, as though making it bear more of his weight than usual. "You know," Vincent began cautiously, fidgeting with his fingers as the other man looked back at him impatiently, "there is something I regret doing, if I need to be honest."

Lucian raised an eyebrow and tilted his head the slightest bit. Interest, that's good. Vincent breathed a small sigh of relief; he was listening, not blocking him out, a step forward.

"I regret not accepting your apology that day, at your sister's grave." He thought back to that day, to the look of pain and regret in Lucian's expression as he knelt by his younger sister's gravestone. Where had his empathy been, that he refused to recognize those emotions as genuine? "After seeing what you did to help Miss Corbett in that facility, I should have given you a fair chance when you said you wanted to make up for your crimes. I didn't, and I'm sorry for that."

There was silence between them after that. Vincent studied his shoes as the moments ticked by, watching the light of the pizzeria play over the shiny black leather. Children ran by in happy squeals, pizza and cheap prizes in their hands. For all the worries about the Freddy's name bringing bad luck onto the place, it seemed like the restaurant was actually doing well and was safe for everyone.

Likely it helped that the only mobile animatronics in the place were Helpy and Baby, both of them created by Jeremy.

"Tired," Lucian suddenly said with a faint clearing of his throat. Vincent blinked, lifting his head in confusion and looking aside at the blonde. The other man shifted a bit more on the counter, arms folded on the surface. He looked faintly indifferent, gazing over the dining room with his usual bored expression.

"Excuse me?" Vincent asked. Lucian gave him a mild glare and a huff.

"You asked how I was feeling. I'm feeling a bit tired," he returned with a shrug.

"Oh!" Vincent blinked again, "That's... okay?"

Silence again, a bit awkward but it felt lighter. He wasn't sure what to make of that. At least he got a more honest answer to his question so... small victory there?

"And, uh, good... good job... there," Vincent added haltingly, managing a strained smile as Lucian gave him an incredulous look.

"For what?" the digital ghost asked. Vincent gestured vaguely towards the diners.

"Keeping everyone alive?"

Lucian narrowed his eyes and Vincent began wondering if he messed up in reminding him of his earlier words. After a long moment, Lucian sighed heavily, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

"Este pinche pendejo quien me hace dueles en la cabeza," he muttered, pinching the little space between his brows in exasperation. Vincent laughed a bit nervously; some of the words were familiar enough in context that he could tell he was being talked about. "Por que me fastidias cuando siempre quiero hacer mi trabajo en paz?" Vincent smiled again, wide and still very strained with uncertainty. Would it be better if he just left? "If you're going to stay around and look at things like you're about to shit your pants," Lucian finally snarked at him, "then the least you can do while here is let me borrow some of your energy to keep from passing out. I've been in solid state since this morning."

Vincent stared at him for a moment, then broke into another wide smile, far more genuine than the others. "Yeah, I can do that," he agreed cheerfully and reached out as he leaned back more casually and comfortably against the wall.

"Hey, don't hold my hand like that! We're not dating or some stupid thing! Not on my shoulder, you're too close! Just... put your hand on my arm, okay? There! You get all handsy with me like you do with your little boyfriend and I'll smack you with the pizza pan. Why are you laughing? Is something funny? Tch, mira me con este pendejo loco...."

END

[waveridden]

FIC: Crash Bang Boom

“I just realized there’s a zombie apocalypse going on,” Steve says, muffled by his hands. “Like, a zombie walked into Parker’s living room, the world’s falling apart, and now we’re in a kitchen supply store fighting about butter knives. Because that’s the best thing we could be doing with our time right now.”

A SP7 zombie AU. 26k. Cib/Parker, Autumn/Sami Jo. CW for death, guns, alcohol use, and one scene of graphic violence. You can find more detailed content warnings here.

Read on Ao3

#

“Dude,” James says, “we need to get butter knives. For melee combat.”

“Okay, for one-” Cib lifts a finger. “If you’re meleeing a zombie, it’s gonna eat your fucking face, game over. And for B-” a second finger- “if you’re gonna stab someone, why wouldn’t you want it to be a sharp knife? Really dig in there.”

“Sharp knives can carve their eyes out,” Steve says, so blandly that Parker can’t tell if he’s joking.

Cib snaps his fingers and points at Steven. “Carve their eyes out! They don’t need ‘em, you might as well take ‘em.”

Parker, against his better judgment, asks, “What do you need zombie eyes for?”

Cib snorts and shakes his head. “If I have to tell you, you already don’t know, dude.” Which isn’t helpful at all, but it’s technically right, so Parker doesn’t say anything.

“You can stab an eye with a butter knife,” James says insistently, drawing everyone’s attention back over to him. He’s holding a box of butter knives - or actually what looks like a box of normal dinner cutlery, which is maybe even less useful. “And it’ll hurt more.”

“Stabbing isn’t the same as carving out,” Cib argues.

James sighs in pure exasperation, shaking his cutlery box. “You can’t eat zombie eyes.”

“That’s not what I wanted them for!”

“You can’t fuck them either, Cib, they’re eyes. ”

“Well, clearly you’re not using your imagination!”

“I don’t wanna imagine that,” Steve mumbles.

“And I’m not gonna fuck them!” Cib crosses his arms. “You can plant them and use them to grow zombies!”

“Oh my god,” James says, horrified. “No, okay, listen, glisten, you can’t do that, because it doesn’t work with humans. And anyways, the stabbing will hurt more with the butter knife. Or a fork. We gotta get them.”

“Why does a butter knife hurt more?” Steve asks. He sounds very, very tired.

“So take a steak knife, right? Sharp knife.” James opens the cutlery box and rips out a knife. “Imagine this butter knife is sharp, right?”

“Sharp knife,” Cib repeats.

“You wanna cut someone open, no problem, you can just-” James mimes slashing with the knife. “It doesn’t take, like, effort. But if you wanna cut someone with a butter knife-” he mimes stabbing, so emphatically that Parker nearly takes a step away. “You gotta put some muscle into it.”

“I thought that was a sharp knife,” Cib says.

“Nope, it’s a butter knife now.”

“Well, you didn’t say you were changing the knife!”

“James, you have to say if you’re changing the knife,” Steven sighs. “You’re gonna confuse Cib.”

“Fine! I changed the fucking knife, Cib, it’s a butter knife again.”

Cib nods. Parker thinks, in passing, that they’re all going to die.

“So you have to stab someone with a butter knife-” James stabs at the air again. “If you wanna break skin, you gotta really go for it, right? Gotta have force behind it. So by the time you break the skin, you’ve got that follow-through going, and it’ll fuck someone up. And slashing - Cib, the knife’s sharp again - it’s all surface-level, it’s not the same.”

“Okay,” Cib says. “But I still want sharp knives. Real ones.”

“We can get sharp knives! We can have both, I’m just saying, we should get both.”

Steve groans loudly and puts his head into his hands. Cib glances over. “Steve, you decent?”

“I just realized there’s a zombie apocalypse going on,” Steve says, muffled by his hands. “Like, a zombie walked into Parker’s living room, the world’s falling apart, and now we’re in a kitchen supply store fighting about butter knives. Because that’s the best thing we could be doing with our time right now.”

“There’s not a gun store in the strip mall,” Parker points out. “And there’s food in here.”

Steve waves him off. “We get it, Parker, you had a good idea, but it’s still the end of the fucking world.”

“Gun stores are probably empty by now,” James adds. “It’s been, what, three days? I’m amazed there are still butter knives here.”

“I’m amazed there’s any food left in here.” Cib looks around, presumably at all the jars of salsa and other weird cooking shit. “We should finish looting this kitchen store and get home, right?”

“Uh,” Parker says.

So mostly, Parker’s down for whatever. This is just as true in the zombie apocalypse as it was beforehand. He doesn’t know a lot about zombies, scary movies have never been his thing, but he knows that his best shot is sticking with the group. Lone wolves don’t do well at the end of the world, and he likes the boys. Even if they give him shit, he’s pretty sure they actually have his back, and so he’s going to roll with what they think is a good idea. But also, their home base is his house, and there’s been a zombie rotting in it for the past three days. And he’s not interested in staying there if they don’t have to.

“No,” Steve says suddenly. “No, we should stay here.”

“We should absolutely not stay here,” James argues. “This is too public! Parker’s house is out of the way, nobody’s going to come busting through our front door there.”

“Except the first zombie,” Parker says.

James glares at him. “Outlier.”

“Pretty important outlier.”

“Parker’s right.” Steve grimaces, because of course he does, but he continues. “Listen, this place is easier to fortify, we have more weapons on hand, it’s a more central location for supplies, and we’re in a better place to barter with people.”

James frowns and folds his arms, butter knife dangling from his hand. “Are we already on a barter economy?”

“I think that the economic structure of the civilized world is the least of our problems, dude,” says Cib. “You know, if we’re arguing about whether or not you can fuck zombie eyes, is the economy really important anymore? Was it ever really important?”

“Fucking eyeballs is not an argument,” Steve says. “It’s really, really not an argument, and I will kill you myself if you keep trying to arguing it.”

Cib nods. “Point taken. No arguing, just doing.”

“No, no, n-” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh my god, just mercy kill me right now.”

“If I kill you, am I in charge?” James asks.

“No, nope.” Steven practically leaps backwards until he’s standing behind Parker. “No, you can be in charge if you kill Parker.”

“Done,” Cib says.

“Hey,” Parker says mildly, trying to hide the sudden, deep panic that bubbles up inside him. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t work, given that James and Cib exchange their patented “ugh, fucking Parker” look, but it’s the thought that counts. Maybe. “Enough people are trying to kill me, I don’t need my zombie apocalypse crew to do it too.”

“Who the fuck is trying to kill you?” Steve demands.

“Zombies. Lots of them.” He pauses, considering. “Maybe Jeremy? I haven’t seen him in a few days, but he talks about it sometimes.”

“Jeremy doesn’t get to kill you,” Cib says indignantly. “I called dibs.”

“You absolutely can not call murder dibs,” Steve sighs.

James lifts a hand. The hand with the knife. “Can I call murder dibs?”

“No! Parker, oh my god, make yourself useful, help stop this.”

“If we stay here, I’ll be in charge of our inventory,” Parker offers. “There’s probably a stockroom and stuff in the back, and I’m good at keeping track of things.”

James lowers the knife. “That’s actually a pretty good plan.”

“Fucking-” Steve throws his hands up in the air and steps out from behind Parker. “Why is it a good idea when he agrees? It was my idea!”

“But we were in my house,” Parker points out feebly. “So, you know, maybe it makes sense that I get a say in if we-”

“All in favor of Parker not getting a say in anything?” James says, and everyone’s hands go up. Parker sighs.

“All in favor of Parker never saying anything?” Cib continues. All three hands stay up.

“The kitchen store was my idea,” Parker mutters.

Cib claps a hand down on Parker’s shoulder, hard. “We would’ve had that idea without you.”

“We need to figure out if we can get sleeping bags in here,” Steve says musingly, and just like that, they live in an abandoned kitchen supply store.

  #

  It takes time to get settled in. They have to move all the shelves, and all the supplies, and they also sort all the supplies. And that really means Parker sorts the supplies, because that’s his job as keeper of the inventory.

Which, okay, side note: that could’ve been either the worst or best idea he’s ever had. He likes that he has something to do, especially when nobody else has consistent things to work on, but he also has most of a partially-looted kitchen store to keep track of. So they have a lot of blenders, but no reliable electricity, so really they have a lot of loose blades and breakable glass. And not just from the blenders.

In retrospect, given the way that they are, or mostly the way that Cib is, a kitchen store may have been the most dangerous possible home base.

But anyways, Parker keeps track the inventory. The rest of the boys try to help, out of what they say is boredom and not legitimate compassion, but he thinks they might feel bad for how much he has to sort through. He doesn’t mind, mostly. He can stay in the kitchen store, with a pistol that James will not explain where he got, and everyone else can go out looting for more supplies and make Parker’s job harder.

“I want to be in charge of ammo,” James says, on their fifth day in the kitchen store. “Like, just ammo.”

“Not guns?”

“Can you not keep track of the guns?”

“Yeah, and I can keep track of the ammo.”

“What if I want to?”

“Find your own job, James,” Parker says, because he’s an asshole and this is the only thing he has to himself in the end of the world.

“Damn,” James says. He sounds either impressed, constipated, or like he’s trying not to laugh. Parker’s just gonna… let that one remain a mystery. “What if I want yours?”

“Didn’t we agree that you’d have to kill me to take my job?”

“No, we were gonna kill Steve.”

“No,” Steven calls from the opposite corner of the store, where he and Cib are doing something complicated with barbed wire.

Parker frowns. “Do we have barbed wire now?”

James rolls his eyes. “Use your fucking eyes, Parker, we obviously have barbed wire.”

“When did we get that?”

“A couple days ago. Same time we picked up all the guns.”

“I would’ve thought guns are a hot commodity at the end of the world,” Parker muses. “Or that it would’ve taken some effort to get them.”

“Oh, it did.” James flashes him a grin, disconcertingly genuine. “I was right about the butter knives.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Parker says automatically. He would’ve noticed if James came back one day with bloody butter knives. At least, he thinks so. Inventory takes a lot of attention. It might’ve passed him by.

“That’s for me to know and you to think about till the zombies eat you.”

“Are you planning on letting them eat me?”

“It’s cute that you think we wouldn’t.”

“Good luck sorting all the shit I leave behind,” Parker says, and goes back to sorting kitchen towels.

James pauses. “Oh, you bitch, you actually made yourself useful, didn’t you?”

“I might’ve.”

“You’re a crafty one.”

“I’ve always been crafty.”

“Our favorite craft boy.” James reaches down and ruffles Parker’s hair. It’s uncomfortably aggressive. “You’re like an edgy knitter. Making us a safe home.”

“It’s- I’m not that kind of crafty-”

“Parker really is kind of crappy,” Cib yells, and lifts a hand. Steve, without looking, high-fives him.

“Ouch,” Parker says, more to be polite than because he actually cares.

“Hey!” James points at Cib. “No verbally wounding him before one of us knows how to do his job.”

“I’ll learn to do it!” Cib jumps to his feet. “Parker, teach me how to be you.”

“No,” Steve says immediately. “One Parker is enough.”

Cib nods sagely. “You’re right. I’ll teach him how to be me.”

“ No, ” Steve and James say together.

Cib makes eye contact with Parker and mouths something completely unreadable. If Parker had to guess, it’s probably crude and insulting.

“Besides,” Parker says, “you guys are busy getting more supplies. I can’t teach you how to do inventory when I haven’t even inventoried everything here yet.”

James crouches down next to him. “You’re not done?”

“I’m probably more than half done, but no, I’m not.”

“Have you done the ammo yet?”

Parker sighs. “Yes, I’ve done the ammo.”

“Fuck!”

“Get another job, James, quit trying to steal mine.”

“Jobs? In this economy?” Cib demands. “Zombie economy? Ezonomy? What do you guys think the job market like in the ezonomy? Is it gonna be really specialized, or-”

“Jesus Christ, stop talking about zombie economics,” Steve grumbles. “Why is this so interesting to you?”

“Marxism,” Cib says, which might be an answer, might just be the one word he knows related to economic theory. It’s a toss-up.

“Oooookay,” Steve says. “Get back down here, I don’t wanna cut my fucking hands on this wire myself.”

Cib obediently kneels back down. Parker looks at James. “Go help them.”

“You sure?” James says, and for a second, Parker feels bad. They’re all scared, they all need things to do, and maybe it’s selfish of him to keep such an essential job to himself. Maybe he should teach James his system, or at least outline it for him.

“Yeah,” Parker says, because he actually is sure. This is his, goddammit. It’s the end of the world, and he’s holding on to what he can.

  #

  The problem with being in charge of inventory is:

Jeremy shows up. Like, literally materializes out of thin air, as far as Parker can tell. Like, everything’s fine and then Steven yells “Jesus fucking Christ” and Jeremy is outside one of the kitchen store windows. Holding an axe.

Parker has definitely, definitely had nightmares about this before.

“You should really board up those windows,” Jeremy says as Steve opens the door. “Could be dangerous. Hey, Parker.”

“Hey, Jeremy,” Parker says, trying incredibly hard not to let his voice shake.

“How did you find us?” Steve demands. “Is this just a freaky coincidence?”

“Yeah, I came here to loot, and then I saw you in the window.” Jeremy shrugs, adjusting his grip on the axe. His very, very tight grip on the axe. “How long have you guys been here?”

“Three weeks?” Steve glances at Parker. “Three?”

“Too long,” Parker says.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because there’s an appropriate length of time for the zombie apocalypse.”

Parker personally thinks that it got really old after the second week. Around the time Cib and James started teaching him and Steve tricks for shooting moving targets, the situation lost any of the weird Hollywood horror charm that it had left.

“Yeah, about three weeks,” Parker concedes, because he’s not going to tell fucking Jeremy about how scared he is about the end of the world. The guy is his friend, but he’s also kind of ruthless.

“Good call,” Jeremy says. Parker hates that he actually feels complimented by it.

“Anyways.” Steve folds his arms. “You just visiting, or are you here for a reason?”

Jeremy’s eyes flick around the room, from Parker to the makeshift sleeping corner set up for the four of them (shit) to the open stockroom door ( shit ) and landing back on Steven. “You interested in bartering, Steve?”

“Depends,” Steve says warily. “What are we bartering?”

“I’ll give you the axe if you give me Parker.”

Parker’s entire body flash-freezes. He knows that they all joke about how badly they want him gone, but he’s really not in the mood to find out if they mean it. “Steve-”

Steve rolls his eyes. “God, Parker, I’m not gonna sell you for an axe without talking to James and Cib first.”

“Am I really only worth an axe?”

“It’s a pretty good axe,” Jeremy says. “What else can you give me? Other than telling me that James and Cib are staying with you, of course.”

“Don’t be stupid, I know you already figured that out,” Steve says, blase enough that Parker is almost convinced. “What else do you want?”

“Food.”

“Parker, can we do that?”

“We can give you two cases of MREs,” Parker says. Cib had found a shitton of full cases in an apartment complex lobby a while ago. Said it looked like an abandoned camp. Parker doesn’t want to think about what went so bad that they abandoned all that food. “It’ll last you at least a week.”

“I need enough for two people,” Jeremy says.

“So that’d be you and Andrew,” Steve says neutrally.

Jeremy doesn’t even blink. “A week’s worth for two people. Four cases.”

“Not a chance. Two cases.”

“Three cases.”

“Two.”

“Two, and I come back if that doesn’t last the full week.”

Steve nods. “Fine. Parker.”

“Yeah,” Parker says, and it’s not until he’s in the stockroom and looking at the rations that he remembers the other, bigger problem with being in charge of inventory.

Look, it’s not like they’re going to run out of food anytime soon, if they keep going at the pace they’re going. All the boys go out most days for supplies, which range from food to weapons to clothes to batteries. And that means two things. First, it means they’re doing fine on supplies, so they can give Jeremy a couple dozen MREs, no problem. And second, it means Parker spends a lot of time alone. Just him keeping track of the things they collect.

Just him and, every now and again, famous actor James Allen McCune.

He just showed up a week or so ago outside the store and Parker felt bad, okay? The dude clearly didn’t have a zombie crew, or at least not a good one, so Parker gave him a butcher’s knife (not high-end, but sharp enough that he could defend himself) and a couple MREs and sent him on his way. And he didn’t tell the boys because it wasn’t like it was going to make a big deal. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d notice. Parker’s in charge of inventory.

And then James had shown up again, and Parker had given him a couple more MREs, and it’s really not like they’re running out. It’s just that giving Jeremy two cases feels like a lot.

Maybe it’s not a problem, he decides, as he picks up two cases of MREs. If it’s a problem then he’ll tell Steve they’re running low on food, and if it’s not then nobody will ever know. This doesn’t have to be a problem.

When he comes out with the cases in his arms, Steve is holding the axe. Jeremy is still hovering by the door. “That’s two full cases?”

