[fic] an accidental love story (with bonus zombies) Part 2
An Accidental Love Story (With Bonus Zombies)
Flight of the Conchords | Dave/Murray | R
word count: 23, 478
warnings: the end of the world. m/m relationship.
disclaimer: all fake. the world hasn’t ended.
summary: Dave has spent his entire friendship with the Conchords pretending to be someone he’s not. Everything is going according to plan until a chemical spill begins to shift the weather patterns, and talk of zombies fills the air. Now, he’s holed up in his apartment with Bret, Jemaine and Murray struggling not to let his false identity crumble with the strain of the oncoming apocalypse. It’s a story of survival, of friendship, and accidental love.
a/n: see master post.
master post | part one | part two | part three | fanmix
ii.
The rain stops the day the earth begins to shake. It’s subtle at first. In fact, for the first few days Dave barely notices it. He’s just glad the fucking rain is gone.
But then, one day, he starts awake as his bed rattles and shakes violently and he clutches the sheets so tight his knuckles turn white as he tries to clear his sleep-addled brain enough to figure out what the hell is going on in his apartment. Just as suddenly as it started, however, it subsides to a slow rumbling that, if he’s really still, he can still feel emanating from somewhere within the earth below him.
He waits a few minutes, heart pounding wildly in his chest, before slowly loosening his grip and willing his body to relax. When he gets himself out of bed he discovers that the power in his apartment is out and he wraps his shaking arms tightly around himself. He can feel the tremors in the ground, the floor shaking ever so slightly beneath his feet, and he suddenly finds himself wishing his parents were home with a pang in his chest. He spends the rest of the day curled up in their bed with their blue and yellow blankets wrapped around him like a cocoon and the blinds pulled up to let in what little sunlight is able to break through the thick clouds.
The power eventually comes back on, but it’s in flickers that short out after only a few brief seconds. He is able, thankfully, to find snatches on T.V. of panicked news anchors and public addresses trying to explain what is going on, though he can never make out a definitive answer through the static and he has to piece the information he gathers together himself. It’s about that damn chemical spill that he really should have been paying more attention to in hindsight. Something about how it has gotten completely out of control. How the chemicals have spread to the water, the air, the soil. They’ve started destroying the land all around Utah and moving to the surrounding states. They’ve somehow shifted the weather patterns.
But the main tidbit of information he clings to, the part that has the anchors white-faced and trembling, is the reports of the workers recently turning violent, biting people, lashing out and spreading whatever it was they had come in contact with at the plant to their families and their friends who in turn become just as violent.
The managers of the plant had thought it was all under control until, without any warning, it wasn’t anymore.
As he watches attentively a newswoman’s grim face breaks through the static for one precious moment and informs all of the viewers that the problem is being worked on and that they should remain indoors as much as possible. She doesn’t look very convinced, and her face is ashen as the television goes blank and he loses power again.
It’s like something straight from a bad horror movie and Dave refuses to believe that the world is actually going to end with zombies and fucked up weather from some stupid chemical spill. He curses, loudly, because Murray was actually right, because the whole situation is absolutely ridiculous and because he doesn’t really know how else to react.
--*--
The next few days are spent in a blur of nothingness. He feels numb. Empty. He knows that he should probably be panicking as he watches people running around from his apartment window as they all try and gather supplies, stock up on water and food, and prepare all of the other necessities Dave guesses are needed when one is faced with zombies, and the end of the world, but instead he just sits on the window ledge in his parents’ room staring blankly down at all of them.
Every day he drags himself to the shop for a change of scenery even though no one needs much from a pawn shop. The guitars and laptops sit untouched on the shelves but going there helps to restore a sense of normalcy. It comforts him to do something so routine and familiar. He doesn’t hear from Murray or Bret and Jemaine, and he senselessly fills his days with reorganizing the storeroom just for something to keep his mind off of how worried he is about all of them. They’re part of the reason he continues to go there at all. He keeps hoping deep down inside that they’ll come barging in.
Every night once it gets too dark to see in the storeroom, he treks back upstairs to his apartment and tries to call his parents but the line is always dead so he just sits on the floor by the window and stares up at the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the moon and feeling the Earth moving beneath him. The earthquakes only get stronger as the days go by, but if he closes his eyes he can lie back on the floor and pretend he’s on some kind of ride at the amusement parks his parents used to take him to as a kid. One of the ones where the seats vibrate and move about with the movie on the screen.
He falls asleep every night with his heart in his throat and dread in his gut.
--*--
Bret, Jemaine and Murray all show up one night shortly before the worst of it finally hits New York. He opens the door and they’re all standing there. Bret and Jemaine have their guitars clutched to their chests and a few boxes full of food at their feet, and Murray has a pile of pillows balanced on his arms.
“David.” Murray greets him with a somber nod and Dave echoes it with one of his own. “We didn’t know where else to go.”
“Okay,” he says. He’s never been more glad to see them, and all he wants to do is gather them up in a big group hug and tell them how relieved he is that they aren’t dead and how worried he had been when the didn’t hear from any of them. Instead, he steps back without another word and holds the door open so they can all file in silently. “The kitchen is this way. You guys can unload your stuff there.” He gestures for them to follow and they head to his cramped kitchen. They walk behind him silently and set the boxes on the table.
Once the food has been properly put away in the pantry they all congregate back in the living room. Outside the wind has started to pick up, sending branches scraping against the windowpanes, and causing shadows to dance along the wall. Dave crosses his arms and surveys them all quietly.
“You guys can share my roommates’ room,” he tells Bret and Jemaine eventually. “They’re out of town, and I guess we’re all going to need a place to sleep.” He points towards the door leading to his parents’ room and hands them a flashlight. The musicians gather up what is left of their stuff and start to make their way over already bickering about who gets the bed.
“And we can share my room,” Dave says to Murray as he leads him in the opposite direction across the apartment. “You can have the bed, or we can take turns. Whatever.” He opens the door and heads inside expecting Murray to follow. “This is it,” he announces with a grand flourish of his arms that sends the beam of his flashlight bouncing around. He kicks some of the mess under his bed as he walks in. “I wasn’t really expecting company,” he explains, scratching at the back of his head with a shrug. As an afterthought he adds, “Or, you know, the end of the world.”
But Murray isn’t paying attention and from behind him he asks, “What’s this?”
Dave turns around just in time to see him shine his light on a book by the side of the bed and start to bend down to pick it up. “No!” He reaches the other man in less than two strides and snatches the book away. Pressing the cover tightly to his chest he growls, “Don’t touch that,” with his heart hammering away beneath his ribs. “You can’t just go around picking up other people’s things, Murray. It’s rude.” However, Murray is peering at the part of the book that isn’t hidden by his arms and Dave moves them down just a bit trying to cover up more.
“Is that a map of New Zealand on the back of it?”
Dave huffs out a laugh. “What? No. Of course not. Like I would own a book about New Zealand.” His face feels hot and he refuses to meet Murray’s eyes as he busies himself with picking up some dirty clothes and shoving both them and the offending book into his dresser. “I don’t even know anyone from New Zealand.”
Murray watches him patiently, and Dave kind of hates him for not being as easy as Bret and Jemaine. “Yes, you do. Why do you have a book on New Zealand, David?”
