Fic: The Living (1/1)
Title: The Living
Author: Georgiana C. Cupcakes (cidercupcakes)
Fandom: The Hitcher (2007 remake)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Het, zombies, bad language.
Words: 4003
Notes: Many, many thanks to cruisedirector for cheerleading, and also for letting me inflict a second-rate slasher movie on her in the first place.
Disclaimer: "Job has all his children killed and Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. There isn't a God."
There had never been any crash. The Lieutenant was alive and well. John -- that was his real name, though of course Ryder wasn't -- was in jail. They told Grace this, but it didn't make much sense, not when she remembered the fire and the gun in her hands.
That was probably why she was in the hospital instead of back at school, though. At least the food here was better than in the dining hall at school, if kind of bland. And more of an ordeal to eat, since they didn't get forks or knives, being a bunch of nutjobs who might try to hurt someone. She learned to take her time, though; it wasn't like there was a whole lot else to do there.
The dead stopped staying dead one day. They were going to transfer everyone to a facility outside Area Zero anyway, but she was going to go back home. Grace didn't know why she was special, and she didn't ask, but she found out anyway, when someone let the tv get turned to the news, and she saw the update. The anchor explained, with the right amount of sobriety in his face, that there had been a crash. Prisoners had to be evacuated, too, after all. "No word yet," he said, frowning so that they would know it was sad news, "on whether this was indeed an accident."
She really believed them, then -- weeks of therapy, and all it took was one news story; her parents were seriously wasting their money -- and they pulled her away from the lounge, taking her to the quiet room until she stopped screaming and begging them to do something.
They took her in an ambulance, to be handed over to doctors at the airport. She didn't know exactly what happened, all she knew was that they swerved before coming to a halt. Grace was trapped in the back -- they had locked the doors from the outside, and restrained her -- listening to the drivers' screams.
At least, thank fuck, the parts where she remembered to find weapons weren't hallucinations. Not that they'd left much in the back, seeing as she was a mental patient -- normally they didn't even let you have shoes with laces, but since she wasn't much of a danger to herself and it was an emergency apparently they hadn't really taken as much caution -- but there were still flares, and heavy things. A toolbox, with a hammer and a screwdriver, both of which, she thought, might work. She tucked the hammer through her belt loop. Once it was quiet, she would try to break her way out of the ambulance. If it was still driveable, she'd take it; if not, she'd walk until she found a car. She stayed low, low enough that only sky could be seen through the little windows on the doors. Maybe they didn't know anyone was in the back.
There were shots over the screams, though, and someone opened the back of the ambulance. She couldn't be surprised anymore, had used up all her terror, and she just stared when she saw that it was him.
"You coming?" he asked, with a fucking smug shit-eating grin.
"Oh my god," she said, though by now she knew it had just been wishful thinking. "Fuck."
He just smirked at her. There was blood on the road. It belonged to people who'd already been dead. He was dirty, but there wasn't blood on him.
"I can leave you here," he said, and as he went to close the door, she put her arms out -- they were still locked together -- and stopped it.
When she stepped out of the ambulance, he was still smiling as he unlocked her restraints. He even gave her a shotgun; of course he wouldn't mind her having one. Grace managed to keep from punching him by way of getting the grin off his face, but mostly she refrained because she knew that could hurt your hand. She waited until he'd given her the gun, then wrapped her hand around the butt and hit him with that. Not hard enough to knock him out, just hard enough that he would stop smiling.
She walked to the car once she was sure he wasn't going to hit her back. It was still bright and sunny. He spat, and was rubbing his jaw as he got into the driver's seat and started the engine.
"So are you gonna kill me?" she asked, after they'd been driving for awhile.
"Would've done it already, don't you think?" he asked in response.
Which was a pretty good point, although not a perfect one. "Not necessarily," she said, and rested her head on her arm. She didn't say anything for another few minutes, neither of them did. She stared out the window, and counted the markers that, in their own turn, counted down to the mile. Two miles went by -- twenty of the markers -- and finally, she spoke again. "Where are we going?"
"Does it matter?"
"I wouldn't have asked if it didn't."
"Yes, you would."
She looked away from the window -- it was hard to do; she didn't want to. She didn't want to look at him at all. "How do you know that?"
He spared a glance, taking his eyes of the road long enough to look at her. He didn't say anything. Grace looked back out the window, watching the scrub flash by.
"The skirt makes you look like a slut," he said, after another few miles had gone by -- she didn't know how much time, she wasn't watching the clock. There wasn't really any point to it, she figured. The world was ending and all.
