Live Free or Die Hard Fic: Brave New World
Title: Brave New World
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 2315
Summary: But honestly. Running through a derelict warehouse while being chased by several dozen rotting corpses eager to take a bite out of his flesh is not his favourite way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Notes: Written for sexy_right's Quips and Quotes challenge, for the prompt "...whether they be zombies or not."
Warnings: Zombie violence ahead!
Brave New World
by Severina
Matt trusts John. He really does.
He`s spent two years as John's wingman, and McClane's instincts have gotten them through a lot of situations that would have gone sour on anyone else. So when John said they had to climb the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island to disarm the bomb, Matt followed, even though his fear of heights is really only surpassed by his fear of bombs. When John said they had to jump off the roof last year - the whole time muttering things like I know I said I'd never go up on a roof again, I know all right, but just let us not die and I swear I'll never do it again, I fucking mean it this time - Matt swallowed and took John's hand and leapt.
John leads and Matt follows, believing - knowing - that whatever happens, John will see them through the other side intact and whole. He hardly even hyperventilates any more.
But honestly. Running through a derelict warehouse while being chased by several dozen rotting corpses eager to take a bite out of his flesh is not his favourite way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
John is weaving a little when he hits the door into the next room at a dead run, the blood from his injured shoulder spraying out onto the concrete at the impact. The floor is damp from the burst water main, and Matt skids a little on the slick ground, his arms pin-wheeling as he struggles to keep his balance, and he can't help stealing a glance over his shoulder even as John is reaching through the gap and dragging him through the opening.
The nearest shambler is less than five feet away.
Matt darts inside and joins John in slamming his shoulder against the door but the zombies are close, too fucking close. They can't get the door closed again before the first of them hurtles its body against the old wood, is joined seconds later by another and another, the thumps of dead flesh battening against the door almost overpowered by the endless moans and snarls.
It's the blood. Not that the sight of living, breathing humans isn't enough to stir up the shamblers anyway, but the blood sends them into a frenzy.
A grey hand curls around the doorframe, splintered nails digging into the wood, and Matt swings, brings the crowbar down on rotting fingers. There's a sharp, sinister crack of breaking bone and a burst of yellowish fluid from the decayed flesh and the hand falls away, useless. But the press of bodies against the door only increases, the sound of the moans only gets louder.
"This is the plan, McClane, really?" he huffs out, redoubling his efforts to push the door closed. "Going against a couple of dozen undead monsters with one gun and a crowbar? Excellent plan, McClane. Totally rules."
"You had a gun," John grunts, heaving his good shoulder against the battered wood. Matt tries not to look at the blood that drenches his right arm, drips in slow ponderous drops to the grey cement. "It's not my goddamn fault you dropped it down the elevator shaft."
"I don't like heights!" Matt splutters out. "Do you know how deep the drop was down that shaft? If I hadn't let go of the gun, I would have fallen to my death, okay?"
John opens his mouth to retort, and Matt's got rebuttals ready for each of the five probable things he's sure are going to come out of John's mouth, but when the door slides forward another few inches and the moans of the shamblers grow louder he only meets John's eyes and digs in with his heels, shoves his body against the door. The crowbar is slick in his palm and the stench of rotting flesh is like something alive, filling his nostrils and coating his tongue, and even after a full year of this he can barely stop the gag reflex.
" 'End of the world insurance policy'," John mutters. " 'Whether they be motherfucking zombies or not'."
"Hey," Matt snaps, "don't blame this on the Warlock. It was the government that released the gas that-"
"That's never been proven!"
"Are we seriously going to argue culpability right now?" Matt asks. "Because we are about six inches away from being eaten alive and let me tell you, McClane, if I get bitten? The first person I'm going after when I get back up is you."
John sniffs. "That's some loyalty, kid. How many times have I saved your ass?"
"About as many times as you've fucked it," Matt concedes.
He doesn't have time to appreciate the leer that John sends his way, because that's when he tries to change his stance to get better leverage, so of course that's also when his sneaker slides in the mix of dank water and blood that is pooled on the floor. He does have time to see the way John's eyes suddenly get very wide and very shocked, and then he's falling, and there's no time for anything - not an Oh Shit or a Fuck or a My Will is in the sock drawer in the manila envelope labelled 'Keep Your Fucking Eyes Off This, McClane' - because one of them has him, sliding skeletal arms through the opening and hooking ragged claws into his shirt and drawing him forward. He can smell its fetid breath, hear the pop as its jaw distends and he flails an arm upward, tries desperately to get the crowbar beneath the zombie's chin and knows, knows that he's not going to make it.
