Smosh Fic: Greyscape (Chapter 5)
Title: Greyscape (Chapter 5)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: (future) Ian/Anthony
Beta:
98ninetyeight
Genre/Warnings: AU, Angst, Apocalypse, Death, Gore, Violence, OOC
Summary: The world is a wasteland. Nothing is what is used to be. Humans? They are scarce and few. What is left is a mutation of human. And Ian Hecox is the cure.
Chapter Summary: The logical thing to do when coming across a monster is to kill it.
Previous Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four
A/N: Oh yay, more slowness. It's been a while. I've provided a summary up until this chapter in case anybody needs it!
Recap:[Click for vague summary]
Ian has saved Anthony from being an Almost Dead with his blood. While the blood has kept Anthony Awake, he still hears a voice that he thinks is the monster within him. It wants blood but Anthony doesn't, refusing to admit to this escalating problem. Just like how Ian is refusing to disclose anything that's happening. Anthony doesn't know what has happened to Ian since he's fallen into the Darkness, or what they're doing walking around the outskirts of L.A. But he goes along with it.
Ian has nightmares: of how they came to L.A., the explosions that were supposed to kill the Almost Dead, of Anthony turning and Melanie dying. He's changed so much so that Anthony hardly recognizes him. Anthony himself feels like he just went to sleep on the wrong side of the bed and woke up looking like a dying corpse with all his memories intact.
After a day and half of walking, arguments and then wary acceptance, things seem to be looking up. But then, an unexpected visitor shows up.
Ian tries not to look at the thing’s beryl blue eyes, rimmed with sickeningly greyed redness and wide with chaos. Instead, keeps his focus on the locket the Almost Dead wears. Something tells him the necklace is familiar but Ian is too busy struggling underneath it, trying to create an opening to strike, to hit, to punch, to do anything besides keeping its screaming face away from his. Its shrill shrieks ring in his ears, and he’s being stabbed by what he thinks is the piercing sound of his own name coming out of a creature that should no longer know speech.
He doesn’t know what hurts more: the brittle, jagged rocks beneath or the splintered surface of the branch that keeps him and the creature apart. It caught him off guard, pounced onto his back. Ian had to forcibly twist and drag his body around as they hit the ground. It grapples at his face; flailing and screaming and kicking and hitting him in a distressed blur so that Ian is overwhelmed, hardly able to catch his breath. When he thinks he’s able to conjure up the strength to get the thing off of him, the inhuman screeching is cut short by a fist not of his own. Anthony looks absolutely livid as he grabs it by the shoulders and hurls the creature with volatile force onto the ground. Ian takes the free chance to stand, swinging the branch over his head and nearly cracking open the creature’s skull.
The high snap of bone and wood is satisfying.
“I had it,” Ian pants, ribcage expanding painfully. Searing heat soars up from the top sole of his foot to a pounding sting in the left of his thigh. The lake’s bank isn’t exactly a good place to fall with its pebbles and dry sand scattered all around.
Anthony’s eyes look wild, wide and darting, his chest heaving and his hands balled up into tight fists. “Yeah?” he says breathlessly, an almost-laugh half born out of disbelief, “Didn’t look like it, dude. What the hell - what - are you all right?” His arms reach out to a particularly large gash on Ian’s bare leg but Ian swats his hand away. “Told you to wear some pants.”
“It’s fine,” Ian says with an intake of breath at the pain as he stretches his waist around to observe the wound. A sharp hurt runs up his leg and swirls around his gut. The swirling becomes a twister as he gazes down at the creature before their feet. “Fuck. What the fuck? Shit! It’s not supposed to be here. Shit, shit, shit!”
They look down at it. Anthony is still panting, as if he has just run a marathon, the sheen of glistening perspiration on his peach-blue forehead. Ian’s own breath matches Anthony’s as he tries to calm his whole body. He has to stop himself from jumping three feet in the air and running out of fear, despite his exhaustion. His back and sides ache, and his lungs are on fire from the exertion. He spots a few blossoming popped veins on the underside of his elbow where his arm reverberates with the leftover effects of his burst of strength. It reminds him of the cut on his palm, which is incontrovertibly open again, and bleeding where it had wrapped around the broken branch he had ripped off of a tree. The branch is stained with a mix of his blood and that of what he thinks is the blood of the Almost Dead. Ian hardly feels the pain, though. It’s just a faint, dull and distant thump compared to the fear piling into forefront of his mind.
