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[graveyardboots]

The bombs fall and they hide in a church. Pope declares them chosen and it fits with what Mancea hears; the voice he hears now in the place of the scream of bombs falling.

Then the bombs keep falling and they get separated. He takes Gabe and a corpsman and he runs for the woods. It's instinctive. The corpsman is injured, though, and Mancea finds them a cabin to rest in. But the prognosis isn't good.

"What will we do?" he asks Gabe quietly one night. "I don't think I can save her. God says she is meant for paradise."

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[minuteofangle]

It goes bad. Hell on Earth spinning through every path they choose, every move they try to make. It gets worse and every time Gabe thinks they’ve found the bottom, God or what the fuck ever just keeps digging.

He scrubs at his face. The whole goddamn earth smells like fire even though the bombs have stopped falling. But he can still taste the grease in his throat. Feel it caked on his skin even when Mancea’s not saying that shit. They’re out of the city proper but they’ve got little in the way of supplies and they’ve been separated from the group. And they’ve taken injuries.

Vickers won’t wake up, is the thing. She keeps making these horrible wheezing noises when she breathes, like there’s something stuck in her lungs. There’s not much they can do with her. Gabe’s rudimentary medical training didn’t cover smoke inhalation. He fears, quietly, that she’s dying.

“We’ll take shifts staying up with her,” Gabe says finally. So they’ll hear it if she dies and won’t wake up to a rotter in their midst. “What’s God saying, Andrei?”

This part is new. It worries him.

[graveyardboots]

They'll take it in shifts. he's torn; he wants Gabe to sleep but he knows they have to take it in turns until this poor soul is truly gone. Because they won't fall to the rotters.

He lifts his face toward the sky, listening. "He says not to fear. You and I will make it, Gabriel." He looks down at him. "We'll be all right as long as we stay together."

[minuteofangle]

It's been a while since Mancea's used his given name like that. Gabe swallows hard, wondering what the fuck that means. What he's supposed to take from that, if anyone could give him a sign. He doesn't hear God like Mancea seems to now. Sure, there were moments before where Mancea seemed to drift a little, get poetic about things. Usually when they were drinking scotch or reminiscing about old memories. Moments that might naturally bleed a little.

This feels different.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says finally. Not if he can help it. "But you're gonna have to help me when we go out. The food's not gonna last. We don't have much water, either."

[graveyardboots]

"I'll help you," he promises. There's no world where he leaves Gabe behind. He blinks up at the sky, God's voice fading from his mind.

"We should get her some water."

[minuteofangle]

"I got some left in my canteen. We could soak a rag."

Try and get at least some into her system without making her choke. A mouthful or two. Something.

It might be a losing battle. Sometimes, people just die. Neither of them know what to do to help her, if anything can be done.

"My radio's shot," he adds, softer. "What about yours?"

[graveyardboots]

"It won't save her," He says softly. "But we can make her passing comfortable."

And that matters. "My radio was blown out in the first wave of bombs," he admits. Guiltily. "We're on our own for now."

[minuteofangle]

Gabe tips his head back, exhaling slow. He doesn't know if Vickers can hear them. If it matters. If she's cognizant enough to listen, she'll know what's happening to her. That they've hit a cliff. He hopes she's not. He hope she can exist somewhere past the pain.

Quietly, he wishes they had morphine in their supplies. That they could just send her off gently.

Maybe they'll shot her, if it gets worse. She'd forgive them, he thinks.

"Okay," Gabe replies softly, acknowledging that. "You know where Pope would take the others?"

[graveyardboots]

"Fall's Church," Mancea says. "We need to push north. But not until she's ready."

He looks down at Vickers and smooths a hand over her forehead. "We'll take care of her first."

Make her passing gentle. It's the greatest mercy he can offer.

[minuteofangle]

Gabe bows his head and doesn't argue. The Wolves would've left her behind. The Wolves would've shot Gabe in the head a long time ago out of spite even before they got rid of him out of practicality. What good is a blind man out in the field, in this shit?

But the Reapers never played that game. Pope never abandoned him. Least Gabe can do now is return the favor to the dying.

"She in pain?" he asks quietly.

[graveyardboots]

"A little," Mancea has to admit with a frown. "But I think she's out of it enough she doesn't feel it."

They'll still do whatever they can to ease her suffering. "Let's get to the hospital. I can get her some morphine."

[minuteofangle]

Small mercies. Gabe shifts to lean against Mancea, trying to think. He makes a mental tally of all their supplies, how long each will last. And what they'll risk heading back into populated areas to get more.

Everything is a gamble these days. Everything.

