Yeah, it's an end of the world fic. I've had this for a while so I thought maybe I'd revisit it now that we're on a two week break and my other fic is finally done. It's weird having free time. I had this plotted out like months ago but I have no clue if I'll actually continue this. No big spoilers, I'm thinking this is set during Season one-ish time. All feedback welcomed.
She's running so hard for so long that when she finally stops to plant her hands on her knees to suck air into her lungs it feels like burning hot sulfur. She lifts her head to see if he's caught up with her before she's lifted straight off her feet with a thud.
There's no time to react when she feels arms wrap around her middle as she's tackled hard from behind, throwing her face-first into the rolling slope of the valley, overturning rocks and debris as she goes. The body holding her down is heavy and familiar as it tumbles with her in a tornado of limbs and angry curses. The cracking rat-tat-tat of gunfire explodes overhead; blasts like firecrackers and close enough to make her ears ring even though her face is smashed into dirt.
'Umph' she grunts, disoriented and pissed off. The waterless cloud of dusk that they were racing against has settled into a darkened twilight and she wonders if it was a suicide mission to venture this far from the refuge of the lab to break into an already ransacked old connivance store. They're going through the last reserves of their hoarded supplies and are verging on desperate. The weatherworn black canvas bag that holds the little plumage they've collected rolls to a stop beside them, an innocuous rock in the barren landscape.
There's the huffing of hot breaths on her neck as the weight rolls off her and she's suddenly able to breathe. Peter lies beside her in the thicket of thorns and branches, every tendon stretched tightly over his bones listening for any sign to where the gunfire came from. She's vaguely aware of his presence as she tries to shake off the feeling that she's just been put on high in the dryer.
"Sorry," Peter wheezes; his voice a low gruff whisper beside her. There are more deafening cracks of a firearm discharging somewhere to their left but she isn't sure if it's from the same direction or a reprisal from before, she's so disoriented. Several muted seconds tick by, but if she's being honest with herself she's beyond any proper measurement of time by now.
"Couldn't have just yelled 'duck'?" She mutters darkly as she strains to get her forearms under her, ready to hoist up to retrieve the bag and get the hell out of here, but Peter's long fingers fan out between her shoulder blades and pins her to the ground.
"Wait," he orders, and the intensity of his voice freezes her in place. They listen together in silence, the stale air fluttering along the branches in the settling darkness and little else. Irritated, she elbows his arm away; filthy and sore from walking all day with little to show for it. When he doesn't move, she sets to kick him off, but his hand remains anvil heavy on her back. He hears something in the distance, the trees stretching ahead of them coming to life and out of instinct or habit of self preservation, he rolls his weight on top of her, pinning her to the earth and clamps his free hand over her mouth.
Surprised, she reaches up to tear his hand away when she hears it too: the heavy crunch of footsteps making their way along the hedge of their hiding place. She hears Peter suck in his breath and hold it, her fingernails stamp into his wrist. He winces but stays ramrod still against her.
The footsteps echo as they near their position, and she feels the blood drain when she just makes out the darkened figures trailing their way out of the horizon like ghosts. People crouching low and armed with rifles in makeshift fatigues and Olivia and Peter both know who they are and what will happen if they're discovered. They're hunched together like a pair of mismatched logs and she's pretty sure she's drawing blood from Peter's whitened hand with her nails, but she's afraid to shift a muscle. She has to fight the overwhelming urge to stand and get the hell out of plain sight as the small unit of men draw closer, but she knows well enough that if they're discovered at this point they're both dead, and the remaining bullets for her firearm are too precious a commodity to waste. If they were lucky, they'd kill a few and then get shot in the back trying to run away. Their only chance is to sit tight and wait. Two things she was inept at doing well, and he knows it.
She feels Peter's arm flex, the flesh and sinew shaking from their uncomfortable position: him half-covering her with his torso, perched on his elbows and trying desperately not to make any sound that might alert the wandering group to their location. Dread sets low in his abdomen as one member breaks away from the others, aiming his rifle around in their general location and Olivia feels Peter's hand slide down her back to inch to the gun that's holstered uncomfortably on her hip, unlocking the clasp that screams as loud crashing cymbal as its unlatched with a click. They suck in a breath in unison.
The man hears it too, scouring the landscape in a tactical perimeter sweep she recognizes, and he's close enough that she can see that he's young, really young and she'd feel bad for the kid if she weren't so terrified that he'd shoot them dead. Eight months can really change things.
