Matty Alston

—  just outside the mall, 15th of july 2044, with matty alston. @mattyalston

if just a month ago, someone were to call him reckless, he’d wholeheartedly agree. in a way, it goes against all of his training, all that has defined him for decades - the system is corrupt or not, he’s loyal or not, none of it matters because people simply must find a way to navigate the system. gilbert’s devotion to the man in charge has died many years ago, and disdain has grown in its place, but anger makes him reckless and a reckless soldier is a buried soldier. hasn’t he always been reckless, however? prone to the whims of his heart? perhaps that was alexei volkov’s first sign that the attack dog was not fit for anything more than the leash. after the wall with suri, the murder of ray, the encounter with anso, or the carelessness of the storm night, gilbert was ready to move like a fast truck on course to crash into a wall. let alexei hang him outside the hotel, for all he cared. gilbert, for once, denounced survival as his ultimate driving force, even if it was what brought him through sleet and snow back home in january. the frozen man would be appalled if he encountered the one from the spring. 

it’s not reckless anymore, he thinks. it’s purposeful. discipline forces to the grave all thoughts of simply jumping onto alexei with a sharp knife in hand, or exploding the enforcer floor, all collateral and himself be damned. oddly enough, it feels similar to the purpose he found in the form of alexei and his rebellion, many years ago. but it has to be different. he can’t keep making the same damn mistakes, right? “i know. that’s the conundrum, right? but you’re just too young to remember this. there was hope in the early days, y’know? more food, the end of war, no more entire families getting whipped out in the middle of the night.” patrol shift has ended about ten minutes ago, but gilbert still leans by the window of the truck, chatting with a young soldier who should have gone and parked it the moment they returned. “it was all a lie. i mean, you’ve got eyes to prove it. it’s like i told you yesterday… just because this is all you’ve ever known, doesn’t mean it can’t change. realistically, fedra rule was pretty much all i knew. where the hell is fedra now anyway? do they even have a single zone up, still?” gilbert isn’t whispering. he eyes the surroundings every now and then, ignoring the one in the back, unbothered. savannah looks around constantly, with wide eyes, but isn’t running away from the conversation at all. it is certainly not the first time gilbert introduces the topic. 

she whispers something to him, far more careful than the older one. “i mean, we’ve all got families to think about. i don’t think volkov thinks about them, though. the enemy is just as much internal as it is external, right? you try to keep them alive and happy, you pick up a gun and go on patrol, and then what? he gets angry one day and executes them in the middle of the mall?” he eyes the soldier that is, theoretically, far enough for comfort for savannah, inside a truck and whispering. not so much for gilbert. it’s a dare, like it was inside the middle school during the storm. and yet, it is also a lesson, much alike the middle school too. gilbert hasn’t been hung for treason yet, so it’s fair to assume matty did not rattle him out. he wonders how far he can stretch his luck.

Trucks don’t talk. He knows how to fix them if they break.  They don’t feel pain. They don’t suffer, when they stop working. Truck duty’s something he can’t fuck up. Matty drags himself up from the bench, wrist protesting at supporting his body weight. Even his limbs are rebelling against him now. Fucking ironic, isn’t it?
 
He grabs the set of spare keys for the missing truck that should’ve been back ten minutes ago, and heads out front to go yell at whoever’s still got the damn thing. What if something happened again, and they couldn’t get people away as easily because they couldn’t account for where some asshole left a truck? 


There she is. Goddamn gossiping with Orquideas. He’s pretty sure he can guess what they’re talking about, too. Being this blatant about it? He’s gonna get that girl killed with him. She’s looking around, but she’s not paying attention to her six. Matty unlocks the passenger door, slips in beside her. Taps her on the shoulder, and watches her practically jump out of her skin. 

“Savannah, were you gonna give the truck back any time this year? Would be nice.” He smiles. “It’s about time to stop fucking talking about this where people can hear you both.”


This isn’t how it is supposed to be. Embraces between them are scarce, especially of this kind — in the face of traumatic loss, Matty and Daiyu have always opted for avoidance rather than tight comfort. They shut down, skirt awkwardly around the other’s and their own pain and then, perhaps, attempt to reconvene when the wounds aren’t as fresh.

