It was times like these when Rowan wished that phones were still functional. He could have turned on his music and blasted his earbuds so loud that he could drown out Alaric. Not that Alaric was speaking much in the first place, but every time he even breathed too loudly, Rowan wanted to punch him and break his teeth. But he’d lost his phone ages ago. All internet and data services completely shut down only two days after Rowan fled his house to avoid being slaughtered by the vampires that took his family from him.
In the two days that his data was still working, he checked the news and Twitter obsessively, cataloguing the daily deaths and trying to see if there was an average per day so he could estimate how many people succumb to their imminent demise even without the news to help him. He stopped trying to keep up with the math after a week of no internet. He wasn’t terrible at math in school, but he wasn’t amazing, either.
He really missed Spotify. He was going insane without music. He never realized just how much he missed the internet until he was stuck with the most insufferable bastard he’d ever met in his life.
“Here,” Alaric said suddenly, stopping in the middle of a circular clearing in the trees. Coppice and thickets were scattered about the edges, but near the centre sat a haphazardly crafted shelter made of wood. Upon closer inspection, it, unfortunately, did not have any food or useful supplies for them to steal, but at least they had some form of a roof over their heads.
Though the triangular shelter was… small. They wouldn’t both fit in there with comfortable legroom. They’d have to be pressed against each other, breathing each other’s air. Rowan was sickened by the thought.
“Here?” he said stubbornly.
“We should probably get some sleep. It’s about–”
“2 AM. Yeah, I know. I don’t need you to tell me the time. I’m not stupid.”
Alaric rolled his eyes. “I never said you were.”
“I really don’t need your help at all.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right.” Alaric sounded doubtful, which irritated Rowan more than was probably healthy. “There’s shelter. And the wood for a campfire is already set up in case it gets cold. Do you know how to start a fire?”
“Obviously. Also, dude, it’s June. It’s not going to get cold.”
Alaric ignored him and approached the shelter. Rowan followed, keeping a safe distance between them. When he reached the crudely made structure, he held his lantern up to it. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. Just a gross banket left over from the last person to spend the night here. But when he looked at Alaric, his nose was scrunched up like he smelled something weird.
“What?”
“What?” Alaric turned his head. Rowan narrowed his eyes.
“What’s with that expression?”
“Nothing.” A pause. “I just thought I smelled something odd.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“As I said, it’s nothing.”
Rowan eyed Alaric suspiciously for a few moments before letting out a sigh of defeat. “Fine. But if we get eaten in the middle of the night, it’s your fault.”
“Can you calm down?” Alaric demanded, and it was obvious he was trying to control his temper.
Rowan sat down beside the makeshift campfire. “You take the shelter. I can sleep out here.”
Alaric arched a brow in his direction. “Why?”
“Do you see how small that thing is?” Rowan gestured to the assembly. He refrained from making a dirty joke. “I’m not sleeping with you pressed against me the whole night. Being near you is torture enough.”
“There’s… so many things wrong with what you just said,” Alaric grunted. “One, I’m not poisonous. It won’t kill you to be squeezed against me for one night.”
“It might.”
Alaric’s eyes narrowed, burning with an unspoken warning. “And two, you agreed to team up with me. I was about to leave. What do you want from me?”
Rowan was surprised to find himself speechless to that. His mouth opened and closed uselessly, and he eventually settled on looking away from Alaric’s intense gaze. He felt his cheeks blooming with heat and hoped the light from the lantern wouldn’t expose his blush.
“If anything,” Alaric continued in the silence, “I should be sleeping outside. I’m the Vampire Hunter, after all. I should be on guard.”
Rowan let out a small, mocking laugh. “What a fucking hero you are.”
“Take the shelter. I don’t need it,” Alaric insisted. Rowan refused to believe that this generosity was coming from a genuine place of care in Alaric’s heart. This must have been an act so that he didn’t have a guilty conscience. Because it was his job to be a hero.
“Is a pristine noble like you adapt to sleeping on the dirty ground?” Rowan ridiculed, shooting his gaze back up at Alaric, who had yet to sit down. “I don’t want you to get your precious clothes dirty.”
Alaric’s lip curled up into a fierce sneer, showing off his canine. His teeth seemed… too perfect. But Rowan shrugged it off. It was dark and he couldn’t see things clearly, even in the glow of his lamp.
“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing for the past seven months?”
The realization that Rowan had never heard the ever-so-proper Alaric Orpheus swear before crashed into him like a tsunami. He didn’t know why hearing Alaric swear felt so strange. He was so used to him being closed off and throwing creative insults at him that were masterfully crafted to avoid being obscene, yet still struck his insecurities all the same.
“I’m not a noble anymore,” Alaric said when Rowan still couldn’t find his words. “In this world, it’s kill or be killed. Class systems don’t exist anymore. Everybody is equally fucked.”
Rowan’s tongue could only squander up one word.
“Yeah.”
