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bigtealeaf · 2 years ago

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Rhett and Link The End

A short/strange fic about the end of the world. Part 1/1.

Here’s the tiktok it’s based on https://www.tiktok.com/@mythical/video/7098474572781063466?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7102508558965622277

Rhett McLaughlin is a strange man, currently standing on a busy LA street corner staring directly into the sun. People passing by didn’t bother stopping to ask if he was okay, which he was...in his own special way.

He had a newspaper rolled up under his arm, as usual, and a melted candy bar in his pocket, which was unusual. Never did a candy bar remain long enough on his person to melt, even in the intense LA heat but he had been saving it for a friend...a friend who was late for a very important meeting.

“Hey buddy,” a stranger called over to Rhett more than once.

Rhett looked and was surprised to see a smiling face. A tall, skinny man, capped with a beanie bounced over to him.

“What’s with the sign?” The man asked.

There were a lot of signs around and what kind of sign did he mean? Rhett thought, looking blankly at the man before realizing he was in fact holding a piece of cardboard scribbled with text.

“Oh,” Rhett’s eyes crossed as he tried to focus on the person in front of him, pupils still stinging from the suns rays. “It’s the date and time of worlds end.”

“The world is not going to end, my guy,” the man laughed his reply.

“How do you know it won’t?” Rhett shrugged, usually at this point people laughed in his face and walked away.

“You’ve got proof or something?” The tall man, who Rhett now realized smelled strongly of cooking grease asked with an interested tone.

Rhett sucked in a breath, preparing for the long and detailed explanation he was about to give.

“Never mind, what’s your name?” The stranger seemed suddenly rushed after glancing at his phone.

“Rhett, Rhett is the name.”

“Rhett...?”

He was looking for a last name.

“I would tell you my full name but then I risk you stealing my body in the next life.” Something he would have explained if the man had let him speak in the first place. “And I’ve already got the blueprints signed and confirmed by the GREAT LEPIDOPTERA HERSELF.”

“Okay...Lepi, what now?

“The great velvet winged creature in the sun that decides which body you’re put into after this fleshy human life.” Rhett found that not many people believed this, and not many people believed him when he showed them the evidence either. The proof was all around, why did so few people believe?

“Umm, right okay. Here,” the tall stranger held out a small slip of paper. “This is the time and address of my...’emotional support group’. We accept anyone looking for friends, community or uh help.”

Rhett had heard this before, do-gooders offering him a seat at their weekly meeting.

“Oh. Thank you,” Rhett took the paper and shoved it into his mouth, pushing it back to his molars with two fingers. He chewed, wide-eyed, and baring his teeth.

The mans faced turned disturbed, he stared for a moment before Rhett growled and the guy hurried back the direction he came.

It was because of the strange way he dressed and the odd things he said, the unusual signs he often held, and the crazy information he always had on the tip of his tongue...that was the reason people stared, people pointed, people gawked, people invited him to ‘emotional support’ meetings.

Rhett sighed and looked around, still waiting for his friend who was now about eight minutes late - unusual. The world was supposed to end in three days and they have about three hours-fifty-two-minutes before it starts.

Minutes pass.

Finally, a familiar mop of shiny black hair rounded the corner, Link.

Rhett flung the cardboard sign away and scurried over to meet him, arms pumping and feet kicking up quickly behind him as he ran, though he didn’t move very fast. People always said he ran funny, as if he had glue on his shoes and a fiery match between the shoulder blades.

“Hey! Hey, hey Link!”

“Hiyah Rhett!”

“Ready for the end of the world?” Rhett winked at him, hands on his hips.

“That is today?” Link raised both brows.

“You forgot?”

Link made an apologetic face and held up his palms with a shrug.

“Why did you think we were meeting today?”

“Cause we’re friends,” Link offered a questioning smile.

Rhett sagged and started stalking down the street.

“I’m guessing you also forgot we were supposed to get Nashville chicken as our last meal.” Link followed behind and didn’t answer.

Yeah, he had forgot.

Rhett rolled his eyes and took Link by the hand to hurry him along.

“Hold this,” Rhett threw a duffle bag. “We’ve got about three hours before ‘the end’ begins.”

Link held open the bag, catching things that Rhett was tossing over his shoulder sporadically. They were in Rhett’s detached garage - more like office/ storage locker/ borderline insanity bunker hideout.

“Then, it will take about three days to unfold, give or take.”

“Three days? I thought,” - a roll of duct tape smacked Link directly in the face and landed in the bag - “Argh...I thought the end of the world would happen like, instantly.”

Rhett turned and gaped at him, “Have you not been keeping up on the videos I post to the website? - What to do when you don’t know what to do and it’s the end of the world.”

“Well, I watched the first one.”

“The first one?! I only covered the basics about the convenience of eating newspaper.” Rhett threw up his hands and turned to the other side of the garage, to what looked like the dump pile for New York Times misprints.

“Yeah, I didn’t really understand it,” Link shook his head.

“You would understand if you also read the follow up discussion...” Rhett began rolling up papers and shoving them into the duffle bag. “The paper will help your human body adapt to the cocoon of afterlife when the great moth lady emerges from the sun and takes all our lives as sacrifice - raw wood is the recommended remedy but that’s hard to digest.”