It took her a second to look over at him. She blinked, looked down at her legs, then looked back at him. "That's funny. The big gun makes you look like you're compensating for something," she said. The phrasing was awkward; it was too long to be a really cutting insult, but it still made the smile fade from his face, made him set his jaw and stare out at the road again, instead of at her legs. That was something.
That was the first hint she got that he was an actual person under there. It figured it would be with a stupid dick joke. She settled back in her seat and crossed her legs. Looking into the side mirror, she saw that she was smirking, and she let her hair fall down beside her face to hide it.
The hotel was nothing like the places she'd stayed the first time. It was nice, really nice. Completely empty, of course -- the whole area had been abandoned, apparently. He'd told her the plan at last; they'd have to drive around the perimeter to find a way out. Maybe towards Mexico. What then, she didn't know.
"Jesus. No." She didn't follow him into the room at first. "What, the entire hotel, you're telling me there isn't a room with two beds?"
He was already sitting down on the bed -- the one bed -- and laughed. "You gonna be able to sleep much anyway?"
Which she wasn't. She wasn't tired. She hadn't even wanted to stop. Grace sat down on the dresser, staring at him. He put his gun down on the bedside table. She hung onto hers, set it on her knees.
It didn't take long for him to go to sleep. Of course, if anyone could sleep through an apocalypse, it was a fucking psycho serial killer. After she was sure he was asleep -- or at least not going to lunge at her just as she started to relax -- she got down from the dresser and went into the bathroom to take a shower. She hadn't had one in a couple of days, and her legs needed shaving. Not that it mattered, now, really, but the thought of shaving was a normal thing, and since Spring Break she'd been running low on those.
There was a razor in his bag. She stared at it, thought about it -- but, you know, he'd given her a gun. If she was going to kill him, that would probably be a lot easier than a razor.
Grace used the hotel's soap, though, by way of slicking her legs up. The idea of smelling like him -- of the shower smelling like him while she was in it -- she could deal with a lot, but she couldn't deal with that.
It took awhile, but there was lots of hot water, so it didn't really matter. The pressure was hard, too, and she closed her eyes, heard a little groan come from her throat. Pleasure, this was pleasure; even thinking the word felt sinfully indulgent, and she clamped down on her vocal chords. Still, she couldn't help feeling it, and she smiled instead, in spite of herself. It was only baths at the hospital, and someone else always filled them, so the temperature was never really right, and of course they didn't want it too hot. You couldn't stay long, either; there was someone waiting outside and they'd check on you if you were quiet for very long. Someone might try to drown herself, or drink all the shampoo, or something.
The hotel was nice -- nice enough that there was a bathrobe with the towels. She put it on after she was done, double-checked that the bathroom door was locked, and sat down on the floor against it. She dozed a little, but mostly, he was right. She couldn't sleep.
She was tired the next day, though, and fell asleep in the car. The sun lulled her into a stupor, warm on her face -- warmer than it should have been, considering the world was ending; it somehow didn't seem right for it to be bright and sunny -- and the roadside markers, counting down to the mile, were hypnotic.
When she woke up, the car had stopped. There was a bag of Fritos on the dash in front of her, and he was stroking her hair. She tightened her hand on the gun in her lap and went back to sleep.
The third day, they were attacked. That was when everything changed. She was coming out of a rest-stop bathroom, something moved in the dreamy parts at the corner of her vision, and Grace started to run. The car wasn't an ambiguous thing then; it was the only place she knew she might have a chance, and she ran, slamming hard into the sun- and engine-heated metal because she was afraid to slow down. He didn't wait for her to open her door; he grabbed her and pulled her into his side. She was, for just a moment, in his lap, but moved quickly, rolling down her window and raising her shotgun as they pulled out of the parking lot, with the smell of burnt rubber and the scream of the tires standing testament to the terror.
She shot from the window, and remembered what they said was the dream. It might've helped if she pretended one of them had his face, but she didn't think of that. She didn't think at all; she just shot.
It was only a few miles before the road behind them was clear again. Grace was still panting, and loosened her fingers, slowly, on the gun.
He didn't say anything. After another few miles he pulled off the road, and when he got out of the car, she did too, and managed to look at him this time. She kept hold of the gun when he kissed her, though she let the hand holding it fall to her side.
"I don't." She forgot what she meant to say. If anything.
