The Underground
"I want to change the world…" Matthias said, as he lightly rubbed his thumb across the top of Lukas' hand. Lukas smiled at his boyfriend's naivety, but thought for a moment about how those words could actually come to affect. He shifted under the covers, and laid his arms across his lover's chest, "And how will you do that?" he asked, now absentmindedly staring at the sun shining through their broken window. A soft wind blew through the broken glass, causing the white curtains to shift slightly.
Matthias replied, "Well with you by my side, I will… and maybe a team of more people with certain skill sets…. We could change the world back to normal! I know it!" he smiled, looking to his side at Lukas, who was in deep thought. "But hey," Matthias said, kissing him on the cheek, "Let's just think about the now, alright?" Lukas gave him a soft smile, causing Matthias to grin since Lukas wasn't normally one to be caught with that expression. He then kissed Lukas, trying to make most of the peaceful moment they rarely had in these days of the end of the world.
~(***)~
The couple finally decided to get out of their makeshift bed made of just a mattress and a few blankets found in the back closet of the broken down house they were staying in for the night. The sun was now in the middle of the sky and the air was hot with the smell of dry grass and fire. This was what life was like five months, three weeks, and two days into what most people called the apocalypse.
Lukas was just now buttoning up his pants as Matthias was putting on his shoes next to them. When they both finished getting fully dressed again, Matthias grabbed a duffle bag filled with guns that was next to their bed.
"You ready to go?" Matthias said, standing up, as he slung the bag over his shoulder. Lukas turned around, and nodded, "I guess. If there is no threat around, I don't see why we can't stay an extra night though…"
"Lukas…" Matthias replied, "Ya, now there is no threat, but what if we wake up and-and there are the infected everywhere? If we stay in one place too long, then they'll find us… Plus, we need to get to your parents place as soon as possible right?"
Lukas sighed, looking down, "I guess you're right… Let's go then…"
Matthias smiled at the fact he managed to win in an argument with Lukas. Ever since he had met the survivor, it had always been the latter's call. Over the course of time though, and the longer and better they knew each other, Matthias started to slowly feel so much trust between them and Lukas was finally letting him choose what they did. The first time Lukas let him make a call for the both of them, was when he let Matthias kiss him.
Matthias snapped out of his reminiscing and grinned to Lukas, "Let's go!"
Lukas rolled his eyes and followed Matthias out of the breezy bedroom and out of the house. Then they started walking along the dirt, country road of Norway. It was summer in Norway, and not a cloud was in the sky to distract them from the bright yellow blaze of the sun that was beating down on the earth. Lukas rolled up his sleeves, "It's too hot for this…" he complained, looking up at the sun, with his hand over his forehead.
"I know, I know," Matthias admitted, smiling to him, "But just a few more miles of walking and then we can settle into a new house for the night! The more we walk, the sooner you can see your family~."
"That almost sounds like something a criminal would say as he has me at gunpoint," Lukas said to Matthias, smirking in his direction, "And what would this criminal do if I decided I wanted to stop walking and rest for a while?"
Matthias blushed at Lukas' sudden playful behavior. He quickly recovered from this surprise, and smiled, "Well I guess I am just going to have to punish you then.."
Lukas squealed as Matthias trampled him to the ground, right there on the side of the road. While walking, they would always tease each other and it would almost always end in this. Matthias dropped the duffle bag he was carrying to the side, and tickled Lukas to the break of tears.
"Ok! Ok! I'll keep walking just stop! Please!" Lukas yelled, trying to push Matthias off of him, but kept failing due to the laughing taking all his strength. "What are you going to do for me?" Matthias teased, as he finally stopped the tickling, but started to pin Lukas down on the ground.
Lukas smirked, looking around for any infected before feeling ok with Matthias pinning him to the ground, "I would start suggesting things, but I'm pretty sure you already have something in mind~"
Matthias laughed, "You're right, I do! And it is," he kissed Lukas on the lips chastly, "kissing," he kissed Lukas again, "the love of my life," more kisses were given by Matthias to Lukas, "over and over again!"
