Al-Infitar (3/3)
Ah, what the hell. It's written, so I might as well post the rest of it tonight. I didn't intend for it to end up this long.
Title: Al-Infitar (Part 3)
Author: missnegativity
Fandom: Oz
Rating: R (see fandom)
Warnings: You've seen the show? Foul language, gay sex, sacrilege, lots of violence, and irritating monologues. Now with 50% more zombie action and 100% more cute kittens.
Disclaimer: Tom Fontana owns them. I’m just renting them and subjecting them to Armageddon.
(Part 1) (Part 2)
Hill:
According to the Qu’ran, the end of the world is coming any day now. Only Allah knows the date and time, but trust Him, you’ll know when it happens. The stars fall, the heavens roll up. And walking dead? We got your walking dead right here, bro!
The Apocalypse is an exact science. You got your sixty to seventy lesser signs of the hour of doom that have to happen before the world goes ka-BAM. Then you’ve got your greater signs of the hour. You’ve got the Mahdi, who brings justice to the world, and you got the Antichrist. The good are rewarded. And the bad?
Let’s just say they got a world o’ pain comin’ to them.
The bus is in sight, but they’re surrounded by the jerking, stop-motion wave of the living dead. Redding’s capable of running and shooting at the same time, so he takes up the rear, blowing away any there-is-no-way-Toby-is-going-to-call-it-a-zombie that comes close. Even with guns blazing, they manage to lose Pancamo, Morales, and two others in the thirty seconds before the bus crunches right through the teeming crowd and Chris yells, “get in!” Toby runs to his kids and pushes them down, covering Harry’s eyes even as he stares in horror out the window.
“What the fuck was that?” he hears White yell.
“Zombies, man,” Poet replies, and Toby’s glad he’s not any closer or he’d be seriously tempted to hit the guy for saying it out loud and making it true.
When they’re more or less out of range - and he’s never been quite so happy that Chris all but wrote the book on reckless driving - Toby drops the gas masks he’s been carrying with disgust at Rebadow’s feet.
“You want to tell me what’s so important about these?” he asks.
Rebadow shrugs philosophically. “I’m not sure. It has something to do with the Pink Death.”
“What’s the Pink Death?” Holly pipes up.
Toby is pretty sure that Alvarez is hiding a giggle when he says, “It’s what happens every time your daddy fucks someone who isn’t Kell--” Everyone stares at him. “What?”
“Leave me alone,” Rebadow folds himself into the seat of the bus and refuses to say another word.
They’re safe in the bus, or as safe as it gets when a steady stream of - okay, he’ll call them zombies because what else can he call them? - are following you and sometimes trying to grab on to the fenders, and the storm is building, the roads freezing, and you’re currently enjoying the company of several convicted murderers.
The next order of business is deciding where to go when the entire world’s ecosystem is throwing the mother of all temper tantrums.
*
It doesn’t surprise Toby when Said falls naturally back into the leadership role that he took during the riot five years ago. They all know that Redding and Chris will eventually balk if Said tries to order them around, but everyone present has now lost friends and family, and old feuds can wait until they’re at least out of zombie range.
Chris drives, although he’s always listening, and watching through the rearview mirror. When Toby looks up, he can meet Chris’s gaze through the glass. He hugs both of his children closer.
He’s distracted. He can allow himself to be, to a point - Said’s in charge, and he trusts Said’s judgment over his own. It’s not that he’s not accustomed to seeing death - he is - but not so much of it, not all at once.
And then there’s Chris, who is as unreachable as he was when there were bars between them. He can’t ask Chris to stay the fuck away from him, and he can’t fuck him senseless either, and the problem of there actually being a middle ground between these two options pisses him off to no end. Instead, he lets the conversation drift over him, twist into new shapes and familiar patterns. It’s someone else’s decision - all of this is happening to someone else.
“Down to Mexico, man. At least it’ll be warmer.”
“You like tornados? ‘Cause there’s a fuckload between us and Mexico.”
(“Fire in the mountain, run, boys, run.”)
