Chapter Text
"Brother, please, you have to wake up!" Feliciano wrapped his arms tight around his older brother's slight shoulders, shaking him as hard as he deemed safe for his now fragile form. It was no use, Lovino did not answer his brother, his eyes remained shut and his breathing laboured, his life hanging on the IV attached to his arm. There was nothing Feliciano could do for him, if he took him off the machine he would die, but if he left him, he would no doubt die as well.
Feliciano stifled a sob, pressing his forehead to his brothers, "don't do this to me, Lovino. Don't force me to make this kind of decision."
Lovino did not open his eyes; he remained unconscious, blissfully unaware of the chaos unfolding around him. Feliciano's babbling wasn't getting through to him, and it wouldn't, because miracles didn't exist and Lovino was still very ill.
"No, no, no, no," a barrage of bullets passed just inches above Feliciano's head, the noise cutting through his quiet sobs. The soldiers were completely disregarding the patients at this point. They carelessly shot through walls, tore through nurses and doctors, and even shot patients who were not infected. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, it was like being on the inside of a slaughterhouse.
Feliciano started to think that maybe a bullet would be better than what was out there waiting for them. Maybe a bullet would be better than the pneumonia killing him slowly when they were finally on the road…" Feliciano blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill over again, eyeing the heart monitor beeping out its slow monotone next to Lovino's bed. Feliciano had come to a decision.
Feliciano choked back a sob, took his brothers face in his hands and kissed him hard on the forehead. "I am so sorry, brother, but this is for the best…" Without looking back Feliciano left his brother's side and headed for the door as fast as he could, if he stayed behind any longer he would have started doubting his decision. He didn't have any more time to waste. Feliciano began opening the door carefully, peeking around the corner as slow as possible. No soldiers. He could hear them running upstairs to next floor; he could hear their shouts and screams mingling with the roar of gunfire. He was starting to believe that the soldiers would not win the war on the hospital, they were being overrun, he could tell just by the amount of the soldier's corpses scattering the ground.
For every five dead patients there was another dead soldier.
Feliciano shivered and ran as quick as he could to the elevator, throwing himself into it and hitting the button for the first floor without thinking about, there was no room for hesitation. As he descended from the 6th floor, he leaned back against the elevator wall and looked down at his blood soaked shoes. Only then did Feliciano finally realize what was happening, that he had left his brother behind for an inevitable death, that the world had literally started coming apart at the seams in as little as six hours. He wanted to scream, to sob, but he knew he couldn't. He needed to be as quiet as possible.
The elevator dinged, 1st floor.
The doors opened sluggishly, revealing to him slowly a scene that he never thought he would have to bear witness to in his life. Bodies we sprawled on the floor, limp and lifeless, blood painted the walls from top to bottom, the sterile white of the hospital now looked like the inside of someone's body. Feliciano closed a hand over his mouth to muffle a shout and shut his eyes tight; the overpowering stench of blood was making his stomach roil and churn. He couldn't bear it.
For a moment Feliciano considered going to top floor and throwing himself in front of the gun of one of the soldiers. It would be a quick end, better than what he had in store.
Just as he was about to hit the 8th floor button, a loud groan ripped through the air and sent a cold chill up Feliciano's spine. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end at the sound, he was frozen, he couldn't move. He let out a muffled sob as the groaning approached, Feliciano finally moved but he could not find the power to open his eyes, fear sealed them shut. He reached out and slapped at the walls of the elevator, and in his crazed fear he could not find the buttons to change floors. "Please, please don't, please stop!" Feliciano became frantic and finally opened his eyes.
He choked.
A woman stood only inches away from him. Her white scrubs were drenched in blood, her body was limp, and the entire left side of her face was missing, only a gory flap of scalp remained, hanging loose over the broken flesh. She reached out for Feliciano with one of her cold, pale hands. One of her fingers were missing and the others were covered in blood, Feliciano did not understand how the woman was still standing. A normal person would be lying dead in a pool of their own blood.
