Full Metal Panic Fic: "The Sickness" Chapter 4

[starzki]

Title: The Sickness, Chapter 4: Dig Through the Ditches and Burn Through the WitchesAuthor: starzki
Genre: Horror/Action/Romance
Rating: T
Word Count: 3851
Warnings: Violence/Character Death
Story Summary: Alternate Universe. Sousuke Sagara is the long standing, long suffering bodyguard of Lady Kaname, the only daughter in a wealthy family. She has recently been married off to a distant cousin in the hopes that she produce an heir and will never be forced to leave her home. No one expected the zombie apocalypse. In time, it’s only Sousuke and Kaname fighting for survival and just hoping not to get bitten in this strange, new world.
Chapter Summary: Aftermath. Sousuke and Kaname meet other survivors.
LINKS: ff.net, AO3


NOTES:

This chapter took a while to figure out. I knew I needed to deal with Kaname's grief and Sousuke's feelings of guilt while at the same time allowing them to start to realize that they are together, that there really aren't any more walls between them. Then I had to get them to the city to meet Melissa and Kurz. All of that was easier said than done.

So first, let me link the inspiration for the title of this chapter. It comes from the song "Dragula" by Rob Zombie (heh). I'm not a huge Zombie fan (double heh), but this song is remarkably apt for this chapter where chapters are struggling to survive in a new, violent world.

Click to view

Plus, the singer is Rob ZOMBIE.  So, yeah.  He'll definitely get a chapter title in this fic.

I initially thought that I would have Kaname be a lot angrier at Sousuke for failing her father in this chapter.  But it just didn't work out that way.  She's too kind-hearted.  She loves Sousuke and I think she'd be more ready to protect the person she has left than to blame him for her father's death who was really no one's fault.  She's really upset, of course, but Sousuke's embrace shocked her (and me, to tell the truth) into focusing on living.

One of my frustrations with this fic is how quiet Kaname seems in the first three chapters.  She's just kind of caught in the current of what is going on around her.  I allude to a fierier personality in the past, but she's just been put through the ringer and trusted the men in her life to take care of her.  It's a kind of learned helplessness.  So I needed her to step up and take the reigns a bit.  But it's still going to be a little tough to bring out her canon personality, I think, with the circumstances and with the way I use Sousuke's perspective.  But I'll try.

I did want a little down time for Sousuke.  I wanted to evoke the scene from the Fumoffu episode "A Fruitless Lunch," where they're trying to get back to school in time for the test and they take a short cut through the fields and Kaname has a moment where, even though she's infuriated at Sousuke, she realizes she's actually having a good time.  See this screen cap:



This was the scene that slowed me down.  It was supposed to slow the narrative a bit, but I really struggled with whether or not to keep it.  It does do a little character exploration, so I kept it, but I'm not as happy with it as I thought I would be.  *shrug*

But then we get to the final scene.  In my head, all I really started out with was "Sousuke saves Melissa and Kurz."  Awesome, right?  Let me just say that it was a good thing I was stuck on the previous scene because a ton of thought needed to go into how exactly how Sousuke could save them.  They needed to be pinned down, visible, but able to ward off the zombies for a while by themselves.  There also needed to be a crowning moment of awesome.  It really only came together when I remembered, in my old town, there was a gas station that enclosed their pumps in a chain link fence.  The fence was open during the day, but closed up at night.  Something like that might work.  So why would Kurz and Melissa be at a gas station?  Why not have them filling a mother fucking FLAME THROWER!?  Awesomeness achieved.

Hopefully readers agree.  Also, I have decided to change the rating on this fic.  I'm not going to do a lemon for it (maybe a side story will have it) and I don't think the violence and gore is really M material.  We'll see.

One last note: I'm including this chapter as an entry in
luxken27's Summer Mini Challenge under the prompt "quickly."  I think it kind of fits.  They are rushing for good parts of this chapter.

Finally, this chapter was un-beta-ed.  All mistakes are mine alone.  But it's done!  Only 10 left! *sob*