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A candle flickered restlessly, its soft golden light both a source of comfort but also of annoyance, itching at Minho’s brain and making his hands clench at his sides. Candles were expensive and difficult to find, and while Minho had once found them to be inoffensive, something his mother would light back before the world turned to shit.
He hated the sight of them now, hated their flickering light and the faint heat.
It was illogical, but they were a reminder of what he didn’t have anymore and he would give anything to walk into his and Chan’s home and get hit in the face with fragrant cinnamon from that scented candle Chan loved so goddamn much.
Back then, it would have irked him. He didn’t like cinnamon, didn’t like the way it itched his nose and stuck to his clothes for the rest of the day, but it sounded favorable now.
Anything but this.
“You look like someone tried to take a bite out of you,” were the first words out of Felix’s mouth when he entered the room.
He was clean, his clothes spotless and his hair not sticking to his face from grease and grime like Minho’s did. Sunshine personified. Even dirt felt bad about soiling him.
“I look like it because someone did try to make me part of their meal prep,” Minho sneered, unable to keep his anger in check. Directing it at Felix wouldn’t help, but nothing behind the several-inch-thick steel doors would know how to interpret his rage.
They were too stupid to do anything but rattle their loose jaws at him before trying to gnaw at him without success. For creatures so stupid they had easily made humankind succumb. Hubris, Minho supposed, was their downfall. Creating a virus and freeing it to deal with unwanted people only to discover that a virus couldn’t tell the difference between what had been considered good and bad in the eyes of billionaires.
Transgress the gods and they’ll teach you and everyone else a lesson.
Minho didn’t really know the cause of the virus, so he had made his own. It answered one question, leaving only a million unanswered behind. It was one thing for Minho to stop thinking about as he lay awake at night fearing that the next day might be the last, when their defenses would fall, where there would be a new outbreak, and how next time Chan might…
Well, sleep was another thing that was beginning to grate on Minho’s already frayed nerves.
“We were ambushed,” Chan explained, his voice like a balm for Minho’s aching body. As long as Chan’s voice was real, Minho could pretend to be fine and keep powering through as if he didn’t hate the reality he had been given.
As long as Chan was there, Minho would force himself to live through another day.
“Is it an ambush if the enemy doesn’t even possess the mental capacity to plot and strike when we least expect it?” Minho muttered, the bite in his words all gone by the time he noticed the bowl of fresh water and the hand towels Felix was holding. Paradise amid the apocalypse was a bowl of clean water. “Give me that,” he said, waving Felix closer so he could start washing his face.
He was pretty sure he had what was left of someone’s brain in his hair and the mere thought made him want to set himself on fire.
“Start with your leg,” Chan ordered, and before Minho could even receive the cleaning supplies from Felix, they were moved out of the way of his grabby hands. “The rest of you can stink for a little while longer,” he said in that sharp way even Minho could never disobey.
“Fuck off,” Minho said, but opted against fighting Chan.
Nothing would be solved by that and Minho just wanted one moment of normalcy before he and Chan needed to leave again. Their stays in the bunker were always short, but comfortable. The limits to how long they were allowed to stay and the fact that they were the Colony’s best raiders meant they would get one night of sleep before it was back up to the higher levels, out where the Living Dead were everywhere.
The infected weren’t welcome deeper within the bunker and Minho wasn’t leaving his only family member behind when he had lost so much already.
“Was he bitten?” Felix asked worried as if his concern would change anything.
One wrong looking scrape and it wouldn’t matter that Minho had saved half of the Colony’s lives more than once, because then he would be out on his ass. Someone infected wasn’t welcome inside. They were beneath the hospitality and security their goods could procure them.
“No, it’s still just me,” Chan said casually and without a speck of concern for himself. He was selfless in the same ways Minho wanted to be selfish. It was one of the endless reasons why Chan meant more to him than life. “Minho’s still clear so keep a room ready for him when he-”
“Don’t imply something that won’t happen,” Minho snapped and was about to continue scolding Chan, but his tangent was cut off by Chan digging his thumb into the gash on Minho’s leg.
In order not to scream, Minho clamped his jaws shut.
“Unruly,” Chan said with a smile and got busy unwrapping the makeshift bandage they had made when they had been caught outside.
It had been Chan’s favorite hoodie. Now it was ripped into strips, a handful of them still stuffed somewhere in one of their bags. They would find a new favorite hoodie for him, if not with the help of Felix stealing one for them, then in an abandoned mall or something. Chan might not think they could afford to visit large, open places without bringing better weapons, but Minho had lived this reality for so long that he was close to thinking of himself as a god.
In a godforsaken world, you can only have faith in yourself.
