All that glitter don't turn to gold

Gabriel Reyes || Twenty-Nine || Medic

Felix laughed and patted the empty rock next to him. “Sure have, come take a seat, can’t have a guest in my home just standing around, that’s poor manners apparently. And I need company a little more verbose than the drying humor of laundry,” he said with a grin. It was good to see the medic out of infirmary and out and about in some actual sunshine. Felix was of the mind that anyone stuck inside the mall was in dire need of some time outdoors. The mere concept of being stuck inside for so long in general was something that unnerved Felix to begin with.

”’Fraid I don’t got much in the way of refreshments. Just er, water? Nice and cold and refreshing, though. Perhaps mildly soapy or muddy depending what area you get your drink from.” Felix couldn’t help but chuckle at his own joke and kicked a foot out of the water with a small splash. “Lovely water, mountain fresh even.”  

“You been okay? These past few days have been a–” he trails off and shakes his head slightly, biting his tongue as he mulls over a choice of words, “well, a big ole pile of shit, is what,” he says dryly, deciding that perhaps the description of ‘flaming pile of shit’ might be a bit insensitive considering the scent of ash that lingers around the mall.

— 🩹 —

While Gabriel hadn’t exactly been seeking company as he strolled along the edge of the water, there was far worse company than Felix in Idaho Falls. It was nice to know that the man had made it safely out the other side of the hellish last week or so in the mall. Frankly, Gabe hoped against all odds that Felix hadn’t found himself trapped within the quarantine at all.

After just a moment of hesitance Gabe gingerly stepped across the rocks to take a seat beside the other, his knees up as he reached to undo the ties of his boots. “Oh please, welcoming me into your home is plenty, I think I can fend for myself in the beverage department if necessary,” he plays along with the jest.

A humorless snort is Gabe’s initial response to Felix’s inquiry, shifting to set boots and socks aside before carefully lowering his feet into the cool water below. “That’s one way to put it,” he murmurs thoughtfully, his shoulders lifting in a shrug. “I’m still here. I guess that’s a good thing.” But when others weren’t - when those like Marsie who deserved so much had been taken away so horribly - he couldn’t stop the way his mind traveled to darker corners. Was still being here really the better outcome?

     She deliberately lowers her head to study him, brow wrinkled and eyes narrowed. Her legs are wide apart, keeping her balance and her grip on the knife firm. “Had something to do with what?” There’s the outbreak and Mike; the short list of things he could be responsible for. But she’s not going to give him any extra information, nothing to reveal what she thinks or how she feels. Don’t give me a reason to take you to the basement. Alexei hardly has any qualms about interrogating people, especially new people — and while Nele hates it, she’s good at it — but she’d prefer not to. There’s other jobs she’s just as suited for, if not more, and she’s happy to stick to those. Rebuilding, repairing, traps — fuck, the perimeter, she remembers. A job pushed back again after another tragedy.  

     In actuality, Nele isn’t sure she believes he’s responsible for anything, though isn’t that always the case? The ones you least expect are the most likely to stab you in the back, and that’s why Nele never turns her back to anyone. She’s glowering, pressing the blade harder against his throat as she challenges him, “Why aren’t you going back to where you’re from?” She lifts her chin her tone soothing with the next question,  “Don’t have anyone waiting for you?”

— 🩹 —

Gabriel breathes out a slow, steadying breath, swallowing down the lump forming in his throat and trying not to let the scrape of the knife against his neck distress him any further. He knew there were reasons not to trust him - he hadn’t exactly been welcomed into Idaho Falls in the most conventional of ways. But was it truly just because of the circumstances, or did she have a personal vendetta against him for some reason?

“You’re the one with the accusations, not me,” he pointed out. Certainly anyone who knew him would find it ridiculous, the idea that he would’ve had any hand in either of the events that had taken place. He certainly had no motivations for Mike’s brutal murder - and he was not remotely a fan of the infected.

Nele was just looking for someone to blame.

Gabe’s jaw tightens a bit at her questions, attempting to sink further back into the wall as the blade presses more firmly to his throat. What was she going to do, kill him? Right here, right now?

when — 1 july where — the mall who — @gabe-reyes​​

Daiyu got her hands on a tape player once, as a kid. An ancient device, even by old world standards, but it had worked and it had played her songs. She doesn’t quite remember who gave it to her – can’t have been her dad, might have been Nik or any of her father’s allies from back then – but she does remember how at some point the tape got stuck. The same bit of the song played over and over and over and Daiyu, in her careless and blind-angry state, had wrangled the tape out, leaving plastic bits over the floor. The player still worked, but there were no more tapes. Not until months later, anyway.

