wretched

"And all that I was before is out there in the darkness waiting for me."

[quincyxdubois]

xrooneyx​:

Rooney visited the the wall almost every day. Back when she’d first arrived, she’d put Beanie’s name on it. Beanie hadn’t actually been apart of the Sanctuary, but she’d come so close. It killed Rooney to think about how close Beanie had been to living. If she’d just made it to the Sanctuary. If Rooney had just made them keep going. A few more days and she would probably still have her sister.

Six months since Quincy had come back into her life and ever since she’d struggled with their relationship. Her acceptance of him was slow, but sure. The years of her hating him had melted with each interaction, despite her telling herself she wouldn’t let that happen. Quincy had been so patient and understanding that it was difficult to go on hating him.

If he’d approached her at the wall six months ago, she would have walked away. Or yelled at him. And although there was still a bit of coldness on her part, the air between them was considerably less contentious. “Actually yeah.” She adjusted Maizie on her hip as she stepped forward and pointed to a name that read ‘Nikita Shaw’. “We were in a home together a few years before all of this happened.”

Niki had been a friend to her while they’d been in the same home. After going to different placements they fell out contact. It always seemed to happen that way. “How about you?”

“Mm.”  He saw the name etched out on the wall and not for the first time held back the questions he wished he could ask. It had been awhile since he thought of anyone from his time in Colorado-- outside of his siblings, everyone else faded from relevance for him. Time and separation had a tendency of doing that. Quincy gave the wall a once over, gaze catching on Beanie’s name, and then gave a solid, finite shake of his head. There were too many for him to have read them all, but he doubted he’d find any he’d recognize. “Probably not.” Quincy’s attention strayed from the wall back to his sister. 

A short pause and then, “I’m going scouting later, is there anything you want me to keep any eye out for?” As he navigated to safer territory for them, he second guessed his actions which had become commonplace for him. He was unwilling to take a risk with something so fragile as their relationship, but he wondered often if that was what Rooney wanted. He barely knew the person she had grown to be, her likes and dislikes, who her friends were or who they would have been before all this. Now he was left with only names on a wall and the little she was willing to tell him, not knowing if he could ask for anything more than that.

[quincyxdubois]

faust-fenter​:

The moment Faust realized it was Quincy standing over him, it was like a switch flipped and a different person took over his body. His slouched posture corrected itself; he sat at attention, snuffed out his cigarette, and gave the man a respectful nod. 

“Uh, hey, Quincy,” he did his best to suppress a cough bubbling up in his chest. He realized Quincy was waiting for an answer to something; it took Faust a moment to remember what the initial question was. 

“Eaten? Oh, no. Not yet. Why?” it might have been a dumb question, but Faust was famous for those.

Also, he didn’t really know how to act around Quincy. How do you act around the man that used to date your sister in high school? He never expected to meet Quincy again under apocalyptic circumstances, and have to explain to the man that Lena was dead. 

Yeah, that. That had been supremely hard to do.

There were few instances after the end of the world as they knew it where he had run into anyone he knew on the road back to Colorado. It wasn’t until he had made it back within the borders of his hometown that familiarity began to crop up around him, old memories from his childhood playing out with every building or street he passed. Most weren’t welcome, either unpleasant or painful in remembrance of what he’d lost, but still there was some semblance of solace found with every good memory. Faust’s sister had been one of them, looked upon with a fondness Quincy had forgotten. The news that Lena hadn’t made it was taken in stride, loss so ingrained in his everyday that he had merely nodded in understanding, clasping a hand down on the boy’s shoulder in what he thought could be comforting. 

“C’mon, I was on my way to make something.” He’d collect some items from the pantry-- their allotted rations-- and do what he could with them. Quincy often liked to volunteer for kitchen duty, finding it ironic that he was finally able to pursue his childhood dreams after the world had been half ravaged by the walking dead. “If you want to.” He gestured towards the direction of Town Hall. 

[deadofwinterrp]

Keep reading

[quincyxdubois]

dexfitz​:

location: the place the horde broke in I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯      

Dex always worked hard, worked too much, even when he was younger and his parents were off trying to find some sort of cure for his sister. This trait was only magnified to an extremely unhealthy one as it was tuned to a fine point where Dexter knew how to stay alive but still expend himself way more than he needed to. It was as much his coping mechanism as it was his desire to keep people safe, something that was capitalized within him by not only his parents but also the military.