Squaring his jaw and bracing himself Dave turns around. “I don’t know,” he replies. “I don’t know where it came from.”
The older man’s expression doesn’t waver but his eyes show his disappointment, whether or not it’s because Dave is lying to him or whether or not it’s because he believes the lie, Dave doesn’t know. He suspects it’s the former. Murray might not be the most observant at times, but people don’t give him nearly enough credit for all of the things he does see.
“I see you still have that poster I gave you.” Murray thankfully changes the subject and points his light towards the one on the wall over the back of the bed. “I’m glad I found it in my collection. Hopefully it’s doing it’s job of inspiring you. I knew you’d like it.”
Dave shoots him a weak smile, face flushing even more, shoves his free hand into his pocket and hunches his shoulders. “Oh, that?” he asks, eyeing the picture. It’s the ocean with a whale’s tail sticking out and the words BE INSPIRED written across the bottom. “Yeah. I, uh, I only put that up to cover a crack in the wall,” he mutters, still not able to meet Murray’s eyes.
Murray doesn’t seem to have heard him as he drops his pillow on the bed. “Oh,” he says looking at Dave from over his shoulder, “I should probably warn you that I’m a sleep-groper.”
“A...sleep-groper?” Dave asks.
“It’s kind of like sleepwalking only instead of walking I grope people sometimes,” he explains. “I’m on medication for it and it does seem to keep it relatively under control otherwise we’d all be in for some trouble.”
Dave doesn’t quite know how to respond to that and he shakes his head in disbelief. “As long as you promise not to rape me in my sleep,” he says slowly.
“No promises, but it should be fine. I just thought I’d give you a fair warning in case I run out of the pills.”
Dave’s mouth twists sideways warily as he says, “Thanks I guess.”
“Not a problem!” Murray straightens up with a cheerful smile. “Now, lets go check on Bret and Jemaine. Make sure those two haven’t killed each other over the bed or something.”
Still shaking his head, Dave follows Murray from the room and closes the door behind him. They find the other two already back in the kitchen talking amongst themselves quietly. They look up when the other men enter and fall silent leaving whatever they had been discussing hanging in their air between them. Dave can feel the shift when they enter and Bret looks troubled before schooling his face and giving them an acknowledging smile.
“Are you guys hungry?” Dave asks and Jemaine immediately perks up.
“Famished,” he replies and Dave nods.
As he sets about getting the things they’ll need Bret pipes up and asks the question he’s been dreading since he saw them on his doorstep. “Where are your parents, Dave?”
Dave pauses, fingers tightening just a bit around the can he’s taking out of the cupboard before he forces them to relax and replies nonchalantly, “Oh, you mean my roommates?” He pulls the can-opener out of the drawer and starts to open the beans as he keeps his back to the table and rolls his shoulders to try and release some of the tension building there. Turning back around and walking over to them he continues, “I think they said something about visiting one of their sisters in India or some shit. I don’t know. I don’t keep track of them.” With a small shrug he puts the can down in the middle of the table and plops himself in the free chair. There’s a sudden pang in his chest and he’s lost the will to do host activities.
Murray raises an eyebrow and tries to clarify, “So, they’re visiting your aunt then?”
“No, Murray.” Dave rolls his eyes as he sighs and leans back in his chair with one arm slung across and holding on to the other side of Murray’s while he tips himself backwards on two legs. His denial is lacking its usual fervor, but he’s not sure when the last time he heard from his parents actually was and he can’t get his mind off of that long enough to muster up some real vehemence.
Bret and Jemaine exchange a look, but with a subtle hand gesture Murray successfully gets Bret to close his mouth before he has a chance to say anything else.
“Is this what we’re having for dinner?” Jemaine asks instead. “A can of beans?”
“Are you...are you going to cook the beans at least?” Bret follows up and Dave glances over at them.
“With what, Bret? The powers out. It’s been out for days. You guys have legs and hands, don’t you?”
Jemaine looks down at his hands on the table and then over at Bret. “Well, yes,” he admits, “but - ”
“Then you have the means to fix something yourself if you don’t like it!” Dave pushes his chair back and stands up abruptly. “I’m going to bed now,” he informs them all. “You know where the food is.” He leaves the three of them staring after him as he storms out of the kitchen. He only stops to grab the spare pillow and blankets his mother keeps in the hall closet next to the bathroom before reaching his room.
Inside he sets the flashlight next to his sword rack and a bunch of crumpled up pieces of paper on his dresser so that the ceiling is illuminated and the light spreads weakly to the floor and then he goes about spreading his blankets on the ground at the foot of the bed and up against his dresser. There’s a photo album from when he was a kid that he keeps tucked in the back of his bottom dresser drawer and when he’s finished settling down he wraps one of his blankets around his legs and sits with his pillow that he had yanked from his bed between his back and the footboard with his album in hand. He can just barely make out the pictures but he knows them all by heart. Thumbing through the pages slowly he lets himself linger on each photo and traces the edges of the pictures gently before moving on with his heart in his throat.
There’s a quiet knock on the door and Dave’s head snaps around in that direction. Quickly, he stuffs the album behind the pillow and under the edge of the bed. When he calls out, “Come in,” his voice cracks. He wipes a hand across his cheek and is surprised when it comes away damp.
The door opens just enough for Murray to enter. He’s carrying a plate that he holds tentatively in Dave’s direction. “I thought you might be hungry,” he explains as Dave accepts it wordlessly. “It’s just peanut butter.”
Dave gives him a feeble smile and scoots over so that Murray can join him. “Thanks.”
Sitting down on the floor next to him Murray says, “The guys went to bed. It’s been a rough couple of days since...well everything.”
Picking at his sandwich he nods in agreement but doesn’t reply. Murray’s sitting close enough for their knees to just barely touch when he shifts a fraction of an inch over. The floor trembles beneath them and Dave takes a shaky breath as the sandwich crumbles beneath his fingers. He can’t bring himself to actually eat it. Doesn’t think he’d be able to swallow around the lump in his throat to get it down.
“You really miss them don’t you?” Murray asks, studying his face, as he takes the plate away from him before he completely destroys his dinner.
This time Dave doesn’t bother pretending like he doesn’t know what the other man is talking about. He’s tired, and worried, and sick of pretending. “Yeah,” he admits softly and it feels good to say it out loud. It’s like a weight that he’s lifting from his chest for the first time that he never even knew was there. “I guess I do.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“A month?” Dave estimates. “They don’t go very often so when they do it’s for a while to make it count. It’s just weird not having them around all of the time and now with...whatever is going on... I haven’t even heard from them.”
Setting the plate off to the side Murray turns back to him. “It’s okay to miss them you know,” he says gently.
Dave laughs. It’s strained and watery and he pulls the sleeves of his shirt down to cover his hands. “Sure it is,” he agrees without much conviction.
Murray reaches out and puts his hand on his shoulder. Startled, Dave turns to stare down at it and then back up at the other man. “Really, David. It is. Especially now.” The New Zealander is looking at him intently and Dave’s locked into his stare. “It’s also okay that you have a book about New Zealand. I don’t understand why you try and hide so much of yourself all of the time.”
