-- SEE IT IN A NEW SUNRISE && [nell]

He heard Nell call out and breathed a sigh of relief, the air pushing past his lips with a soft sound. She sounded like she was nearby and as he turned into one of the hallways he blinked at her, noting that she was on the floor. Why? It was his first thought and apparently hers, too, since she'd expressed confusion as to what she was doing 'here', but as neither of them had an answer it still resounded in his thoughts. He blinked at her. "Uh, hey," was the first thing he said to her upon coming into her line of sight, watching as she picked herself up off the floor. She looked like she'd been sleeping or something and she still sounded kind of weary but he wondered why on Earth she'd been sleeping in the hall as opposed to in bed. It wasn't like they were one of those couples who drove one another up the wall with habits like snoring or flailing around (even if Nell had a spectacular talent of falling out of bed every so often) and so it seemed rather unusual for her to be setting up camp in the hall. They were on the second floor and he wondered if their conversation would wake Annabel, then decided that they were probably safe. The walls had good insulation and closing the door to one of the rooms blocked out the majority of sounds as long as they didn't end up in a shouting match. Bryce was on this floor, too, and this was a fact that Josh was a lot less comfortable with. He hoped his brother would stay asleep, if sleeping was indeed what he was doing right at that moment.

The question surprised him and he did not have to think about it much. "No, I wouldn't have gone looking for you if I did that," he pointed out. He remembered the night before with clarity and he could not remember booting her out of bed for any reason. It was not like them to have an argument considering they were both such adaptable people when it came to living together and it wasn't like he talked in his sleep. Probably a good thing. He didn't like the idea of mumbling things to other people he'd never remember. "I'm sure the floor doesn't like you either. I think it's offended." He twitched his lips slightly as he cracked the joke, wanting her to feel reassured that he hadn't gotten mad at her during the night and kicked her out. "The doghouse is for dogs and all that good stuff." They didn't actually have a doghouse and he wondered if she'd catch what he meant by doghouse or if she was too tired. She seemed tired. So did he, really especially as his lips parted in a yawn and he dragged a lazy hand back through his dark hair. He was a morning person but he preferred to wake up of his own accord. He could have probably gone back to bed but he didn't know if a nap would be a good idea considering he'd need to get up in another couple of hours anyway. Maybe he could try and stay up and then just crash if that didn't work?

Reaching out a hand to brush it against her cheek, he admitted, "I was kinda worried when I woke up and you weren't there. Couldn't remember you saying anything about going out early." He didn't often worry obsessively over anyone but he supposed it was only natural to feel that kind of paranoia over Nell. He was in love with her and love did weird things to a person. Plus he figured it was more than justified when they had a psychopath living in the house with them. "And you can't remember what you were doing out here at all?" She'd said that she didn't know why she was out here and that the floor was uncomfortable and so he assumed that she had not played connect the dots enough with her mind to have been able to form an accurate picture of what had happened. He was not too concerned now since she seemed to be fine, not hurt or anything, but he was curious. "Coming back to bed or should we try and stay up?" He decided he'd stay up with her if she wanted to simply because he liked to be close. And because he was worried about Bryce but he wasn't going to tell her that. I'll need to get used to it eventually. He hated that, the necessity of becoming accustomed to his brat of a little brother. He hated him, he really did. "If we are staying up, coffee might be a good idea." It was brilliant in a pot when it came to waking up.

[I want what Nell's on, that dream--]

His lips twitched softly in tired amusement when she spoke. "Like five in the morning, I think," he said when she amended her greeting. It had read five-something when he'd looked at the clock but he hadn't paid much attention. Joshua had been more concerned about the distinct lack of Nell in the room as opposed to what the other two numbers beside the five had been on the digital alarm clock. He nodded. "Figured I'd look for a note or... something. Then I saw your shoes and thought you must be around." He hadn't thought it was in her personality to up and vanish without telling him where she was going but he also hadn't known what else she could have gotten up to. Sleeping, apparently, in the middle of the hallway. "You must have been really tired," he observed, shaking his head and gesturing to a door down the hall a ways. It was closed but he knew what was behind it. "There's a guest room like, right there." Apparently her body had decided it was not ready for any more walking and had up and quit right about at this point. He felt bad for her because if couches were fairly uncomfortable as is, and Josh would know all about kipping on the couch for several months, he didn't want to imagine the discomfort of a floor. Have I ever slept on the floor? I don't think... Huh. That was a weird thought and one he'd never had before, but he definitely couldn't remember a floor-sleeping experience. Unless their impromptu camping trip counted, in which case that had been an oh so lovely sleep experience interrupted by a freakin' bear.

