Work Text:
Hour 1
"It's just a scratch."
"Jack..."
Jack leans in close, lips pressed into a tight line, eyes blazing. "It is just. A. Scratch."
Eugene sighs heavily, closes his eyes for a moment. "Jack, we don't know that. What if..."
"I know it!" Jack replies, with the kind of certainty usually reserved for the truly delusional or utterly fanatical. Eugene clutches at the small, lightly bleeding wound on his upper arm, an innocuous little mark, and thinks that Jack might actually be both.
Hour 2
Eugene feels hyperaware of every minute that passes. The ruined building provides a little cover but not enough to hide the sun and he tracks it's passage across the sky. Jack is pressed up against him, deathly (hah!) still in the way Eugene has come to learn means that he's desperate to move but holding it back.
“You should go,” Eugene says quietly, just to say something. “You- you could find somewhere better to stay before it gets dark an-”
“No.”
Jack glares at him and Eugene gives a little huff but can't quite bring himself to argue.
Hour 3
Eugene tries to pretend that the tickle in the back of his throat is just because of the dust.
Hour 4
They don't tell you about the cough. Well, everyone knows it happens, but they don't tell you how it feels. Of course they don't, Eugene thinks madly, 'cause by the time it gets that far you might as well be dead already.
Dead man walking has a whole new meaning since the end of civilisation.
He laughs softly, earning a strange look from Jack which melts away into concern as the laugh shifts into a hacking cough that shakes his whole body. He can taste bile in the back of his throat, his lungs burn.
“Jack...” he says, voice hoarse and scared and he knows, he can see it in Jack's eyes.
“I know,” Jack says, and slides his hand up beneath the hem of his shirt to rub his back.
Hour 5
Jack isn't back. He'd gone to find water, food, a blanket, something and he isn't back yet.
Eugene huddles down, pulls his jacket closer around himself and stifles the cough against the back of his hand.
Hour 5 and a half
He's gone, hasn't he? He's done like Eugene asked and gone to somewhere safe. He's not coming back.
He squeezes his eyes shut against the pricking heat there, and pretends that he's happier being left alone.
Hour 6
Something drops over him, heavy and coarse and he starts back to full wakefulness with a start and a startled cry, trying to shove it away (but what's the point?) until someone grabs his hand and he's face to face with Jack.
“Jack,” the relief is obvious in his voice, even as he breaks off into another round of coughs. He turns away quickly, shielding his mouth against his sleeve, the millions PSAs about how the Gray Plague is transferred running through his head.
A bottle is thrust into his hand. It sloshes with liquid. Water. “Drink it,” Jack says. His face is white, pinched with worry.
He stares at the bottle and god, he's so thirsty but... he shoves it back towards Jack, shaking his head. “Don't need it, Jack. Don't waste it.” Not on a dead man.
Jack glares, but Eugene can see the fear in his eyes. “Look, 'Gene, how're we supposed to get anywhere if you don't take care of yourself?” He says it lightly, joking, and for a moment, Eugene sees red.
“Stop it, Jack! Just- just stop it! Stop pretending that everything's gonna be fine.”
He turns away, stifling another bout of coughing. Anything to avoid the stricken look on Jack's face.
He can taste blood in his throat.
Jack is silent as he sits down next to him, back against the half fallen wall, and he pulls the blanket carefully around Eugene's shoulders. Eugene huddles into it, and feels sick with gratitude.
Hour 7
He starts to shiver violently, hot and cold by turns. Enough that he can barely keep the blanket around himself. Frustrated tears prick at his eyes as he tries to shrug it up his shoulders again, because his fingers don't seem to want to work properly.
“'Gene?” Jack asks, peering at him, hand coming to rest against Eugene's cheek gently.
Eugene gives a weak smile. More a grimace really. “S-sorry,” he manages. “Just- just cold.”
Fear flashes in jack's eyes for a moment and then he smiles back. It doesn't erase the worry from his face, the lines around his eyes that Eugene is sure hadn't been there when they'd met. “That, I can help with,” he says, and for a moment it's like they're back in the shack at Abel and god, he hates that a draughty shack at the end of the world is the best they ever got.
Jack presses tight against his side and pulls the blanket around them both. Eugene turns into the warmth, burrowing his face against Jack's neck.
He knows he'll never feel this warm again.
