Disclaimer: I don't own The 100 or Fear the Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: a tumblr anon asked for a Fear the Walking Dead/The 100 crossover so here we are. Prompt: "Okay so this might be too hokey but would you consider a Travis/Madison (do they have a ship name yet idk?) /Caryl/Kabby orgy crack!fic where they trade off partners and it's gr8."
Warnings: crossover, orgy, sex, partner sharing, sexual content, canon typical violence, emotional hurt/comfort.
(Is it) Desire?
Chapter One
The mechanics of how it happened wasn't the point.
It was the reality they were stuck with that mattered.
It had been three months since the breach. The moment when the air in front of them had fractured, warping around the edges before flaring suddenly outwards. Swallowing everyone but him and Madison in a blinding flash of light. Leaving them alone on the pier like the others had never been there at all.
Chris was gone.
Nick was gone.
Alicia was gone.
Daniel, Ofelia, Alex, Jake, Strand.
Everyone was just gone.
And left in their place were strangers. A man and woman in dark clothes like uniforms who looked around like they'd never seen San Diego before. Like they'd never seen a tractor trailer or a city. The clothes they were wearing. The burned out harbor. The infected. None of it.
As it turned out, they had good reason.
But at the time, it hadn't mattered.
Their children had been taken and there had been an unfamiliar animal slavering under his skin. It has been a downward slide after that. When Madison crumpled across the concrete like all the air had been taken out of her, salting the ground with tears that turned the air close – too close. Pulse pounding in his ears as the two strangers had tried one language, unfamiliar and garbled, not like anything he'd ever heard, before switching to another. English, more or less. Placating despite the gun held loosely, solider-ready in the man's hands and the crackling radio clipped on the woman's worn leather belt.
His right fist had only been hungry for blood after that.
It wasn't until later that he decided it was to Marcus' credit that he never hit him back.
The learning curve had still been steep on both sides after they'd gotten over the hard part. But they managed it. Together. Even if the idea of alternative universes and possible time travel was a harder pill to swallow than he thought considering what their world was now. Not to mention what he'd seen happen with his own eyes.
In the end they had to trust that Marcus and Abby's people were working on it. Because hell if they could do anything from this end. Even if things weren't in the middle of crashing down around them, he had a sneaking suspicion they would have all been chucked into the hospital for a mandatory psych-eval if they'd been caught looking for even half the stuff Abby figured they'd need just to get started. The other half, he was pretty sure, didn't exist yet.
Talk about a mind job.
They found a place in an apartment on the lower floor of a burned out high rise with an open deck and a cast bronze fire pit Abby and Madison found still in its box underneath a stack of deck chairs and a collapsible umbrella. Choosing to stick as close to the dock where it happened as they could. Ready to move at a moment's notice. Hiding from the infected and only going out when they needed supplies. On edge was an understatement no matter how many times Marcus and Abby assured them that they'd been safe in their camp when the distortion hit. Meaning that was probably where the others had been taken if they were right about having switched places.
It was barely more than survival mode, but it was the best they could do.
And as the days passed, they slowly started to navigate a new normal.
Marcus and Abby told them about their Earth. About the Ark and the war and the people – the Grounders - who'd somehow survived on Earth. Making a new civilization out of the ashes of the old. Abby told them about her daughter in exchange for stories about Chris, Nick and Alicia. They told them about their people. About how some things were exactly the same and others completely different.
He started staying up at night, talking quietly with Marcus over mugs of fire-steamed tea while Madison and Abby were sleeping. Wondering aloud what it said about humanity when in two different versions, two separate realities, mankind had managed to destroy itself.
Because that was the thing, wasn't it?
This infection?
It wasn't natural.
It wasn't what George had
It was man-made.
It had to be.
"Things will never be the same, will it?" he asked one night. Looking off over the ruined skyline as the soft glow of the suburbs, still slowly burning, haloed a half-arc around them for as far as the eye could see. When he closed his eyes he could still see it burning, distant and orange against his tired lids. He thought about L.A. About how there was probably nothing left. How Madison's house, the school, their neighbourhood, even the home his son had grown up in had probably burned along with it.
"No," Marcus replied simply, coming to stand beside him. Looking out at the city for a long moment before looking up. The sky speckled with unfamiliar stars and the lingering smog of a dying city. "But it isn't the end. It might look like it - feel like it. But's not. It's just harder."
The man blew out a long breath when he made no move to reply. Running a hand through his hair as the sleeves of his shirt – a dead man's shirt, forest green and undone at the cuffs – rucked up. Revealing strong forearms and pink branded scar he hadn't found the words to ask about yet.
"When the war made the Earth uninhabitable and our ancestors fled to the Ark, it was supposed to be our last stand. Mankind's last stand. It was the only place we could go. The only way we thought humanity could survive. Life on the surface was supposed to be impossible. The idea was that we would wait it out and hope the world would heal itself. But even then, there was no guarantee that when the Ark finally failed, there would be anything on Earth to come back to. But we were wrong. There was still hope – there was always hope – both on the Ark and on the surface. It was just different than we thought it would be."
He was still trying to imagine it, living your entire life in space. Looking down at the Earth, wondering. Waiting. Marcus and Abby had already told them about the food shortages and the lack of medical supplies. About the one child law and the Draconian style law they'd lived under and enforced in turn.
It was alien. Recognizable, but impossible. Like Alice peering through the looking glass. He could picture it, but there was nothing honest or tactile about it. Probably just about as impossible as the kids trying to explain a virus that kills you, then brings you back wrong and hungry, to Marcus' people.
Perspective was still everything, he supposed.
"I'm not saying things will ever be back to the way they were, because they won't. If things get better, when they get better, it will be hard," Marcus amended, firming up against the railing until they were brushing shoulders. Feeling the warmth of the action collect across the high of his cheeks when neither of them made a move to regain the space they'd lost.
"I'm not even saying things will get easier – they probably won't, not for a long time. Or that you won't lose more people, but- we can come back. All of us can come back. It's never as easy as a downward slope, Travis. Trust me, I know."
He kept his own company after that. Thinking about what Marcus had said as he watched the sky change colors long after the man bid him goodnight and went back inside.
Still, when Maddie came out and wrapped her arms around him from behind. Resting her chin in the crook where neck met shoulder, the smile that threatened to split across his cracked lips felt a whole lot like the words Abby and Marcus hadn't been able to find when they told them about the first time their feet had touched the ground.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be one more chapter, stay tuned.