“They’re not supposed to be here,” Ian whispers to himself incredulously. “We’re too far away…”
The thing is hardly clothed. Bald. Skin so thin, so tight it's borderline unbelievable that anything inside stays in - then again, if there's anything inside, it’s probably horrifically mutated by now. Ian imagines the rotting organs grappling to their sorry excuse at life. He can see each vertebrate; sharp like needlepoint weapons found on dinosaurs, or dragons, or monsters. Its clothes are greying with grime that creeps unevenly along the seams like gangrene. Its infected wounds: bubbling with crusting blood, seeping out grey dirty liquid. And its eyes - its eyes are blue. Ian shivers at the thought, the bitter similarity that he wants no part of. The twinkling of the necklace from its human days is the only clean thing on its body. The familiarity of it drops an unwanted memory in mind. It’s like the one Melanie had, Ian thinks.
Even more hatred fills his nose because not only has the thing showed up unwanted - invaded his last threads and veils of safety and his sad attempt at normality - but it’s making Ian remember things, hope for things that shouldn’t be, that once were but aren’t today.
Melanie died. Just like how she dies over and over again in his dreams. Those dreams fuel his loathing for these monsters even further; trying to weaken him with what once was his in a different, long gone, world.
But this is not her. It can’t be. She’s dead.
Its chest shudders with staggered breath and a small whimpering screech sounds from it even in its unconsciousness. The cries it made while battling with Ian on top echo, a piercing scream through his mind. He pretends not to think it was yelling out his name.
Ian can’t handle the pain shooting up his leg, or his hammering, frantic heart fuelled by fear and adrenaline, or the disgusting vile contortion before him. It reminds him of the first few days of the outbreak, when things were just picking up speed and people would drop dead on the streets - the normal, unassuming everyday streets that would eventually crumble into greying wastes and shadows of civil life. The bodies were always marred beyond recognition and it all seemed so alien. But it was always somebody’s mom, or dad; grandma or grandpa; son or daughter; brother or sister; friend or loved one. And everyday Ian would make jokes as the news reported more and more deaths, then murders, until eventually, Ian was silent with fear. He woke up each morning in cold sweat and a heart that would not slow until he’d feel Melanie beside him and saw Anthony’s brown eyes. And now, in this green and brown canopy of nature, this thing from the hells puts him both back into the painful past and right here in this agonizing present.
It’s gross. It’s unnatural. It’s so fucking revolting that Ian takes one gigantic breath before turning around and vomiting out all of the day's food, branch dropping from his grip. The bitter, foul taste of his insides is horrible and his tears blur his vision. For a second, the emptiness in his stomach calms him.
There is a cry of concerned confusion from Anthony and a hand that lingers on the small of his back, itching a little too close for comfort to Ian’s open wound. Ian violently shrugs off Anthony’s hand and takes a step back, embarrassment at his moment of weakness turning to a reproachful glare directed at the other.
“We should take a look at your leg, Ian,” Anthony says. “It’s… bleeding. It’s bleeding a lot.”
Ian shakes his head and looks from the Almost Dead thing to Anthony’s ashen face, transfixed to the scarred spot on his thigh. The dazed expression on Anthony’s face makes Ian turn to his side, wound farthest away from the other. “Do you know it?” Ian’s question is lost to Anthony. He growls over the taste of his acidic vomit in his mouth and asks again with louder, slower words, “Do you know it?”
“What? Of course not. What are you - ”
“Good, then,” Ian interrupts and limps over a half step towards the creature. He contemplates putting on his drying shoes but there’s no time. They can’t risk it. They have to get rid of it, quick and now because Ian can’t take it having it here in the green and the clear air and the safety of nature. His bare foot nudges the hard ribcage of the still, breathing monster. The feel of his toes against thin taut skin is nothing short of disgusting. “No hard fucking feelings.” He lays the flat sole of his foot and digs his heel in between its ribs and pushes, grits his teeth and forces the body to roll in the direction of the lake.
“What are you doing?” Anthony steps over between the body and the lap of the lake. “What? You’re just going to - what?”
“Get out of the fucking way, Anthony,” Ian warns bitterly, wincing as his other leg protests against the strain. “Or help me with this.”
