Chapter Text
This story takes place in the apocalypse.
This is not a story about survival.
This is a story about rebuilding.
______
In 2006, Cormac McCarthy published The Road: a story about a father and son navigating a post-apocalyptic world. When Alex was a junior in high school, bored with his many AP Lit-assigned books, he decided to read that instead. To be fair, he still read enough of King Lear to get an A, but something about The Road attracted him more than Shakespeare ever did.
He picked up more apocalyptic books over the years (Station Eleven, The Drowned World, The Last Man), but it’s not like he started doomsday prepping. Besides, Alex was a Texas kid at heart — born and raised in Austin before moving to New York for college. He could shoot straight, he had stellar aim, and he loved getting his hands dirty. He even knew a thing or two about livestock and wrangling animals.
So, when asked, Alex bragged about his chances of surviving an apocalypse.
Of course, it was always a joke. Always.
Until it actually happened.
If someone had told him that all of this would one day come in handy because everyone he loved would end up rebuilding their lives on a farm in upstate New York, he would have laughed in their face, given them a pat on the back, and told them to take care. But no, it’s true, and sometimes he still can’t believe it.
Twenty-five acres, a multitude of abandoned houses, a barn with almost a dozen horses, goats, chickens, a garden and an orchard are all things he now finds himself tending to every day. It’s a life he never expected to settle into so comfortably as someone who survived on pure caffeine and the fast tempo of a grad student settling into a career.
Three years pass in the blink of an eye. The underlying anxiety is still there, but Alex has a routine now. They all do — himself, June, Nora, all three of his parents, Raf, and Zahra and Shaan at their own place across the land. A farm needs people to operate, and it’s safe to say they have just enough.
_______
Even after the end of the world, Alex still fucking hates getting up early.
Especially when it involves getting hit in the face.
He groans, swatting his arms blindly as he tries to roll over, only to receive another pillow to the face.
“Fuck, alright, I’m up!” He whines, snatching it from June, who’s standing next to his bed with a smile on her face. He stuffs the pillow into his lap and folds his arms over it so she can’t grab it again. “Can I help you?”
“It’s almost eight,” she tells him.
“So?”
“So. You’re on watch in an hour.”
He blinks at her, his brain still sluggish from sleep. “What’s today?”
“Tuesday.”
“I’m not on watch today.”
“Yes you are. We switched.”
“Uh, when did that happen, exactly?”
“When I looked at the rotation chart and saw that I was on watch and then changed it because I didn’t want to do it.”
“What the hell, June!”
She laughs. “Hey! You owe me one! I cleaned the barn for you last week.”
“I was supposed to ride Olaya today and help Dad with some stuff.”
“You can ride Olaya later,” June tells him as she takes a seat on the edge of his bed, and Alex grumbles at the thought of not getting to ride his horse today like he’d anticipated. “And I’ll help Dad because I’m his favorite kid.”
Alex gives her a flat look. “His favorite kid is Nora.”
June nods in agreement and gives his legs a shove. “Get up.”
He flops back down dramatically. “You’re the worst, Bug.”
“Love you, too. Now get your ass up.”
He does, only after he chucks the pillow at the back of her head while she’s retreating from the room. He gets dressed and shoves a baseball hat over his messy curls before heading downstairs to grab something for breakfast, where he finds his mom standing at the counter reading with a half-eaten piece of toast in her hand.
“Hey, sugar,” she greets as he enters, smiling as she accepts a kiss on the cheek. “Glad to see you’re finally up. There are eggs for you by the stove.”
“You can thank June for that.” The eggs are lukewarm at best, having only been covered by another flipped-over plate, but they’re a welcome sight. He shovels a forkful into his mouth and takes the chair at the head of the table. “I had plans to sleep for another hour, but she chose violence this morning.”
Ellen barely looks up as she says, “Manners, baby,” and he swallows his bite before continuing.
“She switched our shifts, so now I’m taking watch.”
“I know, she told me.”
Alex gawks at her. “She did? And you let her?”
“What’s wrong? She said you agreed to it.”
“No! She swapped our names on the chart and then beat me up!”
Ellen laughs. “It’s not like you two haven’t done this before,” she says. “Besides, she already left.”
Alex slumps back into his chair and rolls his eyes, stabbing at his eggs with his fork. “Couldn’t you make the executive decision to call her back here so she can do it instead? I had stuff I wanted to get done today.”
“How urgent is it?” She asks, and oh, okay. His mom and June are ganging up on him. Now he gets it.
He huffs.
She walks across the room and presses a kiss into his hair. “Watch is important. I’ll tell her she has to do your next scheduled shift as well as her own, but for now, it’s what you have to deal with today.”
“You think this is funny, don’t you?” He asks, angling his head to look at her, and she gives him a wink.
“A little.”
“I thought you were in charge of this house or something.”
“It’s a team effort and you know it,” she tells him pointedly, and Alex just finds himself accepting defeat. “I’m not the president.”
“You should be,” he grumbles. He quickly eats the rest of his breakfast and takes an apple to throw in his bag for later. “I’m gonna load up and head over.”
“Alright, darlin’, be safe.”
“Oh, you know me.”
He heads out the back door and hangs a left toward the cellar, throwing a hand up to wave at Leo where he works in the garden. He pulls the chain from around his neck, using the key attached to it to unlock it.
The cellar is dark and cool and musty. It’s not an entirely ideal space, but it’s where all of their weapons and ammo are housed. Lock and key for a reason.
Alex makes sure to check over the rifle when he pulls it down from the wall, keeping the safety off so he can do a quick clean of the barrel. He throws an additional two rounds of ammo into his backpack and slings the gun over his shoulder, grabbing one of the walkies that sits on the charger when he deems himself ready to head out.