She’s reminded of it now, as Gilbert’s words get stuck in her head. I want to kill Alexei – to kill Alexei – kill Alexei – kill – kill – kill. It dizzies her. It makes her head hum. It makes her glad he isn’t here, in this quarantined building, because her body must be betraying something. 

In an attempt to focus, she zooms in on the task at hand: find someone who can do something about the cut that continues to make Gilbert bleed. Don’t think about the hand and knife responsible for it. Don’t think about the lies. Focus. She hopes to find Ophelia as she bursts back into the main area of the mall, but she’s not in any mood to be picky. Reyes, she by now knows, is apt at healing, and so when her eyes fall on him she rushes over. Fingers wrap around his wrist, pull him to her. Her knowledge of him is limited, but she knows enough. He’s familiar with Gil. He’s got healing hands. “Got a minute? You’re good at medic shit, right?” She hopes she doesn’t look as unhinged as she feels. “’Cause if so, you’re needed. Like, right now.”

— 🩹 —

Chaos.

It’s the simplest description of the mall as the infected run rampant and the survivors are caught off balance. The aftermath isn’t much better; they’re all left with far more questions than answers. How? Why? Was there still more of them - or were there about to be?

That was the trouble with this infection. One wrong move, even without knowing it, could result in more spread.

Gabe’s been keeping his head down, focusing on the flow of patients through the infirmary and trying his very best not to let his mind wander towards darker topics. He hadn’t heard from Gilbert since the radio cut out. There were whispers going around about those who had been lost - and Marsie’s name was on that list. And others still that he knew, for the moment, were safe - Ophelia, Suri - but that could change at any moment.

None of them were safe. Not really.

His eyes lift at the flurry of movement, finding Daiyu to be the source of it. He doesn’t think much of it at first, not until she’s flying in his direction. “Yeah, sure - what’s going on?” Gabriel asks as Daiyu latches onto his arm, dragging him back off in the direction that she’d come. He’s not given much choice other than to follow - though given there is clearly something serious going on, he wasn’t about to refuse her requests.

Immediately his mind is rolling over everything that could be on the other end of this. He was good, he’d taken care of some serious injuries before - but he couldn’t heal the infection. He couldn’t reverse a bite. He’d seen so many infected injuries before, it wasn’t hard to miss...But when it was a loved one at the other end of it, rationality went out the window.

the zone has been ophelia’s home for all her life.  even as a child it was often frightening, but she’d always been shielded from the worst of it.  for the most part, she’s felt safe here.  it was in large part due to her parents, to gil, to vincent- all the people who gave her as normal a childhood as they could.  she had friends and a family, she went to school.  however, the rose-colored lenses she’d viewed the zone through had started to crack long ago.  the older she gets the more she sees her home for what it really is.  the fields she once ran through with abandon were now graveyards.  the falls are grim, dangerous, no place for a child.

but the infirmary has always been different.  the people ophelia works with are what makes the falls feel like home now.  soldiers may come in terrified and in pain, but the comfort she and her coworkers provide give them a sense of safety.  this is what she’s always loved about her job, as hard as it may sometimes be.  marsie was apart of this.  she was a beacon of joy.  she was opie’s friend, her apprentice, and she loved her very much.  she felt protective of her.  but she failed.  while opie was racing through the halls of the mall during the outbreak, looking for gil, trying to get out- marsie was alone.  perhaps she never stood a chance.  it could have just as easily been ophelia.  as she had rushed through patients in the pharmacy, the feeling of someone missing had been all too apparent.  whispers passed through the beds, she didn’t want to believe them.  but marsie never came, she never responded.  she was presumed dead.  opie had retched in the nearest waste bin.

“i’m not hungry,” she said weakly as gabe offered up his ration.  it’s been over twenty-four hours confined in the mall and she’s had little to eat.  she isn’t sure she’ll be able to stomach it.  nonetheless, she picks a small bite off his plate.  there is another life depending on her.  “thank you.”  she nibbles at the bread, chewing slowly as they sit in solemn silence as the last two days replay in her mind.  those horribly stressful hours spent in the pharmacy after the outbreak were not ones she’d ever want to repeat.  they were trying to patch up as many people as they could, checking people for bites and scratches, told to report anything that looked suspicious.  all the while she made worried eye contact across the room to gabe, their minds likely thinking the exact same thing.  gil.  she’s since heard whispers that he is alive, but locked up- possibly infected.  she hasn’t taken a full breath since.  she can’t imagine him as one of those…things.  not her gilbert, her brother, her hero.  i can’t lose him again.  tears well in her eyes when she finally speaks up, her voice soft and careful.  “have you heard any news about gil?”

