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roseddraws · 7 months

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Everything stays (but it still changes)

Chapter two

Ren is a strange man, to put it lightly.

After that first night, he’s been following Martyn around, which is normal enough: he’s been in groups before, so he understands the “strength in numbers” argument. The strange part is that he keeps wandering off then showing up again covered in blood, with a bag full of meat.

Now, in normal circumstances this might be concerning.

But to be fair, Ren was pretty up-front with his suspicious eating habits. Martyn doesn’t bring it up, but they both know there’s only one way to get red meat around the city these days.

It’s a few days after the night the two first met when they encounter one of the animals in question.

Martyn is sat on a low-hanging branch beside the river, trying to fish with little success, while Ren sits on the ground talking.

“I’m just saying dude, society’s pretty much gone by now; who says I can’t be the king?”

Martyn laughs. “I mean, I’m not gonna stop you. Still not calling you ‘your highness’, though.”

Ren starts to respond, then suddenly goes silent. Martyn glances down and sees him frozen with his head slightly raised, as if sniffing the air. Pulling his legs up, Martyn crouches defensively as he lays a hand on his hatchet.

He can’t immediately tell what Ren spotted, but after a second of tense silence he hears a twig snap. Then with no more warning, something grey darts out from a half-ruined building and barrels into Ren with a shriek.

The man lets out a shout that borders on a snarl as he goes flying backwards into the water. The creature stills, standing on the riverbank and panting heavily, giving Martyn a full view of its grotesque form.

It’s hunched over so far that its head almost touches the floor, bowed under the weight of antlers it wasn’t designed for. What’s left of its hands are planted on either side of its body, curled into fists held shut by a crust of keratin. Its body looks like someone tried to mold a human into the shape of a deer: bones stick out from places they shouldn’t be, a jumbled mess of useless parts; muscles writhe under its skin like maggots, and each of its vertebra sticks out white as pus. It screams again, and now Martyn recognises it as a sound of pain.

Not letting himself overthink any further, he leaps off the branch, hatchet held high. He lands on its back to the sound of cracking bones and snapping sinews, and it jolts as its elbows cave and its chest hits the floor. Martyn’s knees hit the concrete hard, causing him to drop his weapon with a cry. Panicking, he grabs the creature’s neck instead, wincing at the pitiful sound it makes as his fingers sink into the flesh.

The two wrestle for what must be seconds but feels like hours, until the creature throws itself into the air, knocking Martyn off its back. Just in time, he grabs the hatchet and spins to stab it into the thing’s shoulder, knocking it back just as it had been diving for his stomach. It wails but doesn’t falter when it leaps forward again, this time aiming for his neck, jagged teeth bared for Martyn’s viewing pleasure in its open maw.

Its face looks human, he realises. And it does. Its skin is the pale grey of a corpse, and stained with blood, and the nose is all but missing, but the eyes, and the fury in its expression… they’re painfully human.

And in that moment, he hesitates. If Ren wasn’t there, it would’ve killed him.

But he is, and it doesn’t.

Instead, the monster is knocked out of the air mid-tackle as Ren makes a sound that is definitely a snarl this time; if Martyn didn’t know any better, he’d think he was trying to take a bite out of its neck.

No matter how he does it, by the time Martyn has grabbed his hatchet and turned back to the fight, the monster is dead, and Ren is hunched over the body.

Panting, Martyn lets himself drop to the floor and rolls onto his back. He’s honestly embarrassed by how exhausted he is. Isn’t the apocalypse supposed to make you tougher?

“If you’re gonna eat that, could you at least cook it first?” He jokes, trying his best not to sound like he’s fighting for his life (he fails).

“I’m just catching my breath!” Ren splutters defensively. “I wouldn’t— okay, I might, but… uh, you okay my dude?”

Martyn holds out a thumbs-up, still breathing heavily, and manages to sit up. “Thank you for the assist, milord,” he says, turning to Ren and trying his best to bow while sat down.

