"I'm a sailor peg, and I lost my leg! Climbing up the topsails, I lost my leg! I'm shippin' up to Boston, waaay-oooh…"

God, it was refreshing to feel like they were actually getting somewhere. Maybe there were another million obstacles between Skyler and her destination, but it sure was satisfying to have that one out of the way. It was like… a metaphor, or some shit. They'd crossed the ocean. Well. The harbor, anyways. Either way, she was as confident as she'd felt since before her buddies had gotten creamed and she'd gotten into this mess.

Her good mood even seemed to be rubbing off on Adrian. He still looked tired, but present and responsive, which was a definite improvement. As they'd gotten further from the wrecked station his twitchiness had eased, and now he lifted his head at each nook and alley they passed not in the nervous way he had before the horde, but with curiosity. The sight of him sniffing around and poking inside of a streetside Post Office box to reach its contents had her smirking and she trailed off in mouthing Dropkick Murphys to herself to investigate.

"Find anything good, kid? Someone's grandma sending them birthday money? I used to have this buddy-"

An echoing pop far back the way they'd come distracted her from her one-sided story, and poor Adrian righted himself so fast he narrowly missed smacking his head on the mailbox. She recognized that sound. Apparently Cat was still out and about, and near enough that her suppressed sniper was distinctly audible. She had some admittedly mixed feelings about that. A moment later Adrian started into a tentative growl and shifted towards a crouch, more than certainly on the lookout for another uninfected person. She shook her head and redirected him with a hand on his arm.

"Nope. Nuh-uh. Besides, you'd probably catch something. Girl's really weird."

He still lingered for a bit, but fortunately for everyone involved, the other survivor was far enough off to be out of range of… scent, or whatever it was that immediately set the infected into a mindless frenzy.

Speaking of. It was unsurprising that they hadn't been the only ones alerted by the sound of gunfire. From a nearby patch of sickly evergreen shrubbery filled with weathered garbage bags and trash, a squall of thrashing and grunting erupted as a Common floundered awake, head jerking from side to side to track down whatever had woken him up from his nap. Naturally the closest target was Skyler, so she was what he launched himself at.

She grunted and ducked below his first clumsy attempt to snatch her. While he was thrown off his balance by the miss, she brought her fist up hard as she could. It impacted his chin with enough force that she heard the clack of his teeth slamming together. Blood and spit dribbled down his face and all he could really do for that moment was give a stunned rattle. Adrian set up to take out its legs, but Skyler had already parted his throat wide open in one jagged gash of her combat knife. The Common gagged and gasped as it went down under her Hunter, dead very shortly afterwards. Adrian grumbled and looked from his bloody work on the now-corpse up at her. Smug bastard that she was, she grinned crookedly and flexed one bicep. She could have sworn he rolled his eyes at her before going back to his… snacking.

It was funny, in a way, though. For all of the infecteds' reputation as Satan's perfect murder machines, any given person with a gun or, hell, a knife, two fists, and an idea how to use them was easily better at killing people than even the special ones. She didn't exactly consider herself a thoughtful person, but there was something to be said for having the mental wherewithal to use tools and plan your next steps. If her number came up in the next five minutes, she still would have gone down having taken a good couple hundred or so of the other guys with her. She hadn't even been counting.

Adrian caught up behind her passing by a small cluster of relatively unraided artsy shops with a few grand's worth of paintings that apparently still hadn't been important enough to grab when things had gotten rough. The feeling of eyes on her got her to turn away from appreciating the art (or more accurately, making sure there wasn't also some Witch wearing a long skirt and too much patchouli about to jump out at her). Aside from having gotten his new clothes stained from neck to belly with fresh blood, he was giving her a weird kind of stare. Not inherently aggressive, more like sizing her up for something. Still fucking around, she held her arms out in mock challenge.

"Got a problem with me? I'll knock you into next week," she fronted, shifting her weight between her feet. "I'll clean your clock, I'll dust your jacket, I'll-"

Before she could think of another old-timey tough guy thing to say, he threw her off her rhythm by actually lunging at her. Good thing she was already on her toes and looking directly at him, because it startled the living hell out of her. She dropped into a low crouch in the second before he would have hit her. His claws scraped audibly on the pavement as he rolled to a stop. The time he took to recover from the failed leap was all she needed to have her knife up and at the ready.