The thing about being on watch? It’s fucking boring. Alex knows it’s important for safety reasons, or whatever, but that doesn’t make it fun. He’s read entire books while sitting up here, staring at nothing but an expansive treeline and the occasional woodland creature.
Of course, he forgot to bring one with him today. He makes a note to blame June for that.
He had initially prepared himself to do something interesting today, before June decided to screw with him. Now he’s sitting on a hard folding chair thirty feet above the ground with a tattered pack of cards and the miscellaneous crap they keep in an old crate in the corner. He turns the pack over in his hand and decides solitaire isn’t appealing to him today.
So, with the sun hanging in the hazy sky above him, Alex keeps himself busy by flicking cards into the crate instead. He’s perfected this mindless mastercraft, each card arching just right in order to land inside. He’s done this for probably hundreds of hours on his watch rotation, legs crossed at the ankle on the other chair while he listens to one of the old cassette tapes they found in the attic.
Which he conveniently also forgot to bring with him today.
Once again, he’s blaming June.
Alex is about halfway through his third turn of the deck when he sees movement out of his periphery. He turns carefully toward the treeline, hand dropping to the rifle on the floor beside him, and where he expects to see wildlife, he finds two figures.
It’s been weeks, at least, since anyone had come toward the property line. Last time, he wasn’t even up here; it was Nora who spotted them and called Oscar to the gate. He rolled up Texan and spoke to the group of four driving through in a rusty old hatchback. He helped them figure out where they got turned around, patched their tire, and sent them on their way with a loaf of bread and a jar of Leo’s blackberry jam.
They were friendlies, luckily, and it was good to see some other people, even though they all felt the need to stand guard for the subsequent week, just in case.
Alex misses being extroverted, but he knows he can never be too cautious. In this world, it’s all about protecting what you have.
He stands, propping the end of the rifle up. Finger on the trigger, safety off, he looks at the pair of strangers through the sight.
“Take another step, and you each get one between your eyes,” he warns.
They stop short, hands raising.
“What do you want?”
“We—we didn’t know this area was occupied,” one of them says. He has a heavy British accent and he’s handsome under the wear and tear of whatever it is they’ve been dealing with. “We’re just trying to find a way through.”
“Yeah, well, the only way through is back that way if you don’t want trouble.” Alex gestures with the rifle. “Sorry.”
“Listen, mate, we’ve been walking for three days. We’re just looking for a place to kip that isn’t in the woods.” He smiles a little. “I swear.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah.” The man smiles weakly. “We were with a group, but you know how it is out there.”
Alex’s brow furrows. “Can’t say I do too well anymore. Now what do y’all actually want?” He asks, keeping his aim steady.
Alex could shoot the cap off a glass bottle a hundred paces away and not shatter the damn thing, no questions asked. June could do it at almost double.
“A place to sleep,” the same man reiterates. “That’s all. Listen, my name is Percy. My mate here is Henry. We don’t have anything to trade, but we’ve been walking for days and we’re just trying to find some shelter.”
For the first time in a long time, Alex hesitates.
He shouldn’t, but he’s a people person at his core, and even several years into a scarce world hasn’t seemed to fix that. Outside of his community, he hasn’t seen many people. Who has nowadays?
They thrive, but they do so with who they have and who they can trust. Everyone else has been turned away at the gate or given what they needed and sent on their way. They have been very lucky not to get ambushed. Raf believes it’s because no one would be dumb enough to go through that much wilderness and up that steep a hill to do so. Ellen thinks it’s sheer dumb luck.
Alex studies them both from his vantage point: stuffed backpacks, mud-covered boots and well-worn clothes. They’re both dirty, the result of two people who have been surviving with little to nothing. There’s something different about them, though, and Alex can’t quite put his finger on it. He looks from Percy to the other man, Henry, and finds himself immediately stilling.
Henry has windswept blond hair that looks like it hasn’t been cut in quite a while, a gash on his cheek, and some bruising under his eye. Alex catches his gaze, finding it impossible not to hold it for a few long beats at least.
“You can search us. We don’t have any weapons,” Henry pipes up. He’s British, too, and his voice is rich and melodic, despite how it wavers. Alex finds himself wanting to hear more.
Jesus fucking Christ, what is this shit?
“None? Out there?” They both shake their heads. He’s not sure he fully buys it. “Are y’all insane?”
“It’s stupid,” Percy admits. “The others in our group had them, so we were protected. We’ve been scrounging off rations of rations since.”
“Where were you headed?”
“Niagara. There’s a safe haven there.”
Alex huffs an inaudible laugh. Of course there is.
The basic idea of safe havens was a fantasy, according to Raf. What they really are, are military-run areas designed to keep people in and harm out, but do so with strict curfew, scarce rations, and run-down lodgings. Raf has nothing but horrible things to say about them from firsthand experience, and Alex can only hope to never see the inside of one for as long as he lives.
It’s all false hope.
“Yeah, safe havens everywhere, apparently. Lots to be said about those.”
“Can’t be sure about much,” Henry says in lieu of agreement, and Percy nods.
“But it was our best option. We started off in Manhattan.”
Jesus. Alex sighs. He keeps the rifle pointed on them as he unclips the walkie from his hip. It chirps to life. “Gonna need some help at the gate, Bug.”
“Roger dodger.”
Alex turns his attention back to the two men. “Don’t move,” he commands. “I’m coming down.”
He slings the rifle onto his back, re-clips his walkie and makes the climb down the ladder, keeping them in sight as best he can.
He fixes his hat as he strides over, and the closer he gets, the more he begins to notice. Percy looks off, unwell, but he’s standing tall and cooperative, expression affixed in something between friendly and neutral. Henry looks better, by comparison, but not by much. He’s certainly taken a few hits, at least physically.
