apocalypsehowcomm | Zombie "fun"times (closed)

Entry tags:

Zombie "fun"times (closed)

Who:Cortana, Winter, and Steve
When: 15th of August
Where: The beach
Summary: Cortana decides to go investigate the mysterious bodies, bringing some friends along just in case.
Warnings: Violence, gore, mutilated bodies, zombies, possibilities for attempted drownings, trauma

Decaying dolls washing up from the ocean? ...Strange, but not enough to cause her to feel a need to investigate herself, especially given that there were a number of people already doing so.

...She'd rather not have to experience simulated drowning again, thank you very much.

Unfortunately misshapen still moving bodies that might have once been human at one point are much more concerning. News of an unmoving but severely mutilated body appearing the next night only increases her worries, and when it turns out that the corpses washing up are those of missing people ...she has to check. It doesn't sound like the Flood, but she has to see for herself. Has to be sure of the exact nature of this new threat.

She goes out to examine the beach (and any possible bodies) the very next day.

It would be stupid to go alone, of course. Naturally, she asked some friends. If those friends happen to be Winter, her combat instructor, and Steve, who is built like a slightly shorter Spartan, well, that's just being prepared for a possible fight.

"Thanks guys." She'll smile at them as they near the beach, then pick up the pace for those last few yards of distance before everything comes into view, before stopping so abruptly she nearly slips on the sand.

"That's ...more bodies than I was led to expect." She swallows. "A lot more." The reports suggested there'd only be one or maybe two, but this...

Her gaze sweeps over the scene. Fifteen visible at a glance, likely to be more. Just how many people have been taken?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They're safe. The bodies are being handled.

She waits, as Winter puts away his guns. Her own is already holstered. The movement of the ocean is a distraction, and to avoid it she glances at Steve.

He's safe too.

They all are.

For now.

Cortana's eyes wander back to the ocean. She drags her shoe through the sand. It hits something soft. Her body freezes. It's only a clump of seaweed, and yet, for a moment, she sees pustulent steaming flesh.

She says nothing.

Steve sees that freeze, that moment that passes over her, and he's seen that kind of thing before. (He's felt that kind of thing before, though he likes to believe he's gotten over it. It just happens.)

But it makes him more sure of himself when he says, "Yeah. Let's head back."

He's doing his best not to look back to the water. ADI has got it covered. He'd seen them set up the perimeter. They have more than three people. They'll be fine.

The bodies on the beach were never soldiers. At least, not the kind he keeps imagining.

"I think we did all right out there," he adds, maybe sensing that Cortana, at least, could use the affirmation. "It's too bad you can't eat, Cortana. I'd say you could use a hot cup of coffee."

"Or chocolate," Winter agrees, looking Cortana over out of the corner of his eye. He saw her freeze; he knows that tension. He has no idea what to do about it. "Though. The smell is nice, too, even if you can't drink anything."

She remains unresponsive, software stuck trying to process unseen traumas for several moments before she seems to snap out of it, looking at Winter.

"I-I'd like to get out of here, yes. Please." She says and blinks slowly, staring at him. She brought him here with her, it could have been the Flood, she could have lost him and it would have been her fault...

She looks at Steve. "I..." Him too-neither of them are wearing armor or an environmental suit. "Halsey always drank coffee." Halsey who lied to her. She'd thought about Halsey a lot during her imprisonment.

Back to Winter again. She almost attempts to hug him-has only just enough presence of mind to remember he doesn't like being touched-she hadn't wanted that filthy rotting thing to touch her-

"I can smell it." The first thing she'd smelled was the blended scents of the forest in the memory of its victims...

She's shaking.

Yeah, Steve's really worried now. He steps up beside Cortana, almost puts a hand at the small of her back, then hesitates -

And then does it, anyway. She can push him away if she wants, he won't keep touching her if she doesn't want it, but sometimes it can help, when you're having a bad moment. (That's how he tries to think of it: A bad moment. Sometimes your brain just does what it wants.)

