heaven destroys

Zoe’s face is only vaguely familiar. Lynsey remembers her as a blur in a hall mostly. Not really spending much time speaking to anyone or lingering in any particular place. Despite the fact that everything was dead and Lynsey couldn’t really see the need to rush anywhere anymore, Zoe always seemed like she had somewhere to be. Like she had purpose. She’d have been lying if she said that wasn’t something she ached for nowadays. 

“It’s fine, just…talking to myself, I guess.It’s so easy to go stir crazy in this place.” After an uncomfortable glimpse at the podium, Lynsey swallows and turns in her seat to give the other woman more direct attention, leaning forward on her forearms on the back of the pew. Instinctively, she feels hesitance when Zoe asks that question, but she isn’t sure why. It’s not like it was a secret. Maybe she just didn’t like remembering what a spectacle she made. She messes with the long sleeves of her dark shirt. 

“Yeah. I hope it’s alright that I tagged along–I mean, I keep hearing it is. I don’t really know what to do with myself otherwise.”

“Tell me about it.” Her lips press together in a quick smile, an easier response than feeding into whatever bitterness Zoe already carried with her. For the gates around them, the sisters’ requests that felt more like demands. Only minor obstacles, but she didn’t believe in complacency. 

There’s a slight shake of her head at the words, an easy dismissal of any thoughts that she was unwelcome. Whether or not she knew anything at all about the woman didn’t change a thing. What’s more concerning is how violent she remembers her entrance being, next to impossible to miss. A bloodstained figure trailed by monsters, and Zoe’s hard pressed to keep her eyes on the woman’s face and not scanning her like there might be signs of that moment still left behind. 

She takes a few steps closer all the same, footsteps feeling too loud in the quiet chapel. A reminder that she’s interrupted whatever brought her in here, but she doesn’t ask. “It’s fine. Just wondered if you were doing alright.”

“Load of Revs, but they shouldn’t be an issue if we move quickly and take out a few quietly,” Kane answers in a similar tone as she asks her questions, “Haven’t seen anything worse than them nearby.” Kane barely even knew her and they’ve already reached the stoic business-only stage of things Kane pushed most people too. He hadn’t really had a chance to actually disappoint her, yet.

The silence is worse than he expected to be. He’d much prefer it if she turned on him. Yelling or insults. Even acknowledging he fucked up back at the IKEA would’ve made things less awkward. Even as they both move quickly through the building, out of the chapel and across the grounds till they’re heading closer to the front gate. 

It’s familiar. Everything about the moment even down to the monsters they’re talking about it. He dismisses it as an old feeling, something similar to his younger days when he’d do a job for Jed and working with all the guys that hated him. 

Another minute of silence and it clicks. The embarrassment gives way to a different feeling, a sudden drop in his gut and he needs to get it out of the fucking way.

“Do you want to get to the calling me names bit of our field trip now or are you waiting for when we’re in the thick of it?” Kane knows his tone too harsh for the one in the wrong but he doesn’t have the capacity to bite down on his tone. Especially as he looks staunchly ahead, refusing to look to see her reaction to anything he’s saying till she answers him, “Arguing whilst killing things does have a good atmosphere to it, in theory, but I prefer doing one thing at a time.” 

In reality, it leads to the last word of the argument being out of necessity not winning whatever bullshit argument they were having.

“Bryce has already given me shit for it. Won’t happen again.” He says with more certainty than he really has any right to have.  It might happen again but not because it’s the first anniversary without his wife. He’s already trying his best to the forget the date, never have to recognize it again.

Zoe nods her head at the answer and doesn’t say much else. Likely if there was anything else, it wouldn’t drift so close to the gate, but it didn’t change the plan, just how easy it might be to put some distance between themselves and the monastery and get a better idea what they were dealing with.

Those thoughts are easy, focused, purposeful, and if silence creeps in again between them, it’s easier for her to swear it doesn’t matter. Prioritizing whatever current mission is in front of her comes second nature by now, and that’s true right until he speaks up again.

The words alone spark both frustration and exhaustion, the fact that he even says it as though she’s responsible for the awkward tension in the air fanning that anger that always seems to live in the pit of her stomach. For a moment she wants to follow through on exactly what he asks her for. Let loose with a list of profanities, how stupid it was to put himself in that state, how much of a liability, how much of a disappointment. How much she hates that it matters. 

Zoe inhales, it sticks in her lungs before she forces it back out. Fingers still curling too tightly around her gun like a security blanket, but it offers her a thin sliver of control, some petty need not to give him that, simply because he asked for it.

“I don’t want to call you names. Or argue with you.” 

Lynsey hated what she was about to do. With every fiber of her being, she hated it, to the point where she actually felt some natural resistance to every step forward she took right up until she reached the doors to the monastery’s chapel. This was the room they used for morning service back when the world was whole, or so she’d been told. 

Little pews sat in rows in front of a small, empty podium. There was a large, adorned cross on the wall behind it, as well as scattered around the other walls and windows here. It was a small space but far from private, each wall mostly made up of large windows that looked out into the garden. But there was no one she could see outside. So, after a moment of looking around, she stepped forward and took a seat in one of the front-most pews, staring at the cross on the wall with heavy focus, playing with her own fingers above her knees.

“…’you there, mom? Dad,” she added him in seconds later. She thought about asking after her siblings as well, but didn’t quite have the energy (or the stomach) to name each one of them individually. Only Sadie, the only one of them who reveled in the conservatism of their upbringing. For a while, Lynsey’s quiet. This feels like a joke, but one she has to go through with anyway. How much longer could she leave it, knowing she’s probably never see them again, living or dead?

“Can you see me?”

Whatever she was trying to do was interrupted by the sound of the door pushing back open behind her. Lynsey looked to it with a start but forced herself to relax moments later, unsure whether she was annoyed or grateful to have been interrupted. 

Despite the promised safety, Zoe didn’t know if she was capable as relaxing as fully as they were encouraged to. Especially when this place was impermanent, an escape route needed eventually and a way around that blockade trying to keep them from pushing forward. 

All of it leaves her unable to settle in the offered beds, finding a quieter space in the chapel most hours of the day. She’d observed enough to know what times the sisters went for prayer, and it made it a surprise to open the door and find someone already there.