Anthony splutters and finally manages out, eyes wide, “N-No! What do you think you’re doing? You’re gunna drown her? You’re not going to kill her, are you?”
Ian looks up with menace. “Her? Her?” he spits. It’s almost physically disgusting, the words coming out of their mouths. How can Anthony even tell it’s a female? “If you want to be safe, Anthony, just fucking move.”
Anthony doesn’t budge, stands his ground and looks about ready to fight. He huffs out, “What’s going on, Ian? Why is she here?”
“How the hell should I know?” Ian almost shouts in the dampened silence, pushing at the body with his foot again until the creature is face up, its emaciated shoulder pressed against Anthony’s shins. Ian can feel both his own and Anthony’s shudders at the - now - placid, sleeping excuse of a face. It’s horrible to look at. Lines of grim and stretched skin more than ready to break. And a grey colour so inhumane one could never imagine such a shade on a living thing. “It probably fucking followed you -” he cuts his words short, not wanting another argument. “Anthony,” Ian says hoarsely, then adds out of desperation, “please. Move. Shit, we can’t -” Panic creeps in from his fingertips like needles, out of nowhere.
“You think it did? You think there are others?”
Ian takes a frantic look around, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary through his hazy, frightened state, lets out a breath. “Crap, better not be. I really hope not.” He turns back to his friend. “Anthony,” he starts.
“No, Ian,” Anthony says. He looks like he wants to push Ian with the way his hands out in front of him. Ian knows he’d push Anthony away, or punch him out, if he felt they couldn’t stall for another few minutes. If he didn’t want to give Anthony a chance. And if Anthony didn’t look so damn scared. Any second now, it could wake up. “You can’t do that, dude. No way. You can’t - you won’t kill her.”
“Move, Anthony. Stop being a douche! Fuck! I don’t want to pick it up, but I will if I have to.” The thought of crumbling bones and deteriorating skin in his arms makes him sick enough to almost vomit again. Fuck his stupidity for leaving his weapons by the fire. He can see the gleam of his Viking sword in his mind. He’d done it again; let Anthony make him feel okay, normal, almost safe. Twice in a day.
Ian was getting soft.
He wishes Anthony would just give up but the other only gives him an unwavering stare. Angrily, Ian digs his heel deeper in between the thing’s ribs. He can feel the oncoming crunch of frail bone under his foot.
“Ian, what the hell? Stop!” This time Anthony does get his hands on Ian but Ian is faster, grabbing Anthony’s wrist with a tight bloody grip and twisting it at the elbow. Anthony lets out a loud, pained yell, right as Ian lets go.
“Don’t,” Ian warns between his teeth, sending a searing glare at Anthony through hard eyes. The other man takes a step back, gasping and clutching at his arm. There’s blood on Anthony’s wrist where Ian’s cut palm was, and his hand blazes with a renewed sting.
Ian’s sorry for a second as he watches Anthony wincing in pain. He’s almost just as fragile. But Ian pushes the feeling away. There wasn’t - isn’t - time for sympathy - not for Anthony and definitely not for that.
“What the fuck was that for? I wasn’t trying anything, goddamnit, Ian. I - ” He stops. Takes a step back. Ian watches as Anthony closes his eyes and scrunches them tight. He’s been noticing Anthony doing this for the past few days. Sometimes Ian hears the hurried, thrash words he whispers to himself. Like now, as Anthony brings a bloodied wrist to his face. “No. No. No!”
Ian hesitates to do something, apprehensive and wishing he had taken the time to figure out what this was all about before. It always looked like Anthony was just suppressing the urge to strangle Ian just because of how fucking uptight he had been around his friend. But now as Anthony looks to be near hysterics, jaw tight, and neck flushed, Ian figures it’s more than that.
Especially now with the way Anthony hunches forward, arms pulled tightly in toward himself so that his shoulders poke out of his thin shirt like blades.
Ian allows his thoughts to settle and connect with each other like magnets. Like the way Anthony’s eyes spark with something reminiscent of the hue above their heads. And the fear. Its presence smacks down hard around him and drives Ian’s breath like a drill into his stomach and for a second, Anthony is more dangerous than the limp body under his foot.
