Limelight

Zach and Roz: Venting

(God, it feels like it's been forever since I updated...! I'm also almost done with another Zephzo Limelight, and I've been thinking of turning the Zombie History Lesson fic into a one-shot collection with my headcanons about the zombie community in general so maybe expect something new there soon...? And I've made a start on another angsty multichap fic, this time involving one canon zombie and one BG zombie~

And I hope you guys are also reading fist-it-out's stories A Cheerleader And A Zombie and Always Had A Feeling, not just because they're great anyway, but also because she's using my BG zoms~! Particularly the guys of Bowling For Zoup and she's doing a great job with them!

Speaking of BFZ, tonight's one-shot is about Zach and Roz, and I've been meaning to write this one for so long. It's finally here~

(Also, there's been a lot of updates to the BGZ masterpost on my Tumblr, there's full names for a lot of zoms now and more to come, and most of them have voice headcanons so you can hear what I imagine them sounding like~ And of course, there's various reference pics, bios, theme songs and other random posts about them! You can find it all on my Tumblr: unusual-ly.tumblr.com/tagged/bgz-masterpost ))

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"Roz!"

She barely reacted. It didn't matter that it was a Saturday morning and she was comfortably bundled up under the covers with her face buried in her (maybe just slightly drool-soaked) pillow, Roz was used to Zach bursting into her room unannounced like this by now. Just business as usual.

"Mornin'..." came her muffled reply. She heard the familiar sound of him flopping oh-so-dramatically onto the beanbag chair on the floor by the foot of the bed. She didn't have to look up – she had seen him like this plenty of times and knew exactly how he was positioned. He was sprawled out on his back, eyes closed, one arm held above his head like some Hollywood starlet in an old silent movie. Right on cue, he let out a long sigh.

That was his 'I need to vent' sigh.

"I need to vent."

"Uh-huh..." She was listening. Roz could still listen while she was half-asleep.

"OK, so..." Zach paused to think, "I was walking past the barrier this morning and there was this human girl on the other side and she looked kinda familiar, y'know? Then when I got closer I realised she was the girl I was dancing with at the block party."

"Promising."

"Yeah, that's what I thought! So I went to talk to her and-"

"Lemme guess, she had no idea who you were?"

"She had no idea who I was!"

"Gaz," Roz turned onto her back, opening her eyes for just a moment, "You sure know how to leave an impression on people." She rolled back onto her side.

"What am I doing wrong?"

"Everything..." she was about to drift off again but then she jerked awake with a snort, "Wait a minute, you were hitting on somebody?"

"This shouldn't be news to you," Zach said flatly.

"No, I mean... Already?" she propped herself up on one arm, frowning, "Like, this early in the morning and you've already been rejected?"

"Roz, it's, like, 10 o'clock."

10 o'clock. On a Saturday. There was silence for a moment, then Roz nodded and lay back down, "Ah. Yeah, alright, you've had plenty of time."

She groaned at the sound of Zach's pitiful whining.

"C'mon, help me out here! How'd you get a girlfriend?"

"I dunno, man, I just kinda stood and looked at her a lot, she did all the work..." she was almost falling back asleep while Zach thought.

"You told her you were in a band, right?"

"Right," Roz mumbled, "Tell 'em you're in a band."

Zach bolted upright, "I do! But it never seems to work for me! Why doesn't it work for me?!" he turned to face Roz, though he couldn't actually see her from there, and his shoulders slumped, "That girl this morning didn't even recognise me from the band, either."

"What do you want from me, Zach? Maybe it doesn't work because most of the humans don't care about a Bowling For Soup cover band, and every zombie our age already knows you're a clingy, desperate mess."

"Hurtful...!" Zach gasped and brought a hand to his chest, even though she'd pulled the covers over her head and couldn't see.

"The truth hurts, dude," Roz smirked from inside her cocoon of warmth, "Now, if you're planning on sticking around, could ya keep it down and let me sleep?"

Zach dropped back down on the beanbag, "I'm too depressed to even stand...! I don't have the willpower to do anything but wallow in my own self-pity."

"Yeah, OK, cool, just keep the wallowing silent, thanks."