Legion

crematorium "Goddamn it!"

Of course. The one and only time he decided - on a slightly more than impulsive whim - to wear the white (which meant, unfortunately, that it was also nearly impossible to clean) suit, his actions conflicted horribly with someone else's sad excuse for plans. He should've seen it coming. Then again, it wasn't too often that the general public did much planning for illness of an apocalyptic nature -- they had the fancy, acronym-labeled organizations looking out for them and their overall health... so why even bother?

Why even bother? Did the fact that he'd been running, running for miles that he'd long ago lost count of, from things he wasn't even sure had the ability to exist make worrying worth his effort? To be honest, he wasn't quite sure he knew what to focus his energy on -- should he be more worried about creating a specific strategy or should he be more worried about why he hadn't already turned into one of those creeps? -- none of it really made sense to him. Sure, he'd have liked to know what was going on, but when it came down to it -- when it really came down to what was most important, and at this point he'd figured that survival qualified as one of those things -- he couldn't be bothered to give half a damn about scientific evidence.

His legs and lungs both burned, but he was far beyond content to continue, never pausing to consider that readjusting his pace might bring him an additional moment or two of comfort. He didn't want to be comfortable, because the moment he felt at ease with his surroundings was the moment he forgot he was in a crisis. And with the way things - zombies, Infected, motherfucking freaks... whatever they were, it wasn't like Nick cared about them enough to be 'politically correct' in their favour - had a tendency to jump out from all kinds of different angles, he couldn't afford to be oblivious to anything.

By the time night fell, however, he knew he had to find shelter. No matter how confident he was in his ability to keep on keepin' on, there was no way he would allow himself to stumble around - completely vulnerable - in the dark. It wasn't that he was afraid... necessarily... it just wasn't a good idea. But finding shelter that met his standards was a completely different story. In his mind, there was no reason he shouldn't be able to find a five star hotel with his name plastered all over it (of course, that may have been a bit of an exaggeration, as he would have been just as open to the idea of an abandoned home that still had running water).

Nick didn't have the patience to continually enter houses and search through them for possible infected, so he settled for what had been closest at the time, circling the house to assess the situation at hand. All the lower-level windows were boarded up, and both the front and back doors appeared to be blocked (he hadn't investigated that any further than attempting to open them). While in the back yard, however, he'd spotted a second floor window that appeared to be propped open, and just underneath it was a rickety bit of latticework. It didn't quite reach the window, and had probably only been meant to be used as a guide for... ivy, or some sort of plant that apparently hadn't been introduced to the dirt just yet. Whatever the reason for its being there, Nick could be sure it made sense in some way he didn't care to understand; he was just interested in using it to his advantage before it broke. Luckily, he was able to claw his way in through the window, probably dirtying his suit all that much more (because really, who actually took the time to clean that sort of stuff) before turning around to close and lock the blasted thing.

It wasn't long before he began searching through the rest of the house. He was determined to get his night's rest, and that certainly wouldn't happen until he knew he was the only one under that particular roof.

l4dzoey The day was beginning to wear on Zoey. The hot sun beating down on her all day had exhausted her and getting grabbed by one of those fucking smokers mid afternoon had been the last straw. Normally her reflexes were near perfect, it was the one thing that allowed her to remain alive in a world full of the dead. But today she hadn't been lucky. Unless you counted some jerk strolling along and taking out the smoker with the sniper rifle he'd stolen from her. Jerk wouldn't give it back either. Who needed the dead when you had the living? They might not be trying to eat you but they'd sure as hell try to screw you.

It wasn't even dark yet when Zoey crawled inside of the house, tired and hungry. A quick sweep had revealed the location of two zombies in the master bedroom which Zoey dispatched quickly. It seemed almost a lifetime ago when she had felt guilty for killing them. They were people still, right? Now she felt nothing as she pulled the trigger and sent bullets into their dead skulls.