“Sorry. Didn’t expect anyone else in here.” Not when most of their group seemed averse enough to staying in a place like this. Wrought with reminders of a dead religion on the wall. If Zoe had walked willingly through the doors, to no small degree led them here, it didn’t erase that sour taste in her mouth. The unease she felt with the sisters that stayed here, or the idea that god might be protecting them. She didn’t know which was preferable, that these pious women were somehow chosen, while the rest of the world burned. Or the more likely thought; they had made a deal with something worse, and she just couldn’t see it yet. 

Those thoughts are too prevalent in her mind, but realization of just how unfamiliar the woman is helps to distract from that for a moment. Despite the thought that she should turn and leave her in peace, Zoe hesitates for a moment. “You joined us at the Ikea, right?”

When. Kane nods, at the ready, and sees then Zoe finally looks at him properly. The intended effect wasn’t what she expected either. He was rarely caught at a bad time… until he was.

He’s quickly back to nothing but a figure in her peripheral. It’s laughable how used to that part he was, a necessary presence but never a particularly wanted one. The only problem this time is that it’s familiar. It’s the quiet, unspoken aftermath of an argument. Kane refusing to acknowledge it first because he doesn’t know what to say and Zoe giving short, curt answers rather than confronting him.

Too many of his last days with Sersh were spent in a similar way.

Zoe walks past, a wider berth than necessary, he thinks. He frowns to himself and attempts to remind himself he deserved this. Partly. Maybe. She busies herself with getting weapons ready and he remains silent. He’s following the foolish belief that maybe it’ll blow over given a little time. That once more proving he’s helpful and competent could erase that one mistake.

Kane can already see his own foolishness. They’re both headed for the door, Kane falling into step with Zoe. He answers like he’s reporting to one of his brothers back in the day. To the point, a little asshole-ish but gets the job done.

“Nothing’s ever watched properly. The Sisters genuinely believe in the whole trust and honor thing,” Kane says, voice low, “Saw most of them out back in the garden. Couple others are occupied with laundry and our lot chatting with them. At the very worst, one of ours may see us.”

He falls in next to her, answers her questions, and doesn’t argue when she picks now to go, and it feels ridiculous that any of that bothers her as they head towards the doors. Exiting the chapel, unable to keep herself from scanning for anyone wearing black habits.

She’s less concerned with the sisters than maybe she should be. It’s hard to imagine them doing worse than requesting more firmly that they stay inside the gate. Anything more forceful than that might at least provide answers to those questions she’s not getting better ones too. What keeps them safe, what they’re hiding, except for refugees in their walls.

But it’s likely for the best they’re otherwise occupied, and it should count for something that Kane made a note of it before he even came and found her. Something she’d appreciate more on a different day, when she wasn’t half wishing he’d give her a reason to vent those frustrations she feels like she’s trying to ground down with her back teeth.

“Revenants? Monsters? Anything else in our way?”

She’ll get those answers quickly enough without him, when it’s not a long trip to the doors. But she has little else to say to him. Nothing worth vocalizing at least, too much resentment feeling like it’s simply poisoning her bloodstream right now. Repeated reminders don’t help, not even the logical awareness that he’ll never understand what that mark and that title means. Not with the same intensity at least. His father twisted its meaning into something different, something selfish. 

She just hates having witnessed any signs of that trait in some drunken moment of weakness, and how much of it might sit with her too, that she’s taken it so personally. 

Maybe he’s expecting too much… but he’s not a fan of Zoe’s reaction. Her answer’s too curt. She sits there, dismissively. Feet up and comfortable, unmoving as he speaks. It’s not that he wants her to jump up at his suggestion. Maybe a little… enthusiasm? A joke?

The answer’s too curt for his liking. He keeps up that indifferent attitude, like this was just another errand Jed was sending him on. Kane was practiced removing himself from the situation. A passive participant even when it was jobs where Jed wanted someone made to talk, intimidated. Passive is not how anyone else in the room would’ve described Kane.

“Yes,” Kane takes a step back, adjusting his grip on the duffel bag slung over his back. He gives her some space, and maybe give himself some too, “Just say when.”

And he waits to follow her lead.

There’s nothing left to say on his end. At least nothing that’s relevant right now. One awkward field trip can’t be that bad in the grand scheme of things. The thought he should apologize for his state the less time they spoke crops up – and not for the first time – but he pushes it aside.

He must’ve given Zoe the wrong idea about him. That he was better than that.

No small part of Zoe already wants to take back her agreement. She wants to tell him to sit tight and stay put, help himself to the communal wine. She’d handle it on her own way, by herself, or with anyone else. Even his brother might be preferable right now, though it’s a bitter reminder she’d thought for a moment that one Edwards was better than the other.

If it seemed a less petty thought, she would. But he’s clearly sober now, and the only reasons she has to say no all seem like childish ones.  

“When.” It’s almost a challenge, even if it’s not one she expresses with any blatancy. It was his idea, he wanted to go, now should be as good a time as any. Though it loses something when she actually casts more than a fleeting glance at him, looking already prepared as it is. 

The attention doesn’t last long. Attention dropping from him to situate her own bag over her shoulders, fingers dancing over the holster of the gun at her hip, despite any assurances that she shouldn’t need it in here. It wasn’t anything she planned on listening to, no intention of abandoning her weapons where she couldn’t see them and the sisters could.

The shotgun’s last, resting against the side of the pew before she slings it over her other shoulder. Those basics are a good distraction from a man she doesn’t want to dwell much on. Disappointment left rotting in her gut, the taste of it too sour and unwelcome on her tongue. 

She shifts around him and heads for the door. “What’s the front gate look like?”

Kane stops by the end of the pew, leaning down on his forearms so he can speak at a lower volume. Unless a nun ends up being marked ( or some other supernatural shit ) they won’t be heard. 

“I don’t fully trust this place,” he answers simply but charges ahead. A one-word answer was never a good sign. At least that’s what a few years of marriage taught him, “… or exactly understand it. Best way to answer those questions would be heading out.”

