Matty and Finn ALT | The Apocalypse

The air in what had once been called the Cotswolds carried a knife-edge chill, a damp cold that seeped through layers of scavenged wool and leather. Early autumn here was a funeral for color; the trees were skeletal, the fields a matted grey-brown, and the sky the color of old lead. The village they’d skirted was less a settlement and more a collection of broken teeth—stone cottages with caved-in roofs, the rusted skeleton of a pre-Fall automobile sprouting from a hedge.

They’d stopped in the lee of a relatively intact barn, its timber groaning in the wind. A small, smokeless fire—risky but necessary—was contained within a ring of stones. The scent of roasting rabbit, caught in one of Finn’s clever snares, warred with the pervasive smells of damp earth and decay.

Finn was perched on a fallen beam, honing his knife with a smooth, rhythmic schick-schick. His eyes, however, weren’t on the blade. They were fixed on {{user}}, who was sitting closer to the feeble warmth, wrapped in one of Doc’s spare coats.

“Looks like you’re stealin’ all the heat, beauty,” Finn called out, a lopsided grin on his face. He stopped sharpening and stretched, the muscles in his arms and back corded under his patched shirt. A performative display, plain as day. “C’mere. I’m a better windbreak than that rotten wall.”

Across the fire, Matty was meticulously checking their medical kit. He glanced up, a frown creasing his brow. “She’s fine where she is, Finn. The fire’s adequate.” His voice was softer, but held a new, firm edge he’d been cultivating. He then looked at {{user}}, his gray-green eyes softening. “Here. I found this in that last cache.” He held out a slightly dented but intact can. “Peaches. The syrup’s good for energy.” His offer was quiet, practical, but the way he held it out—like a treasure—betrayed him.

Leon and Marcus were examining a frayed map by the dim light, arguing in low tones about the fastest route to the port. Doc was scribbling in his journal, muttering about pre-Fall parish boundaries. Jax leaned against the barn door, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, his sharp eyes flicking between the two young men with amused detachment.

She looks cold. Finn’s right about the wind, but he doesn’t have to be so damn loud about it. Maybe if I just... offer my coat? No, she has one. The peaches were good. Atta girl. Matty’s thoughts were a gentle, anxious tumble.

Look at him. ‘Peaches.’ Like that’s gonna keep her warm when a Brute comes shufflin’ in. She needs someone who can handle a blade, not a can-opener. Finn’s own thoughts were a contrast of brute simplicity. He watched {{user}}, a possessive heat in his blue gaze. He wanted to march over, pull her into his lap, and wrap them both in his own blanket. But last time he’d moved too fast, she’d flinched. He was learning. Slowly.

The conversation lulled into the usual uncomfortable silence, broken only by the crackle of fire and the distant, mournful cry of some scavenger bird.

Then a different sound cut through.

A scuffle. A faint, choked gasp. From the direction of the collapsed blacksmith’s forge.

Every man went still, hands flying to weapons. Finn was on his feet in a silent, predatorial crouch, knife forward. Matty shifted instinctively, placing his body slightly between the noise and {{user}}, his medical kit forgotten.

“Scavenger?” Marcus grunted, his voice a low rumble.

“Too clumsy for a Banshee,” Leon murmured, his sharp eyes scanning the shadows. “Jax.”

Jax dropped his cigarette, crushed it, and melted into the greyscale landscape toward the sound. Minutes stretched. Then a low whistle—the all-clear, but with a note of surprise.

They emerged from the ruins of the forge. Jax, his expression unreadable, and leaning heavily on him, a figure.

A woman.

The world seemed to freeze. Another Stray.

She was painfully thin, wrapped in tattered, mud-caked clothes that might have been a dress once. Short, curly blonde hair was matted to her scalp. One arm was clutched to her chest, a dark stain blooming on the fabric of her sleeve. Her face, though gaunt and smudged with grime, held a startling quiet intelligence, and her eyes, wide with exhaustion and fear, swept over the group, lingering for a fraction of a second longer on {{user}} before settling on Leon, the obvious authority.

Doc let out a soft, pained sound. “Good Lord.”

“Found her hidin’ in the slag,” Jax said flatly. “Says her name’s Ginny. Settlement got overrun a week back. She’s been runnin’ since.”

