#1745 wds; can u believe it

[whythinktoomuch]

iv. to be as good as dead

(pt. i)  (pt. ii)  (pt. iii) 

tw: gore & death (but only of zombies :D)

Kara’s awareness gradually slips out of the syrupy depths of sleep, the low rumbles of Lena and Alex’s conversation casually filtering into her ears. She starts to stir, jerking fully awake only when she accidentally elbows Lena right in the ribs. 

“Oh, shoot, sorry,” Kara says hastily, as Lena clutches at her side with a wheeze. “Oops. I, yeah, sorry.” 

Kara inches over in a futile attempt to provide Lena with some more space, but her bed was never really meant to accommodate more than one person at a time.

“It’s fine,” Lena grumbles. “I actually prefer my lungs bruised.” 

“I’m sorry…” 

Alex just shakes her head as she approaches the bed, and Kara is already averting her eyes with an extended sigh. But Alex crouches down anyway, places a gentle hand atop Kara’s shoulder and squeezes. 

“I heard what happened,” she says softly. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

“I was leading the group, so of course it was my fault.” Kara directs her words more to her pillow than anyone else. “Like you’ve always said, if you’re the lead—”

“Forget what I said!” Alex snaps. “You’re alive, okay? And you brought everyone else back here, alive. Which means you did the right thing, and that’s all that matters.” 

Kara shrugs and just curls up into a smaller ball underneath the sheets. Alex sighs, giving Kara’s shoulder another comforting squeeze before slowly climbing to her feet. But on her way out, Alex takes one last pause by the door. She gestures aimlessly toward Kara’s bed. “So, what’s going on here? You two officially banging, or…?” 

“Oh, shut up, Alex, god! It’s not even like—”

“No, Kara was just having trouble falling asleep, so—”

“Mmhm, yeah, I bet,” Alex says, cutting off both their protests as she shuts the door behind her. 

“You’re such a fast reader,” Kara comments, as she watches Lena thumbing through her second trashy romance novel of the day. “You must really dig those, huh?” 

“I kinda hate them actually,” Lena says with a shrug. “But I’m also kinda into the fact that I hate them, so it all works out.” 

“Hm…” Kara nods thoughtfully to herself. Then, “Well, hang on, are they dirty?” 

Lena’s pale features are instantly awash in a very conspicuous shade of pink. “No,” she says several beats too late, and Kara practically pounces onto Lena’s side of the bed.  

“Oh no, no, wait!” Lena is laughing as she falls backwards, Kara scrambling on top as she grabs for the book. “No, Kara, stop, you’re not allowed to look!” 

Kara fumbles with the book, fingertips slipping off the glossy cover as Lena tosses it just out of reach behind her. But persistent as ever, Kara just climbs a bit higher, now practically straddling Lena’s stomach. Her next swipe overshoots by a tad though, and she ends up swatting at Lena’s rucksack instead. 

“No—!” Lena says in a sharp inhale, but Kara’s already caught the bag by one of the shoulder straps before it could hit the ground. 

Though considerably lighter now, the rucksack seems to still hold quite a few private things that give a distinct clink as Kara gently sets it back on the bed. 

They both stare at the bag in silence until Kara springs back into action, snatching up the romance novel with a triumphant Yoink! and jumping onto her own bed. She’s barely flipped through the first few pages when the book’s being ripped out of her hands, and Lena’s climbing into her lap and kissing her. 

All of Kara’s grunts of surprise are muffled against Lena’s soft yet sweetly insistent mouth. It’s been a while—much too long of a while, in fact—but Kara’s body eventually remembers what to do, and she’s seizing Lena by the hips and hauling her onto the bed. 

Kara’s breaths are ragged as she settles on top, her kisses near frenzied and desperate, and getting messier and messier by the second. But Lena doesn’t seem to be faring much better, with her eyes darkened, hips bucking up against Kara’s, and it’s honestly gratifying enough just to feel this wanted. 

But then Kara’s tugging at the hem of Lena’s shirt, dragging it up to expose soft skin, the paleness only marred by a slight blush of desire, when Lena stiffens underneath her. 

“Oh, is this… is this all right?” Kara asks, freezing in place. “Because we totally don’t have to.” 

Lena’s face screws up, hesitant. “Um.” 

The door swings opens, and Kara and Lena scramble off each other, in a hasty attempt to make it somehow seem like they weren’t doing exactly what they were just caught doing. 

“Wow,” says Alex, just so utterly bored. “Can’t wait to hear your excuse for this one.” 

A couple of weeks later, Kara and Lena are lazing around in the sun—Kara bouncing a tennis ball against a brick wall, Lena reading some two-dollar sci-fi thriller. They still have yet to talk about the kiss. 

