Lights flashing.

People shouting.

Dogs barking.

Blood rippling.

Jackson was screaming.

He was trying to rip through the line of armed guards, caring not in the least about the loaded guns in their hands, only focused on the apprehended pair beyond them.  Behind him, Mason was being patted down roughly, arms shaking violently.  Jackson would go back for him later, save him right after he saved them.

“LET THEM GO!”  Guards herded them farther and farther.  “Let go of me; STOP!”  He was crying, unknowingly for the last time in their presence.  “ING GIVE THEM BACK!”

“Get back, son; you don’t know what you’re doing,” someone said, and managed to pull Jackson back a foot.  The ground was soon taken back in full as he dug his father’s gun from his belt and whipped it around, screaming bloody murder and shoving it in faces.  More barrels were pointed at him, but an officer shouted for them to hold their fire.

It didn’t really matter to him whether or not he was chock-full of bullets; he’d get to them, get them back, and then get the out of that place with his brother and his parents.  They couldn’t have them, they had no right to take his mom and dad, and he wouldn’t let them.

No way in Hell.

“DROP THEM!  I’LL SHOOT ALL OF YOU,” he hollered, tears blinding him and the night blinding him and their gigantic search lights blinding him.  The only things he could see were them: Mason, Mom, and Dad.  Mason, Mom, and Dad.

Mason sobbed.  Mom reached for her sons.  Dad hugged her.

“Son,” said the officer, stepping closer and lowering his weapon.  “They’re infected; they won’t make it.  How about you put the gun down, and we can talk about your parents, ok?  We can be civil.”  He held out his hand and Jackson looked at it, incredulous and crazed.  “We don’t usually allow private executions, but if you really want, kid, I can make an exception.  You can be the one to pull the trigg-”

“Shut up.”  Jackson bit his lip, trying to hold in sniffles that would betray his true vulnerability; he wanted to be in control of the situation, not melt into it.  “Shut the up.”  It was hard to keep composure, though.  “They’re not infected.  I don’t have to shoot them.  NO ONE IS SHOOTING THEM!”  It was easier to sink into the madness.

“If you can’t do it, kid, we have to.”  It was then that he realized the ‘nice cop’ wasn’t so nice, and that the determined look, the determined to kill his parents look, made Jackson want to blow his cop brains out.  He could too, he was the one holding the gun, holding it up and not having it hang at his side; he was ready to use it for good, not show, not murder.  “This is your last chance.”

“Jackson.  Jackson,” wailed fourteen-year-old Mason from his restrained position.  “Drop the gun; don’t get shot!”  It made his heart melt, how innocent his brother was, how he didn’t know the guards were going to shoot them all anyways.  He’d seen it happen before; he knew what was in store for them when his dad wanted to check to see in the station was manned.  He’d seen them shoot another family without even checking for bites; he knew they just trying to fill their storages.

He knew, he told, and no one believed him.  Even his family thought he was insane, but they were his family and they loved him regardless.  His mom still tucked him into his sleeping bag, just to enjoy being a mother for whatever time she had left.  His dad still read whatever newspapers they found, just to immerse himself in the life they used to live.

He and Mason still climbed trees, still laughed, still were brothers, still had parents.

Still, they didn’t take his word when he said it was a bad idea, when he told them what he’d seen, and still he loved them, even now, at gunpoint and wailing and crumbling inward.  He loved them.

He loved them.

They couldn’t die.

Because he loved them.

Because they were all he loved anymore.

So they couldn’t die.

“I’m sorry baby; I’m so sorry,” mom shouted across the sea of pistols and shotguns and cold, emotionless barrels.  “We’re so sorry.”  She broke down in dad’s arms, his face wet.  He couldn’t bring himself to speak, and looked away, but only until someone dragged Mason to his feet and ground a gun into the side of his face, making him cry out.

“DON’T TOUCH MY BABIES!” mom screeched, and reached out again.  Jackson turned to look at his brother and in the split second he looked away from ‘nice cop,’ the bastard’s mouth opened and ordered fire and his parents’ knees buckled and they dropped like rocks.

“MASON!”

Jackson only heard six shots that night.  Two for his parents.  Three for the guards directly around the small boy who just barely avoided death, the lanky child who was ripped from his kneeling position and half-drug half-thrown out of that goddamned compound, propelled by his big brother, overdosed on adrenaline and shock to really care much about the six shot fired that night.

The one that broke his already squeezed heart, and cracked his already chipped sanity.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the fleeting pounding of Mark’s feet already distant.  The anger he’d expected to feel wasn’t there, and he hated that.  He wanted to be pissed at Mark, he wanted to smash his face in, he wanted to cut their tiny, trivial tie.

Too bad he couldn’t.

Too bad he wouldn’t.

Two weeks had done a number on him, forcing him back into the idea that people could be with other people without killing one another.  Two weeks had promised a million more weeks.  Two weeks with Mark had shown him just how crazy he was, shown him that he truly was out of his mind.

Just a moment with Mark made him think that he could get better.

Just a moment with Mason made him remember why he couldn’t.

Just a moment without either and he was alone, back in the black void that he’d occupied after Mason’s death; no, after his transformation.  He wasn’t dead, he was just changed.  There was something that understood him, a bit of humanity that didn’t seep out of that bite mark.  That ring of black grime that never left the wound no matter how hard Jackson scrubbed.

He had tried to keep him clean in the beginning, before he realized that the dirt he was trying to rub off was only bruising, decomposing flesh, and that if he kept at it, he’d peel his brother down to the bone, and that would be much too difficult to look at.

