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The crackle of the campfire works on him like a lullaby, and after a while Chris closes his eyes for what feels like the first time in weeks. He becomes aware of Tom’s hand resting lightly on his knee, and without really thinking he takes it in his own and squeezes. Tom squeezes back in the same absent-minded way, their ongoing, unspoken reassurance to each other: I’m still here.
“So, uh,” someone says tentatively. “What happened to you guys?”
It was nice while it lasted.
Chris opens his eyes and sees over a dozen expectant faces turned towards him. He sighs. They were bound to ask sooner or later. The first few days they were all too starstruck, too amazed by who had joined their ragtag band to even think of asking how. One boy had asked what happened--- but he was referring to Thor: The Dark World, the movie that never made it into theatres on account of the world coming to an end about a week too soon. Chris was grateful for the distraction, for the chance to talk about anything else, and he and Tom spent that first night recounting the plot of the film to a rapt audience. Turns out that everyone there was just as grateful for the distraction as he was.
It felt good. It felt safe, to lose himself in the character and forget about the rest. It was easy, too, with Tom beside him, spitting and snarling his lines with all the passion and ferocity he would bring to an actual shooting day. Like they were performing on a soundstage in London, instead of huddled around a campfire in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by an alarmed perimeter of tin cans on strings. But that’s just how Tom is--- he never does anything halfway. He brought the story back to life again, and for a little while there, Chris might have even been enjoying himself.
But that was three nights ago. And in this new world, three nights are almost a lifetime.
Tom speaks for them both.
“We were in the middle of the press tour when things started to get bad. Managed to make it out of the city before they got worse.”
Understatement of the fucking century. No one seems to know where it came from, but the one thing everybody agrees on is that it happened fast. One minute you were prepping for your next talk show appearance, the next you were racing to get out of the city before the streets were overrun.
“What about the other actors? Did you get split up?”
“We were together for a little while,” Tom continues. “But we...”
He trails away and stares into the fire. Chris clears his throat.
“I had to find my wife.”
They weren’t even that far away. Less than a one-hour flight, if the airlines hadn’t been one of the very first things to shut down. He was warned that he would never make it but he had to try, and he hadn’t even expected Tom to say I’m coming with you but he was so, so glad that he did. Jaimie threw her arms around their necks and begged them to be safe, and then they were driving away and when he looked at Tom and Tom looked back at him they were both thinking the same thing: we might never see her again.
Now they know for sure.
And of course, after a statement like that, Elsa’s absence couldn’t be more striking. I had to find my wife--- so where is she, tough guy? You went tearing off into the apocalypse armed with nothing but a baseball bat and your best friend, and you were so sure that you would find her, that everything would be okay, you’d be able to keep her safe--- and the baby--- your baby---
Someone coughs. “Did you make it?”
Tom looks at Chris. Chris can’t answer. Tom answers for him.
“We were too late.”
And that’s all he’ll say on the matter. They don’t need to know the rest. How India was already gone. How Elsa was already bitten. How Chris held her hand and wiped the sweat from her brow as the fever burned her alive from the inside out. She begged him --- please don’t let me come back, I don’t want to come back like that --- and he promised.
She died.
And then Tom was taking the hatchet from his shaking hands.
You’ve done enough.
So he stood in the hallway of the abandoned house and listened to the sound of an axe splitting a skull and then Tom came out of the bedroom with blood on his jeans and he said, don’t look, you don’t need to see that, she’s gone.
And that was when the world ended.
“That was back at the start of all this,” Tom says. “We’ve been running ever since.”
How long has it been? Weeks? Months? Chris can’t even be sure. Gotta be months, at least--- the cold weather makes him think January, though they’ve had a mercifully dry winter so far. He doesn’t want to think about what it would be like if they were all up to their knees in snow on top of everything else. Of course Tom would point out that the snow would slow down the walkers as well--- but that’s just how Tom is.
Long days. Longer nights. Hunting for gas on highways bricked over with abandoned cars, hunting for food in supermarkets already picked clean. Two is a manageable number. Two men can sleep in the back of a car. Two men can share a can of soup when that’s all there is left. And two men can keep an eye on each other, watch each other’s backs, keep each other going. Weeks, months, he doesn’t even know--- what he does know is that Tom has been by his side for every moment of it.
