the longer way round

by fieryhermitturtles

... is not the best way to take in a zombie apocalypse. alternatively: a strange fungus has turned much of earth's population into mindless cannibals and becoming separated from your group means almost certain death. When Oikawa falls, Iwaizumi picks him up and just runs. What now? (CROSS-POSTED FROM AO3)

Iwaizumi knew they were close when the predominant colour underfoot went from grey to rusty brown. Beside him, Kindaichi retched and the sour smell of vomit joined the overwhelming stench of rot.

Rotting wood. Rotting food. Rotting flesh.

Everything rotten.

In a second, Watari was beside Kindaichi, rubbing his back in soothing circles. Iwaizumi left him to it and picked his way to where Hanamaki was surveying the street, eyes squinted against the harsh sun. A tattered red dollar-store bandana hid the rest of his expression. Like Iwaizumi, he had tied his outermost layer—a stained navy zip-up—around his waist to combat the sweltering heat.

"I know they said we got picked clean, but this is somehow worse than I expected," Hanamaki said once Iwaizumi entered whispering range, "but I didn't think it'd be this bad." He straightened and tugged his bandanna down with a sigh of relief. The red line nearly disappeared into the faded sunburn scars on his cheeks. Like the rest of them, his lips were severely chapped and cracked from the lack of water. "Thank fucking god we got too old for on-campus housing, huh?"

"Yeah, thank god."

"Think we'll see anyone we know?"

"I don't think you want to."

Hanamaki's chuckle was more a movement of the shoulders than sound. "Yeah, they sure won't be fun-gis." When Iwaizumi didn't respond, he nudged him with his elbow. "Get it? Fungi, fun guys?"

"You aren't funny."

"Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood." Hanamaki scratched his head vigorously. "I don't think we'd recognize anyone anyways, with all that white shit growing on their face. Good thing we had the first-years with us when the outbreak happened."

"Yeah, definitely."

Iwaizumi didn't want to think about what would've happened if either Kunimi or Kindaichi had been on campus. Now, as Hanamaki kept an eye on the area, he chanced a glance back where he'd been standing previously. Thankfully, Kindaichi had had the good sense to pull his bandanna out of the way before throwing up. He was currently huddled and facing away from his own vomit, face drawn and green. Watari was still with him, now joined by Kunimi, who was on his feet but didn't look better for wear: he kept himself turned away from the brown-splattered street ahead.

"D'you think it hit them what would've happened if they hadn't been hanging out with us when it all went to hell?" Hanamaki asked Iwaizumi, hands on his hips.

"Oh, yeah."

A hand tapped Iwaizumi's shoulder firmly. Between the scruffy, over-long black hair that hung over his forehead and the bandanna covering everything below the eyes, not much of Matsukawa's face was visible. For once, the man's eyebrows were pinched together.

"You done chatting?" Matsukawa demanded.

"I thought we were giving Kindaichi a break," Hanamaki said. He peered over his shoulder and grimaced. "Are you gonna make him walk already?"

"No. Oikawa wants to see the map. He says we're going to get lost."

Now it was Iwaizumi's turn to frown. "What? It's just straight lines and turns from here to the campus." He pushed Matsukawa's hand away. "He's being stupid. Tell him we're not getting lost."

"Do I look like a fucking pigeon to you? Just give me the map so I can shut him up before something else does it for me."

Hanamaki raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Woah, Mattsun. Chill."

Unfortunately, Matsukawa did not look inclined to chill. Iwaizumi could sympathize: overexposure to Oikawa does that. He gave Matsukawa's shoulder a reassuring squeeze and left Hanamaki to talk the angry man down. All of them were covered with the grime that came from a mix of summer heat, lack of showers, and the occasional mad dash for survival. It made for a ghastly crowd and Oikawa was no exception to this rule. Like Hanamaki, he was keeping watch on the perimeters, straining to peer into the shadows cast by nearby buildings. Iwaizumi tapped his shoulder.

Oikawa jumped. "Oh. Iwa-chan." He leaned closer so his words weren't rendered indiscernible by the bandanna. The intensity with which scrutinized the shadows was at odds with the grey bags under his eyes. "Did Mattsun tell you I wanted the map?"

"Yes. You're driving him crazy, y'know," Iwaizumi muttered. He shoved Oikawa's shoulder resentfully, prompting a quiet yelp of complaint."What do you think you're doing?"

