#*squints suspiciously at the crackfic label*

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the break of dawn - Pt7

<Pt6

(TWST zombie apocalypse au for all your crack-fic needs)

Yuu winced internally as the radio tower came into view. And not for the same reason Ace and Deuce tensed, he barely even cast the zombies crowding at the window a second glance at first, too busy mulling over his options.

The zombies paused where they were scratching at the window (one day, Grim would figure out how locks work, but Yuu wasn’t about to teach him), before turning and looking at them. One waved and smiled at Yuu. Then, they all scattered.

“That’s creepy, man,” Ace said, looking down at Grim in disapproval for some reason.

Well, Yuu supposed, it was correct that Grim shared a consciousness with the other zombies, so whatever the other zombies did when they saw Yuu was an extension of Grim’s own feelings towards Yuu.

Awwww, his adorable little eldritch deity wanted to keep him safe.

“Stop smiling, you’re encouraging it,” Ace hissed.

“I’m encouraging him,” Yuu said flatly.

Ace pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not what you should have focused on there. And I was talking about encouraging his behavior, so ‘it’ is correct.”

Oh, that makes more sense. Ace was usually pretty good about pronouns, as weird as that might be. Yuu had argued that assuming the gender of the people he killed was a lesser evil than actually killing them, but Ace had sniffed and called it ‘needlessly disrespectful’.

Yuu did not understand his friend in the slightest.

Regardless, Yuu continued on to press a kiss onto Grim’s furry little head. “It benefits you, doesn’t it? Leave him alone, he’s done nothing wrong, ever.”

Ace looked like he strongly disagreed. For shame. You get threatened one time on seventeen different occasions and suddenly you start to be prejudiced against zombies. People are so fickle and quick to judge these days.

“You guys’ attachment is probably unhealthy…” Deuce piped up.

Grim narrowed his eyes at him, baring his teeth.

This, probably, didn’t disprove what Deuce had said, but it wasn’t necessary, because Deuce was quick to lift his hands in surrender. Everyone knows that if you give up an argument your point is automatically invalidated.

Grim settled in Yuu’s arms.

“Besides, those guys are pretty tame, you two haven’t even met my fan club yet,” Yuu added.

“Your fucking what?!” Ace yelled.

“My fan club,” he repeated, since his friend had suddenly gone deaf.

Ace spluttered. For a moment, he looked down at his hands helplessly. Then, slowly, he lowered his head into his hands, hissing curses under his breath as he attempted to pull out his hair from the roots. As if his poor hair hadn’t been through enough already.

Deuce, on the other hand, looked like he was feeling a little faint. He gripped Yuu’s sleeve as they walked, trying to steady himself. Or, maybe, to confirm to himself that Yuu was actually real. “The zombies… made a fan club for you?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

Yuu hummed. “I mean, it was a little weird at first, not gonna lie, but they’re actually really good about my boundaries! I barely even see them anymore!”

There was a beat of hesitation.

“Yeah, but that’s worse,” said Deuce.

Yuu disagreed. He opened his mouth to explain that his fan club used to prevent him from leaving the house outside of evacuating him during emergencies – and, sometimes, even then, they would hesitate. He much preferred them stalking him from the shadows if the other option was a complete lack of autonomy, thanks.

But he never got to explain any of this, because there was a shrill scream, and a gunshot.

The next few minutes seemed to go in slow motion.

Yuu nearly fell over with the force of it, dropping Grim as his left arm went numb. He blinked, dumbly, at his shoulder. Blood began to paint the fabric of his shirt red. For a second, he almost didn’t think it was real. That was a lot of blood, after all, and he wasn’t feeling anything more than pins and needles. Surely, that was wrong. Maybe he had finally snapped under the stress. Or Grim had given in to his instincts and bitten him and this was the beginning of the end. His ears rang as he, slowly, lifted his right hand up to touch the wound. Sticky, red liquid coated his finger as he poked at torn flesh. He flinched back, narrowing his eyes at the offensive… stuff.

Gross.

A hand grabbed his, thankfully hiding the blood from view, if only for a moment. Sluggishly, his eyes trailed up to meet Deuce’s. They were wide with panic.

The world whirled back into motion. He stumbled again, almost bowled over by the sudden urge to empty everything in his stomach. He dragged his hand out of Deuce’s so he could press it to the wound again, this time making sure to apply pressure.

“Shit, Yuu, are you oka –?!” Deuce winced at his own stupidity. “I mean, obviously not, but are you…?”

Yuu swallowed down a wave of nausea. “I’m fine.”

Deuce looked doubtful. Which was rude. Yuu was perfectly okay right now. He wasn’t going to speak for when he eventually came out of shock, but at this exact moment? He hadn’t felt this fine in months!

