Title: You've Got a Way of Watching the World Divide

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairing: Bela/Sarah

Genres: Romance/Hurt/Comfort

Rating: Teen

Summary: The apocalypse arrives two months after Bela's deal ends. She still waits.

A/N: Written for SPN Femslash Bingo for the prompt Zombie Apocalypse. Also written for femslashficlets for prompt #032 hurt/comfort. And a fill on my h/c_bingo card for the prompt 'self-harm.'

Soundtrack: Title and lyrics are from Revis' 'Your Wall'

~Everyone is gone, let it slip away

Look at you, at the end of it

This moment will rise

And it takes you further inside~

There are burns on the underside of her arms, second-degree by the bubbling under her skin, raw and red and angry skin. There is a heightened numbness more frightening than pain. There is pain there but only in the background, where she can't touch it, can't grasp it with quaking fingers.

She had to get the fear out somehow.

Two months past her deal. She still waits.

There she was: match held securely between her index finger and thumb, a surge of pride, lack of hesitation. The agony was a spark in her mind as each new second passed, but it wasn't something she could hope to reach. She had the good sense to pull the flame away before her skin could begin to yellow. There are four matches on the floor beneath her, but she can't remember lighting each one on the side of the box.

Maybe if she disguises herself enough then Lilith will never find her.

Bela lifts her head at the sound of nearby scratching. The devourers are more prone to pounding on doors, but scratching isn't foreign once they sense flesh. This scratching though, it seems more purposeful.

She places her eye firmly against the peephole, catches sight of familiarity. Her hand wraps around the doorknob as if she's done it a thousand times before, pulls the door open quickly to let Sarah inside.

Bela usually gives her a good once over when she comes back from a supply run, Sarah does the same with her, but Bela's finding it hard to focus and trusts Sarah to tell her if something's wrong. It's more like Bela to refrain from sharing information anyway. Despite the overwhelming urge to stare at a fixed point, she sees the blood stretched out on Sarah's cheeks and neck, although blearily. Her clumsy fingers try to rub the red away at her neck.

"Got ambushed," Sarah explains. She sighs heavily and discards her soft, corduroy messenger bag. Bela relies on tactile things when she needs to bring herself back; it doesn't always work but it's always worth a shot. "Found some protein bars and cheetos. Took the crayons just in case. Didn't know they made periwinkle anymore. Never came in my box." Sarah catches the underside of Bela's arm and her eyes widen. "What the hell happened?" Sarah's about a heartbeat away from threatening to divulge their location, but her leading Bela away from the door means Bela doesn't have to express that point. "Goddamn it, Bela," she warns. "Don't you dare go away again, I can't take another round of it."

"Out of my control."

Then Sarah notices the discarded, blackened matches on the floor.

Her hands land on Bela's arms and Bela goes back to rubbing the blood off of Sarah's sun-bleached skin, focusing on her cheeks now. Sarah lets her, she's such a goddess and she doesn't even know, but Bela can't think about that right now. Sarah will tell her that she needs Bela as much as Bela needs her. A sharp laugh burrows its way out of Bela's throat: Sarah can be so bloody ridiculous sometimes.

There's scratching at the door again but Sarah pays no mind. Not real, idiot.

"There's no zombies outside, Bels." She hasn't taken to calling them devourers. Sarah's become quite good at reading the signs of intruders nearby. Bela finds it hard to worry herself over the devourers when there are still hell hounds on her tail. She can hear them barking and howling and scratching. Sometimes they startle Sarah awake, but she never talks about them. Bela has to sometimes and Sarah listens, but she never acknowledges their existence in words.

It helps Bela chalk them up to imagination when she's susceptible to it.

"You tell me," Sarah's hands cup Bela's face. Bela finds her gaze for a second but then her focus falters, gaze falling. She loves it when Sarah watches her, loves eyes on her back, on her face, on her. "You let me know when you start feeling it again. We need to find a better place to hole up, try to get farther away from the city…," she drifts off, knows Bela's not really listening. It's not that she does it on purpose, she wonders if Sarah knows that all the time instead of just some, it's just her brain keeps short-circuiting.

She's going crazy. She's going crazy and Sarah does the supply runs, puts Bela to bed when she can't move, rattles off names of artists and their paintings - Sarah insisting they're not all paintings - when Bela needs something other than the scratching to fall asleep to.

Sarah grabs her hands but Bela doesn't want them acknowledged. She pulls them away, but the skin grates against Sarah's, sending a shock to her system. Sarah steps back rather than forward, eyebrows raised when Bela manages to stay on her feet. Sarah wouldn't have let her fall, but she's taken to standing back whenever Bela's unstable. It's not that Bela ever could hurt her, but this is the first time she's played with matches. She gets it.

It's a good thing she's not looking at her, to see Sarah's own fear.

"We've got one roll of gauze left." Sarah walks off to the bathroom and doesn't turn to see if Bela follows. It doesn't matter because she does, still on her own two feet, her fingers brushing her hair behind her ears nervously until she realizes her hair is sticking to the burns and stops. She falls down heavily onto the toilet. Sarah reaches for a match to light the lantern, but pushes the box away after thought. She flicks the flashlight on instead, holds it in her mouth. The ointment is cold on Bela's skin, an afterthought, the gauze scratchy. She itches it but Sarah takes her hand, stretches out her fingers, kisses each one methodically. "Bels," she presses. "We'll get away from the scratching." Them.

It's nice of her to say.

FIN