Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Normally he doesn't sleep through the night anyway, but this morning a runner woke him up by wailing loudly and repeteadly slamming themselves into his door. It had to be one of the really recently bitten ones, because those ones always look the most conscious, almost as if there's still some semblance of awareness there. Killing them it's hard. It's like killing a person.

Mark only has two cans of butterbeans and a cereal bar left. He's starving. There's no food anywhere nearby, because he's spent the last two weeks looking. It's all he's been doing since he got separated from Bob and Wade - originally, it was an ideal situation where he could maybe scrape together enough food for a comfortable journey. Now he has maybe three days until his hunger is going to incapacitate him, and he's going to starve to death or die trying not to. 

Maybe this impending sense of doom is what makes him go over when he hears the man call for help. Normally, he'd just keep walking - come on, even if it's not a trap it's still a death wish - but there's something about it. They don't sound desperate, almost as if they're calling out on a whim. The accent is new, also (maybe Swedish or Dutch, he's not sure,) and he hasn't heard anything other than American for years now. It's not like he's got anything to lose. He's not going to make it to Bob and Wade alone, so either this is going to make things better, or he's going to die quicker.

Pulling his pistol out of the holster, Mark crouches and leans his head around the corner of a building. There's a man tucked in to the very corner of the alleyway, holding a machete at the ready in one hand and clutching his leg with the other. From what Mark can see, it's unlikely he has any kind of firearm so if he approaches, he should be safe.

"You been bitten?" he calls, pointing his gun at the man. He approaches slowly, not wanting to come across as a threat. "Your leg, I mean."

"Good old fashioned gunshot wound," he drawls, lowering the knife ever so slightly. "Struggling to patch myself up." He lifts his hand to show Mark, though he doesn't take his eyes off of him.  It doesn't seem too bad, actually - clearly he's kept it clean, but there's only a thin layer of gauze over it and it's pretty soaked in blood. 

"You got any food?"

"Look, if you're gonna kill me and take my stuff, just get it over with. I'd rather die from this than be infected. Though- if my wife finds out you killed me, she probably won't be too happy." The man lowers the machete, as if to signify that he really doesn't have the effort to put up a fight. Maybe Mark would've been better at surviving if he was meaner, because he lowers his gun when the guy mentions his wife.

"You're wife's still alive, then?"

"Waiting for me to get home, I hope. If I make it she'll chew my ear off for not bringing a first aid kit. You by yourself?"

"Nah. Two friends." To help this guy, he'll have to bring him back to the flat, so he may as well imply that there are other people there. That way, if he's planning on killing him, he might think twice. "No food, though."

"See, I have a nice little lunchbox in my bag. Obviously, I can't stop you from taking it, but it would be pretty fuckin' sweet if you took some food in exchange for helping me out." As already established, Mark has next to nothing to lose, so he's going to say yes - but he doesn't want the man to know he's desperate, so he pretends to think about it for the moment. "Please, man."

"Fine. Can you walk?" he says, adding, "I'm Mark, by the way," because he feels bad for being harsh. 

"Felix," the guy says, grunting in pain as he tries to push himself up off the ground. "Depends how far." Mark holds an arm out for him to lean on and he smiles gratefully, teeth perfectly white and straight. Other than the whole bullet in his leg, he seems like he's in good enough shape to be a good candidate for helping Mark find some food. 

"Only five minutes. Shouldn't be anything too serious, I cleared it out this morning-"

"Spotted a fucking massive hoarde of runners a few miles out of town. They migrate- to get away from the snow, maybe? They're due any day now. Really hoping to get home by then," he winces, stumbling slightly but regaining his footing. "You seem to be pretty well equipped. CLA?"

Mark stops, fingers tightening around the gun. "No, are you?"

"Fuck those guys, man. Who d'you think shot me? Just wasn't about to say that when you're my only chance of survival." That's relieving, at least. Felix isn't going to turn around and stab him once he sees all of the anti CLA propaganda in his flat. "You get much of them around here?"

Mark chuckles, tightening his grip around Felix so he can climb over the crumbling wall. "Didn't used to, but they're not too happy with me at the moment, so they've been driving 'round quite a lot trying to find me."

"Yeah, can't say they're my biggest fans either- now you say it, your face looks a bit familiar. Like, those wanted posters they used to hand out when they had control over like, whole settlements." 

"They did me so dirty on those fucking posters, man. Made my forehead look so wide." Felix laughs and Mark finds himself laughing too. He's really quite missed human contact.

"Ah," Felix says as Mark locks the door, lowering himself down onto the floor. "So, when you said you weren't CLA, you meant you were anti-CLA."

"Most of it's Bob's," he says, because it is. Out of the three of them, Bob was the political finesse, the designer of the stupid spray paint symbol that they insist on putting everywhere. It is fun to have a signature, to be fair. Mark isn't really that bothered about that - though, he definitely cares more than Wade - all he wants is to take down the CLA. "Come to think of it- I think I know your face, too. There's probably a wanted poster with your face on it somewhere around here." 

"That's Jack, up on the wall there," he says as Mark crouches down next to him, medical supplies at the ready. The wall in question, the one that he's pointing at, is the wall of wanted posters that Wade decided would be suitable future partners for Mark. He decides not to share this detail, especially not when Felix points at another poster on the wall; a petite woman, pretty even through the fierceness they've sketched her with.

"That's my wife. Her nose doesn't really look like that." Under the sketch it reads, Marzia Bisognin; ALIVE. "So, you know what you're doing?"

"Absolutely not," he admits, laying out everything he could find in front of Felix. "You could try talk me through it?"

"That'll have to do," he says, though he doesn't look that bothered. "So- in my professional opinion, we need to leave the bullet in there. It's in too deep to get without really digging it out, and it's not near anything dangerous." Mark doesn't know enough to dispute this, but when he peels off the bandage he can't see the bullet. "All I need you to do is give it a good clean, stitch it and bandage it. Piece of cake, really."

It turns out to be a bit harder than that (stitching skin is harder than fabric, actually,) but it's not too bad, and it only takes about an hour for him to finish everything off. True to his word, Felix immediately retrieves a tin of peaches in syrup and lets him eat the whole thing, which is maybe the nicest tasting thing Mark has eaten in about four months. Ideally, he's hoping there's a good amount more, but he'd be satisfied with the peaches. He looks up with hope when Felix pulls his bag towards him, but he's not excited by the look of sudden apprehension on his face.

"Right," he says. What with the tone he's using, there's no way he's going to like what Felix is about to say. "You made good on your side of the deal. I'll make good on my side- I've got two more cans and a candybar, and I can leave."

"Or," Mark says, not entirely unamused.

"Or," Felix confirms, grinning like a devil, "We could do one more little deal. My friends are living right on the other side of town. There's not a huge amount of infected between us and them, and it should be clear of CLA other than the occasional patrol."

"What's your point, Felix?"

"My point is- if you can get me to my friends, you can take a month's worth of food supplies and be on your way. We have a pretty unlimited food supply."

"This sounds too good to be true," he frowns, but Felix is very charming and he really just looks like someone who Mark wants to say yes to. "How can you have an unlimited food supply?"

"We're out in a small block of apartments. The landlord was a hoarder. Basement is filled to the brim with unperishables- we've been there for what, three months now? We're not even a tenth through it."

"And all I have to do is get you there safely? You sure your friends will be... willing to part with that?"

"If they don't do that for me, I'll be really put off," he pouts, grinning at the look on Mark's face. "No, no, they will. Guaranteed."

What the hell, right? "Fine. I hope you know how to use a shotgun."

-

Felix does, in fact, know how to use a shotgun. It's just before noon when they leave, so they only get about halfway there before the sun goes down and they sleep in a after finding a room key behind the desk. There were definitely other people there, but the windows were already boarded and Felix offered to take first watch as he slept. 

Thinking back, walking a reasonable amount of distance and not encountering anyone other than some bodies was very, very lucky. Mark's hardly surprised that their luck does a complete 180 the next day. Felix wakes up when the sun comes up anyway, insisting his leg is feeling much better and he can walk the rest of the way without assistance. 

This is great, and all, but they only get a few miles further before a runner springs out from a gas station and nearly knocks him over. Mark has to admire the set of reflexes he's got- his machete is already in the runner's neck before he can shoot it. "Not bad," he muses, watching as he hobbles forward and shoots the next one with relative ease. "Could do with one of those."

"I'm sure Amy has a spare axe you could sharpen," is his response, and well, this trip is just getting better and better. "If we keep going we'll get there before the sun sets." That's not really bad luck, though. Two runners in one morning is still what he would probably count as a good day. 

"So- exactly who is it that I'm delivering you to? You've been throwing a lot of names around."

"There's only the five of us; me, Marzia, Jack, Amy and Signe."

"Pretty impressive that you're all still alive."

In hindsight, that's a pretty risky sentence, but Felix grins anyway. "We're all pretty talented at killing infected and not getting shot by the CLA. Other than this one time, obviously. But yeah, we're pretty secure. This is the first time it's seemed like they've been trying to actively find me, y'know? Doesn't exactly bode well."

What is a bad day is when, just after Felix says, "You should see the building over the horizon in about twenty minutes," there's the sound of a car engine rumbling maybe less than a block away. Mark's very tired and very hungry, and Felix's leg is still very shot, so he's not exactly optimistic of their chances. "Hide?" Felix suggests, clambering through the nearest open window, and he's hardly going to argue. When they're settled, the car pulls up a few houses down and he hears the sound of boots on the sidewalk, glass smashing and then gunfire.

"I think they're clearing out the houses," he whispers, readying himself in a crouch. "At least four of them. One still in the truck." Felix makes a complicated set of hand gestures, but Mark thinks he understands the vague intention. Very, very slowly, Mark peeks his head over the window ledge to eye the driver. Thankfully, her back is to them; she's mindlessly firing arrows through windows on a nearby building. It sure would be nice to have a crossbow with enough arrows that you could waste them on windows (not that Mark's ever really used a bow or knows how to do it well.) Anyway. He checks the silencer is secure and squeezes the trigger, watching them slump forward over the crossbow. "Bingo." 

"Think we should fight or run?" Before he can argue that they should obviously run, regardless of how trigger-happy Felix is feeling, there's a muffled bang somewhere to their left and the rest of the glass blows out of the windows. "Nail bomb. How convenient."

"Hm, maybe."

"Definitely," Mark argues, pulling one of the tiny bits of shrapnel out of his back. It's only an inch big so it can't have been deep, but it hurts quite a lot. "Noise might've attracted some- um, unwanted attention?"

"There's trees less than a mile from here. If we can just make it out of the city, we've already made it." Together they stand up, both a little wobbly, but before Mark can even face the window they hear something smash in a few rooms over. "Time to go."

"Figures that someone would live here if they're setting nail bombs," he sighs, but he lets Felix go through the window first because he needs the head start if they're going to be running. It's easier now that the glass has been blown clean off, but it's a skinny window and neither of them are small men. "Speed it up."

"I'm wiggling, man, what more d'you want?" he hisses, but after a few more seconds he drops to the grass outside. Mark follows immediately, one eye on the door at all times. Hopefully, whoever it is has realised they're leaving and would much rather them just be gone. Felix is crouching next to the window, shotgun at the ready.

The door handle starts turning and he speeds up his shifting, dropping one leg down and hoping the other will follow quick enough. It opens and shuts, quick enough that he barely even sees the flash of another human behind it, but shielding himself on instinct is the only thing that saves him. There's a three-inch dagger lightly impaled in his bicep, exactly where his neck would've been if he hadn't raised his arm. 

"Well," Mark says, bending over to catch his breath once they make it far enough into the trees for cover. "Better remember to mark that as hostile on the map."

"You've barely even got a scratch," Felix teases, but he's looking closely at the dagger - it's nice, really nice. "Fortuna et ars," he reads out, tracing a finger along the inscription in the handle. "Good weight to it."

"You're not keeping it," he says, laughing when Felix pulls a face. "Finders keepers, dude, and I found it in my arm." Felix rolls his eyes but hands it over, grinning when Mark twists it around in the air. "C'mon, the sun'll set soon."

"We're nearly there. And honestly, the chances of us coming across more obstacles are unlikely."

"I'm holding you to that."

Chapter Text

Both of them are pretty exhausted by the time they get the building in sight, but Felix truly looks a little worse for wear. In fairness, Mark has no idea how much blood he'd lost before he found him in the alley. As they come up the incline (not a hill, still a bitch to walk up) Mark loops an arm around Felix's waist for support, because if he shows up with a dead-looking Felix, his friends will shoot him on sight. 

"Wait," Felix says once they're nearly there. Mark bites his tongue on asking why, because he's never wanted to lie down more, and Felix throws an arm up in the air and waves to the top of the building. "Jack might be up there. He- uh, how do you say. He's quite shooty."

"I'll keep that in mind." There's no response from the roof - Mark can't even see another person up there - but he's not about to protest because he'd rather not be shot by whoever Jack is. "How d'we get in?"

"Through the door, obviously." They must've been quite lucky to find a place like this - regardless of the food supply that Mark is really hoping does exist - the bottom floor windows are all barred and the door is metal with what looks like a pin code lock on the front. 

"There's still electricity?" Mark double-takes as Felix types in a really long, complicated number and the door buzzes. 

