Niko looked down at the grave, not knowing what to do or say. How did John know what the man's name was? Did they talk? How hard was it to kill someone...? He blinked and looked back at the man, trying to imagine him killing another. "You killed him...?" He just couldn't understand. Couldn't John save him? He backed away slightly, before turning around to stare at what once was an orchard. He wished the trees had survived.

"You didn't try to save him...?" He didn't know how to feel, and remembered what he did to his Uncle. Perhaps he should have killed him too, instead of making him suffer. No... The man had deserved it... He stayed where he was when John left to go back into the house, staring off into the distance. Who had shot the man? Why? Why was life like this now? What was it like before? He massaged his temples, deciding he had to stop thinking like this. He went around to the front of the house, and waited for John to be done.

He went back to the room Jeremy had died in, sneezing slightly in the combined dust and smell---the smell of death. It would be especially difficult to pick this man up the way he'd done Niko---the boy was lightweight, after all, thin, without much to him. John grimaced, grabbing the man's hands and turning him to the door. The dead weight just added to the heft. "God, I'm sorry for this..." He muttered, heaving the man out of the door and into the hallway. A thin trail of blood was following, but it soon became nonexistent before he got into the living room. "There isn't a... a towel... or blanket worth... wrapping you in..." He supposed Jeremy had used the blankets that weren't ruined on his wife and child---the thought of a dead little girl, buried beside her mother, somehow drew John into a burst of sorrow that he could barely bite back---he couldn't keep the tears from escaping, falling for a moment, reaching Jeremy's dirty shirt.

He growled loudly, butting the door open and tossed him onto the porch. John grimaced, wiping his eyes before going on despite his hair coming out of its ponytail. It flew in a sudden hot wind as he dragged the man to the grave and pulled him in, kneeling down to line his legs up and fold his hands over his stomach. "I figure this is goodbye..." He panted, straightening Jeremy's head so his face was turned toward the sky. "I hope... you found them." He sighed shakily, standing and grabbing the shovel he'd set against the well wall and raking earth into the hole again. Why did he feel so much for this man? Because he knew him, in a way? Knew his name, the fact that he had a family that hadn't made it? What had kept him going? John could barely handle the death of his own single-man family, considering he'd have been able to survive if John hadn't delayed them. And then John had been the one saved.

He sniffled, kicking the rest of the dirt onto the mound and stomping it down. Hopefully no one---nothing---would dig the man up, nor his family. And he couldn't mark the graves, or it would simply be a bright flag to any desperate scavenger snuffling along the ground. He took the shovel with him, dragging it along the ground and tossing it onto the floor of the back porch before trodding through the house, finding Niko on the front porch. He took a step forward, spying a rocking chair still in relative condition, and dropped into it. "I couldn't save him." He said, in reply to what the young man had asked before. "It... was so bad. Whoever shot him... they hit his lung. And you need two to breathe. And when one pops---like a balloon---it bleeds. And that blood comes up and into your other lung, basically. I couldn't do anything about what happened inside him, because... Well, I'm just not a doctor. I killed him as quickly as I could, so he didn't have to die in a hard way."

He breathed out, shaking his head and gathering up his messy hair, using a hair tie around his wrist to put it back up. "I couldn't let him suffer like that." He reasoned---perhaps more to himself than to Niko, but he was concerned the young man feared him. "But somehow this was different. Like this guy meant something to me. Like he was a friend. I don't know. I just don't want to do that again." He put his arms down, sighing. The digging, hauling, and burial had taken a lot of energy out of him.

"The sun is getting low," Niko said after a long pause. He could just see it glinting from behind the layer of thick greyish clouds. He sighed and stood up, picking up the radio he had been playing with while waiting for John to finish burying the man. He put it back into his bag, making sure it was off to conserve batteries. His radio... It had been a comfort to him back before all this happened. Even now, when all stations were static, he would rather have it than not.

"Should we stay here for the night? I mean, there's beds..." He put his grubby hands into his pockets, finding a small piece of candy in a wrapper. He had been given a few from one of the men he serviced for a week. What was the man's name again? It didn't seem to matter any more. He pulled it out and handed it to John, watching him closely. "You can have it..."

