Archive of Our Own

Ash wakes up.

The first time; he’s screaming, destroying his voice, digging his nails into the nearest scratching and tugging and pulling. His fingertips are bleeding from how rubbed raw they are, the sweat makes his clothes stick to his back, almost feverish. He knows what it is -- desperation. It’s not something he likes to admit that he’s familiar with, but as they push him further and further in, it’s the only thing he can register. 

The second time; it’s pure darkness.

Ash’s eyes sting. The soil underneath him is coarse and rough, as well as the soil above him, and the soil to his left and right. His lips feel dry, and he attempts to wet them, which only leads to the dirt sticking to his tongue. In reflex, he coughs it out, which only leads to more dirt spilling into his open lips. 

He’s expecting the feeling of suffocation to come over him, though he’s never experienced it before, but nothing happens. Suffocation isn’t supposed to feel like breathing. Breathing itself feels… not quite right. Like he’s just mimicking breathing. 

Ash thinks he’s alive. He doesn’t feel alive. His chest rises up and down, attempting to take in ragged breaths, head tilted back to allow himself a little bit of space, but nothing comes into his lungs, only the soil that has stuck itself onto his lips. There is no air, no atmosphere that surrounds him, as if he exists at the very boundaries -- or worse, outside of it. 

He flexes his arms, laid by his sides. They’re stiff, almost limp. Ash doesn’t feel cold, so there must still be blood in him, but he doesn’t feel warm either. His clothes stick to sweat-stained, splotchy skin. 

It might as well be the abyss. Trapped in an inky black void, but it doesn’t even afford him the comfort of blissful nothing. He’s forced to feel the roots of some plant graze against his torso, pebbles and small jagged rocks buried into the soil like someone’s sick idea of treasure, now burying into his skin; though the sensation is strangely numbed; it’s his body, but not his nerves at all. The small amount of breathing space he has is damp and moist, inherently uncomfortable, the oxygen practically drained. 

His hands attempt to reach around, but everything is so tightly constrained around him, the dirt falls into every available crevice, grime sticking onto his clothes and onto his flesh where his clothes had ripped open, and into open cuts, smeared onto his fingertips. 

Ash is much calmer than he thought he would be about being buried alive. It’s not like he has much of a choice. 

Hazily, he registers this as a second chance at life. He was murdered, stuffed down here as a present for the earth and -- fuck, how long ago did they lay him into his grave? 

Laying still for so long has definitely made an impact, as he tries to move his arms up to his chest, but he’s met with a cracking noise and a dull ache. Ash hisses -- in pain -- in desperation -- he’s not sure anymore. He just wants to get out of here. Rise from the ground and, and… he’s not sure what to do afterwards, really. 

It’s not like the local priest men were wrong -- there must be something wrong with him. No normal boy comes back to life after being buried. It creates an awful scratchy feeling in his chest, and he wants to rip into it, over and over, destroy it, destroy what’s wrong with him, oh, God.  

He doesn’t want to become feed for the maggots. He squirms, breathing in, breathing out, the pressure -- presumably six feet of dirt -- stifling. It should hurt more than it does -- it doesn’t hurt. 

Ash sinks his hands into the dirt, and starts sloppily clawing at it. There’s the distinct stickiness of blood under his fingernails, and it’s only going to mix with the dirt, but it doesn’t bother him right now. He’s sure that his hands are going to be practically destroyed after he finishes, but that’s a distant thought, and it’s only if he succeeds in getting out.

The dirt gives way easier than he expected as a result of being so recently disturbed. Ash tries not to think about how it was dug up for him, and then laid back over. 

Ash has always been very good at lying to himself. It all just falls apart when he’s having to exhume himself. It’s his body, but it’s not his at all.

It’s a simple fact. Ash was meant to die here. 

He grasps handfuls of the ground, relocating it away from his torso, and down to his legs. It’s enough to give his arms just a little bit more freedom. It’s really not much, it’s almost pathetic, if he wasn’t so hastily scratching at the dirt, little clumps and pellets of ground rolling down and over the planes of his body. 

The progress he makes is slow. Very, very slow. He’s never been the strongest, he’s something gangly and put together with tape and bones, he wouldn’t call himself fragile, but scrawny -- to an extent, at least. 

And surely, having been buried, hasn’t done much for his health. Ash’s hands brush over his chest, which instinctively makes his head swim, but the more important thing is that he can almost just feel the outline of his rib cage underneath his hands. He’s distracted for a second; he prods his fingers over it, his index right under where his ribs protrude the most, even obvious from over his hoodie.

He bumps his head against the ground behind, which makes him flinch, vision swimming. He’s not sure if he has a concussion. 

Can the undead get concussions? He’s pretty sure he qualifies as the undead now. It’s a simple conclusion, but it almost makes him throw up, whatever’s left of his bile coming up to his throat, choked right back down. He’s not going to vomit on himself, okay, he’s still Ash, and he’s still above certain things.

The further he digs, up and up, the scent of rot gets clearer. It perforates through the soil, sticking onto him, spitting into his mouth. He’s trying his best, he really is. Which isn’t something that he would’ve said when he was alive. 

Ash knows he’s working with something crude, not fully planned out but there’s nothing else he can turn to. There is no light, just the ceiling of his own tomb.

Seconds turn into minutes, and minutes turn into… however long he’s been doing this for. Ash is a stubborn thing; simultaneously rotten, disgusting and cancerous, the story about the monster that you tell to your children. 

His hands have gone far past numb. It’s all worth it, for when the light peaks through a small opening after the dirt has tumbled down. 

Ash sticks his hand out. The outside world is just in his reach.

