07-30-2015, 09:24 AM
If this is to end in fire then we should all burn together
He tried to care. He did. The sobs of the few survivors mourning their dead, the whimpers of those who had escaped the flames with only a few horrible burns…he…well. He couldn’t find it in his hollow, aching, empty chest to give a damn about any of them. They were no more real to him than the half-lives he’d made in that other world, drawn up out of the dirt with another dead man by his side. He couldn’t heal them. He couldn’t help them. He couldn’t put their world back together. And he couldn’t seem to care.
He’d felt a lot of things before. Rage, hatred, agony, despair, but never this absolute numbness, as though there were nothing left inside him to feel anything at all. It had all died in the fire, right alongside his brothers, his sisters, the only mother he had left. Because she would have found him by now. She would have come to him, if she were still alive. She would have found a way to wrap herself around him and sing that dirge she’d sung when she lost little Noctem, when they’d curled up around the twins, one living and one dead, and held them both while their strange little angel had sobbed for her dead brother. When the Sun had buried him inside the Moon’s ribcage, nestled him up close where her heart used to be. She would have sung it again, for all her newly-dead babies. If she hadn’t finally found a way to join them.
And you’re Nothing without them.
That sick, insidious little voice had made its comeback; the fire had burned away whatever box it had been sealed in inside his head. Sibilant crooning, slithering its way around his brain and reminding him that everything that had ever mattered to him was gone, gone, gone. And even the fire didn’t want you, did it, precious? Even the fire left you behind, not even worth devouring. Poor little love. Poor little Nothing.
He’d always been able to rely on his body before, to drive away the seductive murmurs and vicious whispers through focusing on his senses. Well. Hearing had never really helped much. There was a difference between the sound of the world around him, the sound of other voices, and the sound of That Voice. But trying to feel it out, trying to sort out the difference between what his ears heard and what he perceived made him feel like his head would split in two. Smells were a good one, but all he could smell was smoke and ash, charred earth and charred flesh and the remnants of world destroyed by fire. Taste had never done much for him, not when he was like this. Touch, though. Touch worked. Any physical sensation, really, but the firing of pain nerves had always, always helped. But with all of them gone? He could have bashed his own skull against a sharp rock and he would have still felt…Nothing.
Sometimes it helped to focus on what he saw, on what was right in front of him. But all he saw was his fellow survivors, if they could really be called that. They were a fucking ragtag lot, the twelve of them. Thirteen, if he counted himself. He wasn’t inclined to count himself. Perfectly ordinary in coloring aside from one older man who was the green of the jungle, of heat and humidity and endless growing things. Battle-weary, like he’d seen it all. But then, most of them had that faraway look in their eyes.
They ranged in height from pony to behemoth, the largest a few inches taller than Drow and the smallest not even reaching his belly. Four girls, and though he’d always had a soft spot for girls he couldn’t bear to look at them. One of them tried to attach herself to him. Wanted a big strong male to protect her, he guessed. Used those pretty brown eyes of hers, batted her lashes and pulled out her best husky voice, even ran her lips along his shoulder. And maybe if he hadn’t been so numb, he’d even have tried to take her up on that offer, as unappealing as it was. Just to be touched. Just for the heat of skin on skin, just to get lost in someone else’s body for a little while, even if…but he’d just lost Jay, even if he didn’t know if that world had been real at all. And he’d never been able to bring himself to feel that way about any girl, not even Noellen. Besides, he saw the way she cringed when she looked at him, saw the way her eyes never quite met his, lingering instead on all his scars.
It took the girl all of five minutes to give up and find someone else. Not the behemoth, who would have crushed her. Hell, Drow probably would have too. No, she found a lean, lithe type, built for speed instead of blunt force. Bay, with a sick glint in his eyes that Drow recognized a little too well. She’d get her protection, if he was capable of giving it. But it would come at a price.
He might have cared, once upon a time. Might have stepped in, nudged her toward the gentle old grey with sorrow in his eyes who looked like he could use somebody to comfort him. But who the fuck was he to tell the girl what she wanted? He couldn’t even keep his own family alive, couldn’t even keep his own world from burning to the ground. If she wanted to self-destruct at the end of the world, who was he to stop her?
Two of the girls kept mostly to themselves, one set of wary brown eyes watching the men for a hint of threat while the other stared blankly off into the smoldering ruin of her old home. The behemoth eventually took the two of them under his wing, along with a couple of young guys who were looking a little shell shocked themselves. The fourth girl? She actually did make her way over to the old grey, all bright eyes and sweet smiles despite the tragedy. She coaxed the old man back to life, gave him a reason to keep going, even told off the bay when he tried to push her grey around. Oh, she was all sunshine in the light of day, but she had her moments. Especially at night, when the darkness swallowed up all of her sunshine and left her curled up into old grey’s side, shaking as he murmured in her ear, stroked her back, held her close. And even with her vulnerability, she drew the old man out of his shock and isolation, helped him start to find the man he used to be. They were good for each other.
