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ace-beef · 6 months

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Cornetto Secret Santa Gift!!

Eeeee it is here and I have made a gift for @albaharu!! The prompt of yours that I decided to go with was "Andy/Gary full angsty or slightly angsty xmas time after the apocalypse". This was super fun to write and I really hope you like it!! :3

'Christmas in the Apocalypse'

Gary tugged at his coat as he walked, trying to pull it further around him as the wind picked up. It was definitely winter, there was a particularly sharp and frosty bite to the morning air that nipped at his cheeks, the kind that you only get in winter. Gary grabbed at his sleeves, pulled up his collar, anything to try and stop the cold wind from gnawing at his skin. He may be free to do what he wants now, but at least before the apocalypse he had an insulated building with heating to go back to.

“You guys don’t feel this do you?” Gary said, glancing round at the blanks of his teenage friends behind him. The Blank Andy shrugged.

“Don’t think so.”

“What do you mean you ‘don’t think so’?” Gary puzzled, glancing round once more to look at the Blank Andy with a scrunched up face.

“Well, we know that it is cold but we can’t feel the cold,” Blank Andy explained, matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, we know what sort of weather and temperature it is I guess so we can blend in with humans, but we don’t get affected by it,” Blank Oliver added.

“Wild… lucky bastards, wish I didn’t feel weather, “ Gary said. He heard a couple of chuckles from the blanks behind him.

The group were walking through a lightly wooded area of spindly trees that reached up towards the sky with their spindly fingers, leaves long gone and instead the trees had caught a few pieces of the scraps that endlessly floated around. Their feet loudly crunched through the debris that had made its way to the ground, occasionally one of their boots would step on one of the few leaves left from autumn, the last to fall from the trees. The fog and smoke that hung lazily in the air had barely gotten any lighter since the downfall of the Network, and Gary and his group could only see as far as a couple of trees in each direction, but for those still alive that had become the daily experience for the apocalypse.

“Wait, so like, can you get bothered by… wet?” Gary continued.

“Bothered by wet?” Blank Steven questioned, bewildered by the wording Gary had used.

“Yeah! So you can sense when something is wet right?” Gary said, and all of the blanks nodded. “Okay so does that bother you? Like can you feel the wet?”

Their chatter was loud, walking and talking casually as if they were confident that they probably weren’t going to encounter anyone else out in the wilderness. It became the kind of moment that Gary enjoyed the most, where the blanks seem to relax and behave a bit more like the people they were built to imitate. They laughed and made fun of Gary’s grammar, subconsciously taking a step away from the programming that the Network had built into them.

Suddenly, a loud commotion of squawking and rustling and wings flapping startled the group out of their conversation. Just ahead of them, a group of pheasants had erupted into the sky, startled by the presence of the Blank Musketeers. A little bit further from where they saw the pheasants, they heard a voice shout “fuck’s sake!” and footsteps quickly heading their way, but they couldn’t see the owner of the sounds through the fog until he appeared in front of them.

“Good job! I spent ages trying to find those and when I finally do you-” the man was yelling angrily as he strode over to the group, stopping abruptly when he saw who he was facing.

“Gary?”

Gary went bug-eyed as he processed who he was looking at. His mouth couldn’t help but tremble a little.

“Andy?” Gary had started pacing towards him.

“Oh my god, Gary,” Andy said. He only took a single step forwards, still not quite believing what he was seeing.

Gary broke into a run for the last few paces before colliding into a hug with Andy, firmly wrapping his arms around his best friend. Andy clung on just as tight, relieved to see that Gary was okay. The two stayed like that for a moment, relishing in the comfort of it, not wanting to let any of it go.

They separated and looked at each other, still trying to believe that it was real. Gary opened his mouth to say something, but before any words came out, Andy slapped him.

“Ow! What the fuck was that for?” Gary exclaimed, holding his cheek with one hand.

“That was for scaring off my Christmas dinner, and you’re lucky it wasn’t my fist,” Andy replied, pointing at him. He hesitated, before saying “and it was partially for disappearing again.”

“Oh come on now, that wasn’t really my fault and you know it,” Gary protested.

