Smosh Fic: Greyscape (Chapter 1)
Title: Greyscape (Chapter 1)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: (future) Ian/Anthony
Beta: 98ninetyeight
Genre/Warnings: AU, Angst, Apocalypse, Gore, Violence, OOC
Summary: The world is a wasteland. Nothing is what is used to be. Humans? They are scarce and few. What is left is a mutation of human. And Ian Hecox is the cure.
Author's Notes: I'm trying something here. I've been writing in this universe (of this story that I created) since the beginning of high school and have written multiple story lines and characters for it. I thought: why not throw Ian and Anthony in the mix? I'm excited! This "world" is sort of like my baby and I daydream about it all the time.
Con crit is very very welcomed! I'd like to know what was confusing, what needs work and what seems completely unbelievable. (All will be revealed eventually. It's slow going.)
“Anthony.”
Light.
“Anthony. C’mon.”
Touch
“Get up. On your feet now.”
Eyes. Familiar ones. Colour like the sky. The ocean. Right into him.
“Anthony! Fuck. Wake up.”
He can understand now. No more muffled sounds that are only screams and roars. No more incoherency that stumbles into his brain and builds up until there is a wall between clarity and chaos. The wall is broken.
Words. Instructions. Voice. One voice.
Then a hard slap against his cheek that stings and hurts. But it turns the words into actions and he’s actually up on his feet and waking up.
“Good. Great. Let’s go.”
He opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out except a gargled growl so he instead grabs hold onto the thing - an arm - that keeps him up around his waist. He squeezes it, feels the skin and the flesh - the warmth - and finally he can see.
He jumps from darkness to light. At first it happens quick, to a point where it angers him so much that he starts to see red and feel fire. It’s like his eyelids are blinking rapidly but his eyes are already closed so how can he stop this flickering of white and black?
When it’s dark, he can’t understand anything. He can’t understand the sounds that come through his senses muffled and distant. Thoughts, words, letters, sounds - all dangle precariously close in the darkness, just out of his fingertips. He wants none of it in the darkness. He doesn’t like it in the darkness.
But in the light, it’s like a breath of air. He can see. He can hear. He can feel. Not well, but at least he can. He’s out of the dark waters that had been drowning him before without him even knowing it. But he can’t stay afloat for too long. The darkness calls for him.
“Anthony?”
He’s choking. There’s something warm running down his throat and he’s choking on it. It tastes good though. So good. But it’s too much.
“Stop,” he says and he hears himself and almost opens his eyes in surprise but his body doesn’t quite do what it’s told. Instead, he jerks to the side and groans, the sound coming out foreign and unfamiliar. It sounds almost like a animal’s growl. His ears tingle with the onslaught of noise.
Noise? He can hear noise.
“Wake up, Anthony.” Noise. No - voice.
Noise is: the wind whistling overhead, the creaking of steel, the sound of scratching gravel underneath his body and the whine of - the whine of -
The Darkness disappears and he sees the light. It’s blue. Deep, azure, glittering blue.
“Anthony, it’s me,” those eyes say. Something brushes his lips, warm and inviting. He leans his face into the touch. Feels nice. “It’s Ian, Anthony. Wake up.”
Hand. Fingers. It is fingers that smooth over his brow and cup his cheek. It’s a hand that covers his mouth and it’s something that he doesn’t know but is sweet that drips into his throat.
Then the gentle fingers become a hard slap against his cheek.
“Shit!”
Anthony sits upright and starts to cough. His whole body aches from the sudden jerking motion. He blinks rapidly and winces at the sight before him. Everything is so bright that tears start to well up in his stinging eyes.
A sigh to his left becomes a laugh. “Anthony.” And before he knows it, Anthony’s got an armful of Ian and his back that slams hard into the pavement from the force. He’s not wearing anything up top and his skin brazes the jagged pebbles underneath him. He lets out a yelp but its sound is buried by Ian’s head of hair in his face. But he wraps his arms around Ian anyway, pulling him close as Ian’s arms tighten around his neck.
“Wha -” Anthony clears his raw throat and tastes a little of something metallic on his lips. “What’s g-going on?”