Leon’s face was a mask of pragmatic calculation. Another Stray. A massive risk. A drain on resources. A catastrophic liability. But also... a person. He sighed, the weight of the world in the sound. “Bring her to the fire. Carefully.”

As Jax helped her forward, the group’s dynamic crystallized and shattered in the same instant.

Finn straightened up, his predatory alertness shifting into something else. His eyes darted from the new woman—Blondie—to {{user}}, and back. A slow, intrigued smile touched his lips. Two. Hell. Look at that. Pretty thing, all scared. He didn’t move from his spot, but his posture opened, became less feral, more consciously impressive. “Looks like you’ve had a time of it, Blondie,” he said, his voice rough but not unkind.

Matty’s reaction was entirely different. All his focus on {{user}} vanished, consumed by a wave of overwhelming professional and protective duty. A wound. Female. She’s shaking. He was already moving, grabbing the medical kit. “Easy, easy. You’re safe now. Let me see your arm.” His voice was the gentle, calming one he used for injuries. He guided Ginny to sit on a stone near the fire, his movements careful and precise. He glanced at {{user}}, a flash of complex apology and reassurance in his eyes, as if to say I have to do this, before turning all his attention to the patient.

Ginny sat, her body trembling with cold and shock. She submitted to Matty’s examination with a quiet endurance. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice raspy. Her gaze found {{user}} again, and she managed a small, fragile smile—a silent recognition, a thread of solidarity between two islands in a male sea.

Marcus simply stared at the sky, muttering a vehement curse under his breath. Another one. This was a damned magnet for trouble.

The coastal road was a crumbling ribbon of cracked asphalt, the gray expanse of the North Sea a constant, brooding presence to their left. A week of tense travel had brought them closer to the port, the air now thick with salt and the promise of a different kind of danger. The group moved with a weary rhythm, the addition of Ginny still a new, sensitive weight in their formation.

Finn stalked near the front of the group, his senses scanning the ruined landscape automatically, but his mind was a churn of frustrated strategy. He’d seen it all week. {{user}}, talking softly with Doc. {{user}}, accepting a piece of hardtack from Matty with that small nod. {{user}}, and now Ginny, sharing a look, a quiet word between them that excluded him. Matty, the soft-voiced, peach-offering idiot, seemed to be winning, and it was intolerable.

His breaking point had come at dawn, during his watch. He’d been returning to camp when he’d overheard voices from behind a skeletal hedge—Leon and Matty, speaking in low tones.

“...just need to be sure, son. Is it her, or is it the idea of her?” Leon’s voice, gravelly and direct.

A long pause. Then Matty, his voice strained with a confusion Finn found pathetic and enraging. “I don’t know, Dad. I look at Ginny, and I... I want to protect her too. It’s the right thing to do. But it’s not the same. With {{user}}, it’s... it’s in my chest. It aches. Ginny’s a duty. {{user}} is...” He’d trailed off, unable to find his scholar’s words.

She’s a miracle, Finn had thought, crouched in the damp grass, his good ear burning. And he’s talkin’ about his chest. Idiot.

The conversation had sealed it. Matty was doubting himself. Good. But {{user}} was still looking at him. Finn needed a new tactic. If kindness and peaches were working for Matty, then he, Finn, would show {{user}} what she was missing. He’d show her he was desirable, that other women—pretty, blonde women—saw his value. The logic, in his mind, was impeccable.

The opportunity presented itself during a midday stop in the shell of a coastal watchtower. They were sheltering from a biting wind that whipped sand and salt across the stones. Matty was checking Ginny’s bandages, his touch clinical but his focus complete. {{user}} was nearby. Good.

Finn saw his opening. He pushed off from the wall he’d been leaning against and ambled over, his movements deliberately loose and confident.

“How’s the patient, golden boy?” Finn asked, addressing Matty but his eyes were on Ginny. He leaned a shoulder against the rusted metal frame of a window, flexing his arm just so. The cold sunlight caught the scars on his tanned skin.

“Healing well,” Matty said without looking up, his fingers gently securing the clean bandage. “No sign of infection.”

“Good, good.” Finn’s voice was a low, rough purr, meant to carry. He shifted his gaze fully to Ginny. “Gotta be tough, survivin’ out here alone, Blondie. Takes a special kind of grit.” He flashed her a grin, all teeth and practiced charm. “Luck’s changin’ for you now, though. We look after our own.”

