Chapter Text
Once the world has ended, it can never be the same.
People tried, of course. Once the rubble from the global nuclear fallout was cleared and all the survivors found, the very first idea was to go about building cities and governments and bringing back the status quo. But the thing about survivors is they're not the same as the dead, they're from a tougher stock, and trying to tell someone who just spat in the face of the apocalypse that what they need is more of the same is like trying to tell a lion that he can't sink his teeth into a beautiful steak.
Not that the world was rebuildable anyways, not with everything changed the way it was. All but the most rural of manmade structures were leveled in the chaos, and perhaps if humanity were to band together they could recover from that. The problem was that humanity wasn’t humanity anymore.
Some of the survivors made it out alive but not unscathed, the effects of the radiation mutating their DNA in ways that no one could have anticipated. Otherwise ordinary people were suddenly developing abilities, superhuman abilities, becoming a race of special humans known only as Exceptionals.
Which would have been fine --it might have even helped the reconstruction process, to have those who could lift mountains or soar above the trees-- if it weren’t for the fact that no nuclear missile could obliterate human greed. Almost as soon as the Exceptionals began to appear, they were hunted, tracked down and sold like commodities to the highest bidder. The lucky ones put to work using their special skills to aid whatever the specific goals of the clan who owned them happened to be. The unlucky ones found themselves in chains, put on display in the homes of the powerful like some sort of freakish menagerie of prizes, spoils of war.
And then there were the few who tried to keep hidden, who learned to contain their powers and tuck them away where no one could find them. Sometimes, a power would be just quiet enough that an exceptional could pass for normal, walking amongst the general population with few --if any-- of their neighbors ever knowing.
Harry is very careful in that way. The village he currently calls home is fairly large, about a hundred people, and of all them Zayn is the only one who knows he’s exceptional. Of course, the secret is safe with Zayn because he’s exceptional too; Harry found him one day behind the medicine tent watching with delight as bright red feathers sprouted on the backs of his fingers, flipping through every color under the sun before receding back into his smooth skin.
“How did you do that?” Harry had asked breathlessly, eyes glued to the young man’s wrist in fascination. “Did you just shape-shift?”
The man was up in a flash, hand pressed to Harry’s mouth and eyes desperate. “Not so loud!” he hissed at once. “You can’t- you can’t tell anyone, okay? Please, if they find out what I can do, they’ll--”
“I know what they’ll do,” Harry had interrupted solemnly. “I saw the raiders take the girl with the night vision last month. I won’t tell a soul that you can-- do whatever it is you can do.”
Zayn can shapeshift into any kind of animal, Harry later comes to find out, as well as communicate with them in his mind. It explains why there are always little birds and squirrels trailing after him, and why he always turns up knowing things he isn’t supposed to know (Zayn has mastered the art of quite literally being the fly on the wall). Harry happens to think it’s the coolest exceptional ability he’s ever seen.
When it comes to practicality, however, Harry has it in the bag. A couple of years after the fallout, he noticed that people always seemed to feel better around him, coughs disappearing and fevers cooling inexplicably. All he had to do was touch someone and suddenly, they were on the mend.
The real test didn’t come until Harry and Zayn were out in the woods one day, Zayn stripping down and morphing into a hawk so he can show off the flying skills he’s been perfecting in secret all week to the one boy he knows he can trust. “Watch this!” he called to Harry right before his mouth gave way to a beak, and as soon as he was fully bird, he was off like a rocket.
His demonstration may have been a little premature, however, because he’d been in the air less than ten seconds before he’d begun to wobble and suddenly he was careening into an oak tree with a thud and a pained screech. Harry watched in horror as Zayn’s human form began to take over again, and by the time he hit the ground he was himself once again and moaning in pain as he clutched an arm that was bent at a wholly unnatural angle.
“Zayn!” Harry shouted, darting over to where he lay in the dirt. “Jesus, are you-- are you okay?”
“I think I broke my wing-- arm-- whatever!”
That much was obvious, as Harry unfurled Zayn from his protective hunch and took a look for himself. “We can get you back to the hospital tent and reset it, get you a cast for it,” he mumbled miserably. “Do you think you can make it? I could go get someone and come back for you--”
“You’ve gotta do something, Hazza,” Zayn begged through gritted teeth. “Do the thing with your hands, take the edge off for me. It hurts like a fucking bitch.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll-- just stay still for a minute, okay? I’ll try. I don’t know how to-- I don’t know if I can, but just give me a minute.” Harry took a deep breath to calm the butterflies in his stomach and wrapped his hands gently around Zayn’s arm, right on either side of the break. Zayn hissed and closed his eyes and Harry followed suit, face screwing up in concentration, though on what he couldn’t say.
