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medlarmeadows · 6 months ago

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The Best of Us, The Worst of Us (The Last of Us)

q!Charlie Slimecicle x fem!reader

Synopsis: In the midst of the zombie apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, you and Charlie stumble upon a little girl who became the light of your lives for the rest of her life.

Warning(s): blood, swearing, violence, mild gore (descriptive scenes of wounds and blood), main-character (?) death, HEAVY angst, mild-suicidal ideation, physical threatening, panic attack, bittersweet ending

Word Count: 6.6k

A/N: The last sentence in my notes for this fic was “This is angst we ball”. I am so sorry.

masterlist

Surviving in a zombie apocalyptic world was tough. If you weren’t fighting off zombies or other survivors, your next problem was finding food and shelter.

Luckily for you and Charlie, you both knew how to be resourceful.

You’d both done things you weren’t proud of. Between sneaking up on survivors and picking them off one by one so you could loot the bodies and the location, and savagely tearing apart the bodies of the undead without even blinking an eye, you could safely say the apocalypse had changed you both.

Whether that turned you into the worst versions of yourselves, you couldn’t say.

“Hey Charlie,” you had asked him on a rare day when you had simply relaxed by a brook. It had been a peaceful day, one without any scavenging runs, or even run ins with zombies or other survivors.

“Yes, my love?” he replied.

Despite yourself, you feel your chest warm. Ten years since the world turned to shit, but your boyfriend never failed to find a way to make you feel loved.

Too bad you would be the one to break that mood.

“Are we bad people?”

There was a beat of silence as Charlie registered your words. You see him frown from behind the old sunglasses he had picked up from an abandoned mall (“You can’t stop the drip, even if you might get bit!” “Charlie, if you wear that and we get ambushed, you are most definitely going to get bit.” “But I will look cool during it.” “And also dead.”), the sun reflecting off the lenses and shielding his eyes from your view.

“Sure, we’ve done questionable things,” he starts slowly, as if he was processing every word before he said them. “But I don’t think that makes us bad people. I think that just makes us survivors.”

It’s your turn to frown as you mull over his words. The dead leaves on the ground rustle as Charlie shifted, leaning over to hold the side of your face gently.

“We’ve been doing this for ten years,” he murmurs. “What’s got you thinking about this now?”

You worry your lip as you lean into his touch, his calloused hands bringing a striking contrast to his gentle hold. It grounds you in the midst of your busy thoughts.

“I don’t know,” you reply softly. “I guess, I’ve just been feeling a little sentimental recently.”

“Oh yeah? I get that too.”

You snort, before grabbing Charlie’s hand in yours and placing a kiss to the back of his hand. He responds by pulling you towards him into a cuddle on the forest floor.

“I guess that just shows we still have a little bit of humanity left over,” he murmurs as he places a kiss into your hair.

“I guess so,” you reply as the two of you drift off into a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the soft burbling of the brook.

Camping out in the forest was always a gamble, no matter how peaceful it seemed to be. Without four walls to protect you, you could be easily ambushed by survivors and zombies alike.

You were up the second you heard the sound of empty tin cans crashing to the ground. Charlie shot up from the bed roll moments after you, eyes wide and alert.

The two of you had set up camp behind a couple of large logs, large enough to obscure most of your view of where your campfire had been (Survival tip number 1: never sleep immediately next to your campfire, and always put it out before you sleep) so you couldn’t immediately see whoever or whatever had knocked over your trash.

Reaching for your shotgun that was always within arm’s reach of you, you mouthed to Charlie, “I’ll approach, you flank.”

With a thumbs up from him, you make your way to the source of the noise as quietly and quickly as you can. The moment you step out to face the culprit, you aim the shotgun at them, ready to fire if need be and –

“Oh my god.”

The moonlight just barely illuminated the figure before you. Standing before you, in clothes torn, tattered, and muddied with both dirt and what must have been dried blood, was a girl who could be no older than eight years old. She was on her knees, seemingly having just tripped over the small pile of tin cans in the darkness, and you notice that one of her shoes was missing.