It’s not that they are avoiding it, per se. It’s just been way easier to talk about all the other things worth discussing. 

Like, for example, 

“They’re gearing up for a supply run,” Lena says, eyeing the small group forming by the front gate. She watches as they pass out the guns, lace up their boots, and fix up their backpacks, and such. 

“Yeah.” Kara doesn’t look over. 

“You’re not going with them?” 

“No, Alex is gonna go this time,” Kara says shortly, already walking off toward the barracks before Lena could ask why, tennis ball left behind and forgotten. 

“Hey,” Lena says, when she eventually finds Kara lying in bed with her dusty boots still on. “Let’s get out of here.” 

“What?” 

“Let’s leave the camp for a while. Stretch our legs somewhere that’s not packed with all these people,” Lena insists. “Didn’t you say that there’s a lake nearby? Let’s go there.” 

 “… Why?” 

“Why not? It’s a free country.” 

Kara actually snorts. “There is no country anymore, Lena.” 

“Whatever, let’s just go get some privacy then,” Lena says with a shrug, and Kara perks right up. 

“Privacy?” Kara echoes. “With me.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah.” Kara nods a lot. “Yeah, okay.” 

It’s not very hard to sneak out the front gate, and the ease of their escape forces Kara to admit that maybe this is something that she’s done before. “But only like once or twice. And only when I was going absolutely stir-fucking-crazy, I swear.” 

The aforementioned lake is a trek of couple of miles, but inherent peace brought on by the very sight of it is well worth the journey. Kara stretches out beneath the shade of her favorite tree, heart and face relaxing as one as she watches Lena dip her toes in the water. 

Within minutes, Kara’s on her back with her eyes fluttering shut. And within a few more minutes, Lena is snuggled up to her, head cradled against Kara’s chest, and for a while, everything is good again. 

Kara’s just basking in the sun, taking a brief nap in between classes on a grassy hill, and Lena’s her girlfriend who adores her despite all her cheesy puns, and they’ll probably share a tub of ice cream at some point in the night before engaging in lots of sex and way too little sleep, and everything was just good. 

Almost good enough to be true

“KARA!” 

The panic in Lena’s voice has Kara’s eyes snapping open, and she feels a violent tug on her left foot. A growling zombie, lake water dripping off its disgusting, bloated body as it drags Kara closer to its snapping jaws. 

Kara immediately launches her other foot forward, smashing it into the zombie’s face as hard as she can. It gives her the leverage to slip out of her left boot and scramble to her feet. 

She shoots point blank right through the top of its head. 

But more and more zombies start emerging from the lake, all puffy and rotted, their swollen faces split open in near identical snarls. Kara shoots them down, one by one, but more just keep coming to take their place in an endless swarm. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Kara swears, her fingers clumsy as she tries to reload her gun. “Fuck it, run, Lena, run!” 

They take off sprinting, and actually manage to outrun most of the zombies that are thankfully still incapacitated by their bloated limbs, waterlogged and somewhat useless. 

When Kara throws a glance over her shoulder, just to make sure they’re still in the clear, she misses the dip in terrain, and the pothole sends her sprawling across the dirt. 

Kara turns around and a zombie is already almost upon her, its stagger increasing in speed, as if it could already taste the sweet victory of Kara’s flesh. She reaches for her gun, but it’s landed too far away, and the spare bullets even farther. By the time she faces forward again, she’s all out of options. 

A single gunshot rings out, and the zombie falls heavily on top of Kara, blood and bile spurting all over her face, mouth, and body. She coughs at the taste of decay and rotting water, clambering out from underneath the zombie, now motionless with a prominent hole through its right eye. 

Lena’s standing a couple feet away, Kara’s gun clutched in both hands. She gets the next two zombies between the eyes, then a third right through its cheek. 

The first two crumple instantly, but the last doesn’t slow one bit as it charges at Lena. 

But she doesn’t flinch, only whips out her hunting knife, leaping forward to meet the zombie head-on, and sticks the blade right through its protruding forehead with a shout. 

If Kara didn’t have an entire dollop of zombie goo still dripping from her mouth, she probably would have kissed Lena again right then and there. 

Kara’s not too sure on how or when she finds out, but by the time Alex is back from the scavenging mission, she’s stomping toward her and Lena like she already knows. 

“Listen, Alex,” Kara starts off right away, swiftly putting herself in front of Lena. “It’s not her fault. I wanted to go too, and, look, we’re fine now, and…” 

But Alex shoves right past her and yanks Lena into a violent bear hug that lifts her straight off the ground. “Thank you,” she sobs over and over again into Lena’s hair. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

(next part here)