Apocalyptic Lovesong 3/?
Title: Apocalyptic Lovesong 3/?
Author: decayee
Pairing: Cara/Dahlia, future background Richard/Kahlan
Rating: There is zombies, and an apocalypse
Summary: AU Zombie-apocalypse.
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Note: It's been forever and I'm sorry about that. There are a ton of good reasons tho :) It's unbetad and probably full of mistakes as per usual. If you don't remember the other parts they are here(1) and here(2)
Cara watched the sun-cats dance over Dahlia’s eyes. They looked blue now in the light of the setting sun. She was sure they where gray when they first met, but even as they had been pressed close together in the kitchen, Cara hadn’t been able to really tell. They were gray then and blue now, or maybe they were both.
Dahlia’s eyes left the road for a second and flickered towards Cara beside her. Cara looked away. Instead she turned her head to the deserted streets outside their stolen car. It was a ghost town now, belonging to the monsters and the dogs. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed before. Lost in her own head she had walked right through this, a city full of empty cars, empty houses, empty eyes. They drove passed packs of dogs eating humans, and packs of humans eating dogs, and she had to turn her eyes away again. They ended up on her cut palm. The wound was dark red and pounding, like something was trying to make its way out; a small dog-eating monster perhaps. As she pressed her palms together and making pain shot up her arm, imagining the monster going back with it, she felt her eyes wander back to Dahlia’s face.
It was as Cara’s eyes had a will of their own, and they always ended up on Dahlia. As the other woman stared at the road a frown came upon her face and her jaw tightened. It took all of Cara’s willpower not to reach out and let her fingers trail over Dahlia’s jaw line, from her ear to her lower lip, then keep going up and touch that rounded nose tip, and finally land at her forehead to smooth that tension between her eye brows. She kept her hands to herself, but she still knew how every part of Dahlia’s face would feel like beneath her fingertips, like she had touched it a million times before. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her seat and thought back at their escape.
Cara had lounged herself up on the counter in front of the window. Her first thought had been to simply smash it with her hand to be able to get out as quickly as possible. But on second thought, a fist full off cuts didn’t seem like the best idea considering what Dahlia had said. So instead she started struggling with the lock. It was a simple enough design, but with a dozen zombies pulling at her legs nothing seemed to make sense. Dahlia had placed herself behind Cara’s back, between her and the danger. She held the slim fish knife in her hand, wielding it like some Olympic fencer, paring and attacking as the zombies crept closer. They didn’t seem to have any of their human self-preservation left, as seeing their fellow monsters falling to the knife before them didn’t seem to hinder them or even make them hesitate for a second. And it was every being for themselves as they climbed over the fallen, but still living bodies, biting and clawing each other to get to the prize first.
“Any time now” Dahlia yelled back as she cut anything that came closer.
“I just… can’t get this… thing open” Cara pushed and pulled and shrieked as two fingers rolled into her sight, still twitching and turning like two grey worms on the countertop.
Finally, as the fingers tried to journey up her leg, the lock gave in and the window opened with a high pitch noise that spoke of years of neglection.
Cara threw herself out of the window, landing face first among the flowers below. She had hardly had time to pull herself up the dry earth as Dahlia came tumbling from above, landing half on top of her and pressing her back down again. Dahlia grabbed her arm and pulled her up almost immediately. She held out the bloody knife.
“I’ll drive, you cover me” She held up the keys and pointed towards the car like she was talking to a child.
She thinks I’m dumb, Cara thought. And once they were out of immediate danger Cara realized how dumb she had actually acted, or weak rather.
“Yeah, I think I’ll manage that” her voice turned cold as she grabbed the knife.
She resented the other woman for seeing her like that, something she hadn’t even let the people she called her friends do. She didn’t have a lot of them, and frankly there were no one she really cared that much for. But what had happened to them now? She hadn’t even given that a thought until now. Where they running around like sleepwalking killers, or lying dead in a street corner? She was disturbed to find out that she really wasn’t that bothered as to which it was. And she didn’t have much family to speak of either. Her mother had been dead for years and her father never gave her a reason to care before he left. The only person whose fate made her heart drop was her sister. Sweet little Grace who was everything Cara was not, an A student, the family’s little angel and their father’s favorite. Grace had probably never picked up a weapon, definitely didn’t own one. Cara felt tears threatening as the thought of her sister’s survival grew slimmer in her mind. Grace had never been a fighter, that had always been Cara’s part to play. She knew she had to play it again, for Grace.
“We are going to my sister’s house” She said as they reached the car. Dahlia stopped dead in her tracks and turned around.
“Excuse me? No, we are not… We are getting the hell out of here!” Her eyes were grey now, cold.
“We are going to my sister’s house” Cara repeated, slowly, in the same patronizing tone Dahlia had used earlier. She pointed to the ground with the bloody knife. “Or I am staying here”
It was a big risk to take; there was nothing to say that Dahlia wouldn’t just leave her there to be eaten alive, nothing to really bind them together. But Cara thought of what had happened in that kitchen, the connection she had felt between them and hoped that was enough. And as she said it a flash of pain flew over Dahlia’s face before she got it under control again, and her eyes flickered towards the house behind Cara. She could hear grunting as she imagined the zombies trying to follow them through the window. How long could she risk waiting for Dahlia before it was too late, before they were on them again? A muffled thud; someone had made it out of the window. Another one, then a third and a fourth and Cara lost track but didn’t allow herself to break the stubborn eye contact. Instead Dahlia broke it first.
“Fine!” She snarled as she turned and opened the car door. For a second Cara thought she meant she would leave her there before she waved impatiently and added “just get in the car!”
Cara allowed herself a look over the shoulder as she set of to the passenger side. They were right behind her, a couple of seconds more and Dahlia wouldn’t have had to make a decision at all. She swung the knife blindly behind her and almost fell over as it bit into something. She pulled and felt a spray of warm blood on her back. She looked again and a man had sunk to his knees, one hand covering the left side of his face trying to keep his jaw in place and the other holding half his ear. There was still a steady flow of zombies out the window, but at least they hadn’t seemed to understand that they could use the front door. The ones outside closed in on her, one pushing the bleeding man aside, as Dahlia started the car with a roar. It made them hesitate and was enough to let Cara get to the car unharmed.
“Where?!” Dahlia screamed as Cara buckled up and threw the knife into the backseat.
“Just drive!” Dahlia set the car in motion and made a U-turn over the grass, hitting countless zombies in her way. As the car reached the road and Dahlia hit the accelerator Cara look off at the house behind them. The broken windows and the now bloody lawn with its ugly tracks.
“Well, they had a lovely home” She looked at Dahlia who stared back with disbelief before she answered.
“I don’t think they’ll ever ask us over for dinner again”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dahlia didn’t want to admit it, but she had actually considered leaving Cara there. Why wouldn’t she? She didn’t know this woman, didn’t know anything about her except her name, her first name. And now that she had a sister she was willing to die for. She would have left but there was just something about Cara, the way she looked as she stood there dirty and bloody that made it impossible to do so.
The image brought back a memory that wasn’t hers, a memory of a fearsome woman in red with her hair in a tight braid. It was Cara, but at the same time it wasn’t and she didn’t know what to do with this image. The Cara before her and her dirty face made her want to protect her, but the other woman demanded respect. She found that she couldn’t leave either of them. But it was the dirty version that won her over. And now they were on their way to save another woman she knew nothing about. She pretended to be mad about it.
As Cara sat staring at her own hands, Dahlia allowed herself one glance and smiled. Cara still had smudges of dirt on her face.