Fic + Art: All is Violent, All is Bright 1/11
Title: All is Violent, All is Bright 1/11
Artist: datingwally Author: sparrow_hubris
Team: A to the ngst
Prompt: innocence
Word count: 1,697 this part
Rating: PG-13 - NC-17 (This part PG-13)
Warnings: Underage 15/17, Apocalypse & general destruction, Violence, Mentions of death (this part), Future violence towards animals (hunting) & other warnings as I get to them.
Betas: night_reveals
Summary: Apocalypse AU / a.k.a bb!Survival / a.k.a. cockblockalypse!
Notes: Big thanks neomeruru for helping me out with details of Vancouver. I'm sure I messed things up anyway. This fic will have a happy ending.
Arthur’s stomach growls angrily as he trudges through fallen branches near the edge of the forest. It’s been two days since he’s eaten anything, winter leaving nothing but bitter pine needles and soggy bark to chew on. He hasn’t seen a rodent in days, let alone trapped one, and he’d eaten the last of his opossum days ago.
He knows that he needs to venture into the city to scavenge for supplies, but the skeleton of civilization is dangerous to navigate. There are pockets of whatever chemicals and dangers were released from the destruction still lurking in the ruins. Even with the crumbling cascade of buildings creating rubble to hide behind, the streets leave him in the open, vulnerable to attack. There are many predators left, ones willing to venture into the streets searching for food, and it’s much easier to hide between trees, darting and climbing away from danger, than it is finding a spot in a building that won’t fall on top of him to moment he steps foot inside.
He’d lost Greg that way, this summer, trying to hide from a wandering grizzly bear before it caught sight of them. The bears will wait for days if they sense prey. They’ll wait until their target is too starved to do anything but emerge to the threat of deadly teeth in order to find water or food. He and Greg had sprinted to the nearest building, scrambling inside the broken walls. Greg had fallen through the fragile boards of the floor, twisted body landing on the cement of the basement thirty feet below. He’d gone through two levels but was still alive, crying out in pain and choking on his own blood. Arthur couldn’t do anything to help. There was no way down, and even if Arthur could reach him, no way to haul his friend up. If he had rope he might have had a chance, but really he was too small to lift Greg. Arthur still didn’t quite break one hundred forty pounds and Greg weighed so much more.
He spent the night quietly trying to console his friend into silence as to not draw the attention of smaller predators, ones that could weave their way inside the decaying building. In the morning Greg had fallen quiet, though Arthur knew he wasn’t dead. Listening to the ragged breathing and fearful whimpers bounce off the concrete below, Arthur stayed another night. The morning after, when Greg wouldn’t respond to his calls and his chest fell still, Arthur finally left, a ball of acid eating at his stomach. He hadn’t been sure if it was guilt or hunger. It was probably both.
He remembers hunting lessons with his dad as they cleaned their rifles, discussing what he should do if he encountered something like a bear or a wolf while out in the forest. He’d been told to make himself as big as possible, create as much noise as possible, use sticks and pans or a gun. “You have to be scarier than they are,” his father had said. At the time he had thought it was truly possible, that he could somehow be mightier than any beast that he might encounter.
He smiles wryly at the memory as he repairs the fletching on a few of his arrows. He knows now that the pretending to be bigger method doesn’t really work. Every creature is desperate for food, and he thinks that the bears have somehow grown much larger than he remembered ever seeing them as a kid. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have his father’s solid presence to give him strength. His best bet is to avoid them, his second is a well placed projectile to a vital organ. At least with coyotes or cougars that’s the case - a bullet still won’t take down a charging bear.
He has a camp out in the forest, stocked with fabric and supplies. His food box is empty but he does have a water retrieval system that’s mostly meant for summer since the rainy winter has never left him wanting for it. He also has paper for sketching that is filled with buildings drawn from memory, ones that will never exist again, no one left to build them. Every once in a while he ventures into the library to pick through what’s left of the unburned books. He can only carry one at a time, the room in his pack saved for food, ammunition, and any other practical things he can manage to find.
Arthur stalks through the streets, rifle propped up against one shoulder and bag loosely hanging from his other. He’s already crossed the bridge into the the city from his area in the North, hoping as he navigated the holes and exposed rebar that it didn’t fall anytime soon. He’s not sure he could manage rowing across the inlet by himself when he needed to venture into the city for supplies. It would tack on an extra day of travel time as well. There is no way he can walk his way around, to enter by land. Not with how little food he can carry in his pack and still have room for what he finds later.