But here she is, pulling him into an instinctive hug and here he is, delivering a necrology. Suddenly the loss between them is more shared than ever — before it had always been his family or hers, people they both knew but meant more to the one than the other. 

Marsie was one of them though, wasn’t she? Child of a warzone, daughter of the post-apocalypse, healer of the community. Marsie was one of them, but she also wasn’t, as she was exponentially better. 

Daiyu feels herself go slack for a moment, a breath getting stuck in her throat as ice water spreads through her veins. Then, she’s back to clutching him, because now she needs this as well. She does not say no, does not go down the path of denial: that has never been much her style, with the corpses piling up in her life since childhood. Her mother, FEDRA soldiers, conspirators of her father’s, trespassers, infected, and then all those she had truly known. There is no room for denial when life is more about death than life, most days. But there is the quiet resignation. The rage, too.

The anger, that simple and only answer that exists in the face of pain. But where can it go, with her face pressed against Matty’s chest and his arms around her? And while her instincts scream to push him away, she cannot break the contact — if only because he seems to need it.

“What happened?” The words muffled, her eyes stinging. Daiyu isn’t sure when the last time she cried is. She swallows, dips into rage all the same, “What the fuck happened?”

They’ve lost so much, between them, the two of them, but Marsie - Marsie was supposed to be behind the lines. It was supposed to be them who protected her. None of this was ever supposed to happen.
 
He doesn’t know what else to tell Daiyu. He can tell her things - has told her things he probably shouldn’t have. About the revolutionaries. But this - he can’t find the words for this. 
 
Marsie was so good, so kind, so caring - too good for this world, and now she’s not in it anymore. He was too late. He failed her. It’s up to Pedro to look out for her now, and he knows he will. He knows he doesn’t even have to ask - that he’ll have greeted her with open arms. He’d have run to her the way Daiyu ran to him.
 
The words stick in his throat. He’s been the bearer of bad news before. He can’t do it, this time. The images are still stuck in his mind’s eye. He doesn’t want Daiyu to have to imagine them too.  “The Infected got her. I - I killed them, but it was too fucking late.” If he hadn’t panicked, if he hadn’t taken so long to get out of that storage room…

—  grand teton mall,  30th june 2044,  with matty alston.  @mattyalston​

she only had a few months with marseline well. only a few months of comparing her silently to farah. comparitively it’s nothing close to the loss she’d feel if it was gabriel, or the older sister she never had in eva. but marsie out of all of them, was most like farah. part of her feels guilty to be mourning, when she knows at least part of that is tied to the death of someone else. but in her sadness, she hopes she can give matty something to hold onto. 

she holds his hand tightly, not a care in the world for how tightly he grips hers. physical pain has always been easier than the emotional. her free hand wraps gently around his forearm. it’s a silent assurance, a promise even. you are not alone in your sadness. 

the two stand in the car park, watching the pile of bodies slowly turn to ash. the fire is strong enough to make her squint occasionally, and the heat doesn’t help the wetness of her eyes. suri sniffs as she watches the spot where marsie’s body was left, barely recognisable. “how long did you know her?” she asks quietly, resting her head against his shoulder. “she was a lot like my sister. good at patching people up.”

He’d wondered if it would’ve been easier to mourn his family if they’d been able to retrieve the bodies. Too many Infected to go back in, and by the time they’d found him...there probably wasn’t much to go back for. He feels sick again. He can’t get Marsie’s body out of his mind, and the funeral pyre won’t burn the memories away. Having closure doesn’t make this any fucking easier. Matty allows himself to lean against Suri, to grip her hand back. Everyone leaves eventually. He has to hold them while he can. Make sure they know how much they matter to him. She knew. She had to have known. They were like brother and sister. “Ages. Basically forever.” Matty mumbles, knowing she’s close enough to understand him. “She stayed with me, after - when I was in hospital. I should’ve been there for her.”

.

her feet carry her forward before her mind can direct her where to go.  perhaps there is a bit of her that’s in shock, watching people die never really gets easier.  she’s moving directionless.  she needs to listen to her surroundings, she needs to find safety.  but everything in front of her feels like a blur.  before she can stop herself she’s colliding into another body.  she yelps out of instinct, but looks up and sees matty, his eyes wild and his face bloody.  despite his startling appearance there is a sense of relief.  he’s trembling as much as she is, the fear in his face is apparent.

