ilkuee

[ilkuee]

@wolfythewitch ‘s zombie au has me in a chokehold rn so i just had to write something

i’m aware i’m a bit late but zombie apocalypse aus are a special interest of mine and i like writing and i’m trying to improve so here goes nothing <3

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Happiness is always hard to grasp, but when you find it, you know that you never want to lose it again.

The warmth of being genuinely happy was one of the first things Wilbur lost after Phil was bitten. He spent most days crying, apologizing over and over to the slowly rotting corpse that was his father. He never got a response. He never got a hug. He never got reassurance. He just received groaning, or a scratch on the arm from the zombified man. Occasionally, Wilbur would find himself content with that. The contact. It makes him feel like his father is still in there, somewhere, even though he knows that he probably isn’t anymore.

His own father didn’t feel like family anymore. “He's still in there. That’s still Phil.” was something that Wilbur found himself chanting in his head most days, and yet he still struggled to believe that it was true. Everything about Phil Craft had changed. Everything.

His normally alive, bright skin had paled into a dead, pasty gray. His warm blue eyes were replaced with pits of complete darkness that shot daggers into the back of Wilbur’s head. His gentle smile changed to a constant frown. His cheery voice had shifted into nothing but a low, raspy one. And his smell, the smell that had always allowed Wilbur to feel at home no matter where the pair was, had been erased entirely, covered with the scent of a rotting body. A dead person. His father’s corpse.

The teen drags Phil along everywhere with him. Countless people have tried to take him away, but he doesn’t let them. He puts a gun to their heads and tells them he will shoot if they don’t back away. It works, most days. Wilbur is only ever bluffing, but sometimes if the gun doesn’t work, he just takes off running, taking the corpse with him. All the two have ever done is run.

Perhaps it’s time to fight, but it’s hard to do so when you don’t have anything to fight for anymore.

The pair have been through so much together. He can’t let him go. Not now. Not ever. That’s his father. Infected or not, he is not letting him go. No matter what. He would let Phil bite him, if it came down to it, despite knowing that his father would never bite anyone not would he want Wilbur to allow himself to be bitten.

Sometimes, Wilbur talks to Phil. Forcing yourself into believing a lie is unhealthy, sure, but maybe, just maybe, if Wilbur pretends everything is normal for just a little while, life would go back to being how it was before. He tells him about his day. How he feels. What he ate. What he dreamt about the previous night. The topic of the one-sided conversations always varied, and Wilbur felt like he was just talking to a mannequin constantly, but he was fine with that.

The only thing that didn’t vary about the conversations, were the apologies, and the affection, and then the sobbing.

They always came in that exact order. Wilbur would apologize for letting Phil get bitten in his place, or for not being quick enough, or for not being smart enough, or for being so weak. And then he would tell him how much he loves and misses him, how he will always love him no matter what, how he wishes he could still talk so the pair could have a normal conversation, even if it’s just one, and it’s short. Hearing Phil’s voice again instead of constant groaning would be a blessing.

And then comes the sobbing. Wilbur saw his parents hide their tears from him a lot, and he grew up doing the same. He doesn’t like letting Phil see him cry, but he can’t help it anymore. He just lets the tears flow while his father sits there silent and motionless, staring.

Wilbur always ends up staring back into the dark abyss that is what is left of Phil’s eyes. He finds comfort in the darkness, funnily enough.

Though he would much rather a hug. Or reassurance. Or even a smile. He wants to go back to how everything was before the apocalypse, but he can’t, and he has come to terms with that. To an extent. He knows he can’t go back, but that doesn’t change that he wants to.