Symbiosis
is a Left 4 Dead fanfiction by Lyssavirus (also known as T Virus Rose) following Theodora Skyler and Adrian, a hunter she stabs after he claws her eye out. After she unknowingly takes shelter in Adrian's home and watches him slowly succumb to his injuries, she takes pity on him and patches him up. Despite their initial violent first encounter and Adrian's urge to tear Skyler apart, they start forming a deep bond as they travel to Boston where extraction teams evacuate survivors to safety.
Symbiosis contains the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Skyler was one even before the apocalypse began. Cat fits the trope too.
- Agonizing Stomach Wound: Skyler stabs Adrian multiple times when they first meet. She patches him up later though.
- Attack the Injury: When Skyler wakes up with Adrian on top of her, she kneeds him in his injured abdomen.
- Bathtub Bonding: Despite his reluctance, Skyler gives Adrian a bath.
- Breast Attack: Adrian punches Skyler in the chest when she's teaching him how to fight.
- Cute and Psycho: Cat is mistaken for a teenager, is pretty cheerful, and likes killing people.
- Deadly Lunge: As a hunter, this is Adrian's modus operandi.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Skyler stabbing Adrian when he was trying to kill her led to a chain of events that ultimately brought them very close.
- Dissonant Serenity: Cat is just casually joking after killing a person and releasing Adrian to tear another apart.
- Embarrassing First Name: Theodora Skyler.
- Cat's name is short for Cathedral.
- Enemy Mine: Neither Adrian nor Skyler trust each other at first, but sorta team up while escaping a hunter pack anyways.
- Eye Scream: Skyler meets Adrian when he claws her eye out.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: When he was about to cross the bridge, Adrian "looked exhausted enough that he practically appeared to have been punched in either eye."
- Fainting: After running and making a huge leap, Adrian's injuries reopen and he faints.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Skyler and Adrian. Despite their rocky first meeting they end up saving each other multiple times and go through some traumatic experiences together.
- Gorn: There's some pretty nice descriptions of it here and there, what with the infected's afinity to tear people (and each other) to shreds.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The infected.
- In a Single Bound: Happens twice while Hunter and Skyler get chased by a hunter pack. Skyler even has to cling on Adrian the second time.
- Limp and Livid: Infected don't keep a straight posture to begin with, but hunters crouch before attacking.
- Major Injury Underreaction: When pursuing or escaping from something, the infected tend to keep going until they physically collapse.
- The Nicknamer: Besides Hunter, Skyler comes up with the nicknames Lambchop, Leg-o-Lamb, and Mary had a little Lamb for Adrian before realizing that he actually responds to his name.
- No Zombie Cannibals: Averted. While the infected certainly prefer feasting on the "clean ones", they have no qualms about eating each other.
- "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody: While showering, Skyler is creeped out by Adrian's shadow behind the curtain.
- Quizzical Tilt: Adrian is prone to this.
- Secret Message Wink: While restrained, Cat talked about how the captors were probably softies acting tough before she heard them returning. She then said to pretend she didn't say anything, and winked.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Skyler has no qualms about being seen naked, as they had "YMCA showers" back in camp where everyone showered together.
- Slashed Throat: How Fred is killed by Cat.
- The Speechless: The infected can't talk. Adrian can understand some words and does attempt to speak, but fails.
- Spider-Sense: Hunters are very quick to pick up when something's up around them thanks to their heightened senses.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The hunter pack.
- Technically-Living Zombie: As the name suggests, the infected are humans, just very, very sick.
- Throw the Book at Them: Adrian throws some books at Skyler after she kneed him.
- The Virus: The green flu.
- Zombie Apocalypse: It's a left 4 dead fanfic.