"You don't what?" His mouth moved, became a smile; she saw it instead of his eyes. "Just tell me to stop and I'll stop."
She knew he would, too.
"You son of a bitch," she whispered.
He grinned, and kissed her again. One of his hands was already under her shirt. She bit his lip, and heard his breath catch in his throat, and that sound, that little sound, made something inside her, not touching the metal, warm.
"Be easier if you had both hands," he said. He lifted her, just enough to set her on the car's hood. The metal was still warm with the sun and the engine.
"Yeah," she said, and didn't take her hand off the gun, which still sat on the metal next to her. "It would." He kissed her again, slipped a hand under her bra and ran his thumb over her nipple. As she groaned, she bit down again, harder, on his lip. If he was making more noise than she was, that made it okay.
She let go of the handle and held the gun by its barrel, to make sure she wouldn't set it off accidentally. That was the most she would do, though. He pushed her legs up, still kissing her, sliding his hands along her thighs and pushing her skirt far up enough that she could spread her legs. All her edges felt hot when he cupped a hand against her, one fingertip rubbing along the wet spot on her underwear.
"You want me to stop?" he whispered. His breath was hot on her ear, and he sounded gentle, and she knew -- she knew -- that if she said yes, he would.
She couldn't make herself answer, either way, and he pressed his hand harder against her, made her feel hotter than ever. His other hand was on the back of her neck, and he leaned his forehead against hers. Grace kept breathing, and gripped the barrel of the gun harder than ever, because she had nothing else to hang onto -- nothing but him, and she couldn't make herself reach for him.
"No," she said, and kissed him before he could say anything, or smile at her again. "Do you want to stop?" she asked, after she had finished, and returned to the way they had been, with her forehead against his.
John just laughed.
His hands stayed on her thighs and ass, warm and rough, shielding her skin from the hotter metal of the car. His hair was too short to really grab, and Grace's nails dug into his scalp. Her nails were short too, though (they hadn't let them grow out at the hospital, and it had only been a couple of days, and she bit them anyway) so she didn't think she scratched him up badly. Breath came hard, and she heard herself whimper and groan when he made her come, but in the enormity of the open air the noise was almost swallowed up.
That night, the room had two beds. She didn't ask about it, just went into the bathroom. He followed her, and she put her gun down on the back of the toilet. Metal on porcelain made a heavy, hollow sound. He was already undoing the button on her skirt from behind her, pushing her hair aside and kissing her throat as the denim slid down her legs to the stone tile floor.
The last time Jim kissed her had been in the shower. She thought of that as she stepped under the spray, sliding the door closed in John's face. The frosted glass blurred him; he was just a dark thing, standing there. That was all he'd ever been, if you thought about it, which she didn't, much.
She wondered if he'd come in after her, if he'd force her. He didn't, though; that didn't really surprise her, she realized, as he walked out of the bathroom, leaving the door open and fading into the darkness of the rest of the room. Of course he wouldn't. Not now. That was why there were two beds, so she could choose.
So she would have to choose.
Grace reached for the soap and undid the hotel paper wrapping.
This was a nice place, too -- it was easier to break into the nice places now that this part of the country was almost empty of the living. Nothing like the motels he'd trapped them in before. There was a bathrobe with the towels in this one, too, and she pulled it on before she opened the door all the way and stepped out.
"Why'd you take me?" she asked, sitting down on one of the beds, staring across the empty space between them at him.
"Why'd you come?" he asked, shrugging, and then smirked. "Besides the obvious."
She flinched at that, looked down at her legs under the bathrobe. When she looked back up, he was still smirking at her. "Why'd you let me live?" she asked.
He leaned forward, then reached out and grabbed her wrist almost before she saw him move. She gasped -- she couldn't help it. "I gave you a gun. Why'd you let me live?"
"Did you want me?" Her voice was the quietest it could go. His fingers were digging into her wrist.
She heard him laugh, and then he pulled on her wrist, hard, hard enough to pull her off the bed and land her on her knees in front of him. "Yeah," he said, his free hand in her wet hair, making her look up at him. "Fuck, yeah."
"How long?" She put her free hand on his knee, and kept looking at him.
"Since I met you."
Grace tugged, broke free of his grip and put that hand on his knee as well. She rested her head against his thigh for a moment, and breathed in until it hurt before exhaling. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then his hand alighted, with a gentle touch, on her head.
