#cop: okay well the house is all burned down it's a safety hazard

[klanced]

Keith walking into the holding cell greeting all the regulars by name while Lance is sobbing lamenting that his life is over and his future is ruined (they were like. Trespassing or some shit he’s going to be fine)

lance: (actively dry heaving in the corner, on the verge of a panic attack as he imagines having a permanent record)(actually what does a permanent record even look like?)(omg is he going to have to go to COURT? like in JUDGE JUDY?)

keith: remy, this is lance. lance, this is remy, she’s my favorite alcoholic :)

#voltron #klance #honestly I imagine they got caught trespassing while ghost hunting #if they’re in Texas then they will most likely get a full on misdemeanor on their record. Texas is very big on property rights. #trespassing can quickly elevate to criminal charges in texas it is actually very serious. do not trespass in texas. #meanwhile in Maine trespassing can be just an infraction & not added to your record #like sure they're teenagers so they could get their records sealed or expunged when they're 18. but like. the garrison would know. not good #sorry i just like talking about the law #speaking of which let me go on a tangent #i do think keith frequently gets charged with trespassing. at his own shack in the desert. #and so now he is Really good at juvenile law specifically because he is constantly arguing with cops #keith: this is not trespassing. my dad owned this property & he died unmarried without a will. #keith: i am literally his child and i inherited this land after his death YOU CAN'T ARREST ME FOR TRESPASSING ON MY OWN PROPERTY. #cop: okay well the house is all burned down it's a safety hazard #keith: I AM NOT IN THE HOUSE I AM IN THE SHACK WHICH MEETS MINIMUM SAFETY REQUIREMENTS. GET FUCKED. #cop: okay but you're out after curfew-- #keith: is this a game to you? drag me in front of that judge i DARE you. you want to take the ORPHAN to court over CURFEW? #keith: you want to arrest my parents? WHAT PARENTS? everyone in this county knows me as the son of a hero firefighter. #keith: a hero firefighter who died in the line of duty btw. in case you forgot. since i'm an ORPHAN who has no one who CARES about CURFEW. #keith: my dad is dead my mom is gone my brother disappeared in space im 0 for 3 parents-wise. drag me before a judge. make my fucking night #sometimes i answer an ask or make a post specifically so i can do my own separate thing in the tags #i just like talking about law. i'm so excited for law school u guys #keith #lance #lance: (freaking out) #keith: (relaxed because he knows a really good lawyer who specializes in juvenile law) #shitpost #ask #anonymous #otp: we are a good team

[hypodermicfroggy]

Instead of focusing on the ten million other projects I *should* be doing, for NaNoWriMo proper, I spent a day indulging my nostalgia with several rounds of Left 4 Dead 2 and wrote this instead.

Then I remembered I actually have a neglected writing tag, so...enjoy? I guess?

= o = o = o = o = o = o =

They didn't know who she was. 

True, all the survivor groups who passed through the region - they all knew of her. They had all seen her. 

Early 20s, maybe. Tawny brown eyes. Dirty leather jacket and combat boots. Head shaved except for a ragged sort of braided rattail. A scar slashing across her right cheek. 

One group said they only made it out because she had been spraypainting the symbol for a nearby safe house on a piece of plywood just as they were limping their way out of a horde fight - though when they offered for her to join them in it, she declined. 

One pair - a husband and wife, who had tried to be generous as she seemed all alone - tried to offer her supplies - but she only took a can of corned beef hash from them. And claimed it wasn't for her. 

As to who it *was* for, she didn't say. 

After a riot had released infected into the general population of a nearby prison, an escaped gang encountered her on their route towards the river; clutching one of those battered camp lanterns and seemingly waiting for something. She asked no questions, showed no fear...just pointed them on their way before resuming her vigil.

Later that night, two of their number decided to backtrack and go looking for her - with obvious intentions. She was just a kid, they figured they could overpower her easily. With all the cops turned, dead, or on the run, who was going to stop them?

Someone must have, though. Because neither was ever heard from again. 

A small military detachment; in retreat after their last outpost was overrun, they saw her as they marched through the ruins of the nearby town's main street.

She didn't say anything that time, just watched them go; hanging out on the rickety fire escapes of one of the few still-intact buildings.

Those soldiers who survived the march would later say that there was something about her that unsettled even their most seasoned veterans. She didn't beg them to take her with her like others did. Didn't try to shoot at them or scream at them for leaving people behind to die.

However, despite all these witnesses, all these encounters...not a single survivor could claim to know anything about her. No one knew where she came from. No one knew why she stayed behind when others were so determined to flee.

Every survivor had some kind of story, after all - some loved one lost to the Green Flu or its infected, some bridge burned (possibly literally) in their attempts to escape the diseased. Some terrible thing they'd had to do in the name of survival.

No one even knew her name.

But they all knew her.

One clutch of survivors - a congregation who had attempted to barricade themselves in their church and pray to be saved, until only a scant handful were left after the bloodbath - watched her intently while they stayed over one night. 

