by AJ Rose
“I don’t know that it would be helpful, since he’s not seizing at the minute. I just want to see what I have in case he has another one. Does he have specific triggers?”
“Stress and sleep deprivation,” Ash said automatically. “And without his music, he’s not getting as much rest as before. I have to sing him to sleep.”
Aaron eyed him, his eyes softening to something like sympathy from the clinical medic he was while looking Elliot over. “If anything qualifies as stressful, it’s a cross-country walk through booby-trapped farms and living off the land. He needs to get to a real hospital if his seizure activity is increasing.”
“He hasn’t had a big one since we were at my sister’s house right after the blackout,” Ash said. “Maybe this doesn’t mean increased frequency.”
“Maybe not,” Aaron agreed, giving Ash hope. Jennifer passed his kit in to him, and he perused it, moving the drug vials and pill bottles like he was setting up a rack of pool balls, organizing them by a system Ash didn’t even try to understand. “About all I can do right now is give him one of the bags of saline, keep him hydrated while he sleeps it off. At least if I start an IV, if he has another one, I can give him something quick.”
“Do it,” Ash said with a worried sigh. “Looks like we’re staying put for a while anyway.”
Ghost whimpered outside, and Ash was flooded with relief for the dog. He crawled over to extricate himself from the tent and gave the dog’s ears a good scratch. Ghost licked his chin and whined.
“Good boy, keeping him safe.” Ash wouldn’t let himself think of what could have happened if Elliot had had a seizure while they were hunting or walking and not in a place where he could rest. There weren’t enough of them left to bear another stretcher.
Ghost chuffed in his ear, and Ash stood, putting a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “He’ll be okay. Just another thing to sleep off, and they can both rest for a day or two.”
“Did you see any absence seizures?”
Ash shook his head. “To be honest, I wasn’t watching. Not with trying to move Jason over decent distances.”
“I saw a couple,” Brian said with a frown. “The dog has helped keep him calm, but I think his meter is tilting toward the red.” He kept his words low, nearly under his breath, but the worry was obvious. “He needs to reach a hospital with power. He needs scans. Over time, the electrical impulses bouncing around his brain can damage his neural pathways. His meds may need to be adjusted. He’s not going to do okay long-term without monitoring.”
Frowning at the tent, Ash recognized the rise in his own blood pressure. They were in an impossible situation, needing to move quickly so one of their party could get help while allowing the other several days’ rest for the antibiotics to work. Selfishly, Ash would push for Elliot’s outcome over Jason’s.
Aaron emerged, pulling off a pair of rubber gloves from his stash. “Okay?” Ash asked.
“Yeah, for now. Keep an eye on him. If he doesn’t wake up in another hour, let me know.”
“How’s Jason?”
“Still feverish. His temperature is around one-oh-three, so he’s definitely fighting off an infection. I just hope it’s not what I think it is.”
Charlotte muttered wordlessly, shaking her head, looking around the camp until she saw Riley, in the trees setting small game traps for their dinner. Ash followed her gaze.
“He’s okay,” he assured her. “He’s got something to concentrate on. We’ll hang around. Let him go exploring a little. Help collect fresh water.”
“Yeah, he’s turning into quite the little Boy Scout. Maybe I should teach him CPR. Never know when we’ll need it.” She waved a hand at their camp. “We’re dropping like flies.”
Ash grimaced. “No one’s dropping. And we’ve been going like crazy since we ditched the van. Maybe a day or two to rest isn’t a bad idea, with or without people injured.”
Jennifer approached, and they turned to her. She smiled grimly and held up her hands. “The pregnant lady is fine, I swear. Just want to know what I can do to help.”
Charlotte rested an arm on her shoulders and walked her away. “Let’s see what we can scrounge up for dinner.”
Brian and Aaron peeled off, and Ash could only assume Tim was watching over Jason. With tense shoulders, he reentered his tent and lay down beside Elliot, smoothing the hair off his sweaty forehead.
“You’ll be okay, babe. I won’t let you be anything less.” Ghost nosed his snout over the lip of the tent flap, lying there and looking at them with soulful eyes. With a sigh, Ash motioned the dog inside. “It’s hot in here, bud. But you can help me keep an eye out. You’ve proved you’re good at that.”