He realizes that Tom’s hand is still in his own. He squeezes. Tom squeezes back. I’m still here.
They sit and watch the fire burn down to embers. There’s no such thing as time any more, so you just go to sleep when you can’t stay awake for one more minute. Chris hates going to sleep. Sleep means closing his eyes. Sleep makes him vulnerable. He hopes it’ll get easier now that they’re in a big group like this, with lookouts and a perimeter and not just one of them keeping watch in the front seat while the other curls up on the floor where the backseats used to be. It has to get easier. He can’t remember the last time he allowed himself to sleep deeply enough to dream. He’s just so damn tired.
“Hey,” he murmurs, his mouth inclined towards Tom’s ear. “I think---”
Something snaps in the underbrush.
Beside him, Tom stiffens, eyes wide and alert. He heard it, too.
“Shhhh,” Chris hisses at the rest of the group, gesturing for silence.
They obey instinctively, all conversation cutting out as they turn their heads and strain their ears towards the woods around them. They haven’t had a single walker make it this far up the mountain yet--- but they all know how quickly things can change.
At the second snap Chris reaches for the baseball bat propped against his lawn chair. He never goes anywhere without it. He looks at Tom just in time to see him grimace, a quick flash of teeth.
“Hatchet’s in the car.”
He left it there because he thought they might be safe. They both did. Pipe dream. There’s no such thing as safe anymore.
Someone chances a fearful whisper.
“Maybe it was just a---”
Tin cans rattling in the darkness. Everyone’s on their feet.
“Get to the cars!”
Walkers are coming out of the trees. They never really seem all that dangerous when they’re by themselves, but when they’ve got the advantage of numbers they’re like an unstoppable tide, inevitable and all-consuming. They come pouring out of the darkness as people scream and scatter, some making a run for the cars and other just running for their lives. Chris throws an arm against Tom’s chest to herd him behind his back, then grips the baseball bat with both hands and starts swinging. Aim for the skull. Destroy the brain. Tom calls the bat Mjolnir when he’s trying to make Chris smile. That’s a funny thing to remember when you’re bashing a zombie’s face in.
“Stay with me!” he yells, and he can feel Tom’s hand between his shoulderblades, as close to him as he can get without getting in his way.
There’s so many of them. Chris keeps swinging, his arms reverberating with every impact, as all around them screams of panic are turning into screams of agony. People are getting caught. People are getting torn apart. Get to the cars--- but there are walkers there, too, walkers everywhere, and with nowhere to run they have no choice but to stand and fight. Take ‘em out. Take ‘em all out.
“Three o’clock!” Tom calls, and Chris spins to slam his bat into the zombie approaching from the right.
He’s not the only one. In the dancing light of the fire he can see that others have picked up logs and shovels, splitting as many skulls as they can in the melee. The few people with guns are making every bullet count, right between the eyes, bam, like cutting the strings of a marionette. Tom steers him by the collar of his shirt, turning him towards the walkers that get too close. Chris clips one in the jaw and sends blood and teeth spraying everywhere.
“Shit,” Tom gasps, and before Chris can stop him he’s bolting out of reach, beyond his protection.
“I said stay with me!” Chris screams, sick with panic.
And Tom comes right back, only now he’s dragging that kid, the one that wanted to know how the movie ended, like that even matters anymore. Poor little fucker must have gotten separated from his parents when the chaos broke out--- he’s red-faced and tear-streaked and Tom’s practically carrying him, but it’s one of the only true laws left in this wretched world they now inhabit: protect the children at all costs.
Chris has already failed at that task once. He won’t do it again.
“Hold on to him!” he commands, and Tom hoists the kid up so he can wrap his legs around his waist, arms around his neck and face tucked against his shoulder so he doesn’t have to see the nightmare unfolding around them.
Two more walkers down and Chris can see a clear path towards their car, parked slightly apart from the rest because they still don’t feel like they belong here yet.