"Well, maybe we'll make both. I like one, and Winter likes the other, and they smell pretty good together. It'll be something new." But also something a little familiar, if she knows the smell of coffee.

He glances over at Winter, before he puts gentle pressure on Cortana's back. If she doesn't elbow him in the stomach, maybe she'll get the hint that the sooner they get moving, the sooner they can be away from this.

Winter nods a little at the glance. Touch is generally okay with Cortana. So long as no one's pulling her hair, but he can't see Steve doing that.

Oh, that's something he could do. Maybe once they're a little further away from the beach. "Cortana," he says. "We'll all go together. Okay?"

Cortana is startled and glances at Steve but yeah she's pretty okay with touch.

It helps that both Steve and Winter register as the opposite of threatening to her: it was a super soldier who saved her, and it was his neural link where she found refuge from a world transformed into a confusing nightmare.

She glances between the two of them before nodding. "Okay." She takes a few stumbling steps. Walking is actually fairly new to her - much of her life she had no physical existence at all - and as discombobulated as she is, her movements are as wobbly as those of a newborn foal.

Steve will definitely not pull her hair, so they should be all good here. Which means he keeps that hand at the small of her back, starting to move when she moves - and then upgrading it to an arm around her waist, actually, as she starts to stumble.

"Hey, c'mon. I know we wanna get out of here, but we can take it slow." He isn't sure whether she's stumbling because the shock is finally hitting her, or for some other reason. "Unless this is you not saying out loud that you want a piggyback ride, because I will absolutely give you one if you want."

He glances at Winter, but doesn't know if he knows any more about how Cortana's handling things than Steve does. But they've both seen people manage stressful situations just fine - until they can't anymore. "Sorry today turned out so lousy," he adds, maybe to them both.

Winter kind of hovers on her other side. His expressions still aren't quite clear most of the time, but there's a furrow between his brows that definitely suggests worry. "You should definitely spring for the ride," he says. "Since he's offering, and all. And it was kind of lousy. After a lousy day you should take care of yourself."

He says it like it's a rule he memorized.

She snorts. Opens her mouth to say I'll be fine, closes it again as Winter begins to speak.

"Okay." She finally says. Then she nods.

Trying to walk right now will just slow them all down.

"Okay," Steve says; his voice is gentle, genial, like it's something fun, not something necessary. It's supposed to be, anyway.

He stops and pulls his hand away so he can turn around and crouch down a little, offering Cortana his back. "Hop on. Winter'll spot you." At least, he trusts he will, without actually having to ask.

Oh, nice, maybe his advice actually worked. And will help. Winter looks briefly pleased before settling back into a pleasant sort of neutral.

Watching Cortana climb on, he frowns a bit, a flitter of memory trying to surface. "I used to do that," he says. "Did I used to do that?" He thinks he remembers smaller bodies against his back. He doesn't know who.

She climbs on, and seems to calm a bit. It's really not the same, but she can't help but think of the old days when she had to be carried around.

Except now she's not just a voice in someone's head.

She blinks. Looks at Winter. Tries to smile. "You did, huh?" It's a weird mental image.

Edited 2022-10-29 02:27 (UTC)

Steve makes sure she's comfortable and secure, sliding hands under her knees before he straightens a bit again, glancing at Winter.

"He did," he confirms, unable to keep from smiling a little. "His sisters, mostly. Me, once or twice. Complaining the whole way - I was, I mean."

Steve had not liked being carried, but getting beaten up pretty badly had necessitated it a time or two.

"I used to be a lot smaller," he points out, for Cortana's benefit. "And Winter has always been good at looking out for people."

"Have I?" He sounds pleased at that, maybe a little. The looking out for people, not the sisters thing. He's going to slide right past that, the way he normally does. "Good. Some of you need looking out for." He prods Steve's shoulder gently, under Cortana's arm.

