Savannah Posey (jurisdoctor) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-05-13 18:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [04] april, nathan posey, savannah posey |
Who: Savannah and Nathaniel Posey
Where: The LBJ
What: Reunions!
When: [backdated] 4/3/19, morning
Nathaniel was hovering in a weird limbo of hope and fear. Hope that finally he'd caught a break when it came to finding his family, and fear that Savannah wouldn't be happy to see him. The last bit was irrational, built on months of what ifs and fed by the most insecure sliver of himself. But he couldn't shelve it until he saw her, it wouldn't feel real until then, and after so many times of building up hope -for his parents, and for Paige-, he was anxious and didn’t feel like he could take more negativity on his shoulders. If he’d been thinking beyond the relief that Savannah was safe in Austin, he would’ve asked Pete for her number himself, but he knew that the doc was giving his sister the heads up; the only thing he hadn’t banked on was the curfew. It hadn’t been a joke when he’d been told they took it seriously. So Nathan had no other option than to wait another night at the UMCB. But LBJ security went a lot more smoothly than he’d expected, and it made him wonder if word had gotten to them to expect him. After he'd made it through all their hoops, the security officer left him in the cavernous main foyer, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, while they went to find his sister. He'd been in war zones and dog fights, and neither of those could even touch the nervous butterflies in his stomach. Savannah had a long and sleepless night, full of nervous energy at the prospect of seeing Nathaniel the next day. If ever there was a time she wished she could say to hell with the curfew--it was last night when she got word that her brother was alive and at the hospital with Pete and Lita. But she was far too principled for that, plus she knew traveling in the dark was dangerous. The last thing she wanted was for her brother to be attacked by biters when they were so close to seeing each other again. Pacing around the front entrance since before their doors were set to open in the morning, once the library was open, it didn’t take long before she caught sight of a tall man exiting security. Her stomach dropped to the floor when he turned his face and he was scruffier and harder looking than she could ever remember in her life, but the man was unquestionably her brother. “Nathan,” she called out, already running towards him, her voice and footsteps echoing off the marble floors. She hardly slowed down when she was just feet in front of him, launching herself at him for a hug. Nathan was grateful for his quick reflexes, because just about as soon as he heard his name somewhere just in his periphery he also felt the impact of a smaller body bowl into him. There was no way he could mistake the halo of blonde hair for anyone but the person he’d been waiting for. He returned her hug with vigor, lifting Savannah off her feet in the process. “Sav, oh my god,” Nathan muttered into her hair, a dumb smile cracking his face in half. He believed Lita and Pete, and the girl on the freenet, but there was something different about the tangible evidence that his baby sister was alive and safe. He wasn’t an overly emotional man, but even he recognized the tidal wave of emotion that washed over him. “It’s so good to see you, darlin’,” he added, a hitch in his words as he settled her back on the tiled floor. Then he really took the opportunity to look at her; she was the same, but different, and he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what had changed. Tears already welling in her eyes, Savannah gave a sniffle as she finally pulled away from Nathaniel. He was here and he was real and safe and healthy and goddammit she was going to cry about it, even if she didn’t really want to. Wiping under her eyes with one hand, the other reached out and rubbed at his scruff. “What’s this? You’re startin’ to look like dad,” she said, sniffling again, happy and sad at the same time. Nathan only shrugged as a response and gave her a quirky little smile with a, “Razors are hard to find.” Despite the overwhelming waves of emotions crashing over her, she tugged at Nathaniel’s arm and began leading him further into the library, up towards the Oval Office. “C’mon, honey, let’s go somewhere to talk.” Even though Nathan could’ve easily shrugged her off he willingly let Savannah take the lead to wherever she had deemed better for a conversation. They went through a maze of hallways and staircases, every one of them as unfamiliar to him as the last, but his sister seemed to move through them like it was second nature. “Where you takin’ me?” he asked her as their pace slowed. “Left my stuff at security,” he added as an afterthought, but not because he wanted to go back to retrieve it. It was easier to say that than the million of questions Nathan had for Savannah. “They ain’t gonna parcel it out, right?” “Your stuff’ll be fine,” she said, the laugh bubbling up from her throat. It felt strange. But this entire situation was surreal. She still couldn’t get over the fact that she was leading her brother through the library, but it was real. Turning to look at him with a grin, she said, “Now don’t laugh, but ever since Gray took charge ‘round here we’ve lived in the room that’s a recreation of the President’s Oval Office.” And with that, they arrived. Long lost was the President’s desk and the excessive amount of flags, and instead it looked like a real living space -- or as close to one got in a world with zombies. With their arrival, a dog padded over, tail wagging happily. “This is Finn. There’s a black cat named Sven who lives here, too, but he might be hidin’ under one of the beds.” Now that they were here, Savannah wasn’t really sure where to start. So she just looked up at her Nathan and smiled a watery smile. “It’s good to see you again, big brother.” “Hey Finn,” Nathan greeted the dog and offered a hand to sniff, valiantly ignoring Savannah’s watery smile. If she started in on real