Green was pretty indifferent to the bonds forming at the end of the universe. He kept to himself mostly, and Drow got the impression he’d been around longer than the rest of them put together, lived through things the lot of them could never have comprehended before the world burned to the ground around them, maybe even then. And the other two were…well. The tiny one, the one that barely came up to Drow’s belly, he glued himself to the sadistic bay’s side, devoted himself to the role of toady. He scrounged for the best places to grab a few bites of grass, hunted down water supplies, tried his level best to sass and push people around and keep them out of bay’s way. Little fucker never tried that shit with the behemoth or green, though, and only once on Drow. Drow just stared him down, didn’t even lift a single large, menacing hoof even if he could have snapped the tiny bastard’s spine with one stomp. Apparently the whole silent stare-down routine was enough, though. Teeny tiny scampered off to his buddy’s side, never to bother Drow again.
And the last one. He was tall, broad, black, just a little smaller than Drow, but there was something off in his eyes, a wrongness in him Drow couldn’t put into words. Something dangerous, ruthless, bloodthirsty. It wasn’t the sadism lurking in the bay’s eyes, nor tiny’s sycophantic arrogance. It was…it was like and unlike the volcano inside Drow, like and unlike the fire just below the surface. But where the heat that brewed beneath Drow’s skin unleashed itself on him, he was pretty sure danger’s took out everyone around him instead. And he was just as sure that danger liked it that way, reveled in the chaos and the devastation he left in his wake when he erupted. He was the only one whose eyes weren’t even a little hollow with horror, the only one who had walked away from world’s end untraumatized. No, he fed on it, loved the desperation and the desolation, lived for the pain and the sobs and the muffled moans of agony in the night. Drow steered the fuck clear of that one.
At first.
Behemoth was the first one to try to reach out to him. Quiet green eyes watched him even as his little herd settled into apocalypse life, working together to find resources and start making a life. The boys flirted with the wary girls, young enough to be thinking of one thing even after the world had burned away and still just young enough that it was cute instead of obnoxious. And behemoth watched out for the four of them, made them feel safe, made them feel like it wasn’t all over no matter that they’d lost everything. He tried to extend that sense of safety to Drow.
“There’s a stream a bit of a wander North,” the chestnut giant rumbled in his deep bass voice, tossing his head toward the trees and inviting Drow to follow. Drow could survive a lot longer than most without food or water, but he wasn’t stupid enough to turn down the drink when it was presented to him. Even if he would rather wind up dead and join his family, he didn’t quite have it in him to give up. That was one damn promise he’d made to himself when the Moon had killed herself, and he still couldn’t manage to break it. Not even with everyone who had ever mattered to him dead and gone ahead. They’d damn well wait.
“So what’s your story, kid?” behemoth asked as they ambled toward the stream. Drow didn’t respond. He’d never been much for words, and it was nobody’s damn business but his own what his story was. Behemoth wasn’t one to take silence for an answer, unfortunately. “This isn’t your first encounter with the darker side of life, I dare say. With scars like those, you’ve got a lot of history, huh?” Like it was somehow his right to make it up his own damn self. “Battle scars? Not your typical ones, though. Some of those are from predators, looks like you got in a rumble with a big cat or ten somewhere along the line. And tangled with a few—“
“My scars aren’t your concern.” The first words he’d spoken since the fire came out full of more gravel than usual, almost a growl even without the anger at the damn giant’s presumption. “My history isn’t your concern. Thanks for the tip about the water. But fuck off."
The behemoth laughed. He fucking laughed. “For someone telling me to fuck off, you sure have manners. You’re welcome, of course. Survivors have to stick together, after all.” Drow snorted, shaking his head. Survivors. What a damn joke. “No, really. Far as we know, we’re all that’s left. That makes us family.”
“We. Are not. Family.” This time the growl was deliberate, a warning rumble of the volcano coming to life in his chest. “Family is blood. Family is so much more than circumstance. Don’t you fucking dare call yourself my family. You haven’t earned the right to the word through years of being there, of hurting together and healing together and hurting all over again, of surviving everything this goddamn world can throw at us because we’re stronger when we stand side by side. You’re not my fucking family.” My family is dead.
Behemoth saw the words in his eyes. Drow could tell by the way his softened with sorrow. With pity. He snarled, shook his head again. “I don’t need your pity. I don’t want it. I’ll take your damn drink, but keep your family. I already had mine.”
They walked in silence until they made it to the stream. They drank in silence, a few small mouthfuls to sate the thirst of running from the raging fire. And they walked back in silence, until they were in sight of the clearing that had become their makeshift home. And then behemoth broke the silence with a shot aimed to break his heart. “I know they’re dead, boy. Mine are too. But we aren’t meant to do this alone. We’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got, even if it’s a dozen strangers when the whole land’s been burned right before our eyes. We’ll be here when you change your mind. Don’t wait too long, son.”
The word hurt. It fucking hurt, like the bastard had kicked him square in the chest with those giant hooves. And the hurt was good. The hurt was the first thing he’d felt since the fire. The first glimpse of an escape from the Nothing. But there was no one left to hurt him. And he knew without bothering to try that he couldn’t do it himself. Not this time. Just like when the Moon had knocked herself out of the sky, nothing he could do would be enough.
So he stopped steering clear of danger.