John looked to the horizon and nodded. It was getting late. He'd spent half the day digging that grave, working through the dead, dry earth then dragging the man out to his family. How long had it taken to dig those two other graves? And he was an older man. Perhaps the whole day. "We'll stay here for the night." He nodded. "There... has to be something else to this farm. I'll take a look around a little later..." He was tired, but then, he was most of the time now. Everyone was. He yawned, rubbing his face and feeling that he needed to take a knife to the thin dusting of hair over his cheeks and chin. One of his knives usually did the trick with no more than a slight scrape to show for it.

He looked toward Niko, taking the piece of wrapped candy. "Er... Well, thanks... But I think you should keep it. It's energy, and I figure you need it more than I do." He did have food, but now he had someone else to share that with. John didn't mind at all---there was plenty between them for a week, but they would have to conserve it for a difficult day. And water for several days as well, though it could easily be lost. And if there was something here... He had to explore more carefully.

Niko didn't take it back, grinning at the man and shaking his head. "If you won't let me do anything for you, you can have that as payment for saving my life earlier," he said, before rushing away, back inside the house. He didn't know where he got the energy from, or why he was laughing to himself as he ran through a house where someone had just in. He was just happy to be with someone, someone he was sure he could trust.

He took the stairs two at a time and went straight for one of the rooms. Sure the blankets were all stained and torn, but they would do for the night. He made the double bed up, pulling out his blanket from he bag and laying it on top. It looked so comfortable. He wondered where John would sleep. He went through the house, looking for the man. He wanted to show him his bed.

John sighed, pocketing the candy and following the younger man, stepping into the living room and looking around as Niko thudded around upstairs. Maybe they could stay for a few days. Regain their energy in a way. But he would have to make sure that if they were to be found out, they could hide. That their things would be okay as well. He went through the room, down the hall and to the basement door, smelling must and dust, a little mold. Somehow the light still worked, and he felt it might have been a generator somewhere keeping the light powered. Hopefully it wouldn't run out of gas.

The basement was larger than he'd expected, and there were machines on the farther wall. He assumed they were distilling machines---Jeremy had referred to cider, so perhaps he made it himself from the apples he and his family had picked. He bit his lip, going around the basement, nudging boxes and crates, looking in barrels. One wall looked curiously bare, and he stepped forward, pressing on it. Just thin board that was made to resemble the rest of the wall. His long nails dug into a seam, and pulled, and he coughed in the dust that fell from the wood grain. Shoving it over, he gasped, a smile breaking out. There were boxes and cans, lining shelves in a secret space. And a box that looked as if it were metal. He pulled it out, shoving it against the wall and prying the lid off---a hiss of air rushing in met his ears, and John yelped.

Apples. They had obviously been kept fresh by packing them without air, and in the nearly six months that had passed the red and green jewels were as bright and firm as they'd been the moment they were picked. "Niko! Niko, come down here! Come down to the basement!" There were other things in the hidden area as well, but it had been a long time since John had been in the company of fresh fruit.

Niko heard John calling from downstairs and rushed to his side, pulling out his small pocket knife in case he was in trouble. He blinked at the light flooding the large room as he crept down the stairs. He had no idea how the power was working down here. Maybe they had batteries too? He saw John kneeling on the ground, next to a small room that Niko hadn't noticed before. The man seemed to be staring in disbelief into a metal box in front of him.

"What is it...?" he asked as he pocketed his knife and came forward. Inside the box were apples. Amazingly fresh apples. Red, yellow, green... Niko's mouth watered at the sight of them. "What... How is this possible? Do you think they are safe to eat...?" He didn't want to reach out and grab one in case they were poisoned. But it had been a long time since Niko had had any fresh fruit, possibly longer than anyone else.

John took one out, looked it over carefully. "They'd have had to inject them with poison, but I don't know why they'd have ruined such good apples and then gone through the trouble to pack them in a place no one would think to look if they were raiding the place." He handed a yellow one to Niko, and to prove his assurance that they were safe, took a bite of a red one. They were crisp and sweet, each with its own tone of taste, its own layers. The juice burst like small pods of liquid, so foreign and at the same time, so familiar. Like a memory he'd forgotten a long time ago had just come back to him and was as fresh as ever.

