the shatter me movie adaptation is genuinely the one i’m least scared for because tahereh mafi is in on it and she probably gets a say in the casting… and for something like shatter me, especially the first book, there’s realistically not much room to get it wrong 😭
also, while i’m thinking of re9!aeon, the ring on leon’s hand is totally ada’s. but they’re not married. not legally, anyway.
it was a spur-of-the-moment deal, something that just happened after yet another mission survived together. for the last twenty-and-some-change years, they were all the other had known.
but it made no sense to bind themselves legally. leon was in d.c. with the dso, ada moved around a lot depending on who she was working for. they didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, because when one was home, the other was across the country on a mission.
the rings aren’t a symbol of marriage. they’re a symbol of love, trust, and loyalty. something to look at during a particularly daunting assignment and remember that he/she will always be there.
i think about re9!leon’s homecoming quite often. more so, ada reacting.
leon walks through the door, exhausted, body aching, throws his keys in the bowl by the door. even with the usual post-mission stress, he really does feel like a million bucks.
they found a cure. there are calls to make. jill, claire, chris—all of them will need to be seen soon enough. but there’s someone that leon needs to tend to personally.
and she’s curled up in bed, coughing as the infection spreads like wildfire in her blood. but that’s okay. because leon has a fresh vial of elpis ready to go.
she blinks awake steadily, making out the details of leon’s face immediately. she’s awake and alert seconds later, sitting up in bed as if it took no effort. but her skin is blackened, rough and peeling. there’s splatters of blood on the pillows from where she coughed in her sleep.
leon holds up the vial. “Present for you.”
it takes them both a few days to fully recover. but once they do, it’s an amazing feeling.
hey! since they didn't leave an ask, i don't know if anon will see this, but i said i'd update whenever there's something new on abigail & callum! it's not huge, but i DID make a side blog SPECIFICALLY dedicated to them (and my other personal projects, but abigail & callum are my main priority outside of fanfiction rn!) so if you've been interested in them, feel free to follow @cherrysthovghts !!!
summary: dallas and cherry get separated on their way to the police station, and dallas has to make the journey on his own.
cw: gore, canon-typical violence, swearing, blood, mentions of vomit, slightly ooc, more tags to be added as story progresses.
a/n: no, i'm not just posting the entire story all together, BUT, i wanted to get at least two chapters out immediately. (more so for ao3, but if i wrote two chapters, i'm going to post two chapters, lmao.) you can expect an update a week from me! cross-posted to ao3 by me!
POV: Dallas
Taking on a little redhead with no survival instinct was not on the agenda. He thinks about this as he does a check around the area. It's still fairly early in the morning, hopefully the girl hasn't woken up yet. If she has, maybe Dallas will finally get some good luck and she'll wander off alone. Sure, she'll totally get eaten by those fuckers, but Dallas will have some peace and quiet.
Clutching the pistol in his right hand, he slowly starts to make his way back toward the alleyway where Cherry sleeps. He didn't go very far when he left. He just needed to stretch his legs from sitting all night. He doesn't know what came over him, what possessed him to let the girl sleep through the night. She looked exhausted, and she had just lost both of her parents. When a couple of hours had passed and it was his turn to sleep, he shook her gently for a few seconds, and then changed his mind and let her sleep longer.
When he makes it back to the alleyway, he sees Cherry standing up, still rubbing her eyes. She grumbles under her breath and grabs her metal rod, and she's obviously getting ready to leave.
"Sit back down," Dallas calls out. "I didn't leave, genius. Just had'ta stretch my legs a bit."
Cherry looks up with an expression full of anger. She stands up and marches over to him, her arms crossed over her chest. "And what if a zombie came and got me while you were doing that, huh? I could have died!"
Dallas doesn't apologize. "Oh no. That would have made me so sad."
