This is the least festive thing I have ever posted this close to Christmas but hey. Happy Christmas to everyone who celebrates it and for those of you who don't I hope you have a great weekend :)
Scott hadn't forgotten the radiation storm. Not entirely. It just hadn't been at the forefront of his mind. He'd been vaguely aware of it, yet another worry to add to the list, but it had been so far down on his priorities that he hadn't dare consider the implications of how long they'd been stalling in this city. He wasn't sure how many days it had been, but they'd certainly lost more time than they could afford, and now, facing down goliath clouds which blocked out the sun and the sky and engulfed the horizon in thick, choking darkness, he had to accept reality.
They were almost out of time.
And John had yet to wake up, Alan was still running a low-grade fever – because a diagnosis did not immediately equate good health and it would take a little while for the meds to kick in – and Scott himself was suffering the effects of bites which seemed to be taking forever to heal. He understood the logic behind that – malnourishment, sleep deprivation and blood loss equalled a really freaking long healing process – but it still frustrated him.
They'd spent nearly a week in this godforsaken city by his calculations and it was beginning to look as though they'd never leave.
Thunder shook dust from the surrounding buildings as if there had been an earthquake. Distantly, the crash of plasterwork, concrete and glass proved that a house had collapsed. Scott tipped back on the heels of his hands and examined the sky. It had stopped raining, replaced by a constant, eerie grey as if the radiation had stolen all colour from the world. Ash was beginning to fall. He should head back inside, but he couldn't bring himself to move.
There was a low wall which ran around the perimeter of the roof. He was currently balanced on this, legs hooked over the edge so that gravity tried to drag him by his ankles to meet the gaping jaws of the infected in the parking lot far below.
It was the first time he had been truly alone in months, and he was shocked by how empty his own mind was. He'd expected to be plagued by troubled thoughts, tempted by self-destruction, suffocated by the weight of reality, but no. He couldn't pin down any single idea. His head was filled with fog. He couldn't think or feel or do anything other than simply observe.
He'd come up here to give the rest of his family some room to breathe, to revel in the relief that Alan was going to alright, take comfort in one another's presence without him dragging them down, because he was under no false pretences as to his current mental state. He had the knife on him, and the past few hours had proven he wouldn't hesitate to kill anymore. The concrete beneath his palms was still slippery with old rainwater and it reminded him of blood, wet against his palms and seeping through his jeans. He was half-aware that he was shivering but couldn't feel the chill.
There was graffiti up here. Splattered over the floor, splashed on the wall itself; varying messages from SOS calls to desperate demands for loved ones to come find them. He could see another one of those pleas on a car in the street below – white paint daubed generously over the windscreen: Aaron, stay here, we will check every day. He wondered if they'd been reunited. He supposed he hoped so, although there was nothing but a void where his feelings should be. He was utterly detached, incapable of caring, and he imagined he might hate that, only he couldn't feel that hatred, so it was purely supposition.
He hooked a hand through the dog tags, curling his fingers around them so that the metal edges dug into his palm. The sky growled. He absently knocked his heels against the wall and heard little clumps of concrete clatter against the windscreens of abandoned cars in the parking lot. The infected scattered, then regrouped, snarling and drooling, but unease was beginning to creep into their veins as the angry horizon grew closer. They were nothing but animals relying on their instincts and that primal fear threatened to overwhelm their desire to feed.
"Hey."
Gordon's voice nearly made him slip, which was probably why his brother had deliberately spoken quietly. Heavy-soled boots crunched against broken glass which scattered the rooftop. Scott glimpsed dark clothing in his peripheral vision as Gordon came to stand at his side.
"Wow." Gordon's sharp intake of breath betrayed his true horror. "That's uh… I don't think I've ever seen a sky like that."
Lightning seared the outermost cloud banks. There was a faintly green hue settling over the suburbs where the ash had already begun falling, although Scott couldn't be sure it wasn't his imagination. Nausea was creeping up his throat again. He swallowed. Tightened his hold on the dog tags. Tried to breathe, although the dust was clogging his lungs and it felt a little like he was suffocating in thin air. It wasn't the first time he had looked death in the face, but this occasion seemed more real. Undeniable. The sky – his home – had become something deadlier than the infected.
"I've been looking for you," Gordon remarked casually, gaze fixed on the storm so that the harsh glow of the dying dusk transformed his expression into something unreadable. "And then I thought to myself, hey, what does Scott do when he's upset? Go flying. Which, obviously, you can't do right now, but sitting under an open sky is the next best thing, right?"
"Alan's got a shot at a full recovery," Scott pointed out, faintly unnerved by the robotic tone of his own voice. "John should wake up at any time. Why would I be upset?"
"Overwhelmed then," Gordon amended, biting back a sigh. He wiped dust off his face. "Or… I don't know. But you should be with us. You belong with us. Not up here, alone…" He gestured towards the storm. "Especially not with that shitshow bearing down on us."
"We might be out of time to leave."
Gordon faltered.
"Maybe," he confessed, voice rough. "But even if we are… that's all the more reason to spend whatever time we have left together."
