SOTC: Cardiac Arrest — Bad Suns
• high voltage when we kiss •
"I want to leave with you," she breathed.
The words hung between them, cold and heavy, the pendulum of a clock. The scent of old books, the breaths taken and released over each page. The moment blossomed between them like the multicolored bruise on Carl's jawline. A flower, the leftover dregs of blood seeping into the forest dirt. And all the wounds, and all the scars, and all the gore on April's small, pale hands.
"You say that like you've been waiting to tell me."
"I have." April swilled the saliva that hadn't yet evaporated from her mouth. She felt deadweight on her abdomen.
Carl—she looked at him. The fresh, raw pink of his lips, the acne across the bridge of his nose like small red stars. He was hued in a color palette of roses and cold blues.
She wanted things, she wanted to do things. It was spiderwebbing out of her body.
"Do you... Do you think I would be able to stay with you?"
He swallowed. "My dad will freak out. He probably wants your head on a pike."
"Fair."
"Your dad will get you back, and kill some of my friends while he's there."
"...right."
"But, damn." His gaze drifted past her. "Damn, I wish..."
"I want to exist without consequences." April squeezed her eyes shut. "It's so unrealistic. I just want to start from square one again."
Carl drew her into a hug. She rested her chin on his shoulder. "There's so much... damage, I guess. I've done so much damage. I've damaged myself."
Carl pressed his lips to her skin. "You're beautiful."
She twitched. "I don't deserve this."
"Shh." He kissed her cheek, leaving a blossom of heat. "Stop being a dick to yourself."
She cracked a surprised smile. "I don't deserve you."
"Yes, you do."
April rolled her eyes. She withdrew, pecking Carl's nose and laughing a bit. "Just... I wish I wasn't such a piece of shit."
"And I wish I still had my eye. What can you do."
She snorted.
"Sorry! Sorry. I didn't mean that."
"It's okay."
April swept a few rogue pieces of hair from her face. Stared at Carl, who seemed to be brimming with worry, his skin sallow.
She truly didn't deserve him. It was a fact that burned against her skin. If it weren't for this apocalypse, he would have found so much better.
He would have been so much happier. He never deserved to be reduced to the beautiful, wounded creature that stood before her right now.
And to think that he once wanted to blow his brains out? It was a disgrace to fate. He deserved the entire world in his hands.
"We'll find a way," he reassured her. "That's how humans work, we gain a basis of survival and decide how we live from there."
She exhaled. "Poetic."
He looked back up at her, laughing quietly. "My inner monologue is a thousand fucking similes. I feel like I'm going insane."
♛ ♛ ♛ ♛ ♛
The universe was at a tipping point. Tri-beam scales sliding and falling.
A pest had worked its way into the garden. Here it poised on the precipice of a first bite. The lightning bolt over a power line. The hundreds of houses and rooms and lightbulbs on the verge of darkness.
And here it comes, striking, knifing a tree in half. Branches splitting and singeing and the stink of charred wood entering the foggy nighttime ambience, the electrocution of every animal in its boughs, and the slumped form of a human, waiting, dying on the cold, wet rungs of its roots.
There was a knock at the door.
April reluctantly excused herself from their moment, and crawled off the bed. She did not know that this would be their final stroke of freedom for a long, long time.
She viewed the incriminating evidence spread out all over the floor, blueprints and floor plans and journals and keys in a jumbled heap. Absentmindedly, she swept it all under her bed with her foot, then turned to the door.
The air dropped a degree.
There was an official Savior guard beyond the doorway. He had a burliness to his features, thick brown curly hair and a rifle slung across his chest. As he spoke, several other people passed him, all going in the same direction. What was going on...?
"Ma'am," the guard droned boredly. "There's a surprise meeting in the common room. Negan recommends all be there by six o'clock. We hope to see you there."
The guard bowed his head and began to move on to the next resident. April watched him in shocked silence for a few moments before regaining her composure.
"Wait, what the fuck? What is this for?"
The guard turned to face her. With a weary sigh, he drawled: "I'm afraid I know as much as you do, ma'am. This is quite short notice."
April exhaled, nodding. "Got it. Thank you."
She ducked back into her room to the expectant eyes of Carl, who seemed to be just as confused as she was.
"I mean," she started. "I'm sure it's not related to us. Maybe some moron tried to steal food and got a public punishment, hard to know."
She was reassuring more herself than him.
"You're right," said Carl, sounding unbelieving. "We don't need to freak out."
Before leaving, April swept the evidence farther under her bed, far out of sight.
As they left, the door closed behind them, becoming a wall at their backs. There would be no return.
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A/N: hurricane irma can go suck a big one what a bitch
QOTD: H E Y N O W
AOTD: (you're an all star)
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Word Count: 1007
Created 9-9-17
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DEVILS ♛ C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗
Fanfiction[ c o m p l e t e d ] "She looked like a goddess. The kind that sends cities to their knees in fear. The kind that is never in picture books. The kind that twists people." - - - - - April is a devil. A demon. And above all, she is a...
