Emre Şimşek (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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stateofdecay2024-11-19 10:26 pm
load_bearing) wrote in stateofdecay2024-11-19 10:26 pm
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WHO: Natalie Stokes & Emre Şimşek
WHEN: ~May 2012
WHERE: Seattle + Providence Ridge
WHAT: Nat and Emre meet. / Nat and Emre lose the final other member of their group. / Nat and Emre get to his parents house and then part ways.
WARNINGS: The usual cursing; death, including familial death; setting standard sad/panicky/bad feelings.
Erika should be the one doing this. 20 years-old and a University of Washington track star, she had been the fastest of the dwindling lot of them, nimble and focused, patient in a way that Les and Monica weren’t and Lorena, Jason and Cam no longer could be. But she had been eager too, eager about her dreams of becoming a primary school teacher, eager about getting out of the city to find her sister, eager to volunteer for the riskiest jobs to protect a group of strangers she barely knew.
Nat had liked her for the 6 days that she had known her before the grasping fingers of death finally caught up with her.
Without Erika, it’s Nat and Les who are scouting ahead of the group for the safest passage beyond the park, or they had been before a small shambling cluster had forced them back into the darkness of a crumbling storefront.
“We should have waited,” Les hisses to Nat, the sweat of his upper lip obvious from the shine of moonlight pouring in through the blown out windows. He’s trembling, a hair trigger away from something, Nat is sure, and it’s not the first time she wishes she’d left him with the others.
She inhales deeply, quietly as she watches the zombies circling the park, mottled and reeking with months old decay.
“We should have waited,” now it’s approaching a sob, and Nat can’t have the man’s hysterics becoming a homing beacon for a horde.
“Les,” Nat whispers firmly, her fingers extended as if to gentle a spooked horse. “They haven’t seen us, I need you to stay calm. Stay quie---”
There’s the crunch of broken glass behind them and as her own adrenaline spikes hot with alarm, Nat watches Les’ eyes bulge in preparation to scream. Her hand slaps down over his mouth with bruising force but it sends them clumsily back into the wall with a loud thud.
The noise draws a hiss from Emre, who had been doing his best to approach quietly and then slip into view to avoid startling them. To avoid this, exactly. He's not mad though - can't really be, given the circumstances, but he is aware that the small cluster of zombies now seem to have locked onto their presence. They don't have time for introductions. He hikes his rifle onto his shoulder, jerks his thumb towards the back of the store, and goes.
Nat doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even need to look back over to where the man’s eyes had lingered. She grabs Les’ collar with a forbidding grip, her eyes severe as she meets his. Miraculously, the older man stumbles to his feet without another noise, the two of them lumbering after Emre as quickly and silently as they can. And even though Emre doesn't know them, he checks behind as he moves to make sure they keep up.
There’s an alleyway on the opposite side of the building, enclosed between another brick building and a delivery bay that affords the three of them space from the zombies. Behind her, Nat closes the heavy metal door discreetly, the moans of the zombies muffled to barely noticeable white noise.
“Oh fuck,” Les heaves, stumbles to his knees. Nat doesn’t move her gaze from the stranger or his rifle though, her grip tight on the knife at her side.
“Sneaking up on people isn’t the most polite thing, these days.”
Once they're inside Emre lets out a soft huff of air, eyeing the garage door, the building they're in, seemingly more concerned with that for the moment than the two strangers. There's something tactical about how he searches their surroundings, and he's outfitted with stolen Red Talon gear - it's not hard to guess what at least some of his history is.
Finally, he looks between Nat and Les. "Next time I'll yell." His tone is a little tight, but it's not about them, and he hopes they know that. It's just about fucking everything. "There's a group coming around from the east, too. Didn't want to just leave you there to get pinned."
Nat’s sharp eyes finish the last of her sweeping assessment of Emre’s familiar uniform. “Thank you,” she sounds a touch surprised, which speaks to the reality of what some survivors have dealt with for the past few weeks. Her thanks only receives a quick shake of Emre's head.
“Are you cut off from your group soldier boy?” There’s irony in the tilt of her mouth. She’s curious even if she’s wary.
At the comment, Les looks up, identifying the Red Talon outfit easily. “Fuck, Nat,” he backs away uneasily. Where Red Talon was found in Seattle, little good preceded (or sometimes followed).
The discomfort is warranted, Emre thinks, but he still can't help the quiet scoff, the shake of his head at the other man's skittering away. It seems overblown. But he should be playing nice. Even as he eyes Nat's knife, he makes no moves himself for any weaponry.
"I deserted, so relax." He's not ashamed - he's certain it was the right thing to do. Still, his brows beetle a bit, his mind drifting to his family. "I'm just trying to get out of the city."
“Well you’ve joined the right club,” Nat offers, ignoring Les’ protests as she steps closer. Deserted, wasn’t that interesting? “So are we. Have been trying to, I mean, for the last few weeks. There’s a group of us not too far north of here.”
“Jesus, we don’t even know him!”
She tucks the knife back into the pocket of her leather jacket, just about the only thing she’s wearing that isn’t covered in grime and sweat. “You barely know me Les,” she cuts the other man off, not unkindly, but without much consideration for his concerns. Nat was, above all things, practical, and if the 6 foot something former Red Talon soldier with a gun, going the same direction they were, might be willing to help their group get the rest of the way out of the city, then why would she hesitate? Half of their group was wounded, weak, or well past their limit.
“Maybe the man with the gun is looking for some company. Why did you desert?”
Club? Even without knowing Emre it's probably clear that he's surprised and a little confused. He's not against working with a group, knowing it should, in theory, be safer, but Nat's quick acceptance isn't what he was expecting.
"...at this point I feel like you have to immediately trust people, or immediately distrust them. Not much time for nuance."
His eyes dart to Les again, trying to weigh his own trust in the man. He doesn't seem like he'd have the guts to stab him in the back, and Emre figures that's close enough.
"Private security was fine, but it was getting too militant for my tastes." He hesitates a moment before adding, "And I have people outside the city. How many of you are there?"
“Seven,” Nat crosses her arms over her chest. “There were more of us, but…” the sentence doesn’t need to be finished, and more importantly: “we all have people outside of the city too.”
She’s not sure this is much of a sell given their numbers, Les’ less than inspiring performance, or the fact that she’s just a whisp of 5 feet and inviting a stranger to join them without even offering her name first.