There was a brick wall between himself and his emotions, but Scott could just feel it start to crumble. Little whispers slipped through the cracks. The tightness in his chest matched the heat behind his eyes and he ducked his head to hide unshed tears before Gordon could spy them. There was an ugly bitterness infecting every fibre of his being and he wanted to claw it out. He might not have contracted an infection from the bites, but he sure as hell seemed to have picked up some of that inhuman evil.
I am everything I never wanted to be, he thought, and bit viciously on the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. His grip on the dog tags was white knuckled. Gordon's gaze was heavy.
"Sorry. Did you want these back?"
"Nah, you can keep them for a while."
Gordon put a hand on his shoulder, light, cautious, as if fearing his reaction. Scott wanted to tip backwards until all he could see was the sky, as cruel as any natural thing but tipped into the realms of evil by human hands; let it engulf him, give up every part of what it meant to be him because it had never been worth much and now it was more corrupted than he had ever believed possible and yet still Gordon's grip on his shoulder spoke of love and concern when he didn't deserve any of it.
"Talk to me," Gordon murmured.
Scott stared at the sky until it stained his vision.
"I didn't look at their faces." His voice cracked and he couldn't pretend any longer that he wasn't falling apart. "I promised myself that I'd always look at their faces because at least then it wasn't like putting down an animal, it was an acknowledgement that they were once human and that tiny scrap of respect was all I could give them but at least it was something. And one of them- I killed a kid. That's- that's someone's child, Gordon, and I- I murdered their son as if it was nothing."
Gordon floundered for words. He sank onto the wall, pressing their shoulders together, a shock of warmth, impossibly gentle as he uncurled Scott's hand before the edges of the tags could draw blood.
"Fuck," he whispered, lowering his gaze to the blood staining Scott's jeans. He entwined their fingers before Scott could dig his nails into his palm. "Scott, that's… I don't know what to say. It wasn't… You didn't have a choice, you know that, right? You get that? It's self-defence. It's like how John killed that bandit. Surviving doesn't make you a bad person."
Scott exhaled slowly, unsure as to his own ability to breathe in again. Not that there was much clean oxygen left anyway. He flattened his free hand against the rough concrete and tried to crush the scream trapped between his ribs. There was so much feeling that it threatened to tear him apart.
He could see the kid everywhere. In the faces of the infected below, in the shadows which plagued the hospital corridors, in graffiti and old leaflets, even when he looked at Alan. In the moment he had seen those rotten hands reaching for Virgil and had just reacted, but now, as the dust settled around him and the ash crept closer, he could recall how tiny those fingers had been, how wide and almost fearful those blue eyes were against a bloodied face, Captain America's shield dotted over the child's socks.
The aftermath was unbearable. He thought he had known guilt, but never on this level. It wanted to consume him, and he wanted to let it.
"He was someone's kid," he whispered again, and there was blood in his mouth and salt on his face and he wanted to just fall and let gravity decide which way it took him – over the edge or backwards onto the safety of the rooftop – only Gordon's grip was deathly tight on his hand, so if he let go he'd drag his little brother with him. "And I keep thinking, what if that were Alan, or you?"
"It wasn't human anymore."
"That doesn't matter. It's beside the point. If you or Alan had turned and someone put a fucking knife in your back, I would tear them apart, because there might be a cure still, but I took away that child's chance. I stole his future."
"For Alan." Gordon froze, as if that comment had been unintentional. "You want the truth? Here's the truth – you had to make a choice and you chose your family because you are human. It is literally the end of the world. We are all each other has left. That supposed cure? It's a dream. Wishful thinking. It probably doesn't exist. The only thing which matters is this family because it is the only guarantee we have. Unconditional love, right? Even in death. So if this all goes to hell, I still won't regret my actions, because I did them to protect you guys, because it is basic human nature to do anything for the people we love and at the end of the day we are only human. Holding yourself to a higher standard would have been unfair before the apocalypse but now it's plain ridiculous."
Scott tipped back his head to glimpse the fading sky. He could taste the salt from his own tears. His voice sounded as broken as he felt.
"I'm a killer."
"You're human." Gordon raised his voice above the thunder. "And you're a survivor. Neither of those things are easy. Both of them involve difficult choices. But we spent years saving the world, so I think we've earnt our time to be selfish, to choose our family over strangers who are already fucking dead, Scott. You're trying to save people who are already gone."
"There's still a chance."
"There's a chance of anything! It's not a guarantee!"
Gordon flung up his arms, eyes overly bright with angry tears and there was blood smeared across his chin and dust coating his suit, but he was undeniably, irrevocably alive and Scott couldn't breathe with how much he loved him, physically shaken by it right then in that very second.
"Jesus Christ, if you want to place all your belief on chances, then you'd better get your ass downstairs and hold onto our brothers because there's a chance that John might fucking flatline or that an infected breaks into the room or that the GDF drop a nuke on us. There's a chance that Kayo and Penelope are dead, and it kills me, but I'm not fixating on it because it's only a chance. Nothing matters until it is real."
"Gordon."
"What?"
Gravel was clinging to Scott's hands, tearing thousands of tiny grazes across his palms just like life had flayed his soul, over and over so that he had to carry the scars with him, but it was proof that he had survived and if they got through this moment he'd examine the raw skin and let his body heal the scrapes and he'd know that he was still alive and that maybe he could heal the emotional wounds in the same way – by simply existing and letting it happen gradually.
