In This Empty Wilderness
A/N: This is just a one-shot and won't be continued so I won't be revealing much about what happened before this point as it's totally random!
Warning: Post-apocalpytic fic, with some disturbing themes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I swear.
The water was impossibly hot as it drifted, trickled over his skin and Neal tipped his head back, embracing the way the clear droplets ran over his eyes and touched his lips.
He hadn't had a shower, let alone a hot one, in over two years.
He grinned, pearly whites flashing in the darkened bathroom and a small laugh echoed throughout the stall, giddy, gleeful and overwhelmed.
Peter replied after a few moments, having to talk louder over the hum of the generator and the pulsating of the shower. "Hurry up, Neal. We can't stay long."
"But Peter-" Neal inhaled and continued to scrub at his scratched and bruised arms with the brilliantly refreshing pepper mint shower gel. "This shower's so hot."
"I know, but it's not safe. We've already been here an hour so dry off and get dressed."
Neal scowled through dripping eyelashes and reluctantly shut off the taps, groaning as the heat immediately began to dissipate and that clawing, frightening chill took a hold of his body once again. He saw Peters flashlight flicker through the distorted glass, first in his direction and then out into the hallway of the abandoned house (the only one they had ever found that contained a working generator) to check for anything remotely threatening.
Neal stilled, as did Peter because it was quiet.
Sure, in a world where 99.91% (or thereabouts) of its people were either dead or missing, it was always quiet, but not like this.
"Hurry up, buddy." Peter whispered, reaching blindly to grasp Neal's clothes and shove them into the stall.
Neal shook in both fear, exhaustion and cold as he pulled on his pants, shirt, jacket and sneakers before tossing his rug sac neatly over one shoulder.
His clothes stuck to his damp skin, making him crawl and inch and with a violent shiver, he stepped out into the bathroom and spared a glance with the former FBI agent.
Peter had drawn his shot gun and buckled his own bag around his shoulders and waist and he raised the weapon, hands steady, ready.
"Keep behind me-" The older man whispered and he apparently knew what his best friend was going to say, "Don't argue."
And so Peter let the way towards the door, poking his head out into the shadowed hallway looking both ways, gun levelled and cocked and prepared to take the head of anyone or anything that could hurt them.
Kill them.
Or take them.
Neal still wasn't sure which he'd prefer.
Left, right, left, right, left.
No one, not a soul, not a glimmer of life besides the scurry of diseased mice and cockroaches in their crevices. It was as dark as the hour just before dawn inside the house because for some unknown reason, the lights wouldn't work and any stray rays of ultra violet that managed to pierce the heavy, sodden curtains were absorbed and scattered in the dust, the darkness.
Neal moved stealthy behind his friend as Peter led the way down the hallway towards the stairs, picture frames still hung, still crooked upon the graying walls of the house. Through the inkiness, Neal could make out the radiant and smiling face of a little girl who was captured in every photograph, adored, loved.
But then it happened and her parents, a short man, a tall woman, were gone and so was she. Neal swallowed back the bile in his throat as they passed the last bedroom, its door not quite shut, and its eerie stillness unsettling.
Peter seemed to notice Neal's tension and the smell and he gently tugged on his friends sleeve to urge him forward in the gloom.
Once they had conquered the narrow stairs, they pushed out of the front door and onto the street where only silence remained and the forsaken and rusted wreckages of vehicles lined the streets, the sidewalks.
The trees had grown in those two years at an unnaturally fast rate and they twisted and looped around the lamp posts and overhead cables, leaves and vines entangled in one giant web of empty wilderness, encasing a lost civilisation in nature once again.
"There's nothing here." Neal murmured as the wind picked up and one of the flyers from the early days blew and crumpled on the ground where it was trapped beneath a car tire. "We should head back."
"Yeah." Peter simply nodded and hitched his gun over his shoulder as they began to walk down the centre of the road, the summer heat causing the uneasiness to fade just a little so they could relax in the forgotten world that was once their home.