“Can’t go east. They’ve evacuated all the cities there.”
(“Lâ ilâha illâ allâh.”)
“How ‘bout Kansas? Just electrical storms there, right?”
(“There’s no place like home…”)
“Hey, Rebadow!” It’s Alvarez again, “What does God say?”
Ryan: “Shut the fuck up.”
“God stopped talking to Bob way back. You been snortin’ tits, Miguel?”
“Yo, Padre, tell God to start talking to Rebadow again.”
“You want me to bust his face in?”
“I know He was talking to you earlier. So where’s he say we go, huh?”
Rebadow’s quiet response is what finally draws Toby out of his daze. “What makes you think that God cares anymore?”
They keep driving.
*
After zombies, they have four other big problems: food, fuel, tits, and warmth. The gas in the tank will take them across state lines, and they have a backup tank lifted from another bus. Food supplies from the kitchen will last a few days, at best. Warmth isn’t an issue as long as they keep the bus running.
And tits? Tits fucked them in the riot and it will probably fuck them now.
At one point, White, panicky at the prospect of withdrawal in the middle of absolutely nowhere, makes a crack about the possibility of cooking up Holly’s cat when they run out of food. Tears spring to her eyes, and she hugs the kitten closer, ignoring its squeak of protest. Chris stops the bus, walks down the aisle to where White is sitting, and calmly snaps his neck. Redding stands up, ready to fight him, and Said steps in between them.
“We’re not going to fight each other,” he says, “Not now.” And sits back down.
Chris drags the body to the front of the bus and throws it to the side of the road.
“Don’t fuck with the kitten,” he says, and starts the engine again.
Toby thinks that he should probably be disturbed by that whole exchange, except that “don’t fuck with the kitten” translates into “don’t fuck with Toby’s kids either” and if Chris killing people is what it takes to keep his kids safe, so be it. He wishes Said would stop glaring at him, as though he’s responsible for anything that Chris decides he wants to do, and it’s not like Said hasn’t come close to killing White himself, and if someone is fiending for tits that someone is better off dead and Toby knows he should really, really stop trying to justify it to himself whenever Chris gets the idea that he wants to kill someone.
Fuck.
Worst of all, Holly has stopped crying and she’s gazing up at Chris like he’s her new fucking hero.
*
They rob the first gas station they can find that hasn’t been destroyed or raided. Chris and Poet go in, with Arif watching them under Said’s orders that they’re not allowed to kill anyone, and come out with several tanks of gas, a few cartons of smokes, and absurd amounts of candy bars. Toby didn’t hear any shots, but Said asks anyway.
“Fucker was dead,” Poet says, “Looks like…”
“Like what?” Redding prompts.
“Like something’d been chewing on him.”
*
When they finally stop, it’s sundown. There’s been no sign of zombies for several hours - no sign of anything but long, empty stretches of highway, rubble, and the broken silhouettes of trees. There’s a clearing by the highway. No one speaks as they collect wood, build bonfires, conduct the automatic routines of survival.
The Muslims group together and pray, spreading blankets over the snowy ground to substitute for prayer mats. Maybe Mecca still exists, somewhere beyond the rising oceans. Mukada prays too, with Ryan, Gloria, and Alvarez as his audience, their heads bowed, all of them too proud to weep.
Redding forces his people through drills he learned in Vietnam. They will have to be an army, disciplined. No more drugs, no more distractions. For the first time since Augustus Hill’s death, Redding seems genuinely happy.
“Daddy?” Holly asks as Toby wraps a second blanket around the small bodies of his kids. Harry is already asleep, his head against the curled-up ball of fluffy kitten nearby.
“Yeah?”
“What’s gonna happen to us?”
He doesn’t know how to be a parent. Hell, after six years in Oz, Toby’s not sure if he even remembers how to be a normal man. He knows there’s a certain age after which you’re expected to stop lying to your kids, but Holly is nine, and that seems much too early.
“We’ll make it,” he says, and hopes that she can believe him. He kisses her goodnight, and when he stands up, Chris is there.