When he jerks away quickly Murray’s hand slips from his shoulder and Dave manages to break eye contact with him to firmly state, “I don’t hide. I told you I don’t know where that came from,” because he can’t, can’t, go and put all of his cards on the table in one hand. Can’t let Murray see him this way. Weak, and vulnerable, and scared. He scrambles to his feet and grabs the flashlight off of the dresser. “I’m going to bed,” he announces.
With one quick press of the button the room is plunged into darkness.
--*--
October 18th - earthquakes seem to have gotten better. not as frequent or as intense. the guys showed up yesterday. glad to see them.
Dave starts keeping a journal the day after his friends arrive. He’s not calling it a journal, though, because journal keeping is for the lame, nerdy types. His is more of a calendar where he keeps daily track of the weather and if anything interesting happens to occur he makes note of that too but it definitely isn’t a journal. It’s just a record so that the survivors will know what happened to them. So his parents will know what happened.
“What’s that you got there?” Jemaine says as he sits down next to Dave on the couch.
“Nothing,” Dave replies, closing the notebook and setting it off to the side as he reaches for his paintball gun instead. “Just some paper.”
Jemaine nods distractedly and obviously bored. “That’s a nice pumpkin,” he comments as he peers over at where it’s sitting on the mantle. “What, are those like boobs or something?”
Dave smirks at him while looking up from pretending to inspect and clean his gun. “Yeah, pretty clever right?”
The musician chuckles and says, “Yeah, clever. Now you can see boobs whenever you feel like it.”
Glancing over at him from the corner of his eye Dave replies, “I guess but they’re not real boobs so it’s not the same.”
“No, I suppose it’s not.”
The conversation falls flat and the mood shifts to an awkward, uncomfortable silence after that until Dave asks, “What’s Bret doing?”
“Having a sleep I think.”
Setting aside his gun Dave gets to his feet, grabs his notebook and looks back down at his friend. “Well, I’m gonna go see if Murray’s heard anything on his radio recently.”
Jemaine nods and absentmindedly drums his hands on his thighs a few times before hollering after him, “Hey, while you’re in there ask him if he’s got any more of those biscuits he’s been hiding!”
“He’s been hiding biscuits?” Dave yells back as he heads down the short hallway to his bedroom. “Murray, you’ve been hiding - oh!” He stops short, hand on the doorknob and halfway into the room when he catches sight of the other man. “Shit, Murray. Sorry, I didn’t know you were changing.”
Murray doesn’t jump, doesn’t seem bothered or embarrassed by Dave’s sudden appearance and he makes no effort to pull the rest of his clothes on any quicker than normal. He just stands there with his pants hanging low on his hips, feet bare, his shirt grasped in one hand and Dave gawking at him. “That’s what knocking is for, David,” he says and Dave is almost positive he detects a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Uh, sorry,” he apologizes again and tries to avert his eyes from Murray’s exposed chest, but he finds himself having trouble even moving to finish entering the room let alone being able to look away. “I, uh, I,” he stammers and shakes his head to clear it because what the fuck? He should be making some smart-ass remark right now about the situation but his brain isn’t functioning at the proper speed. “I was just wondering if you had managed to pick up anything on the radio.”
“A little bit,” Murray tells him as he begins to pull on his shirt. Dave watches, transfixed, as it slides down to cover all of that pale, freckled skin and he swallows as his mouth runs inexplicably dry, “but I think the batteries are almost dead.”
Letting go of the doorknob, Dave fully enters the room and shuts the door behind him. He glances around and finally settles for sitting down on the edge of the bed. “What did you hear?” he asks. “Good news?”
Murray shakes his head. “More of the same. They’ve closed the airports and stopped sending out ships,” he pauses looking troubled, “I think the woman said there have been reports of...well she didn’t exactly say the zombies...but she said there have been reports of incidents all the way in Nebraska. I lost signal after that.”
“Already?” Dave feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “Why hasn’t this been stopped by now?”
Tilting his head, Murray studies him. “I don’t know, David. I think maybe it’s something too big to be stopped quickly.”
Dave tosses his notebook on the floor near his bed and rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands. “At least the earthquakes have subsided for now,” he says dismally staring at the ground. “That’s gotta count for something.” Murray makes a sound of agreement and goes about picking dirty clothes off of the floor and tossing them into the hamper. “Murray,” Dave looks up at him and frowns, “you don’t have to clean my room.”
Murray doesn’t spare him a look. “Well, someone has too. I’m not spending God knows how long sharing a living space with you when it’s in this condition.”
Dave gets to his feet and takes the t-shirt out of Murray’s hand. “Stop. It’s weird. I’ll do it later.” Murray looks doubtful but Dave insists, “I will,” and drops the t-shirt in the vicinity of the hamper. “I was hoping for some good news when I came in here,” he goes on to admit to pick back up their conversation. He sits back down on the bed next to Murray with his back against the headboard. “What about the,” he starts to say the zombies but stops because if no one else is going to call them that he’s not either, “what about the infected people? How are we supposed to know where they are if the radio runs out of batteries?”
“The radio was kind of sporadic with what it could pick up.”
Dave frowns down at his knees. “That’s true, but at least we had some kind of connection with the world.”
In the somber silence they sit together and then Murray says, “Things’ll be alright.” He sounds like he needs to be able to believe it just as badly as Dave needs to hear it.
“What’s this I hear about you hiding biscuits? When did you even make biscuits?” Dave asks him trying desperately to lighten the mood and change the subject and Murray laughs.
“Jemaine’s favorite.” He leans over the bed, head disappearing over the side, and feels around beneath of it before sitting up triumphantly with a package in his hand. “If I left them in the kitchen they’d all be gone within a day or two and then we’d have to listen to him whine.”
Dave scrutinizes the package. “Those aren’t biscuits. They’re cookies.”
With a shrug Murray says, “They’re like cookies.”
“It’s weird New Zealand food,” Dave mutters. Their fingers brush as Murray hands him a biscuit which causes Dave to nearly drop it. Berating himself for being ridiculous he averts his eyes from Murray’s fingers and focuses on the cookie in his hand and tries to ignore the thoughts flitting through his head. He’s never thought of Murray like that before. Never saw him in quite that light because, well, Murray’s a guy and Dave isn’t into that and he sure as hell isn’t going to start seeing him like that just because he accidentally saw him without a shirt. It’s not like he’s never seen other dudes without shirts before in changing rooms, locker rooms, at the pool and places like that. This time isn’t any different than those. At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself but he can’t seem to stop chancing looks at him while Murray is busy putting away the biscuits.
“Well?” He inquires expectantly when he sits back up.
“They’re okay,” Dave admits. “Not as good as a regular cookie, but not bad.”
Murray beams at him and Dave ignores the tug on his heartstrings to smile cautiously back.
--*--
There are fires raging in the distance and Dave perches precariously on the windowsill with his back resting against the edge of the wall to watch. He doesn’t know how they got started with the amount of rain that they’ve had recently but the trees are all alight and blazing. It’s like looking at Mordor from a distance. The fires are big and bright and sending plumes of smoke into the sky.
October 25th - fire sighted. still pretty far away, but keep eyes open. fires are unpredictable. beginning to go stir crazy locked in this house with the guys.
