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Four days from Abel Township
Bottlenecks. Jack's slept in enough of them to get why they're a standard bit of advice for new travellers, why they've met half their travelling companions in tight corners. But can they ever be a pain in daylight.
He blinks sweat out of his eyes and sends an undead hipster with enough beard to hide another full zomb flying with a crack. Its head twists halfway round and it staggers backwards, slipping over the embankment and rolling off the edge of the crag. A moment later, there's a soft, wet thump. Poor bastard.
"Another five headed this way," he calls over his shoulder, to where Eugene is attempting to beat off two more plaid-shit-and-skinny-jeans types.
"Nothing else on this side," a grunt, and Eugene closes his eyes against a spray of gore. "Oh, that was a ripe one."
Jack scuttles back from the edge. Bottleneck by elevation is the worst, and the road cut into the side of the hill runs like this for miles: steep cliff on one side, disgusting drop on the other. "Need a hand?"
"Nah," he feels Eugene's back thump against his, turns his head to see him wiping his face clean on the sleeve of his shirt. "Wait or run?"
He shades his eyes to peer down the road. "I think that lot's the last. Probably best to clear them, or they'll be on our tail all day."
"S'what I was thinking. Water break after? Think my mouth tastes of zomb."
"Deal." The faster ones are starting to close in, and Jack lets himself drop into ready position, legs tense, arms back.
The next zomb's head snaps backward and stays there, neck bent at an almost 90 degree angle the wrong way. "Eugene, is it just me or is this batch more disgusting than usual?"
There's a noise like someone dropping a melon from a great height, then a curse. Jack takes that as a yes.
His own creature's still shambling forward, and he has to step round it to get at the head — and get his own spray of blood and half-liquid brain. Hopefully they'll come across enough water to wash some of this off soon, so the gunners at the next settlement they pass don't mistake them for zombs of the unusually spry variety.
The last three are moving even slower than the rest of the pack, if that's possible. The things must be ancient, maybe initial outbreak victims. They're definitely more rotted than usual, and there's patches of mold growing in one's beard.
"Maybe we can harvest that one for penicillin," Jack's saying, stepping around the splatter when—
He's not even sure how it happens. Maybe a loose rock, maybe his trainers are in even worse shape that he thought, grip-wise. There's a slick squeal, wet rubber on wet pavement, and his feet go out from under him.
The side of the cricket bat connects squarely with the centre of his chest and the breath in his lungs goes out in choking cough. Eugene is never going to let him hear the end of this, which he'll worry about as soon as he manages to get up off his hands and knees, get his lungs working again and convince his stomach now is not the best possible moment to divest itself of its contents.
"Jack?"
He looks up to see Eugene, swarmed on two sides, a newly dead undead at his feet.
"W-warning," he manages with a wince and what he hopes is a smile instead of a grimace, "floor slippery when wet."
Eugene barks out a laugh, and takes off the second-to-last zomb's head, trying to poke it out of the way as it falls with the tip of his bat. "My hero."
"Shut it," he doesn't like how close that last zomb's getting. And they're both of them too close to that drop for his liking. He's up on his knees now, trying to rub away the worst of the throb in his chest.
Eugene steps into another swing, hitting the zombie in the chest, pushing it off the road and onto the muddy, narrow shoulder. Another hit, another, and it's tipping backwards. There's something creepy about the way it falls. No windmilling arms, no last ditch effort to right itself, no sign it knows it's going down at all, as it drops beyond Jack's line of sight and there's another splattering noise.
"Oh god, that is the most disgusting thing I've seen since the Aylesbury 'mallow incident," Eugene says, craning his neck to look over the edge.
Jack's so busy trying to hoist himself up and laugh at the same time, he doesn't even look up to see the ground go out from under him.
---
40 days from Abel Township
"You know what I could go for right now?" Jack says, letting his head slump back against Eugene's shoulder.
"If you say anything about candy, I'm sending you to sleep in his sick," Eugene says, jabbing an elbow in the direction of the passed-out hedgie on the other side of the room. His travelling companions had rolled him into the recovery position earlier and covered him with a blanket from the book shop's stock room, and are both tucked into their own sleeping bags, faces surprisingly peaceful in the glow of the fire.