"Good lord..." He sighed, suddenly loving life for the first time in a while. "I can't believe this was here... This wasn't found..." The raider must have been in such a hurry, but he had no idea why. Maybe the presence of the old man had startled him off.

Niko looked at the yellow fruit carefully, before biting it as well. It tasted amazing and he sat down, staring at the ceiling as if experiencing drugs for the first time. He ate quietly, only making small noises of appreciation. Once he had finished the yellow one, he picked a green one to try. This one had a tart flavour, unlike the sweet yellow one.

"It has to be... Like... 4 years since I last had an apple... It's so good..." Especially after all the crap he had been eating lately. Canned food, stale bread... He ate the apple to the core, looking at the seeds critically. Maybe if they could find fertile ground... He picked them out and placed them in a nearby plastic container. He looked to John, thinking that the man might say something about it.

John didn't stop at the core---he went right through, chewing it with a little more difficulty than the actual apple. "Four years?" John repeated, surprised. "Niko..." He sighed, shaking his head and grabbing a red apple. "That's a good idea." He noted, nodding to the saved apple seeds. "Put those in your pack deep, we... could use those later I bet... If we ever get this dead earth to hold nutrients again. Bet it'd be good to try that sometime..."

He sighed, looking at the apple in his hand. "I wonder how much fresh... anything... is left. I bet this is... some of the only stuff." He set the apple down and shook his head. "How about we stay here for a while?" He looked up at Niko. "There's preserved water and food in that... closet-thing. And we should really get through some of these apples while they're still fresh. I think our walk west can be put off a while... Take advantage of this as long as we can, because we're not about to take it all with us..." They could use up the water first. That would evaporate fast, and they could refill their water bottles before leaving.

"Think that's a good idea? I figure we can use some stuff from outside to board up the windows... the doors we won't use. Set up some traps in case looters come sniffing around." He looked at Niko for his consideration.

Niko liked the idea. Even though the prospect of moving on to a different area was a better one, he knew that they couldn't just ignore the opportunity to have fresh food and water. Maybe they could even clean the place up a bit and make it their home for a couple of weeks.

"How could we do that?" Whoever had shot the man and left him for dead... He didn't want them to come back in the middle of the night to shoot them too. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to kill John like he had killed that man. He shuddered at the thought. "I feel bad not sharing with others, but I suppose we should just do what we can while we can?"

John sighed. "It... I'd like to help everyone that comes right up to us. But... they're so untrustworthy. They might take... everything. And all our stuff too. I'd rather keep as low a profile as we can, know?" He stood, looking around. "Got plywood over there... A toolbox. This guy owned the place with his family, I figure he'd have everything he needs to do his own repairs." He glanced around to Niko. "We can use the wood to board up the windows... Think you can handle a hammer? Or you could hold the board while I seal it..." He thought about it. If they were to stay here---finally manage to relax---they would have to fortify the place. they would have to put unseen traps up---and he was sure he could do that.

"I think we have enough food and water here for two weeks." He muttered, glancing into the hidden room again. "We'll keep that wood up there in case we need to hide it, and we'll put our stuff in there when we don't need it. These guys have candles too... We don't have to make a fire to risk being seen or risk the house burning down at the same time." They would be safe, but it would be hard to get outside unless he managed to lock a door very well from inside and make it appeared fortified from outside. He moved forward, grabbing the toolbox and offering it to Niko. "Mind taking this upstairs? I might be able to handle it myself if you start cleaning the mess the looters made..."

Niko nodded, taking the box up the stairs and setting it on the kitchen table. He wouldn't be much use with tools, as he hadn't even held a hammer before in his life. But he didn't mind cleaning. That he could do. He went upstairs and started there, closing the open doors and piling up the rubbish that had been tipped over the floor.

It took him quite awhile, but he managed to finish cleaning the top floor before he was too tired to continue. He had heard John banging around downstairs and went to find him, putting the trash in a unused room. He found the man boarding up some windows in the kitchen, which had started to smell due to the dried blood on the floor. "Can I do anything about that...?" Niko asked, pointing to the blood.