There wasn’t much room on the other side of Elliot, but the dog squeezed in, lying with his head on Elliot’s thigh. They both took a big breath and settled in to wait for Elliot to wake.
* * *
* * *
Fingers along Ash’s brow startled him awake, and he sat up, scrambling to find the Colt he’d stashed under the corner of his sleeping bag. A groggy voice stopped him.
“Ash.”
He breathed, trying to calm the thunder of his heart. “Elliot.” Immediately he touched Elliot’s cheek. “Shhh, you’re okay. We got you.”
“We?” Elliot asked thickly.
“Ghost and me. Who’d you think?” Ash said gently.
Elliot’s profile turned slightly to his other side, and Ghost whined, then yawned.
“You let the dog in here?”
“Yeah, he missed you. He’s the one who alerted you to the seizure, they said. Got you to lie down.”
Elliot chuckled. “Didn’t know what his problem was. Kept nibbling my fingers and trying to pull me with his teeth. I thought he was hungry.”
“Charlotte said he head-butted your legs until you came into the tent.”
“Yeah. After that, lights out. Smart dog.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like I got chewed up by a pack of wolves.” Elliot moved his left hand to his face and frowned at it, turning it over to see the faint moon glint off the plastic tubing from the IV. “What’s this?”
“Aaron hooked you up to some saline to keep you hydrated. You woke up just after dark and then crashed again. We didn’t want to try to make you eat or drink anything if you were nauseated.”
“My medicine,” Elliot said, sharp panic trying to creep into his voice.
“Shhh,” Ash soothed, still playing with Elliot’s hair. “Aaron crushed one up and fed it to you with water in a straw to make you swallow.” Ash mimed the way Aaron had patiently dribbled water from a straw into Elliot’s mouth.
“Shouldn’t have done that. Timed release capsules.” Swallowing seemed difficult for him, so Ash sat up and grabbed his water bottle, taking small capfuls and giving Elliot sips.
“Aaron figured a dose that way was better than you skipping. You might have some gut cramps, though.”
Elliot’s eyes closed, and he breathed as though Ash’s mention of stomach upset made him aware of that very thing. “Jason?”
“He’s been sleeping almost as long as you.”
“How long is that?”
Ash consulted the sky outside the window. “It’s the middle of the night. Kind of hard to tell. Several hours.”
They stayed quiet for a while. When the silence got to be too much, Ash began to babble.
“We’ll stay here another couple days, give you time to sleep it off and for Jason to get over whatever infection he’s gotten. After that, when you have your strength back, we’ll need to move faster. Brian said you had a couple absence seizures, and he thinks this big one isn’t the last for a while. We need to get you to a hospital. Something about scans.”
Elliot nodded. “Sleepy,” he mumbled. Ghost moved his head farther up Elliot’s thigh and licked his fingers. Elliot sank his hand in the dog’s fur and scratched half-heartedly.
“Good dog. Who knew you were psychic?”
“They say dogs
can sense sickness in their people, and he’s really protective of you. He almost bit me when I came storming into the tent.”
“Aw, that’s not good.”
Ash put his finger to Elliot’s lips. “It’s fine. I’d rather him be overprotective. Makes me feel safer knowing someone else has your back, even a four-legged someone.”
Elliot didn’t say anything to that, so Ash leaned close and laid his head on the sleeping bag next to Elliot’s face, chin resting on his shoulder. He planted a kiss on Elliot’s clammy cheek. Careful not to jostle, Ash tucked his arm around Elliot’s waist and began to hum softly. It was some random tune that morphed into When the Darkness Comes, which had become his go-to song. He liked the words, promises not to let Elliot down no matter what they faced. The lyrics were quite literal for their situation, but there was depth, too.
