Disclaimer: I don't own the movie "The Rezort" or "Fear the Walking Dead." Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: This is a crossover between the zombie movie "The Rezort" and "Fear the Walking Dead." – The idea behind this crossover is that Archer is a different version of Thomas Abigail. Think different universes/crossover-ish stuff. Archer is what Thomas Abigail could/would have been if he hadn't been born with the knack for business. And because Archer wasn't the consummate business man, he never meant Strand and his life never went in that direction. – This this fiction I infer that Archer is bisexual.
Disclaimer: post movie, alludes/mentions/references "Fear the Walking Dead," alternative universes, zombies, gore, blood, canon appropriate violence, adult language, drama, angst, romance, sexual content.
Adevism
Chapter Three
She was sorting through her belongings in her room when the sound of him yelling for her echoed through the house.
She burst onto the deck just off the kitchen the same moment he tossed her a silencer for her Glock. Heart in her throat as a small group of dead snarled up at them. Reaching ineffectually towards the second floor as bloody hands speared into the sky.
They were freshly turned.
Fast. Aggressive. Jerky.
Dangerous.
"There much have been a breach in the fence by the road," he told her, voice clipped and professional as he aimed down the sight of his rifle. Thumbing the bottom of the metal shutter so it opened completely. Giving them room to maneuver. "We need to deal with these and then go find it. There are no more than seven, tops. Shouldn't be a problem, but use the silencer- we don't want to attract attention. Dead or otherwise."
She nodded, understanding.
Sometimes it wasn't the dead you had to worry about.
Sometimes it was people.
The truth was, Archer had never made her worry about the balance.
Not even on the island when he'd started walking away.
He had that one quality about him.
The one that knew the difference between an acceptable risk and suicide.
Between who could be saved and who couldn't.
Lewis' voice was in the back of her head as she aimed. Like even the memory of him was desperate to be helpful. Desperate to be thought of. Desperate to be remembered.
Breath in.
Relax.
Pull the trigger.
Again.
She shook it away.
Instead, she looked at Archer.
She wasn't surprised that when he nodded at her, everything else slotted into place.
"Sadie wasn't wrong," she said quietly, hours later. Looking down at the tangled mess of limbs, teeth, blood and dark-stained clothes they'd piled on the outside of the fence before patching up the breach as best they could. Keeping the crashed car where it was - blocking the worst of the hole - before covering the rest with plywood. Disguising the rest with some green and black netting that almost blended in with the shrubs and fencing. Enough that someone passing by in a car might not see it. "At some point we stopped viewing them as people. I know we had too. But, well, she wasn't wrong, was she?"
He looked up, squinting through the stinging smoke that'd settled into the valley over the past few days. Trying to wipe the blood from his hands but only succeeding in smearing it deeper into the creases.
"I went there, to the Rezort, because I thought there was something wrong with me. There had to be. Everyone else seemed to be able to deal with it and move one. But not me. Everyone knew what to do when it came to them. But when I got there and we were on that rock, before you took your first shot- she looked at me. She looked at me as I looked at her and I didn't feel hate. I felt responsible."
She looked down at the tangle of bodies. One was elderly. One was her age. One could have been Jack's twin. One was wearing a backpack. The crashed car had a baby carrier without a baby in it. The woman at the bottom of the pile wore a wedding ring that flashed brilliant orange through the blood-drenched stone.
"I made some inquiries," Archer answered finally, turning away slowly as he led the way down the embankment towards the house. "Sadie? She had a blog, she talked a lot about how the Rezort was desecration. She lost her brother in the war. She likened them to a living graveyard that should be respected but dealt with. Reminding everyone they were all people once. They had loved ones, people that cared, people who thought they were long buried and at peace. She believed that closing down the Rezort humanely was the only option. Then that group found her and sunk its claws in. They used her to advance their nutbag agenda. Right or wrong, the best intentions don't make the same consequences."
She caught up with him. Chest tight as she breathed through the ash and smoke.
"I saw people die in the war because they couldn't do what had to be done," he continued harshly, stride widening like he could put distance between him and his own thoughts. "I saw parents get ripped into when their children turned. It happened all the time. People couldn't handle the way the world was changing. But their inaction only cost more lives. Good intention, bad consequences. You tell me if it ever equaled out in the end."
It hadn't.
Of course it hadn't.
Two billion people had died in the first war.
Many of them preventable.
Like her father.
But that hadn't been the point.
It was about us, not them.
It was about the reflection.
The mirror-effect.
About the way we treated them and how it stood as a metaphor for how we treated the weakest of ourselves.
"But-"
The switch surprised her.
