The next morning, Marinette was peppered by questions yet again by the very inquisitive Alya.
"Wait so tell me what this 'Chat Noir' looked like again?" Alya asked between a mouthful of canned peaches.
"I told you I couldn't see his face that well because of his goggles. But he was tan, had these bright crystal green eyes and wavy blonde hair. I swear he could've been a model if the world was still normal." She said sighing at the constant asking. Looking around, she felt relaxed by the tranquil nature scene. Their camp was by the river, which was gushing loudly and clearly beside them. The sky was a cloudless radiant blue, the trees only beginning to show the smallest hint of browning. A chorus of small songbirds chirped in the air, and the rustle of small woodland creatures could be heard in the bushes. The smell of pine and grass and fish permeated the air, and it gave Marinette an overall cheerful feeling. It was unusually warm as well, so neither girls had their jackets on.
"And remind me why you agreed to meet up with him again? He could be luring you into a trap Mari!" She said glaring at Marinette with disapproving eyes.
"I'm not stupid, I'll have my weapons with me. But he already had the chance to kill me, heck he could've left me in the house with the zombies no problem. But nope, he boosted me up first. I don't know Alya, for some reason I trust him, I can't explain it. You're just going to have to trust my instincts on this one." Marinette implored of her best friend. Sighing, Alya relented.
"Fine, I'll trust you. But please don't get yourself killed." Her best friends stare was completely somber, and Marinette knew one of them couldn't handle losing the other. After all the two had been through, they were bonded for life and would never leave each other.
"Wasn't planning on it." Marinette's tone was completely serious as well, and Alya gave her a grateful smile. Then a crash in the bushes ruined the perfection of the nature around them, and the girls scrambled to find their weapons. Alya grabbed her double barrelled shotgun and Marinette grabbed her hatchet. They both trembled and were breathing raggedly as they stared at the foliage from where the noise came, waiting for the inevitable groan of corpses.
But that didn't come. Instead a teenage boy with orange headphones around his neck fell through and landed on his face in the dirt, laughing as he did so. A taller golden-haired boy followed more gracefully than his friend. The girls didn't relax their stances, but the boys hadn't spotted them yet.
"Dude, you totally tripped me!" The boy with the headphones said while standing up and brushing himself off, brandishing a distinct surfer accent.
"I did not, you just fell on that branch." The golden haired one replied, a smile on his face. He glanced up and spotted the two murderous girls and froze, tapping his friend on the shoulder. His friend turned around and spotted the girls as well, and froze in fear like the blonde.
"HEY!" Alya shouted threateningly. "What are you doing here!? This is OUR camp and we are armed." Her voice was deadly and malevolent, but Marinette could tell she was shaking. Both boys raised their hands up in surrender.
"Whoah! We just came to catch some fish from the river, we didn't even KNOW there was a camp down here." Headphones said, his hands still in the air.
"We don't mean any harm." Goldilocks added in. Alya tightened the grip on the shotgun and walked towards them, jerking her head for Marinette to follow. They approached cautiously, carefully scrutinizing the boy's movements. Goldilocks seemed familiar to Marinette but she didn't know why.
"Goldilocks, Headphones, drop any weapons you're carrying." Alya threatened. Both boys did as they were told and dropped two pistols and two hunting knives. Alya then looked at Marinette.
"Search them to make sure they aren't hiding anything." Marinette nodded, and she quickly patted Headphones down while still holding her hatchet. She found nothing and moved onto Goldilocks, who felt even more familiar up close. He seemed to feel some sort of recognition as well, as his eyes widened as she got closer. She patted him down as well but found nothing at all, and walked back to Alya. She breathed a small sigh of relief but kept her weapon trained on them.
"You can put your hands down." She said in a more relaxed tone. The boys did so very relieved. "Sorry for the pat down, can't be too careful. Now who are you and what are you doing here?" They glanced between each other, and Headphones elbowed his buddy nervously to answer.
"Um... I'm Adrien and this is Nino. Like we said we're just here to catch some fish and head back to our camp, we swear we didn't know there was a camp here." He said nervously, the truth very evident in his voice. After staring them both down for a tense minute, Alya took the shotgun off of them but kept it in her hands, Marinette followed suit. Both boys visibly relaxed and sighed with relief.
"Fine. I believe you. I'm Alya and this is Marinette, sorry about the intensity there, we've just been screwed over before and didn't want to repeat history." She said, holding out her hand to shake. The boy named Nino hesitantly held his hand out and they shook, and the tension in the air instantly melted. "How old are you guys anyway? It's unusual to see a fellow teenager these days."
"We're both seventeen." Adrien answered.
"Sixteen for the both of us." Alya replied cooly, her demeanor much more relaxed. Marinette found that she couldn't stop staring at the boy named Adrien, her half-recognition of him annoying her. "Look, since we kinda just held you at gunpoint wanna come over to our camp and sit down for a moment? You look like you've been walking a while." Marinette was surprised by her friendliness, she was normally more wary of strangers, but her judgement had always been correct so she trusted her. Both boys smiled.
"Yeah that'd actually be great, we walked all the way from the city so we're kinda tired." Adrien said, his green eyes glowing. The girls led them back over, making them leave their weapons on the ground. Alya didn't offer them any food, she wasn't that selfless, but she stirred the fire and boiled some more water to drink. Nino seemed to be admiring the rather cozy looking campsite.
