Bite Hard - Part 1 (Gift for the community)
Title: Bite Hard
Author: snoozing_kitten
Recipient: tw_holidays
Pairings: Stiles/Jackson, Lydia + Allison
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,560
Warnings: Gore, canon-typical violence
Summary: The end of the world isn’t actually about the undead it was about the people left behind.
Author's Notes: I would like to thank first and foremost track_04 who listened to me whine, let me bounce ideas off of her and finally gave the whole thing the spit and polish it needed as my beta. This wouldn’t be anything without you. Next to my recipient I hope you enjoy this and nothing says Happy Christmas like the undead! A little bit of The Walking Dead, a little Left 4 Dead, and as always a little Shaun of the Dead for spice.
The thing was, at the end of the world being human was the only thing that separated you from them, so much that it became the only way to define yourself. They were the stretched and distorted image in a funhouse mirror sort of funny but a serious case of the creepy-crawly, but what was humanity really?
Stiles really fucking missed the Internet.
“Man, I miss porn.” Stiles mumbled.
Scott looked up from where he was digging a shallow fire pit while Stiles kept watch, offered him one of those silent lopsided smiles of solidarity that had got Stiles through countless childhood lectures and went back to digging.
--
Jackson wasn’t holding up well under the pressure. Lydia could see that; he was beginning to crack and crumble around the edges, strung out from being filthy and scared all the time. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to just leave him. Deep down she knew she should because she had always been smarter than to let him drag her down.
He was going to break and it would only hold her back. Survival was important, a pretty face didn’t mean much out here. What was Jackson’s money and status going to get her now? Nothing. Fat lot of nothing. Lydia never did anything for nothing. Her middle name was practicality (it had seemed practical.)
“Shh,” she whispered. They were stuffed in a closet that didn’t close properly but she’d rigged it up days ago so that it latched shut from the inside. They were pressed thigh to thigh, breathing the same air. Jackson’s heart thundered against hers like a scared rabbit. Outside they shuffled, moaning softly in hunger at least they had stopped clawing at the doors.
Lydia rested her head on his broad shoulder and let him take her weight so he could feel solid and in charge. She was thinking about new ways to combine what was left of the chemicals in the chemistry room. She wanted to watch this place burn.
--
Allison crouched low on the side of the road. Her car had broken down miles ago and her boots were really beginning to blister her feet, toes cramped and feeling too hot. Next stop she was getting a pair of boots like her dad had, solid things made for walking and curb stomping.
She wanted to cry thinking of her family. Family. Just her Dad now. Mom turned. What use was there in crying over spilled blood? Focus. Allison felt scattered unable to keep her thoughts in line when her feet her and her stomach tight with hunger.
The only thing she had left was the belief he was out there and she was going to find him. She had to believe that or she was going to go insane. Plenty of people had lost their families since the world ended and they dealt, but that didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter.
One of them shambled out onto the road. It stumbled sightlessly, dragging toes scraped raw against the asphalt. Allison levelled her crossbow and let it sing. The bolt sailed straight and true, embedding itself right in the side of its head with a soft hollow sound. She waited a count of five breaths before stealing out onto the road to retrieve the bolt.
--
Stiles had found a bag of cheese puffs and had dyed his fingers all a sticky orange when the stolen car rolled to a stop in the middle of the woods (he had once googled how to hotwire a car and still remembered lucky for them). It was a Yaris of all things, but the fuel efficiency was off the chart and that was what they needed from it.
As much as he would like to steal a Ferrari and take it on a joy ride across the badlands--
“Why haven’t we stolen a sports car yet?” Stiles asked. “Not to like use but just to try? I mean it’s probably not worth dying over but it’d be fun right?”
“Yeah.” Scott hummed. “Woah.” He stepped on the brakes.
She stood on the side of the road casual as you like, massive crossbow dangling from her fingers and pistols strapped to her thigh. From this far away it was hard to tell how old she was, only that she had a fall of dark hair and that she levelled a shotgun on the car as it crawled to a stop.
You could smell the crazy on her (younger than he first thought maybe just out of high school), wild eyes and dark hair tangled and knotted around her head. She didn’t blink.
Had Stiles been the one driving, they would have kept going, stopped to look at the nut-case on the side of the road like the freakshow she was and kept on moving. They could barely keep each other alive. That and people sucked. The world was probably better off without them.
“Scott no. Keep going,” Stiles hissed, sinking into his seat.
“We can’t just leave her,” Scott said sounding all to reasonable. Stiles shook his head violently. This is why (they) Scott wasn’t allowed to be in charge.
“Yes we can. Easy. Step on the gas. Go, she’s back there and we’re gone. Without her.”
Scott frowned at him but didn’t say anything.
He rolled down the window, slowly; it was one of those crank ones, and Stiles wondered hysterically if it would have been better or worse if it was an electric one with the slow wine as it lowered. The jerky motion was ruining the dramatic tension. “Need a lift?” Scott asked, staring at her with that same puppy dog look that failed constantly to get him the girl.
Crazy-Eyes didn’t lower the shotgun.
Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony? Survive the end of the world. Survive months on what was left, only to die at the hands of some crazy bitch? Stiles licked cheese powder off his lips thinking that would be at least one less indignity.
Her lips twitched slightly upwards.
“Which way are you headed?”
“West. Nowhere in particular.”
They looked at each other for a long moment like something out of a Western. Stiles kept quiet and still.
“Can you wait a moment? I have some provisions.”
She walked backwards slowly, gun still trained on Scott’s face.
“Well she seems nice.” Stiles swallowed, suddenly the Cheetos didn’t taste so good.
--
Jackson was tense. He couldn’t explain it, just a crawling down his arms that said something was off muscles tense and at-ready. Lydia was crouched in the corner of the ruined room looking through the debris for something under the counter. She wouldn’t tell him what, it wasn’t like he tried very hard to figure out what.
Jackson didn’t remember her being so bossy. Then again, the girl he had been dating would have never been able to beat someone to death with a baseball bat, spraying herself with blood and flinging bits of gore and flakes of bone across the room. This Lydia did that on a weekly basis. They both still flicked their hair back the same way and the motion was somewhere between soothing and irritating.
Something shuffled outside the door and Jackson went still.
“Got company,” he said, tension singing in his shoulders.
“Fine.” Lydia came out from under the desk and picked up her crow-bar, gripped it in her slim hand as she stepped carefully around the over-turned chairs. “Out of the way Jacks.”
These days it was better to let her have what she wanted. It shambled around the corner and like a baseball star she swung hard. The whole head crumpled in on itself like a ripe melon. Jackson didn’t look away, just stared as she worked out whatever it was today on its skull until there wasn’t much left let alone a recognizable face.
“Feel better?” Jackson said, hip cocked. Lydia flicked her long hair back (it used to be so soft--lank and dirty now, but still red like a target) and shrugged.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied tartly.
They could have picked somewhere better to stay, but the school had seemed like a good idea at the time. Lydia didn’t say anything and Jackson lacked the motivation to move, and so here they stayed, sentinels in a hall that no longer cared for its own. There had been a bay of windows that let the afternoon sun stream into the cafeteria, but that had shattered and now it was a gaping wound in the defence of the school. Jackson found himself wandering towards it and just to feel the sun on his skin when Lydia would leave to go scouting or sorting or the any number of things she did.
“I’m hungry,” he said, spinning on his heels. He didn’t know why she kept coming back here, the vinegar smell of acids and graveyard of broken desks and flasks. Jackson hadn’t even liked being here when it was still a chemistry classroom.
Jackson ate on the roof. There was one door and it was sturdy. It was paved with small rocks, digging into his butt as he ate tuna with his fingers the juice dripping on the rocks at his feet. Lydia was on the other side throwing rocks at the street. He’d long gotten used to it looking like a ghost town. No matter how many times in the past he’d rolled down that street to turn into the parking lot, cursing under his breath because students kept darting in front of his car. A school bus was still parked out front covered with dirty handprints like a crime scene. These days nothing moved out there at anything faster that slow walk.
It was quiet. They had run out of things to talk about a long time ago.
“Look.” Lydia shattered the calm. At the end of the street there was a car moving slowly and weaving around the debris that scattered the street.
Their corner of California had been pretty empty, just them and the biters for what felt like forever.
“Let’s ignore them,” Jackson said, sitting down to watch the car’s crawling progress. Lydia didn’t say anything, but her face was set like she’d already made some sort of decision. Jackson wasn’t surprised; Lydia had been acting weird for awhile now.
“It never works out well in the movies does it?” Lydia said absently without taking her eyes off the car.
“In the movies they seem to have showers,” Jackson pointed out because he was filthy. They didn’t make movies anymore. And they all said TV was going to make a generation of zombies. Well maybe they were partially right.
“TV doesn’t make zombies. Cannibalism makes zombies,” Lydia responded; Jackson hadn’t even realized that he’d said anything out loud.
The car got in front of the school before it rolled to a gentle stop. Two men got out bickering. One kicked the wheel hard--he wore bright red and Jackson narrowed his eyes, trying to listen to their hushed conversation. The third person stayed in the car.
The one in the dark blue got behind the car and started to push. The small hatch-back was loaded with stuff.
Something hit the road with a shower of small pings. The one in the red whirled on his feet, bringing a gun up while the one in the blue tripped and slid down the side of the car, scrambling to his feet. Both of them paused when there was nothing there.
Lydia took another handful of rocks and threw it at them.
Jackson had been on the Lacrosse team; he pelted one rock and it dinged off the roof.
The two men finally looked up. Jackson was sitting right on the edge, while Lydia stood to his left with her rocks. “What the fuck did you do that for?” Jackson asked quietly, like he hadn’t joined her.
“It’s something different,” Lydia responded. Louder: “What brings you to Beacon Hills?”
“Tourism,” The blue said. Jackson snorted to himself. He could hear the arch expression Lydia was making without having to actually look at her.
“They didn’t look like psychopaths,” Lydia said as they moved the block they’d set up covering the fire escape to the parking lot. The lot itself had two cars in it; it was the forest beyond the lot that was the danger. Lydia went first, clattering down the metal staircase--she’d never been particularly athletic before this, yoga and jogging, but what she was was adaptable. Jackson followed her down, body singing with that anxiety that always seemed to precede an attack.
Lydia hit the ground. Nothing moved except for the two men, joined by a slim figure in a brown jacket. They were still too far away to really see properly. The one in the red sweater had dark hair, the blue one had his hood up and the third was a girl, but that was all he could tell.
“What did you expect? 28 Days Later?” Red was saying to Blue.
“What? No. The undead were fast in 28 Days Later,” Blue said back, sounding affronted. “It’s nothing like that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“We’ve got company,” The woman said. She held a crossbow easily in her hands and pointed it at Jackson’s chest.
Jackson went completely still, fingers tightening on the baseball bat.
“Just curious.” How Lydia could maintain a light tone he didn’t know; she popped the words carelessly like bubblegum and smiled. “We haven’t seen ... anyone else actually. It’s easy to think you’re alone.”
“End of the world and only beautiful people survive? That’s not fair man,” Blue said.
Jackson scowled at them--the anxiety was making his stomach churn; the small hairs on his arms were lifting.
Red was kneeling by the fuel cap of one car with a hose and a jerry can. On closer inspection his sneakers were cheap and the hood was ratty. “You look like you have practice with that.”
Red glared at him over his shoulder, lips pressed tight. Blue got in his face suddenly, springing like an affronted Pomeranian. “What do you mean by that?” He was a lot younger than Jackson first thought, cheeks still rounded with baby fat. He was too close and Jackson just snapped, he lashed out; it wasn’t even a proper punch but Blue was on his ass and Jackson had the sharp end of an arrow shoved in his face. Girl was standing between him and Blue with a scowl on her face.
For a long moment no one moved.
Jackson’s skin crawled. He looked left on instinct just in time to realize that biters were stumbling out of the forest on all sides, drawn to them. Jackson had never seen so many at once; they were stumbling forward. His blood ran cold fingers gone suddenly numb and vision snowing for one teetering moment.
“Time to go.” Lydia hissed, grabbing his hand and tugging him back towards the school.
“Don’t leave us,” Blue said, scrambling to his feet. His palms were scraped and he had a small cut on his mouth where Jackson had managed to clip him. The blood made Jackson feel sick, so he didn’t look back.
“Then move,” Lydia snarled at them. She was running.
The crossbow made a soft sound as Girl shot it. Jackson didn’t look back to see if she hit anything; the way she held it, she probably had. He barely managed to contain a sound when he opened the door and one of them was just inside. He jerked backwards suddenly, slamming into Lydia. There was a confusing moment where they were all limbs and bodies and her hair and Lydia was cursing expansively and viciously at him. The shot rang out too-loud and Red was shoving past them, leaping over the body to get further into the building.
“It’s not secure?” Girl was said to them, eyes wide and a more than a little wild.
Lydia pursed her lips, shoving Jackson away from her.
“There’s holes all over and there are only two of us.”
“I wonder why.” Blue bitched. Girl and Red ignored him.
They had to get to the safe place. It only fit the two of them, but what did Jackson care about strangers? Lydia had other plans.
“The second floor is safer, we can barricade ourselves there until they go away.”
They had supplies stored in the old Biology rooms. Lydia found it deeply amusing to keep the tins of food with all the jars of samples floating in formaldehyde. Beacon Hills wasn’t big enough to have been hit hard by the riots (so many people taking to the streets like an all-you-can-eat buffet) so there had been enough for the two of them to stock-pile. They kept stock-piling without talking about the future, which at least wasn’t really a change from when they had been young and dating and still unsure about the future.
The door was still closed and secure when Lydia ran into it, flinging it open; Jackson went after her, Girl, Blue and Red next. The door closed and Jackson busied himself with the bracing Lydia had rigged up from various litter around the school.
They all stood there, listening--Red even had his head cocked like a dog. Jackson bit down on an inappropriate laugh.
--
Scott listened. It was probably his imagination that was producing the sounds he swore he could hear. The shuffle-drag of the way that zombies walked, like hip joints that didn’t work anymore. Behind him Stiles was pressed against his elbow.
Stiles had advocated and once even stolen the map from the car to keep Scott from finding other people. It was like he was more scared of them than of the biters. Scott just wanted to find his Mom. She’d been moved to a different camp than him in the confusion, but once the shelters dissolved not everyone died. Look at him and Stiles.
Allison stood absolutely still; some of the fear that had bled from her eyes these past few days came flooding back. Scott tried asking about her past but she’d clammed up and looking like she was going to cry. Or shoot him. Or even cry while shooting him. Her aim was uncanny.
“All our stuff is in the car,” Stiles said, bouncing on his toes. He’d not lost hold of the baseball bat he took everywhere with him and had even named Betty.
The girl was ignoring them, watching the door intently. She looked almost like she wanted them to come through leaning forwards and shoulders set back ready to attack. The boy was standing there, arms folded across his chest like it could hide the way they were shaking. Scott had to wonder how long it had been just the two of them here and what they had been through.
“We’ve got food,” The girl said, blinking and then focusing on them after the silence had stretched on long enough to be really uncomfortable. Stiles had been right about beautiful people now that Scott could see her clearer, she was stunning with red hair and pale skin. The boy was striking blond hair and sharp cheek bones. Neither of them were as pretty as Allison with her dark hair and long eyelashes )he’d had a long drive and a rear-view mirror to contemplate it) but they did look like they had walked out of some sort of catalogue. “We’ll be fine. My name is Lydia.”
“Stiles,” Stiles said, giving her that look he always gave pretty girls. One that said ‘my tongue is numb and I’m about to say something really stupid.’
“What kind of name is that?” The boy said, his voice shook but Stiles didn’t seem to notice, head snapping up in a classic ‘oh no you didn’t’. (Scott has had years and year and year to catalogue every one of Stiles’ faces.) He was good at watching people.
“It’s mine, you got something to say about that?”
Jackson looked up and down before he shrugged. “He doesn’t,” Lydia snapped. The boy gave her a blank look. This was clearly an argument they had had before.
“Allison,” Allison cut in.
“Scott,” he added. Shaking hands went out when showers and running water did.
The boy paused, lips pursed as all eyes turned on him. “Jackson,” he said at long last.
“There. Like civilized people.” Lydia clicked her tongue.
--
Stiles paced a quick circuit.
Despite the fact that he spent most of his days in a car, he felt oddly claustrophobic. Jackson was sitting on the floor near him staring at the window. He was looking at his hands.
Turns out the end of the world was a joke. He’d thought it could be a lot of things, idle musings when it had been nice outside but they were stuck in class listening to the drone of a teacher and fantasizing about adventure. This was going much too far. Lydia and Jackson were under the grime like a pair of models. How was that even real? You couldn’t make this shit up.
He walked quickly across the corner he’d staked as his again. Scott watched him, eyes narrowed in the gloom. Stiles was jealous of the way that Scott just closed his eyes and drifted off. He was full of nervous energy and overly tired. He hadn’t sleep well.
“Would you stop that?” Jackson had big blue eyes. Stiles could see how he’d bagged a girl like Lydia. In fact, any other day he might have stopped for a second look. Stiles glared at him and very carefully kept his steps measured.
Had to wonder if Jackson was going to hit him again. Cave man arguments. Alpha male bull-shit that came with all gender stereotypes.
“It’s giving me a headache.” Jackson snarled at him. Jackson’s fingers were tangled together so hard that his knuckles were turning white. Stiles weighed stopping; it would be the smart thing to do. There was lean strength coiled in Jackson’s arms and he was all for not rocking the boat because despite what he’d said things could really get 28 Days Later in here.
Mostly he wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. Stiles flipped him off.
Jackson snarled something wordless at him but didn’t move, just curled his legs tighter against himself. Without really thinking about it, Stiles looked at Lydia and found her watching him; what her expression said he couldn’t tell. It wasn’t anger or irritation or anything on the normal spectrum of expressions he normally associated with girls.
Allison said something and Lydia looked back at her, smiling and shrugging. Stiles wouldn’t have pegged Allison for the type to do girl talk. Before he saw it, he wouldn’t have pegged Allison for anything but skinning corpses on the side of the road to fill her sadistic desires. She looked actually kind of happy.
Stiles paced another quick circuit.
Jackson glared at him where he was resting his arms on his knees.
--
Scott swung the bat. Three strikes and it was down.