Ian counts quickly in his head: gun, behind him. Knife, not by his side. And the branch, close but still too far. Would he be quick enough? Anthony is turning again, Ian’s sure of it. He’s convinced fully now, as Anthony’s whole body shudders and twists. He’s falling into the Darkness.. Oh god, Ian will have to kill again.
If Anthony turns now, Ian will have to kill him just like the rest of them. Never mind the memories, the barrage of attachments he sometimes wishes didn’t exist - besides, if Anthony turns, it’s not like the sentimentality within him will remain.
Fuck.
“Oh!”
Anthony’s eyes snap like lightning from his wrist to Ian’s ready gaze.
“Blood,” Anthony practically shouts. The idea contorts his stricken face into an almost-smile. Irises shining brown, a gateway to their fragmented normality. “She’s not dead yet, Ian. You could save her. Cure her! Your blood!”
Brown. As long as you stay that way, Anthony. Please don’t change.
Ian lets go of the violent breath he was holding. It’s a moment before Anthony’s words register in Ian’s mind. He’s flustered, heart stressed out by everything and everyone. His chest hurts. The prospect of what Ian thought was going to happen letting dizziness fray the edges of his vision.
Anthony’s words remind Ian that, no, they’re not dead yet. That Ian is full of blood. He had technically saved Anthony with what he was born with and which keeps himself alive.
Ian had saved Anthony. He needs to remember that.
But save her? Save this thing? Ian can’t do that. Ian won’t. He shakes his head, mumbles under his breath, no, no, no as he tries again to get Anthony to move.
“Why the hell not?” Anthony says, eyes pleading. Not listening to Ian at all. “You have to, Ian.”
“No. Don’t try to be a hero. Not for this.” Ian’s not listening either. Not really seeing Anthony, as he asks again why? His mind is playing tricks on him, flashing from one moment where the thing is moving and scratching at him, snarling and biting, to now where its just a limp piece of - about to die, if Ian was going to do anything about it - shit. Salt-water seems to run through Ian’s veins, suffocating his heart with more fear because the vision in his mind distorts from the thing’s face to Anthony’s own. But Anthony is in front of Ian (not crazed, or limp, or dead), kneeling down too close, bending his knee so that it almost touches the thing’s shoulder and reaching a hand towards its head. Panicked, Ian lunges forward with a shout and they both hit the ground in a tangled mess with their heads slamming into the shallow water together.
“Motherf-!” Ian coughs, and spits out a mouthful of sand and water, struggling on top of Anthony as he grabs fistfuls of the other’s wet shirt. Somewhere in between the splashing and the cursing, Ian ends up with a busted, bleeding lip and knuckles throbbing from the memory of Anthony’s temple. The old wounds on Ian’s leg and palm react with the water like acid would with vinegar as he straddles Anthony’s thrashing hips. His chin is knocked in the air when Anthony tries to break away.
Fingernails peel skin and leave trails of red. Ian chokes from the metallic, sharp taste of blood. He slams Anthony against the pebbles and the surface of the water repeatedly, all the while shouting, “What the fuck were you thinking? It’s dangerous! It’s a fucking monster! It could kill you - they could kill you again!”
“What the fuck? You’re gunna kill me!” Anthony screams, cheeks flushed with rage and an echoing growl of venomous, multiplied malformed sound that immobilizes Ian long enough so that Anthony, even though skinnier and sharp as a fleshless skeleton, is able to flip Ian onto his back. Anthony’s strength surprises Ian. Yesterday, Ian thought he could take Anthony. Yesterday, Anthony could hardly stand a walk for more than twenty minutes. Yesterday, Anthony hadn’t been able to catch fish with his bare hands. Yesterday, Anthony was weak.
But yesterday was yesterday, and yesterdays can’t be relied on any more. Anything can change in the blink of time’s eye.
Now half of Ian’s face is pressed into the water as Anthony holds him at a chokehold. He’s drowning in water and no air. He splutters and claws at Anthony’s hands, almost able to wrench the fingers from his throat but when Ian catches a glimpse of the other’s face - a full-front warring rage, barred teeth and, Oh god - Ian gasps, allowing the other’s death grip to tighten even more.
Ian can’t even scream, or move, or breathe because Anthony’s eyes are blue.
And then from behind, a hunched figure overcasts a dark looming shadow over them, so that Ian is staring up at two pairs of bright, almost white, blue eyes.