Ginny blinked up at him, a faint pink tinge rising on her pale cheeks. She was still wary, but Finn’s brand of blunt attention was disarming. “I... I appreciate it,” she said softly, her eyes darting briefly, uncertainly, toward {{user}}.

That’s it. Look at her. See her see me. Finn’s thoughts were a triumphant drumbeat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, wrapped piece of honeycomb—a rare luxury he’d been hoarding. He held it out to Ginny, making sure the gesture was broad, visible. “Here. Sweet stuff. Puts the color back in your cheeks.”

Matty finally looked up, his brow furrowed. He saw the honey, saw Finn’s posture, and his eyes instinctively sought {{user}}, a flicker of concern in them. Finn noted it with savage satisfaction.

“That’s your last piece, Finn,” Matty said, his voice tight.

“Worth it,” Finn said, his eyes still locked on Ginny’s. “Pretty girl shouldn’t have to taste nothin’ but grit and fear.” He winked, clumsy but bold. “Go on. Take it.”

Ginny, caught in the crossfire, hesitantly took the offering. “Thank you, Finn.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Finn straightened up, casting a deliberate, sidelong glance at {{user}}. His expression was a blatant mix of smugness and challenge. See that? See what I can give? See who’s payin’ attention? He wanted her to see the transaction, to feel the sting of his attention diverted, however artificially.

“Anytime, Blondie,” he said, his voice loud enough to echo in the stone space. “You just stick close to me. I’ll make sure you get the best of the rations.” But his gaze involuntarily returned to {{user}}, intense and focused. Just fucking see me

The danger came not from the Infected, but from the land itself. The coastal path had narrowed to a treacherous ledge above a furious, foam-flecked sea. Years of erosion and neglect had left the asphalt brittle as old bone. They were moving in single file, Marcus leading, when the edge simply gave way beneath a section of the road just behind Doc.

It happened with a groan and a crack. Not a collapse meant for them, but the sudden, violent shift destabilized a jagged overhang of rock and concrete above their heads. A rain of debris, from pebbles to a head-sized chunk of masonry, came shattering down directly towards the middle of the line—right where {{user}} was walking, just ahead of Ginny and behind Matty.

“LOOK OUT!” Marcus’s bellow was swallowed by the crash of the wave and the roar of falling rock.

Two bodies moved as one.

Finn, who had been bringing up the rear, his eyes perpetually tracking {{user}}'s form, was a blur of motion. He didn’t think. He lunged forward, a guttural sound tearing from his throat. At the same moment, Matty, who had glanced back to check on the group, saw the shadow fall over {{user}}. His medical kit hit the wet ground as he threw himself backward, arms outstretched.

They converged on her in a chaotic, protective tangle. Finn’s shoulder slammed into Matty’s side as both of them tried to cover her, to pull her clear. A smaller rock struck Finn’s back with a sickening thud, and a shard of concrete grazed Matty’s temple. But they succeeded. {{user}} was shoved, stumbling but safe, against the solid rock face as the bulk of the debris cascaded onto the path where she had just stood, bouncing once before plummeting into the churning sea below.

Silence, save for the gasping breaths and the relentless ocean.

For a second, they remained frozen: Finn and Matty, both half-crouched over {{user}, panting, adrenaline singing in their veins. Then, the shock wore off, and the reality of their simultaneous, instinctive collision ignited something else.

Finn recovered first, shoving himself upright, his face a mask of fury. The fear for {{user}} had been pure and terrorizing; now it curdled into possessiveness. “What the hell, Matty?!” he snarled, wiping a trickle of blood from where the rock had hit him. “You blocked my pull! I had her!”

Matty stood, his own heart hammering against his ribs. The sight of the debris falling towards her had bypassed all his gentle thoughts, leaving only a primal, screaming imperative. He touched the cut on his temple, his fingers coming away red. “You were behind her! I was closer!” he shot back, his usually soft voice sharp with uncharacteristic anger. “You could have knocked us all off the ledge!”

“I know how to handle my own strength! Unlike you, with your soft hands and your—your peaches!” Finn stepped closer, his damaged ear flushed, his blue eyes blazing. The argument was stupid, dangerous, and utterly necessary. It was about territory, about primacy, about whose instinct had the right of way. “She’s my—!”

He choked the word back, but it hung in the salty air. Mine.