He was glad that there was a safe place to be for a while. Just a while, a few days, a week. As long as they could live without people barging in, or food or water running out, they could live. But he would have to save more for when they were to leave again. If they stretched what they had now, it could last a long time. And with strategically placed signs he could run people off. The ripped blanket Niko had found could be a good banner to string over the front porch, and if he could find spraypaint or large markers, he could write deceiving messages to put up. Use different colors, if he had it, as if the owners of the home made quick changes to the signs. Stuff the window edges with cloth or trash to block out the necessary candlelight.

He focused first, however, on the windows. Using the nails and boards he started in the living room, finding more energy as he went along and stopping for a few minutes at a time to drink water. It was hard not to drain the entire bottle in one sitting, though almost six months of the same thing had him planning ahead and biting back the urge to do so. He worked through Niko cleaning, passing the water bottle back and forth until it was empty. Before going downstairs to refill from one of the large jugs, however, John went to the kitchen with more supplies and looked in the sink. The metal, though dark and old, was damp. How long ago had it been used? Or was it being used for something else? Probably not. He turned one of the knobs and was shocked when water started trickling out. He slammed the bottle under it and marveled at how the pipes still, somehow, worked, but had to chalk it up to the underground well. It would have been safe from the radiation.

He looked around for Niko when the young man returned. "Er, yeah... Here, the faucet here still works, and there's probably some cleaning supplies in a closet upstairs somewhere. Bring some down where you can find it and we'll both take care of the blood, okay? It's not safe to be living around foreign body fluids... Especially blood." And not old blood, for certain. It would stink, rot the wood, draw pests that would want to get in. He could help Niko after he boarded the doors, of course, which was a more pressing issue.

Niko nodded and trudged upstairs again. He went to a small closet he had found before, which he knew was full of different bottles. He looked at them and chose the ones with pictures of floors and mops on them. One had a small picture of a tree on it, so he assumed that one was cleaning trees. He didn't even know that trees had to be cleaned.

He brought the bottles with him, inside a bucket he also had found. He carried a dry mop as well, which looked as though it hadn't been used in months. Perhaps the man that had lived here wasn't much of a cleaner. Niko wondered how long the man had been living alone, and it made him sad.

He put the stuff on the kitchen counter, waiting for John to finish nailing the door shut. A grandfather clock chimed from the living room. Niko wondered if it was correct time. He stretched and yawned, sitting on a chair and slouching over the counter near the cleaning supplies. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep before he even realised it.

John boarded the front door from outside very clearly and cleanly. When he tried to open it, it was impossible to do so without shoving, then bashing through the thick wood. He didn't try his luck, though, and went around to the back door and started on it. Using the same wood planks he nailed half onto the far side of the door, lining it up with a piece of small wood that was already on the side of the house. That way it would look as if the wood were completely over the door and the house itself, though it could still be opened. He nailed down sheets of plywood over the rest of it and slid into the kitchen again, closing it and shoving a spare hammer in between the knob and a small metal hook that looked to have held a paper towel roll.

Turning around, John found Niko sleeping in a rather precarious position, and snickered. It was his first real laugh in a while, and he stepped forward, lifting him up and depositing him on the couch in the living room before heading back to the cleaning supplies he found. At least he wouldn't have to use much of this water, even with a working faucet. He took everything from the bucket and looked through the cleaning supplies. Off-brand floor cleaners and one that was actually a scented wood polisher. It was supposed to 'smell like spring', but when he smelled it, John could liken the scent to factory-made oxygen---sewer-like and full of chemicals. He shrugged, setting it aside and pouring equal amounts of floor cleaner and water into the bucket, setting it on the floor and dampening the mop, sliding it over the blood and dirt and scooping it up. He would have to find something to clean up the excess, but at least the place would smell a little better.

Niko sneezed and woke up, finding that he had somehow been transported onto the couch. He yawned and blinked his eyes, feeling his stomach grumble. He got up from where he lay, wondering how long he had been asleep for. It felt like ages, but he knew that he could have just been asleep for a few hours. He would often drift off to sleep during the day and wake up more worse for wear.

