Kangin/Kyuhyun, zombie AU fic

[puppycadet]

title: the beginning after the end
theme: 078. sickness; 007/100; archive
Kangin/Kyuhyun
drama and maybe a little humor
I have been working on this since December. Writing it has been like pushing a boulder uphill using only my left thumb and sheer force of will.



In a little over two weeks the world, as Kangin knew it, ended. At first people got sick; then people started to die. After that, things got bad. Kangin, however, completely failed to notice what was going on around him. Sure, people were getting sick, going home, and then never showing up for work again without so much as a phone call, but sometimes things like that just happened. There was nothing on the nightly television news reports, on the radio, and not a word in the newspaper. During the first few days there were only whispers between friends in empty hallways or coworkers speaking in hushed voices about the woman who used to sit in the desk in the back and has anyone heard from her at all?

Day Seven

Kangin probably would have gone on not realizing a thing if Heechul hadn't pushed his way into Kangin's apartment and forced him in front of the TV. "Can you believe this? They are only now starting to report on all the deaths and it's already been a week since this started!" Heechul yelled and waved frantically between Kangin and the TV screen.

"What are you talking about, you nutcase?" asked Kangin.

Heechul turned his head sharply to stare angrily at Kangin. "People are getting sick. Lots of people are getting sick and so far everyone who has gotten sick has died in just a couple of days." Heechul stopped talking and blinked. "Seriously? You haven't noticed?"

Kangin shrugged. "I'm not sick," he said. "I feel fine."

"So do I," replied Heechul. "Look, I have a friend who works with the government, Eeteuk, he says that if we aren't sick by now we're probably not going to get it."

"Well that's good, right?"

Heechul laughed, though there was no humor in his expression. "Eeteuk...he was working on something and that's what started this. He says that something went wrong and..." Heechul stood up and rubbed at his faces with his hands. "Kangin, some of the people who have died aren't staying dead. It's just a few so far, but not for long. Things are going to get a lot worse before anything gets better."

Kangin folded his arms over his chest. "You can't be serious."

"Fine, don't believe me," Heechul said, heading to the front door of Kangin's apartment. "I'm calling in a few favors and getting out of the city while I still can. If you're not as dumb as you look then you'll do the same." With that, Heechul left.

Day Nine

Despite Heechul's warning, Kangin remained just where he was with no plans of leaving the city any time soon. Especially since Kangin knew Heechul could be a little strange at times. Though he had to admit that, even for Heechul, that had been bizarre. But Kangin didn't worry much because Heechul liked to drink and make up wild stories, usually as a way to pull a prank on Kangin to get back at him for some slight he'd decided Kangin had made against him.

However, after two days of not hearing from Heechul he did become a little concerned. It was unlike Heechul not to show up the next day saying something along the lines of 'I can't believe you fell for that, idiot' or 'Idiot, how could you not fall for that?'

He tried calling Heechul a few times, but never got an answer. That night he went over to Heechul's home only to find the door unlocked, most of his clothes missing, and Heechul nowhere in sight.

Day Thirteen

It had become impossible for Kangin not to notice that Heechul had been right about everything. For so many reasons, Kangin hated that.

Day Eighteen

All of the hospitals in the city had filled completely in under two weeks. According the news stations still on the air, whatever the sickness, plague, disease was it had spread throughout the entire world. That was bad enough, but then people began to see those who had died walking again. Killing. They were vicious and mindless and Kangin was terrified.

After two weeks a small fire had started in the downtown area of the city and with no one to put it out, it spread until there was smoke everywhere and the city burned. Kangin was far enough away from the heart of it to see it and smell it and still be able to run away from it.

He waited until dawn, got in his car, and never looked back.

Day Thirty-Eight

Kangin had no set destination and no real, concrete idea about what he was going to do with himself. Survival was top priority, but otherwise he was aimless. He'd switched cars; gotten himself something bigger, heavier, easier to run people -- if they could still be called people -- down with. He'd stocked up on weapons and food and a few books he'd always said he'd read later, when he had time.

