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Zombie sat as still as he could, but he couldn’t help but fidget with his new outift… Due to recent reasons, his usual shirt and button up polo was replaced with a darker sweater and a longcoat to match. Though, he’d prefer to lose the coat, it gets too heavy and such a hassle to keep on. If he could walk around without it outside of their base, he definitely would. But a certain Shiro would scold him.
Speaking of, Shiro was already home today.
Zombie wasn’t sure why, he’s pretty sure he glossed over the part where Shiro was briefly explaining the reason. Well, part of it was his fault, and the other part was because Shiro had brought home a jackpot. A handful of snacks to last them quite a bit! Granted, it wasn’t dinner, but snacks are still a big ‘hell yeah’ for the undead.
He was way too excited to check the items that he couldn’t even hear Shiro due to his tunnel vision.
Way too excited to realize that Shiro was indeed giving him a friendly side-hug.
Well, that wasn’t the first time that he’d gotten some sort of physical affection from Shiro, it’s just that it makes his undead heart beat right out of his chest. Every. Single. Time.
It’s like a jumpstart to get an engine going. The engine being his brain, and his brain can run a mile through a minute just from such a simple reason. The simple reason being Shiro himself.
Not that he minded, he just had to get used to it. Shiro doesn’t get bothered by it, so why is he still surprised?
He’d already deduced the source of his feelings in the first place, touching the human doesn’t exactly give him the heebiejeebies. Does it have anything to do with the manner of contact in the first place? Or was it purely the other way around? Shiro touching Zombie, yeah the man definitely has something to do with it.
The overthinking hooper, sitting by the corner, pulling his sleeves over his hands and picking at loose threads. Blushing with his thoughts.
How would he even approach that? Being affectionate is one thing. Being affectionate towards Shiro is another.
“Do you feel cold?” Shiro’s voice interrupts his thoughts.
“Oh uhm-..” Zombie clears his throat and drops his arms, letting the sleeves of his sweater to return down to his wrist. “No? Why?”
He had plenty of blankets surrounding him already, he sure as hell didn’t feel that cold.
Yellow irises watched as Shiro sat down crosslegged right infront of him. Taking hold of both of the zombie’s hands together and bunching them with his own. He loved how much warmth the human was exuding just from his palms.
Shiro leans down, slowly and softly blowing a warm breath between their hands. Then rubbing the undead’s palms together, all in hopes of keeping his companion’s blood flowing down to the fingertips. Avoiding the sharp claws.
Unfortunately, all the blood had began travelling up to Zombie’s face instead.
Maybe he did feel a little cold.
Without looking up, Shiro started pinching at the end of the zombie’s fingers, at the same time examining them. Obviously thinking of something. Like should he get into knitting mitts for this guy? Could help with both the cold and concealment.. and he’d like to see how silly the zombie would look in em.
He smiles at the thought, definitely something he should look out for when buying or bartering.
Zombie leaves Shiro’s palms, suddenly engulfing the smaller man into a hug. This surprises Shiro, knowing how his friend gets embarrassed when it came to sappy or touchy stuff, but he happily returns the hug thinking that he just needed the extra source of heat.
Not knowing what to do with his hands, Zombie coils them around Shiro’s waist, conciously thinking about all of his movements and breathing. Preventing himself from squeezing the human too much. Hugging Shiro like this… felt really nice.
The feeling of Zombie holding his waist was kind of embarrassing, he knew he was smaller than the undead, but now he’s being reminded of that fact. Constantly. Shiro felt sheepish, his cheeks lightly dusted with red. But hey, a hug is a hug. It was still nice.
Shiro’s arms were raised a bit higher to accommodate, letting the other man nestle into a comfortable position first.
A heated face digs down at his shoulder, causing Shiro to sigh and rub the undead’s head with a gentle and soothing motion, untangling his locks with his fingers. Folding his other arm just behind the zombie’s scarred neck.
“We need to start keeping a fire here somehow, without burning ourselves to death as we sleep. So it’s either we freeze to death or getting grilled in our sleep.” Shiro suddenly breaks the comfortable silence.
Sometimes Zombie doesn’t even feel like the anomaly in this cooped up space, with the morbid stuff that Shiro blurts out sometimes, mostly out of nowhere too.
Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Should we keep the fire inside? Can’t we just light it up outside whenever we need it?”
“I mean, it’s not a bad idea but that would invite people to come over and use our fire. The worst thing that they could do is to start camping out in our alley.” Shiro pats his back as a permission to lose the hug.
Zombie wouldn’t let go tho, keeping as motionless as possible. He could probably sleep like this if he wanted to.
And he definitely wanted to.
“Let’s just pick a corner and start the fire there. Wall’s not burnable anyway.” The undead mutters in his place.