The crash of the gun going off so close to his ear is deafening, and he barely registers the splatter of brain and bone that rains down on the back of his head, cakes his hair and drips in oily patches of slime down his cheek. He only knows that he's alive when moments ago he was certain that he was going to end his Saturday afternoon as a zombie chew toy, and that would have totally sucked.
"Too fucking close," he manages to choke out.
"Chalk up another time that I saved your fucking ass," John says.
Matt scrambles to his feet without pointing out the many and various ways that his ass is definitely worth saving - though he does make a mental note to share the list with John later - and slams his back against the door. He swears that the zombie's moans take on a note of desperation, of frustration at being thwarted when so close to their prize, and the hairs on the back of his neck lift at the sound. He lets his gaze dart around the room, searching frantically for another exit even though he knows that if there was one John would have already led them to it by now, and shakes his hair out of his eyes. Nothing but a beaten up old desk, a few boxes spewing mouldy paper, a glassless window that's too high and too small to do them any good.
They are so fucked.
When the door shudders and heaves forward another itch, Matt yelps. "Where the fuck is our goddamn backup?"
"Cavalry never arrives until it's too fucking late," John answers. "You should know that by now, kid."
Matt looks up sharply, meets John's eyes. He knows that tone. It's the same one John used when he was going to save Lucy, kill everybody else. The same one he used just before they clambered up the frame of a goddamned giant roller coaster. It's the one that says there's nobody else here and the plan might suck - or not even be a plan, come on - but it's all we've got and we're doing it and that's the way it's gonna go, so just fall in fucking line.
"No," Matt says.
"The door's not gonna hold," John says, and as if to prove him right the ancient wood creaks again, shifts behind them. Matt raises his eyes, and now he can see the cracks forming amongst the chipped paint, see the way the framed wood is actually surging outward with each slam of a dead body from the other side. Rotting fingers curl around the edges of the frame; decaying faces push and press into the gap, teeth snapping over decomposing lips.
"John…"
"Let them in," John says as he steps away from the door.
"No! Fuck, McClane, wait, are you serio… okay, you are serious, what the…"
Without John's weight against the door there's nothing to stop it from sliding forward another few inches, and Matt fights against the panic as he still frantically tries to brace his heels on the ground and hold on. He can swear the shamblers know what's going to happen because the thump of bodies against the door reaches a frantic pitch, the moans and snarls getting louder and more frenzied. He watches John calmly replace the clip in his gun without taking his eyes from the ever-widening gap, each movement precise and confident, and it's that assuredness that gives him the strength to tighten his grip on the crowbar and then just… let go.
The door seems to swing open the rest of the way in super slo-mo, and for a moment it almost seems as though Matt has all the time in the world to take a few steps, to swing his makeshift club, to take out the zombies before they even have a chance to get over the threshold. He feels like Neo, invincible, unstoppable, feels like there's no way they'll have time to reach him, and he actually takes a step forward… and then the door slams into the wall and time goes back to normal and the shamblers are spilling into the room, arms outstretched and mouths open wide, and John is screaming at him to get out of the way, get out of the fucking way NOW. Matt barely has time to skip back before the first of John's bullets shreds through the skull of the lead zombie. The booming report shakes him out of his stupor and even as John takes out two more, Matt is waving his hand in the air, leading a couple of them off in his direction.
They move fast, faster than they should have given the reports that came in to Central.
"FV's, my ass!" he shouts to John just before the first of them is on him.
"I see it, kid," John yells back.
The First Victims - the millions who initially succumbed worldwide when the disease first appeared on the scene, the ones who dropped to the ground, spitting and convulsing until their hearts stopped and then rose again, rose staggering and mindless and hungry, the ones who bit and chewed and ate and turned the relatives and friends and strangers who stood open-mouthed and shocked over their bodies in home and businesses and on street corners - they were slow, now. Slow and ponderous, decaying flesh sometimes stripped to the bone, lurching emptily through the streets. Their only danger was in large groups, when the sheer mass of them could overwhelm. Individually, Matt knew, his Auntie Matilda with the bad hip could probably take one of them down.