Chapter Six
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: (future) Ian/Anthony
Beta:
98ninetyeight
Genre/Warnings: AU, Angst, Apocalypse, Death, Gore, Violence, OOC
Summary: The world is a wasteland. Nothing is what is used to be. Humans? They are scarce and few. What is left is a mutation of human. And Ian Hecox is the cure.
Chapter Summary: The logical thing to do when coming across a monster is to kill it.
Previous Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four
A/N: Oh yay, more slowness. It's been a while. I've provided a summary up until this chapter in case anybody needs it!
Recap:[Click for vague summary]
Ian has saved Anthony from being an Almost Dead with his blood. While the blood has kept Anthony Awake, he still hears a voice that he thinks is the monster within him. It wants blood but Anthony doesn't, refusing to admit to this escalating problem. Just like how Ian is refusing to disclose anything that's happening. Anthony doesn't know what has happened to Ian since he's fallen into the Darkness, or what they're doing walking around the outskirts of L.A. But he goes along with it.
Ian has nightmares: of how they came to L.A., the explosions that were supposed to kill the Almost Dead, of Anthony turning and Melanie dying. He's changed so much so that Anthony hardly recognizes him. Anthony himself feels like he just went to sleep on the wrong side of the bed and woke up looking like a dying corpse with all his memories intact.
After a day and half of walking, arguments and then wary acceptance, things seem to be looking up. But then, an unexpected visitor shows up.
Ian tries not to look at the thing’s beryl blue eyes, rimmed with sickeningly greyed redness and wide with chaos. Instead, keeps his focus on the locket the Almost Dead wears. Something tells him the necklace is familiar but Ian is too busy struggling underneath it, trying to create an opening to strike, to hit, to punch, to do anything besides keeping its screaming face away from his. Its shrill shrieks ring in his ears, and he’s being stabbed by what he thinks is the piercing sound of his own name coming out of a creature that should no longer know speech.
He doesn’t know what hurts more: the brittle, jagged rocks beneath or the splintered surface of the branch that keeps him and the creature apart. It caught him off guard, pounced onto his back. Ian had to forcibly twist and drag his body around as they hit the ground. It grapples at his face; flailing and screaming and kicking and hitting him in a distressed blur so that Ian is overwhelmed, hardly able to catch his breath. When he thinks he’s able to conjure up the strength to get the thing off of him, the inhuman screeching is cut short by a fist not of his own. Anthony looks absolutely livid as he grabs it by the shoulders and hurls the creature with volatile force onto the ground. Ian takes the free chance to stand, swinging the branch over his head and nearly cracking open the creature’s skull.
The high snap of bone and wood is satisfying.
“I had it,” Ian pants, ribcage expanding painfully. Searing heat soars up from the top sole of his foot to a pounding sting in the left of his thigh. The lake’s bank isn’t exactly a good place to fall with its pebbles and dry sand scattered all around.
Anthony’s eyes look wild, wide and darting, his chest heaving and his hands balled up into tight fists. “Yeah?” he says breathlessly, an almost-laugh half born out of disbelief, “Didn’t look like it, dude. What the hell - what - are you all right?” His arms reach out to a particularly large gash on Ian’s bare leg but Ian swats his hand away. “Told you to wear some pants.”
“It’s fine,” Ian says with an intake of breath at the pain as he stretches his waist around to observe the wound. A sharp hurt runs up his leg and swirls around his gut. The swirling becomes a twister as he gazes down at the creature before their feet. “Fuck. What the fuck? Shit! It’s not supposed to be here. Shit, shit, shit!”
They look down at it. Anthony is still panting, as if he has just run a marathon, the sheen of glistening perspiration on his peach-blue forehead. Ian’s own breath matches Anthony’s as he tries to calm his whole body. He has to stop himself from jumping three feet in the air and running out of fear, despite his exhaustion. His back and sides ache, and his lungs are on fire from the exertion. He spots a few blossoming popped veins on the underside of his elbow where his arm reverberates with the leftover effects of his burst of strength. It reminds him of the cut on his palm, which is incontrovertibly open again, and bleeding where it had wrapped around the broken branch he had ripped off of a tree. The branch is stained with a mix of his blood and that of what he thinks is the blood of the Almost Dead. Ian hardly feels the pain, though. It’s just a faint, dull and distant thump compared to the fear piling into forefront of his mind.
