Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

            I fell asleep that night with the same sense of useless, sourceless sadness that had been clinging to me for weeks, that made me feel like such a child, curling up around my pillow and not sleeping. Boo hoo, Ellie’s sad about her friend. Big deal. Get over it.

            I woke up that night with teeth at my neck and adrenaline in my veins and a tremor (and a knife) in my fingers, breathing too hard, half in a nightmare.

I spent the night laughing and shouting and almost crying (But not crying. We weren’t that kind of sappy).

I met up with Riley, then I made up with Riley, then I made out with Riley.

It was a little bit awesome.

            We both made promises we probably couldn’t keep, but we’d been friends for a long time, and we’d made and kept unkeepable promises before. We’d fought before, too, (Not like this, never like this) and it had always worked out fine, and maybe now it would be the same but with kissing and without the military.

            Or the fireflies.

            We promised each other futures, because we’d given up our own. I didn’t know what that future would be, or how we'd get there, but we’d promised, and I have a thing about best friends (Maybe more then friends?) and promises (If you've got them, keep them).           

Whatever the future was, I was glad she’d be in it. No matter how teenage it sounded (It sounded really, painfully teenage), I’d missed her really bad, and I kinda needed her.

            I didn’t need the fireflies. Or the boarding school, or Marlene or any of it, just… her. Her eyes and her soft skin and her warm arms and her sharp smiles and the way she laughed (I sound like such a dumbass adolescent, this is embarrassing).

            And I just stood there, kiss growing stale on my lips, feeling young and stupid and butterflies-in-the-stomach nervous, looking her in the eyes, my heart crawling up my throat to take the place my breath occupies.

            I don’t know how long we’d been standing there in the mall (her mall), listening to trashy dance music (her trashy dance music) and not talking, but I finally force words around the knot in my throat, breaking the anxious silence with

“What do we do now?” It sounds very small and very scared and I almost hate myself for it.

She smiles. “We’ll figure it out.”

And I smile back and I think she might be right. We’ve figured it out so far. And this strange sort of comfort wraps around me, like I haven’t felt in years, like somehow it’s all going to be okay.

            And then something shifts, and suddenly it’s our mall and our trashy dance music, and the sing-song “I got you"s drift through the air like words neither of us wants to say (too sappy, too soon). Words neither of us needs to say. I understand.

We have each other. And we’ll figure it out.

Chapter Text

            My wrist aches, the bone-deep gnaw of infection, too warm and under-the-skin-itchy. I feel every heartbeat in the bite, my pulse reminding me I don’t have much time left.

            I had been dumfounded. Then I had been angry. Then I had been desperate.

            Now I’m curled into Riley’s side with my head on her shoulder, and she’s resting her cheek on my head, and I’m pretending I can’t feel her tears in my hair.

“Riley?” I ask, and I can feel my voice break, and I hate it.

“Yeah?”

I almost tell her how lost I’m feeling, but I catch the confession in my throat. No need to be a downer.

 “I’m bored.”

            I can feel her smile against me, and then she’s standing, pulling me with her. “Come on. There’s a great view of the sunset from the roof”

            I don’t mention that it’s barely past noon. I just follow her. Somehow in the course of a morning the mall has lost all of its magic, all of its wonder. The lights are flickery and dim now, and the stores all look broken down. Even the posters boasting of far-off places seem faded and false.

            When we pass through a clothing store I lash out at a manikin, shoving it as hard as I can, feeling nothing as it topples to the ground, tears pricking at my eyes. I aim a kick at the plastic torso for good measure.

            Why us?

            I can feel Riley’s eyes on my back, feel the pity there, and when she puts a hand on my  shoulder the tenderness grates. I shrug her off.

            How are you handling this so well?

“What are we doing, Riley?” I can hear the angry slant to my words.

            She looks at me, and it’s not pity in her eyes, it’s an affection that’s so raw it makes my breath catch in my throat. My anger dies, and I feel childish again, the dented manikin on the floor a monument to my immaturity.

“We’re going to the roof. Come on.”

            I turn to follow her again, grabbing hold of her hand (I’m careful not to choose the bitten one. It’s easier to pretend if I can’t see her bite).

            Riley falters for a second, then squeezes my fingers and keeps walking, hand locked with mine. I think one or both of us is holding on too tight, but it helps make the mall seem a little brighter, a little less empty.

            We wander for most of the day, walking slowly through places long since explored. We finally make it to the roof sometime in the early evening. The air’s soft and cool, the breeze gentle, the fading sun warm.

            Riley was right about one thing. The view from up here is nice.

             I take a seat on the edge of the roof and she slides down next to me, wrapping am arm around my shoulder.

“Is it weird that I’m still nervous sitting this close to the edge of the roof?” Riley kicks her feet against the wall.

I laugh.

“Nah. You always were afraid of everything.”

            She shoots me a look, and I turn to meet her eyes, and suddenly we’re almost touching, so I lean forwards and close the distance.

            Despite it all, kissing her sends a happy thrill through me, and I smile against Riley’s lips.

            When we come up for air, Riley sighs and looks out over the city, the moment breaking like surface tension.

            The silence that follows lends itself to thought, and if there’s one thing I’m scared of, it’s thinking too hard about what’s coming.

“Well, Firefly girl,”

            Riley turns away from the skyline, looking me in the eyes, and it’s a little too close and a little too intense. I look away, heat rising in my cheeks.

“How’s it been? Holding up to your expectations?”

            She smiles, looking back out at the skyline as dusk falls. I feel her shrug against me.

“It’s had its low points. You can’t deny that view, though.”

            I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, and a bizarre contentment settles over me. The wind is a little cool, but Riley’s warm beside me, and the view of the sunset from here is, as promised, spectacular, sun catching in the buildings around us and lighting the glass like oil slicks.

