Smosh Fic: Greyscape (Chapter 4)
Title: Greyscape (Chapter 4)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: (future) Ian/Anthony
Beta: 98ninetyeight
Genre/Warnings: AU, Angst, Apocalypse, Death, 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.
Chapter Summary: Everything seems manageable for the moment. Calm, and silent, for now.
Previous Chapters: One, Two, Three
A/N: Things are slow-going and confusing, I know. But I don't know the level of confusion so if anything is like "omg wtf is going on!?!!!?!?!?!?!", let me know! It means I have to compensate for the frustration! And slash? Patience, patience, patience. :)
More of 98ninetyeight offering sentences for me to steal. So I stole 'em.
When Ian looks into the sky, he can see the snow of the ashes floating all around him. The smell invades his senses, pushes away the dusty, earthy scent of the lake and instead, brings him back to the burning concrete and gasoline-fire of the city. The stench of burnt skin almost turns his insides out.
Birds turn into screams. The gentle rustling of leaves and branches turn into the violent howl of breaking buildings and the hammering pounding of running feet. Green and brown and blue and beige turn into hot red and drowning grey.
When Ian looks into the sky and closes his eyes, he is back two years, seven months and thirteen days and in the heart of Los Angeles. The heart that is bleeding and breaking down, its arteries cut off and veins severed. Life neither comes into the walls of its atriums nor leaves it.
He can still remember Melanie. Ian can almost hear her voice, crying and begging. Worst of all, he can still feel her fear and sometimes, he doesn’t know if it was hers or his own fear now. He wishes he could conjure up the memories of before - life during Smosh and his happy one - but Ian hardly does, because he might never want to open his eyes again or breathe another breath.
He did leave Los Angeles. After days of looking and panic. Ian had almost starved to death and once, he had almost died. He can still remember screaming at the top of his lungs, hurling himself against the Almost Dead and feeling the first, surprising, teeth sink into his arm. It was exhilarating and dangerous and so very real and he thought nothing like death could be this real. But it had turned out he hadn’t died. Somehow he found himself hours later alive and not Asleep, not dead. Still in the hell hole that was the earth. One of the Almost Dead gasping for air at his feet.
He didn’t have a sword, or a knife, or guns with him then. Had he, he might not be with Anthony right now. Anthony had caught more fish and Ian had stood on the edge of the bank, watching, as his friend waded in the water and struck lightening fast several times into the barrier of the lake. Sometimes Anthony comes out with nothing, but most times, a thrashing, shiny fish appears in his hand and it is squeezed to death before its body hits the sandy earth. He manages to catch six great fish in the end, four of them slipping out of Anthony’s grip.
A lump in Ian’s throat forms every time the squish-squash of the dead fish falls at his feet. It settles in the depths of his own gut now as he watches Anthony biting into their lunch.
“You look so stupid right now,” Anthony says, with a mouthful of charred food. The fire crackles in between them, its heat battling with the hotness of the afternoon.
Ian blinks. “What?”
Anthony gestures at Ian with a nod of his chin, mouth full and swallows. “With your mouth hanging open like a retard and staring off into space. And you’ve got no pants, sitting on a rock.”
Ian looks down at himself, indeed pants-less and only wearing a pair of boxers with his too hairy legs sprawled before him. He laughs a little. His wet pants and shoes are laid out in the sun and drying. “So? You’re shoeless.”
“Yeah, but I don’t look stupid,” Anthony says again, grimacing lightly at Ian. “Don’t you have another pair of pants?”
“You’re wearing ‘em, you bastard.”
“Well, sorry. If you weren’t so stupid, you would’ve thought better before jumping in the water, douche.” Anthony laughs as Ian pulls a scowl at him. “At least close your legs or something. I’m scared I’m gunna see your balls hanging out the next second.”
Ian feels his face heat up, embarrassed, and quickly turns his body to the side, away from Anthony. “Shut up... bitch.”
Silence washes over them. And Ian finds himself thinking about Anthony and his questions and the answers Ian knows he owes his friend. He knows that eventually Anthony will have to know what Ian is waiting for - what Ian is reluctantly preparing for. But - Anthony is so patient and Ian is grateful for that small gift because what if this wait was all for nothing? Ian is not willing to give up all of defenses for nothing.
