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It’d been a week or so since the incident at the school.
Their stolen car shaved away at the asphalt, making a soft rumble noise that mostly consumed the silence between the two. They hadn’t shared many words aside from the last conversation they had, just coming out of Ruddleside. Either because one was focused on driving through the night, or because they were both too exhausted to configure their limited social knowledge into a full-blown conversation. A few words came when they asked each other if they’d found food, or any kind of supplies, really.
That was another factor to their lack of conversation. The realization that getting out of Ruddleside wasn’t their biggest problem, but rather, the lack of materials that could bountifully supply two people instead of one.
Despite the difficulties, though, neither of them made any move to leave the other’s company. The amount of kind, soft-spoken words, as rare as they were, was enough reason to stick around.
The first real challenge came when the car ran low on fuel.
It was a night like any other, since they all pretty much felt the same nowadays, and Ted was sitting comfortably in the passenger’s seat. Much to his surprise, Diego caught onto driving quite quickly; or at least, enough to drive the car straight down the street. He did miss the one useful thing he could provide to their pairship, but decided that it wasn’t important to have driving as a unique ability. If it kept them safe, Diego could drive.
They’d found an abandoned storage unit on their way, and decided that it was their best bet to hide away in it, since the area was clear for miles and no nocturnal could stay hidden enough to endanger them. Besides, they were both tired of the aimless driving, and hours of listless focusing on not dying. It was time they’d settled, even for a little bit, to battle the week of roadside views.
“Maybe we’ll find something useful in there,” Ted pointed out.
“Yeah, like fuel?” Diego remarked, pulling the car through a broken part of the chained fence that surrounded the place. Ted ignored the sarcastic connotation that came with the response, and instead gave a wistful sigh. They pulled into the building itself through a broken shutter, parking the car in the dimly lit main area. High ceilings had shelves full of shit on them.
“Come on,” Diego elbowed Ted, “it’s crazy lucky that we even came across a place like this”.
“Yeah, hopefully,” he responded, trying to smile.
The facility was similar to a storage warehouse, one that had every type of material, food, supplies, anything you could think of. Most of it had already been ransacked, but no doubt by kinder people, because what was left was organized neatly into sections with post-it notes decorated with supportive words and smiley faces.
It made Ted smile, but just a bit.
“Wow, some people out there are just as incompetent as you,” Diego commented, referring to the leftover supplies. He turned to Ted with a smirk, but he wasn’t met with the same enthusiasm.
“Those ‘incompetent’ people are the reason we can stay alive. Without them, we wouldn’t have any of these things.” His voice carried with it a kind of challenge, but he chose not to make it into a conflict. The last thing he wanted to do was argue with the only friend he’d ever had, even if he was more than wrong.
Diego shrugged, and started going through the boxes, leaving Ted to explore the rest of the huge building.
Most of it was empty, which made it easy to check the sturdiness of the walls, on the off chance that a nocturnal somehow found them and they needed the place to hide out.
Ted paused, smoothing his hands over the cold brick. The thought of another nocturnal coming after them made shivers run down his spine, and the hairs on his neck stood up. His body was urging him to check outside just in case, but he tried to ignore the feeling, imagining what Diego would remark if he really did step foot outdoors. Despite the view they had for miles, it was just safer to remain indoors.
After he found an inconspicuous enough room, he returned to the main area, to find that the boxes were separated into two piles. One, with empty boxes, and the other with supplies that were decently useless. He called out to Diego, who returned his greeting with a smile.
“I found fuel, so we’re good to go whenever you want.”
A relaxation came over Ted upon hearing that, a comforting notion that he completely forgot he needed. He didn’t know what they would do if they were actually stranded here for the rest of their foreseeable future.
He just gave Diego a nod, returning to the presumably fueled-up car, and crawling into the backseat. With the knowledge that they could leave whenever they wanted, he was less inclined to actually leave.
“What else did you find?” He sleepily muttered, sitting with his legs hanging outside of the car. Diego went ahead and listed them, items that weren’t unknown to any apocalypse traveler. Food, canned food usually, a weapon or two, random assortments of medicine. While it wasn’t unusual, it was damn surprising to see such a plentiful supply in the late stages of the earth’s troubling decay.
As he spoke, Diego walked over to the opposite side of the car, and followed Ted in shuffling into the backseat. It was as good a sleeping spot as any, and much better than sitting upright and leaning on each other’s shoulders.
“Were there any books?” Ted asked. He always hoped, wished even, that the places they would find together had books, because he so desperately wanted to learn more about what existence was like before existence lost all normalcy.