“Tom!” he shouts, pointing. “The car! Get him to the car!”
“Not without you!” Tom shouts back.
But there’s no time to argue. They’ve got about fifteen seconds before that gap closes. Chris grabs Tom by the back of the neck.
“For the kid,” he begs, his voice ragged. “Please just save that fucking kid.”
And Tom must see the desperate need in his eyes, because without another word of protest he gives a curt nod and pivots on his heel, running as hard as he can in the direction of their battered CR-V. Chris wishes he could watch them make it all the way to safety, but there’s a groan behind him and he has to turn and face the monsters still staggering out of the darkness.
There’s only one way to deal with these pieces of shit and that’s one at a time, so Chris picks the nearest skull and brings the bat around with everything he’s got. Crack. One down. Plenty to go. He wades out into the thick of it and loses himself in the frenzy, in the splattered brains and falling bodies, swing-crack, swing-crack until his arms are throbbing all the way up to the shoulder. Still he keeps going. It’s not enough. It will never be enough. He’ll never be able to make it right.
And suddenly, there aren’t any more walkers to kill. Suddenly he’s looking for his next target and all he sees are the frightened, blood-splattered faces of his fellow survivors.
It’s over.
“Is that it?” someone pants. “Did we get ‘em?”
Chris is already heading for the car when the screams of panic start to be replaced by cries of grief. A lot of people made it. Some people didn’t. He sees a wife wailing over the ruined remains of her husband, his arms and most of his face torn off by the merciless dead. He won’t let himself stop. He gets all the way to the CR-V and yanks automatically on the door handle. It’s locked.
“Hey,” he says, rapping his knuckles against the glass.
He looks in through the windows and sees the kid curled up on the floor.
Alone.
Tom isn’t there.
It’s like the end of the world all over again.
Chris whirls around and scans the camp. The earth is littered with bodies and it’s so fucking dark that he can’t even begin to identify them. He calls out, his voice shaking.
“Tom!”
No answer. He takes one step away from the car, then another, his legs so stiff with dread that he can barely walk. He’s not the only person calling names into the night.
“Tom!”
It’s never been like this. He’s never had to cry out for him like this, because Tom has always been there, right there, every time he needed him.
And he needs him.
For the first time, for the first fucking time he understands how completely and utterly he needs him, because now, just now he’s realized that if he doesn’t have that man at his side then he might as well just lie down on the ground and never get up again. There’d be no point in taking one more goddamn step.
There’s a shriek of “Daddy!” as the kid comes bolting out of the car and runs straight into his father’s arms. Chris swallows back a surge of bile, trudging past the bodies of the long-dead and the recently-dead, the light of the fire making all the shadows snap and flicker like wild things. He won’t make it by himself. He can’t. He’ll never survive.
He howls until he’s red in the face.
“Thomas!”
“Chris!”
He turns around and there he is, Tom, Tom, staggering out of the woods with the bloody hatchet still clutched in his white-knuckled grip, alive, alive, alive. Chris’s arms go numb, the bat slipping from his useless fingers and rolling away in the dirt as he stumbles forward to meet him, his chest constricting with such emotion that he can hardly breathe. By the time he reaches him he’s overwhelmed, and as he buries his face in the crook of Tom’s neck he unleashes the sob that he’s been holding back for months.
“Don’t leave me,” he rasps, hands fisting in his blood-splattered shirt. “Please don’t leave me.”
Tom wraps his arms around him as he succumbs to exhausted weeping, his back heaving and shuddering as Tom whispers shhh, shhh, I’m here, I’m here until Chris’s heart is so close to breaking that he can no longer stand. He sinks to his knees, weak as a newborn kitten, and Tom sinks with him and never lets him go, not until he’s cried himself out and finally becomes still, slumped against Tom’s chest with an ear pressed over his beating heart. All around them people are attending to the dead. Chris has never felt more agonizingly, miserably alive. He feels it in every aching inch of his skin--- in every excruciating breath--- in the stark, searing kiss that Tom presses against his forehead.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises, and that’s all Chris could ever ask for.
