Realistic or Modern 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 — at the end of the world

[Namazu]

&

Sapphire Mason

FLASHBACK - NORTHVIEW
Inside the School​

Tired, sore, and admittedly a little sweaty and dirty, Fish probably was not the most handsome-looking sight to wander into Northview. Then again, he was alive, and that already put him a step up above what the horde had brought. Wandering in through the front doors of the school, Fish couldn’t help but stop in his tracks, taken aback by the utter mess that had become the inside of the school.

The hallways were littered with the signs of a fight: broken and discarded weapons and objects and blood. The occasional body still remained, though the streaks of blood and corpse-rot grime highlighted where bodies had already been dragged away. A single tennis shoe, white laces turned dark gray with dirt and splattered with blood, lay on its side shoved up against one wall out of the way - no sign where its owner might be now.

The school was eerily quiet at first, though as Fish picked a direction and started walking, he could hear voices here and there of the school’s inhabitants. Many of the classroom doors were shut, so he could only hear muffled conversations behind them. Presumably, the inhabitants had withdrawn to their spaces to treat their injuries and mourn their dead. He turned a corner, catching sight of people coming and going from a room with a nurse’s office sign above it. Unsurprising, if that’s where they were treating their injured. Not exactly the room he needed though. He turned and headed the opposite direction, resuming his search.

It took him a bit before he found it: an arts classroom. It was mostly full of dusty pottery equipment and boxes, but he quickly spotted in the back of the room exactly what he was looking for:

Paint.

Yes, paint, of all things one would desire when the world went to shit. There was a whole rolling cart of it, shoved off to the side. Fish beelined for it.

The arts room had been her favorite sanctuary from the moment she arrived in Northview. There was something in the way the light shimmered in through the windows and reflected through stained glass projects long forgotten that just appealed to her. It reminded her of home.

Sapphire always sat in the same corner, watching the light dancing on the ground as the little pieces twirled on their strings, hung from the ceiling with care from the art teacher who once adored her students enough to display their little works of art. Imperfect, much like the world that they were now existing in. She would spend hours just admiring the beauty, remembering the life she once had, only to be pulled back to her sleeping quarters or dragged out for lunch by a desperate Dietre.

It was there that Sapphire went when everything went down. Hands pressed firmly against her ears to drown out the sounds, the screams, and the reminders of her worst day. It was there that she sat when a man she didn’t recognize walked into the room. Busy hands still fiddled with the little broken radio she had set on fixing earlier in the day. Normally she would pay no mind to the visitors looking for supplies. None of them were hers, really. It wasn’t her room, just a room she adored.

Yet this man piqued her interest, brought a slight tilt to her head as she watched him take off toward the back of the room, passing her completely as if she were no different than one of the items of furniture in the room.

It took courage for her to speak, courage that she didn’t really know she had, yet she did it anyway.

“Is there something specific that I may help you search for or have you come to browse the wares of the room?” Her voice was quiet, even, almost mousy in its own regard but loud enough to echo throughout the otherwise quiet room. Her tinkering all but ceased as her attention turned solely to the wandering soul in the room with her.

Fish was so intent on getting what he needed and getting out before anyone asked what a grown-ass man needed with brightly colored paint, he had entirely missed the mousy woman sitting in the corner by herself. He jumped a bit, hearing her voice, and stopped in his tracks.

“Oh. Uh.” He so intelligently started, glancing at the cart and motioning at it unhelpfully. He cleared his throat and shook his head, starting again.

“Paint. Preferably acrylic… and purple. Lavender, specifically. Not a whole lot…. Actually, maybe some green and white too. And brushes.”

Sapphire waited patiently for his response, smiling softly to herself as he cleared his throat to finish his thought. She gently set aside her little project and stood from her spot. Cautious, quiet footsteps led her toward the little paint cart that had once been an unorganized disaster. Only half of an hour had resulted in a much nicer display resulting in the colours sorted by their spot in the rainbow.

“Lavender, green, and white…” She repeated softly to herself as delicate fingers wrapped around the individual bottles, pulling them off of the shelf. She set the lavender and white to the side then thought for a moment, trying to decide on exactly which green to grab. She settled on a sage green, figuring it would compliment the lavender the best.

“And brushes…” Once again, she spoke to herself as she floated to a cupboard behind her, picking out a few different sizes of brushes. She grabbed a paint tray as well, assuming he would need something to dab the colours onto.

“Quite a beautiful colour combination, shillytern.” Sapphires soft voice seemed to grow a little as she spoke to the man, “Is it the walls of these painfully boring brick halls that you plan to decorate with your mind's desires or is there a specific project that you are setting out on?”

Just as gently as she had gathered the supplies, she loaded them into a little plastic basket, assuming it would be easier to carry this way rather than in his arms.

Fish gratefully accepted the basket of supplies, thankful she thought of a paint tray too. He had no idea what a shillytern was, but wasn’t about to challenge someone who was helping him without hassle.

“I’m… We have a gravestone to make, so we decided to paint a rock. Won’t last forever, I know, but that’s the intent.” Fish glanced in the basket, taking out the bottle of green and getting a better look at the color.

“Sage. Good pick - should go with the lavender.” He murmured his agreement, sticking the bottle back into the basket.

“Thanks. So - were you an art teacher here, or…?”

Sapphire hummed softly, quickly turning so she could rifle through a cupboard. She clicked her tongue in thought as she read the labels on a few bottles before settling on one. A clear top coat.

“While I do quite enjoy the arts with every inch of my soul, I do not believe I have, or ever will be, quite qualified to teach them.” She smiled softly and placed the top coat into his basket, “This should allow the paint to remain longer. Remembrance of those we loved is still an importance that we should cherish, no? I am deeply sorry for your loss. If there is something that I may do to provide comfort or assistance, please make it known.”

Fish watched her add the sealant to his basket, kicking himself a little bit he hadn’t asked about that too. It had been so long since he’d done anything with paint himself, he apparently was getting rusty.

If she wasn’t a teacher, she must have… a wanderer, maybe? She looked too young to be anyone’s parent. Unless he was severely misjudging her age.

“Ah, thanks. We got it handled.” No sense in pouring out anyone else’s demons on a stranger. He started to turn to leave, then paused.

“We’re gonna do the burial out by one of the trees out back, some paces away from the school. Me and whoever from my crew want to join. You’re welcome to come, if you want. You and the folks around here.” He gestured vaguely around the room, meaning the whole school.

“It’s for my buddy’s wife. We…. found her. Out there.” He gestured again, this time out the window, hoping he didn’t need to explain much more than that.

After a quick glance over to her abandoned project in the corner, Sapphire nodded softly. It was almost as if she was contemplating the offer carefully.

“I would not have much for comforting words toward the deceased but I would happily celebrate her life alongside you if am allowed. It is always a true shame to see the light of another beings soul flicker out.” Her eyes met his again, a gentle comfort sparkling through her soft brown irises.

“Would you like for me to bring an offering for her soul or is that against your beliefs?”

“An offering? Uh, sure. I guess. No clue what my buddy considers himself beliefs-wise but I doubt it’ll offend him. Just so long as it's not something morbid like a human skull or anything, yeah?” Fish looked the woman over, trying to gauge if she was one of those types to do weird things like build altars out of skulls and black candles. She didn’t seem like it, but you never knew. He’d run into weird people before, and that was even before the dead decided to not stay dead.

“What’d you have in mind? Hopefully nothing too valuable on our account.”

Sapphire pursed her lips for a moment, thinking of what she had currently that she could offer.

“Ahh.” She breathed, offering the man a polite smile before gracefully making her way over to her little corner. She pulled her bag open and rifled through it for a moment and wrapped her slender fingers around a small object. Once again Sapphire headed toward where the man stood. She opened her hand to reveal a small gem, barely the size of a marble.

“This is named Aura Quartz.” She explained, moving the small gem in the light, its rainbow colouration moved and changed with the crystal. “It is well known for spiritual distress and is a perfect gift for the deceased as it is believed to aid them in their travels wherever they may go. This is only a small piece but I tend to carry a few with me just in case it is needed and in this specific case I believe it is priceless. Of course it’s value is only what you believe. Some people may only see a rock, others may see an unknown power.”

“Aura quartz?” Fish murmured, tilting his head to watch the rainbow of light move through the crystal. Something to aid the deceased and alleviate the distressed was likely to be needed in heaps and mounds at this point.

“It's incredibly pretty, I’ll give you that much for sure.” Fish reached out hesitantly as he took the rock, half expecting her to try and pull a knife on him and to realize this was a ploy. It wasn’t because of anything specifically she’d done or said - even if she did seem a little weird - but because that’s just how people were these days.

When Fish had the rock in hand and did not, in fact, get stabbed, he looked it over once more before tucking it away in his pocket for safekeeping.

“Thanks. I think Beau’ll really appreciate it. So would his wife, if she’s got any way of knowing about it.” Fish rubbed at the back of his neck with his now free hand, motioning with the basket of paint supplies in the other.

“I’ll have what all’s left over back to you shortly - shouldn’t take us too long, though I’m not gonna rush it. It’s… uh, been a real long time since I’ve been able to paint anything, but it'll mostly be my buddy doing the painting I think. Before all this shit happened, I detailed motorcycles for a living. That’s pretty much painting. ” He chuckled a bit, looking somewhat sheepish to be telling any of this to a total stranger.

“Anyway, you’re welcome to come join the bunch for the funeral. It’s the least we can do since you helped out. Stay safe in here, okay?”

Content that he had all that Beau would need, and feeling like this was a small win in a series of losses, Fish thanked the odd woman again and took his leave of the art room and the school, heading back outside and up to where Emily was buried. He had a headstone to help make, and a funeral to put on.

Not Meat Good_Morels Bullyboy Squad MokaChan Togy Safton BeyondDandy NanLia Miaow SlaughterMelon Crono Aegis Fluffy-Kat Tool ​

 

[Miaow]

NORTHVIEW HIGH
The Infirmary

A collab with Safton
​

The privacy screen drew open, the scraping of the curtain rings against the plastic getting Minnie's attention. She was eager to get back in there with her dad. The ticking time bomb that was his punishment filled her with anxiety. It was too unpredictable, she never knew if Cabrera was going to storm in and kill him right there and then. She shot to her feet, her socks skidding on the linoleum floor as she stopped by the edge of his bed.
"What did Pandora say?" She asked. Was he okay? Was he ready to fight? Had her somehow sprouted machine gun arms overnight, ready to obliterate his opponents in the pit?

Xander glanced at Minnie with a smile as she reappeared with almost unnatural speed at his bedside. “Hey, you. You been waiting out there this whole time?” he asked, and although he narrowed his eyes at her, the question was delivered with a chuckle.

He sighed, reaching out to run his knuckle lightly along Minnie’s cheek. “You know how it is with doctors. she told me I’ll need lots of rest.” Xander tactfully chose to leave out the parts about “concussion” and “orbital fracture”... not to mention the broken nose, numerous lacerations, and bruises he had received which were plainly evident even to the untrained eye.

Minnie smiled. Of course she'd waited for him. In fact, the waiting had been agony. What if Pandora was giving him bad news?
"Maybe," She responded simply, a mischievous grin on her face. His knuckles gently brushed past the gut on her cheek, skirting around the wound and the bruise surrounding it.

She was a little relieved as he told her the news. Just lots of bed rest... that was doable. Her worst fear was Pandora having to operate. How the heck was she going to operate with the equipment they had? Well, it didn't matter, because Xander was okay!

As she went to clamber back onto his bed, Haewon piped up.
"Woah woah woah, you need a shower," She told her sister, brushing some dust from her shoulders, "You're not getting back in bed until you get the cobwebs out of your hair."
Minnie hesitated, glancing at Xander. What if...
"He'll still be here when you get back," Haewon assured her, as if reading her mind, "I'll make sure of it."
Though reluctant, Minnie gave Xander a quick hug before speeding from the room. This was going to be the speediest shower she'd ever taken.

Haewon watched her leave, pulling the privacy screen closed. She let out a soft sigh, crossing her arms like a disappointed teacher as she turned to face him.
"So... why'd you do it?"

Xander felt every bit of the weight of Haewon’s stare on him… indeed, it was like she was staring through him. He considered, briefly, trying to talk his way out of this conversation, but no. Haewon was too smart for that. She would see it coming from a mile away and only resent him all the more for trying. So instead, he took a deep breath, organizing his thoughts as best he could.

“I… I thought I had lost you both,” he said simply. He knew that answer was woefully inadequate and would only spur further questions, so he continued, his hands fiddling idly with the hem of the blanket at his lap. “After Kurt and I chained up the back door of the school, when you and I looked out and saw that sneaker. I... I thought it was Minnie's. It looked just like hers. You know how much she loves those ratty old things.” He swallowed hard, finally looking up from his lap to meet Haewon’s eyes again. “And seeing out there, in the middle of the horde, all covered in bloo--.”

Xander breathed out and in, forcibly keeping back the tears. “I went to the front of the school – to find another way out and search for her, but part of me already thought that…” he couldn’t bring himself to finish as he shook his head, glancing away and blinking away the moisture in his eyes. He took a moment to recompose himself before glancing back at Haewon.
“By the time I got there, you were already gone. I had heard the explosion and the guards were telling me that you and Cabrera had gotten caught out in the blast while they tried to bar the door. No one could tell me where you were. And then the rest of them got there… I begged for them to help me find you two. They laughed in my face and said…” he shook his head, unable to repeat the words.

“It doesn’t matter. That’s when I saw her. Dutchess. The one who took Nari. The one who betrayed us to them in the first place. I thought I had lost everything when I watched her…” he took a deep breath, “...she killed Jose. Shot him in cold blood.” Xander shrugged before speaking in a low murmur. “I’m not proud of what I did. I wish I could take it back, especially since it will make things harder on you and your sister. I… I never meant for any of this to happen. I’m sorry, Haewon. I really am.”

Haewon swallowed, adjusting her arms across her chest.
"I know, I saw it too," She murmured. That Samaritan must have scrambled his brain, he seemed to have forgotten their conversation, "I was with you when you saw it."
She tried to get her thoughts back on track. She was angry. She wasn't meant to be sympathising with him.
"You know, Minnie saw everything. She watched you kill Dutchess. She watched you get your ass kicked. She probably thought you were dead, too. She dropped that rabbit to save you. She was gonna kill that Samaritan for you. Cabrera had to grab her to stop her from getting involved." She told him, her chest tightening, "She could've gotten herself killed for you. She'd probably have nightmares about it if she'd fucking sleep, but she refuses to leave you."

Xander winced at Haewon's verbal lashing: by far more painful than anything the burly Samaritan had unleashed on him in the parking lot. The worst of it all was the knowledge that Minnie had been there, that she had seen him pull the trigger. That she had watched him become a murderer.

He and Nari had dedicated themselves to trying to preserve what little innocence the girls had left. Haewon would probably be the first to say that she was too far gone, but they had never believed that. But there had always been hope for Minnie… and now they had failed her at every turn. He had failed at every turn. Xander swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded solemnly.

“I'll talk to her,” he said quietly.

"About what? The fuck are you gonna say that'll fix this?" Haewon snapped. God, he pissed her off, sitting there on his infirmary bed looking sorry for himself. She rolled her eyes, pacing a little. Her hands were clammy from the anger building inside her.

"Me and Minnie, we're half sisters," She finally murmured, turning to look at him, "Our mom had an affair. My dad didn't want a kid that wasn't his and left when she was born. She never had a dad. You're the closest thing she's had to one."
She ran a hand through her hair, fidgeting as her body fizzed with energy.
"And you know what? For a little bit, I was happy. She got two parents that gave a shit. She got a dad that was there and a mom that actually loved her. We were like a little happy fucking family. We did all the shit we didn't get to do when we were kids."

Her face grew hot. She felt her eyes dampen, her vision blur. She looked up at the ceiling, trying to blink them clear.
"And I trusted you! You made me trust you! You made all those fucking promises to me! "Me and Nari will never leave you!" Well, look at us now! Nari's gone, and you're gonna get your ass kicked in the pit. You fucking promised me!" She didn't care that the privacy screen did nothing to dampen her voice, she was going to yell until Xander got the point.

"Did you even think about us when you shot her?! Did you think what that would do to us?! You were meant to be there! You fucking promised me you'd be there!" She yelled, hot tears spilling onto her cheeks.

There had been a few times in Xander’s life where he had felt like a piece of his heart had been torn from his chest, leaving a hole where a part of him used to be. Leaving him lesser than he was before, even if just a little bit. Hearing Haewon open up to him, to reveal the depths of his inadvertent betrayal… this was one of those times.

He had never known how to deal with it before except to put on a brave face and soldier on. Keep people at a distance.

Stay composed.

Adapt.

Overcome.

…But that was all bullshit. Those weren’t even coping mechanisms, they were survival tactics… and they were for a different man… one who didn’t have a family.
Xander sat up, his head reeling like a pinball machine as he threw the blankets off of his legs. Waves of nausea hit him, coalescing with the thumping pain in his head and he had to pause after swinging his legs over the edge of the cot: treating the accomplishment of that task alone like a massive victory akin to running a marathon.

He took a deep breath before sliding off the cot, his feet hitting the tiled floor. His knees nearly buckled and he steadied himself slowly – with resolute determination. The same determination he had shown when facing the hordes attacking the school. Finally, he turned toward Haewon, seeing the tears on her cheeks as she looked at him, no doubt thinking he was insane. Compared to her sister, Haewon was a closed book, surrounded by walls. She always had been. Xander and Nari had considered it a success whenever they managed to get so much as a smile from her… but to see her breaking down like this… Xander never thought he would see the day she allowed anyone to witness her this vulnerable – and it had him moving before he even so much as thought his plan through.

He staggered toward Haewon in two clumsy steps, lifting his lead-weighted arms toward her as if he was one of the living dead outside. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, meeting her eyes.

Haewon watched his battle to get out of bed, looking him up and down.
"The fuck are you doing?" She murmured. He was gonna end up hurting himself more than he already had.

As he approached, arms outstretched, she paused. No amount of hugging or "sorrys" was going to fix this, but he looked like he'd topple over if she didn't grab him. That's what she told herself, anyway. This wasn't a hug, this wasn't her caving and accepting his affection, this was her saving him. Yeah, that was it.

She wrapped her arms around his chest, her head on his shoulder. She squeezed, as if he was a squishy stress toy that would return to its original shape, no matter what you did to it.
"You're a fucking idiot, you know that?" She told him, her voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt, "and if you tell anyone about this, I'll finish off what that fucker started."

Xander chuckled, the gesture making his head pound all the worse, but he ignored it. The pain was worth it as he held Haewon tight, feeling her tears soak into his shirt and resting his chin atop the crown of her head. “I believe you. Your secret’s safe with me,” he murmured. After a long moment, he finally pulled away with a sigh.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about before your sister comes back,” he said, his tone grim as he spoke under his breath, taking pains not to be heard beyond the privacy curtain. “When the horde attacked they didn’t get on their own, Haewon. Our chains were cut… from the inside.” He let the words sink in. “At the time I thought it was Dutchess who had done it, but now…” he shook his head. “You need to be careful. Trust no one, just each other. Okay?”

As he pulled away, Haewon quickly wiped her cheeks clean. There was no way she was leaving the infirmary like this. She cleared her throat, making sure her face was tear-free.

She frowned as he spoke... This sounded like some sort of conspiracy theory, but it wasn't exactly unbelievable, the Samaritans had done much worse.
"Why? We're meant to be useful to them, who would want to fuck that up?"

As she paused to think, her eyes lit up.
"When we were outside, I was up on the roof and there was this drone. It had some sort of explosive on it, it almost took Cabrera out," She explained, "I don't think they were going for us. I think they wanted Cabrera."

Xander bit his lip, digesting the information. “Damn it,” he muttered, collapsing back onto the bed heavily. “Could be some kind of civil war between the Samaritans. Could be some other group they attacked before us out for revenge…” He shrugged impotently.

“Whoever they are, whatever they want, we’re just pawns caught in the middle. Which makes it that much more important that you and Minnie keep your heads down--” he swallowed hard before finishing, “--no matter what happens to me.”

Haewon let out a soft sigh before nodding in response. Fine, he was right, they should be keeping their heads down... no matter how tempting it was to beat the crap out of Cabrera with everyone watching. God, that would be cathartic...

She averted her gaze as he spoke... No matter what happens to me. It made her angry all over again. He'd gotten himself into this mess and it felt like there was nothing she could do to fix it. He'd murdered someone... but whether he deserved it or not, his death would break Minnie's heart. Break her own heart.

She almost jumped out of her skin as the privacy curtains parted, a slightly damp Minnie squeezing through them. Her eyes lit up as she saw Xander, not quite laid in bed, not quite stood.
"You're up!" She grinned.

NanLia Bullyboy Squad
​

 

[Tool]

NORTHVIEW
On the Roof

Collab with Namazu

The dappled light of a few nearby trees played with the bright and shade on Madison's face, the deep green leaves glowing like jewels against the late afternoon sky. The sun hadn't set, not yet, but its light had grown lazy and slow, seeping like honey into crevices and corners, illuminating with heavy sweetness everything that might better be left in the dark. That was one thing for which Madison was grateful: the Northview Massacre hadn't happened at night. The difficulties presented in that sort of fight were disquietingly familiar, but there was still some part of lizard brains who were convinced that things would be better by daylight.

Lizard brains were stupid.

Madison sat on the roof of one of the school's side-buildings, somewhere she was unlikely to witness a Samaritan getting freaky with one of the conquered. Somewhere the living hadn't yet gathered the corpses of the dead wasn't exactly prime real estate. No getting hot and heavy among sightless eyes glazed pale and clouded. Then again, there had been stranger things (namely the Samaritans and Northfolk getting cozy in the first place). Who was Madison to judge? No, the best she could do was sit, back to the sun, one arm perched atop a bended knee while the other leg stuck out straight, boot at half-mast.....and if anybody tried to smoosh privates together within eyesight or earshot, she'd fail to notice.

Brown hair caught in the wind and curled around her ears, though it was the feeling of crisp air against her scalp that brought a small, sincere smile to the woman's lips. That was air that had decided it was properly autumn, air that had once called to harvest, heralding apple cider and pumpkin spice everything. It had all fallen away, of course, there was precious room for twee scarves, hipster hot-takes on pumpkin spice, and fall wardrobes in this world. But there was still autumn.

Some things never changed.

Delicate fingers free from their gloves but still baring the mark of rough living, a pinkie joint that hadn't quite set straight after breaking, an odd starfish scar around the wrist, a thumbnail that had grown black but hadn't gotten around to falling off yet, they all disappeared into the yawning mouth of her bag and came out holding a smallish, pinkish stuffed elephant. The coloration around the trunk had faded to a dirty pale-grey, and it was shaped rather like the vague idea of an elephant, an elephant in silhouette, stuffed down the middle. It wasn't a terribly large stuffed animal, no bigger than her full hand, probably meant for an infant. Good thing, too. She couldn't spare that much room in the bag.

Here, in the gentle, hazy afternoon, the distant sight of a few errant birds lighting the treetops or what was left of them, it felt safe to take out the elephant, to allow a brief exposure of Madison's heart to the open, breezy air. It was a cracked and rough thing, still bleeding along the edges, but still there, still beating. Madison's face gained the kind of bittersweet, fuzzy-eyed look of any wanderer, when thinking of sweeter times long past, when home could be a place or a person, and the seas were not all wine-dark and choppy, not all filled with foaming, churning teeth.

A thumb grazed the black plastic eye, her index finger tracing along the pale trunk and sweeping upwards along the elephant's brighter-pink back. Pets. It was important to give it pets. For a moment, Madison could have sworn she felt the featherlight touch of a tiny hand on her shoulder. For a moment, Madison wondered if madness would be easier. There was nobody in her life to tell stories to, anymore, but maybe that was for the best. The only ones left in her were never meant for the ears of children.​

​

If there was one thing Weston couldn’t stand, it was the endless hours of feeling like he was stuck inside with other people. Northview was starting to feel like a tin can, and he was one of the sardines, and he needed to go outside now that he was in less danger of bleeding out and had gotten some sleep.