As he treads his way through the ruined city streets, his eyes dart back and forth, looking for trouble and looking for buildings he hasn’t searched yet. He has to venture farther into the city each time he makes the trek. He’ll have to camp somewhere tonight, and he vigilantly looks for a spot he could tuck away in as he makes his way towards the city’s center.
A few quick searches inside houses he hasn’t hit before has only turned out few extra blankets and some pants that won’t fall off his narrow hips. He needs new shoes, but ones that fit are rare. He hasn’t found any unspoiled food yet today. He’s passing by the oil refinery and has to shrug his heavy coat off. The complex caught fire just over two weeks ago and still burns, releasing heat and acrid smoke into the air. It’s somewhat pleasant against the wet cold of winter, but in order to be near it he has to wear his mask and goggles.
As he’s making his way along the abandoned streets, he keeps his eyes open for trouble. There are few survivors, here and there, camps of them even, but they aren’t friendly to outsiders. They’re not willing to take on the extra burden of feeding another body and will readily kill him for his supplies.
Arthur picks his way along, gas mask making his face hot an clammy as hot breath bounces back on his face. He’s not finding much until suddenly a rat scurries from beneath the rubble in front of him. Immediately he chases after it, digging a small slingshot out his pocket and wishing he had a box with him to capture it. It’s hard to aim through the goggles he wears and he wishes the smoke wasn’t so thick so he could pull them off. He’s careful not to disturb anything that looks like a support structure as he chases after the rat.
Finally he has it cornered up against a fragmented wall when someone comes tumbling over the bricks scaring the rat away as they collapse in a heap of limbs and fabric. Arthur yelps with surprise before gathering his wits about him enough to lose the measly slingshot and aim his rifle instead.
“Bollocks,” exclaims the person as they scramble off the ground. Arthur’s aim doesn’t waver as he waits for what is apparently a young boy to get to his feet. The boy freezes when he realizes Arthur is there, holding a gun aimed squarely at his chest.
“Whoa, whoa, take it easy, mate,” his muffled voice says as he raises his hands in a placating gesture. Arthur doesn’t budge. “I got no problem with you, I’m just looking to get out of here, yeah?” Arthur can’t tell exactly what accent he has due to the kid’s gas mask, but there definitely is one.
“Fucking kid! I’ll skin you alive!” Someone shouts from behind the wall.
The kid flinches, shoulders tensing before he suddenly lunges forward and grabs Arthur’s wrist before Arthur can properly react or defend himself. He yanks Arthur at a dead run behind him and Arthur follows, helplessly pulled along. He shouldn’t be following but doesn’t want to stick around and meet whomever was screaming threats.
The kid leads him for a good six blocks before Arthur has the sense to try and break free from his grip. He’s winded and a little confused, heart is racing, veins pulsing with adrenaline at the fast escape. He tugs his arm away and stops, shoving his goggles and mask off to get a cool breath of air now that they’re farther away from the refinery.
The kid pulls off his mask, grinning, full lips stretched wide over his teeth. He slings his rifle across his shoulders casually and Arthur suddenly notices the tattoos that wind down his arm. Arthur realizes that the kid is more his age than he first thought, probably older. He’s in a tank top, despite the winter, and wears chains hanging from his neck. Arthur doesn’t really pay attention to what the chains have on them, he’s a little too angry at the moment and he’s still sucking gulps of air into his burning lungs.
“Sorry about that. Not a good person to run into, didn’t want to leave you behind.” The kid smiles again and Arthur sees that his teeth are slightly crooked but very white.
“You … asshole,” Arthur hisses when he can finally breathe. “You fucking scared off my dinner!”
“I’m really sorry, mate. I was in a bit of a scrape though, couldn’t be helped.”
“Who the fuck was that?”
“No one, someone who doesn’t like me much.”
Arthur’s brows furrow in frustration and his stomach growls at him again. He feels a bit lightheaded after the running. He hasn’t had enough to eat to sustain that kind of physical activity. The kid looks truly apologetic upon hearing the angry noises coming from Arthur’s body.