“They’re not supposed to be here,” Ian whispers to himself incredulously. “We’re too far away…”
The thing is hardly clothed. Bald. Skin so thin, so tight it's borderline unbelievable that anything inside stays in - then again, if there's anything inside, it’s probably horrifically mutated by now. Ian imagines the rotting organs grappling to their sorry excuse at life. He can see each vertebrate; sharp like needlepoint weapons found on dinosaurs, or dragons, or monsters. Its clothes are greying with grime that creeps unevenly along the seams like gangrene. Its infected wounds: bubbling with crusting blood, seeping out grey dirty liquid. And its eyes - its eyes are blue. Ian shivers at the thought, the bitter similarity that he wants no part of. The twinkling of the necklace from its human days is the only clean thing on its body. The familiarity of it drops an unwanted memory in mind. It’s like the one Melanie had, Ian thinks.
Even more hatred fills his nose because not only has the thing showed up unwanted - invaded his last threads and veils of safety and his sad attempt at normality - but it’s making Ian remember things, hope for things that shouldn’t be, that once were but aren’t today.
Melanie died. Just like how she dies over and over again in his dreams. Those dreams fuel his loathing for these monsters even further; trying to weaken him with what once was his in a different, long gone, world.
But this is not her. It can’t be. She’s dead.
Its chest shudders with staggered breath and a small whimpering screech sounds from it even in its unconsciousness. The cries it made while battling with Ian on top echo, a piercing scream through his mind. He pretends not to think it was yelling out his name.
Ian can’t handle the pain shooting up his leg, or his hammering, frantic heart fuelled by fear and adrenaline, or the disgusting vile contortion before him. It reminds him of the first few days of the outbreak, when things were just picking up speed and people would drop dead on the streets - the normal, unassuming everyday streets that would eventually crumble into greying wastes and shadows of civil life. The bodies were always marred beyond recognition and it all seemed so alien. But it was always somebody’s mom, or dad; grandma or grandpa; son or daughter; brother or sister; friend or loved one. And everyday Ian would make jokes as the news reported more and more deaths, then murders, until eventually, Ian was silent with fear. He woke up each morning in cold sweat and a heart that would not slow until he’d feel Melanie beside him and saw Anthony’s brown eyes. And now, in this green and brown canopy of nature, this thing from the hells puts him both back into the painful past and right here in this agonizing present.
It’s gross. It’s unnatural. It’s so fucking revolting that Ian takes one gigantic breath before turning around and vomiting out all of the day's food, branch dropping from his grip. The bitter, foul taste of his insides is horrible and his tears blur his vision. For a second, the emptiness in his stomach calms him.
There is a cry of concerned confusion from Anthony and a hand that lingers on the small of his back, itching a little too close for comfort to Ian’s open wound. Ian violently shrugs off Anthony’s hand and takes a step back, embarrassment at his moment of weakness turning to a reproachful glare directed at the other.
“We should take a look at your leg, Ian,” Anthony says. “It’s… bleeding. It’s bleeding a lot.”
Ian shakes his head and looks from the Almost Dead thing to Anthony’s ashen face, transfixed to the scarred spot on his thigh. The dazed expression on Anthony’s face makes Ian turn to his side, wound farthest away from the other. “Do you know it?” Ian’s question is lost to Anthony. He growls over the taste of his acidic vomit in his mouth and asks again with louder, slower words, “Do you know it?”
“What? Of course not. What are you - ”
“Good, then,” Ian interrupts and limps over a half step towards the creature. He contemplates putting on his drying shoes but there’s no time. They can’t risk it. They have to get rid of it, quick and now because Ian can’t take it having it here in the green and the clear air and the safety of nature. His bare foot nudges the hard ribcage of the still, breathing monster. The feel of his toes against thin taut skin is nothing short of disgusting. “No hard fucking feelings.” He lays the flat sole of his foot and digs his heel in between its ribs and pushes, grits his teeth and forces the body to roll in the direction of the lake.
“What are you doing?” Anthony steps over between the body and the lap of the lake. “What? You’re just going to - what?”
“Get out of the fucking way, Anthony,” Ian warns bitterly, wincing as his other leg protests against the strain. “Or help me with this.”