He never actually missed the prison when he was away from it, but what he did miss was his “thinking spot” - the guard tower that had the best view outside of the prison. It was his space, much in the way his quarters were. Most people didn’t bother him up there. Those that did join him up in the lookout spot did so with good reason, and he hadn’t yet regretted their company once.

Northview was towerless, understandably (even if his own high school way-back-when felt like a prison to him then) but the second best thing it could provide was a roof. After a brief stroll around the premises, Weston found a side building that was unlikely to be disturbed. Propping up a metal maintenance ladder against the side of the building, he climbed up to the flat roof, taking the steps slowly, careful not to bust open those stitches or pull a muscle that was already hurting.

Imagine his surprise, then, when his head poked above the roof line he found not only another ladder already pulled up to safety, but Madison sitting up here as well, her back to him.

“I hope I’m not late for the three o’clock matinee of sun and clouds.” Weston asked jokingly, mostly just to announce his presence that it was him and not someone with ill intent. Once up to the top, he hoisted himself onto the roof on his knees with a grunt, and pulled his ladder up with him. No sense in letting some idiot knock over a way down. He had to take a moment to sit there and breathe once the ladder was up. He never knew just how often he used the muscles in his side until now, when everything was painful.

Once he collected himself, he got back to his feet and took a few steps closer, lowering himself to take a seat next to Madison. It was only then did he see the stuffed elephant. Tiny, pinkish, and worn, like a well-loved baby toy. It occurred to him then it was entirely possible Madison could have had kids before all this happened, and it made something in him ache a little at the thought of that kind of loss.

“Sorry, hope I’m not interrupting anything. Guess I wasn’t the only person looking for a perch.” He motioned to the elephant in Madison’s hands, as if it were the elephant demanding open air, not Madison.




Madison's mind was so filled with the past that the present flinched when Weston shuffled close. Idiot. Her face flushed in aggravation and shame when she realized how easily he might have gotten the drop on her. Wouldn't have been anything at all to slide a blade in her back, roll her over the edge and count her among the doubly dead. In theory, Weston wasn't the type, but that was hardly the point; there was no sense in complaining about what was and missing what used to be. It was no way to live, and she had better shit to do than hole up with her Kleenex and children's books, boohooin' into a stuffed elephant about how sad it all was. She'd been an idiot when she was a detective, she'd been an idiot when she'd been a biker in blue, and she'd been damned lucky she hadn't gotten herself killed before the world fell around her ears.

Madison owed those she couldn't save better than her idiot-baseline. She'd tried to explain that to Connor, the other Connor. Nothing, genuinely nothing stopped anyone from doing anything, fair or foul. No laws or man-made limitations, no expectations to fulfill or boxes to check. Not any more. Things had shifted perspective for Madison right around the time she'd gained a stuffed pachyderm as a constant companion instead of the elephant and its former owner.

"No. Not the only one." The girl's gaze flickered from Weston to the elephant and back again. Bah. Own it. The fuck did she have to be embarrassed about? If she sucked a binkie and had a favorite blankie in her off hours between caving in the skulls of dozens upon dozens of zombies every day......... if anything, people would give her a wider birth than they did now. The thought made a rueful smile gallop across her face and right off of it again. If she ever wanted to swear off people entirely, all she had to do was get herself a spare binkie and use it when she took off the helmet. Five bucks said they'd leave her the fuck alone.

"It's quiet. Peaceful. Just thinking." Reminding herself, more like. It was good to remember there were not only monsters ahead but people to protect behind. It was good to remember what was possible. She would be on the move again, soon..... it was important to remember why, even if Madison never really let herself forget entirely.

Madison felt the smooth bump of that black eye under her thumb, then laid the nameless friend inside her open bag. The pale pink was still somewhat visible and in no danger of falling off the roof, while also leaving her hands free.

"Perch's big enough for two." A relaxed arm gestured to the roof and encompassed it both near and far. Plenty of space if he wanted to sit nearby or not, as he saw fit.




Seated next to Madison now, Weston nodded and let out a quiet “ayup” at the invitation, and her comment about it being peaceful. Sitting criss-cross-legged next to the woman, he folded his hands together loosely and rested his elbows on his legs, back slouched as he leaned forward a bit.

“One of the only things I like about the prison are the guard towers. There are a couple of ‘em, but I got a favorite one. It has the best view, everything inside and out. But things just… seem better, closer to the sky you get. Further from the ground you get. Y’know? Of course, I hated ‘em when I was actually locked up - they gave me the willies, seeing the armed guards up there, looking down at us like we were ants, knowing that at any time they could just pull the trigger and take someone out. You know they’d just bury it under paperwork and make it go away if they really wanted to. Nobody’d give a shit, not about a guy in orange.”

Weston didn’t have a change of clothes in the bag of gear he’d brought, but he did have something else to help that he brought up with him. Cigarettes. He had the pack rolled up in the sleeve of his t-shirt. Stereotypical as that look was, it kept them from being crushed like shoving them in his pocket might risk. Tugging them out of his sleeve, he tapped the end of the pack against the palm of his hand a few times before flipping open one end and sliding one out. Camel brand, a mostly-full pack too.

“Ain’t a frequent smoker, this is just now-and-then thing. I dunno about you, but I think we fuckin’ earned one.” He mentioned, as if he felt the need to downplay having yet another vice or failing. “Figure I don’t give a shit about cancer anymore, personally.” He took a lighter out of his pocket, flicked it a few times, cupped his hands around the end of the cigarette, and lit up.

“Thinking about anything in particular?” He offered the pack to Madison, in case she wanted one.




There was a reason Detective Jones didn't pal around with most of those in her line of work, and those in Corrections even more so. Was it possible to go into the field with a genuine desire to keep prisoners in line and (hopefully) prepare the incarcerated for How To Behave In Society? Sure. And there were some police who took their role to protect and serve with all the gravitas it was due....... but it wasn't as common as it should have been. A lot of the blue started that way, but the job wore them down, and instead of becoming protectors and servants to their community, they became part of the problem. Madison didn't blame Weston for his dim view of armed guards. The prison becoming the stronghold of a criminal who managed both tyranny and stupidity in equal measure did have a certain symmetry.

Not a good symmetry, mind..... but symmetry nonetheless.

Weston existed around Madison's peripheral vision, and even if her mind noted where he kept his cigs, the practiced way he took one out, even his chosen brand, Madison did her best not to catalog it all. Habits died harder than the walking dead, and taking notice of everything had once been the soup in which she spent all her time. Pity she couldn't remember moments like these with as much clarity as she could the small details of perps long past. When he offered her a smoke, she turned her face more completely towards him and shook her head.

"Never learned how. Tried once an' it tasted like licking an ashtray. Told me I'd get used to it..... but I never wanted to repeat the experience to get used to it. Thanks, though. I 'preciate the offer."

She looked into Weston's face for a long moment, then let her eyes slide back towards their surrounds. If one ignored the dead bodies and the blackened smoke, the scene would almost be bucolic. A stillness came over her, the wind and its ruffling of her hair the only significant movement in her person........ And then her gaze dropped, and the fingers of one hand picked at the other.

"Yeah."

Madison looked back up and into the faraway, making it a point to be both direct and brief.

"Guy downstairs is guardian to a kid. Teenager. Guy's got my name: Connor. For....... for a little while, I had a kid to guard, too. The coincidence made me..... I wanted..... I figured I'd sit. Remember."

She pulled herself out of her reverie with a nearly audible pop and glanced back at Weston. "I'm not good with kids. Not great with people, an' I'm worse with kids. Still.... she seemed to like me well enough an' I did my best."




Not one to peer pressure someone into taking something he was just as happy to not share, Weston closed the pack back up and rolled it back into his sleeve. He took a drag off the cigarette as he listened, dry lips on the uniquely-Camel-shade of orange filter just briefly. Trying to ignore the smell of death on the wind and the dark tattered remnants of life on the ground below, Weston stared off into the distance at all things green.

“Ah, yeah, the other Connor. I’ve talked to him. He’s alright.” He took another drag, smoke curling out of his mouth as he spoke and drifting up over his head, looking for its own escape. Eventually, his eyes wandered up to the sky instead. Sunshine. Just a few clouds. A cool breeze, just enough to take the edge off a world that usually felt hot, sweaty, and grimy. For some reason, cigarettes always made him think of autumn, so it was fitting he was partaking in one now.

“I brought him with us because I knew the kid would be here. I knew Connor would want to make sure the kid was safe. I owed him that much, after we did him dirty.” He leaned away a bit, turning his head to cough into the crook of his elbow as his body fought against the inhaled poison. He winced at the pain in his side the cough brought, resting the hand that held his cigarette on his knee while it passed.

“Tell me about her. Is that hers?” Weston motioned to the little elephant.




The 'we' in that statement was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Weston was still throwing his lot in with people who, by all accounts, were terrible people. How many did Weston owe? How many did the Samaritans owe? Madison pushed the thought away with some effort. She was still deciding what she was going to do about the Samaritans, and none of her inclinations were things to share with someone who still considered himself one of them. There would be fractures in any organization with an oppressed, terrorized underclass, and what had happened here at Northview as well as accounts of life in the prison proper, it all pointed to fractures large enough to push a crown into.

The casual motion towards a literal 'elephant in the room' skittered her mind further from its track. Dark, enormous eyes. Wild curls. Storytime. Silence. The screams, in the end, had all been her own.......

"Uh.... yeah. She carried it everywhere. She was mute but..... when.... when I found her, she was wearing a Beatles shirt so I-I called her Lucy. Like the song. Lucy was young. Five years old, maybe? I....... we traveled together for a couple of months, all told."

A dewy softness crept onto the woman's voice, seemingly unsure what it was doing there. "Lots of stories at night. Lots of piggyback. Even some piggyback fighting. Tough kid. Good kid. Did what she was told, most of the time. I...... I guess even at that age, she understood how serious things were. She liked being called Lucy, I think. Never did find out her real name. No way to know."

Madison's demeanor fell into a memory, and a part of her opened to reveal someone a little more ordinary, a little gentler around the edges. "We went through this ritzy neighborhood, once. Found some rich old biddy's jewelry collection. Wrapped the kid in it, just drippin' in diamonds. Yeah..... Yeah, I'm pretty sure she liked being called Lucy. Especially after that."

She grew quiet, breathing in the smoke and the breezy air, and gave her head a shake. "Anyhow. Good kid. Sweet kid."




“Lucy. That’s a pretty name. I bet she loved that, playing dress-up. Good she got time to be a kid between everything else.” Weston smiled at the story. He took another drag off the cigarette, not learning anything from the last time he coughed. That smile didn’t last long though. It was telling that Madison didn’t end that story with a happy reunion with family. It was no doubt a story that played out over and over again across the country.

“Heh, I ain’t talk about her a lot, but my sister really liked the Beatles. It wasn’t ever my type of music. When we were little, I used to make fun of her for it. I called it… old-shitter-noise, or some nonsense, I forget exactly what.” He chuckled, sadness in the sound, flicking ashes off the end of his cigarette with a practiced thumb.

“Her favorite was ‘Let it Be’. She sang along a lot too. Damn good singing voice. Ain’t sure where she picked that up from. Sure as shit weren’t from anyone else in our talentless family, tell you what.” Weston’s gaze was locked on the far distance, seeing anything other than what was really there in front of him in the present. The more he talked about the past and got lost in thought, the more that accent of his shone through. He went quiet a moment before he let out another sad chuckle, shaking his head.

“I was a real shit to her sometimes, looking back on it. Woulda done things different if I knew what was gonna happen, of course, but… middle school was hard for both of us. I think I was in seventh or eighth grade when I broke one of her favorite CDs. I forget what exactly I did to break it, but she was so upset… So of course, in all my endless good ideas at that age, I decided to make it up to her by getting her a present. So you know what I did?” He gave Madison a glance, a little grin on his face.

“I stole this necklace from a store in town. It had this ladybug pendant on it, silver with the shell painted red. Fake silver, of course. Anyway, I nicked it, wrapped it up in newspaper and string, and gave it to her. She loved it. I mean, she still kicked me in the nuts for breaking her CD, but… she always wore that necklace after that.” Weston glanced down at his cigarette again, flicking it once more before taking another drag.




Madison let the past fade and fold onto itself, ending with a sweet memory rather than a desperate one, the conversation blending into memories of Weston's past. Apparently, the rooftop was a place for reminiscing, and that was alright. She let her shingle-buddy talk about a sister, the sibling life about which Madison had no lived experience, and the bang-up ideas of youth, well meaning but perhaps misplaced. The story was a good one, and it was good to see Weston relaxed. Remembering the good times was a balm on the soul.

His description of an all-too-familiar necklace made Madison freeze, her expression becoming a dim echo of itself before wilting and Detective Jones pulled the doors of her soul firmly shut. She couldn't fake casual, couldn't play off and chuckle about the foolishness of middle school and how she oughta bust him for shoplifting chuckle-chuckle-nyuk-nyuk. It couldn't be a coincidence, could it? There was no way. First Connor with his still living charge and now this?

There was such a thing as too many coincidences, and if Madison had left the rigid Catholicism of her mother's roots behind, there were times that made Madison question. The ladybug pendant at the bottom of Madison's bag burned bright and hot in her mind's eye like a miracle or a cosmic prank, and the woman visibly shut down. Say something? Keep quiet? On the off chance ladybugs were not as lucky as folk wisdom dictated, if there was any chance that ladybug was Weston's ladybug, it would be kinder by far to leave the past in the gentle past, let his memories remain untainted by what the world had become. She...... she needed to sit with this and figure out what to do.

Madison couldn't bring herself to ask any questions of her own, the thunder of gunfire and flame behind her eyes crystalizing into something hard and the sound of her own wails ringing in her ears...... No, that was a howling dark she was unprepared to topple into.

"I need to go." Her voice was flat and factual. The same voice that asked suspects to go over it again, the voice that asked probing questions, cornered discrepancies, untangled inconsistencies and gave nothing back. There wasn't even a grunt as she got to her feet and picked up her helmet. "Enjoy the view."




Weston blinked, surprised, as Madison climbed up onto her feet suddenly and picked up her gear. He’d not seen her act like that before. Sure, she was a little awkward and rusty with the people-skills - who wasn’t at this point? - but she’d never just abruptly up-and-left him before. Even when pissed. Even when he deserved it.

“What?” He questioned, rather stupidly, straightening his posture as if to get up as well. His first thought was that she saw something suspicious, but a quick glance around and focusing on the actual present didn’t reveal any funny-business going on that he could see.

“What’s the matter? Did you see something? Or was it something I said?”




The surprise and hurt Madison perceived in Weston's voice reminded her of a pup who didn't know what it had done wrong, looking around to see why the otherwise friendly human had decided to stop scratching behind a floppy ear. The rapid series of questions were both obvious and completely understandable, considering how she was likely coming off, but it couldn't be helped.

It couldn't be, could it? But what if it was? Would it help or hurt to ask? If the greatest shame of Madison's life was in any way tied to Weston's past, did that mean she had an obligation to tell him?

And what if it wasn't? Meeting another Connor with a kid in tow and just happening to have a crimson ladybug she'd taken off the neck of a murdered neck to remember why Madison needed to keep fighting until the end of her days....... what the fuck did that mean?

"You're fine." That wasn't an answer to any of the questions Weston had asked, but it was the best she could do without outright falsehood. Swiftly, the woman zipped up her bag, and in one smooth movement, picked it up and slung it over her shoulder. The gloves were next to come off the dull grey shingles, and she simply tucked them in her back pocket instead of putting them on. She needed to get off this roof and somewhere she could pace, try to put things together, try not to go outright nuts.




“Shit, y’know, both my mom and my sister used to say that a lot, when things weren’t fine. Thinkin’ it's a chick thing, to not actually speak your mind when you got something on it and instead act like it's all good when it clearly ain’t.” Weston sighed at the unhelpful response that he was fine. That wasn’t an answer at all, not to any of his questions.

Looking Madison up and down, watching her gather her things, Weston finally looked away and shook his head a little.

“You look like you saw a ghost, but alright. Ain’t my place to question what ghosts you’re seeing. I’ll be up here for a while longer, if you change your mind. Gonna at least finish this,” he motioned with the hand that held the cigarette. “Sun up here feels good… might as well soak it in while we can.”




Madison didn't much care that Weston got his knickers in a twist, chick thing or not. Her train of thought was a runaway, reviewing where she'd come upon the child, struggling to dig through the morass of memory and regret, and struggling to understand what the fuck the universe was trying to prove.

To be, or not to.

To see, or not to.

Madison paused, then, letting her inhalations and exhalations become nothing more than the swinging of a door and the melting sunlight a warmth beyond closed eyelids. She needed focus or she was going to lose it, her mind unravelling in a tangle of conspiracies or madness or both.

"I.... I don't know what it means."

Silence spooled between them like thread.

"I grew up Catholic. Lost my faith. Left the church."

Her gaze was clear when she opened her eyes, and she gestured with the hand that held her helmet.

"I take personal comfort in the ambient, passive hostility of the universe, because the alternative would be way, way worse. Every once in a while, though....... somethin' happens an.... I-I wonder."

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

Maybe that old priest had been right, and this was Hell.

"Lucy......... I found her heading west, walking by the road. Just a kid with ribs like a picket fence, big dark eyes, a Beatles shirt, jeans, no shoes, green dinosaur-stud earrings, an'........ And a ladybug necklace. It's..... probably just a coincidence, but another Connor being here, you and you-your ladybug? Of all things? I........ Somethin' happens, an I wonder."

The iron of her shoulders sagged a little and she looked at Weston.

"Probably nothin'. Seeing things where there isn't anything to see. Spent too long alone. Th' human mind does funny things, sometimes."





Lucy. Walking west. Beatles shirt. Green dinosaur earrings. Ladybug necklace. Weston swallowed hard while the rest of his body otherwise froze right in place. His mind, however, was whirling at a thousand miles per hour.

It felt like too many things to be a coincidence. Then again, the world was a big place. Maybe it was. A box store cheap piece of jewelry alone didn’t mean anything. The name Lucy and a Beatles shirt alone didn’t mean anything. Green dinosaurs alone didn’t mean anything. But that was too many coincidences at once.

It wasn’t until he felt the sting of heat against his fingers did he snap out of it, glancing down at his cigarette that had burned up towards his fingers. He snubbed it out on the bottom of his boot and pitched it off the roof, taking a breath.

“Where headed west did you see her? And the necklace… was it chipped on the left side? With the red paint kind of flaking off?” Weston stayed in his seat, afraid to stand up in case his legs failed him. The words it couldn’t be, but what if it was kept repeating in his mind, over and over and over again. It made him want to scream, the way his insides felt shaky with nerves.




"Gotta check my notes for where. It's..... it's been a while."

Weston's question about comparative patinas wasn't easily answered; it was an object cheaply made and run through a zombie apocalypse. Chipping and flaking pretty much defined most blue-light-special jewelry, before the collapse. There wasn't any way to be certain the particular pattern of wear for this thing matched that thing, except letting him take a look.

So, she set down the bag and opened it with a swift yank of her fingers, reaching into its depths while knowing exactly what she was looking for. A small, inside pocket gave up the ghost of a child, cheerful red and silverish, and Madison had to clamp down hard inside, but she had plenty of practice keeping her problems to herself. Her pain was a private affair, her ghosts her own to carry. The spring that kept Madison ready to fight and fling herself at obstacles with her entire person got tightened just a little more. In many ways, the Detective needed to unleash herself upon the dead to ease some of the stored energy on that spring.

"Here." The chain was a thin one Madison had picked up to replace the old, and it dangled the pendant from her gloved hand, an accusation or an absolution done in base metal and faded dreams.

"Take a look."




Weston was afraid to look, afraid to follow that hand down to the cheap chain and then down to the truth. What would be the better result? That it wasn’t what he thought it was, and he was yet again left wondering? Or that it was indeed her necklace, found on a little girl wandering all alone? A little girl who wasn’t here right now, which only meant something awful happened. He couldn’t decide. The first option - simply not knowing - didn’t protect his family from harm. It only protected him from guilt. The second option made it real, shoved it right up in his face, made all but a neon sign pointing out his failures and shortcomings.

Unable to really stop himself, subconsciously deciding to hang the guild sign around his neck should it come to that, Weston reached up and turned the pendant towards himself, and swallowed hard.

The ladybug pendant in his hand now looked small, but he remembered clear as day how big it looked in his sister’s hands when he first gave it to her. It had been tied tight to a plastic backing with wire, and in his endless brilliance as a child he’d taken his pocket knife to it to cut it off. He chipped the cheap red glaze in the process, turning one of the silvery polka-dots on the bug’s back into more of an oval. It pissed him off at the time - he was trying to be so careful, and managed to screw it up anyway. Just like his father always pointed out - a screw up, no matter what. He tried to ignore that gnawing frustration and just be happy with the fact he could give his sister a present for once in his life. It worked out okay. She loved it and always wore it.

He turned the pendant over in his hands. Silver bug, red glaze, silver polka dots.

Two round dots, and one oval-ish. Red chipped with something sharp, just enough to leave a notch in the surface. The chain was different, but the pendant, the important part - that was familiar. He wrapped his fingers around the pendant - big, stupid, brutal, cruel fingers that never did a damn lick of good compared to his little sister’s gentle hands that never hurt a fly - and gently slid the necklace from Madison’s grasp.

“Shit.” He whispered out, breath shuddering. His fingers curled around the metal death notice and he closed his eyes, bending his legs at his knees as he leaned forward, folding in on himself. He folded his hands behind his head and held his breath, trying not to scream. Every thought about Samaritans, this school, the Fallen Angels - all of it faded into the background behind a roaring pain that flooded his mind.

It was hers, he was sure of it. Between that and the dinosaur earrings, there couldn’t be any other explanation.Weston sucked in a shaky breath and sat up some, unfolding himself, though he couldn’t look up at Madison. Not yet.

“Jolene wrote me exactly one letter after I got arrested. It was when I was waiting for trial. She told me she was keeping the baby. She was going to turn my room into a nursery. She didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl, so she was going to decorate the room in green… with a dinosaur, lizard, and bug theme.” He carefully wound the chain loosely around his hand, letting the pendant rest in his hand.

“Lucy’s gone, isn’t she?” He looked up at Madison, eyes red and teary, looking like he was ready to plead with her for the answer to be no even if he knew the answer was going to be yes.




Madison's eyes shut when the flash of recognition shot through Weston's face, clawing down to the bone and leaving his expression raw. His muttered 'shit' was for both of them. What were the odds? How could this happen? What the hell was she supposed to do? The crunch of fine gravel on shingle was loud on the otherwise quiet roof, and she glanced down to make sure Weston wasn't about to do something stupid. To her credit, the guy didn't have the hottest track record when it came to big decisions. But no, he was holding his head between his palms and shaking in fine tremors as reality settled in.

As Weston began to speak, Madison let the story wash over her. Stories still mattered to the human heart, stories people told to themselves about themselves, stories people told about others that mattered, and in the bitter reaches of the empty night, stories could keep people company easily enough. A sister named Jolene. An unborn niece. A last letter with an epilogue at the bottom of Madison's gun-bag.

She was going to be sick.

A wave of nausea washed over the woman and left her skin clammy and her stomach roiling, but she clawed back her dignity just in time for Weston to gaze up at her with watery eyes and an unspoken plea: lie to me. Frankly, Madison would have done so if the lie wouldn't have been nakedly, painfully transparent. Lies in service to compassion were the only sort the woman allowed herself.

'You're going to be okay' or 'it didn't break skin', for example. Those were ones she'd had to say a few times in her day. It made putting down infected a little kinder. Not seeing it coming was probably the kindest way to go.

This lie, however, would inexorably be followed by 'Where Is She', and incapable of being sustained for more than a moment or two, or worse, sending a man on a fool's, probably-suicidal errand to find loved ones who didn't exist any more.

