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A Few Months Later
Lucan and I were inseparable.
The city had been dying for months—its bones jutting out in twisted rebar, its skin peeled back in sheets of rusted metal and shattered glass—but in the midst of all that ruin, we carved out something like a life. A fragile, stubborn little flame that refused to go out.
We moved through the wreckage like two halves of a whole. It wasn't just survival that bound us, though survival was all we had most days. It was something quieter. Something unspoken.
Every morning started the same: I'd wake up to the sound of Lucan rustling through our scavenged supplies, muttering under his breath about how I never packed things "in order." I'd tease him about being picky over food that was weeks—sometimes months—past edible. He'd scowl, throw me a stale biscuit, and I'd catch it like it was treasure.
We shared everything—crumbs of stale bread found in forgotten alleys, the last bitter drops of water trapped in cracked bottles, the worn fabric of our coats that smelled faintly of smoke, metal, and the faintest trace of soap from months ago.
The nights were colder. We'd huddle together in the shell of our safe house, a leaning structure that had survived some disaster long before we ever found it. Its roof leaked in five different places, but Lucan had fixed most of them with scraps of tarp and stubborn determination. I used to watch him work—jaw clenched, hair falling into his eyes—and I'd feel this strange warmth, like maybe we could last here.
I didn't just see him as a companion. He was my family. The only constant in a world that chewed people up and spat them out in pieces.
And I believed—deep in my bones, in that place you don't question—that he loved me too. That whatever storms came, we'd weather them together.
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The Little Moments That Made Me Sure
There was the time I got sick—really sick. Fever, shaking, couldn't keep food down. For three days, I drifted in and out of sleep while Lucan stayed close, rationing water, forcing me to sip broth he'd stolen from some old supply crate. I'd woken once to find him sitting against the wall, head tilted back, eyes closed, but still holding my wrist to check my pulse.
Or the night we found that old music player in a half-collapsed shop. We didn't have the right batteries, but Lucan spent an entire afternoon pulling apart broken flashlights until he made it work. We sat on the floor listening to crackling static that sometimes became a song, and for a little while, the city didn't feel so heavy.
He wasn't perfect. He had this habit of disappearing for hours without saying where he was going. I didn't like it, but I told myself it didn't matter. He always came back. Always.
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We'd raided an abandoned high-rise together. The wind howled through shattered windows, carrying the smell of rain. I remember laughing when a pigeon startled him—it flew straight past his head and nearly knocked him over. He'd shoved me playfully, muttering something about me being "insufferable."
We'd found two cans of peaches that day. Real peaches. We split them that night, syrup dripping down our fingers, laughing at how absurdly sweet they tasted after months of stale bread.
Lucan had looked at me then—really looked—and for just a second, I thought I saw something soft in his eyes.
I asked him what he was thinking. I would've asked why his hands shook when he handed me the last peach slice but I decided against it.
In my head, nothing could shatter us. Nothing could break the bond we had built.
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