Disclaimer: I don't own Misfits. Includes strong language.

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"Curtis..."

Curtis kept moving, his grip on Nathan tight. They shuffled down the endless pavements like drunken contestants in a three-legged race, or perhaps victims of some terrorist attack - he covered in mud and grime, Nathan slumped and leaning heavily on his shoulder. The community centre had truly never seemed so far away, and behind every corner Curtis imagined a policeman, a pack of loud-mouthed school kids, a nosy middle-aged woman, all of which would prove to be unthinkably meddlesome at this moment. He tensed every time a car drove past, headlights shafting through the darkness in twin beams; he ducked his head whenever they passed beneath the revealing orange light of a lamppost. His neck prickled uncomfortably, so much so that he worried he might end up reversing time and have to go through it all again. He had spent the whole day scraping graffiti off walls and bending down for litter, his evening had consisted of digging up a coffin. He was tired, that deep kind of bone weariness that slips into muscles bit by bit. He just wanted to go home. For perhaps the sixth time, he contemplated dumping Nathan on the pavement, telling him he wasn't worth the trouble, and going home to sleep. But he had never been able to pull off the heartless front. Instead, he concentrated on walking.

"C-Curt..."

"Bit longer," he said through clenched teeth. "Nearly there now. Just suck it up for a bit."

Nathan went quiet for a bit. Long enough for them to reach the end of the road, where Curtis paused beside the tall glowing traffic lights and looked around. His heart leapt - they were closer than he had realized. Perhaps two thirds of the way there.

Of course, that didn't mean that Curtis' night was anywhere near being over. There was still so much to do, so many things that made him cringe lingering on the horizon. They were going to have to explain Nathan's miraculous recovery to the police, their probation worker, his parents... God, how were they supposed to do that? And still he didn't know how this immortality thing worked. Was Nathan going to be like this, zombie-like, forever? How long did it take him to 'come back' each time? Hell, he still had to tell Alisha everything. He would call her as soon as he had a moment. Could they perhaps pretend that Nathan had faked his own death to try to get out of doing community service? Maybe. But then that didn't explain his corpse at the funeral, his death certificate. This was certainly going to be a very sticky dilemma.

"I can't," Nathan said suddenly, the words rushing out in one breath.

For a moment, Curtis thought he must be talking about explaining his return to the living. Then he realized that Nathan's legs were slowly buckling beneath him, his head dropping heavily onto Curtis' shoulder. He jostled the other boy, glancing around warily for any unwanted company.

"Don't do that, come on. We're nearly there. Nathan, stand up. Hey!"

"Can't... s'appening... 'gain..."

And then, all at once, Curtis found himself completely supporting Nathan's limp form. He struggled to hold his weight, and then twisted around and lowered him to the ground, resting him against the metallic shutters of a shop. Nathan began to slide listlessly to the side, and Curtis pushed him upright again, keeping a steadying hand on his arm.

"Nathan?" he hissed, leaning closer. "Nathan, don't fuck with me now. If we get found, we're screwed! Nathan!"

Silence. Curtis let out a heavy sigh, kneading his eyes with one hand. His patience was stretched to the limit, his limbs crying for rest. What was wrong with the other boy? He was supposed to be immortal, surely he could just keep going forever. He had managed two weeks underground... oh. Curtis opened his eyes, suddenly understanding. Two weeks underground with no food, no water, and no hope. Now he was out, but still he had eaten nothing. Considering that, Curtis was amazed to think he had kept going this long, to think that he hadn't died of starvation yet. He took another look at him, at his bloodless face, the purpled smudges beneath his eyes, the stick-thin quality of his arms, his motionless chest.

Wait.

Curtis reached for his wrist, and then swore and shook him by both shoulders. "Nathan! Shit... Nathan? You prick, did you just... fuck."

Nathan was dead. Dead. How could he be dead? Had the walk really affected him that much after all that time underground? And more to the point, how the hell was Curtis going to get him to the community centre now? He forced himself to take a deep breath, tried to calm down. It would be all right. Things could surely be worse. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, and then suddenly noticed the dark liquid creeping from the corner of Nathan's mouth. He yelped at the sight of it, scrambled closer. Blood? Yes, blood.

"What?" he cried. "What's... what happened?"

He could see no injury, no gaping wounds. Apart from that one... He stared as the blood began to drip from Nathan's chin, stringy with saliva, staining the hem of his t-shirt. He checked once more for anyone approaching, and then cautiously inched forwards and pulled up Nathan's shirt. The ugly mess of dried blood and congealing skin sat in the middle of Nathan's chest, a gross reminder of the post that had gone straight through him. The twisted, marred flesh made Curtis' skin crawl, but he forced himself to look anyway. He couldn't tell if it had healed at all or not. Perhaps if he checked the other side. He reached a hand around to Nathan's back, felt cautiously between his shoulder blades. Nothing. Just skin. He retracted his hand quickly, looking around once more. Still their luck held - no one around. Curtis sat back on his heels, trying to think clearly, his panic slowly retreating. If the wound didn't go all the way through, it must be healed, at least a bit. Which meant that the part Curtis could see must be simply superficial. Which meant that the whole dribbling blood thing was probably nothing serious, just old blood that had come up because of the walking. Right? Well, true or not, that theory made Curtis feel a lot better considering their situation.