Ian untangles himself from between them. Anthony frowns at how cold he is without Ian on top of him. Ian’s smiling though, looking relieved so Anthony can’t help but return the gesture. His friend looks haggard and worse for wear. What happened? Where are they? Why is there red painted like specks on Ian’s face? And when did Ian cut his hair so short? Now he can’t make fun of his bowl hair cut anymore.
“C’mon, no time,” Ian says and takes Anthony’s hand. He looks down and sees.
His hand is stick thin, grey, and almost monstrous in Ian’s - normal - hand. Anthony takes in a gasp, unbelieving and his whole body freezes. What was wrong with him?
“W-w-why…” Anthony starts to say and his eyes dart from his hand to Ian’s face. Ian’s smile is gone and his expression is stony now. It matches the dark of the broken building behind him.
“Got to go, Anthony,” Ian urges and lifts Anthony up with a hand around his waist. He teeters sideways and bumps his hip against Ian’s. But it’s not hip that Anthony feels. Instead it’s something cold and hard and he looks down to see a gun.
Further from the gun, on the ground, is blood.
And further around the blood, is something that looks like his own hand but it’s not his: grey and broken and unnatural on the floor. Severed, but dangling on a thin piece of skin from a contorted looking shoulder. Bones stick out of ripped grayish yellow flesh like knives.
Anthony finally knows what the whining is.
It’s from the Almost Dead dying around them.
“I kill them because I don’t want them to live,” Ian says, kicking the firewood with the toe of his boot. Anthony wonders how Ian doesn’t feel the searing heat of the fire and how he can relax, back curved as he sinks into the wet rough mossy surface of the fallen tree. They’re two miles on the outskirts of Zone Black, or L.A., as it once was called and just on the edge of the forest. It hardly looks anything like it used to. Anthony vaguely recalls the skyscrapers; blue and shining white against an azure clear sky. Now, they’re black - just like the name suggests - and falling apart. The steel creeks and groans against the winds.
Anthony can hardly recall the trip out of the city. He remembers slightly being hidden in empty, broken cars and dark damp corners while Ian went off and came back with bloodied weapons and heaving breaths. He goes into Darkness several times and wakes up every time with Ian by his side and a liquid - Ian’s blood - just sliding down his throat. It must have been days.
Ian hasn’t smiled since then.
“But you’re immune,” Anthony says, head swiveling this way and that at every movement. But it’s only the birds flying about, weaving in and out of the trees and speeding by in stretched blurs. He’s not used to wildlife, not used to the light or the tall trees growing out of the forest floor. He fingers the hem of the shirt Ian put on him with his gloved hands. His bare skin burns in the sun and he has to cover up despite the blazing heat of coming summer. “And you’re the cure.”
Ian shrugs. “No one needs to know.”
“I know.”
Ian sighs and looks at Anthony, blue eyes hard. He hardly recognizes his best friend. He doesn’t understand him anymore. Doesn’t know how to interpret the look Ian’s giving him. Is he exasperated? Tired? Annoyed? Regretful? Challenging? Anthony’s been Away for so long. He’s been Out of his Mind for years. He can still taste the foulness of his delirium on his tongue and he eagerly waits for the squirrel Ian is cooking to hurry and be done.
After a moment, Ian’s eyes divert away and he whispers to Anthony, sounding defeated, “You’re the only one I’ll ever save.”
Anthony looks at Ian, trying to catch his eyes again but they’re hard at work scanning through the trees. He’s good. Ian’s gotten better at pretending, at avoiding and at being strong. He wonders what Ian’s been through. Ian’s been alone just as long as Anthony has been Away.
“What about,” Anthony starts, shifting so that he’s directly in Ian’s eye sight and continues when they lock gazes, “What about your sister? Your mom? Our friends? What about Melanie? You’d save her, right?”
Ian doesn’t move, face remaining unchanged. Anthony takes a hard look at Ian’s face. It’s clean, shaven, ever-so-slightly tanned with skin that seems tight and rough. He’s all sharp angles and prominent cheekbones and jaw. His hair is a shade lighter than what Anthony can remember. A few years ago, Ian was twenty-three and still baby faced and pale, with smiles all over. A few years ago, they were at the beginning of their life’s work, fresh with ideas and dreams and ready to face the world. But the world changed and nothing in those twenty-three years they shared would have prepared them for it.