            When the sun slips past the horizon, Riley lies back against the tarry roof, and I follow her lead, resting my head on her stomach. The stars are just starting to appear, and (Expect for one, tiny detail that I’m trying very hard not to think about) I’m content. The roof is still warm from the day’s sun. I finally get to kiss my best friend. The view really is pretty nice.

            I feel her stomach rise and fall in a sigh.

“What are we gonna do now?”

I smile, lean up on one elbow to look her in the eye.

“We’ll figure it out.”

Chapter Text

            My wrist gets worse overnight. When I touch it, pus seeps through the cracking scab. The skin around the bite is bright red and shiny and hot to the touch. All of me feels warm, flush with fever, my expiration date stamped on my forearm and throbbing with every heartbeat.

            When I show Riley, she looks at her own bite, clean and scabbing over, and I can’t meet her eyes. I’d heard that the Turn happens faster for some people, but I sort of thought that we’d Turn within seconds of each other, with time for nothing but last words.

“I won’t leave you behind, you know.”

I glance up at Riley, pretend there aren’t tears in her eyes, blink away the tears in mine.

“If you Turn first, I mean. I won’t leave.” Her voice is dangerously close to breaking. 

“Riley, you are such a sap.”

I force a smile and she wrinkles her nose and shoves at me (with her good hand. Neither of us wants to remind the other of what’s coming), and I push myself upright and offer her a hand to help her up (my good hand, naturally).

“Such a gentleman.” She says, and grabs my hand, pulling herself up and into my arms.

Then we’re hugging, and it’s so surreal to be able to touch her like this without worrying. Without wondering if I’m taking advantage, revealing too much, without wondering if she knows. I tighten my arms around her shoulders and bury my tears in her neck, and we stand there for a long time, speechless.

Riley laughs, pushing me away to arms length. “Not the most romantic first date.”

I laugh back (a little watery, maybe, but it’ll have to do). “I was thinking more long walks on the beach and less infected.”

            She’s looking at me, right in the eyes, and gnawing on her lip (I don’t know if she picked up the habit from me or vice-versa, but it’s ingrained blood-deep in us both), and I have to look away. Her eyes are too intense, sometimes.

 I can feel heat in my cheeks, and I know it’s not the infection.

“Ellie.”

I glance up. She sounds like she’s planning something. That tone of voice is never a good sign.

“Will you go on a date with me?” There’s this light in her eyes, a mischievous slant to her mouth.

            I flap at my face, feigning a swoon. “Oh, Riley, a date, golly-“

She smacks me on the shoulder, laughing.

“Is that a yes?”

 And I nod, and she grabs me by the hand.

“Come on.”

Then we’re off. I spend a lot of my time being dragged around by Riley.

There are worse people to be dragged around by.

When we get to the food court, Riley sits me down at a rusty table, the paint chipped and peeling, and presses my hand to the tabletop.

“Stay here.”

“Riley, what are we doing?”

“Stay here.” She says, and then she runs off, with a glance and a ‘stay’ hand gesture waved in my direction. I hear her whistling long after I lose sight of her. I guess we don’t have to worry about attracting anything with the noise, anymore.

            I wait at the old table maybe ten minutes, and then restlessness gets the better of me.

I don’t have much time left. I don’t want to spend it just sitting around.

            The thought is jarring and intrusive and I shake it off, wandering around the food court to distract myself (I’m too sweaty, and even the walk leaves me winded, but I don’t think about why). The stalls are old and beat-up, but if I close my eyes, I can picture it full of people, bustling with life and activity. It’s better then thinking about the Other Thing.

Imagining’s not as fun without Riley narrating.

            When she’s still not back ten minutes later, I fish around inside the stalls, find some old cans of peaches and granola bars at a place that used to sell sandwiches.

“Hello, I’d like to buy these.”

I put the food on the counter, trying to pretend someone’s there to ring up the purchase, but it’s hard without Riley there, and I just wind up feeling stupid.

“Whatever.” I scoop the food off the counter and dash back to the table when I hear whistling in the distance.

“Hey.” Riley comes back with a plastic bag in one hand and a tiny smile on her face.

“Hey.” I put the food on the table. “I found lunch.”

“I thought I told you to stay here.”

“Here is relative. You could have meant the whole mall for all I know.”

I’m rewarded by a laugh, and when I look up to meet Riley’s eyes she shakes her head.

“Close your eyes.”

I make a face, but I close my eyes, because when Riley gets an idea she tends to latch on (That’s what got us into this mess in the first place).

I hear rustling, a curse.

“Are you sure you don’t need my eyes open? You sound like you could use some help.”

“I’m fine.”

There’s a muted click, and I smell smoke.

“Are you burning something?”

I hear Riley sit down across from me, the ancient table creaking in protest.

 “Open your eyes.”

Riley’s set the table, damp paper plates and plastic cutlery and a candle guttering between us (It’s an eye-ball shaped Halloween candle, but it’s the thought that counts).

The food I found is split evenly, unwrapped granola bars and slimy peaches sitting in the centre of each plate (I’m nauseous rather then hungry, and the realization makes anxiety gnaw at my stomach where hunger should be).

She sits down across from me, smiling, and picks up her knife and fork, slicing off a piece of granola bar.

“Lovely restaurant.” I say. “How far in advance did you have to make reservations?”

            Riley laughs, and goddamn, talking is so easy with her, and I missed this. This whole mall thing was worth it, I missed her so much.

            We eat shitty food and talk about everything but the future (well, I talk about space, but we don’t talk about our future), until the candle burns itself out, and then Riley leans across the table to kiss me.

            She tastes like peaches and sweat and dust, and I kiss her back, and it’s so novel and so nice, just to be able to touch her. When we get up I hold her hand, sticking close, because now that I can touch her I’m going to keep our separation to a minimum.