"This is a pretty cool setup you guys have. How long have you been settled here?"
"About three months now." Marinette answered, surprising both of them by speaking. This whole time she had stayed quiet but she didn't want to seem like Alya's silent subordinate. "What about you? How long have you guys been in the city?"
"Only around a month, it's not exactly the safest place to be." Adrien said, smiling at her. It was then Marinette noticed how attractive he was, but still couldn't place where she'd seen his face.
"Yeah I know, yesterday I was scavenging in a house and in two seconds it was overrun by corpses. I was lucky I was able to shimmy out the window." Marinette said, leaving out the part about Chat Noir. That would raise too many questions she didn't feel like answering.
"They seem to come out of nowhere don't they?" Adrien responded, his voice slightly distance as if he was thinking of something.
"That's how they won." Alya muttered bitterly, silencing the casual conversation. The quiet stretched on for what seemed like an eternity, no one knowing how to respond to that blunt statement. Marinette decided to change the subject.
"So where are you guys from?"
"We came from Paris, we were lucky to get out of the city when the first wave hit dude, the traffic was madness!" Nino exclaimed, grateful for the new topic.
"Wow, we came from Paris also. But Alya and I knew we couldn't get through the throng of cars, so we barricaded ourselves in my parent's bakery for about a month…" She trailed off, her voice getting quieter. Great now you've made things awkward again, good job. The boys looked at her sympathetically and Alya stared at her with knowing.
"What bakery was it? Maybe we knew it?" Adrien suggested, changing the subject yet again.
"It was the Tom and Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie on Gotlib Street." Marinette said without thinking. How odd that she even remembered the street it was on when there was no use for that information anymore?
"Oh yeah! I think I went in there once with some friends, dude that place had the best croissants!" Nino praised enthusiastically. Marinette smiled thoughtfully.
"Yeah, my dad always knew how to make them just right." She said wistfully, thinking of her parents. She and Alya never found out what happened to them, they had been out to dinner when the first wave had hit and never came back. And although it was a mystery, It was easy to infer their fate. Not wanting the subject to become awkward again, Marinette continued the conversation. "Adrien, you look really familiar to me, have we met?" He looked at her, very surprised that she seemed to be thinking the same thing. Nino began laughing though.
"Oh yeahhh! Dude Adrien here was a big model for his dad's clothing company, Gabriel Agreste? Ever heard of him? Adrien was the face of the company, you probably saw his posters all over Paris!" Nino explained. It all clicked and Marinette remembered seeing a billboard for some perfume or something with this blonde boy's face on it. To think the world used to be obsessed with such material superfluous items, now the thought of scented liquid being that important seemed laughable.
"Wow Gabriel Agreste? I was such huge fan of him, I used to want to be a fashion designer. I always watched the live streams from the runway shows." Marinette reminisced. They all laughed at the coincidence. "It's weird to think that only a year ago I used to care about such silly things." She pondered out loud.
"We all did Mari. It was how the world worked, no one was fighting for survival so with our free time we focused on trivial things like makeup and fashion and TV and movies." Alya surmised. The group nodded in agreement. They ended up talking for the next few hours, getting along splendidly. The girls found out Nino and them had even gone to the same school, but Adrien had been homeschooled. When it started getting dark out, the boys realized they had done no fishing and still had to walk home, but they all knew nighttime was when it was most dangerous. So Alya invited them to stay in their camp for the night. Sleeping outside was too dangerous so they'd all have to squeeze into the tent, but the large green tent was roomy enough.
Marinette ended up being squished between Alya and Adrien but was perfectly warm even in the cold autumn night. The girls had been worried about inviting two boys into a tent with them, but they were nothing but perfect gentlemen and kept thanking them profusely for letting them stay. With her new friends by her side, Marinette fell asleep with ease.
The next morning Alya finally offered the two starving boys some food, to which they gratefully accepted. They finally went fishing that day, and gave two of the fish they caught to the girls as a thank you gift. Then the time came for the new unlikely friends to leave.
"Are you sure you'll be safe?" Marinette asked worriedly and the boys packed up their supplies.
"Yeah Mari we'll be fine dude! We were able to trek all the way out here without any problems so I doubt we would have any on the way back!" Nino responded cheerfully. The whole group was happier at making new friends, a sense of companionship always brought joy to the soul.
"Okay but if you guys get into any trouble you can always come back here, got it?" She told them in a very maternal tone.
"We know, thank you guys so much for everything. I'm really glad we ran into you." Adrien said gently while smiling, Marinette began to blush.
"Yeah dude totally! Even if you guys held us at gunpoint and gave us a pat down first! No hard feelings about that by the way, we probably would've done the same." Nino reassured the girls. They all hugged, knowing there was always the chance they wouldn't see each other again. Marinette's cheeks reddened even more when she hugged Adrien. She didn't know why, was it possible she had… feelings for him? In the apocalypse? It was ridiculous to her but she couldn't help but admire his gorgeous face and kind words. Then they walked away, leaving the girls alone again as they watched their new friends disappear into the foliage from which they came, with streaks of orange still adorning the morning sky above. And suddenly Marinette remembered something. She was supposed to meet Chat today! Her excitement welled up at the prospect of seeing her new friend again as she got dressed and prepared to go scavenging.