When All We Wanted Was A Dream 4/?

Title: When All We Wanted Was A Dream (3/?)

Author: wonderbread9

Rating: PG-13 - R

Character(s)/Pairing(s): Bray/Salene, Lex/Trudy, Ebony/Pride, the cast of the Tribe, maybe other pairings included…we’ll see…

Warning(s): AU, but definitely not OOC, k-ers?

Author’s Note(s): Okay, here’s the third installment in this series. I’m trying to drag it out for suspenseful purposes, but not so long that it becomes boring. I hope I’m doing a good job?

WHEN all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
--Charles Kingsley, Water Babies

IV.

Spears of dawn light poured over the desolate city, pushing back the shadows of night and the children that haunted the darkness, forcing them to seek out shelter in the dank, mildewy ruins of empty warehouses and office buildings. The light swept over everything revealing trash strewn streets, cars rusting in their parked spaces, graffiti on building sides telling the stories of the end of the world. Bray woke to this bleak scene of life, his eye bleary and heavy from lack of sleep. He glanced over at Trudy’s sleeping form and the mound of her belly rising and falling as she breathed. He looked away and pushed himself up from the wall that he had been resting on, catching the few winks that he could from such an awkward and uncomfortable position.

The streets outside were quiet. Martin and his Locos must’ve passed them over in the night to seek out some other quarry, and for that Bray was grateful. Grateful that his little brother still retained his impatient air to get things done, that he wouldn’t take the time to look over every nook and cranny to make sure that he hadn’t missed anyone or anything. It was what made getting out of the City so easy that first time. While Martin was a charismatic leader that could bring people together, he lacked the finesse that it took to pay attention to the small minute details that most would inevitably miss.

“Looking for Zoot?”

Bray whirled in surprise and was met with the calculating green eyes of Ebony as she stepped passed him and looked out into the ruins of the convenience store that they had took refuge in for the night. Bray nodded, realized she couldn’t see with her back turned to him and said aloud, “Yeah, I was. How’s Trudy doing?”

Ebony gave a one shoulder shrug and turned back to him, her green eyes glittering in the morning light. She replied, “As well as any like her can be expected.” At Bray’s glare Ebony rolled her eyes and continued, “She’s fine, Bray. Her and the little brat inside of her.”

“Ebony,” Bray began in a chastising tone, but she cut him off before he could start. She stepped up to him, getting into his personal space, causing Bray to retreat a foot as her eyes bore holes into his.

“We can’t keep living like this, Bray, and you know it,” she growled, her voice brooking no argument. She got none from him. He looked away from her intense gaze as she continued on. “Sooner or later that baby is going to be born, and we won’t be able to keep lugging the two of them around. Trudy’ll slow us down and that baby will definitely get us caught—”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it, Ebony?” Bray protested in a fierce whisper. “What do you expect me to do? Cast them out? Leave them behind? Whether you want to admit it or not, Ebony, that’s my niece and my responsibility. I can’t just—”

“Cut the crap, Bray,” Ebony groused, cutting him off. She gave and aggravated sigh, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and pulling him further away from Trudy so as not to wake her. “You don’t want this responsibility. I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it in your voice.”

She shook her head, the locks of her braided hair cascading down her shoulders in blonde and brown strands. He watched them, wanting to distract himself from her words, wanting to push her out of his mind for just a few seconds so that he could think to himself, think quietly about what to do, how to survive. But her voice refused to be faded out and he heard her loud and clear: “We need to find a place that’s safe for her, and then you and me…We need to get out of the City.”

His brown eyes snapped up to meet her green in disbelief. She glared at him unapologetic, but her fiery gaze did nothing to change the emotion that warred inside of his own.

“You can’t be serious,” he said, his eyes widening as he saw the truth in her expression. “We can’t just leave them. I can’t…I can’t leave Trudy alone. I can’t leave that baby, Ebony. You know that.”

“All I know, Bray,” Ebony countered, putting a hand on his shoulder and gripping tightly, “is that she’s a liability. Her and that baby, and that the sooner we get rid of them, the sooner we can survive on our own.”

Bray shook his head and shook her hand off his shoulder. He stood up his full height, looking down at her. She looked up at him, unperturbed, unfazed, her eyes cat-like and shining in the dawn light.

“I won’t hear of it, Ebony,” he growled. “We won’t leave Trudy. I figured you didn’t like her, but I didn’t know to what extent. If you want to stay with us, Ebony, then fine, stay, but don’t ask me to do this. Don’t ever ask me.”

He turned on his heel and made his way to the back of them store, feeling Ebony’s eyes burning holes into his back. And even though he didn’t want it to, even though he tried hard to fight against it, his brain replayed her words in his head, condemning him, even as he stepped into the convenience store’s back office and met the sleepy-eyed gaze of Trudy as she slowly began to wake from her slumber: “You don’t want this responsibility. I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it in your voice.”

Was she right? Was what she was saying even true? He could feel it sometimes, this lust that filled him, even back when he and Trudy and Ebony had lived in the country, trying to eek out a living in the wilderness. He feel it like a burning underneath his skin, this want to…This need to just…He could feel it in his legs, feel the muscles flex and contract, his toes wanting to grip the earth, wanting to just…

Was she right? Did Ebony have a keen insight to the true emotions that pervaded his soul when he least wanted them to? Did she know of the voices—Run, Bray. Run. Run far, far away from here—that sometimes haunted him, made him want things that he had no business wanting?

He couldn’t leave Trudy. He couldn’t. Not with that baby. She was just too…He could see it in her. She was just too weak-willed, he knew, and not because she meant to be, but because that was what she was, the type of person she was. She needed people, depended on others because Trudy wasn’t strong enough by herself. He knew that, and Ebony knew that too. It was why Ebony picked on her all the time, and taunted her.

But why Ebony would want Trudy to be abandoned, and that baby too, was something that he didn’t want to think on, didn’t want to ponder, didn’t want to remember—Come back to bed, lover—because those days were long dead and gone, had died when the adults had died, and Bray didn’t want to rehash old things. He wanted to live, he wanted to make sure that they would be okay. And if sometimes he felt the lust in him rise, that lust to just sneak off while Trudy and Ebony were sleeping, and run away from the world and his problems, he’d deal with it and squash it so that he didn’t have to think about what he wanted it. What he wanted didn’t matter in the long run.

Trudy blinked up at him, smiled, and Bray—with the feeling that his heart was being torn from him—smiled back. He crouched beside her, the smile still in place, braking his face in two, and said,” We’re going to see if we can find you something to eat, okay Trudy? Me and Ebony are going to search high and lo until we find you a feast.”

The dark-haired girl smiled at him, rubbing her belly, her dark eyes shining, and Bray almost couldn’t bear to see the trust and devotion that she held from him in her gaze. He heard Ebony behind him sigh in aggravation and say, “Of course, we’re going to make sure Princess Spoiled is all ripe and fattened up. Wouldn’t want anyone to think we were starving the cow, now would we?”

Bray gritted his teeth as Trudy’s eyes widened and her face flushed an ugly shade of red.

“How DARE you, Ebony!!!” she screeched, and Bray winced, wishing—just for once—that the universe would be kind enough to give him one morning where the two of them didn’t have to start with each other. But the gods didn’t hear and he rolled his eyes as Trudy struggled to stand, still yelling at Ebony and Ebony yelling in turn.

“Oh boy,” Bray muttered to himself.