“I’m so sorry, for everything,” he breathed, bowing his head and feeling the wind of the other’s hands swish through his hair.  There was no way for him to actually reach him; he had made sure to use the chains and rope well.  Well, the rope could've been used wiser, as a noose, but he couldn't untie him now.

He caught sight of the abdominal bite that was often hidden by his brother’s ripped tee.  It made him unconsciously reach for his own stomach, where he had an identical bite, an identical faux set of teeth marks, carved skillfully in with a knife.

He had made it in tribute to him, in memory, before he had come to the conclusion that he didn’t need to go that far, that he could just keep him around for memory.  That was easier, and the marks weren’t all that bad anyways; there was no mother to fret, no father to rant, no brother to care, no future woman to run her slim fingers over the bumps and ask why.

No one.

No one except Mark, who had run from his tears and was probably packing his things up to leave before Jackson got back.  He probably didn’t want to live around him anymore, he probably wanted to cut short the eternity those two weeks had promised.  He probably was wishing he could take back what he said about not minding their time spent together.

He’d probably leave him, and Jackson would be alone again, with no one to turn to but Mason, who was somewhere in the limbo between life and death.  He imagined what life would be like, how desolate it would seem again.

He knew that in apocalypse time, two weeks was more the equivalent to two months, and those two months would be the happiest he would experience until he died.

And he wanted to cry all over again.

Because he realized that he didn’t want Mark to leave.

Ever.

“I’m really sorry Mason, but I gotta go,” he said, standing up fully and dragging a hand through his hair.  “I’ll see ya later.”  His brother wheezed in response.

Mark was stretched out under the sun, running a hand over the ridges in the top of the trailer, feeling like the world was being exceptionally cruel that morning.  He didn’t mean to disrupt the delicate balance that hung between them.  It had been an accident.

Maybe agreeing to partner with him had been the accident; maybe everything that happened after had to happen, because there was no other way to go.  He didn’t really think that, though…

Mark debated whether or not he should check out before Jackson got back; he doubted the other would want him around anymore, now that he knew more than he should.  He didn’t even need Mark around, he was perfectly fine on his own, clearly.

If he left now, he wouldn’t have to face Jackson, but he would have to try and find shelter some ways away from the trailer.  Then he’d have to pick up the pace and get out of the area, before Jackson could even be allowed the chance to meet him again.

If he waited, though, there would be the chance of confrontation, and that was something he hated more than running.  He was also just a tad terrified to find out whether or not the other would choose to use his fists or not.  He wasn’t very good with fist-fights.

Hence his lack of confidence.

I could try a little more, he thought, and brought a hand to his forehead.  Maybe if I try harder, I could make more headway than I usually do.  Maybe I wouldn’t need a partner if I was-

“Mark?”

Crap.

“Mark, are you here?”

Can he see me from the ground?

“Are you on the roof?”

No.  Don’t come up here.

“Are you in the trailer?”

I should’ve left.

“I’m not mad…  I’m not going to hurt you.”  He thought he heard him whisper to himself something like ‘; that sounds like I am going to hurt him.’  Mark closed his eyes and sighed, slapping a palm onto the roof and sitting up.  “Mark?”

“Yah; I’m up here,” he breathed, so quietly that he almost couldn’t hear himself.  Jackson somehow heard, though, and the ladder shook with a heavy weight.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”  The voice was coming from the lip of the roof, but no face had propped itself above yet.  The ladder had stopped quaking, and Jackson hung onto the side, just shy of actually joining Mark.  “I didn’t want to tell you, because…”

“Because we’ve only known each other for a couple weeks,” he finished, the unease in his stomach quickly turning to guilt.  “I under-”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to freak you out.”  The heat was suffocating.  “I know how easily scared you get, about, everything.  And also, I kinda figured that anyone would leave if they found out about him, and I didn’t want that to happen with you.”

Mark felt something funny in his chest, something that came with the other’s confession.  He had felt it before, too, at times when he thought Jackson was being too at ease, or too calm about a dangerous situation.  He liked it, because it reminded him of when Madelyn was around and when he had something to live for, or someone to protect.  Not that Jackson really needed anyone to protect him; he did just fine on his own.

He continued.

“I lied to you before, when I said I was never partnered with anyone.  There was one person who stayed with me for a bit, I was like a month, but it was over when he found Mason.  I think his name was something like Namjoon, but I don’t really remember,” he said, his hand now gripping the edge of the roof.  “He didn’t make me cry or anything-”  Mark cringed.  “-but he found out and was gone before I could explain.  Not that there’s much to explain…  I just, keep him around, for…”

“Like I said when we met,” the other cut in decisively.  “You don’t have to tell me; it’s your business.  I have no right to it.”  He could almost hear the smile that no doubt shone beyond the ladder.

“Of course you’d say that.  You don’t mean it though; you want to know why, know how, but you’re too nice.  It’s probably why you’re alone, Mark; you probably couldn’t help yourself from denying your right to secrets, to the past lies of potential partners, could you?  Then their secrets destroyed them and you couldn’t help them because you didn’t know, because you were ignorant and much too nice.

“Well, Mark, I don’t want that for you.  I don’t want that for me.  So if you’re going to stick around I’ll tell you where I’m from and what happened and why I’m half-gone, if you’ll listen; but if you’re gonna leave…”

The two of them were on opposite sides of a mountain made of lies and insanity and their own holding back.  Jackson held the dynamite to blow it to smithereens, but Mark held the match.  To light it, he’d have to reach through the mass of rock, but just the act of attempting to accept was half the battle anyways.

“…if you're gonna leave then just leave now; I don’t want you to see me cry twice in one day.”