Pasadena, CA
December 24

It was Christmas Eve and Louis' fucking birthday.

His 27th fucking birthday.

And instead of hanging out with his mates at a pub, or even his family at home... Instead of eating his favourite dinner of chicken stuffed with mozzarella wrapped in Parma ham with a side of homemade mash... Instead of getting fall-down drunk or laid-back high like he normally would have, Louis was standing in front of a pile of burning books, hungry, holding a squirming, fussy toddler, and desperately trying to get warm. Not exactly the birthday he had in mind. Not exactly the Christmas any of them had in mind.

But shockingly it was a white Christmas. Southern California was covered in a thick blanket of snow. Blanket was a bad choice. Blankets are warm. This was as far from warm as Louis had been since the time he got locked out of his room in nothing but a dressing gown in the French Alps. He shook his head to cast off that very bad memory.

Louis had been forced to abandon his hillside home when the electricity cut off for good and the weather turned icy a week ago. The modern, sleek style of the home offered a lovely view, but not great insulation against the cold. He and the little girl he had rescued a week earlier from the grocery store parking lot were freezing and famished. So, he had piled their remaining food, a bundle of blankets, and little Lux into his Range Rover, running the heat on full blast. It made no sense just to stay where he was, but Louis really hadn't much idea where he should go. So, he drove down the hill and into town, looking for another grocery store to raid.

But most of the places were too manky even to consider going inside. The stench of decaying bodies and rotting food was overpowering. He had to drive quite a ways, finally finding a big box store that had obviously closed its doors before the majority of the deaths, in Burbank--a good ten miles away from Beverly Hills. Ten miles, but more like 6 hours of driving with the roads clogged and cluttered by crashed and abandoned cars. Louis was more careful than when he left the stadium, though, making sure he had  clearance before squeezing in between. In contrast, the parking lot of the store was deserted, and he drove right up to the doors, covered loosely by plywood.

As he hopped down out of his suv, the piece of wood rattled and slid to the side. Two beanie-covered heads poked around the edge, looked at each other, and disappeared. Louis watched as gloved-hands shoved the wood out of the way far enough for the people to come out.

One was a short woman in her mid- to late twenties, with cute dimples low on her chin. Her companion, as it happened, was the well-known Disney child actress turned pop star, Serenity Keane, now the ripe old age of 21. Serenity recognised Louis as well, as they sometimes ran in the same circles, attended the same charity events. Not that Louis was some major celebrity; he wasn't. He was better known in England, where he had at least started for his team. But here in Los Angeles, it was second string and D-list.

Still, Serenity had raised her eyebrows in surprise as she walked out into the parking lot. "Hey," she snapped her gloved fingers, "sorry, I don't--"

"Louis," he offered, reaching his hand out to shake hers. "How are ya, Serenity?"

"Well," she held her hands up and looked around, "I guess I'm pretty good, considering."

"Ha. No shit." Lux stirred in the car behind him. With the engine off, she must be cold. He hoisted her out and onto his hip, and she snuggled close to his chest. "Found this one on her own."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. It was awful. We've just been hiding up in my house, but this snow," he looked up at the white sky, shivering slightly.

"Us too. Oh, this is Samantha. Sam." The girl nodded at him, hugging her arms around her small body. "Where are you going now?"

"Dunno really. My place is just too cold."

"We should really go in, get out of the snow," Serenity pressed her lips into a thin line, her body visibly shuddering in the cold. Louis grabbed the blankets from the back of his car and handed a couple to the girls, draping the third over Lux's trembling form and the fourth over his own shoulders.

Inside, the girls had a third companion. A young man, huddled in a sleeping bag next to a fire in a huge metal trashcan. He looked quite unwell, sweating and pale in the orange glow of the flames.

"He all right?" Louis gestured with his head.

"I'm fine," the guy said gruffly.

"Okay," Louis held his hands up as if in surrender. "You look like death warmed over, but okay."