“i’m fine matty, i’m alright, no bites,” her hands grip his arms attempting to ground the both of them.  “it’s okay, it’s not my blood.”  ophelia tries to catch her breath, she focuses on the feeling of matty’s shirt under her fingers, the sensation of the tile floor under her feet.  “i don’t- i don’t even know what happened.  i just ran i- i wasn’t thinking, i just ran.” her eyes run over him, checking him for injuries of his own.  “what about you, are you alright?” one hand lifts to his face, her thumb gently wipes away the blood near his eyes hoping it isn’t his.  

it’s in this moment however, that she realizes she’s left the infirmary with nothing.  she doesn’t have her bag, no bandages or sutures.  even if matty is hurt, what is she meant to do?  she looks down at her self and takes stock. all she has is a roll of gauze in her pocket.  but, the blood.  god, there’s blood on her shoes, theres blood on her hands, on the fabric around her knees from where she bent down next to mike.  mike, his body is still laying feet behind her.  she can only pray that eddie is far from here now, out of matty’s view.  but now there is just her and a corpse, and she’s covered in his blood.

Phee. She’s real, she’s alive, she’s not bit. She’s not bit. She’s okay. She won’t be okay if she stays here. He - he scared her. He never wanted to scare her. He should tell her to go, but as long as he’s holding onto her, he knows she’s safe. 
 
 He should help her out. He should find Marsie. He doesn’t know what the fuck he should do anymore. “No bites.” He hasn’t checked himself. It didn’t matter. She matters more. He leans back from the touch, like he’s been electrocuted. “Fought a Runner. I’m fine, but - don’t touch.”
 He’s not a scientist, and he doesn’t give a shit about his own life, but he’s not going to gamble with Phee’s. If he’s gonna die, he’s gonna fucking die, whatever, but not before he makes sure everyone else makes it out safe.

She wasn’t looking for an apology, but Matty offers one anyway, which somehow makes Zahra feel like she’s said the wrong thing. “It’s okay,” she assures him, trying to find a way to spin it back into the compliment she’d been intending for it to be. “It’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.” Zahra wonders if Matty had known. She’s not the a religious fight night attendee, but she’s a frequent one, and she knows she’d never seen Matty there while Pedro was around. She wonders what Pedro told him about the nights at the Alibi, if Pedro told him anything at all. “A win on your first night’s a big deal. You should feel proud.”

There’s a lapse into silence as Zahra finds herself scrambling for something else to say again. Something that might bring the tiniest glimmer of the old Matty back into his eyes. It almost feels selfish, searching so desperately for that old version of him that she knows won’t ever exist again. Especially when she knows there are dozens of old Zahras that she’ll never be again, either. She doubts her parents would recognize her if they saw her now. The thought used to keep her up at night; Zahra hopes Matty isn’t dealing with the same.

Her attention drifts as the hum of the mall’s daily operations is interrupted by someone yelling about their innocence. Enforcers taking another person away for questioning. Eight days in and the QZ’s already tearing itself apart for the title Alexei keeps dangling over their heads. “I was surprised your name didn’t get called,” Zahra says, mouth moving before her distracted brain has a chance to catch up. “Honestly, I thought you’d get promoted ages ago. Way before me, at any rate.” There are so many soldiers who should’ve gotten promoted before she did. Zahra had fought tooth and nail for the enforcer title, but it still doesn’t feel like something she’s truly earned. Or maybe she has, just doesn’t want to accept all the shit she’s done to do so. “I assume you’re gunning for the last spot, like everyone else?”

You should feel proud. Should he? He doesn’t really know what winning means anymore. It was easier when Mom and Dad were around. He knew where he stood, then. Winning was overcoming their enemies. Winning was not just surviving, but living. Sharing stories, sharing songs, enjoying the little things. 



He’d never had to fight for food before. He’d always been in the inner circle. He’d thought he’d understand more, if he went to the fight club. What it was like for Pedro to be on the outskirts of the circle. He never spoke much about it, but Matty would never have made him. The bruises and the missing rations spoke for themselves.