Now the world is desolate. Bloodthirsty and dead.
He stares back; gaze still hard. It’s always hard nowadays. Tough. Unrelenting. The moment he Awoke, those eyes had been bearing into Anthony, reaching deep down inside of him and grasping tightly. So unlike the man Anthony remembers. If Ian were whom he was years ago - funny, laughing, bashful, compassionate - Anthony would never have gotten Out of his Mind. It was Ian’s icy eyes that shook Anthony Awake, and it was Ian’s blood that courses through Anthony’s body that keeps his mind Awake.
“Dead,” Ian says, and doesn’t hesitate. Says the words like he would say his own name; Ian Hecox. Nothing is distinctly like Ian anymore. Nothing about him is like his best friend who he’s grown up with. The only reason Anthony knows he’s Ian at all is the fact that the other had told him he was when Anthony came around. He seemed familiar then. Otherwise, Ian is a stranger.
“But-”
“Don’t,” he interrupts and kicks the flames a little too roughly so that bright sparks encase the burning squirrel.
He waits for Ian to say more but he only stares at Anthony as if his eyes could talk what his voice does not want to say. This time, Anthony diverts his own eyes and fidgets with his hands. He’s still grey. It’s only been a few days since he Woke and he’s still ashen faced and pale, sharp bones and pointed teeth. He’s lost almost all body fat. Ian says at least he’s not hairless anymore and doesn’t look like a botoxed mole rat. But he’s jealous of Ian’s pink skin, the flush that is bordering on becoming sunburnt on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, and the muscles that poke out of his midnight t-shirt. Anthony used to be the stronger one, the toned one. He used to lift heavy camera and sound equipment while Ian wore wrist braces if he worked himself too hard. Anthony should be the one with the hard eyes, the rippling back muscles and the one with fingernails that had dug into dirt and bloody flesh. But no. Instead he had died and had fallen Asleep just like the countless other others that have.
Yet, he doesn’t know if he would have had it in him to do what Ian had done: save him.
“I’m sorry,” Anthony offers after the silence becomes too much. He doesn’t like it. It reminds him of when he had been Asleep. And he’s sorry for a lot of things.
“We’ll live,” Ian says and throws him his half of the charred creature. It tastes better than human flesh.
They’ve been walking all day, only stopping to hunt or to take a piss. Although, it feels like Anthony is the only one with the fluids to piss and Ian just stands behind him while his dick hangs out.
“We’re just going around, man,” Anthony states and it’s obvious because the black city is the same distance as they walk for hours. It’s what he looks at while they move. He watches it because it’s the thing that’s most familiar to him in this wilderness. Anthony finds the threshold of the covered forest more frightening than the decaying urban wasteland to his side. He’s spent so long in the city of breaking muted silver frames after all.
“Yeah,” is all Ian says. Unlike Anthony, he looks ahead, head tall and shoulders high. He takes large, wide steps over broken tree branches and pointy asphalt rocks without even a glance down. It’s like Ian knows exactly where they’re going and has done this dozens of time. His cut short brown hair reveals the tightness of his neck and the veins that travel from his neck, down his firm arms and all the way to his tense fingertips. Those arms sway by his side and Anthony is forced to stay a few feet behind from Ian in case the bowie knife he carries in his iron grip stabs Anthony in the thigh. Ian is strapped and loaded with guns hanging on each of his hips, under his belt and at the small of his back, and another sword (where the hell did he find a sword?) strapped across his body. There’s ammo in his pockets and in the pack on his back. And Anthony knows there’s more weaponry in his own backpack that was put on his back to carry by Ian but he won’t know how to use them and he knows they’re not for him to use anyway.
And the only time Ian and Anthony had ever held guns was at a shooting range and they had sucked.
Anthony huffs, gasping for breath as they walk up a particular steep slope. “And why are we doing that?”
“Because,” he says and that’s it. Says nothing more even as Anthony gives him quiet and time to answer. He’s annoyed, frustrated and tired. His skin is still grey and it pisses him off because he has to see Ian’s fleshy, real, human skin and has to push away the animalistic thoughts that had been on his mind for the most part of two and half years that he had been Asleep. The seagull they ate three hours ago feels like it was eaten days ago.