But Erika is gone. Jason has a broken arm she suspects is infected. The others are doing their best, but Nat isn’t sure how far she can get them out of this death trap if it’s just by herself.
“I’m Natalie,” she extends her hand, maybe forcing his. “Nat.”
Emre's brows knit and he remains silent, listening, though his expressions say enough - seven is a lot, he feels bad that they've lost people, feels bad they also have people outside the city too. He hums, adjusts his footing, before reaching out his hand to shake hers.
"Emre." He's quiet for a long moment again, torn. "...shit. Look, I'll come back with you to your group, at least. Make sure you get there safe." Before committing to anything he needs to see the state of them; he's a commodity in this new world, and unfortunately a lot of other people are liabilities. He can't get dragged down too much or he'll never get out of Seattle.
Nat’s handshake is firm and perfunctory, whether it was the self-confidence (bordering on overconfidence), or a learned overcompensation for her small stature, she doesn’t let it linger long. And with his hesitant agreement, she considers it as good as a victory.
“We’d appreciate it,” she ignores Les’ grumblings, a grin growing. She winks. “After we finish scoping out this route that is,” we including Emre now as well; he’d signed himself up for exactly that.
He wonders immediately if the only reason any of their group is alive is because of Nat. He wouldn't be surprised. Emre takes a moment to press his ear to the metal door, ignoring Les just as easily. "Let's get going, then."
Emre would be amazed at how fast things change, if he had the energy for it. But their group has dwindled down and down as they've made their treacherous march out of Seattle, and now it's just him, Nat, and Lorena. And Lorena isn't doing well, pale and trembling, bleeding from a gash on her chest that just refuses to stop oozing. She's slowing them down, but he already knows Nat well enough that there's no question about leaving her behind. He doesn't want to do that either, anyways.
They're currently settling in for the night on the roof of a gas station, the moon full enough to give them good visibility. Despite not having to worry about anything getting up with them since they'd yanked the ladder up, it's hard to try to sleep. And Emre feels like he should be keeping watch. He sits on the edge of the building, idly scanning the roadway.
Nat doesn’t necessarily telegraph her approach, but she knows Emre can hear the shuffle of her boots, heavier than usual.
She barely even sighs when she shifts to join her friend, has to hold on to his shoulder to even lever herself down to his perch. Her knee aches, has since 4 days ago when she’d wrenched it from where it’d been pinned by a door in that mad sprint from the office building. She pays it no mind though, merely settles in next to the other man and lets her head hit his shoulder like she needs it.
“The quiet should be a good thing,” she clears the hoarseness from her throat as she closes her eyes, just for a moment. “No sounds of zombies, or screaming, or panic, but it feels wrong.”
Emre is motionless as Nat sits down, immediately in his space and never straying from it. He doesn't mind - it's comforting, and would be even if it weren't the end of the world. It's hard not to think about his family, all his young cousins in New York that had no idea about personal space, all his aunts pinching his cheeks, and his face screws up for a moment.
"Honestly? I always hated the quiet, even before this." He readjusts, looping his arm lightly around his companion's shoulders. "But it is a good thing. Makes me almost optimistic that we're going to get where we need to."
Nat’s mouth twitches at that, an old squabble between them at this point, a difference in perspective. For all her pragmatism, Nat was nothing but certain that they’d leave Seattle intact. It was less hope than a willfulness, a problem that had a solution. Even when their group was picked off one by one, she hadn’t wavered, though she could admit that a large part of that was having Emre right in step beside her.
But now, when it was just —
“You? Optimistic?” She blinks her eyes back open, choosing to stare a little vacantly out at the smoke filled horizon instead of Emre when she pinches his thigh. “Should I check you for fever?”
"I said almost," Emre counters, tugging at a bit of Nat's hair in response to the pinch. He knows her positivity is good - has been good - even if he can't project it or buy into it himself. It's kept the others going, even as their numbers dwindled. And while he still thinks being honest is the best route (maybe because he gives everything away with his expressions), it'd be hard to argue with her results.
He lets out a quiet puff of air. "Getting some real sleep will do us all some good. I'm not sure if we should stay here a day or two to recharge or just keep pushing." There's a question in there, about Nat's opinion, even if it isn't explicit.
Nat hums, eyes still locked on something far in the distance, something beyond it perhaps. “I think…we should sleep,” she says, feels a flicker of the bone deep exhaustion she knows they’re all trudging through, ignoring. The fingers that had pinched him lay flat on Emre’s thigh, palm wide as she wraps her hand around the muscle in a distracted sort of familiarity. An unconscious need for comfort.
She swallows hard.
“Lorena is dead.”
They should get some sleep. Emre nods, taking comfort in the pressure on his thigh until Nat speaks and everything is no longer quiet and calm and comforting. He recoils from her, not far but enough that there is space between them and he's pulled back his arm.
By now he's used to death, in some ways, but Nat's cool casualness about it is still difficult for him to stomach. Every death makes it feel like it's less likely the people he cares about are still alive, and that's never stopped rearing its head. It's doing so now.
"What?" he practically hisses. He looks behind them to where he expects Lorena to be, curled up, asleep, and finds no one. "And you just...?" Emre isn't even sure how he wants to finish that sentence.
Nat’s brow furrows, something like hurt flaring sharp beneath her ribs at the direction his question was going, before she smothers that down too. “And I just? I went to check on her,” Lorena had waved them both away as they’d swept the gas station, breathing too laboured and pain too great to manage the affectionate smile that had usually accompanied the gesture.
She hadn’t been confident that she’d be able to make it up on the roof, had told Nat she just needed to sit a moment while they made their preparations for the night. So Nat had gone to look for something clean to replace the blood soaked bandages while Emre checked the roof. Like they always did.
“It’s like she went to sleep,” Nat turns away from him, jaw flexing. She curls her hand against her own thigh. “No Black fever, no reanimation.”
Though Nat's later words are reassuring, it's still hard to hear. Emre sinks down a little, no longer leaning away from his companion, his elbows press into his thighs and his face in his hands. He wishes she had just told him immediately. He feels like he's done something wrong in being almost ok, almost optimistic, while Lorena had been dead without him knowing.
"Fuck." A deep breath. For a moment, he considers asking Nat to tell him, next time, right when it happens. But there is no next time, unless they pick up someone else. It's just them now.
"I fucking hate this, Nat." Emre is at a loss for any other words.
