Chapter Text
Andrew
It’s hard to avoid the freeways but Andrew tries as he can. They drive all night. Aaron, his wife and Nicky sleep next to the girls while Neil quietly guides Andrew through the darkness, the navigation app on his phone casting eerie blue shadows on his face and giving Neil directions down country roads.
Neil insists that they stop at every gas station they pass, even if they look abandoned or have signs advertising that they are out of gas. Andrew sinks his fingernails into the wheel of the car and grits his teeth until they ache, eyes alert on Neil’s figure through the glass at each stop, but he can’t have his back without leaving his nieces sleeping in the car.
Sometimes, Neil comes back with his arms full of beef jerky and bottles of water, sometimes he fills cans with gas and jams them into the back of the car. He pays for supplies when an attendant is in the shop, he steals when it’s been abandoned. The farther they get away from Chicago, the more people they find, nervous but not panicking, far enough away from the outbreak to not fully understand what is limping towards them.
Finally, Kaitlyn, who flat out refuses to piss on the side of the road like the rest of them, demands that she be let out at the next stop, immediately backed up by Aaron and Nicky. Neil’s face goes cold as he turns to face them. “Not a word,” he says softly. “Get in and get out. Do not talk to anyone if you can avoid it, and do not, under any circ*mstances, tell anyone what happened in Chicago, do you understand?”
Nicky, predictably, protests immediately. “They deserve a chance to escape, Neil,” he snaps hotly.
Neil’s hand twitches, and for a moment, Andrew is sure that he’s going to hit Nicky, but Neil ruthlessly suppresses that instinct with a clench of his fist. “What if they don’t have a car?” he asks instead, his mouth far deadlier than his hands. “What if they would prefer our supplies? What if they have a gun, and they decide they would rather take our sh*t? Are you willing to kill them yourself, or would you rather Andrew do it? f*ck it, I guess we should let them take the car with the girls still inside, they might be worth something, even if money isn’t.”
“That’s enough,” Aaron snaps, leaning around one of the baby seats to glare at Neil. “You don’t have to be such a dick.”
“Clearly,” Neil says coldly. “I do. Strangers are not our friends. The best thing they can do for us is die instead of us. This is not the Farmer’s Market; there is no room for politeness or common f*cking decency. Get in, get out and keep your f*cking mouths shut, are we clear?”
“Crystal,” Nicky says, his voice so dead and raw that even Andrew blinks.
“Come on,” Kaitlyn says quietly, looking at her sleeping children one more time before she opens the car door.
The others follow her more slowly, studiously avoiding Neil’s gaze. Neil watches them leave before slumping down in his seat, putting his face in his hands. Andrew keeps an eye on his family through the dirty glass of the convenience store and waits to see if Neil will speak.
Andrew isn’t surprised by Neil’s growing coldness or the callous way he treats strangers. Unlike every other one of the original foxes, and possibly Neil himself, he has never forgotten the dark side of Neil.
Neil and Andrew are alike in many ways, even when they don’t appear to be.
“Am I being monstrous?” Neil finally asks, turning to Andrew with such vulnerability on his face that Andrew has to reach over and stroke his cheek.
Andrew considers the question. His first response is to say no, just as firmly and resolutely as Neil had back in college, but even then Neil had never excused Andrew’s actions despite understanding them. “You are keeping them alive in a world that they are not suited for. Until you are no longer able to do so without putting your hands on them, I will stand by your side.”
The tension leaves Neil’s shoulders like helium from a pierced balloon. “Thank you,” he sighs, leaning into Andrew’s hand on his cheek for a brief moment before he checks the chamber of one of the handguns he’s been hoarding. His fingers are nimble on the mechanisms, his mind far away. “Lock the door behind me,” he reminds Andrew, as if Andrew is an idiot - there are babies in the car - before he pockets the gun and hops out of the car, following Andrew’s family into the gas station to make sure no one so much as sneezes near them.
–
Kaitlyn is the one who comes up with the idea to search for AirBnBs in Southern Ohio as the sun sets. “Not to rent,” she snaps in the tone that she used to use on classmates who thought that her cheerleading skirt meant that she was stupid or available to their grubby little fingers. “How many people do you think are going on vacation right now?”