Stating facts but his voice carrying a distant amusement or detachment to it all. It’s how he got through years of being and Edwards. It’s an easier way to shut off his emotions, an old habit he tried to avoid, but it’s useful now. Push past any residual bad feelings and he can get this job done Even if it means he sounds a little above it all, an amused bystander.

He looks away from Zoe to the map in her hands. A detailed annotated one like he had kept back at the place, only this one has large sections completely blacked out. This trip may be more useful than he first thought.

 “Figured you would be the best person for this field trip. Well, only person. I can watch your back whilst you… figure out our exit strategy. Seems like we need.”

Kane straightens up, letting Zoe have her space again because he’s not certain how highly (or lowly ) she now thinks of him.  “I won’t go if you think it’s a bad call. Don’t want to fuck the whole group over – but, –  I think we need to do this,” he can’t keep completely humble now, can he? He’s nearly certain she’ll agree, they need to scout ahead anyway and considering the circumstances, it’s best she doesn’t go alone.

Nothing past his lips is anything she’d argue. There’s no real trust put in this place, or it’s people, even if she can’t quite see where the danger might be coming from. That doesn’t make her rest any more comfortably. And maybe that could be answered inside these walls, but considering they’d been warned not to leave, it could only leave her with the impression that there was something out there they weren’t supposed to find.

She still isn’t anxious to sit up. She listens, but her gaze doesn’t last on him long.

The words shouldn’t make her angry. Before the Ikea they wouldn’t have. If anything she thinks she would’ve appreciated them, hearing someone else think critically about where they sit and what they need to do next. Now? She’s only biting her tongue, lips pressing shut so she doesn’t tell him how uninterested she is in taking orders from someone who thinks turning themselves into a sloppy drunk is an intelligent coping strategy.

It takes her a moment, attention fixated more on the map in her hand instead of him while she tries to tamp down that frustration. A thing made worse for a half dozen, more uncomfortable thoughts. She doesn’t have the right to judge him for that, he lost someone, it has to hurt, and she doesn’t expect he cares what she thinks anyway.

Every thought is an unwelcome one, because at the end of the day none of it should matter to her either. She’s a creature of purpose and direction, he’s offering her one.

“Fine.” The book gets shut, tucked away in the bag at her feet as she sits up. 

“You ready to go now?”

@heavendestroys

Kane’s still pretty neutral on the place. Honestly, he’s leaning towards boredom more than any other opinion. There’s a healthy helping of paranoia too. The only bright side is both can be alleviated by breaking one of the very few rules the Sisters gave the group. He’s not stupid enough to head out alone – there are too many revenants about – and as much as he thinks Bryce and him could mow down enough of them to make a dent he’s not quite right.

Zoe’s in charge of scouting ahead. At the end of the day, she has more of a say in where the group settles down, it only makes sense to ask her along. Or follow her.  He’s fine with either. It’s just… getting over the fact he made an ass of himself. There’s only so long embarrassment can keep him hiding his face from the younger women, but when it’s the smartest and most interesting thing to do? He’ll make some sacrifices.

He’s dumped all his non-essentials on a bed. Carrying nothing but weapons and bare-bones supplies in a black duffel bag he’s ready to go. Kane slipped his wallet ( and photos ) beneath the pillow of Bryce’s sleeping spot. A silent sign he’s only heading out temporarily.  The duffel bag probably says as much too. It doesn’t take long to find Zoe, and if there’s any thought to apologize for the last time they spoke he doesn’t indulge it. She seems like the type who’d appreciate seeing he’s still capable, not a blubbering wreck, as opposed to hearing an apology. 

“Hey,” he calls out to get her attention, jumping straight into it, “How attached are you to the idea of not pissing off the Sisters?”

Even with that promise of safety holding up, Zoe wasn’t relaxed and didn’t try to be. At most she was still for the moment, settled in the last pew of the chapel, boots resting against the one on front of her. Map rendered mostly useless by now, the roads too unreliable a thing, and she glared at the paper in hand, how much black was etched on it signaling a dead end.

She hears feet first, before someone’s calling out to her, but recognition of his voice doesn’t do much to soften the tension in her shoulders. She glances up, frowns, at Kane, at the question, whatever implications it carried with it. It depended entirely on that, for the most part not in any rush to disobey their rules. It was for simple, calculated reasons, regardless of what she felt about the dangers just outside these walls. She didn’t know what was keeping the monsters out. If there was really something holy here, some divine protection offered to them when it hadn’t been offered to anyone else.

Or the more likely thought, the one she couldn’t shake; they’d made another kind of deal. She could only guess at what form it took, but it was what she’d seen the most of, in years spent hunting, even in the year and a half since the hell gate.

Those aren’t thoughts she voices, and it’s for petty reasons, but even being aware of that doesn’t do much to soften her expression. “Why?”

Zoe takes the high road and very simply reminds this alcohol soaked brain there will be consequences. Kane scoffs: Bit late for those sage words, isn’t it?  But he barely processes that thought before he’s watching both nervous and excited. Time to see if it’ll be another furniture label pulled out or her.

Kane watches Zoe intently, fingers just brushing it before picking it up. She looks at it. He watches her face: expecting some big reaction like everyone knows how important she is. The paper’s turned and he sees Sersh.

Smiling into the distance. Stress and fear sap away from his muscles, growing heavy with relief He takes the photo and moves back to sit upright. He doesn’t take his eyes off the photo. Not for even a moment. “That’s her.”

“Oh and c’mon,” Kane scoffs, a whiplash turn to something more light-hearted. He has Sersh, he can put the picture back together. He could get something good from his drunken state. Even if it’s just a laugh or a joke. He doesn’t know what he wants. Those words that ring too true: a sober voice telling him to shut his fucking mouth make him want to do the opposite. A childish impulse to do the opposite of what he’s told, even if it’s what Kane will think later to himself. Instead, he looks at Zoe and says with a wicked grin, “Take advantage of the moment, Zo.”

Kane decides instead to do it for her: tell her something he’ll regret later.

“I think is my weddin’ anniversary,” he slurs out, smile fading as he stares at the photo.