"That's Ash. Don't mind him. He's grumpy when he doesn't feel well," Serenity rolled her eyes as she plopped down beside him.

"Who does?" Louis asked genially. He sat down with Lux in his lap. Her big wide eyes followed the tiny bits of fire that flew up and away from the rest, little rebel amber embers. She tipped her head back and back and back until she was looking at Louis instead. He poked her nose with the tip of his finger. She crossed her eyes then shook her head, rubbing her chubby fists against her face, the tiny stuffed lion always clutched under her arm. "So, did you all know each other before, or..."

"Nope," Serenity said.

"How'd you find each other?"

"Well, I was performing a matinee at the Hollywood Bowl when the last wave hit," she nodded as Louis raised his eyebrows. "I know, right. Why on earth would I bother when the world was ending?"

"No, no, not questioning it. I was at a match myself--"

"Soccer, right?"

He nodded. "But what did you mean, last wave?"

"Didn't you notice how the deaths seemed to happen in waves?" Louis frowned, caressing Lux's hair as he considered what Serenity said. "Well anyway, this last one, which seemed to finish off the rest of the world--"

"Except us," Ash grunted. What if there was another wave? What if the last wasn't really the last?

"Right, except us. It hit right in the middle of my fucking show," she looked down at Lux and winced. "I mean, my um, darn show. It was like a wasteland. The whole crowd was just gone. The crew. My band. Everyone."

"Except me," Sam said. She had a deep voice, not like a manly deep voice, but a deep voice, like the kind of deep voice smart girls always seem to have. Louis wanted to kick himself for such stupid thoughts. But really, how do you describe that?

"You were at the show?" He asked.

"Yeah. I took my little sister," her eyes clouded over as she looked away from the group, out into the darkness of the massive store.

"And we found Ash a day later as we made our way over the hill toward the valley." Ash grunted again as Serenity spoke. "We've been here a few days now."

Louis recounted how he'd found Lux, and soon they all settled into sleep on air mattresses covered in sleeping bags. They stayed at the Costco for another two days, but their last night there, as they huddled together by the trashcan ablaze with paper cups, they heard a loud rumbling from across the store. And then a terrifying crash. Louis' first thought was earthquake, but as he sheltered Lux against his body, he realised the ground wasn't shaking. However, snow was swirling across the cement floor toward them.

"I think the roof's caved in," he said, pointing at the flurries building up in the distance.

"We can't stay here," Serenity nodded, grabbing the blankets and sleeping bags from the ground as he collected Lux, and Sam collected what little remained of their scant supply of canned food. Ash simply tried to collect himself, shuffling toward the car with his arms folded over his abdomen. They hurried out to the suv and piled in. Sam took Lux in her arms as Louis got in the driver's seat and Ash the passenger seat. "Where to?" Louis leaned over the back to look at the girls, mentally shaking his head at the thought that he'd become some kind of a fucking chauffeur in the apocalypse.

"We should go where it's less populated," Serenity said. "Fewer bodies to contend with."

"So, east?"

They nodded and he put the car in gear. Louis was glad in this moment that he had a hybrid car. He could drive almost endlessly on the battery if he drove carefully. The problem was the heater used fuel. As the sun rose over the eastern horizon, they coasted up an off ramp in old town Pasadena when the diesel ran out on him. The battery carried them further into town, and he pulled up outside the famous Vroman's bookstore, parking parallel to the kerb.

"Um. We're out of gas," he had said, looking at them in the rear view mirror.

The small group bundled out of the car and into the bookstore, whose glass door was easy to jimmy open. But like the glass walls of Louis' house, the floor to ceiling windows of the storefront offered no insulation from the cold.

And this was how he came to be standing in front of a pile of burning books on his fucking birthday. Hungry. Cold. And miserable.

"You'll never get warm enough here," an unfamiliar voice called from the door. Louis looked up to see a small group of people standing there. He took a step back instinctively, moving between the strangers and his ragtag group. "A store like this, it wasn't built to keep people warm. It'll never be enough," the woman said. "Doesn't matter how many copies of..." she leaned over the industrial public trashcan they had painstakingly manoeuvred into the store from the sidewalk, "of The Twilight you burn."

