bakerstreet | No other choice

[Really hope Uncle Daryl remembers what she told him to do. Because this is an emergency.

A Demon-Shaped Mia Emergency.

No use trying to figure out what triggered it. They can deal with that later. Right now she’s angry and grabby and looking to draw blood (and then some).]

[ no shortage of reasons for killing on either side of the equation. cool with canon divergence or outright AUs. ]

[ Lets gooo. ota. au, crosscanon, whatevs. ]

[Open to playing either side and fine with canonmates, crosscanon and assumed CR. Happy to plot things out first too.]

[As is what happens when you live in a zombie apocalypse. Crosscanon is a-ok in my book!]

[ Castmates, cross-canon, assumed CR welcome. Willing to AU Jesse in to any setting. Feel free to jump right in or plot things out first. ]

FuckshitshitshitFUCK!

What would be nice would be just five minutes. Five, measly, minutes. Just a chance for Eddie to catch his breath and fix his heart beat, so it doesn't feel like he's living in a perpetual state of ODing on something shitty and cut with kitchen bleach. He's not. Jesus, he kinda wishes he was. He wishes he was stoned and blissfully unaware of just how godawful the world is now.

Instead, he's... surviving. By some miracle. Or, maybe it's not a miracle. Maybe this is torture and punishment. It's not like he ever thought he had the skillset for this stuff, yet the world keeps on insisting otherwise.

Holing up in the library seemed like a good idea: Quiet and never well populated, even before this apocalyptic crap started. But he can hear the footsteps, slow as they move along the stacks, getting closer. Guns are no good, the sound attracts others, so it has to be the trusty knife, a good leap and straight in the head. Take out the brain, fast and quiet. He just needs to creep around behind it... Fuck.

Things went, for lack of a better term, TITS UP, pretty quickly. Steve doesn't even know how it all started - the radio has been nothing but static. It's been two weeks of madness, since that day everyone started going absolutely insane, like something out of a shitty B horror movie they played at the drive-in after the main 7PM showing of Cujo, or whatever the fuck. Look, Steve doesn't know what happened, alright, but he knows that it's - everywhere. And he's willing to fucking bet that goddamn lab had something to do with it; if not all of them, because he's also pretty sure it's not the only one they have, across the country.

The day that it happened, Steve was at Family Video working the morning shift on his own. Just a regular Wednesday; the slow day, with soccer mom's returning tapes and barely anyone coming into the store. He had a tape playing - Red Dawn with Swayze - so he didn't see the news report until it stopped; right before the news went completely dark, emergency bars and everything.

And then the first - again, for lack of a better word - zombie approached the store.

From there, it was blood and guts and the kind of animalistic terror Steve thought he'd left behind, far, far underground in that awful Russian base beneath the ruined mall. But maybe there really was no way out - maybe he should have known better. He's glad he kept the bat in the trunk of his car, in any case, hidden underneath the false bottom Dustin and company had constructed for him.

The first place he goes, of course, is the high school.

It's chaos. It's Steve, trying his damnedest to turn his brain off and fucking whack anyone who comes within ten feet of him with that glazed over look in their eyes, frothing at the mouth, limbs held at awkward angles. He screams for the kids, and manages to get Dustin, Max, Robin, and Mike into the car.

Lucas...doesn't make it. And Robin...

They fight about it for ten minutes, with Steve speeding towards the farms - away, away from the town center, away from the suburbs, away from the school and all the carnage. Robin's screaming at him to pull over and let her out, the bite on her wrist bleeding sluggishly, and Steve is screaming at her that he's not going to do that, he's not going to leave her for dead, he can't he won't -

So Robin just smiles at him with a soft bye, Steve - that stupid, awful smile that's imprinted on the back of his eyelids - pops the lock up on the door manually, and throws herself out of the moving car.

Things blur, after that.

They've set up a base, of sorts - as makeshift as it comes, over the next two weeks. Nancy arrives, towing too much firepower - Steve doesn't ask how she got it. They set up on Weathertop, considering it's far enough away from town that it's unlikely anyone is going to wander out there, and Dustin's radio is easily their biggest asset. They steal wood from the barn on the edge of the property, fortifying as best they can, and Steve tries his best not to think.

They lose Max on a supply run, shortly into the second week.

