Somewhere To Run To || Lunch Club AU

we're gonna pretend (intermission)

So, hi.

This work has been on hiatus for... wow, almost half a year now. I had the whole thing planned out. I kept promising myself that I'd finish it, that I'd come back to it eventually, but I started to realize that's not going to happen.

But, I didn't want to leave you all hanging either. I had two half-finished chapters sitting in my drafts all this time: the second interlude, and the epilogue. Luckily, those two just happen to be the only chapters that don't exactly need the rest of the story to feel complete, or impactful. Here they are. I'm going to finish them, edit some things and publish them, and finally put this thing behind me. Here's the interlude, and the epilogue should be out soon too.

If you're still here after all that time, thank you so much for sticking around! If you're new, hi! I'm sorry I couldn't give you all a complete story, but I'm hoping to at least give you a satisfying conclusion.

Without further ado, enjoy!

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There was a hole in the middle of the road.

"Hole" wasn't really the best way to describe it. A gaping chasm stretching from one side of the street to the other, a jagged gap in the concrete dropping down to who knows what depths. Large enough for a car to fall in. Not that that was really a problem anymore.

Travis knew this road. He used to walk down it every week, probably, to get to the store or the skatepark or the rest of the city. Now there was a hole in the middle of it.

That could probably have been a metaphor for something. Instead, Travis just walked around the side.

He'd always been described as an optimist. Even now, when there was barely anybody around anymore, nobody left to be happy for the sake of or for him to try to make feel better, he still tried to keep that up. Wallowing in misery wasn't going to do much to help him survive.

Even if that become difficult when he saw the windows smashed in at the house of their former neighbor, or heard the distant roar of an elemental as he was huddled in his sleeping bag, or looked over the formerly glimmering skyline of Los Angeles to see nothing but dust and destruction and emptiness.

Look on the bright side, though, he kept telling himself, kicking a pebble down the road and adjusting the strap of his backpack weighed down with scavenged supplies. Look on the bright side! He was going home. He could sit down and rest for tonight. He'd found a bar of chocolate at the back of a shelf in a store, which they could share. Tonight was going to be a good night, and he wouldn't have it any other way, no matter the fact that the world was ending.

Then he spotted the car.

The car hadn't been there before. Travis knew this road, walked down it almost every day to get to a store or their old abandoned house or the rest of the city, and yesterday, there hadn't been a car there.

Which meant that there was someone new here.

He slowed down his steps, moved into the shade of a building. As he continued to creep forward, carefully, just to get a better look, he began to be able to make out movement. A human-sized figure, probably not an elemental, doing something at the back of the car.

A threat? A potential ally? Could he approach them, or should he turn back around and run away? He knew some other paths he could take to get home it wouldn't be a big deal, and besides, he knew they shouldn't take in any more people, C -

The movement stopped.

The person was standing still. And they were staring right at him.

No time to back out now. Optimism, right? Be optimistic. This would be fine.