"She's already dead,"Feliciano thought frantically. This was one of them; this was one of the dead people that came back to life.
Feliciano finally cried out when he realized what was happening, he pushed the woman in the scrubs down to the floor and ran off for the entrance doors. He pulled on the handle of the door and his hands slipped in the blood, he tried again and the same thing happened. He cried out and pulled the sleeve of his button-up shirt down over his hand, using it to sop up the blood on the handle. He promptly pulled it open and flung himself into the open air, he ran out of the parking lot past the denizens of broken and bloody bodies, and onto the highway without looking back.
He didn't stop running until he was out of breath and in the middle of nowhere on the highway.
Feliciano leaned over, hands on his knees as he drew in deep breaths of air. He felt as if he had not breathed since he left the hospital, his chest was so tight and sore. Feliciano drew himself up with a hand on his chest, taking in his surroundings. There was nothing but trees, the road ahead of him, and the soft sound of birds singing in the trees. If he had not just been in the hospital, he would never have guessed the whole world was beginning to fall apart.
Feliciano's breath slowly came back to him, but he didn't move.
If Feliciano had been a stronger person, he would have continued walking, maybe even running, to the sign that stood only a few meters in front of him. If had been a stronger person he would not have begun crying, dropping onto the cold asphalt and curling up in a ball like a small child. If he had been stronger, he would not have let sleep overtake him out in the middle of nowhere with dangers present around every turn.
If he had been stronger, his brother would never have been put in the hospital in the first place…
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"Drive more carefully."
"Why?"
"Because some of these people may still be alive, you never know when we might come across a pedestrian."
Ludwig did not understand how this strange man was so calm; they had just come from escaping a mass of people trying to eat them in the middle of a bar. They were both covered head to toe in the blood of, possibly, more than a dozen people, and now they were on the road in a stolen vehicle, driving through – and into – the living dead constantly. There was nothing in this situation that one could be calm about.
"They could be bit," Ludwig shouted. But, despite protesting, he began cruising at a more even pace, trying his best to avoid the bodies littering the streets.
"There could be a cure."
"They turn too fast; we have no choice but to kill them when they start attacking us."
The dark haired man only looked out of the driver's side window, he didn't seem to disagree nor agree with what Ludwig was saying to him.
They continued to drive on in silence when they reached the highway; the dark haired man was looking out of his window with what looked like unblinking eyes. Ludwig himself was finding it hard to blink, he was afraid that something would happen in that split second of darkness.
That was what happened in the bar, after all.
"My name is Ludwig, I hail from Germany. I came here to vacation with my older brother." Ludwig decided that speaking up would break the tension in the air. They also needed to start talking about what their plan was as they didn't even really know where they were headed.
The dark haired man nodded silently.
Ludwig was slightly annoyed by the man's lack of an answer. This was no time to be trying to hide your identity.
"Your name?" Ludwig asked him with a testy tone.
"Oh, terribly sorry, my name is Kiku. I am Japanese born but moved to America when I was still a small child. I was at the bar in an attempt to relax before my finals."
Ludwig nodded; Kiku was still a university student. Ludwig couldn't help feeling sorry for the guy, he went out to relax and was instead met with something even most stressful than finals.
"So you're a university student," Ludwig flinched when he felt the car roll over a body in the road. "What are you studying?"
"Mixology."
Ludwig almost snorted; he had expected the man to say something like medicine, or Thermo-Nuclear Science. He looked intelligent and carried himself like a sophisticated individual, mixology did not suit his character.
"Oh," was all Ludwig could manage.
He looked up and realized that the sun was starting to descend in the sky; they only had so much time to make it to the next town over. They would not be safe on the road during the night.
"Might I ask what you are doing here on vacation," Kiku slowly looked toward Ludwig. "This part of the United States is not exactly a popular tourist spot."
Ludwig sighed and scratched the back of his head with one hand; it was a habit of his when he thought of something annoying. "My brother, Gilbert, he wanted to come here to meet a girl he had 'fallen in love' with online."