Steve doesn't want to be here, in the middle of town. It's quiet, sure - Steve's not entirely sure there are other survivors, even though they make an effort to try and clear new areas, see who's still around - but he doesn't trust it. And the library? Dustin swears there are vending machines in the basement that no one ever uses that will have clean water, but Steve's still nervous.

He's got a new bat - deadlier. His first one splintered five days in, after so much use. Steve's combing through the aisles slowly, bat raised, listening for any sign of life - or, more accurately, the undead.

Steve doesn't notice the presence behind him, but his bat does clink against the edge of the shelf when one of the nails catches. It makes him tilt his head to disengage it, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees the shadow.

It's not even a choice at that point, it's just pure instinct.

Steve whirls with the bat, already swinging - if it were Nancy, she'd have known to whistle.

By some goddamn miracle, Eddie manages to stay quiet. Sure, it's fair to say that for all the boldness and brashness he cultivated for his persona, he also knew when to slip away quietly. The dramatics were smoke and mirrors, hiding many truths, and the thing about making yourself stand out was that if you needed to not be noticed, you just had to not put on the show. It isn't that simple when you're trying to stay out of sight of-jesus-zombies, or whatever this hellscape had spawned. Eddie hadn't exactly been steady on his gangly legs when this all started, and often tripped or put a foot wrong. He had learned fast, though. Look ahead, look down, step. Look ahead, look down, step. Careful and purposeful. He had removed his chains and rings too, anything that jangled or clacked at the wrong moment.

Now, he picks his way around the stacks, checking his path for fallen books he could trip on, things he might accidentally kick and send spinning. The figure creeps onwards and Eddie can't get a clear look at it, but he sees enough to know its position, which way it's going, and he falls behind its back. Good. Good. Eddie the Forgotten lives another day.

Probably, he should just leave, but then he's lost the library, and it's a good spot to sleep and rest if it's not crawling with these undead assholes. So he slips down the row of shelves, intending to creep up from behind and dispatch it quickly and quietly. Fucking stupid plan, and he needs to learn to just run when he has the chance.

Silent goes out the window too.

Eddie screams as the thing whirls at him, and he gets caught like a rabbit in headlights. He knows that he needs to either commit to the thrust now and plunge that knife into the creature's skull, or fall back and retreat. The best his terrified body can offer him though is his legs giving out on the spot and Eddie faceplants the floor. Which is great for avoiding getting hit by the spiky thing it swung at him, not so great for getting up again and getting away. Desperate and swearing a stream of cusswords, Eddie reaches for an ankle with both hand and tugs it towards him.

Steve whirls, and is immediately disconcerted. Firstly, his bat doesn’t connect - he swings against air, the figure collapsing to the ground. Distantly, his mind connects the fact that - well, zombies don’t do that. They don’t duck, and they certainly don’t scream like that. Loud and scared, mainly. Steve falters, in a way he hasn’t in over two weeks, bat colliding with the shelf again - one of the nails snagging on the metal rail. It’s enough to make him wobble, so when the person - and it is indeed a person - grabs his ankle, Steve drops, too.

“Hey - HEY!” Steve yells as he hits the floor, all elbows and sharp bones. The carpet does next to nothing to dull it, more aches and pains he’ll wake up with tomorrow. “NANCY!”

And that’s when Steve sees Eddie’s face, as he rolls over, already kicking out with his foot - rather insistently, because that’s when he spots the flash of a knife, and Steve is not about to go down without a fight. He scrambles, his foot connecting with the guy’s wrist, and when Steve finally gets a full look at his face, he sees the whites of Eddie’s eyes, and knows this really isn’t a zombie attack.

Then again, aren’t humans always the most dangerous thing?

Steve scrambles back on the carpet, not in an ideal position should he - Eddie, Steve’s brain supplies, because if there is one thing he’s decent at, it’s his encyclopedic knowledge of random Hawkins “lore”, as Dustin so affectionately calls it - Eddie Munson, should he decide to lunge again.

“Don’t make me hurt you, dude.” Steve warns, adrenaline spiked, fully prepared to grapple with Eddie for the knife if he comes at him again. “Nancy Wheeler is on her way with a buckshot, and she’ll tear right through you.”