— 🩹 —

The day before had been playing and replaying in his head. Over, and over, and over again he questioned if there was something he could’ve done to change the course of the day. Had he seen Marsie before everything had gone awry? Did he have an opportunity to keep her safe?

Instead of going out there into the thick of things to keep those he cared for safe, he hid for himself. She hadn’t been so far away when she’d died out there. Alone. He could’ve been there with her. He could’ve kept her safe. He could’ve, could’ve, could’ve done something.

He couldn’t take back what he’d done during the outbreak. There were no do overs in life. At least now he could do something. He could at least make sure that Ophelia was taken care of.

“I know, but you’ve got to eat something,” he encouraged, scooting the food that much closer to her before picking at a piece of the meal himself and swallowing it down. “There you go,” he hums, rubbing a hand lightly against her back.

He’d almost forgotten, in all the panic and fallout that had come, about a small piece of good news in the darkness. After the radio had cut out he couldn’t help but assume the worst. There were only so many reasons for that to happen. But it could’ve just been a scrap, that the radio had been necessary collateral in saving himself.

who: @gabe-reyes​

where: along the river

when: 5 july 2044

Laundry. A task that Felix had been putting off, but given that he’d gone through just about every article of clothing he owned over the course of the past week or so, save for the ones he wore currently, he really didn’t have a choice. With everything that was going on, the pile had simply grown quicker than usual (some things even tossed into a fire), he was certainly a bit more grateful that the week’s weather was holding to typical July standards and not some freak blizzard like there’d been just weeks ago.

His newly cleaned clothes were spread out flat across some choice rocks along the river that were getting plenty of sun. He’d rolled up his denims to his knees, though despite his efforts the water had still dampened both the denim and also a decent portion of his t-shirt as he had washed the rest.

He couldn’t bring himself to care too much though. It was just water after all, and the sunshine felt good and would dry it up soon enough. He’d reclined along the edge of a rock next to his laundry, backpack tucked beneath his head and bare feet dangling over the edge if the rock to dip into the cool water. Felix was somewhat torn between taking a nap or going with the impulse of an idea to go for a swim. Who knew if the weather would hold?

His meandering thoughts were derailed slightly, hearing the sounds of foot steps on stone. Felix turned, squinting through the sunlight, and grinned when he saw who it was. “Hey, fancy seeing you here; laundry day too?" 

— 🩹 —

After days trapped within the hotel followed by an endless stream of patients and cleanup, Gabriel was happy to have a moment away from it all. The warm sunshine reflecting off the water, the rushing of the river over rocks creating a melody of it’s own - it could almost take one’s mind off the reality of their world. A reminder of the beauty that once had been and seemed so far and few between now.

He’s not paying much attention as he steps alongside the riverbank. It’s foolish, he’s sure, that his mind is so far away, yet he can’t seem to bring it back down to reality. It had always been easier as of late, living up in his head rather than down to Earth. So when Felix calls out to him he startles just a bit, a hand brushing through his hair and a sheepish smile crossing his lips. Felix, alive and well - that was good. At least he didn’t have to mourn another face. Not yet.

     𝙶𝙰𝙱𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙻 ( @gabe-reyes​. ) 𝙹𝚄𝙻𝚈 𝟿𝚃𝙷, 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽𝙸𝙽𝙶, 𝙶𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝚃𝙴𝚃𝙾𝙽 𝙼𝙰𝙻𝙻, 𝙾𝚄𝚃𝚂𝙸𝙳𝙴 𝙵𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝚁𝚃.

     There’d been so much happening: Ray’s death, the storm, newcomers, an outbreak. It’s too much chaos and while there’s been “justice” for crimes — barely — it makes it seem as though Alexei and his enforcers aren’t doing their jobs. And since her survival is linked to Idaho Falls, it makes her veins buzz with impatience, her lips downturned in a slight scowl as she stalks the hall toward the food court. She eats her meals with the others in her rank, at the hotel dining room, but she’s looking for someone in particular, eyebrows furrowing then releasing when she spots Gabriel on his way to the court. 