Brown eyes shut, and Madison's bare hands banged on the cage. Madison screamed as fast as she could draw breath, the wild shrieks of the damned, even as the child Madison had failed to save was silent as the grave for which they were all destined, in the end. Good kid. Sweet kid. Smart kid. Didn't make a sound, not ever, not even at the end. Madison had frankly assumed Lucy's mutism was congenital rather than psychological, but when the child had gotten back up and moaned, hollow and hungry, the detective had learned differently.

Slowly, reluctantly, Madison gave the closest thing she had to a friend in years a single nod, fully aware she was taking something precious away but unable to see any way around.

"Yeah. I..... I'm sorry. She's gone."




Weston knew it was coming.

Seeing the necklace without its keeper was a painful confirmation that Lucy - or whatever she had been named at birth - was gone, and so too was his sister. He’ll never know what her name really was, what her laugh sounded like, what kind of things she enjoyed. He’ll never feel a trusting little hand in his, or arms wrapped around his leg in a big ol’ hug. He knew their deaths were his fault, because he couldn’t be there to protect them - and the reason he couldn’t was because he was a murderous fuckup of a brute, stupid and hateful enough that the good state of West Virginia had decided he was better off in a small concrete-and-metal box rather than out with the general public. Smarter minds and purer hearts decreed the public had to be protected from him. And for that, he couldn’t be there when what little blood-family he had (and that he cared about) needed him.

“You don’t need to be sorry for anything. Ain’t your fault.” Weston sniffled, looking away from Madison as he wiped tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. He considered asking how she died, but decided against it. Probably best if he didn’t - the last thing he needed was one more thing to have recurring nightmares about. It was bad enough he couldn’t sleep and was seeing shit. He stared down at the necklace in his hand, running a thumb over it.

“She was pissed off when she wrote me that letter. Don’t blame her for it, either. She told me never to write or call. Said I’d never meet the baby. Didn’t deserve to, not after I killed the baby’s father.” He glanced up at Madison, guilt etched deep into his face, before he looked away again. Bending one leg again, he propped his elbow up on his knee, curled his fist around the necklace, and rested his head against his knuckles.

He stared off, at a tree in the distance. There was a freshly dug grave near its base, a little painted rock acting as a headstone. He’d seen it the night before - some of the Fallen Angels had gone out there to bury a body. Not someone that had come with them, but an attaché of the horde. He’d vowed to do something similar somewhere, once he found a good spot.

“Thanks for making sure she wasn’t alone in the end.” He murmured, uncurling his fist from around the necklace, holding his open palm out a little.

“You ok if I keep it?”




Weston looked at the ladybug for a while, watery-eyed and contemplative, but it was when he started speaking that Madison's eyebrows lifted high enough to crawl right past her hairline and quit this whole gig. Weston had killed Lucy's dad? That was family drama on par with Hamlet or Mr. Lear and his kids, so messed up that she wasn't entirely sure what to say. As it turned out, she didn't need to say anything at all, as he stared into the middle distance before thanking her for making sure Lucy wasn't alone and asking to keep the talisman.

Thanking her?

This, too, left Madison at a loss for words. The woman nodded mutely and gave her hand a small wave in the universal gesture of 'go on'. All things considered, Weston seemed to be handling the news pretty well. She supposed the removal of a little girl he'd never known from a hypothetical future might be easier to take than the hole left by someone familiar, now gone. Even so, the all-but-certain loss of his sister had to be a blow; Weston was keeping it on the inside, keeping it together.

"Yeah. Keep it. You.... you should have it."

There was still an elephant in the room, or more accurately in the bag, and the man deserved to have something from his niece. Besides, the affect Lucy had on her one-time-protector far outpaced any physical object. It was something to remember the child by....... but Madison honored the kid's memory every time she threw herself against her enemies, dead or breathing. Actions were more important than objects.

Even if Madison had, in her lower moments, slept with the elephant cradled in her lap.

When her gaze finally realized what Weston had been looking at a few moments earlier, the woman couldn't help but remember a very small grave.

"You find me a map sometime, I'll show you where to go visit." It was the very least she could do.

​

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Namazu

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[Miaow]

NORTHVIEW HIGH
The Infirmary

A Collab with Safton ​

"Right, I'm gonna go see if they need my help. The school won't clean itself..." Haewon murmured. There was no use in telling her sister she was on the hunt for Momo, it would only mean disappointment if she failed... or a nice surprise if she succeeded.
"Don't get anything wet," She teased, rubbing her sisters damp head of hair before turning to leave, making sure the privacy curtains were firmly drawn on her way out.

Xander smiled at Minnie. “Hey, you,” he murmured with a smile. “I’m sorry about Momo. But I’m sure he’ll turn up soon. He’s a smart one, just like his mama,” he remarked, giving the girl’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. He knew how important the bunny was to Minnie – in many ways, Momo and the others had been crucial in helping her settle in at the school. Momo in particular had been a constant companion to her. The fact that she had dropped him for Xander’s sake made his heart sink low in his gut at the mere thought… just one more way he had let her down. One more way he had taken a scrap of her innocence.

He nodded toward the chair across from the bed. “Why don’t you have a seat?” Xander asked. He tried to keep his We need to have a talk tone out of his voice, but to no avail. The girls always managed to see through him somehow.

The mention of Momo made her a little sad... She missed him a lot, and if she'd just kept a hold of him, he'd still be there. There were at least a few evenings where she'd snuck him inside for the night, if it was cold or rainy or he'd been a bit under the weather. He was a pretty sizeable rabbit, nor was he very well behaved, so it never took Xander or Haewon long to spot him. He used to thump his back legs when he couldn't get into the exact spot he wanted to sleep in. Minnie took too long to lift him onto the bed? He was having a tantrum.

As he requested she take a seat, she hesitated.
"Am I in trouble?" She murmured. She'd been in trouble a couple times with Xander but it had never been bad. She always expected the worst, that there'd be yelling, throwing things, even for the smallest of misdemeanours, and even if Xander had never done that to her before. There was always that doubt in the back of her mind that she'd done something so bad that she'd seen that side of him.

Xander shook his head quickly. “No, lovebug. You’re not in trouble. I just want to talk to you. Haewon told me you haven’t slept much since…” his voice trailed off and he sighed, pursing his lips. “And that was the first shower you’ve taken,” he remarked: a statement, not a question. “And I bet you haven’t eaten, either.” His tone was soft as he watched her reactions to his words, cocking his head before continuing.

“It’s okay, Minnie. I understand. I was the same way when you were in my spot getting better with your arm. I hated the thought of being alone, leaving you alone.” Xander sighed. “But you’ve got to take care of yourself, too, okay? I’ll feel a lot better knowing that you’re doing that,” he reassured her.

Minnie clambered up onto the bed beside him once she was sure she wasn't in trouble, resting her shoulder against his arm. Her legs swung as she considered his words, staring off at nothing in particular. Yes, that was the first shower she'd taken since the outbreak and, yes, she was in desperate need of a power nap, she couldn't argue with his reasoning.
"I haven't been hungry," She murmured, her hands tucked under her thighs. This was true. Each wave of anxiety came with a wave of nausea and visions of what she'd seen the night before. Nothing about that was particularly appetising.

She rested her head against his shoulder as he continued.
"Can I just sleep here?" She asked, finally looking up at him. The infirmary felt safer than the rest of the school, it was where all the people were, it was where Xander was.
"I cut my face, so..." She began, pointing to the little wound on her cheek, "I need to be here, too."

Xander considered denying Minnie in the wake of his conversation with Haewon… beginning the first step of cutting the proverbial strings here and now, where it would be easier and less painful. He had to encourage her to look out for herself over him. It made sense. But as he looked over at her, resting her head on his shoulder, the thought rambling through his mind that it might very well be the last time he saw her… he couldn’t bring himself to do anything of the sort. “Yeah, lovebug. You can sleep here. Just for tonight,” he said, albeit not with much conviction in his voice for the last bit. He leaned over, planting a small kiss on her cheek, just above the tender bit of skin where the cut was: just as his mom had always done for him whenever he had gotten some scrape or bruise as a child.

Minnie smiled as he gave in to her whim. Maybe he'd be better tomorrow... maybe she wouldn't have to stay in the infirmary after tonight.
"Thank you," She wrapped her arms around his waist, giving him a squeeze.

As he kissed her cut better, she could've sworn the pain dulled just a little bit. She let go, returning her head to it's rightful position on his shoulder.
"I was hiding in a vent with Momo and an infected scratched me," She told him, feeling her chest get tight as she spoke, "but... that's okay, right? It didn't bite me."

Xander tensed, frowning. He had never personally known anyone to get infected from a scratch – rather than a bite – and indeed he’d been in enough close scrapes himself with the infected that if it was possible he probably would’ve been turned by now. Still, his parental instincts went into overdrive.

“It’ll be okay,” he confirmed softly. “But I still want you to let Pandora take a close look at it, okay?” He brought his free arm around to offer his pinkie to her. “Promise?”

Minnie smiled as he reassured her. Surely she would have turned by now... it had been over 24 hours, so she had to be okay. She linked her pinkie with his, her cheek resting against his shoulder.
"Promise," She responded.

"It bit your coat, though..." She murmured, pointing to his leather jacket on the back of her chair, "I'm sorry."
On the left sleeve of his coat was the imprint of jagged teeth, a few molars missing from the edges... but it was better the jacket than her arm, right?

Xander took a moment to realize what Minnie was talking about until his gaze followed where she was pointing to his old jacket, the same one Minnie had taken with her when the horde attacked. His throat tightened at the idea that she had been that close to never coming back... the image of infected nails and teeth closing around Minnie's flesh briefly filled his mind and he had to close his eyes in order to forcefully purge it from his mind.

The intrusive thought was gone as quickly as it had come, his heart rate slowly descending back to baseline. Eager not to let his panic show, he covered with a small chuckle. Xander squeezed Minnie tight against his side and rubbed lightly at her arm. "That's okay, lovebug. I'm not worried about it. I'd trade a million-and-one jackets to keep you all safe and happy. You know that, right?"

She felt relief wash over her as he spoke. He wasn't mad. The last thing she wanted was for him to be mad, especially now their time together might be cut short. She smiled as he squeezed her against his side, nodding in response.
"I'll find you a new one, I promise," She told him. Surely there'd be something left in lost and found... She shut her eyes as she leaned against him. She could fall asleep right then and there...

Xander was sorely tempted to allow Minnie to fall asleep, to leave things where they were and enjoy whatever time he had left with his family. But he had made a promise to Haewon… and he owed them both more than that. He took a deep breath, steadying himself to try and find his words before speaking.

“Minnie… I want to talk to you about what happened. I… I know you saw it. I know you saw me hurt Dutchess.”

Minnie lifted her head as he spoke, staring down at her feet. She was hoping he'd never find out, that they could just ignore what he'd done and pretend everything was normal, even if it was only for the next few days.
"She died... right?" She asked.

Xander nodded slowly. “I… think so, Minnie,” he murmured. “I’m… I’m so sorry that you had to see that,” he said, his voice cracking slightly.

She didn't move her eyes, fidgeting with her hands as she processed what he'd said. She really had died. At the time, she hadn't really cared. She was more focused on her father. She swallowed, nodding a little.
"That wasn't the worst part," She muttered.

Xander clenched his jaw, steeling himself for whatever Minnie had to say next.. even though it felt like a knife entering his heart. "What was it, Minnie? You can talk to me."

"Seeing you on the floor..." She responded, keeping her head down, "and that man on top of you..."
She felt a wave of nausea cross over her, clutching to the mattress on his bed.

She lay on the floor of her old bedroom, her chest tight, her throat shut. It felt like the blood was pooling in her head and eyes, unable to flow back to the rest of her body. Huge hands wrapped around her neck, squeezing tight. She clawed at the ground, her nails digging into the wooden planks. Her vision blurred, the edges of her view beginning to darken... She sank her teeth into the curve of his thumb and index finger. The pressure on her throat released. She took a deep breath in... and as her vision cleared, she was sure someone was laid beside her, their head bouncing against the concrete... The butt of a knife slammed into her temple.

She seemed to jolt back to reality, leaning her body against Xander to keep herself upright.

Xander's free hand tightened into a fist hearing Minnie's pained response, feeling the way she held onto him as if she was afraid she might lose him at any second... and honestly? She just might.

"It's okay, Minnie. I'm still here. Okay?" He spoke low, trying to soothe her with his words as his hand ran up and down along her arm.

She didn't move, staring at the same spot on the ground.
"I tried to help..." She told him, swallowing the lump in her throat, "I tried to help, I swear."
She finally turned to look at him, her eyes pleading.
"Cabrera wouldn't let me! I-I had a knife, from a Samaritan, I was coming to help and he grabbed me!"

Xander flinched hearing Minnie state her intentions to help him -- with a knife of all things. Her tone was one of a child who feared they had done wrong, one who had failed to meet expectations and would be punished and he hated every bit of it as she tried desperately to explain herself to him.

Xander gave her a comforting squeeze. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I... understand, Minnie. Thank you for trying to protect me But I'm glad you didn't, okay? Because I didn't want you getting hurt for something I did. What I did was wrong. It would have been even worse if you or your sister had gotten hurt because of it, okay?"

Minnie looked up at him as he squished her against his side. She swallowed, breaking eye contact as she tried to think... think of anything they could do to fix it. She sighed, resting her head on his shoulder, her cheek smooshed up against his arm. It felt hopeless. She felt sick to her stomach thinking about it.

Xander sighed deeply, turning over to press a soft kiss to the crown of Minnie's head. "You should go get some sleep, lovebug. If not, your sister will put both of us through the wringer." Xander chuckled.

The idea of sleeping still made Minnie a little anxious. Anything could happen while she was out cold. What if she didn't wake up
"You won't go anywhere?" She asked, not that Xander would make it very far in the state he was in.

Xander smiled slowly. "No, Minnie." He shook his head and gave her a reassuring squeeze. "I won't move a muscle, promise. Go get some shuteye."

Bullyboy Squad NanLia
​

 

[Namazu]

FLASHBACK - LINCOLN
Two Months Before the Horde​

Victor was in his office when a guard knocked on the door and entered. “LT told us to bring him to you.” He tugged on the chain and two more men entered. Another guard escorting a captive. The sight was jarring. The overly tall man with robust chest, cuffs and chains, one attached to the collar on his neck. A makeshift muzzle strapped to his mouth. His once impressive physique was scarred by starvation and dehydration. He was a little dirty and naked save for a piece of a blanket tied around his hips.

Victor was six words deep into a crossword puzzle - one of the first unfinished ones he'd gotten his hands on in months - when he was interrupted. Taking his feet off his desk and putting the old yellowed newspaper down, Victor stood quickly, expecting to see someone in rough shape. What actually was brought through his door made him freeze.

"Why is he in chains and a muzzle?!" Victor took a step back, away from the trio.

The stranger stared at Victor with deep bags under glazed eyes. He bared his teeth in a big grin. Until the guard tugged on the metal leash again.

"I don't know. He thinks he's funny." The other guard says. "I heard he bit Sanderson's ear off." The first one tossed his end of the chain towards Victor, whether the doctor tried to catch it or not.

"Just check him up. Mr Boone wants him looking less like shit in two weeks."

Victor almost fumbled it, but managed to catch the end of the chain. Nervous and bewildered as to how he was supposed to handle some guy chained up like a wild animal, he stepped around his desk towards the nearest empty bed.

"Uh, alright. Either of you know if he has any major injuries or illnesses I should start with, or...?" He trailed off, giving the chain a little tug, hoping the man would move towards the bed - the same way one tugs on a dog's leash.

"Fuck if I care." One chuckled and the other headed out with a dismissing. "He looks like he's limping." The first one followed, adding. "Call when you're done." The prisoner didn't move an inch. He looked roughed up. Old and new cuts and bruises speaking of the cage fighting business.

"Shit." Victor hissed between his teeth when the guards left, leaving him alone with the other man. He had no idea what mental state the guy was in, or if he was dangerous. He swallowed hard, looking down at the chain in his hand, then back up at the man. Victor motioned towards the bed, inviting him to sit instead of trying to drag him along.

"Take a seat. I won't hurt you. My name is Doctor Braaten. Do, uh... you have a name?"

The guy moved once asked, chains softly clinking as he walked with shallow steps imposed by the leg irons. He was indeed slightly limping but not much. There was a fairly fresh, nasty scar on his shin that looked like a souvenir of an open fracture.

"They called me a few." He took a seat on the bed. "Gonna play doctor with me?"

Not wanting to hold onto the chain the whole time, Victor used the cuff on the other end of it to attach Buster to the frame of the bed. It wasn't perfect, but it would at least slow him down if he tried to run for it. Noticing the limp, Victor grabbed his stool and rolled it over, taking a hesitant seat in front of Buster. As far as visible injuries went, it was as good a place as any to start.

"Well, then how about we start with a name you'd like me to call you? Because yes, I'm a doctor, and I'm here to help you." Victor pushed against the floor with one leg and rolled towards the nearby bedside cabinet, taking out some disinfectant wipes. He only had a few latex gloves left and was saving those for more serious situations. Rolling back into place, he opened the plastic package and started to wipe off his hands, studying Buster's leg. "What happened here?"

He flashed his teeth. "Then you can call me God cause I bet you gonna call that name once I play your doctor next." He looked down at his leg. "I was holding a steel beam up. Then I dropped it." On his leg.

Victor froze for a moment, processing what the man said. It was far more terrifying than anything else, and was hoping the man didn't notice the way his hands shook a little as he finished wiping them off.

"Okay, buddy." He opted for anything other than God. "Dropped a steel beam, huh? Yeah, sounds nasty. Did you get this checked out by anyone?" He gently touched Buster's leg, near the scar, to see if he had any pain reaction.

No pain. Not until he stepped on it. Even then the pain was minimal, it was more like something didn't line up 100%. "Yup." He licked his lip under muzzle like an annoyed dog but his gaze was still hinting amusement.

Seeing as how the man didn't complain or flinch, Victor moved on. Nothing he could do about it unless he broke it again so he could reset it better, which didn't seem wise.

"How'd you get all these cuts?" Victor queried as he rolled away again, grabbing a half-empty bottle of disinfectant, some cotton balls, and a box of mismatched bandages, gauze, and medical tape.

"Kisses and cuddles." The guy straightened up, manspreading before the doctor like to invite him to roll back in between his legs. His state suggested it's been a long while since he had actual cuddles unless he tried to hug a badger.

Quietly sighing at the unhelpful response, Victor rolled back into place - but then stood, instead of remaining seated and conveniently between the man's legs. He was going to start with the wounds on the man's face.

"Are you a pit fighter?" He asked, dabbing some disinfectant on a cotton ball and pressing it against a wound. He wasn't exactly gentle, but wasn't intentionally trying to make it more painful either.

Was he? They beat his ass up and threw him in a hole before forgetting about his existence. Put him into the cage to fight after they remembered. He knew they were testing him. Could tell thet planned bigger things.

"I can be if you're into that."

Victor pressed a cotton ball just a little bit harder to a cut on the man's forehead for that response. Why did Samaritans have to be so damn weird?

"You know what I'm into?" He asked, lowering his voice. "I'm into honest answers. Really gets my gears going when people let me do my damn job, too." Another firm press, then he leaned over and reached for his box of band-aids.

"Not acting like a horny caged animal is neat too." He paused, bandage in hand, staring Buster in the eye. "What'd they do to you?"

Buster's eyelid flickered when his injury was pressed too hard. The only sign of hurt he exposed so far. He didn't say anything else, staring back at the doctor with a small, frank smile.

Peeling the packaging off a band-aid, Victor reached up and carefully pressed it over the cut he'd just cleaned. "Try and keep this clean. Don't pick at it." He instructed, smoothing the adhesive part out. "I'm sorry for what they did to you, whatever it was." He added, more quietly.

"Did you really bite someone's ear off?"

The tall male properly looked up at the doctor once the bandage was in place. Gazing into Victor's eyes he shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly. "He touched me where he shouldn't have."

"I'm sorry to hear that. It was probably a good thing you hit back, then." Pressing his lips together, Victor withdrew his hands. "That'll be our little secret, alright?" He tossed the bloodied, used cotton ball into a trash basket and reached for another, applying disinfectant and dabbing at the man's cheek.

"This one's not as bad... still, like I said - keep it clean, don't pick at it." It didn't warrant a bandage. When he was done with Buster's face, he leaned back and looked at his stomach.

"You can either lay down, or remain seated but lean back a little for that." He motioned to the wounds over Buster's body.

Buster smirked wearily. "I can have a secret with you." He didn't fuck around if someone was trying to cross some lines he didn't like crossed. Tearing the man's ear was the small punishment compared to what he had in mind at the time.

Greg shuffled his butt and laid down with a content sigh. His eyes half lidded. The chain wrapped around his waist aggravated the wound he had there.

"You don't talk much, do you?" With fresh disinfectant-soaked cotton ball in hand, he dabbed at the wound on Buster's stomach - more gently this time - holding the chain out of the way as best he could. "Not that I complain. Most people who come in here bitch up a storm or toss around threats." He grumbled, partially to himself.

Greg let out the softest sound of discomfort when the belly wound was touched. The skin there wasn't as thick and he felt the pain more vividly. But it was nothing, he wasn't fully coherent anymore. Not in his poor state.

"I'm not?" He hummed with a lazy smile. "I'm just busy appreciating the company." His hooded eyes closed briefly before he refocused them on the medic.

"Mh, sorry." Victor apologized at the sound Buster made as he was touched. "This will help though. And yes, you're not complaining, which is a nice change of pace." He paused, looking Buster in the eyes when he opened them again.

"You're still being odd." He raised an eyebrow at the man, trying to act serious, but the corner of his mouth twitched up in a slight smile.

"When was the last time you ate? Or had water? You don't look good."

Buster's laughter was unexpectadly loud. "I'm odd? I'm just being honest." He slowly drags his eyes down the man's figure before back to his face. He was losing his touch, wasn't he.

"I could use some water. They forgot to feed me for a while." He admitted. "But I'm hearing Mr Derek wants me healthy. Who is it?"

"They forgot to feed you?!" Victor scowled at this revelation. It was barbaric, to throw someone into a cell and just forget about them like that. Tossing the used cotton ball into the trash, he shook his head as he grabbed gauze and medical tape. The wound would do better with some layers between flesh and chain. Folding the gauze over twice, he lay it over the wound and taped it into place with a few strips of the medical tape, securing it so it wouldn't slip off easily.

"Hang there a moment, I'll get you water and a snack. Not as good as an actual meal, but..." Victor trailed off as he stepped away from the bed, drawing the makeshift curtain around it half-closed as he headed for his desk.

"Sounds good, doc. I'll be here." Greg napped with heavily lidded eyes while the man is away. His body readying for a solid rest he was denied for too long now. But the sound of steps alerts the animal in him and the big guy looks up at the doctor.

Victor returned a few moments later with a bottle of water and an energy bar. The water was room temperature and the energy bar going stale, but it was better than nothing. Both items were deposited on the bedside table.

"Here, sit still while I try and figure out how to get this off." Victor leaned over Buster, feeling around the straps and buckles.

Buster sat up so the other man has an easy access to the muzzle straps. His hazy eyes trace Victor's expression. Lips turned into a gentle curve.

With some tugging, Victor managed to loosen the muzzle. A little paranoid of what was wrong with this guy, he leaned away quickly as he took it off - not wanting to get bit. Setting the muzzle aside, he opened the bottle of water and offered it out to Buster.

"Did they drug you with anything?" He asked, staying an arm's length away.

Greg didn't seem offended by the doctor’s cautious actions, eagerly taking the water. It almost spilled to his lap when he pulled the bottle up with unsteady hands. His throat bobbed with thirst-fueled gulps. Eyes closed. Pleasure painted all over his worn face. Like a dying man on a desert daydreaming of diving into oasis.

Buster pulled the thing away from his wet lips and licked them, seeking Victor’s eyes with an unfocused gaze. “If I’m high then it gotta be good cause I didn’t notice.”

The door flung open and the two men from before strode in with attitude and rush. "Time's up." One of them stopped dead in his tracks, eyes big. "You took it off?!"

