Archive of Our Own

“Can I please drive tomorrow?”

So that had been a mistake. Not the first one Minho had made in his life, but certainly the latest one. Minho was staring at the wheel in front of him, his hands sweating against the soft lining inside his leathery gloves. He had had to adjust the seat after Chan had given up his place to Minho after days and days of begging. Begging, which clearly had been a mistake. Minho could see the error in his ways now.

He was not going to back down, oh no. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t work like that.

But still, it had been years since he had been behind the wheel of a car for the last time. Truly, years. Even as a Ghost, he hadn’t been the one to drive the getaway car ever since he had been promoted to be the third-in-command, so, one couldn’t blame Minho that he wasn’t even entirely sure if his foot was resting on the clutch pedal. He pressed the pedal down with his foot, nothing really happened, so it was the clutch. The one on the left. Yeah. The clutch. It did things.

“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. Shut up”, Minho mumbled, not daring to glance at the man next to him. This situation was entirely too odd for them – through all of their travels Minho had sat in the passenger seat, and Chan had been behind the wheel. Now Chan was the one in the passenger seat, and Minho was behind the wheel. And regretting it. But Chan didn’t need to know that.

“Alright”, Chan chuckled, pulling his seatbelt on with a click. Minho breathed in, pressed the clutch down, and finally turned the keys in the ignition switch. The motor of the van awakened from its slumber, and, perhaps with a little bit shaky hands, Minho switched the gear to number one. He could do this. He had done this before. He had driven a car before. He had been begging for this for weeks and now Chan was finally letting him drive his “baby”, as Chan so disgustingly called it, so he had everything to prove. Everything, as in, that he was able of driving a car. Alone. Without any comments or remarks.

Carefully, Minho started pressing the gas with his other foot that was not holding the clutch pedal. The motor made a noise, then a little louder noise, and Minho remembered to let go of the clutch. The car jumped forward, scared Minho, and then the motor turned off.

Minho huffed, annoyed. Chan chuckled:
“Slower. Let the clutch up slower.”
“Shut up. I can do this”, Minho answered, repeated the same steps he had just done all over again.
“Sure, love.”
Minho nearly smacked him. But just nearly. This time, he let the clutch up slower, and, lo and behold, it worked! The car didn’t jump forward, it slid forward and kept doing so as Minho pressed the gas.

“Switch the gear”, Chan muttered, quietly.
“Shut up. Be quiet”, Minho ordered him, but switched the gear to second, anyway. Silence, as Minho slowly picked up the speed with the van, turned the wheel, and pulled away from the motel parking lot to the road leading to wherever. He didn’t know where he was even supposed to drive. His map reader next to him hopefully knew.

“I said be quiet”, Minho mumbled once more as he managed to straighten the car on the road. He could see from the side window that the trio’s camper van had started following them from a safe distance.
“I didn’t say anything”, Chan laughed.
“I can hear you thinking. The gears in your head turning.”
“Just focus on the road”, Chan told him. Minho turned his head just slightly, and stuck his tongue out at him, but didn’t let his eyes wander off the road. He wasn’t stupid. And he didn’t believe in himself enough to stay on the road if he didn’t keep his attention on it at all times.

Minho focused, let himself breathe. He was driving. The van was going forward as Minho pressed the gas, switched the gear again. He was doing this, he was driving. That thought delighted him quite a bit as the initial fright let go of him.

“Watch it, speed. I’m not sure we’re equipped for driving over forty kilometers per hour”, Chan laughed at him after two kilometers of what one might call “Sunday driving.”
“Fuck you”, Minho hissed at him, yet sped up nevertheless. Sixty. Sixty would be alright for now. At least for a while, until Minho would properly get a grasp of how to drive a car after so many years.

At least there wasn’t any traffic. Except for some lonesome, ages-old zombies that could barely stay up.

Minho hadn’t even really thought of it, but now he did as he drove past the corpse that twitched alive only after the last of their little trio of cars drove past it: their little ensemble hadn’t seen… well, anything, except dried-up corpses lately. Those kinds of walkers barely had any kick to them, they weren’t of danger unless one would forget to be at least a little bit cautious around them. Minho wasn’t like that. Unfortunately for him, even the sight of one walker rang all the alarm bells inside of his head, loud and clear. He tried to get rid of that, truly did, it was annoying, and he didn’t like how panic tasted in his mouth and how Chan got all worried for him.

Minho breathed in, kept his chin up. He didn’t let the images from the past flood his mind, away from the stuffy vents of the Start Point, away from the chaos of the marketplace. That was a lone walker, an almost dead one, it wasn’t going to come for him like all the others had. Minho let the breath out, focused on the road, glanced to his right. Chan was looking at him, slightly worried, his eyebrow arched.

“I’m fine”, Minho said before Chan had the chance to say anything. He would have asked if Minho was alright, and both of them knew that no, he was not, he’d never be, but that’s how life was. Unfortunately, that was the price Minho, and many others, were paying for the world collapsing on them. But he was alright now. Sort of. His mind didn’t get the best of him.

Minho accidentally drove over a bump in the road, Chan grumbled something under his breath about his baby and delicate driving. Minho rolled his eyes at Chan; as if the man was any more delicate than Minho. Minho could very well remember how they had driven through that horde of walkers, and the van hadn’t even been as well protected as it was now. And oh, all of those kilometers of broken asphalt, of skeletal bodies, of roads in the woods that could barely be seen after years of not being used. So yes, Minho was being very delicate.

“Turn left on the next intersection”, Chan muttered after a while. He had picked up the map from the glove compartment and was gazing through it. Usually, Minho was the one to do that, that’s how it had been, well, since the beginning. At least almost. Well, technically Minho wasn’t really of help, as in, Chan didn’t need help navigating the roads he usually drove as he was so familiar with them, but Minho had attempted to help, anyway. He liked to think of it as helping, at least. Chan had thought he had been incredibly annoying.

Minho slowed the car down, then turned left. He noticed as Chan kept glancing at the side window, then at the rearview mirror, turning around and twisting, playing with the knobs of the radio for any signals. It was endearing. He didn’t know what to do now that he wasn’t the one driving. It made Minho lightly giggle.

“What?” Chan asked, the tips of his ears turning a little red. He most likely knew exactly what he was doing.
“Relax. They aren’t falling behind.”

And to think that Chan had disliked them all at the beginning. Well, perhaps dislike was a bit of a strong word, but he hadn’t wanted any company, ever. He had nearly kicked Minho out of his car, occasionally Minho wondered how he hadn’t actually done that. In the end, he had endured Minho and his shenanigans, and then he had actually turned out to be a lot more interesting than Minho had thought. Minho had just heard about this government errand boy who was crazy enough to drive out of the bases and trek through the wastelands. And that he was perhaps going to Start Point for a reason which Minho had heard from this one person and they had heard it from this other person who worked for Park Jaehwan and yada yada the case was history now. And Minho had also heard that Chan didn’t want anyone to accompany him.

Well, Minho had decided to not care about the last part of the hear-say about Christopher Bang, and had simply pulled him along to a small adventure. Chan had supposed to be just some guy that would get Minho to Start Point and back with Minho’s other mates, he had supposed to be just a guide to them and maybe look behind their backs a little, which… well, he had done that. And a lot more. He had been pulled into all of it, the revenge, and perhaps Minho had understood the moment he had got to know Chan’s true identity as an assassin from Room 76, that he had him wrapped around his pinky, which had made things a lot easier to deal with. The case, for example. Minho didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Chan hadn’t wanted the Yangs and Park Jaehwan gone, rid of the grip of Room 76, and hadn’t let Minho take the briefcase.

But Chan had let Minho do what he had wanted, and then he had been this and that, and Minho had fallen in love. That had not been part of the plan, at all. Never. Minho had not planned to fall in love with his brooding chauffeur, but then he had. Which wasn’t all that unpleasant, even if Minho had been really, really scared initially. He hadn’t shown it, he hadn’t really talked about it to Chan at any point of their relationship, either, but he had been scared. The flirting, it had just been for fun at first, that’s how Minho got people comfortable, that’s how he got them wrapped around his pinky. Somehow, Chan had just wrapped him around his own pinky in the process, too. And now he was in love.

At times Minho still found himself thinking how incredibly absurd this situation was, that he didn’t really deserve Chan, but then Chan did something incredibly awful like kissed him with morning breath and Minho figured that they were actually just perfect for each other (alright, there were the times when Minho also cried those thoughts out, mumbled them against Chan’s shoulder while slightly wine-drunk, and then he received a very serious chat from Chan the next morning where Chan made Minho swear that he’d never ever think that he didn’t somehow deserve Chan, that if one of them was underserving, it was him).

Which wasn’t true. So they both lived in this constant limbo of thinking that they were the perfect match but also didn’t deserve anyone because they both were so horrible. Just as bad, that’s what Chan had said ages ago (Minho wasn’t entirely sure if he agreed with that statement as Chan was anything but selfish and Minho was selfish through the bone, no matter what Chan said).

Alright, Minho didn’t think that as often anymore. Some growth had happened in the span of over half of a year. They had somehow settled, found a… life? If one could call it that. Chan had moved in literally immediately as Minho had simply not let him leave his apartment, but then they had got the idea that Jisung and Felix would get Chan’s old apartment as they had lived in the Outer Circle and their old apartment had been horrible (Outer Circle was history too, now the entire place was just Base 41).

In short, Minho had forced himself into Chan’s life, accidentally fallen in love with him, and now he wasn’t sure if he’d even be capable of faring life without him anymore. That seemed like an absolutely unbearable and impossible thought, so Minho refused to think about it. And now they were here, driving towards the coast once again, just like half a year ago, but this time they weren’t just strangers and somewhat friends, they were… lovers.

What an odd thought.

Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed. Felix had nearly died, then almost all of them had nearly died, a lot of people were dead, Minho had got his revenge after years and years and years of waiting, and then he had had needed to learn to live with the fact that his entire life purpose had been filled and nothing had been left.

Except for Chan.

Chan, who had changed quite a bit during the past half of a year. He smiled a lot more these days. He looked a lot more healthy, no more ghastly pale skin with bags under his eyes (or well, the bags were there, just smaller and less dark). His hair had got a little bit longer, too, always tied in a ponytail at the back of his neck. Chan had so many times threatened to cut his hair short because it was annoying him, but Minho hadn’t let him, because he looked incredibly good with longer hair. And Minho could get a really good grip on it when needed.

Alright, well, if he truly wanted it gone, Minho would actually let him cut it. He’d just complain very loudly about it.

He was also just… he was so much more open. Perhaps Chan himself didn’t realize it, but he seemed a lot happier, he wasn’t so reserved anymore. Before there had been just grumpy silences, now there was chatter and laughter. And occasionally silences, too, just like now, but they weren’t grumpy, they were just there. Pleasant. One thing Minho so loved. He also dressed a lot better; he had found himself a new leather jacket that wasn’t tearing at the seams. No more holes in his shirts, either, because Minho had actually taught Chan how to sew them. Minho had also given him some of his own shirts, because they were a tad too small for Chan’s frame, and he looked incredibly good in them. Minho was selfish like that.

The rest of their friends were left, too, of course. They were the same as in the beginning, yet not. They were a lot closer, they spent at least two evenings in the week at Minho’s house, simply lounging and enjoying each other’s company, all of them. The trio, Felix, Hyunjin and Changbin, lived together these days. Jisung lived alone in Chan’s old apartment, and he liked it that way. He liked having his solitude now that he had safe walls around himself, he had said that. At first, Minho had been somewhat scared of how he’d feel after the trio had got together, but Jisung was doing just fine. Really, Minho had confronted him about it one drunken night when he had been feeling very sensitive, but Jisung had been just happy. He had been incredibly glad Felix had found someone to pour all of the overflowing love he had into, and he was fine living alone, even if it had been odd at first.

