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The world was silent now.
There was nothing to be heard, but the wind, the wind, the wind. And the wind, even, only at night.
It was a ghost town.
Just the wind.
The wind and a thousand silent bodies.
Jason stood, in the kitchen. He had been standing there for a while. A time he couldn't bother to track.
That time had passed by, still and unbroken - but for the sound of the kettle switching off and the boiling water fading.
The water was likely lukewarm now, at best. He should turn it back on. Make the tea he was thinking of. He had only gotten so far as to open the cupboard to grab a mug.
There were four mugs left.
They were all clean.
The tea was a white peach he'd picked up before the silence. He had only had it twice since, and both were good.
He should turn the kettle on again.
He should select a mug.
He should close the cabinet door.
His hand is still around the cabinet handle. His fingers are not locked, he knows. It just feels like it.
The water has not been boiling. The silence has returned and there is an itch that is growing with every passing moment.
The boiling is good. The boiling is the kind of silence that helps quiet the raging, loud fragments of his broken mind.
For all that has come with the silence, it has brought a quiet he did not know was possible again. A low undertone that felt ...stable.
He should turn the water on.
To turn the water on, he has to move. To let go of the cabinet handle. To turn around and cross the kitchen. To reach out and press the button again.
To turn the water on, he has to move. But there is an oppressive, crushing pressure everywhere. He cannot. He is trapped beneath concrete and soil, six feet deep twice.
Like an old, nostalgic mantra, the thought claws its way to the surface easily.
Die. To die.
It's a siren call and Jason is Odysseus, unbound. Untethered.
There is no-one there to care. To pull him back from the brink he could trace out in his sleep.
Death, he knows, is more welcoming than uncurling his fingers - than crossing the room.
Death is a kind grandmother who invites you in for cookies and tea, where time is irrelevant and you never want to leave.
He needs to make his own tea. And Death will not come for him. No matter how blessed her embrace.
His fingers uncurl and his knuckles feel eighty years older than they are. He drops his arm to his side, absently noting the way his blood shifts at the reorientation. He is moving through the soil, turned to mud in the rain.
The walk across the kitchen is easier, now that some movement has occurred. He hears the soft click of the mechanism as he turns the kettle on, then returns to the cabinet. This time, he grabs a mug. This one is cream, with a dark green interior and a matching pine tree on the outside.
Before, he might have cared which one he picked. Now it didn't matter. It was clean and there.
He sets it down atop one of the towels now covering the wooden countertop. The water is simmering again. It will boil soon. He moves to the other cabinet and opens it, looking over the orderly stacks of boxes for the white peach.
Earl Grey, Jasmine, Vanilla Black, Hibiscus and Raspberry, Paris, Turmeric and Dandelion Root, Chamomile.
He frowns, then removes a few of the boxes to see behind them. Spiced Chai, Sugar Plum Fairy, Bengal Tiger, Peppermint.
The water is boiling now.
A little flame of irritation lights somewhere in his chest. It's the most he's felt in three weeks. Can't even have tea during the apocalypse.
If Jason were a sane, stable man, he would pick a different tea. He is not.
He walks away, pulling his combat boots on and leaving his motorcycle keys in the tray. There's enough room in his cargos to store tea.
The door locks with a smooth rumble as pins rise and fall again. He stopped engaging the other security features a week into the silence.
Miranda is still at the end of the hall where she was when Jason left two days ago. Her hair is slightly more tangled and the air is moving differently. Ah, the window down the corridor. The wind.
He passes her on the way to the stairwell. She doesn't seem to mind his intrusion into her space, which he is grateful for. Perhaps he should pick something up for her as a thank you. He knows he's more active than most here and she's never given him grief about his coming and going.
The stairwell is vacant, as normal, and he vaults down to the main floor casually. The lobby is empty today - two days ago, a few people were lingering, but they weren't inhabitants.
There's people on the streets as he exits. He gives a passing nod to the drifter under the awning, who stares back vacantly. He finds he relates.
Today, the clouds are lighter.
He doesn't walk as fast as he did in the apartment complex. Speed is reserved, here, for only the sort of emergencies that require an immediate response. Very few have anything left to attend to, so the pace is slow and steady.
He doesn't mind. Tea, while important, is nowhere near the level of urgency that a brisk walk would entail.
The roads are silent. The wind has died and people are wandering. He passes a group of five gangsters. Only two of them were from the same gang, by their handkerchief and pin colors, but none of them seem to have noticed.
The taller one with the green and blond hair turns to look at him. He looks back, not bothering to try and put on an expression. There's no indication in those dulled-out eyes that the teen sees him as a threat, and the eye contact is broken a moment later.
The grocery store is three blocks ahead and one to the right. He turns into an alley. Most are abandoned now. People prefer the streets.
He turns the corner into a murder scene.
The bodies are laying on the ground haphazardly. Their blood is dried and flaky. They loosely circle an apartment door.