“Two full cases.” Parker sets them on the floor in front of Jeremy’s feet. “They should last you the full week if you’re careful.”

Jeremy - well, he doesn’t quite smile as much as bare his teeth. “Yeah, because everyone’s careful at the end of the world.”

“Jeremy, come on,” Steve sighs. “Parker’s handling this as well as his child brain allows him to.”

“Hey,” Parker says without heat. “I’m in charge of inventory.”

“We know.” Steve pats Parker’s shoulder. “We’re all very proud of you. Now, let me ask you this: do you know how to sharpen an axe?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A directly relevant one.”

“I know. And I can tell you.” Jeremy leans down and drums his fingers on the cases. “If you gimme another case.”

“Yeah,” Steve says flatly, “because we definitely can’t figure that one out on our own.”

“Google’s not working these days, Steve.”

“If you think Cib can’t figure out how to make something more dangerous, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Jeremy smiles, something reminiscent of an actual smile this time. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I’ll be seeing you guys.”

“Where are you and Andrew staying?” Parker blurts out. Maybe Jeremy is trying to kill him, but he wants to know that his friends are okay.

Jeremy lifts the cases. “Be seeing you,” He repeats, and then he’s gone just about as fast as he showed up.

Steve glances down at the axe. “I don’t know why we need this.”

“Firewood?”

“Oh, fuck, are we going to need firewood in the winter?”

“I mean, probably.”

Steve makes a face. “Can we make a suicide pact? I’ll chop your head off if you stab me.”

“I don’t think that’s how suicide pacts work,” Parker points out.

“This apocalypse has ruined everything,” Steve says. “I’m gonna go practice axing things, you wanna come with?”

“Absolutely,” Parker says, and Steve’s eyes crinkle up at the corners, and for a second everything feels… normal.

  #

  “Steve almost sold me to Jeremy for our new axe, you know,” Parker says.

Cib, who thankfully found another full case of MREs on his supply run, laughs. “Did he really?”

“Mmhm.” Parker leans over Cib’s shoulder and lets Cib push him away, like he always does. “Said the only reason he didn’t is he hadn’t talked to you and James about it.”

“I don’t know why you’re so worried about us selling you to Jeremy.”

“He tried to kill me before the world was ending, what do you think he’s going to do now?”

“Eat you.” Cib glances at him, nose wrinkled. “Duh.”

“Ugh, Cib, fucking gross.”

“What? I’d eat you.”

“I’d eat you .”

Cib, for some godforsaken reason, turns and winks at Parker. There’s tongue-wagging involved.

“Cib,” Parker says, “I’m going to axe you just so I never have to see that again.”

“Yeah, but if you did that, you wouldn’t have this.” Cib raps his knuckles against the computer monitor. It used to be part of the register system for the kitchen store, but Cib has claimed it as his own project. He’s also not explaining what he’s doing with it, or why it involves so many damn batteries, but Steve said it’s best just to indulge him on this.

Parker shakes his head. “I think we’d be lost without you, Cib.”

“Oh, dude, I’m the finder, remember?” Cib grins, and something catches in Parker’s chest because it looks… real. “If you guys lost me, I’d find you.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, bitch.” Cib goes back to the monitor. Parker leans in a little closer, and Cib barely nudges him back this time. “You can’t get rid of me that easy. You’d need four shotguns.”

“We have those.”

“Aw, well, then I’m fucked sideways on a futon.”

Parker laughs under his breath and decides, for now, to keep his mouth shut and watch Cib work. Whatever the hell he’s doing, he makes it fun to watch.

  #

  The zombie apocalypse tends to change your concept of a few things. How long you should go without a shower, for instance. How much sleep you need. How much food is enough for a day. Things like that.

Parker is having a bad day. And considering the world is literally ending, that’s saying something.

He managed to accidentally drop half of his first daily MRE on the floor, and considering how dirty everything is, he decided against eating it. He found out that his count for razors was off by a couple, and Cib also looked suspiciously cleaner than normal, but that wasn’t enough to accuse him of stealing. And on top of that Steve decided that Parker should go out on supply runs every now and again, so he and James got to bicycle down to a gas station.

(Steve is a good de facto apocalypse leader. This isn’t something Parker expected to learn about him, or about anyone, but he is. He has all these great ideas, like using bikes for transit and rotating who goes out. Parker’s proud of him, in a weird end-of-the-world way. Even if he hates going on supply runs.)

So he’s already not in a great mood, and on top of that he’s anxious as hell about splitting up with James, so he has one hand on the handle of his pistol as he goes through the aisles of the gas station. Just about everything is picked clean, and what isn’t is rotten, but he grabs things anyways. Some bottles of painkillers, a mostly-crushed bag of chips. He throws them all into an old backpack, sitting on the ground. Maybe one day they can trade luxury items for useful items. He’s got kind of a collection going in the stockroom.

And, because this is just how today is going, Parker leans down to pick up a bottle of ibuprofen, and when he stands up there’s a shotgun against the back of his head.

“Don’t move,” a voice says behind him, through gritted teeth. “Drop it.”

Parker drops the bottle. “Listen, I don’t want any tr-”

“Sami Jo!” the voice yells, and then prods Parker a little harder. “Stand up.”

Parker stands, turning around and lifting his hands as he does. There’s a woman in front of him, glaring forcefully up, shotgun pointed directly at Parker’s heart. “I swear to god, I thought this place was abandoned.”

“Are you gonna give us our things back?”

“I didn’t take any of the things in here,” Parker tries. It sounds like a lie, even to him.

“Yeah, whatever,” the woman says. “Sami Jo! Come on!”

“I’m a little held up right now, babe,” someone else yells back.

The woman jabs her shotgun at Parker. “Is it just you here?”

“Uhhhhhhh,” Parker says, trying to figure out what the odds are of James popping up out of nowhere. “Are you alone?”

Her eyes narrow. “You just heard me talking to someone else.”

“Was that you?” Parker forces himself to laugh. “Huh, here I thought I was going… zombie-crazy.”

“Zombie-crazy?” a new voice demands. When Parker turns, he almost sags in relief: there’s woman there, hands in the air, with James standing behind her, gun pointed at her head.

Parker’s shotgun girl narrows her eyes. “You could’ve just said you weren’t here alone.”

Parker laughs weakly. “Ha, well, you know.”

“Parker, you’re the only person I know who could get held at gunpoint in a gas station,” James complains. “This is ridiculous.”

The woman in front of James - Sami Jo, if Parker had to guess - clears her throat. “I’m also at gunpoint in a gas station.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know you.”

“Listen, I don’t know you either, but my girl has your boy-”

“Not mine,” James says. Parker glares at him. “I mean, sort of mine.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sami Jo says. “All I’m trying to say is we can put our guns down on the count of three. And everyone goes on their merry way.”

“And this one gives us back all our shit that he stole,” Parker’s shotgun girl adds, scowling at him.

“Aw, dude, you stole things?” James grins. “Nice. I changed my mind, I’m claiming you.”

“Guns down, then I empty my backpack,” Parker says.

Shotgun girl nods. “Count of three. One, two-” she lowers her gun, and James does the same. She points at Parker’s backpack, sitting abandoned on the ground. “Empty it.”

Parker bends down and upends the backpack. Ibuprofen might’ve been nice to have, but getting out of here alive is probably nicer.

“Dude, that’s a pretty sweet haul for being here all of five minutes,” James says, leaning over to look at it all. “Wait till we tell Cib, he’ll probably try and teach you about his Turkish method for picking pockets.”

“His Turkish what?”

“Cib?” one of the girls demands. When Parker looks over they’re standing together, arms tightly wound around each other’s waists. Sami Jo’s eyes are narrowed. “Did you say Cib? As in, Clayton James?”

Parker looks at James. James looks at Parker, and then back to Sami Jo. “Our answer to that is gonna depend on how you know this… Clayton fellow.”

“Like there’s gonna be more than one person we know named Cib?” Sami Jo snaps. “We were neighbors for a while, I fed his fish when he went on vacation to Florida. And got him a new one when I forgot to feed it and it died.”

“Cib did say that Turtle seemed different after Florida,” Parker murmurs.

James crosses his arms. “Okay. So you know Cib. What’s up?”

Sami Jo pauses. “Autumn and I need to talk for a minute. No looting while our backs are turned.”

“Sure thing,” James says. The minute they turn around, he reaches down and tucks a bottle of ibuprofen in the waistband of his pants.

“Dude,” Parker hisses.

James shrugs. “All’s fair in the end of days, baby. Tolstoy wrote that.”

“Who the fuck is Tolstoy?”

“I don’t know, but the man was a genius, haven’t you heard his operas?”

“James, I’m almost positive you’re making shit up.”

“Only almost?”

“Okay,” Sami Jo says loudly. When they look up, Sami Jo and Autumn look severely unimpressed. “First of all, I saw that, and you can keep your dick Advil to yourself.”

“Nice,” James whispers.

“And second, we want to cut a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“We want to join our crew with yours.”

Parker tries not to wince. The kitchen store isn’t small, but it’s also not a lot of space to share between the four of them, let alone six.

James must be thinking the same thing because he looks severely unimpressed. “And why should we say yes?”

“Because I’m a good shot,” Autumn says. “And because we have a lot of guns to share with you.”

James leans his head towards Parker and murmurs, out of the side of his mouth, “How’re we doing on guns?”

“Could always use more,” Parker admits. “And it wouldn’t be so bad to have more people as lookouts.”

“Neither of us are great lookouts,” Sami Jo says, surprisingly candid. Autumn frowns up at her, but she just shrugs. “Babe, you can barely hear.”

“I mean, no,” Autumn says. Parker blinks in surprise. Now that he looks a little closer, Autumn is definitely looking at Sami Jo’s lips as she speaks. He maybe would’ve written that off as a girlfriend thing, but it makes just as much sense for it to be lip-reading. “But I thought…” She jerks her head up at the ceiling significantly.

Sami Jo’s eyes widen. “You can’t be serious.”

“He’s a good lookout!”

“He didn’t even notice these two clownfucks walking in!”

“Clownfuck,” James repeats under his breath. “Gonna use that one.”

Autumn crosses her arms. “We can’t just leave him.”

“We-” Sami Jo sighs. “Okay. Maybe.”

“Maybe what?” James demands.

“We have another guy as our lookout.” Sami Jo grimaces. “He’s a little weird. Got scratched by a zomb, but he seems fine.”

“And anything that doesn’t seem fine, he was like that beforehand,” Autumn adds. Sami Jo nods next to her. “But anyways. The three of us, and all the supplies we got, and we join up with you guys. Deal?”

“We’re not in charge,” James says. “We’d have to talk to Steve.” But from the way he glances at Parker, he knows as well as Parker does that Steve is going to say yes. Even if he complains about it.

Sami Jo nods. “I want to meet him.”

“That could work, actually.” James glances at Parker. “You take her to Steven and Cib, I’ll stay here and help Autumn get everything ready to leave.”

“And Alfredo,” Autumn insists.

“And Alfredo,” James agrees. “Wherever he is.”

“The roof, probably,” Sami Jo mutters. She tosses her hair over her shoulder and turns to face Autumn, stroking a hand down the back of her head.. “Be careful while I’m gone.”

“You too.” Autumn leans up on her tiptoes, and Sami Jo smiles as she leans down to kiss her.

James glances at Parker. “Don’t get lost.”

“I’m not going to get lost, James, why would you-”

“And don’t get eaten,” James adds. “Steve’ll be pissed if one of us has to figure out that weird sorting system you’ve got going on.”

Parker is pretty sure that Cib has it at least half figured out by now, because it’s actually not that complicated, but he nods anyways. “See you soon.”

“See you soon, man.”

Sami Jo looks at Parker. “How’re we getting there?”

“We have bicycles.”

“Then let’s ride.” And she grins at him, and Parker feels himself grin back.

  #

  There is a specific, special way to open the kitchen store door that doesn’t result in a barbed wire trap maiming you. The day that Steve set it up, he showed everyone how to do it, and how to be careful about it. Parker has practiced opening the barbed wire trap dozens of times in the past month and a half.

“You’re bad at that,” Sami Jo says, after Parker narrowly avoids getting caught in the trap.

“It’s set up poorly, not my fault,” he mutters, even though Steve and Cib can probably hear him. He steps into the store. “Steve! We have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Cib pops up from behind the counter with the computer monitor, and his jaw drops. “Aw, Sami Jo!”

“Cib!” She practically flies over to where he is, throwing her arms around his neck, and he manages to both catch her and pick her up. “Oh my god!”

“Did you trade James for her?” Steven asks, sliding over to Parker’s side. “I’m not judging if you did, because this could potentially be a step up, but we need to get walkie-talkies or something so we can discuss these things on the fly.”

“I didn’t trade James.”

“Yeah, James probably would’ve traded you first.”

Parker shakes his head. Steve looks at him sidelong. “No, I mean it, he would’ve.”

“I know you mean it,” Parker admits. “I just mean he didn’t. And we’re not trying to trade, they’re trying to join up.”

“Join up?” Cib repeats. He still has an arm around Sami Jo’s waist, but now she’s sitting on the counter next to him, one foot swinging against Cib’s thigh. “Donezo. Welcome aboard, you’re a real pirate now.”

“Hold on.” Steven looks at Sami Jo. “First of all, I’m Steven.”

She waves at him. “Sami Jo. Can my girlfriend and I move in?”

“Girlfriend? Aw!” Cib grins at her. “Steve, we gotta, she was my neighbor, we have a code of honor.”

“Cib, there’s not a neighborly code of honor.”

“You just don’t know about it because you weren’t inducted into the order.”

Steve frowns. “What order? Is there a secret neighbor order?”

Sami Jo nods. “Cib, remember that fourth rite of passage?”

Cib shakes his head. “It was brutal. My nutsack is still bruised, and it’s been years .”

“Okay,” Steve says loudly. “Putting aside the fact that my neighbors apparently hate me, why should we?”

“We’ve got a lot of guns.”

Steve glances at Parker. “Do we need more guns?”

“It’s never bad to have more guns,” Parker says.

“That’s a good point.” Steve looks back at Sami Jo. “You and your girlfriend?”

“She’s hard of hearing, but she’s a good shot.” She grimaces. “And I guess our lookout, but he would probably just nest on the roof.”

“Roof?” Steven repeats.

“ Nest? ” Parker repeats, because that part is new information.

“Steve,” Cib says. “Steve, Steve. We have to. We have to or I’ll leave. ”

“You’re not gonna leave.”

“I’d leave!” He tugs Sami Jo in closer towards him. “I know her!”

“You know us too!”

“What if I like her more?”

“What if you like her girlfriend less?”

“I already love her,” Cib says solemnly. “Also, they don’t have a Parker.”

“Okay, that’s a good reason,” Steve admits. Parker sighs. Sami Jo giggles, because apparently it’s easy to get on board with Parker being at the bottom of the totem pole. “Just you three?”

“Just us three. And Alfredo eats bugs and rotten food, so you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “And this is a human you’re inviting into our home?”

“We think so, yeah.”

“And you’d chip in, with supply runs and all that?”

“Of course, we’re not freeloaders.”

“Steve,” Cib says, eyes round. “Steve, say yes, please, please, I won’t ask you for anything ever again-”

“Don’t lie.”

“I won’t ask you for anything until tomorrow.”

“Cib.”

“I won���t ask you for anything for four hours.”

“That seems like a reasonable sacrifice,” Sami Jo says seriously. “I think you should give the man what he wants.”

Steve sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, fine, okay, let’s do it, why not?”

“Yes!” Cib holds up a hand, and Sami Jo high-fives him so hard that Parker winces. Cib doesn’t react. “I wanna meet your deaf girlfriend, I bet she’s great.”

“She’s the best!” Sami Jo beams and points at Parker. “She held up that one at gunpoint.”

“Parker!” Steve says, aghast. “You got held up? We’ve talked about this!”

Parker frowns. “No, we haven’t.”

“Well, we’re going to have to.”

“Well, James had Sami Jo at gunpoint!”

“ Dude ,” Cib says, and looks at Sami Jo. “I can fight him for your honor, if you want.”

“I can fight for my own honor, but thanks.” Sami Jo grins. “Can we go get my girlfriend now?”

“And James,” Parker mumbles.

“Girlfriend and James,” Steve repeats. “Alright, let’s shape up and ship out. And also find the weird lookout.”

  #

  Parker does not like Alfredo. The less said about that, the better.

  #

  “Hey.” Sami Jo pokes her head into the stockroom. “Is Cib in here?”

“I don’t think so.” Parker glances around and cups his hands around his mouth. “Cib, wake up!”

There’s no answer. Sami Jo frowns. “Nobody’s seen him in a few hours.”

“What? Why?”

“Dunno. That’s why I was hoping he was back here.”

“Well, he’s not.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Sami Jo shakes her head. “Just let one of us know if he turns up, okay?”

“I will,” Parker promises. As soon as she leaves, he grabs a flashlight and starts going through the aisles of shelves. There’s no telling with Cib, whether he could’ve left or fallen asleep under a shelf waiting to jump out and scare Parker, but it’s worth checking. And double-checking.

In fact, Parker is on his third pass scouring the shelves when he hears Steve demand, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Uh- I’m-” Parker swivels, flashlight in hand, and Steve shrinks back as the beam hits him in the face. Parker switches it off. “Sorry. Flashlight.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Steve shakes his head. “Have you seen Cib?”

“No,” Parker says, trying to ignore the sinking dread in his stomach. “Why, has he- isn’t he back?”

“No,” Steve says, clearly frustrated. “And nobody knows where he is.”

“Did he take one of the bikes?”

“James is in the toy store right now checking.”

Parker shudders involuntarily. “Why do we store our bikes in a toy store?”

“Because the zombies weren’t enough nightmare fuel, so we keep zombie bait in an abandoned toy store. And if you find Cib before we do, tell him to quit being such a cuck.”

“I- what?”

“And you can kick him. You have my permission.” He points at Parker. “One time only.”

“I’m not gonna cuck him- kick him, fuck- ”

“Whatever.” Steve turns and leaves, and Parker takes a deep, rattling breath.

Okay. They can’t find Cib. This is fine. These things happen all the time. They misplace members of their group regularly. Nothing is wrong.

“Nothing is wrong,” Parker says aloud. It’s a little shaky to his own ears, and he sways on the spot, but he says it again. “Nothing is wrong.”

Something bangs on the back door.

Parker, to what he thinks is his credit, doesn’t scream too loudly, or drop the flashlight. It’s really more of a yelp, and he manages to swing the flashlight to face the back door. It used to be an emergency exit, and he’s never opened it. It’s pretty firmly one-way, so he’s not worried about zombies.

Or, well. He wasn’t worried about zombies until right now.

Slowly, gripping the flashlight with both hands, he walks over to the back door. Something bangs on it again, and he flinches, but he reaches one hand out and pushes the door open.

“Dead!” someone shouts on the other side, and Parker jumps back, reflexively throwing an arm up in front of his face. “Don’t open that door!”

Parker lowers his arm. “Cib!”

“Uh, yeah!” Cib wrenches the door the rest of the way open. He has a case of plastic water bottles tucked under one arm and dried blood under one eye. “Now, I know what you’re thinking, but really, the plastic bottles aren’t bad for the environment, because recycling is a thing rich people do-”

“Dude!” Parker hisses. “Close the door!”

Cib steps inside and lets the door close. “You really shouldn’t open that, by the way, because if I were a zombie you’d be filet high noon right now.”

“Where were you?”

“Supply run!” He drops the water on the floor with a loud smack. “You’re welcome.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“Well, where did you all think I was, fucking H&M?”

“Dead,” James snaps from the doorway. Parker turns to see him, arms tightly folded, with Steve hovering over one shoulder. “Dude, you can’t just fucking leave like that.”

“Whoa!” Cib frowns. “What’s the issue tissue?”

“No one knew where you were,” Steve says. “Haven’t you ever seen a zombie movie? When you do shit like that, normally it means you died horribly.”

