Four Seasons: Spring
A/N: I forgot to post this part...it's been done for about a month maybe more. Sorry. Please enjoy it.
Spring
Minho misses the attic. The last seven weeks haven’t been too bad but he misses the safety of knowing they had a place. He misses sleeping full nights, regular meal times, and showers. Damn does he miss showers; even though they were freezing and short he liked being clean. He missed sleeping in a bed. He missed cuddling with Key on the cold nights and making out without a care in the world.
But now it was spring and they had to leave the attic behind.
“See anything?”
Minho jumped down, “The town on the map is up ahead. It looks pretty quiet from here though.”
Key nodded, “It’s so nice having you around to climb trees for me. Let’s make quick work here and then look for a place to set up camp for the night.”
They started with a small store, there wasn’t much left that Minho could see but Key called him toward the back dangling keys before his face with a corpse at his feet.
“Locked room,” He grinned knocking on the door. They waited but heard nothing, “I’ll open, you cover it.”
Minho held his bat up ready as Key unlocked and opened the door slowly. No corpses or people but a small storage room, with a lucky amount of supplies.
He smiled putting his bat back into the loop on his belt. “Luck day Key.”
“This makes up for the bare minimum we found these few weeks,” Key began, “Let’s just grab a few essentials. This town seems torn through by the looks of the front. We’ll lock it back up and maybe use it as a place to stash future loot.”
Minho nodded already packing. They made quick work and moved on. They ran into three more corpses but handled them swiftly as they continued their search. He was in a pharmacy when a problem arose.
“Don’t move.”
Minho didn’t move. He looked at the other man who had a gun pointed at him. “I’m not dead.”
“I know, just,” He looked scared, “Please don’t move, please.”
“It’s ok lower the gun,” Minho said slowly, he was just talking to keep the man’s attention on him. He could see Key approaching from behind. “I’m not going to do anything. We’re both survivors, there’s no need to fight.”
He wavered, “I’m sorry. I need to look in here and I can’t trust you so I need you to leave.” He was shaking, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Key said holding a gun to his head. “Give me your gun. Hands up.”
The man complied, “Please I need supplies from here. My friend is hurt and I have to hurry.”
“How many of you are there?” Key asked stepping away but keeping his gun trained on the other man.
“It’s just me and my friend, our group was attacked by these sickos but we managed to get away.” He explained. “His leg was injured though and we don’t have any supplies.”
Key stared at him hard before putting his gun down, “What’s your name?”
“Lee Jinki.”
“I’m going to trust you this once, do you know why?” Jinki shook his head and Key went on, “Because you didn’t just shoot my friend in the skull and take whatever you needed duh. Besides if there are sickos in this area I want to know a little about them. So we’ll give you first dibs on supplies here in exchange for information. Deal?”
Jinki nodded, “Thank you. Really thank you.”
“Whatever,” Key sighed before coming closer to Minho, “Be careful you loser. I can’t always be around to save your ass.” He handed him Jinki’s gun, “He’s going to hold this for you. He’ll give it back after you’ve made good on your promise.”
Jinki moved quickly and panicked.
“Hey calm down, take your time and be thorough,” Minho quoted.
“I’m just worried. I had to leave him alone and he’s injured. I need to hurry back.” Jinki frowned, “I’m sorry I put a gun on you.”
“I get it,” Minho shrugged, “It’s not like you had a choice I could’ve been anybody. How many people were in your group before you were attacked?”
“There were only eleven of us left.”Jinki said reading the labels of bottles, “There were more but we lost a lot of people during winter when the camp fell.”
“Camp?”
“It was a camp started by a group of veterans and professional soldiers. They saved us and let us into their camp. There were forty two people there before the camp fell. We were housed in a warehouse doing pretty good, with enough food and water. We had weapons and there was a doctor too. Everyone had jobs and chores. It was working really well but then a lot of people got sick so there were less people manning the gates. Then during a storm a huge herd came. We barely made it out alive. We didn’t even know if anyone else from camp made it. We couldn’t look for anyone; we had to find shelter because it was too cold to be outside. We were low on everything when we were attacked.”
They finished searching in silence and moved on. In the end the town was mostly tapped but they managed to get enough. Jinki was anxious at every step.
“Do you think you’ll have what you need to help your friend?” Minho asked.
“Yeah I found all the medical supplies I’ll need to clean and suture the wound.” He smiled, “I even found a crutch to help him walk so it’s easier to move around.”
“Suture? Sew him up?” Key glanced at Minho first before going on, “You know how to do that?”
“I know I look young but I was actually in med school before all this. I remember they put me in the papers when I got in.” Jinki answered. “You know the day it started I was really bummed because they cancelled class on morgue day. If I had had another class that day I’d be dead right now. If none of this had happened I’d be a real doctor by now.”
“Do you have a place to stay for the night?” Key asked.
“Yeah,” Jinki nodded, “We found an abandoned truck with a camper car.”
“Food? Water? Weapons?”
“He’s got gun for protection.” Jinki sighed, “We don’t really have anything that’s why I had to leave him alone.”
“We don’t have a place to stay for the night,” Key smiled, “And you haven’t told me about those sickos yet. So how about you let us stay at your spot for the night and we repay you with dinner and breakfast.”
“Really?” Jinki’s eyes widened, “You’d do that?”
“It’s obvious you aren’t a bad person,” Key stretched, “It’s getting late and we need to find a place to rest for the night anyway.”
"Really?" Jinki looks like he thinks it's too good to be true.
"Well if you turn out to be bad I think it'd be really easy to kill you, so why not?" Key shrugged, "Which way?"
Jinki gulped, "North of here."
They make it back to the camper car with plenty of daylight left. However Jinki is a nervous mess in front of corpses and quick to pull his gun when he doesn't need to. Key ends up threatening to take his gun away if he doesn't learn to use the crowbar when he's supposed to. At the camper, Jinki’s friend is in the back seat of the truck and they’re mutually relieved to see each other.
“How’s your leg?” Jinki questions, “Did anything happen? It didn’t get worse did it?”
“Nothing happened,” His friend groaned, “Not even a walker. Hurts like hell, who’s the company?”
“I met them looking for supplies. They’re helping us out for the night.” Jinki replied. “I don’t know their names actually but they’re good people. Come on let’s get this fixed up.”
Minho takes Key aside, “I’ll scout around. I’ll walkie you if there’s a problem.”
“Same.” Key agrees, “I’ll watch our things. Be quick and don’t get hurt.”
Minho is happy to see that the area is quiet. He runs into only two corpses and returns to the camper happy with fire wood. “Nice and quiet, it should do for the night.”
Key returns the smile. “This bastard knows how to hot wire cars.”
“What?”
“Not the Dr., short stuff.” Key stated.
“Hey,” The injured man frowns, “I have a name you know. Hi I’m Jonghyun. Jinki-hyung told me what you did in the town, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem, how’s your leg?” Minho asked taking a seat.
“Better now that Jinki-hyung handled it.” Jonghyun remarked, “So about this deal you have with hyung?”
“If you’re hungry just say so,” Key rolled his eyes, going to his bags, “We’re having pasta and because you’re injured and I feel bad for you I’ll even share the special thing I got today. Build a fire.”
Minho looked as Key confused but moved to build a fire anyway. “What special thing?”
“This special thing,” Key said with a big grin.
“Is that a chicken?” Jonghyun’s eyes widened.
Jinki popped out of the camper in a flash, “Chicken?”
“Where on earth did you get that?” Minho's seen Key do a lot of amazing things but this is close to the top of the list.