            We wander without looking for anything.

We find something, though- a store room with a door that locks, and sleeping bags inside, and I know that this is where we’ll spend our last days.

            Riley sits me down on a sleeping bag and rubs circles into my back and tells me how warm I feel, and can she get me any water, and am I okay, and I shut her up with a kiss and tell her that I don’t want to spend my last day talking about my fever.

            Instead I curl into her side and run my fingers through her hair, wrap my arm around her shoulder, and she gets it.

            Somehow, another day has slipped by, and panic spikes through me when I look at the ticking time bomb on my wrist. I think about the sunset last night, about how I’ll probably never see another.

            I fall asleep on Riley’s shoulder, letting her gentle hands rub the tension out of by back and the fever out of my blood.

Chapter Text

        My wrist feels better when I wake up in the middle of the night. The bone-deep ache is faded and distant, and the lack wakes me up in a cold sweat, the fever broken like a wave. I’m not warm anymore- I’m shivering, teeth chattering together, hands shaking.

        I don’t know if this is supposed to happen when you get infected- maybe it’s just the next stage- but I feel better. I feel alive again, freezing and clammy and shivering like a junkie days from a fix, but better, somehow.

         I curl into Riley, who’s as warm as she’s always been, this solid, comforting heat at my back.

        She’s like summer sunlight, like a blanket in the wintertime. She leeches the shivers out of me, and I sleep deeply.

        When I wake again, Riley’s warmth has become something malicious. Something evil. There’s heat in every fiber of her- she’s fever-hot all over, and her breaths are slow and ragged and she’s shivering, shaking so hard I think she might tear herself apart.

        I grab her by the shoulders, try to keep her still, keep her from hurting herself, and it feels so strange to be the one protecting her, like some unwritten law has been violated.

        Even through her Jacket, Riley’s skin burns. Whatever fever I had is tenfold in her.

“Riley?”

        She doesn’t respond, and I feel tears spring to my eyes, feel the inevitable crashing down on me all at once.

“Riley, please, I can’t lose you like this.”

        It’s a plea and it’s also a goodbye, and my heart sinks to the pit of my stomach when she doesn’t respond except to keep shivering.

“Please.”

        My voice is no louder then a whisper, and I feel so small and so goddamn useless, and I shake her by the shoulders, desperate and needy and helpless.

        Riley’s eyes slide open. She takes this deep, shuddering breath.

“Riley?”

        Now I am crying, sobbing like a little kid, and I watch her regain consciousness slowly, like a swimmer breaking the surface.

“Ellie?”

        She sounds so slow, so confused. It’s not like the Riley I know at all. That Riley is fast and clever and bright as the sun.

        This- this is not that girl. This Riley is muted and bleary-eyed, and she’s reaching for me blindly with this almost childish want, and I hug her back and cry into her.

        At least she’s stopped shaking.

“Ellie, what’s wrong?”

        I shake my head, lean back, blink my tears away.

“Nothing. Bad dream.”

        I don’t want to ruin what time we have left.

        She looks me in the eyes, and there’s the Riley I know, the Riley that won’t take my shit for even a second.

“You were gone, Riley. For a second there you were…”

        My voice chokes off with this throat-closing sob that I can’t hold in no matter how hard I try. I can’t even speak right.

        She laughs, this sad, watery chuckle.

“I’m not leaving you without a goodbye.” She says, and when she kisses me, I know it’s as close to a goodbye as I’m going to get.

        Her lips are too warm. It’s like kissing the sun.

        I wipe my eyes- I’ve been doing too much of that, recently.

“This isn’t really how I pictured it going down. We were supposed to get old, you know?”

        She looks at me, the last sleep falling from her eyes.

“You thought about us?”

         I choke, all childish fantasy.

“Well, I mean-“

“It’s okay. I did to. I-“

        She cuts off the rest of her sentence with a strange fear in her eyes, deer-in-the-headlights. She was always, always stronger then this. Her weakness terrifies me.

“We were just- we were supposed to have more then this.” She holds up her hand, the bite puckering at the edges, the scab curling in to show a bright white growing through her skin, like moss, like fungus, like plague.

“Yeah.” I grab her hand and run my fingers over the bite and that’s a goodbye in itself.

        Riley laughs.

“Oops, right?” and that’s a goodbye, too.

        I lean as far into her side as I can, even though she’s too warm, and she makes this noise, like I’ve hurt her, and I jerk away like she’s burned me, and already Riley’s shaking her head.

“It’s okay. You didn’t hurt me. It’s just-“

        She coughs, this wet, horrible sound with a scream on the edges of it, too close to the sounds those things make for comfort.

“I’m just a little sore, is all.”

        She sounds more then a little sore, but I don’t say that. I say

“Are we talking like, paper cut sore, or lemon juice in a paper cut sore?”

“Closer to just a paper cut.” She says, and pulls me back into her side.

        We just sit and talk, pressed as close to each other as our skin will allow, and everything she says is a goodbye, and everything I say is an apology.

        After a while, she starts to cough every couple of minutes, a whole-body cough that rattles through her like death. She always recovers fast enough though.

        Except this time she doesn’t.

        She just coughs, and coughs, and the hand that isn’t wrapped around me goes up to her mouth and comes away bloody, and her shoulders are shaking and I’m trying so hard not to cry.

“I’m okay.” She says, once she’s caught her breath.

“I’m okay.”

        Her voice is so shaky. There’s this tremor in it, and she was always supposed to be the strong one, and with her like this I feel so lost.

        I don’t know what I should do, so I just do what I want to do, and pull her into a kiss that tastes like blood and fever. When we break apart, she takes a deep, shuddering breath and says

“I’m glad I got to kiss you before-“

        I nod.

Riley Blinks, slow and hazy, like she’s trying to remember something important.

“I’m just- I’m getting kinda tired, so I’m gonna lie down, now.”

