Disclaimer: We do not own Young Justice, the comic or the show, or any of the characters associated with it. We make no profit from this work of fiction; it is purely for entertainment purposes.
A/N: This is an entry for The ULTIMATE Collab Challenge! located in the Young Justice Fanfiction Challenges forum. This was made as a collaborative effort between 30secondstomarsfan101 and shintas1st.
Funny how time seems to stretch on forever when things go wrong, when everything twists itself inside out and you're terrified to take a single step because anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and it will go so far wrong that right will vanish like it never even existed.
His dad always remarks on the fact that he's not the kind of kid afraid to take chances and make moves. He also cautions him, warns him that there's consequences for every action, every path that he could possibly choose to take. As a result the boy has always thought himself more than capable of holding his own, but now... now he's not so sure.
"Ace?"
He knows he should be staying as quiet as possible, but whispering the shepherd's name will make him wag his tail against his side, and he really needs to be sure the dog is there beside him. His father has trained the dog so well that he isn't even audibly panting. Ace can be a shadow when he needs to, and now, tucked away in the back of an overturned minivan with them shuffling around about twenty feet away, they both need to be shadows.
The flashlight in the boy's hand is off but he presses the head of it against his stomach anyways in case his shaking fingers decide to accidentally tap over the power switch. Along with the dead cell phone and charger in his pocket is his switchblade, more of a security blanket than a weapon. They were the only things he'd had the chance to grab from his bag when the bus crashed.
The boy shudders at the memory, pressing his fingers along the outline of the folded blade. Despite the fact that a gun would be much more effective against the things that that horrible sickness turns people into, it still manages to soothe him. His father doesn't like guns, has never allowed him to touch one, and he doesn't plan on getting close enough to those things to use it anyways.
His fingertips feel sore and he knows it's not just because he rubs them over his jeans every few seconds to make sure the phone and knife are still there. He can't see the torn and bloodied nails in the dark, the skinned knuckles or the sliced palms, but he can still feel the dull ache and burn of the injuries. It's enough to make him cringe when the ripped fabric on the hip of his pants catches one of the small splinters of glass stuck in his skin.
He'd been spending a few days at one of his friend's houses; a boy named Wally. Wally, he remembers, lives... lived a couple cities away, the distance making it harder for the two to spend time together. Time they'd taken for granted when they were younger, closer, and safer. Wally had been so excited when he'd made the plans for a slumber party, they both were. Memories of smiles and the ever present scent of baked goods from his best friend's aunt's kitchen break under the thought that, ironically, he won't have to worry about whether or not they'd have time to spend together ever again.
Stopping himself from snorting derisively like he is so used to comes easily when he finds trying not to suffocate as his throat tightens and his stomach collapses in on itself much more important. Between the smoke and the lump in his throat it's almost impossible to breathe, fear the only thing able to stifle the wheeze before the air leaves his lungs. There's no doubt in his mind that the milky eyed creatures mulling over the wreckage of the bus not far off would pick up on the sound; he's seen them track down a kid- Wally- on far less.
He bows his head in the darkness and suddenly it's so much harder to lock the pained sounds down deep inside. He shouldn't have thought about that. Even in the pitch black quiet he knows Ace can tell how sharp of a turn his emotions are taking. The dog's head is pressed to his shoulder now, heavy and warm. Slim shoulders quiver and shake, but Ace's presence gives him the strength to drag himself to his hands and knees and breathe before things can get any worse. The nausea and dizziness subside soon enough and he wipes traces of tears from his eyes, searching for an escape route through slightly blurred vision.
He needs to focus. Why is it so hard to just pay attention to the obviously deadly monsters right in front of him? Stupid brain, there will be time to mope and cry later. At least, he hopes there will be.
The things sniff and rotate through the torn streets, seeming to check and make way for one another, searching for food and moving on but keeping keen eyes out for others who may be more lucky. More than once he's heard growls of warning erupt into snarls, and though he's grateful for the distraction the thought of what it is that they're fighting over turns his stomach.
Another scuffle and he moves, darting left and right, making sure to avoid the ears and eyes of the city's new inhabitants. Ace isn't too far behind, belly low to the ground like a wild thing stalking. The soft crackle of gravel beneath his feet sets his heart off like a bottle rocket though the sound garners no response and he sighs mentally, the relief dissipating when he remembers he still needs to find his way off of the overpass.
Thankfully the state of the actual bridge itself is sound, but with so much twisted metal and shattered glass strewn with gasoline it's anything but safe.
The boy silently thanks his father for influencing his choice in wardrobe, the dark colors that much more beneficial when fingers covered in sickly, bubbling skin curl against the bumper of a nearby pickup and slowly lower one of the sick to ground level. He freezes and Ace follows suit though the animal's hackles rise as he pulls his lips away from his teeth in warning.
The German Shepherd's body tenses, trembling with the instinctual urge to attack, but he hasn't been given the order and he waits. Even when his young master clenches trembling hands tight at his sides and forces himself not to take a step back. Even when the creature gurgles strangely, drawing in close enough to the boy to ruffle the clipped black bangs hanging low across his brow with a deep snort.
He's never seen one this close up before. The skin is oily and greying, bubbled and smooth in places and roughly patched in others. The wet snorts remind him of small children with runny noses though the yellow mucus threatening to spatter his face at any moment is laced with red and oozing from a near skinless nose. He can tell it used to be a woman despite the lack of hair and grotesquely afflicted body shape. She snorts again, inhaling the scent of dirt, oil, and smoke, and for once he's glad to be covered in filth. Scars run the length of her face and he briefly wonders if she was slashed by a bear. Whatever caused the wounds is his savior now; the mutated woman is completely blind and, unable to pick up a descent trace of his scent, shifts to move away.