waterworks he knew there was a 50/50 chance that he’d follow her right over that edge. “It’s damn good to see you too, brat,” he told her, pulling out a long dead name, as unsure where to start as she was. Nathan scratched behind Finn’s ears once the dog seemed okay with him, and inhaled deeply, the decision to dive right in made. “Sav, darlin’, what happened to Gray? The docs didn’t give me more than the vague cliff notes.” Nathan and Gray weren’t close, but he respected him, and knew what losing him probably did to his baby sister. “What's really been goin’ on ‘round here?” “Guess this is the kind of thing we should sit down for,” Savannah said, her lips pursing as she moved over to Gray’s work table, sitting in his chair at the far side. After a deep inhale and a heavy exhale, she started, “Well, it all started when Gray went out into the city with one of the scouts--” It was really a complicated story. So she explained how what had started as a scavenging mission ended up with Gray being kidnapped and in the clutches of some truly twisted people. How they’d forced him to be bitten and then thrown back into the city to die. How Olinger’s Patrolmen found Gray, but so had the infamous Dog King. “The politics in this city are fucked,” Savannah sighed. “The Mayor and the Hellhounds have been at each other since the beginnin’ and when the Patrolmen found Gray and Rodeo in the same place, they saw it as an opportunity to get Gray out of the picture and take control of the LBJ and to blame it on the Dog King and vilify him further.” From there, she explained about how Gray and Rodeo escaped the Patrolmen and made it back to the Dog Park. Gray went through quarantine there and made it out alive. At the mention of her visiting him before they’d been sure he would get through it, she sniffed, not entirely sure when the tears had started. “He was so mad at me. Mad that I was there. He wanted me to just wait here, not knowin’ if he would live or die. And if he did die from that bite, he didn’t want me or Maizie to have a last chance to see him. I couldn’t listen to him. We had to go. But he was so mad that--he wouldn’t come home, even after he was definitely immune. He was mad at me. And it gave the Hellhound Officer that was workin’ with the mayor time to plan out how they would ambush Gray on his way back to the library. The Patrolmen shot Gray and then yelled all around the city about how the raiders were out of control and killin’ shelter leaders. But the people here know the truth. We know that the Mayor--” her voice dripped with malice, “--is no ally of ours. We’re not openly resistin’ them, but this city is dangerous. And if people know you’re my brother--it could be dangerous for you too.” When she was done, she felt drained, like she had nothing left to give. Exhaling and blinking rapidly to try and hold back the tears that were welling, she said, “So, that’s it I guess.” Nathan sat silent as Savannah unfolded the whole story, there were parts that he didn't understand to the fullest. Patrolmen, and men called Hellhounds, with titles like Dog King, but it was obvious to him what kind of toll it had taken on his baby sister. He was angry at Gray for holding her at arm’s length, for presuming to demand Savannah not doing something she wanted to, but he couldn't say it to Gray obviously, and it wouldn’t help the grief to say it to Savannah. “I can handle it,” he assured her, not because he was arrogant, but because he didn’t want more worry piled onto Savannah’s narrow shoulders. It might put him in danger to be a Posey in Austin, but he well and truly didn’t give a damn. With a heavy sigh - the only sign that some of that story weighed heavy on his mind-, Nathan pushed himself out of the chair he’d settled in and crossed over to Savannah, kneeling beside her chair where he wrapped her in a hug. “They can send whoever they wanna after me, I ain't leavin’. I couldn’t find our parents, they're not goin’ to run me off from the one family member I found.” It might not have been the prettiest speech, but for Nathan it was more serious than he tended to get. “I’m real sorry about Gray, and that I wasn’t here when you needed me.” Nathan’s arms around her pushed her misty eyes right over the edge into full on crying. It wasn’t the first time she’d cried about all of this. Lita had been there for her, over and over again, and she knew that Luc and Nick were always there if she ever wanted to talk. But Nathan knew about her life before. He knew about Gray and what they’d been like before the whole world went to hell. Through all the good and bad of their siblingship, he knew her best. And right now, that was really what she needed. He could see her at her worst but he would still be her brother. “It’s been hard,” Savannah admitted, her voice shaky through her tears. “Tryin’ to run this place and--and Maizie--I’ve been in so over my head and by myself--” she stopped short, crying harder. There was an instance of mental panic at Savannah’s tears, but only because Nathan felt responsible for making her cry that hard. But he had long gotten over the paralysis that came with a woman crying on his shoulder, and it was his sister; whether they were hollering at each other or on the best of terms, she was blood, and he’d do anything for her. He wrapped his arms tighter, smoothing the back of Savannah’s hair as she cried. “And everythin’ I’ve heard, you’ve been handlin’ it like a badass, darlin’,” he encouraged softly. “I got nowhere else to be, so y’all ain’t gonna be alone again.” He knew she had people, that she hadn’t been by herself, but he thought he understood what she’d meant. “Just point me where you need me, Sav.” He leaned back so he could look at her face, ignoring the way his voice hiccuped like he might just join her tears. “There ain’t anythin’ that the Posey’s can’t handle.” Savannah’s crying eventually slowed to a stop and with Nathaniel pulled back, she reached up, wiping away the tears under her eyes. Her voice was still shaky as an aftermath of the sobs, but the frantic and hopeless edge were gone when she said, “You’re right where I need you, big brother.” |