Then again, Jeongin had decided to move into the apartment on a floor above Jisung, and so, Jisung really didn’t get that absolute solitude he so craved. But he didn’t mind Jeongin, either, as now he had someone to play his old console games with. Seungmin also joined them quite often, as he liked games and, well, Minho was also pretty sure he liked Jeongin, too.

So, life had… it had somehow formed into this somewhat safe progression of time. Habits, mornings with Chan, finding purpose again. If Minho was being completely honest, he had been somewhat adrift for the past months with his life, it was hard to find anything even remotely satisfactory to do after being a revenge-seeking Ghost for years, but then… well, then Felix had arrived with a purpose. At least a small one.

Felix wanted to visit Base 5. Base 5 was a safe haven close to the coast, far away from Start Point, far away from Base 41. Base 5 had a research facility that apparently was quite far in developing some sort of a vaccine, or something, and Felix wanted to offer his help if he could as one of the incredibly few people that had survived a zombie bite. So, now they were all on the road toward Base 5, just like in the old times. “Old times.” Hah. Half a year ago.

It seemed like ages ago.

“What are you thinking about?” Chan asked quietly. He had put the map away, Minho knew he most likely knew the road they needed to take today, they were still in the area Chan had traveled often in the past. Soon they would pass Base 25 which had fallen a year ago. Chan had used to visit it frequently.

Minho shrugged.
“Just things”, he mumbled. Chan hummed as an answer. That was the answer Minho gave when he didn’t feel like elaborating his thoughts. Chan had got used to it.

Minho had a bit of a…. well, he had hope. An inkling of it. Base 5 was far away, it had been formed very early into the apocalypse, and it hadn’t fallen, which meant that it… worked. People rarely found their way there anymore, but they did accept new people in the community, so Minho had heard as he had gone inquiring about the place with Felix from the government officials of Base 41. Base 5 was also strong, and well-guarded, which settled Minho a little. So, in other words, it was safe. At least somewhat.

Which was what Minho wanted. He had an inkling of hope that Base 5 would feel safe in a way that home is supposed to feel safe. Because right now, Minho felt safer on the road in the middle of a zombie-filled wasteland with Chan than he did in the closed space of Base 41. Perhaps it was because of Base 47. Perhaps it was his own claustrophobia. Perhaps it was because of the beginning. Whatever it was, Minho just wanted safety. He wanted to feel safe in places that weren’t Chan’s arms.

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get that, and Chan’s arms were just fine of an option, but still. He just wanted to rest, at least for a while, without fearing that someone might turn into a flesh-eating monster in a matter of seconds and devour everything and everyone Minho had ever loved alive.

So, Base 5. They were headed for Base 5, they still had at least a week of driving ahead of them, but it felt… nice. Minho wasn’t keen on reaching Base 5. He liked this, liked having Chan beside him, the rest of them behind their van, following after them. It felt familiar. It felt like it was somehow meant to be this way. Maybe it was, Minho wasn’t one to really ponder about all things fate.

“Take the next ramp to the highway”, Chan said. Minho nodded. Highway. Minho could see just fields in the beginning of foresting, and the highway splitting through them. He pressed the gas, sped the van up, and earned himself a pleased smile (and a worried glance at the gas tank display) which made butterflies flutter inside Minho’s chest. He’d never admit to Chan, that his smile… It was so… just so! Lovely! It made Minho feel things. Oh, how it had nearly keeled him over the first time Chan had genuinely smiled at him. But Chan didn’t need to know that because Minho didn’t want to be teased about that, which Chan would have surely done if he had known. So it was best to keep it a secret.

“How long until lunch?” Minho asked after a moment.
“We have driven like twenty minutes”, Chan muttered.
“But my leg is already aching!” Minho whined, and it was true. He wasn’t used to handling the pedals like Chan, and his foot was aching already, and perhaps it was also because he was nervous and putting pressure in all the wrong places.
“Fine”, Chan snorted, continued with laughter in his voice, and because he was like that, always considerate and a sucker for Minho, proposed: “Pull over and we’ll change drivers.”

***

The logs were crackling in the fire, it made the shadows dance around their little roadside camp. The road was surrounded by forests, just like so many others of their little camps had been in the past. There weren’t any bodies around, Chan hadn’t been able to find any, at least, and he was usually pretty decent at spotting them. They had passed by a few cities throughout the day, and they had seen pretty much nothing. Just… overgrown wasteland. Spring was on the brink of full bloom, perhaps a week, and the forests and fields would be filled with the first flowers of the spring.

Minho couldn’t wait for that. He liked spring. There was comfort to it, nature waking up every year after winter, despite everything, despite how harsh the winters were. Except that they weren’t harsh, not anymore, not really, not this far south, at least.

Minho handed Chan a plate full of food, settled down next to him in the back of the car, too tired to take out the chairs. The others were cooking inside their camper vans, and yes, perhaps Minho was a bit jealous of them, but Chan had wanted to keep his van. More agile, that’s what he had said, and Minho had relented. Whatever, it was just a few weeks, and he had managed to persuade Chan to get them better mattresses. And a spice rack. And some new camping cookware that didn’t even really need the campfire, it worked with batteries, but the campfire was nice to have. The spring evenings ran still a little cold, despite the days getting longer.

They didn’t say anything. After a moment the throuple joined them, quietly chatting about something. Minho didn’t listen to them. Soon Jeongin, Jisung and Seungmin sat down around the campfire, too, and their evening habits continued as normal.

Minho didn’t say it out loud, but he really adored this. Adored their little moments, their routines that entwined with each other’s routines. It was comforting, it felt safe. Minho didn’t know how it was possible, he was surrounded by woods that could host a horde of fresh walkers, some remote safe haven turned into monsters, that could come and devour them at any second, but it just… it didn’t feel like it. Chan was there, sitting next to him, there were the reaper twins, the others, that had survived through thick and thin, Minho didn’t need to fear. The walkers could come at them, they’d survive, as long as there was a road to escape through.

It was a dangerous thought, Chan had said that, and Minho knew that, too. But it was just so easy to succumb into it. Just like Chan’s arms, as he let the man pull him into the van, closed the door after them, Jeongin and Seungmin would share the lookout tonight.

“Brush your teeth, stinky”, Minho mumbled against Chan’s mouth. Chan simply hummed, clearly not listening to Minho, and pressed a few more kisses on Minho’s lips, his hands traveled to Minho’s sides, engulfed him into a hug. They ended up on Minho’s mattress, Chan mostly laying on top of Minho, his head buried in Minho’s neck. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, Chan was like this. At first, Minho had presumed he’d be the touchy one, and he had been – but then some kind of switch had been flicked in Chan’s head, and now Minho found himself being held more often than not.

He didn’t mind, at all. But he did have to occasionally sharpen his knives so that it all didn’t get too tooth-rottingly sweet. Which was why Minho kept poking fun at… well, everything. Chan knew this, of course, which was also why he paid no mind to Minho’s complaints about unbrushed teeth or whatever. He always brushed them right before bed, anyway. This wasn’t one of those nights where they’d go to bed immediately, clearly. Minho didn’t mind that either, even if he was feeling a little tired.

“What do you think is waiting for us?” Chan asked as he finally slid onto his own mattress, kicked his boots off.
“Where?” Minho glanced at him, brushed a few curls away from his face that had fallen from the ponytail.
“In Base 5. The trio were talking about it.”
“Oh, I wasn’t listening.”
“I noticed. But what do you think?”

Minho shrugged and rose up to sit on the mattress to get rid of his woolly shirt.
“Nothing like Base 47, I hope.”
“I doubt it, since Base 5 is known to send a broadcast every day at twelve about recent news. There would surely be something if it wasn’t safe to go there.”
“You said the same thing about Base 47.”
Minho noticed how the look on Chan’s face darkened, and he could immediately feel the sting.
“I’m sorry”, Minho hurried to say, guilty. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I don’t know. I hope it’s good. I hope they take us in, at least Felix, if not the rest of us. And it’s remote, no big cities close by, so, hopefully, no huge hordes of undead people. I’m just… It’s walls. It’s a closed space.”

Chan hummed, nodded. He brushed Minho’s comment off, and Minho made a mental note to kiss it away later. He did feel sorry, and they both knew it. They both also knew that Minho said stupid things if he was feeling stressed or nervous.

Minho pulled his sweater off of himself, felt Chan’s hand on the small of his back as a sliver of skin was exposed. He rolled his eyes, tossed the sweater aside and crawled back into bed, next to Chan.

“You’re impossible”, he mumbled, as he was pulled into yet another kiss. Chan hummed in agreement.
“Can’t help it. This is what being on the road does to a man.”
Minho smacked Chan’s chest lightly, before bursting into laughter.
“It’s me who’s supposed to be the insatiable and impossible one”, he complained.
“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was stealing your job.”
Minho rolled his eyes again, yet kissed Chan on his plush, soft lips. No longer dry and chapped. Better nutrition or the lip balm Minho had got Chan very jokingly as a gift, Minho wasn’t sure.

“You still haven’t brushed your teeth”, Minho mumbled against Chan’s chest as after a moment he could feel his breaths getting slower, he was falling asleep. “Nor changed your shirt.”
Chan grunted and grumbled.
“You haven’t brushed your teeth yet, either”, he responded as he hauled himself up from the mattress. He grabbed their toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste from the shelf next to their beds and handed Minho his own brush and an empty cup, which Minho filled with the water in the canister next to the side door.

Then something very rotten wafted into Minho’s nose. Was it the water? No. Minho was just about to say something, but Chan was faster to pull the side door of the van open.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Minho screamed as he realized that he was staring face to face into some half-rotten woman’s soulless eyes. He didn’t have time to react, Chan was quicker with his movements. Before Minho had time to say anything else, the walker fell to the ground with a knife stuck in between its eyes.

“Well, fuck”, Chan muttered, stared into the forest, tried to peer if there were any other walkers in there. Minho breathed in, closed his eyes for a moment as he heard tumbling from behind the van.
“What the hell!” Jeongin yelled as he came to view. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even hear that, are you guys alright?”
He sounded worried, Chan was once again quicker to comfort him.
“It’s alright, we’re alright. It must have heard our camp and approached from the forest. We’ll just have to be cautious if there are any more of them.”
“Roger that, boss.”

Chan glanced down at the corpse, reached for his knife, and cleaned it on the towel on his gun shelf. They’d have to wash that later.
“It’s a pretty old one, slow in its movements. If there were a horde around, they’d have approached us by now, I think, they always flock together”, Chan mumbled, more to himself than to Minho. Or perhaps it was to comfort Minho because his heart was hammering in his chest. So much for that safety. Luckily Chan still had his knives strapped on his thighs. Minho had already taken off his belts and straps for the night.

“It smells. Could you, um, roll it down the ditch or something?” Chan asked Jeongin.
“Yeah, sure”, he responded and began kicking the body away from Chan and Minho’s van.
“Thanks”, Chan smiled at him, then sat on the edge of the van. Minho slowly got over his initial shock and crawled to sit next to him, wet his toothbrush in the water that didn’t smell like rot anymore.

“Mood killer”, Minho mumbled, squeezed some toothpaste on his toothbrush, then on Chan’s.
“Tell me about it.”

***

The gloves hugged Minho’s hands snugly. He was examining them closely. The seams were slowly getting more and more frayed, the leather seemed thinner in some places, mainly on Minho’s fingertips and the place between his thumb and index finger. He needed new gloves. He feared the day the gloves would break, actually feared it. He knew it wasn’t normal in any way, but he just… he couldn’t live without them. He needed to have them on his hands, or he needed to be doing something with his hands, mainly cooking. When Minho was inside the van, or a building, he didn’t have as strong of an urge to have the gloves on. It was odd. Weird. Probably some type of trauma response.

He wasn’t entirely sure when it began. Before the apocalypse? He did wear gloves at work every time he needed to… well, get rid of people, or clean up after people. He didn’t want anyone’s blood touching his hands. But back then, it hadn’t been so… He didn’t have the need, the compulsion to have his gloves on at all times.