“We were worried,” Parker mumbles. It feels a little lame, next to Steve and James’s real anger, but Cib looks at him in surprise. Parker looks away immediately and shrugs.

“Okay,” Cib says. “Okay. I won’t do it again.”

“New rule,” Steve says abruptly. “Nobody leaves without telling someone first, got it?”

Cib nods. “Nobody leaves without someone fisting them.”

“Jesus actual Christ,” Steve says. “Okay, I think that means you understand, and I don’t want to ask any more questions and find out. Everyone good with the rule?”

Parker nods. James turns and leans into the main room. “Hey! Nobody leaves without telling someone else first from now on, got it?”

“Got it,” Sami Jo yells back. “Now I just need to tell my deaf girlfriend.”

James grimaces. “It’s hard communicating these things,” he mutters.

Cib shrugs. “At least I’m gonna get fisted more now.”

“Not it,” Steve says immediately. “Not it, and I’m leaving.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted it to be you anyways,” Cib mutters as James and Steve both walk away.

Parker picks up the case of water bottles. “Hey, what… what happened to your face?”

Cib lifts a hand to rub at the dry blood. “Eh, missed where the corner of a building was. Bricks and I don’t get along anymore.”

“Not a zombie?”

“I wouldn’t come back if it were a zombie,” he scoffs. “Nah, I’d just leave you guys forever.”

Parker frowns. He knows it’s a joke, but… “Don’t do that.”

Cib grins. “Aw, what’s the matter, parking lot, you gonna miss me?”

“I’m gonna- gonna miss all the water you bring me.” Parker pivots on his heel, so hard that he almost stumbles, and he’s pretty sure Cib is laughing at him. But that doesn’t matter. Even the obvious lie doesn’t matter. He’s just glad that Cib is there, and that he probably understands what Parker didn’t say.

  #

  “Can’t sleep?”

Parker glances up as Steve slides down the wall to sit next to him. “Nah. You?”

Steve gives him a look. “Do I look like I’m asleep?”

Parker shrugs. “Sleepwalking is maybe the least weird thing that’s happening these days.”

“That’s true.” Steven tips his head back, to where it thuds against the wall. “Hey.”

“Hey?”

“What are we doing?”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

Parker shrugs. “Do you?”

“Maybe.” Steve looks at Parker. “What do you think we’re doing?”

“Right now? Or in the world?”

“Whatever.”

Parker looks up at the ceiling, considering. “I think we’re faking our way through an apocalypse.”

“Still?”

“We’re only a couple months in, none of us are survivalists, we’re all learning to do things we don’t know how to do. I still suck at shooting.”

“We know,” Steve mutters. When Parker glances over, Steve is half smiling at him.

“And I’m still here!” Parker hesitantly bumps his shoulder against Steve’s, and Steve bumps him back. “I’m here and I don’t know what I’m doing, but you guys are keeping me around anyways. And you might not know what you’re doing either.”

“Watch yourself.”

“I said might!”

“We can throw you out in the street.”

“Then who will do your inventory?”

“All of us know how to count, god, Parker.”

Parker grins. He knows it’s ridiculous, this whole thing is ridiculous, but it’s the end of the world and Steve is sitting next to him, tired and alive. Just like always. “Listen, my point is that we don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re doing it anyways.”

“And you think that’s good enough?”

“Do you think we should stop?”

“I don’t think we can.”

Parker shrugs. “There we go.”

“I hate that you’re good at making things less scary,” Steve says, but he’s smiling. He’s falling asleep, Parker can feel it. “Shouldn’t be allowed.”

“One of us had to be.”

“Yeah, it was supposed to be me, you total dick.”

“You’re just gonna have to settle for being good at everything else.”

“Not good enough.”

“Get over it, you one percent bitch.”

Steven laughs aloud at that, and his head finally tips over onto Parker’s shoulder. “Ugh, your bones.”

“My bones?”

“Not comfy.”

“Then go lie down in bed.”

“Fuck off,” Steve mumbles. “Parker, let’s sleep together.”

“I’ve had dreams about this,” Parker answers in a monotone.

“Don’t make it weird.” Steve scoots closer to Parker, relaxing against his side. “Just sit.”

“Close your eyes and think of England, Steve.”

“Is- is that a sex joke? Are you sex joking me?”

“You said we should sleep together.”

“Ugh.” He’s almost asleep now, his weight pressing down on Parker’s shoulder. Like he can’t hold himself up anymore. “Gross.”

“Yeah,” Parker says. “Gross.”

It takes about ten minutes for Steve’s breathing to even out, and for Parker to realize that he’s not going to be able to move without waking him up. Which is fine. Steven sleeps when he can, not every night but most nights. Parker… can’t do that. He didn’t sleep last night either. Naps during the day, sometimes, but almost never at night. He wasn’t going to sleep tonight anyways.

Parker lets out a deep breath. Steven doesn’t move.

“Alright,” Parker mumbles, as quietly as he can. “Okay.”

By the time Steve rolls off him and sprawls out on the floor, Parker has run through his mental list of inventory four times. He gets to his feet, a little numb but still steady, and finds a blanket and a pillow for Steve. It takes him about ten minutes to make his way out into the main room.

James, sitting against the far wall, looks up as Parker walks in. “Hey,” he says softly. None of the sleeping figures stir. There are the pieces of a dismantled revolver in his lap, because that’s what James does when he’s nervous. He takes things apart.

Parker sits down next to him. “Can’t sleep?”

“Woke up early. You know where Steven is?”

“He fell asleep in the back room.”

“I thought you slept back there.”

“Sometimes,” Parker lies. “What’re you up to?”

James shakes his head. “Just trying to find something to do.”

“You wanna play I Spy?”

“You’re not serious.”

“What else are we gonna do?”

“Sit in absolute silence.”

Parker waits. Because he knows James, and because there’s nothing else to do.

James sighs. “I spy, with my little eye, a bitch.”

“There are no mirrors in here.”

“And that’s why you don’t see him.”

Parker laughs, even though it’s a stupid joke. “Alright, you wanna go again? For real this time.”

“Ugh, for real this time,” James mutters, but his shoulders are already less tense. Parker thinks he could stay up all night every night, if it means helping his friends look like people again.

  #

  The next time Jeremy visits, he knocks on the door, which is an improvement by virtue of not being completely terrifying. But he stands outside patiently, and waits for Parker to open the door for him. “Good to see you again.”

“What do you want?” Parker sighs.

“Good way to greet an old friend.” Jeremy leans in. “And it looks like you have some new friends too.”

“I can shoot him if you want,” Sami Jo says, from a few feet behind Parker. She probably already has her gun drawn.

“I wouldn’t,” Jeremy says.

Parker kind of wants to say something snarky, like I would, or like Jeremy made jokes about murdering me before the apocalypse even started, but he stops himself. If Jeremy is visiting, he probably needs something, but he probably also has something for them. The axe is good to have, so maybe this is good to have, too. “Steve’s not here right now,” he says as a warning.

“Then I’ll talk to you instead. Tell your friend to put her gun down.”

“Parker,” Sami Jo says, warningly.

Parker turns to her. “No shooting until we hear him out.”

She lowers her gun, looking reluctant. “Who is this guy?”

“I’m the guy who’s gonna save your lives,” Jeremy says, almost cheerfully.

“Yeah? And how’re you gonna do that?”

Jeremy takes a step back. There’s something behind him resting in a kid’s wagon, something that Parker can’t quite make sense of. It’s huge and metal and comes up to Jeremy’s knees, and it looks heavy-duty.

Sami Jo takes in a sharp breath. “That’s a power generator.”

“Gasoline-powered,” Jeremy says. “Not that there’s much gasoline at the end of the world, but I figure with that big ol’ inventory room you guys have, you must have some fuel.”

They do. Not that Parker’s going to tell Jeremy that.

“What do you want for it?” Sami Jo asks, almost warily.

“And Steve’s not here,” Parker says again.

Jeremy sighs. “That’s a shame. I’d ask him for you again.”

“Again?” Sami Jo repeats.

“Although actually-” Jeremy looks Parker up and down. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Wh- th- you-” Parker scoffs. “Sleeping? In this economy?”

“Ezonomy,” Sami Jo says, because apparently she’s been talking to Cib, but she frowns. “Did you just say you haven’t been sleeping?”

“Sleeping?” Parker repeats. His voice is getting steadily higher, and he can feel Jeremy and Sami Jo’s eyes on him like little pin-prick lasers, and oh god, he’s definitely digging himself deeper here. “No, I just meant- who has- you know, it takes - takes a lot of time-”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Jeremy!” Parker claps his hands together. “Generator! What- trading?”

“I want a month’s food,” Jeremy says. “For two people.”

“Fuck off,” Sami Jo says immediately.

Jeremy raises his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”

“Wait,” Parker says. “Wait, Steve should be back in an hour or two, can you wait to talk to him?”

“This is a one time only thing, Parker, and there are a lot of people who would give me a month’s food for this.”

“But we don’t-” Parker looks desperately at Sami Jo. “What would we use it for?”

She bites her lip, worrying it between her teeth. “Recharging batteries once we find walkie talkies? Computers? A stovetop?”

“All good ideas,” Jeremy says. “All this can be yours for the low cost of eight cases of MREs.”

“Four,” Sami Jo says immediately. Parker lets out a breath of relief. He’s never been good at bartering.

“Eight,” Jeremy says evenly.

“Five.”

“Seven.”

“ Five. ”

Jeremy’s eyes move over to Parker, too slowly to be anything but deliberate. “I’m not doing five unless you can throw something extra in for me.”

“Five cases, no extra,” Sami Jo says. “Take it or leave it.”

Jeremy is still looking at Parker.

Oh, Parker thinks, and looks at the generator. They could use it. It’d be nice to be able to charge electronics. It’d be good for Cib, to use that for his weird monitor project instead of that complicated-looking system he has involving D batteries and foil. And they can always find more food, right?

Slowly, as subtly as he can, Parker nods.

“Five cases it is,” Jeremy says agreeably. “Help me get the generator out of the wagon, and then Parker can load the cases in.”

“Good,” Sami Jo says, with a vindictive level of satisfaction. Parker is so, so glad that she’s on his side. And she helps him unload it, and Parker takes the wagon to the back.

“What’s going on?” Autumn asks.

Parker jumps, violently, but he turns to where she’s sitting against the wall so she can see his lips. “Autumn! Uh, I forgot you were-”

“Here?” She shrugs. She has a book in her lap, not one that Parker recognizes, but they’ve been building up a mini library for her lately. She inventories that herself, with a lot of care. “I’m quiet. What’s the wagon for?”

“A friend of ours is trading us a power generator for food.”

Autumn’s eyes bulge. “Like, a real generator?”

“He says it’s gasoline-powered. Sami Jo is setting it up in the main room right now.”

“Can I help?”

“If you know how, sure.”

Autumn jumps to her feet, book all but forgotten, and runs out into the main room, leaving Parker alone.

They can afford five cases of MREs, probably. It’s only a week’s worth of food for them, and it’ll last Jeremy and Andrew way longer than that. But he promised something extra, so Parker opens one of the cases of MREs and gets to work.

When he wheels the wagon back out, Sami Jo and Autumn are fiddling with the generator. Jeremy looks up at Parker and the towering stack of MRE cases. “That one looks like it’s been opened.”

“We, uh,” Parker says, trying frantically to think of a lie that fits. “I just, uh. I opened it to make sure it was full. Because that… happens wrong sometimes. You can, uh. Double check, if you want.”

Jeremy opens the case. He doesn’t react as he sees all the water bottles, the ammo, the batteries, and the matchboxes, but when he looks at Parker, his lips are halfway quirked up. Like he knows that this was more than Parker should be giving him. “Yep. All there.”

Parker lets out a deep breath. “Cool. Uh, can you… can you get out? So we can figure out how to tell everyone else what we just did?”

“Sure thing. I’ll see you around.” He turns to Sami Jo. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, thanks for the generator,” Sami Jo says without looking up.

Autumn turns to Jeremy and opens her mouth, but before she says anything, Jeremy lifts his hands and does… something that Parker has to assume is sign language. Autumn’s jaw drops, but she signs something back, less clumsy than him.

Jeremy smirks, in the most unsettling way that he possibly could, and then he wheels the wagon out, and he’s gone.

Parker looks at Autumn. “What did he say?”

“He said he’d keep an ear out for me,” Autumn says, dumbstruck. “What do you think that means?”

“I think it means we should be careful when we make deals with him,” Sami Jo mutters. “Are we good, Parker? Five cases is a lot of food.”

“We’re extra good,” Parker says, with all the confidence he can fake. “Didn’t even hardly dent a thing.”

Sami Jo makes a face. “Make sure you’re more convincing when you say that to Steve and the boys.”

Parker sighs. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go practice.”

  #

  Parker’s working theory - and it’s not perfect - is that Cib is being nice to him because of the generator.

Cib had been ecstatic when he got back and saw the generator. Even Steve and James hadn’t been too mad about the food, because electricity is a hot commodity at the end of the world. They’ve been looking for gasoline for the past couple of weeks, alongside MREs and bullets, and they’ve been finding it. James showed everyone how to empty a car’s gas tank. And it’s been nice, having things like electric lights and Cib’s computer.

So Cib is being nice to Parker. And it’s probably because of the generator, which is fine, because that was a good trade on Parker’s part. Or mostly on Sami Jo’s part. Nobody knows about the extras that he gave Jeremy. Nobody double-checks the inventory. They just accept what Parker says.

Except:

“I thought we had more batteries than this,” Cib says.

Parker’s head jerks up. Cib is standing near one of the shelves, frowning down. “What?”

“I looked at this shelf a couple days ago, I swear-” Cib shakes his head. “Do you think being near zombies makes you stupider?”

Parker blinks a few times. It’s hard to follow Cib’s tangents when he’s well-rested and lucid, let alone when he hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a couple weeks. “Zombies?”

“Yeah, like, they eat brains so your brains get smaller in self defense.”

“Can brains do that?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a nerdologist.”

“Neurologist, they’re called-” Parker yawns, abruptly. “Fuck.”

“You’re a fuck. Shouldn’t there be more batteries, though?”

“Maybe your brain is shrinking,” Parker says. It’s hard to think straight. He knows James Allen McCune had stopped by again a few days ago, but he can’t remember if he’d given him batteries. The days are blurring together, lately. “Getting smaller ‘cause you’re not using it.”

“Uh, I said my brain, not my dick.”

“Cib, don’t be gross.”

Cib turns and spreads his arms wide. “It’s the end of the world, baby, there’s nothing left that’s clean.”

“You’re a clean,” Parker mumbles.

“Yeah, that’s because I shaved.” Cib snatches a couple of batteries off the shelf. “Hey, carpark.”

“S’not my name.”

“Do you still nap when you’re alone?”

Parker frowns, trying to clear his mind. “What?”

“You don’t sleep during the night,” Cib says. He’s giving Parker an eerily even look. “I can tell. You snore.”

“I would never.”

“You would sometimes.”

“Do you listen for me snoring?”

Cib shrugs. “Maybe it’s nice hearing my friends breathing.”

“That’s creepy.”

“But you quit snoring. Or you just quit sleeping, right?”

“I nap,” Parker says, a little plaintively. He can barely keep his head upright. “Sometimes.”

“When was the last time?”

Parker takes a deep breath and preemptively winces. “What day is it again?”

Cib goes quiet for a few seconds. “Okay, number uno, nobody knows what day it is, calendars are not useful for fighting zombies.”

“You could throw a calendar at a zombie.”

“Papercuts do not stop the undead. Probably.”

Parker nods. “What’s numero dos?”

“Numero dos is, lie down.”

Parker doesn’t want to listen. He doesn’t mean to listen. But he blinks and suddenly he’s on the ground. “I don’t need a nap.”

“Did you sleep yesterday?” Cib asks. He sounds closer to Parker.

“No.”

“Day before?”

“For about an hour.”

“Parker, I can barely count things when I’m awake, how are you supposed to count them with one hour of sleep in the last forty-one?”

“It’s been more than forty-one hours.”

Cib sighs loudly. Very loudly. Parker opens his eyes (did he close them?) just in time to see Cib lower himself on top of him.

“Cib,” Parker says. “Get off.”

“Nope.” He pops the p. Parker can feel it against his cheek. “I’m your wanking blanket.”

“My what? ”

“Your weighted belater.”

“Cib, oh my god-”

“Your waiting baker.”

“Weighted blanket?”

“That’s what I said,” Cib lies, blatantly. “Go to sleep, dude, the world’s still gonna be shit when you wake up. You won’t miss anything.”

“M’s’posed to help Alfredo watch,” Parker says, but he can already feel himself falling asleep. “This is th’one day I need to stay up.”

“I’ll stay up for you,” Cib promises.

Parker wrinkles his nose. “Really?”

“None of you silly bitches are dying on my watch,” Cib says, with a stupid kind of confidence.

Parker wants to say… something. That they can’t guarantee that, or that he doesn’t trust Cib to keep himself safe, or something stupid like asking Cib to stay while he’s asleep. But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he lets his eyes slip closed again. “Okay.”

“Cool,” Cib says, and smacks a loud, wet kiss on Parker’s cheek.

Parker wrinkles his nose. “Get your… fucky fish lips away.”

Cib laughs, warm against Parker’s ear. It’s the last thing Parker hears for a long time.

  #

  “Twenty-six hours? ”

“None of us wanted to wake you up,” Autumn says, completely unapologetic.

“I didn’t need sleep that badly!”

“Well, clearly you did, or else you wouldn’t have slept.”

“I sleep!”

Autumn fixes him with a deadpan look. Parker sighs. “I nap.”

“When was the last time you got more than three hours of sleep at a time?”

Parker grimaces. It was probably before Autumn and Sami Jo joined up, and everyone probably knows it. “Where is everyone?”

“Steve and James are trying to figure out who’s still camping near us.”

“Cib and Sami Jo?”

“Supply run.”

“Oh,” Parker says. He doesn’t know why he’s disappointed. “So it’s just us?”

Autumn nods, looking a little too knowing. “Yeah, Sami Jo said she was getting weirded out by Cib watching you sleep, so he dragged him away.”

“So you’re watching me sleep instead?”

“Nope.” Autumn lifts up her book. “Reading.”

Parker blinks. “You’re reading World War Z? Was the end of the world not enough zombies for you?”

“They didn’t get very much right in the book,” she deadpans. “We don’t have anything to do, by the way. Cib said he took a few batteries, but that’s it, so there’s no point in recounting inventory.”

“Do you think we can come up with something to do?”

“Do you have any ideas?”

Parker glances around the inventory room. It’s all neatly ordered, but it also all looks… well, like it’s been in a zombie apocalypse for three months. “You wanna clean?”

“Seriously?”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Autumn says, but she dog-ears her page and puts the book down. “Do we have cleaning supplies?”

“Some.”

“What kind of ‘some?’”

“Clorox wipes.” Parker pauses, thinking. “Paper towels.”

“Do paper towels count?”

“They do if you clean things with them.”

“We should just Clorox all the hard surfaces,” Autumn decides. “Give us a little bit of a shine. We could use some shine.”

“Something shiny at the end of the world,” Parker says, and Autumn grins at him. And he wishes he’d had the chance to know her in a world without zombies, he really does. Her and Sami Jo both. All of them together. They could’ve been something spectacular, he thinks, something spectacular with a goal bigger than just staying alive.

Autumn takes the lead on the cleaning. Parker thinks it’s partly because she was bored, partly because she wants to get done and finish her book, and partly because he’s still moving very, very slowly. He’s going to have to dig up some sleeping pills, because this sleep schedule is kind of untenable.

It takes Parker until they start wiping down the sleeping bags that he notices the humming. He stops and turns to Autumn without thinking. She doesn’t notice, just keeps humming something soft that Parker doesn’t quite recognize, until--

“Bon Jovi,” he blurts out.

Autumn blinks a couple times and swivels her head towards him. “Did you say something?”

“Are you humming Bon Jovi?”

“Yeah, it’s a good song.”

“Do you…” Parker stops. “Is it insensitive to ask if you listen to a lot of music?”