So no, Matty doesn’t feel proud. He does understand more, but he wishes he didn’t. There was an old Matty who’d never experienced any of this. Who could still carry on chatting shit and messing around with cars like he hadn’t lost everything. It’s not okay, and it won’t ever be okay again. 



He says none of that. Lets her move the conversation onto what should be safer ground - if you hadn’t been trapped in a middle school with a wannabe revolutionary, that was.

when — june 30th where — the mall who — @mattyalston​

She runs a hand over her face, an ache starting to form in the hollow of her chest. The sad thing about adrenaline is that it always leaves and when it does, it makes her feel mortal again, and small, and hurting. It is no easy feat, to return to the centre of the mall, to follow the sounds of people convening and accept that this is it, for a while. This place, it truly is a matryoshka doll. Cage opening to reveal another to reveal another to reveal another.

Daiyu has half a mind to find a way out, abuse the privilege she has been granted by her position (something she resents doing and denies herself on sheer principle, almost all of the time) and avoid being shot down or forced back by guards. But there’s people here that are more important than her own selfish fears of being stuck in the building. Where would she go, anyway? To her father? To be alone? The desire is there, certainly, but what weighs heaver is them. Something about love’s strength Daiyu is unable to verbalise, even in her mind.

So she moves into the mall, inspecting the hand she’s just ran over her face. There’s grime, blood, something stuck under her nail. The smell of gunpowder. Daiyu looks up from it and finds a face in the crowd, rushes over — he’s been on her mind, ever since she heard his distance voice come from the front of the truck Nik had been driving. She’s rude as she moves over, pushing a person or two aside as she picks up speed and then rushes right into his arms, pulling him into hers despite all the height he has on her.

These public displays of affection, of touch, of closeness are rare, considered risky confession to watchful eyes, but Daiyu can’t find it in her to care. “You’re alright.” The words exhaled, spoken against his chest as she pulls back, looks up. “Right? You’re alright. Fuck, I’m so glad.”

He doesn’t remember anything after - after he found the - Marsie, the - remnants of Marsie. It’s all flashes of being led away, the smell of the herbal pastes Muriel washes her hair with. He was in a kitchen, at some point. It seems like years ago, this morning, before everything. After the first everything. Before the second everything. He didn’t remember Daiyu was supposed to be coming for him. He was just - he was back in April, and then he was now, and there was Marsie, he was going to save her. All her hope, all her sweetness and light and joy in a shitty world. He’s seen her bones. He doesn’t have anything left to throw up. There’s so many people around him, but none of them are his. They come from where he comes from. The dead outnumber the living, in the group of people who give a shit whether Matty Alston lives or dies. That’s why he isn’t expecting it, the figure cannonballing across the room at him, dragging him into a tighter hug than he’s had in months. He knows Daiyu instinctively, anywhere, and he catches her. Lets her pull him close. Lets himself break. “No - no, they - they - they - Marsie, they - Marsie’s dead.”

when: june 30th, morning where: the mall who: @mattyalston​

i’m not supposed to be here are the words that repeat in her head.  ophelia usually works in the hotel infirmary, but today she is working at the mall- a favor for a friend.  the medics are a fairly close knit bunch, when one is in need they tend to try and help each other out.  she took the early morning trek to mall, it’s a much longer walk than the quick trip down the stairs, but she took this chance to get a bit of fresh air.  walking is good for the third trimester, her mother has told her.

but now she’s here.  screams of terror echo around her but in this small corner of the mall it is silent.  admittedly, she had selfishly ran to this nook quickly after the outbreak ravaged the infirmary.  she could have stayed to fight, she could have sought out the injured, but she fled.  as it turns out, the alcove wasn’t empty.  she had stumbled into a scene she instantly knew she shouldn’t be apart of.  i’m not supposed to be here.

the knife is still in his hand, slick with red.  “eddie,” she says breathlessly.  maybe she shouldn’t have spoken his name out loud, but he’s already seen her.  they are cemented now in this moment and there’s no going back.  he stands up, his eyes locked on hers.  they don’t waver for a second.  