Her sense of humour and her ability to roll with his was one of the things he liked most about Nell. She carried on their conversations instead of staring at him like he'd grown an extra head each time that he cracked a joke. It had taken her a while to catch on but he was grateful that she had. "Well, no, the dog house would be outside," he said, frowning. "Because—no, never mind," he decided, realising that she was tired and that trying to explain things might not be the greatest idea at that moment in time. It was weird, this entire situation, he couldn't argue with that. So he didn't, instead glancing around the deserted and dark hallway as if it would somehow give him the answers that he needed. It didn't of course and he looked back to Nell after a moment, listening as she spoke. Ha, zombies. A single, soft chuckle brushed past his lips. "Well you haven't started trying to chew on me yet so I think you're clear. Besides, I'm not into necrophilia." His lips twitched into a brief smirk. He wasn't trying to make fun of her, honest, it was simply his rather inappropriate sense of humour. In all seriousness, he did not like the idea of a dead girlfriend. Sex would be weird and death was depressing. There was nothing hot about a dead chick, no. God, he should not be up at this hour, clearly, because now he was thinking about maggots and being seriously squicked out. Nell is hot and very much alive, stop thinking, he advised himself.

The rumbling of her stomach was not a surprising sound. It was one he was used to hearing, because when was she not in the mood for food? Nor was he surprised to hear that her night-time excursion had been in search for that food. "Ahhh," he said, and he was relieved to have an answer. It was better than worrying over what might happen if she was sleep-walking a lot and ended up outside in the middle of the yard one morning with no clue how she'd ended up there. "It was dark and you were tired. It happens." He smiled because he didn't want her to think that he was going to poke fun at her or anything like that. Shit did happen and he knew enough about running on next to no hours of sleep when he hadn't drank caffiene yet to know that it could disorient a person. Besides, he already knew she had problems with getting lost. Poor girl. "Okay," he said, taking that as a 'we're staying up'. "I can make you something. What do you want?" He wasn't half bad at cooking and she was tired, she deserved a bit of a break from trying to focus on things. Handling knives when you were in a zombified state was like handling a toddler a firearm and telling them it was a toy. "Second floor near the back of the house," he said, already knowing his bearings without having to look around. He'd grown up here. He led the way downstairs into the kitchen, flipped on the lights and blinked with a screwed up expression as he willed his eyes to adjust to the glare. God damn, white kitchens were hard on the eyes in the wee hours of the morning. "Want to put on the coffee?" Because team work was a good idea.

Five in the morning actually wasn't too weird of an hour for him when he had a lot of things to do, though he usually preferred getting up at six, but he usually let everyone know that he was calling it an early night when he planned to rise early as well. He hadn't done that last night. "Eris," he said, smirking and allowing that to sink in for a moment. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Eris and Pablo were a duo from hell, two cats that were born to create mischief. Well, as long as they didn't eat the birds. "She decided to let me know that she was up and I noticed you weren't around, so, well, that was me up." He wasn't incredibly paranoid but with Bryce in the house it was only natural to worry about his fiancée's unexplained absence from their bed. His lips twitched when she said that she couldn't think of anything that she'd be doing at midnight. His gray eyes glinted. "Really? I could think of a few things..." He didn't allow the suggestion to creep into his tone, merely left it at that with a small smile. Maybe more of a smirk, though it was hard to tell the difference. His mind was never out of the gutter but right now he was mostly messing with her. Nell would probably catch on right away because when he was serious and desperate determined to have her catch on, he ditched the subtlety. "And, well, food, apparently. That's your midnight business." A deflect to lead her away from what he'd said before. Mind games, though they were all good-natured and not meant to be cruel. He could never be outright cruel.