"Ah, well, that's not so terrible," Kiku smiled slightly. "You looked very annoyed when you said that."
"Yes, well, the only problem with Gilbert chasing this girl is the fact that she clearly wasn't interested, and she already had a boyfriend. Gilbert just believed that he could change her mind."
"That is very sad; did it turn out alright in the end?"
Ludwig swallowed hard, his vision becoming unfocused momentarily, "I don't know, I was at the bar waiting for him to come back. He went this way to meet her at a small cantina."
"So this is why you instantly decided on this way."
"Yes."
The inside of the car was silent for another long moment, both of them watching the slowly setting sun warily. It was clear that they were both thinking the same thing, "will we make it in time?"
"I am sure your brother is safe, Ludwig, if he is anything like you." Kiku cut through the silence with his reassuring words. Ludwig couldn't help but smile.
"Yes, my brother is strong." Ludwig felt himself calming down, Gilbert was a strong man, even stronger than Ludwig himself. He would not let a frail dead person take him down without a fight.
The silence grew steadily in the car, but this time it was not uncomfortable. They both had said what they felt needed to be said and that was it, they were both people that would only speak when spoken to or if something important was on their mind. And maybe that was for the better, communication would be key in this world but mindless chatter would not help their cause.
"Stop," this was the closest to raised voice that he had ever heard from the dark haired man. "We need to get out."
"Why?"
"There's a person lying on the road ahead of us, I think that they are still alive."
"He could be bit," Ludwig squinted at the slender form lying curled pitifully on the pavement. As he looked closer he could see the steady rise and fall of the person's chest. If the boy was bit he would have been long gone by now.
Ludwig nodded silently and carefully opened the door of the stolen blue cavalier, before he left he leaned in close to Kiku. "Stay inside the car, we don't need to put more than one person in danger. There could be anything lurking around here."
Kiku nodded his head and huffed out a quick 'yes', watching with sharp eyes as Ludwig approached the person on the road.
The only thing Ludwig didn't understand about this situation was why the man was sleeping out in the open. He would be easy prey for anything that came along, no matter how slow. Ludwig approached the steadily breathing form, looking around himself at every step he took, ears peeled for the sound of rustling bushes or approaching vehicles.
When he finally reached the sleeping form, looming over the slight man, he realized that he wasn't bit almost immediately. The only thing Ludwig realized about this man was the tear tracks running down his dust covered cheeks and the blood on his shoes. It was clear that this man had been through hell, and had probably passed out from exhaustion.
Ludwig leaned over, preparing the pick him up when the man quickly opened his eyes. The smaller man gasped, lashing out with his fists and catching Ludwig in the jaw.
"Don't hurt me, don't hurt me! I'm not bit!" The man waved his hands frantically in front of himself, his accent almost made it impossible to distinguish what he was saying in his frantic state. Fresh tears were already beginning to cut through the old tracks on his cheeks.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Ludwig raised his hands, indicating that he had no weapons on him and that he was not bit.
"Oh," the boy's shoulders slumped, still not getting up from where he was sitting on the asphalt. He was silent, looking down at his shoes as he seemed to be remembering something.
"You pack a hard punch though, little Italian." Ludwig tried to muster a smile for the young man, trying to calm him down. They needed to get going quickly; they had no time to discuss things out in the open while the sun retreated in the sky.
"How do you know I'm Italian?" The man looked up at him quizzically; Ludwig has successfully broken him from his trance.
"It's quite obvious by the accent."
"Yes, my big brother…" Feliciano swallowed hard, "my big brother used to always say that I was sloppy with my English pronunciation."
Ludwig watched the man carefully, something had clearly happened to his older brother to have put him in such a state. Maybe that was what the blood on his shoes was. Ludwig shook his head, he did not want to think about that, and they had no time. They needed to get going.
"Look, uhh…" Ludwig gestured to the Italian man for his name.
"Feliciano."
"Look, Feliciano, it's getting dark outside and the roads aren't going to be safe, we need to go. You can come with us."
