TITLE: Dix Sept

AUTHOR: Vshyja

E-MAIL: vshyja@yahoo.com

FANDOM: Dawn of the Dead

PAIRING: CJ/Bart

RATING: R

SUMMARY: Wherein there involves a holding cell, a pack of cards, and two security guards who previously were employed at the Crossroads mall.

WARNING: Violence. Language. Slash. Homoerotic, graphic sex. You have been warned. If you are under the age of eighteen/, you should not be reading this. Please go back now. You have been warned, and not reading this warning is no excuse for coming across anything you happen to be offended by.

DISCLAIMER: Dawn of the Dead and its characters are not mine.

FEEDBACK: I'll take anything you've got! I adore it, truly.

+

"You're a fuckin' traitor, Terry," Bart snarled.

Terry, white as a sheet, fumbled with the keys to lock the door to the holding cell and said nothing.

"Bart, shut up," CJ snapped, leaning forward and resting his weight on the chain links, the spaces between them being wide enough to support his elbows. "Listen, Terry," CJ continued, his voice softening, "these guys are assholes. What they're doing is /stupid/. Stupid, you understand? It's nice and humane and all philanthropic and good, but you're going to let someone sick in, and then every single one of us? Fucked. You know that."

"Shut /up/, CJ--oh, god dammit, which one is it?" Terry mumbled to himself. He dropped the keyring and bent down to pick it up again, swearing fiercely.

"Terry," CJ continued, his voice still soft, bordering between sweet and dangerous. "Terry, man. You're all going to die when you let the wrong person in, and you /will/. You're going to. It's inevitable, I'm telling you."

"I don't care," Terry mumbled, finally sliding the correct key into the lock. "It's the right thing to do. It's the /only/ thing to do."

At the sound of the tumbler, Bart snapped. "Holy fuckin' shit!" he screamed, slamming his palms against the chain links. "I'm not going to die here in this fucking cell, you little cocksucker! You let me out or I swear- -"

"Shut the fuck up!" CJ shouted, reddening as he finally lost his carefully- controlled cool. The veins bulged in his neck. "Just shut the fuck up, Bart! /I'll/ fucking tear you apart with my bare hands if you don't shut your fucking mouth!"

"/Both/ of you shut up!" Terry exploded, his sharp chin jutting out. "God, I'm glad you two are in here. You know that? I'm glad." With that, he turned and left the security office containing the holding cell. The door slammed shut with a resonating, depressing echo.

CJ sank to the floor, defeated. "Shit," he whispered.

"What?" Bart demanded, wiping the sweat off his forehead and removing his baseball cap.

"We're gonna die in here," CJ said. "We're going to fucking die in this fucking mall, in this fucking holding cell. And I'm fucking stuck in here with you."

That night, CJ wriggled uncomfortably into the corner, attempting to sleep. The carpets were thin, and his spine smarted as he tried to find a comfortable position. Bart took the tabletop. He'd removed his jacket and was using it has a makeshift blanket, his hat right by his side. Both could hear the slapping sounds of hands pounding against the mall doors, the squeak of blood on glass, the inhuman growls and screams and shrieks.

CJ used to like noise at night. He had needed it to sleep. He never thought he'd be two feet away from Bart, attempting to go to sleep with /zombies/ out of a fucking /science-fiction/ novel (for Christ's sake) literally at his heels.

He heard soft snuffling noises and glanced over at Bart, irritated. Bart's back was facing him, the straps of his undershirt a dingy grey. CJ thought he could see the slight smattering of acne over Bart's back, but he couldn't be sure. The shoulder blades quivered, lifted and fell.

He had to piss, but there was no toilet in the holding cell. He considered sticking the tip of his dick through a space in the chain links and going right on the floor outside, but there wasn't a solid window separating the holding cell and security office and the smell would worsen over time. He didn't think Terry'd be cleaning up after them, anyway. He shifted uncomfortably,

+

"Rise and shine," Ana said dryly, her lips lifting unpleasantly to reveal large gums and pointy teeth. CJ cracked an eye open, sat up, and winced. His back ached. Little sparks of pain shot up his spine. He immediately noted the keyring in her hand.

