Zil Sperry woke up with a pounding headache and, thankfully, a near-empty hideout.
He propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed at his eyes. He yawned. He wished he had something to drink, or something to eat, but likely he wouldn't get much, if any, today. Most of the others were out looking, or maybe grabbing some water, but they wouldn't be back for a while.
Stupid moofs, getting all of the good stuff.
"You're up," Lance said, and Zil sat up completely, then. Lance was still handsome, after all of this. He was maybe a little skinnier than he'd been, edging into 'definitely underfed' territory, but he still had… he still had everything that made him Lance.
Whenever he looked at Lance, something kindled deep in his stomach and he didn't know if it was desire or jealousy.
"Yeah," Zil said. His voice was rough. He swallowed, but he didn't have much spit to spare. "Everyone else go out to look for stuff?"
"Yeah," Lance said. "Alicia's going to try and see if she can get us some water. Turk and Lisa are going to see if they can loot stuff from the kids going out and picking cabbages. And Antoine's trying to get his hands on more of that shit from Bassem."
"Please tell me he's just going after drugs," Zil said. "That… stuff he cooks up makes this place reek."
"Yeah," Lance said. He moved from his position on the other end of the room to sit beside Zil, their shoulders bumping. Zil kept his gaze on his knees, because he was pretty sure that if he looked straight at Lance his face would set on fire. "You got a plan, leader?"
It really made it hard to concentrate when Lance called him that. And it was hard to lie to Lance, too, because in reality Zil had no clue what he was doing. He'd just wanted to get back at Hunter for stealing his jerky.
But he looked Lance in the face and Lance was right there, just centimeters away, and wow he couldn't even talk like this. But he couldn't look away, so he settled on just sort of sitting and staring, his mouth half-open and Lance sort-of smirking and how could one person be handsome and athletic and smart and just overall the best person ever?
"Well?" Lance asked.
"I'm working on it," Zil said, but his voice sort of came out a squeak. Lance put his hand on Zil's and if he wasn't already dying, this would have killed him.
"That's good," Lance said. "We don't want some half-assed plan. Those stupid freaks, those moofs – they can fight, and we need something really good."
"Yeah," Zil said. "Really good."
He was right there.
Lance sort of leaned toward him, his forehead knocking against Zil's in a sort of… a sort of something really distracting, and Zil wondered why the hell he had a girlfriend when Lance existed. He also didn't know why Lance was doing this, but hell, he was going to take it.
"Enough of that, though," Lance said. "You know why Lisa's your girlfriend?"
"Because she was the first person that tried?" Zil asked. His voice was still higher than it should have been.
"No," Lance said. "Because you don't really know how to kiss."
Zil really hoped that this was going the way that he thought it was. He also really hoped that nobody walked in at this moment, because he was pretty sure that if they did Lance would be so far away from him so quickly they could call him the Breeze.
"O-oh," Zil said. "U-uh."
His mouth was really dry. Just because he was thirsty.
Lance kissed him, and this was way better than kissing Lisa. Lisa was ugly, and Lisa was stupid, and Lance was handsome and wonderful and also he just kissed way better. When he moved back, Zil was gasping for breath and trying to get his heart under control. Lance grinned a sort-of half-grin that didn't really help anything.
"See?" Lance said. "Kiss her like that."
"Who? Oh. Lisa. Right," Zil said. He was having a really hard time concentrating. Lisa. Right. Girlfriend. Person who was a girl who he totally didn't find completely hideous and repulsive. That Lisa. He cleared his throat and Lance moved a few inches away from him, and they sat in a slightly awkward silence until Hank came back, crowing about attacking some moof or another.
I was mostly just listening to my Gone fanmix on 8tracks and it was like, one song is supposed to be like, the fire, and it's like, I was like, how about some Zilance? All I write is Howdilio/Howard Bassem, so let's find an objectively worse person to write about, you know what I mean?