Archive of Our Own

BB knows exactly how he ended up here.

The windows of the car were smashed open a long time ago, so a cold breeze billowed into the back of it and made a subtle thumping sound in the rear. Lenny was stretched across the back seat, little hands pillowed under her head, while Eden sat in the passenger-seat with BB in the driver’s seat. Really, it was a miracle this thing was even working.

BB had found it being repaired by the Followers a while ago whilst out on one of his patrols. It was never supposed to be running, let alone for as long as it has been now— they’re out of the city. They’re so far out of the city that it seems impossible they had even been there in the first place. Whatever life they had there before was gone.

The horizon of the shattered cityscape (and the subsequent mole nest) is barely the height of a thumbnail in the distance. The sun is to their right. The city is behind them. There’s an endless road infront, with the country stretching out further and further. Flatland as far as the eye could see. Even this far out the old telephone lines were never even erected into the ground. It’s desolate. It’s sunset, in that post-apocalyptic way, where the sky is never quite that exotic orange anymore and everything always has a thick white fog over it.

Except, BB realises, this far out the fog sort of fades away. When he glances in the rear-view mirror, it’s like there’s a blanket smothering the whole city. BB wonders how he could ever breathe in all that. Out here, driving down the broken road, it almost feels like there’s normal air again. Almost.

Lenny is sleeping in the backseat when BB angles the mirror down, she’s okay. Eden had told him in an anxious fevor, hands on his helmet, that Lenny was hurt and he didn’t know what to do. If she was okay. If her arm could be healed, if it would stay clean.

BB had to bite his tongue so hard. He wanted to tell him to join CONTACT, it was this strange desperation inside of him that made him ache to drag Eden into the mess with him, to have someone there. He’s selfish. He’s so selfish. He’s accepted this long ago (it’s all he has: himself, when in this world).

It didn’t end up being like that. BB, in a fit of strange vindication, said he was running away. It wasn’t true. He had no plans to, he didn’t even know how he would. There was never hope for him – but in that short instant, whatever he said had lit a fire beneath Eden. If they could get out the city quick enough, find the next city, maybe they’d find medicine.

It was a sort of fruitless kind of hope that BB couldn’t smother. If it was going to be the end, like he had so randomly decided it would be, then might as well make it an end to remember. Not to say he’s suicidal, by any means.

BB keeps his hands on the wheel, tight and steady. There’s a distant rumbling that BB recognises as the sound of the moles burrowing beneath the Earth. He knows the car’s battery is like a beacon to those things, his anxiety around getting swallowed hole by one of the moles increasing the further he goes out from the city.

Well, atleast they tried, if that’s the case.

BB briefly wonders what the world is like so far out. There had been international communications early on but it had been over a decade now. There was still no internet, no continental communications. Electricity was a thing of the past. To the dark ages. How are they going to survive now?

They. Multiple. Us. Eden. Lenny. Me.

He shakes his head. He's not allowed to think like that.

BB glances at Eden in the passenger seat, the man’s helmet in his lap. It’s one of those rare times where he’s taken it off. It must be the fresh air. Maybe it’s something else. BB couldn’t bring himself to take off his goggles or mask just yet, too focused on getting them out of there.

BB can just barely see his silhouette, obscured by the sun glaring into his eyes. Despite it: He can still see how Eden rests his head on his fist as he peers out the window, hair and sleeve flicking in the wind. BB turns away, not wanting to veer off the road.

He looks back out to the horizon. The supersized, inflated moon in the sky blocks half the horizon. BB wonders when the day that’ll it’ll crash into the Earth will be like. He wonders if they’ll even still be here for that. He wonders a lot of things as he keeps his foot on the gas, going and going until they run out.

“I thought disposal was the only way out.” Eden says, voice quiet and hushed, leaning against the hood of the car as they stop for the night. The city isn’t visible anymore. They’ve reached that part of the trip where it stopped feeling like some kind of grand escape and more like a death sentence.

Regret had started building in BB.

“It is.” BB answers, staring into the darkness of the night. Stars briefly glitter behind the clouds, which swirl a dark and viscous grey and blue.

“Then what are we doing out here?” Eden asks. The man turns to him a little. BB looks down at his feet.

He doesn’t know. They have little rations, all that BB managed to scrounge out of his Team Leader and CONTACT before up and running. They don’t have a location to go to. They have a little girl in the backseat of the car sleeping, waiting for something more. BB has a whole life he doesn’t remember and plug sockets in the back of his neck.

God, he thinks, I ran away.

He sighs, suddenly underestanding this whole big act of rebellion. It’s all rather embarassing.

Oh, that’s what this is.

“Killing time.” He answers with finality, turning to Eden.

He hoped to dicepher his face, make out what he’s thinking of what BB just said, of anything about this whole thing — but BB forgot about the masquerade of the night. Eden is nothing more than a black silhouette, the vague shape of him blocking out the stars in the sky.

Eden turns away, that he can tell. He doesn’t reply.

“Jam or peanut butter?” Eden asks, both hands fisted infront of him as he hides the little pots from view.

Lenny sits on the edge of the backseat of the car, the door opened as Eden crouches.

The morning had come with a strange warmth that felt unfamiliar. The night was cold, alive and writhing. There was always this terrifying, absent thrumming deep beneath the ground that made BB wonder how much of this planet was already a ruin.

The morning came with a warmer breeze that felt like spring, almost. The morning came with the first glimpse of an orange that he hadn’t seen in years. The morning actually came, it wasn’t all some kind of fever dream.

BB had opened his eyes to that grey sky, laying atop the hood of the car, but looking back towards the horizon (and past that giant moon) he saw a gorgeous, orange, glowing, ball with a similar light casting a fused glow across the dead grass and dirt.

He sat, staring at that light until that glowing ball vanished behind the grey clouds and blue circles were burnt into his eyes.

“Jam!” Lenny’s voice cuts through his thoughts. BB turns and sees her point at one of Eden’s closed fists.

The man opens it and there, in his palm, is a small pot of strawberry jam.

“Yes!” She hisses, pumping a fist in victory. Eden hands her the thing and she gleefully goes about spreading it onto a slice of bread with one finger.

“After breakfast, we’ll check your arm.” Eden replies, getting to his feet with a subtle groan. He rests an arm on the roof of the car, peering down at her fondly. It’s a familial sight, a reststop before the longer journey ahead.

“Okay,” She mumbles, already chewing. She casts her legs into the backseat and goes about picking through the pages of a new book that BB managed to find. Eden watches her for a few second more, rubs a his helmet visor to clear it of dirt and then turns to BB once he catches him watching.

The man pushes off the car and walks the short distance to BB, who leans against the boot of the vehicle casually.

“Not eating anything?” Eden asks, crossing his arms as he stands next to BB.

“Have you?” BB answers, a little accusatory.

“Not hungry.” Eden replies, shrugging.

BB stews in that for a moment, staring at the point where the giant moon meets the horizon. It goes through strange phases, bobbing in the sky and moving around as if it isn’t rapidly approaching day-by-day.

“We need to ration,” BB says numbly, a little monotone.

“We’ll figure something out,” Eden answers, completely out of character. BB’s head swivels towards him, affronted. Eden notices, glancing at BB and huffing humourlessly. “I know.”

BB doesn’t say anything, trying to reconvene this image of Eden with the one standing before him. The man sighs, rubs at his wrists under his gloves and adjusts his jacket. All anxious fidgets, BB’s militant mind supplies.

This isn’t the type of guy to not want to plan. This isn’t the type of guy to say ‘we’ll figure it out’ and let the days come as they do. All BB had ever known from Eden was vigorous planning, anxious rules and systems in place. Always keeping one hand on the knife in his pocket and the other protectively wrapped around Lenny.

It scared BB. It really, really scared BB. Just a few words, his entire view destabilised.

Eden remained incognizant to BB’s mental anguish.

“I just don’t want to think about anything beyond this moment and where we’re at right now.” Eden mumbles quietly for BB to hear, looking down at the ground. “Right now, Lenny is eating her favourite food. We’re out of the city and it’s pretty warm.”

His voice felt strangely far. It felt like it was coming closer the more he spoke, however, so BB didn’t say anything. That sudden heartbreak, that angst in his chest when Eden wasn’t the same anymore, slowly faded like a bruise.

“It’s not enough,” Eden continues, “but…”

He wipes his hand down his helmet, like the words pain him to say. He sighs deeply, his shoulders lifting and dropping like he’s carrying the world on them. He leans back and finally props himself against the side of the car as he looks up to the sky—

“…Atleast we’re okay.”

BB can’t bring himself to argue with that, not when Lenny is leaning out of the open car door and trying to swallow the last of her bread and shouting for them like there’s no one around (because there isn’t, they’re safe)—

“Crow!” She shouts, making BB jolt, “In this book, it’s you!”

She holds up the thing by the hardcover. It splays the pages, making her lose her place. In her other hand, the half-finished slice of slathered bread.

“Hey, careful with that. We only have one of each.” Eden scolds, gesturing at her, “And eat your breakfast!”

She squints at him and stuffs the bread into her mouth, shimmying back into the car.

“Kids…” Eden says woefully, looking back out towards nowhere.

BB feels a smile fall behind his mask, he can’t help it. The grin falls quickly, though. His eyes feel tired. He slept but it didn’t feel like he slept. One moment he was looking at the stars and how Eden wasn’t there but he was – and then the next the orange ball of the sun glowing behind the hyper-sized moon.

He looks over at Eden, now, and how he’s very much there. His presence almost fills his whole mind for this secular moment and it’s like he’s the only thing in the world, with the rest of the land behind him just being dead grassland and grey sky.

BB both can’t stand that thought as much as it brings him comfort so he looks away, adjusting the strap of his goggles on his head like he cares about appearances.

He tries not to think of how much bread they have left, tries to stay in this moment.

