Chapter Text
”Sometime around the dawn, the Sun’s hardly up. It’s probably six, I don’t know. Since I ran out of batteries it’s been hard to tell time.” The air fell silent with only couple of calm breaths and distant yells of infected disrupting it. “Yesterday I had thirty-five cans of food and now I counted thirty-two. Some son-of-a-bitch is seriously stealing my supplies. Dick should get his own food.”
Dirt covered fingers grabbed one of the said cans, dark eyes reading the faded label. Beans it was today. Again. “Well, I guess you gotta do whatever you can to survive, huh?” A recording device was shut with too much force and shoved into the pocket of the black cargo pants. A young man shivered a little in the morning air as he stood up, covering the stash with the usual branches and blanks. He probably had to move his food somewhere else if the thief continued visiting his lands. It’d happened for the third time in one week. Just how much did that little shit eat? Didn’t he know one did not eat everything at once during the fucking apocalypse? Or he was simply an idiot or he actually was a good person who had a family to feed.
Who knew, Raphael surely did not. And he didn’t care. It was his property, okay.
He raised his hands above his head, hearing a satisfying pop and groaning in bliss. It was such a peaceful morning – just him, the singing of the birds and the silent groans of his traps swaying in the wind. Damn, if he just had some coffee and his day would be absolutely perfect. He snatched the pot on his way to the front of the worn out tent, lighting up the campfire with practiced ease. His eyes lingered on the shiny surface of the pot taking in the hard eyes looking back and stopping at the dark brown curls. He tried to push them behind his ears, wondering how long it’d been he’d stopped giving a shit about his looks. He scratched his beard, liking the way it made him look wild and dangerous. If he ever caught the fucking thief he’d stop messing around with Raphael only after taking one look at him. He smirked, chucking the beans and water to the pot and placing it over the fire.
One especially loud scream pierced through his ears and he looked up to the end of the clearing. He saw distantly four figures swinging upside down from his traps, one of them waving its hands wildly like trying to swing away. It must have been the screamer. Why did they have to scream? Well sure it could have something to do with losing your mind after getting your brain cells killed thanks to the virus but still. It disrupted Raphael’s breakfast.
With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head he turned back to cooking. About ten screams later he gave in, saying goodbye to the warming sun, took a good hold of the hunting rifle that had been laying innocently next to the once-bright-orange couch and set out. His guts gave him a needy churn. One would think coffee would be the last thing people wanted to stock on during the fucking end of the world but apparently other people were just as addicted to it as Raphael was. It was gone from everywhere. He hit the jackpot only like once here and there and even then he could only drink couple of cups of it. At least he wasn’t short on water since there was a nice stream just up ahead where he’d camped couple of years ago. But the coffee.
He loaded the rifle with an aggressive move.
He saw them hanging around, whining and yelling like every other morning. Raphael stopped for a moment to observe them listening them to yell stupid shit. Some of them had lost their ability to form coherent sentences already, they were so gone, being a human just a faint memory in their looks, and probably about to die soon anyway but some of them seemed to be only recently infected since Raphael heard two of them scream things like “PLEASE” or “C’MERE LITTLE BOY” (Raphael was far from little with his 180 centimetres of height and 90 kilos of muscle) or “I’M SO SORRY I STOLE YOUR SHIT”.
Raphael blinked and turned to the one who’d yelled the last one. His eyes landed on a man with black hair, waving his hands wildly at Raphael and then to the infected next to him who was moving his jaw like a shark and then back to Raphael. Raphael looked down and saw his cans laying on the moss just right under the guy. So he’d found his thief. Good thing he always placed his nice rope traps around his camp just in case. There were always some infected trying to sneak up on him while he was sleeping. Now that wouldn’t be good.
With a fed up sigh rifle was pointed at the first infected and Raphael pulled the trigger. The woman’s brain splattered all around the forest. The hanging thief gave a loud yelp just like other infected did. Raphael readied his gun again and shot the next one. He loaded it again and pointed the barrel right between the eyes of the thief.