The other didn't stop, approaching the big guy.

Buster considered getting up but he didn't make it easy on them. The two men had to literally drag his heavy ass out the door after putting the muzzle back on. He tosseed a glance at Victor with a cheeky smile. "See you next time, doc."

Not Meat Good_Morels Bullyboy Squad MokaChan Togy Safton BeyondDandy NanLia Miaow SlaughterMelon Crono Aegis Fluffy-Kat Tool ​

 

[Tool]

TOWN AROUND NORTHVIEW
The Afternoon Before the End of Northview
Collab with Bullyboy Squad
​

Madison wiped at her forehead, satisfied at last that her beloved ride was in working order and no worse for wear having been ridden into battle like a Valkyrie atop an ink-black dragon, trusted to take out enemies on the field on its own and having achieved. It was just a bike, Madison knew that on an intellectual level, but almost two years on the road without much in the way of interaction with the living had led to a little anthropomorphizing, and it wasn't hurting anybody. A gloved hand gave the seat a pat.

If you loved something enough, maybe a little bit of your soul rubbed off, a part that remained to haunt places or things. A stuffed teddy bear to keep away nightmares, a pair of spectacles forever atop grandpa's nose, a mixing bowl that held the hopes and dreams of a mini-Madison, and this ride....... they were all special, all unique, and she carried a tiny piece of them with her.

For someone in perpetual solitude, it was a way to feel a little less alone.

Should she make like a banana and split? Nah. Not without wishing people well and telling them goodbye. She wasn't a barbarian, she could act like a civilized human being and say bye to Minnie, Haewon, Weston, Connor, Wess, Kit, and the rest. The bag was heavy against her thighs as she started out towards the school, but she paused as she noticed a dark-haired man coming in her direction. One of the Fallen Angels, she thought to herself, though she couldn't recall his name.

"Can I help you?"



Jenkins swiped a bead of sweat away from his brow. His whiskey-hued eyes traced her body language when the short haired female looked up at him. The heat rose up his throat like fever. Leather wrapped around his body didn't help cool it. His hair was as fucked up as it was a few days earlier, just combed back. First the tour with Pres, now the wild ride with the horde. Not on the road nor here, did he have time or resources to take care of the petty things.

“You can get your butt on the pony and go on a patrol with me. VP’s orders.”



Madison's brow cocked at the orders, stated as they all were, as though rank mattered more than the quality of someone's character, as though people expected her to fall in line and obey....... just 'cause. Despite current evidence to the contrary, the detective wasn't above being a follower. If anything, she preferred following a decent leader over being put in charge.... but leadership needed to be shown rather than assumed, respect earned rather than granted by virtue of presupposed power. King, Casey, Hank, Cabrera....... despite their hoity-toity titles granted by baby Jesus himself, they all blew chunks, though to varying degrees. Part of her wanted to fall to her knees, lift her arms to the sky to worship the cosmic cock and declare she'd be blessed, blessed to follow the VP's orders, honored to follow his holy whims and bow her forehead to the ground in the absolute submission these nudist emperors wanted in their humble subjects.

Still, even fart-bags like those could have a decent idea every once in a while, and patrol was one of them. It was hard to mess up 'maybe look for threats in the area where people are', though gods knew these geniuses would doubtless try.

"Alright. You're..... Jenkins, right?"

Madison wasn't sure about his name, but she did recognize his face. He was the biker on the ridge who'd been about as stable as a windchime in a hurricane. In fact, she remembered thinking as much when she'd come upon the crew. Great. Well, at least fear would keep him on his toes, looking for zed-heads. Even as she spoke, the woman began walking towards the bikes. She'd store her things near the bikes, patrol light but outfit for battle. After returning, she'd take the time to clean the few clothes she carried, bid people farewell, and head out into the figurative sunset.



“Call me Elvis, sweetheart.” Jenkins shot her his brand smile, considerably forced but she wouldn't tell. She didn't know him. His expensive Chippewa boot squelched in the death-soiled mud, halting his sly attitude.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” He quietly cursed, yanking his foot out and shaking the gunk off.



Elvis? In Madison's opinion, anybody who asked to be called a supposedly 'cool' name like Elvis or Ripper or Attila the Hung or Magnum or Killer rather automatically became significantly less cool and passed right into cringe territory. But, who was she to pee on Elvis' peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich?

"Sure. What route we taking?" She asked, while duct-taping her seams and generally prepping for war. The weight of a chainmail tank-top wasn't insignificant, and she hadn't had the chance to add sleeves, but what the hell. It was a start. It had taken nearly all day and all night to make the rings and start fashioning them into something usable, and her hands ached something fierce, but it was a good ache. The woman's bag was heavy with open rings, and it would give her something with which to pass the time while out there in the wild, grey yonder.



Jenkins tossed a judging glance at the woman by the bikes. Paying close attention to her gear.

Until he spotted his, often pristine, red-lipped tank had a caked smudge on the side. He didn't remember it there the last time he was outside for a smoke. Some dickhead was touching his motorcycle! If not for the other, more urgent matter rattling in his brain, the guy would be peeved.

“We follow the horde.” He swung his leg over the tight, leather seat and lowered himself to it like he did it a million times. “We spot it, we keep our distance. But if we didn't fuck up, the rotters should be just a memory.” Just like…



Madison looked obviously surprised as she tossed her bag to the shelf that lined this outside wall, among several helmets and even somebody's pair of riding boots. She paused and went through her list of needed items if they were going for badassary. "We going to hunt the horde? I'm game, but honestly, I thought I'd be doing that run solo. No offense. Do you have any experience in doing that kind of thing?"

Elvis didn't seem the type to sign up for this sort of expedition, and if they were going to hunt the horde, the man would need way more gear than he was currently wearing, and they'd both need a few key pieces of gear to make the thing more survivable.



Jenkins dusted the tank off and straightened up in his seat. His black jacket creaked as he settled and ran his hand through his hair to tame it before pulling on a helmet.

“What the hell are you talking about, woman? No horde hunting.” Christ. Who did such shit. Did she see how many rotters were there? Guess she had to. She did drive right into the middle of that shitshow after all. Crazy chick.

“We’re just going to make sure they stay away. If we’re lucky they're long gone and we’ll haul it back.” His tone seemed just a little higher than normal. His fingers felt clammy against the strap he closed under chin. He tried to calm down his nerves but the more time had passed the harder was the task.



Madison Jones paused as she was taping up her seams, the tear of duct tape loud in her ears. When she looked up, the guy's jitters made some sense. He super didn't want to do this, and the details of the plan were less than stellar.

Her face took on the shadow of sympathy, and she shook her head. "I don' know how you do it. Don't you get tired bein' so scared all the time? No judgement, I'd just be fuckin' exhausted."

The helmet got slipped on last and she asked the obvious: "This 'follow the horde and hope they don't notice' thing Casey's bright idea? You do realize once we get close enough to see th' horde they'll have already heard us comin' for a while? Some of 'em might not see so hot anymore, but they can hear jus' fine, most of 'em. Smell pretty good too, as it turns out. And even if my bike's quieter'n yours, it's still plenty loud."



Jenkins chuckled, masking nervousness. "Just cause I don't crave to die like you, doesn't mean I'm so scared, doll." Aren't you tired of pretending you don't know me, bitch?

The man turned the machine on and revved the engine, partially muffling her arguments. "Mine's faster so worry about yourself." He winked with a half-assed smirk and started off. The farther away from the entrance to the school they got the more corpses littered the ground. The sound of bones breaking under tires made his skin crawl. At least all of them were dead-dead now.



Madison's eyes rolled so far it was a wonder they didn't rattle back into her skull. Moron. 'Elvis' was definitely in the Attila the Hung, Ripper, NightRider camp of cringe-worthy, poser wannabes. It was the wink that clinched it. Who the hell was he trying to impress? Madison would have said 'flirting' except she didn't get those vibes. There wasn't any admiration in his gaze, just nerves and a need to hide them.

Madison sighed and followed Jenkins' bike out of the small yard and onto the road. She was perhaps more thorough than he was accustomed, stopping cold every few minutes and actually looking around for potential threats. She didn't have a pair of longlookers, but stopping and taking an honest, lingering look around, listening for moans, and watching for movement in the buildings around them was part and parcel of the job. It was a boring part of the job, but hey. Stakeouts weren't any more glamorous, and she'd had plenty of experience with those.

At the fifth such stop, Madison's watchful gaze caught movement in an old B&B, out the second floor window.

"Hey. Hold up."

She waited a minute more, but when nothing made itself immediately visible, she sighed and flicked off her bike.

No moans, and no face at the window, but she could have sworn she saw a pair of peepers, looking outwards. Looking meant living. Maybe. If they were lucky.

"Gonna check it out. Movement. Second floor. Hang out here or come with, whatever."



Jenkins hated it. What the hell was this?! Her stopping all the goddamn time. Was she blind or something? The anticipation gnawed on his spine, tickling his fingertips.

“You’ve got to be kidding now.” He said a note too loud after they stopped one too many times and the woman claimed she spotted something. At first he thought she was delusional but… He realized something else as she got off the bike.

“Do I look like a babysitter?” He climbed off the humming machine. “Got something quiet I can use instead of the shotgun?” The one that was sitting in the rack on his bike.



Madison slid from her bike and spared a glance for the man behind, giving him a nod and sliding from its holster one of her subsonic, silenced .22's, filled to the brim with caseless rounds. They were precious things and this was a loan and not a gift, but insofar as being quiet enough not to be noticed by wandering rots, the suppressor alone was worth it. They took more skill to fire, and for that reason, the laser sight was a necessity. The ultimate tradeoff of the apocalypse - punch versus sound.

"Here. If there is somebody in there, do me a solid and wait till we know for sure it's a zombie b'fore shootin? Could've been a trick of the light, but I wanna be sure. We need everybody breathin' we can get." Request given, Madison handed over the gun, handle first. The chances of a swarm in a Beige Bed and Breakfast wasn't nothing, but it wasn't high. She wasn't worried about being overrun in the....... Brown eyes glanced at the slick, polished sign The Summit.

Sure. Whatever. She wasn't going to get overrun in The Summit. What a sad name for a two storey beige-grey nothing. Would there be chintz? There would probably be chintz. This looked like a place that once aspired to doilies. Madison started inside. The door was unlocked, and Madison was saddened to see just how beige this plac-

Punched in the back of the head? Who the fuck would punch her in the...... in the back of the......

Things spun for a moment, the girl's head rocketing forwards and then jerking back, before Madison's shoulder collided with the doorframe.

Her faceplate had shattered. Fuck - been riding her bike for years, and now here she'd gotten into a...... a crash......

The left side of her face was.......gone? No, not gone. It felt hot. Hot and numb.

The thump of her tailbone hitting the ground went almost unnoticed. At least she'd made it off the....... the....... bike. Lucky she didn't....... break a leg.......

No..... that was her.... nose? Her nose was running and Madison couldn't raise up her hand to wipe at it.

Broke her fuckn'....... nose........

Phlem filled the back of her throat, and Madison managed to cough, once. Wetly.

It bubbled up crimson as christmas.

Boots loomed in her vision. Good.

They could call....... the....... the people......

She'd........ she'd sit here an' wait.......

Wait for them......



His finger felt sticky against the trigger. Whole gun seemed to weigh much more than a .22 should. He flanked her when she struggled on the ground, watching her lean her back against the dirty wall. Oh fuck- Jesus, her face. The sight turned his stomach.

“See what you made me do?!” Jenkins’ voice wavered, hands tightening on the weapon. “Cause you had to do the dumb shit and run your mouth. What kind of cop are you?!” Spit shot off with his words even though his throat went dry.

The biker raised the handgun and aimed at her chest. The thick layers wouldn't save her with such a proximity. “You should have kept your mouth shut, Detective.” He muttered before jerking the trigger. One, two, maybe three bullets entered her body. He wasn't counting, didn't think. Flinched when his walkie-talkie came to life. The transmission was patchy but he recognized Casey’s voice. It snapped him out of it and he swung his head around to check the vicinity. There was no one there. Nothing but ghosts.

Jenkins dropped the gun near her body and thrust the bike into vegetation. Then he was gone. Just a distant sound of rubber biting dirt and asphalt echoed along the buildings.

​

Bullyboy Squad​

 

[Miaow]

NORTHVIEW HIGH
Outside the School
The Day of Departure

A Collab with Bullyboy Squad and Namazu ​

Cabrera stood next to one of the trucks outside of the Northview gates. Inside the fence, the desolate landscape of ruin surrounded the aged school building. Making it clear that there was nothing left for them to stay for.

The first light of day caressed his angular features, revealing the bags of weariness under the usually keen eyes. His gaze now dulled into a pensive detachment as he mindlessly checked his gear one more time. He left the bright jeans and t-shirts behind, now wearing dark denim on his ass and black longsleeve beneath the bulletproof vest.

Momo had found his home in a picnic basket for the ride to the prison, snuggled into a blanket. He didn't know what the prison was, where he was going, who all these people were. As long as he got something to munch on, he was pleased.

Minnie, on the other hand, was far from it. Waking to her father being cuffed and marched outside wasn't exactly the morning she had hoped for. Leaving her bags (and Momo) with Haewon, she followed behind the convoy of enforcers at a safe distance. There was no way she was taking it up with one of them, she'd learned that lesson pretty quick. They were just following orders, anyhow. Cabrera's orders.

As she breached the front entrance, she saw him, checking his gear for the umpteenth time. She could call him a million names Haewon would tell her off for using. She clenched her fists, stomping as best she could with all the corpses and debris still lying around.
"Why's my dad in handcuffs?!"

Ignacio was prepared for this. Not expecting her to just march up to him in front of people but he knew there was going to be disappointment and frustration. Dropping his backpack to the seat next to where his rifle was leaned, the man turned to face Minnie. He didn't respond, simply stating. “Get in the car.” One of those prepared for the locals, guarded by Samaritans.

Minnie stopped in front of him, staring daggers through his skull.
"Answer my question!" She demanded, standing her ground as much as a 5'0" tween could against a military man.

Ignacio's gaze cruised towards the van where the two guards where putting still half coherent Xander into the back. "He killed a woman. One of us." The man focused back on the kid. "He's a prisoner. Now stop arguing and get into one of the vehicles."

Minnie felt the rage boiling within her, clutching to the fabric of her dungarees.
"You said you'd help us! Did you even try?!" She yelled, "You promised you'd try!"

His heart rate sped up, watching if she doesn't say something that would undermine his authority. The men around them listened in, some staring. Ignacio spoke through clenched teeth, tone low. "Shut your pretty face and leave. Now." His own sore and swollen on the side where black thread kept the flesh in place. His sliced skin her doing. He didn't wait for another passionate reaction, turning his back to her.

"Don't call me pretty!" She argued, taking a step forward.
"One of you killed Miyu! Did he die?! You just sent him to clean toilets!" She slammed her first into the back of his padded vest.
"Why do YOU get to decide?!"

Now everybody nearby watched. Some of the Northview locals further down the convoy stopped packing and looked over as well. Ignacio didn't move, didn't look at her.

"You've ruined our lives and you can't even LOOK at me!" She cried, walking around him to meet his gaze.
"For the first time I had a proper family! I had parents that loved me and you took them away! Why?!" Her eyes welled with tears, "What did we do?! What did Nari do?!"
She swallowed the lump in her throat, staring at him through teary eyes. She lifted her fist, slamming it into the centre of his chest.
"Why can't you just let us be happy?! What did we do?! YOU RUINED MY LIFE! WHY?!" She screamed, hitting his bulletproof vest over and over and over.
"WHAT DID I DO?!"

He could feel their eyes on the two of them. Hear the grunts and insults towards the young lady. The shower of little fists against his torso was nothing but the scene she made could cost him even more of the already ragged reputation. The man growled and grabbed her by the collar. “Stop it.” He snarled and pushed her back to get some space between them.

Minnie stumbled over her own feet, falling onto her backside and slamming her elbow onto the concrete. She winched, clutching at her broken skin with her opposite hand and hissing as she slowly bent her elbow. She held her arm close to her chest, the pain shooting up her ulna. That didn't feel good...

She glared up at him, her chest heaving as she breathed heavily. If her funny bone wasn't throbbing, she'd hit him some more. She glanced around, feeling eyes on her. It was embarrassing... but not nearly as embarrassing as it was for Cabrera. She swallowed the lump in her throat, her cheeks stained with tears. She couldn't let him know she was in pain.
"Can't you just leave my family alone?!"

Bag of his gear slung over his shoulder and jacket on (with one new hole now after this whole misadventure), Weston was carrying his rifle in one hand as he made his way up the path from the gate towards the convoy. He couldn't help but look back over his shoulder at the school for a moment, mind equally lost in past and future problems.

Minnie's yell snapped him back to the present, attention going forward again, and he frowned at the scene up the path closer to the vehicles. A kid on her ass on the ground after being shoved by Ignacio. If Weston didn't know better he'd swear the man was trying to look like an ass. Weston hurried up and jogged closer.

"Anyone want to tell me what this is about?"

Ignacio almost winced when she hit the ground. Fuck. That wasn't his intention. But she didn't know that. And more importantly others didn't either. Cabrera took a step towards her, tilting head down like to speak softly for her ears only. But he didn't. He spoke loud and clear so even Weston could hear when approaching. "You're straining my patience kid. Don't test me."

Minnie didn't move from the ground as he stepped forward. She flinched as he spoke so loudly in her ear, her eyes drifting over to Weston... Her shoulders tensed. This was a bad idea.
"I know about you two," She told the pair, keeping her voice down, "I saw you in bed together!"
If this wasn't testing Cabrera's patience, she wasn't sure what would.
"I bet your men don't know. Save my dad or I'll tell."

"Come on, Ignacio, she's just a kid-" Weston was about to try and get Cabrera to back down, until she blurted out that threat. Now he remembered why he didn't really like kids that much, before all this. He paused, not really sure what to do with that threat, and looked to Ignacio, then down at Minnie.

"Save him how? Kid, he murdered someone. Intentionally. What exactly do you want?"

Ignacio gritted his teeth as he stared down at her with his heart pounding in his ears. "I warned you." He gritted out and looked at some of the men nearby. "Grab her and put her to one of the cars at the back. Tape her mouth if she doesn't shut up."

Minnie's eyes widened. This wasn't how blackmail was meant to work! Cabrera was meant to do what she said! She glanced over at the men. Enforcers. She swallowed, awkwardly getting to her feet, her arm still pinned to her chest.
"Just-- Just let him go! We'll find somewhere else to go--" She knew King would never give him a Presidential Pardon, the only way they were getting out of this was by getting away from the Samaritans, "You'll never see us again, I swear!"

"Whoa, okay, hold up - " Weston put his hand up to stop the nearest enforcer that had started to step forward.

"Keep her there." He ordered instead, motioning to Ignacio with his head to step away with him to talk.

Ignacio mentally glitched. Did Weston just? He was the Second but... Ignacio bared his teeth at the theoretically higher ranked man and looked at his guards, snarling in Spanish. They looked conflicted but at least one was about to do what he said.

Minnie glanced between Weston and the enforcers. Even as they stopped their approach, they were a little too close for comfort. Her breathing quickened, her chest tightened. She took a shakey step back.
"THEY'RE SLEEPING TOGETHER!" She yelled as loud as her voice could go. Cabrera wasn't listening, he deserved whatever he got.
"WESTON AND CABRERA! I SAW THEM!" She pointed to them with her good arm, taking another step back. These men didn't care if Cabrera was a murderer, they didn't care what crimes he'd committed, but she knew they'd care about who he was sharing his bed with.

As soon as Minnie blurted that out, he sighed, shoulders sagging a bit. This dumbass kid - he was going to try and help her, but now she'd gone and fucked it up on her own.

"Y'know what - fuck it. Put her in the van. Whatever." Frustrated, Weston gestured towards Minnie with one hand, standing back as the enforcers stepped forward again, reaching for her.

"I was going to ask if you really wanted to do this, to piss people off and look even more like the bad guy here, but I take it you do." He lowered his voice, commenting to Ignacio.

Ignacio knew what was going through the heads of those brutes. Nothing of that was pretty, innocent, or convenient for the two men in charge. He walked over to the Latino guy he was speaking to earlier and whispered something to his ear.

The guy promptly grabbed the girl by good arm and pulled her with him. "Shut up for your own good." He barked low, dragging her away from the scene.

Cabrera watched it but his gaze shifted to Weston when the man spoke to him. He stepped over, his shoulder grazing Weston's as he quietly grunted. "Don't ever question me in front of my men again." He shouldered Weston and walked off, heading back to the car he shouted. "Get your asses moving, people!"

Minnie flinched as the stranger grabbed her arm, her whole body tensing. Cabrera was winning. She'd used everything she could think of he was still winning. She was running out of ideas, short of getting on her knees and begging. Her chest heaved as she tried to calm herself down. No amount of screaming was going to save her dad.

She stumbled alongside the enforcer, looking over her shoulder at Cabrera and Weston as she was manhandled into the back of a van. Cabrera had ruined her life, and part of her hoped she'd just ruined his, too.

Weston glared at Ignacio, deciding not to respond at all to his comment - or to the shoulder-bump. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched as Minnie was hauled into the van. The cat was already out of the bag, no sense in making anything worse.

NanLia Safton
​

 

[Good_Morels]

NORTHVIEW - FLASHBACK
Morning after the horde ​

Kit didn't remember when he’d gotten separated from the others. It didn't matter now, not when he was surrounded by the horde on all sides. He cursed his failure to hone his shooting skills as bullet after bullet missed the wave of flesh approaching him. He had to drop the gun, switch to the machete.

It wasn't long before he was drowning in gore, rotting hands grabbing at his clothes and hair, desperate to pull him into their waiting jaws. One of the dead managed to yank him towards it, away from the others. He plunged the machete into its guts, a cascade of black and red falling out of it. He looked up, only to see Rory staring back at him, pale and frightened at the mess Kit had made of his midsection.

“What did you do?”



He woke with a start, nearly jumping out of his skin. Fortunately, Beau’s large and sturdy hand held him down. The old southerner’s tired, hollow eyes bore into his own with an overwhelming sadness.

“S’ok, sorry I startled ya.” He crawled, his gaze trailing towards the floor.

Kit swallowed hard, his blood rushing in his ears. He could feel a cold sweat soaking his clothes, his skin clammy. His hands shook as he pushed himself up off the floor. It took him a long moment to register the Frankenstein that Beau was. His face was hollow, dark circles carving out the shape of his skull behind his pale skin. Bloodshot eyes stared back into his as Kit looked him over. His dirt stained clothes made it look as he’d crawled from the grave, with specks of purple and green he hadn't bothered to try and clean off.

Kit swallowed hard, the idea that Beau was but rearing its head before he forced the concept away. He’d think of an excuse as to why that was impossible later.

“You're fine man.. you look like shit. What can I do for you?” He offered, once again studying the man’s body for any sign of what ailed him.

“I'm fine.” The man’s voice was like the graveled roads he was born from as he echoed Kit’s sentiment. “They told me you lost yer bike. I’m s’posed to help ya find it.”

Kit brushed his hair from his face as he processed Beau’s words. His bike was back where the crash happened, he’d pulled over to find Wes. Wes… shit. What the fuck was he doing? He should be in the nurse's office with him, helping that doctor. He should, but he wasn't, and he probably wasn't welcome there now. For good reason. How many oaths and codes of conduct did he break? He should be in prison for that. Maybe he would be.

The instinct to run crawled up his chest like a caged animal, digging it's claws into the guilt roosting in his chest. Self preservation one, he could repent for his sins if he was alive, help enough people to even things out.

“I appreciate it Monty.” He forced a smile and pat the larger man on the shoulder. Beau didn't have the energy to return the expression.

“You drive.” Beau placed the keys into his hand, the words more of a plea than an order. Kit wasn't in a place to argue either way.