“Yeah but you didn’t really make an effort to find me again, did you?” Andy said, pointedly. Gary looked away, his expression sheepish.

“Yeah, I could have tried harder with that I guess… I’m sorry man.”

Andy sighed. Gary sounded genuine with his apology, which is not something Andy had heard very often throughout their friendship. After a pause, Andy put a hand on Gary’s shoulder.

“You’re okay Gary, at least it seems like you’re alive and well,” Andy said. Gary then perked up pretty quickly, launching straight into conversation.

“You know what? I have been alive and well! I have been quite literally free to do what I want and when I want, it’s been pretty great,” Gary said cheerfully. Andy smiled warmly.

“That’s good to hear,” he replied. He looked round Gary’s shoulder at the blanks behind him; they hadn’t moved from when they were initially startled by the pheasants. “I see you’ve made some… friends?”

“What? Oh yeah! It’s you guys! So you could say I didn’t make some friends but instead gathered the old ones,” Gary chuckled. When he only got a very weak laugh from Andy, he continued, “okay well I found them, just wandering, and I thought, you know, let’s give them an adventure! It’s the boys! Plus it was getting kinda boring walking around by myself.” Gary let out another small chuckle, looking at Andy with a somewhat hopeful look, as if he wanted Andy to approve in some way.

“Fair enough. Are you guys having as much fun as we did?” Andy said with a smile. Gary laughed a little at the question.

“I mean, kinda? It feels like they have the same personalities at their core but it still feels like they have some weird, leftover behaviours and stuff from when the Network was still here,” Gary explained.

“Hm, that’s odd,” Andy hummed. “Well, it seems like you guys are having a good time, based on how you scared my pheasants off,” he said after a pause, an irritated tone rising in his voice. Gary once again looked a little sheepish.

“Yeah sorry about that… Why were you trying to hunt pheasants anyway?”

“For Christmas! I already said that you bellend,” Andy grumbled.

“Oh huh, I wasn’t listening to that bit,” Gary chuckled.

“No, you never do,” Andy sighed.

“So… pheasants! Bit fancy for a Christmas dinner innit? Even more so considering the state of the world,” Gary said in a mildly joking tone, gesturing to his surroundings.

“Well, I was trying to take anything I could find really,” Andy replied. He seemed rather dejected, tightening his lips and kicking at a few leaves on the floor.

“Yeah, makes sense.”

The two stood there for a few seconds, the air beginning to thicken with awkwardness between them as they ran out of things to talk about. They had so much they could catch up on, but neither of them were able to land on a topic. The blanks had just stayed where they were, waiting for some kind of instruction saying that it was okay to come forward, but they were starting to get restless and were muttering things to each other.

“Uh, how’s the wife?” Gary had finally found a topic. Andy’s face suddenly seemed to grow older with tiredness.

“We split up. Thought it was going to stay better but it didn’t,” he said gloomily, avoiding eye contact. Gary couldn’t help but smile. He tried to stop himself from grinning but he failed miserably. He also wasn’t entirely sure why that was his instinctual reaction, but he decided to ride with it anyway.

“Man, that sucks,” he said way too cheerfully. He continued to grin at Andy despite being met with daggers.

“Oi! That is not a thing to grin about you bastard!” Andy’s downcast expression tightened into one of frustration.

“Right right, of course, I’m sorry to hear that,” Gary said, clearing his throat and holding his hands up in apology. He straightened his face into a more neutral expression, but there was still a playful glint in his eye that he couldn’t hide.

Once he felt like Andy wasn’t going to assault him again, Gary said, “So um, Christmas dinner by yourself?”

“Huh?”

“Well you said that you were trying to get a pheasant for your Christmas dinner, so are you having it by yourself?” Gary was trying to keep his tone neutral. He really didn’t want to once again anger his old best friend and have them part on bad terms; he’d had enough of doing that.

“Oh, yeah, well I thought I might as well still try and enjoy myself, as it’s Christmas an’ all,” Andy answered, his frustration leaving him. He was tired of just always getting angry at Gary, even if the idiot deserved it. He didn’t want Gary to run away again.