Lukas laughed at his boyfriend's silly behavior, "I can't believe you are ok with us being defenseless on the side of the road!" Matthias kissed him again, saying, "Oh it's fine, Lukie! I don't think there is anyone out here to actually fight off~"
Matthias then kissed Lukas on the cheek, but then the Norwegian frowned, and said, "Matthias. There's an infected right behind you!"
Matthias' heart skipped a beat, and he immediately looked behind him, only to see nothing there. A sound of Lukas laughing could be heard, as Matthias smirked and looked back at him. "You little tease!" he said, straddling him, "You scared me half to death!"
Lukas kept laughing, "Well I wanted to see what you would do if we were actually attacked!"
Looking around to make sure that there was indeed no infected around to harm them, Matthias then looked back down to Lukas and grinned, "That's it. Now you get no mercy from my tickling!"
"No, Matthias please stop! I promise I'll never jo-!" Lukas pleaded, but was interrupted by his own break out in laughter. He tried to fight off Matthias, but Matthias was too strong for him. Both were around the same age, nineteen and twenty, with Matthias being the eldest. Lukas was weaker than the other but could shoot a gun well and run faster.
Both were too caught up in the hilarious moment that they didn't notice a car driving along the road they were on. Only when the car came to a stop was when they finally noticed it. Matthias turned his attention the car that was stopped just a few feet away. The windows were tinted so he couldn't see inside or how many people were in there.
Lukas was still trying to recover from the recent tickle session with his face a bright red color, and his breathing heavy and fast. He even had tears falling from his eyes from laughing so much. "Lukas… open up the bag slowly and get your handgun out…" Matthias said, keeping his eye on the car, "That's small enough to hide, just… be prepared for anything, alright?"
Lukas nodded, slowly unzipping the bag, and taking a small pistol out. "Matthias you need something to protect yourself t-!" Lukas started to say, but Matthias interrupted him, "You are my first priority, Lukas, now please, just get ready for whatever is in that car."
Matthias kept his position over Lukas, not wanting to making any sudden movements that could trigger something from the mysterious car. The door to the car then opened though, revealing a tall man with short, blonde hair and glasses, concealing his sharp, blue eyes. He had a gun in his hands and kept his eyes on Matthias and Lukas the whole time he was getting out of his car.
At first, there was a quiet staredown between the three, with Lukas ready to pull the trigger if the tall man tried anything, the tall man ready to do the same as Lukas, and Matthias ready to take the bullet for Lukas if the tall man did shoot.
There was a distant sound of growling from infected that could be heard around the bin. They must have followed the guy in the car. Matthias saw this happen before he met Lukas. He saw a family tortured until the infected came into the scene, and the bad people that had a car drove off, leaving them for the infected. He couldn't let that happen to him or Lukas!
It was visible in the tall man's face that he had started hearing the sounds of the infected. He finally spoke, "Are you in trouble?" he said, staring directly to Lukas. He had an almost non-understandable, thick accent as he spoke, and it took Lukas and Matthias a moment to actually detect what he said.
"Are you in trouble? Is this man hurting you?" he said, putting his gun down a bit, and coming closer.
Lukas looked at Matthias, confused, "What?" he asked the man, looking back up at him.
"From the car it looked like he was attacking you…" the man explained, not changing the nonchalant expression across his face.
Matthias and Lukas finally relaxed a bit more, realizing that this man had only stopped to help out Lukas. "Oh, he wasn't," Lukas explained, "He is my...friend, and we were just messing around…" Matthias looked to Lukas, knowing why he called him just a friend. A few weeks back, they had gotten attacked a group that when they found out they were gay, tried to kill them. Lukas wasn't going to take his chances this time.
The tall man nodded, "Oh… Alright, sorry to bother you then." The man smiled faintly and started to walk backwards to his car, still having eye contact on the two on the ground. Matthias looked to Lukas and smiled awkwardly, before he yelled, "Wait!"
