#nissan sunny california | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: and other things that glow

The apocalypse started in June, when it was supposed to be sunny and… not the end of the world, or whatever. It’s December now, but Arizona December isn’t anything worth being scared of. It’s almost Christmas, James thinks. Maybe this is their Christmas vacation. He’ll have to run that by Steve later, see if it makes him laugh. (A zombie AU, part two. James/Steve, background Parker/Cib and Autumn/Sami Jo. 4.6k.)

AUcember || Ao3 || part one

There are cars broken down all over the highway the highway. Not as many as there used to be, probably, but enough that they have to drive slowly.

“I think we were the last ones to leave California,” Steve says, around the fifth time that they have to stop and push a car out of the way so they can keep driving. “Everyone else had this idea first.”

“Yeah,” Cib says, wringing the sweat out of his headband, “but that just means that there’s no traffic.”

Steve flings an arm at the rusty shell of a Nissan that they just pushed away. “This is our traffic!”

“At least the traffic doesn’t want to eat us,” James says, because he’s pretty sure he’d rather deal with old cars than with zombies. Old cars are a pain in the ass, sure, but they’re not going to actually kill them. Probably.

“There are ways to die that don’t involve being eaten,” Steve points out, and Cib… winces, a little, the way he does sometimes. They’ve all shot zombies at this point, but Cib’s the only one who’s had to do it point-blank, and that’s different.

Also, a zombie tried to eat Cib’s boyfriend. James has to assume that makes it different too.

“Let’s get back in the car,” James says, and they all do. The SUV isn’t the nicest car they’ve ever had, and they’ve been siphoning gasoline out of every empty car they find along the way because there’s an actual, real chance that they run out. But there’s enough room for all six of them, and for most of their things. Food, and guns. Cib’s guitar. Vodka. Walkie-talkies. James has grenades, not that anybody else knows about those. A dude’s gotta have his secrets.

Parker doesn’t quite wake up as Cib climbs into the backseat, just mumbles something unintelligible. Cib coos loudly at him. “Look at him, he’s asleep.”

“Thank god,” Steve mutters. James is inclined to agree, considering how Parker is about sleeping sometimes.

Sami Jo is also fast asleep, leaning against the window. Autumn is holding her hand, running her thumb across the backs of her fingers. She half-smiles at James when she notices him looking. “This road trip is really gonna fuck our sleep schedules, huh?”

“Nah,” James says. “We don’t really have… time, in the traditional sense anymore, right? We’re just guessing at everything.”

The clock in the SUV says that it’s just past four in the afternoon. It might be. But James doesn’t know how time zones work, or clocks for that matter, and he’s pretty sure that the only standards they have now are “morning,” “afternoon,” and “too dark to be safe.”

“Hey, navigator,” Steve says impatiently. “You got the map? Let’s go.”

“Right!” James picks up the map from where it’s spread across the dashboard. They crossed the Arizona border earlier that day, kind of by accident, and he’d picked the map up from a rest stop so they could find their way. It was meant for tourists in a world that doesn’t completely exist anymore, and he figures that it can help tourists through the world that does.

“Are we still going north?”

“Yeah, keep going north.”

“Fucking great,” Steve mumbles, and starts the car.

“One of us could drive,” James says, even though it’s more cursory than an actual offer.

And just like he expected, Steve shakes his head. “This is my happy place and you don’t get to take that away from me.”

“All yours, dude,” James answers, and Steve doesn’t quite smile, but his lips twitch as the SUV lurches forward.

It takes them two days to drive from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon. It’s supposed to take six hours, or something like that, but between car troubles and the fake traffic and Steve insisting that he’s the only one who drives, it takes way longer.

“This is nice,” James says, around the time they pass a sign that tells them the exit is five miles away. It’s late, and he’s the only passenger awake. Autumn and Sami Jo’s fingers are still tangled together, and Parker’s asleep with his head in Cib’s lap.

Steve glances at him. “Being in a car again?”

“Driving somewhere together.”

“So you mean the road trip?”