“ophelia,” he responds.  it’s quiet, dejected, afraid.  his voice shakes with adrenaline.  opie quickly steps forward and kneels next to mike.  eddie steps back, looking down at her with a glaze over his eyes.  out of nothing but instinct she places two fingers against his neck, feeling for a pulse.  there is a weak slow beat and every muscle tells her to put pressure on the bleeding- but she hesitates.  her father’s words ring in her ears, first do no harm.  she looks back up at eddie and sees another father.  a father with pain and anger on his face.  

“he’ll be dead in a minute,” she tells him.  in that moment she knows there is nothing she can do.  perhaps she could yell, bind his wounds and press reps of compressions into his chest that is already weakened from his last run in with revenge.  she remembers another lesson her father once taught her, when someone’s loved one dies, you tell him that you did everything you could to save them.  when you say those words, you should mean it.  but she realizes in this moment that trying to save mike means condemning eddie.  “you should go,” her voice shakes as she looks up.  “go!” it comes out as a raw, croaky yell, and eddie doesn’t hesitate any longer.  he escapes down the hallway and opie slowly pushes herself back on her feet.

i’m not supposed to be here.  her hands tremble with emotion- fear, adrenaline, heartbreak, horror.  she backs up from the scene in front of her.  mike’s now lifeless body drains blood onto the tile floor of the mall.  it’s on her scrubs, it’s on the bottom of her shoes.  she can’t save him, she can’t save eddie.  the only thing she can do is run. 

One minute he’s guiding Jesse out, and the next he’s tackled to the ground. The breath of a Runner against his face, as he desperately pushes its teeth away from his throat. This is how they died, their hearts beating their last out of their chests like his is, now. Motherfucker won’t get him, too, not until he finds Marsie. He rolls to the side, pushes the runner down until he’s the one pinning it to the ground. Smashes its skull against the hard floor, once, twice, three times - until it stops moving. Matty sits back, chest heaving, hands covered in blood, hands shaking - and more of them screaming.



 He has to go. Go! Matty stumbles to his feet, away from the sounds, to where it’s quieter. It’s closer to the infirmary. Closer to Marsie. There’s nobody here. Why is there nobody here? What if they’re all dead? What if he’s too late?





If he lets himself think like that, he will be. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but, he can’t go before he knows the people he has left are okay. Marsie, Daiyu, Ophelia, Eva, Nik - Nik, who’s still looking for his cowardly ass. He keeps dragging himself forward, every step heavy with trepidation about what’ll be before him next. It’s - it’s - Ophelia, practically crashing into him, as bloodied as he is. He grabs her shoulders, wide eyes scanning her for injuries. 



Please, fuck, no, not Phee. Pedro never asked him for anything, except this, keep her safe, and he couldn’t even do that. “Phee, fuck, Phee - tell me you’re not bit.”

with — @mattyalston​ where — mall rooftop when — evening of july 10

Over a week later and it still feels wrong, like it should’ve been abandoned after quarantine. Instead, operations go on as normal, even though the halls are a little too empty, the mood a little too somber. There are people to feed, new enforcers to train, supplies to ship between bases. That was the way of things in Idaho Falls; there was no time for mourning, no time for grief or despair. Those who remained were always forced to pick up the pieces and stick it back together into something functional, even it’s never going to be the way it used to be.

The one good thing about the mall is that it’s the only place big enough to give you a feeling of being able to move around while also giving you privacy, even with Alexei’s new restrictions. If Zahra’s being honest, the mall is the last place she wants to be, but it still feels better than being cooped up in her room at the hotel or wandering around another base while she’s off shift. She turns down the offer of a ride to the hotel after dinner, instead making her way to the roof. 

Sunset is still a few hours away but the temperature has started to cool and the sky’s been streaked with pink and purple at the edges. Zahra makes her way toward a secluded section of the roof, where she can sit and maybe pretend like things are normal. She picks her way around a vent and nearly steps on Matty, who’s apparently beaten her to the spot. “Oh, hey,” Zahra says. She doesn’t wait for a response before taking a seat beside him.