In the morning they’ll bury their dead and burn the rest. For now they assign armed guards to patrol the perimeter, while those that are left try to get what sleep they can. Chris, trembling with fatigue, volunteers for the first shift. He’s stopped by a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“You saved my boy’s life tonight. You’ve done enough.”
You’ve done enough.
He’s too tired to cry anymore.
They wash off the blood and crawl into the nest of blankets in the back of the CR-V. It’s a cramped space, especially for two men of their stature. They usually compensate by curling up back to back, but tonight by unspoken agreement they curl up together instead, the convex of Tom’s spine nestled against the concave of Chris’s chest. Chris holds him close and listens to his breathing.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispers.
“But you didn’t,” Tom whispers back. “I’m still here.”
Chris tightens his grip on him.
“I thought we were safe. But we’ll never be safe." He swallows hard. "Sometimes I don’t know why we even try.”
Tom goes very still. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” Chris is struggling, sinking. “What kind of hope is there for us, for any of us? There’s nothing left to live for.”
And Tom turns around in his arms until they’re face to face, reaching out to press a hand forcefully over Chris’s heart.
“You have your life, Chris,” he says fiercely. “That’s a gift. Think of how many people have lost that gift. Think of Elsa.”
“No,” Chris moans.
“Her life was stolen from her,” Tom’s voice sounds thick and strained, like he’s holding back tears. “How dare you say that you would throw yours away. You have no right.”
“There’s nothing left.”
“You’re wrong. There’s a camp full of people out there. There’s a future--- maybe not a bright one, maybe not a safe one, but you can’t just give up on it. Not when so many others have lost that chance. You owe it to them to keep going.”
His hand moves to Chris’s face, his touch unbearably gentle.
“It’s a.... terrible privilege,” he murmurs, and the words remind them both of a time when the monsters they fought were only pretend.
“I need you,” Chris says, hoarse, helpless.
Tom leans in to press their foreheads together.
“I need you too.” His teeth are clenched against the pain. “That’s why you can never say that again. You can never give up, no matter what happens. You’ve got to fight. Promise me you’ll fight, Chris. Fight to the very end. Because I will.”
“I promise,” Chris manages to choke out.
Then, on pure instinct, he leans in the rest of the way to kiss him.
He just wants to be close to him. He wants to feel the breath entering his body, and oh, there it is, a sharp, surprised inhale through the nose that brushes past his skin on its way inside. Then Tom kisses back, and the heat between their mouths is the warmest Chris has felt since winter began.
They’re alive.
They’re still alive, goddamn it. Chris feels like a drowning man suddenly breaking to the surface, the air rushing into his desperate, aching lungs as his hands fumble against Tom’s back to draw him closer, closer. He hasn’t lost everything. Not yet. Not when he can still feel Tom’s mouth against his own, Tom’s hands on his face--- the same hands that took the hatchet from him in his darkest hour, when all he needed was someone to be strong for him, to catch and cradle his failing heart until he could find the will to rise again.
It’s been a long, cold wait.
He’s ready now.
They kiss hungrily, artlessly, their bodies pressed together in the constricted space of their new bed. There is no romance here, but there is love--- not the kind that gives you butterflies in your stomach but the kind that sets a fire in your veins, deep and painful and profound, the kind of love that keeps your heart beating when everything else tells it to stop. Chris would do anything to keep him safe. He would lie, he would steal, he would kill the living if he had to--- and he knows that Tom would do the same.
When the world ends, you either end with it or build a new one. Sometimes you only need a population of two.
“Together,” Tom breathes, fingers tangled in Chris’s hair. “We’ll make it together.”
“Until the bitter end,” Chris vows, then manages a weak chuckle. “Which, in this case, will almost certainly be literal.”
Tom makes a choked sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob, and Chris kisses him again to seal the bargain.
Together until the end.
In the morning they’ll bury their dead and burn the rest. They won’t look back. The only way to go now is forward. The only law is to stay alive. And the only home they’ll ever need again is here, right here, in each other’s arms. When your worst enemy is the walking dead, the best revenge isn’t living well--- it’s simply living.
Bring it on, apocalypse.
_________end.