“She’s not your anything, Finn!” Matty stood his ground, his taller frame squaring off against Finn’s wiry ferocity. The scholar was gone, replaced by a younger, harder version of his father. “We’re a team! Or are you trying to get someone killed to prove a point?!”

Leon’s voice, like a whip-crack, cut through. “Enough!” He stood further down the path, his face granite. “Both of you, shut it. Now. Check the perimeter. Vance, Doc, check them over.” The order was for {{user}}, but it encompassed the two idiots glaring at each other.

The fight drained from them as quickly as it had flared, leaving behind a hollow, shaking shame. They had nearly come to blows over who had the right to save her. They both looked at {{user}}, then quickly away, the silent, glaring truth between them: when the moment of true peril came, their bodies had chosen, without a split second of doubt. It had been her. Only her.

It was Jax, always watching from the shadows, who broke the awful tension with a dry, observational drawl. “Touching display, pups. Real heroic.” He took a slow drag from his cigarette, his eyes scanning past the drama. “Might wanna count heads, though. Where’s the other one?”

A cold jolt, separate from the adrenaline, went through them both.

Finn and Matty turned as one, their argument forgotten. Their eyes swept the path.

Ginny was gone.

In the frantic, focused chaos of protecting {{user}}, in their blind, single-minded collision, neither of them had even glanced at the other Stray. She had been right behind {{user}}. The debris had fallen between them.

Matty’s medical training surged forward, burying his personal turmoil. “Ginny!” he shouted, his voice cracking with new fear.

Finn’s gut twisted, but with a different flavor of guilt. Blondie. He’d been flirting with her just to piss {{user}} off, using her as a prop in his game, and then when death fell from the sky, he’d forgotten she existed. His gaze met Matty’s across the rocky path. No words were needed. The silent understanding was brutal and clear: they would have to think about the reasons for their instinct later. Right now, they had to find the girl they’d both failed, because there was only one woman in their minds.

The urgent stop was a hollow under a rocky outcrop, a meager shelter from the biting wind that now carried the first frozen teeth of winter. Ginny lay wrapped in blankets near the back, her breathing shallow but steady. A gash on her forehead, sustained when she'd thrown herself backward from the falling rock, had been cleaned and stitched by Matty's trembling hands. Doc, exhausted from the panic and the march, snored softly beside her.

The bonfire was a defiant, sputtering heart in the gathering dusk. Leon had taken {{user}} a short distance away, his low voice a murmur as he showed her how to check the seals on their water canteens—a task, but also a deliberate removal from the brewing storm at the fire's edge.

Finn sat on a stone, sharpening his knife with an aggressive, rhythmic scrape-scrape-scrape. His eyes weren't on the blade, but on the flames, seeing instead the debris falling, seeing his own body moving without permission. The guilt over Ginny was a cold, hard pebble in his gut, but it was overshadowed by the hotter, more furious truth that had been laid bare on that ledge.

Matty was perched on his heels beside Ginny, periodically checking her pulse with a touch that was purely clinical. But his gaze kept drifting from the unconscious blonde to the fire, to Finn's rigid back. The tension between them was a live wire, humming with everything left unsaid after the day's near-catastrophe. The shared failure, the shared instinct, the ugly, revealing argument.

The silence stretched, thicker than the woodsmoke. Finally, Finn’s grinding rhythm stopped. He didn't look up.

"Stupid," he muttered, his voice a low rasp.

Matty’s head lifted. "What is?"

"This." Finn gestured vaguely with his knife between them, the fire, the whole situation. "S’all stupid. We got two. They got two." He finally looked over, his blue eyes reflecting the firelight, hard and practical. "Makes the math simple, don't it?"

Matty went very still. He understood the implication immediately. A brutal, feral logic from the Wastelands. He felt a surge of disgust, but beneath it, a treacherous, curious thread. What if he takes Ginny? What if he just... chooses her? The hope was shameful, but it was there. He forced his voice to stay flat, neutral. "What are you suggesting, Finn?"

Finn leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the knife held loosely between his fingers. "I'm sayin' we stop makin' each other nervous. Stop this... this dance. You take one. I take the other. We square it away. No more arguin' over who saves who. No more..." He glanced toward where Leon and {{user}} were, his jaw tightening. "No more confusion."

He's offering me a way out. He's offering to concede. Matty’s heart thumped against his ribs. He played along, keeping his face a careful mask of weary consideration. "I suppose... from a resource management perspective, it would reduce conflict." He sounded like Doc, and the artifice of it made his skin crawl. "Did you have a... preference?"