Nat swallows, can feel herself nodding even if she can’t quite look at him again. When she had first stumbled into the group it had just been four of them, two of Nat’s colleagues and friends and Lorena, the 57 year old Italian grocer from the neighbourhood who had sheltered them in her backroom when they’d had to abandon the car to a horde on that first day. And then it had been 8, 12 at it’s largest, a formation that was as changeable as the rumours they heard every day as they tried to make their way south through the densest of the city.
And now it was two.
“I hate this too,” saying it doesn’t feel like a release at all. “I couldn’t find a sheet or,” she pinches the space pulsing angrily between her eyes. “If we can take an extra day we should bury her,” Lorena deserved a proper burial, but neither of them would want her body to somehow become reanimated either; there was still so much they didn’t know about this virus. What they needed to do, what Nat would do herself if Emre wouldn’t, was destroy Lorena’s brain so that it wouldn’t be possible to at all.
“I’m sorry,” she feels like she needs to say it, knows that the track her brain is always on isn’t changeable, it goes one direction and it doesn’t stop. “About the way I...I’m sorry.”
The admission that Nat, too, hates it is somehow reassuring, as though Emre couldn't quite believe it without verbal confirmation. She's so good at compartmentalising, and while he can press on through his shit feelings too, they're still there, out in the open. Sometimes he struggles to find hers with how deeply packed down they are.
At least she wants a burial.
"I'll take care of it."
Because, horribly, Emre feels like he can't trust Nat with it. Not that she wouldn't do it right, or do everything that needs to be done, but that she would take the humanity out of it. That it wouldn't feel like burying a person but simply doing what needed to be done. It's miserable, that this is what comes to mind, because he knows his thoughts are unfair to his friend. Unfair and unkind. But he can't get rid of them.
"Just tell me shit when it happens," he says through an exhale, pulling his hands from his face and sitting up. That's not the real problem here but it's part of it, and feels like a part of it that can be addressed.
Nat bites the inside of her cheek and takes the reprimand.
“Yeah, alright,” her tone is a little sharp, though not with defensiveness. “I’d just found her,” and she’d wanted to sit in that moment with Emre where it didn’t have to be true. How they’d gotten to this point this fast wasn’t worth dwelling on, Nat knew what trauma bonding was, it’s why she’d lingered next to Lorena, fixing the draping of the dirty clothes that weren’t even the woman’s own, holding her hand. Lorena had always taken pride in her appearance.
Nat inhales deeply, spine straightening, shoulders rolling back. Fortifying, moving on.
“I need you to cut my hair,” it’s been a long, curling tangled mess since April, and she’s been thinking of Lorena’s own long hair, Erika whose ponytail had been her undoing.
The sharpness of Nat's tone would have drawn argument from Emre if he weren't so tired, but right now it doesn't seem worth the fight. Especially because he's feeling guilty for attributing so much callousness to the woman beside him. He looks to her at her request, surprised, feeling another swell of discontent with how she's dealing with this.
But hair cutting can be a form of mourning, he tells himself, and evens out his expression.
"Sure. Can't promise I'll do a good job, but I'll try."
“I promise not to cry into my pillows because you’ve ruined my hair for my big date,” comes out dry and amused, a little more of how they usually speak to each other. It’s still muted though, a little hesitant. “It just needs to be short, and it’ll be better than any job I’d do using a hub cap for a reflection.”
She just wants it gone.
Emre lets out a soft, half-hearted scoff at the dry joke. It's a small consolation prize for her - there's no smile, and he doesn't banter back. He just feels like shit, and in the back of his mind he's trying to figure out where he's going to bury Lorena.
After a moment he pulls his legs off the edge of the building and stands, offering Nat a hand up. "Come on smallfry, we'll at least get you sitting with the moon at your back so I don't fuck it up too bad."
It takes a moment for Nat to take her friend’s hand, but when she does it’s with a strong grip. She wants to hold on to it, wants to maybe sink into a hug that they both need because all they have is each other.
She rolls her eyes at the nickname good-naturedly instead.
“If you do, you have my permission to use it in your stand up material. But let’s do it after,” she clears her throat and meets his gaze stubbornly, knowing what he’s going to say. “I’m helping.”
As her hand folds into his, he squeezes, an internal apology for all of his mixed up, negative thoughts. They just need to handle this. They just need to get out and find their families. Emre holds her hand for a few moments, always a little unsure of when he can seek comfort from Nat. It always makes him feel like a child when he does.
They should probably wait until morning to bury Lorena, since they'll have better visuals, but fuck that. He hesitates, releasing her hand. "I can do it, Nat."
“I know,” she dismisses, giving him a small smile. “But we do it together,” like everything they would be doing from here on out.
Nat wishes she had a cigarette. In the weeks since that first phone call (her brother’s panicked and confused voice yelling that their grandmother’s bite just wouldn’t stop bleeding), wanting that nicotine was a constant refrain.
But she’s never quite wanted it like she does now, waiting outside the desolate farmhouse that had – is Emre’s parent’s home with a taste of bile and ash in her mouth.
It had been the handprint smears on the windows that Nat had noticed first, streaks against the glass that the dust hadn’t claimed. But it was the blood, as they’d carefully rounded the corner of the entryway with weapons cautiously drawn, that had stifled the hope in Emre’s voice.
And then –
She turns abruptly at the sound of the door, already several steps closer before her partner is even visible.
“Emre…”
He had known not to really hope for anything, given the state of the surrounding area, given the state of everything, but Emre had allowed himself to hope. And now it's coming crashing down around him - his family is dead. There aren't enough bodies to account for everyone, but he figures that's because they reanimated and left. Are maybe out there, still, which makes everything worse. He'd thrown up after gently covering his mother and brother with sheets, and then had made his way back downstairs. He's wiping at his eyes as Nat comes into view, practically shaking, his thoughts scattered.
"What?" he snaps, sharp and pained. He knows he's just taking it out on her, but he can't care right now.
She stops, stride aborted and finds her hands raised as if to placate or soothe. She’s a picture of composure, she nearly always is, though her brow is creased with pain for him.
She lets fly maybe the worst thing she can ask before correcting herself too late: “Are you oka–what can I do?”
In pain and wanting to lash out, it's easy to focus on the misstep, on the composure, instead of on the clear want to help that Nat's expressing. Emre wants to march up to her and shove her onto the ground but he's at least in control enough to stay where he is. He wipes roughly at his eyes again.