Feliciano looked at him carefully, then over his shoulder at the idling cavalier, "how do I know I can trust you people?"
"Look, it's either us or those dead things in the dark, take your pick." Ludwig was in no mood to be playing games, they needed to leave. Lucky for Ludwig, Feliciano stood up soon after Ludwig spoke to him; he brushed off his pants and slowly advanced toward Ludwig, eyes still regarding him carefully.
"You can trust us, there are only two of us and we don't even know each other. We were both caught up in the middle of a big mess, but we managed to escape and steal this car."
"Ok, then. I trust you," Feliciano nodded his head at the taller man, following behind him as he headed for the small cavalier.
Feliciano piled into the back seat and closed the door quickly, leaning his head heavily against the back seat rest. "For the first time since this started, I'm not out in the open." Feliciano sighed, and instead of sitting upright he chose to lie down in the backseat.
"This is Feliciano," Ludwig says to Kiku. "he is from Italy."
Kiku nodded, "Pleased to meet you, Feliciano, my name is Kiku."
"Hello, Kiku," Feliciano whispered to him in a pleasant but tired voice.
"My name is Ludwig; sorry we had to meet under such circumstances."
"Ooh, Ludwig, a big strong German," Feliciano hums. "I guess we're going to be safe then."
Kiku lets out a small chuckle at Feliciano's carefree choice of words, and all Ludwig can do is chuff at the words, the young man's mood had gone from miserable to upbeat in a matter of seconds.
"May I ask where we are going?" Feliciano asks, surprising both Kiku and Ludwig who had thought he had fallen asleep.
"Back to Cincinnati, I'm looking for my older brother." Ludwig felt there was no reason to lie to the boy.
There is a long, drawn out silence from the back, "oh, you have an older brother as well, Ludwig?"
"Yes, we were here on vacation."
"My big brother and I too," Feliciano says sadly. "I'm afraid, though, Ludwig, that soldiers were wiping the city clean while I was running away."
Ludwig feels his heart stop in his chest.
"They weren't even bothering to check if they were bit or not anymore, they were just killing everyone," a small sniffle comes from the back. "It was so awful, all those poor innocent people."
"Was this out in the streets, or were they sterilizing a specific area?"
"Sterilizing," Feliciano says to himself, as if testing the word. "That is quite a way of putting murder."
"That's not what I meant…"
"It was the hospital," Feliciano cuts in. "I had to bring my brother there in the middle of our cross-country trip. He fell into a cold lake and developed hypothermia because I took too long to get to him. He developed severe pneumonia shortly after." Ludwig watched in the rear-view mirror as Feliciano hung his head low, "I had to leave him behind in the hospital; there was nothing else I could do."
"I'm so sorry, Feliciano, I had no idea…"
"I thought about it really hard, you know? I thought, if I take him off the IV he will die from the pneumonia, and it will be slow and painful, and if he doesn't die from that right away, he will probably be killed by one of these… Zombies, on the road. I thought it would be easier to let him die from a bullet one of the soldiers pumped into him rather than me dragging him around while he slowly died."
Kiku put his head down in respect, and Ludwig could do nothing but choke on his words as he tried to think of something to say to the man. It was so terrible; Ludwig shuddered at the idea of losing his brother in such a way, of being put in such a horrible position.
"It is my fault that he is dead, because he would not have gotten the pneumonia in the first place if I had just jumped right in for him instead of calling for help like a baby."
Ludwig looked up, eyes meeting intensely with Feliciano's in the rear-view mirror, "don't say that, that could have happened to anyone. You would have ended up dying yourself if you threw yourself in. Now stop with the self-pity bull shit, we need to make a plan. "
Feliciano kept his eyes on Ludwig's for another minute, but they eventually closed and his lips turned up into a bitter smile. "You're right, I'm sorry."
Feliciano's eyes met Ludwig's again, but they were not bitter or sad anymore, they were happy. "Now let's go find your big brother."