The girl is frozen for a second, eyes wide and staring at the shotgun. The pair of spectacles slips down her nose just a little, enough to draw your attention to it. One of the lenses was cracked.

Charlie appears behind her just a second later, moments away from tackling what he had probably thought was a lone adult survivor. She senses him behind her and turns, mouth falling open.

In a split second, Charlie has the girl in his arms, one hand pressed over her mouth to stop her from screaming. You drop the shotgun on the ground and run to them.

“Calm down,” you try as she wiggled in Charlie’s grasp. Her chest rose and fell in panic.

This wouldn’t do.

“Charlie let go of her,” you hiss at him, keeping your volume low to avoid attracting any potential threats.

“If I let go, she’s going to scream,” he hisses back.

You let out a deep sigh and try to put on the most kind and genuine smile you could muster.

“Hello,” you say gently. “I’m Y/N. We’re not going to hurt you, but we need you to calm down and not scream. If you scream, the zombies will come, and everybody is going to get hurt.”

The kid’s eyes widened just a fraction, darting around the darkness to look around. You reach for one of her hands and rub your thumb over the back of it in hopes to help soothe her.

“There’s no one here except for us, for now. You can relax, try to calm down.”

After a few seconds, the child’s breathing slows down, and she seemed to relax in Charlie’s arms a little. When he was sure that she wasn’t going to scream, he let go of her and moved to kneel beside her on the ground.

“Hey,” Charlie says softly. “Sorry for grabbing you like that, I’m Charlie. What’s yours?”

The girl raises her hands and starts to gesture shakily. Confused at first, Charlie turns to look at you, but you realise quickly that she was signing to the two of you. Your mouth opens slightly when you realise.

“– I – P – P – A. Juanaflippa? Did I get that right?” you ask.

The girl nods excitedly, a smile spreading on her face in contrast to the panic she had been in just moments earlier.

“It’s nice to meet you, Juanaflippa. What are you doing out in the forest?”

She starts signing again, but soon realised that you were reaching your limit of your sign language knowledge. You exchange looks with Charlie, who was equally lost. Then, Juanaflippa was gesturing again:

“Oh! Pen and paper!” gasps Charlie. “I think we might have scrap paper and a pen somewhere, let me find it.”

As Charlie rushed back to your bed roll, you move closer to Juanaflippa to help her stand up. She stumbles a little and leans a little into your side.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt somewhere?”

She nods, lifting her foot with the missing shoe.

“You hurt your foot?”

As she nods again, you feel something in your heart shatter for her. Why was a girl so young out in the forest all alone? Why did she have to suffer in this world that would never be kind to her?

You almost whiplash. You weren’t sure when was the last time you felt compassion for someone other than Charlie.

Pushing down your bubbling, confusing emotions, you say, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you patched up. Come on.” And you gather her up in your arms and carry her over to where your bed rolls were.

The remainder of the night was spent patching Juanaflippa up. By the time you had finished wrapping her foot injury – which luckily seemed to just be a sprained ankle – with some bandages and wiped the dirt off her face, the little girl was sound asleep in Charlie’s arms.

Cradling her gently, Charlie looked up at you. His wide eyes met yours, and you immediately knew the question which was on his mind.

“Charlie,” you began softly. “It could be dangerous.”

“But – ” you wince when his voice cracked slightly “ – she’s just a child. God knows what she’s already gone through alone, we can’t – we have to – ”

“We won’t,” you say firmly.

You place a hand over one of Charlie’s which had started to shake over Juanaflippa’s shoulder. Intertwining your fingers with his, you lean over to place a chaste kiss on his cheek. Strong emotions start bubbling up again from your chest, this time towards your boyfriend with a heart of gold. Charlie had already set his mind on taking in Juanaflippa, and you knew you would follow his lead in a heartbeat.

“We’ll protect her, I promise.”

You and Charlie had only planned to camp in the forest for one night, so you were going into the nearest town in the morning. As per yours and Charlie’s routine, the plan would be to scope out a potential camp for the night, preferably in a secured building, then search around for loot. If you were lucky, you would be able to sneak around zombies and survivors alike. Most of the time, the two of you would be able to make it through the day without anything more than a minor scuffle.