"Am I okay? What can you do? Nat my fucking family is dead! What the fuck are you going to do? How could I be ok?" Hands now balled into fists at his sides, he can't figure out what to do with his body. He is tense and also losing all strength. He might sink to the ground and looks skyward to try to will himself to stay upright.
There’s something in Nat that hardens at the slightest lick of a crisis, and she feels it do so now, believes that being what she perceives to be a source of strength will help Emre through what has to be the worst moment in his life.
He’s breaking apart and she’ll hold the pieces of himself together if she has to.
“I’m sorry,” she’s emphatic about it, words swollen with empathy she doesn’t want to be mistaken for pity. She reaches for him again. “Emre, I’m so sorry, just – let’s sit though, let me help you. You need to breathe. You’re shaking.”
Emre, for the moment, doesn't retract from the touch, but instead doesn't even react to it. After a few beats he sinks slowly to the ground, curling in on himself, burying his face in his knees. Nat is trying and he can actually tell, even in the midst of all this, but it doesn't fix anything. He has no idea what he's going to do now, since this had been what had kept him going.
"How are you going to help? What the fuck. What the fuck." Breaths coming in gasps, he knows that this is panic and grief but it, of course, feels like dying. Nat is calm and he is dying.
Nat follows him to the ground, the hesitant touch now a firm grip on his shoulder. “Hey, look at me, Emre,” she ducks her head, tries to force him to meet her gaze. “You’re having a panic attack, breathe with me.”
As grounding as the hold on his shoulder is, Emre tries to wrench away from it, even as he lifts his head and meets Nat's eyes. "I'm not," he chokes out, not even sure why he's being contrary. His brain has stopped making sense of anything for the moment.
He wants to lie down forever and push Nat away and crawl back into his house and run away, all of it contrary and none of it feeling possible right now. He settles for pressing his face into his knees again, trying to control his breathing. "God, how are you…? How can you be…?"
The back of Nat’s neck prickles uneasily. “Hey, you’re only going to hurt yourself if you keep doing that. ”
Emre falls silent, trying to focus on his breathing and not on the house behind him or anything that has happened in the last few months, honestly. It takes some time, but slowly, his breathing comes under control and his eyes stop stinging.
His mind, however, has been working in the background, desperately grasping for anything to make him feel better, or at least distract him.
"What are you going to do if you find your family like this?" It's not a kind question and he knows it.
Nat stills and the soothing circles she’d been brushing against his shoulder blade cease. What would she do if she found her younger brother, her sister, her niece bloody and broken or worse? She already knows that it’s how she’d find her grandmother, the woman who had raised her and her siblings for most of her life, perhaps the tragic reason why Nat hadn’t heard from any of them since.
“I don’t know,” she answers frankly, quiet. “I can’t… know until I’m there. There’s no point in considering it until then.”
Emre is quiet again, trying to make sense of her quiet but rational answer. Straightforward, almost unbothered. It's not optimism that's making her not consider this, it's simply practicality.
"God, are you even human Nat?" he hisses, face still pressed to knees. "Do you give a shit about anything? You're just… fine. You're fine with this, you're fine with whatever is going on with your family, just like you were fine with waiting to tell me about Lorena, fine with her fucking dying. It's all just fine for you." As he speaks the force of his voice grows, as does the unfairness of his words. But he doesn't care. He's mad, and he wants Nat to hurt too, because his own hurt is spilling over and out of him.
“What the fuck,” catches in her throat as she stares at him. “Fine with your family—fine with Lorena? Just because I don’t fall to pieces doesn't mean I don’t give a shit, Emre. Jesus,” she inhales deeply through her nose, holds onto the breath until her heart isn’t pounding quite so hard in her ear.
Are you even human Nat?
“I’m going to get you water,” she moves to stand, clearly this wasn’t what he needed and she wasn’t going to sit there and be the thing he emptied all his pain and anger into.
Even though Nat's words hint at emotion, all Emre hears is her continued even-temperedness. No yelling, no accusing him of being unfair, no cursing him out. And now she's going to get him water? There are so many things about this that hurt, but bundled up in this too is how weak she makes him feel. He's never been one to be ashamed of his emotions, but he's crumpled on the ground, lashing out, and Nat is taking it in stride, just like everything else. He's mad about this too, about her making him feel small, but that anger shifts quickly to shame. It's easy to turn the anger inward when he's left to himself.
He's a liability to her now, because he's reached a breaking point, and she clearly doesn't need him anyways. Lifting his head and wiping at his eyes, he watches her retreating back, her shorn hair that he'd done his best to keep even. Then he stumbles to his feet and quietly but quickly leaves, headed into a forested area so he can disappear from view. This is for the best. He can't imagine he's going to be much use from now on anyways.
The water bottle is a cheap plastic one, the last of the stash from the gas station. It crumples in Nat’s hand, half empty as it is, when she returns to find Emre gone.
“Emre,” she blinks at the space, a long moment without understanding that is swiftly overtaken by a spike of hot panic.
Fuck, they hadn’t fully checked the house, the yard. It was a god damn farm, it was possible there were feral animals drawn to the sound of the anguish, and she’d left Emre in his most vulnerable state so that she could get him water from the pack she shouldn’t have left inside to begin with.
“Shit,” she reaches for her knife, breathing controlled to quell the fog of anxiety as she scans the surroundings for where he could have possibly been attacked or run from something.
No blood. No pack, no signs of struggle or –
Footprints in the dirt, an equal unhurried stride.
Nat stares at them for a long moment, clever mind already at the conclusion even as her mind fights the connections that got her there. Nausea rises hot and fast.
No pack.
Are you even human Nat?
Her knee is still troubling her, so when she levers herself down to the dirt it’s clumsily done. One leg stretched out, one caught beneath her, she stares out at the forest at the edge of the property that was probably a familiar haunt for Emre and his siblings.
4 to start, then 8, 12 dwindling down to 3 before they’d even hit Seattle’s city limits, and then 2.
Now it was 1.
The loneliest fucking number.
The nausea and acrid fear is easier to swallow down than the threat of tears, but she’s gotten so good at doing both that all Nat feels is numb as she sits there listening for someone who is already gone.
“Just a minute,” she announces to no one, the sky, to herself, and clears the thickness of unshed tears from her throat. Fortifying, moving on. “Just…a minute.”
