8 - upwards to infinity

[lolitics_meme]

Welcome to our eighth prompt post.

As ususal, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1) All fills for prompts of the earlier prompt posts go in the post the prompt was posted in. No re-posting or splitting up prompts and fills.
2) Self-prompt when you post unprompted fic. (This means posting what the fill is about in a first comment, like a real

Comments

2/3

[anonymous]

I don’t know much from that day, but I do know one fact which, hopefully, may keep you less terrified and me convinced that I have a worthy story to tell to you. I missed a call which would have told me I had received an unexpected promotion.

YOU HAVE ONE NEW MESSAGE.

It still makes me sick to think how many of the Cabinet must have died to let the Secretary of State for Education become Prime Minister.

Michael puts the pen down and breathes out through his nose. It’s beyond chilling to think of those first days again. There had been so much confusion as the old ranks were pulled down by the anarchists and help never seemed to come. When the BBC finally stopped and the Emergency Broadcast was eaten away by whatever smart technology had rendered the phones, the internet and the SMS systems unusable. When the world ended.

“You never told me that.”

Michael turns, forgetting that he was reading his story aloud and that Ed was still in the room.

“Told you what?” Michael asks, trying to sound disinterested as he packs the paper and pens carefully away into the plastic bag they came from.

“That you were - that -”

“I told you that Cameron and Clegg were dead. You didn’t ask how I knew.”

Ed stays silent as Michael scrunches up against the wall with him, sitting on the mattress. They keep the silence until it becomes utterly deafening, just the crackling of the fire in the corner of the room (for warmth, for light and - as Ed insists - ‘the fun of setting stuff on fire’).

“I thought you were at Downing Street.”

“You’ve seen Downing Street. What’s left of it. If I had been there, I doubt I would be alive.”

Michael fervently doesn’t catch Ed’s eye as he looks at him, staring into the fire instead. There’s no point of apologising for something neither of them did and neither of them could change. There’s no point sympathising or worrying about the past. Michael needs to write down things to address them (he used to fill Woolworth’s books with confusion and dilemmas as a child) but, as much as he needs to, it hurts to remember what they had.

“I was watching the live feed,” Ed begins. Michael sneaks a glance. Ed is staring into the fire too. “I was getting updates.”

There’s a long pause and Michael knows there’s more to the story than what Ed’s willing to share at the moment. It’s incredibly uncomfortable. Michael prefers the inane banter to the painful silence.

“You’re wrong, y’know,” Ed says, finally. “There’s France. You said there wasn’t fuck all out there, but there’s definitely France.”

“I’m also sure I said it in that precise, elegant way. We’re not sure there is a ‘France’, Ed, that’s only rumour and second-hand gossip.”

“You’re just defeatist and a massive Tory euroskeptic.”

“On the contrary. If I was euroskeptic I would have something to explain why the French haven’t invaded England to resume control of the state - for punishment, letting the country ‘take our lumps’ as it were. I’ve always trusted in the Anglo-French relationship. They would be here. The fact that they are not means they can’t still exist.”