Instead, Ian will paint the façade of normality (or at least what he can create with what little they had). He will not be angry with Anthony. He will not be wary of his friend who sounds completely like his friend when he closes his eyes but transforms into the stuff of Ian’s nightmares when he opens them. Ian can pretend. He’s been able to convince himself for two years, seven months and thirteen days that one day, everything will be normal.
“So,” Ian starts. He catches Anthony’s attentive eyes, brown and very dark unlike the sky that frames their landscape today. They help Ian go on. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“The weird fish-catching thing.”
A small guilty look forms right before Anthony swallows and shrugs. “I don’t know.”
But Ian knows. How else do they keep on being Almost Dead and not entirely dead? They’re solitary creatures, only crossing paths with one another when rats and other small creatures all died along in the empty walls of the city. A small thought about Charlie flutters through his mind. He had had to put Charlie down before leaving Sacramento. A few months before that, it would have been odd to request to euthanize a guinea pig, but by then, nobody had anymore pets.
Ian nods in response, watching Anthony from the corner of his eye. What had Anthony done that he doesn’t know himself? How many things has he killed? How much does his body remember that his mind cannot? Anthony knows nothing.
Ian knows. He’s seen them. It’s not hard to forget what he’s seen. He wishes he could but some sick part of him likes to remember and it sets him apart from everything else. It allows Ian to return to the city when he needs to - that same exhilaration only present when he hears the crunch of broken glass under his feet and taste the addictive fumes of plastic and metal.
The fear keeps him out though. Which is good, he reminds himself, as he digs his nails into his wounded palm.
“Are we,” Anthony says and pulls Ian out of his thoughts, “going to go anywhere today?” He’s a little tentative, hesitant and unsure. At least he still understands subtlety - not something Ian is used to anymore.
Ian answers him quietly, “No.” Anthony nods and throws his fish bones in the fire. He looks like he wants to say more, but goes against it. Ian pretends not to notice Anthony scrunching his eyes closed and shaking his head. A breeze picks up and tangles itself in the fire in front of them. “This is a good place for tonight. My pants are still wet anyways and you… you can catch dinner again.”
Another nod and more wind. Anthony’s mouth gaping open and Ian waiting for Anthony to speak. And Ian is not really sure if he wants to have this conversation.
Maybe two and half years ago, Ian wouldn’t have been able to shut his mouth and Anthony would know all his thoughts by now. Anthony would know what they were doing, if there was a place they were heading to and what Ian is waiting for. But that was a long time ago and it’s been a long, long time.
“I’m…” Anthony begins. He clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably. Ian moves a little, too, the chill running up his bare legs. “I’m sorry - about this morning. I wasn’t trying anything. I’m sorry if… if I scared you, or something.”
Ian shrugs and sees Anthony’s almost laughable pained face. “You’re not that scary.” The relief in Anthony’s eyes is unexpectedly fast to appear. For a second, it makes Ian feel good - that these brown eyes can look so lax and happy in the light of forgiveness. Again, it urges Ian to go on and say reassuring words like, “I’m just - I’m sorry, too. I’m just not used to-”
“Yeah, I get it, Ian.” Anthony offers him a smile. “Don’t worry about it, man.”
But Ian doesn’t really smile back, no matter how nice it is that Anthony understands, or says he does. He doesn’t want a repeat of this morning. Of Ian letting himself go and thinking that everything could be okay and that Anthony’s smiles, appearing on a face so unfamiliar and changed, can make things better.
He’ll just nod and throw his dirty fish bones at Anthony, close his eyes and listen to Anthony yell half-heartedly at him and his friend’s laughter.
Ian will just pretend until he knows he’ll have to either unravel his bandaged, blood-crusting hand, or unclick the safety of his gun and point it steady in front of him.
They spend the rest of the afternoon and until the sky turns orange and dusts the lake with honey, fishing. It’s more like Anthony spends it fishing while Ian tries to, but fails to grab anything but dirty seaweed and grainy mud. Anthony can’t help laughing at Ian after his friend’s umpteenth attempt at trying to catch those “damn freakin’ pieces of crap” fails, and Ian finally gives up, sulking, still pants-less, at the edge of the lake.
