Title: With All the Dying Leaves I Scream: Chapter 1

Authors: Lassroyale
Warning: Angst, hurt/comfort
Spoilers: Zombieland movie
Rating: PGWord Count:
Pairings: Tallahassee/Columbus(eventual)

Summary: When Columbus gets hurt and left behind, Tallahassee has to decide: salvation on the open road, or redemption in eyes of a broken boy?

A/N: My first Zombieland fanfic! Looks like it will be a couple of chapters. Also, this is what I started for a prompt in the Zombieland kinkmeme...it's grown way past that, methinks. As this is my first Zombieland fic, I apologize for any OOC'ness. I'm still trying to get down the character's voices as I interpret them.

Chapter 1

Tallahassee leaned restlessly against a broken fence post which skirted the narrow, uneven country road that led towards a shit-hole little town called Ransom. It probably at one time had had more cows than cars. His breath was visible in the crisp air; it was late fall and the leaves were as dead as most of the country's population. The ground was hard beneath his boots, and part of him, the part of him that used to know this season as a time for gloves and candy, knew winter was a stone's throw away.

It was going to be a cold one, but the kid had suggested they head southwest, go to Arizona where it was warm. For a moment, Tallahassee allowed himself the rare smile - not the Jester's mask, his face frozen in the rigor of false bravado - but something real and fucking terrifying. He shook it off with a scowl.

Too close - he was too fucking close.

He scrubbed the palm of his hand across his jaw, callouses rough as they pulled against his stubble. These thoughts weren't for him. He was meant to kill zombies and survive, not sit and fucking ponder the why's and how's of things. Yet part of him knew that ever since he let that stupid kid in the truck with him, things had changed irrevocably.

There was no going back to the way it used to be, not anymore - not since meeting Columbus.

Suddenly, there was a shout to his left: panicked, high-pitched and female. Tallahassee turned, sharp, quick – no lazy shift, the stink of adrenaline curling up from his skin in immediate response – and saw two figures crest the horizon at a dead run.

It was Wichita and Little Rock; two figures, not three.

Something twisted in his chest and Tallahassee straightened, scanning the area behind the two girls like a prairie dog on high alert. He squinted against the glow of the setting sun, his mouth suddenly dry for reasons other than the cold wind that plucked earnestly at his clothing.

He had expected to see Columbus trailing after the pair, maybe firing haphazardly (and uselessly) over his shoulder or some shit, but where the lanky boy should have been, there was nothing. Then there was movement, a shift in the air, and for the briefest of moments Tallahassee thought he saw a curl of brown hair breach his line of sight. The wind shifted unexpectedly and it dragged with it the smell of days old rot. A low rumble reached him; first a soft moan that swayed on the air, which rose in crescendo as it drew closer.

Zombies – a shit ton of zombies too, all of them ambling, running, and generally moving in his direction, intent on one thing only: meat.

He was still standing there when Wichita and Little Rock passed him and flew towards the Hummer, wrenching open the doors with frantic, clumsy fingers. He remained rooted to the spot, deaf to the girls' screams as he drew his sawed-off – he told Columbus to take something better than that double barrel, the fucking idiot – and unloaded a round into the rotting horde.

He stayed until he was forced to retreat, blue eyes searching amongst the herd for a glimpse of life. Nothing. Something again twisted within him, but Tallahassee just didn't have the fucking time to examine it. Instead, he did the only thing he could given the situation: he survived.

He holstered the sawed off and ran to the Hummer, swinging himself up and inside with the same unlikely grace and adroitness that saved his ass in Pacific Playland. He shoved Wichita roughly out of the driver's seat with more force than was necessary - didn't care - and gunned it, his foot heavy on the petal as the Hummer tore down the road with a roar like a wounded beast.

***

They drove in silence for a while, the close quarters of the car charged with unspoken questions and explanations. Tallahassee, for his part, seethed with accusations that loitered on the tip of his tongue, ready to burst from the spaces between his teeth. Next to him, Wichita was regarding him with those big eyes of hers, quietly imploring him not to ask, to let it go, to bury the questions - the memory - in gun smoke and blood.

All at once it seemed too much and he slammed on the brakes, hard. Wichita flew forward and bloodied her nose on the dashboard with a muffled curse. Tallahassee's seatbelt caught him mid-toss - funny how another of the kid's neurotic rules had rubbed off on him when he wasn't paying attention.

At the thought of Columbus something dark burned behind his eyes. It was a look he'd worn few times before and it meant any number of things; anything from lust to hate. In this case, it was fear, the type of fear that coiled like anger in the belly and was unrecognizable to everyone except the person it gripped. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel and he stared straight ahead at the desolate stretch of road in front of him.

"What happened?" he grunted, the sound grinding through clenched teeth. It was harsh in his own ears; deep and dangerous, barely recognizable despite the burr of his drawl. Wichita flinched back from him. Behind them, Little Rock began to cry big crocodile tears, her low, childish sobs filling the car.

"We just wanted to make some hot chocolate," Wichita snapped, anger and the overwhelming need to protect her little sister aiding her courage, "the zombies heard the sound of the kettle going off."

"And?" he pressed, finally looking round to fix her with a hard expression.

Now it was her turn to look away. "The floor must've been rotting," she said as tonelessly as she could manage, "Columbus caught a weak patch and fell through to the basement."

"And ya left 'im down there for the zombie's to chow on," growled Florida; it was a statement, not a question.

"Yeah," answered Wichita, glancing back at Little Rock, "otherwise we would've been chow too."

Finally, Tallahassee's infamous temper came to a head. He was shouting at Wichita, hell, he was shouting at Little Rock, who only responded by crying harder. His voice, loud as a thunderclap, filled the car. His rage, fucking full of intensity and passion, spilled out onto the streets. Wichita screams too, her pretty face contorted and red with fear and fury, frayed nerves getting the best of both of them.

He closed his fingers around the steering wheel tighter - each minute he stayed the harder it was to keep from breaking something. He doesn't know where the anger comes from, doesn't understand why the thought of Columbus, crumpled and alone in the cold darkness of some dead family's basement makes his chest so tight that he can hardly breathe. He doesn't know when he became so fucking attached, especially to that goddamn good-for-nothing kid.

What he does know, is that he's packed up the Ohio's duffel with extra sweatshirts and has strapped himself with a small arsenal, by the time his head clears enough to realize he's standing in the middle of the road. Wichita and Little Rock are by the Hummer, looking at him with scared confusion, though in Wichita's case, her confusion is matched in spades by her frustration.

"Where are you going?" she yells.

Tallahassee knows and he doesn't, but he replies anyway, repeating what he's been repeating this whole time. "I trusted you two with 'im."

"What the fuck does that mean?" screams Wichita, holding her sister by the shoulders so she can't run after his retreating figure.

But Tallahassee doesn't answer. He just keeps walking, his anger fading to worry, which itself soon faded to a sort of macabre, foolish determination. He doesn't answer, because he's not sure what the words mean either.

Fuck it though. He's fixin' to find out, one way or another… and the answer lies miles down the road, back at Ransom. The answer lies with the kid - wherever he may be.

(To be continued)