“Wait!”
Raphael rose his eyebrow.
“You can’t shoot me, please!”
The infected next to him started to sway, laughing like a maniac. Its hands scraped the thief a little whose face in turn scrunched up in fear. “Shoot him, shoot him!”
Raphael massaged the bridge of his nose. Why did the infected always get so annoying? Like, did insanity do that to you?
“No, you can’t listen to him! He’s infected and crazy!”
“Shoot the little boy, shoot the little rabbit!”
“No, please! I’m begging you! I was just hungry, I didn’t mean to--!”
“I wanna eat you. Let me eat you! EAT YOU! EAT YOU! EAT YOU EAT YOU EA--!”
A loud bang echoed through the clearing, scaring something away because the forest started to crack loudly. Deadly silence followed the echo. The yelling infected hang upside down now with half of its head missing. The silence fell between the left infected and Raphael. Dark eyes observed the man with brown wide-blown eyes and stuttering mouth.
Raphael loaded the gun one last time.
“Hey hey hey! Wait! Just a second, please, man!”
Raphael stared hard down at the guy.
“Okay, I guess you’re waiting? You’re waiting. I suppose—“
“If you don’t stop blabbing I’m going to make you stop.”
“Sorry, sorry!” The thief swung his arms again. It looked stupid and unsteady, not convincing at all when all it made him to do was swing back and forth from the tree. Raphael steadied his gun to get even better angle to the guy’s brain.
“I’m so sorry I stole your food, dude. But it was just there and I’m hungry and I have a little sister and we need food, okay?”
When Raphael gave no answer he swallowed loudly and continued with a stutter,
“I know that you’ve probably worked hard to—“
“I almost lost an arm and leg to get that shit.”
The thief’s eyes widened and he paled noticeably. “I’m so so sorry! You worked hard, okay? But I don’t have a gun like that and not even muscle. See?”
First he fished out a little pocket knife from his pants throwing it to Raphael’s feet and then started to flex his pathetic arm muscle. There were some since it was pretty much impossible to get through three years of apocalypse without any kind of physical work but even Raphael had to admit the guy was right. He kneeled next to the man’s head.
“So what’s your point?”
The thief let out a frustrated groan. “Can’t you see, dude? I can’t just go fight head on those psychos! Or other people. Like, I’d totally lose to you if I even tried to take your stocks forcefully.”
Raphael nodded, making sure the guy got a good look of his ripping arm muscle. It was a good day to wear a tank top, especially when you couldn’t drink any coffee but instead got to see some fearful eyes which was almost as good as the black heavenly liquid.
“S-So I’m no threat to you? Okay?” The thief sniffed a little. “Please?”
Raphael tilted his head, looking into the brown honest eyes. The man’s face was something called an open book – easy to read and use for your own purposes to manipulate. It was exactly the type Raphael didn’t trust. He poked the thief’s forehead with the barrel of the gun.
“You’re infected,” he stated, taking a note of every muscle twist of the blood covered face as he pressed the trigger only a tiny bit. He held a smile in.
“I definitely am not. I swear to my mom and her ancestors.”
Raphael raised his brow. “Is that supposed to be a heavy promise?”
The guy sobbed out. “Yes!” He gasped for breath for a while, looking uncomfortable. But guess it wasn’t any wonder since hanging upside down for god knew how many hours next to an even crazier infected and was now threatened with a pretty powerful rifle. And he’d seen that Raphael’s aim was hundred percent accurate.
The guy closed his eyes for a while, swallowing hardly. “Please, man. I don’t want it to end like this.”
Raphael froze, he lifted his finger off of the trigger. The guy looked stiff, scared. Absolutely terrified. His eyes glimmered with unshed tears, his mouth opening and closing like he was contemplating whether it was better to stay quiet or whine more. He looked straight at Raphael.