He steps over a mangled arm. A few brass casings have sheltered in the cracks of the stones. The wind has had its way with them. The rain will too.
Nothing moves as he walks.
He only stops once, to silently look at the body by his boot.
It's a boy, perhaps in his early twenties. One glass-grey eye stares widely at nothing, expression open and loose. The other side of his face is consumed by a bloody crater. Jason envies, for a moment, his silence. Then he keeps walking.
The grocery store comes into view a few minutes later. There is the mild humming of electricity here. The lights have stayed on.
He walks towards the doors. They slide open with a smooth, brush-like hiss.
The building is filled with the gentle white noise of refrigerators. There is a woman slumped against the nearest one. Her eyes are closed and hands loosely curled, resting against the tile.
He passes her without a sound, following the aisle signs. Cereal, Baking, Candy, Books & Magazines, Coffee & Tea.
He turns down the hall, passing untouched stocks of coffee grounds and filters. The teas are equally undisturbed, halfway down the aisle. There. White Peach. He removes the box, opening the velcro on his pant pocket and moving the spare mag to another.
He is in the process of sliding the tea into the pocket when he hears it. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
A heartbeat. Someone new. Someone who does not belong. It is coming from above the aisles, near the back of the store. Quiet and healthy.
(He knows who it is.)
He reviews the tea selection again. He's never tried Vanilla Bean Macaroon before. He should have enough space in his other pant pocket to fit it.
A minute later, he has what he needs, and turns to leave.
He is only a few steps down the aisle when there is a sudden, harsh clang of metal from above that scrapes in his ears like knives. He flinches, recoiling as a sudden blur of black and red accompanies the second clang as it hits the floor, appearing violently in his vision.
His head is throbbing and a fire-bright rage blazes through him for a moment, wanting to stop the noise stop it stop it stop stop die.
He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the sound, but it is replaced by the pulse of another heartbeat, closer, louder.
A sharp gasp grates against his eardrums. He looks up.
"Jason?"
The whisper is horrified, harsh and pained at once. It breaks the silence like a dropping anvil. He gives Tim an unimpressed look. He should know better by now. It's been weeks.
Tim is standing there, staring at him with a stricken expression through a heavy-duty rebreather mask. His heart is thudding faster now, fueled by what Jason can only imagine is an emotion. He's not doing anything other than standing still, so it couldn't be exertion.
Jason grunts in response. It comes out strangled and rough through underused vocal cords. He swallows, trying to release the weird feeling.
Tim's expression cycles through several emotions at once. Jason doesn't care enough to try and parse them. He's got his tea, that's all he came here for. He moves to walk past, but Tim recoils, dropping back into a fighting position.
There's something shut-down in Tim's form, like he's been disconnected. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Jason watches his hands pull out a gun and cock it with a click, pointing at Jason's own silent heart.
Don't.
Jason feels his face twist into a dark expression, growling out a low warning.
Don't. Guns are loud.
This is a small, enclosed space with tile.
Fire a round and I will kill you personally.
Tim looks a second away from vomiting, staring at Jason with wide eyes. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
"Dick."
The gun barrel is shaking.
"Dick, help." Tim pleads.
Ba-dum.
Jason watches evenly as the barrel swerves in time with Tim's erratic heartbeat.
There's a noise from behind.
Tim, Jason thinks, was not meant to be a shooter.
The aisle top creaks. He doesn't bother to look. A weight slams into his side. The world spins and he hits the shelves across the aisle with a CRASH.
Instantly, the whole store wakes up.
Jason can feel the sudden, single-minded focus on the noise. An angry growl rises from a few aisles away.
His ribs have cracked. If he were breathing, the sound of them shifting would have slowly driven him mad. His shoulder and cheekbone are slightly sore from where they slammed into the now-bent shelves.
A sifting sound meets his ears as a bag of ripped coffee grounds spills down through the shelves next to his head. He stares up at Dick expressionlessly.
Ba-dum.
Dick is a few feet away, with the crackling, blistering sound of electricity snapping around his escrima. He is also wearing a rebreather mask like Tim's.
He watches as Dick's focused Mission Face cracks as he sees who he just kicked.
"Jay?" There's a fragile, hopeful note to it, matching the caring look flitting across his face, warring with worry.
Ba-dum.
Jason is empty of care.
Ba-dum.
He doesn't bother to respond. Just lays there, supported by the warped shelves, listening to the bag of coffee finish streaming onto the floor.
Ba-dum.
There are multiple sets of footsteps approaching, like sharks tasting blood in the water.
Ba-dum.
Tim is talking on and on, panicked words flowing into another into another into another anotheranotheranother-
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
The noise is hammering in his head.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
He shifts, beginning to stand.
Electricity crackles. Tim pulls on Dick's arm, words flowing more urgently.
