We're all monsters here

Ali shook her head. He was right, she hadn’t been there but it didn’t matter in that moment when she knew exactly what kind of man that he was or she thought that she did. Their history was something different from that with his family, knowing how hard that she’d fought to keep her parents alive and hadn’t been able to do any of that in the end. She’d barely made it there in one piece either. “Bullshit,” she whispered under her breath, staring at him despite the way that it made her entire chest ache to see him struggling with the pain of losing his family to this virus. And whatever else it had created out there. 

          “I might not have been there but I know you. I know that you would have done anything and everything to keep them alive and if it — “ She stopped herself again as she swallowed thickly. “Whatever happened, I know that you tried your hardest to keep them alive.”

— 🔧 —

Bullshit.

Javier’s brows knitted together, head shaking. Bullshit. Maybe it was true that it hadn’t been wholly his fault. Maybe it would’ve gone that way regardless of what Javier had said or done. Maybe he would’ve joined them had he not spoken up rather than endure the torment and retribution.

But it didn’t matter, because he’d live with it for the rest of his life. And the thought of Ali getting mixed up in it all...

“Yeah, okay,” he murmured, though it was clear he didn’t agree with the sentiment. He hadn’t done anything to save them. He hadn’t been given the chance...

Her eyes took in the movement of his hands, seeing the ring that he twisted that matched the one that she no longer wore anymore. It was tucked away, unseen any longer but it had been a small protection on the months when she’d been alone out there. A lie that she told others to keep them at bay, that her husband was still alive and looking for her even if she struggled to believe it in her heart. He could have been dead, just like everyone else that she knew but somehow he’d managed to survive — somehow they both had and were the only ones. 

His words struck a chord with her, having to take a moment to look away when he spoke about having lost both his siblings in a similar fashion to her having lost her parents. It wasn’t fair at all. “I’m sorry, I… I didn’t know.” And she hadn’t asked either, which had her kicking herself out of guilt and regret that she hadn’t even thought to ask. None of them were allowed any kind of luxury or peace any longer, but she hadn’t even given it a second thought that they weren’t out there waiting for him to find them. 

Ali shook her head. “You don’t have to protect me Javi. And they’re not dead because of you. None of this is your fault, just as much as it’s not my fault — it’s something else entirely that no one would have predicted.” She thought the worst was her divorce and the pain from her heartbreak, but it only met it’s match with the virus that soon came afterwards that stalled out everything else. “That’s not on you…” The words slipping out easily as if there was no animosity between them, but Ali knew that she wasn’t thinking about their personal pain, but rather what they were all going through and the man before her; she still loved him even if she couldn’t allow herself to fully forgive him ( even if she wanted to ). 

— 🔧 —

“Of course you didn’t know.” There isn’t any venom in the words, just a matter of fact statement. There was no reason she should have known. He hadn’t told her. She hadn’t been there. They both knew this world was one that chewed up and spat out everything and everyone, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still glimmers of hope here and there. Against all odds they were both still standing, after all.

His eyes flick over her and his head shakes as well. It’s not a denial of what she says, he knows he doesn’t have to protect her. Not only has she pushed him from that place but she’d always been fully capable of taking care of herself - sometimes to a fault. But as she goes on the shake of his head only increases in intensity. “No, no - stop. It is -- You weren’t there. You don’t know...” He couldn’t be consoled out of that one, there was no doubt in his mind. He’d been the one who thought standing up to the looters was the right move to make, as if their supplies were more important than their lives. He’d been the one to make a mess of things, and he’d heard it over and over again how much he’d fucked up. Again, and again, and again...

She was right, she didn’t need his protection. He couldn’t protect them, he couldn’t keep her - he couldn’t do any of it right. She’d be better off without him in more ways than one. But they weren’t far enough away from that place, they might still come after them, find this camp they were trying to make a home out of. And if Ali was there to get caught in the crossfire?