“Big apocalypse road trip,” James murmurs. It’s what Sami Jo calls it, every time, and it makes it seem… grander than it is, somehow. Like they’re going out on this adventure intentionally and not on a whim.

“Apocalypse road trip,” Steve echoes. “You think this was the right choice?”

“Of course.” He pauses. “Unless there are, like, zombies in the canyon.”

Steve makes a noise like an aborted laugh. “You think there are zombies in the canyon?”

“You think they’re smart enough to avoid falling off the edge?”

“That’s what we’ll do with them,” he says, and when James looks over he’s brimming with glee. “Just take all the zombies and dump them into the Grand Canyon so they eat each other. Quarantine it.”

“Put a giant dome over the top.”

“Plexiglass.”

“No, just glass. That way when it shatters they’ll get cut up.”

Steve laughs sharply, a little manic. He’s gripping the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles going white. “We solved the apocalypse.”

“Steve?”

“We solved it,” he repeats, and his thumbs are twitching against the wheel. “We can- it’ll all go back to normal now, right?”

“Steve-”

“We’re just having a normal road trip,” he continues, and James can’t do anything but stare. “Just a normal road trip, just six friends talking about trapping zombies in the- oh, god.”

“Are you okay?”

It takes Steve a minute, but he shakes his head, beaming fiercely. “No, I think I’m having a breakdown.”

“Okay, do you want me to drive?”

“No, man, this actually feels pretty good.”

“The nervous breakdown feels good?”

“No, I mean the part where I’m not pretending it’s normal anymore. Aren’t you tired of acting like this is all normal?”

James looks out the window, because he can’t look at Steve anymore. He can’t admit that it all feels normal now. “That was our exit.”

“I know.”

“Steve-”

“I’ll turn around in a minute,” he says. “I just don’t want to stop right now.”

“Okay,” James says. “If anyone wakes up I’ll just… I’ll say that I missed it. That I distracted you or something.”

“You don’t think I should tell them about the breakdown?”

“I think you’d freak them out.”

“Am I freaking you out?”

James wants to say yes, but honestly, he’s not all that freaked out. “I’m just glad you’re not… doing this alone, you know?”

“I know,” Steve says. James finally looks back, and one of Steve’s hands is resting on the gearshift. His eyes are fixed on the road. “Can you keep talking to me?”

“About what?”

“The weather. Where we’re going next. Anything.”

He keeps looking at Steven’s hand. He kind of wants to reach out and link his fingers, rest his hand on top. It’s stupid. He can already tell he’s going to be thinking about it for a long time.

“Of course, man,” he says, and Steve’s fingers twitch on the gearshift, and James knows then and there that he’s probably fucked.

Nobody gives James more shit about the missed exit than Sami Jo, who berates him for about three minutes.

“Go easy on him,” Autumn says when she wakes up. But she’s smiling softly, and Sami Jo beams at her. “Or don’t, you know.”

“Don’t let her yell at me,” James complains. “I’m doing my best.”

“Oh, doing your best,” Sami Jo repeats mockingly, but she’s still smiling at Autumn, and her heart’s definitely not in the mocking anymore. “It’s the end of the world, James, when were you going to say we drove thirty miles past it?”

“When we hit thirty miles!”

“At least he figured it out before we hit sixty,” Steve says, which is completely, totally unfair. James tries to glare at him, but Steven just arches an eyebrow at him, unrepentant. And James knows that he could pull out his trump card of “it was actually Steve’s fault,” but it’d taken all thirty of those miles to talk Steve back into being steady. “And it’s not like we had to stop at all along the way.”

“Yeah, actually,” James says, because he’d been wondering about that. “You’d think there would be more abandoned cars near the Grand Canyon, right?”

Autumn frowns. “Why would you think that?”

“Because there’s no way we’re the only ones who decided to go to the Grand Canyon at the end of the world.”

“Everyone whose first instinct at the end of the world is to go to the Grand Canyon is a fucking idiot,” Steven announces. “It’s a zombie pit. It’s also in the middle of the desert, so it’s hot, and it probably smells terrible.”