He scribbles the information down and snaps the notebook shut with a sigh. From the other room the sounds of faint arguing drift through the closed door. It’s Jemaine’s voice, mostly, but every so often he catches Bret’s and Murray’s. He glances in that direction briefly when Jemaine raises his voice but this is the first time he’s been able to snag a room alone since the other three had shown up and he’s not about to leave the sanctity of it to find out what’s wrong.
It’s not that he isn’t glad that they’re with him. It’s just that he’s never had to have this extended amount of time with all of them at once and he had already started to grow used to being alone during his parents’ absence. Now, every time he goes anywhere in the apartment someone is already there, and trying to keep up his tough guy facade is slowly starting to wear him out. He’s cracking at the seams, spread thin and stretched to his limit, and he knows it.
All of a sudden there’s a crash followed by an uneasy silence and then he hears some hissed whispers followed again by more silence.
He shifts his gaze back to the window and resists the urge to sigh when there’s a tentative knock at the door. Momentarily, he considers just ignore it but the knock comes again a split second later much more forcefully.
He hears Bret say, “I know how to knock on a door, Jemaine,” and an answering mutter in return.
Dave calls out, “What?” without looking away from the window. When he hears the door click open he tries to sound aggravated as he continues with, “I’m kind of busy right now.”
Bret stops halfway into the room, frowns slightly, and looks him over once. “Are you?” he asks in disbelief. “Cause you look like maybe you aren’t very busy at all.”
“Yeah, well I am,” Dave clips out, turning his head to stare at the smaller man. “I’m doing some really important research and shit. We have to be prepared for the strike. You never know when it’ll come. Know your enemy and all that shit,” he says the first things he can think of while keeping a stern face.
Wrinkling his nose in confusion Bret inquires, “But what are you going to get from looking out the window except that everything is on fire? You should be listening to the radio.”
“The radio died, Bret. Batteries are all used up except for the ones in the flashlights and all we got from it was days of static anyway.” Dave raises his eyebrow and tilts his head towards Bret and says slowly, “This is the best we have now so unless you don’t want to be prepared...” Bret’s eyes are wide and he shoots a panicked expression over his shoulder to where Dave knows Jemaine is hiding, “...is that what you want, Bret? To not be prepared? Because if it is I can just stop my research right now.”
“No, no,” Bret hastens in reply. “We want to be ready.”
Dave nods curtly. “Okay then,” he says, pleased, and leans back against the wall again. “I suggest you leave then so I don’t miss anything important.”
Bret bobs his head in agreement and backs out of the room. As the door clicks shut Dave hears Jemaine asks, “What about - ”
But Bret cuts him off. “Later, man. He’s doing some research now.”
Their voices fade away as they get further from the door and Dave slumps down with a sigh of relief. The relief is short lived, however, because in less than ten minutes the door is opening again and Murray enters the room.
“Bret said you were in here doing some research,” Murray tells him as he invades his privacy.
Dave mutters, “Trying to at least,” and resists the urge to scream in frustration by clenching his jaw tightly and counting to ten, then twenty, before slowly relaxing.
“What was that?”
Turning his head Dave smiles wide and fake. “Oh, nothing, Murray.”
The other man nods. “Right.” He looks about the room seemingly uncomfortable for a moment and then he sits down on the bed. “Mind if I help you out?”
“Might as well. You’re already here,” Dave says. Under his breath he adds, “Not like I have much choice in the matter anyway.” He’s feeling irritable, and overly stressed with the anxiety of never being able to get away but he moves to sit on the bed next to Murray.
“What is it that you’re researching exactly?”
Dave pauses for a moment before answering. “What does anyone research in times of crisis?” he asks and Murray blinks at him.
“I...I guess it depends on the crisis?”
Shrugging, Dave says, “Yeah, probably,” and flops backwards so that he can stare up at the ugly stucco ceiling. “I just told them that so they’d leave me alone,” he confesses.
Murray doesn’t respond, but he does lie back beside Dave so that their shoulders are touching, and he rests his hands beneath his head.
“They’re just...they’re always around. They’re everywhere I go,” Dave justifies, suddenly feeling a little bit guilty. The circumstances aren’t really any better for them either. At least this is his apartment. These are his familiar surroundings and his comforts. He leans up on his elbow to search Murray’s face for any signs of judgement, but much to his astonishment, finds none.
Instead Murray tells him very quietly while still staring at the ceiling, “Yesterday I reorganized the entire cupboard by the colors of the packages because I knew they wouldn’t want to help.” His face is somber and Dave stares at him in shock.
And then the New Zealander catches his eyes and gives him a secretive, sudden grin, laughter dancing in his eyes and Dave loses it. He cracks up, laughing so hard that tears start leaking from the corners of his eyes which sets Murray off and they roll around on the bed laughing until their stomachs hurt and they can’t catch their breath.
It’s just what Dave didn’t know he needed and he can feel the tension he’s been carrying around start to bleed out as he lets himself finally relax and thinks that maybe it’s not all bad having them here.
--*--
That night a storm rages full of thunder and lightning and wind that beats against the windows so hard Dave is scared that the glass will shatter and cut them both into ribbons and shreds. He wants to crawl under the bed and hide but he never quite got over the fears of monsters beneath the bed so instead he rolls over onto his back and tells himself that it’s just an ordinary storm.
Above him he can hear Murray restlessly tossing and turning and moving all around. When the other man’s hand slips off of the side of the bed Dave reaches up and touches his fingertips with his own for some reassurance. Murray responds by curling his index finger around Dave’s.
Dave clears his throat. “It’s just a storm.”
Murray’s answer is almost too soft to hear, but Dave manages to catch it anyway. “It’s not just a storm. You know that.”
With a soft sigh Dave whispers, “It is,” to himself. He lies there in silence staring at the outline of the window on the opposite wall and watches the silhouettes of the branches swaying and reaching and clawing until he eventually drifts off into a fitful sleep that is littered with fragments of nightmares and creatures he can’t fully see or understand.
He’s torn from his sleep abruptly just before dawn by the screams of sirens and he bolts upright, confused, from the floor. His heart is racing and he wrestles with his blankets trying to get to his feet. Murray’s already standing by the side of the bed peering out from behind the sheet hanging in front of the window and Dave stumbles over to him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, thankful to see a familiar face as he gets his bearings. He peeks out reluctantly from over his shoulder to figure out what’s going on.
The sun hasn’t quite come up yet, and the flashing blue and red lights of the police cars as they hurtle down the street distort the empty tree branches and paint a contorted, sinister picture of the once pleasant block.
Dave can feel the tension in Murray’s body and without thinking he reaches forward and presses his hand against his lower back. Murray leans, almost imperceptibly, back into the touch and they watch the cars in silence until they round a bend in the road and disappear.
When the sirens have died away Murray turns to look at Dave. His face is white, jaw clenched, and Dave’s free hand comes up to grasp the other man’s tightly as fear seizes him like a vice. There’s a knock on the door and it’s creaking open to allow Bret and Jemaine to slip through before they have a chance to move apart, but neither comment and Dave doesn’t pull away. In the dim light of the moon he can see that Bret’s hands are trembling and Jemaine’s face is tense as they cross the room to huddle at the window.
They don’t speak. They don’t have to speak. They all know what those sirens meant. Somehow, they just know somewhere deep within themselves.