Whatever frustration and disappointment she’d felt to see him like this, it had been dampened by sympathy. That unspoken reminder that she doesn’t know what his life looked like, the simple fact that he had one before everything had fallen apart. He and his brother both didn’t have a clue what that mark on their hands meant, what kind of standards they should be holding themselves to. One that didn’t leave room for clumsy mistakes.

All of that returns with the shifting of his mood. The quick slide into something playful, smile curving his lips in a way that’s all too pleasant, and the fact that she thinks it at all only adds to the equally as swift return of her frustration. The words are too slurred, too many cans left empty behind them. Choosing to drown his grief like he’s the only one who’s lost anything, like there aren’t still monsters outside the door.

“Kane? Shut up.” She pushes herself back to her feet, wiping the dust from her jeans, doing her best to bite her tongue on anything else she’d like to say. Harsh lectures on just what he looks like right now, the conflicting urge to apologize again for what he’s lost. All of it bothers her more than maybe it should, but it runs too contrary to that impression she’d had of him, someone stronger than this mess she’d found.

The flashlight gets flicked off and tucked away before she steps around him. He has what he wants, there’s nothing here she does. “You can talk to me again when you’ve sobered up.” 

“much as i respect you as an individual, if you ever turn into something that wants to eat my face, then you can take it as guaranteed.  yep.”

it’s not the most pleasant future to consider, but still worth considering none the less.  things happened, out of the blue.  nasty, twisted, horrible things that you couldn’t entirely prevent, and couldn’t entirely defend against.  still though, somehow he managed to make even the murder of a companion, a friend (?) sound light.  tone still airing on the easy breezy side.  because in the world as it is now the whole ‘laughing in the face of death’ is pretty much a philosophy.  if he couldn’t, he might actually lose it completely.  and while he’s more than aware that it’s no joke. he’s still opposed at wrangling himself into some bleak and desolate place with the thought of it.

“hey, that’s what it said on the posters.”

he quips back easily with another of those bright grins.  so he was proud of what he’d achieved.  it hadn’t always been that way, but finally, some sense got knocked into him ( quite literally in jae’s case - having your head bounced off a concrete floor a few times was plenty to want to avoid repeated circumstances ).

“what, nicking stuff?  a few nice watches, wallets, car keys on occasion – and then, subsequently, the cars to which they belonged.  a mercedes?  i wasn’t exactly a one man crime wave.”

too young and too dumb to think bigger.  content with those little ‘wins’ when his magic had worked and he was still getting a feel for it.  he could have probably walked into a bank vault and exited with pockets bulging… but that thrumming confidence in both himself, and his skill, hadn’t really been there at that point.

“it was more ‘stupid kid’ taking a few chances and realising he could get away with it.”

eyes flit sidelong because he notices that she doesn’t deny it.  coming face to face with scary nasties even in her youth.  jae at that age was more than likely still hiding behind the sofa when his older siblings were sneaking in a scary movie.  and he gets that every life is lived singularly and uniquely… his own had been more unique than those around him, but he hadn’t for one moment imagined that ‘magic’ as a secret was only part and parcel of something so much bigger than himself.           –  witches and monsters and demons - oh my. so much darker too…

“kids, can be scary little humans.  kids with guns, doubly so.  i think you might have scared the snot out of me.”

he listens to her words - and while their perspective may differ, he’s not going to argue it.  her perspective is… well… hers.  though as he mulls over those words, he’s stepping over a barrier to the otherside of the road, heading toward the buildings she’d been aiming for in the first instance.  they seem to loom.  everything seemed to loom.  the present, with all of it’s grisly surprises waiting around every corner was a very ‘loomy’ place.

“i think i’m definitely going to swing toward the, we’re good at adapting, mindset.”

‘getting used to’ sounded a little close to acceptance for his comfort - but that’s just the way the words settle in his own mind.  terminology, phrasing, was a very ‘elastic’ thing.  these creatures were here.  it was all a bit shitty.  but no one should ever have to ‘get used to it’.  speaking of ‘getting used to’… one thing he actually should be getting used to was wandering into gloomy places.  but… nope.

“so, any one of these in particular you were headed for?”

“Good. Don’t hesitate.” 

Stubborn determination demands that she go out in some grander manner, history swears it’ll probably be with eyes blackened, or looking into someone else’s that are that same sheen. But, if it comes down to it and she ends up like one of the undead trapped in that car, the last thing she wants is to bring anyone else down with her. It bothers her less to think of him taking that crowbar to her head than it does sinking teeth into his arm.

It might never sit entirely comfortable, the idea of magic being displayed on such a grand and obvious scale. But it’s easier to ignore when people don’t believe any of it’s real. There was nothing to be exposed if they were certain it was all part of a show.

And now it doesn’t matter at all, a thought better off not dwelling on. Easier to run with the joke, a short laugh escaping her even if it echoes oddly off the cars next to them.

“So you’re a magician and a car thief. When was the book deal and the movie rights?”  

She steps up on the guard rail, pushing herself up and over to the other side when the comment comes. She smiles, a bright, honest thing for a moment, despite the thought she puts into it for a moment. It was arguable whether she would’ve been scarier than the overprotective older brother who had always been stronger and carried bigger guns. 

Or her mother, who had been a force all on her own. But Zoe had always been determined to fight her own battles. Not that she had a choice anymore.

“Probably fair. I was very intense."

Maybe that hadn’t changed either, but she didn’t spend much time on introspection or how she came off. There was always something to do, some way to make herself useful, and that registered as a more important concern.

She nods her head, and doesn’t argue. “That sounds kinder.”

She doesn’t disagree either, but they weren’t mutually exclusive things. It was an admirable trait, being able to adjust and survive, but at the same time it’s a disconcerting thing to consider, just how many terrible situations people allowed themselves to accept as normal.

The silence from Zoe isn’t fully noticed. His own mind is too loud and the alcohol only fuelling his tunnel vision into a sad, slow spiral. Kane doesn’t even try to look, now, simply sat on the floor, slowly turning his head but barely taking in anything he sees.

I’m sorry, she says and Kane scowls with a sharp reply, “Don’t.”