Haven't I given enough? Can I rest yet?
"I love you."
Gordon stared at him, wide-eyed and tearful and framed against the sky of a dying world which he had given so much to protect.
"I know." His voice lowered to a painful whisper. "I love you too. You're my brother. No matter what happens – unconditional love."
He took a deep breath, searching for something within Scott's face, and held out his hand.
"Please, Scotty. Come with me? Come back inside. Hug Virgil, listen to Alan's nerdy ramblings, say hi to John when he wakes up, give Finch a pat, just-" His words wavered, layered with grief. "Step away from the edge. Please."
"That's not what this is."
"I know. I know. But you're scaring me. So, please, just do me this favour… Let's go inside and away from this roof." He inhaled sharply. "I'm not above begging you, Scott. If you think I won't get down on my hands and knees and literally beg you, then-"
"Okay, okay, you don't need to…" Scott planted his hands on Gordon's shoulders. "You don't need to do that," he repeated softly. "I'll come inside."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Just give me a moment."
He didn't know how long he'd been sat on the wall, but apparently it was longer than he'd thought because the second he swung his legs around and tried to stand up his knees buckled. Gordon caught him in an instant and for a moment they just stood there. Gordon's arms wrapped around him in a hug that was almost too tight and Scott could feel him trembling, trying to hold back sobs which threatened to tear him apart.
"It's okay," he murmured as Gordon buried his face in his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Gords. I didn't mean to scare you. It's okay."
"You took forever," Alan complained as soon as Scott got a foot in the door. He flung up a hand for additional dramatic flair, rolling onto his back and tipping his head over the end of the bed to peer at Scott upside down. "When you said you were going to check for infected, I thought meant this floor, not the entire hospital."
Gordon shot Scott a deadpan stare, which loosely translated as you're on your own with this one, Scotty.
Which was fair enough given Gordon hadn't said a word since they'd left the roof – testament to just how freaked out he had truly been. Scott would have felt bad about scaring him to such an extent, only he was rather preoccupied with already feeling guilty about literally everything else. Still, the silence was unnerving. Gordon wasn't even tapping.
Virgil reached over to flick Alan square in the centre of his forehead. "Would it kill you to sit up straight like a normal human?"
Alan looked positively gleeful. "Absolutely, yes."
He shuffled upright despite this.
"I'm like a bat," he mused, propping his chin on top of his knees like a little kid. "Or maybe a… Yo, Gords, what else sleeps upside down?"
Gordon jolted out of his thoughts. "Say what now?"
"Sloths," Scott suggested, taking a seat on the bed next to Alan.
His youngest brother promptly draped his legs over Scott's lap with an impish grin, confident in the knowledge that he would be able to get away with literally anything while they were all still too relieved to know his condition was curable. Alan could have confessed to murder and Scott would still have given him the world. No one knew how long this effect would last but Alan seemed keen to make the most of it and frankly who could blame him?
So.
Scott didn't even bother to hide the obvious fondness in his expression.
"Sloths," he repeated, prodding Alan's ankles to earn an outraged huff. "Don't they spend much of their time upside down?"
"Okay, but you can't call me a sloth," Alan protested, biting back a snigger. He tipped onto his back and flung his arms out with another overdramatic sigh. "There are a lot of connotations there, so… I'm not a sloth."
"You're a teenager," Scott pointed out. "Same thing."
"Hey!"
It was difficult to tell whether the meds were already making an impact or whether it was simply a placebo effect, but Alan certainly seemed brighter. His fever had finally broken and hopefully it would stay that way for a very long time. He'd changed into a clean hoodie and sweats which Virgil had stuffed into the bag of supplies they'd stolen from the house, uniform soaked with sweat and the general grime of the apocalypse – ash and blood and mud. It was currently hooked over the back of a chair in the corner. Gordon stole it on his way to the en-suite.
Virgil looked at him questioningly.
Gordon shrugged. "It needs a clean. I'm good at getting rid of bloodstains, remember?"
"That is such a concerning sentence," Virgil told him. "But yes, I did already know that."
Scott shoved Alan's feet away in order to collapse across the bed himself. He pried his shoes off, grimacing at the ash which pooled on the floor as a result. It was like sand – it got everywhere, including inside his socks, which was sort of impressive. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and yep, it was plastered to his scalp too. Oh well. He'd take a shower when he wasn't on the verge of falling asleep standing. The itch of ash and grime over his skin was disgusting, but priorities.
Hands patted at his head. He batted them away without opening his eyes.
"Dude," Alan remarked, highly amused, "I'm just trying to help. Do you want a pillow or not?"
Scott rose onto his elbows so that Alan could stuff the pillow beneath his head.
"Don't call me dude," he grumbled without any true heat to his voice.
Alan's answering laughter was the best thing he'd heard in weeks. He rolled onto his side to bury his face in the pillow, trying to hide from the lightning flashes searing through the window. Warmth settled along his side as Finch curled up close. Her tail whacked his knee. He opened one eye to spy the dog sorta squashed between himself and Alan but looking immensely pleased about this fact.
He tousled the fur around her ears clumsily. "Good dog."
"She's the best dog," Alan agreed, and Scott tried not to sigh as Finch's tail smacked his knees again.