With the zombies taken care of she had sat down in the middle of the bed which was still clean thankfully, and peeled open the can of peaches she had stolen from a nearby kitchen. Once she had eaten them she planned to more thoroughly search the home for supplies.

She must have fallen asleep before she'd gotten the chance. At least, that was the only assumption she could come up with when she came to hours later, curled up on that same bed in the dark. She was shaking and she wasn't sure if it was the nightmare or...

Okay, those were definitely footsteps. Zoey knew she would have to put aside her own quickly crumbling psychology for a moment to take care of the intruder. Dead or living, Zoey wasn't sure she would have a problem taking out either if the situation called for it.

No, not dead. The footsteps were too deliberate and even. The dead just tended to shuffle unless they spotted or heard you and then they came running towards the dinner bell. These were heavy specific footsteps, the kind that the living made.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath as she gathered her wits and her guns. Holding a handgun tightly in one hand she tiptoed to the top of the stairs and hid around the corner. She could feel her heart, a hammer pounding away in her chest as she held her breath. The footsteps were getting closer and closer.

When the large figure stepped around the corner, Zoey drew her pistol and stuck the barrel of it right into his back.

"Sorry, friend. This house is taken," she said in a low voice.

crematorium He'd only been inside long enough for the last slivers of daylight to vanish from the sky; minuscule shadows that had previously occupied only portions of the house's corners grew and mingled until it was no longer possible to distinguish between resident shadows and visiting darkness. While not in an entirely relaxed state, having found a break from the challenges of the outside world gave him an excuse to move at a much more casual speed. Perhaps that was why he'd opted to make a bee line for the lower-level of the house after he'd succeeded in climbing in through the window. He was able to find various things in the kitchen, all of which had the potential to be of use should he decide to come back and gather them later on, and was even surprised to find that the water still ran (though for how long, he couldn't say exactly).

By the time he'd finished his initial once-over of the first floor, he'd headed back upstairs in hopes that he could investigate the remaining rooms -- a relatively no-nonsense sort of procedure -- and put the last of his energy into getting himself cleaned up. After heading down the hall and finding absolutely nothing in the two rooms, Nick turned around and prepared to discover the same in what was left. He passed by the staircase, however,

"Sorry, friend. This house is taken,"

and found himself in the company of... a friend, according to the introduction he'd been provided with.

"Some fucking homeowner you are, leaving windows wide open at this hour," despite the gun pressed - rather firmly, he might point out - against his back, he still managed to sneak in a snort. Though there really wasn't any reason to find much of anything amusing in a situation like this, Nick had more or less run out of options. He was tired, uncomfortable and getting extremely antsy knowing that he probably didn't have to deal with such utter nonsense... but it all doubled back to him being too tired to act fast enough to do anything about it. "Look," he started, using an entirely different tone - he sounded annoyed, somewhat 'huffy'... perhaps even whiny. "Just cut the crap and fuck off, I don't have time for this."

l4dzoey Shit.

How could she be so fucking careless? The minute this jerk left she planned to give herself hell over forgetting something stupid like securing her own damn safe house. But for right now she'd have to put off being angry with herself. She was too busy being angry at the intruder. Even if it was her own fault that he was in here. It was funny but after the world went to hell in a handbasket? It really screwed with your trust in people.

"Neither do I which is why I'm going to ask you one last time - politely even - to please get the fuck out," she smiled at his back wryly as she slowly eased the pressure of the firearm away from him. Her grip was still firm on the handgun as she allowed him the freedom to now move.

The sound of something, perhaps many somethings from outside caught her attention for the briefest of moments. She still had her gun trained on the stranger but now she was more concerned about what was outside. The shadows across the wall danced dangerously, darker than they used to be because of the lack of electricity on the street.

Quickly she snapped her attention back to the stranger. She was being entirely too careless today and it stopped now.