That had changed after the apocalypse began, after Minho had had to climb his way over dead bodies in the sewers after shooting them dead. The sewers had been the last part of his journey out of the city. His only option, too. The walkers had been there, too, as they were everywhere, always, but there hadn’t been so many of them as out in the open air. But it had been a closed space, a cramped space, a horrible space, and the small horde had felt like a hundred people. Minho could remember the rats. The other animals. The stench. The walkers, running right at him, him pulling his gun out, shooting most of them, knifing the rest. Minho wasn’t sure how he had survived that. Somehow he had. Somehow he was still alive. If there were angels, they had protected him at that moment. And that had been the only moment they had ever protected him.

“Minho, baby”, Chan whispered, lightly touched Minho’s cheek, forced him to turn his way. Minho let out a choked-up noise, blinked the tears away from his eyes. Chan swiped one lone tear away from his face. He hadn’t noticed that Chan had stopped the van on the side of the road. He hadn’t noticed Chan calling his name, either, which he always did before stopping. He knew Minho’s cues, he knew when he let his thoughts take him, lead him away from the present. Chan didn’t ask if Minho was alright, because he wasn’t, and Chan knew that. Instead, he took Minho’s gloved hands, and gently kissed the backs of both of them.

“Are you with me?” He asked then. Minho nodded hesitantly and sniffled.
“Good”, Chan continued with his gentle whisper, leaned over the middle of the car to cradle Minho’s face in his hands again. He pressed a chaste kiss on Minho’s temple, then on his lips. He always did that. Always. It was to make sure Minho was present, so Minho kissed him back, to let him know that yes, he was here, out of his thoughts, thanks to Chan.

The others knew to wait, this wasn’t the first time it happened. Chan let go of Minho, a hint of worry in his eyes. Minho hated that, he hated to worry Chan, but knew that it would take only a few missteps, Chan and a nightmare, and the roles would be reversed. Where Minho’s memory pulled him back to his most horrifying moments to relive them, Chan’s brain made him see all of the past entwined with the present in his dreams.

“Let’s continue. Only a few hours until sundown.”

***

“What the hell?” Minho whispered. The slight wind was pulling his clothes, trifling through his hair. Chan was standing next to him, just as appalled as Minho was. The rest of their friends looked just as confused.

“That is so much dead fucking meat”, Jisung muttered on Minho’s other side. That was it, that was the entire thing in a summary. Dead meat.

There was a horde. No, not was, there had been a horde. Of zombies. Hundreds, more, Minho wasn’t entirely sure, because the large field in front of them was full of them. Just. Dead walkers. Actually dead walkers, Jeongin had been stupid enough to go and poke one of the closest ones. They were dead. Just dead. Dropped dead, right there, on the field, all of them, at the same time.

And the smell. God, it was awful. Minho was on the brink of vomiting, so he lifted one of Chan’s used t-shirts on his face, pressed it against his nose. His sweat smelled so much better than the rot of a thousand actually dead walkers.

“That’s strange”, Seungmin noted, saying what they were all thinking out loud. Walkers didn’t drop dead like that, not in hordes, not at the same time. They simply rotted away, until they couldn’t move anymore and nature claimed them as their own. Walkers were alive as long as their brain was alive, and that meant they could last long after the rest of their body rotted away.

Yes, someone could have killed all of these. How? Minho didn’t know. But the thing was, this wasn’t the first group of dead walkers they had seen. Yesterday there had been another, sort of similar horde just… well, maybe a quarter of this one. That’s what was so strange. Large amounts of zombies dropping dead at the same time. That was strange.

“What do you think it is?” Minho asked, his voice muted a little by the shirt.
Chan shrugged. Then he voiced what Minho hoped for, too:
“Maybe the virus is slowing down. Dying. At last.”

***

The next group of walkers they met, unfortunately, seemed very much alive, as Chan had to ram through them with the van. Changbin and his machine gun built on top of their camper van took care of the rest.

***

The next morning Minho woke up to the sound of birds. He didn’t understand at first, what was so different about the morning, until he realized it as he was brewing Chan’s coffee in the dim morning light. The birds, they were… close. In the trees. Serenading.

Minho hadn’t heard them in ages, and hearing them, understanding what he was hearing made him… almost cry. The birds had left along with the outbreak, and now they had returned. Perhaps other animals would start returning, too. Not all animals had left, of course, but most of them had. With most of humanity gone, now there was space for them. Nature had begun to return to those to whom it truly belonged.

But what did it mean? What did the birds mean?

Minho couldn’t ignore it, the hope stirring deep, deep inside of him, so faint he barely felt it. Was it over? Was the virus losing its grip?

Was the end of the world over?

“Morning”, Chan mumbled in his sleepy voice as he crawled from the back of the van. Minho didn’t answer him immediately, so he could feel two arms wrapping around his waist from behind.
“Are you here?” Chan asked, whispering. He had discarded his wool sweater during the night, the nights weren’t so cold anymore.

“Can you hear them?” Minho asked, still staring at the tops of the trees surrounding them, trying to take a peek.
“What, love?” Chan mumbled, pressed his chin on Minho’s shoulder.
“The birds. They’ve returned in flocks.”

***

Nature was a god. Minho had come to that conclusion within the past few days. Months. Years. Or maybe he had known it all along. Nature was a force of such capacity that Minho, or anyone, couldn’t really understand it. No, he had never been the type to… well, pay attention to the environment surrounding him. No, he had never been one to really care about climate or the woods or the beaches or the seas amidst everything in his life. He just wasn’t that type. Sure, he had appreciated the beauty of it all, but… it just wasn’t him. Hadn’t been him.

That had changed, sort of. Nowadays he found himself admiring his surroundings more and more. The forests were lush, the yards of the abandoned houses they passed by were lush, filled with overgrowth, and it all seemed so… that’s how it was supposed to be. Kind of. Minho didn’t know how to explain it, nature just kept on going and growing, resilient and new. It hadn’t suffered, and if it had, destruction hadn’t left a permanent imprint on it. Even through the cracks in the asphalt, it kept pushing through, continuing its cycle.

Humanity would never be able to do that. Not in that kind of capacity. It was nearly gone, and maybe… no. It wasn’t for the better. Or well, it was for the better of the environment, in a way. Meaning, there wasn’t so much pollution in the air, Minho could breathe in and he knew the air he was breathing was clean, almost pure. And he could see it all around him, the green awakening with the winter. Had climate change… stopped? At least it couldn’t have worsened, that was for sure. Oh well. There probably weren’t too many scientists left around to study it. And Minho didn’t really know about those things.

Of course, humanity wasn’t completely gone. This morning they had received an extra radio broadcast and apparently for the first time in six years, a proper, lasting connection had finally been established across the continents. The little humans would continue surviving in their little hubs of fake safety and… and? Minho didn’t know. Maybe the virus truly was dying, and then the world would open again, and humanity would have to start building it all over again. It had done so several times during its history. It would do so again.

But Minho didn’t want anything to do with that, not really. What he wanted was Chan by his side, behind the wheel of the van, and something unknown in front of them. He wanted something small, a small life, that would feel safe at least occasionally. Minho didn’t know if he’d be ever able to settle, and he wasn’t sure if Chan would ever be capable of that either.

“What are you thinking, so quiet?”
Minho shrugged. He didn’t know how to piece his thoughts into words. Yang Byungho and the others sure had succeeded in their goal of saving the environment, but they certainly didn’t receive any kind of applause for it. Not with all it had cost.

“Just the past. And the future.”, Minho answered. Chan hummed. The sun was slowly beginning to travel down on the sky, evening was approaching. They’d have to find a place to camp the night soon.

“There’s nothing but ghosts there”, Chan chuckled. It was a joke, sort of, and yet it was also the truth. A small grin tugged the corner of his mouth. Chan was so stupid. So stupidly lovable and so, so good at pulling Minho back to the ground with him.
“And an assassin”, Minho muttered.

***

Minho really liked their evenings. They were easy, cozy, Minho’s favorite part of their travels. He had missed them a lot during their… stay in Base 41, the time they weren’t on the move. Sure, there had been at least two evenings during the week when they had all met, but it just wasn’t the same. Minho liked this. The fire licking away the logs, Jisung’s grumbling about his bread having got moldy. The throuple’s shenanigans, which usually involved Felix and Changbin trying to cook and Hyunjin simply bothering them. Or well, bother wasn’t the word, he was just… all over the place. And if he didn’t get attention from his boyfriends, then he sat down next to Minho, looking for it from him.

It was odd. One would have thought he’d have sought it from Chan, but nuh-uh. There was this sort of… weird relationship between Minho and Hyunjin. Hyunjin had spent quite a lot of time at Minho’s place during the past months, mostly untying the knots woven into their past with Chan around the kitchen table, and somehow Hyunjin and Minho had got close in the process, too. They understood each other, and Minho had figured that in the end, no matter how much Changbin and Felix loved him, they couldn’t really understand the atrocities he had had to go through as the Red King, at that was alright. Minho did understand. He knew what it was like, having blood on your hands, so he understood the inner battle Hyunjin faced every day in the back of his mind.

Sometimes Hyunjin didn’t need anything, sometimes he needed to talk. Right now he sat next to Minho on the back of the van as Minho was stirring the pot, cooking dinner for him and Chan. Chan was helping Jeongin and Seungmin, something had broken inside their camper van.

“How did your travel go?” Minho asked quietly.
Hyunjin simply shrugged; “Good, as always.”
“Anything on your mind?” Minho had learned to ask because otherwise Hyunjin wouldn’t tell.
Hyunjin shook his head. So, silence it was today. Hyunjin wanted silence, he didn’t need anything else.

The throuple was a funky one. Minho still didn’t quite understand their dynamic, all he knew was that Changbin had been smitten with Felix from their first meeting, then Hyunjin had come along and after a few chats here and there, he had ended up in a dilemma with crushes on two people. And then, somehow, the other two had ended up the same way, so now they were a trio. And it worked. They shared everything, sometimes they did things as duos, but most of the time as a trio. They fit together like puzzle pieces. They were open with their love, especially Felix, sometimes his poured over so much that the rest of them got a taste, too. It had taken a while for Chan to get used to it.

“I wonder what’s waiting for us at Base 5.”
“Mmhm”, Minho hummed as an answer, “something good, I hope. Something safe.”
“I hope so, too”, Hyunjin muttered. Gods knew he needed that safety. If Minho didn’t wish it for himself, he truly wished it for Hyunjin. That, and a therapist.

“I’m just… I’m a bit scared. For Felix, you know. He’s so excited about helping research since he survived the bite and I’m just terrified they’ll take advantage of him or lock him in a room and treat him like a walker.”
“We won’t let that happen.” Minho and Chan had sworn that to each other. “If they attempt to, we’ll leave. We won’t let them take Felix alone anywhere. One of us will accompany him everywhere at all times.”
“You sound like you already have a plan.”
“I do. We do. Sort of.”
It was a promise, and Minho knew that. Perhaps it was also to ease his own mind because he had also been pondering the same thing. Chan was sure nothing bad would happen to Felix, because “c’mon, look at him, he’s sunshine, nobody’s going to hurt him”. Minho wanted to believe that, but he just… well, people. Researchers were people, too, and Minho very rarely had faith in people. Himself included.

That seemed to ease Hyunjin’s mind a bit eventually. Their evening continued with the usual slow pace, they ate all together around the campfire as the skies above them darkened. The lights from the space station had shut down a while ago, Minho couldn’t spot it anymore on the starry sky.

Or perhaps it was just in a different location.

“It’s our turn with the night shift again”, Chan mumbled to Minho, and Minho nodded. Jeongin yawned, then complained about the horrible bed in the camper van and said he’d crawl into Seungmin’s bed during the night, who simply scowled as an answer. Jisung rolled his eyes as the thought no one was looking, Minho nearly snorted. He, however, had seen the looks Seungmin gave Jeongin. He wouldn’t be that mad if Jeongin truly decided to sleep the night next to him.