"Yep. Bit temperamental, but we can hardly complain. The guy who built these flats was an apocalypse nut. It went up as soon as there was that mini outbreak in Australia and it's been completely self-sufficient ever since. Solar power, I guess." He shrugs, gesturing for Mark to go inside first.

"Felix," comes a voice from the other side of the room. A man is sat on the stairs, a thick Irish accent and a revolver pointed straight at Mark. "Where the fuck've you been?"

"Jack, please don't shoot this nice man." Typically, the man doesn't lower his gun. "CLA stragglers found me sleeping. Shot me in the leg. Maybe I forgot to check my bag was packed before I left."

"Marzia'll kill you," he warns, eyes not leaving Mark. They're a piercing blue, a shocking contrast to the soft brown of his hair and beard. His posture appears relaxed, but that in turn just makes him seem more dangerous; his hands don't shake where they're holding out the revolver, and he's barely even blinking where he's staring down Mark in the lobby. Also, he's incredibly attractive. "Who're you?"

"Mark," he says. "If I wanted to kill any of you, I wouldn't have given your friend my shotgun." It's a reasonable argument, he thinks. "Felix said I could have some food if I brought him here, I'm starving. It'll be really rude if you shoot me." For a second, the corner of the man's mouth seems to twitch up, but Mark might've imagined it, what with the stony glare he's been getting the rest of the time. 

"And," Felix chimes in, helpfully, "Someone stabbed him in the arm because he let me go out of the window first. I don't think we can kick him out until it's healed a bit."

"It is my shooting arm," Mark feels the need to add, pointing at his blood-soaked sleeve. It's not a deep cut, so really he could carry on without it, but if he's being offered somewhere safe to rest then he's hardly going to turn it down.

"Well he's not feckin' comin' in here," the man - Jack, probably - scowls, not moving from the stairs even as Felix approaches him. Whatever he's about to say is nil, though, because Mark raises his hands and steps forward.

"You can keep the gun on me the whole time if you want, I don't care. I just want some fucking food."

There's a pause, and now with Felix out of the way he thinks that maybe Jack is going to shoot him, but then he stands up. The gun is still pointed at Mark's head, but he says, "Marzia might still say no," and that's a good enough yes for him.

Marzia, it turns out, didn't say no, but clearly trusts Mark about as far as she could throw him (so like, a tiny bit, because she's kinda buff, but not super far) so she agrees that Jack should keep a weapon pointed at him 'for the time being.' Amy is equally cautious, but she stays out of his way and just silently investigates the bullet wound in Felix's leg. Signe, however, is an absolute ball of fun. Maybe this is her own way of trying to work out his ulterior motives, just talking non-stop until he reveals something, but it's a nice change. Mark honestly really likes to chat. She stitches up his arm for him with relative ease, maybe in less than half of the time it took him to do a much smaller wound in Felix's leg, and discovers another little bit of shrapnel from the nail bomb that he'd missed earlier. 

They seem like nice people, and he doesn't blame them for their cautions, because he'd probably do the same in their position. Felix is sat with Marzia on the other side of the living room, pointing at different locations on the map and murmuring just below his listening range. Signe is sat next to him, scribbling furiously in a journal and occasionally asking Amy or Jack for their input. Amy is trying to sleep (notably as far away from Mark as one can get while being in the same room) and Jack is sat at the table, revolver still loaded and pointed at Mark's head. Maybe they need to come round to him a little, but they'll do. 

The thing is this: he agreed with Bob and Wade that if they were to ever get separated, they would meet at one of three rendezvous points by reaching them and circling them. If everything has gone to plan (well, not everything, because if everything had gone to plan then he wouldn't be alone and starving) then Bob and Wade should still be together, and they should be moving between the agreed places waiting for him. None of those points are super nearby, and none of them have paths he can cross without coming into close contact with regular CLA patrol or even strongholds. Just for reference, a heavily armed patrol is what split them up in the first place, so if three of them can't come out on top then Mark doesn't really like his odds alone.

Six of them, however, have a much better chance. They're even now, just waiting for Mark's arm to heal a little more and him to leave, but maybe instead he could convince them to help him. The noise of the room isn't enough for him to truly think so he pulls out his book and starts counting up the days since they separated, not missing Jack's stares in the corner of his eye.  

"What're all those tallies?" Signe asks from behind him.

"Signe," Jack warns, but she just elbows him in the knee, looking at him expectantly. Maybe he should be annoyed, but she didn't seem nosy, really, just interested. He has a feeling she wouldn't mind if he told her to fuck off, but he doesn't really feel like that.

"I got separated from my friends, but we have this system to help us meet back up again?" She looks interested, shuffling slightly closer to look at the page, so he carries on talking. "We have a few different locations quite far apart, so we move around them every certain number of weeks while we're waiting for the other person. That way the CLA probably won't find us."

"That's pretty cool. But what if all three of you are by yourself? Who would do the waiting?"

"See- really, we haven't planned for this." She snorts, and he could've sword he heard something similar come from Jack, but he doesn't turn to look. "It'd be fine, though. We're all predictable enough. Like, Wade would just stay put unless he had to move. Bob would probably move some of the time."

"And what, you'd be the one who rounded everyone up again? You the leader or something?"

"Absolutely not. None of us would survive without the other two. Hence me running out of food." Signe laughs properly at this and he can't help grinning, because it's been nearly a month since he's made another person laugh and it's like music to his ears. From out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Jack sigh and lower the revolver onto the table. Maybe he'll win them over after all.

"So, my friend," Felix says, swivelling in his chair to face him. The look Marzia gives him before she gets up is not unkind. "I believe I promised you some food. If you'd follow me to the basement, you can take a selection."

"Should you be walking around? Remember being shot in the leg?" Mark's hoping that Jack will have to take him - he seems like he's trying really hard not to be friendly, and Mark wants to be friends. Well. Everyone here (maybe bar Amy, just because she hasn't said a word to him) is now someone he's determined to befriend, because he's a big believer of 'the more, the merrier'. Jack is someone he wants to be friends with, but also like, have really hot secret sex. Mostly the friend thing.

"I will go," Marzia says, pressing a kiss to Felix's forehead before poking him in the cheek. "No adventures for you. You're in trouble." He frowns, crossing his arms, but doesn't get up from the spinny chair.

"Fine, but I get to play with the radio while you're gone."

She raises her eyebrows in amusement, reaching in her bag for a pistol. He doesn't know whether to be surprised that it's an M17, clearly stolen from the army when they held control of California, and spray painted pastel pink. It's interesting, because she looks immaculate, as if there's not total world destruction and ruin going on outside, almost as if she's had no involvement. He's met people like that before, people who try and keep their lives as much the same as they can. They lock themselves in a building and that's it. None of those people are still alive.

Marzia has something about her- an aura, maybe, or something dumb like that. It's clear how much everyone else respects her, and the ease of which she moves around and handles weapons shows how skilled she is with them. 

She leads him down to the basement in silence, but it doesn't feel intimidating. Besides, they barely get inside the basement before she turns to him, one eyebrow raised. "Why did you help Felix?" Her tone is accusatory, more just curious.

"I had absolutely nothing to lose, and he seemed funny when I started talking to him."

"Nothing to lose, hm? What about your friends?"

Mark's not an idiot, he's not about to give away any exact locations because even though it's incredibly unlikely, they might still turn on him. On the other hand, though, they've given him a lot of trust just from letting him in here, so he can probably afford to share a few things. "The closest rendezvous point is still too far for me to reach by myself, especially with no food and very little bullets. Either I could do Felix a favour and he could do me one in return, or it was a trap and he'd kill me and I could avoid starving to death."

"That's fair," she giggles, flicking the light on and revealing the hundreds of cans. "There's not much variety. I would personally recommend the rice and corned beef." 

"I can't believe you managed to find somewhere like this."

She shrugs, taking a kilo rice bag and some tins for herself. "We got lucky. Amy used to walk his dog for him, the man who lived here. She was out walking on the day of the outbreak. Apparently he was gone when she came back."

"Bit odd, that he'd spend all this money on something apocalypse-proof and then disappear as soon as it actually happens."

"Maybe Amy killed him," she muses, walking over to a shelf. She sounds like she's kidding, kind of. "If you want, we can cook some rice for you. Felix mentioned that you'd hurt your arm helping him." This sounds perfect for a whole bunch of reasons, the main one being that he hasn't cooked anything for about a year. He'd been expecting food, some canned bullshit that barely tastes better than starving, not a warm, cooked meal. "Pick any spices you want."

"Oh, so it wasn't a white guy who lived here?" 

"Very funny. I think we can spare the water, too. Might not be warm, but you can clean. Maybe smell less bad."

"Hey-" he scowls, but he's barely got the word out of his mouth before he realises exactly what she's just said. "Wait. Like, you guys have running water? There's a shower here?" Marzia just smiles as he picks up some chili powder from the line of helpfully labelled pots. "I can't believe I've been skinny dipping in fucking rivers this whole time and working showers still exist in this world."

"It's been really sunny over the last few days, so it might even be a little bit warm."

"Incredible," he says, and he really means it. 

Chapter Text

The second the warm water hits his face, he feels his body relax completely. Back when they were great with numbers and had all the resources and time in the world, people would be willing to warm water over fires for baths. Mark has always prided himself on being able to be happy with very minimal resources, so he didn't see much point in warming the water just to wash - all it would do is make cold streams harder to cope with. But now, with the reasonably functioning showerhead above him, he's never understood better why they would do it. 

Sleeping is relaxing, kind of, (though, he'd be lying if he said nightmares didn't wake him up more than anything else) but this is a new thing completely. The last time he had an actual warm shower was the day of the outbreak. Funny to think that he hasn't really relaxed since. Sure, he's not completely relaxed, because something could go wrong at any time, but there's a bolt lock on the door and his knife within reach, so he's safer than any stream he's had a rinse in. 

He's only under the water for five minutes, because Marzia was right about questionable hot water supply, but he's happy when he gets out. Besides, he can smell the food cooking now that he's drying his hair  and even though he knows it's canned beef and rice, it still smells like the most delicious meal ever. 

There's a tap at the door and he reaches for his knife on instinct, but the handle doesn't twist and he feels a bit silly for jumping to defense. "Dinner's nearly ready." It's Amy, but she doesn't sound as stand-offish as before. "Felix says, uh. There's a razor or whatever in cupboard under the sink. He said if you want to cut your hair or beard you can." She walks away before he can say thanks, but he counts it as a win that she told him. 

"You scrub up very nicely," Felix says with a wink, holding out the plate of food to him. "Made good use of my tools?"

"Honestly, I have no fucking idea what I'm doing," he admits, feeling the back of his hair. It's true, so he didn't really give himself a proper haircut. His beard's gone, but it'll be back by tomorrow, and he just made everything on his head generally shorter. "Just wanted it out my face. This smells awesome, by the way. Compliments to the chef."

"I wouldn't say that until you've tasted it," Jack says darkly, which catches him off guard enough that he doesn't have a response. It's the first time Jack has said anything to him that didn't involve threatening to kill him. Though, when he looks up to smile, Jack is glaring back down at his plate. 

"Watch it, McLoughlin. Next time I won't make you any," Felix says, pinching his cheek. "Stop being so grumpy." With the look on his face, Mark's half expecting Jack to smack him, but he just glowers and leans away from his touch. 

They all eat in silence for a few minutes until Mark polishes off his whole plate. He hasn't been full in about two weeks and still isn't full now, but he's pretty satisfied and despite Jack's comment it was pretty tasty too. "Help yourself to more, man," Felix says, nodding towards the pot. "Seriously." 

He only really notices the radio as he gets up, mostly static noises on the lowest level of volume. As he starts spooning in the rice, it almost seems like-

"Is that a CLA radio?" he asks, and when he looks up all five of them are staring. "What?"

"If you aren't CLA, how would you know?" Jack counters, and Mark is suddenly aware of how accessible he's left his revolver. 

"Wade stole one before they really started using them, so they never noticed. Also, it says 'California Liberation Army' on the side in like, really big letters." Jack still doesn't look at ease, but he goes back to eating his rice and doesn't say anything else. "I've got no idea how they work, anyway."

"You've been listening to them for a while though, right?" Amy asks, abandoning her plate in favour of switching the volume up. "Maybe you've worked out something we haven't?"

"Let's finish eating, first," Marzia suggests coolly, though- maybe it's just Mark being hopeful, but she looks at least slightly interested in any potential information he might have. 

Later, when they're sat around the radio with the map, he's less hopeful. It spans most of the city aside from the bottom left corner where it's smudged by questionable stains and it's absolutely covered in writing and little drawings. There's a little house drawn where their safehouse is, and then nearly all around them at varying distances are different CLA strongholds or patrol routes scribbled in different coloured sharpies. "We're missing two, we think. They talk about them in numbers, but- some are more secret than others, clearly," Amy explains, pulling out a notebook. "One is the stadium, obviously, two is the hospital, though they haven't cleared the bottom floors and aren't planning on it anytime soon. Three is the high school, four and six are blocks of offices here, and then up here-"

"What about five?" he cuts in, because this map is very different to his map. Part of him doesn't really want to get his own one out, just because he's really giving them all he has once he's done that. Nothing left for leverage. Then again, though, with the way they're all looking at him expectantly, he kind of wants to help. Even if he gets nothing in return. "Wait," he says, pulling his rucksack towards him.