“Just one.” Diego didn’t specify what it was about, but it didn’t matter to Ted. Any kind of book was useful in his eyes. He almost wanted to get up and get it, but there was no energy left in his body to focus on reading. He sat there in silence, wondering how he even knew how to read.
“What was it about?”
The silence continued.
He looked over to Diego, who was absentmindedly strumming his guitar. It was so soft that hardly any sound was made from it. It was obvious he was trying to avoid Ted’s curious eyes.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to go find it,” he teased.
He watched Diego tense, and sigh before answering. “It wasn’t anything helpful.”
“But what was it?”
More silence.
“Go ahead and find it yourself.”
Ted rolled his eyes. Diego must’ve called his bluff because there was no way he was going out there to rummage through dusty ass boxes for a book that “wasn’t helpful”. No matter how badly his curiosity begged him to.
Instead he shut the still open car door behind him, and rested his head on Diego’s lap, repeating the sigh that came from his friend. “You’re so stubborn,” he said, drowsily. Diego didn’t answer, internalizing the fact that Ted was probably right about that.
He watched as the blonde boy shut his eyes, easing his body into the uncomfortable seats. He turned over on his side to avoid the seat belt buckles jutting into the scar that had formed on his torso. That was a wound on the piles of wounds he desperately did not want to open.
This kind of sleeping position wasn’t unfamiliar to them in the slightest. In fact, it was the only way Diego could get any kind of sleep. Ever since the time he left Ted alone in the school, which now he realizes was insanely stupid of him, there came this sharp anxiety whenever they were split apart. When Ted was physically next to him, it reinforced the companionship to an extent that he wouldn’t dare admit. The fact that he was really, truly scared of being apart from this person, was an even more terrifying fact than actually losing him.
To ease the growing stress he was building inside of himself, he rested his hands on Ted’s thick mess of sandy blonde hair. He hummed to himself, wondering about arbitrary things, like how clean it was, and how it was easy to comb through even though it’d never seen a comb in days.
Something about his hands in his friend’s hair drew a feeling out of him that he didn’t have the words to describe. He decided a while ago that he was more literate than his other half, but knew less complicated feelings. Ted had the social aspect on him, and for himself, well, the only person he’d known had betrayed him and he hadn’t met anyone since then.
Now he had lended this individual his clothes, allowed him to save his guitar, worried about his safety, and above all that, decided to stick with him instead of leaving. At first he was thinking it was just because they worked well together, but the more they traveled, the less of his reason became that, but some secondary thing he couldn’t verbalize.
It was uncharacteristic for him, really. From their time in the train car, to now. A part of him was still aching to be by his lonesome, because he’d spent so much of his time that way. That part was slowly dying out, and the change frightened him. When did he start caring so much about his feelings?
Diego rested his head against the backseat headrest, closing his own eyes, and picturing the days before, when they had first met. When he was completely fine being alone and even preferred it to be that way.
Of course, though, he couldn’t possibly ignore the huge crash and the dying guy that accompanied the broken down car. He walked outside, in the night despite himself, and the shreds of his humanity persuaded him to carry this blonde boy inside his shelter, and allow him to survive. Not without handcuffs, though.
He thought back to that moment. His hands on a then unconscious, unnamed, potentially dangerous person, carefully stitching the bleeding gash placed on his lower torso. And it had been in his mind then, the intentions to be careful, to be soft, and gentle. Unusual for him. The whole situation was unusual, and after he was done with it, he slept, waiting for the morning where he’d have to socialize with this stranger.
His attitude, now that he was recalling these moments so in depth, was such a stark difference from now that it baffled him. He couldn’t imagine being so despondent presently.
Assuming Ted had fallen asleep, he lifted up the bit where his sweater covered up the scar, finding that he hadn’t checked on it much since the initial sewing of it. In his fingers, he tried to channel the same grace when he first patched it up, this time, wholefully genuine.
The wound had healed just as much as the ones on Ted’s face, presenting a dark shade of maroon, sealed into the formation of a thick scar line. He lightly traced his finger over it, eyeing his own patchy work in the darkness of the car. At least, he thought it looked healed. Maybe it wasn’t? He couldn’t really see all that well.
What he initially thought was proven untrue, when he felt a quick flinch where his flesh met his friends’. “Diego?” Ted muttered, bleary-eyed and addled. “Is everything alright?”
Ted moved his free hand, the one that wasn’t being used as support for his head, and joined it with Diego’s. “Did something happen to that?” He questioned, indicating the scar.