The gun lowered and the dirt covered face disappeared behind a palm of a hand. “What am I doing?” he muttered. He ignored a bubbling laughter the thief let out. It sounded almost surprised, like he wasn’t believing what was happening.
“Oh my god, thank you! I swear to you you’re not going to regret this! I promise I’m going to stay the hell out of… here… What are you doing?”
Raphael rummaged his pocket, dicking out the small black recorder, still grouching down next to the man’s head. The guy went quiet as he watched the bigger man press the record button and start talking.
“About an hour after the dawn. I found the thief hanging from one of my traps. It doesn’t want me to kill it.”
Raphael watched as the thief blinked rapidly, flicking between his face and the small device. “Y-Yes, I don’t want to die—“
“It says it’s not infected but I can call his bullshit—“
“I am not! How could I be, I’m not insane, man!” Raphael’s mouth hang open as he watched the man’s dirty hands curl into angry balls. “And I’m not it, I’m him. A human being.”
“It talks a lot—“
“He! He talks a lot… and I do not—“
“I’m still wondering if I should blow its brain out now or wait until it’s fully turned.” The guy was about to open his mouth again to argue but lifting the gun only a tiny bit was enough to make him snap it shut. “I guess it’s for the best to get rid of it before it has to suffer too much.”
“Seriously, fuck you man.”
Raphael froze. The thief froze. Even the whole forest froze as the gun was pointed at the forehead again and the thief was trying to cover his golden brown face with his hands.
Raphael’s voice was heavy, dripping with ice but his lips, they were smiling. “I’m sorry?”
“I-I mean! Uh, fuck you… man? As in… I find you sexually... attractive or something?”
They stared at each other for a while. The thief became redder and redder every second, realizing with what he’d just saved himself with. The guy looked Asian, Raphael noticed. His eyes were the biggest giveaway but high cheekbones, thick dark hair and lean frame were pretty obvious too. One side of Raphael’s lip twisted up at the same time as he lifted the rifle to his shoulder.
“The day has finally come when a fucking infected finds me sexually attractive.”
Maybe Raphael’s attitude was getting to the man even stronger than the fear he tried to cause since the thief rolled his eyes, looking absolutely done with the whole thing. “For the last time I’m not—“
Raphael didn’t give a shit. “Infected? Yeah, sure. Like any actual sane human would be stupid enough to step right into a trap that obvious.” But he indeed enjoyed the way the guy’s face fell.
“Now that was uncalled for.”
“It knows some big words, too.”
Even the hard stare was pretty amusing. Raphael pinched himself unnoticeably, forcing himself to concentrate on the down-to-earth thoughts. He schooled his expression to indifference as he concentrated on the recording again.
“He.”
“Fine, fine. For some reason it’s stuck on pronouns so he it is. He is quite a stupid human being for getting caught.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Good for you then that I’m not here to make you feel any better. I’m here to make sure you don’t go biting other people who actually still have a chance to survive. So, I’m going to be nice about this because it looks like you have still some humane feelings left in you so I’m gonna wait it out with you and kill you when you start losing it. Is that okay with you?”
The guy’s face twisted a little more until he finally averted his intense stare and let his body hang loose. “Like you’re gonna do any different even if I disagreed.”
“Looks like we’ll get along just fine then, He.”
“It’s… it’s not my name, you know. I’m Min-jun.”
Min-jun. Raphael had no idea from which part of Asia the guy was originally. He poked him with the barrel again.
“It’s too hard, you’re still It.”
“Wow, you’re seriously an asshole. No wonder you live alone.”