They claimed she walked through the streets to scavenge without so much as a glance from the other infected. Not even the special ones - she walked past a waddling Spitter without so much as a warning retch aimed in her direction.

After that, stories of the girl spread up and down the evacuation routes like wildfire. 

Many wanted to know why. Not even carriers could walk among the infected without being attacked. Why did they leave her alone?

What, exactly, was keeping this one girl safe from everything? From the infected, from the slave gangs and looters, even from simple starvation and environmental hazards?

Rumors abounded. Religious nuts said she was the true Antichrist, and the zombies her entourage sent to punish the wicked trapped on earth. Conspiracy nuts claimed aliens or government - that the Green Flu was some manufactured plague and only she had been treated with the cure. Some of the less crazy wondered if there was a science behind it - maybe she had a mutated strain that made the zombies see her as another 'infected' even though she wasn't one.

Many tried to find her when they were in her stomping grounds. Manipulators and saviors and even just plain curious people. Tried to talk to her and find out about her. What made her like this.

But she proved elusive and evasive every time.

= o = o = o = o = o = o = 

She was scavenging in a small supermarket that was tucked out of the way of most looters' territory when the all-too-familiar-sound-these-days of a rifle's safety clicking off came from behind her head.

She didn't even flinch as she turned around to regard the wild-eyed scavenger. Just gave him the same flat and vaguely hollow tone she gave everyone nowadays. 

"That's a bad idea, y'know." 

He gestured with the gun at her duffel bag stuffed full of food. "Shut up. Give me what you got."

The gun was military; something auto or semi-auto. Still had its desert camo paintjob. But given how badly his fatigues were fitting his scrawny frame; she had a feeling it wasn't his originally.

"You were the one I heard shootin' the zacks a little while ago, weren't you? You really should leave in that case. Noise attracts 'em and all."

He didn't seem to be listening. Given how badly he was trembling he was probably one of those literal adrenaline junkies that were cropping up now. People shooting up to try and give them an advantage in fighting. How many of them had just plain stopped their own hearts or given themselves a far more dangerous infection from reusing needles? How many had just become overrun as they thought they could one-man-army a horde fight?

She saw one guy attempt to go up against a Tank with nothing but a frying pan and six epi-pens. It didn't end well.

"I SAID hand it over or get shot, bitch!"

"...you a new arrival to these parts or something? Ain't no one bothers me if they know what's good for them."

He licks his dry lips as he seems to, at the very least, regard this comment with his last few unfried brain cells. "Yeah. I heard all the stories 'bout you. I don't give a fuck. You're just some punk kid who got lucky."

The barrel of the gun is jabbed hard into her face; right under that scar on her cheek. "Now give me your shit or I give you a new hole in your face for your zombie pals to fuck."

"Okay. Just know I tried to warn you."

He barely had time to spit another threat when he registered the sudden searing agony that ripped across his back; some kind of blow sending him sprawling across the abandoned shop's floor.

The back of his stolen uniform was soaking through with hot blood, and everything from the waist down had suddenly gone horribly numb as his heart pounded in panic. He couldn't get up. Couldn't use his legs.

But he could still use his front half, and that half could still shoot. He drags himself back towards his rifle; dropped after the blow that crippled him, about to have it back in his hands... 

(He might die like this, but he wasn't going down until after he showed that crazy bitch, show her until there wasn't a bullet left in the chamber or a brain left in her head for the zombies to eat-...) 

...When a foot came down on the weapon, barring his access. 

He looked up, and his jittery eyes somehow managed to go even wider, if that were possible.

Shirtless, its disease-damaged skin swelled with muscle under the shredded remains of a dark trenchcoat. Tattered bandages wound around and hung in strips off a nasty-looking (even by zombie standards) wound on its left forearm where one sleeve had been torn off entirely.

The eye that was fixed on him had once been blue - but it had been warped by the taint of the Green Flu like the rest of him; the white turned a sickly red-black with viral load and the back of it shining like a night predator's in the dim light of the store.

The other was just...gone. Torn out, clawed out, who could say? But all that was left was a mess of gore and a staring black socket.

The teeth bared at him through a matted black beard were stained with dried blood. The blood on its claws...fresh. 

His blood, he realized too late. 

A low growl built in its chest before it opened its mouth and snarled at him; the sound too deep to be a Hunter's scream; yet too high to be a Tank's roar. Like something in-between.  

And the most horrifying thing he'd ever heard in his life. 

"Oh my god-..." 

A single swipe from those claws had been enough to cripple him. Another swipe was all it took for his throat to be shredded. 

The last thing he saw; just as he collapsed on the ground with blood pouring out of the ruin of his throat, was the thing going over to her. 

And her carding her fingers through its dark hair. 

"I try to warn them all. But they never listen..."

#baublesandbrimstone #Left 4 Dead #L4D #L4D AU #OC: Zir #OC: Peri #original characters donut steel #froggy writes