#gifts for ace focus on living it up despite the apocalypse

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 26

<Pt25

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

They agreed that ‘Christmas’ would be in two weeks. It wasn’t as if they were sure what day Christmas actually was, so they might as well give themselves time to travel and think about what they wanted to get each other.

Not to mention the whole ‘fighting for their life’ thing, which made concentrating on gift-giving difficult. But who cares about that?

Yuu scratched his head as he squinted down at the party bags. Was it worth it to pick those up? It would make it obvious where the presents were. And Yuu did not trust Ace to not look through his presents the night before like a child.

Besides, he didn’t know what he would put in those bags, yet, anyway.

They talked. A lot. But Yuu didn’t actually know that much about Ace’s past. He, of course, would be a hypocrite if he complained about this, considering he’d hidden even his last name from his friends for ages… but he wouldn’t ignore that it made his life difficult.

As for Deuce, when he mentioned his time before the apocalypse, he usually talked about his mom (which Yuu didn’t want to encroach on), or, occasionally, his time as a delinquent (it should be obvious why Yuu wasn’t considering this present-worthy).

Yuu could just make some cookies or something, that would probably be enough for them… but he didn’t want to do that. It felt cheap.

Cheaper than stealing, though? Technically, wasn’t the effort worth more?

Yuu groaned, pressing his face into his hands.

Ugh, when did he become so lame?

~

“Yuu,” said Deuce.

Yuu blinked at him.

Deuce grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

Yuu gave a little gasp of surprise, for the store he’d just been in had spontaneously burst into flames. What an unfortunate act of God!

“I didn’t put my cigarette out all the way. Whoops.”

“And I’m sure it just so happened to land on the bottle of vegetable oil you always carry with you.”

“Life is crazy like that.”

“Mhmm. I’m sure,” Deuce said, smiling wryly. He held a hand out, and Yuu obliged, taking out two cigarettes.

They all had their own lighters. Even Ace, who didn’t smoke. After the incident with Jade and Floyd… well, yeah, they weren’t taking any chances.

That being said, Deuce still flashed a grin as Yuu pulled out his lighter.

Yuu rolled his eyes. “Old habits die hard, hm?”

Regardless, Yuu was perfectly happy to lean in close to Deuce and light both of their cigarettes at once. To save fuel, of course.

Then, he drew back, squinting at the fire he’d accidentally-on-purpose caused. “Did I kill Ace?”

“Nah, he’s trying to figure out where to go next.”

“Does it matter?”

“Seems to matter to him,” Deuce said, shrugging.

And Yuu supposed he didn’t care, so, when Ace came back and pointed in a specific direction, Yuu was happy to agree.

~

The real problem with gift shopping in the apocalypse was… they were in the apocalypse.

Shocking, but true.

Firstly, there were the automatic limitations that came along with the apocalyptic wasteland. Electronics don’t work. Any food you find is almost guaranteed to be stale. Any and every store you visit has already been visited by someone else at least once, meaning every aisle has been picked clean. The selection was limited, to say the least.

Secondly, they would have to carry whatever they found each other. They only really kept a single backpack each and, while they could just start carrying more bags, that would slow them down. Which meant that Yuu was tempted to get them practical things, things that would come in handy in a fight or hygiene products or some kind of food. But that wasn't fun, now, was it?

Thirdly, everything around them was free (to steal). If Yuu really wanted to, he could go into a random toy aisle and pick out everything he liked. Ace and Deuce could do the same. Which begged the question – what could Yuu get them that they couldn’t get for themselves? If they already had access to anything they wanted, then was everything they didn’t pick up automatically something they didn’t want?

Which left what exactly?

Small, sentimental items?

They were teen boys! Yuu would rather kill himself! Maybe Deuce could manage it, he was certainly as soft as a person could be given their circumstances, but Yuu? Ace? They were screwed!

Yuu groaned, running his fingers through his hair.

And then he pulled out his lighter. He needed to let off some steam. Or create steam. Whatever.

~

“Yuu, stop setting the stores on fire,” Ace said, absently lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the light.

“Where did you even get your hands on an accelerant?” Deuce muttered, digging through his backpack and seeming frustrated when he found the cooking oil was right where he left it.

