by Misty Vixen
“Okay, okay, enough feelings. Always fucking feelings with you two,” Ellie muttered. “Where are we actually going?”
“That garage at the crossroads,” David said.
“Oh shit, them? Fuck, they’re still there? That’s not a good place...” she murmured. Suddenly, she looked at David. “Have you considered asking them to live with you? I mean, I’ve seen that place, you’ve got room. Even just having them there would make them a hell of a lot safer.”
“We haven’t spoken about it yet, and before I do anything, I’d need to ask Evelyn and April for confirmation. And, I guess, you know, since we’re dating and you’ve got a room there...” he said, looking at Cait.
“Oh, I’m fine with it. I love the idea,” Cait replied.
“Okay, cool.” David reached up and patted the pocket holding the medical supplies. “I hope these work,” he murmured.
“They should. Those guys know what they’re talking about,” Cait said.
They reached the bridge a few minutes later, and then hit the crossroads another few minutes after that. The door opened up even before they managed to get close enough to knock. Jim stood in the doorway, looking pale and anxious.
“Do you have the pills? Please tell me you have them,” he said.
“We have them,” David replied, and the look of intensely powerful, grateful relief that swept his face was almost payment enough.
“Thank you,” he said as David passed him over the tubes and the paper.
“You’re welcome. Read that carefully, it will tell you how many pills to give her and when,” he said.
“Okay. I have to go give her some now, but I found your gear, I think. I’m almost positive I did,” he replied, then he rushed back into the garage. David, Cait, and Ellie followed him in, closing the door behind them and waiting in the main room. After about five minutes, Jim returned. He looked a lot better. It was times like this that David really appreciated the gravity of stress. It was an insanely powerful force on people.
They said it was a killer, and he believed it.
“Thank you so much,” he said, walking over to them. “I’m really hoping these will do the trick. Um, here, I found what you were looking for.” He sat something small but heavy down on the counter they were gathered around. David pulled out the paper he had and held it next to the gear, studying it, comparing them.
“That looks right,” Cait said, and Ellie nodded in agreement.
He thought it looked good, too, but it was really good to have backup on that assessment. He pocketed the paper and the gear in the inner pocket that had held the medicine before. “Thank you,” David said. He began to leave, feeling the press of time, but hesitated as something occurred to him. “I have one more favor to ask.”
“Anything,” Jim replied.
“Do you have, like, a sander? Like for smoothing down wood?”
“I...think so,” he said, frowning and squinting, thinking about it. Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, I think we do, actually. I can go look.”
“I’d really appreciate it, but we have to go for now. We have something we really need to do, and fast. Um, I’ll be back within the next day to check on you and to see if you have the sander. If you can’t find it, don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. Just...stay safe. There’s a lot of assholes out lately.”
Jim’s expression turned sour. “I saw some people passing through earlier today, they looked like bad types. They reminded me of the monsters who burned River View to the ground.”
David hesitated. “They’ve been causing a lot of trouble lately...are you properly armed?”
“We have guns and decent ammo,” Jim replied. “I know how to shoot, and if it really comes down to it, everyone here at least knows enough to aim and shoot.”
“Okay. Don’t take any chances. We’ll be back later.”
“All right. Thank you again,” Jim said, and offered David his hand. He shook it, as did Cait and then, with some small reluctance, Ellie, who looked more surprised than anything else. “Good luck out there.”
“You as well,” David said, and left, with Cait and Ellie following.
…
“That was rather...authoritative,” Cait said as they crossed the bridge again.
David was looking at the skies, frowning. He didn’t like the way the clouds were building up, or how dark they were getting. And there was a powerful wind beginning to blow, and it had frozen teeth to it. “What do you mean?”
“I thought Ellie or I would have to captain that conversation, but you just...handled it,” Cait replied. “It was hot.”
He laughed. “Really?”
“Yeah. I guess I need to keep reminding you: confidence is sexy.”
“She’s right,” Ellie said.
“Then why’d you fuck me in the watchtower?” David asked, looking at her. “I wasn’t feeling particularly confident at that point.”
Ellie shrugged. “You were cute, I was horny, we were stuck there, and...you seemed like a safe bet.”
“What do you mean, ‘a safe bet’? Safe like...I wouldn’t try to hurt you?”
“No,” she said. “I knew that. I also knew that even if you were stupid enough to try I could kick your ass out a window and watch you drop the thirty feet.”
“No argument there,” David said, and Cait laughed.
“No, you seemed safe like...you wouldn’t make it difficult. I felt like I could fuck you, and tell you that that was it, it was a one-time thing, and you wouldn’t make it difficult. You’d accept that,” she explained.
“Would it even have mattered if I hadn’t accepted it? Like you could just tell me to fuck off anyway, right?”
She sighed. “Yes, David, but believe it or not, I don’t get off on being a bitch.”
“I didn’t say that! I more meant, like, you could tell me to fuck off and just leave and it wouldn’t be a big deal for you, right?”
She was silent for a few moments, and he and Cait waited. He noticed her looking at Ellie now with an interested, curious expression.