He'd pretend to be, though, which was why Jeongin would never know Seungmin was actually just as interested in him as he was in Seungmin. Perhaps Minho should interfere. Have a little chat with Seungmin, at least at some point.

Chan collected their dishes and washed them, Minho remained seated, basked in the warmth of the campfire. There was mud on his boots, which he tried to scrub off with his thumb. The mud was still a bit wet and ended up dirtying his gloves that Minho had put back on after eating. He frowned, Chan noticed it and cleaned the dirt off of Minho’s glove with a rag. Minho blew him a kiss as a thank you.

“I want a real one”, Chan muttered, leaned down, and kissed Minho on the lips. Minho didn’t want to think about how he felt about that. Honestly, he had been so sure that he was over the entire butterfly thing, but it seemed like he had been wrong. Dead wrong.

***

There it was. In the horizon. Base 5.

And Minho had never seen anything like it.

Or, to be fair, he had. He had seen that. Yang Byungho had used to live in a thing like that, up until the glass walls had been destroyed.

Base 5, apparently, consisted of huge glass domes. At least three of them. Minho could see light reflecting on them. Three huge glass domes. Base 5. Minho wasn’t sure if it was fear or excitement stirring in his guts.

“There it is”, Chan mumbled. He didn’t say it out loud, but Minho knew what he was thinking, adding to the sentence: finally. They were steadily running out of gas and supplies, so were the rest. The journey they had made had been one of the longest ones they had made in one go. Or well, it was the longest for Minho, but not for Chan.

The foresty road down the valley only let Minho see glimpses of what they were headed for. The sea behind it all looked beautiful, sparkling in the setting sun. There was a fourth dome, too, Minho noticed, smaller and in the back. Four domes. Four glass domes, just like the one that had once been a botanic garden in Base 41. Now it was just… well, it was a garden, certainly. Ruins, mostly. The shattered glass had been collected away, some of the plants were still alive, but the broken parts hadn’t been fixed, and no one had buried the bodies still trapped inside. No one dared to do that. Minho didn’t blame them.

“I hope they’re friendly”, Chan mumbled.
“They should be. They should be expecting us”, Minho answered, a little nervous.
“If they got the message.”
Felix had sent some sort of a message via the radio to them as he had been inquiring if they still did their research. The answer he had received had been short; yes, and Felix was welcome to visit them. Of course, he had also told them his situation: he had survived a bite, was still experiencing some symptoms, but otherwise he was totally fine. And now they were here. Because Felix had wanted to come.

The road leading to the Base 5 was asphalted, not as badly cracked as in some places. The forests were lush, thick with green. Minho couldn’t see any signs of walkers.

Which ignited something in him. Fear. Deep-set. Memories washed over him, and for a brief moment, Minho felt like he was drowning.

Base 47. It had been just the same, a similar road like this, with no signs of walkers. And then they had driven in there, and the entire base had fallen, there had been nothing but fresh zombies in the closed army base. Minho had truly thought he’d die there, but he hadn’t, somehow Chan had found the way out of there, and they were all still alive. This was just the same, they were headed for a similar place, a closed-off space.

“C-Chan?”, Minho croaked out, hands squeezing the fabric of his pants. Chan glanced at him, hurriedly and slowed the car down. Then he took one of Minho’s hands, the one closest to him, into his own and squeezed it.
“It’s alright, Minho. It’s not fallen, they sent a broadcast this morning.”
He was clearly thinking the same thing as Minho, and Minho could hear the slight, the tiny falter in his voice. He couldn’t be too sure, either. He had been sure about Base 47, and that had resulted in… well, all of them almost dying. But then again, it was Minho who had brought them all along.

Minho breathed in a shaky breath, eyes glassy, staring at the domes that neared them second by second. They were huge. Through the glass Minho could see similar greenery – there was another botanical garden there, right? It was a research center, they had used to research plants and marine life or something here, Minho could faintly remember reading news about it at some point. Now it was… well, they still did research, apparently. On the virus. Which terrified Minho, if he was being totally honest.

There was a gate in front of them, a high one, blocking their way. As Chan drove closer, slowly, the gate began to open. Automated? Or was there someone controlling it? Chan pressed the gas again, the road led them to the first dome. There was a parking lot there, a few cars were parked there. They looked a little dusty. When Minho looked to the right, he could see some sort of a cemetery near the forest line, facing the sea. A chill ran down Minho’s spine, but he wasn’t entirely sure if it wasn’t an unpleasant one. If they really had time to bury their dead, the place couldn’t be too dangerous. Minho could see from his side window how the gate closed after Jisung drove their camper van through it.

Chan stopped the car close to the door, in a parking spot after letting go of Minho’s hand. The others drove next to them. Nobody moved, Minho didn’t dare to. He was simply waiting for a horde of walkers to burst through the double doors in the front, he had his hand ready on the gun on his hip. Chan looked very cautious, too, he kept trying to see inside the dome. The glass was sort of… it wasn’t totally clear, and the dome wasn’t a perfect half circle, it looked like it had been constructed from big glass pieces. It looked gorgeous, Minho had to admit that.

Then, suddenly, the two doors opened, and out of them walked two people dressed in clothing that resembled those of security personnels’. Minho could feel a knot inside his chest coming undone. Those people were very much alive, they were not walkers, they were not zombies. One of them waved at them, smiling as they approached the cars.

Chan, being the brave, begrudging leader he was, opened the door first and slid down on the ground. Minho followed after him to face these two people, who looked quite happy to see them.
“Hello! It’s been a while, we haven’t seen new faces in a long time!” One of the security people greeted them. She had a nice smile. Gentle.
“Hello”, Minho answered, nodded. Chan walked over to stand by his side, he could hear the others cautiously opening the doors and walking out of their vans.
“Are you looking for shelter, or are you here for another reason? We have quite a bit of space for new people in our center”, the security man, who couldn’t be more than a few months over 18, said. He looked grumpy. He took his job very seriously, Minho could tell.

“We are here because of-“
“Because of me!” Felix ran to greet the security guards, cutting Chan off.
“Hi! I called some scientists a while back, I, uhm, well, I survived a walker bite and heard there was some research done here for some sort of vaccine against the virus, and I thought I could be of help! Oh, right, I’m Felix. Yes. Felix Lee.”
Felix explained everything with a wide smile on his face and he even showed the guards the bite on his shoulder. Minho noticed from the corner of his eye how cautiously Chan was watching over the guards, hand close to where his gun was.

“Right!” The lady seemed to understand who Felix was. “Yes, we do research here, we have some biologists and chemists and virologists working here! And I remember now that you were mentioned in a meeting a few weeks ago. Yes, yes, come in everyone! There are eight of you, correct? Nobody’s been bitten recently, right? You don’t look like that, so probably no. Let’s get you settled down first and then we can go meet the researchers! Or maybe we’ll do that tomorrow since it’s already evening.”
There was a brief silence, during which Felix glanced at Chan behind his shoulder. They all waited for him. When he nodded, the situation seemed to unfold and everybody got to moving.

Without really noticing it, Minho took Chan’s hand in his own as they walked in from the double doors of the first dome. Immediately they were hit with air so humid Chan’s curls immediately began to come alive. Minho could hear the sound of a rippling stream, and some surprised mumbles as to who they were and how nice it was to see some new faces.
“This is the botanical garden. As you may already know, this place used to be a research center for marine life, but some other research was also done here. We used to have a huge aquarium in the basement, but unfortunately, we had to return all the living things back to the ocean as we ran out of food. We still however have some fish left in our ponds!”

And botanical garden it sure was. It was huge, bigger than the one in Base 41 had been. Their little group was walking on tiled pavement that led to a short hallway. Smaller paths diverged from the pavement into the… well, forest. It was nearly a forest. Huge trees, huge plants, a waterfall, a pond, where Minho could see some fish swimming around. A few people were tending to the blooming, colorful flowers (or rather, staring at them as they passed by until one of them picked up the courage to greet them, and then they exchanged his and hellos and delighted smiles).

Minho liked the garden, he decided then. He wasn’t entirely sure how the… society here worked, but if they needed some help in the garden, he’d be more than happy to do so. Not that he had any skills for it.

They followed the guard to the short hallway, through another pair of doors, and then arrived at the
“This is the central hall”, the boy guard told them. He glanced at Minho’s and Chan’s linked hands but said nothing. Felix was curiously eyeing around.
“There’s the cafeteria, three meals are served during the day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if you want more snacks, then you can pick them up yourself or fetch something from the town underground.” The what in where? “Just, you know, leave some for the rest of the people, too”, the other of the guards told them. The cafeteria was situated at the side of the sea in the dome. The dome was only halfway made of glass, the rest of it was covered with walls, and Minho guessed the kitchen was hidden there, at least. He didn’t ask how they had supplies, how they had food left, how anything worked. He’d find it out eventually.

“We gather here at least once a week, usually every Monday. Although, we’ll also probably meet tomorrow since you guys are here. Gotta introduce yourselves to the rest!” The lady guard continued. She seemed really excited about their new guests.
“How many people are living here?” Chan asked.
“A few hundred”, the guard answered, still gently smiling.
“And… where are these few hundred people?” Changbin asked in turn, staying close to Felix.
“I’m glad you asked. Follow me!”

Opposite the kitchen and dining area, on the other side of the central hall were large double doors. The guard led them towards them. On the other side of the dome was a field that hadn’t been tended to in a few years. Minho guessed it was thriving.
“The doors in the center”, the guard pointed at them, they led behind the wall halving the dome, “lead to the research facilities. I’m guessing you’ll be taken there tomorrow and everything will be properly explained, but in short, the research we do here is very see-through and we want to be transparent about it, so you’ll be introduced to all the facilities et cetera. No secrets. We don’t deal with living zombies, only the virus.”

Minho swallowed. He could feel the nervousness in him growing, but had to remind himself that he himself had carried a potent virus in an unprotected knife in his pocket, which could have ended him and absolutely everyone else in the process, so he really wasn’t one that could speak for lab safety.

In through the double doors, Minho was surprised to see that there were wide stairs that led down. Next to them was an elevator, that was working.
“Where does this place get all the electricity?” Chan asked.
“We have our own solar panels in a field behind the domes. And we know that about a hundred kilometers from here, there is a working nuclear plant that powers the small town built close to it, so if the panels stop working, we’ll get our energy from there.”
“Cool”, Chan nodded at the guard’s explanation. Hand in hand they walked down the stairs and were met with the sight of a hallway.

“These are mostly living spaces, but they’re all full. Old offices and the sort turned into rooms for people.”
There were some people hanging on the hallway, curious about them. The hallway reminded Minho of the one in Base 47, as the whole place did. It wasn’t just as lifeless – instead of plain concrete, the walls had been painted, and there were even some paintings made by children (or so Minho assumed by the height they had been painted on). Some of the doors along the hallway were open and Minho could hear music.
“This is the first floor of Block A, all of it is fully booked, but we have rooms in Block C.” The guard told them, as they continued their travel down the stairs again.

Another hallway, a similar one. Another guard came up to them and greeted them, “nice to see some new faces here”, she said. Minho glanced at Chan, and knew they were both thinking the same thing. They weren’t used to this. People being so nice. Open. Walking around with smiles on their faces.

They felt safe, Minho figured. They felt safe in this place, that was the type of contentment Minho could see on their faces. There must have not been too many accidents around here. And the researchers really, truly knew what they were doing.

Perhaps it gave Minho a sliver of hope he wasn’t too keen on welcoming.

They walked down a few more flights of stairs underground, five floors of apartments. Rooms. Whatever.
“This place is pretty huge, as you all can see. We could house at least a hundred more people, but very rarely any find their way here. We’re quite far away. Anyway. This is what we call the main street.”

They had arrived at the bottom of the stairs to a… well. A street.