     A slow, miniscule smile builds as she picks up her pace, coming up beside Gabriel to snatch him by the shoulder, shoving him against a nearby wall. There’s some chatter from a passing group, and they divert their stares when Nele glances back at them, meeting them with a harsh gaze. Her attention quickly returns to Gabriel, her forearm across his chest, pining him in place, while her free hand unsheathes her hunting knife to hold it up to his throat. “Hey there, buddy,” she greets him in a low, husky voice, “Finding your way around alright?” Nele stares him down with cold, empty eyes that flicker across his features in search of any ticks. 

     “What happened at the mall?” It’s accusatory, her jaw set as adrenaline rushes through her veins and she bites the inside of her lip to keep her from pressing the blade harder against his neck. 

— 🩹  —

Things were calming down once again, the community picking up the pieces and knitting everything back together to at least appear as if they were as held together as they once were. But there were cracks in the walls, a crumbling exterior that you might only be able to see if you knew where to look.

He could feel the eyes, everyone on higher alert now as they searched for answers. Sure, the person responsible for starting the outbreak had been dealt with - rather brutally. But beyond that, there were more questions than answers left out on the table. It wasn’t only the infection that had run rampant throughout Idaho Falls, wasn’t it?

Gabriel was attempting to lay low, stay out of the politics. He had few loyalties in this place and certainly no reason to make a splash - but a new face in tragedy was always an easy target. So when Nele approaches, he’s not overtly surprised by an oncoming line of questioning. The way she goes about it, though, catches him unawares.

“What the fuck -” he exclaims, instinct raising his hands to push her away. But he stills when the cool blade presses to his throat, a muscle jumping in his jaw as his teeth clench together.

Marseline Wells was dead.

Gabriel hadn’t known her long, only the month or so since his arrival at Idaho Falls. But even in that short amount of time she’d become a coworker, a confidant, a friend. He was supposed to look after her. Take her under his wing. Teach her how to do the trade she’d been reading about in books, to become a healer.

She’d been a natural, she didn’t need him.

He had no right to the tears that stung at the back of his eyes at the loss of her. There were people here who had truly known her, for the twenty-one years she’d lived here in Idaho Falls. The people here who had been her real family. But he couldn’t help the feelings that stirred in his chest.

as she catches her breath, eyes flitting around the space they now inhabit, suri wonders if the people who live here will return, or if their bodies will be thrown on a fire by the end of the day. how many families will be mourning? how many people will be left with no one? it’s an ugly train of thought, one that makes her chest feel tight, but gabe’s voice is a light at the end of the tunnel. she follows it, eyes dragged up to meet his. she slides to the floor, exhaustion finally taking its toll. 

“huh? oh.” she looks down at her hands. the very ones pressing a knife to gilbert’s throat what felt like only seconds ago. “it’s.. it’s not mine.” this blood isn’t, at least. but the back of her t-shirt is stained from grazes that bloomed enough blood to seep into the brown fabric. the sting only hits her now, and she leans forward into her knees with a soft groan, still not wiping gilbert’s blood from her fingers. 

“you and santiago. gilbert. you like him, don’t you?” she’s not sure where she’s going with this line of questioning. maybe she needs more than eva’s word. prove to me that people really need him. give me a reason to not hate him. “why? why do you like him? i want…” tears build up and spill, and she wipes them away, replacing them with blood smears. “i want to not hate him. but i– i don’t know how.” 

— 🩹  —

It takes a moment for Gabriel to gather himself back together, let the adrenaline leak from his veins. They’re safe in here, he thinks; a door between the two of them and the outside, walls that keep them separated. He wonders, momentarily, what this room used to be in a past life before it became a home. Was it an office? A storage room? Something else entirely? It doesn’t matter and yet he can’t stop thinking about it. Not until his attention returns to Suri and he sees the blood staining her skin.

He searches the room briefly before returning to her, kneeling where she has slipped to the floor. There is a damp cloth in his hands now, one that he takes to scrub gently across her skin, searching for breaks in her flesh with the eye of a medic. She could’ve been bitten or scratched without knowing...and if that were the case, he was locked in a room with a ticking time bomb --

No, he couldn’t think like that. She was fine. She said she was fine. The blood wasn’t hers...Was that a reassurance?

