Work Text:
No one saw it coming.
Or, well, at least Gavin never saw it coming.
Four years. It has been four bloody, long, never ending years of torture. Sleeping in shifts, or not sleeping at all, in random places that half the time weren't even considered habitable. Eating whatever could be found, when it could be found, and rationing the rest in hopes that you'd live to see your next meal. Losing loved ones to ravenous monsters... only to have them become the same monster they were destroyed by.
Geoff.
Griffon.
Millie.
Ray.
Ryan.
Jack.
Lindsay.
Barbara.
...Michael.
Oh, God. It killed him to think of them. Fucking hurt so badly he wanted to just curl up in a ball and let them take him. Let the those bastards just eat his brains and let him not feel anything anymore. He wanted to see everyone again. Wanted to be with those he loved. Wanted to go back to when everything was perfect – playing games until all hours of the night, drinking bevs by the poolside, cuddling with his boi after a long night of lovemaking.
He just wanted it all back.
But he couldn't just end it. As much as he wanted to go back on his promise, he knew he couldn't. He swore to Michael that he would keep going. That he would live through this thing until he couldn't anymore. Promised him that he would be here when the world ended or when it was brought back to its former glory.
And here he was.
Wandering with a group of other survivors into what was labeled as 'sanctuary' for those still alive at the end of it all, located in Washington D.C., Gavin didn't know what to think about all of this. There supposedly was a cure or something – How in all of bloody Hell did you even cure being a zombie? Some of them are missing limbs, for cripes sake! - and people had started gathering in this 'safe zone' to build a new life.
A life he didn't care for. A life that wasn't his.
Sitting down on in the waiting room of a hospital that was currently being used to register the people coming in (because holy shit, electricity), he sighed heavily. It had been so long. He wanted nothing more then to find a bed to sleep in – a real, warm, comfortable bed – and sleep for the next month. Then to eat everything in existence and sleep for another month. Running his fingers through his hair before just resting them there (Jesus, was hair getting long or what?), he closed his eyes in thought. It wasn't all true. He didn't want just a warm bed or food. He didn't even give a damn about the fucking apocalypse anymore.
He just wanted Michael.
It had been a year and a half since Michael had sacrificed himself so that Gavin could make an escape onto the roof to signal down the helicopter, saving himself and a handful of other people who had run towards the sound. The red-headed lad had barricaded the door to the stairwell – using furniture and his own body – with only a kitchen knife as a weapon and a smirk on his face. He shoved the British lad ahead of him, telling him to run.
“Gavin, go – just fucking go! I'll hold them off!” Michael shouted over the yells, his body arching slightly as the monsters pounded at the door, limbs of all sorts trying to break through.
“Are you bloody mad? I'm not leaving you here to be munged off, you nob!” Gavin yelled back, jumping back next to his boi as he kept his entire thirty pounds of weight on the door.
Clenching his fingers tighter in his hair, he tried to ignore the sounds coming from around him as he remembered the last time he saw his love.
“I will not lose you to this, you fucking idiot! I. will. not. I've lost enough, I'm not giving you up, too!” Michael growled, shoving his shoulder into the bureau that was currently the only thing keeping them from becoming cannibal chow.
“And you think it doesn't work the same for me?” Gavin snapped, making an 'oomph' sound as he was thrown forward onto the wooden boards of the floor. “You've right lost your damn mind if you think it's not the same for me, love. It's us together – us against the world. Team Nice Dynamite until the end.”
The British man – because he was no longer a boy in any sense of the word – felt his breath hitch as he tried to hold back the sobs. His shoulder's started shaking with the effort as he almost violently pulled on his hair. As if the feeling would ground him. He had been so fucking naïve to believe everyone would be okay.
“Gavin, please,” Michael insisted quietly, or as quietly as one could get and still be heard with zombies bashing down the door. “I need you to live. I can't – I can't watch you die.” He started at the younger lad through long-ago broken glasses, visibly shaking as he held the door.
Gavin shook his head, picking himself up from the floor and grabbing onto Michael's face with enough force to possibly leave bruises. “And I can't leave you. Please, Micool... Don't. Don't make me leave you. Please, don't.”
Why did he leave him? They could have fought off the hoard together. They could have made it. Or at least died trying. But no. Gavin was too stupid, too selfish, to stay and help his boy. He left him there to die. Just bloody left him there to be eaten by those brainless assholes.
He just wanted one more yesterday with his boy. Just the one. Back to the days when things were good and everyone was happy and everyone he loved was still alive.
“You have to go. Promise me. Promise me you'll run.”
“Micool-”
“Promise me that you'll go and never look back. And that you won't do something stupid like kill yourself to be with me or let yourself be eaten, because I will fucking kill you if you do that.”