She gives herself exactly 7 before she’s gone too.
WHEN: ~May 2012
WHERE: Seattle + Providence Ridge
WHAT: Nat and Emre meet. / Nat and Emre lose the final other member of their group. / Nat and Emre get to his parents house and then part ways.
WARNINGS: The usual cursing; death, including familial death; setting standard sad/panicky/bad feelings.
Erika should be the one doing this. 20 years-old and a University of Washington track star, she had been the fastest of the dwindling lot of them, nimble and focused, patient in a way that Les and Monica weren’t and Lorena, Jason and Cam no longer could be. But she had been eager too, eager about her dreams of becoming a primary school teacher, eager about getting out of the city to find her sister, eager to volunteer for the riskiest jobs to protect a group of strangers she barely knew.
Nat had liked her for the 6 days that she had known her before the grasping fingers of death finally caught up with her.
Without Erika, it’s Nat and Les who are scouting ahead of the group for the safest passage beyond the park, or they had been before a small shambling cluster had forced them back into the darkness of a crumbling storefront.
“We should have waited,” Les hisses to Nat, the sweat of his upper lip obvious from the shine of moonlight pouring in through the blown out windows. He’s trembling, a hair trigger away from something, Nat is sure, and it’s not the first time she wishes she’d left him with the others.
She inhales deeply, quietly as she watches the zombies circling the park, mottled and reeking with months old decay.
“We should have waited,” now it’s approaching a sob, and Nat can’t have the man’s hysterics becoming a homing beacon for a horde.
“Les,” Nat whispers firmly, her fingers extended as if to gentle a spooked horse. “They haven’t seen us, I need you to stay calm. Stay quie---”
There’s the crunch of broken glass behind them and as her own adrenaline spikes hot with alarm, Nat watches Les’ eyes bulge in preparation to scream. Her hand slaps down over his mouth with bruising force but it sends them clumsily back into the wall with a loud thud.
The noise draws a hiss from Emre, who had been doing his best to approach quietly and then slip into view to avoid startling them. To avoid this, exactly. He's not mad though - can't really be, given the circumstances, but he is aware that the small cluster of zombies now seem to have locked onto their presence. They don't have time for introductions. He hikes his rifle onto his shoulder, jerks his thumb towards the back of the store, and goes.
Nat doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even need to look back over to where the man’s eyes had lingered. She grabs Les’ collar with a forbidding grip, her eyes severe as she meets his. Miraculously, the older man stumbles to his feet without another noise, the two of them lumbering after Emre as quickly and silently as they can. And even though Emre doesn't know them, he checks behind as he moves to make sure they keep up.
There’s an alleyway on the opposite side of the building, enclosed between another brick building and a delivery bay that affords the three of them space from the zombies. Behind her, Nat closes the heavy metal door discreetly, the moans of the zombies muffled to barely noticeable white noise.
“Oh fuck,” Les heaves, stumbles to his knees. Nat doesn’t move her gaze from the stranger or his rifle though, her grip tight on the knife at her side.
“Sneaking up on people isn’t the most polite thing, these days.”
Once they're inside Emre lets out a soft huff of air, eyeing the garage door, the building they're in, seemingly more concerned with that for the moment than the two strangers. There's something tactical about how he searches their surroundings, and he's outfitted with stolen Red Talon gear - it's not hard to guess what at least some of his history is.
Finally, he looks between Nat and Les. "Next time I'll yell." His tone is a little tight, but it's not about them, and he hopes they know that. It's just about fucking everything. "There's a group coming around from the east, too. Didn't want to just leave you there to get pinned."
Nat’s sharp eyes finish the last of her sweeping assessment of Emre’s familiar uniform. “Thank you,” she sounds a touch surprised, which speaks to the reality of what some survivors have dealt with for the past few weeks. Her thanks only receives a quick shake of Emre's head.
“Are you cut off from your group soldier boy?” There’s irony in the tilt of her mouth. She’s curious even if she’s wary.
At the comment, Les looks up, identifying the Red Talon outfit easily. “Fuck, Nat,” he backs away uneasily. Where Red Talon was found in Seattle, little good preceded (or sometimes followed).
The discomfort is warranted, Emre thinks, but he still can't help the quiet scoff, the shake of his head at the other man's skittering away. It seems overblown. But he should be playing nice. Even as he eyes Nat's knife, he makes no moves himself for any weaponry.
"I deserted, so relax." He's not ashamed - he's certain it was the right thing to do. Still, his brows beetle a bit, his mind drifting to his family. "I'm just trying to get out of the city."
“Well you’ve joined the right club,” Nat offers, ignoring Les’ protests as she steps closer. Deserted, wasn’t that interesting? “So are we. Have been trying to, I mean, for the last few weeks. There’s a group of us not too far north of here.”
“Jesus, we don’t even know him!”
She tucks the knife back into the pocket of her leather jacket, just about the only thing she’s wearing that isn’t covered in grime and sweat. “You barely know me Les,” she cuts the other man off, not unkindly, but without much consideration for his concerns. Nat was, above all things, practical, and if the 6 foot something former Red Talon soldier with a gun, going the same direction they were, might be willing to help their group get the rest of the way out of the city, then why would she hesitate? Half of their group was wounded, weak, or well past their limit.
“Maybe the man with the gun is looking for some company. Why did you desert?”
Club? Even without knowing Emre it's probably clear that he's surprised and a little confused. He's not against working with a group, knowing it should, in theory, be safer, but Nat's quick acceptance isn't what he was expecting.
"...at this point I feel like you have to immediately trust people, or immediately distrust them. Not much time for nuance."
His eyes dart to Les again, trying to weigh his own trust in the man. He doesn't seem like he'd have the guts to stab him in the back, and Emre figures that's close enough.
"Private security was fine, but it was getting too militant for my tastes." He hesitates a moment before adding, "And I have people outside the city. How many of you are there?"
“Seven,” Nat crosses her arms over her chest. “There were more of us, but…” the sentence doesn’t need to be finished, and more importantly: “we all have people outside of the city too.”
She’s not sure this is much of a sell given their numbers, Les’ less than inspiring performance, or the fact that she’s just a whisp of 5 feet and inviting a stranger to join them without even offering her name first.
But Erika is gone. Jason has a broken arm she suspects is infected. The others are doing their best, but Nat isn’t sure how far she can get them out of this death trap if it’s just by herself.