Eden’s driving now and Lenny is bothering him with the kind of rambling that only an eight-year-old could muster. BB’s in the back, trying to organise their belongings.

“Can I drive?” Lenny asks, peering over at Eden and trying to grab at the wheel. He gently bats at her.

“No, not until you’re older.” He responds.

BB thinks to cut in, point out that laws and rules don’t exist anymore. Lenny could drive, have an attempt at it anyways…

“You’re not tall enough to reach the pedals yet.” Eden continues, chastising Lenny with another bat of his hand when she tries to reach for the gearshift.

BB snorts. Of course it wasn’t about law.

“What’s so funny?” Eden asks, adjusting the rear-view mirror to stare at BB in the reflection.

“Hey, I told you not to touch that. Now I have to fix it like I do the seat.” BB says.

“Oh, you mean this seat?” Eden asks, cranking it higher up and closer to the wheel.

“Leave it.” BB says coldly.

Eden sighs dramatically.

“We’re the same height, why do you have it so far back? This isn’t a race car, you know…” Eden answers.

BB shakes his head and goes back to cleaning out the duffle bag in the backseat. Eden brought up the idea of driving when BB started veering a little off the road in exhaustion, and now that selfless kindness BB thought Eden had only proved to be the selfish desire for destruction. He had broken every perfectly adjusted part of his car for his own greedy gain.

It wasn’t that dramatic in hindsight but BB clung onto the little things nowadays, like the positioning of his mirrors and car seat.

“What’s a race-car?” Lenny asks, leaning back into the passenger seat. The question cuts through the air, BB feels it hit him particularily hard.

BB turns to face her in the front and finds her eyes wide and looking at him. She’s expecting BB to answer.

“Put your seatbelt on and Crow will tell you.” Eden says again, all fatherly lecturing.

Lenny sighs and does so, BB leans a little forwards and helps her click it in, fumbling with the latch as he explains.

“It’s a type of car that goes really fast,” BB answers blankly. She keeps staring at him with those big eyes, hands on the edge of her seat as she looks at BB. “You know what a ‘race’ is. People used to get in the fast cars and see who’d go the fastest, so: Race cars.”

“And to go even faster, you have to almost lay down in it.” Eden adds, educationally. The next part is more to BB than anyone else: “But this isn’t a race car. It’s a Honda Civic and BB is a maniac who wants to see more of the sky than he does the road.”

“Fix my mirror.” BB says, turning back to his duffle bag. He’s just organising the same things over and over again, there’s nothing he’s actually doing.

“Go to sleep.” Eden snaps, waggling a finger at him from the front, tattling on him.

He considers it. He hasn’t had a good rest since… well, a long time now. He was put back here by force of the two others in the car so he could sleep and he was failing to do that.

Anxiety fetters in him. How are they going to get more supplies? CONTACT isn’t here to help, not that they helped anyways... The Followers aren’t here atleast, but that doesn’t mean the threat of the moles are gone. If anything, it was only a matter of time before they came face-to-face with one. And then, what would they do? How much time did they have left before the end? What would happen to Lenny?

Lenny leans over to the middle console and starts messing with the buttons, trying to turn on the radio that she doesn’t know is a radio. Eden grabs her fingers and won’t let go of it when she tries to pull away, shrieking and batting at him with her grubby hands. Eden keeps one hand on the wheel, then finally lets go of her and ruffles her hair when she leans in to bite at him. She fights against the head-tap and leans into her seat and pulls her hood up defiantly. Eden’s laughter lightly fills the car.

BB finds himself extraordinarily tired and he lolls away.

“What do you want to do?” BB asks, arms crossed. Eden looks to him like he’s dumb, staring at him for a second before gesturing vaguely in the air.

“How am I meant to answer that?” He finally answers hands falling limp.

They both turn to look at the blown tire of the car, the hole in it gaping and tragic.

It was a series of unfortunate events, as ironic as it was. They had continued driving earlier in the morning than they normally would and so the world was all a little darker than any of them were expecting. They would have turned the headlights on, but both BB and Eden were cautious of using any electricity at all if they didn’t need to.

Curse their pride’s.

When they ran over the sharp rock, BB thought they were screwed. He had assumed a line of barbed wire had been laid out this far and they were sure to be ambushed. He had accepted his fate.

Getting out of the car was a herculean task, they didn’t do Lenny any favours by effectively pulling straws to see who’d go out first.

“Do you know how to change a tire?” Eden asks, glancing at BB when he looks away from the tire.

“We don’t have a spare.” BB replies, rubbing at his head under his hat. His head throbs, a headache forming since the moment he woke.

Eden doesn’t reply but goes to the boot, obviously checking BB’s claim.

“Eden,” BB starts, trying to catch his attention.

The man opens the boot and begins rifling through all the organisation of supplies BB had so faithfully done to get them set on this trip. There’s no tire, he slams the boot back down. Inside the car, Lenny jolts and spins to watch Eden circle the car.

“Eden.” BB tries again, coming to the boot as Eden gets to his knees and tries peering underneath the car, as if there’d be a spare there.

BB’s head throbs. He looks around, wondering if there's anyone out in this deserted wilderness who can help them. He turns back to Eden, who's crawling even further under the car now.

“Eden, get out of there before you get crushed.” BB says, kneeling down a little.

Eden doesn't listen, his knees and lower legs being the only part that stuck out from under the car. He kicks against the ground, braces himself, and shimmies further.

“What's going on?” Asks Lenny as she gets out of the car. It wobbles, the weight shifting.

BB's heart freezes, he reaches for the underneath of the car, like he could somehow hold its whole weight if it were to fall.

“Stop! Go back in, Lenny!” BB reflexively yells, fearing for Eden.

Lenny startles and nervously goes back into the car, she shuts the door.

“What are you yelling out there for?!” Comes Eden's muffled voice from below the floor of the car.

BB panics, hearing the car creak again. His mind spins with possibilities and, with his heart racing because they're stuck in the middle of nowhere with withering supplies and meagre hope, he panics.

“Eden, I’m going to radio for my Team Leader, he can come for us.” BB says, trying to peer under the car as a loud, threatening clank comes from beneath it. “He can still find us, we can go back. It's not too far.”

Eden’s movements freeze and he seems to struggle with something from above. After another loud bang, he begins to shimmy out from under the car.

He kicks against the ground, once, twice—

“BB, help me out here.”

BB grabs at Edens bony ankles, pulling him from the ground. Dirt gets tossed into the air as the man comes sliding out.

“Ow. Ow. Ow.” Eden says, finally appearing from out beneath the car and, stretched above his head, is a thick rubber tire.

It's been in a better state, but it's remained relatively untouched to the ages and environment.

BB let's go of his legs and stands back, brushing his hands free of dirt as the other manrolld onto his hands and knees. He gets up and heaves the tire up onto the boot. He rubs at his back, clearly scratched by the concrete through his jacket.

All is quiet as Eden catches his breath and BB watches him. They've got time left to the day, and with the tire they can make more of a way into the wilderness. Trees had started popping up again, the woodland growing back.

Eden turns towards him.

“What do you mean ‘we can still go back’?”

BB’s blood runs cold.

“Can I help now?” Lenny yells from the broken window, leaning out of the frame, interrupting Eden’s question.

Neither of them reply for a long moment, staring at eachother. Eden shifts and looks at Lenny wordlessly.

“Yeah, you can. Come help me find the jack.”

BB feels like he's in trouble, tattled on by some kid to the teacher. Guilt wells up in him.

Lenny had managed to help out with the tire, Eden teaching her the basics of what parts do what with BB assisting on the sidelines. Afterwards, they were on the drive again, heading towards their next target: The city.

When the night comes, there's the faint silhouette of that same city in the distance. They had driven through flattened villages, wastelands of bombs and craters. Of the old remains of decade-past mole fissures… and now they were en route to their biggest target yet.

Soon, they would enter it. It would be a desolate, a familiar sight. Broken down buildings, green moss and plague all over. Nest roots, settled into every crevice. Around every source of power. Their car would bring attention, no doubt. Running and ready, in relatively good-condition… and after that…

BB didn't want to think too hard about it. Live moment-by-moment.

For now, the night covered them in a thick blanket of darkness and Eden and Lenny were bundled into the back, Lenny sleeping into the side of Eden, pressed to the back of the seats. BB insisted on staying awake in the passenger seat. He wasn’t doing well at sleeping nowadays.

“BB,” begins Eden, voice quiet from above Lenny’s head. BB didn't realise he was staring at the two of them.

Eden’s head, (again, it's so dark he can't see his face, helmet off under the seat), lolls a little. Looks directly at him, that BB can tell.

“You know we can't go back, right?” Eden whispers, like a secret. Like he doesn't want BB to really know, like he wants BB to ask him to repeat himself so he can say something else.

“I know,” BB answers quietly. He heard Eden loud and clear. “It was instinct.”

Eden hums. When BB looks back, the man is looking up at the roof of the car and holding the back of Lenny’s head, her hoodie turned up. The windows were covered with old cloth, to stop the cold from beating in. BB thinks that the two of them look warm, he wonders when he’ll be brave enough to ask that— if they’re warm.

Eden must have been expecting him to continue because he huffs a laugh and relaxes a little into the seats, like he was strung with tension.

“Now you're the one acting weird.” Eden says after a long moment. BB flusters, instinctively kicking back at that the claim.

He didn't think he was acting any differently that he normally would. When you're in a situation you can't fight through, you call for backup. You retreat.

“Maybe,” Is what he settles on, not wanting to outright deny Eden.

“Go to sleep,” Eden mutters, “I'll stay awake.”

BB feels guilty build in him, making him stay awake when BB was capable. For making him worry about him…

“Maybe,” he answers, again trying not to outright deny Eden.

“What are you so scared of?” Eden asks. “We’re…”

Safe, he doesn't say. They're not.