He raised an eyebrow at her tone but said nothing in response, figuring that she was either not directing her words toward him or at least that she didn't mean it the way she sounded. Nell was not someone bitter or cold toward him on a daily basis (the one time still haunted his thoughts on occasion) and so he found it easy to forgive minor things like this where he might have flipped out on someone else. "There has to be a line in every relationship and I'm afraid I'm drawing that line." He sounded serious and all but since the zombie apocalypse was not happening, he figured that she wouldn't be offended. He loved Nell but he was pretty sure that if she started trying to have him for lunch he'd need to call it quits. "Can zombies fall in love? 'Cause if you turned me, too, we'd be a pretty badass couple. Unless zombies aren't that affectionate in which case I'm out." He was not going through the cold shower phase again, alive or dead. Now he was analysing the possibility of zombies feeling love and affection for other zombies and why five in the morning, why? Thoughts were always strangest when you were tired and nothing made sense any more. Even Joshua, serious and analytical as he was, could get a bit strange with his thought process when he was not yet fully conscious. He was getting there, though. Food and coffee was going to help. He knew that caffiene was an unhealthy way to keep himself awake but it was quicker than trying to keep himself awake the natural way and hell, whatever's best.

It took Nell a couple of seconds but she answered and he nodded to show that it all sounded good to him. He would have made bacon too if she'd wanted because he was used to cooking for his little sister and she was not nearly as mindful or conscious of his vegetarianism as his fiancée was. Love made you more in tune to another person's wants and needs, he supposed. Not that he minded too much. He wasn't a diet Nazi. "Halfway there and it looks like your body decided it'd had enough," he remarked. "You should get the dog to sniff it out for you next time." He was joking of course but he wondered if a dog would be smart enough to do that if it wasn't trained. There were drug-sniffing dogs but they were trained by professionals. Quartz knew how to fetch his leash. Maybe Nell could manage to train a guide dog for the house. Ha. The thought amused him and he chuckled to himself as they went into the kitchen and he took the eggs and bread out of the fridge. He set up two pans for making the scrambled eggs so that he could make an especially large amount, knowing that he and Nell combined could eat themselves out of house and home. He was tall and active enough to work up an appetite and she was a garbage disposal, 'nuff said. Trash compactor. Greenhouse, too. He held off on putting the toast on for now, knowing that it would be better hot, and he decided to keep the butter in the fridge so that it didn't melt while they were waiting for the toast and eggs to cook.

With five cats, two dogs, several birds, fish, and caterpillars (if those counted), their household definitely did seem to be run by the animals at times. The fish were in the lake and so he didn't know if those could be classified as pets but whatever. Nell did not seem to understand what train of thought Joshua had been following when he'd made his comment and so he could bask in his amusement without getting a smack on the arm for being too perverted. Not that Nell would hit him, though he had gotten that reaction from some friends before. Apparently not everyone appreciated the glorious gutter that his thoughts frolicked in. "More important than keeping me company?" He said the words as if in disappointment, the vocal equivalent of pouting without adding the gesture itself for effect. "I'm hurt, Nell. To think that the fridge gets more love than I do." He prided himself in his ability to sound serious but really, he was satisfied with the affection that he got from Nell. Anything seemed like a lot after the infamous cold shower stage. Poor Nell probably didn't realise that his spontaneous decisions to leave her company for various 'reasons' had usually been to avoid any awkward explanations on his part. She didn't realise how much of an unintentional tease she'd been with... well, almost everything. It really didn't take much when his mind permanently basked with the dead leaves and stagnant rain water in the dirty recesses of his thoughts. He needed to do some spring cleaning in there, except it was winter and so maybe he could put it off for a while. Or forever. He would never grow up, a teenager at heart.