The ash from discarded shoes crunched underfoot as Virgil moved to stand by the window. The glass shivered with every lightning strike.
"That storm's getting close," he observed quietly.
Scott made a vague noise of agreement, most of the way towards falling asleep already. Not even falling, no, more like crashing. His body had put up with his ridiculous requests such as killing a horde of the undead less than twenty-four hours after running an insanely high fever, but now he needed to sleep for an age. Maybe even a coma. A coma sounded festive. Yeah, he could go for a coma right around now.
The en-suite door squeaked open when he was caught in that vague haze between semi-consciousness and true sleep, not awake enough to make comment or even open his eyes but sufficiently aware to understand parts of Virgil's and Gordon's whispered conversation. Each word seemed further out of reach than the one before. Alan also appeared to be out for the count, taking up most of the mattress with one arm flung across Scott's waist and Finch.
"We need to leave, like, yesterday," Gordon was saying, voice low and laced with stress. There came a damp thud as he draped Alan's newly cleaned suit over the back of the chair to dry. His steps carried him over to the window. "And I don't just mean the storm."
"Infected are getting close again?"
"Sure, but I wasn't talking about them. Remember I told you how it felt like I was being watched yesterday? There were footprints in the ash again. When I went to find Scott, someone was definitely following me. It's not bandits, but I don't trust other survivors either."
Virgil was quiet for a long moment. "John should be awake by now."
"How much good are IVs doing? Can't we just shove a bunch of stuff in the backpacks and take him with us?"
"How far do you expect we'd get carrying him?"
"Less than a block," Gordon admitted, sounding painfully defeated. "Maybe not even out of the hospital itself. I just- We can't stay here, Virg. Staying here is a death sentence. We've got less than twenty-four hours until that storm hits and if the winds change we'll have even less time."
"We need a plan."
"I could hotwire a car?"
"You don't know how."
"Don't I?"
"Do you?"
"Well, no, but you could teach me. Make a lil sketch. Like a comic strip, a step-by-step guide to stealing a car. Man, imagine how well that would sell on the black market."
"Gordon. Focus."
"Shit, right, yeah, my bad. Uh… I don't know. We've got an entire horde of infected between us and the exit and that's not counting our unwanted visitor upstairs. We need to figure out a way around them rather than taking them down head-on, because frankly I don't know how much use Scott will be in a fight from now on and I'm good but I'm not that good."
"Wait. Backtrack a second. What's that supposed to mean? Is he alright?"
"Take a wild guess, Virgil. You were the one who sent me to go find him. You must have had a vague idea that he's kind of a mess right now."
"Yeah, well you didn't see him take down those infected. It was…"
"Traumatising?"
"For me or for him?"
"Both." Gordon let out a dark chuckle. "Always both. No one's getting out of this alive without trauma."
"Horrific." Virgil exhaled slowly. "It was horrific," he repeated. "Harrowing."
"The kid, right?"
"Jesus. Don't remind me. I never, ever want to think about that again. If I could choose to repress that memory, I would. Thank God Alan was too out of it to realise what was happening."
Virgil grew quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was rough with some unfamiliar emotion, almost cold.
"If he can get into that same mindset, he'll be fine in a fight. More than fine. He'll thrive."
"Okay, I get you've got your own shit going on right now, but there is no way in hell you actually believe that."
"A kid, Gordon."
"A monster. Not a kid. See, this is why I don't trust you to watch your own back out there, because you still see them as human. They're not. They're worse than animals. What's it gonna take for you grasp that?"
"You think I don't know that? I've killed one. Have you conveniently forgotten that? There is a dead body in someone's swimming pool because I put an axe in its chest. You don't get to criticise me just because I haven't gone on a killing spree like the rest of you. Are you gonna yell at Alan next?"
"Are you done being an asshole?"
"Are you?"
Another long silence.
"I thought he was gonna jump, Virgil. I genuinely- Don't you dare come complaining to me because Scott got his hands bloody and it was a little too violent for you. You're not the only person in this family who's had to compromise their morals."
"That's not what I'm saying."
"That is exactly what you're saying. This is Scott we're talking about. He did what was necessary to protect you and Alan, but do you really think he's okay with it? He's got to live with it for the rest of his life. And I get that more than most people because I spent nearly two weeks by myself and in that time I did a helluva lot of shit that I'm not proud of."
"…Was he really going to jump?"
"I don't know. He claims otherwise. But I've also known him say he was fine when he very obviously had a severe concussion, so…"
"Fuck," Virgil murmured.
"Yeah, pretty much."
"We need John."
"We need a goddamn miracle." Gordon tried to steady his voice and failed. "But you're right. We need John too."
It was difficult to tell the difference between night and day when the storm smothered the sky and blocked out any feeble traces of sunlight which tried to survive. Scott spent a solid sixty seconds feeling incredibly disorientated and confused as to why he had woken so suddenly. He'd been too deeply asleep to suffer nightmares and now, doubled over his knees as the rude awakening reignited some of the fire in his bites, he was still struggling to think past the grogginess.
"Sorry," Gordon whispered, trying his best not to wake Alan. He had a supportive hand on Scott's shoulder to brace him against the surprise awakening. "But I figured you'd want to know as soon as he woke up. Also, we could do with a hand and you're our best bet."