Shiro hums and returns to playing with Zombie’s overgrown mullet.
“It’s ‘flammable’. But yeah you do have a point.”
“Flammable.. sounds like a flame llama.”
“I know, words are weird.” Shiro chuckles right next to the undead’s ear.
Man, he loved hearing Shiro laugh.
Still in the hug, Shiro ought to ask his friend sooner or later.
“Are there some things that I do that make you uncomfortable?” He lays his head atop Zombie’s. “I guess you do like hugs, but what about holding your hand and stuff like that?”
Zombie thinks for a moment, not recalling such unwanted situations.
“I uh.. don’t think so? You haven’t made me feel uncomfortable.”
“Your face says otherwise sometimes..”
Well how could he keep a straight face when your biggest crush suddenly entangles your hands together?
“I-it’s not like that, I’m just not used to uh.. being touchy and stuff.” But damn he loved every single instance.
“Well, yeah, I’m literally the only human ever to hug a zombie as of this moment.” Shiro starts slowly rocking their bodies side to side, and Zombie not knowing what to do, just follows along.
“.. Did I make you feel uncomfortable?” Granted, a corpse suddenly giving you a hug is definitely something that one would have nightmares about. Traumatize a person, even.
Shiro didn’t think so. It was a dear friend giving him a hug. So he must absolutely return it.
“No, I don’t mind it.”
……
The silence was welcome, the rocking was lulling them to sleep. In Zombie’s opinion, this would honestly be the best way to fall asleep, every single night.
But the sun’s still out, setting in a few moments away.
They have nothing else to do anyways.
No that’s not true, they have to eat. Clean up. And return to their designated beds.
Right, they also have to secure that fire.
.. Maybe just a little more.
“I like holding you, you’re super warmm.”
Zombie mumbles, drifting off and barely holding his conciousness.
This causes Shiro to blush. Though, he doesn’t wanna admit what he felt. It was just a compliment, Zombie must feel really cold.
“Yeah well we should really get a heat-source going for the both of us, cmon big guy.”
Shiro attempts to shake him awake, with minimal success. It was enough to wake his companion anyway, given how it doesn’t really take much to startle him from a shallow sleep.
Pouting, Zombie lets go of Shiro’s waist. Letting him rise up from his seat and rummage through his pack.
“Could you gather stones? Ones that fit your palm. Please and thank you.” Shiro requests as he selects the furthest corner away from their beds. He began to clear out the space, digging a somewhat pot-sized hole for the fire to sit in.
Then he moved on to grabbing packed cardboard scraps he picked up while outside. He knew these wouldn’t last long for keeping flames, logs weren’t as accessible compared to their bases being right in the forest.
They just needed to keep a low flame going, a big one is gonna eat up too much fuel and the smoke will definitely choke them to death in their sleep. One small fire should be enough to keep the room warm.
Zombie returns with a handful of sizable stones in his arms, sitting next to Shiro as he set them all down, technically dropping them instead.
One by one, Shiro set the stones down on the bottom of the pit, just so the fire wouldn’t immediately get smothered by the dirt.
This gets Zombie to curiously watch along, usually Shiro would make a little pyramid with sticks.
“Your hug helped me feel better, earlier.” Shiro admits with a request in mind.
“Oh, were you not feeling well?” Zombie scans his friend, looking for signs if anything was wrong.
“No, I’ve just been really exhausted after work.” Shiro sighed and admitted, “I wanted to ask if you could uh..”
The human poked at the pile of cardboard with a stick. “Can you hug me like that when I get home..?”
Zombie’s face blooms a bright red upon hearing his request. Both of their cheeks are warm and their excuse was that they needed to start the fire soon, likely story.
“Ah- yeah ofcourse!— I can do that.” The undead nods eagerly, happy to be given an excuse to hold Shiro.
The blushing human only smiled bashfully in response. It really did bring him comfort after all, it erased some fatigue that’s been building up for days at the jobs he’s taken.
Not long after, Shiro efficiently gets the campfire started.
They both stay infront of it, keeping close for warmth. Leaning on each other for support as they hug their knees close to their own chests.
Seems like this’ll become a new normal for them, cuddling infront of a campfire.
With a small hole by the ceiling for the smoke to escape to, they could rest easy knowing they wouldn’t have to worry about breathing in the toxic fumes. They also decided beforehand to drape a blanket-turned-curtain over their entrance, some sort of a little added padding to keep the cold out. The cardboard door was certainly not close to being enough.
Their little cove was indeed getting cozier. Homey even.
As long as Shiro was there with him, he couldn’t complain.
“We can stay here a little bit longer before I make our dinner.”
“Yeah, sounds good..”