Author's Note!!
To all my loyal watchers… I AM SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SORRY! Words cannot describe how sorry I am to have kept you all waiting in the wings this long. I've had such horrid writers block, you cannot even IMAGINE. I thought I was going to DIE. It was awful, I had a million ideas but there was like this… wall in front of them keeping me from putting them down on the computer or on paper even.
Here is the long overdue chapter nine of How Does it Feel? I hope you all enjoy!!
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Silence.
Solitude.
It was a long time before he made the decision to move again.
Tori didn't want them to see the mess he had made, didn't want them to see the broken shell and tattered remains of the girl that had tormented all of them in different ways. He got to his feet with some difficulty, not knowing how much time had passed, and he picked up the corpse that had once housed the thing that had caused him so much fear. She seemed so very small and helpless now, and her eyes were still open.
Tori didn't feel like giving her the respect closing her eyes would bring. She didn't really deserve that, did she?
Not this girl. Not Aster.
One step.
Slow and sure.
He made his way across the wooded yard and headed back they way they had come. What few infected he came across, the ones not already dead, didn't even pay him any mind, shuffling aimlessly to and fro. The dead girl in his arms was also of no interest to them… she was no longer warm, no longer breathing.
She hadn't been dead long enough to be stiff, however, and from where he stood, she could have simply been sleeping.
Sleeping with glassy eyes turned skyward.
Sleeping without any semblance of breath.
Tori leaned his head back and shuddered, moving until he found what he had been looking for.
They had passed the burning barrel some time before coming down the hill towards the house. He found himself remembering the time he had seen a small Hunter that had been following him leap straight through the flames, the gas he had on his clothing igniting almost immediately. They had managed to put the flames out with some difficulty, but the little one didn't last much longer after that. Tori supposed, before the crew he ran with now, that little Hunter was the closest thing he had to a friend.
He missed that little Hunter.
Aster's body folded easily as he dumped her unceremoniously into the barrel, and the flames hissed in anger as they tried to work their way up around her. He stayed for a few minutes to make sure she caught fire. Even if she didn't burn to ash, the fire should be enough to erase all traces of him from her. Tori just wished he could do the same thing to himself…
Purge all sight and feeling of her from himself.
That might mean doing drastic things he wasn't ready to do yet. There was too much to be done and experienced and too much left unsaid, and if he were to do anything to harm himself, Ruby would KILL him.
Somehow. She would find a way.
Turning his head back towards the cabin, Tori made a soft noise at the back of his throat. He supposed the time had come for him to go back to them. They would all be wondering, worried… or they might have already summoned a boat or something of that sort and were gone, leaving him all alone.
One way or another, he wouldn't blame them.
Feeling surprisingly light, surprisingly calm despite what had happened, Tori let his feet carry him back to the cabin as if on autopilot, shuffling a little and swaying from side to side like one of the lessers. He didn't even realize he was doing it…
When the cabin came into view, he saw that someone had turned the lights on. They had gone back inside.
"I… want a cigarette." Tori whispered to himself, letting out a soft, demented giggle and bowing his head as he neared the steps. His feet were heavy as he came up them, but the gun that was suddenly pointed out the front door startled him so bad he almost fell back down the steps, letting out a short yell.
Looking down the barrel of the gun, Darren let out a soft breath and shook his head.
"Scared the living shit out of me, Tori." He muttered, the Smoker lifting his hands in apology. "We were beginning to think… you had left. Joey was saying shit, like you ran off with Aster. Needless to say…" Darren glanced over his shoulder. "Ruby's a mess."
"Lemme in." Tori grumbled. "And get Joey out of the room. I'm not stable, I don't think."
"Your eyes are fine." Darren remarked, his eyes searching Tori's face. "Aren't they-"
"I killed Aster, Darren. My eyes are amber. This isn't a good thing. Tell Joey to leave the room before I come in."
Darren didn't ask anymore questions, moving into the room and requesting that they give Ruby and Tori some alone time before ushering the two boys onto the deck outback. Tori moved into the house, seeing his love sitting at the table with tears in her blue eyes, her expression pleading, suspicious, piteous… so many things all at once, it broke his heart all over again.
Ruby stood, her blue eyes fixed on him, but neither of them moved or spoke for some time. Tori kept his eyes away from the spot on the floor that someone had hastily mopped up upon entering. Perhaps one of the boys had done it… he hoped it hadn't been Ruby. That wasn't her mess to clean up. Someone had also situated a chair over the spot, but it didn't make it go away.