Mentally, Eddie just isn't that quick. It doesn't occur to him that zombies don't go about swinging spiked bats at people. They just lunge, and Eddie's seen it plenty to know that the lunging is enough, all teeth and nail, and he shudders to think how that's all they need. To think that any human, alive or undead, was already equipped with the tools and capacity to literally skin someone and tear chunks of meat from their still screaming and kicking bodies. Just frenzy. That's all it takes.

It's all it took when they took down Paul. And Eddie had watched, had fumbled to help, but more were coming and Eddie had turned tail and ran. That was the last thing his friend saw; Eddie abandoning him. Jeff and Gareth had ran too, though, and he hadn't seen either of them since.

Right now, though, Eddie is in full blown panic; grappling to hang on to one ankle, fingers twisting in the denim cuff as his brain screams at him that he can't get up and run away if he's still holding the thing! Come. On! Let go, let go, let go. Fuck, it's like his fingers have seized up in fear. The zombie's other foot, meanwhile, connects with his wrist and fuck!, of course that hand doesn't want to grip for shit. "Jesus Christ!" he cusses at himself as the knife topples onto the carpet.

Twisting, Eddie is starting to reach for the knife again when he realizes that he's being spoken to. And that, his brain finally kicks in to tell him, isn't something the zombies usually do. He pauses long enough to look up at the body he's clinging to like some idiot.

"Oh. Fuck." He knows that face, from school. And even more, he knows the name that comes with that face, also from school, but more recently, from Dustin Fucking Henderson. "King Steve."

Christ. What a dumbass thing to say in a dumbass situation. His brain is going too fast for Eddie to keep up and literally threw the first distasteful marker for this guy it could pull up for Eddie to say. The bile spat out in the name is completely out of place in the context of this situation. And surely the realization that Steve isn't about to try to eat his face off should have softened it. It doesn't though.

And his fingers are fucking cramped and still hanging on.

Steve wasn’t always cool in a crisis, but maybe he’s just gotten better at it out of necessity over the years. Maybe it’s because he’s gotten better at not thinking, at not letting himself think about, because if he thinks about it he’ll flip his goddamn lid, and he’s not allowed to do that. He can’t do that in front of the kids - and they’re kids, for Chrissake, they may be in high school now but they’re still kids. They always will be, to him and Nancy - if he freaks out, they’ll freak out, and there’s no adults like Hopper and Joyce around to help them anymore. And Nancy - Steve doesn’t want to do that in front of her, either. She’s stone-cold business, and while Steve can see her edges fraying too, they’re not safe. Neither of them can rest until they make it safe; as reasonably safe as they can. It’s gonna take a lot longer than two weeks, honestly, for that to happen.

Eddie is cursing and frenzied, scared, but he’s not rabid - not practically frothing at the mouth, glazed over eyes wheeling in Steve’s direction - he’s good. Steve’s tense, ready to wrestle with him if he doesn’t calm the fuck down, but something seems to click, and he recognizes Steve long enough to pause.

“Yeah. Yup.” Steve doesn’t know what else to say to that, to the way Eddie puts distaste on his name. He supposes he can’t blame him, exactly; Steve did just swing a bat at his head, and the title obviously implied Eddie disliked him, for good reason, because of his storied high school career. “Steve. That’s me. You’re - Munson, right? Eddie?”

Steve tries not to glance at it, but his gaze does flicker to the knife, just barely out of reach for Eddie. If Eddie twisted far enough he’d be able to grab it, but Steve is pretty sure he could brace his hands on the bookshelves and push himself far enough back to be out of immediate stabbing reach if he did. It wouldn’t leave him a whole lot of leeway, but better to get stabbed trying to fight back than prone on the ground, right?

“You run the - uh, dice, dragon, club thing.” His brain is blanking on the phrase Dungeons & Dragons, but Steve just barrels forward, because the longer they’re talking, the longer he’s not getting sliced. Eddie’s fingers are still curled in the cuff of his jeans, but Steve doesn’t move to dislodge them, frozen on the ground. “With Dustin. Henderson. And Mike and - “

Steve doesn’t think about Lucas. He can’t. His mind skips like a broken VHS as he veers away from it entirely, taking the air out of his sentence. “ - yeah you, Dustin talks about you.”

Where’s Nancy? Steve wonders; did she not hear him? They’d promised not to go too far out of range, but maybe the walls of the library were too thick - maybe they were too far from the broken window he’d climbed through, back here. Steve wets his lips anxiously, still watching Eddie, wondering what the ultimate decision here was.

