They trust no one but each other because the living are oftentimes far worse than the dead.

So incredibly good. Especially during a time when I needed a Sterek to be so incredibly good.

Canon compliant through sometime during season 4. (But you need not have watched it.) Set sometime after S4, the world has succumb to zombies - and looks very much like the world in [b:28 Days Later|8760|28 Days Later (Faber and Faber Screenplays)|Alex Garland|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389059772s/8760.jpg|11681]. I really felt like these were on the spot characterizations on how each character would respond to their circumstances in the zombie world, their isolation from others and their tentative, but increasingly co-dependent dynamic. This wasn't so much dark as it was just dreary. Paralleling a lot of internal and external themes: the road trip / individual self discovery, searching for home / finding a companion, killing zombie / coming to terms with tragic pasts, stop running / rebirth. I really enjoyed how their relationship evolved from convenience to friends to lovers to true companionship. You might get a bit verklempt towards the end, but there is no fluff here, it is all raw emotion. If you are wondering about the lack of rating, if I had written it, I would list it as, "Mature".

I have been on the ins and outs with Sterek of late. Kept reading a lot of duds, was worried maybe I had exhausted the really good ones. And of course apparently it was time for the "Embarrassments of the TW fandom" to rear their heads again as I came across more of their dramatics. So last week I started reading published works again and was wondering if I would ever really be able to enjoy Sterek without the looming shade. But then this came across my updates screen (a work I probably never would have found without Goodreads) and wow, CricketsInTune might have saved the day for this Sterek fan who apparently doesn't use "fandom approved" social media to find and sort their TW fan fiction. .