Pressure built inside the volcano, heat tearing him apart in search of an escape. Finding cracks and fissures kicked into him by that one little word. Son. It burned in his eyes as he followed all his self-destructive instincts straight toward the one person left on earth who could trigger him, the one person left who could set him off and watch him burn. He stalked over to danger, rammed his shoulder against the other man’s side as he walked past, and then kept right on walking into the shadows at the edge of the clearing, deeper into the woods, higher up the mountain, danger right on his heels.
He didn’t need words, didn’t need to talk about whether danger was interested. Danger lived for shit like this, for finding people on the edge of ruin and giving them that extra little push. Danger would hurt him. Not because he wanted Drow, not because he got off on it, but because Drow was so damn close to losing himself, back on the edge of madness after twelve years of sanity, and this time with the right push he might not shatter. If danger was lucky, this time Drow might twist into something like him, something that loved to watch the world burn.
- - -
The rest of the first week passed in flashes of sharp agony, sweet and delicious and so fucking alive, mingled with blurry hours of that hollow, empty numbness that were so much harder than playing with danger. Drow knew pain, knew how when it sharpened to a knife’s edge it was indistinguishable from pleasure, came alive in the moment they became the same thing. He could pretend he was keeping danger occupied, could pretend he was in some way looking out for behemoth’s people, wary eyed girls and charming young men, and old grey and his lady joined them too somewhere in the blur. But he wasn’t that altruistic, not anymore. If he’d ever been, it had been swallowed up in the fire like everyone he’d ever loved. No, he did it because he wanted to break, wanted to feel, wanted to ride out the Nothing that was devouring him from the inside.
Oh, and he gave as good as he got. Drow wasn’t the only one of their fucked up little pair that walked away bruised and bleeding, hurting in all the right ways. Danger was just as addicted as he was. One rough shove with a shoulder as either of them walked past the other was all it took at first, but it wasn’t long ‘til a snarl, a glare, a pinning of the ears was enough to send them stomping into the dark and tearing each other apart.
The rest of them ate and drank and played their little games, behemoth’s group bonding and bay’s making a general pain in the ass of itself when girl number one wasn’t getting off the same way Drow was. No, they would never have worked, even if he’d been straight. Both too desperate to hurt themselves just to feel anything, and there wasn’t enough fight back in her. She wanted all the pain and none of the conflict and for him, the fight was so much more important. Besides, he could never have given her what she wanted. Even if she wanted it, even if she begged him to, he couldn’t hurt a girl.
During one of the blurry times, the old grey came up to him. Big brown eyes framed in pale lashes stared up at him, full of concern. “Hey,” he said softly, using the same supposed to be comforting tone his girl had used on him that first day. “I…I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through.” He glanced away, clearly a little uncomfortable with the thought of just exactly what Drow was going through, what he had instigated, where all those lovely new marks were coming from. “But…but you don’t have to…to go it alone, you know? I know we’re not family. I know we’re not blood. But…but we’re all we’ve got, and…and we need everyone we can get. We need you. We’ve got no claim on you, I know that. But family or no, there’s a place for you. If you’re willing. And I hope you’re willing.”
Drow just stared, mismatched metallic eyes empty. He would have cared once. He knew he would have. But he was Nothing. Without his family, he was Nothing, and Nothing couldn’t care about strangers who thought they needed him. Danger was the only one of the lot of them dark enough to make him feel anything at all, and he couldn’t give that up for a place in their happy little family. With a sigh, the old grey left him alone to stare off into the ruins of his old life until he was ready to go find danger again. It never took too long.
- - -
The second week passed in much the same manner, with more visits from behemoth and the old grey interspersed throughout the blurry-empty-numb hours that weren’t playtime with danger. And as the week passed, Drow dove deeper and deeper into danger, sought him out more and more, desperate for a fix when the haze got to be too much. Danger did his best to break him, and Drow did his best to draw out the pain just to remember what it was to feel. And he wasn’t the only one escalating. Danger was just as hooked on him, needed the fight as badly as he did. It wasn’t like it had been with Zurry, where the rage and the fight shattered into something delicate and beautiful and sweet. Drow didn’t want to curl up against his lover, didn’t want to lie in his embrace and talk about what they meant and how they felt and where they’d come from, or just listen to his labored breathing ease and his heartbeat coming down.
Drow never wanted to listen to another heartbeat again. They kept each other going, needed each other, fed off each other, understood each other, but he would never press his head against danger’s chest and feel like he was home. Home was dead and gone. He needed the rush, needed the release, needed to let out some of the pressure that kept building in his chest and threatening to erupt. Nothing more.
By the third week, Drow hurt enough that even the blurry hours were starting to sharpen again, and the sharp ones were starting to blur. Behemoth kept watching him with those quiet green eyes, taking turns with old grey to try to engage him, try to win him over, try to fucking save him when they were all so far beyond saving. Bay and his bitch kept mostly to themselves, convinced they were king and queen of the new world order, with toady running interference on the evangelists. Green kept his own company though sad-eyed girl managed to score a few minutes of his attention now and then. Somebody else had a bit of a soft spot for a sad lady too, it seemed, no matter how much of a hardass he pretended to be.