“It was a craft store. The place was practically made of paper. I didn’t need to do much.”

Deuce looked exhausted. “What was the cause of the fire this time? A bug?”

“No. It pissed me off.”

“The store itself? How?!” said Ace, suddenly far more interested.

Yuu shrugged. “The more fires I set, the longer it’ll take for the zombies to feel safe around me.”

“I hope you have beef with more stores. God bless.”

Ace attempted to make a cross over his heart, but seemed to forget halfway through what they looked like and ended up just pressing his hands together in a fake prayer.

“That’s what I thought.”

~

Christmas was upon them, and Yuu had never been so nervous in his life.

Considering it was the apocalypse, this was quite a feat.

Regardless. The three of them sat in a kind of lopsided triangle, their backpacks at their sides.

Deuce gave Ace his present first. It was… a top hat?

Ace blinked at it as it was set in his hands, only to grin as he reached in and pulled out what appeared to be a book on magic tricks.

He then tossed the hat away with a roll of his eyes.

(He had to go back and collect the hat again when, after thumbing through the pages, he realized that the hat actually had a false bottom and could also be used for magic tricks.)

Absently, Yuu wondered if it really counted as magic tricks if Yuu and Deuce knew what the tricks would be ahead of time.

He also wondered how Deuce knew Ace liked this kind of thing. Did they perhaps… have a life outside of him? Conversations that did not include Yuu’s name?

No, impossible. He is, clearly, the center of the universe.

Wait. He forgot about Grim. Grim is… even more in the center? Like – where’s the center of the body? In Yuu’s stomach, maybe? No, that just sounded like he had eaten him… he could workshop that later.

For now, though, Ace was looking at him expectantly, and Yuu hoped to deliver.

“S-so,” Yuu said. Stuttered, really. He was going to kill himself. God damn it. “You know how you’re always fidgeting?”

“I don’t fidget that much,” Ace said.

Yuu glanced down at Ace’s hands. He was currently twirling the magic wand Deuce had given him around his fingers.

Ace also looked down. A flush spread across his face and he was quick to stop. Unfortunately for him, the magic wand was, in fact, a magic wand. Plastic flowers popped out of it, drawing everyone’s eyes right back to the fidgeting.

“... okay, so maybe I fidget a little.”

Yuu strongly disagreed with those last two words. But he was going to let that go. In the spirit of Christmas, or whatever.

He, somewhat awkwardly, pulled a bag of miscellaneous objects out of his backpack. Decks of cards, rings and bracelets, things that were literally called ‘fidget toys’ (Yuu didn’t know what that meant, but he had grabbed them)... his guess was that Ace would prefer the cards, but variety wasn’t a bad thing. He might as well give Ace the option to choose something else, even if he probably wouldn’t.

Because, honestly, Yuu didn’t mind him fidgeting. It was kind of cute, actually... so long as Ace wasn’t fidgeting with a knife, which Yuu had caught him doing more times than he was perfectly comfortable with. Ace hadn’t injured himself that many times, and certainly had never hurt himself too badly, but it was only a matter of time.

“Dude…” said Ace. “How long did it take you to find all this stuff?”

“A normal amount of time,” Yuu blatantly lied to his face. As if he hadn’t just endured the most frustrating two weeks of his life.

Ace decidedly didn’t thank either of his friends, but considering he was already fidgeting with a deck of cards – Yuu did not smile a little knowing he had guessed what Ace would prefer – the appreciation wasn’t exactly hard to notice.

So, it was time for Deuce's presents.

Ace didn’t reach into his backpack for this gift. Instead, he slid a hand behind himself.

And pulled a damn katana out from under his jacket.

Yuu and Deuce’s eyes damn near popped out of their skulls.

“What the fuck,” said Deuce, as he was handed the huge-ass sword. “I should have gotten you way more.”

Ace had never looked this smug before. Which was saying something. “I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me – I’ve won Christmas.”

“It’s not a competitive thing.”

“Those sound like the words of a loser.”

Yuu, however, was coming to an unfortunate realization.

“You stole this from a museum, didn’t you?” He winced internally. “Now that I think about it, that last place did kind of look like a gift shop…”

He had… probably set fire to a ton of national treasures.

Whoops?

