Being Human || Lashton AU - boyxboy

chapter two.

BEING HUMAN IS MAKING A COMEBACK, BITCHES, AND WE'RE BETTER THAN EVER BECAUSE OLIVIA HAS BEEN WORKING HARD ON HER COMPLETELY MEDIOCRE WRITING SKILLS. FUCK YEAH, DUDES, WE'RE DOING THIS.

a.i.

There's a blinding yellow light burning like fire in my freshly woken eyes as I ruffle my hair against the leather I can only identify as that of the backseat of my car. I glance habitually at the clock in the front despite knowing it's still frozen at 3:27; it comforts me in a way, to be able to check it nonetheless. I haven't actually known the time in months. Not since it started.

I sit up and lean into the front of the car, popping the glove box open and digging around. I find what I'm looking for after a moment; a small bottle of water that'd been filled and refilled more times than I can count with definitely questionable water. I shrug it off, however, because you don't get to be picky about not having filtered water to drink at a time like this when there are others dying because they don't have any water at all. I close the compartment, stopping hesitantly to run my fingers across the carvings in the wood paneling. There are almost too many to count.

I know how many are there, regardless.

178.

178 tally marks.

178 tally marks that could stand for anything, really; they could stand for the number of rotters I've killed or the people I've saved or, really, they could even mean something from a time before all of this. Maybe there were 178 tally marks signifying that I'd had sex with high-school sleep-around Cindy Barnett 178 seperate times since I'd gotten the car, or maybe it was counting down to something, like my high-school graduation. That would have been far more pleasant than the reality.

The reality of the situation is that each tally mark stands for a day. Each tally mark stands for a day that I considered putting my dad's shotgun to my head and blowing my own brains out; 178 also happened to be the number of times the sun had risen and fallen into the night. 178 days had passed since this fucking war started and not one had passed where I didn't wonder if splattering my brain matter across the backseat of my car would just be better.

I have not come to a consensus on the topic.

I scratch another tally into the wood with a switchblade nonetheless.

179.

The sun has won the battle against the moon this particular morning, having begun rising over the jagged mountains in the east. I trace the juts and jets of each mountain with my eyes, and each one reminds me of the same juts and jets of my heart rate. The thought is jaded. I don't care about the mountains. I don't care about my heart rate.

There's not a canker to be seen within miles of where my car is parked underneath the old freeway, but perhaps I'm biased. I haven't seen through a proper pair of glasses since I lost mine that first time back in Attica a few months ago. They went flying from my face in a futile battle between me and a canker who had managed to disarm me with a quick swing of its arm. It was before I met Ruby, of course, because she would have gone through any amount of trouble to find me another pair. She'd have claimed it was "to keep me on my toes", but I think that's because she's Ruby and she wouldn't have wanted me to know she cared. But she cared. And I knew that.

I cared, too.

I sip sparingly from the bottle, before grabbing my pack from the passenger seat. I slip the bottle in a side pocket and then the keys to my car in another; the car works, still, but it's getting harder and harder to find places to syphon gas from, so I use it only when I need to. I've been camping out under this freeway for 13 days and I wasn't going anywhere until I'd cleared this area.