“Come on.” Chris puts a hand on Toby’s arm. “No one’s gonna touch them. Everybody knows better.”
“I guess they do,” Toby says, and will not think about the sickening crack that White’s neck made. He’s shaking a little and he didn’t even like White.
“We gotta talk.”
“We probably should.”
Away from the others, at the edge of the heat from the farthest fire, they stare at each other and don’t talk.
“It’s only fair that you should know this,” Toby begins, “I didn’t come back out of love.”
“No?”
“If…things get worse. If anything happens to me, you’re the only person I trust to protect my kids.”
“Until the end of the world,” Chris replies, and then laughs. “And after that, too.”
“Thanks. I know…that much about you, at least. You'll keep them safe.”
In the gathering darkness, he can’t see Chris edging closer to him, but he feels the soft bite against his neck, then at his earlobe. “So you didn’t come back to rescue me because you love me. Does that mean a fuck’s completely out of the question?”
Toby leans back, against Chris’s chest, and remembers at some point that he promised himself that he wouldn’t do this anymore. “Not…completely out of the question, no.”
“Good.”
There isn’t the chance for tenderness, but they’re used to stealing moments, and besides, it was never about mind numbingly ecstatic sex. Vern Schillinger is always a presence between them.
But there’s warmth, when everything else is so cold, and Chris’s hands on him, inside him, bodies twisting together and tension and release and it’s flawed love, always has been, but it’s the only love Toby’s ever known.
In the sticky-sweet afterglow, they lie in each other’s arms. The stars have never been so bright. Toby tries not to wonder if it’s because the atmosphere has gotten thinner, if the lights of every city in America have gone out.
“You think it’s the end of the world?” Chris asks, “Seriously?”
Toby nods. “You’re taking it pretty well.”
“Hmmm…the apocalypse or the juice? Fuck. At least this way I get to see the sky before I go.” He rolls onto his back, drawing Toby in against his shoulder. “But you, man? You had a shot at a real life. And now…”
Toby looks over at his sleeping kids, then pulls himself up to brush his lips over Chris’s.
“Now,” he says, “Everything I ever truly cared about is right here with me.”
*
An hour later, when he hears Toby snoring, Chris stands, stretches his legs, and saunters over to the edge of the clearing where Said keeps watch. His bright eyes are turned away from the huddle of figures by the fire, and, though he clearly notices as Chris sits down beside him, he offers no acknowledgment whatsoever.
Chris, however, is in a talkative mood. “That must have really pissed you off.”
Said says nothing, but his fingers tighten on the barrel of the rifle.
“Toby and me, I mean,” Chris continues, “Seems like he’s given up on salvation.”
Said growls, “For now.”
Chris knits his fingers together behind his head. “He loves me, Said, even if he won’t say it. He loves me more than his soul, and more than Allah. Not even the apocalypse is gonna change that.”
The other man exhales deeply, considering his words. “I have other concerns at the moment.”
“Yeah,” Chris says, “End of the world.”
Said nods. “The end of the world.”
A pause, then, “I’m not as stupid as you or Toby think. We’re all gonna die. You and me, Minister, we’re killers. You might hide it better, but you know as well as I do when death is comin’.”
“Keller,” Said says, slowly, deliberately, “What do you want?”
“Just an answer,” he replies, “To the question that nobody’s asked yet. So maybe we didn’t search Unit B too good - and we didn’t, by the way, or…”
“Keller.” It’s a warning. Chris won’t get another.
“So,” Chris asks with a feral grin, “Where the hell did Schillinger and the Aryan Brotherhood go?”
Hill:
According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. That don’t sound too bad, until you find out that most of that was over the last twenty years, and most of that? Our fault. Smokestacks, power-plants, muthafuckin’ SUVs - we caused the shit we’re in. The oceans are gonna rise, the storms gonna be worse, the earth scorched into desert. Famine, war, disease, death. Worst thing about it is: this ain’t God’s judgment. It’s the human condition.