Jack's hand reaches for his revolver immediately and honestly, regardless of how attractive the man is, Mark is getting a little offended. "What, really? You think I've made it this far to pull a surprise glock out of my bag? Maybe a compactable sword? A bomb?"

The glare doesn't leave Jack's face, but his had relaxes. "'m goin' upstairs." Mark tries really hard not to snort at the look Signe is giving him, especially as he stands up and leaves the room without looking at her.

"Sorry about him," she says, offering him an easy smile. "He's a good guy, really. Just got some... well-founded trust issues."

Mark shrugs, pulling the map out of his bag and unfolding it in his lap. "I'm sure I'll live. Anyway, uh, I think you're missing a couple things that I might have?" They've been listening to the CLA since they ran away as teens, back when there was food wherever you looked and nobody they knew had died yet. Back then it was in awe, because the CLA were supposed to be heroes - the army presence controlling the city was oppressive and horrific, and these people were the people who were going to get rid of them. Then they overthrew the government control of California, started following that masked man like he was a prophet, and it got bad pretty quickly. "Wade stole this radio when we were like, seventeen- back then, they weren't that clever about switching up their radio signals."

Marzia nods, sticking out a lip. "We haven't picked up anything new in months. Every time it sounds like we're near something, they change the signal and we lose it."

"It's not been great. Seems like they're really picking up in numbers as well, recently- but, anyway. Five on my map is up here in the little warehouse district, here? They don't use it much- I think they're storing extra supplies from the hospital while they clear it out."

"What I'm hearing," Felix says, leaning forwards with a sparkle in his eye, "Is that this is a not heavily guarded but nonetheless very key location that contains things that we need?"

"That's not what I said, but if that's what you heard-"

"Shut up, dickhead," he says, but he's grinning widely. "We're running low on medical supplies, right, Marziepie? I think we could cut this."

Marzia doesn't quite look convinced. "On your leg? I think maybe not. Too risky."

"Four isn't enough," he insists, standing up as if to show he's fine. "It'll be great. I don't see any way in which it could possibly go wrong."

"Felix," she sighs, looking up at him with big eyes. "I don't want you to get hurt. Besides, we can't leave this place unattended."

"Fine," he scowls, dropping back into the sofa. "Wait-"

"Dude, what?" Amy sighs.

"Why doesn't Mark go with instead of me?" Interesting development. Nobody other than Felix looks overly interested, though. "It works, right? You want to hurt the CLA as much as we do, right?" he asks, turning to face Mark. It seems like Felix might be a little bit crazy.

"Woah, dude, I don't know if I agree to that."

"As much as I hate to agree with Felix when he's this proud of himself, I think he's right. We're on the brink with medical supplies- really, they aren't quite medical supplies, and we could really do with some," Signe says, touching at the side of the map. "If we fuck their stuff up, it'll help us as well as hurting them."

"You're very convincing," Marzia smiles, leaning into Felix's side. "I would be concerned about- all of us know how to work together."

Amy shifts, sizing up Mark from her corner of the floor. "Hard to be a team with someone you've never fought with. Besides, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not convincing Seán."

Who the fuck is Seán? There's a whole other person they've neglected to mention this whole time? Regardless of that, they're talking as if he's already agreed to help them, and he can't be having that. If he wants to live a remotely happy life, he needs to get back to Bob and Wade. "Who said I was on board with this?"

"Come on, man. I'll make it worth your while," Felix says with a wink.

"I'd like to see you try."

"What're you angling for, stranger?"

No point in beating around the bush. "If I help you successfully ambush this place - or whatever - will you help me get to my friends?"

Marzia is silent for a little while, and all the rest of them seem to be looking at her for her decision. What Mark would give to have Bob and Wade respect his opinion that much. "Where are your friends?"

"Up here. It's not super easy, but as long as we're careful, it should be fine. Would take a couple of days of travelling, because slower is safer and I'm standing by that." She nods thoughtfully, looking down at the route he's tracing on his map with a pencil. 

"We all need to be in agreement of this," she finally says, and Mark has a feeling it's time to excuse himself. "Someone needs to speak to Jack."

"Why do you need to speak to Jack?" Jack asks from where he's standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. Mark thinks maybe it's wise not to open his mouth. This guy really needs to get over himself; Mark's not about to die because someone on his team doesn't trust him enough to watch his back. 

"Jack, my main man!" Felix cheers, pushing himself up using Marzia's shoulder. "Let's go up for a smoke."

"Felix-" he starts, voice dangerously low, but Felix breezes past it.

"Come on, you can't deny an injured man. Up we go!" he beams, limping through the doorway and leaving Jack no opportunity but to follow him up to the roof. 

"I'm sure that'll go fine," Signe says, but the look on her face does not match the tone of her voice. "Why don't we play cards while we wait?"

Half an hour later, he's so lost in a game of what Amy was very excited to announce is called 'dickhead' that he almost forgets that Felix is gone. They're only on the fourth floor, and there must be at least three more, so it's no surprise they can't hear anything. "Two nines, you fucking idiots," Amy taunts, throwing them down onto the pile. "I'm literally incredible."

"Wouldn't it just be a terrible shame if I were to have a an ace?" Mark says, watching for her reaction. "Then all Signe can do is play a three, and then Marzia will have to play her ace."

"This game is no fun when you do that," Signe scowls. "It's not our fault we can't memorise the pack when there's still half of them left."

"What can I say?" he grins. "I'm the master of everything."

"Cocky, cocky," Marzia tuts, shuffling through her cards. "I hope you're ready for this."

Mark's not ready for the seven that she plays, nor the way Jack bursts into the room, striding past and going straight into the kitchen without a word. Felix follows behind a few seconds later, a confusing expression on his face. When he sits back down next to Marzia with a sigh, she lifts her arm wordlessly and lets him flop down into her lap. Yikes. How much of an asshole could this Jack guy really be? Signe said he was nice, but as Mark's sitting here listening to Jack aggressively stir his coffee, he's not so sure.

"Anyway," Signe says, staring him down as she plays her card. "Where were we?"

"Mark," Jack grits out, not turning around. Mark looks up from his hand but decides not to say anything snippy until he says what he wants. "Can I speak to you. In the other room."

Honestly, Mark's never heard someone who wants to speak to him any less than Jack seems to now, but really, he kind of needs everyone to be on board with his existence so that he can get to Bob and Wade. So, with a weak thumbs up from Felix, he stands up and walks towards the kitchen. Jack walks out of the front door without looking over his shoulder, leaving Mark no option but to follow.

They end up on the next floor, and he doesn't miss the way Jack bolts the door behind them once they enter the next apartment. "I don't trust you-"

"No shit," Mark cuts in, because he's over this by now.

"Let me finish," he scowls, picking at the hem of his t-shirt. There's a tattoo on his arm, shifting as the muscles in his arm moves, and Mark finds him even more attractive than he did before. Doesn't make him any less of an asshole. "I don't trust you, and I don't like that you're here-"

"You're really winning me over here," he drawls. Really, he can't help himself.

"Jesus Mary and Joseph, would you shut the fuck up for one second?" he explodes, and Mark's about to rise to it but he sees Jack sink back down into himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Felix trusts you. I don't know how or why, but he does. I trust Felix with my life. If he thinks workin' with you is a good idea, I'll do it."

"Yeah, I'm not so sure about that one, buddy. Don't know if I want to be out there risking my life for your friends when I don't know that you're going to have my back."

This is the first time that Jack's met his eyes since they first met. It's just as piercing as he remembers, but something's different from earlier. Instead of calm apprehension, it's more emotional. He's pissed off, definitely, but there's something else there. "I will have your back. I might not want to do this, but if we are doin' it, I'm not gonna half ass it."

"How am I supposed to trust you? You're hardly falling over yourself to prove it." Mark steps closer, kind of wishing he was taller than Jack just to be more imposing. Jack doesn't back down, terrifying glare threatening to rip into him. 

"Because I'm not doin' any of this shit for you. It's for them, and I'd lay down my fuckin' life before I put them at risk. I wouldn't do that to'em, no matter how fuckin' annoyin' you might be."

This, at least, Mark can resonate with. There's a rather dramatic pause, because he's not one to back down, but despite the act Jack seems like he's offering something, extending an arm out to Mark even though he's not certain about it. "Fine. I'm doing this to get to my friends, so it's the same for me. I'll have your back as long as you have mine."

"It's a deal, then," he says, and after a second he holds his hand out. Mark shakes it and doesn't pay attention to how warm his hands are. "I don't think I need to tell you how I'll kill you if you fuck us over." His voice is low and his grip around Mark's hand tightens for a second, eyes burning right through his head. Mark is ridiculously turned on.

"Never doubted it." 

Maybe he's over-analysing it, but Jack's cheeks seem pinker when he finally lets go of Mark's hand. Not to big himself up or anything, but Mark considers himself to be a pretty lovable guy; the kind that can make grumpy but sexy Irish men find him much more... favourable. That's why he decides to try his luck when Jack pulls out a cigarette clearly expecting him to have left by now, and say, "Was that coffee you were drinking earlier?" Jack nods, not looking up at him. "Can I get a cup?"

Jack half-scoffs, but it's not at all affable. "No."

"That's not very team-friendly of you," he sighs, because he loves being a shit when he wants to be.

"I don't care," Jack says, flicking ash into a rusting coke can. There's a pause, much emptier than before, before he clears his throat. "Too hard to come by." Was that Jack feeling bad for being rude? Mark knew he was too lovable to be completely rejected.

"Can't argue with that. What about a cigarette."

"You're relentless," Jack says, voice the audible equivalent of an eye-roll, but after a second he sticks one into Mark's field of view.

Maybe he's not so bad.

Chapter Text

"I'm assuming you know how to ride a horse?" Marzia says when she wakes him up that morning, which is her first mistake. Mark does not enjoy riding horses. Bob doesn't either, it's really only Wade, so it's never proved an issue beforehand. 

"What if I said no?"

"That's... not ideal," Signe admits, handing him an apple from the garden tree. Mark could cry. He hasn't had fresh fruit since his mother's pear tree before the outbreak. "We were going to suggest Felix's horse, but- wait, Ireland is probably big enough, right? We could always-"

"No," Jack cuts in, looking up from where he's been sharpening his knife in the corner. "Absolutely fecking not."

Mark looks at them glaring at one another across the room and their silent conversation before he puts two and two together. "Wait. Your horse is called Ireland? I- your horse. Is called-"

"I don't wanna hear another fuckin' word out of you," he glowers. "If she bucks you off, you're walking."

"Ireland," Mark says with delight, unable to wipe the shit-eating grin off of his face as Jack goes back to pretending nobody else is in the room. "I'm fine with that."

Jack doesn't really speak to him for the whole ride - it's not surprising, because other than directing one another nobody really speaks. Embarrassingly, Mark doesn't really like it that much. Horses, especially Jack's horse, are much bigger than he remembers them being in farm videos from elementary school, and being this high off the ground with so little control is not his favourite. He's not scared, because nothing scares him due to his manly manliness, but it makes him feel a little sick and his knuckles are going white with the little grip he has on the saddle.

He's not really sure how to feel when Jack looks over his shoulder, clearly aware of unstable he is. "Look like you've seen a ghost back there."

"Go fuck yourself."

"See, I would, but then I'm not sure how well you'd fare on this horse without me." Mark glares at him, rolling his eyes as soon his head turns back. When he speaks again, his voice is much quieter, and with the wind whistling past them Mark can't be sure he's speaking at all. "If you move closer, it'll be easier. I'm sure your ego can handle holding on to my jacket." When Mark doesn't move, Jack sighs, turning back around to glare at him. "Fucksake. Hold on, it'll be a right pain if you fall off."

One hand at a time, Mark lets go of the saddle and fists his hands in the fabric of Jack's jacket. It's an old army one, clearly, but whatever division's logo was there has been long worn away. Disappointingly, it does feel much safer. He decides not to lean forward, even though it feels much safer. 

The warehouse district is reasonably far, what with the apartment block being so hidden from the city boarders, so they spend the whole day resting with small breaks for the horses. Thankfully, there's a very limited amount of infected anywhere near their path, though Mark would be lying if he said he wasn't incredibly impressed by Jack and the kills he doesn't miss once. When he slings his bow back over his back, Mark gets a better look at the wood - it looks handmade, definitely recently modified, and Jack clearly knows his way around it. 

When the sun starts sinking in the sky, Marzia holds a hand up to slow them - they're at the edge of some suburbs, north-west of the city miles away from the apartment further south, but if they keep walking they won't make it before sundown. "There's an abandoned watch-tower a kilometre or so further down, but I don't want to risk bringing the horses along this road. The houses might be full."

"Signe and I can go up ahead and scout it out," Jack offers, sliding off the horse with ease. How the fuck is Mark supposed to get down? Is he supposed to be able to do that and not fall flat on his face? "Just drop down," he sighs, pulling something out of the saddle pocket and not offering to help him down in any way. 

Mark drops down, probably only landing on his feet because of his extremely dense bones but definitely stumbling. "Graceful," Jack snorts, but it doesn't sound like he's trying to be nice.

"Get your ass in gear, McLoughlin. I wanna sleep soon." Signe hitches her horse on a nearby branch and the two disappear into the treeline, leaving Mark staring up at the massive horse.