The first infected person has been spotted somewhere in their area.
master post | part one | part two | part three | fanmix
[comments enabled at end of fic]
Flight of the Conchords | Dave/Murray | R
word count: 23, 478
warnings: the end of the world. m/m relationship.
disclaimer: all fake. the world hasn’t ended.
summary: Dave has spent his entire friendship with the Conchords pretending to be someone he’s not. Everything is going according to plan until a chemical spill begins to shift the weather patterns, and talk of zombies fills the air. Now, he’s holed up in his apartment with Bret, Jemaine and Murray struggling not to let his false identity crumble with the strain of the oncoming apocalypse. It’s a story of survival, of friendship, and accidental love.
a/n: see master post.
master post | part one | part two | part three | fanmix
ii.
The rain stops the day the earth begins to shake. It’s subtle at first. In fact, for the first few days Dave barely notices it. He’s just glad the fucking rain is gone.
But then, one day, he starts awake as his bed rattles and shakes violently and he clutches the sheets so tight his knuckles turn white as he tries to clear his sleep-addled brain enough to figure out what the hell is going on in his apartment. Just as suddenly as it started, however, it subsides to a slow rumbling that, if he’s really still, he can still feel emanating from somewhere within the earth below him.
He waits a few minutes, heart pounding wildly in his chest, before slowly loosening his grip and willing his body to relax. When he gets himself out of bed he discovers that the power in his apartment is out and he wraps his shaking arms tightly around himself. He can feel the tremors in the ground, the floor shaking ever so slightly beneath his feet, and he suddenly finds himself wishing his parents were home with a pang in his chest. He spends the rest of the day curled up in their bed with their blue and yellow blankets wrapped around him like a cocoon and the blinds pulled up to let in what little sunlight is able to break through the thick clouds.
The power eventually comes back on, but it’s in flickers that short out after only a few brief seconds. He is able, thankfully, to find snatches on T.V. of panicked news anchors and public addresses trying to explain what is going on, though he can never make out a definitive answer through the static and he has to piece the information he gathers together himself. It’s about that damn chemical spill that he really should have been paying more attention to in hindsight. Something about how it has gotten completely out of control. How the chemicals have spread to the water, the air, the soil. They’ve started destroying the land all around Utah and moving to the surrounding states. They’ve somehow shifted the weather patterns.
But the main tidbit of information he clings to, the part that has the anchors white-faced and trembling, is the reports of the workers recently turning violent, biting people, lashing out and spreading whatever it was they had come in contact with at the plant to their families and their friends who in turn become just as violent.
The managers of the plant had thought it was all under control until, without any warning, it wasn’t anymore.
As he watches attentively a newswoman’s grim face breaks through the static for one precious moment and informs all of the viewers that the problem is being worked on and that they should remain indoors as much as possible. She doesn’t look very convinced, and her face is ashen as the television goes blank and he loses power again.
It’s like something straight from a bad horror movie and Dave refuses to believe that the world is actually going to end with zombies and fucked up weather from some stupid chemical spill. He curses, loudly, because Murray was actually right, because the whole situation is absolutely ridiculous and because he doesn’t really know how else to react.
--*--
The next few days are spent in a blur of nothingness. He feels numb. Empty. He knows that he should probably be panicking as he watches people running around from his apartment window as they all try and gather supplies, stock up on water and food, and prepare all of the other necessities Dave guesses are needed when one is faced with zombies, and the end of the world, but instead he just sits on the window ledge in his parents’ room staring blankly down at all of them.
Every day he drags himself to the shop for a change of scenery even though no one needs much from a pawn shop. The guitars and laptops sit untouched on the shelves but going there helps to restore a sense of normalcy. It comforts him to do something so routine and familiar. He doesn’t hear from Murray or Bret and Jemaine, and he senselessly fills his days with reorganizing the storeroom just for something to keep his mind off of how worried he is about all of them. They’re part of the reason he continues to go there at all. He keeps hoping deep down inside that they’ll come barging in.
Every night once it gets too dark to see in the storeroom, he treks back upstairs to his apartment and tries to call his parents but the line is always dead so he just sits on the floor by the window and stares up at the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the moon and feeling the Earth moving beneath him. The earthquakes only get stronger as the days go by, but if he closes his eyes he can lie back on the floor and pretend he’s on some kind of ride at the amusement parks his parents used to take him to as a kid. One of the ones where the seats vibrate and move about with the movie on the screen.
He falls asleep every night with his heart in his throat and dread in his gut.
--*--
Bret, Jemaine and Murray all show up one night shortly before the worst of it finally hits New York. He opens the door and they’re all standing there. Bret and Jemaine have their guitars clutched to their chests and a few boxes full of food at their feet, and Murray has a pile of pillows balanced on his arms.
“David.” Murray greets him with a somber nod and Dave echoes it with one of his own. “We didn’t know where else to go.”
“Okay,” he says. He’s never been more glad to see them, and all he wants to do is gather them up in a big group hug and tell them how relieved he is that they aren’t dead and how worried he had been when the didn’t hear from any of them. Instead, he steps back without another word and holds the door open so they can all file in silently. “The kitchen is this way. You guys can unload your stuff there.” He gestures for them to follow and they head to his cramped kitchen. They walk behind him silently and set the boxes on the table.
Once the food has been properly put away in the pantry they all congregate back in the living room. Outside the wind has started to pick up, sending branches scraping against the windowpanes, and causing shadows to dance along the wall. Dave crosses his arms and surveys them all quietly.
“You guys can share my roommates’ room,” he tells Bret and Jemaine eventually. “They’re out of town, and I guess we’re all going to need a place to sleep.” He points towards the door leading to his parents’ room and hands them a flashlight. The musicians gather up what is left of their stuff and start to make their way over already bickering about who gets the bed.
“And we can share my room,” Dave says to Murray as he leads him in the opposite direction across the apartment. “You can have the bed, or we can take turns. Whatever.” He opens the door and heads inside expecting Murray to follow. “This is it,” he announces with a grand flourish of his arms that sends the beam of his flashlight bouncing around. He kicks some of the mess under his bed as he walks in. “I wasn’t really expecting company,” he explains, scratching at the back of his head with a shrug. As an afterthought he adds, “Or, you know, the end of the world.”
But Murray isn’t paying attention and from behind him he asks, “What’s this?”
Dave turns around just in time to see him shine his light on a book by the side of the bed and start to bend down to pick it up. “No!” He reaches the other man in less than two strides and snatches the book away. Pressing the cover tightly to his chest he growls, “Don’t touch that,” with his heart hammering away beneath his ribs. “You can’t just go around picking up other people’s things, Murray. It’s rude.” However, Murray is peering at the part of the book that isn’t hidden by his arms and Dave moves them down just a bit trying to cover up more.
“Is that a map of New Zealand on the back of it?”
Dave huffs out a laugh. “What? No. Of course not. Like I would own a book about New Zealand.” His face feels hot and he refuses to meet Murray’s eyes as he busies himself with picking up some dirty clothes and shoving both them and the offending book into his dresser. “I don’t even know anyone from New Zealand.”
Murray watches him patiently, and Dave kind of hates him for not being as easy as Bret and Jemaine. “Yes, you do. Why do you have a book on New Zealand, David?”
