the end is extremely fucking nigh

[tendencytostart]

St. John wakes up slowly, via the sun viciously attacking his eyeballs with a little sun hammer and sun gong and sun knives. And possibly an atom bomb. And maybe a gun and some tanks and -- his head hurts, stfu

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[lovegonetowaste]

"ST JOHN," Nica screams it at the top of her lungs as she gets near enough to the church to realise there are a metric fuckton of zombies between her and her bloke. Also Wanda and HER bloke, but that is momentarily a secondary concern.

Honey. Maybe...just MAYBE...drawing attention to yourself in front of the church fulla dead folk is a, you know...bad idea.

Just a thought.

[chovihanni]

"ADAM!" Wanda...also evidently didn't get the 'stop shouting, you crazy hos' memo, or perhaps she just doesn't care. Either way! Two girls yelling. And bleeding. Wanda's adrenaline levels are too high for her to care much, though.

"You said they were inside, right?"

[cordillageddon]

Inside, and in Adam's case, quietly and shakily reciting the multiplication table over and over again with his eyes shut tight to distract himself from the fact that he's trapped in a tiny filthy room with no exit.

(The 1-through-12's aren't distracting enough. He's reciting the 16-times table.)

Until he hears--something outside, something that isn't howling and snarling and pounding, something that could conceivably be Wanda's voice, but he isn't sure. The mere possibility is enough to rouse him. He scrambles off the floor and gets to work on that window, jerking at the plywood.

"Wanda!"

[tendencytostart]

St. John doesn't as much scramble as he does stagger, but he is a FOOT SHORTER than Adam, and he has every intention of shoving his head out the same space.

Pull those boards, boys!

Once there's enough open space for like, a fly to get out, St. John jams...pretty much his entire upper body through the window. There is totally space for Adam! It's, uh a large former window. And arbitrarily shaped like a diamond, says the typist.

"NICA! I LOST MY LIGHTER ;____; " ....okay, he doesn't say the last part, but he WANTS TO.

[lovegonetowaste]

"You difficult bastards," Nica shouts, as though they DELIBERATELY trapped themselves up there behind the horde of zombies JUST TO PISS HER OFF. She gestures with her knife, famed calm a little frazzled in the face of this new problem.

Nica does not articulate the rest of her thoughts, but perhaps Wanda, being right there next to her, can infer from her expression:

you little bastards do I have to do everything my fucking self I'm going to kill both of you when this is over oh god FUCK'S SAKE

...she's very expressive.

Anyway, she nudges Wanda. "Clear them a path!"

Her thought here is that the boys can come the fuck down and then St John can torch the church and the remaining zombies inside.

[chovihanni]

Wanda has her hands on her hips now, as she looks the church over for potential escape routes.

"On it."

Wanda glances up at the window, but she can't make out if Adam's okay--and that can wait. Although...not for much longer. She pushes the church doors open (they were already ajar, it's less impressive than it sounds) and concentrates. BYE ZOMBIES enjoy your...uh...dissolution. This one isn't quite as neat as the one before--Wanda's shifting back to what she was before, you see, although she's still a lot more clear-thinking than she has been in, um, years.

The aftermath for using her power like this will be, well, interesting, though. Even with Nica's assistance earlier. There are still (un)dead folk left, but hopefully Adam and St. John can get down now.

[cordillageddon]

Adam is, essentially, unarmed at the moment. He has two bullets left in his gun, and in the time it would take him to aim at a zombie's brain and shoot, three more would be on him. And St. John...well. Yeah.

The pounding and howling have nearly ceased, but the bookshelf's still in the way. Adam sets his back to it and tries to shove it across the floor, enough to get through the trapdoor.

"Ready?" He eyes Sinjin nervously. Time to RUN LIKE THE MOTHERFUCKING WIND again, boys.

[tendencytostart]

"No," says St. John, because now is totally the time for your weird honesty, you DOUCHENOZZLE, "but I'm sure as fuck not staying up here."