He couldn’t lose her too. Or worse, if they took her. If they hurt her...

           “I… I don’t know.” She didn’t, not really. Part of her didn’t like that he didn’t ask but the rest of her believed that it wasn’t his place to ask anymore and it left her conflicted as she stood there with the crowbar in her hands. It was supposed to be easy to leave him there and get back to whatever was going to help her get through the night, since sleep wasn’t happening. And instead, she stayed put as she watched him. “Still, you shouldn’t fall asleep here.” It didn’t matter if it was on purpose or not, but anyone could have walked in on him. 

Ali should have left then, because it wasn’t her business. Hadn’t she made that clear that they were over? That she could ignore the way that her chest ached when she was near him and still couldn’t get closer without the pain flaring up instead. Or how she feared the worst every time there was a supply run with him on it or how the storm had nearly taken him away. 

But seeing him there in the dark, Ali knew that something wasn’t right — even if she couldn’t put her finger on it or have the right to pry him open to tell her. “Yes well, you’re not really in a position to tell me what to worry about or not,” she tried to say in a stronger voice than she felt as fear crept into her tone and left her feeling worse than before about what might be wrong. “What happened? Or don’t tell me. I… I mean, you’re right. Not any of us are alright, but I know that plenty meet together to talk about it.” Maybe he’d be able to talk to them, if he couldn’t talk to her — hell, she even struggled to talk to him, so what made her think that he would open up now?

— 🔧 —

Truthfully he’s struggling to keep track of what side she’s on in all this. The signals she gives are all jumbled and mixed; one minute she wants nothing to do with him, can barely stand to look at him, and the next she’s insisting he tell her the deepest and darkest parts of him now. Is it habit? Is she just trying to be nice? Or does she still genuinely care? He wasn’t going to give up on them, but he’d come to believe at this point that she had long ago. That no matter how hard he pushed she was going to keep pushing him away. And he knew he deserved it, even if he didn’t want it to be so.

His fingers fiddle, twisting the ring that never left his finger around and around. It was a nervous habit he’d developed long ago, ever since she’d given him the ring in exchange for vows he’d broken. Still, it wasn’t something he’d done all that often in the past - he’d always been confident. Nerves weren’t a thing that got him. Not often.

He could talk to someone else about it, he supposed; Rey or Sam, he supposed. They’d been there, they knew, better than anyone else might, what it was like. What had happened. Maybe they knew how to get through it, to shut it off or block it out or something. But they had their own problems to deal with.

And they weren’t Ali.

“I...” He hesitates, trying to figure out how to even formulate the words, how to get his thoughts organized, where to even start. “I was with Gabe and Rosa, back when this all started. We were gunna - I dunno, try and wait it out together, I guess. Hunkered down in the shop a while until we couldn’t anymore.” His head shakes the slightest bit, eyes dropping to focus his attention on his hands, on the band around his finger, as if there was some kind of answer there to be found.

“We were good...for a while. But then we ran into...” His teeth grit together, a wash of emotion stinging at his eyes, threatening to brim even as he fights it back. It takes him a minute, but he can’t stop now - not when he’s already started. Not when he needs to get it out. He clears his throat, shakes his head again before looking back up at her. “They’re dead. They’re - they’re dead because of me. And I can’t - I keep thinking that you’re here and that I’m just... What if I can’t - protect you either -- I can’t...” His voice cracks, fizzles out as he lifts a hand to pull it across his face, the slightest of a tremble in his fingers as he does so. The images that had played behind closed eyelids, the memory of something that hadn’t yet occurred but felt so real...

He might not have meant to sleep there, but it happened and she’d been able to walk in without any ability to protect himself if it had been anyone else. Or something else that got in. She wanted to shake away those thoughts, the ones that were chalk full of worry and concern about his well being and focus on the present where it wasn’t her concern. Hadn’t it been made clear? This wasn’t about them anymore, it was about surviving and it was supposed to come first even though she couldn’t help the chill that settled in her bones as she watched him slowly rise to his feet.

