#outbreakday

He hits the deck hard. So hard that the entire Boston QZ probably heard it. You just stood there looking at Joel, knuckles bloodied & bruised, face angered & rage burning in the back of his black eyes. You had no idea that your friend would ever be driven to do this. The soft quiet man who just got on & didn’t ask any questions about anything & kept himself to himself, even with you, has just knocked a vulture out cold. Blood spewing out everywhere, eyes glazed over.

You were claiming your rations while he was busy getting “Information” about your next potential job, when you were interrupted by this guy. He’s at least 5 years younger than you, all pent up with anger, ready to explode like everyone else. But it was when after his feeble attempt to flirt with you, which you turned him down, that he started to make a scene. You tried to walk away after the comment about helping to repopulate that planet, but he didn’t take no for an answer & slapped you around the face before gripping your chin, which you know will leave marks there in the cold light of day. The next thing you know Joel’s come from out of nowhere to defend your honour, & after some initial words said to each other, which Joel had thought he’d resolved, the guy gave him what will eventually become a black eye calling you a smuggling whore whose dried up in all places. That’s what made Joel snap & he rugby tackled him into a wall & stated pounding him.

Dragging you away from the scene so that FEDRA don’t catch up with the two of you, he takes your hand & doesn’t look you in the face. “We gotta move baby” he says taking your hand into his palm. You squeeze it tightly & he winces, he’s clearly ruptured a nerve or broken something. You don’t want to look at how bad your own face looks when you eventually get to your apartment, let alone have to deal with his as well, but you know if it’s as bad as you imagine, his hand is likely to get infected or need setting, to heal. “Joel…” but he shhh you as he hears footsteps around the corner from your building. He doesn’t care who it is, he just wants to run Across the road & get you both upstairs so you can sit in a awkward silence, never mentioning that he may have just killed a random person, neither of you stayed around long enough to check. The group walk past & you both dash & slide into the lobby of your building, & fly up the three flights of stairs to your floor.

10 years of this pandemic have changed both your worlds, your life before the world changed & the infected becoming a thing was simple & happy, but now it’s solving all sorts of issues & trying to make a life to some extent. Surviving day to day is always an up hill struggle, in this new world. But to have found a best friend along the way was something unexpected. You lived together as you provided information to his brother Tommy & told him good places to smuggle or get his other supplies. You wanted more though. You know you never can with Joel. His heartbreak from Outbreakday still haunts him to this day. He wakes up from nightmares shouting Sarah’s name as he tussles. You saying it will be alright is his main comfort, that & the watch, never repaired, frozen in time for those few precious moments. She’s always with him.

“Joel for fuck sake, did you kill him?” You screech once the door is securely in place & he’s turned the radio on so there’s some noise. He knows youre both about to shout at each other & doesn’t want the rest of the building if anyone’s here to hear it. “No don’t think so” he stomps around the room, now clearly in pain form him hand, it’s throbbing. “If you did & we’ve just left him there, they will come for you” you say this as you open up the cabinet in the kitchen looking for whisky for him to drink & card so you can strap his hand together. “They won’t & if they did I will say exactly what happened “ “they won’t care about that Joel, they need people to have more kids to repopulate the planet, they’d have been like ahhh another mother give her 50 extra rations” you say in angst. The idea of anyone bringing a child into this world scares you, let alone that it could be you. “Well real men should take no for an answer” & he kicks a create towards the window & sits on the sofa head in hands, angry at himself. “We can’t go to the next QZ, we have a bad rep there already” he mumbles voice lowered as the realisation kicks in “I do, you don’t “ you say calmly as you sit down next to him.

In the last QZ in Philadelphia you had been caught with extra shoe laces than you werent meant to. They were for a local arts club, something you used to be a part of before the world collapsed. They were making warning signs for people, in a creative way as therapy. The teacher of the class stood up for you & said it was their orders, & they were sentenced to be executed & the art school was burnt down. You freed your friend the night before & tried to smuggle them out with Joel waiting in a car on the outside of the wall, but an officer caught up with the two of you, killing your friend but you strangled the office with those shoelaces, & wrote on his body a message as a warning to others before fleeing. The only place on the east coast who don’t know who you are is here in Boston, & going any further west means you won’t make it, so you’ve been lying low with Joel, doing what you can to help.

