Lance had remained in his room for another day after the unfortunate 'Barn 2.0 Incident'.
It had been the weirdest physical and emotional whiplash he'd ever experienced, and Lance still wasn't sure what the hell had happened. What with it only being his second ever heat. Was it normal to slip back into having heatwaves if you so much as got a whiff of prime Alpha pheromones right after coming out of it?
Of course Keith couldn't be an Alpha Prime, despite the wording he'd used in his head; those were as rare as stardust after all, and that was before the whole apocalypse thing. But Lance thought Keith was certainly a pretty strong Alpha. He'd lasted this long alone after all, he'd not even been hiding in the middle of nowhere all this time like Lance had.
Again, Lance had no one to ask—other than Keith—but the Alpha had looked just as mortified as Lance felt back by the truck. Lance guessed Keith would be a complete dead end on matters of Omega biology, other than fucking them. Probably. He seemed like the sort of guy who could get whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Regardless of the whole broody thing he had going on.
Unlike the beginning of his heat, Lance hadn't heard from Keith this time around.
He'd literally peeled himself from the bed-nest-thing he'd made and experienced a full body shudder at the mess of it all. So before doing anything else—including eating or finding Keith, Lance went about setting up the outside bath. The water hadn't had much of a chance to heat up, but he'd dumped all the sheets and clothes from his room into the tub. Lance added a good helping of the strongest detergent his mother had hoarded, too.
Lance ignored the way he began to shiver after leaning elbow deep to scrub at everything, suds and water seeping into the front of the faded—but clean—t-shirt he was wearing. There was no way one rinse through would be enough, so Lance emptied the sopping items into a big tub he kept upturned outside and refreshed the water before cleaning them again. Only after he was satisfied did he remove them and put more fresh well water in to heat up for his own bath.
Whilst that was warming Lance set about hanging the wet items on racks in front of the outside fireplace. They always took a little while longer to dry this time of year, and smelled faintly of smoke but it was better than that 'damp for way too long' smell that they'd get otherwise. Lance hated that smell.
When he was just about finished with hanging the washing, Keith appeared out of nowhere and made Lance jump and yelp in a decidedly not very manly way.
"Christ—Keith! W-where did you pop up from?" Lance pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the way his heart was sprinting beneath his ribs."I uh..." Keith kept his distance, looking Lance up and down and then the laundry before stepping a little closer. "I was going to make breakfast for you."
The Alpha rubbed the back of his neck, turning his gaze away as if he were shy or something equally stupid—because Lance had never met a shy Alpha in his life. Still, Lance's stomach did the whole swoopy feelsy thing and he was rubbing the back of his own neck in an unintentional mimic before he realised what he was doing.
"Oh uh... thanks. I could go for something to eat, actually." Lance glanced at the bath, it wasn't even steaming yet so would be nowhere near warm enough for him to bathe in anyway.
"Okay, go get changed and it'll be ready soon. There's still rice from last night." Keith side-stepped around Lance to set the fire beneath the outside cooker up.
"But I'm already wearing clean stuff." Lance lifted an arm and sniffed at the sleeve of his shirt before looking down at himself. Yep, the clothes were clean even if the body beneath wasn't yet. But Lance couldn't exactly do anything about that until the bath was ready and he had some privacy.
Conscious of his scent again, Lance took a few subtle steps back and pretended to sort out some of the laundry that was furthest away from where Keith was pottering about the stove.
"I know but you're soaked, and you're shivering." Keith didn't turn away from what he was doing but his shoulders inched up a bit. Lance couldn't tell if the tips of the other man's ears were getting red from the cold or from embarrassment. "You'll get sick."
"Oh." Lance felt that swoopy, butterflies feeling again and inwardly groaned. Fuck.
Keith was cooking eggs now, a pot of what was probably the leftover rice that he'd pulled from god knows where was warming next to the frying pan. Before the whole apocalypse Lance had been wary of reheating rice, everyone used to say how it could make you sick.
It probably still could, but Lance had been hungry enough to eat a lot of shit he never used to risk eating. He'd yet to get sick. Other than that one time he ate what he thought was wild garlic but had actually turned out to be some sort of hell weed. He learned to live without until he'd done more research after that. Seasoning his food had not been worth the pain in his stomach and ass from the shits it'd given him.
"Lance." Keith had turned to face him at some point, one brow lifted and a confused expression plastered across his face. "Are you still in—"
"NOPE!" Lance yelped and felt his face burst into a heavy blush. "Just hungry, tired, stuff. I'll be back." He threw his hands up in the air, as if that would help his embarrassment over zoning out, before stomping into the house to change into something dry.
︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶
The days following Lance's heat were more than a little awkward for him. If he was honest he thought maybe they were less than comfortable for Keith, too.
The easy conversation and jibing that had started to become common between them had almost completely stopped and Lance felt almost as if they were right back to where they'd started. Granted, Keith hadn't been around all that long, but after what seemed like an eternity alone for Lance it’d felt like a lot longer than it actually was.
Instead of sitting together in the lounge and listening to Lance's music, or watching one of the movie's Lance owned, Keith spent the majority of his time outside in Barn 2.0 fiddling with the truck.
Lance had attempted to hang out there too, at first. But after Keith slipped and cut his hand on some engine component or other he'd been trying to secure into place, Lance decided it was safer if he wasn't a distraction. Keith wasn't particularly conversational anyway.
So Lance spent his days cleaning everything that could possibly be cleaned and triple scrubbing everything that he'd soiled during his heat—as if that could wash away his lingering sense of humiliation and shame. He didn't know why he felt ashamed though, other than the obvious chair-humping-during-a-zombie-attack thing that Keith had walked in on. That had been pretty shameful. Especially as Lance had initially set out to prove himself as someone capable and independent.
It was a surprise when Keith sought him out one afternoon. The Alpha was covered in smears of motor oil and engine grease that did its best to smother his natural cedarwood and ozone scent, but it couldn't quite mute it. Instead Lance felt his stomach flip-flop at the combination, had to clear his throat as Keith hovered in the doorway uncertainly. He could have just swaggered right on in with a bit of that notorious Alpha entitlement but he hadn't. It was just another thing about Keith that Lance felt attracted by, the list of such things was steadily increasing.
"You need something buddy?" Lance spoke up eventually, needing to fill the silence stretching between them.
"I finished fixing the truck." Keith lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck, averting his gaze. "And uh..." He trailed off, apparently reluctant to continue with whatever it was he'd been about to say.
"And?" Lance lifted his brows and ducked his head slightly, looking at Keith as he rotated his hand in the air in encouragement for the other man to continue.
"I was wondering if I could borrow it to get to the city." Keith looked at Lance again as he asked, this time his gaze remained.
Lance felt pinned to the spot, doing his best not to let his expression change to show any of the disappointment that was beginning to churn in his gut.
Of course Keith wanted to leave now there was viable transport. Lance knew this day would come, he really should have connected the dots about why Keith would spend so long trying to fix a truck that hadn't worked in years.
It hadn't been anything major—apparently—but their dad had only just got a new truck when his older brother's went kaput, so they decided it wasn't worth the cost or effort to fix it. Ironically the new truck had been loaned out to a neighbour not long before the outbreak, he'd taken it out of the province for some sort of produce fair. That ended up leaving them with their two family cars and the broken truck. The farm only had diesel fuel on site, all the cars took petrol and after Lance's birthday meal they were pretty much empty—and thus, useless.
Lance felt his heart rate pick up and he was thankful that he was wearing scent blockers. The last thing he wanted was for Keith to pick up on how upset he was over the news Keith wanted to leave. Lance's fingers were starting to feel numb from the panic that wanted to erupt at the concept of being alone again. Silent, left to rot.
Keith cleared his throat and Lance realised he'd not answered the other man within a normal timeframe. Panic could come later. He could cry later.
"Oh! Yeah sure! Of course. Not like I really have any use for it and if it broke again I wouldn't be able to fix it." Lance commended how level his voice was. He even tacked a chuckle to the end for good measure.
"Thanks." Keith was eyeing him closely enough that Lance would have preened if not for his sudden nosedive in mood. "You—"
"Oh hey look at that!" Lance turned to look out of his bedroom window and feigned shock. "Time to get dinner started! Man, I'm hungry!"
Keith looked more than a little perplexed as he, too, turned to look out of the window and Lance used that chance to slip past him into the hallway. It was close enough to their usual dinner time that it probably didn't look too suspicious, right? Lance ducked out of the hall and onto the outside terrace just as Keith turned around with his mouth open, no doubt ready to question Lance's odd behaviour.
Lance felt every muscle across his shoulders and upper back tensed with his need to not cry. Not to mention that he felt like they might start to tremble like that chihuahua his Abuela used to have when he was a toddler if he let himself relax. He was going to ache like hell later but Lance was pretty sure he'd be having other things occupying his mind too much to care.
Lance set about lighting the stove fire and setting up some pans to fry vegetables and eggs in, as well as the pot to steam some rice since they'd finished the earlier lot at lunch that day.
