#i'm so sad about this but. it's so skizz. of course he went out this way. i lovee him

[briseise]

etho, i'm gonna ask you to take this axe. put that axe in your hand. do it. i love you guys.

[shadeswift99]

i am vibrating at the speed of sound at this, i know you said youre struggling to word your 3rd life impulse thoughts but this specific tag is EXACTLY it. This is someone who is competitive and knows playing sides in a way to keep himself from being a target is the best option for survial, and it was working perfectly! but accidentally being the one to kill tango is throwing such a wrench in that and im not sure how well hes gonna be able to pull that back, but oh boy is he trying- He absolutely knows what hes been doing and its gone very well so far,, just, yes absolutely the villianpulse options are so very there its very good

You get it!! His plan was to play everyone against each other, but never against himself. If his name hadn't been the one to show up in the chat, it would have been "it's too bad that had to happen, but you did the right thing!" to Bdubs' group and "I'm so sorry, they didn't tell me what they were going to do!" to Tango, and Impulse would have one less life competing against him and absolutely no blame on him whatsoever. He might have even gotten away with a strengthened alliance with both parties, if he'd played it right. But he screwed up. He let his need to get the upper hand outstrip his caution for exactly one second, all that it took for everything to go downhill.

Each person was supposed to shoot four arrows. Impulse killed Tango with his fifth.

Oh yes, Impulse wanted Tango to die. He just really, really regrets the amount of work he's now going to have to do to make sure that nobody else knows that about him.

[redwinterroses]

hey so here's an idea for a "two best friends but one turned evil and asked the other to kill him before he went too far gone" trope (you know exactly what i'm referring to)

the first character, looking into his friends eyes, stabs him in the heart. then they both fall down and the first character is left on his knees, head down, holding onto the sword embedded into his friend's chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

he doesn't touch the sword again and instead ties a ribbon around it in memory of the one he lost

you're welcome :)

- anon fierri

Not that this has been on my brain all day or anything, but... well. Okay. It has been. And then @/3lsmp posted that stuff about a zombie AU and-- well. This happened.

Yay for my first shulker box fic! (1,728 words, with mirrored/connected first and last lines)

Zombie stories don't have happy endings so... neither does this. Be warned.

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Jimmy’s waiting when Scott gets back home.

He stands in front of the door to the house they’ve been living out of, with none of his gear or weapons on him. He’s leaning against the old oak that grows next to the sidewalk, one foot perched on a root that ripples out of the ground and cracks through the old concrete. The sun is setting behind him, but the twilight shadows don’t quite hide the bloody stain that spreads from his right shoulder.

Scott’s feet come to a stop of their own accord, and he very specifically does not move his hand to the hilt of his sword. He shifts his satchel— filled with goodies he managed to find today; he discovered an entire village that hadn’t been raided yet— on his arm, its weight heavy after an afternoon of walking. He hates the wary tone in his words when he calls out:

“Jimmy?”

Jimmy, looking up to see him, gives a shrug. “Told ya this would happen,” he says, and there’s a quirk to his smile that could break other hearts.

((hard to break what’s already shattering.))

Scott swallows. “Show me.”

Jimmy pulls the collar of his shirt to the side, and Scott winces at the bloody mess that is his mangled shoulder.

“Skizz got me,” Jimmy says. “It was stupid— I should’a been faster, but… I mean, it was Skizz, ya know? He still kinda looked like himself, and I thought… I dunno what I thought. But by the time I realized he was already gone, he’d got my shoulder in his teeth and…”

((the earth is crumbling away beneath him. this is a nightmare. time to wake up now.))

((please wake up now.))

“Hey, don’t worry.” Jimmy covers the wound back up. “It doesn’t hurt or anything.”

“It doesn’t— No, Jimmy that’s not the way to make me feel better.” Scott takes another step forward, his arms aching to reach out and his gut telling him to get away get away get away— He can feel his throat closing, swallowing emotions he refuses to feel.

“Look— ” Jimmy takes a step forward and Scott backpedals, half-unsheathing the blade at his hip. He hates himself for it instantly, but the instinct—

The instinct is what keeps him alive.

Jimmy just puts his hands up placatingly. “Hey, hey— I’m not that far gone yet.”

“You’re fine.” Scott tries to sound scornful, and nearly succeeds. “We’ll get you patched up and you’ll be good as new in a few days. Don’t be such a drama queen.”

With a laugh, Jimmy shakes his head. “Nice daydream,” he says. “That would be cool.”

They stand there, in a silence that shouldn’t have been awkward, for a long moment. Then, at the same time:

“Scott, you know— ”

“So I picked up a— ”

Pause.

“You go first,” Jimmy says.

((Jimmy always puts others first.))

Scott grits his teeth and forces his voice to be light and cheerful. Nothing is wrong. They’re fine. “I found canned soup!” he says. “Five cans— one’s a little rusty, but I’m sure it’s fine.”

“That’s… um. That’s good.”

Scott steps around Jimmy—

((not too close. don't get too close— no. damn you, coward, get as close as you want, there’s nothing wrong— ))

— and moves toward the house. “So…” he says, “I’ll just… start up the fire? Get dinner going? I think we’ve still got some— ”

“Scott.”

Jimmy’s voice stops him, and Scott winces. He drops his head, unable to look Jimmy in the eye.

“Don’t make me do this,” he says. His voice struggles, and his free hand goes to his throat, as if he can pull the plea from his chest. “You… you can’t make me do this. You can’t.”

((i can’t, i can’t, i can’t— ))

“You gotta.”

((too close!!))

Scott’s head snaps up, and one hand flails behind him, catching against the siding of the house. Jimmy is right there—

((danger! danger!))

