#nbecp

axelmckinnon & scarredalexia

Blankets heaped up around her like a well formed nest, Trix sat on her bed. ‘Sat’ was a word too restrictive for how she was positioned. She lounged. Legs curled to her side and the blankets propping her up. She was well and truly comfortable in the company of her two favourite people. 

Gin bottle in hand - one Lexi had smuggled in from a run for her - Trix mindlessly swirled its contents as she felt the burn of the last swig travelling through her chest. She hated the taste, but the loved the feeling.

dexfitz

A gasp of air dragging into his barren lungs.

A flash of light stretching his dark irises to diminish his pupils as his eyes flickered open into the afternoon sun.

Benny staggered forward and braced himself against the wall like something had just hit him square in the back. He’d been thrown back into himself from the safety of his nothingness up in the clouds and as he pushed his forehead into the brick of the wall he gradually filled himself back into his body like putting on a protective suit just as he’d become so accustomed to doing. 

He wore himself as though he was cumbersome and a heavy weight pressing down on his shoulders. 

Not knowing where he was or being able to remember the past few minutes, hours days or weeks - he didn’t know - Benny stood up from the wall. The wall had indented his brow and his jaw clenched to combat the shakes that held his body in an all-consuming grasp. He cast his dazed eyes about what he could only assume to be the desolate, deadly Red District. 

butcheringbenny

It was early when he’d decided to go for a walk through the city to clear his mind of the nightmares which had plagued him during the night. He’d dreamed of blank eyes and bloodied corpses. Of bodies pulled apart and half devoured by the infected.

He could see the pools of blood growing beneath the bodies of those he’d once held close to him, the lifeless orbs staring at him in betrayal for not helping them, for  a b a n d o n i n g  them when they needed him. He saw the bodies reanimating and standing back up, chunks of each person missing. He saw the bodies closing in around him as abuse spewed from their mangled lips – pathetic, traitor, useless. The words were ones that Toby had thought about himself at one point of another but to hear them come from his loved ones – to hear the venom come spewing from Oliver’s lips – scarred him more than he’d realised.

Before he knew it he’d managed to find himself outside of the city walls and leaning back against a wall in the Red District. He didn’t know how he’d got there – he’d been completely lost in his memories of the nightmare that he just let his feet take him – but he knew that he’d have to calm himself down, that he’d have to try and forget the nightmares, if he wanted to find his way back to the city before any of the walkers came looking for him. As he leaned against the wall taking in deep breaths to steady himself he was completely unaware of the other presence lurking nearby.

#21 “You’ll be miserable.”

martyrelli

Clouds swirled in the sky above the abandoned church. To Benjamin Butcher who stood at the impressive building’s front with his neck craned back to look up at the church’s spire it was like the spike was trying to stab at the sky and the heavens responded in turmoil. Grey, white and black all fought pushing at each other like waves on conflicting currents. 

The church gave Benny the creeps and brought back memories he probably should try to forget. He had just been walking by to clear his head, but something had anchored him to the ground on the street in front of the building and he couldn’t seem to leave just yet. 

Flashing images of complex sermons, sunday school, varnishing the pews and scrubbing the floors, falling to his knees at the alter, and exorcisms all cluttered Benny’s addled mind. He squinted at the flashing sky, his shaking hands pushed into his jean pockets to try and still them. It was like the clouds above demanded to be looked up at in terrible awe, but then were angry when you complied.

A single drop of rain splashed against Benny’s cheek. Then heaven’s wrath opened and the downpour hit. 

Within seconds Benny’s normally blonde hair was darken with the water it held and his clothes were sodden like a bucket had been upturned on him. 

Instinctively Benny ran for the nearest cover and that, unfortunately, was the formidable church.  He didn’t think when really he should have

axelmckinnon

Out the back of her house under the crisp, murky sky stood Trix Maddox. Her leather jacket was folded over the fence and she was just in front of it winding strips of fabric around her fists and between her fingers to protect her knuckles. She’d already fucked them up enough from beating up various different walls in outbursts of anger, she didn’t need to further that damage by reopening the wounds yet again. 

As she looked up from tying the last strap in place she offered a small smile to Axel who would be her sparring partner for the day. They used to spar before they’d been split up mostly because Trix liked practicing her fighting on frames much bigger than her own. Sparring with Lexi was great, she loved doing it, but she was also accustomed to it. Axel was much stronger than her and bigger than her. Sparring with him awakened a different type of challenge. 

“You wanna go hand to hand first, sweetie? Then try it with staffs or what?” the woman asked as she flexed her shoulders and eased into stretching her muscles. After she felt sufficiently limbered up she took a few steps away from the fence, her fingers wiggling against the straps as she got used to them again. Fuckinghell she’d been slacking lately. 

elijah-santos:

It was early afternoon on a chilly day and, thankfully, things were steadily returning to normal. The sick had been cared for, their bodies on the mend, and the thick air, one that spelled death, that had encircled the city was clearing. Bodies bustled about, many glad to be free of the confines of the quarantine and, as Dahlia sat upon a bench, hands stuffed inside her jacket pockets, she took in the sight of Fall City’s residents. She was, per Frankie’s instructions, taking things easy - as easy as she could, though she felt utterly useless sitting upon her bench like some gargoyle. A heavy sigh expelled from the blonde and a breeze passed through the city. 