"What the hell, kid!" she shouted at his back. "I thought we were cool! Or at least, like…"

When Adrian turned around, she was understandably surprised to see he was breathing quickly, but still simply had that contemplative look on his face. She squinted hard, until she slowly figured out what was going on here.

"You're fucking with me."

This punkass Hunter. He was testing her. For a second she was tempted to kick his ass after all. Instead, she laughed.

"Uh, yeah. I'm a certified badass. You're only figuring this out now?" Skyler brushed herself off and walked, playing it off like it was nothing aside from a little extra swagger in her step. She was aware of him staring at her back for a good solid minute until she heard the scrape of his footsteps.

Oh, she felt so fucking cool.

Leaving that awful place behind felt like freedom, and that was even more invigorating than a crisp wind up in one of his high places. Even the newness felt more exciting than frightening for once, and Adrian didn't want to look back over the swathe that they'd crossed. There was nothing but misery back there. It filled him with an urge to press forward. And the...

Her. He didn't think he'd ever seen her in such a light mood in all the time he'd been following her. Sure, she'd smiled or laughed briefly, but there had always been an edge to it. This was something different, and it made him believe she was feeling the same kind of relief he was. He'd been having a lot of that feeling of… kinship?... lately. The past hours had only reinforced it. No one mock-fought with someone that wasn't close enough to be pack without it turning violent. That couldn't be what they were; she wasn't Sister. Back in the recesses of his mind something was trying to emerge, but he fought it back. No, he was determined not to ruin a good thing while he had it by thinking too much.

He crept up closer on her heels, to which she responded by shuffling evasively on her heels, bringing semi-clenched fists up in readiness. "Ha," she laughed, expression gleaming with excitement. She looked so arrogant. Oh, he wanted to fight her so badly. It wasn't even entirely about wanting to kill her; that was definitely there, but so was the sense that this was… fun. He hummed lowly, falling back once again to watch.

The way that she met the few weak Others that realized she was passing through was fascinating. Her actions were rough and aggressive, almost Other herself, but she had something that they didn't; he didn't know what that was, but suddenly he was both certain that it was what had allowed her to best him before and determined to figure it out.

He crept around to her opposite side while she stood indecisively at the meeting of two paths, crouched close to the ground and moving quickly. Raised one arm to take a swipe at her ankles, not serious enough to attack with his claws, but with enough force to trip her. She staggered. His heart raced as she dropped on one knee, muscles tensed to knock her down and pin her beneath him. It consumed him so entirely that he failed to realize there was a hold on him until he was yanked sharply downward with her. Her weight was modest, but it was jarring enough to give her an edge. He swatted wildly, catching only air. As soon as they made it to the ground, her foot was on his belly while she stood over him. He panted, knowing she could put more pressure on his nearly-healed injury if she chose to.

She must have decided this was good enough and laughed again, taking her foot off. The rush of adrenaline still hummed in his ears, preventing him from comprehending whatever she was trying to get across. He was absolutely ready to attempt another go at her when it processed that she was beckoning.

Okay. He could do that.

This was too perfect. Skyler felt like rubbing her grimy little hands together as she swung open the door to "Soulcraft Martial Arts", which still had a taped sign on the glass advertising "Youth Jiu Jitsu Classes Mon-Fri 5-7". A quick look around determined the place was pretty barren save for a few tumble mats on the floor and full-length mirrors along the walls. After a moment of consideration she made sure to get in first to start taking the mirrors down from their hangings and turn them around. With that done, she let out a quick, "Whoo!" and bounced her butt down on one of the mats.

Adrian seemed to not even know what to do with himself. The tremor she was used to seeing in his hands had turned to full-out waving them in small circles, and one of those weird almost-purrs rattled through him. Who would have guessed he'd still be up for roughhousing after she'd stabbed the crap out of him? It was fucking fantastic. They were finally speaking the same language here.

Skyler got back to her feet, stripping down of her various weapons as she went. Before she managed to finish, she already had to swat him back when he dodged in right towards her.

"Hey. Hey. Give me a minute to enjoy the foreplay here, will you? Sheesh."

That was exactly her point, though; the revelation she was having, and in her excitement to share, she more or less forgot that her only audience was unlikely to understand a word she was saying.

"See, that's what I mean though. You guys- you, you weird mutant zombies- have surprise going for you. You're sneaky as shit. But then what do you do? You rush straight in all like 'rwaaargh'-"

An amused snort interrupted her half-assed impression. She motioned inward, the same buzz running through her as if she were inviting someone to meet her behind the track after school to settle shit.