Deuce, thankfully, was always there to distract him – “So that’s why you were walking like you had a stick up your ass.”

Ace rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s not exactly small and easy to hide.”

Yuu tipped his head to the side. “And it’s probably why you insisted on going in a specific direction, too…”

“Yeah? What other reason would there be?”

“Honestly? I thought you were just heading North to look for mistletoe,” Yuu admitted.

Ace smirked, leaning closer. “Wishful thinking?”

“Sure,” said Yuu, flicking him on the forehead.

Ace huffed, backing up a little to rub his forehead, only for Deuce to push him out of the way. He leaned into Yuu’s space, his hands out for his present. He looked like a kid on Christmas Day. Which, Yuu supposed, he technically was. Sometimes it was strange to think about. They were all 16 (Ace claimed he was 17, but Yuu and Deuce had vetoed that)...

“You got over the sword so easily!” gaped Ace.

Okay, maybe it was easy to remember sometimes.

Yuu stuck his tongue out at Ace. “It’s ‘cause I’m more likable than you.”

Despite his bravado, Yuu had to take a deep breath before he pulled a camera out of his backpack.

He’d done way too much research to figure out which cameras printed photos immediately and how to develop them. But Deuce didn’t need to know that!

“Here. We should take pictures while we’re here so, when we get out, we can look back on all of this and think ‘dang, that sucked, glad we’re not in the apocalypse anymore’,” Yuu said.

Deuce snorted. “‘Thank god we have running water now’.”

“‘Our hair looked like shit back then’,” Ace said.

Deuce grinned. “This will be great for our therapists.”

“Bold of you to assume Yuu is going to go to therapy,” Ace said.

Yuu spluttered. “What the – why would you call me out? On Christmas?”

Deuce slung his arm around Yuu’s shoulders, dragging him into his side. “Because it’s funny. Ace, quick, snap a picture.”

Yuu tried to school his face into something more normal, but the flash of light was too quick for him.

“I’m not teaching you how to develop film, now,” Yuu sulked.

“Pretty sure you just need a dark room, right?” Deuce said.

Ace glanced up at the dead light bulbs that hung over their heads. “Oh no. Where will we get one of those?”

Fuck! His plans have been foiled!

Yuu huffed. “I’ve never regretted a decision more. Is it possible to take back a gift? Because I’m gonna –.”

“Thanks, Yuu,” Deuce said, smiling softly.

Yuu felt a blush rise to his cheeks. He was not winning today.

“Why’d you thank him and not me?!” Ace said.

Thank you for bringing back the status quo, Ace, Yuu couldn’t handle this amount of sentimentality.

And, fortunately (or unfortunately) for him, his friends seemed to know this.

Deuce jumped to go first, a smug little smirk on his face that made Yuu suspect that he would hate whatever happened next.

Yuu raised an eyebrow at the Rapunzel shirt Deuce offered to him.

“Come on, you’ve got to admit there are some similarities!”

Deuce looked less amused by those similarities when Yuu pulled a frying pan from his backpack and brandished it like a weapon.

Yuu carefully set it back in his lap as a warning that he would totally follow through on, should Deuce’s actual present to him be stupid.

He blinked at the can of axe body spray Deuce offered him.

Like, sure, he appreciated it. Cleanliness was difficult in the apocalypse and all, but uh…

Deuce grinned and pulled out his lighter. He flicked it on, and then, after a quick glance around, aimed the body spray at the flame.

Who knew it was so easy to make a flamethrower out of household items?

Yuu was in love holy shit.

He made grabby hands for the weapon of mass destruction.

“Man, how am I supposed to compete with that?” Ace complained.

Even Yuu wasn’t sure. He cradled the DIY flamethrower to his chest like it was something precious. Because it was.

Ace responded by thrusting his gift into Yuu’s face. Casually. The most casual nearly-throwing-it-at-Yuu-as-if-it-burned-him behavior the world has ever seen.

Yuu rolled his eyes at the ‘Kiss The Cook’ apron he’d been ‘handed’. He did sometimes complain about how often he had to look for new clothes… usually because he had gotten injured again, but regardless, something to guard his clothes while he cooked would also help. So, he pulled it over his head without complaint.

Until he looked down.