He shuffles himself around, the dirt pouring down and down further, until he can get his arm out, presses it into the ground, and starts to pull himself up. It’s a shaky process, with multiple times where he has to pause just to rest from the fatigue. Ash doesn’t think catching his breath applies to him anymore. 

And soon, after everything, his head finally comes out from the grave. His grave. 

The only light comes from the moon, stinging his sensitive eyes, just nearing the peak of the sky, casting a cold shine on the muddy ground. It runs over the leaves and brambles left out in the forest, flitting through the gaps of the leaves, just to shine down on his sickening, flawed, form. 

Outside, it’s all foreign and untrusting. A different world from what he knew before. Ash knew that the world was cruel from when he was young and the taste of another boy’s blood on his lip was a fuzzy saccharine poison instead of the disgust it should be. He winces, his head pounding.

Slowly, inch by inch, he pulls his body up, and out from the soil bed. 

Ash looks down at his torso, where his hoodie is now stained with filth and grime, and a reddish substance in splotchy patches over his sides and chest. Ash doesn’t want to confront it, so he keeps going.

Next, his legs, where his trousers are far more torn up, the fabric frayed over his thigh, showing him little glints of sickly looking skin and crimson grazes of dried blood. His legs feel dead, like all of his bones have been bent out of shape, frail and ready to break from the lightest pressure. 

As he finally gets all of his body out, he collapses to the side; the moved soil sinks back inside. It’s a sloppy burial, anyone would’ve found him just by the disturbed dirt even if he lacks a gravestone -- if only that no one would have ever come looking for him out here. 

The thing is, Ash doesn’t know what to do now. He’s escaped his grave; he’s sitting under the moonlight, drenched in blood and sweat and pus, tarnished in soil. 

Ash is far too afraid to look under his clothes, to see the full extent of what has happened to him. He runs his hand through his greasy, matted hair with very little control of his body, his fingers clacking against each other unnaturally. 

There’s no way he can go back home. 

Not like he particularly would ever want to go back there. But that’s the only life he’s ever known, the one where he just couldn’t stay in line and now -- now he’s doomed himself to this fate.

Maybe it’s a horrible idea but -- he could accept Ash.

(Accept is the wrong word to use, God knows no one would accept this freak of nature).

There’s still the higher, more probable chance that he’ll chase Ash out, but there’s that small glimmer of hope. And hope is a fake thing, a delusion, but it’s the intoxicating promise of a chance. 

Standing up is an arduous task. His body is dead tired, but he manages to lift himself up, ratty shoes set atop of his resting place. 

If he’s here for any longer, he’s going to be sick. One step at a time, he hauls his body away, back to the town. It nearly hurts more than digging himself out, the bones in his ankles feeling fractured as he continues limping. He’s held together so loosely, patched with faith and chitin. 

There’s no easy way to get back to the town through the woods.

It’s an incredibly rough walk back. Everything just goes worse and worse -- the crows cawing their sweet symphony of death, a celebration, their omen -- the world spinning underneath him, vision dizzy, forcing him to take breaks so that he doesn’t faint -- a vulture’s prey -- a host of maggots and vermin. 

Ash is following his memory, thinking back to the small glimpses of the forest he remembers as he was dragged along the ground. There is no one left to trust. 

He can only hope that he’s limping in the right direction. It’s hard to focus on just keeping going when there’s hundreds of things broken inside of him, feeling as if a centipede has coiled itself around his guts, its legs stabbing into him over and over again. 

After long enough, the town comes into view with its distant flickering street lamps. Ash recognises it immediately. The first building, the tallest -- the church, with its cross silhouetted against the moon.

It’s a small, rough community, with the wheat fields right to the east of where Ash is walking. He forces his body into the shadows of the trees, takes his time avoiding anything that could make a noise. Ash survived getting buried alive, but he’s not sure if he could come back from a bullet to the back of his brain.

Ash will never forget where he lives. He takes his time, the moon static in place, a judge upon his monstrous form. 

If Ash can just get there, then maybe it’ll be… better. 

Still not good, though. Not fine, not at all. 

He makes his way around, following the small footpath that’s eroded itself into the grass. There, at the end, is a small house. It’s not anything special, but it’s to him. 

As Ash comes closer, he gets swallowed by the house's shadow. He’s glad to be out of the light, his retinas aching in that hazy way of sickness. It’s an old building, stitched together through different eras, and Ash stands -- everpresent, the visitor that overstays, the poltergeist that haunts -- under the small overhang that covers the door.

Ash isn’t sure what to do anymore.

He knows that he came here for a place to stay. He knows he came here because it’s the only one possible. 

But he’s going to have to knock, and someone’s going to have to perceive his gorey form. 

This isn’t right. Ash, the thing that he is now, isn’t right. Of course it isn’t, it’s so obvious, but he can’t just accept it easily. He loosely moves his hand down over his chest, feels the mocking movement of his chest up and down. Ash doesn’t know how to ground himself anymore when he has risen from the very soil.

The worst thing that can happen is -- a lot of things.

And the longer he stays, waiting, chewing on his already bloodied and raw lip, the higher chance he has of being discovered by someone else. Ash raises his hand, and knocks, once, twice.

Then comes the waiting game. 

Ash curls his hands into fists, smearing more blood and more dirt over the inside of his palm, hissing at how tender his fingernails are.

A minute passes.

It’s unsurprising. He’s come here in the dead of night, of course he’d be asleep. Ash can’t keep waiting idly like this but -- no, no, it’s still too early to say that he’s going to try and break in. 

He’ll just try again. 

Over, and over, until something works. To which Ash raises his hand to knock again -- to which the door creaks open.

