The guards would leave the light out, which was against the law, but Marcus preferred it that way. The dark was so much more familiar. He would sit in the corner furthest from the door and sleep with his eyes open. That’s what it felt like, anyway. There was nothing to stimulate his senses, no sights, no sounds, no smells but for the slightly musty scent of stone and damp air. He liked to see how long he could go without blinking.

( A long time. )

Blair fell asleep before he did and he didn't notice how he'd gone perfectly still under her warm weight, except for the thud of his heart in his chest. He didn't need to move, it seemed. There were no twitches in his fingers or pangs in his legs. He'd settled comfortably against the canvas draped soil. The air, after the rain, was cold, the cloud cover low and close. It should have been warm, he felt, stuffy with humidity, but it wasn't and the cold felt empty, unwelcoming.

Marcus had his head tipped back, eyes open, sight full of the thick grey overhead that never dispersed. A nuclear winter. Ash in the rain. He remembered the fallout shelter that had been in back of the old grocery store in Abilene, the one had had closed down the year he was born. Would anyone have had the chance to get in that shelter before the bombs landed, or had Abilene been wiped off the map, leveled by radiation? ( More than that, he wondered if he cared. )