Chan busied himself with cleaning Minho’s wound, washing away the grime and the dried blood, uncovering the pink flesh that worked hard on mending itself, free of infection and looking about as good as a cut could.
There was not a sigle teeth mark in sight, meaning Minho got to stick around to annoy the living shit out of the fuckers running the place. Their refusal to accept Chan had created Minho’s vendetta against them, and their rejection of his requests for drugs and test-vaccines had flared it into a vengeful pyre.
Despite Chan’s bite, he was fine, perfectly healthy even if the morons within the Colony refused to accept that. The infection hadn’t moved a lot since he had been bitten, so Minho knew it wouldn’t ever reach his heart. He didn’t have anything to base that assumption on, just faith and stubbornness, but it was enough to keep him going.
“How did you manage that?” Felix asked, crouching by Minho’s feet, examining the wound with quick and knowledgeable eyes. He was studying to become a nurse, or rather he had been before everything went to hell, now, he was just making things work like the rest of them. “Did you trip over a branch and cut yourself with your knife?”
“No,” Minho said, sucking in a sharp breath when Chan started pouring a hefty amount of vodka over the wound. It wasn’t a bottle Felix had brought them, but one Minho had taken from a half-stocked supermarket they had stumbled upon a few weeks back. He had hoped to use it to drink himself into oblivion, or maybe sell it, but here Chan was using it to clean hid wound. Wasteful. “We ran into a group of huntsmen, except they couldn’t have been very good. They’d all been infected a long time ago but held onto their weapons all the way up until they started decomposing. I was unfortunate enough to become a victim to their surprisingly decent aim.”
The infection spread slowly in some people, and quicker in others, but one thing was certain; It was terminal and once you were infested, you were less human than the ones who had been more fortunate than you. Death was the end station, but before that, you would resemble a corpse, the flesh rotting while you still breathed, the stench of decaying matter following your every step.
At the end, even your brain started to rot, but only after you lived through seeing yourself become a walking corpse.
At that point shooting people was a mercy.
Chan had been infected several months ago, and he still looked good, except for the bruise on his shoulder that grew slowly, warning both of them of their limited time. Chan ignored it, intending to live his life to the fullest while he could, only Minho stuck on how Chan was about to fall apart between his hands, quite literally.
But he wouldn’t. Minho needed to keep on thinking that it wouldn’t. If he did, he would lose this battle and he couldn’t afford that.
They had both seen what would happen to the infected, the rage, the desperation, how the pain was so great that it burned the humanity out of the victims, and how they grew distant, terrifying, limbs falling from them as their brain was slowly devoured by the disease till they finally fell over.
Before it got to that point for Chan, they would have found a cure and been permitted inside the bunkers. Safety wouldn’t be guaranteed there, but it was better than living with the undead as neighbors in abandoned residential areas and supermarkets.
One day Minho would make Chan’s safe, one day they would both be able to sleep through the night even if Minho had to burn half the world to make it happen.
“Ah,” Felix said solemnly and nodded. His brows were furrowed and Minho was relieved he at least managed to get to safety before it became too bad. Felix’s soul was too soft for the world. It had been before as well, but it was cruel to let him see the real world for what it had grown into. “May they rest in peace.”
“May they rot and burn for all I care,” Minho said, though he returned the smile Felix sent him. Felix had the fortune to feel pity for the people Minho had to kill, but Minho knew the truth. He didn’t kill humans. What he killed was less than animals, their sense of self already gone.
If he didn’t kill them, they would end up killing him, it was that simple.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” Felix eventually, seemingly happy that Minho was neither bitten or about to succumb to the flu or whatever bacterial shit he might get from the outside. He pushed up from the ground with a groan. “You have 10 hours before the gate is opened up and 8 hours before you’ll be unable to get in contact with anyone on the inside. Let me know before then if you guys need anything.”
Minho hummed, not bothering to voice his answer. Chan probably would once he was done wrapping Minho’s leg, tying the knot of the fresh gauze, and finishing it off with a kiss that made Minho want to kick him. He refrained, but only because he was injured. If he wasn’t, he would have dropkicked Chan the moment he leaned forward and pressed his chapped lips to the upper part of his calf.
Felix watched over them with a fond smile, one that grew into a forlorn one as he seemed to remember something. He scurried over the door he had entered from and picked up the bag he had abandoned there in favor of getting the water and towels to them.
“I got you something,” he explained as he dug through the bag and pulled out a bundle that was folded horribly. “It’s not a lot, but I imagine that it’s been a long time since you got something fresh. I don’t think they’ll miss this if they ever discover it’s gone,” he said and held out the bundle for Chan to receive.