Raphael shook his head, finally getting up. He pushed the stop button, aware of how long he’d used the device already but still for some reason he kept using it. Making sure to keep taps on everything. Just, everything. He picked up the guy’s knife, slashing the rope with it. The thief fell with an ‘oof’ and a lot of whining of how Raphael could be gentler with him – he was still not there to be nice to people – but before he had time to get his footing back, Raphael twisted the thin wrists behind the thief’s back, ignoring the way it must have hurt. He pushed the head down, gripping the thick, neatly cut hair to show his authority. Of course the guy was one of those who thought it was worth it to bother with cutting your hair even during the apocalypse. Well, the guy said it himself; he was no fighter which made him pretty much weak as fuck and thus a thief too. This Min-jun guy was definitely someone Raphael despised. He was a liar too, saying shit about being a normal human being. He’d seen his type before. They were always so scared of their lives that they were able to lie with a straight face.
He fought back the urge to rub the phantom of the breath off of his neck. Instead he leaned in, not too close so the guy wouldn’t have a chance to bite him, and tightened his grip of the hair.
“Listen, man, you’re treading some thin ice here so if I were you, I’d stay nice and quiet the rest of my life.”
The guy’s breath shook but a little sniff and a silent nod told Raphael he’d heard him clear. Satisfied, Raphael pushed him forward towards the camp.
~*~*~*~
“So… how old are you?”
Raphael’s eyes narrowed, zeroing down to the person tied up against the tree. It didn’t escape his attention how the thief’s legs twisted nervously against the ground and how he fidgeted left and right like trying to escape the robe around his torso.
“Why?” The thief’s eyes snapped up. What had he been looking at? They tended to drift here and there, Raphael noticed. He leaned forward a little more, nodding in approval as the thief paled a little.
“N-No reason…” the thief’s voice faded away. It was surprising it was capable to that considering how loudly the other man seemed to speak. “I just noticed that you’re pretty young, eh?”
He leaned back a little. “I suppose,” he nodded. “Young delicious meat and all that, am I right?”
“No! I mean, absolutely not! For the last time, dude, I’m not infected.”
“Then why the hell are you asking?”
His feet fidgeted a little more, kicking the dirt under the soles of the grey sneakers. When nothing else was said, the thief finally gave up with a sigh. “Look, I’m not going anywhere so you can relax and, you know, stop looking at me and stuff. All this silence and your stare and that… gun make me freaking nervous.”
Raphael played around with the rifle.
“I don’t know, man. Can’t we just, you know, do small talk or something?” The Asian shrugged, his face telling Raphael again exactly what he thought about Raphael sitting right across him on a faded orange sofa with a deadly weapon and not letting his eyes off of him for a second. Raphael knew, though, that the guy would try to run if he let his eyes stray even for a minute. He knew the guy stole things, in other words he knew he could be a sneaky little bastard. There’s no way he’d let his eyes stray off of a sneaky infected who could go crazy any second.
They always said they weren’t infected at first.
Raphael scratched his neck absentmindedly and then readied his gun just in case.
The guy, Minji or whatever, let his head finally fall against the trunk and eyes stray to the clear blue sky. It was a beautiful day.
“Do you know what time it is?” The question was quiet but Raphael heard it. Nothing escaped his ears.
“Somewhere around the noon. Why? Need to be somewhere?”
The thief shrugged. “Kinda. Think I told you I got a little sister. She’s alone right now.”
Raphael lifted his brow lazily. “Great time to learn some self-defence then. Now that his dear big brother is gonna go nuts, yeah?”
“You’re a dick.”
He loaded the gun with a click. “I dare to differ.”
The thief went pale fast, eyeing the barrel with suspicion. He closed his mouth, though. For an hour at least. They sat there like that, one avoiding to look the other and the other trying not to concentrate on the pressure growing in his bladder. Raphael shifted for the first time in hours, cursing himself for not peeing before going to kill the hanging infected.
The thief wasn’t as ignorant as Raphael had suspected which only made the bigger man want to shoot him in his place. He eyed Raphael up and down and said, “Err, you can, you know, go to the bush or wherever you do it, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”
Like Raphael couldn’t see the gleam in his eyes.