"Hey, I like that book," another girl said.

"Me too," another one chimed in. "When Jac--"

"Wait. Aren't you...you're Louis Tomlinson," the most beautiful boy...man Louis had ever seen came out from behind the group and walked toward him. "Hi," his deep voice and dimpled smile took Louis' breath away.

"Louis!" Lux exclaimed, holding up her little stuffed lion. It was the first thing she'd ever said, but Louis was too preoccupied with this pretty man in front of him to take that in properly.

The man smiled at her as he got closer, leaning down toward her, smiling broadly. Fuck, it was beautiful. He was beautiful. "Is that his name too?" He touched the lion's mane with his long, slender fingers. Lux nodded emphatically, eliciting laughs from both groups. The man looked up at Louis, green eyes burning into blue. "Louis the lionhearted."

Louis laughed awkwardly. "Ha. Haha. Yeah. Um. Yes. I. Me. That's me. Not the lion. The Tomlinson. I mean, I'm me. I'm Louis Tomlinson." He looked down. Anything to break that blazing eye contact that felt like this guy could see right into his soul. "And um this is Lux," he bounced her on his hip once before looking behind him and stepping aside. "And this is Sam and Serenity. We have another guy with us, but he went looking for food."

Why they'd allowed Ash to go out on his own in search of food was beyond him, in retrospect. To be fair, he said he knew where this famous cooking school was, that they would have cold storage and fresh food, even if the power was out. But still. He was sick. Why'd he go alone?

"I'm Harry," the beautiful boy brought Louis back to the moment. He held out his hand to shake. Warmth flooded through his whole body at the contact. Louis had never been in love, wasn't sure he believed in it anymore, but if he had to describe what he thought love probably felt like, he would say it was this. This right here. The way his whole body heated up at this man's brief touch. "I've seen you play before, against the Earthquakes, and also a few years ago in England. I'm a big fan." He released Louis' hand.

"Oh," Louis blinked as the cold returned, still at a loss for words. "Um. Thanks."
Harry turned away, pointing at the others in his group. Louis let his eyes wander, taking in the long tufts of wavy hair sticking out from under a grey-blue beanie, the long line of his back under the tan suede coat, the prominent veins under the skin on his hands, the thick muscles of his thighs under skin-tight black jeans. Good lord, he was god-like, and Louis was now shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot as his arousal grew. He handed Lux off to Sam as Harry turned back.

"That's Artie, Alysha, Kyle, Liam, and Mariana," he pointed his hand with little bops, like a kid dubbing his friend a knight. I dub thee Louis the Lionhearted. Louis didn't much care who the others were. He just wanted to know who this guy was. Where he'd come from. Like seriously, had he walked out of Louis' dreams and into reality? Was Louis dreaming right now? Was this some sort of hunger/sleep-deprived delusion? "And that big guy," Harry pointed at the husky sitting patiently beside them, "is Loki."

"We really should get in somewhere warmer," that voice said again. The woman with the ponytail and plaid flannel shirt. She stepped forward and rested her hand on Harry's, and he took it in his, stepping back toward the group of strangers. Louis' pulse accelerated with anxiety and disappointment, his gut flooding with unbearable acid. "We were going to head over to Cal-tech. They've got alternative energy sources. The dorms will be well-insulated. Kitchens, running water, most likely. Hot water, possibly."

"Sounds good," Serenity said from behind him. "A hot shower sounds really good."

"A hot meal," Sam added.

"A hot guy," Louis muttered under his breath. Serenity let out a little laugh, letting him know she heard.

"What's that?" Ponytail asked.

"Nothing," Louis shook his head. "Sounds great, but we've got a man missing. We can't go without him."

As if on cue, Ash appeared in the doorway, glancing from one group to the other, empty handed. "Ummm," he fidgeted.

"Here he is," Serenity chirped. "Let's go."

