Status: For Jennie, who I cannot thank enough for existing. <3
(If We Can) Find Where We Belong
20 DAYS AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD
It’s not even three whole weeks after a plague of zombies wipes out more than three quarters of the population of the world in just under a month when Bob goes out to stock up on groceries and doesn’t come back.
(Gerard makes it a rule, after that, that no one can go anywhere alone under any circumstances. Mikey thinks it’s a little late for that but hey, better late than never.)
Frank insists on going out to look for him, even though it’s getting late, even though it’s getting dark. It’s Bob. Gerard only gives his reluctant assent when Ray promises he’ll make sure Frank doesn’t do anything stupid. Well, more stupid than usual, anyway.
“You know he’s probably dead, Frankie,” Gerard says softly, when the other two men are halfway out of the door. “Or... worse.”
Frank’s face tightens but he doesn’t flinch like Mikey does, shrunk into a corner on the other side of the room. “I know,” is all he says, flat and unrepentant, before he’s gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
Mikey sits with Gerard as they wait for them to return, watches him draw. There’s something comforting about the normality of it, the ease with which Gerard slips into the person he used to be before the end of the world.
It’s just vague pencil scratchings on the pad of paper at first but as Mikey watches, they begin to take shape, become something both horrifyingly familiar and not at the same time, and just like that he’s not feeling very comforted any more.
“Gee,” Mikey says sharply, knocking his brother’s hand so the pencil scores through the sketch of Bob being mauled by a zombie with an awful, gaping mouth and claws instead of fingers.
Gerard looks down in surprise at his sketchpad and gives a start, like he honestly hadn’t realised what he was drawing. “Sorry,” he says quietly, not quite meeting Mikey’s eyes.
“It’s okay,” Mikey says, even though it isn’t, because nothing will be okay ever again.
When Frank and Ray don’t return within the hour, or the hour after that, or the hour after that, Mikey finds himself praying like he hasn’t done since he was tiny that they all get back in one piece, that they manage to survive this. He’s not sure who he’s expecting his prayers to reach, if he’s expecting them to reach anyone at all, but when he opens his eyes and unfolds his legs, something’s loosened in his chest, just a little.
***
Frank and Ray don’t return ‘til early the next morning, when the sun’s just started to peek out above the horizon. Mikey’s practically worn a hole into the ageing carpet covering the basement floor when the door creaks open and they step inside, jolting Gerard awake in the process. (He fell asleep sometime after midnight but Mikey couldn’t, couldn’t let himself.)
“He isn’t coming back,” Gerard says flatly. It isn’t a question. One of his hands is fisted in his unruly red hair, the other is kneading at his tired eyes. Mikey leans into him automatically, pressing himself up against his side. He isn’t sure which one of them he’s trying to comfort.
Ray shakes his head in silent confirmation, his curls flopping half-heartedly around his face. Frank spins around and stalks back out, back upstairs, but not before they see the red rings circling both his eyes and the stain of vomit at the corners of his mouth. None of them say anything when the door slams shut behind him. There isn’t anything to say.
(Frank will tell Mikey later, on the seventy-seventh day after the end of the world, how Bob was barely more than a heap of bones and blood patched together with skin when they found him sprawled outside the supermarket, forgotten paper bags split on the pavement next to him. He’ll tell him how Ray had to shoot Bob through the head with his own rifle to make sure he wouldn’t come back because Frank couldn’t, because Frank was too busy throwing up the contents of his empty stomach. He’ll tell him how the image of Bob’s mutilated corpse still haunts his every waking moment and Mikey will weep silent, awful tears that Frank will wipe away with the pad of his calloused fingers because none of this was supposed to happen, none of it.
But the world stopped listening to their cries of unfair a long time ago.)
(Gerard makes it a rule, after that, that no one can go anywhere alone under any circumstances. Mikey thinks it’s a little late for that but hey, better late than never.)
Frank insists on going out to look for him, even though it’s getting late, even though it’s getting dark. It’s Bob. Gerard only gives his reluctant assent when Ray promises he’ll make sure Frank doesn’t do anything stupid. Well, more stupid than usual, anyway.
“You know he’s probably dead, Frankie,” Gerard says softly, when the other two men are halfway out of the door. “Or... worse.”
Frank’s face tightens but he doesn’t flinch like Mikey does, shrunk into a corner on the other side of the room. “I know,” is all he says, flat and unrepentant, before he’s gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
Mikey sits with Gerard as they wait for them to return, watches him draw. There’s something comforting about the normality of it, the ease with which Gerard slips into the person he used to be before the end of the world.
It’s just vague pencil scratchings on the pad of paper at first but as Mikey watches, they begin to take shape, become something both horrifyingly familiar and not at the same time, and just like that he’s not feeling very comforted any more.
“Gee,” Mikey says sharply, knocking his brother’s hand so the pencil scores through the sketch of Bob being mauled by a zombie with an awful, gaping mouth and claws instead of fingers.
Gerard looks down in surprise at his sketchpad and gives a start, like he honestly hadn’t realised what he was drawing. “Sorry,” he says quietly, not quite meeting Mikey’s eyes.
“It’s okay,” Mikey says, even though it isn’t, because nothing will be okay ever again.
When Frank and Ray don’t return within the hour, or the hour after that, or the hour after that, Mikey finds himself praying like he hasn’t done since he was tiny that they all get back in one piece, that they manage to survive this. He’s not sure who he’s expecting his prayers to reach, if he’s expecting them to reach anyone at all, but when he opens his eyes and unfolds his legs, something’s loosened in his chest, just a little.
***
Frank and Ray don’t return ‘til early the next morning, when the sun’s just started to peek out above the horizon. Mikey’s practically worn a hole into the ageing carpet covering the basement floor when the door creaks open and they step inside, jolting Gerard awake in the process. (He fell asleep sometime after midnight but Mikey couldn’t, couldn’t let himself.)
“He isn’t coming back,” Gerard says flatly. It isn’t a question. One of his hands is fisted in his unruly red hair, the other is kneading at his tired eyes. Mikey leans into him automatically, pressing himself up against his side. He isn’t sure which one of them he’s trying to comfort.
Ray shakes his head in silent confirmation, his curls flopping half-heartedly around his face. Frank spins around and stalks back out, back upstairs, but not before they see the red rings circling both his eyes and the stain of vomit at the corners of his mouth. None of them say anything when the door slams shut behind him. There isn’t anything to say.
(Frank will tell Mikey later, on the seventy-seventh day after the end of the world, how Bob was barely more than a heap of bones and blood patched together with skin when they found him sprawled outside the supermarket, forgotten paper bags split on the pavement next to him. He’ll tell him how Ray had to shoot Bob through the head with his own rifle to make sure he wouldn’t come back because Frank couldn’t, because Frank was too busy throwing up the contents of his empty stomach. He’ll tell him how the image of Bob’s mutilated corpse still haunts his every waking moment and Mikey will weep silent, awful tears that Frank will wipe away with the pad of his calloused fingers because none of this was supposed to happen, none of it.
But the world stopped listening to their cries of unfair a long time ago.)
♠ ♠ ♠
This will probably be either eight or nine parts, posted pretty quickly because I have to have this done by early May. Parts will vary in length, but most will probably be longer than this.Concrit is appreciated, more than ever for this story because I want it to be as perfect as it can be.