Truth be told, you and Charlie enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came with a fight. You didn’t push you’re your luck often, but what was life without a little risk? However, with Juanaflippa to take care of, the two of you had to be more careful than you were used to.

The little girl was a good sport, even with her injury. But even then, the three of you moved slower than usual.

“We should probably set up camp, then one of us stays with the kid, the other goes and scavenges,” you had suggested in the morning.

“Are you kidding?” came Charlie’s worried reply. “We don’t ever split up. That’s like the worst decision ever. Besides, the kid’s gotta learn how to survive in this world.”

“Yeah, but maybe when she’s got some food and healed up,” you shot back.

“Fine, fine. But once she’s recovered, I’m gonna teach her how to shoot a gun.”

“Charlie, no – ”

“Hey, Juanaflippa! Wanna learn how to shoot a gun?”

That conversation had ended with Charlie and Juanaflippa jumping around you excitedly. You sighed exasperatedly, but it had been hard to hide your fond smile.

Luck seemed to be on your side because your plan for the day went smoothly. You managed to find an old video game store (“Oh my god, Dying Light! I loved that game!”) and secured it as your camp for the next few nights. Once that was done, Charlie had slipped out to gather some food and medicine, returning safely before night fell.

The three of you took things slow, slower than you and Charlie had ever done things in the past ten years. What was routine and almost second nature to the two of you became teaching opportunities for Juanaflippa.

And she had the best teachers.

“Okay, Flippa – can I call you Flippa?”

Juanaflippa nods at Charlie, bouncing on her toes excitedly.

“Awesome! Alright, here’s how you hold a gun – ”

Just at that moment, you emerge from the store to see your boyfriend and Flippa standing side by side, Flippa clutching Charlie’s handgun awkwardly in her small hands.

“What the fuck, Charlie – ”

“Don’t curse around the baby!” he exclaims, shooting you a look and covering Flippa’s ears dramatically. The young girl just looks at you innocently, eyes wide behind her cracked glasses.

Dumbfounded, you set down the water you had brought out for them.

“You’re admonishing me for cursing, but you’re teaching her to shoot a gun?”

Shaking your head at them, you march back into the store to retrieve your shotgun, coming back out to stand watch for them in case any runners or scavengers got attracted to the noise of a clumsily fired handgun.

A few days later, you find yourselves back in the woods after getting chased out of the town by some stray runners that had caught you off guard. The moment the sound of ambling limbs and uncoordinated footsteps drew near, Charlie had scooped Juanaflippa up in his arms and raced away while you covered their backs, occasionally letting a gunshot ring when a runner got too close.

After ensuring you were no longer being chased by the pack of zombies, you and Charlie decided to set up camp in the woods. Charlie insisted on bringing Juanaflippa with him to collect firewood (which you knew was a poorly disguised excuse for bringing her aside to teach her how to kill some small woodland animal probably) but you quickly denied the man, offering to teach Juanaflippa how to set up camp instead.

“So, Flippa,” you asked as you teach her how to set up the tarp for shelter, “how did you come to find us in the woods?”

Flippa worried her lip, setting down her side of the tarp to take out the notebook and pen you had managed to scavenge for her. After scribbling down a few words, she turns the notebook to you:

I was left behind. We were attacked. I couldn’t find anybody.

“Oh,” you breathed shakily.

Flippa nodded before hanging her head. One of her hand lifts to wipe at her face as her shoulders start to shake.

“Oh, baby,” you whisper, before gathering her up in your arms. Her arms come to wrap around your neck, squeezing you back tightly as she buried her face into your neck.

“Flippa, I’m so sorry that happened to you,” you say as you rub circles into her back, “but we’ve got you now. Charlie and I will protect you, I promise.”

Juanaflippa takes a minute to calm down, and when she does, she pulls away slightly and brings one of her hands up to face. Opening her palm, with her pinkie facing you, she taps her thumb twice on her chin.

Curious, you tilt your head and ask, “What does that mean?”