Beau was quiet the entirety of the ride, staring off into the misty morning sun. Usually he’d start up some old southern wives' tale about his third cousin by now, but Kit couldn't blame him. The horde was hard on all of them, Beau especially. Kit had stood beside Fish at the funeral, watching Beau shake as he put every fiber of his being into holding back tears. Of all nights, he couldn't blame Beau for not sleeping last night. He wouldn't be surprised if he had sat by the grave the entire time, really.

“I'm glad you're still here, I was worried.” He piped up after a minute. Beau didn't respond, so Kit continued.

“She’d want you to be around-”

“Please, just drive.” Beau cut him off. Kit nodded, knowing full well he couldn't say anything to make it better.

Thank God, Kit’s bike was still there, just as he had left it. The dust had settled by now, revealing the carnage the trucks had torn through. Kit swallowed hard at the empty husk he had mistaken for a soldier, laid next to his own offal like a butchered animal. Beau only glanced at it before turning his bike around.

The human mind wasn't designed to see bodies in such states. Kit rolled his bike around as much as he could, nodding to Beau before revving his engine.
“Back to the school to wait for the others?”

“Yeah, I figure.” Beau trailed off, his foggy rises focused on the woods. Kit followed his gaze to a particularly sturdy looking branch.

“You lead, I'll follow.” Kit suggested, snapping Beau out of his trance.

“I’ll catch up, I wanna see if there's anything worth grabbing.” Beau lied about as well as a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. Kit steeled his resolve, silently deciding to put Beau on watch.

“Nothing worth digging through that mess for. C’mon, they're waiting on us.” Kit replied. Beau paused, but revved his engine and drove on ahead. Kit followed close behind, trained on Beau’s every movement.

Thankfully, they returned in one piece. Kit lingered by the older member.

“Why don't you come with me to check on Wes? I.. might've gotten myself into some trouble with the doctor. It could be a fight.” Kit admitted. Beau looked like he wanted to argue, but sighed and nodded.

“I’d rather you kept yer head low, son. Folks ain't always gonna be around to protect you.” Beau drawled, but he followed Kit into the school regardless.







[/B]

[/USER] ​

 

[Bullyboy Squad]

LINCOLN
Few weeks before Northview horde attack
​

Buster couldn't feel the fresh bruises, his worn knuckles still itching for violence. His grass-green eyes wild from the recent fight that kept him at the top of the food chain. Fucking Alpha. One of the best fighters in the pit.

Greg touched his split lip and licked it like a child. He could eat a horse. Or fuck a room full of people. Still way too pumped up to just let his sore body rest in peace. The sound of the lock became part of his natural habitat by now. His mouth gaped with a toothy smile when Nari entered with a large basket in her hands. He stood up. Previously starved body gained some healthy fat but he was still leaner than in his Northview days.

“I saw you.”

Greg’s grip tightened around the struggling body. Every sinew in his frame strained against the resistance as each ripple of muscle in his grasp fought against his hold, failing to break free. He could feel the blond man’s heart pounding fiercely. Veins bulging under pale skin, demanding more oxygen than the throttling arm allowed. The air between them heavy with the tang of sweat and iron-rich blood. Greg was drunk on it. Aroused by the collision of aggression, pain and pleasure fueled by submission of the man in his grasp.

Panting heavily, his breath hot against the blond man’s ear. "Need air?" The lack of it tinted the other’s face crimson, his desperate gasps barely audible. “Gonna be a good bitch if I let you go?” Greg loosened his grip slightly, receiving a nod from the choking man and a pleading gaze filled with moisture.

A bloody-teeth grin spread on his face, loving the sound of the raucous crowd. "Good," he rumbled, his free hand trailing over the trembling flesh like he was petting a good boy. Then he finally released his grip. The desperate swallows of air quivered through the blond man’s chest, his body a heaving weight against Buster. He rolled the guy off of him and sprung up to his feet. Then he smacked the blond’s ass hard with an open palm, happily howling.

"Gonna make that pussy mine!"

The crowd loved it.


Nari blinked as Buster - Greg - addressed her; she smiled and shrugged as she stood by the cell door and waited for the guard to close and lock it behind her. “You asked me to watch.” Truthfully she hated the violence, and in more recent days, found the sound of fists beating faces made her stomach churn, among other things. Per the usual routine, once the door was firmly locked behind her she stepped in and set the basket down at the edge of his cot and flipped open the lid. “I was able to trade for some protein bars, but no luck finding any powdered protein.” She started to unpack the basket: a variety of foods wrapped in foil selected from the cafeteria.


Greg's big smile wasn't coming off. He walked over and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her lithe form to his wide, hot chest. He pressed his cheek to her hair and softly inhaled. Her scent brought to mind the green fields of Northview spanning behind the school's property. One day the two of them would be back there. Home. She would be in Xander's arms and both of them would be in Buster's. He thought about it sometimes. How good he could make them feel.

"You wanna get me fat?" He peeled himself off of her and squatted by the end of the bed, leaning his arms on the edge to prop his chin over them. He watched her put the goods over the blanket one after another. Like a boy peeking under the tree on a Christmas Eve.


Nari frowned at Buster as he posed the question, pausing to consider before asking. “I thought athlete’s needed protein to bulk up?” She had felt out of her depths when trying to source the surprise for her imprisoned friend but now she’d clearly been off base. With their meal unpacked she sat on the edge of the bed, picking up one of the various packages and peeling back the foil, revealing a sandwich of some kind. She lifted the foil wrapped sandwich to her nose and sniffed tentatively, before nearly gagging and setting it aside. “So what do you need? Or what can I get?” She wanted to feel useful, wanted to feel needed and appreciated again. It had been weeks since she’d spoken with the girls or Xander, weeks since she’d been useful to anyone.


He was joking, still missing some of the fat tissue, which emphasized carved muscles. But his face was once again more round with his trademark, boyish charm that contrasted against split, thick-boned knuckles. Greg got up, grinning. "I can be an athlete." He snatched something that looked like it had meat in it and took a hungry bite.

"I want a story." He plopped his ass in front of her. Sitting cross-legged on the ground. Even though there was only a loincloth separating him from concrete, he didn't seem cold. "About the bossman and his princess."

Buster held her gaze, listening to her talk about how she and Xander met. Her voice, a certain kind of magic to him. Calming down the violent heart even right after a bloody fight. Relaxed, he munched on another sandwich. Noticing her barely eating, he asked between bites.

“Gonna throw up? Bet the kid gonna be hungry if you keep doing that."

MokaChan Togy Safton BeyondDandy NanLia Miaow SlaughterMelon Crono Aegis Namazu Good_Morels Fluffy-Kat Tool ​

 

[NanLia]

NORTHVIEW FLASHBACK
The morning of the horde attack - Part II
collab with BeyondDandy and NanLia ​

He woke.

His vision blurred and distorted, seeking focus like a struggling camera lens. There was a wall in front of him. Mud and straw and goat shit with no windows.

Fuck, his head throbbed like a sledgehammer. He had to be concussed.

Ignacio closed his eyes but he couldn't think in the overcompasing blackness. His long lashes fluttered open again. Involuntary panic began to set in when he felt the course ropes digging into his dry blood-caked wrists, tied behind his back. He tried to move but he was bound, ankles too. His body shook with a violent tremor as he writhed against cold ground in a weak attempt to get free. The rough texture of the soil scratched him, marking his bare skin.

Ignacio steeled himself when he heard something. His heart wobbled against his ribcage.

The sounds. The steps. The-

Ignacio lay still on the bed beside his sister and brother in law. Even when his mind fought against the assailants. But his breaths gradually sped up. His chest began to drop and rise with uneven tempo. He let out a strangled whimper. "I don…." His lips kept moving but there was no more sound. Just the tension-gripped body. Naked muscles tightening as if the man was trying to break free off invisible shackles.

With a sharp inhale, he woke up. For real this time. Dread-filled gaze trailed the shapes of a room he forgot. For a moment, everything was a foreign blur and he could still taste sand on his tongue.

Until he stopped on the two figures standing nearby. His heart jump-started and his eyes went wide, one black-red from the explosion. His parched lips moved, framing a hoarse whisper.

"Are you real…?"


Alejandra paused her pacing at the first vocalization she’d heard from the bed since Ignacio had been brought into this room. She watched the still form on the bed, thinking momentarily it had been a trick of her mind. How long had they been waiting here? Minutes? Hours?

Suddenly his eyes opened and he spoke and Ally nearly tripped over herself to get to the bedside. “Sí, oh sí. Chico, estoy aquí.” She reached for his hand, cautiously taking it and gently squeezing it. “We’re real.”


The hours of silence put Casey to sleep. With arms crossed and chin tucked to his chest, the biker had sat in dreamworld for quite some time. It was the best sleep he had gotten in a few days - absent commotion. That was until Ally’s sudden movements woke him.

Her boots struck the floor rapidly. Casey’s eyes shot open immediately as he uncrossed his arms in terror and reached for his firearm. He forced himself to stop when he realized where he was. He slid his palm down his face and gathered himself as he stood from his seat.

His ass had gone numb, but he limped to Ally’s side as she spoke to her recently awoken brother. “Very real,” he added, placing his hand gently on Ignacio’s shoulder.


Her gentle touch and voice soothing to the startled heart. Ignacio swallowed hard, squeezing her palm in stiff fingers. His gaze traced her face, then drifted to Casey’s. Reading nothing but care in their eyes. It's been so long. So goddamn long since he… since someone… He felt his eyes water but the other man’s hand on Ignacio’s shoulder was grounding.

"I'm sorry…" He mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his jaw until his head hurt. His chest felt tight. He didn't want them to see him like this. To think he became a…


Alejandra frowned at her brother's sad apology. “Silencioso Chico,” She whispered, squeezing his hand but wanting nothing more than to hug him close and steal him away from here. “What happened Nacho? How did you get here?”


Everything was a haze but the question stung with unwanted clarity. His jaw set and his fingers curled harder against her hold. "I..." He fought to keep the threads in his skull connected. To choose his words. He was too fuzzy to know what he should or shouldn't say. Like it was etched into his goddamn brain. Caution. But...this was Paca... The two of them... His family.

"I brought them here to make a...a better home for the kids." His gaze shifted to lock on Casey's eyes. Ignacio gritted his teeth. "This is not what you think." He knew how he sounded. Like a guilty man pleading his case.


Alejandra felt her chest squeeze as her brother expressed remorse. To what? She hadn’t a clue but it had something to do with the school and the kids. “Hey, hey.” She squeezed his hand and leaned forward, gently brushing back the hair from his sweaty brow. “Chico no, we don’t think anything.” She tried to reassure him, uncertain how much he heard and understood her. “We know you. We don’t doubt that.”


Casey could feel the guilt through Ignacio’s gaze as he looked down at him from the side. Though he felt indifferent towards his wife’s brother and his actions, he knew whatever he had gotten himself into would only lead to more chaos and death. Whichever devil Ignacio and his group were answering to was much bigger than the high school and that made Casey uneasy.

Despite being bound by blood, this was outside of the Angels’ concern and Casey would not allow his group to get anymore involved than they already were. The events that unfolded were not meant to go in the direction that they did, but now that the storm had cleared it was the perfect time to step away and cut their losses.

“It’s alright brother, we understand,” he put simply, bitting his tongue to not alert Aly about his intentions of leaving. Casey pat Ignacio on the shoulder and stepped away towards the front door.

“I’m going to go check on Wess…”


Paca wanted to stay but Ignacio told her to go. He needed rest. He needed to think. He needed to combat the dread of never seeing her again once she went through that door. He had to get a grip. Had to put everything together in his head before he'd say too much or too little. But as the two figures neared the door and his heart pounded from fear of losing them forever, he desperately stumbled over words.

"Wait, I-" His lips parted as they turned to look at him. Swallowing he willed his voice to calm down and stated with conviction. "I need to tell you something."

MokaChan Togy Safton BeyondDandy NanLia Miaow SlaughterMelon Crono Aegis Namazu Good_Morels Fluffy-Kat Tool ​

 

[NanLia]

LINCOLN FLASHBACK
After the horde​

Neveah rolled her eyes as she leaned back on the back legs of her chair. Ever since she’d come back to the prison with Toni she’d been dragged into endless meetings where the officers - or people who fancied themselves important - discussed whatever was happening around the prison with both King’s Left and Right hands out of place. She could give less fucks about it, but with Wesley also at the High School, somehow she pulled rank among the remaining enforcers at the prison.


If she were asked what was last said she’d have no answer, all she could focus on was her growling stomach and her need to take a piss.


” Next, we need to talk about the engineer from the High School, the little Asian woman Cabrera sent back here a few weeks ago… He hasn’t sent any instructions other than to keep her working. Weston wanted her to meet that fucking fighter in his cells. But her guard says she’s pregnant, a few weeks along now…”


Neveah dropped down on her chair, leaning forward to listen.


” She’s no better than any of Temma’s whores.” another called out. ” So we take her to the doc and get it fixed. We're not taking care of her or her litter.”


There seemed to be a general consensus among the many men seated at the table until a third spoke up. ” We’ll reach out to Weston and Cabrera again.” The men settled, nodding.


Fucking Pussy’s

*​

Nari sighed and stretched, standing up from her desk as she finished repairing yet another radio and set it aside, looking for the next thing that needed to be worked on. “Oh look, a radio.” She grumbled, pulling one of the many from a pile and dropping it back on her table. Before she could sit down the door to her ‘office’ swung open and an enforcer stepped through. Not the usual guy (who never spoke to her) but someone new.


“Let’s go, baby mama.” the heavily tattooed woman ordered from the doorway. She reminded Nari of Dutchess, in a way, but the tattoos on this woman seemed similar to several of the other enforcers she'd seen around.


Nari felt bile rise in her throat, her heart immediately started to pound. “Go where?” She asked and hated that her voice wavered.


“Not for you to worry about.” The woman nodded towards the doorway. “Out.”


Shaking, Nari slipped off her stool and headed for the doorway, in the hall she spotted her usual enforcer but the moment they made eye contact he turned away. She felt cold, suddenly, wrapping her arms around her. On a whim, she turned toward the mess hall but heard the woman whistle behind her.


“Nu-uh, this way.” The woman tugged at her elbow turning her around to lead her further into the prison.

*​

Neveah pushed the clinic's doors open and whistled. “Anyone home?” She nudged Nari through the doors, the closer they got to the clinic the slower she had moved. A mousy woman in scrubs wheeled out from behind a screen to peer at them both from behind thick glasses. “Hey doc, we’re here for the Hooker Special.”


The nurse frowned, first at her then at Nari before nodding towards a gurney covered in less-than-pristine sheets. “She doesn’t look like one of Temma’s…”


Nevaeh shrugged, pushing Nari towards the gurney. “Some fuckers like weird shit. Whaddya gonna do?”


Nari hesitated as she stood next to the bed, looking over the nurse before speaking softly. “I’m not a hooker.”


The nurse, for her part, shrugged and patted the bed. “You don’t need to be, strict rule here: no babies.” She rolled away as she continued. “Everything off, on the edge, feet up. You’re going to have a rough few days but it’ll be better this way.” She collected sterile-ish instruments from a drawer.


Nari’s heart pounded in her ears, her throat felt like it was squeezing shut. She looked back to the clinic doors but the enforcer woman stood between her and them. And where would she go? There wasn’t anywhere she could run, in the weeks she’d been here she’d explored everywhere she could gain access to, and, well, the prison was a prison for a reason. “It’s Cabrera’s….”

*​

Nari was marched out of the clinic without a word. After she’d said what she’d said the nurse and the enforcer started at one another and then the tattooed woman grabbed her by the upper arm and turned her out of the clinic.


Now she was in a part of the prison she hadn’t seen before, people stared at her as they passed until they came to a stop in front of a door, then shoved inside. The room was clean, almost sterile looking. Nothing on the walls, a single bed with perfectly tucked corners, and a dresser. “Welcome home, Miss Cabrera.” The enforcer whispered in her ear before stepping out and closing the door behind her.

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[Bullyboy Squad]

 

[Bullyboy Squad]

ON THE ROAD

​

Ghostly silence shrouded the winter forest. Ice clung to the sleeping trees like crystal ornaments. Glinting with sunlight that sneaked in between the capes covering the naked branches. The rays glittered in the wet snow covering the ground. It cracked under their heavy boots. Eighteen pairs. Missing the usual men-power and leaving their vehicles at the edge of the woods, Samaritans didn’t look as deadly as usual. Just a band of ragtag strangers heading for another settlement. Thick layers covered their bodies, concealing small weapons. Others lay exposed against their warm jackets and coats, held by gloved hands.

“Slow down.” Hot breath powdered in front of Ignacio’s ski mask. The leader paused by the clearing beside his pointman and pulled up his rifle, scoping the planes of white wonderland. Without the cover of trees the raiders wanted to make double sure there were no surprises waiting in the fields and hills surrounding them.

The group caught up, spreading around the parameter. Sounds of their steps and breaths unmistakable in the eerie hush.

“Sir?” The one who stopped beside Ignacio scanned the area through powerful binoculars. “Shouldn’t we be there already?”

Ignacio slowly trailed the irregular shapes on the horizon through his optic, quiet.

“Sir?” The man repeated, glancing over.

“The only thing you should, right now, is do your job, Parker.” Ignacio’s tone was missing the usual, friendly ring to it. Everybody noticed the man stopped fraternizing as much as he used to. Rumor had it that King was very displeased with his performance in Northview, judging the place collapsed. Someone saw Cabrera leaving King’s office the day of the arrival, all red-faced and scowling like a muzzled dog. Others speculated it was the fact that his new-found sister left him for her biker family instead of coming to Lincoln with him. That it was the real reason behind the man’s shifting attitude. Whatever it was, the raiders knew better than to test the leader’s fragile patience.

“Boss!” One of the men on the flank pointed at a dark pillar of smoke on the far right behind one of the tall mounds.

“Move.” Cabrera ordered and like a pack of wild dogs, they scaled through the fresh fluff that reached up to calves. Rifles shouldered, they reached the apex and looked down at the makeshift village in the valley. Aflame. Fire licked the frigid air, spurting acrid fumes. There was barely any movement in the camp, all of the trailers and barracks devoured by orange heat.

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[Safton]

​

Lincoln State Correctional Center
The Fight Pit

Collab Post w/ NanLia
​

Wesley lowered himself heavily onto the cot, the old worn-out springs groaning in protest. He could already hear the numerous voices echoing down the corridor, the sound of dozens of feet milling toward the fighting pit. His presence would be expected there too, soon enough. He wouldn't miss it – even if he had a choice in the matter. One way or another, Wes was going to see things through and be there to make sure what he had started in front of that school – pounding that fucker's skull through the asphalt – got settled tonight.

But first… he had business to attend to.

Wes reached down between his shins to grasp the weathered pack that rested on the cell's concrete floor at his feet. He took a deep breath before unzipping the main compartment, sifting through the contents. Nothing in there jumped out at him considering she had just come back from a scavenging run prior to the distress call at the high school. A change of clothes. A small sample-size bottle of bourbon. Wesley paused seeing something at the bottom of the pack, his eyebrows furrowing as he cocked his head. He pulled the item and dragged it from the pack before muttering a curse under his breath.

It was a small carton of cigarettes. Valuable, yes… and his brand. It's possible they were nothing more than fodder for bartering, of course. But something told him that this carton was meant for him and him alone. Dutchess wasn't known for charity or gifts; they simply weren't in her wheelhouse except when it came to him. Neither of them had wanted to admit to themselves what that might mean. Wesley was about to set the pack aside when he spotted a smaller zipper compartment on the side. He pursed his lips, unzipping the pocket and reaching inside to remove an envelope. He held the paper between his fingers, examining it quizzically. His name was scrawled on the outside. It was so surreal to be staring at something as quaint as a letter addressed to him in this world.

He took a deep breath, carefully tearing the envelope open – hating the idea of damaging any of Dutchess's items that she left behind, no matter how trivial – before removing the handwritten note inside. He steeled himself before unfolding it to read.

---

Officer.

I don’t know many words but I’ll use the ones I do know the best I can.

I’ve been alone for a long time and I don’t let anyone in, not even you. You come close though, closer than anyone has since my husband. While you and I don’t always see the same way, you always understand me, even if you made me mad about it.

I’ve never known any kind men. My husband was the kindest I knew until he wasn't. You are a good man, Wesley. You never raised a hand to me unless I asked, you always try to make me smile, even when I don't want to.

There is lots I should have said to your face but I am a coward in all ways. I fight to survive and that means not telling anyone how important they are to me. If I do and they leave me then I won’t make it. I kept this from you, though, I think you kept it from me too.

I’m leaving, Wes. After the Ranch and seeing others surviving out there and being happy made me want to go. I was ready to go when you first come to me and asked to fuck. If you hadn’t, the next time they opened those gates I wasn't coming back.

Find a way out, Wes. Come and meet me, we’ll go on our own, somewhere we don’t have to be us.

Duke's Storage and Laundry
Locker #42
7, 36, 48

Don’t mind the dead, that’s just my husband.​

Not your Baby

---

Wesley's throat tightened, his fingers gripping the edge of the note like a vice. He carefully folded it back up before sliding it back into its envelope with a sigh. For all her posturing and her deflection, she wanted something more for her future… and he could have been a part of that future. But that piece of shit at the High School had taken that from them both. Wes would go to the storage locker. He wasn't sure what he expected to find there, or even if he would return to the Prison afterward. But abandoning it and forgetting about the whole thing after Dutchess went through the trouble of leaving him... something, anything -- it didn't sit well with Wes.

He heard another swell of voices down the corridor along with steps approaching his room. The storage locker could wait… until then, blood was about to be shed and LT was about to get something few people earned in this world: satisfaction.

***​

Minutes later, Wesley marched down the tunnel, his boots pounding against the cement floors. He ignored the wet chill that soaked his bones, glancing out of the mouth of the tunnel to scan the makeshift bleachers. His eyes fell on the platform where Weston traditionally watched the proceedings from. Emmett's lip curled. Weston and Cabrera had barred him from finishing the job at the School. He had been so close to strolling into the infirmary and putting a bullet in the man's head… but this alternative was something he could live with.

Wesley scanned the faces in the crowd. They were illuminated in an eerie orange glow from the burn barrels arranged throughout the stands. Even so, the dim light was sufficient for Emmett to discern the presence of more than a few individuals that weren't so familiar… they were from the School. And they would be forced to watch what was about to happen in the Pit to their friend, their leader, their husband, their father. Whoever this prick was to them.

Good.

Standing there at the tunnel exit, Wesley cracked his knuckles and let the slightest hint of a self-indulgent smile take root.

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​

 

[Aegis]

&


ON THE ROAD
​

Connor listened to the drum-beat set of stomps crunching through the snow with a scowl obscured by a shemagh tucked into his collar and stretched up to his cheekbones. Whoever they were going to see, it would be a small miracle if they didn't hear them coming; they had been walking for hours through the cold and an anxiety built in the guts of every man with each passing moment where they saw nothing but the occasional roving dead. Most of the men were tired-- lugging heavy gear and weapons through the snow having covered up with far too many layers, as they weren't as familiar with movements like this. From what little Connor knew, most of the Enforcers were simply thugs who used to be your local con-artist or street junkie or mailman that was forced out here by circumstance, and most of these guys probably never walked more than mile every once in a while; this wasn't the type of thing where they rode up on a dozen armored trucks and overtook people by force. This was a dismounted movement to contact and few people here save Connor, Tanner, and Cabrera were ready for it.

Several of the guys had already needed to stop to take off layers-- the sweat accumulating through the journey leaving them shivering hours away from any fire or place to warm themselves. Connor had kept his layers light with only a couple t-shirts and a few pairs of socks plus a windbreaker because that was the real killer out here. However, Cabrera had forced them all onward; long gone were the days of nurture and support that many of the Enforcers had informed him of lately. These were the days of a many consumed by the need to prove himself once more, and the only thing more scary to the tired Enforcers than their tired, aching bodies was the fierce intolerance in their leader's eyes. So, they marched.