"Do you have a vehicle?" Ponytail asked.

"It's out of gas," Louis grumbled, taking Lux out of Sam's arms. Fucking ponytail. Harry wasn't just holding her hand. Their fingers were interlaced, and his thumb would swipe up along hers to the tip of her fingernail, press down on the tip to leave a little crescent shape in his skin, then back down to her wrist. Over and over. It was aggravating to Louis. Like a dripping faucet. Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink. Fucking plink. That fucking beautiful, gentle hand caress should be his. Louis turned his anger on Ash. "No food?" He barked.

"Couldn't get in," Ash barked right back.

Fuck. Louis really wanted a smoke. Weed preferably, but tobacco would suffice in this moment.

"This yours?" Ponytail pointed at Louis's rover. He nodded. "Diesel hybrid, huh. I can fix that," she said.

"Tomorrow," Harry murmured into her ear. Disgusting. "We can fit everyone in the two trucks for now."

Louis and Lux went with the other car. The driver was Liam, he learned. He was quiet. Sad. And in the backseat, Mariana and Alysha and the kid, Kyle. These three went through the ritual of recounting how they ended up here, and Louis grew more irritated as the conversation went on. Ponytail, whose name was Artie, apparently, was some sort of fucking crazy genius, and they all loved her, and she had all kinds of super cool inventions and blah blah blah. Louis hated her. It was utterly irrational. He knew that. But he hated her anyway.

In his lap, Lux babbled to her little lion, mostly nonsensical noises. But here and there, she would quite clearly say Louis. It made him smile. He hunched over and put his face next to hers, cooing at her, "What is Louis the lion doing, darling?"

She made the little lion dance around on its hind legs, in time to another string of nonsense. "Louis!" She held the stuffed cat up to Louis, who kissed its nose.

"Yes, love. Louis." He kissed her nose next, then sat back, staring out the side window into endless white. Snow as far as the eye could see.

When Liam pulled the truck to a stop and they got out, Louis carried Lux over to where Ash and Serenity were standing to one side. As he got closer, he sensed that their conversation was heated. Maybe it finally sank in with S that they'd sent Ash off on his own hours ago and he returned completely empty handed. But their conversation dropped off as he approached.

"Hey, it's Christmas Eve," Serenity said to the whole group.

Harry turned and stared at Louis for a moment, a flicker of a smile flashing across his face. No. There was no way he was that much of a fan. He couldn't possibly know it was Louis' birthday.

Ponytail was fiddling with the door's electronic key panel like fucking MacGuyver or some shit. And like fucking MacGuyver, she got it open. Louis rolled his eyes. But he was happy to follow her in out of the cold. She was right. The building here was definitely warmer than the bookstore. But it also bore the stench of death.

"Maybe through to another level?" Liam suggested, gesturing up with his head. She nodded and led them up the stairs. 

The third floor was void of rotting bodies, so they decided to settle in there for the night. It was nice to be in out of the cold, in a real building with beds. And solid walls. Ponytail definitely had a point about insulation.

It was a typical college dorm with bunk beds and common bathrooms, and a large common room with a kitchen. Some people were advocating to stay together in that large open space. But Louis kind of wanted to shut the world out and be alone. If only he had some weed. Or some booze.

"We need some grub," Harry said with his hands on his hips. "Supplies. Who wants to go back out?"

"I'll go," Louis said, almost before he knew what he was doing. And at the same time Ash and Liam volunteered. A manly expedition. But then Mariana exchanged words with Liam, and instead, it was decided, she would go.

"I'm going to see if I can get the central heat going. Don't turn anything on yet, give me a few minutes," Ponytail wandered away muttering to herself as Louis and the others followed Harry downstairs.

"So, I was thinking we should make a whole celebration. For Christmas. You know, pick up some fresh clothes and towels and sheets for everyone, as well as finding food," Harry started, clearly excited. "And Christmas decorations. And toys, for the kids. Lux and Kyle, they should have a little something for Christmas." Louis couldn't help but smile at this big goofy man, and his big goofy grin.

