Chapter Text
The end of the world is never quite what you expect it to be, and Grantaire had never expected this. For a while he had suspected that maybe he could find the end of the world at the bottom of a bottle. The slow draining of life. Gradual and obvious- something that humanity would be a witness to, either by their own design or by a set of unavoidable circumstances. There was a point in which he nurtured the thought that the end of the world would be like a switch, a sudden darkness where there had once been light; something as simple as the world turning off. Ceasing to be. There was and there was and there was and then suddenly there was not. At some point he had fancied the thought that the end of the world would be like the trees right before winter. Mankind would give its final vibrant hoorah before withering away into god knows what.
Yes, Grantaire had thought a lot about the end of the world, as it had become something of a comforting thought. He was never sure who said it first, but he vaguely remembered a proverb that went along the lines of: “There are only two certainties in life. Death and taxes.” For a long time, those two things went hand in hand. That is, death and the end of the world. Because as far as Grantaire was concerned, the end of his world would be death. His life was a singular experience, and while for everyone else things would continue to be, for him it was the end of the line. The end of the world. His world.
As it stood now though, he was forced to face the fact that those two things were not exclusive to one another. Apparently, you could have the end of the world without death. There was no grand ultimatum, no foreseeable bottom of the bottle and not a single godly light switch. No, instead there was a mass of shambling bodies occupying the street of his childhood home.
He could see them perfectly from the window of the treehouse in the backyard, the one that had once been home to late nights watching the stars and firsts of all different kinds now served as a lookout post. In a way, that was a first as well. He’d have to add it to the list; first kiss, first drink, first can of spray paint, first broken bone and first official unofficial lookout post of the apocalypse.
The body next to him shifted, and the movement was enough to make him suddenly aware of the ache in his back that came along with sitting on plywood floors for what must have been hours. He blinked once, twice, and cracked his neck to both sides before raising his arms up above his head in a feeble attempt to coax some feeling back into his spine.
“Jesus christ R.” The body had a voice!
“What?”
“Put your fucking hands down.”
“Why?”
“You’re going to draw attention to us.”
Grantaire scoffed, but put his hands down anyway. There was no point in keeping them up there if he was done stretching. Easy as that. “No I’m fucking not. We’ve been sitting here for hours. If they were going to notice us, they would’ve done it by now. We’re not exactly subtle”
Combeferre glared very briefly in his direction, but didn’t say a word. He didn’t really need to; the look he gave was more than enough for Grantaire to understand the intent.
What a pair they made, Grantaire staring intently at Ferre, reading the silence and Ferre staring intently out the window, his eyes focused on the horde.
The silence persisted, and after having previously opened up the dialogue, Grantaire wasn’t keen on letting it disappear so quickly. He wasn’t going to spend another two hours in silence, even if that meant prodding a little bit.
“You’re no better… I wasn’t the one who decided to start talking.”
Combeferre’s jaw tightened beneath his stoic facade. If Grantaire knew how to do one thing, it was rub him the wrong way.
“Do you want to get us killed?”
“It wasn’t my intention, no. But even if it was, it’d only be your problem. I died of boredom like, yesterday.” Grantaire rebuked, all sass- no serious.
“You don’t have to keep watch with me.”
“So I should just go back in the house, then?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Oh really? Cause that’s what you were implying. Unless I’m supposed to do something else?”
“You could just stay in the yard-”
“Oh! Should I go for a jaunt down the street perhaps? Say hello to the neighbours?”
“Come on-”
“You know, I heard Miss Delaney’s garden is just splendid this year, do you think that if I asked nicely enough she’d let me in the back to oogle her zucchini?”
Combeferre sighed- loud and far too tired for a man that was done with his studies. “Are we really doing this now?”
“Doing what? I’m not doing anything. Just making small talk-”
“You’re being an asshole.”
“Am I now? Care to elaborate?”
“Now’s not the time.”
Grantaire scoffed. “It’s the end of the fucking world, Ferre.” He put emphasis on ‘end’ and ‘world’ to really get his point across. Not that he thought it made any difference to anyone but himself. “I can’t imagine a better time.”
A beat.
Combeferre shook his head slowly. Seemingly, this brief exchange was more than enough for him. Like any sensible person, this whole end of the world thing had worn him thin, and Grantaire, in that way that only younger siblings could, had kept picking at the patches.
He brought his hands up to rub at his face, a silent resignation and the closest thing that Grantaire would ever get to ‘I give up’. He had never been one for words when they weren’t necessary- something about making them count. R, on the other hand had always subscribed to the idea that the best kind of words were those unnecessary. Nothing good was ever said because it needed to be, thank you very much.
The plywood floor creaked ever-so-slightly as Ferre laid back, bringing his hands round behind his head. There was no relaxation in his movements. Despite the hole in the roof above them, this wasn’t an opportunity to stargaze or cloud-watch. It was all necessity, all the time.
There was another moment of silence. And another. And another. And Grantaire thought that maybe just maybe he had finally lost him. It was only a matter of time before he found a way to break the toothpick bridge that held them together- that which was already so poorly constructed. Ferre would snap and yell at him until all the former inhabitants of the road knew exactly where they were. Or maybe he’d just up and leave in the middle of the night, leaving Grantaire to fend for himself. He had to admit that it would’ve been on brand.
But no. No that wasn’t was what happening- nor did it appear like that was what was going to happen.