Hour 8
“'m gonna make the most pathetic zom,” Eugene murmurs, only half conscious. Even the cold has receded. He just feels kind of numb.
“What?” Jack says, and he looks kind of adorably baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“Mmmm,” Eugene hums softly, and it's really hard to think clearly right now. “Just- just kind of dragging myself 'round on the floor. Think the other Zoms'll laugh?”
Jack stares incredulously for a moment, enough that it makes Eugene give a soft laugh, and presses a kiss to Eugene's temple. “Nah. You'll be the terror of the undead world. The Dread Zombies Roberts.”
“Did- did you just quote Princess Bride at me?”
“Mmmhmm,” Jack replies, lips grazing down along Eugene's cheek and jaw like he's trying to memorise every inch of his face. Maybe he is. He stops short of Eugene's mouth, hovering there until Eugene makes the decision for him and turns his head away.
“We can't,” he says, disappointment welling deep inside him. Blood, saliva. Bodily fluids.
Jack sighs, warm breath against Eugene's clammy skin. “I know,” he says, uncharacteristically sombre. And then... “Do you reckon anyone ever got infected from uh- ingesting semen.”
Eugene's incredulous silence would work better if he could stop coughing (like a death rattle) long enough to actually be silent, but they've been together long enough that he thinks Jack gets it.
“Did you really just ask me for my thoughts on- on undeath by blowjob?”
“I think I did. Too much?”
“Just a bit.”
“Right.”
Hour 8.5. Ish.
He drifts in and out of consciousness after that, breath rattling painfully in his lungs. He wakes up long enough for Jack to force more water into him and he drinks greedily, half of it spilling down his chin and somewhere in there, the coughs turn to sobs which he muffles against Jack's shoulder.
“'Gene.”
“Please Jack,” he asks, not sure what he's even asking for anymore.
“Right...” Jack's lips press against his cheek and for one horrible moment, he thinks that Jack's gonna kiss him, indirect suicide, and he won't, can't be the one responsible for that.
“That's only romantic in movies,” he mumbles and feels Jack frown against his skin.
“What?”
He blinks. Oh, yeah, he'd said that out loud. “You need to go, Jack,” he says tiredly. So tired. He could just fall asleep.
“I know,” Jack replies and makes absolutely no attempt to actually move. Stupid, stubborn, perfect idiot.
Eugene shoves him weakly, squirming out from where Jack's arm is wrapped around him. “You have to go,” he repeats, giving Jack as fierce a look as he can manage when his face is blotchy and red and oh yeah, he's gonna turn into the undead soon. Kind of makes any emotion other than fear kind of- of tough.
Except the one that wraps his heart in an icy fist whenever he thinks of Jack, and he can't figure out if it's misery or just another kind of fear.
“You're going, Jack,” he says firmly. “You're- one of us has to- to survive this and it- you're it. God, you're... you're it. That's...” He's rambling he knows, but he can't stop it, all the things he wants to say and wishes he had said and he remembers cutting off a phone call to his boss the first time he saw an attack and his boss is... well, probably dead now like- like he will be.
“'Gene.”
“And there's- there's only you really, like, who remembers me anymore so you- you have to go. You're the only one.”
“'Gene!”
It's followed by a metallic click and that's what really grabs his attention. He falls silent and looks over at Jack, at the gun in his hand and he... he smiles.
“Thank you.” It's not what he wants to say. He doesn't know what he wants to say and it's inadequate and horrible and the sob that Jack lets out rakes down his spine, makes him feel sick to his stomach but he can't deny the twisted gratitude that he feels for it.
“Don't,” Jack says, voice strangled and he won't- he won't even look at Eugene. “Please don't. Don't thank me for-” For killing you.
“It's getting dark,” Eugene says, and they both know what that means. You don't- don't live from dawn to dusk on the same day. That's what they say, isn't it?
“Yeah.” Jack's eyes are closed but they open, damp and red and Eugene can see every bob of his throat. “Yeah, it is.”
His fingers are clumsy as he handles the gun, but WG would be too cruel and well, anyone can make a headshot at such close range and the barrel of the gun is so very cold, a point of ice even against his already cool skin.
“Do it.”
Jack's hand is shaking. Or maybe it's just Eugene's vision. Can't keep it straight.
“Jack. Please.”
Jack stares at him, expression crumpling. “As you wish.”
And everyone knows that means 'I love you'.
There are two shots. Eugene only hears one.