He'd tried finding Heechul at first; tried calling him every day, but then the phone lines had all gone dead. Kangin had picked up a radio set, trying to find other people, but all he ever got was static. Once or twice he thought he heard something else coming through the airwaves, however it usually cut out before he could tell for sure and eventually that radio stopped working. Once, while passing through a small town, Kangin had climbed on top of his car and yelled for anyone alive to answer him.

That, of course, had not been the smartest move on his part because he then had to get back inside the car and get the hell out of there before he was completely overrun by the undead. They were definitely not the kind of company he wanted.

Day Forty-Two

There was absolutely no reason for Kangin to pull into the parking lot of hospital he spotted from the freeway. Hospitals were ground zero for a lot the things he was trying to avoid and, to be perfectly honest, he'd been bitten, scratched, clawed, and ambushed enough times in the last few weeks to last him a lifetime. Which is the exact amount of time he was aiming for.

As he stepped out of the car he tried to rationalize going inside the building. 'Supplies,' he thought, and 'maybe a bone-saw, whatever that is.'

Inside, the hospital reeked of rotting flesh but as far as Kangin could see the hallways were clear. He walked as quietly as he could, trying to find the stairway. The farther he got into the building, the stronger the smell was. "This is such a bad idea," Kangin whispered to himself, pushing open the door to the stairwell. He stopped moving and breathing at the sound of the loud creak the un-oiled door hinges made. After counting to three and nothing jumping out from the shadows at him, he walked toward the stairs, gun poised in front of him.

Kangin made his way up to the fifth floor, bypassing the others completely, and exited into a dim hallway. The sunlight the came trough the windows was the only source of light around. He peaked inside the first room to his left and saw the back of a woman, skin grey with decay, wearing what he thought looked like a nurse's uniform, making slow, methodic movements with blood pooling beneath her feet. "Shit," Kangin breathed out.

He continued to move down the hallway, looking into each room he passed, until he arrived at one that was barricaded from the other side. Kangin pressed himself closer to the small window in the door. He thought he could see someone on the other side, but the curtains were drawn and the room was too dark to tell for sure. He tapped lightly on the glass. "Hello? Are you alive?"

Whoever was on the other side of the door stood up suddenly, after Kangin had spoken, and faced the door. In a second, the person in the room pushed the barricade out of the way, opened the door, pulled Kangin inside, and then began pushing everything back together into a makeshift wall.

"Um," said Kangin. "Hi."

The other person, a boy who couldn't have been much younger than Kangin himself, turned around and moved to stand right in front of him. He touched Kangin's arms and face and pressed his hand to Kangin's heart. "You're real," the boy said. "Really real." He looked Kangin in the eye. "My name is Kyuhyun," he said, hands moving back to Kangin's face.

Kangin stepped back, but took hold of Kyuhyun's hand. "I'm Kangin. How long have you been in here?"

Kyuhyun frowned. "I'm not sure," he said. "I got in a small accident," he waved around his right arm a little and for the first time Kangin noticed the cast he wore. "I don't remember how long ago that was. My parents were supposed to come get me, but they never showed up."

"Shit," Kangin said.

Day Fifty-One

Despite his injury, Kyuhyun turned out to be an asset to Kangin. Basically the kid could point and shoot at the things that would otherwise try to kill them, eat them, or rip them apart to play in their blood. Kangin had seen it all done before and had no intention of becoming part of the show.

At first the silences between them were awkward, though not entirely uncomfortable. Neither of them had been around anyone for a long time and Kangin couldn't ever think of the right thing to say beside 'So, end of the world. How about that?' or 'Sorry everyone you love is probably dead. I know how you feel.'

But they managed. Kangin would drive as far and as long as he could until they need to sleep for the night, and Kyuhyun would shoot at anything that got too close. Or anything that was far enough away to make it a challenge. Sometimes it seemed like he was trying to prove himself useful so Kangin wouldn't think he'd made a mistake by bringing him along.

Day Seventy-Eight

"The scars on your arm," Kyuhyun started, "how did you get them?"

Kangin pressed his foot down on the gas pedal and hit a man aimlessly wandering the road. The closer they got, Kangin could see skin pulled tight over bone, hair falling out in large clumps, the left arm twisted at a strange angle, and the collarbone protruding from the skin.