Anthony splutters and finally manages out, eyes wide, “N-No! What do you think you’re doing? You’re gunna drown her? You’re not going to kill her, are you?”
Ian looks up with menace. “Her? Her?” he spits. It’s almost physically disgusting, the words coming out of their mouths. How can Anthony even tell it’s a female? “If you want to be safe, Anthony, just fucking move.”
Anthony doesn’t budge, stands his ground and looks about ready to fight. He huffs out, “What’s going on, Ian? Why is she here?”
“How the hell should I know?” Ian almost shouts in the dampened silence, pushing at the body with his foot again until the creature is face up, its emaciated shoulder pressed against Anthony’s shins. Ian can feel both his own and Anthony’s shudders at the - now - placid, sleeping excuse of a face. It’s horrible to look at. Lines of grim and stretched skin more than ready to break. And a grey colour so inhumane one could never imagine such a shade on a living thing. “It probably fucking followed you -” he cuts his words short, not wanting another argument. “Anthony,” Ian says hoarsely, then adds out of desperation, “please. Move. Shit, we can’t -” Panic creeps in from his fingertips like needles, out of nowhere.
“You think it did? You think there are others?”
Ian takes a frantic look around, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary through his hazy, frightened state, lets out a breath. “Crap, better not be. I really hope not.” He turns back to his friend. “Anthony,” he starts.
“No, Ian,” Anthony says. He looks like he wants to push Ian with the way his hands out in front of him. Ian knows he’d push Anthony away, or punch him out, if he felt they couldn’t stall for another few minutes. If he didn’t want to give Anthony a chance. And if Anthony didn’t look so damn scared. Any second now, it could wake up. “You can’t do that, dude. No way. You can’t - you won’t kill her.”
“Move, Anthony. Stop being a douche! Fuck! I don’t want to pick it up, but I will if I have to.” The thought of crumbling bones and deteriorating skin in his arms makes him sick enough to almost vomit again. Fuck his stupidity for leaving his weapons by the fire. He can see the gleam of his Viking sword in his mind. He’d done it again; let Anthony make him feel okay, normal, almost safe. Twice in a day.
Ian was getting soft.
He wishes Anthony would just give up but the other only gives him an unwavering stare. Angrily, Ian digs his heel deeper in between the thing’s ribs. He can feel the oncoming crunch of frail bone under his foot.
“Ian, what the hell? Stop!” This time Anthony does get his hands on Ian but Ian is faster, grabbing Anthony’s wrist with a tight bloody grip and twisting it at the elbow. Anthony lets out a loud, pained yell, right as Ian lets go.
“Don’t,” Ian warns between his teeth, sending a searing glare at Anthony through hard eyes. The other man takes a step back, gasping and clutching at his arm. There’s blood on Anthony’s wrist where Ian’s cut palm was, and his hand blazes with a renewed sting.
Ian’s sorry for a second as he watches Anthony wincing in pain. He’s almost just as fragile. But Ian pushes the feeling away. There wasn’t - isn’t - time for sympathy - not for Anthony and definitely not for that.
“What the fuck was that for? I wasn’t trying anything, goddamnit, Ian. I - ” He stops. Takes a step back. Ian watches as Anthony closes his eyes and scrunches them tight. He’s been noticing Anthony doing this for the past few days. Sometimes Ian hears the hurried, thrash words he whispers to himself. Like now, as Anthony brings a bloodied wrist to his face. “No. No. No!”
Ian hesitates to do something, apprehensive and wishing he had taken the time to figure out what this was all about before. It always looked like Anthony was just suppressing the urge to strangle Ian just because of how fucking uptight he had been around his friend. But now as Anthony looks to be near hysterics, jaw tight, and neck flushed, Ian figures it’s more than that.
Especially now with the way Anthony hunches forward, arms pulled tightly in toward himself so that his shoulders poke out of his thin shirt like blades.
Ian allows his thoughts to settle and connect with each other like magnets. Like the way Anthony’s eyes spark with something reminiscent of the hue above their heads. And the fear. Its presence smacks down hard around him and drives Ian’s breath like a drill into his stomach and for a second, Anthony is more dangerous than the limp body under his foot.