"Leave," she demanded.

crematorium "Oh, no problem! I'll show myself out if you don't mind," he had offered a laugh just then, but it was soft and sounded somewhat forced - meant as a means of accentuating their current environment, if nothing else. "But since I had to lock up after you, I don't see how you'll ever remember to move all the shit back in front of the door if I leave."

There were several different ways Nick could have approached the dilemma, and it was likely that most of the options available to him had little to no hostility involved. But if he could just prove to his 'friend' that his presence was a plus -- at least long enough to distract them from whatever it was that had been convincing them otherwise -- he just might be able to save himself from spending the night outside. After all, he knew what was out there just as well as she did! He wasn't deaf - he had to spend each day (and each night) listening to the exact same sounds as her, and at the current moment, he wasn't looking forward to waking up to them in the morning.

Still, the threat didn't stop him from turning to face her. The thought that he'd basically been ambushed by a little girl didn't sit well with Nick; he didn't have to take shit from kids... kids with guns, though? He winced inwardly upon realising how much brutally worse day-time television -- shows like Maury and Jerry Springer, mostly -- could be. "We each found this house fair and square, Cupcake, and I think it'd be in our better interest if you just took your finger off the fucking trigger," he eyed her for a moment, though for the sake of sanity, he generally kept her handgun in his line of sight.

"If there's anything else you wanna say, you better say it now, because I'm not coming out of that bathroom until I get this suit clean." Nick knew it wouldn't happen, at least not without the help of a professional dry-cleaning service, but he figured it was worth a try.

l4dzoey Cupcake? Oh, hell no. She knew these macho assholes. It was one of the things that had made it so easy for her to survive so far. Everyone underestimated a girl. Well, she was no cupcake. Not unless he wanted his frosting on the tip of her foot up his ass.

"You mean in your best interest," she smiled meanly at him as her finger tightened over the trigger. Only for a second and only hard enough to feel the spring beneath it. Not hard enough to discharge a bullet into his smug face. Damn conscience.

"That suit's ugly anyway," she said sarcastically as she put the safety back on her pistol and lowered it so that her new roommate could disappear into the bathroom to powder his nose.

While he was in the bathroom, she immediately set about to do a sweep of the house. She'd already gone zombie hunting but since she had apparently done a suck job on locking up she figured a second look couldn't hurt. Mostly she wanted supplies but she also checked every single window and door. She'd be damned if anybody else was going to crash her party. Her house. Hers.

He had better not get any wise ideas either because she was loaded to the teeth with weapons and ammo. Not to mention the machete she had hardly let go of since she'd found it in some poor dead schmuck's basement.

Heading into the kitchen she smiled when she found a jar of peanut butter in the cabinet. "Score," she said. Dinner was going to be a lot better tasting tonight even if it was just the peanut butter alone.

crematorium "Yeah, whatever," the words were mumbled as he turned again, this time to walk away from her and into one of the only rooms he hadn't yet cleared - it simply had to be a bathroom, considering he'd failed to encounter any in his searching so far. He'd been just about ready to close the door when the sound of her voice interrupted his thoughts, so rather than brush her off as something unimportant he stuck his head through the space between the door and its frame and addressed her calmly. "No shit it's ugly. Did you, by any chance, happen to see what comes out of those guys when you shoot at them? Fuckers ruin everything!" Nick disappeared behind the door shortly after that, not caring to give her the satisfaction of replying or having any sort of last words. Rather, he set about his intentions of ridding his suit of its filth.

---

He was in the bathroom for a total of two and a half hours, most of the time spent on his suit - and shoes! - which were apparently destined to remain stained in one way or another. But once he was satisfied that he'd at least disinfected the material to his liking, he had to rinse it. Nick had no idea how long it'd take for his ensemble to dry, but he figured it'd be slightly better than soaking wet if he let it sit overnight; after showering thouroughly, however, he was faced with a dilemma... a fashion-emergency of sorts. That little red backpack he'd been toting around with him? It wasn't exactly stuffed with spare clothes. But when he stuck his head out of the bathroom and snuck down the hall to the master bedroom (that was where most of the clothes would be, right?), clad only in a towel, he was pleased to find the room unoccupied... save, of course, the corpses. But it didn't take much to ignore them.

