(Alternatively named in my Google Docs: "Austin is Weak for Bri's Demands in Every Universe" also I wrote this in 25 minutes so I'm sorry! Happy Valentine's Day!)

Bri woke to with a chill from the open window and a certain feeling. The one where she knows she's forgetting something and that something was giddy-worthy. She yanked the old calendar from the wall and scanned the dates. Running the numbers, she counted up the days until her finger came to rest on February 14th. Almost exactly two and a half months since the outbreak. She grinned, hugging Stella tight against her chest.

Each morning if it was a weekend, after school if it fell on a weekday, she and her brother would come home to a toy and small pile of candy from their parents. Sometimes her dad wasn't there for it and that was okay. Her brother made it better by giving her some of his candy. He never really liked the sour-coated ones.

She flew down the tower stairs, sliding down the chipped railings at record speed, until she made it to the kitchen. Austin was glaring into a tall black pot bubbling with oddly colored liquid. Chicken bones floating near the top, along with bits of carrots and something green. Bri gagged and rushed up to his arm as he poked at the bones with a spoon.

"Austin! Austin! It's Valentine's Day!" She leaned against the counter, a perfect 90 degrees to distract his attention from the open flames. "Do you know what that means?"

"Nothing really since the apocalypse happened and company-manufactured holidays ceased to exist?" he deadpanned, only briefly glancing away from the pot.

Bri huffed. Why must he be difficult? "It meeeeeans candy!"

"You already have candy. Lots of it."

"No Valentine's candy though!"

"What's the difference?"

She clambered up onto the table and crossed her legs, leaning over the pot. Despite how it looked, the smell wasn't actually that bad. A leafy aroma wierdly fitting for the bits of car oil splashed on the floor. "They always look cuter and taste more sugary. Plus some of them have cute sayings on them that I think would really raise team morale," she answered matter-of-factly.

"I don't think they actually taste better; I think that's just your mind playing tricks on you." Austin scooped up a sip of the soup and held it out to her. "Here, try this."

She ignored the offer and kept an unnerving amount of eye contact. "Come with me to find some."

"Find some what?"

"Valentine's Day candy! We don't have any in the tower."

"We've searched every store in this area twice over. If there was any candy left, you or Colin would've found it by now."

"Weeeeell what about outside the area?"

"No way. After seeing that mutant freak, none of us are going out that way alone."

"Come with me then!"

"I can't, I have to sort the supplies Safehaven sent us since apparently no one else wants to." He shrugged a shoulder unsympathetically. "Why don't you get Colin or Marshie?"

She threw her head back and dramatically groaned. "Colin went somewhere with Justin and I can't find Marshie anywhere since last night!"

"Sorry, Bri. I can't right now."

He expected her to keep fighting on it, pout, or leave Stella behind to do it for her, but instead she simply sighed and hopped off the table. "Come on, Stella. I guess it's just work with regular sweets today," she remented sadly.

Austin watched her head off towards the garage, dragging her feet half-heartedly. He resisted the urge to rub his temples free from an incoming headache and just returned to the soup. He could hear the mechanical sounds of the hydraulic jack joined in by one of the vehicles being started up.

He looked over to his overturned bag where Fred's ear was poking out over the opening flap. He drummed his fingers on the scoldering pot, weighing his options. Going out of bounds was dangerous yeah, but what wasn't these days?

There and back.

Checking the garage to make sure Bri was occupied with Seek's go kart, he slipped out the door and into their car. Lucky for him, she'd already checked it over after returning from Safehaven.

Twenty miles out from the unofficial line, he came across the crumbling foundation of Neighborhood Market Walmart. One that had clearly been ransacked and used as a base at some point. The doors were gone, leaving broken glass at the edges of their frames. Buggies were piled up near the front, once barriers he assumed.

The windows were boarded up with plywood, notched with firearm leanings but seemingly already abandoned. He squinted his eyes through the slits in the planks, peering inside. The lights were blinking slightly, but still lit up the aisles and empty open spaces.

Probably on a generator, Austin thought. He made a mental note to bring the others here at some point to look for it and headed inside, keeping an eye out towards the surrounding streets for the mutated freaks.

Scouring the shelves, Austin knocked a few plastic jars of random food into his bag as well. Might as well make it a food run while he was at it. He bypassed the chocolate areas, certain that any chocolate that survived the previous raids from other survivors were long gone rotten by then.

All the registers had been ripped from their tills, unfortunately leaving nothing behind for Devin to no doubt sniff out.

Behind the counter were metal racks with askew glass bottles of flat coke and syran bags tied with faded pink and red string. Austin sighed. Of course; leave it to Walmart to have put out their Valentine's Day merchandise even before the new year.

He hopped over the counter and inspected the packaging. The bag was plastered with cartoon hearts, some with appendages similar to the mutant freak and wide eyes with no eyelids to relieve them from the pain of constantly staring out into the empty store.

Creepy.

Austin scooped up what bags were left and tossed them in with the jars in his bag. As he climbed back over the buggy barricade, a sense of unease edged its way to his stomach. He paused in the parking lot, hand gripping his bag strap.

A low moan grew from the trees and he pulled his gun, swerving around to train it on the sound. Nothing emerged, but the sound continued. Austin slowly backed up to the car, never losing sight of the treeline as he cranked it and peeled out of the lot back towards the tower.

The Misfit garage was loud and brimming with thinly veiled exhaust smoke. Bri was under Devin's car, wrench in hand and tongue between her teeth in concentration. A few sparks danced along the metal roll bars and Austin stifled a laugh. He lightly kicked her pink creeper. "Hey Bri, come out a second."

She slid out, not dropping her wrench in favor of crossing her arms and pouting up at him. "What is it?"

"I found you something outside. We must've missed it in Safehaven's dropoff." He pulled out the bags of candy, now wrapped together by the strings in expertly tied knots. The artificially colored assortment of sugar clanked inside as he tossed the bundle into her lap.

Her eyes widened in glee. She yanked at one of the knots and popped one of the pink sour gummy worms into her mouth. "Mmm, these taste great! Here try one!" She forced one into his hands which he ate obediently. "See, I told you they taste better than normal candy."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say," he relented.

She smirked and Austin's heart dropped into his stomach. "These weren't in the dropoff, were they?"

He groaned, running a hand down his face. "We're not doing this again."

"Nope! You already lied about Fred, I'm not letting you get away with this too!" Bri bounced up, the bags twisting around in her hand. No chance of getting them untied now. Before he could react, she threw her arms around his shoulders and hugged him. "Thank you, Austin."

He inwardly grimaced, checking around for any other Misfits. The coast was clear. He finally relented, letting out a breath and hugging her back. "You're welcome, I guess."

"You guess," she mocked. He patted her on the head and she finally let go, bapping his arm with her wrench before going back to work on Devin's car. He left her to it, noting the empty bags when he came back to drag her to dinner.