Connor kept his compass out ahead of him-- the retaining string fastened around his neck, as he trudged through the snow-swept landscape. Pines jutted from the snow-deep hills like spikes, and each gust of wind swept free a branch causing a snap of heads when the pile of snow impacted the ground. Yet, there was rarely anything actually there except the heightened nerves of the men. The Penitent Man counted another hundred meters of pace before looking back to Cabrera from ahead of the pack and nodding; they were here. At least, as close as Connor could navigate them using a compass and a route map with no topographical bearings. His eyes swept their surroundings as his warm breath beat steadily against the fabric across his face, but there was little to see.

Connor looked back to Cabrera to study his reaction; lately, the man had beaten people for less than a failure to navigate to contact. However, in that moment, his eyes drifted over to Tanner who stood just off from Cabrera by about several feet. The kid was practically attached to the dude's hip these days, and it tore his heart up.

Their eyes met-- brief, with tension enough to raise the man's heartbeat by several paces, but The Boy quickly broke the contact.

It was evident to Connor that something was deeply incorrect about his psyche. He had tried to talk to him after he woke up a few weeks ago, but there was nothing he could say that didn't seem to hit a brick wall or agitate Tanner. Meanwhile, Cabrera couldn't stop praising him for his performance in the attack for the couple weeks he was still happy, and afterward probably offered to take him on as a mentor with some cheap line like, 'We need every able body.'

Of course, Connor couldn't just let the kid come out here on his own with a band of thugs, so here he was playing accomplice to the pillaging. It really tore him up to do so after that talk with Madison; he couldn't even count how many times he thought it would be so easy to level his rifle at the guy and blow him away, yet he didn't. Speaking of which, nobody had seen her recently. He really wanted to share a beer, but then again maybe she had taken him up on the advice and gotten out while the going was good. The Angels were a distant memory for him at this point aside from that.

Then, one of the men called out art a pillar of smoke. It had been obvious, but he had been lost in thought. Connor watched Tanner's face twist into a grin as the thrill of the fight ate its way through his veins, and The Boy took off a little faster than most. Connor shuffled faster to catch up only to be greeted by a sight that melted his boots in place, fire. There was fire everywhere. The Penitent man watched as snow tumbled over the edge of the small cliff and melted from the sheer heat in the air arriving at the enflamed buildings as a fading mist. God, what the fuck happened here?

Connor's eyes shot over to Cabrera-- he didn't know if this was the plan, but if it wasn't then this was about the worst possible outcome. All the supplies. Most of the people. Burned. Charred. Finished.

The Penitent Man let the compass dropped and snatched a pair of binoculars from his cargo pocket as he surveyed the perimeter for any sign of life, "Cabrera, orders?"

It stung to ask.

-------------------

Tanner kept his eyes firmly locked to Cabrera as the man plowed through snow like a truck on a mission. The cold bite of the rifle in his grasp was enough to make him swell with purpose, and all he needed now was something to use it on to achieve that purpose. Earn praise. See a crack in the cold exterior that Cabrera had been exuding ever since they got back to the prison. The Sycophant wanted nothing more than those sweet words of gratitude and accomplishment from him again, and he was willing to do A LOT to get them. After all, all Connor did these days was get upset at him for a 'lack of empathy' or 'not putting himself in other's shoes', but he wasn't interested in any of that if the shoes he tried on walked him into a shallow grave. No, he was just surviving-- being strong, just like he had always taught him; It was very confusing that he would be so upset at his own advice. Some distance would hopefully set his head right, or if not...

Tanner looked to Cabrera and smiled warmly, widely-- as if that would steal some kind of soft response from the bitter man. No such luck.

A gust of wind kicked up snow and Tanner rose his arm to shelter his face as the fur at the rim of his hood snagged the stray flakes, yet as he lowered his arm he found himself looking to Connor who had done the same. There was love in The Man's eyes. Annoying. How could he love him but not understand what it took to survive? He didn't want him to die. Fortunately, it seemed he was good enough to make it even if this 'empathy' he spoke of was slowing him down. In truth, the reason he had taken such a shine to Cabrera was because he reminded him more of how Connor was out on the road these days-- the real Connor having changed. The Sycophant scoffed and averted his eyes off into the gleaming white to see a pillar of smoke. However, another guy had called it out before him. Damn.

Yet, he could feel adrenaline pump his heart into overdrive. This was it! Time for a fight--

He could barely contain himself. Tanner was alive. Here. In this moment! ALIVE! How many people would have to kill to make Connor understand? How many would he have to capture to make Cabrera praise him?

It was like a game, and his finger fell down the side of his AK and clicked the safety off.

The Boy took off with his rifle in the low-ready until he found himself against the edge of a cliff-- their target already ablaze, "Darn, looks like the fun already started without us."

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[Tool]

TOWN AROUND NORTHVIEW
- The Big Empty - The Day After Evac - Flashback (1 month) -

Spoiler: A Voice In The Wilderness

"Are you going to wake up?"

The voice was rough and quiet with age, the voice of dust and the road. A voice that exuded wrinkles. It was a comforting voice...... followed almost immediately by fire against her cheek that was worse than snorting cayenne pepper (yes, once, on a dare, when she'd been young and drunk and stupid), worse than a dozen broken bones, worse than anything she could have imagined. She had an extra hole to breathe through, and it was on fire.

If she could have shrieked, Madison would have. As it was, she managed a "Uk-kgh....." in a damp gurgle, her fingers twitching but not really strong enough to do anything but spasm. The dark along one side of her face hadn't lightened, but...... there were cabinets at her back.

Kitchen cabinets?

"There you go. Good job." A face loomed with the voice, holding a piece of gauze damp with..... a golden-brownish liquid with a widening crimson blot in the middle. Things hurt badly enough that unconsciousness felt floaty and soft around the edges, a pain outside pain, an organism with its own volition and its own cruelties. A trickle of something down the back of her throat was sweetish fire.

There had been a crash.

Her helmet had gone..... somewhere? There was supposed to be help coming....... wasn't there? She needed one of those stiff things around her neck, she needed to call...... call....... Madison felt her mind grow diffuse, felt it expand and fritter away along its edges. Words eluded her. Time didn't really..... didn't really.......

"Don't do that. I nearly took you for dead, once. I almost put you down until I saw you breathing. Whoever got you, really got you. Try to stay with me, alright?"

Her one functional eye tried to focus and failed. Gods but she was tired. Breathing was hard. Sitting was hard. Holding her eye open was very hard.

"Put..... m-m-me......"

"Down?" Asked the old man. "I will, if you die on me.... but murder out of mercy is still a kind of murder, and life is never something to waste."

Madison didn't know what to say to that. She was frankly having trouble saying anything. It came as something of a surprise when the old man's calloused hands lifted her wrist, dropped the gauze onto her palm, and pressed it and her hand to the back of her neck, just behind her earlobe. An odd dimple against her fingers as broken bone slid nauseatingly loose under the skin made a thought crystalize into something hard, the first solid thought she'd gotten since waking.

She'd been shot.

To her surprise, Madison managed a whimper.

"Press as hard as you can and hold it. Do you have a place, somewhere safe? Do you have people?"

Through the fog of agony that was a mantle around her shoulders, the woman did her best to remember. There...... there had been a cluster of buildings. There had been...... there had been hostiles there..... but friendlies, too. They'd...... they'd had a..... a place with people. People with.....

"M...... med....." Like gathering noodles with the back of a spoon, Madison paused a moment and did her best to gather the spaghetti of her mind and put it in some sort of order. "S-schgh.....School. High..... sgool."

The old man nodded. "A school, eh? Hrmph. Well, let's hope they've got a good nurse. If I get you up on your feet, are you going to be able to point the way?"

Madison couldn't remember how to nod, but she hoped that a long blink would help explain things. One eye..... did this count as winking?

He nodded again, to himself. "Alright. Let me get my walking stick. Try not to doze off on me."

An honest-to-christ staff, like this guy was some sort of wandering oracle, a Wizard of Oz, a Gandalf of the Wastes, was brought into her vision in short order. It was a pale wood and sturdy, and to Madison's mind, the platonic ideal of a staff, mostly because it looked like it could hold some weight. Namely, hers.

"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to hold on to this here and put other hand up on this counter. I'm going to put my arms under you and we're both going to lift, alright? It's going to hurt..... somebody shot you up like they meant it ...... but I need you to get on your feet and stay there, you understand? I'm too old to be carrying you around, so don't fall over."

True to his word, the man hoisted upwards and Madison's arm pulled up (thanks to that staff), and things went black-sparks for a moment, the hand on the kitchen counter nearly slipping off........ but a wizened face by her good ear said in a voice straining to hold on to a woman that could really have worn less or lost a few pounds; "No, no..... I said I need you to stay on your feet."

"It......Hurt.....ts." Madison said in a small, thin voice, as though giving the feeling a name would make any difference whatsoever.

"I know." Came the wispy reply, not wholly without sympathy. "But we're wasting good sunlight and you need better than these old hands can do."

With all the grace of two, waltzing, half-rotted zombies, the pair made their way to the door. The sky was the color of diet lemonade, the last of the night melting into the horizon..... but there...... were stairs. Three of them. Down to the street. Very little had prepared Madison for the shame of leaning on a man so old he probably should have had a walker in order to make it forwards, but crippling pain made it not only tolerable but required. There was a trick: do it, or die.

She did it.

"My name's Abraham. Not that you're in much shape to do introductions." The old man said, once they'd actually made it down to asphalt.

"S-S......" Madison tried.

"It's alright. Okay...... which way?" A smile made the expression on Abraham's face one of bitter-sweetness. This was someone accustomed to loss, and had come to view it as a sort of friend. "Last time I was at a high school, it was for my grand-daughter's graduation."

Though Madison wanted to express sympathy, ask who his grand-daughter had been, really anything that would have meant she could string a thought and some words together, but the best she could do was realize there...... there was something wrong with..... with things.

And not just because she'd been shot.

Where...... where were all the people?

Just past dawn, there should..... there should have been people.

Shouldn't there?

​

 

[NanLia]

FLASHBACK
w/ Bullyboy Squad ​

The convoy emerged from the bleak landscape, approaching the dark silhouettes of the prison complex framed by tall walls and heavy clouds. Cabrera watched the familiar gates part before them. His expression painted in a mix of seriousness and tension. He wasn’t looking forward to the talk with the King.


The vehicles circled and began parking in the courtyard. He let out a heavy sigh seeing a few guards approaching them.


“All good, boss?” The driver asked with a frown.


Cabrera didn’t respond. He gave himself a few more moments then he swung the door open and his boots hit the hard ground. Cool wind tugged on his hair, making him narrow his eyes at the oncoming men.


“Good to see you back, sir.” The one replacing Chief of security welcomed him with a quick headbow and an outstretched hand. Cabrera shook it briefly as a formality, he didn’t remember the guy’s name. But he could see something akin to pity in his eyes as the guy scanned the fresh scar on the side of Ignacio’s face. Everybody heard what the raiders went through out there.


The Northview community fell under his protection and Cabrera fucked up. He could see the weight of despair and disdain in their eyes whenever they met his since he announced they’re all leaving for Lincoln. He took over their home and then let it shatter before ripping them away from everything they knew. Now their expressions were tinged with a glimmer of hope at the prospect of safety within the fortified walls. Some glanced around with a mix of apprehension and curiosity, taking in the foreign surroundings that would serve as their new sanctuary.


Or hell.


“Your woman is on the way here, sir.”


Cabrera tore his gaze away from the High School survivors and his brows knitted. “What?” His gaze slowly drifted to the side where a female MS13 soldier walked with-


“Your girlfriend, sir. Oh, and I believe congratulations are in order.”


“Congratulations?” Ignacio’s alarmed gaze locked with Nari’s.


“Oh, shit. You didn’t know.”


In the few days Nari had spent in her new domain her life had flipped on its head … again. Her clothes, the orange DOJ jumpsuit, had been taken from her and several pairs of clean clothes had been brought to the room she now occupied. These street clothes did nothing to help her hide her figure, though there was little she could do at this point in her pregnancy, the ill fitting jumpsuit had been a comfort.


She'd inspect every inch of her new habitat finding nothing but mens clothing, no other personal items. She could only assume the room belonged to Cabrera.


Her job had continued as it had been before, she'd had lunch with Buster as she always did, the only change beyond the new quarters was better food and now a plastic cup of pills provided to her every morning. Vitamins, she'd been informed. Evidently some babies were permitted. She'd guessed correctly.


This morning she rose, dressed in a pair of ill fitting jeans and a t-shirt she was convinced was a tween size, and took her pills. As she followed her usual enforcer through the corridors she was surprised to find him turn away from where she worked daily towards what she knew to be the intake area.


Maybe today was the day she could finally go home! Her pace only quickened as they entered the intake area and found the main doors open to the growing light outside. She practically giggled as they exited the front doors to find a convoy arriving and Cabrera stepping out of the vehicle.


He made eye contact with her, his gaze traveling to the swell of her belly then back to her eyes.


“No…” she whispered, but shut herself up as the enforcer turned to give her a look.


The charade was over, her bluff called. He was here now and he was going to kill her. Inhaling deeply she took a tentative step forward, and then another, until she was standing in front of him. “H-hi. I missed you … love.”


Cabrera’s heart beat faster when he put two to two. What was this? Some kind of joke? He dropped his gaze to her bump again as Nari shuffled closer.


Love


Ignacio huffed, his mind racing. Seconds trickled with the people watching them expectantly. He reached forth towards Xander’s wife, showing his open palm to her. Once her small hand slipped into his fingers he closed them and pulled, making her stumble onto his chest. His other arm was there to catch her while his palm guided her hand to the back of his neck. Their bodies almost intimately flush with her protruding belly brushing his abdomen.


“Show me.” He spoke loud enough for those surrounding them to hear it. His dark eyes fixed on her. How far was she willing to take it…?


Nari inhaled sharply as she stumbled into Cabreras chest, a deep flush heating her cheeks as her hand came to rest on the back of his neck and his voice rumbled low in his chest. She shook, as much as she wanted to be brave, to face her consequences head on, anxiety made her hands tremble.


There was only one way she knew she could preserve her safety and the safety of her baby. She lifted herself onto her toes, using the hand behind his neck to pull herself up to bring her lips to his.


His gaze dropped to her lips and he licked his own. His exhale soft and shaken as she closed the space between them. His arm came around her waist and he leaned in to meet her. Eyes sliding shut on pure instinct, head tilted a fraction.


When they touched it was surprisingly tender, no matter how fake. She wanted games, she had to learn fast how to play them right. He locked her in his personal space and deepened the kiss, tasting her. Minty scent on his tongue. In her mouth. Hot breath through his nose on her skin. He softly growled, kissing her like he meant it.


She whimpered involuntarily, anyone nearby might mistake it for a moan. Nari didn't fight him, at first, letting the show go on until she couldn't stand it any longer. Her free hand raised up to grip his bicep and squeeze, pushing herself away, enough to free her lips from his.


She panted softly as she stared up into the reflection of his shades, a minty sting on her lips and tongue. Bile rose up the back of her throat but she forced herself to swallow and smile. “Glad to see you missed me too.” She murmured between clenched teeth.


His tongue flickered against his bottom lip and his mouth tugged up in the corner into a crooked smirk.


“Let me show you how much, baby.” He shifted his hold, slipping arm down to her ass to lift her off her feet. He got a good grip, bridal style, and carried her towards the entrance to the main building without looking back.


“Sir, are you goi-” He didn't let the man finish.


“Later.”


Ignacio eased her down once they were indoors and out of view for the convoy, but he didn't let go. With his hand securely clasped over her forearm, he dragged her along towards his quarters. Once they entered he halted, forgetting what he wanted to say once taken off guard by the sight. The additional dresser, some books he didn't own, and…what the hell was that?


He let go of her and gave her a quick, assessing look before turning towards the door. The sound of the lock clicking into place broke the silence.


Nari grimaced, reminding herself to smile, forcing herself to giggle or something resembling laughter of someone excited to be with the person they love. This had not been the reunion she'd hoped for! She had thought she was going home, going to see Xander and her girls again!


The second she was released from Cabrera's arms she scrambled away from him, putting the bed between them. Her heart raced as her mind whirled, once again trapped in a room with the dangerous man who had sent her away.


Cabrera stared at her with a stern face as silence swelled between them in the static room. It took too long for comfort before he moved with a confident stride, walking straight at her. Once they were just a breath apart he slowed down, imposing on her personal space until she’d bump back against the wall. His eyes on her, reading her face like an open book, looking *through* her.


“What’s wrong? Didn’t you say you missed me?”


Nari backed up until she hit the wall, knocking her heels and the back of her head. She stared up at him, her heart pounding in her chest but along with it a burning rage. “Don't stare at me like I had any other choice,” she hissed, pausing as she realized her voice was rising.


“You sent me here, you separated me from my family. They were going to term-” her voice wavered. “They were going to kill my baby. I did what I needed to to keep it safe, so suck it up. This is your *fuck up*, not mine.”


She wasn't sure where she'd found the courage, or rage, but it felt good.


Ignacio’s jaw locked as he listened to her. He was getting fed up with that tone in people lately, filled with accusations. As the woman uttered the last couple of words, the raider slammed his palm into the wall next to her head.


“You're *lucky*.” He snarled and recoiled, too angry to be so close to her at that moment.


“You're lucky it's me and not one of them here.” He paced, pointing his arm at her. “Or you’d be on your way to get rid of it.” He shook his head, looking away. He couldn't fucking believe it.


“Suck it up.” He growled. “*You* suck it up.” He marched back to her, getting her back against the wall. “You want to play games but you shake like a damn Chihuahua.” He scanned her expression once they were too close for comfort again.


“What’s my name?”


Nari flinched hearing the loud slap of his palm against the concrete well beside her, she fought the urge to close her eyes and willed herself to keep eye contact with him, even as he paced away from her, listening to his rant. She wanted to argue with him, it wasn’t luck - it was a calculation. If Cabrera had wanted to do her harm he would have done it at the school. He wouldn’t have dragged her to his room to speak - scold - her privately.


She stared back up into his eyes as he returned and posed his question. “Ignacio.” She answered simply, “Or do you prefer *love*?”


He didn't know where she heard it and it didn't matter. “Good.” He held her gaze without a waver. “Cause that's the name you called when your baby was made.” He leaned in to speak against her ear. “Don’t forget that.”

Safton Miaow Bullyboy Squad BeyondDandy Crono Namazu MokaChan Togy Good_Morels Fluffy-Kat Aegis Tool
​

 

[Miaow]

LINCOLN PRISON
The Courtyard

A flashback​

Haewon watched silently from the window of the truck as they pulled into the courtyard, the weight of Minnie's head against her arm. She'd been asleep for most of the journey there... after Haewon had told her off for confronting Cabrera on her own. She was becoming a little too much like her big sister. As the truck ground to a hault, Haewon gently nudged her.
"We're here," She murmured, picking up Momo's basket as she got to her feet.

The two disembarked, Minnie holding her elbow to her chest as she squinted into the sun. Yep, it was an actual prison, and she definitely didn't want to go in. She glanced over at Haewon. She assumed once they were in, they were in. They had all these defenses, there was no way they were just gonna wander out without being notice. It filled her with dread. She took Momo from her sister so she could grab their backpacks, squeezing her hand under the lid to pet Momo. Feeling his back rising and falling with each breath soothed her, even just a little.

As she watched the rest of the Northview citizens depart from their vehicles, she took the opportunity to take count of who was left... Gene was still okay, Pandora, Mac...
Her eyes widened. Was that... Nari? It looked like Nari, but she had a bigger tummy than she remembered. It didn't look like she'd put on weight, perse, her arms and her legs looked the same. She squinted. She was sure that was Nari...
She grabbed Haewon's arm in excitement, practically shaking her.
"It's Nari!!!" She grinned, her whole body full of energy. She hopped into a run, clutching Momo's basket to her chest.

She only made it a few steps, slowing to a walk... She was hugging Cabrera. Why? Why would she want to hug someone like that?! Maybe it wasn't Nari. Maybe she was wrong and Cabrera had a girlfriend she didn't know about. Her stomach flipped as they kissed. She swallowed, her breathing quickening. She flinched as Haewon touched her shoulder. She was speechless, too. First, it was confusion, the same confusion her little sister was experiencing... then anger. She took a breath, her heart sinking at the look of betrayal on her sister's face.
"C'mon," She muttered, ushering her away.

---

A while later​

The two were shown to their new room, or Nari's old room. It was plain with nothing but a bunk bed and a chest of drawers. Haewon paused in the doorway, scanning the room. Normally, she'd want Minnie on the top bunk so she was out of harms way, she'd be on the bottom to make sure nothing happened... but there was no way Minnie was getting up there with her arm in the way it was. She sighed, standing on the tips of her toes and pulling the mattress from the top bunk down. She plopped it onto the floor with a thud. She pushed it up against the bottom bunk, plopping the bedsheets down messily on top. She stood up, taking a breath and looking to her sister. She had bigger things on her mind than why her sister was putting their beds on the floor.

Haewon sighed, dropping onto her bed and sitting with her back against Minnie's bunk. She patted the spot next to her, inviting her to sit. Minnie shut the door behind her before taking a seat, turning Momo's basket on it's side and letting him out. Haewon wrapped an arm around her, unsure what to really say.
"I... I thought they were good people..." Minnie murmured, hugging her knees tight to her chest as she watched Momo cautiously explore his new room.
"I know... I did, too," Haewon responded. Obviously, Nari getting pregnant with another man's baby wasn't nearly comparable to Xander's crimes, but it felt like the cherry on top of the big, shitty cake. She sighed. She wanted to be the unreasonable one, tell her they were both dead to them, that they were better off on their own... but it wasn't what Minnie wanted to hear.
"Sometimes... good people do bad things. Or just plain stupid things," She told her, gently stroking the top of her head, "We've done bad things, too. It doesn't mean we're bad."
Minnie took a shaky breath as she nodded. Maybe Nari just didn't know how bad Cabrera was. She wasn't sure what Xander had told her over the radio. Maybe he just hadn't mentioned it all. Maybe they needed to tell her how bad he was, then she'd leave him and they could go back to normal!
"You're upset, too... right?" She asked, looking up at her. Maybe she was being overly sensitive, maybe this wasn't as bad as she thought it was and she was just dramatic.
"Yeah, of course I am! I'm pissed!" Haewon assured her.
"She didn't even say hi... She-- She went straight to him," Minnie's voice cracked, her chest tight like a snake had coiled its way around her ribs. Was it all fake? How long had she been with him for? Had they just never noticed? She'd been so excited... she was gonna have her mom back, she was gonna introduce her to Momo, and they'd go back to living together! There was still anger left in her, yet she was too tired to express it anymore. She let her body fall against Haewon's, her eyes wet, her cheeks red.

Haewon sat up, shuffling around so the two were facing each other. She leaned forward and cupped her sister's face in her hands.
"Look... we were fine before them and we'll be fine after them," She told her, looking her in the eye, "we got on just fine on our own, right?"
She gently stroked her cheek with her thumb, wiping a stray tear.
"I know you want them... but we don't need them," She leaned forward, holding her head against her chest, "and you'll always have me."

She felt her sister's back move with each labored breath, her arms wrapped around her waist. She waited a moment before pulling away.
"Now quit moping," She teased, messing with her hair. There was no amount of 'cheer up!' that was going to fix everything, but she'd do her best to perk her up.
"You can't be sad forever." She told her as she got to her feet, stretching her back.
"Yes I can..." Minnie murmured, flopping onto her side on Haewon's bed. She was half joking, though part of her wondered if things would ever get better. She wiped her cheeks with the balls of her hands, pulling a blanket over her head.
Haewon laughed as she rummaged through her backpack before sitting cross-legged next to her.
"But I stole so much cool stuff from the school..." She mused, "I guess I'll just have to keep all of it..."
Minnie peered over the top of her blanket, the prospect of cool stuff luring from her blanket cave. Haewon smirked, waving a jigsaw in front of her, the pieces rattling inside the box.
"There's probably some pieces missing, buuut..." She began, setting it down on the floor, "it's one of those ones where the pieces are shaped like stuff. Animals, I think."
Minnie propped herself up on her front, reaching out to look at the box.
"Ah!" Haewon interrupted her, pushing the box out of her reach, "No puzzles from bed."
Minnie reluctantly dragged herself out of bed, wrapping herself in the blanket as she sat up across from her. The moment she was upright and in position, Haewon dramatically removed the lid, revealing the colourful pieces inside.