She doesn’t sound like herself at all, lying down with stiff, clumsy movements that are so separate from Riley, graceful Riley, infallible Riley.

I lie down with her, resting my head on her chest, feeling her lungs cough themselves apart every few minutes.

“I’m glad too.” I say, and she drapes an arm over my back.

“Hey, I might not make it to tomorrow, and if I don’t-“

        I shake my head, cut her off. She lies there, for a moment, quiet, and I’m afraid I’ve lost her before she says

“Tell me about how it was supposed to go. Tell me how it was supposed to happen.”

I nod. “Close your eyes.” I say, trying to be like her, because nothing was ever so comforting as she was.

“We were supposed to leave the QZ- just go live outside, you know? Find a forest, or a suburb, somewhere with plenty of wildlife and no infected, or hunters, or soldiers, or Fireflies, or any of that.”

        I can feel her breathing slowing down.

“And we- we were going to build a cabin, just big enough for us, and fill it with all our favourite books.”

“Music, too?” She asks, and she sounds so needy, so small.

“Yeah.” I whisper.

“Yeah, we’d live near a city, with a music shop, and we’d fix up an old stereo and listen to all the music we’d ever want.”

        She’s coal-hot against me, burning up from the inside out.

“We’d have a dog, and he’d sleep on our feet in the winter, to keep warm, and the bed would always be too small, and you’d always hog the blankets, and we’d sit in front of the fire and read every night.”

I realize I’m crying, not sobbing, not sniffling, there are just tears rolling down my cheeks and onto Riley’s shirt.

“We’d always have enough to hunt, enough to eat, you’d teach me how to use a bow and I’d teach you how to play poker, and we’d have a horse, and we’d both live until we were wrinkly and old."

         I can feel her falling asleep under me, breath slowing, and her words are slurred.

“What’s the horse’s name?”

“I’d let you name it.” I say. She nods.

“It’d be big, and brown.” She says, like she’s reciting from a script. “Not like Princess.”

I nod like I understand. “What would you call it?”

        Riley pauses to think, and she sounds very far away when she finally says “Callus.”

        And she sounds even further away when she says “How would we die?”

        My throat closes up for a second, and it takes a couple deep breaths to continue.

“It would be summer time. It’d be so warm, and sunny, and it would smell like spring. The dog would sit by our feet, and we would sit next to each other on the front porch, all grey and old, and we’d just drift away. Like falling asleep.”

        She sighs, and it’s half contentment and half death rattle.

“Like falling asleep.” She echoes, and I can feel her do just that beneath me, just as I can feel the farewell in the words.

        And then I fall asleep on her chest, even though she’s too warm, even though her coughing makes it hard to get comfortable. Even though she’s going to be dangerous by morning.

“Sorry.” I whisper, and there’s a goodbye in that, too.

Chapter Text

My wrist is better when I wake up.

         Damnably, unfairly better. The skin is too-warm, still, and it leaks clear fluid when I press on it, but it’s scabbing over.

            Healing, somehow. Like a great practical joke on the part of the universe. Millions of people in the world, and I take longer to turn then anyone else.

Millions of people, and I have to be one of the ones to watch other someone else turn first.

            This didn’t feel poetic.

            I’ve been pushed off of Riley in my sleep, and when I look over to see how she’s doing, my heart drops into my stomach.

            She’s jerking back and forth, eyelids flickering, mouth hanging open.

            She’s making this sound, halfway between a groan and a scream, really low and really quiet, and it makes my hair stand on end.

“Riley?” My voice catches in my throat, and I hate how weak it makes me sound.

            Maybe the worst part of this is that Riley was always the one I went to when there was something wrong, when I couldn’t handle the world. She always had a way of making everything else fade away. She was intense, bright. It was always impossible to look away from her.

            I realize that I am thinking of her in the past tense, and that makes the tears in my eyes spill over, pulls sobs from the back of my raw throat.

            There’s a bloody foam at the corner of Riley’s mouth, and when I go to wipe it away she’s furnace-hot, almost too warm to touch, and I know I should keep my hands away from her mouth, but fuck it. I’m dead walking anyway.

            Bitten.

            A death sentence.

            Just one that’s dragging on a little too long.

“Riley” I say, again, because I feel like I should say something to her, even if she doesn’t know. Even if she can’t hear.

“I think-“ My crying makes my voice crack, and goddamnit, she deserves a better then this. Better then me.

            She always deserved more then I could give her.

            More then some asshole who can’t even give a fucking eulogy.

“Riley.” I start again, blinking hard, grabbing her hand. “I think-“

            Her fingers claw at my skin, tearing my palm open.

            I ignore it as best I can.

        This is the least I can do.

“I think I might have been in love with you.”

        Her hands still, give a squeeze of my fingers, weak, barely-there.

        It feels like victory.

        I look down at Riley, and see her eyes open, thick with sleep and unfocused.

        She frowns. There’s such pain on her face, and she works her mouth for maybe five minuets. I start to think she’s choking, but then-

“I think maybe I loved you too.”

        And when I go to kiss her, she screams, whole body convulsing, face twisting in pain, and she grits her teeth, still stronger then me after all of this, and she says

“You have to kill me.”

            She’s not crying.

            Even now, Riley is steel.

“I will.”

       She pulls me closer, and I can feel her muscles shaking.

“Promise me.”

            I can see panic in her eyes, hear her voice cracking.

“I promise.”

        And then I do kiss her, because I know it’s going to be the last time. She slumps under me, dead weight, and I’m crying and holding her to my chest and gulping these deep, shaky breaths, shuddering with sobs that rattle through me like summer storms.

        I know the next time she wakes up, she won’t be Riley anymore. I grab her gun and hold it with hands too shaky to pull the trigger.

“Goodbye,” I say, and press the gun against her head.