“Yeah, right.”
“Seriously, man. No one can go without peeing.” He shifted a little. “Actually, me neither. Can I go to pee, if you’re not?”
Silence.
“You can’t just tell me not to. Humans don’t work like that.”
Raphael shook his head and stood up. “Fine.”
The thief’s eyes widened dramatically. “Fine? Really?”
Raphael moved to open the robes. He kept the rifle on his shoulder, his reflects ready to shoot if necessary. But the guy just stood up, looking sadly happy about something as minor as relieving himself. Raphael grabbed his shoulder, weighing it down seriously. “If I see you even think about running away, I’m gonna make sure peeing is the last thing you’ll ever do. What a heroic way to go, huh?”
He didn’t wait for a reply, just pushed the shell shocked Asian towards the edge of the woods. He felt the man stiffen under his palm, his movements becoming jerky like he was walking right straight to his death. He gripped the shoulder a little harder, enjoying the quiet wince he got back.
“C’mon, move it.”
He pushed the guy forward and watched blankly as he threw him against the large tree. He readied his rifle and nodded down. “Go on then.”
Min-guy looked down. “You got to be kidding me.” He shook his head, throwing his hands up. “Right here? While you look? You some pervert or something?”
“I don’t exactly enjoy watching some infected guy’s junk, thank you very much.”
The thief stalled a little, still not removing his eyes off of the armed man. “One would think… Okay, okay! I get it with the gun and shit. Just please don’t kill me, okay? Be a bro.”
“You sound like American. It’s disgusting.”
Min-guy turned his back slowly to Raphael and a sound of zipper being opened was heard. “Hey! There’s nothing wrong with Americans. And I might sound one because, well, I kinda am one. Kinda. I mean, I lived there about ten years with my family before all the shit went down. Actually we moved up here to Canada about a year before the patient zero was discovered. Man that was some crazy shit. But, you know, I’m not exactly American either even though we lived there so many yea—“
Raphael fired the gun. The bullet went right through the tree trunk next to the blabbering thief’s head, leaving a small hole behind. The guy had went dead silent, staring at the tear right next to his left ear. The peeing had stopped.
Raphael took the safety off again calmly. The shot had been stupid and unnecessary but damn was it satisfying to hear the terrified silence of the infected man. He snickered a little, startling the thief out of his thoughts. Wide, brown eyes turned to stare at him with disbelieve.
“Fucking hell…”
“I don’t care about your past story.”
“I noticed that. Jesus Christ… You fucking sadist or what? You must be because, Jesus mother fucking Christ…”
“I can do it again. And don’t worry, I won’t miss.”
The thief licked his chapped lips. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”
Raphael lifted his brow amusedly. “Then shut up?”
“Yeah. Shut up. Got it.” He stuffed himself back in and turned around. “Just shut up…”
The guy was unbelievable but Raphael ignored him in order to relieve himself. He propped the gun up against the nearest tree and started to open the zipper.
“Whoa, dude! What the hell! Give me a warning or something before you start flashing. I mean not that your… your thing’s not impressive or anything but c’mon, man just—“
“If you try anything stupid you know I’ll shoot you. And I. Won’t. Miss. Are we clear?”
The smaller man nodded frantically. “Yeah, clear as blue sky! I’m so sorry, I won’t try anything.”
Raphael gave him a hard stare and only after seeing the man shiver violently he went back to the necessary business. “You’re quite obedient.”
It was quiet for a while. “Only… Only trying to stay alive, that’s all. I have to get back home one day.” He muttered something incoherent to himself and even though Raphael tried to listen closely he only could catch words like, “Soon” and “Crazy”.
Ignoring it, he went on, not letting himself to be lulled into a peaceful daze. Then something snapped. His eyes flew right to the thief but he was standing at the same spot, eyes glued to the distance where the sound had come from. Then after two heart beats later it was clear what had made the sound. An infected woman in a ripped flower dress ran straight at them, wobbling from one side to another, screaming its lungs out. Its sharp pupils told Raphael it was far too gone to remember it’d been a human once.