When Anthony is fishing, methodically scanning below for a watery shadow, the voice helps him. It’s odd and something he can’t explain. The voice is louder, spilling to Anthony words that he can’t completely understand at a speed faster than when he’s sitting in front of Ian and a fire but it’s manageable. And it helps.
Somehow he can use the noise to create a focus for his body to fish - just to fish - and to block out whatever else is crowding his mind space. He’s so caught up in bending his knees, breathing in, and targeting the tell-tale silhouette of dinner that he almost forgets he’s in the woods, that he’s with Ian who doesn’t speak more than two sentences to him, even after Anthony’s shot-in-the-dark apology, and the fact that it wasn’t until yesterday that his mind has been so chaotic.
The fishing settles him somewhat. It’s something he can manage - both catching fish and the unrelenting voice in his head. It’s something he can do. Something he has some sense of control over so he’s not some poor excuse of a weak human that can’t do anything except watch Ian from the sidelines as his friend builds fires and chases after birds and squirrels. It’s something he can do other than listen to the voice and want to do what the voice tells him to do. This way, he can drown it out like he drowns the fish he catches in air. He almost forgets that there isn’t a twisted mutation of a human lurking below the glassy lake, staring up into him, reminding him of what he is every time he looks down.
He’s lost in the voice saying over and over again, yours, yours, yours, yours, more, get more, that he doesn’t hear Ian ask him to be quiet, or to stop. He doesn’t see Ian walking slowly to his right around the bank of the lake or him cracking a branch off of a naked dying tree. It isn’t until Anthony’s hand plunges into the water and grasps the thrashing creature - and the voice disappears for those few satisfying seconds - that he hears Ian’s loud cry, another impossibly horrid screech and the voice in his head booming with the word MINE when he sees Ian on the ground fighting with a writhing inhumane grey thing on top of him.
Anthony doesn’t know what he does next, but whatever he does, it speeds by in blurry frantic colours and the loud panicking, heart-pounding voice in his head screaming at him to protect what was theirs.
Chapter Five
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: (future) Ian/Anthony
Beta: 98ninetyeight
Genre/Warnings: AU, Angst, Apocalypse, Death, 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.
Chapter Summary: Everything seems manageable for the moment. Calm, and silent, for now.
Previous Chapters: One, Two, Three
A/N: Things are slow-going and confusing, I know. But I don't know the level of confusion so if anything is like "omg wtf is going on!?!!!?!?!?!?!", let me know! It means I have to compensate for the frustration! And slash? Patience, patience, patience. :)
More of 98ninetyeight offering sentences for me to steal. So I stole 'em.
When Ian looks into the sky, he can see the snow of the ashes floating all around him. The smell invades his senses, pushes away the dusty, earthy scent of the lake and instead, brings him back to the burning concrete and gasoline-fire of the city. The stench of burnt skin almost turns his insides out.
Birds turn into screams. The gentle rustling of leaves and branches turn into the violent howl of breaking buildings and the hammering pounding of running feet. Green and brown and blue and beige turn into hot red and drowning grey.
When Ian looks into the sky and closes his eyes, he is back two years, seven months and thirteen days and in the heart of Los Angeles. The heart that is bleeding and breaking down, its arteries cut off and veins severed. Life neither comes into the walls of its atriums nor leaves it.
He can still remember Melanie. Ian can almost hear her voice, crying and begging. Worst of all, he can still feel her fear and sometimes, he doesn’t know if it was hers or his own fear now. He wishes he could conjure up the memories of before - life during Smosh and his happy one - but Ian hardly does, because he might never want to open his eyes again or breathe another breath.
He did leave Los Angeles. After days of looking and panic. Ian had almost starved to death and once, he had almost died. He can still remember screaming at the top of his lungs, hurling himself against the Almost Dead and feeling the first, surprising, teeth sink into his arm. It was exhilarating and dangerous and so very real and he thought nothing like death could be this real. But it had turned out he hadn’t died. Somehow he found himself hours later alive and not Asleep, not dead. Still in the hell hole that was the earth. One of the Almost Dead gasping for air at his feet.