Though this was a joke, it was early enough in the morning that he could consider it seriously without frequently pausing and realising how strange the conversation had gotten. "Hm, wait," he said thoughtfully, as if this were a very important matter. "Would, uh, zombieism be considered a sickness?" They called zombies infected in enough shitty horror films that he could believe it. Or the undead, and that was implying that they were not dead. This was all going somewhere and he explained where that 'somewhere' was with his next comment. "I mean, if this whole marriage deal is going to lock me into 'in sickness and in health', I figure I might as well get used to it." He chuckled and nudged her lightly, playfully. Though he made a joke out of the fact that engagement meant marriage in the future and all of the typical vows that went with it, Josh did realise in the back of his mind that they still had not considered anything seriously about their marriage. No date, no plans. That was fine with Josh and all, he wasn't rushing, but he would have to bring it up eventually. They might not get married until they were in their later twenties but it would be nice to have some kind of a plan, an idea. Not now, he thought. It was never the right time, mostly because he didn't know how to bring that up to her. "You know, I was going to make some sort of a joke about that but you make a good enough joke yourself. You lose everything, including your sense of direction." He loved her, though, and at the end of the day that was all that mattered. Directional impairment and everything.

He imagined it would be very scary to hear ghost barking without a source. For a man that based almost all of his ideas and opinions in logic, that would probably terrify the fuck out of Josh. Good thing it had never happened to him. "Wow, babe, you're more tired than I thought," he said, his lips twitching in sympathetic amusement. "Maybe we should go back to bed." But no, if she wanted food she'd get her food first. He was willing to provide that for her before she decided whether she wanted to grab a couple more hours. He grabbed a bowl and started to crack eggs into it, not looking at her as she spoke but listening intently. The question made him chuckle, not realising why she was asking it. "If you wanted bacon, there are more direct ways than that to go about asking." Hey, they were standing in a kitchen while he whisked eggs for breakfast, it was a sensible conclusion to make. How did he feel about pigs? Well, he wouldn't eat them for breakfast but cooking them for breakfast? That was fine. Did that make him a bad vegetarian? Probably, but Josh didn't care enough to change his ways. "Is that what you were trying to ask, even?" It did seem an awfully strange way to approach the subject of bacon. "I mean, I'm all down for making bacon if you want bacon, but, uh..." He paused in the rhythmic beating of the eggs in the bowl to glance at her curiously, expectantly. They'd had stranger conversations and so this wasn't too weird as standards went but he was still curious as to where pigs, alive or dead, came into things.

Words could not describe the rushes of affection that he often got for Nell, like when she promised him she was not going to leave again in her half-awake state and then gave him a tight hug. It was a tidal wave of inexplicable emotion that crashed over him and pulled his lips into a smile. "Even when I'm unconscious I think about you," he said. "It's a talent of yours, really, invading my dreams." He did not often dream and so this was mostly for the sake of the back-and-forth they were having, though it had happened a few times. Some of said dreams were of a more risqué nature and he debated telling her this to be a troll but refrained. That would be far too obvious. He was enjoying his current position. He was also fucking tired and so the smile on his face was languid, lazy. "I'm glad to know you won't abandon me for a midnight rendevouz with your leftovers. Nice to know I matter." Seriously, though, that would be weird. Imagine making out with a tuna casserole. He didn't like so much as the thought. "I should draw you that map," he said, realising with a bit of guilt that he'd forgotten to do so. If she really needed a map to get around their house then he would definitely sketch one up. He wasn't often forgetful but he'd had a lot on his mind during that time and he supposed it had simply taken the back-burner. Nell's important, though. "Or get you a mini fridge," he chuckled when she mentioned it. "Or both." Though he'd laughed, it was also partially serious. Nell wanted a mini fridge? He committed this small detail to memory. He remembered a lot of things like that, it was the small things that counted.

