Thunder.
Lightning.
The moaning cries of the infected.
The pounding of the rain.
All of these things combined to paint a dismal landscape, and illuminated against the sky with each bright flash of light were two figures on the roof of the hospital.
Fire.
Weeping.
The sound of the helicopter blades shattering windows as the helicopter itself plummeted to the ground, carrying with it the infected pilot and two colleagues that had stood on the roof only moments before.
An uttered cry of disbelief and the very human girl turned her gun to aim at the inhuman man who had just saved her life. His tongue had only just retracted after he had used it to sweep her from the falling helicopter, and from here she could see the deep amber of his eyes returning.
"You're infected." She choked out, hands shaking so badly she could hardly keep her aim. "Why didn't you tell me you're infected?!"
"You never asked." was his simple, rasped reply, and as he took a step closer, she fired a warning shot at him, missing his body but getting her point across. "I'm no different now than I was before you knew."
Her shaking hands lowered the gun ever so slightly, and both of them stood in the rain in silence, both of them thankful that the water washed away the tears on their faces.
"We need to go." He said at last, holding out one hand. "We need to leave here. Find a safe house. Pull ourselves together."
She stared at him for a moment after he finished speaking, and he expected to see the familiar look of hatred and disgust in her eyes, that same look that came to all of them when they realized what he was.
Instead, her face filled with pity as she gazed across at him.
Pity.
She pitied him.
Why?
…
…
…
Three days earlier…
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…
It was under very odd circumstances that the two of them met in the first place. Ruby had been with two other survivors, Tyler and Sonja, a heated battle taking place in a building across town from the hospital, and when she was injured the other two stuffed her in a closet for safe keeping while they fought off the horde.
The closet was stifling, the smell of death permeating it and it was far too dark to see inside.
Ruby had been shocked beyond all belief when a soft, rasping voice reached her, coming from behind her in the close quarters. When she turned, she met a pair of amber eyes as they were illuminated by a lighter flicking to life.
"Hey. This is my closet. Get your own."
"What?" She asked in disbelief, brows knitting. "What the hell? Why are you in here?"
"Because there are zombies out there. You didn't notice?" The man asked, tilting his head to the side. Something soft brushed her shoulder, and it took her a moment to realize it was his hair, long and straight and black.
"Of course I did." Ruby tensed as the hand not holding the lighter took hold of her arm, a grimace crossing her face when he leaned closer to inspect the wound. She could hear his breathing change, almost as if he were sniffing her, and a soft noise escaped his throat.
"Are you immune?" He asked a few seconds later, Ruby's heart beginning to pound a little harder.
"I have been so far. Is it bad?"
"Well, yeah. You were bitten by a zombie, isn't it always bad?" He had a hint of laughter in his voice. "I guess since we're sharing this closet, I should introduce myself."
Ruby stared up at him as the lighter flicked out, surprised to see that his eyes were still visible in the darkness, almost like they were glowing. She wrote it off as spots in her eyes from the lighter, glancing over her shoulder at the door.
The sounds of battle from outside were beginning to quiet down, the gunfire becoming more sporadic. Ruby jumped a little when the man's hot breath washed over the side of her face and neck as he leaned closer, her cheeks blazing.
"The name's Tori." He whispered in his rasping voice.
"Ruby." She replied softly, a soft laugh sending his breath cascading over her again. It smelled faintly of cigarettes.
"Pretty name." Tori whispered again, the door opening suddenly and flooding the little closet with light. Tori immediately turned his face away from it, reaching down to pick up a hat off a nearby rack and placing it on his head.
"What the?" Tyler blinked a few times in surprise. "Where'd he come from?"
"I was here first." Tori replied, looking over at the boy with a slight smile. "Looks like we had the same brilliant idea."
"Yeah, sure." Tyler glanced Tori over, Ruby finding herself surprisingly relieved that the boy didn't ask questions about Tori's odd appearance. And his appearance was very odd indeed. His skin was rather pale, his eyes a rich amber under the light and as he spoke and smiled, she could see sharply pointed teeth in his mouth.
The feeling of his warmth and closeness lingered on her skin, clinging in an uncomfortable way that made her cheeks hot and kept her thoughts distracted as introductions were passed around and they travelled together from the corpse riddled room.