"Are you letting us out?"

"Not even close," Michael said dryly, pushing a full shopping cart into the office. "We've got supplies for you. I'll be bringing them in. Ana," he said, pulling a pistol out of his jeans and handing it to her, "will be holding a gun on you, so don't even think about trying anything funny. Got it?"

"Whatever," sneered CJ. Bart, surprisingly quiet, scooted off the table and onto the floor next to CJ, looking blankly up at them.

Ana cocked the trigger and planted her feet firmly as Michael moved slowly and unlocked the door. Propping it open with his foot, he dragged the cart forward and began unloading things.

"A queen-size inflatable mattress? Why can't we have two singles?" CJ demanded.

"Those are locked back in storage. We can't get to them," Michael said. "You'll just have to make do."

"You could drag two mattresses from the department store down here," Bart suggested under his breath.

"Shut up," Ana gritted out, edging closer. Both of them fell silent. Michael set down a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a plastic knife, a box of Cheez-Its, a deck of cards, a bag of cheap plastic poker chips, and two cartons of Misty cigarettes (CJ thought mournfully to himself that they were the worst kind), a case of Gatorade, a shopping bag full of bottled water, and towels (presumably for birdbath-style washing up). CJ watched him set these items down methodically and rhythmically, one at a time, like rabbits out of a magician's hat.

"There you go," Michael said, standing up and getting ready to lock the door.

"Hey. /Hey/," CJ said, clearly annoyed. "Excuse me, but I have to go to the bathroom."

"The bathroom," Ana said disbelievingly.

"Yes. The /bathroom/," CJ repeated, enunciating the 'thr' and the 'm', speaking as if she were a slow child. "There aren't any toilets in here."

"You can use the bathroom over there," Michael said, gesturing to the bathroom at the far corner of the office. The door was halfway open. "You're only gonna get two bathroom breaks a day, guys. Don't drink too much Gatorade."

"What happens if we have to go more than twice?" Bart asked, clearly outraged. His face was turning an angry shade of pink.

"It's not our problem you couldn't behave like decent human beings; that's why you're in here!" Ana hissed.

"/Lady/--" CJ began to shout, but one stern look from Michael and he reluctantly trailed off. His balls were in the garlic press, but they hadn't squeezed. Yet. "Well, you heard the man," he sneered at Bart, lowering the volume of his voice. "Don't drink too much."

+

CJ and Bart had thrown the mattress vertically against the wall and sat at the table, feet propped on the surface and occasionally eating a handful of Cheez-Its here and there. They drank liquid even less, not wanting to be stuck between a rock and a hard place if they had to take a piss. It sucked. They'd torn open the pack of cards and started playing, and pretty soon the cards had that worn, well-used look to them.

"It's no fun, playing cards without anything to gamble," Bart complained. He rubbed at one particularly swollen pimple near his hairline. The light was shiny on his forehead, and CJ's eyes were drawn to the lightspot.

"Cigarettes," CJ said. "We could gamble with those."

"We could?"

"Sure. One carton's yours and one carton's mine, 'innit?" CJ lit up a cigarette he'd tucked behind his ear and puffed thoughtfully. "Let's do it for individual cigarettes, though. I don't want to do packs."

"Christ, I want pussy," Bart said abruptly, dealing another round of Blackjack. "I haven't tapped ass in like, two months. You want another card?"

"I always pegged you for a virgin," CJ said bluntly, eyeing him over his cards. "You never looked like you got ass. Yeah, hit me."

The tips of Bart's ears colored. "I've gotten ass before!" he protested.

"Seventeen," CJ said, "or /dix sept/, as the fuckin' French say. I'll hold. Yeah, I'm /sure/ you've gotten ass. Real sure." Sarcasm dripped from his voice.

Bart flipped over his card. "Twenty. Read it and weep, fuckface."

"Suck my dick," CJ growled, shoving three cigarettes across the table. Bart took them with a smug smile on his pale face.

