FIC: Just Another Apocalypse Cowboy
Dec. 3rd, 2007 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchanceTitle: Just Another Apocalypse Cowboy
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nilchance
Rating: PG-13
Fandom/Pairing: Feast, Hot Wheels/Bozo
Notes: Incest, violence, apocalypse. Those other slashy brothers fighting monsters. Hot Wheels, the little brother, paralyzed from the waist down. Bozo, the older brother with issues. Tuffy, the meanest mom since Ellen.
ETA: Feast trailer.
They steal a wheelchair from a Walmart in Nevada. For a horrified minute, he thinks his brother might toss a shopping cart into the trunk, but there's an abandoned chair hidden by the store's vending machines. Tuffy didn't want to stop in the first place, and his brother damn near had to wrench the steering wheel to get her to pause at one of those discount fill-up stations. She paces the station as his brother wrestles the chair into the back seat, her eyes on the desert. Daylight reflects off every blinding surface, but that's not much comfort.
"Could just go in the trunk," his brother grumbles. Charles Bosworth the second, but Bozo now and always, like Hot Wheels is Hot Wheels forever now. Bozo acts like he didn't carry Hot Wheels through a bloodbath before and probably will again.
Hot Wheels gives him a look, then gestures at his useless legs. "Think I can walk back there if they ambush us, dumbass?"
Not that the chair matters much. Not that he could outrun those things by upper arm strength. All it'd take was one set of stairs and he's fucked. They both know it. Tuffy won't say, but she knows too. Depending on the hour, Hot Wheels isn't sure if she'd leave him on the roadside or protect him like a lioness.
His brother's eyes flinch, just a little, and he gets to pushing harder. "Pain in the ass," he mutters.
A cart attendant watches them from the curb, apathetic or maybe scared of Tuffy. Fuck knows Hot Wheels is, and he even knows where the gore on her clothes came from. She won't wash her son's blood away. Hot Wheels wonders if the nightmare things will stop and feed here, everywhere that they led them through on their winding path away. Wonders if he cares.
If it isn't Bozo? No. He probably doesn't.
The chair shoves in beside him, bouncing off his knee. Bozo says cheerfully, "Good thing you can't feel that, huh?"
Good thing they can't feel anything. Good thing they don't say things like thank you, or don't leave me, or I love you, or we're screwed.
Hot Wheels flips him off.
Bozo puckers up his lips and noisily smacks them. "Cover me, limpdick, I'm gonna piss off the road."
He does piss, but on his way back he jimmies open a vending machine. That's eerily familiar, Bozo's broad shoulders blocking what he's doing as he gets candy bars, trail mix, chips. They survived on that trick for months before Bozo mastered hustling pool. He tosses a bag of trail mix at Tuffy, who catches it and looks like she doesn't recognize food. The chocolate Bozo pitches at Hot Wheels' head is hot from his hands.
Tuffy gets back in the car. They start driving in radio silence, and despite Bozo's inability to shut up he watches for attack. Tuffy is silent, silent, her bloody hands locked on the steering wheel. Risking the bumps in the road, Hot Wheels lays the gun in his lap and starts to work on the chair.
They're alive.
****
Duct tape. Shotgun. Screwdriver. He'd do better with a full toolkit, customize it like the old one, but the rough design suits this mad run from hell. He straps a gun to both arms of the chair, cannibalizes the glove compartment to make a bin for ammo against his hip. Kills the brakes; he can stop the wheels with his hands if he needs to. Better a broken finger than the brake slipping and dumping him on the ground to be torn apart. The inside of the car tastes like metal when he's done, and it's dark. His eyes burn.
Tuffy meets his eyes in the rearview. Her own are black as coal, dead inside. She smiles.
Bozo turns his face to the night outside the car windows. His lips move, and for a second Hot Wheels thinks he's praying. It scares the shit out of him. Then he hears a steady stream of curses at the monsters, at the world.
It's all right.
****
They drive for a long time on twisting roads. Tuffy won't say where she's going and won't let Bozo take the wheel. The roads get quieter, even the highways. None of them turn on the radio. He can still smell them, dead animal stench in his nose and on his skin, jerking him awake every time he starts to doze.
They find a cabin, raised up in harsh brush. It looks secure, extra boards outside for windows and doors. Tuffy parks the car close to the cabin's high, slim windows so they could shimmy out if they had to. Nobody says that Hot Wheels would be screwed in that case, but it's the best house they've found so far and they need to hunker down soon.
Tuffy covers them as they climb out, the wheelchair hauled out first. When Bozo bends close to lift him out, his eyes are bloodshot and he's shaky. Hot Wheels grabs the oh-shit handle of the car and takes as much weight off Bozo as he can. He doesn't think Bozo wants to let him go, but he does. Bozo pauses, touches the top of his head, then grabs the wheelchair's handles and spins him around so fast that gravel sprays. He used to do that after the accident, spin him in circles and barrel down halls until Hot Wheels laughed and threatened to hurl.
