“I don’t know. I didn’t know the guy — I think it’s possible. He did have some serious mommy issues.” Tate paused, then laughed at himself. “Not that everyone with mommy issues make human-meat suits, or anything. I’m just saying. With how nuts this guy was, I wouldn’t put anything past him.” When the heart within Tate’s chest still beat, he spent hours and hours within the communal libraries. He didn’t have any friends, but he also didn’t want to sit at home with his drunken mother wandering about ; True crime had fascinated him in a way that much else didn’t. “I mean, he had a lot more than lampshades. He made bowls, and seat coverings. Waste baskets. Masks. A belt made entirely from nipples — This guy could have made some serious money if he found another material to work with.” Maybe the smile that crossed Tate’s lips was a little cruel, a little too dark to be socially acceptable. But he was so desensitized. He’d witnessed murder up close and personal on several occasions. Nothing really squicked him out.
A belt from..??? Oh…wow. That was certainly a way to express parental issues. Chopping up people and turning them into decor and clothing was way beyond coping with feeling ignored by one’s parents (or so he hoped, because eeeesh!). “I wonder if there is a therapy out there that could stop that from happening?” Seeing Tate’s smile was a bit unnerving considering his own eyes were so expressive at the moment. His entire body language complete with scrunched nose and teeth chewing on the inside of his lip as he mulled it over was caught up the moment. Where Tate seemed to be able to talk about it like he was talking about the weather. Blaine didn’t seem to think too hard on how little the other boy was reacting, though. A passing thought and the moment was one. Leave it to Blaine to be too fascinated with the topic to overanalyze what was right in front of him. “Do you think he really could have been something? If the proper ways of circumventing a meltdown of well..making furniture out of dead people proportions? Can you save someone like that..?” He spoke with curiosity the end, not accusation. He truly wanted to know Tate’s thoughts and seemed to be hinging on them.
❝ They ALL look like someone. It’s a part of being the undead. ❞
She’s grown too used to the sight of CORPSES lying around by now. They aren’t human in her eyes anymore, and haven’t been since Heaven knows how long. Has managed to detach herself of emotion when it comes to looking at them because what else is she supposed to do ? She’s a regular FIGHTER; goes out every week or two with her team to pick through the d e b r i s and decaying buildings to find something useful, and bringing something as feeble as FEELINGS into it is … messy.
Of course, Quinn u s e d to care. Remembers the FIRST creature she had killed ——— the sound of its skull caving in and the feeling of KNOWING that it had once been properly, fully alive. Once upon a time, it too, had breathed. It had loved and cared for others, and she’d killed it with an old bat she’d found in someone’s basement. Had to be consoled for at least an hour before she could keep going, and that was only because they were SURE they were being followed. Then, when the whole thing with Finn had happened, she’d learned to keep empathy out of it. Caring wasn’t worth the pain.
❝ Come on, we’ll leave through the back exit. There could be something we NEED in the kitchen, and we don’t want to miss that, ❞ she instructs with the words and mind of a calculated leader. ❝ You take up the front, and I’ll take up the back and make sure that that THING’S definitely dead. Just keep walking, okay ? I’m right behind you.
❞
“She looks like my mom.. I don’t even know if she made it or not..”
Blaine walks as he’s told without giving any sort of verbal confirmation that he understood what she was telling him. Moving was more than enough. Eyes glued to the personthing on the floor until he had to step around to continue on. His blood ran cold, fingers that weren’t holding the grip of his gun with a white knuckled tightness balled into a fist at his side.
“I’m sorry. I’m good now. Promise.”
Quinn’s detachment was something someone like him who lacked it envied. The world would be so much easier to take if he could look at it as all a means to an end that didn’t matter what route you took through a sea of bodies and death as long as he came out on the other side okay. Maybe someday. He was trying. Just wasn’t there yet. Steps that felt ten times heavier than any he’s ever taken carry him towards the back. Most important, the kitchen.
“Let’s just get what we need and get out of here,” he squints stopping by the next wall and holding his breath as he steps far enough to glance around it. Noise, repetitive and quick that only he seems to be able to hear. A rapid gush of an echoing wet in his eardrums, heart pounding and blood rushing fast. CLEAR. “I think that might’ve been the only one..” Oh God, he hoped so.. A quick, sharp glance over his shoulder checked to see if she was there. Of course she was. Quinn was a person he trusted beyond trust. That’s why he’s here with her, after all. “Was it dead?” Please tell me it was dead.
Blaine was visibly shaking–hands constantly wringing together as he stood staring down at the body laid out on the floor. Unable to look away, he shook his head and tried to step around her like he was told to do. A stumbling attempt but he caught up to Quinn blindly, gaze locked behind his shoulder now. That was his problem. ‘Step around it.’ Sure, this wasn’t the first corpse he’s seen. Living in this nightmare–any time they stepped out of the camp–it was impossible not to see the broken shells of people littering the city or town or what felt like EVERYWHERE you looked. Sometimes he could focus on the task at hand long enough to only get queasy or not feel anything at all (a rarity..but it happened a couple times?). Others? Others were like now. It’d be so much easier if he could be like Quinn. Think of them as ‘it’ and they cease to be a reason to give a second thought past the mission and what was truly important. He was trying. He just..couldn’t. That level of disconnect wasn’t in his reach yet.
“She looks like someone..” He couldn’t bring himself to say who. “I need to get out of here.”
pianokeysandbowties back up 