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Walking around in a deserted town while the sun literally tries to cook you isn't exactly how you want to spend your afternoon. Then again, it's not how anyone wants to spend their afternoon. At least you're out here with you best friend.
"Hey, can I have some water?" Your head turns to the taller male and you nod, handing him the canteen of water.
"Don't drink too much. We're almost out and we're at least three miles from base. We need to save that until we get back or until we find some supply of water. Well...if we find any." Recently out of your group, none of the scouts you sent out have been able to find any resources. Your group is fairly large and you're running dangerously low on food and water.
"Yeah yeah. I know. I won't drink it all." Though, he does take a large chug of it before hanging the canteen back to you. You sigh, shaking your head as you hand the bottle back on your neck.
"When should we head back? So far all the stores we've gone through have expired food or have been raided already. We're not having any luck here; I doubt we were the first ones through the town."
"I don't know, let's just...let's look for a little while longer. We have to find something. Even if it's a little bit. We need enough to at least get us to a new town." He nodded, looking forward again. After about a few minutes he sighs, stops walking and tugs his tank top off. He must have gotten too hot; be never takes off his shirt for anything, he's self-conscious about the scars on his torso. Seeing him without a shirt is rare.
Not that you're complaining.
"It's too fucking hot Kay. We need to head back soon. Come back later when it's cooler or something."
"We can't! I know it's too hot be we can't come back and you know it! Those....things are more active later in the day and you know that." The 'things' you're talking about are zombies. Or as you like to call them, flesh eating monstrosities. Now these zombies aren't like the ones that used to be portrayed in the movies before the apocalypse. No, these guys are much, much more terrifying. They half crawl, half squat as they move around, quite similarly to apes. They growl, and it's horrifically beast-like, completely gargle and deranged. Thank God they seem to only do that if they're angry. And the speed they have; normally they move almost in an eerie slow motion way, but once they alarmed or pissed, you're done. They move so fast they turn into a blur and you're dead. Sometimes you can't even tell what's worst, their presence or them being flesh eating monsters. You've once seen one claw at its own arm, tearing at its skin until it peeled enough of it off to eat it. You got sick that day, and didn't eat for a week.
The most terrifying thing about them is, you can't tell if they're 'dead' and mindlessly doing this, or if they're alive and are just twisted fucked up monsters.
"--understand that. I'm not stupid. I just don't want to cook out here and become food for the zombies. Hey, dude are you even listening to me?" You snap out of your thoughts and turn your head to the blond.
"Sorry...I must have spaced out."
"Great so you yell at me like I'm a child, then ignore me when I'm speaking to you? Real nice Karkat, real nice." You frown, reaching out to touch him and he immediately flinches away. Your frown deepens.
"Why do you do that?"
"What?"
"Move away from me when I touch you?"
"You just treated me like a kid, anyone would react the same way."
"No, I mean...you've been doing that a lot recently, and not just because I yell at you. You do it on your own. Why?"
"I don't know. Natural instincts I guess? Come on, I've always done that."
"Not for the past like, eight months. You've been fine around me. Did...did I do something wrong?" He looks at you, and even behind the his shades you can see his eyes widen.
"No. Holy shit no. I've just...I've just come to the conclusion that being too close to anyone would make it hard to cut ties if something ever happened." He's lying and you know it. You accept his reason anyways.
"Yeah...I've guess that's smart. But...not being able to touch you? I mean it's going to happen accidentally no matter what. It's inevitable; you can't just jump away from that your whole life."
"I guess. But it's whatever, you know. They say physical contact helps establish a bond faster. Can't take any risks." You roll your eyes at that. Where in the hell did he get that idea from? A moment later a hand taps your arm. You look at him, and follow his arm as he points to a house.
"Look, let's check there. If there's nothing, we go back ok?" You nod, and then both of you are jogging across the street to the house.
On the outside, it seems pretty well held up. But once you go inside, you can just see how demolished it really is. There was no use for the door, since half the walls seemed to have collapsed at some point. There's virtually no windows and the doors are somewhat in tact.
As dangerous as it seems, you both explore the house anyways. At some point, Dave managed to talk you into going to the second story first, just to see if there's any blankets or clothes rather than looking for food and water first. Which...was pretty smart actually.
Walking up partially broken stairs wasn't exactly the best thing in the world, but once you both got upstairs safely, you started looking around. You were careful of the floorboards, since most didn't seem safe and a good portion of the floor is missing; you just stepped where it seemed safe, and Dave followed close behind. The bedrooms upstairs were almost bare, someone may have come through here already. But you and Dave managed to find a few shirts and a blanket. Now you could use these as bags to put any food you find in. Much easier way of carrying things.
"Ok, we got everything we could up here. Let's go back downstairs now." He nodded and started walking back the way you came. You reached out quickly to jerk him back, earning a yelp from him. He turns to question you, but then a few floorboards crumble where he had stepped. You told him to be careful next time. There's no way you'll lose him from a misstep.