His dick was thicker than Jim's had been (she thought so, at least; she couldn't really remember anymore). Grace put a hand around the base, uncertain at first, and when his hands slipped before regaining purchase in her hair, she took it as encouragement and moved her other hand to his balls. She found that she didn't mind going slowly -- that surprised her, of everything. If anyone had asked her how she'd want to go about giving a blow job, during an apocalypse, to the guy who killed her boyfriend, she probably would've guessed she'd want to just get it done with.
The movies were right; you really did learn things about yourself on road trips.
It was the sounds he made, though, that made her guts warp inside of her, that made her feel slick and honeyed. He didn't speak, didn't say anything, just gasped and groaned. She raised her eyes once, and he was staring at her, transfixed. "Grace..." It was the only thing he actually said, and she recognized it as her name, after a fashion. His hand tightened in her hair then, twisted, and he came.
She went back into the bathroom, after his hand finally loosened in her hair. She'd planned to get a drink of water. He followed her, after a few moments, pushed her against the doorway -- not hard, though; she let him this time -- and kissed her again. If it were anyone else, she'd say he was being gentle. Maybe he was.
"Where you gonna sleep?" he asked her.
"I don't know," she said. He kissed her again -- it was chaste this time, soft -- and trailed his knuckles, once, along her neck, making her shiver. After that, he let her go and left the bathroom, and she heard him lay down on his bed.
Grace left the door open as she brushed her teeth; the lights were off out there and she couldn't see anything past the bathroom door.
There was fruit in the kitchen the next morning. It was still good, too; the pineapple was tart and stinging; the watermelon was more mellow, dissolving, upon a little chewing, into particles, each more strongly sweet on its own than the whole had been at first. There was honey, and she slipped the bottle into her bag, not sure why she felt such a guilty thrill at it. Grace forgot herself, or ignored herself, and ate with her fingers from the bowl of fruit, sitting cross-legged on one of the counters. The gun sat next to her knee, and didn't touch any part of her.
It was pleasure again, she realized, and forgot herself a second time, long enough for a smile to spread across her face.
"I was in the hospital because I thought I ended it. Maybe this is still a dream," she said.
He looked up at her from the bag he was putting together, ran a hand along her leg and let it rest at her foot, his fingers closing briefly around her ankle. "Maybe. Maybe it's not even your dream."
She looked at him, and laughed. She couldn't have said whether it was an unkind laugh or not. "You're fucking with my head."
He grinned, and she wondered if he could've told her whether that were an unkind smile, either. "Yeah."
That was the first time they fucked -- not in the kitchen, but in the restaurant, all crystal and linen. She sat in his lap, her back against his chest. He talked more this time -- "You're beautiful," he said, "jesusfuckyourebeautiful." He used his hand on her, made her feel light with a wholly new pleasure, like a balloon heated until it lifted. She heard herself groan along with him, herself with that pleasure and him with the same, since his ministrations made her muscles flutter around his dick. She came quicker than anyone had ever made her come before, and heard him cry her name again when he followed shortly after.
Grace would've liked to stay that way for a little longer, but Jim had always complained about the condom afterwards, and she extracted herself, wobbling a little on her feet at first and steadying herself on the table. She tugged her skirt down, and pulled her underwear out of her pocket.
The windows were huge -- it was dangerous, just staying here, but there'd been no sign of movement so far, of the living or the dead. They'd start to kill each other off soon enough, was the theory.
"We could just stay here," she said. "Until it's over."
"Yeah?" He caught her wrist again, pulled her in for a bulldozer-strong kiss. "What if it never ends?"
"Everything ends." She closed her eyes, rested her forehead against his, saw the light coming in bloody through her eyelids at the edges of her sight. In the center there was only darkness, where she knew his face was.
He laughed, once, and she opened her eyes and went to get the guns.
She slept in the car again, but woke up with nightmares of Jim, stitched together and lurching, hollow-eyed, towards her, and screaming.
John didn't say anything, but he looked at her, with what looked sort of like tenderness (if, again, she didn't know better). "I'm okay," she said, resting her head in her hands. She poked at the shotgun with her foot, reassuring herself that it was there.
The sun soothed her until she could breathe normally again, and she put a CD in and turned it up, looking at the road stretched out ahead of them. Scrub flashed by, and scraggly trees; the earth was dusty and empty and still, miracle of miracles, alive.
The sky was clear, and the wide dark blue of it made her feel something like an aching. "Even if it ends," she said, "let's just keep driving."
It was what he'd wanted from the beginning, she understood that suddenly. But even as he smiled, Grace knew he hadn't won. It wasn't that simple, and it never had been.
