Taehyung wasn't sure how long it had been since he and Jungkook had set foot outside of the fence.
It seemed like weeks, but he guessed their food supplies would be running lower if it had really been that long. He knew they couldn't hide inside the fence indefinitely; they would run out of easy sources of protein or soap or toothpaste or something basic like that eventually.
All of those were supplies they would need to leave the safe confines of the fence to replenish. Taehyung wasn't going to suggest leaving for anything, though.
Instead, he waited for Jungkook to make that decision. If Jungkook decided to go out for any reason, Taehyung knew he would go with him no matter how much he'd rather stay behind.
It was too dangerous outside, and he couldn't bear the thought of waiting and worrying if Jungkook would come back alive.
He hadn't slept soundly for a single night since that day. Terrible thoughts and images flooded his mind any time he closed his eyes.
Sometimes he dreamed of the dead man; sometimes they were just people with a few of his features: his eyes, his hair, the shape of his face, staring at him with accusation.
Sometimes he dreamed of the other two men, the ones he killed to save Jungkook that day in the beginning of winter.
In his dreams, no one attacked him or threatened him. None of them even spoke to him. They just watched him, expressions glazed in silent recrimination.
Sometimes he ignored them, or tried his best to, though he couldn't seem to escape them no matter how far he ran. Other times he shouted at them, challenging their judgement of him when he'd only done what he had to, or screaming to be left alone.
Other times he wept apologies, begging forgiveness from the silent victims who only continued to stare. In the worst scenarios, he killed them. Over and over again.
Even worse than those dreams of endless, silent judgement from the faces of those he'd killed were dreams of people with no faces at all—at least they didn't start out with faces.
He would find himself surrounded by these indistinct human shapes and filled with panic, the crowd around him emanating hostility in nearly tangible waves.
They approached him one by one and he lashed out, his bare hands like blades, cutting them down before they could do the same to him.
Then once they hit the ground, their features would become clear: the dead man from the woods; he two men he'd shot in December; Donna, the new girl at work; his English professor from freshman year; Ms. Jareau; his mother; Jungkook.
Jungkook.
When he looked again, they were all Jungkook, broken and bloody on the ground, dark eyes seeing nothing.
The sight of Jungkook's terrible blank eyes always ripped him from sleep, heart racing and gasping for breath. Then he would look beside him and find the real Jungkook lying there awake, blinking slowly at him in the dark.
He wasn't sure if he was tossing in his sleep and waking Jungkook up or if Jungkook was coincidentally waking on his own, but he couldn't stand the guilt of disturbing Jungkook's already fitful sleep on top of everything else, so he let himself believe the latter.
He let himself curl into Jungkook's chest and take comfort in his living presence until he could sleep again. He never spoke a word of what he dreamed, and Jungkook never asked.
The lack of restful sleep left him exhausted and irritable during the day. He kept snapping at Jungkook over petty things. Jungkook snapped back at him, but it seemed neither of them felt motivated to properly argue, so it didn't escalate much beyond that.
Taehyung wondered if this state of sleep-deprived, functional malaise was how Jungkook felt the entire time they'd known each other. If it was, then he supposed he couldn't blame him for being so fucking unpleasant.
For the past two days, they'd been working on clearing the tall grass growing everywhere inside the fence that hadn't been worn down to bare dirt. There was a lot of it.
With all the rain it had grown fast and thick to almost waist-height, and it made him uneasy. Jungkook cut it down with surprising efficiency with the actual fucking scythe he'd found in one of the various storage areas while Taehyung followed and collected the fallen grass to be composted.
He was more than happy to let Jungkook handle the wielding of that dangerous piece of equipment, even though he worried Jungkook might fumble the awkward thing and cut his foot off.
Beyond the actual concern of Jungkook accidentally harming himself with the scythe, it was just disconcerting in general to see him with it.
Taehyung tried not to think about ridiculous symbolism of death. It was a piece of farming equipment, not a bloody omen.
It didn't mean anything at all, but still, a nagging voice in the back of his mind reasoned that if Death came for him looking like Jungkook did, sweating in the sun while he worked, then...well, he may not be so disinclined to let Death take him.
Once Jungkook finished clearing grass along the perimeter of the fence, he leaned the scythe against the fence and stood, stretching his arms and his back.
"I think that's it. All the main areas, anyway," he said. He took off his shirt and mopped his face with it, groaning into the sweat-damp material. "I'm gonna go make us lunch while you deal with the rest of the grass."
Taehyung nodded distractedly, keeping his eyes on Jungkook's muscled back until he turned a corner out of sight, then wiping his own brow with a sigh and carrying on with his work.