He and Eugene elected to take first night's watch together. Better than staying up half the night, tossing and turning in his sleeping bag, which is what he's been doing since their travelling party expanded to five. Jack's pretty sure neither of them know how to sleep more than half the night any more.
Indoors, behind the barricades, they don't need to sit like this — back to back, covering as many angles of approach as they can — but actually, well, it's comfortable. Cozy. Which Jack is not ever planning to admit out loud, not even under pain of death.
"Strawberries," he says. "Not the preserve. Real, fresh strawberries. Or oranges. I might be willing to kill for a banana."
He hears Eugene sigh, then feels him shift so they're both staring at the bookshop ceiling, nearly cheek-to-cheek. "Gin," he says. "It's stupid, but I miss going round to the pub on a Friday afternoon, with the weekend ahead of you. The first drink of the weekend always tasted better than anything else."
"Bet those three used to know how to tear up a weekend," Jack says, with a glance at the hedgies. He's wondered a few times if any of that expensive camping and hiking kit had ever done more than sit in the closets of three expensive lofts until a global pandemic made it useful for something other than impressing guests and girls.
"Can't even imagine doing it any more," Eugene says. "Drinking, I mean. Letting yourself get so out of your head."
"A pack of zombs probably could've outrun me after a night out," Jack admits with a bit of a laugh. "Never could hold drink that well."
"I would've liked to see that, I think." And he can't see it, but he can hear the grin in Eugene's voice.
"You ever wonder if we did?" Jack says. "Run into each other, that is. Go out for a night and drink in the same bar, or go to the same chip shop afterwards and never notice each other?"
"Doesn't seem that likely."
"I know it's not like we lived on the same street. I'm just saying, wouldn't it be weird if—"
"And I'm just saying," Eugene cuts him off, "I think I would have noticed you even without the cricket bat."
---
Four Days from Abel Township
He has no idea how he gets down the slope. One minute he's staring at the crumbling edge of the embankment, the impressions of Eugene's hiking boots that cut off halfway. The next he's stumbling his way over the edge, rocks tearing into the flesh of his hands, knee jarring hard as he tries to slow himself and goes into a roll instead. That he doesn't lose W.G. in the tumble is the absolute smallest mercy possible.
Eugene is curled in a heap, a few feet from the zomb which — okay, yeah, Jack has to admit that is just more exploded intestines than he's ever wanted to see.
His face isn't visible, but the noise he's making has Jack's heart up in his throat. Moaning, but not the way he's used to, deep and rattling and hungry. This is soft, strained, a kicked dog sort of sound.
Jack hates it worse than any cough, wheeze, moan he's ever heard.
"Hey," he drops to his knees next to him, hands hovering. Not sure where's safe to touch, and not for the first time he wishes he'd taken some first aid back in the old days. "Eugene, what hurts?"
"Leg." A hand closes around his wrist, Eugene's fingers biting into his skin, and Jack can hear him panting for air. "Did something to it when I fell. Feels — hurts like hell, actually."
He doesn't have to look down to know he's going to hate whatever he finds. Eugene's right leg is lying slack atop the other, foot pointing too far in to be natural. There's a bloom of blood staining his trouser leg near mid-calf and Jack tries to steel himself for the worst as he shoves up the fabric and feels nails dig into the space between his wrist bones in response.
A spike of white bone juts up through the skin of Eugene's calf, and Jack has to turn his head away and swallow down bile for the second time today.
"It's bad, isn't it?" Eugene says, through gritted teeth. His skin is pale and Jack can see beads of sweat rolling down from his hairline. "Tell me."
"It's broken," it comes out more like a sob, and he bites at the inside of his cheek, trying to pull it together. "Really, seriously broken. I don't — there's bandages in the packs. You know that, why am I telling you that? Maybe we can splint it somehow. I'm not really sure how these things work, but—"
"Help me sit up?" Eugene says, soft, stopping Jack's rambling dead.
It turns out to be a tougher request than he's expecting, not least because it involves moving Eugene's bad leg first. He ends up slumped forward, most of his weight on Jack, both of them staring down at the wound in silence. And Jack can feel him trying to hold himself still against a bout of shaking, hear the way his breath catches as he inhales.