If it came down to it, could Steve kill a human? Not a zombie, but - Eddie. Throughout this whole nightmare, Steve had never had to consider it. They hadn’t run into anyone else like this, just trying to survive. It’s a thought he bristles against, especially when he thinks of Nancy and the kids, and knows, deep down, he probably would be able to do it. Or at least try.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Steve says again, as if to banish the thoughts he just had about how he could, indeed, hurt Eddie. “Dustin said there was water, in the basement. I’ll leave, if you want I - I won’t take it.”

Now, the problem isn't with Eddie's brain not keeping up. It got with the program, finally, and now it knows where it's at, the issue is that it's running ahead and throwing up multiple options for Eddie to sort through. Some of them are ridiculous as well, Dungeon Master mode getting mixed up with real life, which is fair, though, right? Because this isn't supposed to be what real life looks like!

Big dark eyes flick up to Steve as he says Eddie's name. Again, the context seems all wrong, but in what context would he have ever expected the likes of Steve Harrington to actually know who he is? But then, Dustin talked about Steve all the fucking time, it was getting to the point that it was driving both Eddie and Gareth insane. Probably the others too, but Gareth for sure because Eddie had had a couple of post-session decompression drinks with his best friend back at his trailer, and they'd picked apart this unlikely hero worship their new campaign member had for the jock asshole that had once ruled the Hawkins High halls. And if Dustin was truly that close with Steve, maybe Eddie's name had come up when talking to him and that was how Steve knew who he was, about DnD, about-

Shit. Wait.

"Dustin?" In the present tense. In the now. Eddie's face twists into something shattered, but allowing light through those cracks. He could almost cry. Which is dumb; Dustin's just one kid, and Paul and Gareth and Jeff, they're gone, but Eddie's been alone in this for over a week now, easily, and Dustin's such a smart little asshole, but the second his bard used Heat Metal on Mike's paladin's sheaved longsword during an in-game bicker between the pair and burnt a scar across his thigh for 2 damage, Eddie knew he was going to like the kid. Dustin was going to be one of them, a permanent part of Eddie's inner circle, he'd felt it in his bones.

Finally, his fingers uncurl stiffly, aching as they do. He stops reaching for the knife and instead supports himself on his elbows and forearms as he looks up Steve's body to check his face.

"Dustin's safe?"

Steve’s not always the best at reading people. For all of his popularity, his cool guy swagger as Robin used to call it, affectionately and exasperatedly, sometimes he could be oblivious. Right now, it makes him uneasy - he can see the wheels turning in Eddie’s brain, but he can’t accurately gauge where those thoughts are headed, and it makes something sick and anxious settle in his gut. And for all the kids used to talk about that club of theirs - and boy did they talk, Steve could give a pretty accurate play by play of Eddie’s last campaign at one point - Steve doesn’t know Eddie. He knows of him, of the rumors about him, mostly regarding his side business - not that Steve’s judging, necessarily, but it just makes it that much more impossible to read his expression.

But then Eddie’s voice lilts just the littlest bit on his question, fingers releasing Steve’s ankle, and he nods, his own gaze softening. Eddie wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t care, but then, is Steve really surprised? Henderson is a special kid, they all are; of course he’d leave an impression.

Dustin used to chatter about Eddie all the time - not so much anymore for obvious, depressing reasons. For the first time, Steve can’t help but consider the fact that Eddie - who appears to be whole and fine, all things considered - bringing back Eddie might make the kids smile for the first time in weeks. More than the water, even.

Steve blinks that tempting thought away, because he’s getting ahead of himself - just because Eddie stopped attacking him in the now doesn’t mean they’re out of the clear yet, and even still, Steve would have to get him past Nancy. Problem for the future.

Steve nods slowly, propping himself on his elbows. When Eddie doesn’t seem to have an issue with it, Steve pushes himself up into a sitting position. “Yeah. Henderson’s - he’s good. Mike, too. They’re - ”

Steve trips over the word fine, because they’re not fine, is anyone fine? “…they’re healthy. We’ve got - a place.”

Awkward save, but it’s the apocalypse and Eddie did attack him with a knife, he knows everyone would tell him to shut up. Steve tilts his head slightly, considering Eddie. “Are you…is it just, uh, just you?”