Tori appeared to be armed with an axe, his insistence that it was a better weapon for him than a gun raising eyebrows, Tyler remarking that he would have to prove it to them the next time they got into a scrap. Ruby found herself watching the tall stranger as they walked, noting how he was at once laid back and very alert, how he walked with a swagger but at the same time a purpose.
When they stopped in the next safe room, Tori offered to take first watch, citing that he wasn't very tired and didn't mind keeping an eye on his new 'pack.' Sonja was a little apprehensive about this, but the other two agreed that Tori hadn't given them any reason to doubt him or distrust him, so they hunkered down to get some sleep while Tori hovered near the door.
Tori kept coughing during the night, painful, wet coughs, causing Ruby to have some difficulty staying asleep. When she sat up, Tori looked over his shoulder at her and raised an eyebrow.
"You should rest while you can." He whispered, Ruby shaking her head and slipping out of her sleeping bag.
"I'm not really tired." She murmured in reply, moving to stand with him at the door. Tori coughed again, the rattling breath he drew in after making her bite her lip. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I just have a bad habit. I'm a smoker." Tori smiled down at her. "I ran out of cigarettes recently, but the smoke gets into leather really good. Hence the smell. I'm sorry."
"None of us smell very good, I'm sure you've noticed. We're hoping to be able to catch long enough of a break that we'll be able to at least bathe when we reach the hospital." Ruby rubbed her arms slightly. It was starting to get cold out there, with the rain falling more steadily every day. She wasn't looking forward to another long trek in this weather, but if they didn't keep moving, eventually something would come along that could get through the red steel doors.
She was so lost in thought, daydreaming of one of the huge Tanks coming in through the door and killing them that she didn't notice Tori moving until a pleasant weight dropped over her shoulders. Blinking, Ruby looked over to see him standing in a t-shirt and black jeans, his heavy leather coat now draped about her.
Tori didn't say anything, or even look at her, his amber eyes scanning the area just outside the door of the safe room. As Ruby turned her face away, cheeks hot, a small smile touched his lips.
…
Tori was surprised how quickly it blossomed. He was surprised how swiftly it spread through him and how thoroughly it took over his thoughts. Up till this point, the survivors he had travelled with had been little better than toys.
Perhaps it was the unusual circumstances under which they met. Perhaps it was her quiet manner, her lovely name or her pretty blue eyes. Perhaps it was simply fate or another step in Darwin's great plan for him on the road to higher evolution.
Whatever it was, in the few days after he met Ruby, he found himself changing. A part of him even began to believe that she would forgive him for what he was if the time ever came to make it known to her.
Part of him knew there was something much different about her.
His antics kept the others in a constant state of frustration, but Ruby brushed off all his attempts to unnerve her with a roll of her eyes and a wave of her hand. She refused to put up with any of his bullshit, and he admired her that much more for it.
Sonja was by far the easiest to provoke, Tyler usually the one doing the shouting when Tori took it one step too far. They threatened to leave him behind and actually did lock him out of the safe room on the second night, once more failing to ask questions when he put up no protest and showed no concern.
Not long after the others were asleep, Ruby woke to keep him company, sitting on one side of the door while he sat on the other. Their backs were separated only by the red steel, and if he concentrated hard enough, he could almost hear her heart beating…
She asked unobtrusive questions, seemed genuinely interested in getting to know him, and the chats that they shared on those long nights were one of the only reasons he didn't leave them all there while they were sleeping to fend for themselves.
He didn't feel the need to infect them, to leave them with unpleasant memories of him. He didn't feel the need to kill them, either, and he wondered if perhaps Ruby was the reason for it. Tori didn't want to upset her… killing her friends would upset her.
… part of my soul had sickened when my body did…
She mentioned her hesitation in killing the infected at first, the fact that they were people that might one day be able to be cured, but she fully understood it was an eat or be eaten world, quite literally. Tori listened politely when she spoke, careful not to say too much when it was his turn to do so.
"Hey Tori?" Ruby whispered through the door, Tori making a soft noise in reply. "What are you going to do when you get out of here? Do you have someone to go back home to? Some place?"
