One month after impact

Taking care of the blonde gave Tsuyoshi something to do that didn't involve thinking about spending the rest of his life in this shit hole. After a month asleep she had an inch of dark roots showing, but he rearranged her hair on her pillow so he didn't have to see anything marring the beauty of the unnaturally golden strands, so blonde they sometimes seemed to be glowing in the hospital lights.

Dr Yeoh visited her sometimes, and so did Josephine, but Zelko wouldn't come see what Tsuyoshi was doing. He always nagged about it, when he wasn't looking for something in the place to fight.

It was morning, probably. Tsuyoshi sometimes found it hard to tell in this place. The lights outside seemed unnatural at times, like massive stage lights had risen instead of the sun. It went dark in a weird way, much too quick.

He didn't like it.

Either way, he couldn't sleep with Zelko tossing and turning beside him on the crappy mattress they'd found for themselves. At least the blonde was quiet.

He heard a sharp rap on the door. He tried not to jump in his seat. That had to be Dr Yeoh, because if it was Zelko it would be louder, accompanied by big, heavy steps and a loud voice, as if he always had to command the room. It would annoy Tsuyoshi more if he weren't sick with infatuation. Sometimes he felt so in love with Zelko he wanted to throw up.

He turned on his chair and raised an eyebrow at Dr Yeoh.

"There's something you should come with me to see," she said, in her precise English tones.

"I'm not doing anything else."

*

The list of rules had arrived a few weeks in, affixed to the outside wall of what people had taken to using as a common room. At first it only declared that everyone must choose a building to sleep in and not make their bed outside. Yesterday, it had declared sex off limits.

Tsuyoshi had scoffed at the idea of it, but he'd been too tired that night to test the ban, and by the time he woke up that morning, much too early, Zelko was rolled away, snoring like a pig.

He hadn't investigated the rest of their little world all that much, but he could tell Dr Yeoh had. Sure, she always walked like she knew where she was going, but it was much more convincing this time. Soon he might actually figure out something real about her.

"They're behind this small shed." She tapped at the corrugated iron wall as she turned around the bend.

"They?"

But as soon as he stopped right next to her, he saw them. They were fully naked as far as he could tell, lying partway in a deep puddle, the boy mostly submerged and the girl almost totally on dry ground.

"Some of the kids were calling this a lake," she said.

"The kids? Are you now thinking of me as one of the adults?"

"You're still a kid, Okada, but you've examined a corpse before."

The corpses smelled like charred meat, but the bits of them under the water were swollen with the damp.

"Something zapped them while they were trying to swim. Maybe the creepy kitchen robots. They look like they want to kill," he said.

"Funny," she said in a way that made it abundantly clear she'd never found him funny even once in her life. "I think they were breaking the rules, and whoever is in charge punished them."

"Got any scientific reasons for that?"

She looked sideways at him. "It's a feeling. Don't tell anyone I have those."

He looked at the bodies again and sighed. "I guess this means 29 people in the camp. You can get the colonel to announce it once we've got these to the morgue."

"Any idea who they are?"

He looked at the bodies again. The camp was full with the strangest of strangers and he'd only investigated the insides of the hospital. "I know as much as you do."

*

After they dealt with moving the bodies and the totally unnecessary administrative tasks the doctor had set for herself, she herded him out behind the hospital and handed him a cigarette.

"You need this," she said.

"This is not a beautiful habit," he said, "so I'm quitting again tomorrow."

But he felt a little ugly in that moment.

She blew out her smoke and didn't speak, so he knew it was on him to break the silence. "I'm going to test the sex ban with Zelko for science."

"I'll treat your charred remains with all the respect they deserve," she said.

*

He shoved open the door to the hospital room he'd claimed as a bedroom.

"We have to try to break the sex rule for science," Tsuyoshi said, before he'd even closed the door behind him.

"The what? What sex rule?" Zelko blinked at him, adorably confused, which was perhaps not as rare as people might expect, and put down his book.

"There's a new rule put on that sign outside one of the sheds, forbidding sex. The doc thinks two kids might have died trying to break it."

"How can you think of sex after you've been looking at corpses?" Zelko asked.

Tsuyoshi put one knee on the mattress, leaned toward Zelko, and smiled. "Do you remember the first time you kissed me? We were surrounded by dead bodies."

"And it was about ten seconds before we first had sex. This is my fault. Now you'll never be able to look at the dead without thinking of fucking."

Tsuyoshi was already pushing the unbuttoned over-shirt off Zelko's shoulders. "Take some responsibility for what you've done to me. It'll be dangerous."

"I do like danger," Zelko said, and took off his shirt.

"And it's for the good of the community." Tsuyoshi licked along Zelko's neck and tugged on the skin with his teeth.

Zelko grabbed him by his hair and pulled him back. "I do like to contribute."

Zelko kissed him and flipped them around, pressing Tsuyoshi into the mattress with his big body. He rolled down, all heat and pressure, and crushed them together. Tsuyoshi wished his nails were sharp like knives so he could score ribbons in Zelko's back. He felt alive with it.

Zelko pulled back and rubbed at him, fiddled with the button on his jeans. "Why do you wear these so tight?"

"You know why."

Zelko smirked, and Tsuyoshi arched a little to preen under his regard. He undid the zip, pulled his dick out into the air, touched it one long glorious time and—

oh god oh god oh god

—they were definitely being zapped with electricity. It was over in a few seconds. Zelko rolled off the bed, with a heavy thump. Tsuyoshi shook all over, eyes wide at the ceiling. He could feel it in all of his joints, and all his soft places.

It took a minute for him to remember how to speak.

"So, it's, um—" Tsuyoshi breathed in again and tried to settle. "It's when someone touches it that you get punished. Did it kill them because they were in water?"

"This was the worst idea you've ever had."

"Or would it just keep zapping you until you stopped? Can you rub off on someone? What about masturbation? Can I watch someone get themselves off?"

Zelko pushed himself up on one arm, then another, and Tsuyoshi turned to look at him. "We are not answering any of your scientific queries until tomorrow. Put your dick away."

He'd already gone soft. "This is depressing. I'm never getting laid again."

"I'll miss your mouth," Zelko said.

"You can still kiss me."

He was gentle about it, when he did. Made it soft and slow and almost too much to bear.

They were interrupted by a sharp rap on the door.

"We've alive!" Tsuyoshi called out.

"Try to stay that way," came through the door in Dr Yeoh's voice. "Don't do anything stupid, if you're capable of avoiding it."