Ash makes a startled, raspy noise -- not having spoken since his burial, where his vocal cords were already shot through -- the equivalent of a yelp. 

And Red -- Red yells. 

Out of all outcomes, this is a very bad one. In panic, Ash lunges forward, rotting hand pressed over Red’s mouth and his feet just have to trip over the doorstep and -- Ash’s body falls right into Red, emaciated and lanky, but it’s still another person tripping right into him, so it sends Red crashing down onto the decrepit wooden floor with a cacophonous thud, his sunglasses falling off his face. 

Ash scrambles from his position of half-laying on top of Red, to leaning over him; hair falling over them like a curtain; knees pressed into the floor, against Red’s waist; his left hand splayed out next to Red’s head and his right hand making sure Red can’t scream again. 

Red looks up at him, wide-eyed. Ash can feel the Red’s quick, warm breaths against his hand. 

“Be quiet.” Ash says, hushed. 

Moonlight from outside creeps through the open door, backlighting Ash. His hand shakes, fingers digging into Red’s cheek for half a moment before he lifts it off. He’s ready to suffocate him. 

“Holy shit - holy, what the fuck?” And a second later, terrified, which is all the worse, “Ash?” 

Ash’s eyes flicker over Red’s face, contemplative, before giving a mute nod.

“You’re- you’re telling me you’re Ash? What the fuck- what the fuck are you?” Red shifts, propping himself up on his elbows. “No, no, there’s no way- you- what’s happened to you-”

“Shut up.” Ash cuts him off. 

It hurts to speak, his throat scratchy. He’s doing this for Red.

Red doesn’t, the asshole he is. “No, you answer me. You can’t just- you were missing, and you show up, you look like you’re dead and you expect me to shut up? Ash, God. What happened to your eye?”

Ash is caught off guard. 

“What do you mean?” 

Red’s face turns extremely uncomfortable. “Your, uhm, eye.” He repeats, as if that makes it clearer. 

Ash lifts his hand up, over his right eye, and goes to press his fingers in the muscle that would be under his eye. Instead, his fingers move deeper, right into a sort of decayed hole in his face. It’s not like Ash can see it, but he can feel the dead skin under his fingertips, muscle tissue sort of hanging limply, folding over itself. 

He can feel the structure of his skull, covered by a thin layer of skin and other dried up gore. It feels disgusting to touch, but not painful. Just deeply disturbing, as his fingers can go in further and further. 

“What the fuck.” Ash mutters to himself, and louder, “What the fuck.”

Ash is half tempted to see how far deep it goes, but Red is watching.

Red’s fallen quiet. Ash can see into his eyes clearly, courtesy of the sunglasses falling off, he can see every speck of fear and doubt, the way that Red’s teeth are sunk into his bottom lip. 

Ash’s hand drops from his face, coming back with flaky bits of dried blood stuck to further decaying skin. He’s half tempted to wipe it on Red, but he just wraps it around one of the straps of Red’s suspenders. 

Red lies between revulsion and reverence.

“I came back from the dead, I think. I don’t know much else.” Ash admits, quiet. 

Red looks even more freaked out at that. “What are you saying? It’s been a week, people just- people don’t just come back from the dead.” 

“I’ve been missing for a week?” Ash zeroes in, leaning closer to Red.

“Yeah, I, uh, everyone I asked about you said they haven’t seen you for a week.” Red pauses, quiet, his hands flexing against the floor as if he’s unsure whether or not to push Ash away. “You are real, right?”

Ash scoffs. “Of course I am, dumbass.”

“...Are you going to kill me?” Red whispers.

“What? No, no. I won’t.” 

Though, there’s something in Ash’s stomach that revels in having so much power over Red. He can barely walk, can’t even breathe, but to have Red in such a state -- it’s intoxicating. 

“Okay, uhm.” Red’s head tilts back. “Why are you here, then?”

Ash breathes out, slow, takes his time. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” 

“Oh.” Red blinks.

Ash’s hand moves to fist itself into Red’s shirt, fingers wrapping around his collar, dirtying it with the soil and whatever bodily fluids he has on him. “Let me stay here.”

“What?”

“You heard what I said. Let me stay here. With you.”

Red’s eyes travel over Ash, raw discomfort visible. Ash gets it -- if something so disgusting had come to his house and knocked him over at the eve of midnight, he’d be hesitant too. He looks like a monster and is one inside. 

But he’s hedged all his bets on this. He needs to be able to stay with Red, and then he can figure out what’s next from there. Ash doesn’t feel like a miracle right now. 

“Okay. Okay… I’ll take you in.” Red accepts, but the uncertainty is clear in his voice.

Ash mock-breathes out, “Thank you.”

Red nods in response, shifting underneath Ash. “Can you get off me now?”

With some reluctance of his own, Ash lifts himself off Red, unsteady on his feet again. All too weak. He stands, waiting for Red to get up. 

Red looks more disheveled than Ash has ever seen him, his shirt’s collar crumpled from Ash loosely tugging at it, blood smeared on white fabric and dirt blotched over his suspenders, hair mussed with sleep and sunglasses awkwardly perched on his nose again. There’s a sickening temptation in Ash’s stomach, but he can’t listen to it, can’t fall for the way it knots his organs together, so he simply moves to close the door, a cross hung above it, blocking out the outside world.

It delves the front room into darkness, which is a blessing as Red can’t see the true horror of his form, and a curse because it’s harder to pick up on Red’s expressions. Ash awkwardly hovers, silent, Red’s shaky breathing filling the room. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Do you want to uh, go wash yourself?” Red asks. 

Ash nods, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

As Ash moves to take a step, his weight buckles underneath him. He narrowly avoids collapsing back on the floor as his side hits the wall, using it as his only support. 