As for me? I’m just glad I ain’t around to see it.
Peace.
TBC
Title: Al-Infitar (Part 3)
Author: missnegativity
Fandom: Oz
Rating: R (see fandom)
Warnings: You've seen the show? Foul language, gay sex, sacrilege, lots of violence, and irritating monologues. Now with 50% more zombie action and 100% more cute kittens.
Disclaimer: Tom Fontana owns them. I’m just renting them and subjecting them to Armageddon.
(Part 1) (Part 2)
Hill:
According to the Qu’ran, the end of the world is coming any day now. Only Allah knows the date and time, but trust Him, you’ll know when it happens. The stars fall, the heavens roll up. And walking dead? We got your walking dead right here, bro!
The Apocalypse is an exact science. You got your sixty to seventy lesser signs of the hour of doom that have to happen before the world goes ka-BAM. Then you’ve got your greater signs of the hour. You’ve got the Mahdi, who brings justice to the world, and you got the Antichrist. The good are rewarded. And the bad?
Let’s just say they got a world o’ pain comin’ to them.
The bus is in sight, but they’re surrounded by the jerking, stop-motion wave of the living dead. Redding’s capable of running and shooting at the same time, so he takes up the rear, blowing away any there-is-no-way-Toby-is-going-to-call-it-a-zombie that comes close. Even with guns blazing, they manage to lose Pancamo, Morales, and two others in the thirty seconds before the bus crunches right through the teeming crowd and Chris yells, “get in!” Toby runs to his kids and pushes them down, covering Harry’s eyes even as he stares in horror out the window.
“What the fuck was that?” he hears White yell.
“Zombies, man,” Poet replies, and Toby’s glad he’s not any closer or he’d be seriously tempted to hit the guy for saying it out loud and making it true.
When they’re more or less out of range - and he’s never been quite so happy that Chris all but wrote the book on reckless driving - Toby drops the gas masks he’s been carrying with disgust at Rebadow’s feet.
“You want to tell me what’s so important about these?” he asks.
Rebadow shrugs philosophically. “I’m not sure. It has something to do with the Pink Death.”
“What’s the Pink Death?” Holly pipes up.
Toby is pretty sure that Alvarez is hiding a giggle when he says, “It’s what happens every time your daddy fucks someone who isn’t Kell--” Everyone stares at him. “What?”
“Leave me alone,” Rebadow folds himself into the seat of the bus and refuses to say another word.
They’re safe in the bus, or as safe as it gets when a steady stream of - okay, he’ll call them zombies because what else can he call them? - are following you and sometimes trying to grab on to the fenders, and the storm is building, the roads freezing, and you’re currently enjoying the company of several convicted murderers.
The next order of business is deciding where to go when the entire world’s ecosystem is throwing the mother of all temper tantrums.
*
It doesn’t surprise Toby when Said falls naturally back into the leadership role that he took during the riot five years ago. They all know that Redding and Chris will eventually balk if Said tries to order them around, but everyone present has now lost friends and family, and old feuds can wait until they’re at least out of zombie range.
Chris drives, although he’s always listening, and watching through the rearview mirror. When Toby looks up, he can meet Chris’s gaze through the glass. He hugs both of his children closer.
He’s distracted. He can allow himself to be, to a point - Said’s in charge, and he trusts Said’s judgment over his own. It’s not that he’s not accustomed to seeing death - he is - but not so much of it, not all at once.
And then there’s Chris, who is as unreachable as he was when there were bars between them. He can’t ask Chris to stay the fuck away from him, and he can’t fuck him senseless either, and the problem of there actually being a middle ground between these two options pisses him off to no end. Instead, he lets the conversation drift over him, twist into new shapes and familiar patterns. It’s someone else’s decision - all of this is happening to someone else.
“Down to Mexico, man. At least it’ll be warmer.”
“You like tornados? ‘Cause there’s a fuckload between us and Mexico.”
(“Fire in the mountain, run, boys, run.”)
“Can’t go east. They’ve evacuated all the cities there.”