“We’re gonna wait for backup,” Alex tells them both. He keeps his rifle at ease, but stares at them in a way that keeps them frozen to the spot. “Anything funny happens and that’s it.”
They both nod, and Henry says, “Noted.”
It takes about five minutes or so for June to arrive from her part of the property, hair pulled back into a high ponytail and a hand over the revolver in the holster on her waist. “We got company?”
“Almost walked right up to the gate.”
June nods. “Tourists?”
Alex shakes his head. “Could be friendlies,” he tells her, dropping his voice, but June’s mouth pulls to the side, protective nature coming out. “Looking for refuge for the night.”
“Gotta play it safe. Sorry, y’all.” She looks at them both and tilts her head up toward the sky. “Storm’s brewing, too.”
“Let’s hurry this up, then. Drop your bags,” Alex instructs. “Arms out.”
June takes Percy and Alex takes Henry, each kicking their bags out of reach.
He hears June ask Percy if he’s alright. She must see it, too, then.
“Yeah, ‘course! The woods can’t knock Percy Okonjo down.”
June glances at Alex in confusion, then back to Percy. “You giving us your full name?”
“That’s Pez for you,” Henry mutters, looking a little depleted. “Ever so cordial.”
June sighs and returns to her search. “Okay, then.”
From this close, Alex can see how gnarly the gash on Henry’s cheek really is. It’s not deep and looks as clean as it can be on someone who’s just spent several days in the woods, but it needs serious tending to, god forbid it gets infected.
Henry must catch him staring. “I tripped while running. I’m fine.”
“Doesn’t look fine.”
“Don’t have much in the way of a first aid kit. Just some bandages that barely stick.”
“We’ve got stuff,” Alex hears himself say as he pats down Henry’s legs. He turns to June. “He’s clear.”
“So is mine,” she says as she starts poring through one of the bags. She shakes it out as Alex stands watch. Clothes, the scarcest amount of pre-packaged food and jerky, and a canteen of water fall onto the dirt, and after meticulous searching, June goes through each and every pocket. “Clear.” She moves to Henry’s next. Much of the same, save for two leather-bound journals and a novel of some sort. “And clear.”
Alex relaxes. “Sorry about dumping your shit. You know how it is.”
“Nah, no hard feelings, mate,” Percy replies with a blinding smile.
“We’ll get you both cleaned up and set up in the barn for the night,” June tells them, hands set firmly on her hips. She points toward a wall of dark clouds rolling in from the east. “We’ll let everyone know, but there’s no way you two are going to be okay in a storm like that. Air’s already thick. C’mon.”
She starts walking back into the property line, Percy on her heels. Henry turns to Alex as he tugs his backpack on. “Thank you,” he says.
“Yeah, don’t mention it.” He nods toward June. “Let’s go.”
Alex gets the gate locked behind them all and tells everyone over the walkie that they’re bringing company back.
It’s a quarter mile uphill walk through a shrub-lined path before the farmhouse comes into view. When they’re close enough, he sets his sights on the barn across the way and points to it. “You’ll be in there tonight,” he tells them. “Set you up with some food. There’s a loft with a bed that’s stiff but it’s better than nothing.”
“We got hot water, too,” June tells them both with a cool smile. “Use it sparingly.”
The noise Percy lets out, somewhere between a groan and a laugh, is almost uncharacteristic of the time. “Bloody brilliant! Couldn’t tell you the last time I even felt hot water that wasn’t boiled for drinking.”
Alex looks over and gives him a half smile. “We’re lucky. Took some work, but now we’re good to go.”
“That’s incredible,” Henry admits. “Truly.”
“And you don’t consider this a safe haven?” Percy asks.
June barks out a laugh. “Fuck no. It’s nothing like the military set up.” She walks backwards a few paces. “No curfew.”
Everything Alex has heard about these so-called “safe havens” has been through the rumor mill. In the early days, Raf was in one over in Weehawken, right across the river from Manhattan. An accident left him with a permanent limp and found him in their triage while he healed. He wasn’t there long, so a lot of what he saw firsthand isn’t what it is today, but from his experience: “Shit place, shit food, shit people. All shit.”
Alex counts himself lucky that they never found themselves there.
He’s pulled from his thoughts when Percy begins to stagger between himself and June. He puts a hand out as if he’s trying to balance himself by grabbing for Henry, but misses as he stumbles and falls to the ground.
“Pez!” Henry shouts.
June whips around. “Son of a bitch.” She’s on her knees next to him in an instant, Henry with her as they move him onto his back. His eyes are closed and there’s dirt stuck to the sweat on his face. “Percy?” She says loudly. “Percy!”
Henry shakes his shoulders. “Come on, mate, don’t do this.”
“Alex! Call Nora,” June commands.
He shakes his head. “No, she’ll take too long.” Without another thought, Alex is sitting Percy up and getting under his arms. “Help me carry him,” he says to Henry, who doesn’t even hesitate.
The two of them manage to carry Percy the rest of the way up to the house. June calls Nora over the walkie anyway, who throws open the storm door when they’re less than fifty feet from the porch.
“What the hell happened?” She asks, rushing down the stairs. “Did you shoot him?”
“Does it look like we shot him?” Alex bites. “Dude collapsed.”
“Let’s get him inside.” June pushes past them all to hold open the door. “On the couch,” she instructs. “Where is everyone?”
“Raf and your dad are fixing the southern fence, and your mom was with Leo helping in the garden earlier, but I think they went to the barn.”
“Shit, okay.”
Henry transfers Percy’s weight to Alex so he can get him on the couch, then kneels on the floor next to him. “Pez…”
“He’s gonna be fine,” Nora says to the room. “I think.”
“What should we do?” Alex asks, watching as June places the back of her hand on Percy’s forehead. Her lips pull into a thin line. “Bug?”