Scott blinked at him owlishly.
"Wha'?" He interrupted himself with a yawn. "What?"
Even in the dull light, he could read the amusement in Gordon's eyes.
"Wakey, wakey, Scooter, it's time to get back with the programme." Gordon clapped a hand to his bicep and guided him into standing up. "Drink this. Damn, I should wake you up in the middle of the night more often. You are weirdly compliant. If I ask you to tell Virgil that I'm your favourite brother, will you do it?"
Scott shoved the water bottle back into Gordon's hands, significantly more awake and aware of his surroundings again. "No."
"Aw, dang it. Worth a try."
Gordon was rambling. That, out of everything, was the first clue that the tables had turned in their favour, because he had been entertaining that uncharacteristic pensive silence for days. But he was rambling slightly too much, with that anxious edge to his voice which betrayed the fact that they were not out of the woods yet.
Finch had abandoned Alan's side for once and was sat patiently at the foot of John's bed. She didn't plead for attention or wag her tail or disturb the quiet in any possible way. She simply waited and watched faithfully. Humans really didn't deserve dogs.
Virgil glanced up at their hushed voices.
"Oh, thank God." He slid off the edge of John's bed and grabbed Scott's wrist, hauling him closer. "Physically? I have no clue what is going on because his stats are all over the place. But it's like he's in a trance or something. I don't know if he's seeing us or even hearing us, but he won't respond."
Scott only registered about half the words. That one repeating thought – he's finally awake – drowned out any other observations. He shouldered Virgil aside and stole his brother's place on the mattress. In the background, Gordon retreated to the door, one hand hovering over his gun and his head tilted curiously as if he were listening to something in the corridor outside. It didn't matter. Not right then. Scott didn't care if an entire horde was out there; only John mattered.
"Hey," he whispered, although it came out as more of a croak. He really couldn't bring himself to give a shit. Elation was a better drug than any painkiller. If dread downed you, then relief lifted you back to the surface and reminded you how to breathe. He cleared his throat and tried again, unable to keep from smiling like an idiot, sort of tearful and fractured but real. "Hey, Johnny."
"Virg," Gordon called softly, still hovering by the door. Virgil shot a final glance at John, then moved to join him, talking in hushed, quick-paced voices.
With the exception of a few scrapes and scratches, John had showed no sign of any obvious physical injuries – which did, of course, lead to the question of how the hell he'd become drenched in blood, but Scott wasn't entirely sure anyone truly wanted to hear the answer to that. The truth that no one was willing to admit was that something had changed regarding the parasite.
There were more unknown variables than there were explanations. If Scott considered those implications in too much depth, he sort of wanted to crawl into a dark corner and hide while he had another breakdown, so he repressed the thoughts. Besides, Virgil was the medic here. Scott's job was to coax John back from the edge of whatever new hell he'd found.
The bed was situated in a corner. Virgil had initially moved it there to make it easier to defend should any infected break into the room and then, when Scott and Gordon had returned, no one had seen any point in moving back again. John had retreated as far into that shadowy corner as he could get.
He didn't seem frightened. Actually, the closest comparison Scott could think of was shellshock, but the very idea made him feel sick, so he tried to convince himself otherwise. Maybe it was some sort of amnesia situation and John didn't recognise them?
Realistically, that theory didn't make much sense, but Scott was grasping at straws. His heart was doing strange tricks in his chest again, skipping a beat at the idea of his little brother going through that much trauma. For him. Because John had led the creatures away to save his life. Scott sort of wanted to hit something.
"John," he whispered, cautiously, as if any sharp sounds or sudden motions could startle him into snapping. "What's going on here? Are you not up for talking yet? Can you even hear me?"
That relief was draining away, tainted by apprehensive dread. It was dripping into his mind like an infection, infiltrating every good thought and turning them into a maze of unwanted what-ifs.
John didn't acknowledge him, just kept staring at nothing. It wasn't quite a thousand-yard stare, but something painfully similar. He had his knees drawn to his chest as if he were a little kid again, arms wrapped loosely around them, but he kept tilting his head slightly in that peculiar manner which seemed to suggest he was listening to something. He blinked slowly like a cat, eyes still not focussing even as Virgil's flashlight swung across the room, but, as Scott moved closer, he tensed.
"Um," Scott said eloquently, fumbling for words, literally anything.
He reached across the short distance between them, thankful for the darkness which hid his knuckles – still raw from trying to scrub away all the blood – and stopped just short of actually touching. He didn't know what he was hoping for, but an unfamiliar instinct promised him that John was somehow aware of his presence. It was a strangle feeling – more of a sixth sense than anything else – but he was willing to try anything once.
John moved so quickly that Scott almost flinched. Instinct kept him rooted to the spot, memories of their entire lives spent together installing trust which couldn't be broken so easily, but it was a near thing. His wrist was pinned to the mattress, John's grip icy and almost painful, one thumb hovering above his pulse.
"John?"
Nothing. Stony silence.
Scott shivered, unsure as to whether it was from anxiety or due to just how cold John felt. That thumb on his pulse was like pure ice. He tried to tug his wrist away, unnerved by a very familiar, human instinct that interpreted his brother as a threat. It was disorientating. He was struck by the thought that he was looking at a stranger and the certainty was so strong that it made his head spin.