The man stopped, and stared at Matthias. Matthias took this as an opportunity to explain his sudden outburst, and said, "Where are you headed?" The man shrugged, "I'm going up North to try and find my wife. I don't give rides."
He then started to get in his car, but Matthias wasn't going to give up that easy. For the last two months, he and Lukas had been trying to get to Lukas' parents' house, and this could finally be their break! He got up off of Lukas, and ran towards the man.
"Matthias stop!" Lukas yelled, getting up after him. He had his gun ready just incase anything happened. Just like Matthias, he was ready to do anything to protect the latter. Matthias held his hands up, and said, "Please! My...friend.. and I just need a ride to Sandnes which is just a few hours away. We have people waiting at a house on the outskirts of town. We can supply you with food and water or you can just drop us off before we are anywhere near the city, but please, just-!"
"Ok," the man interrupted him.
"Wait...what?" Matthias responded, surprised the man was won over so easily, "Are you serious?"
"Ya," the man replied, "You guys look nice enough, and it is only two hours away. I need the food and water too."
Matthias smiled, "That's great!" he ran to get the duffel bag, and started walking to the car by Lukas. Lukas smiled faintly, as Matthias walked next to him, "Isn't this great, Lukas? You are going to get to see your parents again!"
"Ya…" Lukas said, frowning a bit, and looked down. "What's wrong?" Matthias asked, worried. Lukas looked up at him, and smiled at his worrying boyfriend, "It's nothing…" "You sure?" he asked, holding Lukas' hand secretively so the man wouldn't see. Though he was nice, they still had to take precautions. Lukas nodded, as they got into the back seat of the man's car.
The man started the car, and they all three quietly drove down the road. A few infected could be seen off in the distance, but were no where near intimidating by the standard of numbers or distance. "So what is your name?" Matthias asked the man, grinning, as he still secretly held Lukas' hand.
"Berwald," the man answered, simply, "Yours?"
"Well I'm Matthias, and this is Lukas!" he pointed to Lukas who was frowning, and looking out the window, probably not even knowing about the conversation that was going on in the car.
An empty silence filled the car yet again… "So your wife! How did you guys get separated?"
"Went on a business trip to Sweden when the whole matter happened. Without the proper resources, it has taken me a while to get back to Tino, but we contacted each other right before the power went out everywhere, and Tino is waiting for me at our house," Berwald replied.
"Tino…" Matthias said, "Isn't Tino a guy name? No offense or anything to your wife…"
"Matthias!" Lukas said, finally engaging in the conversation, as he slapped Matthias on the shoulder.
"No, It's fine.. Tino is a guy name mainly because my Tino is a guy." Berwald responded, not changing his expression at all.
"Wait what?" Matthias asked, "But you said Tino was your wife."
"I did," Berwald replied, "That was when I was taking precautions, thinking that you two might be homophobic, but I see you are holding hands… Are you two boyfriends?"
Matthias looked sheepishly to Lukas, and smiled as the latter rolled his eyes. "We are.. and that is good that we got that matter cleared up! Makes things less awkward! You have your husband and I have my boyfriend, oh and how old are you again?"
"Matthias shut up," Lukas finally said, getting tired of Matthias rambling on.
"I am twenty three," Berwald said, answering Matthias' question, and ignoring Lukas. To him, it was nice getting to speak to someone after five weeks of being alone. It was refreshing hearing someone's voice, even though it was a loud, fast one. But you can't choose your friend, right?
"You have asked a lot of questions," Berwald continued, "but I know nothing about you guys. Where are you two from? How did you guys meet?"
"I'm from Oslo, Norway," Lukas said, quietly. "And I am from the awesome capital of Denmark! Copenhagen!" Matthias also said, not as quietly though, "And we met at a Publix a little South of Oslo. He was in trouble and I saved him!"