“He has a fever.” She turns to Henry. “How long did y’all say you were out there?”
“Three days.”
“And you’ve both managed to eat something?”
“You saw what we had,” Henry says, gesturing to both of their discarded backpacks. “And we didn’t have much to begin with.”
“What about injuries?” Alex asks, pointing to Henry’s face. “Did he get hurt, too?”
“Not that I know of.” Henry looks between them all, panicked. Then his face pinches. “Oh, shit. He mentioned his head was hurting him a few hours ago. Is he going to be alright?”
“It’s probably exhaustion,” June determines, standing and turning toward Alex. Then, softer: “Maybe. Get some damp hand towels and a pitcher of water. When everyone else gets back, we’ll get him into a bed and see what else we can do.” She looks at Henry. “He’s gonna be fine.”
“Please.” He sounds wrought. “He’s all I have left.”
Alex’s heart fucking breaks for these two strangers. He doesn’t know what he’d do if something happened to anyone in this family, and he certainly can’t imagine what he would be feeling if it was just him and his sister, for instance.
Actually, he’s pretty sure he’d lose his entire shit.
Nora runs off to find at least one person to tell about what’s going on at the house while June works, Alex watches, and Henry does his best to not vibrate out of his skin. June alternates between squeezing water from a towel onto Percy’s lips and keeping the one on his forehead from slipping off, and all the while, Henry’s just there gripping his hand like his own life depends on it.
It’s at least twenty minutes before Nora gets back, but when she does, Oscar and Rafael are right behind her.
“I gave them the low-down,” she announces. “How’s he doing?”
“More or less the same,” June admits. She looks at Oscar. “What should we do?”
“You know better than the rest of us, mija. Keep an eye on him overnight, see if he’ll eat anything when he wakes up.” He turns to Henry. “What about you, kid? It’s rough out there. You feeling alright?”
“I’m fine,” Henry grunts, unmoving.
“Hey, um…” Alex shifts into his line of sight. “Why don’t we get that cut cleaned up?”
“No, it’s—it’s fine.”
“Sitting there isn’t going to do you any good,” Raf says. “He’s not going anywhere.”
The look Henry shoots him is something Alex isn’t entirely sure he can give a name to. It’s somewhere between he might and don’t you dare.
Alex puts a hand on his shoulder. “He’s right. Come on, I’ll keep you company.”
It takes a bit more coaxing, but Henry eventually follows Alex through to the kitchen. He hovers awkwardly in the room, close to the hall in a way that has Alex thinking he’ll dart back through the French doors to the living room.
“You can sit, you know,” Alex tells him as he grabs the first aid kit out of the console table. Henry’s still standing when he turns around. “Dude.”
It isn’t until he physically pulls out a chair and makes a gesture toward it that Henry finally takes a seat. His elbows hit the table heavily as he lets out a breathy sob. It feels too private a moment for Alex to intrude on, so he busies himself with cutting into the fresh loaf of bread Nora made this morning — one of her many projects.
He returns to the table with a plate of two buttered slices and a few pieces of cheese, and two glasses of water. Henry has the heels of his hands digging into his eyes when Alex sets the plate down in front of him, and it’s here that he notices the glimmer of a gold ring on the pinky of his left hand. It’s not something he’d expect to see on someone who has apparently been walking in the woods without any protective gear for several days.
He shrugs it off. Henry doesn’t even flinch when Alex takes the adjacent chair.
“Hey,” he tries. “You really should eat something.”
Henry lets his palms splay out on the table as he stares down at the food. He sighs, looking up at Alex. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Probably overreacting.”
“So? You saw how we reacted. It’s scary.”
Henry's eyes are red and puffy when he looks over. The smile is barely even visible, but Alex catches it. “Thank you. Again.”
“Hey, June’s doing all the work. I just helped carry him.”
The smile comes through a little clearer this time. “It was Alex, right?”
“Is, was, and always will be,” he chimes. He actually gets a soft chuckle in response.
“Well, I’m Henry.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I know you know, it’s just—it felt natural to introduce myself, I suppose.”
“Totally understand,” Alex replies.
It feels like the emergent air in the house has finally begun to settle, and Alex can actively feel the tension releasing from his own shoulders. Henry’s still not eating, simply moving the bread around on his plate. Alex isn’t going to pry; he’ll eat when he’s ready.
“Here.”
He ignores Henry’s confused look as he dips a cloth napkin into his water glass, gives it a squeeze, and leans forward. Alex begins dabbing the wound on his cheek gently, wiping away the dried blood and dirt, dipping and repeating the process a few times until it’s mostly clean, healing skin underneath.
He opens the kit next, pulling out gauze, antiseptic and a few butterfly bandages. “Just—hold still.”
Henry winces, but doesn’t pull away as Alex works.
He knows very basic first aid and CPR, but it lives and dies there. He certainly can’t set a bone or stitch someone up — that’s somehow become June’s job, if at all necessary.
But it’s weird how, right here, tending to this complete stranger feels so natural.
Alex tries not to think too much of it, especially when he catches Henry’s eye, something soft and nameless behind them.
He clears his throat. “There.” He leans back in his chair. “All patched up.”
Henry just nods.
There’s a little bit of awkward silence after that as Henry finally begins picking at the food in front of him. Alex knows he should give him some space, maybe clean up the small mess he made while tending to Henry’s wound, but there’s a button being pushed in his head that’s telling him to distract.
“Um, Percy said you guys started off in Manhattan?”
“Brooklyn, actually,” Henry says as he swallows. “At the very beginning, I mean. Then Manhattan. Finally left a few months ago and we’ve been town-hopping ever since.”