“I found it in a back yard when you to were raiding the grocery, a corpse almost got to it before me.” Key sighed happily. “That town totally cleared up our dry spell. We haven’t had fresh meat since that rabbit.”
They’re all drooling when Key checks the chicken again. This time he declares that it’s all done and orders someone to put out the fire. Jinki and Minho are both on it in a flash, erasing all evidence of a fire as quickly as possible. They eat inside the camper by candle light. The curtains of the camper are drawn over the boarded up windows.
Jinki and Jonghyun eat like they are starved, devouring their meal before Key and Minho have even finished half of his food. Minho looked to the two with a small smile, “Haven’t eaten in a while huh?”
“Yeah, we’ve been living on onefull meal every two days if we’re lucky. Whatever we can find in between and it hasn't been much,” Jonghyun supplied, “Hey are you going to give us your names?”
“I’m leaving after breakfast so you don’t need to know it,” Key remarked.
“What about you? Can I know your name?” Jonghyun asked.
“I’ll be leaving with him.”
“Wow even though you fed me, that feels really cold hearted.” Jonghyun grumbled.
“We’re fulfilling a deal,” Key reminded, “So about these people who attacked you, what do you know? They have a camp? Numbers? Weapons?”
“They have a camp,” Jinki answered, “It was close to where we were camping, it is north of here. One of them called it the station. There were five of them heavily armed when they attacked us but I don’t know how many more there are.”
“Why did you call them sickos?”
“We had two women with us,” Jonghyun replied, “They took them, said that they could use fresh ones. Then they started looking at everyone else and they decided to take Taemin too.”
“Taemin?”
“My neighbor,” Jonghyun looked down, “We’d escaped the evacuee camp together when shit took a nose dive. They thought he was a girl at first and then they said it was ok if he was a boy and took him. They were going to shoot the rest of us but our leader surprised them then there was a struggle. They told us to run, I got slashed but we managed to escape.”
“When did it happen?” He asked.
“Just yesterday in the middle of the night, we didn’t rest until we found this camper.” Jonghyun said lowly, “Then Jinki left to look for supplies and ran into you.”
“I see, so you walked for what maybe seven nine hours,” He hummed before smiling, “Well I’m Key and this is Minho.”
“I thought we didn’t need to know your names?” Jinki said brow furrowed.
“Our route is already set north,” Key began, “If they’re kidnapping people they’re definitely stealing supplies too. We’re already heading in that direction might as well take care of some criminals and collect the bounty.”
“They outnumber and out arm us,” Jinki sighed, “We don’t know their location for sure or if they’re even still there.”
“Then Minho and I will find out.” Key smiled, “If Taemin is still alive we’ll tell him to head south.”
“It’s suicide.”
“You know why I’m called Key?” His smiled broadened, “Because I can open doors people think are impossibly locked. Are you in?”
Jonghyun and Jinki agree hesitantly, their hope to save Taemin being their biggest motivation. Minho doesn’t know what he’s doing but he trusts Key. Late at night when Jinki and Jonghyun are sleeping he speaks to Key in whispers.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Scope out the place first,” Key brings out his map, “Jinki said north of here at a station, the only lead is this place here. It’s a train station close to a medium sized town, so their perimeter is probably like this. After we scope them out then we can enact one of the plans.”
“One of the plans?”
Key folds the map putting it away againg. “I’ve been brain storming them since Jinki said he was attacked by sickos,” Key yawned, “In this world a sicko is someone who’s more than just a thief or a murderer. Someone sick in this world needs to die quickly. Lucky for us Jonghyun can get us a car. Gas and a ride that’s our plan for tomorrow no matter which plan we end up with we’re going to need an escape vehicle.” He yawned again lying against Minho, “Tired. Kiss me.”
“What about those two?”
“They’re asleep, there’s a curtain, and I don’t care.” He leaned close, “Goodnight kiss, I deserve it. I did all these nice things today. I even caught a chicken.”
Minho smiled, “Alright, alright.” A quick kiss, “I got something nice at the pharmacy, can’t use it until we’re alone and in a nice place though.”
“Really? What?”
“I’ll show you when we have alone time,” He wrapped his arms around Key giving him another kiss, “Let’s get some sleep.”
Minho woke up to a sound by the window. He held up his gun on instinct and felt Key do the same. No movement and he opened his eyes.
Jinki stood peeking through the curtains. “I was just checking before I opened the door. I have to pee. Please don’t shoot me.”
Their arms came down and the shared a sleepy groan. “Please say something next time or I’ll accidently kill you. How’s it look?”
“Nothing in sight,” Jinki replied.
Key sat up stretching, “I’ll check this side, do you have something with you?”
“I have my gun.” Jinki replied but Key glared at him and he shriveled.
“No guns,” Minho instructed sitting up, “Take the bat.”
“This side is clear too.” Key took the board off letting light into the camper. “I’ll start breakfast.”
“Ok thanks,” He said leaving the camper.
Minho groaned and stretched, “Ugh I guess it was a little more comfortable than the ground. I little cramped though. I’ll patrol make sure there’s no trouble.”
“Ok,” Key peeked to where Jonghyun was sleeping to see the curtain still mostly drawn and leaned to give him a quick kiss.
“Take that doctor with you. They’re going to have to get use to our program for the few days.”
He nodded and headed out. Jinki had finished and was walking back to the camper. “You’re coming with me.”
“Eh?”
“We’re going to patrol,” Minho began, “If you’re going to with us until we handle the mess up north you’re going to have to work on our schedule. Key won’t feed you if you don’t pull your weight.”
“So Key’s in charge?”
“If you want to do things your own way you can,” Minho explained, “We won’t stop you. He probably won’t try to save you if it turns out bad either though. He’s been surviving alone for a long time and he’s good. I would’ve died without him this winter. He’s saved my life more than a handful of times. If you don’t like the way we do it then don’t follow us up north.” He looked to see Jinki keeping up with him, “The reason I said Key won’t feed you is because he has more food than me. He’s good at cooking and gets lucky like finding a chicken but he only feeds people he thinks are useful.”
Jinki sighed, “Sorry, I’m not really used to this. I’ve only been in larger groups. I never did things like patrolling or hunting. I was always playing doctor.”
“I was a scouter when I was in a group,” Minho replied, “So I’m use to patrols and things like that. It works out well because Key hates running.”
“Hates running?” Jinki scoffed, “I know what he means I’m sick of running too.”
“No he’s always hated running,” Minho chuckled, “You know I haven’t seen him run once since I met him. He really hates it.”
“You haven’t had to run ever?”
“There are times we could have run but Key is really,” Minho stopped spotting two corpses. “Cover me.” They made short work of them. He knocked the legs out of the first so Jinki could bash it before bashing the other. “Key’s something like a survival genius.”
“Survival genius?”
“He just knows how to deal with all of this,” Minho shrugged, “It’s something you understand after being around him for a while.”
When they returned to the camper Jonghyun was eating and Key was looking at a map. There were two bowls waiting for them. “Hurry up, I want to move out soon. We should be able to get close to their patrol line today, especially if we find a car.” He laid out the map for everyone to see. They’re probably scouting on this side of the tracks. The other side is closer to the town so their side is safer from corpses.”
“So if we make it there and they are there, then what do we do?” Jonghyun started, “Do we have anything more to the plan?”
“Nothing’s set in stone until I see their defenses but I figure we’ll lower their man count with a decoy camp fire. Once they’ve sent off the raid party we’ll distract them by sending corpses to their weak line giving me a chance to sneak inside. I’ll kill a few of their people and let them turn to cause a little havoc inside the station. Then I’ll signal Minho and Jinki to start the second wave of corpse distraction. In the confusion, I should have free reign to find your friend. If he’s still alive, I’ll contact Minho to meet me at the safest wall and they’ll get out of there. He’ll take him to the rendezvous point where you and Jinki will be waiting with your getaway car.” He shrugged, “I will take care of whatever is left of the station.”