His eyes lift to her face when she speaks, though what she says surprises him. “Gilbert?” He repeats, having a difficult time drawing a connection, where the man came into the picture in the here and now. “Yeah - He’s uh - it’s...complicated.” As if Suri didn’t already know that. The bond forged between the two, him and Gilbert - it was formed between mutual trauma, necessity, understanding...survival.

her head spins as she runs from the almost murder scene. it’s a miracle in of itself that someone or something doesn’t knock her off her feet as she runs blindly, tears blurring her vision. as she moves with no real direction, she wipes aggressively at her cheeks, exchanging tears for blood. santigo’s blood. gilbert’s blood. it might as well be farah’s too.

anger clears her vision, and the tears dry up in seconds. she left her machete on the floor at gilbert and eva’s feet and now she’s significantly less of a danger, significantly more in danger.

she doesn’t clock gabriel until he’s reaching for her shirt, pulling her light frame round a corner. he looks scared. why wouldn’t he be? while the infected may remind her of home, they would remind him of hell.

this is not the time, but she’s hungry in the way she wraps both arms around his neck. whether he knows or likes it, part of farah resides in his bones. she clings to him like she would her sister if she were given a real goodbye. then the footfall awakens her from this pseudo reality, and all she can think is protect him.

suri pries herself away, only to grip his hand tightly, then she runs. glances are spared over her shoulder, sometimes to check if anything is hot on their trail, but mostly to confirm he’s still there, that she’s not holding the hand of a ghost. there’s an open door, and she rushes inside, pulling gabe with her. she’s quick to close the door, finally taking a breath that isn’t shallow as she rests her forehead against the wood.

it’s a few seconds before she turns to look at him, now her back pressed into the door. it’s someone’s home. belongings strewn across the floor, some blood mixed in with it too. “it’s dying down out there,” she says breathlessly, “we can wait it out.”

— 🩹  —

There was just a moment where Gabriel thought he’d made a grave mistake, a flash where he thinks that this might be the end of it all. She lunges at him and his brain conjures the flash of teeth aiming to sink into his skin, tells him that she’s no longer a friend but has turned into one of them. He does nothing but wait for the shock, the pain, but it doesn’t come - instead her arms snake around his shoulders and hold him tight. The tension leaves him just long enough for her to take his hand and drag him from the safety of his cover.

No no no --

He has no choice but to follow on threat of losing his hand, going wherever it is that she’s leading over whatever may be following on his heels. His eyes stray over his shoulder a handful of times to check that there isn’t another familiar face turned monstrous gaining on them. But for the most part he focuses instead on Suri - the blood marking her skin and clothing telling so many stories of what she’d already been through.

Was it hers? Was she bitten? No no no --- how was this happening? How could this be happening? Idaho Falls was supposed to be safe...

He doesn’t hesitate in following into the small room, a door putting a barrier between them and those who might’ve been pursuing. It’s someone’s home, clearly, that has become their temporary safe haven - in a state as if it had been quickly vacated, the door left ajar before they’d taken up residence.

Hopefully the owner had left and wasn’t lurking somewhere within the room, getting ready to lunge at the pair of them. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Safe. Safe. Safe.

Idaho Falls was supposed to be safe, a home in a world that humans weren’t meant to survive in. But instead it came with people who lacked trust in one another, shadows of the place he thought he’d left behind - and now this? The infection rising up and standing against the living as if facing off in the middle of the pits once more.

Perhaps he was naive to think there was an escape. There was nowhere safe.

The first of the screams, a guttural screech from something most definitely no longer human, sends him back there - scrambling for anything that could possibly be used as a weapon to grip tightly between his fingers. But this isn’t the pits, there are other options than facing off directly with the infected. So Gabe does so, finding a quiet corner to curl up in with knees pressed firmly against his chest and arms wrapped tight until he’s little more than the boy hiding, hiding away from it all while others fight for their lives.

He can’t be sure how long it is before he can encourage movement into his limbs. He can’t stay here, locked within this building. He has to get out. That seems logical...One way or the other.

Runners are erratic, unpredictable. He can hear footsteps echoing down the wide halls, following screams of terror. He’s careful as he moves down the alleys, slow and silent. When footsteps charge in his direction he’s ready (as ready as he can be) with a scalpel raised, but his hand stills when it’s Suri that comes into view. Suri that seems to still have all her whits about her, though can be really be sure?

There seems to be some kind of resolute defeatedness about the other. Daiyu wonders what would happen if she threw her fist into his face, if she let it ricochet against his nose, and thinks he might just take it, let his head fall back and the blood stream. If she lived up to that weighty surname more, she would think the other boring, hardly a fun meal to play with. In stead, she feels a distant hint of sadness.

“What, did you dance for ‘em?” If her father has gained knowledge about the way the Militia functions, he has forgotten to mention it to her — which is to say, left her in the dark purposefully. “Shitty move, bringing your trouble onto our grounds. We’re dealing with plenty of other crap at present, if you hadn’t fuckin’ noticed.”