And then there is that aforementioned running like the wind and whatnot, helter-skelter down the ladder and fucking christ past the zombies because he doesn't have any way to stop them, goddammit.

OUTSIDE IS AMAZING HELLO WANDA AND NICA. Your bloke (Nica's) is just gonna shamble on over to you, much like the zombies don't, and...frantically check your pockets, hi. "Lostmylighterveyougotone, matches, anything, it doesn't fucking matter, I just need something--"

...words.

[lovegonetowaste]

"I can do you one better," she says, grabbing hold of his hands and lacing their fingers together. "Breathe. I've never done this before." THAT'S COMFORTING, NICA. TELL HIM RIGHT BEFORE YOU FUCK WITH HIS GENETIC MAKE UP THAT YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE.

"Burn it," she tells him, letting go, an unusual glint in her eye.

[chovihanni]

Wanda rushes over to Adam as soon as he is even a little bit away from the church doors. She knows he's claustrophobic, and doesn't want to crowd him, but at the same time she wants to make sure he's okay and not, you know, going to die and also maybe attach to him like a hundred and thirty pounds of teenage girl-limpet, but you know. She'll restrain herself. For...two seconds. At least until she's sure he's breathing normally.

[cordillageddon]

Even if he weren't, he wouldn't object, because it's Wanda, and even if she hadn't pretty much just saved him from certain gruesome zombie death, he'd be clinging to her like a barnacle anyway because he hasn't seen her in what feels like days and he's so goddamn sorry he left.

He pulls her off to the side, away from the carnage-to-be, away from anything that might still be dangerous, and wraps his arms around her and holds her for as long as he can.

[tendencytostart]

St. John is...not noticing any of this.

When Nica told him to breathe he didn't really know what she was doing, but he did it anyway (how could he not), and it was like sucking in gas, like his lungs were going to spill over and explode. Everything he's ever done has been built on the principle that what he is, what he does, is separate from him; fire doesn't even burn him, it stays outside always.

This is nothing like that; it's nothing like anything, it's rage and heat and light pouring out of his fingers, his eyes, every fucking nerve ending he has is splitting and twisting and reforming until he doesn't know what he is any more and he doesn't care.

He pivots on his heel, all that liquid grace back in his movements; he's not tired or sore or sick , he can't even remember what those things are. He doesn't need a lighter - he fucking is one, and there are plumes and dizzying spirals and bolts of flame bursting out of his hands, fuck, it's coming out of his skin, out out out, it's alive and it's the prettiest damn thing he's

[lovegonetowaste]

Nica stares at what used to be a church for a few moments. Somewhere in the back of her mind is an exultant little voice saying we did that, but she pushes it firmly away and spins away sharply to go and drop down into a crouch in front of St John, her hands flitting uncertainly from his face to his body to his face to--to just kind of fluttering around him, never touching one place for longer than it takes to make sure she hasn't completely fucked his physiology.

It'd be temporary even if she had.

Unless it killed him.

Look, she's a little concerned right now. He feels okay--he feels like the echo of flame under her skin, and it's distracting, but Nica's good at pulling herself together and focusing. "We can't stay out here," she says, clearly, her hands coming to cup St John's face and make him look at her...at which point she remembers Wanda and Adam, and her attention slides towards them.

[chovihanni]

Wanda's just going to cling to Adam like he's the only real thing in the entire universe, and shit, for Wanda? It's just as likely she doesn't know what's real right now. She's not as unclear as all that, thanks to Nica, but she can still use the reassurance that he's there, he's alive, they're alive. And there's fire raging hot orange not far--she turns, but doesn't move away from Adam, to observe St. John.

She's totally expressionless, by the way, while she watches.

"Let's go back to the bar," she says, slipping her hand into Adam's. They will not be not-touching for...a while, if she has her way. Her voice is cool and distant and steely, at odds with her body language, but she's there.