“Fair enough.”

Once again there was a slightly awkward pause between the two old friends.

“You know, as you’re here now, and it has been a long time since we saw each other and an even longer time since we, well, ‘hung out’... fancy coming round to mine for Christmas? Help me get some new dinner on the way?” Andy said, trying to be nonchalant. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he felt nervous about asking. Maybe he was afraid Gary would leave again, maybe he was afraid that asking was a mistake and that Gary would fuck things up, as he had a habit of doing so. Either way, the question didn’t come out as easily as Andy expected it to.

“You know what Andy,” Gary said. A smile was slowly creeping up on his face as he looked at Andy with bright, excited eyes that had warmth radiating out of them. “I would absolutely love that!”

For the rest of the morning, the group gradually made their way back to where Andy was shacked up, occasionally stopping when they found some kind of animal that they deemed worthy of being their Christmas dinner. Most of their hunting attempts were unsuccessful, mainly because Gary didn’t seem to understand the element of surprise and Andy came very close to actually yelling at him. Eventually though, the group got very lucky and found a chicken that had clearly escaped from someone’s farm as Gary managed to scoop it up without much trouble. He then gloated about not needing to sneak up on animals to catch them, and Andy had then punched him playfully in the arm, which made Gary almost drop the live chicken and cause all of them to panic.

Conversation during this journey was light and pretty easy going. Andy managed to get to know the blanks, and even though it took him a little while to get used to the fact he was interacting with fake teenage versions of his school friends (and one of himself), he reached his house being able to joke with them on the same level that Gary could.

Andy’s house was a decently sized, makeshift hut. It was something that looked like it had been built by hand, with care, while using any sorts of materials and bits and pieces that could be found scavenging. This sort of house was fairly common since the Network left, but Andy’s was strangely home-y and well laid out. Gary was honestly unsurprised by this, he knew that Andy always had a good eye for organising and planning things out. He noticed a small patch a little distance from the house where Andy was growing a few different kinds of vegetables. Gary let out a small, amused exhale through his nose, admiring Andy’s dedication to a relatively healthy diet.

“Well, here we are. Home, sweet home,” Andy said after opening the door and leading the group into a surprisingly spacious main room. It contained a few rough wooden chairs and a rough wooden coffee table, all of which looked like they had been hand made. On the other side of the choppy coffee table there was a rather shabby, but still comfortable-looking sofa. It was a tired and washed out green colour, and it looked like it had been scratched by a thousand cats, but the cushions on it still appeared to be somewhat squishy. The hard, wooden floorboards had been covered with a tatty, patterned rug that had half of its tassels missing.

Gary raised his eyebrows and nodded in approval.

“Look at this Knightley! You’ve got a pretty sweet home base here,” he complimented. The blanks behind him also looked around and nodded their heads. They too seemed impressed with what Andy had built.

“Thanks! You guys can get comfortable in here if you’d like,” Andy said to the blanks, waving towards the sofa and chairs. Once the blanks started finding spots to sit, Andy turned to Gary and said, “A’ight, pass me that chicken and I’ll get it started.”

Gary made a noise of confirmation and handed the now dead chicken to Andy, holding it out with both hands. Once his hands were free, Gary’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Hang on, what do you have to cook it with?” he asked, placing a hand on his jaw thoughtfully.

“Ah, follow me out to the back,” Andy said, a knowing smile on his face. Gary raised an eyebrow and gestured with a hand towards Andy, indicating for him to lead the way.

From the large room they entered, they passed through a smaller room which seemed like it was some kind of kitchen or at least a food preparation area. It contained a large table that was in the same style as the chairs and the coffee table in the previous room; clearly this had also been hand made out of the same materials. In the centre of this table there was a rich, green plant of some kind, growing happily in a chipped and scuffed flower pot. A couple of white, leaf-shaped flowers grew from the foliage. There were rickety counters with cupboards that looked like they had been taken out of an actual house and just propped up onto the walls. Only a few of the cupboards had doors.