Deuce looked a little confused as to why Yuu had gone completely silent, so he followed his gaze, too.

There was a long, long silence.

Deuce, slowly, brought his hand to his mouth, trying to stifle a snort.

He hadn’t needed to, because the sound had finally managed to return Yuu to reality.

“Why – why is the kiss mark so low?! What idiot put it there?!”

Ace’s shoulders shook with barely concealed laughter. “I found it that way. Thought you’d think it was funny.”

“Aren't you supposed to put the kiss mark at the top?” Yuu asked. It wasn’t a rhetorical question, but it wasn’t aimed at Ace or Deuce – it was aimed at the stupidass clothes designer who either had no idea what this looked like or knew exactly what they were doing.

Not that he didn’t love the apron, for all of its stupidity, but holy shit.

Deuce leaned back on his hands, giving an exaggerated glance around. “There’s gotta be lipstick around here somewhere, we can fix that.”

This finally broke Ace and Yuu.

“Not while I’m – wearing it, you idiot!” Yuu said, nearly falling over if it wasn’t for Ace.

Ace wasn’t in much better condition, incredulous little peals of laughter spilling from his lips, but he was more practical as he said, “That wouldn’t get rid of the one at the bottom!”

Once everyone had calmed down (which took a normal amount of time, Yuu promised), Ace nudged Yuu in the side. “I also picked up some fireworks that may or may not work and some ammo for your gun, but that’s not as fun so who cares about that?”

Yuu grinned. “Sweeeeeeet.”

“Not that you use your gun enough for that to be an issue,” Deuce added, smiling as he leaned against Yuu, batting his eyelashes, as if swooning over him. “Our favorite pacifistic loser.”

It was hard to tell who was less impressed – Yuu or Ace.

“Don’t try to discredit my gift!”

“Don’t have to try. I totally won,” said Deuce, smirking. “Right, Yuu?”

Yuu groaned, turning to flop against Deuce to try to make him stop bickering with Ace. Deuce could, sometimes, see reason.

Deuce, however, smirked victoriously. “He chose me to sleep on! Therefore I win!”

"He always sleeps on you -!"

"Exactly."

So much for that hope.

~

Yuu sighed contentedly as the three of them lay on the floor. Deuce was pressed against his back, an arm thrown over the two of them – not quite protectively, Yuu was pretty sure, more as if he thought they were a pillow. As for Ace, he was clingy at night, tangling their legs together, pressing so close to Yuu’s chest that he sometimes thought that Ace was trying to absorb him.

Warm breaths puffed over the back of his shoulder. A heartbeat thrummed against his abdomen, steady and strong even through their shirts.

He would love to fall asleep like this, it was so tempting. But alas. He had to keep watch for another few hours.

He busied himself by absently toying with Ace’s hair, making tons of little braids, only to undo them, and then start all over again.

None of this was new. Of course it wasn’t. They had been sleeping like this for months. The sleeping in shifts part was relatively recent, sure, Grim used to do that for them but now… the point is – it was normal.

And yet, Yuu’s brain refused to be distracted from all of these little details.

It wasn’t that Yuu wasn’t… aware that the way he liked Ace and Deuce wasn’t the way you’re supposed to like your friends.

Friends didn’t get jealous at the idea of their friends dating someone. Friends weren’t supposed to choose to sleep in the same room – the same bed – when they had an entire hotel available to them.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to think about the barely-there sunspots dotting Ace’s cheeks as much as he did, and definitely shouldn’t want to press kisses to every one of them. He shouldn’t think about the scars on Deuce’s hands as often as he did, nor should he want to hold them for hours, carefully mapping out each little indent or bump in his skin.

His mind shouldn’t stray back to that day he and Ace had opened up to each other, when Ace had called him pretty with their faces so close together. He shouldn’t linger on that moment with Deuce, when he’d taught him a different way to light a cigarette, a warm glow washing over his cheeks that couldn’t really be blamed on the small flame.

Yuu was perfectly aware of these thoughts, and that they weren’t exactly platonic. He was also aware there was a high chance that Grim would gather enough courage to show up at some point. And, if Grim found out Yuu was into them, Grim would put a stop to it immediately.

Frankly, the fact that Grim hadn’t caught on yet was a godsend.