If only he’d been on the baseball team and not a benchwarmer for the Lacrosse team. Still, the collarbone had snapped with the first hit, the skull collapsing with the second, and the third was because he and Stiles used to love watching Zombieland and joking about how bad ass they would be at the end of the world.
There was a wet cracking sound, Allison breaking a biter’s neck as she stepped on its skull to pull out the bolt she’d imbedded there from all the way down the hall.
“You’re really... good at that?” Scott said. Wow, way to be not smooth at all. Allison arched an eyebrow at him and Scott gave her a little smile. “The bow-thing I mean,” Scott added, because apparently pretty girls still made him loose his shit.
Jackson snorted. He was behind the two of them holding a crowbar that had bits of person caught between the teeth. It had seen some action even if Jackson was content to hang near the back watching their six.
“It was a hobby before all of this.” She looked sad about it but Scott had seen her take down a zombie like a sharp shooter from a Western film. They were making slow progress across the second floor.
--
Lydia watched them, four of them including herself judging them and keeping track of the things they said, the ways they moved. As a group they had decided to take branching out from the Biology room slowly. After all there was plenty of food in here and there were a lot of them out there, more and more biters every day it seemed. The food would last longer if one of them didn’t. She didn’t think it was going to be a problem.
Stiles stood by the window watching outside. This window showed the front street where their car was still sitting waiting for them as if mocking the back filled with food and weapons.
“So.” Stiles interrupted her thoughts and Lydia clicked her heel against the floor. “You and Jackson? You’re together?”
“No. Yes. Not anymore. Why, you interested?” She fluttered her eyes at him without intent. She knew his kind like she knew how to breathe.
“What? Me? No. Just curious. You two seem like.” He paused, and she was genuinely curious to see what he would say next but just pursed her lips to smooth her lip-balm, pretending like she could care less. Some habits died hard. “You’ve been here together for a long time now.”
“Everyone else is gone,” Lydia said. “Left or died.”
“Everyone?” Stiles was staring at her.
“It’s not like we’ve looked. We just sort of stayed here.” Lydia was beginning to think that she would be stuck there with Jackson as long as he held out. She had been almost looking forward to his breaking point; just so something would change.
Lydia considered the idea that she was the crazy one but dismissed the idea.
“Why?”
She blinked at him startled. “I don’t know.”
Somewhere outside a shot rang out and they both stiffened, looking towards it. The agreement was only to use the gun if it were an emergency. Maybe Lydia shouldn’t have let Jackson go with them. This wasn’t the change she wanted, Jackson turning into one of them after everything they had been through.
Lydia didn’t think about, just stood up, reached for the gun she’d stolen from her father and slid it into the holster that fit around her thigh-- which for the record looked better in films.
“Stay here,” she said reaching for-nothing; they only had the crowbar and the baseball bat they’d given Scott. “Pass that.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to his bat. Stiles gave her an affronted look. “I don’t have time to argue with you, give it to me.” Lydia snarled.
She snatched it out of his fingers and was at the door as fast as her legs could carry her.
“Wait.”
“No,” She snapped back, slipping out the door and letting it close behind her. Stiles had better fucking well keep it secure while she was gone. The room was in the corner for vantage point reasons. There was a clatter down the left hall. Lydia raised the bat and edged towards it. One of them shuffled out from down the hall, moving towards her.
They move like nothing would stop them. Single minded in purpose. “Come on,” Lydia said under her breath.
“Back up.” She recognized Allison’s voice, and well okay. Lydia flattened herself against the wall and Allison was amazing, bow up and firing in one fluid movement. The biter fell with the shaft sticking out of its face. “More coming the other way.” Allison called.
“Sure.” Lydia replied for a lack of anything better to say.
It was a relatively small pack, five of them; Lydia could pick them off if they were alone, but they ran from the bigger numbers. Jackson and Scott fled down the hall behind Allison. The door opened before Lydia could slam on it and she spilled-fell through, Scott coming through much more gracefully and Jackson after him, looking pale and drawn again.
Allison fired one more time before stepping through the door. Since Lydia was already there, she re-attached the brace.
The door shuddered as it was hit from the outside. Muffled moans filtered under the door and through the cracks; hunger calling for them. It wasn’t really a close call, but Lydia was singing with unused adrenaline. “What happened?” She was looking at Jackson but she didn’t expect him to answer.
“Got surprised.” Scott looked at his feet. “Didn’t notice two in a classroom. I don’t know what they were doing in there.
“That’s normally where we sleep,” Jackson offered. Lydia hated the idea of them falling on the blankets they’d stored in there, of pressing their disgusting rotting faces all over her stuff.
“Can I have my bat back now? I’ve named it and everything.” Stiles was looking at her a little pleadingly. It was pathetic. She tossed it back handle first to avoid the worst of the flaking blood on the end.
“Sound is only going to draw more,” Allison said, frowning. “We should probably wait before trying that again.”
--
“Aren’t you going to ask me about Jackson?” Lydia said. Allison looked up from where she was making a house of cards.
“No. Why?” Allison had been tenuous at best at the girl thing before all of this. She moved around a lot as a kid and never really got close enough to people for it to be an issue. Lydia just arched an eyebrow at her. “Did you want me to?” She asked after a pause where Lydia clearly expected her to do something.
“No. But you’ve been watching him and I thought you might want to know.”
Allison shook her head. The cards fell again; she sorted them quickly, going back to try again. She’d been at this for the better part of the morning and could get it two layers high on most tries. It was the stretches of time between the sound of foot steps outside that seemed to wear the most.
She was impatient but her father had taught her how to plan, and most of all to stick to the plan. Unlike her own fake calm she was convinced that Stiles was going to vibrate through his skin if something didn’t happen soon. She’d put an arrow through him before she let him endanger them all.
“It’s not that.” Allison began the tower over again. She very carefully didn’t look over where Jackson and Scott were doing push-ups. One of them started it--she wasn’t sure which, but now they were just trying to out-do each other. Scott looked like he was having fun and Jackson looked overly focused.
“Then what is it?” Lydia sounded almost offended. What, Allison wasn’t interested in her boyfriend so this was an issue?
“He seems... tense.” That was a bit of an understatement. He’d been shaking the first time they ran. Then when they had been out with Scott, he’d flung himself away from the biter so hard he’d slammed into the opposite wall. Scott had been the closest but he’d held together admirably.
“It’s the end of the world and we’re out of Xanax,” Lydia said, her smile brittle and sharp. She looked like she could be angry but like her face wouldn’t let her. It was a complicated expression but it smoothed into that superior little smile after a moment. Allison couldn’t imagine who she was trying to impress. “Cut him some slack.”
Allison has an inkling that Lydia was what really kept them alive here, but didn’t know the words to explain it, so she just shrugged a little.
“There isn’t a lot of slack to cut.”
Lydia’s face did something complicated. She didn’t seem mad. “You’ve probably got a point. We used to date but everything different now.” Lydia shrugged.
“It must be nice to have something familiar. I’m looking for my father.”
“The probability of finding him alive is next to nothing,” She said it so flatly, like it didn’t matter, as if she wasn’t saying something that Allison battled with every day. The anger welled hot and bright and sudden.
“I know that,” Allison snarled. Lydia watched her like she was something interesting eyes almost fever-bright.
“I’m sorry,” She said finally. She didn’t even bother to try and look contrite and Allison didn’t know if she wanted to hit her or cry. She’s been so careful for so long, alone for so long. Scott was too nice to say something like that and Stiles was too terrified of her to say anything meaningful.
“No you’re not,” Allison said, her throat feeling tight and eyes burning.
“Just keeping it real.”
Lydia shifted over towards her, letting their thighs touch under the table. Allison hadn’t really thought about the fact that she’d been too busy trying to stay alive to miss the way her mother used to hug her. Lydia started building card towers while Allison cried quietly.
--
Stiles was going to crawl out of his skin, scratch it all off and throw it out the window as a lure so he could just get out of this room. It was big enough for them to all have a corner and not really need to see or talk to the others, as well as being attached to a supply cupboard.
He’d already gotten in his fight with Jackson that morning. Less of a fight and more of Jackson bitching at him before curling in his corner with a book he’d pulled out from one of the broken desks. Jackson hogged the space under the blackboard where the most sun fell during the day.
“Is that a romance novel?” Stiles asked and Jackson’s mouth was pressed into a pout even as he looked up.
“It was in the desk,” Jackson snapped defensively. The cover looked so tacky, something with a sunset and flowing locks. “What do you care ass-wipe?”
“Just wondering how many ’heaving bosoms’ there have been. One? Two?”
“None of your fucking business,” Jackson snapped, looking cagey. Well that was too bad; Stiles was tired and fed up and Jackson was an easy target. Jackson bared his teeth in a not-smile and Stiles just smirked back.
“Lighten up jock-strap,” Stiles replied.
Jackson’s face did something painful. “Never made the first line did we? Jealous much?”
“Scott was the star,” Stiles replied breezy it wasn’t like Jackson was going to know if it was a lie or not, refusing to rise to the bait. Still, the reminder cut him to the bone. That was the one thing he’d never been able to do for his father (well that and stop lying to him about sneaking out his window at night to paint the town Halo Red and Blue with Scott.)
“Big surprise,” Jackson said back, words spit like bullets between his teeth.
Feeling oddly like he’d lost that exchange, Stiles walked back over to where Scott was lying across one of the desks staring out into space.
