Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-07-27 23:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | !walking dead, *log, bruce wayne, selina kyle |
twd: log, bruce and selina
Who: Bruce & Selina
What: Surviving in zombie land. (1/2)
Where: TWD door.
When: Past couple weeks → nowish.
Warnings/Rating: Violence, dead things.
Day One
She hadn't expected Bruce to be standing there when she turned, hands and knees on the grass, and she was in some kind of forest. Woods, and they didn't have this in Gotham. It was cool, despite being summer, and the sky was clear, and the air was thin. Mountains, she thought, or somewhere close, and she wondered how frigid it would get at night. This was not the time to be sick, and she needed to push herself to her feet, but she was staring at the things that were walking toward them, unseeing and spread out as far as she could see, right and left in a semicircle, hundreds of them, and she couldn't tell how far they extended behind them. She was unarmed, and she had a terrible feeling that he probably was too.
And wouldn't it be hysterical if they died here? Like this? Together? There was some horrible poetic justice to that, and she wanted to be home, but she had no idea where home was.
She pushed herself up, because she knew he wouldn't leave her there to die. He'd haul her up by her arm if he needed to, and she wasn't going to use him for a crutch, and she wasn't going to slow him down. "We're not armed. We need to run." And she would try to keep up.
He couldn't pinpoint exactly how he'd ended up in the door. It was quick, too quick; maybe he'd gone close, acting on instinct when Selina was pulled through but he knew he hadn't actually stepped over the threshold of his own free will. But maybe it didn't matter, because he was here now and Bruce didn't see a door in sight. It was a forest, somewhere, utterly unfamiliar and for a few seconds he just stared, slow in processing, only aware of the fact that he wasn't supposed to be here. This wasn't supposed to be happening.
But then it all caught up with him and he blinked. Like her, his attention was caught by the things approaching from all sides; he frowned. There were so many of them, too many of them, and unfortunately he wasn't armed. He was dressed in clothing from another era but he'd left any weaponry he might have possessed behind, and while he could move fairly easily, his only weapon just then was himself.
Running was wisest. He saw the logic in that. He moved forward to help her up just as she managed to push herself to her feet and he hung back, trying to give her space despite the circumstances. She didn't need him, of course. Safety first, and then they could figure out where they were and how they could get back. "Alright." He hesitated, briefly, but the shuffling things were growing closer and he had no choice but to break into a run in the opposite direction, trusting (or hoping?) she could keep up.
She had a hard time keeping up. She had a very hard time keeping up. She stumbled against more trees than she wanted to admit, and it was only sheer determination not to fall and get eaten that kept her even marginally ahead of the herd.
The woods opened up onto a highway, lines and lines of abandoned cars and SUVS, and she stopped on the tarmac and bent over, hands on her thighs and coughing up bile, because it was all that was left in her stomach. Her hair was sweat and fever soaked now, and she looked to see where he was. She'd been following the sound of his footfalls, so she knew he was close. And the herd was still advancing, and the cars looked like their best option.
She looked in a car window, and she wasted a few seconds staring at a decaying body that looked like it had been there for months, and wondered how this even happened. It made her think of Ra's, and the herd groaned their way to the edge of the trees.
"The cars? Trunk? Roofs?" she asked, tiny words as she caught her breath. She couldn't keep running, not until this fever wore off. He could. He could probably stay ahead of it. "Trunk. You go." She managed a teasing grin, even with the Hell closing in on them. "Nice clothes."
Something was wrong. Selina should have been able to keep up with him with little to no difficulty, but he could tell she was struggling. It made him slow his pace, made him glance over his shoulder more than he normally would have, because regardless of the way things were between them he'd never leave her behind; Bruce just wasn't that kind of man.
Once they broke out of the forest and reached the highway, he came to a full stop and turned as she bent over and coughed up bile. The pack of things were at their heels, but it only took a moment or two to look her over, to see that there was indeed something wrong; she didn't look well. He wondered why, wondered what had happened, but of course he didn't ask. Running was no longer an option, though. He could make it, but she couldn't, and he wasn't about to leave her to fend for herself. As for how this had happened, he hadn't gotten that far yet. His single focus was on survival, on escape, and once they'd found a safe place he could start thinking about other things-- like what had gone so very wrong here.
He considered their options. The roofs were useless; they'd only be trapped on top and while the things approaching looked very much dead, he couldn't be sure what they were and weren't capable of. But the trunk, that wasn't a bad idea. Hiding until the herd had passed. "We'll wait it out," he decided, completely ignoring that she'd told him to go. And he gave her a look when she commented on his clothing, an unthinking thing which forgot how disastrous recent months had been, reminiscent of a long ago past. "Come on." He grabbed her hand without asking and pulled, darting and weaving between cars to put even a little distance between themselves and the herd before looking for a trunk that wasn't locked. Trial and error, because there was no time to spend on lock picking, but he managed to find one unlocked and quickly urged her inside.