“I'm not scared.” BB snaps back, pointedly not looking at him. “I'm just doing the night shift.”

A pause.

“Come back here.” Eden mutters, reaching out towards him. BB looks back at him.

“Where do you expect me to lay down?” BB asks.

“I don’t. Just sit with me.” Eden says, patting the headrest of BB’s seat.

BB stares at him for a moment longer and Eden waves him over a bit more vigorously. With a sigh, BB opens the driver-side door and clambers out. The cold air hits him feverishly, the glow of the moonlight casting the world in a hazy blue.

He opens the door that’s above Eden’s head and the man leans his head upwards to look at BB. The light of the moon would illuminate his face, but BB’s silhouette is swathing him in deep darkness. Oh, the irony.

“Welcome in,” Eden whispers.

Eden leans up a little and BB clambers in. He’s expecting Eden to sit upwards, let Lenny cling onto him and sit side-by-side to BB — but he instead leans his head back onto BB’s thighs, shoulders resting a little on him too once BB settles. BB jolts, not expecting it.

He slowly shuts the door behind him and the wind and nature from the outside dont quite disappear, but it all quiets down. He tries to calm his strangely pounding heart.

Eden’s head on the top of his legs is a strange, warm weight. Something this important cradled by his own weight. A whole brain in there, a whole life. Eden. Human.

There’s so many ways he could hurt Eden right now, so many ways he could harm Lenny, too. But they’re two fragile things letting BB protect them. Three fragile things in a run-down car after sun-down.

BB leans back and rests his head against the headrest, looking up at the dull roof of the car. He puts his hands in the inside of his utility vest, into the pockets high up on his chest, so he doesn’t touch the two of them. Eden settles more comfortably, tugging Lenny closer to him. He mumbles to the air.

“Just pretend we’re on a big adventure…” Says Eden, voice fading a little, “…Finding some undiscovered land, if it makes you feel better.”

It doesn’t but BB’s not gonna tell Eden that. He doubts much could make him ‘feel better’.

BB stays watching the view outside, swallowed by the edges of the city. At some point he blinks, and he doesn’t seem to wake up again until the morning light comes flittering through the makeshift blinds.

BB was right.

He was fucking right.

“You've got to be kidding me.” BB mutters, staring at the ruined remains of their supplies in the boot.

Granted, whoever raided them seemed to be merciful enough to leave atleast a few days of rations to survive off of — but it was all gone. The scrap remained, thankfully, maybe there'd be some far branch of a different CONTACT-like institute in this city that they can trade with.

(Telling from the overgrown, stretching roots going deep into the ground, it told BB otherwise. This was untamed, wild land.)

Anyways: BB knew he was right. He shouldn't have slept. He shouldn’t have gone to the back with Eden and Lenny and he should’ve stayed diligent. How could all of his training vanish fall away this easy?

This was only proof of why this whole thing was a fruitless idea anyways. Their supplies would dwindle and they'd have to die in the car or go back home. This incident would be only the beginning. Raiders, cultists, corrupt companies. It’s only a matter of time.

Eden stressfully puts his hands on his helmet, smearing blood on the white casing. BB looks away, needing to think of their next steps. This is what not planning ahead does to you.

Damn it, Eden.

He instead turns and looks at the body of a raider who dared to try and break into their car. Their comrades left the guy behind, instead scampering off with Eden and BB’s supplies.

And, in turn, leaving the two of them with a body on their hands. Eden had attacked them with a kind of ferocity that BB hadn’t seen before, yet entirely expected from the man. Once BB sounded the alarm, Eden had flown out of the car at full speed and begun chasing down the main culprit. Lenny remained in the car, delirious and confused. Still trying to wake up.

“Damn it.” Eden mutters, stumbling to the dead body on the ground. Eden had bludgeoned him rather violently, so he was smeared with vicious red. BB was glad that Lenny wasn't watching too closely… Not that she hasn't seen worse at this point.

A horrible thought flickers into his mind: What would have happened if he hadn't woken up at all?

Eden finds BB’s radio and takes it from him. He had been fiddling with it, leaning against the side of a building as Eden ambled around inside, burying the body.

BB was waiting for a while. He just needed space to radio for his Team Leader. If he was lucky, CONTACT would send a party the moment he notified his boss of his location. Surely. With meagre supplies, in a city they don’t know, it was only obvious he’d ask for assistance.

Well, that’s what should have happened. BB never actually turned the thing on. He stared at the dials and the knobs, considered powering it, and found himself unable to press that button. It was around a couple of minutes after that that Eden went back out with Lenny in-hand and saw the man leaning against the wall, catching him with the radio like he had his fingers in the cookie jar.

Eden snatched it off him and kept it in his pocket. Chastised and caught, BB shamefully let him keep hold of it without much fanfare.

Eden glances at the large pile of concrete slabbing and dirt that made up a small enclave of the room.

“Think it's noticeable?” Eden asks coldly, letting Lenny wander off to the room ahead, within sight.

BB looked to the kicked up dirt and rearranged concrete shelving that now covered the raider. A makeshift grave. He doubted anyone, even if they were alive, would find it easy to crawl out of that. Not that it mattered, the raider was definitely dead.

“Yeah,” BB answers. “The others won’t come looking for us anyways. They’re not like those pests near the nests.”

“Thank god…” Eden answers. He sighs, places his hands on his hips with a loud huff. “I thought I was done with the manual labour when we left our homebase...”

BB hears Lenny humming in the other room before he sees her emerge out of the doorway, holding something furry in her arms. BB startles, takes a step towards her. Eden gasps.

“Hello, kitty…” He whispers, all baby-voice.

“Look!” She whisper-yells, changing her grip. The creature (obvious as it is now) pops its head out from between Lenny’s sleeves, revealing two pointed ears and eyes almost as big as the girl’s own, who’s holding it.

“Mreow,” It trills. It’s a cat.

“How did you find that?” Eden asks, forgetting all about his murder and turning to Lenny. He paces over to her peacefully, BB follows a little behind.

The cat begins clawing at Lenny’s sleeves, rolling it’s face all up against Lenny’s chin. She giggles trying to lean away but not quite able to escape its chase.

“In a box!” She replies, laughing. The cat bites numbly at her skin and she scolds it: “Hey, stop it—”

“What are you gonna name it?” Eden replies, crouching down before her.

“Cat,” She answers proudly. The cat, dirty but alive and orange, meows it’s affirmation. Looks like it was a vocal one.

“Original,” BB comments, nodding to Eden. Eden lightly bats at him to cut it out.

Turns out, it wasn’t the end of the world.

Or, well. It wasn’t the end of the world when a lot of their stuff got stolen. Once Eden took his radio and when Lenny was occupied with her new cat (which BB silently objected to, anxious over their supplies—), BB counted what they had left after they were raided.

It wasn’t that bad. Realistically, it was just over a week left of stuff if they held out, and Eden certainly was going to object to getting any of his typical share… but they were okay. They could last until they could find more, that was what Eden was sure of when he told him.

BB thought either the raiders were merciful or they only got as much as they could carry but, as BB just thought, they were still okay. It wasn’t the end of the world, even as it was.

It was a strangely calming thought that they didn’t have to go back yet. This supply matter was another barrier put up between him and his past, it was a safety-wall.

“Lenny,” BB yells, looking over to the girl playing with the cat in the car. She looked up. “Come help me organise this.”

She smiled wide but it quickly dropped when she looked back down at the cat playing across the seats, eyes wide and staring at the limp string between her fingers.

“Uhh…” She begins, looking back up at BB. BB nods.

“It’s alright, then. Don’t worry about it.” He replies, a little sore in the heart.

“Thank you, Crow!” She replies, smiling again.

He knows she liked being useful, lest she go off on her own and try to fix things. She was yet to do it, but BB was sure it would happen one day, even as Eden said she would never do such a thing.

Eden, as loving as he was to her, was a little blind to her tenacity when it came to it. BB learnt that early on when he first saw. Now, she was even older, and even more determined. If she really wanted to, she wouldn’t hesitate to do what she thought neccessary.

It kind of reminded BB of himself, which he didn’t want to think too loudly when it came back to bite him in the ass.

A hand tugs on his arm. He jolts and spins around, finding Lenny standing there. He looks around, confused.

“I thought you were staying with the cat?” He asks, shaking his shock off.

“Eden said he would play with her, so I can help you!” She answers. She looks down at the open duffle, all their supplies laying across the floor in neat piles. She kneels down.

BB looks up towards the car and, through the window, he sees Eden sitting in the backseat. The cat (or, Cat, he should be saying) was wriggling all over him, claws latched into the lapels of his jacket and face rubbing into the edge of his helmet as he pet its back with his big gloves. It was quite a young animal and next to Lenny it seemed average-sized and now, in Eden’s hands, it was clear that it was small. A strange perspective.

Through the broken window of the vehicle, he could hear the purring from the cat grow so loudly it was like the engine of the car. When BB strained to hear, he could hear Eden whispering sweet things to it. It was such a striking picture that BB didn’t even hear Lenny clanking all the cans together and putting them into the bag in a way that would definitely crush them when the heavier stuff came atop.

“Crow, did I do good?” Lenny asks, breaking BB from his stupor. He looks towards the bag.

The cans were all laying on their sides inside the bag. He reached in and began to adjust them.

“Yeah, now just remember to…”

They find guns, alcohol and medical supplies in an abandoned den, a short ways away from where they had buried the raider. In all likelihood, it probably wasn't abandoned at all. They got in and they got out.

Eden slowly unwravels Lenny’s arm and there, under the cloth, is a red angry gash. It was healing, but slowly. No infection, thankfully. Eden had told him under a guilty voice that weighed a thousand tonnes that it was his fault she got hurt. He was only thankful his mistake hadn’t cost her her life. BB didn't have the heart to say he disagreed, didn't have the gall to say he should've tried harder to get them better supplies.