Sami Jo makes a face. “Why are we going there again?”

“It was literally your idea.”

“Yeah, but you guys were the ones who said yes.”

“Grand Canyon’s a good idea,” Parker says from the back. He’s still lying with his head in Cib’s lap, which is fucking gross. “We need to see it. It’ll be good for us.”

Sami Jo turns to look at him. “Have you been before?”

“Not for a few years.”

“Who here has been to the Grand Canyon?”

Steve lifts a hand. Parker doesn’t raise a hand, but he does raise the stump of his right arm.

Sami Jo nods decisively. “This was a good idea.”

“You were just saying -”

“Three miles,” James says loudly. “Exit for the south rim in three miles! Isn’t that going to be great?”

“Is the south rim the tourist rim?” Sami Jo makes a face. “I mean, do we really want to be tourists?”

“I really, genuinely don’t think it matters at this point,” James says. “Unless anyone cares.”

“I care,” Cib says loudly. James twists around to look at him, and he’s glaring in no specific direction. But it’s definitely a glare. “I want to be a tourist.”

“You’re the worst kind of person,” Steve says. “Actually, all of you are the worst types of people, especially Parker.”

Cib brushes Parker’s hair back. “Don’t listen to him, I’m worse than you ever were.”

“Aw,” Parker says. “That’s sweet.”

“Jesus,” Steve mumbles. “Do we really want to reward this with the Grand Canyon?”

“Yes,” Autumn and Cib say in unison.

Steve shakes his head. “Okay,” he says dubiously, and takes the exit.

Sami Jo, for her part, insists on keeping her eyes closed so that the first thing she sees is the canyon. It would be endearing, or something, except it means she has trouble getting out of the car. And walking. It’s actually more of a pain than it is endearing. Autumn, thankfully, volunteers to herd her around.

Steve, for his part, insists on going through the big hotel resort that’s closest to the rim itself, so they have somewhere to stay. He also parks the car in the most inconvenient place possible so nobody can steal it.

Cib and Parker, for their part, announce that instead of helping with literally anything, they’re going to go find a quiet corner to make out.

So that leaves James, because Steve said that he could case the hotel alone. It’s just him, a walkie talkie, and the entire Grand Canyon. All the food has been raided, which isn’t a surprise, but there are things he can pick up along the way. Guns, ammo, clean clothes that people left behind. Bottled water. (He uses a bottle to rinse out his hair, because… okay, sure, bottled water is a hot commodity these days, but there’s something to be said about personal hygeine. He feels like more of a person when his hair is clean, who’s going to give him shit for that?)

“Hey, James,” Steve says, crackling over the walkie talkie. “You think we could stay the night here?”

“Uh, of course, why wouldn’t we?”

“Because of the whole apocalypse? I don’t know, what are we doing after this?”

“I don’t know, I can’t believe we made it this far. Did you find a hotel room?”

“Yeah, there’s a suite up here that got looted to hell, but we can steal pillows and whatever from other rooms. Definitely room for all of us for the night.”

“And no sign of anyone else?”

“No recent sign.”

“Should we check the canyon for zombies?”

Steve pauses. “Shit, do you think there are actually zombies in the canyon?”

“I can scope it out,” James offers. “I’ve got a stockpile in the lobby, so as long as someone picks that up I can go.”

“Got a gun with you?”

“Two.”

“Check in if it’s all clear.”

“Of course.”

“Over and out,” Steve says, and James stuffs the walkie talkie back in his pocket.

He’s never been to the Grand Canyon before, but it takes his breath away when he looks out at it, like he always knew it would. There’s something strange about the expanse, about how broad and unstoppable it feels. And there are zombies milling around in the bottom of the canyon, sure, but not close enough that it’s going to be a problem.

James pulls his walkie talkie back out. “So there are definitely some undead hanging out in the bottom of the canyon.”

“Seriously?”

“Not enough that it’s going to be, like, a thing. But we should probably be aware of that.”