“That’s insane. Even if you manage to take care of the people, you’ll be surrounded by walkers.” Jinki rebutted, “You’d need hundreds of them for it to work.”
“I can take care of myself.” Key rolled his eyes turning his gaze to Minho, “What about you?”
“I trust you.”
“We need two cars, bull horns, anything loud,” Key listed standing and packing up what little he had out, “There’s a town on our way so we’ll have to pick through it for some odd supplies.”
It took them three days to make it to the station and get the necessary preparations done.
“What’s it look like?” Key asked when Minho returned from scouting. “Jinki said six and one car.”
“I saw eight men,” Minho answered, “All well-armed, two trucks. It looks like they’re sticking to that side of the tracks like you thought. What about you?”
“Three men, and the other side is full of corpses, shouldn’t be a problem,” Key grinned, “And thanks to Jonghyun being the handy man is we even have a motor bike so your job’s a bit easier.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Jonghyun asked. “Should we wait until morning?”
“All you have to do is sit in the car and stay alive now,” Key sighed, “You’ve done your work for today. Jinki will be with Minho. He won’t be going into the station. They’re going to set off bullhorns and run. He’ll meet you at the car in the safe zone. We have walkies. If anything goes wrong drive and meet us at the camper. Minho and I can take care of ourselves. We have to do it at night besides I already started a fire, they’ll see the smoke and send a group here soon. I need to sneak in while they have fewer men to create a panic.”
Minho was anxious. He could see a lot of corpses at least two hundred at their barrier but Key hadn’t sent him a signal since he’d called in to say he was inside. He and Jinki waited watching as the men fired into the sea of them.
“There’s so many,” Jinki mumbled. “And even more are coming, do you really think this is going to work?”
Minho shrugged, “I don’t know but I trust Key. They sent out four men to our decoy. There are ten men at the full barrier right now. That leaves only three men in Key’s way if our numbers were good.”
“No look to the left there’s another one exiting the building now,” Jinki observed looking through his binoculars, “Two of them and a woman?”
Minho was relieved as he watched them stagger forward, “They’ve turned.” His walkie beeped. He answered right away. “Key?”
“Oh my fucking god this is such a lucky break Minho.” There was some static. “They have such good shit here. Think you and Jinki can make some noise to get some of those corpses out of the way for a safe point? I’ve got the kid.”
“Your pets got to them.” He said watching the barrier, “But there’s still nine there.”
“Yeah I’m sending out the other ones, do you see them?”
Minho bit his lip scanning again. Then he sees them a group of corpses.
“Were those the hostages?” Jinki asked as the stagger out creeping toward the men.
“Key,” Minho started his breath shaky but he couldn’t bring himself to ask, “Key?”
“Any signs of the decoy team?”
“We haven’t seen them.”
“Ok, how's it look outside?"
Minho sighed, watching as the men go into a panic as a part of their barrier gives in. "They're not going to make it the barrier is falling. There's too many."
"Good, go to Jonghyun. Get to the camper tonight. Taemin and I are going to spend the night here and we’ll loot in the morning.”
“Key. You can’t-”
“I can’t get this kid anywhere far today. Plan C Minho, be careful of that decoy team ok.”
“Key? Key? Answer me.”
“Trust me.”
He clenched his fists, “Fuck, ok let’s go.”
“Minho, we can't just-” Jinki started.
“We don’t have any other options there’s too many right now. Let’s go.”
They found the remainders of the decoy team with Jonghyun. “Where are your people?” One yelled Jonghyun was on the ground beaten.
Minho placed a finger over his mouth as they took cover. “You take the one standing I’ll get the one over Jonghyun.”
Minho felt ridiculously calm putting a bullet in the man’s head. Jinki missed the man’s head hitting him in the chest but Minho got a shot to his neck before he could pull his trigger. He walked over and bashed his skull with his crowbar. “Get him into the car, I’ll drive. We’ve got to go now.”
Jonghyun kept asking questions about Taemin. Jinki kept telling him to calm down so he could dress his wounds. Minho didn’t speak. In his head he kept repeating to himself wait until morning, wait until morning. Key would be there. Key would be alive. Once they arrived close to the camper he parked and got out saying nothing.
“Where are you going?” Jonghyun asked, “Where is Key? What about Taemin?”
“He’s just checking the perimeter, be quiet and get to the camper. I’ll tell you everything.”
When he returns to the camper Jonghyun is sleeping and Jinki is sitting on the couch. “I gave him a sleeping pill with his pain pills. Sorry he was freaking out. Tomorrow-”
“We’ll go back. They should’ve passed by then. If not we make a distraction luring them to the opposite side of the town and then check.” Minho sighed, “That’s plan C. Key’s alive and if Taemin is with him and listens he should be alive too. I’d like to get some sleep.”
He moved from the couch, “Yeah, good night.”
Minho slept hard but woke up feeling nauseous. He didn’t like not knowing where Key was or how he was doing. He didn’t like feeling like Key could be dead. Jinki was already awake.
“I checked the perimeter, you looked like you could use some rest.”
He nodded. “Let’s head out.”
“Ok,” Jinki said, “I’ll get Jonghyun.”
The ride was quiet. From their vantage point they could see most of the corpses were gone only a handful lingered but there were bodies everywhere. Minho frowned not seeing any sign of Key. When he tried to contact him through the walkie he got no response.
“I’m going to check it out,” Minho said, “If Key had to leave he’ll definitely show up at the camper tonight but just in case I’m going to search around and get a few supplies.”
“We’ll go with you,” Jonghyun added, “I’m a little beat up but I can cover you.”
Minho shrugged, “No guns, there's not many here and we don't want to draw any in.”
With how sparsely spread the few remaining corpses were, there wasn’t any panic among them. More than anything they were occupied looking at the bodies. It was a shout from Jinki followed by laughter that drew his attention. He rushed over to the truck Jinki had gone to check out to see a bloodied Key laughing from the seat of the open door. He continued laughing when he spotted Minho.
“Oh my fucking god Minho you should’ve seen it,” He laughed, “His eyes got as big as yours. I totally got him.”
“I thought you were a walker.”
“Duh that was the point.” He wiped tears from his cheeks smearing blood, “That was hilarious.”
“Where,” Jonghyun asked slowly, “is Taemin with you?”
“Sleeping in the back,” Key answered standing up, “Out like a light, he slept like a baby all night. Must be nice I’m exhausted. Well let’s strip the place bare so we can get the hell out of here Minho. I’m going to freshen up.”
Minho waited until Key had changed into clean clothes and cleaned the blood from his face to hug him tight. “We never do this again.”
“If we hadn’t needed to rescue anyone, we would’ve just lured a herd to them and left of course.” He mumbled.
Minho pressed hard, urgent kisses to his mouth, “No more rescuing people. We’re not soldiers.”
“Soldiers don’t really rescue people anymore.” Key sighed returning the hold, “I’m sorry. I had to do this.”
Minho held him quietly until Key pushed him away, “Come on let’s hurry up. We’ve got a vehicle with enough gas, plenty of supplies. Let’s find a place to take a little vacation.”
Minho would’ve felt bad for Jinki and Jonghyun if Key hadn’t just endangered his life to help them. So he stayed out of it and continued to load the truck.
“You can’t be serious.” Jonghyun started, “You can’t take everything.”
“I am,” Key scoffed, “I’m taking everything because I did everything.”