"Hitch her," Marzia says warmly, sitting down cross-legged on the dry grass. It's a warm evening for early Autumn with a welcome breeze and he kind of likes the sound when Amy laughs at him. "She won't bite."

"She's looking at me like she will bite," he counters, slowly reaching for her reins. "You owe me a hand if she does."

"She's the sweetest," Amy insists, taking them and gently leading her closer. She follows, snuffling at his shoulder as she passes him. "Aren't you, girl? Do you like Mark? What's that, you wanna kick him?"

"You're mean," he frowns, pointing a finger at her. "No need for that."

It's barely been fifteen minutes before they're back, red faced from running and not looking all too happy. "We need to move," Signe says, untying the rope from the post it was hitched to. "That horde Felix was talking about. It's changed direction."

Jack's unfolding a map, pointing at little X marks that hadn't been there when they set off. "It's not t' biggest we've seen, but definitely too big to risk it. We need to get to higher ground- as long as we're quiet, we'll be fine." This doesn't fill Mark with confidence - they're a while out from the hills, and getting to somewhere actually safe would take them so far off track that they may as well never have left. "The horses'll be fine, there's a ton of fortified sheds-"

"These are rich white people suburbs, obviously they have sheds bigger than my old apartment," Signe cuts in, leaning into Jack's side. It's such a small gesture that he nearly misses it, but he watches the way Jack rests an arm over her shoulders, still engrossed in the map. That's something he hadn't considered. Though, there's no reason he should care. Jack's annoying, he's pedantic and rude and he doesn't like Mark at all. "There's a convenience store on the edge of the suburbs, the kind with a lil' apartment on top? It's all boarded up, so there might be infected in there, but it's our best bet."

"How far should we take the horses?" Marzia asks, thankfully not mounting her horse. Mark doesn't think he can get on again. 

"Not far. There's a chance it won't come this way, but I don't wanna risk it. Store's only twenty minutes walk. We should go now, though." Signe pokes Jack's side and his arm drops. Mark pretends he's not staring, even though Signe completely catches him doing it. There's something about her smile that makes him feel she knows something he doesn't, but he chooses to completely ignore it, instead busying himself with making sure he's ready to leave. 

They don't find any stables in all of the massive backyards they pass, but they do find a big enough reinforced workshed for their three horses (Amy, he finds out, loves horses but is too scared to ride her own.) Clearly, someone really tried to make this a safe space - it must've worked, too, because the body lying in there looks pretty untouched. "Someone help me," Marzia sighs, and Mark grabs the legs before anyone else moves. In a way, he likes finding bodies like this- well, he doesn't like it, because that's gross, but it's better than coming across more infected. At least, he would personally rather starve to death somewhere safe than become one of those things, and he assumes other people think the same.

They take it to the next garden over, because they hardly want to draw anything over to the hiding place, so by the time they're back all of the horses are already inside. "You be good," Jack murmurs, petting Ireland's nose. "Look after everyone else." The door is lined with some kind of sheet metal, so once they slide the bolts across it doesn't seem like anything'll be able to get in. "Let's go."

Mark falls in to step beside Amy, watching Signe and Jack cut ahead. "This is all very interesting," Amy says, quiet enough that nobody else hears. When he looks at her and raises an eyebrow, she just smiles, which isn't the response he's looking for.  "How come you never had to ride a horse?"

"We had bikes, for a while. Before everyone worked out how to siphon the gas from cars. Then we realised they were too noisy for doing anything outside of the immediate patrolled circle. "Bob hates them, so even when Wade tried to get us on board, it didn't really happen."

"It's just the three of you?"

"Sort of," Mark says, because there's not really any other way to describe it. Of course it's the three of them; it always has been, ever since before the outbreak. Mark had a funny feeling that they'd never really stop being friends, even when they were just out of highschool and he was busy pursuing a career he wasn't sure about. Bob was the first person he called after his brother and his mom, and it only took a few weeks or so before they had decided this maybe wasn't the life from them. "We're from Ohio, actually. Cincinnati. Took a fucking long time to get down here."

"Why'd you leave?"

No point not being honest, really. What he's not looking for is sympathy or a long, drawn-out conversation about his mom, so he decides to skirt past it. "FED control was too much. One of them shot my mom point-blank because they thought she was someone they'd outlawed. Thought we'd fare better off somewhere where people were talking about resisting. God, when I tell you how fucking long it took us to get here- honestly, we were walking for about two months. Horses would've been stellar, now I think about it." They'd arrived at what felt like the beginning of a war, squatting in barns and farms dotted around the edge of the cities and listening to CLA radios whenever they could get their hands on a frequency. It took nearly a year, but slowly army trucks stopped pulling up with reinforcements and started driving away, and then there weren't any left that didn't have the CLA emblem spray painted on the doors. 

"Then they took it too far, hm?" she sighs, kicking at a stray clump of grass growing through a crack in the road. "Tell me about it. I really hoped they'd win, just so all the fighting would stop, but this is just as bad."

"Infected," Marzia calls back to them, steady and quiet, and all of them stop in place. It's only a few stray runners, stumbling over the rubble blocking the road. "Hang back." Mark drops to a crouch alongside Amy, watching as she soundlessly creeps forward. Signe's at her back, knife poised at the ready. It's interesting, how many runners seem docile from a distance. Wade has this theory he won't shut up about, how they're still partially in control a few days after they turn. It makes sense, really- the fungus taking over the brain completely in an instant isn't realistic, but it doesn't explain why loud noises override any of that. 

Marzia darts forward, wrapping an arm around it's throat and slicing through the neck. It's interesting, watching her and Signe move; everyone he's ever travelled with before has been much more into an all-guns-blazing approach, but this seems to be much more effective. Signe mirrors her action and then they're done, letting the infected drop to the floor. "Impressive, right?" Amy says, straightening up and brushing her knees off. Mark nods, but he's mostly watching Jack, who's still got an arrow poised at the ready.

He's not sure which he hears first, the noise behind him or Jack telling him, "Duck," but as soon as he drops an arrow whistles past the top of his head and he hears a wet thunk several feet behind him. "I swear those things are gettin' quieter." When he starts walking towards it, Mark figures he can stand up and turns around to look. Jack's pulling the arrow out of it's neck and wiping it on the glass, cursing under his breath. "Fecking stalkers."

"Stalkers?" he echoes, stepping closer to look. It's not a clicker, not quite - its face is thick with fungus, but it's not completely blinded by it - but it looks further decayed than any runner he's ever seen. Besides, he's never heard any kind of infected be that quiet. 

"It's like halfway between a runner and a clicker. They're not really outside cities because they like the dark buildings, so they don't travel with the hordes." Marzia frowns, looking over her shoulder. "We should keep moving. It's getting dark quite quickly." 

They only cross three more infected before they get to the convenience store, arriving just as the sun disappears behind the horizon. The windows are all heavily boarded up and the door bolted with a thick chain. Maybe getting in will not be the easiest. "There's a window open upstairs," Jack says, trying his footing on the bricked wall. "I'd fit."

"You can't go by yourself," Mark says, looking up at the building. "I can hear the clickers from here - it's probably been borded up from the outside for a reason. Maybe there'll be spores in there."

"I have a gas mask and will be acting regardless of your opinion," he retorts, dropping his backpack from his shoulder and unzipping it.

"God, Seán- both Marzia and I will fit through the window, idiot." Signe unstraps her mask and pulls it onto her head, leaving her face uncovered to continue glaring at Jack. "Marzia?"

"Mark, would you be gracious enough to give us a boost?" she asks, pulling her own mask down after he nods. "Fingers crossed it's just one clicker!"

"Yeah," he snorts, bracing himself against the wall to boost her up. "Unlikely. Good luck."

Marzia jumps effortlessly as he pushes her, hands gripping the ledge as she easily pulls herself up. "I don't need luck."

"I'll take some luck," Signe says, disappearing into the window after Marzia. Jack doesn't say anything as he braces his hands on Mark's shoulders, but his jump is just as agile as he climbs through the window.

"Why's Jack also called Seán?"

Amy laughs, swigging from her water bottle. "I don't know, really. Seán's his actual name, but apparently Jack is a common nickname for Seán? Don't ask, man. I don't get it. He normally goes by Jack."

"Does he prefer it?"

"You're sounding very interested, aren't you?" Amy says. "You going to ask if he's single next?"

"Piss off. I just don't want to anger the little man anymore than I already seem to be doing." It's not completely a lie; despite how he now kind of is curious as to whether he is single or not, he does want to avoid pissing him off more. Not because Mark finds him intimidating in any way, but because of how against him Jack seems to be. It's like a competition. Jack's intent on hating him, so if Mark makes him come around, he wins. 

"Sure, sure," she says, turning up to stare at the window as a clicker starts groaning from somewhere in the building. "You tell yourself that." He's about to cut in with more protest when he hears another clicker rumbling and a heavy smash of glass. "That sounds... not promising."

"You think they'll manage?"

"Without a doubt, dude. It's just how many things they break." Her confidence in her team makes him feel a little bit better, if anything. 

Sure enough, they're only stood waiting for ten more minutes before Signe sticks her head out of the window, smiling down at them. "There's an employee door around the back, Marzi's unlocking it now!" She's not wearing a mask anymore, which is an excellent sign, so Mark slings his rucksack over his shoulder and follows Amy around the back. Jack's standing there waiting, blood streaked over his chin and what smells like beef jerky in his hand. 

"Found some jerky," he says, completely facing Amy and not at all acknowledging Mark's presence. "Think it's gone off."

"Don't eat it then, asshole," she sighs, bolting the door as Mark closes it behind him. "How was it."

"Messy," he grins, wiping his chin with his sleeve. "Nest of clickers. Basement's flooded, lucky there wasn't a bloater or anythin'. No spores." Mark follows him through the stock room, which is just a mess of broken shelves, glass and blood. The smell is... not his favourite, but it seems to fade as they start going up the stairs. Once they make it into the living room, Jack slides a wooden slat through the handle and Marzia's pushing a chest of drawers in front of the door.

"Jesus, you're strong for someone so tiny," he says, slumping back against it once she's done. "I heard there was jerky?"

Chapter Text

There's two beds, a single and a double, which Mark insists on not taking and Amy insists on taking, leaving Jack, Marzia and Signe to battle it out. It's quite amusing to watch Signe and Jack bicker, especially when they both seem to realise at the same time that if they're sleeping in shifts, everyone gets the bed. After that decision, Amy and Marzia sleep pretty much immediately, leaving him to sit up and play Uno with Jack and Signe in the single bedroom. There's a poster of some annoying-looking boyband pasted above the bed and Mark can't remember the last time he saw an actual young kid. 

"Draw four," Jack says, smirking when Signe punches his arm. The game has been exhausting, because for some reason, Jack is in this perpetual cycle of getting louder and more excited as the game goes on but then shutting down every time Mark speaks to him. It's difficult, because if he was being rude, Mark would just call him out on it. This isn't like that.

It's more like he's adamantly refusing to let his guard down around Mark, which he can't really be mad about. Sure, he doesn't get why Jack's doing it, but it'd be a bit awkward to ask him. "Uno," he says, dropping a skip card for Jack's turn.

"Dirty, dirty play goin' on here." Was that a joke? Honestly, he has no idea. It's fine, though, because even through the stilted and one-sided conversation, Signe is bubbly enough to fill the gaps. 

The issues arrive when she declares herself too tired to keep playing. It's a few hours until they're meant to wake Marzia and Amy - though, Mark can hear the horde from here so he's glad they're sleeping in shifts. "Don't let me fall asleep," she yawns, sinking down beside Jack. "I mean it."

Jack doesn't say anything, just pulls a book out of his bag and flips to the folded page. Mark is now immediately unsure what to do in this situation so results to staring out of the window, watching a few infected starting to appear in the streets nearby. It seems like the horde is going to pass right underneath them, so he spends a while waiting, watching them stumble by. If anything, it's interesting to watch. For the majority of their life, infected are solitary - it's how they hunt and it's how they die. Nobody's been able to offer an explanation for why newly infected runners seem to migrate around together.

"How bad is it?" Jack asks from where he's still sat on the floor. Signe's completely asleep, her head resting on his lap and an old sheet pulled over her shoulders from the bed. 

"There's at least a hundred, maybe two," he says, turning back to face them. "You gonna wake her up?"

"Nah," he says, looking down at her. "She needs the sleep. Think we've got it covered, anyway." 

Mark doesn't know what's come over him, but before his mind can tell him otherwise he's saying, "Must be nice to- I dunno. Have someone during this, I guess."

Jack blinks up at him, slightly pissed off expression not changing. "What?"

"Like- uh, I just mean, it must be nice to have a signficant other during all this shit."

"Signe and I aren't together?" Mark must have some kind of incredulous look on his face, because Jack's eyebrows narrow when he stares up at Mark. "What."

"Oh- I didn't mean anything weird." Part of him wants to rise to all of the unnecessary aggression, but he's also really tired, and even if Jack is going to be hostile it doesn't mean Mark has to be too. He's obviously the bigger person here. "It just seemed like you were together."

"Just friends." The glare has melted away now, and for a second it looks like he's about to say more - it's almost comical, the way Mark keep watching him catch himself. He really doesn't get it. Jack's about to go to sleep around him, which would hypothetically be the perfect time for Mark to kill him (if he was going to, which he's not) but he's still refusing to even speak to him like a normal person.