There’s no good way to ask that question, and Steve almost winces at how painful it is. But. Well. Most of the town is the shambling dead. It’s a fair ask.

Steve moves to sit up. It's not a rushed or jerky movement, all in all Eddie can accept that he's slow and careful about it, as if he's fully aware that he's got a scared and cornered animal on his hands, and it's best not to spook him. Eddie knows that Steve saw the knife, knows where it is, the distance needed to travel to reach it, and while Eddie might be closest, Steve's a jock-was-a jock, and he could probably make the steal if he needed. That's a sports term, right?

Anyway, Eddie still doesn't like the fact that Steve is now above him, still sprawled out on the floor like an idiot with shot survival instinct that somehow keeps prevailing, despite the ridiculous odds. He moves, slow too, to push himself up and an inch closer to the knife, just in case. On his knees, Eddie's all whites of his eyes and fear making his face look drawn. He rolls them towards Steve when he confirms that Dustin's alive, Mike too. Notices the name he doesn't hear, and chooses not to think too much about why.

"Yeah, just me," his voice is crackly, like static on the radio, it shakes so much. And doesn't that just tell you everything, Steve?

After Paul, after not knowing which direction Jeff and Gareth ran in, Eddie picked his way back to the trailer park. The place had been crawling, and Wayne... He's never going to shake that image from his head. He sees him when he shuts his eyes. Eddie ran. He's good at running.

"You uh," Eddie glances over his shoulder. He's very aware of how exposed he is like this, how he could be kneeling for execution for all the difference it makes. "You shouted for someone, just now?"

It’s been about twenty seconds, and Eddie hasn’t tried to stab him again. That’s a good sign, right? Steve hasn’t run into any people in a while, but this seems reasonable. Like they can come to an understanding, and if Eddie’s hiding out here - he must be clean, right? It’s cool. Everything’s cool.

Of course, Eddie inches closer to the knife, even if he’s not reaching for it, and Steve notices that, too. It’s hard not to, when you’ve been in flight or fight for so long. He’s got a decent shot though, he thinks, and more than enough motivation, if it came to a fight.

“Nancy. Wheeler, uh, Mike’s sister.” Steve over-explains, trying to skim over how raw Eddie sounded, answering his question. As if Steve needed more of a bleeding heart - oh, he can already see where this is going, and he knows Nancy won’t like it. “We’re on a run and - she didn’t come running, so I have to assume she didn’t hear me.”

“Oh, I heard you.” Nancy’s voice rings crystal clear from the other end of the library aisle, and Steve sees the barrel of the sawed-off raise, unflinching. Pointed straight at Eddie’s back. “You good?”

“I’m good. We’re good, right, Munson?” Steve still doesn’t move, looking beseechingly at Eddie. “It’s fine, Nance, it’s - just him.”

“And you believe that?” Nancy says shrewdly, gun still raised. Yup, she knows exactly what Steve’s thinking, and it’s also going to take more to convince her. “Give Steve the knife, or you’re dead. That’s a fact, and don’t make me repeat it.”

Edited 2023-03-02 08:58 (UTC)

When he's so focused on Steve in front of him, the corner of his attention just spared for that knife and where it is in relation to the pair of them, the voice behind sounds a lot more sudden and loud than it is in reality. Eddie visibly flinches, and he grinds his jaw tightly, annoyed with himself, before looking over his shoulder at the person aiming, fuck that looks deadly, a sawn-off shotgun at him. He makes a strangled sound and drops his head, not even looking at the floor, just at every choice that led him to this fucked up moment in his mind. Fucked up moment after fucked up moment.

"I don't have the knife," he spits out, a man on the edge of cracking. He gestures violently towards the thing with one hand. "It's right there for the taking, man."

What's the point? He's going to die anyway. Zombie, gun, knife, goddamn fucked up spiked bat to the side of the face, like Harrington has watched far too many slasher movies or something.

"Just. Take it."

"Nance, chill." Steve says desperately, in a voice that does not beget 'chill' at all. Nancy looks just as unimpressed as he thought she would, and Steve slowly extricates himself, getting to his knees on the carpet. He takes the knife, plucking it up off the ground, and pockets it, hesitating only momentarily before offering Eddie a hand up off the ground.

"Steve." Nancy hisses, irritated, but still, Steve outstretches his hand. He never did have much in the way of a sense of self-preservation.