He didn’t have a sword, or a knife, or guns with him then. Had he, he might not be with Anthony right now. Anthony had caught more fish and Ian had stood on the edge of the bank, watching, as his friend waded in the water and struck lightening fast several times into the barrier of the lake. Sometimes Anthony comes out with nothing, but most times, a thrashing, shiny fish appears in his hand and it is squeezed to death before its body hits the sandy earth. He manages to catch six great fish in the end, four of them slipping out of Anthony’s grip.
A lump in Ian’s throat forms every time the squish-squash of the dead fish falls at his feet. It settles in the depths of his own gut now as he watches Anthony biting into their lunch.
“You look so stupid right now,” Anthony says, with a mouthful of charred food. The fire crackles in between them, its heat battling with the hotness of the afternoon.
Ian blinks. “What?”
Anthony gestures at Ian with a nod of his chin, mouth full and swallows. “With your mouth hanging open like a retard and staring off into space. And you’ve got no pants, sitting on a rock.”
Ian looks down at himself, indeed pants-less and only wearing a pair of boxers with his too hairy legs sprawled before him. He laughs a little. His wet pants and shoes are laid out in the sun and drying. “So? You’re shoeless.”
“Yeah, but I don’t look stupid,” Anthony says again, grimacing lightly at Ian. “Don’t you have another pair of pants?”
“You’re wearing ‘em, you bastard.”
“Well, sorry. If you weren’t so stupid, you would’ve thought better before jumping in the water, douche.” Anthony laughs as Ian pulls a scowl at him. “At least close your legs or something. I’m scared I’m gunna see your balls hanging out the next second.”
Ian feels his face heat up, embarrassed, and quickly turns his body to the side, away from Anthony. “Shut up... bitch.”
Silence washes over them. And Ian finds himself thinking about Anthony and his questions and the answers Ian knows he owes his friend. He knows that eventually Anthony will have to know what Ian is waiting for - what Ian is reluctantly preparing for. But - Anthony is so patient and Ian is grateful for that small gift because what if this wait was all for nothing? Ian is not willing to give up all of defenses for nothing.
Instead, Ian will paint the façade of normality (or at least what he can create with what little they had). He will not be angry with Anthony. He will not be wary of his friend who sounds completely like his friend when he closes his eyes but transforms into the stuff of Ian’s nightmares when he opens them. Ian can pretend. He’s been able to convince himself for two years, seven months and thirteen days that one day, everything will be normal.
“So,” Ian starts. He catches Anthony’s attentive eyes, brown and very dark unlike the sky that frames their landscape today. They help Ian go on. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“The weird fish-catching thing.”
A small guilty look forms right before Anthony swallows and shrugs. “I don’t know.”
But Ian knows. How else do they keep on being Almost Dead and not entirely dead? They’re solitary creatures, only crossing paths with one another when rats and other small creatures all died along in the empty walls of the city. A small thought about Charlie flutters through his mind. He had had to put Charlie down before leaving Sacramento. A few months before that, it would have been odd to request to euthanize a guinea pig, but by then, nobody had anymore pets.
Ian nods in response, watching Anthony from the corner of his eye. What had Anthony done that he doesn’t know himself? How many things has he killed? How much does his body remember that his mind cannot? Anthony knows nothing.
Ian knows. He’s seen them. It’s not hard to forget what he’s seen. He wishes he could but some sick part of him likes to remember and it sets him apart from everything else. It allows Ian to return to the city when he needs to - that same exhilaration only present when he hears the crunch of broken glass under his feet and taste the addictive fumes of plastic and metal.
The fear keeps him out though. Which is good, he reminds himself, as he digs his nails into his wounded palm.
“Are we,” Anthony says and pulls Ian out of his thoughts, “going to go anywhere today?” He’s a little tentative, hesitant and unsure. At least he still understands subtlety - not something Ian is used to anymore.
Ian answers him quietly, “No.” Anthony nods and throws his fish bones in the fire. He looks like he wants to say more, but goes against it. Ian pretends not to notice Anthony scrunching his eyes closed and shaking his head. A breeze picks up and tangles itself in the fire in front of them. “This is a good place for tonight. My pants are still wet anyways and you… you can catch dinner again.”