Another hour passes with relative silence, both of them reading and not really speaking to one another. Once the horde has passed, Jack leans out of the window to smoke and silently throws the packet at Mark. Sure, it hits him in the head and Jack doesn't look up when he says thank you, but he appreciates the gesture all the same. It's nearly time for them to wake up Marzia and Amy - he's pretty sure there's no need to wake them up, but if they don't want to risk it, he's not going to insist - but the sun hasn't started peeking over the horizon yet. Silence rests on the street, only disturbed by the clicking of his lighter and the sound of Jack turning pages behind him. 

"Rikke." Mark turns to look over his shoulder, watching disregard his book in favour of staring down at Signe. It takes him a minute to realise it was her who spoke; he can barely see her face in the candlelight, but after a moment she says it again. "Rikke."

"Signe," Jack says, voice low and calm. Before he can say anything else, she's sitting up and rubbing at her eyes, but something seems off with the way Jack's looking at her. "C'mon, let's get into bed." What the fuck is he witnessing here?

"I don't- wha's... Rikke, don't?" she frowns, pushing Jack away when he reaches for her arm. "I want-" she murmurs, wiping at her eyes. She's crying, apparently, breath coming in upset little huffs.

"Signe?" he asks from the window, looking to Jack for an answer.

"Night terrors, she always gets 'em. Just stay over there." Jack slowly gets to his feet so he can crouch back beside her, lightly grasping her hand.

"I can help-"

"Trust me," Jack interrupts, pushing her hair from her forehead. "She can pack a fuckin' punch when she's like this. She's not awake. Shh. Let's lie down." Signe's breathing fills the room, scratchy and panicked, but she still seems like she's sleeping. When she doesn't push Jack away, he gets closer and attempts to scoop her up. 

"Hey," she half-cries, and her elbow connects with Jack's ribcage with a solid thump. She's not really saying any actual words at this point, just calling out and reaching past Jack for something that isn't there. As soon as she had elbowed him, Jack had backed away, now sitting on his knees a few feet away from her.

"Signe," he repeats, though she doesn't act like she can hear it. "You're asleep. Why don't you get back into bed with me? C'mon, let's lie down." Signe turns to face him, but Mark can see even from here that she's not looking at him, just staring through him like he's not there. 

"There's someone here," she says, turning to face the door. She stands up immediately and Mark has the bright idea of sneaking around behind Jack to close the door. So far, Jack hasn't shouted or shaken her awake, so he makes a pretty solid effort not to make too much noise. She's not really crying too much anymore, but when she starts walking Jack moves until she gently bumps into him. Signe tries a few times, each time being rebounded by Jack, and eventually turns around.

Then, as if nothing happened at all, she lies down in the bed, pulls the blanket onto her and promptly goes back to sleep. Mark doesn't speak for at least five minutes, eyes not leaving Signe, but she truly seems like she might be asleep again. "What just happened?" he finally asks.

"Signe gets night terrors. It's just a nightmare, but- fuck, I dunno how it works. All I know is; try and get her to go back to sleep, don't let her do anythin' dumb and don't wake her up."

"Why not?"

"How'm I s'posed to know?" Right. Mark was too caught up in being confused to remember that Jack doesn't want to talk to him. "God, you don't have to look like a fecking kicked puppy every time I speak to ye," he curses, picking at the edge of the blanket. "I dunno why wakin' her up is so bad, but either she'll smack us until we back off or she'll wake up full-blown panickin'." 

"Did you just feel bad for being rude? Was that a hint of remorse I detected in you just then?"

"You're kicking the gift horse in the fuckin' face," he scowls, crossing his arms. "Do me a favour, though-"

"Oh, now the tables are really turning," he smiles, grinning at the terrifying glare he's getting from across the room. "What's the favour?"

"Don't tell Signe about it. She won't remember when she wakes up. Pretend it didn't happen, alright?" Jack looks annoyed, as if he doesn't want to have to ask Mark for anything, but there's a twinge of something else in his eyes. Vulnerability, in a way - admitting how much he cares about Signe, relying on Mark to act based on that and nothing else. It's not real vulnerability, but it's better than anything Jack's let him see so far, and Mark's going to grab it and run with it.

As much as he lives to piss of Jack, he's hardly going to take this as a joke. "Of course. I won't say anything." Jack nods, perching on the end of the bed.

"You can go wake Marz and Amy now. I'm gonna stay up 'n watch her." Jack doesn't look back up from where he's staring at Signe as Mark leaves, just choosing to settle with his head resting on his knees. 

Mark was content with Jack being an actual, grade-A asshole, because then he could find active amusement in pissing him off and not care how he responded. This is a million times worse. Jack seems sweet, in a way, and Mark can't stop hearing how soft and kind his voice was when he was coaxing Signe back to bed. Now he's not hot and annoying, he's someone who Mark is a little bit interested in. 

There's no shame in admitting it now: Mark's previous gameplan had been perfect, though it's useless now. What with the world pretty much ending, he's not really been able to sit a solid relationship, and has adopted what Wade refers to as a 'hit it and quit it' life philosophy. They meet lots of new people- now that they kind of have this whole revolution thing going on, they're always in large groups with drinks and food and beds - and Mark is a social butterfly, so normally one thing will lead to another and he'll talk his way into someone's bed for the night.

It's better that way, because with relationships and commitment and love there's so much risk. A few months ago, there'd been a mix up with names and some confused teenager broke the news to Wade that Molly had been crushed by a crumbling stone wall. Only about five minutes passed before that information was corrected, but in those five minutes, Wade was more broken than Mark has ever seen anyone.

(Mark isn't certain that Wade can even hear him, because he's certainly not acting like he can. When the kid had come over, Mark hadn't really been paying attention - he's an errand boy, taken in by Ethan a few days ago and still learning the ropes - but his head shoots up when Wade drops the mug he's holding. Ceramic and coffee stain the floorboards but Wade's frozen in place, completely unresponsive. It takes him a second to work out what's wrong and the errand boy leaves as soon as Mark waves him away, lightly placing a hand on Wade's shoulder.

"Wade, buddy," he says softly, guiding him over to the couch, "Let's sit down." Wade lets himself be led over there but doesn't speak, doesn't cry, doesn't do anything to acknowledge that Mark is anywhere near him. "Wade," he says, a little more urgently. "You there?")

Wade did cry, but only when he saw Molly again after learning she was in fact not crushed to death. The whole time he thought she was dead, he was completely empty, completely unresponsive. That's why casual sex is so good and relationships are so bad, at least in Mark's eyes; with sex, he gets a snippet of everything he's missing with no weakness, no risk. He got through his mom's death by the skin of his fucking teeth, and he's not eager to repeat something like that. It'll probably kill him.

So yes, his previous plan to have sex with Jack has fallen through. Originally, when Jack seemed to be a real fucking pain, Mark's plan was to piss him off into having rough, angry sex, reunite with Bob and Wade, and then leave. Now when he thinks about fucking Jack, something ugly rears its head, twisting in his chest until he's thinking about lying in bed with him, fingers curled in his soft hair. 

Mark might be a little bit fucked.

Signe's bright and bubbly when she wakes him up in the morning, really seeming to have no idea as to what happened the night before. A small, curious part of Mark does want to ask, but a much larger part of him doesn't want to make her uncomfortable, so he doesn't say anything. Besides, even if he wanted to be a dick about it, Jack's watching from the other side of the room with a face like stone. Mark looks at him with a hopeful smile, wanting to say hey, look at me, I'm nice, but Jack glares down at the floor.

"I might be being optimistic here, but as long as we encounter minimal resistance, we should get there before the sun sets. I'm assuming you want to try after dark?"

Marzia nods, tying up her hair with a strip of fabric. "I think this is best. They won't expect it. We might catch them sleeping, if we're lucky."

"Doubt they'll be sleepin' if there's really that many supplies there," Jack cuts in, seeming to purposely avoid looking at Mark. 

"That's not very optimistic, is it?" he scolds, and Signe smiles at him even though Jack doesn't, so he counts it as a win. "Should we go and get the horses?" 

Chapter Text

Mark's fingers stay bunched in Jack's army jacket for the rest of the ride there, his one attempt at conversation falling short very quickly. It feels like Jack is intent on hating him regardless of how he acts; honestly, he could probably sacrifice his own life for Jack's and it still wouldn't be enough. It's frustrating, because Signe called it 'well-founded trust issues' and that's all well and good, but it's not like Mark doesn't have those. He held his trust in the FED soldiers - they were the only sense of stability he had in his life after the outbreak, and he planned on training with them as soon as he hit 18 because he trusted that they were trying to do the right thing.

In fact, he knew the soldier who shot his mom. Jackson, the young guy who patrolled their street every other evening. That didn't stop him from pressing a gun up to her forehead, nor trying to shoot after Mark as he ducked into the buildings. He didn't even get to say goodbye to her because of that man. 

In conclusion, either something really bad happened to Jack, or he's just a stubborn asshole. If he was any less attractive, this wouldn't be an issue at all. Besides, when he forgets to be rude to Mark, it almost feels like he's flirting with him. Now Mark doesn't want to back down, at least not until he's certain of Jack's true motivations. 

"Try not to fall," Jack says, the indifference in his tone suggesting he truly couldn't care less if Mark were to fall. Mark just tightens his grip and shuffles incrementally closer, watching as the horse leaps over a barbed wire fence and trying not to imagine falling off into it. "Hold on to yer horses."

"Was that a joke?" Mark raises an eyebrow, so that when Jack looks back at him he looks cool and calm and not terrified of being on a horse. "I didn't know your mouth was capable of such things."

"Ha ha," Jack deadpans, turning back to guide the horse. How he's happy to not be looking forwards at all times, Mark doesn't understand. "That wasn't funny the first time you said it."

"We're pretty close," Mark says after a while more of riding, Jack nodding and whistling sharply to the others, gently tugging up the reigns to pull her to a halt. They came away from the suburbs an hour or so earlier, and since then they've been galloping through farmer's fields, his stomach jumping into his chest every time they jumped over the fences. There's not a huge amount of cover, so approaching the warehouse might be difficult if they don't want to get spotted. "We can sort our shit out in those trees at the top of that hill. Might even be able to see it from up there." The others don't hear him over the wind but Jack nods his head towards the hill and they follow without question.

"Looks like our intel wasn't wrong," Amy says as a CLA truck engine starts humming down the nearby roads. They come to near the forest edge and hitch their horses, watching the truck pull up outside one of the warehouses and two of them get out. 

"Of course your intel wasn't wrong," Mark comments, tallying in his head for every armed figure he can see surrounding the area, "I was the intel."

"It's lookin' a little busier than you suggested," Jack comments.

"Wow. You've caught me. I helped you travel all the way here just to ambush you with an ambush that you can already see before we get there. I don't know how you managed to uncover this flawless, evil plan, it's honestly-"

"Are you quite done?" Jack cuts in, voice just on the edge of scathing. 

Mark hasn't ever been and will never be someone to back down, though."I don't know, are you quite done trying to catch me out on something I haven't even done?" Jack's eyes narrow further and he steps closer, face a few inches from his own.

"Forgive me for not trustin' a random stranger with my life at the drop of a fuckin' hat. Maybe if you took t'ings more seriously, we wouldn't-"

"Thank you, boys," Marzia sighs, sounding more bored than anything else. "I can't bring myself to call you men when you act like children." Jack steps away, glaring furiously at the ground. "Are we ready to sit down as adults and decide the best way to tackle this?" Part of Mark is still looking for a fight, but the other part of him is petty enough that he wants to prove Jack wrong, so he just nods graciously and sits down beside the girls. 

They don't move until it's completely dark. Throughout the day, they hide in the bushes overlooking the warehouse district and watch for the trucks coming and going until the darkness is enough to cover them completely. Mark's confident that they can pull this off - even from this journey alone, it's clear how skilled the four of them are, despite their apparent lack of formal training. Maybe they started off like he did, as CLA hopefuls willing to risk anything to be a part of something better. Either way, he's pretty confident they'll be able to keep up with each other. 

Whether Jack is going to have his back, he's not sure. Mark's not a dickhead, though, so he'll have Jack's regardless.

"I have to hand it to them," Amy whispers, watching Mark brace himself against the wall under the window. "Warehouses are not the easiest to break into." The sheet-metal walls have absolutely no grip and the windows are very, very high- though, unsurprisingly, Jack is convinced he can easily get up there if Mark can boost him high enough. 

"Sure you're ready?" Jack quips, fingers tightening unnecessarily on Mark's shoulder. Mark rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything, hoping his expression conveys for Jack to just get on with it. The window is probably about ten feet above the ground, so really he's not sure how easily they'll be able to reach it, but he's not about to have another argument with Jack about anything. 

"On three," Mark says, though Jack's hardly light so he'd rather do it straight away. "One, two, three." 

Jack makes it to the window easily, almost as if he hadn't needed a boost from Mark at all. His fingers grip the windowsill and he pulls himself up with very little effort, balancing on the sill to look down on them. "Wanna meet me at the door? You guys clear the outside first." It's similar to what they'd originally planned, except Signe is supposed to be in there with him.

"How many are inside?" Marzia asks, ignoring Signe when she opens her mouth to protest. 

"I see four."