"I hadn't really thought about it." Tori rasped, not precisely telling the truth. He had thought on it extensively, he had a plan… he just didn't know if they would let him go through with it or if there would ever be a time he could go through with it. "As for going home to some place or someone… I didn't have anyone before. Well, I had a family, but they were infected from the looks of the house when I went back to it."
"I'm sorry." Ruby said, Tori chuckling again. He heard her voice shift so that it came from higher up, realizing she was now standing at the window in the door. "I don't know what happened to my family. It was all so chaotic. We were at the train station when it started, waiting to pick up some relatives who were coming to stay with us. There was a lot of fire, a lot of screaming, people running around like crazy… I lost them in the thick of it."
Tori looked up at her and didn't say anything for a long moment, then he stood himself, removing his hat and turning it over a few times in his hands.
"I hope they're still out there, alive." He whispered after a time. "I gotta take a walk, clear my head. Tell the others not to wait up when they're awake."
Shoving his hat back on his head, Tori walked into the darkness surrounding the safe room. Behind him, Ruby watched silently, her pretty blue eyes stinging.
Several times, Tori contemplated turning around, wrenching that damn door open and sweeping her off her feet and away into the night with him, but there was a bigger part of him that told him space was just what they both needed right now. He wasn't far enough away to not hear her small voice bleat his name…
And for some reason, it broke his heart to ignore it.
Somewhere along the line here, he had lost himself. Somewhere between the girl he had left to wither alone, infected and locked in a safe room with the body of the boy she had been travelling with and the girl Aster who frightened him more than words could say, Tori had lost himself.
He was no longer laughing, was no longer pushing as hard as he once did. He was no longer finding the little people running and screaming to be hilarious.
Feeling this way for Ruby only made him feel worse for all he had done in the past, all he had laughed about. Distancing himself from her was better for them both.
And if he avoided mirrors and reflective surfaces for now, he wouldn't have to see that the wet streaks on his face had nothing to do with the rain pouring down outside.
…
Ruby's dreams that night when she finally managed to get back to sleep were strange, twisted. First she was Christine and Tori her masked Phantom, the two of them drifting along an underground river that was on fire.
Then she was walking along a deserted corridor as Tori's voice rasped Shakespeare, his words echoing off the bare walls.
Then a poem began to recite itself again and again in her head, the words morbid and having little meaning to her. When she woke, it was in a cold sweat, with Tyler and Sonja looking at her in concern.
"Where's Tori?" Sonja ventured to ask when they had calmed her down a bit. "Did he leave?"
"Why wouldn't he have left? You locked him out!" Ruby protested, dragging her fingers through her slightly wavy brown hair. "I would have left, too."
"You heard what he was saying!" Sonja replied, rather indignant. "I wasn't going to let him stay in here and potentially do all those things he was threatening to to me."
"I'm pretty sure he was kidding." Tyler murmured, looking towards the door. " Damn. I was hoping he would stick around despite us making him sit outside. I hope he realizes we would have let him in if there was a swarm."
"He probably knew that. He just needed air."
Ruby could feel her cheeks growing hot again, and she stood to pick up her guns without saying another word. Behind her back, Tyler and Sonja exchanged glances.
They headed back out into the rain shortly after the conversation, Ruby letting out a miserable sound and closing her eyes.
"I'll never be dry again." Tyler groaned behind her. "I'm going to have nightmares about wet socks for the rest of my freaking life."
"If you don't shut up and focus, the rest of your life might come a lot quicker than you'd like for it to." Sonja muttered, leading the way down a rather cramped alley. "C'mon."
It wasn't too much further to reach Mercy Hospital, but Ruby found herself thanking the powers that be they made it one piece. After three days of travelling with a fourth member to their little party, fighting with only three was much harder.
Tyler didn't make matters better by suggesting they only stop briefly in the safe room. They were so close to the roof now, so close to rescue… Ruby was exhausted and hoping to prolong their travel in case Tori was still around and waiting to catch up to them.
The thought that he might already be at the roof himself changed her mind, and she agreed to push on after a short rest in the battered looking safe room on the unfinished level of the hospital. Supplies replenished and breath caught, legs rested and nerves still sharp, Ruby was the first to exit the safe room.