It was always going to be in the back of her mind, what might happen to him — if this would be the last time that they’d speak and why couldn’t she fix some of the anger in her heart to at least be able to be there for him. When he went and found the crowbar that she’d come to find, there wasn’t a question or a comment about it — he simply handed it over as she stared at him for a moment. “You’re not going to ask why I need it? Or why I’m up this late at night?”

The concern that he usually displayed, sometimes unwarranted and unwanted, was missing and it left her unsettled to say the least that something must have happened in that nightmare that she’d stumbled in on whether he was going to tell her or not. Finally he spoke and she felt her entire body freeze when she caught his darkened gaze. “Javi, what was in that dream?”

— 🔧 —

“Do you want me to?” Of course he wants to know, wants to be sure that she’s safe, but he’s having a hard time concentrating on what it was she’d even said she was doing in the first place. She said she’d needed a crowbar, so he’d gotten her one - though granted, now that she’d pointed it out, it was a rather odd request given the hour. But maybe the reason he doesn’t ask is because he already knows the answer. It wasn’t so different from his own. He just hoped her dreams weren’t so difficult to contend with. “You’re up because you can’t sleep, either. You’re looking for something to do to pass the time ‘til morning. Or at least until sleep comes.” He knows her. He likes to think he knows her inside and out. But he’d lost time with her, too - and there was plenty that could’ve happened over the last year. “It’d be rather hypocritical of me to scold you for not getting your rest right now.”

He can’t blame her. When the world was a nightmare that bled into dreams, when closing your eyes meant that you weren’t watching your back...He could understand where she was coming from if she couldn’t sleep.

Though he hoped, hoped that was all it was. That she couldn’t sleep because she feared what might find her while she was unaware - though even that he desperately wished he could change. He was there, he wasn’t going anywhere - he’d keep her safe from the demons around while she slept...

But was he even good for that, anymore? Could he keep her safe?

Ali shook her head, moving quickly back to her feet and putting space between them again when it seemed that every time she thought he was in trouble — she forgot everything except for him. It wasn’t until he flinched from her touch did she remember everything else that happened between them as she wanted him to stop apologizing, again. “It’s.. fine, I shouldn’t have done that in the first place.” She simply thought something was wrong and her heart led her body faster than her head had been able to keep up as she cast her gaze aside as not to feel hurt again. 

          “You’d do better if you remembered to lock the door. Anyone could have walked in on you in here asleep,” she spoke softly, which was exactly what she’d done in search of a tool to help her through the restless night. Ali glanced around again and made a slow move towards her flashlight that still rest and pointed in his direction. “I needed a crowbar and I didn’t want to bother anyone so I thought.. I’d find it myself.” What she hadn’t expected to find was him lying there in the midst of what looked to be worse than a bad dream. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

— 🔧 —

In an instant she’s back on her feet and putting distance between them and he has to swallow down a whine in protest to her words, his hand lifting to press against his chest and pull at the collar of his shirt. Fuck all he’d ever wanted was to have her be close. He’d had her and he lost her and the ache only grew more painful in his chest each time he was reminded of it. The distance he’d put between them. Not her.

He shifted to sit up more properly on the couch, let his feet fall to the floor, though a moment later he dropped his elbows against his knees and cupped his hands around his head. “I wasn’t planning on sleeping.” It’s not meant as an excuse, just an honest, straightforward statement. But he knows he can’t keep playing this game, can’t run from the terrors forever. Sooner or later he needs to face it, before it catches up to him first. “But yeah...yeah, you’re right.”

When she admits to her own reasoning for lurking around the maintenance garage at this hour, he can’t say he’s surprised. They were so very similar when it came down to it, weren’t they?

He’s a bit unsteady when he rises to his feet, moving somewhat blindly over in the direction of one of the workbenches and shuffling through the supplies. A moment later a crowbar is produced, turned over in his hand and held out in her direction, palm up. He doesn’t even ask what it is she’s looking to pry open. He’s not sure if it matters.

