Chapter Text
Sophia stay here we will come everyday
The words are slightly smudged due to the rain but you could just make them out in the white spray paint on the window of the car. Michael turns away and scans the tree line, absentmindedly wondering whether the people who wrote this would come back today. He looks back at Calum who appears to be thinking the same thing as him.
"Do you think they've given up yet?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ashton lift his head and take a deep breath, "Nah, they're gonna be back. Soon. We should leave."
"Do you think they'll miss a couple of these cans?" Calum goes on, completely ignoring what Ashton said. Ashton makes a disgruntled noise behind him and sits down next to Luke on the floor behind them, pouting.
Michael chuckles at them, snatching the can of spaghettio's from Calum's curious hand.
"Leave it," he says, "lets rest for a little while, maybe sleep in the cars if we stay long."
Michael slumps to the ground, lying on his back with an arm slung over his eyes. He grunts when he feels Calum plop on top of him, awkwardly planking him with his head on Michael's shoulder. Michael feels Calum stretch out and finally still before speaking.
"It's so nice today. Remember on these kind of days, you used to hole up in your room playing COD all day, and we could never coax you out," he reminisces, "now I suppose its essentially still the same, you're just forced to play the game in real life instead."
Michael sighs, shifting his head about slightly, feeling the stones on the ground dig painfully into the back of his head and shoulders, "yeah but in this game, you can't just re-do a level."
Silence stretches out between them, only broken occasionally by random bursts of songbird and the shifting of the three boys actually touching the ground. Finally, Michael works up the motivation to get up, and, after shoving and poking at Calum for a couple minutes, does so. He looks around, automatically putting his hands to his thin waist, feeling about for his knife and handgun, reassuring himself that they are still there. He almost misses the small stomach he had before the apocalypse, but between then and now he's lost a lot of weight from lack of food; at least having a stomach showed that he was somewhat healthy.
Fixing his flannel shirt, Michael informs the other boys that he is going to look around the other cars for a bit, see if there's any food that the last survivors here missed. They're on a motorway, its mostly deserted except for the cluster of wrecked, old cars they're currently sat in. They've been walking for miles, their only car running out of gas several hours ago in the early hours of the morning.
Michael walks around for a while first before actually making any attempt to look for food. There doesn't appear to be anything left, the other survivors took everything, and Michael is seriously debating whether to actually take some of the cans or not, maybe leave a note behind too; the boys and him haven't eaten in a couple days and its really beginning to take a toll on them. They're so tired.
Michael makes one last search of a van, lightly smacking his palm against the side of it when he still comes out empty handed, except for a packet of cigarettes he found in the passenger side pocket. With hardly a second thought, he slips them into his own back pocket and shuts the door, slowly walking back over to the other boys who are now stood up looking at him expectantly.
Michael shrugs and leans against the hood of the car with the cans of food on them, running his hands through his extremely-faded lilac hair. "We should just take some of these," he suggests.
Luke, who had been quiet until then, speaks up, "but they're for the girl. We cant just take them."
But even Luke looks like he's seriously debating it. It's Calum who gives in though, "yeah, well from what we've seen so far, its unlikely they're coming back any time soon; there's enough food here to feed us for weeks if we do it right."
Ashton opens his backpack and rests it on the bonnet, "take a couple, but not all. She might come back."
They fill their backpacks with two cans each, feeling slightly guilty about how little food is left, but its for the best, Michael figures. They keep one can out, deciding to camp out here for the night and finally have something to eat.
***
It takes them a little while to set up, but by nightfall they finally have a little fire going just on the other side of railing beside the road, right before the hill dips into the ominous woods. Using their backpacks as pillows, apparently foregoing Michael's earlier idea of sleeping in the cars, they relax, their stomachs finally full after sharing out the can of spaghettio's between them. They take turns to keep watch during the night and by morning all of them have had at least on turn of keeping watch, all of them too exhausted to stay up any longer than two hours each.
Before they leave their makeshift camp, Michael does end up leaving a little note in the dust that had collected on the bonnet over time, signing it CALM, to the amusement of Calum and Ashton. As they leave, they do one final search of all the cars, collecting a singular blanket and a couple pairs of jeans and shirts from the luggage left behind in the cars.
It begins to get closer to midday when the sound of a car engine breaks through the silence. Ashton quickly ushers them all into the woodlands, and Michael watches as a truck and a guy on an awesome motorcycle ride by, unaware of watching eyes. As they disappear into the distance, the boys climb back up the bank and look in the direction they left in. They can't see the wreckage from here, but Michael can just see the disappointment on their faces when they see that their food has been raided.
It's Luke who tugs on Michael's jacket to get him moving again, wrapping an arm over Michael's shoulder after they climb back over the railing. Michael leans into him slightly as they continue on down the road, shifting his backpack on his shoulder a little. Calum and Ashton lead the way, their quiet chatter breaking the peace every now and then.
Ten minutes later, Michael finds himself looking at a sign. GREENE FARM ONE MILE.
Ashton stands next to him, Luke and Calum looking down the road that apparently leads to the farm. Michael feels Ashton's hand at his hip. Michael looks at him.
"Do you think this is where those people came from?" Michael asks, leaning his forehead on Ashton's shoulder for a second. Ashton and Michael walk over to Calum and Luke and join them where they've already started walking down the dirt road.
"Probably," Ashton says. He then says, aimed at Calum and Luke who were slightly further ahead, "Stick to the woods. Those people could be back soon."
The boys walk into the woods, far enough so that the road is only barely visible through the treeline. Not even five minutes later the rumbling of engines sound again. The boys duck behind some trees out of habit to make sure they aren't seen as the men drive by. Michael can see now that in the truck is a large, muscly black man.
When they're gone, the boys stand back up again.
"They've definitely got a camp down there," Luke states awkwardly.
"No duh," Calum swats at Luke half heartedly before looking back at Michael and Ashton, "Are we going to ask to join or something? Watch them?"
Michael licks his dry lips, "Watch them," he confirms, "See what we're dealing with first."