Minho couldn’t really understand it at first. This underground shelter, this wide hallway, really looked like a…, well, a street. There were benches. Old, clearly bigger office spaces had been turned into… business facilities? There were shop signs, a barber, a tattoo artist, a coffee shop, all of them handmade. The coffee shop was open, mellow music coming from it. Outside of it, there were a few stools and a table, but no customers. By the laughter coming from inside, Minho figured there was at least someone there. He couldn’t really believe it. The main street. This was a small town inside a research facility. Just like the guard had said. Town underground.

And it didn’t end there. There was a marketplace, too. More small facilities. Two restaurants, one specifically for hand-made pasta, the other sold some “homemade food.” Or well, it clearly didn’t sell anything. There weren’t any prices anywhere.
“We don’t really deal with money here. Why would we? It’s up to people, if they want to open a restaurant and can manage it and get the supplies for it, they’re welcome to do so. People work because they want to, that’s the situation, kind of. It’s not like we have much else to do here anyway. This is the closest we can get to having something normal.”

At the center of the marketplace, there was a pond. Marine research center, so of course there was a pond, and in it were some fish. The pond was clearly cared for. Wow.
“This way to Block B and C”, and they continued their way through the main street. The others were just as appalled, Felix had a dreamy smile on his face, Hyunjin looked a lot more scared. Seungmin was clearly taken aback by it all, too. Jeongin simply nodded approvingly at everything and kept eyeing the tattoo artist’s parlor.

Chan looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes either, but Minho could see him glancing around the corners like the trained assassin he was.

Block B and C led them up the stairs again to similar hallways as Block A had been. Up the stairs, there were doors that led to Block B. The guards didn’t lead them there, but instead to the door of Block C.
“This is one of the many aquarium hallways”, the lady guard told them as she opened the door to Block C. They stepped inside, all ten of them, and truly, there were aquariums. Large, and small ones, all of them integrated into the wall. Minho felt like he had stepped into another dimension with the dimmed headlights and darker walls.  
“As you can see, they don’t have any fish in them, but we still keep the plants alive. Or well, they sort of keep themselves alive and we clean them every week and stuff like that, I don’t really know, I’m not in that team.”

The aquariums were gorgeous, even Minho could tell that much. There were a lot of different plants, carefully placed to create beautiful landscapes inside the aquariums, one after the other. Minho could imagine how they had looked with fish in them.

They walked through the hallway, turned from the corner to a small stairway that led them to the next floor. More aquariums, but there were even some doors there. One of them had a key in the lock.
“Alright!” The lady guard twisted the key in the lock. “I believe this is one of our family rooms, so, like three to four people. Who’s up? The rest of the free rooms are on the upper floors.”

“We’ll take it”, Felix made the decision for them, Hyunjin and Changbin nodded.
“Great, you’ll have some great neighbors, you can say hi to them later.” The lady handed Felix the key. Minho made a mental note, Block C, floor 4, door number 5. Hyunjin, Felix and Changbin would be living there.

The rest of them, apart from Chan and Minho, found their rooms on the next floor. Jisung took one room all for himself, Jeongin and Seungmin would share one, too. Minho and Chan got the key to a door on floor 3. Number 7. A gray door with old aquariums on both of its sides. They met their neighbors, a lovely elder couple, otherwise, they didn’t meet the other people living along their hallway yet.

But it didn’t end there, of course. They walked around the place, doors and emergency exits, more rooms, a small chapel, there was a short way up to the ground floors, it led to the kitchen. More greetings and smiles, turns in the hallways, the place was a maze, and it made Minho feel uneasy, the same kind of uneasy he could feel emanating from Chan.

“Anyways, it will take a while to get used to this place, it’s huge. You’re free to hang around wherever, tomorrow we’ll get you all introduced to the rest and find you some jobs to do, if you want, and plan on staying for a longer while and… Yeah. Don’t feel pressured, it’s going to take a while to learn everything, we don’t expect you to take part in the community immediately! Or like, at all, if you don’t want to”, the lady guard beamed as they were standing in the central hall, in front of the dining area.
“And now you can go fetch your things from the parking lot and if you’re feeling hungry, feel free to take some snacks from the fridges.”

They glanced at each other, Felix seemed really excited about this place, Minho could hear it from his voice. He thanked the guards that had shown them around, wondered how magnificent this place was. But Chan had to rain on his parade. Someone had to, of course.

“Is this place safe?” He asked. The guard’s smile immediately washed away, she understood the gravity of Chan’s question. Perhaps she could see the same thing in Chan’s eyes that Minho could see, years of escaping, of endless wastelands, too many near deaths.
“It is as safe as it can possibly be in a world like ours.”
“We haven’t had any accidents in almost three years. We have created a safe zone in the forests surrounding us, there is a high fence surrounding the area, there is a watch tower behind the research dome. The people that want to go outside do so in small groups, never alone. The researchers live in their own quarters in the research dome, they have a particular safety protocol to ensure our safety when they work with the virus. We’d like to think we’re as safe as we can be”, the young guard explained. Minho could hear it in his voice, he believed in the safety of this place.

Chan nodded. He seemed to accept the certainty of their safety. Minho nodded, too, even if the uneasiness still didn’t leave him. It would never leave him, he knew it. He had seen too much, experienced too much. He’d never find safety anywhere again, at least not until every walker would be truly dead, and well… that was nothing more than a dream.

“Oh, right, I completely forgot!” The lady guard smiled widely again, broke the spell in the air: “Welcome to Vivarium!”

***

Minho dropped his bags on the floor as he took a step inside their… well, their apartment. He let out a breath as Chan switched the lights on in the room. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, really. This? Maybe. It was a room. A rather large room. It wasn’t unfurnished, oh no, but it was grey. The lady had mentioned that they could paint it, they could do whatever they wanted with it, as long as they found the resources to do that.

So, it was a very simple room with no windows. Just a room. Instead of a bed, there were two mattresses. Easier to move around, Minho figured. There was a table, too, and two chairs. A closet for clothing and other belongings, and a bureau next to it. It clearly had once been someone’s office. Minho could see the shadows of the tables on the walls.

The bathroom and showers were along the hallway, they didn’t have their own, unfortunately. No more panic attacks on the bathroom floor at 3 in the morning for either of them. Now they’d have to do that in their own room. Which, well, cozy, Minho guessed. Now they’d both also have to deal with the guilt of waking the other one up because they were the kind of people who felt guilty bothering someone else with their own problems. They were also both stupid and knew that because neither of them was bothered by taking care of the other.

Minho unzipped his (Chan’s) jacket and hung it on the rack by the door. Then he kicked off his shoes, felt the floor under his feet. It felt cold, it was concrete. They’d have to go around the place or loot the nearby villages for rugs. And paintings. Minho wanted paintings on the walls since there were no windows (which unsettled Minho more than he wanted to admit).

But he didn’t have much time to think those things at all as Chan closed the door behind them, immediately wrapped his hands around Minho’s waist from behind and pulled him close. Minho could feel him press his head against his neck and take a long breath before kissing a hundred kisses against his skin.

“Christ, Chan!” Minho laughed out loud, tried pulling away as the touch tickled. Chan whined so Minho turned in his arms, just to get his cheeks cradled by Chan’s palms and then he was pulled into a kiss so deep it made Minho blush. Oh, he could feel the hunger.
“We have been here alone for one minute, horn dog”, he mumbled against Chan’s lips as the hands found his waist again.
“And I haven’t been able to touch you properly in weeks”, Chan answered, pulling Minho closer. That was true. The walls of the van weren’t unfortunately very soundproof, and Chan was very private in his love. Very giving, but very private, that was one of the many things Minho had learned in the past half of a year.

“You stink”, Minho whispered against Chan’s soft, plush lips, just to let some thorns seep through as the kisses started getting a little too head-spinningly good. Chan knew this, he knew Minho, he knew he wasn’t being serious. But they had also been on the road for several weeks and hadn’t had the chance to wash up properly with the rivers and lakes still running so damn cold from the winter.
“Alright, fine”, Chan relented and pulled back. Minho didn’t let him get away too far. He needed a hug, so he pulled Chan in one. He pressed his forehead against his shoulder, closed his eyes and sighed.

“How are you feeling?” Chan asked, murmuring softly. Minho thought for a moment: how was he feeling?
“I don’t know”, was the answer he settled on. “It’s a big place.”
“It’s not Base 41.”
“No”, Minho admitted. He knew what Chan meant. It was better. It felt safer. It felt… well. It felt different. It seemed like these people knew what they were doing, they were a tight-knitted community, which could turn out to be good or bad, depending on how easily they took new people in.

Minho already knew he’d have difficulties fitting in, unless he… well, unless he acted like the Ghost he was. That way he could fit anywhere.

But he didn’t want to do that. He wasn’t even sure if he could put up the act anymore, not when he was so used to being just Minho, leather-gloved and scared of every noise out there and a shadow of his own past, a person Chan knew through and through. Minho didn’t know if he could still conjure up the mask of kindness, the sort that people liked. He was just grumpy around people these days. And so, so tired of everything.

“But it is a base”, Minho sighed as he lifted his head. Chan’s sad puppy eyes were examining him in the sickly fluorescent light of the room. Minho didn’t like it. He’d need to have to find them something softer. The old office lights wouldn’t do, Chan looked too pale in them. The sickly sort of pale. Minho didn’t like that at all.
“It is. Less crowded, and we’re close to the emergency exit.”
“Mmhm.”
“It will be fine”, Chan didn’t sound entirely sure. Minho sighed and shrugged:
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that for tonight.”

The small tug of a smile on Chan’s face made Minho’s heart weep. He knew what that smile was for. It was the “please” smile, the “I promise we’ll be safe tonight, please believe it, please let go of the thought that we’ll die here and now”. The smile begged Minho on its knees to let go for one night. Minho had earned himself a lot of those smiles along the way.

“Fine”, Minho mumbled and let go of Chan.
“Let’s go take a shower and then sleep, hm? They said we need to be at the central hall by nine in the morning.” Chan grabbed his bag, pulled the zipper open and took out a fresh pair of clothes. Minho had told him to save them just for… well, this. A night of not having to sleep on mattresses in the back of the van. A night of finally getting to properly wash up.

“You go first, I’ll arrange this place around a little”, Minho told him. He didn’t get a yes, instead he got arms around his waist again and Chan’s breath tickling the side of his neck.
“They also said we need to take short showers. Save water. Together we could take one long shower.”
Minho rolled his eyes at his lover.
“You’re impossible”, he muttered.
“That’s my line.”
“Okay, fine! If our new neighbors hear, you’re the first person they’re going to test the vaccine on, I’ll make sure of that”, Minho swore, perhaps jokingly. Chan simply laughed as he let go of Minho, kissed him on his cheek before taking out his towel as well. Minho searched for his own bag for his pajamas and a towel.

Chan opened the door, closed it after himself and knocked. Minho, with an arched brow opened the door for him, got the keys to the apartment from the table, and followed Chan then to the doorway.
“What?” he asked.
“Was it loud? The knocking?”
“No?”
“Good. Pretty soundproof, then.”
“Oh my god, Christopher.”

***

Nine in the morning. Central hall.

Minho was anxious. Of course he was, he was standing in the front row with the seven other people of his little gang, a few hundred people had gathered, well, behind them. There was a small stand in front of them, a stage of sorts, some important-looking people were muttering to each other next to it, eyeing Minho and the others, the lady guard among them. Those people were in charge, Minho figured. Someone always had to be in places like these.

One of the people, who Minho presumed to be an elderly lady, finally stood up on the stage. The crowd around them quieted down, not immediately, but softly. A few people quietly came through the door that led to the research dome, a bit late to the party.