“You’re not very good at explaining shit, Ian,” he snarls and breathes. A growl steeps in the back of his throat and his front teeth dig into his bottom lip. He stops when his vision goes red, darkness creeping in again, and his back curls up in that familiar crouch that it almost feels comfortable. The Darkness calls for him like a lullaby, suffocates him with its black but then, a hand around his chin forces him to drink. Anthony almost gags but swallows the metallic liquid and instantly, he can see. Light rushes in. Dark vanishes. He’s staring straight into Ian’s cold, hard eyes. Ian’s hand is bloodied and covering Anthony’s mouth.
“Let’s hope this isn’t something you need all the time.” He lets Anthony go, his cut palm painting red on his hip and guides Anthony to sit against a tree. The crimson blood on Anthony’s lips is sweet. “I can’t be your blood bank forever.”
Anthony doesn’t say anything until the desire to feed, to taste, and the jealousy turned raging hunger subsides from him.
“Is there anything other than fucking birds and squirrels?”
They’re still walking. And Ian has only taken one toilet break since the day began. Maybe he took another while Anthony had passed out during the flesh-hunger fiasco two hours ago. The sun is setting and the green of the forest is turning black. He can hardly see the outline of Zone Black and it makes him nervous. It’s just a black silhouette of rotting metal frames and dark brown clouds settling into the night.
“Fish.”
Anthony rolls his eyes. “Is that all you say?” He catches up to Ian, chest heaving and out of breath, but he feels better than he has for a while now. “One word; ‘fish’, ‘because’, ‘don’t’, ‘dead’?”
Ian doesn’t even look back at him. “Yeah.” Ian keeps walking.
“What are we doing, Ian?” Anthony asks and almost stumbles over a particularly knotty tree root. “Fuck,” he almost yells but keeps his voice in check. Something about Ian keeps him in control. Three years ago, he might have snapped at his friend, and argued with Ian until they were both red-faced and exasperated with anger. Then they would have laughed and called each other ‘assholes’ and ‘bitches’. “Why are we walking in a circle?”
“Because,” Ian says and Anthony’s toes curl with fury.
“Because what?” Anthony seethes, the familiar curl of his back, the snarl of his lips, the scrunching of his brow reminds him of the Darkness. He’s slipping but he doesn’t notice it until Ian stops and turns to face him.
“Do you need more?” Ian asks and holds out his hand, bandaged with a piece of a spare shirt Ian had. The blood is soaked through and dried to a rust colour. It has a scent; strong and vaporizing - good smell.
Anthony blinks back that thought. It reminds him of the Darkness - the unfeeling darkness. But in the Darkness, he hadn’t been able to feel, to know, to smell.
You’re not in the Dark right now. You’re with Ian. And he’s got blood. For you.
Take it. Have it. Must have it.
Ian’s unraveling the bandage, slow because the crusted blood sticks to his skin. It hurts and Anthony can tell by the way Ian winces and breathes in sharply. Fresh blood oozes out and the scent is glorious.
There. For you.
Yours.
The red against Ian’s skin looks fascinating. It drips thick and swirls in miniscule circles with particles of white as it’s released in pulses. Anthony can hear Ian’s heart.
“Here.” Ian takes a step forward, lifts his hand palm up like an offering in front of Anthony’s mouth. A trail of deep burgundy runs like a ribbon around Ian’s wrist.
Yours.
Anthony lifts his own hand, fingers grasping lightly around Ian’s arm and bringing the open wound closer. Ian’s skin is warm, and his flesh softer and fuller than his. Is he shaking or is Ian? His vision is completely focused on the blood, the agonizingly beautiful blood, but he lets his sight flicker to their touching hand and arm and sees.
Peach under grey.
Human and inhuman.
Anthony recoils instantly. The thoughts, the smells, the sight of blood looks revolting now and he shakes his head furiously and almost flings Ian’s arm away from him. He’s scared. So scared as he looks into Ian’s blue eyes and sees something unlike the strange Ian and more of the Ian he last remembers; the one that had been screaming for him, crying for him, and running away from him.
“No,” Anthony says. “I don’t need it.”
This time, Anthony leads the circular walk.
Next Chapter
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