Chan had just cleaned off his hands with a wet cloth and had given Minho a fresh towel to wipe down his face, neck, and arms. It wasn’t a shower, but it was better than being completely dirty.
“What is it?” Minho asked, glancing at Chan through the towel as he scrubbed his forehead.
“Food,” Chan replied, looking in awe at Felix like he was the sun personified. “Thank you,” he said, sounding genuinely amazed with Felix. “You’re a lifesaver. It’s been months since we ate something fresh.”
“Fresh?” Minho repeated and sat up, his stomach growling just at the mention of eating something that wasn’t canned food. He hated canned peas and so did everyone else, given that was mostly what they found on their raids. “How fresh?” He asked, leaning in close, now some of the corpse was scrubbed off him, he could smell it, the soft, warm, and yeasty smell of fresh bread.
“Straight out of the oven,” Felix answered with a kind smile. He gathered the dirty towels from the floor, dumped all of them into the bag, and bid them farewell. “I’ll see you soon. I hope,” he added and gave them one last wave before he exited the room, leaving Minho and Chan alone once more.
“How fresh?” Minho asked again, dropping the towel in favor of cleansing his hands quickly with a bottle of hand sanitizer that he knew would make his hands dry, gesturing for Chan to get a move on.
“As fresh as it gets,” Chan said and undid the last knot that made the bundle come undone. Inside it, four buns were lying together, squeezed side by side to make them take up less space, but nothing had ever looked more perfect to Minho. In tandem, the two of them took a deep breath and sighed, the scent of freshly baked bread wrapping around them. “Do you think Felix made them?”
“If he did, I’ll kiss his cute little face the next time we meet,” Minho said, licking his lips. His mouth was already watering, the complaining of his stomach growing louder and he shared a quick glance at Chan out of the corner of his eye.
Chan caught his gaze, trapping him momentarily and Minho took it as the invite it was and closed the distance between them. He placed a quick peck on Chan’s lips, smiling when his shoulders shook from retraining a laugh and Minho counted it as a win. Making Chan smile was easy enough, but laughter had become a distant friend to him. For both of them, really.
Life was different now that it had been just a few years ago. They might never get their apartment back, might never see half their family, might never actually get to sleep in a big fluffy bed again - even those were gate kept by the greedy fuckers running this place - but they had each other. They had the love they shared, their new friends, some of their old ones, they had a future.
Or would have once Seungmin started to actually follow Minho’s suggestions in the lab instead of obeying the fuckers to ran the place.
“I love you,” Minho said softly, holding Chan’s eyes for a moment longer before he picked up a bun for himself and one for Chan. “Let’s eat well,” he sighed, settled back against the wall, exhaling deeply, enjoying his little pocket of happiness, their momentary sanctuary.
A couple of hours of safety weren’t a lot, but Minho could pretend it was an eternity as long as he was with Chan.
One day, he would find a way to make moments like these last for as long as his life, but until then, he wouldn’t be greedy. Until then, he would love Chan like every second might be the last.
“Let’s eat well,” Chan repeated, breaking a piece of bread off and stuffing it into his mouth without a second of hesitation. He groaned in satisfaction and Minho couldn’t stop himself from pausing, stopping in the middle of biting down on the bun just to admire Chan.
From the day they met until their last day together, Chan would always be the most handsome guy Minho had gotten the chance to lay his eyes on. Maybe there were hotter men out there, but Minho didn’t care about them. He had Chan and Chan had him, they didn’t need anyone else.
It had been love at first sight, Minho's heart leaving him on the spot to make Chan’s chest his new home. They were an unlikely pair, he knew that, odd ends that made a twisted whole, but he had never been as happy as he had after meeting Chan. Where Minho was defiant and loved riling people up, Chan was pragmatic and diplomatic, a calming presence in every discussion. Minho was independent, hated rules and lived his life like he wanted, whereas Chan… Chan liked his rules.
Hence why they never stayed longer than the ten hours of peace they were allowed every other week from all the goods Minho and Chan’s raids brought to the Colony.
Had it been up to Minho, he would have wreaked the world, twisted it and contorted it until Chan was cured, until he was whole again and Minho would no longer have to watch how his healing slowed, how that damned bruise wouldn’t go away or how Chan kept trying to make a space for Minho in a world where Chan was no longer there.
But it wasn’t up to Minho. Not if he wanted to keep Chan alive, so for the time being, moments like these would suffice, cut out of Minho’s memory and treasured for the nights when he wasn’t sure either of them would make it out alive.
Right now, he was safe, he had Chan at his side, his leg wasn't falling off and they had bread, the first bread Minho had tasted in years that wasn’t stale and hard.