It doesn't matter now.

“Does it hurt?” Eden asks, turning over her arm and seeing how the wound moves. It's a big, black scab now. She doesn’t even make a face.

“Not at all.” She answers, voice fine. The cat purrs in her lap.

BB sits in the backseat, arm over the headrest behind Lenny. He was toying with the cat before Eden came opening the door and said it was time to take care of the wound.

“I’m gonna put this over it, it’s gonna sting.” Eden says, getting out a cloth and the bottle of alcohol. Straight vodka, it was a miracle it was still full.

The cat stretches out in Lenny’s lap and she calmly pets it, scratching under its chin. Lenny always somehow knew the best place to pet the thing, when BB tried it would never love him as much as it did her.

Eden pours a helpful handing of the drink onto the cloth and puts it down, he reaches for her arm and begins to dab it, cleaning it. Lenny jolts, hisses. Her grip turns momentarily tight on the cat and it scrambles away, clawing into her legs.

“Ouch! Cat!” She whines, watching the animal hop off and under the passenger seat.

BB doesn’t know what possesses him to do it, but he reaches and grabs Lenny’s hand in his, holding loose. She grips tightly onto him and inhales deeply when Eden passes over her arm with the cloth again.

“All done.” He says, folding the thing and then dabbing any excess moisture off.

“Thank you…” Lenny mumbles. Eden pats her on the knee fondly and then leans back on his haunches. BB lets go of her hand and she smiles at up him.

Eden cracks his knuckles and puts the wet cloth into the side of the car door. He caps the vodka and stands with it in hand, placing it atop the roof of the car, the sound of the glass bottom tapping the metal casing echoing out dully.

BB notes how Eden’s shirt rides up when he stretches upwards. Catalogues the black undershirt, understands there’s skin beneath that. Then he looks behind himself, where the cat stares up at him from the darkness.

“Pspsps.” He calls, patting the seat next to him, voice wavering for some reason. “Come up.”

The cat pulls a little out from the seat and looks up at him with slowly blinking eyes, looks away and down at a random spot in the car. He pats the seat next to him again.

“Pspsps. Come on,” he says more firmly.

The cat finally listens, prowling out with its tail straight in the sky. It prances onto the seat and sits down calmly. BB goes about petting it, trying to copy what Lenny did, but it shies away. Guess it wants him to pet it differently.

BB looks back over to the other two and finds Eden quietly wrapping Lenny’s arm up again, with actual bandages this time. They managed to find some in that den, along with the alcohol.

And the guns.

They were piled on the passenger seat right now, and BB had made sure to confirm they were unloaded and safely secured before he could even think about looking away from them. At CONTACT, he was never allowed a gun to defend himself with — stuck to knives until his Team Leader said they were getting a demotion: Containment Zone Management.

BB thinks, as he’s petting this cat in a city so far away from home, that that moment was the second he knew he needed to run as far as he could. Not that the idea he was getting a gun to defend himself with, no. The idea of getting even further dragged into that place. Of going somewhere he couldn't come back from.

The idea of being able to leave never crossed his mind until Eden said it. He just agreed.

Now look where they are. Eden finishes wrapping Lenny up and she reaches over and hugs his arm, he huffs a laugh and pats her on the head. It was all domestic fondness, BB always felt like he was intruding.

“When are we going home?” She asks, muffled into Eden’s sleeve.

Both Eden and BB freeze, looking at eachother over Lenny’s head.

BB, again, doesn’t know what compells him to do it. It’s a mistake the moment it comes out of his mouth and he can tell from the way Eden rears back a little.

“Soon,” He answers Lenny.

The way she smiles wide and begins chattering on while Eden remains stock-still, staring at him, is a different kind of unnerve that BB quickly regrets learning about.

Eden is sitting helmet-less on the hood of the car, staring at the giant moon in the sky. It’s glow finally illuminates the man’s face. Finally. BB’s been looking for his face for so long and now he can’t stop staring. He doesn’t keep track of time since he left, taking it moment-by-moment, but he knows he’s been waiting to see Eden for a long time. Even the moon and it’s exceptional brightness this far out of the city, does little to enamour him as does Eden’s expression.

He stares at the liquid-level in the bottle he could’ve sworn was higher an hour ago. Woops.

He lolls his head to Eden, thinking of what he can say that can heal the grievance from earlier in the day.

Eden doesn’t look at him, though. His expression isn’t the kind of one he wanted to see on the man’s face anyways, not the kind of one he wanted directed at him at any time. Good that it isn’t, huh? Staring up at the sky, face bared to the glowing light of the moon.

BB never would have thought a decade ago that the moon would look this way. A long time ago, he heard something about the disintigration of the Earth or the Moon — either one, really. Doesn’t matter. It’d mean the end for everyone as we knew it, regardless.

That was before the moles came out of the ground.

BB exhales through his nose, rubs a thumb across the rim of the vodka bottle and instead stares down at the ground. It’s not that scary of a thought. The end of the world. Atleast, it wasn’t scary anymore. It was bound to happen eventually and when it happened didn’t really matter. It was all the same to him — but BB would have liked to have lived as long as he could until that point. He would have liked to have known that he tried.

That, again, was before he put serious thought to the idea of the moles coming out of the ground.

Strange, he thinks, I didn’t think I remembered anything before CONTACT.

The thought track begins to muddle his mind so he stops it before it can get out of control.

It’s one of those rare times he’s taken his masks off. It’s mainly because Eden asked him too silently, staring at him once he peeled his helmet off, and after BB’s incredible blunder earlier in the evening, he felt like he had to repay the man somehow...

The wind is a light breeze against his bare skin in a way that feels a little too vulnerable. A little too like anyone could come and cut him dry without any buffer. He’s used to his balaclava, what else is there to say? He kept his beanie on, though.

He rubs at his eyes with his free hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. He really hasn’t been sleeping well. He takes a short sip of the drink in his hand instinctively and regrets it immediately. He forces it down. He clears his throat, blinks away the sparks behind his eyes. He pretends like nothing happened.

He doesn’t feel any kind of way but he knows that he’s got to be a little loopy by now, if the way he can’t help but look at Eden every five seconds means anything. Which it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean anything.

BB tries actually looking at Eden this time, rather than just sneaking glances, and finds the man looking even more conflicted, eyebrows furrowed and mouth a thin line as he looks up at the sky.

Eden sort of turns his head to BB a little, looking vaguely in his direction, eyes lowered to the ground. His mouth opens as if to speak—

BB prepares for Eden to scold him, say anything to him. Maybe a string of expletives. He’d probably even punch his lights out. That’s what he knows. Maybe a dark joke, even. That’s what he’s expecting out of Eden.

—But Eden doesn’t say anything, doesn’t shift or move or speak. After a moment, he looks back to the moon. His shoulders drop, he sighs. He doesn’t give BB anything.

He stays staring out at the gargantuan moon in the sky, eyes a little dull. Hand tight around his own wrist, legs hanging off the hood of the car. BB gets that feeling he did the first time Eden said they’d ‘figure it out’ and deeply regrets going out on this journey at all. He regrets a lot of things nowadays, regrets them even more with the vodka sitting heavy in his belly.

BB remembers the ‘something important’ that was spinning in his brain and glances behind to see the vague silhouette of Lenny in the backseat, the cat a little ball of darkness resting by her neck, curled over her. It’s familial and familiar, it’s warm. He gives a weak smile.

Maybe it’s not all bad. He hasn’t ruined everything yet.

A hand nudges into his chest and he flusters, snapped back to reality. He whirls to Eden, who has his hand outstretched towards him. He gestures a little.

BB gets what he’s non-verbally saying and gently hands him the bottle.

Eden brings it to his face, glancing into it through the light of the moon. He swirls the liquid inside, finally glances at BB with those conflicted eyes, then takes a swig, mouth where BB’s was just a minute ago. BB watches him swallow distastefully (‘ah’ing painfully and shaking his head) and then forces himself to look away.

“BB,” Eden whispers. He looks over again.

BB is expecting everything but Eden leaning in, lidded eyes with that soft expression he’s just now learning about.

Not now, oh god. Not now. Oh no. Oh god. I’m not ready for this.

And he rests his head on BB’s shoulder, settling and inching slightly closer so it’s not such a stretch.

BB is still looking in his direction so he gets a mouthful of the man’s hair, Eden’s smell overwhelming him. They haven’t managed to clean themselves in so long, so the scent is a mix of every weather they’ve driven through and every town they’ve brushed past by. Tying it together is purely Eden. It’s strange. He instinctively takes a deep breath in and he’s swallowed by the visage of the man at his arm. It’s suffocating. It’s somehow worse than what he was initially assuming. So much worse, it’s too intimate.

His face is warm with heat and he forces himself to look back towards the moon, trying not to focus on the heavy weight of Eden’s head laying on his shoulder. He barely even sees the celestial body, it’s a white blur.

He’s just about to refocus his eyes and force his body to relax when a hand comes atop of his, glove-on-glove. It would’ve made BB jolt half-a-foot into the air if it wasn’t for the perpetrator holding him down to Earth like an anchor on his side.

His heart thunders. He’s taut with tension, nauseous with the touch. He can’t relax, definitely not now.

Eden doesn’t move, doesn’t try to fix BB or get him to change. He just stays there, a heavy weight at his side that BB wishes would move both just a little further away and infinitely closer.

They don’t say anything the whole night, neither of them sleep and BB doesn’t end up relaxing or changing at all. He stays that tightly-wound ball of anxious, fettering energy the whole night. Add it to the list of his regrets, especially when the sunrise comes and his whole body aches.

The next week or so of travelling is the same monotone drive that it’s been this whole time. Eden and BB sleep in reluctant shifts, hardly talking if Lenny isn’t there to be the buffer. BB doesn’t know what he thought that night was but clearly it meant nothing. So he wasn’t going to act any differently. Because nothing was different.