He shakes his head. The only person who deserved that apology was Saorise herself. Can’t apologize to a dead woman. He’s tried.  Her silence only has Kane filling the void on impulse. It’s already too much he’d have wanted to share. He hadn’t even told Bryce what happened. Months with Ladi had gone by and he’d never found the way to say any of it. It’s easy, now, to simply talk, “S’all my fault.”

Then, Zoe’s cutting him off with what looks like good news. He scurries over to her on his hands and knees. Face pressed against the ground looking ahead under the shelf to that bit of white paper. “Can you reach her?” he asks, a growing urgency to his words and he watches her struggle. Without thinking he’s moving, shoulder digging into the shelf and he pushes it up. Metal creaking and bending so she can easily fit into the gap and reach it, “Now?”

He cuts off her apologies so she swallows them, even if they have little to do with fault or consequence. Whatever happened, it was still a loss, it was still clearly painful, and there was no demand for more information or great swelling of empathy to be sorry it was something he was still living with. Something he might always carry with him.

But the next words she stops him on, even as she presses forward on her stomach. A brusque shake of her head before he can say much more about it.

“Don’t tell me anything you’ll be ashamed you said when you’re sober.”

Though it’s questionable whether he even hears her, the sound of quick, clumsy motions greeting her before he’s at her side. Hope and desperation tangled together, and she thinks not for the first time how uncomfortable it is to be playing witness to any of this. His own private grief, his attempts to drown it in cider. It blurs the line of what standards she’ll hold anyone to that mark to, and an absence of complete understanding what it feels like.

The shelving creaks beneath his shoulder and she presses forward, fingers grasping up the small scrap hidden underneath it. The flashlight in her hand illuminating a woman’s face for a brief moment, just as happy as his.

She doesn’t look at it long, holding it out to Kane. “That her?”

Nora’s quiet, calculating, standing there like a predator whose spotted movement in the grass. She’s distinctly aware of Zoe beside her and there’s a fierce protectiveness of the woman that halts her from simply making a rash decision here and now to go in and fight. She’s aware that the woman is more than capable of taking care of herself, but it’s not something she wants to put to the test needlessly. 

The movement behind the boards stills and Nora watches without blinking. Zoe asks the question, whether it’s human or monster and some days it’s hard to tell, but as Nora watches, she doesn’t see a barrel of a shotgun or an eye peeking out through the cracks. She just sees movement with nonsensical wavering. 

There’s no call from the movement inside, no voice calling out for them to stay where they are, nothing that suggests whatever is inside is something that is capable of talking to them so Nora tightens her grip around her crowbar and takes a few more steps closer to the door. 

“Monster,” she answers with confidence before there’s a bang on the door that almost makes her jump. Something was inside of there and maybe it had been human at one time, but now it was nothing but a mindless creature, hearing something stirring on the outside of it’s prison. 

Nora positions herself, ready to tear the boards down. “You ready?” 

The moment drags on, Zoe waiting for some verdict from the woman next to her, and she already knows she won’t question it when it comes. Little doubt that Nora would be able to tell the difference between shifting, dragging flesh over concrete, and the slight, subtle movements of a human being. Or maybe it would be the stench of rot that greets her first. 

The fact was, it would’ve surprised her more if she’d said human. Some days she thought the monsters were all that was left, just one new threat after another stretching all the way across the country. It doesn’t scare her because she doesn’t allow it to, but it’s a dismal thought, one devoid of that hope she tries to hold onto.

There had to be more than just this. 

Something slams against the door, a loud bang that cuts violently through the silence. She can’t help the way it makes her tense, gun jammed harder against her shoulder, fingers tightening on the weapon. That might be answer enough. 

There’s a nod of her head when Nora asks if she’s ready, leveling the shotgun at the door before she pulls the trigger. The loud blast tears through wooden boards, and somewhere on the other side she can hear the sound of thudding into flesh, the animal grunt that follows. 

he smiles back.  it’s a reflex reaction for him.  some kind of smile mirror by default.  he doesn’t really know how not to.  and there’s a small relief, even in that reassurance.  he knows damn well that blowing the brains out of ‘joe unlucky’ here wasn’t exactly a peach for anyone - either witness nor shooter.  but it was just becoming ‘one of those things’.  it had to be done, perhaps it was even a mercy for the poor bugger.  put him out of that horrible, tortured existence.  still, not the most fun that could be had while out on a stroll.

“so they’re dracula trash… well - shit.”

he remembers the freakish vampire in the monolith with her blood spears well enough.  the absolute ice in those cold, gleaming eyes.  she can’t imagine any of them doing anything other than abandoning people after doing… this.  it seemed like the kind of sick, sadistic thing a creature like that would do.

“and this is the point in the movie where i make you promise me that if – that – ever happens to me, you’ll do a decent… and hopefully quick job.  please and thank you very much.”

he’s being absolutely honest.  quick death seemed infinitely preferable to being tortured, ‘not dead’ and starving.  perhaps it’s couched in something like humour, but there’s a quick glance at zoe, something more serious than usual in the set of his jaw.

it’s a relief to leave the gory sight behind them.  it would be nice to think they could to the guy a solid and bury him.  but the thought of touching the corpse sends enough shivers along jaes spine… plus, if they buried everything they’d killed along the way… they’d probably still be in new york.  so when she answers his question with one of her own, it’s a fantastic detour for the easily distracted mind, a lifeline he latches onto quite gratefully.  something to swerve his thoughts from the macabre.

“magician.”

he corrects with a quick grin.  still preferring the term.

“since i was a kid, but i used it to tease my brother when he was being an almighty dickhead.  to do a few card tricks.  to nick some shit…”

perhaps that was a confession too far.  but he follows it with a shrug.  that part of his life was in the more distant past.

“it didn’t pitch me up in life or death situations against minions from hell.”

he couldn’t imagine it.  even in the discovery of his own ‘gift’ it had been joyous and innocent.  the kid who believed in magic and - there it was.  something fun and amazing… not terrifying and pants wettingly dangerous.

“you said it was a family thing.  hunting.  i guess, i just cant picture baby zoe all shotgun shells and machete wielding.  and i’ve never usually been found wanting when it comes to imagination.”

or perhaps, more truthfully, he could imagine it - but rather didn’t want to.