The kid does a few cursory rounds, his features blurred by the darkness and Olivia's almost dizzy from trying to regulate her breathing against the muzzle of Peter's hand plastered against her nose. She's not sure if Peter's wandering arm across her back is his attempt to calm her or he's straining to reach her gun. She knows though if she tries to get an arm out to reach for it herself they're both dead.
Everything stops. Olivia can see the battered boots he wears a mere foot above where they're crumpled in the brush, and she prays the darkness is enough to keep them hidden. Peter dips his chin into the crook of Olivia's neck, grinding his teeth together to keep himself quiet. His chapped lips coupled with his beard are rough as sandpaper against her neck as he lets out a soft, shushing sound as the boots take another step in their direction. The subtle lick of his breath against her skin catches her offguard and she lets out an involuntary shudder; the faintest of sighs slipping from Peter's hand before she could draw it back.
Blood slams at her ears as she realizes with horror her mistake. A sidelong glance at Peter and she can make out the white of his eyes as he look back at her, a mixture of surprise and terror etching his features. He swoops back to the barrel of the gun as the kid cranes his neck to try to make out the slightest of sounds, Olivia's face hot from surging embarrassment.
"Kinsley! Get your ass over here!" A grumble of a voice rings out clear in the night. The boy's head whips back over his shoulder. After giving one last hard look in their direction, he drops his gun and clomps back to catch up with the rest of the group. They watch his darkening figure until it blinks out of existence into the horizon.
They stay huddled together for a few more seconds before they trust to ease a muscle. Peter's ears strain for any sound out of the ordinary, anything that might indicate more danger but hears nothing. He's half-glad for the lack of nighttime wildlife activity but is instantly reminded of its absence. When he's confident the immediate threat has passed, he peels his hand away from Olivia's mouth, rolling off her onto his back, letting out a whistle of relief while letting his muscles relax into the dirt. He's acutely aware his proximity on top of her, breathing in the scent of her hair for so long it's embedded into his lungs and he's glad for the opportunity to put distance between them. He feels his neck prickle, just a little bit. He recovers quickly by retrieving the fallen canvas bag as soon as he's upright.
"Not worth three cans of peach preserves, a box of band aids and some shitty vodka." He mutters to diffuse the awkwardness that's settled between the two of them. She's pulling herself into an upright position; purposely trying to ignore the little slip by inspecting the damage on the palms of her hands. They're raw and scrapped and sting like hell, not that she'd ever say anything about it, but she makes a face that Peter doesn't miss, even in the darkness.
"Give 'em." He says, hoisting the battered bag and slinging it around a shoulder. She pulls them out of reach, close to her body and away from his outstretched hands. Not as an insult to his concern, but more an act of self preservation she'd taken to adapting lately.
Never show weakness.
"Olivia," He continues despite her reluctance, taking a step toward her. It annoys the hell out of him when she does this.
"No," she snaps at him, wiping them on the front of her jeans. The pain intensifies, but she brushes it off. "I'm fine. I don't need any more of your brand of helping." She tries to joke, but she's so rusty that it comes off as taunting, letting the "your" stretch out on her tongue like gum.
Peter gives her his best conman sneer, but elects to give in. She's on edge; she's usually on edge every waking hour, just like they all were, but this was different. She'd slipped. He turns away from her and lets her back up into a corner, where she feels safest. That's fine with him.
He turns to start pulling himself out of the ditch, the pack stowed sturdily across his back and he can feel every extra pound of it bear down on his already sore shoulders. He's halfway up, knuckles deep in dry earth before he realizes she isn't following. A quick tilt of the head finds her still in the same place he left her, her hands loosely settled across her chest. She almost looks a little disappointed that he didn't make a bigger deal.
"Coming?" he pants, sweat stinging his eyes. He's tired, bone deep tired from not sleeping more than a few hours a night for weeks when he finally gets exhausted enough to sleep where he sat at the lab in Harvard. He's damned hungry too, and he's not waiting around forever for her to sulk before he dives into the canned peaches.
She looks struck, but recovers quickly before finally clamors to dig herself out too. He can just make out the little huffs of indignation mixed with the effort of climbing up the ditch with little water and no food. She almost makes it up before him, and he waits without offering a hand he knew she'd only slap away for her to pull herself onto solid earth.