These are not FV's.
There's a rapid-fire succession of shots, three or four at least, and Matt can't remember how many rounds John's already gone through and whether he'll have time to reload because he's got his own shit to deal with.
The gaping wound in the zombie's chest is fresh, the blood stains on the front of his uniform shirt still bright red. His head lolls sickeningly on a broken neck but his red-rimmed eyes are still focused, intent, and they stay fixated on Matt's even as Matt swings the crowbar. The crunch of shattering bone is almost lost under another bark from John's weapon, and even as the shambler is falling Matt is swinging toward the next, ducking beneath the questing hands of a woman in a tattered housedress to catch the next zombie under the chin, send him tumbling back into the mob in a tangle of arms and legs.
He takes out three more before he realizes that John's gun has stopped firing and there are no more moans and snarls from the undead.
"Jesus," Matt mutters. He turns in a slow circle, swipes a hand through his bangs that comes away coated with blood and bits of rancid greying flesh. "Jesus Christ."
Then John is there, smoothing a hand over Matt's head, down his arms. Matt lets him, even as he squirms and rolls his eyes. "I'm not bit," he says.
"I know," John says.
When John wraps one arm around him, Matt sighs. And when John's lip press against his, Matt surges against him, twines a grimy hand in the front of his shirt and tugs him closer. John tastes of the copper tang of blood, of cordite, of grit and slime and concrete dust and it should be disgusting; surrounded by the crushed and pummelled and bullet ridden bodies of the shamblers, it should make him sick. But instead he digs his fingers in tighter, pulls John in closer, sucks John's tongue into his mouth and moans and relishes what it is to be alive.
Somewhere, on the other side of the building, Lambert and his crew are clearing out the refugees, rounding up any wayward zombies and putting them down. Later there will be reports to fill out, a medic to stitch up John's shoulder, painkillers and nightmares. Tomorrow there will be another frantic call to 911, another ride to the city, another band of zombies to destroy.
Now there is just this: John's mouth warm and soft on his, John's big hand on his hip to ground him.
Right now, he actually can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
.
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 2315
Summary: But honestly. Running through a derelict warehouse while being chased by several dozen rotting corpses eager to take a bite out of his flesh is not his favourite way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Notes: Written for sexy_right's Quips and Quotes challenge, for the prompt "...whether they be zombies or not."
Warnings: Zombie violence ahead!
Brave New World
by Severina
Matt trusts John. He really does.
He`s spent two years as John's wingman, and McClane's instincts have gotten them through a lot of situations that would have gone sour on anyone else. So when John said they had to climb the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island to disarm the bomb, Matt followed, even though his fear of heights is really only surpassed by his fear of bombs. When John said they had to jump off the roof last year - the whole time muttering things like I know I said I'd never go up on a roof again, I know all right, but just let us not die and I swear I'll never do it again, I fucking mean it this time - Matt swallowed and took John's hand and leapt.
John leads and Matt follows, believing - knowing - that whatever happens, John will see them through the other side intact and whole. He hardly even hyperventilates any more.
But honestly. Running through a derelict warehouse while being chased by several dozen rotting corpses eager to take a bite out of his flesh is not his favourite way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
John is weaving a little when he hits the door into the next room at a dead run, the blood from his injured shoulder spraying out onto the concrete at the impact. The floor is damp from the burst water main, and Matt skids a little on the slick ground, his arms pin-wheeling as he struggles to keep his balance, and he can't help stealing a glance over his shoulder even as John is reaching through the gap and dragging him through the opening.
The nearest shambler is less than five feet away.
Matt darts inside and joins John in slamming his shoulder against the door but the zombies are close, too fucking close. They can't get the door closed again before the first of them hurtles its body against the old wood, is joined seconds later by another and another, the thumps of dead flesh battening against the door almost overpowered by the endless moans and snarls.
It's the blood. Not that the sight of living, breathing humans isn't enough to stir up the shamblers anyway, but the blood sends them into a frenzy.
A grey hand curls around the doorframe, splintered nails digging into the wood, and Matt swings, brings the crowbar down on rotting fingers. There's a sharp, sinister crack of breaking bone and a burst of yellowish fluid from the decayed flesh and the hand falls away, useless. But the press of bodies against the door only increases, the sound of the moans only gets louder.