“I’m Natalie,” she extends her hand, maybe forcing his. “Nat.”
Emre's brows knit and he remains silent, listening, though his expressions say enough - seven is a lot, he feels bad that they've lost people, feels bad they also have people outside the city too. He hums, adjusts his footing, before reaching out his hand to shake hers.
"Emre." He's quiet for a long moment again, torn. "...shit. Look, I'll come back with you to your group, at least. Make sure you get there safe." Before committing to anything he needs to see the state of them; he's a commodity in this new world, and unfortunately a lot of other people are liabilities. He can't get dragged down too much or he'll never get out of Seattle.
Nat’s handshake is firm and perfunctory, whether it was the self-confidence (bordering on overconfidence), or a learned overcompensation for her small stature, she doesn’t let it linger long. And with his hesitant agreement, she considers it as good as a victory.
“We’d appreciate it,” she ignores Les’ grumblings, a grin growing. She winks. “After we finish scoping out this route that is,” we including Emre now as well; he’d signed himself up for exactly that.
He wonders immediately if the only reason any of their group is alive is because of Nat. He wouldn't be surprised. Emre takes a moment to press his ear to the metal door, ignoring Les just as easily. "Let's get going, then."
Emre would be amazed at how fast things change, if he had the energy for it. But their group has dwindled down and down as they've made their treacherous march out of Seattle, and now it's just him, Nat, and Lorena. And Lorena isn't doing well, pale and trembling, bleeding from a gash on her chest that just refuses to stop oozing. She's slowing them down, but he already knows Nat well enough that there's no question about leaving her behind. He doesn't want to do that either, anyways.
They're currently settling in for the night on the roof of a gas station, the moon full enough to give them good visibility. Despite not having to worry about anything getting up with them since they'd yanked the ladder up, it's hard to try to sleep. And Emre feels like he should be keeping watch. He sits on the edge of the building, idly scanning the roadway.
Nat doesn’t necessarily telegraph her approach, but she knows Emre can hear the shuffle of her boots, heavier than usual.
She barely even sighs when she shifts to join her friend, has to hold on to his shoulder to even lever herself down to his perch. Her knee aches, has since 4 days ago when she’d wrenched it from where it’d been pinned by a door in that mad sprint from the office building. She pays it no mind though, merely settles in next to the other man and lets her head hit his shoulder like she needs it.
“The quiet should be a good thing,” she clears the hoarseness from her throat as she closes her eyes, just for a moment. “No sounds of zombies, or screaming, or panic, but it feels wrong.”
Emre is motionless as Nat sits down, immediately in his space and never straying from it. He doesn't mind - it's comforting, and would be even if it weren't the end of the world. It's hard not to think about his family, all his young cousins in New York that had no idea about personal space, all his aunts pinching his cheeks, and his face screws up for a moment.
"Honestly? I always hated the quiet, even before this." He readjusts, looping his arm lightly around his companion's shoulders. "But it is a good thing. Makes me almost optimistic that we're going to get where we need to."
Nat’s mouth twitches at that, an old squabble between them at this point, a difference in perspective. For all her pragmatism, Nat was nothing but certain that they’d leave Seattle intact. It was less hope than a willfulness, a problem that had a solution. Even when their group was picked off one by one, she hadn’t wavered, though she could admit that a large part of that was having Emre right in step beside her.
But now, when it was just —
“You? Optimistic?” She blinks her eyes back open, choosing to stare a little vacantly out at the smoke filled horizon instead of Emre when she pinches his thigh. “Should I check you for fever?”
"I said almost," Emre counters, tugging at a bit of Nat's hair in response to the pinch. He knows her positivity is good - has been good - even if he can't project it or buy into it himself. It's kept the others going, even as their numbers dwindled. And while he still thinks being honest is the best route (maybe because he gives everything away with his expressions), it'd be hard to argue with her results.
He lets out a quiet puff of air. "Getting some real sleep will do us all some good. I'm not sure if we should stay here a day or two to recharge or just keep pushing." There's a question in there, about Nat's opinion, even if it isn't explicit.
Nat hums, eyes still locked on something far in the distance, something beyond it perhaps. “I think…we should sleep,” she says, feels a flicker of the bone deep exhaustion she knows they’re all trudging through, ignoring. The fingers that had pinched him lay flat on Emre’s thigh, palm wide as she wraps her hand around the muscle in a distracted sort of familiarity. An unconscious need for comfort.
She swallows hard.
“Lorena is dead.”
They should get some sleep. Emre nods, taking comfort in the pressure on his thigh until Nat speaks and everything is no longer quiet and calm and comforting. He recoils from her, not far but enough that there is space between them and he's pulled back his arm.
By now he's used to death, in some ways, but Nat's cool casualness about it is still difficult for him to stomach. Every death makes it feel like it's less likely the people he cares about are still alive, and that's never stopped rearing its head. It's doing so now.
"What?" he practically hisses. He looks behind them to where he expects Lorena to be, curled up, asleep, and finds no one. "And you just...?" Emre isn't even sure how he wants to finish that sentence.
Nat’s brow furrows, something like hurt flaring sharp beneath her ribs at the direction his question was going, before she smothers that down too. “And I just? I went to check on her,” Lorena had waved them both away as they’d swept the gas station, breathing too laboured and pain too great to manage the affectionate smile that had usually accompanied the gesture.
She hadn’t been confident that she’d be able to make it up on the roof, had told Nat she just needed to sit a moment while they made their preparations for the night. So Nat had gone to look for something clean to replace the blood soaked bandages while Emre checked the roof. Like they always did.
“It’s like she went to sleep,” Nat turns away from him, jaw flexing. She curls her hand against her own thigh. “No Black fever, no reanimation.”
Though Nat's later words are reassuring, it's still hard to hear. Emre sinks down a little, no longer leaning away from his companion, his elbows press into his thighs and his face in his hands. He wishes she had just told him immediately. He feels like he's done something wrong in being almost ok, almost optimistic, while Lorena had been dead without him knowing.
"Fuck." A deep breath. For a moment, he considers asking Nat to tell him, next time, right when it happens. But there is no next time, unless they pick up someone else. It's just them now.
"I fucking hate this, Nat." Emre is at a loss for any other words.