"Would you - stop it." Steve growls back at her, waving impatiently. "Goddamnit, Munson, reassure the woman with the gun, chrissakes!"

They're both, clearly, incorrigible. Nancy's shrewdness, her unfailing wariness, it's helped them survive this long, Steve won't deny it. But Eddie - he could have kept coming, kept attacking, and he didn't. Steve isn't going to kill a person - certainly not without true cause.

In this position of vulnerability, it doesn't matter that Steve's frustration is aimed at Nancy, and not him, it still makes Eddie shrink in further on himself, like some fast wilting flower, just ready to start dropping petals and die properly. When he remembers to do it, Eddie pulls and ties his hair back out of the way, but it's surprising how with little other distractions there are in the world, Eddie still forgets to keep refreshing it. Now, with his head bowed half his hair is loose from the dumb scrunchie he found while raiding a general store for supplies; it falls over his face as he works his jaw and clenches his fingers over the threadbare carpet.

"I don't know what more I can do to reassure her, really, man. I'm on the floor, you took my only weapon, I'm on my own. I'm not exactly a great threat here, you know?"

The only consolation he can take is that Nancy probably doesn't want to fire a shotgun when there's no zombies about. No sense in attracting unwanted company. But then, the silent alternatives to take him out are so much more worse.

Risking a glance up, he's surprised to see Steve with an outstretched hand. Well. Fuck. Scared puppy eyes, all bloodshot whites surrounding dark irises, carry on looking up to check Steve's face and try to read it before he reaches out to take the hand and slowly stand.

"You can take the water. I wasn't guarding it or anything."

"I don't know, how about saying, 'I'm not going to try and kill anybody I swear'?" Steve heaves a sigh, glancing at the way Nancy's jaw twitches, the way Eddie is cringing on the floor - everyone's scared, and they damn well should be. Nancy's weapon doesn't lower, but Eddie does take his hand, after a moment of hesitation that Steve doesn't blame him for - Steve's going to call that one a win.

Once they're all standing, the beat of silence that follows is tense. Eddie's hair is all over the place, falling into his face (he hardly seems like a threat now, messy and disarmed), and Nancy's gaze cuts from him, to Steve, and back to Eddie before she answers Steve's unspoken question.

"The answer is no, Steve." She hitches the gun where it's braced on her shoulder, and her resolve is firm. "Get the water and let's go."

"But-"

"No." Steve lets the silence tick after her rejection, but he just stands there, not turning for the water in the basement. This time, the tension is between the two of them, and they both know exactly what the other is thinking.

"I'll check him." Steve offers, and ludicrously, for a moment he feels like he's begging his mother for a dog, as he did ages and ages ago, before he could drive a car, before the world went to shit. "I'll watch him. We can't leave him here."

The look on Nancy's face implies very strongly that she can, maybe she even would, and hell, maybe she's right. But Steve - can't. Not after seeing the fear in Eddie's eyes, not after hearing the way Eddie's voice went soft when Steve said Dustin's name. Not after everyone they've lost.

Nancy's silence stretches, all of her objections loud and clear on her face and the barrel of the gun that still hasn't wavered, and Steve turns to Eddie, feeling wholly awkward. It's utterly ridiculous, feeling awkward in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse, but his life has always been like this - Steve doesn't know why he bothers getting surprised anymore.

"Do you - " It strikes Steve that maybe Eddie won't want to go anywhere with the people that attacked him (okay, arguably self-defense), but if that's the case, well, Steve tried. " - want to come back with us?"

Edited 2023-06-01 18:11 (UTC)

[ If Eddie were being honest with himself, he would admit that when everything had started to go to shit, he had little hope that he would get very far. What's the point in surviving when there's nothing to live for? He had always thought about it, whether he would even be capable of surviving in a world after a catastrophic event.

And now the dead are rising in droves, chasing after the living to feast on their flesh. It's like something out of one of the George Romero movies he used to watch so much. But this isn't a movie, and he can't hope to go to sleep at night and wake up to a brand new day.

No, every day is the fucking same and Eddie has grown sick of it. The living dead are spreading across the world alarmingly fast, and there are only a few safe havens left. One of which Eddie was heading towards with Steve when disaster hit.