He wants to sigh in relief but thinks better of it. He's not stupid. The deepest curse in existence, however, is not enough to describe the crude mix of acidic hate and fear that roils in his gut when her flabby bald form ceases it's turn to set blind eyes on him again. Perhaps she really can sense him there, or perhaps it's merely the hunger inspiring the rumbling in her belly that he can feel more than hear. Whatever it is, she utilizes her sense of touch, and disturbingly thin fingers attached to a fat jellyfish-like hand graze his chin and upward, catching his lips, his nostrils.
Terrified, he can't help but jump, alerting the thing with quick movements and nearly losing an eye for it. Her nails scrape painfully at his nose when he jerks back and then slash higher, raking burning welts just shy of his left eye. In the instant of panic he realizes for the first time since the crash that his shades are gone and marvel at how dark the world has become that he hadn't even noticed.
She looses contact with him as he scuttles away but swipes at him still, snarling, furious over the possible loss of food so close. In his flight he stays silent, praying that the others will ignore her sounds of anger, thinking she is merely bickering with one of her own kind. Her growls and screams, however, are of acute loss and frustration. They know she's found something, and they know that she's losing it.
He's barely to the guardrail when the sounds of chaos reach him. Hard cool metal slaps into his torso and he gasps for air, seeking out the ground below. The highway is a seventeen foot drop and just as littered as the bridge itself. All manner of grisly impalements and decapitations whirl through his mind in kaleidoscope fashion and he can't remember ever hearing Ace bark so loudly. In an instant he's moving again, the crunch of glass and grunts of exertion riding his heels and he knows if he looks back now it will be just like high heights and doing the forbidden -looking down- only to fall.
If he can just scale the next sedan, if he can ignore the mangled and burned corpse inside and hurdle over the guardrail, he can tuck and roll to the safety of the grassy hill separating the highway from the exit. Without thinking he leaps, one foot meeting the dented hood of the ruined car and launching him to the smooth surface of the guardrail only a couple feet away.
'Balance, walk a few feet to safety, you can do it, it's simple.'
Faintly the tick of Ace's nails scrabbling over the hood of the car reach him, and then a yelp and he turns, fearful blue eyes peering over his shoulder in the instant that he loses his balance.
The fall is barely a second but he has time to panic over the sight of the shepherd fighting to wrench his hind paw free of the grotesquely bony fist of the ex-toll collector. Somehow an inhumanely cruel spring of hope crawls it's way into his chest as his momentum allows him to try and gather his feet under himself. He tries to pretend it's like gymnastics, like he's taking a tumble from the horse and he can recover if he just stays focused.
But it's nothing like the horse. The ground is too far away, there's no protective padding to cushion his fall, and the remains of cars await his landing like so many eager hands. Asphalt rushes up to meet his sneakers and everything is wrong. The way the ball of his foot meets first, the way his toes succumb to the forced stop, the way his legs give beneath him, the way they crack.
There's a moment when he thinks he's dead. But then that thought gives way to the thought that if he's dead then would he still be thinking? Confusion parts the inky blackness like molasses and his face is resting on gravel and glass and everything hurts and it's hard to breathe. Something is pressing into his stomach and he doesn't know what it is. It troubles him that he doesn't have the strength to even whine but he hears barking in the distance, hopes desperately that he isn't hallucinating, and smiles deliriously at the dirtied sneakers coming to a stop inches from his face.
There's hands on him, turning him over, and this time he does whine, tears spilling as dried blood caked to the side of his face and matted to his hair gives painfully to the careful touch. How long has he been laying here?
"Ace?"
No, Ace doesn't have hands. Somewhere deep inside he wants to laugh at the thought. Ace doesn't have sneakers either. He's a dog.
The hands are back, straightening his legs as much as they dare while he's still conscious, and he's thankful he can't feel them; they look awful. Hazy blue eyes find the face of another -a girl, was she a sister or a mother, he would have liked to have had a sister he thinks- and his brows furrow.
"He's so stupid," the boy murmurs, the image of a freckled redhead flashing through his mind-"Mind if I call you Robin?"- what a stupid nickname he couldn't even fly. The girl doesn't answer, just takes his hand as he stares bitterly up at the overpass. How long has he been laying here? He suddenly misses his dad.
"Where's Ace?" His vision blurs and sways, and he swears he hears and echo of a question seeping into his mind. When he finally manages to focus again he finds her staring down at him sadly. She must not have heard the barking. Maybe he was hallucinating after all.
He wants to say something more, to at least hear the girl's voice. He's fairly certain she's real because he can just feel the warmth and pressure of her hand in his beyond the numbness creeping into his limbs. A shudder passes through him and he opens his mouth and yawns, and suddenly pain spikes in his jaw and being awake hurts and it sucks and he groans and screws his eyes shut.
A moment of silence passes and he relaxes slowly. He doesn't like the numbness, the lack of feeling, but the darkness manages to be scarier than the not-pain and he opens his eyes to look at her again. Her hair is so light it hurts his eyes but it's a good kind of pain. He can't feel how tightly he's gripping her hand but he can feel the dull aching throb of a headache at the backs of his eyes and that's enough for him as the lids grow too heavy for him to fight and he sinks into a wakeless sleep.