“C’mon,” he says. “I know of a place.”
Part 2
Artist: datingwally Author: sparrow_hubris
Team: A to the ngst
Prompt: innocence
Word count: 1,697 this part
Rating: PG-13 - NC-17 (This part PG-13)
Warnings: Underage 15/17, Apocalypse & general destruction, Violence, Mentions of death (this part), Future violence towards animals (hunting) & other warnings as I get to them.
Betas: night_reveals
Summary: Apocalypse AU / a.k.a bb!Survival / a.k.a. cockblockalypse!
Notes: Big thanks neomeruru for helping me out with details of Vancouver. I'm sure I messed things up anyway. This fic will have a happy ending.
Arthur’s stomach growls angrily as he trudges through fallen branches near the edge of the forest. It’s been two days since he’s eaten anything, winter leaving nothing but bitter pine needles and soggy bark to chew on. He hasn’t seen a rodent in days, let alone trapped one, and he’d eaten the last of his opossum days ago.
He knows that he needs to venture into the city to scavenge for supplies, but the skeleton of civilization is dangerous to navigate. There are pockets of whatever chemicals and dangers were released from the destruction still lurking in the ruins. Even with the crumbling cascade of buildings creating rubble to hide behind, the streets leave him in the open, vulnerable to attack. There are many predators left, ones willing to venture into the streets searching for food, and it’s much easier to hide between trees, darting and climbing away from danger, than it is finding a spot in a building that won’t fall on top of him to moment he steps foot inside.
He’d lost Greg that way, this summer, trying to hide from a wandering grizzly bear before it caught sight of them. The bears will wait for days if they sense prey. They’ll wait until their target is too starved to do anything but emerge to the threat of deadly teeth in order to find water or food. He and Greg had sprinted to the nearest building, scrambling inside the broken walls. Greg had fallen through the fragile boards of the floor, twisted body landing on the cement of the basement thirty feet below. He’d gone through two levels but was still alive, crying out in pain and choking on his own blood. Arthur couldn’t do anything to help. There was no way down, and even if Arthur could reach him, no way to haul his friend up. If he had rope he might have had a chance, but really he was too small to lift Greg. Arthur still didn’t quite break one hundred forty pounds and Greg weighed so much more.
He spent the night quietly trying to console his friend into silence as to not draw the attention of smaller predators, ones that could weave their way inside the decaying building. In the morning Greg had fallen quiet, though Arthur knew he wasn’t dead. Listening to the ragged breathing and fearful whimpers bounce off the concrete below, Arthur stayed another night. The morning after, when Greg wouldn’t respond to his calls and his chest fell still, Arthur finally left, a ball of acid eating at his stomach. He hadn’t been sure if it was guilt or hunger. It was probably both.
He remembers hunting lessons with his dad as they cleaned their rifles, discussing what he should do if he encountered something like a bear or a wolf while out in the forest. He’d been told to make himself as big as possible, create as much noise as possible, use sticks and pans or a gun. “You have to be scarier than they are,” his father had said. At the time he had thought it was truly possible, that he could somehow be mightier than any beast that he might encounter.
He smiles wryly at the memory as he repairs the fletching on a few of his arrows. He knows now that the pretending to be bigger method doesn’t really work. Every creature is desperate for food, and he thinks that the bears have somehow grown much larger than he remembered ever seeing them as a kid. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have his father’s solid presence to give him strength. His best bet is to avoid them, his second is a well placed projectile to a vital organ. At least with coyotes or cougars that’s the case - a bullet still won’t take down a charging bear.
He has a camp out in the forest, stocked with fabric and supplies. His food box is empty but he does have a water retrieval system that’s mostly meant for summer since the rainy winter has never left him wanting for it. He also has paper for sketching that is filled with buildings drawn from memory, ones that will never exist again, no one left to build them. Every once in a while he ventures into the library to pick through what’s left of the unburned books. He can only carry one at a time, the room in his pack saved for food, ammunition, and any other practical things he can manage to find.
Arthur stalks through the streets, rifle propped up against one shoulder and bag loosely hanging from his other. He’s already crossed the bridge into the the city from his area in the North, hoping as he navigated the holes and exposed rebar that it didn’t fall anytime soon. He’s not sure he could manage rowing across the inlet by himself when he needed to venture into the city for supplies. It would tack on an extra day of travel time as well. There is no way he can walk his way around, to enter by land. Not with how little food he can carry in his pack and still have room for what he finds later.