Squaring his jaw and bracing himself Dave turns around. “I don’t know,” he replies. “I don’t know where it came from.”
The older man’s expression doesn’t waver but his eyes show his disappointment, whether or not it’s because Dave is lying to him or whether or not it’s because he believes the lie, Dave doesn’t know. He suspects it’s the former. Murray might not be the most observant at times, but people don’t give him nearly enough credit for all of the things he does see.
“I see you still have that poster I gave you.” Murray thankfully changes the subject and points his light towards the one on the wall over the back of the bed. “I’m glad I found it in my collection. Hopefully it’s doing it’s job of inspiring you. I knew you’d like it.”
Dave shoots him a weak smile, face flushing even more, shoves his free hand into his pocket and hunches his shoulders. “Oh, that?” he asks, eyeing the picture. It’s the ocean with a whale’s tail sticking out and the words BE INSPIRED written across the bottom. “Yeah. I, uh, I only put that up to cover a crack in the wall,” he mutters, still not able to meet Murray’s eyes.
Murray doesn’t seem to have heard him as he drops his pillow on the bed. “Oh,” he says looking at Dave from over his shoulder, “I should probably warn you that I’m a sleep-groper.”
“A...sleep-groper?” Dave asks.
“It’s kind of like sleepwalking only instead of walking I grope people sometimes,” he explains. “I’m on medication for it and it does seem to keep it relatively under control otherwise we’d all be in for some trouble.”
Dave doesn’t quite know how to respond to that and he shakes his head in disbelief. “As long as you promise not to rape me in my sleep,” he says slowly.
“No promises, but it should be fine. I just thought I’d give you a fair warning in case I run out of the pills.”
Dave’s mouth twists sideways warily as he says, “Thanks I guess.”
“Not a problem!” Murray straightens up with a cheerful smile. “Now, lets go check on Bret and Jemaine. Make sure those two haven’t killed each other over the bed or something.”
Still shaking his head, Dave follows Murray from the room and closes the door behind him. They find the other two already back in the kitchen talking amongst themselves quietly. They look up when the other men enter and fall silent leaving whatever they had been discussing hanging in their air between them. Dave can feel the shift when they enter and Bret looks troubled before schooling his face and giving them an acknowledging smile.
“Are you guys hungry?” Dave asks and Jemaine immediately perks up.
“Famished,” he replies and Dave nods.
As he sets about getting the things they’ll need Bret pipes up and asks the question he’s been dreading since he saw them on his doorstep. “Where are your parents, Dave?”
Dave pauses, fingers tightening just a bit around the can he’s taking out of the cupboard before he forces them to relax and replies nonchalantly, “Oh, you mean my roommates?” He pulls the can-opener out of the drawer and starts to open the beans as he keeps his back to the table and rolls his shoulders to try and release some of the tension building there. Turning back around and walking over to them he continues, “I think they said something about visiting one of their sisters in India or some shit. I don’t know. I don’t keep track of them.” With a small shrug he puts the can down in the middle of the table and plops himself in the free chair. There’s a sudden pang in his chest and he’s lost the will to do host activities.
Murray raises an eyebrow and tries to clarify, “So, they’re visiting your aunt then?”
“No, Murray.” Dave rolls his eyes as he sighs and leans back in his chair with one arm slung across and holding on to the other side of Murray’s while he tips himself backwards on two legs. His denial is lacking its usual fervor, but he’s not sure when the last time he heard from his parents actually was and he can’t get his mind off of that long enough to muster up some real vehemence.
Bret and Jemaine exchange a look, but with a subtle hand gesture Murray successfully gets Bret to close his mouth before he has a chance to say anything else.
“Is this what we’re having for dinner?” Jemaine asks instead. “A can of beans?”
“Are you...are you going to cook the beans at least?” Bret follows up and Dave glances over at them.
“With what, Bret? The powers out. It’s been out for days. You guys have legs and hands, don’t you?”
Jemaine looks down at his hands on the table and then over at Bret. “Well, yes,” he admits, “but - ”
“Then you have the means to fix something yourself if you don’t like it!” Dave pushes his chair back and stands up abruptly. “I’m going to bed now,” he informs them all. “You know where the food is.” He leaves the three of them staring after him as he storms out of the kitchen. He only stops to grab the spare pillow and blankets his mother keeps in the hall closet next to the bathroom before reaching his room.
Inside he sets the flashlight next to his sword rack and a bunch of crumpled up pieces of paper on his dresser so that the ceiling is illuminated and the light spreads weakly to the floor and then he goes about spreading his blankets on the ground at the foot of the bed and up against his dresser. There’s a photo album from when he was a kid that he keeps tucked in the back of his bottom dresser drawer and when he’s finished settling down he wraps one of his blankets around his legs and sits with his pillow that he had yanked from his bed between his back and the footboard with his album in hand. He can just barely make out the pictures but he knows them all by heart. Thumbing through the pages slowly he lets himself linger on each photo and traces the edges of the pictures gently before moving on with his heart in his throat.
There’s a quiet knock on the door and Dave’s head snaps around in that direction. Quickly, he stuffs the album behind the pillow and under the edge of the bed. When he calls out, “Come in,” his voice cracks. He wipes a hand across his cheek and is surprised when it comes away damp.
The door opens just enough for Murray to enter. He’s carrying a plate that he holds tentatively in Dave’s direction. “I thought you might be hungry,” he explains as Dave accepts it wordlessly. “It’s just peanut butter.”
Dave gives him a feeble smile and scoots over so that Murray can join him. “Thanks.”
Sitting down on the floor next to him Murray says, “The guys went to bed. It’s been a rough couple of days since...well everything.”
Picking at his sandwich he nods in agreement but doesn’t reply. Murray’s sitting close enough for their knees to just barely touch when he shifts a fraction of an inch over. The floor trembles beneath them and Dave takes a shaky breath as the sandwich crumbles beneath his fingers. He can’t bring himself to actually eat it. Doesn’t think he’d be able to swallow around the lump in his throat to get it down.
“You really miss them don’t you?” Murray asks, studying his face, as he takes the plate away from him before he completely destroys his dinner.
This time Dave doesn’t bother pretending like he doesn’t know what the other man is talking about. He’s tired, and worried, and sick of pretending. “Yeah,” he admits softly and it feels good to say it out loud. It’s like a weight that he’s lifting from his chest for the first time that he never even knew was there. “I guess I do.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“A month?” Dave estimates. “They don’t go very often so when they do it’s for a while to make it count. It’s just weird not having them around all of the time and now with...whatever is going on... I haven’t even heard from them.”
Setting the plate off to the side Murray turns back to him. “It’s okay to miss them you know,” he says gently.
Dave laughs. It’s strained and watery and he pulls the sleeves of his shirt down to cover his hands. “Sure it is,” he agrees without much conviction.
Murray reaches out and puts his hand on his shoulder. Startled, Dave turns to stare down at it and then back up at the other man. “Really, David. It is. Especially now.” The New Zealander is looking at him intently and Dave’s locked into his stare. “It’s also okay that you have a book about New Zealand. I don’t understand why you try and hide so much of yourself all of the time.”