Eddie was supposed to be first watch that night, but he hasn't been sleeping, and apparently his body decided that was the time to give out. When he woke, it was to the chomping bit of one of the undead, Eddie letting out a yell that would put the Wilhelm scream to shame.

No. No, no, no, no, no he had gotten this far, and now the walls are starting to close in on him, and all he can do is panic as he stares down at his arm, and at the twice dead body in front of him, where Eddie had plunged a machete into his skull. He turns to look at Steve, face ghastly pale as realization sets in. ]

Well...it was a good run, I guess. [ Because, of course he would turn to humor when the world is looking grim as shit. ]

[ Steve wakes to a nightmare.

It’s not unusual, these days - it’s been a constant nightmare, ever since the first outbreak. Running, hiding, surviving - losing members of their little group, one by one, until it was just Steve, and Eddie. It’s an unlikely bond that’s only strengthened in the time they’ve had together - fuck, how long has it been? It feels like years, but it’s probably only been two and a half months. To be honest, Steve’s lost count.

But it’s been the two of them for a while now (they put Max in the dirt however long ago, Steve can’t remember, he blocked it out, not thinking about it-) and they’ve survived, together, until Eddie’s dinky little radio sent a crackling transmission through. A safe haven, up north, where the populace is thinner and the zombies are slower with the cold.

There’s nothing left for them where they are, so they go.

So Steve wakes up to a scream, because that’s how his life is going these days, and Eddie’s already killed the thing by the time he rolls over, axe raised high. His sleep-addled, adrenaline-wired brain takes a second to connect Eddie’s words to the blood - fresh blood, mixing with the congealed blood that dripped from the zombie’s newest wound. Steve’s hand falls, axe thunking to the ground, and he drops to his knees next to Eddie, gaping like a fish out of water. ]

No.

[ It’s very clearly a yes, the bite marks stark on Eddie’s skin, bubbling up with red. Steve reaches out to put pressure on it, working on auto-pilot - he wants to go back to sleep, and wake up yelling to a nightmare that wasn’t reality. Eddie…he can’t lose Eddie. He can’t be alone and out of everyone - Eddie, who could still crack a dumb joke in the middle of all this shit - he can’t lose Eddie. ]

No. [ Steve’s grip on Eddie’s arm is painfully tight, and he meets Eddie’s gaze with equal panic. ] No. No you- you can’t.

( It's the fear in Steve's face that does Eddie. He could have probably gotten through this somehow were it not for the way he looks absolutely devastated and scared. It breaks Eddie, causes his shoulders to slump, and while he is mildly aware of the vicelike grip on his arm, he's more concerned with what's in store for him -- for them. )

'msorry, Stevie, I should have been more careful, we -- I fell asleep.

( His voice breaks as he explains what happened. But even if he had been awake, the zombie was so fast and his reflexes not like they were when they started this thing. )

You know what you have to do. ( He looks at Steve with a fierce, yet scared gaze of his own. The thought of death terrifies him, but not nearly as much as the possibility of him turning into one of these things and hurting Steve. ) You have to carry on without me, be brave and...I know you'll find someone else.

( The weak smile that he gives Steve says it all -- that he hates the thought of Steve finding someone else for companionship. But there's nothing left for Eddie now. All hope is lost for him, and the last thing he wants is for Steve to stop living because Eddie is about to. )

[ Steve had tried his best not to be scared, in the beginning. Hard to deny it, when the world's gone to total shit and everyone was dropping like flies around them - but he tried. In front of the kids, anyway; and let his hands shake with Robin, Nancy, Eddie. They were still kids themselves, except they weren't - the adults in the situation, typical. And then they - lost everyone, the kids, the girls, and he can't pretend in front of Eddie, he just can't. ]

No. [ The devastation and denial is evident in his voice, and Steve - he shakes his head, unable to accept it. Unable to even think it - he's good at that. The denial thing. His hand is firm on Eddie's shoulder, staunching the bleeding. He refuses to raise his axe to Eddie, fullstop. ] No, I'm - we're - not doing that.

There's no one else. [ He raises his free hand to Eddie's neck, meeting his gaze firmly. ] It's you and me. I can't - Eddie, I can't.

[ He means it, too. It's not just a won't. There's no point in going on when everyone he's ever cared about is in the dirt.

Steve inhales slowly, steadying himself. They can't both lose it. He shakes his head again, looking away before Eddie can see the tears threatening to spill over. ] Can we - just, wait. We'll wait. Together. Okay?