“Believe it or not, we all started off in Brooklyn, too,” Alex starts. “Most of us, anyway. Nora and I were in school there; June, my sister, was working. My mom and Leo, who you’ll probably meet in a little bit, were in DC and my dad was prepping for a fundraiser in the Bronx. Both of my parents were politicians before…everything.”
“Handling the end of the world wasn’t in their immediate job descriptions?”
Alex clicks his tongue. “Oh, absolutely not.” He pauses. “A few phone calls were made, we packed up everything we could and came straight here.”
Henry nods slowly. “I almost wish I could be as lucky. Pez and I were living in Brooklyn; I was working for his family’s foundation, and both of our families were back in England — are back in England,” he corrects. “There’s talk — and I don’t know how much of it I believe — that families have been to reconnect in the safe zones, especially those in other countries or whatnot. Niagara is apparently one of the biggest, oddly.”
“That is odd,” Alex agrees, brow furrowing. “But…reconnect how?”
“I suppose getting separated loved ones in contact and figuring out safe transport to wherever they need to go.” Henry hums a little, breaking the crust off the uneaten slice of bread and ripping it in two. “It all seems so flimsy.”
Alex can’t help but agree, even if it’s an inaudible one.
“The truth of the matter is that I just don’t know where my family is or if they’re even alive. I mean, we were well-off and I’ve had my fingers crossed for the last three years that they’ve gone to our family home in Wales, but…it’s all a mystery, isn’t it?”
It is. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Henry says, and Alex isn’t entirely sure it is. “You’re lucky. And I am lucky, too, I mean—I’m alive. Nowadays, that’s all we can ask for.”
Alex frowns. Three years of near-seclusion has trained him and his family and the rest of the world to be cautious. You can’t ask for too much, you should never expect too little, and your guard should always be up.
He longs for the days when he could pester one of his professors to help him revise his thesis or getting shitfaced on bottomless mimosas with June and Nora, but they’re behind him now. A lot of things are.
But despite all that, there’s still something within him, a deep-seated ache for what the world has to offer, even at the end of it.
“Is it, though?” He finds himself asking before he can even stop himself.
Henry gives him a long, tired look, then says, “I’ve yet to figure that out.”
And, well, that’s an answer Alex can accept.
“It’s just hard when all you have left of family is one person,” he continues. “You depend on each other so much and it feels like it all could end over what is probably exactly what your sister said — exhaustion.” Henry actually scoffs. “Ridiculous, really.”
“It’s not.”
“I know it’s not. But the state of the world is.” He crosses his arms and slumps back in his chair, shaking his head. “It’s all gone to shit.”
“Well, at least you have a positive outlook on things,” Alex says. It’s meant to be an icebreaker, a sort of alleviation. He’s pleasantly surprised when Henry actually humors him with a smile.
It’s small, weak. But it’s something.
There’s some movement and some mumbling in the other room, a new voice belonging to his mother. Henry turns in his chair, deep concern returning. He looks briefly from the doors across the way to Alex, then jumps up. He stops mid-stride to wipe his hands on his jeans before pushing on through.
They almost run into June head-on opening them. Her eyes widen in surprise.
Alex finds Ellen over her shoulder where she stands behind the couch with one hand casually resting on the back of it. She gives him a look as if to say hello.
“I was just coming to get you guys.” June puts a hand on Henry’s arm. “He’s awake.”
Henry’s reaction is quick; he gives her hand a squeeze then moves past her to take a seat next to Nora on the coffee table.
“Pez,” he breathes, head dropping. “You really bloody well scared me.”
“What’s life without a little drama?” He asks. His voice is low, raspy, but he’s beaming smugly as if it was all a hardy prank.
“I’ve had more than enough drama for one lifetime, thank you.”
“Ah, you’re no fun, Hen.”
“He’s gonna be okay,” Ellen says calmly. “But there’s no way y’all are staying in the barn tonight. Roof or not, the loft has a leak we need to fix and you need a proper bed, not that stiff excuse for one.”
“I can stay in the barn,” Henry offers. “You’ve already done more than enough, I don’t want to intrude further.”
Leo, who’s sitting in an overstuffed armchair across from them, shakes his head. “Nonsense. If it’s a no-go for him, it’s a no-go for you, too. If it’s true that you two have been on your own for a few days, you deserve a good night’s rest.”
“Kindness seems so scarce these days,” Percy says with a half-smirk. “Who knew all I had to do was pass out?”
“If you do it again, I’ll have to push you into the nearest body of water,” Henry threatens mildly. “But I’m glad you’re alright, and you are all far too generous.”
“Listen,” Ellen starts, “the world is what the world is right now, and we have our rules, don’t get me wrong. It’s a conversation we’ll have to have tomorrow, but kindness doesn’t have to stray so far away for the sake of safety. At least, that’s not what I believe. We help who we can.”
Alex watches as Henry’s shoulders drop away from his ears, the evident weight he was holding there now gone. “Can we somehow repay you, at least?”
Ellen looks around the room and shrugs. “Just don’t do anything stupid while you’re here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course she is,” Alex tells him. “You two can take my room if you’re cool with it.”
“Or one of you can take Alex’s and the other can take mine,” Nora offers. “We’re overdue for a night of crashing with June anyway.”
“Uh, who said y’all could stay with me?”
“I did. Just now.”
“You kick in your sleep,” June says. “You can take the couch.”
“What? No, you take the couch.”
“Hey, time and place,” Ellen interrupts. “You’re all adults, I trust you can figure it out.”
In the end, Alex is showing Henry to his room after they’ve helped Percy to Nora’s with a little help.
“Bathroom’s right down there at the end of the hall,” he says as he opens the door. It’s as Alex as it can get, everything having been packed up into a few suitcases and duffle bags before rushing up to Hudson Valley. “And this is you.”
Henry idles with his backpack hanging off one shoulder. “Are you sure you’re alright with me staying here?”
