Chapter 3
THREE
It was morning, almost. Enough watery light leaking in around the shutters to make that obvious, but the light wasn’t what woke Jesse. It was the shift in the air as Wyatt made his way to the door.
“Wyatt?” Jesse caught his wrist. Wasn’t much of a catch or a hold, but Wyatt stilled anyhow. “Be careful, okay?”
“I always am.”
“You still gotta promise.” Maybe if Jesse had been more awake, he’d be a little embarrassed by how petulant he sounded, how needy and stupid. But the thing was, he needed it. Needed to hear Wyatt say those words again. “Please.”
And he was still half-asleep, for real not awake enough to register it consciously, but Wyatt’s big hand brushed across his head, the warm cup and then the sweep of it, like Wyatt was easing the greasy, grimy hair back from Jesse’s greasy, grimy forehead.
“I promise, bud,” Wyatt said.
Jesse sucked down a breath. Wyatt promised. That had to be enough.
“Lock the door behind me.”
“I will.”
A breath like a laugh. “That fucking better be a promise.”
* * *
Jesse moped for a while, after.
Moped the morning away, curled up in bed, feeling real sorry for himself but figuring he was allowed. His emotional support grump had just abandoned him, alone, in the literal middle of nowhere, for fuck knew how long.
Abandoned him — in a warm, safe, fully equipped survivalist cabin.
“Ah fuck,” Jesse muttered, then finally got around to dragging himself out of bed.
He spent the afternoon alternating between icing his ankle and taking inventory.
No med kit, or nothing as maxed out as the one he’d lost, but Jesse did find some basic med supplies. Found them while digging through the cabin’s kinda unending collection of storage closets — which is also how he found the one storage closet that wasn’t a closet at all.
“Ohmyfuckingod,” Jesse breathed as he opened the unassuming door.
A bathroom. A real one, with a head that flushed or incinerated or maybe composted, he was pretty sure.
A shower too. Fuck, a shower.
And okay, maybe the bathroom wasn’t any bigger than an actual closet, and Jesse couldn’t turn around in the shower stall even at all, and the water pressure was for shit, but it was still a shower.
It was clean, almost-hot water, and Jesse could have cried.
Did cry, a little, because Jesse was in literal Heaven, cherubs and hearts and hygiene and all the other good shit.
Mr. Tin Foil Hat had stockpiled enough complementary toiletries to restock a Walgreens. Jesse had soap and shampoo and shaving cream and a mountain of disposable razors, and he ran off all that almost-hot water as the accumulated filth of years of intra-apocalyptic living sluiced off his skin.
He almost couldn’t get his head around it, what a for real, physical relief it was to shave the dead animal off of his chin. Maybe he would have kept it if he could grow a beard like Wyatt, but his own facial hair tapped out at the rabid raccoon with mange stage, so it had to go, and it did.
His clothes — dirty and stained with what he really hoped wasn’t zombie brains — were still lying where he’d tossed them on the bathroom floor, but Wyatt had left him some stuff. A flannel, couple t-shirts, a sweater that would be comically oversized on Jesse.
But he could make the flannel work, at least.
Jesse hopped on over to the couch, to the precisely folded pile, and pulled the flannel on. It was washed soft. Needed washed, too. It smelled like Wyatt, old sweat and fuck knew what else. But Jesse buttoned it all the way up and tucked his chin under the collar anyhow, breathing deep.
Probably should have been disgusting. Was, honestly. But it was also weirdly comforting. A visceral reminder of Wyatt wrapped all around, soft on Jesse’s skin, a de facto safety blanket that kinda made Jesse shiver a little if he thought about it too much.
So he didn’t.
Just sat his butt-naked butt down on the couch and ate some more bean stew and crackers. But one flannel did not a winter wardrobe make. Jesse had to do something about it, and the answer was depressingly obvious.
Maddie’s pack.
It was lurking in the corner where he’d left it. Literally lurking. It was the buckles. They looked like creepy eyes, sizing Jesse up, a plastic echo of their original owner. Sizing him up and fucking him over, and handcuffing him to some metaphorical rusty plumbing.
“Fuck you so much,” Jesse whispered, and hoped Maddie heard somehow.
He set aside his empty bowl. Hobbled over and grabbed the pack. Dumped everything out onto the fluffy sheepskin rug in front of the fire.
The contents were weirdly anticlimactic. No evil supergenius shit. Just toiletries Jesse didn’t need now, some ladies’ stuff he’d never need, a crazy sharp hunting knife, two more pairs of fluffy handcuffs, jeez, and a couple bars of half-melted chocolate.
Jesse ate both of them, because he could, then he used the sugar high to make himself tackle the rest of Maddie’s shit.
Clothes, underwear, socks.
He held up a pair of jeans and immediately discounted them. No hope in hell they were fitting, not unless Jesse wanted to cleave his balls in two. The thermal leggings were already more hole than leg, and the t-shirts were way too narrow at the shoulders.
But there were a couple of oversized sweaters he could work with. A hoodie that might fit. Socks too, the weird, long kind that ladies pulled up over their pants, but whatever. Socks were socks. They’d keep his feet warm.
Two sports bras to add to the discard pile, and then—
“Yikes.”
Maddie might’ve been a Grade A douchecanoe, but even Jesse felt a little skeevy rifling through her panties.
Still did it, though.
He hooked up a pair. Held them up. Left them dangling precariously from the tip of one outstretched finger as he considered them.
They weren’t exactly roomy, but they weren’t small enough that he could justify trashing them.
Little Jesse and his two best buds would be sitting snug, but they’d all fit.
And it wasn’t like the panties were completely offensive. Weren’t assless. Weren’t neon or lace or see-through. They looked kinda like old-timey briefs, pale pink with white piping. Thin, soft cotton.
“Jesus,” Jesse muttered, but he’d already made up his mind. He only had one pair of his own shorts. Even he couldn’t be that disgusting.
Besides, it was warm in the cabin. He was good for food and water. He didn’t have to go outside, not yet. And even if he did, who the fuck was gonna see him?
Pretty sure he wasn’t gonna offend the sensibilities of a bald eagle by wearing some pastel pink panties under his jeans.