Andrew doesn’t say so, but it's not a bad idea. Any population center is out of the question, and despite Neil’s obvious preference to drive through the night sleeping in shifts, an abandoned and stocked house in the wilderness is their best bet.
“Do you think you’re the only one to have that idea?” Neil grumbles, but the argument is half hearted at best so Andrew ignores him and leaves Nicky to search out houses north of Cincinnati.
“Here,” Nicky says after a few moments, handing Aaron the phone as if he knows what he was looking for. Aaron eyes it briefly before handing it off to Neil with a grunt. Andrew keeps his eyes mostly on the road as Neil gnaws on his lip and swipes through the photos.
“There’s a barn with a renovated loft,” he finally says. “The house is too big of a target, but we can pull the ladder up and be inaccessible.”
Unless someone sets it on fire, Andrew thinks, but he doesn’t say. Speaking the words won’t have any impact on the likelihood of that happening, but voicing the possibility will only frighten Aaron and Kaitlyn.
And Nicky, if he can rouse himself from his grief and anger to feel anything else.
No one replies to Neil, but he doesn’t wait before tapping a few buttons and clicking the phone into the holder on the dashboard. Andrew smoothly follows the directions and shifts lanes, grateful that Neil has already set it to avoid highways. It will take them far out of the way, but it’s worth it to avoid people as much as possible.
A heavy silence hangs over the car as they drive, pulling off the road several times to let armored vehicles or police cars scream past. Andrew doesn’t know where they are going or what they think they’ll be able to do when they get there, but anyone north of them is another body between this car and the horde, and he’ll take it.
The babies watch Cocomelon on their dying tablets and the dreadful, cheerful music is disconcerting in the gray early evening that stretches every shadow into a handful of grasping fingers reaching for the car.
The rest of the car remains silent until Andrew follows the directions on the glowing screen in front of him onto a dark street and darker driveway. Andrew turns his headlights off immediately and slows to a crawl, despite barely being able to see a few feet ahead of the car in the dark.
The schedule on Kaitlyn’s app says that this property is vacant, but that’s no reason to take unnecessary risks. Andrew parks on the grass, as close to the cover of the trees as he can manage.
As soon as he turns the car off, he grits his teeth. There is no way to protect everyone and check the barn behind the empty looking house at the same time. There is only one of him, and as much as he knows that Neil can not only take care of himself, but also Andrew’s people, he would rather peel off his fingernails than have Neil in that position. Again.
But there are babies in the car. Babies that need protection more than Neil does. And Neil is looking at him with a co*cked eyebrow and a look in his eye that warns Andrew that he understands Andrew’s internal battle, but that he will only tolerate it for so long. Neil is not Aaron, Neil is not Kevin. Neil only allows Andrew to protect him when doing so does not put Andrew at risk.
As much as Andrew hates that, he cannot hate Neil for it. And he cannot override it without walking all over one of the only boundaries Neil has ever held with Andrew. “Come back,” he says instead of what he really wants to.
Neil’s smile is a ghost of itself. “Always.”
He’s gone as fast as he always is, slipping away like a shadow in the vaguest direction of the house and the barn behind him. “Get behind the wheel,” Andrew orders the back of the car, not particularly caring who obeys, only that someone does. As soon as Kaitlyn slips from the car, Andrew draws his blades and lets her take his place. “Lock the doors behind me.”
Andrew waits for the click of the locks engaging and paces around the car, all of his senses focused outwards, waiting for Neil, or something else. The air is dark and cold, and smells fresh the way it does in the woods, rot and pine and dirt.
The wind brings the faintest hint of smoke, tainted by rubber, and Andrew begins to worry about forest fires, but that is not an immediate problem, nor one he can fight with his knives, so he ignores it. For now.
Andrew circles the car one more time before he allows his eyes to drift where they really want to go, passed the front porch of the silent house and further back to the barn. The front door is cracked, indicating that Neil has made it inside.
Andrew fingers his blades, a nervous tick he doesn’t like allowing himself, but it's better than smoking cigarettes and better than going in after Neil and endangering the rest of his family.
Andrew is so busy watching Neil, he almost doesn’t notice the twitching of the drapes at the front of the house, but even with how distracted he is, he doesn’t miss the sound of a sliding door when someone is trying to be quiet.