"Right, okay." Then Eugene's hand is on his cheek, tilting his face down.
And as far as kisses go, it's terrible. Tight lipped and too hard, and Jack's so gobsmacked he doesn't think to respond at all until just before Eugene pulls away.
"Sorry," Eugene's head settles on his shoulder, where Jack can't see his expression. "I was just really looking forward to getting a chance to do that when things got quieter."
It's just as well Jack can't think of anything to say to that. He's pretty sure whatever is still stuck in his throat wouldn't let him get it out anyway.
"There should be a pistol in the bottom of one of the packs," Eugene says, eventually. "Must be a couple bullets left. I know it's a lot to ask but, if you slide it down here before you go I should be able to get to it, wherever it lands."
"Eugene?"
"I'll," he falters and Jack feels him turn his face in, so it's pressed against his neck. "I can wait until you're out of hearing."
"I'm going to need you to shut up now," it's an effort to keep the tremble out of his voice, but he manages something that's nearly a no-nonsense tone. "Because your plan is obviously terrible and not up for consideration."
"You can't—"
"If you think I am leaving personnel decisions up to the person who can't see straight, you're mental," Jack says, pulling back to glare at him. "Here's what we are going to do: I am going to go find our med kit. You're going to stay here and try to remember anything you learned about broken legs in school or on, I don't know, tv hospital dramas. Then we both move on."
"If it's because of," Eugene starts, then actually flushes a bit. "I shouldn't have kissed you. That was selfish. You don't — there's nothing you owe me."
"If you actually believe that, you're even more out of it than I thought," Jack says, and starts looking for a way back up to the road.
---
28 Days from Abel Township
There are only a couple zombs hanging around the pub, and they're old enough that dispatching them takes less than half an hour. After that, it's just a matter of dragging the heavy, family-style tables in front of the doors and canvassing the basement for supplies while Eugene gets a fire going in the grate in the back lounge area that's mostly free of windows.
Most of the fresh food's gone off, but there's enough crisps to feed a small army of schoolchildren and most of the mixers are still ahead of their sell by date. The orange juice is lukewarm, but the influx of vitamins is enough to give Jack a head rush and leave him grinning behind the bar.
"Dipping into the kegs already?" Eugene asks, settling himself down on a stool and tearing into a pack of cheese and onion ripples tossed in his direction.
"Fruit high," Jack says, then frowns at the rows of bottles still mostly intact and remarkably free of smeared blood. Whoever owned the pub must have scarpered early on. The town around it is mostly boutique hotels and sweet shops anyway, and custom must have dried up pretty early into the outbreak. Good for them, if not for the local trade.
He finds the glasses under the cash register, warm tonic not too far from the juice, and pulls the highest-shelved gin he can see. Eugene's watching him with raised eyebrows when he turns and sets the drink on the bar.
"Compliments of the house."
"You volunteering for first watch, then?" Eugene lifts the glass to his nose and inhales, eyes closing. "God, that's a weird flashback."
Jack watches him sip at it, the bob of his Adam's apple, his tongue swiping out across his lips to chase the taste. "What were you like?" he finds himself asking. "Before the whole end of civilization thing?"
"That little thing," Eugene says, with a wry smile. "Right, I'd almost forgotten."
"Seriously, though." There's no chair on this side of the bar, so Jack braces his elbows on the counter and settles in.
"Normal, I guess. Worked in an office, went out on weekends, didn't use my gym membership quite as much as I meant to," Eugene shrugs. "It all seems a bit weird, looking back. I mean, I used to work for a place that sold life insurance." He says the last bit in a whisper, like it's something tawdry, and Jack puts his head in his hands and snickers.
"God, your lot must've loved Gray Flu. No payout if the deceased is walking around, chewing on the funeral guests' heads, right?"
Eugene groans, takes a bigger drink. "That's why I quit, actually."
"Well, if you're going to have an attack of morals, I suppose the best time to do it is right before money becomes meaningless."
"I was really worried for the first week," Eugene's leaning forward too now, their heads bent in close. "Rent was coming up and you remember how food prices just started skyrocketing the last little while. And then I woke up one morning and half of London had gone zomb and it finally kicked in that I had bigger problems than covering my phone bill."