Zahra opens her mouth to say something else, but no words come out. What was there to say, really? The past week— past few months, really— have been shitty for everyone, but she knows they’ve been especially rough on Matty. Losing his parents and Pedro, now Marsie and who knows who else… how are you doing or the sky looks pretty don’t feel like they cut it. She tries to think of what she would’ve wanted to hear in those days after her mom had left, when she’d officially been on her own, and comes up short. Zahra doubts anything short of, “oh, look, everybody you love who you thought had died is actually alive and waiting for you to join them for lunch,” would make Matty feel better, either. She settles on, “Good job at the last fight club,” mostly to fill the silence. “My jaw hurt like a bitch for at least a week. You should teach me your moves sometime.”

Over a week later and he still barely knows what day it is. He just goes through the motions. Does whatever jobs he’s allocated to. 



Alexei’s answers raised more questions. It still rings in his ears - the silver lining amongst the loss. A chance to be an enforcer. What Dad would’ve wanted. His name wasn’t on the list, and he didn’t expect it to be. If he was a better leader, had more resolve, Marsie would still be here. To get there…he needs a confession. He has no idea who it was.

He knows it wasn’t Opie - knows he’d die before he’d let her get in trouble.

He doesn’t really know how to respond to small talk. It all just feels like too much, too soon - it’ll always be too soon. Time can only do so much healing, and you can only survive so many gaping wounds.



It had to be Zahra, as well, the victim of his attempts to fill the void by fighting. He didn’t want that for her. He saw the way Pedro’d wince if he moved his jaw wrong in the week after a fight club. “Sorry. Won’t do that again.” It didn’t help, understanding what he’d gone through. Just made it worse, really, because Matty was always the hard-man between the two of them, and if it sat badly with him - it must’ve absolutely cut Pedro up inside. He’s not going back there. He can promise that much.

this isn’t a foreign feeling to eva, not wholly. she’s always started just like this – a stranger. always a foreigner in the four walls she’s had to make practice of making into homes. it had felt like this in salt lake city, too. to pledg herself to fight, to want more or better – it had always needed justification, needed payment in blood. this isn’t your home, not like it is mine. it doesn’t matter what you want. 

what she’s wanted, what she’s thought as right, hasn’t always held it’s worth in weight the way it has for those she’s stood beside and against. those who’ve called the places of her memories home for longer than she’d ever gotten a chance to. in the before, she’d fought tooth and nail for her place on the frontlines because she’d had something to fight for: a future for her and samar, for her family, for his. but now…now? 

it was her own lack and the acute awareness of it that had frozen eva in time ever since she’d arrived at idaho. she had been all but immobilized by her grief, shrouded by her own stillness. time, however, was a patient and unforgiving balm to her wounds. time had shown her that maybe now, in her lack, she had the best semblance to fight. now, with nothing to lose, why shouldn’t she go out swinging? 

she sighs at his response, exasperated. dropping the debris clasped in her hands, the piece of it clunks to the ground – heavy. “what – you want to ignore it? pretend like the conversation didn’t happen?”

“this, all this–” tongue stumbling over the flatness of her words, an attempt at keeping some vagueness to talks of revolution since they were in open air. “it’s happening, matty. it’s already happening and it’s going to keep happening. pretending like it’s not isn’t going to do us any good.” the use of us is generous, here – eva means you. it isn’t going to do matty any good. she’s already clear on where she stands. 

her eyes stay on him, watching him carefully – her frustration clear in the way her brows are threaded. but she shuffles, her expression softening, as she lets out another sigh. “it’s not personal, matty.” she says. and it could be patronizing, but it isn’t – there’s an earnestness to her words. she understands something of it, of the fact that there’s an alston legacy tied by blood to alexei and what he’s built. but that’s just it; there is blood between the walls holding the zone up and it needs cleansing. “just – think about it. think about what we’re saying. objectively. outside of what you think you have to defend. you’re telling me you don’t agree with any of it? with any of this?”

Matty doesn’t have anything to give her. There’s nothing he can say. He just wants this whole fucking thing not to have happened. All of it. It’s all gone to shit since his family died, and he’s not losing everything he has left. What’s the point? Depose Alexei, someone new rules over the ashes of this place? 

It’s not personal. She can say that, but it’ll all be intimately personal for him, forever. This land is where they died. He thinks he can feel them on the breeze, in a ray of warmth from the sun. When he thinks about it, about tearing everything down that Dad worked so hard to build, it’s like he’s suffocating. 