It was a small mercy that Jungkook hadn't taken his shirt off earlier, because it would have been much harder to focus on his dull, arduous task.
By the time he finished and went to find Jungkook he was sweaty and worn out as well, though he didn't feel quite as inclined to take his shirt off.
He was already worried that he might be sunburned after being out in the open sun, but it was hard to avoid without spending his days entirely indoors or out in the woods in the shade of the trees.
When he found Jungkook he was sitting in the shade outside the shed, still shirtless and with his hair now wet and dripping down his shoulders and back. "Why are you wet?"
Jungkook looked up from the plates he was preparing and snapped his head to the side to get his hair out of his face, flinging drops of water all over Taehyung in the process.
"I dunked my head in a rain barrel to cool off. You should try it. It's pretty effective." He finished cutting a few more strips of dried rabbit meat onto the plates, then offered one to Taehyung.
"I'm sure it is, but I think I'll pass," Taehyung said, nose scrunching up in distaste. He took his plate and sat beside Jungkook, leaving some space between them so Jungkook wouldn't drip on him. Snap peas, radishes, and dried rabbit.
Not exactly fine dining, but they were all foods they'd produced themselves, and Taehyung couldn't help but feel a little bit proud of that.
Out of habit he started breaking off bits of rabbit to feed to Coco, and his heart went cold in his chest.
Coco hadn't turned up for a meal in a day and a half. She'd started to get restless stuck inside the fence, and Taehyung suspected she'd found a way to sneak out into the forest to hunt without him.
She'd missed a couple meals now and then, but she always turned up again before too long. She'd never been gone this long, though. Not only had she not been around to share his food, but he hadn't seen her at all in almost two days now.
Jungkook caught sight of the cat-sized morsels before Taehyung could eat them himself to hide the evidence of his mistake, and he paused for a moment before speaking up.
"She could have just gotten lost. She might still find her way back here after a while. Or she might have wandered far enough to find another camp somewhere and taken up residence with them. Or—"
"She's dead, Jungkook," Taehyung said flatly, bristling with fury. "I don't want to hear your damned fairy tales about everything being okay, because it is fucking not okay. She wouldn't just run away when she had everything she could possibly want here. She's dead, and she's never coming back. I'm not going to delude myself that she's alive and happy somewhere because I'm not a fucking toddler. There's no 'cat heaven,' she's just fucking gone!"
He furiously blinked back tears and bit his tongue, struggling to keep control. Crying was pointless. It wasn't going to help Coco. It would only make him feel terrible and give him a headache.
Jungkook's voice was surprisingly even, but there was still an edge of anger to it. "I'm not trying to 'delude' you, I'm just saying you don't know. Just because you don't know where she is doesn't automatically mean she's dead."
"Maybe it doesn't, but I know the odds are strongly against her being alive and well. I don't want your false hope!" Taehyung bit back a sob, but there was no use fighting the tears now.
Maybe they wouldn't help Coco, but he deserved to feel miserable for failing to keep her safe. He sniffled and blinked his vision clear, wiping away the tears as soon as they fell.
"I don't know why you bother making up stories to pretend she's fine. You didn't even like her!"
Jungkook was quiet after that, and Taehyung hoped he might have made him angry enough to shut up about the subject.
But after a moment Jungkook spoke up again, voice surprisingly gentle.
"It doesn't matter if I liked her or not. I know you loved her. And I'm sorry to see you lose something you care so much about."
Taehyung's breath hitched and he clenched his jaw to keep himself quiet, but he sobbed silently over his plate.
After a moment he heard Jungkook get up and the swishing and splashing sounds of water told him Jungkook was messing around in one of the rain barrels.
Taehyung was partly glad that Jungkook wasn't just sitting there watching him cry like a toddler, but somehow it made him feel so much more alone that Jungkook wouldn't even offer his presence for what tiny amount of comfort it might give.
He didn't have much time to dwell on that, because the next moment something cold and wet was draped across the back of his neck and over his shoulders, startling him so badly that he flung half of the vegetables off of his plate.
"Shit! What the hell!?"
"Sorry," Jungkook muttered as he returned to his seat next to Taehyung, and to his credit he did sound apologetic, but Taehyung still had a towel rolled up and flopped over his shoulders like a fat, sopping wet tentacle dripping all over him and soaking his clothes. An apology didn't undo that.
"You need to cool off, and I thought it would help. Here." Jungkook held out a bottle of water, which was also dripping wet. "I sank a few bottles to the bottom of that rain barrel in the shade over there, so they'd be kinda cold."
