AU Trope Meme... 21&11: Dystopian AU+Neighbor AU. Shance, Sheith or Shendak.
Oh, this one took a lot of thought to consider but: shendak.
So, it’s the usual dystopia, and Sendak is the commander of the section where Shiro lives, but it’s pretty far from the capital and Sendak, to his own slight misfortune, has his own house among the people he rules over. This includes his across-the-street neighbor, Shiro.
Now, Sendak prides himself on his sense of honor, perhaps even too much for the dystopian empire he’s a ruling part of, that he would like to avoid interacting with the dirtier aspects of where he lives whenever possible. Except, he can’t keep his eyes off of Shiro.
He sees a similar sense of honor in Shiro, sees someone more involved in the community, sees someone that he can actually respect (unlike a majority of his fellow section commanders, who delight in the more destructive aspects of their rule, to the detriment of the section they preside over), that Sendak goes along and strikes a deal with Shiro—that they present a united front, working to refine the section into something matching Sendak’s standards.
What goes on is the slowest burn romance nobody ever expected, and frankly the rebel factions that sought to have Shiro be the poster person leading the revolutionary charge are utterly baffled, even more so as he and Sendak get closer, acting in the interest of others and within the fact that they are neighbors.
The fact that Sendak personally got Shiro a perfectly fitted prosthetic of the empire’s finest, and saw to it that everyone that Shiro cared about got better treatment, is something that Sendak considers a slight aside. They are neighbors, of course.
No less than thirty people, after seeing Shiro attend an evening dinner at Sendak’s home for the fourth time that week, the utterly baffling sounds of their joined laughter floating down the street, concludes that they’re actually together but too dense to realize it.