He's not quite expecting it when her hand comes up to slap him across the face, but he guesses he can't say he didn't deserve it. Pain shoots through his cheek, and his eyes narrow, but he keeps calm because all loud noise does is attract those things. "Listen, princess. I was close enough to hear. It's not like those things are particularly quiet. So calm down and let's get going. I'm starving."
It takes them half an hour to reach the nearest grocery store, in which they grab all the food they can, along with two backpacks to stuff the food in. Dallas brings up a good point that it would be easier to grab as much food as possible instead of returning to the store three times a day.
"I think the next thing we need to do is find you a gun," Dallas notes, looking up at the cloudy sky. "That rod won't do you any favors."
"It's saved me plenty of times," Cherry argues.
Dallas raises an eyebrow. Something has to be seriously wrong with this girl. "Sure. But a gun would save you quicker. Now come on, I know where a gun shop is."
"Of course you do," Cherry mutters. Dallas smirks at that.
"Jesus, you're gonna hate me by the time we get out of this place." He leads her to an abandoned car on the street. "Get in."
"What are you doing?" Cherry asks wearily.
Dallas looks back at her over his shoulder. "What do ya think? I'm not walkin' anymore, my legs are tired."
Cherry's eyes widen. "You can't steal a car!"
"It ain't stealin'. Owner's probably zombie chow by now."
Cherry huffs with irritation. "You are evil."
Dallas grins, unapologetic. "I'm just good at survival, doll."
Cherry says nothing after that. She just hops into the passenger side, crosses her arms over her chest, and stares out the window.
Dallas thought he would have to hot-wire the car, but the owner must have dropped the keys in a panic, because they were sitting on the seat when Dallas climbed in. He hopes the thing still has gas.
Luckily, it starts up. Unfortunately, so does whatever CD the owner had playing. Some Tupac album blared through the speakers until Dallas reached over to eject the CD from the player. He puts the car in drive and navigates through the barren streets, occasionally swerving through hordes of zombies, much to Cherry's dismay.
"Dallas! You're going to hit one of them!"
Dallas snickers. "Okay? Better them than me."
Cherry shuts up the rest of the way to the gun store. It's a little out of the way, but Dallas knew the owner. Or knows. Guess he's about to find out. He pulls into the parking lot and kills the engine. Cherry follows closely behind him. He thinks the coast is clear, seeing as he doesn't hear any of the incessant groaning that he typically hears before getting ambushed by a zombie.
It's happened quite a few times.
"Stay close," Dallas warns, keeping the pistol in his hands. He pushes the door open quickly and takes a step back. After he's sure that the coast is clear, he grabs Cherry's wrist and drags her inside. She yelps and Dallas laughs.
He does a quick sweep of the store. He finds a flashlight—jackpot. He heads to the back and grabs the first handgun he sees, along with some extra ammo. "You do know how to shoot a gun, right?" He looks at Cherry, who only shrugs.
"Um… no."
Dallas groans. "Do you know how to do anything?"
Cherry grins sheepishly.
"Of course you don't," Dallas mutters. "Alright, fine. I'll teach you how to shoot."
Dallas took Cherry to a building outside of the shop, a makeshift shooting range that surely wasn't legal at all. He made sure the range was clear of zombies, and then ushered Cherry inside. They barricaded the door with shelves and the reception desk, and only hoped it would stop those zombies.
They turn around from the door to be met with the end of a shotgun barrel. Cherry yelps, and Dallas instinctively pulls her close. "We're not gonna hurt you," Dallas says, keeping his voice steady and calm.
The shotgun pointed at their heads is slowly lowered. Dallas is relieved to see familiar curly black hair and deep blue eyes pointed back at his own. "Shit, Tim, you nearly blew my head off."
Tim grins. "Well, I'll be damned. Shoulda been expecting you, huh? Who's the little miss you got here?"
Cherry sneers. "Cherry. My name is Cherry. And I'm not with him. We're just helping each other out, okay?" She gestures to the gun in her hand. "Dallas is supposed to be helping me learn to shoot."