"What're the chances it's still standing?" he asks practically.

[graveyardboots]

"Half of it is," Mancea says confidently. God has told him so. "We can get there in two hours if we hurry."

He hates to leave Vickers alone, though.

[minuteofangle]

How do we know? Gabe doesn’t ask, though. He fears, quietly, that the answer might be God told Mancea. And if that’s the case, both of them will have to live with that scaffolding for the aftermath. There won’t be any coming back from that.

Gabe rests his head against Mancea’s shoulder, breathing out slow.

“And if it’s overrun?”

Gabe has a big stick and some knives. But even Mancea’s not bold or optimistic enough to give him a gun and expect that to end well. If there’s trouble, and there will certainly be some fucking trouble, Gabe won’t be much help in dealing with it.

[graveyardboots]

"If it's overrun we turn back. We come back to Vickers." He won't risk Gabe, and he's not ready to think he could handle it all on his own.

[minuteofangle]

“Okay.”

Gabe closes his eyes, breathing out slow. He died t like the idea of leaving anyone behind, but why choice do they have here? Vickers is dying. There’s a chance they could do something about that.

“You hurt?” he asks abruptly. Things have been moving so fast, Gabe worries suddenly that he’s missed something.

[graveyardboots]

Reluctantly he pulls his shirt up to show a nasty cut all along his ribs. He guides Gabe's hand along it so he can feel it.

"I need to clean it," he says. Probably sew it, too, but he's not hopeful that they'll find a way to do that.

[minuteofangle]

Gabe tilts his head, frowning as he feels out the shape of the wound. He hadn’t noticed from the way Mancea was walking. He should have.

“It doesn’t feel infected yet,” he says after a moment. “Use some of the water in my canteen.”

Better to use it now and avoid an infection on top of everything.

[graveyardboots]

He's reluctant to do that--dehydration is dangerous and he doesn't want to take what Gabe has. But there's no clean water around, and it needs to be cleaned.

He rinses the wound, gets it bleeding fresh. "With luck we'll get antiseptic from the hospital," he says. God will allow them that, won't He?

[minuteofangle]

With luck, he says. Gabe tightens his jaw and rubs at it to try and release some tension. His jaw’s been popping lately, an unpleasant revelation about what anxiety and bad thoughts can manifest in the body. With luck and the grace of God. Only Gabe was raised Catholic and he knows a thing or two about what God loves, most of it written by suffering. It’s never enough. Only the martyrs ever got to be done.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” he says instead of agreeing. “You’ll see what you see and we’ll assess.”

Maybe they’ll get supplies. Maybe it’ll be a dangerous waste of time. They won’t know until they know. Gabe, a cynic at heart, nonetheless refuses to die easily.

[graveyardboots]

"We'll leave at first light," he agrees, though he'd love to go now. It's too risky though. God would protect them but God doesn't like being tested.

"Are you okay?" He reaches out, hand resting on Gabe's cheek.

[minuteofangle]

Gabe closes his eyes and presses quietly into Mancea’s hand. It’s been years since they’ve touched each other like this. A long line of waiting and dreaming and thinking of the day they might again be equals in rank. And then that day came and the world died before they could do anything about it. He wonders if that counts as irony.

“I need saline,” he admits unhappily. It’s such a bullshit thing to need. “For my eyes.”

He needs to flush the sockets or risk infection.

[graveyardboots]

He's longed for so many years to touch Gabe again. Now that he is he doesn't pull away.

"I'll get it for you," he promises. If not at the hospital then at a grocery store or a convenience store, there are places still to loot. They haven't come this far to lose Gabe now. "How soon do you need it?"

[minuteofangle]

"I can hold off for a day or two if I push it."

He kisses Mancea's palm. No one's there to stop him.

"I'd have to stop wearing the prosthetics without it," he admits. And there are risks to not flushing the sockets. He can survive them, but it's still a danger. That, and any fucker out there in the world will know he's blind. Will start making a different sort of threat calculus.

[graveyardboots]

"You won't have to," he promises. They need every little advantage they can grasp.

Everything since the bombs fell has had him feeling raw and reeling. But Gabe's touch steadies him. He leans forward, touching his forehead to Gabe's. Just for a moment, that's all he needs.

"I'm glad I'm with you."

[minuteofangle]

They haven’t touched in years. Nothing real, anyway, nothing that would matter. Propriety, rules, those lines in the sand. It matters, Gabe knows, or it did, and now so little matters at all. The polite rules abandoned them in the fires. Pope says God didn’t, though, and now Mancea’s forehead is flush to his own. All that’s old is new again.

Gabe tries a crooked smile. “You still trust me?”