Winter air bit at her, sending an uneasy chill through her body as she easily recalled the day she stood over Hunter’s body. Her breath hitched in her throat, images of the man, of how he lay on the ground, his body completely taken over by such a vicious sickness. The same sickness that had nearly taken her. The blonde swallowed thickly, wishing she could simply knock the thoughts out of her head. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not. They were stuck, as if caught in a web, forced to be analyzed, reels replayed over and over again in the quiet hours of the night or time spent ‘resting’. 

She felt as if she were a hypocrite; telling those around her to face what was inside them, that it was alright to feel and to let themselves fall, to face whatever it was and to draw strength from their comrades. It was something she had learned to do, yet, in that moment, in the days following the ordeal, she could not. Just as she could not when her father died, when the guilt that so heavily weighed upon her shoulders ate her alive, so much so that she shoved it deep inside, capped it, and turned to numbing the pain, she could not bring herself to address her feelings, to crumble in front of someone as she so desperately needed to. She’d been standing on death’s door, with no control and it had absolutely terrified her. Spiraling further and further, deeper into despair and she had felt as if she were not herself.  

Frankie, of course, her rock, had offered to talk. This, she was grateful for, but she could not yet verbalize it, to convey anything. What had happened, she wanted to move on, not to replay it. She did not want to recall her time on death’s door, actually believing that she would meet such a bitter end. She did not want to admit that she’d been defeated, that she’d changed into one who had given up. She did not want call to mind how out of control she had been, to relive the days, her fate hanging in the balance, where she was frozen, unable to do a thing to save herself or anyone else for that matter. Still, her staying silent, sweeping everything under the rug, it was toxic. Dangerous. It would ravage her from the inside out.

She needed a distraction, much like the ones she’d constructed for those inside the school during the quarantine. Until she could speak, vocalize everything, she needed to help her friends recover. She needed to be their pillar and, perhaps, when she was ready, they would be her’s. 

It was then that her blues landed on a familiar face. Elijah. They were mere acquaintances, sharing a position on the council together, but Dahlia respected the man. The woman sprung from her spot on the bench, abandoning all thoughts of rest and being sick, focused now on anything she could do to help the fellow councilman. 

“Elijah!” she called out, waving her arm to get the man’s attention, “Hey!” she jogged toward him, “Do you need any help?” she asked, slowing down to a halt mere feet away from him, catching her breath. 

Dahlia stood at one of the entrances to Fall City’s school gymnasium, gazing into the large dim room, admiring her handy work. Balls - lots of them - littered the floor, and it was almost comical. It’d only been a short while ago that Dahlia had laughed about a game of dodge ball happening without her and, while she hoped Lyra patiently waited for her return, the blonde had played an exhausting game of solo dodge ball. It’d been a been ridiculous, she probably looked insane to anyone who so happened to pass by, throwing the basketballs, tennis balls, volleyballs, soccer balls, rubber kick balls, badminton birdies, among anything she could find that could be kicked, thrown, dribbled, or hit by a paddle or bat about the large gym, but Dahlia had already exhausted the ‘organize these cans’ tactic she’d used on so many others. And, with little else to do but make rounds, converse with Charlotte or Frankie, and double check her rations chart, all of which were things that could have been done on her own, Dahlia had no other choice but to invent a chore. 

The blonde wiped the sweat that had pooled on her forehead and breathed deeply, her chest feeling heavy. She sucked in a breath through her nose and cleared her throat, an attempt to push away the wheeze that threatened to pass her lips. Dahlia wiped her hands on her jeans, as if that would shed all the fear that had coiled up inside her within the past twenty-four hours. She’d come to discover that she wasn’t being irrational, that her body was telling her that something was wrong, that she’d been exposed and infected.

She was tired, fatiguing easier than a normal, healthy person would have, she had a cough, a deeply set and sickening-sounding cough, and, the night before, she’d begun feeling feverish. It was upon that discovery that an internal conflict began within Dahlia; to press on, to continue to be there and present for her people or to lock herself away. There was still much they had to learn about the infection, specifically, how exactly it spread. She didn’t want to become a menace to those she cared about, yet she wanted to help people, like Lyra, get through the quarantine in any way possible. 

At length, Dahlia had opted to press on. The symptoms, which she’d recorded, were mild (this she told herself, mind over matter).  She thought that, if she could suppress them and keep a fair distance from everyone, not touch them or exchange fluids, that would ensure their safety. Only when she was half-dead would she step away from her people. 

And, as Dahlia roamed through the halls of the school, on her way to lead Lyra to the gym, Dahlia pinched her cheeks, in an effort to look more lively. She’d managed to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the locker room mirror and the gaunt, sickly pale look to her didn’t scream ‘I’m here to help you’. The blonde turned a corner, her eyes searching for Lyra in the spot she’d asked her to wait. After a moment, she found the other. Her pace quickened and she stopped several feet away from the other woman.

“Alright,” she began, cheerily, “I’ve got some stuff in the gym that needs cleaning up and sorting, so we should get started. Come with me,” she gestured for Lyra to follow, then turned on her heel to begin on her route back to the gym.