At first Harry felt nothing and Zayn’s labored breath went on. Please, just heal him, Harry begged whatever part of his damaged brain held this mutation. Just take his pain away, please. Maybe he’d just been imagining the effect he has on his patients because Zayn doesn’t appear to be healing, until there’s a tingle in Harry’s palms and a rush of heat down his spine and the odd sensation that he couldn’t take his hands from Zayn’s skin if he tried. Zayn gave a startled gurgle and froze beneath Harry’s touch, both boys holding their breath as the heat in Harry’s hands burned impossibly hot for one split second and then vanished.
When at last Harry found the will to open his eyes, he found Zayn already gawking at the formerly broken spot on his arm. It was perfectly straight once more, not a scratch on him, and when Zayn wiggles his fingers the muscles move seamlessly beneath the skin. “Holy shit,” Zayn croaked as he blinked up at Harry. “You’re incredible.”
There’s something about the way he says it, or maybe the grin he says it with, that reminds Harry of a lifetime ago before the war and of a version of himself he’d long since buried. “I guess,” he just weakly replied.
Over the next few years Harry learned to hone his skills, to call up the strange power quickly and to keep it in check. He learns to use only a little at a time, so that no one suspects that he’s anything except a good doctor. Fever by fever, infection by infection, he learns to craft his skill until now, nearly ten years after the world fell apart, Harry’s found his place in this new one.
Zayn develops the ability to communicate with animals telepathically, which leaves him relegated to nursing duty since he refuses to hunt or cook anything he can have a conversation with. Neither boy minds much, since that means they can spend their days together in the hospital tent, tending to the sick and wounded and keeping each other safe.
Or driving each other insane. “Harry, I don’t know why you won’t at least try to heal yourself,” Zayn reasons for the hundred thousandth time, voice low as he cuts new bandages from clean cloth and passes them to Harry to fold. “You’ve healed everyone in this village a dozen times. Why won’t you fix your face?”
He’s referring to the long scar running from Harry’s temple to jaw, a souvenir from a shrapnel bomb that took out most of his village back home. It had taken his family and left him with an ugly gash on his otherwise cherubic 15 year-old face. Ten years have passed and now it just accents the grimace he wears at Zayn’s words. “I don’t have to ‘fix’ my face, Zayn, I have no problem with how I look,” he answers tiredly.
“That’s not what I meant, mate, and you know it. You’re well fit. I just think it’d make things easier for you if you didn’t-- you know.” Zayn takes his time cutting straight lines in the fabric. “No one even looks at you when they talk to you. They either stare at your scar or at the ground. I just think you deserve to have people look at you for you, not some scratch on your face.”
“And what happens when I show up with a fresh face? They’ll look me in the eye alright, and then offer me up in a heartbeat the next time raiders come through.”
“So do it a little at a time,” Zayn shrugs. “Go get some berries from the forest and smash ‘em up into a paste, smear it on your scar and say the shit’s a miracle skin cure.”
“Right, until they try it for themselves and the only thing that happens is a berry-colored stain on their face.” Harry heaves an impatient sigh. “Of course it would be easier if I didn’t have the scar. You think I like being a social pariah? It just isn’t going to happen, and I’m okay with that.”
They continue to make bandages in silence until the fabric runs out, and Zayn sits on the edge of the table to watch Harry fold the last of them. “You can’t let this village walk all over you,” he says quietly at long last. “You’re the best guy I know, one of the few genuinely good guys. You’re twenty-five years old, you should be starting a family. Any of those girls or lads would be lucky to have you.”
The last bandage is more a scrap than anything else, too small to be used, and Harry thumbs at the fray along the edges while he wills the lump in his throat to go away. Zayn’s the holder of all of Harry’s secrets, including the fact that he isn’t too picky about gender when it comes to love. He knows everything about Harry, even about the boy that Harry loved long ago and lost in the war along with everything else.
“I’m not ready,” he whispers uncomfortably, just like he does every time Zayn gently nudges him. “I hear what you’re saying and thank you, but-- it just doesn’t feel right, yet. I’m not ready.”