Ren beams. “Yer welcome, laddie,” he says in possibly the worst Scottish accent Martyn has ever heard, surprising a laugh out of him.

Once his heart has mostly slowed down, Martyn clambers to his feet— or at least, he tries to. The moment he’s stood up, his vision swims, and he has to crouch down to stay standing. That is… not ideal.

“Okay, I’m not blind dude,” Ren says, sounding worried. When did he get that close? “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Martyn lets himself sink to the floor with a sigh. Ren’s hands hover by his shoulders, ready to catch him if he collapses. “When was the last time you ate?” He asks.

“I dunno, mum,” Martyn replies sarcastically. “Like, last night?” Just the thought of food makes his stomach grumble, which would be mortifying if Ren hadn’t just watched him collapse after very little physical exercise.

“Let me rephrase that,” Ren says, sitting beside him. “When was the last time you ate anything that wasn’t a sardine?”

Martyn scowls in lieu of an answer, telling Ren all he needs to know.

“Martyn, I know what you’re gonna say, and I don’t want to force you into anything, but…” Ren begins, and Martyn already knows where he’s going. “You’ve got to eat something, man. They’re not people anymore.”

Martyn sighs. “I know, I know, but… I dunno. I can’t really explain it. It just feels so… gross. Wrong, I guess.” Ren looks like he’s about to protest, but Martyn cuts him off. “I know it’s stupid. Can’t afford to be emotional in the apocalypse, right? I… I can put my health first.”

Ren looks unsure, but nods. “Good. As long as it’s your decision.” He stands and holds a hand out to Martyn, who takes it tentatively.

He manages to stand up and walk with him into the relative shelter of the building to set up camp early, and if he has to lean on Ren’s side a bit, at least the man has the tact not to mention it.

***

Ren watches Martyn closely as he eats— which, okay, doesn’t sound great. But in his defence, he looked like he was gonna drop dead a few minutes ago.

Thankfully, once the food is cooked, Martyn has no trouble getting it down him. It’s honestly impressive how quickly he eats without fangs.

Martyn looks up to see Ren staring and raises an eyebrow. “You’ve still got blood on your face, y’know.”

Ren spits on his hand and rubs his cheek, then looks down to see his fingers covered in blood. He licks it off without thinking.

“And the other side,” Martyn adds, lip twitching. Ren rubs at his other cheek, and his hand comes away with even more blood. “And aaall over your chin.”

Sighing, Ren stands. “I’ll go wash off in the river.”

It’s getting dark outside, though it’s not sunset yet. Ren looks up to see storm clouds gathering overhead and grimaces. That’s not ideal.

He starts to wash his face in the river, catching his reflection right as he’s about to leave. Jesus, is that seriously what he looks like?! He’s in dire need of a deep clean.

He strips off his clothes and washes them as best as he can, getting most of the dirt and at least a little bit of the blood off. By the time he’s done washing himself, the water runs red. When’s the last time he had a bath? He can’t believe Martyn’s been putting up with him for so long: he must smell terrible. His hair is the worst part: it’s a full-on bird’s nest up there, and he doesn’t even have a hairbrush! Eventually he decides it’s good enough, and wrings out the water until it curls enough to hide his pointed ears. Pulling a face, he puts on his still-wet clothes, opting to leave the shirt open until he dries off.

Martyn raises his eyebrows as he reenters the building (he’s digging into his second steak, but Ren doesn’t comment). “Wow. You look almost presentable!”

Ren twirls to show off his comparatively clean appearance. “I’m glad you noticed!”

He grabs a moth-eaten pillow and lies back on it, hands behind his head. “You checked the other floor for valuables yet?”

Martyn shakes his head as he swallows the last of his food. “Explored this floor a bit, though. Not much left: I think this used to be the living room, and the one next door was the kitchen, but obviously all the furniture is covered in mould and tree roots now. I did however find-“ he pulls a handful of something out of his pocket and tosses them at Ren. “-hair bobbles! For the love of god, please use them.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?!” Ren protests, internally panicking. Wearing his hair down is a huge pain, of course, but it’s the only way he can think to hide his ears. And if Martyn sees his ears, he’ll know his secret. And if Martyn knows his secret—

“I mean it looks fine now, but if you keep it down while we’re going through the woods it’s gonna get all tangled again!” Martyn says, cutting off his thoughts. “Do you really want to keep dealing with that?”