“No,” came his answer, late out of slight shock. He flicked his eyes over to Ted’s, which were now eyeing him curiously. He’d moved onto his back, for the sole reason of making eye contact. Diego started feeling embarrassed, even though he hadn’t done anything to warrant the feeling.
“You look distracted,” Ted observed. “Or is it insomnia?”
“What’s that?” He ignored the first observation, not recognizing the word ‘insomnia’.
“It means you don’t really sleep. Even when we were at the school, you didn’t sleep.”
“I don’t think I have that,” he said defiantly.
“So why are you still awake?”
“Why are you still awake?”
Ted couldn’t help but smile at their meaningless banter. Even in the dark, he could see the corners of Diego’s mouth turn up in a similar way.
“How about you tell me why, and I’ll tell you why”. Ted was eager to talk, considering they hadn’t had a real conversation in far too long. And, he did honestly want to know the reason. He wanted to know a lot about Diego that he always refused to tell him. What better time than now?
“You first.”
“Fine,” Ted knew Diego wouldn’t go first anyway, “I was thinking about prom. You know what you were telling me about? I was imagining what it would be like… that maybe the book you found could’ve been something explaining it”.
“It wasn’t,” Diego interjected.
“I know. But it would’ve been nice if it was.” Ted averted his eyes, marking them with that same wistful stare he seemed to always have on him.
The hand that was still resting in his hair, Diego’s hand, ruffled it in a comforting manner. Ted let silence fall between them, enjoying the hands caressing him, knowing that soon enough Diego would say his piece.
“I was just thinking back to how we first met,” came his plain, simple answer.
That was enough for Ted. He didn’t want to press his friend for details, so he just hummed in acknowledgment, shutting his eyes again. After he did so, he felt Diego relax. They knew each other well enough to realize their dynamic fell very well into the talkative, and the listener pair.
“That’s… I wanted to see if your scar was fine, that’s it”. Diego’s voice had this hesitation to it, that arose from someplace deep inside him and for which he didn’t have the words to define. Something about admitting to the person who you care so much for that you care about them, made him reluctant to open his mouth. But he felt like he owed at least an explanation.
“Was it?” Ted said, eyes still shut.
“It’s too dark to tell”.
He made Ted sit up, making sure the car door didn’t creak as he opened it, and went out searching for a battery-powered lantern he knew he had left behind. There it was, sitting dutifully on an emptied box. He picked it up, unlatched the battery compartment to find that it was thankfully full, and hauled it back over to the car.
“You didn’t think to bring that sooner?” His friend was smirking, watching from the inside.
“I thought you were going to sleep”.
“I thought you were going to sleep,” he remarked back.
Diego shook his head, climbing back into the rear, lantern aglow behind him. “Whatever. Just lay back down”.
He shut the door behind him, and propped up the lantern behind the headrest, so it could illuminate the car whole. Ted did as he was told, laying back down and lifting a part of his hoodie up. The underside of the fabric was slightly stained with burgundy blood, after the wound had been disturbed when they were in escape from the school nocturnal. Diego decided to not say anything about his hoodie being ruined. It wasn’t smart to tack feelings on a memento, anyhow.
His eyes flicked to his guitar and rested there for a short minute.
With the lantern providing the glow, he could see now that the gash wasn’t completely closed anymore, and it would need to be re-fastened with stronger stitches. He recalled seeing medical equipment before, and decided that there’d be no better time to use it than now.
He heard Ted whisper the word “fuck” as he pressed around the wounded area. He’d just recently learned what that word had meant, and it wasn’t anything good.
“I need to stitch you up again,” he mentioned. To which Ted nodded, but was not hoping for.
He watched his dark-haired pal hop out of the car again, fetching more equipment. While he was gone, Ted removed the hoodie completely, suddenly worried about any more scarring that might be ailing him. It was hung by the hood on the headrest to his left.
Once he returned, Diego raised an eyebrow at Ted’s now shirtless appearance.
“I wanted to check for more scars,” Ted had answered. Diego nodded.
“You’re good. Here, sit back”. The sound of the car door shutting echoed around the room.
The last time Diego had done this, Ted wasn’t around to watch. Now that he was awake and to attention, two things ran through his mind. One, that he was fucking scared that it would be unbearably painful, and two, that he was excited to learn how to do it.
“Are you going to teach me?”
Diego chuckled. “Hopefully, you won’t need to know how to do this”.