“Still safe?”

“Still safe. And I have my guns.” And grenades, not that he’s going to announce that. “You all set up in the suite?”

“Yeah, Autumn and Sami Jo brought your stuff up to the room.”

“You guys want to come down?”

Steve sighs, crackling full of static over the walkie. “Whose turn is it to get Parker and Cib?”

“I mean, I’m already out here, so…”

“I don’t understand them,” Steven complains. “Like, when Autumn and Sami Jo sneak off to bang or whatever, they’re tasteful about it. They do it when they have plenty of time. None of this rushed shit, when we’re in between things.”

“Parker and Cib are new at this whole dating thing,” James says mildly, and kicks a rock over the edge, follows it down with his eyes. “They don’t know how to do it right.”

“I’m going to an early grave because of them,” Steve says, and James can feel the exact moment he winces. Gallows humor is only funny, he thinks, when you’re not in line for the gallows.

“I’ll see you in a few,” James says, and pockets the walkie again. It’ll take a minute for them to get out there, so he takes a minute to stretch his arms and shoulders. You don’t realize how cramped it gets in an SUV till you’re not in that SUV anymore, and frankly, James is sick of being stuck in one place.

It’s while he’s stretching, one arm drawn across his chest, that he notices the tent.

It’s down a path, set up on a landing a few hundred feet down from the edge. It looks like a regular camping tent, except it looks like there’s something stuffed in the empty space between the tent and the rock. Like there’s a carpet, or sleeping bag, or something. Like someone’s living there.

James knows it’s a bad idea to investigate, but he can’t help himself. As soon as he notices it he’s halfway down the path, climbing down a cliff and jogging through the dust. It’ll only take a minute. He’s sure of it.

He stops a couple yards away. You can’t exactly knock on a tent, and even if he did there’s no guarantee that anyone would answer.

Slowly, James reaches out and pulls the corner of the tent aside.

“Freeze,” someone shouts from the inside.

James, for his part, does not freeze, and pulls one of the guns out of his hoodie pocket. Maybe the movement is enough to get him shot, but if it is, he’s glad that he’s at least going to die on his feet. And not because of a zombie.

“Wait,” the person in the tent says, and pushes the canvas back further. “James?”

It takes a second for James to blink through the haze of adrenaline, but when he does, he manages to focus on the person in the tent. She has a gun pointed at him, but she’s lowering it, staring at him wide-eyed. She’s short and blonde, but her dark roots are growing out. And he hasn’t seen her since well before the apocalypse.

James slides his gun back into his hoodie. “Reina?”

“Oh my god,” Reina sobs, and flings her arms around his neck. James squeezes her as tightly as he can. He and Reina were never close, but they knew each other - couldn’t help but know each other, as two of Steve’s best friends - and he knows Steve had been worried about her. And here she is, in the Grand Canyon. Alive.

“Hey,” James says, and he can feel his throat closing up. “Hey, oh my god, Reina, Reina-”

Reina says something into his chest, teary and incomprehensible. James smooths down her hair. “You’re gonna have to run that by me again.”

She sniffles and pulls back enough that he can hear her say, “I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone I knew again.”

“God,” James whispers. “We’re here, Reina. Holy shit, what are you doing here?”

“I was on vacation when- you know.” Reina sniffs. “There used to be a bunch of us, just tourists who were trying to make it work, but all the other ones left. I didn’t want to, though, because people - you know, they knew I was going to be here.”

It’s not sound logic. But it’s apocalypse logic, and James understands.

Reina sniffs one more time and pulls back to beam up at James. “It’s really good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“What about you, how did you end up here?”

“Uh.” James scratches the back of his head. It kind of sounds stupid, now that he has to say it to someone else. “Apocalypse road trip?”

“Sweet,” Reina says. “Solo?”

“Group.” He blinks. “Wait, holy shit, we need to-”

“James,” Steve says over the walkie talkie, and Reina claps both hands over her mouth. “Where the fuck are you?”

