You and McVries walk half the way to Wal-Mart before McVries stops.

"What?" you ask.

"Why have we been walking this entire time when we could just take a car?" he asked. "Can you drive?"

"Well, uh, I don't have my license," you say, tiptoeing around the question because you've never actually driven anything in your life. "…or my permit."

"But can you drive?" McVries asked. You shake your head and he rolls his eyes. "Damn it. I hate driving. I suck at it."

"Better than me," You say, and the two of you set off on a hunt for a suitable car. Eventually you come across a car that both of you agree is the sufficient level of awesomeness. Seriously, just imagine the coolest car ever that has room for a bunch of stuff that you're going to need from Wal-Mart and that's what it is.

McVries drives because, like you said, you've never actually driven anything in your life. It's sad, but true. You just never had the time, or maybe the motivation, or maybe you were too scared, to learn to drive. There was always someone else willing to drive. You never actually had to.

In hindsight, maybe you should've learned how to drive.

It's awkwardly quiet the way there. You flip through the radio stations, eventually just turning the radio off because it's all static. Apparently the afterlife has TV channels but no radio stations. Doesn't that make perfect sense.

You make a mental note to pick up some CDs at Wal-Mart.

"So," you say as the two of you get out of the car. "You ever make a move on Garraty, or were you stuck making extremely obvious hints 'til you died?"

McVries looks slightly insulted, but he gets over it. "Well, unless you count 'Would you let me jerk you off' as an extremely obvious hint…" he trails off and if you had been drinking something, you probably would have done a spit take.

"You actually said that?"

McVries nods and you decide to head into the Wal-Mart. You shouldn't be surprised, considering all the Walkers' actions last night, and especially considering you knew McVries was queer from the start, but… Seriously? He asked that on the Walk?

You decide that Peter McVries is an idiot.

The only person in the Wal-Mart is that Percy kid. He runs off as soon as he sees you. Apparently he still thinks of you as a badass. Good for him. He's the only guy around that still does.

Well, maybe people like Curley and Ewing, who died straight off, might. The ones who died when you were still cool. The ones who died before you went off the deep end.

What happened to you being crazy, anyway? You and everyone else you're sure must have gone crazy. You're all fine. Everyone you've come in contact with has been perfectly sane – hell, Barkovitch is better than when he was alive. He's not as much of an annoying little shit as he was when you first met him.

Maybe McVries is a positive influence on him.

"I'll go get Stebbins's books," McVries says, grabbing a cart and heading off. You roll your eyes. He left everything else to you. Well, fine. You'll get food and clothes and CDs and whatever the hell else you need. Shampoo. Dish soap. Shaving razors. Barkovitch and Stebbins don't seem like they'd need to shave much, but McVries sure as hell does and you do too.

You go for food first, though. You stock up on the good stuff – candy, pop, energy drinks, chips, and then, as a second thought, grab a bunch of frozen TV dinners and some canned fruit.

You're all going to get diabetes.

Can you get diabetes in the afterlife?

Well, that doesn't matter. You head for the clothing aisle, and just decide to dump a bunch of t-shirts and jeans and underwear into your cart. You don't bother sorting through sizes or anything. You've got everything from Stebbins, who is taller than you and probably half your weight, McVries, who is around the same height as Stebbins but actually a healthy weight, you, who's about an inch or so shorter than those two and a healthy weight, and Barkovitch, who is like five six.

Yeah, you can just get a bunch of different sizes.

On your way to find McVries, you pass a thing filled to the top with five dollar CDs. You figure they'll all suck, but you do find a few good ones.

McVries is standing in the book section, throwing every book he can find into his cart. Even kid books and romance books.

Well, they're not for you, so you're not going to complain.

"You about ready?" you ask, and McVries glances at you.

"Hold on," he says, flipping over a book and scanning the back. "I don't really know if Stebbins'll like any of these books, but they're the only ones here. A lot of girl books. What, don't they think guys read, too?"

To be honest, you haven't read a book that wasn't assigned for class for a while.

Actually, you rarely read those books assigned for class, either.

You help McVries clear out the book area and the two of you head for the car. Once you get there, you realize the worth of those stupid bags they put everything in. It's going to be a bitch to get everything from the car to the house – hell, it's going to be a bitch to get everything from these carts to the car.

But you manage it, and soon the two of you are back in the car, food and books and clothes and shampoo and everything else tumbling around in the backseat and trunk. Maybe you shouldn't have shoved it all together. You're pretty sure all the chips are going to be crushed by the time you get home.

"So," you say, fiddling with the CD player in the car while pretending you actually don't want to get the CD case open, it's not that you can't actually open it. "Why exactly were you and the freaks in my house?"

"Me and the freaks," McVries laughs. "Aren't I a freak, too?"

"Yeah, but you had friends," you say, shrugging. "Anyway. Why?"

"We had nowhere else to go," he says. "I ran into Stebbins while trying to catch you, and then Barkovitch comes stumbling from nowhere all freaked out. Both Barkovitch and Stebbins knew where you lived, so we just headed there and crashed on the couch."

"All three of you?"

"Yeah," he says. "It was crowded."


this is my favorite fanfiction to update tbh