The emotions welling up scared him as the lyrics died in his throat. He supposed being thrown together in a survival situation and the constant companionship would explain a quick escalation of his feelings toward Elliot. Did he love him? Not yet, he didn’t think. Could he? Maybe, and while that scared him, it wasn’t the worst part. The cold dread that had overwhelmed him when they’d returned with the antibiotics to find his bad feeling had proven true had practically made him shit himself. He could fall for Elliot, but should he let himself? Jason’s injury drove the point home with crystal clarity: they were fighting for their lives, and he could very well lose Elliot. The risk of loving someone during such high stakes, especially someone who already dealt with a life-threatening health condition, was enough to constrict Ash’s throat, make his palms sweat, and give him the urge to run in the opposite direction without looking back. Charlotte and Riley kept him from doing so, but he wasn’t dealing well. In all the circumstances to fall for someone, this situation had to be the worst.
Beautiful timing.
Well, he supposed the end of the world as they knew it would have the effect of rearranging his priorities. He shut off the train of thought before he could wonder how long it would have taken him to realize his feelings for Elliot had the blackout never happened. It hadn’t occurred that way, so there was no sense expending mental energy on what-ifs. Besides, Ash had never run from anything in his life, so while the urge to turn tail was there, there was no way he’d give in, regardless of the state of crisis.
Elliot’s breathing evened out, and Ash drifted off, too. Another few hours, and it would be dawn anyway.
Despite the difficulty of the last few days—or maybe because of it—Ash slept hard and deep, waking refreshed when the birdsong got too insistent to stay oblivious. He turned to find Elliot blinking owlishly, his hair standing on end from sweating in the night.
“Hey,” he said, moving his hand to cover his mouth so as not to blast Elliot with morning breath. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” Elliot said with gravel in his voice. “No, that’s not true. I’m disgusting and really want a hot shower, a shave, and a giant glass of orange juice.”
Ash chuckled. “Well, I can offer you a dip in a cold lake, help with the shave, and a powdered lemonade flavor packet.”
“My hero. Can you help me get this off?” Elliot began taking tape from around the IV needle. Ash looked at the saline bag Aaron had hooked through a nylon loop on the wall of the tent designed to tie the window flap shut. The bag was empty, so the IV could go. With as steady a hand as possible, he stripped the needle from Elliot’s vein and wrapped the tape around it, careful of the sharp end. He’d have to find a way to dispose of it without leaving it for animals to find.
They’d been mostly taking their trash with them until they passed towns and were able to drop it in a trash receptacle. It wasn’t a perfect solution, given he doubted garbage trucks were running. At some point, recycling everything they could, such as using the resealable freeze-dried food packets to hold other things, like their dried meats or burying their waste and using the cleaned-out vegetable cans to help Riley with his snares, wouldn’t be viable anymore.
God, how much trash people produce in a day and don’t even think about it! Ash mused as he helped Elliot out of the tent to stand in the early dawn light. We’re not even producing half what we normally would. We are killing our planet.
Elliot drew in a deep, appreciative breath, his face upturned in the golden light of the sun, then leaned on Ash for support. When he opened his eyes, he caught Ash’s expression.
“What’s that frown for?” Elliot pushed his thumb between Ash’s furrowed brows, smoothing out the lines there.
“Just thinking.” He heard murmurs coming from one of the other tents. The others must be stirring, too.
“About what?”
Ash helped Elliot toward the lake, a few supplies in a shave kit beneath his right arm, while Elliot clamped on his left. “Trying to figure out how to dispose of your needle took me to environmental impact territory.”
“Ah,” Elliot said, easing to the ground at the beach and slipping off his shoes so he could shuck the shorts he’d slept in. Ash toed his shoes off as well, then yanked his t-shirt off and shoved down his athletic shorts. The early chill of the spring morning caused shrinking things to happen, and his nipples pulled painfully tight as he waited for Elliot to get naked. Since he’d have to hold Elliot up once they submerged, he might as well take a bath, too.
Along the way, they’d picked up necessary provisions from deserted stores, shorts as the weather had warmed in the daytime, shoes as their first pairs began to wear out, jackets or hoodies for the still chilly nights, a towel for each tent to share, and some necessities, like razors and deodorant. Eau de human being wasn’t easy to hide in a survival setting if the B.O. rolled off in waves like heat on a desert highway.