( Steve has always been stubborn as fuck. Eddie knows this, and he knows it's going to get him killed one of these days. If his reaction to the situation is anything to go by, that just might be sooner rather than later. )

I don't -- I don't want to be the reason you die.

( His voice shakes, comes out as barely a whisper. But he needs to be honest with Steve, because he knows if he just goes along with this without voicing his objections, he's going to regret it. Even if he's about to enter a state where he doesn't think he'll know what regret is, a mindless state where the only drive he has is to kill, kill, kill. )

Please...please just promise me, the moment I'm no longer there, you'll do it. You won't...I can't bear the thought of it, Stevie. Just because it's going to wear my face --

( He feels himself start to shake as he speaks, the fear becoming almost too much. He doesn't want to die. It would have almost been better to die of an accident, suddenly, but this slow burn where he knows he's going to feel the fungus slowly take over until his brain is no longer under his control, it's worse than anything he could have predicted happening. )

I'll wait with you, just so long as you promise.

[ If this is the thing that kills him, well, it was a good run. Steve knows that’s the last thing Eddie wants to hear, so he doesn’t voice it - he just nods, once, firmly, and if his grip gets a little tighter, that’s just another thing he doesn’t say. Add it to the damn list.

Steve closes his eyes and nods again, unable to look Eddie in the eye and see the fear that he can hear so clearly in his voice. He doesn’t want to think about Eddie not being here, about him being replaced with something violent and mindless, soulless, something that wants blood and flesh and nothing else. ]

I promise. [ He opens his eyes, fixing Eddie with a steady gaze, insofar as he’s able to manage in the moment. ] I promise. I won’t - I‘ll make sure you - you rest.

That won’t be you, anymore. [ Steve’s smile is thin and painful, and his thumb rests on Eddie’s pulsepoint, thrumming away, alive, alive, alive. ] I promise. I just can’t - not while you’re still - not while you’re you.

[ So, they wait. Steve reaches over to grab at his pack, spare bandages they have, as the bleeding starts to slow. Sluggish, trapping the fungus inside Eddie’s veins - nope, not thinking about it. Not thinking about it. ]

( It's not how he would have chosen to go out, but there is something comforting about having the person he cares most about by his side while he waits for the sickness to take a hold of him, to turn him into a mindless killing machine, bent only on spreading its spores into other living hosts. He wishes he could chase Steve away so he doesn't have to bear witness to the worst of it, but he knows the importance of autonomy right now. If this is how Steve chooses to spend his time, then so be it.

The worst of it is the waiting for the inevitable. Eddie knows how this is going to end. It's not going to be pretty. The experts aren't even sure if the host's mind ever completely goes, and if that isn't the most horrible thing to think about. That he might be trapped in his own body eventually, watching as it scrambles to take Steve over next and pull him into their hive mind to grow more fungus.

But it never happens. Eddie knows the infection should have spread by now, that he should be feeling the fever as his body tries to fight off its spread but falls short of doing just that. )

How much time has passed? ( Eddie's voice rasps out eventually. He starts tugging at the bandage around the bite, unsure if it's worth tearing the damn thing off to check for himself, to sate his curiosity. They don't have very many other bandages left and he'd hate to rob Steve of anything that might be able to save his life after Eddie's gone. ) It's...I should be... ( dead by now are the words Eddie doesn't say, and with a frenzy he can't bear it any longer, he shreds the bandage off his arm to reveal, must to his chagrin, that the bite mark has barely shown any sign of infection at all. )

[he has no qualms killing you, you shouldn't feel bad trying to kill him. ota canon, crosscanon, assumed cr, etc.]

No other choice

clint barton | mcu

daryl dixon | twd | ota.

oops my hand slipped

Kylo Ren/Brianna Solo • r63!Star Wars

alastor | hazbin hotel

Isaac Clarke ∝ Dead Space Franchise

Shota Aizawa | MHA | OTA

Runner 5 | Zombies, Run!

Jesse Pinkman | Breaking Bad | OTA

xue yang • mdzs / the untamed

Steve Harrington | Stranger Things

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Ignacio "Nacho" Varga | Better Call Saul | OTA

Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca | Better Call Saul l OTA

Felix | Red vs Blue | OTA

The Winter Soldier | MCU