Ren pouts. “I think it looks cool.” (That’s a lie; he likes it better in a plait. This is actually infuriating for him.)

Martyn rolls his eyes. “Can you at least clip it back? It keeps falling into your face.”

“Aww, can’t bear to miss the view?” Ren winks. Martyn tries to stay deadpan, but has to turn his head to hide a laugh. Ten points to Hufflepuff! “I’ll check upstairs to see if there are any hairclips. Just for you, sweetheart.” Ren ends the sentence with finger guns, prompting a full-on cackle from Martyn.

The first floor is also pretty empty, and unfortunately, the beds are unsalvageable. He does find two pillows, though, and the mould is mostly confined to one side. Most importantly, he finds a jar of hair clips by the bathroom sink! They look like they belonged to a young child, which is probably why no one else has scavenged them, but Ren’s not picky. He finds a red one with a little crown charm on it, which he thinks is perfect and makes sure it’s on full display when he puts it in his hair, holding the worst of it back from his face. He also finds a hairbrush, which he doesn’t bring with him due to his lack of a proper bag (he should probably find one soon, now that he’s staying in this form more), but he brushes his still-wet hair until he feels suitably human again.

As he turns to go back downstairs, a crack of thunder almost makes Ren jump out of his skin. It’s almost immediately followed by the sound of torrential rain pouring onto the roof, as suddenly as the flipping of a switch. Fantastic. The ceiling seems relatively solid, but these days, “relatively solid” just means “most of the holes are pretty small”.

He comes down the stairs and tosses a pillow at Martyn, who’s lying on the floor with his hands over his face. Headshot! Martyn sighs, but doesn’t move to push it away. “You doing alright, man?” Ren asks.

“I bloody hate the rain,” comes the muffled reply. Ren snorts.

“It’s not that bad,” he says, lying near him, beside the fire. “It gives us an excuse to stay inside a bit.”

Truthfully, he mostly waits out storms in his wolf form, which isn’t picky about the weather. He remembers, before all this, hating the rain, and the cold, and thunder. Pretty much just extreme weather in general. But he’s not completely human anymore! His wolf form is fine in storms, so it makes sense that his slightly wolfish human form would be at least a little bit better with storms than he had been!

He tugs at his still-damp shirt. It’s beginning to seem rather chilly in this decrepit house. He shifts closer to the fire and pokes it with a stick, wondering if he’ll need to chop off a tree root for extra fuel.

“I mean, I guess it’s fun for a bit,” Martyn sighs. “Unless it lasts more than… what, a week? Probably less now; I swear it keeps getting shorter.”

Ren frowns and turns his head to see Martyn sitting on the pillow, staring into the fire. “What?”

“Y’know, what with the… tree roots and all that.”

“I actually don’t know, my dude. I feel like you’re pulling my leg.”

Martyn squints at him, bewildered. “What, have you never tried to join a settlement?”

“No? Like I said, I’m a lone wolf.”

For whatever reason, Martyn doesn’t seem to believe that. “Dude, I’m a lone wolf, and even I’ve joined more than one settlement; you’ve been following me around like a lost puppy since you first met me in the woods the other day!”

Ren opens his mouth to protest, pauses, then snaps it shut, huffing. He’s right, of course, but he doesn’t like feeling so transparent! It’s been, what, a week? No, less than that (it’s been a while since he tried to keep track of time— wolf-Ren isn’t great with numbers). Is he really that bad at lying?