Trespassers are a source of income, but this one seems empty handed and low on blood besides, a nuisance. Nothing to steal off his soon-to-be-corpse. Not really the kind of enemy most trespassers prove to be, if she ever even managed to fully see them as enemies. “So, you’ve no information, a body full of wounds and … what?” Eyebrow raises, expectantly. “Incoming trouble. Should string you up, leave you for them to find so they don’t sniff any further. Don’t really need another wall blown up, now do we?”

Good people, he says. Daiyu tightens her grip, almost a knee-jerk reaction. It’s not that she’s surprised: there are good people in Idaho Falls, people who manage to hang onto some form of gentleness amidst the horror. People Daiyu compares herself with endlessly just to come up empty. But how this Gabe would know of them, these little sources of warmth in the cold tundra that Idaho Falls has become — that she doesn’t know. What she does know is that a reputation of this place being filled with them would be spit on by her father. “Told by who?” Draws him closer. “Huh? Who’s telling Militia people shit ‘bout us?”

— 🩹  —

He’s almost surprised by the question - or statement, since it doesn’t really seem like it requires a response. He’s momentarily confused on how it was possible they wouldn’t know what the Militia did to people. How they took in people, good people, and broke them to pieces. But then again, why would they know? It wasn’t as if the people who were stolen into their custody were known. Assumed dead, no doubt, along with the rest of those they’d gone out with. Maybe Gilbert was a prime example of it, framed in the context of Idaho Falls. He’d believed they’d come find him at first. But all this time...they hadn’t even known where to look.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he finally says, his head shaking the slightest bit. He could tell her about Gilbert, mention a familiar name and that he lives - he...lived. The message seems less urgent now, knowing that he wasn’t going to be making it back home again. But he doesn’t know her, he doesn’t -- he didn’t come all this way to pass the message on to someone who wouldn’t care. If he even made it out of this place at all.

Any information he had - he wanted it to get back to Idaho Falls. But could he trust her? Who was she? There was a list of people that Gilbert had talked about, people without names or faces but people none the less. Those were who he could trust, he was sure, but until he could place one of them...

Felix couldn’t help but wince inwardly as he listened to Gabe stumble through his words. …Maybe that wasn’t the right topic of conversation to to push for. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry to bring it up. Didn’t mean to poke at a difficult topic.” He still disagreed with the man on the guilt that seemed to linger even after all these years, but he figured that he probably should continue to nag at a clearly difficult topic. Especially since the other was supposed to go at his face with a needle shortly. 

“Yeah, I’m a professional trouble maker,” he said with a small grin that only pulled at the loosened stitches with a minute twinge. “I’ll do my best to keep you on your toes.” 

“We can talk about something else while you poke at my stitches, if you want. What’d you end up doing after Boston? I doubt mom was the only one to contribute to enough medical know-how to end up with you working in medical,” he said, hoping that the topic would be somewhat less of a volatile one. he was curious where the road had taken Gabriel over the years, and what had lead him to stumble onto Alexei Volkov’s territory beaten and bloody. But his curiosity could stuff it. Would have to for the time being.

“Now tell me doc, how bad a mess did I make of these stitches?” 

—  🩹  —

A hand moves through the air, waving away the apology as soon as it comes. “It’s fine, it’s not...It’s old news.” One of the many times over the course of his life that he thinks should have - or could have - been the end for him. Yet somehow he’s still here, still standing, trying to make sense of the pieces that remain.

He watches as the smile that comes to Felix’s lips pulls the slightest bit at the stitches already coming undone. A smile - now that was pretty hard to come by these days. “A professional trouble maker, huh?” Gabe hums thoughtfully, head bobbing. “Is that one of the jobs in demand around these parts?” He tips his head a bit, studying the injuries he’d sustained from his latest stint. “I don’t mind the idea of you single-handedly keeping me in business, but you gotta protect that pretty face better next time.”

Gabe falls quiet a minute as he considers Felix’s next topic of interest, busying himself instead with assessing the stitches and going about the task of pulling the popped stitching free and redoing the work. “Ah, no. At best, Mara taught me how to patch up a scraped knee once upon a time. She just...I don’t know, I guess seeing her in action got me...intrigued.” There was plenty to doubt in life when as a child all you really saw suffering - people in the streets of the QZ without rations to get by, threatened by soldiers who were just as lost and confused as everyone else. Mara had been different, had been trying to make a difference. She looked after the kids who had no one else. She healed the injured and sent them on their way as if it were nothing. He couldn’t remember exactly what it was that had made him think I could do that, too. Maybe it was just the idea of being able to actually help people that really spoke to him, in the end.