He sighed.

As long as he was able to settle for this… in-between… everything should work out.

Of course, that didn’t make it easy.

It was made even harder by Ace and Deuce themselves.

“Holy shit! Mistletoe!” Ace said a few days later, giving an incredulous little laugh, his eyes locked somewhere above their heads.

Yuu followed his gaze.

There was some kind of plant in the tree they were standing under. The plant… was green. Yuu had no other thoughts about it. That was it. It was green. Really, he wasn’t sure what mistletoe looked like. Ace could be lying to him, and he wouldn’t know.

Either way, Ace pointing it out meant something.

Yuu wasn’t stupid.

But he knew someone who was.

He looked at Deuce, grinning. “It’s got more than two leaves and three berries, though, does Deuce even think it’s mistletoe?”

“I mean… I’ve never seen it in person before… it might be,” Deuce said, his eyes flicking away.

Damn it!

Yuu sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m abstaining.”

“On what grounds?” Ace snorted.

“On the grounds that Grim would kill you if he saw us kiss, even if it was just a joke.”

Deuce deflated. “Those are some pretty strong grounds.”

“Grim’s not here,” Ace argued. “He doesn’t need to know.”

God, this really does sound like I’m a cheating spouse.

Deuce sighed. “Ace… if he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to.”

“He never said he ‘doesn’t want to’,” Ace said, as if it was something significant.

(And, to be fair, it was. That didn’t mean Yuu was happy about it.)

“I know,” Deuce said, with a helpless little shrug. “But if it makes him uncomfortable…”

Ace squinted at Yuu for a long moment.

“If you say it’s ‘for our sake’, then shouldn’t we get to help make that decision?” Ace asked, in a tone that suggested that he thought he was being perfectly reasonable. “You don’t want Grim to kill us, or whatever, but it’s our lives.”

“What, are you planning to die for some –.” Yuu bit down on his tongue. “Some… kissing? I’m so sorry, but that’s clinically insane, and people with mental illnesses aren’t supposed to make important decisions without a third party present.”

“I’m sick and tired of every part of my life being decided by fucking zombies,” Ace said. “They’ve already ruined enough.”

“I refuse to be the reason you die.”

Ace laughed, but it wasn’t exactly a nice sound. He marched forward and balled his fist in Yuu’s shirt. “That might work on Deuce, but don’t pull that shit with me. Deuce and I are dead men walking no matter what. No one on this island is going to get to die of old age. What I do while I wait for death is my own damn decision.”

“Just because you’re going to die doesn’t mean you should speed up the process. Are you stupid?”

“I’m not trying to speed up the process. I’m making the most of the situation while I still can. There’s a difference.”

Yuu groaned. Why couldn’t he just get it?

He took Ace’s chin in his hand, tipping his face to the side just slightly so he could press a kiss to his lips.

It was a quick, chaste thing. Mostly because Ace clearly hadn’t been expecting it. He stood there, stiff as a board, as Yuu kissed him. Both of their lips were chapped after months of dehydration.

Not to say it was a particularly awful kiss, to Yuu’s eternal chagrin. His heart still hammered in his chest. Ace’s skin was still warm, flushed a pretty shade of red beneath his fingers.

Yuu pulled back. It was easy to brush Ace’s hand off of his shirt, as stunned as his ‘friend’ was.

“There. I did the mistletoe thing,” Yuu said, swiping a hand across his mouth, more for the sake of plausible deniability than any real want to get rid of the feeling. He turned to look at Deuce, raising an eyebrow. “Are you going to insist I do it, too?”

Deuce, who had been awkwardly hovering around them the entire time, unsure what to do, shook his head rapidly, holding his hands up in surrender.

“I’d really rather not die, thanks.”

At least someone had sense.

Yuu ran a hand through his hair, spinning around, trying to get his bearings again.

He swore he met eyes with someone in a window but, when he did a double-take, they were gone. His fingernails dug into the skin of his palms. Was that real? Or just his brain messing with him? He could check, but he really didn’t want to know. Damn it. He’d fucked up – kissing Ace, and so publicly at that, out in the open where anyone could catch them…

Yuu felt a hand grab his arm, and turned around to find Ace’s lips against his again.

~~~~~

Pt27>