The others mostly spent their time trying to build a life out of the smoldering ruins of the old world, the lads teaming up to woo the wary girl with a charm he’d once wielded back when he’d believe the world was safe and life was good and there was a point to any of it. Foolish, naïve little boy that he’d been, he’d had his own unconscious charm. Once upon a time. And it felt like a story, too, felt like a tale he used to tell himself on lonely nights to chase the ghosts away. A song about the Sun and the Moon and their happy little Stars. Well he was the only star left in the whole fucking sky, and there was no point pretending the world was anything but over.
“You’re probably getting sick of my face, I’d guess.” The behemoth was back, quiet green eyes and a big wide blaze on his chestnut face making its way once again into his periphery. Drow quirked an eyebrow, though he wasn’t even sure if it was in agreement or defiance. “Look, I don’t expect you to suddenly change your mind and call me family okay, kid? I know you lost people. We all did. But something else I know is the seven of us, we’re doing okay. We’re healing. We have food, water, a safe place to sleep as long as we’re looking out for each other. We have a herd, even if we don’t have family. And there’s still plenty of room for more. You can’t keep going like this, kid. Not if you want to come out the other end still you.”
Drow sighed, his hard eyes softening a little as he finally spoke. “Who said I want that? There’s no coming out the other end of this. Look, I know you’re trying to help me, because that’s who you are. You and the old man, you’ve probably spent your whole lives looking after anyone who comes your way and might need you, it’s your nature.” The Sun had been that way too, until she couldn’t handle losing anyone else. “I get that, okay? But I don’t need looking after, I don’t need saving, and I’ve got nothing left to give you.”
Behemoth sighed too, reaching out and brushing Drow’s silver-white forelock away from his face, baring countless scars with one little touch. Just like the Sun used to do. “Son, you don’t have to give us anything. Just let us in.” And he shattered, because that voice was so much like hers, soft and gentle and full of acceptance no matter what Drow had gotten himself tangled up in or how he was fucking up his life this time. He’d never hear her voice again. She’d never sing to him, never hold him and croon those songs to him and tell him they were going to make it through this together. She was gone, they were all gone, and he was N—“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” behemoth murmured, wrapping Drow up in his embrace. “I’ve got you, son. It’s okay.” Another touch, and old grey was there too, wrapping around him and adding his voice to behemoth’s, gentle words of comfort to soothe the lost little lamb.
He was no lamb. And the moment wasn’t meant to last.
Something stirred in the ashes below, where nothing had moved for weeks. Behemoth and the old grey’s murmurs ended instantly, cut off by a shriek that split the sky, the sound of savage hunger coming from a throat that couldn’t function, not by any laws of nature that had ever existed. Three sets of eyes snapped to attention, watching as the ash stirred and something crawled out, a dead thing out of a nightmare. Burned, blackened, charred, its hair singed off, barely recognizable as equine, its movement was jerky, spasmodic, as if the nerves were all fucked up from oh, say, being dead for three weeks.
And it wasn’t alone. Of course it wasn’t alone. An army of them crawled out of the ruins of the old world, growls and snarls and shrieks shattering the stillness that had fallen over the world in the weeks since the fire. They were clumsy as they crawled out of the ash, but their awkward, twitchy, jerking motions sped up to the point where they defied logic, if logic had ever entered the equation when the walking dead started to stir. They were fast and they were hungry, devouring everything in their path. The thirteen of them seemed safe enough at first, but it didn’t take a day before there was nothing left and they turned toward the mountain.
Any illusion of safety they’d managed to hold onto was gone, chased away by the smell of burned flesh, death and decay as they came. Fast, so fucking fast, even with a whole mountain to climb. Their ragtag little almost-herd didn’t have a damn chance. “Go.” Heads jerked toward behemoth, toward the steel in his voice and the resolve in those quiet green eyes. “Get out of here. Go.” Bay and his pair were the first to listen, running the second the order left behemoth’s lips. Danger stared at Drow, jerked his head expectantly, but Drow didn’t move.
“They’re coming, dammit. I’ll do what I can, but you have to get moving.” Shouts of protest died beneath the shrieks of the horde that drew ever closer. And his little family deserted him, obeying his command as if it weren’t the stupidest, most suicidal thing anyone had ever said. Even old grey left, chasing after his lady and making sure she kept moving, kept running, fought to get to safety. Behemoth turned to him, cutting him off as he opened his mouth to protest. “Go, boy. There’s nothing you can do but run. I’ve got a little firepower, and I’ll keep them distracted, maybe even long enough for a few of you to survive. Get the hell out of here. Do your best to take care of my family. Go.”
“Come on,” danger growled as the horde drew closer still. “Get a fucking move on, we’ve got to go!” Drow met those steady green eyes one last time, nodded once, and left behemoth to die. There was no saving behemoth’s family, no protecting them from an army of the hungry dead. But he pretended, if only to make the man feel better about his sacrifice. They ran after the others, he and danger, leaving the chestnut warrior behind. Hope he’s got more than a little to fight with. Worst case scenario, they’ll be busy for a little while devouring him. A few more days, and he might have fought, might have stayed right alongside the other man. Might have cared enough to try to save him, try to persuade him. But there was nothing he could do to save any of them. They were all going to die anyhow. Might as well let him go out thinking he was making a difference.