    He’d come to the realization that the reason why he took things upon himself so readily, was because it was the easiest way for him to deal with SHIT. When life gives you a bad deal, you make the best of the hand you’ve been given, perhaps that made him appear to be an optimistic person; that was his fault really, Dexter had taught himself to keep things bottled up in the process of becoming a guardian.That didn’t mean, however, he had just good thoughts, often times when he was alone, like now, his mind wandered to the darker and somber side of himself. He missed his sister, hated that he couldn’t have saved her, it would likely haunt him for as long as he survived, or, until he learned to forgive himself for something that was out of his control.

   There was a bitter chill that ran down his spine and numbed his face, causing the man to suck in a soft breath and involuntarily shiver, gazing upon the vast and eerily dark landscape on the other side of the barrier, watching for any sort of movement, his hands rubbed against his thighs a bit before he shifted and habitually checked the weapon strapped to his side, mostly trying to stay awake but also trying to keep his legs from falling asleep and becoming too restless. He’d been at his post for the last five hours, making it just a few hours before dawn and although he would not admit it, Dexter was EXHAUSTED, but the military spent too much time and money training him how to stay alive. So he would keep using that skill, that training, to keep others safe for as long as he could.

    The tension that straightened his back a little was what told Dexter someone was near, a slight shift and only partial glance over his shoulder confirmed his detection. A wave of anxiety rippled through the man, possible conversation wasn’t exactly something he was mentally prepared for at the moment, he had been far too gone into his mind, lost in thought and reflecting, Dextera small breath to command the panic and making it subside as he cleared his throat, focusing his sight upon the outside once again. “You’re up early.” It was the only greeting he offered aside from another small glance at the person, Dex wasn’t sure whether or not they had been searching for him or had simply come over to engage him socially, but he knew he wouldn’t get over the anxiety unless he initiated the conversation. He had always been this awkward and socially anxious person, even before the god damn apocalypse, Dex would admit he was worse now, however, even with people he’d gotten used to by now let alone new people.

@dowstarter​

 It was in the vein of trying to make more connections in the community that had made Quincy pause on his way to town hall. He recognized Dex from a distance and for some reason or another, he changed his course to approach the individual. There was a familiarity of where they were, the significance of such a place not lost on him as it weighed upon those around him. He had been only a handful of days fresh to Sanctuary before the breach and subsequent tragedy struck. There was little love for him after that, the stunt he pulled in trying to get out of the Bunker before the horde came seen as a selfish risk, but he had been allowed to stay. It was something he was thankful for, being able to stay near Rooney for the time being.

 The trade off was being around a bunch of strangers, ones he’d almost gotten killed in his rush to get to Rooney in the panic. Time had passed by, month by month, and now he was looking at half of a year put behind him. As he got closer to Dex he came to a stop, nodding in acknowledgment when the other man glanced at him.

 “Usually am.” A residual habit from the military and his inability to sleep well unless completely exhausted, too much excess energy and worries plagued him at night. “End of your shift?”

[quincyxdubois]

location: memorial wall tag: @xrooneyx​

Quincy had the memorial wall on his mind after he was reminded of its existence that morning. It hadn’t occurred to him before, his mind preoccupied with other dealings, but he now wondered if he would recognize any of the names. He had grown up in Colorado, close to where Sanctuary had been cordoned off. Years away from the place did not lend its hand in keeping in touch with anyone he knew but he supposed he’d still recognize or be reminded if names popped up. He was surprised to see Rooney there, pausing a few feet away from her.  

“Anyone you know up there?”

[quincyxdubois]

andtherewillcomesoftrains​:

starter - open location - town hall

“ Okay, so- we’ve got the harvest in, so we’re good on food. ” Bobbi marked off a box next to ‘food’. “ And the well seems to be full after all the snow melted. So we don’t need to worry about water, any time soon. ” A weight seemed to be lifted from her shoulders as she ticked off another box. “ We just need to get the walls reinforced, fix the electricity in the infirmary and… ” She glanced around, looking at the dim lighting inside the Town Hall. “ here, and… build a whole new house. Honestly, we’re not in as bad a shape as I originally though we were. ”

“No death by starvation or thirst...” Quincy maneuvered some damaged wood he had found off to the side, it was flimsy from rot and he wiped grains from his hand after he let go of it. “Very good upside.” Six months and he hadn’t exactly been spending it memorizing everyone and their job descriptions, but he flitted through the names and faces he did know and shrugged his shoulders. “What exactly goes into building a house?”

[johnparri]

Trevante Rhodes in Bird Box (Susanne Bier, 2018).