Autumn’s eyebrows slowly climb up her face. “Not really?”

“Then do you?”

“I don’t listen to much these days.”

“Did you?”

She nods. “I listened to a lot of classic rock when I was younger.”

“Bon Jovi, obviously.”

“Yeah, Bon Jovi. I liked The Eagles.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

“I was in a really bad car wreck when I was twelve.” She shrugs. “Head injuries are weird. Lost most of my hearing from it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine with ASL and lip reading.” She smiles wanly at him, and Parker smiles back reflexively. “I miss my hearing aids, though.”

“You had hearing aids?”

“Yeah, but they quit working the day before the whole zombie thing.”

He winces. “Bad timing.”

“This whole thing is bad timing,” Autumn agrees. “But it could be worse.”

“I think you’re the only other person who says things like that.”

“James does sometimes.”

“Maybe James is just handling this whole thing well.”

Autumn snorts. “Are you implying you’re handling this well?”

“Are you implying I’m not?”

“You just slept for twenty-six hours.”

Parker sighs. “That’s going to be a trump card in conversations now, huh?”

Autumn pats his shoulder awkwardly. “You brought it on yourself.”

He knows she’s right, sort of. He would’ve slept if he could’ve, honestly, but it didn’t work out that way. It took Cib lying on top of him, and that was a level of weird that he’s not quite willing to dedicate himself to dealing with regularly yet.

“It’s not my fault that Cib physically held me down and made me sleep,” he says, and that same knowing look from earlier flicks across Autumn’s face. Parker frowns. “What?”

“Nothing,” Autumn says, just a little shit-eating, and looks back down to where she’s Clorox-wiping a sleeping bag.

“Autumn-”

She starts humming Bon Jovi again, with a little more determination than before.

“Fine,” Parker mutters. But he starts cleaning again. And if he starts humming along, it’s not like Autumn will say anything about it.

  #

  Steve and James give them shit for cleaning at the end of the world, and they give Parker gasoline and sleeping pills. They also give Parker shit for not sleeping, which he knew they would. And it’s shaping up to be just another night at the end of the world, and then:

Cib kicks the door in, narrowly avoiding the barbed wire trap, and shouts, “Who’s ready to get fucking wasted? ”

“We found vodka,” Sami Jo says behind him. She has three or four bottles in her arms, and Cib is brandishing another one in the air. “Like, a lot of vodka.”

Steven turns to Parker. “What do we have in the way of glassware and mixers?”

“Glassware, yes. Mixers, probably not.”

“Steve,” Cib says, offended, “are you trying to pussy out of drinking straight vodka?”

“I’m not trying to pussy out, I just think it’s a bad idea-”

“Dude,” James says. “Let’s get drunk. ”

Autumn jumps to her feet. “I’ve been stashing something for this in the library, hold on!”

“Stashing-” Parker turns to look at her, but she’s already running off to inventory. He sighs. “Do you all have stashes?”

Everyone nods. Parker wonders what the hell the point of doing inventory is if everyone has secret stashes.

“Where’d you even find that?” James asks, peering at the bottles.

“Oh, there were a ton more where these came from,” Sami Jo says cheerfully. “We just grabbed what we could carry. No idea why someone was hoarding vodka.”

“Because it’s the end of the world,” Steve points out. “If I were in charge of inventory, we’d have a lot less food and a lot more vodka.”

“And that’s why I’m in charge,” Parker says. Everyone ignores him.

“Okay!” Autumn reappears, holding two massive bottles of Sprite. “We can mix it with this.”

James frowns. “Were you just hoarding Sprite?”

“Babe,” Sami Jo says, eyes wide. “Holy shit, I love you.”

Autumn smiles. “Love you too.”

“Enough fucking talking, ” Cib groans. “We do enough of that on normal days, why don’t we start drinking?”

“Cib has a point.” Steve shudders. “Ugh, it really is the end of the world.”

Cib points at him. “I’ve been right about things at least six and a quarter times.”

“And how many times have you been wrong?”

“Six and three quarters.” He shrugs. “At least.”

Parker snorts. Cib finally looks at him, and his eyes light up. “Oh, hey, parkade’s awake!”

“Took him twenty-six hours,” Autumn says as she sits next to Parker, cross-legged. Parker rolls his eyes, but she just grins at him, a little slyly, before turning back to Cib. “He didn’t wake up till you were gone. I think he missed you.”

“Or maybe he subconsciously knew it wasn’t safe till Cib was gone,” James deadpans.

Cib casts James a deeply offended look. “He was probably safer with me than Sprite stash.”

“Hey.” Sami Jo nudges him. “That’s my girlfriend.”

“Hell yeah, she is.” Cib grins. “Someone go find glasses, I wanna get sloshier than a June fish.”

James frowns. “Hey, dude, a June fish ate my dad. Show some respect.”

Cib bows so deeply that his nose almost touches his knee. Parker grins as he gets to his feet. “I’ll get glasses.”

Autumn pats Parker’s leg as he passes her. “Don’t pass out.”

“I’m not gonna need sleep for a couple days, don’t worry.”

“That’s, like, the most worrying thing you could possibly say,” Steve says. “‘Oh, no big deal, I won’t sleep for two days,’ Parker, we got you sleeping pills for a reason.”

“Oh!” Cib reaches into his pocket and fishes out a prescription bottle. “Hey, catch!”

He lobs the bottle. Parker catches it and looks at the label. It’s more sleeping meds, because of course it is. “Guys, I don’t need-”

“Twenty-six hours,” say Autumn, James, and Sami Jo, all together.

“That’s half a week,” Cib says solemnly. “C’mon, take the pills.”

“But not tonight,” Steve says. “Because tonight if you pass out it will be because you’re drunk, or else we’ll use you as zombie bait.”

“I can run from zombies.”

“You’re gonna have to if you don’t find us vodka glasses.” Cib plops down. “C’mon, tall boy.”

Parker leaves to the sound of Steve yelling that there’s nothing wrong with being tall, god, Cib. When he comes back, glasses in hand, Steve is sitting on Cib. He doesn’t know why these things surprise him anymore.

“Ooh, I’m pouring!” Sami Jo, sitting next to Autumn, grabs one of the bottles. “Gimme the glasses.”

Parker sets all the glasses down in front of her and goes to Autumn’s other side. Cib smacks at Steve’s side until he gets up and then scoots over to where Parker’s sitting, pressing one of his knees against Parker’s. “Do we have a lot of glassware just back there?”

“We do, actually.”

“Well, no shit, this was a kitchen store,” James points out. “That’s why we have knives.”

“Do we have bowls?” Cib asks.

“We have bowls.”

“And spatulas?”

“Yeah, we have some of those.”

“What about immersion blenders?”

“Cib, you’re never going to use an immersion blender,” Steve snaps.

Cib shrugs, unbothered. “You could mix up a zombie’s brain real good with one of those lil bastards, is all I’m saying.”

Steve gags, and everyone else groans. “You just almost made me spill the vodka,” Sami Jo complains.

“I’m gonna make you guys brain soup,” Cib announces. “It’s gonna be delish.”

“Cib,” Steve says, strangled. “Cib, oh my god, stop-”

“Is this why you wanted the zombie eyeballs?” James demands. Steve goes even paler.

“Put your head between your knees,” Autumn advises. “It helps with nausea.”

Steve does, but he shakes his head. “I think it’s too late for that. Oh, god. Oh, shit .”

“You know what’ll settle your stomach?” Cib smacks Steve’s back, so hard that Parker winces in sympathy. “Vodka.”

“I’m never going to know peace again.” Steve huddles even further into himself. “Every time I close my eyes, I’m going to think about Cib cracking open a zombie head and pureeing it.”

“Like, slicing the top of the head off?” Parker asks without thinking.

James snorts. “Oh, yeah, let me just take my guillotine and chop off part of a zombie skull, that won’t get bone in my brain soup at all.”

“Well, but the skull can act like a soup bowl if you do that.”

“We need to stop,” Steve says. “Seriously, guys, this is-”

“Aw!” Cib shakes his head. “What’s the matter, Steve-o? Gettin’ a little queasy at the thought of brains over easy?”

“I hate you,” Steve says with feeling. “Cib, I hate you, and I hate Parker too.”

“Hey,” Parker says, more out of principle than because he believes it.

“You’re the one who brought up skull bowls, and I-” he shudders violently. “Oh, my god, it’s a zombie apocalypse.”

“Has been for about three months.” Sami Jo sets a glass of vodka and Sprite in front of Steve. “I think you need this.”

“I need a real shower and for zombies to go back to being fiction,” Steve says, but he sits up enough to take the glass anyways. “Thanks.”

Sami Jo hands two glasses to Parker, and he obediently passes one to Cib. “Boys, I’d like to propose a toast.”

James grabs his glass. “What’re we toasting?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I just wanted to bring it up.

���We’re not dead,” Autumn suggests. “That’s kinda cool.”

Sami Jo beams at her. “You’re kinda cool.”

“I’m getting nauseous again,” Steve announces.

“Okay, toast!” James lifts up his glass. “Everyone go around and say something.”

“You first,” Sami Jo says expectantly.

“Uhhh, shit, uh-” James wavers, but raises his glass higher. “So here’s to vodka, for existing even when society stopped.”

“Here’s to kitchen stores,” Steven adds. “For being the reason we made it this far.”

“And here’s to bitchin’ stories.” Cib puts his glass in the middle. “Because if we survive this, oh, man, I’m going to write a book. Parker, say a toast.”

Parker opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again - oh god, there are so many things and people he could thank-

“Parker!” James shouts.

“Okay, okay, here’s-” Parker searches frantically for something. “I don’t know, here’s to Cib for making me sleep for a day, and you guys for letting me.”

Autumn nods and lifts her glass. “Here’s to being okay even though I can’t hear shit.”

“And here’s to us.” Sami Jo raises her glass. “Because no fucking zombies could take us down.”

“Hear, hear,” shouts James, and all of them clink their glasses together. Parker only manages to clink a couple before everyone’s pulling theirs back, and so he does the same and drinks.

“Oh god,” Cib gasps after a few seconds. “Guys, I forgot how good booze is.”

“I’ll drink to that,” James says, and grabs another one of the bottles.

“No, you always pour drinks weird.” Steve reaches out. “Let me-”

“Dude, no, I’m going to-”

“James, I swear, if you ruin this for me-”

“Hey.” Cib bumps his knee against Parker’s. “You toasted me.”

“Uh,” Parker says. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“Cool,” Cib says. “I like you better after you sleep. You’re toastier.”

Parker raises his eyebrows. “I… okay?”

Cib nods, like that’s the end of that, and holds out his glass. “James, gimme more vodka.”

“No!” Steve shouts. Autumn laughs, falling over on Sami Jo in the process, and Sami Jo snakes an arm around Autumn’s waist.

“Booze,” Cib is yelling, “I wanna drink, quit fucking jerking me off-” and his knee is still against Parker’s, pressing into him. It’s nice. Parker thinks he could get used to this.

  #

  The third time Jeremy shows up, they don’t have food to give him.

Which isn’t the same as not having food at all, it’s just that it’s getting harder and harder to find food. They’ve been branching farther out in search of it, but it’s not helping. It doesn’t matter how many times Parker goes through their inventory, or when they agree to lighter rations. They’re just… running out.

So Jeremy shows up, and Parker’s ready to turn him away. He’s pretty sure James and Sami Jo are, too, which is even better, because it means Parker doesn’t have to actually talk to Jeremy.

Except as soon as he’s inside, Jeremy says, “I’m not here to trade.”

“We’re not giving you anything for free,” Sami Jo snaps.

Jeremy shakes his head. “You guys have done me a solid a couple times now.” He looks at Parker, eyes resting on him for a couple seconds, long enough that Parker knows he means the extra supplies. “So I wanted to pass on something that I heard that’d help you.”

James crosses his arms. “No strings attached?”

“Not a single thread.”

“Just out of the goodness of your heart?”

Jeremy cracks a smile at that, a little wry. “You might be getting all the goodness I have left.”

“Which is?”

“A rumor. Or call it a tip. Something I’ve heard.” Jeremy glances around. “Is it just you guys here?”

“I don’t see why that matters,” Sami Jo says sharply.

Jeremy shrugs. “It’s a simple question.”

“It’s just us,” Parker says. James and Sami Jo turn to glare at him in unison, and he hunches his shoulders defensively, but he doesn’t back down. “So whatever it is, you can tell us.”

“Okay,” Jeremy says. “I’ve heard a rumor that there’s an abandoned camp about five miles north of here.”

“There are lots of abandoned camps,” James points out. “There are zombies in the north, we’re not going up there.”

“Well, you might want to. There’s an abandoned encampment of tents in a Whole Foods parking lot. Huge one. They have a bit of food. Medical supplies.” Jeremy looks at Sami Jo. “Hearing aids.”

Sami Jo takes in a sharp breath. “You’re lying.”

“I’m repeating a rumor. Not a lot of people need hearing aids at the end of the world.”

Sami Jo swallows. Parker knows what she’s thinking. It’s probably a lot like what he’s thinking. It’d be a lot easier for Autumn if she had hearing aids right now.

“Say you’re telling the truth,” James says. “Why didn’t you bring them?”

Jeremy snorts. “My goodwill only goes so far. You’re lucky I came out here to tell you.”

“Thank you,” Parker blurts out. “Even if we don’t go and- you know-”

Sami Jo whirls on him. “What do you mean, if we don’t? We’re getting those.”

“Well, I mean, we should at least try, or consider it, but-”

“ Consider it?”

“Guys,” James says sharply. “Not now.”

“You’re welcome,” Jeremy says, amiable, a little cool. “We’re even now.”

“Is Andrew still okay?” Parker asks, a little desperate.

Jeremy nods, thankfully. “I’ll bring him over sometime to prove it.”

“Good,” James says, “because I thought you ate him.”

“No, not him.”

“Uh,” Sami Jo says.

Jeremy grins, or really sort of snarls. It’s threatening. Parker is threatened. “I’ll see you guys around.”

The minute Jeremy is gone, Sami Jo puts her hands on her hips. “Okay, if we leave now, we’d need to leave a note or something so that everyone knows where we went if they get back early, but we could make it five miles-”

“Whoa, wait, Sami Jo.” James holds up his hands. “We don’t know when they’re coming back.”

“That’s why we’d leave the note.”

“But we can’t just leave our home abandoned for the foreseeable future.”

“It’s not abandoned, Alfredo’s still here.”

“And it’s against the rules.”

“No, we just have to tell someone where we’re going, and that’s what the note would be for.”

“The-” James sighs. “It’s dangerous! Just leaving like that would be dangerous.”

“And it’s not dangerous what everyone else is doing? They’re out looking for food, it’s been two days, we don’t know what kind of settlements are out there, or zombies, or-”

“Which is why we need to stay here!”

“Staying here isn’t going to get us anything.” Sami Jo’s glare sharpens. “We need to get those hearing aids.”

“And I’m with you on that, one hundred percent.” James looks at Sami Jo earnestly. “I want those. Autumn needs those, I get that, I want those for her. But if we just leave now, it could screw the whole group over. And Jeremy was right, when he said that not a lot of people need hearing aids. We can probably wait a day or two.”

Sami Jo shakes her head. “I don’t want to wait.”

“Neither do I,” James says. Parker’s pretty sure he means it, too. “But it’s for the best.”

“Maybe it’s for our best. But I’m thinking about Autumn’s best.” She pivots on her heel and goes back to the inventory room, stomping the whole way.

James looks at Parker. “It’d be dangerous,” he says again.

“I know,” Parker says. “End of the world, everything’s dangerous now.”

“Got a lot of ways things could go wrong.”

“I don’t think we have to fight about-”

James groans. “God, that wasn’t a fight! Everything is completely normal, you-” he waves Parker off. “Never mind, you don’t know how to handle minor conflict. Get out of here.”

Parker’s pretty sure that deciding if they go on a dangerous expedition for hearing aids isn’t a minor conflict, but he’s not about to risk pissing James off even more. Instead, he goes to the inventory room, where Sami Jo is sitting against a wall. Right where Autumn normally sits. She looks up at him as he walks in, eyes bright. “We have to get them.”

“I know,” Parker says, and sinks down to sit next to her. “We will.”

“We have to,” Sami Jo repeats, voice lower this time. “This isn’t - I don’t mean hypothetically, I mean we need to go and get them. Leave tonight, if we can.”

Parker pauses and points at her, then at himself. “We?”

“I don’t want to go alone.”

“But James said-”

“I don’t care what James said!” She reaches out and clasps his hand in both of hers. “Come on, please, for Autumn? Or for me? Whichever one will get you to do it.”

It’s a bad idea. James is completely right that it’s dangerous. There are zombies, and five miles north is a dangerous bike ride, and an even more dangerous walk, and to go at night on top of that would be the worst choice of all.

But it’s Autumn. Autumn, who hums Bon Jovi when she wipes down sleeping bags, and who keeps bottles of Sprite hidden away from Parker. And it’s Sami Jo, squeezing his hand in hers, staring at him like he has the potential to save the world. They’re his friends. And it’s… kind of nice to feel important.

Slowly, slowly, Parker nods. And Sami Jo’s face splits into a breathtaking smile.

  #

  “Hey.” There’s a hand on Parker’s shoulder, jostling him. “Get up.”

Parker’s eyes fly open. Sami Jo is standing over him. He takes a second to shake off the last of his sleepiness and sits up. “Are we going?”

“We’re going. Everyone else got back, so we have the bikes.”

Parker clambers to his feet. “They’re okay?”

“Yeah, they’re all asleep right now. But we’d better get going.” She leaves the stockroom, and Parker follows her, only stopping when she bends down near where Autumn’s sleeping.

Parker takes stock of the situation, as quickly as he can. There are supplies laid out in the middle of the floor: a couple of cases of MREs, a backpack that looks like it’s full of something, and an empty backpack. It’s not a lot, he thinks ruefully, but it’s something. It’ll last them a little while longer.

Steve is asleep next to James, one of his noodle arms slung across James’s shoulders. Cib is next to them both, breathing steadily, slowly. Parker watches his chest rise and fall, probably longer than is normal, but he thinks he’s entitled. He’s about to make a bad choice, he can take comfort where he can get it.

Parker picks up the empty backpack. “You ready?”

Sami Jo smooths back Autumn’s hair and stands up again. “Yeah,” she whispers, voice a little thicker. “Let’s go.”

Neither of them say anything as they leave the kitchen store, or as they grab the bikes from the toy store. As soon as they’re back outside with the bikes, Sami Jo shivers. “S’cold out.”

“Take my jacket,” Parker offers instantly.

“No, you shouldn’t be cold. I can get a new one-”

“No, it’s okay,” Parker says. “I don’t get cold.”

Sami Jo stares at him. “You mean you don’t get cold easily, or-”

“At all.”

“Why not?”

Parker shrugs and unzips his jacket. “Come on, I don’t need it.”

“I’m afraid of you,” Sami Jo informs him, but she slips the jacket on anyways. “Come on, we’ve got five miles to go.”

They ride in silence. Parker still doesn’t go out much, partly because of personal preference, partly because James pointed out one time that Parker’s the only one of them who’s any good at rationing food and they’d probably be fucked if he died. He’d sounded really disappointed when he’d brought that up. Parker tries not to think about it.

The city, his city, is nothing like he remembers. He loves Los Angeles, or at least what it used to be. He loved it and its shitty traffic, and its shitty takeout restaurants, and its shitty people. He wonders if maybe, one day, he could learn to love what it became. Or maybe he doesn’t have the time to love a new city. Maybe he’d be better off saving that love for other things.

“I miss how things used to be,” he says, when they’re about halfway into the ride. He looks over just in time to see Sami Jo wiping at her eyes furiously. “Whoa, you okay?”

“The wind,” she says, a little desperately. “Drying my eyes out.”

“You sure?”

Sami Jo slows to a stop and shakes her head, wipes a little harder with the sleeve of Parker’s jacket, waits until Parker pulls up next to her. “I hate leaving her.”