Taehyung grudgingly accepted the water and nodded his thanks before taking a drink. Now that he wasn't so shocked by the sudden coldness of it, the towel did seem to be helping to stave off the physical symptoms of the heat, even if it didn't improve his mood.
He'd have to change his clothes now, or spend the rest of the day uncomfortably damp.
Jungkook helped him gather his fallen radishes off of the ground and splashed some of his own drinking water over them to rinse them before returning them to Taehyung's plate. Taehyung was strangely touched by the gesture.
"You might try putting the towel over your eyes. My mom used to do that when I was a kid. She'd have me lay down after I'd been crying and put a wet cloth over my eyes. It helps with the swelling around your eyes and the whole crying headache thing, too."
Taehyung glanced at Jungkook out of the corner of his eye, then he dubiously lifted one soggy end of the rolled-up towel and pressed it across his eyes with a sigh.
It was difficult to tell if it was actually helping or not since he was so busy being perturbed over the wetness, but the entire situation was at least distracting enough that he didn't feel like crying so much anymore.
After a moment one of Jungkook's massive hands, also cool and damp from handling wet towels and water bottles, came to rest on the back of Taehyung's neck.
"I think you're a little bit sunburned. You're looking kinda pink here on the back of your neck, and on your nose and cheeks."
"That's not a surprise. I burn easily." Taehyung found himself relaxing slightly under the weight of Jungkook's hand, which seemed far heavier than it should have been due to his weariness.
"You do look like the type that would. We need to get you some sunscreen. And an aloe plant, if we can find one."
Taehyung's shoulders went stiff at the thought of leaving their compound. It wasn't safe at all. They couldn't just go out scavenging like they used to.
Maybe they could make some kind of sunscreen out of plants on the premises, or he could wear a hat, or just not go out in the sun, or—
Jungkook gave the back of Taehyung's neck a gentle squeeze, which slightly aggravated the pink skin there. "We have to go out sometime, Taehyung. We can't just stay in here forever."
What Jungkook said was true; Taehyung knew that. They'd made a lot of progress, but they weren't quite in a position where they could sustain themselves indefinitely with what they had.
But the thought of leaving the safety of their fence was terrifying and he wasn't sure he could do it.
"You don't have to go if you don't want to. I'm not going to force you to do it. I can go on my own."
"No!" Taehyung's head snapped up suddenly, fear gripping him. The only thing that seemed more terrifying than going out was letting Jungkook go alone.
When he couldn't find the words to express that he looked at Jungkook, eyes pleading, and he was sure he looked an absolute mess, all wet and sunburned and his eyes red from crying, but Jungkook didn't comment on it.
"Jungkook, you can't..."
"Okay! I won't go alone!" Jungkook gave a frustrated sigh, but there didn't seem to be any real anger behind it.
Then he picked up his own plate again and pensively crunched on a radish for a moment or two before he spoke up again.
"We have to start going out again sometime, but we don't necessarily have to go far right now. We can start easy, and work back up to the longer trips. Maybe we can try that department store with the garden center a few miles west."
Taehyung's instincts were at war. The farther away they travelled, the less likely they were to draw attention to their home if they encountered anyone else.
However, the farther they travelled, the more likely it seemed that they might run into other survivors.
Ultimately, the draw to stay close to home won out. Maybe it was risky, especially since he'd encountered that man in the woods—and that meant there could be others nearby—but the closer to home they stayed, the faster they could retreat into the safety of their fence.
"Maybe. If we don't go too far," he said, quiet and subdued.
He nervously chewed on his lower lip until Jungkook's persistent crunching reminded him that he should really eat his lunch.
Snap peas were nice, but he'd never been fond of radishes. They always tasted bitter and burned his tongue, but these ones were surprisingly refreshing and slightly sweet.
Maybe it had been so long since he'd eaten a radish that he'd forgotten what they tasted like. Or maybe it was a psychological thing, and these ones just tasted better to him because he personally helped to tend and harvest them.
Whatever the reason, he enjoyed his lunch more than he expected.
When he finished, he set his plate aside and shrugged the towel off of his shoulders, draping it over the end of the rickety bench they sat on. He was plenty cooled off now, and the wind was just making his damp clothes feel clammy and uncomfortable.
"When do you want to go?"
Jungkook shrugged, collected their empty plates, and went to rinse them off. "It'll be light for several more hours. We could take a quick trip out today. If you're up for it."
There was no sense in delaying any longer. His lunch felt heavy in his stomach, anxiety twisting his insides into knots.
He was most certainly not up for it, but they could either go now and get it over with, or he could spend all his time dreading the inevitable.
"All right. Let me change into something dry first."