"I wasn't lying when I told you why I was there. War was war. And if I was trying to recapture some part of that, that's my own business. But that place was-" he shook his head. Keying in the code for the door and gesturing for her to go first. Scanning the front lawn for a long moment before following her inside. "It wasn't war, it wasn't even slaughter. It was mockery. And it only got worse when the truth came out."
The freshness of the recycled air was soothing. But much like the Rezort had been, it was fake. Masking the ugly truth that was going on behind reinforced concrete and the latest human ingenuity had to offer.
"So no, she wasn't wrong," he muttered, re-loading his rifle quickly before setting it aside and inspecting both of their Glocks. "Misguided as she was, in a weird way we all owe her something."
She crossed her arms over her chest. Shivering a little.
"A second chance to save ourselves," she hummed. Leaning over so their shoulders could brush. Watching him watch her as the world around them narrowed down like they were caught in the cross-hairs. Vibrant and bright with the all possibilities lurking behind what wasn't being said.
The silence this time was companionable rather than damning.
Progress, she decided.
When it came, the blast wave shook the house like an earthquake. Waking her from a dead sleep with a frightened scream. But unlike the first time, or even the second time she'd survived a Brimstone protocol, she was only alone for a moment. Because before she could fall, before she could shudder off the bed and join the breaking glass and crumbling drywall, he was there. Bursting into the room and wrapping around her in every possible way. Tumbling into the sheets as he covered her with himself, everything he had, spine curving. Inadvertently ensuring that everything in her life suddenly came beautifully full circle.
It felt like what the people in her therapy group had described with smiles on their faces before they stopped coming to the weekly meetings. Because even then, caught up in that awful plunge of shot-nerves and building fear as he pressed her name into her hair - she felt the farthest thing from alone.
They watched it together.
Staring without really comprehending as the mushroom cloud domed and spread through the shattered window. And just like the first time, they saw it before they felt it. Tensing before the sound reached them. Already moving, flinching, scrambling before the roof concaved into the kitchen and Archer pulled her underneath the metal desk in the corner. One hand slipping under her shirt as he dragged her across the hardwood. Rough hands palming at the curl of her - ribs creaking like warning signs - before he yanked her underneath just in time for the rest of the windows to shatter from the shockwave.
And just like she had before, she wondered how such a terrible thing could actually be considered a good sign. Considering it meant that least there was someone left alive to make the call.
Three days later cheers sounded in the distance. They took turns peering through the binoculars at the celebrating crowds that passed the gates. A flowing migration of refugees and survivors heading towards one of the safe zones and displacement camps. Revelry marred only by the occasional gunshot or scream as people picked off the surviving dead as they went.
Still, Archer didn't open the gates and she didn't ask. She knew better. Instead she listened to him talk on a satellite phone to god knows who. Trading information, checking on his businesses, properties and people. Even organizing repairs on the house as soon as the roads were clear.
Because, yes- apparently, he owned a construction company too.
Leaving her to wonder, as she watched him juggle calls effortlessly while still standing watch on the mostly undestroyed section of the kitchen porch. What happened now as they waited for the world to restart.
Two days later, the news spluttered back on the air. Showing different anchors that stuttered through their opening remarks and stared at the studio beyond the camera with skittish eyes.
Humanity had won.
For now.
The night was quiet, almost eerily so, when she slipped out of bed. Curling her toes across the dusty hardwood before letting the sheet flutter to the floor like an errant ghost.
Who was she now?
The shadows that ran down the hall didn't faze her as she angled left. Skimming her fingers down the cool strip of beaten copper that'd been flattened into the coal grey walls. Instead, she felt bold as she conquered every dark corner. Every footstep that brought her closer to the room at the split-neck of the hall.
Who did she want to be?
She'd been remade three times in her life and only two of them had been her choice. The first time around that change had been forced. Murdered. Replaced. The girl had died to become the woman. The mature, trembling thing that'd existed after the war. The one with prescription bottles half full of chalky little pills and clutched her purse in her lap every time she sat down for group therapy.
She paused at the threshold. Resting her hand against the door to his room. Acknowledging it for what it was. A sign post. Something that was going to be her choice and maybe even his. Because regardless of what happened after this, it would be their choice. It had to be.
The island had changed her again, in the beginning it felt like the first time. Forced. But it turned into something more. Deeper and self-connected. It'd been a personal evolution and a rediscovery of herself all at the same time. Realizing that it wasn't her that needed fixing. Realizing that she could be strong. No, she was strong. She'd always been strong. The only thing was she was a different kind of strong. She wasn't strong in the ways Archer was strong - or even Lewis. She was her father's daughter, but she found a way to survive with her heart intact.
