I love baths, I love them so much. 

They’re warm and smell nice and I don’t want to ever get out. 

As I scrub my skin clean, I can hear the unmistakable sounds of stuff being moved around outside of the bathroom. Peter must be rearranging things or looking for something. He has a lot of stuff, an almost unthinkable amount considering how hard it is to find a good place to settle down and set roots.

Eventually I have to get out of the tub, even if I really don’t want to. The water is kind of dirty looking and I feel weird staying in it while knowing Peter is waiting on me to finish. So I suck it up and get out of the water and into the slightly chilly air of Peter’s rent-a-room.

He gave me some clothes to borrow before I got into the tub, saying something about how all of my stuff must be dirty. He wasn’t wrong, all of my clothes need a wash. I ran out of powdered detergent a long while back and hadn’t found anymore after the fact. I hadn’t looked very hard, but still.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of being freshly washed and putting on equally clean clothes after months of not having a chance to wash up. I stand barefoot in Peter’s tiny bathroom for about two minutes, simply basking in the fact that I don’t stink. 

But I can’t stay in here forever, Peter is probably trying to figure out what I’m doing to take so long as is.

So I take the single step that’s required to bring me to the door and I open it. Green Eyes looks up from where he is sitting on his bed, wrinkling the sheets a little.

I feel a little self-conscience as he looks me up and down. He had given me a dark green long-sleeved shirt and an old pair of equally dark grey sweatpants.

Sleepwear, I suddenly realize.

“I think I prefer you like this. No offense, but filth is not your color,” Peter tells me, his face cracking into a joking grin. I snort and shake my head as I make my way over to him.

“And here I thought I was pulling it off,” I mumble before sitting on Peter’s left, about a half foot away when he motioned for me to sit. 

“Holy shit, was that a joke?” He asks, twisting around a bit to look at me more properly. I feel my face grow warm at his giant grin.

“Maybe,” I tell him in another mumble.

“Do you tell puns too? Or just sarcastic quips?”

“No puns, those are terrible.”

Peter leans back, pulling an offended face at my stance on puns. I have to stifle a laugh as he starts to shake his head, all mock disappointment and thinly veiled mischief.

“Puns are the very backbone of humor, you charlatan!” He declares with an accusatory finger pointing in my direction. At that I actually laugh and he visibly fights another grin when he tries to do his disappointed head shake again.

I think this is what friends do when hanging out, they joke around and laugh. It feels good to laugh, natural. 

Plus convincing Peter to leave with me will be easier if we’re both in a good mood.

“Oh, Peter, I almost forgot to show you my proof,” I say after my laughter fades. I stand up while Peter leans back so he is half laying on his bed. With quick steps I walk over to where I left my pack just off to the side of the door. 

My hair falls into my eyes as I kneel down to dig through my pack so I push it back, doing my best to slick it back. It’s still a little damp from my bath which makes it easier to keep it back and out of my eyes.

I can hear faint rustling from behind me as I pull out my folder and when I turn around I can see that it was just Peter moving to rest his elbows on his knees. He’s staring intensely at the folder in my hands and he doesn’t look away from it as I walk back over to his bed.

“Gwen was kind enough to let me have these,” I tell Green Eyes while sitting down again. I set the folder between us, suddenly feeling nervous. I need this to be enough to convince Peter to leave with me in the morning, because I don’t think my words will be any more helpful now than they were earlier.

I carefully flip the flimsy plastic folder to reveal a collection of photos and a map covered in writing.

I look up from my revelation to gauge Peter’s reaction.

He’s just staring down at the photos, wide-eyed and still, as if every muscle in his body has gone rigid. Like a rabbit confronted with a dog.

“It’s just like the world before the zombies, with schools and hospitals. It’s the safest place we could possibly be,” I tell him, being very careful with my wording. “We” helps me sell the idea of him being there. It also seems to snap him out of his statue-like state.

“These could be fake,” he says, his voice soft. Like he’s reasoning with a child. This makes me bristle a little, like a cat with raised hackles.

“They’re not, look at the walls,” I argue, jabbing my finger at one of the photographs. It shows a lively street, full of people, attending what appears to be a street fair. In the background though, a wall topped with barbed wire can be seen. Walls with battlements outside of prisons and former government sites only became popular after the old world fell apart.

“It’s a real, thriving society! It’s Paradise!”

“How old are these photos? How do you even know that it’s still there?” Green Eyes shoots back, crossing his arms as he levels me with an exasperated look. Like I’m the one being difficult.

“Well— they’re,” I pause, glowering down at said photos. I don’t actually know, there’s no date written on them, and it has been a little while since they were given to me. “I don’t know,” I admit to Peter. “But it has to still be there, a settlement that strong doesn’t just fall!”

“The old world was stronger, and look where that led us,” Peter retorts and I grit my teeth.

“It’s real and still there.”