#bryce001

Luis knocked on the door, carefully balancing the plate of warm food on his open palm. He had made some fancy taco’s his mother used to cook when they needed to get rid of left-overs from the fridge. Combining whatever vegetable was still in there, collecting it all, adding some good spices, and placing the whole thing in the oven for a bit, until the cheese had melted. It smelled delicious and Luis wondered if it would be as much appreciated. He’d done this several times now, knocked at neighbours doors hoping to share a meal. It worked about half of the time. But he had stood far too often at Bryce’s door hoping she would accept the offer.

Spruce had never been the type to have long relationships, or relationships at all. Aside from a couple of platonic interactions that had been either about dogs or shared values, few had made it past the friendship part to something else. He had loved his platonic relationships, loved the friendship he had with Cyrus, the way they could talk with Ender now, the tight comfortable feeling around Lillith. Those were powerful by themselves, and they had always been an advocate for friendship rather than romances. They loved the phrase ‘bros before hoes’ or something else gender specific. 

Yet, there had been Bryce, and Bryce had added a layer to their reluctance to have any romantic relationships. Because Bryce had wanted what was best for them, and Bryce had destroyed any fate they had in relationships. 

And Bryce was standing there now, barely changed, still that confident smile and those soft eyes. And Spruce’s mouth was open and their whole world stopped. 

They should’ve known this might happen when they came back.

He leaves for one week and the whole damn place is overrun. 

The vehicles surrounding the place aren’t ones he recognizes and the sheer number of them tells him there’s no way the others at the base had collected these themselves. New people were a risk and it made him uncomfortable at the fact he wasn’t there to see these new faces arrive. A stupid thought. It’s not his job to look after these people, they’re not his responsibility. He’d already learned he couldn’t be trusted with anyone else’s survival.

He tucks his map and red pen away carefully into a zip pocket. Usually, he’d make the walk back in half-distracted, checking off the homes he’d finished ransacking, triple-checking that he hadn’t missed any or gotten his bearings wrong. He’s never wrong but it did no harm to check.

Instead, he’s throwing the duffle bag onto his shoulder giving himself two free hands. Kane walks through the parked vehicles, checking the windows for any movement. All he finds are empty vehicles.

The base looks fine. He didn’t hear anything on his trek back over to suggest some sort of fight went on. Still, he’s annoyed, wondering how far the supplies he’d stuffed into this bag could go with the number of people growing. The one ‘perk’ of the end of the world was the lack of crowds.