Author: Georgiana C. Cupcakes (cidercupcakes)
Fandom: The Hitcher (2007 remake)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Het, zombies, bad language.
Words: 4003
Notes: Many, many thanks to cruisedirector for cheerleading, and also for letting me inflict a second-rate slasher movie on her in the first place.
Disclaimer: "Job has all his children killed and Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. There isn't a God."
There had never been any crash. The Lieutenant was alive and well. John -- that was his real name, though of course Ryder wasn't -- was in jail. They told Grace this, but it didn't make much sense, not when she remembered the fire and the gun in her hands.
That was probably why she was in the hospital instead of back at school, though. At least the food here was better than in the dining hall at school, if kind of bland. And more of an ordeal to eat, since they didn't get forks or knives, being a bunch of nutjobs who might try to hurt someone. She learned to take her time, though; it wasn't like there was a whole lot else to do there.
The dead stopped staying dead one day. They were going to transfer everyone to a facility outside Area Zero anyway, but she was going to go back home. Grace didn't know why she was special, and she didn't ask, but she found out anyway, when someone let the tv get turned to the news, and she saw the update. The anchor explained, with the right amount of sobriety in his face, that there had been a crash. Prisoners had to be evacuated, too, after all. "No word yet," he said, frowning so that they would know it was sad news, "on whether this was indeed an accident."
She really believed them, then -- weeks of therapy, and all it took was one news story; her parents were seriously wasting their money -- and they pulled her away from the lounge, taking her to the quiet room until she stopped screaming and begging them to do something.
They took her in an ambulance, to be handed over to doctors at the airport. She didn't know exactly what happened, all she knew was that they swerved before coming to a halt. Grace was trapped in the back -- they had locked the doors from the outside, and restrained her -- listening to the drivers' screams.
At least, thank fuck, the parts where she remembered to find weapons weren't hallucinations. Not that they'd left much in the back, seeing as she was a mental patient -- normally they didn't even let you have shoes with laces, but since she wasn't much of a danger to herself and it was an emergency apparently they hadn't really taken as much caution -- but there were still flares, and heavy things. A toolbox, with a hammer and a screwdriver, both of which, she thought, might work. She tucked the hammer through her belt loop. Once it was quiet, she would try to break her way out of the ambulance. If it was still driveable, she'd take it; if not, she'd walk until she found a car. She stayed low, low enough that only sky could be seen through the little windows on the doors. Maybe they didn't know anyone was in the back.
There were shots over the screams, though, and someone opened the back of the ambulance. She couldn't be surprised anymore, had used up all her terror, and she just stared when she saw that it was him.
"You coming?" he asked, with a fucking smug shit-eating grin.
"Oh my god," she said, though by now she knew it had just been wishful thinking. "Fuck."
He just smirked at her. There was blood on the road. It belonged to people who'd already been dead. He was dirty, but there wasn't blood on him.
"I can leave you here," he said, and as he went to close the door, she put her arms out -- they were still locked together -- and stopped it.
When she stepped out of the ambulance, he was still smiling as he unlocked her restraints. He even gave her a shotgun; of course he wouldn't mind her having one. Grace managed to keep from punching him by way of getting the grin off his face, but mostly she refrained because she knew that could hurt your hand. She waited until he'd given her the gun, then wrapped her hand around the butt and hit him with that. Not hard enough to knock him out, just hard enough that he would stop smiling.
She walked to the car once she was sure he wasn't going to hit her back. It was still bright and sunny. He spat, and was rubbing his jaw as he got into the driver's seat and started the engine.
"So are you gonna kill me?" she asked, after they'd been driving for awhile.
"Would've done it already, don't you think?" he asked in response.
Which was a pretty good point, although not a perfect one. "Not necessarily," she said, and rested her head on her arm. She didn't say anything for another few minutes, neither of them did. She stared out the window, and counted the markers that, in their own turn, counted down to the mile. Two miles went by -- twenty of the markers -- and finally, she spoke again. "Where are we going?"
"Does it matter?"
"I wouldn't have asked if it didn't."
"Yes, you would."
She looked away from the window -- it was hard to do; she didn't want to. She didn't want to look at him at all. "How do you know that?"
He spared a glance, taking his eyes of the road long enough to look at her. He didn't say anything. Grace looked back out the window, watching the scrub flash by.
"The skirt makes you look like a slut," he said, after another few miles had gone by -- she didn't know how much time, she wasn't watching the clock. There wasn't really any point to it, she figured. The world was ending and all.