[quincyxdubois]

faust-fenter​:

an imperfect actor

Starter: open

Location: a grassy patch near the burned down house of 103

Summer. The perfect time for…well, not much, really- in Faust’s opinion. The only thing Summer was good for was wearing ugly button-up shirts. Unfortunately he only had one of those left; he suspected that every bisexual, enby, and middle-aged father had snatched up all the available Hawaiian shirts the minute the apocalypse hit. 

Well, he’d wear the hell out of his shirt anyway. It already had a few holes in it, but it was nothing Bobbi wouldn’t be able to patch up. Probably.

Speaking of, Bobbi was the only reason he was currently sitting outside “soaking up the sun”. She’d told him he was looking a little too pale. He’d made some snarky comment in response that had earned him a thwap to the side of the head- he couldn’t quite remember what he’d said. But it’d been enough to get him off his ass and get him outdoors. 

He was sitting on a patch of green grass that had sprung up from the ashes (literally), just next to 103. The grass was a bright patch of green amidst the ashy, grey, desolate reminder of what had happened several months prior.  Hey, where else were you gonna kick back and relax?  Faust cracked an eye open when a shadow fell over him, squinting up to try and see who was blocking his sun. He took the cigarette out of his mouth (one of the last he had stashed) and said on an exhale of smoke and a forced smile:  “Hey.” 

Quincy had hardly noticed this day stood apart from any other, barring rain or snow he wasn’t as observant as some of the others. So, when it was brought to his attention, the best he could manage was a nod of hesitant agreement, gaze sweeping up to the skies to belatedly confirm. That had been the most interaction he had since he’d woken up that morning. 

The man hadn’t given up yet on making amends with Rooney, and that meant leaving her to sleep in rather than go to where she was staying and see if she wanted him to make something for her. Now it was well past noon and the older woman talking to him dismissed him with an unaccustomed gentleness. He noticed the shirt first. It stood out against the burnt remains of the house. Then Quincy recognized Faust, someone that had seemingly gotten along well with his sister. He closed the distance, coming to stand a little over a foot away. 

“Y’eat yet?”

[musefluence]

“If it’s family, you protect. Doesn’t matter who it is, blood or not.”

— Aveline (via steelbloom)

[quincyxdubois]

cosmog​:

“Wretched, wretched, and yet with good intentions.”

— Franz Kafka, from a diary entry dated December 24, 1910.

[quincyxdubois]

He had just arrived at Sanctuary days before the breach. Trapped within the confines of the Bunker he had tried to escape to get to his sister only to be subdued and detained. After the horde, when at last he had found Rooney alive and unbit, he put aside the rage towards those that had kept him from her until then. This was the best bet for their survival and Quincy, despite it all, was not going to put that in jeopardy.  

There was one key component that had kept Quincy alive to see one of his younger siblings again: endurance. His emotions packed away neatly, his actions succinct and one-tracked, there was no distracting from his goal. He wanted to find all of his siblings, dead, alive, or undead so badly that it bordered on obsessive. The past six months were spent trying to heal the rift between himself and Rooney, to little or no avail, even so he persisted. The rest of his time he helped where he could in Sanctuary, even going out for supplies, though it was partially self-serving, his goals of finding his other siblings taking precedence over all. 

task: six months later

[quincyxdubois]

meperosus :

   SHE HUGS HER knees to her chest, sitting on the cold floor of the bunker and feeling the chill seep into her bones. Her eyes are puppy, red-rimmed, and she’s doing her best to keep her breathing steady —overcompensating, perhaps, as she forces each in and out to last a few seconds. She pauses mid inhale, eyes flicking over the man who’s been tied up. She glances between him and Minerva, then raises a brow at him as if he must think she’s stupid. Her words might be misconstrued as harsh when she speaks, but her tone is so soft that they hold no real malice. 

      “… I think the fuck not.”

 “My sister-- Rooney, she’s out there right now...” He tried, though his first attempt had garnered no sympathy. Quincy, under any other circumstance would understand-- him leaving put everyone at risk-- but not now. The ex-con took her appearance in, her pause in breathing at his interruption. He frowned, the pain in his head doing a fine job of bringing him back to the present. “Right.” He closed his eyes, trying to picture the ties around his wrist, strained against them as best he could but there was no give and it was painful enough that he knew his wrists would swell if he persisted. He opened his eyes again, sagging as if in defeat. “You got someone out there?”