Tim snickers. "Fair enough. Go ahead, I got extra ammo in the back. Hey, wait… is that one of my guns? You planning on paying me for that, Winston?"
Dallas looks at him incredulously. "Seriously? We're in the middle of a zombie-infested shit show, and you're worried about money?"
Tim just stares at him. "Uh, yeah? That shit costs, like, $650. I want my money."
"Consider it an IOU, asshole," Dallas tuts.
"Um, guys?" Cherry intervenes, holding up the handgun. "I still need help."
Dallas and Tim spend the next hour and a half teaching her how to shoot. She's not perfect by any means, and she'll definitely have to learn quick on the field, but it's not like Dallas can give her years of experience in an hour.
When they're done, they say their goodbyes to Tim. Dallas offers for him to tag along, but Tim decides against it, claiming that he wants to hang back and keep an eye on the shop.
The drive back to downtown Raccoon City is quiet. Dallas occasionally looks over and sees Cherry picking at her nails, looking like she wants to say something. But he doesn't push. He can't be bothered.
"Look, once we get to the police station… if we get separated, don't try to find me, okay? Just find a way to get the hell out," Dallas instructs. "It'd be too dangerous. At this point, your ultimate goal is to survive. Understand me?"
"Okay," Cherry says, her voice sad. "Same goes for you, I guess."
The car dips back into silence. Dallas stares straight ahead, looking out for monsters. Cherry stares down at her lap and refuses to even breathe too loudly.
Dallas tries not to think about how much he despises bringing his own two legs to the police station. Those boys don't like him—never have, never will. But, he's not the only person he has to worry about anymore. He looks over at the redhead beside him and sighs heavily.
Two days ago, Dallas was happy with staying in Raccoon City and waiting until everything blew over. It's not like he had anywhere else to go, of course. But everything was turned upside down the second he saw the fear in the redhead's eyes. As much as he tries to deny it, Dallas is not a monster. After his rough upbringing, he developed contrasting traits of needing to stay an arms length away from everyone, while also feeling the very frustrating urge to protect. It's his least favorite flaw, and he regularly finds himself wishing to be either one or the other.
"What if the police station is overrun by zombies? What then?" Cherry asks, her voice small. It breaks Dallas out of his own spiraling thoughts, which he's fairly grateful for. "There's no way out of Raccoon City."
Dallas stays quiet. The truth is, he doesn't know, and the panic is starting to settle deep into his own bones as well. Instead of answering with a simple yes or no, he simply says, "You just have to do whatever you can."
They get close to the station, but there's a major roadblock. Probably from everyone panicking to leave the city. "Looks like we're walking from here," Dallas mutters, glancing out the window. The hum of the engine has begun to attract crowds of zombies.
"More like running," Cherry grumbles, looking out her own window.
"Yeah… good call."
That's when Dallas sees it. White-bright headlights in the rearview mirror, bounding for the car they were in. "Cherry, get out."
But the zombies have already crowded against the car, making it impossible to push either door open. "The door won't budge! I'm stuck!"
"Then you better brace yourself, because that thing's coming!" Dallas yells, pushing himself back against his seat.
The next thing he knows, his head is bouncing off the steering wheel, causing a throbbing pain to shoot through his entire skull. Seriously, he feels it in his teeth. He stumbles out of the vehicle and only hopes that Cherry had the right mind to do the same. As soon as he exits the car, it erupts into flames, and Dallas watches in horror. He looks at the truck that just collided with him.
"Oh, fuck no."
Dallas just barely has time to start running before the truck explodes, but the sheer force of the explosion lifts him off his feet and has him slamming his back into a nearby sedan. Pain shoots through his spine, but still, he forces himself to get up. Cherry.
"Cherry! Cherry, are you alright!?"
The sound of fire crackling is the only thing that Dallas can hear. For a second, bile rises up in his throat. But then—
"Yeah! I'm okay! Are you alright!?"
Dallas looks beside him then. There's at least ten zombies coming his way, with way more behind them that just haven't noticed him yet. "I can't stay here! Meet me at the station!"