“You’ll be coming back.”

“I don’t know that. I never know that.”

“But you have every time so far.”

“I don’t want this to be happening,” Sami Jo rasps. Before Parker can even begin unpacking that - and oh, boy, is there a lot to unpack - she hops off the bike and buries her face in his chest.

Parker automatically lifts his hands to pat her shoulders, trying to ignore the alarm bells going off in his brain warning him that he doesn’t know what to do. “It’s gonna be fine,” he says, not quite because he believes it or because it’s what she needs to hear. He just doesn’t know what else to do.

After a few seconds, Sami Jo nods against his chest and steps away. “Let’s go,” she says briskly. He can almost ignore the way her eyes are rimmed red.

Parker doesn’t say another word until they find the Whole Foods parking lot. And even then, all he says is “Holy shit.”

When Jeremy said an abandoned encampment of tents, Parker was thinking half a dozen, maybe a dozen, spread out through the parking lot. But it’s huge. It’s a sprawling mass of tents all zipped together, like a hub. And it’s completely silent.

Sami Jo climbs off her bike. “We’ll start at the one closest to us and make our way through.”

Parker nods, trying to swallow down his panic. This wasn’t just a few people, not the way that their group is a few people. This was a group. This was a miniature society, and they’re just… gone.

“Do we have a flashlight?” Sami Jo asks as they reach the first tent.

“Yeah.” Parker rummages around in his backpack until he finds it. “Are we bringing the bikes with us?”

“No, we’ll just leave them in this first tent.” She reaches out. “You ready?”

“I don’t think this is-”

Sami Jo unzips the tent. It doesn’t immediately smell like rotting flesh or anything gross like that, which a good first sign. “Let’s go.”

Parker follows Sami Jo. It’s easy, because she doesn’t flinch as she leads him through. She just points out things that are worth grabbing. Painkillers. Sleeves of crackers. Bandages. Her head is on a swivel the whole time, one hand worrying at the hem of her shirt.

“What do they look like?” Parker asks in the ninth tent.

“Sort of like a case for glasses.” Sami Jo lifts her hands. “This big.”

“But what if they’re not in the case?”

“I really need you not to say that.”

“No saying that,” he repeats obediently.

They find old clothes. They find soap, and hand sanitizer, and shampoo. They find bullets. They find an empty duffel bag in the fifteenth tent, and Parker grabs it and starts loading all the food that he can carry. They find eyeglasses case after eyeglasses case, and every time there are no hearing aids inside.

“James is gonna kill us if we come back without hearing aids,” Sami Jo says conversationally, after the sixth case that has prescription glasses. “After ditching in the middle of the night when he specifically told us not to.”

“He might… not,” Parker says.

Sami Jo gives him a look.

He sighs. “Yeah, he’s gonna be pissed.”

“At least we’re finding other things.” She nudges a pillow with her foot. “You think we could steal this?”

“What if we get lice?”

“Do we have lice shampoo?”

“Would you use lice shampoo?”

“I don’t use regular shampoo.”

“When was the last time you washed your hair?”

Sami Jo shrugs and wanders into the next tent, pushing another pillow back with her foot. “I probably already have lice.”

“We share pillows!”

“Wash your hair better.”

Parker shudders and tries to resist scratching at his scalp. “Ugh.”

“That’s why I wash Autumn’s hair sometimes,” Sami Jo says, moving tents again. Parker pauses long enough to grab a couple of water bottles before following her. “There’s not a lot we can do to take care of each other, outside of, you know, shooting people to keep each other safe. But I can do that for her.”

“How long were you dating?” Parker picks up a couple of granola bars, and she wordlessly hands him a bottle of Neosporin. “Before… you know.”

“Five or six months?” She makes a face. “We were in that getting-serious stage, and then a few zombies crashed our date night, so it was kind of a trial by fire.”

“But you stuck through it?”

Sami Jo nods, a little wistfully, and kicks the sleeping bag in the tent, ignoring the way the asphalt scuffs her shoes. “Yeah. We’re doing okay. You bozos are helping.”

Parker smiles automatically, and then looks down. “There’s something under the sleeping bag.”

“What?” Sami Jo squats down and moves the edge of the sleeping bag over. There’s something peeking out from just under where she kicked it. Something that looks like a glasses case.

Parker bends over. “Is that-”

She snatches it up and opens it. There are these two weird, flesh-colored, crescent-shaped things with wires coming out of them.

“Uh,” he says, “is that what they look like?”

“Yeah,” Sami Jo says. She laughs, once, and snaps the case shut. “We found them.”

“Do we need… a charger, or batteries, or-”

“There’s a charging cord in there.” She gets to her feet and smiles at Parker, bright and tremulous. Parker smiles back, because how could he not? It’s Sami Jo. “We can- do you want to keep looting?”

“What?”

“We’re only, like, a quarter of the way through this whole maze, and I didn’t see any signs of zombies nearby.” She shrugs. “We came all this way, we might as well make it worth it.”

Parker glances around. “I mean… it couldn’t hurt, right?”

“Maybe we’ll find more hearing aids,” she muses. “Or scissors, or something.”

“Do we need scissors?”

“You tell me, stock boy.”

“We could use more scissors.” He clicks the flashlight on and shines it down the end of the tent tunnel. “We should keep going.”

Sami Jo grins, bright and sharp. “Let’s do it. This is our turf now.”

  #

  They get back to the kitchen store before dark, but only barely. It’s not because of danger, thank god, it’s because they stole more things than they could carry. Sami Jo has two backpacks on and a duffel slung over the handlebars of her bike, and Parker has twice that. Sami Jo also has the hearing aids case in one hand. She didn’t even let go for the bike ride home. Parker is impressed, and more than a little intimidated.

As soon as the bikes are stashed in the toy store and they have all their bags unloaded onto the floor, Sami Jo looks at him. “I’m only gonna say this once.”

“Okay?”

“Thank you for coming with me.”

Parker blinks. “But you would’ve gone alone.”

“I would’ve.” She smiles, tersely, genuinely. “I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

Sami Jo’s smile does this weird… thing to Parker, where it makes him smile back. It’s not intentional or conscious or anything. She just has a nice smile. Maybe it’s because she’s the only person here who doesn’t make fun of him every day. Maybe it’s just the Sami Jo effect. Either way, he smiles back.

He’s still smiling at her as the door flies open. Sami Jo reacts first, whipping a pistol out of her belt. Parker’s still reaching for his when he realizes who it is. “James-”

“You fucker, ” James shouts, and punches Parker so hard that Parker loses his balance.

It takes a second for Parker’s brain to catch up with his body, and when he does, he’s sprawled out on the floor, and his cheek is throbbing. Sami Jo is yelling, and James isn’t yelling back, but he sounds pissed. Really pissed.

“Fuck,” Parker moans, and pushes himself back to his feet. “James, what the hell?”

“What the hell me ?” James takes a step towards him, and Parker flinches back instinctively. “What the hell were you two doing just leaving in the middle of the night?”

“We got supplies,” Sami Jo snaps. “Sue us.”

“We have rules! You can’t leave in the middle of the night like that, that’s how people die.”

“But we’re not dead!”

“Not this time.”

Parker lifts a hand to his cheek. “James, come on, let us explain. Just listen.”

“You guys could’ve waited,” Steve says. When Parker looks over, Steve doesn’t quite make eye contact, and neither does Cib, from where he’s standing in the doorway. Both of them look pretty goddamn angry. “We all got back before you left, you could’ve woken us up or waited till morning.”

“But look at all the shit we got!” Sami Jo gestures at the duffels and backpacks. “And we got the hearing aids, so you guys can kiss my ass, because there’s no way to guarantee those would’ve been there if we waited.”

“That was stupid,” Steve says. Parker’s stomach sinks. He sounds like he means it. “Guys, we have these rules for a reason.”

“And we broke them for a reason.”

James points at her. “You broke them for a reason.”

Parker frowns. “What?”

He swings his arm around to point at Parker. “You didn’t have a reason.”

“I couldn’t let Sami Jo go alone!”

“You could’ve asked me,” James says. “Or- shit, you guys left after everyone got back, you could’ve asked any one of us.”

Parker shakes his head. “Wait, why couldn’t I have gone?”

“Parker’s the one who found the aids,” Sami Jo adds.

“But he’s also the one who keeps track of all our shit!” James’s arms twitch, like he wants to reach out, or run his hands through his hair, or do… something. “God, you’re not getting it.”

“You need to think about our side here,” Steve says. “Imagine we all wake up and you’re both gone. We ask Alfredo if he saw anything, and he says he saw you guys take our bikes and a backpack in the middle of the night. And that’s all we know.”

“Alfredo thought you guys ran off in a romantic passion,” James adds. “Not that Autumn believed him.”

Sami Jo’s fingers tighten around the hearing aid case. “God, Autumn- listen, not that this isn’t important or whatever, but-”

“She’s waiting for you,” James says. Sami Jo practically sprints out towards her, darting between the boys like they’re not even there. And, okay, Parker can’t blame her, because of course she wants to leave. But he… can’t.

“Guys,” he says weakly. “It was fine, I just wanted-”

“Shut up,” Cib says, still without looking at Parker. And it’s not the words that make Parker listen. It’s how evenly he says them. Cib’s not a venomous person, not really, but he’s looking at Parker so coldly that Parker wants to run away.

Parker’s mouth snaps shut.

“Look,” Steven says, and he finally makes eye contact with Parker. “You were doing a good thing for your friend, whatever, that’s great for you. But the rest of us woke up, and the one person who knew off the top of his head how long we have left to live was gone.”

Parker’s heart stops, just for a second. “I didn’t think about it like that,” he says hoarsely. He’d always figured that between the stashes and the way everyone rolled their eyes when he said he was in charge of inventory, it was more of an honorary title than anything. It’s not like they couldn’t have picked up the pieces without him. He was never supposed to be that important.

“You didn’t-” James hands both fly up to his head, raking through his hair furiously. “You didn’t stop to think about the rest of us before you and Sami Jo ran off to play hero?”

Parker shakes his head. “No, that’s not- I figured you guys would be fine without us for a few hours, it was-”

“You didn’t ever stop to consider things going wrong? ”

“Of course we did, that was why i went instead of letting her go alone-”

“Parker,” Steven sighs, and now he doesn’t even look angry. Just disappointed. Just tired. “Come on.”

“I’m sorry,” Parker says helplessly. “Guys, I’m- I didn’t think, I should’ve-”

“You were being selfish,” Cib says. Parker looks at him, searching his face desperately, but Cib is staring at him without warmth, or familiarity, or… anything. “That’s all it was.”

Parker swallows, tries to keep the tears from welling up. “Cib-”

Cib just shakes his head. “Selfish,” he repeats, like an indictment, and the bottom of Parker’s stomach drops out. He opens his mouth but Cib is already turning and leaving, and James and Steve are following after him, and Parker is alone, alone, alone.

Selfish.

He doesn’t remember falling but he’s on the ground, braced on his hands and knees, shoulders heaving around his ears. There’s something that feels like broken glass digging into his palms, but he can’t make himself move, he’s not sure he could stand up or even sit, he-

Selfish.

Cib’s knee, pressing against Parker’s thigh as he tried to get more vodka. Cib’s hand against Parker’s chest, trying to get Parker out of his space, but still so, so gentle. Cib, lying on top of Parker and trying to force him to sleep. Cib looking at Parker like they were strangers, like he cut ties in that instant, like Parker was nothing to him, like-

Selfish.

Steve’s there, standing in the doorway when Parker comes back to himself. He’s still shaking and his cheeks are wet, even though he doesn’t remember crying. But he finally sits up straight, rubs some of grit off his palms, wipes his cheeks clean, ignores the way it throbs where he got punched.

“I thought,” Steve starts, and then shakes his head. “They were a little harsh.”

It’s probably the closest to an apology Parker’s going to hear, so he takes a deep, shuddering breath and tries to think what Steve would want to hear right now. “I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have left,” Steve says, “but I think they understand. James is mad, Cib was just scared.”

“I fucked up,” Parker croaks.

Steve shrugs. “We all will, at some point,” he says, and it’s not kind, and it’s not helpful, but it’s something. “Let’s just bring this shit inside and we can figure out what to do from there.”

“Okay,” Parker says. And it’s not okay, and it doesn’t feel okay, and he can’t stop thinking about Cib looking at him like he wasn’t there anymore. But he’s pretty sure it has to be okay.

  #

  The first thing Parker does is close the door to the stockroom.

Nobody says anything to him as he walks in, and Steve leaves him with the new supplies and the old supplies, and he looks at the door and thinks, I can’t do this. And he closes the door, and he gets to work.

Five hours later, the entire inventory system is different. Three hours after that it’s different again. He barely remembers to open the door and put out enough MREs for everyone for the night. He adds a few shitty pre-packaged desserts, too, ones that he was holding onto for a special occasion. This isn’t special, but he thinks he needs to do it anyways.

Parker restructures the inventory again, and again, and one more time. Parker gives everyone more than enough food, because they can afford it now, and because he’s not going to let his friends starve just because he doesn’t feel like talking to them. Or just because they hate him.

“You could say something,” says famous actor James Allen McCune, who comes in through the back door during the second day of Parker’s exile. “Say sorry.”

“I don’t think this is something you can fix by saying sorry,” Parker mutters, digging through one of the food boxes. “I got punched.”

“I got punched one time for trying to eat someone’s pet possum,” James says. “But I still said sorry.”

“Did you eat the possum?”

He scoffs. “Of course.”

“Awesome,” Parker says. The only person who’s still talking to him killed and ate someone’s pet. “I guess the end of the world makes us all do weird things.”

“What? No, this was two or three years ago.”

Parker closes his eyes. Maybe Cib was right. Maybe he should just leave. It has to be better than this.

“You guys have a lot of stuff in here,” James adds. “Do you think you have roaches? Or rats?”

“What would you do about them?”

James shrugs. “I’d eat the rats. Can’t eat roaches, they have diseases.”

“And the rats don’t?”

“Rats hold up better to being cooked.”

“What do you even do when you’re not harassing me for food?”

“Harass other people for food.” James thinks about it. “Get lost looking for other people to harass.”

Parker gives him a compass, partly as a joke and partly out of genuine concern. And he gives him more food than normal, partly out of pity and partly because James was the only person who’s made any attempt to talk to Parker. That’s worth something. It’s worth a couple of bags of chips, at least.

Before James Allen McCune leaves, he grabs Parker’s wrist and squeezes. “I’ll remember this,” he says, and by the time Parker is done blinking in surprise, he’s gone.

  #

  Nobody speaks to Parker for four more days. He overhauls inventory a couple dozen more times, sneaks out the back once or twice to practice knife-throwing in the streets. He doesn’t let it bother him that he’s alone, because he did what he thought was right. He can hold onto that little kernel of integrity, even if everyone else hates him for it.

He’s thinking about leaving - abstractly, not actually leaving everything, but more seriously than he’d ever admit -  when the stockroom door opens. He doesn’t even have time to try and hide before Autumn walks in and fixes her eyes on him. “Hey.”

Parker blinks a couple times, hard - maybe this is just happening because he stopped sleeping again? - but at last manages to say, “Hey.”

Autumn holds up her copy of World War Z. “Finally finished it.”

“Wow,” Parker says, and instantly hates himself for it.

“Yeah, it was okay.” She looks around. “You… moved the books.”

“The books are…” Parker tries to remember. Shit. Maybe this system isn’t as intuitive as he thought. “By the emergency exit?”

Autumn wanders over there, looking around as she goes. “You’ve been busy.”

“I haven’t had a lot to do.”

“You could’ve talked to us.”

Parker opens his mouth and realizes he doesn’t know what to say to that, so he changes subjects. “Hey, you can hear me.”

“Yeah, I can.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah.” Autumn reappears with a couple of new books in hand. For a second Parker thinks she’s going to leave, but instead she leans against one of the shelves, looking down at him. “The hearing aids aren’t perfect, because they weren’t calibrated for me or anything, but Sami Jo and-- uh, Sami Jo was trying to figure out if we could do that.”

“That’s cool,” Parker says, and decides to act like he can’t guess that she was about to mention Cib, or that she decided to avoid mentioning Cib. “I’m glad they work.”

“Me too.” Autumn drums her fingers against the shelf. “Oh, and thanks.”

He blinks. “What?”

“For not letting Sami Jo go alone. I don’t care what anyone else says, it was stupid but it was right.” Autumn smiles. “I’m glad she had you with her.”

Parker looks at her. She seems to guess that he can’t figure out what to say, because she gets back to her feet. “I should go. Sami Jo wants to read to me now that I can hear her.”

“That’s… sickening.”

“Yeah,” Autumn says happily. “It’s pretty cool. And I’m gonna leave the door open.”

Parker looks at the stockroom door, which is already nerve-wrackingly wide open. “What if people don’t want to talk to me?”

“Then they won’t talk to you.”

“What if they never talk to me again?”

“Then you need better friends,” Autumn says with conviction. “Take a nap or something, Parker, you look like shit.”

That, Parker decides as she leaves, is probably a sign that she cares.

  #

  “Do you think I should leave?” Parker asks, despite all his better judgment.

Steve doesn’t even look at him. “Do you want to leave?”

“Not really.”

“Then don’t.”

“But what if-”

“Do you think we’ll be better off if you left us?”

“I don’t know, maybe?”

“Then sure, leave.”

Parker stares. “This isn’t helping.”

“I don’t know what you thought it was going to do.” Steve plucks a screwdriver off one of the shelves. “I like this new inventory system.”

“Thanks,” Parker says. “I was going to change it.”

“Of course you were.”

“No, not because of you, I’ve just been rotating the system a couple times every day.”

Steve turns and stares at him. “Jesus Christ, why? ”

Parker shrugs. It’s all he can think to do.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Every day, every single day I wonder why out of all of the people I could be stuck with at the end of the world, I had to end up stuck with you.”

It’s a joke. Parker knows it’s a joke. It’s one Steve’s made before. He flinches anyways, because there’s a chance it’s not a joke anymore.

“Oh my god,” Steve says. “Why haven’t you talked to Cib?”

“He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I can’t talk to him if he’s always working on that computer thing.”

“You’ve talked to James.”

Parker has had two conversations with James in the last week. Neither of them were longer than three sentences. “How are we defining talking?”

“What the fuck kind of a question is that?”

“It’s an important one!”

“Every single day,” Steve repeats. “Like, constantly, just constantly I wonder if there is a God, and if there is, I wanna know what’s up with the zombies, and why you and I are both here.” He raises his eyebrows at the end, significantly, like he’s trying to make sure Parker understands that he’s not being serious.

Parker ducks his head, half out of acknowledgment and half because he really needs this conversation to be over. He’s a little bit out of practice with talking to people. “I don’t know why, either.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Steve says, and that’s supposed to be the end of it, he should walk away, but he’s not doing that. Instead he’s looking at Parker. “Hey.”

Parker looks up. Steve is staring down, eerily… non-malevolent. “Hey?”

“I’m glad you didn’t die.”

“Me too.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay, that’s what I expected.”

“No, I’m glad you didn’t die either, Steve,” Parker says. He tries to say it quietly so it doesn’t come out quite as earnest as he means it.

Steve gives him the smallest, most crooked smile. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Parker looks away, and this time, Steve does walk away. But Parker doesn’t mind.

  #

  There’s something going through the dumpster outside.

This is one of four thoughts that Parker is capable of having. The other three are I hope it doesn’t hurt to get turned into a zombie, and It’s three in the morning, and How bad would it really be if I just left? But no matter how far he gets down one of those trains of thought, every time there’s a shuffle and a bang outside, and he goes right back to that first one. There’s something going through the dumpster.

And, hell, it’s not like Parker can sleep anyways, so around the twenty-minute mark of dealing with either a wild animal or a zombie right outside the emergency exit, he grabs a pistol and gets to his feet. It’s probably not a good idea to open that door, in case it actually is a zombie and it gets inside, so he goes through the front door. Everyone’s asleep. Nobody stirs as Parker walks through, and opens the door, and steps into the chilly California air and-

“Fuckin’ seriously?”

