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The remnants of his name are stuck to the door.
He remembers when he got those stickers; it was such a small thing, he never thought twice of it before, but he had come to miss the small things. It was a trip to town with his mother. They had been having some trouble recently, his parents noticed his behavior had changed, and thought that a little treat might make him feel better, or rather, his mother thought that. Standing in the cool aisles, her hair was down, fragrant when she would hug him, and a way she hardly ever had it due to her job, it moved as she had turned to look at him, holding the pack in her hand and asking in that too-sweet voice of hers if he wanted them.
He didn't. Didn't see a purpose in saying that it was his room when it was very obviously his. He opens the door, and it creaks as it does. Small trinkets line the shelves, a thin layer of dust on them, making them seem as if they were a display.
A rough breath enters his lungs. The bed is perfectly made, signatured tucked corners that show it wasn't Alex who had done it then, each small item placed and organized by someone who wanted to feel as if their son was just at school, rather than off in a hellscape that they didn't even know the worst of.
He steps further into the room, attempting to ward off the feeling of tears that threaten to breach his eyes, and he approaches his desk, looking first at the small cup of assorted writing utensils, but his eyes catch on a piece of paper. It’s a picture of him with his family. Before all this happened, before he had stolen that twenty quid and begun his descent. All smiling faces, the kind of joyous teeth-baring that seems ugly to people who don't care, but to the people who do, the most honest show of uncontrollable happiness.
Papers among papers of attempts to get him released, denied, futile, all stacked. He can feel his heart begin to beat faster in his chest, A surge of nectar making him angry, at Furnace for causing all of this, and a disgusting feeling towards his parents. If that had worked, all of this would be different. There would be no apocalypse; he would have gone to juvie and be done, learned his lesson for good.
The photo is sticky on his damp hands, and he stares down at them. A happy, normal family.
“The others are planning on crashing out in the living room-” Zee’s voice enters the room, his presence warm behind him, his voice shifts to worry as he walks closer. “You good?”
“Mm.” He lets out a wordless hum and feels Zee’s presence next to him, and hears a sad noise when his eyes meet where Alex's have been boring into the paper.
A comforting, or at least an attempt at comforting, hand lands on his arm. “It’s beautiful.”
The glass beads that had been welling made their escape from his eyes, his throat feeling constricted as he slammed the photo down with much more force than he had wanted to. “It's gone. All of them are gone.”
“They tried getting you out,” Zee states dumbly. Alex sits down on the foot of his bed and stares at his feet. Mutilated. Hardly human. What part of him seems human anymore? He watches as the other boy uses gentle hands to pick up and examine the papers.
“If they succeeded, they wouldn't be dead, most of the fucking planet wouldn't be dead.”
Zee looks over at him with furrowed brows and places the papers back down. He sits down at the head of his bed.
“I think you know that isn't true; it would just mean he had to wait longer. More people would be sent.. There. More rats. Stronger weapons. Stronger armies. It isn't their fault.”
He places a hand on Alex's knee. “It's not your fault either.”
Alex has fought. He isn't going to get to stop, either. After this, he has to go deal with the man who caused all of this. There will be no more calm. This is what he has before the storm begins. It's kind of fun that his last feeling of comfort comes from Zee. He had been grounding in the past, definitely a force that helped him. Probably the only reason he's made it this far.
“Shut up.” His voice doesn't have the malice he wants it to; he doesn't think that it could, because he's so tired. Tired of having to deal with everything, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looks up, and Zee's eyes show a kindness he hasn't seen in years. Wet spots dig their way through his pants, and something in him makes him want to crawl into the comfort.
He's just a kid.
“Try to be nice for once in my life, here you come,” Zee stands up and for a terrifying moment he thinks he's about to leave, but instead he starts rummaging through his closet and takes out a pillow case, walking back up to him, he motions for Alex to give him his arm, and he does without second thought. “Raining on my parade, damn.”
He puts the blade into the case, laughing to himself softly and grabbing another random cloth to secure it. “What?” Alex starts to ask, but then his eyes meet the hole in his sheets.
“You need to sleep, and I don't think you want to tear up your bed while you do.” He looks over it and then gives a nod to Alex before turning, “Simon lent me some of the cushions off the couch so I don't break my back trying to sleep out there, who knows maybe sleeping in here will.. Nevermind. Sleep well, Dude.”
Zee turns to leave, and his voice starts before he can tell it to stop, sounding broken.
“Stay.” One word that stretches over a small eternity as he looks up at the other boy.
Zee pauses at the door frame, one hand against it and looking at him with a raised eyebrow, before he walks back into the room. “I can probably raid the linen closet and make myself a pallet in here,”
He stays silent, and it comes to him just how ridiculous he sounds. He's a teenage boy! What kind of teen looks at their friend how he did, and, much more concerning, wants that friend to sleep with him on the twin bed that's already too small for him, much less two people. Zee picks up on his silence and takes a breath, and walks closer. Alex stares at his feet and feels the weight as the mattress dips next to him.
“Well, I'm not the one who is saving the world tomorrow. What do you need?”
He grumbles and hears Zee laugh as he bends down to take off his shoes, tossing his legs up on the bed to where Alex can feel them on his back. “Since someone is being so quiet, mess hall style, although you've gained a few- hundred- pounds since then.”
He looks over and sees Zee reclined against his pillows and lets out a huff of a laugh. “The blade under the pillows,” Zee points out, and he spends a moment trying to figure out what he's doing. He slides the covered blade under the pillows and carefully moves to lie on top of the boy's torso, resting his head on his chest, and he feels a hand come up to his head.
“Damn, just a fat cat.”
“For a guy trying to be nice, you sure are acting like an asshole.” He mutters, moving his ear against the boy's chest.
Zee hums, and he feels cool fingers against the sensitive skin of his head, making comforting strokes. He lets out a yawn and chuckles.
“Fuckin’ toothpick arms. What, do you weigh five kilos?”
“Anyones thin to Mr. Hulk.”
He allows his eyes to close and mutters, “What was the last documentary you saw?”
Zee's eyes widen because quite literally everyone in the group seems to despise him when he points out how uncultured they are, but he shifts his expression into a smile. “It was about bees. Aphis mellifera, in particular.”
His almost-normal hand slides underneath Zee and wraps around his waist with ease, and he nods.
“What about the bees?” His head begins to feel fuzzy, and he can't help but think that he feels pretty safe in his toothpick fortress. He yawns again.
“AS most people know, these creatures have specific movements they do in order to communicate with others in their hive, but people had been doing observations on a mass scale of different hives throughout the US, I think, and they started to gather data over it..”
Slowly, his consciousness begins to ebb out of his mind, welcoming him into a comforting, black abyss devoid of nightmares or more calls from his new leader. Maybe they would be able to make it through this after all.