Chapter Text
The date was June 7th, 1968.
553 days since the virus started up.
And Marcia Synclair has been on the road for 497 of those days, if her memory didn’t fail her.
A click came from the infected behind her however Marcia did not act in hostility. Instead she turned slowly, seeing the man she’d started “dating” per se just a month before this mess started.
Two-Bit stumbled on his feet for a second, the boot’s he’d been wearing for months now needing to be either fixed or outright replaced. His clothing wasn’t the same, easily stitched together with scraps of cloth that Marcia had… regrettingly taken from the bodies of survivors executed before they could turn. His hair was cut, and floral vines grew out of the gaping holes in his chest, head and left eye.
Marcia smiled and slowed down to a halt, letting him catch up to her, and receiving happy clicks once he was close again. “Gotta keep up, baby. Don’t you know?” She giggled, holding her hand out and watching as Two-Bit near mindlessly grabbed it.
If she recalled correctly, Two-Bit was infected when the 2nd Stagers started coming up. He was just barely conscious, and when he got infected, most of the time he would just try and eat her alive. That’s why she had to sadly stitch his mouth shut. That and his breath reeked of Alcohol.
Sure, she misses the affection that he used to give her, but it’s not like she deserves it now. After all, her father had a willing hand in starting this entire situation, and now she’s running around the largely-abandoned world with her Infected Boyfriend on a leash. And by leash, Marcia means them holding hands. He likes that a lot.
Two-Bit also liked nice-smelling things, hence why she’d kept a hefty stock of any perfume and just about anything fresh that she could get her hands on. Aside from the basic supplies needed in this new world, Marcia also had started growing plants on him. Interestingly enough: he hadn’t been as hostile recently since she’d planted Forget-me-not’s and Yellow Yarrow into the deep tears in his flesh. It didn’t hurt him, but she didn’t like having to dig her nails into the skin just in a desperate attempt to prove her theory.
But she was right. Two-Bit had calmed down since she’d planted those flowers, and so long as they were blooming, he was less likely to tear through some random door that just looked at him wrong. Thankfully it had rained a LOT recently, keeping the flowers alive and—
A spider lily.
Those are never a good sign. They’d started appearing once the infection started, spreading like wildfire wherever there was death. Two-Bit didn’t seem to mind them, but it certainly bothered him once he saw Marcia’s sudden nervousness. He disliked whenever she got all jittery like that—it either meant something dangerous was nearby or she’d gotten spooked.
Despite its gruesome meaning, the red flower didn’t bother anyone. It just existed as a reminder of what might be nearby. Which most of the time was either a Mass Grave dug into a pit in the earth that smelled of rot, or a slowly-growing horde of infected that hadn’t yet moved on.
That made Marcia wince.
She’d seen most of the residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma fall to the infection, with the Curtis Gang falling apart after the Three Brothers died. All that was left on this earth was Two-Bit, stuck in the middle of Life and Death, not rotting but also not entirely there mentally.
Marcia doesn’t know why she hadn’t put him out of his misery yet. Was she hoping—clinging to the idea of a cure? Or was she still grieving and not yet willing to let go of him just yet? Maybe sooner or later she’d turn too, and they’ll roam the earth together, holding hands and waiting for some unfortunate survivor like herself to eventually free them.
For now though his hand tightened around hers, a subtle reminder that he wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet.