spin_kick_snap | The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

The last time anyone from Fandom had been in Kathy's LA, the heroes had been living inside the walls that surrounded Paramount Studios, with the exes and the South Seventeens laying claim to everything else. Since then, they'd expanded; the Big Wall pushing the borders out almost a mile in all four directions. In some spots, it was hard to tell that there had ever been a zombocalypse; the streets were clean, the buildings repaired, the blood all scrubbed away. There was a proper school, lots of farms and gardens, several churches, and even a small library. The studio was still the heart of the community, but people had started to spread out and settle. It was still a tight fit, several thousand people into one square mile, but honestly not much worse than Los Angeles used to be, back before the world died and reanimated again.

Life had fallen back into a rhythm again. People got up, got ready for the day. Kids were sent off to school, adults took themselves to various jobs, though there were fewer sales people, baristas, and aspiring actors and a lot more guards, scavengers, and farmers these days. There was a brewery down on Larchmont and a still over on Monroe. Burns Park let people enjoy a bit of nature where the kids could run around and burn off steam and a Gold's Gym practically against the Big Wall. That was where the Unbreakables spent most of their free time, with curious gawkers watching them put more and more weight onto the machines.

It was a bustling little community of survivors, as safe as a place could be, surrounded on all sides by millions of undead waiting to find a way inside to devour them all.

[For them that are there! NFB, and ~~please wait for the~~ OCD is up! Previous entry Next Entry]

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"Let's hope we blast our way out of here fast," Dante said, his hand bumping against Ezra's for no reason at all, really.

It was still reason enough for Ezra to wait for a beat, and then try and take Dante's hand into his.

"Yeah, hope so."

Dante let him, squeezing his hand in recognition. "At least we found her."

"At least we found her," Ezra agreed, squeezing his hand back.

He sighed.

"Penny for... whatever that was?" Dante asked, voice ever so light.

An invitation for Ezra to talk, but also an invitation to let it go if that was what Ez needed right now.

Ezra was quiet for a long stretch of time. Just walking. His thumb brushing absently against Dante's hand.

Then he just said, "This is a lot."

"Yeah," Dante said, watching the streets rather than Ezra's face like he really wanted to. "It is."

Edited 2018-09-28 07:59 (UTC)

There wasn't much happening on Ezr's face worth seeing, anyhow. It was al neutral, though perhaps a little more open than it had been for the last while.

But still. Not a whole lot to go on.

"I'm tired, and I don't like this place." It was a little on the inane side as far as things to say went, but he didn't care. "I don't really enjoy these off-world trips."

Well, between this and Limbo City...

Dante wasn't the type to point out it was inane, anyway. Especially not when Ezra was actually talking to him, relatively unprompted, for once.

"You're not really getting to see the best of the multiverse, either," he said instead. "I can't blame you."

"I'd like a lower chance of dying."

He hadn't really feared for his own life on this particular outing. But, all the same.

"Feels like I've had more than my share of that." Just in general.

"Things still the same back home, huh," Dante said. Casual, neutral voice.

"No one's trying to kill me at home."

Anymore.

So that wasn't really what he'd been thinking of, no.

Dante nodded.

"Sorry," he said.

"You should be."

It was a weird blend of empathy and straight-forwardness, his tone.

"I am," Dante said quietly. "So that works out."

"I hope you understand, darling, that I have no intention of visiting Limbo City again."

He should've looked over at Dante.

But he didn't.

"I figured," Dante said.

What else was there to say?

Ezra had a lot to say, actually. But he was choosing not to, because what difference did it make? He had wounds of different kinds, some fair and some unfair, and airing any of them was unlikely to do anyone any good. At the very least, not right now.

With a final squeeze, he let Dante's hand go. Stuck his own back in his pocket.

Dante slid his hands back into his pockets, too.

He didn't have any excuses for Limbo City. There were some, objectively speaking: but he wasn't wired to think of them.

And so for once, where Ezra might have had a lot to say about something real, he had nothing else. Yeah, it was his fault. Yeah, of course Ez didn't want to come back.

He kept walking, as they began to circle back, and the people of the Mount began to return to their homes.

Edited 2018-09-28 09:57 (UTC)

Ezra walked in silence for a while.

Then he said, "I'm just going to go my own way for a while, if that's okay with you."

He was struck with the sudden need to be alone, and the utter claustrophobia of Kathy's apartment was not going to work well with that.

Another nod.

"Stay safe," Dante said.

He wanted to escape the tension, be with his people again.

So that worked out.

His people.

Yeah.

Ezra nodded back at him, then just sort of... made himself disappear.

That was what he was good at, after all.

Yeah. His people.

He felt like shit about everything that had happened to Ez last month.

He would take all the shit Ez had to dish out about that.

But Ez had made it clear a long time ago that he wasn't interested in being Dante's people, and Dante wasn't enough of a masochist not to take that hint.

He walked to the apartment in silence. Slipped inside. And found some peace.

The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

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