“You should probably leave him alone,” Scott mumbled. He looked sleepy and not nearly as bothered by their situation as he should be. Shit was real and Scott was firmly in la la land.
“How does this not bother you?” Stiles hissed, aware that everyone could hear him if they wanted to--and resenting them for it.
“Why does it bother you so much anyways?” Scott sat up, long legs dangling off the end of the table and giving him his full attention.
Because people were unforgivable. Because it would only take one of them to kill them all. Because Scott made ridiculous doe eyes at Allison and jealousy was seriously all the way down there on the list of pressing issues but it was still eating away at him all the same.
“It’s nothing,” Stiles finally said. Scott wouldn’t understand it anyways; he had room in his heart for more than one.
--
When Scott woke up it was to Lydia and Jackson having a vicious fight by the food cupboard. It must have started out silently because they were right in the middle of it without having woken him up. Stiles was staring at them with a frown on his face.
“No, what else is out there anyways?”
“We can’t just stay here.” Lydia snarled. She looked wild angry, like Scott had never seen her, not even when they’d faced the biters--then she’d been focused and determined. This was rage.
“Why not.” Jackson made it less of a question and more of a statement, each word its own little sentence.
“Because there’s nothing in here.”
“There’s nothing out there either. Everyone we know is dead. Everyone,” Jackson said before she could continue.
“Because if we stay in here I’m going to kill you,” Lydia finally said, deadly serious.
“You think I don’t know that?” Jackson said, arms crossed over his chest. “It’s still better than being out there. I’m not going out there even if I have to be in here with you.”
Lydia snarled something wordless and stalked to the other side of the room, sitting down against the wall and inspecting her nails. Scott was tripped up a little by that; where did she even get the nail polish? Jackson kicked the desks and they all clattered together loudly. A biter on the other side of the door moaned and beat itself senselessly against the barricade. Jackson flinched violently.
“What’s up with them?” Scott asked Stiles. He looked like he’d heard the rest of it.
“Just what it looks like. Lydia wants to leave here.” They could take her with them; if they took both of them then they were going to need to find a new way to travel. Scott had just sort of assumed they would keep moving, once they could get out of here and get gas for the car. It was just a patience game.
“Jackson doesn’t want to?” Scott asked.
“Obviously.” Stiles bit back and Scott put up his hand defensively ‘sorry man’.
“You want to?” Jackson asked, just loud enough for Scott to hear him. Jackson didn’t smile back when Scott smiled at him.
“Yeah, I’ve got to find my mom.”
“She’s probably dead,” Jackson said sharply.
“Maybe she’s not,” Scott said back. Mom had been at a nursing conference that she’d bitched out endlessly when the power grid went down. Scott had stayed as long as he could when suddenly Stiles was there wild eyed ‘we need to go.’ They’d barely made it out of the city. “I’m not going to give up until I know one way or another.”
Jackson stared at him and Scott felt bad for the naked look of pain that he couldn’t hide fast enough.
“What about your parents?” Stiles asked. Scott winced, he couldn’t even tell if Stiles was doing this on purpose this time.
“He stabbed them,” Lydia said waspishly from across the room.
Jackson went very pale and still. “They weren’t my parents.”
After that everyone was very quiet. Jackson proceeded to ignore them while Lydia sulked in the opposite corner.
--
“I’m sorry,” Stiles said and Jackson looked up through his lashes at him and snorted.
“Fuck off,” he replied, concise and to the point; even an idiot like Stiles could figure that one out. He didn’t have the same puppy-face that his friend did but he did give it his best shot. Looking wounded like he hadn’t been there irritating Jackson for the last how-ever many days. (They blurred together, the edges getting indistinct and he should be worried about that but mostly he was tired.)
“I’m trying to apologize,” Stiles snapped, his face all scrunched up.
The world ended and the only people to find him were losers. Jackson let his head thump against the wall. Lydia was sitting against the opposite wall pretending like he didn’t exist. At least they hadn’t broken anything this time. Their fights were always so vicious.
“For what?” he snapped.
“You know. That thing with your parents,” Stiles said each word like pulling teeth. Jackson’s fingers clenched in on themselves, too-long nails digging into his palms. It took conscious effort to relax his fingers. He couldn’t have said what his face looked like, but it must have been a bit much because Stiles was giving him a weird look.
“They weren’t my parents,” Jackson said again firmly. They had been freshly changed, pallid like death but still achingly the same. Jake had been a big man, heavy when he fell on Jackson moaning, fingers scrabbling hungrily across his back as he drooled.
Jackson had panicked, heart beating in his throat, on the verge of crying or throwing up. Ironically it had been Margaret that knocked the knife set to the ground in her eagerness to get at her child’s flesh, teeth gnashing and covered in blood.
“I’m adopted. Was. Was adopted.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth. So many old wounds almost indistinguishable from the new ones.
He felt too-warm; instead he just clenched his jaw against it and met Stiles’ eyes with the same determination he used to use to get through long practices.
“Still they raised you.”
“Not. My. Parents.”
“Okay.” Stiles held his hands up and Jackson realized that his shoulders were held so tight they ached. “Okay I get it.” Stiles backed down and as soon as he wasn’t talking anymore Jackson relaxed a little more.
When Stiles got tired of being ignored and went back to Scott’s side where he sat like a puppy, Jackson looked up, feeling eyes on him. Lydia was watching him, eyes wide against her pale face. They were staring at each other and for the life of him he had no idea what that expression meant. Fuck. He never really knew Lydia at all before this anyways. When they had been dating she’d been coy, fluttering eyelashes that hid the sharpness of her tone.
It was only now that Jackson realized he was a complete idiot, but he couldn’t seem to hold it against her; in some twisted way she did it for him. Jackson was the first to look away. He wasn’t going outside.
--
“Maybe we could throw things out the window?” Scott asked.
The more they looked out the window, the more and more of them there seemed to be, coming out of the trees in waves like some sort of sick pilgrimage. Allison frowned at him. “And gather the attention of the ones already outside? We still need to put gas in the car. There is no quick getaway.”
Stiles made a face. He didn’t like being stuck in here, that much was obvious. Allison had taken to watching him, waiting for the break. It had come down to which would it be first, Jackson or Stiles?
“I could set fire to the field,” Lydia offered.
“We’d run into them coming the other way.” The logistics spilled through her mind. Variables. “Wait. How would you do that?”
“The chem lab is down the hall. Mr. Harris isn’t around anymore to get mad if I steal things. Self igniting mixtures and have Jackson throw them off the roof.” Allison raised both eyebrows in surprise. Well that was useful to know; despite herself she was impressed. Still, Lydia had clearly put a lot of thought into this already. “When we leave. I want to burn this place down. The whole town if I could.”
Without really thinking about it, Allison reached for Lydia’s hand (it was right there, Lydia pressed against her side) and let Lydia squeeze her hand too tight.
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t feel better if this whole place burned?” Lydia asked Jackson, who was hovering around the edges of their group glaring like a wet cat. Lydia had been so sure that everyone she knew was dead; Allison never stopped to ask why. Maybe she should have, and maybe Lydia would have slapped her. All the signs were pointing to Lydia being slightly unhinged and to Allison not minding that at all. Still she glanced carefully around, using her hair as a veil, but Scott was focused on their plans and Stiles looked like he wasn’t even mentally present.
“Won’t change anything. This place was a hovel before all the people died,” Jackson said, surly. He’d been in a snit since the fight with Lydia. They seemed to have a standing agreement to disagree about that if the looks they exchanged meant anything.
“Okay,” Scott said, frowning. “But this doesn’t help us does it? I mean we’re still stuck in here.”
“It might even be better. I don’t know why there are so many of them.”
“What if it doesn’t go away?” Stiles asked finally, snapping into the conversation suddenly. Lydia’s nails dug into her hand painfully for a flash before she let go, giving Allison an apologetic look.
“Then we deal with it,” Scott replied, voice soft and firm. He was proving to be more than the airhead that Allison initially pegged him as. The first day she’d been so tense, unsure if she could trust these two boys even if one of them looked at her with huge dark eyes and so many good intentions. That first night Stiles’ paranoia had been almost soothing. “My mom might still be out there.”
Allison smiled a little.
Later Allison was sitting near the food room mentally calculating how long they could last in here. There were some tinned peaches, cream corn but not a lot of protein. Lydia and Jackson hadn’t accounted for the three extra stomachs when they’d built their pantry.
There was a shift of movement. Lydia pressing into her personal space, brazen and unrepentant in the way that rich, pretty people all over the world were. Used to be.
“Hey,” Allison said, feeling a little awkward over the hand holding earlier.
Lydia went in for the kill with all the direct grace of a predator. “Take me with you.”
“What?” Allison choked on it. Lydia looked bright eyed and almost pleading.
“When you go, let me go with you.”
“I’m not. I mean. Scott’s going to be travelling too.” Allison’s words feel like a car crash, each piling up. She’s been alone since those first few horrifying weeks. Of course she still wasn’t at all sure how to deal with Lydia as a human being, let alone the way she made Allison’s heart skip.
“I want to go with you.”
“What about Jackson?” They all keep making plans about what was going to happen next like his decision to stay was the crazy one. Allison could see where he was coming from even if she didn’t agree.
“He won’t last a week on his own. He’s going to have to grow a pair or die.”