"Be careful," she says after a moment of deliberation, and Jack drops down inside without another word. "Let's move." Mark is only slightly concerned about Jack's wellbeing, but if Marzia trusts it he's hardly going to challenge her, so he follows her wordlessly with his pistol at the ready. The silencer is homemade, so it won't be as effective as a real, silenced gun, but it's definitely miles better than nothing. 

The four of them split around the different sides, hidden by the shadows. From the sounds of the crackling radio and laughter, it seems like the CLA patrol decided it wasn't worth their time and wanted to get drunk instead. It's difficult, sometimes. Sure, they've probably done horrific things, and even if not then they're supporting an organisation that does, but still. They're still just people.

Mark waits for Marzia's instructions, mostly because she seems to know exactly what she's doing. "Closest on the left," she whispers, and he nods in response. There's six of them, but two look to be unarmed, so it could be much harder. "Now." Mark shoots before she's even finished speaking, closing his eyes for a second so he doesn't have to watch the bullet explode the back of the guy's head on impact. Three of the others drop at the same time and before Mark can turn, Amy shoots another and Signe pulls a knife to the last one's throat.

"How many of you are there?" she asks, voice uncharacteristically low. 

"Go to hell," he hisses. Mark looks away when she slits his throat.

The sound of gunshots echo from inside the warehouse and Mark moves on instinct, running up to the door without a second thought. Amy comes up next to him, helping him yank it open and ducking behind the wall before the stray bullets can hit them. "There's at least ten," Signe warns from the left side of the door, leaning slightly before falling back immediately. "I'll kill Jack if he knew."

"I didn't feckin' know, Signe!" Jack calls, sounding breathless as if movement is interrupting his speech. "There's a- a back room."

"There's always a back room," Signe sighs, sounding more inconvenienced than afraid. "Alright. Cover me." She's moving before Mark understands what her plan is, shooting blindly into the room until the returning gunfire stops. Signe moves inside with Amy right behind her, crouching for cover behind a wooden pallet stacked with cardboard boxes. Mark is really hoping that the boxes are full of something distinctly bullet-proof.

"Move," Marzia urges, and it kicks him into action. From his position by the door, he can see someone's leg sticking out and he shoots it, shooting again when they drop to the floor. "Nice shot."

"On your left," he tells her, ducking inside towards a table and leaning it on its side for cover. She follows and they're both inside. The corner of the table splinters as bullets thunk into it and realistically, they need to keep moving because there's not much room for stopping. Mark sticks his pistol over the top and fires at the same time as Signe, one of them making contact with a bottle of saline solution that shatters on impact. 

It's like time slows down inside of his head, boosting him forward at record speed to bring the butt of his gun down into the first man's head. Distantly he's aware of two immediate threats - the man in front of him and another woman two feet away, brandishing a knife - but everyone else seems occupied, so he brings his focus to them. Mark doesn't like hurting or killing people, not one bit, and he knows it'll hit him like a freight train as soon as he tries to sleep tonight, but right now he's just moving on instinct. It's calming, in a way, knowing that his body is taking over it for him. That doesn't mean he doesn't really want to close his eyes.

"Seán, behind you!" Signe shouts, tossing a knife at one of the people darting up behind Jack but missing by an inch or so. 

"I've got it," he shouts back, dropping to the floor and rolling towards a stack of scrap wood. He disappears from sight for a few seconds before an arrow whistles through the air, embedding itself in someone's eye socket. Mark kicks the last soldier away from him and pauses for a second, completely mesmerised by the fluidity of his movements and the sheer unmissable skill he so clearly possesses. It doesn't last for long, though, as the man Mark thought he'd knocked out is rolling over and standing, shooting aimlessly and taking Jack's attention away from the two people he's trying to beat in hand-to-hand combat. "Mark," he warns, and Mark shoots the guy in the head immediately.

Someone grabs the back of Jack's jacket and he drops to a crouch, wiggling out of it with ease and swinging around to kick the person in the stomach. They clearly aren't finished, though, because they grab the collar of his t-shirt and pull him close, right hooking him in the face. To Jack's credit, he looks shaken for about one second before he headbutts them with immense force. "Let go," he growls, being dragged to his knees when the soldier falls to the floor without letting go. Really, Mark thinks as he starts jogging to the other side of the warehouse, Jack must be really fucking strong to take down a guy that size. There's probably something wrong with him when he thinks that Jack pummeling the guy's face in an effort to get him to let go is super hot, but that's neither here nor there.

Mark only has a few seconds to decide, because the woman comes out of nowhere when he's still a few feet away and Jack's wrists keep getting grabbed whenever he tries to turn around. The woman pulls out her bow, pulls it taught towards the back of Jack's neck while the other man holds him still and Mark moves on instinct, kicking Jack's arm with the flat of his foot so that he falls to his side, out of the way of the arrow as it sails through the air. The woman is smaller than him, so when he slams into her she falls, catching her head on the corner of the woodstack. She stops moving pretty quickly.

"You good?" Mark asks over his shoulder, waiting until the wet thwacking noise stops. Jack turns to look at him with wide eyes, his t-shirt collar torn and hands slippery with blood. "Any more of them?"

"No," he says, already looking away.

"All clear," Marzia calls from the doorway. "We probably don't have long until someone else shows up, so grab as much as you can and let's go."

-

When they finally reach the top of the hill, Felix is up on the roof drinking a beer and waving down at them like a madman. Nobody else seems surprised by this, but then again everyone seems pretty exhausted and a little worried about Amy, so it could just be that. Signe and Marzia help her inside, as Jack seems to be fine with putting the horses away alone, and Mark's left standing in front of the door holding Ireland's reigns, not really sure what to do with it. Jack hasn't said a single word to him since the warehouse, but he doesn't look pissed off at Mark's presence, so he decides to take a chance.

"Need any help sorting them out?"

If Mark hadn't already been staring at him, he wouldn't have noticed the way Jack froze and nearly dropped the key to the gate. He pulls himself together almost instantly, shrugging and replying in a bored voice with, "If you want."

"I was always kind of scared of horses," Mark announces after Jack's closed the gate, because he feels like maybe in exchange for saving Jack's life, he might be owed one semi-reciprocal conversation. "They actually aren't that bad, though." When Jack just shrugs again in response Mark sighs, patting Ireland's nose. "You're a good girl, aren't you?"

"Three years ago she'd've taken yer fingers clean off for that," Jack mutters, unbuckling the saddle from Marzia's horse. Mark pauses before responding, mostly due to shock that he's said anything at all, but Jack keeps talking unprompted. "I found her at this farm couple years ago, when it was just me travellin' alone. Scatty fucker- the guys who lived there were infected, but she managed to stomp their fuckin' heads in. Nearly broke my ribs when I met her."

"And you managed to get her to this? She's so friendly, I can't imagine her being like that." It's weird, that they're talking about horses of all things, but Mark's never one to look a gift horse (get it?) in the mouth, so he just follows Jack inside the stable and thanks whatever homosexual God is allowing this conversation to happen. "Wait- I didn't realise you travelled alone."

"What's it matter?" 

"Doesn't really," Mark shrugs, focusing on feeding one of the horses already in the stable with a carrot. It's really quite impressive that they've maintained the apple trees, but on the walk here he could've sworn he saw an allotment up against the back of the garden. "Just assumed you'd always been with Felix and Marzia, but what do I know?"

Jack hums in response, short and non-commital, but Mark isn't currently being lectured for being too nosy or presumptuous so he's pretty sure this counts as progress. Though, maybe Jack's just getting over his weird issues and is willing to accept that Mark isn't a spy and actually just wants to have a nice conversation. "Ever been by yourself?"

"Not before I lost Bob and Wade, so really only for a couple weeks." Jack smirks, as if to say no, that doesn't count, but it doesn't seem malicious. "I know it doesn't count, I'm just saying that even for that short amount of time, it was... interesting."

"What d'you mean by that?" he asks, forgetting the brush in his hands and focusing his full attention to Mark (who, by the way, is trying not to look giddy with excitement. at the actually engaging conversation they're having.) 

"It's- I just mean, like- on my own, as long as I didn't run into any big groups of anything, it was easier. I was just responsible for myself and that was it." Jack's staring at him with this complex expression that he can't even begin to place; he's still kind of smirking but looks genuinely interested, not dropping that air of I would still kill you if I had to. "But- I dunno. It's lonely as shit."

"Fair 'nough," Jack nods, turning back to his brushing down. Mark's hoping he'll offer up his own opinion or a sliver of his own experiences, but the conversation seems to be over. Still, he can't help but feel like they've passed a milestone. Maybe Jack's finally realised how loveable, trustworthy and attractive Mark is, and how great he would be as a long-term life partner. 

They finish cleaning up in silence, but it's a much more comfortable silence than they've ever shared before and Mark finds himself not minding the kind-of-gross horse work when Jack's doing the same next to him. How long they spend in there, he's not sure, but the sun has long since set when they finally lock the stable door behind them. Mark's thinking about asking whether they built the stable (it's not something you'd expect to be in the garden of an apartment block,) but Jack clears his throat before he can find the words.

"Did you mean to push me?" he asks, not falling back from where he's walking slightly in front of Mark. His voice is stilted and quiet, so Mark doesn't try and catch up, not wanting to break the fragile calm that's surrounding them. "At t' warehouse, I mean."

"Yes," Mark says, because he did. 

"Why?"

"I am a man of my word, Jack," he says, watching carefully for any kind of visible reaction despite only being able to see the side of his face. "I said I'd have your back."

"There's somethin' different between havin' my back and savin' my life by riskin' yours."

Mark doesn't really know how to respond to that, because Jack's right. He promised all of them that he could work with them as a team, to fight with them as best as he could and not back out at all. Nobody would have expected him to tackle that woman, and he wouldn't have been wrong for not being able to stop it. "I don't really know," is what he eventually settles for, just as they're coming up to the back door. "It was a split-second decision."

"So you regret it?" Jack says, something sour twisting in his voice. This whole time, Mark's felt like Jack is snapping back at him like this just to be difficult and piss him off. This time there's an edge underneath the anger, though, almost as if that's just genuinely how he heard it.

"No. I'd do it again." 

This seems to catch Jack off guard, but they're arriving at the door anyway so whether or not he was planning on saying anything in response is ruined by Felix's comic cheer. "The men of the hour! Sit down, boys, and feast on the delicious dinner I've spent hours curating."

Jack doesn't speak to him again for the rest of the night, but there's no hostility when Mark catches him staring. It's definitely a start. 

Chapter Text

Mark should be thankful - there's nobody on this Earth who sleeps soundly, not anymore, so in comparison he's lucky - but he doesn't feel it, not when he wakes up with some kind of embarrassing gasp. His consciousness is kind to him, in a way. 

It's not like he can't remember watching his mother get shot. In fact, he can picture it perfectly, the way she dropped to the floor instantly and he never spoke to her again. Mark doesn't think he'll ever forget Thomas having to drag him away because they didn't pick her body up until the sweep after curfew. But none of this ever comes to him in his dreams. Just the gunshot, and he's awake.

Sure, if he were to try and go back to sleep, he'd probably wake up crying from re-living it over and over again. It's not inescapable, not completely. But at least his mind gives him the option - either go back to sleep and have a terrible time, or stay awake.

In the dark of the apartment room, he can see Amy and Signe where they'd fallen asleep on the couch, blankets thrown over them by Felix much earlier. Both bedroom doors are closed and the sound of the girls breathing is definitely calming, but all he really wants is fresh air. Going downstairs would probably be a very bad idea, what with not knowing the code to the door or any weapons on his immediate person, but Felix managed to get up and down from the roof with relative ease. Maybe Mark can as well?

The closer he gets to outside, the tighter his chest gets and the more his head starts spinning- it's almost like Thomas is trying to drag him away all over again. Thankfully, the roof isn't hard to get up to. He jogs up two more floors and then there's a ladder in the hallway with the hatch door already open. Cold air comes as a blessing and he sits cross legged on the floor as soon as he gets up, just catching his breath. Normally, he's much better at staying calm. 

"Felix?" comes Jack's voice from around the boiler shed, and Mark freezes. He's not crying or anything really embarrassing, but he's still catching his breath and he doesn't want Jack seeing him like this. There's a vulnerability about it that he's not at all comfortable with. His body isn't quite following his thought train, though, because by the time he manages to act on his thoughts of move, now, Jack is already around the corner. "Oh." 

Jack looks tired, like, bone-deep exhausted, and Mark feels slightly more at ease. Maybe he's not going to be unfairly pissed off by Mark's existence and they can just both sit outside quietly. "Sorry," he manages to get out, internally cringing when hits voice cracks. "Didn't realise you were out here."

"'s fine." There's an uncomfortably long pause with Jack glaring at the floor and Mark sighs, rubbing his eyes. Even if he's not being completely reasonable, Mark's hardly one to interrupt someone's night-time rooftop brooding with his own. Jack turns around, as if to leave him to it, but he only makes it a few steps before he stops again. "Y'want a smoke?"

"Yeah," he breathes, too confused to say anything else.

There's another pause, and then, "T'eres chairs around the side. If y'want somewhere to sit." Mark doesn't know what words he's supposed to use in this scenario, but Jack doesn't wait for an answer and before Mark can think of what he would've said he's following behind him. 