“Look at my face. I wouldn’t say we didn’t do anything.”
“That’s right you helped out didn’t you?” Key started, “But you’re paying me for rescuing Taemin with your cut and trust me it was not a big cut to begin with.”
“There’s more than enough here for the five of us to last a long time,” Jonghyun went on.
“Yup and it’ll last even longer between just Minho and I.”
Jinki stopped Jonghyun, “Please, we don’t need much but right now we don’t have anything. I’m really grateful for all the things you’ve done especially risking your life to save Taemin. I’m pleading with you. We don’t have food. We don’t have water. We don’t have a place to go. We have two guns, sixteen bullets, a half tank and two of us are injured. If there is anything you can spare us we’ll take it please.”
Key snorted kicking the dirt. “Stop being so pathetic, it’s pissing me off. An old man pleading with me really makes me feel like it’s the end of the world.”
“I’m not that much older than you.” He frowned.
“Whatever old man, ask Minho.” He shrugged, “I’m too tired to deal with this. You know from saving your friend.”
Minho sighed when they came to him, “These aren’t my supplies to give you. Just like you I didn’t put my life on the line to wipe out this place or save your friend. Key’s only sharing what he wants with me because I’m useful to him. The most I can offer is you to ask him if you can tag along. I've told you before, be useful enough that he’ll feed you.”
“We’ll help you load up then.” Jinki replied.
“Hyung.”
“He’s right Key earned these supplies. We’re lucky he risked his life to save Taemin. He could’ve just overwhelmed them with walkers and waited until the hoard of them killed everything but he went directly to the camp to see if Taemin was alive and then kept him safe until morning. Minho killed the men that beat you. All of this was possible because of them.” Jinki picked up a box of supplies, “We owe them a lot.”
Jonghyun grumbled but slowly moved boxes as well. Once all packed up Key whistled at the loaded truck, “So nice, I made a route while you were packing. Do you mind driving?”
Minho shook his head, “Of course not. They’re going to follow us.”
“I know, let’s hurry up. I'm so tired.”
They make it to the small town with the storage closet. Jinki and Jonghyun seemed surprised as they load up the additional supplies. It’s nothing compared to the station haul but to a survivor it’s amazing. “When did you find this?”
“A little while before I put a gun to your head,” Key answered yawning. “Let’s get moving we still need to find a place for the night and I’m tired. Let’s get moving.”
They drove for only a two hours stopping occasionally to clear the road before Key instructed him to stop. “There’s a pension up ahead. It’s defendable and was abandoned last time I was here. We’ll go check it out on foot first. We’re taking the kid with us as leverage while the old man and short stuff watch the cars.”
Minho nodded as they got out of the cars grabbing his bat. “Is this the vacation spot?”
“Depends on how it is once we get there,” Key yawned again taking out an axe, “Hopefully there are no people and not too many corpses. I could use a nice sleep.”
“Are we taking a break?” Jinki asked leaving the car.
“No, we’re scouting out our location,” Key retorted, “Yah, Taemin come here.”
Taemin came forward quickly, “Yes hyung?”
Key handed him a crow bar, “Stick close ok?”
Minho handed Jinki a gun, “Watch the cars, we’ll walkie you if the place is clear so you can drive up. Don't use guns if you don't need to.”
“Wait you’re not taking Taemin.” Jonghyun began hobbling over quickly. “He can’t go with you.”
“He is going with us,” Key remarked, “He can move faster than you and I can’t leave the two invalids to watch the cars. If you try to run off with my supplies, I’ll do you worse than the men at the station.”
“Just be careful,” He grumbled.
“Keep your guard up, this shouldn’t take too long.”
Key spoke after they had exited the other’s line of sight, “Sorry I have to use you as a guarantee.”
“I understand hyung.” He said clutching the crowbar close, “It’s much harder to trust people now.”
They cleared two cars from the road and took out a total of six corpses before they made it to the pension. There was no sign of any living people. The main house was boarded up a bit but the other smaller houses seemed more run down.
“Someone tried to hold up here,” Key said, “Let’s see if the house is clear.”
The house was empty save for one legless corpse and another corpse in the back. When Key removed its jaw Minho understood they’d be staying and told the others to head up. Key tied the corpse to the gate of the pension.
“What should I name him?”
“Jisung,” Minho offered.
“Ok Jisung-ah I’ll get you a friend soon, maybe a girlfriend even,” Key smiled. Minho glanced to Taemin who seemed
unphased by Key’s actions. “I did this last night, he saw me. So he knows what it’s for. We’re going to vacation here for a bit Taemin-ah. Let’s check the house thoroughly. Clear the car we’re stashing stuff here.”
Minho nodded and waited outside for Jinki and Jonghyun. Once they arrived the three of them unloaded all the supplies. Key sent Taemin to air out the rooms upstairs and change sheets while he started dinner. By the sunset they had a meal prepared, the house was reinforced, and Jisung had a girlfriend.
“When did you get fish?” Minho asked collecting the bowls from their meal.
“When I was collecting water,” Key replied, “This pension was for camping and fishing.”
“What in the world are you?” Jonghyun sighed, “What were you doing before this started?”
“Studying?” Key yawned, “Same as everyone else my age I guess. Anyway I’m really tired so I’m going to sleep after. Remember I broke the stairs so if you need to take a piss in the middle of the night, pee off the balcony. Don’t try anything stupid or I’ll be throwing you off the balcony.”
Eyes turned to Minho as Key left, Jonghyun began rapid fire, “Seriously what is he? What did he do? Where did he learn this stuff? Do you know if he was working with a special forces group after day zero?”
Minho shrugged, “He said he studied. I told you before he’s just good at surviving. I’m going to bed early too. Remember to cover your windows. No lights or sounds attracting attention from outside. If you hear anything down stairs stay quiet and don’t move, if it sounds human one beep on the walkie. Goodnight.”
Minho crawled into bed with Key. He cuddled close right away. “We’ll stash things tomorrow. Kiss me.”
Minho trying to find his lips awkwardly in the darkness but fumbling made him aware of the tears. “Key?”
“My name is Kim Kibum.” Minho doesn’t know what provokes the sudden confession. "Kim Kibum, year 91."
“Kim Kibum?” Minho held him tight, “Kibum, it’s going to be ok. You can rest now. I’ve got you.”
“Minho,” He’s crying and trembling but he starts to rub against him.
“Wait, wait,” He holds back a groan, “Not in our pants.”
“Minho,” he’s still moving short hot puffs of air hit Minho’s neck.
“I’ve got something ok just give me a second. Take off your pants,” Minho pries away. He moves careful to be quiet and holds a small flashlight in his mouth and shuffles through his bag. He grabs what he needs and takes off his pants on his return to the bed. The flashlight still in his mouth he uses it to open the first package.
Kibum pulls down his underwear revealing himself, “Is that the special thing you got at the pharmacy?” He chuckles softly, “I guess I’m really lucky.”
Minho’s too busy focusing getting condoms on them. Once he’s done it he releases the flash light and seeks out Kibum’s mouth. Kibum handles the flash light and starts pressing against him again. Minho shifts, getting his underwear off one leg. Kibum copies him right away, now they can move more freely. Kibum’s hand blindly gropes his way down Minho’s body before starting to stroke him. Minho reciprocates, moving, placing open mouth kisses on Kibum’s neck.
What they’re doing isn’t about getting off. It’s more from how stressed, tired, and terrified they are than being horny. They just want to remind themselves of the only good thing to come from the shitty world they endure now. They’re reminding each other of the good that comes with horrible survival.