Allison couldn’t tell if Lydia was lying or not.
Part Two
Author: snoozing_kitten
Recipient: tw_holidays
Pairings: Stiles/Jackson, Lydia + Allison
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,560
Warnings: Gore, canon-typical violence
Summary: The end of the world isn’t actually about the undead it was about the people left behind.
Author's Notes: I would like to thank first and foremost track_04 who listened to me whine, let me bounce ideas off of her and finally gave the whole thing the spit and polish it needed as my beta. This wouldn’t be anything without you. Next to my recipient I hope you enjoy this and nothing says Happy Christmas like the undead! A little bit of The Walking Dead, a little Left 4 Dead, and as always a little Shaun of the Dead for spice.
The thing was, at the end of the world being human was the only thing that separated you from them, so much that it became the only way to define yourself. They were the stretched and distorted image in a funhouse mirror sort of funny but a serious case of the creepy-crawly, but what was humanity really?
Stiles really fucking missed the Internet.
“Man, I miss porn.” Stiles mumbled.
Scott looked up from where he was digging a shallow fire pit while Stiles kept watch, offered him one of those silent lopsided smiles of solidarity that had got Stiles through countless childhood lectures and went back to digging.
--
Jackson wasn’t holding up well under the pressure. Lydia could see that; he was beginning to crack and crumble around the edges, strung out from being filthy and scared all the time. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to just leave him. Deep down she knew she should because she had always been smarter than to let him drag her down.
He was going to break and it would only hold her back. Survival was important, a pretty face didn’t mean much out here. What was Jackson’s money and status going to get her now? Nothing. Fat lot of nothing. Lydia never did anything for nothing. Her middle name was practicality (it had seemed practical.)
“Shh,” she whispered. They were stuffed in a closet that didn’t close properly but she’d rigged it up days ago so that it latched shut from the inside. They were pressed thigh to thigh, breathing the same air. Jackson’s heart thundered against hers like a scared rabbit. Outside they shuffled, moaning softly in hunger at least they had stopped clawing at the doors.
Lydia rested her head on his broad shoulder and let him take her weight so he could feel solid and in charge. She was thinking about new ways to combine what was left of the chemicals in the chemistry room. She wanted to watch this place burn.
--
Allison crouched low on the side of the road. Her car had broken down miles ago and her boots were really beginning to blister her feet, toes cramped and feeling too hot. Next stop she was getting a pair of boots like her dad had, solid things made for walking and curb stomping.
She wanted to cry thinking of her family. Family. Just her Dad now. Mom turned. What use was there in crying over spilled blood? Focus. Allison felt scattered unable to keep her thoughts in line when her feet her and her stomach tight with hunger.
The only thing she had left was the belief he was out there and she was going to find him. She had to believe that or she was going to go insane. Plenty of people had lost their families since the world ended and they dealt, but that didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter.
One of them shambled out onto the road. It stumbled sightlessly, dragging toes scraped raw against the asphalt. Allison levelled her crossbow and let it sing. The bolt sailed straight and true, embedding itself right in the side of its head with a soft hollow sound. She waited a count of five breaths before stealing out onto the road to retrieve the bolt.
--
Stiles had found a bag of cheese puffs and had dyed his fingers all a sticky orange when the stolen car rolled to a stop in the middle of the woods (he had once googled how to hotwire a car and still remembered lucky for them). It was a Yaris of all things, but the fuel efficiency was off the chart and that was what they needed from it.
As much as he would like to steal a Ferrari and take it on a joy ride across the badlands--
“Why haven’t we stolen a sports car yet?” Stiles asked. “Not to like use but just to try? I mean it’s probably not worth dying over but it’d be fun right?”
“Yeah.” Scott hummed. “Woah.” He stepped on the brakes.
She stood on the side of the road casual as you like, massive crossbow dangling from her fingers and pistols strapped to her thigh. From this far away it was hard to tell how old she was, only that she had a fall of dark hair and that she levelled a shotgun on the car as it crawled to a stop.
You could smell the crazy on her (younger than he first thought maybe just out of high school), wild eyes and dark hair tangled and knotted around her head. She didn’t blink.
Had Stiles been the one driving, they would have kept going, stopped to look at the nut-case on the side of the road like the freakshow she was and kept on moving. They could barely keep each other alive. That and people sucked. The world was probably better off without them.
“Scott no. Keep going,” Stiles hissed, sinking into his seat.
“We can’t just leave her,” Scott said sounding all to reasonable. Stiles shook his head violently. This is why (they) Scott wasn’t allowed to be in charge.
“Yes we can. Easy. Step on the gas. Go, she’s back there and we’re gone. Without her.”
Scott frowned at him but didn’t say anything.
He rolled down the window, slowly; it was one of those crank ones, and Stiles wondered hysterically if it would have been better or worse if it was an electric one with the slow wine as it lowered. The jerky motion was ruining the dramatic tension. “Need a lift?” Scott asked, staring at her with that same puppy dog look that failed constantly to get him the girl.
Crazy-Eyes didn’t lower the shotgun.
Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony? Survive the end of the world. Survive months on what was left, only to die at the hands of some crazy bitch? Stiles licked cheese powder off his lips thinking that would be at least one less indignity.
Her lips twitched slightly upwards.
“Which way are you headed?”
“West. Nowhere in particular.”
They looked at each other for a long moment like something out of a Western. Stiles kept quiet and still.
“Can you wait a moment? I have some provisions.”
She walked backwards slowly, gun still trained on Scott’s face.
“Well she seems nice.” Stiles swallowed, suddenly the Cheetos didn’t taste so good.
--
Jackson was tense. He couldn’t explain it, just a crawling down his arms that said something was off muscles tense and at-ready. Lydia was crouched in the corner of the ruined room looking through the debris for something under the counter. She wouldn’t tell him what, it wasn’t like he tried very hard to figure out what.
Jackson didn’t remember her being so bossy. Then again, the girl he had been dating would have never been able to beat someone to death with a baseball bat, spraying herself with blood and flinging bits of gore and flakes of bone across the room. This Lydia did that on a weekly basis. They both still flicked their hair back the same way and the motion was somewhere between soothing and irritating.
Something shuffled outside the door and Jackson went still.
“Got company,” he said, tension singing in his shoulders.
“Fine.” Lydia came out from under the desk and picked up her crow-bar, gripped it in her slim hand as she stepped carefully around the over-turned chairs. “Out of the way Jacks.”
These days it was better to let her have what she wanted. It shambled around the corner and like a baseball star she swung hard. The whole head crumpled in on itself like a ripe melon. Jackson didn’t look away, just stared as she worked out whatever it was today on its skull until there wasn’t much left let alone a recognizable face.
“Feel better?” Jackson said, hip cocked. Lydia flicked her long hair back (it used to be so soft--lank and dirty now, but still red like a target) and shrugged.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied tartly.
They could have picked somewhere better to stay, but the school had seemed like a good idea at the time. Lydia didn’t say anything and Jackson lacked the motivation to move, and so here they stayed, sentinels in a hall that no longer cared for its own. There had been a bay of windows that let the afternoon sun stream into the cafeteria, but that had shattered and now it was a gaping wound in the defence of the school. Jackson found himself wandering towards it and just to feel the sun on his skin when Lydia would leave to go scouting or sorting or the any number of things she did.
“I’m hungry,” he said, spinning on his heels. He didn’t know why she kept coming back here, the vinegar smell of acids and graveyard of broken desks and flasks. Jackson hadn’t even liked being here when it was still a chemistry classroom.
Jackson ate on the roof. There was one door and it was sturdy. It was paved with small rocks, digging into his butt as he ate tuna with his fingers the juice dripping on the rocks at his feet. Lydia was on the other side throwing rocks at the street. He’d long gotten used to it looking like a ghost town. No matter how many times in the past he’d rolled down that street to turn into the parking lot, cursing under his breath because students kept darting in front of his car. A school bus was still parked out front covered with dirty handprints like a crime scene. These days nothing moved out there at anything faster that slow walk.
It was quiet. They had run out of things to talk about a long time ago.
“Look.” Lydia shattered the calm. At the end of the street there was a car moving slowly and weaving around the debris that scattered the street.
Their corner of California had been pretty empty, just them and the biters for what felt like forever.
“Let’s ignore them,” Jackson said, sitting down to watch the car’s crawling progress. Lydia didn’t say anything, but her face was set like she’d already made some sort of decision. Jackson wasn’t surprised; Lydia had been acting weird for awhile now.
“It never works out well in the movies does it?” Lydia said absently without taking her eyes off the car.
“In the movies they seem to have showers,” Jackson pointed out because he was filthy. They didn’t make movies anymore. And they all said TV was going to make a generation of zombies. Well maybe they were partially right.
“TV doesn’t make zombies. Cannibalism makes zombies,” Lydia responded; Jackson hadn’t even realized that he’d said anything out loud.
The car got in front of the school before it rolled to a gentle stop. Two men got out bickering. One kicked the wheel hard--he wore bright red and Jackson narrowed his eyes, trying to listen to their hushed conversation. The third person stayed in the car.
The one in the dark blue got behind the car and started to push. The small hatch-back was loaded with stuff.
Something hit the road with a shower of small pings. The one in the red whirled on his feet, bringing a gun up while the one in the blue tripped and slid down the side of the car, scrambling to his feet. Both of them paused when there was nothing there.