Now it's nighttime, the illumination from the moon the only light casting in crisscrosses of direction that explodes in muted purple colors that Walter never could explain since it started nine weeks ago. He thinks it's been nine weeks, but he's stopped looking at a calendar after the third month. Breathing is painful now, a soft watery sound that fills the otherwise quiet night. Olivia's face catches a blade of light where she stands and she's painted in soft lilac that would be beautiful if it didn't already make her look impossibly paler than she already is. Sweat is collecting on her forehead as it's wrinkled from her eyebrows shooting skyward as she waits for him to stop staring and say something.
He's too damned tired to respond, so the silence expands and deepens into the brush, carried along by the slight breeze that's dancing along her shoulders and tickling her hair.
"Ready?" She asks for him, wiping the back of her palms across the sweat, trying to move just to move and to get back to the safety that she doesn't feel in opened space anymore.
"Yeah," he answers, hoisting the pack even though it's already secured.
They spend fifteen minutes trying to find their way in silence back to a path to get back to the main road. When they finally come to leveled ground it's impossibly black, and he's only able to make out that she's near him by the random bursts of curses whenever she trips.
"Fuck!" She spats as she's pushing herself back upright after stumbling over a rock, the palms of her hands plunging into the cracked asphalt as she falls. He's next her in an instant, grabbing an elbow to hoist her back into an upright position before she can fight him off.
"That's just great." She huffs, her hands now stinging with new scratches from her fall. She wipes them on the wool of her coat without much thought until it warps into fire up her wrists that makes her hiss into the darkness.
Peter's rummaging through an outside pocket of the duffle bag he's carrying to withdraw a little black flashlight to inspect the damage. He grabs a wrist before she has a chance to pull away and shines the beam of light on her open hand.
"Just spare me the I'm fine bullshit and let me take a look." He says, daring her to pull her hand out of the steel clamp of his fist. She just rolls her eyes but finally lets him. Relieved, he pulls her palm up closer to his face.
Her palms are raw, slightly bleeding but nothing too deep. They'll need to dip into their medical supplies when they get back to the lab. If they knew which direction that was in.
"I think you're going to lose 'em." He says seriously, shaking her wrist a little to lighten up the already tense air that surrounds them like fog. Even in the dark he can make out her smirk, the times that she smiles make the exhaustion just a little more manageable. He clicks off the light to stow carefully back into his pack and drops her hand. There's nothing that's recognizable where they are, the blight destroying most trees and the buildings are dilapidated from when the government crumbled.
She's almost on the verge of utter panic as they stand motionless out in the open and without the meager protection of the dead trees. She's lost; their running from earlier taking them off path and she knows she can't even begin to know what street they're on without the flashlight that's too dangerous to use. She thinks that the well lit lab containing Astrid and Walter and what's left of her scotch sounds like a welcomed five-star hotel. She waits for Peter to move, hoping he knows where the hell it is they are.
Peter doesn't. And he knows that Olivia isn't much better off either. They've been walking for all he knows in the wrong direction for the last twenty minutes or straight into a waiting refugee camp. He knows what the best option is, but doesn't exactly want to be the one to admit it.
"Can you tell which way is North?" She asks as she cranes to see through the blackness of night and deserted buildings above. She never thought she would miss being able to see the Big Dipper, even if she rarely could see it before in the Boston night.
"Sweetheart, I can't even tell which way is up." Came Peter's clipped reply. She instantly prickles against him, frowning even though she knows he can't see her. He squints ahead of them, purposely ignoring her, trying to get his bearings of where the hell they were. He knows Walter's is probably wearing a hole in the path he must be walking in the linoleum of the basement.
"I think we should find shelter for the night." He finally admits into the darkness, thankful she can't make out his face.
"Out here?" She asks, spreading her arms wide and filling the vast space that surrounds them.
"You have a better idea?" He snaps back, waiting a few moments to see if she did. When the darkness around him stays bitterly quiet, he continues.
"I think there was a better part of an old hotel a few miles back. We can head back out in the morning." He isn't sure if he could actually get them back to it, but it seemed like a better plan than wandering out in the open night.
He takes off, hands shoved hard into the pockets of his coat and a faint hope she'd follow. After a few short moments, he catches the crackling of her footfall and is immensly relieved.
Maybe tonight won't be terrible, he thinks as they march into darkness.