+

It was amazing how much you learned about a person when you were holed up with them twenty-four hours a day, with nothing to do but play cards. Bart had never fired his gun before the dead started rising; he'd fired a few blanks and a BB gun at a yield sign one time, but nothing else. CJ was the one who'd actually done it, shot a guy in the leg who tried to steal jewelry. He'd also hunted. His father was a taxidermist. They played rummy and poker; CJ won.

Well, /was/ a taxidermist, not /is/, CJ thought, with a dull sense of sadness. Bart's father had been in the military, and then retired. His mother pulled in the cash; it was his father's turn to stay home. Bart's face went pinched and white and quiet whenever he talked, /really/ talked about his parents. CJ found out that Bart's father caught him trying on a pair of his mother's panties when he was six and beat the shit out of him screaming 'you little faggot faggot faggot I'll kill you', and Bart ended up in the hospital with a dislocated elbow and a gash that needed six stitches. Bart found out that CJ stood for Christopher John, and called CJ 'Chris' sometimes. Out of sheer boredom, they tried Go Fish, but it was no fun with only two people. They played Bullshit and Thirteen and Egyptian Ratscrew and Five Hundred Rum. Bart established himself as the Table Top Cribbage champion.

They converted an empty Gatorade bottle into an ashtray, and sponged themselves off with the towels before one of the other guys would come to let them out to use the bathroom, usually early in the morning. They used water sparingly. Blue frost, or whatever Gatorade called its foul-tasting excuse for a drink, could get a little tiring.

Routine was beginning to set in. Both of them could feel it, the ensconcing swallow of acceptance.

By the second week both of them were a little hot around the collars. Bart, as CJ discovered one night, was an apt storyteller. He'd liked creative writing in high school and had written a few articles for his school's literary magazine. He never liked looking at porn; always got off reading about it and would go searching on the internet for trashy newsgroups, alt.sex.stories and the like. Though CJ suspected Bart hadn't done half the shit he talked about, he found that he enjoyed listening to them; a whole lot more than he thought he would when Bart began to talk about a girl named Lisa who he'd dated in the eleventh grade.

"I put my fingers in her," Bart said softly, "got all up in her cunt. She was so soft and tight, you know? And /wet/. And she was fucking herself onto my fingers and asking me to suck her nipples, and get her clit, too..."

"Yeah?" CJ asked, uncomfortably aware of the influx of heat in his jeans. "Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah," Bart said, and CJ could see his grin, the wet gleam of his teeth in the dim light of the holding cell. "And she wanted me to slap her ass, you know. /Fuck/ her in the ass. And I did, man! I pulled her off my fingers and spread her asshole wide with my fingers, and pushed into her ass and rode her. And then I started spanking her, and she was squealing and moaning and gasping, and kept saying, 'you're a god, you're a god, fuck me harder! Oh, yeah! /Yeah/!'" When Bart imitated Lisa, his voice softened and went breathy and light.

CJ thought his erection would tear a hole through the seam of his jeans. "You're so full of shit," he said, laughing and taking a drag on his cigarette.

"I'm not!" Bart insisted. "I kept spanking her and fucking her ass on my cock. God, she had the sweetest ass. It was tighter than her pussy."

"Jesus," CJ said. His voice had dropped to a low murmur.

"I can't stand it," Bart said suddenly, slouching and frantically popping the button on his jeans, dragging down his zipper. He looked like an obscene rag doll, propped against the wall with his fly open. "I gotta beat off."

"Are you crazy?" CJ hissed. Heat broke out across his face.

"You heard me," Bart said desperately, lifting his hips to pull his boxers down over his ass. "They barely give us enough time to take a shit when they let us out, never mind jack off. I gotta--just let me--/oh/," he panted, his head dropping down on his chest as he took his cock in a firm grip and squeezed, sliding his fist up to the tip. "Oh, shit. That's fucking good."