When he jerks away quickly Murray’s hand slips from his shoulder and Dave manages to break eye contact with him to firmly state, “I don’t hide. I told you I don’t know where that came from,” because he can’t, can’t, go and put all of his cards on the table in one hand. Can’t let Murray see him this way. Weak, and vulnerable, and scared. He scrambles to his feet and grabs the flashlight off of the dresser. “I’m going to bed,” he announces.
With one quick press of the button the room is plunged into darkness.
--*--
October 18th - earthquakes seem to have gotten better. not as frequent or as intense. the guys showed up yesterday. glad to see them.
Dave starts keeping a journal the day after his friends arrive. He’s not calling it a journal, though, because journal keeping is for the lame, nerdy types. His is more of a calendar where he keeps daily track of the weather and if anything interesting happens to occur he makes note of that too but it definitely isn’t a journal. It’s just a record so that the survivors will know what happened to them. So his parents will know what happened.
“What’s that you got there?” Jemaine says as he sits down next to Dave on the couch.
“Nothing,” Dave replies, closing the notebook and setting it off to the side as he reaches for his paintball gun instead. “Just some paper.”
Jemaine nods distractedly and obviously bored. “That’s a nice pumpkin,” he comments as he peers over at where it’s sitting on the mantle. “What, are those like boobs or something?”
Dave smirks at him while looking up from pretending to inspect and clean his gun. “Yeah, pretty clever right?”
The musician chuckles and says, “Yeah, clever. Now you can see boobs whenever you feel like it.”
Glancing over at him from the corner of his eye Dave replies, “I guess but they’re not real boobs so it’s not the same.”
“No, I suppose it’s not.”
The conversation falls flat and the mood shifts to an awkward, uncomfortable silence after that until Dave asks, “What’s Bret doing?”
“Having a sleep I think.”
Setting aside his gun Dave gets to his feet, grabs his notebook and looks back down at his friend. “Well, I’m gonna go see if Murray’s heard anything on his radio recently.”
Jemaine nods and absentmindedly drums his hands on his thighs a few times before hollering after him, “Hey, while you’re in there ask him if he’s got any more of those biscuits he’s been hiding!”
“He’s been hiding biscuits?” Dave yells back as he heads down the short hallway to his bedroom. “Murray, you’ve been hiding - oh!” He stops short, hand on the doorknob and halfway into the room when he catches sight of the other man. “Shit, Murray. Sorry, I didn’t know you were changing.”
Murray doesn’t jump, doesn’t seem bothered or embarrassed by Dave’s sudden appearance and he makes no effort to pull the rest of his clothes on any quicker than normal. He just stands there with his pants hanging low on his hips, feet bare, his shirt grasped in one hand and Dave gawking at him. “That’s what knocking is for, David,” he says and Dave is almost positive he detects a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Uh, sorry,” he apologizes again and tries to avert his eyes from Murray’s exposed chest, but he finds himself having trouble even moving to finish entering the room let alone being able to look away. “I, uh, I,” he stammers and shakes his head to clear it because what the fuck? He should be making some smart-ass remark right now about the situation but his brain isn’t functioning at the proper speed. “I was just wondering if you had managed to pick up anything on the radio.”
“A little bit,” Murray tells him as he begins to pull on his shirt. Dave watches, transfixed, as it slides down to cover all of that pale, freckled skin and he swallows as his mouth runs inexplicably dry, “but I think the batteries are almost dead.”
Letting go of the doorknob, Dave fully enters the room and shuts the door behind him. He glances around and finally settles for sitting down on the edge of the bed. “What did you hear?” he asks. “Good news?”
Murray shakes his head. “More of the same. They’ve closed the airports and stopped sending out ships,” he pauses looking troubled, “I think the woman said there have been reports of...well she didn’t exactly say the zombies...but she said there have been reports of incidents all the way in Nebraska. I lost signal after that.”
“Already?” Dave feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “Why hasn’t this been stopped by now?”
Tilting his head, Murray studies him. “I don’t know, David. I think maybe it’s something too big to be stopped quickly.”
Dave tosses his notebook on the floor near his bed and rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands. “At least the earthquakes have subsided for now,” he says dismally staring at the ground. “That’s gotta count for something.” Murray makes a sound of agreement and goes about picking dirty clothes off of the floor and tossing them into the hamper. “Murray,” Dave looks up at him and frowns, “you don’t have to clean my room.”
Murray doesn’t spare him a look. “Well, someone has too. I’m not spending God knows how long sharing a living space with you when it’s in this condition.”
Dave gets to his feet and takes the t-shirt out of Murray’s hand. “Stop. It’s weird. I’ll do it later.” Murray looks doubtful but Dave insists, “I will,” and drops the t-shirt in the vicinity of the hamper. “I was hoping for some good news when I came in here,” he goes on to admit to pick back up their conversation. He sits back down on the bed next to Murray with his back against the headboard. “What about the,” he starts to say the zombies but stops because if no one else is going to call them that he’s not either, “what about the infected people? How are we supposed to know where they are if the radio runs out of batteries?”
“The radio was kind of sporadic with what it could pick up.”
Dave frowns down at his knees. “That’s true, but at least we had some kind of connection with the world.”
In the somber silence they sit together and then Murray says, “Things’ll be alright.” He sounds like he needs to be able to believe it just as badly as Dave needs to hear it.
“What’s this I hear about you hiding biscuits? When did you even make biscuits?” Dave asks him trying desperately to lighten the mood and change the subject and Murray laughs.
“Jemaine’s favorite.” He leans over the bed, head disappearing over the side, and feels around beneath of it before sitting up triumphantly with a package in his hand. “If I left them in the kitchen they’d all be gone within a day or two and then we’d have to listen to him whine.”
Dave scrutinizes the package. “Those aren’t biscuits. They’re cookies.”
With a shrug Murray says, “They’re like cookies.”
“It’s weird New Zealand food,” Dave mutters. Their fingers brush as Murray hands him a biscuit which causes Dave to nearly drop it. Berating himself for being ridiculous he averts his eyes from Murray’s fingers and focuses on the cookie in his hand and tries to ignore the thoughts flitting through his head. He’s never thought of Murray like that before. Never saw him in quite that light because, well, Murray’s a guy and Dave isn’t into that and he sure as hell isn’t going to start seeing him like that just because he accidentally saw him without a shirt. It’s not like he’s never seen other dudes without shirts before in changing rooms, locker rooms, at the pool and places like that. This time isn’t any different than those. At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself but he can’t seem to stop chancing looks at him while Murray is busy putting away the biscuits.
“Well?” He inquires expectantly when he sits back up.
“They’re okay,” Dave admits. “Not as good as a regular cookie, but not bad.”
Murray beams at him and Dave ignores the tug on his heartstrings to smile cautiously back.
--*--
There are fires raging in the distance and Dave perches precariously on the windowsill with his back resting against the edge of the wall to watch. He doesn’t know how they got started with the amount of rain that they’ve had recently but the trees are all alight and blazing. It’s like looking at Mordor from a distance. The fires are big and bright and sending plumes of smoke into the sky.
October 25th - fire sighted. still pretty far away, but keep eyes open. fires are unpredictable. beginning to go stir crazy locked in this house with the guys.
