#bnyclosed

Ashton felt the cold steel locked around his wrists, heavy metal around his ankles as well and the moment his was left alone in the cold dark room, he tugged at the restraints, feeling the resistance from behind him to the wall, enough slack to move around the room. Instincts kicked in, Ash having been in situations like this more than he wished he had, and eyes darted around trying to find something, anything he could use, have leverage, anything to get out. But there wasn't a desperation to his subtle actions yet, knowing he needed to bide his time, Sada can't be far away once Devan left the room, likely to call for her here.

Instead, he simply stood in place, feet grounded as his hands by his side tried to touch the rim of the chain locks, immediately dropping any form of action the moment he could hear feet shuffling outside the door. a turn of a few locks, a swing of the door, and ding dong the bitch is here. Ashton only looked up to challenge her gaze straight once, jaw clenched and deep blues glaring coldly to the woman now stood in front of him. "..I find it hard to believe you had these just lying around all this time."

closed starter for @survivalxofxthexfittest

Maybe Ria and Ember weren't as mad as he had suggested when he heard about the party and saw them with all the decorations - the Wexley looked nicer than ever and maybe that's what everyone needed. Even a grump like him could use a break from landscapes full of debris and half-rotten corpses. Maybe that was survival too. And then after a short conversation with his brother, he also thought he was a hypocrite - inviting Emily to play games only to question the purpose of a birthday party in the middle of an apocalypse. Besides, didn't Tobias deserve a damn birthday party?

Obviously, his first reaction was that he'd help Mal set up everything in The W, but wouldn't attend. Not everyone liked that option so Zach soon found himself making plans for that evening, and promised Emily he would meet her there. When the day came, he even thought he could pick her up so they'd go together, but when Eric stormed into Zach's studio asking for help ("Any clothes I could borrow so I don't stand out? Of course, black is more than fine!") he knew they'd be taking that elevator to the first floor together.

"No, they swam back to the shore on a raft together, but I'm not the next Clint Eastwood."

"But the parallels are striking," teased Zach, and their laughter grew louder as the two left the elevator and glanced around, each pair of eyes scanning the atrium for a different female. Zach wanted to find Emily before she thought he might've stood her up, and Eric... Well, Eric was curious if Miss Pirouette would appear there at all, or maybe she had spent too much time in the darkness to let that much light in.

"Fuck that, women are trouble. One day you're a happy guy, banging a cute chick you met and the next you're this fucking close to dying on a raft 'cause your plane got shot down."

Zach hummed in agreement. He knew Eric wasn't being serious and he had every right to still be bitter about how his relationship with Veronica ended. He chuckled again at the whole "actor/accident/near-death experience/raft/making it back with another survivor" similarity they had been laughing at for a few minutes.

"No. Stop it. I'm not doin' Clint Eastwood impressions so you can make fun of your brother almost turning into some crisp but bloody firework. Besides..." He jerked his head to let Zach know he should turn around. "You don't wanna get caught agreeing that women are trouble now," he added with a smirk and greeted Emily with a friendly smile and a nod, before walking away.

So, Zach turned around, knowing exactly who he would see there and... — He had seen Emily so many times, but it had to be the first time she looked like this and he instantly understood that the last train to We're Just Friends via I'd Never Look At You Like That has just left the station.

@survivalxofxthexfittest

The knock on the door was loud enough to wake up the whole hospital, but Zuri's reaction was swift enough to help Petronella disappear before anyone figured out the source. "Hi, hi, come in," they rushed the blonde inside, and hurriedly closed the door behind them. They smiled at Noodles chilling on Petronella's forearm, the way hosts smiled at their special guest in the shows, and that's precisely who Noodles was today. Zuri had asked her to come over to their office with the beloved scaly friend, but offered no further explanation until they were all in one place.

"Rats don't belong in hospital buildings, but New York couldn't care less," she said, glancing around the room every now and then, scanning it for any rodents. "I tried catching them myself, but then I realized 'what a dumb idea, they might be infected' and that's when I thought of you."

closed starter for @ashton-ryder

"Man, they really made ya everyone's favorite person but at the cost of giving you the least favorite job." It wasn't the worst job per se, obviously, but bartenders were always the busiest. "Take a breather, lemme help ya."