Ruby approached him first, and Tori regarded her with half lowered lashes, unable to actually meet her eye. He hoped and prayed she wasn't going to try and kiss him. He didn't think he would be able to do that for awhile, not until the memories had faded a bit.
To his relief, she simply folded her arms around him in a firm hug and buried her face in his chest, letting out a shaking sigh and rubbing her cheek against him. He put one hand on the back of her head and ran his claws through her hair, rather curly from their foray in the lake earlier, soft and sweetly scented. He shivered lightly, putting his other hand on her arm before looping his arm around her waist and pulling her a little bit closer.
"They wouldn't tell me what happened." Ruby finally whispered, breaking the terrible silence. "They wouldn't tell me what you did. Was there blood on the floor? Is that why Tristan and Darren kept me out?"
"Yeah. Not too much." Tori whispered to her.
"You've got blood on you, Tori."
"I know. Lemme fix that… then I'll come right back." He tried to pull away, but she was firmly attached to him, letting out a soft noise of distress. "Or… you could come too. Come with me. It'll be alright."
"I can help you. I want to help you." She sounded close to sobbing, so Tori hushed her very gently.
It felt strange. He thought it would be her trying to comfort him, not the other way around. Hadn't he just killed someone? Hadn't he just suffocated her and held her in his arms while the life drained from her eyes? Shouldn't he be the one losing his mind?
They went into the bathroom, Tori knocking on the door to the back deck to let Darren and the others know they could come back in before closing the door to the bathroom and slipping his jacket off.
Again, he and Ruby didn't speak, and when her gentle hands, her gentle touch brought a wash cloth to his face to clean the blood away, Tori felt the empty parts of him filling.
He had been feeling so hollow, so without substance, walking along with Aster's body in his arms. He had felt nothing…
Now his heart was beating in time with another living beings. Now he was so close to her, he could breath the same breath as she did. Now he was here, alone, close to the woman he loved.
And suddenly… Aster didn't matter. Her life, her death, his scars and all the horrible things she had done. This was why he had done what he did.
This was why Aster was dead.
Ruby.
All there needed to be was Ruby.
"I love you." He gasped, Ruby's hand pausing halfway to his face, her pretty blue eyes widening. "No matter what happens. I think I've loved you since the first time I saw you. The first time you breathed my name… the first time I saw your pretty eyes." He traced his fingers down her cheek, which was already turning rosy colored. "Everything I have done from that moment has been for you. Even the hardest parts, like leaving you behind that one night when you talked about your family. I didn't want you to get too close, I didn't want to ever have to hurt you with all the hurtful things I'd done. You were so scarred, so scared… I didn't want to ever hurt you more than you already hurt."
"Tori?" Ruby murmured, leaning her head to the side ever so slightly. He made a soft noise and did the same thing. "Shut up. You talk too much."
It felt good to laugh. He didn't mean to, it just escaped him in painful gasps, made him double over, but Ruby was there to support him and to hold him until it was over. Somewhere in the laughter, he had begun to cry… he didn't mean to.
He wasn't sure when it started, but he became aware that Ruby was singing…
"And if you could, you'd climb atop the Eiffel Tower
Now wouldn't you?
You'd stare at the sun, and lay yourself down
Six feet under, now wouldn't you?
Wouldn't you, yeah?"
She continued cleaning his face, and he was silent and still as she worked, her voice mesmerizing. The lyrics were pretty… familiar.
Had he heard them somewhere before?
"And if you could, you'd tie me up
And make me yours, now wouldn't you?
Wouldn't you?
Are you strong enough to love me?
Are you lost in love, or crazy?
Are you strong enough? Strong enough to love me…"
Yes, he did remember this song. He had heard it somewhere before. Somewhere in his old life, before the infection. Perhaps in a bar? One of the many clubs? Someone's house, someone's party?
"And if you could, you'd walk through fire
On tightrope wire, now wouldn't you?
You'd fly up across the sky…
Just to prove your point, now wouldn't you
Yeah, yeah
Wouldn't you?"
She washed a small cut on his lip as she sang to him, the singing seeming to soothe her or help her concentrate. Tori grimaced at her when she handed him a cup of water to rinse his mouth, setting about washing the sweat from his neck, shoulders and chest.
