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The apocalypse is a lot quieter than you’d think.
When there’s no people to fill the world with talking and laughing and yelling, it’s really pretty quiet. The endless growls of the undead always used to get to them, but that’s not really the case anymore. Whether or not it’s because they just got used to tuning them out so they could sleep at night or they’re just gone, they don’t really hear them anymore. In this place, it’s especially easy to forget what waits for them outside this room.
And it’s a pretty room, too. Sunlight spills across the white sheets of the bed, and swirling, dancing dust motes are captured in the golden beams of light. Enclosed in this bubble of warmth, you wouldn’t believe that there isn’t anything out there anymore, that the world ended something like three or four years ago. Or maybe it was five or six. They stopped keeping track. It’d be hard to when they don’t even know the hour of the day anymore. They lost the pocket watch a long time ago, along with its owner.
But they don’t think about that. No, they don’t really think about anything like that. The only thing they let themselves think about is how close they hold each other. They take turns laying their ears on the other’s chest, just to hear the pounding thud of a heartbeat. Just that simple reassurance, the only thing that can get them to fall asleep at night. It doesn’t stop the nightmares, though, where they wake up clinging to each other, feeling the warmth of skin that could only belong to something living.
Everything’s mostly over, though. The dead aren’t really walking anymore. It’s been too long; human bodies can’t decay indefinitely. And with the amount of people they’ve seen die, they can’t really imagine that there’s many more people to fuel the listless army of the walking dead. This is the closest thing they’ve had to normalcy, and they think that maybe they can hold on to it, if they’re careful.
It’s morning time, and both of them are usually up by this hour. But with one’s arm thrown across the other’s chest to hold his hand, his dark, soft brown hair kissing the pale—and for once, clean—skin of his lover’s cheek, maybe their subconscious keeps them from disturbing the moment.
But they aren’t alone; despite how it seems, the room isn’t a place floating in the middle of empty space, away from everything. They’re in a house that had once belonged to people who were living, who maybe had children like they do now, children who’d found this place a safe haven as much as theirs did. It reminds one of the two of his old life, a thousand years ago, whereas this is something entirely new to the other. He’s never had a soft bed and someone to hold him and keep the nightmares away, and, sometimes, he spends the time before he falls asleep thinking about how all of that changed after the damned end of the world. Maybe his brother, whose memory is getting softened by time, had been right when he told him that everything happens for a reason after their daddy beat them bloody.
They have two little ones, a boy grown into a man too early and a baby girl who they know is too good for a world like this. The little girl isn’t like her big brother in lots of ways. She hasn’t seen someone die, or killed someone when they were begging for it. She also doesn’t like to stay up all night reading comics and sleep late into the morning, even if her daddies would let her. She likes to be up with the sun, likes to hear the birds chirping, likes to watch the synchronicity of the two men who’ve taken care of her for her whole life as they prepare her breakfast. Sometimes, she thinks that the only people they love more than her and her brother are each other, but she settles to believe that it’s just a different kind of love. She’s content with that.
But her tummy’s rumbling, and, somehow, she knows that she should’ve had her morning meal by now. It’s not often that she wakes up before her daddies, but she knows where they’ll be. They’re both in the big bedroom that they share, and she’s thinking that maybe Daddy was up with Papa after he had one of his nightmares. It wouldn’t be the first time that’d happened.
She creeps into the bedroom all quiet-like, and she thinks that Papa would be proud to see how soft she can make her steps. He’s always teasing Daddy for walking too loud, after all. When she approaches the side of the bed, the lip of the mattress is taller than she is. She narrows her eyes at the challenge, fists her hands in the sheets so she can haul herself up next to Papa. She knows it’s him because of the raised marks on his back, creeping over his ribs.
“Papa,” she whines, draping herself over the curve of his side.
He doesn’t move at all. It’s been a while since he’s flinched away from any of their touches. After a minute, he mumbles, “Your daughter’s awake.” It’s quiet and heavy with sleep, but he knows that the sound of his voice is enough to wake the man next to him.
“Before sunrise, she’s your daughter,” his lover grunts, not opening his eyes.
He doesn’t mention that it’s far past sunrise, if the burning red of the back of his eyelids and the warmth of their room is any indication. He just feels a tiny little smile pull up the corners of his lips, and he lethargically turns over on his side so that he’s cradling their baby girl to his chest, kissing the top of her head gently. It’s a gesture he learned from watching his love. He finds that most of the things he does with their little one the other has taught him, and he’s always been happy to be his hesitant student.
The little girl in question makes an exception to her early-morning routine and nestles herself more comfortably into her Papa’s arms. His hugs are better than even Daddy’s cooking, and when she feels his arm sneak around the two of them, pulling them both to his chest, it’s easy to fall asleep amid the telltale silence of the end of the world.