“Oh my god,” Reina whispers, muffled and more than a little teary. “Oh my god, that- is-”

James grins. “You wanna visit?”

Reina nods, and he lifts the walkie. “I found another survivor, dude.”

“Great,” Steve says, sounding not at all like he means it. “Super. Tell them they can’t join our club.”

“She can hear you.”

“Oh, okay. You can’t join our club.”

Reina reaches out and pulls the walkie talkie, and James’s hand, closer to her mouth. “I’m already in your club, you bitch.”

Steve goes silent for a long minute. Reina takes the opportunity to sling a backpack over her shoulder. “We gonna go up?”

“If you’re ready.”

Reina nods and follows James out of the tent. They’re already beginning the climb up out of the canyon when Steve says, tremulously, “Reina?”

“We gotta climb up out of the canyon, dude, we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Out of the zombie canyon?” Steve demands, but James slips the walkie into his pocket.

“Is it just you guys?” Reina asks.

“Nah, there’s six of us.”

“Six, really?”

“Me and Steve, Cib and Parker, and Autumn and Sami Jo, who I don’t think you’ve met.”

“I haven’t. You said Cib and Parker? How’re they?”

“Good.” James thinks about it. “I mean, Parker lost an arm, but good.”

“Lost an arm?” Reina repeats. “What the fuck happened?”

“There was a zombie, it was a whole thing.”

“Oh, great. That’s… I’m glad he’s okay.”

“We all are,” James admits. It was harder than any of them want to admit, watching Parker screaming and bleeding out. But he’s okay, and that’s worth being grateful for.

They make the rest of the trek in silence, and James offers Reina a hand to help pull her up the last bit of the way. When he turns around, the rest of the group is standing clustered together, watching them. And Steve is at the front of them all, staring, eyes wider than James has ever seen.

Reina grips James’s arm. “Whoa.”

“Told you they’re here,” James says, but Reina probably doesn’t hear him, because she breaks into a sprint. Steve runs right back at her, and they don’t embrace as much as collide with each other, arms flying everywhere, kicking up dust. The next thing James knows they’re both on the ground, kneeling, arms around each other. Reina’s shoulders are heaving, like she’s crying again, and James can see the tears in Steve’s eyes.

“You’re here,” Reina sobs, and Steven grabs her head and clutches her closer. “Oh my god, Suppy-”

“You’re here too,” Steven says, choked and awful and the best thing that James has ever heard. “Reina, Reina, Reina, Reina-”

James goes over to stand by the rest of the group and looks away. It feels too personal to watch.

His eyes land on Sami Jo, who’s also looking away, out at the canyon. “What do you think?”

“Grand Canyon was a good call,” she says quietly, and smiles at James. Not a flashy smile, or a jokey smile. A real smile.

“Yeah,” James agrees, looking out, over the edge. There are zombies at the bottom, and bloodstains on the rock. And a tent, left unzipped, down a trail.

They end up staying at the canyon for three nights. The first night, Steve and Reina go off in another hotel room by themselves, probably to catch up, or just to be with each other. The next day James and Cib spend exploring the canyon, while Parker, Autumn, and Sami Jo get into a weirdly intense argument about foraging. Steve and Reina don’t emerge from their room until the morning after that, and they both look fucking radiant.

“Reina’s coming with us,” Steve announces. “We’re going to make room in the SUV. We’ll make the supplies work.”

It’s not a question. It’s not a democratic decision. It’s a statement. James nods anyways. “Course. Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks,” Reina says, beaming.

Cib props his chin on James’s shoulder. “Hey, good to see you, Reina.”

“You too.”

“Steve, where’re we going next?”

Steven frowns. “I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”

“I vote we keep road tripping,” Reina says. “There’s not a lot else to do.”

“True,” James says. “We can take turns picking.”

“Parker’s next,” Cib says instantly.

Steve raises his eyebrows. “Is that how this works?”

“I nominate him,” Cib says. “And none of you contested me in the official format, so I win, bitch. Which just means Parker wins.”

