who wants zombie au writing. don't answer that ur getting it anyway (1.6k words)
His shoes knock against the old flooring of the house, wood creaking under rubber soles that slide over the woodgrain. He drags them a bit, lifts his limbs up no more than he strictly has to, and they lead him to the nearest sittable surface.
The couch is old and dusty and has likely gone untouched for months, much like everything else nowadays, so he watches the thin cloud of dust billow off the cushions largely with disinterest. He collapses into the fabric heavily, feels the whole thing scoot back an inch and hit the wall behind him. The sound echoes, carried by lifeless rooms, while he unceremoniously drops his backpack to the floor by his feet.
The breath he lets out is slow and methodical and born of pent up muscles, aimed at the ceiling where he rests his neck against the back of the couch and relaxes every limb one by one. It’s a process he forces himself through, if only to rid the constant ache beneath his skin.
Slow, sweeping footsteps meander around the room in front of him, and Ritsu angles his gaze down from his craned back position to look at his brother. He wanders, like he so often does—seemingly aimless, but there’s something procedural about it that he’s convinced he just hasn’t figured out yet.
Shigeo’s empty eyes crawl along the hearth of the fireplace, explosions of ash sprayed out across the red brick. His head tilts up to trace his attention around the angular lines of the television, hung on the wall and screen grey with dust. He flits back and forth between the roundness of the bricked mantle and the sharp edges of the screen, like he’s taking notes.
Shigeo paws the television. Four lines of muck are cleared. The zombie blinks, paws at it again with dusty, curious fingers. Ritsu watches him make a mess of the television screen in silence, blinking tiredly.
He almost closes his eyes, but he fights against the urge and moves his fingers down his lap to reach for his bag. His middle hooks around the loop at the top and he lugs it up and into his lap, where he unzips it and peers into the shadowy contents.
Ritsu fishes out the water bottles. He finds the one with the messy R scribbled along the cap in sharpie and takes a big swig of it. It’s warm going down, constantly insulated in a bag of old, sweaty clothes. He feels like he can taste the odor in it, but it clears the grain in his throat from stomping all over dirt roads today, so he’s still grateful.
He holds out the one labeled S to Shigeo. “Thirsty?”
Shigeo looks at him from where he’s crouched down to the floor now, inspecting the soot along the hearth. Unfortunately, he sees handprints in the black already, and when his brother reaches a hand out to take it, his palm is covered in soot.
He lets him have his fun and settles his own bottle back in the mess of tangled clothes and rolls of bandages. Ritsu rakes his fingers through their stock with no real purpose—he knows exactly what’s in here, and none of it is useful.
They’d been searching all day; Ritsu doesn’t really know how far they’d walked, but it had to be a lot of miles. In and out of stores, up and down empty houses, weaving between warehouses—they didn’t really stop for a break. Not when Ritsu can hear Shigeo’s stomach from here and he himself has shaking hands. They can’t afford a break.
Nothing, though. Not a single goddamn thing worth taking. A settlement must have come through here long ago and swept the highway. They’re in the countryside, where houses are spaced out acres from each other and there’s entire cow pastures between properties. And yet every house they’d seen and entered provided nothing.
Ritsu stares into the negative space in his bag where there should be supplies. His stomach cramps and if he smells another whiff of that godawful sweaty, bloody sweatshirt he still carries, he’s going to throw up bile.
He leans away from the open pouch, eyes wandering to his brother who draws… something into the soot of the hearth. His water bottle sits on the floor, abandoned and still unscrewed. Ritsu leans forward with great effort and a grunt, leaning over his bag to grab at the top of it.
It takes him two tries to get Shigeo’s attention, and one more for an answer on where the cap is. It’s then placed in his palm, covered in soot and also saliva. Ritsu swallows down the nausea that rolls up his throat and wipes it off with his frankly already disgusting sleeve, and screws it back on.
