Hide Your Lungs||SMPLive AU

Chapter One

"If I have to eat one more piece of Spam I'm going to fucking lose it."

Travis couldn't help but laugh as he turned his head to face Cooper, who was stretched out in the passenger seat, staring out the window as the world zoomed past them. Travis looked at his friend for a few more seconds before turning back to dirt road they were moving down, "Then I guess it's a good thing we're doing this?"

Cooper scoffed and out of the corner of his eye, Travis saw him roll his eyes, "No. This is possibly the worst idea we've had in a long time."

"You've been complaining about not having enough food!"

"We don't! We're on our last bits of supplies and if we just driving I give us a week, tops, before we turn on each other and both die."

Travis scowled at that comment, "You really think we'll turn on each other?"

Silence fills the car as Cooper takes too long to respond, and when he does his tone is filled with slight panic, as if he didn't mean to really say what he did, "No- I meant- It- It was just a joke Trav," He doesn't talk again for a few seconds, "I don't think we would actually do that."

Travis's scowl turns into something closer to sadness. It was a thought that never crossed his mind. Maybe deep in his mind, there was a part of him that knew it was a possibility that they would end up turning on one another. Even though they had never fully discussed what they would do if one of them got Corrupted, it seemed like the unspoken agreement was to kill the other and move on.

"What do we need? Like really need?" Travis spoke up against the silence, desperately trying to change the subject, "What should I be looking for? Besides food?"

Cooper leaned back further in his seat, and let out a hum as he considered the question, "Besides food...? I mean water is always good, clothes are gonna be really nice to have... Batteries are nice to have, bandages or anything that we could use for first aid..." Cooper's eyes drifted to the dashboard, where the amount of gasoline was nearly empty, "We should try and fill up some of the jerrycans, I don't want to have us run out of gas us the middle of nowhere."

Travis nodded, slowly making a mental note of everything Cooper was saying, "Got it..."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cooper twisted around and grabbed a large, folded map of the United States. He unfolded it, mumbling a quiet sorry to Travis when the page limited his view of the road, "So, if we're still on track, we should get to Canton soon."

"And we'll be in and out and back on the road before we even know it?"

"Yeah... unless Adorers got to it first."

Travis felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up his stomach twist at the mention of Adorers. Maybe if there were a few in Canton, they could be reasoned with. Though Travis had little hope for that. Adorers weren't the reasoning type.

Travis looked over at Cooper, whose eyes still hadn't left the map, and then back at the road, which was slowly changing from dirt to pavement.

And that's where they stayed until they got to Canton.

___________

They arrived in Canton close to far later then they would have liked. If Travis were to guess, it was probably around six, and they only had an hour at most. They decided to park their old Volvo to the side of the road next to an old pizza shop, hoping it would just look like another long abandoned car. Travis removed the key and the engine died, leaving the car to fall into silence. They sat in the car, not moving for a few seconds before Travis reached into the back seat. He pulled a backpack to the front and tossed it to Cooper before grabbing his own.