Hide Your Lungs||SMPLive AU

Chapter Seven

Two weeks passed, and Travis had moved most of Cooper and his own belongings into their new room, making their car empty for the first time in months. During this time, Travis fell into a routine. During the morning, he would help with breakfast and the clean up, then the rest of the day, he would help do simple chores around the house until it was dinner, where he would eat with the rest of the house. After dinner, he would head downstairs and talk with Cooper.

Two weeks passed, Travis fell into a routine, and Cooper was finally let out of the basement.

Cooper was jumping at the idea of leaving the basement and finally seeing the rest of the house, and while Ted had been a bit hesitant about it, he soon came around to it when Cooper was able to balance on his one good leg without vomiting. Ted made sure to tell Travis to keep an eye on him, and make sure Cooper wasn't pushing himself too hard.

Getting around for Cooper wasn't easy, and he couldn't even go up or down the stairs without help. But after Carson found an old crutch in the barn, moving got just a bit more doable.

Despite being in the house and actively helping, there was still tension with people in the house. Travis couldn't really blame them though, most of the time the people you find weren't the nicest. But it did seem to be getting better, with less scowls and untrusting looks for words being shot their way.

With what had happened with Travis and Charlie, Carson didn't explain everything, in fact he kept quite a bit out. Instead he told everyone that they had seen someone when they went walking, and that everyone needed to stay close to the house and be on high alert. Whatever Josh and Carson spoke to Joko about wasn't told to the rest of the house, and there wasn't any mention of it.

Everything seemed to be working, and that's all Travis could ask for.

___________________

Snow crunched beneath Travis and Cooper's shoes as they walked. It was early morning, and Cooper had wanted to move around a bit before breakfast, saying that he wanted to get used to walking into snow. The temperature had been growing colder the past few days, with snow coming and going, but it was normally gone around noon. Until recently, with the past few days seeing the snow stick around later into the day, which was causing stress to slowly rise within the house.

"Snow fucking sucks, Trav," Cooper grumbled through slightly chattering teeth, "My sock's all wet."

"You wanna head back then? I bet breakfast is ready!" Travis smiled at Cooper, who gave a small smile back as he nodded. The two of them turned around and started walking back the way they came, something that was easier for Cooper to do than make a new path entirely. Even if there was barely two inches of snow on the ground.

The walk to the house was short, they hadn't gone far to begin with, but despite that Cooper still let out a sigh of relief when he didn't have to walk through the snow anymore. Travis helped Cooper up the stairs, who said a quick thanks.

Entering the house, the pair took their shoes off and hung their jackets on the wall before going to the kitchen. The rest of the house was already eating at the table, talking about trivial things. Cooper and Travis grabbed their own plates, before taking a seat. Travis easily fell into a conversation with Noah and Charlie, while Cooper stayed quiet and ate his food.

Everyone continued their own conversations for a while, and as people were finishing their plates Carson cleared his throat, causing everyone to stop talking and look at him.

"We need to do a run today," Everyone at the table seemed to let out a collective groan, making Carson roll his eyes, "Yeah. yeah, I know no one wants to do that. But we need to do it before winter is actually here, okay?"