At least, that's what you thought. A few steps later, you hear a loud cracking sound. You look to Dave, who had the same confused, worried look on his own face, then everything fell.
Well, you fell. The entire second story floor collapsed under the both of you and you both plummeted to the ground below you. Everything was just blurry, then dark and then very painful.
You opened your eyes, blinking to refocus your vision and looked around. Yeah, you're on the first floor now. You try to move but wince at a sharp pain you feel in your abdomen. Your legs feel numb and tingly and the pain you feel is unbearable. Whimpering you bite down on the soft cushion under you as a reaction to the pain. You pull your head away quickly once you taste the familiar metal taste of blood pour into your mouth. You lift your head up more, realization hit you as your 'cushion' was actually Dave and you just bit into his shoulder.
Well fuck.
"Dave?" He's not moving. It dawned on you that he's directly under you, and he just fell an entire story flat on his back. You panicked.
"Dave! Wake up! Hey, talk to me. Please..." Tears quickly formed in your eyes and you gently tap his face, attempting wake him up. He's not gone, you know it. At least he can't be. Your hopes lift as he seems to stir, then come back all at once with a sputtering cough. Besides the small amount of blood he seemed to have coughed up, he looked relatively fine.
You just whine and burry your face in his neck, mumbling to him never to scare you like that again.
“I’m fine, Kay. It’s ok. I’m sorry for worrying you.” He’s silent for a moment, and then you feel his arms wrap around your chest. You become confused since this has never happened between you both before. Then he spoke again. “Fuck...damn it this isn’t going to end well.”
That scared you. What is he talking about? He’s holding you too tightly now for you to move and you’re starting to get really worried.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen? Did you break something? Dave, what happened?”
“Look...I don’t want to panic you, but I don’t think either of us are going to last long.” What? Is one of those things in here with you guys? Surely you can at least get up and run off fast enough to get away before it notices both of you.
“What? Is it one of the zombies? Can’t we just make a break for it and get away? I don’t understand.” He sighed, and slowly let go of you.
“Just...just look behind you.” You follow his order and look.
You begin to panic. No, This can’t happen. You don’t want this to happen. This is just a dream, right? One of those vivid and dramatic nightmares that have haunted you since this damned apocalypse happened.
Dave tries to soothe you, rubbing your upper back and whispering that it’s alright.
But it’s not.
There's a huge piece of floorboard going straight through the both of your stomachs.
How is this going to be okay? You just break down, laying your head on his chest and cried for what seemed like forever, but it was probably only a few minutes.
After a while it was silent between the both of you except for your faint sniffles. The he spoke up.
“I wish I did this sooner.” You lifted your head up and look at him, confused on what he was talking about. “I mean, hold you...and keep you close. Those kind of things, like I'm doing now. Granted, this isn’t the best situation, but you get my point.”
“Why?” Your voice comes out slightly garbled and cracks from crying.
“Because.”
“That’s not an answer dipshit.”
“Wow, close to death and you still throw down those insults.”
“Shut up. Just answer the question. What's the point in hiding it right now?” He shrugged, then winced in pain. Must hurt to move like that.
“I like you.”
“What. No no no. Dave, don’t you dare. Don’t you do this to me. You better just be spouting out nonsense like you usually are.”
“Sorry…” You can’t even bring yourself to be angry. You just let tears fall again. “Why? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“I didn’t know how to say it. Unlike you ‘the king of romance’, I don’t know what to say. It literally took us being minutes from bleeding out to death for me to say something.” His breathing was slowing, you could tell. His words were strained. No, it’s too soon for this.
You yourself are feeling more lightheaded as time passes on. This can’t happen like this. It just can’t.
You lean down and kiss him; he seems genuinely shocked at first but quickly returns it. The next few moments are just the two of you kissing, ignoring the taste of blood and tears mixing into it.
It’s cut short by the lack of air you both have. You can’t tell if you could have lasted longer or not, but with your life slowly slipping from you, everything's just starting to hazy and blend together. Your sense of being as well.
Minutes pass and you just ended up resting your head on Dave’s chest, being almost too weak to lift it again.
Dave’s the first one to break the silence again.
“Hey…” His voice is weak, barely even audible. “Can you do me a favor?” You nod as best you can. “Can...can you just kiss me until we die?”
The request itself is morbid, but in a sense romantic. You nod again, slowly lifting your head from his chest. Any faster and you think you would pass out.
Once you get your head up enough, you practically let it drop so you can kiss the body below you. He returns it, but his effort is close to nonexistent. He’s slipping away just as fast as you are. A few seconds later you can feel him lace your fingers together.
Sharing one last kiss and holding hands before you both go seems like the best ending to you.
As time passes you notice that Dave has become colder, and really isn’t moving at all. You don’t even have the will in you to cry or scream or do anything really.
Until we both die, huh? You try to keep this kiss going as long as possible, but coldness id engulfing you and your vision is fading.
The last thing you think of before you fall limp and your head rolls to Dave's shoulder is just how perfectly your hands fit together.