the end is extremely fucking nigh
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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Being able to form an actual English word does not mean Adam is either awake or coherent; he's just so very used to telling people 'no' in that flat, unamused tone that he can quite literally do it in his sleep.
He does begin to wake up, with agonizing slowness, after a moment. His hair is all ungelled and in his face, which is all he really has to protect himself against the BLINDING LIGHT OF PAIN, and since his bangs are nowhere near as impressive as certain of the mun's other pups', his headache is darn near incapacitating him.
"Fuck you, I'm going back to sleep." On the floor. Yes. Never mind how stiff and sore he is from being passed out on it all night.
...meanwhile, what the fucking fuck is that noise and who does he have to punch to make it stop?
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Right, so. Picking himself up off of the floor. He doesn't remember a VERY LOT of last night, just....oh hey, face-punching, so why does his head only hurt in the raging-fucking-hangover capacity? ....Nica, yes. GOD BLESS that woman, he must find her immediately and kiss her ass for as long as is necessary for her to exorcise the demons from his skull with something other than a ball peen hammer.
It would be EASIER, he thinks, to adjust to the waves of nausea and head-explodey if there wasn't like....apparently a cattle stampede going on somewhere. "...Someone's cheese supply is being dashed," he says, TOTALLY IRRELEVANTLY.
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Yeah. St. John is going on about...cheese, and licking, and the only word he really understands there is 'coffee.' God, he needs coffee. So fucking bad. Coffee, a shower, and...more sleep, preferably on an actual mattress. Really preferably, if we're going with wishful thinking here, cuddled up against Wanda. But he's got some ass-kissing of his own to do before that's gonna happen.
"Don't talk." He hauls himself off the floor with a tortured grimace and leans on the wall.
The door's still open. Has it been open all night? Is that why it's so goddamn cold in here? Fucking Wisconsin.
"Fine. Coffee. Just...keep your tongue to yourself." He staggers out the door.
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Speaking in short sentences helps, apparently. He slogs into the library and disappears behind one of the tall, upright bookcases, re-emerging a second later, with a white bottle clenched in his fist. These, it turns out, are aspirin, which he swallows dry because He is a Man, and also apparently too lazy to turn around and go back another 10 feet to the water fountain the library actually has.
"Don't say I never did anything for you." Also he let you sleep in his library, Adam. The...foyer slash doorway, but still.
MEANWHILE, out in the hoggodbrightfuckingsunshine, that noise is...getting louder.
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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.
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"You said they were inside, right?"
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(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!"
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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.
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He buries his face in Wanda's hair and leans on her like she's the only thing he can count on to keep him upright, like if he lets her go even the tiniest bit, even for half a second, she might leave.
"You're okay?" He knows that if he tries to speak his voice will crack, and it does, but he lets it.
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"I got your shirt torn up," Wanda says, in a small voice, which is approximately the most irrelevant thing she could say right now but she can't tell him she's okay. She's not, not yet.
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"I thought you weren't going to let me come back, or--"
And then the zombies had shown up. And then he'd worried that his last words to her would have been angry ones. Adam never apologizes, and he'd been so worried he'd never get the chance to apologize to her.
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"I'll always want you to come back, Adam," Wanda tells him, quiet but rough-sounding because she's trying, and failing, to keep her voice from breaking, too, "I was scared you wouldn't."
Either because he wouldn't want to or because he wouldn't be able to, what with the monsters.
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Also, he feels like he's made of live wires and also on speed and also a...little crazy, so he is just going to touch Nica as much as possible hello, jabbering away at her and somehow managing to keep his voice at something like a whisper. "You did that, you fucking did that for me, I can't believe that, it feels like--I can't even say it, it's bloody fantastic--"
...and generally on like that forever.
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It shows in the way her eyes are a little more lidded than usual, the way her hands don't manage to catch on his every time she tries to, the way her body's movements are slowing to something less efficient and more languid.
Still -- she doesn't seem willing to let herself stop yet. Not when he's like this. She wants to be here, to see this, to feel the way he burns. She did this. She made this happen. To save their lives, yeah, because she doesn't want to go out by zombie, but--just for him, too. Just because she knew--what she knew is none of your damn business, but it worked, didn't it?
She catches him, pulling him to her and kissing him, her hands steady on his face. She's heedless of, uh, the whole random fire thing at the moment, psh, these aren't her clothes and she can heal herself. Then she lets him go, smiling up at him from under her eyelashes.
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"We should go home," he mumbles absently, because YES OKAY, he is completely willing to brave zombies and vampires and god knows whatall to be in their space, instead of intruding on Wanda and Adam's.
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"Okay," she agrees, because he can protect them now, he can keep them safe. She made him that way. Just for a while but--just for long enough, right?
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