Victor isn't supposed to be looking for survivors. It's the general opinion of the encampment that there are no more uncontacted survivors left to find, unless someone's been maintaining their fallout shelter from the Cold War with more rigor than most. So instead he's been tasked to break into a pharmacy and see if anything's been left behind that hasn't either gone bad from a lack of refrigeration or been ruined by contact with

fluids. 

The shotgun is mostly for effect. He's too old to run away if something tries to attack him, so he goes for imposing instead. Zombies leave him alone--he doesn't smell like food--but the same doesn't go for other survivors, the ones who have turned to one of the oldest professions for the dispossessed: banditry. You keep them away the same way you keep bears away. Be loud. Be dangerous. Carry a gun and look like you're going to use it. 

The pharmacy has signs of habitation. Someone's built a nest out of blankets. There's blood.

He's also pretty sure, from the kind of crap that's been dragged to the nest, that the owner of the blood is both a zombie and very young. 

This is worrying. Hopefully it's someone who can be brought back to the encampment and given food that doesn't have blood in it and talked to. That's not a guarantee.

For a place with a permanently open door, it's less trashed than you might think. This is definitely a sign of... something. 

Roe hears the stranger making his way into his home. He's worried about his stuff, but he knows from bad experience what happens if he prioritizes his stuff over his body. 

(Also, there's always more stuff, he's pretty sure, or at least there will be for a long long time. There are so many things the store kept outside the reach of customers, and now Employees Only doors mean nothing because all the employees are dead.)

He stays hidden on the other side of one of the shelves, listening. He's got good eyes, but he doesn't need good eyes when he can hear and he can smell. 

Roe doesn't know that Victor has the same kind of senses. Maybe he doesn't know what the different smells for zombie and not-zombie mean? 

The stranger is making his way towards the pharmacy. The cage separating the actual pharmacological substances is either damaged or caked with gore. Roe tends to avoid it. He doesn't understand what the stranger is looking for, so he follows. 

Painkillers, mostly, if there are any that haven't been taken. So, NSAIDs, maybe some opiates (though those are probably gone.) Anything antibiotic that hasn't degraded. 

Not for him. For the humans.

This is the part where Roe's curiosity gets the better of his good sense and he emerges from the rows of shelves, perching himself right near the counter. 

He is tall and spindly and looks slightly underfed, and like he hasn't had a bath in a while. 

In other words, he's pretty but in a sparkplug kind of way. 

"Hi!" 

It's only then that he notices that the stranger has a gun.

Thankfully for Roe Victor isn't interested in using his gun like that. 

He turns around to see the revenant he was wondering about. Turned young, then, mid-teens. Explains the stealth and also the isolation. He's probably not been terribly socialized since the bombs dropped. 

"Hey. Do you know if there's any meds left?"

"Yeah! People don't like going back there because of all the gore. They say it smells bad and then they go away." He exaggeratedly sniffs the air. "I agree."

He's wearing a very torn up shirt, and if Victor is looking he can see the bite marks that probably turned him, just under his ribcage. 

He is. He doesn't want to be. But he is. 

"Do you have food?"

The stranger hasn't freaked out at him yet, which is better than most strangers, and if he has food then that's a bonus.

"Not here."

Going through the destroyed cage is no problem. Victor is habituated to gore, from the fall and from... other things. It's also mostly dry, which helps. 

"I have food back at the camp, if you'll come with me."

That's a surprise. No one's ever offered that before. 

It might not seem like it, but Roe knows what he is. He's not stupid, and he's seen how most strangers look at him. He's also noticed that he's stopped growing, that he doesn't get periods anymore, and--obviously--he's noticed that he has a taste for human flesh. 

He also knows he's different from the zombies, because he can still think about it.

He only eats the strangers who die naturally, promise. And there are a lot of those. 

"You sure?" he asks. "You can see what I am, right?"

It's a surprise the boy hasn't realized what Victor is yet. Maybe he's not used to the smell of revenants that can think? 

"It's not a problem," he says. He unbuttons his shirt to show the mess of his collarbone. The wound's technically open, but doesn't really hurt unless he sticks a finger into it. 

Most people aren't into that. Good thing he's not most people. 

"Woah!" 

He's definitely never seen anyone else like him. Started wondering if he was cursed. 

Maybe they're just both cursed. 

"And the food... is it?"

"Depends on what you want," Victor says. "Mostly not people, though."

The humans get judgmental about it, but it's the revenants that work as guards and can patrol without fear of infection, but if you keep them well fed it isn't a problem. It's only if they're really hungry.

Obviously, Roe's been really hungry for years.

"How long you been here, kid?" 

"Dunno, three years?" It's hard to keep track of time after all the clocks finally stopped working. 

Also because he's been alone. The strangers mostly don't count. 

It'd be amazing he can still talk, but no, he talks to himself. 

That's a long time. 

Victor would have gone insane. 

Well. More insane. 

"Do you want to come?"

He's not going to force the issue. If the kid really prefers being a weird little cannibal hermit that's his business. 

"You have food that isn't..."

He sighs. 

"People?"