Tucked around the boiler shed is where Felix must have been sitting when they'd arrived that evening. There's three camping chairs in a small circle and a fourth broken one nearby, arranged in a small circle facing the hill. It's dark, but Mark can still see the city from up here, and there's something very relaxing about it. Jack collapses into the green chair and picks up a the tobacco packet, pulling out a little chunk. "Where'd you get fresh tobacco?" he frowns, sitting in the chair next to him. 

"Buddy of Felix's grows it in his basement. Vacuum seals kilos for him." Jack pauses in handing him the packet, smirking slightly, but it's the first time he's smiled at Mark with no possible malice behind it. "You can roll, right?"

"Of course," he scoffs. "I mean, I haven't in a while, but I'm sure it's just as easy as I remember it being." Jack snorts, but instead of passing Mark the papers he passes him his own cigarette. "That's probably for the best." 

For a minute, they just sit in silence watching lights slowly flicker off in the city and listening to the distant hum of car engines. Distantly, Mark's aware of how little Jack is standing at guard - the neck of his beer bottle is loosely balanced in the crook of his elbow and he's slouched back into the chair, eyes fluttering open and closed as if he's trying not to fall asleep. "I won't be offended if you go to bed, y'know."

"'s fine," Jack yawns, tilting his head back over the back of the chair and God, Mark has never been more attracted to anyone in his life. "Yer company isn't that bad."

"I've never been more flattered in my life, I'm practically swooning- Jack, I don't think warmer words have ever-"

"And just like that, you've changed my mind," Jack sighs, but when Mark sneaks a glace at him he's grinning, eyes crinkling softly by the corners. Right then and there, Mark decides it's the best thing he's ever seen and to make Jack laugh is now his life goal. "If only y'weren't so annoying."

"I feel a little put out by that, I must admit," and Jack chuckles. Mark decides he's in love. It's probably just the exhaustion he can feel weighing deep in his chest, but that doesn't mean it feels any less real. It's definitely the exhaustion when his mouth takes over for him and says, "Regardless, I'm glad you felt like getting over yourself and not hating me because I can't say I mind your company either."

Jack opens his eyes at this, tilting his head over his shoulder to meet Mark's eyes for a few seconds. It's dark outside and the candles on the ground in front of them aren't lit, but in a way, this makes it easier to talk. It doesn't feel as intimate- though, the sky is clear and Mark can't say that Jack's silhouette doesn't look beautiful in the moonlight. "I- I did't hate you," he says eventually, fingers pressing against his knees in a pattern that Mark feels like is his heartbeat. "I t'ought you were really cocky and annoyin' as all fuck, but I didn't hate you." Mark just shrugs, because he has the feeling that it isn't a conversation Jack wants to have, and he's happy not to make him. 

Silence only hangs in the air for another minute or so before Jack shifts, looking up to stare at the sky. "You're an ass," he says, which isn't really what Mark was expecting him to say, but before he can protest Jack's already speaking. "I'm an ass too, though." It sounds like it might be an apology and Mark tries really hard not to grin and ruin the moment. "I've had shit fuckin' experience with people. I didn't wanna risk trustin' you."

"I can understand that," Mark says, breathing slow and steady. Jack's hand is lolling off the arm of his chairs and if Mark reached out, he'd be able to brush his fingertips. "Maybe it'd be easier if I told you my life story. Hard not to trust a tragic backstory."

Jack laughs again at this, and Mark's glad his eyes are closed because he can't stop staring at his face. "If y'want. Like a bedtime story."

"What kind of fucking bedtime stories were you told as a kid? I was going to pick the darkest one that would make me seem the most trustworthy, but I don't think it's bedtime appropriate." Jack shrugs, and well- he's already told Amy, so what's the harm. "I used to live in Ohio with my mom and my brother, before the outbreak. I don't know if you ever got wind of the riots in Michigan right at the start of the outbreak, but when the FED lost control they doubled lockdown on all of the surrounding states. When rations started running out, they started looking for any reason at all to kick people out of the settlement because if they protested, they'd just kill them." 

A few years ago, he couldn't talk about it without crying. Now it's just something that feels very matter-of-fact. Maybe if the last few years had any less violence, death or loss, he wouldn't feel so desensitised. "People were starting to fight back. There was this old Chinese lady running some kind of underground weapon market, and some racist-ass soldier thought my Korean mom was the same woman." Jack's quiet but his eyes are open now, and even though he's not looking Mark can tell he's listening. "Yeah," he shrugs, nudging some gravel with his boot. "They shot her in the head while we were walking to the store in broad daylight."

"Bastards," Jack says, voice barely audible over the soft wind that's brushing through the trees nearby. In a way, it's nice - Mark's sick of apologies. Everyone's lost someone important. "You don't seem like it."

 "Hm?" he frowns, watching Jack pull another cigarette from an indiscernible location. 

"I dunno," he shrugs, avoiding eye contact. "Jus' like- I dunno. I know lots'a people who've been pretty ruined by that kinda shit. You can tell when you see'em, y'know? They don't come back from it. You're... not like that. Much happier, I guess. S'not a bad thing."

"I'm fourteen and this is deep," Mark says, because he's a fucking asshole who has literally no control over his mouth. Jack blinks at him for a second but before he can say anything else, he's throwing his head back and laughing. It's loud and jarring and splits the silence in half, but Mark knows in that moment he'd do anything to hear it again. "Sorry- sorry, I'm an asshole. What you said was actually nice, and I appreciate it."

Jack's still kind of giggling when he nods, draining the rest of his beer before turning to Mark. It's like he's a completely different person from the Jack he's known so far- sure, maybe it's the tiredness he's fighting and maybe it's the beer he's probably been drinking, but Mark's gone from vaguely interested to thinking of proposal schemes. "No, yer right. Drank enough to wax poetically at fuckin' piss o'clock at night."

"Why are you even up here? Could you not sleep?" he asks, hopefully bordering on nicely curious and not nosy. It's open ended enough that Jack could ignore it, if he wanted to.

"Nah." He shifts in his seat uncomfortably, and Mark worries he's overstepped his welcome, but he sighs. "Same reason as you, probably. Dumbass soldiers shot my sister, too." 

"Fuck," he says, because fuck. "You- you don't have to talk about anything, not just because I did. Thank you for telling me."

Jack nods, staring up at the stars again. "Yeah, you haven't unlocked my real backstory yet. Gotta save my life at least five times to be worthy o'that."

"I'll give it my best shot."

Jack giggles again. God, Bob and Wade are going to rip the shit into him the absolute second they see him. Whatever. 

They both fall asleep pretty quickly in those stupid chairs, and thankfully Felix wakes him up before Jack so that he doesn't have to deal with the awkwardness it'll probably bring.

After a rather brisk shower due to the disappointing lack of hot water, Mark can't help but notice how Jack seems to be avoiding his eyes over the table. Honestly, he's not surprised - maybe Jack had been slightly inebriated - but that doesn't make it sit any better with him. Unfortunately, all of his questionable feelings from last night still remain, only now when Jack laughs it's with his back to him leaning over the table with Signe. 

On the other side of the room, Felix is watching him stare at Jack, some kind of really, really annoying smirk on his face. 

Chapter Text

It's been four and a half weeks since he's been separated from Bob and Wade. Mark has absolute full confidence that they are probably okay without him, but he'd really rather find them sooner than later just to make sure. They both have girlfriends and other friends waiting for them back at the stadium, though, so when they constructed this rendezvous plan it had also come with some kind of exiat. If there is absolutely no sign of life from whoever you have been separated from after six weeks, go back home with or without them. The rendezvous point is far, sure, but reaching the stadium alone would be nearly impossible. Felix promised they would accompany Mark to his friends, but it probably would be taking the piss to ask them to take him to the stadium.  

So. Mark has a week and a half to find his friends.  

He explains this in detail to Marzia over breakfast (grilled something that Jack killed this morning) who seems to empathise with how important it is they get there soon. For the most part, they talk quietly over the map, suggesting different routes and how they would clash with CLA patrols or strongholds. It's probably a week-round trip, and that's assuming they run into minimal resistance.

"I am conflicted about bringing horses," she frowns, mouth half full of an apple. "I just think- hm. Maybe, if there is somewhere safe to store them- if we get this far... Hm."

"Darling," Felix drawls from where he's lounging on the couch, pretending to read one of Amy's books. "You could scout ahead if you so wish."

"That would take too long. Besides, Jack and Mark shouldn't go alone." Mark decides it's better for everyone if he doesn't ask why that is. 

"Not necessarily. If you take a horse, we can start on foot with just one. We won't go further than the museum, and we can store the horses there if there's nowhere further." Felix waggles his eyebrows, with the unmistakeable air of come on, you know I'm right and after a few seconds of unrelenting stares, Marzia sighs. "Awesome. God, I'm so clever."

Marzia flicks him in the cheekbone but clearly has no other argument - even Mark has to admit that it's a good idea. Horses might be an awful idea depending on the state of the roads, and besides- he's not sure he can take a week of acting unaffected by the way Jack's back presses up against his chest when they ride together. 

He's busy daydreaming about what Jack would look like riding a horse shirtless when an off-putting succession of noises can be heard from the bathroom. The clunkclunkclunk of the shower starting hums through the walls of the apartment, but it only lasts a second before one of the girls screams. #

Everyone is on their feet before Mark can even work out who it was, but by the time he reaches the bathroom door with Marzia, Jack is already barreling past them with his hands over his mouth- can Mark hear him retching in the next room? "Dude- what?"

"Eww!" Signe cries from the bathroom, stepping into view wrapped in a towel and a very sad look on her face, pinching her nose. "There's- look." She motions toward the shower and Mark peeks his head around. 

The smell of putrid flesh hits him like a ton of bricks. The remnants of whatever came out of the shower are still in the process of sliding toward the drain, bloody and stringy and definitely up there with one of the grossest things Mark has ever seen. He turns to look at Marzia for guidance and she looks the least strong he's ever seen, face screwed shut and skin pale. "I think you might have a contaminated water supply."

"I think I am going to be sick," she responds, swiftly exiting the hallway without another word. Signe snorts and it comes out sounding funny with how she's pinching her nose. 

"Guess I'll shower later? Or- if you wanna do me a favour," she starts, grinning when Mark makes a show of rolling his eyes, "You could go and tell Feliz that Marz said he has to go and fix the water."

Mark shrugs, raising an eyebrow. "I was expecting more, honestly." These are the kinds of favours he can get behind.

Or, Signe is very clever and predicted Felix's reaction too accurately. Mark bets that she knew when someone said hey Felix, something's died in the water and everyone is puking about it, he was going to turn to the nearest non-puking person and enlist them as his able-legged slave. Sure, it's only been two weeks since he was shot in the leg, but he's probably just milking it. 

Either way, Mark is still glaring at him across the well as he grins down at the floating head that's bobbing in the water. "No need to look so sour, my friend. Everyone has to have their turn fishing body parts from the water supply. It's kind of fun once you plug your nose." Mark steps back as the makeshift spear they're taking turns with pierces a thigh and it bursts open. "I bet you'd be all smiles if you and Jack were doing it."

Stupidly, this stops him in his tracks, mid-flicking gunk off of the rubber gloves he'd insisted on wearing. If Mark prides himself on anything, however, it's being a smooth talker. "I think I would struggle, considering that about one onehundredth of this rank shit had him dry-heaving." Felix pops- Mark isn't even sure, some pallid, bloated organ and ducks his head when air hisses out, spraying putrid blood up the side of the well. "Dude, you're actually making this so much worse. Maybe I would be better off with Jack."

"I'm doing the best job," he insists, finally successfully spearing something and bringing it out onto the grass. "Besides, this will clear itself, especially if we make it easier to pass through. Just didn't wanna wait." Mark doesn't know enough about plumbing to challenge this idea, but he is harbouring some doubts about it. When Felix starts aiming for a swollen eyeball, Mark decides he's just glad that he isn't needed anymore and sits back in the grass. The sun is out today and it warms his cheeks as he looks up into the sky. This is probably the last chance he's going to have to relax until he gets back to Bob and Wade. "Seriously, though," Felix quickly interrupts, though his tone suggests it's not at all serious. "You've got a thing for Jack."

This is too explicit of an accusation to ignore. "I won't deny that he's an attractive man," he sighs, checking over his shoulder for any eavesdropping stragglers. "But I am also just a simple man of simple needs. We don't all have wives to go to bed with." 

Felix snorts and tosses a finger over his shoulder. "No fucking doy. This bloated corpse could've told me you wanted to fuck Jack." Mark pretends not to be embarrassed by this. "There's something else going on, though."

"News to me," he dismisses, reaching out blindly for a fistful of grass. Felix seems like he could be a good friend, sure, but he's Jack's friend first, and Mark is hardly going to lay his heart out on a platter for them to pick apart. Besides, it's just a crush- maybe just a visual infatuation, if anything. Jack's fucking rude, he's off-puttingly stubborn and difficult and often not dissimilar to interacting with a brick wall. Mark's not stupid enough to develop feelings for anyone in this kind of political climate anyway, no matter how piercing their eyes or tightly their biceps stretch against their sleeves or- wait. 

"You're full of shit," Felix says gleefully. "I heard him laughing up on the roof last night."

"What, just because I happen to be the funniest person on Earth it means I'm trying to- to pull?" he retorts, grimacing at the noise of the spear presumably piercing a head. "Your logic isn't quite adding up."

