Chapter Text
If you were put in a position where you had to either give up and go out the easy way, or stand up and fight like hell the hard way, which would you choose? Surprisingly, most people choose to fight like hell. And because of that, they make it pretty far. But not without going through some shit. Not without losing a friend, a home, their love, a family member, or for some people, a limb. And if you lose that last one. Well. It hurts like a bitch.
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"Sarge just do it already!" Grif yelled as Sarge walked over, an axe in hand.
"Don't you order me around, Grif!" Sarge barked back.
"I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON'T GET ON WITH IT RIGHT NOW I'LL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU BOTH!" Simmons screamed.
The other two men both jumped a bit, looking at Simmons. The redhead had a rope tied tightly around his shoulder, to the point where they were sure he couldn't feel it anymore. Their eyes trailed down to his forearm, which had a bite. Puss and blood slowly oozed out of the open wound, and Lopez was already equipped with a ton of bandages for when Sarge finally did what he was supposed to.
Simmons had been bitten. By what you ask? A zombie. Obviously. And a zombie bite meant that unless you wanna take a shotgun round to the head, you chop off whatever limb or body part had been bitten. This was the second limb poor Simmons would be losing. Along with his soon to be gone left arm, Simmons had lost his left leg. He had been bitten on the leg when he was originally trying to survive by himself. Grif had found him writhing on the ground in pain, and after Simmons had begged him to, he chopped off the tainted limb. The two traveled around with each other for awhile. Simmons had been particularly surprised that the Hawaiian dragged him around for so long. He wasn't even a help at all. Plus, their personalities clashed. Simmons was a perfectionist, while Grif was really lazy. This caused the two to bicker almost constantly. But they secretly developed feelings for one another. The two eventually ended up confessing to each other. And so, the odd couple of Dexter Grif and Richard Simmons became canon.
The two soon bumped into Sarge and Lopez. Sarge was a veteran in his twenties who always had a shotgun handy. He had met Lopez in an old abandoned shed. Lopez, the mechanic who could fix or make virtually anything, was stuck with Sarge ever since. Despite the fact that the Spanish man disliked his group, he had made an artificial leg for Simmons. It took some getting used to, but he was eventually walking normal again.
And now he had to get used to a metal arm.
"Well Grif's the one who chopped your leg off! Have him do it if Sarge doesn't want to!" Donut shouted.
Donut had met up with the group about a month after Sarge and Lopez joined Grif and Simmons. The four were surprised that Donut had survived so long on his own. Mainly because of his.... personality. They weren't quite sure what to think of Donut at first, but eventually, he became pretty much essential to the group. He was their nurse, or rather, he just helped them with bandages and what not. He was currently letting Simmons lay against him.
"I don't wanna cut my boyfriend's arm off!" Grif protested.
"GRIF JUST CUT MY FUCKING ARM OFF." Simmons ordered.
"OKAY GOD" Grif grabbed the axe from Sarge and made sure the rope was tight around the top of Simmons arm, then in one fell swoop, chopped his arm off.
Simmons let out a scream of pain before clenching his teeth tightly, his hand balling into a fist. He groaned in pain as blood practically poured from where his arm used to be. Lopez quickly put pressure on it, stopping the bleeding, then bandaged it up as best as he could.
"You okay, Simmons?" Donut asked.
"Just peachy." Simmons growled sarcastically.
"Alright, hand him over." Grif picked Simmons up bridal style.
"Well we better get back to base." Sarge said.
"Why do you insist on calling it a base?"
"Because it's our home base! What would you call it?"
"A safe house."
"Well it isn't a house, it's got a huge wall around it, and we've filled it with weapons. So I'm calling it a base."
"Fine, fine. Let's just get back to it."
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Grif laid Simmons down in their room. He had fallen asleep almost instantly when they got back to their base. He pulled the covers over his boyfriend and walked out and over to Sarge, Lopez and Donut.
"So are we gonna call it a day?" He asked.
"No! I'm going out again and finding more supplies, and you're coming with me." Sarge said.
"What? Like hell I am!"
"Donut and Lopez are going to stay here and keep an eye on Simmons."
"Don't worry Grif! Lopez and I will make sure Simmons is comfortable!" Donut smiled.