Yeah.

He's going to go with him. 

What he's not going to say is that for all of his self-loathing this stranger has aged and zombified into a kind of hot old man, and being alone with a sexuality in the apocalypse is booooring. 

Not that he'll do anything about it. 

But. 

He can definitely look.

He does actually find some opiates that look like they might still work, all still sealed. Same with the NSAIDs. This is a pretty good haul, relatively speaking. 

"Follow me back?"

Roe nods. 

He puts the medicines in his bag and slings it over his shoulder. People might come after him for it. 

He wonders if Roe can defend himself. He's been living off a diet of corpses but that doesn't necessarily mean he knows how to fight. 

"Oh!" Roe says, like he's forgotten something, which he had. "I'm Roe."

Victor smiles to himself. "I'm Victor Mueller," he says. "You can call me Vic." 

He gives out the full name as a way of remembering Xavier. He can't say his husband's full name without crying, but he can speak their shared name, at the very least. 

"Okay!"

He trails along after Victor as he travels to the encampment. They're lucky. There's no zombies for now.

This area is pretty clear because he's spent a lot of time making it that way. 

"What were you doing before... everything?" 

Casual chatter, but also he hasn't seen a new survivor in ages. 

Of course, there are people who would say that revenants aren't true survivors, by definition. 

Victor doesn't tend to listen to them. 

"High school!" Roe says. He hasn't thought about it in a while, because it makes him think about everything he's lost. "I liked baseball."

There was more to it than that, but he's not saying anything. Some wounds should stay closed. 

Victor is abruptly crushed by how young he is. 

Fifteen. 

Victor was 67. He doesn't consider himself 70 now, because he doesn't look the way he feels he should at that age. 

But that is how old he is, by any understanding of age dependent on time. 

Fuck.

And here he's been, looking at the smooth patches of skin Roe's rags leave visible. 

Xavier would call him a perve for that. 

Xavier also isn't here. 

He can feel Vic looking. 

Makes him feel good. Makes him feel less crushingly alone, being gazed at like that. 

He shivers, and it's only a little because it's nearing night. 

He hangs back, so he's behind Vic now. He wants to look too. 

Vic is grizzled, with a salt and pepper beard and long, semi-groomed hair. His clothes are better, but they don't hide the fact that he is a tall, large man, the kind that Roe imagines holding him.

Shit. 

The kid's probably noticed him looking. This was a terrible idea. 

Before he can wallow further down into his regrets the camp comes into view. 

It's not the best place. A long, snake-like line of semi-permanent canvas tents stretches down what used to be the esplanade and is now an overgrown snarl eating away at the nearby highway. 

But it's closer to home than anywhere else in the city. 

They didn't bomb the rivers except for a handful of bridges. Better than anyone could have hoped for. 

Also serves as a good distraction from the mutual bad idea attraction. 

(This will not last for very long)

"Here we are!" Victor says, doing a dramatic gesture with his hands. 

He's struck again by the contrast to where he used to live, but that's the most he can think about it before the grief starts trying to drown him again. 

"Welcome."

The camp isn't empty but most people are inside. 

The exception is a red-headed young person in a ratty labcoat sitting next to an open wood fire, poking at it with a stick.

The fire is for warmth and light. They don't run electricity at night, to save on fuel. 

Alan doesn't get up when they see Dr. M, but he does get up when he sees the stranger. Skinny, only slightly shorter than them. 

They grin, a wide, slightly glassy expression. "Hey, hey," they say.

Metal jingles when they move from the dog tags around their neck. 

"Welcome back, moron." 

Roe's surprised to see the hot stranger kiss Vic on the mouth. He has to lean down for it. 

Does that mean they're also a zombie? 

That question fights with the fact that the two of them are very hot like this. Roe likes looking. 

He doesn't say anything. He's afraid it'll make them stop.

This is another bad idea. 

Alan is a bad idea in general, rescued from a sewer with a gun in their hand, their mouth on Victor's cock and calling him Dr. M the moment they learned anything about his history. 

Also young, but not quite as young. Still young enough that he shouldn't.

He forgets about Roe long enough that he doesn't stop Alan grind against him, and lets out a soft moan when he feels their erection against his leg.

Alan chooses that moment to pull back.

Victor groans, and remembers Roe in that moment. He turns out to look at him, a guilty flush coloring his weathered features. 

Roe's eyes are enormous, and seem to shine with an almost worrying intensity. 

"Hot," he says, like he doesn't care who's listening. 

He probably doesn't.

"You're not so bad yourself," Alan says. They're grinning, intentionally ignoring Dr. M's disapproving expression. "Alan. I'm on guard duty."

Shouldn't you be on guard duty then, and not molesting me. 

"Oh calm down, there's nothing around for miles." He sticks their tongue out at Dr. M. "Come on, I'll get you situated. You'll be staying in my tent until we find you a place."

Their tent is functionally Dr. M's tent, too, but they're not going to mention that. They're going to wait until Dr. M cracks and hits on this bright young twink, because then it'll be entirely his own perversion. 

Roe has no problem with this.