“But-”
“Promise me, Gavin!”
The British lad froze for a second, his hands still cupping either sides of Michael's cheeks as he stared into his eyes for what may be the last time.
“... I promise.”
And that was that.
Michael gave Gavin a watery smirk, pulling his hands away from the door for the briefest moment to drag the younger into a kiss. It wasn't filled with passion so much as desperation, rough to the touch and dry, but it was all he could ever want. It wasn't the first time they kissed, but it would probably be their last. He pushed against him urgently, never wanting it to end. But like all good things, it had to eventually. Pulling away, he pushed Gavin from him.
“I love you, Gavvy.”
And then the rest was a blur. He couldn't remember if he said it back, if he fought trying to leave, if one of the others with them pulled him away, nothing. It was all just blank.
“Oh, Micool...”
“Gavin?”
And he froze. That voice. There was no way in fucking hell that voice was speaking to him. He was dead. And now his fucked up brain was procuring his voice out of thin air, like he was really there speaking to him. He tried to ignore it, keeping his gaze to the floor
“Gavin David Free! Don't you dare pretend I'm not right here, you asshole.”
He didn't want to look up. He couldn't look up. He wasn't going to look up.
Until he did.
And he caught sight of the most beautiful person he'd ever seen in his entire life.
Auburn colored curls, messily covered by a beanie. Pale skin, freckled face, dark glasses over chocolate colored eyes. Tattoos covering scarred arms.
There was just no fuck way.
It was him.
Michael.
Gavin shoved himself up from the chair faster than he could even comprehend, stumbling over his feet as he practically dived for the older man.
His boi was here.
Limbs were wrapped together in more ways than humanly thought possible as the two collided, falling to the floor in a heap with laughing-sobs coming from both men. Kisses were exchanged fiercely as tears streamed from both green-blue and deep-brown eyes. Michael carded his fingers through the younger lad's sandy locks, pulling at them tightly while Gavin left bruising fingerprints in the red-head's hips, neither of them caring.
“Michael, Michael, Micool,” Gavin muttered over and over, not able to quite get over the fact that he had his boi here, in his arms again – something he never thought possible again. “Why did you leave me?”
“Gavin, baby, I'm sorry, I'm so, so fucking sorry,” Michael murmured, dragging his teeth across the younger boy's bottom lip as he dragged one hand across the lad's back, keeping him close with a hand clenched tight in his shirt. He would be damned if he let him go again. “I didn't want to leave you, I swear. I missed you. I missed you so much.”
“Where did you go, you pleb? Where have you been? I thought you were dead – I thought I bloody left you for dead when you made me run. I thought you were one of them. Why, why didn't you come with me?” He sobbed, clutching to Michael like he would never let him go. This was all too much for his already fragile mind could handle. He felt like he was living in a dream. “Why didn't you find me?!”
“Gav, I tried!” Michael dragged the other boy up, the two sitting in a heap on the floor with the British lad sitting basically in his lap. Gavin scrambled up him, almost as if he were trying to climb inside of the older man. The red-head wasn't complaining, pulling him closer shoved his face into Gavin's neck, just breathing him in and ignoring his own tears as they dripped down his face.“Once I heard the helicopter leave, I screwed. Managed to scramble up to the roof and back down by use of a fire escape. And then I searched for you. I took every lead to any safe zone that I could find and fucking searched for you. I've been here for three months. I looked everywhere, Gavin – where did you go?”
Gavin shook his head, using the dirty sleeve of his shirt to wipe at his cheeks. It didn't really do anything; the tears kept a steady stream down his dusty face. “It was a bum lead – the helicopter took us to a place that was a safe zone at one point. But it got infiltrated. Some bugger assholes decided to try and steal supplies and let a hoard in. The group I was with barely got out alive. Been wandering the past year or so since.” He sighed, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling as he tried to gather his thoughts. And then it hit him. “Wait a minute. How did you even find me? If you're here, shouldn't you already be registered...?”
Michael grinned, pulling his face out of Gavin's shoulder to push his bangs back from his forehead. “A certain someone saw you and apparently ran through the zone looking for me.”
“Who?”
“Barbara.”
Gavin's eyes widened, bluegreen eyes allowing tears to escape once more. “She's alive?!”
The older man nodded, wiping at the tears still freefalling from his lover's eyes. He dragged himself out from underneath Gavin – ignoring his protests – before pulling the sandy-haired man up with him. “So is Gus and Burnie. Those two would survive the world blowing up, somehow. Come on,” he smiled warmly, clasping the Brit's hand and dragging him off only God knows where. “I can show you around. We'll register you after.”
“But wait, Michael! I've got something I need to say.”
“What?”
“I love you, too.”