Heyo... :D

YAY more Josh and Alex and zombies! Who doesn't love some of that?

I start school tomorrow. :/

I'm going to write as much as I can tonight since I have complete outlines for My Love Will Not Let You Down, Somewhere Down the Line and Strike a Match, Make It Last. :)

Enjoy!

27 DAYS IN

Alex glanced behind himself nervously, his fingers twitching for the comfort his pistol could provide. Beside him, Sawyer walked calmly down the street, a familiar path to a gas station.

Sawyer noticed Alex's tense posture. "Don't worry, mate, I've got your back."

"I know. I'm just used to having Josh with me, that's all." Alex murmured.

"No, I get it. You don't know me. You don't trust me. That's okay, I understand."

"So you and your sister are looking for your parents?" Alex asked after a beat of silence.

"Yeah, they were up in Edinburgh when all this happened. In a couple days, the group is going to start moving up north," Sawyer explained, kicking a rock across the pavement. "There's supposed to be a place in Glasgow for survivors. Taylor and I will part ways with the group before we get there and go to Edinburgh."

They fell silent again, Alex mulling over the information Sawyer just provided, while Sawyer gazed at him occasionally. When they reached the gas station, they searched the area for zombies before entering and packing what was left on the shelves into their backpacks.

Alex sighed heavily and turned to Sawyer rather irritably. "Would you stop looking at me like that?"

Sawyer chuckled. "Like what?"

"Like you want to fuck me against that wall." Alex scoffed.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

"You didn't, it's just…"

"You and Josh have a thing going?"

"What? No."

"But you want to have a thing with Josh going?"

"No, Sawyer," Alex shook his head. "We're in a dirty, abandoned gas station during the zombie apocalypse and you want to fuck?"

"With the dead walking around us, sometimes you need something to make you feel alive." Sawyer shrugged a shoulder.

Alex stared at him.

And then he pushed Sawyer against the wall.

"How's your arm?" Taylor asked Josh curiously.

"It hurts, but I'll be fine." He replied with a small smile and nodded toward the coloring page Sawyer's little sister was holding down with the palm of her hand to keep it in place every time a gentle breeze ghosted through the lot. "What are you coloring there?"

"Pluto, my cat," she answered excitedly. "Well, actually, he's not mine. But my parents promised that I'd have a cat one day and they never break a promise."

When Josh didn't reply, she held out a blue crayon. "Would you like to color with me?"

Josh chuckled a little and sat beside her, taking the crayon slowly. "Sure. You know, you remind me of my little sister, Gracie."

"Really?"

"Yeah, she loves animals and art and she has a brilliant smile that lights up any day."

"Where is she?" Taylor asked distractedly as she colored in the grass beneath the gray cat on the page.

"Home, I hope."

"I'm sure you'll see her again. Family always finds itself when it's somewhere to be found. That's what my mum always says."

Josh put his crayon to the paper, on the sky above the cat, but he just barely stroked the blue across the page as he thought about what the girl had said.

When Alex and Sawyer returned to the motel, Josh gripped Alex's arm roughly and pulled him away from the others.

"Where the hell have you been? Greg and Moses were getting ready to look for you two. It's been over an hour; you were supposed to be gone forty-five minutes tops." Josh rambled.

"It took longer than we thought it would. Sorry. Didn't mean to worry you."

"I wasn't worried," Josh grumbled.

Alex smiled and patted Josh's unharmed shoulder. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Joshua."

Josh rolled his eyes, and noticed Sawyer looking over at them across the motel parking lot. Josh opened his mouth to say something to Alex, but saw that he had met Sawyer's gaze. Josh's eyes narrowed suspiciously, observing the exchange until Sawyer was pulled away by Jill to help her with something.

Josh sighed through his nose and slipped his right hand into his jeans front pocket. "You know, when two people stare into each other's eyes for more than six seconds without blinking, they either want to murder each other or have sex."

In response to Josh's statement, Alex looked around innocently.