Lydia took another handful of rocks and threw it at them.
Jackson had been on the Lacrosse team; he pelted one rock and it dinged off the roof.
The two men finally looked up. Jackson was sitting right on the edge, while Lydia stood to his left with her rocks. “What the fuck did you do that for?” Jackson asked quietly, like he hadn’t joined her.
“It’s something different,” Lydia responded. Louder: “What brings you to Beacon Hills?”
“Tourism,” The blue said. Jackson snorted to himself. He could hear the arch expression Lydia was making without having to actually look at her.
“They didn’t look like psychopaths,” Lydia said as they moved the block they’d set up covering the fire escape to the parking lot. The lot itself had two cars in it; it was the forest beyond the lot that was the danger. Lydia went first, clattering down the metal staircase--she’d never been particularly athletic before this, yoga and jogging, but what she was was adaptable. Jackson followed her down, body singing with that anxiety that always seemed to precede an attack.
Lydia hit the ground. Nothing moved except for the two men, joined by a slim figure in a brown jacket. They were still too far away to really see properly. The one in the red sweater had dark hair, the blue one had his hood up and the third was a girl, but that was all he could tell.
“What did you expect? 28 Days Later?” Red was saying to Blue.
“What? No. The undead were fast in 28 Days Later,” Blue said back, sounding affronted. “It’s nothing like that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“We’ve got company,” The woman said. She held a crossbow easily in her hands and pointed it at Jackson’s chest.
Jackson went completely still, fingers tightening on the baseball bat.
“Just curious.” How Lydia could maintain a light tone he didn’t know; she popped the words carelessly like bubblegum and smiled. “We haven’t seen ... anyone else actually. It’s easy to think you’re alone.”
“End of the world and only beautiful people survive? That’s not fair man,” Blue said.
Jackson scowled at them--the anxiety was making his stomach churn; the small hairs on his arms were lifting.
Red was kneeling by the fuel cap of one car with a hose and a jerry can. On closer inspection his sneakers were cheap and the hood was ratty. “You look like you have practice with that.”
Red glared at him over his shoulder, lips pressed tight. Blue got in his face suddenly, springing like an affronted Pomeranian. “What do you mean by that?” He was a lot younger than Jackson first thought, cheeks still rounded with baby fat. He was too close and Jackson just snapped, he lashed out; it wasn’t even a proper punch but Blue was on his ass and Jackson had the sharp end of an arrow shoved in his face. Girl was standing between him and Blue with a scowl on her face.
For a long moment no one moved.
Jackson’s skin crawled. He looked left on instinct just in time to realize that biters were stumbling out of the forest on all sides, drawn to them. Jackson had never seen so many at once; they were stumbling forward. His blood ran cold fingers gone suddenly numb and vision snowing for one teetering moment.
“Time to go.” Lydia hissed, grabbing his hand and tugging him back towards the school.
“Don’t leave us,” Blue said, scrambling to his feet. His palms were scraped and he had a small cut on his mouth where Jackson had managed to clip him. The blood made Jackson feel sick, so he didn’t look back.
“Then move,” Lydia snarled at them. She was running.
The crossbow made a soft sound as Girl shot it. Jackson didn’t look back to see if she hit anything; the way she held it, she probably had. He barely managed to contain a sound when he opened the door and one of them was just inside. He jerked backwards suddenly, slamming into Lydia. There was a confusing moment where they were all limbs and bodies and her hair and Lydia was cursing expansively and viciously at him. The shot rang out too-loud and Red was shoving past them, leaping over the body to get further into the building.
“It’s not secure?” Girl was said to them, eyes wide and a more than a little wild.
Lydia pursed her lips, shoving Jackson away from her.
“There’s holes all over and there are only two of us.”
“I wonder why.” Blue bitched. Girl and Red ignored him.
They had to get to the safe place. It only fit the two of them, but what did Jackson care about strangers? Lydia had other plans.
“The second floor is safer, we can barricade ourselves there until they go away.”
They had supplies stored in the old Biology rooms. Lydia found it deeply amusing to keep the tins of food with all the jars of samples floating in formaldehyde. Beacon Hills wasn’t big enough to have been hit hard by the riots (so many people taking to the streets like an all-you-can-eat buffet) so there had been enough for the two of them to stock-pile. They kept stock-piling without talking about the future, which at least wasn’t really a change from when they had been young and dating and still unsure about the future.
The door was still closed and secure when Lydia ran into it, flinging it open; Jackson went after her, Girl, Blue and Red next. The door closed and Jackson busied himself with the bracing Lydia had rigged up from various litter around the school.
They all stood there, listening--Red even had his head cocked like a dog. Jackson bit down on an inappropriate laugh.
--
Scott listened. It was probably his imagination that was producing the sounds he swore he could hear. The shuffle-drag of the way that zombies walked, like hip joints that didn’t work anymore. Behind him Stiles was pressed against his elbow.
Stiles had advocated and once even stolen the map from the car to keep Scott from finding other people. It was like he was more scared of them than of the biters. Scott just wanted to find his Mom. She’d been moved to a different camp than him in the confusion, but once the shelters dissolved not everyone died. Look at him and Stiles.
Allison stood absolutely still; some of the fear that had bled from her eyes these past few days came flooding back. Scott tried asking about her past but she’d clammed up and looking like she was going to cry. Or shoot him. Or even cry while shooting him. Her aim was uncanny.
“All our stuff is in the car,” Stiles said, bouncing on his toes. He’d not lost hold of the baseball bat he took everywhere with him and had even named Betty.
The girl was ignoring them, watching the door intently. She looked almost like she wanted them to come through leaning forwards and shoulders set back ready to attack. The boy was standing there, arms folded across his chest like it could hide the way they were shaking. Scott had to wonder how long it had been just the two of them here and what they had been through.
“We’ve got food,” The girl said, blinking and then focusing on them after the silence had stretched on long enough to be really uncomfortable. Stiles had been right about beautiful people now that Scott could see her clearer, she was stunning with red hair and pale skin. The boy was striking blond hair and sharp cheek bones. Neither of them were as pretty as Allison with her dark hair and long eyelashes )he’d had a long drive and a rear-view mirror to contemplate it) but they did look like they had walked out of some sort of catalogue. “We’ll be fine. My name is Lydia.”
“Stiles,” Stiles said, giving her that look he always gave pretty girls. One that said ‘my tongue is numb and I’m about to say something really stupid.’
“What kind of name is that?” The boy said, his voice shook but Stiles didn’t seem to notice, head snapping up in a classic ‘oh no you didn’t’. (Scott has had years and year and year to catalogue every one of Stiles’ faces.) He was good at watching people.
“It’s mine, you got something to say about that?”
Jackson looked up and down before he shrugged. “He doesn’t,” Lydia snapped. The boy gave her a blank look. This was clearly an argument they had had before.
“Allison,” Allison cut in.
“Scott,” he added. Shaking hands went out when showers and running water did.
The boy paused, lips pursed as all eyes turned on him. “Jackson,” he said at long last.
“There. Like civilized people.” Lydia clicked her tongue.
--
Stiles paced a quick circuit.
Despite the fact that he spent most of his days in a car, he felt oddly claustrophobic. Jackson was sitting on the floor near him staring at the window. He was looking at his hands.
Turns out the end of the world was a joke. He’d thought it could be a lot of things, idle musings when it had been nice outside but they were stuck in class listening to the drone of a teacher and fantasizing about adventure. This was going much too far. Lydia and Jackson were under the grime like a pair of models. How was that even real? You couldn’t make this shit up.
He walked quickly across the corner he’d staked as his again. Scott watched him, eyes narrowed in the gloom. Stiles was jealous of the way that Scott just closed his eyes and drifted off. He was full of nervous energy and overly tired. He hadn’t sleep well.
“Would you stop that?” Jackson had big blue eyes. Stiles could see how he’d bagged a girl like Lydia. In fact, any other day he might have stopped for a second look. Stiles glared at him and very carefully kept his steps measured.
Had to wonder if Jackson was going to hit him again. Cave man arguments. Alpha male bull-shit that came with all gender stereotypes.
“It’s giving me a headache.” Jackson snarled at him. Jackson’s fingers were tangled together so hard that his knuckles were turning white. Stiles weighed stopping; it would be the smart thing to do. There was lean strength coiled in Jackson’s arms and he was all for not rocking the boat because despite what he’d said things could really get 28 Days Later in here.
Mostly he wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. Stiles flipped him off.
Jackson snarled something wordless at him but didn’t move, just curled his legs tighter against himself. Without really thinking about it, Stiles looked at Lydia and found her watching him; what her expression said he couldn’t tell. It wasn’t anger or irritation or anything on the normal spectrum of expressions he normally associated with girls.
Allison said something and Lydia looked back at her, smiling and shrugging. Stiles wouldn’t have pegged Allison for the type to do girl talk. Before he saw it, he wouldn’t have pegged Allison for anything but skinning corpses on the side of the road to fill her sadistic desires. She looked actually kind of happy.
Stiles paced another quick circuit.
Jackson glared at him where he was resting his arms on his knees.
--
Scott swung the bat. Three strikes and it was down.
If only he’d been on the baseball team and not a benchwarmer for the Lacrosse team. Still, the collarbone had snapped with the first hit, the skull collapsing with the second, and the third was because he and Stiles used to love watching Zombieland and joking about how bad ass they would be at the end of the world.