And as quick as ever, Red moves to his side, hands awkwardly hovering over his waist. “Fuck, are you okay?”

“Just tired.” 

A part of Ash really wants to shrug Red off. The other more rational part knows that Red is his only resort. He can’t fuck this up.

“I’ll help you to the bathroom?” Red offers, quiet.

A heartbeat pause. “Okay.”

*

Ash perches on the side of the bathtub, shoes already kicked off, hunched over himself, listening to the tub slowly fill up with water behind him. It’s pitch black, and Ash is waiting for Red to come back so that they can begin whatever this is. 

He scratches at his wrist, it feels like he’s covered in ants.

The bathroom is a fairly standard room, small and quaint, rather cold. Ash’s cloying decomposition stench is going to adhere to these walls for months. A selfish part of him wants it to never leave Red.  The floor underneath Ash’s feet is covered in all the filth that he’s dragged in, and the centipede keeps wriggling its way between his organs.

Soon enough, Red’s body pushes the creaking door open, an ornate lantern in his hand, spare clothes folded over his arm, the candle flame inside flickering. He places it atop of the counter, illuminating the bathroom in a faint warm light, stretching over the walls. 

“That alright?” Red asks, shutting the door with a small click.

“Yes, yeah. Are you going to bathe me too, or?”

Red pauses, “If you’d like.” 

Ash looks down at himself, to his body. He’s half certain that trying to do this by himself will end up in a lot more injuries and hassle than he’d like, and besides that, it’s Red. He’s seen him at his worst -- before his current worst -- and he’s the one who first offered it. Therefore if anything goes wrong, it’s Red’s fault, and never Ash’s for accepting.

“That’d be good.”

“Okay,” Red’s voice turns quieter, an underlying fear of Ash breaking, of Ash himself. “Get up, first. We need to get you out of your clothes.”

Ash allows himself to be coaxed up. This is something that he could just do himself, but the less that Ash does, the more the blame can be pushed on Red for doing all of this, making him feel this way. It’s a willing delusion. 

Red’s hand’s move his arms up, and it’s shameful, too. To be cared for. Being cared for by someone, least of all a boy -- Ash bites down on his lip. 

Awful. 

Everything about this situation -- the circumstances, the decisions taking place -- is setting himself up. And the worst of all, that Ash does nothing about it.

“I’m gonna take your hoodie off now,” Red talks him through, narrating his actions like Ash is a scared animal. 

Ash makes a small noise in acknowledgment, feeling the brush of Red’s knuckles on his skin as he starts to roll the hoodie up. With a few more tugs, Red’s taken it completely off him, revealing his decomposed body. 

Oh. Oh. It’s bad. 

Bad is an understatement. Red makes a noise of disgust before he could attempt to stifle it down. 

There’s a large patch of skin and muscle over the left side of his ribs that has completely decayed, revealing two of his lower ribs. He breathes, and watches them move. The rib bones themselves are also stained with dried blood, to where they worm their way back into his skin, to jut out rather prominently over his chest, the lantern light highlighting the prominent peaks. Right. He was dead. His body rotted through its natural cycle, and the critters under the soil feasted on his degenerate flesh.

There’s other parts of rotting skin, small flaps that have barely stayed attached in slices on the side of his hip. 

His body itself just looks sick, and the stench of death radiates from around him, so much stronger now that there is no cloth to stifle it down. There’s blood and pus smeared all over, oozing out of the disturbed epidermis.

Red’s nose scrunches up, obviously affected. He coughs into the crook of his elbow.

“Sorry.” Ash says, quiet.

“You’re fine,” Red lies to placate him. God knows he’s dealt with enough.

“I’m clearly not fine.” Ash’s hand reaches up, shakily tracing over the exposed bone and muscle, blunt fingernails digging in. He expects it to hurt, but nothing happens. It’s dead flesh.

“Don’t do that,” Red calls out, hand reaching out to still Ash’s, wrapping around his frail wrist.

“I don’t feel it.”

“Ah, because that makes it better? You’re smearing dirt into it.” And a more alert, “Christ, you’ve made it start bleeding. Is it bleeding? Somethin’s leakin’ out.”

Fearful, Ash looks down. “Oh.”

Red looks at Ash for a moment longer, lingering, his grip on Ash tightening before dropping his hand back down. Ash can see how he’s clearly attempting to not look at the massive gaping wound, definitely some sort of death fluid leaking out, but his eyes keep on coming back to it like a guilty pleasure. 

He takes a towel from the rack, and presses it up against Ash’s wound, as if that’s going to fix everything that’s wrong. “Just in case.” He murmurs as an explanation.

“Feels weird.” Ash says, referring to the texture of the towel against raw muscle.

Red lets out a heavy breath. “And you’re sure it doesn’t hurt?”

“No, it doesn’t hurt.” Ash reassures, lacking his usual bite. He’s been through too much. Kindness is scarce, and he wants to let this moment fester. 

With reluctance, Red removes the towel, looking at the grayish fluid that has come out. It looks like nothing Ash has seen before, a more unsettling version of pus. The oozing has stopped with the light pressure, only a small disturbance. Red drops the towel away with a small frown on the edges of his lips.

This leaves Ash’s top half bare, freckled with moles and the occasional scar, some haphazard attempted marks under his chest, decorating him in an array of mistakes. 

Ash braces himself as Red’s hands brush over his bare skin by accident, moving to unfasten the buttons on his trousers.

Red’s hands seem to fumble for a second, awkward, as Ash’s eyes bear down into the top of his head. Then, the sound of the first button being undone can be heard, and then the next, until all that’s left is the zipper underneath. Ash’s skin feels splotchy, prickling underneath, he’s so close. Sinful breath ghosts over his stomach. He’s dragging Red down with him. Under the earth, down, down, down. 