When Javi flinched away from her, there was an overwhelming rush of sadness and loss that met her in that moment from years of being together. And never once had he ever shied away from her. She might have been the one to move away or leave first, unable to cope with his choices in the aftermath of losing a baby together but he never was the one that flinched. Not even for a moment in all the years that she’d known him as her hands moved backwards and away from where he lay.

It didn’t take a doctor to see that something was wrong, something more than he was telling her with how she’d found him holed up in the maintenance building rather than back in his own assigned quarters. “That… that was more than a bad dream,” she replied, moving back onto her heels even as she stayed by his side and watched him for a moment longer. Even in the dark she could see the shadows on his face and feel the way that air was tense around them. “Where did you go then? And why are you in here?” It wasn’t safer in here than where everyone was assigned to sleep, the opposite actually because he was on his own if something attacked.

— 🔧 —

It’s not her, never her, that he wanted to shy from. The flinch was subconscious, a protective measure against an unknown enemy. In the moment, in his head, she just seemed to be a figment of it. She was a touch he needed and craved so desperately, and yet just as quickly he’d lost it. Again.

A moment passed before he lifted a hand to wipe sweat from his brow, to comb his hair back from his face. He wasn’t back there anymore. He was here - here with Ali. His Ali... “I’m sorry - I’m - I didn’t...” He shook his head, fingers tracing down over his face as he tried to get his thoughts back in proper order.

Why was he always making a mess of things?

He grimaced at the questions she asked. Where did you go? It goes unanswered, more so because he can’t come up with a good answer to it. Not one he’s willing to speak about, not yet. The wounds are still too fresh, too raw - and she doesn’t want to be burdened by him, anyway.

Why are you in here? That was easier to answer, though it still took him a minute to recall where he was, what he’d been doing, what was real and what was simply a figment of his nightmares. “I couldn’t...I couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d try and get something done...” Funny how that worked out, wasn’t it? “What are you doing here?”

Ali continued to walk slowly towards whatever was making that noise, even though her vision was limited even with the flashlight that she lifted some to try and see where it was coming from. Her heart had moved into her throat, making it hard to speak at all as she walked forward and knew that she should have turned around and left when she heard the first noise. It was only going to end badly for her as she felt herself no longer alone when she head towards the back.

Ali. They knew her name and it was then that it clicked to her who exactly was in the dark with her now as she watched their body try to move but it seemed unnatural. “Javi?” Her voice was soft but carried enough worry that she couldn’t keep to herself as she moved towards his side and reached out with a shaky hand. “Javi, are you okay?” 

As much as they argued and fought, the last thing that she ever wanted to see was him hurting like this as she moved to a crouch beside him. She set the flashlight to the side, keeping some of the light on them but it wasn’t enough to get rid of all the shadows and darkness that surrounded them both. Her hand reached out for him, unsure of where to touch at this point as she moved her fingers to his cheek before resting the back of her hand against his forehead and lowered it again. No fever, but something was wrong.

— 🔧 —

Javier visibly shied away from the light that flashed across him as Ali turned towards him. That was never a good thing, the approach of a flashlight. Or, it hadn’t been. For a time. But that was in the past now, something he didn’t need to worry about anymore...and yet...

He shifted awkwardly to push himself upright a little more, to shift into the corner - away, away. But he wasn’t in a cell, shying off into the corner as if it might protect him. His hands weren’t tied, though it took him too long to fully recognize it. And it wasn’t someone intending harm that approached, even as he readied to fight them off should he need to.

When she reached for him he flinched, but he managed to stamp down any further reaction against her, slowly but surely catching up with the present. The unnecessary wash of adrenaline in his veins leak into the shake of his hands that fist into his shirt.