“Goodbye, I love you, goodbye.” I say it over, and over, finger on the trigger.

        I lock the door to the room Riley is in, unloading her gun and throwing the magazine as far away as I can, not watching where it lands.

            Useless. Weak.

            I press my back to the door and wrap my arms around my knees and cry until I can barely breathe, until my chest is burning and my throat is sore and my eyes ache.

“I’m sorry.” I whisper to the door.

            I lean my head against the steel and close my eyes and wait.  

Chapter Text

            My wrist is raw and bloody where I’ve clawed at it, trying to scrape the reminder of my continued sentience from my skin.

            My throat is dry and grating, and my eyes feel like sandpaper- fever has scraped the moisture from my skin and I am starving and parched and exhausted beyond belief.

I don’t bother finding someplace safe to sleep. Here is a good a place to die as any. I lean my head back against the door and close my eyes and encourage the infection to take root.

The first time it happens, I nearly jump out of my own skin. A metallic clang cuts through the eerie quiet of the mall, a noise that rattles through the steel door at my back and clacks my teeth together painfully.

Then another one, the same loud, metallic thud that buzzes through my bones, ear-piercing in the pin-drop silence of the mall.

And another, a deliberate rhythm, sluggish and relentless, this brassy noise that rattles my teeth and sets me on edge. I can feel my body working to wake up, to summon the energy for adrenaline. Her fists pound against the door, over and over, tireless.

I look in the direction I threw the pieces of Riley’s gun and regret fills my mouth like bile, bitter and harsh as the whiskey Riley had offered my earlier.

I’m sorry I couldn’t do it I wasn’t strong enough I’m sorry.

The door shakes with every beat of her fists, and I know I should move, know that the door will give eventually, and whatever is left of Her will come tumbling out, all gnashing teeth and eager hands and broken promises.

I fish my knife out of my pocket, flip it open and closed, consider opening the door and killing what’s left of her, salvaging what’s left of my honor. My limbs are leaden, and there’s sand in my joints, and I can’t bring myself to move. All I can do is sit here and listen to the mechanical thud-thud-thud of the thing that had been Riley clawing for my blood.

Every breath catches in my throat like an apology, and my eyes burn. No matter how hard I try, I can’t find tears to shed. I don’t feel much of anything, really, just exhaustion and an apathy that feels like drowning. I am numb and sore-eyed, and I want nothing more then to unlock the door and let Her tear me apart.

But I’ve already broken the last promise I made Her, and I know how she’d hate to be the one to kill me, so I sit and wait for the infection to turn me, instead.

Eventually, I fall asleep, the sound of sluggish fists hammering the door serving as my lullaby.

I wake up to the same sound, and I can feel the vibration of the door through my bones, the thud-thud-thud of the thing’s fists buzzing through my jaw and shaking my teeth.

The discomfort feels like retribution, like penance, and I sit and I scratch at my bite and I wait.

She- It starts making this growling noise that gets under my skin like bedbugs, like lice, and I clamp my hand over my ears and curl forwards over my knees, eyes squeezed shut against the thudding of my best friend’s hands against the door, the steady sound of the girl I might’ve loved trying to claw her way through solid steel for the privilege of murdering me.

And I want to let her.

Then she makes this noise- a scream that’s halfway howl, all predator, all carnivore, and I can’t take it anymore. This is not poetic, and we are not together, but I sure as hell am losing my mind, so I stand and I run, ever the coward, breaking every promise I ever made Her.

I am a coward and a liar and I run, run until my legs give out, shaky and exhausted, and I slump down where I fall, trying to find tears to release some of the awful, cloying tension in my chest.

They do not come, but sleep does, after a time, and I welcome the escape, hoping that I’m gone by morning.

Chapter Text

            My wrist aches with infection, but not the right type.

            This is real infection. Human infection. The kind that stopped killing people when penicillin was invented.

            And sure I feel hungry and desperate and maybe even a little feral, but I sure as hell don’t feel like I’m turning.

            I wander around the mall, and everything feels washed-out and sun-faded without Her here.

            The once-vibrant shop fronts have been revealed as peeling and broken-down, and the mall that used to be magic is just a filthy, crumbling building long overdue for demolition.

            I wind up in the arcade, feet aching with long walk and little rest.

            The game console for The Turning is till there, and in my memory it’s all bright paint and laughter, but now it’s just as rusty as everything else, cracks spider-webbing across the cheap plastic screen cover.

            I punch at the buttons, try to relive some of the old magic, but I can’t see the lights anymore, can’t hear the music.

            Without her, this game is just an empty shell, devoid of function, rotting alone and abandoned and I still don’t feel like I’m turning.

            And now the tears come, hot and angry, sobs like sandpaper at the back of my throat.

            She never cried, not once. I never saw Riley like this, and I feel helpless and weak, and the feeling wells out of me in a scream that feels a little foolish and a little validating, and I swing my fist into the screen of Space Invaders and smile when the glass cracks.

            When the pain fades out of my knuckles I feel worse, feel six-years-old, feel temper tantrum, and I’m pretty sure Riley never did this, either.

            But fuck it. I don’t have anyone to impress, anymore, and there’s this feral desperation strung through my veins like live wire, and I need to move, need to run or fight or something, because if I stand still for a second longer I will be consumed by this- this toxic soup of panic and fear and a pathetic, helpless, useless feeling that feels like maggots under my skin.

            I tear a poster off the wall and shred it into confetti, and it lets some of the tension out of my gut so I turn on the whole arcade, ripping at rotten plaster and old wood with my bare hands, tearing the room apart.

            I collapse against the wall when I run out of things to break, panting, hands bloody with tantrum, and I don’t feel better, exactly, just a little more tired.

            And more helpless. No matter what I do, no matter how angry I am, there is nothing I can do about any of this, and the knowledge churns in my gut like poison, and I still don't feel like I'm turning.