Andy continued to lead Gary through a back door and outside, where a few paces away from the door sat a rather impressive looking stone furnace. It was a very rough circular shape, built together out of random bricks and rocks, with an opening at the front for the food to go into and a small gap near the bottom for fuel to be put into. A couple of twigs poked out of the gap.

“Andy! This is amazing!” Gary exclaimed, spinning in a circle and stretching his arms out. “Did you build all of this?”

“Yeah I did! Well, me and, I guess my ex wife now, worked on it all together,” Andy explained, becoming a little pensive.

“Ah, so she left?” Gary asked tentatively. He fidgeted with the brim of his hat. Andy let out a sigh.

“Yeah. Just walked out and never came back.”

“Real shame, I’m sorry man. But also, honestly, her loss! Look at all of this cool stuff she left behind! In my opinion, you won,” Gary advised enthusiastically, looking at Andy with a confident stare. Andy seemed unsure at first, eyebrows knitted together, ready to get frustrated with Gary, but he just couldn’t. Eventually a small smile wormed its way onto his face and he felt his body relax. When Gary saw it, he grinned broadly.

“Don’t know why she would leave a cute thing like this,” Gary said as he turned round to face the hut. “I wouldn’t mind having a place like this to come back to every now and then.”

Andy felt a warmth in his cheeks.

“She always said it looked run down and ugly,” Andy said, exhaling sharply as if he was trying to blow out the sudden warmth in his face. Gary spun round to face Andy again, eyes wide and mouth open in a shocked expression.

“Really?? This is adorable! It feels so…” Gary hesitated, turning back to the hut and shaking his arms and hands in the air, trying to find the word he wanted.

“Crass?” Andy said, huffing out a short laugh.

“No!” Gary chided, flashing Andy with a disapproving scowl before returning to facing the hut.

“Well then what’s the word you’re looking for?” Andy asked tiredly.

“I dunno, it’ll come to me eventually,” Gary said, flopping his arms down at his sides and shuffling over to Andy. He pointed at the stone furnace. “So how does this work?”

For the next few minutes Andy showed Gary the whole process of preparing the chicken and cooking it in the stone furnace, even down to him explaining exactly how the furnace worked. Unfortunately for Andy’s patience, Gary never seemed to fully understand exactly how it worked.

“Wait, but how does the heat stay in? There’s all these holes in between the stones,” he puzzled, pointing at all of the spaces.

“I’ve explained this already Gary, it’s- you know what, never mind,” Andy sighed heavily, giving up on trying to get Gary to understand.

The pair of them stood up and left the furnace, deciding to walk back inside and see how the blanks were doing. Once they were back in the main room, they found the blanks just happily chatting away, and the pair of them lingered in the doorway, watching them. Both had affectionate, little smiles on their faces as they watched the four teenages talk in such an ordinary way, reminding them of their far away youth. Blank Ollie still had those short, snappy mannerisms as he spoke, Blank Steve still had that calm and relaxed posture, Blank Pete still fidgeted with the sleeves of his jumper, and Blank Andy still had that boisterous laugh and hearty grin.

“I can never get over how good the Network were at copying people,” Andy murmured thoughtfully, continuing to watch the blank teens. Gary let out a small chuckle.

“Yeah, but since they’ve been walking around with me, it’s like they’ve gradually become less how like the Network originally built them and have become more true to the, I guess, originals. As if the true personalities are coming out,” Gary mused quietly, also not wanting to look away from the conversation in front of them. Andy let out a thoughtful, but affectionate hum.

They continued to watch the blanks natter away for another minute or so, before Andy suddenly seemed to leap with an idea.

“Oh! Stay there, I’ve got an idea of something we can do while we wait for the chicken to cook,” Andy said, startling the blanks out of their bubble. They all turned to look at him.

“What? What is it?” Gary asked as Andy started to walk away from him into a different room that he hadn’t gone into yet. Andy skidded round to face Gary.

“Gary, you will like this, it’ll take you back to those Christmases we would have together with the boys,” he replied eagerly, before quickly heading off again.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” Blank Oliver asked, looking at Gary.