Shit.

Parker turns around, trying to look as calm as he can. He’s pretty sure he fails. “Look, I swear-”

“Are you ditching us?” Cib demands, looking Parker up and down. Parker’s sure that he looks like shit. Cib kind of does too, but not any more than he normally does. Not like he’s been losing sleep over Parker or anything. “In the middle of the night?”

“I swear, I’m not, I’m just-”

“You didn’t even take supplies!”

“I’m not leaving!”

Cib’s eyes narrow. “So what do you call it when you open a door and walk out, bitch?”

“I call it trying to figure out what’s going through the dumpster behind the store.” Parker clutches his pistol tighter to his chest. “I can’t sleep with all the noise.”

Cib snorts. “Yeah, cause you’re a regular sleepy-time boy, aren’tcha?”

“Come on,” Parker pleads. “I swear, I’ll be back in five minutes, tops.”

“Uh, yeah, you will.” Cib pulls the door to the kitchen store shut and holds out a hand, wiggling his fingers. “Spork it over.”

“What?”

“The gun, dude, give me your gun.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t trust you,” Cib says, and something about how plainly he says it makes Parker hold out the gun. Cib takes it and shoves it into the waistband of his pants. “You said it was around the back?”

Parker nods mutely, and Cib pushes past him. “Let’s make sure it’s not a dragon.”

“A- a what?”

“Someone who breathes fire and shits in the street.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everyone’s gotta deal with the world ending somehow.” Cib turns a corner, and Parker follows. “Some people smoke crack. Some people go on suicide missions and nearly kill their friends. Different strokes for different jokes, you know?”

He’s still mad. Parker doesn’t know why he’s so hurt by that. “Look, I-”

“Nah,” Cib says. “I don’t wanna look at you.”

“I don’t mean literally, just-”

“I’m not literate, and you don’t have to bring it up.”

“ Cib, ” Parker says, and Cib stops dead in front of him, thank god. “I swear, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about-”

“That’s my compass,” Cib says.

Parker stops. “What?”

“My compass.” Cib stoops down, picks something up, and turns to show Parker. “I found this bitch out a couple miles west. I gave it to you.”

“Oh,” Parker says. Shit, shit, shit. “Right.”

“How’s it out here, huh? Do you go on compass trips when the rest of us are sleeping?”

“I-”

“And don’t lie.”

Parker closes his eyes. “I gave it to famous actor James Allen McCune.”

Cib doesn’t say anything. Parker doesn’t open his eyes, because if he has to see Cib look at him like a failure one more time he’s going to leave, and he doesn’t think he wants to leave. “He stops by every now and again for supplies, and I knew him before everything went down, and he’s just… sad, okay? He’s a sad, lonely dude, and I couldn’t-”

Something slams into Parker’s shoulders. His eyes fly open as he stumbles back into the wall of the kitchen store. And it’s Cib, glaring at him, arms still out where he shoved Parker. He takes a step closer, still a few feet away, but it’s enough that Parker’s chest tightens. “You gave away our things.”

“Only things that we could afford to give up, I swear-”

“This isn’t a game, there’s nothing we can afford-”

“None of you even noticed!”

“Because we trusted you, ” Cib grits out, and Parker’s mouth snaps shut. “I thought you were good at this, you know that? It always seemed like you knew exactly how much of everything there was. But it was because you were lying, wasn’t it? You weren’t keeping track of supplies, you were trying to keep your lies straight.”

Behind Cib’s shoulder, towards the dumpster, something moves. Parker’s eyes follow it, almost subconsciously, and any excuse to look away from Cib is a good one.

“Hey!” Cib says sharply, and Parker’s eyes snap back to him. “Are you fucking listening to me?”

Parker swallows, trying to keep his throat from being so damn dry. “I th- I think James Allen McCune is back.”

Cib flicks his wrist and pitches the compass behind him. It looks like it hits James, and Parker winces in sympathy, but Cib doesn’t even turn around, just points at Parker. “Now, I’m glad as anyone Autumn can hear, because now she can hear herself well enough to watch her goddamn tone when she’s out on the streets, but you don’t get to put yourself in danger like that, do you understand? You wanna play hero, but there are no heroes in zombieland. There are people who live and people who die.”

Parker nods mutely. He wants to say something, anything, but he’s just stupidly glad that Cib is looking at him again.

Cib jabs his finger towards Parker’s chest. “And you don’t get to die on us,” he says with finality.

“Okay,” Parker whispers. It feels like his lungs are tying themselves in knots, and it’s hard to take a deep breath, but he tries anyways. He can still see James shambling towards them, out of the dark, keeping his head down. Maybe the compass hit him in the head. Parker feels a pang of sympathy, but he turns back to Cib, because Cib matters more in this moment. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll… I’ll do better.”

“Good,” Cib says, and Parker can see some of the tension drain out of his shoulders as he lowers his hand. “Look, man, I don’t want you to-”

He’s still talking. Parker knows he is, except time has slowed down too much for him to understand a single word that Cib is saying. James is finally close enough to see clearly, only a couple feet from Cib. He’s moving silently, which is impressive, considering the glaze in his eyes and the blood dripping from his mouth. He doesn’t look like a person or a famous actor anymore. He looks like a zombie. Like a pissed off zombie, trying to bite whatever just threw something at him, and Parker barely has time to realize that before James lunges forward.

And Parker’s an idiot. He’s an idiot, and maybe he wants to be a hero in zombieland after all, so he does what any hero would do. He flings himself forward as hard as he can and bowls Cib to the ground. And it would be fine, just fine, except he throws an arm up as he does it. Cib’s falling prone on the ground and Parker shouts “ No, ” and James Allen McCune’s teeth-

(From somewhere, far away, he remembers James, in the kitchen store, back when it looked like a kitchen store and not a camp, holding a butter knife, saying something like it’ll fuck you up, miming stabbing, like the knife is going to sink into someone’s chest, or throat, or-)

-sink into Parker’s forearm.

Parker screams.

It hurts. Jesus, it hurts so bad that he doesn’t want to look at it, because it’ll hurt worse if he sees what’s wrong. He hears a gunshot, and Cib yelling something, and then Cib saying, over and over, “Parker. Parker. Parker. ”

Parker opens his eyes. Cib is leaning over him, hands hovering like he wants to touch Parker. Like he’s not sure he can. “C-Cib?”

“Hey,” Cib says, a little manic. “Hey, don’t you worry, little boy, we’re gonna get you all fixed up lickety-shit, alright?”

“Cib, that- that was a zombie-”

“You just hold on tight, okay?”

“What happened to-” Parker lifts his head and wishes he hadn’t. He’s soaked with blood pouring out of his right arm, or maybe out of the missing chunk of his right arm. James is lying on the ground a few feet away. He swallows, bile rising in his throat. “Oh, god-”

“Hey!” Cib snaps his fingers a couple times. “You just stay with me, alright? This is Los Angeles, you can’t get killed by a zombie actor, everyone’s done it already, and I’m not gonna be friends with you if you die like a fucking copycat, okay?”

Parker stares at Cib. Cib’s looking back at him, strange and steady. It’s reassuring. Helps Parker catch his breath. “Okay?”

“Okay!” Cib jumps to his feet. “Now, I don’t want to rustle your jimmies here, or your fucked-up arm, but desperate limes and all, so-”

“Can you not call my arm fucked up?”

“Nah, dude, it’s a little fucked.” Cib bends down and lifts Parker up, jostling his arm in the process. Parker chomps down on his lip, hard, but he still whimpers. Cib’s face twists a little. “It’s gonna be bumpy, I’ll try to keep from… from hurting you.”

“I don’t wanna die like this,” Parker says, even though he’s pretty sure he’s about to die like this.

Cib starts walking, clutching Parker carefully to his chest. “How’re you planning on dying, carpark?”

I want us to be on real speaking terms when I die, Parker nearly says, but instead he shakes his head and pulls his arm closer to his chest. “Old age, probably.”

“Aw, you’re plenty old, don’t worry about it.”

“About dying? ”

“Yeah.” Parker’s probably hearing things, with the blood loss and all, but he could’ve sworn Cib’s voice cracked, there. “Don’t worry about it.”

Parker swallows. Maybe there’s a chance to make everything okay, make this whole thing hurt a little less. “Cib-”

“Cib!” someone else shouts. Parker cranes his neck, but it’s so, so hard to pick his head up, and he lets it roll back against Cib’s chest. “Parker!”

“Steve!” Cib yells, rumbling through his chest and into Parker’s head. “Over here!”

There are footsteps pounding on the pavement. “Cib, what- oh, fuck. ”

“Steve,” Cib says, and his voice definitely cracks this time. He sounds scared. “What do we do?”

“Put him down,” James orders, sounding brittle. “Did he get bit?”

“M’arm,” Parker mumbles. “Ow- Cib, ow- ”

“I told you it’d be bumpy,” Cib says as he lowers Parker to the ground. “Careful, easy - can you stretch your arm out?”

Parker stretches his arm out.

“Your injured arm,” Steve says. It would probably be bitingly mock-patient, under other circumstances. It just sounds scared.

“I don’t wanna move it.” Parker blinks up at Steve until he can focus. “You’re not wearing glasses.”

Steve huffs. “Yeah, I didn’t have time to grab them. I was kind of trying to figure out why people were screaming in the middle of the night.”

“He means you,” Cib whispers.

“Can you see?”

“I can see the blood,” Steve says, and then his face does this… wobbly, twisty thing, and Parker can’t look at it anymore, so he looks away. “Cib, what the fuck happened? ”

“There was a zombie in our dumpster. We, uh…” Cib clears his throat. “He pushed me out of the way.”

“He would’ve got your neck.” Parker tries to look over at Cib, but he can’t figure out which side Cib is on. “Cib, he would’ve-”

“I know,” Cib snaps. “I’m gonna move your arm, okay?”

“Okay.” Parker’s arm starts moving, and he gasps. “That hurts.”

“Dude, I don’t know what to tell you,” Steve says. “You got bit by a zombie, it’s gonna hurt.”

“Am I gonna be a zombie?”

Steven sighs. “Maybe.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, I know how zombies work.”

“James thinks that because it’s your arm, we might be able to…”

“To?”

“To save you,” Cib says quietly. Parker can tell where he is now: at Parker’s right side, leaning over him. “By cutting your arm off.”

Parker blinks until he can see clearly through all the dancing spots. Cib is staring down at him, eyes wide. Cib has nice eyes. “Do I need that?”

“Your arm?”

“Yeah, do I?”

“Depends. Do you jerk off right-handed?”

Parker wrinkles his nose. “That’s kind of an intimate question.”

“It’s only intimate if I’m hitting on you, otherwise it’s just bros being dudes, am I right?”

“Are you hitting on me?”

Cib goes still for a second before forcing the widest, fakest smile Parker has ever seen. “We can talk about that later, right?”

Later. Right. If Parker doesn’t die or turn into a zombie.

“Okay,” James says, and he’s back now. When Parker looks up, he’s clutching the axe with both hands. “Okay. Sami Jo and Autumn are getting the medical things ready, but we need a tourniquet or something.”

Cib immediately pulls his shirt off and starts messing with the hem. Parker forces himself to smile weakly. “You’re stripping? So you were hitting on me?”

“Aw, you know I have a thing for devastating injuries.” Cib rips part of the fabric. His hands are shaking, but his voice is steady. “I look down at those gaping wounds and I think, I’ve gotta put my dick in that.”

“Oh my god, this is my nightmare,” Steve says. “This is- you understand that this is everything I am afraid of happening, right?”

Cib flashes Steve a grin before leaning down to Parker’s injured arm. “This is gonna hurt, so get ready, carpark.”

“It’s not-” Parker immediately cuts off as Cib wraps the scrap fabric around his arm, tight. “Ah, Jesus, just kill me, it’d hurt less-”

“I got you this.” James holds out a wad of fabric. “To bite down on.”

Cib finishes tying off the tourniquet, takes the wad, and quirks an eyebrow at Parker. “Open wide.”

“Romantic,” Parker says, but opens his mouth obediently.

Cib leans over and carefully pushes the wad into his mouth. “You’re gonna be okay,” he says, almost conversationally.

Parker tries to answer, but Cib pushes the wad in further and smacks a loud, ostentatious kiss on Parker’s forehead. “Gonna be fine,” he whispers. Parker wishes he hadn’t. It’s less confident, the second time.

“Cib,” Steve says, and Cib gets to his feet, steps away. “James, are you doing it?”

Parker looks up at James. James swallows. “I mean, unless one of you guys want to-”

“Nope,” Steve says immediately. Cib doesn’t answer. He’s just staring at Parker. Parker tries to smile back, but between the blood loss and the earth-shaking fear, he’s not sure it’s encouraging.

“Okay,” James says. “Ready?”

Parker shakes his head. James lifts the axe and swings.

  #

  Having one arm is… different.

The first thing Parker does is teach himself to write left-handed and it’s excruciating. He can’t read what he writes half the time, but it’s the only thing he can do anymore. Autumn took over inventory while he was recovering, quietly and insistently and with Sami Jo standing next to her glaring daggers every time Parker so much as insinuated he wanted to help out. Everyone’s constantly out on supply runs. And Cib isn’t talking to him, again, but there’s no point in getting upset about that. Parker’s saving his energy for the things he can control. Like his handwriting.

His right arm ends above the elbow and it’s a shock every time he looks at it. He uses most of their painkillers and antibiotics in the first few days and he feels horribly, horribly guilty about it. They’re practically out of bandages by the time he’s lucid, three days later, and he tries apologizing. And none of them let him do it.

“Dude,” Autumn says, around the fourth time Parker starts babbling about supplies. “You know we’re all just… glad that it worked, right?”

Parker doesn’t think it worked. But then again, it’s been ten days, and he’s not going to look this gift horse in the mouth any sooner than he has to.

“I am too,” he says instead of any of that.

“I mean it, though.” Autumn sets down the gun that she’s cleaning. She’s been doing that a lot lately. Parker thinks she likes having something to do with her hands. “Like, we give you shit and whatever, but we’re actually happy you’re alive. Even if we only have eleven hands on deck instead of twelve.”

Parker swallows. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank us.”

“But-”

“You’re our friend,” Autumn says patiently. “Our actual friend, okay? We want you to be in one piece-” she pauses and winces. “Sorry, dude, I’m not good at this. I wanted Sami Jo to do this talk.”

“What talk?”

“The one where we tell you to stop feeling guilty for not dying.”

“I don’t feel guilty for not dying,” Parker lies. “I just-”

“Feel guilty for taking up our supplies, which you wouldn’t have done if you died?”

Parker cringes. “Autumn-”

“No, you know what?” She picks up the gun. “You’re alive, and if that’s a problem, then tough luck. Because it’s not a problem for the rest of us, got it?”

“Got it,” Parker says, and fixes his eyes back on his notebook so Autumn can’t see the tears welling up.

Everyone seems to be handling the whole situation differently, which sucks for Parker, because it means he has to handle everyone differently. It also means that every time someone says a word like “handle” or “handy” they give Parker weird, guilty looks, which definitely makes the adjustment harder.

So instead of dealing with any of that, he writes. He keeps a shitty diary, full of boring stories. Sami Jo judges his progress every so often by snatching his notebook out of his hands and declaring his handwriting to be on par with “kindergarten” or “eighth grade” or “hobo.”

“Hobos can have good handwriting too,” Parker points out, about two weeks post-amputation. “That’s not necessarily a judgment on their handwriting.”

“No, I meant your writing style, bozo.” Sami Jo plops down next to him on the floor. “You write like a drunk hobo.”

“What drunk hobo writing have you been reading?”

She snorts. “They’re not even the bad ones, it’s the sober ones who are a problem.”

“I still-”

“You use too many nouns.”

Parker frowns. “What?”

“Nouns,” Sami Jo repeats patiently, and plucks the pencil out of his hand. “Look at all the nouns you use, it’s too many.” She taps the pencil on a series of words, too quickly for Parker to catch them all, but she definitely points at “jumps” and “big.”

“Sami Jo, do you know what a noun is?”

She looks at him blankly. “I just pointed at all your nouns.”

“Right,” Parker says. “Cool.”

“Don’t be such an adjective, Parker.”

“I’m not- can you be an adjective?”

“That question is a lot to unpack,” she says, and sniggers.

Parker thinks, absently, that it’s kind of ridiculous that Autumn thought Sami Jo would be good at this. Or that any of them would ever be good at this kind of conversation. They don’t do serious emotions, any of them. They just make fun of each other.

Parker actually kind of misses being made fun of. Maybe it really is the end of the world.

“Should I try and be… a noun?” he hazards, and Sami Jo’s resulting smile is way, way brighter than he expected.

“Yeah,” she says. “You don’t have to be anything other than a person.”

Parker nods. “I can do that.”

“You already do, silly.” She shakes her head and pulls Parker’s notebook closer to her face. “We gotta edit this, though.”

“Go for it,” Parker says, and he’s surprised to realize that he actually can’t wait for what she has to say.

  #

  “Dude,” Andrew says.

Parker looks at him expectantly, but he doesn’t say anything else. He’s just staring at Parker’s… stump.

“Told you the axe would come in hand,” Jeremy says. “What happened, anyways?”

“Uh,” Parker says, “it’s a long story.”

“We’re gonna be here for a while.” Andrew lowers himself to the ground and sits cross-legged. “Come on.”

The thing is - and this is so, so stupid, and Parker knows it, but he can’t stop it - that he still hasn’t talked to Cib about it yet. Or about anything. He’s not even a hundred percent sure that Cib is still there, most days. It’s been sixteen days, and they haven’t talked. And Parker doesn’t want to tell this story without Cib.

“I mean,” he says haltingly, “it- I can’t- I definitely got bit, I can tell you that.”

“What?”

Jeremy actually takes off his sunglasses. “In the arm?”

“Yeah.”

“And chopping it off actually saved your life?”

Parker shrugs. “I mean, it’s been a couple weeks and I don’t really want to eat any brains yet, so… maybe?”

“Oh my god,” Andrew says. Parker missed Andrew a lot, it turns out. “But you’re - I mean, you’re up and walking around, obviously it’s okay.”

“Well, it’s been a tricky past few weeks,” Parker admits. “You don’t think about how much stuff you use both hands for until suddenly you don’t have both hands.”

Andrew looks down at both of his hands consideringly. Jeremy shakes his head. “You guys know you could’ve found us and asked for supplies, right?”

“I don’t know where you live these days.”

“Couple miles west of here. Not far off. We have painkillers and things. Do you still need them?”

“Nah.” It doesn’t hurt most days, and the days it does hurt, it’s all phantom pains. Nothing that he can do about it.

“Still,” Andrew says. “You could’ve.”

Parker nods. “I mean, hopefully we never have to ask you again, but we’ll ask next time.”

Andrew and Jeremy exchange a look that Parker can’t parse. After a few seconds, Andrew sighs. “We might not be there.”

“What?”

“We’re thinking about leaving,” Jeremy says. “Heading out east. Lots of people are.”

Parker frowns. “Why east?”

“Because if we go west we’re in the ocean,” Andrew says.

“And because we don’t want a cold winter in the north, and we think the south will smell like garbage with all the bodies,” Jeremy adds.

Parker shakes his head. “How are you getting there?”

“Walking, mostly.” Jeremy tilts his head. “Unless you-”

“We’re not trading the bikes.”

“Trading the bikes?” Steve repeats, coming out of the back room with a couple of cases of MREs. Parker’s not sure how many cases they have anymore, but he’s pretty sure they shouldn’t be giving that much food away. He doesn’t say anything. “Uh, that’s going to be a hard pass.”

“We don’t need the bikes,” Andrew says as Steve sets the cases down next to him. “We were thinking about driving, but you know how the roads have been lately.”

Steve frowns and looks at Parker, then Jeremy. “Driving where?”