            So I do nothing. I curl up around the tight, angry feeling in my chest and consider sleeping, and whether or not I wake up in the morning doesn’t matter anymore.

            Either way, nothing will become of it.

            I close my eyes and welcome sleep and know, know the way you know the sun will rise, that I am utterly insignificant.

            That I will die here, in this mall, and no one will ever find my body, and nothing will ever become of it.

            The thought is oddly comforting, and I take a deep breath and let go, and I sleep.

Chapter Text

        My wrist is oozing this clear, thin fluid that looks like water and smells like rot, and now I know it's infected, but I don't know if it's Infected, and sometimes a capital letter makes all the difference.

        I haul myself upright at what feels like early in the morning, resolve to stagger through the mall on auto-pilot because if I sit still the restlessness becomes helplessness, becomes desperate, pathetic tantrum, and the empty sucking feeling that leaves in my chest is worse then aching legs.

        The door in the arcade leads straight through to where we had a water gun fight, to where we listened to dance music, to the place where I was the happiest I've even been in my life, and, shortly after, the most terrified.

        Our bags are still sitting there, water guns and joke books and everything that seemed important. That still seems important, and now that I've started crying, I can't stop.

        Because we almost made it. We were so, so /close/ to everything I've ever wanted and now-

        I wipe my nose on my sleeve, sling the bags over my shoulder.

        Don't think about it

        I find my Walkman next, lying where we left it, and it still feels precious, like ancient artifact, like souvenir. I pick it up and turn it over on my hands, seeing scratches and dents I'd never noticed before.

        You see things differently when you think you've lost them.

        When I look up, there's one of those things watching me- or, not watching. Listening. Its head is cocked to one side, blind mouth clattering open and shut.

        stay calm

        I take a deep breath, pull my knife out of my pocket, flick it open. The noise it makes sounds like thunder. I raise my arm, get ready to drive the blade into the thing's neck. Looking forwards to it. Get a little revenge.

The thing doesn't notice. Just stands there, twitching, and suddenly I see Riley in it, see her hands and her mouth and her clattering, hungry teeth, and I can't do it. I know it’s not Her, know that Her- what’s left of Her- is locked behind a steel door, but I can’t do it.

        So I run. Seem to have been doing that a lot, lately.

        coward

        I shake my head, try to clear it, but all that does is make my headache flare up, so I plug my earbuds in, listen to dance music. Songs that are loud and cheery and making me cry, fast tempo and upbeat and I'm walking and sobbing and lost.

        "What do I do?" I ask, of no one in particular.

        No one tells me I'll figure it out. No one tells me it's going to be Ok.

        I don't say it, either.

        I'm tired of lying.

Chapter Text

        My wrist is a mess, all blood and pus and raw edges, but the infection hasn't spread. There isn't fungus creeping up my arm, there's no slow, deadly disease crawling towards my brain.

        I am still not turning.

        I'm clean.

        I'm clean And it clicks, really clicks for the first time. I accepted that I was going to die quickly enough, but this-

        This is harder to grasp.

        Now my life might mean more then it had. Maybe the bite didn't take, somehow, maybe I'm-

        Don't say it don't even think it immunity is a fairy tale and you know it

        The door rattles against my back and I hear the thing that had been Her groaning, teeth gnashing. I don’t know quite why I came back here, back to It, but it felt right. Felt like the thing to do. The thing that killed Riley growls, ramming it’s fists against the metal.

        Tears, hot and stinging, run down my cheeks, and when they hit my lips they taste like guilt.

        I plug in my headphones and try to drown out the sound of that Thing throwing itself against a steel door to get at me, but the cheery music is suddenly caustic, abrasive, feels like skin crawling, like poison ivy, and I tear the headphones off feeling itchy-all-over restless.

        I spring to my feet and pace, feel anxious and guilty and choked with tears.

        She wouldn't have wanted this. God, I'd have hated for her to see me like this.

        The greatest irony is that, right now, the person I most need to comfort me is Riley.

        That thought stops me cold, and a sob tears out of my chest like acid, burning all the way.

        Pull yourself together.

        I feel sick and lead-eyed and I have to try. For Her sake, I have to try. To live, to get out of here- I need to at least make an effort. I dig through our bags, find pilfered rations and stale snack foods.

        I sit back, lay out my supplies. A fresh shirt, two water guns, a joke book, a Walkman, a day's worth of food-

        And a switchblade.

        Looking at it makes me queasy, makes the stale food look even less appetizing then in had before.

        I unwrap a granola bar, break a rock-hard chunk off in my teeth and force myself to swallow. It tastes like sawdust, and I have to fight to get it down my throat, but I have to try.

        I have to try.

        For her.

Chapter Text

      My wrist is covered by the hem of my new shirt, and if I try very hard I can almost pretend it's not there.

      The old shirt was filthy and bloodstained and carried too many memories, and this one is clean and it covers my bite and I feel better, for a moment.

       Then I push up my sleeves to the elbow, stare hard at the bite, the source of all this worry, all these tears, and after all that it doesn't even have the good grace to kill me.

      As I stare at it, that helplessness wells up in my chest, pushes tears out of my eyes. It feels too big to fit in my body, more misery then I can possibly hold, and all at once it implodes, the hopeless feeling collapsing in on itself.

      Something snaps, and my misery, my desperation breaks like fever, and in it's place there's this sucking anger, all black hole, all vacuum.

      It fills me head-to toe, and I tear at my arm, fingernails ragged. I can feel my face twist into a snarl, but there's no one around to see and it feels good to finally lose control.

      I grab my knife and breathe deep, feel the anger hot in my chest, let it stew for a moment. Then I throw the door open.

      It takes a moment to see me.