He blinked at her hand and stayed silent, waiting patiently for whatever explanation she was about to come up with. When it came, he considered her words with a seriousness that was quite laughable when taking into account that the zombie apocalypse was not real. There was no harm in amusing oneself with these sorts of discussions. "Me neither," he mused. Not in any movie he'd seen, but then, he'd not seen a whole lot of them. A cinephile like Nell probably had a lot more film experience so he'd trust her judgement. He was more well-versed in the world of books, not to mention non-fiction. Such novels did not deal with zombieism because it was not a legitimate thing. Not that he hadn't read a few horror novels but it wasn't a common occurrence. "Your role would probably be pretty easy," he mused. "Just shamble around and moan about brains and what not. Try not to get too into character so you can avoid eating mine. I need those for medical school." He tapped the side of his head as if to indicate his brain. "Speaking of, I'm thinking of quitting my job," he confessed. "It's extra money and all but we're already well-off and I want to focus on senior year. Like, really focus." He waited for her reaction, wondering what her opinion would be. Nell was usually pretty cool with everything that he wanted to do and he respected that but he figured he would let her know of his plans nevertheless. "Cutting it down to part-time helped a bit but I think cutting it out completely could only make more of an improvement." His double major required so much studying if he wanted to stay on top of his game and juggling that with a job on top was harder than he'd thought. In a way it felt like giving up but then again, he was trying to do what was best for himself. His health.

He was not looking at her to see her expression change from one of curiosity to blank realisation but he heard the words and his lip twitched slightly. Poor Nell, all tired and shit. "Yep." Not one dog but two. He wondered where they were and abandoned the pan for a moment to go into the cupboards and haul out the large bag of dog food. The bowls were usually refilled at breakfast and dinner and even though it was a tad early, it would save him from doing it later. The clatter of the food into the bowl did not completely drown out his fiancée's words. "Hopefully that coffee'll help you wake up." Exhaustion was no fun. He put the dog food back under the counter, filled the cats bowls, checked the water and refilled it, then returned to his position by the stove as they got onto the subject of pigs. Such a strange thing to be discussing in a kitchen. Nell said that bacon would be nice and he nodded, already going over toward the fridge to fetch some. The smell didn't entice him like it did most but at least he didn't gag or vainly insist that he had to leave the room, that it was putting him off. Josh was not such a drama queen. He chuckled when she said that she wanted a pig, figuring that she was joking around. Like she wanted a pig so that they could butcher it for more bacon or something like that. It was five in the morning, his thought process was not as solid as it should have been. He paused in sliding the spatula under the slices as he realised from her tone, several seconds late, that her tone did not match that of a person who was joking. "You're... serious." He didn't have to state the realisation aloud, but he did. He turned away from the stove for a moment to survey her with a confused sort of intrigue.

Teacup pigs, he'd heard of those. He'd never seen one but he got the general idea of their being smaller than normal-sized pigs. He had not been aware that they were available as pets, though, and he had to think about it for a moment. He'd never considered the idea of having a pig in the house. At the same time, Joshua would do a lot for Nell and wanted her to be happy. If it's what she wants, and she's sure... "Are they like Fennecs or anything where there are laws on where you can keep them?" He rubbed the back of his neck and allowed a sheepish kind of smile. "I was looking up the laws for them because I thought it'd make a cool pet." They were legal in British Columbia so he couldn't see why teacup pigs wouldn't be. And if Nell's whatever-she'd-said bred them then that was probably a good sign. She mentioned them being cute and his lip twitched. "Do you have a picture?" The fact that he was displaying interest was more than enough to suggest that he wasn't opposed to it yet or anything. He was in the 'considering' stage and since he was in love with Nell and wanted to do things and allow things that kept her in good spirits, considering was as good as sold. "If you're sure on how to care for it and you have a way of getting one, and it's legal... I think, yeah, I wouldn't mind if you got a pig." He was a very accommodating guy, actually. Pigs were a little stranger than birds, true, but he didn't mind too much. Chuckling, he said, "We'll be running a zoo out of our house before we're thirty." Being thirty was a weird thought. He'd be a doctor by that time. He liked the idea of that, just not getting old.