Even if it was a lie. Nothing was getting out of here alive.
He’d felt a lot of things before. Rage, hatred, agony, despair, but never this absolute numbness, as though there were nothing left inside him to feel anything at all. It had all died in the fire, right alongside his brothers, his sisters, the only mother he had left. Because she would have found him by now. She would have come to him, if she were still alive. She would have found a way to wrap herself around him and sing that dirge she’d sung when she lost little Noctem, when they’d curled up around the twins, one living and one dead, and held them both while their strange little angel had sobbed for her dead brother. When the Sun had buried him inside the Moon’s ribcage, nestled him up close where her heart used to be. She would have sung it again, for all her newly-dead babies. If she hadn’t finally found a way to join them.
And you’re Nothing without them.
That sick, insidious little voice had made its comeback; the fire had burned away whatever box it had been sealed in inside his head. Sibilant crooning, slithering its way around his brain and reminding him that everything that had ever mattered to him was gone, gone, gone. And even the fire didn’t want you, did it, precious? Even the fire left you behind, not even worth devouring. Poor little love. Poor little Nothing.
He’d always been able to rely on his body before, to drive away the seductive murmurs and vicious whispers through focusing on his senses. Well. Hearing had never really helped much. There was a difference between the sound of the world around him, the sound of other voices, and the sound of That Voice. But trying to feel it out, trying to sort out the difference between what his ears heard and what he perceived made him feel like his head would split in two. Smells were a good one, but all he could smell was smoke and ash, charred earth and charred flesh and the remnants of world destroyed by fire. Taste had never done much for him, not when he was like this. Touch, though. Touch worked. Any physical sensation, really, but the firing of pain nerves had always, always helped. But with all of them gone? He could have bashed his own skull against a sharp rock and he would have still felt…Nothing.
Sometimes it helped to focus on what he saw, on what was right in front of him. But all he saw was his fellow survivors, if they could really be called that. They were a fucking ragtag lot, the twelve of them. Thirteen, if he counted himself. He wasn’t inclined to count himself. Perfectly ordinary in coloring aside from one older man who was the green of the jungle, of heat and humidity and endless growing things. Battle-weary, like he’d seen it all. But then, most of them had that faraway look in their eyes.
They ranged in height from pony to behemoth, the largest a few inches taller than Drow and the smallest not even reaching his belly. Four girls, and though he’d always had a soft spot for girls he couldn’t bear to look at them. One of them tried to attach herself to him. Wanted a big strong male to protect her, he guessed. Used those pretty brown eyes of hers, batted her lashes and pulled out her best husky voice, even ran her lips along his shoulder. And maybe if he hadn’t been so numb, he’d even have tried to take her up on that offer, as unappealing as it was. Just to be touched. Just for the heat of skin on skin, just to get lost in someone else’s body for a little while, even if…but he’d just lost Jay, even if he didn’t know if that world had been real at all. And he’d never been able to bring himself to feel that way about any girl, not even Noellen. Besides, he saw the way she cringed when she looked at him, saw the way her eyes never quite met his, lingering instead on all his scars.
It took the girl all of five minutes to give up and find someone else. Not the behemoth, who would have crushed her. Hell, Drow probably would have too. No, she found a lean, lithe type, built for speed instead of blunt force. Bay, with a sick glint in his eyes that Drow recognized a little too well. She’d get her protection, if he was capable of giving it. But it would come at a price.
He might have cared, once upon a time. Might have stepped in, nudged her toward the gentle old grey with sorrow in his eyes who looked like he could use somebody to comfort him. But who the fuck was he to tell the girl what she wanted? He couldn’t even keep his own family alive, couldn’t even keep his own world from burning to the ground. If she wanted to self-destruct at the end of the world, who was he to stop her?
Two of the girls kept mostly to themselves, one set of wary brown eyes watching the men for a hint of threat while the other stared blankly off into the smoldering ruin of her old home. The behemoth eventually took the two of them under his wing, along with a couple of young guys who were looking a little shell shocked themselves. The fourth girl? She actually did make her way over to the old grey, all bright eyes and sweet smiles despite the tragedy. She coaxed the old man back to life, gave him a reason to keep going, even told off the bay when he tried to push her grey around. Oh, she was all sunshine in the light of day, but she had her moments. Especially at night, when the darkness swallowed up all of her sunshine and left her curled up into old grey’s side, shaking as he murmured in her ear, stroked her back, held her close. And even with her vulnerability, she drew the old man out of his shock and isolation, helped him start to find the man he used to be. They were good for each other.
Green was pretty indifferent to the bonds forming at the end of the universe. He kept to himself mostly, and Drow got the impression he’d been around longer than the rest of them put together, lived through things the lot of them could never have comprehended before the world burned to the ground around them, maybe even then. And the other two were…well. The tiny one, the one that barely came up to Drow’s belly, he glued himself to the sadistic bay’s side, devoted himself to the role of toady. He scrounged for the best places to grab a few bites of grass, hunted down water supplies, tried his level best to sass and push people around and keep them out of bay’s way. Little fucker never tried that shit with the behemoth or green, though, and only once on Drow. Drow just stared him down, didn’t even lift a single large, menacing hoof even if he could have snapped the tiny bastard’s spine with one stomp. Apparently the whole silent stare-down routine was enough, though. Teeny tiny scampered off to his buddy’s side, never to bother Drow again.
