Two Roses On The Garden Wall

Two

Skeppy and Bad looked at eachother for a moment, deciding how to deal with this. "We should get to bed," Bad finally spoke in a defeated voice. "We need our rest."

"Bad, how can you want to sleep when our friends have disappeared to god knows where? Don't you want to find them?" Skeppy threw his hands in the air, his anger boiling up again, ready to overflow.

Bad sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Skeppy was dancing on his nerves right now with a knife, and he was this close to falling and snapping Bad's last shreds of patience. 

"I never said we weren't looking for them, Skeppy," Bad said, mumbling something under his breath. "I meant that we need to rest so we can look for them at our best, not when we're still have soaked, exhausted, and at eachother's throats." 

Skeppy calmed down a bit, taking a deep breath. "Okay, let's do that." The diamond hybrid walked into the house, leaving Bad outside in the cold moonlight.

Bad sighed, walking inside after Skeppy. He found the other boy laying on the floor in a sleeping bag, fast asleep. Bad smiled slightly, happy that his friend was asleep and hopefully not worrying about anything.

Bad pulled out his own sleeping bag and laying down and closing his eyes.

July 6th, 2025, Day 702

Skeppy woke up a few hours before Bad. It was only just now dawn, and the greyish purple light was shining through the windows and onto the hardwood floor, although it brought little warmth to the room. 

The diamond hybrid stood up and rolled up his sleeping bag with a sigh that turned to fog before his eyes, making him feel colder than before. 

Bad was still in the sweet, warm comfort of sleep, unbothered by the cold or the problem of their missing friends. Skeppy sighed yet again, shaking his head, as if so simple an action would offer him any relief. 

He walked down to the docks, his hands in the pockets of his dirty, bright blue hoodie, twirling a throwing knife in his hand. A bird was singing somewhere in the distance, and Skeppy recognized the tone; a Goldfinch. 

"Bad! Bad get your ass out of bed, that goddamn Goldfinch is back!" Skeppy yelled, knowing it was unlikely Bad would actually get up. 'I thought I'd never have to hear your dumb song again.' Skeppy thought.

That Goldfinch, no, any Goldfinch, was unwelcome to Skeppy. He had a bit of a traumatic association of the day the apocalypse started and Goldfinch. He'd heard one at the school, almost right before the first scream. He knew Bad had heard it, and wondered how he still fed those harbingers of doom.

Every time he heard one, disaster stuck.

And this time was no different, he suspected. He went inside and grabbed his pistol and some bullets from his bag, and sat on the docks, ready to shoot any threat that reared its ugly head at him.

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.

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Bad awoke to the sound of a gun firing. He stood up almost instantly, tripping up on his sleeping back and falling face down on the floor.

"Owww... That's gonna bruise..." He groaned, sitting up and rubbing his nose, which was the source of the red color blurring the edges of his vision. He saw a trace of blood on his hand when he moved it away from his nose, and then wiped off the last little bit and laughed dryly.

"Skeppy, you okay?!" Bad called, walking outside to see Skeppy on the docks, his pistol aimed at a Drowned, which was currently headless and smoldering slightly in the sunlight. Bad gagged at the Drowned. "Skeppy, why? Why?!" Bad almost threw up at the smell as he came closer to his diamond friend.

"It attacked me, and I'll kill any zombie, or Drowned, that i get the chance to." Skeppy said, cleaning off his machete from the Drowned's guck, also seeming a bit appaled about the smell. Drowned always smelled and looked grosser than land zombies.

"Ugh! Let's just get out of here!" Bad grabbed Skeppy's arm and dragged him away from the foul-smelling dock. Skeppy nodded aggressively and followed. 

Back inside the house was much better smelling, and both boys breathed a sigh of releif.

"Remind me not to kill those things anymore, yeah?" Skeppy said with a glimmer of humor in his tone. "Yeah, good idea." Bad said with a nod.

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After a few hours of getting ready to depart and finding something to float across the lake on, the duo finally found a log they could push into the water and float across on, and they swung their bags onto their backs and set off, using sticks to paddle. 

Bad was a little afraid of the Drowned as they floated slowly across the lake. And the tension left over from last night's rose argument fiasco made this all the more uncomfortable. Bad wanted desperately to reach forward and hug his comrade right now. 

In the old days, the two of them would never give a second thought about hugging eachother. Now, a hug was rare. Their friendship was a shell of what it used to be, a distant song from over the hills, barely an echo now.

Bad looked back at the roses. They were rather pretty, no wonder Skeppy liked them so much. Through the haze of his thoughts, the demon could see that the two standing roses looked a little wilted. 'Poor roses. They'll be gone by the time we get back...' 

Bad sighed and tore his gaze away from the roses and wiped his mildly teary eyes. 

"Skeppy, can I-" "Bad, be quiet. I'm not in a talking mood." Skeppy said coldly, not looking away from the water ahead of them. Bad huffed, going from sad to angry. "All I was gonna say was that I-" Bad got cut off by Skeppy again.

"Bad! Not. Now!" Skeppy moved his oar a bit more roughly so the water splashed Bad, although it looked like an accident, so Skeppy got away with it.

Bad went silent and just rowed his oar.

Skeppy was sad, angry, and afraid, all rolled in one. He was angry with bad just for the heck of it, he was sad his freinds had disappeared, and he was afraid that he was never going to see them again.

"... hey Bad?" 

"Not now." 

'I guess I deserved that.' Skeppy thought, thoughtfully rowing forward. Fleeting minutes passed, and they were across the lake. 

The sun was higher up in the sky, making the lake sparkle like diamonds, although to Bad, the lake couldn't compare to the sparkles of the diamonds Skeppy had. He couldn't help but admire how Skeppy looked, no matter what ther relationship was.

"You done?" Skeppy's cold voice cut into his dreamy moment, and he instantly felt his cheeks warm up in embarrassment. "Wha- yeah! I was, um, waiting for you. Yeah! You were taking forever to move."

Skeppy looked skeptical about this statement, but just rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Well, I'm ready now," Skeppy said, shrugging to get Bad's attention. "And there's some tracks that lead off into the forest. We should follow those. One looks small enough to be Fundy or Foolish." 

"You found tracks?!" Bad instantly ran over to where they were, and looked at the faded tracks. "Yeah, that's what I said."

Bad then nodded. "Let's find our friends."

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, I just wanted to get something posted so I can feel like I'm doing something with my life. The next one will be longer. Thanks for reading, cya in the next chapter.