He blinks at her, opens his mouth to say something - once, twice, three times - and doesn’t know how to make the words come out. Can he tell her he doesn’t agree with any of it? He can’t do that, either. Pedro - beautiful, infuriating, wise Pedro - would’ve agreed with them. He knows that, instinctively. He would’ve said - 

There’s something to this. You can’t deny that. Matty shakes his head. Those words won’t leave his mouth either, It’s not safe to tell her where that comes from, it’s not safe to have this conversation at all - all he manages to give her is a frustrated cry, throwing another piece of debris into the stack. “I - I don’t fucking know what I think, okay, Eva? I got drunk about it and I told Daiyu and nothing fucking happened, and that’s the best we can hope for.”

[this is the ‘Matty discovers Marsie’s body’ post - take this as your warning for canon-typical graphic violence]

He still can't do this. He didn't realise it was real, at first. He thought he'd fallen asleep somewhere, until the screaming was different from the ones that replay in his nightmares. It wasn't mixed with clicking, but the yells of more recent infected. Indoors. In their base. Matty didn't remember locking himself in a storage closet, nor shoving the shelving over in front of the door. He remembers scrabbling for the radio he'd had on his belt. He remembers wanting Dad, calling Nik instead. The cavalry's not fucking coming. He's going to go crazy or die in this box or both and how much goddamn air is there in here because he can't breathe and whyhasitgonequiet are they all dead again - He has to see, has to know, has to get out - wrenches the shelving out of the way - ow ow ow FUCK, his wrist's never gonna work right, bites his tongue, scream and you're dead too - It's quiet, entirely too fucking quiet, and so's the only figure he can see. Not hunched over, not howling like a runner. Please be alive, please, please - Matty joins the other man, crouching beside him. Fuck, there's next to no cover in this hall. They're gonna die. "Go, we have to go, now, man, go!" He whispers.

Hunger Games AU -

I’m on my way//from misery to happiness today - Modern AU

matty.

With: Daiyu @daiyus​ Where: Grand Teton Mall - Food Court  When: 8th June 2044 Matty really appreciates Muriel. He isn’t sure if he said that to her, or maybe he did, maybe a couple too many times. She’s super old, seventy-four, and that’s wild because some people only get three decades, and he’s 90% sure she topped up his glass when he said that out loud. Because she’s awesome. She has these witchy grandma vibes and she makes wine and - he’s gonna need this recipe.  She won’t give him it, no matter how puppy-like his pleading gaze is. Where did that much of the bottle go? What the hell time is it, even? It’s - does it matter? Every day’s kinda the same since the storm. Get up, fix stuff, get tired, pass out, repeat. This is - different. This is nice. He can just be here, all warm and fuzzy. Not thinking about anything much at all. Definitely not thinking about the middle school. 100% Not That.  Matty reaches for the rapidly-emptying bottle, to top up his similarly-rapidly-emptying glass. He catches sight of movement, familiar dark hair seeming to be practically flying past him. Trying to jump up doesn’t quite work, and he finds himself stumbling forward a couple steps. Okay. Walking. He can manage one foot in front of another. “D! Daiyu! I wanna - I missed ya, y’know…y’know, with the - all the stuff, fuck, I wanna speak to you real bad. I wanted t’come help, at the plant, but I had’ta stay here - s’wild, how - how a surname protects’ya right up ‘til it doesn’t.”

The harsh irony of her situation continues to grow, leaving Daiyu frustrated and confused. Her father wants her primed for succession and yet does all to make her despised, recreate him in his image without any of the insight or power he holds. She thinks on his words, of how leaders need not be loved or even liked — that it’s about instilling fear. And while there are days where Daiyu wants people to flinch away from her, to see her as a monster and keep their distance, she has no interest in purposefully making people afraid.

So she lives somewhere in-between. Regarded, after the rescue attempt, as the privileged daughter of the tyrant, an exception to his cruel rule. It doesn’t make them fear her, though: they just dislike her. Daiyu figures Alexei likes that too, though. It does make these moments harder, though, moving through the food court with a great haste. No interest in idle chatter, no interest in her rations either but supposing that she ought to eat something.