"This is the plan, McClane, really?" he huffs out, redoubling his efforts to push the door closed. "Going against a couple of dozen undead monsters with one gun and a crowbar? Excellent plan, McClane. Totally rules."
"You had a gun," John grunts, heaving his good shoulder against the battered wood. Matt tries not to look at the blood that drenches his right arm, drips in slow ponderous drops to the grey cement. "It's not my goddamn fault you dropped it down the elevator shaft."
"I don't like heights!" Matt splutters out. "Do you know how deep the drop was down that shaft? If I hadn't let go of the gun, I would have fallen to my death, okay?"
John opens his mouth to retort, and Matt's got rebuttals ready for each of the five probable things he's sure are going to come out of John's mouth, but when the door slides forward another few inches and the moans of the shamblers grow louder he only meets John's eyes and digs in with his heels, shoves his body against the door. The crowbar is slick in his palm and the stench of rotting flesh is like something alive, filling his nostrils and coating his tongue, and even after a full year of this he can barely stop the gag reflex.
" 'End of the world insurance policy'," John mutters. " 'Whether they be motherfucking zombies or not'."
"Hey," Matt snaps, "don't blame this on the Warlock. It was the government that released the gas that-"
"That's never been proven!"
"Are we seriously going to argue culpability right now?" Matt asks. "Because we are about six inches away from being eaten alive and let me tell you, McClane, if I get bitten? The first person I'm going after when I get back up is you."
John sniffs. "That's some loyalty, kid. How many times have I saved your ass?"
"About as many times as you've fucked it," Matt concedes.
He doesn't have time to appreciate the leer that John sends his way, because that's when he tries to change his stance to get better leverage, so of course that's also when his sneaker slides in the mix of dank water and blood that is pooled on the floor. He does have time to see the way John's eyes suddenly get very wide and very shocked, and then he's falling, and there's no time for anything - not an Oh Shit or a Fuck or a My Will is in the sock drawer in the manila envelope labelled 'Keep Your Fucking Eyes Off This, McClane' - because one of them has him, sliding skeletal arms through the opening and hooking ragged claws into his shirt and drawing him forward. He can smell its fetid breath, hear the pop as its jaw distends and he flails an arm upward, tries desperately to get the crowbar beneath the zombie's chin and knows, knows that he's not going to make it.
The crash of the gun going off so close to his ear is deafening, and he barely registers the splatter of brain and bone that rains down on the back of his head, cakes his hair and drips in oily patches of slime down his cheek. He only knows that he's alive when moments ago he was certain that he was going to end his Saturday afternoon as a zombie chew toy, and that would have totally sucked.
"Too fucking close," he manages to choke out.
"Chalk up another time that I saved your fucking ass," John says.
Matt scrambles to his feet without pointing out the many and various ways that his ass is definitely worth saving - though he does make a mental note to share the list with John later - and slams his back against the door. He swears that the zombie's moans take on a note of desperation, of frustration at being thwarted when so close to their prize, and the hairs on the back of his neck lift at the sound. He lets his gaze dart around the room, searching frantically for another exit even though he knows that if there was one John would have already led them to it by now, and shakes his hair out of his eyes. Nothing but a beaten up old desk, a few boxes spewing mouldy paper, a glassless window that's too high and too small to do them any good.
They are so fucked.
When the door shudders and heaves forward another itch, Matt yelps. "Where the fuck is our goddamn backup?"
"Cavalry never arrives until it's too fucking late," John answers. "You should know that by now, kid."
Matt looks up sharply, meets John's eyes. He knows that tone. It's the same one John used when he was going to save Lucy, kill everybody else. The same one he used just before they clambered up the frame of a goddamned giant roller coaster. It's the one that says there's nobody else here and the plan might suck - or not even be a plan, come on - but it's all we've got and we're doing it and that's the way it's gonna go, so just fall in fucking line.
"No," Matt says.
"The door's not gonna hold," John says, and as if to prove him right the ancient wood creaks again, shifts behind them. Matt raises his eyes, and now he can see the cracks forming amongst the chipped paint, see the way the framed wood is actually surging outward with each slam of a dead body from the other side. Rotting fingers curl around the edges of the frame; decaying faces push and press into the gap, teeth snapping over decomposing lips.