Andrew’s head snaps around, his blades shifting in his hands until he is ready to use them. The car behind him is silent, there is gas in the tank and keys in the ignition, but Andrew still can’t leave them undefended. Neil is in the barn, with something between them and likely no idea that they are not alone.
Two shadowy forms creep around the side of the house, splitting up when they spot the car. In the limited glow of the moon, Andrew doesn’t miss the baseball bat in one of the men’s hands or the large butcher’s knife in the other’s.
Andrew’s world gets very small and very simple very quickly. He cannot reach Neil, and these men cannot take the car or touch a single person inside of it.
Andrew steps into the middle of the path, a knife in each hand. If he were Neil, he would give them a chance to run, a choice to avoid bloodshed. If he were Renee, he would attempt to make an arrangement to split the safe space.
But Andrew is not Neil and he is not Renee. For him, violence is preventative. He hits first, hard enough that he doesn’t have to worry about retaliation. He doesn’t feel bad about it, especially when the men look at him, and then at each other and laugh.
Andrew has always been shorter than most men he encounters, but years of professional exy and living with sports obsessed maniacs have given him a strength that is undeniable. He may be short, but he is broad, and he is strong, and it has been a long time since anyone has looked at him and thought easy prey.
He throws his first knife. It’s not something he’s particularly good at, but he doesn’t have to be. He is strong and he has good aim and the knife is heavy enough to hurt no matter which way it lands. The solid grip of the knife hits the man in the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble, and slices his arm as it falls to the earth.
The man swears, drawing his friends' attention long enough that Andrew has time to tackle him to the ground, taking him to the dirt with Andrew’s other knife sticking out of his shoulder. The man, larger than Andrew by roughly a foot, wrenches away with a cry and the handle of the blade is ripped from Andrew’s grasp.
Swearing, Andrew wraps his hands around the man’s neck and begins to squeeze. Something warm and stinging drips into his eye, but he can’t tell if it’s sweat or blood from the scuffle.
The man gurgles, doing his damndest to buck Andrew off like he is a bull in a rodeo. Andrew grits his teeth and holds on, throwing his weight forward and down into his windpipe. The man’s hands fasten around his arms, fingers digging into the thick fabric of his armbands.
In his distraction, Andrew loses sight of the first man, the one he had grazed with the thrown knife. The distinctive sound of a gun co*cking is enough to make him freeze and look up. “Let him go,” the first man says, gesturing at his friend with the gun. He’s pale and glaring, and his hand trembles around the gun. Andrew notices with growing unease that his finger is on the trigger.
Andrew has no back up in him. He has never learned how to step back from a fight, especially when the consequences of doing so will fall on his family as well. He doesn’t loosen his hold on the man beneath him, he can’t make his fingers obey even to save his own life. It doesn’t take very long to strangle a man, and this one is almost dead. If Andrew lets go now, it will still be two against one, and Andrew doubts anyone in the car behind him can face those odds.
It might kill him, but Andrew will risk a gunshot wound if it means he has time to kill at least one of his assailants.
The man with the gun must read the determination in Andrew’s face, because his eyes widen. “What is wrong with you, you little freak?” His voice is hard-edged, nudging up against hysteria, and Andrew can tell the moment he decides to pull the trigger.
Beneath him, the man stops clawing at Andrew’s hands and goes very, very still. Even his pulse stops fluttering under Andrew’s fingers. As soon as Andrew is sure the guy is dead, he throws himself to the side, but even as he’s moving he knows he’s too slow. There is a deafening bang, once, twice. Andrew is not Neil, he can’t outrun a bullet.
He doesn’t have to. By the time he looks up, the other man is on the ground, swearing as a much smaller man in orange sticks one hand in his hair and yanks and the other between his legs to twist.
Neil fights dirty, to win. He is silent and furious and ultimately, deadly. He tosses handfuls of the man's bloody hair into his face, leans over and rips a mouthful of flesh from his shoulder, and then, when the man screams and goes down, he takes the man’s gun from his hand, breaking a finger as he does so.
His eyes are cold as ice when he puts it to the man’s head and fires the gun.
The shot is still ringing in Andrew’s ears when he pulls Neil off the man, rolling him over and patting him down to make sure that he isn’t hurt. The gun in his hand isn’t even an afterthought, and neither are the shouting people behind them, and the slamming of car doors. “Neil,” Andrew says, holding his face until his eyes lose that broken glass look. “Abram.”