Bullyboy Squad Safton NanLia
​

 

[Safton]

​

Lincoln State Correctional Center
Cell Block

Collab w/ Bullyboy Squad ​

The guards shoved Xander into the tight room and locked the metal door behind him, dipping the space into darkness. The tiny window, too high to reach, didn't grace him with much moonlight as thick clouds traveled along the midnight skyscape. It was silent. Until the softest whistle came from the side. From the wall. It was a melody. One close to Xander’s heart. A love song from Nari’s favorite movie. Their song.

Xander immediately whirled around to face the wall, narrowing his eyes as he stood there – frozen in the dark. Every muscle in his body was coiled like a spring. Part of him wanted to run to the wall, to speak her name, hoping against hope that it was her on the other side… even after what he had seen outside at the gates. But cold, hard logic won out. Why would they place him next to her… unless it was to taunt him? He wouldn’t put it past them. Then again, it was possible someone else knew about their melody, that they could have gotten that information through coercion… of one kind or another. He shuddered at the idea, swallowing hard as he approached the wall – going step-by-step. Every movement was a journey as he struggled to get his breathing under control.

Finally, he made it, facing the surface with barely an inch between himself and the wall and he felt a small draft. Following it, tracing his hand along the surface, he found a small gap in the otherwise-solid masonry. Xander leaned down, taking a deep breath and whistled back the same melody, his heart tugging just to hear it again.

Buster was laying on his back in the cot, arm folded underneath his head. His face stretched with a big smile as the melody flew back at him. He hauled his frame up and walked over. Bare feet quiet against dusty ground. He couldn't see but he touched the wall and crouched before it where he knew the hole would be.

"Show me yours I'll show you mine." He said with a grin audible in his tone.

Xander felt equal parts relief, disappointment, and surprise at the voice that came through the wall to meet him. It was one he hadn’t heard in many weeks… and judging by the tone, time spent as a prisoner of the Samaritans had done little to dampen his spirit or his unique sense of humor. “Buster?” Xander asked incredulously.

“Wha– are you okay? Have you talked to Nari?”

Buster pushed his finger into the hole, checking if it can reach the other side. "I'm seeing princess all the time. Not like I planned but..." He was supposed to keep eye on her. But he's doing it indirectly. "She bringing me food and hugs." He paused and smirked. "They."

Xander processed Buster’s words, putting his back to their shared wall and letting his body weight slide down against the smooth concrete until he was sitting against it. “‘They’”, he echoed. “I guess it’s true, then,” he said, thinking back to what Toni had said to him at the School. Not that there was any doubting it after having seen Nari’s swollen abdomen when they arrived.

Buster's finger peeked on the other side in the dark. Scooping dust and grazing the jagged edge. Then he mimicked Xander, leaning his back to the wall and pressing his skull against it. "You gonna be a Daddy." He smirked and looked to the side as if he could watch the man next to him.

Xander stiffened at the words that found him in the dark, his breath catching in his throat. They had been deliberate, both in choice and delivery.

He felt his heart rate shoot up, a pounding in his ears. “You… what are you talking about, Buster? Don’t fuck with me. Say what you mean.”

Buster pulled away from the wall and turned to touch it. He didn't like that tone. Nari wouldn't like it. Was Xander not happy with what people used to call happy news? Guess the circumstances were less than ideal. "When a guy meets a girl and they like each other..." He started, expecting another scolding.

There was a time and a place where Buster’s antics had – on occasion – aggravated Xander back at the School. It was always hard to get a straightforward answer or a normal conversation with the man. But here, now? Buster’s teasing hardly registered.

Instead Xander’s throat tightened and he stared off into the space of his cell, his head falling into his hands as he tried to reconcile this information. Nari’s little display outside… that had been an act. Deep down he had believed that – wanted to trust in that fact from the beginning even as the intimacy between her and Ignacio unfolded in front of him and sent just a few more spiderwebs cracking along his already fractured soul… but faith was something that he was in desperately short supply of these days. But more than that, she was pregnant just as Toni had said… but the child belonged to him. Not Cabrera. Not some random thug. Xander was going to be a father.

He took several moments, clenching and unclenching his fist and steadying his breath before he spoke again to his companion-of-the-moment. “They… said it was Cabrera’s,” Xander murmured. “I didn’t even think…” his voice trailed off.

Buster watched the weak shine casting a tall, rectangular shape against the concrete floor, cut by black shadows of bars. He did a quick math.

"Nope." He shook head to himself. "Can't be Cabrera."

Greg rose his gaze to the narrow window, his irises turning pallid gray. "He ain't got it in him. Big words. Bares teeth like a wolf." His tongue swiped across his canine. "But he's just a half-breed.”

Xander pursed his lips at Buster's matter-of-fact remark, as if he was stating the time of day or the color of the sky. He wasn't sure he shared Buster's apparent assessment of Ignacio. There had been times back at the School when Xander thought the Samaritan was perhaps less brutal and more “amenable” than some of his compatriots. But now, after everything that had happened… he found it difficult to give him or indeed any of them any sort of credit.

Big talk for a murderer who put his family in danger, a taunting voice echoed inside his head until he pushed the intrusive thought away.

“Maybe,” Xander finally said noncommittally. He wasn't ready to hand out passes, but none of that mattered so long as the baby was his. He sighed deeply before speaking.

“Listen… I know you put yourself out on the line by doing this for me. For us. Nothing I could ever say would tell you how much I appreciate that,” Xander remarked, his nails scrabbling idly against the concrete floor.

Buster faced the wall and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the cool surface. “Who said I’m doing this for you, bossman.” His lips stretched into a smile. “Maybe I just got bored with the little haven you made there for us.”

“I've been thinking. How about we chuck a trip to the East coast, down South?” He pressed his broad palm to uneven grit and traced it with his fingertips, seeking a human shape mapped out in his mind. “We could swing by Boca Raton and visit my wife.”

Xander chuckled. "You got yourself a deal," he said. "I hear it's better this time of year. No crowds. Cheaper. The girls will love it." His tone was wistful as he stared off into the darkness at the other end of the cell. He paused, cocking his head. "Didn't know you were married," he added suddenly.

Buster let out a low, belly laugh at that. His eyes still closed and mouth turned upwards by the corners. "Yeah, y'know how they're saying if you love ‘em let ‘em go?" He hummed as he kept on groping the wall, reminiscing. "She did."

Xander nodded to himself, unsure of how to respond to Buster's frankly surprising revelation. It was difficult to imagine a version of the man who was the domesticated husband. Instead, he elected to change the subject. He wasn't sure how much time they had here to talk and Buster had been here longer than him… meaning he might know things.

“Buster… I need you to tell me everything you know about this place. Anything you can think of: defenses, guard shifts, who's in charge, where they're keeping Nari… anything.” His low, terse tone softened. “You've already done plenty and god knows you don't owe me shit.”

Buster opened his eyes, looking at hard concrete. The image from his head of a female shape, gone. "They moved her. To Cabrera's room." He didn't let the thought linger, explaining to the other man what his wife did and why.

They talked, mostly he did. Even from these confines, Buster gathered some useful information. Observant and chatty. The sound of distant clinking and steps didn't escape his attention. The gears turned and the door opened. He stopped talking and pulled away from the wall to face the guards who came for him. He loudly sniffed as if smelling their intentions. "You're coming with us." One of them informed, holding a taser gun in hand.

Xander paused, hearing the faint sound of shuffling through the crack in the wall along with the muffled voice that decidedly did not belong to his companion. He started to open his mouth in order to speak out... but stopped himself. If there were Samaritans present in the adjacent cell and they realized the two had been talking, who knew how they might be punished?

His mouth snapped shut and he waited for Buster to respond. Minutes dragged on into silent hours before he came to realize the truth... he was alone again. Alone with his thoughts and regrets and only the dark to keep him company.

NanLia Miaow Namazu
​

 

[Namazu]

FLASHBACK
Lincoln - Day of Arrival, After the Horde​

Weston was silent on the ride back to Lincoln. He let someone else drive this time, taking up an offer to let him sit in the passenger seat since he was “recovering”. It wasn’t an offer he was going to turn down - he was still in physical pain, but the bigger reason was he was just too distracted to drive. There was far too much swimming around in his head: the horde, the loss of Northview, King’s possible reaction, the Fallen Angels, Minnie’s public outburst, Dutchess’ death, running into Madison again, confirmation of his sister and niece’s death, and his… whatever you’d call it… with Ignacio, who as it turns out had family in the Fallen Angels. None of this sat well with him, and he couldn’t help but feel on edge. He spent most of the ride back with his elbow resting on the edge of the car door’s window and his head resting against his curled fist, staring out the window in silence.

Watching the prison grow closer in the distance put a definite feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. There were too many witnesses for him to just jump out, roll away, and run for it even if he weren’t injured. No doubt shit would hit the fan, and even if Ignacio was technically in charge of Northview, somehow that shit would hit him too. He was betting on it. Shit didn’t roll downhill here - it rolled uphill, to him.

If they were lucky, King would just shoot them where they stood. If he was unlucky, they’d both wind up in the Pit. If they were cursed, they’d wind up in the Pit facing off against each other. That fear gnawed at the back of his mind; no matter how unlikely or unwise it would be, he still couldn’t help that creeping fear that kept rising up the back of his throat that King would take this opportunity to punish them both. For once, he didn’t have a plan.

Once the trucks were lining up in front of the prison to unload, Weston slid carefully out of his seat, turning to grab his gear from the front passenger side. His truck was behind Ignacio’s - he went in the same vehicle as the girl and her sister, to make sure they behaved without someone giving either of them a black eye. The last thing they needed was a brawl on the road with kids.

At first, he let Ignacio’s confused responses go in one ear and out the other while he gathered his gear up, until the dots connected that what was being said didn’t make any sense. His woman?

Eyebrow raised, Weston glanced over his shoulder, then did a double-take as he pulled his bag out from under his seat. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see one of Temma’s girls being weird and clingy. But no, instead, it was… the woman from Northview? The last time he saw Nari, she definitely did not have a baby-bump. His eyes darted from Nari, to Nari’s stomach, to Ignacio, then back to Nari.

And then they embraced.

Weston turned back to his truck, busying himself by pulling out his rifle from between the seat and the center console, pretending that it was wedged in good for an excuse to not watch. Sharp, angry jealousy filled his chest, and it pissed him off. Not just at them - but at himself, for feeling any of it in the first place. Not when he knew where he stood.

“So much for whatever bullshit you were saying earlier, kid.” Weston called out to Minnie as she was led off, slamming the truck door shut. He still couldn't tell if Nari and Ignacio were playing games, or if that was true. Either way, the smart thing would be to play into this as if he wasn't surprised or bothered.

“I’ll be in my quarters unpacking.” He commented to whichever enforcers were listening as he passed the knot of people gathering out front to meet the trucks. He’d let the others deal with the Northview refugees. He needed to get away from people for a while, not play hostess.

“Get shit unloaded. Put the kids in a room, and the murderer in a cell… and for fuck’s sake, check everyone for bites."

Miaow NanLia Safton Bullyboy Squad BeyondDandy Tool Crono Aegis ​

 

[BeyondDandy]

FLASHBACK
Burial Scene
​

A drift of cool air creeped through the trees and forced dry leaves to drift down on their burial grounds. Casey broke free from his blank stare when he noticed his friends looking up as autumn hailed. He felt the gentle touch of a leaf on his shoulder and picked it with his right hand. His eyes traced its veins from the base of its petiole, through its star shape and finally to the tip of its head. How complex even the smallest of things were he thought to himself.

As the funeral concluded and members of his club started their own way, Casey decided to stay for some time. He waited for everyone to disperse and silence to cast his surroundings before stepping forward towards the headstone. He placed the leaf he had been admiring on its top, a small and insignificant gesture on Beau’s behalf. He then continued to close his eyes and clasp his hands in front of his waistline.

“I know it’s been a long time since we’ve last spoken. As always, I do not speak to you on my behalf but on theirs. Please. Please continue to protect them when I can’t. Keep them safe, for they are not bad people. You know I am the one to blame for their actions. For all those things we do that you may question. Thank you for saving Wess. Thank you for keeping them all safe through this chaos. Yea…”

Casey opened his eyes and looked up. The leaves had fallen and the sky was quiet. “Amen.” He gulped and licked his bottom lip as he centered himself back into reality, looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody had seen or heard him. He turned back towards the school where the group would now gather their belongings and prepare to go home. As he started that way and was only a few steps away from the gravestone when he heard footsteps approaching behind him. The shuffling of leaves was the first thing that caught his attention. He stopped in his place and so did the steps that followed.

Creeping his hand into his vest, he softly drew the weapon from its pocket so as to not alert the person behind him. Then with a swift move, he turned with the gun raised and aimed at whoever was following him. To his disbelief there was nobody there. He looked left and then right, glancing in every direction - between trees and bushes but could not find anyone or anything. He even checked behind the gravestone to make sure there wasn’t anyone hiding behind it as if they could. There wasn’t a soul in sight and he stood there frozen in question. Casey pocketed his pistol and fixed his vest over his shoulders. He prepared himself to walk back to the school when he noticed the leaf he had placed on top of the gravestone was gone.

He placed his hand on the piece of stone and looked at the ground around it for his leaf, thinking he may have knocked it off when he hurried around. The leaf was nowhere in sight. In fact, there were no leaves in the vicinity of the gravestone at all but instead around the trees where they had fallen. Casey took another peek around him only to see the same sights he had seen before and nothing out of the ordinary. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand and sighed tiresomely, thinking he was hearing and seeing things. He decided it was time to make his way back towards the school, get his shit and get everyone home.

​

Namazu
NanLia
Fluffy-Kat
Good_Morels
Bullyboy Squad

 

[Tool]

NORTHVIEW
- After Evac - Flashback (1 monthish) - this is a long one-

Spoiler: The Quality of Mercy

The vague sensation of movement brought Madison's attention back to herself.

One foot in front of the other.

Madison's pain had become a constant thing, the air against her flesh a stinging burn that never really lessened. Every inhalation was wildfire in her chest and in her face and in her head, though in truth, there were no words adequate to describe any of it. This was her whole world, and she was its whole world in turn. When the vice periodically loosened, Madison felt oddly disconnected, experiencing herself from outside herself. These feet were her feet and not her feet. These hands her hands and not her hands. This breath hers and not.

Every step was rigid. Slow. Deliberate.

Muscle memory kicked in periodically, turning her feet and thereby Abraham down this street or that one, even as the world threatened to fade and occasionally spun and jumped in time, as though some portion of the journey had been judged uninteresting by an editor and snip-snip ended up on the cutting room floor.

Northview.

The place was covered in corpses, slowly rotting under a high-noon sun.

"Hello?" Abraham called out.

Where..... where was everybody?

There were people here, right? Live, living..... living......

Madison's blurred gaze fell on a body she'd helped put there. She was sure of it. The dead. The dead that walked.

"D..... dead?" She asked, leaning heavily on both stick and man.

Quite a distance behind the living, a man who'd died some time ago watched...... and decided there might be food. And so, it started to walk. The dead. The dead that walked.

"Not yet. I couldn't say about your friends, though. We need to get you to the infirmary or nurse's office or whatever this place has got. You don't look like you'll be good for much longer, otherwise, no offense. Hopefully, we'll run into somebody you know. Now, which way?"

There had been an ocean of them. Madison remembered in disjointed snatches. She'd waded through hungry oceans. So.... So many times..... An ocean of dead..... Dead that walked.

At about the same pace as the hungry straggler, Madison and Abraham shuffled past the field of corpses, with the old man periodically calling out for help, for aid, for anybody who might be listening. Even his shouts were quiet to her ears, strained and hoarse and heavy with the fatigue of long years. Why wasn't there anybody here? There were people here. She remembered there...... there were people here.

How long had she been gone?

There's been an accident. She'd been in an accident. No..... shot. Abraham had said she'd been shot. Was the shooter here? Where was everybody? Madison realized her feet were still moving. Jerky step after stiff, jerky step finally led the pair to the...... the.....

A kid. Two kids. Watching over their dad. Their dad who'd...... who'd gotten beaten to a ground-beef pulp for...... for something. Dear old dad had been over...... over in that bed and..... in that seat, one of the kids had.....

The world tilted to one side, bringing her attention back to herself as she heard a door close and lock behind her. Luckily, this wall had been there to hold her.

It was a good wall.

"Easy now..... did you see anybody?"

Dead bodies on the walls..... and puppies? No..... they were just pictures. Posters. Remnants of a time gone by. Her eye tried to take focus again. The nurse's office. How had they made it in here so quickly? Abraham was still talking to her.

Focus.

"No." She replied. Direct. Succinct. Factual.

"Grab a chair." He directed, pulling some things out of a high cabinet and rolling a metal table in her direction.

The wall slid away and her hands found their weight on a counter, before she reached a scratchy plush and wood chair. It was so good to get off her feet.

Abraham was pouring something cold into a cotton ball. "I'm no doctor, but it looks like I'm all you've got. Sorry. Unless you want to do it?"

So many supplies passed under her lolling gaze between the moments of blurriness and sharp clarity. Tweezers. Chemicals. Things were still here..... but where were the peop--

"Hey! Wake up, now. You need to stay awake."

Madison startled more starkly upright, shooting new pain through her chest and into her spine and neck. She hadn't even realized he'd given her the cotton ball, much less that she had been drifting off. "S-sorry. I'm..... not a doctor. I'm..... no, you're not a doctor, you're......"

Abraham shook his head. "Nevermind that, just try and clean that out while I try to get at the bone pieces. It won't heal right otherwise. You don't want to survive a gunshot just to die from infection, do you?"

She did her best with the antiseptic cotton ball, but the swab was easier, though far more painful since she was prodding directly at the exposed wound. Each time she felt something sharp or hard against her swab, it was carefully and uncomfortably removed with tweezers. At least she could still close her eyes when need be.

Between the two of them, they managed to fish bone fragments out of her cheek and liberally wash the area with antiseptic. The pain did most of the work in keeping her awake, leaving Abraham to focus on trying to keep his aging hands steady while stitching the lucky woman's cheek closed and then applying some bandaging he'd found.

"You best hope whoever's out there gets home soon. This ought to keep you going for awhile, but I wouldn't stake my life on it lasting long as a fix. The human body isn't meant to take this kind of thing and survive. You're lucky these bullets aren't bigger."

He began digging them from her gear with the same tweezers that had fished around her cheek-meat. "I'm going to be touching you... try not to get excited. I know I cut a dashing figure, but we ought to keep this professional."

Madison couldn't help but smile. It was small and brief, but it was there.

The old man held up one of the retrieved and deformed rounds from her chest, looking at it closely. He had to take a minute to adjust his eyes to see it clearly. "What is this? A twenty two? Who tries to kill a person wearing layers of this crap with a twenty two? Better off shooting rabbits and foxes with these things than people."

He sighed, and resumed digging at the others.

"Don't matter, I guess. Almost got through this stuff you're wearing, too. One did. Maybe you ought to stop buying off the rack, see if you can't get something better next time." That, too, earned Abraham a weak smile from his patient.

A thump against the door made Madison jump and regret it with the lightning sting through her head and chest, though Abraham seemed more annoyed at her movement than the unexpected noise.

"Hold still. You can't scare so easy."

"It's...... a zombie." Madison replied, pleased to see that she'd been able to hold a thought and put it forward even somewhat coherently.

"That's right, but the door's locked. It's not getting in here." The hand not holding the tweeze-forceps dismissed the thump with a wave. "Try to ignore it."

Madison did her best.

A second bullet was found and retrieved, and though Abraham's fingers slipped and lost grip on the thing once, the plug eventually became nothing more than a tink against the linoleum. Bullet number three was in her, and would need to wait for the removal of her many, many layers. Abraham cut away at the duct tape, though he visibly became more tired while doing so. This was exacting, precise work, and it was wearing on him.

"Hang on. Let m-me see..... if I can......" Experimentally, Madison fumbled with the zipper of her outermost jacket, and though she did it one handed, she successfully shucked it from her shoulders. Abraham's faded eyes looked at her with obvious relief on his face.

"Good. You do your best. I'm.... I'm going to take a load off for a few. There's been too much excitement for these bones." Abraham said, getting to shaky feet and shuffling over to a second chair. That was the chair the littlest kid had waited for.........

No.

Focus.

"I've got this." Madison said, internally careful to use small words and a nice, short phrase. She absolutely did not 'got this'...... but hey. Trying counted for something, right?

The buckles of the offroad armor were slow to reach and pinch so they opened properly, but the woman moved carefully, slowly, deliberately. She could do this. She had to do this. Time became something thick and slow, punctuated only by the persistent thumping at the door.

Fucker.

When the armor had been peeled away, the chainmail came next, and for that one she nearly asked for help, but a glance at Abraham stilled her tongue. Try. She could try. Lifting the metal cloth up and over her face left Madison trembling from toe to tip, weak and clammy. Shedding the t-shirt that covered her bare skin was out of the question. There was no way. She'd pass out for sure, and there wasn't any way for the old man to peel her off the floor if she fell. Exacto knife? No...... no, that's not what that was called.

Scalpel. Use a scalpel to cut away the shirt?

One handed?

Nope.

Her gaze flit across the room until it fell on a pair of scissors, atop a counter that had some other stuff scattered about. Madison realized that was where Abraham had opened a cabinet and pulled out........

Alright. Great. Scissors.

Getting herself to her feet was rough, but eventually, the woman stood before the pair of scissors like they were the goddamned holy grail. Snip snip with one hand, and the Avengers shirt became a vest. A squarish bottle of alcohol and a square of gauze seemed the next logical step, bum arm be damned. Despite being on her feet and not the steadiest, Madison managed to put down the scissors and pick up a bit of gauze in opaque, wax-paperish packaging. In an action that was very on brand, Madison tore at the package with her teeth, pa-tooie'd the rough packing-strip onto the floor, and took out the gauze with a pinch of her fingers. The thumping against the door hadn't really slackened, but it at least had not increased in volume or frequency. It was at least something to count the passage of time.

One, one two. Two, one two. Three, one two. Left. Left. Left, right, left.

Take something useless and distracting and make it useful, somehow.

Madison even managed to splash some alcohol onto the white until it sat against her palm, cold and soppy-wet. Fuck, this was going to hurt. As she held the disinfectant-soaked gauze to her bare chest with all the force she could handle, Madison grunted low, and the vibration through her head caused the pain in the back of her neck and the base of her skull to flare up again.

"Damned lucky you found me, Abe."

His voice came quietly from behind her, where he rested. "Damn lucky, right."

Her other arm rose, against the argument of her collarbone and shoulder, to touch lightly at that spot she'd felt earlier..... it seemed like days ago. The spot right along the border between neck and skull, behind and below her ear. That spot. The tip of her ring finger brushed against it and drew a sharp pain to lance through her again and she nearly fell forward against the countertop.

"Shit!"

More carefully this time, she repeated the experience. She needed to know...... a hole.

Of course there was a hole.

She was lucky they were only .22's. In hindsight, she remembered faintly that she'd needed Abe's help to remove her helmet. If she hadn't been wearing it, who knew where the bullet would have entered? Probably somewhere she definitely wouldn't have survived.

After dumping a new trickle of antiseptic on her gauze, and grabbing the needle and surgical thread, she realized her arm was never going to let her try to stitch a hole in the back of her head - difficult to do blind at the best of times.

"Abraham, I'm going to need your help with this one. You all rested up?"

The silence that followed was unsettling.

"Abraham?" She asked again. Fuck it, her breasts weren't important. She turned to look at him, worried he might have dozed off or died on her...... that was all she needed.

But there was no one there. There was no one here at all. The door was still locked. The floor had some mud, some blood... but as she took in the scene with her one good eye, she found only the only prints in the mess left on the floor were from the tread on her own boots.