"Come at me."

She sure as fuck didn't need to tell him twice; the words had hardly left her mouth when he growled and tensed in that telltale way that he was about to jump. Yep. That's what she thought. The second he was about to leave the ground, she ducked down to her knees and tumbled to the left. Sure enough, a heavy whump followed as he struck the mat. Once he had enough time to realize she wasn't under him, he whipped around with a frustrated snarl. Skyler was already facing him and grinning.

Stick close. Make sure he didn't get enough room to lunge at her again. She curled her knuckles into loose fists and boxed at the air between them.

"Come on," she egged, "Put 'em up."

He stared down at her hands, uncertain, growl still rattling faintly. After a beat he did halfheartedly raise his own hands, fingers curled about halfway in and thumb on the inside. That was the moment that Skyler became certain of something incredibly funny.

"You've never fucking fought someone," she concluded out loud, laughing in disbelief. "If you don't know how to throw a punch. I know it. I'm pretty sure if I turned, that's all I would remember."

She was goddamn giddy. She switched from her fighting stance to grab for one of his hands. He was unsurprisingly sketchy about this, but complied when she again took it into hers.

"No, see. You're gonna break your fingers. Like, uh…"

Alright, the claws were a problem. She had an idea what to do about that, which to be fair would have been a good idea for herself to have done a long time ago, too. Shrugging her bag off of her shoulders, she rummaged through the first aid supplies and dug out the remaining roll of bandages for makeshift hand wraps. A waste of medical supplies? Maybe, but no one was around to tell her how to live her life.

For the sake of demonstration she did up her own first, showing off her handiwork before moving on to him. While working she noticed that his fingers were weirdly cold considering his toasty core temperature and was pretty sure she'd heard Lauren mention something about that being a sign when things got serious that someone's body was focusing on keeping their vital organs chugging, which checked with the lovely shade of pallor he was wearing and his rapid pulse. Probably not fantastic. Nothing she could do about it just then, but she filed that one away in the mental drawer of things to worry about in the near future.

Instead of opening that can of worms, she curled his fingers and tucked his thumb for him, then backed off a couple steps.

"Watch," she instructed.

And he did, fixedly, up until she rocked forward on her front leg and came within a couple inches of clocking him in the face if she hadn't been aiming to miss. Like she'd expected, he dodged on a fucking dime. He snarled and went to swipe at her, staggering and turning a sour look at his own hands which by now were curled into claws rather than fists.

She shook her head and clicked her tongue, fully aware of how aggravating she was being.

"Nah, come on now. Don't you want to punch me in my smug goddamn face? You wouldn't be the first one."

Oh, he sure looked like he did. Teeth bared in a grimace, he lunged forward and took another swing at her, managing this time to keep his fingers clenched. His fine coordination seemed to be lacking though, which she'd put money on playing some part in why the infected always clawed or swung rather than trying to knock someone's lights out and holy shit she wished she'd let him try to beat her up sooner. This made so much sense to her.

"Better, better! That's what you've gotta do. You just keep doing this over-" She jabbed in front of herself again, "And over- Until you don't think about it anymore."

She couldn't tell if Adrian was panting in frustration or excitement, and it was difficult to tell given his difficulty with normal facial expressions, but her best guess was that he was enjoying himself so she kept going.

"Keep running with me, kid. Brawling's all I'm good at. Just call me TJ-sensei. We'll have you wiping the floor with people in n-"

Skyler didn't get any further when pain exploded in her right tit and blossomed through her ribcage. She crumpled to the mat on her knee, half out of shock, and as she coughed once all she could think was how lucky she was that this kid didn't know what he was doing.

He hurried to lean over her, at first looking as floored as she was, then breaking into the proudest look she'd seen on his face since they'd met. So much for concern. She moaned, collapsing the rest of the way onto the mat and raising a defeated thumbs-up.

"Oh yeah. This is gonna be good."

A/N: Hey everyone! Guess who's a year late to the party again! About the same as last time, life's got a lot of plans for me and I won't put all the details in an author's note, but I'm a Sophomore in my degree program now and am in a new state is the short of it! How's pandemic been treating everyone who's reading L4D fics in 2020? Too timely? I'm trying to do better about solidly outlining and taking care of my mental state, so hopefully future updates will be more regular. I'm glad to be back, and as always, love to hear any feedback!