CJ stared at Bart's cock, fascinated. It was thick, medium-sized; his own was a little longer. It was damp with pre-come, and glistened silvery-white under the lights. Bart's fist moved slow at first, relishing every second, then sped up to a fast, hard pace. He stopped every fifth stroke or so to drag his palm along the tip of his cock and rub his balls.

The thing that turned CJ on the most, though, were the sounds Bart made; breathy low sounds, shaky gasps and long groans and shivering sighs. CJ had /never/ heard anyone make noise like that, not whores or any of the girls he'd fucked or porn stars. Bart was real.

CJ, beyond the point of no return, leaned over and knocked Bart's hand away, took his cock in his hand and started jerking him off himself. And /shit/, if he didn't think Bart would explode into a million pieces; Bart let out a sound that made CJ lower his head and suck hard at Bart's throat. He tasted like Gatorade and salt and musk and cigarette smoke, and CJ thought it was a fucking aphrodisiac. He jerked Bart harder.

"You like that?" he panted against Bart's neck. "Huh? You like me jerkin' you off like this?"

"/Yes/," Bart moaned, trembling, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into CJ's sides. "Oh, fuck, CJ... seee--jayyy--Chris..."

"Yeah, that's right," CJ said, licking the sweaty, rough patch of skin between his thumb and index finger and rubbing the head of Bart's cock with it. "Come on."

A choked, "fuck!" was all it took, and Bart spurted wetly onto CJ's fingers, strings of come spattering onto CJ's security guard sleeve. Bart sagged against the wall when he'd finished, breathing heavily through his nostrils. CJ looked around for a towel, something to wipe Bart off onto.

But he didn't get the chance, because Bart had grabbed him by his belt and tugged him forefully onto the mattress, and was tearing open his jeans and diving down onto his cock. He opened his mouth wide and sucked CJ into an intense inferno of liquid heat, tightening his lips and licking the head like some kinda fuckin' porn star; and it took about thirty seconds and CJ, making strangled noises, came in Bart's mouth, fingers in his sandy hair, nails cutting crescents in his scalp.

+

The night before Bart turned into a monster just like everybody else on the planet, CJ fucked him in the ass. Bart had turned eyes on Ana and apologized for the crass comment he'd made to her face, and said he needed lotion because his dry skin itched so much it was keeping CJ up because they shared a mattress and CJ felt it, and finally Ana shouted an exasperated 'alright' and shoved a few tubes of Juniper Breeze Bath and Bodyworks stuff through the chain links.

CJ hadn't done anything like it before, and neither had Bart; but Bart, being smarter than he looked and acted, went into detail about the male 'G- spot' and told CJ to move down and arch up just a little bit, and helped CJ smear the lotion all over his cock and fingers and Bart's entrance. It was uncomfortable and painful at first, but before he knew it Bart was making all kinds of sex noises and shoving himself desperately onto CJ's cock.

"Is this better than Lisa?" CJ snarled, words broken as he fucked him. He took Bart's cock in his hand and stroked him, in time with his hard thrusts. "Is it?"

"Oh, shit--yes, CJ, yesyesyes--/yes/!" And then Bart screamed as he came, positively howling into the mattress as he pumped his hips into CJ's fist. At the feel of Bart's come pulsing warm down his fingers, CJ threw his head back and had one of the most mind-blowing orgasms of his life.

In retrospect, CJ was surprised that no one came down to investigate. Bart slept with a leg thrown in between his, breathing quietly against CJ's neck. CJ felt an impending sense of doom and shrugged it off, let his breath drift against Bart's temple.

In the parking garage, Michael dragged CJ back as Bart was dragged down by those flesh-eating motherfuckers; "CJ," Bart screamed, "oh jesus christ help me," and suddenly he was swallowed by the undead. CJ felt his eyes burn and snarled, "shit," and tried to lunge forward, but his feet propelled him in the other direction and he ran.

He never looked directly at those sons of bitches again; focused on the top of their blood-matted hair or mottled necks, but never at their faces. He was always afraid he'd see Bart's face. And he did end up seeing Bart's face, but it was normal and smiling, and right before he shot the propane tank and everything went up in a blaze of glory.