A/N: Working on part 3 so hopefully I'll have it up by Saturday. Thank you for reading.
Spring
Minho misses the attic. The last seven weeks haven’t been too bad but he misses the safety of knowing they had a place. He misses sleeping full nights, regular meal times, and showers. Damn does he miss showers; even though they were freezing and short he liked being clean. He missed sleeping in a bed. He missed cuddling with Key on the cold nights and making out without a care in the world.
But now it was spring and they had to leave the attic behind.
“See anything?”
Minho jumped down, “The town on the map is up ahead. It looks pretty quiet from here though.”
Key nodded, “It’s so nice having you around to climb trees for me. Let’s make quick work here and then look for a place to set up camp for the night.”
They started with a small store, there wasn’t much left that Minho could see but Key called him toward the back dangling keys before his face with a corpse at his feet.
“Locked room,” He grinned knocking on the door. They waited but heard nothing, “I’ll open, you cover it.”
Minho held his bat up ready as Key unlocked and opened the door slowly. No corpses or people but a small storage room, with a lucky amount of supplies.
He smiled putting his bat back into the loop on his belt. “Luck day Key.”
“This makes up for the bare minimum we found these few weeks,” Key began, “Let’s just grab a few essentials. This town seems torn through by the looks of the front. We’ll lock it back up and maybe use it as a place to stash future loot.”
Minho nodded already packing. They made quick work and moved on. They ran into three more corpses but handled them swiftly as they continued their search. He was in a pharmacy when a problem arose.
“Don’t move.”
Minho didn’t move. He looked at the other man who had a gun pointed at him. “I’m not dead.”
“I know, just,” He looked scared, “Please don’t move, please.”
“It’s ok lower the gun,” Minho said slowly, he was just talking to keep the man’s attention on him. He could see Key approaching from behind. “I’m not going to do anything. We’re both survivors, there’s no need to fight.”
He wavered, “I’m sorry. I need to look in here and I can’t trust you so I need you to leave.” He was shaking, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Key said holding a gun to his head. “Give me your gun. Hands up.”
The man complied, “Please I need supplies from here. My friend is hurt and I have to hurry.”
“How many of you are there?” Key asked stepping away but keeping his gun trained on the other man.
“It’s just me and my friend, our group was attacked by these sickos but we managed to get away.” He explained. “His leg was injured though and we don’t have any supplies.”
Key stared at him hard before putting his gun down, “What’s your name?”
“Lee Jinki.”
“I’m going to trust you this once, do you know why?” Jinki shook his head and Key went on, “Because you didn’t just shoot my friend in the skull and take whatever you needed duh. Besides if there are sickos in this area I want to know a little about them. So we’ll give you first dibs on supplies here in exchange for information. Deal?”
Jinki nodded, “Thank you. Really thank you.”
“Whatever,” Key sighed before coming closer to Minho, “Be careful you loser. I can’t always be around to save your ass.” He handed him Jinki’s gun, “He’s going to hold this for you. He’ll give it back after you’ve made good on your promise.”
Jinki moved quickly and panicked.
“Hey calm down, take your time and be thorough,” Minho quoted.
“I’m just worried. I had to leave him alone and he’s injured. I need to hurry back.” Jinki frowned, “I’m sorry I put a gun on you.”
“I get it,” Minho shrugged, “It’s not like you had a choice I could’ve been anybody. How many people were in your group before you were attacked?”
“There were only eleven of us left.”Jinki said reading the labels of bottles, “There were more but we lost a lot of people during winter when the camp fell.”
“Camp?”
“It was a camp started by a group of veterans and professional soldiers. They saved us and let us into their camp. There were forty two people there before the camp fell. We were housed in a warehouse doing pretty good, with enough food and water. We had weapons and there was a doctor too. Everyone had jobs and chores. It was working really well but then a lot of people got sick so there were less people manning the gates. Then during a storm a huge herd came. We barely made it out alive. We didn’t even know if anyone else from camp made it. We couldn’t look for anyone; we had to find shelter because it was too cold to be outside. We were low on everything when we were attacked.”
They finished searching in silence and moved on. In the end the town was mostly tapped but they managed to get enough. Jinki was anxious at every step.
“Do you think you’ll have what you need to help your friend?” Minho asked.
“Yeah I found all the medical supplies I’ll need to clean and suture the wound.” He smiled, “I even found a crutch to help him walk so it’s easier to move around.”
“Suture? Sew him up?” Key glanced at Minho first before going on, “You know how to do that?”
“I know I look young but I was actually in med school before all this. I remember they put me in the papers when I got in.” Jinki answered. “You know the day it started I was really bummed because they cancelled class on morgue day. If I had had another class that day I’d be dead right now. If none of this had happened I’d be a real doctor by now.”
“Do you have a place to stay for the night?” Key asked.
“Yeah,” Jinki nodded, “We found an abandoned truck with a camper car.”
“Food? Water? Weapons?”
“He’s got gun for protection.” Jinki sighed, “We don’t really have anything that’s why I had to leave him alone.”
“We don’t have a place to stay for the night,” Key smiled, “And you haven’t told me about those sickos yet. So how about you let us stay at your spot for the night and we repay you with dinner and breakfast.”
“Really?” Jinki’s eyes widened, “You’d do that?”
“It’s obvious you aren’t a bad person,” Key stretched, “It’s getting late and we need to find a place to rest for the night anyway.”
"Really?" Jinki looks like he thinks it's too good to be true.
"Well if you turn out to be bad I think it'd be really easy to kill you, so why not?" Key shrugged, "Which way?"
Jinki gulped, "North of here."
They make it back to the camper car with plenty of daylight left. However Jinki is a nervous mess in front of corpses and quick to pull his gun when he doesn't need to. Key ends up threatening to take his gun away if he doesn't learn to use the crowbar when he's supposed to. At the camper, Jinki’s friend is in the back seat of the truck and they’re mutually relieved to see each other.
“How’s your leg?” Jinki questions, “Did anything happen? It didn’t get worse did it?”
“Nothing happened,” His friend groaned, “Not even a walker. Hurts like hell, who’s the company?”
“I met them looking for supplies. They’re helping us out for the night.” Jinki replied. “I don’t know their names actually but they’re good people. Come on let’s get this fixed up.”
Minho takes Key aside, “I’ll scout around. I’ll walkie you if there’s a problem.”
“Same.” Key agrees, “I’ll watch our things. Be quick and don’t get hurt.”
Minho is happy to see that the area is quiet. He runs into only two corpses and returns to the camper happy with fire wood. “Nice and quiet, it should do for the night.”
Key returns the smile. “This bastard knows how to hot wire cars.”
“What?”
“Not the Dr., short stuff.” Key stated.
“Hey,” The injured man frowns, “I have a name you know. Hi I’m Jonghyun. Jinki-hyung told me what you did in the town, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem, how’s your leg?” Minho asked taking a seat.
“Better now that Jinki-hyung handled it.” Jonghyun remarked, “So about this deal you have with hyung?”
“If you’re hungry just say so,” Key rolled his eyes, going to his bags, “We’re having pasta and because you’re injured and I feel bad for you I’ll even share the special thing I got today. Build a fire.”
Minho looked as Key confused but moved to build a fire anyway. “What special thing?”
“This special thing,” Key said with a big grin.
“Is that a chicken?” Jonghyun’s eyes widened.
Jinki popped out of the camper in a flash, “Chicken?”
“Where on earth did you get that?” Minho's seen Key do a lot of amazing things but this is close to the top of the list.
“I found it in a back yard when you to were raiding the grocery, a corpse almost got to it before me.” Key sighed happily. “That town totally cleared up our dry spell. We haven’t had fresh meat since that rabbit.”