It also ran right to the thief.
Raphael grabbed his gun and shot without a second thought. The bullet went right through the skull in one second and next the body was lying beside the thief’s feet, blood flooding everywhere. Raphael’s eyes found the guy who was staring down to the dead woman hand over his mouth like the death was something out of ordinary. Raphael rolled his eyes, zipping up. He kicked the body on the way, his eyes cold. He avoided seeing the dirty and greasy blond hair and glassed eyes. Instead he placed his hand on the bony shoulder and pushed the man back to the camp. The body was shaking, he pushed harder. His eyes lingered on the splashes of dark and bright red blood covering the chubby face.
When he tied the Min-guy up once again he was rougher than necessary, trying to push the winces and daring yells out of his mind. When he stood up he didn’t go back to sit on his couch to keep watch. Instead he laid the man one last threat and went to deal with all the dead infected he’d collected that day.
~*~*~*~
Raphael secured the ties around the thief and went on until he was finally satisfied. It’d be hard to escape now.
He felt eyes on him and he lifted his head only to meet a pair of chocolate eyes looking at him worriedly. The night had already fallen so it was hard to see why they looked like that but he could guess. He didn’t look away as the other’s eyes started to glance around nervously and front teeth bite down to a full bottom lip. He was so obvious it made Raphael want to claw his own face out of his skull.
Instead he stood up, putting the fire out so it wouldn’t attract any thinking, unnecessary guests. It became almost completely dark, only a half moon and millions of stars lighting up the Earth. He looked up for a while, taking it all in and feeling pathetically small and unimportant. Then, with the final look back to the guy whose eyes were glued to the universe above them, he said,
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
It was a threat. It was clear to both of them. Raphael couldn’t see what was going on with Min’s head anymore, it was way too dark.
“Y-You’re going to leave me here?” He took a deep, stuttering breath. “Outside?”
“Yeah. Unless you prefer hanging another night upside down—“
“Nope! No way, dude! I’m sorry. Here’s quite nice to stay!”
“Sure.”
“I mean… With couple of stray infected keeping me company and all. And that I can’t move if they want to… hug me or some shit. Yeah, can’t hug back. That’s pretty bad, don’t you think?” he laughed nervously.
Raphael stayed quiet for a second. “Well, it means faster death to you then. You don’t have to turn.”
“You can’t be serious! I’m not infected, I fucking swear! I’m not, I’m so not! I’m clean, I’m healthy and I can do fucking anything to you if you let me go or let me at least sleep in your tent!”
Raphael let out a bark of mocking laughter. “You got to be kidding me! Like I’d let an infected to sleep next to me. What if you decided to go crazy enough to bite me while I have my neck bared to you, huh? What about then? Or do you have some sick romantic thoughts of fucking turning with someone together? Because I’m not gonna go down with that shit.”
His breath was laboured but the other man kept quiet. He let his hand run over his tired face, maybe trying to wipe away the whole fucking crazy day. It didn’t work.
Nothing else was said. There was nothing else to say. So Raphael turned around and kneeled inside his tent. But just when he was about to zip the entrance close he heard a quiet sob.
He hit his chest, telling it to shut up.
Sleep caught up with him only an hour later.
A/N: Hello everyone who ended up reading this far! So I was feeling like writing something apocalyptic and this was the happiest story I ended up with (my mind’s pretty warped). The story is set somewhere in Canada but I’m not Canadian nor any other mentioned ethnicity so I’m sorry if any possible facts are wrong. Also, I have no idea about slang words in Canada sooo :D Anyway, this was fun and fast to write. It’s also going to be about four or five chapters and I’ve already finished it so I really don’t understand if I still fail to not finish this. Then you all can just hit me and tell me to get out of here.