"Talking to him about what to do if we came across zombies. Contingency plans."

"Stop that. Don't put him more on edge than he already is."

"He'll be fine. Anyways, did he tell you I needed to look at the map?"

Iwaizumi sighed. "You don't. It's all straight lines. We aren't going to get lost."

Oikawa's expression turned pinched. "Wow. Iwa-chan's so rude."

"And you're just making everyone more worried. You aren't helping anyone." Iwaizumi gestured at his knee. "And are you gonna sit or what? You know your knee's been fucked. What if we need to run or climb something?"

Oikawa rolled his eyes. "Yes, mom."

At his side, Iwaizumi's hand twitched. "You can't just stand on it all the time. I'm not going back for your sorry ass if you trip or do something stupid because you were too stubborn to take a break, you hear?"

"Of course, mom."

"You—!" Among the many unfortunate realities of the apocalypse was a lack of convenient projectiles. Iwaizumi settled for yanking Oikawa down by the ear. "I said you hear?"

"Yeah, yeah! Ow! I hear! Let me go!"

"Keep it down! Are you trying to die?"

The two men turned around. Yahaba's glare was withering. He nodded tersely at the twin bows of apology before turning to accept a bottle of water, now half-empty, from Kindaichi's shaky hand.

Now preoccupied with retying his lopsided bandanna, Oikawa looked no closer to resting his knee than before. Iwaizumi sighed. At this point, it'd be best to get to safety as soon as possible. "If you aren't going to take a break, let's just check on Kindaichi and get going," he said, resigned, "I don't like being out in the open for so long like this."

Oikawa glanced pointedly towards the sky. "It's a sunny day. We'll be fine."

It was, indeed, a brutally sunny day and Iwaizumi wouldn't be surprised if it had been a combination of the scorching heat and spore inhalation that had cost Kindaichi his breakfast. Unfortunately, it was also an essential precaution if they were to remain safe: the few broadcasts they had been able to catch before their phones ran out of power all proclaimed that the Turned avoid heat and light. Something about the fungus trying to avoid getting dried out. Given that they had yet to be attacked, Iwaizumi could only assume the advice was sound.

Oikawa looked around before cautiously tugging his own bandana down to his chin to take a quick sniff. "Nothing." He picked his way over to the first-years and crouched so that he was eye-level with the still-huddled Kindaichi. "Should be fine to have your bandana off, though you'll have to put it back on before we head out of sunlight, okay?"

Kindaichi nodded, mouth a tight line. Oikawa drew away again and, at his insistent stare, Iwaizumi sighed and pulled the map from his back pocket. It was a shoddily-drawn thing, copied in blue ballpoint pen from Iwaizumi's now-dead phone onto a page torn from one of their notebooks. Its torn edges were fuzzy against his fingertips and he traced their planned path with his index. Oikawa crowded closer and Iwaizumi shifted so that the other man could also see the map without having to peer over his shoulder. Hanamaki and a now-calmer Matsukawa joined the huddle.

"It's at the cultural centre." Reaching over from his side of the map, Hanamaki tapped a small red star. "Right here. It can't be too big if it's surrounded by this many houses." He glanced up at Oikawa. "Are you absolutely sure you don't want to go to the med-sci building instead? It's not that much further away."

"I'm not comfortable being on campus," Oikawa said. "Given how badly we got hit, I don't think we'd be able to make it if we weren't already in the building."

"But a small stronghold on the edge of such a high concentration of infected. I don't think they'd last long either," Hanamaki said.

"Right. If it's surrounded by this many houses, it can't be big." Matsukawa huffed. "I don't like the idea of going on campus either, but there's been no radio from them for a week." He looked at Oikawa, eyes narrow. "That's long enough for something to happen. We'll be going in blind."

Iwaizumi nodded. Matsukawa had a point.

Oikawa shook his head. "We'll just take a look. I don't want to get any closer to the campus than I have to. It's too risky."

"And going into to this cultural centre isn't? In case you haven't noticed, we're going into the side streets. There won't be any of this," Hanamaki said, making a large gesture over his head, "keeping us safe."

"Exactly." Matsukawa shook his bangs out of his face. He crossed his arms and frowned at the map, sideways from his point of view. Then he met Oikawa's gaze squarely. "We might be too big of a big group, but if we split up, we shouldn't make too much noise. There's no point going to the cultural centre when the med-sci building is this close."