“i guess, i’m just saying, some things, no matter how long you’ve been doing them… there isn’t really any ‘getting used to it’.  even my magic still surprises me.”

Zoe responds with something like a laugh, even if it’s not all that funny. Still, Dracula trash about covers it, and she just nods her head in response. Eyes skimming over the back window of the next car they pass, seeing nothing but another filthy, abandoned vehicle.

Though the request draws her gaze back towards him, silent for a moment longer than it takes to really consider it. If it’s a morbid thought, she can’t swear to him it’ll never happen. She’d like to, tell him that there’s some better future waiting for all of them on the other side of the country, but it doesn’t feel like the truth. 

She doesn’t know that there’s anything better waiting for any of them.

“I promise.” The words are quieter than she likes, but it’s because she doesn’t need to say them. She’d do it anyway, and it’s a sorry thought the moment she has it. It’s not the kind of end she’d wish on anyone, and she quickly shoves away any further consideration of seeing Jae like that, twisted into a monster. “You gonna do the same?”

Though despite the question thrown back at him, it’s nothing she really expects. Not unless there are no other options, and part of her thinks if it comes to that, she’d take out herself first. 

But she can’t say for sure she’ll have the option either. The future is a dark, unstable thing, and it leaves her half grateful when he corrects her. A snort of amusement escaping her, the dry sarcasm not lacking for humor. “Oh, my apologies, great magician.” 

“Anything good?”

There’s intent beyond the question besides just curiosity. If the words trail off because he regrets it that was his business, but if he thought it was something she’d hold against him, it isn’t. Theft didn’t rank on that hard moral line. On a scale of good and evil.

The only time it made a difference was when someone was stealing something that wasn’t so irreplaceable. Hearts, souls, family. Cruelties carried out with magic, or in pursuit of it.

He’s so far removed from it that maybe he’s right. The title of magician might fit bit better.

“You’re not lacking imagination. Baby me wasn’t allowed anywhere near the shotty. It was the .22 only until I was big enough to handle the recoil.” The answer carries the same dry humor, but every word of it’s still true. If it’s a thing that might paint her mother in a poor light, she’s never seen it that way. Maybe if she’d said she wanted some normal life, it could’ve happened, but she’d wanted to follow in her footsteps. She’d wanted to be as strong as her, as Zeke, and it’s a painful reality that no matter how hard she worked, she never would be. 

It’s only then that the trace of humor dampens, because it’s a thing she’d argue. The world had only been over a year, and one of the biggest reasons half the people here were still alive was how quickly they adjusted to it. 

She introduces herself and Alejandro grins. Zoe Bishop. A name to remember, he thinks. And when she asks for his, he gives her a slight bow as he introduces himself in turn. “Alejandro Cristobel Lopez De La Rosa,” he gives her in rapid speed. He turns and points to the car that he’s usually seen soliciting sales by. “Y Yolanda,” he names the car to her. 

There’s a casual and confident smile on his face as he walks beside her, like he hasn’t a care in the world and for the most part, he doesn’t. There’d been little danger on the roads ahead of them or behind them and that was almost as reassuring as walking with a beautiful woman to go and clear some of the buildings of their potential enemies hidden within. 

They make their way closer to the building and Alejandro has no fear of what’s inside, either. He’s capable enough with a gun that unless it was a whole horde of the shamblers or something far more sinister, which he got no impression of when he’d sat in the crossroads a few blocks down, then this was going to be an easy clearing of the building. 

“I am only passing by,” he tells her, to be clear that he’s not a part of whatever group she belongs to. “Selling my goods. So if you are in desperate need of something out of the ordinary…I am your man.” 

She doesn’t know if he gives her the full thing in return for hers, or if it’s just habit of his own, but either way she listens intently while his name rolls off his tongue rapid fire. She doesn’t look at him while he speaks, attention devoted to the road, but she does her best to try and catch all of it, the question that follows is a genuine thing. “Which one of those do you want me to call you?"

Zoe shifts around one of the cars in front of them, a quick glance through the window to see if there’s anything worthwhile on the inside. There’s nothing, just another decaying body, something that’s too commonplace a sight anymore. That might be all they find inside as well, little hope in her that they’ll find more but a few scattered necessities at best.

Though he promises more than that, a thing that has her brow furrowing as she takes in the words. It doesn’t bother her much if he chooses to stay or go, though that does make it a question just how much he can be trusted around their supplies.

She slows when they get closer to the building, but this time it isn’t just a precaution. It’s followed by a quick glance at the man next to her, a traveling salesman apparently, which she almost finds some humor in, considering. But it has to say something that he’s still alive, and there’s a growing curiosity in her just how that is. One she doesn’t want to have to divide between him and whatever monsters might be on the other side of that door.

“What kind of ‘out of the ordinary’ are we talking?”

Who’s she?

His mouth opens uselessly, the beginning of her name forming. He can’t say it. Physically can’t form the shape of it, ever part of him refusing to. It takes a moment before he remembers that the photo would explain things. Sersh’s white dress. Kane in a suit. Easier to show than tell.

He hasn’t said her name out loud since that day. He hasn’t even said  ‘wife’ or claimed the fact he was married beyond the silent symbol of his ring he can’t bear to take off. Zoe’s not blind. She probably noticed his ring. 

“She’s…” a beat passes and he sniffles loudly. Sometimes, not talking about her feels like a betrayal. If she’s never mentioned again she’ll be forgotten and once he’s gone there’ll be no-one left. Every little detail of her being forgotten and losing this photo was another type of forgetting. One of the only two photos he has left of her. The only photo that’s proof he got his ‘normal’ life. Kane got his wife and he got a life he was… okay with. Kane sometimes worries he’ll forget her face.

The anger floods back. One of two fucking photos left and he ruins it. He takes the remainder of the photo and slaps it onto the ground right next to Zoe’s hand. “That’s her. Her – just her fucking dress.” He sighs with frustration, eyes shut tight as he runs a hand over his face, fingers digging into his scalp and thumb in his temple. “ ‘m a fuckin’ idiot,” he mumbles out, barely audible.