"Took you that long?" he fishes under the bar, comes up with pineapple juice this time. It's almost better than the orange.
"Me and most of the country, in fairness," Eugene says, stealing the bottle and taking a swig. "What special bulletin did you get?"
"I was at uni," Jack says, with a wince at the memory. "In admissions, not teaching anything. Those went down fast. Classes didn't last a week into the outbreak. Half the students went home as soon as they could pack a case, the rest started barricading the dorms."
"Any of them still standing?"
"Not sure I really want to know," he frowns, steals back the juice. "D'you miss it? Not the morally corrupt working environment, I mean. The being normal?"
Eugene doesn't say anything for a long time. "Will you think less of me if I don't know how to answer that?"
"Nah, I'm not sure I've got an answer either," they lock eyes across the bar, and Jack says, without thinking, "I'm glad we got to meet, though."
"All things considered," Eugene drawls, "Okay Cupid might have been an easier way to go about it."
But he's grinning when he says it.
---
Three Days from Abel Township
They bind the leg as best as they can. Jack gives Eugene W.G. to lean on and slings his other arm over his shoulders to take the rest of his weight and metes out doses from their store of pain medication every four hours or so.
It's still slow going, and when they stop for the night Eugene is ashy under his skin and shaking hard enough to make Jack move with him. Tonight the best they can do is the foundations of some old house, set too low to have ever been worthwhile defensively. Jack parks them smack in the middle of it, so the zombs will at least have to navigate three foot high cement barriers to get at them.
Other than that, there's precious little he can do. They're too exposed for a fire, and Eugene waves him off and sets to changing his own bandages, closing his eyes every so often against the pain.
They watch the sun set over the hill it's taken them almost a full day longer to clear than it should have. It's a pretty one, Jack thinks, all faded pink and bright, electric orange. Next to him, Eugene's eyelids are drooping.
"Lie down, I've got watch."
"Don't take the whole thing, right? Not after last night."
"I'll wake you up before dawn," he promises. There's only about an eighty per cent chance it's a lie. Give or take twenty per cent. "Seriously, get some sleep."
He watches the last traces of the sun slip away with Eugene's head in his lap, fingers sifting through dark hair without thinking.
Jack didn't grow up in a praying household, save Christmases and Easters spent with the Church of England. And maybe the reanimated dead make it difficult, if not impossible, to have any faith in a kind and loving greater power. But, he's running out of options here.
Just let me keep him safe, he thinks, as hard as he can, trying to project the words out around him, like some sort of aura. Just a couple days of luck and I will be so, so good the rest of my life.
Somewhere in the distance, there's a groan. Jack wraps a hand around the handle of the cricket bat and readies for a long night.
---
19 Days from Abel Township
"Do you two ever fight?" Rosie asks, readjusting her pack and sending up another clatter of metal and plastic.
She's been with them two days now, since somewhere near Birmingham. A computer science student, she'd said, headed for some place Jack's never heard of. New Wheel Tower, or something like that. Her pack is stuffed with bits of wire and laptop parts as much as it is food and med supplies, and too big for her five-foot-four frame. If Jack hadn't seen her chop a zomb in half with an axe within three hours of meeting her, he'd wonder how she'd managed to survivethis long.
"Are you kidding me? We fight constantly."
"No," she says, with one of those eye rolls only uni undergrads can manage, "you flirt constantly. There's a difference."
"Shush," Jack says, and then feels like an idiot. Eugene's too far up the railway tracks they've been following to hear, taking a sort of privacy break. He thinks he might have been put out by that, at one point, but this far into the journey he has to admit having the option of alone time, no matter how faked, has its appeal. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to switching off later on.
"It's creepy," Rosie says, ignoring him. "I've met a few couples out here and most of them are at each other's throats half the day. It's exhausting to watch, and then they start wanting you to mediate—" she breaks off and gives a mock shudder. Jack has to resist the urge to pat her on the head.
"You could get them to flip coins," he suggests. "Would be the one use for them, anyway. Poor things must have such inferiority complexes by now."