“It’s not that easy,” she said finally, not looking at them. “I don’t like being cold and distant, and it isn’t easy, either. I’ve gotten better at it, sure, but it still isn’t what I’d call easy. I’d rather have sex with someone and they not make it difficult, instead of having sex with someone, and I have to tell them to fuck off. I don’t like telling people to fuck off, I don’t want to, not unless they really earned it, you know? And you’re a good guy. And I’m just...glad it’s worked out well so far.”
“So what I’m hearing is that you want to have more sex with me,” David said.
She glared at him, then looked away again. “Yes.”
“Why is that so hard to admit?”
“Did you listen to a single thing I just said?” she snapped.
“I’m sorry. I did. I just...it’s hard not to take it at least a little personally, you know?” David replied.
“Fine, I guess I get that. It’s not you, it’s just...sex is a weakness. It makes you vulnerable. And I have a lot of difficulty with that. And you teasing me about wanting to have sex with you...it triggers the same response as being taken advantage of. Does that make sense?”
He felt guilty suddenly as that finally slid together for him. “Oh. Wow. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know you didn’t, and I’m glad you understand it now,” Ellie murmured. Nobody spoke for a few minutes. Ellie heaved another sigh. “This is why I don’t talk about shit like this, it fucks everything up. I ruined the mood.”
“No you didn’t, Ellie,” Cait said. “Just sidetracked it. And it was an important sidetrack. But if you want, I have something to talk about. Something to ask you, actually, since you are the most knowledgeable about the situation out of the three of us.”
“Okay, what?” she asked.
“I think David and Jennifer should fuck.”
Ellie looked over at Cait, then at David. “Huh,” she murmu
red, looking ahead again. “So...you’d fuck a wraith, David?”
“Yeah, definitely, if there was mutual attraction there,” he replied.
“That might be the hard part. Jennifer is...like me, only worse. I mean, she’s a wraith, she’s had a hard time. But we have talked about sex before. And I’ve got at least the tiniest inclination that she’s into me...I think.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Cait replied.
“Racists,” Ellie said.
“You’d want them to be?”
“Fuck no. Although I take that back, I’m sure a lot of them are, they just hate to admit that, even to themselves. But whatever. Don’t say anything to her about this, she’ll clam up hard. Just...I’ll feel the situation out, and if I think it’s right, I’ll talk to her about it. But it’s not like we’ll have time to get busy, you know?”
“Yeah,” David replied uncertainly, looking at the sky again.
They walked on.
…
The trip to Jennifer’s was fairly uneventful.
They walked past the hospital and deeper north and a little west. They ran into a pack of zombies on the way there, but managed to put them down without too much trouble. As they made their journey, David’s suspicions at first grew, then became all but confirmed. A cold wind was blowing consistently through most of the walk, and soon a light snow began to fall.
“Fuck,” Cait muttered as she looked around, then glowered at the sky. “Fucking snow.”
“I think we’ve got a storm on our hands,” David murmured.
“I think so, too. Fuck. Goddamnit. This is a real shit time for it,” Ellie growled.
“Well, we’ve got what...nineteen hours? Eighteen and a half?” David replied.
“Yeah, I just...don’t like dallying if I don’t have to,” Ellie said.
“If there’s a blizzard, we’ll have to,” Cait replied flatly. “We’re not going through a blizzard. It’s too dangerous. That isn’t negotiable.”
“Yeah,” Ellie conceded after a moment.
By the time they got to Jennifer’s house, which was an actual house at the end of a very long, poorly tended path, deep in the dead woods, the snow had gotten worse. The flakes were fat and falling fast from the dark gray skies. The clouds seemed endless. David studied the house as they approached. It looked old, but decently tended to. All the windows he could see were intact and closed off. Smoke rose from the chimney.
They walked up to the front door and Ellie knocked twice.
There was a pause, then a voice came to them. “Who is it?”
“It’s Ellie,” Ellie replied, leaning close, “and I’ve got two people with me. Cait, who you’ve met before, the redhead. And David, who you haven’t met before.”
“...and you vouch for them?” she asked uncertainly.
“Yes, I do. I wouldn’t bring them if I didn’t trust them,” Ellie replied. She sounded surprisingly patient, given how she normally reacted to people questioning her judgment.
“Why are you here?”
“We need your help. I have a generator that I need you to look at-”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jennifer said, interrupting.
“Jennifer, please. It’s important. It’s very important.”
A long pause, and finally he heard a muttered word, what might have been goddamnit, and then a few locks clicked open and the door opened up. “Just you, Ellie,” she said.
“Jennifer, it’s fucking freezing out here, and there’s a snowstorm. I’m not making my friends wait outside in the fucking cold,” Ellie replied firmly.
Jennifer sighed. He could hardly see her, as she was standing in shadows, away from the door. She stepped a little closer, and scrutinized him and Cait with flat, mistrusting, bloodshot gray eyes. Well, one thing he knew for sure: the attraction was certainly there on his end. Jennifer was...very beautiful, in a weird, grim sort of way. She was exceptionally pale, almost grayish, but her black hair was pretty vibrant, and she had a pretty face.
She was holding a revolver.