It took her a second to look over at him. She blinked, looked down at her legs, then looked back at him. "That's funny. The big gun makes you look like you're compensating for something," she said. The phrasing was awkward; it was too long to be a really cutting insult, but it still made the smile fade from his face, made him set his jaw and stare out at the road again, instead of at her legs. That was something.
That was the first hint she got that he was an actual person under there. It figured it would be with a stupid dick joke. She settled back in her seat and crossed her legs. Looking into the side mirror, she saw that she was smirking, and she let her hair fall down beside her face to hide it.
The hotel was nothing like the places she'd stayed the first time. It was nice, really nice. Completely empty, of course -- the whole area had been abandoned, apparently. He'd told her the plan at last; they'd have to drive around the perimeter to find a way out. Maybe towards Mexico. What then, she didn't know.
"Jesus. No." She didn't follow him into the room at first. "What, the entire hotel, you're telling me there isn't a room with two beds?"
He was already sitting down on the bed -- the one bed -- and laughed. "You gonna be able to sleep much anyway?"
Which she wasn't. She wasn't tired. She hadn't even wanted to stop. Grace sat down on the dresser, staring at him. He put his gun down on the bedside table. She hung onto hers, set it on her knees.
It didn't take long for him to go to sleep. Of course, if anyone could sleep through an apocalypse, it was a fucking psycho serial killer. After she was sure he was asleep -- or at least not going to lunge at her just as she started to relax -- she got down from the dresser and went into the bathroom to take a shower. She hadn't had one in a couple of days, and her legs needed shaving. Not that it mattered, now, really, but the thought of shaving was a normal thing, and since Spring Break she'd been running low on those.
There was a razor in his bag. She stared at it, thought about it -- but, you know, he'd given her a gun. If she was going to kill him, that would probably be a lot easier than a razor.
Grace used the hotel's soap, though, by way of slicking her legs up. The idea of smelling like him -- of the shower smelling like him while she was in it -- she could deal with a lot, but she couldn't deal with that.
It took awhile, but there was lots of hot water, so it didn't really matter. The pressure was hard, too, and she closed her eyes, heard a little groan come from her throat. Pleasure, this was pleasure; even thinking the word felt sinfully indulgent, and she clamped down on her vocal chords. Still, she couldn't help feeling it, and she smiled instead, in spite of herself. It was only baths at the hospital, and someone else always filled them, so the temperature was never really right, and of course they didn't want it too hot. You couldn't stay long, either; there was someone waiting outside and they'd check on you if you were quiet for very long. Someone might try to drown herself, or drink all the shampoo, or something.
The hotel was nice -- nice enough that there was a bathrobe with the towels. She put it on after she was done, double-checked that the bathroom door was locked, and sat down on the floor against it. She dozed a little, but mostly, he was right. She couldn't sleep.
She was tired the next day, though, and fell asleep in the car. The sun lulled her into a stupor, warm on her face -- warmer than it should have been, considering the world was ending; it somehow didn't seem right for it to be bright and sunny -- and the roadside markers, counting down to the mile, were hypnotic.
When she woke up, the car had stopped. There was a bag of Fritos on the dash in front of her, and he was stroking her hair. She tightened her hand on the gun in her lap and went back to sleep.
The third day, they were attacked. That was when everything changed. She was coming out of a rest-stop bathroom, something moved in the dreamy parts at the corner of her vision, and Grace started to run. The car wasn't an ambiguous thing then; it was the only place she knew she might have a chance, and she ran, slamming hard into the sun- and engine-heated metal because she was afraid to slow down. He didn't wait for her to open her door; he grabbed her and pulled her into his side. She was, for just a moment, in his lap, but moved quickly, rolling down her window and raising her shotgun as they pulled out of the parking lot, with the smell of burnt rubber and the scream of the tires standing testament to the terror.
She shot from the window, and remembered what they said was the dream. It might've helped if she pretended one of them had his face, but she didn't think of that. She didn't think at all; she just shot.
It was only a few miles before the road behind them was clear again. Grace was still panting, and loosened her fingers, slowly, on the gun.
He didn't say anything. After another few miles he pulled off the road, and when he got out of the car, she did too, and managed to look at him this time. She kept hold of the gun when he kissed her, though she let the hand holding it fall to her side.
"I don't." She forgot what she meant to say. If anything.
"You don't what?" His mouth moved, became a smile; she saw it instead of his eyes. "Just tell me to stop and I'll stop."