Something's coming.
He yanked his hand away, stumbling over his own feet so that he slammed against the metal railings at the end of the bed. For a moment he was deafened by his own heartbeat, louder even than the thunder outside. Dull pain spread across his lower back from the impact, promising bruises in the not-so-distant future, but he couldn't focus on it. Every instinct he knew and relied upon was screaming at him. He wrapped a hand around his wrist until his own body heat replaced the chill left there by John's unfamiliar grip.
Virgil's hand landed on his good shoulder.
Scott flinched so violently that he nearly smacked back into the railings. Virgil released him in an instant, eyes wide.
"Scott?" Gordon whispered. "You okay?"
Scott backed up until he hit the window. He tried to take a deep breath, but it was like he was being strangled. It wasn't panic – he was far too familiar with that to be able to mistake it – but something else, as if he weren't fully in control of his own body.
For a moment, they simply stared at one another. Virgil slowly lowered his hands. Gordon side-stepped to join their little trio. Finch's ears flattened, hackles beginning to rise. John didn't move a muscle.
"What just happened?" Virgil looked about two seconds away from freaking the fuck out. "Did I hurt you?"
"No. No, you- I-" It felt like his skin was crawling. "Something's wrong. There's- We need to- We're not alone. Something's coming. Infected? I don't know if- Give me a gun. Or a knife. I don't- Just give me a weapon, now."
Something's coming.
The words were more of a sense than an actual thought and yet Scott wanted to crawl out of his own skin or maybe take a decontamination shower because he wasn't hearing a set voice and yet he could have sworn that was not his own thought. It was like he was some kinda cursed radio, picking up on frequencies which no one else could hear.
"There's a pack of infected on this floor," Gordon agreed, but made no move to give Scott a weapon. His hold on Virgil's shoulder was slowly shifting from supportive to protective and Scott knew that difference. "But you know what I'm wondering? How the hell do you know that?"
"We were talking fairly loudly," Virgil began to suggest, but Gordon held up a hand for silence and for once Virgil appeared to be following his lead.
"Not that loudly. Certainly not loudly enough for him to overhear us from all the way over here."
Gordon rocked forwards on his heels. The ceiling lights flickered back into life as the generator kicked in for the night and in the sudden glow, Scott glimpsed the open distrust on his brother's face. It would have stung had he not agreed with that assessment.
"You were fine just a moment ago. I know you were."
"Gordon," Virgil whispered, voice cracking under the weight of uncertainty and fear. He didn't protest when Gordon stepped in front of him, undeniably defensive, steeled with that sharp-edged potential, like a wild animal which would do anything to protect.
Scott had never been on the other side before, but the way Gordon was looking at him right now, as if he were an imminent threat, was enough to shatter something in his soul. The pieces were sharp and dangerous - he already had enough blood on his hands. Wasn't that the point? He'd proven himself to be a threat. But this was ridiculous – he'd rather throw himself out of the window than hurt anyone in this room and not even the inhuman sense of otherness sinking into his veins could change that. The instinct to protect his family was so strong that it formed his absolute sense of self. As long as he had a handle on his own mind, he didn't pose any danger to them.
And then it dawned on him.
Gordon wasn't looking at him. He wasn't the focus of that calculating gaze. He wasn't considered a threat right now, but a liability.
Gordon was looking at John.
"Okay, slow down, let's just… Everyone take a minute." Virgil sounded faintly hysterical. He caught Gordon's bicep only to be smacked away. "Gordon, come on, this is insane. Let's just talk this out. There's a logical explanation here."
"Have you got your gun?"
Virgil flinched at the phrasing: your gun. He gave a tiny nod. "Y-yeah, but-"
"Great. Keep it ready and wake Alan up. If I say run, don't hesitate."
"What the fuck," Virgil began, falling silent as Gordon turned sharply to catch his eye, something unspoken passing between them. Virgil withdrew the gun and checked the safety. Finch slunk away, keeping close to his heels.
Scott caught Gordon's gaze. "Go. Take Virgil and Alan and get out of here. I have no fucking clue what's happening right now but if there's a chance you guys are at risk, then you have to leave. I'll stay with John."
Gordon's reply was emotionless. "You're not staying with him. In fact, you need to back the hell up. I don't know what he's done to you, but you were fine until he touched you."
"What are you- Look at him. He doesn't even know we're here!"
"Yeah," Gordon snapped, "That's what I originally thought too."
"He hasn't done anything to me!"
"I told you to move."
"Why?"
"Don't get in my way, Scott."
"It's John. This is the same guy who used to write stories for Alan, who stays up with you when your insomnia gets bad, and he refuses to eat toast because he has a weird thing about the texture, so we always have to buy bagels instead and- He stayed on the phone with me for five fucking hours until Dad got to my apartment because he was so scared that I was going to- This is John."
Gordon stared at him for a long moment, utterly emotionless, and Scott wanted to run because he had never seen that level of ice in Gordon's eyes.
"What makes you so sure it's John?"