Unfortunately, as Nick soon discovered, whoever had called their safe-house 'home' prior to the infection had been stuck in a sort of perpetual fashion emergency. The man wasn't much of a dresser and the woman didn't appear to have a very feminine figure... and though it pained him incredibly to come to such a conclusion, Nick ultimately decided that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world (as that title was currently held by the outdoors) to settle for a pair of (pink, eugh) pajama pants and some sort of nondescript t-shirt (which he'd hurriedly turned inside-out). Just for the night. Despite the clothing chaos, he didn't let that stop him from heading down the stairs and into the kitchen. He'd been doing some small-scale gathering earlier when he'd been interrupted by the urge to check the house for easy access points... now that he knew the place was secure, he might as well continue his previous looting.

If his new companion didn't have anything to say about it first.

l4dzoey "It's a god damn shame that there's no more electricity," Zoey mused, mostly to herself but also to Nick who had joined her downstairs. "These people had a sick old horror movie collection. Check it out," she beckoned him unsurprised when he didn't approach as she scanned the shelves of DVDs. Zoey herself had seen all of these movies so many times she could probably quote them all to him right now if that idea interested either one of them.

When she turned around to look at her new roommate she immediately burst into a fit of laughter. "What are you wearing? That makes your ugly suit look good. Wow. I didn't think that was possible," she admitted through a string of more uncontrollable laughter. Her new "friend" didn't seem so impressed but that was his problem, now wasn't it?

"And if you're thinking about looting the house?" she asked him as she patted the now filled pillowcase next to him and smiled. "I'd think again. I'm pretty sure I cleared out everything. I did leave a jar of peanut butter for you though. Everyone's gotta eat, right?"

She smirked at him meanly. She had the feeling from the way he'd talked to her earlier that he just thought she was a stupid kid. Well... she wasn't. She was eighteen and that was legally an adult. She could buy porn and lottery tickets and cigarettes. Everything but booze basically. But did that really matter since the world had gone to hell? She could just take what she wanted now. Not that booze interested her too much.

"Anyway, it was my place first, fair and square. At least you got your suit cleaned off, right?"

crematorium Had he been four years old - or alone - it might have been tempting to cry. But it'd been his own decision to venture back downstairs where he could be seen in his 'new' clothing, and the fact that his companion [for the night] happened to be just as amused as he'd forgotten to be was nobody's fault but his. "Oh, fucking shut it, would you? Take a look at what you're wearing. I'm not laughing at you, am I?" Nick understood that after trading his suit for a t-shirt that was too small and pajama pants that were significantly over-sized he wasn't quite as intimidating as he may have had the ability to be, but the fact that this kid seriously thought she could stumble into a house, fall asleep and take whatever had been set out for her was starting to piss him off.

"What? What?! You can't--" he trailed off and spun around so as to avoid looking at her, hands clenched tightly into fists by then. This was exactly what she wanted, and Nick knew as much... it just seemed harder and harder to avoid the traps she scattered around, regardless of how well he prepared for them. After inhaling sharply he turned to face her, looking to the pillowcase she'd patted only moments ago. "Well, whatever you found in the kitchen is mine," he pointed out, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. It was annoying to think that if he wanted to get anywhere with this girl - whatever her name was - he'd have to stay calm and address her properly... well, he'd have to stay calm, at least. "I started going through that shit before you decided it was time to play cowboys and indians in the hallway."

Nick took a step forward and reached for the pillowcase. He didn't think he was asking her to do anything unreasonable, really, he just wanted the things he'd said aside for himself! He didn't have any more ammunition; she'd threatened him with what sounded like an entire army of her own, so of course it was in his nature to be greedy. He wanted something to hoard, to look after, to take care of. To collect. "I cleaned out the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. You're gonna want in on some of that, aren't you?"

l4dzoey "Hey!" she exclaimed when he reached for the pillowcase. Immediately, she snatched it away from him and clutched it tightly at her chest. It was hers. She liked these guns, they were shiny and good for killing those dead sons of bitches out there. No, she was definitely holding onto these. He'd had to pry them out of her cold dead fingers. Yep.