She knew he would, too.
"You son of a bitch," she whispered.
He grinned, and kissed her again. One of his hands was already under her shirt. She bit his lip, and heard his breath catch in his throat, and that sound, that little sound, made something inside her, not touching the metal, warm.
"Be easier if you had both hands," he said. He lifted her, just enough to set her on the car's hood. The metal was still warm with the sun and the engine.
"Yeah," she said, and didn't take her hand off the gun, which still sat on the metal next to her. "It would." He kissed her again, slipped a hand under her bra and ran his thumb over her nipple. As she groaned, she bit down again, harder, on his lip. If he was making more noise than she was, that made it okay.
She let go of the handle and held the gun by its barrel, to make sure she wouldn't set it off accidentally. That was the most she would do, though. He pushed her legs up, still kissing her, sliding his hands along her thighs and pushing her skirt far up enough that she could spread her legs. All her edges felt hot when he cupped a hand against her, one fingertip rubbing along the wet spot on her underwear.
"You want me to stop?" he whispered. His breath was hot on her ear, and he sounded gentle, and she knew -- she knew -- that if she said yes, he would.
She couldn't make herself answer, either way, and he pressed his hand harder against her, made her feel hotter than ever. His other hand was on the back of her neck, and he leaned his forehead against hers. Grace kept breathing, and gripped the barrel of the gun harder than ever, because she had nothing else to hang onto -- nothing but him, and she couldn't make herself reach for him.
"No," she said, and kissed him before he could say anything, or smile at her again. "Do you want to stop?" she asked, after she had finished, and returned to the way they had been, with her forehead against his.
John just laughed.
His hands stayed on her thighs and ass, warm and rough, shielding her skin from the hotter metal of the car. His hair was too short to really grab, and Grace's nails dug into his scalp. Her nails were short too, though (they hadn't let them grow out at the hospital, and it had only been a couple of days, and she bit them anyway) so she didn't think she scratched him up badly. Breath came hard, and she heard herself whimper and groan when he made her come, but in the enormity of the open air the noise was almost swallowed up.
That night, the room had two beds. She didn't ask about it, just went into the bathroom. He followed her, and she put her gun down on the back of the toilet. Metal on porcelain made a heavy, hollow sound. He was already undoing the button on her skirt from behind her, pushing her hair aside and kissing her throat as the denim slid down her legs to the stone tile floor.
The last time Jim kissed her had been in the shower. She thought of that as she stepped under the spray, sliding the door closed in John's face. The frosted glass blurred him; he was just a dark thing, standing there. That was all he'd ever been, if you thought about it, which she didn't, much.
She wondered if he'd come in after her, if he'd force her. He didn't, though; that didn't really surprise her, she realized, as he walked out of the bathroom, leaving the door open and fading into the darkness of the rest of the room. Of course he wouldn't. Not now. That was why there were two beds, so she could choose.
So she would have to choose.
Grace reached for the soap and undid the hotel paper wrapping.
This was a nice place, too -- it was easier to break into the nice places now that this part of the country was almost empty of the living. Nothing like the motels he'd trapped them in before. There was a bathrobe with the towels in this one, too, and she pulled it on before she opened the door all the way and stepped out.
"Why'd you take me?" she asked, sitting down on one of the beds, staring across the empty space between them at him.
"Why'd you come?" he asked, shrugging, and then smirked. "Besides the obvious."
She flinched at that, looked down at her legs under the bathrobe. When she looked back up, he was still smirking at her. "Why'd you let me live?" she asked.
He leaned forward, then reached out and grabbed her wrist almost before she saw him move. She gasped -- she couldn't help it. "I gave you a gun. Why'd you let me live?"
"Did you want me?" Her voice was the quietest it could go. His fingers were digging into her wrist.
She heard him laugh, and then he pulled on her wrist, hard, hard enough to pull her off the bed and land her on her knees in front of him. "Yeah," he said, his free hand in her wet hair, making her look up at him. "Fuck, yeah."
"How long?" She put her free hand on his knee, and kept looking at him.
"Since I met you."
Grace tugged, broke free of his grip and put that hand on his knee as well. She rested her head against his thigh for a moment, and breathed in until it hurt before exhaling. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then his hand alighted, with a gentle touch, on her head.