“I don’t know, there was a lot of things we would do at Christmas,” Gary said, throwing his hands up into a shrug. He decided to sit with the others while they waited, so he perched down onto a space on the floor next to the coffee table, crossing his legs as best as he could in his scruffy jeans. Gary undid the strap for his sword and took it off, placing it among the other weapons that the blanks had put in a pile next to the sofa.

“Are you guys ready?” Andy suddenly came back carrying something under his arm. They all perked up. “Look what I’ve managed to get!”

“Fuckin’ hell Andy!” Gary exclaimed, eyes wide and a grin on his face.

All eyes in the room were focused on the box of Monopoly that Andy was now holding out in front of him.

“The real deal, I found it during one of my scavenging trips. It pretty much has everything still in it! Oh, well it is missing a few of the paper notes but that doesn’t impact the game too much. It is also missing a couple of the player pieces but that’s alright because I can always find other objects to replace them. Oh also I don’t think there’s any hotel pieces in here, but that doesn’t really matter because when have we ever got to having hotels?” Andy said before angling a laugh towards Gary.

“Yeah we always got into some kind of game-ending argument before we got to hotels,” Gary said, laughing.

So they set up the board and all of the money and all of the pieces out on the coffee table in the main room. Gary yelled dibs to be banker, but Andy quickly stamped out that notion and made it so that he was the banker; he claimed that Gary cheats when he’s allowed to be in that position. There was a slight squabble between Blank Steven and Gary about who should be the race car, but after a quick game of rock, paper, scissors, Gary got to be the race car and Blank Steven then picked to be the boat. Blank Oliver decided to be the thimble, Blank Peter wanted to be the dog, Blank Andy went for the cannon, and then Andy picked up the boot.

Luckily for Gary and Andy, part of the memories that the blanks had, was knowing how to play Monopoly, so they launched straight into the game. Gary got a strong start with properties, but by the end of the game ended up either having to sell them to others or mortgaged after making poor and impulsive choices with his money. Andy played it pretty safe and ended up having a decent few properties with houses on them, making him a contender to win but not indefinitely. Blank Steven went down a similar route as Gary, buying lots of property in the beginning and made Gary especially mad because he managed to get all of the green properties. However by the end of the game he wasn’t in the worst shape, but he definitely wasn’t winning with his lack of houses. Blank Peter never really got a chance to buy anything that good, with his unlucky dice rolls he missed out on a lot of stuff. He eventually managed to get a few properties that people didn’t want, like the browns, but it meant that he wasn’t in too bad of a position by the end of the game. Blank Oliver was in his element. He was making deals left and right, even being able to swindle Gary into selling some of his good properties to him, and by the end of the game he was the ultimate tycoon.

“Gary, you have to sell me that property or you’re out of the game!” Blank Oliver said, staring hard at him.

“No wait! Wait! I can get this back! If I just- fuck!” Gary was scrabbling through his things, desperately trying to find a way to pay the rent without losing.

“Oh fuck! How long has it been since we started?” Andy suddenly interjected.

“Probably a good few hours… why?” Blank Steven said.

“SHIT! Gary the chicken!” Andy yelled, startling Gary out of his desperate state.

“Huh? OH FUCK THE CHICKEN!”

In a flurry of cards and fake money, Andy and Gary clambered to their feet and scrambled through the kitchen and out of the back door to check on the stone furnace.

“Hm… anyway Steven, can I make you a deal?” Blank Oliver asked, turning to Blank Steven.

Smoke was pouring out of the stone furnace, much more thick, black smoke than there should have been. Andy grabbed a rag from the kitchen and flapped it about as Gary grabbed the emergency bucket of water from next to the furnace. He shoved the water into the fuel gap with some force, putting out the fire that had been cheerily crackling away for hours. Andy took the rag in both hands and frantically pulled out the chicken, only to find a shrivelled and charred lump. The chicken had been thoroughly burnt.

“Fuck…” Andy said quietly. The pair stood there staring sadly at the blackened blob; it still had wisps of smoke curling off of it.

“But I’ve been a good boy this year,” Gary said mournfully.

“The fuck do you mean?”