He sat back on his heels, glancing at his watch. The silver hands were inching closer to midnight. He groaned. Had he really been out for this long? Well, it couldn't be helped now. He looked at Nathan, wincing at the blood, and then pulled the top down again and zipped up the jacket. His own jacket, that seemed to dwarf Nathan's weedy body. Perhaps Nathan would simply wake up again in a few minutes... well, it seemed he had two choices. One - he sat here and waited for Nathan to wander back to life again, risking being found. Two - he tried to carry on, which was going to be very difficult and look even more suspicious. He chewed on his lip.

Fifteen minutes crawled past. From somewhere nearby, he heard the drunken screams and cat-calls of a group making their way home from a pub. He made his decision.

"You prick," he muttered. "Least you're skinny."

He stood up, reached down and heaved Nathan up. Awkwardly, he bent and managed to get Nathan over his shoulder. He straightened, wincing at the weight, gripping his jacket with both hands. He could do this. Nathan wasn't so heavy, he was practically a stick anyway. It wasn't going to be that hard.

"Okay," he panted. "Let's go."

Simon patted down the earth on top of the grave with his spade, his eyes glazing with tiredness. He threw down his spade and heaved a sigh, looking down at his handiwork. It was good enough. Either way it was too dark to tell if he had made it look undisturbed. He wandered over to the bushes and scooped up a few handfuls of leaves, spread them over the grave, stamped them down. He didn't know what else to do. He was still trying to fight past the realization that he had been right, that Nathan was actually alive.

He took the spades and the torch with him to Kelly's. It would mean more to carry back, but maybe Kelly could lend him a bag of some kind. Kelly... he had to tell her about Nathan. His pace slowed at that thought. He didn't know what he was going to say. And even though he walked so slowly that he almost stopped dead, by the time he reached her block of flats he still had no idea. He made his way to her door and stood outside it, staring, struggling to think of something. He put the spades down but held onto the torch, clenching his fists over it tightly as if hoping to break it. Maybe that would be an excuse to leave. He could go to Alisha first, tell her what had happened, and then she could tell Kelly instead of him. But he was a little scared of Alisha, especially her power. Not that she would ever use it on him. Would she? He decided to stay with Kelly.

He knocked so quietly that nobody answered, and had to knock again. He heard footsteps, someone shout, and then the door swung open. It was the first time Simon had ever seen Kelly's mother, with her straight brown hair and navy tracksuit jumper and hoop earrings to match her daughters'. She stood like a lioness defending her territory, arms folded, lips curled, eyes burning with suspicion.

"Who're you?" she demanded.

It took Simon a few moments to remember the answer to that question, and by the time he had one of her eyebrows had climbed high up her forehead. He couldn't stop looking at it, watching as it twitched like a spindly caterpillar.

"I... Simon," he said thinly. "Kelly's friend."

"What d'you want?"

He cleared his throat, tried to make himself sound a little more assertive. His voice came out shaky and wavering. "To talk to her. Please. Now."

Kelly's mother stared at him. He stared back, uncertain whether to ask again or simply run. Or perhaps grab one of the spades in case she attacked. She looked him up and down, let out a short, high-pitched laugh, and then turned and walked back into the house, leaving the door open.

"Kelly!" she called. "There's some wanker at the door for you."

Simon felt his ears turn red. He clutched the torch tighter, not daring to try stepping over the threshold. "I don't wank," he muttered.

Kelly appeared in the small hallway beyond the door, and Simon felt relief flood through him. He lifted a hand in a small, odd wave, and then realized what he was doing and dropped it again quickly. She raised her eyebrows anyway as she made her way over to him.

"Simon? What d'you want?" she said, frowning. "D'you know what time it is?"

"Yeah, sorry. I just need your help with... um..."

This was it. This was when he had to tell her. He looked at her, and then quickly looked at the floor. He played with the torch. He couldn't think what to say. Say something, say anything, the silence was making his hands tremble. His tongue had become too big for his mouth.

"Wot are you thinking about telling me?"

God, she could hear him. He'd forgotten about that. "I... d'you have blankets?"

"Blankets?"

"And food?"

"Wot are you goin' on about? Have you been smokin' sumfing?"

Simon shook his head quickly. "No, no, it's for... someone."

"Who?"

Simon shut his eyes. "Nathan's alive," he burst out. He was thinking it anyway; there was no getting out of telling her. "We dug him up and he's alive but he's all weird and Curtis said to come and get stuff for him and you were closest so I came to you and I didn't know how to tell you but... but..." his voice trailed off. Kelly's face changed, taking on an expression he couldn't read. Something between horror and grief and anger. He shrugged helplessly.

"Are you... are you all right?"

"That's not funny, Simon," Kelly said, her voice low and shaking. "That's fucking horrible. I dunno wot you've been drinking, but if you don't leave now I'm gonna hit you so hard you'll never wake up."