"Fell off my bike when I was a kid, poked at a stray dog, and this one," Kangin indicted to the newer scar near his elbow where the wound hadn't even completely healed, "was from the woman who lived in the apartment next to mine."

Kyuhyun looked up at Kangin, wide-eyed. "You mean you didn't...I mean. I always thought that, you know. Biting was bad."

"It is bad. It hurt." Kangin rolled his eyes. "You watch too many movies."

Six Months

"Hurry up, Kyuhyun!" Kangin yelled out the car window. They'd stopped for supplies in a small town just on the edge of absolutely nowhere. "I said five minutes; you're pushing ten!"

Kangin wasn't worried. He didn't like being worried and worried could get him killed. It could get them both killed. Or so he rationalized. Except Kyuhyun had a tendency to be a little reckless which usually put Kangin on edge. One of them had to be the cautious one and Kangin hated when it had to be him.

Just as Kangin was about to get out of the car and go after Kyuhyun, the doors of the building opened and Kyuhyun ran out carrying a box of food and other necessities. "Open the door!" Only steps behind Kyuhyun were a group of men and women dressed in matching uniforms, all of them in various stages of decay. Except for one man who would have looked completely alive if it weren't for the large chunk of his skull missing.

Kangin leaned over the seat and threw the car door open. Not even half a second later Kyuhyun threw the box into the backseat and jumped inside. Kangin floored the gas pedal.

When they were a relatively safe distance away, and Kangin's heart no longer felt like it was going to explode out of his chest, he glanced at Kyuhyun out of the corner of his eye and finally spoke. "What the fuck was that? You said that place was empty! I never would have let you go in there alone if it wasn't."

"It was empty," Kyuhyun argued. "Except for that back room which had some them in it." He was being flippant.

Kangin slammed his foot down on the gas and fisted his hands in Kyuhyun's shirt. "This isn't a joke, Kyuhyun. You could have been hurt or even killed." He let go and leaned back in the driver's seat. "I don't want to lose you."

"Oh," said Kyuhyun. "I didn't think. But I didn't know they were in there and I guess I shouldn't have stayed in there as long as I did and I'm sorry."

"Just don't do that again," Kangin said as he began driving once more.

Seven Months, Fourteen Days

Kangin had fallen asleep in the backseat while Kyuhyun drove down the unfamiliar highway littered with abandoned cars. The sun had only just come up, casting a warm glow on everything. The world was quiet where they were.

"Wake up, we're here," said Kyuhyun, pulling into a hospital parking lot.

"What?" Kangin's eyes snapped open and he sat up abruptly. He pointed his gun at the enemies that weren't there.

Kyuhyun smiled. "Calm down. I need to get this cast off," he said.

Kangin looked out the window. "Shit. I hate hospitals."

"Yeah," said Kyuhyun. "Me, too."

Seven Months, Twenty-Six Days

They'd made camp for the night in a small cabin they'd found. It was old, but secure and surrounded by enough open area that they'd be able to see anything coming before it managed to reach them. Kyuhyun was perched in a chair by the front door, head rested against a side window, and shotgun in his lap. He was humming to himself as he stared outside. It was his turn to keep watch.

Kangin was attempting to cook soup in a can using some candles he'd found and playing with an antiquated two-way radio. Neither of them had actually expected the thing to work.

"Hello, anyone out there?" Kangin asked. He waited a minute before changing the frequency and trying again. "Hello, hello, anyone alive out there?"

"Hello? Who is this?" The reply was clear enough, even through the static.

Kyuhyun sat up straight and stared open-mouthed at Kangin.

"Hello?" Kangin said again, too stunned for anything more.

"Hello," said the person on the other end. "Can you stop that now? I heard you the first time."

Kangin recognized that voice. "Heechul?"

"What? Who is this?" asked Heechul. "Wait, Kangin? Is that you? I was sure you'd have gotten yourself killed by now."

"Great. Thanks," said Kangin. "Where are you?"

"I'm in a military base up in the mountains. This thing is completely secure and completely boring."

"How did you manage to get there?" Kangin asked.