It was an incredibly intelligent analysis of the situation.

And Lenny noticed. Whether or not she actually knew what happened it didn’t matter, she still saw the strange barrier between the two older men. She was awkward and stilted with the both of them. Trying to get the two to talk at first — quickly learning that won’t work — and then going through the effort to keep them apart. Actively, serving as a middleman between them, like some kind of negotiator.

That’s when BB knew he had to do something, it wasn’t right.

And yet…

BB didn’t want to kill his pride and say he’s ‘sorry’. Atleast not to Eden, who, strangely, wasn’t trying to goad him through jokes or comedy… but silence. Maybe if it was his usual behaviour, the right behaviour from the man, BB would have stopped this charade a while ago but now?

BB felt the revulsion rise in his chest at every unanswered question, settle in his clenched fists with the innocence given to the cat but not him. BB recognised it for what it was: Spite. It was spite and Eden would be damned before he’d assume that this display would even begin to work on BB.

…And yet, to BB’s dismay, it was working.

BB was at the end of his rope and had elected to apologise that next morning when Eden stood outside the car waiting for BB to finish packing their supplies away for the night, then immediately entered the backseat anyways when BB got into the driver’s side. He was waiting to see where BB would go so he could avoid him further.

BB stared into the windshield with hands tight on the steering wheel, going ‘I’m done’ in his mind.

…Luckily for BB’s ego, BB didn’t have to do anything at all in the end.

Somehow, someway, the icy-ness that had frozen the two of them apart vanished by the time that very same morning came, like ships in the night. The shift was so sudden, it felt irreperably strange and not just because of the random switch-up from Eden.

It was a strange morning because it was exceptionally warm again. It must be becoming spring. The clouds had parted, the sun was shining. The sunrise was orange and beautiful and Eden gave him a similarly-strange helping of their breakfast rations and then sat next to him.

Next to him!

They didn’t speak extensively… but he asked BB for an idea on where to go for the day. BB took the extended olive branch with a desperation befitting a starving orphan and quickly suggested the nature parks of the desolate city. The affirmative noise Eden made fueled BB’s mood, though he made sure to stay in his lane.

Then, as BB drove through the city ruins, Eden made absent observations of the city that grew into their usual banter by the time they found a secluded park (pure concrete, dead-grass and dry-fountains) to roll the car into.

Eden slapped him on the back as he passed, Lenny in hand, and said he was going to check out the scenery while BB stayed with the car. BB felt himself smile. He missed this.

“She’s too young to drive but old enough to learn how to shoot a gun,” Eden says, full of wonder. He flicks his visor down, muffling his voice. “What a world.”

“You’re never too young for firearm safety.” BB says as he pulls the slide, arming the first shell into the pistol.

The sun is overtop, finally, which means that the giant moon in the sky countours the sun just so to make the shadows between the leaves of the trees these semi-circle shapes. It’s all a little dark. The sun will curve over the top of it soon enough but, in the meanwhile, BB was still going to do what he planned to: Put the weapons to use. Or test them, at least.

Not only that: but a perfect learning opportunity for a certain someone as well.

He looks back towards Lenny, her head swallowed by her hood and the big makeshift headphones. Lenny looks up at him in turn, blinking at him curiously. A little nervous.. He gestures her closer and she steps closer. He kneels down and nods at her.

“You’re going to watch me first, okay?” He says. She nods. “You’re going to stand behind me and you’re not going to ever go infront of the gun. Do you understand?”

She nods.

“Do you understand that this,” he lifts the gun, “could kill a person? It could kill you?”

“BB…” Eden starts, feathers flustered by BB’s bluntness.

“Yes.” She replies in his stead. BB stares at her for a long second and finds a fire in those eyes that he had never seen before — looks like she appreciates being handled maturely.

“Good,” he says, standing. He instinctively pats her on the head and she doesn't fight him away.

“Go stand next to Eden,” he continues. He waits until he hears her footsteps stop that he focuses on his target: an empty can of beans they had for breakfast.

He rolls his shoulders, lifts his hands and points the gun. Fixes his stance. It feels natural.

“Put this on.” BB hears Eden quietly instruct to Lenny.

He waits a few more seconds, waits for the shuffling behind him to still, and then pulls the trigger—

Bang!

The can goes flying, pranging off the concrete pillar and rolling to the ground a good number of feet away with metallic claps on the pavement. They didn’t have a better gun range than the skatepark of this place.

BB unloads the gun, checking to make sure everything is in place. He glances back at Eden and Lenny and finds that the man had given her his helmet in place of the headphones, just to make sure she’s protected.

He huffs a laugh. The thing is too big on her, making her look a bit like a bobble-head. She shoves the visor up with both her hands and gives BB a gleaming smile that he can see, even as half her face is covered. He looks up at Eden, finding the man helmet-less and pressing the makeshift ear-protection. That damn sun is glaring into his eyes, obscuring Eden’s expression.

“That was so loud!” Lenny yells.

BB nods, sliding the slide of the gun back into place.

“It was. Imagine how loud it was for me.” He replies, nodding at her, “Want a go?”

She kind of flusters for a second, clearly awkward and unsure. She steeples her fingers, rubs at her wrist. Kicks at a rock. She’s so classically uncomfortable by the idea that BB is marvelled by it.

“Hey, Lenny,” Eden intervenes, putting a hand on her shoulder, “What do you say Crow teaches you all the parts of it first, before you go and shoot it?”

“Okay!” She answers, a little more excitedly.

As Eden continues to goad her into excitement over the topic, BB walks over to the small, organised line of guns they had found and puts the pistol down at the end of the line. He picks out a different pistol and ensures it’s unloaded, then picks it up and brings it back to where he was standing.

There, he signals Lenny over. She’s not wearing Eden’s helmet anymore, swapping it for the big homemade ear-protectors resting around her neck. BB kneels down a little and inhales.

Been a while since this 101 class.

“Anytime you find a gun or get a gun, you’re going to check if it’s loaded or not. It doesn’t matter if you know it’s unloaded, you’re going to check anyways.” BB begins, looking at Lenny to make sure this is getting through. “This is a semi-automatic pistol, so a magazine holds the ammunition. You’ll eject this and then check the chamber.”

“Semi-automatic…” Lenny mumbles, enamoured. Behind her, Eden huffs a laugh.

He gestures for Lenny to come closer. He makes sure she’s watching as he snaps the empty magazine into the gun and then goes to pull the slide back. He stops and lets it snap back into place.

“This is the slide,” He says, “Go and try to pull it back.”

“Wha–?” She begins, shocked, “Me?”

“Yeah, you.” BB nods.

After an unsure moment, her small fingers slowly go up and gently grab onto the body of the slide. She tugs it back— but it hardly moves. Her face twists a little in confusion. She tries again, holding on more firmly… it, again, hardly moves. The tips of her fingers turn white with duress as she tries to tug it more, but she can’t seem to grip it quite right or do it. She gives up.

“Ugh… I can’t.” She says lamely, mainly confused than upset. BB’s glad.

“It’s because the spring is strong.” BB continues, explaining the mechanisms, “A lot of beginners struggle with it, so they use their palm. You’ve got to hold it differently if you do, though. There’s different stances, too, depending on the gun. This though…”

BB gets a little lost in rambling on about the inner mechanics of it, once it became clear that the girl was more interested in how it worked rather than it working. Her eyes lit up, paying rapt attention to the words coming out of his mouth (words he weren’t entirely sure to be correct, even. It had been a long time!).

Still, not like it was any issue for BB. He doesn’t quite know where all this knowledge came from, he can’t exactly pinpoint a time in CONTACT where he learnt extensively about guns — he assumes it must be something from before then. Maybe he didn’t adjust as well as he thought.

He’s in the middle of talking about the sight of the gun when he looks up and finds Eden closer, also intrigued and listening, arms crossed standing behind Lenny.

BB quickly loses his train of thought.

“Uh, so.” BB mutters, looking back at the gun. “Right. Try the slide again, you can use both hands.”

He holds the gun a little outwards for Lenny to try. She tries again more firmly, using her two hands. It finally clicks back. She exhales, smiling.

“I did it!” She exclaims.

“You did it.” Eden says, patting her on the shoulder fondly.

“Now it’s ready to fire.” He says, standing up. Lenny immediately stands back, BB feels something like pride well up a little in him. Quick learner.

“Can I try?” Eden asks, hands on Lenny’s shoulders as she stands infront of him. BB turns a little, already halfway through unloading the empty magazine out of the gun.

“…It’s empty, so I have to load it first.” BB says. It’s the truth. He doesn’t know why it feels like an excuse. A weak one, at that.

“Will that take long?” Eden continues, blasé to his struggle.

A beat.

BB can’t quite decide why he feels so awkward. He coughs and looks back down the range, “No, it won’t.”

“I’m going back to the car.” Lenny says, giving the headphones to Eden.

“Keep them, it’s still loud.” Eden waves her off. He jokes, “Put them on Cat.”

Lenny gasps, “I forgot about her! No!”

She immediately begins scampering back to the car a good few metres away in a panic, searching for her pet. BB watches the display with a strange fondness but quickly snaps back to attention when Eden comes back into view.

He nods at BB and the man looks down, finding his hand extended. He gives Eden the gun.

“I need to set up a target.” BB says.

“Alright.”

As BB wanders down the makeshift gun-range, he suddenly becomes incredibly aware of his open and vulnerable back. Very aware of the empty gun in Eden’s hand. Very unsure if he actually unloaded the thing or not.

He crouches down, grabs the can he shot down earlier and then goes back to place it in its initial spot. BB turns and finds Eden standing a medium distance away, gun in hand, pointed at the ground, waiting for him. The sun is behind him, it sort of glares into his eyes and silhouettes Eden in a terrifying way in equal parts.

