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It had been a rough couple of weeks for the gang, especially for Smitty. Who knew that getting shot in the thigh could cause so many issues for someone? The incident definitely put their plans to a stop as they had to now split their focus on continuing their search for supplies but now they all had to find something to help Smitty walk around.
Well. Not everyone was helping.
Matt had essentially fucked off from the others after Smit and John finally made their way back to the run-down house they were using as a base of operations and shelter. Obviously, everyone was concerned about the very obvious wound on Smitty’s leg and Puffer took note of the severe lack of Matt in the house. But Matt was not entirely on his own. Not yet, at least. He came back to their house after a day passed, spending the night crashing in a house down the street he’d been using to hide his own stash of supplies. No one said much to him when he walked through the door, so he spent the day becoming one with the shadows and cracks in the wall. Sneaking around silently trying to check on things, scoffing occasionally whenever he saw the others. John and Smit talking softly to each other on the mattress in the living room. Grizzy talking to Droid about his Pokemon cards. Puffer and Pezzy huddled at the kitchen table, planning out their next scavenging route.
It’s not like Matt cared about any of them. Not like they cared for one another at least. The blond saw no use for friendships or saw the point in caring so much about others. It’s the end of the world, they’re all gonna die eventually.
Smitty shared a similar thought process at first. When the world suddenly comes to a halt and everything gets turned inside out and upside down, it’s hard to find things such as friends important anymore. At that point, it’s more about surviving. When Matt came to him with the idea of them working together, of course the offer seemed amazing. It was easier to travel in a smaller group and there is less stress about having to divide up food and supplies. Smitty agreed almost immediately. He was always known as someone who could make connections with others, but he had to push back the flames of connection that wanted to burn within his chest now whenever he talked to the group. It was for his own benefit.
But oh did he not realize how wrong he had been.
What Smitty wasn’t aware of was that Matt just wanted to show that he could control the group. That he was power-hungry and just wanted someone he could use as a puppet for his grand master plan of trying to survive the apocalypse on his own. Smitty wasn’t sure how he felt about having to try to get close to the others and gain their trust only to break it behind their backs whenever he reported back to Matt about his findings.
When the brunette tried to take Matt aside one day to tell him how he was feeling about having to be a spy, Matt just shoved him aside.
“Man the fuck up, Smit. You know damn well how things work around here. You help me figure out the weakest links and where the good supplies may be hidden around town, and in return, I let you live and I split our little findings with you. Got it?” The blond spat the last of his words out venomously, a bite to his tone that made Smitty pause to think about his next sentence.
“But Matt, dude, how do you expect me to keep lying to our friends about where we run off to when they notice we disappear to raid a house they were planning to visit? Or what about trying to make sure they’re still going to be able to survive if we do leave them for good?” Smitty finished speaking and swallowed hard, his throat was dry and he could feel his palms starting to sweat. He knew he was starting to get too close with some of the others and needed to know where exactly Matt stood.
At this point, the older man turned around and shook his head. “Friends? Hah, good fucking joke, Smit,” he spat. “You better not be getting soft on me, bitch. Rule number one is to not form any attachments. Just like us. You help me, I help you and that’s it. Now get the fuck out of here, I’m gonna go check out that gas station down the street again.”
That was the last one-to-one conversation the two had before the first incident. Smitty knew he was getting attached to the others in their group, especially John. The two would go scavenging or hunting together, creating inside jokes. Smitty knew things were shifting when one day John had given him a bracelet made of tattered strings of green thread. Walking into the field by the house they’ve been staying in and hearing yelling was definitely not a great sign. But deep down, Smitty felt a spark in his core he hadn’t felt since he started working with Matt.
Smitty recognized John’s voice telling Matt to fuck off. He picked up the pace and ran over to the figures rolling around in the dirt and froze at the sight. Matt laying on the ground, clearly beaten up and there was a smear of blood on his cheek. But it wasn’t his blood. It was John’s. Pouring from his eye, dripping onto the other man’s face. Guilt. The first thing he felt when he ran in and separated the two men, shoving Matt aside forcefully. Worry. The second thing he felt when he checked on John and noticed just how bad the injury was. Fear. The third thing Smitty felt when he felt ice-cold daggers glaring into the back of his head from the puppeteer he’s been working for.
A guilty conscience causes someone to become hyperaware of situations. It can make someone worry about making the right choices. Doing the best for others and making sure they’re okay first before finally taking time for yourself. This was now the cycle Smitty was in as he hardly left John’s side now, rarely speaking to Matt about the occasionally hidden weapon every now and then. Realistically, he should’ve seen this coming. He should’ve seen it when he was cornered by Matt. Should’ve seen it coming when the words “traitor” and “I could kill you right now” were spat out at him. Maybe the gun aimed at him still wasn’t a clear enough sign.
The burst of pain in his thigh and the ringing in his ears from the gunshot definitely woke up his senses though.
That incident was the final missing puzzle piece that made Smitty realize that something was wrong with being Matt’s spy. He was now laying in the dirt, left alone stuck feeling more like prey than a predator he thought he had to be in order to survive. As he was clutching his leg, trying to use his hoodie to cover the wound to stop the bleeding, he began to pray for someone to come looking for him. Matt left him there to die and he was starting to fear he just might do that.
“Smitty? Dude where the hell are you?” A voice cut through Smitty’s clouded thoughts and all he could do was yell back.