"After I talked to you I met up with Eeteuk and then--" Heechul cut off and for a moment Kangin thought he'd lost the signal. "Shit, I have to go. I shouldn't even be using this thing. Kangin, listen, the people who work here say it's only a matter of time before this thing completely runs its course and then everything can go back to normal. Or as normal as things can get now. So don't die."

"I don't plan to," said Kangin. "Heechul, I'm really glad you're okay."

"Yeah," said Heechul. "Same." The line went dead.

Nine Months, Nine Days

In a moment of blinding genius, and more than a touch of absolute insanity, Kangin had driven their only means of transportation straight into a downed oil truck. On the plus side they were alive and the rather large mob of undead were, hopefully, incinerated. The negatives were that they no longer had a car and that Kyuhyun was probably going to kill Kangin himself once he'd gotten over the shock of jumping out of a moving vehicle at high speeds.

"I think," Kyuhyun started. "No. I know you're a madman. And I landed in a ditch."

Kangin slowly made his way to the other side of the road where Kyuhyun was, as he'd said, lying in a muddy ditch. He collapsed beside him. "I twisted my ankle when I hit the ground," he said.

Kyuhyun smacked Kangin on the side of the head. "It's the least you deserve."

"Where's our stuff?" he asked, ignoring Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun tilted his head, trying to look further back on the road. "That way, I think." They'd thrown as much of their essential items out of the car shortly before they'd thrown themselves out.

"We should probably go get that." Kangin sat up.

"Yeah, sure. Then we can walk the two miles back to the previous town or walk God knows how far until the next one. Not that it matters; we'll probably be attacked and killed long before we reach anything," said Kyuhyun.

Kangin clapped him on the shoulder. "That's the spirit."

Eleven Months, Thirteen Days

"I'm tired of moving all the time," Kyuhyun said. He was half asleep, head pillowed in Kangin's lap.

Kangin ran his fingers through Kyuhyun's hair absently and didn't answer. Eventually Kyuhyun's breathing evened out as he fell asleep.

They'd made camp in an abandoned police station after they had spent too much time looking for fuel for their new, barely road-worthy truck they'd found. Judging from the blood stains he'd washed off the seat the previous owner likely had little use for anymore. At the time it had seemed easier to settle in for the night and hope for better luck in the morning. Other than almost every other building being filled with the dead or the should-be-dead, it was a rather nice place. Though still dangerous.

Kangin yawned and leaned back against the hard wall. The room was secure enough and their barricade would hold long enough for both of them to wake up should anything try to get in.

"So am I," he said.

One Year

"Well?" Kangin asked.

Kyuhyun looked at the house then back to Kangin. "Well what?"

Kangin frowned. "Do you like it?"

"Other than the bloodstains on the mailbox, the windows, and-- is that a severed hand sticking out of the snow?"

Kangin kicked the hand -- and entire left arm, apparently -- off into the dead bushes. "Yes," he said. "It adds character."

"Right," Kyuhyun said. "Other than that, it's a nice house."

"Good. We're moving in." Kangin had checked the house earlier when Kyuhyun had been restocking their supplies. It was in a small neighborhood where all the houses were spread out far enough apart and the center of the town was close, but not too close. And the town itself was surrounded by nothing, nothing, and more nothing. It was as good a location as they were likely to ever find.

With the drop in temperature during the winter months it would be harder and harder for them to keep going day by day. And Kangin had really taken to the idea of settling down. To some degree.

One Year, Three Days

"The ground is frozen and it's freezing outside. That isn't going to work. You're going to catch pneumonia and die," said Kyuhyun. He was hanging out of the window watching Kangin try to build a fence around their new home.

"That's very helpful. Thank you." Kangin used all of his strength to force the metal pole into the ground. It stood up for a few seconds before it slowly tilted sideways and then, inevitably, fell over. "You could help, you know."

Kyuhyun backed away. "I'm trying to clean the blood from the walls. The handprints are a little disturbing. And I don't even know what that...liquid in the sink is, but it smells and I think it may be sentient. Also, it's warmer in here."

Kangin finally managed to get the pole deep enough for it to remain standing. He pushed against it a few times to test how sturdy it was. "Don't you think this is more important?" He moved a little further away to set up the next pole.