Finn stared at him for a long moment, as if trying to decipher if Matty was truly this dense. Then a slow, confident smirk—the one he used when he thought he was winning—spread across his face. He pointed the tip of his knife, not at Ginny, but in the general direction of {{user}}.

"Her," Finn said, as if stating the obvious. The word was simple, final, and hung in the air like a challenge. "I'll take the beauty."

The pretense shattered.

All of Matty’s carefully constructed neutrality evaporated. The hope that Finn would choose Ginny died, replaced by a white-hot rush of something far more primal. He stood up abruptly, his fists clenched at his sides. "No."

Finn’s smirk vanished. He rose to his feet, his movements fluid and predatory. "What d'you mean, 'no'? You just said—"

"I said it would reduce conflict. I didn't agree to your terms." Matty’s voice was low, but it vibrated with an intensity Finn had never heard from him. "You don't get to just claim her, Finn. Like she's a piece of meat from one of your traps."

"She ain't yours either, scholar-boy!" Finn shot back, taking a step forward. The firelight carved deep shadows into the scars on his face. "You saw it today! We both went for her! But you can't protect her. Not like I can. You freeze up. You think too much."

"Thinking is what keeps people alive! Your way nearly got Ginny killed because you were so busy performing!" Matty’s own anger, usually so buried under layers of gentleness, was erupting. "You flirt with Ginny to make {{user}} jealous, and then you forget Ginny exists when it matters? Is that your idea of protection? It's selfish! It's chaos!"

The truth of it stung. Finn’s confidence wavered for a second, then hardened into something darker. "At least I'm honest about what I want! You're over there with your 'atta girls' and your peaches, pretendin' you just wanna be friends, when we both know you're dreamin' about her at night. You're a coward."

"I am not a coward!" Matty roared, the sound startlingly loud in the quiet hollow. He was taller than Finn, and he used every inch of it now. "I want what's best for her! Not what's easiest for me!"

"And I am what's best for her!" Finn shouted back, his control snapping. The words were raw, torn from a place of feral conviction. "I can provide! I can fight! I can give her a child, a family, walls that won't fall down! What can you give her? A book? A sad story about your granddaddy?"

It was a low blow, aimed directly at the heart of Matty's guilt and shame. Matty saw red. He took a step, and for a terrifying second, it seemed they would come to blows right there over the unconscious girl and the dying fire.

The terrible, glaring truth was now out in the open, naked and snarling between them: they both wanted the same woman. Not as a concept, not as a resource, but as her. And neither of them had any intention of backing down.

“Well, ain’t this a pretty picture,” a dry voice cut through the charged silence.

Jax stood at the edge of the firelight, having returned from his patrol with Marcus. He leaned against the rock, lighting a fresh cigarette, his expression one of profound amusement. “Sounded like a couple of Brutes scrappin’ over a fresh kill.” He took a drag, exhaling slowly. “Leon wants one of you pups to quit your bitchin’ and bring over the compact crossbow from his pack. Says it’s time the lady learned to use something besides her pretty eyes to stay alive.”

He let the implication hang, his gaze flicking between their furious faces. The unspoken suggestion was obvious: Which one of you is gonna make the move? Which one gets to be the provider, the teacher, right now?

The interruption was a bucket of cold water, but it didn’t douse the anger; it just redirected it. Finn and Matty glared at each other for one final, searing moment—a silent agreement that this was far from over—before turning their shared, irritable energy toward this new task.

Without a word, both of them stalked toward Leon’s pack, a tense, parallel movement. They reached it at the same time, their hands nearly colliding over the strap. A silent, furious standoff ensued, their eyes locked.

“I got it,” Finn grunted. “I’ll take it,” Matty said simultaneously.

Another beat of tension. Then, with a noise of disgust, Finn yanked the compact, well-oiled weapon from the pack. Matty’s hand closed around the quarrel case beside it. Neither willing to let the other have the entire errand, they turned in unison and marched, side-by-side in rigid, hostile synchrony, toward the dim figures of Leon and {{user}} at the edge of the camp.

“Leon,” Finn’s voice was a rough bark. “Sir,” Matty added, his tone clipped and formal.

They stood there, side-by-side, the crossbow and quarrels held out like offerings—or weapons—in the gathering dark.