Everything was wrong and Scott couldn't stop it from spiralling even further out of control.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"We don't know how carriers work. He was gone, surrounded by them, for two days. Anything could have happened. It was getting stronger before he left, remember? What if it's in control?"
"This isn't some bullshit comic. That doesn't happen in real life."
"A year ago you'd have said that about the zombie apocalypse but look at us now."
"None of this is helping!" Virgil's shout echoed. Alan was frozen behind him and Scott wanted to just hit delete on the entire universe because when had Alan last looked that devastated? "Gordon, you're overreacting. It's- This is a trauma response. Of course he's still John."
"Really?" Gordon didn't lift his gaze away from John. "Or are you just saying that because you can't bear to consider the alternative?"
Threat, danger, getting closer.
"Oh, Christ," Scott realised aloud. "He's right."
Virgil's voice grew painfully small, laced with denial. "That's not- What does that mean?"
"It means that none of you are immune and you need to leave."
"Not that. I meant… If it got in your head too then-?"
Fuck.
Scott was teetering on the edge of just letting go again, like he had earlier, only in that state he wasn't in control and who knew what he was truly capable of?
"You're a carrier too," Gordon whispered.
"That makes no sense." Virgil flung up his hands. "Are you serious? He nearly died, if it was going to take over at any point then wouldn't it have done so then?"
"Fine, let's test the theory." Gordon gestured for Virgil to slide him the rucksack. "Give me a lighter."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"No. I'm not giving you a lighter. This is literally insane. I'm not going to let you burn him."
"Give him the lighter, Virg," Scott interrupted. The cold, unreal feeling was beginning to sink in and he was terrified that it was something more threatening than dissociation. "It's the one way to know for sure."
Virgil kicked the rucksack as far away as possible. "I said no."
Finch's growl overshadowed the thunder. Scott barely registered the sound.
"Name a better plan." Gordon shot Virgil a desperate look. "Name just one better plan."
Virgil rose to his feet to block Alan's view. "Okay, here's a plan: you don't actively help our brother to harm himself."
Gordon reeled back as if he'd been slapped. "That's not what I'm doing!"
"That is exactly what you're doing!"
"How else are we supposed to know for sure?"
"Just stop arguing! Everyone stop!" Alan struck them all into silence. He let it settle for a minute, breathing heavily as if he'd run a race. "Does anyone else hear that?"
Scott stepped away from the window, closing his eyes in an attempt to heighten his hearing. There, growing louder, so close that they had to be in the corridor outside: the unmistakeable wet shuffling of rotten feet, hungry snarls and the scrape of exposed bone against concrete. In the relative silence, Finch's warning growls were deafening.
Scott swore his heart actually stopped beating for a moment. "Fuck."
Gordon shook his head. "They were on the other side of the ward. How did they find us so quickly?"
There was a long, uncomfortable silence.
"No." Alan shook his head frantically. "No, no, no, no. I know what you're thinking. There's no way. It's not- You're wrong."
"John himself said that they've been tracking him," Gordon pointed out, eerily calm. "And now- Scott, step aside."
Scott moved closer to John's side. "Why?"
"Because it's not John anymore!"
"What are you going to do?"
Gordon took a steadying breath. "Move."
"Not until you tell me your plan."
"Gordon," Virgil whispered, like a warning. "Don't."
"Damnit, Scott, get out of my way."
"You really want to do this?"
Gordon let out a strangled sound which was only one step away from a sob.
"No. I really, really don't. But if I ever turn into one of those things, this is what I hope you'd do for me. And it's John. Do you know what his worst fear is? Like, actually? Losing his mind. So, no, of course I don't want to do this and it's probably going to destroy me, but I owe him this much. Now, for the last time-" His voice wavered. "-step aside."
It was not the first time in his life that Scott had found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. It was the first time that it was at the hands of someone he loved. Once he had fallen through ice and the cold had stolen his breath, as painful as being stabbed by thousands of knives all at once, and right now he felt as if he was experiencing it all over again.
"Move," Gordon said firmly, without a trace of emotion despite the tears in his eyes. His finger hovered above the trigger.
Scott swallowed. "Are you one-hundred percent sure?"
"I am ninety-nine percent sure."
"Then no. I'm not letting you do this."
"You're going to risk everything for one percent?"
"For John? Absolutely."
"We're all going to die anyway! You know we can't outrun that radiation storm!"
"Then you'll just have to shoot me first."
Virgil didn't dare move closer. "Gordon." His voice shook almost as much as he was trembling, too scared to reach out for fear of startling his brother into pulling the trigger.
"Don't," Alan whispered, just a single, desperate word, broken by tears. "Please."
Scott didn't move, forcing himself not to flinch even as Gordon stepped forward. They were so close that he could see the tiny flecks of gold amid the amber in Gordon's eyes as he searched for any hint of doubt, yet he still couldn't get a read on his brother's emotions.
"Go on." He tipped forwards slightly until he could press his forehead against the barrel, repressing a shiver at the cold metal. Gordon's breath caught. "If you truly believe we're all going to die anyway, why does it matter? Shoot me."
He regretted it instantly, but that was the problem with words – once you'd spoken, you couldn't take them back.
He'd kept eye contact with Gordon the entire time, which was how he witnessed the exact moment his little brother broke. Not just broke but shattered. He lunged to catch him and yet was still too late to break Gordon's fall as he collapsed to his knees on the ash-stricken floor.
