Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You ever watch Pushing Daisies?” Richard called from the break room. Eugene heard drawers opening and closing, utensils being pushed around. “Rachael got the DVD from the library all the time. She was crazy about it.” 

Eugene paused in his task, which was too much like wiping down countertops or booth tables, even when the towels were crimson under his gloves. “I wasn’t much for television, no.”

“Shocker. Aha!” A drawer slammed shut, and a moment later, Richard appeared in the break room doorway, a cardboard rectangle in his hand. “You know the concept, at least?”

“I’m afraid not.” 

“Didn’t miss much. It’s a dumb concept. This guy can bring back the dead just by touching ‘em once. But if he touches ‘em again, they die for good.” He wandered over to the examination table across from the one Eugene was cleaning, then hopped up on the edge. Eugene’s glasses were smudged but, this close, he could see that the thing in Richard’s hand was a package of plastic wrap. “Lots of murders he has to bring to justice and all.”

“Of course,” Eugene said, a touch sourly. Six months of morgue work had satiated any taste he might have had for murder fiction, which had already been virtually nil. “That’s what all stories involving the theft of human life need. A gimmick.”

“Oh, totally,” Richard said. He fumbled the case open and drew out a printer paper-sized sheet of plastic, gossamer and floating. Behind it, Richard seemed even paler than he already was. “But the hook was that he liked this girl, right? Obviously. And—“

“And she died,” Eugene guessed, “and he had to resurrect her, thereby ensuring that the standard allosexual relationship would be a literal matter of life and death.”

Richard lowered the plastic wrap. “Thought you said you never heard of it.”

“It’s a gimmick. Not exactly, as they say, rocket science.”

A smile flitted over Richard’s white lips. “Okay, Professor. My sister loved it, though. The drama of it all.”

“And,” Eugene added, dropping his gaze to the examination table again, “the idea isn’t exactly foreign to our situation. The dangers of touch. The risk of—“ Intimacy had been there on the tip of his tongue, but of course there were too many connotations in that word for it to be appropriate. In the brief silence, Richard raised his eyebrows, curious and taunting, and Eugene finished tautly, “Vulnerability.”

Richard’s mouth twitched again. “Sure,” he said. “But they say people need that kinda thing, so this guy and this girl found… workarounds. PG-rated, of course.”

“Workarounds?” Eugene repeated in spite of himself. His hands were slippery with sweat under his gloves. “Workarounds to death by fingerprint?”

“Believe it or not.” Richard slid down from his perch, wadding up the first sheet of wrap and tossing it over his shoulder. He pulled out another sheet, this one quite a bit longer, and tossed the box away, too. Eugene paused in drying the tabletop, narrowing his eyes as Richard came up to the table’s edge, right across from him.

“Turns out,” Richard said from behind the filmy pane, “kissing doesn’t actually count as touching if there’s something in the way.”

Eugene blinked again. The gloves were an awful texture against his skin. 

“That seems like a highly unnecessary risk,” he said, and bent to finish drying the table, “for an extremely curtailed reward.”

“For the TV guys?”

“Who else would I be referring to?” Eugene snipped. The table was as dry as it would get now, and he threw the towels away and ripped off the gloves, hating the sound of the latex coming free. “Or are you proposing that we pass out Saran Wrap boxes to every zombie who comes into my office like they’re—“ He stopped himself again and his face went hot.

Richard grinned. “Hand ‘em out like they’re what, Genie, baby?”

“Dr. Meltsner to you,” Eugene said, and turned away to find another task to busy himself with. Emails, maybe. 

But Richard followed him into his office. “It’s an idea, right?”

“Two things,” Eugene said, settling in at his computer. “Firstly, it would be unethical to test out any hypotheses given the risks involved. We’re already rationing brains as it is and we can’t afford to turn anyone for the possibility of — of—“

“Pleasant physical sensation,” Richard filled in, “Dr. Meltsner."

Eugene made an exasperated sound and decided to leave it at that. “Secondly, even if it wasn’t wildly dangerous, there are at least three hundred other, more important tests that we need to be running. Our priority is curing the disease, not… whatever television nonsense you’re brainstorming.”

