Perfection Interrupted
-a 'Fear the Walking Dead' fanfiction
SUMMARY: A cutesy-gone-chaotic, maybe kind of out-of-character Nick Clark fanfiction with a sprinkle of me trying to be funny.
PAIRINGS: Nick Clark x reader, walkers x weapons (haha)
WARNINGS: Typical zombie-genre gore, language
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is going to be my very 1st series. Yay! I was all nervous about posting this the first time around, but I'm super excited to re-release (?) it, as I have finally finished the 2nd chapter. Yay again! My writing is far from perfect, but I hope you enjoy my ironically titled, "Perfection Interrupted."
*****************************
CHAPTER ONE
There's not a vehicle or person, living or dead, in sight as you journey hand-in-hand with the love of your life down a deserted highway. You've been passing some time playing a silly childhood game you remembered...
"I spent the night at *Granny's and in my backpack I took... an Alkaline battery, a Banana, a Canteen, a Diary, an Eggplant, a Flare, a Grenade, aaannd..." You think for a moment and then perk up. "Oh! A Harmonica!"
Nick looks to you with an adoring smile. He loves how excited you get over the simple things. "A harmonica huh?"
"A harmonica." You happily repeat.
"Alright... I spent the night at your Granny's and in my backpack I took an Alkaline battery, a Banana, a Canteen, a Diary, an Eggplant, a Flare, a Grenade, a Harmonica, and a..." Nick questioningly squints his eyes, staring intently up the road. "...a duffle bag."
"Uhhh Nick, we're on the letter I."
He wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to show you what he sees. Lining up your sight with the direction his finger points, you focus on some overgrown brush alongside the road where you can see the item sitting. "A duffle bag." He reiterates, then looks to you with a cheesy grin, "...an Isolated duffle bag?"
"Nice save." You wink at him.
You both jog up to the abandoned bag. As you close in on it, Nick protectively stretches his arm out in front of you, abruptly stopping. "Fresh blood."
Immediately you and Nick get back to back, weapons drawn- Nick's being a bayonet, yours a trench knife. Having firearms would be nice, but you weren't fortunate enough to have come across any. You survey your surroundings in search of the owner of this puddle of human oil. You listen intently, keeping quiet as a mouse.
After a thorough scan, you keep watch as Nick pulls the bag out from the tall weeds.
He sits crosslegged on the pavement. Zzzip.
Nick entertainingly speaks in a medieval voice, "Let us see what kinds of treasures we hath stumbled upon," easily earning him a chuckle from you. He then lists off the contents, unmedievalizing himself. "Okay. We've got a flannel, a pair of army pants, a t-shirt... No way! It's a *Tinker Wright shirt!"
"Who's Tinker Wright?" You inquire.
"Just this band I knew. If we ever come across a guitar I'll play them for you." Nick smiles nostalgically as he continues... "There's a couple pairs of socks in here. Oh shit!" He exclaims, causing your head to snap in his direction. In his hand you see the shining blade of a machete. Both of your jaws drop in awe, but he goes right back to rummaging thru the bag. "Oh now here's the good stuff... One two three four... Five bottles of water..."
"Well hallelujah!" You rejoice.
He immediately untwists the cap off one of them, takes a drink then passes it to you. After indulging in almost half of the bottle you hand it back...
"Thank you!"
...then focus your attention back to the forest, keeping an eye out for danger.
"...3 MRE's, half a carton of matches..." He rummages some more and stops. "Y/N, look!"
You turn your face towards him. Nick's eyes are full of wonder as he holds up...
"A fucking harmonica..!?" You exclaim.
You both begin laughing, overjoyed at the ironic, Godsent find. As your laughter dies down, Nick presents the handheld instrument to you. "For you, milady."
You accept it, and with your cheeks hurting from smiling so much, you lick your lips before bringing it to your mouth. Blowing from one end to the other and back again, you recall each chord.
You look into Nick's eyes, with your lips giving a soft smile. "I have a song for you..."
