Uranium ➵ The Old Guard

➵девять

Joe awoke with a content expression on his face, facing his still sleeping husband in the morning hours. He kissed him on his temple and gently brushed his hair, waiting for Nicky to open his eyes.

"Good morning," Joe greeted as Nicky opened his sticky eyes and gazed at his husband. The moment was relaxed and the two of them forgot about the rest of their family already out of the room.

"You truly are the well from which I fill my bucket every day." Nicky smiled and lifted his hand to stroke Joe's chin, softly petting the beard there.

"I like that one," he said, voice croaking. "Make sure you don't fall in because you were watching me instead." Joe laughed at his reference.

"If I remember correctly, you also died a few times," Joe said with a big smile. "But we are still alive and together, what more could we want?"

"Food," Nicky answered plainly. Joe also felt the churn of his stomach and agreed with his husband, getting up and walking to the crappy sink and wetting his face to wake himself up. Nicky did the same, as well as making his hair lie in a nicer mop atop his head and they walked down to the bar of the hotel.

Booker being alone at a barstool was a common scene so neither man thought anything of it as they sat down next to their friend.

"I hope you two aren't thinking of walking out," Booker said, taking a swig of vodka from the bottle next to him.

Nicky gently led the bottle away from his grasp. "Walking out? Booker, what?"

"She isn't outside."

Joe went out to check and came back a few minutes later shaking his head.

"She left us?" Nicky asked himself. Booker nodded, grabbing for the vodka. Nicky pulled it away and lifted his head, taking the last of it. He pushed it back on Booker and stomped back up to his room.

Joe and Booker were left staring after him.

"I should probably go up and talk to him," Joe said to himself. Booker nodded in agreement, looking sadly at the empty bottle of vodka as Joe left.

-

Aleandra felt stuffy. Like she had been filled with wool. She tried moving her arms to rub the sleep out of her eyes but something hard stopped her. She groaned, she did not want to deal with whatever it was that was happening. The seals of her eyes broke as she opened them. It was pointless.

It was dark and she couldn't see.

She still blinked away the sleep in her eye though. It might be dark but her eyes needed to rest from being closed for so long.

Her hands felt around, running over the flat surface that felt a lot like–

"Ow!" 

Wood.

The splinter she had just received would have to be ignored. What could she do about it in a...coffin.

Aleandra sighed and held her breath. Pulling her shirt over her head, she started kicking. She silently thanked her paranoid father for teaching her how to escape being buried alive. 

Dirt fell through and Aleandra knew it was time to push the lid off. She took another breath and launched her arms up. Soil buried her as she swam up, kicking and pushing it under.

She reached the top and gasped for air, throwing the shirt off of her head and coughing out dirt she had accidentally inhaled. It took her a while to clear her throat and when she was done she collapsed, breathing heavily.

When she had calmed herself, she realized that the land she was on was not the same. It was softer. She had been moved a long way. Looking up, pine trees and oak pointed to the sky, praising their food source.

Screaming sounded from the trees behind her and she started to turn. She didn't have time to react when a shot rang out and she felt something rip through her head.