Eric put his empty glass on the countertop and walked around the bar to join Ash on the opposite side. As his first gig, he poured himself a shot worth of whiskey; it was more of a playful act and if Ash told him to get the fuck outta there, Eric would.

"Seriously, you deserve a break, even a short one..."

Hope and Dante had already come to a mutual understanding before they arrived at the building that they had people they needed to see before regrouping to understand what the fuck was going on in this building, Santi telling them of who was still there, still alive. And all of a sudden, Hope knew this was where she should be.

The last two days of isolation hasn't been too bad, considering how long she locked herself in that greenhouse, this was paradise; clean water, something to eat, a bed to lie in, a roof over their heads, walls to keep them safe. She spent it acclimatizing back to certain creature comforts they haven't had in months. Even her plants were happy, there was a visible shift in their mood being able to be static for once, maybe even actually sink their roots somewhere. But most importantly she had been brimming with excitement.

Once the initial interviews and tests were done, her smile was brimming once she was left alone in quarantine, rummaging for a separate container for a very specific plant she has saved for a very specific person. Sure, it once might’ve been just symbolism to mourn and she might’ve just named it Beau to get her through the roughest patches of loneliness, and she might've talked to it at night alone to not go insane. But now it felt like it was all worth it for even trying to save a small cutting of the red buckeye from the botanic garden and lugging it around this whole time.

The moment she was let out, similar to Dante, she had an immediate goal - annoy the shit out of her college bestie. With an small army of seedlings and plants in her arms, she was off looking for that football dork of a man, a betrayal of their degree as she'd like to joke. The moment she spotted him in the diner for morning rations, she carefully placed down her plant babies on a booth table, and landed the sneaky assault, full on tackling into Beau from behind with all her might, voice giggling with a dramatic mocking swoon like of one of those annoying fans he had, "oh my god, is that football star, the Beau Clary??? I've been dying to meet you, can you sign my arm?"

Her small framed tackle obviously had zero strength to actually throw off the bulkier taller man, but her arms held on and squeezed tight around his torso before letting him go and stepping back so that he could face her wide grin. She wasn't much of a crier but her gaze had been watery to see him again now that she could look up and actually see his face. She did a little hop and jump to be able to throw her arms over his shoulders, murmuring into the hug, "missed you beau-y, you big doofus, literally thought you died flinging footballs at these chompers."

When: March 6th

@ashton-ryder

Oscar was finishing up with partially unloading the last pistol - there was no reason to waste bullets on training - when he heard footsteps coming his way. "I'm not quite ready for the lesson," he called out. He glanced over his shoulder to find one of the other residents headed his way. A man. With a very familiar face. Oscar couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew him. And not in passing at The Wexley. He knew him from before somehow.

He stopped what he was doing and watched him get closer, his brow furrowed in confusion as his mind ran through where he'd seen him. Work? No. He would have remembered an agent's face. And it seemed like he was too young to have been from his day's working with dad - the man right around his age, but slightly younger. The only other option was the military, but damn near everyone he'd known from then had died before the world fell to shit. But maybe?

closed starter for @emberwexley

"Rough day?"

Skyler sat on the bed by Ember's side and found a way to make some room for himself by gently pushing her back onto her side of the bed. He wasn't sure if she was sleeping or not, but he knew she wouldn't mind if he woke her up; he even had an idea or two how he could apologize.

"Where have you been all evening? I couldn't find you anywhere. Hugs and I missed you." He sighed way too dramatically. "I had to shower all by myself."

The banging was undeniably human, the patterned beat that the scouts had chosen a clear signal it was one of theirs returning. The possibilities of who were endless, many more heart-stoppingly hopeful than the last, and had she not been alone in the atrium there would have been no hesitation on opening it. Mr. Wexley was on his rounds, and who knew where everyone else was. Their numbers so small now, it wasn't hard to get lost from each other even in just the second and third levels. Finally swallowing her all encompassing anxiety at just the idea of opening the door herself, her small feet made barely a sound as she crept to the door and reached for the push bar with shaking hands and trembling fingers. Pushing it open so the resident outside could rush their way in, the heavy latching of the reinforced door behind him accompanied a whooshing release of air from lungs that hadn't even been aware were holding it. "JP?" Gaping at him as if he'd come back from the dead, his name riding out a gasp of disbelief, it was only a beat before small arms threw themselves around her older brother in as crushing a hug as her not quite five foot frame could manage. "Oh my god."