And the last one. He was tall, broad, black, just a little smaller than Drow, but there was something off in his eyes, a wrongness in him Drow couldn’t put into words. Something dangerous, ruthless, bloodthirsty. It wasn’t the sadism lurking in the bay’s eyes, nor tiny’s sycophantic arrogance. It was…it was like and unlike the volcano inside Drow, like and unlike the fire just below the surface. But where the heat that brewed beneath Drow’s skin unleashed itself on him, he was pretty sure danger’s took out everyone around him instead. And he was just as sure that danger liked it that way, reveled in the chaos and the devastation he left in his wake when he erupted. He was the only one whose eyes weren’t even a little hollow with horror, the only one who had walked away from world’s end untraumatized. No, he fed on it, loved the desperation and the desolation, lived for the pain and the sobs and the muffled moans of agony in the night. Drow steered the fuck clear of that one.
At first.
Behemoth was the first one to try to reach out to him. Quiet green eyes watched him even as his little herd settled into apocalypse life, working together to find resources and start making a life. The boys flirted with the wary girls, young enough to be thinking of one thing even after the world had burned away and still just young enough that it was cute instead of obnoxious. And behemoth watched out for the four of them, made them feel safe, made them feel like it wasn’t all over no matter that they’d lost everything. He tried to extend that sense of safety to Drow.
“There’s a stream a bit of a wander North,” the chestnut giant rumbled in his deep bass voice, tossing his head toward the trees and inviting Drow to follow. Drow could survive a lot longer than most without food or water, but he wasn’t stupid enough to turn down the drink when it was presented to him. Even if he would rather wind up dead and join his family, he didn’t quite have it in him to give up. That was one damn promise he’d made to himself when the Moon had killed herself, and he still couldn’t manage to break it. Not even with everyone who had ever mattered to him dead and gone ahead. They’d damn well wait.
“So what’s your story, kid?” behemoth asked as they ambled toward the stream. Drow didn’t respond. He’d never been much for words, and it was nobody’s damn business but his own what his story was. Behemoth wasn’t one to take silence for an answer, unfortunately. “This isn’t your first encounter with the darker side of life, I dare say. With scars like those, you’ve got a lot of history, huh?” Like it was somehow his right to make it up his own damn self. “Battle scars? Not your typical ones, though. Some of those are from predators, looks like you got in a rumble with a big cat or ten somewhere along the line. And tangled with a few—“
“My scars aren’t your concern.” The first words he’d spoken since the fire came out full of more gravel than usual, almost a growl even without the anger at the damn giant’s presumption. “My history isn’t your concern. Thanks for the tip about the water. But fuck off."
The behemoth laughed. He fucking laughed. “For someone telling me to fuck off, you sure have manners. You’re welcome, of course. Survivors have to stick together, after all.” Drow snorted, shaking his head. Survivors. What a damn joke. “No, really. Far as we know, we’re all that’s left. That makes us family.”
“We. Are not. Family.” This time the growl was deliberate, a warning rumble of the volcano coming to life in his chest. “Family is blood. Family is so much more than circumstance. Don’t you fucking dare call yourself my family. You haven’t earned the right to the word through years of being there, of hurting together and healing together and hurting all over again, of surviving everything this goddamn world can throw at us because we’re stronger when we stand side by side. You’re not my fucking family.” My family is dead.
Behemoth saw the words in his eyes. Drow could tell by the way his softened with sorrow. With pity. He snarled, shook his head again. “I don’t need your pity. I don’t want it. I’ll take your damn drink, but keep your family. I already had mine.”
They walked in silence until they made it to the stream. They drank in silence, a few small mouthfuls to sate the thirst of running from the raging fire. And they walked back in silence, until they were in sight of the clearing that had become their makeshift home. And then behemoth broke the silence with a shot aimed to break his heart. “I know they’re dead, boy. Mine are too. But we aren’t meant to do this alone. We’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got, even if it’s a dozen strangers when the whole land’s been burned right before our eyes. We’ll be here when you change your mind. Don’t wait too long, son.”
The word hurt. It fucking hurt, like the bastard had kicked him square in the chest with those giant hooves. And the hurt was good. The hurt was the first thing he’d felt since the fire. The first glimpse of an escape from the Nothing. But there was no one left to hurt him. And he knew without bothering to try that he couldn’t do it himself. Not this time. Just like when the Moon had knocked herself out of the sky, nothing he could do would be enough.
So he stopped steering clear of danger.
Pressure built inside the volcano, heat tearing him apart in search of an escape. Finding cracks and fissures kicked into him by that one little word. Son. It burned in his eyes as he followed all his self-destructive instincts straight toward the one person left on earth who could trigger him, the one person left who could set him off and watch him burn. He stalked over to danger, rammed his shoulder against the other man’s side as he walked past, and then kept right on walking into the shadows at the edge of the clearing, deeper into the woods, higher up the mountain, danger right on his heels.