Red’s eyes flicker up at Ash, as if asking for permission, to which Ash quietly nods at. 

With a gentle tug, Red unzips Ash’s trousers, showing off a peek of black boxers. Red’s hands then come up, thumbs slipping underneath his trousers and boxers at once. Ash’s head spins.  After a further moment of hesitation, Red begins to slide them down, over his thighs sticky with blood, apologizing when his thumb skims over damaged skin, to his knees, until he’s crouched down, a mockery of prayer, and coaxing Ash to lift his feet to pull his pants off of him.

Here, Ash stands bare. Under the glow of the lantern light, under Red’s gaze. He awkwardly covers himself, because it’s just -- too much, otherwise.

There’s another large jagged wound in his calf, edges smeared with more dried blood and mucus, completing the set. Ash is a patchwork quilt full of rotten through holes. His eyes, his side and his ribs, to his calf. 

Red stands back up,throwing the trousers down in the same pile with Ash’s hoodie. They’re practically unwearable, but Ash has much bigger problems to attest to now. 

“You look like hell.” Red says, after a moment.

Ash closes his eyes, all vulnerable, all shaky, weak.

“Don’t say that.” 

Red mutters out a half hearted sorry under his breath, his hand then coming up to rest between Ash’s shoulder blades. The contact, unfiltered, direct, burns against his unholy skin.

“Are you going to be okay in the water?” Red questions, worried, which is just wrong.

Ash tilts his head. “What do you mean?”

Red’s other hand comes to accidentally graze over the loose rotting skin on his side, flinching away in discomfort. “This. And, like, I’m also kind of worried for all the other injuries on you.”

“I don’t know.” Ash confesses. “I just want to wash the dirt off me.” 

There’s a gentle, frail silence. 

Red looks at him with pity, which Ash just wants to claw Red’s eyes out, to not be perceived, to have the candle go out and be swept away in the coldness of the night. 

“Right, you stink. Let’s get you in the bath already.” 

Ash glares, unamused, but he still allows Red to lead him the two steps closer to the bath, holding out his hand for Ash to balance with as he steps over the rim, and sinks down into the water. He curls up into a sort of ball, childish, with his knees tucked under his chin, the water just coming up to over his navel. The smaller he is, the less Red has to look at him.

It’s a tricky thing, balancing every aspect of himself when there is nothing to hide behind. To take up all of the room, biting and loud because that’s what Ash wants to be, only to herald away in the corner of a bathtub because this isn’t what he’s meant to be. 

“Is the water okay?” Red asks, moving a stool underneath him to sit down.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Ash lies. It scalds, delicate carapace itching, burning alive. 

Red believes it, because Ash has no reason to lie in this situation. He’s too trusting. He’s going to be ruined just by being in the vicinity of Ash. He stands up, which immediately alerts Ash.

“What are you doing?”

“Smoke break.” Red says, over his shoulder to Ash. He opens the lantern, pulling a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lighting it on the flame. “You just keep soaking.”

“Oh.” 

Reluctantly, Ash lays back down. The smell of smoke fills the air quickly, but it’s not like Ash has lung cancer to worry about. 

“Why’d you take me in?” Ash asks.

“You’re Ash.” 

As simple as that. Ash fucking hates this man, wants to rip him apart, bury into the same grave as him. He is the reason for his sin; the blame, the martyr. Wants to stretch his hand over his skin and rip it over his ribs, a matching hole, and peel his ribs off until he crushes his heart. 

They fall into silence after that. 

Ash watches the ceiling, with the lantern light flickering, listening to Red breathe out the smoke. He doesn’t know how long this goes on for. He’s ready to fall asleep here, really.

He tilts his head, like he’s going to get into trouble for looking at Red. Red, oh, Red -- the light drags over his skin, painting him in subdued hues, the centerpiece of the altar. He stifles a cough as if his throat is filled with dirt again.

“So, you’re kind of like a zombie?” Red asks, just simply watching Ash.

“You could call it that, yeah.” Ash rests back, slowly getting more comfortable. It’s not a lot. “You don’t seem all that phased.”

Red barks out a laugh at that, “No, I’m honestly waiting to wake up and find out that this is a dream.” 

Ash can’t help the frown on his face. “And what happens when I’m still there?”

That shuts Red up, with the unintended side effect of stringing the tension tight. “Well. That’s- that’s something to process later.” Red looks away from him. “I thought I’d never see you again. I think that’s why, uh, why I’m just going with it.” 

Ash also was certain that he was dead, but that’s not a conversation he wants to have, naked in a bath with Red caring for him. Caring. What a tricky word.

Red puts out his cigarette on the edge of the bathtub. It’s already a rackety thing, it doesn’t matter.

“You want to start with your hair first?” Red asks.

Ash gladly takes the conversation change. “Yeah, uh, that’s okay.” 

He’s never had anyone do this for him. Not for a long, long time. When most of his life is stuck in a closet, bowed in prayer, there has never been a chance for this to be conspired.

Red’s hands dip into the water, scooping water into his hands and starting to wet Ash’s hair. It’s a slow process, as Ash just has a lot of it, reaching down to his waist when loose like this. Ash keeps silent, his throat aching with possibilities, the centipede begging to be let out.

After a moment of hesitation, Red’s hands bury themselves into his hair to start seriously washing. It’s still just simple rinsing, but it’s unbearably annoying as it’s tangled into knots, radiating its mephitic odour, clotted with mud, and overall greasy and disgusting in every way imaginable. Red’s fingers in his hair constantly stutter as he has to wrangle out knots and rake through all the filthiness. 