A grin starts forming on Flippa’s face and she starts signing the letters to you. You feel tears well up in your eyes as you recognise the four-letter word as:

“Mama,” you choke on your words. Sniffling, you nod vigorously at the girl, gripping her tighter. “Yes, I’ll be your mama sweetheart. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I promise that I’ll keep you safe.”

Charlie returns to see the sobbing mess that you are, and a grinning, slightly teary-eyed Flippa. Knowing it took a lot to get you to cry, Charlie drops the bundle of wood he had collected and rushes to your side, holding the two of you and barraging you with a series of questions:

"Are you alright? What happened? Are you both okay?”

Flippa interrupts him by signing at him, making the same gesture as before but this time tapping her thumb twice on her forehead. Charlie frowns, confused and worried.

“What does that mean, Flippa?”

She manages to wriggle out of your grip slightly to pick up the discarded notebook and pen to write down one word:

Papa.

If you were emotional, Charlie was downright inconsolable. The three of you sit there on the forest floor, wrapped up in each other both physically and emotionally. Juanaflippa is sandwiched in a hug between the two of you, content to just be between the two humans who had decided to love her unconditionally that night in the woods.

By the time you calm down, the sun is starting to set, and you and Charlie both get to teach your daughter how to start a fire.

(“Charlie, please control your pyro tendencies,” you plead with him out of Flippa’s earshot. All you get is a non-committal “No promises.” and a wink.)

You make a couple days trek out of the woods and into the next town to search for more supplies. By this time, Flippa’s ankle had healed, and she was wearing tightly laced shoes Charlie had found in the last town. She was armed with a small knife (you had refused to let Charlie give her a gun) and walked between you and Charlie at all times.

Given that Juanaflippa was better equipped now, you and Charlie decided to take the chance and go on supply runs together as a family. It was a hard-fought battle between Charlie’s insistence and your anxiety, but he eventually reasoned it out with you, proposing a game plan.

Whenever you entered a new area, Charlie, being at the head of the group, would keep an eye out for potential hiding spots for Flippa, signalling them to you. If things went south, one of you would shout “Flippa, hide!” and point to one of the hiding spots for her to go to.

It was a fair plan, and the only way for him to convince you to let all three of you go on supply runs together.

Quietly, the three of you were sneaking into an abandoned grocery story in hopes you could scavenge some canned food, one of the supplies which dwindled the fastest now that you were a party of three and not two. The sliding glass doors were frozen half-open, allowing the three of you to slip through with no issue.

It was early in the afternoon, but the sunlight didn’t reach far enough into the grocery store for you to be able to see well inside. Electricity certainly didn’t work anymore, so after walking deeper into the store, the three of you took out your flashlights.

Too bad you didn’t notice the clicker first.

The sound of three flashlights clicking on at the same time was enough for the clicker to turn its gruesome, fungal head in your direction. The three of you freeze, breathing shallowly as the grotesque creature made its disturbing clicking noises. Charlie motions for the three of you to back away quietly, and so you do.

Too focussed on the clicker in front of you, you don’t notice the clicker that had crept up behind you until it clicks in your ear.

You side-step the clicker before it can take a chomp out of your neck, but not quick enough for you to avoid getting pulled down to the ground by it. There’s a high-pitched scream in the background, and you put all your strength into your hips and arms to quickly overpower the creature, rolling the two of you over and stabbing your knife into its neck. Mercilessly, you drag the knife, ripping it’s throat out in a spray of blood and gore to ensure it was dead.

The noise had prompted the clicker in front of your party to charge, and you could see Charlie engaging with it, dodging its arms, and slicing its jaw with his machete. Quickly, you turn your gaze to where Flippa was, ice seeping into your veins when you don’t notice her figure between yours and Charlie’s.

A second high-pitched scream rang out from your right.

Whipping your head further down the aisle, you notice a squirming mass on the floor, barely illuminated by the flashlights which had dropped to the floor. You sprint over to wrestle the third clicker off of Juanaflippa, yelling for Charlie to get Flippa out of the store. As your boyfriend scoops Flippa into his arms and runs out, you manage to climb onto the clicker’s back.