Eden tilts his head, gestures a little with the gun.

“You done?” He yells to BB, like BB isn't blinded just by looking at him.

“Yeah.” He shouts back, shaking his head clear and walking back to the man.

BB is, on one hand, glad that he’s never going to meet this end of Eden’s gun if he can help it — and then, on the other hand, unsure if what he can help would stop Eden if he was truly that angry with BB one day.

BB wonders what would make him snap.

Watching Eden handle the gun reminded BB that the man never needed to snap. He was insane from the very beginning.

“You need to stop pointing that thing at me.” BB repeats for the eighth time, grabbing Eden by the wrist tightly and pointing the gun away from the two of them and back down the range. "You’re gonna kill me or worse: Lenny and that damn cat.”

“‘Damn cat’? I thought you liked her!” Eden retorts, aghast at BB’s tone. He tugs himself away from BB’s grip and keeps the gun pointed down the range, thankfully. “I know she scratches you in the morning but you’re the one that feeds her!”

“You’re going to keep your finger off the trigger until you’re absolutely certain you’re gonna shoot.” BB continues, crossing his arms and standing to the side of Eden.

The man sighs and points his gun downfield again, stanced too-wide and too-ready.

BB get’s distracted by the offensively wrong everything about Eden and that gun. He begins to think this is a hysterical mistake.

“Crooow—” Eden calls for him, all sing-songy.

“BB.” He corrects.

“—I think the wind knocked the can over again.”

BB facepalms, taking off his goggles for a moment to rub at his eyes. He secures them back on after a moment of mental recollection. Why did he do all this again?

“Don’t hold the gun so tight it shakes. Looser is fine.” He continues, eyeing the way Eden has his hands on the grip.

“But the can—”

“Forget the damn can, learn how to hold the gun first.” He snaps, hissing it all out in one breath. Eden laughs at him.

“… Just fix it.” He sighs out.

“Fix what? The can?” Eden asks. BB’s temper rises.

“Your grip on the gun, you numskull.” He retorts.

“Numskull?!” Eden shrieks, turning towards him fully, gun pointed at the sky again—

Alright, guess I’m doing this.

He steps closer and plants his hands on Eden’s shoulders, spinning him to face the range and his target head-on.

“Woah—” Eden wavers, stumbling as BB stops his spin.

“This isn’t darts, you don’t need to be side-on.” He says blankly.

“What kind of darts do you play? You definitely go to the side…” Eden replies, looking over his shoulder at BB. BB flicks at his helmet, telling him to face forwards. BB looks down and sighs.

He kicks the outside of Eden’s ankle with his shoe lightly, “In. You don’t need to be so wide or you’re going to fall over.”

“That’s how you were standing!” Eden argues but listens and fixes his stance. “None of this feels ‘natural’, you said it…”

Eden trails off when BB comes to his left and puts a hand on his wrist, fixing his hold on the gun and pointing it back down range.

“This isn’t an action movie, steady the gun with your other hand and just point it over there.”

“Wait, where do I…” Eden asks, looking at the gun and bringing it closer to his face again—

“Down!” BB chastises, grabbing him by the forearm and pointing the gun down again. “It’s in one ear and out the other, with you.”

Eden doesn’t say anything this time and just listens. He keeps the gun down as he inspects his own grip on the weapon subtly. BB notices.

“Index finger either under or around the trigger guard. Whatever’s most comfortable.” He comments, patting him on the back and stepping away.

Eden subtly rolls his shoulders as he gets more comfortable, glancing over at BB when he moves back around him. BB crosses his arms, looking over Eden analytically. Mostly. Slightly. Everything seems alright, now how’s the execution gonna go?

Eden remains looking at him. BB nods, steps back behind the imaginary line he’s drawn in his head of where Eden’s gun is.

“Go on.”

Bang!

A dull crack, a thud of concrete. A complete miss.

Eden remains pointing the gun, head angled slightly, and then drops his shoulders and sighs dissapointedly. He hardly hesitated. Not at all, infact.

“Damn it,” Eden whispers. He turns to BB exasperatedly, “I thought you said I’d be good at this!”

BB isn’t quite sure what happened to his nervous system, but he can’t seem to find the will to reply. It's different seeing Eden be violent when it came to his fists — even now, a novel sight — but when it came to a weapon like this, there was a peculiar and clinic way he immediately shot. Not that it was any good, clearly not used to the follow-through or anything regarding firearms… it was still a marvel.

Aside from BB’s judgemental analysis, BB wanted to see him shoot again. Make him get better. Eden could be a sharp shot if he really wanted to.

“I’m done with this, anyways. I don’t want to waste any more ammo.” Eden continues, unloading the magazine and releasing the last shell in the chamber with a little too much precision for a total beginner, killing BB’s fantasies. BB had shown him twice and Eden had learnt remarkably fast.

He looks towards BB with casual neutrality.

“Let's get out of here.” He says, arm outstretched with gun in hand.

Us. A team, you and me. And her. All of us.

“Yeah, let's go.” BB replies numbly, taking the gun and magazine.

Eden wanders back towards the car, enters it and begins baby-talking the cat. BB limply goes back to the line of guns on the ground and begins putting them back together and into the passenger seat.

He goes about reorganising all their weaponry and supplies whilst keeping Lenny and Eden in his peripherals out of instinct. For some reason, he thinks he's allowed that now. To watch them, to worry about them.

He stands, closes the boot.

“You guys ready?” He yells to the front (unimaginable, just a week ago).

“Yes!” Lenny replies, putting Cat down.

“Yeah.” Eden answers, looking at BB through the back windshield, arm resting on the back of the seats and head tilted down.

BB swallows. Looks away, goes to the driver's side and settles into the seat.

“Then let’s go.” He turns the key, igniting the dying engine.

Let us go. Us. You and me and her. Us.

“I don’t like thinking too much.” Eden says, leaning against BB, arm-to-arm. BB knows its just an accident, so he doesn’t move. He takes what he can get. It must be the time of night that’s making him feel brave.

They’re leaning against the car boot again, staring out at the empty horizon of broken buildings. Distantly there’s smoke rising in the far reaches of the city and there, as well, is the small and slow-growing familiar sight of a mole nest. It wasn’t large by any means, still small, but it was there. It was time to leave the city, the park had grown boring and everything else had gone through a series of demolitions – clearly the governments attempt way-back-when to keep things contained. It didn’t work.

BB doesn’t say anything in response to Eden.

“When I sit around all day doing nothing, all I have are my thoughts. Lenny is fun to talk to and I’ll never get sick of it… but she gets sick of me sometimes, ha-ha.” Eden continues, given space to talk. He pauses.

“I wanted to say so much to you that night.”

BB immediately tenses up, stock-still. Flashbacks of what he thought was going to happen flicker in his mind. Embarassment wells in him. He prays Eden didn’t notice.

Eden nudges him, glancing over at him. He notices his tenseness, at the very least.

“Hey, we’re friends aren’t we?”

Friends.

BB was too afraid to name it so readily. Friends felt reserved for life-or-death sacrifices, for people you wouldn’t hesitate to throw everything away for. In his mind, he avoided the term and relating it to Eden like the plague.

But it feels right, now.

“Yeah.” BB says, voice strangely gravelly.

“So loosen up,” Eden answers lightly, “No hard feelings. Right? You said what you said, Lenny probably doesn’t even remember.”

That stings. The admittal that he did do something wrong.

“I’m sorry.” BB musters. It comes out of him like a wave, crashing and demolishing the heavy wall he put in place to stop it.

“Hey, you have nothing to be sorry about... Well. Maybe you do, a little bit.” Eden rescinds, tilting his head a little as he thinks.

“I just wanted to give the kid a little hope,” BB manages. He knows it’s a mistake, much like basically everything he meaningfully tries to do nowadays, the moment he says it.

Eden doesn’t look at him, rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Yeesh…” He begins, like he’s cringing to say it. He inhales, drops his hands and exhales heavily. Like he’s got the weight of the world in his body. “I’ll be honest…”

BB looks to him.

“I don’t think she’s ever gonna have a ‘home’ to come back to.” His voice is colder, duller. “I don’t think there’s any hope in this world at all.”

BB recognises these lines. Remembers the words hat Eden said to him so long ago now.

It’s hard enough surviving by yourself in this world. It was obvious she’d die if I left her there.

BB swallows, tries to shake the unnerve from his body. It’s very true, it’s relatable. It’s the most relatable thing he’s ever said.

I realised it was the other way around. She gave me a reason to go on living.

“But…” Eden begins. BB sharply looks to him, not expecting the words. Always full of surprises. He shakes his head, puts his helmet in his palm and sighs.

“I don’t know. It’s nothing.”

BB doesn’t want to pry. It’s not his business, he doesn’t have to ask. He shouldn’t have to. Eden can reveal whatever information he wants to BB when he wants to. It’d be smart if he kept it that way.

“I want her to have a home.” BB finishes for Eden, shocked from his own words as they come out his own mouth. He has hardly any idea where they came from.

Eden looks at him for a long time, attentative. His helmet blocks everything he needs from Eden, so BB looks away. There’s no point in searching for something he can’t find.

Eden nudges BB a little, leaning harder into the man. He, again, doesn’t move. Assume it’s an accident. The car boot isn’t that wide.

“Wow, look at you all…” Eden trails off. BB huffs humourlessly, nodding as he looks off into the dusty night.

“Yeah, look at me.”

Something changed after that and BB wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Eden was acting stranger all the time, day-by-day, and BB had to fight himself to not go searching for that radio the man took from him when things went a little bit wrong. Whether it be the weather, or maybe they’re rationing a little more food than average, BB had to fight all his instincts to not turn tail and steal his own radio back.