“Everyone, we have some new people in the domes!” The lady said, smiled at Minho and the rest, and then waved at them to come up the stage. Minho glanced at Chan, who simply nodded encouragingly. Minho could see that he was nervous, a lot more than Minho, never the one to feel confident in front of crowds. Chan’s nervousness made a shift happen in Minho – he could feel it in his bones, in the back of his mind. He lifted his chin, a pleasant smile tugged the corners of his mouth. The leathery gloves felt safe and secure around his hands, the familiarity of them gave him confidence. He let the Ghost in him take over as he took the first steps on the small stage. He took the lead for once, so Chan didn’t have to. It was always like this in situations such as this one.

They stood there in a neat line, the rest of them looking slightly awkward except for Minho, and Felix, who was smiling and waving at the crowd. A few hundred people, yeah. Minho could see curious gazes, someone leaning towards their friend and whispering something. He shifted his weight on his other foot, he knew he looked quite approachable, like a regular human being. A regular human being. Huh. What a funny thing to say.

“Would you like to introduce your little group?” The lady said, eyeing Minho, who now was the pack leader. Minho nodded and took a step forward to stand next to the lady. Group. No need for names, thank gods. Or well, Minho knew he’d have to introduce himself, but-

“Are you the guy from the video?” Someone from the middle of the crowd asked. Minho arched his brow a little but didn’t let his smile falter. He knew exactly what video they meant. Everyone in this room had most likely seen it.
“Yeah, I’m the guy from the video”, he responded, with a loud enough voice to reach the edges of the hall, too. That created a wave of whispers. Minho waited for it to die before he continued.

“I’m Lee Minho, and we are from Base 41”, he said, nodded toward the seven people behind him. “We arrived last night here in Base 5. I’d like to thank you all for your hospitality and for taking us in”, he continued, smiled at the guard and the leader lady next to him. He received an approving nod.

“We are here because one of us survived a walker bite, and we think we could be of help in the research for the vaccine. From what we have understood, that kind of research is what you’re doing here currently.” More nods, this time from the researchers standing close to the doors in their lab coats. Minho didn’t want to specify which one of them had been bitten in case the other people in Vivarium would start avoiding them. Minho thought it was better to avoid all of them instead of just leaving Felix out of everything. That would break his people-loving heart, and Minho didn’t want that.

“When was the bite?” One of the curious people in the front asked. They sounded a bit scared.
“Over half of a year ago. A few weeks before the video was released.”
That seemed to unfold the tension that had briefly appeared in the hall.

“We also have other sort of information on the virus as well as some stuff from the research lab in Base 47.”
“Hasn’t it fallen?”
“It certainly has, and probably because of the research lab”, Minho nodded at one of the researchers that had asked the question.
“And that’s about it”, Minho nodded and took a step back, back into the row with the others. He could feel Chan’s shoulder brushing against his own, he could hear a whisper of “great job”, next to his ear.

“Welcome, Minho and the rest, I hope you’ll enjoy your time here. Feel free to come and go as you please, just notify the guards as you leave and arrive and make sure to go through a body check as you return, we want to be as careful as possible here. And we do have a lot of space left, so in case you want to stay a lot longer than the research requires time for, you are welcome to do so.”

Minho smiled and nodded, the kind of thankful smile that was quite easy to conjure. He was scanning the crowd, looking for… what? Familiar faces? He knew there were none. Threatening faces? There really weren’t any of those, either. Just curious ones, indifferent ones. These people didn’t get too many visitors, not really, Minho could see that. Well, guess it wasn’t that odd almost six years into the apocalypse.

“As for news, there’s nothing new for this week. We’ll be gathering again on Friday. Have a great week, everyone!” The lady said, and very quickly the crowd began to disperse. Some children ran towards the kitchens, it was time for breakfast, clearly. A teenager, probably their big sister, followed them, with someone who Minho supposed (and hoped) to be the father. Families, elderly people, Minho realized. There were people of all ages around him. That was something one couldn’t see in every Base.

A lot of people came to introduce themselves, of course. A lot of new names, Minho knew he’d remember them easily, but the others wouldn’t. That was his job, he was a Ghost, after all. It was his job to play with people like dolls, remember their names and features and dislikes, to manipulate them, wrap them around his pinky, make them do whatever he wanted, and then kill them off after they weren’t of use-

“You did good”, Chan muttered in Minho’s ear, breaking the train of thought that had almost sent Minho spiraling. The moment the last person turned their back to Minho to go fetch some breakfast, Minho let the mask drop. He wasn’t a Ghost anymore, he was just Lee Minho. Just Lee Minho. He wasn’t here to use these people. They were just people, living in Vivarium, and Minho held no responsibility nor power over them, and he didn’t want that, either.

“Mmh”, Minho hummed.
“What now?” Jeongin asked. At least five grandmas had come to introduce themselves to him for some reason. Well, perhaps Jeongin exuded a certain type of grandson-ness.
“Breakfast? I’m starving”, Changbin proposed, and the others nodded. However, they didn’t even get a chance to move before the leader lady approached them.
“I think we could meet here in an hour, and then we’ll take a proper tour around the premises. Is that alright for you?”
“Certainly”, Minho nodded, but only after getting approving nods from his other team members.

***

“I’m so exhausted”, Minho mumbled as he let himself drop on the mattress in his and Chan’s shared room. He had just talked with their new neighbors for half an hour, and his brain was fried with all the new information he had received during the past few hours. Chan hummed as an answer as he sat down next to Minho, lightly patting his thigh as a sign of comfort before laying down next to him.

They had been taken around to every place in Vivarium. The research dome, the garden dome, the kitchens and everything underneath the surface. There was a gym. There was even a swimming pool (that wasn’t properly being taken care of, but children had been playing in the water, anyway). The researchers had been nice, they had asked Felix a lot of questions, Minho and their little group had given them the briefcase and all the papers and other things they had found from Base 47 and then explained that little story to them. There would be more interviews, Felix’s examinations would begin properly tomorrow. Blood tests, brain scans, something like that. The researchers allowed someone to accompany him at all times, which eased Minho’s heart a lot.

They had also been incredibly intrigued by the notes Minho and Chan had taken during their travel to Vivarium. Large hordes of dead walkers that hadn’t been shot or killed with anything else were quite unheard of. They presumed the virus was most likely losing its power or something.

“How are you feeling about all this?” Chan asked, turned to face Minho a bit better. Minho thought for his answer for a while:
“I mean… It’s a dream. This place”, he finally mumbled. Chan nodded.
“It is. And it feels too good to be true, almost.”
“Mmhm”, Minho agreed. And yet, he didn’t have the same feeling as with other… instances of things being too good to be true. He knew people. He knew when people were lying. These people around here weren’t lying, they were just living. There wasn’t anything to hide, because they had made it that way. There were security cameras around the area, Minho had seen them with his own eyes. He had seen the foresty area around Vivarium, he had seen the fences and the tripwires and bells and alarms and all that, they would hear it if there were walkers approaching. Everything was transparent, except for people’s own lives. And Minho liked that.

“It’s a nice place”, he finally admitted. He could see the way Chan’s eyes quirked in a smile. That damn cheeky smile.

“It is”, Chan nodded. “But it is a closed space”, he continued, because he knew Minho would say that. “It feels safer than Base 41, though.”
Minho nodded. It did feel safer. Cozier.
“Not too fond of living underground”, Minho muttered.
“Neither am I, but what can we do? And there haven’t been any accidents in almost two years, so I’m guessing this can be counted as a pretty safe place.”
“Mmhm.”

A brief silence. Then Minho turned, twisted himself, cuddled himself close to Chan, pressed his face against his chest.
“I’m so tired, you know?” he finally confessed. He hadn’t meant to let it out, but somehow… he just did.
“I know”, Chan whispered, wrapped an arm around Minho. “It’s exhausting to be on the edge all the time.”

Neither of them said anything after that. They didn’t need to. Minho breathed in Chan’s safety, his scent, his familiarity. Chan kept caressing Minho’s back with slow movements. He knew Minho was exhausted, and both of them knew that exhaustion wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. It just wasn’t possible, because the only thing that would bring Minho peace, was safety. Walls weren’t safety. Minho had proven that to be true one too many times.

“We’ll make some kind of arrangement. The others like it here.”
“I know”, Minho mumbled against Chan’s chest. He’d just have to endure.
“They said they needed people that are willing to go outside, that’s our chance.”
Minho nodded. He knew Chan would take that job, and Minho would take that with him, because he wouldn’t let him go outside of these walls alone. So much for the gardening thing.

“Maybe it will start feeling safer as time passes?” Chan proposed, and Minho could hear the hope in his voice. He knew it wouldn’t, but relented, nevertheless:
“Maybe it will.”

***

“And where were you when he was bitten?”
Minho was sitting on a chair, on the other side of the desk were two researchers taking notes. Felix was in another room, they were drawing blood from him for some new tests.
“Running for my life. I didn’t see him being bitten. I was with another member of the group.”
Minho didn’t let it show, but he didn’t like this. He could feel his throat clogging up, the memories rushed through his mind. Panic was tugging the edges of his being, threatening to pull him under.

“I see. And what happened afterward?”
Minho sighed, closed his eyes and waited for a brief moment before continuing:
“The symptoms kicked in almost immediately, his fever rose really quickly, after a few hours he started convulsing and losing consciousness every once in a while, then a few hours and the vomiting started. High fever through and through. That lasted for the next three days, almost 72 hours. Moments of clarity. Then it just… after the three-day mark, it just stopped. His fever broke, he slept nearly for an entire day, and that was it.”

The researchers kept nodding, the other of them, a man in his forties, kept pushing his glasses up his nose. They had been fixed with tape from the other side.
“And after that?” he asked.
“Back to normal. Or well, perhaps normal isn’t the word here, he’s told us he has pretty violent tremors every few days or so, occasionally he loses the capability to taste anything, and when he caught a fever last winter, it lasted for a pretty long time. So I guess the virus did do some damage to his immune system.”
“That could be.”

“Thank you, Minho, you have been of immense help.”
Minho almost jumped out of his seat and ran out of the room at that, but only almost. The other researcher, a woman in her thirties, did a few more notes in his notebook. Then she glanced at Minho:
“The papers and other things you also brought with you have been helpful, too. The people there weren’t as far in their research as us, but they had some great notes we hadn’t yet looked into.”
Minho simply nodded, with a light, polite smile on his face. On the outside, he most likely looked like he was completely at ease, but on the inside, he just wanted to get out of this situation. He hated being the one to answer questions, usually he was the one asking them. And the memories were painful, too. Minho knew he’d have nightmares in the upcoming night.

“Anything else I can help you with?” Minho asked, that polite smile still on his lips. Underneath the table he was tugging on the edges of his gloves, anxious.
“Not this time. Please tell Jeongin to come in as you leave.”
“Sure thing.” They were on a first-name basis. Everyone here was on a first-name basis with everyone.

Minho stood up, turned his back to the researchers and walked out of the room. Outside he found Jeongin, sitting on a chair in the narrow hallway.
“Your turn”, he said and nodded towards the door.
“Traumatic?”
“Sort of.”
“Personal?”
“Not really.”
“Are they chill?”
Minho shrugged at that, Jeongin sighed and stood up.
“Good luck.” Why did Minho say that? He didn’t know. “Is Felix out yet?”
“Yeah, left with Changbin a few minutes ago. They said we’ll gather at their place this evening.”
“Alright. See you.”
“See you.”

***

And so, a cycle in their life started. Steadily, surprisingly. Before Minho truly realized it, it had almost been a month since they had arrived at Vivarium.

He couldn’t lie to himself: the place was growing on him. There was warmth to it that Minho found himself to be quite a stranger to. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Just… strange. It felt odd to belong to something bigger. A community of sorts. A bunch of people that were stuck in the same place and didn’t hate each other and treated Minho like he had been there forever.

Well, sure, there was some tension, of course, as always with a bunch of people in a closed space, but it was bearable, and Minho wasn’t in the center of it. One wanted to do things like this, the other like that, and a third one in a third way, yada yada. It wasn’t Bulldozers. It wasn’t Ghosts. And that’s what Minho wasn’t used to. The place lacked violence, it lacked ruthlessness, and Minho didn’t know how to handle that. It was almost like… the place started feeling safe.