Well, he might just get sick, because the anxiety was actually managing to puncture holes in the blanket the shock had provided him so far, which kinda sucked, but whatever. He had other things that he needed to deal with.

“Just… make sure that no one kills each other, please.”

Deuce’s eyes, somehow, widened even more. He spun around sharply.

Cater was standing in the window, opened just a crack to allow him to point his gun out into the street, attempting to shoot Grim. He probably would have been successful by now if Ace wasn’t trying his damndest to get his knife through the aforementioned crack. Which, usually, makes accuracy a little difficult.

“YOU’LL THANK ME LATER!”

“If I have any say, you won’t have a ‘later’,” Ace hissed.

Deuce’s eyes narrowed just slightly, thoughtfully, as if he was considering whether it was really worth it to help Cater. Worryingly, it seemed like the needle was pointing more heavily towards ‘no’, and there might not be much time before the ‘yes’ side was no longer an option.

Yuu decided to try and help it along: “Deuce, Deuce, Deuce, good people don’t let others die.”

Deuce’s lips pressed together thinly as he considered this.

“YOU IDIOT THAT THING IS A ZOMBIE! MOVE OUT OF THE WAY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO –!”

“WE KNOW,” the three humans yelled back.

Cater faltered in sheer shock and horror. “What do you mean you know –?!”

Ace finally succeeded in jabbing his knife into Cater’s wrist.

The gun clattered to the ground, and it was then that Deuce apparently decided that, yeah, he should probably intervene. Whether this was purely due to his morals winning over or because he felt better now that Cater was also bleeding out was unclear. Frankly, Yuu was just grateful Deuce had pulled Ace away at all.

Yuu blinked as hands that weren’t his own joined him in attempting to stem the blood spilling from his shoulder. He, slowly, turned his head to find a zombie. Trying to hold him together.

Vaguely, he realized that he recognized them.

His fan club had arrived.

Ugh.

Well, whatever, at least he could use this.

Careful to enunciate every syllable, he said, “Grim, don’t kill him.”

The zombie grimaced. Briefly, their eyes flicked to the side. Grim paused where he had been squaring up under the window, preparing to jump inside after Cater. Grim’s tail swished back and forth in annoyance – Yuu had seen this a lot more, recently, thanks to Ace and Deuce.

And then, reluctantly, Grim lowered his head.

He relaxed slightly. Crises averted…

As the adrenaline began to fade, pain started to trickle in in its place, and Yuu had to fight not to tense up again, because surely that wouldn’t help the newfound aching in his shoulder. His vision started to dim, his grip on his wound slipping.

Yuu’s last thought before passing out was that he totally should have just let himself fall off that building earlier.

~

Yuu woke to far more nausea than he would usually prefer to deal with. Again. Which was unfair. He does not deserve to suffer like this.

Ah, he hadn’t even explained what had woken him up. Right. You see, he wasn’t sure what that was –.

Oh.

He cringed as he was subjected to the feeling of nails on a chalkboard, but it was amplified by about a million because the sensation was inside his goddamn shoulder. He flinched, which only made the feeling worse as the metal rubbed against his shoulder blade more.

“Deuce,” Ace hissed.

The arms around Yuu’s waist tightened. “Sorry, didn’t know he’d wake up. He was fine with the antiseptic.”

Well, that didn’t sound like Yuu. Yuu hated antiseptic. He would rather get an infection than go through that specific kind of hell. Deuce was a bitchass liar.

The chalkboard feeling was back! Why?!

He realized that Ace was trying to drag his bone out and frowned. He needed those. Bones are, usually, pretty important.

And stealing his bones was even more offensive when Yuu remembered that Ace hates the taste of bone marrow. Either Ace had decided to steal his bones for the fun of it or he was making a mistake.

Which one of those sounded more likely?

Well, it was actually pretty close, but if Yuu had to guess…

“You fucked up – I mean. Um. Messed! Messed up,” Yuu informed him.

He wanted to turn and press his face into Deuce’s shoulder and hide from Ace’s evil fucking – tools, whatever they may be… Yuu was not intent on opening his eyes any time soon, even the light peeking through his eyelids was enough to give him a headache – but Deuce was actively restraining him, so fuck that. Mean people preventing Yuu from moving away from Ace don’t deserve anything resembling affection, ever.

“Yuu!”

Oh, right, he had been in the middle of a conversation.

“Mmm?” he said, which wasn’t much of a response, but it seemed to be enough.

“You said,” Ace began, sounding like he was trying very hard to keep his voice level. “That I fucked up.”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Yuu frowned. “I don’t swear.”

Ace made a strangled sound. Or, rather, a ‘I want to strangle you’ sound. “How am I currently messing up?!”