"Are you strong enough to love me?
Are you lost in love or crazy?
Are you wrong enough?
Strong enough to love me?"
Tori caught her hand, drawing her gaze, their eyes meeting and holding. She tilted her head to the side again, and Tori swallowed a few times, opening his mouth to speak. When he turned away, the cup of water in hand, Ruby let out a soft sigh.
In time, he would be ready to talk.
She was ready to wait.
"I need to talk to Joey next." Tori said suddenly from the sink, taking a mouthful of water. Ruby made a soft noise and nodded, rubbing his back gently.
"I'll stay with you. It might make them feel a little better."
"Now that they know what I'm capable of?" Tori gasped after spitting the water in the sink. Ruby ignored how red it was, squeezing his shoulder before moving towards the door. "Ruby?"
"It's alright, Tori. I'm just going to put some tea on. We can all sit down and have a proper discussion about this."
"I don't think I'm-"
"I wasn't talking about Aster, Itoria. I was talking about you. We can sit down and have a proper discussion about you." Ruby flashed him a smile when he glanced in her direction. "Joey wouldn't make such awful comments if he remembered he knew you better than that. He suddenly sees you as a stranger just because you're sick. The others are better… Darren's opinion of you hasn't changed, and even Tristan is starting to get past the infection."
"And what is talking going to achieve?"
"Just be yourself." Ruby shrugged and slipped out of the bathroom, leaving the door open after departing. Tori stared after her for a few seconds, then sighed and rubbed the back of his head again, using more of the water to rinse the blood from his mouth.
Tristan had decided food was in order as well, finding some eggs and a few other things in the fridge that hadn't gone bad just yet and making them what could be considered a feast. Tori shouldn't have been so hungry… but the smell of the food was just too good.
He ate as much as Joey did that night, ate until he felt like he was going to explode, but it was the GOOD kind of stuffed feeling.
The feeling that had been long in coming.
Ruby served them tea, bread and jam after the dinner dishes were cleared away, then sat next to Tori and looked at him in an expectant manner with a reassuring smile. Tori raised an eyebrow at her, then looked around the table and frowned.
"You guys must think I'm really arrogant or something. Either that…or you think I'm rich. That's the only reason people would be waiting so eagerly for a guy to talk about himself." He rasped, Tristan letting out a snicker. Darren blinked a few times and Joey pretended there was something interesting out the window. Ruby just reached over and took Tori's hand in her own, her touch comforting.
"I think it's more a case of no one else knowing how to start a conversation like this one." Darren murmured, shrugging. "So Itoria Levon Henry, tell us more about yourself?"
"Like a sharin' circle. Like they do in primary school." Tristan chimed in, Tori letting out a grunt and nodding.
Tori decided the best way to go about it was to tell them his story, and to tell them all the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth, every awful detail, every girl he left behind wondering if it had been a bad dream. He even told them about Ashley, watched the horror blossom on Tristan's face and the way Joey's expression twisted into something even more ugly than usual.
He told them of how Ruby had come into his life and the things that had changed after that… And he meant every word of it.
Darren obviously believed him, and though he was rather put off about Ashley, Tristan did too. It was only Joey that remained sceptical about him, though the larger young man was smart enough not to open his mouth and make a comment that might potentially get his face taken off by any one of the four others sitting at the table with him.
"Ruby, what did you do? When you first found out?" Tristan asked, turning his head towards the girl. Ruby was still gripping Tori's hand tightly, and she smiled a bit.
"I was so angry and so scared, but none of it mattered. He was infected, yes, but he was THERE. He was there with me, there was no one else anywhere around me. I could have been the last immune in the world for all I knew, and Tori was there with his hand stretched towards me, promising to get me to safety." She looked up at him, pretty blue eyes gleaming. "I believed every word of it."
…
Ruby was sleeping far easier tonight than she had for some time, feeling there was a safer atmosphere here in the house, with the boys laughing and carrying on over the card game they had played before heading to bed. Even Joey had joined in after awhile, managing to win some ammo for his gun with a few good hands.
Tristan had helped her with dishes, insisting that she shouldn't do it herself, and no one asked Tori to lift a finger.
Tori had done more than enough for all of them that day.
The red light she saw through her eyelids, she thought at first was a product of another of her strange dreams. She was rather alarmed when she was startled awake by the first of the oncoming horde, finding Tori beside her sitting up, his amber eyes shining in the darkness.