There was a wet cracking sound, Allison breaking a biter’s neck as she stepped on its skull to pull out the bolt she’d imbedded there from all the way down the hall.
“You’re really... good at that?” Scott said. Wow, way to be not smooth at all. Allison arched an eyebrow at him and Scott gave her a little smile. “The bow-thing I mean,” Scott added, because apparently pretty girls still made him loose his shit.
Jackson snorted. He was behind the two of them holding a crowbar that had bits of person caught between the teeth. It had seen some action even if Jackson was content to hang near the back watching their six.
“It was a hobby before all of this.” She looked sad about it but Scott had seen her take down a zombie like a sharp shooter from a Western film. They were making slow progress across the second floor.
--
Lydia watched them, four of them including herself judging them and keeping track of the things they said, the ways they moved. As a group they had decided to take branching out from the Biology room slowly. After all there was plenty of food in here and there were a lot of them out there, more and more biters every day it seemed. The food would last longer if one of them didn’t. She didn’t think it was going to be a problem.
Stiles stood by the window watching outside. This window showed the front street where their car was still sitting waiting for them as if mocking the back filled with food and weapons.
“So.” Stiles interrupted her thoughts and Lydia clicked her heel against the floor. “You and Jackson? You’re together?”
“No. Yes. Not anymore. Why, you interested?” She fluttered her eyes at him without intent. She knew his kind like she knew how to breathe.
“What? Me? No. Just curious. You two seem like.” He paused, and she was genuinely curious to see what he would say next but just pursed her lips to smooth her lip-balm, pretending like she could care less. Some habits died hard. “You’ve been here together for a long time now.”
“Everyone else is gone,” Lydia said. “Left or died.”
“Everyone?” Stiles was staring at her.
“It’s not like we’ve looked. We just sort of stayed here.” Lydia was beginning to think that she would be stuck there with Jackson as long as he held out. She had been almost looking forward to his breaking point; just so something would change.
Lydia considered the idea that she was the crazy one but dismissed the idea.
“Why?”
She blinked at him startled. “I don’t know.”
Somewhere outside a shot rang out and they both stiffened, looking towards it. The agreement was only to use the gun if it were an emergency. Maybe Lydia shouldn’t have let Jackson go with them. This wasn’t the change she wanted, Jackson turning into one of them after everything they had been through.
Lydia didn’t think about, just stood up, reached for the gun she’d stolen from her father and slid it into the holster that fit around her thigh-- which for the record looked better in films.
“Stay here,” she said reaching for-nothing; they only had the crowbar and the baseball bat they’d given Scott. “Pass that.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to his bat. Stiles gave her an affronted look. “I don’t have time to argue with you, give it to me.” Lydia snarled.
She snatched it out of his fingers and was at the door as fast as her legs could carry her.
“Wait.”
“No,” She snapped back, slipping out the door and letting it close behind her. Stiles had better fucking well keep it secure while she was gone. The room was in the corner for vantage point reasons. There was a clatter down the left hall. Lydia raised the bat and edged towards it. One of them shuffled out from down the hall, moving towards her.
They move like nothing would stop them. Single minded in purpose. “Come on,” Lydia said under her breath.
“Back up.” She recognized Allison’s voice, and well okay. Lydia flattened herself against the wall and Allison was amazing, bow up and firing in one fluid movement. The biter fell with the shaft sticking out of its face. “More coming the other way.” Allison called.
“Sure.” Lydia replied for a lack of anything better to say.
It was a relatively small pack, five of them; Lydia could pick them off if they were alone, but they ran from the bigger numbers. Jackson and Scott fled down the hall behind Allison. The door opened before Lydia could slam on it and she spilled-fell through, Scott coming through much more gracefully and Jackson after him, looking pale and drawn again.
Allison fired one more time before stepping through the door. Since Lydia was already there, she re-attached the brace.
The door shuddered as it was hit from the outside. Muffled moans filtered under the door and through the cracks; hunger calling for them. It wasn’t really a close call, but Lydia was singing with unused adrenaline. “What happened?” She was looking at Jackson but she didn’t expect him to answer.
“Got surprised.” Scott looked at his feet. “Didn’t notice two in a classroom. I don’t know what they were doing in there.
“That’s normally where we sleep,” Jackson offered. Lydia hated the idea of them falling on the blankets they’d stored in there, of pressing their disgusting rotting faces all over her stuff.
“Can I have my bat back now? I’ve named it and everything.” Stiles was looking at her a little pleadingly. It was pathetic. She tossed it back handle first to avoid the worst of the flaking blood on the end.
“Sound is only going to draw more,” Allison said, frowning. “We should probably wait before trying that again.”
--
“Aren’t you going to ask me about Jackson?” Lydia said. Allison looked up from where she was making a house of cards.
“No. Why?” Allison had been tenuous at best at the girl thing before all of this. She moved around a lot as a kid and never really got close enough to people for it to be an issue. Lydia just arched an eyebrow at her. “Did you want me to?” She asked after a pause where Lydia clearly expected her to do something.
“No. But you’ve been watching him and I thought you might want to know.”
Allison shook her head. The cards fell again; she sorted them quickly, going back to try again. She’d been at this for the better part of the morning and could get it two layers high on most tries. It was the stretches of time between the sound of foot steps outside that seemed to wear the most.
She was impatient but her father had taught her how to plan, and most of all to stick to the plan. Unlike her own fake calm she was convinced that Stiles was going to vibrate through his skin if something didn’t happen soon. She’d put an arrow through him before she let him endanger them all.
“It’s not that.” Allison began the tower over again. She very carefully didn’t look over where Jackson and Scott were doing push-ups. One of them started it--she wasn’t sure which, but now they were just trying to out-do each other. Scott looked like he was having fun and Jackson looked overly focused.
“Then what is it?” Lydia sounded almost offended. What, Allison wasn’t interested in her boyfriend so this was an issue?
“He seems... tense.” That was a bit of an understatement. He’d been shaking the first time they ran. Then when they had been out with Scott, he’d flung himself away from the biter so hard he’d slammed into the opposite wall. Scott had been the closest but he’d held together admirably.
“It’s the end of the world and we’re out of Xanax,” Lydia said, her smile brittle and sharp. She looked like she could be angry but like her face wouldn’t let her. It was a complicated expression but it smoothed into that superior little smile after a moment. Allison couldn’t imagine who she was trying to impress. “Cut him some slack.”
Allison has an inkling that Lydia was what really kept them alive here, but didn’t know the words to explain it, so she just shrugged a little.
“There isn’t a lot of slack to cut.”
Lydia’s face did something complicated. She didn’t seem mad. “You’ve probably got a point. We used to date but everything different now.” Lydia shrugged.
“It must be nice to have something familiar. I’m looking for my father.”
“The probability of finding him alive is next to nothing,” She said it so flatly, like it didn’t matter, as if she wasn’t saying something that Allison battled with every day. The anger welled hot and bright and sudden.
“I know that,” Allison snarled. Lydia watched her like she was something interesting eyes almost fever-bright.
“I’m sorry,” She said finally. She didn’t even bother to try and look contrite and Allison didn’t know if she wanted to hit her or cry. She’s been so careful for so long, alone for so long. Scott was too nice to say something like that and Stiles was too terrified of her to say anything meaningful.
“No you’re not,” Allison said, her throat feeling tight and eyes burning.
“Just keeping it real.”
Lydia shifted over towards her, letting their thighs touch under the table. Allison hadn’t really thought about the fact that she’d been too busy trying to stay alive to miss the way her mother used to hug her. Lydia started building card towers while Allison cried quietly.
--
Stiles was going to crawl out of his skin, scratch it all off and throw it out the window as a lure so he could just get out of this room. It was big enough for them to all have a corner and not really need to see or talk to the others, as well as being attached to a supply cupboard.
He’d already gotten in his fight with Jackson that morning. Less of a fight and more of Jackson bitching at him before curling in his corner with a book he’d pulled out from one of the broken desks. Jackson hogged the space under the blackboard where the most sun fell during the day.
“Is that a romance novel?” Stiles asked and Jackson’s mouth was pressed into a pout even as he looked up.
“It was in the desk,” Jackson snapped defensively. The cover looked so tacky, something with a sunset and flowing locks. “What do you care ass-wipe?”
“Just wondering how many ’heaving bosoms’ there have been. One? Two?”
“None of your fucking business,” Jackson snapped, looking cagey. Well that was too bad; Stiles was tired and fed up and Jackson was an easy target. Jackson bared his teeth in a not-smile and Stiles just smirked back.
“Lighten up jock-strap,” Stiles replied.
Jackson’s face did something painful. “Never made the first line did we? Jealous much?”
“Scott was the star,” Stiles replied breezy it wasn’t like Jackson was going to know if it was a lie or not, refusing to rise to the bait. Still, the reminder cut him to the bone. That was the one thing he’d never been able to do for his father (well that and stop lying to him about sneaking out his window at night to paint the town Halo Red and Blue with Scott.)
“Big surprise,” Jackson said back, words spit like bullets between his teeth.
Feeling oddly like he’d lost that exchange, Stiles walked back over to where Scott was lying across one of the desks staring out into space.