[xrooneyx]

[ quincy & rooney ]

[quincyxdubois]

xrooneyx :

so, where are the others? Out on a run like you? How come you guys didn’t go together?’. His words hit her in the chest as soon as they left his mouth. He thought they were together. That they were all alive. This meant that he’d clearly been left in the dark about what happened to them all after his arrest. Made sense, seeing as no caseworker was going to contact their brother who was convicted of major drug crimes and murder.  She stared at him, letting the air go stale. Rooney looked away for a moment, staring at an especially dirty patch on the wall to her left. “You really have no idea then…” She said without turning her head towards him. It was only when she uttered her next statement that she looked at him directly. “Our parents went fucking berserk after you went away,” She stopped, trying not to get so worked up. “And there was no one left to stop it, so it went on. And on. And on- until a substitute teacher at my school noticed bruises. And cigarette burns. And all of that shit. She reported it to CPS and we got taken away.”

The day it happened was burned into her mind like it happened yesterday. She screamed and cried for Riley and Wes. Beanie was snoozing away in a car seat provided by the State. Riley was trying to talk their way through it like always. Trying to tell the CPS workers that they had to stay together. But they put Rooney in the car with Beanie and drove off without her two other siblings. She’d beat her fists on the back window of the car, crying and screaming. “I never saw either of them again.” While their case worker had made an effort to keep Beanie and Rooney together, to a point, they’d done no such thing for Riley and Wes. Perhaps the two had been put somewhere together. Or maybe they hadn’t. Rooney wouldn’t know. “After that Beanie and I went from place to place. And some of those places, a lot of them actually, were worse than our shit hole of a home.”

It had been a while since she thought about the day that changed her life forever. The day when her foster dad had attacked her and she’d stabbed him in self defense. He’d died because of her. They never linked it back to her, but it didn’t matter. She still did it. Her life in that house had been unbearable. “They locked the fridge. Wouldn’t give us fucking toothpaste, or clothes. They’d go out to eat and not get us anything. I got beat so badly one time that I couldn’t hear for like a fucking month in one ear.” Rooney had never told anyone about all of the shit they’d gone through. But she was unloading on him and it was because she’d been waiting for years. “Beanie nearly died from bronchitis when she was six because they wouldn’t take her to the fucking doctors.”

Rooney’s eyes were starting to water, but she was desperately trying not to cry in front of him. “There was no one who cared. No one who loved us.” Riley and Wes had probably been told that everything was off limits until both Beanie and herself were eighteen. They’d been lost in the system from the start. “So, no, they’re not with me. They’re probably dead.”

 He glanced up, meaning only to check if her expression was one of disdain but what he found was much worse. Breathing became difficult and like a coward might, he looked down as she spoke, focusing on her wound as she told of the time his siblings had without him around. Quincy’s vision blurred red as rage engulfed him, self-hatred burning through him only to be eclipsed by the hatred he held for their parents and the foster parents that came after. He thought that it might be better for them, at least, even if they were apart, as long as they had a loving home but it turned out so much worse. He sat back on his haunches, finally looking up at her as she finished, the  silence drawn taut between them. “But you’re with Beanie?” The last thread of hope, something shimmering bright but the moment the question was out there, it snapped. He knew the answer. 

 They were never meant to find happiness. He wanted to keep trying, keep looking for Riley and Wesley, but with every state line he had crossed to get back to Colorado he could feel the journey drain him. With Rooney’s appearance, he had thought maybe, at last-- even if it took the world turning to shit-- they had started on their good karma. That was all dashed now. “Rooney..” his throat closed up and he tried to clear it, focusing on her bloody ankle once more. “let’s just...get you cleaned up for now.” 

[quincyxdubois]

@meperosus

 He came to all at once, consciousness slamming into him while confusion chased close behind. His name was Quincy Dubois, he was no longer in a Floridian prison cell waiting for the chair. He was, however, restrained, his hands tied behind his back to a metal bar so tightly that the plastic dug into his wrists and his fingers tingled as he wiggled them. “Hey,” he called out to the person nearest him, he recalled her name being something tree-like but couldn’t pinpoint which one, “can ya loosen these?”

[xrooneyx]

[ quincy & rooney ]

[quincyxdubois]

xrooneyx :

“Now you’re not leaving?” She had to laugh at the statement. “Now you’re making the decision to stay? Thanks for that, Quincy. I’m fucking jazzed that you’ve made the decision to stay now that the world has gone to proper fucking shit. How did you get out anyway? Did they give early release to drug kingpins and murderers on account of the apocalypse? Or did you have to kill someone else to get out? Old habits die hard, I’m guessing.” She’d needed him so badly when she was a kid. Rooney remembered the days and months after his arrest that she’d spent crying and convincing herself he’d be back. “Do you have any fucking idea what you did to us when you got arrested?”