His back was to Kyuhyun so he wasn't able to see him roll his eyes, but Kangin knew him well enough to know that he did. "We haven't seen anything since the blizzard a week ago. Maybe they like the cold as much as we do. Or maybe they all froze, if we're lucky," Kyuhyun answered.

"We're not lucky," said Kangin. "Could they be hibernating? Like bears or something."

"Oh yes. Zombies and bears. I see the resemblance."

Kangin turned and threw a snowball at Kyuhyun, but Kyuhyun was too quick. He'd managed to close the window before it could hit him. Kyuhyun waved from the other side of the glass.

"Brat!" Kangin called. Kyuhyun leaned closer to the window and breathed against it. He drew a smiley face in the condensation.

One Year, Twelve Days

When it first started to get colder outside, they'd shared a bed for warmth and survival. It was a basic instinct not to die after everything they'd both been through. Simple enough. Kangin liked to think that, when things changed, it hadn't been because he'd still only seen Kyuhyun as just another warm body. But Kangin couldn't be sure because things weren't that simple.

One Year, Two Months

Kangin was clearing out the house next the theirs. The days were getting warmer and Kyuhyun had insisted that they get rid of all the dead bodies before they thawed. They had avoided the smell of death almost the entire winter and neither of them wanted that back. It was only right that the people who'd lived -- and died -- in that neighborhood also received a proper burial. Kyuhyun had been adamant on that as well.

They really seemed to be settling in there. Attacks were few and getting farther and farther in-between and maybe Heechul had been right and things really would get better.

"Kangin!" Kyuhyun ran through the front door. He grabbed hold of Kangin's hand and began to drag him outside. For a moment Kangin was terrified something had broken the life he was trying to rebuild. "People!" said Kyuhyun. "Real, live, people. I saw them up the street."

Kangin wrenched his hand free from Kyuhyun's grip. "What? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It looked like a family and they were on foot." He moved behind Kangin and started pushing. "Come on!"

One Year, Five Months

As it turned out, the little town they had settled down in was in the crossways between three major cities. In the months following that first family's arrival, more and more people began to trickle in. At Kangin's last count they were at fifty-eight people living on their street with new ones showing up every week.

They had set up a decent defense system where five to ten people would be patrolling the town at all hours of the day. And there wasn't a single person around who didn't know how to defend themselves. Even the children.

It wasn't Utopia, but it was better than nothing.

One Year, Seven Months

"What do you think about 'Mayor of Kanginland'?" Kangin asked. He and Kyuhyun were lying in bed, sharing a pillow, and talking about every stupid thing that popped into their minds. Neither of them were on guard duty that night.

"Kanginland? And when did you become the mayor? And what about me?" Kyuhyun poked Kangin in the ribs.

Kangin was quiet for a moment while he thought about it. "You could be my royal concubine."

Kyuhyun tilted his head back and laughed. "When did you become royalty?"

"I am everything in the land of Kangin."

"Oh, right. I must have forgotten," said Kyuhyun.

Kangin flipped over and pinned Kyuhyun to the bed. "You shouldn't mock the almighty ruler of all that you see before you."

"I think your imaginary power has gone to your head." Kyuhyun wrapped his leg that wasn't completely pinned down around Kangin's waist. He smiled as he ran his fingers up the back of Kangin's neck and into his hair. He leaned up and Kissed Kangin before he could start arguing.

Two Years

And the world reset itself.

(Kangin slowly made his way downstairs to the kitchen where, by the smell, Kyuhyun was cooking breakfast. And burning it. Kangin rubbed at his eyes and tried to ignore the way his head throbbed and the way his throat felt raw, like he'd swallowed sandpaper. It was probably nothing.

"I've been thinking," said Kyuhyun as Kangin sat down at the table. "It's been months since we've seen anything dead or mostly-dead and even then it was bones barely held together with decayed muscle and skin. So the worst is behind us, right? But it was a virus that started this and viruses mutate, don't they? Just because we were immune before, how do we know we always will be?"

Kangin swallowed a cough. It was probably nothing.)