Reina elbows Steve, ignoring the way he yelps. “Why didn’t you contest him so I could pick?”

“Because we don’t have rules about contesting!” Steven glares at Cib. “You can’t just make up rules and act like they’re a thing!”

“That’s what you do!”

“Yeah, because I’m apocalypse leader, or whatever, remember?”

“No, dude, Parker’s in charge!”

“ What? ”

Reina looks at James and whispers, “You wanna stage a coup?”

“No coups,” Steve says loudly. “James, quit nodding, don’t- no coups! This is a democracy!”

“Bullshit,” Sami Jo calls from further in the suite.

“This is socialism,” Autumn adds. “We all make the choices together.”

“I like them,” Reina murmurs. “James, you still wanna stage a coup?”

“Maybe,” James says. “We’ll talk about it.”

“Great,” Steve mutters. But he meets James’s eyes, and he looks the happiest that James has seen since they decided to leave Los Angeles.

They spend the last night in their suite together, with vodka and some wine that Reina apparently stole from the hotel bar a long time ago. James doesn’t remember the night clearly, but he remembers Steven and Reina sitting side by side. He remembers Cib playing his guitar, even with Parker leaning against him. He remembers drinking a lot and feeling warm and happy, and trying to convince Parker to go to Nashville, not fucking Disney World.

(He loses that fight. But he has to admit, he’s kind of curious about what the zombie apocalypse did to the happiest place on earth.)

When James wakes up the next morning, it’s in the grey almost-light that means it’s too early for him to be awake. He considers going back to sleep, but when he opens his eyes the whole way, he can see Reina. And he can see the empty space where Steve was sleeping.

Carefully, quietly, he makes his way out of the suite, out of the hotel. He already knows where Steve is going to be before he even makes it to the canyon.

And there he is, standing at the edge. His hands are in his pockets. The sun is threatening to rise, off to one side, but it’s not quite peeking above the horizon yet.

James stops next to him. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’re you thinking?”

“We can do anything.”

James slants a look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean-” Steve gestures at the canyon. “This couldn’t stop zombies. Like, they’re all down there, just waiting for something. Nature didn’t do jack shit except contain them. But we can get rid of them. We can do… anything.”

“We can,” James says, and fishes a grenade out of his pocket. “You wanna do something dumb?”

Steve looks down at the grenade and up at James. “Where did you-”

“I raided Jeremy and Andrew’s place after they left,” he admits. “They had a lot of grenades.”

“Nice,” Steve says appreciatively, and takes it. “So how do you-”

“You just pull the pin and then throw.”

Steve looks down at the zombies, still in the bottom of the canyon, almost definitely too far for the grenade to reach. “Are you suggesting I blow up the Grand Canyon?”

“We can do anything,” James says, and Steve half-smiles at him. “Weren’t you just saying that?”

“I was just saying that.” Steve takes a deep breath, pulls the pin, and throws. It’s not a great throw, or even a good one, but it makes it down to the zombies before it explodes. James can’t see well, but he has to assume that it takes out at least a couple zombies.

“Nice,” James says, and Steve starts laughing. Not like the weird, manic laughter from the car, but like he’s happy. “Steve?”

“We did it,” he says, and turns to face James fully. The sun is coming up over the horizon, and it hurts to look at, and he can’t look away. “We- six months, James, we’re not dead, Reina’s not dead, we did it.”

“We did it,” James agrees, and he grins. Steven laughs all the harder and then leans forward, and then they’re kissing, messy and exuberant and alive. Steve is still laughing into James’s mouth.

James slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and they stumble away from the edge together. “We’re alive,” Steve says breathlessly, and kisses James again, and again. “We’re alive.”

“And we’re gonna stay alive,” James says, and kisses Steve all the harder.

#stevejames #parcib #autumn jo #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #y'all i'm so happy i finally had enough time to hammer this one out it's been in the barrel for a hot minute #yes it is a sequel to crash bang boom!#which reminds me:#zombie au tag

10 notes · View notes