There was an uneasy feeling in her stomach as they ascended the first ladder on their way to the roof. The uneasy feeling wasn't explained by the few infected they ran into, nor was it explained by the narrow miss they had with the Tank on the level above them.
It wasn't explained by the disturbing lack of bodies or living infected on the roof, or the smears of blood on the ground, a body torn in half in the room with the radio, the wrecked landing pad or the roar of the infected once the helicopter pilot they contacted said he was on his way.
It might have been the sheer lack of Tori. Or perhaps the fact that the pilot admitted he had an 'incident' and might run a little late in their rescue. It could have been the ill timed boom from one of the Boomers that rushed them along with the horde, obscuring their vision of the Hunter that chose to pounce on Tyler.
When the helicopter did arrive, their mad dash to the helipad helped by a well aimed pipebomb, Ruby was the first to reach it. She helped Sonja into the chopper, both of them assisting Tyler seeing as he was so terribly injured.
Just as she was about to climb in, however, the pilot began to turn.
There was no more hope of rescue here, no more hope that this chopper that had braved the rain and the storm would be able to get them out of here alive. Sonja was in the cockpit now, trying to pull the pilot loose as the helicopter listed dangerously to the left.
Ruby had been about to climb into it as well, desperate to escape the hordes that were beginning to swarm the helipad, and the scream that escaped her throat when something wrapped around her arm and jerked it back, dragging her off her feet and away from the helicopter was drowned in the scream that escaped the machine as it began to fall.
The horde paid no more attention to the screaming girl, instead tearing towards and OFF OF the side of the building in their desperation to reach the machine making so much noise.
Strong hands grasped Ruby's arms, and she didn't dare open her eyes even after she was placed gently on her feet again somewhere across the roof, away from the lingering horde. The fireball that shot up into the sky was hot, the light strong enough for her to see through her eyelids.
Those pretty blue eyes opened, and slowly she turned to face the person who had rescued her from the falling helicopter and her inevitable death…
…
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Present Day
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"I don't want your pity." Tori's hiss made Ruby's eyes widen again, her gun lowering the rest of the way and her cheeks flushing in the dim light. "I don't need it!"
"I don't-"
"Things that should have remained sleeping are probably now awake and we need to get to safety." Tori stifled a cough behind one hand, the one he wasn't holding out to her, his amber eyes still fixed on her.
Ruby stared back at him, fixed to the spot, her heart hammering in her chest. It made sense that he was infected, his odd appearance and poor health and all, and he had saved her life… Going with him seemed a little too much like she was personally enabling the rest of the infected, allowing them to exist.
Yes, they were sick people. Yes, there might someday be a cure, but until they found one, these infected people would continue attempting to kill them. Kill or be killed… survival of the fittest.
Even as these thoughts crossed her mind, Ruby began to understand now why Tori seemed to revere Darwin like a god. This was indeed Darwin's ultimate test.
Her gun clattered to the ground as she dropped it, her feet carrying her across the space that separated her from Tori without any further hesitation and she threw herself into his arms. The gasp that escaped him almost made her pull back, afraid that she had hurt him, but then his strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her soft body close.
Tori's fingers swept the wet hair beside her ear away, leaning closer as he pulled her a little more tightly to him. "I need you to trust me."
"I want to." Ruby breathed back.
"Then do it. And keep in mind that being infected has it's advantages." As he whispered the last word, he began running towards the side of the building, lifting her easily in his arms so she had no choice but to go with him. Eyes widening once more, Ruby let out a scream and hid her face in his shoulder, clinging to him for dear life, but she didn't plummet as she had expected to. Instead, she found herself swinging through the air, forward and down, Tori landing hard on the next nearest, next lowest building top beside the hospital.
As soon as his feet were back on solid ground, he set her down, offering her a wicked smile before rushing to kill the few infected that lingered here. Ruby found herself staring at him, this time without shame. She found herself admiring him, forcing herself not to care about what he was…
It was who he was that she loved in the first place.
...
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...
Author's Note!!
Yaaaaaaaay! This is a request from Chibi, the author of The Misadventures of a Curious Hunter and creator of the lovable Ark among others! ^.^ I hope you enjoy! And I will be posting up a playlist to to join the other that I created sometime soon, once there are more tracks on it.