Before it Rings (Zombie Apocalypse AU) (NCT127)

Modifications

Chapter warnings: Mild language

Word count: 1217

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Taeyong, as one of the people who had originally been picked to sleep inside a tent, woke to the soft light of day filtering through the fabric. Sitting up and stretching, he took a moment to breathe in, readying himself to lay down the game plan. As much as he wanted to ignore it, he did have to meet with Johnny on the new supplies, potentially set some stuff up, figure out a game plan for... well, surviving. Crawling up and unzipping the flap of the tent, he stepped out.

What stood before him was more than surprising. There were practically five times as many tents as they originally set up. While his were still in the same place, there were new ones. Everyone had a tent similar to his, and then there was a large black one.

"What..." He said aloud, looking around. People were moving. Some were carrying boxes, others moving empty-handed. The only one staying still was Johnny, hands on his hips and looking over it all. Walking over, Taeyong inquired as to what was going on.

"What's all this?"

"I told you it would be better to be prepared. You didn't find it a priority, but I did, so I handled it."

"It's not that I didn't think it was a priority," Taeyong said, more than mildly annoyed, but hiding it in his voice. "It just wasn't as pressing as last night."

"Well, I disagree. Which is why I started setting up." That he did. There were more tents than he had ever imagined. The boys moving them around looked tired at best, and miserable at worst. How long had they been up?

"You had no authority to do this-"

"And you have no authority to stop me." Johnny argued. "They could have declined, but they didn't."

"This is too much, it's impractical."

"What's impractical is being underprepared. If we don't handle this right, we could-"

"Stop! This is ridiculous!" Taeyong finally shouted, drawing the attention of a prying Jaehyun- neither of the arguing men noticed. "You can't just up and decide what we're doing without discussing it with everyone. I'd bet no one wanted to stand up to you!"

"Well you're doing a fucking fine job of it now-" Johnny tried to intervene.

"We'll leave this all up until the next time we move, and then we'll go back to normal." Taeyong growled, storming off. It was only then that Jaehyun walked up to talk to a now incredibly annoyed Johnny.

"It's fine, man." He consoled. "Why didn't you explain how tired some of us look? I mean, how many more times did we go out to get-"

"We had to go out. We didn't have anything we needed."

"I mean, I feel like we had a decent-"

"Decent isn't good enough. I'm not going to have anyone die because we weren't prepared."

"Yeah... yeah, okay." Jaehyun finally agreed, realizing how pointless it was to argue. With that, Johnny sighed, starting to walk away. "Wait- where are you going?"

"To take inventory."

"You took inventory an hour ago."

"Well, I'm taking it again." And with that, he walked off as well. Jaehyun shook his head, not really equipped to deal with either of them. He decided to find one of the others, hopefully distract them from whatever work they had been forced to partake in. The first person he came across was Haechan.

"Hey." Jaehyun said, startling him so that he jumped.

"Oh, h-hey." He said, standing up oddly straight. That wasn't suspicious at all...

"What are you doing?" Jaehyun asked, head tilting slightly.

"Nothing!"

"...It- doesn't look like nothing." He tried to hold his strangely wide smile for another second, before finally growing tired and dropping it.

"Okay, fine. I was getting pain meds for Mark." He pulled a white bottle out from his jacket pocket. Oh... that was normal.

"What's so wrong with that?"

"I didn't want Johnny to find out."

"Johnny would get it, and he's gonna find out anyway. He's doing inventory right now, actually." Haechan's eyes widened.

"What? But I specifically waited until after-"

"Yeah, he's doing it again. Anyway, I'll let him know we used them. Let's go take them to Mark." They knew which tent was his, as they had set it up themselves. Walking in, they were relieved to find him in a light sleep. They'd hopefully be able to give him the medicine by waking him up, then let him fall into his unawareness.

Lightly shaking him by the shoulder, Jaehyun grabbed the water bottle from beside his cot. They had thankfully been able to let him use it in place of a sleeping bag, although they didn't have one for everyone. As his eyes began to flutter open, Jaehyun didn't give him the chance to reorient himself, grabbing his jaw and shoving a couple of the pills in his mouth.

"Swallow-" He demanded, helping him pour the water. Coughing, he did as he was told, squinting his eyes shut as his throat constricted. "Good." He set Mark's head back down on the bed, silently praying that he would immediately go back to sleeping. Unfortunately, he started trying to look around.

"Wait- where- what's going on?"

"We gave you your own tent." Jaehyun explained, keeping his voice low so as not to disorient him.

"And the pain medication for your leg." Haechan added, trying to be helpful. Jaehyun tried to control the emotion on his face- now Mark would be focusing on that.

"O-oh." He looked down to where it was covered by his blanket. "How bad is it?" The was a good sign, if he was handling the pain a bit better. At least he wasn't screaming.

"It's... basically fine!" Haechan said, smiling awkwardly. "Bed rest and a-"

"It's pretty much snapped in two." Jaehyun corrected. Now that he was focusing on it anyway, there was no reason to lie to him. He'd get his hopes up for nothing.

"I, uh..." He yawned, wincing as it caused him to move his legs slightly.

"Oh, we should let you get some rest." Jaehyun said, ushering a protesting Haechan out of the tent. Mark's eyes were closed almost as soon as they were gone.

"Do you think we'll be able to fix it?" Haechan asked, concerned about his friend. Aside from that, he was looking for someone to talk to. While Jaehyun wasn't really in a chatty mood, he really saw no other option than to explain.

"Um... Probably not." He stated bluntly. "We have no medical knowledge or experience, so setting it properly will be nearly impossible. Even if we could get his bone back in the right place, all we have are shitty first aid wraps. Could we make a good enough cast?" Haechan looked over, but Jaehyun didn't meet his eyes. "My guess is he'll walk with crutches at best. It would be a borderline miracle if he came out with a limp."

He knew that leaving the conversation at that would devastate Haechan, but he didn't really have the energy to deal with it right now. At least the sad news would keep him quiet for the time being. Leaving the boy to think about that, he walked to his own tent. He needed his alone time.