Simon stepped back quickly, his gaze darting to the spades. Suddenly, Alisha looked much less scary. Kelly gripped the doorway with both hands, her lips tight, her eyes burning and red. He opened his mouth and then shut it again. He watched as Kelly looked him up and down, taking in the mud and grass stains covering his clothes, the spades leaning against the wall behind him, the torch in his white-knuckled hands. She swallowed hard and looked at him again, then folded her arms tightly.

"Wot the fuck are you doing with all this?"

Simon brushed self-consciously at the mud on his shirt. "We think he's immortal," he said in a small voice. "That's his power - being immortal. He's alive. And my house is further away, and Curtis said to hurry, so I just came to you... Kelly, I'm really sorry, I'm not lying, I swear."

There were tears in her eyes. She shook her head, stepped back into her flat. "You fucking weirdo," she muttered, and she shut the door hard behind her.

Simon stared at the door, at the small brass numbers, the letter box. He could knock again... no. He would go to his own house. If he ran, perhaps he could make it back to the community centre within the hour. Slowly, he gathered up the spades and glanced back at the door one last time, then left quickly. He took the stairs because waiting for the lift made him feel nervous. As he walked out of the double swing doors and into the street, he craned his neck back to search for her window. They all looked the same. He held the spades tightly, looking left and then right. Which way would be faster? Eventually, he opted for right, through the park and over the high street. He began to walk, quickening his pace.

He heard the footsteps as he was nearing the park's red painted gates. He slowed down, glanced behind him. A dark figure had appeared at the end of the street, holding something large and dark in one hand. Simon felt his stomach lurch and did the first thing he could think of - he turned invisible. He watched through blurry vision, inching back towards a nearby car as the figure pounded closer. He didn't recognise her until she passed under a lamppost and stopped nearby, looking around, panting hard.

"Simon?" Kelly called, her voice still wobbly, her mascara a little smudged. "I know you're here, I saw ya." She paused, listening. "I'm not gonna hit ya! Where are you?"

He hesitated a moment longer, at least until he realized what she was holding in her hand. A bag, crammed with a couple of hastily folded blankets. In her other hand she clutched a twenty pound note. Simon stepped forwards cautiously, and she started as he slid back into visibility once more. She shrugged at him, her face still taught with restrained emotions. For a moment an awkward silence hovered between them as she gazed at his spades and he looked at the bag.

"There's an all-night pizza takeaway round the corner," she said, clearly trying to sound in control. "We should hurry, yeah?"

When Curtis finally dropped Nathan's lifeless body down on his bed, he felt ready to lie down and die himself. He didn't know which part of the last half hour he had enjoyed more - climbing in through the back window, finding his way through the deserted corridors in the dark - arms too full to search for a light switch - or perhaps fighting his way up the narrow, twisting metal stairs at the top of which Nathan had set up camp all that time ago. Twice he had tripped and ended up both dropping Nathan and jarring his elbow. Both times. And now he sat on the floor, Nathan's arm swinging against his face, an ancient pizza box and crumpled wrappers around his feet. He kicked them away, scowling. He let his head fall back against the bed and shut his eyes, sighing heavily. When he opened them again, he wasn't sure if he had fallen asleep or not. He rose slowly to his feet and looked around, wiping at a smear of mud on his arm.

It was almost one in the morning.

He found a light switch - much better than the dull orange light creeping through the tiny window above them - and then after a moments thought picked up all the wrappers and the pizza box and stuffed them into the bin in the toilets. When he returned Nathan hadn't moved, slumped on his front, blood trickling from his mouth slowly and eating its way into the mattress beneath him. Curtis rolled him onto his back and pulled his jacket off the corpse, shuddering a little at the stiffness of Nathan's limbs. By his watch, Nathan had been dead for almost an hour now. Curtis picked his mobile out of his jacket pocket and then covered Nathan up again with it. He watched the other boy a moment longer, just in case, before turning to his mobile.

He sent Simon a text, asking where he was and whether he had got to Kelly yet. He paced the small red platform, leant on the rusting railing, looked down at the community centre. Eventually Simon replied. The soft ring of Curtis' mobile was a blazing siren in the silence of the centre.

Told her. Said she wants to hit me. We're on our way.

Curtis frowned, reading the message twice over. He wasn't sure whether that was good news or bad news. So Kelly knew. They would be here soon. And yet Kelly was feeling violent. Curtis rolled his eyes and stuffed his mobile away. As soon as they arrived, he could stop feeling like he was about to be attacked by the secret services demanding to know why he had broken into the community centre with an undead kid. He sat down again, leaning back against the railing, legs stretched out in front of him. Nathan's whole 'silent-as-the-dead' act wasn't doing much to comfort him. He rubbed both hands over his face, and then got out his mobile again. He dialled, held it to his ear. It rang three times.

"Hey."

And just like that, he felt a smile rush over his face. "Hey," he said.

"You okay?"

He laughed. "You won't believe the night I've had... the night I'm having."

"What's wrong?"

"Where do I start?" he smiled. His gaze strayed to the bed where Nathan had turned cold, despite his jacket. "Alisha... Nathan's immortal."

Reviews are very welcome. Thanks for reading. :)

SUPRNTRAL LVR.