"All I know," Felix continues as if Mark hadn't spoken, "is that Jack is the angriest person I've ever met. I love him like a brother." Mark stills in the grass, lets his fingers drop to his sides. He wasn't expecting the conversation to take this kind of direction. "He's been acting different since you showed up."

What?

What does he mean? 

Because he's stupid, it's only when Felix drops the spear and sits down next to him that he realises he's asked this out loud. 

"Don't tell him I've said any of this stuff. He'll kick my ass." Mark stays silent, because any kind of response feels like a  commitment he's not ready to make out loud, interest he wasn't prepared to show. "I dunno- I doubt he's told you about his sisters, he still hasn't told the girls about Ally," Felix starts, "though, that's not my place to say that stuff- anyway, uh-"

He's stumbling over his words now, as if he knows he's said something he shouldn't have. Mark makes a mental note of Ally. 

"My point is, I think he's been happier since he's met you."

Mark nods, with nowhere near enough emotional capacity to comprehend this information. "I don't think I've ever met anyone who dislikes me more, though."

Thankfully, Felix laughs, cracking the seriousness of the moment. "I never said he wasn't a fuckin' asshole, dude." Mark snorts and reaches for the spear - he can't keep his hands still in situations like these - and it clinks against the metal bolt of the well wall. It makes him think of sneaking bottles in his bag before he realised how sick it made him-

"Holy shit," he says to Felix, incredibly grateful to have just remembered such a perfect conversation change. "I- When we raided that warehouse I found a litre of vodka. This is our last night, right? And Marzia doesn't wanna leave until dusk tomorrow, so maybe we should celebrate tonight?"

"I'm divorcing Marzia and marrying you," Felix sighs, grinning up at the sky. "How the fuck did you forget about that?" He jumps to his feet, extending out a hand to help pull Mark up. "Bet you wanted to keep it to yourself."

"I actually can't drink alcohol. It's an Asian thing," he explains, snorting when Felix pulls a scared face. "Not- not like a cultural thing, it's a medical problem, it's just really common in- y'know, never mind. I can't drink, is the point. So I can keep watch 'n stuff."

"This literally just keeps getting better." They turn and start strolling back towards the door. There's infected at the fence but they can only reach their fingers through and Mark tries not to look at them. "You seemed pretty excited about the idea for someone who can't drink- oh. You just wanted me to stop talking about Jack, right?"

The Jack in question is sat on the front step, smoking and drinking hooch several feet in front of them, so Mark completely ignores Felix and just keeps walking. 

"You guys stink a' shit," Jack announces, spitting out an orange seed. Mark thinks about how he's apparently been happier since they met and a pit opens up in his stomach. It's such a familiar feeling, somehow. 

"I suppose someone should try out the shower again, I guess," he shrugs, as if he's feeling chilled out about everything right now and not like his head might explode. Thankfully, Jack doesn't seem to care that he's not speaking like a normal human being and just shifts over so that Mark can step past him. 

As he climbs the stairs he can hear Felix laughing as Jack gets increasingly aggravated.

"What's so fuckin' funny, dickwad? I'm gonna kick ye in the feckin teeth."

It is funny, in a way. Mark catches sight of himself in the mirror as he strips in the bathroom and stops, watching the way the cracked yellow lighting illuminates every single scar. It's not like he has any negative feelings about the way he looks, but there's nothing positive either- if anything, he doesn't recognise the person he sees looking back at him. 

As the water runs, slowly turning from a blotchy red to a soft pink and finally clear, he wonders if Jack would actually like that person and not the persona he's clung to since he lost everything. 

When the water hits his face he pushes it from his mind. 

Chapter Text

Introducing his stolen bottle of vodka to the group seemed like an excellent idea at the time; Mark ends up no worse off, as it's not something he wanted anyway, and now everyone loves him even more. They all have a merry, jolly night together and Mark is the benevolent vodka-bearer, and Jack wakes up the next morning in love with him. Or, something along those lines. When he'd said to Felix about 'keeping watch' he'd pictured himself sipping a coffee on the roof and leisurely plotting out their route for the next few days. Sure, it's not like he'd expected them all to get respectably intoxicated and go to bed at a reasonable hour, but still.

He also hadn't expected them to run wild like teenagers that had never touched a drop of alcohol before. Silly Mark, he thinks to himself whilst he watches Signe and Jack have a 'climb the building' competition. Felix is cheering them on like his life depends on it, completely oblivious to the small hoard of infected he is attracting up against the fence. 

"Hey, guys-" he tries, stopping when Felix shoves him roughly to the left. Before he can smack him or anything like that, however, a glass comes sailing down past his ear and splinters over the pavement next to his feet. "I- the fuck?"

"Sorry Mark!" Signe calls down, giggling when her foot slips on the windowsill she's clambering around and she nearly falls ten feet to the ground. "Woah- woops. Hey, Jack?"

Jack makes a noise in response but doesn't turn back to her, keeping his focus solely on scaling the gutter without letting it detach from the building. If Mark wasn't worried about him falling to certain death, it would be really, really impressive. Unfortunately, he's high enough to do some serious damage if he falls, which remains at the forefront of Mark's mind as he watches Signe start dangling from the ledge. "Uh- Jack?Jack!" she calls out, and he turns around this time.

"Why're you followin' me for? I can't reach ye- shite," he calls down, hooking his free ankle through the bars on the window when the plastic brackets of the gutter finally give way. It falls majestically against the grass with a soft phut and Jack's giggle echoes through the field as if he didn't just come this close to breaking his neck. "Someone feckin' catch 'er!"

Mark finds himself moving towards Signe before this brain registers what Jack even means. This is definitely for the best, as she doesn't even give him enough time to catch her- he just about manages to get underneath her before she falls. Her sneaker connects with his shoulder and he kinda catches her, if catching something involves you and the thing ending up on the floor together. 

Felix is not making any effort to disguise his laughter or the tears streaming down his cheeks, and it's at this point that Mark decides he's had enough. 

"Right- THAT has got to be it," he says in what he hopes is an authoritative voice. Signe is still lying across his legs and snorts when he speaks, so it probably isn't working. "You two, inside, now. I'm going up to the roof before Jack decides it's a good idea to jump off."

Seriously, he thinks as he scales the stairs two at a time, I did not sign up for this. The hatch is open and he can hear Jack doing something stupid.

"What in the living fuck was that?" Mark sighs, throwing his hands up in the air when Jack cocks his head. "You nearly just fell to your death?"

"Don't remember nearly fallin'," he shrugs, reaching for the shopping bag of hooch with outstretched palms. "Pass- hic- pass'it."

Mark is about to double down, because when he signed up to take watch whilst everyone had a drink, this is absolutely not what he had in mind, but then Jack smiles with big blue eyes and blinks up at him as if to say hey, sexy, pass me my drink and any words that Mark had prepared swiftly exit his mind. Simultaneously, he's almost certain Jack will try ropeless abseiling if one more drop of alcohol passes his lips, so Mark is left floundering whilst Jack rolls onto his belly, loosely waving his hands in the direction of  the bag. Mark has yet to enquire as to how successfully the group were able to ferment alcohol in the basement, but he's assuming not very, as any kind of previously built-up tolerance has been absolutely flattened by however much vodka Jack has consumed. 

"Hey."

Jack stills for a moment before rolling onto his back, loosely resting his head on a crumbling pile of stray roof tiles. "Hey," he eventually says back, staring at Mark as if he's some kind of freak alien for disturbing Jack's dangerous drunken behaviour. "'Sup?"

"Do you think you can just- just stay still for five minutes? Before you try any more ridiculous stunts?" 

Mark hopes that he sounds exaspirated and not in awe of the way Jack giggles at this, throwing an elbow over his eyes and sinking further back into the rubble. "'s not ridic- uh, not ridic- hic- uh. Yeah, alright." Mark breathes a sigh of relief and turns to look down at the fence across the field. The infected their shouting had attracted was starting to dwindle, thankfully, but there were still a fair few mashing their arms through the chicken wire in attempt to reach them. Hopefully they would be gone by morning, or they would definitely have to readjust their plans.

Mark sighs again, taking a seat in Jack's vague vicinity. Who is he trying to kid? Everyone is going to be hungover to like, the point of death. These guys aren't his friends, they're doing him a favour. If they all decided tomorrow morning that they didn't want to go at all, he would be powerless to do anything other than leave alone. He doubts that they would do that, as Felix and the girls seem like genuinely nice people, but he's definitely going to be at the whim of their hangovers.

"Why're you all moody?"

"You're one to talk," Mark quips dryly, though he can't help smiling down at the grass for some reason. "Why aren't you all moody? I think I've seen you smile more in the last five minutes than I have the whole time I've known you." 

"Ya reunited me with my one true love," Jack grins, sitting up and propping his elbows back on the rubble behind him. "Bein' drunk as fuckin' shite. 's hard to be moody now." He laughs again, as if to prove his point, and Mark's breath catches every time it changes pitch. Jack's voice is rusted from all of the drunken shouting and carries through into his laugh, screwing his eyes shut in joy. Mark feels a bit drunk on nothing at all. "Remind me why you're not pissed?"

"Stomach problem," Mark repeats for the fifth or sixth time of the evening.

"Drugs?" Jack counters.

"You say that as if it's a readily available option. Do you think one of those infected over there runs the line in this area?" Mark pauses, intrigued by his own sarcasm. "I wonder if infected retain the ability to be intoxicated?"

Jack's eyes widen, as if Mark has said something actually clever and interesting and not stupid. "You're infected?"

"I- no. What?"

"If- if the zombies, uh- hic- if you, uh-"

Mark can't help but laugh at the way Jack's brow knits with his own words, clearly unable to make sense of anything happening anymore. Something uncomfortable shifts in his stomach at the way Jack looks up when he laughs, the way he drops everything he's trying to make sense of to meet Mark's eyes under the soft light of the night sky. His chuckle sits in the silence of the humid air and he doesn't know what else to do other than smile and look away.

"Why're you so- so feckin' cheery?"

"Hm?" Mark pauses, as if pondering the question. He's cheery because he doesn't think he could keep going if he wasn't. Besides, what kind of doubtful close-knit group of friends would let an asshole join them? He's only really here because of how committed he is to the Loveable Guy Persona. "I'm just a really loveable guy," is the answer he decides to go with."

"Bullshit," Jack snorts, though his eyes won't leave Mark. 

"Well- what is it you want me to say, exactly?" Mark sighs, watching the clouds float overhead so he doesn't have to look at how Jack is chewing on his lip in thought. "I'm just a happy guy."

"Yeah, b'like- uh- dunno. You're all happy 'n that even when you aren't." Mark decides this is a comment he's happy to let the night respond to and he keeps his head turned away from Jack's questioning stare. "Tell me- hic- tell me how." There's no way Jack is coherent enough to remember any of this, right? As Mark is weighing up his response Jack sighs, lying back down on the roof and following Mark's gaze toward the clouds. "After I- uh, after Ally died, I t'ought I'd never be happy again."

Okay, Jack's definitely too drunk to comprehend what's going on. Mark is flashing back to last time he had a drink with Jack and hearing you haven't unlocked my real backstory yet; gotta save my life at least five times t'be worthy o' that. You can't be much clearer about not wanting to share something. Is the right thing to do here put a stop to this conversation? Is he taking advantage of Jack by letting him spill his secrets whilst so intoxicated? Does it even matter what happens, because Jack may be too drunk to remember this?

Jack seems to take his silence as an incentive to continue. "Yer just- ugh, I don't feckin' know. I wanted you t'leave- to- to fuck off, like."

"Charming."

"I probably could- hic-  would've hit ye or somethin' if Fe didn't tell me not to." Mark decides to be the bigger man and keep his I'd like to see you try to himself, for now. "Feel like I- I made it quite clear, too. But- but, you're all smiley, and fuckin', fuckin' happy and nice to me. Even- hic- Amy likes ye. I think she likes you, y'know?"

"I think you're starting to spiral, buddy," Mark interjects, because this is too much information for him to handle right now. Mark likes Amy too, but not really in the way Jack seems to be insinuating. 

"Maybe," he sighs, burping for an impressive four full seconds. "I t'ink I was goin' to tell you wha' happened."

"I think that sober you will be really pissed off with me if I let you do that." Mark feels like a good person, and also now doesn't have to risk Jack remembering this conversation tomorrow. As a non-drinker, he isn't very good at identifying how drunk someone needs to be to experience memory loss, but Jack hasn't been sick yet, so he probably hasn't passed his limit. "I'd feel like I was taking advantage of how drunk you are."

"Are- am I a feckin' girl? You couldn't take advantage a'me if you tried, Mister." Jack laughs again, swaying until he falls to his side. "Ah. I think I- hic- I might spew in a sec, y'know." He grins, like this is funny and not gross. "Bet you've had t'worst night ever, dude. Babysittin'."

"Something like that." He holds a bottle of water down to where Jack is trying to swallow an abnormal amount of burps. Mark can't help but roll his eyes at the way Jack pouts. "Fine. It wasn't the worst night. Your company is- and please, I'm begging  you not to get an ego boost from this - your company is somewhat enjoyable, even when you're this drunk and I'm this sober."

"I t'ink that's the nicest t'ing anyone's ever said t'me." Mark turns to smile at him, earnestly, and Jack promptly vomits down his shirt.