Chapter Text
This time, Alby was the one crouched in front of Minho, and Newt was the one holding the gun.
“You know I’m not going to try anything,” Minho said, looking between them as he held out his arm. “Even if I wanted to. You locked up this whole city, I’m not stupid enough to think I could take you both in a fight.”
Newt didn’t answer. He had the gun pointed steadily at Minho, but his finger off the trigger. Thomas sat beside Minho, hands on his knees and eyes unwaveringly on Newt. There was something about his gaze that unnerved Newt, but he refused to give in and look away. He’d learned long ago that that was a sign of weakness.
“So what kind of names are Newt and Alby?” Minho asked, trying to make conversation.
“The kind that are perfectly good at the end of the world, shank,” Alby shot back, removing the bandages from Minho’s arm.
Newt was supposed to be watching them both, but he couldn’t help looking. In the early stages of infection, the veins around the wound turned black and swollen. As far as he was aware, even the Cranks who ended up looking human still had those awful veins.
Minho’s wound, though, looked normal, if swollen.
Alby muttered a curse. “Probably infected,” he said. “You feel feverish?”
“No,” Thomas replied. “I checked this morning.” His eyes were still on Newt.
Alby put his wrist to Minho’s forehead anyway. “Don’t feel anything,” he said. “Hopefully your system will kick this on its own, but just in case…” He opened the first-aid kit and reluctantly took out a half-empty tube of Neosporin.
“Thought Purell worked better,” Minho said.
“Shut up,” Alby warned. “I’m putting that on too. We save this for emergencies.”
“Or when your boy toy gets hurt, right?” Minho asked.
It was a good thing Newt didn’t have his finger on the trigger, because he flinched at the words. “We’re not like that,” he said automatically.
“I don’t have to give you this now either,” Alby said at the same time. “You trespassed in our home, and I’ve graciously agreed to put you up and treat you. I don’t owe you shit.”
Thomas cut in. “He’s just scared you’ll have to cut his arm off,” he said. “I’ve been running with this guy for two years, trust me. He runs his mouth when he’s freaked.”
Minho didn’t look in any mood to apologize, so Alby was stuck with that. After a minute where he looked like he’d put the Neosporin back, he seemed to accept the non-apology, and squeezed some of the cream onto the wound and started rubbing it in.
“Nine days left,” he said. “You’ll have to wait them out in here. You got enough water for today?”
Their water, by some miracle, hadn’t shut off. Newt had raided every flat in the floors above and below them for more containers and filled them all up, boiled or frozen everything. It was actually starting to worry him. What if the government had recovered, had gotten people to consistently work the water treatment centers? What would happen if people tried to come back, wanted to take over the city he and Alby had so painstakingly secured?
“We should,” Minho said. “Running low on food, though.”
“We’ll bring over some more tonight,” Alby said. “Newt’s cooking.”
Surprise flickered over Minho’s face. “You can cook?”
Newt shrugged. “I used to help my mum,” he said, forcing his voice to remain neutral, not reveal any of the pain the words reminded him of. “It’s harder with the shit that’s left in the world, but I manage.”
“He says that like he doesn’t have a rooftop garden,” Alby said. “Four of them, one along every wall.”
“Jesus,” Minho said. “You two made out pretty good at the end of the world, huh?”
Newt nodded absently. Alby got to his feet. “We’ll be back,” he promised. “Make sure you keep that wound covered. Wash it out if you have to take the bandage off.”
“I will,” Minho said.
Thomas’s eyes were still on Newt.
~
The gardens had been his mother’s.
Newt had never told Alby that part. That his mother had worked out a deal with the owners of the apartment building that she would grow vegetables and herbs on top of the building and would pay part of their rent by giving them some. His mother had been a bit of a hippie, all about eating organic and local and hugely anti-vaccine and anti-pharmaceuticals. Maybe if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have succumbed to the Flare so quickly. But he tried not to think about that. Most days, he even succeeded.
Today, he ran through the normal routine of weeding and watering everything, checking the boxes along the walls and the greenhouse Alby had built him out of metal stakes and clear plastic tarps. There were tomatoes and cucumbers, which would make a good healthy side that would help all four of them fill up. Minho and Thomas probably hadn’t had anything fresh in all the time they’d been running, probably were on the verge of scurvy. Any vegetables or fruits would be better than none.
Downstairs in the flat, he found Alby sharpening his backup knives. The older boy glanced up, then down.
“That machete’s hit a lot of bone recently,” was all he said.