She looked down at her ankle and the blood soaked sock she’d shoved back on her foot. You’re bit? Some part of her wanted to lie to him and say yes, she had. Make him, just a for a few moments, feel helpless and terrified. But most of her felt despite how she was feeling that it was too cruel. “No,” She said finally. Rooney knew she couldn’t travel properly on her foot, especially with how hard it was bleeding and how dirty it must be. In this world risking infection was far more serious than before. She pulled a drawer open looking for a bottle of alcohol to clean the wound with. “Fuckin’ christ-” As if this could get any worse it seemed as though she wasn’t going to be able to locate any.

 There was not much else he could say in the wake of her words. His excuse for leaving them held no merit anymore. He had wanted to give them a better chance by providing for them, but he had failed them in every regard. The last thing he lacked behind bars was lack of time, there was plenty of long hours spent with him staring at the wall, going over every mistake and replaying them.The icing on the cake would be finding Rooney only to have her taken away again by such a thing as a simple bite. She deserved better than this shitty world, he knew that much, and so did the others. At the mention of them, the hope within him climbed even higher. It was possible for all of them to be at Sanctuary, just as Rooney had been, after all if she was there, then why wouldn’t the others be? He hadn’t been in Sanctuary for that long.

  The color didn’t quite come back to his face immediately but he exhaled at her answer, his demeanor changing as she began to rummage unsuccessfully through the drawers. “Hey-- hey.” He took a knee and moved forward, motioning towards her wound. “May I take a look?” He was gentle as he tsked over her wound, but it probably still hurt as he folded her sock down as far as it could go with her shoe still on. It was still weeping blood, but not at a rate that Quincy found alarming, though he was no expert. He could only call upon the knowledge of his own wounds being treated while in the service. It took no medical genius, however, to know that she’d need disinfectant soon. He could probably look through the other bathrooms, or even in the houses around the neighborhood, but wasn’t quite willing to risk leaving her alone after just finding her. Finally, after he had thoroughly examined her wound, he asked, “so, where are the others? Out on a run like you? How come you guys didn’t go together?” 

[quincyxdubois]

mincrvastark :

              “No. You don’t understand –”

       She got it, she really did. Being in here while the people they cared about were stuck out there was Hell, but whoever the Hell this guy was looking for.. it wasn’t worth the lives of everyone in here. Shaking her head, she gestured to the crowd that waited behind the man, as if to emphasize the point she hadn’t made yet.

               “You open those doors, all of these people are at risk. You                  honestly think that I’m going to let you risk the lives of those                  children? Sit. Back. Down.”

       Despite the hush she spoke in, Minerva’s voice took a harsh tone. She wasn’t exactly sure who this man was, but she wasn’t above knocking out a stranger. Sam’s voice played over in her head, telling her to be a little more civil, but he wasn’t in here to give her shit – and she had a sneaking suspicion that he might actually agree with her on this one. 

 “Everyone is at risk, always. Even behind these quaint little walls you put up and call Sanctuary.” He practically spit the word, his anger rising with every second he was kept from going to the person he had survived for.  “Spoiled with your ideals of safety until now when what you all fought so hard to protect has come crumbling down and some idiot has gotten himself killed and compromised everyone. But that is my family out there.”

  There was no way in fucking hell Quincy was going to stay put like a good little soldier while his little sister was outside. The ex-con had never been a numbers guy, but the children inside the bunker probably had no extreme percentage change in surviving in this hellish world even if he stayed put. They could die tomorrow or the next day and what would it matter that he had stayed in the bunker. He shoved forward to get through the doors.

[quincyxdubois]

mincrvastark :

       The orders were to shut the door, so she and the others that had been guarding it did as they were instructed. They knew, all of them in there, that they’d be leaving people stranded outside, but they had to keep as many people safe as they could. Minerva had already started the list of people that were still outside, but her focus was quickly pulled away by a voice that carried a little too loud. Turning, just in time to see the man approach – another newbie– she shook her head and moved between him and the door.

              “Not going to happen. And you need to lower your voice.”

 “My sister is out there. Open the door.” He didn’t know how much time there was before the horde actually got to them but he knew that the more seconds spent here, the less time he had to get to Rooney. “You don’t understand.” Quincy had no way of explaining how much he and his family had gone through before the world went to shit. The luck of Rooney being alive and that he had found her after all these years, including the ones post apocalypse, was not something he could count on. He cared about little else-- had nothing truly without the family he fought so hard to get back to. “She’s all I have left, there’s still time to let me out.”