“You should probably leave him alone,” Scott mumbled. He looked sleepy and not nearly as bothered by their situation as he should be. Shit was real and Scott was firmly in la la land.
“How does this not bother you?” Stiles hissed, aware that everyone could hear him if they wanted to--and resenting them for it.
“Why does it bother you so much anyways?” Scott sat up, long legs dangling off the end of the table and giving him his full attention.
Because people were unforgivable. Because it would only take one of them to kill them all. Because Scott made ridiculous doe eyes at Allison and jealousy was seriously all the way down there on the list of pressing issues but it was still eating away at him all the same.
“It’s nothing,” Stiles finally said. Scott wouldn’t understand it anyways; he had room in his heart for more than one.
--
When Scott woke up it was to Lydia and Jackson having a vicious fight by the food cupboard. It must have started out silently because they were right in the middle of it without having woken him up. Stiles was staring at them with a frown on his face.
“No, what else is out there anyways?”
“We can’t just stay here.” Lydia snarled. She looked wild angry, like Scott had never seen her, not even when they’d faced the biters--then she’d been focused and determined. This was rage.
“Why not.” Jackson made it less of a question and more of a statement, each word its own little sentence.
“Because there’s nothing in here.”
“There’s nothing out there either. Everyone we know is dead. Everyone,” Jackson said before she could continue.
“Because if we stay in here I’m going to kill you,” Lydia finally said, deadly serious.
“You think I don’t know that?” Jackson said, arms crossed over his chest. “It’s still better than being out there. I’m not going out there even if I have to be in here with you.”
Lydia snarled something wordless and stalked to the other side of the room, sitting down against the wall and inspecting her nails. Scott was tripped up a little by that; where did she even get the nail polish? Jackson kicked the desks and they all clattered together loudly. A biter on the other side of the door moaned and beat itself senselessly against the barricade. Jackson flinched violently.
“What’s up with them?” Scott asked Stiles. He looked like he’d heard the rest of it.
“Just what it looks like. Lydia wants to leave here.” They could take her with them; if they took both of them then they were going to need to find a new way to travel. Scott had just sort of assumed they would keep moving, once they could get out of here and get gas for the car. It was just a patience game.
“Jackson doesn’t want to?” Scott asked.
“Obviously.” Stiles bit back and Scott put up his hand defensively ‘sorry man’.
“You want to?” Jackson asked, just loud enough for Scott to hear him. Jackson didn’t smile back when Scott smiled at him.
“Yeah, I’ve got to find my mom.”
“She’s probably dead,” Jackson said sharply.
“Maybe she’s not,” Scott said back. Mom had been at a nursing conference that she’d bitched out endlessly when the power grid went down. Scott had stayed as long as he could when suddenly Stiles was there wild eyed ‘we need to go.’ They’d barely made it out of the city. “I’m not going to give up until I know one way or another.”
Jackson stared at him and Scott felt bad for the naked look of pain that he couldn’t hide fast enough.
“What about your parents?” Stiles asked. Scott winced, he couldn’t even tell if Stiles was doing this on purpose this time.
“He stabbed them,” Lydia said waspishly from across the room.
Jackson went very pale and still. “They weren’t my parents.”
After that everyone was very quiet. Jackson proceeded to ignore them while Lydia sulked in the opposite corner.
--
“I’m sorry,” Stiles said and Jackson looked up through his lashes at him and snorted.
“Fuck off,” he replied, concise and to the point; even an idiot like Stiles could figure that one out. He didn’t have the same puppy-face that his friend did but he did give it his best shot. Looking wounded like he hadn’t been there irritating Jackson for the last how-ever many days. (They blurred together, the edges getting indistinct and he should be worried about that but mostly he was tired.)
“I’m trying to apologize,” Stiles snapped, his face all scrunched up.
The world ended and the only people to find him were losers. Jackson let his head thump against the wall. Lydia was sitting against the opposite wall pretending like he didn’t exist. At least they hadn’t broken anything this time. Their fights were always so vicious.
“For what?” he snapped.
“You know. That thing with your parents,” Stiles said each word like pulling teeth. Jackson’s fingers clenched in on themselves, too-long nails digging into his palms. It took conscious effort to relax his fingers. He couldn’t have said what his face looked like, but it must have been a bit much because Stiles was giving him a weird look.
“They weren’t my parents,” Jackson said again firmly. They had been freshly changed, pallid like death but still achingly the same. Jake had been a big man, heavy when he fell on Jackson moaning, fingers scrabbling hungrily across his back as he drooled.
Jackson had panicked, heart beating in his throat, on the verge of crying or throwing up. Ironically it had been Margaret that knocked the knife set to the ground in her eagerness to get at her child’s flesh, teeth gnashing and covered in blood.
“I’m adopted. Was. Was adopted.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth. So many old wounds almost indistinguishable from the new ones.
He felt too-warm; instead he just clenched his jaw against it and met Stiles’ eyes with the same determination he used to use to get through long practices.
“Still they raised you.”
“Not. My. Parents.”
“Okay.” Stiles held his hands up and Jackson realized that his shoulders were held so tight they ached. “Okay I get it.” Stiles backed down and as soon as he wasn’t talking anymore Jackson relaxed a little more.
When Stiles got tired of being ignored and went back to Scott’s side where he sat like a puppy, Jackson looked up, feeling eyes on him. Lydia was watching him, eyes wide against her pale face. They were staring at each other and for the life of him he had no idea what that expression meant. Fuck. He never really knew Lydia at all before this anyways. When they had been dating she’d been coy, fluttering eyelashes that hid the sharpness of her tone.
It was only now that Jackson realized he was a complete idiot, but he couldn’t seem to hold it against her; in some twisted way she did it for him. Jackson was the first to look away. He wasn’t going outside.
--
“Maybe we could throw things out the window?” Scott asked.
The more they looked out the window, the more and more of them there seemed to be, coming out of the trees in waves like some sort of sick pilgrimage. Allison frowned at him. “And gather the attention of the ones already outside? We still need to put gas in the car. There is no quick getaway.”
Stiles made a face. He didn’t like being stuck in here, that much was obvious. Allison had taken to watching him, waiting for the break. It had come down to which would it be first, Jackson or Stiles?
“I could set fire to the field,” Lydia offered.
“We’d run into them coming the other way.” The logistics spilled through her mind. Variables. “Wait. How would you do that?”
“The chem lab is down the hall. Mr. Harris isn’t around anymore to get mad if I steal things. Self igniting mixtures and have Jackson throw them off the roof.” Allison raised both eyebrows in surprise. Well that was useful to know; despite herself she was impressed. Still, Lydia had clearly put a lot of thought into this already. “When we leave. I want to burn this place down. The whole town if I could.”
Without really thinking about it, Allison reached for Lydia’s hand (it was right there, Lydia pressed against her side) and let Lydia squeeze her hand too tight.
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t feel better if this whole place burned?” Lydia asked Jackson, who was hovering around the edges of their group glaring like a wet cat. Lydia had been so sure that everyone she knew was dead; Allison never stopped to ask why. Maybe she should have, and maybe Lydia would have slapped her. All the signs were pointing to Lydia being slightly unhinged and to Allison not minding that at all. Still she glanced carefully around, using her hair as a veil, but Scott was focused on their plans and Stiles looked like he wasn’t even mentally present.
“Won’t change anything. This place was a hovel before all the people died,” Jackson said, surly. He’d been in a snit since the fight with Lydia. They seemed to have a standing agreement to disagree about that if the looks they exchanged meant anything.
“Okay,” Scott said, frowning. “But this doesn’t help us does it? I mean we’re still stuck in here.”
“It might even be better. I don’t know why there are so many of them.”
“What if it doesn’t go away?” Stiles asked finally, snapping into the conversation suddenly. Lydia’s nails dug into her hand painfully for a flash before she let go, giving Allison an apologetic look.
“Then we deal with it,” Scott replied, voice soft and firm. He was proving to be more than the airhead that Allison initially pegged him as. The first day she’d been so tense, unsure if she could trust these two boys even if one of them looked at her with huge dark eyes and so many good intentions. That first night Stiles’ paranoia had been almost soothing. “My mom might still be out there.”
Allison smiled a little.
Later Allison was sitting near the food room mentally calculating how long they could last in here. There were some tinned peaches, cream corn but not a lot of protein. Lydia and Jackson hadn’t accounted for the three extra stomachs when they’d built their pantry.
There was a shift of movement. Lydia pressing into her personal space, brazen and unrepentant in the way that rich, pretty people all over the world were. Used to be.
“Hey,” Allison said, feeling a little awkward over the hand holding earlier.
Lydia went in for the kill with all the direct grace of a predator. “Take me with you.”
“What?” Allison choked on it. Lydia looked bright eyed and almost pleading.
“When you go, let me go with you.”
“I’m not. I mean. Scott’s going to be travelling too.” Allison’s words feel like a car crash, each piling up. She’s been alone since those first few horrifying weeks. Of course she still wasn’t at all sure how to deal with Lydia as a human being, let alone the way she made Allison’s heart skip.
“I want to go with you.”
“What about Jackson?” They all keep making plans about what was going to happen next like his decision to stay was the crazy one. Allison could see where he was coming from even if she didn’t agree.
“He won’t last a week on his own. He’s going to have to grow a pair or die.”
Allison couldn’t tell if Lydia was lying or not.
Part Two