“We’re aiming for Utah, but anything goes at this point.” Jeremy shrugs. “There’s nothing left out here for us, Steven, and we all know it.”

“There’s nothing left anywhere these days.”

“We won’t know until we look.”

“So you’re leaving?”

“Probably,” Andrew says. “In a couple weeks.”

“You guys could come with,” Jeremy says. “If you wanted. We could make room for you.”

Parker raises his eyebrows at Steve. He doesn’t necessarily trust Jeremy as a person, but he trusts Andrew, and he trusts that Jeremy wouldn’t let his traveling companions die. It’s not a bad deal.

“Pass,” Steve says. “But thank you for the batteries. We were running low.”

Andrew frowns. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

“We’ll let you know if that changes,” Steve says, in a tone that makes it clear that it’s not going to change. “Now get out of here, leave our hero alone.”

“Hero?” Jeremy repeats. “What’d Parker do?”

Steve frowns at Parker. “You didn’t tell them?”

“It wasn’t heroic-”

“You saved Cib’s life!”

“Yeah, but I-”

“Saved his life?” Andrew and Jeremy exchange another meaningful look. Jeremy looks back at Parker with an eyebrow quirked. “I bet Cib’s handling that great.”

Parker blinks. “What?”

“Hey,” Steve says warningly.

Andrew holds up his hands in surrender. Jeremy slides his sunglasses back on. Parker just looks at Steve.

“Get out,” Steve says.

Andrew obligingly gets to his feet, but not before reaching out to clap Parker on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay, man.”

Parker smiles at him. “You too.”

“Andrew,” Jeremy says quietly. He looks at Parker as Andrew lifts the cases of MREs. “Congrats on surviving, hero.”

“I’m-” he grimaces. “Thanks.”

“We’ll try and come by one more time before we leave,” Andrew says.

Steve nods. “We’ll see you then. And if not, good luck out east.”

“Good luck out west,” Jeremy answers, and the two of them leave.

“Steve,” Parker says before he can stop himself. “I’m not a hero.”

Steve makes a face at him. “I’m not here to argue that with you.”

“No, but I’m not.”

“You saved Cib’s life.”

“But-”

“From the way he tells it, you guys were actually fighting, and you still saved his life.” Steven raises his eyebrows significantly. “You gonna try and tell me that’s not heroic?”

“No,” Parker says desperately. “That’s being a good person.”

Steven sighs. “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen up, okay?”

“...okay?”

“You’re the worst person to have during a zombie apocalypse.”

“Steve, you’ve said that before.”

He shakes his head. “Let me finish. You’re the worst person here because you’re always gonna do the right thing, even if it’s stupid. You’re the kind of person who throws yourself in front of a zombie and goes out on dangerous midnight supply runs and make sure we take care of ourselves. You’re not built for this kind of a world, Parker, you’re too… good for it.”

Parker opens his mouth and then closes it again. He doesn’t think there’s a good answer to that.

Steve, for his part, just nods. “When I say you’re a hero, I’m not saying it because you do dumb shit, I’m saying it because you do dumb shit for the right reason. And because it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It makes me really uncomfortable,” Parker mumbles.

“Win-win,” Steve says. “You’re gonna be a good person, this is the price you have to pay.”

“I think I liked you better when you guys were being dicks to me.”

“We’ll be back there soon,” Steve promises. “Just give us time.”

“I will,” Parker says. He’ll give them as much time as he has left.

  #

  “We should throw a party,” Autumn says.

James looks at her sidelong. “Now?”

“Why not?”

“Do we have things for a party?” Parker asks. It always feels strange, not knowing inventory anymore.

Autumn nods. “We have a ton of that vodka left, still. And juice boxes.”

Sami Jo snorts loudly. “If we’re mixing vodka with kids’ juice, it really is the end of the world.”

“I want vodka,” Parker says. He actually wants whiskey, but beggars can’t be choosers, or whatever.

“Cool,” James says. “We can get it set up while we wait for Steve and Cib?”

Sami Jo jumps to her feet. “I’ll get the glasses.”

“I’ll get the drinks,” Autumn adds. Sami Jo offers an arm, and Autumn uses it to pull herself to her feet. “You guys wait here.”

James waves them off as they go and looks at Parker. “What flavor juice box do you think best goes with vodka?”

“Mixed berry,” Parker answers immediately.

“You drink that shit?”

“You don’t?”

James makes a face. “You know you’re the worst kind of person, right?”

“More for me,” Parker says smugly as the door swings open.

“Steve,” James yells, “tell Parker he’s disgusting.”

“Parker, whatever you did, you’re disgusting,” Steve answers. “Also, check out what we got.”

Parker turns and sees Cib holding, over his head, a guitar. “Is that thing playable?”

“Sure is!” Cib grins at Parker, like it hasn’t been three weeks since he and Parker had a legitimate conversation. “Got it all tuned up like a sandwich and this little lady is ready to rock and rumble.”

“Whoa, dude, why’s your guitar a lady?” James points at Cib accusingly. “Objectification!”

“That’s not what objectifying is,” Steve says exasperatedly.

“Also, it’s because ladies are cooler,” Sami Jo says as she emerges from the stockroom. “Hey, are we doing music with our booze?”

“Uh, are we doing booze with the music?” Cib grins. “Because that’s the right way to do music.”

“With booze?”

“With other people.”

“Yeah, jackass, because we were all going to leave the room when you started playing guitar.” James gestures at Cib. “C’mon, serenade us.”

“Play Wonderwall,” Autumn says, appearing with a bottle of vodka in each hand and a case of juice boxes tucked under one arm.

Cib clears his throat and strums the guitar. “I will not be playing Wonderwall, because I am an artist, and a savant, and-”

“Cib doesn’t know what Wonderwall is,” Steve says. “How’re we doing drinks?”

“I was thinking we can pour vodka, then add a juice box,” Sami Jo offers. “Keep it classy.”

“Flavor the booze, don’t booze the flavor.” Cib points the guitar at her. “Respect.” And then he starts playing something atmospheric, a little clumsy. Parker’s sure that going five months without a guitar made him rusty. It’d make anyone rusty.

Autumn sets the juice boxes on the floor. “Everyone grab your own.”

“Parker likes mixed berry,” James says loudly. “Everyone shame him.”

Steve and Sami Jo boo obligingly. Parker ignores them and grabs two berry juice boxes, because no matter what the rest of them say, he’s going to drink the shit out of this juice. And the vodka mixed with it.

Two or three drinks later, Cib is still playing guitar softly, sitting next to Parker in their makeshift circle. Autumn is half asleep on James’s shoulder, and Sami Jo has both her arms around Autumn’s waist.

“I love you guys,” Steve says, and topples over onto James’s other shoulder. “Don’t tell Parker.”

“Yikes,” Parker says.

Sami Jo giggles. “I wish we could leave,” she says wistfully. “Go somewhere… bigger.”

“We could,” Cib points out. “We’re running outta stuff, right?”

“Mmmmhm.” Autumn blinks sleepily. “Where would we go?”

“Dunno,” Sami Jo says. “I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, though.”

“Basic,” Cib whispers.

“Yeah,” Sami Jo agrees happily. “It always seemed so… big, y’know? I think I used to want to feel small in the world.”

“Grand Canyon’s pretty,” Parker says. He hasn’t been in years and years, but he still remembers being in awe in front of it.

James loops an arm around Steve’s waist. “Well… why can’t we go?”

Cib stops playing. “You serious?”

“Yeah, dude.” James shrugs slightly, ignoring the way both Steve and Autumn whine at him. “Like, what else is there to do? Let’s go on a road trip.”

“We probably could,” Autumn muses. “If we found a car.”

“There are cars that still work.” Steve frowns. “Somewhere.”

“We can make them work,” James says. “Hey, guys, do you wanna go to the Grand Canyon?”

Sami Jo beams. Autumn lifts her head just enough to kiss Sami Jo’s temple. “Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Sami Jo sighs. She tugs Autumn off of James’s shoulder until they’re both lying on the ground, her arms still around Autumn. “Love you, babe.”

“Love you too.”

“I’m so lonely,” Cib whispers, and goes back to strumming the guitar softly. There’s no real rhythm behind it, just chords. Something nice.

“Play us to sleep,” James commands, and Cib grins and keeps playing soft and steady.

It takes about fifteen minutes until everyone else is asleep. Parker blinks at Cib a couple times. Everything is still tinged and hazy with the vodka, but Cib is as clear as ever. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Cib stops playing abruptly. “I’m sorry.”

Parker sits up a little straighter, frowning. “Sorry?”

“About… your arm.” Cib grimaces and sets the guitar aside, doesn’t really look at Parker. “About trying to pick a fight.”

“You were mad.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make excuses for me.” One of Cib’s hands curls into a fist. “I get it, you wanna be chums in a bucket or whatever, but you almost died.”

“But I didn’t.”

“But you could’ve. And I had you cornered against a fucking wall, and you-” he looks away. “I can’t even fucking look at you.”

“That’s not fair,” Parker says. He doesn’t mean to sound so hurt, but maybe he is hurt. Maybe he’s tired of Cib hurting him. “I’m here. I’m dealing with it. Why aren’t you?”

Cibs hands curl into fists. “It would’ve been my fault.”

“No, it would’ve been the zombie’s fault.”

“No,” Cib says, sharply enough that Parker freezes. Cib notices immediately and drags a hand down his face, curling even further away. “Shit, I’m sorry, you don’t… do loud noises, I should’ve noticed.”

Parker takes a deep breath. “First of all, I forgive you.” Cib snorts, and Parker frowns. “I’m serious. I don’t blame you, I blame the zombie, but this is my permission to quit blaming yourself.”

“Okay,” Cib says, and tips his head towards Parker. He still doesn’t meet Parker’s eyes, but Parker can at least see his face now, the weird wry smile on it. “What else?”

“What else is that we can’t fix the arm thing now. And it’s not that I don’t miss having two hands, but that already happened.” Parker reaches his amputated arm out. “But I miss talking to you, and we can fix that.”

Cib shakes his head. Parker tries not to frown at him again. “Dude, come on.”

“Maybe I was flirting,” Cib says abruptly.

Parker blinks. “What?”

Cib looks up at him, a challenge clear in his eyes. “Y’know, maybe I was hitting on you because I thought you were dying and I didn’t know how to deal with it because I’m a little bit in love with you. And maybe I was so angry about everything because I was scared, huh? What do you think about that?”

Parker takes a deep breath. “I think that’s an unhealthy way to express your feelings.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And I think it’s shitty that you didn’t give me a choice.”

Cib frowns. “Uh, you don’t pick my feelings for me, dipshit. I pick ‘em, and I like you.”

“Not what I meant,” Parker says patiently. “I mean that I want to talk about your feelings with you.”

“You don’t talk about your feelings with me.”

“I’m willing to try if you are.”

Cib blinks a couple times. “Okay, you gotta jog that by me one more time.”

“Okay,” Parker says. “I’m drunk. But, like, just a little bit.”

“Same here.”

“There was a lot of juice in that vodka.”

“I like the berry too.”

“Good,” Parker says, and scoots over until he’s sitting in next to Cib. “This is gonna be weird.”

“It’s already weird,” Cib mutters, but Parker can see how unsure he is, underneath. “What is?”

“I dunno.” Parker leans his head onto Cib’s shoulder. Cib’s arm slips around Parker’s waist, squeezing him tight. “We can talk about it in the morning.”

“Okay,” Cib says. Parker puts his good arm around Cib’s shoulders, and Cib grabs his wrist with his free hand. “What’re we doing now, carpark?”

“Why do you call me that?”

“Because you let me.”

Parker smiles. “I was thinking we could just… talk, or sleep, or something.”

“You probably need sleep.”

“I’ve been sleeping!”

“Mmmhm?” Parker can almost hear the raised eyebrow in Cib’s voice. “You gonna swear by that?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Cib laughs, low and rumbling through Parker’s chest, and smacks a kiss on Parker’s forehead. It’s not any different from any other time he’s done it, only-

Only this time, Parker looks up at him, and Cib is looking back, with something like wonder in his eyes. He doesn’t move when Parker leans in, or when Parker brushes his lips against Cib’s, barely, carefully.

“In the morning,” Cib says after a second, like it’s being wrenched out of him. “It’s- god, I can’t believe you’re real, Parker, in the morning-”

“I’m real,” Parker says, and squeezes Cib’s hand to prove it. Cib squeezes back. “I’m right here.”

“And you’re never going anywhere,” Cib says, desperate and resolute, and kisses Parker’s forehead one more time.

(Parker doesn’t remember falling asleep. But he remembers waking up with Cib next to him, strumming the guitar, one of his feet pressed up against Parker’s arm. Steve and Autumn are both grinning at them like they know something, and they might, but all Parker knows is that he smiles up at Cib, as happy as he’s ever been. And Cib, bright and relieved, smiles back.)

  #

  James claps his hands together. “The first thing I want you to know is that this was my idea, but it’s also Cib’s fault. Okay?”

“Cib’s fault?” Parker repeats. “Why did Cib want you to take me out to a parking lot?”

“This’ll all make sense as soon as you say you understand that it’s Cib’s fault.”

“Everything is Cib’s fault, isn’t it?”

“Good point.” James holds out a revolver. “This is yours. Welcome to target practice.”

Parker stares at him even as he takes it. “What?”

“See that car’s windshield?” He points across the parking lot. There’s a car at the other end, one that’s been rusting outside the kitchen store for the past five months. “You’re gonna shoot through it.”

“But-”

James moves so he’s standing behind Parker and guides his left arm up so he’s pointing his revolver at the windshield. “Hold it steady.”

“I could barely do this with two hands,” Parker says, bordering on desperate. “James, I don’t-”

“Just do it. I’m gonna hold it and help with the recoil, okay?”

Parker hates guns. He hated guns before he had to use them and he hates them more now that they’re a part of his daily life. James was best with them, always had been, but Parker’s not comfortable with them. He hopes he never is.

“Shoot,” James says, and Parker swallows and does. The shot goes wide, hitting a couple of yards to the left of the car. “Again.”

“James, this-”

“Parker!” he shouts. Parker flinches so violently that he almost falls over. James catches him with a hand on his shoulder, looking guilty. “Sorry, dude.”

“Why is this such a big deal?” Parker demands. His ears are ringing, and he thinks it’s from more than just the noise of the shot. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll explain once you hit the windshield three times.”

“Three times?”

“Hold the gun sideways.” James positions himself behind Parker again and rotates Parker’s wrist. “Try that.”

Parker takes a deep breath and aims at the windshield. James squeezes his wrist encouragingly. Parker closes his eyes, remembers he’s trying to shoot a gun, opens his eyes, and squeezes the trigger. The bullet cracks through the windshield.

“Good,” James says. He moves so he’s gripping Parker’s shoulders. “Go again.”

Parker sighs, but he takes aim and shoots again. And it hits again. The force of the gun nearly sends him stumbling back, but James keeps him upright. “Okay. One more?”

“One more.” James lifts his hands, but Parker can still feel him there, hovering. “Go.”

“James-”

“Swear, dude.” James pokes him in the back, which might be his way of expressing solidarity. He also might just be an asshole. “One more.”

Parker grimaces, but he points the gun at the windshield and squeezes the trigger. This time the windshield shatters, glass falling all inside the car, and Parker immediately spins around to face James. “What are you doing?”

“Teaching you to shoot one-handed,” James says, unbothered.

“But why? And what does Cib have to do with this?”

“Glisten.” James reaches and takes the revolver away from Parker. “You gotta be able to defend yourself, dude. Especially if we really go road tripping, because weird things happen on road trips. But it’s different shooting with one arm, right?”

“Of course,” Parker says. The balance is different, the recoil is different, and he probably hates it even more than he did with two arms. “And the gun’s different.”

“Yeah, we’re practicing reloading next.”

“James-”

“My point is,” James says, “if you don’t think every one of us was really freaked out when you almost died, you’re not paying attention, dude. Sami Jo said that she’d never seen that much blood when she wasn’t on her period, and I think she might’ve been serious.”

“Dude,” Parker says, because he’s really not sure what else to say to that.

James nods seriously. “I know, I didn’t want to think about it either. But then you went and I had to cut your arm off, and I think that was almost as bad as me as it was for you.”

“Disagreed.”

“I said almost. Anyways, point is, you gotta be able to defend yourself.” James holds up the revolver. “We’re gonna practice with this, because you need to know how to shoot things. All of us do, but you’ve gotta learn something new before we get out of here. Because the southwest was kind of a shitstorm before there were zombies everywhere, and Cib’s gonna be actually pissed if you die.”

“Yeah, also, what part of this was Cib’s fault?”

“Uh, all of it? Didn’t we say everything is his fault?”

Parker shakes his head. “No, at the beginning, you said that it was your idea but it was Cib’s fault. What part of it?”

“Ahhhh.” James smiles, and it’s a weird kind of smile, like he knows something Parker doesn’t. “He was the one who said you needed a different gun.”

“So it was his idea?”

The smile vanishes immediately. “No, dude, I told you it was my idea! Inspired by Cib!”

“No, I know, it just sounds like-”

“Are you accusing me of fucking stealing? ”

Parker holds his arms up in surrender. “No, no, I just wanted to clarify! When did you guys have time to talk about this anyways?”

“What do you mean now?”

“I mean I don’t think you guys have been in the same room in like a week because of supply runs!” And it’s true: with everyone gearing up to go to the Grand Canyon, Parker and Autumn have been by themselves most nights for the last two weeks. It’s been almost uncomfortably empty, and hard to communicate, even with the walkie talkies that James found a while ago.

James snorts. “Haven’t seen him in like a week. That’s cute. He was talking about this last month.”

“Oh,” Parker says, and something warm unfurls inside his chest. Last month, when Parker was feeling useless with only one arm, Cib was trying to figure out how to help him. “Okay.”

“Good,” James says. “Now, are we gonna find more shit to shoot, or are we gonna just keep shooting the shit?”

“Are we- what?”

“Let’s shoot things, come on.”

“Do we have to?”

“Cib’s gonna kill me if you die, and I’m too young to die from anything other than zombies or exposure.”

“Isn’t dying by zombies dying by exposure?”

James holds out the revolver. “Shut up and shoot out that car’s tires.”

Parker smiles despite himself, takes the gun, takes a deep breath, and takes aim.

  #

  Steve, in the driver’s seat of the shittiest, shadiest Jeep that’s left in their entire broken world, slams the car horn. “Get in, come on, today’s the day!”

“I could’ve found a better car,” Cib yells back, but he turns and looks at everyone. “We ready to go?”

“Let’s do it!” Sami Jo leans down and kisses Autumn before running out, carrying half a dozen cans of gasoline. Autumn follows her, arms full of MREs, and James trails behind with what he called a survival kit. Parker’s pretty sure that it’s just a flashlight and a map, but he’s not going to rain on James’s parade.

Cib bumps his shoulder against Parker’s. “Ready to say goodbye?”

“To the place where I lost my arm? Absolutely.” But Parker turns and looks at the store and his breath catches. He already left the stockroom earlier, but now he’s leaving the store. The place he called home for nearly six months, where he and his best friends figured out how to survive. “Oh, my god, you never finished what you were doing with the computer.”

“The computer?” Cib laughs. “Naw, dude, I was just fucking with that. I was never doing anything.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“You amaze me,” Parker says, and he means every syllable of it.

Cib’s eyes go soft. He hooks a hand around Parker’s head, and Parker leans in and kisses him. He thinks he could stay all day, just like this.

“Hey!” Steven honks the car horn. “Get all that out of your system now, because there will be no banging in my new car.”

“We’re gonna fuck in the trunk while you’re driving,” Cib shouts back. “Fuckin’ bangarang all night long!”

“Or all day,” Parker mumbles before he can help it. It’s too quiet for Steve to hear, but Cib laughs, and that’s worth it.

“Not if we do it first!” Sami Jo yells. Steve drags a hand down his face. Autumn shakes her head.

“Get your asses in the car,” James yells. “We will leave you behind with a shell of a home and no supplies!”