He leans back again, succumbing to the urge to let his eyes rest, and he listens to the very subtle swipe of his brother’s hands across brick. There’s birds outside, chirping, and even though it’s still very much a common occurrence, Ritsu cannot help but feel nostalgic about it.
If he ignores the awful hum of silence, and the distinct lack of an electric thrum throughout the walls, and the fact that this is a stranger’s couch and not his, he can almost imagine normalcy. He can almost say this feels like those quiet moments after school, when he settles on the couch and scrolls through his phone in a house that only holds him and his brother because their parents simply aren’t home yet.
He can almost hear the creak of wood from Shigeo walking around his room upstairs. He can almost tap his fingers on the couch cushions to the pattern of his brother making his way down the steps. He can almost hear the fridge opening, and the sound of milk being poured into glass.
Almost. But Ritsu listens to sharp silence instead, and he tries not to think too hard.
He drifts for a while, feels himself truly sink into the couch and let the cushions claim him, and he thinks about nothings because if he doesn’t, then he’ll lose it. He carefully sifts through the nothingness of his mind, through the passing thoughts that have no bearing, and he focuses on that, on the lack of substance. His head is too full of things that have too much substance.
He misses boredom. He tells himself he misses boredom—the complete insubstantiality of it—because if he lets himself think of what he really misses, it’ll drive him insane.
The cushions move, and Ritsu peels his eyes open and lets himself get pulled from liminal mindspace. The cotton in his head recedes, and he blinks, and then he’s swiveling his head to look at his brother who sits in the cushion right next to him.
His hands and the cuffs of his hoodie are smothered in black. Shigeo sits hunched, gaze still wandering even when there’s not much decoration in this house to look at. He studies the off-white walls, the chips in the paint, the holes drilled in where there maybe used to be photos hung.
Ritsu gazes at him quietly, chest instinctively rising and falling to match his brother’s rhythm. He watches the expansion there, under his hoodie, in the subtlety of the folds and the way they warp over the movement. It’s slightly quicker than what he’s used to, but Ritsu knows his brother’s heart rate is much slower. He’s felt it before. He’s listened to it before, with his ear against a chest.
Ritsu’s attention moves to his eyes, and the heavy bags underneath them, and the paleness of his pupils and the ghostlight of him underneath that. He stares into them, looks for stray, familiar thoughts that might enter his head. Looks for old memories that might shine through in the form of recognition when he sees furniture layouts, and candy wrappers, and ads for soda.
Ritsu looks for it all the time, that glint of familiarity. And he finds it, sometimes. And really, he thinks that’s keeping him going more than food ever will.
Shigeo turns his head, and looks at him. Sometimes, when his brother looks at him, there’s not much there. No substance, no anything. And Ritsu finds it a bit evil that he craves silence in his own head, and yet noise in Shigeo’s, and often times it is the other way around.
His brother looks at him now, though, with that comforting recognition. That growth of the pupils, that softening of the hard edges of his face where unknown stressors have gotten to him. Ritsu wonders what zombies get stressed out. He figures it’s the same deal with humans, considering they’re largely alike.
Ritsu wonders if Shigeo knows he’s sick. He wishes he could ask him. He wishes for a lot of things. Silence in his own head is one of them.
Ritsu swivels his head away and stares at the ceiling, if only to force the thoughts to pause. He studies the popcorn ridges above them, traces the peaks with his gaze. It calms him, gives him something to focus on. He looks for patterns in the shadows they make.
Shigeo shifts next to him. And then he shimmies down, settles into the cushions, and plops his head right down on Ritsu’s shoulder.
Static roars in his mind and his heart stammers. Ritsu swallows the lump in his throat but that just makes it bigger, so he clamps his mouth shut and breathes carefully through his nose.
The tears cut through the grime on his face. He plops his own head down against his brother’s, and lives in the noise.
23 notes
·
View notes
A future fic carcass I'll write when I write (after I finish 9 ungoing fics)
King Viserys dies at the wedding celebration of his daughter, Crown Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen.