They’re all drooling when Key checks the chicken again. This time he declares that it’s all done and orders someone to put out the fire. Jinki and Minho are both on it in a flash, erasing all evidence of a fire as quickly as possible. They eat inside the camper by candle light. The curtains of the camper are drawn over the boarded up windows.
Jinki and Jonghyun eat like they are starved, devouring their meal before Key and Minho have even finished half of his food. Minho looked to the two with a small smile, “Haven’t eaten in a while huh?”
“Yeah, we’ve been living on onefull meal every two days if we’re lucky. Whatever we can find in between and it hasn't been much,” Jonghyun supplied, “Hey are you going to give us your names?”
“I’m leaving after breakfast so you don’t need to know it,” Key remarked.
“What about you? Can I know your name?” Jonghyun asked.
“I’ll be leaving with him.”
“Wow even though you fed me, that feels really cold hearted.” Jonghyun grumbled.
“We’re fulfilling a deal,” Key reminded, “So about these people who attacked you, what do you know? They have a camp? Numbers? Weapons?”
“They have a camp,” Jinki answered, “It was close to where we were camping, it is north of here. One of them called it the station. There were five of them heavily armed when they attacked us but I don’t know how many more there are.”
“Why did you call them sickos?”
“We had two women with us,” Jonghyun replied, “They took them, said that they could use fresh ones. Then they started looking at everyone else and they decided to take Taemin too.”
“Taemin?”
“My neighbor,” Jonghyun looked down, “We’d escaped the evacuee camp together when shit took a nose dive. They thought he was a girl at first and then they said it was ok if he was a boy and took him. They were going to shoot the rest of us but our leader surprised them then there was a struggle. They told us to run, I got slashed but we managed to escape.”
“When did it happen?” He asked.
“Just yesterday in the middle of the night, we didn’t rest until we found this camper.” Jonghyun said lowly, “Then Jinki left to look for supplies and ran into you.”
“I see, so you walked for what maybe seven nine hours,” He hummed before smiling, “Well I’m Key and this is Minho.”
“I thought we didn’t need to know your names?” Jinki said brow furrowed.
“Our route is already set north,” Key began, “If they’re kidnapping people they’re definitely stealing supplies too. We’re already heading in that direction might as well take care of some criminals and collect the bounty.”
“They outnumber and out arm us,” Jinki sighed, “We don’t know their location for sure or if they’re even still there.”
“Then Minho and I will find out.” Key smiled, “If Taemin is still alive we’ll tell him to head south.”
“It’s suicide.”
“You know why I’m called Key?” His smiled broadened, “Because I can open doors people think are impossibly locked. Are you in?”
Jonghyun and Jinki agree hesitantly, their hope to save Taemin being their biggest motivation. Minho doesn’t know what he’s doing but he trusts Key. Late at night when Jinki and Jonghyun are sleeping he speaks to Key in whispers.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Scope out the place first,” Key brings out his map, “Jinki said north of here at a station, the only lead is this place here. It’s a train station close to a medium sized town, so their perimeter is probably like this. After we scope them out then we can enact one of the plans.”
“One of the plans?”
Key folds the map putting it away againg. “I’ve been brain storming them since Jinki said he was attacked by sickos,” Key yawned, “In this world a sicko is someone who’s more than just a thief or a murderer. Someone sick in this world needs to die quickly. Lucky for us Jonghyun can get us a car. Gas and a ride that’s our plan for tomorrow no matter which plan we end up with we’re going to need an escape vehicle.” He yawned again lying against Minho, “Tired. Kiss me.”
“What about those two?”
“They’re asleep, there’s a curtain, and I don’t care.” He leaned close, “Goodnight kiss, I deserve it. I did all these nice things today. I even caught a chicken.”
Minho smiled, “Alright, alright.” A quick kiss, “I got something nice at the pharmacy, can’t use it until we’re alone and in a nice place though.”
“Really? What?”
“I’ll show you when we have alone time,” He wrapped his arms around Key giving him another kiss, “Let’s get some sleep.”
Minho woke up to a sound by the window. He held up his gun on instinct and felt Key do the same. No movement and he opened his eyes.
Jinki stood peeking through the curtains. “I was just checking before I opened the door. I have to pee. Please don’t shoot me.”
Their arms came down and the shared a sleepy groan. “Please say something next time or I’ll accidently kill you. How’s it look?”
“Nothing in sight,” Jinki replied.
Key sat up stretching, “I’ll check this side, do you have something with you?”
“I have my gun.” Jinki replied but Key glared at him and he shriveled.
“No guns,” Minho instructed sitting up, “Take the bat.”
“This side is clear too.” Key took the board off letting light into the camper. “I’ll start breakfast.”
“Ok thanks,” He said leaving the camper.
Minho groaned and stretched, “Ugh I guess it was a little more comfortable than the ground. I little cramped though. I’ll patrol make sure there’s no trouble.”
“Ok,” Key peeked to where Jonghyun was sleeping to see the curtain still mostly drawn and leaned to give him a quick kiss.
“Take that doctor with you. They’re going to have to get use to our program for the few days.”
He nodded and headed out. Jinki had finished and was walking back to the camper. “You’re coming with me.”
“Eh?”
“We’re going to patrol,” Minho began, “If you’re going to with us until we handle the mess up north you’re going to have to work on our schedule. Key won’t feed you if you don’t pull your weight.”
“So Key’s in charge?”
“If you want to do things your own way you can,” Minho explained, “We won’t stop you. He probably won’t try to save you if it turns out bad either though. He’s been surviving alone for a long time and he’s good. I would’ve died without him this winter. He’s saved my life more than a handful of times. If you don’t like the way we do it then don’t follow us up north.” He looked to see Jinki keeping up with him, “The reason I said Key won’t feed you is because he has more food than me. He’s good at cooking and gets lucky like finding a chicken but he only feeds people he thinks are useful.”
Jinki sighed, “Sorry, I’m not really used to this. I’ve only been in larger groups. I never did things like patrolling or hunting. I was always playing doctor.”
“I was a scouter when I was in a group,” Minho replied, “So I’m use to patrols and things like that. It works out well because Key hates running.”
“Hates running?” Jinki scoffed, “I know what he means I’m sick of running too.”
“No he’s always hated running,” Minho chuckled, “You know I haven’t seen him run once since I met him. He really hates it.”
“You haven’t had to run ever?”
“There are times we could have run but Key is really,” Minho stopped spotting two corpses. “Cover me.” They made short work of them. He knocked the legs out of the first so Jinki could bash it before bashing the other. “Key’s something like a survival genius.”
“Survival genius?”
“He just knows how to deal with all of this,” Minho shrugged, “It’s something you understand after being around him for a while.”
When they returned to the camper Jonghyun was eating and Key was looking at a map. There were two bowls waiting for them. “Hurry up, I want to move out soon. We should be able to get close to their patrol line today, especially if we find a car.” He laid out the map for everyone to see. They’re probably scouting on this side of the tracks. The other side is closer to the town so their side is safer from corpses.”
“So if we make it there and they are there, then what do we do?” Jonghyun started, “Do we have anything more to the plan?”
“Nothing’s set in stone until I see their defenses but I figure we’ll lower their man count with a decoy camp fire. Once they’ve sent off the raid party we’ll distract them by sending corpses to their weak line giving me a chance to sneak inside. I’ll kill a few of their people and let them turn to cause a little havoc inside the station. Then I’ll signal Minho and Jinki to start the second wave of corpse distraction. In the confusion, I should have free reign to find your friend. If he’s still alive, I’ll contact Minho to meet me at the safest wall and they’ll get out of there. He’ll take him to the rendezvous point where you and Jinki will be waiting with your getaway car.” He shrugged, “I will take care of whatever is left of the station.”