“I mean, we’re carrying our trash with us, and it’s kind of a lot, even reusing stuff. Part of me is glad this blackout happened. Maybe it’ll be enough to wake people up to how poorly prepared we are for disaster, as well as how consumptive we’ve become. When you’re worried about getting enough to fill your belly and your kids’ bellies, venti soy lattes from Starbucks are less of a big deal, you know?”
“Yeah, I do,” Elliot said, holding onto his forearms. Ash walked backward into the water, making sure the current at their chosen location, around a curve from their camp but not so far Elliot couldn’t make the trip back, wasn’t so strong it would be difficult for them to take care of business. “Ohhh, cold!”
Ash chuckled, then mirrored Elliot as the water hit his balls, and they crawled away from the shock to lodge firmly inside his pelvis. Or his throat, he wasn’t sure which. “Brace yourself, it’s a bit nippy.”
The water reached Ash’s ribs. He had his shave kit slung around his neck with a piece of nylon rope, and he pulled out the non-toxic gel soap they’d gotten from a camp store. It smelled like the natural mint with which it was infused, and he resisted the urge to smear it on Elliot and take him into his arms to inhale deeply. Instead, he grabbed Elliot’s hand, turning it palm up to squirt a dollop in it, gesturing to Elliot’s wild curls.
“But my hair’s not wet yet,” Elliot said, amused.
“Dunk your head, then,” Ash teased, taking a fortifying breath and following his own advice, extending his arm to hold the shave kit above water level. Jesus, it was cold.
Elliot followed suit, and beneath the water, hands found Ash’s hips and pulled him closer. If there had been any length left to his shrunken dick, he’d have popped wood as the unbidden thought of Elliot going down on him under the water rose. But when the hands slipped, Ash hauled Elliot up by his biceps. The guy was weak with fatigue from his seizure, and Ash’s mind was in the gutter.
“Need help?”
“Need more soap,” Elliot said, holding his hand out again.
They washed with little fanfare after that, Ash behaving himself except to steady Elliot as the effort sapped his energy. When they were clean, Ash held up a small can of shave cream and raised a brow.
“I can
do it for you if you want. Might make you feel human again.”
Elliot ran his fingertips into the trimmed beard Ash had grown, the scratchy sound loud in the stillness. “Does mine make me look as hot as yours does you?”
Ash smiled but pulled Elliot’s hand gently away. “It is hot, and sweaty, and itchy. If it weren’t such a pain in the ass to do, I’d shave it off right now.”
Elliot’s smile faded, and he gestured to his own more-than-stubble. “Yeah, if you want to, knock yourself out.”
Ash may not have been in the mood for flirting, but he didn’t want to give Elliot the wrong idea, either, especially after his fuck up in Ohio. So he kissed him quick but hard, then concentrated on readying the shaving supplies. Lathering Elliot’s face, Ash looked him in the eyes and smiled.
“Feeling any better now that you’re clean?”
“Yeah.” Elliot exhaled, looking out over the lake as Ash turned his face side to side to smooth on the cream. “Makes you really appreciate the way we had it, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Ash said, putting a new blade on his razor. “I kind of like this back to our roots stuff. I don’t know how I’d adapt to living this way all the time, but it’s temporary. You’ll get a hot shower before you know it,” he promised. “Frankly, I want a Coke with ice.” He wiped at his chin, getting a smear of shave cream in his scruff. “See? I’m drooling.”
The scrape of the razor on Elliot’s skin was the only sound for several minutes, and the wind kicked up locks of their hair, drying it a little wild. There was no mistaking the intimacy of the moment, especially when Elliot watched him instead of their surroundings. Ash concentrated on what he was doing, but the scrutiny got to be too much to bear.
“What?”
“You’re so difficult to read sometimes,” Elliot admitted, speaking through clamped teeth so as not to move his jaw beneath Ash’s razor swipes. “I wish I knew what you were thinking.”
Ash splashed the razor in the water and continued along Elliot’s jaw, tilting his head back to get the curve of his chin. “Mostly I hope I can get us there safely. Trying to keep my head on straight. Trying to make things easier for everyone else.”