He didn’t need words, didn’t need to talk about whether danger was interested. Danger lived for shit like this, for finding people on the edge of ruin and giving them that extra little push. Danger would hurt him. Not because he wanted Drow, not because he got off on it, but because Drow was so damn close to losing himself, back on the edge of madness after twelve years of sanity, and this time with the right push he might not shatter. If danger was lucky, this time Drow might twist into something like him, something that loved to watch the world burn.
The rest of the first week passed in flashes of sharp agony, sweet and delicious and so fucking alive, mingled with blurry hours of that hollow, empty numbness that were so much harder than playing with danger. Drow knew pain, knew how when it sharpened to a knife’s edge it was indistinguishable from pleasure, came alive in the moment they became the same thing. He could pretend he was keeping danger occupied, could pretend he was in some way looking out for behemoth’s people, wary eyed girls and charming young men, and old grey and his lady joined them too somewhere in the blur. But he wasn’t that altruistic, not anymore. If he’d ever been, it had been swallowed up in the fire like everyone he’d ever loved. No, he did it because he wanted to break, wanted to feel, wanted to ride out the Nothing that was devouring him from the inside.
Oh, and he gave as good as he got. Drow wasn’t the only one of their fucked up little pair that walked away bruised and bleeding, hurting in all the right ways. Danger was just as addicted as he was. One rough shove with a shoulder as either of them walked past the other was all it took at first, but it wasn’t long ‘til a snarl, a glare, a pinning of the ears was enough to send them stomping into the dark and tearing each other apart.
The rest of them ate and drank and played their little games, behemoth’s group bonding and bay’s making a general pain in the ass of itself when girl number one wasn’t getting off the same way Drow was. No, they would never have worked, even if he’d been straight. Both too desperate to hurt themselves just to feel anything, and there wasn’t enough fight back in her. She wanted all the pain and none of the conflict and for him, the fight was so much more important. Besides, he could never have given her what she wanted. Even if she wanted it, even if she begged him to, he couldn’t hurt a girl.
During one of the blurry times, the old grey came up to him. Big brown eyes framed in pale lashes stared up at him, full of concern. “Hey,” he said softly, using the same supposed to be comforting tone his girl had used on him that first day. “I…I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through.” He glanced away, clearly a little uncomfortable with the thought of just exactly what Drow was going through, what he had instigated, where all those lovely new marks were coming from. “But…but you don’t have to…to go it alone, you know? I know we’re not family. I know we’re not blood. But…but we’re all we’ve got, and…and we need everyone we can get. We need you. We’ve got no claim on you, I know that. But family or no, there’s a place for you. If you’re willing. And I hope you’re willing.”
Drow just stared, mismatched metallic eyes empty. He would have cared once. He knew he would have. But he was Nothing. Without his family, he was Nothing, and Nothing couldn’t care about strangers who thought they needed him. Danger was the only one of the lot of them dark enough to make him feel anything at all, and he couldn’t give that up for a place in their happy little family. With a sigh, the old grey left him alone to stare off into the ruins of his old life until he was ready to go find danger again. It never took too long.
The second week passed in much the same manner, with more visits from behemoth and the old grey interspersed throughout the blurry-empty-numb hours that weren’t playtime with danger. And as the week passed, Drow dove deeper and deeper into danger, sought him out more and more, desperate for a fix when the haze got to be too much. Danger did his best to break him, and Drow did his best to draw out the pain just to remember what it was to feel. And he wasn’t the only one escalating. Danger was just as hooked on him, needed the fight as badly as he did. It wasn’t like it had been with Zurry, where the rage and the fight shattered into something delicate and beautiful and sweet. Drow didn’t want to curl up against his lover, didn’t want to lie in his embrace and talk about what they meant and how they felt and where they’d come from, or just listen to his labored breathing ease and his heartbeat coming down.
Drow never wanted to listen to another heartbeat again. They kept each other going, needed each other, fed off each other, understood each other, but he would never press his head against danger’s chest and feel like he was home. Home was dead and gone. He needed the rush, needed the release, needed to let out some of the pressure that kept building in his chest and threatening to erupt. Nothing more.
By the third week, Drow hurt enough that even the blurry hours were starting to sharpen again, and the sharp ones were starting to blur. Behemoth kept watching him with those quiet green eyes, taking turns with old grey to try to engage him, try to win him over, try to fucking save him when they were all so far beyond saving. Bay and his bitch kept mostly to themselves, convinced they were king and queen of the new world order, with toady running interference on the evangelists. Green kept his own company though sad-eyed girl managed to score a few minutes of his attention now and then. Somebody else had a bit of a soft spot for a sad lady too, it seemed, no matter how much of a hardass he pretended to be.