"Okay!"
With that, Dallas takes off running. He does his best to dodge any zombie that comes his way, but they're everywhere. He has to take a shot at a few of them, which he really hates, because he's running low on ammo and he has no idea when, or if, he'll be able to get more.
Finally, the station comes into view. Dallas could get on his knees and kiss the ground, if only there weren't hordes of zombies trying to feed on his flesh. He runs to the gate and pushes the heavy doors open. He quickly locks it, just in time for the zombies to get to the gate and try to pry it open.
When he gets into the station, he glances around quickly. Now, he'd been here before, of course he has. But the vibe of this place was completely different. There was no receptionist at the front desk, there were no officers running around to get papers or coffees. There were no annoyed girlfriends waiting to pay their boyfriends' bail. It was quiet.
Eerily quiet.
He spots a computer behind the reception desk. He walks up to it and hopes that it can lead him somewhere for help. He turns it on, and sure enough, there's live camera feed of an officer. He's pointing his gun at someone—something—off camera with one hand, holding up a notebook with the other. "I found a way out!" He yells to the camera. "It's all in here!"
Dallas watches as a zombie approaches on him and the officer opens fire. "Send reinforcements! East hallway!"
The feed cuts after that. Dallas hears gunshots, and immediately rushes to the east gate. He pushes the power button, but it only raises the gate enough for him to squeeze through.
Grimacing, Dallas sinks down to the disgusting floor and wiggles through the small opening. He flicks his flashlight on and does a quick look around. When he sees that the coast is clear, he pushes himself the rest of the way through and stands up. He brushes the dust off of himself and continues walking.
He rushes to the east hallway, pushing up a fallen cabinet and nearly dislocating his shoulder in the process, before he hears it. "OPEN UP! SOMEBODY HURRY! OPEN THIS GODDAMN DOOR!"
Dallas breaks into a sprint and pushes the gate up, and the officer tries to push himself through. "Give me your hand, I'll get you out," Dallas says, reaching for the man. "Gimme your other hand. Hang on—"
The officer erupts in screams of pain. Blood shoots out from under the gate and the officer goes limp in Dallas's arms, but Dallas keeps trying. The man becomes suddenly easier to drag, and when Dallas looks down, he sees why.
The man's entire lower half is gone.
A wave of nausea overtakes Dallas. He's seen a lot of things in his life, but nothing like this. Blood seeps out of the man's body, making the air smell metallic and thick. "Oh, Jesus Christ," Dallas chokes out under his breath. He looks down at his own hands, dirty and bloody.
Swallowing down the urge to vomit, he grabs the officer's notebook and stands up. No use in staying here when he can hear the zombies trying to break through the closed gate. He turns to the door out of the room, but a zombie starts trying to bust through there as well.
With his gun pointed at the door, he backs away slowly, and only hopes that the officer behind him doesn't turn before he has a way to escape.
A zombie bursts through the door, groaning and limping along. Dallas doesn't hesitate. He shoots at the monster, effectively blowing it's head clean open. Gruesome as that may sound, it had happened quite often within the last week, and Dallas thinks he may be officially desensitized to everything after what just happened with the officer.
He runs back to the main hall, gets down onto the floor to squeeze himself through the narrow gap he left. He's just about through when something grabs onto his ankle and starts dragging him backward. Panic shoots through his spine as he looks back and sees one of those monsters looking at him with eyes full of hunger and violence. He thrashes and kicks, but nothing can get the thing off of him. This is it. This is where he dies.
Someone grabs his arms and drags him out. "Watch out!" Dallas exclaims.
"I got it," A gruff voice replies, putting his foot on the handle of the door and pushing down. "You're safe. For now."
They finally make eye contact and Dallas sighs. Marvin Branagh, of course. Marvin narrows his eyes as he looks down at Dallas. "Winston?"
Dallas nods as he hoists himself up. "Yep. That's me." His stomach twists again. "There was an officer. I couldn't… I tried, but… he—"
Marvin shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Guilt gets you nowhere out here."