"Oh god." Grif sighed.
"Well I'm gonna go start making Simmons' arm." Lopez walked away.
"What'd he say?"
"He's gonna go start making Simmons' arm." Donut said.
"I feel like this is one of the rare moments where you actually know what he's saying."
Donut shrugged.
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"Caboose."
Caboose kept staring.
"Caboose!"
He didn't move.
"CABOOSE!"
"What?" Caboose looked up from where he was sitting on his knees. He had found a key on the ground, and the shiny object had caught his eye.
"For the last time, this isn't the kind of place you can be spacing out! You could get eaten, you know." Church huffed, his arms crossed.
"Oh. Right. Sorry best friend!" Caboose smiled, standing up.
"Whatever. Let's just get going. Flowers and Tucker already found a place for us to stay the night."
"Okay!"
The two walked for about fifteen minutes when they found themselves at the front door of a house. The windows were all boarded up, and the door was made of thick metal. Church knocked on the door.
It opened a bit before opening all the way.
"Hey guys. What took you so long?" Tucker asked, stepping aside to let them in. They walked in and Tucker shut and locked the door behind them.
"Caboose got distracted." Church said.
"Ah."
"Yeah. Anyway, how'd you guys find this place?"
"Flowers, Junior and I were just walking around when we found it. The key was under the mat."
"Wow."
"I know. Sucks to be whoever lived here before."
"That's really thick." Caboose said, looking at the door.
"Bow chicka bow wow."
Church facepalmed. "Whatever. I'm gonna go talk to Flowers." He said and walked away. After looking around the house, Church found Flowers upstairs, looking at something on his phone.
"Hey Flowers."
Flowers looked up. "Oh. Hey, Church." He greeted with the cheery smile that seemed to be permanently stuck on his face. How this man maintained a smile that genuine in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, Church would never know.
"So how's your plan to contact your buddies been going?"
"Horrible, so far. No matter what I do, I just can't get a signal." Flowers sighed.
"Well that's too bad. Looks like the only things we can use are radios."
"Mhm."
"Yeah. So does this place have food?"
"Loads of it."
"Awesome. You gonna come downstairs?"
"In a bit."
"Alright." He nodded and walked out again.
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Church, Tucker, Junior and Caboose were all eating when Flowers walked in.
"Hey Flowers." Tucker said.
"Hi guys. So, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we need to go out again."
"What?" Church almost shouted.
"Yeah. We're running low on ammo, so we need to go find some more."
"Can't a couple of us stay?" Tucker asked.
"In normal circumstances, I'd say yes. But there's still the chance that whoever really owns this place, might come back. And they might have another key. I don't wanna
take any chances."
"We can handle ourselves."
"Tucker, I want you to understand this. There's nothing, more important to me, than the safety, and well-being, of my friends. Or my name isn't Butch Flowers."
"Fine, we'll go."
"Excellent!"
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Simmons looked up when Sarge and Grif walked back into base. He was surprised when he saw five other people with them. "Sarge? Grif? Who are these guys?"
"These are some guys we met while looking around for stuff. Turns out they were looking for ammo, we were looking for food, and well, we decided to just share." Grif said.
"Say hello to the blue team." Sarge said.
"Sarge, there aren't teams. Stop calling us red team."
"We're all wearing shades of red and they're wearing shades of blue."
"More like 50 shades of blue, am I right?" Tucker grinned.
"Dear god." Church groaned.
"That doesn't- you know what? I'm not gonna argue. If you'll excuse me, the oreos are calling to me." He walked away after kissing Simmons on the head.
"So. Would you like to introduce yourselves?" Sarge looked to the blues.
"Of course. I'm Butch Flowers." Flowers looked to Simmons with a smile.
"I'm Church." Church said.
"I'm Tucker, and this is my kid Junior." Tucker said, patting his son's head. Junior smiled.
"I'm Caboose!" Caboose nearly shouted.
"I'm Simmons. Nice to meet you guys." Simmons smiled at them.
"Hi Simmons! Hey, you have a metal arm and leg!"
"Yeah."
"That's kinda like that full armor magic guy!"
"....Full armor magic guy?"
"Don't mind Caboose. He can be an idiot most of the time." Tucker said.
"Shut up Tucker."