It takes too long for his eyes to find hers, and even shortly after that they pull away - searching the darkness still as if there might be something more out there, but also, maybe, to avoid her. She’s caught him in a bad moment, a moment of weakness, and he doesn’t like it. She may have seen him through almost everything in his life, seen him through some of his worst, but still - he definitely didn’t need her carrying this, too.

As she tried to keep the noise down as well as her flashlight, Ali wasn’t expecting that there was someone in there with her at this time of night. She was sure that most other than those on watch were locked down for the night but as she moved further into the space, she heard something or someone.

She wanted to call out, announce herself and make the other person say something as well but fear struck her silent at the thought that maybe things weren’t as secure as everyone was trying to make this place become. If something slipped through after the storm, then this was a good place to hole up until people put their guard down enough for it to cause some real damage.

Ali sought out something to protect herself with more than her flashlight, reaching for the knife in her belt or glancing around for a wrench or another heavy object before hearing a voice in the darkness. “Hello?” She gave up on attempting to stay silent when she was certain it was someone’s voice, meaning that it couldn’t be a walker. “Who’s in here?”

— 🔧 —

He knew that voice, knew it just as well as his own. It was tinged with fear, or maybe just uncertainty. But it was easy to misconstrue in his state of semi-alertness, hard for him to connect - or perhaps, disconnect - the fact that Ali was here and safe in their makeshift camp and not there and in danger. There and threatened under the hands of those monsters, or faced with the undead, or, or, or...worse.

Don’t touch her, don’t touch her, they could do whatever they wanted to him just don’t touch her...

He can’t be sure whether he’s said anything out loud, maybe just mumbled incoherence before he finally jerked further to alertness, blinking in the darkness to try and make sense of it. “Ali?” His voice is quiet, unsure at first, before pitching higher - a little more urgent. “Ali?” He couldn’t will enough coherent movement into his muscles, was awake and seeing the darkened maintenance shed but not fully comprehending it. It didn’t matter - All that mattered was that Ali was here - and he needed her to be okay.

Sleep wasn’t on her side that night, which wasn’t different from most nights but at least she tried to get a few hours of sleep back in her room with the door bolted shut and a chair lodged against the handle. Still it wasn’t always enough to help her grab restful sleep and tonight was no different as she choose to work through the night and clean up what was left of the old medical center. They’d been smart enough to move it to a more stable building, but there were supplies and pieces of the old one that could be scraped to help reinforce the fence or other buildings. 

So she’d made work of grabbing what she could but there was a supply closet that she couldn’t get to without the proper tool which would mean that she’d need to go into the maintenance garage in search of a crowbar so that she could attempt to open it for what lay inside. It might not have been the smartest decision, seeing she size and stature wasn’t one that gave off the energy of someone that could pry it open with ease but the alternative was sleep. And that wasn’t happening.

Ali opened the front door, leaving the room in the dark as she kept her flashlight pointed down as not to wake anyone in the camp that wasn’t supposed to be on watch. The last thing she needed was to distract them from their posts for her project.

— 🔧 —

Subconsciously he hears the click of the door latch as it opens, the flicker of light that passes behind heavy eyelids. The reality only mixes with the scenes unfolding within his head, the memories of darkened corners that he’d been shut into for days only to get the slightest of reprieves. But they never ended up being good ones, not long lasting. Exposure to the outside world in it’s cruelest of forms, humanity at it’s worst when seeking revenge for wrong doings.

Sweat beads on his skin as he fights with the demons inside his head. They’d taken his family, stolen them from him, even if it was only a payment for the favor he’d done in shooting their own. He won’t go out without a fight, won’t let this be the end - and it earns him the brunt of the abuse - but maybe he deserves it.

He recognizes, half awake now, that Ali is there. But it mixes with the nightmares, a horror worse than reality. She couldn’t be here, not when here was there, not with what those people might do to her. Safe, she’s supposed to be somewhere safe, he had had to cling to that notion for so long now - and here, here was not safe.