After making sure everything was clean and the rice was set to cook, Lance felt eyes on him. He knew exactly whose eyes they were considering there was no-one else around and there were no groaning corpses shuffling into view, but he wasn't expecting to take a step back and bump into a warm chest.
Yelping, Lance made to move away again as he tried to turn but a firm grip on either of his upper arms stopped him. Unbidden, a shudder worked its way through him and Lance bit his lip to force his mind to focus on some sort of mild pain instead of how good Keith felt against his back. How good he smelled, so close and pressed up against him. He didn't even have his heat to blame for the low down flutter he felt, just a crush and long months of being touch starved.
"I won't take it if you don't want me to, Lance." Keith still hadn't let him go, why wasn't he letting go? "I know I can't promise to get it back to you in one piece, if at all, but if you let me take it then I'll try, I promise."
"Bring it... back?" Lance's voice came out at a higher pitch than usual, creaking out of him with a confused note.
"Why wouldn't I?" The puzzlement in the Alpha's tone wasn't subtle.
"Wait wait wait—" Lance finally forced his body to move away from the tempting hold of the other man and turned around to face him. "You'll come back? You're going to the city and then coming back here?"
Keith was cute when he scrunched his nose and frowned that way, Lance really stood no chance with trying not to fall for the guy, huh?
"Yes? I mean..." Keith trailed off and then a hint of colour appeared high on his cheeks, partly hidden by the motor oil still on him. "If you don't want me to, I won't. I didn't mean to just assume that would be okay. If you'd rather I didn't I understand, after all I'm—"
Lance snorted, bending slightly as the tension throughout his body left him all at once and he let out an undignified laugh.
"Why are you laughing!?" Keith flailed his hands slightly, the red splotches on his cheeks growing a bit more along with the frown. Lance is sure he might even see a pout!
"You—You!!" Lance really didn't know why he was laughing so much. No one had given Lance as much emotional whiplash in his life as Keith had in the past few weeks.
"What!?" Keith was getting defensive now, though not angry.
"S-sorry I just... I assumed you were just leaving for good." Lance wiped at his eyes, at least he could pretend the moisture there was because of laughing so much instead of having been on the verge of tears beforehand.
"I don't get why that's funny... are you okay?" Keith moved as if to press his hand to Lance's forehead but the omega ducked out of reach.
"I'm fine, I was just shocked. I dunno why!" He hastily added, before Keith could question further. "We'll talk more after dinner, but you need to go wash that shit off of your hands and face at least before we eat." Lance flicked a smudge of oil on Keith's shirt shoulder, drawing the other man's attention to the mess.
"Uh... yeah." Bewildered was the only way Lance could describe the way Keith looked now that his blush had calmed down. He almost felt a little bit bad about causing that reaction.
Lance grinned and then left to get the vegetables needed for their meal from the root cellar.
When Lance came back Keith was bent over the tub with a small amount of soapy, steaming water in it, scrubbing at his hands and face methodically. Lance moved over to begin peeling and chopping the vegetables but most of his attention was on the way Keith's bangs stuck to his forehead. They were wet and the water was dripping down across his cheeks and jawline in lazy streaks.
Of course this ultimately ended with a yelp. Lance dropped the knife with a clatter, which had Keith jerking to his feet, a panicked but determined look on his features.
"What!? Is there a zom—" Keith trailed off as he turned to look at Lance, catching the steady dripping of blood from the fist Lance had wrapped around the two smarting fingers of his left hand.
"Shit! Fuck that hurts!" Lance ignored Keith's question in favour of swearing and jumping on the spot as if that would stop the sting. "Stupid, stupid staring at—um... bugs..." Lance became less animated as soon as he'd realised how close he'd come to outing himself as a creep. Though in the same instance he'd basically called Keith an insect.
"Let me see." Keith strode over without bothering to dry himself off at all, the front of his shirt was getting damp where the upper swell of his pecs were catching the drips.
"No, no I'm good, just a little thing really I'll deal with it!" Lance knew the way he reeled away and ran into the house like a kid avoiding a game of tag was both suspicious, and childish but he couldn't really seem to help his impulses. He never had been able to really. It was harder with the sheer amount of embarrassment Keith caused him on a regular basis. Or rather, his thoughts about Keith.
When he'd made it into the bathroom Lance stood by the sink and finally braved uncurling his fingers to look at the damage.
Okay, so maybe it was more than just a little cut.
Lance had been holding a potato in his left hand and peeling it using a knife in his right. An act he'd done countless times, it was just the way he'd been taught—but watching Keith at the same time was idiotic at best. He knew how sharp those knives were kept, even still. The slip of the blade had landed him with a pretty deep gash across the fleshy part of his fingers, between palm and the first joints of his index and middle fingers.