He nods attentively, with that endearing smirk on his face that you adore so much. As he anticipates your dedication, you sit down in front of him, legs criss-crossed. Licking your lips once more, you hold his gaze as you begin:
5 6 -5 5 -4 4 3
6 7 -6 6 -6 6 5
You're a bit rusty, but that doesn't matter. As you continue on with the sweet melody of this meaningful song, you take notice to the sheen developing in Nick's eyes, and the depth at which he is admiring you. He reaches his hand to your chest, placing his palm over your heart.
After your lungs breathe out the final note, you mirror his sentiment and reach your own hand to his heart. Softly, you tell him, "You're my *'Heart of Gold,' Nick."
He inoffensively scoffs, a single tear making it's way down his cheek. Quickly wiping it away, he breaks eye contact only to stare at the gravel.
"What's wrong?" You inquire, knowing his reaction is a defense mechanism.
He shakes his head, but confesses anyway. "It's just that, I was such a piece of shit before all this." He pauses, looking to you with shame in his eyes. "You're the one with a heart of gold, Y/N. I don't deserve you."
It breaks your heart when he talks like that. Nick is confident most of the time, but every now and then he gets down about the way he once lived his life.
You scoot even closer to him and take his hands in yours. "Nick, I don't care what you've done or who you used to be. You don't have to define yourself by your past." He listens, focused on your every word. "Between what you've told me and what I've observed, all that stuff made you a survivor. You are who you are today because of it, you know?" You smile sweetly at him. "And you're an amazing man with a beautiful soul, to say the least... This is gonna sound fucked up, but I'm thankful for this crazy apocalyptic shit happening. It brought me to you."
Nick smiles sincerely at you, squeezing your hands. "You're such an angel, Y/N. I don't know how I got so lucky." His features express gratitude and adoration, as he reaches a hand to cup your face, gently tracing his thumb over your cheekbone.
"Yeah, well, I wasn't always this awesome." You both snicker. "But if I'm an angel, then it's all for you."
Becoming even more oblivious of the world around you, you find yourselves lost in one another's sparkling eyes, soon closing them as you are pulled together like magnets, your lips meeting for a sweet, sensual kiss... ... ...
The tender moment is depressingly interrupted by a rustling in the trees. You hear the all too familiar snarling of the undead. You both rise quickly to your feet and find the direction from which the sound is coming.
Four walkers... No, five... We can handle this. No problem.
You approach one of the dead men, who gnashes his teeth at you with desire for your organs. You take notice to his Bob Marley t-shirt and that his ears have stretched lobes, containing plugs with pot leaves on them.
"Sorry Bud." Grabbing hold of his shaggy hair to still his head, you thrust your knife up thru the underside of his jaw, ending his un-life.
You glance over at Nick, who is giving you an amused smirk. "Nice pun."
"Right?!"
He then turns his focus back to the matter at hand, and sinks his blade thru the temple of a rotten, dread-headed woman's skull. "Maybe they were friends."
The third corpse is obese. His intestines hang to the ground, dragging behind him. He comes straight for you. Immediately after stabbing it's head, you realize your knife didn't reach deep enough, and it is stuck. As if you were in a classic horror movie, you lose your footing while backing away, landing with a thud, and the thing that was once a man falls on top of you, pinning you with his weight. Your arms, tho strong, are barely able to keep his snapping, cannibal mouth away from you. Between the flesh stuck in his teeth from his last meal and the feeling of his warm, rotting innards squishing against your body, you become nauseas, causing more vulnerability.
Nick yanks his bayonet out of the final two walkers' craniums and rushes to your rescue just as your strength is about to give. With one hand grabbing a fistful of matted hair, the other plunges his weapon up thru the monster's cerebellum.
You sigh a breath of relief, smiling at Nick. "My hero." He chuckles and you thank him.
Then, you see them. Your eyes widen, giving the warning before you yelled it.
There wasn't enough time for him to get the heavy corpse off of you with how close this stealthy flesh eater was. Nick spun around, killing it quickly, then another. As more of the undead stagger out from the treeline, you struggle to get the large body off of you.
You have almost wiggled yourself free from underneath of it, when suddenly your left arm is in searing pain.
