didn’t want you to have to say goodbye again.
mike miller
Our Godawful Lazy Remake Culture
That Last Man on Earth fanfic. Ha, I did it! And mostly without crying!
Title: Our Godawful Lazy Remake Culture
Rating: God knows. PG-13? It gets kinda gross in its descriptions every now and then. Also, well, you’ve seen the show
Fandom: The Last Man on Earth (TV)
Notes: The opening line is from Fredric Brown’s famous story “Knock.”
Characters/ships: Mike, Erica, Mike/Erica (well, sort of)
Summary: Mike forbade his brother to watch him die, but he didn’t forbid Erica.
Find it on AO3, or-
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1. Mike
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.
Actually, most of that statement is inaccurate. Mike wasn’t the last man on Earth, although it would have been easier if it had been, and it wasn’t a knock, it was more like a pounding. He was in a room though. Hey, it’s a good opener, just go with it.
“Phil?” Mike asked. It came out as a sort of croak. It wouldn’t be Phil, he had promised. Maybe it was Death. Maybe it was the Terry Pratchett version of Death, which Mike had always hoped to be the real one. That would be pretty cool.
“Mike?” a voice called from downstairs. Whoever it was had opened the front door. Also, it was a woman. It was Erica. “Mike, it’s me.” A moment of silence. “Are you dead?”
“No,” Mike called back. It took most of his remaining strength to say that. Erica raced upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and flung the door open.
“Christ!” she exclaimed on seeing him. “Oh, christ.”
“Sorry,” said Mike. He thought about making some joke about he wasn’t used to having that effect on a woman, but the words just didn’t come.
“Oh god, you do have it,” Erica said. She was wearing a hazmat suit; somehow Mike had missed this. “Oh god, I was hoping – I was hoping everyone was wrong. I had to come, I had to see-”
“Sorry,” said Mike again.
Erica was crying. “Oh god – you just look so terrible -”
“Thanks.”
“I gotta go.” And she ran out of the room.
“Thanks,” Mike said again. He actually meant it.
I still can’t get the finale of The Last Man of Earth out of my head. After all that speech-giving and piss-taking and I’m Not Saying Goodbye To Him Again – ing Mike dies (well, almost certainly dies) anyway, which is my least favourite kind of fictional death and makes me terribly sad. I never even meant to become invested in any of those people; I hated a lot of them not so long ago. Sigh.
Seriously though, having a whole series about the main character and his presumed-dead brother reuniting only for the brother to die two weeks after the reunion? And just as he was striking up a relationship with someone else who also deserved some happiness? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an apocalypse show be quite that cruel, and this one’s a friggin’ comedy.