He gets a better look at Marvin. He's holding his stomach, and large amounts of blood are seeping through his fingers. "Did one of those things get you?"
Marvin doesn't respond. "Come over here. Sit down."
"So, do you know how this thing started?" Dallas asks as he adjusts the holster that Marvin had given him. He sticks the pistol inside, grateful to not have to carry it around everywhere anymore.
Marvin shakes his head as he looks at the monitor beside him. "Not a clue. But this place will eat you alive if you're not careful. Hopefully you'll be able to find a way out of here."
Dallas looks at the notebook in Marvin's hand—the one that supposedly has the answers to get out of this place. It's bloody, some of the pages are torn, but it's still decipherable. Marvin holds it up to Dallas and point at three drawings. "Elliot—That officer you met, he thought that this may be a way out."
Marvin hands over the notebook and Dallas nods. Marvin pulls him closer. "Do not make my mistake, Dallas. When you see one of those things, you take them out, or you run. Am I clear?"
Dallas nods. "Yes, sir."
"Good. Now take this," Marvin instructs, holding out a combat knife and a sheath that he can connect to his belt. "You're going to need it."
Dallas's eyes widen. "Lieutenant, you're going to need this to protect yourself."
Marvin shoves the knife against his chest. "Don't worry about me. Save yourself, Winston."
With that, Dallas nods, takes the knife, and walks off.
summary: cherry and dallas live in raccoon city. seeming like the only two survivors, they team up to escape.
cw: intense gore, swearing, angst, canon-typical violence, more tags to be added as story progresses
pairing: dallas winston x cherry valance
a/n: woo! i finally have enough to POST this! yay! cross-posted to ao3 by me <3
POV: Cherry
The apartment was empty, which Cherry only assumed was a good thing. Empty means no zombies. Empty means safety. Somewhat. She pushed the loveseat in front of the door and tried to ignore the sound of miserable groaning from the other side of the door. She takes a deep breath and thinks about what possibly could have gotten her here. One day, everything was normal. And then people started acting strange. Aggressive, brainless. Definitely not natural.
Cherry's only instinct was to run. She holed herself up in her house with her family for the first couple days, but that was useless. Eventually, her mother went out to get more food and never returned. Her father went to go search for her mother, and then Cherry was alone.
The zombies quickly infiltrated the house after that. Cherry merely escaped with her life. She thought about making her way to the police station, but the roads were so infested with monsters that she had no hope of making it all the way across town by herself. She wanted nothing more than to see another person, a partner to increase her chances of survival.
So far, it's been a week, and she's seen no signs of human life. She has no weapon except for a broken metal rod with a sharp edge.
The front door shakes on its hinges and she knows she only has a few minutes until she has to run again. She looks around the apartment. It's a studio apartment, quite messy, with no balcony. She walks toward the fire escape and opens the door just in time. The door breaks open and zombies begin to pour into the small apartment. Cherry squeezes herself through the narrow opening and takes off running.
By the time she reaches the ground, zombies have begun to flip over the metal railing of the fire escape, down ten stories and hits the ground with a sickening plop noise. She grimaces and backs away quickly before the things can recuperate. She tightens her grip on her metal rod and runs off. At this point, she had no destination, no idea where to go, and absolutely no hope of survival.
She tries her best to dodge each zombie that comes her way. Occasionally, one will grab onto her, but they're limp and usually pretty easy to push off if she does it quickly. She tries not to look too hard at anyone she whacks with the rod. She can only hope she didn't know any of them.
She looks up at the sky. It's getting dark, which means Cherry will have to sleep. That's the times that scares her the most, when she's completely unguarded. Because of her lack of a partner, she has to find the weirdest, most secluded places to catch some shut-eye.