"Stay quiet," he instructed. "We'll wait until they pass and go from there."
Of course he could make it. Give her a night's sleep, and she could make it too. But not right then, and part of her did expect him to run. If she had a safe place, she trusted him to trust her be able to keep herself there until the threat passed. It was an out, an option, and she was slightly surprised when he didn't take it. Oh, he didn't want her dead. It wasn't anything like that, but she was fairly sure he preferred the company of the undead to this.
But she trusted him, and when he grabbed her hand she went without hesitation or complaint. She'd always trusted him to keep himself alive, and she might be a liability at present? But she wasn't stupid, and she hadn't forgotten who she was with. She was only sorry that she was impeding his chance of a clean break, but she understood guilt too, and she thought she understand why he'd made the choice he made. She moved as quickly as she could manage as he darted, and the smell that touched the air, sick and sweet and rot, told her more than the uneven footfalls at their back did.
The car he found was old, the truck huge and nothing like the tiny compact creation of modern years. When he opened it, she put a hand on his shoulder without thinking, habit and enough fights alongside him that she didn't stop to consider, and she hoisted herself inside. There, she pressed close to the front, so he'd have room behind her.
Over his shoulder, the things were right there; there wouldn't be time to find another car, and it was starting to get dark; the light was against them. "I'm not contagious," she promised. "Get in, Mr. Wayne."
He wasn't petty, or at least he tried not to be. And, regardless, he didn't actually blame Selina for anything. The deterioration of their relationship, everything broken between them, he blamed on himself. It wouldn't be fair to hold her responsible by distancing himself and leaving her in the trunk of some car until the wave of dead things passed. Oh, Bruce had no doubt that at full strength she was more than capable of handling herself, but he didn't think separation was a good idea. Logically, better that they stick together, and he could put his own issues aside.
Or, at least, he could try.
Her hand on his shoulder registered, but briefly, washed away by the smell of rot and sickly sweet decay that rose at their heels. His intention had been to find his own hiding spot, but as she hoisted herself into the trunk and he stole a glance over his shoulder he realized, quite quickly, that there wasn't time. That made him hesitate, but survival instinct took over. "I know," he said, of her not being contagious, and he gritted his teeth before climbing inside behind her. Yank, and he pulled the trunk closed after himself, plunging the two of them into confined darkness, and fortunately the dead shambling things didn't know how to do much more than thump and paw at the door.
She noticed his hesitation, and it stung. Of course it stung. Briefly, as she watched him decide which was worse - certain death at the hands of the undead or the prospect of briefly sharing trunk space with her - she wondered how they'd gotten here. It was one thing for a man not to be interested in a woman any longer. It was something altogether different to even consider his brains becoming a main course to avoid being close to her.
He gritted his teeth, and she closed her eyes. She'd feel better soon, and the first thing on the agenda? Distance, so he'd feel better too. When she spoke, it was in a closed-trunk hush, his body against her fevered back. "How did we get this far off track?" And that had nothing to do with this door or with zombies. Nothing at all.
It was a whisper, and then the first dead thing slammed against the trunk, and like any good Gotham girl, she went quiet instead of screaming. She counted each new impact, and she tugged the fabric of her shirt up against her nose to block out the smell that sifted through the trunk's small seam that allowed for oxygen. She drew the notebook that had found its way into her front pocket out, and by the small bit of light that was left, she read. and she wrote, and then she shoved the book back in her pocket and tried not to sniffle.
She lost track at thirty bodies outside, all crowded around the now-shaking car. The rocking and groaning became repetitive, and exhaustion eventually overtook her. She pressed back against him unthinking, and she slept.
As always, she misconstrued his intentions. His hesitation wasn't about deciding between certain death and sharing a space with her, no, it was about whether or not he could possibly make things worse at this point; he'd thought it wasn't possible before only to be proved wrong, it could happen again. Sharing a trunk was the exact opposite of distance, of avoidance. But he couldn't read her thoughts, he didn't know, and he made a valiant effort to maintain some space between them instead of letting his body settle against hers.
He didn't know the answer to her question. It was one he'd asked himself numerous times, and he just shook his head in the dark. "I don't know." Quiet, barely a whisper, and he tried to pretend he wasn't paying attention as she took out the notebook and wrote. Tried, and failed, but he did manage to refrain from asking what was wrong. It wasn't his business.
Eventually, the shaking and groaning and thumping became background noise. He stilled when she pressed back against him, but she was asleep, she didn't know, and he fought to stay awake, to keep watch.