He sat there, biting down every sharp sting that shot through him with each stab of the needle. It wasn’t unbearable, but god awfully painful, a type of pain he had yet to experience. It would’ve been comical, the amount of cursing he was doing, if it weren’t for their situation.
And Diego was reminded about the first time he did this, not exactly thinking he’d do it again.
His hands were steady, experienced, more careful and soothing than before. Half because his subject was awake, half because he desired to not hurt him. It felt different now. Helping a friend, and no longer a stranger.
When he was finished, Ted rolled over so that his back was pressed flat against the seats. The stitching this time was neat and tidy, stronger than what he’d done last. Diego smoothed a hand over it, trying not to feel too proud of what was still shabby work.
“Try not to get into too much trouble before it heals completely.”
“If I get into trouble, I’m blaming you,” Ted jabbed. He didn’t bother putting the hoodie back on, since he felt the calming lullaby of sleep pulling him closer with every passing second. “You’re supposed to protect me.”
“Yeah?” Diego laughed, but subtly. “I guess I have to, since you can’t even light a lighter properly”.
Ted felt himself getting warmer. Not because of the targeted comment, but at the idea that Diego would really always be around to protect him. At least, if that’s what he was insinuating. The idea made him feel this warm fuzziness inside, a good feeling.
“Are we leaving tomorrow?” He decided to ask.
Diego shrugged back at him. “If you want to”.
“I’m not sure yet”.
“I’m not sure either”.
They both shared a glance. But briefly.
“You’re really not going to tell me what that book was about?”
Diego audibly sighed above him.
“It was about dancing, alright? Like at…” he didn’t need to finish the sentence. He looked away abashedly, as if just realizing how silly it was to withhold that information. Truth be told, he didn’t want to say anything because he knew that he’d have to get involved if Ted wanted to try it again. He was pretty tired. Or, he thought he was tired enough to sleep.
“Like what we were doing before?”
“But much more proper,” Diego smiled, recalling their very poorly coordinated ‘dancing’ all those days ago. “I know you want to read it”. He let Ted shuffle off of him, not needing a verbal answer. He looked into those blue eyes of his, and they had yes written all over them. Ted grabbed the hoodie from the headrest, carefully putting it back on.
He outstretched his arm to his black-haired partner, implying that he should join him in this discovery of proper dancing. “I can’t dance alone,” he would say. And Diego, knowing now that this person next to him wouldn’t dare leave, agreed to go at it again. Not a solemn goodbye dance this time, but a real one.
He jumped out of the car with the lantern in tow, running after that free-spirit who wanted ever so badly to learn things that he himself had once deemed unnecessary.
“Ballroom Dancing for Beginners”. That was the title, slapped onto a very unassuming black and white cover. The art that accompanied the words showed a female figure and a male figure in an intertwined position neither could yet name.
The boys sat down against the massive tower of boxes, and interestedly flipped through the pages attempting to find a dance that would catch their eyes. One that was simple enough to replicate, and endearing enough to emulate.
“These look complicated,” Diego huffed, still feeling the weight of the night crashing down on them.
“Well, we can still try.” Ted met his eyes with Diego’s in that way he always does, and he found it hard to say no. Mustering up the last bit of energy he had, just for Ted’s sake.
“Fine,” he snickered, grabbing Ted’s hand to help lift himself off the floor. His partner guided him to the dimly lit center of the warehouse. The light seemed to circle them, identical to the moon's white glow.
Ted, being the slightly taller one, decided himself to take the role of the male (as it was shown, at least, in most of the dances) and placed his hand gingerly on the waist of his dancing partner. Diego followed his lead, positioning his own hands as the pictures had shown them. One on the shoulder, one closed around the other’s hand, fingers intertwined. Ted’s hand had a nervous warmness to it, one that he found himself sharing, with no particular reason as to why.
“So I step like this…” and Ted would take a step.
“And I step like this,” and Diego would take a step.
They’d both step on each other's feet, and laugh, and pause to take a look back at the book.
It was without music, without rhythm, and without practice. But if it wasn’t the most magical thing either boy had ever experienced.
The taps of their feet made quiet echoes into the open warehouse, shuffling, scuttling noises. They danced there, voiceless and drained, but happy. For one peaceful moment, they were happy and nothing else. It felt as if it was just them, in the entire destroyed world, creating something beautiful.
The interrelations of all that made them unique, being shared, being communicated through a still very poorly executed dance. It was faulty, but it was perfect. A faulty dance with too many mistakes, but that held intimacy and a thousand other similar words they didn’t know the name of, but felt deeply.