“I need to look at your hand” you say back in the now, passing him over his whisky. He winces as you touch two of his knuckles, trying to be brave but not being able to hide the pain it’s causing. “I think there’s a hair line fracture across it & one of your fingers” your say caressing the top of his hand. You both try & be as clean as possible, but living through the apocalypse means you’re always a little dirty. It makes your smooth palm along the top of his rough hand, an even more intense touch. What you wish those hands would actually do to you. “It’s okay I got this” Joel mumbles drinking straight from the bottle. “You’ve got to go to work to earn money Joel, at least let me strap you up, so you can lift stuff while wearing the gloves” & you dab his hand with some alcohol to stop any other type of infection. “It’s a bloody good thing I punch right handed as a leftie ouchhhh watch it” he was sniggering until you got to the third knuckle. It’s the happiest you’ve heard him in the 3 years you’ve know him. Any laugh or smile from anyone always fills the world with sunshine. For all of those 10 seconds the world seems a bit more normal.

You strap some cardboard to his finger as you believe they are broken & start to dress the hand, now all the dried blood has gone away as well as it can. While your attending to this, paying attention to his hand, & tracing every line, he’s staring at you, realising that maybe he could have some Happiness in this world, maybe it is time to tell you how he feels, after all these years. How when you comfort him, after he’s dreamed about Sarah, that it’s your voice & hands being reassuring, that makes him happy & calm. “There. Nice & easy, all done” you say triumphantly tying it off & going to move your hands from his, But he grabs them. “Don’t stop” he says & you lift your head to see his eyes meet yours. Eyes that are always so wide & full of sorrow & pain. But right now they are damp & dazzling. He holds onto your hands caressing them the way you did his. It means you’re both safe, but neither of you are breathing anymore, just transfixed on each other. He takes his hand & caresses your neck leading up to your face. “You are my purpose” he whispers.

Neither of you are sure who moves first but when your lips finally collide it’s electrifying. You’d always imagined what his would feel like as they brushed across yours. Closing your eyes all the built up emotions that you’ve hidden for the last few years, since your developed more than friendship feelings for Joel, wash up to the surface. His lips feel like they were made for this moment, plump & rounded, taking in each ounce of your own. His hand moves from your face into your hair behind your ear, cradling you. You have one firmly on his shoulder while the other is still locked in his hand caressing the injury you both seem to have forgotten about. This feels like the most right thing either of your have done since the start of the pandemic, & if the world ended right now you could die happy. “Joel” you moan into his mouth as you break away, remembering to breathe & you look him in his eyes as yours flicker open. One small tear trickles down his face. You face turns to concern, was that too much, have you both just ruined everything.

“Sorry, I promised to not get to close to anyone again after Sarah” he wipes the tear away & he drinks more whisky. Your hands are still entwined together, still tracing each others knuckles. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure why we did that” you mumble “I just don’t want to have the heart break of losing someone close again, you are my family & have been for a while, but I’ve never admitted it” Joel says & has another swig. Is this real emotional raw Joel Miller talking or is it the meds, drink & pain causing him to talk like this. Or is it a mixture of all the above. You don’t actually care, you bring his head down to your chest & rub his shoulders, soothing him as all his feelings finally start to come out after all this time “I’ve been your family forever Joel, but I will never replace your real one don’t worry, they are still the most important people in your life.” You say as you hand now reaches his hair to rough it up. After a few minutes of this he sits up & pulls you into his lap. “We got this, we might not be good people, but we can make this work” he sighs before you slowly while fluttering your eyelashes, bring your lips to his again. Smooth & full of wanting & needing, but nothing more. His hands stroke your back, trailing as far down as your waist band, making you moan, a collective want for more, but you know tonight’s not the night to do this. He tastes musky like the whisky, you can’t really smell him due the fact that everything now just smells the same in the world, but you imagine what Joel would have smelt like the day before outbreak day.