      Then it turns, and it has Her face and Her eyes and Her hands- torn bloody from pounding at the door, but Her hands.

      It makes this noise that I will never forget, half a scream and half a growl, and lunges for me.

      The rage in my chest goes supernova, and I scream, feel my dry throat tear at the sound, raw and bloody, and I throw myself at it.

      The knife sinks into flesh easy enough, and the thing that stole Riley from me howls, and I howl back, taste blood at the back of my throat, stab it again.

      It goes down, making this sick, wet sound when it hits the ground, and I fall on it, a scream building in my chest, and I drive my knife into it over and over, feel gore splatter up my arms, taste Her blood in my mouth.

      When I stand up it's dead, and I've mended a broken promise.

      I leave the room feeling lost. There's nothing tying me to this mall, anymore. No reason to stay, and now I'm at a lose end, now I am stringless puppet, am wasted batteries, with no reason to be here and nowhere else to be, I am lost.

      Before the infection killed Riley, and long before I killed It, there was a saying she liked.

      Something about being lost in the darkness.

Chapter Text

        My wrist has stopped itching. Now it just pulses with the soft, steady pain of infection, hot and angry but easy enough to ignore.

        The ghost town of the mall seems especially broken-down today, all dust and blood and broken glass.

        There's nothing for me here, now, I know that, but it still hurts to leave.

        To leave Her mall- our mall. To leave Her body for the rats and scavengers, to leave our water guns and memories behind, I feel like I am betraying something.

        The roof of the mall is tarry, sticky with the early heat of the day, and by the time I make it up I'm exhausted, and a little choked up.

        I know that this is goodbye.

        I sit, watch the last traces of the sunrise ooze over the horizon, light pouring slowly across the world, and I think about the last sunset I shared with Riley.

        It was- maybe a week ago, I haven't been keeping track of time all that well.
        
        We were sitting up here and kissing and joking and I thought I might have been in love, and now-

        Well, we knew we were going to die, then, knew that in three days we'd lose our minds and succumb to the fungus and go-

        Go wherever people go after they die.

        But we had hope. For some, bizzare reason we were hopeful, caught up in kissing and each other, and now-

        Now I was immune, maybe, but that hope was gone. Even though I wasn't gonna die, it was gone, and without hope...

        Well, I just wanted to lie down here and never get up, watch the sunrises and sunsets until moss covered my body and I closed my eyes for good. Life is hard, and I don't know how to find the Fireflies and I don't know how they'll react when I do, but I made a promise.

        Maybe not out loud, but Riley would have made me promise if shed been alive anyway, so it's the same thing, really.

        I haul myself up on shaky legs and walk across the catwalk to the next roof, set off west, towards where I think the fireflies are.

        I have been walking for hours, and frustration is coiling low and hot in my gut. The sun's tracked its way to the other end of the sky, and I cannot find the Fireflies.

        Look for the light my ass.

"I'M LOOKING," I yell, at no one in particular, and no one answers.

        Some of the anger uncoils from my stomach, though, and I sigh, and I walk.

Chapter Text

My wrist is itching like guilty conscience, and I can't help but think about what the Fireflies will do about my bite when I finally find them.

if I ever find them. I've been walking for what feels like forever, feet sore, throat dry, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of a Firefly yet.

I think I'm headed the right way, but one apartment complex looks much like another- the Fireflies could be based nearby and I'd have no idea.

I walk.

After hours of fruitless searching, when frustration is starting to eat through my stomach like acid, I finally see a Firefly.

He's standing alone, not paying attention to anything around him, his back to me.

I sneak as close as I can. If I stay out of sight I can-

What was that?

I swear to God I just heard someone whispering.

calm down Ellie

I shake if off, feeling unsettled, hackles-up, prey-anxious.

okay, just get behind him and-

"NOW!"

The shout nearly makes be jump out of my skin, and the guy I was sneaking up on whips around, and suddenly he's got friends, three more Fireflies with guns in their hands and murder in their eyes.

My heart is beating too fast, and I feel deer-in-headlights, frozen in place as the fireflies advance.

The first guy puts his hand on my shoulder, and that unsticks me.

"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!"

The guy startles, goes to put his hand over my mouth, and without thinking I sink my teeth into his fingers.

The guy shouts, high and surprised.

"FUCK, GODDAMNIT she bit me!"

All of the frustration and injustice of the last days flares up in the pit of my stomach, and anger rears up in my chest.

"Get the fuck off me, creep!" I shout, and jerk my head back to hit him in the nose.

I feel something crunch, and part of me is very satisfied.

The other three guys all close in on me quick, and time kind of... blurs. I am aware only dimly of fists and pain and I use every advantage I can, biting and kicking and scratching at eyes.

Rage fills every pore of me, everything boiling over into this focused, white-hot anger that lends wings to my arms, but-

There are four guys, and they're all stronger then me, and it's not long before one of them's holding my arms behind my back. And no matter how much I kick at him he won't let go.

"I GOT HER, I GOT HER!" He yells, and I fumble my knife out of my pocket and plant it in the meat of his thigh, and then the world narrows again to fighting and feral instinct.

I get snapshots of what's going on- a punch landing on my jaw and putting me in the dirt, the wet snap of someone's wrist cracking, the sobbing of a man who catches the sharp end of my switchblade, but I lose my knife when someone catches my arm and twists, and then I'm crouching away from the near-breaking pressure on my shoulder, spitting blood and breathing hard.

This huge sweaty guy hauls me up and holds me to his chest, arms pinned.

I try to twist away, feel hoarse anger in the back of my mouth.

"Let me go, what the hell, let me the fuck go, put me down."

One of the other Fireflies grabs my legs, and they haul me into the camp, toss me in some filthy room with a concrete floor.

I hear the door lock behind them.

I yell after them, if only because it feels good.