"I told you. We're not splitting up. It's already afternoon. If we take more than a few hours sneaking through the campus, we'll be screwed."

"If we get moving now, it won't take a few hours."

"Iwaizumi?" Hanamaki said.

The med-sci building would be the better choice if they trusted themselves to remember the campus. Iwaizumi prepared himself to say as much. Then, he caught Oikawa's eye and remembered his knee. "Oikawa's right. Like he said, campus is just too far and we don't know what it's like in there. There isn't enough daylight left for us to plan and go."

The freckled man sighed. His shoulders dropped. "There's daylight plenty." Hanamaki elbowed Matsukawa, whose expression was completely sullen. "C'mon. Let's go pick up our sick little onion-head and get moving."

Iwaizumi waited until the other pair was out of earshot before grabbing Oikawa's arm in a death grip. "If you make me look stupid for backing you up," he growled, "you won't have to wait for a zombie to get you."

Oikawa chuckled. "You wouldn't back me if you didn't agree." He pinched the back of Iwaizumi's hand, hard, and did a muttered headcount as the other man backed away. "Yahaba, Watari, Makki, Mattsun, the babies, you, me. That's all of us. Let's go."

They started moving again and soon arrived at the intersection where street branched off into suburbia. In the shade of the tall trees, the musty smell grew steadily stronger until it was almost unbearable. Iwaizumi's hand twitched with the urge to clamp over his already-covered nose and mouth. He settled for tugging at the knot on the back of his head until the bandana, damp with sweat and exhaled condensation, was uncomfortably tight.

The group trekked on in a tight cluster with Oikawa at its head, map in hand. When Iwaizumi tried to speak to Matsukawa, he only scoffed and lengthened his stride until he was out of the safe speaking range. Hanamaki busied himself on the group's left flank, scanning the shadows just past the sidewalk. Leaves rustled overhead, an unpruned summer canopy that let sunlight through only in a mottled strip down the middle of the street. Once, shade would have been welcome. Now, it only sent shivers down Iwaizumi's spine as he tried to ignore the sounds emanating from the surrounding shadows: shuffling, crunching, and something eerily similar to a man sobbing if the man in question had his mouth stuffed full. The last grew louder as they proceeded down the street.

At last, the cultural centre came into view. Another few steps and Iwaizumi could see the entrance, a pair of heavy doors like those of a school. One of them hung open. At this distance, it became clear that the cries were coming from the alleyway beside the building, punctuated by rhythmic thuds as if someone was pounding the wall in frustration.

Oikawa raised his right arm, bent at the elbow and hand in a fist: Stop. Stay. Yahaba pushed to the front of the group and leaned in to whisper something urgently in his ear. Oikawa nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Matsukawa was already looking when Iwaizumi tried to catch his eye. Wordlessly, the other man stepped forward, subtly blocking Oikawa's way.

Iwaizumi ignored the indignant splutters and inched cautiously towards the alleyway until he could just peer inside.

On the far end, a young man was on his hands and knees, forehead pressed to the ground and shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs. The soil around him was unnaturally dark and the smell of fresh blood mingled with rotting organic refuse.

Then, Iwaizumi's foot crunched on gravel.

The young man looked over his shoulder. His mouth hung open, jaw clearly dislocated. He met Iwaizumi's horrified stare with cloudy eyes, looked down at the half-eaten arm in his hands, and keened. The sound he made as he rose, somewhere between a strangled gasp and a whimper, was a half-formed word: Run.

"Iwaizumi!"

Iwaizumi jerked back into reality with a gasp. The young man, crying again, had started slamming his head into the wall. In the otherwise silent street, each meaty thud was as good as a thunderclap. His sobs turned increasingly guttural with each impact.

"Shit." Iwaizumi's feet were his own again. "Fuck." He stumbled back a few more steps and would have fallen if not for Yahaba seizing him by the elbow. "Oh god."

Around them, the suburb came alive with the same hoarse screams.

As one, the group broke into a sprint back the way they came. The rush of blood in Iwaizumi's ears all but drowned out the frantic slaps of sneakers on pavement. With each step, his knees threatened to give out. He concentrated on the ragged breaths beside him—Yahaba's—and urged himself onwards.

Then, he had to brake abruptly to avoid bowling Kindaichi over.

Hanamaki groaned. "You have to be kidding me."