Newt nodded and retreated to the kitchen, fishing through their cupboards for food.
The flats on either side of them acted as pantries. Cooler on cooler filled them, holding as much perishable food as they’d managed to preserve. They’d done well enough at it that sometimes they could simply heat up a frozen meal for dinner, but tonight they had to feed four.
“Thomas keeps looking at me,” he said aloud when he realized Alby was in the doorway behind him.
“He just can’t believe how pretty you are,” Alby teased.
Newt shrugged, uncomfortable, and started getting out cans and boxes.
“Generator’s low on gas,” Alby said. “We’ll have to go get more tomorrow.”
Newt nodded, putting a pot of water on the stove.
“Pasta?” Alby asked.
“We have enough of it,” Newt said. “There’s three grocery stores we never even hit. We could survive on pasta for a year.”
Alby smiled crookedly. “You’re the cook. I won’t complain.”
Newt actually smiled, and Alby grinned triumphantly. In all the time they’d known each other, Newt had almost never smiled for real. Alby could have counted the times on his fingers and had some left over. The man always seemed to consider it a triumph when he got a smile from the blond.
Alby ruffled his hair. “Give me your machete,” he said. “I’m gonna clean and sharpen it.”
“Take it,” Newt said, turning so his front was to Alby. The man unfastened the sheath that looped around Newt’s torso and carried it and the blade to the other room.
Pasta was one thing, but Newt refused to serve jarred sauce when there were plenty of fresh tomatoes. He set them in another pot to stew and used one of their designated kitchen knives to chop the cucumbers. He dressed them in vinegar--oil was hard to come by after four years, but vinegar never went bad--and added dried berries and salt. Finally, with nothing to do but wait for the water to boil, he asked what was on his mind.
“Does it bother you that we’ve had water for a week?”
Alby poked his head around the corner, a freshly cleaned and sharpened machete in his hand. “No. Why would it?”
Newt frowned at the pot of near-boiling water. “What happens if the world is recovering?” he asked. “What happens if people come here and try to take this place from us?”
“They’ll have to get past the Cranks,” Alby said. “Anyway, if people come out here, it means we actually have backup.”
Newt shrugged, grabbing the box of pasta shells and dumping it into the water.
Very quietly, Alby said, “The world surviving isn’t a bad thing, Newt.”
Newt didn’t answer.
~
“Jesus Christ,” Thomas moaned around a mouthful of pasta and chunky tomato sauce. “You made this?”
Newt nodded, settling cross-legged on the table in front of Minho. He’d already eaten with Alby, and come across the hall. A pistol rested in the crook of one knee, ready to be grabbed and fired if Thomas or Minho turned violent. At this point, he didn’t think they would, but Alby was still suspicious. Ironic, for the person who’d tried to convince Newt that other people’s survival wouldn’t ruin the corner of the world they’d carved out for himself.
“This is the best thing I’ve tasted in two years,” Thomas said, scooping up another bite of pasta and shoving it in his mouth.
“No meat, though,” Minho said. “We’ve been living on meat and not many veggies.”
“Where were you before then?” Newt asked.
Thomas blinked. “What?”
“The Flare got leaked almost four years ago,” Newt said. “Cities got evacuated and people got quarantined three and a half years ago. Where were you for a year and a half?”
Thomas swallowed his mouthful. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
He shook his head, a quick little jerk of his neck.
Thomas leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table. “We were in a place called Paradise.”
Newt blinked. “What?”
“Paradise,” Minho said. “It was--well, it was a group of survivors. No government intervention or anything. Just survivors banding together and working together. They’ve got a whole city cordoned off the way you guys did this block.”
Newt had always had what therapists called a “blunted affect,” which came in handy now. He didn’t want anyone to know that the news of another successfully-protected city made him uneasy rather than excited. “Why’d you leave?”
Thomas opened his mouth, but Minho cut him off. “Falling out with one of the leaders,” he said. “Marcus--one of the biggest guys. He and I have different opinions of who should and shouldn’t be allowed in.”
Newt frowned. “He made you leave?”
“He did better,” Thomas said. “He made everyone else want us gone, until we left on our own.”
“Two years ago,” Minho said. “We’ve been trying to find more survivors to stay with ever since.”
Newt frowned, trying to reconcile that with the reality of the world. “Why not head for quarantine?”
“We did,” Minho said. “Found three of the sites. All of them were madhouses. They can’t detect the Flare for a good three days after the person gets infected, so all these people were infecting other people without knowing it.”