No. Not safe. It was a closed space, one walker and chaos would ensue, the glass domes would be painted with blood. But right now, Minho, with his hands in the mud, gloveless, feeling the dirt underneath his fingertips as he was tending to one of the plants in the gardens?

He felt content. A different sort of content from sleeping with Chan on his side, his arm wrapped around his waist. He felt alright, he felt like he was grounded in the present, like he wasn’t stuck in his head. It had everything to do with hands. Minho always felt better when he had something to do, something to hold on to with his hands that wasn’t a gun. A kitchen knife, for example. A watering can. Something that wasn’t lethal in his hands.

A kitchen knife… well, perhaps it had everything to do with intent. A kitchen knife wasn’t meant for killing, it was meant for making food, which meant nurturing.

“Hey”, the soft whisper woke Minho from his thoughts. He plucked a few dead leaves from the plant. Chan squatted down next to Minho, who was on his knees on the ground in worn-out clothes that hadn’t belonged to him until a week ago, when he started working at the garden.
“Hey”, Minho muttered an answer and glanced at Chan. It was a windy day, Minho could tell that by the curls that had fallen from his ponytail and were a mess on his head. The guard’s outfit suited him. Or well, it wasn’t really an outfit, it was his own clothes and a few sizes too big jacket with a safety vest over it. And a walkie-talkie in his chest pocket. He hadn’t given up the guns and knives strapped to his thighs.

“Anything out of the ordinary outside?” Minho asked and Chan shook his head. Minho had initially been a little against on Chan taking the guard’s job, but he hadn’t said anything. He knew he couldn’t. Chan was as bad at staying put as Minho was believing in safety – and now that Minho knew Chan was the one guarding Vivarium, he felt a bit safer. And Chan felt a lot more in charge of his own fate as he could actually make a difference in his surroundings and guard the safe zone. So, they didn’t have a choice. At least Chan had declined from taking the night shifts, for now. That had everything to do with the fact that Minho couldn’t sleep without him.

They both also had the job of going outside every once in a while to gather supplies and information from the surroundings, naturally. But they only needed to do that around once a week, there were others, too, running around and gathering supplies they needed. And that they could do together, so it was a lot more bearable and… well, Minho could get out, away from the walls and closed spaces, at least for a moment.

“Nope. Here?”
Minho shook his head. Chan glanced around the garden, Minho was in a spot that was mostly hidden. Then he leaned forwards and pressed a small kiss on the corner of Minho’s mouth. Minho couldn’t help but lightly laugh into it.
“We’ll be meeting tonight, right?” He asked as he broke the kiss.
“That’s what Hyunjin said.”
“Good. I’ll bring something from the cafeteria.”
“I want chocolate cookies”, Minho announced, then swiped his cheek with his hand as something was tickling it. The look on Chan’s face immediately turned into such a fond one that Minho felt like he was turning all gooey from the inside. Horrible.

Chan reached out and swept the dirt stain off of Minho’s face. Then he pressed another kiss on Minho’s lips, and for a moment, Minho truly believed that he was safe and sound forever and ever. Then Chan broke the kiss, and Minho was pulled back to Earth. He truly was getting tired of feeling like this.
“Alright. I’ll bring you some chocolate cookies.”

***

They met at least twice a week all together just to keep up with the habit, usually at the throuple’s place as it was the biggest one. Occasionally in the garden. Sometimes they made a trip outside to the nearby field, sat around a small campfire and listened as the summer awakened around them. Everyone had found some kind of slot for themselves in the community – Seungmin had quickly been pulled into the research lab as he was great with computers. Felix, well, he was still the test subject, but they were apparently making some progress. Changbin was a guard, too, along with Chan. Hyunjin and Jisung… Minho wasn’t entirely sure what they did, but if he was correct, a lot of people had commissioned them to paint their walls. Minho had had no idea either had a talent for it, but after he had seen his neighbor’s wall painted by Hyunjin, he had been clearly proven wrong. Jeongin, on the other hand, had been pulled to the small childcare station where parents and siblings and other family members (or just some guardians) could drop their small children for the day as they had something to do. Minho had not known about Jeongin and his fondness for children either, but apparently the role of a kindergarten’s teacher fit him really well.

Minho and Chan had taken a few extra trips outside of Vivarium, mainly to look for resources and furnishings for their little apartment. Now they had a proper bed, and matching bedsheets, and paintings on the walls. And nicer lighting, no more fluorescent office lights. It was still far from Minho’s apartment in Base 41 but… well, it felt more like a home. Minho had to be honest about that.

That’s how their days went by. Work, freetime, drowning in Chan’s scent after a day of pretending to fare well with being separated from him (Minho would not admit how difficult it was at times, how attached he was, it was embarrassing and a bit worrisome). Minho had got himself some new friends, mainly the ones he worked in the gardens with. The grandma from a floor below their room loved him, they had become sort of best friends. She always brought Minho some pastries she had baked during weekends, and in turn, Minho occasionally brought her and her wife some of his cooking if he had any time for making anything (and the kitchen was free).

And there were interviews, too. For a hundredth time, Minho had told the same things of the happenings in Base 47 to the researchers. Now it was just him and the younger lady, she didn’t even take notes, not really.

Okay, well, maybe it wasn’t really a situation of a research thing anymore. One time Minho had almost broken down at the memories running through his head, ran out of the room and ended up crying in Chan’s arms for the rest of the day. After that, he had only met up with the younger research lady, and now they were sort of friends, too, and at some point, Minho had figured he was the only one attending these interviews anymore.

And then he had found out that the lady was a psychologist. So. Minho was going to a psychologist. Trying to open his heart and mind to her. It was difficult, but every Tuesday Chan gently coaxed Minho out of bed and escorted him to the research lab. Minho was quite certain Chan needed a shrink for his head, too, and he had told that to the psychologist. The lady had told him that Chan would be the next in line after Minho was feeling a bit better, after he’d get things in his mind sorted through and wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night to a panic attack once a week.

“And that has only worsened your fear of closed spaces.”
“Mmh. Probably.”
“How did it feel? Being stuck there?”
Minho almost snorted at the question, but he had to keep his composure. And his tears at bay.
“Defeating. Like I was drowning. I thought we were done for. I was… To be fair, I had given up at that point. Chan pulled us through.”
“He found the vent, yes.”
“Yes.”
“Could you walk me through it once more? Being in that room, how it felt to you. No need to focus on what happened.”

Minho sighed, that he couldn’t contain. He started recounting the memory of being stuck in the control room of Base 47, how horrible it had been, how he had thought they’d be dead, how he had already made a plot of probably shooting himself in the head to end it all before the walkers could.
“And then I remember that I said that had we survived, I would have taken him out to dinner. And then he just… I don’t know, he seemed to light up and become more frantic. That was funny. I don’t know it’s just… At that time, the closed space felt almost safe, sort of. Because the walls separated us from the walkers. But nowadays…”
“It’s different. That could also be because of what happened in Base 41. A place you had somewhat learned to trust to be devoid of walkers, and suddenly there were fresh ones.”
“Mmhm, that could be it.”

They chatted for a little while more, and then Minho’s time was up. Exhausted, he left the research lab, he had promised to go fetch some fresh pastries from the small bakery in the little city underground, so that’s where he went. As he reached the bottom, and the bakery, one of the restaurants caught his eye. The weekend special would be “something fishy”. Minho stopped in his tracks, the basket he’d have to bring back in his hands.

Right. He had promised to take Chan out to dinner. And he hadn’t done that yet.

***

Evenings were very quickly becoming Minho’s favorite part of the day. It had taken him quite some time to get used to not having to cook every evening, so now his evenings were… free. So were Chan’s. They didn’t even try to feed into the illusion of normalcy, instead, they very often holed up in their room, occasionally borrowed an old television with a video tape slot in it from their neighbor and just… killed time. No, killing time was the wrong thing to say. They enjoyed each other’s company without having to look over their shoulders all the time.

The best thing was that people let them do that. Sure, there were some… “events” every once in a while, where they had to take part just to be part of the community. Some birthdays, something else, where everyone was invited. Usually, it meant food and music at the central hall. A funeral, which Minho and Chan hadn’t taken part in, only the close friends had. So the evenings weren’t just killing time and drifting to sleep, side to side after doing something else instead of watching the movie, but most of them were. And Minho had grown to like them. Maybe he was lazy. He preferred to liken himself to a cat. He felt cozy and comfortable next to Chan, why would he have done anything else?

“I was thinking of going visiting the few villages close by tomorrow, see if they have any supplies left. Will you come with me? Hyunjin said he’d like to come along, too.” Chan spoke softly, quietly, in order to not break the spell in the room. Minho had his face tucked into Chan’s neck, fingers ghosting patterns over Chan’s bare, scarred skin (which he very well knew tickled the man).
“Mmhm”, Minho hummed as an affirmative. Yeah, of course, he’d accompany him. Chan could have just told him “hey, were doing this tomorrow”, and Minho would have just agreed. No need to be so polite and ask.

Then again, would it be Chan if he wasn’t always so polite and considerate, still a little insecure that Minho would get sick of him and leave him after he realized that Chan wasn’t the feisty and fiery assassin anymore? He had let that façade drop away in the mud at the garden of Base 41, Minho knew that. No matter how many times Minho told him that no, he wouldn’t get sick of him, Chan didn’t seem to entirely believe it for whatever reason. Oh well, Minho couldn’t blame him as he occasionally battled with those same thoughts and then he needed Chan to kiss him to shut those thoughts out.

“Hey, love?” Minho then remembered something (a lie, it was all he had thought the entire day).
“Mmhm?” Minho could hear the curiosity in Chan’s voice. He pulled back a little to look at Minho in the face in the dim, yellow light of the room.
“Do you remember when we were at that control room of Base 47?”
“How would I ever forget”, Chan rolled his eyes, just to make fun of the oh-so-horrible memory that definitely had ingrained itself into Chan’s entire being and altered the course of his life massively.
“Do you remember what I promised you there?”
Chan arched his brow a bit. His pillow was squishing his cheek, his hair was a mess. Minho wanted to engrave this particular picture of him into his brain forever and ever.
“No?”

How disappointing. Or maybe Chan was lying. Or not, he usually wasn’t, unless it benefitted a greater good (Minho’s good).
“I promised to take you out to dinner if we’d ever get out of there.”
Minho would never admit that saying all that out loud made him want to hide his face in the pillows. He could feel his skin burning, but he kept his eyes on Chan’s own and hoped the light in the room was so warm Chan saw nothing of Minho’s stupid embarrassment. Why was he even embarrassed, this was his boyfriend of many months and he was just asking him out!

For the first time, ever. They had never been on an actual date.

“Right, I remember that. I thought that promise was sort of… I don’t know, you always cooked and sorta took me to dinner every night.”
“That’s different!” Minho rolled his eyes. “Anyway. Do you have any plans for Saturday?”
“Not unless you do.”
“Good. I’m fulfilling that promise. I’m taking you out to dinner. Wear something nice.”
Chan chuckled, his dimples made Minho’s insides twist and turn like he was a teenage girl having a crush on someone for the first time.
“Alright, alright. I’ll wear something nice.”

***

Chan’s “something nice” was just… his clothes, but clean and not broken. A fresh, washed set. Black upon black, cargo pants, and a snugly fitting polo shirt (Minho couldn’t actually complain at all – the tight polos were Chan’s thing and by gods, did he look good in them). Well, it wasn’t like Minho was wearing a suit, either (he had his own in the closet, though, for what reason he still had it, he wasn’t entirely sure), but he was wearing a formal shirt! So he was dressed up, at least to some degree, since, of course, he had to dress up for a date.

Minho had never been on a proper date before, that’s what he truly understood as he looped his arm around Chan’s and led them towards the stairway in the dimly lit hallway. Anticipation and nervousness crawled underneath his skin, sent sparks down his spine. This was so stupid. He and Chan had been through hell and back and now Minho was nervous because of some date.