“That’s insane. Even if you manage to take care of the people, you’ll be surrounded by walkers.” Jinki rebutted, “You’d need hundreds of them for it to work.”
“I can take care of myself.” Key rolled his eyes turning his gaze to Minho, “What about you?”
“I trust you.”
“We need two cars, bull horns, anything loud,” Key listed standing and packing up what little he had out, “There’s a town on our way so we’ll have to pick through it for some odd supplies.”
It took them three days to make it to the station and get the necessary preparations done.
“What’s it look like?” Key asked when Minho returned from scouting. “Jinki said six and one car.”
“I saw eight men,” Minho answered, “All well-armed, two trucks. It looks like they’re sticking to that side of the tracks like you thought. What about you?”
“Three men, and the other side is full of corpses, shouldn’t be a problem,” Key grinned, “And thanks to Jonghyun being the handy man is we even have a motor bike so your job’s a bit easier.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Jonghyun asked. “Should we wait until morning?”
“All you have to do is sit in the car and stay alive now,” Key sighed, “You’ve done your work for today. Jinki will be with Minho. He won’t be going into the station. They’re going to set off bullhorns and run. He’ll meet you at the car in the safe zone. We have walkies. If anything goes wrong drive and meet us at the camper. Minho and I can take care of ourselves. We have to do it at night besides I already started a fire, they’ll see the smoke and send a group here soon. I need to sneak in while they have fewer men to create a panic.”
Minho was anxious. He could see a lot of corpses at least two hundred at their barrier but Key hadn’t sent him a signal since he’d called in to say he was inside. He and Jinki waited watching as the men fired into the sea of them.
“There’s so many,” Jinki mumbled. “And even more are coming, do you really think this is going to work?”
Minho shrugged, “I don’t know but I trust Key. They sent out four men to our decoy. There are ten men at the full barrier right now. That leaves only three men in Key’s way if our numbers were good.”
“No look to the left there’s another one exiting the building now,” Jinki observed looking through his binoculars, “Two of them and a woman?”
Minho was relieved as he watched them stagger forward, “They’ve turned.” His walkie beeped. He answered right away. “Key?”
“Oh my fucking god this is such a lucky break Minho.” There was some static. “They have such good shit here. Think you and Jinki can make some noise to get some of those corpses out of the way for a safe point? I’ve got the kid.”
“Your pets got to them.” He said watching the barrier, “But there’s still nine there.”
“Yeah I’m sending out the other ones, do you see them?”
Minho bit his lip scanning again. Then he sees them a group of corpses.
“Were those the hostages?” Jinki asked as the stagger out creeping toward the men.
“Key,” Minho started his breath shaky but he couldn’t bring himself to ask, “Key?”
“Any signs of the decoy team?”
“We haven’t seen them.”
“Ok, how's it look outside?"
Minho sighed, watching as the men go into a panic as a part of their barrier gives in. "They're not going to make it the barrier is falling. There's too many."
"Good, go to Jonghyun. Get to the camper tonight. Taemin and I are going to spend the night here and we’ll loot in the morning.”
“Key. You can’t-”
“I can’t get this kid anywhere far today. Plan C Minho, be careful of that decoy team ok.”
“Key? Key? Answer me.”
“Trust me.”
He clenched his fists, “Fuck, ok let’s go.”
“Minho, we can't just-” Jinki started.
“We don’t have any other options there’s too many right now. Let’s go.”
They found the remainders of the decoy team with Jonghyun. “Where are your people?” One yelled Jonghyun was on the ground beaten.
Minho placed a finger over his mouth as they took cover. “You take the one standing I’ll get the one over Jonghyun.”
Minho felt ridiculously calm putting a bullet in the man’s head. Jinki missed the man’s head hitting him in the chest but Minho got a shot to his neck before he could pull his trigger. He walked over and bashed his skull with his crowbar. “Get him into the car, I’ll drive. We’ve got to go now.”
Jonghyun kept asking questions about Taemin. Jinki kept telling him to calm down so he could dress his wounds. Minho didn’t speak. In his head he kept repeating to himself wait until morning, wait until morning. Key would be there. Key would be alive. Once they arrived close to the camper he parked and got out saying nothing.
“Where are you going?” Jonghyun asked, “Where is Key? What about Taemin?”
“He’s just checking the perimeter, be quiet and get to the camper. I’ll tell you everything.”
When he returns to the camper Jonghyun is sleeping and Jinki is sitting on the couch. “I gave him a sleeping pill with his pain pills. Sorry he was freaking out. Tomorrow-”
“We’ll go back. They should’ve passed by then. If not we make a distraction luring them to the opposite side of the town and then check.” Minho sighed, “That’s plan C. Key’s alive and if Taemin is with him and listens he should be alive too. I’d like to get some sleep.”
He moved from the couch, “Yeah, good night.”
Minho slept hard but woke up feeling nauseous. He didn’t like not knowing where Key was or how he was doing. He didn’t like feeling like Key could be dead. Jinki was already awake.
“I checked the perimeter, you looked like you could use some rest.”
He nodded. “Let’s head out.”
“Ok,” Jinki said, “I’ll get Jonghyun.”
The ride was quiet. From their vantage point they could see most of the corpses were gone only a handful lingered but there were bodies everywhere. Minho frowned not seeing any sign of Key. When he tried to contact him through the walkie he got no response.
“I’m going to check it out,” Minho said, “If Key had to leave he’ll definitely show up at the camper tonight but just in case I’m going to search around and get a few supplies.”
“We’ll go with you,” Jonghyun added, “I’m a little beat up but I can cover you.”
Minho shrugged, “No guns, there's not many here and we don't want to draw any in.”
With how sparsely spread the few remaining corpses were, there wasn’t any panic among them. More than anything they were occupied looking at the bodies. It was a shout from Jinki followed by laughter that drew his attention. He rushed over to the truck Jinki had gone to check out to see a bloodied Key laughing from the seat of the open door. He continued laughing when he spotted Minho.
“Oh my fucking god Minho you should’ve seen it,” He laughed, “His eyes got as big as yours. I totally got him.”
“I thought you were a walker.”
“Duh that was the point.” He wiped tears from his cheeks smearing blood, “That was hilarious.”
“Where,” Jonghyun asked slowly, “is Taemin with you?”
“Sleeping in the back,” Key answered standing up, “Out like a light, he slept like a baby all night. Must be nice I’m exhausted. Well let’s strip the place bare so we can get the hell out of here Minho. I’m going to freshen up.”
Minho waited until Key had changed into clean clothes and cleaned the blood from his face to hug him tight. “We never do this again.”
“If we hadn’t needed to rescue anyone, we would’ve just lured a herd to them and left of course.” He mumbled.
Minho pressed hard, urgent kisses to his mouth, “No more rescuing people. We’re not soldiers.”
“Soldiers don’t really rescue people anymore.” Key sighed returning the hold, “I’m sorry. I had to do this.”
Minho held him quietly until Key pushed him away, “Come on let’s hurry up. We’ve got a vehicle with enough gas, plenty of supplies. Let’s find a place to take a little vacation.”
Minho would’ve felt bad for Jinki and Jonghyun if Key hadn’t just endangered his life to help them. So he stayed out of it and continued to load the truck.
“You can’t be serious.” Jonghyun started, “You can’t take everything.”
“I am,” Key scoffed, “I’m taking everything because I did everything.”