But other than the tell-tale red gleam in his eye and the bloody stain on the shoulder of his shirt, Jimmy looks the same. Same golden hair, same dimple as he quirks half a sad smile, same gentle hands spread wide. Unarmed, though that won’t matter soon. He stands close enough that Scott could reach out and touch him— punch him, maybe, for being such an idiot… or wrap him in an embrace that will never let go.

“Skizz got me an hour ago,” Jimmy says, and his voice is as low as a secret. “I’ve got… what. Maybe twenty minutes? Another hour if we’re insanely lucky?”

“You’re fine,” Scott says again. But this time it comes out as a plea and not a statement.

“I’m not.” Jimmy shakes his head. His eyes shift to the side. “I… to be honest, I’m already feeling it.”

“Feeling— feeling what?” Why was he asking. What a stupid question.

And yet… yet he had to know.

Jimmy drops his hands to his sides, and they clench and unclench. Scott watches, mesmerized, his heartbeat fluttering in time with Jimmy’s hands curling into white-knuckled fists and uncurling into trembling claws.

“I can’t— I can’t describe it. It’s like I’m on fire. Only I’m drowning at the same time. Or something. And I— ” he takes a deep breath, and meets Scott’s gaze. A low growl comes into his voice, and the hands squeeze tight into hard twists of bone. “I look at you, and all I can see is how easy you’d be to kill right now.”

Scott’s sword is drawn before his denial can catch up.

((instinct keeps you alive))

Jimmy looks down at the shining blade, and finally his façade of cheerful nonchalance wavers. There’s a crack in his voice as he says, “There we go. That’s… that’s the way it’s gotta be.”

((i can’t, i can’t, i can’t— ))

And then, as if he can hear Scott’s internal scream: “I don’t— I don’t want to become like one of them. I don’t want… you to see me like that.”

Like one of them. Scott’s memories skip over images of white-eyed creatures, people he used to know, monsters with mindless hunger driving them to rip, to shred, to devour—

Jimmy wakes up crying some nights. He tries to be quiet, Scott knows, but in the single room they’ve barricaded against the darkness, every sound is magnified— and Scott's always been a light sleeper. He knows Jimmy dreams of them, dreams of blood and gore and of being left alone— or worse, of being the one to do the shredding.

He knows because he’s dreamed it too.

“I won’t let that happen,” he says, his voice firm. But there’s a tremble in the sword between them.

“You didn’t let it happen. It just… it just did, dude. That’s life.” Jimmy takes a deep breath, and with a far too gentle hand, takes hold of the sword blade and guides it to rest over his heart. “Anyway, you promised.”

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“Right so, if I get bit, you have to take me out before I can hurt anyone.”

“Ew. What a horribly morbid things to say.”

“I’m serious! I couldn’t deal with it if I turned into one of those things and came after you or any of the others— ”

“It’s not gonna happen, so don’t be stupid about it.”

“Come on— just say it. Promise me that if I start to turn, you’ll… ya know. Kill me.”

“Jimmy— ”

“Promise me, Scott.”

“…Fine. But only if you promise the same.”

((it won’t happen. it'll be fine. they’ll be fine.))

“Of course, dude. I promise.”

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“You promised.”

Scott’s face is wet with hot tears that he can’t feel himself crying, and he wants to drop the sword— wants to fling it away from both of them and let fate do its worst. Who cares if he dies too?

((jimmy cares. If you let him destroy you, it’ll destroy him first.))

“Damn you,” Scott whispers.

Jimmy smiles.

The sword enters his body too easily.

It slides between the ribs, the only sound the soft catch in Jimmy’s throat as the blade bites into his heart.

For a frozen instant, they both stand there, outside the house they’d claimed— the home they’d defended. Jimmy looks down at the weapon in his chest, one hand reaching toward Scott—

And he falls

((he falls and falls and falls and Scott is falling too and the sword clatters to the ground and he’s clutching at Jimmy’s face and bundling the body to himself and pawing the hair away from his eyes and Jimmy’s hand is on his and— ))

There are no final words. No poignant goodbyes, no tearful proclamations or whispered last regrets.

There is only an ending.

There is only Scott, silent and dry-eyed, kneeling on the ground under the oak with Jimmy’s lifeless hand clasped to his chest.

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He doesn’t move, even as night falls around him—

((them))

— and the cicadas start their mournful chorus. Doesn’t stir until something rattles down the street and he dimly realizes that Jimmy would murder him if after all this, Scott went and got himself shredded by a zombie anyway.

Jimmy’s body is heavier than he expected, and yet somehow lighter than it ought to be. As if it’s missing everything that made it Jimmy. He drags it—

((him))

— inside the house and wonders what exactly he’s supposed to do now. Dig a grave, he supposes, but— where? In the yard? It seems so… anticlimactic.

((death is anticlimactic. life is the climax. death is… an afterthought.))

He leaves the sword where it fell. He can’t… he can’t bear to touch it now. Scott doesn’t believe in curses—

((yes you do yes you do you’re cursed this place is cursed and that sword is cursed and the ground where it lays is cursed and— ))

— and yet he can’t bring himself to fetch it. Someone else can find it.

He’ll dig the grave tomorrow.

Tonight… tonight he sits. Keeps watch. Hopes beyond hope that Jimmy will stir— knowing that if he does, it won’t be for any good reason. Knowing that if he does, he won’t be able to kill him a second time.

Tomorrow he’ll leave. Find a new place— far away. Sometime, maybe sooner, maybe later… he’ll find the end of his road too.

He hopes Jimmy will be waiting there, when he finally gets back home.