Link didn’t respond, he didn’t know how. He knew his friend was a little crazy, but he thought he was crazy like, ‘one time we went on a UFO hunt which turned into a night of eating Doritos on the roof and listing all the Brooks and Dunn songs starting with the most likely to be played at a cowboy funeral’.

“Where did you hear that the world was going to end instantly anyway?”

“Everyone thinks that.” Link shrugged.

“Really?” He squinted, sensing a lie.

“Okay I read it somewhere,” Link admitted with a shake of his head.

“Where?” Rhett crossed his arms.

Link hesitated, “Chase Th-,”

“Chase The End Now?! That loon doesn’t know anything!” Rhett threw up his hands again. “Won’t even show his face, hides behind his blog...if you can even call it that.”

“I think his theories are fun and I enjoy the way he presents them.” Link defended.

“That’s just it, they’re only theories. What I’ve got...what we’ve got,” Rhett gripped Links shoulders, shaking him with every word. “What we’ve got here is real and now we got less than three hours to be ready for it.”

Rhett marched out the open door and Link followed.

Where are we going? And don’t you need ‘supplies’ too?” Link gestured to the full duffel bag on his own shoulder.

Rhett smirked under his beard, “I’ve been set up for weeks, and I’m taking you to a special place with a good view.”

They arrived at a vast expanse of conifers on an uphill slope. Rhett led Link down a narrow, one person path to a great towering pine. He began scaling up the wood planks nailed into the trunk, high above was a well constructed fort with three walls and a roof.

“What’s up there?” Link asked, squinting up at the structure.

“Eternity.”

“Very poetic.” Link murmured and followed Rhett up.

Rhett was intently looking through binoculars at the sky when Link arrived at the top panting, duffle bag dragging him down.

Rolled newspapers and stacks of canned beans sat in the corners of the fort, plus two comfy chairs in the middle. The three walls were plastered, print outs, paper clippings, handwritten notes, a couple of dead moths pinned up, and other various items all joined together by red twine...a road map to the end of the world.

“This is where we’ll watch it happen.” Rhett stated.

Link looked out the west opening where the fourth wall should be, the sun was nearing the horizon casting an orange hue on the bristling pine needles.

“You’re serious about this, you really think the world is going to end?” Link sighed defeatedly.

“Yep.”

“Shouldn’t we be in an unground bunker or something?”

“No chance of survival either way, might as well watch it happen. Candy bar?” Rhett offered the partially melted chocolate, still not looking away from the binoculars.

“Oh, my favourite.” Link accepted it, putting it in his own pocket.

“I know.”

Link sat in the chair next to Rhett, his chair it seemed.

“Well, how long we got?”

Rhett checked the stopwatch he had been carrying in his pocket, “Forty-two minutes until it starts, approximately, I cannot be totally certain on the time.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“Lepidoptera will rise from the fiery cocoon we call the sun and devour the planets of our solar system.”

Link froze, “Oh.”

“I suspect once it begins we’ll have about three days before she reaches earth and we die...I’ve been waiting decades for this, glad we’re alive to see it happen.”

A few moments of comfortable silence passed as they watch the sun fall.

“Any regrets?” Link asked and Rhett side eyed him questioningly. “You know, just ‘end of world’ conversation,” Link added.

“Yeah actually, I was really hoping to get some Nashville chicken with you.”

Link gave him a playful shove.

“Went to this new place downtown with my girl, it’s our anniversary...sorry.” Link offered as an excuse for his tardiness earlier.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Guess it’s not much use if the world really is going to end.”

“Whatever happens, I’ll find you in the next life, I promise.” Rhett put his hand on Links shoulder and smiled at him.

Link, his only friend, smiled back. Well, the only friend he knew anyway. He couldn’t possibly meet everyone on earth to discover if they were best friend material or not.

Rhett would always find his way back to him, always.

CRACK.

The sun split like an egg and a sliver of sky suddenly turned dark, though the closest city was miles away distant screams rippled over the valley.

Rhett stared wide-eyed only for a moment then leaped from his chair cheering with inaudible words.

“Link! Link!”

A great moth-like creature emerged from the orb and began sucking away the blasting fire of the sun.

“You were right...you were right,” Link muttered. “Rhett! You were right!” Link jumped up too and took Rhett by the shoulders. “Rhett! Aha!”

Suddenly, Link grabbed Rhett’s hairy face and planted a spontaneous kiss on the mans lips. A gesture of amazement, of shock and awe, he wasn’t really thinking about it and it didn’t mean anything more than, “You’re right, you’re amazing!” Link said as he pulled away.

Rhett stared blankly ahead, a great beat of the beasts wings warped the light and sent a chill down Rhett’s spine. His face was plastered with shock and defeat as the taste of Link sunk further into his mouth. His heart quickened, his tongue thickened, his breath took effort, and he collapsed to the ground.

But not because of the world ending or the scene in front of them, not because his best friend just kissed him, but because Links lips tasted strongly of oysters and Rhett is deathly allergic.

#rhett and link #short #fanfic #endoftheworld #mythical

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