She pouted a little bit when she realized he'd stolen all of the medical supplies from the bathroom. Bastard! She wondered if he had any shampoo in there too. She'd been trying to wash slime out of her hair for days now. It was gross.

"Fine," she finally relented, albeit very reluctantly. Moreso because she didn't want to have to share with him than she didn't want to share in general. Not only did she trust just about nobody these days but he seemed especially like a dick to her. Maybe it was the expensive suit or maybe it was the way he'd addressed her as Cupcake. Either way, she didn't like him. Didn't macho jerks like him always die in horror movies? That's right and the hot badass chick always survives.

Her grip loosened just enough for him to take the pillowcase from her. "Don't take all my shit!" she warned him in a heated tone. "And I want whatever you got upstairs. I need pills. Do you have any?" she asked him impatiently.

crematorium "Yeah, yeah, none of your shit - I got it. Don't worry," he impatiently waved her off, snatching the bag up and away from her once it was offered. He didn't hesitate to familiarise himself with the gathered goods, as stressful as the situation may have been, and after a minute or so digging through the pillowcase and its contents, he finally came to a halt. Nick had occasionally stopped during his inspection to pick something specific out, such as a book of matches or a pair of kitchen shears -- all in all, there weren't very many items 'of his' that Zoey had gathered up. Looking her over suspiciously, he took a roll of tape he hadn't originally been interested in and handed the pillowcase back.

"I've got pills," he'd had yet to fix his hair, so every now and then, he'd shake his head just slightly to remove the wandering strands from invading his line of sight. So many annoyances. "And I'll give you half of what I got - med supplies included - if you let me take a look at your ammunition." It may have sounded like a fair trade, and it very well may have been, but fairness was the last thing Nick was looking out for.

l4dzoey She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. She didn't know him, and she damn sure didn't like him. But he was here and he had supplies that she needed which meant she had better share. Besides, sharing was better than waking up to a knife at her throat in the middle of the night, right?

"Fine," she said again, this time with a bit more attitude than the last. She supposed she had more than enough ammunition to share, even with a douche bag like him. Especially if he was going to give her some pills which was really what she needed. She had a headache from her encounters earlier and some pills would hit the spot right about now and maybe help her sleep to boot.

"Ammo's upstairs," she told him as she turned and headed for the stairs. She'd hidden it as if it were precious and these days it was actually precious. Leading the way up the stairs, she turned back to look at him for a brief second. "My name's Zoey by the way. Do you have a name or should I just call you Pinky?"

She smirked a little bit since he couldn't see her face. His pajamas were ridiculous. Frankly, she thought he should have kept the suit on but he hadn't asked her opinion.

crematorium "No. It's Nick," he corrected, not really caring to react in a way that required the sacrifice of energy he could put to better use some other way. He understood where she was coming from, however, and had he been in her position (or just not in his body at that particular moment), it was likely that he'd have taken just as much pleasure in mocking himself as she had. "And I'd be more than happy to take these off," he started, lifting a hand to motion to the 'ridiculous' pajamas. He - or his hand, really - finally settled on the hem of the t-shirt, which he tugged on with a slight hint of discomfort, eventually giving up in his efforts once it was made apparent that despite his multiple attempts to prevent it from happening, the shirt wouldn't stop riding up.