Victor has a problem with this, but can't bring himself to object. 

He should be responsible. 

He is also dead, and they are all dead, and it's hard for him to care when he's seen how Roe looks at him. 

Roe has never had sex before. Being a zombie for three years will do that to you. He should have been in high school being stupid. Instead he was learning new words from the paperbacks boredom drove him to steal. 

He follows Alan into the tent. He doesn't assume anything with happen. 

"Food?" he asks. 

He's interested in all the flirting for sure but he was promised something pretty specific.

"Outside," he says. "We have a stewpot for the nights."

There's refrigeration but that's only in the buildings that get electricity 24/7 and they're not accessible to revenants without permission. "Wanted to get you situated first."

They've clocked Roe as inexperienced. They're a creep and a pervert but they're not going to force themselves on him. Especially if they're right about a small detail Dr. M probably hasn't noticed. 

"Soup is good," Roe says. 

It's a bit tedious, going in and out, but he's left behind the small bag he brought with him from the pharmacy and now he has a bowl of soup in his hands and food that isn't expired candy or bugs or human viscera is a relief. 

He grins, skewering a potato with his fork. "I haven't had a potato in ages."

"I was alone too, you know."

Roe looks up at that. 

"Maybe a lot of us were," he says. "I think my parents died." 

He's not sure how he'll feel once the camp wakes up. Two other people is a lot, and a whole crowd will be even worse to deal with. 

But that's a problem for future Roe.

Victor settles by the fire with a groan. He takes a bowl and eats with enthusiasm. 

"How do you have all this stuff?" 

"Farming communities all up and down the western half of the state," he says. "S'where most of the people like us went. It's not pleasant, but they're the ones who can deal with the zombies. The city interior here is for manufacturing, doing the best we can."

They frown. 

"Sometimes the Feds'll bring supply drops. I think they want us all to die though, so they can drop bombs on everything, instead of just the perimeter bombardments." 

"Bombs??"

Victor and Alan look at each other. Even Alan, for all their time spent down in the sewers, knew. Roe really was alone, and it wasn't as though the perimeter was actually that close to the city. 

They'd just announced it one day over the radios and said this is what is going to happen. 

"We're cut off from the world," they say. They explain it as best as they can. 

They don't admit why they have a better understanding than most. Only Dr. M really knows all the details on that.

Roe is quieter than either of them have seen. 

"What do we do here?" he asks. "What's the point?" 

"We survive," Alan says. "We have fun. We guard those survivors that don't want to or can't leave because they're considered infected just for being inside the perimeter. There's stuff to do." 

"I'm a virgin," Roe says. 

He feels less urgency, now, but also like this is the only thing he finds interesting at the moment. 

Does he admit that he's jerked off with fingernails digging into the open bite wound that never quite heals? Absolutely not. 

"Do you want us to do something about that?" 

"Don't bring me into this."

"No worries." 

"Soon," Roe says. His eyes are shining in the firelight. "You're pretty."

"Thanks!" 

Theyre being a little duplicitous here--they have an idea of what Dr. M's about to do in his own tent--but they don't feel bad.

"Follow me. We can leave M out here to his thoughts."

Roe really enjoys following, it turns out, especially as Alan half shrugs out of the tatty labcoat, revealing an equally freckled back. 

Fire light and zombie night vision combine to make things exciting. 

Victor isn't entirely sure what they're planning, but he needs to get out of here before he breaks and follows after them and--

He grinds that train of thought to a halt. He's going to go back to his tent, and behave himself.

The the tent is more utilitarian than Alan's, save for a well-stocked and well-loved bookcase. There's the impression that it's the surviving fragment of a vast collection.

Victor strips down to boxers and lies down on his cot. This makes the wound on his neck easy to access.

Roe has small fingers. Not freakishly so, but he's smaller than Alan or Victor and his hands correspond. They'd slip into the wound easily, reach deep inside and hit where the flesh is raw and not rotten. Something stops the rot before it gets too deep, and his fingers could find that point, explore it, make the still living nerves sing with pain. 

Victor digs his fingers as deep into the wound on his sternum as they'll go, and lets out a little moan of pleasure as his cock stiffens in response. He palms at the bulge in his boxers, not doing anything else for the moment. 

The walls of the tent are not soundproof. There's a reason they put the revenants far away from the camp, and it's not this, but being overheard only by the people who might want to join in is a heady bonus. 

Roe shucks his (admittedly bloody) clothing the moment he enters the tent, revealing small breasts. He is certainly a trans man. 

He imagines the hand he wraps around his dick belongs to Roe, freezes, switches the mental picture to Alan, doesn't feel much better about it but keeps going. 

Alan seems less interested in Roe's body than in kissing him, wrapping themselves around his smaller form and pulling him onto the bed.

He should be at an age where it takes a while for his cock to get interested in the proceedings, but something about what he is now has changed that. 

It's already thickening under his fingers, little shocks of pleasure traveling up his body under his ministrations. 

Roe wriggles in Alan's lap until he can feel the growing hardness in his pants. "I can help you with that," he says, all shit eating grin.

He seems more confident now.