A blood-curdling scream projects from your vocal cords as you feel the rotting teeth of a living dead woman squelching thru each layer of skin and muscle on your forearm. This was it- the beginning of your death sentence. All of your senses light up and an angry adrenaline pumps through your veins, sending you into a fiery rage.
Ripping your weapon from the head of the other walker, you repeatedly stab the cause of your agony in the skull, cursing her with every blow. "YOU!! FUCKING!! BITCH!!"
"No... No, no, no!!" Nick runs to you, taking out the final two walkers on his way, eyes wide in unfathomable fear and heartache. In one motion he's beside you on the ground, gathering you into his arms as he witnesses your blood gushing from the missing chunk of your forearm.
You look up at him and fall apart, sobbing uncontrollably into his chest. He holds you in a tight and anguished embrace. It is short lived though. He pulls away to take your face in his hands. His features are plastered with terrorized emotions, yet he exudes a calmness lead by the determination to keep you alive.
"Y/N, look at me, look at me." You obey, appearing defeated. "I am not gonna let you die. Do you hear me?"
Without waiting for a response, he gently lets go of you to rapidly work on getting his belt free from the loops of his jeans, then wraps and secures it tightly around your bicep. He grabs your face again, eyes penetrating to your soul, and quickly presses a kiss to your forehead. Rushing to the duffel bag, he locates the machete and the box of matches. Next he dumps out the contents of his backpack to find the bottle of rubbing alcohol you had found awhile back. Nick hurries back to your side.
"You're gonna be alright, Y/N." Nick's voice is soft, sweet, and urgent as he pushes the walker who had you trapped the rest of the way off of you. He then guides you to lay on your back. "I got you, ok?"
You catch sight of the shining blade and your eyes go wide, your breathing quickening as you begin to process what has to be done. Nick unscews the cap to the rubbing alcohol and pours it over the machete's blade. "Nick..." Your voice is trembling. "Nick I'm fucking scared..!"
"I know Y/N, I know." His voice sounds no better than yours at this point. He sweeps your hair behind your ear, his shakey hand lingering on your face. "But we have to." Tears cascade from both your eyes and his. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry!" Nick pointlessly wipes the salty water lines from your face. "You have to trust me though... Do you trust me?"
"That's a pretty fucked up thing to ask someone as you're about to chop their arm off." You try to humor him through your sobs, your voice laced with panic. His smile is miniscule, barely able to appreciate your attempt. But then you nod. "I do. I trust you Nick... Literally with my life." You give him the best smile you can muster. He sniffles as he wipes away his own tears.
Nick presses one last kiss to your trembling lips. "I love you Y/N." He raises the machete with both hands.
You hold his anxiety ridden gaze. "I love you too, Nick." Your response is barely above a whisper.
"Keep your focus on me, ok?" You nod, and he takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Then, with one swift, heavy, and deliberate motion, Nick severs your forearm from the rest of your body with the unblunted weapon.
You can't scream- your breath just hitches in your chest as your body starts to go into shock. Nevertheless you keep your eyes trained on Nick, until everything around you blurs to darkness.
*******************************
* Shout out to my Granny whom I referenced in paragraph two! :-) She turned 100 on September 19, 2018! (Update: She has passed since the original posting date. She's in Heaven though, so my family is happy for her.)
* Just a little fun fact for those who don't know, Tinker Wright is Frank Dillane's (Nick) band from his teen years. He sang, played the guitar, and the harmonica. Before I heard of them, I had the first half of this written, including the bits with the harmonica. (I've always loved the instrument.) Then after I got even more shamelessly obsessed with Frank, I stumbled across Tinker Wright and fell in love with their music. Anyway, I thought it was pretty awesome that I had those harmonica scenes written only to find out that Frank himself plays it. Hence why I added the bit about the Tinker Wright t-shirt.
* I'm sure everyone knows the "Heart of Gold" reference, but just in case there's someone who has never heard of it... "Heart of Gold" is a song by Neil Young, circa 1972.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!! I'd really really appreciate your feedback! You have no idea how much it would mean to me! (Or maybe you do!) Thanks again!