A small laugh came out of Lukas, as he said, "Whatever, I saved you!" Matthias smirked at him, "I don't know what you are talking about~ I totally untied you and killed most of the men that were trying to kill you."
"I don't think two out of six men is most of them, Matthias…" Lukas replied, crossing his arms and smiling faintly.
"You were keeping count? Well in my defense, one of the guys I killed was like the final boss of the group. The four guys you killed were easy and practically weaponless~" Matthias argued.
"Whatever…." Lukas mumbled. Berwald looked in the rear view mirror and saw that they were still holding hands as they argued. He smiled, laughing a little under his breath as he drove on.
After thirty minutes or so of silence and or background bickering between the two in the backseat, Berwald finally asked, "So why are you two headed for this house? Who is waiting for you?"
"Oh, Lukas' parents and his brother are there at the house! Lukas' dad was a survivalist and created a plan for if the world were to actually end. When Lukas went off to college, his dad told him that if anything were to happen, he would give Lukas six months to travel back to them, so they could all survive together," Matthias explained, smiling.
Berwald nodded, still keeping his eyes on the road, "That is great that your dad thought this was coming. It gave your family the advantage."
"Ya, I guess," Lukas mumbled, "He just made our family look crazy when the world wasn't ending. I supposed it was worth it though.."
Matthias leaned against Lukas to try and cheer him up, but a frown never left Lukas' face. Matthias knew that with Lukas, it was harder to make him feel better about certain things, but that wouldn't stop him from snuggling the boy have to death to make him feel better again.
"So Matthias, where is your family?" Berwald asked, changing the subject.
"I don't have any. I grew up in an orphanage~" Matthias said, "I have lots of friends from the orphanage though that are like family, but I have no idea where they are."
Berwald nodded again, "Sorry to change the subject abruptly, but it is getting dark. We should probably get shelter. It's not even safe to drive at night." He then turned down a small road to a strip of houses that were each six acres away from each other. He pulled into an abandoned house that looked stable and safe enough to stay in for the night.
When he parked the car, Lukas and Matthias got out quickly, grabbing a gun each from their duffle bag. They had done this so many times before, that the procedure was ingrained in the brains. Rule one of checking a house was to stay together. Matthias made that one up because he didn't want to be too late if Lukas got into any trouble.
Step one was to walk around the outside, checking for any infected. Once that was all clear, then Matthias and Lukas would knock on the door to the house, and listen in to see if there was any movement. If there wasn't any, they would cautiously walk inside and check every room, level, and cabinet. If there was movement going on in the house, they would still go in, and be ready to shoot. Then they would check the whole house.
This time, after Matthias and Lukas got done checking out the outside, they walked up the stairs of the porch with Berwald behind them this time. Lukas readied his gun and knocked on the door. After putting his ear up against the door and listening for two minutes, he said to the two behind him, "I don't hear anything."
Both Matthias and Berwald stayed quiet as Lukas slowly opened the creaking door. Thankfully it wasn't locked, but that just meant that there was more of a chance of there being something in the house. Matthias stayed close to Lukas, making sure that Lukas was safe at all times. The house would have been pitch black if it hadn't been for the daylight that was still dimly lighting up the piece of earth they were on.
In a record time of ten minutes, the whole level was cleared out as safe. Now, the sun was going down, and shadows cast upon the whole house. The sound of the infected could now be heard outside, and they were close.
"I should probably get some food and lights outside of the car before it gets too dark," Berwald whispered, turning around and exiting the house. Matthias smiled, and looked to Lukas, "I guess that leaves us to check the second level!"
Lukas shushed Matthias, and knocked on the wall loudly. "I hate checking out two level houses…" Lukas mumbled under his breath, as he waited for more sounds.
The sound of scratching and rolling around came from the cabinet of a room they had already checked. "What the heck?" Matthias asked out loud, "I didn't see anything before… Stay here Lukas, I'll check it out."
Lukas rolled his eyes, "Matthias I can fend for myself. I'll just go ahead and go up there. I don't hear anything anyway."