“I swear it’s better than the loft in the barn.” Alex kicks a stray sweatshirt to the side. “Just…ignore that.”
Henry chuckles. “Wasn’t expecting company?”
“We only have formal luncheons scheduled for the second Tuesday of every month. This is the third.”
“Charming.”
The urge to say, “Indeed,” is pushed out of Alex’s brain so fast it nearly makes his head spin. He chalks it up to the whirlwind his afternoon took.
“Anyway.” He clears his throat, circling around Henry to the opposite side of his room to sit against his desk. “Feel free to shower, but if you’re using the hot water, try to keep it under five minutes.”
“How do you even have that?” Henry asks.
“Leo’s an engineering genius and Raf is kind of a jack of all trades.”
“And it’s only…the seven of you?”
“Yeah. Well, nine of us actually,” Alex explains, crossing his arms. He nods toward the window. “Two family friends who live a few acres across. And Raf took over the guesthouse after he settled in. We’ve got, like, twenty or twenty-five acres, so at least it doesn’t feel cramped.”
Henry is nodding kind of vacantly as he takes in the room. He finally walks further in, setting his bag down next to the bed before rubbing his hands together.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Henry sighs. “I think so. Or, I will be.”
“No one is gonna judge you if you knock out for a few hours. I know I certainly won’t.”
“If it’s all right by you, I might take you up on that shower. Maybe check in on Pez before I take a nap.”
“‘Course. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything. And dinner’s at six, but don’t feel pressured. I can always bring a plate up to you guys.”
“Cheers.”
Alex shuts the door behind himself with a soft click. He pauses for a moment as he lets his head settle back against the wood and takes a breath, then crosses the hall to the linen closet. He pulls out a stack of towels, leaving one outside Nora’s room and the other outside his own.
Maybe he can sit outside a little before it starts to rain.
That’s his plan, at least, until Nora’s voice carries up from the kitchen.
“Alex! Come cut the onions! I don’t wanna!”
Well. So much for that.
_______
“Ugh, move over.”
June shoves Alex as she climbs into bed that night. Nora climbs in after her, going up the middle and laying between them both. Gentle thunder rolls in the distance, and a flash of lightning brightens the room for a moment.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Alex swats at her. “Those are my ribs, Nora!”
She gives his hair a solid tug, and he swats her again, nearly making contact with her face this time. “Relax, Alejandro. You’ll live.”
“Why couldn’t you two sleep on the floor?” June groans from her pillow.
“Because you’d never subject us to that.”
“That’s not true. I would never subject you to that,” she says to Nora. “Alex, on the other hand…”
“Hey! I’m your brother.”
She lifts her head up to look at him. “So?”
“You deserve this after the way you woke me up this morning.”
“Are you seriously still whining about that?”
“Yes! Little brother privileges. You’d feed me to the wolves,” he deadpans, “wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, in a goddamn heartbeat.”
“You guys are entertaining,” Nora laughs. There’s a pause before she continues. “So, what do you think of our visitors?”
“I’ll tell you what I don’t think,” June starts. “That they’ll kill us in our sleep.”
“Morbid, Bug.”
“What? You think they will?”
“No,” Alex says honestly. “They didn’t have anything when we searched them.”
“It’s not like they can’t choke us out or rob us blind or smother us with a pillow or something,” Nora suggests rather casually. “Or set the house on fire.”
“Now who’s morbid?”
“They’re fine,” Alex tells them both. When Nora hums a sly little tune, Alex gives her a look. “What?”
“They are definitely fine.”
“Oh my god.”
“You’re telling me they’re not?”
“I—” Alex cuts himself off. “That is not up to me to decide.”
June snorts. “Says who?”
And, well. Alex really doesn’t know how to answer that. So he doesn’t.
“Anyway,” June continues. “That Pez really is somethin’.”
“Mm, yes he is,” Nora agrees. “Maybe he passed out so you’d take care of him.”
June laughs. “That would be quite the move, but I am not opposed to it.”
“Wait, you’re calling him Pez?” Alex asks.
“Yeah, he told me to.” June rolls onto her side and smiles conspiratorially at Nora, Alex suddenly being shoved from the conversation. “Do you think he’s single?”
“I mean, literally everybody’s single in the apocalypse.”
“But do you think he and Henry are a thing?”
Alex can’t see her face, but he imagines that Nora scrunches up her nose in thought. “Maybe? Maybe not?”
“They’re not,” Alex finds himself butting in. It’s defensive. He immediately freezes when the girls look at him, and he does his best to play it off as nonchalant. “They’re…friends. Family.”
Nora rolls over, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Is that something Henry told you?”
“More or less. He said Percy’s his only family,” Alex tells them, feeling a little too much like he’s oversharing. “They were in Brooklyn when everything went down.”
Nora whistles. “Shit.”
“Weird how we could have run into them before all of this,” June mutters. “Makes me think we should’ve gone to Black Flamingo more often.”
“Mm, no. Not after the bouncer incident.” Alex looks pointedly at Nora. “Right?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh my god!” June laughs. “I forgot about that!”
“How could you possibly forget?” Alex asks as he props himself up on his elbow. “Nora literally knocked the guy out cold for—”
In one swift motion, Nora takes the pillow from under her head and smacks him in the face with enough force that he nearly rolls off the bed. That's twice today. “Hey, the dude had it coming!”
“What the hell? I wasn’t saying he didn’t!”
She takes her pillow back before Alex can even swing it at her and huffs. “I was drunk and on a mission.”
“Yes, we’re all well aware of you becoming a vigilante when you’re drunk,” June chimes.
“And now she carries a machete on her hip at all times.”
“Hey.” She points scoldingly at Alex. He’s really getting the brunt of it tonight. “Don’t make fun of Gertrude.”