And now she was changing again.
And so was he.
She pushed open the door.
The glint of his eyes glowed in the low-light as she knuckled the door shut behind her. Getting a strange thrill in knowing he was awake and watching her from the soft of the sheets. One leg bare and tangled in coal-black linen as she caught his throat working through an obvious swallow.
"Melanie?"
Her heart was in her throat, heavy with elation when he gripped her hips as she sat astride him. Feeling the firm of his cock fattening against her thigh as he shifted. Not once looking away from her face as she shook her hair free of its clip and let it drop behind her.
"I'm here," she murmured. Letting the words come naturally rather than being concerned with what they were or how they sounded. Enjoying the twitching play of his muscles underneath her as she brushed her hand down his bare chest. Nails flirting with the seam of the sheet, slowly easing it down. Not understanding how hungry she was for it until her fingers started raking gentle furrows between the trail of dark brown hair, soft muscle and star-studded skin that made up his front.
The one thing she would remember later is how he didn't seem surprised. Reverent. Wanting. Maybe even slightly disbelieving, but not surprised. Like the predator in him had sensed the possibility days ago. No, maybe weeks ago.
"You sure this is what you want?" he rasped. Voice like that moment before the fall when her feet left the cliff edge. Hitting open air like she'd been meant to fly all along.
Not quite stopping her as she leaned back and canted her hips - just to feel him. Seeming to give himself permission to rake his fingers down the long, butter-soft t-shirt he'd given her to wear that first night. The one that was three sizes to big, billowy to her knees and smelled like him. She leaned into it shamelessly before answering. Enjoying the rough catch as his callouses rasped like a subtle pause when his hands flirted with the jut of her hips.
She nodded in response. High on something that could just be the future as he looked up at her. Body following hers almost instinctively. Knees threatening to rise like he wanted to keep her there as she rocked back and forth. Letting him feel her. Damp and warm against the fat of his cock.
Choices.
Actions.
They were the things that made the difference.
That had the power to cull the dark, dangerous bird called fear from its nest in their chests.
She tipped her head back. Craning her neck towards the window to watch the clouds move in grey-blue bans across the sallow light of the moon. Heavy with rain and probably little to do with empty promises.
Change was in the air again.
Change for her.
Change for him.
Change for the entire world, if they let it.
The world needed to take a good hard look at itself and how it treated the people that relied its goodwill the most. Hope4U was just one example of many of what people - what corporations - were wiling to do to make money. She'd told the reporters that somewhere along the way people had lost themselves. And it wasn't because of the war or the dead- that had just exasperated things. No, this had been happening before all that. The Rezort was just the latest face it presented to the world with bared teeth instead of a smile.
But for them, it was time to take a chance on something other than just surviving.
Something better than just getting by.
"Yes," she murmured back, finally answering his question. Resting her hands on top of his as she placed them firmly on her hips. Reminding him that he was welcome. That she wanted this. Him. "And you?"
His face was earth, fire and rain all at once. Every part of him easing to a sudden, eclipsing pause as they breathed together. Letting the moment sink in slowly. Like for the first time - with one simple little question - she'd actually managed to surprise him.
But the pause didn't last for long.
Because he answered with her a kiss. Lunging up to meet her as he sent her tumbling back into the sheets. Caught awkwardly between his legs until he followed her. A solid, dependable weight pressing downdowndown as she let her teeth graze his ear. Laughing at the honesty.
Hope was contagious that way.
He grunted - exhaling fettered and surprised - when she closed her hand around his cock. Squeezing him again just to hear the sound as his hips stuttered into hers. Delighted when the sound turned into a groan. Feeling his pulse against her skin as he shifted his weight to his shoulders and let her guide him into her.
He was a blunt, impossible pressure for a handful of beats before-
Her nails dug into his back, toes curling and alive as he buried his free hand under her head – tangling with her hair. Following her lead when she rocked up with her hips. She bit at the inside of her lips as he stretched her. Rhythm set and edging towards fast as they picked up on each others urgency. Realizing it was her crying out when he pulled out almost completely before surging back in again. Making her flush pink as the sound of her own wet reached her.
God.
Archer actually cursed.
Like it was too much.
Too good.
They'd only just started, and-
She didn't understand what he was doing until he'd wormed a hand between them and rolled his thumb across her center. Making her cry out. Peaking bright and loud for a future she knew she was more than ready for. Realizing in the aftermath that it was the first time she'd truly seen him smile as he twitched, over-stimulated and sated, in a heap on top of her.
The dead deserved to rest.
The living deserved to live.
A/N: This story is now complete. Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think.