Nat swallows, can feel herself nodding even if she can’t quite look at him again. When she had first stumbled into the group it had just been four of them, two of Nat’s colleagues and friends and Lorena, the 57 year old Italian grocer from the neighbourhood who had sheltered them in her backroom when they’d had to abandon the car to a horde on that first day. And then it had been 8, 12 at it’s largest, a formation that was as changeable as the rumours they heard every day as they tried to make their way south through the densest of the city.
And now it was two.
“I hate this too,” saying it doesn’t feel like a release at all. “I couldn’t find a sheet or,” she pinches the space pulsing angrily between her eyes. “If we can take an extra day we should bury her,” Lorena deserved a proper burial, but neither of them would want her body to somehow become reanimated either; there was still so much they didn’t know about this virus. What they needed to do, what Nat would do herself if Emre wouldn’t, was destroy Lorena’s brain so that it wouldn’t be possible to at all.
“I’m sorry,” she feels like she needs to say it, knows that the track her brain is always on isn’t changeable, it goes one direction and it doesn’t stop. “About the way I...I’m sorry.”
The admission that Nat, too, hates it is somehow reassuring, as though Emre couldn't quite believe it without verbal confirmation. She's so good at compartmentalising, and while he can press on through his shit feelings too, they're still there, out in the open. Sometimes he struggles to find hers with how deeply packed down they are.
At least she wants a burial.
"I'll take care of it."
Because, horribly, Emre feels like he can't trust Nat with it. Not that she wouldn't do it right, or do everything that needs to be done, but that she would take the humanity out of it. That it wouldn't feel like burying a person but simply doing what needed to be done. It's miserable, that this is what comes to mind, because he knows his thoughts are unfair to his friend. Unfair and unkind. But he can't get rid of them.
"Just tell me shit when it happens," he says through an exhale, pulling his hands from his face and sitting up. That's not the real problem here but it's part of it, and feels like a part of it that can be addressed.
Nat bites the inside of her cheek and takes the reprimand.
“Yeah, alright,” her tone is a little sharp, though not with defensiveness. “I’d just found her,” and she’d wanted to sit in that moment with Emre where it didn’t have to be true. How they’d gotten to this point this fast wasn’t worth dwelling on, Nat knew what trauma bonding was, it’s why she’d lingered next to Lorena, fixing the draping of the dirty clothes that weren’t even the woman’s own, holding her hand. Lorena had always taken pride in her appearance.
Nat inhales deeply, spine straightening, shoulders rolling back. Fortifying, moving on.
“I need you to cut my hair,” it’s been a long, curling tangled mess since April, and she’s been thinking of Lorena’s own long hair, Erika whose ponytail had been her undoing.
The sharpness of Nat's tone would have drawn argument from Emre if he weren't so tired, but right now it doesn't seem worth the fight. Especially because he's feeling guilty for attributing so much callousness to the woman beside him. He looks to her at her request, surprised, feeling another swell of discontent with how she's dealing with this.
But hair cutting can be a form of mourning, he tells himself, and evens out his expression.
"Sure. Can't promise I'll do a good job, but I'll try."
“I promise not to cry into my pillows because you’ve ruined my hair for my big date,” comes out dry and amused, a little more of how they usually speak to each other. It’s still muted though, a little hesitant. “It just needs to be short, and it’ll be better than any job I’d do using a hub cap for a reflection.”
She just wants it gone.
Emre lets out a soft, half-hearted scoff at the dry joke. It's a small consolation prize for her - there's no smile, and he doesn't banter back. He just feels like shit, and in the back of his mind he's trying to figure out where he's going to bury Lorena.
After a moment he pulls his legs off the edge of the building and stands, offering Nat a hand up. "Come on smallfry, we'll at least get you sitting with the moon at your back so I don't fuck it up too bad."
It takes a moment for Nat to take her friend’s hand, but when she does it’s with a strong grip. She wants to hold on to it, wants to maybe sink into a hug that they both need because all they have is each other.
She rolls her eyes at the nickname good-naturedly instead.
“If you do, you have my permission to use it in your stand up material. But let’s do it after,” she clears her throat and meets his gaze stubbornly, knowing what he’s going to say. “I’m helping.”
As her hand folds into his, he squeezes, an internal apology for all of his mixed up, negative thoughts. They just need to handle this. They just need to get out and find their families. Emre holds her hand for a few moments, always a little unsure of when he can seek comfort from Nat. It always makes him feel like a child when he does.
They should probably wait until morning to bury Lorena, since they'll have better visuals, but fuck that. He hesitates, releasing her hand. "I can do it, Nat."
“I know,” she dismisses, giving him a small smile. “But we do it together,” like everything they would be doing from here on out.
Nat wishes she had a cigarette. In the weeks since that first phone call (her brother’s panicked and confused voice yelling that their grandmother’s bite just wouldn’t stop bleeding), wanting that nicotine was a constant refrain.
But she’s never quite wanted it like she does now, waiting outside the desolate farmhouse that had – is Emre’s parent’s home with a taste of bile and ash in her mouth.
It had been the handprint smears on the windows that Nat had noticed first, streaks against the glass that the dust hadn’t claimed. But it was the blood, as they’d carefully rounded the corner of the entryway with weapons cautiously drawn, that had stifled the hope in Emre’s voice.
And then –
She turns abruptly at the sound of the door, already several steps closer before her partner is even visible.
“Emre…”
He had known not to really hope for anything, given the state of the surrounding area, given the state of everything, but Emre had allowed himself to hope. And now it's coming crashing down around him - his family is dead. There aren't enough bodies to account for everyone, but he figures that's because they reanimated and left. Are maybe out there, still, which makes everything worse. He'd thrown up after gently covering his mother and brother with sheets, and then had made his way back downstairs. He's wiping at his eyes as Nat comes into view, practically shaking, his thoughts scattered.
"What?" he snaps, sharp and pained. He knows he's just taking it out on her, but he can't care right now.
She stops, stride aborted and finds her hands raised as if to placate or soothe. She’s a picture of composure, she nearly always is, though her brow is creased with pain for him.
She lets fly maybe the worst thing she can ask before correcting herself too late: “Are you oka–what can I do?”
In pain and wanting to lash out, it's easy to focus on the misstep, on the composure, instead of on the clear want to help that Nat's expressing. Emre wants to march up to her and shove her onto the ground but he's at least in control enough to stay where he is. He wipes roughly at his eyes again.