He rolls his eyes. “And where is Gertrude, anyway?”
“She’s not in the room with the guy who passed out on the way to the house this afternoon, don’t worry. She’s here under the bed.”
Alex looks at June over Nora. “Did either of us have this version of Nora on the bingo card three years ago?”
“Alex, nothing we had on that bingo card three years ago is even close to what life is now. Especially not for our supercomputer.”
Nora blows a raspberry. “Computers are outdated.”
“Whatever.” June fluffs her pillow a few times and settles in, closing her eyes. “I’m going to sleep now. Please stop talking.”
Alex spends the night with Nora’s knee in his back and periodically waking up from the storm
He spends half the time he’s awake tossing and turning, thinking about the two strangers taking up his room and Nora’s. Percy — or Pez, he supposes — comes across his mind every so often, but Alex mostly floats to Henry; the fear in his eyes, the shakiness in his voice, how badly Alex wished he could have comforted him more.
It’s a wild thought, he knows that. But he supposes this is what several years into an apocalypse will do.
It’s maybe an hour before sunrise when Alex finally gives up on sleeping and carefully removes himself from the bed. He tugs his discarded hoodie over his head as Nora snuggles closer to June in her sleep.
No one is going to be up at this hour, and Alex really shouldn’t be, but old habits die hard, so here he is making a cup of Raf’s weird tea concoction he’s scrounged together and dried from what they have in the garden. It tastes like shit, like Alex is drinking actual dirt, but it’s apparently a family recipe and his caffeine addiction has to be satiated in some other way. According to Raf, this thing has enough in it to kill a thoroughbred.
Alex swears it’s not.
God, he’d do anything to break into the stash of coffee they have hoarded in the old wine cellar. Even if it is stale. But he has to use that sparingly.
He stumbles through the living room and pushes open the storm door leading to the porch. It’s still raining and there’s a chill in the air, and it’s hard to see much of the treeline in the pale blue of the morning. But the porch is covered, and Alex doesn’t find anything more comforting than sitting here and listening to the heavy rain.
“Morning.”
Alex nearly spills his tea in surprise. He curses and whips his head to his left, where he finds Henry sitting in one of the rocking chairs.
“Shit!”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You give me a heart attack the day after showing up, huh?”
“A wonderful first impression.”
“Maybe second,” Alex says, taking the other seat.
“What would be the first?”
“The look on your face when I was pointing a hunting rifle at you guys,” he laughs.
“What, like I was going to shit myself?”
“Like you hadn’t slept in days.”
“And now?”
Alex takes a sip of his tea and does his best not to grimace. “You look like you got…what, four hours?”
“Close! I got four and a half. Not consecutively.” He pauses. “And for the record, that was not the first time I was at the business end of a rifle.”
“Seriously?”
“Completely. What, you haven’t?”
“I am very lucky enough to say that I haven’t.” And he sincerely hopes he never will be.
“It’s not fun, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Henry informs him. “You really do start to think about all of your regrets in life while simultaneously trying to find a way out of the situation.”
“I wasn’t,” Alex says into his mug, “but thanks. Now I know what to expect.”
“Any time.”
Henry really does look rested. It relieves Alex a little bit, but it does make him wonder how long he’s been awake. He accepted the plate of dinner Alex brought up to him and took it with him to check on Percy. To be fair, if their positions were swapped, Alex isn’t entirely sure he’d sleep at all, and that in and of itself would just be self sabotage.
“So, what are you doing out here?”
“Oh, you know, I got enough sleep for a few more tumultuous days. Figured I’d cap it off.”
“Four and a half hours was enough, huh?”
“Mm, for my body at least. What are you drinking?” Henry asks after a little while.
“Oh, this?” He lifts the mug. “The shittiest tea you’ll ever have in your life, and I say that as an American.”
Henry laughs. “At least you’re acknowledging it.”
“No, I swear. Raf has an entire jar of this stuff that he makes every few months. It’s revolting.”
“Then why are you drinking it?”
“I miss coffee, Henry,” Alex states. He holds out the mug. “Wanna try?”
“For the sake of Britain, I think I must.”
The look on Henry’s face is worth every cup he’s made himself endure over the years. It twists into something awful, his eyebrows pinching together in a way that makes it look like they might stay there permanently, and there’s zero class to it as Henry fully sputters the tea onto the deck.
“Ugh, that’s horrid! It’s so bitter! It tastes like you’ve steeped it for a millennium.”
Alex laughs. “I told you!”
“How—how do you even digest that?”
“Dude, I have no clue. All I know is that it gives me enough of a caffeine fix to hold me over.”
Henry wipes his mouth on his sleeve as Alex continues laughing. He gets a look thrown at him that very easily translates to shut the hell up, but he honestly can’t stop.
“We have actual tea inside if you want a cup,” Alex says to him once he finally catches his breath, and Henry’s glare turns soft with a blink.
“You don’t have to.”
“The kettle’s still hot, it’ll be two seconds.”
He doesn’t wait for Henry to give him an answer, leaving his tea on the rickety wooden table between them and running back inside. He returns a minute later with a steaming mug.
“I think this one is lemon verbena,” he says. “I don’t know, I took it out of one of June’s little apothecary jars she managed to find. Apparently it helps with immunity or something. She goes through these phases — it was crystals for a long time and birth charts or whatever. And now that half the world is basically gone, it’s all herbal remedies.”
“I’m sure it comes in handy.”
Alex hums because it really does. Even if he won’t admit it outright.
“It also helps with insomnia.”
Alex squints. “What?”
“Lemon verbena,” Henry clarifies. “It’s supposed to help those with insomnia, but as the prince of insomniacs all over, it really doesn’t.” He takes a sip, adding, “Try as I might.”