After so long, this anger is liberating, and I push up my sleeve and stare at my bite and scream.

"COME ON THEN," I yell, and it's not for the Fireflies.

Infection doesn't take the bait, and I encourage the madness, yelling and beating at the walls and screaming like those creatures do, but the anger remains my own.

It feels good.

After my throat is hoarse from yelling and my stomach aching from anger, I slump to the floor and close eyes gone heavy with sleep.

In the distance, in the seconds before I fall asleep, I hear footsteps approaching.

Chapter Text

My wrist hurts like Hell, and that’s not helped by the fact that it’s currently clutched in the meaty fist of some Firefly goon, a man who hasn’t said a word to me since he threw the door open and grabbed me ten minutes ago.

I’d think he couldn’t hear a word I say, but every time I insult him a little muscle in the corner of his jaw jumps, like he’s gritting his teeth real hard.

The third time I call him chickenshit, he whips around and hits me across the face. I take the opportunity to knee him in the groin, and he shrieks, and I run.

I get about five steps before he catches up to me. It was worth a shot, anyway.

He stuffs me under his arm, growls something I don’t quite catch.

“It does speak.” I say, and he says “shut up,” and I reach as far back as I can and elbow him in the ribs.

There’s a sort of savage satisfaction in this, in senseless violence, anger for it’s sake, and I see where all of the bullies that have ever screwed with me were coming from.

The guy’s maybe twice my size, so no amount of my kicking is going to get him to put me down.

But God, do I try. I’m not going to be the only one with bruises, tomorrow.

After maybe five minutes of being hauled around like a sack of flour, the Firefly guy slams a door open with his shoulder and throws me inside.

I land funny, smack my head and see stars, and when I manage to re-orient myself the guy’s already run off.

I haul myself to my feet and, oh, would you look at that?

It’s the leader of the Fireflies.

I scrub at my face and stare up at her, let her see the anger in my eyes, the blood on my clothes.

“Would you like to take a seat? She asks, and Marlene, the queen bee, the leader of the Fireflies, actually sounds uncomfortable.

I sneer, meet her eyes like I never would have two weeks ago.

Marlene swallows. “Do you want water? Anything?”

She pauses, studying me, then sighs, and it’s the sort of sigh adults reserve for sick children, half concern and half exasperation.

“Ellie, are you okay?”

There’s sympathy in her eyes and it makes me want to tear the room apart with my bare hands, I don’t want her charity, I don’t want her concern, and I snarl at her, the acid weight of anger burning through the walls of my chest.

And- the way she’s looking at me, concerned, heartbroken-

Something uncorks, and I lunge at her, hot, wet anger flooding my veins, ad I am yelling something but I don’t know what, am only aware of my throat going horse with the sound of it, the world gone strobe-light.

I only get snatches of what’s happening, but I am distantly aware of yanking my sleeve up and shoving my wrist in her face, a snarl fixed on my mouth, teeth bared like feral animal, like belligerent child.

Marlene pins me to the wall in a heartbeat, a gun in one hand, and I smile, and I never thought I’d see Marlene of all people look so flustered, but she is at least unsettled.

“Do it.” I say, and her eyes widen a fraction and I say something more but the world is slipping again, I jerk myself back to lucidity with the prologue of tears in my throat just as Marlene says,

“I’m so sorry.”

I shove her as hard as I can, elbows buckling with the shock of it.

“I don’t want you to be sorry.”

Marlene does not fight back.

“I want you to kill me.”

I see the steel in her eyes melt into empathy, see Riley in her bearing, just for a second, the mournful promise of her, and I shove at Marlene again but my heart’s not in it, this time.

“I’m not going to kill you, Ellie. Take a seat. I’ll get you some water and-“

This softness, this sympathy from the one person I thought I could rely on to me wholly unsympathetic-

I haven’t been getting lucky so far. Why would that change now?

And- whatever. I’ve been making my own luck for years. I unholster her gun and press it into her palm, feel the slick weight of it, know how heavy it can be to pull the trigger.

I say- something, whatever, the whole world is starting to slur with my exhaustion, and I can’t keep track of what I’m doing, really, but Marlene sighs and lowers the gun.

“Take a seat, Ellie.”

I scowl at her, watch her flinch, sit down because my legs are tired, I am so tired.

But sitting still eats through me like acid and I’m on my feet again a second later, pacing, knees watery, feet aching, I feel like if I stop I’ll fall apart.

“Are you… infected?” she asks, and I almost laugh, because I wish it was that damn simple.

“Immune, actually,” I spit, snicker at the joke of it, at the disbelief on Marlene’s face.

I don’t blame her. Immunity. It sounds like a joke, right?

“Ellie, you were bitten. How long ago?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” That, at least, is true.

Distantly, I’m aware of Marlene saying something, of my reply, but the world is blurring again, like radio static, I only snap back when Marlene puts a hand on my shoulder.

I shake it off and give her the dirtiest look I can manage.

“I can walk.” There’s no venom behind it, anymore. Talking is exhausting.

The only thing holding me upright is that I am still angry, the echoes of adrenaline dragging themselves through the hollows of my veins, but I can feel tears on my tongue and pinch in my eyes and I know I’m only a few steps away from breaking down completely, can feel exhaustion’s hungry teeth at my heels.

The room Marlene shows me has an actual bed, and it feels like it’s been years since I’ve seen one, I hear the door close and the lock click shut, but I can’t quite bring myself to feel trapped.

My limbs are lead and sand and cinderblock, I am heavy and tired and want nothing more then to sleep- properly sleep- but my body has other ideas.

Sobs tear themselves from my hollow chest and I feel sandy-eyed, bird-boned, very tired and very small and very fragile, and I lie on my back and let grief take over.

It takes longer then I want, but I eventually fall asleep, and it is a full sleep, like deep snow. Smothering.

I do not dream.