Once she no longer has to supoort herself, she relaxes... and starts to shake, clinging to Steve a little tighter than is perhaps necessary.

Still, she smiles as she listens to them talk. "That's honestly hard to imagine - you being smaller, that is. He -" She takes a moment to point a thumb at Winter. "-still does a good job of looking after people."

One thing of note: Cortana, even now that she wears clothes, is light enough overall that Steve could probably have carried her even before the serum.

Steve can feel her trembling; he certainly doesn't mind her clinging, he cares more about the fact that he can't exactly do much more to comfort her at the moment, since his arms are occupied with holding her up. But maybe a distraction will help. So, he opts to keep it up: "Oh, yeah - I was a lot smaller. And skinny as a rail. I think I came up to about his chin," he says, motioning with his own chin over at Winter.

He tries to glance at Cortana a bit, craning his neck with a grin. "My big dumb nose was still the same size, though."

Winter watches hopefully. Distraction is good. She's smiling even if she's shaking. That's a good sign, isn't it? He's not sure if there's anything he can do to help, or not.

Also, a bit of memory. "Hands were the same size, too. And. You had trouble breathing," he says, sounding uncertain if he's right.

Cortana snorts, holding on to Steve tight and turning to look at Winter as he talks about his memories.

It's nice, having friends.

She blinks, and her eyes begin to water.

"Yeah, I had asthma," Steve confirms. "Pretty bad, too. Didn't help that everybody used to smoke like chimneys. Cure for everything was cigarettes." Of course, there had been asthma cigarettes, which had... sort of worked, sometimes. But they were different than the run-of-the-mill ones everyone else smoked. Those didn't help.

He glances over his shoulder as best he can at Cortana, and - oh. Oh, no. "Hey, Winter," he murmurs, sidling over closer, "Left front pocket of my pants."

There's a handkerchief neatly folded in there. Call him an old man all you like, but it might come in handy right about now.

Winter gives him a skeptical look, hesitates a beat, then dips his fingers in there tentatively to pull out... oh. Okay, that makes sense. He side-steps a little and then offers it to Cortana. "I remember smoking," he realizes, without commenting on her expression. "Did I smoke a lot?"

She takes the handkerchief and dabs at her eyes, sniffling slightly. "Sorry." She doesn't elaborate, choosing instead to listen to their continuing conversation.

She grimaces. "I still don't understand how Humans fell for that." The thing about cigarettes being good for you, that is. They're awful. And yet, even 500 years in the future, people were still smoking. Not that she'd begrudge them destroying their lungs with a bad habit when cancer was largely a thing of the past and they were all being slowly wiped out by aliens anyway. At Winter's question she looks at him, then at Steve, curiously.

Huh. He didn't strike her as the smoking type.

There's no need for an apology, but for Steve, the thing he always wanted was for people not to make a big deal out of things. So he hums, softly, but while obviously he cares, he doesn't want to focus on Cortana's discomfort and make it any worse.

So he laughs, instead, because, "Humans are pretty gullible. And everyone said it was good for you. Plus, it just becomes habit. You must've noticed by now, we're definitely creatures of habit."

But then he glances back to Winter, smiling. "Eh. As much as anybody else. You were usually real good about not doing it too much around me, or sitting out on the fire escape when you did. Sometimes you tried chewing gum instead."

Winter gives Cortana's hair a gentle pet before stepping back and out of Steve's personal space again. "Played poker for. Cigarette rations?" he says, trying to tease out the context. "You usually won if you played? Because nobody believed that the paragon of America would ever cheat. Or even bluff worth a damn."

He still can't place when this was. There's no goddamn context, just a certainty that it happened, a feeling of cards in his hands and a cigarette in his mouth.

It's the right call, at least for the moment - Cortana quickly goes back to being distracted by the conversation between them.

"Paragon of America, huh?"

Zombie "fun"times (closed)

no subject

no subject

no subject

CW: flashbacks to extreme trauma

cortana ;;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)