Bozo's hands are full; it's Hot Wheels' job to watch for attack now. Tuffy lays lumber on his lap like he's a cart-mule, puts a hammer there too. The first girl to realize his arms work just fine and she has to be bugfuck crazy. It figures.
There's a step inside the door, a bone-rattling fall that hurts. Hot Wheels takes the wheel and pushes out of Bozo's grip, moving to case each room (not many) and close each window (five). He can hear them around him, securing and locking down. For a while, that's all he knows.
No attacks. Not yet.
Finally, Hot Wheels comes back to the cabin's main room. Tuffy's sitting on the floor, sharpening a knife meant for business. Bozo is on a kitchen chair, looking at his hands. Hot Wheels parks beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
"So that sucked," Bozo says conversationally.
"Like Phantom Menace sucked?"
"No, man, like 'she's under eighteen' level suck." Bozo meets his eyes. "Find any food?"
Hot Wheels shows him the canned tomatoes he found.
Bozo makes a face. "Like I said. Find any food?"
"Yeah, asshole, there's a McDonalds in the basement. Here." Hot Wheels pops the top, shoves it at his brother. "Eat it. There's enough downstairs for a week."
Bozo's mouth thins. He stares at the can, then closes his eyes. He looks tired, like he did at the funeral.
It's a pussy thing to do. He's going to catch hell for it. But he bumps his shoulder against his brother's and leans there. He's not sure who he's comforting.
"I just wanted to play some goddamn pool," Bozo says bitterly.
It's just them: him, Charlie, some woman whose name they don't even know with her son's death like a gun pressed to her forehead. It's bad. It's so fucking bad.
He turns his face to his brother's throat. It stinks of sweat and death. He hesitates, then presses his mouth there anyway.
Bozo freezes. Then, before Hot Wheels can even be scared, he groans and moves to (not eat, not devour, Jesus Christ not tonight) kiss Hot Wheels's mouth. Their teeth bounce, and it hurts, and it tastes funny with too much spit, and Hot Wheels nearly comes in his pants.
When they stop, which isn't for a while, the tomatoes are on the floor and Tuffy's still sharpening. They pant. Bozo looks like he got hit in the head with a shoe.
"Wow." Blinking, Bozo sits up a little straighter. "Wow. Uh. Hey."
"Yeah," Hot Wheels says. "I know."
Whatever Bozo sees on his face, he doesn't make a crack or swear. He rolls his shoulders back, like he's going to pick Hot Wheels up and carry him through another slaughterhouse, and says, "Okay."
Outside, it's the end of the world.
Author:
nilchanceRating: PG-13
Fandom/Pairing: Feast, Hot Wheels/Bozo
Notes: Incest, violence, apocalypse. Those other slashy brothers fighting monsters. Hot Wheels, the little brother, paralyzed from the waist down. Bozo, the older brother with issues. Tuffy, the meanest mom since Ellen.
ETA: Feast trailer.
They steal a wheelchair from a Walmart in Nevada. For a horrified minute, he thinks his brother might toss a shopping cart into the trunk, but there's an abandoned chair hidden by the store's vending machines. Tuffy didn't want to stop in the first place, and his brother damn near had to wrench the steering wheel to get her to pause at one of those discount fill-up stations. She paces the station as his brother wrestles the chair into the back seat, her eyes on the desert. Daylight reflects off every blinding surface, but that's not much comfort.
"Could just go in the trunk," his brother grumbles. Charles Bosworth the second, but Bozo now and always, like Hot Wheels is Hot Wheels forever now. Bozo acts like he didn't carry Hot Wheels through a bloodbath before and probably will again.
Hot Wheels gives him a look, then gestures at his useless legs. "Think I can walk back there if they ambush us, dumbass?"
Not that the chair matters much. Not that he could outrun those things by upper arm strength. All it'd take was one set of stairs and he's fucked. They both know it. Tuffy won't say, but she knows too. Depending on the hour, Hot Wheels isn't sure if she'd leave him on the roadside or protect him like a lioness.
His brother's eyes flinch, just a little, and he gets to pushing harder. "Pain in the ass," he mutters.
A cart attendant watches them from the curb, apathetic or maybe scared of Tuffy. Fuck knows Hot Wheels is, and he even knows where the gore on her clothes came from. She won't wash her son's blood away. Hot Wheels wonders if the nightmare things will stop and feed here, everywhere that they led them through on their winding path away. Wonders if he cares.
If it isn't Bozo? No. He probably doesn't.
The chair shoves in beside him, bouncing off his knee. Bozo says cheerfully, "Good thing you can't feel that, huh?"
Good thing they can't feel anything. Good thing they don't say things like thank you, or don't leave me, or I love you, or we're screwed.
Hot Wheels flips him off.
Bozo puckers up his lips and noisily smacks them. "Cover me, limpdick, I'm gonna piss off the road."