“Oh…” Yuu thought about it. “You’re, like… holding my bone. Stop that.”

Ace did. Which redeemed him, if only slightly. He sighed, deeply. “I thought you said you knew first aid?”

Yuu absolutely did not know first aid, and had never claimed otherwise. Did Ace know him at all?

“Well,” someone else began to speak. Yuu remembered he was not the only person to exist. Which felt fake and wrong, but okay. He tried to narrow his eyes so he could discern who the mysterious other person was, but his eyes were closed, so this did very little to help him. He was forced to pay attention to their voice, instead. “It’s a little different when you have to guide someone else through it because you’ve been stabbed in the wrist.”

Ohhhh. Radio GuyTM (Yuu was blanking on his name and, frankly, didn’t care enough to try and remember it right now). He sounded more than a little bitter. Ugh. Radio GuyTM. Fuck him, he deserves to feel bitter right now. Yuu may not be sure why he hated this guy right now, but it was very important to him that he continued to do so.

Why does Radio GuyTM get to be here and Yuu’s baby is nowhere to be seen (or, heard, rather)?!

“Where’s Grim?” Yuu whined.

“Outside,” Radio GuyTM said shortly. “No zombies allowed in here.”

“Kill yourself,” said Yuu, just as short.

“Not feeling it today, maybe tomorrow,” said Radio GuyTM.

Yuu nodded his understanding slowly. That made sense. He will ask again tomorrow. Establishing boundaries with new people is important, after all!

Radio GuyTM (yes, he would keep doing the trademark, those are – probably – difficult to get!) gave a little huff of laughter, which petered out into a sigh. “Okay, if you were grabbing his bone, you’re probably too high, try a little lower.”

This time, Ace was successful in getting the bullet out of Yuu’s shoulder. Yuu kind of wanted it back. He felt lonely without it.

What did he just say?

Okay, Yuu officially had weirded out himself. Blood loss is a bitch.

“Stitching doesn’t have to be super complex, if things go well he’ll do all the healing himself, we just need to pull his skin back together so his body doesn’t have to do as much work. Also to – like – keep the blood in.”

Ew. There has to be a less gross-sounding way to describe that.

“We’ll cut the thread out once he’s healed enough.”

In hindsight, they probably should have picked up sewing instead of crocheting, because Ace struggled…

Wait.

Noooooo, Yuu wouldn’t be able to knit for ages! Grim’s booties! His poor little toe-pads!

He was so upset about not being able to provide for his little darling who deserved the world (but was settling for Japan, for now) that he almost didn’t notice how much it did not feel good to get stitched up. It was still a lingering thought in the back of his head, because ow and ew and ugh, but there were far more pressing matters. Like being depressed.

He was depressed right up until he realized that Ace was tying off the last bandage.

Oooooh, sweet, Yuu can finally sleep in peace now.

Deuce finally let go, but Yuu did not pay this any mind. Deuce made a relatively comfortable pillow, actually. And he had to get revenge on him for… something. Probably. Deuce was always doing shit.

Just as Ace was always saying shit:

“If you die in your sleep I’m going to let Grim bite you.”

In the name of scientific discovery, surely.

Except, no, Ace didn’t even try and play that angle for plausible deniability: “Death can’t have you yet. You’re mine, okay? I have dibs.”

Yuu squinted his eyes open. The world was painfully bright, but he forced himself to keep them open anyway, for he had something important he must impart upon it. He looked around, taking in nervous and weary faces, until his eyes found Ace’s.

“You’re so cringe,” he told him.

Ace didn’t even bother getting playfully offended. He gave a halfhearted laugh and almost fell forward, burying his face in Yuu’s neck.

“Never do that shit again,” Deuce mumbled.

Yuu huffed. “I didn’t ask to get shot.”

Ace started to sit up again.

Yuu was quick to grab him by the shirt with his good arm. His grip was definitely weak (he assumed it would be for a while?), but Ace didn’t break it. Haha. Local scrawny loser gets put in affection jail.

As if hearing his internal monologue, Ace sent him a glare.

“Nap time,” Yuu said. “You can always kill him later.”

Radio GuyTM – Cater, his name was Cater! – looked like he did not entirely appreciate Yuu’s priorities.

Yuu closed his eyes again. He hated dissenters, no need to pay attention to them.

Cater did not get the memo. “Uh, can we not kill me, ever?”

“Nap time,” Yuu said again.

“Can we at least move a little so I’m more comfortable?” Deuce complained.

Yuu did not bother repeating himself. The fact that he decidedly did not move was answer enough.

Deuce gave a long-suffering sigh and gave up.

Good.

Nap time.

~~~~~

Pt8>