"John…"
"Let them in," John says as he steps away from the door.
"No! Fuck, McClane, wait, are you serio… okay, you are serious, what the…"
Without John's weight against the door there's nothing to stop it from sliding forward another few inches, and Matt fights against the panic as he still frantically tries to brace his heels on the ground and hold on. He can swear the shamblers know what's going to happen because the thump of bodies against the door reaches a frantic pitch, the moans and snarls getting louder and more frenzied. He watches John calmly replace the clip in his gun without taking his eyes from the ever-widening gap, each movement precise and confident, and it's that assuredness that gives him the strength to tighten his grip on the crowbar and then just… let go.
The door seems to swing open the rest of the way in super slo-mo, and for a moment it almost seems as though Matt has all the time in the world to take a few steps, to swing his makeshift club, to take out the zombies before they even have a chance to get over the threshold. He feels like Neo, invincible, unstoppable, feels like there's no way they'll have time to reach him, and he actually takes a step forward… and then the door slams into the wall and time goes back to normal and the shamblers are spilling into the room, arms outstretched and mouths open wide, and John is screaming at him to get out of the way, get out of the fucking way NOW. Matt barely has time to skip back before the first of John's bullets shreds through the skull of the lead zombie. The booming report shakes him out of his stupor and even as John takes out two more, Matt is waving his hand in the air, leading a couple of them off in his direction.
They move fast, faster than they should have given the reports that came in to Central.
"FV's, my ass!" he shouts to John just before the first of them is on him.
"I see it, kid," John yells back.
The First Victims - the millions who initially succumbed worldwide when the disease first appeared on the scene, the ones who dropped to the ground, spitting and convulsing until their hearts stopped and then rose again, rose staggering and mindless and hungry, the ones who bit and chewed and ate and turned the relatives and friends and strangers who stood open-mouthed and shocked over their bodies in home and businesses and on street corners - they were slow, now. Slow and ponderous, decaying flesh sometimes stripped to the bone, lurching emptily through the streets. Their only danger was in large groups, when the sheer mass of them could overwhelm. Individually, Matt knew, his Auntie Matilda with the bad hip could probably take one of them down.
These are not FV's.
There's a rapid-fire succession of shots, three or four at least, and Matt can't remember how many rounds John's already gone through and whether he'll have time to reload because he's got his own shit to deal with.
The gaping wound in the zombie's chest is fresh, the blood stains on the front of his uniform shirt still bright red. His head lolls sickeningly on a broken neck but his red-rimmed eyes are still focused, intent, and they stay fixated on Matt's even as Matt swings the crowbar. The crunch of shattering bone is almost lost under another bark from John's weapon, and even as the shambler is falling Matt is swinging toward the next, ducking beneath the questing hands of a woman in a tattered housedress to catch the next zombie under the chin, send him tumbling back into the mob in a tangle of arms and legs.
He takes out three more before he realizes that John's gun has stopped firing and there are no more moans and snarls from the undead.
"Jesus," Matt mutters. He turns in a slow circle, swipes a hand through his bangs that comes away coated with blood and bits of rancid greying flesh. "Jesus Christ."
Then John is there, smoothing a hand over Matt's head, down his arms. Matt lets him, even as he squirms and rolls his eyes. "I'm not bit," he says.
"I know," John says.
When John wraps one arm around him, Matt sighs. And when John's lip press against his, Matt surges against him, twines a grimy hand in the front of his shirt and tugs him closer. John tastes of the copper tang of blood, of cordite, of grit and slime and concrete dust and it should be disgusting; surrounded by the crushed and pummelled and bullet ridden bodies of the shamblers, it should make him sick. But instead he digs his fingers in tighter, pulls John in closer, sucks John's tongue into his mouth and moans and relishes what it is to be alive.
Somewhere, on the other side of the building, Lambert and his crew are clearing out the refugees, rounding up any wayward zombies and putting them down. Later there will be reports to fill out, a medic to stitch up John's shoulder, painkillers and nightmares. Tomorrow there will be another frantic call to 911, another ride to the city, another band of zombies to destroy.
Now there is just this: John's mouth warm and soft on his, John's big hand on his hip to ground him.
Right now, he actually can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
.