Zayn just nods, face nothing but kind. “Of course, mate.” He doesn’t pretend to understand what goes on beneath Harry’s curls when it comes to romance, never has. Most people were eager to connect in this strange new world, even past the almost universal mourning, but there was something that sat in Harry’s gut and refused not to feel sick at the idea of letting go of that boy he loved a lifetime ago. It just never felt right, and Zayn knew his best friend well enough to trust in that.
Harry opens his mouth as if to say more, but a shout rings out through the camp and both heads turn in unison to take in the words being called out. “Raiders,” Zayn whispers, the word sending a chill down both spines. Harry moves first, striding to the entrance to the tent and pulling the flap aside to peer out, Zayn coming up behind him to watch as activity in the center of the village grinds to a halt.
There are ten men with horses, suited up in worn armor with wicked-looking weapons in their hands. Their faces are hidden with masks, grotesque expressions painted on like the sight of armed strangers riding into town wasn’t enough to strike terror into innocent hearts. Every few weeks one of their agents will come sneaking into camp, hiding amongst the trees and listening at doorways for whispers of Exceptionals hiding in their midst until inevitably they were caught and some brave villager would run them out of town.
If they were lucky, the scout would turn up nothing. If they weren’t… it was never more than a few days before the scout was followed by warriors on horseback and some unfortunate creature was snatched from their home and dragged off to some unknown but undoubtedly terrible fate.
There’s a woman with long grey hair in a braid down her back standing before the horsemen now, arms crossed and chin jutted in defiance. “There’s nothing for you here,” she says firmly. “You can’t just come here and take our children from us--”
“Silence!” the leader growls. “We’re here for the boy with snakeskin hands.”
Harry drops the tent flap like it’s burning and whirls around to face Zayn. “You didn’t--?”
Zayn’s face is pale, his eyes wide with terror. “Learned how to do it last week. I was practicing in the woods, I checked like five times to make sure I was alone!”
“Shit. Oh, shit,” Harry moaned to himself, heart pounding. “Zayn, you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta get out of here! He’ll give a description and they’ll hand you over, you know they will.”
There’s no denying it; the village stands strong now, but if they’re asked for a slight man with dark skin and swirls of ink they’ll know it’s Zayn and they’ll give him up. They have to. The alternative is to watch innocent people cut down one by one until the raiders get what they want or run out of throats to cut. Zayn nods shakily, then leaps into action, grabbing a sack from the dirt and shoving canteens of water and the remnants of his and Harry’s lunch into it as fast as he can. “I’ll take the back way. It’ll take them a minute to figure out who they’re looking for, and by then I can be gone. Tell them I ran, Harry, or else they’ll hurt people.”
“I don’t think you have time,” Harry gulps, peering warily through the tent flaps. Heads are starting to turn towards the hospital tent with suspicious eyes as the lead horseman rattles off a description. “You won’t be able to make it to the woods. Zayn, you need to shift and hide, now.”
There’s a split second of indecision as Zayn stops in his preparations and looks at Harry with eyes full of fear before he’s tearing off his clothes, body already shifting as he goes. Harry does his best to help, untangling the shirt from around Zayn’s shrinking limbs and tossing it behind a desk even as footsteps and angry whispers begin to approach the tent. “Hurry, hurry,” Harry whispers unnecessarily, heart pounding, watching as Zayn completes the transformation to a furry little mouse.
Harry scoops up Zayn and plops him in the breast pocket of his shirt without a second thought, kicking the discarded trousers and shoes under a table just as the tent flaps are ripped open and warriors start pouring in.
“Where is he?” a warrior growls to Harry as the others begin tearing apart the tent in search. “The dark-skinned one, the shapeshifter. They said he was in the medicine tent, where is he?”
“Who, Zayn?” Harry says innocently. “I dunno, he looked outside and then ran out the back. I think he was headed for the woods, but he didn’t say where he was go--”
“You idiot!” the man interrupts at a roar, bringing up one armored hand and lashing it across Harry’s cheek with enough force to knock him to the ground. Harry twists painfully to catch himself so that the boy-mouse in his pocket isn’t crushed, crying out when he feels something in his ankle snap. “To the woods, quickly!” he hears the warrior say. “Don’t let him get away!”
There’s a thunder of commotion as the warriors tear from the tent and towards the woods, and Harry remains on the ground, breathing hard, until the tent quiets. Eventually a gentle hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “Are you alright?” a man asks, one of the cooks who’s always at least tried to look at Harry directly.