"Am I okay? What can you do? Nat my fucking family is dead! What the fuck are you going to do? How could I be ok?" Hands now balled into fists at his sides, he can't figure out what to do with his body. He is tense and also losing all strength. He might sink to the ground and looks skyward to try to will himself to stay upright.
There’s something in Nat that hardens at the slightest lick of a crisis, and she feels it do so now, believes that being what she perceives to be a source of strength will help Emre through what has to be the worst moment in his life.
He’s breaking apart and she’ll hold the pieces of himself together if she has to.
“I’m sorry,” she’s emphatic about it, words swollen with empathy she doesn’t want to be mistaken for pity. She reaches for him again. “Emre, I’m so sorry, just – let’s sit though, let me help you. You need to breathe. You’re shaking.”
Emre, for the moment, doesn't retract from the touch, but instead doesn't even react to it. After a few beats he sinks slowly to the ground, curling in on himself, burying his face in his knees. Nat is trying and he can actually tell, even in the midst of all this, but it doesn't fix anything. He has no idea what he's going to do now, since this had been what had kept him going.
"How are you going to help? What the fuck. What the fuck." Breaths coming in gasps, he knows that this is panic and grief but it, of course, feels like dying. Nat is calm and he is dying.
Nat follows him to the ground, the hesitant touch now a firm grip on his shoulder. “Hey, look at me, Emre,” she ducks her head, tries to force him to meet her gaze. “You’re having a panic attack, breathe with me.”
As grounding as the hold on his shoulder is, Emre tries to wrench away from it, even as he lifts his head and meets Nat's eyes. "I'm not," he chokes out, not even sure why he's being contrary. His brain has stopped making sense of anything for the moment.
He wants to lie down forever and push Nat away and crawl back into his house and run away, all of it contrary and none of it feeling possible right now. He settles for pressing his face into his knees again, trying to control his breathing. "God, how are you…? How can you be…?"
The back of Nat’s neck prickles uneasily. “Hey, you’re only going to hurt yourself if you keep doing that. ”
Emre falls silent, trying to focus on his breathing and not on the house behind him or anything that has happened in the last few months, honestly. It takes some time, but slowly, his breathing comes under control and his eyes stop stinging.
His mind, however, has been working in the background, desperately grasping for anything to make him feel better, or at least distract him.
"What are you going to do if you find your family like this?" It's not a kind question and he knows it.
Nat stills and the soothing circles she’d been brushing against his shoulder blade cease. What would she do if she found her younger brother, her sister, her niece bloody and broken or worse? She already knows that it’s how she’d find her grandmother, the woman who had raised her and her siblings for most of her life, perhaps the tragic reason why Nat hadn’t heard from any of them since.
“I don’t know,” she answers frankly, quiet. “I can’t… know until I’m there. There’s no point in considering it until then.”
Emre is quiet again, trying to make sense of her quiet but rational answer. Straightforward, almost unbothered. It's not optimism that's making her not consider this, it's simply practicality.
"God, are you even human Nat?" he hisses, face still pressed to knees. "Do you give a shit about anything? You're just… fine. You're fine with this, you're fine with whatever is going on with your family, just like you were fine with waiting to tell me about Lorena, fine with her fucking dying. It's all just fine for you." As he speaks the force of his voice grows, as does the unfairness of his words. But he doesn't care. He's mad, and he wants Nat to hurt too, because his own hurt is spilling over and out of him.
“What the fuck,” catches in her throat as she stares at him. “Fine with your family—fine with Lorena? Just because I don’t fall to pieces doesn't mean I don’t give a shit, Emre. Jesus,” she inhales deeply through her nose, holds onto the breath until her heart isn’t pounding quite so hard in her ear.
Are you even human Nat?
“I’m going to get you water,” she moves to stand, clearly this wasn’t what he needed and she wasn’t going to sit there and be the thing he emptied all his pain and anger into.
Even though Nat's words hint at emotion, all Emre hears is her continued even-temperedness. No yelling, no accusing him of being unfair, no cursing him out. And now she's going to get him water? There are so many things about this that hurt, but bundled up in this too is how weak she makes him feel. He's never been one to be ashamed of his emotions, but he's crumpled on the ground, lashing out, and Nat is taking it in stride, just like everything else. He's mad about this too, about her making him feel small, but that anger shifts quickly to shame. It's easy to turn the anger inward when he's left to himself.
He's a liability to her now, because he's reached a breaking point, and she clearly doesn't need him anyways. Lifting his head and wiping at his eyes, he watches her retreating back, her shorn hair that he'd done his best to keep even. Then he stumbles to his feet and quietly but quickly leaves, headed into a forested area so he can disappear from view. This is for the best. He can't imagine he's going to be much use from now on anyways.
The water bottle is a cheap plastic one, the last of the stash from the gas station. It crumples in Nat’s hand, half empty as it is, when she returns to find Emre gone.
“Emre,” she blinks at the space, a long moment without understanding that is swiftly overtaken by a spike of hot panic.
Fuck, they hadn’t fully checked the house, the yard. It was a god damn farm, it was possible there were feral animals drawn to the sound of the anguish, and she’d left Emre in his most vulnerable state so that she could get him water from the pack she shouldn’t have left inside to begin with.
“Shit,” she reaches for her knife, breathing controlled to quell the fog of anxiety as she scans the surroundings for where he could have possibly been attacked or run from something.
No blood. No pack, no signs of struggle or –
Footprints in the dirt, an equal unhurried stride.
Nat stares at them for a long moment, clever mind already at the conclusion even as her mind fights the connections that got her there. Nausea rises hot and fast.
No pack.
Are you even human Nat?
Her knee is still troubling her, so when she levers herself down to the dirt it’s clumsily done. One leg stretched out, one caught beneath her, she stares out at the forest at the edge of the property that was probably a familiar haunt for Emre and his siblings.
4 to start, then 8, 12 dwindling down to 3 before they’d even hit Seattle’s city limits, and then 2.
Now it was 1.
The loneliest fucking number.
The nausea and acrid fear is easier to swallow down than the threat of tears, but she’s gotten so good at doing both that all Nat feels is numb as she sits there listening for someone who is already gone.
“Just a minute,” she announces to no one, the sky, to herself, and clears the thickness of unshed tears from her throat. Fortifying, moving on. “Just…a minute.”
She gives herself exactly 7 before she’s gone too.