fic: always wanted the sun on my face
Title: always wanted the sun on my face
Author: poster_glomper
Rating: PG-13? at the most
Pairing: Gen
Summary: Space was so far away from home, and anyways he didn’t want to live in another city with no windows.
Disclaimer: Not true, not one little bit.
Word Count: 747
Author Notes: First apocalypse fic. Just kinda happened? Inspired by this A Softer World comic.
When Brendon was a little boy, his mother used to read him a bedtime story every night. He’d curl up tight, and she’d tell him the story of the girl who found happiness in seven small men, or in a short-lived party. They all had beautiful people, and pretty settings, and happy endings. That’s what he remembers most, the happy endings.
--
It wasn’t as dramatic as he’d expected. No zombies, killer plagues, mass confusion. It was just a The world is ending. Please, only one suitcase per person. He didn’t want to go. Space was so far away from home, and anyways he didn’t want to live in another city with no windows.
So when the relocation ships came down through the permanent smog, he hid.
--
Televisions don’t work anymore. Why would they? No-one stayed behind to broadcast things. Occasionally he finds a stray cat or something, and he entertains himself for hours tempting them closer.
--
It’s not as bad as one would have thought. It gets lonely, yeah. But he does all the things he never had time to do: paint, exercise, learn guitar and saxophone and trumpet. And think.
When he was younger, he remembers there was a cute boy in the chamber choir at school who used to play saxophone. The first time Brendon saw him he mentally nicknamed it the sexophone. Now he can say to the cats I play the sexophone, aren’t I saxy?
They always look impressed.
--
He tried to keep a journal, he really truly did. But why bother? It’s just endless days of sunshine, time alone, music flowing through the air. Nothing really interesting happens.
He found a solar panel recently. He charged his iPod, but didn’t turn it on again. It’s a whole new life, and he’s almost entirely forgotten about civilisation. He’s not sure if he wants to remember the bands he loved, the music he sang to, the chords he played to when he was younger and not so tanned.
--
As soon as the ships were gone, he burned all the photographs of everyone he’d ever known. He doesn’t regret it.
--
Food doesn’t matter so much, because things in tins keep forever. Literally.
Every night it’s a new house somewhere, and he just raids their pantries. Sometimes he’ll look through the houses. They’re always insanely messy or really neat. Now, he can understand why they would be messy in the heat of packing and relocating, but he doesn’t get why they would be neat. Why bother tidying? It’s not like they’re coming back anyways.
--
He settles somewhere along the coast, eventually. If he looked it up on a map somewhere, it’s probably a massive journey (Utah to the east coast) but he doesn’t even care anymore. He has no concept of time, no idea of months or years.
It’s been a while though. And sunny. Always sunny.
--
The house he picks, there’s a little garden out the back, with potatoes and corn and carrots in it. He goes out one day and smashes the shop front that looks most promising, and finds a packet of everything he might ever need. He shoves it all in a wheelbarrow, along with a couple watering cans and a couple bags of compost or fertiliser or something, he just knows that it’s good for plants.
He reads all the instructions carefully. He puts peas in, and onions, and spring onions, and lemons and limes, and when he runs out of space in the garden he kicks down the spindly little white picket fence (what an American dream) and just plants it in the next garden.
--
He gets a big tin bath, and sets up a device to heat up some water. It’s salty, and only lukewarm, but it’s the only bath he’s had in a long time.
He rinses it out afterwards, and fixes it so the water will evaporate during the day, and collect in a bucket. Cool fresh water, and real sea salt. It’s a good life really.
--
When the sun finally does explode, it’ll take 8 minutes to reach the Earth. So when he looks up one day, and then everything goes too bright to keep your eyes open, and even then he can see it perfectly through his lids, he knows it’s the end. But that’s okay, because it’s quick and painless and anyways his only wish was to die with the sun on his face.
Author: poster_glomper
Rating: PG-13? at the most
Pairing: Gen
Summary: Space was so far away from home, and anyways he didn’t want to live in another city with no windows.
Disclaimer: Not true, not one little bit.
Word Count: 747
Author Notes: First apocalypse fic. Just kinda happened? Inspired by this A Softer World comic.
When Brendon was a little boy, his mother used to read him a bedtime story every night. He’d curl up tight, and she’d tell him the story of the girl who found happiness in seven small men, or in a short-lived party. They all had beautiful people, and pretty settings, and happy endings. That’s what he remembers most, the happy endings.
--
It wasn’t as dramatic as he’d expected. No zombies, killer plagues, mass confusion. It was just a The world is ending. Please, only one suitcase per person. He didn’t want to go. Space was so far away from home, and anyways he didn’t want to live in another city with no windows.
So when the relocation ships came down through the permanent smog, he hid.
--
Televisions don’t work anymore. Why would they? No-one stayed behind to broadcast things. Occasionally he finds a stray cat or something, and he entertains himself for hours tempting them closer.
--
It’s not as bad as one would have thought. It gets lonely, yeah. But he does all the things he never had time to do: paint, exercise, learn guitar and saxophone and trumpet. And think.
When he was younger, he remembers there was a cute boy in the chamber choir at school who used to play saxophone. The first time Brendon saw him he mentally nicknamed it the sexophone. Now he can say to the cats I play the sexophone, aren’t I saxy?
They always look impressed.
--
He tried to keep a journal, he really truly did. But why bother? It’s just endless days of sunshine, time alone, music flowing through the air. Nothing really interesting happens.
He found a solar panel recently. He charged his iPod, but didn’t turn it on again. It’s a whole new life, and he’s almost entirely forgotten about civilisation. He’s not sure if he wants to remember the bands he loved, the music he sang to, the chords he played to when he was younger and not so tanned.
--
As soon as the ships were gone, he burned all the photographs of everyone he’d ever known. He doesn’t regret it.
--
Food doesn’t matter so much, because things in tins keep forever. Literally.
Every night it’s a new house somewhere, and he just raids their pantries. Sometimes he’ll look through the houses. They’re always insanely messy or really neat. Now, he can understand why they would be messy in the heat of packing and relocating, but he doesn’t get why they would be neat. Why bother tidying? It’s not like they’re coming back anyways.
--
He settles somewhere along the coast, eventually. If he looked it up on a map somewhere, it’s probably a massive journey (Utah to the east coast) but he doesn’t even care anymore. He has no concept of time, no idea of months or years.
It’s been a while though. And sunny. Always sunny.
--
The house he picks, there’s a little garden out the back, with potatoes and corn and carrots in it. He goes out one day and smashes the shop front that looks most promising, and finds a packet of everything he might ever need. He shoves it all in a wheelbarrow, along with a couple watering cans and a couple bags of compost or fertiliser or something, he just knows that it’s good for plants.
He reads all the instructions carefully. He puts peas in, and onions, and spring onions, and lemons and limes, and when he runs out of space in the garden he kicks down the spindly little white picket fence (what an American dream) and just plants it in the next garden.
--
He gets a big tin bath, and sets up a device to heat up some water. It’s salty, and only lukewarm, but it’s the only bath he’s had in a long time.
He rinses it out afterwards, and fixes it so the water will evaporate during the day, and collect in a bucket. Cool fresh water, and real sea salt. It’s a good life really.
--
When the sun finally does explode, it’ll take 8 minutes to reach the Earth. So when he looks up one day, and then everything goes too bright to keep your eyes open, and even then he can see it perfectly through his lids, he knows it’s the end. But that’s okay, because it’s quick and painless and anyways his only wish was to die with the sun on his face.