A/N: A collection of ficlets written for the movie Only lovers left alive. Most of these were written in 2015 when I first saw the movie but every time I re-watch it I write. Some of that writing can be found in this collection.
If you spot grammar and spelling mistakes please PM me.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, they belong to the genius of Jim Jarmuch and the various actors, producers and such associated with the movie.
1. Death and Gun
Adam's thoughts as he waits for Eve to return to him.
Eve.
He can still hear his wife as she kisses this new piece of ugly zombie technology that connects him to her. He hates all this new shit the zombies use to become even more detached, even more polluted. He has tried to tell Eve, tell her how ugly how disposable all these new things are. How utterly without vision. But Eve found use for it, she says. The most perfect use the most holy use. It connects her to him and to Eve that is close to divine.
Adam stands up, sits back down. He is restless in a way he had not been in a long while.
Eve is coming.
He ponders all the meanings of the words. Part of him hates himself for being this weak, this needy. He loves Eve, he wants her happiness, her joy is his joy and right now he knows that he is the reason for her discomfort he is the reason that she needs to travel and that is such a drag.
It is also dangerous but they both neglect to talk about that.
He has told her that he loved her. But they both that he was merely begging for her to come. How long has it been since he had truly seen her? Not through some device but with his own eyes? Seventy years? Close to it.
How long since he had touched her?
She will be here soon and he will be able to. The possibilities that come with having Eve close make him temporarily insane.
He needs to move, run, dance. Eve would like him if she saw him right now.
Adam sits behind his drums, an instrument he has not touched for weeks. It's rudeness had bothered him lately, reminded him of decay. But right now the drums seem like a wonderful thing, a magical thing and he takes the wooden sticks in his hands and plays and plays for what seem hours and every song is about her. Every touch of the wood against the metal of the drums is about him and her.
Adam stands, walks towards the window suddenly convinced that she is already here. And yet he knows that flights don't work that way. Right now she is probably busy, probably packing her precious books, and knowing her that could take a while. He can get lost in music but when Eve reads she reads so completely and beautifully that he knows, watching her, that he will never reach that place of peace that contemplation of wholeness that she can experience is something that lies beyond his grasp.
That's ok. He does not love Eve for how she is different from him, or how she can complete him. There were no promises made at either of their weddings.
He just loves Eve.
It's a condition, in this case a pleasant one.
He switches to guitar and cannot remember how long he plays it as his mind wanders. For the first time in weeks, he is not thinking about the zombies, the pain of this existence is still here but he knows that soon she will be here and he can exist for her for a while. His fingers run over the guitar strings, these ones are firm and made with the delicacy of old times. He can feel the artisanship under his fingers, the amount of times this guitar has gone from one hand to another but he knows he will need Eve to tell him the exact age of this guitar.
He will need Eve to tell him how to turn the sand in the hourglass.
The doorbell sounds like a promise and he rushes to the door first convinced that it is her but then he remembers the world he is forced to exist in and steps back to the window instead. A wise decision as it turns out. Some rock and roll zombies are standing outside shouting and screaming. He can smell the stink of alcohol and something else probably heroin, it is always heroin these days, on them as they huddle in a group discussing ever so loudly if they have gotten the right house.
Fear grips him with iron hands and he has to focus, breath. He had not taken a breath in a couple of decades but right now, he feels he needs to. It is good to have the option. He steps away from the window counting his steps and cursing.
Where would she be now?
The thought makes it easier to ignore the shouting outside. This cannot do though he will have to do something about it. He can feel his fangs grow, become sharper at the thought but no, he will have to go to Ian. The blood pumping trough the veins of those mindless freaks outside is most definitely contaminated. Besides it is not worth it. Getting rid of some of them will only breed more.
Oh how he misses...humans. He remembers them; Byron and Shelly, they seemed to resemble some form of...something. He is not sure what he is looking for. He found divinity only in Eve there is no other. He is not looking for that anymore. But these creatures, these zombies that are left they are so...empty. Shallow and yet full of themselves. It makes him sick. It literally makes him sick he can feel it, he is sick with fear. Fear for them, of them. He will need to ask Ian to address this problem.
She is probably flying now.
Surrounded.
Helpless, given to the mercy of all those zombies in the airplane with her. Zombies flying the damn thing for her. Unaware of the precious cargo they carry.
She will do this all to get to him. And he could not be bothered to come to Tangier. Come here and kiss me she said. Adam shakes his head, promises himself to do just that as soon as she arrives.
Eve.
He knows she likes her irony. Likes her little coincidences, her beauty in life. He has never told her that Adam was the name given to him by the mother that brought him into the eternal life. There was a life before that, and a name, but that has ceased to matter a long time ago.
He can count the things Eve doesn't know on the fingers of one hand. He bends a thumb, a pinkie and a ring finger. One by one. It leaves him with two outstretched fingers, his hand the form of a gun. Will Ian find it for him he wonders, that bullet for his extra special art project?
And what will arrive first?
Eve or the bullet?
As it turns out it is the bullet that arrives first.
Ian stands in front of him, all giddy and excited. Like a good puppy dog pleased that he had succeeded. His eyes eager, his whole body rigid full of excitement, the sense of promise. Will he be let in on the secret?
The bullet is beautiful, the real kind of beauty. He can smell the wood, the way it had been, fresh and eternal, before it had been cut away for his own selfish needs.
Ian is still jumping up and down in front of him. He is not bad for a zombie and tonight Adam is in the mood to tell him that. He shoves money into the boys hand and watches him struggle. He wants to take it but some form of custom prevents him from doing so straight away. It is funny to watch costumes change through the centuries, this difficulty about money is a recent thing. In the past they just took when he gave. It is not like the bills are worth anything to him. But Ian feels obliged he keeps offering his services, his company. He needs to be told that it's all right. They are all such children.
It takes a while for Ian to leave.
When he is alone Adam sits on the ground in his bedroom and stares at the walls. They are filled with pictures, images of people long gone some friends, some like minds some just past heroes. He has no heroes any longer. He puts the bullet inside the gun and stares at it for a moment. The thing is so small it fits in his open hand with ease. It is strange, feeling one's mortality again. It makes him feel curiously alive. He wonders if it would be different if he had been alive if every day would have been a day that would not come back.
The zombies know what that is like. They are taught about death before they understand life and look what they have done. Destroyed their earth, their sky even their own blood.
It is enough. The gun is in his hands and it has been enough for such a long time that for a second the gun feels like the only way. He places it against his heart and his heart still feels colder than the barrel against his chest. He is about to do what should have been done in the first place. Kill a death there is no sin in that.
But then he thinks about Eve.
How she will walk into this apartment and find...whatever it is he is meant to become after the gun goes off.
He lets the air out of his lungs. It seems like a gunshot.
But then he takes another breath.
He can't do that to her. Eve is coming and he can't let her find...well that. He stands places the gun behind the matrass, there is no thought of hiding it he just wants it out of his own line of sight. To avoid temptation perhaps. He needs to do something, something good.
For her.
Eve is coming. It is unbelievable, unreal. So worth living for.