“I uh - eventually found my way to a place around here, I think. I’m not great with directions. Jackson Town? That’s where I guess I got most of my training, so to speak.” Jackson was...special, in many ways. Cooperation, people working together to make it through. All things considered, it probably wasn’t made to last.

the smokes he holds came at a hefty price. or so they’d said on the pack, anyway. anso hadn’t paid it much mind, busy hands tearing the packet open as he’d walked out from behind the hotel and left some poor fellow broken and bloody as he tried to get back on his feet only to stumble again. anso had never agreed to pay a fair price. 

it wasn’t as easy to muck around during the day. too many curious, beady eyes looking for business that wasn’t theirs. that was the thing about communes like this, too many heads with too much time to start concocting, asking, chittering. besides, there were “chores” to get to – always an agenda to follow, a line to queue in, menial labor to complete. it was fucking mind numbing. it was only in the nights that anso found any freedom to walk off his itching impatience. it started as reconnaissance, but now, it was more for keeping peace with his own mind as it slowly unraveled out of the sheer boredom in stillness. 

he’d admit – he hadn’t planned to run into who he did. he hadn’t even known reyes had escaped the militia. anso liked to think the timing of it made for a present just for him, tied up and blessed upon him by some unseeing god. gabriel recognizes him before anso does. the cigarette sits between two fingers, his cheeks hollow as he blows out smoke and takes the man in. he’s a shell – one blow of the wind and he’d topple just over, wouldn’t he? still, he looks healthier than he ever did at wyoming. idaho had been too kind to him, made him bold enough to speak to anso. perhaps he needed some reminding. 

“oh shouldn’t i, reyes?” he says, the big grin on his lips a little too wide, showing a little too many teeth. he flicks the ashes off, moves slow and easy into the grounds of the roof, leisurely. “now, that’s no way to greet an old friend.” his steps take him right to where reyes is standing, and anso keeps his gaze on him – light, sharp – even as he takes another drag. he doesn’t say anything as he lets the smoke blow out and into gabriel’s face, makes a point of assessing him. “what’ve they been feedin’ you out here? idaho seems to suit you a lot better than wyoming did.” 

“but then again…you never did fare too well back home.” he continues, too many canines in a too sharp grin. “–just shitter after shitter in the pits.” it’s a drawl, mimicry of old friends catching up – shooting the shit about misshapen adventures. anyone who had been in the militia, known what the likes of gabriel were subjected to, knew there was no punchline to this joke. anso purses his lips; the theatrics are unsophisticated, barely concealing the depraved, the feral underneath it all. “that’s alright though, isn’t it? the fights made for good entertainment – even the pathetic ones.”

—  🩹  —

It feels like a mistake, the words spoken to Anso before he can stop them. Perhaps he could’ve found a corner on this rooftop and gone undetected by the general, spared himself a few more hours or days without. But it would have been foolish to think he could avoid him forever. Not when they were both within the walls of Idaho Falls. Escaping - that was only a figment of his imagination. His demons were inescapable.

As Anso steps towards him Gabriel steps away - one step, two - though he doesn’t have much room to work with. Of course of all places he finds himself without an escape route, the only option blocked behind the other and proving to be no option at all. He can’t get his feet to move in the right direction even if it were. He can do little more than accept the breath of smoke in his face, resist squirming under the analyzing gaze.

He doesn’t have any power here. It’s what Eva had said and for all intents and purposes, it was probably true. But that doesn’t mean he can’t do any damage. That doesn’t mean that Gabriel is safe here. Anso had never seemed like much of a rule follower, after all. And Gabriel was nobody. Would he even be missed?

This isn’t Wyoming. It’s Idaho. Or is it? How is he to know anymore, what’s real and what’s false? When nightmares meet daydreams, when the past meets the present? He can’t piece it all together, not when he can’t even trust his own mind anymore. All an illusion to make him think he’s somewhere safe, only to shatter it to pieces all around him.

Was he still in the pits, facing a new form of torment?

Felix huffed a dry laugh. "Yeah, yeah, say what you will. At least I manage to get myself out of trouble more often than not, promise.” At least nowadays he was more likely to get into trouble due to his own sometimes misinformed actions instead of due to his childhood tendency to be a bit of a clutz.  