"So what's your perfect couple secret?" she looks a bit wistful as she says it, and he wonders if there's a zomb boyfriend in her past. Or a could-have-been-boyfriend, which he thinks would almost be worse, at her age.
"Well, it might help that we're not actually a couple," he says, and she snorts, which is at least better than the sad eyes. "What?"
"Not a couple, or not a couple yet?"
"God, you're insatiable aren't you?" he shakes his head. "Right then, when we release our sex tape, I'll get someone to send a copy to Neat Will Tower."
"Narwhal."
"What I said."
This time she actually laughs a bit. Not a real laugh, but one of those little 'hmphs' he's learned to expect from travellers who aren't Eugene. "I don't see why, though. We're at the end of history. I'd think you'd be trying to get in as much living as you could before—"
"The zombs eat our faces?" he grins and she grimaces. "Also, the end of history's quite good. Where'd you get that one?"
"Message board, I think. Before the network went offline."
"You'll have to test it out at your tower. Bet they'll love it."
"You're not planning on answering me, are you?"
"Ask him," Jack says, gesturing at Eugene, who's walking back along the track towards them, then calls out loud enough for him to hear, "be careful, she's getting personal."
"Fine, be like that," she says to his back, in that snotty teenager tone he really has missed a bit from the old job. He bets she's rolling her eyes again, too. He should find her some chewing gum to crack, and get her to talk a little bit about why she really needs to drop English Lit with three weeks left in the term. Be just like home, then.
Eugene claps him on the shoulder as they pass each other. "Should I be worried?"
"If she asks you if you've checked to see if I'm a natural ginger, I expect you to protect my honour," he says, and doubles his pace before Eugene can get anything else in.
Thing is, it's not like Rosie's off base.
He's known this thing between the two of them was headed somewhere pretty much since they met. It's just, somewhere along the way, it got more important than he'd expected. And maybe the whole 'end of history' thing is a bit much, but it's not like they're in friendly territory out here on the road.
There's a very good chance — and he says this with no exaggeration— that whatever's going to happen between him and Eugene is going to be the most fantastic thing he's done in the entire course of his romantic life. He'd rather it weren't also a distraction that got them killed.
Also, it would be nice if there could be clean sheets.
---
Three Days from Abel Township
By the time Eugene kisses him again, the rot's set in.
Well, there's probably a technical, medical term for it, though Jack can't think of it. But that sweet, decaying smell coming from under the bandages isn't something he could mistake for a good sign, nor is the way Eugene's skin is burning up when they touch.
They've hardly made it anywhere today, barely lost sight of last night's camp before the sun started to sink. There's buildings on the horizon, something industrial maybe, that might have been a half-day's hard walk before. God only knows when they'd get there now, and whether it would be any help if they did.
Where they are, there's nothing for cover. Jack's eyes feel like they're full of sand, and the pain meds are nearly gone and the stock of fresh bandages ran out this morning, fat lot of help they were. And it's not the best timing, but when Eugene pushes their mouths together Jack ends up clutching at his shoulders and pressing his lips open with his tongue and kissing him until they're both panting for breath.
"I shouldn't," he manages, between breaths, "shouldn't take advantage of you."
"D'you know, I wish you would," Eugene says, smile too distant and eyes too blank for Jack to take him up on it.
"When we find a settlement — after I get them to patch you up — I'm going to find us a bed and just kiss you for hours, alright?"
"Just kiss? That's disappointing."
"I thought we'd take it slow," Jack says, trying for a smile. "Maybe do dinner first?"
"We do dinner every night."
"Doesn't count if we've been using the same plastic sporks the whole time."
"That, that is arbitrary, is what that is," Eugene says. He's starting to slump again, and Jack shifts, so they're sitting side-to-side and he's got something to lean on.
"I do not make the rules, I just enforce them."
"What are you, the dating police?"
"I mostly do undercover work," he slips an arm around Eugene's waist, lets himself drop a quick kiss to his temple and pretends he can't feel the fever when he does it. "Don't beat yourself up if you hadn't noticed."
"You're mental, you know that?"
"Must be to put up with you this long," he says. And he's trying to keep it light, keep up the smile, because this might be the most engaged he's seen Eugene in days. But damn, is it hard. Harder than you'dexpect anything to be anymore, once you'd faced down the undead masses and all.