Sure, he had been on dates. Fake ones. Stakeouts. Hiding behind a restaurant menu and prying information out of his dates. But now he had his soulmate by his side, who was chatting away about his daily activities as a guard, and Minho didn’t know how to act. Chan clearly didn’t share Minho’s nervousness, he was all smiles and warmth. Or perhaps he was, he just hid it, for the sake of Minho. And maybe his chattiness was slowly easing Minho’s being a little, too.

Down the stairs, down the stairs again to the main street, to the little town underground. It was Saturday, and therefore Minho didn’t need to fear that he’d have to spend the night totally alone with Chan. There were people, some were sitting in the cafes, some in the bars, Minho could hear different sorts of music emanating from the buildings. Rooms. Places. They weren’t buildings, they were in a building, they were just rooms, modified to look like… well, establishments. Minho still couldn’t really believe his eyes, he wasn’t used to this. All of it.

There were lights hung from the ceiling in between the rooms to light up the street as it was “evening”, and the actual lights of the large hallway were off. There was no need for them as people had dragged all kinds of light sources to liven up their small town. Minho could smell food, he could smell cakes, coffee, all of it. Someone was singing in the karaoke bar near the entrance. People waved at them, said hi as they passed by, and Minho gently smiled back at them. He could feel the heat on his cheeks. He didn’t know why this all felt so… intimate.

Wait. Yes, he did. They rarely walked this close together. Hand in hand sometimes, yes, but not like… well, not like this. Not this close. Not this… intimate. Minho wondered if Chan felt awkward as he usually was the one to shy away from any public displays of affection.

Minho didn’t have time to ask or ponder it any more as they reached the restaurant they were heading for. Minho stepped into the room, which… well, looked like a restaurant. Candles on every table, lights down low, smell of food in the air. Some calm piano music, and the kitchen in the back, behind a wall.
“Oh, hey! You had a table, didn’t you?” The waitress stood up from behind the counter. Of course she remembered Minho.
“Yes, we did”, Minho smiled and nodded at her. He had stopped by yesterday to reserve a table, but now he had figured there really hadn’t been a need for it. Even if the restaurant-room-place was rather small, there were only two customers currently seated at the corner-most table. A younger couple, it seemed.

The waitress led them to the other corner to give them some privacy. Chan and Minho took a seat, they weren’t handed menus, but instead, the waitress asked whether they would like to have some wine with the fish. No need for menus if you only serve one sort of dish. Minho gladly accepted a glass of wine, Chan did, too, and then the waitress was off.

And Minho realized that he was, in fact, feeling very awkward.

Sure, they had been to a few restaurants in Base 41 together (never on weekends, always when there weren’t many people around because Minho had very quickly got sick by all of the attention he always received whenever he went out). But it had never been like… this. It had never been official like this.

The seating was wrong. Minho and Chan never sat opposite to each other, they always sat next to each other, except when they were at the kitchen table in Minho’s apartment. But in public, they were always next to each other, because usually they had the others with them, and therefore Minho was always seated opposite to someone else, by Chan’s side. And now Minho was overthinking and he felt awkward and-

“It’s a cozy place”, Chan gently smiled, looking around. There was a big fake Monstera next to them, a real one wouldn’t survive. The candle in between them was real. Minho was fiddling with the hem of his glove underneath the table.
“It is.”
“You’re overthinking this, love, I can see it in you”, Chan mumbled, the gentle grin tugging the left corner of his mouth. His head was a little bit tilted to the left, too, he looked like a puppy. The candle flame flickered in his eyes and Minho found himself falling in love all over again.
“No I’m not”, he still had to defend himself.
“You are. Relax, it’s just a date.”
“Just a date?!”
“There’s no etiquette or the right way to do a date.”
“What do you even know about dates?” Minho bit back, jokingly. Chan laughed at him:
“You got me there.”

Perhaps that eased the air a little. Or a lot. The waitress returned with an entire bottle of wine (Minho didn’t complain) and told them that the food would take around fifteen minutes to arrive. The wine was good, not only because it tasted rather good, but now Minho had something to do, something to hold onto. He didn’t know if he should keep his gloves on or not. He didn’t know if taking them off would make him anxious, it had done so before, in the restaurants of Base 41. So he did nothing, he took a swig from his glass of wine, tasted it on his tongue, avoided Chan’s eye contact and kept spiraling in his head.

Chan stopped him. He took a gentle hold of Minho’s hands as he set his glass down. He glanced at Minho, as if asking for permission before pulling the gloves off of Minho’s hands. Then he set them aside, next to Minho, in case he’d start feeling too anxious and would have to put them on again. Minho swallowed, hard, tried to ignore the loops his heart was making in his chest. Gods. Why did he have to be like that.

“There”, Chan whispered, only let go of Minho’s other hand. He kept lightly toying with the other, petting his knuckles, running his thumb over the small scars Minho’s knives had left behind on his fingers. Sometimes he did it on purpose, sometimes Minho noticed how he did it just because. This time he did it on purpose, Minho knew.

Whatever tension there had been, it seemed to slowly unfold as Chan continued just… be himself. Chatting about this and that, regular things, normal things. He had had to work an extra shift today as they had found that one of the fences in the woods had collapsed during the night (there had been a storm) and it had had to be repaired. Someone had managed to get hurt, and so on and so on, no walkers around, Chan and Changbin had checked the premises thrice. Minho told about his lunch date with the grandma from downstairs and how she had promised to teach Minho how to knit a shirt for next winter as Minho had complained to her that Chan’s shirts were a tad too big on his frame. Chan then announced that he wanted to learn, too, at least to properly fix them as his knitted shirts were pretty much falling apart at this point.

How idyllic, Minho thought, and then their food arrived.

It was good. No, it was beyond that. Minho hadn’t expected the fish and the side dishes to be so savory. It was perfect, and he was enjoying every bite, completely forgetting that he wasn’t wearing his gloves anymore. Some more people decided to visit the restaurant, and soon it was full of murmurs and mumbles, everyone trying not to be too loud to interfere with the others’ evenings.

Time passed on a bit too fast for Minho’s liking as he finally managed to fully relax into the night. The desserts were pastries from the bakery, Minho recognized them (as probably did everyone else). Flavorful, good, so good. The wine was making Minho feel a little bit tipsy, but not too badly. Chan’s nose was getting redder, too, but he only needed a drop of alcohol for that.

Chan was explaining something about something, Minho had to admit that he wasn’t really listening all that focused. Instead, he was focused on… well, just Chan. The way his eyes twinkled, how small wrinkles appeared into the corners of his eyes whenever he laughed. He was just… Minho could still remember him at the beginning of their travels. He had been a shadow of what he was now. So brooding, distant, yet Minho had been able to sense something beyond that shell. That something was this. Smiles, comfortable laughter, warmth. Chan wasn’t the monster he often thought he was, that’s how Minho saw it. He was a lot more than that, and yes, to someone Chan perhaps was a monster, but he was just right for Minho. They were perfect for each other, that’s what Chan had said quite some time ago.

Minho would like to grow old with this man.

That thought scared him for a brief moment, that was very out of character for him. Or perhaps not, Minho had found himself dreaming about quite a lot of things recently. Which perhaps actually was pretty odd for him, but maybe he was finding some reason to truly live. To dream. And that was Chan’s doing, Minho could admit that much. If it wasn’t for Chan and him pulling Minho out of the gutter over and over again, he wouldn’t… be here. He’d be dead. He’d be dead at that roadside Chan had picked him up from several years ago. He’d be dead at the Bulldozer’s lair. He’d be dead at Start Point. He’d be dead at that small village. He’d be dead at Base 47. He’d be dead at the heart of Base 41. And he’d be dead several times at his own apartment. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t, because Chan hadn’t let him die.

Minho owed him a lot, and yet, at the same time, he knew he didn’t. They had both been in the gutter, they both had horrible days because how couldn’t they, after everything they had been through.

Yeah, he’d like to grow old with him.

Minho had never been really able to picture his tomorrows, let alone a future, but one thing he knew was that he wanted to do it with Chan, whatever it was. He loved this man. Had loved for quite some time now, even if that had taken him a while to understand. And first, he had been so against it, too, all that flirting had turned from jokes to, well, not jokes. Everything but. It had stung, but Minho hadn’t been able to help himself, not with how Chan had slowly warmed up to him and Minho had noticed it, and then he had been too far gone, and lucky for him, so had Chan. Minho had also thought of never confessing to Chan but… call it fate or whatever, here they were. On a date. Alive. Together.

“You know…”, Chan muttered then, waking Minho from his thoughts. Suddenly, he looked incredibly awkward. He scratched the back of his neck, gave Minho a somewhat embarrassed smile that made Minho arch his brow.
“What?” Minho asked.
“It’s just… uhm.”

Minho watched as Chan put his hands in his pockets as if reaching for something. Then he continued:
“So, me and Changbin have been chatting a bit and…”
“Never a good sign”, Minho snorted, and it made Chan giggle, roll his eyes the same way he always did, had always done.
“We have been chatting about this and that and all and I have also been reading… books, as you have noticed.”
Minho had, there had been a ton of them on their table recently.
“I have.”
“And I… I have been thinking.”

Chan pulled something out of his pocket, twisted and turned it in his fingers. Minho wasn’t able to make out what it was. Chan didn’t dare to look him in the eyes, instead, he stared at the thing in his hands.

“I, um, I know this is kind of pointless in this world of ours and maybe a bit stupid and I’m really bad at this stuff but uhm…” Chan glanced at Minho, shyly, before offering whatever it was that he had in between his fingers.

It was a… ring? Made of paper. It was a paper ring.
“I know how you also feel about this sort of thing and that you’re kind of indifferent about it but… I, uhm.”
Minho simply stared at Chan, he couldn’t piece things together in his mind.
“I just thought… It would be cool. Kind of pointless, sure, but I like the thought of it. To sort of… make it even more official.”
“You like the thought of what?” Minho asked, with the most deadpan tone he could, not because he intended to, but because he couldn’t wrap his head around the situation. Chan’s lips quirked a little into a hopeful smile.
“Of getting married.”  

Minho stared at Chan, bewildered. Had he heard that right? Surely he had. The sheepish grin, the ring made of paper, all of it. He had heard that right.
“Christopher Bang, are you proposing to me in the middle of this restaurant?” Minho asked, eyes wide.
“I think I am.”

Chan was correct, Minho was sort of indifferent to all things marriage. He had never really… considered it. It wasn’t part of his world. It wasn’t part of their world. It wasn’t meant for men like them. And yet, that was exactly what Chan was asking for right now.

It could be part of their world, too, that’s what Chan was hoping, and who was Minho to decline that from him, even if the institution of marriage was something he was quite a stranger to?

Minho took the paper ring from Chan. It felt light in his hands, of course.
“It’s just, uh, temporary, we’ll… find better ones from somewhere.” They’d rob a jewelry store, or some dead person’s jewelry box, that’s what Chan was saying. Minho turned the ring in his hands, examined it. Chan was getting nervous, Minho could see that from the way his gaze was flickering in between Minho and the ring, and from the way he was fidgeting in his seat.

Marriage. Getting married to Bang Chan. It was a promise of growing old together, right? And for Chan, who hated making promises, this probably felt like something inexplicably huge. Chan would get his marriage, Minho would get the part of growing old together. It was a fair trade, wasn’t it?

“Alright”, Minho answered, as nonchalantly as he could, even if his heart was hammering in his heart. Perhaps marriage could be their thing, too, two monsters of men who had found each other. Maybe it would create a home, too. Maybe there would be home in it and Minho would finally find peace.
“Okay”, Minho breathed out.
“Okay?” Chan’s eyes lit up, that damn smile tugged the corners of his mouth again. Minho slipped the ring on his finger, slightly too big for him. Temporary.
“Okay. Let’s get married, then.”