You’re briefly winded when the zombie knocks you into the shelf, but you quickly retaliate by plunging your knife deep into its chest several times, uncaring of how your hands were dripping in its blood. It finally drops to the ground, unmoving, and you sprint out of the store before any more unseen clickers or runners came looking for the source of the noise.

The first thing you saw was Charlie patting Flippa down, fussing over her and checking for injuries. You approach them after sheathing your knife, panic slowly dissipating seeing them out of danger.

“Are you both okay?” you ask, patting Flippa down quickly before turning to Charlie.

He pulls you in tightly and kisses you deeply, quickly pulling away when he remembers the small child watching. You catch his gaze briefly, noting his pupils still wide from adrenaline, before sweeping your gaze over the rest of his body to check for injuries.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, “Adrenaline rush. I think that’s the most action I’ve gotten in more than a week.”

You nod in agreement. Your right hand shakes slightly from leftover adrenaline, and you glance down to notice it soaked in blood that wasn’t your own. Nonchalantly, you wipe it against your pant leg.

“It was a little fun,” you admitted, but turning to Juanaflippa, you feel a stab of fear in you again. “But Flippa, oh my god, I’m so sorry, we should have been more careful.”

You scoop her up in your arms, hugging her tight. You can feel the erratic beating of her chest against your own, and your squeeze her a little just to remind yourself that she was okay. Pulling away from her slightly, you check her again.

“Are you alright? Did you get hurt?”

Juanaflippa shakes her head, holding up an OK sign. Satisfied, you ruffle her hair and stand up.

After that run in, neither you nor Charlie were in a state to go on another supply run, so you found an abandoned house to set up camp in. In a stroke of luck, you managed to find some leftover canned goods in the kitchen.

As you prepared dinner, you notice Juanaflippa draw into herself, doodling or writing something in her notebook. Worriedly, you turn to Charlie who was checking how much ammo you had left.

“Charlie, could you check on Flippa again?”

He looked up from your supplies, eyes darting over to where Flippa was before looking back at you.

“I checked on her just now,” he assures you. “She’s alright, just shaken. Said she needed some time alone.”

You hummed, not quite content with his answer, but accepting it. You hear a sigh, then footsteps, and a pair of arms was wrapping themselves around your waist.

“You’re worried,” Charlie mumbles into your hair.

“Of course I am,” you bite back, your gaze remaining focussed on the beans you were heating up on a makeshift stove.

“Love, you know it’s not your fault, right?”

You give a heavy sigh, gripping the spoon tightly.

“But she got hurt. We weren’t careful enough.”

“She’s alright, we checked her over multiple time.”

“She could’ve gotten bit.”

“But she didn’t.”

“But she could’ve,” you shot back, mindful to keep your volume low so that Flippa wouldn’t overhear your conversation.

The arms around your waist hug you tighter, and Charlie presses a kiss to your hair (which was dirty and slightly bloodied from the fight, but of course your boyfriend had to be a sweetheart).

“She’s okay,” he insists. “We all got a little roughed up, but we’re all fine. We’ll be more careful next time. And if anything happens, we’ll fight our hardest to make sure she’ll get out of it unscathed.”

A gentle hand reaches for your jaw, tilting your head towards him and giving you a light, reassuring kiss. You revel in the safety of being in Charlie’s arms, and in that moment, you feel as though you were sheltered from every horror the world could throw to you, both physical and emotional.

A tug at your pants draws your attention to the small girl who had made her way towards you two, giving you a cheeky grin as though she knew she was interrupting a moment. Letting out a playful sigh, Charlie picks her up and places a sloppy kiss on her cheek, which she protests by batting at his face.

You shake your head softly at them, turning your attention back to the food to ensure it didn’t burn. Your attention, however, was split again when Flippa and Charlie start launching double attacks on you, trying to outdo each other on the number of kisses they can sneak on your face as you cook.

(Charlie has Flippa in his arms, giving her an unfair advantage as he purposely sways her closer to you. He doesn’t acknowledge this when she cheers and raises her hands 5 to 2, signalling her win, but you shoot him a knowing look.)

As the night drew to a close, you tucked Juanaflippa into bed, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

If anything were to happen to her, you swore you would burn the world to the ground.

