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Live or Die

Chapter 2: the group

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Chapter 2 The Group

It took Harry roughly two hours to make it to the query campsite and it was only as Harry crested the hill that he realized that walking into an unknown camp might have been a mistake.
“Who the hell are you,” a mostly bald-shaven man bellowed as he saw Harry hesitate to walk down the hill that lead to the query.
“H-Harry Potter sir,” Harry managed to rasp out, his voice harsh from disuse after almost five weeks of silence.
Taking a better look at the person now that they were over the hill Shane quickly realized that Harry was just a kid around Carl’s age.
As he looked Shane mentally noted that despite Harry’s clothes being clean the boy himself was covered in dirt and grease, his hair was limp and his face was smudged with dirt. Honestly, the only things Shane truly wanted to know now were that he’d had a good look at the boy as if he was alone and where he had come from because that little boy needed a bath.
Deciding to just get to the point Shane asked, “Well Harry what are you doing out here?”
“I looked up safe places to camp around the area the last week as the city was beginning to show signs of other people coming out of hiding, but I only decided to come here after a gang tried to shoot me earlier today,” Harry babbled.
“I see,” Dale said, speaking up for the first time, “so you’ve been in the city this whole time but when people started to shoot at you, you got scared and came here to camp out and be safe but we were already here. Is that what happened?”
Harry for his part shrugged and gave a mumble.
“What are you planning to do now son,” Dale asked.
Having already planned for this Harry chose to go with the story he’d planned, “No idea. I was hoping to find a place to camp until either the government got this thing under control or I needed to move on. It’s not like I have anyone waiting for me.”
With Harry finely having reached the area of the camp Shane was finely able to see what Harry had with him, the first thing that cote his eye was that Harry had two large hunting knives but no guns. This was good as it showed that the boy was more willing to avoid conflict than start it. The rest of the stuff Harry had reinforced that. A one-person cooking set, a two-person pop-up tent, and marsh mellows of all things. This was a kid that was going camping, probably for the first time, not someone trying to make trouble. The only problem thing bugging Shane was if the kid was alone. If so, great! The woman can dot on the brat and he gets to play the hero. If he has someone then he’ll deal with them later but he won’t know if he doesn’t ask.
“So Harry is there anyone taking care of you?”
“No sir. I haven’t seen a grown-up sense the building I was in was hit by the bombs.”
Feel both horrified that a kid was in the bomb area when they were going off and relived that Harry was in no way a threat Shane decided to play up the hero bit by telling him to set up his tent beside his and Lori’s before having the kids use the ingredients to make smores.

 

Over the next month, Harry fell into a pattern of fishing in the mornings, then by mid-morning he would go and gather either supply from the car pile-up or pull them from the sealed world bead and claim they were from the pileup or he would look thru the woods for plants that he could either send to one of his gardens in the sealed world bead or that he could bring back to camp. At this time he would usually pull out some fruit that he claimed was growing wild. He knew Daryl didn’t believe he’d simply found the fruit but there wasn’t much he could do about that. Once evening came he would have dinner with Shane, Lori and Carl, usually the fish he caught, followed by watching a movie with Carl in his tent.
Carl on the other hand had also quickly fallen into the habit of spending his days with the other kids and his nights with Harry as Harry seemed to stay away from anyone but him most of the time. The days away from each other also helped mitigate how flustered they seemed to make each other.
It was while watching Star Wars for the third time that an idea popped into Carl’s head. Making sure that the other boy was properly distracted, Carl maneuvered himself the same way he’d seen Shane do with his mother before swooping in to kiss Harry’s cheek.
“What? Carl?” Harry sputtered as he was no longer looking a the movie.
Remembering the talk he’d had earlier that day with Shane about how he had a crush. Shane’s advice was to make his intentions crystal clear as due to the world going to hell in a hand basket he didn’t have time to waste.
With Harry’s head tilted up to look at him, Carl didn’t hesitate before lunging down and meeting Harry’s lips with his own. With Harry too shocked to do anything and Carl starting to panic the boy found themselves twisting until they were facing each other shirts running up their bodies and lips mere centimetres apart.
Not knowing what to do but not wanting to lose his friend Harry pushed himself closer to Carl and kissed him this time hoping that was what Carl wanted.
Carl on the other hand felt his brain finely turn back on as he realized just what he had done and what Harry had done. Knowing he needed to explain to Harry that he wanted Harry to be his boyfriend, Carl pushed himself up from the smaller boy before saying, “Harry I like as more than a friend and would like you to be my boyfriend.”
Gulping Harry nodded before saying, “sure Carl. As long as we keep it our secret. I don’t want your mom to try and kill me as my uncle did.”
Carl froze at the words Harry said. Not that he was against keeping it a secret, he liked keeping Harry to himself, not at the thought of someone hurting his Harry. Once he had control of himself Carl nodded in acceptance before going down and kissing the smaller boy once more.
The boys would keep kissing each other for the next hour until the movie had run its course.

 

Shane shook his head as he watched Carl pull Harry off into the woods while trying to be sneaky about it. He had found out that the two boys were fooling around together about a week ago and it had been a bit of a wake-up call about him and Lori.
While it was cute to see two twelve-year-old boys being too shy to admit to others that they liked each other the same could not be said about one of those boys’ mothers sneaking around with the camp leader. Honestly, while he would like to say he and Lori were doing a better job at hiding it the truth was that the boys at least had the benefit of the doubt due to age and gender. He and Lori had no such advantage and try to be sneaky about it only hurting their reputation.
With that in mind, Shane decided to talk to Lori that evening about it. Sadly it was not to be as that evening Rick arrived, seemingly to have come back from the dead.