Minho smiled when he bit into the bun, humming quietly to himself as he chewed it, feeling himself grow rejuvenated from just one bite that quickly grew to a second, a third, a fourth until he was reaching for the second bun. Chan beat him to it and held it out for him to take.
“Thank you,” Minho said quietly, his eyes stinging for some reason. He took the bun from Chan and decided to take it slower this time, breaking off small bits to chew on, resting his body and mind in the company of his friend.
The bread was sweet, coarser than the sweet red bean buns he ate as a kid, not as fluffy as the white bread he would buy for his and Chan’s breakfast, but somehow it was the best he had ever tasted. It reminded him of before, of all the good times he shared, but at the same time it made him appreciative, relieved there were still moments like this.
He wasn’t sad. Sadness felt different, as did hopelessness. He was familiar with those emotions, more than he had been before reality tilted on its head, and this wasn’t it. He wasn’t sad, wasn’t hopeless, wasn’t exactly happy either… Perhaps he was wistful or sentimental.
Maybe he was caught in the bittersweet moment of sitting next to the man he loved more than anything, safe for a moment, stuck in time while the candle flickered on the table, keeping their small and barely furnished room alight as they ate.
Bread might be a simple food, but it felt more precious than any expensive meal Minho had before.
The world truly had become a strange place.
“It’s really good,” Minho muttered, breaking off another piece to stuff in his mouth, allowing the taste of wheat and yeast to fill his mouth. It really was some of the best, if not the best meal he had ever eaten, the sweetness and fluffy consistency wrapping everything in a soft and comfortable blanket.
If he closed his eyes and ignored the ache in his leg, Minho could also pretend he was back home, the scent of cinnamon hanging in the air and inviting him inside. Chan would be in the living room, working on his computer with music playing from the LP player in the corner. He would look up, eyes bright, and smile radiant, and Minho would sink down right next to him like always.
It was a past that had long since passed, but it wasn’t forgotten.
“Can you hug me?” Minho asked quietly and blinked his eyes open, cradling the half-eaten bun in his hands like it was a lump of gold. His chest felt light contrary to what he had expected, his lungs expanding a little easier now that he at least knew they were guaranteed to be stuck here for the next 10 hours. “Asking nicely,” he tagged on, the playfulness never quite filling his words as they should.
He hated that moments like these felt stolen, hated that they were getting few and far between, hated how it always seemed like he was running out of time.
“No need to ask nicely,” Chan said with a stupidly charming smile. He shuffled closer to Minho and swung his arm around his shoulder, dragging him into his side and Minho melted into him like he was made to fit there. Chan’s embrace was warm and comforting, and now that he was there, Minho was reminded of just how long it had been since the two of them had cuddled or touched each other just for the sake of it.
There wasn’t much time to cuddle outside the iron wall of the Colony, up above where the Living Cead ruled and the infected roamed.
“All you have to do is ask,” Chan said, voice soft as his chin came to rest on the top of Minho’s head. “You know I can never say no to you,” he murmured, squeezing Minho a little tighter, the moment turning even more precious than before.
Minho would have to ask more often and make a habit out of it.
He hummed but didn’t answer, too busy munching on small bites of the bun, a genuine smile on his lips, soaking up the heat of the man he loved, allowing their perfect moment to stretch as long as he could. They would have to go to sleep soon and get the most out of the hours they had before they needed to go back out again.
“I love you, too,” Chan said belatedly with a sheepish grin. “I forgot to say it back before,” he sighed, a sadness Minho felt clinging to his own ribs filling his voice. “I’ll love you forever.”
Minho blinked, unwilling to make the tear escape his eyes. He didn’t want to ruin the moment, didn’t want to make Chan feel sad again, didn’t want to think about how everything felt like the last time. Minho might lose a limb once, he might not be able to follow Chan back out in the future, and maybe one day neither of them would come back here.
He just wanted it to last forever, trap the moment in his heart and never let it go.
“It’s alright,” Minho told him, his heart warm and content for the first time in a while. “I’m quick at forgiving,” he teased, voice thin as he sank into Chan, not caring that both of them reeked of death and decay, not caring that Chan was deemed dangerous by the rest of the Colony.
Nothing but the two of them mattered.
“I love you forever, too,” Minho said, his eyes slipping closed as he savored the last bit of bread on his tongue, the candle’s light dancing behind his closed eyelids. “Until there is nothing left of me but dust,” he vowed almost sad he never got to propose, hating that the fucking apocalypse of all things had to fuck up his plans.
He would get his revenge for that stunt one day and save the fucking world if he had to. Minho had enough faith for the two of them to ensure they made it out of this together, because Minho would wreck the world before he ever let go of the man beside him.