#triffidsandcuckoos

My piece for the @tmabigbang event <3 (Note: you might want to increase the screen brightness, the picture is kind of dark)

Burning Bright in the Forests of the Night on AO3

Author: @triffidsandcuckoos

Summary: A minute after Jon and Martin leave what used to be the safehouse, it catches fire behind them. The Eye may be in ascendance, but with Martin drawing on the Lonely, the Desolation resurrecting Tim, and the Web courting Jon, that might not last forever.

Image description under the cut:

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do?

Rudyard is a fucking terror when he has a cold because he feels even more sorry for himself than usual. He is whiny and arch, and basically demands to be waited on hand and foot without actually expecting that to happen because Antigone has rarely indulged him. So it’s actually kind of a shock to the system when Eric unironically fusses over him, and it’s nice at first except after a few days of being the sole focus of Eric's intense and concerned attention (and his various checks because he picked up some nurse training somewhere and isn't and afraid to use it) he becomes uncharacteristically self reliant because Enough is Enough. Also he doesn't take well to being told what to do by Chapman, even if the order is to stay in bed and do nothing, a pastime he enjoys immensely.

Eric is also a bit of a nightmare, but mainly because he refuses to acknowledge the fact that he's sick and will run himself into the ground trying to live life as normal. Rudyard more or less has to bully and cajole him into resting, and while he looks after Eric more than you might expect in such a situation he does so with the stony faced brusqueness of a jaded war trench nurse. Eric doesn't take it personally though- he caught Rudyard frantically reading a book about the world's deadliest deseases while he thought Eric was napping once and figures out that it's just Rudyard’s way of trying not to panic because he’s far more worried about Eric than he feels comfortable letting on. It’s actually kind of sweet.

17. When they find a time machine, where do they go?

Rudyard is terrified of the time machine- he doesn't want to go back in time because he doesn't want to risk running into his parents or getting chased with pitchforks like Frankenstein’s monster, and he doesn't want to go forward because he's more scared than he lets on about what the future holds. Eric doesn't much want to visit the past either- he set up on Piffling to leave it behind, after all. He's more likely to sneak a peek at the future though, when he's got an evening and the time machine to himself- and Rudyard has a very bemusing few weeks of catching Eric looking down at his left hand and smiling soppily, for some reason. His contented humming is getting rather disconcerting. 

(Rudyard does eventually take one very brief jaunt to the past, to Piffling Woods- to awkwardly pat a certain lonely pale boy on the head, offer condolences on the mud in his shoes, and tell him not to pay the nasty things those other scouts say about him or his sister any mind. A witch is not such an awful thing to be, and Rudyard is a perfectly sensible name for a young lad.)

Thanks for the ask(s) lovely, it feels good to play around with a bit of Chapyard again! <333

Thank yoooou! I'm mostly feeling better today after a slightly wobbly morning.

😭😭😭😭 people... being... nice.... I can't handle it (like I have trouble accepting complements because my gut reaction is denial). Thank you so much, seriously.

16. When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together? 

Ooh, good one! Well, on paper Chapman kind of has this sorted on his own- he’s obviously all international man of mystery with his weird skills, once the apocalypse really gets underway he’ll be pretty much set. But frankly without Rudyard it’s unlikely that he’d get to that point in the first place, because Chapman is too friendly/trusting for his own good and would end up letting a shambling corpse give him a hug that turns into a bite, whereas Rudyard would notice people being more touchy than usual easily- I mean come on, prior to this, who in the fuck was going out of their way to try and touch poor Rudyard?- and would probably be instrumental in alerting Chapman to the fact that something’s off. Once that’s done it’s a matter of getting the others- Madeleine, obviously, Antigone if they can figure out whether she’s infected or just her usual shade of half-dead sallow, ideally Georgie because she’s undoubtedly great at surviving zombie apocalypses- and escaping into the Piffling Woods. They may be small but they are incredibly dense, and if they play their cards right they’ll be quite safe amongst the bogs which trap any wayward undead.

It’ll be quite a shock to both of them, in different ways- Chapman, for all his anecdotes, has never been in a situation quite this bleak and world ending as this. And Rudyard, for all his complaints about the people of Piffling, will struggle seeing the people he grew up around (further) reduced to mindless zombies. Chapman will keep them safe, and in a weird way Rudyard will keep them sane- because there’s something about his dismal commentary that makes Chapman want to protest and argue and fight to prove him wrong, and that’s the kind of fire that’ll get them through this in the end <3