He scribbles the information down and snaps the notebook shut with a sigh. From the other room the sounds of faint arguing drift through the closed door. It’s Jemaine’s voice, mostly, but every so often he catches Bret’s and Murray’s. He glances in that direction briefly when Jemaine raises his voice but this is the first time he’s been able to snag a room alone since the other three had shown up and he’s not about to leave the sanctity of it to find out what’s wrong.
It’s not that he isn’t glad that they’re with him. It’s just that he’s never had to have this extended amount of time with all of them at once and he had already started to grow used to being alone during his parents’ absence. Now, every time he goes anywhere in the apartment someone is already there, and trying to keep up his tough guy facade is slowly starting to wear him out. He’s cracking at the seams, spread thin and stretched to his limit, and he knows it.
All of a sudden there’s a crash followed by an uneasy silence and then he hears some hissed whispers followed again by more silence.
He shifts his gaze back to the window and resists the urge to sigh when there’s a tentative knock at the door. Momentarily, he considers just ignore it but the knock comes again a split second later much more forcefully.
He hears Bret say, “I know how to knock on a door, Jemaine,” and an answering mutter in return.
Dave calls out, “What?” without looking away from the window. When he hears the door click open he tries to sound aggravated as he continues with, “I’m kind of busy right now.”
Bret stops halfway into the room, frowns slightly, and looks him over once. “Are you?” he asks in disbelief. “Cause you look like maybe you aren’t very busy at all.”
“Yeah, well I am,” Dave clips out, turning his head to stare at the smaller man. “I’m doing some really important research and shit. We have to be prepared for the strike. You never know when it’ll come. Know your enemy and all that shit,” he says the first things he can think of while keeping a stern face.
Wrinkling his nose in confusion Bret inquires, “But what are you going to get from looking out the window except that everything is on fire? You should be listening to the radio.”
“The radio died, Bret. Batteries are all used up except for the ones in the flashlights and all we got from it was days of static anyway.” Dave raises his eyebrow and tilts his head towards Bret and says slowly, “This is the best we have now so unless you don’t want to be prepared...” Bret’s eyes are wide and he shoots a panicked expression over his shoulder to where Dave knows Jemaine is hiding, “...is that what you want, Bret? To not be prepared? Because if it is I can just stop my research right now.”
“No, no,” Bret hastens in reply. “We want to be ready.”
Dave nods curtly. “Okay then,” he says, pleased, and leans back against the wall again. “I suggest you leave then so I don’t miss anything important.”
Bret bobs his head in agreement and backs out of the room. As the door clicks shut Dave hears Jemaine asks, “What about - ”
But Bret cuts him off. “Later, man. He’s doing some research now.”
Their voices fade away as they get further from the door and Dave slumps down with a sigh of relief. The relief is short lived, however, because in less than ten minutes the door is opening again and Murray enters the room.
“Bret said you were in here doing some research,” Murray tells him as he invades his privacy.
Dave mutters, “Trying to at least,” and resists the urge to scream in frustration by clenching his jaw tightly and counting to ten, then twenty, before slowly relaxing.
“What was that?”
Turning his head Dave smiles wide and fake. “Oh, nothing, Murray.”
The other man nods. “Right.” He looks about the room seemingly uncomfortable for a moment and then he sits down on the bed. “Mind if I help you out?”
“Might as well. You’re already here,” Dave says. Under his breath he adds, “Not like I have much choice in the matter anyway.” He’s feeling irritable, and overly stressed with the anxiety of never being able to get away but he moves to sit on the bed next to Murray.
“What is it that you’re researching exactly?”
Dave pauses for a moment before answering. “What does anyone research in times of crisis?” he asks and Murray blinks at him.
“I...I guess it depends on the crisis?”
Shrugging, Dave says, “Yeah, probably,” and flops backwards so that he can stare up at the ugly stucco ceiling. “I just told them that so they’d leave me alone,” he confesses.
Murray doesn’t respond, but he does lie back beside Dave so that their shoulders are touching, and he rests his hands beneath his head.
“They’re just...they’re always around. They’re everywhere I go,” Dave justifies, suddenly feeling a little bit guilty. The circumstances aren’t really any better for them either. At least this is his apartment. These are his familiar surroundings and his comforts. He leans up on his elbow to search Murray’s face for any signs of judgement, but much to his astonishment, finds none.
Instead Murray tells him very quietly while still staring at the ceiling, “Yesterday I reorganized the entire cupboard by the colors of the packages because I knew they wouldn’t want to help.” His face is somber and Dave stares at him in shock.
And then the New Zealander catches his eyes and gives him a secretive, sudden grin, laughter dancing in his eyes and Dave loses it. He cracks up, laughing so hard that tears start leaking from the corners of his eyes which sets Murray off and they roll around on the bed laughing until their stomachs hurt and they can’t catch their breath.
It’s just what Dave didn’t know he needed and he can feel the tension he’s been carrying around start to bleed out as he lets himself finally relax and thinks that maybe it’s not all bad having them here.
--*--
That night a storm rages full of thunder and lightning and wind that beats against the windows so hard Dave is scared that the glass will shatter and cut them both into ribbons and shreds. He wants to crawl under the bed and hide but he never quite got over the fears of monsters beneath the bed so instead he rolls over onto his back and tells himself that it’s just an ordinary storm.
Above him he can hear Murray restlessly tossing and turning and moving all around. When the other man’s hand slips off of the side of the bed Dave reaches up and touches his fingertips with his own for some reassurance. Murray responds by curling his index finger around Dave’s.
Dave clears his throat. “It’s just a storm.”
Murray’s answer is almost too soft to hear, but Dave manages to catch it anyway. “It’s not just a storm. You know that.”
With a soft sigh Dave whispers, “It is,” to himself. He lies there in silence staring at the outline of the window on the opposite wall and watches the silhouettes of the branches swaying and reaching and clawing until he eventually drifts off into a fitful sleep that is littered with fragments of nightmares and creatures he can’t fully see or understand.
He’s torn from his sleep abruptly just before dawn by the screams of sirens and he bolts upright, confused, from the floor. His heart is racing and he wrestles with his blankets trying to get to his feet. Murray’s already standing by the side of the bed peering out from behind the sheet hanging in front of the window and Dave stumbles over to him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, thankful to see a familiar face as he gets his bearings. He peeks out reluctantly from over his shoulder to figure out what’s going on.
The sun hasn’t quite come up yet, and the flashing blue and red lights of the police cars as they hurtle down the street distort the empty tree branches and paint a contorted, sinister picture of the once pleasant block.
Dave can feel the tension in Murray’s body and without thinking he reaches forward and presses his hand against his lower back. Murray leans, almost imperceptibly, back into the touch and they watch the cars in silence until they round a bend in the road and disappear.
When the sirens have died away Murray turns to look at Dave. His face is white, jaw clenched, and Dave’s free hand comes up to grasp the other man’s tightly as fear seizes him like a vice. There’s a knock on the door and it’s creaking open to allow Bret and Jemaine to slip through before they have a chance to move apart, but neither comment and Dave doesn’t pull away. In the dim light of the moon he can see that Bret’s hands are trembling and Jemaine’s face is tense as they cross the room to huddle at the window.
They don’t speak. They don’t have to speak. They all know what those sirens meant. Somehow, they just know somewhere deep within themselves.
The first infected person has been spotted somewhere in their area.
master post | part one | part two | part three | fanmix
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