"You never told me, but did Elle get anything off the radio?" Neal asked quietly, his throat sore and raw after the last of the fresh water they'd brought on their expedition had ran out.
"Something like that Neal, I think I would have mentioned it." Peter smiled, the lines around his eyes and mouth deepening in placid contentment. "Even Mozzie finally admitted it was just a stray signal bouncing around the atmosphere."
"Worth a try."
"Hmm." Peter sighed and they continued walking, at a slower pace than one who deem sensible in those days with those dangers but they were both tired of rushing.
Of running.
Besides, they were alone and they knew that because there was a small brigade of pigeons circling the trees, gray and black feathers falling and twirling in the July evening. There was also a cat, a little scrawny thing, all bones with a layer of dull tabby fur and one eye and a bent tail and it shot out between two trucks into Peter and Neal's path.
They stopped.
The cat stopped.
Humans and felines alike, stared.
"Hey, buddy. You look hungry." Neal whispered softly as he crouched down, ignoring the enraged hissing of the cat as its hackles rose and its claws dug into the tarmac.
But there was also a desperate growling emitting from its chest, within its stark and jutting ribs.
It was starving and couldn't help but creep forward, warily, as Neal pulled out a tin he'd been carrying around in his pocket and then his knife.
The cat seemed to yelp as a distant, long lost part of the former house pet recognised the label and it edged directly in front of Neal Caffrey, begging.
"I'm not going to ask why you're carrying a tin of cat food around in your pocket, Caffrey." Peter smirked at the two but didn't move.
"For times like these, Peter." Neal flashed a grin and grimaced as he began to tear through the metal of the container and get to the stuff inside.
The cat had got over its initial hatred and now had two paws on Neal's leg, head stretched up, lips parted, chest heaving.
"Don't touch the cat, its fleas probably carry the plague." Peter laughed, but there was an undertone of warning in his voice which Neal acknowledged.
"Eh, it didn't kill me last time."
Neal , with his elbow, pushed the cat away so he could empty the contents of the can onto the tarmac and the second he withdrew, the animal had leapt upon its prey and was devouring the jelly and meat without ever stopping for breath.
While it ate ravenously, Neal stood and with Peter, began to continue down the street, towards their temporary home.
"Remember to tell Mozzie we leave tomorrow. We can't spend all our time waiting for him." Peter said as he kicked a stray coke can from his path and watched it rattle and roll in the drain.
"You'd never leave him behind." Neal smiled cheekily because they both knew it was true.
It was then that Peter looked back over his shoulder and sure enough, the cat had finished its food and was jogging quietly behind the two humans, looking happier than it had reason to be.
"Oh look, you've got a friend."
Neal frowned and then caught up, eying the pitiful cat with a shrug of his shoulders.
He clicked his tongue and the animal moved faster, its lemon yellow eyes fixed firmly on the younger human with the food.
"You can't keep the cat, Neal." Peter remarked immediately before his friend got any ideas.
"You've got Satchmo." Neal countered, just as quickly.
"Satchmo is useful."
"Cats hunt mice. Satchmo is scared of mice."
Peter held up his hands in mock defeat and nudged Neal on the shoulder playfully.
"Fine, fine. What's his name?"
"Her name." Neal corrected with raised eyebrows, "is Asha."
"Asha? Why?"
Neal inhaled the sweet scent of summer and let the flap of the pigeons wings and the tapping of Asha's paws lull him to oblivion.
"It's Sanskrit." Neal said as if expecting that to mean anything to Peter but as the sky glowed it's most vibrant blue and the sidewalk sparkled with the remnants of warm summer rain, Neal wasn't afraid anymore.
For the first time in a long time, that tiny bud of light ignited inside him and it took a moment for him to work out what it was at first, but then he got it.
"Neal, what does Asha mean?" Peter questioned quietly, suddenly sensing the importance of the name choice.
"Hope. It means Hope."