"What the dead can't take with them can be salvaged."
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Title: After Death
Warning: Cannibalism? Not really, but…character death.
Rating: PG
Continuity: 2007/09 AU movieverse
Characters: Samuel Witwicky, Mikaela Banes, Bumblebee
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): Scenario: Aftermath of a defeat
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They see the smoke, a column stark and burnt-metal black rising against the gray sky, and they go toward it. Smoke is death. In this place, on this Earth, at this time, death is life. What the dead can't take with them can be salvaged.
Wit doesn't even need to look to her. He drives the bike not because he's a man, but because the last of Trent had dribbled out of Mik in a sick torrent of unformed flesh two weeks ago. He fears, and refuses her the driver's place, because she has been inconsolable since. He has held her, and he has comforted her, and he does not begrudge her grief. Trent was a misogynist jock jerk, but when the world went to flame and fire, he'd been Mik's strong arm. Wit is smart, but he's no muscle man. In those first months, only the strong survived to lever out of the wreckage.
Then the strong started dying, too. Mik had walked away from the smoke carrying the last of Trent's strength in her uterus, holding onto the hope and memory like a lifeline. That lifeline has snapped. Wit keeps his hands on the motorcycle's handlebars in a determined grasp.
What the dead can't take with them can be salvaged. Wit has salvaged Mik. He does not intend to let her go.
Mik lays her wounded stomach against his back. Her arms wind around his waist, and her chin digs into his shoulder. Sharp eyes study the smoke, scanning the gritty clouds for flyers. Birds mean that the fire is human. Other inhuman shapes indicate different fires altogether. She sees nothing. Nothing is a good sign. Either they're too early for the birds to have descended, or they've missed the fight.
She nudges her nose against Wit's neck, because the wind is too loud in his ears to shout her excitement, and neither of them are much for loud yelling anymore. Wit turns his head so she can see him nod, some of his old frenetic energy showing in the tension of his back. She feels it against the cold-hard knots of her nipples, but she's just as glad she can't see his face. He has his mother's eyes: flat and gone to the grave before due time. Those eyes, more than anything else, make her hyper-aware of everything the world had lost.
Mik hadn't known how much he'd liked her until she saw those eyes recognize her. It hadn't mattered that she barely knew him. He hadn't cared that she carried another boy's baby. They were survivors, salvaging what the dead couldn't take with them, and what the dead couldn't take were teenage hormones. Desperation is all the emotion a relationship needed these days. To have more than that is a glitter of gold among the wreckage of their lives.
They're cautious approaching the fire, but there isn't much risk. The inhuman things kill with sadism and hate, but they rarely stuck around after the kill. If it was human, it was already dead and therefore beneath notice. If it wasn't human, they'd hear the mechanical squeal of gloating or cursing if something had stayed behind. Wit drives a slow circuit of the fire, looking outward alertly, and Mik stares inward. Part of her catalogues potentially useful debris lying outside the blast radius, steaming in the cold air. That part of her regrets that this wasn't a human death site. Humans left more to use.
Whatever it had once been, it had been yellow and black before the flames crisped everything soot-dark. It had a car shape, but that didn't mean anything. Humans drove cars, but humans wouldn't have torn up the ground like this. It wouldn't have taken nearly as much firepower to kill them, either. Whatever this thing had been, it hadn't died easily.
Mik nudges Wit's neck again. He swings the bike around, and they approach the fire at an angle. He's careful, watching the ground for sharp-edged shrapnel. These things are made of unEarthly metals that slice through rubber, flesh, and Earth metals like hot knives through butter. When they're close enough to feel their faces redden and knuckles burn, Wit stops. For a long moment, they both bask in the overwhelming warmth. The sky has been ash-gray for too long, and what had once been California is too cool for motorcycle rides.
It takes them a while to get truly warm, but when they're ready, they slip from opposite sides of the bike in a move so smooth it looks practiced. Having done it so often, they don't even notice their own ease. Instead, they go their separate ways. Mik moves off to pick up those pieces she thinks she can use, having a better eye for mechanical repairs, and Wit…gets out a loaf of bread.
It's deformed and grubby with the ride in a saddlebag, but he flicks out a jackknife and saws off hunks without hesitating. When it's been reduced to fairly uniform pieces, Wit takes a few steps closer to the flames and finds a flat piece of metal with a red symbol on it. His shoes have holes in them. It takes him a little while to kick the makeshift metal plate until it's positioned right to catch the heat. Then he places the bread on it and retreats back into cooler air. With the patience of a vulture, he stands by and waits. Mik occasionally wanders to the bike and measures bits of this and that against it, lost in her repairs. The alien burns. Incidentally, it also makes toast.
What the dead can't take with them is sometimes as simple as a crematory fire on a cold night. It's toast out of old, squished bread. The two survivors eat that toast in silence, and they eat tiny, microscopic flakes of red with their meal. When the morning comes, the smoke has become nothing more than a wisp of ash against gray clouds. Wit and Mik move on, and in their living bellies they carry a bit of death-reborn, perhaps, or just salvaged.