“It’s a lump of coal, and it’s Christmas Day,” Gary clarified, trying his best to conceal a laugh and keep the sombre tone. His lips were twitching, itching to burst into laughter.

Andy looked at Gary, not being able to believe that he made a stupid joke when all that they worked for had just, quite literally, gone up in flames. However, when he caught Gary’s eyes with his own, he had to start fighting back a laugh of his own.

“Gary. This is not a joking matter,” he said, looking back down at the chicken, trying his best not to splutter. He hoped that avoiding eye contact with Gary would help, but it didn’t, the laugh was still trying to escape and now stronger than before.

Andy took one last look at Gary, and the two erupted into waves of laughter. It took them a few minutes before they were able to calm down, clinging onto each other and tears streaming from their eyes.

“WHEW! Okay, fuckin’ hell,” Andy panted, finally being able to catch his breath.

“Alright… so what are we gonna do about the chicken?” Gary asked after he was able to breathe again. They both once again looked down at the burnt chicken.

“Ah fuck the chicken,” Andy said, before throwing the entire thing over his shoulder. The pair giggled together.

Andy and Gary stood there for a moment, looking out into the wilderness, contemplating things in silence, and just enjoying each others’ company. This was the most comfortable they had felt around each other in such a long time, they probably hadn’t felt this content with each other since the 90s… and it felt nice, really nice.

“Gary?” Andy decided to break the silence, turning his head to his best friend.

“What’s up Knightley?”

“Did you mean what you said earlier?”

“About what?”

“You know, the thing you said, about how you wouldn’t mind having a place like this to come back to.” Andy had shifted his gaze back to the vast wilderness in front of him, missing the warm smile creeping up Gary’s face.

“Oh yeah!” Gary said, bouncing a little on his toes as he looked at his boots. “Yeah I meant it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

Andy felt that sudden warmth in his cheeks again, although it was more toasty than the last time. He glanced at Gary at the same time Gary glanced at him, and both of them quickly diverted their eyes to something else in their surroundings.

“Well, since it is just me here now, it gets pretty lonely out here, by myself. So I was thinking, if you wanted to pop back here every now and then, well you’re more than welcome. You can use it as a sort of, home base,” Andy said, once again struggling to get through his words a little.

“I mean, I do really like it, and I have been wandering around for a long time… it would be nice to rest and just, stick to one place for a bit,” Gary replied, sniffing sharply and fidgeting with the buttons on his coat.

“Yeah! You’re allowed to stay, you can stay for as long or as little as you want really.”

“Nice! Um, thanks Andy,” Gary said, finally looking at Andy once more. Andy looked back at him.

“It’s no problem.”

The two stood there for a few moments of silence more, but this time not wanting to look away. This was the first bit of real connection that they had felt since… well, an even longer time ago. It felt so, so, refreshing.

“QUAINT!” Gary suddenly blurted out, causing Andy to jump.

“Wh-what’s this about?” Andy stammered, bewildered.

“The word that I was trying to remember earlier! When I was describing your- well I guess now our hut. It was the word ‘quaint’!” Gary babbled.

“Oh! I see… yeah I guess that word works,” Andy said indifferently.

“You guess?? I thought it was a great word!” Gary argued.

“Meh. Also, I’m sorry, it’s ‘our hut’ now?” Andy barked playfully.

“Yeah! Isn’t that what you were just saying?”

“I guess so but you jumped on that and got comfortable with it very quickly!”

“Sooooo what you’re saying is that I’m not wrong?”

“Shut the fuck up Gary King, you prick,” Andy scoffed, a huge grin on his face.

“You shut the fuck up Andy Knightely, you twat,” Gary retorted, with a grin just as big.

#this has been In The Works for like a hot minute #I hope it's okay though!!#I honestly wanted to write the whole Monopoly scene out properly but I also didn't want to make this too long lmao #it's already at almost 5k #also tempted to post to ao3 if people are cool with that #the cornetto trilogy #cornetto trilogy #the world's end #the world's end movie #gary king #andy knightley #beef writes #beef speaks #cornettosecretsanta2023 #cornetto secret santa 2023