“Ha! Brainstorming. You cr—“

“Yes, I’m aware,” Eugene interrupted, and ran a hand over his hair. “Is it really so important to you?” 

“What?”

Even saying the word felt wrong, both childish and far too revealing. “Kissing, more or less.”

Richard shrugged. “I dunno. I like pleasant physical sensations sometimes. Sue me.” 

He collapsed into one of the chairs in the office corner and was quiet for long enough that Eugene thought he might be able to work in peace. But, inevitably, Richard spoke again, though his voice was lower.

“Connie’s told you what it’s like,” he said, staring out of the window into the main operating room. “I can’t taste anything anymore. Food or cigarettes or — even smell’s mostly gone. Sleep is… weird. Alcohol doesn’t work. Neither do drugs.” He licked his lips, which Eugene knew because he had looked over at Richard as soon as he started talking again. He just couldn’t seem to help it. “I liked the privileges of being alive,” Richard went on. “And now ninety percent of ‘em are gone. Because I’m not alive. But you know what’s left, somehow, because maybe there’s a God above?” He wiggled the fingers of one hand, the bruise-dark nails and palm lines visible even from Eugene’s desk. “Touch.”

Eugene nodded slightly, then looked down at his keyboard. He had never felt strongly about what Richard called the privileges of being alive. His ‘pleasant sensations’ were and always had been mental. But, of course, the zombie disease could take those, too. Memory, intellect, speech, acuity, motor skills, common sense, basic self-preservation — they were all just as integral to life as Eugene knew and enjoyed it. And they were just as fragile. 

Perhaps he would be grasping at television dreck out of desperation, too, if he were in Richard’s position.

“So,” Richard said more loudly, thumping his fist on the chair arm before pushing himself up to his feet. “If you could get on with figuring out how contagious this thing is, so I can go start making out with people way out of my league at a bar I’m too cheap for again, that’d be great. As a great sage said once, god, it’s brutal out here.” He crumpled up the second sheet of plastic wrap and tossed it neatly over Eugene’s monitor, where it fell between his hands, still poised over the keyboard. “See ya, Genie.”

He was gone before Eugene could formulate a response, just a small whoosh of shoplifted clothing, white hair, and dark circles, here and then gone. Sighing, Eugene looked down at the plastic wrap ball and nudged it with one finger. 

It was too much contact: he was forced to remember the ball unfurled, hanging between Richard and him like a bridal veil. The two characters on the show Richard had described must have kissed each other through it. The idea was deeply uncomfortable — how would such an experiment be manageable, let alone comfortable, forget pleasant? Or was it simply the pressure that was the point? Or mere proximity?

It would be a fascinating experiment, Eugene thought against his better sense. He couldn’t imagine enjoying it, and yet— 

And yet. 

He felt his face heat again and threw the plastic wrap ball away. Richard was right: he had things to get back to. Cures to materialize out of thin air, tests to run, samples to analyze. There were more than enough experiments to keep him busy for months. 

Absolutely long enough to forget that this had ever happened, and what Richard looked like on the other side of the veil.

Chapter Text

Eugene had commandeered nearly every cup or bowl or decorative vase that could possibly be used as a makeshift experiment jar, so Connie and Richard had to swap her Stanley tumbler between them, taking bites of pureed office-worker brain from separate plastic spoons.

“Look on the bright side,” Richard said as Connie measured out her next spoonful. “Maybe we’ve got ourselves an Office situation. Some will-they-won’t-they pining. Or some tastefully tacky hijinks. Meltsner got a stapler I can put in jello?”

The most Connie could muster was a little half-smile before pushing the tumbler back at Richard. A few greige bits of brain clung to the spoon stem and she licked it clean. It was disgusting, how good it was. Her tastebuds had totally and utterly abandoned her. “Yeah.”

Richard scraped out heaping spoon of puree, then grimaced and reluctantly tipped the spoon back, evening out his helping. “Thanks for this, by the way.”