And honestly, Ash is fighting the urge to squirm and bat Red’s hands away. 

The only thing more embarrassing than being in this position is showing his embarrassment. Control is very far out of reach, out of his orbit. 

Ash hisses as Red tugs too harshly, to which Red immediately soothes with a soft shush and a gentle scratch to his scalp to where he pulled. That somehow makes all of Ash’s insides feel worse, the ants everywhere on him, oh, God. 

It feels divine. 

Ash could say something that exposes him even more, lays him out with tenderness, but this is terrifying enough, “We’re gonna be here for hours, hurry up.” 

This time, Red yanks his hair on purpose. Ash makes a pained noise.

“There’s so much shit in your hair, man.” Red scoops up water in his palm, and tilts it over Ash’s hair again, washing out any leftover muck that Red’s hands might have missed. “Here, lay down, tilt your head back into the water, yeah, just like that.” 

Red returns to washing his hair, more thorough this time. His fingers rub into Ash’s scalp, picking out the uncooperative pieces of dirt and rocks, discarding them into a wastebasket. He rakes his hand through, over and over, with a purpose. It’s far too easy for Ash to get lost in his illusion of affection. 

Ash feels like an offering, all bare and laid out like this. It’s not like he can hurt anymore like a human, a farce of the Lord’s work, but oh, he’d be lying if his chest doesn’t feel like it’s on fire. He’s a heretic. He should’ve died in that grave.

Ash’s eyes squeeze shut, just so that he doesn’t have to be greeted by the sight of Red above him, so focused. On him. 

“That’s good, yeah, you look good. Sit back up.” Red’s hand leaves his scalp for the moment, moving to take a soap bar off the side. 

Ash hunches back over himself. The lantern light casts small waves of light over the bathwater, like speckles of stars. It’s already a brown colour, tinged a grayish pink. Ash grimaces.

“Tilt your head up, I don’t want to get soap into your eye. You’ll be fully blind then.” 

All too willingly, Ash obliges and straightens up. Everything here is so foreign. His body is made of glass and it’s shattering right in front of him, spreading into stars. 

The routine continues, with Red lathering the soap bar in his hands, and then working the soapsuds into Ash’s hair. There’s the pleasant fragrance of the soap in the air, fading cigarette smoke, underlaid with the sickly sweet necrotic scent emanating from every part of Ash. 

It’s devotion in its own right. There should be hymns written about this act. 

Ash digs his hands into his thigh, trying to keep himself contained in this body he inhabits. Red’s breathing fills the room, along with the sound of washing, water splashing and Ash’s hair being thoroughly cleaned through. 

It’s over far too soon, when Red’s hands start wetting his hair again, clearing away all the foam that has gathered. It’s just as thorough as the first time, starting from imprecisely collecting and rinsing water into Ash’s hair into Red’s hand’s really going in.

They scratch at his freshly washed scalp, a smooth circular pattern that Ash revels in. Ash watches Red with a lazy eye. 

“That’s your hair done.” Red’s hand slides down from the top of his head, down to his jaw, tilting Ash’s head in his hands. “Hey, uh. Wait. Am I going to have to wash your eye-hole out?” 

Ash shrugs; he has no clue either. He’s new to the whole undead thing.

“Yeah, I don’t want to fuck anything inside up, but it’s like, there’s a lot of dirt and stuff inside it. You can’t get infections, right?”

Ash shrugs, again.

“God, you’re so much help.” Red shakes his head, thumb gingerly tracing the outline of the so-called eye-hole. 

“You’re welcome.” Ash murmurs. 

He’d be ready to bolt if he wasn’t stuck in Red’s bath. 

Red mutters to himself, things that Ash doesn’t really pay attention to because he’s more focused on the way that Red is studying him, his voice idle pleasant background noise. There’s that undeniable terror in his features whenever his fingers press a little bit too deep, too far inside the gaping void, and a sick sort of fascination. A devotion only left to the sanctuary.  

It seems like Red has eventually come to a solution of the problem with Ash’s gritty, fucked up eye, as he dampens a wash cloth in the water. He lifts it gently to the hole, and starts to pat it around, and then inside.

In all honesty, it doesn’t feel that bad. It feels almost pleasant, actually. Maybe it’s because anything from Red is a token of devotion. 

Red tilts Ash’s head again, positioning it under the light of the lantern. “That’s passable for now.”

“Passable?”

“I mean, it’s not like you’re going to go outside anytime soon?”

In the first place, Ash doesn't like it when Red has a point. Even more when it’s something as piercing as that, and the feeling of the centipede in his throat comes crawling back. 

“You don’t have to say it.” Ash mutters. 

Red’s lips flicker with amusement, but he does drop the conversation. There has to be something satisfying in having someone as unruly and jagged as Ash tamed, curled in, his hundred legs folded together, spiraling into infinity. 

Ash is far too wired to speak as Red discards the washcloth and starts working on cleaning up his body.

After that, Ash’s hair is lifted up, Red’s hands starting to clean Ash’s back with the soap. He’s very meticulous in the way that he does it, first going to the spots with the least amount of rotting, applying the lightest pressure just in case Ash’s skin decides to slip off under his hands. Some do. Though, it’s only the pieces that were already gonna fall off one way or another, leaving behind little specks and patches of exposed dead tissue. 

Red’s hands skim over his stomach, nails gently dragging across the skin. It feels good, so good, that there must be a verse that denies this. There’s no way he can go back to his life after experiencing this. 

There is no life to go back to.

Ash takes in a deep breath, all of his bones rattle around. It aches. Deep seated, inside of him. Nothing is ever going to be the same. 