Another nod and more wind. Anthony’s mouth gaping open and Ian waiting for Anthony to speak. And Ian is not really sure if he wants to have this conversation.
Maybe two and half years ago, Ian wouldn’t have been able to shut his mouth and Anthony would know all his thoughts by now. Anthony would know what they were doing, if there was a place they were heading to and what Ian is waiting for. But that was a long time ago and it’s been a long, long time.
“I’m…” Anthony begins. He clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably. Ian moves a little, too, the chill running up his bare legs. “I’m sorry - about this morning. I wasn’t trying anything. I’m sorry if… if I scared you, or something.”
Ian shrugs and sees Anthony’s almost laughable pained face. “You’re not that scary.” The relief in Anthony’s eyes is unexpectedly fast to appear. For a second, it makes Ian feel good - that these brown eyes can look so lax and happy in the light of forgiveness. Again, it urges Ian to go on and say reassuring words like, “I’m just - I’m sorry, too. I’m just not used to-”
“Yeah, I get it, Ian.” Anthony offers him a smile. “Don’t worry about it, man.”
But Ian doesn’t really smile back, no matter how nice it is that Anthony understands, or says he does. He doesn’t want a repeat of this morning. Of Ian letting himself go and thinking that everything could be okay and that Anthony’s smiles, appearing on a face so unfamiliar and changed, can make things better.
He’ll just nod and throw his dirty fish bones at Anthony, close his eyes and listen to Anthony yell half-heartedly at him and his friend’s laughter.
Ian will just pretend until he knows he’ll have to either unravel his bandaged, blood-crusting hand, or unclick the safety of his gun and point it steady in front of him.
They spend the rest of the afternoon and until the sky turns orange and dusts the lake with honey, fishing. It’s more like Anthony spends it fishing while Ian tries to, but fails to grab anything but dirty seaweed and grainy mud. Anthony can’t help laughing at Ian after his friend’s umpteenth attempt at trying to catch those “damn freakin’ pieces of crap” fails, and Ian finally gives up, sulking, still pants-less, at the edge of the lake.
When Anthony is fishing, methodically scanning below for a watery shadow, the voice helps him. It’s odd and something he can’t explain. The voice is louder, spilling to Anthony words that he can’t completely understand at a speed faster than when he’s sitting in front of Ian and a fire but it’s manageable. And it helps.
Somehow he can use the noise to create a focus for his body to fish - just to fish - and to block out whatever else is crowding his mind space. He’s so caught up in bending his knees, breathing in, and targeting the tell-tale silhouette of dinner that he almost forgets he’s in the woods, that he’s with Ian who doesn’t speak more than two sentences to him, even after Anthony’s shot-in-the-dark apology, and the fact that it wasn’t until yesterday that his mind has been so chaotic.
The fishing settles him somewhat. It’s something he can manage - both catching fish and the unrelenting voice in his head. It’s something he can do. Something he has some sense of control over so he’s not some poor excuse of a weak human that can’t do anything except watch Ian from the sidelines as his friend builds fires and chases after birds and squirrels. It’s something he can do other than listen to the voice and want to do what the voice tells him to do. This way, he can drown it out like he drowns the fish he catches in air. He almost forgets that there isn’t a twisted mutation of a human lurking below the glassy lake, staring up into him, reminding him of what he is every time he looks down.
He’s lost in the voice saying over and over again, yours, yours, yours, yours, more, get more, that he doesn’t hear Ian ask him to be quiet, or to stop. He doesn’t see Ian walking slowly to his right around the bank of the lake or him cracking a branch off of a naked dying tree. It isn’t until Anthony’s hand plunges into the water and grasps the thrashing creature - and the voice disappears for those few satisfying seconds - that he hears Ian’s loud cry, another impossibly horrid screech and the voice in his head booming with the word MINE when he sees Ian on the ground fighting with a writhing inhumane grey thing on top of him.
Anthony doesn’t know what he does next, but whatever he does, it speeds by in blurry frantic colours and the loud panicking, heart-pounding voice in his head screaming at him to protect what was theirs.
Chapter Five