“I think we’re getting the hang of this,” Ted couldn’t help but smile. There was something natural about having their hands in this way, in this position. He wondered about the people that came before him. Was everyone who danced before them enchanted in the way they were? Those people who got to celebrate prom, did they know how good they had it? To be able to dance freely, in the open, surrounded by a flourishing world? Was it just as special then?
“I’m for sure doing better than you are”. Diego laughed, guiding his partner into a spin, like Ted had done for him the previous time. It was awkward with their height difference, but Ted played along.
“Of course,” he sarcastically agreed.
They stopped after a while, out of breath and flimsy. They propped themselves up on the box mountain, and simply breathed in and out, relishing in the beauty that was dance. Ted’s hand was still wrapped around Diego, and neither of them indicated that they wanted to let go.
“That seemed right to me,” Diego said in between breaths.
It didn’t just seem right. It felt completely and utterly right. Diego didn’t voice that part.
“It was fun, for sure”. He could sense the smile in Ted’s voice.
They sat there, basking in the afterglow, waiting for their breathing to become steady.
“Do you ever wish that you got to live in the world before it was like this?” Ted asked. It wasn’t sudden. They both always thought about it; how life could have been, how everything used to be. There was a certain misery in knowing they would never be able to live it, and another comfort in simply thinking about it.
“More so now that I’ve met you,” was the answer. “I wish we could’ve danced like this at prom,” Diego admitted, with almost as much desire as Ted had always had.
Ted’s answer was only a faint “yeah” of agreement. An agreement that said that he knew it was only a dream, something that they would have to strictly imagine.
“I think if the world never turned out like this, I’d still want to have met you”. Ted’s words were mixed in with the sleepiness overtaking him, a drugged up, oxytocin flooded confession of his feelings that he didn’t have the name for.
It was soft, and quiet; the response that came after. “Me too,” Diego said. And repeated. It rang out in Ted’s ears, which were red for a reason different than the cold weather.
Their words were simply replacements for what they truly wanted to say: I love you.
And they felt it for each other, although they had never been taught its complexities. But they knew whatever they felt was a powerful feeling, one that attaches itself to you and doesn’t let go. One that is sewn into your heart from the moment you feel it.
Ted sat there, and decided that whatever name it had, it was the greatest thing he’d ever felt. He felt it when he was with Diego, and that’s all that mattered to him.
His feelings were sewn into every word that, without saying it exactly, meant love. It was present when they danced, when they slept near each other, when their hands touched each other’s and when they were the most happy.
They’d say, “I’d miss you,” and what it truly meant was, “I love you”.
I love you so much that of course I’d always miss you.
I can’t stand the thought of you gone.
That’s what it truly meant.
Diego knew very vaguely of it. He knew that love existed, and he’d seen it mentioned, but he had never gotten to experience love in a normal world. He had never aligned the word to his own feelings; the ones that were so intense, so much so that he didn’t need a label for it. He just sat there, feeling. Feeling for Ted. If that feeling was love, then so be it.
And it was naturally, honestly natural because neither of them had ever been taught kissing, when he turned to Ted and cupped his face in his hands. It was natural, and love, and everything they were feeling all together when their lips met. And they knew that this was something done to express their feelings, because god did it make them feel ever so right. Diego kissed him and Ted grabbed his hair, and they brought themselves back to the point where their breath was short and staggered. They indulged in whatever this was, having to discover and define it by themselves.
Diego slid his hands under the hoodie to where the stitches sat tightly, just as they had when dancing. He left it there, as their mouths moved hastily against each other, but with the softness of a newfound tenderness they both wholefully shared.
Once they parted, hands still resting on each other’s bodies, they burst out into the quietest harmony of laughter either of them had ever heard. A painful, peaceful, warm laughter that echoed through the high ceilings of their makeshift home. They held eye contact, after the laughing had died down, longingly staring into the other boys’ glowing irises.
“Where did you learn that?” Ted asked, breaking their staring match. They leaned back against the boxes, with Ted’s head resting on Diego’s shoulder.
“I saw someone doing it once, but I don’t remember when,” he answered, yawning.
“It was better than dancing,” Ted yawned back.
“Maybe next time, we could just do that instead”.
He didn’t get a response back. Ted’s sounds had turned to quieted breathing, with a cyclic rise and fall of his chest indicating that he was asleep.
Diego looked out into the parasitic world, and slept dreaming about one where the grass grew back greener, the hum of people filled the air, and they shared a bed, a real bed, wrapped around each other for the rest of their days.