Then Redd’s hands trail down to the crook of his hip, fingertips skimming over his blotted skin, dragging the soap bar over his legs, stretching them out with little concern for what Ash thinks, reaching down to his ankles and feet. Devotion to Ash, to who deserves it the least. Repeats it with the other leg, the lantern light catching on the protruding bones. Ash can only watch, not daring to look at Red himself. 

Red’s hands then cautiously move to the more exposed parts of Ash. Mainly the wound in his side, to where his fingers rest just on the edge of it, afraid to touch the muscle and bone itself. 

“Just do the washcloth thing again if you’re so worried.” Ash says, quiet.

Red makes a small noise in acknowledgment, succumbing to Ash’s will, and picks up a fresh washcloth.

And the process repeats. Red handles him very gently, more tender than before, because at least that could be distorted and interpreted as normal skin, but this -- under this, lays Ash’s silent heart. The edges are bruised and sticky, and Ash wishes he could feel the pain that this incites, because this is supposed to be painful. To be touched by another boy like this, to sit, a twisted recreation of God’s will, cared for, bathed in warmth and the beauty of flame.  

Red’s hand moves over his body like he’s marble instead of the strung together flesh and bone in all the wrong orientations that he’s become. 

Red’s monitoring him like he’s precious. Ash wants to ask, isn’it hard, paddling out further and further, down to inferno, giving yourself up, sinning and sinning when God is just outside the window? 

“That should be it. You’re all washed up.” Red leans back, stretching.

There’s small spots of wetness on his shirt. A better person would feel bad for forcing Red through all of this, but that isn’t Ash. He’s never been good, nor is he a person anymore. 

Hesitant to leave, Ash asks, “Do I get out now?” 

“Yeah, preferably.” Red blinks.

Ash braces himself and stands up, stepping out of the tub with Red’s help again. The chill of the air on his skin is discomforting, like he was meant to live with Red’s hands reaching into the edges of his skin, brushing against his bone, knuckles grazing over the sinew connecting muscle. Worshipping this vile, plague of a thing. 

He’s aware he looks pathetic. Red makes sure to keep his gaze focused up and away, giving Ash minimal dignity back, and proceeds to dry him off with a towel.

First, his hair. He’s very thorough with this part, blotting and squeezing the towel over every section of Ash’s hair. Ash bites down on his lip to make sure he doesn’t embarrass himself further when Red’s hand buries itself back in, checking over for any stubborn dirt and mud, and ruffling through Ash’s hair in some sort of self-pleasure for himself, which makes Ash’s stomach twist. 

He’s never been someone who’s been touched just to be touched and it feels -- wrong. Wrong for it to be coming from Red. Ash hisses under his breath, and pretends it’s just because Red tugged his hair again.  

Then, his body. Red is even more cautious with this part, patting him down carefully, removing the moisture off his body and wary around the skin that’s still hanging on. It’s a slow process that lets Ash just focus on Red for the most part. 

The way he’s so concentrated, refusing to talk about everything. He accepts Ash back like he’s a missing rib. 

“What do we do with the uh, skin flaps?” Red asks, tying the towel around Ash’s waist.

“Red, I beg, do not call them skin flaps.” Ash sighs. He doesn’t particularly want them to be torn off, even if they’re useless -- because that means he’s becoming compliant in his fate -- but he doesn’t want them to just be hanging, either. “I mean… you could sew them down.”

“Sew them?”

“Just think of it as like, stitching.”

Red’s eyebrows furrow; obvious that he really doesn’t want to do that. 

“It’ll be fine,” Ash spurs him on. The more of himself he gets to keep, the better. “It’ll be quick and you don’t have to tear them off.” 

Because Red would do anything if Ash asked.

He’s insidious, his hundreds of legs curling around Red, tying him up. 

“This is so weird,” Red mutters under his breath. He does as predicted, conceding the second later, “Fine, I’ll- I can do that later. I don’t have the thread, I think. I’ll buy it in the morning?”

“That sounds good.” Ash looks down at the puddle formed underneath his feet. The liquid is an unnatural colour.

It’s better than Ash could’ve imagined. Red has to let him stay now, burrow into his house, stay over for the night. None of the crosses above doorways have stopped Ash from sinking his pincers into Red. 

Red’s hand hover, wanting so badly to reach out. So far away. To touch Ash now would be a sin. Indulgence. Down to the third ring of the seventh layer of hell.

“Just leave them for today. Help me dress.” Ash says.

Red snaps into action after that, with a small, oh, and moves to get the clothes off the towel hook.

There’s less unease about it now; that Red’s already undressed him and bathed him and now is giving him a place to stay. 

He pulls the nightshirt over Ash’s head, and it’s obvious that he’s grateful that he doesn’t have to look at Ash’s ribs grotesquely poking out. It’s very loose on him, carrying some faint warmth from Red, and it’s obviously cheap and old. There’s no point giving Ash something nice when they both know it’s probably going to be stained with dead skin and other leaking fluids in the morning. 

Red’s hands quickly do the buttons up, leaving as little skin to be seen as possible. That lets Red continue his facade of normalcy. Anything, anything for Red to let him stay. 

“I don’t think the smell has gone away.” Red sighs. 

Ash doesn’t really care. “I feel better now.” He’s not sure if he’s lying.

Red looks over him. There’s something in his gaze that Ash can’t decipher, his sunglasses blocking out any chance at a clear view. He doesn’t know what to say.

Cautiously, Red steps forward. He starts, “You were gone for a week. I missed you so much.” Red buries his face into Ash’s hair, hands splayed out over his back. “I thought I'd never see you again.” He repeats. 