He frowned slightly as he listened to Gabe’s words, watching him patter about the clinic to get what he needed, most of which Felix was glad to see that hre recognized. He had the sense that Gabe had a somewhat skewed opinion on how he had survived the affair. “I dunno, sounds like deserted isn’t exactly the best word to describe the situation if you ask me. They said the scene was a nightmare of a mess. Nothing wrong with surviving a clusterfuck of an impossible situation because you had enough sense to not deal with it head on. Running means you aren’t dead and that counts as a win in my book.” Felix often thought that pride was what got in the way of many people’s survival. Many were too prideful to turn tail and run. 

Felix brought his legs up, crossing them under his knees on the chair. “Running was basically what the three of us did, after all. Things steadily got worse after you left. It was good we left when we did. Sometime later we got word on the road that it’d fallen entirely, so. We just manage to avoid our clusterfuck instead of getting stuck in it.” Though they’d run into their own mess of getting separated from Mara in the wake of everything. Had that been before or after Boston had fell? Felix couldn’t rightly remember. Those years were a bit foggy in Felix’s memory, clouded with uncertainty and grief. 

—  🩹  —

An eyebrow hikes upwards in skepticism over whether or not Felix’s words ring true. There had been at least a few times Gabriel could recall of Felix and the others getting themselves into messes that weren’t so simple to navigate out of. But perhaps Gabe didn’t know everything, either. “If you say so,” he lightly teases.

His hand stills in his search for supplies when Felix speaks on Gabe’s departure from the Boston QZ. It was something that had haunted his nightmares time and again, the echoing clicks that bounced off the walls, the screams and cries of the others while he sat by and did nothing. If that wasn’t deserting, turning his back on the people that were supposed to be his people, on FEDRA as a whole...well, he wasn’t really sure what was. Maybe he wasn’t dead, but the rest of them were - and being the last one standing wasn’t an honor. “Yeah, I just...maybe I could’ve helped them. Or...something. I - I don’t know.” He’d never been much of a solider. If the rest of them couldn’t make it through, there was little reason to think he would’ve made a difference. But still - there was guilt there, something familiar that weighed heavily for so very long.

Boston hadn’t been on his mind in years. It hadn’t ever been the same - not after his parents...not after FEDRA. But there had still been plenty of good there, too. Boston was special, it had been home once upon a time. That was a long time ago.

“That’s different -” he shook his head, chewing the inside of his cheek. Felix and Mara - they’d run from the QZ like so many others seeking something better, a new life. They’d been just like the people Gabe and the rest of the soldiers had been chasing that night, to drag back to the QZ by the collar. They were on opposite ends of the spectrum. It took bravery to stand up against the QZ like that. It had only been cowardice that had kept Gabe alive.

•

Why is he here? It’s the first thought that crosses her mind as she stares up at the man. Her past is her past and any part of it showing up in Idaho Falls was a threat. A thread that could unravel everything. “I think you did,” she relents, if only for the fact that he helped her once. Jo retracts her knife but doesn’t release her grip on him entirely. “I’ve never been to Jackson before.” she says though, it seems, they both know it’s a lie. But before Jackson was Portland and it’s too close for comfort for her. 

“What’s your name then?” she prompts, retracing her hands now but not giving him rough space to retreat. “Since you seem so curious about mine.” Her demeanor is a defense mechanism – a way by which to survive, and Jo isn’t about to let that go just yet, not even for a friendly face. So she gives him her best open estimation of him, eyes scanning him from head to toe before jerking her chin. “Soldier or medic?” Of course, she shouldn’t know that he has the potential to be a medic if, in fact, she’d never met him, as she claims. But she doesn’t correct herself and instead awaits his answer. 

—  🩹  —

It feels strangely familiar, the way he thinks that she’s the very same person from Jackson and yet is being told she isn’t. Hadn’t Suri done something similar, behaved as if they had no history even though it wasn’t at all the case? He still hadn’t fully wrapped his head around the reasoning for that, let alone what was happening now. The past may be the past, but it was what held them together when everything else was crumbling around them.

“Okay,” he concedes, for lack of anything better to say. It doesn’t seem like she’s the type who can be swayed or convinced otherwise, and it’s hardly a battle he wishes to fight. But he still feels like there is something there, something in the way that she speaks or the way that she’s holding herself, that makes him think it’s all some kind of charade. Perhaps she simply wants to remain unknown. He can understand the desire for a fresh start. It’s among the many reasons he’d ended up in Idaho Falls at all.