"You love putting up with me," Eugene says and, God, he can't — he can't.
"Yeah, well, like you said. Mental," Jack manages, and waits until Eugene relaxes against him in sleep before he wipes at his eyes and lets the sob he's been holding in rush out as air.
---
Three Days from Abel Township
Somewhere in the dark, something sends a piece of gravel scuttling through the dirt, and Jack's head snaps up from where's it's dropped to his chest. The night is thick around them, and Eugene's a heavy weight against his side. He strains for a moan, but there's nothing but that soft scuffling sound drawing nearer.
Zombies aren't quiet, normally. Stealth, at least, isn't something that goes along with being a mindless, stumbling corpse. But it's not impossible. A lot of fresh zombs goes for the throat first when they attack. There's bound to be a few walking around now without any vocal cords to speak of.
Thankfully, Eugene doesn't make any sound when Jack untangles himself and gets to his feet, but the noise in the dark is getting closer and closer. Whatever it is, it sounds like there's only one of them. He can do one, he thinks. If this one's just a bit speedier than the rest of its pack, well. They'll cross that bridge when they come to it. Still a pistol in the packs, if nothing else.
Closer still, and he grips W.G. hard, and tries to take deep breaths. He can see a shape in the distance now, moving fast. God, it must be fresh to be going that quickly. No possible way to outpace it, he'll have to stand his ground and—
The thing in the darkness skids to a halt, seems to swivel its head around, and on the night breeze he can just hear, "...out there?"
A woman's voice. For a moment he can't breathe.
"Over here," he hisses, and the figure starts moving towards them. She's still barely an outline in the dark, but as she gets closer he can see her lift a hand to the side of her head, hears another fragment of some whispered conversation.
"—right, Sam. There's someone... almost see him..."
Jack gets the bat planted against the ground just in time to give himself something to brace on before his knees go out.
---
London, 62 days after outbreak
The moans are loud and too high pitched to be anything but children. Perfect for the kind of crap day he's having. Which, you wouldn't think could even happen after a zombie plague. Bad days shouldn't even be a thing in a universe full of grey groaning death machines intent on munching your vital organs.
But here he is, lost somewhere in some dumpy London suburb where all the Centras have already been cleaned out of everything but fruit pastilles and kitchen cleaners and every crash pad he's tried has been filled with smashed picture windows and unhappy undead tenants who've expired and left the bathtub running for two weeks.
And now kid zombs. Great, bloody great.
The moans are coming from the east, maybe half a block from where he's crouched in the doorway of another looted shop, and he ought to just bypass the whole mob and keep looking for a half-defensible place to spend the night. Would, too, if it weren't for the booming reverberation of metal hitting metal and the curse that follows it.
Jack thinks it might be sad that he's excited by the prospect of meeting someone who's having a worse day than him. Better to just claim some sort of Good Samaritan instinct, should anyone ask. Even better to hope they don't ask at all. Which, it occurs, they might not if he doesn't jump in post haste.
The moans are easy enough to track, in part because there's a dead zomb lying just at the mouth of the alley in question. He glances down long enough to see a sash and kerchief and striped blue polo shirt.
"You have got to be kidding me," there's about five of the little things still standing in the alley, clustered around a dark haired man in a truly regrettable Fair Isle jumper. He's got his back against a dumpster and he glances up and waves Jack, before taking one of the Girl Guides' heads off with a single, fluid chop.
"They didn't even have cookies," he calls, casual-like. As though they're old friends meeting at the pub, and not two strangers holding weapons, separated by a row of decaying eight year-olds.
"So hard to find good service these days," Jack sighs back, and goes in swinging.
---
Abel Township, day one
Eugene wakes up a few hours after surgery, asks a patch of air three feet to the right of where Jack's sitting, "will we still be able to get bagels?" then passes out cold once more.
Someone who might be a doctor or might just be covered in a lot of fresh blood brings him a bottle of water and tells him to use one of the spare cots.
When he does dream, it's endless hallways and subway tunnels, bottoms lined with heather and rocky highland dirt, but no sign of zombs for miles and miles.