“Look at my face. I wouldn’t say we didn’t do anything.”
“That’s right you helped out didn’t you?” Key started, “But you’re paying me for rescuing Taemin with your cut and trust me it was not a big cut to begin with.”
“There’s more than enough here for the five of us to last a long time,” Jonghyun went on.
“Yup and it’ll last even longer between just Minho and I.”
Jinki stopped Jonghyun, “Please, we don’t need much but right now we don’t have anything. I’m really grateful for all the things you’ve done especially risking your life to save Taemin. I’m pleading with you. We don’t have food. We don’t have water. We don’t have a place to go. We have two guns, sixteen bullets, a half tank and two of us are injured. If there is anything you can spare us we’ll take it please.”
Key snorted kicking the dirt. “Stop being so pathetic, it’s pissing me off. An old man pleading with me really makes me feel like it’s the end of the world.”
“I’m not that much older than you.” He frowned.
“Whatever old man, ask Minho.” He shrugged, “I’m too tired to deal with this. You know from saving your friend.”
Minho sighed when they came to him, “These aren’t my supplies to give you. Just like you I didn’t put my life on the line to wipe out this place or save your friend. Key’s only sharing what he wants with me because I’m useful to him. The most I can offer is you to ask him if you can tag along. I've told you before, be useful enough that he’ll feed you.”
“We’ll help you load up then.” Jinki replied.
“Hyung.”
“He’s right Key earned these supplies. We’re lucky he risked his life to save Taemin. He could’ve just overwhelmed them with walkers and waited until the hoard of them killed everything but he went directly to the camp to see if Taemin was alive and then kept him safe until morning. Minho killed the men that beat you. All of this was possible because of them.” Jinki picked up a box of supplies, “We owe them a lot.”
Jonghyun grumbled but slowly moved boxes as well. Once all packed up Key whistled at the loaded truck, “So nice, I made a route while you were packing. Do you mind driving?”
Minho shook his head, “Of course not. They’re going to follow us.”
“I know, let’s hurry up. I'm so tired.”
They make it to the small town with the storage closet. Jinki and Jonghyun seemed surprised as they load up the additional supplies. It’s nothing compared to the station haul but to a survivor it’s amazing. “When did you find this?”
“A little while before I put a gun to your head,” Key answered yawning. “Let’s get moving we still need to find a place for the night and I’m tired. Let’s get moving.”
They drove for only a two hours stopping occasionally to clear the road before Key instructed him to stop. “There’s a pension up ahead. It’s defendable and was abandoned last time I was here. We’ll go check it out on foot first. We’re taking the kid with us as leverage while the old man and short stuff watch the cars.”
Minho nodded as they got out of the cars grabbing his bat. “Is this the vacation spot?”
“Depends on how it is once we get there,” Key yawned again taking out an axe, “Hopefully there are no people and not too many corpses. I could use a nice sleep.”
“Are we taking a break?” Jinki asked leaving the car.
“No, we’re scouting out our location,” Key retorted, “Yah, Taemin come here.”
Taemin came forward quickly, “Yes hyung?”
Key handed him a crow bar, “Stick close ok?”
Minho handed Jinki a gun, “Watch the cars, we’ll walkie you if the place is clear so you can drive up. Don't use guns if you don't need to.”
“Wait you’re not taking Taemin.” Jonghyun began hobbling over quickly. “He can’t go with you.”
“He is going with us,” Key remarked, “He can move faster than you and I can’t leave the two invalids to watch the cars. If you try to run off with my supplies, I’ll do you worse than the men at the station.”
“Just be careful,” He grumbled.
“Keep your guard up, this shouldn’t take too long.”
Key spoke after they had exited the other’s line of sight, “Sorry I have to use you as a guarantee.”
“I understand hyung.” He said clutching the crowbar close, “It’s much harder to trust people now.”
They cleared two cars from the road and took out a total of six corpses before they made it to the pension. There was no sign of any living people. The main house was boarded up a bit but the other smaller houses seemed more run down.
“Someone tried to hold up here,” Key said, “Let’s see if the house is clear.”
The house was empty save for one legless corpse and another corpse in the back. When Key removed its jaw Minho understood they’d be staying and told the others to head up. Key tied the corpse to the gate of the pension.
“What should I name him?”
“Jisung,” Minho offered.
“Ok Jisung-ah I’ll get you a friend soon, maybe a girlfriend even,” Key smiled. Minho glanced to Taemin who seemed
unphased by Key’s actions. “I did this last night, he saw me. So he knows what it’s for. We’re going to vacation here for a bit Taemin-ah. Let’s check the house thoroughly. Clear the car we’re stashing stuff here.”
Minho nodded and waited outside for Jinki and Jonghyun. Once they arrived the three of them unloaded all the supplies. Key sent Taemin to air out the rooms upstairs and change sheets while he started dinner. By the sunset they had a meal prepared, the house was reinforced, and Jisung had a girlfriend.
“When did you get fish?” Minho asked collecting the bowls from their meal.
“When I was collecting water,” Key replied, “This pension was for camping and fishing.”
“What in the world are you?” Jonghyun sighed, “What were you doing before this started?”
“Studying?” Key yawned, “Same as everyone else my age I guess. Anyway I’m really tired so I’m going to sleep after. Remember I broke the stairs so if you need to take a piss in the middle of the night, pee off the balcony. Don’t try anything stupid or I’ll be throwing you off the balcony.”
Eyes turned to Minho as Key left, Jonghyun began rapid fire, “Seriously what is he? What did he do? Where did he learn this stuff? Do you know if he was working with a special forces group after day zero?”
Minho shrugged, “He said he studied. I told you before he’s just good at surviving. I’m going to bed early too. Remember to cover your windows. No lights or sounds attracting attention from outside. If you hear anything down stairs stay quiet and don’t move, if it sounds human one beep on the walkie. Goodnight.”
Minho crawled into bed with Key. He cuddled close right away. “We’ll stash things tomorrow. Kiss me.”
Minho trying to find his lips awkwardly in the darkness but fumbling made him aware of the tears. “Key?”
“My name is Kim Kibum.” Minho doesn’t know what provokes the sudden confession. "Kim Kibum, year 91."
“Kim Kibum?” Minho held him tight, “Kibum, it’s going to be ok. You can rest now. I’ve got you.”
“Minho,” He’s crying and trembling but he starts to rub against him.
“Wait, wait,” He holds back a groan, “Not in our pants.”
“Minho,” he’s still moving short hot puffs of air hit Minho’s neck.
“I’ve got something ok just give me a second. Take off your pants,” Minho pries away. He moves careful to be quiet and holds a small flashlight in his mouth and shuffles through his bag. He grabs what he needs and takes off his pants on his return to the bed. The flashlight still in his mouth he uses it to open the first package.
Kibum pulls down his underwear revealing himself, “Is that the special thing you got at the pharmacy?” He chuckles softly, “I guess I’m really lucky.”
Minho’s too busy focusing getting condoms on them. Once he’s done it he releases the flash light and seeks out Kibum’s mouth. Kibum handles the flash light and starts pressing against him again. Minho shifts, getting his underwear off one leg. Kibum copies him right away, now they can move more freely. Kibum’s hand blindly gropes his way down Minho’s body before starting to stroke him. Minho reciprocates, moving, placing open mouth kisses on Kibum’s neck.
What they’re doing isn’t about getting off. It’s more from how stressed, tired, and terrified they are than being horny. They just want to remind themselves of the only good thing to come from the shitty world they endure now. They’re reminding each other of the good that comes with horrible survival.
A/N: Working on part 3 so hopefully I'll have it up by Saturday. Thank you for reading.