(“Lâ ilâha illâ allâh.”)
“How ‘bout Kansas? Just electrical storms there, right?”
(“There’s no place like home…”)
“Hey, Rebadow!” It’s Alvarez again, “What does God say?”
Ryan: “Shut the fuck up.”
“God stopped talking to Bob way back. You been snortin’ tits, Miguel?”
“Yo, Padre, tell God to start talking to Rebadow again.”
“You want me to bust his face in?”
“I know He was talking to you earlier. So where’s he say we go, huh?”
Rebadow’s quiet response is what finally draws Toby out of his daze. “What makes you think that God cares anymore?”
They keep driving.
*
After zombies, they have four other big problems: food, fuel, tits, and warmth. The gas in the tank will take them across state lines, and they have a backup tank lifted from another bus. Food supplies from the kitchen will last a few days, at best. Warmth isn’t an issue as long as they keep the bus running.
And tits? Tits fucked them in the riot and it will probably fuck them now.
At one point, White, panicky at the prospect of withdrawal in the middle of absolutely nowhere, makes a crack about the possibility of cooking up Holly’s cat when they run out of food. Tears spring to her eyes, and she hugs the kitten closer, ignoring its squeak of protest. Chris stops the bus, walks down the aisle to where White is sitting, and calmly snaps his neck. Redding stands up, ready to fight him, and Said steps in between them.
“We’re not going to fight each other,” he says, “Not now.” And sits back down.
Chris drags the body to the front of the bus and throws it to the side of the road.
“Don’t fuck with the kitten,” he says, and starts the engine again.
Toby thinks that he should probably be disturbed by that whole exchange, except that “don’t fuck with the kitten” translates into “don’t fuck with Toby’s kids either” and if Chris killing people is what it takes to keep his kids safe, so be it. He wishes Said would stop glaring at him, as though he’s responsible for anything that Chris decides he wants to do, and it’s not like Said hasn’t come close to killing White himself, and if someone is fiending for tits that someone is better off dead and Toby knows he should really, really stop trying to justify it to himself whenever Chris gets the idea that he wants to kill someone.
Fuck.
Worst of all, Holly has stopped crying and she’s gazing up at Chris like he’s her new fucking hero.
*
They rob the first gas station they can find that hasn’t been destroyed or raided. Chris and Poet go in, with Arif watching them under Said’s orders that they’re not allowed to kill anyone, and come out with several tanks of gas, a few cartons of smokes, and absurd amounts of candy bars. Toby didn’t hear any shots, but Said asks anyway.
“Fucker was dead,” Poet says, “Looks like…”
“Like what?” Redding prompts.
“Like something’d been chewing on him.”
*
When they finally stop, it’s sundown. There’s been no sign of zombies for several hours - no sign of anything but long, empty stretches of highway, rubble, and the broken silhouettes of trees. There’s a clearing by the highway. No one speaks as they collect wood, build bonfires, conduct the automatic routines of survival.
The Muslims group together and pray, spreading blankets over the snowy ground to substitute for prayer mats. Maybe Mecca still exists, somewhere beyond the rising oceans. Mukada prays too, with Ryan, Gloria, and Alvarez as his audience, their heads bowed, all of them too proud to weep.
Redding forces his people through drills he learned in Vietnam. They will have to be an army, disciplined. No more drugs, no more distractions. For the first time since Augustus Hill’s death, Redding seems genuinely happy.
“Daddy?” Holly asks as Toby wraps a second blanket around the small bodies of his kids. Harry is already asleep, his head against the curled-up ball of fluffy kitten nearby.
“Yeah?”
“What’s gonna happen to us?”
He doesn’t know how to be a parent. Hell, after six years in Oz, Toby’s not sure if he even remembers how to be a normal man. He knows there’s a certain age after which you’re expected to stop lying to your kids, but Holly is nine, and that seems much too early.
“We’ll make it,” he says, and hopes that she can believe him. He kisses her goodnight, and when he stands up, Chris is there.