“You said that already.” Connie glanced up at the glaring overhead lights. It made her sickly white skin look even worse, like a Morticia Addams costume gone really, really wrong. Across from her, Richard looked worse, gray circles making his eyes look sunken. Connie knew how long she could go without brains before she started getting weird. Two weeks was pushing it; with Richard, it looked like three. “And keeping rabid zombies off the evening news is in everyone’s best interests.”

“Yeah,” Richard said, passing her the tumbler again, “but you don’t have to literally share with me. You’ve got Tupperware in here.” He chewed absently on the bowl of his spoon. “It’s nice, the human touch. So to speak.”

“Huh,” Connie grunted, and decided she wasn’t hungry anymore. She gave him the Stanley and tossed her spoon over his shoulder into the trash can. “Sure.”

He started to dive into the brain remains, then stopped himself with what looked like a lot of effort. Under the table, she felt the tip of his shoe bump her shin. “What’s bugging you?”

Connie looked away and folded her arms over the tabletop. “A zombie virus.”

“Yeah, but that’s been here a while,” Richard prodded. “What, did Meltsnerd say something rude again? Want me to go bite him?”

It hadn’t not been Eugene, but Connie couldn’t pretend it was all his fault. “It’s just… I mean…” She chewed at the inside of her cheek, then burst out, “You know how many dead bodies I’ve seen lately? Lots more in a month than I saw in over twenty years. And that’s not even touching the new dead-body diet. Just being here is wrong. I put in so much work to be happy in this town, find a place, fit in, and — and for what, to end up eating brains in the office of a guy who probably hates me now?” Richard frowned and opened his mouth, but Connie wasn’t done. “Like, at what point do I get to stop trying to build sandcastles when the ocean keeps putting jellyfish in the sand?”

“That’s a very specific comparison,” Richard said cautiously.

“Yeah, my dad was great at vacations.” She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “What if we run out of bodies and I end up raging out? It’s gonna happen, it won’t not happen at this point. I’m gonna end up eating Eugene, and then someone’ll shoot me the second I finally get algebra. I talked to a computer program once — okay, twice, whatever — and now I’m gonna die a monster.”

Richard’s hands stilled briefly. “You talked to a computer program?”

“Yeah, I — probably shouldn’t have said that. Forget about it,” Connie said hastily. “Just, like, move on and focus on my existential crisis.”

“Uh-huh,” Richard said, and licked the last bit of brain off his spoon. He stared into the Stanley tumbler for a few seconds, then sighed and set it aside. “Look. I don’t know if it helps, but — I’ve got an, ah, emergency contact, kinda, for the brain thing. I can’t just get them any old time, they don’t have a brain conveyer belt like Meltsnerd does. But if you ever need emergency dinner, just let me know and I’ll get you some anti-rage fuel, okay?”

Connie blinked. “Oh. Uh. Th…thanks?”

With a shrug, Richard started spinning his spoon like a top, refusing to meet her gaze. “You saved my bacon. Only seems fair that I return the favor if I can. And, hey.” He glanced at her quickly. “I’m glad things lined up the way they did, for what it’s worth. I mean, zombieism isn’t the ideal, sure, but I’m glad I — I’m glad it doesn’t have to be a solo thing. The sandcastle might still be full of jellyfish but at least you’re not building it alone, right?”

“…I guess so.” Connie dropped her head into one hand. “Why’d you have to ruin my pity-party with being nice? I thought you were above that.”

“Oh, that’s a carefully curated front,” Richard said, flashing a grin. “It’s called professionalism, babe.”

Connie snorted. “Sure, okay.”

“Don’t let me get in the way of your pity-party,” Richard added. “Far be it from me to suggest a good old-fashioned pity-party isn’t ever an option.”

“You kind of took the wind out of my sails,” Connie said. “But thanks. Again. If I ever feel like I’m about to lose my grip on humanity, you’ll be the first person I call.”

Richard laughed. Connie didn’t. As pathetic as it sounded, it hadn’t been a joke.