It was made a thousand times worse by Eden’s growingly strange behaviour. The first time Eden played an honest-to-god prank on BB, it made his mind spiral by the time evening came. He was wondering if he had gotten some form of brain damage, or if the journey was starting to get to the man. He had genuinely asked the man, concern in his tone, if he was okay.

Eden just replied, ‘I guess this is who I am when I’m relaxed’ like that was a perfectly normal thing to say at the end of the world while they’re on the run from people who were surely, definitely, looking for him to take him back (disregarding the fact that BB knew, inside his soul, that no one was searching for him).

It was then made even more worse by the jokes and the light-hearted admiration for the post-apocalyptic world (BB would never quite understand that). The child-like wonder at the destruction, the newfound ‘beauty’ in the scenery. BB only ever saw dilapidated buildings and green shrubbery and mole roots infesting everything. He found it infectious. At some point, Eden stopped dismally looking at things and called them ‘fun’.

Eden was never like that before.

And then, made the worst by the fact that above all that: BB could tell Eden was mad at him.

…For something.

More specifically, Eden wanted to say something to him… but BB wasn’t quite sure what it could have been if it wasn’t ‘Why do you keep thinking we’re going to go back?’ in an angry tone.

Sure, they ‘talked’ about it that one night… but he knew the man still had questions and they were not questions that BB could answer. So Eden must have been mad at him for that, he decided alone. BB wasn’t stupid and he, himself, didn’t quite know why he was acting like that when any little thing went wrong either so he was part of the ‘mad at BB’ equation, too.

Admittedly, he’s been in a sort of delirious state about the whole journey and trip since it began. A lucid sort of state he hasn’t yet been able to break out of.

It’s not like he’s unaware of it. Oh, no. He knew full well that the weak excuse that there was still a way home was a fully ridiculous one — but what would be the straw to break that camel’s back and put him back in reality was a different matter. Eden hadn’t tried very hard at convincing him (aside from taking his things) and Lenny was nonethewiser. Even his own doubts hadn’t managed to penetrate this strange, half-cognizant belief that he could ‘go home’ (disregarding, again, that there was no home to return to).

BB is ashamed it took the road back literally being smashed in two to break him out of his stupor.

They were driving down a broken stretch of empty highway, coming out of the city after managing to rehash all their supplies, when there, in the distance on the left, came a giant beast tearing out of the ground. The sound of it, this horrible noise, told BB exactly what it was.

“What is that?” Said Lenny, shortly after the first rumble of the Earth. BB looked more firmly to the left and there it was.

A mole. It was so far away, it was like a speck in the air. Like a fly, moving through the sky.

All was quiet for a moment. Two moments. Three moments—

A deathly crack of the Earth, an inhuman rumble that shook the dead trees and made dust fly into the air from the already-fragile highway pavement. What followed that initial rumble was a horrible earthquake, making the car shake and everything in the boot start hitting the insides of the car with a ruckus.

Crack!

“Drive, BB!” Eden yelled, hitting BB rapidly on the shoulder as he stared out the back windshield, as if he could rev the engine from BB’s arm.

BB pressed his foot harder on the gas — the road behind the car had split into two, dropping into a huge ravine straight-down into the Earth. The crack increased, faster and faster, as it raced towards their car. The road behind crumbled off into the giant hole.

BB looked to his left and found that tiny speck of dust rising higher and higher into the sky like a thin snake. Distantly, there was a viscious growling sound, like thunder had been entirely contained in a tin can and was echoing and echoing and echoing.

It glowed a hundred-thousand different colours, the air around it a strange static. The clouds parted, the blue sky – a blue that BB hasn’t seen in years – revealed. A large plume of dirt and sand followed the shape until it escaped it, and it came crashing back down to the ground in one fell swoop. It looked so slow going through the sky like that, its size humongous. It disappeared into the Earth with another explosion of dust and dirt.

The shockwave of it crashing back into the ground and burying back into the ground hadn’t hit them yet, but it was soon to. The ravine had stopped advancing behind their car.

“Eden...” Lenny whimpered, voice terrified.

“Lenny—” Eden said, reaching back for her in the passenger seat. He had the guns on his lap, one went crashing between his feet in his rush to spin around. BB saw him hold her hand in the rear-view mirror. “We’re okay, just keep looking at me.”

The ground began to rumble again. The second shockwave was about to hit them, or maybe the mole was about to emerge somewhere else.

BB slammed his pedal to the metal.

Crack!

BB made the mistake of looking behind him, trying to see the ravine in the road surely catching up to them—

“BB!” shouted Eden, hitting his shoulder. BB looked infront and found that the ravine he was looking for was infront of him all along.

Shit.

They survived.

The car was fucked up.

Thankfully, no serious injuries except for the fact that the front bumper of the car was disemboweled from the rest of the car, alongside most of the internal components just behind the wheel. It was really a miracle that BB didn’t get his feet tossed into the grinder either.

Lenny is pulled out of the car by Eden’s exceedingly still hands. BB finds his own in tightly wound fists, like he couldn't let go of an imaginary steering wheel.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Eden asked, voice tight with anxiety.

“I'm OK. I'm OK.” Lenny answered, hands gripping at her own jacket.

“Did you hit your head?” Eden asked next.

“No…” she replied. She puts her hands to her chest, blinking. She took a dramatic breath in, closed her eyes.

“Yeah, take a breath.” Eden murmured, pulling her close to him. She wrapped her arms round his waist and hid her face into the ends of his jacket.

BB looked away from the two of them and then down the road. It was still one whole road, aside from all the dust kicked up. The meagre cars that had littered the emergency shoulders were still there, though some had fallen into the ditch on the right-hand side.

He squints even further beyond – is there a point to continuing to that distant silhouette of the city? What if there was an even larger, even more dangerous ravine ahead that he couldn’t see? Would they have to turn back around?

He looked down and found cracks in the concrete. Was it even safe to walk a foot ahead He couldn't tell if the ground looked weak or not. He couldn’t tell if it was safe to go forwards. He couldn’t decide if he even should…

“Meow!”

“Cat…” Lenny gasped and slightly broke from Eden, turning to the car with worry.

BB looks over and finds the cat clawed into the flooring under the driver's seat. He strode to it and knelt down. He reached out to it—

The cat scrambled onto him, tail tucked and ears pinned back. It attemped to burrow into his vest and he let it. His hands went to its head, peaking out of the slot between his neck and shoulder. Stuck between his body and his vest, it was wedged with claws into his chest. He ignored it.

“It's okay.” He murmured to it, petting the animals head. “You're alright.”

He didn't know where the words came from, something like guilt building a little in him at the fact he couldn't find those words when it came to Lenny or Eden. And the cat…

The cat… it began to purr. That faint rumble in it’s throat striked him deeply yet very softly. Right in the heart. It found peace in BB’s arms and that’s… What was that? He could hardly find the words, even later.

It was that strange feeling again, the one when Eden laid his head in his lap and promptly fell asleep, where he felt like he was holding something exceedingly fragile in his hands.

Enough was enough. He took a deep breath, addressed the other two.

“Let's get our supplies and walk the rest of the way.” BB said as he eyed the distant silhouette of a cityscape at the horizon. It was a little far, but nothing that wasn't possible in a day.

“And then what?” Eden asked him quietly.

BB didn’t have an answer for him but he saw the way Lenny looked back at him with those big, teary eyes and he couldn’t help but wrack his brain for something comforting to say. Anything at all.

He looked back to the city, Eden’s words ringing in his mind.

We’ll figure something out.

At that moment, BB understood. There was no way to predict this would have happened to them. Now they’re without a mode of transport, braving the weather or worse.

Sure, plan for supplies, plan for life… but planning for the future is a different story. You’ll never know what will happen.

He sighed. Damn Eden.

“We’ll figure something out.” He replied, rubbing circles into the cat’s back.

They travel. They wander, they walk. Lenny sings songs and Eden joins in. He goads BB into joining, too, but he resists.

The cat stays in BB’s vest. It jumps out at some point and Lenny panics, chasing after it causing Eden to chase after her and BB to follow right behind — but it ends up following the group anyways. Clever thing.

Night comes. They find refuge in an abandonded car. They all sleep in the backseat.

They get to the city. It’s gargantuan.

There’s surely a hidden populace here.

They manage to scrounge up another week’s worth of supplies – the city was abundant for canned food. They make a temporary den in a below-ground-level restaurant. It’s industrial, it’s large. It’s hidden by a giant slab of concrete. BB searches the whole place with his gun pointed, Eden calls him an action hero. Lenny asks what that is. The two men feel their heart shatter. It’s just a temporary base until they can get sorted and leave again.

Weeks pass. Maybe months. They don’t leave.

Plans fall through, the restaurant gets more light than BB thought they would. The main room seating shifts to become a war-plan-room, sort of. Lenny runs circles around the place, the sort of space that Eden said she never had before. Hell, she has her own room: The pantry closet, cleared of the rotting food and made comfy.

The city is explored, they find a park a ways away that still has nature. Lenny goes there with Eden ever so-often, they’re yet to explore the whole thing.

BB goes out for supply runs a lot of the time, just to spend the time. He finds other survivors that are just as wary and paranoid of them but they’re sane enough. They trade when they need to. They get radios. They and BB communicate. BB learns that CONTACT fell through, a month or two after their trip, from another run-away.

BB sits at the bar of the restaurant, staring into the grain, as he thinks about his Team Leader and his hope to go back. There’s really, really no going back now.

Eden gives him the two hours to stare into the table and then tells him they need to do a supply run. BB shakes himself free of the grief—

Oh. That’s what that is. Grief.

—and heads out, Lenny bounding forwards as the cat (larger, older now) waits at the door for them to return.

Lenny grows a year older. Her hair is so long now, it reaches her mid-back. Eden offered to cut it but she said no. She’ll see how she feels next year.

Next year.