Everything was going to shit.

The three of you had decided to make a supply run the next day. You had banked on the hope that things would be more chill after the scare the previous day.

Of course, luck chose to run out on you today.

You had made it barely ten minutes into stuffing cans into your rucksacks when gunshots were ringing in the convenience store. Semi-automatic gun shots.

“Fucking Fireflies!” hissed Charlie as the three of you took cover behind the counter.

Your eyes scanned around, looking for a way out that was not blocked by the Fireflies. You notice the glass-less window by the counter.

“Charlie, roll your pipe bomb the other way, then sneak out with Flippa. I’ll give cover,” you whisper frantically.

Charlie nods at you before doing what you say. The bomb goes off, clearly taking some of the Fireflies down by the sound of pained screams, and the three of you are off. You whip out your shotgun and fire on the Fireflies nearest to you, taking down another two more before following Flippa and Charlie out.

Another series of gunshots ring out as you’re pulled down behind an abandoned car.

“Why the fuck is a whole squad here,” you curse.

“Hell if I know,” Charlie shoots back. He peeks up from the car to fire off a few shots from the semi-automatic rifle he had, cursing when empty clicks come out after only a few shots.

“Fuck! I don’t have anymore ammo for this stupid gun,” he says as he swings the gun over his back, pulling out another pipe bomb and throwing it at the Fireflies.

Between the two of you, Flippa is crouched with her hands over her ears, eyes wide and darting around. You wrap an arm around her shoulder, squeezing and trying to offer as much comfort as you can to the distressed girl.

“We’re going to get you out of this, Flippa, I promise.”

There’s another spray of bullets, then the sound of thundering footsteps. Gunshots start ringing again, but this time directed away from the three of you. Poking your head up from the car, you realise that a hoard of runners was attacking the Fireflies, clearly having been attracted by all the noise.

“Retreat!” one of the Fireflies yelled.

“Let’s go, now,” hissed Charlie, taking advantage of the chaos.

You follow Charlie as he leads the three of you through the chaos, ducking behind another car. However, it seems that the hoard was much bigger than you had realised because stragglers were starting to approach you too.

With your cover blown, you aim your shotgun and take down as many runners as you can, ears ringing slightly. As you reach into your pocket to grab more shotgun shells, you curse when you realise your pocket was empty.

“Fuck! Charlie, I’m out.”

“Your handgun?”

“Ran out of ammo in the store.”

“Fuck.”

You share a quick look of panic before he tosses you his machete. Turning to Flippa, he grabs her hand in his.

“Flippa, we’re gonna get you out of this. I’m gonna put you in a hiding place, okay? Don’t come out unless one of us comes to get you, alright?” he says, before glancing over at you.

You give him a short nod, before turning your attention to the runners. By now, you couldn’t hear anymore gunfire and you presumed that the Fireflies were either all dead or had fled.

One less set of problems for you.

You lunge at the nearest runner, slashing at it with your machete. You keep yourself between the runners and your family, trying your hardest to stop them from getting anywhere near where Charlie was trying to hide Flippa.

You let your mind fall back into the routine of combat, slashing and hacking at the runners with practiced ease. While Charlie’s machete weighed a little heavier on your hand, it gave you better range than your knife did.

In the corner of your eye, you spot Charlie return to the fray. He’s firing at the runners, landing lucky headshots, and taking down runners quicker than you do with the machete. You refrain from asking about Flippa, too high strung and tensed from the combat to break out of your hyperfocus.

One by one, the runners go down, but not fast enough. Your concentration breaks slightly when you hear a yell from Charlie. You turn around in time to see him get knocked down by a runner who got too close for him to shoot.

“Charlie!”

You try to rush over, but a pull at your pants holds you back. On instinct, you swing your machete without looking, turning to look right after the blade hits flesh with a heavy crunch.

Your blood runs cold when your gaze drops below your eye level to make eye contact with Juanaflippa, her eyes wide with fear.

Your gaze drops lower.

The blade was lodged right into the crook of her neck, blood spurting from the wound at a horrifying rate. Her blood seeps into her clothes, and what isn’t absorbed by the fabric drips down her arm.