“It spreads through more than just bites,” Thomas added. “Any contact between bodily fluids can do it. So a wife would get infected, her husband kisses her and gets infected, their kids drink from the same glasses and get infected… By the time it’s detectable in the original infectee, five other people are running around infecting people.”
“There’s basically no way to keep the virus out,” Minho said. “Even proving you’re immune doesn’t do you much good, because then people just want you dead. One city…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “The world’s a hellhole,” he said instead. “And it hasn’t gotten any better. Finding a small group to team up with seemed like our best bet, but most of those are worse than you for paranoia.”
Newt snorted. He couldn’t imagine anyone worse than Alby for paranoia.
“Swear to God,” Minho said, raising a hand. “The last guys we met, they’d be holding the gun on us right now, not letting it sit on the table.”
Newt glanced down at it. Then without a word he scooped it up. In the time it took to blink it was aimed at Minho, his finger hovering half a millimeter from the trigger.
Minho raised his eyebrows and hands. “Okay, I stand corrected. You are exactly as paranoid as them.”
Newt smiled thinly and put the gun back in the crook of his knee. “Not paranoid,” he said. “Just very good at what I do.”
“And what is it that you do?” Thomas asked.
Newt looked down at the gun, twisting it between his fingers. “Survive.”
~
Minho’s bite was worse the next day.
“Not the Flare,” Alby mused, turning his arm over in his hands, running his fingers along the swollen flesh around the bite. “Just normal infection. I wouldn’t be too worried.”
“No offense,” Thomas said. “But I am.”
Minho jerked a head toward the brunet. “I’m with him.”
Newt was perched once again, this time on the dresser, rifle held loosely in his hands. His eyes were mostly on Minho, but he kept glancing at Thomas. It was starting to get troubling, how fixated Thomas seemed to be on him. And he was starting to get the feeling he’d seen him before, but for the life of him he couldn’t place where.
“He needs medicine,” Thomas said. “Real medicine. If you let me out--”
“I ain’t keeping you here,” Alby said flatly. “But that leg is.”
Thomas frowned at his ankle. It was still bound, but the swelling had gone down and he could limp across the room without the aid of a cane now. Still, he couldn’t outrun the bunch of Cranks that would attack them if they left.
Newt spoke up. “There was a doctor living here.”
“Yeah?” Minho said sardonically. “Too bad he’s not here now.”
“No,” Newt said. “But his books are.”
Alby looked over at Newt. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I could get the books,” he said. “Find out the names of some antibiotics, see if anyone in this building had any of them. If not…”
He looked up at Alby. His partner slash overprotective mother figure wasn’t going to like what he said next. “If there aren’t any here, I can get some.”
“No,” Alby said instantly.
“I’ll go with you,” Thomas said at the same time.
“ No, ” Alby repeated.
“So will I,” Minho said. “It’s my life on the line.”
“Goddammit, no!” Alby was standing now, pointing fiercely at Newt. “You’re not going out again, not for this.”
“I’ve gone out for less,” Newt shot back. “A week ago I jumped across a roof for batteries. ”
“Seriously?” Minho asked. “You sent him out for batteries but you won’t even let me go for antibiotics that could save my life?”
“Look,” Alby snapped. “We’ve got the whole building secure, Newt’s banged up, Thomas can barely walk, and you’re in quarantine until we’re sure you’re not infected. No one’s going anywhere. ”
“You can’t stop me,” Minho said. “It’s my life on the line, not yours. And not Newt’s.”
“Newt’s the only one in this room who doesn’t claim to be immune,” Alby said. “And he’s got a whole patch of skin missing on his neck and chest. He’s not going anywhere.”
“You couldn’t stop me if I tried.”
All three men looked at Newt, startled to hear him inject himself into the conversation--and against Alby. Newt’s face was as expressionless as it normally was. He kept his eyes on Alby.
“You know you couldn’t,” he said. “If I wanted to leave I’d just open a window and climb down. I wouldn’t have you covering me. I’d probably get killed. But I could do it.”
Alby stared at him. “I could keep you here,” he said.
“How?” Newt asked. “Nail the windows shut? I’d break them and climb out. Tie me up? What happens if a Crank gets in?”
His hands were still on the rifle, still cradling it in a way that let the others know that he could have it up, aimed, and fired before they could get off the couch. Not that either of them looked eager to try it.
“Alby,” Newt said quietly. “Odds are, somewhere in this building there’s a bottle of antibiotics. If there is, then we give them to Minho and everything’s fine. If there’s not, I’m taking Minho and going out and getting them, and you can either back me up or get out of my way.”