Ferre shifted, his head lolling over to the side so that he could squint at Grantaire, who, in return, went back to staring out the plywood hole of a window. It was this running game that they played; Grantaire did everything in his power to get his brother’s attention, and then he fought to hold onto it for as long as it was a struggle and then the moment it wasn’t- the game was done. He didn’t want to play anymore. Now that he had Ferre’s full attention the stains on the fence across the way seemed particularly interesting.
“We can’t stay here forever.” He said.
“I know.” Grantaire replied.
“As much as I love the treehouse, we’re gonna start running out of food and there’s only so many corner stores around.“
“I know. I said I know. I get the implications.”
“I think… I think we should think about getting out of here- no, I mean, I’ve been thinking of a plan. To get us out of here.”
Grantaire had been thinking about that too- he had since they had gotten stuck up in the treehouse in the first place. But no plan that he had ever come up with had ever seemed good enough to even risk mentioning. He figured he’d leave it to Combeferre and his genius project managing skills or whatever this fell under. If this wasn’t already listed on his five-star resume, then it would be soon. Apocalypse escape planning came before underwater basket weaving but after natural leader.
“How?”
“We get the bikes out of the garage- then follow the trails in the park. They’ll lead us safely through the woods and then right up next to the highway.” He pushed himself up onto his elbows to look at Grantaire, in that stupid way that someone who knew exactly what they were talking about did to prove that they knew exactly what they were talking about. “We jump the fence and ride the highway- it’s not ideal, but I figure that we’ll be able to see anything coming our way and plan accordingly. And then we just keep riding for as long as we need to until we find safety or.. Peace. I guess. I haven’t exactly gotten that far ahead but its… You know…” Combeferre had been trailing off since they were kids. Too many ideas to get them all out at once, or something fucking stupid like that. “A work in progress.”
“How are we gonna get to the bikes?”
There was only one answer to that question. They both knew that. Grantaire didn’t even really know why he had asked. Something about the need to pick a fight. Something about the need to shoot him down.
“We’ll go through the house.”
“We can’t. You said we wouldn’t.”
“Listen-“ Combeferre pleaded.
“We can’t fucking go through the house and you know that.”
“We don’t really have a choice!” Ferre was sitting up now. There was no way to argue when all of your weight was on your elbows- especially not for a person who talked with their hands as much as he did. Taking away his ability to gesticulate was like taking away the source of his power. “We’ve gotta try!”
“Absolutely not.”
“Would you rather starve to death?”
“There’s gotta be another way.”
“If you can think of one I’d love to hear it.” Bullshit.
Grantaire sighed- not in the way that Combeferre did, more so in aggravation. “What about the neighbours- can’t we raid one of their garages?”
“Who knows what they have, though.”
“Exactly! It could be great! There could be bikes and more! There could be a fucking spaceship that’ll take us out of this hellhole and to like, mars or something. We could be astronauts, Ferre.”
“Or there could be nothing.” Ferre corrected. And Grantaire was about to continue with his spaceship theory when he kept going. “At least here we know what we’re getting into. If we’re gonna be taking a risk it should be calculated, we should know what we’re getting into.”
“That’s the fucking thing though- we know what we’re getting into. You can’t seriously be suggesting we go in there. You know what’s in there.”
“Of course I do.”
“And we wouldn’t be fucking up here to begin with if we didn’t know. What’s this about suddenly wanting to fucking go in there, huh? When did you grow a pair?
“It’s not about bravery- it’s necessity.”
“We could die, Ferre.” Was it pleading? Maybe- not that he’d ever admit it.
“And we’ll die up here if we don’t do something!”
“So what?”
“You can’t seriously be giving up already.”
“I’m not giving up, there is nothing here to give up. We have nothing. I’m just accepting the inevitable.”
“We’ve still got each other, R. That’s something, right? That’s enough to get us out of here.”
Grantaire stared at him.
The bitter words he wanted to say hung in the air just in front of him. Just out of reach. He fucking hated him for pulling a line like that- he wanted to punch his stupid fucking face in for even suggesting the plan in the first place- he wanted to fucking throw himself out into the street and let the zombies tear him limb from limb and stare Ferre down from where he’d stand frozen in the window of the treehouse- he wanted to shove the bastard out of the window himself, let the zombies do with him as they pleased and then lay back and stare out the sunroof until the screams died and the day turned to night and the weight of the world left his shoulders and he shrivelled away into nothingness.
Instead he looked away. He did not say a word.
If they were lucky they’d both be dead by the time this was over.
That didn’t seem so bad.
Grantaire nodded. He did not say a word, but he nodded.
“Okay?” Ferre asked.
He nodded.
“Thank you. It’s gonna work. I promise it’s gonna work.”
“Mm.”
There was a beat and you could practically feel it in the air. It was the breath where Ferre registered how begrudgingly this deal was accepted. It was the beat where he let it slide anyway.
“Tomorrow morning. We’ll go down come dawn so that we can use as much of the natural light as possible to cover as much ground as possible.”
Grantaire nodded. The fall from the treehouse down to the street below wouldn’t kill him- but it would certainly stun him for long enough for everything else to kill him. That wasn’t so bad. If he landed on his head maybe he’d get knocked out. It was as close to dying in your sleep as he was likely to get these days, really.
“I promise this’ll work. I promise. Just…” From the corner of his eye, Grantaire could see Ferre looking directly at him. Searching, maybe. Interpreting. Translating. Whatever it was that he pretended to do that made him look so goddamn smart all the fucking time. Grantaire wouldn’t spare him a glance- that wasn’t a sacrifice he was willing to make. “Get some sleep, okay? Try. Try to get some sleep. You’re gonna need it.”
“Yeah.” He finally said. “You too.”
There would be no sleep tonight, they both knew it.