He trudged into the kitchen, finding John finishing mopping up the blood. The room smelt cleaner and the chemicals must have been what had made him sneeze. He remembered his aunt cleaning his basement room with similar smelling things. Sometimes the fumes had been so thick he had blacked out. He yawned again, as he sat at the counter again and picked up an unused bottle. The one with the tree on it.

"Sorry I fell asleep," he apologised, feeling bad that John had done the cleaning on his own. He looked at the bottle again and opened it, smelling the contents. "I guess you didn't need a tree cleaner," he commented.

The floor in the guest bedroom---the room he had been forced to kill the man in---was the worst. John had to get onto his hands and knees and scrub the mop across the wood, bring up the blood and at least wipe it up. There was a dark stain where it was, but little else to communicate that an attempted murder and a mercy killing had taken place just that day. Or was it nighttime, now? He wasn't sure, but he'd had to light a candle to bring with him. As he worked through to the kitchen again, John looked around to the couch and found Niko awake.

"That's okay, Niko." He replied, giving the young man a smile. "It'd be best for you to rest when you can---I'm used to taking on a lot of energetic activities during the day, anyway. All this?" he waved around. "I lived in it before the world ended."

He dumped the bloody chemical mix into the sink and turned the water on again. How much was left? Possibly quite a bit, despite the well outside having gone dry when it leaked its supply. He looked around to Niko with a questioning glance until he found the bottle in his hand. "Er... Niko, that's wood polish. The tree on the front means to tell people it smells like trees. Or, it tries to smell like trees." he took the bottle and shook his head. "I ought to teach you how to read sometime..." Just because the world was in chaos didn't mean it had to be the end of intelligence, after all.

Niko wondered what John meant, about living like this before the world ended. Did he use to live in a messy house? He tilted his head but didn't ask. He didn't want the man asking about his past. He had no idea if he would be able to answer truthfully. He hadn't talked about his abuse to anyone before, and he felt that John might treat him different if he were to find out.

"I'd like that," he muttered, putting the bottle down and blushing slightly. He didn't know much about the world, and now that it had changed... What sort of things had he missed out on? Trees, fruit, animals... They were all gone. He suddenly didn't feel too good. "I might go to bed..." he said, getting off the chair and making his way up the stairs. He found the bed he had claimed and crawled under the blankets. He curled up in a foetal position, his stomach feeling queasy all of a sudden.

John watched him go silently---glued to the spot. He felt like following the young man---something was wrong. But he didn't know if he should. He set everything down, putting the bucket and mop in a corner with their various cleaners, and looked at the stairs Niko had gone up. It was quiet, but he had to finish blocking the windows---all that remained were the ones upstairs. He sighed, taking his tools and the remaining boards and going upstairs, into one of the few rooms on the second floor.

It was hard trying to be as quiet as he could while he had to slam a hammer into thick plywood and the side of the house. He'd closed the doors to each room he worked in to stifle the noise a bit more, but was sure the banging around disturbed Niko quite a bit. He didn't bother with the room the young man was in, though---not yet. John set the toolbox in the hallway by the door, and stepped into the room.

He looked to be dozing---hopefully that was the case. John stepped closer, settling onto the bed beside the small form and put a hand on the young man's head. "I hope you're okay, Niko. If there's anything you need, tell me, okay?" Why did he suddenly take on the protective title? He had often been the one protected, not protecting. But Niko needed someone to be around him, even if he didn't know it.

Niko couldn't sleep. The queasiness was washing over him in waves, making him feel as though he was on a boat. He heard John continue his work, the banging seeming much louder than it probably was. When the man came into his room, he was still awake, clutching his stomach. Wild thoughts ran through his mind. What if the apples had been poisoned? Maybe he had been radiated somehow? Was he dying? He sobbed slightly.

But then, something happened when John placed a hand on him. His queasiness lifted a little bit. He blushed as a new feeling took over and he realised what was wrong with him, with his body. "I'm... Just feeling a bit... ill..." he muttered, burying his face in the pillows. He wanted John to stay, to keep touching him. His hands were rough and calloused from working all day with a hammer, and Niko wanted to feel them against his soft skin. "It's just... I haven't... Gone so long... without doing... that..." He turned to face the man standing by his side. He reached up and ran his hands over his face. "I don't think my body... Can handle it..."