More shadows were emerging from the street ahead of them, white-orange blooms telling of the most dangerous kind of zombies: too far gone to have consciousness, not far gone enough for decomposition to have taken its toll. Like weathervanes disturbed by a passing breeze, heads swivelled to reveal faces in varying states of damage. One of the women had plate-like mushrooms growing from both of her eye sockets, left arm twisted in her red track jacket.

We're all going to die.

Then, the vision of oncoming death was replaced by a head of brown hair, made messier by a knotted bandanna.

Iwaizumi blinked. The black receded enough for him to register Oikawa, visibly shaking and looking around frantically for an escape. At the back of the group, Matsukawa was swearing loudly. Iwaizumi glanced over his shoulder and saw that the man had turned to face their pursuers, metal water bottle raised like a makeshift club.

Iwaizumi shoved Oikawa's arm down and stepped out from behind him. The horde was closer and more were ambling out from between the houses. A few, when they caught sight of the group, picked up their pace. He cursed internally. In the time they'd spent frozen in fear, the intersection they'd come from was no longer an option. Then his eyes caught on the lawn of a house a little ways ahead. A single woman stumbled in circles, dirty nails gouging ragged holes in already-punctured cheeks. Like the young man, she didn't look interested in approaching. A large tree, trunk and branches thick, stretched like a canopy of the surrounding houses.

"The roof! Get into one of the houses and get on the roof!"

"What?" Oikawa's stare was incredulous. "We can't climb!"

Yahaba shoved past them before Iwaizumi could answer. "Anything's better than here." Unlike Matsukawa, he had an actual weapon in one hand—the metal neck of a dismembered IKEA lamp—and Kindaichi's collar in the other. Watari herded Kunimi after them, his own face pale.

Oikawa looked at Iwaizumi, expression stricken, and then he was tearing after the others. The woman on the front lawn lay face down, skull bashed in by repeated strikes.

In all likelihood, none of them had climbed a tree since they were kids. Still, the memory of shimmying up the trunk persisted. Rough bark scraped against the thin strip of exposed skin between the hem of his pants and his socks until Iwaizumi swung himself onto the lowest bough, thick enough that he had no fears of it giving way. From there, it was branch to branch, following the feet above him.

By the time they passed the roof of the second floor, the longest stump was barely enough to step onto. It made a cracking sound under the weight of Iwaizumi's shaky foot. He looked down and gulped: it wasn't a direct drop to the roof. He have to jump.

No time to waste. Iwaizumi took a deep breath and pushed off of the branch. For a terrifying second, he was flying through the air, and then he landed heavily on the shingles, slid to the gutter, and barely stopped himself from falling. He scrambled out of the way for Matsukawa and grabbed the back of the man's hoodie to steady his landing.

"Oikawa?" Iwaizumi demanded as Hanamaki dropped onto the roof.

"Behind me," Hanamaki managed between pants. He sniffed and coughed. "You'll have to give him a hand. He's the last one."

Both of them turned towards the tree. Oikawa was laboriously making his way up the tree, arms and legs wrapped tightly around the trunk. Thankfully, nothing was following him.

As he moved to the other side of the trunk, Iwaizumi saw that his expression was twisted with effort, face pale and eyes squeezed tightly shut. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Each limb visibly trembled as Oikawa strained to reach further around the trunk.

Iwaizumi waited until he was in place to step onto the knob. "Oikawa!"

Oikawa's eyes snapped open then immediately looked towards the ground. His adam's apple bobbed in a hard swallow.

"Push off the branch and jump!"

Oikawa jumped. And the branch cracked, louder.

"Oikawa!"

The crumpled figure at the base of tree picked himself back up, shoved away from the grabbing hands, and threw himself into a desperate, lurching run around the side of the house.

"What are you doing?"

"He's fucked. I'm going." Iwaizumi swung both of his legs off the side of the roof. If he hung from the roof by his hands, he'd be able to drop onto the first story and then onto the ground.

Hanamaki scrambled to do the same. "I'm coming—"

"No, you aren't. You figure out if the inside of the house is safe—"

"And then we let you in," Matsukawa finished. He joined Hanamaki at the edge of the roof. "Right?"

Iwaizumi nodded. "Right. See you soon."

"Be careful," Hanamaki said the instant before Iwaizumi pushed himself into free fall.