Blood was dripping lazily into the sink and Lance felt his stomach churn sickly, noting how deep the wounds really were. They'd usually need stitches at the hospital, but considering the world had effectively ended he was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen.
"We need to clean that before you get an infection." Keith said gruffly as he grabbed Lance's shoulder to spin him.
"Ah wait wait it'll get on the floor!" Lance wrapped his fist around his wounds again, trying to stop blood from getting everywhere. A glance down told him he needn't have bothered, he'd already led a trail into the room anyway. Still, it was a pain to clean up and he deflated slightly at the thought of having to do it with one hand.
"Who cares about the floor? You're bleeding and any open wound is a pretty bad injury to have these days, Lance!" Keith sounded angry. Lance ducked his head with a frown.
"No— Lance, I just... you could get an infection, and your hands are important let alone your life." The Alpha appeared to school his tone and the hand on Lance's shoulder loosened somewhat.
"I know, sorry... I was being stupid. Again." Lance couldn't help the self-deprecating words, now that the initial shock was over his fingers were starting to hurt more too. However, it was nowhere near as bad as the pain A.Z.E. had caused and he reminded himself of that as he made his way outside. At least his pain tolerance had gone up since his infection.
"You're not being stupid." Keith sighed, following shortly with the first aid kit from the bathroom.
Lance spent the next however long gritting his teeth as Keith cleaned the wound. He was doing his best to fix it with superglue over an obscene amount of steri-strips. Needless to say Lance never wanted to repeat having to have that method used on him, but Keith had assured him that superglue had initially been invented for wound closure anyway. Lance had his doubts. It seemed pretty gross, how was his flesh supposed to heal with a layer of glue on there? Still, it was better than nothing.
They ate plain rice for dinner, and afterwards Keith washed up—including the bloody knife and even the blood over the floors. All whilst Lance finally got to retire to his room. Embarrassment and exhaustion weighing heavy.
︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶
When Lance got up the courage to face Keith the next day—his completely preventable accident still fresh in his mind—his fingers were still sore enough to have Lance avoiding all unnecessary movements with that hand.
He wagered that the less he moved it the less chance there was of the cuts popping open again, meaning they'd heal much more quickly. Right? And if they healed more quickly there was less time for any infection to get into the cuts, too, considering the last time Lance saw antibiotics was a couple of years before the world ended and he was pretty sure that by now any remaining stock in shops would be long gone.
He found Keith in the kitchen area with his backpack, the table covered in an array of items from Keith's hunting knife to a pair of boxers that had Lance clearing his throat in embarrassment. The Alpha didn't look up from his task of neatly shoving as many first aid supplies into a small pouch as possible. He hadn't even blinked, obviously knowing Lance was coming long before he actually made any real noise.
"I made breakfast, it's on the counter there." Keith motioned to the counter by the sink.
"Oh, uh... Thanks!" Lance chewed on his lower lip for a moment before walking over to retrieve his meal.
Keith had made a salad topped by three boiled eggs and had even put a full glass of water next to the plate, it was the only one there, but Lance guessed the other man had already eaten. Keith certainly wasn't the type to skip meals after the time he'd spent hungry on the road after all.
Lance made two trips to bring his plate and glass to the table and then sat opposite Keith as he began to eat, letting his injured hand rest against the table unmoving as he speared some tomato with his fork and popped it into his mouth.
"How's your injury feeling?" Keith didn't look up until he was done but when he did it was with focused and unwavering attention that made Lance's stomach swoop.
"It's fine." Lance smiled at Keith, answering between bites.
"Is that why you're not using it?" Keith let his arms rest on the table top, folding them in-front of him and leaning across the space between them. "Does it hurt a lot, or feel hot?"
"I uh— no it's fine, really." Lance's smile became somewhat lopsided as fondness lazily seeped through him at Keith's concern. He cared enough to make sure and not just take Lance's word for it the first time, considering Lance had a tendency to underplay things that bothered him. Not that Keith would really know that about him, right?
"It does hurt, but no more than yesterday. I just don't want to risk ripping it all open again is all. Especially after you patched me up so well."
"We need to take a look at it later, change the dressing too, since we'll probably end up not being able to change it daily after we leave." Keith stared at Lance's hand for another moment before nodding to himself and pushing up to stand. "Don't keep it too still, you need to move it as normally as possible so you don't get stiff fingers. Plus it will help with blood flow and healing to move a bit. Just be mindful of it, and be careful not to injure your other hand." The alpha began methodically stuffing things into the large backpack he'd had with him the first time Lance met him. "You'll need it for holding a knife and protecting yourself."