“Come on.” Chris puts a hand on Toby’s arm. “No one’s gonna touch them. Everybody knows better.”
“I guess they do,” Toby says, and will not think about the sickening crack that White’s neck made. He’s shaking a little and he didn’t even like White.
“We gotta talk.”
“We probably should.”
Away from the others, at the edge of the heat from the farthest fire, they stare at each other and don’t talk.
“It’s only fair that you should know this,” Toby begins, “I didn’t come back out of love.”
“No?”
“If…things get worse. If anything happens to me, you’re the only person I trust to protect my kids.”
“Until the end of the world,” Chris replies, and then laughs. “And after that, too.”
“Thanks. I know…that much about you, at least. You'll keep them safe.”
In the gathering darkness, he can’t see Chris edging closer to him, but he feels the soft bite against his neck, then at his earlobe. “So you didn’t come back to rescue me because you love me. Does that mean a fuck’s completely out of the question?”
Toby leans back, against Chris’s chest, and remembers at some point that he promised himself that he wouldn’t do this anymore. “Not…completely out of the question, no.”
“Good.”
There isn’t the chance for tenderness, but they’re used to stealing moments, and besides, it was never about mind numbingly ecstatic sex. Vern Schillinger is always a presence between them.
But there’s warmth, when everything else is so cold, and Chris’s hands on him, inside him, bodies twisting together and tension and release and it’s flawed love, always has been, but it’s the only love Toby’s ever known.
In the sticky-sweet afterglow, they lie in each other’s arms. The stars have never been so bright. Toby tries not to wonder if it’s because the atmosphere has gotten thinner, if the lights of every city in America have gone out.
“You think it’s the end of the world?” Chris asks, “Seriously?”
Toby nods. “You’re taking it pretty well.”
“Hmmm…the apocalypse or the juice? Fuck. At least this way I get to see the sky before I go.” He rolls onto his back, drawing Toby in against his shoulder. “But you, man? You had a shot at a real life. And now…”
Toby looks over at his sleeping kids, then pulls himself up to brush his lips over Chris’s.
“Now,” he says, “Everything I ever truly cared about is right here with me.”
*
An hour later, when he hears Toby snoring, Chris stands, stretches his legs, and saunters over to the edge of the clearing where Said keeps watch. His bright eyes are turned away from the huddle of figures by the fire, and, though he clearly notices as Chris sits down beside him, he offers no acknowledgment whatsoever.
Chris, however, is in a talkative mood. “That must have really pissed you off.”
Said says nothing, but his fingers tighten on the barrel of the rifle.
“Toby and me, I mean,” Chris continues, “Seems like he’s given up on salvation.”
Said growls, “For now.”
Chris knits his fingers together behind his head. “He loves me, Said, even if he won’t say it. He loves me more than his soul, and more than Allah. Not even the apocalypse is gonna change that.”
The other man exhales deeply, considering his words. “I have other concerns at the moment.”
“Yeah,” Chris says, “End of the world.”
Said nods. “The end of the world.”
A pause, then, “I’m not as stupid as you or Toby think. We’re all gonna die. You and me, Minister, we’re killers. You might hide it better, but you know as well as I do when death is comin’.”
“Keller,” Said says, slowly, deliberately, “What do you want?”
“Just an answer,” he replies, “To the question that nobody’s asked yet. So maybe we didn’t search Unit B too good - and we didn’t, by the way, or…”
“Keller.” It’s a warning. Chris won’t get another.
“So,” Chris asks with a feral grin, “Where the hell did Schillinger and the Aryan Brotherhood go?”
Hill:
According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. That don’t sound too bad, until you find out that most of that was over the last twenty years, and most of that? Our fault. Smokestacks, power-plants, muthafuckin’ SUVs - we caused the shit we’re in. The oceans are gonna rise, the storms gonna be worse, the earth scorched into desert. Famine, war, disease, death. Worst thing about it is: this ain’t God’s judgment. It’s the human condition.
As for me? I’m just glad I ain’t around to see it.
Peace.
TBC