The wind outside wailed like a dying thing, clawing at the shutters, rattling in the stove pipe. Dan felt a chill just listening to it, though he was inside, as safe and warm as he had any hope of being these days. Now that the storm had gotten here, even his bad hip only ached the normal amount. He shrugged deeper into his sweater and wished for Herbert.
But there: above the clatter and cry of the nor’easterly, Dan heard the thud of familiar footsteps on the porch’s wooden slats. The next moment came Herbert’s heavy knock. “It’s me,” he called, muffled through the door.
Dan scrambled up to let Herbert in. The door nearly tore out of his hands as he opened it, and he caught only a single glimpse of the sea, its night-black waves beaten white by the wind. Then Herbert was at his side, pushing with him to shut the door against darkness and whatever might hide in it.
Not that much was likely to be hiding in it tonight. Even as Herbert stood in front of him, Dan was half-afraid he’d been blown out to sea. And what would Dan have done then? Still, he said, “Did you see any?”
Herbert shook his head. He was peeling his gloves off and setting them by the woodstove. “Even if they can swim, which I still find unlikely, we won’t see them tonight. If they tried, they’d be swept all the way to the Bahamas.”
“The Bahamas sound nice,” Dan said, instead of reminding him of the one dead person who had somehow made it all the way across the inlet to their island. Herbert insisted that one was an outlier, and perhaps it’d been there already, or it could just as well have fallen into a boat and been stranded here, honestly, Dan.
Was that optimism or denial? Maybe they were the same thing.
Dan had managed to keep his hands to himself for a solid two minutes there, but now he tugged Herbert upright, pulled him close, and wrapped his arms around him. Here Herbert was, solid and whole, smelling of the sea and a trace of sweat he’d worked up crossing the spit that connected them to the next island over. The corner of his glasses pressed into Dan’s shoulder, a little sharp. It was a grounding kind of pain, and Dan leaned into it.
Herbert squeezed Dan’s arm. For a few moments they breathed in unison, inhale for inhale. Then Herbert said, “I’d like to finish taking my boots off.”
“Right,” Dan said. He flushed a little, but he held Herbert a moment longer anyway before letting him go. “I, uh. I made dinner.” He hadn’t expected Herbert to make it back tonight—he’d been sure he wouldn’t—and yet he’d cooked for two anyway.
“Is it beans?” Herbert asked. He bent to untie his boot laces. His hair was sticking up every which way, like the wind had run its fingers through it.
“Well,” Dan hedged. “Some of it’s beans.” They were the food of the apocalypse, it turned out, and there wasn’t a lot Dan could do to dress them up. The cabin’s spice selection was not extensive. Dan had ideas about an herb garden, if he and Herbert could find the seeds on the mainland. If they stuck around long enough for something like that, though Herbert insisted the cabin was a temporary stopgap.
But where else would they go?
“It’s hot, anyway,” Dan said, and Herbert nodded.
They ate near the warmth of the woodstove. They were saving the candles and the gas lantern for emergencies, so the orange glow of the fire was the room’s only light. It was easy to drowse in that gentle diminess, once Dan had put his empty bowl aside. He listened to the comforting rustle of Herbert’s movements and let his mind drift.
Then he didn’t have to listen, for Herbert’s hand had come to rest on Dan’s arm. He was watching Dan with an intent expression Dan had learned how to read a while back. Dan turned his palm over, lacing his fingers between Herbert’s. “Come here,” he said.
Herbert shuffled closer until he was very nearly close enough to kiss. He paused there. The fire threw pitch-dark shadows across his face, and the light of the embers glinted in his eyes. Dan reached up and tousled Herbert’s hair, as he’d wanted to do ever since Herbert had walked in the door. The wind coming off the sea had gotten to it first, but now he was inside, and he was Dan’s to mess up as he pleased.
Herbert sighed, a long, slow sound like a wave retreating from the beach. He leaned in and put his mouth on Dan’s, and Dan found he was far hungrier for this than he had been for the bean stew. He pulled Herbert close.
When they’d made out until they were both gasping, Herbert pushed Dan gently but firmly onto his back on the cabin’s ancient rug, minding Dan’s hip carefully. He pulled Dan’s cock out of his jeans and shimmied down on his belly there between Dan’s legs. With that now-familiar scowl of concentration, he took Dan carefully into his mouth.
It was, months after the first time, still just about the fucking hottest thing Dan had ever seen.
After Herbert had gotten him off, Dan pulled him close and wrapped his hand around Herbert’s dick. This was pretty hot, too. Was there anything in the world as satisfying as coaxing noises from Herbert that he hadn’t intended to make? To shake that maniacal confidence a little, get him gasping and flushed like any guy did with a hand on his cock?
“Dan,” Herbert whispered, in that last, breath-stopping moment before he came.
Afterward, Dan drowsed again, laid out there on the floor with his arm tucked behind his head. It took him a while to notice Herbert pulling the clothes off him, as neither of them had bothered to do before. Dan lay still and let him. He had a pretty good idea what Herbert was looking for.
When Herbert had bared enough of Dan’s skin, he brushed his fingertips over the scars. They began at Dan’s collar bone: parallel ridges, whitening with age, that swept all the way down his chest and across his gut. They were most obvious at his hip. The dead man’s fingernails had gouged bloody furrows through his flesh and right down to the bone.
Dan didn’t remember much of what happened for a long time after that; he’d been too delirious from the infection. He knew he’d nearly died, though. He could tell by the way Herbert refused to ever talk about any of it.
Now Herbert traced the scars from beginning to end. He splayed his fingers across Dan’s hip like a claim. His eyes were black, their depths impossible to plumb.
“Hey,” Dan said softly. Herbert looked up, half-startled. Dan reached down and swept Herbert’s hair back from his face. “Getting pretty shaggy,” Dan said. “You’re going to start looking like a hippy soon. You’ll have to put it in a ponytail.”
Herbert snorted, but the feeble joke had broken his contemplation of terrible might-have-beens, and that was all Dan had really wanted. Herbert crawled up next to Dan and snuggled in close, though he probably wouldn’t have called it that. Herbert West was a cuddler, it turned out. Dan wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years. “You can cut it tomorrow,” Herbert said.
Dan wrapped his arm around Herbert. He felt the memory of that earlier fear like a chill, like a draft through a crack in the cabin wall. “You shouldn’t have even tried to get back until tomorrow,” he said. “You should have holed up over there somewhere. What if—what if—”
Herbert burrowed more firmly into Dan’s side. “I wanted to come home.”
“Oh,” Dan said softly. He held Herbert a little tighter. He should have argued some more, but abruptly all the fight had gone out of him. Home.
Herbert shifted in Dan’s arms, digging into his pants pocket. Dan had forgotten to even ask if he’d found anything on his expedition. After a moment he put something in Dan’s hand: something flat and papery that came with a soft rattling sound. Dan lifted the item to the light.
It was a seed packet. Across the front in large, faded script, it said, THYME.
“I found some more, too. They’re in my coat. I don’t know if they’ll still grow,” Herbert warned.
Dan took a deep breath and blinked the sudden dampness from his eyes. “I guess we’ll have to find out. Do some experiments.”
“Very well,” Herbert said, like he was making some kind of concession and not positively aching to do science of any kind, even botany. Dan laughed softly, and after a moment, he heard Herbert’s dry chuckle. That was the real concession, Dan thought: Herbert letting Dan amuse him.
The fire burned low, and outside, the storm raged on.