Dick is stepping back, the internal conflict playing out vividly on his face. The shelves groan as Jason pulls himself up with them.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
The woman from by the fridge is at the end of the aisle. There is a wild, feverish look in her eyes. Jason watches them lock onto the two vigilantes in the middle of the aisle.
Ba-DUM. Ba-DUM. Ba-DUM.
She screeches. Found them.
She begins to run.
Jason is standing now.
BA-DUM. BA-DUM. BA-DUM. BA-DUM.
Two more are at the end of the aisle, following the woman as she runs towards the noise. There are two others approaching the far end.
BA-DUM. BA-DUM.
BA-DUM. BA-DUM.
Dick and Tim are loud, loud, loud. It itches like fingernails up the insides of his skull. He groans, then steps away from the shelves. He has tea to make.
BA-DUM.
BA-DUM.
BA-DUM-
Tim vaults up onto the top of the aisle shelves. He's yelling now, drawing more attention. His voice rings painfully in Jason's ears, but he can't find it in him to care.
Dick catches his eyes for one breathless moment. His lips form a whisper, but it's lost in the noise.
Then he's flying up, next to Tim. Just out of reach of the enraged woman who charges into place in front of Jason.
Dick disappears, a flash of black and blue grace. Tim stands for a moment, looking down at Jason, an unreadable expression on his face before he turns away, cape snapping in the air softly.
He blinks once, then shakes his head, turning down the aisle. World's Greatest Detectives, truly.
The noise and chaos follows them out towards the back of the store. He'd seen some people lingering near the back of the building, so they are likely to be occupied for a bit.
He is near the front of the store when he sees a red shawl hanging on a clothing rack and slows to a stop.
It's a good color, somewhere between blood and ruby. The fabric looks like it has a nice texture. He reaches out to test it.
It's woven moderately thick with small, softly glistening threads. There is a pattern of arcs and small triangles around detailed, shining fleur-de-lis. It reminds him of the fabrics he saw Talia's handmaidens wear.
He pulls it off the plastic hanger, folding it carefully and placing it inside his pocket.
There is nobody by the doors now, all drawn away by the earlier noises.
He picks a different set of alleyways this time. There is only a trail of similarly dried blood on these bricks, as if someone injured dragged themselves as far as they could.
There is nobody there now.
His walk back is peaceful, the noise of before settling back into the now-familiar silence. He watches the clouds furl above the city.
The drifter still sits by his apartment building, the same as he has for weeks. His foggy green-yellow eyes passively track Jason as he enters.
There is still nobody in the stairwell. He ascends it with an even pace, mildly irritated by the sound of his broken ribs scraping with each step.
He opens the door, walking down the corridor. The window is still open. Miranda's head swivels to face him as he slows to a stop in the center of her intersection.
The wind breathes through the hall, gently tousling her brown ringlets. She looks up at him with glassy dark brown eyes.
Something relaxes in his face and he pulls the fabric out from his pocket. The red catches the dim window-light like a jewel.
She looks down at it, then back up at him. He feels a corner of his mouth twitch up.
Her eyes widen, then she reaches out with one hand, running it along the top of the folds. A whisper of awe runs through her.
He waits, patient.
She lifts the fabric slowly. It slips out of his careful folds, tumbling out in a flood of smooth motion. He watches as the awe begins to surface in her eyes, lips forming a soft "o".
She stares at it for a long moment, watching it waver in the air, before pulling it close, dropping one end and lifting the other to her shoulder. She tries to reach behind to grab it, but her arms are jerking too much, motor control damaged by the virus.
Silent, he reaches forward, easily catching the fabric and guiding it back around her shoulders. He gently ties it in front of her, leaving the ends to dangle with their thin, beaded tassels.
Her hands run over the fabric. Her nail polish is a chipped red. She is smiling, small but real.
It takes him a moment to realize he is as well.
He steps away, letting her have her space back. She looks up at him. Their eyes meet. Undead to undead.
No words are exchanged. He simply nods, then steps back further, in the center of the intersection. She looks down as her hand brushes against the small beads. A soft, comforting click of glass on glass.
He walks to his door, boots silenced by the dark red carpet of their hall, decorated with Persian designs. He spares a glance back at her. She is staring at the threads wrapped around her fingers, mesmerized.
He smiles again, then unlocks the door.
The boots come off, set neatly against the edge of the couch. The tea is removed from his pockets. The white peach box was crushed by falling into the shelves, but he transfers the bags into a small container. The vanilla bean macaroon box was dented, but not enough to disrupt the stacks of boxes.
He starts the kettle again.
The silence is back.
The silence is back. But the oppressive weight is not as intense, now.
He listens to the water hiss and thinks of glass beads and coffee grounds.
The water boils. He places the tea bag into the mug, then waits for the water to cool slightly.
The sound of the water hitting the ceramic is smooth.
His fingers curl around the mug handle. He lifts it, then walks to the living room.
The city is quiet outside his window. The steam from his mug matches the color of the clouds.
He thinks,
perhaps,
that the silence
is not so bad.