“We have all the guns, bitch!” Cib lifts the box that they’re storing the guns in. “We can eat those!”

“We can’t eat those,” Parker whispers.

Cib grins. “Aw, don’t worry, babydoll, we’d find other things to eat.”

“Is that a sex thing?”

“Mmmmmmaybe.” He winks, twice with one eye and then once with the other. Parker is, despite all logic, a little charmed.

“Get in the goddamn car,” Autumn yells, and Cib bumps his hip against Parker’s and goes to the car. Parker takes one last look at the kitchen store, pushes down the swell of unspeakable emotions that threatens to rise up, and follows him.

It takes fifteen minutes and a lot of yelling to fit all the supplies in, but they manage it. Cib calls immediate dibs on the backseat, which means Parker also gets the backseat. “For leg room,” Cib explains, and slings one of his legs over Parker’s.

Steven glances in the rearview mirror. “Everyone got your seatbelts on?”

Cib groans. “We all got seashells, Steve, let’s get this fucking show on the highway!”

“Grand Canyon!” Sami Jo bounces excitedly, and Autumn smiles, fondly and full of love. “Let’s go, come on, come on!”

James unfurls a massive paper map. “Okay, I gotta find where we are, hold on.”

“I’m just gonna follow signs that say south and east,” Steven announces. “Until you can figure out something better.”

“No, that seems like a pretty safe bet,” James says, and looks back. “We all ready?”

“Ready,” Parker says. “Can I pick the music?”

Everyone groans. Cib sits bolt upright. “The guitar-”

“I put it in the trunk while you were throwing rocks at Alfredo,” Parker says.

Cib’s face lights up. “You’re the best.”

“Do not encourage him,” Steve says sharply. “Parker, you don’t get to pick the music, because we don’t have any music to pick from. Understand?”

“Understood.”

“Good. James, we good?”

“We good,” James says. “We good?”

“We good,” Cib answers, and he grins at Parker. Parker grins back, and Cib points at Steve. “Let’s get this bitch rolling.”

Steve pulls out of the parking lot. Parker closes his eyes and breathes.

[guardmesherlock-rowan]

Monster Mash up GMS

MC was settling in, the blanket pulled around her, a happy movie playing on her tv, a warm mug in her hands when her phone buzzed.  It was from Sherlock.  MC raised an eyebrow at it, he had insisted that she was not to bother them tonight.  That they had previous Halloween plans that sadly did not include her.  However now a strange next with an address sits in her inbox from Sherlock.  As she prepares her question she receives another.

“It is important to me that you come to this address.” 

[link for more on mobile]

The Mansion was enormous. Bigger than it seemed when she was driving up. The cab left very quickly after she paid, leaving her seemingly alone.  MC entered with her she had grabbed an overnight bag, who knows with Sherlock what kind of case he would be working on and if they would be here over night; presumably so by how he had rebuked her efforts to make plans for after his.  “Sherlock?”  It was her first Halloween with them since they had helped her solve that little murder party hiccup, several months had passed and she found herself good friends with everyone.  So she had been excited to spend Halloween with them.

She had been ready to accept that she wouldn’t be able to get to do what she wanted when even George insisted that she stay home, that is was a ‘guy’s night’.  So the invite was a pleasant surprise, though troublesome.  Even more so as she walked the halls, calling out for Sherlock, John, George, anyone, and was met with silence.  

“Guys?”  Anxiety that she was trespassing crept up her spine.  Maybe it wasn’t too late to call another cab.  .

“MC?”  Mycroft’s voice wafted from over her shoulder.  “What are you doing here?”  His warm eyes slowly drifted up and down her person as she turned to face him.  

“Sherlock asked me here, see?”  She held up the phone, letting him inspect it and double check the phone number listed.  

“So it seems he did... but you really shouldn’t be wandering around here alone.  It isn’t safe.” His hand brushed against the small of her back directing her in the direction she had just come.  It was there for the briefest of moments before he took a step away from her, coughing lightly into his hand.  “Does anyone know you’re here?”

“Well there’s Sherlock... but I wouldn’t thought he’d have told everyone before asking me to come.”

“Yes he would’ve.”  Mycroft lead MC into a large room, primarily filled with a long table with only a third of the seats available filled with people she knew.  Though it was surprising to see even the ‘M’ group so close to everyone, John and Jack were even sitting next to each other.  Glancing around the room the only people missing where Hercule and Mikah.  

“MC?  My dear it is a pleasure to see you again, but why are you here?”  Jeremy was the first to stand up from the table, rushing to her side, his blue green eyes swimming with confusion as he smiled at her.  

“Did Sherlock not tell anyone?”

Sherlock stared at her curiously, “me?”  His coat was hanging behind his chair, he checked the pocket and pulled out a phone.  After a few moments his eyes narrowed, “this isn’t mine.”

“I wonder how this happened?!  That seems to be my phone, but that must mean...”  James Moriarty gaped wide eyed at the phone, “it seems I sent MC that message from your phone by accident.”

“Accident?”  John leaned across Jack to yank the phone out of James’s hand.  

“Of course I would never ever ask such a fragile little robin into such a dangerous place such as this... but since she is here I guess it’s up to me to make sure she stays safe.  Isn’t that right gentlemen?”  James grinned at everyone as he sauntered up to MC, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.  

“Dangerous?  I don’t...”  MC shook her head, barely noticing as something slipped over her head, weighing heavily on her chest.  Looking down she say a perfume cage necklace.  The porous stone inside seemed to give us a sweet but smokey odor.  Even though it wasn’t unpleasant Mycroft winched a little taking a step away from her.

“There we go, safe as a box of kittens.”  James shifted her hair to have the chain flat against her neck, he ran his hands along the metal, and it seemed like he would follow the chain all the way down to the pendant when Jeremy coughed a warning.  

“What would this keep me safe from?”  MC chuckled at their strange and peculiar behavior.  

“Monsters of course!”  James smiled briefly, stepping quickly out of the way as George attempted to push him.  Leaving him to stagger momentarily in front of MC.

“I could’ve done that too!”  George exclaimed glaring at James.  “It doesn’t take a master to create a protection charm.”

“No, but I’m sure everyone else feels more at ease with the sunsetting knowing that I made that mix instead of you.”  

“Hey!”  MC chided James, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but please don’t pick on George like that.”

“It’s okay MC, I know what he means, and I guess he’s right.  Even I wouldn’t be confident in my ability to protect you.”  George clamped a hand down on her shoulder.

“Protect me from what?”

“Us.”  John barely whispered the word, but it carried in the silence.  From the big windows at the end of the room the setting sun cast the room in shades of orange and red.  In the strange light it seemed like everyone features shifted, exaggerated.  George and James stood on either side of her, watching the others who all seemed to watch and stare at MC.  While being used to having attention on her when on stage, or even when having a discussion, it was hard to know where to look.

She turned to Jeremy who was still particularly close and wondered what that bruising color was along his neck and hairline.  He flinched, a look of anguish on his face as his hand flew up to his ear.  In that motion it looked like his nails were sharper, and was that webbing between his fingers?  

A strange jolt passed through MC as she glanced at them all again.  Mycroft was breathing heavily as he stepped out of the room, loosening his tie.  John and Jack stretched their jaw in an uncomfortable manner.  Sebastian pulled his hood up higher.  Quickly MC passed James in her rush to the window.  She pulled on the cord, dropping the heavy drape and blocking out the colors of the setting sun.  Only a lamp in the corner indicated any electricity, the rest of the hall was lit by candle light as MC turned at took the in the sight.  Most of the guys had turned away from her, trying to hide their faces.  All except Sherlock who watched her closely as she neared the group.  

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”  George pleaded.  “Let’s just get you set up in a room for the night and we can all talk about this in the morning, yeah?”

MC glanced around, finishing up to set her eyes on James, “why did you text me?”

“It seemed such a shame not to share this night together, plus if you are going to spend time with us I thought it would only be fair if you knew the truth.”  He smiled looking over her shoulder, MC didn’t have to turn to know he was looking at Sherlock.  

“What’s the truth then?  And if everything is so dangerous why did you bring me here.”

“Don’t worry, I will protect you from the monsters.  I don’t want to ever lie to you MC, so here we are.  Truth time.”

“Monsters?”

“Like us.”  Jack murmured the words, leaning as close as he could.  MC jumped, leaning away from him as he flashed what looked to be fairly long fangs in her direction.  “Now... as long as you wear that, we can only get so close to you even without malicious intent, but if you take it off tonight... I don’t think anyone could make any promises on how tempting it would be to snatch you up.”  Jack pointed at the charm that James gave her.  

“Jack leave her be and get over here.”  John shouted across the room, his usually emerald eyes seemed to glow red that she could see even at a distance.  John lifted some sort of cooler he had sitting next to his chair.  “MC, please go with George.  We have some things to take care of before we can talk about this any further.”

“Very funny.”  MC rolled her eyes, “are you guys really going to pull a practical joke like this?  But I do admit, the quick make up change is amazing.”  MC approached Jeremy, amazed at the fin like ear he was now sporting.  She reached up to touch it, the material felt so real under her fingers.  Suddenly she heard the zap and saw Jeremy jump.

His raised his hands away from her hips, he had been reaching out to grab her when a sudden shock sparked between her fingers and his ear.  “Right right, no touching.  But i’m afraid this is all very real MC.  Those two are vampires.”  He indicated towards John and Jack, she could see John trying to keep Jack from opening the box.  “Mycroft is a.. sorta vampire...”  Jeremy searched for the right words.

“So what, Sherlock’s also a vampire?”

“We don’t know what he is to be honest.”

“I’m normal.”

“So you say.”  Jeremy chuckles as Sherlock looked mildly offended.  “Sebastian is a werecat.  Go ahead and show her the ears!”  Sebastian stood up and walked out of the room using a door at the very end.  

“Don’t worry about him,”  James stepped up, pulling her into a side hug.  “How about I show you to my room and I’ll catch you up there?”

“Your room?”  George pushed his way between them.

“And what about you two?”

“Idiots. Morons who don’t know how to keep quiet about secrets.”  Sherlock shouted from across the room.

“Wizards, they’re wizards.”  Jeremy smiled taking it upon himself to translate for her.  “And I’m a merman.”

“Uh huh.  So you guys get together on Halloween and roleplay?  Okay I guess that can be fun.” MC chuckled at their silliness, shaking her head.  “But I should probably go put my things in a room.”  She held up her bag.

“Let me show you.”  George offered her his arm, and as she reached out for it Sherlock stepped in between them.

“It is my family’s estate, I can show her to a room.”  

“Oh your family owns this?”  It was hard to keep the surprise off of her face as she wrapped her arm with Sherlock’s.  Though it would be hard to guess if what he would say was truth, or all part of the roleplay.

He smiled, leading her out, “for quiet some time now.”

MC glanced behind her as the door started to swing shut, still giving her a glimpse into the room as John let Jack throw open the color, pulling out a pouch designed to look like blood.  She didn’t take them for the types to really get into character like this.  

(sadly I had to cut it off here as my carpal tunnel is acting up, please let me know if this is a story you’d like me to continue in the future)

[meltlilies]

he's like a hurricane, trouble's his middle name;

raywood | 1.7k | fahc / past implied illegal box

most couples, when they share clothes, have their friends make a couple jokes at their expense and realize how physically different they are.

however, in typical melodramatic fashion, ray and ryan cause a citywide police blockade and chase, destroy a business linage with one bullet and break gavin's nose.

on AO3

honestly, special thanks to @michaelsgavin and @juggey for retweeting ray in ryan’s jacket one day, which lead to me commissioning some art from sami and then writing this. enjoy! it’s my first ragehappy fic, i hope it’s a good one!

Ray’s pretty fucking sure that the cops of Los Santos must’ve paid to get onto the force, because these assholes definitely didn’t make their way through an entire college degree; Ray thinks himself pretty damn smart despite getting a GED the very first time he got the chance, but these goons are, some-fucking-how, stupider than Gavin is on a bad day (or an old crew member, on a good).  

 “It’s the Vagabond!” No, it’s Brownman in his jacket. I don’t even have half the muscle mass or ass he does. “Call in the SWAT team!” I’m gonna kick Ryan’s ass for taking my hoodie from the safe house. How the fuck does that thing even fit him? He’s a human dorito that’s a good two or three sizes bigger than me, he’s gonna look like an asshole. Well, a bigger one than usual.

 Today, was supposed to be a nice, clean hit. Get to a rooftop, pop some rich kid’s entitled head off. Now he’s got half the police department on his ass because he and his morally repugnant (better) half had to give the old clothes switcheroo. Ray has spent the better part of a fucking year beating around the bush about how close he and the hurricane of a mercenary, the Vagabond, and this is gonna ruin everything. He can already see Gavin's smug fucking face. God damn it. He just revs of the engine of the bike he just stole, trying to get to his position before the cops actually come to their senses and attempt to do their fucking jobs right for once in their lives.

 -

 He's a little early for the time he'd been given despite his hectic encounter--this wasn't a fakes job, he just was bored in their downtime and some old friends asked for a favor--so he set to slowly putting his rifle together; the rendezvous point had originally been but a couple avenues down from the safe house he was currently housed up in with tall dark and scary, but the unexpected police convention in the 7/11 he'd planning to get a monster and a couple donuts from made for some good time to kill. 

 Apparently most of the downtown area was under surveillance for the Vagabond.

 They can have fun looking for what isn't there. 

 Now, back to the scheduled actual homicide. Ray takes a breath, and looks into scope, taking in the all glass building where his target's supposed to making some kind of business deal that'll probably make him ever richer than he needs to be; there's too much movement, too many faces and bodies blocking what he needs to see and he goes to grab his phone to check the reference picture when--

~♫ here he is, the biggest douche in the uuuuuuniverse ♫~

[11:47:87] gavinofree: Y'know, most people don't raise hell on their walks of shame.

[11:48:72] gavinofree: Is keeping each other's jackets a consolation prize for the worst sex of your lives?

[11:49:32] gavinofree: Sorry, Rye's life. 

[11:51:81] gavinofree: I called it, by the way. I knew you two were shagging! {attachment the_smug_gavin_face.jpeg}

It takes Ray a good moment to collect himself, and not consider kicking Gavin's ass. He settles on ruining the mountain that is his nose, less collateral damage that way. 

[11:59:69] brownman: you use the word shagging between ryan and i's names ever again and i will permanently change your legal name to austin randy powers

[12:00:13] brownman: also i'm gonna go independence day on your god damn nose when i get back to the penthouse

[12:00:77] brownman: say goodbye to your sharkfin face, asshole

[12:01:42] gavinofree: You're gonna throw tea on my face, wot?

[12:01:57] brownman: the movie, with will smith

[12:01:88] brownman: i'm gonna hit you again, for not seeing the classic film

[12:02:07] brownman: you're a god damn travesty

  He sighs, quickly taking a look at his mark's picture. The breeze is strong up here, and he has to zip up--Ryan's jacket that is way too big and baggy on him and makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside like when he perfects a game or snipes through five people with one bullet or makes Gavin knock into something expensive in the penthouse and watches Geoff tear him an absolutely new one--so the flaps in the wind don't throw off his aim. 

  Breathe.

  He crouches, ever so slightly, mentally calculating the allowances he's got to make to get the shot perfectly. Align his back, angle the barrel straight, angle a few degrees off to the side. 

  Breathe.

  The asshole goes up to the window--wall? he doesn't fucking know how these stupid yuppie skyscrapers work--and right into his crosshairs. Perfect.

  Bang! 

  It's almost beautiful for a split second, the glass shattering like the beautiful lovechild of a snowflake and a spiderweb, before it all goes red and the entire board room goes into a panic. Ray shakes himself out of his dramatic and poetic stupor, to first take his rifle apart, pack it up and fucking book it out of here, then to send a text.

  [12:17:49] brownman: okay, quick question

[12:17:69] brownman: i wanna do this the right way myself

[12:18:09] brownman: actually two questions

[12:18:99] brownman: can you grab michael for like, a minute when i get to the penthouse and how do you throw a good like one-two punch

[12:19:86] BMVagabond: I have a feeling these two things are very interconnected. Do you mean like, grab as in distract or grab as in hold him down because I can do both.

[12:21:19] brownman: you're not wrong

[12:21:52] brownman: whichever works, i doubt michael's gonna stop gavin from getting his ass kicked

[12:21:97] brownman: like baseball is for normal americans, seeing gavin get his just desserts is the crew's national pastime

[12:22:22] brownman: now give me those punchy deets

[12:23:44] BMVagabond: Okay, I'm just gonna send you a video, it's quicker. Let me hide in the bathroom real quick.

[12:23:77] brownman: make sure you make lots of moaning noises, pretend to have phone sex with me

[12:24:01] brownman: let the visual of my sensual unfit skinny body rock your dick, babe

[12:27:88] BMVagabond {Attached fist_vid_for_ray.mp4} Okay. 1: I didn't know we were at babe level, good to know. 2: I never want to read or listen to you stay those words ever again or I'm going to have to break up with you and find a more eloquent boyfriend. A real wordsmith. 

[12:28:31] brownman: aw babe don't hurt me like this, you haven't even gotten to the rest of my horrible personality traits

[12:39:21] brownman: WAIT DID YOU SAY BOYFRIEND

  Ray proceeds to spend the rest of his commute--he ties the jacket around his waist, goes and eats about seven burgers for lunch and takes the subway all the way back to his actual home, like a proper member of society--practicing making a proper fist along with swinging whenever there isn't someone next to him and mentally screaming because Ryan just used the word.

  The big old word.

 The b word. 

  Hoo boy. Oh man, he'll deal with that later when he doesn't have a smug British invasion of privacy to stop.

  -

  Ryan greets him as the door and it takes a lot for Ray not to burst into laughter at the sight before him. He's honestly amazed that the man even managed to get the thing on his arms, much less zip it all the way up; he looks like someone had the misfortune of putting a condom on an eggplant in health class, and it's equally jarring that he's in such a bright color too. 

  "Hey, you give that back right now mister. You're gonna ruin the elastic--big bad Vagabond and boyfriend or not, I can't have you going around and besmirching my aesthetic all willy-nilly. I work very hard to look like garbage, I'll have you know." 

  "Those are some big words and if I didn't know better, I'd say you read a thesaurus since your last text."

  "You better know better. Please, you know I never learned how to read." He just tugs on the older man's sleeve--well, his sleeve, whatever--with an almost pout. "Give it back. I don't wanna get Gavin's blood on your good jacket when I break his nose." Ryan shrugs in a 'fair enough' way and they exchange jackets. Ray's a little pissed about the sleeves being slightly stretched out, but a good wash would fix it (but a wash would get rid of the weird scent of gunpowder and cologne that Ryan has on him and that would absolutely lowkey upset Ray--maybe he should just, do this again). He's about to take the first step to giving that smug asshole a good what for, when Ryan grabs his shoulder and he spins on his heel. "What."

  "So you gotta keep your hands level with your shoulders, right--" Ryan gets behind Ray, and positions him properly. "--and have a wide stance. Twist your hips a bit when you swing and you'll have more power behind your strikes. Lead with a quick jab to daze him, and then give him a right cross." A couple demonstrations and Ray leaves--no, saunters out of the room--ready to strike. 

  Ryan's halfway through a sip of Diet Coke when he hears a distinct sound of a dying bird squawk, follow by the sound of the same bird hitting the carpeted floor of the living room floor. Geoff, walks in and sighs.

  "If you two are gonna start dating, you better keep each other on a leash. 'Cause I can't afford Gavin getting sent to the hospital every other week because you two decided to double team him."

  "Duly noted." And in that moment, Gavin comes in clutching the ruins of his once great and large nose.

  "Geoffrey, Ray broke my nose, he's being a prick--" His whining is drowned out by both Jeremy and Michael, cackling and obviously video taping the whole thing. 

  Michael replays the whole thing for Ryan, and it's a pretty good first try. 

  They find Ray sulking on the couch, playing one handed tetris while the other is wrapped in an ice pack. 

  "His stupid face hurt my hand."