"What is that?" Ruby asked, shifting to look out one of the windows. "Who's supposed to be on watch?"
"I KNEW he volunteered a little too easily and quickly." Tori growled, standing and reaching down to pick up his pants. Once he was decent, he stomped out into the hall, leaving Ruby to stare out the window in shock and disbelief.
Out in the middle of the lake, on a small boat built for one, for fishing probably, was Joey. Hanging in the sky above him, bathing the whole area with an eerie red glow…
Was a flare.
The flare was the thing attracting the horde, and as the infected were rather opposed to going in the water, the house would be their first destination.
Below her, she heard a door open, but it wasn't Tori's voice that screeched in the darkness before the guns started firing.
It was Tristan.
"You IDIOT!! If this gun could reach you, I'd turn your brains into fish food!! I hope that boat sinks, you good for nothin' motherFUCKER!!"
Joey's return shout was lost in the din of the horde, Ruby's heart thundering as she slipped on her clothing and grabbed her pistol, hurrying down the stairs to help the others.
Darren met her at the door, offering her a gentle pat on the back as they passed one another. He was on his way to the back to assist Tristan, and didn't need to tell Ruby to cover Tori.
She had been travelling with the Smoker long enough to know what to do with him.
"How far away can those things be seen?!" Ruby shouted above the din of the swarm. Tori glanced at her, then let out a rather disgruntled noise and didn't answer. She looked around with wide eyes at the massive amount of infected screaming towards them, knowing now that he didn't need to answer that question.
It was obvious that every single infected within the area around the lake was coming here, to this spot. And when they realized they couldn't get to Joey, they were going to swarm the house.
Just when things had started looking up, too…
…
Before heading out back, Darren moved up the stairs and into the room he and Tristan had been sharing that night, opening the closet and pulling out the hunting rifle he had located when they first searched the house. He made sure the rifle was fire ready, checked the scope and determined he needed to aim a little high. It wasn't the best rifle he had ever used, but it would suit his purposes. He shouldered his other gun, grabbed a box of ammo and moved to join the other man on the back deck.
Tristan didn't look up, furiously firing his shot gun at the coming swarm. He had his lips pulled into a tight line, looking curiously vulnerable in his shirtless state, far too pale under the light of the flare. He used the butt of his gun to smash in the face of a lesser that charged him, refilling his gun and continuing to fire.
Darren set up next to him, using his pistol to take out anything that got too close while he prepped the rifle. There was a section of the deck, a thicker post that he could use as a gun rest…
Tristan spared him a glance, and while his expression darkened when he realized what Darren was up to, he didn't say anything.
He wouldn't dare.
Their world didn't work the same way anymore, and if this is what they both felt was the best course of action, then it was the only course of action. As tempting as it would be to go and drag Joey's sorry ass to shore to let the swarm he had summoned finish the job, as much as Darren didn't feel Joey deserved something so quick and clean…
They couldn't afford the stupid musclehead firing off another flare. As it was, they were probably going to die here.
Darren had never seen so many infected before.
He took in a slow breath and lowered his eye to the scope, holding the gun as steady as he could. Tristan kept the zombies off him for the next few minutes, and Darren trusted him enough that he stopped flinching as the shot flew past him the first few times.
He waited briefly for a clear shot…
He didn't have to wait long at all. Joey even turned his ugly head towards the deck to look at them, his eyes widening in horror when he realized, too late, what Darren was doing.
Darren's finger squeezed the trigger, the shot ringing out too loud even in the noise from the swarm. The tall, pale boy didn't even wait for Joey's body to finish falling into the water before turning back to the horde to help Tristan thin it out. They were going to run out of bullets before the zombies stopped, he was sure of it.
Thoughts like this were just awful, he knew, but he had never been terribly optimistic.
The flare went out seconds later, the dimmer lights of the porch and the house taking over, and curiously enough, most of the zombies stopped dead in their tracks, looking around in confusion.
The ones closest to them still ran forward, screaming and drooling and gnashing their teeth, but without the horrible crush of the rest of them, the battle didn't seem so imposing.
"Let's go back to the others." Tristan remarked, backing towards the house. Darren nodded, leaving the rifle where it lay as he did the same.
It was odd… Darren always thought killing someone sentient would be harder.
He supposed the world really HAD changed.