Ian counts quickly in his head: gun, behind him. Knife, not by his side. And the branch, close but still too far. Would he be quick enough? Anthony is turning again, Ian’s sure of it. He’s convinced fully now, as Anthony’s whole body shudders and twists. He’s falling into the Darkness.. Oh god, Ian will have to kill again.
If Anthony turns now, Ian will have to kill him just like the rest of them. Never mind the memories, the barrage of attachments he sometimes wishes didn’t exist - besides, if Anthony turns, it’s not like the sentimentality within him will remain.
Fuck.
“Oh!”
Anthony’s eyes snap like lightning from his wrist to Ian’s ready gaze.
“Blood,” Anthony practically shouts. The idea contorts his stricken face into an almost-smile. Irises shining brown, a gateway to their fragmented normality. “She’s not dead yet, Ian. You could save her. Cure her! Your blood!”
Brown. As long as you stay that way, Anthony. Please don’t change.
Ian lets go of the violent breath he was holding. It’s a moment before Anthony’s words register in Ian’s mind. He’s flustered, heart stressed out by everything and everyone. His chest hurts. The prospect of what Ian thought was going to happen letting dizziness fray the edges of his vision.
Anthony’s words remind Ian that, no, they’re not dead yet. That Ian is full of blood. He had technically saved Anthony with what he was born with and which keeps himself alive.
Ian had saved Anthony. He needs to remember that.
But save her? Save this thing? Ian can’t do that. Ian won’t. He shakes his head, mumbles under his breath, no, no, no as he tries again to get Anthony to move.
“Why the hell not?” Anthony says, eyes pleading. Not listening to Ian at all. “You have to, Ian.”
“No. Don’t try to be a hero. Not for this.” Ian’s not listening either. Not really seeing Anthony, as he asks again why? His mind is playing tricks on him, flashing from one moment where the thing is moving and scratching at him, snarling and biting, to now where its just a limp piece of - about to die, if Ian was going to do anything about it - shit. Salt-water seems to run through Ian’s veins, suffocating his heart with more fear because the vision in his mind distorts from the thing’s face to Anthony’s own. But Anthony is in front of Ian (not crazed, or limp, or dead), kneeling down too close, bending his knee so that it almost touches the thing’s shoulder and reaching a hand towards its head. Panicked, Ian lunges forward with a shout and they both hit the ground in a tangled mess with their heads slamming into the shallow water together.
“Motherf-!” Ian coughs, and spits out a mouthful of sand and water, struggling on top of Anthony as he grabs fistfuls of the other’s wet shirt. Somewhere in between the splashing and the cursing, Ian ends up with a busted, bleeding lip and knuckles throbbing from the memory of Anthony’s temple. The old wounds on Ian’s leg and palm react with the water like acid would with vinegar as he straddles Anthony’s thrashing hips. His chin is knocked in the air when Anthony tries to break away.
Fingernails peel skin and leave trails of red. Ian chokes from the metallic, sharp taste of blood. He slams Anthony against the pebbles and the surface of the water repeatedly, all the while shouting, “What the fuck were you thinking? It’s dangerous! It’s a fucking monster! It could kill you - they could kill you again!”
“What the fuck? You’re gunna kill me!” Anthony screams, cheeks flushed with rage and an echoing growl of venomous, multiplied malformed sound that immobilizes Ian long enough so that Anthony, even though skinnier and sharp as a fleshless skeleton, is able to flip Ian onto his back. Anthony’s strength surprises Ian. Yesterday, Ian thought he could take Anthony. Yesterday, Anthony could hardly stand a walk for more than twenty minutes. Yesterday, Anthony hadn’t been able to catch fish with his bare hands. Yesterday, Anthony was weak.
But yesterday was yesterday, and yesterdays can’t be relied on any more. Anything can change in the blink of time’s eye.
Now half of Ian’s face is pressed into the water as Anthony holds him at a chokehold. He’s drowning in water and no air. He splutters and claws at Anthony’s hands, almost able to wrench the fingers from his throat but when Ian catches a glimpse of the other’s face - a full-front warring rage, barred teeth and, Oh god - Ian gasps, allowing the other’s death grip to tighten even more.
Ian can’t even scream, or move, or breathe because Anthony’s eyes are blue.
And then from behind, a hunched figure overcasts a dark looming shadow over them, so that Ian is staring up at two pairs of bright, almost white, blue eyes.
Chapter Six