A verbal answer doesn’t come, just a picture slapped down next to her that draws her gaze away from the search. A photograph with a piece of it missing, the woman’s white dress enough of an answer for what he’d lost. In more ways than one. It’s nothing that surprises her, but it’s nothing she knows what to do with either, driving home the point that she’d caught a man in mourning.

She understood grief, and loss, but not this kind. Maybe she’d been too young to really notice how her mother had handled her father’s death, but even years later she’d never flinched from the reality that it had been a necessity. Her husband’s life or her children’s, and that had been the simple reality of a hunter’s life. Sacrifice after sacrifice, until there was nothing left.

Whoever he’d been, between this woman, his father, and now, it wasn’t the same path, and it takes her too long to manage anything, a simple “I’m sorry.”

There’s an abrupt regret that she even asked him that much that keeps her from asking anything else. He’s not in his right state of mind. Pushing for any kind of answers might be more than he’d want to give sober, more than she really has any right to know. Her lips press shut, gaze shifting from the faceless woman in a white dress to the image of a smiling, happy Kane before she looks away. It feels personal, like something she was never meant to see, and instead she looks back under the shelving, following the swaths of gold the light cuts across the dusty ground.

It’s a portrait of a life she doesn’t understand and can’t relate to, nothing about the brief glimpses of Kane’s history making any real sense to her. Not the way he was raised and not this, the image of a happily married man.

Brows raised, Bryce looks back at Zoe at her response, picking up on hints of defensiveness and annoyance there. Not that it’s…entirely unexpected. More than most, she seems to take issue with him on principle, always has. It was hard to imagine a future where the two of them didn’t chafe, but even still, Bryce couldn’t bring himself to resent her where she resented him. 

“Habit,” he blames with a shrug. And it was about more than patrols. Bryce had tended towards forward-most positions for most of his life. Racing ahead, calling shots. But he quickly forgets about it all as he turns towards the opposite direction–a hallway that mirrored the one Zoe was facing down, peering into the shadows, sharp eyes compensating for the lack of light. He steps carefully, straining hard to hear something, even for something as barely-audible as rat activity. There was nothing. Frowning deeper, Bryce steps out of the light from their entrance and into the darkness of the hall, as if determined to riddle the strangeness out. 

Then all of the sudden, that strangeness is everything. If he thought that was quiet, the silence that descends around him is so thick it immediately stops him in his tracks. He no longer hears even things his brain had subconsciously learned to tune out, like his breathing, his heartbeat. Bryce stares into the dark, then turns back, seeking Zoe out first thing. And there she is, back to him, standing still as he had been. He backtracks, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden with the distance between them. But the second Bryce steps back into the foyer, his eyes snap to movement in his peripherals as a pair of long, black legs extend in a way he can only describe as inorganically, coming down those second floor stairs, skipping at least four to five steps with each footfall.

He opens his mouth to shout for her but nothing comes out. Bryce only stalls over it for a second, reaching behind his back for his rifle. Too slow, somehow. The second the thing’s legs touch flat ground, it’s strides become much quicker, longer, smoother. His senses separate, trying to process the complete lack of facial features, the glint of metal in its hand, and the oddness of its movement. It’s too close to fire before Bryce can even raise the barrel up, so he takes hold of it instead and rears back in a desperate attempt to swing–knock the thing back before it’s fully upon him. 

One time too many. 

As soon as the rifle connects with the creature, the stock smashing across its face and sending it back a bit, the wood splits. Soundlessly, the crack shoots up all the way up the length of it, and in the short amount of time Bryce’s eyes spend noticing that, the dark man recovers, reaching its eerily-long arm into his personal space and grabbing him by the throat.

It doesn’t take any great amount of consideration to figure out what they’ve walked into. Zoe had been on enough hunts before the world ended, studied enough pages of her parents journals and kept her own in tight, scrawling script that she can recognize what they’ve come up against as soon as the world goes silent around her. 

A dark man. One of the urban legends she couldn’t quite place the source of, though Zeke had joked once about it being Jack the Ripper and she’d laughed before writing it down, content to let an inside joke take the place of any real evidence. It was enough to know how to kill them, and how they killed, and it’s that awareness of just how fast and dangerous they could be that has her heading swiftly back the way she came. The silence stretching out around her stripping her of one more sense that might warn which direction it’s coming from.

One that turns out to be unnecessary. The second she gets back in the doorway she can see it, a flash of white and long limbed shadows advancing swiftly on the man she came in here with. It’s hard to gauge just how effective the blow he lands is when there’s no accompanying crack of bone or wood, but it doesn’t set the thing off balance for long.

By the time she actually gets a foot back into that main room, its already got bony fingers wrapped around his throat.

The shotgun gets dropped to hang from its strap, reaching for the handgun at her hip instead. Whatever resentment leaves some bitter taste on her tongue when it comes to Bryce, it isn’t present now. The world narrowed to the basics of survival, a monster too close to someone on her side and she’s unwilling to risk shredding his skin with the wild spray of buckshot.

The gun goes off on her hand, and it’s always odd to see that flash, feel that vibration working its way up to her elbow, without actually hearing it. A flash of red greets her in response, the bullet ripping a path along its neck that has the monster jerking backwards.

“ew, ew, ew.”

the illusion fades as soon as he’s sure nothing else wants to follow the first thing out of the car.  seemed like one and one only.  a solo creeper.  something grim and… no longer human.  and he honestly tries not to let his mind drift to who they might have been, how long they might have existed in that terrible wretched state.  wonders if there was any sentience - cognisance left in a brain ( now spread in chunky lumps and thin smears across the cracked asphalt ) which was housed in nothing but animalistic feral instinct… or if there was simply nothing left of that person at all.  he really hopes it’s the latter.  

he’s leaning far back against the cool metal of the car.  away from the open door bullets and the splatter.  though there still is a lump or two rather close to the toe of his sneaker.  though with visibility restored, he rather hopes that’s the end of it.  ( well, not ‘the end’ - he does imagine that this will go on for some time, but at least in the immediate - maybe it’s over…. )

granted - ‘ew’ - isn’t exactly his usual over verbose, nor eloquent self.  but it seems apt.