The knife she was holding drops to the ground, right before her knees give out.

“NO!”

You barely register the scream you let out, focussed on catching Flippa in your arms to bring her softly to the ground. The machete drops to the floor the moment you let go, causing the wound to gush even more. Frantically, your hands press against Flippa’s neck, desperately trying to plug the wound.

Your world tunnel visions to just Juanaflippa. You feel words tumble out of your mouth, but you don’t register any of it. You don’t remember how to breathe.

Someone is shaking your shoulders. Muffled words rise to your ears. The person stops shaking you and you see arms enter your vision, reaching for Flippa –

“DON’T TOUCH HER!” you scream, one arm pulling her closer while the other still tries to stop the gushing wound. The fog lifts slightly and you finally hear Charlie’s voice saying:

“We need to go! More runners are coming.”

“Flippa, oh god – ”

“Fucking move Y/N!”

With incredible strength, Charlie picks Flippa up, balancing her on one arm while the other pulls you to your feet and drags you along with him. You don’t register where you’re going until you hear the door close behind you, and you realise you’re in a building.

Charlie softly puts Flippa on the ground before rushing back to the door to barricade it, ensuring you were safe from the zombies. But you barely notice his actions, your focus tunnelling into Flippa again.

You drop to your knees beside her, hands shakily pressing into her neck once more.

“Y/N stop.”

“No – Charlie – she’s bleeding, I need to stop it.” Your words come out in stuttered gasps.

“Y/N – ”

“I need cloth, gauze, oh my god where’s my medkit – ”

“Y/N, she’s – ”

“Charlie shut up! Help me, please – ”

Hands grab yours and tears them away from Flippa’s body. You protest with a cry, wrestling in Charlie’s grip as he forces one of your hands to Flippa’s chest.

You don’t feel a heartbeat.

You stop struggling.

“She’s dead,” says Charlie.

Your mouth opens and closes, but no words come out.

You stare at Flippa’s lifeless corpse.

Your hands slip from her chest to her upper arms limply, and you notice a scabbed over wound on one of her upper arms. Lifting the sleeve, you finally notice the bite mark.

Suddenly, you’re shoved away from Flippa’s body.

“Don’t you dare,” hisses Charlie, his demeanour changing like a switch turned on in him as he scoops Flippa’s body into his arms, shuffling away from you. “Don’t you dare touch her, you fucking murderer.”

You think your lungs stopped working. You think you’ve gone mute. But all you can do is stare.

“How could you!” he screams at you, tears spilling over. “She was our daughter!”

Numbly, you try to crawl towards them, but you’re stopped when Charlie draws his knife at you.

“Don’t come any fucking closer,” he heaves, one arm tight around Flippa. “I’ll kill you.”

That snaps you out of your stupor.

“Charlie – ” your voice cracks. “I – ”

“You don’t get to make excuses. This is all your fault.”

His eyes are blown wide, his entire frame shaking. Before you wasn’t your boyfriend, it was the horrifying consequence of your actions.

“Flippa – ”

“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth!” he shouts at you. But his attention draws to the girl in his arms.

Flippa’s eyes were still open, devoid of life and the playful glint that never seemed to go away. Her body was limp in Charlie’s arms, which now curl around her protectively, knife forgotten on the floor.

“Flippa,” he wails, holding her close to his chest, uncaring of how her blood stains his clothes or the fact that her body was growing steadily colder.

You watch the two of them, your greatest loves.

You look down at your bloodied hands.

You want to cry, but you can’t.

You stare.

You and Charlie spent the night in the secured building, neither of you having the energy to move, much less fight through a horde of runners your dead daughter in your arms.

(“This was her hiding spot,” scoffed Charlie as he cradled Flippa’s body in his arms. “But I guess she wanted to come out and help”.

He glances at you from across the room. While you hadn’t moved from your spot, Charlie had shuffled himself and Juanaflippa’s body as far away from you as possible.

“I wish she hadn’t thought you worth helping,” he spits.)

The next day, once you were sure the runners had drifted off somewhere else, the two of you exited the building and brought Juanaflippa’s body to a nearby forest.