His dick was thicker than Jim's had been (she thought so, at least; she couldn't really remember anymore). Grace put a hand around the base, uncertain at first, and when his hands slipped before regaining purchase in her hair, she took it as encouragement and moved her other hand to his balls. She found that she didn't mind going slowly -- that surprised her, of everything. If anyone had asked her how she'd want to go about giving a blow job, during an apocalypse, to the guy who killed her boyfriend, she probably would've guessed she'd want to just get it done with.
The movies were right; you really did learn things about yourself on road trips.
It was the sounds he made, though, that made her guts warp inside of her, that made her feel slick and honeyed. He didn't speak, didn't say anything, just gasped and groaned. She raised her eyes once, and he was staring at her, transfixed. "Grace..." It was the only thing he actually said, and she recognized it as her name, after a fashion. His hand tightened in her hair then, twisted, and he came.
She went back into the bathroom, after his hand finally loosened in her hair. She'd planned to get a drink of water. He followed her, after a few moments, pushed her against the doorway -- not hard, though; she let him this time -- and kissed her again. If it were anyone else, she'd say he was being gentle. Maybe he was.
"Where you gonna sleep?" he asked her.
"I don't know," she said. He kissed her again -- it was chaste this time, soft -- and trailed his knuckles, once, along her neck, making her shiver. After that, he let her go and left the bathroom, and she heard him lay down on his bed.
Grace left the door open as she brushed her teeth; the lights were off out there and she couldn't see anything past the bathroom door.
There was fruit in the kitchen the next morning. It was still good, too; the pineapple was tart and stinging; the watermelon was more mellow, dissolving, upon a little chewing, into particles, each more strongly sweet on its own than the whole had been at first. There was honey, and she slipped the bottle into her bag, not sure why she felt such a guilty thrill at it. Grace forgot herself, or ignored herself, and ate with her fingers from the bowl of fruit, sitting cross-legged on one of the counters. The gun sat next to her knee, and didn't touch any part of her.
It was pleasure again, she realized, and forgot herself a second time, long enough for a smile to spread across her face.
"I was in the hospital because I thought I ended it. Maybe this is still a dream," she said.
He looked up at her from the bag he was putting together, ran a hand along her leg and let it rest at her foot, his fingers closing briefly around her ankle. "Maybe. Maybe it's not even your dream."
She looked at him, and laughed. She couldn't have said whether it was an unkind laugh or not. "You're fucking with my head."
He grinned, and she wondered if he could've told her whether that were an unkind smile, either. "Yeah."
That was the first time they fucked -- not in the kitchen, but in the restaurant, all crystal and linen. She sat in his lap, her back against his chest. He talked more this time -- "You're beautiful," he said, "jesusfuckyourebeautiful." He used his hand on her, made her feel light with a wholly new pleasure, like a balloon heated until it lifted. She heard herself groan along with him, herself with that pleasure and him with the same, since his ministrations made her muscles flutter around his dick. She came quicker than anyone had ever made her come before, and heard him cry her name again when he followed shortly after.
Grace would've liked to stay that way for a little longer, but Jim had always complained about the condom afterwards, and she extracted herself, wobbling a little on her feet at first and steadying herself on the table. She tugged her skirt down, and pulled her underwear out of her pocket.
The windows were huge -- it was dangerous, just staying here, but there'd been no sign of movement so far, of the living or the dead. They'd start to kill each other off soon enough, was the theory.
"We could just stay here," she said. "Until it's over."
"Yeah?" He caught her wrist again, pulled her in for a bulldozer-strong kiss. "What if it never ends?"
"Everything ends." She closed her eyes, rested her forehead against his, saw the light coming in bloody through her eyelids at the edges of her sight. In the center there was only darkness, where she knew his face was.
He laughed, once, and she opened her eyes and went to get the guns.
She slept in the car again, but woke up with nightmares of Jim, stitched together and lurching, hollow-eyed, towards her, and screaming.
John didn't say anything, but he looked at her, with what looked sort of like tenderness (if, again, she didn't know better). "I'm okay," she said, resting her head in her hands. She poked at the shotgun with her foot, reassuring herself that it was there.
The sun soothed her until she could breathe normally again, and she put a CD in and turned it up, looking at the road stretched out ahead of them. Scrub flashed by, and scraggly trees; the earth was dusty and empty and still, miracle of miracles, alive.
The sky was clear, and the wide dark blue of it made her feel something like an aching. "Even if it ends," she said, "let's just keep driving."
It was what he'd wanted from the beginning, she understood that suddenly. But even as he smiled, Grace knew he hadn't won. It wasn't that simple, and it never had been.