“Fine,” she said finally, “but just into the living room. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“We won’t,” Ellie replied. She looked back at them. “Come on.”
They all walked slowly into Jennifer’s house, and as soon as they were, she pointed them to the immediate left, then closed and locked the door firmly behind them. David came into a cozy and tidy living room, where the fireplace was. There was a couch that was big enough to seat all three of them, and that’s where they sat. Jennifer came in behind them. She was still holding the revolver, though thankfully not aiming it at them.
“Okay, what’s the problem?” she asked, sitting down in an armchair near the fire, facing them. She looked very ill in the firelight.
“You remember the doctors and their hospital?” Ellie asked.
“Yes, I remember,” Jennifer replied curtly.
“They’re kind of fucked. They have a power problem and long story short, we’ve just about run out of options. They have a generator, it’s complicated, I think it’s a bio-mass generator. It’s broken. I think you can fix it. They also have some solar panels, but they seem to think they’re fucked, so you could take a look at them, too, in case they overlooked something. So...I’m asking you to help with this,” Ellie explained.
Jennifer studied her, her expression flat, a little hostile, then her eyes slid over to Cait, and then to David. “How are you two involved in this?”
“I’m running a mission for some farmers, which led me to some sick people at a gas station who had what I needed, but desperately needed meds. Cait took me to the hospital, and they happened to be in that situation when we arrived. Now we’re here,” David replied.
Jennifer continued staring at him, and he felt slightly unnerved by her intense scrutiny.
“Why should I do this?” she asked finally, returning her gaze to Ellie.
“Because I’m asking you to, and because it’s the right thing to do. You know they are good people over there, Ellie, and you know that you’re one of the very, very few people probably within fifty miles who might have a chance to solve this problem,” Ellie replied. Her voice was firm, but still patient.
He wondered, suddenly, how they had met.
Jennifer continued looking at them for several quiet moments, then turned and looked into the fire, frowning. Outside, the wind howled and the house creaked and shuddered under its force. “I’ll...have to think about it,” she said finally. Then she sighed. “And obviously you can’t go back out, there’s a blizzard on, so...you can stay here. Just...stay in this room. I’ll, um...” she stood up, “I’ll see what I can do about dinner.”
She walked quickly out of the room and somewhere deeper into the house.
“So...I think it might actually be warmer outside after that reception,” Cait murmured.
“She seems more on edge than usual,” Ellie replied quietly. “Something probably happened. Or maybe she had a nightmare or a bad false alarm.”
“What do we do?” David asked.
“Sit tight in here for awhile, when she’s had a chance to get used to the idea that there are people in her house and she’s relaxed a bit, I’ll go and talk to her and help her make dinner. You two stay here unless I say otherwise. There’s a working bathroom directly across the hall that we came in through, if you have to go, but otherwise, just stay here and don’t do much of anything,” Ellie replied.
“All right,” David said, and he sat back and settled in after taking his hat and coat off, because what other choice did he have?
…
After about fifteen minutes, Ellie got up and walked deeper into the house.
David realized he was tensing, waiting for a negative reaction, but there wasn’t one. He just heard the two of them talking quietly, the murmur of two voices in another room. He looked at Cait, who just looked back and gave him a small shrug.
“How do you know her?” he asked.
“Through Ell
ie. She brought me out here a few times. I honestly don’t know much about her, but she’s got a nice setup,” Cait replied.
David looked around. There was a bookshelf with a lot of books, and a nice table with a glass top, and a few quality armchairs. “Yeah.”
Another ten minutes passed before Ellie returned.
“What’s up?” Cait asked.
“She’s...calmer now. We spoke. Just kind of catching up. I still don’t know why she’s this on edge, though. She said, if we had to, we could spend the night here. You know how blizzards are. And she seems like she’s leaning towards a yes with regards to the generator. She asked several more questions about it all. We’re having rabbit and veggie stew,” she explained.
“Oh nice. I love rabbit,” Cait said, and David nodded.
“Okay. Keep sitting tight, I’ll be back when dinner’s ready.”
And this was how they spent the next half an hour, listening to the winds shriek outside, to the trees groan and sway. Before long, Cait laid down and put her head in his lap, and he began to run his fingers through her hair, and then, after a bit, to gently massage her temples.
“You are too sweet,” she murmured.
“Too sweet for what?” he replied, looking down at her. She had her eyes closed. She looked very beautiful.
“I don’t know. For me. You’re very in tune with what your partner wants and needs, I’ve noticed. You’re very caring. You’re very...sweet. Sometimes, a lot of times, I feel like I don’t deserve that,” she answered quietly.
“Why not?”
“I told you about my past, about what a shitty person I was.” She opened her eyes. “That’s why. I did a lot of bad things. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m a monster or anything, but...I did a lot of shitty things. Most of them little, some of them big. Hell, I don’t even know, actually. Some casual, careless, racially insensitive remark could have been brushed off as me being just another asshole, or...it could have ruined someone’s week, caused tremendous amounts of suffering, you know? I was a bad person.”
“Do you think you’re still a bad person?” he asked.
“I’d like to believe not. I don’t think so, not anymore. I guess mainly I try just to be good, and hope it’s enough.”