You buried her body by a tree, marking her resting place with a small stone that Charlie had carved her name into.

(Charlie finally notices the bite mark on her upper arm. You could see the gears turning in his head, questions welling up in his mind. But he heaves a heavy sigh, and you gather that he probably reached the same conclusion you did:

It didn’t matter anymore.)

You each speak your final words to Juanaflippa. Charlie casts loathing glances at you the whole time.

You camp near her grave for one night. You move on the next, survival instincts pushing the two of you back onto the monotonous routine of kill-scavenge-camp.

You and Charlie don’t speak to each other unless it was necessary, and even then, Charlie’s voice is laced with a poison you had never heard from your lover before. The animosity drives you to sleep apart from each other, never coming within two metres of each other.

Some nights, you wonder if you wouldn’t wake up at all.

Some mornings, you wish you hadn’t woken up at all.

Five days after Juanaflippa’s death, you’re taking stock of your shared supplies. As you pour out the contents of your rucksack onto the carpeted floor of the abandoned house, a folded note drops out along with the metal tin cans.

Unfolding it, you immediately recognise Flippa’s chicken scratch handwriting.

“Charlie,” you croak out, voice rough from disuse.

“Fuck off.”

You glance over to wear Charlie was laying by the opposite wall. You gesture the paper at him, knowing he could probably see it in his peripheral vision.

“It’s a note. From Flippa.”

He turns towards you slightly, and you can tell he’s debating whether or not to come over. His anger clearly trumps over any other emotion because he says:

“Read it, I’m not coming over.”

You open the note fully, and begin reading:

Dear Mama and Papa, thank you for being there for me. You saved me in that forest, and you taught me so many things. The past elaven ellen eleven days have been the best of my life. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the bite. I know what it means. I’m sorry that I’m going away soon. But I want you to know that it was not your fault. I love you both very much. Please live well. Love, Flippa.

You don’t realise that you’d begun crying until your tears clouded your vision. Shakily, you put down the letter, scooting away in case Charlie wanted to come over to read it.

You swipe your hands over your eyes, but nothing seemed to stop the tears from falling. You let out a whimper that turns into unbridled wails of despair you’d kept bottled up over the last five days. Burying your head in your hands, you shake and cry.

You don’t hear Charlie move until arms wrap around you. You flinch away from him, a warbled apology coming out from your mouth, but he holds you tighter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you repeat over and over, hands shaking as you try to pry yourself from the man you know hates you.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, and you can hear him holding back tears.

“IT WAS MY FAULT. I promised I would keep her safe and I KILLED HER,” you yell back at him, hands reaching for your hair to pull and pull because you deserved all the pain from the same hands that tore Juanaflippa away from this world.

Charlie’s hands reach for yours, prying them away from your head and holding them by your side. You try to wrestle them out from his grip, but he holds your wrists tighter. His legs and arms cage you in, holding you close to him as he whispers apologies and words of comfort between his own tears.

Finally, you stop fighting him, and you sob into your boyfriend’s chest. Charlie lets you breakdown, lets you finally come to terms with everything that had happened, and comforts you through it all.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeats.

One of his hands comes up to wipe your cheeks.

“I’m sorry for the words I said.”

He presses a kiss to your forehead, and you can feel how his cheeks are wet with his own tears.

“I still love you.”

Charlie holds you until the tears run out. He holds you until you stop shaking. He holds you even when words start tumbling out of your mouth again. He holds you as he counters every self-deprecating apology with apologies of his own and whispers of love.

In the abandoned house that was once possibly home to a loving family, a broken one reconciles over the shared loss of a beloved daughter.

Weeks pass. You and Charlie heal together and move on together, but Juanaflippa is never forgotten, always held close to your memories.

As you lay by a brook, taking a break from supply runs to simply relax, you turn to your boyfriend and ask:

“Charlie, are we bad people?”

Your boyfriend turns to you, grasping your hand in his and kissing it, before pulling you into a warm hug.

“Maybe we are,” he says, holding you close. “But just for those twelve days, I think we were the best of people.”

The End.