In and out. Abuse her privilege and sneak her food out of this place, eat them somewhere quiet and private — but then someone calls her name and she whips around. Her face betrays something of frustration, something bleary-eyed and angry, but it melts as it often does for Matty. He’s not like most here, after all. 

He’s drunk. She smells it on him, grimaces at the realisation. “Hey, shit, it’s been fuckin’ wild, hm?” The storm, the getting stuck, the wetness of the rain seemingly still sticking to her skin. Daiyu takes one more look at Matty before tossing her tray on a table, letting it clatter and wrapping her fingers around his wrists. “Come.” Not here. Whatever he’s talking of, whatever causes him to walk around like this — better to do it somewhere with less eyes. Better to not let him show off his drunkenness so publicly, when there’s less and less room for liability in this place.

So she doesn’t ask as she drags him out of the food court, into a hallway, past storefronts until she pushes him into what had once been a drugstore. “Got into the potato vodka, did you?” She’s not good at this: support, comfort, helping out. But she tries. “What’re you on about, Matt?”

Matty blinks at Daiyu a couple times, before her words start making sense to his brain. He just nods at her, lets her lead him. It’s a belated realisation, that she abandoned her meal for him. “Y’should eat. ‘M always starving at meals.” Fuckin’ Orquídeas would make some kinda asshole comment about how he should think about why that is. Thinking sucks. ‘Specially when you’re surrounded by ghosts. Storefronts slip past, and, hey, it’s kinda like when they were daydreaming about going to the mall. If all the stores were real…if there weren’t any Infected…they could get ice cream. And coffee. Coffee ice cream? He keeps his mouth shut about that. He isn’t sure where he is, when they stop, but she’s here, and that’s all that matters. “Wine. Flower-wine. ‘M a classy bitch.” There’s something important he needed to say. Lots of important things. He’s very serious, all of a sudden. “Dee, I - missed you, I love you - in a 100% brotherly way, y’know I’m -“ Gay? In love with a dead guy? Both? Shit, he’s not having a sexuality crisis on top of all the other crises. He shakes his head, starts over. "Why’d I have to sit here when y’needed help? Nobody fuckin’ listens to me now Dad’s gone. Not the enforcers, not with that shit in the middle school -“ Fuck. Oh fuck. He hides his head in his hands. “ - we never stopped bein’ at war and I never even noticed.” Matty mumbles, avoiding her eyes. “I can’t do it, Dee. I can’t fight anymore.” He’s tired, down to his all-too-often-aching bones, the muscle’s falling off him, practically, with the rations they’re getting these days - it’s as if the storm never ended.

9th june. clean up by the mall. with @mattyalston​

they’ve been working in a silence that’s uncomfortable solely for the fact that it’s between them. there’s plenty to be done, plenty to keep the hands busy and feet moving – but the unsaid hands between them; ugly, obvious. 

eva jostles the wheelbarrow, kicks it with her foot to get it moving. there’s piles upon piles of debris stacked in there and plenty still to clear from the wreckage of the storm. it had done a number on the infrastructure of the base, destroyed what had needed tending to. eva could imagine the clean-up duty would last weeks to come.

she reaches the other side of the path they’ve cleared around the wreckage, lets the body of the wheelbarrow drop and brushes her hands off. hands placed on waist, she eyes the pile ahead of her and then turns to eye matty to the side where he makes his own work. 

a breath escapes her, short – pointed. eva levels her chin, raises it as she addresses him. “alright, out with it. are we going to talk about what happened at the school?”

He doesn’t know what to say to Eva, anymore. She’d helped him find his words, talk about his family. Now he’s more unmoored than ever. As soon as he thinks he’s back on track, someone else pulls the rug straight out from under him. Just goes to show. He can only rely on himself, really. He works quietly. It’s familiar, reassuring. Keeping his hands full and his mind occupied, pulling himself back from the edge of a deep, dark, pit. Stack debris, load it into the wheelbarrow, rinse and repeat. He stops, stares at her. What? There’s nothing else to say. He pleaded with them at the school, and they didn’t listen. Anyone could come around the corner at any time and overhear. It’s not safe to do this here. Fuck it, it wasn’t safe to do it there. Which she knows. She doesn’t know he brought it up with Daiyu, and she’s better off not knowing that. “No, but I guess you’re going to anyway.”