He does piss, but on his way back he jimmies open a vending machine. That's eerily familiar, Bozo's broad shoulders blocking what he's doing as he gets candy bars, trail mix, chips. They survived on that trick for months before Bozo mastered hustling pool. He tosses a bag of trail mix at Tuffy, who catches it and looks like she doesn't recognize food. The chocolate Bozo pitches at Hot Wheels' head is hot from his hands.
Tuffy gets back in the car. They start driving in radio silence, and despite Bozo's inability to shut up he watches for attack. Tuffy is silent, silent, her bloody hands locked on the steering wheel. Risking the bumps in the road, Hot Wheels lays the gun in his lap and starts to work on the chair.
They're alive.
****
Duct tape. Shotgun. Screwdriver. He'd do better with a full toolkit, customize it like the old one, but the rough design suits this mad run from hell. He straps a gun to both arms of the chair, cannibalizes the glove compartment to make a bin for ammo against his hip. Kills the brakes; he can stop the wheels with his hands if he needs to. Better a broken finger than the brake slipping and dumping him on the ground to be torn apart. The inside of the car tastes like metal when he's done, and it's dark. His eyes burn.
Tuffy meets his eyes in the rearview. Her own are black as coal, dead inside. She smiles.
Bozo turns his face to the night outside the car windows. His lips move, and for a second Hot Wheels thinks he's praying. It scares the shit out of him. Then he hears a steady stream of curses at the monsters, at the world.
It's all right.
****
They drive for a long time on twisting roads. Tuffy won't say where she's going and won't let Bozo take the wheel. The roads get quieter, even the highways. None of them turn on the radio. He can still smell them, dead animal stench in his nose and on his skin, jerking him awake every time he starts to doze.
They find a cabin, raised up in harsh brush. It looks secure, extra boards outside for windows and doors. Tuffy parks the car close to the cabin's high, slim windows so they could shimmy out if they had to. Nobody says that Hot Wheels would be screwed in that case, but it's the best house they've found so far and they need to hunker down soon.
Tuffy covers them as they climb out, the wheelchair hauled out first. When Bozo bends close to lift him out, his eyes are bloodshot and he's shaky. Hot Wheels grabs the oh-shit handle of the car and takes as much weight off Bozo as he can. He doesn't think Bozo wants to let him go, but he does. Bozo pauses, touches the top of his head, then grabs the wheelchair's handles and spins him around so fast that gravel sprays. He used to do that after the accident, spin him in circles and barrel down halls until Hot Wheels laughed and threatened to hurl.
Bozo's hands are full; it's Hot Wheels' job to watch for attack now. Tuffy lays lumber on his lap like he's a cart-mule, puts a hammer there too. The first girl to realize his arms work just fine and she has to be bugfuck crazy. It figures.
There's a step inside the door, a bone-rattling fall that hurts. Hot Wheels takes the wheel and pushes out of Bozo's grip, moving to case each room (not many) and close each window (five). He can hear them around him, securing and locking down. For a while, that's all he knows.
No attacks. Not yet.
Finally, Hot Wheels comes back to the cabin's main room. Tuffy's sitting on the floor, sharpening a knife meant for business. Bozo is on a kitchen chair, looking at his hands. Hot Wheels parks beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
"So that sucked," Bozo says conversationally.
"Like Phantom Menace sucked?"
"No, man, like 'she's under eighteen' level suck." Bozo meets his eyes. "Find any food?"
Hot Wheels shows him the canned tomatoes he found.
Bozo makes a face. "Like I said. Find any food?"
"Yeah, asshole, there's a McDonalds in the basement. Here." Hot Wheels pops the top, shoves it at his brother. "Eat it. There's enough downstairs for a week."
Bozo's mouth thins. He stares at the can, then closes his eyes. He looks tired, like he did at the funeral.
It's a pussy thing to do. He's going to catch hell for it. But he bumps his shoulder against his brother's and leans there. He's not sure who he's comforting.
"I just wanted to play some goddamn pool," Bozo says bitterly.
It's just them: him, Charlie, some woman whose name they don't even know with her son's death like a gun pressed to her forehead. It's bad. It's so fucking bad.
He turns his face to his brother's throat. It stinks of sweat and death. He hesitates, then presses his mouth there anyway.
Bozo freezes. Then, before Hot Wheels can even be scared, he groans and moves to (not eat, not devour, Jesus Christ not tonight) kiss Hot Wheels's mouth. Their teeth bounce, and it hurts, and it tastes funny with too much spit, and Hot Wheels nearly comes in his pants.
When they stop, which isn't for a while, the tomatoes are on the floor and Tuffy's still sharpening. They pant. Bozo looks like he got hit in the head with a shoe.
"Wow." Blinking, Bozo sits up a little straighter. "Wow. Uh. Hey."
"Yeah," Hot Wheels says. "I know."
Whatever Bozo sees on his face, he doesn't make a crack or swear. He rolls his shoulders back, like he's going to pick Hot Wheels up and carry him through another slaughterhouse, and says, "Okay."
Outside, it's the end of the world.