“i wonder what ‘truth’ that was rooted in.”

it’s a half mumbled question to himself.  alligators in sewers aside ( and in this instance, maybe preferable - at least they were just creatures.  big jawed, snapping creatures, but they still fell into the realm of ‘normality’ in what had come before ) … what fable or fairytale, what grimm story might have been spun out of the existence of such a sorry, tormented thing.

reality manages to settle in his brain rather sharply, ears still ringing slightly from the gunshots ( or maybe that was just the rattle of his own heartbeat thundering there with a juicy little adrenalin boost ), but he’s shuffling around the now corpse, little crablike sidesteps until he’s next to zoe once more - the crowbar-slash-magic wand ( fuck potter and his hornbeam unicorn hair bullshit - crowbars were better any damn day ) dangling from his fingers.  

“are you okay?”

it hadn’t touched either of them.  hadn’t attacked them.  had rather just fallen there, the sorry thing, probably starving, slow… however, it wasn’t just about cuts or bruises.  there were so many things that could make someone ‘not-okay’ that had nothing to do with physical harm.  and as it is, the sight is a gory one, nasty.  flies already buzzing around the warm exposed ‘meat’.  one he still hasn’t gotten used to.  for all of the hundreds of bodies he’s passed since the world wobbled of it’s axis of ‘normal’, there’s something so irrevocably striking about - the dead - that tends to leave more of a jarring impression.  he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.  and he thinks that maybe anyone who says they are used to it - is probably a liar.  so that question, that note of concern is for her.  the zoe behind the gun.  

‘Most people just weren’t in a position to recognize them for what they are until it’s right in front of them’

she’d just said that, and maybe this is just a rather poignant example of it.  no, they wouldn’t recognise it.  wouldn’t know that there was evil in their midst.  because, for the most part – it looked just like them.  it walked like them, talked like them, moved like them.  even these things - left behind, the twisted remnants of an attack jae had been remarkably lucky to not succumb to - had been… just like them.  even when it is right in front of them… it still… pretty much… is them.  they were just, the unlucky ones.  sure, sure… he’s dismissing the fangy vamps and the slenderman-piranha hybrids and the actual hell risen demons in this line of thinking.  but most of the rest - they had been people at one point…  maybe even the nastier things had been too - he’s not super hot on monster origin stories.

he doesn’t mention the gun.  doesn’t compute that ‘sans zoe’ he might have been making more of an effort to club the thing over the head with his little crowbar.  a rather more grisly and up close meeting than he might have preferred.  it still doesn’t mean he wants one.

she hadn’t hesitated.  once she was sure the thing was a ‘thing’ and not a ‘someone’.  he might have.  taking life… any life… was still a tricky concept.  if it was a them or us situation then, yes, he’s always going to be on the side of ‘us’.  but still…

“guess we should get a shift on, huh?”

he’s already edging away…

“how long have you been doing… this… that… y’know the whole… hunter thing?”

to have that zero hesitation.  to make those choices in a split second, where others would flounder and possibly fail for their pause.

“i mean - it’s impressive… i guess it’s still hard to wrap the grey matter around the concept that people were doing this ‘before’.  that those… things… were here… have been here… for a long time.”

It drops, but not without making a mess, and there’s a distant amusement at Jae’s succinct response of ‘ew’ at the splattering of bone and brains. By now she’s used to it, toeing what’s left slightly out of the way so she can shift a little closer. Head tilting, eyes scanning the inside of the car. But there’s nothing else, and little of interest. A bag in the back seat, ripped open and clothes scattered on the inside, emptied cans, seat shredded by sharpened nails. It paints a quick and tragic picture in her head; of someone bit, someone shutting themselves inside the stuffy vehicle hoping against hope that it wasn’t a death sentence.

The truth of it settling in, leaving nothing but a monster inside the car.

She doesn’t dwell on it long, because there’s simply no point. She might be speculating, it’s still probably true for countless others, and in the end there was nothing she could do about any of it. If it was a frustrating thought, practicality had always served her better, and right now could at least prove more useful with the survivors somewhere in the building behind her.

And the one next to her. She pulls back, glancing at Jae when she hears the quiet words, thought she can’t tell if he meant her to. It’s the question that takes her off guard, frowning slightly as Zoe casts a glance down at herself. Flannel flecked with blood wasn’t a new sight, just one more thing she’d have to make time for later. That only added to the sliver of confusion, because none of this was new, she wasn’t hurt, and if there was something endearing about the concern, it wasn’t anything she needed.

“I’m fine.” A quick, crooked smile accompanies the words, like it might offer more reassurance then the words themselves. “Are you okay?” 

She steps away from the car after she asks, the safety flicked back onto the gun as it gets settled back in it’s holster. Close enough to draw quickly if she needs to, but the shotgun gets settled back in her hands instead as she resumes heading towards the building across the road. Paying a little more attention to the cars they pass in case there’s anything else waiting inside. Maybe something worse.

“The vampire kind, by the way. Those legends.” 

She casts a glance over her shoulder at his face, trying to gauge whether it’s something he actually wanted an answer to. Maybe not, because the answer wasn’t anything kind. “They’re what happens when a vampire bites and kills someone but doesn’t finish turning them. They end up stuck in between. Not alive, not fully dead. Just a shell. They’re bound to their maker, but when the maker moves on... they’re just hungry.”

Which is likely an obvious thing. They’d come across enough by now, and it occurs to her that he might know these things already. But he might not, and she doesn’t resent sharing what she can. “It used to be rare to find this many. Sometimes you’d get a vampire who’d get ambitious, they’d go after whole towns, but those were few and far between. Now they don’t have to be careful.” 

She feels another flicker of amusement at his next question, one she doesn’t bother to hide as she returns it. “How long have you been doing the whole witch thing?” 

He might’ve answered before, she can’t recall if he offered those details the first time she watched him perform illusions in front of her. But her tone is just as devoid of judgement now as it was then, her moral line on the magic front nothing that wavers that. If anything it’s because of her answer, because she’s been doing this all her life.

Magic in the end was just a tool. A dangerous one in the wrong hands, but it was hard to think of his as the wrong hands at the moment.

After all, he wasn’t trying to summon demons. Just turning people invisible.