Lance nodded silently to Keith's words and finished his dinner in much the same way. Keith had said 'after we leave'... Lance's stomach flipped and the reality of leaving the farm started to sink in quickly, overtaking his worries about being embarrassed for cutting himself so stupidly the day before.
He didn't even question Keith's assumption that he'd be tagging along. He wanted to. He was scared as shit, but... he wanted to be with Keith.
When he was done, Lance excused himself under the guise of going to wash his dishes and made a quick retreat outside. He felt somewhat sick to his stomach. Thoughts about leaving almost overwhelming him, would he ever get to come back again? On top of that Lance was no fool and he knew how good he'd had it all these months. He'd been isolated and stocked up with food and most other things he needed to survive. He'd never had to worry about finding food or water to sustain him, soaps, clothes, shelter... Lance blinked rapidly to dispel the watering of his eyes as he clumsily washed his plate and glass one handed and set them down to dry on a tea towel.
He needed to pack—and be smart about it—he needed to secure things at the farm properly so they didn't get smashed up. The animals would have to be turned out earlier than they'd usually be so they didn't die and Lance knew he'd need to set up some sort of fencing between the field and the shelters so the animals could come and go as they pleased or needed.
Lance looked down at his injured hand then, his fingers taped together and wrapped up like a mummy with slightly damp bandages from handling the plate after it was freshly washed. He could do it! He'd done much harder things in a much worse state, like burying his niece whilst he had a freshly ripped chunk out of his shoulder and a deadly disease riddling his body.
With a new resolve at the thought, Lance changed out of what he'd slept in and got to work securing the farm as best he could. All the while telling himself he'd be back in no time at all and everything would still be just the way they'd left it. Safe and secure with live animals and stocked food stores and personal effects exactly where they were. The thought of someone stumbling across his home and invading it—violating it—made Lance's skin crawl. Though he couldn't really blame anyone who did set up camp, considering how safe it was and how awful it was in other places. Guilt gripped Lance, if someone needed help and shelter then they should be able to find it even if it was his home. If he died or never came back at least the farm would be of use to someone... right?
Lance quickly discovered that he couldn't erect barriers and secure the fields without help, his hand hindering him more than he thought it would. He'd admitted defeat after an hour wasting time with being stubborn and asked Keith. Keith had nodded and dropped what he was doing without any argument, he even let Lance help and didn't treat the Omega like he was some sort of invalid or weak damsel. Lance's chest felt warm and tight as they worked together at Keith's consideration and equal treatment. It was really just basic human decency but Lance had seen how people treated Omega's, as if they were incapable of hard labour or anything that required brains or brawn. Reduced to housebound cleaners and baby incubators. Despite what the government had tried to profess, discrimination had been rife before the fall of civilisation.
When they were done they ate again and Lance left Keith to ready the truck whilst he rummaged for his brother's camping backpack and things to load it with. He didn't want to fill it with too much, especially useless things, but he did shove in as many of the scent blocking patches as he could manage. Tipping them out of the cardboard box and spreading them anywhere they'd fit around his clothes and the water bottles.
It hadn't been long since Lance had had his heat, but just in case he also shoved a blanket into the pack. Thick and fluffy and something his family had all enjoyed snuggling under at some point to watch movies or relax in the lounge. Of course all the scent but his own was gone from it now, but the memories and soft sensation against his skin was still a comfort during the distressing throes his hormones threw at him. He also made sure to shove some painkillers in, even though Lance was sure that Keith already had some packed the cramps before a heat started could be awful and he didn't trust his body not to throw him into a random pseudo-heat or something on the road.
Lance did not pack any of his soaps or face creams, instead settling for a plain bar soap that he could wash both his hair and body with. Unscented and simple and nothing like he'd have used before all the shit began. No potent fragrances to hide his scent or give him one—because before he'd presented he apparently had next to no scent even for a beta. Still, there was no time to be vain in the city these days, Lance was sure of that.
Packed and ready Lance had nothing left to do but cook dinner whilst Keith loaded everything into the truck and tied it down, covering the flatbed with a tarp to keep things dry and as hidden as they could be.
They ate in near silence, both tense about the journey. Lance's mind was still reeling when they went to bed and he was sure he wouldn't be able to get any sleep as he curled up, sick with worry. It wasn't just the dead they had to worry about. The living were worse in some ways, intelligent and deceptive and Lance had no idea if they'd try to kill him on sight just because he was a recovered.
Lance fell into a fitful sleep eventually, consumed with nightmares of rotting corpses and gnashing teeth.