As he treads his way through the ruined city streets, his eyes dart back and forth, looking for trouble and looking for buildings he hasn’t searched yet. He has to venture farther into the city each time he makes the trek. He’ll have to camp somewhere tonight, and he vigilantly looks for a spot he could tuck away in as he makes his way towards the city’s center.
A few quick searches inside houses he hasn’t hit before has only turned out few extra blankets and some pants that won’t fall off his narrow hips. He needs new shoes, but ones that fit are rare. He hasn’t found any unspoiled food yet today. He’s passing by the oil refinery and has to shrug his heavy coat off. The complex caught fire just over two weeks ago and still burns, releasing heat and acrid smoke into the air. It’s somewhat pleasant against the wet cold of winter, but in order to be near it he has to wear his mask and goggles.
As he’s making his way along the abandoned streets, he keeps his eyes open for trouble. There are few survivors, here and there, camps of them even, but they aren’t friendly to outsiders. They’re not willing to take on the extra burden of feeding another body and will readily kill him for his supplies.
Arthur picks his way along, gas mask making his face hot an clammy as hot breath bounces back on his face. He’s not finding much until suddenly a rat scurries from beneath the rubble in front of him. Immediately he chases after it, digging a small slingshot out his pocket and wishing he had a box with him to capture it. It’s hard to aim through the goggles he wears and he wishes the smoke wasn’t so thick so he could pull them off. He’s careful not to disturb anything that looks like a support structure as he chases after the rat.
Finally he has it cornered up against a fragmented wall when someone comes tumbling over the bricks scaring the rat away as they collapse in a heap of limbs and fabric. Arthur yelps with surprise before gathering his wits about him enough to lose the measly slingshot and aim his rifle instead.
“Bollocks,” exclaims the person as they scramble off the ground. Arthur’s aim doesn’t waver as he waits for what is apparently a young boy to get to his feet. The boy freezes when he realizes Arthur is there, holding a gun aimed squarely at his chest.
“Whoa, whoa, take it easy, mate,” his muffled voice says as he raises his hands in a placating gesture. Arthur doesn’t budge. “I got no problem with you, I’m just looking to get out of here, yeah?” Arthur can’t tell exactly what accent he has due to the kid’s gas mask, but there definitely is one.
“Fucking kid! I’ll skin you alive!” Someone shouts from behind the wall.
The kid flinches, shoulders tensing before he suddenly lunges forward and grabs Arthur’s wrist before Arthur can properly react or defend himself. He yanks Arthur at a dead run behind him and Arthur follows, helplessly pulled along. He shouldn’t be following but doesn’t want to stick around and meet whomever was screaming threats.
The kid leads him for a good six blocks before Arthur has the sense to try and break free from his grip. He’s winded and a little confused, heart is racing, veins pulsing with adrenaline at the fast escape. He tugs his arm away and stops, shoving his goggles and mask off to get a cool breath of air now that they’re farther away from the refinery.
The kid pulls off his mask, grinning, full lips stretched wide over his teeth. He slings his rifle across his shoulders casually and Arthur suddenly notices the tattoos that wind down his arm. Arthur realizes that the kid is more his age than he first thought, probably older. He’s in a tank top, despite the winter, and wears chains hanging from his neck. Arthur doesn’t really pay attention to what the chains have on them, he’s a little too angry at the moment and he’s still sucking gulps of air into his burning lungs.
“Sorry about that. Not a good person to run into, didn’t want to leave you behind.” The kid smiles again and Arthur sees that his teeth are slightly crooked but very white.
“You … asshole,” Arthur hisses when he can finally breathe. “You fucking scared off my dinner!”
“I’m really sorry, mate. I was in a bit of a scrape though, couldn’t be helped.”
“Who the fuck was that?”
“No one, someone who doesn’t like me much.”
Arthur’s brows furrow in frustration and his stomach growls at him again. He feels a bit lightheaded after the running. He hasn’t had enough to eat to sustain that kind of physical activity. The kid looks truly apologetic upon hearing the angry noises coming from Arthur’s body.
“C’mon,” he says. “I know of a place.”
Part 2