---
Abel Township, day three
Jack's chin is drooping back towards his chest for the fifth time in as many minutes when he feels Eugene squeeze his hand.
"You're—" he starts, but Eugene's eyes are focused on the end of the cot. On the space where the army blanket lies flat over what should be knee and calf and a right foot. And Jack's been here for days now, with nothing to do but sleep sitting up and fret and figure out what to say at this moment. He should have something by now, but all he's got is dead air.
"You know what this means, then," Eugene says slowly, voice hoarse.
"Yeah," and he doesn't know where to start with the I'm sorries, with all the things he could have done better, with—
"Means you're going to have to help me out in the showers now." Eugene's eyes are glassy, and his skin still has that grey tone to it under the surface, but he's smirking and God, Jack could just smack him.
"That's where your brain goes with this?"
A shrug and maybe a hint of a grin, now. "Well, I'm not dead. You're not dead. We're not undead, and whatever they're using for painkillers 'round here is bloody fantastic."
Jack lets out a huff of laughter, and feels something start to come loose in his chest. "Your pupils are huge, you know."
"Yeah, that's somewhat similar to what you'll be saying in the showers," a full grin this time, and something that looks like it would be a wink if Eugene were a little more focused. "Also, I see they've found me a bed. I seem to recall certain promises were made regarding what would happen if we ever got to one of those."
"Christ, you are really," he shakes his head, tries to ignore the flush he can feel on his face and the curl of something that's not relief at all starting in his stomach. "You're so high right now I bet you can't even tell who I am."
"That is a filthy lie," Eugene croaks out (Jack thinks he should really find him a bottle of water). "How could I ever forget by best mate and travelling companion... Jeremy?"
For a second they just stare at each other, poker faced. Jack's not sure who cracks first, because he's laughing hard enough that his eyes are watering and Eugene's going off right along with him. They're still holding hands, and when he tugs Jack forward it's almost too easy to go with it.
He slides off the chair, onto his knees next to the cot, and this time Eugene's smile is a bit smaller but full of familiar warmth that makes Jack's heart go wobbly in his chest and mad proclamations start swirling in his head.
"Go on then, Jeremy. Give us a kiss?"
There's a strange chemical tang to Eugene's mouth that must be the hospital's better-strength pain meds, and they're both of them still covered in a month's worth of travelling dirt and Jack doesn't care. Does. Not. Care. Just cups Eugene's face in his hands, tilts his head to get a better angle and shivers hard enough to surprise himself when there's a flash of teeth against his lower lip.
Eugene lets out this satisfied — rumble, is the only word for it Jack can think of. It's probably for the best the cot he's on doesn't look like it could support a second person's weight. And if this is what their something is really going to be like, he will help out with as many showers as necessary. Which is its own interesting mental picture, now that he thinks on it.
Behind them, there's a cough.
It's a runner, their runner, minus her headset and backpack.
"Sorry. They've finally found you a spot in housing. Dr. Myers suggested I drag — I mean, show you to it while she checks on your friend," it's hard to say whether Alice is going for 'conspiratorial' or 'trying desperately not to laugh' with the look she's giving them. "Want me to tell her you're busy?"
"May as well get it over with," Eugene says with a mock sigh. "Try to keep him in one piece 'til you return him."
"Thanks for that," Jack mutters, and gives his hand another quick squeeze before letting go.
"Sorry about all of that," he says, once they're well clear of the hospital and headed for the rows of tents that serve as Abel's sleeping quarters.
"No, don't," Alice waves him off. "Not exactly every day we get a happy ending up here. Gives the rest of us something to go on."
"Well, when you put it like that," he can feel himself turning red and trails off with a shrug. "I guess I owe you for that, too."
"It's just the job," now it's her turn to look embarrassed. Thankfully, she's at least better at changing the subject. "How long have you two been together?"
Two months, but also three days, and maybe technically for the last five minutes, give or take a few seconds. He lets a chuckle slip, and she looks at him curiously.
"Well, truth is, I'm still holding out for dinner first," he says at last, and her laughter leads them across the compound.
BZZT-BZZT-BZZT
MISSION COMPLETED. STARTING RADIO MODE.