No one else does.
I am a firm believer Otto and Viserys are the rot on the face of the House of the Dragon and without these two everything would be fine-ish.
Unfortunately, we need Vissy T for his kids to be born, so Viserys dies soon after Aemond is conceived. Sorry, Daeron, not this time.
Joffrey doesn't die because he doesn't manage to provoke Criston before the king dies.
Rhaenyra overrules his father's decision and marries Harwin Strong.
Their son Jacaerys Targaryen is the heir to the throne, Lucerys Targaryen is the heir to Harrenhal.
Daemon marries Laena and lives at Dragonstone (Rhaenyra grants him that), their firstborn is the heir of Driftmark.
Laenor joins the Queensguard and is sent to Dragonstone to protect Prince Daemon (ha) and his future heirs.
Criston Cole becomes the Commander of City Watch while still retaining his white cloak (what? He did it in canon, can do it here).
Rhaenyra removes Tyland Lannister as the master of ships and appoints Corlys Velaryon (back).
When Baela and Rhaena are born, it is decided to betroth Prince Aegon and Lady Baela, making him future lord-consort of Driftmark (and successfully removing him out of succession of the iron throne).
When Jace is born, his and Helaena's betrothal is announced.
Baelon is born without an issue and the royal family meets at the celebration on Dragonstone, where Aemond claims Cannibal and loses an eye in the process.
(Kinslayer, everyone. It fits).
Afterwards Luke is sent as a ward to Harrenhal with his father. A huge ass scene ensures there Luke clings to Aemond and refuses to go.
Aegon makes a greasy comment and gets punched.
Both Aegon and Baela are sent as wards to Driftmark.
Lucerys still leaves.
Harrenhal doesn't burn bc even if Larys kills Harwin and Luke, there's still Lyonel and Joffrey in the equation. Lyonel keeps serving Queen Rhaenyra as her Hand.
Years later the royal family meets at the wedding celebration of Baela and Aegon, where Luke and Aemond behave very much like Rhaenyra and Daemon at Rhaenyra's not happened wedding.
Rhaenyra and Alicent clutch at their pearls, Rhaenyra suggests father died because of seeing something like that.
Daemon asks if she implies they killed Viserys, then asks where is Baelon.
Laena replies Baelon is playing knights with Joffrey.
Rhaenyra and Harwin Strong (no) have three more children, Aegon, Viserys and Visenya, all silver-haired like their mother (her uncle).
Laena is fine with it, they have a poly. Laena doesn't have more children because Baelon's birth was a ghasty one.
Baelon claims the Grey Ghost.
Otto is never called back to the capital because (suprise!) Rhaenyra didn't rush to kill her 3 y.o brother or the other one who was born after Viserys' death. Instead she marries Aegon off so he's no threat.
Aemond eventually joins the Queensguard and is appointed to the future lord of Harenhall.
Lucerys refuses to marry and appoints his brother Viserys as his heir, who marries Visenya. They have a very good life in Harrenhal.
The reason Luke skips over Joffrey is because Joffrey is always at the sea (with Baelon), and Aegon the Younger is bethrothed to Baela and Aegon the Elder' firstborn, Laena.
Everyone lives happily ever after, Otto gets to be the head of the house Hightower after he successfully plots against his own kin, since his blood is secured on the throne, if in unconventional for him way.
He once tried to manipulate Aegon, but was cut off sharply by Rhaenys and Corlys, who kind of adopted the boy as theirs.
Aegon enjoys wandering about Essos very much, he, of course, whores around, but he and Baela have an agreement. One of Baela's children is born from Alyn of Hull, but no one is any wiser, since everyone just thinks the child looks like her.
Jacaerys and Helaena have three kids, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera and then Maelor.
Jaehaera is oldest and so is the heir.
Oh, and Rhaena is happily married to Corwyn Cobray. They have a daughter, Rhaenys.
9 notes
·
View notes