“Andrew,” Neil says, dropping the gun and pressing his shaking hand to Andrew’s face. “He was going to shoot you. Why didn’t you move?”
This is not one of those things that any amount of conversation will end in agreement, so Andrew doesn’t bother. “Are you hurt?” he asks instead, because a pat down is never enough with Neil, who wouldn’t flinch even if he was near death.
“I’m fine,” he says dismissively. “There’s no one else here.” His eyes drift over to the cooling bodies, and then back to the gun. He had killed that man very, very coldly, and Andrew sees that realization hit him in the way he blanches.
“What the f*ck, guys, what the f*ck!” Nicky shrieks, falling to his knees besides them. For the moment, he seems to forget that he hates Andrew, and tangles his shaking fingers around each other so he doesn’t reach out.
“They’re dead,” Aaron says quietly from where he kneels between the corpses. He wipes his fingers clean on one of the dead men’s shirts with a little frown of disgust, before his eyes narrow on Neil. Or, more specifically, the blood on his mouth. “Why did you bite him?” And then, quieter. “Andrew, can you come over here for a moment?”
Andrew glares at his brother. “Neil isn’t a zombie, Aaron.”
He doesn’t even consider it for even a moment. Neil’s mouth has always been his most dangerous weapon, it’s no surprise that he uses it just as readily when it comes to physical violence.
“Not a zombie, Aaron,” Neil agrees, baring his teeth at Aaron in an ugly grimace that kindles a spark in Andrew’s blood. “Make yourself useful and check your brother’s wounds. Nicky? Can you toss me a bottle of water? My mouth tastes terrible.”
Nicky hands one over, pale beneath his tan but the smallest smile tucked in the corner of his mouth.
It’s the first one Andrew has seen from his cousin since he turned the car away from the airport, and he fixes it in his steel trap memory just in case Nicky decides to hate him once again come morning.
–
After the bodies are beheaded and dragged far enough from the house that Neil is satisfied, and Andrew has cleared the house enough that he feels comfortable allowing his nieces inside of it, they take a bath.
Despite Aaron’s protests, Andrew claims the master suite for himself and Neil, and puts Nicky in charge of dinner while Kaitlyn puts her children to bed.
Andrew wastes very little time stripping Neil’s clothing from his body, though his desire has very little to do with sex. Neil seems equally eager, his eyes devouring each stretch of skin Andrew bares, darkening slightly at each bruise.
“You were going to let him shoot you,” Neil mumbles, ducking his head as he leans over the steaming tub to turn off the water.
“Let is a strong word,” Andrew says mildly, more concerned with Neil’s headspace than either of their physical conditions. “Have you brushed your teeth?”
Neil makes a face, though he doesn’t look particularly bothered by his recent choices. “I wondered if I could still kill someone,” he finally muses, stepping unselfconsciously into the bathtub and sitting down with a sigh in the hot water. “I’m glad that I still can.”
Andrew tugs his armbands off one at a time and abandons them over the back of the toilet. Neil has a complicated relationship with what he calls “going soft.” Andrew knows that he loves being seen, loves being known by the few people he has ever allowed in. But the part of him that still loves his mother, that still understands that in another life he might have been a Moriyama weapon instead of an asset, regrets his humanity, views it as a weakness.
It is a new world, one with teeth, and Andrew finds himself relieved, if not surprised, that Neil is still as deadly as he has ever been. “Me too,” Andrew agrees quietly, following Neil into the bath, slipping behind him and pulling his comforting weight back against his chest.
He thinks about how little effort it took to wrap his hands around a strangers throat and squeeze, as easy as killing Tilda was. Easier, perhaps, because it would have fewer consequences with his family. Neil twists around, a teasing smile on his lips. “You or me?”
“Both of us,” Andrew says softly as Neil nestles his head under Andrew’s chin with a contented little sigh. Andrew digs his chin into Neil’s hair, aching with his need for this man, with his need to keep him safe.
If they want to survive, if they want their family to survive, both of them will likely kill again, and frequently. “But we’re okay,” Neil whispers, his voice nearly lost beneath the rush of water.
“We’re okay,” Andrew agrees, pulling him closer.