“I think it’s probably October now. If we leave in the next week or so, we could reach the next city and settle before winter.”

“Crow—”

“BB.”

“—Why don’t we just settle down?”

A long pause, BB looks up from the map on the table.

“You mean…”

“Stay here. For good.”

“Well…”

Well, BB thinks, It doesn’t sound like the worst idea.

“…Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Eden,” BB says, looking up at the man infront. He was listening the whole time, he knows. “My team leader is alive.”

“Oh. Okay.”

They’re quiet for a long moment.

“Where is he?”

BB racks his brain, tries to remember what the man said. He hadn’t heard his voice in an incredible length of time…

“The city over, I think? Two weeks or so away, by foot?”

“Alright.”

Silence.

“Are we going to go see him?” BB asks.

“Do you want to?”

BB thinks for a long second.

His Team leader was… his team leader. He was the closest thing to a friend that BB had back then. Even then, Eden was just…

He looks up. The light comes in through the window at the top of the wall and Lenny is laughing in another room, playing with the cat. Eden is looking at him, arms crossed with those gloves, and isn’t saying anything more.

He doesn’t want to think about it, he suddenly realises. He really doesn’t want to leave this moment.

“It would be nice.”

Eden looks down at the ground. His hands tighten on his arms—

“But I don’t want to.”

Eden looks up towards him sharply, staring at him.

BB recognises that stance, recognises that frozen body in Eden. BB’s broken whatever mould Eden has of him in his head. He wonders if Eden is just as scared as he was at the start.

“Okay.” Eden replies.

BB puts the radio down. He slides it over to Eden.

“If he comes around here, we can meet up. Maybe he’ll have some funny drinking stories.”

Eden laughs lightly.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you properly drunk, yet!”

“Don’t have any drinks, do we?”

“Oh! About that…” Eden begins, turning and looking for a notebook of the other survivor contacts they had made over the weeks. “There’s this guy…”

Lenny has a gnarly scar across her arm, pink and raised. She prods it curiously, having not seen it in a few months. Eden was terrified of seeing it, not that he said that to Lenny.

BB watches as the… medical professional (not really, BB didn’t know who the guy really was but in this city, trading and getting help was a bit like professional business networking. Making sorta-friends and then helping eachother).

He nods and keeps his mask and gloves on. Gives them a thumbs-up.

“She good.” He says. BB hands him a jar of peanut butter. He promptly leaves. Eden’s shoulder’s drop the moment he goes, peace filling him. BB nods at him. They stay silent.

BB, Eden and Lenny exit the underpass and quietly go home.

Home.

BB is on the verge of sleep, eyes lidding and leaning into the wall. He still keeps guard, even as the restaurant is pretty much invisible under the cover of night — even with the candles they found. He’ll probably have to go looking for more, soon, though.

But he can’t be bothered. Maybe he could ask Eden. BB thinks he's done enough traveling for the rest of his life. If the world was to ever come together again, he’d be taking public transport to wherever his next job was.

His eyes widen, he jolts up. He face palms. Of course.

“Damn it…” He leans back into his original position slowly, rubbing at the tension in his jaw under his mask, “I did it again.”

It was too easy to slip into that sort of dialogue.

‘Next’ job…‘If’ the world… Rest of his life…

All prospects of the future, things he’s never really bothered to think about — even chastising himself for previously — suddenly being ‘possible’ in his mind, now that he’s ‘settled’.

Bastard. Damn you, Eden.

And, yes yes yes: He did have that whole… ‘planning for the future is a different story’ thing but, as BB was quick to learn, plans were different from dreams.

Similar sorts of dreams randomly hit BB during the next few months. They strike him suddenly and violently, with the sort of intensity befitting a shooting star. It hurts right in his heart, sparkling and fizzling. It doesn’t ever quite leave him, changes him a little everytime he thinks maybe maybe maybe.

It hurts everywhere, really. Especially when he then looks out at the world and finds grey, grey and more grey. Especially when he looks at Eden.

Those dreams are the kind of worst ones.

He kept feeling like he had to repent for something, or that he should be extraordinarily guilty for some grand crime or misdemeanor he had committed. Running should be punished, surely that’s what he’s done wrong?

So, it felt impossible that he should be allowed to feel anything for…

“Eden,” BB says, catching the man’s attention from across the base. “Where’s Lenny?”

Eden looks behind him from the map laying across the table, shoulder hunched and helmet lowered as he pays rapt attention to everything on the paper. He taps his pen to his helmetted chin, as if he’s thinking.

“The boiler room, I think?” He says, pointing at BB with the pen.

“Of course she is.” BB mutters, standing with a groan.

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t sleep there if you could!” Eden retorts, planting his hands on his hips as he turns to the man. “I’ve seen you sitting in that nook before.”

“It’s warm.” BB shrugs.

Despite the lack of electricity, the room was insulted. Tiny as it was, it was the warmest place in the whole building. BB liked to crouch in there, get engulfed in the darkness. Then Lenny would find him and join.

“Riigghhtt.” Eden concedes, turning back to the map. He draws a line on the page.

BB wanders to his side and looks over the map, trying not to think of how close he is. He leans on the edge, looking down over where Eden is pointing. There’s a whole table and he’s chosen to stand right here.

How shameless.

“How long left, would you say?” BB asks, looking up at Eden.

“We can get through the whole city in… Hm.” Eden taps his pen a few times on the page and then looks back at BB, “A year or two?”

A year or two. The future.

“There’s no guarantee we’ll be safe here forever, anyways.” BB replies, slightly colder. “Life will always find a way to test you.”

“Yeeeess… but!” Eden says, turning and nudging BB with the end of the pen coyly. “In the meanwhile, it’s your turn to take Lenny to the park.”

“What? Really?” He asks, floundering, snapped out of his dark gloom.

“She’s been asking for a while, you know?” Eden continues, voice a little softer.

“Yes, but…” I didn’t think I was allowed.

Eden gives him this look. A look that he can see, even through his shaded visor. A look he can feel.

It’s strange. It’s like he doesn’t have to say what he’s really thinking at all, Eden already knows. He doesn’t know when that started.

“Alright.”

“Good.” Eden answers, turning back to the map. At this angle, BB can see the stickers Lenny plastered along the side of his helmet.

They’re not anything special, mainly pretty shapes like squares and diamonds and stars... There’s a spattering of smiley faces and encouraging words along the rim. It definitely gave him a distinctive look and they help up remarkably well against the weather and the batterings that helmet takes.

Eden had found them excitedly in a ‘garage sale’ from another survivor across the main river of the town and immediately elected to give half to Lenny, half to himself. It didn’t matter in the end. They all went on his helmet except for a few. Some went on BB’s vest, most of which immediately fell off to Eden and Lenny’s dismay.

One didn’t, though. That one he keeps over his main pocket: A small and pink heart.

BB leans back against the table and watches Eden continue to work, plotting marks on where to go next, places they’ve already been. He hears a small pattering of footprints on the wood edge to his left and looks over.

“Meow,” comes the cat, older now. It had cleaned itself well once they stopped the travelling. It had fattened up from the food supply in its new home.

It slowly blinks at BB. He extends a hand to it and it fondly rubs up against his knuckles, standing on it’s hind legs briefly. It begins to purr, twirls its tail around his arm. He sighs fondly and strokes it across it’s back. It always asks for face-rubs from Lenny, shies away from BB when he tries. Only Eden can pat it’s hind back with his palms like a drum. They all have their own special language with the cat.

BB looks back over to Eden and finds the man looking at him intently, head tilted. BB is suddenly struck with that ever familiar, anxious and tight sensation in his chest.

But it’s different.

It’s different.

The restaurant is warm, the winter light shining in through the window high-up on the wall, just barely reaching ground-level outside. It illuminates the floorboards, it makes the side of Eden glow like some kind of halo. Like he’s glowing.

The cat keeps rubbing at his side, Lenny is playing in a warm room safe-and-sound and Eden is standing infront of him and he understands why there was never a home to go back to, why the man infront of him is called—

“Eden,” he begins, entirely croaky and gravelly.

His heart thunders. He can’t get the words out, it feels like that nausea again. It feels like that time, so long ago now, when Eden touched him once and he couldn’t relax all night. It feels like that time he thought Eden was going to— he was going to—

This is the worst, he decides. Not even when he didn’t kiss him. Not even after, when he just laid his head on him the whole night. Eden’s just looking at him and BB think's it’s the end of the world again.

It’s like coring himself open, it’s like baring each rib to the man infront. It’s like that rough exterior, that violence he has, has vanished. He’s been domesticated. He wants to be vicious, he wants to scratch out and growl and bite and tear and he, more than anything, needs Eden to know that he—

“I…” He tries, tight and airy.

“I know.” Eden finishes for him, succinctly. Shortly.

The words cut through his tension like a knife. He isn’t sure what Eden means but he also knows. He knows like he knows how to use a gun, despite his memory being erased. Like how he knew a lot of things. Like how he knew the alphabet and how to speak and how to breathe and live and talk – despite everything that happened to him. Despite CONTACT. Despite this mess of a journey.

Eden knew.

He looks away to the ground. He crosses his ankles together as he looks down at his new boots. New boots he found because Lenny saw a mannequin in a broken window and wanted to know why it was spray-painted all kinds of colours.

Eden’s own right shoe comes and kicks at BB’s ankle lightly.

“Still ‘just killing time’?” Eden asks, joking. Light. BB didn’t ruin anything.

BB laughs lightly, peels his mask down. Tears his goggles off. Rubs at his eyes.

Why is everything so blurry?

He inhales. Exhales. Leans back against the table, let’s Eden put a hand on his shoulder. It doesn’t feel so much like a trap. He looks into the light, lets it blind him. Lets his whole vision turn white, lets Eden become a glowing blur.

“We’re definitely killing time now.”

We’re. Us. You and me and her. Together.