“‘m fine,” Harry answers hoarsely, biting his lip at the pain in his face and ankle. “You should all go. I’ll need to clean up the tent.”
The few villagers that have trickled into the tent in the wake of the raiders look at a loss for words, their eyes sad as they take in the wreckage of the once tidy tent and the boy on the ground whose best friend is currently being hunted in the woods. Apparently no one can think of any words of comfort, because it’s in silence that they slowly trickle back out.
Harry sits up with a grunt and rests one hand on his cheek, feeling his palm heat up with healing power to dull the pain from what’s surely an already purpling bruise. Zayn scurries out of his pocket and down one arm to the ground, quickly shifting back to human. “They’ll notice that your face is fixed, Harry, you shouldn’t,” he says as soon as he has a mouth. “I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have been in the middle of that--”
“It doesn’t matter what they see if we’re going on the run,” Harry interrupts, moving on to grab his ankle with a wince. “You need to stay shifted, though, they might come back. I’ll grab some food and we’ll leave before they can miss us.”
Zayn is shaking his head before Harry can finish. “No way. You’re not coming with me. You’ve got a life here, Harry, a good one. I’m the one that fucked up and got caught. I’m the one who needs to run.”
“And you’re also my best friend. It’s non-negotiable. I’m coming with you, okay?” Harry is already picking up the abandoned pack and loading it up with first aid supplies and the snacks they keep on hand for patients. “We’re better as a team. You shift back and I’ll carry you out of the village, and we will make it through this together, do you hear me?”
They lock eyes for a long moment before Zayn looks down and nods. “Thank you,” he whispers.
Harry just retrieves Zayn’s clothes from the ground and shoves them into the pack with a little smile. “Mouse up, Z.”
Five minutes later he’s strolling from the tent with Zayn tucked in his pocket and the pack on his back. For once it’s to his benefit that no one can look at him with that scar on his face, since it sends people scurrying away from him rather than questioning why he’s heading towards the woods with his bags packed. No one stops him. He keeps expecting them to, to call out and stop him from disappearing into the trees, but in the end he just slips away without a word and no one mourns his going.
It’s probably better that way, though.
Once they’re well into the woods, Zayn shifts into an eagle and soars overhead, keeping watch for raiders and guiding Harry around all the rivers and valleys that stand as obstacles in their path. Neither of them really knows where they’re going, except for away from the village and the raiders. By sunset the raiders have given up and are retreating into the mountains, and Zayn is back on the ground with Harry picking their way through the trees.
“At some point we’ll have to pick someplace to aim for,” Zayn says quietly as they struggle their way through a little thicket, using sticks they found to swat the brush aside. “We can’t just walk in a straight line forever, there’s no telling where we’ll end up.”
“Can’t think of anywhere I particularly want to go,” Harry grumbles in answer. “The whole world is fucked up. It’ll just be the same story in a different city.”
“Yeah, but with people who don’t know to turn us over to the raiders. To turn me over to the raiders.” Zayn pulls up short and sags against a tree with a hand over his face. “This is all my fault. I should have fucking known better than to use my ability outside where anyone could see. We wouldn’t be in this mess if I weren’t such a fucking idiot.”
“It isn’t your fault,” Harry argues at once. “We’re in this mess because there are people out there who think that Exceptionals should be property. They’re the ones to blame, not you. Okay? Come on, let’s just keep going and find a place to stop for the night--”
Suddenly there’s a faint whistling sound through the trees and a spray of bark as an arrow thuds into the trunk of the tree Zayn’s leaning against, not three inches from his head. They both whip around in time to see a figure slinking back into the brush with a bow in hand and a scowl on his face. “Raiders! Run!” Zayn shouts, already sprinting in the opposite direction as fast as his legs can carry him. Harry is close on his heels, the thick branches whipping them in the face as they go.
Behind them they can hear the shouts of raiders closing in, more arrows whipping by. There’s no time even to duck, what with the way they’re racing through the thicket. There’s too much around them, the brush is too dense to be rushing through this way, and the instant Harry feels one of his clumsy feet snag on a tree root he knows he’s done for. Harry goes crashing to the forest floor, head smacking painfully against a fallen log with a cry that’s half pain and half fear.
The last thing Harry sees before the darkness overtakes his vision is Zayn stopping and turning to help him and an arrow flying straight into his chest. He doesn’t even have time to scream.