Martyn grins at his reaction, then relents and explains. “I’ve been in two or three encampments since my home was destroyed. The first one I joined pretty much straight away— it used to be a high school, I think— and it lasted a bit over a month before the same thing that happened to everything else-“ He gestures to the roots sticking through the walls and floor. “-started happening to it. We tried to stop it, of course, but it’s like it just made nature angrier: I went to bed one night, while people were lopping off branches and tree roots and reinforcing the walls, and when I woke up there was a tree growing through the dorm. Everyone was gone by the end of that day. There… wasn’t much reason to stay, was there?” An expression crosses his face that Ren doesn’t have time to identify before it’s gone, and Martyn continues.

“The next settlement was a few weeks later, in an apartment building. I wasn’t there when it formed, so I don’t know how long it lasted exactly, but it was definitely shorter. Same thing happened, about a week after I joined. They were more prepared this time, since a few of us had come there from other settlements that had gone down, but it didn’t help. By the time I left… it wasn’t much of a settlement anymore, but they were still trying to make it work. They spent all day doing nothing but chop branches and mend buildings, and I just didn’t feel like it was worth the effort, so I just. Left.

“The last one I joined was more of an experiment than a settlement: word had gotten around by now about what happens to buildings that people try to settle down in, so they thought ‘oh, what if we start a society without buildings?’, and for some reason everyone including myself thought that was a good idea. Long story short: it didn’t work, so I left.

“I tried a few times after that to stick to one building, make a home for myself, on my own. Needless to say, it never lasted long. You can probably guess what happened.

“I’ve heard from down the grapevine that people have entirely given up on restoring society at this point, and every time someone tries it falls apart faster. I think the last one I heard about lasted around a week.”

There’s silence in the room then, as Ren takes in everything he said. The sound of rain and the steady drip of water from various leaks is all that can be heard. Then Martyn slaps his thighs suddenly, startling the brunet out of his thoughts. “Right! That was depressing! I’m going to bed.”

Ren wants to stop him, to say something reassuring, but he can’t find the words. His skills that he’d been so proud of before the world ended have withered away more than he’d thought.

“Goodnight,” is all he says as Martyn pulls out his blanket, reminding Ren how extremely cold it is. He scoots closer to the fire.

Martyn lies down with his back to Ren, leaving him alone with the rain and thunder and howling wind. He tries to pull his shirt tighter around himself, though it’s not dry yet and doesn’t help much.

He’d never heard anything about people forming settlements since society collapsed. Honestly the thought never occurred to him. How did the thought never occur to him?

He knows how. It’s the same reason no one told him about the settlements.

It’s not that he’s never in human form! It’s just… these days, when people are few and far between, and the only thing he can eat makes him nauseous if he thinks about it too hard, it’s easier to be a dumb animal. Wolf-Ren doesn’t miss being around people, or feel guilty about doing what he has to to survive. He’s still aware of his emotions in that form, but it’s like they’re dulled: all that matters to the wolf is survival, and if it doesn’t help him survive, it doesn’t matter. And maybe he’s been abusing that a little bit these past few months. When’s the last time he talked to a human, before Martyn? The days blend together when he’s a wolf.

Is being human even worth it?

This isn’t the first time he’s had this argument with himself, but it’s different now. Now he’s got something to lose. If he stays with Martyn, he risks being found out, and… not dying, no. Martyn wouldn’t kill him. But being abandoned might hurt more. He can’t stand the thought of Martyn being afraid of him.

But what about the other option? What if he left right now, before he got too attached? Turned into a wolf and never turned back? Well, he probably couldn’t stay a wolf forever, but he means it in the metaphorical sense. What if he abandoned humanity forever? Surviving would be a lot easier, but…

“Hey, Ren?” Martyn’s voice is drowsy.

Ren jolts. He looks over to see Martyn awake and on his side, facing him. “Yeah?”

“I don’t think I thanked you properly, for saving my life earlier. Thank you. Seriously.”

Ren doesn’t know how to answer that. “I- it’s nothing. Don’t mention it.”

There’s a pause before Martyn replies. When he does, it’s barely above a whisper. “I’m glad you’re here. Travelling with me, I mean. It was… quieter. Before you came.”

…but he wouldn’t have Martyn, he finishes.

Maybe that’s reason enough to stay.

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