Overbalanced, Iwaizumi's knees slammed into the shingles with a hard jolt of pain. He immediately scrambled to his feet, hands braced against the outside wall.

Iwaizumi dropped on the porch just in time to see Oikawa smash a children's baseball bat into the side of a zombie's head.

When he saw Iwaizumi, Oikawa's eyes widened. He tried to say something and promptly gagged, bandanna gone and face exposed. On the other side of the glass door, Hanamaki looked up in alarm. He tugged again at the door handle: stuck. Matsukawa elbowed him aside. The black-haired man raised the dining chair like a baseball bat.

Then Iwaizumi was no longer looking as the bulk of the zombies arrived.

"Hanamaki! Matsukawa! We're going! Don't open the door!"

Only a tiny gap remained, a path from the porch to the fence. Iwaizumi shoved Oikawa towards it, hard.

Instead of running, the man yelped and stumbled. One of his legs nearly gave out.

"What?" Iwaizumi's heart dropped. He seized Oikawa's arm and, in the same motion, threw him over a shoulder. A hard kick and the weathered wood crunched under the sole of his boot. Praying that Oikawa wouldn't get too badly scratched, Iwaizumi ducked through the enlarged hole in the fence. A cacophony of screams chased him through the yard on the other side and back onto the streets.

Houses flashed past. His shoulder must have been digging into Oikawa's stomach but there was no time to readjust: though the fence had stopped the ones in the backyard, more pursuers remained in the street. A hand slapped Iwaizumi's back. "Hey—"

"Absolutely not. I'm not putting you down."

"Look out! Look out!" Oikawa screamed and Iwaizumi ducked to the side, barely dodging a reaching hand. As it was, nails snagged in his zip-up.

At last, they burst back onto the main street. By now, the sun had traveled further down in the sky. Nonetheless, it had done its work: they were, once again, alone. Suddenly, Iwaizumi was aware of his exhaustion, a heavy weight that threatened to trip him up as he trudged away from the campus. He made for the sidewalk and when four odour of rotten food finally overpowered the musty stench, it was almost a relief.

Oikawa shifted restlessly on his shoulder. "Did we get away?"

"Not yet. I'm finding somewhere to hide."

There were no more protests after that. Iwaizumi continued scanning the sides of the street, searching for likely shelter.

Then, Iwaizumi noticed it: a small corner store, dirty but not ruined. This put it above the rest of the storefronts. When he pressed his face to the glass, he could see that the shelves were empty, but not in so much disarray to suggest that there had been a fight.

In comparison to the dried gore on the streets, the place looked almost sterile.

"Iwaizumi." Oikawa sounded guarded.

Iwaizumi shook his head. "I'm just going to check. There's a second floor above this one. We might be able to stay here." He put Oikawa down, shoulders protesting the extra movement. The man immediately struggled to his feet, one hand braced against the wall.

Iwaizumi tried the door: it opened with little resistance. The air inside was uncomfortably warm and smelled like a toxic mix of soured milk and pungent produce. He scanned the inside of the store. "Hello?"

Sunlight slanted in through the display window, catching on motes of dust that hung in the air, disturbed by the door opening. One corner of the store remained in shadow. Otherwise, nothing so much as stirred.

Iwaizumi retreated again. Oikawa was still leaning against the wall outside. "I think we're good. Let's go in." He waited. The other man didn't move.

Oikawa lowered his eyes. He looked up at Iwaizumi and grimaced. "I… think something happened to my leg."

Iwaizumi "Your knee?"

"No. My ankle, I think."

"Was it from the fall?"

"Yeah, probably." Oikawa shrugged. Was his face paler than before? "Anyways, we gonna go in?"

"Yeah, we are." Iwaizumi waited for the other man to throw an arm over his shoulder. He stood and, careful to slow his pace, returned to the store entrance.

Having lost his bandanna, Oikawa retched when the full force of the smell hit him. He hopped forward to brace himself on the counter while Iwaizumi returned to close and lock the door.

"Let's look for the entrance to the flat?"

"Already found it." Oikawa pointed.

Iwaizumi looked in the direction of his finger. Beyond the lottery tickets and scratch-to-win cards—a disorienting array of holographic colours—was a door. Once, it had been white. None of its stains and scratches looked particularly recent. Iwaizumi rounded the counter. He looked back at Oikawa, who nodded tersely.

One.