"Shall we team up and divide the work?" Louis suggested, imagining shopping for fresh undergarments with Harry.

"Sure. I'll take Harry to the mall. You guys get the food," Mariana said.

"O-okay. Yeah. Sure," Louis tried to hide his disappointment. But like everything in his life, he was pretty sure he failed. "Ash?"

"We should get some first aid stuff too," he replied.

"Good idea," Harry got into the jeep Ponytail had driven. And Mariana handed the keys to the pickup to Louis. "See you back here in a couple hours."

Louis fired up the truck and put the heater on full blast. "So, where do you think we should go?"

"Probably the hospital first for the first aid supplies."

"They'll have that at a grocery store."

"But not, like heavy-duty first aid, like antibiotics or I don't know. Just, yeah. I mean, we could split up and you could drop me at the hospital and go on to Le Cordon Bleu by yourself. It's just around the corner and down a few bl--"

"But I thought you couldn't get into the school?"

"Well, no, I couldn't get to it. It was too cold and I ended up going into another building and just waiting until I was warm enough and--"

Louis stared at the babbling Ash in disbelief. And it clicked. This schmuck wasn't sick. He was a junkie. The sweating, the shaking. He was coming off something. He hadn't gone out for food. He'd gone out for drugs. And now, he was trying to get a ride to the hospital so he could get more or stronger or maybe he hadn't found any when he went out earlier. And Serenity was arguing with him. Was she a junkie too? Celebrities were known to dabble in drugs. Weed obviously. Coke usually. Speed on rare occasions. Heroin, for those darker souls. And prescription pills like oxy, Xanax, muscle relaxers were pretty common, especially as they were legal. So did Serenity know about Ash? Was she in on it with him? And what the fuck was Louis supposed to do about it?

"Sure, let's go to the hospital. But let's stay together," he said finally. He didn't want to accuse Ash when he had no hard evidence. A bad feeling and some babbling weren't enough. At that rate, he'd be accusing Ponytail and Lux.

"Oh, yeah all right," Ash shrugged, looking away.

"D'you know where it is?"

"Go straight for a couple blocks. I'll tell you when to turn."

They drove on in silence until the roads became impassable. "Looks like we're gonna have to walk it."

"Probably all the people scrambling to get to the hospital at the end..." Ash's voice trailed off sadly.

"Yeah. Probably. You from this area?"

Ash nodded, closing his door and shuffling down the road ahead of Louis. "I was born in this hospital." They scrabbled over and around the crush of cars until they reached a side entrance of the building. "Why don't you grab bandages and tape and um stuff like that. I'll see if I can find some antibiotics."

"We should just stick together. It's not going to take that long to get those few supplies," Louis insisted. He wasn't sure what it really mattered if Ash was on drugs. It's not like that would hurt anyone. But Ash shrugged and went along with Louis down the long dark hallway. The smell was overpoweringly bad. It was like everyone who had gone in the "last wave" had made this hospital their final resting place. And for some reason, Louis and Ash whispered as they searched for a supply room, eventually found one, and loaded up various supplies. Louis hoisted the backpack onto his shoulder and turned to Ash, but he was gone.

Fuck.

Now he was going to have to walk all over this creepy building, which was more like a mass grave. He scurried down the hall, whisper-shouting for Ash as he went, following the signs directing him to the pharmacy. But he wasn't there.

Louis climbed over the counter and found some antibiotics and painkillers and fucking birth control. Ponytail was going to need it, given how she and Harry were hand fucking earlier. He stuffed a bunch of over-the-counter items as well, stuff for upset stomach, colds, allergies and whatnot. Then he went back out in search of Ash.

He found him. Fuck. He found him just outside the emergency room, in a small exam room with a vial in his hand, a needle in his arm, and trail of vomit down his chest.

Fuck.

~~~~~

Thanks, as always, for reading.

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Artie will be next. Fucking Ponytail.