The others mostly spent their time trying to build a life out of the smoldering ruins of the old world, the lads teaming up to woo the wary girl with a charm he’d once wielded back when he’d believe the world was safe and life was good and there was a point to any of it. Foolish, naïve little boy that he’d been, he’d had his own unconscious charm. Once upon a time. And it felt like a story, too, felt like a tale he used to tell himself on lonely nights to chase the ghosts away. A song about the Sun and the Moon and their happy little Stars. Well he was the only star left in the whole fucking sky, and there was no point pretending the world was anything but over.
“You’re probably getting sick of my face, I’d guess.” The behemoth was back, quiet green eyes and a big wide blaze on his chestnut face making its way once again into his periphery. Drow quirked an eyebrow, though he wasn’t even sure if it was in agreement or defiance. “Look, I don’t expect you to suddenly change your mind and call me family okay, kid? I know you lost people. We all did. But something else I know is the seven of us, we’re doing okay. We’re healing. We have food, water, a safe place to sleep as long as we’re looking out for each other. We have a herd, even if we don’t have family. And there’s still plenty of room for more. You can’t keep going like this, kid. Not if you want to come out the other end still you.”
Drow sighed, his hard eyes softening a little as he finally spoke. “Who said I want that? There’s no coming out the other end of this. Look, I know you’re trying to help me, because that’s who you are. You and the old man, you’ve probably spent your whole lives looking after anyone who comes your way and might need you, it’s your nature.” The Sun had been that way too, until she couldn’t handle losing anyone else. “I get that, okay? But I don’t need looking after, I don’t need saving, and I’ve got nothing left to give you.”
Behemoth sighed too, reaching out and brushing Drow’s silver-white forelock away from his face, baring countless scars with one little touch. Just like the Sun used to do. “Son, you don’t have to give us anything. Just let us in.” And he shattered, because that voice was so much like hers, soft and gentle and full of acceptance no matter what Drow had gotten himself tangled up in or how he was fucking up his life this time. He’d never hear her voice again. She’d never sing to him, never hold him and croon those songs to him and tell him they were going to make it through this together. She was gone, they were all gone, and he was N—“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” behemoth murmured, wrapping Drow up in his embrace. “I’ve got you, son. It’s okay.” Another touch, and old grey was there too, wrapping around him and adding his voice to behemoth’s, gentle words of comfort to soothe the lost little lamb.
He was no lamb. And the moment wasn’t meant to last.
Something stirred in the ashes below, where nothing had moved for weeks. Behemoth and the old grey’s murmurs ended instantly, cut off by a shriek that split the sky, the sound of savage hunger coming from a throat that couldn’t function, not by any laws of nature that had ever existed. Three sets of eyes snapped to attention, watching as the ash stirred and something crawled out, a dead thing out of a nightmare. Burned, blackened, charred, its hair singed off, barely recognizable as equine, its movement was jerky, spasmodic, as if the nerves were all fucked up from oh, say, being dead for three weeks.
And it wasn’t alone. Of course it wasn’t alone. An army of them crawled out of the ruins of the old world, growls and snarls and shrieks shattering the stillness that had fallen over the world in the weeks since the fire. They were clumsy as they crawled out of the ash, but their awkward, twitchy, jerking motions sped up to the point where they defied logic, if logic had ever entered the equation when the walking dead started to stir. They were fast and they were hungry, devouring everything in their path. The thirteen of them seemed safe enough at first, but it didn’t take a day before there was nothing left and they turned toward the mountain.
Any illusion of safety they’d managed to hold onto was gone, chased away by the smell of burned flesh, death and decay as they came. Fast, so fucking fast, even with a whole mountain to climb. Their ragtag little almost-herd didn’t have a damn chance. “Go.” Heads jerked toward behemoth, toward the steel in his voice and the resolve in those quiet green eyes. “Get out of here. Go.” Bay and his pair were the first to listen, running the second the order left behemoth’s lips. Danger stared at Drow, jerked his head expectantly, but Drow didn’t move.
“They’re coming, dammit. I’ll do what I can, but you have to get moving.” Shouts of protest died beneath the shrieks of the horde that drew ever closer. And his little family deserted him, obeying his command as if it weren’t the stupidest, most suicidal thing anyone had ever said. Even old grey left, chasing after his lady and making sure she kept moving, kept running, fought to get to safety. Behemoth turned to him, cutting him off as he opened his mouth to protest. “Go, boy. There’s nothing you can do but run. I’ve got a little firepower, and I’ll keep them distracted, maybe even long enough for a few of you to survive. Get the hell out of here. Do your best to take care of my family. Go.”
“Come on,” danger growled as the horde drew closer still. “Get a fucking move on, we’ve got to go!” Drow met those steady green eyes one last time, nodded once, and left behemoth to die. There was no saving behemoth’s family, no protecting them from an army of the hungry dead. But he pretended, if only to make the man feel better about his sacrifice. They ran after the others, he and danger, leaving the chestnut warrior behind. Hope he’s got more than a little to fight with. Worst case scenario, they’ll be busy for a little while devouring him. A few more days, and he might have fought, might have stayed right alongside the other man. Might have cared enough to try to save him, try to persuade him. But there was nothing he could do to save any of them. They were all going to die anyhow. Might as well let him go out thinking he was making a difference.
Even if it was a lie. Nothing was getting out of here alive.
Watch the flames climb high into the night
Drow