On the bright side (quite literally), she still has a few hours before she has to worry about sleep. This knowledge is the only thing keeping her going as she trudges on through the streets of Raccoon City. Her stomach rumbles and she knows she'll have to find food, but that's much less of a problem than taking the risk of sleep. Every store in the city has been vacated, and the number of survivors are so little that Cherry pretty much has free reign of whatever she wants to eat.
She starts to head towards the closest grocery store, as those are the most open with the least amount of risk. She weaves through cars parked in the middle of the street and tries to ignore the stench in the air. Thousands of decomposing bodies waft into the air, causing a disgusting smell that makes Cherry want to puke every time she inhales. With her dad being a police officer, she'd smelled some rank smells, but nothing compares to this.
She looks up at the sky again. It must be only forty minutes until complete darkness at this rate. And it's an hour walk to the grocery store. Down on her luck, she chooses to take a shortcut through a dark alleyway, clutching the metal rod extra tight just in case a zombie jumps out at her.
She swallows her fear and trudges forward, the loose gravel crunching under her tennis shoes. The air is particularly crisp in the alley, with it being so dark and it being the end of September. Cherry wraps her arms around herself and tries to keep her teeth from chattering. Along with the superstrength the zombies seem to have, they also have substantial hearing, and any sudden movement or noise will have them gravitating toward her.
Things are going good. She's almost halfway through the long alley. But then the worst happens. She slips and falls onto the gravel below and scrapes her knee. "Fuck," she curses under her breath. She hears someone behind her, but before she can react, there's a hand on her shoulder roughly flipping her over. A body lands on hers, a hand wraps around her throat, and she sees a fist rear back. Her eyes widen.
"Wait…" She croaks out. "I'm not a monster."
The hand around her throat loosens and she sucks in a breath. She looks straight forward at her attacker. He has shaggy blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and a look of pure hatred on his face. "Who are you?"
Cherry wriggles out of his grip and backs herself against the wall. "Does it matter? I'm human, that should be the end of it."
"Your name," The boy demands. "What is it?"
Cherry narrows her eyes and looks over at him. "I wanna know yours first."
The boy scoffs. "Dallas. My name is Dallas Winston."
She nods. "My name is Cherry. Cherry Valance."
She chooses not to mention that her father is a police officer, and that she knows all about Dallas Winston and the trouble he gets up to on a daily basis. No, he does that first. "Your old man is a cop?"
"Yep."
"Where is he?"
"I dunno."
"That's rough," Dallas mutters, sitting next to her. "You think he's gone?"
Cherry swallows harshly. "I wish I could say otherwise."
"At least you didn't have to watch it happen," Dallas mutters. "Three of my guys got caught. Right in front of me."
"I'm sorry," Cherry says, sympathy bleeding into her voice.
Dallas shrugs. "What can you do, right?"
Cherry stays quiet for a while after that. "Do you have a plan?"
Dallas scoffs. "Ironically, I think our best bet is to make our way to the police station. I mean, those broadcasts keep advising any survivors to make their way there any damn way. Why not go and check it out?"
"That was my plan too, but no way was I making it there myself."
He chuckles. "Obviously not with that rod. Here—" He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a pistol. "This is what really helps with those things. Takes a shot or two, but it blows their heads clean off. Makes sure they don't get back up again."
Cherry grimaces. "A bit inhumane."
They don't say anything much after that. It's gotten dark and neither of them have a flashlight, so it's safer to just hunker down in the alley for the night. Dallas offers to take first watch, which Cherry accepts quite greedily since she's already exhausted.
The bad part about sleeping during a zombie apocalypse is that no matter what you do, you'll be plagued with nightmares. Ever since her father went missing, she hasn't been able to get any sleep without one. It's always the same. She finally meets up with her father. He's healthy, untouched by those monsters. But as soon as she gets close, a horde closes in on him and takes him down. Cherry screams, and that's when she wakes up in a cold sweat.
It's morning when she wakes up, and she's worried that Dallas had fallen asleep alongside her and forgotten to wake her up. She looks around, but there's no sight of the boy. Her heart sinks.
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