“JOHN! I’M HERE, PLEASE, I NEED YOU.” The brunette’s voice was hoarse and scratchy and only then did he realize he had been crying. When John finally made his way over, taking longer than he would’ve liked due to his lack of vision in one eye, it felt like deja vu. John did his best to help his friend stop the bleeding, eventually deciding it would be best to have more help.
“Smit, I’m so sorry man, but I have to move you. It’s not that far to the house from here, come on, please, I know you’re probably in so much fucking pain but I can’t leave you here to die. Not like this.”
The pleading tone in John’s voice added more fuel to the spark still growing deep within Smitty’s chest. He wanted to live, even if it was in a shitty world. He wanted to be with the others, his friends . He wanted to be with John. As Smitty mustered up the strength to try and stand with John’s help, a flock of birds flew above the pair. He reached up and pushed his multicolored glasses up on top of his head and made a mental note about this moment.
He may be bleeding and crying, on the verge of passing out. He may be making his best friend worry. He may not even make it. And yet, Smitty feels like this is the part where everything changed. A shifting point, tipping the scales slightly more in his favor - despite the new disadvantage he has with his injury, it still felt like he was beginning to fly again.
That’s where they were all at currently. The flock of mismatched pairs working together to support their newly injured friend and their predator lurking around them, waiting to strike again. Matt’s presence made Smitty feel uneasy, but between the few pain meds they managed to find and the calming voice of John reading some shitty book they found, he wasn’t worried anymore.
Yet he still felt like there was still unresolved tension between him and John. The guilt was still burning wildly within him, and it was competing with a secondary flame of compassion that was slowly starting to burn brighter than the other. Smitty hated feeling conflicted like this, he needed to find a way to make things go back to normal again.
Well, as normal as things could be in an apocalypse and your best friend has an eye injury and you now are unable to walk without mobility aids.
It was only a few days after he had started to get the hang of using his new mobility aids that Grizzy and Puffer managed to find at the abandoned doctor’s office all the way downtown when the idea came to Smitty. From his time working as a spy for Matt, he learned about Pezzy always carrying soda tabs on him. He also knew that Droid had a soda tab bracelet and it wasn’t difficult to put the two together.
With everyone taking shifts to keep an eye on Smitty, it was just himself and Pezzy left in the house for the day. The perfect opportunity the enact his plan. Slowly making his way from the couch to the kitchen table, Smitty noticed Pezzy looking at his soda tabs and was seemingly working on another bracelet or tab chain of sorts. Smitty cleared his throat and began to speak. “Pezzy, do you think you could make somethin’ for me? Or teach me how to make something with those at least?”
The other man looked up from the soda tabs in his hands and gave a nod, getting up from his seat to help Smitty get settled at the table so they could work on their creation easier. Pezzy was incredibly patient with showing his friend how to connect the soda tabs together to make a chain that could then be turned into a bracelet or used for other things.
Smitty had just gotten himself situated back on the living room couch with his gift hidden in his hoodie pocket when the rest of the guys came back from their day out. Droid silently tossed him a random pair of gloves that had grip supports on them as he walked by. Smitty had no idea where he found them but he knew he had made the right choice by making attachments and becoming friends with everyone. After everyone seemed to go off to their rooms in the house, a familiar face entered the living room. Despite the face mask, he could still see the smile in John’s eyes that made Smitty feel that secondary flame grow even bigger, almost drowning out the weaker one finally. Almost.
They sat silently together for a bit, just enjoying each other’s company. Smitty broke the silence first. “Have you ever felt like you had to shut your heart off from the world? Just, putting up these barriers preventing others from coming into your life?”
John seemed confused by the words but hummed in acknowledgment, encouraging Smitty to continue speaking.
“It hurts, John. It all hurts and I’m not the best with words, not like this but, I’m hoping that you’ll keep your heart open. You’ve been nothing but kind and caring towards me, even though I practically caused you to get hurt. And you’ve started to mean a lot to me. I don’t wanna fight with you about things anymore, about who’s guilty of what. I think we’re pretty even now,” Smitty pauses and lets out an airy laugh about their situation.
“But, I think I want to try to open my heart up again. Something is wrong with what’s happened recently and I can’t really explain it, but just…” Smitty lets his words trail off as he reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out the gift he and Pezzy made earlier that day. He holds it in his shaking hands for a second until he feels a nudge in his side. He looks up from the ground to see that John had pulled his face mask down slightly, the corners of his mouth are visible. There’s a soft smile resting on his face that makes Smitty realize that this is what matters most.
He opens his hand and drops the gift into John’s hands. It’s a ring made from bottle tabs and a matching charm for his necklaces.
“I, uh, had Pez help me out a bit since I didn’t know how to make anything like that but I thought this could be a token of forgiveness? There’s stuff I’ve done that I can’t tell you but I can’t keep this inside. So, this is just something to symbolize that we’re okay, because god otherwise I would just have to run away because I made things awkward. Or if this makes you run away from me and I fucked up more then I’ll never get to know just how much-”
“Smit, shut up for a second,” John interrupts, his voice barely above a whisper. “Dude, I love this. You really thought that you needed to give me something for some kind of forgiveness? Dumbass, I’ll still care about you regardless of any sort of gift or anything else. You’ve done a lot for us, and sure there seems to be stuff I can’t know about but that’s alright, Smit. Thank you.”
John puts the ring on his middle finger on his left hand and uses his other to reach over and grab the other man’s hand. He gives it a gentle squeeze and pulls his face mask back up properly on his face.
“And by the way, if you ever asked me to run away with you to get away from whatever’s been dragging you down, just give me the word and we can fly out of here as fast as we can. Together.”