It was hard to resist the urge to laugh when she mentioned his dreams, mostly because Joshua knew what he was thinking and it was a lot different from Hello Kitty and the like. He did have more innocent dreams considering Nell, though they still rarely made sense. He was a serious person but his subconscious still liked to approach him with random dreams that he couldn't make sense of and forgot five minutes after waking up. For someone with such a brilliant memory there were not a lot of dreams he could recall. "Dreams aren't reality, though," he pointed out. "None of it's physical. I don't want you to only be there in my sleep." At the word physical his lip twitched but did not completely betray him with a smirk. Why are we having this conversation? Because it was balls in the morning and nothing made sense, that was why. "I was, technically. But if it's something you feel like you need..." He trailed off, allowing the rest to be implied. He would do a lot of things for Nell and drawing a map of the house he'd grown up in seemed like a small task when it was weighed next to some of them. Like standing by her in the trial, which he'd done, or getting married, which they were planning on doing. I still need to ask... No, no, now wasn't a good time. He'd probably only make half-sense considering neither of them were fully conscious. He seemed to be doing better than Nell, though. "I don't think your body will be kind enough to oblige," he chuckled. He was seriously considering getting her a mini-fridge because he felt it would be a worthwhile investment. No more night-time excursions that ended with waking up on the floor at five in the morning.

He frowned, thinking about veganism in zombies. There were vegan humans and all that and zombies were reanimated humans but he wasn't sure if it made sense. "Wouldn't that defeat the point of zombieism, though?" Most thought of zombies as the walking dead who feasted on the brain matter of their former friends, family members, neighbours. "If you take out the brain-eating aspect you're just... dead. A walking corpse." That was a sad idea. It was a good thing that he wasn't the type of person to take conversations such as this too seriously or he'd have been very saddened by the idea of Nell dying. They were still young and both were in good health so he figured they had a long time yet before he had to start breaching that cold reality. He tried not to think of random accidents. "Yeah. I'm not used to having a job on top of school so it's been hard to balance it. At least I took the MCAT before I got the job or I'd have been fucked." He chuckled and shook his head at the thought. Studying for that test had been incredibly stressful on top of all his other schoolwork because the marks basically determined his chances of getting into medical school. He'd done exceptionally well, of course. "I know I do," he said, his tone and smile a little softer now. "I think it'll be nice to have more time to relax. It seems like all I've been doing lately is working and studying." Fuck sleeping, fuck eating, who needed those? Well, human beings happened to. He wanted to get back on track with his schedule. Maybe he could handle a job once he hit medical school.

Heart attacks were pretty damned serious, actually, and they were no laughing matter. Nell amended her words and he seemed to approve of that. He didn't want to associate pigs with heart attacks any time soon. She mentioned Charlotte's Web and he'd read it, of course, though he'd never seen the movie. There were a lot of movies he hadn't seen but he'd read hundreds of books in his life. Maybe even thousands, he'd never kept count. "Well that's good," he said when she mentioned not needing a licence. "I wouldn't know how to go about getting one if you did." Maybe Nell would have known if it was required since she seemed pretty set on this. He trusted her to do her research and not be too spontaneous about pets, which was why he didn't have much of a problem about them at all. Maybe he should put a little less trust in someone who forgot they had pets but she was his fiancée and love was blind. Trust was, too, apparently. He blinked when she asked what a fennec was, then recovered. "It's a fox, vulpes zerda," he told her. "A little one with big ears. They're awesome." He did love foxes. He didn't like dogs as much as cats but he loved most animals and so it didn't matter. The fact that cats were his favourites didn't mean that he did not like other sorts of pets.

"You're pointing to the library," he said with a trace of amusement. "Guessing it's in the room? Want me to go grab it?" He figured he could also get his laptop, which was sitting in what he liked to call his 'office', really just one of the rooms whose atmosphere he enjoyed that had a desk in it. Offices were fancy though and he liked the idea of having one. His gray eyes softened fondly at her hopeful tone. She could really convince him to do anything, couldn't she? "Course. Is, uh, Winston, was it? Is he still available and all that? And how much? You should probably snag him as soon as possible, yeah?" He didn't know if the person would keep the pig around for Nell or anything like that. And anyway, why wait? He'd already said that he was fine with it. He kind of looked forward to seeing her pet, too. He chuckled at the idea of a farm. They had a lot of land on the property but most of it was hilly in the spirit of the mountains. Not a suitable place for a farm but it was still an amusing thought. "Living the country life in the city, eh? Sounds fun." He would like a horse, he thought, because riding looked fun. He'd never tried it, though, so he couldn't say for sure.