“So that’s why you’re up so early…”
“Unfortunately and otherwise.” He takes another long sip, then lowers the mug to cradle against his chest. “I have a confession.”
“Oh yeah?” Alex eyes him warily.
“Yes.”
“Is it that you’re distracting me on purpose while Pez takes out the rest of the house before you inevitably shank me?”
Henry laughs. “Yes, obviously.”
“Oh good, I’ll just sit and wait then.” Alex rests his hands in his lap and closes his eyes, leaning his head back. He opens one eye to see Henry shaking his head in amusement.
“I actually stayed with Pez last night,” he admits sheepishly. His eyes are cast down toward the porch as if Alex is actually going to scold him or something. “I should have told you so you had your room back.”
“I wouldn’t have done that. Besides, I was perfectly comfortable having my best friend beat the crap out of me in her sleep.”
“Oh, no. Any injuries?”
“Just my pride. And my lower back, but,” he turns in his chair slightly, “you guys had a rough few days, and yesterday didn’t help. I would have done the same thing if I was in your position.”
Henry sighs. “I just didn’t want him to be alone in case he needed anything. You know, he actually said I was coddling him.”
“Seems like a good friend,” he says genuinely, his own smile growing when he sees Henry’s does, too.
“He’s the best.”
“I mean you.”
Alex doesn’t miss the blush on Henry’s cheeks even as he ducks his head. “Thanks.”
They lapse into comfortable silence, sipping their drinks and making the occasional comment until Henry turns to Alex, mug balancing on the arm of the chair, and asks if he thinks the rain is going to let up today.
Honestly, he has no clue. Weather prediction is not his forte — he’s more a strategist, a list-maker. But whether or not a storm will pass early enough in the day or not is not something he can even begin to predict.
“Are you guys still gonna head to Niagara?”
Henry isn’t looking at him. He’s staring off in the distance, watching the rain as Alex watches him. Even at this angle, he can see the way Henry’s mouth pulls to the side.
“Can I be honest with you, Alex?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Henry flexes his fingers as he takes a deep breath, holding it for a moment before clearing his throat. “I’m not even sure how we’d get there. We don’t have a car, not nearly enough skillset to venture out there alone for as long as we might have to…I’d say we’re very well fucked.”
The fear in his voice is evident, but Alex thinks he would have to be blind to miss that. It’s practically radiating off of him, and he’s sure the fear that something really bad had happened to Pez didn’t help.
Alex has been lucky — he knows this. His family is right here, he’s not fighting to find them, and if things stay the way they are, then he probably never will. They have a routine here, a way of life that works for them, crops, livestock. They even managed to rig hot water to the houses and electricity from the abandoned plant in the area.
They’re a small group, but they manage.
So it really is strange that Alex is starting to think he’d trade his luck for a bit of Henry’s fear if it meant that he’d know the fate of his own family again.
Because that’s what waits in Niagara for him: not the draw of shelter or whatever the hell a safe haven actually entails. If it’s true that there is something set up there to get families at the very least in touch with each other, then what truly awaits in Niagara is the answer to a question Henry might not want.
“Is there another option?” Alex finds himself asking tentatively.
Henry’s head tilts to the side. “Find shelter for a while, I suppose. Hope to survive winter. I really don’t know anymore.”
Okay. Alex really doesn’t like hearing that. “Were you guys always in New York?”
“No,” Henry begins. “We’ve been about thirty miles outside of it for a while now. We’d been hearing about the reconnections for the better part of a year when we decided to finally tag along with the group that was heading north.”
“How’d y’all lose them?”
A pause. ”Ambush.”
“Oh…fuck, seriously?”
Henry nods. “Yes.”
“Were you guys walking on a highway and came across a barricade or something?”
“Worse.” His lips pull into a thin, flat smile, and Alex’s stomach churns before the words are even out. “The self-appointed leaders of the group were the ones that did it.”
“Fuck!” It’s louder this time, said with enough bodily force that some of the tea spills out of his mug. Alex doesn’t even pay it any mind. “That’s horrible, I can’t believe that happened to you guys.”
“Neither could we. But we ran as fast as we could. I’m not sure if everyone else made it out or not, and I hate saying this, but I’m just happy to be alive.”
Alex’s immediate reaction is to say, “Me, too,” but he doesn’t. He bites that back and instead says, “I really hate to tell you this, Henry, but I don’t think you guys were ever making it to Niagara.”
“No, no I don’t think we were, either.”
It’s odd how the heart can break over and over again, especially from someone Alex met not twenty-four hours ago. But maybe that’s the humanity in him, the big piece from before everything that craves connection and companionship.
“I don’t know,” Henry says after a moment, “maybe I’m too trusting.”
“Hey, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.” Alex reaches over and rests a hand on the arm of Henry’s chair, fingers barely grazing his sleeve.
“You think so?”
Alex shrugs. “You trusted us.”
“Yes, well.” Henry’s eyes narrow, but it’s playful. “Just let me know when you’re going to turn your back on me.”
“I promise to give you at least six seconds’ notice.”
Henry’s laughter is soft and timid, but warm, and Alex can’t help but laugh along with him. He feels a definitive shift in the mood between them — a sameness that seems to wash away the anxiety and uncertainty that Henry’s seemingly been carrying with him for longer than he probably remembers.
“Constant fear is debilitating,” Alex tells him later on. The sun has risen, though it’s barely prominent through the dark clouds in the sky. “Even in the world we live in now, you need to find the things that make it feel…normal.”
Of course, Alex isn’t even sure that makes much sense, and he thinks about doubling back on what he just said with something stupid and word-vomitty, whatever pops into his head first, but Henry beats him to it. Much more suitable, and it puts Alex’s mind at ease:
“I’m starting to think you’re right.”