This is the sleep deprivation talking. This isn’t real. 

Ash’s hand raises up, over Red’s back, his fingertips making the lightest contact, and Ash begs for forgiveness. This was Red’s idea, this was Red’s fault, and it was Ash who crawled to his doorstep. Red’s too good, so, so good, and the centipede in him is so unclean and foul. Red’s touch scalds him, searing in golden light on Ash’s skin.

“I’m here.” Ash whispers.

Brought back wrong. And yet, Red takes him in. 

His friend, his friend, the platonic ideal.

Ash wishes he wasn’t. 

*

Decomposing under the sheets. He’s curled into Red’s bed now, a small thing really meant for only one person. 

Ash takes it over like he has the right to, facing the wall. Behind him lies everything personal to Red, every small thing that Ash was never meant to see. Tomorrow he’ll look around, worm into any cracks that he can find for the crevice angel he is. For now, he’s attempting to rest. 

Red’s grown up here. It’s a sort of exhilarating thought.

The door opens with a dull click. Ash lays perfectly still, no need to breathe, no attempt to greet Red. It’d be easier to live like this, as strangers, instead of Ash and Red. 

Instead, he listens to Red shuffle around. The door closes, and Red starts undressing. Slow, as if he’s making sure that he won’t accidentally wake Ash up; unknowing to the evil that is creeping on him from his bed. Red’s soft breathing, the buttons of his shirt being undone, the rustle of soft cloth. Ash squeezes his eyes shut until he can see neon patterns on his eyelids. Do not look, do not look. 

There’s some more noise, drawers shutting and closing, before the bed dips next to Ash, and the clack of Red’s sunglasses against the bedside table. Red’s body heat is so tantalizingly close. 

Ash can only wonder how Red looks now. Whether the moonlight draws itself over his face, if Red’s own nightshirt is as fixedly buttoned up as his. How Red sees him.

And the worst happens, as Red sinks down behind Ash. The covers are gently tugged out from underneath Ash, which he had nestled himself on top of, and tentatively laid out over them both. Ash can feel the fear in Red’s movements, the way that just the knock of his knuckles against Ash’s ribs makes his breath hitch. 

Is he more delicate like this? Vulnerable? Does he lose all his edges like this, is that why Red lies with him? He’s treating it like a secret that only one of them knows. 

Red’s hand eventually moves to Ash’s freshly washed hair, sufficiently dry by now, gently brushing it away from where it spills out over half the bed, laying it over Ash’s shoulder. Ash lays still. The world’s heart beats behind him. 

There’s a soft satisfied sigh behind him. Red finally properly lays down, right behind him, and presses his forehead to the inbetween of Ash’s shoulder blades. For Red is just as lonely as Ash is.

Does Red even know what he’s welcomed into his bed? Ash’s curse will fester here, overtake the wooden floor with rot, and Red treats him like -- like this. 

If Ash’s heart worked, he thinks it’d burst out of his chest.

It’s so much worse like this, not being able to feel how he reacts. He knows that this is more, so much bigger than him, but he himself is so silent. 

And Red’s arm, oh, Red’s arm is gently placed atop of his side, careful to not disturb the potentially sore, tender parts of him.

Ash opens his eye, as if that will do anything, when he faces the decrepit wall and the room is enshrouded in darkness. He can see the faint outline of Red’s hand that’s reached over him, just see. Not even coming back to life has felt as painful as this. 

The bed feels suffocating like this, too little space for them both to fit, both grown men. Red’s pressed up behind him, his leg stretched out and lightly hitting Ash’s foot, murmuring out a quiet sorry even when no one is there to respond. Under the duvet is sweltering heat, a glimpse into his fate, skewed into mortality again. 

Red has picked him up, and Ash will let him down. That’s how the tale goes. In the end, Ash will win, whatever it means in this context. 

More prominently -- a small, featherlight kiss is placed in between Ash’s shoulders. 

And as if it’s nothing, just a secret in the night, Red presses more against Ash, trying to find a position more comfortable, his breath fanning out over Ash’s back.

Is it so bad that -- no, no, of course it is awful that Ash wants the barrier of fabric to be taken off. He wants to bury himself under the covers, being alive again is only a vice to repeat all of his mistakes, he should not have had a second chance, not when he’s craving this so, so badly.

Ash thinks he’s making it up. There’s no way, there’s no way, but -- it’s Red. So clearly his lips, on Ash’s back, and an ugly immoral something wants to come crawling out of his stomach, because oh, oh. One last act of indulgence before morning, another sin on the list. It’s the most grievous. 

He’s ruined him.

Corrupted, destroyed, raptured. 

Ash’s centipede curls tighter and tighter. From his throat to Red’s intestines.

He’s cursed him, he just knows it. In just an hour, in less than that, his curse has latched onto Red, forcipules burrowed deep into his skin, and Red’s kissed him, a gentle thing, only restricted by Red’s nightshirt on Ash’s sick body, and it has never felt so good.

To blame Red feels like a sin itself. It’s Ash who crawled his way over Red, inserted his mutilated body into his home. It’s never felt better. 

The church bells strike outside. Ash’s fingers curl, imperceptible, tighter into Red’s sheets. He will never forget this.

Red’s arm over him, the way his thumb is stroking idly at Ash’s stomach, the kiss, his face pressed against Ash’s back. It’s all too much for him to bear. And the worst part, that he never wants to stop feeling this. To live like this is setting up his damnation. Cursed his body be, and even more his mind. 

God watches from outside the window. They will not talk about this in the morning, for Red does not know that Ash does, for Ash will contaminate him until there’s no coming back. Ash closes his eye again, pretends he’s asleep.