Madison managed to make it back to her blood and peroxide soaked chair and just..... sat there.

Alone.

​

 

[Namazu]

LINCOLN
next morning after arrival
collab with Bullyboy Squad

​

Blood pulsed hot and hard through his veins. Rough hand wrapped at the back of his neck, cut from rubble. The touch sent electricity down his spine. Wet, desperate kiss against his lips pulling a shiver through his skin. Quiet hum of the phantom explosion in his ears. Like static. For the moment, they existed beyond the fabric of the universe, detached.

String of saliva broke between them when Hughes pulled back, swallowing ragged breaths just like Ignacio did. Their eyes shiny and red-rimmed after they coughed out mortar and dust. It was a close call. Too close for comfort. Smoke and rubble around them filled with a proof of death.

Sunset dwindled weakly against the dreary hang of clouds, illuminating his soiled face and slanted smile.

“How about,” Cabrera pulled off the helmet and rubbed his black, sweaty hair, “Next time we go Hawaii instead.”


Ignacio stood beside a wreck of a large pickup truck, gaze captured by charred plastic of a hula girl. The toy somehow remained glued to the dashboard even after the car carrying US Marines was rolled by an IED months earlier. His car.

The smell of grease and fuel permeated the air. The large space was filled with various vehicles, some of them covered in light or makeshift armor. A couple of mechanics meandered around, most of them busy fixing or cleaning the machines that came back from Northview. Ignacio’s dually was away from that business, in the corner. Stripped from useful parts and left alone to rust.


His stomach was in knots, nerves on fire and mind teetering on the edge of panic. She clung to him tightly as she sobbed, incoherent words still clearly protraying her grief. Better than any words ever could, really. The father of her child, beaten and strangled, before she could even tell anyone she was pregnant. Before she could even introduce him to anyone - it would be a hard introduction anyway, daddy didn't like boys around his little girl to begin with, and if they weren't white? Hoo-boy, that'd be a whole other discussion. Might have been in years past the boy would get shot, or someone would get a whipping for it, but their father was an old man now with shaky hands and unsteady legs, eyes gone blurry with cataracts. The most he could do is holler and spew hate until they turn around and left again.

Watching Jolene on the other side of the glass that separated visitor from inmate, eyes red from tears, mouth twisted in fury as she slammed a palm against the glass so hard it rattled and called him a killer and a scumbag, the first thing Weston could think was that she made the same face dad did when he hollered in anger. Did he also make that face when he was angry? "I'm sorry" didn't cut it, never would, some choices you just can't take back. Jolene told him he'd never meet her baby, she wouldn't have it have any part of this life or this family. Guess she was right.

Weston had taken three showers after getting back from Northview - one of which was entirely cold and consisted of him mostly just sitting at the bottom of the shower stall with his head in his hands. Fuck water conservation. Short of shooting up again - which his brain nagged at him about after all this stress - it was the only way he could think to try and get his mind clear again. Showering was the safe way, at least.

Putting off the inevitable, he waited a whole day before venturing from his quarters in search of Ignacio. The rest of the Samaritans had thankfully left him alone, assuming he needed time to recover and sleep it off, as if everything he’d been through was just a thing anyone could sleep off. But, he couldn’t put it off any longer.

He had to ask two different enforcers if anyone had seen him, but eventually Weston was directed out to the garage. Not exactly where he’d prefer to have a conversation, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Weston spotted Ignacio right away, next to the wrecked pickup. It looked in even worse shape in the clear light of the garage than it had before.

“Fresh coat of paint and it’ll look good as new.” Weston commented as he stepped up next to Cabrera, attempting to hide his nerves with humor.

“That’ll buff right out-” Weston reached over to pat the side of the truck’s door, only for something to fall off with a clang and clatter. He moved his foot out of the way quickly. “Fuck. Sorry.”


Jerked out of his memories, Cabrera looked surprised by the unexpected company. He made a face at the breaking vehicle but didn't blame Weston. It was fucked. Done. Gone just like the life he had when he received it as a birthday present.

"She's not going anywhere. Belongs to a graveyard."


Weston sighed, nodding his head. There wasn't much to kid about with what little was left of the truck - it was toast. Looking down at the metal that had fallen off, then back to Ignacio, his eyes traveled to the man's newly-shaved head, to the scar on his face, and then met his eyes.

"You sure it's not salvageable? If you want help, I can try and lend a hand."


"It's not." Cabrera said simply. "Nothing left to save."

He approached the hole where the driver's door once was and peered inside, leaning his knee to the smoked seat. The smell was still ugly, his brain immutably associating it with ambush. He snatched the hula girl and pulled back, straightening up while he dusted her off. His touch oddly tender.

"Why are you here, man?"


Glancing around to make sure none of the mechanic's were paying attention to them, Weston leaned down to grab the metal scrap off the floor, trying to act casual about it as he slid it into the husk of the vehicle. As he leaned in closer to the vehicle - and closer to Ignacio - he lowered his voice.

"To check on you. To talk. Am I allowed to do that?"


That took Ignacio off guard. For a moment he wasn't sure what to say, just staring. Then he looked back at the plastic in his hand and hummed, speaking equally low. "Of course. I'm fine. Almost healed." He subconsciously reached up to scratch the scarring slice on the side of his jaw. It became impossibly itchy a few days back.


Weston eyed the plastic hula-girl in Ignacio's hand. Those things always seemed tacky to him, but it was also one of the only things in the truck not destroyed. Not that he knew why anyone would want a souvenir of this misadventure.

"Good." He stood up straighter, looping his thumbs around his belt. "So then can I ask what the hell is going on with that woman from Northview?" He scowled, despite his best efforts of trying to hide it. "What's she playing at?"


Cabrera took a moment too long to respond. Like he was considering what to say.

"She's with me now." He finally stated, looking up to meet Weston's eyes. Not shying away from it, looking like he had no regrets.


Weston's left eye twitched slightly as he felt his blood pressure raise. Taking in a breath, he crossed his arms over his chest, holding Ignacio's gaze.

"The same way we're all 'with you'? Or do you mean something else? Ignacio, if you want her protected, that's all you gotta say, but you know that's not what I was asking. Is it your's?"


The other quietly swallowed, not breaking eye contact. There was a lot on his mind and he still didn't settle on how to play this. But eventually he exhaled a slow breath and asked frankly.

"Does it matter?"


"Yeah, Ignacio, it fuckin' matters to me if that is just some kid and this is an angle you need to play, or if it really is your kid, because then I'd give more of a shit about it." Being the first to break eye contact, Weston let out a heavy exhale.

"Don't worry about your reputation, I'll keep my mouth shut either way, about everything." He didn't clarify what everything meant.


Cabrera licked his teeth as he eyed the Second in command. Did he accidentally let it show to the man? That he didn't trust him as much as their relationship should have granted? He glanced around before meeting Weston's eyes again. Voice just a whisper.

"It's not my kid. Keep it to yourself, man. As far as you know she's mine now and that's all there is to it."


Almost immediately Weston felt a good portion of his anger - and, admittedly, jealousy - lift from his shoulders. Relieved, he nodded his head subtly, looking Ignacio in the eye again.

"You got it. I promise."

Straightening up more so that they didn't keep looking so suspicious whispering to each other, he gave Ignacio a lighthearted clap on the shoulder and grinned at him. Not that the grin entirely reached his eyes, but it was good enough at a casual glance.

"Grats man. Hey, next time, use a rubber, alright? No matter how good that piece of ass is."


Ignacio offered a similarly insincere smirk.

"You're just jealous I got a woman warming my bed." He slipped the hula figure to his pocket and cast one last glance at his truck, hiding a pang of sadness. Last time he saw it he was looking for his parents.

"I'm leaving in two weeks." He turned to walk for the exit, checking if Weston was joining him. "You heard about St. Joseph’s?"


Weston followed along, rolling his eyes at the comment. "As if I need the headache of someone nagging at me regularly. Temma's girls do just fine. And yeah, I heard somethin' about it, but not much yet. Do we have a count on how many people to expect?"


Cabrera looked at the vehicles they were passing. One of them with the mounted .50 that he used back in Northview in the middle of the mayhem. He zoned out for a moment, replying with delay.

"Count? Yeah, there's 28 men and women plus a bunch of children." They got outside and icy wind splashed against their faces. Weather was drastically changing and a serious winter was about to hit in the next few days.


Weston zipped up the jacket he'd tossed on, frowning at the cold wind that hit him as he followed Ignacio outside. He tucked his hands inside his pockets, cursing that chill that threatened to bring snow.

"Any chance they heard about Northview, or about us, already?"


Cabrera shuddered as the wind filtered through his clothes. His jacket was half zipped and he didn't try to fix it. The cold was sobering. Helped with ignoring the uncomfortable feelings.

"We sent a few men there to prepare the ground for the talk." The one he was going to have once he went there. "I gave them precise orders so everything should be ready."


"Already? Good. That was fast." Weston shivered against the wind, already regretting following Ignacio out here, but not willing to walk away quite yet.

"Listen... honest question. What happens if this other place goes belly-up too? Like the school. I mean, are we gonna keep doing this, or is King gonna pull the plug? How pissed is he?"


Cabrera slowed down, brows furrowed. He looked at the other with a hint of caution.

"There's no pulling the plug, man. You know the goal is to take over as much of the prosperous land and take in as many people as possible." That was a pretty euphemism for how they were handling it. "He's pissed. But mainly because he lost so many soldiers." Ignacio looked up ahead and swallowed.

"I got my priorities straight now if they ever gone awry." He spoke in a peculiarly indifferent way and moved again. "I'm going on a patrol." He informed his companion, glancing over. "Thanks for the talk." He caught Weston's gaze for a second but there was something different in his dark eyes. Something changed.


Weston slowed to a stop, no longer following Cabrera when he said he was going out on patrol. King's plans were big, and of course he was pissed there was a setback. It didn't surprise him that Northview didn't slow his roll.

"And what are your priorities now?" A blunt question; he kept his voice as even as he could, but he was hesitant about what he might hear.


Cabrera stopped. Already a few yards away from the other. His back to Weston, spine and neck straight. The wind whispered in the nearby trees and swished along the empty yards.

"To serve my King."

Bullyboy Squad Crono NanLia Safton Miaow BeyondDandy Tool Aegis

 

[Miaow]

LINCOLN PRISON
The Pit​

There were plenty of words Haewon wanted to say to her sister...
The moment Cabrera's back is turned, the moment he lets his guard down, I'm going to fucking kill him. I'll choke him out and, as he blacks out, let him breathe again, just enough to keep him going... then I'll do it again, and again, and again until he's begging me to just let him die... but I'm not going to. I'll cut him. I'll cover his entire body in cuts, so he bleeds out slowly and painfully and I'll watch him. I'll make sure he knows I'm there, that I did it, and that I'm enjoying every second of it.

She blinked as her fantasy faded, feeling a tiny head against her arm. She looked down, swallowing as Minnie rested against her. She wouldn't want to hear any of those words. She'd seen enough of that sort of thing. She wrapped an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her in a little closer.

The crowd was piling in. Minnie felt tiny, surrounded by towering figures as she sat in the bleachers with what was left of her family. The lights felt brighter than normal, burning her retinas and making her squint. Each noise felt like a dagger to the eardrum. She couldn't stop moving, her leg bouncing, her hands fidgeting with the hem of the hoodie she'd stolen from her big sister. Her face, however, was motionless. Her eyes were glazed over. She stared at nothing.
Haewon leaned in, resting her hand on the side of her head. She kept her voice low, quiet enough to not be heard by others, but just loud enough for Minnie to understand.
"Don't watch, you don't have to watch... I'll be right here, I won't make you watch..." She promised her.
I'll fucking kill him for you. I'll kill Cabrera and the fucker that gets in that pit for him. I'll kill anyone that makes you cry, I promise you that.
"When it starts, just cover your ears, okay?" She instructed, stroking her hair.

Nari shuffled through the crowd as people milled before heading to their seats for this fight. Xander. The only person from their community she hadn't been able to see since they'd all been brought into the prison. She'd been caught up on details of what had transpired after she'd been taken away.

There had been much, so much, almost more than she could handle but she'd forced the bile back down and heard it all.

Finding the girls was easy, there was a specific section set out for the people of Northview, and many were already seated solemnly waiting.

“Hey,” she didn't smile, couldn't bring herself to do so. There would be no comfort for her today. She cautiously reached out to stroke back Minnie's hair, tucking it behind her ears. “I'm sorry you're here, I tried to stop it, to let you two stay away…” She didn't have sway in all things: she could source better food, medicine, supplies but that only went so far.

Minnie looked up as Nari approached them, leaning into her hand as she tucked her hair behind her ear. She missed her. They saw eachother almost every day, but she still missed her. She missed their apartment. She missed going to see her in her workshop and watching what she was up to. She missed home.

Haewon wanted to be pissed... but Nari hadn't caused this. She was in the exact same boat as she and her sister: Forced to watch their loved one die... if she could call Xander Nari's 'loved one' anymore. That was Cabrera, now.
"It's okay. It's not your fault," She murmured, probably the nicest thing she'd said to Nari since they'd met. She gently rubbed Minnie's arm, feeling her tiny body shaking against hers.
"Are you okay?" She asked Nari. It was her husband in the pit, after all.

Nari wrapped an arm around Minnie's shoulders and pulled her close, encouraging her to rest her head against her belly while she stroked her fingers through her daughter's hair.

She looked up as Haewon spoke, Nari couldn't lie but didn't want to worry either of them more than they were.
“We'll be okay. No matter what happens, we'll be okay. “ She would do whatever was necessary to make sure that was the case. She didn't know what would happen if Xander lived through the fight - if he'd earn his freedom or if he'd remain a prisoner. She didn't want to get their hopes up.

Haewon kept her hand on her sister's shoulder, even as she leaned down to rest her head on Nari's stomach. She wanted to ask if she thought he'd win but it wasn't something she could discuss with Minnie close by. Sure, Nari had a little more sway now she was Mrs Cabrera, but her authority wasn't enough to stop this from happening, and it certainly wasn't enough to fix any nightmares Minnie would have about it afterwards.

Minnie kept most of her weight off of Nari's stomach. She was the youngest sibling with no cousins and her mother wasn't exactly social. This was probably the first time she'd been around a pregnant woman. Could she rest her whole weight on her belly? Would it squish the baby? She shut her eyes, listening for a heartbeat, feeling for any movement. She wanted to talk to Nari, she missed her, after all... but there was nothing to really say.

"So... what's it like? Being Cabrera's mistress?" Haewon piped up. Though she meant it in a teasing way, her affect was pretty flat unless she was yelling.

Nari felt the silence from the girls weigh on her. They’d been through so much after she’d been torn away, and witnessed more than they deserved. They’d lost their home, had Xander pulled from them and now she wasn’t even staying with them here! She’d done what she needed to protect her baby but it cost her staying with the girls.

She felt a stab of guilt in her heart hearing Haewon pose her question, she wanted nothing more than to deny the accusation, to denounce it but she couldn’t. Even now she worried what would come of her, and the baby once it was born … and evidently not Cabrera’s. “It has its perks.”

Haewon hesitated... before nodding. She wasn't surprised, being the big man's girlfriend couldn't be the worst fate in this prison.
"Does Xander know?" She asked, looking down into the pit. She hadn't seen much of Xander since they'd arrived, but that didn't mean Nari was in the same boat.

She couldn't imagine what Xander was going through. He was about to die and his wife was pregnant with another man's baby. Maybe this was karma. Maybe this was the universe's way of punishing him for what he did. She reached over, gently rubbing her sister's shoulder.

Nari inhaled slowly, tempering her emotions and her desire to simply curl up and cry. Haewon certainly was not willing to hold back today, and she couldn't blame her. So far as the girls were concerned she’d abandoned them and come here to better her chances of survival. She’d left them to the Samaritans and, honestly, she was surprised that they were speaking to her at all.

“No,” She said quietly. “I haven’t seen him since I left.” She’d hesitated in attempting to see Xander. The ruse depended on the people of the prison believing she was with Cabrera, heart and soul.

Haewon sighed. Sure, the three had spoken since their arrival, but Haewon had never really gotten her answers, and even when she did get her answers, she wasn't sure she wanted to believe them... It felt like Xander all over again. A trust they had built then thoroughly shattered without a thought. She didn't want another little sibling if it was gonna have Cabrera's DNA in it. She was full of rage that she didn't want to show in front of the little sibling she already had.

"I think everyone here wants to murder your boyfriend," She murmured, nodding towards the rest of the Northview section of the crowd.
"I do," She added. She wanted to say more... but she wouldn't be surprised if murderous ideation was enough to get her punished here. She looked down at Minnie. They were practically back to how it was before Northview, plus a few new scars. Just the two of them.

Bullyboy Squad Safton​

​

 

[Namazu]

LINCOLN PRISON
The Pit​

“You look better when you don’t scowl like that.” Tigran lounged on Weston’s bed, curled up in a nest of mismatched pillows and blanks, wearing nothing but a grin and some teeth marks. The man stretched lazily, cat-like and comfortable, before rolling onto his stomach. Folding his arms under his chin at the edge of the bed, he watched Weston get dressed, fresh from the shower.

“I have a lot to scowl about.” Weston muttered, rubbing a towel through his hair. He’d given up on keeping the side shaved and maintaining his old hairstyle, let it grow out, and then trimmed it all. Without the excess weight of length or product it was now left to curl and wave however it damn well pleased.

“Didn’t I just give you something to smile about?” Tig asked, resting his cheek against his arm as he watched Weston pull on jeans. When Weston didn’t answer, he rolled himself out of bed and stood behind Weston, wrapping his arms around the Second’s waist.

“Ah, c’mon. Fuck those bastards out there. You work your ass off for the people here. If they don’t see that, it’s their own fault. I see it. I appreciate it. I make sure you know I appreciate it. Don’t I?” Tig purred his compliments as usual, holding on tight as he pressed a cheek to Weston’s bare shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Weston breathed out, avoiding his reflection in the mirror as he stared down at the arms wrapped around him. It occurred to him that no matter how many times in the past month Tig had graced his bed, they hardly ever talked about anything. He barely knew the guy.

“Question, Tig.” Weston looked up, looking at Tigran’s reflection in the mirror.

“Answer.” Tig responded back, grinning at his silly response.

“What did you do before all this?”

“What, you mean, before all the fucking shit hit the fan and the entirety of civilization collapsed?” Tig seemed surprised by the question. “Why do you ask?”

Weston shrugged. “Dunno, it just occurs to me I never asked, and I have absolutely no idea. I don’t know anything about you.”

Tig stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “I knew you were a hick. I shouldn’t be surprised. God, if only I had still been in New York City when all this happened.” He almost sounded wistful.

“If you were in New York City you’d probably be dead. Way more shit to deal with there. And that didn’t answer my question. How does asking that make me a hick?” Weston just stared at him, confused - not even offended at the hick comment at this point.

“Broadway. Aladdin, the musical. We were topping the charts. I was in Cincinnati for a show when it happened.” Tigan frowned some, looking away at nothing in particular. He let go of Weston, feeling the other man turning to face him.

“What? Really? Theater? Huh. Never would have guessed. What part did you play?”

Tigran grinned widely at him. “Honey, I was Aladdin. I was the goddamn star. And as far as I’m concerned, this is just another role to play until the tour is over.” Tigran lifted a hand and pressed a finger to Weston’s lips, shushing him.

“Temma thinks I was a mailman. Let's keep it that way, hm?”

---------

Showered, dressed, and ready to face the public, Weston climbed the platform at the pit, heavy boots rattling the stairs. Weston’s boots, jeans, t-shirt, and leather jacket stood in stark contrast to the well-tailored black suit with red tie that Tigran wore, trailing behind Weston to join him for the event.

Tigran was joining him tonight as his guest. As his date, really. A far cry from any Broadway performance, sadly. Weston has decided he was done giving a shit about whatever kind of judgment or whispers this might send rippling among the Samaritans, so it was going to be Tigran on his arm at these events from now on. Cabrera sure as shit didn’t seem interested in whatever it is they might have had, and it was too dangerous for Toni to consider it. Weston still wasn’t sure what he thought about the rest of Temma’s employees, so short of having Temma join him here herself, Tigran was the safest bet he had.

It made him miss Madison. Not that she was interested in him, nor would he ask that of her, but he at least trusted her. She was at least his friend. He didn’t have many of those around here. Then again, she’d probably shoot him if she saw what he was doing now - presiding over yet another gladiatorial fight. She’d never willingly join him up here but it would at least be nice to have a friend.

Leaning over the arm of his chair to exchange whispers with an enforcer while Tigran placed himself in his seat like it was a throne, a pleased smile on his face with his head held high, Weston dismissed the enforcer with a nod of his head. It was time to get the combatants ready - which meant getting the crowd ready too. The crowd of Samaritans looked mostly good and ready for some bloodshed. A few bored or nervous faces among the group - not everyone could be expected to enjoy this of course. But compared to the Northview refugees, they were leaps and bounds ahead in terms of mood.

Leaving Tig to preen like a peacock on his perch, Weston stood upon his platform to address the group.

“Many of you don’t agree with our methods. You think what we do here is barbaric.” He motioned to the pit, before crossing his arms over his chest again. The Samaritan side of the crowd rumbled, a mix of denying it and reactions to it being called barbaric. No doubt many of them liked it because it was barbaric - that was the point. The draw.

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Weston started, that Appalachian drawl of his sounding stronger with that phrase. “I don’t like it either.” He let that phrase hang in the air a moment to settle into everyone’s ears. Tig leaned forward in his seat - the performer in him was enjoying this.

“But it’s the best we have. Many of you here were in prison before the fall. You remember lawyers, judges, and juries. Do you want us to bring that back?” Weston raised his voice as the beginnings of murmurings started.

“The judges that looked down on us because we were different? The lawyers that didn’t care if we were free or in shackles so long as they collected their paycheck? The juries that were never our peers? The process that didn’t care about what was right or fair or true? The machine that was designed to consume the poor, the uneducated, and the different?” The Samaritans were getting louder now in their disagreement - no, they did not want that at all. Weston paused again to let the crowd settle.

“You know what I was in here for. I’m not proud of it. But my first few days at Lincoln, I met a man who was in here for something similar. A real piece of shit - he beat and murdered his girlfriend, and goddamn bragged about it.” Someone in the back, the Samaritan side, yelled out “Fuck George!”

Weston laughed. “Yeah, that was George. You all met him. Nobody liked him. Anyway - we were both sentenced for the same crime. Do you know what George got, with his fancy lawyer from a good school that got paid more per hour than I ever made in a week? Ten years prison, chance for parole after five. Do you know what I got?”

Someone on the other side of the seating yelled out: “You a lifer, boy!”

“Damn right I’m a fuckin’ lifer!” Weston shouted back. “I got life in prison because my public defender, who couldn’t even remember my name, was overworked, didn’t give a shit, and was a year away from retirement! I was a goddamn hick from the hills, and good ol’ George was from the suburbs, drove a nice car, and owned his own house. How many of you know you got the shaft while the Georges in your life walked out whistlin’ a happy tune? Raise your hand.” Weston raised his own, looking around the room.

A vast majority of the Samaritans raised a hand.

“My point exactly. No more stories like George’s. No more courtrooms. Xander Font goes into the pit today for shooting and killing Dutchess, right in front of us. There were plenty of witnesses. Nobody denies that he did it. We don’t need to discuss evidence or courtroom rules or any of that shit. We know it, he knows it, so he’s going into the pit - and whatever happens, happens. Does that sound fair?”

The combination of whoops, hollers, and nodding heads from the Samaritans made it clear they thought it was fair. The Northview section seemed far less enthusiastic. Weston glanced at the Northview section precisely once, with an unreadable expression, but didn’t say anything to them. He just returned to his seat. Tig smiled at him proudly.

“Bring them out.” Weston ordered, leaning back in his chair. Normally he hated these events, but not this one - Xander had to be punished for what he did to Dutchess.

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