"I can't do this anymore, I can't- I'm sorry, I'm so s-sorry."
The words were all jumbled up, confused by the sort of frenzied, desperate tears only ever shed when a person had nothing left to give. Gordon curled in on himself, a collapsing house of cards, and Scott didn't know what to do because he couldn't fix this, and he'd realised that the second he'd seen his brother's soul fracture.
But now they were here, and he couldn't turn back time. His little brother was falling apart on the floor of a hospital - a place which represented such personal torment for him – and Gordon had never, ever sounded like that: sobs which threatened to strip his voice, as if he was being torn up from the inside out, agonised and primal.
"I'm so, so, sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry," Gordon gasped out, not really apologising to anyone in particular, curling his fingers around the edge of his suit so that nails left welts across his skin, forming a fist above his heart. "This is all my fault. Everything that's- I brought us here. I broke my promise to Virgil and I tore us apart and then- I've ruined everything and now- I can't do this anymore, I can't do any of it, I just need you to make it stop- I'm so sorry, I can't, I was supposed to be better, I was meant to be strong but all I do is make everything worse."
The only thing worse than Gordon falling apart in front of him, Scott thought, was the way that neither Virgil nor Alan made any move to step in or offer comfort. Alan he could excuse – the kid was frozen in horror – but Virgil. Virgil looked as if his entire worldview had just been shattered.
"Gordon," Scott murmured, and his own voice trembled.
He cautiously put a hand on his brother's back, but yanked it away again when Gordon practically screamed, the single most pained cry he had ever heard from him, tangled with a repeated, broken chant of make it stop, please, make everything stop.
Scott felt something in his chest turn to ice because that phrase was too fucking familiar from his own ten moments. He was suddenly very conscious that Gordon was still holding the gun. His breath caught in his throat. He couldn't focus on anything other than the way Gordon was clutching the gun so close that it brushed the underside of his chin and how desperate his sobs were and that the safety wasn't on.
Panic was a pure, visceral thing, writhing in his veins. Scott couldn't breathe. He was moving through treacle, each second slowed to a full minute as he tried to reach for the gun, a lifetime of memories held within that instant: collecting frogspawn in a childhood spring, his car always stinking of chlorine on Mondays and Thursday when Gordon had swim practices, glitter engrained into the carpet after pranks, overloaded waffles on Sunday mornings, always knowing the right joke to draw someone out of their shell, hey, my squid sense says…, trusting one another implicitly, I love you, no matter what, it's unconditional, remember?
No, Scott mentally screamed at the universe. You don't get him. Not him. He's too important.
He nearly sobbed with pure relief as his own fingers closed around the gun. Gordon let go without protest, wrapping his arms around himself as he collapsed inward like a dying star.
"Virgil," Scott snapped, taken aback by his own sharp flare of unexpected anger. He didn't know why. Virgil hadn't done anything wrong and logically Scott knew that his brother's current lack of reaction was because he was going into shock, not because he didn't care about Gordon, but the irritation still slithered under his skin and scorched in his veins. He pressed the gun into Virgil's hands and ignored the way his brother looked as if he might hurl. "Take that and get it out of my sight."
Gordon bit down on his knuckles, still stumbling over words which were lost behind sobs. It was terrifying to see how much pain one person could carry for so long without letting anyone see behind the mask.
"Scott?" Virgil asked softly.
Scott wrapped his arms around Gordon despite broken protests about not deserving this and please just hate me and tugged him into leaning against his chest, tucked beneath his chin as if he were a little kid again. He tightened his grip until Gordon stopping fighting him and instead went limp as if he had run out of energy or had simply given up.
"You were doing what you thought was right," he whispered into Gordon's hair, catching Gordon's hands in his own before his brother could tear himself apart. "You thought you'd be doing him a kindness, and no one can fault you for that. It's going to be okay, Gordy. I still love you. I'll always love you. Life won't always hurt this badly, I promise."
"Scott," Virgil repeated, and the panic in his voice made Scott look up. "They're gonna break through the barricade."
Ah, fuck. He'd forgotten about the infected.
"Bathroom, now. Alan, take Finch, we'll be right behind you. Virgil, go with him."
"No way in hell am I leaving you." Virgil dropped to his knees at their side.
Scott bit back something cruel and sarcastic. "Get John."
"What about Gordon?"
"I'll just carry him or something, I don't know."
They were out of time. Scott read the realisation off Virgil's face just as it dawned on him too. The door seemed to collapse in slow motion but the infected surged into the room en-mass without hesitation. Alan slammed into Virgil's back, knocking him to the ground before a rotter could get its teeth into him. Scott had a sudden, hysterical wish that he hadn't told Virgil to get rid of the gun.
And everything froze.
Scott knew before he'd even finished turning around. John.
"Enough." John's voice was cold enough to drop the room temperature. "Go."
The infected stumbled over one another, withdrawing slowly but certainly like tamed lions. They were howling, hungry and lost and utterly confused by the undeniable command.
Scott stared at him.
John offered a breathless smile. "So, for the record, being a carrier fucking sucks but apparently it comes with a few tricks. So... What did I miss?"