Matthias stared at him, eyes wide and worried, "F-Fine.. Just please stay safe. I'll take care of this thing and be right up after you."
Lukas smiled and nodded, "Alright." Matthias was about to turn around to check on the sound, but Lukas quickly kissed him on the lips, smiling. Matthias was surprised by the kiss, as Lukas said, "I love you~"
Matthias smiled, blushing, "I love you too!" He then practically skipped over to where the noise was coming from as Lukas directed his attention back to the upstairs. He walked up the stairs slowly with his gun at hand. He couldn't hear anything still, so he was probably safe.
He walked upstairs and started searching through all the rooms. The first room he looked into looked like a guest room. He doubted anyone would be in there since everything was so neat, but he still checked just in case. The room and the bathroom attached to it was clear, so Lukas moved on to the next room.
It ended up being a child's room, which always made Lukas feel uneasy. Just thinking about a little kid going through this mess of a world made him feel sick to the stomach. He looked over at the green and blue striped bed, checking to see if anything was under the covers. He ended up seeing blood all over the sheets and pillow. He had to turn away to stop himself from thinking about the child.
He then quickly moved on to the other rooms, checking if there was any sign of an infected. As he was just about to check the last room, he heard a shout coming from downstairs, and it sounded like Matthias.
"Matthias?" Lukas shouted, running to the top of the stairs to see what happened. He then heard laughing and Matthias said, "Sorry! I found out the noise was coming from a rabbit!" Matthias then came into view, showing that he was holding and petting a common rabbit. Matthias smiled at Lukas, "We can totally perform the Circle of Life number now by holding this rabbit up in the air! I think I am going to name it-Lukas behind you!"
Lukas was confused for a second about why Matthias would give the rabbit such a name like that...and why he would name the rabbit anything at all, but it soon came into view that that was probably not a name for the rabbit.
Lukas quickly got his gun ready, and turned around, but it was too late. An infected came at him, and tried to bite him, but he pushed the infected back. This caused the infected to get more aggressive and come at him, making Lukas tumble backwards down the stairs, with the infected close behind him.
The fall down the stairs had cause a major pain to stimulate in Lukas' back, making him groan in pain. With just his luck though, the infected landed right on top of him, unaffected by the fall down the stairs. The infected roared before he tried to rip Lukas' flesh open.
Lukas tried to lift his arms up, but the pain in his back was to major to ignored. He cried out in pain, just before the infected was shot dead. The gun shot threw the infected off of him. Lukas just layed there afterwards, trying to figure out all that happened. How did he not know that the infected was behind him?
Matthias kneeled down by Lukas, "Lukas are you alright? Were you bitten? Are you hurt in anyway?" Lukas could feel tears dropping down from Matthias' eyes to his face. Lukas shook his head, for he was thankfully not bitten. He was just...so close… That could have been the end of it all, and that fact scared him.
Matthias picked Lukas up and brought him over to a cleanish couch in the middle of the cleared out living room, and laid him down. "Lukas are you in pain? I am so sorry, I should have saved you sooner, I just left my gun in the other room when I found the rabbit, I'm so sorry!"
Lukas tried to laugh a little, but it came out pitiful, "Don't worry Matt, I'm fine. My back just hurts a bit from the tumble down the stairs and I'm shocked. That's all."
Matthias hugged Lukas, still worried for him, and said, "That's still bad. Only you would be so calm about being that close to become an infected." Lukas kissed Matthias on the cheek, "I know I would never get bitten with you around to protect me~"
Matthias smiled, blushing, "You got that right. I will protect you with my life, Lukie!"
Lukas groaned, "No stupid nicknames, Dane, the moment was almost perfect."
Matthias laughed and kissed Lukas again. He was glad Lukas was ok, but that really was close. He felt like he was more shocked than Lukas actually was. He couldn't even think about what he would do if he didn't save him in time. That would truly be the end of the world for him.