"Now, considering the two percent chance that you two managed to find something to murder each other over in the short time we've known him, the one percent chance that I misread the whole situation, and the ninety-three percent chance that you two had sex while on that run—I was hoping the one percent would be lucky but nope—"

Holding up his half-empty water bottle, Alex met Josh's eyes defiantly. "Thirsty?"

"Not as much as you, apparently." Josh hissed.

"Jealous?" Alex smirked.

"Pissed is more like it."

Alex reached for Josh's right arm but Josh pulled away from him quickly. "Don't touch me. I don't know where your hands have been."

"I'm clean, Josh."

"Is Sawyer?"

"He said he was—and we used a condom."

Josh blinked in astonishment, pushing his hand through his hair in frustration. "Alex, do you understand why I'm upset with you?"

"You're a prude?"

"This is the zombie apocalypse, you idiot!"

"It happened all the time in The Walking Dead."

"That was a TV show, Alex. This is real life. Anything could've happened," Josh rambled, and began to list every possible worse-case scenario he could think of at that moment, "Sawyer could have killed you while your guard was down—we're not well liked here after the only person that was nice to us was eaten by a friend of his; he could have raped you; STDs are still an issue; either one of you could have been bit or worse—"

"What's worse than being bitten by a flesh-hungry dead-person?" Alex scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest when he began to feel uncomfortable under Josh's hardened gaze.

"Oh, I don't know, your skin being peeled straight off your bones by humans fingers?"

"I had it under control, Josh." Alex murmured, looking down at the pavement under their feet.

"But what if you had slipped up? Just for a second?" Josh expression softened. "I am going to Liverpool with only one person, and that's you. I trust you because you've had my back; you've saved my life. So along the way, if you're reckless or stupid or you don't listen to me, and something happens to you and you can't go on with me, I won't make it. I can't make it alone, Alex."

Before Alex could say anything or apologize, Josh marched away from him without another word.

"There's a straggler," Jill announced from the top of the camper.

Alex shot up from the lawn chair he was sitting in, ready to do anything to escape the awkward silence between him and Josh. "I've got it."

"Use your knife, keep it quiet, fire two shots if you need help," Jill reiterated.

"Yes, ma'am," he saluted and slipped out of their make-shift fortress and jogged into the woods, leaving Josh behind to sit on the edge of his seat, anxiously awaiting his return.

Alex followed the lone zombie a few yards into the forest and when he finally caught up to the once taller male with black hair, he grabbed its shoulder, holding the Creeper still as he stabbed its head with his knife.

He stood frozen for a moment, staring at the body of the man that had just died a second time, and took a deep breath, calming his rapidly beating heart.

Ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder, Josh struggled to pull the barricade open by himself. Sawyer pushed on the dumpster to stop Josh from running out of the parking lot.

Josh glared at Sawyer over his shoulder. "Get out of my way. You just heard those shots—Alex needs help."

"Josh, you're badly injured. Let Moses and I go. You could be walking right into a heap of Lurkers on your own with a bad shoulder."

Sawyer's statement went right over Josh's head as he pulled the dumpster out far enough to squeeze through and took off in the direction they'd heard the shots come from.

"Damn it," Sawyer grunted, slamming his palm against the metal.

Josh kept his eyes peeled for any Creepers that might come out of hiding because of the shots that had rang through the trees. He avoided one and shoved another out of his way, and finally made it to Alex, who was kneeling in a clearing with a gun aimed at his head.

Josh's eyes flitted to the man that held the pistol, a heavy object bashing into the back of his skull before he could react, and he collapsed on the forest floor, briefly catching the distressed look in Alex's eyes as he blacked out.

Hmm? I think that was a pretty decent chapter for not having written Jalex in a while.

All righty, so on Pinterest, I have pics of the Second Chance characters. Who wants to see 'em? No? No one? 'Kay. But I spent a lot of time on them...

Also, I'm going to start updating I Swear on My Life again because Jalex. ;)

x

"I wanna run away, somewhere far, somewhere safe. So scared of this place. 'Cause you don't even know me, and you don't even care that I've been lonely, and tired of fighting in the den of the lions, but I won't give up trying." -Cruel Cruel, Automatic Loveletter

-Rachel