Nick never finished the mini-speech he'd seemed interested in starting just moments ago. Rather, he allowed the thought to slip away just as smoothly as they'd trailed up the stairs. Within seconds of climbing the last step and moving a series of feet down the hall, he had a strange feeling that this awkward calm wasn't destined to last; they were, after all, moving toward the same - and only - master bedroom. He'd left his suit in the bathroom to dry, but most everything else he'd had with him had been carried to the bedroom once he'd set about emptying out the medicine cabinet. Being that Zoey had hidden her supply of ammo, he hadn't even thought to guess that she'd been sleeping in the room only hours before. In all honesty, though, this whole situation was really starting to be more of a burden than a benefit; he couldn't remember why he'd been so adamant about staying the night in the first house he came upon.

"Don't even say it!" Nick suddenly blurted, glaring not directly at Zoey, but at the wall just to the left of her head. "I am not moving everything out of here just so you can sleep like some kind of princess. I don't trust you. As soon as you wake up in the morning you're going to leave whether I'm awake or not, which means you'll either leave with or without as much of my stuff as you can," as he continued his rant, he shifted his gaze so that it rested on her face - he wasn't talking just to hear his own voice... he expected Zoey to hear him out, seriously or otherwise. "We're both sleeping in here. Tomorrow morning we'll divide our supplies and leave at the same time."

l4dzoey "Oh, like I trust you?!" she exclaimed back in his direction as she set her hands on her hips in mock surprise. He didn't trust her? That was hilarious because she didn't trust him. Not by a long shot. He was probably going to steal all of her stuff when she was sleeping, that was assuming he wasn't after something else. And oh, he was going to be surprised with a swift kick to the nuts if he was.

However, she considered his proposal and realized somewhat reluctantly that it made sense. Either one of them could totally screw the other one. In the figurative sense anyway. And while Zoey was a bit offended that he had such a poor opinion of her, she understood why because it was every man for himself or herself out there. Nick was just looking out for himself the way she was looking out for herself.

"If you try anything I'm going to cut your heart out," she said, her voice strangely light for such a dark topic. "And you get to sleep on the floor." With that she shoved his things down onto the floor so that she could claim the bed for herself. In the morning, they could split up whatever had been found in the house and go their separate ways. And next time she'd make damn sure to lock up after herself.

She wasn't showing him where the ammo was hidden until morning and then they could fight over who was getting what. Until then, they at least had a place to hide until morning.

"You heading to the hospital too? I heard there's still evacs there taking people to safety," she finally said after a minute. Maybe it was a stupid hope but she had it anyway. There had to be safety somewhere, right?

crematorium "Bitch..." he muttered, moving to collect his recently scattered belongings, perfectly content to just pretend she wasn't in the room for the rest of the night if it meant that he'd sleep better. Of course, he couldn't remember the last time he'd had to sleep on the floor, and the fact that he had no way of knowing what state the carpet was in wasn't exactly reassuring. It didn't take him long to tear the comforter away from the bed that Zoey had all to herself -- with the amount of blankets left, the missing outer layer wouldn't make that much of a difference -- paired with one of the many pillows that he'd stolen from the head of the bed, he would make do.

By the time he'd found a reasonably sanitary spot on the floor and managed to get himself situated for the night, Nick realised that Zoey was speaking to him. It would've been the perfect opportunity to sneak in a comment or two to get back at her for everything she'd said about his suit, for everything she'd said about what he'd had to wear in its place, for all the trouble she'd given him and for anything he'd forgotten in between... but somehow, it was just easier to let it all slide - for this once - and pay more attention to the fact that he was being addressed for typical conversation. He was hesitant about speaking up at first, and that was very apparent in his voice, but his apprehension wasn't specifically related to the 'new' aspect of their discussion.

"The hospital? Yeah," regardless, Nick shrugged and leaned back until his weight was distributed evenly between his palms - though eventually he transferred the responsibility of maintaining that particular level of support to his elbows - and allowed his body to sink down against the floor. "Sure, I guess." As far as safety had been concerned, well, it was definitely something he hadn't looked into. Up until Zoey had mentioned it, Nick hadn't even been aware of the fact that the hospital had been a possible location for evacuation. "I mean, what other options do we have at this point?"