Alaric sighed heavily and brushed his fingers through his hair, causing dirt to rain down. “My apologies for losing my temper. I’m just sick and tired of people assuming that I can’t survive on my own because I’m a noble. Never mind. Take the shelter.” Alaric took a seat on the opposite side of the kindling, pulling a tattered blanket from his backpack.
“We should, um…” Rowan cleared his throat. “When was the last time you ate?”
Alaric eyed him wearily, confusion evident in his steady gaze. “I’m fine.”
“But–”
“I said I’m fine. Eat if you want to. I’m not going to.”
“You’re being oddly defensive, but okay.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Alaric didn’t say anything to that. It perplexed Rowan to his core that he actually showed a bit of care and concern for this man. What baffled him more was that it was genuine concern. No, he shouldn’t care for this man. He was going to betray him eventually. He shouldn’t get attached.
He gave in and ducked into the shelter, squeezing his backpack in with him. He kept his back to Alaric as he prepared to rest for the night. He could hear Alaric shuffling around, but didn’t let his curiosity get the better of him. He switched off his lantern– he should really be more methodical with how much he used it, considering he wasn’t sure if any abandoned department stores still carried working batteries anymore; by now, all of the batteries had probably been snagged by raiders– and snuggled under his blanket, trying to calm his hurricaine of thoughts violently spinning around in his head.
He closed his eyes, but Alaric’s voice incessantly echoed in his mind.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing for the past seven months?’
‘I’m not a noble anymore.’
‘Everybody is equally fucked.’
‘Eat if you want to. I’m not going to.’
Rowan squeezed his eyes tighter, rolling onto his other side, which he quickly learned accomplished nothing. He exhaled sharply and roughly scrubbed his face with his hands as of he could rub away these unwanted thoughts. He opened his eyes and peeked through his fingers, staring at the raggedy wood that looked dangerously close to tumbling down on top of him. He tuned into Alaric shuffling around behind him, but he didn’t dare peek at what he was doing.
His stomach growled, demanding for Rowan to eat something, even a sliver of food, but Rowan didn’t want to move from this position. He’d just eat a can of soup in the morning. His rations were running low, even though he’d barely eaten anything and had been living off of berries these past few days. He needed to start being smart about his canned food.
Assuming Alaric was smart with his rations, maybe having him here wasn’t such a bad thing.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
“How’d you sleep?” Alaric asked as Rowan dragged himself out of the shelter. He’d barely slept at all, and if Alaric even considered his appearance for more than a second then he’d see that his quality of sleep was blatantly clear on his face.
“Fine,” Rowan said simply.
“It rained an hour ago.”
As if waking up to the telltale odour of wet wood and the squelching of grass under his sneakers weren’t apparent enough evidence. “No shit. You think I’m stupid?”
Alaric sighed. “Never mind, then.” Never mind what, Rowan didn’t know nor care. He didn’t want to engage in small talk with Alaric. “We should get going before a Vampire finds us. Or someone else comes along and tries to kill us to steal the camp.”
“Kill or be killed,” Rowan muttered.
Alaric’s expression turned curious upon hearing Rowan quote his words from last night, but he just shook his head and collected his backpack and sword. He slipped his sword into the holster on his hip. Rowan tried not to think about how inappropriately attractive that simple action was.
“Sure.” He nodded once. “I’m surprised nothing happened to us in the middle of the night with you on guard.”
Alaric ignored him. “We should try to find a road. Maybe find a warehouse or department store.”
Rowan snorted sardonically. “Do you honestly believe that any place is going to have any leftover resources? The most we’re going to find in those places are human corpses and animal carcasses”
“Are you always this pessimistic?” Alaric started walking. Begrudgingly, Rowan followed.
“I’m being realistic, dumbass.”
“You miss all of the shots you never take.”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“It means that we won’t know if these abandoned places really only have human corpses and animal carcasses until we check.”
“That analogy doesn’t really work with that, dude.”
“Only if you’re thinking about it on a basic, surface level.”
“Okay, stop trying to sound smart. It isn’t working.”
“I don’t need to try and sound smart.” Alaric smirked. “I am smart.”
Rowan rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, shut the hell up.” Obviously whatever moment they had last night had been forgotten, much to Rowan’s relief. It wasn’t wise to get attached to the person he was going to betray. He really had to have more self-discipline. Don’t care about the enemy. A simple rule. Easy to follow.
“Would it kill you to say something nice?”
“To you? Yes.”
“Damn, I’m talking to a ghost, then?”
Dread struck Rowan’s chest. So he hadn’t forgotten about last night. Fantastic. Maybe he could break a branch off of one of these trees knock him over the head and cause amnesia.
“I haven’t a clue what you mean.”
Rowan decided against thinking too deeply about the subtle hurt look that flashed over Alric’s features.
“Come on. We have work to do.”
“Oh, walking is so much work for a prissy noble, huh?”
Alaric stopped in his tracks, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ll remain quiet if you do. Promise.”
Rowan shrugged. “Alright. Fine by me.”
If it was so fine by him, then why did he find himself missing Alaric’s deep, brooding voice making mysterious or sarcastic comments as more and more hours passed?
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