The metal knob was cold under his hand and strangely filmy, most likely from weeks of no cleaning.

Two.

Iwaizumi's heart picked up again until he could feel it threatening to spill out off his throat. He took a breath and steeled himself.

Three!

The hand holding the door knob in a white-knuckled grip twisted in a swift motion and Iwaizumi shoved the door open with enough force to at least stun anything waiting behind it. He peered inside, ears straining.

"The stairwell's empty. I don't think there's anything up there."

"And if there was anything moving around upstairs, we'd have heard it down here."

"Let me go first."

"I—fine." Oikawa lowered his eyes. "Be careful."

"Got it."

Though he was almost certain they were alone, Iwaizumi crept up the stairs slowly, pausing every few steps to listen. When he reached the top, he tested the door of the flat first—unlocked—before opening it just enough to see inside. The living room looked as if it had been preserved in a time before the outbreak, undisturbed and eerily free of occupants. Despite the pulled curtains, all of the shapes were immediately recognizable as furniture.

Like when he'd entered the storefront below, all Iwaizumi could do was stare. Fumblingly, his hand crept along the wall beside him until his hand hit the plastic cover of a light switch. Iwaizumi flipped it. Nothing happened.

"Iwaizumi? Everything good?"

"Yeah." In his haste to get back down the stairs, Iwaizumi nearly tripped and fell the rest of the way. He caught himself on the handrail and kept going. "Yeah. All good. Let me help you get up."

At the bottom, Oikawa had made his way around the counter and was now waiting at the door. Having had time to recover, his face was no longer drawn. He accepted Iwaizumi's arm and they made their way up the stairs in a series of awkward hops, each one punctuated by a small sound of pain. The door swung shut behind them with a muffled thud. Immediately, Iwaizumi locked it, rattled the doorknob to check if the lock worked, and slid the door guard into place for good measure. With this guarantee of safety, adrenaline drained away, leaving a combination of bone-deep exhaustion and uncontrollable jitters in its wake. After settling him on the sofa, Iwaizumi ignored Oikawa's protests and began a brusque check for injuries. It was a fruitless exercise: between the two of them, they had the barest knowledge of first-aid and even less equipment. Still, each time his fingers found warm skin, grimy and scraped but unmarred by teeth, was reassuring. Slowly, the exhaustion began to win out.

Then Iwaizumi gently rolled the hem of his jeans up over Oikawa's ankle and, in doing so, accidentally jostled it. This drew an immediate flinch that jerked Iwaizumi back into high alert. He proceeded with even greater care, pushing the fabric back slowly. The joint was swollen, hot to the touch, and rapidly purpling. Iwaizumi had no idea if it was broken by looks alone and he hoped that it was only a bad sprain.

They stared at the ankle.

"No more running for me, huh?"

"No running. No jumping. No climbing."

Climbing.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa.

Had they gotten back to the second story roof safely? Hopefully, they'd had enough sense to hide before they could be spotted through the glass. Iwaizumi forced himself to think back—had there been human screams when they ran? He couldn't recall.

Frustration welled up, edging out the earlier exhaustion. "We should've waited. Your knee was already acting up from all the walking and running. You hadn't slept at all," Iwaizumi spat. He clenched his fists and made to stand. "Damn it, Oikawa. Why'd we think the cultural centre would still be there? It's tiny. We should've known. We shouldn't have done that—"

Iwaizumi was halfway to his feet when he was yanked back down. He froze. From beside his ear came dry, stifled sobs. A pair of hands fisted in the back of Iwaizumi's shirt, having pulled him back when he was about to stand or pace or do something else utterly useless.

For the first time since all hell broke loose, Oikawa was crying. Tears welled and spilled down Iwaizumi's face. He returned the desperate hold and revelled in the unbelievable stroke of good luck that left them both alive. By all rights, falling from the second story of a house onto his ankle should've broken it. They had been completely surrounded.

And despite that, here was Oikawa, wonderfully, miraculously alive, face pressed into Iwaizumi's shoulder and ribcage expanding with every shuddering breath.

The room turned blurry with tears again. "Thank god." Iwaizumi exhaled shakily. "Thank fucking god. Don't you dare do that again." He felt a small nod against his shoulder as Oikawa's arms tightened.

They had shelter, but no food or water. Oikawa could not walk without support and Iwaizumi could hardly leave him defenceless.

They were separated.