John tilted his head a bit, sitting on the edge of the bed and grasping the younger man's hand. "I think... it can. You just have to give it time." He didn't want to admit the reservations he had about acting on what Niko probably had in mind. He was sure the young man wasn't quite as young as he looked, and even if he were, law was no longer an issue. But in John's mind law was still in effect, though no one really upheld it. At least he wasn't some kind of thoughtless animal. He shook his head. "Niko... I think it might be a good idea for you to just rest a while. I mean, being safe for the first time in a while, a... a good night's rest might let you feel better. And if not..." He looked up and away, at the window that had yet to be secured. "... Well... Just come to me."

He had to fight himself not to run from the room, and closed the door lightly. What did that mean? He'd never heard of anything like it, but took the toolbox and went downstairs. Traps. They needed traps. He found fishing line and fishing rods in a downstairs closet, and thought some of the empty cans might work as a makeshift doorbell. He strung up various cans through the fishing wire, going through the back door and tying the makeshift trap down at ankle-level across the back porch and stringing the cans in the kitchen. He was a light sleeper---if he slept close to the cans, they would wake him up in just a moment. He strung the line through a hole in the door and put the cans on a hook on the ceiling.

With just a moment to admire his work, John went to his things and found his handgun. It would be less noise than a shotgun or rifle, and was easier to carry about in case someone managed to get inside anyway.

Niko sighed, curling back up and covering himself with blankets. Why had John turned him down so much? Wasn't he appealing to him? He hadn't met a man that didn't want to take him up on his offer before. Especially since the fallout, where most men were lonely and missing their wives. He shook slightly, even though he wasn't cold or frightened. He hadn't had to take care of business by himself before, so he had no idea how to even try.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the queasiness returned. He had to get up several times during the pitch black of night, to go to the bathroom to vomit in the toilet. He felt hungry, but the thought of food made him be ill again. Soon he couldn't take it anymore and went to look for John. He would force the man to help him, even if he didn't find him attractive.

He was at a slit in one of the front windows, watching the dark sky outside. He'd see headlights, or flashing of rifles or glass, glasses, protective gear. Despite the oddly muted darkness that overcame the world at night, light still came from somewhere, though he had never seen its actual location. One hand clung to his handgun, and the other ran the edge of one of his sharpest blades over his face. While razors were no longer in mass production, most had to rely on knives or simply let their extra hair grow. He could do that---it was far too uncomfortable, even in winter.

John wanted to pace, wanted to move around, walk, but most of all he wanted to sleep. His tendency to keep watch no matter what had been implanted since his birth, no less than that, and he found it very hard to take it easy, even if he felt safe. Now, however, he felt he had someone to watch over. Even if they were in a different room.

Brushing the back of his right hand over his face, John was satisfied with the smooth skin he felt and sheathed his knife as footsteps met his ears. Immediately he turned himself and his gun to face it, but lowered the weapon when he recognized the source of the noise. "Niko... It's late, what are you still up for...? We're safe for now..." He thought, anyway. If he could just calm himself down enough to accept that.

Niko didn't say anything, couldn't say anything. He kept walking slowly towards John, until he sat on the man's lap. He ran a finger over the freshly shaven skin, before kissing him softly. He wouldn't take no for an answer now. If they were to be together, John would have to get used to Niko's own needs.

When the man tried to complain, Niko silenced him with a kiss, trying to distract him as he worked quickly to get the both of them prepared.

The morning came too quickly. The night never seem to last long any more, or maybe it was just because Niko had found companionship. He rolled over, the hard floor wasn't too comfortable of a place to have fallen asleep on. His whole body ached, but he felt better, as though he had released all of the tension in his body. He smiled at John, who was still holding him in a tight hug.

"Good morning," he said, sticking his tongue out cheekily and wriggling out of John's embrace. "Did you sleep well? I think I was lying on a rock or something..." He sat up and searched the floor he had been lying on. Sure enough, he found the source of his discomfort. He had been lying on John's gun. "Oh... Well... Luckily it didn't go off..." he said, his eyes wide at the thought.